#unless it's been shown onscreen

[thatgirl4815]

Why would he refer to Ray as his 25th hour then if they've been together only once? And the way he mentioned collecting rent from Ray for staying over so often. I don't think Ray comes over to chastely sleep beside Sand in bed. They've definitely been hooking up on the regular ever since that first night

The main reason I've been hesitant is because of everything we've been shown since this scene--

In Ep 4, we saw them go to the record store together and presumably later that night, Ray sat alone in his bathtub contemplating things. The only other time it's been specifically alluded to that they could've hooked up is here--

The more I think about it, the more I interpret their expressions here to mean that they definitely intended something to happen when they got back to Sand's place. So maybe it wasn't just the once. The part at the beginning of Ep5 certainly seems like a bit of a time lapse (with Sand repeatedly waking up, etc.), so maybe we're meant to interpret it like this "phase" of Ray and Sand's relationship (proceeding Ep4) has been going on for a few weeks? In which case, them hooking up wouldn't be out of the question.

About the part where Sand mentions paying rent...he says, "More often than this I'm going to start making you pay rent" which doesn't necessarily signify that Ray has been over multiple times beyond the two times we've seen him stay over there, but it also doesn't eliminate the possibility? I think it's intentionally pretty vague.

Of course, it's very possible that they have been hooking up this whole time. With things like this, I generally focus on what's shown explicitly in the show, unless there's a very specific indication of what has gone on beyond the scenes (like for BostonNick, given their conversations about going at it multiple times).

[macfrog]

epilogue sex on fire

once more for old time's sake, hm?

pairing: ceo!joel x fem!reader

summary: guess who's getting married - and you're all invited.

warnings: age gap, alcohol consumption, oral (f receiving), unprotected piv, creampie, daddy kink, praise kink, a weird bus metaphor. idk where it came from. but it works. enjoy!

word count: 6.9k

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It passes in the blink of an eye.

Letting go of your mom’s hand at the school gates; forgetting when you next reached for it. Dancing around a laptop with an acceptance email from your first-choice college onscreen. Walking into a new job with a broken heart; walking out whole again.

All in the blink of an eye.

Joel says it too, as he scrolls through floorplans.

“…Used to be Tommy’s room, way back when,” he swipes to the next screenshot, “I thought it’d look good if we – we took down this wall, and – you see?”

You nod, twisting the hem of your T-shirt around your finger, and curl a little closer into his chest.

He still smells like the fresh coconut bodywash he stole from your bag. The sweet scent that he lathered up and let spill down your tummy, foamy bubbles slipping over your hips.

Under the rainfall shower, he massaged all the pain away. The sweet ache of three hours spent rolling around the bed of your bridal suite, letting him hold you and kiss you and fill you in ways only he has ever done.

You can still feel the heat of him between your legs. You miss him there.

“I see,” you whisper, tucking in beneath his chin.

Joel kisses your head. “You okay? You’re quiet, baby.”

“Just listening,” you reply, and he locks his phone.

“Maybe that’s enough Maple talk for the night, hm? We oughta be relaxing, getting ready for tomorrow.”

“No,” you turn in his grasp, “I wanna see what you’re doing with it. I think it’ll look good, Joel. Did you get the home report yet?”

He slides his phone onto the nightstand and wraps his arms around you. “Not yet. Soon as the work’s done.”

“It’ll look brand new. Totally different.”

“Mhm,” he smiles, “Sure will.”

You lay down on his chest, trimmed hair tickling your cheek. His heartbeat is familiar against your ear. It still skips a beat, even four years in. Still quickens anytime your hand falls over it.

“Are you ready to let go of the place?”

Joel takes a deep breath. “I guess I have to be,” he says, though the words tremble in his throat. It’s not often you catch him feeling uncertain. “Mom’s gone, Tommy said he don’t want it. Unless we pack up ‘n move outta the city, place would just sit there – empty.”

“Hm. Too many memories to let it go to waste.”

“Well, they ain’t all good ones,” he admits, drawing circles on your shoulder.

You thought, that afternoon in your bedroom, that he’d shown you his whole hand. Thought you knew every suit, every card he held. All the things that made Joel who he was – perfectly polished.

The cars, the property, the jet. The company – Jesus, there ain’t a thing he seemed more natural at, than running a multimillion-dollar business. He made it look so goddamn easy.

It used to drive you insane – how together he was. The cracks you could barely see, he’d glued them so perfectly. The ease with which he could hold himself in one hand, and hold you in the other. Just take it all on his shoulders like it weighed nothing.

For every card of yours that was turned, though, Joel revealed another of his.

Maple hadn’t always been the postcard it so looked. White walls, red mailbox. Flowerbeds and slamming doors; two boys’ bikes and one empty dining chair. He told you things with a flash in his eye – and you were never sure whether it was the fire of fury or the salt of sadness.

Joel isn’t so seamless after all. He’s a mosaic of everything that has ever happened to him. Joy and pain, everything in between. A shattered collection of shards, shimmering in the sunlight.

He’s beautiful. For all the brokenness, all the stitched skin – he’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

He makes you feel beautiful, too.

“Well,” you say, “Maple raised you, so – I love it.”

He looks down at you like you’re brand new. Like it’s the first time he’s ever laid eyes on you.

Running his business looks natural, sure – but loving you comes as easily to Joel as breathing.

“Alright, pretty girl,” he says. “Bedtime.”

You groan into his chest, nose flat against the threads of silver. “Don’t wanna go to bed, Daddy,” you mumble.

He cups your head. “You’re nervous, huh?”

You nod between his pecs, and Joel laughs.

All this time, all the moments of doubt you’ve squashed with the toe of your shoe – and they still manage to creep back in. The corners of your vision still blur, the hairs on the back of your neck stand straight. The scars have long closed, but the skin still remembers.

“You know I’m gonna be there, right?” he says. “The whole time. I’m kind of the one you’re marrying.”

“Oh,” you tilt your head, “So that’s who you are.”

He lifts his hands, mirrors your stupid smirk. “Pleased to meet you.”

“What if we don’t see each other? I mean – before…”

“We will,” he promises. “I’ll getcha at the bottom of the stairs.”

“’s gonna be a pretty hectic day, Joel. We might not have time –”

His chin lifts. His lips part, the way they do when he’s about to chew up your panicked gibbering. He takes a breath and, straight as the line of his brow, repeats himself.

“I will get you at the bottom of the stairs. Okay?”

Your frown melts. Okay, you mouth, and he pinches your nose.

“I love you. Now, sleep.”

He flicks the light off.

Four years. Four years passed in the blink of an eye.

Twelve hours after your leaving party, you were strolling through Lavender Oaks, hand in hand. Nothing to hide anymore, no one to convince – not even yourself. You loved him then, whether you really believed it or not. Whether you had the courage to look it straight in the face, or not.

You had loved him for a while, really. It was the last card you had to deal. And Joel knew, long before you’d admitted it to yourself. He’s always been the patient one, hasn’t he?

That night, then, deep in the belly of last summer. Some leafy, twinkling rooftop garden of a restaurant that you can’t even remember the name of, because all you remember is him. Loose collar, long day. Drinks menu in one hand, the other cradling yours.

He was tired, and you knew it. He’d hardly stopped since seven a.m., working all through lunch and straight to eight – but he’d promised you dinner that week. It was already Thursday, and he had a conference or a company retreat or whatever it was that weekend.

You can’t remember. All you remember is his face, the second you said –

When are you going to ask me to marry you?

Joel faltered for all of three seconds – though if he’d had a mouthful of wine, he’d probably have choked on it.

Tomorrow, he said. Yesterday. Now. Marry me.

You laughed. I’m serious. I want you to ask me.

Really? His smirk faded into something more earnest. He looked like a boy, the way his eyebrows lifted and his lip trembled. A boy who believed in magic. The candlelight flickered across his face, suddenly wide awake and glowing with life. Would you say yes?

Mhm. And I wouldn’t break it off two days later, neither.

Lucky me, he mused. He paused, then added, You know we don’t have to, right? I’m happy, baby. I’m happier than I ever thought… his voice wavered and he gulped, I’d be happy the rest of my life, the way we are.

Joel, you lifted his knuckles to your lips, I want to be your wife. I want you to be my husband. Just – just ask me. I’ll say yes.

He beamed back at you like some lovestruck fool. You suppose he was; suppose he had been since the moment he first saw you. A goner as soon as he opened that office door, as soon as he felt the way your hand fit so perfectly in his.

I love you, he said – for what felt like the millionth time. Somehow, he made it mean more each time.

I know, you replied, leaning over the table to kiss him. I love you, too.

In the blink of an eye, your life changed from lonely blue mornings to bright golden dawns. From two boxes of stuff and a Swiss cheese plant, to an entire office with your name on the door.

You collected stripe after stripe, took leap after stride; chased every promotion, every chance, every speck of something over the horizon. Life got busy, you worked your ass off – but for the first time ever, you felt like you were becoming something. Becoming someone.

Joel sat up through all your late nights at the kitchen table. He poured coffee after coffee, carried you to bed when you couldn’t stare at the laptop any longer. He carefully consoled and aptly controlled every stress-induced breakdown you ever had.

He bought you a peace lily to keep your monstera company. He held your hand at every work event you had. He promised you could do it, and slowly, surely, you realized he was right.

So when you told him you were ready – and only then – Joel traded that little gumball ring for a new one.

A real one.

It happened in Paris. He took you back to that same glitzy restaurant – the delicate wine and rich steak, the chandeliers and renaissance ceilings. He echoed every word of French you spoke in a little Austin accent; played footsie under the table and flirted like it was your first date.

He was nervous. Indestructible as he seems, he still has his tells. He played with your hands the whole night, asked if you were okay every second sip of his drink.

Yeah, you said, I’m good. You?

Yep. Yeah. Good.

Your hands are shaking.

He smirked. I’m on a date with a real pretty girl.

He could barely wait for the elevator to reach the suite. He kept closing in on you, pressing words into your neck and playing with the straps of your dress. I love you, I love you, I love you, he said, gripping your waist.

I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.

Everything sparkling – the champagne, the stars, the thousand and one candles he had lining the balcony. Everything golden – the tower, the ring, the feeling flooding through your chest. And in a shaking voice, on a shaking knee, with shaking hands you had to cup as he spoke, he asked you.

Easiest yes ever.

He’s already asleep. Head tipped back, snoring to the ceiling. He looks so cute that it makes you giggle.

“’night, baby,” you lull, and cuddle into his chest.

Joel’s alarm splits the morning at seven.

He reaches over to silence it, groans into his palm, and rubs his eyes open. “Mornin’, angel,” he sighs – same as always. The same two words that kick off damn near every single day since you got together.

“Morning,” you reply, and hug him tighter.

You watch as he comes to life. Stirring beneath you, heart fluttering against yours, skin still warm and sleepy. You’ve been awake for the last hour just watching him – fingers trailing the valleys of his collarbones, nose nuzzling into the rugged hinge of his jaw.

Sometimes you wonder if it’ll ever fade – the rush you feel when you see him. The way the world tinges pink, mutes for a moment or two – and Joel is the only thing in any of your senses.

He lifts his arms in a loud stretch, biceps popping. He sucks in a deep breath. “We should do something today.”

You scoff. “Like what?”

His lips turn. I dunno. “Make some lifelong vows, maybe.”

“Sounds boring,” you huff, pushing yourself up. You roll from his grasp and pad over to the bathroom. “Why don’t we grab lunch instead?”

“Boring?” Joel scoffs. He follows you to the sink and curves around you in a bear hug. “Spent over a hundred grand on this thing, Ms. Miller. You telling me we wasted our money?”

His hands sneak under the material of your tee, lifting it over your bare hips. There’s a weight building against the small of your back – another thing that kicks off nearly every single day. It sits heavy, twitching when you reach for your toothbrush and your ass ruts against him.

Joel hisses. “Goddamn, darlin’,” he grabs your hips and steadies you, “Easy on me, now.”

“I’m not the one groping.” You spin in his arms, toothbrush between your molars.

“Can’t help it –” he kisses your neck, “– when you look –” the other side, “– so sweet –” he lowers with a tiny groan, “– ‘n you taste –” he places a long, damp kiss to your tummy, “– even better.”

You squirm in his grasp. “Joel, we don’t have time for –”

“Sure we do,” he murmurs, dragging his tongue to your slit. “It’s us they’re waitin’ for.”

You drop your brush into the sink with a gasp. “Tommy’s gonna be here any second.

His eyes flash up to yours. “Who?”

He scoops your ass and pulls your thighs over his shoulder. Deft with it, a body he knows as well as his own by this point. A body he loves even more.

You open up for him like he never left. Still warm and wet from last night, still coming down from each high he took you to. Sometimes it feels like this is all you do. Sometimes, you wonder if there’s ever a time you feel more you, than when you’re wrapped around some part of him.

Joel’s voice reverberates through your body. He groans as he licks, nips and sucks between your legs, slowly easing you off the counter and onto his mouth.

You reach for his hair. The salt and pepper streaks, the bedhead only you ever get to see before he’s washed and groomed into that perfect shape of himself. A carefully carved shape, ruggedly handsome but intentional.

He’s more relaxed this way. Your way. Before the world seeps into him, before the suit and tie and hundred-dollar cologne. When only his sun has seen him, stirred him, swept her fingers across his broad chest and whispered sweet nothings in his ear.

Heat is pooling in your stomach, flooding through your veins. It’s cracking open your chest, drawing breath from your lungs. You grip the edge of the counter, back arching, hips rutting against Joel’s tongue – and you come.

He doesn’t miss a beat. Doesn’t miss a drop. He laps every second of it up, every pulse of your cunt, slowing only when you crumple against the mirror and sigh.

Your fingers swirl around his hair. Your body feels heavy with pleasure. The shock is still looping around your bones.

Joel kisses the inside of your thigh and stands, crossing his arms at your spine.

“I love you,” you hum, licking yourself from his lips.

He smiles. A dreamy, golden thing. Still just him and the sun. “Love you, too.”

This morning, of all mornings, might be cutting it fine. They’ve already started setting up downstairs. Twenty tables, one hundred and fifty chairs, one thousand roses, forty bottles of champagne, three grand behind the bar.

The last thing you need on the day of all days is for the bride and groom to be late.

Still. He’s rock solid and right there, throbbing against your tummy.

You slip your hand around him and squeeze, massaging his tip with your thumb.

Joel’s jaw ticks. He feigns offense. “Baby, we don’t have time,” he says, eyes on his cock as you guide him south.

“Shut up,” you breathe, “Shut up and fuck me.”

“Ain’t saying no to that,” he replies, and his hips meet yours.

You groan in harmony, wrapping closer together. Joel finds a quick pace, body snapping into yours, holding you strong and steady in his arms.

“Jesus,” he pants, “Three times last night wasn’t enough for you, huh?”

“F-feels like it wasn’t enough for you, either.”

He laughs. “Forever wouldn’t be long enough in this little cunt, sweet girl. She’s too good to me. Loves her daddy, don’t she?”

You follow his gaze down, where his thick cock drags between your legs. Soaked with you, slick and shining with each thrust of his hips. Deeper and deeper, touching a part of you only he’s ever been able to reach. Pulling noises from your throat only he has ever been able to pull.

Joel rolls his forehead against yours and lifts your eyes to his, a messy kiss to your lips. “Like it when you watch,” he whispers. “You see how pretty she looks?”

“Mhm,” you hook an arm around his neck, “Feel so pretty, Daddy.”

“My beautiful girl.” His lips close around yours again, tongue hot and heady in your mouth. His pace stammers when you moan against him. He curses, hips jolting.

He’s close. All too close.

He won’t come before you. Not before he’s drawn another from your body, felt every pulse of your pussy around him. Not before he’s watched you fall apart; felt you collapse into his arms with it.

He slips out, kissing your temple to shush your petulant whine. “’s okay,” he folds your legs to your chest, “I gotcha. I’m here.”

Over his shoulder, the sun lights your reflection in the shower glass. His toned back, the swells of muscle across his shoulder. Hiding the shape of you from the morning – his moaning mess of a girl, gripping onto him and screaming into his chest.

She sobs his name and you taste it on your tongue. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. Each one louder than the last, each one sorer.

The window is cracked open. Anyone might be walking under it.

And you like it, don’t you?

The chance that someone might hear. Might know exactly what Joel’s in here doing to you. Ruining you for anyone else, like he’s done a million times over.

It’s as though he lulls you into it. Like waves, starting in the pit of your belly and rolling outward. Heavier and deeper and sweeter, until your orgasm crashes over you in bursts of warmth.

Your arm tightens around Joel’s neck, brows knitting when you reach your peak. You keep your eyes locked on his, and he mirrors your expression.

“Oh, good girl, honey,” he rasps, pausing when his own high overcomes him. He twitches, little bursts of heat in your cunt before flooding the entire thing. He holds your hips flush against his until his cock stills and breath fills his lungs.

He pulls you against his chest and sits you back on the counter. If there’s one thing better than being fucked by him, it’s the comedown. The aftercare. The kissing, the fixing you back into shape.

Your pussy flutters around him. Your ear against his chest, you feel your heart beating in time with his.

Joel cups your head and dots kisses down to your shoulder. He makes to pull out, and you fuss.

“Stay,” you whimper, tugging on his arm.

He smiles. “Oh, baby, wish I could,” he squeezes your waist, “but I heard Tommy knockin’ on the door five minutes ago.”

He strolls back into the bedroom, massaging a knot out of his shoulder.

You sit, stunned, leaking all over the counter, before rushing through at his heels. “Asshole!” you hiss.

He chuckles as he pulls a hoodie over his head. “Couldn’t leave my lady unsatisfied, could I?”

You throw yourself into a pair of his pajama bottoms. “I think she’d have been fine with it, given your fucking brother is right outside.”

He swings the door wide open. You curl around one of his arms.

Tommy leans against the opposite wall, picking at his nails. He straightens, scratches his beard, and smacks his lips.

“Told you you’d sleep in, brother.”

Joel’s chin lifts. He nods, amused. “You did tell me that, yeah.”

You want to slap him for how cocky he definitely feels. His little brother is none the wiser.

The denim-donned Miller steps over the threshold and reaches for you, a bristly kiss to your cheek. “Mornin’, sweetheart. How you feelin’?”

“Good,” you lie.

“Nervous,” Joel corrects, cocking an eyebrow.

Tommy laughs. “Talk to Maria. She’ll calm you right down. She felt the exact same on our day.”

Their day. Almost ten years ago, back when you and Joel were strangers – and he and Tommy were as good as.

Credit to him, he put up with the pestering from both sides – that is, you and his mom – for six months, at the start of your relationship. Slowly – painfully slowly – he began to entertain the conversation. Never gonna happens turned into if it ever did happens.

He learned to unlock his jaw, to make eye contact with his mom when she talked about Tommy. He asked questions he hadn’t asked in years. He learned where he and his wife lived, what they named their son.

He learned that they’d had a spring wedding. He learned that Tommy’s best man was his drinking buddy. He fell quiet, and his mom knew to change the subject. On the drive home, he held your hand a little tighter than usual.

Six months which, in the end, felt less like convincing him – and more reassuring him. Yes, Tommy might ignore all of his calls. Maybe Maria might answer, and tell him in a hushed voice that now’s not really a great time, Joel.

Maybe his brother might pick up the phone himself, tell him to go straight to hell.

But he didn’t.

He didn’t hardly recognize his big brother’s voice, at first. There was a pause a few breaths too long right after Joel reintroduced himself – long enough that you thought you might’ve kicked him all the way back to square one. And then –

Well, shit, brother. How the hell have you been?

You spent your first anniversary in Jackson. You took Joel’s mom up there every year after. The brothers fit back together like they’d never been apart, like they’d never forgotten the shape of each other’s hug, the cut of the other’s good humor.

Tommy took you in like you’d been part of Joel even before either of them knew your name.

Your fiancé pulls you into a hug. He kisses your head and asks his brother to grab the elevator.

Tommy salutes as he turns down the hallway. “See you later, little sis.”

Joel holds your face and taps your nose. His lips twist in half a smile, half frown. “You gonna be okay?”

“Sure,” you sniffle. The sting of tears brims your waterline already and you blink them away. You’re hiding from him.

“I’m right downstairs if you need me,” he says, spotting you clear as day. “Just call.”

“Not supposed to see you before the ceremony.”

“Yeah,” Joel winces, “don’t think we’re supposed to have sex, either, but we broke that rule a long time ago, pretty girl.”

His hands are so big around yours. So steady, pulse loud only from your morning tryst – if at all. He plays with your fingers, straightens the ring on your third.

A sharp bell sounds. Tommy whistles for his brother. Your chest aches.

“Few more hours,” Joel says. “Few more hours and then we got the rest of forever, just you ‘n me.”

He wanders down to the elevator, turning inside. He leans against the back wall and crosses his arms. His eyes meet yours, lips curl in that trademark smirk of his, and the doors close.

The stairs are cold and breezy. The manor doors have been wide open all morning, guests filtering through, allowing the cool to cluster in each corner of the house.

It’s been a busy morning. Par for the course, so you hear. No bride gets through her wedding prep unscathed.

You’ve spent four ass-numbing hours dutifully planted in your chair, your nephew in your arms as something of a comfort blanket, eating fresh fruit and drinking cold champagne and promising not to touch your makeup after the artist is done with it.

Maria uses the light from the window opposite the top of the stairs to finish buttoning your dress. She balances on the second step, peering up at your trembling figure.

“It’ll be over before you know it,” she says.

“In the blink of an eye?” You scoff, but she nods.

“I’m serious. You won’t even feel it, and it’ll be over. You’ll be lying in bed tonight telling Joel, Maria was right.”

You clasp your fingers around your bouquet. “I’m sure he’ll love that.”

“He could stand to hear it more often.”

You giggle.

A pair of warm hands sweeps down your shoulders, turning you by the elbows. Her dress is a deep olive, spilling over her arms in waves of shining satin.

“Mom,” you breathe, leaning into her.

She smiles, pinching your cheek. “This is it,” she says simply, like it is as simple as tying your shoelaces. “Deep breaths.”

“I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of…” Your eyes scan the summery wallpaper behind her. It offers no answers. “…What if we’re not ready?”

She glowers. “Oh, yeah. Good point. I’m sure the man who flew you to Paris after two weeks is not ready to marry you. We should send everybody home.”

“It’s just a big deal,” you continue, “Lots of people downstairs.”

“No, there’s not. There’s not,” she cuts your protest, voice sharp, “There’s only one person in that room, and it’s him. And you’ve done scarier than this, right?”

Your head wobbles in weakened agreement.

She links her arm through yours. “I remember,” she leads you downstairs, “a little girl with shaking knees, boarding a bus to camp for the summer. I remember her teary face, her tiny hand waving goodbye from the back window. Ain’t this just the same?”

Your bridesmaids slip past, hoisting their silky dresses above their ankles as they tackle the winding staircase.

“Alright, well,” you sniff, “I was eleven when I went to camp, so. Significant difference.”

“I disagree,” she says. “It’s a scary thing to do when you’re eleven, and maybe getting married is a scary thing to do when you’re thirty. But you got on that bus because you wanted to, and you’re doing this because you want it, too. It’s simple, sweetheart.”

She pauses a step below. Her hands drop from yours. Her eyes are glassy, tears threatening to spoil her makeup.

“Sometimes,” she whispers, “we mistake fear for excitement. Butterflies can feel an awful lot like nerves. Sometimes, something scary can take a similar shape to something wonderful. And you never know the difference until you step on that bus.”

She takes another step down and you reach for her hands – the same way you reached for them at the school gates, twenty years ago.

“Mom –” you squeak, twisting your fingers around hers.

She kisses your knuckles. “You are going to live the happiest life with him, I just know it. You’re going to take such good care of each other.”

She skips off around the bend in the stairs, shawl flurrying. At the bottom, she crosses paths with someone, squeezes their sleeve with affection.

He sways into view slowly, carefully, like he’s trying not to spook. Hands in his pockets, suit sleek and smart. Beard trimmed as close as you’d allow, hair fixed as neat as he’d allow.

He cleans up good. He always has. If it weren’t for the handrail, you might faint into his arms.

When he speaks, his voice is light, warm, soft on your skin. Wraps around you and draws you in, safe and sound. Calls you home.

“There’s my girl.”

And you walk to him.

“Hi,” you say, voice soft, heels clicking.

Joel watches every step. His eyes loop up and down your figure, scanning from the swishing hem of your dress to the twinkle in your eyes. He’s somewhere between the widest grin you’ve ever seen on his face, and shattering into tears.

“Oh, darlin’,” he sighs as you twirl into his arms, “You are so beautiful.”

You straighten the flower in his pocket. “You’re pretty beautiful, too.”

You fall together, bodies magnetized. Joel’s chin lifts and your lips connect in a tender kiss. He wraps his arms around your waist, hands travelling north along the figure-hugging material of your dress.

“Good choice,” he mumbles into your mouth.

“Mhm,” you reply, a joyful lilt to it. “Knew it was a winner.”

You stand for a moment, swaying together. Your arms crossed around his neck, his snug around your waist. Breathing one another in, steadying each other. Souls finding the other again.

Some last-minute guests scurry through the doors over his shoulder. Their footsteps echo through the hall as they find their seats. Joel holds you all the tighter.

“You ready for this?” he asks.

You take a deep breath. “Yeah. More than I’ve ever been, my whole life.”

“We can still call it off,” he smirks, “Take off on the honeymoon, never talk to any of these assholes again.”

He laughs when you do, relief blooming on his face.

“No, Joel,” you say. Your voice feels clearer, stronger with your body against his. “I love you. I love you so much, and I…I wanna get on the bus.”

His brows pinch. He tilts his head, scoops your jaw. “You…Wh–? What, baby?”

You nod to yourself, staring at his tie. “I wanna get on the bus,” you repeat, voice barely there.

He blinks down at you. His thumb strokes your cheek. He makes to reply – some dumbfounded quip, probably – when a voice splits you apart.

“Psst! You two!”

Your mom ducks her head out into the entrance hall. She clicks her fingers. “They need you up front, Miller.”

He nods and turns back to you, bending to look you in the eye. “Catch your breath,” he says. “Just a little while longer.”

“I’m ready,” you decide. “I’m ready.”

“Alright. Then let’s get on this goddamned bus, whatever the hell that means.”

The celebration is alive with a string melody, the tinkling of glasses, and bursts of sweet laughter.

Your cheeks ache from all the smiling. Your throat is dry from all the talking. And you don’t care. You could do this for the rest of your life, if Joel would let you.

Turns out getting married is pretty fun – once you’ve done it, that is. When all that’s left is to swing between tables, chat until you run out of breath, dance until your feet hurt. Eat until you feel sick, drink until your head dizzies, weep in the bathroom with your friends then reapply your makeup and repeat.

It’s a year-long effort with only a day’s payout – but as far as days go, it’s not half bad.

In the same grand hall you said I do in three hours ago – soaring windows with drapes strung to the heavens, pale flowers arranged on every table, chandeliers glistening overhead – you search for the one missing piece.

“Have you seen my husband?”

Drew scoffs as he approaches your spinning figure. Beer in one hand, his daughter in the other. He shakes his head, laughing.

“You ain’t used to saying that yet, are you?”

“Nope,” you pinch his daughter’s hands, “and I hope I never am.”

She squeals with laughter, kicking her legs under swirls of chiffon. She throws herself out of her father’s arms into yours and you catch her, perching her on your hip.

“Good for you, kid,” Drew says. “You deserve it. You both do.”

You smile and peer down at the toddler tugging on your diamond necklace. “Your uncle Joel bought me this,” you babble in her ear. “If it breaks, you’re one sorry individual.”

She giggles all the louder.

“Last I saw him,” Drew tilts his bottle towards the patio doors, “he was out on the terrace.”

Your eyes flit to the twinkling, dusky sky. “Alone?”

He shrugs. “Guess so.”

You pass his daughter back, fixing the bow on her dress. “I’ll find him. Thanks, Drew.”

The breeze breathes between the doors as you walk over. It’s a chilled night, but the fresh air is a welcome breather from the busy dancefloor.

Veiled by the sheer curtains, his figure relaxes against the balcony, staring out at the rolling lawn. He exhales a thick, scattered cloud of white to the sky. His head turns at the sound of your heels on the patio.

“Nice view, huh?”

Joel hums. His voice is clotted with tobacco. “Sure is, Mrs. Miller. Fine choice of venue.”

“Teamwork,” you reply, and pat your fingers against his palm in a weak high five. You cross your wrists over his shoulder and stare out at the mountains in the distance. “Out here all by yourself?”

“Just needed a moment. Take it all in.” He tilts the cigar in his hand. “Make use of my wedding gift from my best man.”

There’s a blanket of chill slowly settling over the valley. It hugs a little too tight around your bare arms. You shiver, nestling closer to Joel, and he straightens.

“Here, baby,” he says, shrugging his jacket off. He drapes it over your shoulders and rubs them warm. He plucks the cigar from its ashtray, offering it silently.

You scoff. “I’m not gonna like it.”

“I know,” Joel replies, “but we’re celebrating.”

The stick is heavier than you expected, dry and hard between your fingers. The cap is sliced, dampened by Joel’s lips.

He watches your mouth, smiling when you inhale. “Not too much,” he clasps your wrist lightly, “Only a little.”

It’s rancid, if you’re honest. Clogs your lungs with what feels like unbreathable heat, a sickly-sweet flavor that crinkles your nose. The smoke punches from your lungs in a broken cough. And once they’re clear – you lift the cigar for more.

“Alright,” Joel says, taking it back after a couple more puffs. “That’s enough, Kennedy. Like it?”

“Not bad,” you croak, stealing a swig of his champagne. “Don’t make a habit of it.”

“No, ma’am.”

You lean into him, elbows on the railing, following his outstretched hand as he points out each mountain peak.

He talks about the years he and Tommy spent camping, the long fishing trips with his dad. Regales in excruciating detail the time he pitched his tent right by a cluster of poison ivy, and woke up covered in bloody, blotchy blisters.

He talks about all of it easier than he has in years. As though the dust has settled over the memories, the good and the bad, and all that’s left is to look. No more shifting things around in his mind, trying to find where it all fits. Everything is exactly where it needs to be.

After a while, he kisses your head. “Hey,” he says. “Congratulations.”

You lift your head. “You, too…?”

“You got married today.”

“Did I? Shit, I didn’t mean to.”

He flicks his eyebrows. “That something you saw yourself doing, five years ago?”

No. Not at all. But then my boss held my waist to his in a dive bar, and – you know the rest.

“Hm,” you flatten your lips, “No, but then – you’re not something I saw myself doing, five years ago.”

Joel rolls his eyes. “Stay classy, pretty girl.”

You giggle. “I’d do anything, long as it’s with you. Mess around on the first date, fly to Paris on the second. Meet your mom, like, three weeks in.”

“You are not countin’ that lunch with James from accounting as our first date,” he protests. “That shitshow was not our first date.”

“You paid for my meal and you fucked me in the bathroom. Date.”

“No,” he points a telling finger in your direction, “No. If we have kids one day, they’re going to ask. We gotta get our story straight. Our first date was Paris. I took you to Paris.”

“Whatever you say, old man.” You bunch your shoulders, snuggling deeper into his jacket. “Deep down, you know the truth.”

“Can we change the subject?”

“What do you wanna talk about?”

He searches the skyline, plucking up courage when the last of the setting sun catches his eye. “Well,” he sounds nervous, “I thought I could give you your gift.”

You fiddle with your necklace. “I thought you already did.”

Joel shakes his head. He takes your wrists and lifts your hands. “Close your eyes.”

“If you drop a living thing into my hands, Miller,” you screw your eyes shut, “Divorce.”

“Uhuh,” he mutters.

He holds your hands in one of his. There’s the ruffling of linen, a faint jingling, a roaring cheer from inside.

There’s the cold kiss of metal in the cushion of your palm – tiny, featherlight – followed by a coiling, and something jagged.

You hold in a laugh, breathing nervously. “I’m scared,” you whisper, and Joel kisses the hinge of your wrist.

“You trust me?” he asks.

“I trust you.”

“Then, open.”

Your eyes flutter, and there he is. Still standing before you, still smiling. Still holding your hands. He nods down, and you look.

In your palms lies a small brass key. On the end of the chain, a single silver maple leaf tag. It winks back at you, moonlight reflected in its grooves.

You lift the key. It’s worn by time, metal nicked and imperfect. Brass a little tarnished. The leaf sways in your clutch.

“Maple?” you ask, and Joel nods. Your eyes begin to well.

“I know we’re happy in the city,” he says, “and I know it’s just some little paint-chipped house. It’s probably still got school reports ‘n shitty comics up in the attic. I just – God, I can’t shake it, baby.”

You look up at him, a question in your teary gaze.

“A little birdie once taught me,” he steps closer, “that it’s okay to lose things. To let ‘em go. I didn’t believe her at the time. I was scared. Scared to lose her, scared she might find something better. I reckon she was pretty scared, too, but – even when I thought I lost her, she came back.

“She said this thing about making new memories. Better memories. And I just can’t shake it.”

The words catch on your tongue on their way out. You’re only just now realizing how different life was before. Before him, before this. How empty and cold it felt, how little you noticed before the sun peered through the clouds and said something in a drawl laced with love and humor.

How quickly you ran into its warm, open arms.

Joel goes on. “The guys are making a real good job of it. They said there’s plenty potential, and you know it has that huge yard. Now, if you don’t want it, say the word and it’s gone. Out of our hands. But,” his voice breaks, “if you do, then – it’s yours, darlin’. It’s been yours since the moment you walked through the door.”

And, well – hasn’t everything?

The job was yours the very second you tiptoed into his office. He told you so himself. The job, the desk, the free trip to Europe. You walked into his life and flipped everything on its head, without even knowing it.

You worked for him for three years before anything ever happened. Three whole years of elbow nudges and fleeting glances and one too many questions about whoever the other was dating. Joel figures he loved you all that time. You figure you loved him, too.

You changed everything for him. From that first glance, the first meeting of your hands, nothing was ever the same. All of it, from the spare cabinet in his bathroom to the third finger on his left hand – it was all just waiting for you to make it your own.

Hasn’t Joel’s heart belonged to you since you first laid eyes on each other?

You turn the key between your fingers. The answer rolls along the tip of your tongue. The longer you stay quiet, the more nervous you know he’s feeling.

Your eyes meet his – and you smile.

“I want a porch swing.”

Joel chuckles. “Done.”

“And we host Thanksgiving every year.”

“Every year?” He almost grimaces.

You’re staring each other down. It’s as much a game as it is a genuine request, like most of what you do. Just as much teasing as sincere.

You nod. “Every. Year.”

“Okay,” he relents. “Anything else?”

Your eyes drift off behind him. Inside one of the windows, Drew and Rachel twirl their little girl in time with a familiar guitar melody. She throws her head back in a fit of laughter and they pick her up, spinning her around.

Joel glances over his shoulder. He breathes a laugh. “I’ll give you that tonight if you really want it.”

You lean into his chest and kiss his jaw. “I just want you.”

“You got me,” he says. “Hook, line, and sinker.”

The rest of the band kicks in. The raspy lead singer, the perky drum beat. The dancefloor fills some, hands thrown to the ceiling, glasses spilling over.

You bite down on a smile, eyes flitting to Joel’s.

He twists his shoe into the patio, nudging into your side. He extends his arm and you link yours through, following his lead inside. “Good song,” he mutters.

“Hm,” you agree. “Little before my time.”

[givehimthemedicine]

El's protectiveness and friendships in the lab

wanted to take a minute to appreciate that El's protectiveness isn't a character trait that only emerges post-lab. she's always been that way [assuming, for this post, that NINA stuff more or less happened]; it just couldn't always present in a way that looks badass on a poster.

El and Eighteen

only crumbs here, but if I have to point out a lab kid that El is friendlier with than the others, it's Eighteen.

El holding Eighteen's hand is the only affectionate act I've ever noticed between any of the lab kids, and offering that comfort to her littlest sister is probably as "protective" as El can afford to be (esp as an eight year old with the least power and social standing of anyone).

when the kids in general laugh at El for failing at the light game, Eighteen is not one of the kids shown doing so.

Eighteen is the first dead child El is shown to be upset about. it's not that she looks more distressed about her than the others, but it's odd that she saw Ten dead on the floor next to Brenner a second before this and didn't really react. (maybe she couldn't tell Ten was dead from the doorway? idk)

maybe an El/Eighteen friendship is cornplating or whatever the youths are calling it, but bearing in mind that we're never actually told that El/Eight had some super close friendship, maybe theirs looked something like this.

side note - are friendships even permitted in the lab?

letting the kids form friendships could be dangerous, as Brenner, couldn't it? risks them forming alliances against you? this is why I was asking the other day if socializing seems discouraged in the RR. like, even the bullies, who were "friends," never chatted openly in there unless the cameras were off. maybe any lab friendships have to be hush hush by nature.

anyway idk there's just something about us going "🤯 same numbers!!!" upon seeing the 001 / 011 tattoos, and then 008 + 018 being the only other kids El is hinted at being friendly with... why are we reusing the same pattern? 001 / 008 / 011 / 018 just happen to be every combination of those three numbers within the number of available children.

especially with El "being 8" (as in, years old) at this time. it's giving Henry, 12 / mother of 5. idk where I'm going with that but I'm squinting. Eighteen, you're not some bizarro Little Eight who has an inverted friendship with Big El, right?

El lashing out in the lab

we're shown repeatedly that El hates seeing people get hurt, but multiple times onscreen (and you know innumerable times off) she witnesses severe abuse to her siblings, and we never see her act in their defense like post-lab El would. of course, that's because she realistically can't. we know trying to help anyone in the lab accomplishes little except getting both people in trouble. but I was thinking about how we DO see El lash out for her own sake in 1983. so what's the takeaway? El cares more about protecting herself than others? nah. let's look at the other guard killing scene (again. assuming this really happened):

when similarly cornered in 1979, El's immediate response is silent surrender.

why is her behavior so different? because she's weak? too scared / well controlled? too nice to kill? all those factors have already been established as non-issues in this moment. (she does have her powers here; the circle game proved that Brenner can't control El and knows it; killing when cornered is canonically within her nature)

you might think having a staff member on her side would make her more defiant, but instead she's more compliant here than in '83 (either time. even in the non-guard-killing flashback, El screams and struggles the whole way.)

El and One

he's the difference. she doesn't know he's her brother or has powers yet, but he has presented himself as a fellow prisoner rather than someone in a position of authority. she's also already seen him get punished because of her.

as far as El knows right here, if she lashes out - whether she then escapes successfully or not - she'd be bringing SEVERE punishment onto a nice guy who can't defend himself or escape.

she has a chance at freedom, the power to kill, and the escape route all planned out, but she doesn't do it. the thing that's not in her nature is abandoning a friend to God-knows-what punishment on her behalf.

so while One killing the guards is an act of protection to El, it's also a massive act of protection to One that El is ready to throw out the whole plan right here. don't miss it just because it's not the classic El-screamy-hand thing.

she's sacrificing her chance at freedom in hopes of slightly mitigating his punishment. (they're both doomed to very bad punishment upon capture right here, but if she escapes I think he'd get punished even worse. so she's choosing to share in pretty bad punishment over him being punished extremely severely and her not at all.)

even aside from punishment, she knows she'll be returning to an even worse home life than the one she believed necessitated her immediate escape (Brenner apparently arranging for her to be killed).

so here, can she afford to act out not only because she's acting alone, but because she's an only child, so to speak? there's no one else who could potentially suffer as a result of her actions. no other siblings to use as leverage. no one to protect.

whatever consequences Brenner carried El off to after killing those orderlies, she bore it alone.

I can sorta read this as protective of the other kids in general - not that she did it, but that she didn't until now.

am I saying Brenner might have randomly punished other kids as a result of something El did?

have you met the guy? definitely would've threatened it, might've actually done it. manipulation by whatever means necessary.

when you work in a building full of superpowered people who hate you, you gotta control them psychologically, because physical control isn't something you can maintain for long. it's imperative that they're more afraid of the consequences of kicking your ass than they are of whatever torture you're putting them through. emotional manipulation using friends and innocents as pawns is a classic move. (another reason the kids might want to keep lab friendships secret even if they're allowed.)

that's not theory - we've seen Brenner use this tactic onscreen, telling El that he'll have Owens killed if she tries to get to him. he knows he can't physically control her, so he exerts psychological control by placing Owens' blood on El's hands to get her to cooperate.

the phrase "blood on one's hands" means being responsible for deaths, not having literally, personally committed murder. this imagery is used onscreen to denote El's sense of guilt about the massacre well before she comes to the conclusion that she actually did it. (this could be symbolism that El's mind organically dreamed up instead of engineered fuckery, but who knows. we have no textual explanation yet for how her hands would be that bloody).

and together with Brenner very textually using the kids against each other in other ways - having them literally duel each other in the circle game, but also the "driving them to do exactly what he wants" stuff - I don't think it's unreasonable to figure that fear of harm to the other kids was a manipulation tactic used in the lab.

that definitely includes One - lines like "I'm not going with you / if he finds me he will find you" "I wanted to help you, but I only made things worse" smack of a guy kept in line by fear of something happening to the kids.

and the Brenner-orchestrating-El's-murder story smells like a psyop. is this just Brenner wanting One to think harm would come to El as a consequence of his actions? (she became "uncontrollable" as a result of his coaching). El is too valuable an asset to actually kill. who would know better than One that the treatment for being uncontrollable is soteria, not death? assuming One is being truthful, why would he not see through that. idek what I think is going on here anymore

anyway. MKUltra is ALL about manipulation but I'll talk more about that in my other post

times El protects her friends the same way she protected One

practically every move El makes is about protecting her friends but I want to point out a few times that are specifically reminiscent of her protection of One, where she's ready to give up her freedom to protect her friends even at risk of the worst case scenario (going back to the lab):

sacrificing herself to protect the party from the demogorgon ("no more") <- is that line in reference to the 6 people the demogorgon has snatched, or is that a massacre reference given how incredibly parallel these scenes are. I'm not sure whether "goodbye Mike" meant she thought she'd die or just get so wiped out that she'd be easily recaptured by the lab

leaving Kali and "freedom" to return to Hawkins and protect her friends, where she volunteers to go back into the lab to close the gate

leaving Cali and "freedom" to return to the lab to get her powers back to protect her friends

final thought: I just had a chuckle with myself at the fact that iirc it's Mike and Nancy whose lives El has individually, directly saved the most times.

[honorable mention for Max because I don't know how to quantify 4x9. is that like one massive save?]

like, Mike, okay, but why the Nancy emphasis when she and El have basically zero onscreen relationship. (actually I have a lot to say about El and Nancy coming up soon that might add context)

idk.. lab sibling guilt smth smth El protecting Nancy "she'll be like your new sister" and Mike "will you be like my brother" Creeler. you gotta love it

[eddiediazismyhusband]

I totally get you with the bait vibes and I am apprehensive about buddie/its timing this season. My only thing is that Oliver has spoken so much in the past over worrying about baiting people with buddie and Ryan has spoken with so much care about these characters together that I just can't see either of them suddenly going all in on baiting with buddie without knowing that there are good things coming for them. Not saying they'll go canon in episode 2 or anything but they likely know the general arc/storyline for the season and knowing how much we and they care about buddie, I don't see Ryan or Oliver toying with the fans for fun and being careless or meanspirited about it unless they felt assured about where things might be going this season

this is why the fact that it’s on the official 911 account worries me. because it’s not just ryan and oliver posting, it’s olvier filming a video he was told to for the official account that ryan was also in, and the conscious decision for that video to be posted was made by someone who knows all the attention buddie brings in. if it was for olvier’s personal instagram then maybe id be a little less concerned about it, but the simple fact that it was for a video on the official 911 account doesn’t give me good vibes

i think often times in fandom we view the actors as having a lot more say in things than they actually do… obviously i don’t know what rules and regulations regarding social media involvement the cast have to follow, but i think the fandom automatically assumes that ryan and oliver get veto rights on things just bc of how involved in the show they are, when that’s often not the case— most of the time in show business, actors have to get things approved before they post them to keep from accidentally spoiling things.

that video wasn’t just ryan and oliver goofing off on set (i mean it was); it was intentionally chosen by someone on the 911 team and approved for the official account. it was chosen and approved bc ryan and oliver together means fandom interaction. it’s the same reason we had so many ryan and oliver interviews before s7 with all this pr talk of “they get closer than ever” and “they have such a strong bond” just for buddie to have very few actual meaningful moments onscreen. it’s textbook baiting, and tim has shown he’s not afraid of that.

i know oliver and ryan both feel strongly about buddie and both want to be careful about not baiting, but they’re not the issue here; the issue is that they are both employed by this production, and that means that sometimes they aren’t allowed to say “no” to how something is promoted.

(small addendum)

in regards to the “general storyline of the season” thing you mentioned (and i do not meant this to come across bitchy or rude at ALL) but tim has also stated that he doesn’t plan out seasons. he may bring up storylines he has ideas for and have an idea of where he might go, but he himself has said he doesn’t plan out full seasons (which is….. kinda what his whole job is supposed to be but i digress) and on top of that, we saw in s7 how quickly he made the decision to completely scrap his original ideas for 7b, scrapping a storyline w abuela that was mentioned, as well as bringing e*y and l*u back for more episodes than they were originally supposed to appear in, and creating that god awful “vertigo” mess…

im sure ryan and oliver are told “oh yeah we’re aiming for buddie canon this season” just like the show tries to do to us with the interviews and bts content, only to change their minds a few episodes in because they intentionally convolute/switch up the plot and say “ohhhh it just didn’t go there naturally :/“ (which is complete bullshit for reasons i shouldn’t have to explain to anyone)

overall i think fandom is too disconnected from how the show works/has worked in the past, and that we often ignore things that have been said in favor of the shiny buddie bait from the production (which is the whole point of the bait to begin with) and all that does is sets us up for disappointment in the long run because we convince ourselves that buddie is happening based on oliver and ryan talking about it, when oliver snd ryan most likely are also being strung along, and don’t have any veto power in that.

[valentinerose529]

New Fanfiction: Nanatsu no Taizai!

Dear fandom friends, are you annoyed by the questionable writing of Jericho's actions in Four Knights of the Apocalypse? Do you wish there was something truer to her character as it was developed in Seven Deadly Sins than what was done with her in the sequel? Are you appreciative of a polyamorous relationship between a king, a queen, and their best knight, and want to see this dynamic applied to Ban, Elaine, and Jericho?

Then I have the fanfiction for you!

Sir Jericho leaves Benoic to swear allegiance to the kingdom of Camelot. But not all is as it seems—for ten years, Jericho has been the most loyal knight of King Ban and Queen Elaine. Even King Arthur doubts the speed of her defection, and suspects her more than any other knight-errant due to her former coexistence with the Fairy people of Benoic. Jericho locks it as deeply as she can within her heart, but in the end, the truth will come out.

His Most Loyal Knight is a short fanfiction written by yours truly exploring exactly that: an attempt to explain Jericho's canon actions and dialogue through a long-con deception and where her loyalty really lies, and a reliance on the ficwriter's tenet that a nothing a character says has to be true unless it's shown onscreen. Coming in at 6k words, it's told in a series of flashbacks as the truth is revealed. But the reader isn't the only one discovering the truth...

His Most Loyal Knight (5966 words) by ValentineRose529 Chapters: 6/7 Fandom: 黙示録の四騎士 | Mokushiroku no Yonkishi | Four Knights of the Apocalypse (Manga), 七つの大罪 - 鈴木央 | Nanatsu no Taizai | The Seven Deadly Sins - Suzuki Nakaba (Anime & Manga) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Ban/Elaine/Jericho (Nanatsu no Taizai), Jericho & Lancelot (Nanatsu no Taizai) Characters: Ban (Nanatsu no Taizai), Elaine (Nanatsu no Taizai), Jericho (Nanatsu no Taizai), Lancelot (Mokushiroku no Yonkishi) Additional Tags: Spy Jericho (Nanatsu no Taizai), Memory Alteration, Loyal Knight & Monarch Dynamic, Polyamory, Jericho Does Not Love Lancelot (Nanatsu no Taizai), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Benoic | Benwick (Nanatsu no Taizai), Camelot (Nanatsu no Taizai), Not Beta Read, Flashbacks

Content warning for discussion of the one-sided pedophilic relationship as it appears in canon; however, rest assured that it does not actually exist in this fanfiction, it is a falsified tale used for deception and is used in conjunction with canon-typical manipulated memories.

[serendertothesquad]

Seren's Studies: Odd Squad UK -- "A Dicey Situation" Episode Followup, Part 2

Captain O origin story continues, below the break!

Okay...this whole dice randomization thing is clever. Hate to do it, but I have to award another point to Tasha.

Yeah...yeah...he would have a dance to resemble a tragedy, bless him.

...No.

I would have been happier if they dropped a year. No thinking about the timeline. Drop a year and run.

On trillions of levels. No.

Instead they didn't, and I'm left with whatever assfuck shit this thing is that's supposed to be an old-timey version of a smartwatch but is not.

I do, however, appreciate the dice math lesson. That's pretty unique. Another point to Tasha.

...No, actually, subtract one for this completely arbitrary guessing and the contrived shit that will make one of their guesses right.

Considering they're partners in the same way Iroha tells Satoru that she feels "a special kind of wonderful" when she's with him in Precure, this is cute.

"We are so in sync!"

Man, Tasha's just getting all the ambiguously LGBTQ+ people in this series, huh?

You see that ship in the front?

AND NOW IT'S DRIED UP SO NOW WHAT. NOW WHAT???

That's what I thought Captain O's ship was gonna be. Had it spinning in my head and everything.

Okay, we get it, Orli and Ozzie are here, they are listening, please move on.

You...I mean...you haven't beaten them before? With your dice rolls?

Lmao okay sure.

Okay, I honestly have no idea why Osgood has a phone too, but it's bugging the absolute hell out of me because he's clearly on the line with Dottie but she's only on the line with Captain O.

Make it make fucking sense.

You roll your eyes, but there are hundreds of islands out there, so even though she just revealed her own weakness, this logic actually makes sense.

Love the chickenpox, hate the psoriasis.

Brought to you by Lilly Pharmaceuticals.

Oh this is bad news to drop on people who are trying to catch a villain. Fucking timing, my guy.

11 fucking minutes and Tasha can't even give a fucking reason why Captain O has to transfer to begin with?

B- h- why though. Why though.

Unless this is gonna get answered at some point during the finale, this is extremely disappointing. And even if it was, here the Admiral could have just said "an...incident has come up" or some other vague reason, and just left it at that to perpetuate the mystery.

Got the cartoony faces, but with all the charm of Ohlm.

And we all know how Ohlm turned out.

*long deep sigh* God save me.

THEY BROUGHT BACK THE TIME CARD??? FOR THIS?!?!?!?!?!

No...no...I fucking can't. Let me remind you that the one time a kraken was ever featured in this franchise, it was so horrifying that it wasn't even allowed to be shown onscreen and scared the hell out of everyone, Oprah included.

I'M SORRY???????

If I extended my middle fingers any more, I'd have to get the doctors to pop 'em back in.

To hear that this bitch can just summon krakens to attack literal children -- which, you know, can eat said children -- is so stupid and so out-there and so continuity-breaking that I am revoking every point Tasha has ever accrued and sending her to Seren Hell, where Odd Squad episodes are played on an endless loop and all there is for food and water are rice cakes and lava.

Make it make sense or I will bring my ass to wherever and make it make fucking sense myself.

And then it ate her, right?

A-and then it ate her, right.

'Cause that's what krakens do.

...SAY IT, TASHA. FUCKING SAY IT YOU COWARD.

(Also, Captain O wears pants here but switches to a skirt when she transfers. It's a nice touch, but I'd prefer if she kept the pants.)

...WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT DIDN'T EAT HER???????? FUCK YOU TOO!!!

Okay, for the sake of my sanity, I'm deducing that this is Odd Squad poker and this will never, in my lifetime, be up for debate.

"this is why you'll always be my first best mate"

he is literally in a position lower than her in the hierarchy

I'm sorry, was "second-in-command" not anything tossed around in the writers' room or??? Because that would have made this precinct a lot better.

It is always this same dumbass dance move and I hate it. I like the party in "Box Trot". Draw stuff from there.

And your credits for this episode. Octo is not listed in here, for some reason -- probably because he has miniscule speaking lines.

-------------------------------------------

Overall...this was one big pile of ough. Better than "The Triangle Sisters", but not by very much. Other origin stories -- "Weight of the World", "Totally Odd Squad" -- were much better, but "Mission O Possible" still ranks as the worst of the worst for me. This one is not nearly as bad.

Methinks Tasha needs to do a little more work before returning to the franchise, because both of her episodes were swings and misses in more ways than one. It is a good concept with a good math lesson and a good villain, but it needs to be fleshed out and freshened up a little more.

Next time will be "Lift Off", or the biggest cultural clash of the entire damn series/season. If there's a popstar clam...I wonder if we'll get a song? Food for thought.

Seren out!

[gayofthefae]

You know how I talk about season 4 being shot in Will's POV and how that affects our perceptions of the dynamics (both in the romantic dynamic between Byler but also how all the happy Milkvan scenes are through the lens of Will). SO much of that is made up of reaction shots.

Imagine we used some REAL SHOTS OF MIKE REACTING TO WILL in a slightly different way. Originally, this gif of Mike was him taking a moment before speaking as opposed to framed as a reaction but sequentially it, of course, was ALSO a reaction to Will (because talking or not, you take in your conversation partners' reactions and react to them). So let's mess with it a bit to be a reaction shot.

The thing about shots like this of Mike is that yes they seem more romantic isolated, but the point of that isn't to take them out of the context of the scene. It's to take them out of the context of the EDITING. Let me try again. Keeping it in the scene, even.

B)

Shift the dynamic from Mike talking and Will reacting to realize that one can react while talking to someone who isn't talking. Switch it to appear as if he's reacting to Will talking and it looks different. Not even talking, even just with his back turned at all. Because really,

These are the same hesitant, overjoyed, tender faces. Framed differently.

I repeat:

The only difference between Mike and Will's feelings as shown onscreen in scenes with one another was Will got reaction shots and close ups where Mike's reactions were grouped with his next line, he made faces like this that weren't the primary focus, sometimes even subversively chopped up (he looks over at Will in the van home from the roller rink but because it doesn't cut to what he's looking at, you can't tell unless you track closely).

The only difference in Byler this season was editing. That's a lie. Had their editing been the same, people would worry Will didn't feel the same about Mike.

Will's POV so heavily is just compensation for how subtle his actual feelings are. Mike doesn't need focal shift to pick up his feelings (only to confirm them..that's why I'm here. And that's why season 5 is there.)

[caitas-cooing]

Hi! As someone who follows you and knows nothing about Shining Nikki, what is the game about and why do you love it so much? I'd like to hear you talk about something you're passionate about :)

Okay, that is something that could take a while to explain, but let's start with the basic. Shining Nikki is a 3d dress up game and is the 4th game in the Nikki series, although Love Nikki and Shining Nikki are the only ones that are still on the Play store with active servers. Nikki up2u (the first one) was up on the door a long time, probably due to being an offline game overall so there was no server costs, but it was taken off somewhat recently though I don't remember when exactly. Nikki up2u was my first Nikki game because even though Love Nikki was out at the time I happened to stumble across Nikki up2u first, and then love Nikki a few months later. Shining Nikki is the only 3d one though, all the other entries are 2d. There's going to be another game called Infinity Nikki which is going to be an open world dress up game, but who knows when that's coming out, and when it does it still probably take a few years for us to get a global server.

Shining Nikki is important to me because I have been playing the Nikki series on and off since highschool. The combination of story and pretty clothes intrigued me and even though the translation can sometimes be not great (Love Nikki had some interesting statements and typos in there, Shining Nikki is much better in this regard but it still pops up occasionally) they are very interesting stories that are often darker than the cute clothes and bright colors would have you believe. Love Nikki's story involved being sent to another world called miraland where every dispute is solved by fashion battles, and later you find out that the reason that happens is because the people there are under a blood curse so that is they are violent against each other they will die painfully unless they take drugs to stop that from happening. Also someone stabbed Lunar onscreen and I was not expecting that from the game which was mostly lighthearted up to that point, but that scene probably alter my brain chemistry somehow I swear. Like the showed her getting stabbed onscreen and then she died in Nikki's arms while Nikki is crying. This happened in a dress up game. Lunar did not deserve that, Nikki did not deserve that. Lunar's death haunts me because of the shock of it all. Also Nikki gets swords and knives and guns as handheld objects in these games so that's fun.

Okay now finally onto Shining Nikki (you know, the game you actually asked me about originally and then I got sidetracked horribly). This game also takes place in miraland but in the past, so like before the blood curse happened. They still decide a lot of things through fashion and the use of "styling power" which can be used to do a lot of different things including controlling people like puppets or making illusions that people with lower styling power can't see through. These are both things villains in this game do in like the first few chapters of the game. That said, because it does take place before the blood curse there is a lot more violence, there are guns and knives and swords and gangs and wars. This stuff is described more than shown, but they are very present. Shining Nikki takes place in the past because miraland was destroyed in the time she was originally taken and she's trying to stop it from happening again. This games story is dark from the start unlike Love Nikki.

Shining Nikki also made the inspired decision of having Nikki directly talking with the player as a big part of the game and she is such a sweetie and I love her. She'll celebrate your birthday with you and ask if you've eaten and compliment your sense of style. Hearing Nikki say "I know you enjoy your leisure time at night, but try not to stay up too late" is so nice every time. She'll also sing a son about what she would do if she were a cat and complain about how Momo never lets her touch his toe beans. She'll say sadder stuff sometimes to like how she feels lonely when she remembers she doesn't belong to this time and space or how she misses her family at night.

There's more stuff to say too but it's way later (or technically earlier) than I thought it was so I should attempt the sleep thing so I'm stopping here. This whole ramble was a mess and I apologize for that.

Anyway look up Shining Nikki Star Sea and I think that will help explain some of the appeal too. Pretty animation make my brain happy. The physics in the hair and dresses in game are also neat. It goes whoosh

[utilitycaster]

not to be all “only i like my blorbo correctly”, but i’m fully convinced that certain people would hate Imogen as a character if they actually engaged with her outside of “conventionally attractive sadgirl that’s one half of an aesthetically pleasing queer ship”. fully believe that if she looked like Chetney or Ashton or even Fearne, and didn’t come with a prepackaged ship, people would be forced to look at her as the complex, unique loose cannon that she is

Hey anon, I agree with much of this and I hope you don't mind if I go on what might be one of my weirder tangents/theories but this has been percolating for a few weeks and I think I've cracked the secret to one of the more toxic segments of the fandom.

I definitely think that if Imogen were not a woman, a lot of people would hate her (granted, a different group of people who hate her now would probably like her more if she were a man, because misogyny is extremely extant outside of the bubble, and even a little bit within the bubble, that is Tumblr). However, they'd be fine if she looked like Fearne...but many wouldn't be fine if she were also played by Ashley. Or yeah, if she weren't easily shipped with Marisha's character.

Here's the deal. When I and a number of other people were like "oh hey! Imogen is not really taking other people's feelings into consideration and is being rather insensitive about the Ruby Vanguard, given that they've killed half the party, particularly since she's literally known Laudna like 10 times longer than she's know her mother was alive" the attitude was "wow, you hate Imogen, you hate women, you're so unfair" and yet now, at a table that is half women (and a group of characters that literally has only one man) everyone who thought I hate Imogen and how if she were a man everyone would care is now literally just mostly ignoring her (and honestly like, everything) and instead constantly whining about how they miss Laudna. Which is frankly weak as hell, like, anyone who's loved Pike or Yasha is like "oh you must be new here", and at least people talking about Travis being missing during the gap between Bertrand's death and Chetney's arrival were making good memes. But I digress.

My theory, which I do admit is the most tin-foil hat I think I've gone, comes from some polls I've seen circulating complaining about queerbaiting in past shows, and also my recent interest in Glee as ground zero of really horrible fandom behaviors (thanks to people who have provided insight into that!) Anyway. I recently learned that apparently Quinn and Rachel was a really popular ship, for reasons I cannot, for the sake of what little decorum and kindness I am maintaining here, speculate on. Setting aside that this is not queerbaiting and it's wildly inappropriate and damaging to say it was, given that this show was full of queer characters and Quinn was shown hooking up with a woman, this has in fact clicked into place for me why people constantly ship Marisha and Laura's characters despite chemistry that is inconsistent at best and tepid on average. It's not terribly hard to draw lines from Quinn to Vex and Rachel to Keyleth, especially if you consider how fanon tends to handle these archetypes. Then they transferred this to just Laura and Marisha's characters in general, and here we are, and man if it hasn't gotten even more flavorless with every transfer.

So anyway yeah a lot of people really don't like Imogen much as a character unless they can project onto her, but because she's half of The Ship, they also will not tolerate any exploration of her flaws that could threaten The Ship and so they need to remove her agency and blame it on various rocks instead of Imogen being cranky and impatient as a person (like, again, if you want to interpret her powers as chronic pain, why are you not allowed to grant her the same complexity as Ashton, who is also cranky and impulsive?) But really the kicker is that if Marisha isn't physically onscreen, they start acting like a cat you locked out of the bathroom and simultaneously forget they're supposed to care about or enjoy Imogen as an individual.

[telomeke]

MOONLIGHT CHICKEN – WEN'S NAME AND ITS LINKS TO POLITICAL COLOR SYMBOLISM

The way Wen's name is represented on screen in Moonlight Chicken is really interesting.

It isn't a Thai name, and is more probably Chinese. However, the Chinese character or ideogram isn't shown to us anywhere, not even in the Cantonese or Mandarin subtitles – they just spell out Wen in letters of the Roman alphabet instead of using a Chinese character:

(above) Moonlight Chicken Ep.1 [4/4] 9.28

But it's possible to find out what it is in Chinese (kind of), and this is what I did.

(above) Moonlight Chicken Ep.5 [4/4] 14.21

Jim has Wen's name stored on his phone as เหวิน, and it's the same Thai word used for the Chinese Emperor Wen of Sui – and his name employs the character 文. This is a word that refers to language, culture, or writing. It can also mean formal, literary or gentle, and because of all this it has a scholarly vibe.

But Wen's name really takes on significance when we see how else it connects, and surprisingly one of the weightier evocations is political in nature. 👀 Take a look at how Wen's name is represented in his own phone:

(above) Moonlight Chicken Ep.5 [1I4] 16.20

The w and n are present, but what happened to the e? Wen calling himself wn doesn't quite make sense – unless it's being done for other reasons. And in fact, the abbreviation does begin to take on significance when we look at it another way.

Now there is one thing that Thai people sometimes do with the Roman alphabet – they play around with the visual similarity that some letters have to letters in the Thai abugida, using Roman letters to spell out Thai words for a bit of fun. (Director Aof introduced this to us with the Inwza of Pat's chat ID in Bad Buddy – see this post linked here for more explanation.)

There appears to be general concurrence that the Roman letters w and n somewhat resemble the Thai letters พ and ท respectively – so the wn in Wen's phone can also be rendered พท. Noting that Wen's formal first name – วงศกร or Wongsakorn – means ancestor according to some online dictionaries, I think Moonlight Chicken is telling us to look more closely at the predecessor of Wen's พท for deeper meaning.

An online search of พท brings up several results, of which the following two are the most interesting:

พ.ท. – an abbreviation for Lieutenant Colonel (พันโท, pronounced something like phan tho);

พท. – an abbreviation for Pheu Thai Party (พรรคเพื่อไทย).

Looking first at Lieutenant Colonel (พันโท), the first word พัน (phan) means a thousand, while the second word โท (tho) can mean (among other things) two, second or double. It's probably just a coincidence, but it nonetheless reads like a neat little tip of the hat to the drama A Tale of a Thousand Stars (ATOTS) – it's as though the words thousand and second are signaling that Moonlight Chicken is Thousand Stars Pt.2 (remembering that ATOTS was also helmed by Director Aof, and also starred Earth, Mix and Khaotung).

However, it's the second meaning of พท – an abbreviation of พรรคเพื่อไทย or Pheu Thai Party – that's really interesting, because its appearance onscreen looks like a purposeful decision colored with political impulses.

The Pheu Thai Party (PTP, sometimes also called PPT because, you know, Thai language) was the third incarnation of Thailand's ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra's original political party, after the first two were dissolved by the courts. (The first party, Thai Rak Thai, was founded in 1998 while PTP was founded in 2007, to give you an idea of the time period involved. This is around and after the time Jim and Jam ran away from the family farm, and so they would have been witness to the political drama with regard to this party, right up close in their cities.)

Before joining politics, Thaksin Shinawatra was in the police force, and attained the rank of – you guessed it – พ.ท. or Lieutenant Colonel (it was revoked later, after his fall from power). But he came from a family of businessmen, and had always been active in business.

Not to go too much more into detail (because I already have) the PTP and its previous versions rode into power in several elections on a platform of poverty eradication. Support from the rural poor was immense for them, especially because of welfare policies that the party introduced.

However, it was clear the party (in all its incarnations) was also on the side of big business, and once in power continued to engage in such. Opposition to Thaksin and his activities began to form, and came primarily from a coalition with a large base of support among the urban elite (intellectuals and the educated) and also royalists. They eventually formed a party to counter him formally, called the PAD.

The party espousing rights for the poor (while still affirmedly capitalist) was nicknamed the Red Shirts, while the party leveling charges of corruption against them, with the support of high-thinkers, intellectuals and royalists, became known as the Yellow Shirts. Protests would see throngs of supporters dressed (separately) in these two colors.

A detour into an explanation of the colors is in order here. As mentioned before in my write-up on Wen's friend Gong (linked here), in Thailand the color yellow can sometimes be seen as suggesting links to higher authority and the wisdom of greater experience. Shades of it (ranging to darker tones of mustard, even with nuances of rust) are reminiscent of the saffron robes worn by Buddhist monks respected for their piety and wisdom. And yellow is also the color associated with the current king as well as his father King Bhumibol Adulyadej before him – and we need to bear in mind that the majority of Thais absolutely revere the king, with him being seen as an incarnation of God in all his wisdom.

Director Aof has riffed on this significance of the color yellow before, in Bad Buddy Ep.12, when Korn comments on how much ex-bad boy Wai was reformed and religious:

(above) Bad Buddy Ep.12 [1I4] 5.32

In the scene above, Director Aof showed that Wai's rehabilitation was complete by dressing him in yellow, even as the dialogue made references to religion, good manners, temples and (Buddhist) donations. The choice of color was absolutely intentional – they actually dressed Wai in a woman's shirt (you can tell from the way the shirt placket overlaps right over left), and they did this not to suggest he'd been emasculated, but because the color was just what they needed for the character in this scene (suggesting his pivot to a life more monastic and respectful). So the choice of the color yellow (with all its connotations of religiosity and reform) took precedence over any ideas about gendering, which kind of fits nicely with other themes in Bad Buddy too.

As for the color red, its symbolism on the Thai flag is that it represents the land, its lifeblood (the people) and also blood spilled to maintain the country's independence. And these are concepts clearly laden with passionate emotion.

Although Thailand's population is now slightly more than 52% urban, it was still majority rural at the time before and during Thaksin's premiership (and rural populations were almost always poorer than urban ones). The idea of urban Thailand as having rural underpinnings was prevalent, and the Red Shirts capitalized on this – if the color red symbolized the land and its people, people working the land would surely be the best example of this lifeblood.

So what the Red Shirts did was to appeal emotionally to the rural populace, that had long felt ignored, and spoke to their sense of marginalization with handouts and welfare, and made them feel that they were finally being seen. Thus the color red came to be associated with championing the cause of the (rural) poor during those times, along with the heated emotions that were being stirred up in this segment of the population in support of the party.

With regard to the Red Shirts and the Yellow Shirts – I'm not at all taking sides or writing about who was right and who was wrong. But because of what these colors mean in Thailand (and especially during the era of the Red and Yellow Shirts referenced by Wen's name), I think in Moonlight Chicken the colors yellow and red speak of the dichotomy between living your life based on rational thought, as opposed to emotional reaction (the age-old conflict of head v. heart). And the connection that the color red also has to socio-economic class struggles in Thaksin-era Thailand also resonates around Jim, Wen and the diner in particular (noting that the heyday of the Red Shirts was also the same time that Jim was beginning his new life in the city).

I don’t really do wardrobe color analysis (please visit @respectthepetty's archive linked here for stuff that's much more in-depth and wide-ranging across many different shows 👍). But I'll take a stab at it for this aspect of Moonlight Chicken, painting only with the very broadest of brushstrokes (noting that you can't apply the color palette too strictly anyway, because it'll make the characters look like they're in uniform and the whole effect will turn cartoony).

In Moonlight Chicken I think the color red (echoing the cause of the Red Shirts) does represent the downtrodden and their struggle to survive. Jim's diner has red aprons, and we see a lot of red on Jim, Saleng and Li Ming – they're quite clearly represented as the underclass.

Wen having wn or พท on his phone to refer to himself may be a sign that he aligned himself with the Red Shirts' point of view, at least at the beginning and with regard to the underprivileged. From Ep.2 onwards, we see Wen's wardrobe starting to take on more red even as he starts to feel increasing empathy for Jim and Jim's found family, especially when he begins helping out as temp staff at the diner. (This parallels how the PTP, that shares the พท on Wen's mobile phone, was also identified with the Red Shirts and fighting for the poor).

But red is also the color that we see Jim's money-grubbing landlord representative wearing in Ep.3 [2/4], even as his bike is yellow:

(above left) Moonlight Chicken Ep.3 [2/4] 2.26; (above right) Moonlight Chicken Ep.3 [2/4] 0.57

Meanwhile, Wen also works with the Marina Development that threatens the diner (and this organization is symbolic of big business, just like the party associated with the Red Shirts also had similar interests). When they show us Wen's first in-office meeting (that we get to see), he's still in red but he's also cloaked it with a neutral (indicating that his loyalties may be divided):

(above) Moonlight Chicken Ep.3 [1I4] 1.42

So I think the color red in Moonlight Chicken not only symbolizes the oppressed, but also the systems oppressing them. It may be associated with the poor and their lot in life, but it may also be appropriated by those with less-charitable intentions. When applied to Jim's landlord representative, who's using both yellow and red, we can't see where his true loyalties lie, and the colors serve to illustrate his basic untrustworthiness.

In these two examples (Jim's troubles with the landlord and the Marina Development) we are reminded of how the party of the Red Shirts, the PTP, may have been helping the poor with handouts (appealing to their emotions in exchange for votes), but it was also on the side of big business, and engaging in mega-business dealings that would line its own coffers (that might or might not be channeled back to help the poor – I have no idea as to their actual plans).

The Yellow Shirts certainly didn't think this was right though, and charges of corruption were leveled against Thaksin and his party, eventually leading to his political demise.

But in Moonlight Chicken, what we see as the series progresses is Wen beginning to wear more and more yellow even as he's drawn in closer to Jim's circle. This to me signals that he's applying more reasoned thought on how to resolve his divided loyalties (keeping in mind the monastic/intellectual/royal significance of the color yellow, and the scholarly connotations of his name 文).

The following outfit paints a picture of Wen's journey (and it's the same one that he wears when we get a first glimpse at the wn on his phone):

(above) Moonlight Chicken Ep.5 [1I4] 12.36

The color red is still predominant, but we're also seeing pale apricot and saffron orange (of the same family as the colors of monks' robes) starting to creep in. (The blue can also be read as a reference to the revered monarchy by the way; it's not just the yellow that suggests this – the color blue also represents the royal family on the Thai flag). The red reflects Wen's heartfelt care and concern for the struggles of the diner and its people (echoing the mission of the Red Shirts), but the increasing amount of yellow (and related hues) also shows how he's starting his journey to reason with his head (echoing the elite, high-thinking origins of the Yellow Shirts), and not just blindly following the dictates of his heart.

Significantly, the scene that follows also parallels this, in the flashback of Wen (in yellow ochre) proffering wise words of advice to Jim (applying rational logic to matters of the heart):

(above) Moonlight Chicken Ep.5 [1I4] 17.32

I wouldn't have been reading so much into the significance of the wn on Wen's phone and all the political backstory with the colors, except that Wen himself actually makes a comment regarding politics later on, casting himself in the role of a politician:

(above) Moonlight Chicken Ep.7 [2/4] 8.04

This moment is Director Aof taking the opportunity to make a statement about LGBTQ+ rights by having Wen, in Buddhist-robe saffron, hand Jim a mug with "Love is Love" in rainbow colors while they talk about queer struggles and the unavailability of same-sex marriage in Thailand. But at the same time, it also underscores Wen's connection to politics and the significance of the colors he wears. 👍

Interestingly, from time to time we also see Jim wearing versions of yellow (shading into other tones like orange and ochre), even as his wardrobe retains touches of the red that signals his underprivileged socio-economic class. I think this parallels his journey to realizing his best life using reason and logic, an enlightenment of sorts, rather than relying on the prejudices and received wisdom he's stored in his heart (inherited from generations before him) or the emotions that plagued him after Beam's passing.

And the culmination of this is when he allows Li Ming his freedom, and also relinquishes the diner for a food truck (which in a sense allows him freedom too). This is given a shout-out in Ep.8 [3I4], when he doffs his red apron and passes it to Saleng (symbolically giving up the weight of his emotional decision-making, that tied him to a life of poverty) while still wearing a saffron top (symbolizing the rationalized decisions that got him to a new, unburdened life):

(above) Moonlight Chicken Ep.8 [3I4] 7.45

And the parallel journey for Wen is when he finally, rationally, makes a clean and solid break with Alan, no longer hanging onto the past out of sense of obligation to Alan's feelings, or misplaced compassion after his accident. (Wen overstaying where he shouldn't, because of the emotional pull that he feels, is actually foreshadowed way back in Ep.1 [2/4], when he dawdles in Jim's home the morning after their one-night stand. 👍)

By Ep.8 [4/4], we see that both Jim and Wen found a way to accommodate the dichotomy of head versus heart in their lives, using sensible logic to address their own needs, and the needs of their loved ones, rather than relying only on the instinctive tugging of their hearts – a battle that they ultimately won, that was symbolized by the yellow and red that they wear, and that was first signaled to us via the innocuous wn or พท representing Wen's name in his mobile phone. 💖

[thefourchimes]

🍎🍍🫐🍐

🍎: Is there anything you straight-up won’t write?

Oooh, well, overall, bashing of characters (especially the ones that lead to complete OOCness because bruh), proshipping (fuck that shit), and smut (I'm uncomfortable with writing and reading this personally)

I'm not sure if there are others I forgot to mention but those are the ones off the top of my head

🍍: What kind of AUs do you like? Are there any AUs you hate or just generally have beef with?

I generally like all AUs as long as the premise and summary of the fic is interesting!! As long as it hooks me in some way, I don't mind

Don't really have beef or hate for any particular AU, not unless the AU's aim is to only bash characters in some way

🫐: What’s your favorite underrated thing in your fandom? (A ship that only you seem to write for, a character there’s almost no fics about, a trope that criminally hasn’t been written yet, etc.)

Ooooh, this is a tough one, hm...

What does one consider as underrated in Encanto?

I'm blanking so hard, omg

Characters and various things probably considered underrated in this fandom are not considered underrated in my head because of how I think about them so much, so I'm not actually sure HASFUHASF

Plus I don't think it helps that I never really was in the fandom when it was in an all time high, and my hyperfixation only skyrocketed around three to four months ago

Oh well, I guess I can mention Casita, love Casita sm <33

🍐: Is there anything in canon that you absolutely hate and love to fix in fics? A wrong choice made, a fuck-up in characterization, a misunderstanding never cleared up, a conversation never shown onscreen, etc…

Well, this is another tough one, considering how Encanto is from Mirabel's pov which means it makes sense that some things aren't shown on screen, but even then, I think I still would have loved to see more dynamics and relationships between all the Madrigals, like a conversation between Isabela and Luisa for example (we saw them individually with Mirabel but not with each other—their moment in All of You is not enough 😔)

So it's less fix and more of explore in this case, especially since the only concrete canon we have are the movie and some comics and books

Though another thing I would love to fix are the misunderstandings, not in fics actually but rather with other people's perceptions and takes with the movie, because so many people miss several points completely in some way that it physically pains me every time, the "media literacy, where are you" type of thing

But I digress

Thanks for the ask!! :DD <33

[blogofloathing]

A loud, cheesy anthem plays as an awful stylilized OCWE appears on a black and white TV screen

"Good belated myorning folks, I am your esteemed host! Gillian Barlows Jr! And you are watching the Ocean City Watcher Éire! Hyere to bring you the latest scyoop on the people of our great city! who are they? Why are they? When are they? How do they peel their y'apples? Let's find out nyow!"

A new fangled transition effect plays as Gillian gives an overly exaggerated shocked expression.

Approaching our first interviewee, Gygan Clarks of the Ocean City Watchful Eye, but it seems he isn't particularly excited to see us haha, wonder why.

Our trusty boom man sticks the mic in his face, at which Gygan looks visibly annoyed, sheesh you'd think we killed this guys business or something.

"What do you want Gillian" he spat, frankly I'm offended he would be so rude to a reporter!

My cameraman delivers the question after a discreet go ahead sign waved in his direction

"Look unless you think apples can make coffee taste better I'm not interested," Gygan hisses, and after a short pause mutters "with a pocket knife"

And indeed if the bulge in his pocket isn't due to seeing me, he carries said weapon on him.

Let's move on from this wannabe newsman before he gets violent! You know how those types are.

Grumbling to himself, something about "fuckin' trend hopping fast news pieces of-" haha anyway!

An apple shaped transition plays, and due to formatting issues doesn't properly disappear

•••

Our next guest went up to us herself upon hearing there was a survey, so give it up for.. Simone Chekhov! Of the S.I.T Robotics department—

Somehow interrupting this audio added in post, the girl fires up a seemingly long held rant.

"Well actually it's Robotechtronics there's a very subtle but important difference in the two fields but anyway I made a machine that peels them so precisely the skin dissolves in contact with the air due to being sliced at such a thin micromascopic level that their mololcules are-" a thin homeless girl sticks a thumbs up wildly behind Simone.

The video is suddenly stopped here due to space, a cartoonish image of sad Gillian giving a thumbs down is shown onscreen for a few seconds.

•••

we're sorry to cut this short but our camera ran plumb out of juice trying to record it all haha!

Though this did little to falter her one sided rant, even as we turned our attention away from her

Moving onto the aforementioned hobo (it's good to get a perspective from the less than fortunate.)

"OOO OOO you're gonna ask me a question! Give it here!" She jumps excitedly, the words slamming into our crew much in the same way she physically rammed into my mic man in her overzealousness

The dusty girl, who we made sure didn't touch any of our equipment, had been chittering something inane at Simone when we asked, somehow able to properly talk between each other rather than over.

"I dunno I just chomp em, see?" taking a playful bite out of her sour face, leaving a toothy mark.

... the sounds of crickets chirping has been added

"Agh! Victoria!" She expleted, wiping her face off with her sleeve, "that's gross- you're gross!"

Though Victoria didn't seem too bothered, a sly little grin making its home on her spotted face.

"Hey don't pretend ya didn't like it" she slithered, at which Simone gave her a rather hard smack on the head "and there's more where that came from!" The bespectacled girl tittered haughtily.

A tinny and muffled laugh track plays, as Gillian audibly clicks a tape recorder to start and stop

•••

Moving on from those, shall we say interesting, characters, our boom operator caught wind of some music playing a few blocks down.

And we followed the groovy tunes to their source, coming upon quite the cello fellow!

Who is contentedly playing his instrument, my team having to remind him of the question, "oh I just slice em up with my trusty pocketknife!" Holding it up for a second before going back to ringing out the tunes.

Looks to be the same kinda knife as that.. eh I forgot his name already.

I say someone should definitely toss that guy a quarter, not me though.

Really if he can afford a cello is he actually that poor I mean cmon- ah, I've been instructed by my cameraman to stop here.

A bubble and wave crashing sound effect plays too loudly, with a chintzy fade to black transition

•••

Taking a dip per sé, we find.. someone else to ask.

Attempting to avoid being seen, the oddly slimy fellow is hiding against a wall, but seeing as his clothes aren't the exact shade and texture of bricks, "I, I don't know what an apple is? please leave me alone.." he croaks out in a froggy tone.

"Would you like to try one?" My boom operator chipperly inquires, at which the still unnamed weirdo looks even more terrified of us than before

"N-no I'm good really I.." it trailed off, guess they make hobos different these days, I can't get a read on what this guy might be on the street to beg for.

"Cmon I'll get ya a fresh one" he says again, taking a step closer to it, making the thing jump loudly.

Before running away from my team in a lurch, leaving weird wet slappy footprints in his wake.

Well that was certainly productive, why don't we heed this guys words and move on to another!

A hexagon transition with a splat sound effect, it doesn't even fully segue, cutting halfway through

•••

At the urging of my team, we reluctantly almer over to a goblin for questioning, she seemed to be dancing animatedly.. or maybe boxing with the air?

"Hi! Yes yes Hello! To apples slicing? No no, Gabby is practicing see?" It said, nearly assaulting one of my cameramen, "Gabby is champion of the box!"

a goofy swirl sound effect and then a laugh track

We don't speak creature so I have no idea what any of that meant, I'd say we get out of here before that thing gets aggressive, I've heard the stories of these kinds of monsters being dangerous!

They're lucky they don't have rights or else we'd totally sue them for emotional damages.

a spooky transition effect plays, bats flying across the screen and a very poorly done witches laugh

•••

As we were making our way back to the studio, my mic man caught eye of some kinda hobo living in the alley, I insisted we don't interview something like that but who listens to me around here?

Walking up to her, I'm already less than enthused about her appearance, something in her eyes wasn't like it should be, they seemed to stare directly inside of us unlike anything.

"Hello ma'am how would you say you peel-" my other cameraman began, being cut off by her wheezily trilling poem, "peel? Peeling, skin peeling wallpaper off the wall, apples falling trees cutting"

I.. wow! Okay! That is not at all what any of us were expecting, all our hairs stood violently on end.

Like looking into the den of a wounded predator about to make a strike, protecting its wounds.

She stepped closer to us, gazing through us, it felt as though she saw more than just my skin.

"Apples and oranges" it felt as though she wasn't even talking to us, despite facing our direction.

No one bothered putting a transition effect here, the camera simply cuts right to the next scene

•••

aaaaand one last questioneer today folks! As we were wrapping up and dutifully wiping down and sanitizing our stuff to get all the filth off them, a distracted old guy bumped into us, and sooooo!

"Oh! Eh uh, I mostly just eat cheese" the weirdo said emphatically before forcing us to look at a horrible mass of aged milk madness, before reassuring us that "it's Käse Brezel! The finest in the city! If ya see me come and buy so-" yeah no

Sorry sir I don't even know what language you just spoke there but I can tell it ain't somethin I'm gonna be eating, especially from someone like you

Though my crew seems oddly interested in it, I'll have to show them what real food is like I guess,

gives me an excuse to hang out with those mooks.

anywho, our final stop of the day was a nice little cheese pretzel shop, the finest in the city!

An equally loud and somehow even cheesier little outro theme plays as we fade back onto Gillian

"Well thyank you all for tyuning in this fine after nyoon, we hope we could answer all of your deep byurning questions! As always I am your esteemed host; Gillian Barlows Jr! And you have been watching the Ocean City Watcher Éire, where we catch up the scyoop and throw it to your hyoop! See y'all nyext week with our next Q: how good is the government doing right now? ( A: pyerfect!)"

[relaxxattack]

I can't remember if it was you discussing that the grubs that troll eat aren't troll grubs (primarily because there'd be more jokes about it) but I just thought about something I think maybe most of us in the fandom forgot about trolls naturally being hardwired against cannibalism (can't stand the taste of troll blood, unless they're a rainbow drinker [rare]), so that kinda disproves that they're eating troll babies when the mention grub-based meals and condiments

i believe the post you're thinking about is from @knights-unwelcommentary, but that is a very good point you've just made and if that's been shown on-screen*, i completely agree.

although i do think at some point hussie probably considered the joke that trolls eat their babies, because why not that makes perfect sense for a shitty evil alien race, they didn't commit to it quite enough for it to fully stick to me.

i mean, all of their games are also called grubs. so are their neighborhoods. so are their fucking computers. none of THOSE things are made of babies. i think it's more likely that trolls just like to use the word "grub" in things. but i'm also fairly biased.

*the only times i could find trolls ingesting blood onscreen was kanaya with her lusus blood (she didn't like it) and terezi with kanaya's blood (she also didn't like it, but maintains that it could be grubsauce, meaning that grubsauce likely tastes like blood, which is really just another point for grubsauce in fact being made of troll baby). though perhaps i missed one.

[eviltothecore13]

Why do so many people think Wesker was conditioned/brainwashed into feeling anxious whenever Spencer wasn't around?

Even if we just look at the English and not the imo clearer Japanese version, it says almost the exact opposite of that. Spencer's existence, Spencer's presence, was the source of the concern (note: the Japanese word for "anxiety" used refers to feeling anxious or worried about something, and is NOT the same as the word used for a clinical anxiety disorder. People who do not have anxiety disorders can feel worried about things. It is not stated anywhere in canon that Wesker has an anxiety disorder and neither does he display symptoms of such onscreen) that Wesker felt. Not the *lack* of his presence. He was worried because he knew Spencer was still out there and still hiding secrets from him, he's not a lost puppy with separation anxiety.

Wesker sought out Spencer looking for answers to the unanswered questions (about Umbrella, and Spencer's plans--there is no indication anywhere that Wesker knew Spencer had anything to do with his own childhood and in fact it appears that he was completely taken by surprise at the idea) that had been worrying him. The other kids were similarly manipulated into wanting to seek Spencer out--the details of this are unclear but given that in the Japanese version in particular, words like "concern" but also "interest", "curiosity", etc were present (saying that e.g. "Wesker was only curious about/interested in/concerned with Spencer because he had been made to be so") it suggests that they were also manipulated into seeking out *answers*, not just feeling constantly anxious whenever he isn't around (which they were never shown or stated to feel). Especially since it's also stated that once Wesker HAS those answers, Spencer has no more value to him and no more ability to manipulate him.

(Also a side note about the word "programmed" used in the English translation: I'm not saying it's wrong, but I do think it's put some inaccurate images in some people's heads. People picture someone strapped to an operating table with a device over their head that zaps their brain. That kind of sci-fi brainwashing doesn't work in real life, and hasn't really been shown working quite like that in RE--there's P30, and there's the technology used to make Carla believe she is Ada, but those are both stated to be recent inventions and also are only partly effective and don't work quite like the typical image of the trope. I REALLY don't think the RE universe had that kind of tech in the 60s and I don't like to introduce these sci-fi brainwashing tropes to any universe where they're not shown onscreen to be true, mostly because I think the whole trope should be thrown into the sun. But also because I think more realistic and subtle manipulation to make characters do certain things is more interesting both to write and to read. The phrasing used in the Japanese file could easily be translated as "he was made to do [X]", "he was influenced", manipulated, etc. Now, I don't actually think the English translator was necessarily TRYING to give a sci-fi brainwashing impression, because lots of media uses the word "programmed" to refer to the actions of real-life manipulative groups that of course use mundane methods of manipulation and NOT brain-zapping devices. But since 2009 a lot of media like the Winter Soldier etc has come out that put sci-fi brainwashing more at the forefront of people's minds and now that's the kind of assumption a lot of people have made. It's not actually explicit canon and unless it becomes explicit canon I'll assume it's NOT what went on because it's a trope that I really hate and introducing it to the 1960s would also just completely fuck up the whole timeline of what was invented when in the RE universe. If it IS made explicit canon at some point...idk I'll probably delete all my fics and WIPs and leave the fandom.)

[stolasbuckzo]

Theory Time: The Asmodean Crystal Crux

In 2x04 on Stolas’s phone it reminded him that he has a meeting with Asmodeus in three days time (most likely in regards of the Asmodean Crystal that was shown in 1x07 during the latter’s lament). So my theory is that Barbie & I.M.P will be episode 2x05 (because that wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t unless it takes two episodes in real life before it was brought up again)

As we all know we have seen Blitz with a box in front of him in the sneak peek at lvl expo what could only be assumed that it’s the Asmodean Crystal inside. What also supports my theory is Stolas’s look of rejection (yet again) — even more when Blitz answer about coming to visit him in hospital — at the end of this current episode; meaning he’s getting closer and closer to breaking off his transnational affair with Blitz and find an alternative way that doesn’t require them having sex.

Like Stolas said in his texts he was more than happy to drop the grimoire off or Blitz could keep it for a little bit longer if needed. Which makes sense why he was Blitz’s calendar has a lot of ❌ dates of the day that was supposed to be the “passionate fornication” night but has been repeatedly moved the next couple days. Which is understandable because Viv is showing us that Stolas is respecting Blitz by giving him space and slowly drawing away between episodes 1x07, where the problem happened, and 2x01 through to 2x04 onwards 2x12 (resolved — TBA)

I also feel like we won't see Stolas for another two episodes — knowing Viv's patterns she uses his appearance sparsely — between episodes, like "Loo Loo Land" & "Moonlight Harvest Festival" and again, in S2 with "Seeing Stars" and now "Western Energy"

But I’m getting off track here, since the storyline is about Blitz, his relationships, his company etc. It’s more than likely the episode is going to be about him and his rival (Fizzarolli) & Asmodeus or his sister (Barbie), if they’re not all the one thing but broken up to LOOK like 2x05 & 2x06, which makes sense because both Asmodean Crystal related which corresponds to 'Western Energy"

But who knows maybe Stolas might be indirectly mentioned about being in hospital or Asmodeus gets a text message via insinuation without being onscreen, I mean come on, I don’t think people would be too upset considering because he just had an whole angsty episode to himself. In fact, Blitz could even be talking to the latter on the phone in this scene, but we don’t hear what is being said.

I mean he’s got one hand on the phone and the other on the box-looking thing, which is assumed to be an Asmodean Crystal, and seemed more infuriated than usual towards Moxxie — or anyone who interrupted him with his phone call, could have easily been Loona 😂 — if it was just a client.

To ME this indicates the inevitable “break up” of Stolitz which would be so much easier to do now that Stolas doesn’t, temporarily, romantic feelings towards him. Which technically, all of this, would make sense in regards to the ending of 2x04; the strictly platonic / polite demeanour from Stolas towards Blitz, the meeting with Asmodeus & Fizz, the Asmodean Crystal, the latter obtaining said object physically etc

[goododarco]

Thinking about how Pancake boy’s apparent death in P5 can be handled in P5T. Since his death wasn’t shown onscreen, couldn’t he have been time-transported in the same fashion as the PT’s? However, this would decanonise Royal unless some weird shit happened with False Reality.