#they’re like one big. found family? I suppose they do have those vibes if they were done to full potential

[noahtally-famous]

let me just say that tdpi is one of my least favorite seasons and I deeply dislike most of its canon events, but the cast is one of my favorites to write and analyze

[rallamajoop]

Genres of horror, and some rampant speculations about Resident Evil 9

At time of writing, all we really know about Resident Evil 9 is there’s inevitably going to be one, because RE8 made bank. There are some supposed ‘leaks’ about their plans, but not much to suggest they’re genuine. Naturally, there’s no end of speculation online: will we be moving on from the Winters family? Will we see a returning protagonist like Jill Valentine? Will we be moving back to third-person viewpoint? Will we be continuing the trend of hiding the roman numerals somewhere in the title? Etc.

All well and good, but what’s got me wondering is whether we’ll be continuing the trend set by those last two titles, and jump into a whole new genre of horror for RE9.

See, as everyone already knows, Resident Evil 7 is basically one big love letter to the slasher horror genre. Using Cabin in the Woods conventions, we can narrow that right down to the classic Zombie Redneck Torture Family genre – not that the game lacks for other influences and references. You’ve got some found footage/analogue horror in the old video tapes, those creepy phone calls coming-from-inside-the-house, and a whole lotta Saw-style murder-escape-room shenanigans with Lucas. You’ve got some demonic possession, a creepy little girl, the list goes on – heck, I’m sure someone more familiar with slashers could list influences all day.

But rather than continue in the same vein for RE8, instead we take a big leap sideways over into gothic horror – and here I am qualified to tell you all about the wildlife. You’ve got your isolated Romanian village with creepy castle, your vampires, your werewolves, and a huge extra helping of Frankenstein. Moreau alone is like a one-man monster mash: Igor and Frankenstein’s monster smushed into one, with a bit of Monster from the Black Lagoon for flavour, named in honour of The Island of Doctor Moreau, and even a bit of The Hunchback of Notre Dame too.

The Dimitrescu family is dense with the Dracula references: the writers cite the Order of Dracul (ie. Order of the Dragon) as inspiration for her mutated form, and the her daughters with their fly swarms ape Stoker’s descriptions of Dracula and his brides coalescing from mist beautifully (with just a little bit of Renfield thrown in for added squick). The whole game is saturated in twisted fairy tale vibes too (cackling old hags and all!) with a little steampunk, and then there’s that haunted house full of creepy dolls – the list goes on and on. It’s all glorious stuff.

Which only raises the inevitable question: where could we possibly go from here? What other horror genres could work for Resident Evil, if (and this is admittedly a big if) the development team wants go for something as different again?

There’s no definitive horror-genre-list of we can refer to: categories overlap and bleed into each other at the best of times, and a google search for ‘horror genres’ doesn’t produce much consensus. A lot of ‘categories’ you will see listed are territory RE has already done to death: zombies are absolutely a valid genre, but is pretty much just another day at the office for RE. Psychological horror probably isn’t the kind of thing RE could hope to base a whole game around either: there are already psychological elements all through 7-8, but it’s more of a vibe than a real setting – and at some point in any RE, you’re going to expect to shoot something, or people won’t have got their money’s worth.

Lovecraftian horror may have more potential, but tends to come with more lore than will necessarily gel with the existing RE universe, and most other space or cosmic horror possibilities would run into similar problems. I mean, you certainly could tell us that the mould dates back to the Great Old Ones or that the progenitor virus actually came to earth on a meteor, but I’m not sure that’s the kind of ‘twist’ the series needs. Just because we want new territory doesn’t mean we’re ready to leave the planet.

That said, I do think there are places RE could go in the broader sci-fi horror genre, and that was when it hit me: imagine what Resident Evil could do with The Thing.

No aliens needed: just a small group of besieged survivors after some outbreak or lab accident, dealing with the fact that one of them (if not MORE) isn’t entirely human anymore. Whether RE frames that as an infection, a shape-shifter, a mind-controlling parasite, a chest-burster, or some horrible combination of the lot, you’ve got the perfect recipe for confusion and paranoia: A+ horror material.

Obviously, you’re going to need something for players to shoot at between big reveals, so naturally your monster can bud, or infect corpses or lab animals or whatever – all very doable. Throw in some influences from the likes of Alien or The Blob (how much scarier would the monster be if it can crawl up through your sink?) or maybe even Venom for good measure. Think of the possibilities!

Now, obviously, the inevitable twist of this kind of set-up is that You Are The Monster (or at least, you are a monster) – and this is where the possibilities of doing You Are The Monster in a first-person perspective hit me, because damn. You thought seeing Ethan’s hands go through the blender was freaky? Imagine continually catching glimpses of your own hands transforming in tense moments, and not knowing if it was a hallucination. You Are The Monster with the ambiguity of first person perspective could be intense.

Cliché as video-game-protag-with-monster-transformation can be, mostly it’s done as pure power-fantasy: rarely do we really get into the horror potential. Like the possibility of having control of your own player character wrenched away from you if the invisible-rage-meter gets too high, or of finding a body and having to wonder if the killer was you during a blackout period. If you can’t find a Resident Evil-worthy horror story in that, you’re not even trying.

I still don’t think RE needs actual aliens, or to send its next protag to explore a laboratory floating in orbit or anything, but taking some inspiration from the broader alien-horror genre could go some brilliant places.

Is that likely to be where Capcom is going with the series? Not a clue! It’s all speculation down here. And if it was really up to me, RE9 would be the Mia Winters story, covering all the backstory we never got about her involvement with The Connections, and pushing on into post-Village territory too (look, they said Ethan’s story is over, they never told us they’re done with the rest of the family!) But I doubt I’ll get that lucky.

With all that Village draws from RE4, we should probably be happy if they can just avoid another follow-up like 5 or 6, which leans so heavily into action and chasing increasingly wider audiences that everything that ever gave the franchise its own identity gets lost in the shuffle.

But while I’m speculating, we may as well go over the actual hints the game leaves us about where things might be headed next.

The big sequel hook RE8 ends on is the implication that the BSAA (the big international org responsible for preventing bio-terror outbreaks) has itself been creating bioweapons. But as hooks go, this is a little underwhelming for a few reasons.

For one, the BSAA exists in RE8 only as a sequel hook. That final scene where Chris is told the BSAA was sending bioweapons (!!!) comes virtually out of nowhere. The BSAA is mentioned in passing in one document you may well miss in the Winters’ home, and then not again until very near the end, when Chris watches a BSAA chopper crashing in the village. There were apparently plans for Chris’ section to involve a big three-way battle between his team, the lycans, and the BSAA, but in the final game, this has been cut all the way down the aforementioned cutscene, and to a single dead BSAA soldier you may not even find. Right up until that final ‘they’re making bioweapons!’ reveal, long-time fans are probably assuming Chris is still working for the BSAA himself. New fans probably haven’t caught on to who the BSAA are supposed to be at all.

Arguably, the implication that someone responsible for Ethan and Mia’s safety was working with Miranda all along is a lot stronger: someone tipped her off about Rose, and the couple weren’t moved right to Miranda’s doorstep by accident. That’s only reinforced by the game ending on Chris insisting ‘someone’s gotta pay’ (implied: for Ethan’s death). Trouble is, ‘the BSAA is working with Miranda’ really doesn’t tally with why they’d be sending choppers full of bio-engineered soldiers into the village at her moment of triumph. So is the problem that they’ve been working with her, or that they’re doing wildly unethical things while working against her? It’s all a bit incoherent.

The other reason I find it a pretty weak sequel hook is that, well, that’s pretty much how RE7 ended too ‒ only there, the company-that-may-actually-be-dodgy was a new incarnation of Umbrella, not the BSAA. The choppers that swoop in at the end are Umbrella-branded, and Chris spends a lot of his DLC being suspicious that the folks funding the clean-up aren’t trustworthy. But nothing comes of it – and RE8 drops that plot point so hard that the new-blue-Umbrella isn’t even mentioned. Maybe we’re supposed to take it they were always working with the BSAA, but it feels more like we’ve retconned Umbrella out of ever being involved in the first place. There’s even a whole ‘Incident Report’ file you can get with one of RE8’s DLCs which mostly exists to cast the BSAA’s actions post RE7 in the worst light possible.

Now, there may be some narrative sense in corrupting the BSAA, at least in that it’s much easier to tell horror stories about characters who can’t just call in a reliable, well-funded, multi-national org for backup. And ‘the BSAA is making bioweapons!’ is admittedly a more shocking reveal than ‘Umbrella is making bioweapons!’ could be. Honestly, the more shocking reveal would be that new-blue-Umbrella aren’t secretly making bioweapons, with Chris having to team up with them to take down the evil!BSAA in RE9 – though I’m less sure how far the novelty would go in practice. But ultimately, if Capcom were so quick to drop the big ‘new Umbrella!’ teaser from the end of RE7, why should we have any more faith they’re going to follow up on the ‘evil BSAA!’ teaser from RE8? It’s just not that compelling as a hook.

The Shadows of Rose DLC may or may not be any kind of clue. It tells us that Chris is still around and working with his dog-dog squad far into the future, and that people working with him are still researching the megamycete, but it seems more than likely RE9 won’t be set that many years ahead of the present day. Or maybe it wasn’t actually that far in the future at all, and Rose just ages supernaturally fast – I don’t think there’s a hard date on it, but no-one’s really expecting her to be the star of RE9, and I’d tend to agree.

For all that Chris ends RE8 promising “someone’s gotta pay!” I’d be amazed if he’s to be our next playable-protagonist either. There are plenty of other perspectives you could do that story from, even if he’s involved – and nothing about his post RE8 status quo suggests he’d work any better as a horror protag now than he did back in 5 and 6. Other old series regulars are likely to present similar problems.

There are other dangling plot threads they could always pick up on, like the question of who Lucas Baker was selling research data to in that one RE7 DLC. You could dig into the truly ancient history of the mould and those four huge statues, as hinted in that one really old document lying in the stronghold, or dig even deeper into that whole consciousness-storing mechanic. Or we could just drop all that and ignore the mould altogether.

Anything’s possible – including a bland re-tread of Village that takes no interesting risks, or an epic game-changing masterpiece that I don’t ever play because it’s even less my thing than RE7 was. And just to emphasise, none of these possible dangling plot threads are inherently incompatible with leaping into wild, new horror territory: The Thing could come busting out of one of the BSAA’s own labs, if need be. It’s all about the angle.

But if I can say one thing for the current state of the series, it’s they’ve left me incredibly curious about where they might take things next. I don’t know we’ll get something as different from RE8 as it was as RE7, but I might be just a little disappointed if we don’t.  

[alyjojo]

The Person On Your Mind in January 🏔️ 2024 - Pisces

Whole of their energy towards Pisces: 8 Swords

Feelings: Ace of Cups

Intentions: 6 Swords

Actions: The Magician

Two stories I’m seeing, either you already have someone, and they’re not going to get involved so long as that’s a thing, or this is a family member/friend that maybe doesn’t like your person so much. Or you. You could have argued over love interests, like two friends after the same person or mom’s boyfriend you’re not a fan of, it’s that vibe. Or it’s possible they’re just doing the logical thing for the situation & they’re a logical sort of person. You don’t speak, or maybe they’ve tried and you specifically don’t reciprocate, so what can they do? They can’t make you.

Ace of Cups being their feelings is very positive, it’s falling in love, could be someone new in your life and an ex or someone that was into you is like wtf…like they’re not going to compete, but yeah they have feelings. Or they just know that you’re moving on, and they’re conflicted about it. For some, they don’t like your person, or love & partners is what caused a rift between you in the first place - if platonic. Like you love your brother but leave the partner at home please, and it’s a source of contention because they can’t just do that. Intentions are moving on, leaving you alone, staying to themselves, could be actually moving locations or traveling for awhile. In action they’re doing exactly what they intend, it seems the most logical option. You move on, they move on, what else are they supposed to do? Do they have feelings, yes. Your messages are kinda conflicting, do you want to start over or is it too late? You’re probably going to have to be the one to decide.

Messages:

Their side:

- I imagine us together forever.

- LOUD 🔊

Your side:

- I just want to start over.

- Too Little, Too Late

Possible signs:

Heavy Gemini, Virgo & Aquarius

If you’re dealing with:

Knight of Cups is sweet Pisces energy, can be very romantic and idealistic, seeing the cup as half full and taking kind or loving action towards those he cares about, asking them on dates, buying flowers, complementing their shoes, baking them some monkey bread, whatever the thing, he’s a real charmer and a sweetheart. Some could be making sweet gestures towards you, or you just make an effort to do this with your people, you want them to know you care & you show it, Knights are actions 💙

Aries - interested in you, likes talking to you, but they’re willing to “wait and see” because they/you have been through some rough stuff lately

Taurus - not making any moves towards you until/unless your cards are all out on the table, they don’t trust you for some reason

Gemini - beating addictions, toxicity, or anything that’s held them back in the past, some may have “found God” or have gone to counseling/some kind of positive rehabilitation program 👏

Cancer - lots of communication, they either value your judgement because they’re confused, could also be they’re unsure if they want to give this another go, or switch it

Leo - slowly moving towards you, because they have a crush on you, wants to be seen as someone dependable, not a player 💙

Virgo - moving on or away because they have no choice

Libra - acting independently from the family unit or relating to work, could be seen as selfish, uses charm/looks to get their way

Scorpio - has player tendencies and/or wants to get you into bed NOW but they’re sneaky about it 💋

Sagittarius - waiting on their soulmate that’s been away, if so this is something that’s known. Could also be trying to work at home, or waiting on a business to thrive. Could be waiting on you.

Capricorn - things are changing in a big way for them and there’s a beautiful new beginning

Aquarius - fighting, sadness, competition, arguments, egos, betrayals, PAIN, byeee 👋🏽

Pisces - very cautious about a new opportunity, isn’t rushing anything, but it does have solid potential and feels very positive

[theveryworstthing]

So over on patreon Trevor asked for my take on the Addams Family and I grew up LOVING the Addams family movies so here we are. Instead of doing a straight up style interpretation, I decided to do a full on design challenge, using the characters as bases to make a black southern gothic Addams au. I actually drew the kids first, using the character bases of Wednesday and Pugsley to create some delightful kiddos I'm calling Sunday and Blanche. I of course then redesigned Gomez and Morticia into Carlisle and Mortesha.

The Addams have a very specific high aristocratic goth aesthetic (they've got a butler and nobody really works among other things) so in this re-imagining I wanted to go with vibes that run a little more middle class/upper middle class.  I thought it would be interesting to think about what would be considered weird and off-putting in an entirely different culture, and how being a big ol' goth is way less controversial than it used to be.

I tried to keep this short (HAHAHAHAHAHA) so I didn't spin off into an essay about villain coded families, black people in the horror genre, and normalcy as it pertains to social survival, but just...bits of that are in these designs and lore. Keep that in mind.

Also I made the kids twins because they've flip flopped in age so much in different media and also twins run in my family (i'm the daughter of one). And let's face it, I'm pulling a lot of their southern gothic traits from living as a southern goth so *shrug*.

10 thousand pounds of lore incoming loooooooooool.

The Parents

From the moment he saw her he knew that there was a 50/50 chance of him either never making it out of that swamp alive or marrying the figure that was creeping out from under the distant willow tree in a black cocktail dress. The third time she found him trussed up in one of her traps, he complimented her rope work and asked if she'd like to go out sometime after his head wound stopped bleeding.

Or while it was still bleeding.

If she was into that.

Some kids and a mysteriously burnt down Piggly Wiggly later, their love is still as strong and inescapable as a bear trap in a sink hole.

Carlisle Guillermo (now Addams through marriage but I wanted to give him two first names for a name since Gomez has two last names) makes a vaguely described living practicing ‘law’ around town. A loophole king, people come to him from miles around with contracts signed in blood, fights over chunks of hair buried in their rivals’ yard, dehydrated primate hands, memories that seemed like dreams until the evidence of their happenings became too real, and other regular Legal Items asking for counsel which he is all too happy to give. For a price. Sometimes that price is a homemade pie and sometimes it’s a million dollars, depends on who you are. Whatever you’re asked to pay it’s worth that price, and if you try to scam him out of work or he just plain doesn’t like you? Well. He knows how to twist a contract better than anything at the crossroads.

And he always gets his due.

He doesn’t just serve the local (living)humans though, there are many things that need proper legal representation in this day and age. You wouldn’t believe how many city councils try to build on sacred burial grounds even after he lets them know that his ghostly clients are totally gonna haunt the FUCK out of the ensuing shitty condos and curse their families for all eternity. At least 50% of his energy goes towards dealing with real estate bullshit.

Carl is an excitable and good natured(?) man who loves his family, cigars, dancing, and his many knife-based hobbies. People find him very charming once they get past the feeling that they’re talking to a sultry gator badly disguising itself as a human. I didn’t put a ton of deep thought into designing him, mostly I wanted to make a middle aged dude who looked like he would have been voted ‘most likely to smooch the literal devil’ in high school. Tbh he probably has, but no demonic ex’s can compare to his lovely wife~

Mortesha Addams(her name was already perfect so I just tweaked it)is a woman of many talents. A self proclaimed homemaker, she prides herself on a greenhouse full of Concerning Foliage, a beautiful wasp apiary, and a coop full of what are probably chickens that she keeps for what are probably eggs. She’s also an avid creator of the outsider art that can be seen around the estate. She has taken on the family business of selling her homemade goods in a little stall by the road just outside the swamp with her mom, and makes pretty good money doing so. A surprising amount of poison gets bought in quaint southern towns.

Speaking of poison, people who come out to the edge of the swamp to buy it are usually carrying a lot of secrets around, and Mortesha knows most of them. It’s not like she pries the truth out of people, it just so happens that many nervous hellos eventually turn into the tragic backstory power hour if she’s alone with a client for long enough. She supposes that’s just how people are. Despite the fact that the Addams are very active in the community (whether the community likes it or not) she especially, as a direct descendant of the first Addams matriarch, is seen as…Well not an outsider because the community feels A Certain Way about outsiders and despite it all the Addams are their people, but maybe something like an exception. They feel like whatever weirdness they’re hiding can’t be weirder than any given Addams, so they get a little loose with their words.

This is amusing to her, since Addams’ don’t naturally keep the kind dramatic secrets that their surface level prim and proper neighbors do. It’s much more fun to openly talk about those things.

Do they have a sadly decrepit yet terrifying grandma up in the attic? Yeah, like three. They got a tv, all the creepy porcelain dolls they could want, and they’re close to family. Where do you keep your gram-grams?

Any bodies buried on the property? Yeah some, but most are thrown to the gators.

Any creeping through the balmy summer night with ill intentions? Yeah dude, everyone loves a nice family stroll.

What about dangerous forbidden love? If an adult Addams isn’t incorporeal then they’re either queer or in a torrid romance with some person/thing mysteriously drawn to that awful swamp. Sometimes both at the same time. Most times actually.

Mortesha would know.

The current head of the Addams family is just as outgoing as her husband but a lot quieter and harder to read. She never really seems to get mad about much and always has a genteel smile for everyone whether they deserve it or not. A seven foot tall human shaped “Oh, bless your heart”. A perfectly composed Lady even when she’s, oh I dunno, burning down a Piggly Wiggly. You know. A regular southern mom. Chat her up at the hair salon for 50% off a jar of wasp honey with your next purchase of a mysterious but foreboding packet of herbs.

Designing her was pretty easy because I just drew a lankier Grace Jones and called it a day. I had some problems with her outfit simply because if we were going HARD southern gothic then she’d probably be wearing a white/cream dress with a fuller skirt but I thought keeping the silhouette and the black was more important. She’s supposed to be an anti southern gothic southern gothic character anyway. A woman who looks like she has a million secrets who is actually the most open person you could meet. For better or worse. The red hair came from a coloring error that I really ended up liking (my mom had red hair her whole childhood that only darkened up in high school so I can buy that an Addams can be naturally fire engine red) and the veil was to get more of that classic Morticia silhouette in there.

The Children

Sunday and Blanche are the twin children of Carlisle and Mortesha Addams. Some say the Addams clan got their cursed homestead when a wealthy local businessman made a deal with the devil and lost, leaving his grand mansion to his least favorite maid and cutting his losses once he realized that the swamp would do everything it could to drag the house into the water and take what was owed with its horrible curse. Others say that the family has just always squatted there and no one really cares because man, fuck that particular swamp. Have you been in there? Absolute horror show.

Anyway.

Blanche is the more outgoing sibling and quite the engineer/mad scientist in the making. He started going grey at 2 weeks old but considering he was also rocking some extra fingers, toes, and a tiny tail (he takes after his dad), his parents just put it on the 'not life threatening' pile and decided not to worry about it. He's the kind of smart that teachers find utterly infuriating, less a dog eagerly learning and obeying commands and more a hyena who keeps teaching itself how to pick locks. He has a few friends in his school's robotics club (which they honestly allowed him to make so the school could contain his... creations) but mostly hangs out with his sister exploring the swamp. They find all sorts of neat things in there! wedding rings, suspiciously lumpy garbage bags, cloaked cultists who can't read private property signs, it's an adventure every day!

Blanche is all about experimentation with his creations, his look, and his tether to this mortal coil. Is lipstick a cool thing to try? Let's find out. Can he get out of a strait jacket fast enough after being pushed into the depths of the swamp by his sister? let's find out. He's not dead yet and confused local doctors can attest to the fact that he's rarely attained more than a bad bruise so he's pretty set on continuing to kiss rattlesnakes on their cute little heads and have his sister practice her knife throwing at him until that fact changes.

Blanche is very much a country goth. Cowboy boots (customized by his mom), knife, and lighter are daily accessories. He likes to wear the crusty swamp jewelry they find (the rust adds a splash of color!) and despite appearances he does try to keep himself neat. He's just got  natural Grunge Colors and a tendency to wear clothes he likes until they fall apart. Pugsley always seemed the most modernly styled to me (which might just be because little boys clothes have been the same for a long time) so I wanted Blanche to be the most purposely fashionable Addams. Everyone else is goth by nature, but he's the only one truly familiar with goth as an alternative fashion.

I got really into designing Blanche because honestly, I find Pugsley to be the most boring member of the family. And he was hard to design! I had to mess with his vibe a lot to get him looking how I wanted. I know he's supposed to evoke an " 'evil' little boy next door who's parents never reign him in", but that's just goth Dennis The Menace.  I's 2020. We can at least go queer goth Calvin.

Sunday was much easier to design. Wednesday was my favorite as a child (of course) and I really wanted to keep the spirit of her look while adding things like billowy sleeves (it gets HOT down here), big poofy twists instead of braids, and a nice tie. She's a professional after all, been running the local pet cemetery since she was 6 and the previous groundskeeper met with an unfortunate accident after telling her that tarantulas don't have souls. Her specialty is creating beautiful naturalistic animal funerals similar to those that Maquenda (https://linktr.ee/artofmaquenda) makes, and she takes pride in creating miniature dioramas of her subjects after each burial which she uses as a kind of 3D catalog for future clients.

She really wants to try out her skills on humans one day. Well. Publicly try out her skills. Lotta random bodies float into the swamp. None of them have turned down her requests for diorama models so far. Most seem downright flattered. Plus, she usually figures out which graveyard/crime scene they floated over from and gets her parents to give them a lift back. She'll even help enact terrifying revenge from beyond the grave on whoever put them there if she's not, y'know, busy.

Besides arts, crafts, and pet based funerary arrangements, Sunday is an avid lover of archery (any ranged weapon really), books where little fantasy adventure animals die dramatic deaths, and history. She is That Kid who eagerly raises her hand when asked who Christopher Columbus was and ends up being sent out of class after 15 minutes for making 'a scene'. Her favorite party trick is just picking an item in the room and talking about how it relates to either some obscure historical figure with a buck wild life or a horrible disaster. At least one charity pancake breakfast ended with children in tears after her vivid description of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

Social-wise, while Wednesday is the girl that people ask to smile because they think she'd, "look so pretty", Sunday is rarely asked anything at all. People just kind of assume from her quiet nature (in between horrible history facts) that she's angry all the time and that she hates everyone. This is untrue. She hates some people but she's ambivalent to most everyone else and even downright friendly if you bother to talk to her like a person instead of a terrifying cryptid. Like, she IS a terrifying cryptid but she's also a little girl.  

That’s about it for now. One day I might do the other family members but for now I’m happy with the four I’ve redesigned. Making an au! Lurch in a family that doesn’t do butlers could be interesting. Over on patreon I put forth that he could just be Motesha’s mute little brother (similar bone structure) but Amy Crook had the nice idea of quote: “ a mysterious "cousin" that "helps around the house" whose origins are both long in the past and faintly unsettling. He's good for lifting heavy things, like that tank of propane you're about to throw into the burning Piggly Wiggly... “ which i now consider canon. Who's kid is he? How old is he? Not important. Anyone willing to commit arson with you is family.

Annnnyway.  This challenge was a lot of fun! I love indulging in AU’s.

[spicyicymeloncat]

(Sorry it took so long @birdbound I just moved house and then procrastinating writing this. I drew kid Kai tho so you can’t be too mad

Kai!!! It’s him! The big man! Love to see it! I feel like I’ve talked about him a lot recently so I’m not sure what to say without repeating points. I think people tend to feel really strongly about this character and honestly I have a few mixed opinions on his portrayal in the show (although I think I tend to disagree with a bunch of people’s opinions about him too, so maybe I’m just weird).

Also look!!! I got his core set! This is actually my first Ninjago set ever (because I stopped collecting Lego before I decided Ninjago will take all my brain space). I love the evo sets because they just put dorky stories in the instructions which was really fun, look how happy he is. I actually drew Kai in his evo gi because yes.

Anyways…

So one of Kai’s main defining character traits is that he’s a little rugged, a little mean and I don’t mean this in a bad way I just mean that like in the pilots when they’re first establishing the characters everyone has like they’re defining thing. Cole is the buff commanding one (and his main gimmick in the pilots is about subverting that trait with his fear of dragons), Jay is the one who talks too much (which is again subverted when he loses his voice) and Zane is just doesn’t understand social cues. And Kai is defined as someone who struggles working in a team because he literally doesn’t care about anyone there, which I think is understandable, he’s under a lot of stress. But he is the one to take offence and do things on his own terms.

Yknow how Kai has main character vibes? Although after the pilots he doesn’t even do that much? I think Kai actually has lancer vibes but because the actual main character arrived late and was having a villain arc, Kai kinda fills that role without Lloyd. What happens when the lancer character hasn’t yet found the hero character? Well since they’re supposed to contrasting parallel to the hero, they have the potential to have just as much main character energy.

Also all the other ninja have major side character energy that Kai just doesn’t yknow? I think this is a more prominent reason as to why Kai is seen as the main character. Because he doesn’t have side character energy like everyone else. All of the other ninja’s true potential episodes aren’t related to the main plot but just other personal things to those Ninja (Cole and Zane’s backstories and Jay’s love life), but Kai’s was also the resolution to the “who’s the green ninja” arc, which was prominent to the whole season and the green ninja stuff in general is significant throughout the whole show.

But yeah Kai had major bad boy lancer energy and as of the team dynamic he’s usually takes the more headstrong role. He’s not afraid to criticise the actions of the team (s8, s11), tends to have a habit of going off on his own and not working/communicating with the team (pilots, s1 kinda, s7), also his absolute outwards confidence (s3 when he went on that date and was just showing off, s6, s9 when he said he was the looks of the team, s12 kinda). Although he’s not a total paragon like Lloyd or Zane, he provides a much needed second opinion to the team and makes things more interesting. And it means that his softer side is just that much more endearing.

I’d argue that Kai has two central themes in his arcs and character growth: destiny/being a hero/power and family/general care:

- In the pilots he’s motivated to save his family, whilst learning to work with others

- s1 he has to learn to not obsess over destiny and instead learn to be a good mentor figure to Lloyd

- S4 he literally had to compete in a power contest and also his complex about the green ninja is back

- S5 he has to save Lloyd who had officially reached baby bro status

- S6 his father is foreshadowed

- S7 his parents. They exist.

- S9 isn’t much but he empathises with dragons

- S11 he loses his powers (another power complex

These are really interesting and I kinda wish they got developed better but we’ll get to my gripes later.

Something that’s funny is that, every time Kai isn’t having a power complex, he’s given a gimmick for the season and everytime the gimmick is that he sucks at something fr. s3 he doesn’t get technology, s4 he can’t skate, s5 can’t swim, s12 sucks at video games. Hes not even a good blacksmith like s10 was about him being like “oh no the world is relying on my awful blacksmith skills” (Although he perseveres). He’s like, the anti-Jay. Can get bitches and has zero talents. I mean this affectionately and I love him for it but man whenever the writers don’t know what to do with him they make him suck at the core theme of the season. I mean I guess it’s cuz he’s goofy like that. Kinda a himbo who only knows swords and we should all appreciate him for that. I’ll come back to this too.

So here’s where the takes get slightly more critical but I think it’s safe to say that Kai is kinda undeveloped. He has main characters energy but not actually that much focus in the first two seasons, and whilst we get everyone’s backstories in s1, we don’t for Kai, we don’t even get to discuss his parentlessness at all. Whilst he has the green ninja prophecy and goes into that more prominently than everyone else, he still shares it with the rest of the cast.

In s4, I still believe that it’s a Kai season as much as s3 is a Zane season, but it’s more like he’s the camera into the world, rather than having arcs. I think it’s because everyone else feels like they’re side characters doing side arcs that aren’t inherent to the main plot. So Kai feels like a main character because he doesn’t do side plots. Maybe it might be the fact that the main arc Kai had was Skylor and imo the romance was not amazingly written. Like all he did was heart eyes at her until she stopped being evil. Idk they just weren’t that compelling to me. Also I don’t think they really address Kai in regards to the consequences of the last season, not in the same way as Jay and Cole. And also the green ninja thing felt very spontaneous, I thought that arc ended 2 seasons ago?

In s5 he has the whole Lloyd brother thing and the snowboarding scene and him jumping into water for Lloyd was good I just think they really could have and should have done more with his character in s5. Especially since Morro, his evil parallel, was right there.

And then s7. Ughhhhh. Most people say this is the worst season and they are right. Yes we finally get the parents. For some reason Kai wants to kill them at first but that doesn’t really have a deeper meaning beyond Kai being fooled easily and jumps to conclusions. They could’ve dived into maybe Kai resents his parents a little bc he has trauma of them leaving or something and that’s why, but they don’t. The time twins are also annoying, like every other villain is either incredibly plot relevant (the overlord gives us fsm lore, Morro gives us wu lore, Chen gave us elemental masters worldbuilding) or are fun (pythor manipulates children, Chen takes over the world via elaborate roller derby competitions, Nadakhan relies on wordplay and managed to uproot the city), and the time twins are neither. They’re just random elementals who think they’re better than everyone else because of a saying to do with their powers and their goal is to destroy technology?? I don’t think Kai really goes through an arc or character develops and neither does anyone else (apart from maybe Lloyd?).

I don’t even remember if Kai got anything in s9 other than his one how to train a dragon tm moment, although he gets a little focus in s10 with the weapons. And then in s11 he definitely does get an arc, it just feels kinda unnecessary especially when all it took to get his powers back was just to try really hard? Like had he not already tried before? And then in the rest of the wildbrain era, he mostly takes a back seat.

Idk he has a really good set up and all the themes that link to him are there, but his writing never fully sees it through. S7 is the biggest let down because it has the perfect villains to parallel Kai, as in power hungry, self appointed tyrants when Kai himself has struggled with a power complex and thinking he deserves a high ranking title. I’d really like for Kai’s parentlessness to be brought up a lot more as an established reason why he does the things he does in s1-4 especially since he does briefly talk about it in s5 and it sets up his s7 arc. It would also be nice if Kai got more of an arc about how he coped with Zane’s death in s4, since whilst we can see Cole and Jay leaving because they could probably tear the place down if they were together any longer but Kai still had Nya and Lloyd so it would be really interesting to explore how much pain he felt that he decided to leave them, and again we could go on to the parallels Kai shares with his parents and how he too briefly becomes an absent figure in his family’s life. Also would be cool if Kai had more of a connection with Morro on their similar stories in s5. And for god’s sake make s7 make sense it was supposed to be the finale of Ninjago and it was lame. Brief thoughts about the rewrite I’m planning but it would be cool if Krux, in his way of controlling the situation, actually partially raised Kai and Nya (as in visits on holidays). Then he has a personal connection and is a much creepier villain, holding more control and power over the situation. And maybe his goal is to change the timeline due to trying avert some sort of destiny prophecy thing, just to tie in that theme Kai has. Idk idk.

Also with the fact that Kai tends to be not good at a lot of things like technology or swimming, whilst it’s just a comedic gag and not plot significant, I think it would hit better and feel less mean if it was in contrast to Kai usually being skilled. Like take the fact that he nearly beat Cole in the first episode but reference that Kai is independently one of the strongest fighters on the team. Let’s say he’s the best swordsman, the best at offensively utilising his powers (albeit not great at damage control) and has the constitution to take damage and continue fighting. He probably trained the hardest because he was fuelled by firstly, saving Nya in the pilots and then wanting to be the green ninja, and even when the team splits up, he continues training and fighting (red shogun). Then him facing adversity in incredibly mundane areas is funny because “Kai? One of the most proficient ninja, master over fire and expert with the blade, doesn’t know how to swim?”. It also makes s11’s arc better set up, as Kai losing his powers is even more about his loss of identity, he literally attaches his skill and power to his sense of worth.

Okay I’m not gonna make a big deal about this next paragraph but since this is all my opinion, I do want to elaborate on why I said that I tend to disagree with other fans when I’m talking about Kai, because (Crystalised p1 spoilers) I actually like how he was portrayed in the first episode. He had a really mature reaction and functional (not entirely healthy but functional and work in progress) coping mechanism in relation to loss. Sure it would’ve been nice if we got more of a focus on what went down with him, but I think there wasn’t a lot of time to do so since the plot moved really fast. I think people kinda expected Kai to just be angry and angry only but I really enjoy seeing him in a different light, because it still feels in character to me. Also I think sometimes Kai gets simplified down in to angry overprotective brother when he’s actually a really chill bro who even in s1 isn’t even that amazing at the concept of “looking after child”. People act like he raised Nya when they’re almost the same age and he talks about Nya as if they mutually had each other instead of Kai being in charge. Like Nya probably beat up his bullies tbh. Kai hasn’t ever been overprotective of Nya as seen when he’s supportive of her being samurai x and also of Jay and Nya for the most part(pilots don’t count because he just had a normal reaction when your family gets kidnapped, and idk what Wu’s teas are on tbh but I reject that one ep). And also Kai was the one to lose Lloyd in s1 when he got captured by snakes. Only really after Garmadon died did Kai step up and make a big deal out of the brother figure business for Lloyd. Overall sometimes imo ppl play up his backstory the angst but then ignore interesting arcs for him, or the integrity for other characters or even take it out on the writers and stuff, and like if that’s how you like your eggs then sure. It does kinda annoy me if I think a character is being misinterpreted but that’s kinda just my personal beef ig.

All around, Kai is a pretty solid character with just enough interesting points for people to dig their teeth into. He definitely deserved better than s7 but oh well. I love the mini figure I got for him tho he looks so dorky and I keep fidgeting with him cuz he’s on my desk

[bbcmerlinvault]

[Article] “EXCLUSIVE: ANTHONY HEAD TALKS MERLIN, SOLD AND HIS £2000 PHONE CALL”

by Luke Connolly for Shadowlocked, first published 10:05 Wednesday 22nd June 2011

(the following is a copy/paste of the article followed by screenshots from the Wayback Machine. The original article is no longer available.)

Anthony Head talks openly about his remarkable career and generous work for charity...

As one of the most iconic actors ever to emerge from England, Anthony Head really is the definition of a true great. Comedy, drama, live theatre – Head has done it all, bringing his classic style of acting to each and every role. Best known as Rupert Giles in the Joss Whedon vampire classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Head has since diversified into other areas of acting. In recent years, he's guest starred in Doctor Who, found success as the Prime Minister in Little Britain, and at present is portraying Uther in the BBC's smash hit Merlin.

In this intimate interview with Shadowlocked – conducted at the Merlin: The Dragon Tower launch day at Warwick Castle – Anthony Head talks openly about his life, filming with Merlin and his career to date...

Well, while we are here (Merlin launch day), let’s start with this. How’s it all been going?

It’s been going great; very grateful for the production to let me potter over to the other side of the pond; they moved filming dates for me which was great. It’s looking gorgeous, they're now shooting it on a 35 million budget.

Well I think it deserves it considering its success...

Well yes, but these days everything’s shot on digital, thus cutting costs, but I think it loses so much from filming and from acting in general. But yes, I suppose it shows the BBC are 100% behind it, which they should be really. It’s in 183 territories (countries) so it deserves a budget complimentary of this achievement.

They’ve just finished season three in America and, from the viewing figures, they just can’t seem to get enough. On that note, have you been surprised by its success?

Erm, I’m always surprised...you always hope, but you just don’t know. From the very start, it had a good vibe about it, but even when I was offered the part I was concerned that it may limit itself to a young audience only; but the fact that it’s got such a wide demographic has really saved it. In fact, it was with NBC for the first year, and they said – on a number of occasions – that they were genuinely surprised by the numbers it got, especially considering it got little to no advertising or promotion, but it didn’t attract the demographic they were actually hoping for.

Well, duh...it got an older demographic instead of a younger one due to the fact that they showed it in the middle of the summer. Thankfully, Syfy saw the potential and picked it up, and they pitched it just right. It’s – well – one of those shows that has a genuine interest across all spectrums of society; it’s a show that the whole family can watch, with all members getting an honest level of enjoyment from it. A show like that is rare these days.

So many parents sit down and watch shows with their children that they have no interest in – to keep them happy – but there are very few shows that everyone can get into.

Marcus: My twin girls are big fans of the series, and when they started watching it so did their mother and I. I totally agree with what you’re saying, it’s like Doctor Who, you can grow up and watch it, regardless of your age. I think it’s very similar to Buffy really...

Well, it’s not the same writing as Buffy, but it’s got the same vibe. It’s humorous, but at the same time it’s capable of both its dark and somewhat surreal moments...

Marcus: Yes, I know – you are very scary sometimes.

Good – *evil smirk* – I’m glad to hear it...means I’m doing things right haha.

Marcus: You play a great Uther, and it’s a tricky character isn’t it? If you looked at Thomas Mannerie’s Uther, and how he gets off on countless maidens, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot more does there?

Yes, traditionally there is not much about the character Uther, other than the fact that he was a bit of a wino and liked to party. Oh, and he may have been partial to the odd woman or two.

And I’m sure, like any good actor, you researched this in depth for the role?

Haha, oh yes, to play a role well you must experience it for yourself. In all seriousness though, there is not a whole lot to research. I went to see a couple of other actors playing kings, but other than that the research element was fairly limited. For me, assessing the character of Uther, the most important aspect of the role was to make sure I understood his mythology and where he was coming from.

But that’s the point – it was the middle of the dark ages, and he was forever wrestling with his kingdom, holding onto it as best he could; with berserkers on every border. Basically though, he is an old fashioned father, and he’s just holding it together as best he can; whilst in the knowledge that Arthur is going to kick against everything that Uther stood for, and I think that’s what makes it interesting. The fact that he gets it wrong almost everytime – he wasn’t wrong about Mordred though – well that’s just a shame...

I can’t believe it’s been seven years since Buffy left our screens, but I love how you have diversified since. We all know about Little Britain, both a commercial and critical success, but I remember one you did way back...Sold. Unfortunately, that never kicked off – any ideas why?

To be honest, I remember thinking, from my very first read-through and onwards – can they hinge a whole series around estate agents? Well, they did, but that whole concept of them having a fantasy world was, well, a little bit thin...but there you go. I reckon with different circumstances, it could have been great.

Finally, I have to ask. I follow you on Twitter and I couldn’t help but notice a while ago that someone paid just short of £2000 for a 20 minute phone call with yourself...

And, the person who came in second – offering to pay around £1670 – was so eager, we have agreed to do a separate 10 minute conversation with her. It now means that £3670 has been raised for the Mental Health Foundation, so I’m just glad I could help do my bit to raise awareness and support their cause.

So, not to put any pressure on you, but what are you going to talk about? £2000 for 20 mins equates to £200 a minute, and I’m sure you will want to give them their money's worth...

You know, I’ve done it a number of times before, and after the old “wow” “argh” from them, it just kind of runs through. You know me, I could talk for England! It’s actually quite nice, and it’s for a good cause – so everybody wins, right?

Special thanks to Shadowlocked writer Marcus Pullen for his help in conducting this interview.

[glowyjellyfish]

Okay! I have finished building houses in Lake Buena Vista, the Disney BaCC!

I then got about halfway through assigning traits to everybody and realized I was missing some (Honest John needs to be a Kleptomaniac guys), so quit out to inspect that. I think it was just a matter of having a stew of medieval-themed trait duplicates that were supposed to replace some, so I’ll see if that has done the trick tomorrow. I also started on some organizing and cleaning of this downloads folder; it was basically a copy of my standard modern game CC smorgasboard with some recent skintones/makeup/hair/mods from the medieval hood added to the mix, so it is a tad messy.

Honest John Foulfellow

...and his partner/roommate Gideon Gatti. I mean that literally, they’re not into each other. Well, they have one bolt, and not a lot of prospects, so I might let it happen. Gideon’s more into Snow White than anyone else, hilariously. I want them to be at the forefront of founding the Thieves’ Guild (or whatever I decide to call the guild hall for the Criminal career), but Honest John wants to be a City Planner and Gideon wants to be the head of SCIA. Crooked, I assume.

Their house. Like the other commoner houses, it is fully furnished and decorated because I didn’t start by going overboard and overbudget. I tried to make it a little scrubby, but that is not my preferred aesthetic, sooooo...

See, they have a damaged couch and Honest John’s bed is just fancy sheets on a pile of box springs, and all the nice art is probably forgeries! ...I am very fond of the Calvin and Hobbes triptych on Gideon’s wall though, I feel like that suits him.

Then Mangiafuoco Stromboli, who lives with

Romeo Lampwick, a Teen! I think those are canon first names for the both of them; I would not have named Lampwick Romeo. My brain wants his first name to be Chester, thanks Simpsons. As previously mentioned, Stromboli is probably going to get Lady Tremaine to run off with him. There are literally only two teens in the hood right now and they’re both boys (technically I should have made Snow and Cinderella be teens but dammit if they’re old enough to get married they are adults), and I have yet to see if they hit it off; more likely they will just have to wait for new sims to be born/age up or move to town. Lampwick wants to be a Professional Party Guest, which is appropriate, while Stromboli wants to be Hand of Poseidon, which... sure, Stromboli, you do you I guess.

The Stromboli house. I think this time I succeeded at giving it a strong lower class aesthetic from the outside!

...not nearly so much on the inside, but it’ll do.

Next up is Pecos Bill, whose hair does not fit under his required cowboy hat. He can’t go without the hat; I might try to find him hair that works with it better.

And Slue Foot Sue, shown here in the process of flirting. She’s got the same issue, but I like her hair too much, so eh. Pecos Bill wants to be an Icon, which can’t happen as he is uneducated, and Slue Foot Sue wants to be Media Magnate, which could. If I was using Sun & Moon’s Star Factory products in this town, I would have them literally raising cows and horses, but I do not want the hassle of figuring that out. They might have a non-CC farm, and/or raise dogs maybe?

Their house. Many houses in this hood ended up teetering on the edge of a cliff. I should have set it up in a flatter hood instead of the Aesthetic Mountain Lake, but try and tell that to Last Year Me.

Fortunately, it was not hard to have a light cowboyish vibe to their decor.

Johnny Appleseed, with his two apple trees in the background!

I made his house a little too big, so it ended up a little more sparsely decorated. But he has everything he needs (the sun and the rain and the apple trees~), and he’s super ready for a partner to move in and start a family with him. He wants to be a Mad Scientist despite my apple plans for him, and this ambition matches that of Doc Goodmountain who is the person he is most attracted to, so... we’ll see!

Before I get to the commoners from the last few movies, check out Katrina’s new outfit! The pink isn’t a perfect match, but the whole look of it suits her I think.

Meet Brom Bones, in theory a potential suitor for Katrina but in practice Brom is much more into 1. men or 2. the fairies. Good for him!

His house is slightly bland, I did my best but was definitely getting tired of making small starter houses.

Ichabod Crane! Looking WAY more handsome than his cartoon counterpart, I might add, despite an effort to match his features. He wants to be a Professional Party Guest, but I might force him to work on Education instead and get the guild set up and university unlocked for the first born generation. He’s got a chance with Katrina, actually, but he’s also equally into Grumpy for some reason.

I have some interior pictures, but there really isn’t a lot going on there. He has a chess table.

The last household is Souris, aka the Mice From Cinderella as human sims. I think I’ll save that for a post tomorrow as this is already quite long and there are a full 8 mice with a fairly large house to match. At first I was only going to use Jaq and Gus, then I was desperate for more female characters and looked up whether the lady mice were named, and then I discovered the two identical mice and the little one also have names, and there was nothing for it but including them all. I’ll get into it more when I post their pictures. And then, assuming the trait cleanup worked, I will finish assigning traits, copy the hood for duplication and backup, and then play!

[hello-there]

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[mariesocuniverse]

Relationships: NCT 127

Maeil (aka Daily)

there are two meanings to their ship name

first is, of course, their names mashed together but the second meanings is much cuter and the one fans use to explain their dynamic

When Mae found out their ship name was Maeil her first reaction was “Oh? Is it because I make sure to let Taeil hyung I love him daily?” while cuddling Taeil on a couch

he’s the same age as Mae’s older brother so she treats him as such

her brother is literally like “Are you replacing me with Taeil? I’m your reall brother!” and she’s just there sweating

part of Taeil’s hype squad and will fight donghyuck for the position of president

like the two were on vlive and spent a good fifteen minutes arguing about their positions in the club Mae won but donghyuck refuses to acknowledge it

he could be doing something simple and you can see Mae in the background with a big smile cheering

he’s also like her personal teddy bear whenever she wants cuddles and/or wants to rest

there are just multiple gifs floating around nct twt of Mae tackling Taeil for a hug or her just clinging to him on a couch because she’s either tired and wants to rest or just wants cuddles

absolutely adores his voice

there are multiple compilations on youtube about all the times Mae compliments Taeil on his voice and him just blushing the whole time

Maenny

was lowkey intimidated bc the man is a fucking tree and basically towers over her

but then he saw him play around with some other trainees and that thought disappeared real quick

he’s more like the protective older brother than like a parent like Doyoung or Taeyong

can and has used his height to his advantage when it comes to scaring people who hurt Mae or do something to make her sad

he was one of the first people who found out about her old company and he looked like he was about to storm their building probably would’ve if it weren’t for Mae

one of the first people she became friends with because he always answered questions she had when she was a trainees

before debut there were times people could see Johnny walk somewhere and Mae is just trailing after him like a lost puppy more like running because the man’s legs are long and he walks faster

there was this one time someone asked where Mae was and Johnny just shuffled to the side to reveal her behind him

his large frame was just big enough to hide her from everyone’s vision unless you walk past the two

you know that one vid of predebut nct performing Under The Sea with Johnny wearing the fish head? Mae was supposed to join him dressed as Ariel but the idea was cut last minute

there was this one time Mae couldn’t see something bc she was too short so Johnny lifted her up and put her on his shoulders

okay enough about Mae’s height

during shows he’s always encouraging Mae to talk more when she seems unsure whether to give her input or not

johnny, after an interviewer asks a question: “what do you think Mae?”

absolutely melts whenever she does aegyo because no matter how old she is he’ll always see her as the cute kid who followed him everywhere

MaeTae

honestly it’s hard to pinpoint where Taeyong’s protective parental energy started getting directed to Mae

like it might’ve been somewhere predebut but she doesnt know when

she’s like 50% sure she just blanked out and suddenly Taeyong appeared in her life scolding her for not taking care of herself

it’s not like she’s complaining abt it she’s really grateful to have someone like him in her life

when her family got worried abt her joining a group filled with guys he personally went to her house and calmly explained how Mae will be taken care of and how the group will make sure that she’ll be safe

first person to know if there’s something between SM and Mae that the other members don’t know about

he was also the first member to know about what happened with Mae and her old company

she knows she can trust him with anything

he found her alone crying in one of the practice rooms and she just poured her heart out to him

Whenever they go places as a large group he looks for Mae first before counting the other members

she got lost once and now he doesnt want her out of his sight for more than five minutes

she got him a “world’s greatest dad” trophy as a joke that he has on a shelf in his room

YuMae

you know how yuta acts with mark and winwin? yeah he does the same for Mae

if he isnt giving a hug to mark he’s all the way across the room with Mae giving her a back hug

Mae: does nothing

Yuta: aigoo look how cute she is :)

she doesnt ignore him tho she just returns the affection

likes to jump on his back for a piggy back ride or just run and jump to give him a hug

there was this one clip that went viral of Yuta talking to someone and he just pauses for a moment before turning around to catch Mae, who seemingly came out of nowhere, into a hug and turned back to his conversation

neither yuta nor the other person seemed fazed so this seemed like a regular occurrence to them

he teaches her japanese!

its beneficial to both of them because Mae can learn and Yuta won’t forget any Japanese while living in Korea :D

really really really loves his smile

like real whipped (A/N i wrote this while watching the under the sea performance and now im going through it)

like she sees him smile and that makes her smile and that makes fans smile

Can and has glared at “fans” and other people who make her uncomfortable whether it be at the airport or during their schedules

There was this one time Mae was walking ahead of him when there were fansites following them and he just pulled her back into his arms because he noticed an anti of hers was nearby

It’s like a lion trying to protect a kitten

2Young

again did not know how Doyoung because like a parent to Mae but she just ended up rolling with it

She just has this aura to her that makes you want to care of her and give her love

whenever they go eat together with the group he always put food on her plate, regardless of whether the managers glare at him or not he glares back anyway so they back off

“doyoung she’s been put on a diet-” “she’s going to eat whether you like it or not”

one time Mae got sick with a fever and he just burst into her room with medicine and soup

if taeyong has the “world’s greatest dad” trophy doyoung has the “world’s greatest mom” trophy that he says he’ll throw it away but has it perched on his desk

Mae’s also one of the members who like to clown him

she’s the one of the reasons he already has gray hairs

Mae has a folder of embarrassing photos of Doyoung’s childhood that his brother sent to her and refuses to delete it

she cant do anything about them tho bc Doyoung got his own folder of babie Mae pics courtesy of Mae’s older brother

Haechan has tried and failed to gain access to either of those folders

MaeHyun

major sibling energy

but not like the bickering kind of energy but more like very soft and uwu

there are a lot of people asking them “are you sure you’re not related?” during interviews and fansigns

Fans are just waiting for the two to do a duet bc come on SM you have a real life Disney prince and princess here

Let Mae be the Jasmine to Jaehyun’s Aladdin and perform A Whole New World together

She likes to poke his dimple

There’s this one vid where Jaehyun and Mae are sitting together and she just pokes his dimple and Jaehyun’s smile gets bigger

joked about if he could let her meet yugyeom and bambam bc of 97line and he just went no <3

when jaehyun was inkigayo’s mc nobody could approach her with the infamous inkigayo sandwich bc she was always with him not like anyone could try considering mae has several bodyguards wherever she goes

you know how jaehyun won the alpaca plushie in nct life? he gave it to mae bc he know how much she loved plushies

Honestly the majority of the plushies in her room were given to her by jaehyun

She has a bear named after him uwu

MaeWoo

Loves the energy he gives and thinks he’s so funny

He never fails to make her laugh whenever she needs cheering up

they used to be shy around each other when he first joined the group but they caught each other having a midnight snack so they just talked at 3am eating ramen until doyoung found them and told them to go to bed

now it’s just tradition for them to go to a convenience store together and eat ramen or whatever snacks they decide to get

nobody is allowed to join them its only a MaeWoo thing  

Mae has natural aegyo but Jungwoo has taught her to use it to her advantage which she does but not often

Another one of Mae’s cuddle buddies

She just thinks he looks so soft so she just clings to him whenever he’s nearby

Major uwu energy over here when it comes to the two of them together

idk why but i dont see him as the type to be protective when it comes to her dating

he’s more like

“you dont have a boyfriend yet? damn people dont know what they’re missing”

or on the other side of the spectrum

“good luck to your future boyfriend he’ll need it if he’s gonna date you”

2Ma/MaeKyung

Older brother that doesn’t feel like an older brother

Majority of the time he kinda just feels like they’re the same age or younger so newer fans get shocked when they find out she’s younger

Like there was this one time Johnny the two were playing Smash Bros and Mark was whining because he lost and Mae was jumping in the background cheering it was his fourth loss in a row but he won’t say it

they were kinda awkward around each other at first so johnny literally had to stick them in a room together and didn’t let them leave until they talked to each other

it worked and they just vibed and rambled about different topics like trainee life and what mark’s life in Vancouver was like

speaking of Vancouver

one time during their stay in Vancouver they wanted to have a friend date but he lost her at a mall and took twenty minutes trying to find her until she used the announcement service to call him

he wouldve ask his Vancouver friends to go with them but some of them had a crush on mae so no <3

When she first starting writing songs and her own lyrics she went to Mark first and asked if the lyrics she wrote were good

They were amazing and Mark made sure to tell her that :D

mae’s reaction to his dream graduation was one of the saddest things czennies have seen so when she found out he was coming back she would not let go of him

Literally could not stop smiling whenever mark was with the rest of dream filming for Resonance

It’s just very wholesome and czennies are willing to riot if SM decides to separate them

Maechan

You know how I said Maehyun was the soft and uwu type of siblings? Well Maechan are the bickering type of siblings

You know the ones who like to bicker over minor things but still would protect each other for life

they have so much dirt on each other on trainee days lmao

Haechan to Mae: lmao what a loser

Haechan when someone insults Mae: listen here you little shit

The only person allowed to clown her is him and the rest of NCT

he heard a trainee talk shit about her once and they still can’t look haechan in the eye

he’s only a few months older than her but he uses the “i’m older!” card whenever he can

“i’m older therefore i get to go first” “excuse me sir but you’re only three months older than me” “but im still older”

they fight for the title of the favorite 127 maknae but they both know that can do what they want

Mae is more lenient towards the hyungs during yaja time than haechan is tho so she just vibes whenever they go to scold him when the games over

they do team up a lot so they’re a menace when they do something together

especially in games

their competitive nature plus their brain power together? its over it even started

50% of the time they have to be separated from each other when it comes to choosing teams

the other 50% is someone choosing both of them because they want that easy win

Those two are willing to risk it all even for a bag of chips

[officialgritty]

How I Would Humble NHL Players

An essay written by bigboigritty. 

I would humble hockey players the only way I know how to, by sending them to Australia. Let’s suppose that they have decided to hold the All Star game over here (forget about it’s usual date) (forget that some players I have listed below might not be invited) (and while you're at it, please forget that Australia’s rinks are Not Good).

I think that they would suffer but in an entertaining way so it’s fine. 

First of all, their biggest concern is getting sunburnt. It would effect all of their dumb asses but I’m particularly worried about Pierre-Luc Dubois and Mitch Marner. Boys are practically translucent. Vince Dunn would be fine, he’d probably wear a shirt most of the time which is a very smart decision. 

You may wonder why I didn’t mention Nolan Patrick because I am a certified slut for him, well I don't think he would have a problem. He would spend most of the time inside and when he joins the others, I think his Virgo ass would reapply sunscreen. Maybe he would burn slightly but I don't think it'd be enough to make him uncomfortable. 

Another thing that I think they will gain from this experience is a higher pain tolerance. Now you’re probably thinking, “Zoe they are NHL players so they can handle pain.” Wrong.

Real pain is running barefoot on cement at theme parks while you race to get to the next ride. Also getting into the car and having to avoid touching every piece of metal to not get branded like a cow. Or better yet, when the heat gets so bad that there’s a black out because everyone has their air conditioning turned on.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that other countries have scary animals but I would pay to see them panic over ours. Crocodiles here can grow up to 5.2 metres / 17 feet. We have a box jellyfish season where it’s advised to avoid swimming or wear wetsuits for coverage. Funnel web spiders can survive underwater for hours by trapping air bubbles around their skin. We have several of the worlds deadliest snakes present across the country. 

Listen, I don't want anyone to get injured but the constant fear that they would have when doing anything would be enough to make me happy.

My biggest question is who would survive in the shady areas, who would survive the eshays?

Under no circumstances can you look them in the eyes or cross their path. They are not to be feared individually but in groups caution is advised. I think the players would attempt to assert dominance and that is simply not an option. You are better off to ignore the eshay.

Nolan would have no issues here if im being honest. He is big and I don't think they’d find it worth it to fuck with him. But you know who they would target? Matthew Tkachuk. “Where are you going pretty boy?” “Oi braa did we hurt your feelings ya pussy cunt?” They would make fun of his hair in particular. 

Travis Konecny would be an eshay. I don't think I need to make further comment. (So would Louis Tomlinson but I am not a 1D account and I will continue to repeat that until it’s true.)

I would also give them a few iconic tasks to get the true Australian experience. Activities for the ‘vacation’ include triathlon events, beach flags, bush walking and climbing the harbour bridge. They could attend a cricket match but they tend to like golf so unfortunately they would probably enjoy this :(

AFL is an extremely popular sport here and I think they would loose their shit when they learn the rules of this game. No protective equipment is used other than mouthguards, that's it. That’s all you get. And jumping onto other players for leverage is encouraged. I would thoroughly enjoy the fights that would break out because of this.

Another task would be to use a map to make their way to a servo for a slurpee. The catch is that they will be required to pass through multiple alleyways. Also, the season is Spring, it’s swooping season mother fuckers. Let’s see how brave you are when birds chase you down the block. Personally I don’t think any of them would pass this test, maybe McDavid because the birds may not be able to detect a heartbeat.

Australian food would disgust them, I just know it. Things that they would need to try are a Bunnings sausage sanga, fairy bread, lamingtons, baked beans on toast, Milo and Vegemite. Because I’m me I would give them no butter with their Vegemite. 

An after thought I had was money so I’m editing this to include it. Everything here is EXPENSIVE so they would need to learn how to budget. Upon doing research, Canadians would be fine but the Americans will be mad.

1000 CAD = 1019 AUD

1000 USD = 1297 AUD

Another after thought was the fact that they won’t be able to drive (or at least drive well) here. We drive on the left and not the right, same goes for walking paths too. I can sense a lot of them bumping into people.

Where I think players would live based on vibes alone:

Carter Hart and Vince Dunn: North Shore Beaches, NSW. Daddy’s money. Carter probably did Nippers whereas Vince was a skater boy. 

Travis Konecny: Darwin, NT. Would 100% live there and enjoy it. He would try to conduct crocodile tours but gets assigned to feeding the baby crocs and doing shows for little kids. 

Tyson Barrie: Perisher, NSW. One of the only ski resorts we have to offer, major friendly mountain man energy.

Nolan Patrick: Byron Bay, NSW. @antoineroussel enlightened me, steering away from my original thought of Katoomba, NSW. Byron Bay is a magnet for hippies and links rainforest to the ocean. Chris Hemsworth and his family also live there.

William Nylander: Perth, WA. I don’t know much about Perth other than they wouldn’t shut up about partying while the other states had to quarantine. For some reason, I also associate Perth with Tik Tok. 

Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid: Melbourne CBD, VIC. These two would live in the same apartment building in the city, Connor one level above Sidney. It’s the most boring looking block of them all and Crosby would send in complaints to the landlord about McDavid pacing during the night.

Tyler Seguin: Surfers Paradise, QLD. Party central, not many people are actually from this area and he would be sure to tell absolutely everyone that he was. I also think he would get a Meter Maid tattoo, specifically on his leg. Has definitely slept on the beach before because he couldn’t find his way home.

Jamie Benn: Hobart, TAS. Tasmania is usually forgotten about. Another one with mountain man energy except he is more creepy than friendly.

Mitch Marner: Fitzroy, VIC. @antoineroussel is responsible for this one too. Hipster central, makes you question how the hell someone so young can have so much money. Would chug $45 wine and not blink an eye.

(honourable mentions include = Sammy Blais: Hobart, Tas. Once again no comment on Tasmania. TJ Oshie: Cairns, QLD. Would do reef tours. Haydn Fleury: Western Sydney, NSW. Haydn would 100% own a ute or a white holden commodore and you can’t tell me otherwise. Roman Josi: Adelaide, SA. Small town history teacher vibes.)

I have attached a handy map for those who may need it.

In conclusion, the NHL should send their players over here to teach them some manners and while they’re at it, management should bring themselves too. Nolan Patrick could pass as an Australian if he built up a tan. (So does Nylander in this picture but we won’t talk about that.) Come over anytime baby, I’m free. 

Glossary

Servo - A service station, also known as a petrol or gas station. Example: 7/11

Theme park - An amusement park. Can be said in reference to both normal parks and water parks and usually means those in QLD. Example: Six Flags

Swooping season - August to October in Australia. When birds attack and chase humans and / or pets for getting close to their babies. Magpies are notoriously bad for this. 

Bunnings sausage sanga - A cheap feed / meal found at the front of a hardware and gardening store called Bunnings. Made up of white bread, sausage, onion and your choice of sauce.

Fairy bread - White bread with margarine and topped with 100s and 1000s / sprinkles. 

Meter Maids - Women who work along the beach dressed in gold bikinis. They top up parking meters to save tourists from getting fined and will often stop for photos. 

Nippers - Surf lifesaving programs carried out for children between 5 and 14. 

Ute - A pick up truck.

Eshay - A person who partakes in drug use, graffiti, listens to EDM and targets victims in groups. Below is the typical style of an eshay. 

Tagging a few friends so this doesn’t completely flop but feel free to ignore if it isn't your thing. I won’t be offended lmao

@scheifefe @ifiwasshawnmendesidslapmyself @d00dlebob @bowenbyram @kempe @prettyboyroope @quintonsbyfield @travisgermy @pitoftrash @kspitehockey @ballsakic @canadianheaters @bricksatlandyswindow @powerblais @brokeninsidebutnobodyknows @jamiedrysdales

[cellard0ors]

Fic: Movement (2/?)

Still dedicated to the wonderful @peachworthy. you read part one than you know - GMM Rhink AU - College Student Link/Pornstar Rhett AU

“Got it right again, man! You’re going to ace this test!” Rhett crows as he tosses down another notecard and Link pumps his arms in triumph. The two of them are settled in the kitchen, piles of books and notecards spread around as well as few bottles of beers and some bowls of chips.

Link picks up one chip and pops it into his mouth, grinning at his roommate fondly, “Well, couldn’t’ve done it without you, pal. You are, without a doubt, the best study buddy I’ve ever had.”

“Aw shucks, gonna make me blush,” Rhett laughs even though it��s Link who feels his cheeks actually grow warm, his friend’s laughter a common cause of the occurrence.

They’ve been living together for over a month now and it’s been beyond amazing. Link would’ve never guessed a guy like Rhett and a guy like him would work so well together.

It’s like they’re the world’s weirdest, most convoluted puzzle yet all the pieces click together to form a full picture that is nothing short of a masterpiece. True, there’s a lot about Rhett Link doesn’t know yet (and gosh is there a lot he wants to know) but their friendship is running smoothly.

Well, smoothly save for the massive crush Link has on the guy, albeit he’s doing his damned best to squash it. Yes, Rhett’s attractive and yes, he’s the first guy Link’s ever met that he’s felt a real zing for, but the fact of the matter is – Link would much rather have him as a friend and roommate than lose him as a…well, Link’s not sure if he’d lose him, but the mere possibility keeps Link’s lips sealed.

Besides, it’s okay to crush on someone and never act on it. People do it all the time. Not to mention that it’s a bit…odd to crush on someone in Rhett’s line of work. Isn’t it?

Link can’t think of too many people who will admit to crushing on an adult film star. Regular, mainstream film stars, sure – but adult film stars?

Yeah…

Although, to be frank, Link’s sure there are some that do. And, hopefully, some of them are not the creepy internet troll-y kind of people, but genuine salt of the earth folks like himself. Because, okay, he is crushing on one so…

Rhett is toying with the cards, maybe looking for the next question to quiz Link on when he asks idly, “Y’know, Link – I gotta say, I admire your stamina.”

That remarks makes Link choke on the drink he’s just been consuming, a cough clearing it up some as he croaks, “I’m-I’m sorry?”

Rhett hums noncommittally, as if not noticing the gaffe, “You’ve had yet to grill me about my job. Normally, once folks hear about it, that’s all they want to talk about.”

“Oh,” Link breathes out loosely, “Well, ah-? It-? It just…seemed rude to-to ask…”

“Been over a month living with me now. You telling me you ain’t interested?”

“I didn’t say that!” Link quips back much quicker than he would like, but Rhett just gives him the most perfect smile. All sincere and warm beneath his beard and remember, Link, you’re doing you’re best not to crush on him!

Rhett is still toying with the cards, eyelashes downcast, the very visual definition of shy as he murmurs, “Just sayin’…I don’t mind if you wanna ask some stuff.”

Link’s eyebrows rise in such a way as to damn near bump his glasses off, “Y-You sure?”

Rhett draws in a deep inhale and then sits the cards down. He crosses his arms and leans back in his seat, looking quite serious even despite the casual red flannel and jeans, as if this was more of an interview (or perhaps an interrogation?) than anything else, “Shoot.”

The a million and one questions that Link has kept at bay about Rhett’s job and more personal life threaten to cave his skull in as they crash about in his mind. However, he has to go with the obvious, “Know this’ll be predictable, but…why?”

Rhett just bobs his head in an understanding nod even as Link pushes on, “Why and how?”

Rhett sucks on his teeth before picking up his own beer and taking a fortifying sip before continuing, “The two are kinda interconnected to be honest. Had a fallin’ out with my family. Think I mentioned it in passin’ to you once. But, to clarify; they weren’t too happy with my chosen living destination nor with the fact that I’d come to terms with the notion that I’m attracted to both the ladies and the gents.”

Link’s mind immediately (and joyously) clings to ‘the gents’ remark, bookmarking it for future reference, even as Rhett continues his tale, “You grew up where we did. So you get it.”

Link does. And then, to nail the point home, Rhett adds, “Probably get it a lot more than others. If my…instincts are to be believed.”

Shit.

SHIT.

Link’s whole body immediately bursts into flame, the tips of his ears so hot he’s sure they’re glowing bright red.

Rhett knows I’m gay. He knows. I thought having a radar for that kind of thing was bullhonkey, but he knows and oh, lord, oh lord – do I give off some sorta vibe? I know that girl in my screenwriting class, Stevie, she teased me about being an A-Level twink or something, but I didn’t think-!

Rhett’s laughter carves right through Link’s insecurities, “Take a breath, brother! Look like you’re about to pop!”

Link does and Rhett just shakes his head, still grinning, “Point being – I was pretty much a babe in the woods when I came to LA. Not two nickels to my name, so I took whatever gigs I could get. Managed to snag a few commercials and things of that nature, but you know the drill. Jobs are hard to come by. And a guy of my height?”

He blows out a big breath and tosses all of those luxurious curls about with a rueful head shake, “Yeah, most people fingered me for a baller, so – again – jobs were hard to come by. But then, wouldn’t you know it? A friend of a friend of a contact told me about this part they thought I’d be perfect for.”

Another deep barrel chested chuckle emerges as he reminiscences, “Mighta been nice of ‘em to let me know it was actually a part of me they thought would be perfect.”

Do not zero in on his crotch! Do NOT zero in on his crotch! Charles Lincoln Neal the Third DO NOT-!

Link keeps his eyes so steadfastly forward he probably looks like some bug eyed zombie. If Rhett notices, he doesn't comment, “Anyway, when I found out what the role was, I had planned to politely decline but, y’know, the money they offered…”

There’s an easy shrug and this Link can look at. He looks at Rhett, who looks a bit sheepish as he scratches at one side of his beard, “I mean, again, you grew up where I did. So, you know how the whole ‘wait until marriage’ thing was drilled into your head, but I figured it wasn’t like anybody would know. My family’d cut me off, my friends were few and far in between, and the people on set…”

Now he looks a bit happier and Link can’t help but smile along with him, “The people on set were all right. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the kind of stories people tend to spin – the exploitation, the drug abuse, other questionable stuff…place I was at wasn’t like that. I mean, maybe I just lucked out or something, but it was…”

Another shrug and he goes for his beer again. Link figures this is as good a time as any to get in another question, “So, you did that and then you…? Just kept going?”

Rhett nods as he drinks, the bottle leaving his mouth with an obscene pop that Link is going to do his best to forget all about right now and certainly not recall at any point in the future (and most certainly NOT when he’s jacking off later), “Yeah, I did the one and the director really liked me. He pull me aside and told me about this company he was trying to set up with a couple of buddies of his. They wanted to go in a classier direction – know how funny that sounds, but he was serious.”

“So, what? No, like, blockbuster porno knock offs? Like ‘Sex in The City and ON the City’ or ‘Arma-get-it-on’?”

“Think you stole that last one from an episode of CSI.”

“I did, doesn’t change the question.”

They’re both smiling like a couple of fools, but the mood is good and the atmosphere light as Rhett sighs, “Yeah, nothing like that. I’ve actually worked with a few female directors, shot some things with great budgets, nice lighting, good costumes…”

“Oooo, costumes,” Link teases in the silliest voice and Rhett swats out at him. Link avoids the hit even as Rhett rolls his eyes, “I’m serious, dude. Some of the things that department pumps out looks better than anything you’d see in Hollywood.”

“Hmm, some kinda wood,” Link snickers and this time Rhett’s swat makes impact, brushing Link’s shoulder and Link would be embarrassed by the giggle he lets out, if it weren’t for the way Rhett’s nose is all scrunched up, making him look beyond adorable, “You’re sucha brat!”

Link sticks out his tongue and Rhett just laughs. They turn their attention to the drinks and chips for awhile before Link circles around to another question, “You like it then?”

“It’s a living,” Rhett confirms, not really answering one way or another, “Like I said – make great money, work with some really nice people.”

“Uh,” Link scratches behind one ear, “Hate to ask, but, um…clean people?”

Rhett doesn’t seem offended, “You bet. Have to be. Another reason I’ve done this as long as I have. Money's great, but the safety is even better. I’m currently under contract with that same company I told you about – the one that director brought me under. On top of wanting to,” he air quotes his next words, “be classier’-”

He drops the quotes, “They wanted to provide an excellent work environment. Heck, me and the other actors and actresses probably have a cleaner bill of health than the entire state. Can’t shoot scene one until you’ve got the A-Okay.”

“Huh,” Link absorbs that with some surprise, but then, he supposes it really shouldn’t be. The adult film industry is a big lumbering beast right alongside it’s more recognized counterpart. No reason one shouldn’t be as cautious as the other. If anything, one has more right to be cautious.

Thinking on this, Link suddenly feels an odd pang. It’s a shame in one way that’s one viewed as more reckless than the other, more questionable. But, when viewed through a mostly puritan lens…

Not wanting to get too philosophical, Link switches gears, “You been in a lot of films?”

“My fair share.”

Another dodge, but Link will let him have it. However, he can practically feel devil horns rise as he asks with a naughty gleam to his eye, “Win any awards?”

Rhett’s practically preening, “Several.”

“Really?” Link asks with some surprise, but Rhett suddenly looks quite naughty himself. Naughty and…a bit too hot for Link’s liking as the heat that always seems to surround him when he’s near Rhett rises and woo boy, he’s really failing at this squashing-the-crush thing.

“If you’re a good boy, maybe I’ll show you one of my trophies some time…”

Everything in Link melts into a puddle and he’s not sure what expression he’s wearing, but it’s one that makes Rhett’s whole face light up, “…or maybe, just maybe, I’ll show you a little somethin’ else…”

If it’s possible for a melted puddle to also explode, then Link’s just done it. Rhett bursts into guffaws as he reaches forward and, very smoothly, pushes Link’s jaw up because Link’s jaw? It dropped. He didn’t even feel it drop.

And then, to just add more fuel to the fire, Rhett rubs the pad of his thumb along the bottom of Link’s chin, right below his lip, “Damn, son…you’re just too much for words.”

“I…”

That’s it.

That’s all that Link can offer.

Just one sound, one vowel.

Silent and stunned and Rhett draws back, looking like the cat that ate the canary as he lets him go and rises up from his seat, “Think you need a moment. I’ll be back in a bit.”

And – just like that – Rhett saunters out of the room.

[goblin-gardens]

How do you find your found family? With a compass, of course. Hopefully they're always north of you.

EXU, 1611 words, all this is based off of is episode 1 vibes.

He's made it back to the place they're supposed to meet up before anyone else... but as he looks up at the statue he's waiting by, he realizes it looks different than it had this morning. From this angle, the marble statue almost looks bronze. The plaque on the base shares no secrets with him, either. He doesn't remember the name of the mage well enough to look for it among the words.

He sidles politely up to a man selling baked goods from a storefront. "Sorry to bother you," he says. The elf looks friendly enough. "I'm supposed to be meeting my friends by a statue of a mage? Is there one of those nearby?"

"Sure," the elf points first behind Dariax and then to the side. "There's the Vysoren statue at the north end of the Promenade, and there's a few in the park a few streets over. Can I offer you a doughnut for your walk?"

Dariax surveys the choices as the merchant begins to describe each flavor in detail. "I'll take one of each," he says decisively. That's enough to give one to each of his friends and still have a couple for himself.

Armed with fresh supplies, he stops at the crossroads. He can't see any other statues from where he is, so he places his compass in his palm and gives the needle a good spin while he munches on his first doughnut. When it slows, it's pointing off to his left, and as he follows its direction, he sees Opal's shining hair as she turns a corner and heads away from him.

"Hey! Hey Opal!" Dariax almost drops the bag of doughnuts as he scrambles to catch up. "Wait for me! I'm coming too!"

She turns around and waves with a huge smile as soon as she sees him. Dariax triumphantly offers her first choice of the doughnuts.

And they might get lost once or twice more before they find the right statue, but they make it with two doughnuts left. Dariax splits one with Dorian, and Fearne and Ormyn split the other with none left over for the monkey, which Dariax counts as a resounding success.

He's sitting at a bar, enjoying a cup of good ale, Dorian's music from the far side of the room, and the company of the pretty bartender, now that the night is later and the customers have slowed down.

Not all the way down, since it's a big place and she's the only one working. She laughs at Dariax's jokes, but when a trio of well-dressed merchant types sit down at the far end of the bar, she heads off. This time, without any assurance that she'll be back.

It doesn't ruin Dariax's mood any. Without her to talk to, he slips into a quiet, buzzy contentment, happy to savor his ale and the dry warmth after a day slogging through wet mud. He watches the way the firelight flickers on the glass bottles behind the counters for a while, a little drunk and a little hypnotized. When he feels his eyes start to cross, he shakes his head and sits up. He hadn't realized how far he'd slumped over.

The wood of the bar is the same color as parts of his compass rose. He turns the pendant over in his hand and gives the needle an idle spin. It settles pointing to his right, and Dariax is surprised and pleased to find Orym sitting beside him.

He knocks his mug companionably against the halfling's smaller, fuller cup. He doesn't recognize the drink in it. "All right then, Orym? You took some pretty hard hits there earlier."

"All right," Orym agrees. "Thanks to your help."

Dariax fills up to his ears with pride and warmth, and throws an arm around Orym's shoulders, pulling his whole stool closer in. "Of course! That's what friends are for, right?"

The bartender returns, bustling. "Need any refills, lads?"

"I'll have one of what he's having," Dariax tells her, gesturing at Orym's cup.

She raises an eyebrow but turns to grab a bottle from a shelf.

"Wait," Dariax whispers to Orym, "is that very expensive?"

"No," Orym whispers back, smirking. "Just not alcoholic."

But Dariax can't back out now. He only picks up the cup once the bartender has turned away again, and prepares himself to say something polite about whatever it is.

He takes a sip. Then one more. "Hey! That's actually pretty good!"

Orym chuckles into his cup. Dariax grins, so wide his cheeks hurt.

It's moved from late at night to very, very early in the morning. The moons have both set, even the crickets have stopped singing and gone to sleep, and Dariax is concerned that the sounds he's hearing in the woods is a pack of wolves coming to rip their throats out.

Dorian is the one who woke him up, so Dariax shouldn't bother him. Opal screamed and slapped time last time he woke her up, so he doesn't want to do that again. That leaves Fearne or Orym... Orym also hates being woken up, and the fucking monkey is curled up like a furry, smoldering teddy bear in Fearne's arms. No good options.

Dariax hears the noise again, and sees a treetop across the fire shake slightly. Wolves climbing trees? That's very bad. He looks anxiously between Orym and Fearne, hoping one of them will wake up on their own.

No dice. Stumped, Dariax picks up his compass rose and gives the needle one tiny little tap. It quivers and points at Fearne.

Maybe that's a good call. Little Mister can go up the tree and fight the wolves there. Dariax leans over and gingerly shakes Fearne's shoulder.

Her eyes pop open and her ears flicker as he puts his finger to his lips, then points out to where he heard the noise.

"I think there's something out there," he whispers. "Maybe wolves."

Fearne sits up quietly, sliding the monkey down onto her bedroll gently enough that he only mutters and rolls into the warm spot she leaves behind.

"I have a way to see," she whispers back, and casts a spell that Dariax doesn't recognize. Everything around them seems to catch fire for just a moment, then the light settles into a dim, smoldering blue, outlining their sleeping friends around the fire, each leaf of the trees and bushes around them...

and the family of startled raccoons staring down at them from the trees.

Fearne giggles, and Dariax slumps in relief. "Not wolves," she says, and pats him on the shoulder. The light around them fades like an ember dying, and they sit and watch the forest wake up around them.

Dariax is feeling very proud of himself for smooth-talking the smith into a discount. His spear is looking sharp and shiny, and he picked up some new daggers for Opal with the extra cash he'd saved. They're just normal, not as pink as her favorites, but pretty good all the same.

He'd offered to get Dorian's axe sharpened as well, but apparently it doesn't work that way.

He's heading back to their spot, following the sunset down the main road, when he hears a noise from an alleyway to his left. It's soft, but as he listens closer, it resolves into music, an unfamiliar melody that seems to draw him in.

Dariax shakes his head and turns back down the well-lit, populated main road, which has no suspicious music.

He takes a few steps away.

He squeezes his eyes shut and counts to ten, but that doesn't make him move any farther down the main street.

He turns to the alley. He turns away. He takes out his compass rose and shakes it, listening to the music all the while. It has a rhythm, but the single notes feel lonely, like it's supposed to be part of a larger piece.

The needle settles, and points straight down the alley. Dariax follows.

There's a little garden at the end of the alley. It's full of flowers he thinks that Fearne would love, and a fountain gurgling cheerfully in the center.

He doesn't try to move sneakily, but Dorian's eyes are closed when Dariax comes around the corner, flute raised to his lips, a focused expression on his face as he repeats a phrase before moving on.

Dariax stands and watches quietly for a moment, swept up in the music, before he clears his throat. Dorian startles and the music ends in a squeak.

"Sorry," Dariax says into the sudden, awkward quiet. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

Dorian fixes on a blinding smile and gives his cape a little flourish, sliding the flute back onto his belt. "Nonsense, my friend! I was just it was time for me to rejoin the group."

He slides past Dariax and starts back down the alleyway. Confused, Dariax looks regretfully at the little garden and hurries to catch up with his long-legged friend.

"You know, I can't play the flute or sing too well, but I bet I could beat on a drum, or a tambourine or something." He searches for the right words as Dorian keeps moving. "If you wanted some accompaniment someday. That song sounded, I don't know. Lonely?"

"Oh," Dorian says quietly. He stops and turns to Dariax. "I suppose it does."

"I bet Opal can sing alright," Dariax muses.

"And Little Mister can play the piano?"

Dariax scowls. "I don't know about that. I just mean, you don't have to play alone all the time. Just, keep that in mind."

Dorian gives him a real smile now, small but honest. "Thank you, I will."

[couchpotatoaniki]

One Year ❣︎ One: Holidays Aren’t For Drama

Chapter Summary: San has finally found you after five years of searching, and he wants you for himself--though not knowing how to do it just yet. In the meantime, you’re having fun hanging out with a friend on the plane to Jeju.

Pairing: Mafia!San x Fem!Reader Genre: Mafia AU, fluff, angst, eventual smut, lotta crack and stupid shit ngl Chapter warnings: swearing, stalking Word count: 1.2k+ A 365 Days parody

Previous: Prologue For the rest of the series, click here

Speech in bold means they’re talking in Korean

Speech in italics is whatever the reader wants their native langue to be that’s not Korean or English

Speech without either means they’re talking in English

You were glad that you were sat next to Yunho on the plane since you needed good vibes that your boyfriend couldn’t really give you. Too sucked up in his own life, which make him the worst person to sit next to Yeosang.

Thankfully, Dominic was terrified of the boy so he was silently scrolling through his phone. That left Mingi to annoy poor Seonghwa the whole trip.

“Oh, you bitch,” Yunho mumbled, picking up four cards from the deck beside him. To pass the time, you and the tall boy decided to play a game of Uno. 

Chuckling, you threw down a yellow 2. effectively ending the round. “You know, for someone of your profession, you’re really shit at cards.”

“Maybe because I’m playing against your devious ass.”

“You love my devious ass, don’t lie.” Scoffing, he gathered the cards and began to shuffle them before you ripped them from his hands. “Oh hell no. I know for a fact you’re gonna rig it.”

“I tried last time, and you still won,” he huffed, running a hand through his sandy blonde hair before using the other to take the deck again.

Yunho wasn’t really your friend to begin with. More so Mingi’s, but that had not stopped the two of you becoming just as close. Seonghwa and Yeosang too; you had meet them through the sweet-hearted boy, and all three had quickly become an addition to your short list of loved ones.

In fact, out of the six of you, Dominic was the odd one out.

He didn’t know the secrets you shared, the things you did without his knowledge. Nothing that would directly harm your relationship, no.

To add to that, the five of you were like a family, looking out for each other, and the boys weren’t very font of the guy you had chosen to date.

Then again, compared to the last one, Dominic was much better.

Every year, the boys and you had decided to treat this time as a holiday away  from the all the work you do, to treat yourselves for living another year. So you all splurged out and did something big.

How you chose the destination was fairly simple; one of you would throw a dart at a map of the world--blindfolded, obviously--and wherever it landed, you all went there.

It’s what led to the fun cruise in the Pacific the previous trip, and this part of Korea for this current one.

Though, Jeju was one of the places on your bucket list. You were more than excited to go and sight-see. Already, you do plenty of that for your job but never really get the chance to stop and pay attention.

To relax with friends and have fun.

You were going to Jeju for leisure purposes.

San was going to Jeju for you.

Yes, he was originally going there for work, to deal with a bit of business that had gone awry. But then he saw you, quickly crossing the road, from his vehicle.

Decided to follow you, see where you were going and with whom.

At first, he was a little pissed to know that you were travelling with five men, you being the only woman. Most likely scenario, one of them was your boyfriend.

But that information had no longer mattered, because you were going to Jeju. On the same flight as him.

San didn’t like to admit in believing in fate, but if that wasn’t it, he didn’t know what would be.

Hongjoong--who was stood beside him in the middle of the airport by now--was concerned over his strange behaviour. Even the slightest shift that seemed out of the ordinary, he immediately became suspicious.

That’s why San knew it was stupid to try and lie to him.

When he pointed out to you, telling him to look, it only took the older boy a few seconds for him clock on. “You’re shitting me...”

“I’m not, Joong. She’s here. She’s really here.”

“San,” the now-blue-haired boy began, trying not to draw any unnecessary attention, “look at me. You can’t. It was five years ago, and not to mention, you’re already with--”

Shoving his hands off his shoulders, the mafia boss glared at his second-in-command. “You don’t even like Dae anyway!”

No, Hongjoong hated that crazy woman to his very core. She was bad for his friend, but the boy was too caught up in filling the hole you somehow managed to carve to even care.

Had it been any other, the short man would have let San do his thing, but his current girlfriend was one of the heirs to a rather big mafia herself. Being with her involved politics, and being with her for nearly five years brought more trouble than you were worth.

But Hongjoong knew that San wouldn’t listen to him. Not when he’s like this.

The only thing he could do now was damage control.

The two males--San mainly--had stalked the six of you, deducing who meant what to you. Didn’t like how cosy you were with either of them, but specifically disliked the guy who had his hand wrapped around your waist.

Then there was the other guy, one of the really tall ones, with black hair--streaks of green and grey running through it--and a loud voice. Party animal, the two thought. He was particularly close to you too, sending playful hits that were definitely reciprocated. Hopefully, he was just a friend...

The other tall guy--the blonde one, with puppy-like eyes--seemed more reserved yet somehow still as energetic.

Next tallest was s black-haired fella. Clean and lean--smart-looking, with soft (but somehow sharp) eyes.

Finally, the last guy. The one who rarely spoke, with a silvery grey mullet that surprisingly complimented his pale skin. There was something about him that Hongjoong couldn’t pin down. Something familiar...

The most obvious odd thing was how you and your supposed ‘boyfriend’ were of a different ethnicity to the other four. Confirmed when the two men overheard you speaking in a completely different language neither of them were used to.

“Fuckin’ language barrier,” San grunted as he realised there was yet another obstacle in his way.

“Fuckin’ good-lookin’ people,” Hongjoong laughed, scanning the six of you.

Being in business class was usually a comfortable experience, but right now was the most excruciating thing possible for both of them. San constantly bombarded the elder with questions and worries about you.

Couldn’t even send Hongjoong back there since his newly-dyed electric blue hair would have captured too much attention. “What’s the point of you if I can’t even get you to spy on people,” the younger huffed. “Dye your hair back to black when we get to the villa.”

“Oh, shut up,” Hongjoong spat with gritted teeth, already beyond annoyed with the man’s behaviour. “That’s not even my job. And you come at me with having unusual hair, but you look like Frankenstein’s Bride with that lock of white with the rest being black.”

Groaning, San looked at the entrance of the business area, hoping for some other miracle to occur and you would peer out. Desperation filled him, wanting to see you again. Etch your newer features into his mind once more.

“Who do you think those other guys were? Her boyfriend’s friends? Her friends? Colleagues?”

“Probably her friends, since they all seemed pretty close to her.”

“Ugh.” San buried his face in his hands, still not liking the sound of that.

“It’s the 21st century, dude. Girls can be friends with guys--and that girl is friends with those guys. Get used to it.”

“Don’t wanna,” San mumbled, puffing out his cheeks as Hongjoong narrowed his eyes at his tantrum.

“Listen, dude, you can’t confine and control her. Doing that’s only gonna push her away--if you’re actually serious in pursuing her.”

“Of course I’m serious!”

“Then you need to plan this out carefully. And you need to think of it fast, since I doubt they’ll be in Jeju for long."

The younger male scoffed, running his tongue against the inside of his cheek as his confidence grew and cogs in his brain began moving. “Don’t worry, I’ll definitely come up with something.”

Sighing, Hongjoong looked out of the window, into the peaceful, empty ocean they flew above. What exactly had he done?

☕︎ Tag list: @little-precious-baby​ , @sparklychangbin​ ,

[musette22]

Drunk in Boston

Pairing: Chris Evans x Sebastian Stan (Evanstan)

Word count: 2.4k

A/N: A week or so ago, I saw this post. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I decided to write a ficlet, a little Evanstan AU. It’s a bit late maybe, since Christmas has already been and gone, but it’s still technically the holidays so just indulge me? :p 

Also, I hit 3k followers this week, so this is also a sort of thank you to all you amazing, wonderful, beautiful people for getting me here. Love you all as much as I love these boys as much as they love each other 💘 Hope you enjoy!

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

It’s 3 p.m. on 17 December, and Chris is a little bit drunk. Maybe even a lotta bit.

In his defense, he is currently in Boston for a bachelor party and they did just do a tour of the Samuel Adams Brewery. It’s not like he makes a habit of daytime drinking. Not this much, anyway.

Chris stumbles out of the bar that’s attached to the brewery, surrounded by a dozen or so old school friends, all of whom are in a similar state of inebriation, when they pass the gift shop and a familiar image catches his eye. Chris stops in his tracks. On closer inspection, what he saw turns out to be a photo, displayed in a stand outside the shop, of a park in Concord near where Chris grew up.

No, not a photo.

A postcard.

He plucks the card from the stand, swaying on his feet a little as he peers at it. In the image, the park is covered in snow, much like it would be right now, and stamped across it in a red, gothic font are the words ‘Happy Holidays’.

Instantly, Chris is hit by a wave of nostalgia. No doubt the feeling is heightened by the alcohol – he always tends to get a little sentimental when he’s drunk – but it’s not just that. It’s also the fact that Chris and his friends have been reminiscing about the good old days all afternoon as well as the sudden, depressing realization that despite all he’s achieved in the past decade or so, his happiest memories are probably those of childhood Christmases spent in Concord.

These days, Chris lives in on the West Coast. He’s kind of a superstar now, after all, and superstars live in LA – everybody knows that. Chris doesn’t usually let himself dwell too much on how lonely he is there, or how he misses the comforting accents and the real winters of the East Coast. Tonight, though, whether because of the booze in his system or the ghosts of Christmas past, he allows himself to feel the stab of homesickness.

Without conscious input from his brain, Chris finds himself buying the postcard. When the cashier asks him if he’ll be needing he stamp, too, he hesitates. “Yeah, why not,” he decides, on a whim. It’s a Christmas card, after all, and Christmas cards are supposed to be sent.

There’s just one slight issue with his plan, Chris realizes as soon as he puts the borrowed pen to the card.

He’ll need an address to send the card to.

Frowning, he taps the pen against the counter, thinking as hard as his beer-addled brain will allow him, but the only address he can think of off the top of his head is that of his childhood home, back in Concord. But… that would be weird, right? He has no idea who’s been living there, since his parents sold the house after the divorce. Then again, Chris tells himself, this could be his good Christmas deed. Sending a postcard to a total stranger just to wish them happy holidays, that’s totally in the Christmas spirit, isn’t it?

With a decisive nod of his head, Chris puts his pen to paper and starts to write. It’s just a few lines, because there’s only so much you can say to a total stranger, but when he signs off with his initials, he feels good about it. He asks the cashier for the nearest post box, which happens to be just outside the building, so he thanks the guy and heads outside.

Pulling his pea coat tighter around him against the glacial December air, Chris spares the card one last look, and drops into the post box. It feels significant, somehow.

He doesn’t get time to dwell on it though, because the moment his friends spot him, he’s immediately and enthusiastically subsumed back into the group and dragged on to the next boozy destination.

Three drinks on, Chris has forgotten all about the postcard.

***

On the morning of 18 December, Sebastian Stan opens his postbox to find a postcard with a photo of the park near his house on the front, and a hastily scribbled message on the back:

Hey,

I used to live in your house.

I’m drunk in Boston, and it’s the only address I know.

Happy Holidays,

C.E.

Even after re-reading the message three times, Sebastian is none the wiser as to who sent it.

It makes sense other people used to live in the house Sebastian’s been renting, but unsurprisingly, he has no clue who they were. It was only last year that he’d decided to relocate from New York to Concord, craving a change of pace and more peace and quiet than the Big Apple had been able to offer. He’d visited Concord on a research trip for his third novel the year before and had immediately taken a liking to it. So when, after asking his estate agent to put out some feelers in the area, the guy had found him this beautiful place to rent within a day, Sebastian had taken it as a sign.

It’s a big old house – more appropriate for a family than a man living alone, perhaps – but Sebastian can afford it, and it has a lived-in vibe that makes it feel intimate, somehow. Its location on the edge of a large park, peaceful apart from the joggers and young families that frequent it, suits his needs perfectly, too. Despite being a successful author, Sebastian prefers to keep himself to himself. He’s not one for ostentatious book tours or photoshoots, doesn’t believe in social media beyond its promotional potential, and he’s found that he blends in perfectly in this picturesque little town.

In addition to being a private person, however, Sebastian is an inherently curious one.

It’s why he became a writer in the first place, and it’s also why the random, slightly mysterious postcard instantly fascinates him. Someone who decides to send a Christmas card to the stranger living in their childhood home has got to be an interesting person, Sebastian figures.

Unable to resist the temptation, he finds the landlord’s number and presses call.

“The initials C.E.?”

“C.E., that’s right,” Sebastian repeats patiently. “I received a postcard from someone with those initials who said they used to live in this house and wished me Happy Holidays. I’d like to thank them for the card, maybe tell them they’re free to come by the house anytime, if that’s something they’d like.”

“Well,” the landlord says, clear hesitation in his tone. “I wouldn’t usually give out this kind of information, especially not about this particular person. But seeing as he approached you first, I guess it should be alright…”

Chris Evans.

Famous Hollywood actor Chris Evans used to live in Sebastian’s house. The house he’s renting. Whatever.

The point is, Chris Evans sent him a postcard. Sebastian would be lying if he said that knowledge didn’t make his heart beat a little faster. He isn’t one to get star-struck, normally, knowing full well the rich and famous are people just like anyone else, only with an added layer of expensive, sparkly veneer.

Chris Evans, though. Well, let’s just say Chris’s blue eyes, his dazzling smile, and his chest – god, that chest – had helped along Sebastian’s gay awakening considerably, all those years ago.

So even though he realizes what he’s about to do could be considered slightly unethical, the next number Sebastian dials is that of his agent. There’s no harm in asking if there’s any chance she could use her industry connections to pass on a message to Chris Evans, surely?

“Chris Evans?” his agent repeats blankly. “The British radio DJ or the actor?”

Sebastian huffs out a laugh. “Actor. Definitely the actor. Why would I want to send a message to a British radio DJ?”

“Why would you want to send a message to the actor?” she shoots back. “Apart from the obvious, of course.” 

Touché.

Once he’s explained the situation to her, his agent hums thoughtfully. “Alright, I’ll admit that’s pretty amazing,” she says. “As it happens, I know someone at CAA who owes me a favor. I’ll see what I can do.”

Sebastian thanks her warmly, and then he waits.

***

That afternoon, Chris gets a phone call from his agent.

“Thank you for the postcard,” she reads aloud. “If you're ever in the neighborhood, you’re welcome to stop by the house and have a look around, for old time’s sake. Happy Holidays, Sebastian Stan.”

“Sebastian Stan?” Chris asks, eyebrows shooting up. “The author?”

“Oh, you know him?”

“Well, no. Not exactly. I’ve read one of his books, though, the one that’s shortlisted for the Pulitzer price, I think? He’s very good.”

His agent hums. “If you say so. Do you want me to pass a message back to him?”

Chris opens his mouth to say yes, then closes it again. “Actually,” he says, making a spur-of-the-moment decision, “I’m still in the area so I think I’ll just pay him a visit. Do you think you could you cancel my flight back to LA this afternoon?”

His agent grumbles at him for a bit but eventually concedes, though not before she’s made Chris promise he’ll be back in LA on Tuesday, for the Christmas special he’s due to appear in. Fun.

For a few moments after he’s ended the call, Chris stares out of the window of his hotel room. It’s snowing again, big flakes fluttering down from the sky, slowly turning the grey, slushy roads white again. He wonders if Pulitzer-finalist Sebastian Stan likes to make snow angels in the backyard too, like Chris used to do.

Putting his phone between his shoulder and his ear, Chris starts to put his things in his overnight bag, and calls an Uber.

It’s almost twilight, by the time the cab come to a stop in front of the house. Chris thanks the driver and steps out, booted feet sinking into the freshly fallen snow. It’s piling up quickly, he notices distantly.

It’s odd, being back here, after everything that’s happened since he moved away, so Chris gives himself a moment to just stand there, in the middle of the deserted street, taking in the sight of house he grew up in.

The house that holds countless memories, many of them good, some of them not so much. His first dog and his first kiss. Scraped knees and snowball fights. Raucous laughter and hissed arguments.

The house looks the same but different.

Chris walks up to the front door, snow crunching under his boots, and rings the doorbell.

***

Chris Evans is on Sebastian’s doorstep.

All blue-eyed, bearded, gloriously muscled, six-foot-something of him.

“Uh,” Chris says, blinking at him in something like surprise before his gaze sweeps up and down Sebastian’s body in a blatant once-over. “Sebastian Stan?”

“Oh wow, you actually came,” Sebastian blurts by way of reply.

Chris’s eyes widen. “Oh, I’m sorry, I just thought- ‘cause you said-”  

“No, no, it’s fine,” Sebastian interrupts. “I did say that. I just- I guess I wasn’t expecting you to really turn up – or not this soon, at least. But it’s no trouble at all, I live alone so it’s nice to have a visitor. Especially, y’know. You.” Forcing himself to stop talking, Sebastian runs a hand through his messy hair and wishes he’d worn something better suited to meeting one’s celebrity crush. “Sorry,” he says, smiling sheepishly. “Let’s try that again. Hi, I’m Sebastian Stan.”

“Chris Evans.” Chris smiles back warmly as he shakes Sebastian’s extended hand. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

“Lovely,” Sebastian repeats, holding Chris’s gaze. There are tiny flecks of green mixed in with the blue of his eyes, and his lashes would put any Maybelline model to shame. It takes Sebastian longer than it should to remember to let go of Chris’s hand, but fortunately, Chris doesn’t seem to be in any rush either. Huh. Sebastian clears his throat. “Would you- would you like to come in?”

“I’d love to, if you’re putting out,” Chris replies. There’s a beat, and then he freezes, eyes widening in horror. “If I’m not putting you out – not- not if you’re- I wasn’t, I didn’t mean- oh my god, Chris, stop talking you meatball,” Chris groans covering his face with a large hand. His next words come out a little muffled. “I am so sorry. Just ignore me. I have a horrible hangover, I promise I’m not usually this much of a disaster.”

Sebastian laughs, equally charmed by Chris’s helpless chattering as he is by the blush coloring his cheeks, just visible above the line of Chris’s well-groomed beard.

“You’re fine, I’m not easily offended,” he assures him, stepping aside to let Chris into the hallway. “I can take a lot.”

Oh.

This time, it’s Sebastian’s turn to wince at his choice of words, but when he tentatively glances back at his visitor to see if he noticed, he stills. The look on Chris’s face instantly makes him forget all about feeling embarrassed.

Still standing by the door, melting snow forming puddles around his feet, Chris is watching him intently. There’s something curious in his gaze, something sharp and searching.

It makes Sebastian’s breath catch in his throat. He swallows, resisting the impulse to avert his gaze, play it off as a joke. Instead, he makes himself stare right back. Lets the tension build, lets it simmer and crackle as it stretches out between them, growing stronger with every second they spend looking at each other in heavy silence.

“That right?” Chris asks finally, his voice a low rumble that settles in Sebastian’s bones like smoldering embers. Chris takes a careful step forward, slowly, giving him every chance to back away.

Sebastian stays where he is. 

“Mmm,” he hums, catching his bottom lip between his teeth and biting down lightly, experimentally, on the soft, plump flesh. When Chris’s eyes flick down to his mouth instantly, homing in on it like an eagle on its prey, Sebastian decides to take a chance.

“Tell you what,” Sebastian says huskily, stepping closer under Chris’s dark, watchful gaze. “Why don’t you give me a tour and show me which bedroom used to be yours-” he comes to a halt right in front of Chris, looking up at him through his eyelashes, “and maybe you’ll find out just how much I can take, hm?”

For a moment, Sebastian holds his breath, praying he read this thing right and didn’t accidentally sexually harass a virtual stranger – but then Chris growls and surges forward, and Sebastian knows his gamble is about to pay off.

Big time.

Merry Christmas to me, Sebastian thinks wildly, just before Chris claims his mouth in a searing kiss. After that, he stops thinking altogether.

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

[bosspigeon]

a space between the shadows

My VERY last-minute prompt fill for @wayhavensummer, which turned into YET ANOTHER character study of my Sad Werewolf Detective~ Prompt: 🌈First Pride, Belonging Pairing: Adam/Male Detective, Bonus Found Family Vibes~ Words: 2137 Summary: Arlo has some... complex feelings around his identity, his relationship with his closest friend, and who he is supposed to be in a place like Wayhaven. CW for allusions to homophobia, slurs, and implications of religious trauma/bigotry

Seeing as someone actually bothered to submit paperwork this time, Arlo feels it’s safe to assume there will be no (or at least fewer) strange supernatural occurrences involved in this festival. Still, he’s not sure what to make of it.

“I don’t… have to go, do I?” he asks Tina.

Tina blinks slowly at him, as if he’s suddenly become the stupidest creature to ever draw breath. “Yes,” she says simply.

“I’m just a detective, and it’s Wayhaven, it won’t be anything crazy, so I don’t have to be there to keep things—”

“Oh, no, of course not,” she interjects, well acquainted with his nervous babbling by now. He’s barely exhaled his relieved sigh when she leans her elbows on his desk and grins in his face. “We’re going in a purely civilian capacity.”

“But I don’t want to,” he says quietly, and he knows he sounds like a pouty little kid, but he can’t help it.

Tina pouts mockingly right back at him. “I don’t care.”

And that sort of sums up their entire relationship, he thinks.

Adam, of course, is about as pleased as Arlo is. Unfortunately, Adam has not yet learned what Arlo knew by sixteen— that there is no force in the known universe more powerful than Tina Poname's stubbornness. She simply can't be defeated.

"She's a little bisexual juggernaut," Arlo sighs. He's annoyed, sure, but he can't keep the fondness from his tone as he watches her swan back and forth from the safety of the sitting room.

Naturally, Tina and Felix get on like a house on fire, and the two of them have commandeered Arlo's studio. The floor is a minefield of water cups, washable paint, and drying posters. Felix has Tina's flag tied around his neck like a cape.

Mason disappeared the second the first tube of paint was popped open, though his sharpy retort of "I like what I like" when Tina asked what his persuasion was (so that she could make him a poster as well) did launch her into her practiced dissertation on the intricacies of bi and pan identities, and how they mean similar things, how at their core neither are meant to be exclusive, and it is simply a matter of personal identity and choice which one suits an individual best.

"Have you been to a Pride festival before?" Nate asks, setting down two mugs of tea on Arlo's coffee table, carefully out of the way of the map of Wayhaven he and Adam are poring over. More for Adam's peace of mind than anything. It's mostly taking place in the local park, and while there will be a parade, the route is short enough to keep things contained.

"Yeah, once," Arlo says with a shrug, and he and Adam are sitting close enough on the sofa for their shoulders to brush with the motion. "When I was at uni."

Nate hums and sits down in the armchair across from them. "I assume it was… unpleasant for you?"

Arlo smiles, flustered, and rubs at the back of his neck. "It was fine. Fun, even. I mean, I went to art school, so the turnout was great. Nerve-wracking, yeah, because so many people, but seeing your anthropology professor riding a mechanical bull in little more than nipple pasties is one hell of a distraction."

He can feel the scandalized look Adam is giving him, but he knows if he turns to meet his eyes, he'll blush all the way to his hairline, so he sips deeply from his mug instead.

Nate tilts his head, lips pursed. There's a brief twitch of amusement to them, but it settles as his brow furrows thoughtfully. "I'm afraid I don't understand. If you had a good time at the last festival you attended, why are you so hesitant to participate in one closer to home?"

Arlo looks down at his mug, thumbing at a chip in the black enamel, exposing an ellipse of white ceramic underneath. The silence is heavy, and he knows if he lets it go on too long, Nate's going to start apologizing, so he sighs hard through his nose before he barrels on. "It's… it's different here. Back at school, I wasn't… I wasn't the Detective's weird brat. I was just Priestley, the weird performing arts major." He picks a little harder at his mug. "Might sound odd, but I didn't have to perform there, not the way I do here. I could just be Arlo. Not a shadow. Just… the fuckoff huge goth from your sociology lecture hall who just so happens to like men."

He doesn't look up, but he can tell Nate is chewing over the information. As he considers, Adam shifts on the sofa, closing the bare inch of space between them so their thighs press together. Arlo peeks up, and Adam's giving him that look. The one that makes him go all soft around the edges. "I know small towns can be… conservative," he begins, and his mouth twists distastefully around the word. "But I have never gotten the impression that Wayhaven was…"

"Anything but refreshingly progressive," Nate finishes for him.

Arlo looks up with a wry smile. "Yeah, no, it's great on that front. I'm damned lucky I didn't have to grow up with Rebecca's family. It's just…" He shifts his weight, and before he can sprout claws to really start menacing his poor mug, Adam plucks it from his hands and sets it out of the way. "There's a legacy for me here," he murmurs. "One I never asked for. Sure, I don't have to worry about getting called slurs," he chews his lip, "at least, not anymore after the whole Graham thing, but I'm still… I don't really get to be me here. People here don't look at me and see Arlo. They see Rook's kid. They see Detective Priestley the Second." He huffs out a laugh. "I didn't even get to come out on my own here. I honestly don't think I ever have outside of school. Everyone knows everything they want to know about me, because I've been a landmark since I was born. This month, it's just a landmark with a rainbow flag."

Nate is giving him that sad-eyed look he gets whenever Arlo and Rebecca get into it. The one that says he wants to help, but he's not sure how.

Arlo rubs his hands over the worn denim of his dark jeans, picking at a frayed thread. There’s a spiderweb of cracks forming in the fresh coat of black polish on his thumb where the nail has begun to thicken in response to his emotional state. He sighs a little, but he doesn’t have the time to sink too deeply into his own head, because there is a pale hand creeping cautiously over his.

“Why do it, then?” Adam asks, head tilted and brows drawn, as if he truly doesn’t understand. “Officer Poname cares deeply for you. I am sure she would understand if you were honest with her.” His lips twitch faintly, and the smile he gives Arlo is touching in its earnest, if stilted, effort. “Bisexual juggernaut or no. Though, she is only little to you.”

Arlo snickers weakly, turning his face away so he can hide behind the fall of his hair. Adam doesn’t let him hide, though, brushing it out of his face, knuckles skimming the detective’s cheekbone. Arlo can’t help but sigh and lean into the touch, eyes fluttering closed.

There’s a crash and a cry from the other room, but it’s Nate’s startled noise that makes the two of them leap apart as if burned, putting a few inches of space between them.

Arlo’s face flushes hotly when Nate smiles at them, and there’s a mischievous twinkle to his dark eyes. “I wonder what that’s about!” he exclaims, clapping his hands together and springing to his feet. “I’ll go check on them, shall I? Make sure they’re not causing too much trouble.” And before Arlo can even stutter out a… something—an explanation, or maybe an apology for third-wheeling the poor man—Nate is striding off towards the studio with a spring in his step the detective can’t help but find incredibly mocking.

He closes the door behind him with a parting smile and a decisive click.

They’re left on the sofa sitting guiltily apart like a pair of teenagers caught canoodling, and surprisingly it’s Adam who breaks the stalemate by huffing through his nose and turning to Arlo again, reaching out for his hand and tugging it between his own. “You were saying?” he presses gently, his thumb tracing ticklish lines alone Arlo’s palm.

Arlo tilts his head and sighs “I guess I just… Tina’s like my sister, you know? And we wound up going to different universities in different cities, and I didn’t really get to share any of those big milestones with her. She’s not the type to be jealous I made other friends or went and had fun without her, but it feels sort of… I want to be able to share this with her, since she was one of the first people who ever bothered to… to not just care about me, but to care about me enough to…” He furrows his brow and chews at his lip, trying to figure out how to make sense of the feelings he’s never really been able to express out loud. “Neither of us belonged here, really. Sure, I was born here, but I never really felt like I was supposed to be here. I just felt like I was filling a space someone more important than me left vacant.”

He looks down at Adam’s hands, sturdy and strong, tangled up around his freckled, long-fingered one. He swallows. “Tina’s the one who looked at that space, then decided it wasn’t for either of us, and she carved out one that was.” He smiles fondly, thinking of the way Tina bullied her way into his lonely life and gave it some much-needed color. “She made a space where we could both fit. It was messy, and awkward, and we were still outcasts, but we were outcasts together.” He laughs, and it sounds suspiciously wet even to his own ears. Thankfully, Adam doesn’t bring attention to it. “Christ, I’m rambling. Does this make any sense at all?”

Adam is quiet, thoughtful for a moment, but he squeezes Arlo’s fingers to draw his eyes up again. He’s smiling, a real smile, one that Arlo is seeing more and more these days. A man could get addicted to a smile like that. “It does,” he murmurs, bringing Arlo’s hand to his mouth to brush a kiss to his palm. It’s such a simple little touch, it barely lasts a second, but it steals all the air from Arlo’s lungs.

Adam shifts, and his face scrunches a bit. “While I won’t say I am looking forward to the chaos, I am…” He looks up at Arlo again, his brows drawn, his jaw set with the same fierce determination with which he stares down trappers. “I am honored to share this with you.”

It is really not fair, the way he can just say things like that, things that would sound trite and cheesy coming from anyone else, with such naked honesty. Arlo has no choice but to kiss him. He’s rewarded by a sweet, startled noise rumbling against his mouth, but he draws back before they can get too distracted, seeing as their friends are just a room away. If Adam is pouting, Arlo’s certainly not going to be the one to tell him.

“I guess, in a way, it’s a first for the both of us, right?” he coughs, just to ease the heavy atmosphere a bit. “My first Pride in Wayhaven, and your first entirely.” He pokes Adam in the chest. “We’ll have to get you a flag. You look good in pastels.”

“Are you certain the rainbow is not too at odds with your aesthetic?” Adam teases in return.

“Goth is a state of mind,” Arlo replies archly.

They laugh quietly together, shifting again to close the distance between them. Adam turns to face Arlo more fully, their shoulders bumping in a way that is incredibly comforting in its charming awkwardness. “What is wrong with Agent Priestley’s family?” he asks, keeping his voice low so as not to draw the attention of their companions chattering in the other room.

Arlo tries to smile, but it comes off as more of a tense grimace. “Catholic,” he snorts.

Adam’s expression mirrors his so perfectly, Arlo has to clap a hand over his mouth so he doesn’t bark out a laugh. “Ah,” the vampire says primly. “I understand.”

Arlo gives up and collapses against the vampire, snickering helplessly into his neck.

[kiribakuficrecs]

hello!!! im going on a very long trip at the end of april and I'm looking for some very long fics to download to keep me entertained! i dont care what they're about as long as there's no major character death or mentions of non-con. ur blog is a godsend ilysm and you do such a good job thank you so much 🙏

hi there!! i definitely have a lot of good lengthy fics i can recommend to you!

quote love unquote by newamsterdam 

Sero nods. “It’s the chance of a lifetime, really,” he says. “We want you to date Bakugou, for the sake of his reputation with the press. Some public appearances, a few ‘candid’ photos. For at least a couple of months.”

“Bakugou sent you to ask me to date him?” Kirishima asks, baffled.

“Of course not. We, his people, are asking you to date him. He’s going to have to get on board, if he wants his career to survive. And in the bargain, Riot will get all sorts of publicity, because their lyricist will be dating one of the industry’s hottest stars. A win for everyone.”

When Kirishima Eijirou's band hits the big time, he's not prepared for his newfound fame. He's even less prepared to meet the actor he's been crushing on for years, or to start dating him as a publicity stunt. The closer Kirishima gets to Bakugou Katsuki, the more he realizes he's in over his head. But it's hard to stop, once his heart is in it.

acceptance and denial by poteto

It all goes okay when Kirishima decides to come out to his friends and it all goes wrong when decides that Bakugou is the best fake boyfriend material.

cause the darks not taking prisoners tonight by imatrisarahtops

“Are those soba noodles?” Kirishima asked.

Again Bakugou’s only reply was a grunt. He offered no further explanation—not that Kirishima honestly expected one—as though making soba noodles from scratch at half past four in the morning wasn’t at all a bizarre occurrence and made complete and total sense. For a fleeting moment, Kirishima even wondered if maybe he was the odd one here. Besides, he’d already decided it was generally not in his best interest to question these types of things with Bakugou, especially when it was something essentially harmless.

When Kirishima has a nightmare and is unable to fall back asleep, he accepts defeat and decides to study in the common area of the dorms. What he doesn't expect to find is Bakugou, also very much awake, and Kirishima can't help but think that maybe they're both having the same problems with sleeping. If he's worried, it's just because they're friends. (Right?)

the weight of your hand by kamin

That night, to the citizens, the explosions were a jolt of fear at every blast, but to the heroes and the students of UA, they were punches and swings, fierce fighting and loud strength. The explosions were the pulse of the battle, and the power of a boy that would never back down.

One after another, explosions set a chorus through the shuddering city.

And then, suddenly—the explosions stopped.

(In which Bakugou’s kidnapping goes a little differently, and just a few seconds could change so much.)

so take my hand (your life will be brighter) by multiclassmaps

When a stranger shows up at the ice rink during Bakugou's usually private training sessions, Bakugou expects to hate him. He doesn't expect to develop feelings that become increasingly difficult to deny, or for them to help each other sort through their emotional baggage. - Bakugou really didn't like Kirishima's smile. There was something about it that made his stomach hurt, something about it that made it difficult to focus. He definitely hadn't thought about that smile on his way to the ice rink that day. He definitely hadn't.

distance makes the heart grow fonder (false) by dragontrappedinhumanskin

When Bakugo and Kirishima get hit by a quirk that forces them to literally stick together or face the less then desirable consequences, how the fuck is Bakugo supposed to keep his crush hidden?! Well, turns out he never needed to.

-- “Well, this fucking sucks, how are we supposed to train?!” "Really closely?"

perihelion by tauontauoff

Bakugou was a comet, blazing out of reach. Kirishima knew he was stupidly lucky that his furious trajectory went by close enough that his fingertips got to graze the cowl of fire. It was enough.

During Christmas Class 1A and 1B spend a laid-back week learning about extreme environment hero work in the Alps. Kirishima was used to keeping part of his feelings for Bakugou hidden, and had every intention of keeping it that way, but things don't always go according to plan.

fight me by mr_todoroki

Bright red, spiky hair. Annoyingly bright smile. Clothes that radiate ‘look at me’ vibes. Neon yellow tank top with black shorts. And those were definitely crocs on his fucking feet.

Yeah, Katsuki hated this guy.

-

Bakugou gets a new roommate.

quietly by chezka

“We’ve been taking the same way to and from school for weeks,” Kirishima grinned, and then when Bakugou frowned at him he put on an affected pout, tilted his head so that he was looking at him through his thick, long lashes, “you never noticed? Am I that easy to miss?”

He could barely finish the sentence before a laugh escaped his lips, and Bakugou rolled his eyes, hit him with a shoulder a little more violently than necessary.

“You stick out like a sore thumb, broom-head,” he grumbled, promptly ignoring Kirishima's whining about his hairstyle when it started coming, “I didn’t notice ‘cause I didn’t care.”

“And now you do?”

everyone knows that cats are independent by purplepersnickety

Eijirou enjoys his job, working the graveyard shift at a 24/7 coffee shop. His daemon Riot is always there to keep him company, and he likes meeting the early-morning patrons and giving them the best possible kick-start to their day. It's been his routine for about a year now.

Then one day, a grouchy guy with a daemon in the form of a lion walks into the shop in the dead of night, and Eijirou decides to strike up a conversation with him.

punks not dead by wrunic

“So you want to use me to piss off your mom?” Kirishima summarized, raising one pierced eyebrow at Katsuki.

“Look, if you want to be all fucking judgy about it, I take cash,” Katsuki said, dropping his hand palm up on the table.

“Hey now,” Kirishima said, raising his hands in surrender, “I didn’t say I wasn’t doing it. I’m always down for a little chaos.” He flashed a grin, showing off his ridiculous shark teeth.

“Good,” Katsuki said. “We start tomorrow."

sent, delivered, read, loved by kiribakuhappiness

Kirishima E. [6.49pm]: ur okay for such an angry dude bakugou! :)

Bakugou K. [7.12pm]: FUCK YOU!

Kirishima E. [7.14pm]: haha! :D ttyl!

Bakugou K. [7.48pm]: FUCKING WHAT DO THOSE DUMB LETTERS MEAN???

Bakugou K. [7.52pm]: I JUST LOOKED IT UP DONT FUCKING TALK TO ME LATER!

Bakugou K. [7.52pm]: STOP TXTING ME!!!

- OR -

Bakugou's and Kirishima's relationship develops from classmates to friends to more, as told through their text conversations.

flicker by mr_todoroki

He was starting to feel depressed. Life was so uninteresting. It was so mundane and forgettable. He had no one to hang out with besides Kota, his family didn’t even live in the city.

He grew his hair out as some sort of rebellion, some sort of stand to make his life the slightest bit more interesting. But he could already feel himself giving in to the pressure of cutting it. He needed to work to live. Without a job, he’d truly have nothing.

OR

Kirishima never applied to UA, therefore never became a hero.

let’s get down to business by kjelfalconer

Katsuki Bakugou, one of the brightest rising stars on wall street, is in need of a new personal assistant. Again. Could Eijirou Kirishima finally be the one to last more than two months?

Katsuki's long suffering HR department sure hope so.

something about us by bigstupidjellyfish

nothing like being in highschool and having no idea how to deal with emotions

fireproof by inkbender

Four years after a classmate nobody seems to remember is kidnapped by the League of Villains, Kirishima drags an amnesiac hobo he found washed up on the beach into his apartment, attempts to teach him how to adult (with varying degrees of success), and discovers along the way that the line between heroism and villainy is quite fine indeed. Plot-divergent after episode 45, the Forest Training Camp arc.

blood riot by magicallee (alternatively)

Kirishima from a universe with no quirks is mind-swapped with an alternate universe version of himself where there are superpowers.

And in that universe he’s a super villain.

And Bakugou is the superhero who caught Evil-Kirishima and put him in prison.

blindside by drowclericpelor

“You’re the first guy friend I’ve had that I can just like, be friends with. You’re either the most unthirstiest boy ever...” Camie shrugged and made another wobbly illusion appear between her hands. It looked like a sparkly rainbow with the word ‘friendship’ beneath it, accompanied by what Bakugou assumed was supposed to be a twinkling sound effect, but it had a tinny quality to it and sounded far away. “...or I just ain’t got the kinda straw you like to ssssip.”

Carefully, Bakugou considered the strange turn this conversation had taken.

He had never been asked, point blank, if he was gay before. And he honestly had never thought about how he would respond. Lying about himself didn’t sit right with him. But he’d always wanted to wait until he was the number one hero - when he stood above everyone else - before coming out. Though he’d had times when he’d thought about doing it before then and had almost gone through with it once. But being the number one hero came first. It wouldn’t matter what people would say about it then as long as he’d risen to the top.

Bakugou knew his lack of a response would give Camie all the answers she needed.

flour power by wingsonghalo

“I’m telling you now, Shitty Hair,” the blonde growled, “I am not gonna play house with you. We will cart this stupid flour around for a week like the assignment says. But some of our idiot classmates are naming the thing and setting up ‘playdates’ and dressing it and I am not doing anything that stupid. Got it?”

Kirishima and Bakugou are paired up to take care of a flour sack for a week. It would be so simple, except nothing with Bakugou is ever simple. Also Kirishima might be kinda sorta completely head over heels for him.

sunchaser by chonideno

that feeling when you suddenly want to jump off a cliff for no reason but instead of a cliff it’s your best friend and instead of jumping it’s growing feelings out of nowhere

or how Bakugou has to try really hard not to throw everything to the wind, and Kirishima doesn't help

i also have a tag specifically for fics that reach somewhere between 30k-70k words long if you wanted to check that out as well! i hope you enjoy the fics here and that i was able to help, ily enjoy your trip!!! :D 

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD 11x06: On the Inside - Analysis

Okay, how did everyone like this episode? I loved it! It might be my favorite episode of the season so far. Partly because of all the horror movie vibes and jump scares. I thought that was delightful. And Lauren Ridloff did an amazing job. But more than that, it's because of all the symbolism and what I think this represents. Seriously, I think I might have like fifty-six theories come out of this one episode, LOL. Not brand-new theories, but just connecting symbols in a way I haven't before. For now, let's talk about the broad arcs here and what they mean.

***As always, spoilers abound below for 11x06. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!***

Basically, we’re following two storylines in this episode. The first is Connie and Virgil. The second is Daryl, Leah, and the Reapers. I suppose you could call Kelly and Carol looking for Connie a third story line, but given that they're searching for Connie, it's really just a subplot of Connie's arc.

Connie and Virgil:

There are a lot of people saying that they might be setting Connie and Virgil up as romantic partners. I think that's probably the case, for a lot of reasons. They were very purposely put together in this house. After the episode, Angela Kang talked about how Virgil basically had to suppress part of his heart in order to get through the death of his family. That's why he seemed a little bit villainous when we first met him with Michonne.

Actually, we're seeing a major theme here that we've seen with other characters. Near the end of the episode, Virgil tells Connie, "I lost myself for a long time." It's very reminiscent of what Michonne said to Carl in 4x14. It's a theme we see where the character goes through some kind of trauma, and the aftermath of that trauma is very much a PTSD thing. They lose themselves to insanity for short time, but then someone is able to bring them back. We see this with many characters over the years. And this is something they're doing with Virgil. So this was Virgil kind of coming back to reality. Michonne gave him the chance to come back first, but he also says that her giving him that second chance led him to Connie and he sees that as Providence.

So basically, A.K. is saying that Virgil lost a big chunk of his heart when his family died, but he's rediscovering it here with Connie. And that's very important. I can't imagine them saying that, or him having this kind of arc, if there isn’t going to be a romance between them. Which, for the record, I think is cute. I totally ship it. (Totally objective over here. As always, of course. ;-))

But the big question is, what does this foreshadow? I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.

I think this is a foreshadow of Beth and Daryl. I'm sure you're shocked to your toenails. I'll give you a moment to recover. Good? Okay.

A lot of us got Alone vibes from this episode. Just the two of them in house together. The undercurrent of possible romance between them. There's even a hug at one point.

Actually, the white, plantation style house with the white pillars immediately struck a cord with me. Back when they were filming the missing scenes from S5, they filmed in a house just like this one. it wasn’t the “white cabin” as we always refer to the house Emily was seen going into. But it was next door to that one and had a sign up about not mowing the lawn because it would be used for filming. 

I don’t know if this is actually the same house, but I’m willing to bet that this will end up having parallels to something we see when we finally get those missing scenes.

Once they get inside the house, we see Connie holding the door shut against walkers. It's very reminiscent of Daryl doing that at the funeral home in Alone.

The thing is, I don't even think callbacks to Alone are the big cheese. (For the record, we also saw them around Kelly, but I'll get to that in a minute.)

Because more than being a call back, this is a foreshadow. It represents some time in the future when Beth and Daryl will be together inside the CRM and trying to escape. Remember that “No Exit” sign in Beth’s cell?

We have a situation here where Connie and Virgil are trying to get out and there's literally no exit. All the doors are locked, they’re being trapped everywhere they go, they get separated. Even when Connie is in the wall, looking at Virgil, she wants to warn him of things, but she has no way to get into the room with him. There's literally no exit for her.

There are so many parallels to Beth and Daryl.

They emphasize the fact that Connie is lost. After getting out of the cave and walking around for walkers for so long, she clearly lost her bearings and doesn't know where she is or which way to go to get to Alexandria. It puts me in mind of the scene from 6x10, where Carl was talking to Judith and said if she was ever LOST and needed to find her way HOME, she should use the North Star. This is another way in which Connie is being paralleled to Beth. She's lost and needs to find her way home.

Virgil talks about wanting to get Connie HOME. To get her back to her family (which just so happens to be her sister). Of course there's the undercurrent of romance.

I also couldn't help but notice outlets throughout the episode. This house is very dilapidated and dirty. There's grime and rust and darkness everywhere. But we can very clearly see the outlets on the walls, as though they’re brand-new. I believe that's to draw our attention to them. Outlets suggest power, which suggests lamps or batteries.

Remember how I said that the whole battery theory is about resources and that it indicates the CRM? This is why I think this house represents the CRM. And I'm not at all saying that at some point, we’ll see Beth and Daryl running through a house together, as Connie and Virgil do here, trying to escape some threat. I think this represents a much bigger arc of them being inside the CRM and trying to get out. It will probably span a lot of episodes, maybe even multiple seasons.

At one point, we see a red coda pendant hanging in the window behind Virgil. Remember that, via the Matrix theory, red represents the outside world that TF is currently unaware of, and of course Coda suggests Beth. That’s a big part of the evidence for this template being a foreshadow of Beth and Daryl.

I’ll go over all the background details tomorrow, but pretty much every detail I found suggests what I've laid out here. I'm going to do completely separate post on the awake/asleep theme as well as the mailbox theme. That one stemmed from last week's episode (11x05), but I haven't gotten a chance to post it yet. And of course we saw the mailbox feature prominently in this episode as well.

We also have a situation where Virgil basically tells Connie to go on without him and that it’s very important to him that she gets home. And then he gets stabbed, and she not only saves him, but pulls him out of the house. We’ve always said that we think there will be a time when Beth will save Daryl. I think this is a foreshadow of it.

I think we'll have a situation (again, much bigger than what we see here in the single episode) where Daryl will be willing to sacrifice himself, his life, to get Beth back to Maggie. Of course she's not going to allow him to do that, but he'll probably be hurt very badly.

(And for the record, I think we've seen foreshadows of this and other arcs. Daryl getting hurt when fighting Alpha was probably a foreshadow of the same thing. I'm sure we could identify others.) I think he will be hurt and Beth will save him, and that will happen as they’re figuring out how to get out of the CRM.

To touch on Kelly’s side of things, we see her find a camp that Virgil and Connie had previously been at. She finds Connie’s stuff there, and the orange backpack that Virgil must have left behind. The thing that jumped out at me here is that, in the foreground, we saw ropes around the camp with cans attached as an alert system.

That was featured very prominently in Alone, both because Daryl set up something like that at the funeral home and also because the other half of that episode was about Maggie/Sasha/Bob and they did the same thing in their camp. So again, major callbacks to Alone, and to what this is probably foreshadowing.

But my favorite thing about this was connections that I made. Things that kind of confirm events we’ve suspected in 4B, but have never been able to prove. Let me explain.

First, there’s the reunion between Connie and Kelly. And this really jumped out at me. Not only because it's two sisters reuniting, but because of the way it was shown.

When approaching Connie, Kelly is crying and says, "I'm sorry." And that's out of character or out of place in any way. She’s sorry that for what happened to Connie and that it took them so long to find her. All that is completely understandable. But at the same time, Kelly has no reason to feel bad about what happened to Connie. It wasn't her fault, and she's been a dutiful sister looking for her intensively ever since.

But I think the “I'm sorry” will make a lot more sense if we hear Maggie saying it to Beth, given everything that's happened, and especially what happened in S5. I mean, Beth did get left behind.

The other thing is that when they see each other and then hug, the background music almost sounds angelic, like a choir. I mean, they really wanted this to be a big deal, the reunion between these two sisters. And not that the Kelly and Connie's reunion isn't a big deal. It's very sweet, but I feel like this a foreshadow something much bigger. And what other reunion between sisters could qualify for something like that except Maggie and Beth, who didn't get the reunion in season five?

We’ve always said that Connie was a proxy for Beth, and that the cave-in, followed by her being missing was a parallel to Beth’s arc. So, this arc ending in Connie finding someone she’ll eventually have a romance with and then finding her sister is makes me very hopeful for what we'll see when Beth returns.

I have to say that this is kind of a relief to me. Because of Daryl's line back in Still about how, "you ain't never going to see Maggie again," I’ve gone back and forth about whether Beth and Maggie will actually get a reunion. Yes, there are plenty of ways to explain away that line, and I don't disagree with any of them. But I’ve still been really back-and-forth about whether this is going to happen. After seeing Connie and Kelly really reunite, I have no doubt that eventually will see a Beth/Maggie reunion. Yay!

Next, is the fact that Virgil and Connie talk about how the people living in this house lured them into a trap.

This is talked about very much anymore, but was always but what happened in Alone was always so wonky to me. I know it was supposed to be, but the whole thing felt like it was orchestrated somehow. I mean, what happened to the dog? We hear barking, but we didn't actually see the dog again, because when Daryl open the door all the walkers were on the porch. But how did that many walkers get up to the porch without them hearing it?

When Beth and Daryl sat in the kitchen staring at each other, they heard the cans rattle and then at the dog bark. I think that the idea was that Daryl thought it was the dog moving the cans and that's why he was going to open the door and get it to come in. He didn't understand that there were walkers there. But why didn't they hear the walkers? More importantly, why would that many walkers go up to the door if they couldn't see any humans on the inside? It's completely weird behavior for walkers. And then when Beth leaves the house, she just happens to be picked up by a car?

Like I said, I just always felt like the whole thing was really orchestrated, but even at Grady, we were never told that it was. Gorman suggested to Beth that they happened upon her accidentally. Of course, Gorman is the opposite of trustworthy, but we also understand better now the way that these episodes are often approached. We sometimes see things from one character's point of view over another. Clearly, Slabtown was seen from Beth’s point of view, so if she couldn't see the truth about what happened, that's why we couldn’t neither.

My point is, in this episode, Virgil says that he and Connie were herded there like prey. These feral people apparently went to the camp (Kelly says the left in a hurry and something was very wrong, and I think she's right. Given that Virgil and Connie left all their stuff behind; Connie would not have left behind her slingshot on purpose). Which means the creatures came to their camp, scared them away, chase them toward the house, herding them that way, in order to eat them.

Now, I'm not saying that's specifically what happened in Alone, but I think it kind of proves that what happened was an orchestrated trap that was set up to capture Beth.

And we do get the sense from what Noah told her that Grady purposely left the strong behind and took the weak. So, I'm not sure if Beth and Daryl were actually herded toward the funeral home. From what we saw, it really was more like they happened upon it. But I'm wondering if once there, someone observed them, or observed them approaching, and decided that they would be optimal targets. Given that Beth was injured (which they would have known if they saw Daryl giving her the piggy back) obviously it would always be her that was taken, while Daryl—obviously the more survival-oriented of the two—would be left behind.

And I love this connection because it proves (as far as we can prove theories 😉) that there are things they haven’t shown us, not just in S5 with the missing 17 days, but reaching all the way back to S4.

The other thing that's just kind of cool to consider is that, as I said before, the other half of the episode was about Maggie/Sasha/Bob, right? There are a lot of things that their sequence foreshadows as well. And in the episode, Maggie is specifically looking for Glenn, not Beth. However, given that this episode with Connie and Virgil also featured Kelly, Connie’s sister, looking for her, it just doesn't seem like it could possibly be a coincidence that the other half of Alone was Maggie searching for someone. What I’m saying is that both Alone and this episode, 11x06, foreshadow what will happen when Maggie and Beth reunite. I'm sure I could go into the details of Alone find a lot of connections, but I don't have time to do that right now. Maybe during the hiatus. Maybe. ;-).

Daryl and Leah:

Okay, I guess we need to talk about Daryl and Leah’s part of this episode as well. I don't have as much say about the symbolism for them. This is really more about where this is going.

Daryl tortures Frost, which I'm sure some people are going to have a problem with. But A.K. said that this is really about Daryl wanting to stay on the inside with the Reapers. As I said after ep 4, Frost is smart and he understands what Daryl is doing. A.K. said he did exactly what Daryl wanted to do him to do here. Daryl wanted him to give them a basic location but not an exact one. In other words, to tell them the neighborhood but not the exact house. And that's exactly what Frost did. Angela says Daryl did this because he was trying to save Frost’s life. Unfortunately, by the end of the episode, we see that didn't work out so well. But he was attempting to save him.

You have to watch the details closely to pick this up, but the first house that Daryl, Leah, and Carver go to is not the house Maggie is in. That's why Daryl says they should stick around and look around for things, because he knew Maggie wasn't there and wanted to give her time to escape. But the second house we see them go into is where Maggie and co are hiding under the floorboards.

At first, it seems to be empty, but when Daryl comes downstairs, he sees the place where they might be hiding and slides the rug over it. In the end, Carver sees it and checks, but Maggie and the others have already made their escape.

I had to stop and think about that for a minute. Since Beth wore yellow and we think yellow equals life and escape, I would have thought the yellow house would be where Maggie and the others were hiding and then escaped from. That would've made more logical sense. But actually, the yellow house was a decoy.

It gave me a whole new insight into the meaning behind the color yellow in TWD universe.

I still think yellow represents escape, among other things. But it also represents looking for someone in the wrong place. Even if you think about Rick’s mini death fake out in 7x12, there was probably only 12 feet between where Michonne thought he was (right side of the screen being eaten by walkers) and where he actually was (left side of the screen coming out of the yellow carnival car) but still, she was looking for him in the wrong place and assumed he was dead because of it.

I also thought of the Glenn situation in S4. Maggie looked for him on the school bus (yellow). And in both cases, it was because that’s where Rick/Glenn were last seen, but what was UNSEEN was how they ESCAPED. So, TF was looking for them in the wrong place.

And I’m sure something similar will happen with Beth during the missing 17 days. It doesn’t really change what we believe happened with Beth, but it makes me want to re-examine every yellow reference we’ve ever seen on the show, which is probably hundreds by now, lol.

At one point, Carver is coming down the stairs and Daryl runs over to him and starts talking really fast. He says that they (Maggie’s group) will not to come back here, that it wouldn’t be smart, etc. The first time I watched it, I remember thinking that Daryl was being really obvious. It made him seem nervous and like he was hiding something. And he probably was somewhat nervous. The reason he ran over Carver right then, is because he didn't want Carver to see the hiding place where Maggie and the others were (because Daryl himself noticed it when he was coming down the stairs).

But the other thing to remember is that Daryl knows Maggie and the others are down there. He was using this to give them information. He talks about how the Reapers have walls and weapons, twenty people inside their town, etc. That is also him getting Maggie information so she would know what they're up against. It was actually very smart on his part, even if it kind of tipped Carver off.

By the end, they returned to Pope and find that Frost is dead. I thought it was super weird and creepy that Pope started laughing when Carver said they had lost Maggie's group. That's very out of character for him. Angela Kang said Pope was purposely playing mind games to make Daryl and Leah paranoid, but even so. That laugh was just maniacal.

So, not sure exactly where this is going, or what Pope's plans are. He kind of suggests that maybe Frost turned on Daryl and sold him out before he died. I doubt that's true, but Pope also strikes me as the kind of guy who, if he's decided Daryl is an enemy, doesn't actually need proof of it. So, we'll just have to see where this goes.

Okay, that's it for today. I'll do details tomorrow. How did you all like the episode?

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