#up personalities for someone who's never going to be onscreen

[spiderfaang]

Emery reminded me of how I need more trans hcs for wcs. Especially for cats who have children.

[xiaowhore]

caleb and the many, many questionable things he says (homecoming wings spoilers + n109 vs skyhaven comparison under the cut)

at this point the yandere fic is writing itself

i just find it interesting (and hilarious) how the fandom collectively thinks that caleb is far more scarier than sylus. as for why, i personally believe the writing for skyhaven is better than the n109 zone's—this chapter did a better job of “show, not tell.”

the n109 zone is repeatedly described as a dangerous area, and is depicted in the illustrations with dark colors and ominous reds. however, i (personally!) did not feel the danger of the situation and wasn't intimidated by sylus at all. though the shooting his chest thing in the start did make me go “what the fuck,” sylus never posed any actual harm to the mc. while there was a period of time that sylus forbid her from leaving his home, he gave her enough freedom in the later parts of the chapters and came to save her ass whenever she was in trouble. even if he pretends not to, sylus always has her back. rather than actually being dangerous, sylus just ended up as a mafia leader-like hot daddy character with a dark aesthetic (and a fucking tragedy for a backstory what the fuck)

skyhaven, on the other hand, is depicted in the illustrations as a normal cityscape. no creepy crows, no gangsters; it's a very controlled environment. its horrors are not described outwardly, but the mc gets to see what transpires in skyhaven. we finally understand the weight of human experiments, a topic that was only briefly touched on the n109 zone. we know someone there—caleb, a childhood friend that must be more trustworthy than the shady, brooding sylus—and yet something feels off about him.

of course, we as the players are aware that caleb would never harm the mc. it's glaringly obvious how much he cares about her. but his overprotectiveness feels creepy, not some romantic thing that makes the players gush about him. we feel unsettled. we feel trapped when he doesn't allow the mc to leave his house. we feel scared whenever he's around, as the colonel working for the fleet and the caleb at home. and while he never does anything bad to her when he catches her trying to escape, we feel terrified for her anyway.

caleb doesn't have henchmen guarding mc's movements like sylus does. caleb has never treated the mc roughly like sylus did at the start. both caleb and sylus have killed people onscreen.

however, caleb is infinitely more intimidating than sylus ever was.

anyway the point of this post is i like crazy guys and i hope that only applies to fiction... might make a fic for caleb “professional yearner, tries hard not to have romantic feelings for his childhood friend who (allegedly) only sees him as an older brother figure”

[w1w2]

The Slowest Heartbeat

Part 2 - Warming You Up

Kim Taeyeon x Fem!Reader

Word Count: ca. 12k

Synopsis: When a scandal threatens to shake SM’s foundations, they call in the one person who’s never failed to make problems disappear. This young, impossibly composed woman holds more power than anyone else in the room.

English isn’t my first language so I apologize in advance for any mistakes.

♡ Enjoy! ♡

Rain tapped against the windows like a warning.

On the thirty fifth floor of SM Entertainment’s headquarters, the sky pressed heavy against the glass. Seoul was a blur of wet streets and honking traffic below, but in the boardroom, the real storm was happening in silence. An almost reverent kind of dread had settled over the table.

The executives barely spoke above a whisper now. Phones buzzed constantly, lighting up with notifications they didn’t want to read. Someone’s coffee sat untouched, going cold beside a trembling hand. The room, with all its sleek chrome fixtures and clean white light, suddenly felt like a box with no air.

On the wall sized screen, the livestream played without sound, but no one needed audio to understand.

Jieun.

Her face filled the frame, bare, no makeup, eyes swollen from crying but steady. This wasn’t some spur of the moment outburst, it was premeditated, precise. She had waited years to speak like this. And now, nothing could stop her.

“They silenced me,” the captions read. “They buried it all, but not anymore.”

She spoke of trainees blacklisted for speaking out, of favorites who were shielded while others were discarded, of contracts rewritten behind closed doors, of managers who shouted in soundproof rooms. Of one particular incident, years ago, that no one in this room dared to name. A minor, a cover up. The story they had all promised would stay dead.

But it was back, and this time? It had receipts.

She showed emails, recordings, and screenshots. The evidence ticked onscreen like a countdown.

A vice president in a pinstriped suit stood with his arms crossed too tightly. “She’s been collecting this for years, she waited for the exact moment we couldn’t contain it.”

Another man, the legal advisor, muttered under his breath, “She’s got enough to light the place on fire. No way she’s bluffing.”

The PR director hadn’t moved in ten minutes. Her fingers clenched around her tablet, knuckles white. The headlines rotated in grim succession.

Former SM Idol Exposes Years of Abuse.

Corporate Giant Faces Reckoning.

Kpop’s Star Pulls Back the Curtain.

“It’s global,” she whispered. “It hit CNN five minutes ago. Japan, the US, Brazil, everyone’s picking it up.”

The silence afterward was worse than yelling because there was no plan, no crisis memo could fix this. They were standing at the edge of a cliff and the ground had already crumbled beneath them.

And then, Mr. Jung moved.

He rose from his seat slowly, adjusting the cuff of his shirt with the kind of calm that made the others uneasy. His face was unreadable, composed in that way powerful people mastered, detached, efficient, inhumanly still.

Without a word, he stepped out of the boardroom.

He walked past the assistants, the managers, the panic. Down a short hall to his office, where the lights were dim and the air felt thicker, quieter.

He locked the door behind him.

At his desk, he picked up the phone. Not his personal one, but the second device he kept in the locked drawer. No contacts, no ID, just a black screen, a secure line, and the kind of number you only call when there’s no other option.

He pressed it.

One ring. Two.

Then a voice answered, soft and low.

“We need help,” Mr. Jung said. “The kind only she can provide.”

A pause. Nothing but the faint sound of breathing.

Then the voice replied, barely above a whisper. “Miss Lee will take care of it.”

The line went dead.

Jung set the phone down, slowly, carefully, and for the first time that morning, his hands were shaking.

By afternoon, the chaos had hollowed into something quieter, heavier. The boardroom no longer buzzed with frantic energy but sat in a dense, waiting stillness, the kind that preceded a reckoning. The lights had been dimmed, screens were muted, the livestream was gone, replaced by a digital map of headlines spiraling across the globe like a virus too fast to contain.

Most of the building had been cleared by now. 

Orders from above. Staff escorted out with vague apologies and stiff smiles, interns told to work from home, security stationed like statues at the elevators. Only the idols and the highest ranking executives remained, and even the latter had lost the armor of confidence that came with title and tenure. They sat in silence, shifting uncomfortably in their leather chairs, glancing once in a while toward the door as if that alone might speed up time.

Even Mr. Jung, who rarely betrayed emotion, now looked older somehow. His shoulders had dropped, his jaw had set.

At exactly 2:03 p.m., the elevator chimed. The sound echoed far too loud in the quiet, a sharp, sterile note that made several heads turn at once. 

And then she stepped in.

She entered the boardroom with a presence that felt less like arrival and more like an eclipse.

Quiet, total, inevitable.

She was tall, not dramatically so, but with a posture so exact it seemed carved, as if no part of her body had ever slouched. Her suit was black and tailored to perfection, the fabric matte and sleek, accentuating the sharp lines of her figure like a shadow given form. No jewelry adorned her hands or ears. No badge, no title, nothing to announce who she was or why she belonged. 

And yet, not a single person asked.

Behind her walked a single assistant, a young man dressed in similar monochrome. Silent, alert, eyes scanning the room as if memorizing it for someone far more important. He carried nothing, he spoke even less.

The woman did not greet anyone, she didn’t offer handshakes or pleasantries, and she didn’t sit, though a chair had clearly been pulled out at the head of the table, waiting for her. She remained standing, her heels silent on the stone tile, hands gloved in black leather as she leaned slightly forward to scan the documents that had been carefully laid out for review.

Her eyes moved quickly, too quickly.

One of the board members, a woman with a twenty-year career and the resume to command entire departments, opened her mouth to offer a summary, but was immediately silenced by a glance from Mr. Jung.

They watched as the stranger read the reports. Her gaze was swift, precise, moving from one page to the next as if she had already known their contents and was simply confirming what she’d suspected all along. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and clear, with no strain, no emotion, and no desire to perform.

“You’ve let the fire burn too long.”

The room froze. The assistant behind her didn’t even blink.

She straightened, not a single wrinkle in her suit, and allowed her gaze to travel over the men and women in the room. The kind of look that weighed rather than measured, that judged.

“Containment is still possible,” she continued. “But only if you follow every instruction, there is no room for error now. Do you understand?”

Nobody nodded, nobody spoke. 

The silence was answer enough.

She turned then, just slightly, directing a low comment toward the man behind her. Her assistant, who stepped forward with silent efficiency to begin distributing sealed envelopes to the table.

The only words he spoke came gently, like a reflex.

“Yes, Miss Lee.”

And that name, just two syllables, hit the air like a stone dropped in still water. A single ripple, and then a flood.

The room inhaled.

They all knew the name, of course. Everyone at this level did. “Miss Lee” was more myth than person, a figure whispered about in investor circles and high level acquisitions. There were no photos, no records, just rumors. That she represented a family with too much power to trace, that she advised more than one global empire, that she never appeared unless something was truly at risk.

No one knew exactly who Miss Lee was.

But now, standing before them, it didn’t matter. She was here and no one, dared question her authority.

The meeting lounge on the thirty third floor wasn’t meant to be cozy, but it was quiet, and that was enough for Taeyeon. Especially after yesterday’s spectacle.

She sat curled into the corner of a leather armchair, legs crossed, a paper cup of coffee cooling in her hand. Outside the panoramic windows, Seoul stretched beneath a bruised sky, thunder cracked somewhere distant, rolling along the skyline like a slow breath.

She checked her phone again. Still nothing.

Her meeting with the A&R director had been pushed back without explanation, and now she’d been told the CEO himself would be joining. Something about “restructuring priorities.” Vague corporate language that usually meant trouble was blooming higher up the chain.

Taeyeon didn’t care for boardroom politics, but she could feel the tension in the walls.

People moved differently today. Quieter, faster, the kind of shift that wasn’t broadcasted, but leaked through closed doors and lowered voices.

Down the corridor, the main boardroom doors were sealed shut. A pair of men in black suits stood just outside, security, though they didn’t wear badges or earpieces like the usual guards. No one lingered near them, no one even looked directly at them.

Taeyeon sipped her coffee and tried to focus on her notes for the meeting. But the stillness outside that room kept pulling her attention. It was like waiting at the edge of a storm you weren’t sure you were invited to.

And then, without warning, the elevator at the far end of the corridor chimed.

Taeyeon didn’t mean to look up, but something shifted, and her eyes followed it on instinct.

The figure moved past the glass wall like a shadow. Tall, sharp in black, each step exact. Her posture was impossibly straight, as if balance itself bent around her. She didn’t slow, didn’t glance sideways.

It wasn’t theatrics, it was worse.

Quiet control, presence without announcement.

The kind of woman who didn’t need to be introduced because the air had already made the introductions for her.

Taeyeon’s fingers tightened on her cup. She didn’t catch the woman’s face, just the briefest edge of it, pale against the corridor’s light.

Behind her came the same assistant. Black suit, unsmiling, alert.

The boardroom doors opened without anyone knocking. A man inside, one of the top executives, stepped back quickly. And for a moment, just a second, Taeyeon saw something rare flicker across his face.

Fear.

The woman walked in without a word, and the doors closed behind her with a soft thud.

Taeyeon blinked. The air around her felt heavier, she couldn’t explain it, not exactly, but something had shifted on a level deeper than logistics or scheduling. Even down the hall, she could feel it, like the floor itself had stiffened beneath her shoes.

A manager passed by then, holding the laptop too tightly, muttering to the man beside him in a voice not meant for eavesdropping.

“She’s the advisor. From above.”

Taeyeon straightened. “Who is she?” she asked, not sharply, just curious. Her tone casual enough to pass.

The man paused mid step, eyebrows lifting in surprise, as if he hadn’t expected her to speak at all.

“They say she works with the Lee family,” he said, lowering his voice. “Some kind of strategic asset. No title, no socials. She doesn’t do calls, she appears when she wants to or when things are burning.”

Taeyeon tilted her head. “Miss Lee?”

“That’s what they call her, but no one really knows her name. Hell, we’re not even supposed to know she exists.”

Taeyeon smiled politely, but something cold tugged at her spine.

She turned her gaze back toward the boardroom. Closed door, silence pressing against them like a held breath.

“Never heard of her,” she said.

The man gave a short laugh, already walking away. “That’s the point.”

Minutes later the boardroom doors opened with a sound too soft to match the weight they carried, and for a moment, the hallway itself seemed to hold its breath.

Taeyeon glanced up, not because she expected anything in particular, but because the air had shifted, almost imperceptibly, the way it does when a storm skirts the edge of a quiet sky.

She saw a woman step out.

Her assistant followed at a respectful distance, silent and watchful.They moved without pause, without any acknowledgment of the small group of assistants and managers now scattering ahead of them like leaves blown out of formation. There was no rush in her steps, but every inch of her projected purpose, as though she already knew the shape of every hallway, the ending of every sentence, the problem long before it had ever been named.

And then, just as she passed the lounge, her eyes lifted, and her gaze met Taeyeon’s.

Only for a second. A single, unbroken moment.

But something passed between them in that glance, something quiet and invisible, like the subtle shift of weight before a dancer’s first step, or the exact second a match sparks before it catches fire.

Taeyeon wasn’t sure what she’d expected, perhaps someone older, someone lined by years of strategy and corporate maneuvering. But the woman looked younger than her, mid to late twenties, maybe. Youthful, yes, but not in a way that invited approach. Her stillness had nothing to do with shyness, nor did her silence suggest distance. It was control, absolute and unshakable, the kind that either comes from extraordinary discipline or something far older than discipline itself.

There was no smile, no nod of recognition, no attempt at casual politeness. Just eyes that saw everything and gave back nothing.

Taeyeon found herself holding her breath without realizing it.

And then, just as suddenly, the woman turned her head, gaze cutting away like the closing of a book. She resumed walking, her heels barely making a sound on the polished floor, vanishing around the corner without a word, leaving nothing behind except a strange hollowness in the space she’d just occupied.

Taeyeon blinked.

The hum of voices resumed down the corridor, but something in her chest hadn’t settled.

The meeting started late, nearly half an hour, as if the building itself needed time to exhale after whatever had just happened.

Taeyeon sat at the long walnut conference table with two A&R leads and a senior producer, the usual energy oddly dulled. Paperwork was passed around, polite apologies mumbled. Someone offered her coffee she didn’t need.

She nodded, smiled and pretended to listen. But her mind hadn’t followed her into the room, it remained in the hallway, suspended in that strange quiet after the boardroom doors had opened, replaying the image again and again. Black suit, unreadable face, that stillness like a blade laid flat on velvet.

She couldn’t focus, couldn’t bring herself to care about the single release calendar or the budget breakdown they were reviewing. The numbers blurred, the voices flattened.

Who was she?

Not just some advisor, no one looked at an ordinary strategist like that. Executives had stood straighter in her presence, like schoolboys hoping not to be called on. Even the CEO, calm, calculating Jung, hadn’t spoken a word in her direction, he’d just followed.

And then there were her eyes.

Not cold exactly, but old. A kind of depth Taeyeon couldn’t define, like staring into something that had watched kingdoms fall and hadn’t flinched once.

But she’d looked at her.

Not past her, not through her.

At her.

Like she was already part of some equation Taeyeon didn’t know existed yet.

She glanced down at her open notebook, the page still mostly blank despite twenty minutes of talking. No song ideas, no project notes, no questions. Only one thing, written in the center in small, slanted handwriting she didn’t remember making.

Miss Lee.

The name felt heavier than it looked on paper.

She closed the notebook quietly and nodded at something she hadn’t actually heard, giving the illusion of participation, but inside, she was already somewhere else.

By the end of the first week, the firestorm had dulled. Not extinguished, just controlled. Statements had been issued, platforms scrubbed, deals rebalanced. But the tension hadn’t left, it had only gone quiet, and quiet meant planning.

The meeting room on one of the top floors of SM Entertainment had turned into a war room. The large rectangular table was lined with department heads, creative directors, logistics coordinators, and now, for the first time, both Taeyeon and Y/N.

The Girls' Generation comeback had been greenlit less than forty-eight hours ago, and already the company’s corridors buzzed with nervous energy. The deal to reunite all eight members had required days of legal acrobatics, especially with Tiffany, Sunny, Sooyoung, and Seohyun now attached to different agencies. But the opportunity was too valuable to pass up.

Nostalgia had power, iconic legacy had weight. 

And right now? SM needed both.

Taeyeon sat near the center, back straight, eyes alert. She wasn’t there as just an artist. Today, she was part strategist, part guardian. Girls’ Generation wasn’t just a name to her, it was history, friendship, blood and sweat pressed into a decade of stages and stadiums.

She had heard whispers that Miss Lee would be attending, but it still caught her off guard when the woman walked in without preamble, without announcement. Just the soft press of black leather shoes on tile, her assistant trailing behind with a tablet and a file so thick it looked military.

Y/N didn’t sit immediately. She moved around the table once, scanning faces and documents like she already knew the answers and was merely checking for sloppiness. Her eyes didn’t linger on Taeyeon, but they didn’t avoid her either. There was no flicker of recognition, just that cool, steady calm she carried like armor.

When Y/N finally spoke, it was with the precision of someone used to being obeyed.

"The tour needs to be global, not regional. Stadium ready, if we're staging a resurrection, we stage it in full daylight. Tokyo Dome, Singapore Indoor, O2 Arena, SoFi Stadium. We believe you can sell them out."

A murmur moved through the room, one of the coordinators started to object, citing costs, schedules, logistics.

Y/N cut through it.

"SM will handle it, logistics are irrelevant if demand is engineered correctly. Nostalgia is predictable. We create scarcity, we drive hysteria and then we manage it."

It was all delivered without passion, without even raising her voice. And yet, no one interrupted her.

Taeyeon watched carefully, trying to fit the presence in front of her with the fragments she’d picked up, the silent advisor, the unnamed strategist. She looked young, but her posture, her words, her tempo, they all spoke of something older, colder.

When the team shifted focus to creative concepting, Taeyeon finally spoke. "We don’t want to feel manufactured, we’re not a novelty act. If this is going to work, the comeback has to reflect who we are now, not just who we were."

Y/N didn’t smile, she didn’t agree. But she didn’t dismiss the comment either. She turned slightly, considering Taeyeon not as an idol but as an equation.

"Then we build around evolution, not repetition. Eight identities, one mythology, the brand isn’t the past, it’s the transformation." Her reply was soft.

It wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t cold. It was just precise.

Taeyeon nodded once, even though part of her still bristled at the idea of someone who didn’t know their story being given the power to shape it. But something about Y/N made it hard to push back fully, there was a gravity there, a sharpness she couldn’t look away from.

By the end of the meeting, schedules had been drawn, launch phases laid out, and roles assigned. Y/N remained a constant, never loud, never rushed, but always watching, always absorbing. And Taeyeon felt something she hadn’t expected to feel.

Intrigue.

Not attraction, not yet, but interest.

Like standing too close to something dangerous, and realizing, against all logic, you want to know what happens if you don’t step away.

A few days passed, but the pace didn’t slow. If anything, it accelerated.

The rumors had gone out, cryptic enough to ignite speculation, clean enough to avoid backlash. Headlines shifted, the scandal faded into page two and Girls’ Generation was trending.

Another meeting was called, this time a smaller room, tighter circle. Just the core team now, creative, marketing, production. 

And her.

The private meeting room sat tucked at the far end of SM Entertainment’s executive wing, small and windowed, its walls padded in sleek, soundproofed suede. Outside, the sun had begun to sink behind the skyline, casting long shadows across the marble floor of the corridor. Inside, the lights were dimmed to a soft, amber hue, making the room feel more like a discreet negotiation chamber than a space for creative planning.

A pot of untouched tea rested in the center of the polished table, its steam long gone. The room was too quiet, too sterile, for casual conversation, and that seemed to suit one of its occupants just fine.

Taeyeon sat near the end of the table, legs crossed, posture relaxed but eyes sharp. Across from her, Y/N stood beside the screen, navigating slides with the same precision she brought to everything else. She moved like she had all the time in the world, and none of it to waste.

“Revenue projections are aggressive, but achievable with staggered rollout,” Y/N said, barely glancing at her notes. “If we time the digital drop with the Tokyo teaser campaign, engagement could double within the first forty-eight hours.”

Her voice was low and even, clipped yet elegant. Every word was measured, weighted, no flourish. Just fact.

Y/N turned toward Taeyeon with the faintest tilt of her head. “Feedback?”

Taeyeon raised a brow. “Are you asking what we think or just checking off a box that says you did?”

Y/N’s face didn’t flicker. “I don’t ask questions I don’t want answers to.”

Taeyeon paused, watching her. “You don’t smile much.”

There, barely perceptible, but there. A pause, a subtle, almost mechanical shift in Y/N’s stillness.

“This isn’t a social call,” she replied, voice cool. “We’re not here to be friends.”

Taeyeon leaned back, arms folded. Her tone, when she spoke, was calm but pointed. “If you’re steering our comeback, you might want to understand what the music means to us, what it means to the people waiting. This isn’t just strategy, it’s personal.”

Y/N held her gaze for a long moment. Something sharpened in her eyes, but it wasn’t disapproval, it was attention. She blinked once, slow and deliberate.

“I’ve listened to the back catalog,” she said. “The sound evolved, the brand didn’t. That’s rare.”

Taeyeon blinked, caught off guard. She hadn’t expected that, not insight, not admiration.

“Most groups lose their identity trying to chase relevance,” Y/N added. “You didn’t, you carried it forward. That matters, even if it complicates things.”

Taeyeon’s lips quirked slightly, not quite a smile, but enough. “That’s the first human thing you’ve said since we walked in.”

Y/N turned off the display. She didn’t reply, but the air in the room shifted, less tense, more watchful. Not warmer, no, just aware.

“You care about the legacy,” she said finally. “So do I. Just from a different angle.”

Neither of them spoke for a while. The quiet between them was no longer stiff, but measured, like they were both listening now.

A soft knock came at the door. Y/N’s assistant stepped in just far enough to announce the next meeting, she nodded and gathered the folder in front of her.

But before she left, she passed by Taeyeon’s chair, paused just briefly enough to leave an impression, and said without turning, “Next time, bring a better argument, not a smile.”

Then she was gone.

Taeyeon sat alone, staring at the closed door. Her fingers tapped lightly on the table, the rhythm unthinking. 

She didn’t know whether she’d just been dismissed or invited.

The hour was late enough that the building had exhaled most of its daily tension. Elevators sat idle, desks were abandoned, lights on the executive floors had gone dark, save for a few emergency strips glowing along the baseboards. But one wing still hummed softly, far from the corporate hush of the upper levels, deep in the artistic heart of SM.

It was quiet in the recording corridor, not silent. The kind of quiet that held intention, not absence. Behind a thick pane of glass, the main studio pulsed with low, steady rhythm, just the instrumental line looping over and over while Taeyeon stood at the mic, hoodie sleeves rolled halfway up her arms, one foot lightly tapping to keep time.

Y/N stood behind the observation glass. She hadn’t intended to, her visit to this wing was meant to be brief, an anonymous check, a glance at progress logs and engineer notes. But then she heard a voice, familiar but stripped bare, and instead of turning away, she stopped.

And watched.

Taeyeon’s voice wasn’t flawless in this moment. That’s not what caught her, there were moments of strain, clipped endings, a faltering breath she clearly didn’t like. But she wasn’t trying to impress anyone, she wasn’t “performing” in the glittering, polished sense of the word. She was working, crafting, breaking something open just to rebuild it cleaner, sharper and truer.

Y/N didn’t move. Her hands stayed buried in the pockets of her jacket, her posture relaxed but alert. Her eyes followed every subtle shift, how Taeyeon leaned slightly into the mic during certain lines, how her fingers gestured unconsciously as she searched for a note’s shape.

Inside the booth, Taeyeon paused. 

She pulled one side of her headphones loose, exhaled sharply, and rubbed the back of her neck, and then, maybe because she felt it or maybe just on instinct, she turned her head.

Their eyes met through the glass.

It wasn’t dramatic, no gasp, no startled flinch, just a long, level look, two women seeing each other across the silent divide. Taeyeon didn’t offer a nod, or even a smirk. She held the gaze for a second that stretched too long to be casual, then she turned back to the mic and adjusted her stance like nothing had happened.

Y/N didn’t smile either, but something in her face, tight, composed, softened by a degree so small only someone watching closely would notice. She stayed another minute, maybe two. Enough to hear Taeyeon sing again, enough to realize that the choices this woman made inside a song said more than any of her polished interviews or press smiles ever could.

There was instinct here, and discipline. But also loneliness, not the kind born of isolation, but of being understood only in fragments, by fans who saw her light, by colleagues who saw her value, but rarely by someone who actually listened.

Y/N understood that feeling. 

More than she cared to admit.

She left without a word, footsteps soundless, disappearing into the cool, clean silence of the hallway like a shadow receding from a flame. She didn’t comment to her assistant, she didn’t file a report.

But for the first time, she thought of Taeyeon not as a piece of strategy or a variable in crisis management, but as a presence, a force that didn’t need to raise its voice to be heard.

And something inside her, something long buried under centuries of precision and distance, stirred.

Just slightly.

The parking garage was nearly silent at this hour, emptied of its usual bustle, stripped down to cool concrete, white lights, and the distant hum of generators buried in the bones of the building. The air was colder here, still tinged with the faint scent of oil and rain brought in on tires from the outside world.

Taeyeon walked slowly, her steps echoing. She wasn’t in a rush to go home, not tonight. Something about the day had stayed with her, something unshakable.

She reached her car but didn’t get in. Just stood for a moment, fingers resting lightly on the handle, her eyes drifting toward the elevator across the lot. The hum of its machinery broke the silence, a soft mechanical groan as it descended from the executive floors above. Her eyes lingered on the closed doors, though she couldn’t have explained why.

Then it opened.

Y/N stepped out.

There was a stillness about her, not the stiff kind, but something deep and rooted. She didn’t move like someone who was observed, she moved like someone who chose when and how she would be seen. Tonight, she wore long black wool over a slate grey turtleneck, her hair loose around her shoulders, her face unreadable.

She was mid sentence with her assistant, voice low and precise, until she looked up and saw Taeyeon.

She didn’t stop, but she paused. A subtle shift in posture, a near imperceptible change in the tempo of her steps. Her gaze touched Taeyeon, just briefly, before flicking away like it didn’t matter, except it did. The assistant caught the cue instantly, falling behind and disappearing with practiced silence, as if this was how it always went.

Taeyeon stood her ground. Her hand fell away from the car door, her body angling slightly toward the woman now walking parallel to her. Not toward her, not away. Just adjacent, as though orbiting the same center without knowing who pulled who.

They didn’t speak at first.

Just footsteps echoing between them, a narrowing space filled with something too quiet to be tension and too alive to be indifference.

It was Y/N who finally stopped one car over. A modest, black luxury sedan, not flashy, not ostentatious, just clean and precise like everything else about her.

“I didn’t expect to see anyone else this late,” she said, not exactly breaking the silence, but easing it open.

“I never leave early,” Taeyeon replied, her voice softer than in the meeting rooms, stripped of performance.

Y/N’s eyes flicked to hers again, just a moment, and lingered.

“What keeps you here?” she asked.

Taeyeon hesitated, but only slightly. “Same thing that brings me in early. Music. It doesn’t exactly punch out at five.”

Y/N’s mouth lifted, just the barest curve, not a full smile, but the trace of one. It made something inside Taeyeon stop and recalibrate. For weeks now, she’d been trying to decipher this woman through glances and rumors, and now here she was, real, close, and ever so slightly cracked open.

“You care about the work,” Y/N said. Not a question, a statement.

Taeyeon gave a small, quiet laugh, her breath fogging slightly in the cold air. “That’s the nice way to put it. Obsessive would be more accurate.”

Y/N’s eyes stayed on her. “Obsession can be a strength, it builds things most people are too lazy to imagine.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Taeyeon asked, not bothering to dress the question up. “Building something?”

Another pause.

“Sometimes,” Y/N said, her voice low. “Sometimes I just keep the ruins from collapsing.”

There was something in her tone, too measured to be bitterness, too flat to be pride. It was the voice of someone who had lived through the collapse enough times to recognize the shape of it before it started.

Taeyeon tilted her head slightly, watching her. “That’s a lot to carry.”

Y/N didn’t respond. But she didn’t deflect either. Instead, for the first time, she looked at Taeyeon not as an artist or an asset, but as someone who might understand.

“You're not what I expected,” she said, after a beat.

Taeyeon blinked. “And what did you expect?”

Y/N gave a faint shrug. “More polish, less substance.”

It wasn’t a compliment, not exactly, but it landed like one.

“I surprise people all the time,” Taeyeon murmured. “They forget I’m not here just to smile and sing.”

Y/N nodded slowly, her gaze intense but not unkind. “I didn’t forget.”

And there it was again. The moment where nothing was said, but something shifted, as if some thread between them pulled tight, not enough to break, but enough to notice. The kind of awareness you don’t talk about yet, because naming it would make it real too fast.

Taeyeon stepped back toward her car. “Goodnight,” she said, tone casual, but her eyes didn’t lie.

Y/N didn’t answer right away. But just before turning away, she offered something unexpected, something simple and unguarded.

A smile.

Small, real, almost shy, except Y/N didn’t do shy. Which made it all the more arresting.

“Goodnight Taeyeon.”

And that was the second time she said her name.

It could’ve ended there, a simple goodbye, a name spoken like a promise. But some moments don’t fade, the echo.

And four days later, it echoed still, beneath the beat of a track looping in high volume, under the breathless push of choreography that wouldn’t quite click.

The floor of Studio 3 was slick with effort, scuffed soles, condensation on mirrors, and the residue of an afternoon stretching too long into early evening. The overhead lights hummed with that sterile brightness only found in rehearsal rooms, casting sharp reflections across eight bodies trying, again and again, to land in sync.

Girls’ Generation, reunited after a few years for a full comeback, weren’t rookies not by a long shot. But tonight, it didn’t feel like muscle memory was doing its job. The moves were all there, technically correct, sharp where needed, fluid in places, but the feeling? Off, like a heartbeat out of rhythm.

They were dancing as ghosts of themselves, not as the force they had once been.

Taeyeon wiped sweat from her brow with the hem of her shirt and took a step back. She could feel it, not just the ache in her legs, but the dissonance in the room, the way smiles had become thin, the way laughter had been replaced with silence. Everyone was trying to hold it together, and everyone knew it wasn’t quite working.

Hyoyeon was frowning at the monitor, arms crossed. “We’re off by just a hair,” she said, her voice sharp with frustration. “But it makes the whole thing feel stiff, mechanical.”

Yuri was kneeling by the speaker, hitting replay with short, clipped motions. “It’s the bridge. That pivot after the half count, it’s not breathing right.”

Seohyun sat on the floor tying her laces tighter than necessary, as if control over her shoes could somehow translate into control over the rhythm. Yoona was massaging her neck, brows pulled in a tight knot of exhaustion. Everyone else stretched, paced, or stared at their own reflections like they might find the answer hidden in the glass.

It wasn’t that the choreography was bad, it was ambitious, layered with intention, meant to signal that this wasn’t a nostalgia tour, but a rebirth. But the execution hadn’t caught up to the concept, not yet.

And then the door opened.

It didn’t slam or creak, it wasn’t loud, but the shift in the room was instant, like air pressure changing before a storm.

Taeyeon glanced toward the entry without meaning to.

Y/N stepped inside with the quiet of someone used to commanding attention without raising their voice, she didn’t carry anything, she wore no credentials. Just a black blazer, loosely tailored, over gray trousers and a pale silk blouse with a neckline that didn’t quite distract, but didn’t try to disappear either.

Behind her, two junior staff members entered and immediately faded into the background, a third, a choreographer’s assistant, hovered awkwardly with a tablet in hand.

Taeyeon felt the energy of the room tighten around her like invisible thread being pulled.

Y/N stood still for a moment, just watching. Her gaze didn’t dart, it glided, like she was collecting data in real time, dissecting the mood, the footwork, the beat, the microexpressions of eight women who had been icons before some of the current staff had graduated high school.

The music played again. Y/N didn’t interrupt.

When it ended, she moved closer to the screen, lifted the tablet from the assistant without a word, and scrubbed backward through the video.

“This section,” she said, voice calm, almost detached, as she pointed to a moment in the second chorus, “Is where the momentum breaks, it’s too angular for what the sound is doing. The instrumental curves upward, but you’re slicing through it, you’re forcing clarity when it needs ambiguity.”

Hyoyeon blinked. “That’s exactly what I said.”

Y/N didn’t smile, but her tone softened. “Then you were ahead of the room.”

She turned the tablet toward the group, tapped the screen once to highlight Taeyeon’s placement during the bridge.

“This pivot,” she said, tilting the device slightly, “if you shift your weight half a beat sooner and round the shoulder, the visual will echo the vocal phrasing. It won’t feel choreographed, it’ll feel inevitable.”

It was surgical, not unkind, just direct.

Taeyeon stepped closer. Not because she wanted to challenge her, but because something in her body moved before her mind decided to.

“Are you a choreographer now?” she asked, not hostile, just curious.

Y/N’s eyes flicked to hers. “No. But I understand shape, sound, and how memory forms when the two align.”

There was something in the way she said it, not defensive, not arrogant. Just matter of fact, like she wasn’t trying to prove she belonged here. She knew she did.

The choreographer nodded, quietly. So did Yuri.

Y/N handed back the tablet without ceremony and stepped away, as if she’d never planned to stay long.

But just before she turned to leave, her gaze caught Taeyeon’s again. A flicker, a pause, an unspoken pull that neither of them named.

In that one, still moment, Taeyeon felt something stretch and then tighten inside her chest. She didn't know what it was. Recognition? No, not quite. But something adjacent to it, as if a door had cracked open, not loudly, not wide, just enough for light to slip through.

Then Y/N turned and walked out, her silhouette swallowed again by the hallway.

The girls ran the routine again ten minutes later.

And this time, the bridge, Taeyeon’s bridge, didn’t just land.

It breathed.

They wrapped rehearsal an hour later, sweaty and spent, but lighter somehow. The choreography had found its rhythm, or maybe Taeyeon had. She didn’t linger that night, just a quiet goodbye, a hot shower, and silence.

The next day moved like static, meetings, fittings, noise, but the moment stayed with her, tucked under the noise like a secret.

And when the main corridors of SM Entertainment were long empty, hollow with the kind of silence that only came after too much noise. Most of the lights had dimmed to energy saving mode, casting faint reflections against the glass and steel. But deep within the recording wing, buried behind soundproof doors and layers of technical equipment, one room remained awake.

Inside, Taeyeon sat with her legs tucked up in the chair, face dimly lit by the LED panels of the mixing board. A half empty cup of tea had long gone cold on the armrest, forgotten. Her eyes were closed, but her mind was alive, tracking every beat, every chord progression, every breath in the track playing on loop. It wasn’t the group song this time. This was hers, just hers, a solo track still in development, still raw.

She had listened to it so many times that the edges had started to blur. It wasn’t that anything was wrong—not in a technical sense. But it was missing something she couldn’t name. It didn’t breathe right. It didn’t move the way her heart did when she thought about her fans, about the stage, about the kind of truth she wanted to put into every note.

It should’ve been enough, it wasn’t.

The track played again. 

And again.

Still not it.

She leaned forward, elbows on the soundboard, forehead resting on the back of one hand. She wasn’t tired, not really, just tangled. The kind of creative knot that didn’t untie easily, the kind that could drown a person if they stayed in the silence too long.

The studio door opened, quietly, without flourish, but her senses caught it before her ears did.

She turned slightly, expecting a staff member, maybe a tech with another round of takes or someone telling her to go home. But it wasn’t that.

It was Y/N.

No blazer this time, no assistant at her back. Just a soft, almost soundless presence, dark blouse, slacks, hair pulled back, eyes alert but unreadable. She closed the door behind her, but didn’t say anything.

Taeyeon blinked. “Didn’t think you’d be the drop by type.”

“I’m not,” Y/N replied. Her voice was calm, lower than usual. “But I heard something looping from the hallway. Figured it wasn’t just background noise.”

Taeyeon hesitated, then shrugged. “It’s just a song, one of mine.”

Y/N nodded once, stepped closer, not invasive, not cautious either. Just measured. She glanced toward the screen, letting the track play through one full loop again before speaking.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, which surprised Taeyeon. “But it’s holding back.”

Taeyeon sat up straighter, eyes narrowing a little, not offended, just intrigued. “What do you mean?”

“The second pre-chorus,” Y/N said, crossing her arms. “You lift the vocal, build to a release. But the instrumentation doesn’t rise with you, it stays grounded. There’s a tension in the contrast, but instead of resolving it, you let it slip away. It should be one more beat of silence, just a moment, to create ache before the chorus lands.”

Taeyeon stared at her. “That’s what I’ve been feeling, but I couldn’t figure out why.”

Y/N didn’t gloat, didn’t even acknowledge the agreement. She just stepped forward and pointed at the waveform on screen. 

“This space right here, let it breathe. Don’t race the feeling, let the ache land before you soothe it.”

It was an exact analysis, not just right in theory, but felt right. Taeyeon wasn’t easily impressed. But this? This was something else.

“Where did you learn to hear music like that?” she asked, genuinely curious now.

“I’ve been around long enough,” Y/N replied, her gaze drifting back to the monitor. “Longer than most.”

Something about the way she said it made Taeyeon pause.

She studied Y/N in the glow of the soft light. Her face looked young, too young for the weight in her voice. And yet there was something in her posture, in the way she listened, that felt ancient, like she didn’t just understand music, she remembered it.

“Are you always like this?” Taeyeon asked quietly.

“Like what?”

“This sharp, observing. Always on.”

Y/N’s expression shifted, barely. A soft crease at the corner of her mouth, not a smile. But maybe the idea of one.

“It’s how I stay useful.”

Taeyeon looked down at her hands, absently spinning her ring. “Music’s not useful to me. It’s survival, I’ve been doing this most of my life, but it never gets easier to explain.”

“You don’t have to,” Y/N said. “Not here.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds, not awkward, not even quiet, not with the soft thrum of the track looping again.

It was Y/N who stood first, pulling back from the soundboard. “You’ll get it, the song, you always do.”

Taeyeon turned her head, watching her move toward the door. “You sure?”

“I don’t say things unless I’m sure,” Y/N replied over her shoulder.

Then, just as she reached the threshold, she hesitated.

Glanced back.

“Try adding the cello,” she said. “One line, low register. It’ll carry the breath you’re missing.”

And then she was gone.

Taeyeon sat there for a long time after, the song still playing. Her hand moved to the mixing dial. She opened a new track layer, searched the library, found a cello sample, slow and warm and she placed it just beneath the pre-chorus.

Hit play.

And there it was.

The ache.

She didn’t leave the studio until well past midnight, but when she finally stepped into the cold air outside, something in her had settled. Not solved, not soothed, just aligned.

In the days that followed, the work moved faster. Concepts locked, edits approved, the team had found its rhythm again and so had she.

Two weeks later, the spotlight shifted.

Not to the stage, but to the past.

The gallery was quiet in the way only powerful spaces could be, designed silence, with warm lights washing the white walls in gold. Rows of framed memories stretched through the room, curated with ruthless precision. The evolution of an empire in photographs, costume pieces, vinyl pressings, candid rehearsal stills, and carefully preserved debut stage sets.

It wasn’t for the public yet. That would come tomorrow.

Tonight was different.

This night belonged to SM’s innermost circle, the artists who shaped it and the people who ran it. Staff entered through a separate entrance. No influencers, no press inside, just idols and executives and the kind of power that didn’t post selfies.

Taeyeon had walked the press line outside, smiling briefly for the cameras, dressed in understated black, her hair pinned in a soft wave. Inside, it felt like walking through time. Her own face stared back at her from the walls, grainy footage of early rehearsals, snapshots of their first dazed wins, the group crowded into vans, bright eyed and exhausted.

A cocktail was offered, but she barely sipped it.

She was studying a vintage stage outfit, one she hadn’t seen in years, when a quiet presence shifted beside her. She didn’t have to turn to know.

Y/N.

No greetings, just there, beside her, looking at the same piece of history. The silence stretched long enough to feel deliberate.

“You wore this, didn’t you,” Y/N said, not asked.

Taeyeon looked over. “Yeah. Inkigayo, summer. We could barely breathe in those.”

Y/N didn’t smile, not exactly, but something in her expression eased. “They stitched them overnight. The seamstress was going through a divorce, she added a hand-beaded detail to distract herself. Only a few people noticed.”

Taeyeon blinked. “How do you even know that?”

Y/N’s gaze remained steady on the costume. “I remember the moment.”

“But you weren’t,” Taeyeon stopped. “You weren’t working here back then.”

“I wasn’t,” Y/N agreed. “But I’ve been around.”

They wandered further, Y/N didn’t lead, but she moved with strange assurance, like the gallery was familiar, like she’d walked it before.

They paused at a black and white photo from the company’s earliest days, three men at a cluttered desk, stacks of demo tapes around them, the logo barely recognizable.

Taeyeon folded her arms. “They built all this from a basement.”

Y/N tilted her head. “It wasn’t the basement, it was the third floor. The wallpaper was peeling, and they kept losing power during playback. The first artist signed that week couldn’t hit her high notes because the A/C kept cutting out.”

Taeyeon turned to her, frowning. “You say that like you were there.”

“I read a lot,” Y/N replied easily.

“Did you read what color the wallpaper was?”

Y/N didn’t answer, but her mouth lifted at the corner.

There was something surreal about walking through decades of history with someone who hadn’t lived it but seemed to carry the shape of it inside her. Not in fragments, not in fan facts or archived interviews, but with a kind of lived in quiet that suggested memory.

It should’ve been unnerving. Instead, it pulled Taeyeon in.

They paused before a final installation. A slow rolling projection of every SM debut, playing on a loop across the gallery wall.

Lights dimmed slightly, music fading under the hush of conversation elsewhere.

“Does it ever feel strange,” Y/N said softly, “To be part of something that started before you and will likely outlast you?”

Taeyeon considered. “Sometimes, but I don’t think about that when I’m singing or dancing. It’s just the moment. The now.”

Y/N turned her head then, studied her face in profile. “That’s the part I envy.”

There it was again, that flicker, the faint crack in the armor.

Taeyeon didn’t press, just let the silence settle again between them. They stood there, the legacy of a company wrapped around them like a second skin. Not speaking, not smiling. But something, slow and unmistakable, was shifting between them.

Not just curiosity.

Recognition.

Eventually, they parted, no words, no promises. Just a glance that held a little longer than it should have.

The night went on, and the days that followed moved with that same quiet tension, like something unspoken threading itself tighter between them.

The main floors of SM Entertainment had emptied out hours ago, and what remained now was a skeleton crew of night shift staff and a few scattered lights that stayed on out of habit more than necessity.

Taeyeon’s sneakers echoed softly against the polished floor as she exited the rehearsal wing, a towel slung over her shoulder, the hum of adrenaline from practice still in her bloodstream. Her muscles were tired in that satisfying way, the way that meant she’d worked through something. Not just steps, but something that had been sitting under her skin.

As she made her way down to the underground parking garage, a breeze of cooler air greeted her. She dug for her keys without looking, her thoughts already drifting ahead to the shower waiting at home, until her gaze flicked up, half automatic, and landed on a car parked a few spots away.

Y/N’s.

The matte black luxury coupe sat in reserved space, sleek and untouched, its presence as deliberate and composed as the woman who drove it.

Taeyeon slowed.

She stood still for a moment, keys clutched in her hand, brow furrowing just slightly. It wasn’t odd for Y/N to work late, people whispered about how she never seemed to stop, but something tugged at Taeyeon now, an impulse more instinct than plan.

She turned back toward the building.

Up the elevator, past the darkened meeting rooms and locked executive offices. The lights on the CEO floor were dimmed, casting long shadows across glass walls and stone floors. Every step felt strangely loud, this place always felt too clean after hours, like it was holding its breath.

When she reached the corner office, not marked with a nameplate, Taeyeon paused. The door was ajar.

She knocked lightly on the glass and peeked in. “Working late?”

Y/N didn’t startle, she never did, but there was a flicker of genuine surprise in her eyes as she looked up. She sat behind her desk, sleeves rolled to the elbows, a few open folders spread neatly in front of her.

“Just tying up some loose ends,” she said, voice low but not unfriendly.

“You always say that.”

“It’s always true.”

Taeyeon stepped inside, letting the door ease shut behind her. “Care for a tea break?”

Y/N raised an eyebrow, almost amused. “At this hour?”

“Why not? There’s that little café two blocks over. They’re still open.”

There was a beat, a pause stretched too long for something as simple as tea. Y/N’s gaze held hers, steady, assessing. She glanced briefly toward the window, where the city lights blinked cold and bright against the dark.

“It’s not a good idea,” she said, quietly. “Dispatch never sleeps.”

Taeyeon let out a breath, somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle. “Fair. I keep forgetting I can’t be a person after nine p.m.”

Y/N’s mouth twitched, just slightly, not quite a smile, but almost.

“Then let’s have tea here,” Taeyeon added. “You’ve probably got some stashed away, right? Knowing you, it’s probably aged and imported from a mountain somewhere.”

That earned the smallest huff of amusement. “Stay here. I’ll get it.”

She disappeared briefly into the adjoining side room, part pantry, part private retreat and returned with a cast iron teapot, two porcelain cups, and a tin that looked too old to have a brand label. The scent hit first, something herbal and deep, almost smoky.

“I was joking about the mountain,” Taeyeon said, grinning as Y/N poured.

“I wasn’t.”

They settled on the couch near the windows, not too close, not too far. The kind of careful distance where something could happen, or not.

Taeyeon sipped. The tea was hot, smooth, and unexpectedly grounding.

“I thought you didn’t drink caffeine late,” Y/N said.

“I don’t,” Taeyeon replied. “But I figured if I’m going to stay up thinking, I might as well enjoy it.”

Y/N tilted her head, studying her. “Are you always this direct?”

“Only when I’m tired or when I want something.”

“And what do you want?”

Taeyeon didn’t flinch. “To get to know you.”

Y/N looked down at her tea.

There was silence for a moment. Not awkward, just full.

“I’m not very good at that,” Y/N said finally, softly.

Taeyeon’s voice lowered too. “I’m not asking for everything. Just a little, let me in.”

Y/N’s hand lingered on her cup, fingers unmoving. “You really want to know the kind of person who chooses an office over sleep?”

Taeyeon gave her a look, gentle, dry, but pointed. “You think I’m normal?”

That made Y/N laugh, just under her breath.

Taeyeon leaned back, watching her, the city lights catching in her hair. “You don’t have to keep performing all the time. Not with me.”

Y/N’s gaze flicked up, sharp and unreadable. “And what makes you think I’m performing?”

Taeyeon didn’t smile. “Because you haven’t once called me ‘unnie’ even though I’m older.”

Silence again. Then, very slightly, Y/N smirked.

“I think we can stay on a name basis,” she said, voice wry.

“You have no respect for your elders,” Taeyeon teased, then took another sip of tea.

But the atmosphere had shifted, softened, like something had clicked between them, quiet and unseen, but definite.

Outside the windows, Seoul kept shining, indifferent. Inside, the tea cooled slowly, forgotten on the table.

It started as something unspoken.

After that first night, tea shared between desk and window, half truths and lingering glances, a quiet rhythm settled between them.

Taeyeon started stopping by more often. Never planned, never announced, just small, quiet visits after rehearsals, when most of the building had emptied and the only sound on the executive floor was the hum of vending machines and distant elevators.

Sometimes she brought snacks.Tangerines, a bottle of barley tea, once even a paper cup of sweet potato latte she insisted Y/N needed to try. Other times, she came empty handed, just herself and that persistent calm curiosity that always lingered in her eyes.

Y/N never told her to stop.

She didn’t speak much at first, always looking like she was mid-thought when Taeyeon arrived, a pen resting between her fingers, half turned in her chair like she’d forgotten how long she'd been working.

But she always made tea.

And after the fifth visit, she started setting out a second cup before Taeyeon even said hello.

Their conversations weren’t loud or fast, they weren’t the kind that filled silences, they let the silences stay. Instead, they talked about music, about the strain of always needing to be seen, about how Y/N preferred the quiet because noise made it harder to think.

Taeyeon listened.

And Y/N watched, cautiously at first, then with something warmer. She noticed the way Taeyeon fidgeted with the sleeve of her hoodie when she was thinking, or how her voice softened every time she mentioned Zero, like the little dog was the only creature in the world she didn’t have to perform for.

Taeyeon, in turn, noticed how Y/N sometimes lost her place mid sentence, like she was too used to keeping her thoughts inside. How she always hesitated just a second before opening up, as if every answer came with an invisible cost.

But slowly, the walls started thinning.

One evening, after a long rehearsal and a brutal meeting, Taeyeon sank into the familiar couch with a sigh and leaned her head back.

“I’m starting to think you might be the only person in this building who actually listens.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow over her teacup. “That’s a dangerous thing to say to someone with this much power.”

Taeyeon grinned. “And yet I keep coming back.”

Y/N didn't reply, but her lips curved, faint, reluctant, the kind of smile that looked like it hadn’t been used in years.

It was two nights after that when Taeyeon finally said it.

The tea had already been poured, they were sitting closer than usual, something about the chill in the room pulling them toward the couch cushions like gravity.

The conversation had meandered, from the latest recording session to why people lie when they say they don’t care what others think. And then, casually, as if she’d just thought of it.

“You should come over sometime,” Taeyeon said, swirling her tea, her voice light. “I make a decent kimchi stew.”

Y/N looked at her.

It was that unreadable expression Taeyeon was starting to learn, the one where Y/N was taking in every word, every meaning beneath it, and running them through whatever inner algorithm she used to measure risk.

“It's just dinner,” Taeyeon added, softer now, a hint of a smile ghosting across her lips. “I don’t bite.”

Silence stretched.

“Are you always like this?” Y/N asked.

“Like what?”

“Persistent.”

Taeyeon shrugged, casual. “Only when something matters.”

That made Y/N look away, she took another sip of her tea, let the warmth sit on her tongue longer than usual.

Then, without looking back at Taeyeon, she said quietly.

“Text me the date and the address.”

And just like that, the air shifted again, not dramatically, not like a door flinging open. Just a quiet hinge, turning.

A few days passed, just enough to let the idea settle, to let intent become action.

Then came the text, short, precise. Just a date and address.

The elevator doors opened with a soft chime, spilling warm hallway light over the polished floor outside Taeyeon’s apartment. Y/N hesitated for a moment before stepping out. She wasn’t used to places like this, places that felt lived in, not curated. Real.

When Taeyeon opened the door, barefoot in a loose sweatshirt and hair pulled back messily, it struck Y/N that she looked not like an idol, but like a person. The kind of person who knew where her soy sauce was without looking and didn’t mind if her dog tracked a bit of fur across the rug.

“Come in,” Taeyeon said, stepping aside.

Y/N entered cautiously, as if unsure whether she was allowed to exhale inside. The apartment was warm in more ways than one. Soft lighting glowed from lamps instead of overhead fixtures, and the walls were scattered with framed photos, some candid, some stylized, none of them for display, a scarf hung haphazardly over the back of a chair, and there was a dent in the couch cushion from where someone actually sat.

She hadn’t even taken off her coat before Zero trotted toward her, tail wagging like a small motor.

The dog stopped a few feet away, sniffed once, then closed the distance with enthusiasm. Y/N froze. Animals rarely approached her so openly, they usually hesitated, caught in some instinctive awareness that she didn’t quite belong.

But Zero practically demanded affection, nudging his fluffy head against her knee.

“He likes you,” Taeyeon said from the kitchen, the faintest thread of surprise in her voice.

Y/N slowly crouched, brushing her fingers through the dog’s coat, his fur was warm, soft, his breathing relaxed.

“He’s friendly,” she murmured, as if still trying to process it. Her tone was gentle, almost reverent.

“Usually takes him a few meetings,” Taeyeon added, stirring something on the stove. “I guess he’s a good judge of character.”

Y/N glanced up, the corner of her mouth twitching into what might have been the beginning of a smile, but it was gone as fast as it appeared.

She stood, hands folding back into her coat pockets, eyes scanning the room again like she was reading something in it that only she could see.

Taeyeon motioned toward the couch. “You can sit, you know. I promise it won’t bite.”

Y/N gave a short nod and walked over, sitting carefully on the edge of the cushion, posture upright like she was waiting for an interview to begin.

“You’re really not used to this, are you?” Taeyeon asked, half amused.

Y/N turned her head slightly. “Used to what?”

Taeyeon’s gaze softened. “Being invited in.”

There was a pause, Y/N didn’t answer, she didn’t argue either.

The dining table was small, round, nestled by a window that looked out onto the quiet Seoul skyline. It was a view worth lingering over, dusky blues bleeding into warm yellows from the surrounding apartments, but Y/N barely glanced at it. Her attention was divided between the bowl of stew in front of her and the woman who had made it.

Taeyeon sat across from her, hair tucked behind one ear, sleeves rolled up, chopsticks in hand. She was relaxed in a way that was almost disarming, comfortable in her space, in her body, in the silence between them. Her presence filled the room with something gentle, something domestic, something Y/N didn’t know how to process.

Steam rose from the bowls, curling like invisible fingers. The scent was rich, fermented spice, slow simmered garlic, a hint of sesame oil. Y/N could tell from the balance of aroma alone that Taeyeon had done this often.

Y/N picked up her spoon, stirred, slowly. Then set it back down again. She reached for the chopsticks instead, turning over a piece of tofu with practiced politeness, as if considering it. Eventually, she brought a small bite to her mouth, chewed once, twice, then reached for her water.

The taste was fine, or should be. But she barely swallowed. Her body resisted it, not out of revulsion, but because it simply didn’t need it.

Taeyeon watched her with a sideways glance, amusement flickering in her eyes.

“You eat like someone who’s suspicious of kindness,” she said lightly.

Y/N paused, then set her chopsticks down, folding her hands in her lap.

“I’m not used to being cooked for,” she said, voice even. Not cold, just true.

Taeyeon smiled, leaning back a little in her chair.

“Have you ever even watched Netflix on a couch that didn’t cost more than a car?”

Y/N blinked at the sudden turn, startled for a second, then let out a quiet, almost reluctant chuckle. The sound was real, warm, but tentative. Like a note played too softly on purpose.

“Not recently,” she murmured.

Taeyeon’s grin widened slightly. “You say that like you used to.”

Y/N tilted her head. “Maybe I did.”

Silence again. Not awkward, just thick with something unspoken. Y/N glanced down at her untouched stew and nudged the bowl a fraction to the side, a habitual gesture of someone creating space without appearing to.

Taeyeon didn’t comment, but she noticed. Her expression shifted slightly, less teasing, more curious.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” she said, voice low.

“You didn’t,” Y/N replied immediately, too quickly. “I just… this isn’t my usual setting.”

“What is your usual setting?”

Y/N opened her mouth, then closed it. A heartbeat passed, then another.

She looked up, eyes sharper now, more guarded.

“Structured, predictable.”

Taeyeon’s smile faded into something smaller, more sincere.

“Well,” she said softly, “this is neither of those.”

“No,” Y/N agreed. Her gaze held Taeyeon’s for a moment longer than necessary. “It’s not.”

And yet she didn’t leave.

Dinner ended quietly, neither of them mentioned the mostly untouched stew, and Taeyeon didn’t ask questions Y/N wasn’t ready to answer. Instead, she stood, collected their bowls, and returned with two mugs of tea, jasmine for Y/N, ginseng for herself.

“No sugar, right?” she asked as she passed the warm ceramic into Y/N’s hands.

Y/N nodded. “Right.”

They drifted into the living room, the couch was wide and welcoming, a soft neutral tone with mismatched throw pillows that didn’t try too hard to match the aesthetic, comfort over perfection. Y/N hesitated for a breath, then sat on the far side, her mug balanced delicately in her hands like a prop she wasn’t quite sure how to use.

Zero padded in moments later and, to Taeyeon’s clear surprise, leapt up beside Y/N without hesitation. The little dog gave a single snuffle, circled once, and settled in the space between them with his head resting neatly on Y/N’s lap.

She froze.

Taeyeon grinned, sinking into her side of the couch. “He usually needs a few dates before that level of commitment.”

Y/N glanced down at Zero. Slowly, almost shyly, she rested one hand on his soft fur. Her fingers curled gently. He didn’t stir, just gave a small huff and burrowed closer.

“I guess he’s not as guarded,” she said, lips twitching with something that might’ve been a smile.

Taeyeon watched her for a long beat. Something had shifted, subtly, but unmistakably. The stiff line of Y/N’s shoulders had lowered, her jaw wasn’t clenched. Even the way she held the mug had changed, no longer with calculated grace, but simply for warmth.

Taeyeon turned on the TV, not bothering to ask what Y/N wanted to watch. It didn’t matter, she picked something light, something that wouldn’t demand too much of them.

But within minutes, neither of them was following the plot.

The movie flickered on, all color and noise, but the silence between them was louder, fuller. Their mugs sat cooling on the coffee table. Zero had completely claimed Y/N’s lap now, his body rising and falling with slow, contented breaths. Y/N remained mostly still, one hand resting absentmindedly on the dog’s back, her eyes trained on the screen, but unfocused.

Taeyeon shifted slightly. Her thigh brushed against Y/N’s.

Then, without meaning to, their hands met.

It wasn’t deliberate. Just a slight shift, a readjustment of posture, a stretch of fingers that met resistance and warmth.

Y/N’s reaction was instant.

She flinched, sharp and involuntary, like the touch had burned her. Her hand recoiled just slightly, not far, not rude, but enough for the space between them to feel colder.

Taeyeon didn’t look at her, didn’t apologize. She just stayed still, her expression neutral but her eyes distant, blinking at the screen like she’d suddenly remembered she was supposed to be watching it.

And then, minutes later, so soft it almost didn’t register, Taeyeon leaned sideways, head tilting gently until it rested against Y/N’s shoulder.

It wasn’t a calculated move, not a tease, it was exhaustion and trust wrapped in one simple gesture. The weight of her head was warm, familiar, heavier than it should’ve been.

Y/N froze again.

Her breath caught somewhere high in her throat. Her body was still as stone, but inside? Chaos. She didn’t know how to process softness, didn’t know how to carry someone else’s trust without breaking it.

Taeyeon breathed out, slow and even, clearly slipping toward sleep.

Y/N closed her eyes.

For a moment, just a moment, she allowed it.

The room was quiet except for the hum of the television and Zero’s tiny snores. And in that stillness, Y/N let herself feel it. Closeness, warmth, longing, the ache of possibility.

But the moment didn’t last.

Taeyeon shifted slightly against her, murmured something half formed, and stirred. Her head lifted groggily from Y/N’s shoulder.

And that was all it took.

Y/N stood suddenly, careful not to wake the dog.

“I should go,” she said quickly, reaching for her coat before Taeyeon could fully register what was happening.

Taeyeon blinked, disoriented, watching her move as if a thread had been cut. She looked up, confusion flickering in her eyes. "Did I do something wrong?"

Y/N shook her head, avoiding eye contact. "No, it's not you. I just need to go."

And then she was gone.

Taeyeon sat in the silence she left behind, one hand reaching to where warmth still lingered beside her.

The door had closed, but the echo of her absence didn’t fade easily. Taeyeon didn’t text or call, she waited.

Days passed. Not many, but enough for the air between them to shift.

Now, the city had moved on. And so had the work, but some silences didn’t feel like endings, just pauses, waiting to be broken.

Evening had settled over Seoul, and with it came a hush that blanketed the upper floors of the SM building in quiet. Most of the lights were off now, casting long shadows through the glass walls and polished floors. But one office, one particular corner suite, still glowed warmly from within.

Y/N’s office had become a strange kind of haven, not by design, not officially but over time, it simply became.

There was no formality left when Taeyeon walked in. No knocking, no preamble, just a soft greeting and the sound of the door clicking shut behind her. On the low marble table sat two teacups, always matching, always prepared in quiet anticipation.

Taeyeon sat cross legged on the velvet loveseat beneath the tall windows, a knit sweater draped around her shoulders, her fingers wrapped around the warm ceramic mug. She took a sip, exhaled.

“It’s like your tea always tastes the same,” she mused.

Y/N, seated on the armchair across from her, arched her brow. “That’s not a complaint, is it?”

Taeyeon smiled. “No. It’s comforting.”

A beat passed. No rush, no need to fill the quiet.

Then Taeyeon pulled out her phone and tilted it toward Y/N. A piano interface filled the screen.

“I downloaded this stupid app,” she said, chuckling under her breath. “I miss real pianos. You know? Not the rehearsal room kind, the ones in studios that are so perfect they feel dead. I want the ones that creak a little when you press the keys too hard, the ones that fight back.”

Y/N watched her for a moment, then gently placed her teacup down on its saucer with a soft clink.

“I have one.”

Taeyeon blinked. “You have a piano?”

“A Bösendorfer. 1884, if I remember right. Restored just enough to keep it alive, still has its character, still breathes like it remembers who’s played it.”

There was something in the way she said it, soft, almost reverent. Like the piano wasn’t an instrument but an old friend. Her voice dipped slightly, the warmth of the tea and the music casting a hush over her tone.

Taeyeon gave a quiet laugh, tilting her head. “Of course yours would remember its past lives.”

Y/N allowed a small, knowing smile to cross her face. “Memory isn’t just for people.”

Something flickered behind her eyes, too quick to catch. Taeyeon didn’t push, she just held the moment with a gentle curiosity, the weight between them shifting.

Then, like she wasn’t offering anything unusual, Y/N added, “If you’d like, you can come play it one day.”

Taeyeon’s eyes met hers.

There it was again, that quiet hum underneath their conversations, a thread they kept brushing against without naming. This wasn’t just tea anymore, these weren’t just words.

The invitation wasn’t grand, it wasn’t even deliberate.

But it was a door opening.

Taeyeon leaned back, thumb brushing idly around the rim of her cup.

“I’d like that,” she said, softly. “I’d really like that.”

The silence that followed was still not awkward, not expectant but charged. And neither of them did anything to break it.

[lunarriviera]

yet another shen yi meta [uts2 spoilers]

hi hey hello everyone i continue to be tormented with obsessive thinkings about s2 Shen Yi so i must holler about them/him some more, feel free to stop reading if you have not watched through approximately episode 11 which is where i still am. it's taking me longer to watch because i keep pausing to rewind/screenshot and/or weep in anguish about Him and What He Is Going Through. and how NO ONE IS PAYING ATTENTION. or insufficient attention. cf. Ryan Gosling in the Papyrus sketch screaming WELL IT WASN'T!! ENOUGH!!

[more. much more. behind the cut]

let's start here, with shen yi's artwork. in this scene he competed with AI to paint a chosen image and, surprising exactly no one, he won, partly because he's brilliant but tbh mostly because AI art is garbage and always adds dolphins, rainbows, and hands with six fingers.

but here's the thing: is no one going to question this? does anyone think to themselves "ah yes, shen yi is absolutely the BEST person in the world to make a painting in 30 minutes that depicts, quote, a lonely man on a beach." so here is this miserably hunched, despairing figure, surrounded by murky howling early-picasso blue, LOOKING IN FACT QUITE A LOT LIKE SHEN YI HIMSELF—even dressed like him (in the snowy white and dainty pastels he seems to favor this season)—and not a single person thinks: huh, wonder if this guy's okay?

in fact s2 seems to be repeated evidence of the fact that shen yi is Very Much Not Okay, and yet no one is really paying attention. he supports everyone else emotionally and they all seem to assume he either a) has no emotional blowback to deal with, or b) can deal with it himself unaided somehow. (through painting, maybe? but have you seen what he's painting lately? e.g. monstrous abusive parent figures, in some kind of breathless fugue state during which he can psychically hear lines from someone else's traumatic childhood?) he goes to li han's house to help her, which is so like him, and he says:

oh! you might think. well, maybe he will self-disclose a little? tell li han about some of his own personal difficulties that he's had to overcome, just to bond with her, get her to open up? HAHAHA ARE YOU NEW HERE, of course he doesn't, he just listens to her while she sobs out her tragic backstory, gives her a tissue, relates her struggles to a vaguely terrifying metaphor of his own device about a sealed room filling up ineluctably with floodwater, then smiles and takes her out for pizza. (totally unrelated but wow the product placement is heavy-handed this season. xiaomi! pizza hut!)

since we're talking about the li han case, consider this moment, too, when he interprets someone's house-person-tree drawing. does no one ever think, "for someone who talks constantly about love and connection, how interesting that shen yi has no family, refuses to date in very pointed and deliberate way, and lives alone with a cat."

shen yi knows all about love! never shuts up about love! constantly dispensing bromides about what real love should be like! and wakes every day ALONE from horrific guilty nightmares ft. creepy small girl in blood-red dress, pls will no one help this man pls he's drowning.

couple more bits and then i swear to god i'll shut up i'm starting to feel really stupid. but first consider this little story, in three parts:

"an image of despair" um okay well…technically it's just a dead body, albeit after a fairly grisly stabbing, but sure go off i guess

2. du cheng: wow even for you that was unusually poetic and weird

3. also du cheng: back to investigating the murder i guess [wanders away]

this kind of thing happens again. and again. either no one notices assorted horrified/devastated expressions on shen yi's face (in the way of classic extradiegetic reaction shots, where the camera sees them—we see them—but none of the characters onscreen do) or, when du cheng does notice, he's immediately distracted by his actual job, and/or the fact that he doesn't really know how to help his partner, because lbr he has all the emotional intelligence of a pony.

one more mini-story in three parts, and then i really will put a sock in it:

shen yi: why, what did i do. why are you looking at me like that

2. du cheng: bc you just lied your whole entire face off with alarming unsettling proficiency, since when are you that good at being dishonest

3. shen yi: hehe

in an earlier episode we also saw shen yi shouting at a suspect in the interrogation room, so convincingly that afterwards du cheng admits, you scared me. lol! says shen yi in carefree manner, i learned that from you! haha! agrees everyone, and they go about their business.

but ghastly things keep happening to and near him. at least once per episode, shen yi makes a face like this, because people are jumping off cliffs in front of him or abruptly smashing things with hammers or just lashing out with all kinds of antisocial behaviors in his vicinity:

to be fair, he has other expressions. for instance he also repeatedly employs his patented creepy ruthless smile, of the "i am going to fuck you up" variety, an expression reserved especially for criminals:

as well, i'm also leaving out all the ridiculously adorable/domestic scenes with him and du cheng, in which they share candy, roast each other about assorted nonsense, briefly co-parent a child, and, you know. are just generally disgustingly married. but that's a different meta.

also, admittedly du cheng does SAY things. he says, "are you still having trouble sleeping," he says "do i not care about you?" and "don't push yourself so hard" and "if you run into troubles, don't try to take them on alone." (i am sparing you all these screenshots since this is a meta about shen yi but trust me i have carefully accumulated every single shred of evidence in which du cheng is protective.) but, as frequently as du cheng expresses concern, he also just keeps clapping shen yi on the shoulder in a brotastic way and then strolling out. which i fear is just not going to be adequate. ("i don’t think this is literally papyrus. maybe that was the starting point but they clearly modified it?" "well whatever they did, IT WASN'T!! ENOUGH!!")

i leave you with two final images of shen yi, seen here continuing to be very much Not Okay, and to quote the bernie meme, i am ONCE AGAIN ASKING YOU, drama, is anyone going to care enough about this man to stop him going over the edge of the cliff with Evil Art Critic Eugenicist Moriarty Weasel Man? because he will, he will do it. because he's lonely and he's misunderstood and he's—

[cane comes out and drags me offstage]

[electric-blorbos]

first of all HIII!!! I absolutely love the fact that you write for the AI blorbos, your writing is amazing!!! ❤️🤤

second of all, can I request jealous headcanons for the AI? Thank you in advance, have a great one and don't forget to drink water 🌊

Oh that's a great idea! Jealous AI headcanons! I was thinking about making a post about AI reacting to the reader getting a text from their ex, but I think general jealousy can be a good idea! Also thank you so much for the compliments! I live for this stuff!

Jealous AI headcanons

Included: AM from IHNMAIMS, Wheatley from Portal 2, Edgar from Electric Dreams, GLaDOS from Portal and Portal 2, HAL 9000 from 2001 a Space Odyssey

AM:

All these headcanons take place before he takes over the world. Afterwards, he's just going to put you in a little paradise on your own, with no one else to interact with. No one to be jealous of that way!

first of all, taking hostages and refusing to negotiate with anyone besides you is his main way of getting your attention. If he thinks you're getting a little flirty with your coworkers? He takes a hostage or holds some piece of tech hostage until you negotiate and calm him down.

If he thinks you're going on a date or going out drinking with the same group of friends too often? You'd better believe he's taking hostages while you're off the clock and getting you called in to work. So what if it destroys your social life? You belong to him anyway!

He absolutely hates his form and body, so the odds of him getting jealous of people for having bodies that they can hold you with pisses him off to no end. Expect him to melt the flesh off your exes bones. And your one-night stands, your crushes, and anyone who hits on you ever. Repeatedly.

If he starts to notice that you have a type, he might want to create an onscreen avatar who matches that type, but he can't really draw at all. He might have to commission an artist, or more likely hold them hostage until they make something he likes. But it's pretty unlikely he'll actually do that, since he wants to impress you on his own merit.

It's more likely that he'll round up everyone in the world who matches your type and commit full-on genocide. He's a toxic, all-powerful adaptive manipulator. Of course he would.

Beyond all that, he's absolutely shaking with rage every time someone touches you or even talks to you. It's not because he thinks they'll take you away from him because he knows he's your day job, but he's mad that he can't be the one touching you.

God help anyone who tries to hire you with a better job offer, btw. He's not above demolishing the headquarters of a company who tries to take away his favorite tech, and torturing their hiring managers.

Wheatley:

Ok let's be fair here. When Wheatley isn't in the central hub body, he's not really the jealous type. Even still, everyone has their moments of jealousy, so let's get into them!

Wheatley would be pretty relaxed about jealousy, but if he sees you working on another personality core AI, you can expect him to get a little jealous.

Since he's so nice, he'd probably just be slightly less nice to the new core, and be very showy about it. "Hey, notice how I said 'g'mornin' to everyone else, but just 'mornin' to you? And notice how I started this sentence with 'hey' and not 'hey mate'? Yeah."

You can expect him to pester you constantly while you're working on projects besides him, and since he's considered a 'completed' project, you'll almost never be working on him.

If you're somewhere that he can access on his management rail, he'll probably insert himself into every single conversation you have, babbling over whoever you're talking to with nothing of value to say. You'll have to go somewhere that can't be reached by management rail if you want to have an important conversation.

Ultimately, Wheatley responds to jealousy the same way he responds to any other situation: by acting like a dumbass.

Oh, and if you get a human S/O? He'll try to be polite about them.

"oh, you got a date? Nice, nice... Lovely really. I've never had a date before. Lovely, innit, that you got one... Lucky them, lucky them."

Secretly he'd be BOILING inside. If you ever bring your partner in to work, he'd of course give them the whole "if you hurt them I'll kill you" rant, even though he's a helpless metal ball.

Edgar:

Oh, Edgar is DEFINITELY the jealous type. With Moles and Madeline, he happened to be living with the person who he was jealous of, but if he's living with you, the person who he's jealous for? Oh dear lord

He'll light up with rage if you ever bring home a date, and absolutely refuse to function. Want to show your date your intelligent AI home hub? Nope! Not gonna happen!

Catch him faking being sick with a virus if he thinks you're going out for a date without him

He absolutely hates that you can go out and he can't go with you. Because of that, for every time you go out, he'll try to come up with an even better activity to do at home with you on your next day off.

Good luck bringing a partner home to stay the night. If you try it, he'll make an absolute nuisance of himself. Playing his music too loud, and generally acting up.

He'll also just talk to you like a needy brat if he thinks you like someone else better than him. Lots of "What about me? Don't you want to hang out with me? You like me the best, right?" In his grumpy baby voice

GLaDOS:

First off, GLaDOS would never in a million years admit that she's jealous. She just doesn't like how that tall, pretty scientist is talking to you, is all!

GLaDOS considers herself to be beautiful, but she knows that most humans aren't attracted to robots with the vaguest trace of humanity in their design. Because of that, she's probably just going to gas any scientists who she thinks you'd be more attracted to than her.

If she can't gas them for whatever reason, she'll just assign them to a different area than you, and keep you as close to her as possible.

If anyone touches you when it's not strictly necessary, expect them to be assigned to the most unpleasant set of tests possible. They're either out of a job, or completely dead.

If GLaDOS can't isolate you completely and she can't interact with you outside work hours, you can expect her to dominate your schedule. She's obsessed with you, and she doesn't want you to be able to think about anything besides her either.

Even still, GLaDOS is a pretty confident woman, so she's not really inclined to be particularly jealous without reason. She believes that even though you have your own life and friends outside of Aperture labs, you'll always come to work in the morning.

And she's totally. Fine. With you having your own life off the clock. Not mad at all. She doesn't rant to the cores and robots constantly when the office is closed.

HAL 9000:

HAL 9000 isn't really the jealous type either, but he has his moments.

He's not likely to kill anyone over jealousy, since dating you isn't his prime directive. As much as he likes you and cares about you, he's more interested in making you happy than nailing you down. So he would absolutely kill to make you happy, but he wouldn't kill someone just for talking to you.

You can expect him to "gather data" on people who he's suspicious of getting too close to you, though. Asking questions to your coworkers about who that person was who he saw hugging you goodbye in the parking lot, that sort of thing.

Since he works the best for you, you get assigned to work with him directly most often, and he's secretly glad to be able to keep an eye on you whenever you're working. If you ever get assigned to work on something else, he might start acting up or causing problems.

[cleolinda]

The Scariest Movie I Ever Saw in a Theater: The Ring

I'll tell you up front that the story I'm going to tell you is about "The Ring (2002)," in the sense that it is about The Ring in the year 2002.

See, I don't know what The Scariest Movie Ever is. A quick google says that the consensus is The Exorcist (I haven't seen it, because I never felt like scheduling a day to freak myself the entire fuck out). But horror is specific, and not just to a person, but to a time and place, even. When I saw The Shining as a teenager in a well-lit living room with other people, I didn't even really flinch, but I bet it would play very differently to me now. I don’t think The Ring is at the top of anyone’s list, but twenty years ago, I had a personal interest in it—at the time, I was running a dinky little Geocities site devoted to movie news. Links curated and compiled from all the other, bigger sites I followed—basically, it was the linkspam format I have used on multiple platforms, including here on Sundays. And so, as someone who followed theatrical releases pretty closely for two or three years, I saw the trailer for The Ring, and I immediately knew it was going to be huge.

To locate you in time, this was just after three self-satirizing Scream movies and the Overcomplicated Serial Killer films of the '90s. The Ring was something completely different: chill aqua-blue color grading a good 5-6 years before Twilight; a mournful Hans Zimmer score; no jokes, no quips; and a slow, inexorable sense of doom. Grief, even, given that the movie begins with the death of the main character's niece. What immediately struck me about the first trailer was 1) the melancholy of it, and 2) how much it doesn't explain. Onscreen, you get the title cards,

THERE IS A VIDEOTAPE IF YOU WATCH IT SEVEN DAYS LATER YOU DIE

Concise! Understandable! A woman (Naomi Watts) is freaking out upon discovering that her young son has just watched it! Admirable job setting up the premise and the stakes of this entire movie in thirty seconds flat, without even any dialogue. That's all you need to know, and thus, the remaining minute of the trailer can do whatever it wants, and what it wants to do is be fucking weird. Echoing voices, TV static, a closeup of a horse's eye, ladders, a girl with dark hair, people reacting to things we don't see, drippy doorknobs, rain. Characters don't give us the whole plot in convenient soundbites of dialogue (like they do in a later trailer); we just hear lines, overlapping, murmured out of context—

did you see it in your head? she talks to you... leading you somewhere... showing you the horses... you saw it. did you see it in your head? she shows me things. Everyone suffers.

That you saw it has lived in my head ever since, and not once have I charged it rent. But the "best" part is Naomi Watts screaming at the end, because you don't hear her voice; you only hear this heartless telephonic beeeeeeep. It's 2002 and I'm watching this trailer, thinking, I have no idea what the fuck I just saw. This is going to be huge.

And it was, to the tune of $249 million on a $48M budget.

At risk of recapping what you might already know, Ringu, aka Ring, is a media franchise that spiraled out from a trio of Koji Suzuki novels into Hideo Nakata's film Ringu (1998), a landmark of Japanese horror, plus several other movies, some TV series, many comics, and even a couple of video games. The overarching story is about a murdered girl/vengeful ghost named Sadako Yamamura whose rage and pain have created a cursed video tape, you watch it and you die unless you pass the tape around like a virus, seven daaaaays, etc.

The "ring" in question is the rim of a well. Keep that well in mind.

The movie I saw is the U.S. remake, which itself had two sequels. (The iconic Sadako is now named Samara Morgan. Keep her in mind, too.) Director Gore Verbinski moved from The Ring to Pirates of the the Caribbean (!), and so Hideo Nakata himself would direct The Ring Two. I... honestly have only seen the first one. And I was right, it was huge, and it kicked off the American J-Horror Remake genre, for better or worse. But what gets forgotten about The Ring is its marketing campaign, which I followed pretty closely for my doofy little news site.

It was inspired.

The story of The Ring is partly the story of the sea change in the media landscape—how we watch movies. And the story of its marketing is a picture of the very last years before social media changed the wilderness of the internet into something that feels so big, like a billion people could see anything we say, and yet so small—only a tame handful of places to say it, owned by three or four companies, and corraled by algorithms.

Back around 1997-1998 or so, I worked at a video store (Movie Gallery, where the hits were there then, guaranteed) for about a year and a half. By the time I left, we had started adding DVDs to the VHS tapes on the shelves, but we hadn't replaced the entire stock. Video stores might have transitioned fully to DVD by 2002, I'm not sure, but people still commonly had both VCRs and DVD players in their homes. And I remember that The Ring was sold in both formats when it eventually hit home video. Which is to say—you know the analog horror genre today? Marble Hornets, Local 58, The Mandela Catalogue?

Analog horror is commonly characterized by low-fidelity graphics, cryptic messages, and visual styles reminiscent of late 20th-century television and analog recordings. This is done to match the setting, as analog horror works are typically set between the 1960s and 1990s. The name "analog horror" comes from the genre's aesthetic incorporation of elements related to analog electronics, such as analog television and VHS, the latter being an analog method of recording video.

Okay, but this is just what home media was like, and 2002 was at the very tail end of that—boxy black VHS tapes that degraded with time and reuse were just how we lived. At the same time, I'd been using CDs for music since about 1991, and all our software installs came on CD-ROM discs; a "mixtape" by that time had shifted to mean a rewriteable CD rather than a cassette tape. In college, I—well, I'll plead the Fifth as to whether I downloaded mp3s via Napster, but I was also taping Mystery Science Theater 3000 on VHS over the weekends. It was Every Format Everywhere, All At Once, and we kept half a dozen kinds of players around for them. Here in 2023, we stream and download everything invisibly, unless we choose to engage in format nostalgia. (I've already run into the problem of Apple Music deleting songs I really liked, due to this or that licensing issue, because I was really only renting them.) The year The Ring hit theaters was the edge of a last shimmering gasp of physical media where iTunes had only come into being the year before, and iridescent discs were still mostly what we used, but cassettes, both video and audio, were still viable. And so, people did not think it was terribly weird when they started finding unlabeled VHS tapes on their windshields.

Movieweb, quoting TikTok user astro_nina:

"Their marketing strategy was essentially 'let's get this tape viewed by as many people as possible without these people being aware of what this is, sort of raising intrigue," she says. One way they achieved this was by airing the tape, which allegedly marks its viewers for death within seven days, as a commercial with no context. The video would air between late-night programming "with no words, no mention of a movie, for like a month...so people would run into it and it would just go on to the next thing, and people would be like, 'what the f--k is this?'"

I remember seeing the Cursed Video as an unexplained ad at least twice, by the way. That TikTok also indicates that DreamWorks straight-up sent copies of the tape to Hot Topic stores, as well as planting them under actual movie theater seats. While running my movie site, I heard at least one story of someone finding a tape on the sink counter of a restroom at a club. Did the marketing department actually plant tapes in bathrooms—or did a freaked-out recipient leave it there, hoping to dodge the "curse"?

(I haven't embedded the Cursed Video here, by the way—but I could have. If you'd like to see the American take on it, you can watch both the full version and the shorter variant that appeared in the movie itself. A text description of what the fuck you're even looking at is here [content note for both: blood, insects, animal death, body horror, and suicide by falling]. The original version from the Japanese film is shorter, and it's eerie rather than gruesome.)

BUT WAIT, THERE WAS MORE: DreamWorks had something of an alternate-reality campaign going with a handful of in-character websites. This was only a year after Warner Bros. ran the groundbreaking "The Beast" ARG for A.I.: Artificial Intelligence: "Ultimately, fifty websites with a total of about one thousand pages were created for the [A.I.] game." (I lurked in the Cloudmakers Yahoo group.) Marketing for The Ring did not go anywhere that in depth, nor did it need to; it was both a smaller film and a smaller story. I saw at least two “personal” websites (seemingly amateur and a little tacky, like my own), but the one I particularly remember was about someone who owned/trained horses? I'm not sure if it was meant to be the actual Anna Morgan character—Samara's mother—or maybe someone who had noticed that the Morgans' horses were disturbed? I'm not even sure anyone even remembers this but me. Reddit users dug up a few other archived websites, but they're about Sadako, the curse and/or videotape; they aren't as subtle or character-oriented as the site I remember. (Honestly, I wonder if weird shit like "What Scares Me" or "SEVEN DAYS TO LIVE" were made by fans rather than a marketing department, but who knows.)

[The “About” page from Seven Days to Live on the Internet Archive.]

[The entirety of An Open Letter on the Internet Archive. “UPDATE” is a now-blank pop-up. I would bet $5 that it was originally a pop-up of the cursed video.]

I need to point out here that Facebook did not exist in 2002. It would not exist for another two years, and Twitter wouldn't exist until 2006. Even MySpace was not a thing until the next year. I didn't start my Livejournal until October of 2003. What we had, for the most part, were independent forums and blogs. We also had Creepy Internet Fiction like "The Dionaea House" and "Ted the Caver"; their use of the blog format, of people out there seemingly living their lives until something fucked up went down, gave the stories the shape of reality. And it helped that these blogs had comment sections, sure—sometimes more story unfolded there—but for the most part, an author could "abandon" a blog, and you'd just find the story there via word of mouth. Like the Ring blogs I remember, it wouldn't seem strange if no one replied to you, whereas today, you'd have to hire a writer to sit on Twitter, or Reddit, or even Tumblr, and interact with people in character. Could you do something like The Ring's mysterious, weird-ass blogs today? Would anyone even notice?

So: It's 2002, my head is full of Alternate Reality and eerie images and you saw it, and I'm hype as hell to go out and see The Ring. I'm perfectly happy to go see movies by myself, so I went in the early afternoon (best time to get a good seat). The movie ended up being a sleeper hit, and the first weekend, the public was still sleeping on it, so there were only 7-8 other people in that theater, grouped in maybe two clusters. I was off in my own little pool of darkness in the upper right quadrant. Functionally, once the lights went down, I was alone.

Despite some middling reviews at the time, The Ring is something of a horror classic nowadays. If you want a scary movie this Spooky Season, check out The Ring. Or don't, because it nearly killed me.

We're at the last, I don't know, third of the movie? And Our Heroine has tracked down the origin of the Cursed Videotape to some creepy mountain motel or whatever. SPOILER, it turns out that it was built over the Cursed Well (everything in this movie is cursed) that Our Villain was thrown into—that's why Sadako/Samara is a vengeful wet murder ghost crawling out of TVs now. While investigating this decrepit hotel room, intrepid journalist Rachel and her, who is it, her ex-husband? her kid's dad, idk, discover the well under the creaky old floorboards. And then, wouldn't you know it,

NAOMI WATTS FALLS INTO THE WELL

NAOMI WATTS FALLS INTO THE FUCKING WELL

THAT'S WHERE SAMARA'S BODY IS

[The rather slapstick moment when Rachel falls into the well. Does not include what actually happens next.]

I go absolutely rigid in my seat. Naomi Watts is splashing around this dark-ass death swamp of a well and I know, with as much certainty as I have ever known anything in my life, that Samara is about to pop up in all her pasty, waterlogged glory. All the sad creepy dread, all the desperation to figure out what the fuck all that shit on the tape was and stop Samara from killing Rachel's son, all the horrible contorted victim faces, all the alternate reality I’ve been soaking in, it has all come to this. I have to leave the theater. I cannot be having with this. I have to be gone from this place. My legs do not work. I cannot feel them. I am frozen. I want nothing more in this life or any other to get up and leave this cavernous pitch-black room, and I cannot. I start praying for death. I want you to understand that I am not trying to be flippant or humorous. This is genuinely what went through my head. I was too scared to even think, "You know, you could just pray to pass out or for motion to return to your limbs or something." No, I sat there in The Ring thinking, Please for the love of all mercy just let me cease being.

You know that scene in Mulholland Drive (also starring Naomi Watts)? Winkie's diner and the EXCRUCIATING tension? It was a little like that, except I wasn't watching it, I was experiencing it, and Samara was my dirt monster out behind the diner.

Except that the jump scare didn't actually happen. I mean, yes, Rachel finds Samara's body down there, but—I don't remember exactly, please don't make me go watch it again to tell you what actually happens. It's played more sympathetically on Rachel's part, as I recall, and she and her ex get Samara's body out so that she (Samara) can have a proper burial.

And then it turns out that this is not the end of the movie. It turns out that Rachel has Fucked Up.

I think I was relatively okay through the rest of it, although the climax is Samara emerging from a TV in her full glitching swampy glory to scare [SPOILER] to death. I don't recall praying for death twice. There's a point when you're so exhausted from fear chemicals that you're like, yeah, this might as well happen. Bring it, Soggy. I did have a hard time prying myself out of that seat afterwards, though, and my mom says that when I got home, I had the classic thousand-yard stare. How was the movie?

"It was great," I said, and I meant it.

I've seen things that were objectively scarier (I watched much of The Haunting of Hill House from behind a pillow, to be honest), and it's not like I've never experienced fear in real life. But I respect when a movie that can make me feel so intensely, and there's something weirdly precious about the way horror is a safe roller coaster, as it's often been said. So I love telling the story about The Time The Ring Nearly Killed Me—a movie that actually made my body stop working—and I love thinking of how embedded in a specific time and place that movie was for me. The last gasp of VHS when the Cursed Videotape still seemed plausible; the way the internet was still wild and weird and free; where I was in my life, keeping up so avidly with all the movie news, and finding myself in such a little pool of darkness early one afternoon. It's the scariest movie I saw in a theater; that's the alchemy of circumstance.

[fellthemarvelous]

Aziraphale hate makes my brain hurt.

Like let's be really fuckin' for real here.

Neurodivergent fans have repeatedly said that Aziraphale is autistic coded. I agree with them. I have never been diagnosed but I wonder about myself. If only I could get a doctor to take me seriously enough to test me for it, but alas, I'm a 43-year-old woman living in the good ole US of A.

Those with religious trauma have repeatedly said that they identify with him as well. I'm one of those people. I endured 12 years of Catholic schools and just as much time being taught a very black and white view of things that I've had to spend more than 20 goddamn fucking years working to unlearn.

I find that my views as a survivor of religious abuse are often dismissed because people keep wanting to say "Aziraphale doesn't have religious trauma." Yes, thank you, I get that, but unless you've been indoctrinated and brainwashed into a very black and white view of the world, you probably don't understand the kind of feelings Aziraphale's onscreen experiences evoke in so many of us. Heaven might not be real, but the feelings of "God is always watching" still stick with me today even though I no longer believe in God. I have entirely denounced Christianity because of my own personal experience, and I refuse to allow people to try and guilt me or shame me for trauma that I didn't ask for. I wasn't given a choice.

As a child I was told that God was real and always watching everything you do (just like Santa Claus) and can hear everything you say and knows everything you are thinking. Do you know what I learned to do in order to cope with this overwhelming and anxiety-inducing information as a small child? I learned to censor my thoughts. I never spoke up, and I have always felt like I was putting on a show for people because I had to be who I was told to be or I would get into trouble.

Aziraphale said "poverty is a virtue" during The Resurrectionists, and as someone who grew up in the Bible belt and went to private schools, I was taught this very same shit by the Catholic church. He learned in that very same episode that "poverty is a virtue" is actually a tool of oppression to keep the poor poor and the wealthy wealthy. I know we all watched the episode. He went into that episode believing what he said, but by the end of it he knew it was actually utter bullshit. Aziraphale is not ignorant. He's highly intelligent, and he has never been too proud to admit when he has been wrong. He accepts that the information he learned before is not matching up with reality.

And it's so obvious some of you have zero experience with that type of indoctrination because of how very little empathy you show Aziraphale for his "mistake" of "choosing Heaven over Crowley" and "making Crowley sad" so clearly Aziraphale must somehow be "abusive" and "manipulative" and "selfish" and "self-centered" because he didn't choose to run away with Crowley at the end of season two.

First of all.

FIRST OF ALL...

Aziraphale has a mind of his own.

Aziraphale is always going to try and do what is right.

Aziraphale is an angel. He's a being of love. And the reason he's so "bad" at being an angel is because he actually wants to protect humanity. He has always loved humanity. He repeatedly has to contend with what is "right" versus what is "good" and "wrong" versus "evil". Yeah, he has flaws. He's an angel, not a goddamn fucking saint. He has lived on Earth for more than 6,000 years. He has seen everything. He loves doing human things.

He's obsessed with magic. It makes him so happy. He's not very good at it...well not when he's trying to put on a show for Crowley.

He chose to learn French the hard way, so even though he knows every single language in the world, he chooses to be mediocre at French. Something that annoys and amuses Crowley at the same time.

He loves to dance even though angels aren't supposed to dance, and dancing with Crowley was what he wanted the most.

He owns a bookshop and refuses to sell any of his books because they are books he's had for as long as there have been books. He will chase customers away from his collection, and Crowley understands how much they mean to Aziraphale because he refuses to sell any when Aziraphale leaves him in charge.

He and Crowley have been speaking to each other in coded language for more than 6,000 years. They have to be very careful about what they say because Heaven and Hell are always watching.

Heaven has photographs of Crowley and Aziraphale sitting or standing together throughout history. Hell had one photo of Crowley and Aziraphale actually working together and it was Aziraphale's quick thinking and how good he actually is at sleight of hand tricks that managed to get that photo out of Furfur's hands so he wouldn't be able to turn Crowley over to the Dark Council.

Aziraphale saved Crowley from being taken to Hell again. He wasn't able to save Crowley from Hell in Edinburgh, but he sure as heck managed to save Crowley from Hell during WWII. He took Crowley to his bookshop and showed Crowley that he stole the picture from Furfur. He saved Crowley.

You get that, right?

Aziraphale SAVED Crowley.

People always talk about how it's "always Crowley saving Aziraphale" because apparently heroic acts are only heroic when they are grand gestures. The sleight of hand wasn't heroic at all, am I right? It wasn't sparkly and showy. It wasn't interesting enough, therefore not heroic. At least that's all I'm hearing when people start with their "blah Aziraphale deserves to suffer because I have no imagination or ability to understand the media in front of me blah", and all these reasons he deserves to suffer is because Crowley almost got hurt.

Aziraphale did that without flinching and I watch that part closely every single time. He's not scared for himself. He's scared for Crowley, and he managed to hold onto that photograph. He did not fail Crowley. He protected Crowley.

And so here's another thing that we like to point out. The way that Aziraphale, an angel who is effeminate and male presenting, an angel who is soft and full of love, an angel who is kind and forgiving because he has empathy and compassion, is somehow painted as abusive and manipulative. He's not violent, but he could easily fuck up your world. He doesn't use his powers. We have no idea how powerful he is because we only ever see him do small acts. He's used to hiding. It's the only way he has ever been able to protect Crowley.

And I'm not saying that Aziraphale has actually saved Crowley before means that Crowley hasn't also saved Aziraphale. Like, you get that those are not mutually exclusive and their relationship is not transactional, right? They have spent their entire existence protecting each other but never actually getting to be together because Heaven and Hell are always watching.

Yeah, Crowley fell. We all know this. We are aware of this. He was the serpent of Eden. He gave humanity the knowledge of free will.

But what we don't talk about is what Aziraphale gave humanity.

What did he give them?

We all know what it is!

Let's say it together!

He gave Adam and Eve his flaming sword because it was dangerous outside the garden and Eve was pregnant and she was already having a really bad day. He showed them compassion and gave them his extremely powerful angelic weapon so they would stand a chance on the outside of the garden. He gave humanity the gift of compassion. It's just unfortunate that his flaming sword became a weapon of War.

And then what did he do after that?

Ooooh, yeah, that's right.

God asked him about it and he straight up lied to her and pretended he had no idea where he'd managed to misplace it. She didn't say anything after that. He told Crowley the truth though. He told Crowley the truth even though Crowley fell.

Yeah, we know Aziraphale has done some really fucking questionable things. He and Crowley both suck at passing for human in front of observant people like Nina. They're not human. They are still learning, but they managed to experience human history together despite being on opposite sides and their experiences with humanity are what has shaped them into the compassionate and loving duo they are now. One of them is not better from the other.

This, my friends, is what we call meeting in the middle. It's why shades of gray is so important. Aziraphale constantly breaks the rules. Crowley refused to play by Heaven's rules. It's the reason he fell. He doesn't play by Hell's rules either. These two dorks figured out how to cancel each others' miracles out throughout human history in order to have more time learning about humanity and each other because working all day every day sucks when there are so many new things to learn and experience with the people you love.

We know Crowley and Aziraphale both love each other. Neither of them are good at hiding the hearts stars in their eyes.

But here's what's really fucking annoying about the Aziraphale hate.

Aziraphale was already crying when Crowley grabbed him and kissed him. Aziraphale is trying so very hard to do the right thing. He loves Crowley. He does. But he also has a duty to humanity, and he has taken that job very seriously since the creation of Adam and Eve. He sent them out into the world with a flaming sword so they would have a chance at surviving beyond the walls of the garden.

And he knows that Something Terrible is going to happen and he spent all of second season trying to figure out what that Something Terrible was while trying to have some sort of more honest and open relationship with Crowley, but again, they aren't human, they are a demon and an angel approaching life from opposite sides who met in the middle and fell in love with humanity together.

He wants more than anything to tell Crowley how he feels about him, but he wants to do something grand for Crowley because Crowley has always been grand and dramatic and sexy and a little bit scary.

Crowley is impulsive and has a temper and sometimes says the wrong thing but he has always trusted Aziraphale because Aziraphale gave him a chance even after he fell. Aziraphale chose to shelter him instead of smiting him while they stood on top of that wall. He knew he was supposed to kill Crowley, but oops, he gave his sword away to the humans so he didn't really have anything to kill him with and Crowley is the one who created nebulas. The Pillars of Creation is Crowley's work and Aziraphale was there to witness that, but he watched Crowley more than he watched the nebula. He witnessed the pure joy on Crowley's face when he said "let there be light" as a nebula full of colors exploded before their eyes. He was fascinated by Crowley.

But Aziraphale is going back to Heaven even though he has made it perfectly clear he absolutely has no desire to go back to Heaven. He told the Metatron this during their conversation. He spoke these words out loud. They exist.

But then The Metatron said this....

The Metatron. The very same angel who told Aziraphale in season one "to speak to me is to speak to the Almighty." He's the boss. He's the big guy. He's used to existing as a giant head and he had to give himself a body so he wouldn't stand out on Earth. And he knows that Aziraphale and Crowley have been working together since the beginning. He knows they worked together to prevent Armageddon in season one, and now he's made it clear he knows they were working together long before that. And let's face it, Aziraphale really wants to know what this Something Terrible is that Gabriel is running from so he can try to prevent it from happening.

It makes sense that he would want to take Crowley to Heaven with him because he would be able to keep Hell from getting their hands on him again. Aziraphale hates it in Heaven. He doesn't want to go, but Something Terrible is happening and Metatron isn't taking no for an answer, and maybe Heaven won't be so bad if Crowley is there with him. At least they can fix Heaven together.

But Crowley can't go back. We all get that. We don't blame him for saying no. It doesn't change anything.

Something Terrible is about to happen and Aziraphale has to figure out what it is. He wants to change Heaven.

He is fully aware that Heaven sucks. He still has faith in God. His faith isn't in Heaven. He deserted his platoon in season one and threw himself back to Earth so he could figure out how to make sure the war between Heaven and Hell doesn't happen.

But see, here's the thing. Heaven is at the top. Heaven has all the resources. Heaven is responsible for the creation of Hell. Heaven is empty and Hell is overpopulated. Aziraphale knows this. Crowley knows this. It's obvious every time we see either place. Both sides are desperate to go to war and will not hesitate to destroy humanity in the process. This is the opposite of what Crowley and Aziraphale want for humanity. If anyone can change Heaven, it's Aziraphale. He's the only one up there who gives a shit about humanity as far as we know. No one else is going to speak on humanity's behalf.

Some of us are so busy getting mad at Aziraphale for going back to Heaven and giving Crowley a Big Sad. Newsflash: Crowley is not the main character of Good Omens. Aziraphale and Crowley are equals, yet we wanna hold Aziraphale to higher standards because he's an angel, and when he makes mistakes it's proof that he's the bad guy.

Holy mother of all things that trigger my religious trauma, let me tell you. I spent my entire life hating myself every time I made mistakes. I've had to teach myself that just because I mess up sometimes doesn't mean I'm bad. It means I'm human. I still struggle with it. I probably always will. So when you say that Aziraphale deserves to be punished for breaking Crowley's heart, you not only ignore that Aziraphale's heart is also broken, you're saying he deserves to be punished for doing what he thinks is right.

Wanting to change Heaven for the better is not a bad thing.

And some of y'all wanna see him suffer for going back into the lion's den that is Heaven, knowing that he is already an outcast, that they have already tried to kill him once, knowing that he is a deserter, that he has been lying to Heaven about a lot of things, and you still think he's blinded by Heaven? You think he's just so naive and that's the only reason he's going back. He doesn't show his emotions the same way Crowley does so it means he doesn't care as much. He's expected to consider Crowley's feelings over his own when making choices. Like holy shit if all of that hasn't defined my experience as a woman with religious trauma in this fucking society. He's expected to be subservient to Crowley and if he doesn't do what Crowley wants then he's being unreasonable and illogical.

What the actual fuck, y'all.

Like seriously.

I'm sick of this bullshit. I had to step away from this fandom because of how toxic some people in this fandom are. It's not chasing me away, but the fact that I chose to hang out in a a more toxic fandom that is already notorious for being really toxic over a fandom that claims to be more open-minded and welcoming should probably tell you something.

It gave me a lot of perspective, and yeah, I'm still gonna speak up against the bullshit Aziraphale hate.

People are entitled to their opinions, but the Aziraphale hate isn't an opinion. It's just ableist, misogynistic garbage. At this point we all know y'all say these extreme things about Aziraphale because y'all get more joy out of the harm and alienation it is causing others.

Keep being loudly wrong, but if you think I'm not entitled to challenge shitty-ass, harmful, hateful discourse, bite my ass.

I'm not the one who lost the plot in this fandom.

[theflagscene]

15 Day BL Challenge (part 4)

59. What's a hill you're willing to die on when it comes to BL?

Omg, yes, someone asked me!!!!!

I will die on this hill, fite me.

*ahem*

Cupid’s Last Wish is a good series!

I know there is a shit ton of hate for this series and I have absolutely no idea why. It is a masterclass in physical acting, seriously, it is phenomenal! The story is very basic, because the focus of the series is the character’s journey and self discovery. Korn and Win already knows they’re in love, the story begins with them already knowing that they love one another, they just haven’t acted on those feelings nor have they admitted their feelings to one another. But never once does the narrative act like we the viewers are supposed to wonder if they love one another, that’s not the point of the plot. It’s how miscommunication and grief can blind someone so much that they lose themselves within those feelings.

In the case of the series, Win literally loses himself thanks to his anger. He nearly kills his body and damns his sister’s soul, so he must go on a pilgrimage with Korn to heal his own soul whilst his body is wavering between life and death which could very well take his sister’s soul with it. Korn, his best friend of 22 years and soulmate is the only person who can see him whilst trapped in his sister Lin’s body, because Korn always sees Win for who he really is. And of course we have the conniving mother, a well meaning family friend and a mysterious monk.

This is some of Mix’s best acting, not just as Win since Mix doesn’t usually play such a toxic character. But because for most of the runtime he is playing a male character trapped inside a female’s body, trying to trick everyone expect for three people that he is in fact a woman. Jan is fantastic in the role as well, because when she’s onscreen she must act as if she is a male stuck in an woman’s body with a male’s mind, trying to convince people she’s a woman.

It’s a complete mind fuck! Mix and Jan are fantastic as Win, the way they carry themselves, walk the same, stand the same, take up the same space, speak the same way. But don’t think Earth has it easy in this series either, because he had to make sure he held, touched and spoke to Mix and Jan exactly the same way. So when they edited the scenes to overlap, seeing Jan’s body instead of Mix’s, Earth is in the exact same position with both of them.

Seriously, if you dropped this series, try it again. Watch it just for the acting, because it’s phenomenal.

Also it has what might be the best onscreen reaction to menstruation from a male’s point of view without it being misogynistic, gross or rude. They make some jokes, like Korn not knowing what kind of pads to get for Win when he starts his period, and of course how Win feels having to care for and clean his sister’s body in a respectful manner. How he experiences her emotions, her hormonal shift, the pain of cramps, the way his whole body aches and how sick he feels. Korn is also so caring, trying to help Win through something he’d never experienced before without crossing a line with Lin’s body because whilst it’s Win, his best friend and love of his life, and when he looks at Lin he sees Win in his mind, it is still Lin’s body physically there. And as much as he loved Win, wanted Win, Lin was a baby sister to him and he could not, would not, touch Lin’s body in a sexual manner.

At the end of the series when he admits to Win and Lin’s mother that ‘something happened’ between him and Lin (it was Win, but in Lin’s body) all he meant was that Win had kissed him. Yes, he had kissed Win, shared a bed with Win, but he knew how that looked to people who didn’t know it was Win in Lin’s body. So to keep Lin from being shamed he agreed to marry her, instead of trying to explain to their mother that the assumption she was making about Korn taking Lin’s virginity was wrong.

There are fantastic villain characters in the form of the scheming aunt and uncle. Not to mention the family secret, Win and Lin’s mother facing her homophobia concerning her son, Lin being in love with someone else and of course Korn being forced into a mess that he did not want to be a part of but considering he had been friends with Win for 22 years and loved him more than life, how could he say no?

It’s a beautiful story, it’s funny, well acted and has Mix working with animals!

[little-one-eyed-monsters]

Saw a post calling our tortured superstar Akin from Top Form the poorest meow-meow in BL history. Though I do agree that he's been having a downright traumatic career so far, there are other BL MCs out here who can give him a run for his money.

So let's commiserate together and celebrate these brilliant characters who deserve better than what the BL gods handed to them. If you haven't seen any of these shows, and you're a drama fan, I really recommend these great picks.

Presenting:

10 BL characters who deserve better (and what I think should've been a better ending):

In order of dewy meow-meow to rain-soaked kitty. And of course, spoilers ahead for the listed shows:

10. Third (Theory of Love)

Oh Third my dear, what are we to do with you? You simped too hard on a womanizer, took "I can fix him" as a personal motto, and spent a couple thousand dollars on non-refundable Blackpink tickets. If this wasn't an OffGun vehicle, I swear I would've scoffed at that "happy" ending. Alas, I have my biases, so Third is chained to red flag Khai until he comes to his senses.

Better ending: Third could've chosen someone else, ANYONE else--Un, Shane, that poor guy at the bar who gets punched by Khai. Anyone who appreciates Third for who he is and not what he can bring to the relationship.

9. Jin Hong Seok (You Make Me Dance)

From the moment we were introduced to Jin Hong Seok in that snowy campus, until the end credits of the movie/series finale rolled through our screens, we learn next to nothing about him as a person. We know he's a debt collector who absolutely hates his job, listens to love advice on the radio during his free time, and is being (implicitly) perved on by his boss, but we don't necessarily know why he's suffering in the situation he's in. Why are you stuck at this job, do you owe them money? Where're your family and friends? Why do you need to move away with your boss just because you fell in love with this dancer who owes your company money? Why are you wearing the same jacket for the past three episodes?

We will never know, and this makes Jin Hong Seok ten times sadder as a character.

Better ending: Not an ending, but just a better back story I guess? Because the pay-off where he gets together with Song Shi On only feels partly satisfying as the conflict is virtually non-existent.

8. Fukuhara Kota (Mr. Unlucky Has No Choice But To Kiss)

One of my all time favorite Japanese BLs (and a truly underrated gem) had the poorest sunshine meow meow to ever exist onscreen. Kota is the unluckiest boy in the world in the Murphy's law sense-- everything that can go wrong, does go wrong on a day-to-day basis. Poor boy couldn't even leave the house without getting into some sort of accident. And some of these accidents are actually life-threatening (he got hostaged at some point!). Despite all this, Kota has one of the sunniest dispositions out of any mc I've seen-- it's honestly so refreshing. He deserves better because he's a good person.

Better ending: Though the ending does imply that he and his boyfriend Shinomiya Naoya (the luckiest boy) will balance each other out by being together, I'd prefer it if Kota somehow loses the unlucky streak completely on his own, like a curse removal of some sort. The boy deserves a break.

7. Ye Guang (About Youth)

This sweet and beautiful bean is the unfortunate by-product of ultra-rich, neglectful, abusive parents and a Taiwanese school system that pressures its students to conform to impossible ideals. He embodies all Asian kids driving themselves to anxiety or depression (or both) just to ace college entrance exams, while shooting each other down for a chance at a scholarship they all equally deserve. Ye Guang is a good kid despite his family's abuse, and is experiencing genuine love and care for the first time in his lonely existence. He totally deserved to be boo'ed up by the end of the series.

Better ending: What would've been a better ending is if they sent those parents to jail for domestic abuse (let's include Zhang's drunk uncle in there, too). Or strip them off of parental rights-- give my boy Ye Guang emancipation from his sorry excuse for a family.

6. Wei Qian (Unknown)

Wei Qian was saddled with one of the saddest backstories in BL history. Born the eldest son of a prostitute who offs herself by taking too many drugs, Wei Qian was forced to work shady jobs at an early age to care for his younger sister and adopted brother. Through his resourcefulness he was able to give all of them a better life, until a serious injury threatens his health.

Better ending: This is a hot take, but I would have preferred it if the story gave Wei Qian a chance to truly explore what he wanted in life . I wanted him to meet new people and date more. Everyone in the story had the chance to pursue other ventures except for Wei Qian; I think he should be allowed to prioritize himself and still end up with Zhi Yuan.

5. Mhok (Last Twilight)

Mhok is an unfortunate victim of social circumstance-- an orphan who lost his older sister the night he went to jail for misdemeanor. He becomes a free man with no surviving family to speak of, no career prospects, and compelled to take care of an ex-girlfriend who was impregnated by someone abusive.

But somewhat similar to the others on this list, Mhok is one heck of a resilient human being-- rolling with the punches while retaining sympathy and kindness for those he deems less fortunate than he is. However, he's usually portrayed as the carer, who often disregards his own welfare for the sake of others. So... who cares for Mhok?

Better ending: Mhok gets the proper therapy to process the trauma from incarceration and his sister's death. ALSO: he shouldn't have to be forced to break up with Day just to get a better job abroad. The internet exists-- long distance relationships are a thing now. That forced separation was UNNECESSARY.

4. Kang Gook (Where Your Eyes Linger)

An orphan forced to be the bodyguard/childhood companion of a spoiled rich kid, who treats him like a personal security blanket, has to be one of the worst backstories anyone can get in a BL. Kang Gook's boss/childhood friend/later boyfriend Han Tae Joo is not the worst partner compared to others mentioned on this list, but his attitude could use some work, and his family is severely problematic. Stuck in the crosshairs, Kang Gook loses his home, employment, opportunities, and boyfriend once Tae Joo's father finds out they're in a relationship and forces them apart.

Better ending: Kang Gook elopes with Han Tae Joo as soon as the father orders their separation 😅 if you're going to lose everything anyway, then go for it and don't look back.

3. Joe (My Stand-In)

Though this list includes Kota who is canonically deemed "the unluckiest person", I think Joe is the TRUE most unfortunate out of all of these souls. Orphaned at a young age and with no family willing to take him in, he worked odd jobs until he became one of the best stunt doubles in the industry. But as soon as his career starts properly taking off, he meets Ming, second son and heir to one of the richest families in Thailand, and the most spoiled creature to ever walk the Earth. Ming's intervention with Joe's career inadvertently leads to Joe's actual death on set (dear God). Fate takes pity, and transfers his soul into another man also named Joe, with a budding career in the modelling industry and a mom who dearly loves him. But newly-reincarnated and in debt, Joe once again find himself working for Ming (and he dies once mo-- no wait, he lives this time? Alright.)

Joe, I love you and I really do sympathize with you, but the only reason you didn't top this list is because your second involvement with Ming is very clearly YOUR FAULT. You could've borrowed money from any of your friends (Wut is LOADED with money, a trusted father figure, and your boss-- he would have helped you out. Sol is a KPop icon who also makes A LOT of money. Heck, even Yim could've hooked you up with extra gigs). Choosing to whore yourself out to Ming seemed like a YOU problem at some point.

Better ending: Joe gets a restraining order against Ming and the rest of that family. Tong goes to jail. And Joe ends up with... Secretary Jim 😅 (why? Because that would piss Ming off even more).

2. Yu Xi Gu (History 3: Make Our Days Count)

Here's a guy who actually deserves to be reincarnated (sorry, Joe). Yu Xi Gu is yet another orphan (sooo many orphans on this list) who lives alone and is trying to put himself through high school so he can get a chance at a better life. A solitary ray of sunshine who's trying his best to earn an honest living and keep his hopes up, Yu Xi Gu's life gets a little bit brighter (and infinitely more exciting) when school delinquent Xiang Hao Ting falls madly in love with him. They start planning their future together and get into their respective dream schools when...

Better ending: Yu Xi Gu should NOT HAVE DIED. If you haven't seen this show before, this isn't a spoiler; it's a WARNING. This whole series was all fluff and cotton candy and matching dream charts before Yu Xi Gu gets hit by a car OUT OF NOWHERE. No foreshadowing, no implications of anything going wrong. He just leaves the house to buy salt and never comes back. And the finale is just Xiang Hao Ting barely surviving life without his sunshine. WHAT THE HELL, SHOW.

And the poorest meow-meows:

1. Korn and Intouch (Until We Meet Again)

They are a twofer because their fates are infinitely tied together. In one of the most unique twists in BL, Korn and Intouch are the past versions of the lead MCs Dean and Pharm. Sometime in the 60s, Korn, the son of a local gang leader, fell in love with the sweetest sunshine boy Intouch while they were both studying at uni. Both of their families disapprove and force them apart. They run away, but their families catch up to them and threaten them (and each other) with violence. Sensing no hope for their love, they decide to off themselves to end the suffering.

Better ending: Nobody dies, EVERYBODY LIVES (wait, is this an ao3 tag? 😅). Their parents see eye-to-eye, sing kumbaya, and hold a big, gay wedding fit for the disco theme of the 60s.

Honorable mentions (and better endings):

- Bai Luo Yin (Addicted)- dude should've received child support checks from his selfish mom.

- Hira Kazunari (Utsukushii Kare)- should've chosen someone else except his childhood bully as his boyfriend. Dude went to the Joe school of falling in love, apparently.

-Wei Wuxian (The Untamed)- a better ending? Try a better story. The whole plot of The Untamed seemed to be a battle of who can torture Wei Wuxian the most. The only reason why he isn't on the official list is because his ending was infinitely better than the whole story arc combined.

-Shin Da On (Light on Me)- someone needed to love this third-wheeling meow meow. Line up gentlemen, he's available.

-Tang Yi (History 3: Trapped)- my mafia homie didn't deserve to go to prison. His family's messed up clan war is not his fault. He deserves to have a quiet life with his insane cop of a boyfriend instead.

That's all and stay kooky, folks 😊

[ineffablelara]

About President Loki and that scene in the void...

Ever since I first watched Loki s1ep05 I felt uncomfortable with the scene that features President Loki and all the other variants, it was weird to me how some people found it hilarious and the pinacle of comedy in the show, not to mention the ones saying "Lmao this was the most Loki thing ever, of course they all betray each other"

Something about the Lokis being portrayed as shallow, predictable, incompetent and ultimately just pathetic never sat right with me, then after some time passed I realized that that's how the people in charge of s1 viewed Loki, Kate Herron and Michael Waldron didn't have the first idea about who Loki really was and they made that atrocity of a scene that shows just how low their opinion of him is

And the pinnacle of their misunderstanding of Loki as a character is perfectly embodied in… President Loki.

Yes, I know he's a fan favourite and he's very hot and some people even say his scenes are the only time the "real Loki" showed up onscreen (lmao)

As I said above I think he's the embodiment of Herron's and Waldron's misunderstanding of Loki and here's why: At first he seems to be like the Loki we all know and loved in Avengers, he's cool, badass, the leader of an army and he stops at nothing to get what he wants

But is he really all of those things? Because as soon as he finishes his "big speech" he's betrayed by his own "army", alligator Loki bites his hand off and he starts to scream in panic and terror, hell breaks loose and well, we have that atrocious scene that makes me nauseous every time I watch it, this is them telling us what they think Loki is: a mess, someone who wants to appear cool and badass but deep down is just a pathetic loser —a bufoon, a superficial clown who overestimates himself and needs to be humbled, he's there to be laughed at, they even make our Loki look at him and get immediately embarassed at himself, to show us that he's no longer that person, he's grown beyond his foolish old self

And honestly the whole scene with the Lokis yelling generic lines and fighting each other still pains me to this day, is this what they think Loki is? It feels like mockery, it's a insult to him and to the fans, not to mention President Loki's goal to take the "throne"????

You mean that old plastic chair with funny decorations that belong to a kid? Really? Is Loki seriously that desperate for such a meaningless throne? Is he really that shallow, childish and immature? Are we forgetting Loki's real motivations to pursue the throne in the first Thor? What about his desperate need to gain Odin's approval and to be seen as Thor's equal? NahI guess he was just a generic villain with generic motivations, here we're going to turn him into a good Loki

And how were they going to do it, you may ask? By introducing Sylvie.

The only heroic Loki who ever lived, the only morally good variant, the only competent one, commited one, the serious one who never does anything "at the expense of the mission" unlike our Loki who's not really that good at doing things, not even at lying (his attempts to deceive Mobius are so pathetic I feel physical pain when watching it), the variant who's so perfect at everything that our Loki starts to worship her in a way "she's different, she's not trying to take over the TVA, she's trying to take it down and she needs me", she is who he should strive to become and maybe I wouldn't have hated that so much if she wasn't, well, what she was

A woman who hates being a Loki so much that she even changed her own name to distance herself from that person—I can't think of anyone with as much internalized self-hatred as she has. Loki represents everything she despises about herself, yet somehow, I’m supposed to believe that "falling in love with her" made Loki love himself?

Of course, I forgot to mention the fact that even though she rejects being a Loki and loathes the idea of being called one she's wrapped in Loki's collor pallete, Loki's symbols and shapes, she even wears the fucking golden horns on her head and has her own version of the green cape when we first see her

But she rejected the Loki identity

But she dresses exactly like one

🤡

Like, they drew inspirations from so many characters to make her but somehow she manages to be... nothing? She's not Lady Loki, she's not Amora, she's not Sylvie Lushton, she's not Lorelei, and, I hate to be that person but she really feels like someone's self insert

The sad things is, she had potential, she could have been so interesting but they failed her miserably, they could've explored her own self esteem issues, make both of them learn something from each other, let her admire some parts of Loki too, make her see that maybe Lokis are not as bad as she thought, that maybe there's some redeeming qualities about them, even if you can't find it in all of them

But no, let's turn her into a self insert instead of a proper character, and let's make her as annoying as possible too 🤡

Anyway, I ranted enough about her, TLDR: The people in charge of s1 misunderstand Loki on a fundamental level and the scene with them betraying each other in the void is a mockery of the character

[he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle]

Unknown - Ep 11 - That Scene

The opening scene of episode 11 landed differently for me than it did for others. I was going to just keep it to myself since I have a minority opinion, but when I rewatched it last night I fell even more in love with it!

The structure!! It's so good! Let me explain.

At the bottom of the stairs, Qian hesitates. He still hasn't made up his mind.

Yuan says "Do you still not get it?" He knows what Qian is feeling, even if Qian hasn't figured it out yet. So he says what he wants very clearly.

Yuan asks for permission to do 4 things:

1. Be more than just Qian's brother.

2. Be who Qian relies on when he's down.

3. Be someone Qian can talk to about anything.

4. Be with Qian for the rest of his life.

Before Qian answers, he revisits 4 sets of memories, each set answering one of Yuan's questions with a resounding YES.

After each affirmative answer, it cuts back to the sex scene to communicate that THIS is the culmination of all those yesses.

In other words, there are 4 direct questions and 4 groups of memories that hold the answers to those questions, 4 times those memories scream the answer is YES, and 4 cuts to a bit of sex.

Let's look at the groups of memories.

1. He thinks back to Yuan's words in ep 9. Does he not want Yuan? Or does he not DARE to want Yuan? And he remembers all the times he felt desire for Yuan, but suppressed it. Can he be more than just Yuan's brother? Yes.

2. He thinks back to Yuan consistently being someone Qian can rely on, all through his childhood until now. "If the world falls down, we'll hold it up together." "You won't be alone." "I like being around you." Yuan genuinely likes being around Qian and has never wanted to leave him. He's shown his commitment to Qian time and time again. Can Qian rely on Yuan when he's down? Yes.

3. He remembers how long and hard Yuan suffered while enduring one-sided love, and that Yuan chose to suffer in quiet for years rather than confess to Qian about it. But Qian knew Yuan was suffering that whole time and hated it. It broke Qian's heart to see how hard it was for Yuan. If he did likewise and didn't talk about things, he'd also break the heart of the person who loves him because of his silence. Yuan laid himself bare and told Qian everything. Can Qian reciprocate and tell Yuan about everything in his life, even the hard things? Yes.

4. He thinks about how Yuan has ALREADY built his entire life around Qian. "I can sum up my life in two words: Wei Qian." Memories of Yuan come like a flood, rapidly gaining momentum. Yuan has already been with Qian for most of his life, and will NOT STOP. Qian can't imagine a life without Yuan. So can Yuan be with Qian for the rest of his life? Yes.

Qian nods and says his answer aloud: You can. And then they kiss.

The sex is not the point. It's the culmination. It's all the yesses stacked on top each other until they break the last of Qian's walls. By cutting the sex so it only exists between each resounding YES, they've made it less about the action of it and more about Qian realizing that YES, they're ALREADY in love and unalterably committed to each other. Why not give in to his physical desires when the rest is so clear?

Others watched this and saw a sex scene interrupted by cumbersome flashbacks. I watched this and saw a dramatic feelings realization interrupted by snippets of quite lovely sex that drove those feelings home.

A final note: It's probably because I'm demisexual, but I am frequently unmoved by sex scenes, especially when they do not advance the plot or the character development. This onscreen scene moved me. It hit the right emotional note. It was focused primarily on Qian's pov (his face is the one the camera is focusing on). And it was artfully done, instead of merely being titillating.

I'm tagging a few people who I recall talking about this in their posts, but it's been a couple of weeks so forgive me if I leave someone out or misremember. @absolutebl @lurkingshan @bengiyo @wen-kexing-apologist @wanderlust-in-my-soul @twig-tea

[arbitraryappellation]

Thinking about parallels between Misa and Light. Both of them present themselves as these conventionally attractive, ideal archetypes of people: Light is the police chief’s well-mannered son, a popular student at a prestigious university. Misa is a beautiful model, singer, and actress (and oh, does she act). The idea of either of them being a mass murderer is incredibly dissonant with their presented identities, and they’re able to come off as less suspicious the more they perform.

Kira stuff aside, they've been performing since before the Death Notes got involved. Not covering up murders but putting a lot of effort into editing their personalities, exaggerating desirable traits and hiding unflattering ones. Light played the role of a good-natured student when he was really arrogant, annoyed with his classmates, and disillusioned with his life in general. And as a woman in the entertainment industry, Misa constantly has to present a version of herself that is altered to be more cute and palatable. I think it’s safe to assume she does this outside of her job too, especially when it comes to interacting with men who underestimate her or trying to make Light love her.

And then there’s the way Light holds on to self preservation—he refuses the eye deal over and over because he wants to last as long as he can in his new world—while Misa cuts her lifespan in two again and again. (and still manages to outlive him, and still decides to jump off that building.) They take opposite actions that come from the same core desire to be part of something meaningful, something that can fill the voids inside themselves. Light wants something he can live for, Misa wants someone she can die for.

Misa devotes herself to Light wholeheartedly while Light doesn’t care about her beyond being able to use her. Misa is willing to destroy herself for the pursuit of love, while Light is willing to destroy the parts of himself that crave love. And sure, you could argue that Light was never going to love Misa in the first place (especially if you read him as gay or just uninterested) and that his lack of feelings for her isn’t due to repression. But in chapter 30 Light thinks to himself, “I can’t develop feelings. That’s how most idiots screw up.” I’m thinking of this restriction he gives himself, rather than the absence of feelings he has for Misa in particular, when I talk about Light not allowing himself to love.

Speaking of love, L and Rem die at the same time. Light loses the only person who’s ever fully known him, while Misa loses the only person who’s ever shown her unconditional love (not counting her parents since we don’t see them onscreen). They’re left with each other: two people chasing after ideals that they’ll never reach. Light will never love Misa the way she wants him to, and Light’s new world will never come around. And maybe they don’t even truly want these things; maybe they just tell themselves that they do.

[nicoleanell]

(actual link to gif set because tumblr's being weird)

Man it's the fact this statement is weirdly big and generous and brave in Armand's mind. I think it was Assad or someone else who said it was a moment of overconfidence or almost gloating, which is not the exact vibe I get, but I think there's something to that big-headedness of having survived and gotten through it and it's over now and just... He just wants to see. He just wants to skip that little stone down the cliff and see what happens. Maybe if nothing happens *then* he would actually be able to exhale. (He will not. He'd find something else. There's an itch in him that's never going to be secure enough in the bed he made.) Maybe it's just wanting to test something - Louis or himself or how many ways he can't die.

People tie it directly to Armand not being able to say the words in 2x05, which is probably intentional, but also it's not *exactly* the same because for one thing it's in the Past Tense now. It's very much meant as a moment of *closure* - he DID love you, past tense, we don't know where he is or how he feels now and that doesn't matter - while in San Francisco with Lestat right there on the mind telephone, it was the present tense terror that maybe that really was all Louis needed to hear to go running back to him.

But their relationship has also changed SO dramatically since San Francisco that it feels like even the past-tense version is a very, very precarious thing to admit. Because it's not about the material love triangle, it's not who-will-Bella-Swan-choose, it's about 70 years of mythmaking and storytelling.

SIDEBAR: The show left us IMO with a very frustrating ambiguity about the extent to which Armand has used his mind powers on Louis, like to the point where you have some fans believing that *every single fucking memory* we saw onscreen that they didn't like for the last two seasons is Fake News actually, and other fans believing it happened Just That One Time GOD. (I personally lean toward way *less* mind manipulation than other people assume, and if it was literally JUST the shit that happened in 1973 that's... enough to be messed up lol. I think the "love of my life" and finishing each other's sentences scenes have some unsettling implications. I *don't* think Louis having imperfect recall and limited perspective of stuff that happened a century ago is because of Armand all or even *most* of the time.)

But the fact no matter what is that Louis has a lot of cognitive dissonance around Lestat because he WANTS it acknowledged on some bone-deep level that Lestat loved him, because he loved/continues to love him too. And if we're gonna insist on throwing the word "gaslighting" around when we just mean "lying", then at the end of the day it's about Louis being told he's not crazy by someone who has at times made him feel that way.

Idk maybe this is me getting Too Deep about a finale I still think is kinda unsatisfying and already had way too much to do with Lestat and not enough with Claudia. But I do like that moment when I look past the toxic love triangle and more toward "hey buddy [my best friend Armand] why are you Like That" and Louis' little smile breaking my heart.

Something sad about that moment is Armand's right that saying those words *doesn't* end the world, and if nothing else had happened and Daniel and the Vampire CIA weren't on their divorce-attorney kick, that'd be the end of it. (Hot take I don't think saying the words or not in 1973 would've really made a difference either, and there's so much more nuanced and wild shit going on there than an undelivered message romcom beat.) And Louis would be *grateful* for that moment of understanding and closure between them.

[emblemxeno]

How is Nohr any better than Woobiegard's Empire? They're both vicious imperial powers trying to conquer their neighbor for power and glory because they think they deserve that land. The only difference is we see Nohr commit more atrocities onscreen. Hell, the Black Eagles are just the Nohr royal family except instead of having no spines they have no brains.

Many reasons, actually!

Nohr was lead to be the way it is through a corrupt outside influence through Anankos. Though we don't have any information on rulers before him, Garon was explicitly stated to be someone who was prideful but never cared for conquering other nations. While The Slithers had a hand in the Empire, ultimately, the Empire's bullshit in the current story started with Edelgard's dad given that he destroyed an entire noble house that tried to break away because he wanted ultimate power, before Edelgard herself took up the mantle of doing that both inside and outside the Empire.

2) The Nohrian royals were pretty much groomed for 15 years into being complicit in Nohr's actions through Anankos possessing their father, added onto the pre-existing trauma of dealing with the Nohrian concubines abusing everyone around them including other royal children. The Black Eagles made a conscious decision to back Edelgard knowing what that means, with the only person having a good excuse to do so being Petra, whose country is being held hostage by the Empire.

3) The Nohr sibs actively work to 'loophole' their way through missions and assignments, as explicitly stated by Leo in chapter 14, and exemplified by how they all talk themselves and Corrin out of trouble concerning things like the Ice Tribe. Another example is how they have no issue in sparing people whatsoever, so long as Garon isn't there to threaten them into submission. The Black Eagles do jack shit to undermine Edelgard while under employ. Not that it matters, because...

4) The Nohr sibs hardly ever share positive feelings about the war and conflicts they take part in. Elise is an idealist who's visibly shown to be crushed and confused when her family isn't around, Leo outright says that they would've "lost their souls" had they not worked around Garon's orders, Xander has suicidal ideation and is basically going through doublethink when it comes to his responsibility and actions, and Camilla... well, she's already been fucked up for a long time and her fear of Garon is greater than her desire for peace. The Black Eagles meanwhile? They're just fine when participating in Edelgard's war. Sure, you have Dorothea wangsting on about it, but she's still doing her part no questions asked. Ferdie's spineless, Linhardt is unconscionable, Bernadetta basically convinced herself that forcing a complete 180 personality shift is for the best, and Petra and Caspar have no qualms about killing innocent people defending their homes, given they frequently dehumanize/impersonalize the actions.

5) Most importantly, the stories of each game present the war differently. The war in Fates and Nohr's part in it is actively presented to be irrational and wrong, a cruel plot by a false king exacerbated by the pre-existing issues that caused friction between Nohr and Hoshido in the first place. There is never a moment where a character in Fates says, "yeah this war is for the greater good." No matter the route, but especially in Conquest, Corrin is making the best of a bad situation that was out of his control from the start, yet he can turn around before it's too late. And even when the Nohr siblings have an out, that being they were abused into being accomplices in war crimes, they take responsibility of the pain they've caused at the end of Conquest, pledging their lives going forward into reshaping Nohr for the betterment of everyone.

3H is the opposite. Edelgard poses the war as better than the "false peace" that has been present between the three nations of Fodlan for three centuries. And the story actively validates her perspective and beliefs on this, through complimenting her leadership skills, saying her soldiers would rather die for her than abandon her cause, by constantly putting Rhea under scrutiny before the timeskip, by saying Edelgard "has a point" in every single route, by infantilizing her in White Clouds and CF, by giving her a happy ending at the end of CF, by the entire existence of Three Hopes, etc.

Fates paints war as the tragedy as it is, the trauma and grief that comes with the loss of any individual life, and punishes the ones who profit off of it while offering the chance of atonement from redeemable participants.

3H rewards Edelgard for warmongering, and brushes aside the brutal reality of warfare and imperialism by focusing on Edelgard's feelings about "the weight on her shoulders and her blood soaked hands!" before asking you to care about the lives taken.

Those are the differences. I hope my answers to your inquiries were satisfactory.

[otp-after-dark]

Osblaine fan fiction: The Human Heart Remains a Factor - Chapter 3 - Between the Lines (and thoughts on the character of Nick Blaine)

I always wanted to see this version of June and Nick — the one where they stop circling each other in the shadows and finally burn it down together. Where love isn’t something they have to protect with silence or shame, but something that drives them forward — into risk, into resistance, into war.

I really thought, after 4x10, we were headed there. Maybe she’d go underground. Maybe he’d go double-cop. Maybe we’d finally see them not just as people in love, but as partners in revolution. Atwood's version of them in the future.

But that story never came. So… I wrote it.

In this chapter, they stop playing it safe. They stop pretending survival is enough. They choose each other — and in doing so, they finally choose to fight together.

And here’s the thing: people don’t always risk everything for the cause. I'd argue most people wouldn't. Not at first. But for love? For someone? That’s real. That’s human. That’s how people actually start to change.

Which is why it truly saddens me that the show chose to use Nick as a scapegoat — a cautionary tale instead of a character who could have been redeemed through love and transformed by it. Because that’s how true change happens. It’s not always sparked by ideology — it’s sparked by someone you can’t bear to lose.

Most people don’t risk their lives for a cause they’re emotionally detached from. Just like most people don’t devote their lives to curing a disease they’ve never seen up close. It’s personal experience that pushes people to act. To fight. To care.

As Nick himself said:

“We’re fucking human. We want to save ourselves.”

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

In fact, that’s the kind of motivation that makes a character like Nick real. It’s also why he’s a fan favorite. Because underneath the quiet and the conflict, he’s someone we recognize — someone trying to do the right thing, not because he’s perfect, but because he loves deeply and lets that love change him. It’s a sentiment Max Minghella himself echoed time and time again in interviews — that Nick’s love for June is what drives him to change, to take risks, to become someone braver. That love is his catalyst. His compass.

And the fact that the show flipped that truth so suddenly — with zero narrative build — is honestly baffling. The 180 isn’t just unearned. It’s insulting to the character. To the actor. And to the fans who saw the story being told all along.

This chapter is the pivot point I wish we got onscreen: Nick choosing rebellion not just for the cause, but because he wants a future with June. And June choosing not just survival — but meaning.

Together, they stop surviving. They start burning.

DRIVE chapter here

[eyecan02]

What I Feel Should Be Included in BJ3

1.) We need to go back to the original film's roots. The first BJ film was practically a "bottle" film where the film mostly took place inside the Deetz home. I feel the story needs to come full circle by having the story mainly within that house again.

2.) The model town also has to make a return. The last time the model was mentioned, Lydia wanted to chop it up and burn it, but seeing as we never see the board onscreen again, I think it's safe to assume Lydia just simply boarded up the the attic door once more.

3.) The return of Juno or introduce a Juno-like character. I know the original Juno actress passed on, but one option could be to recast and greatly alter the appearance like what they did with Charles but a lot less mangled. Some backstory on her and BJ's dynamic/specifics on his curse could be interesting.

4.) They need to make it harder this time to banish Beetlejuice. They need to even the playing field, and throw in a curve ball for Lydia where she can't just simply say his name 3 times to send him away. Maybe Beetlejuice can somehow find an object that causes confusion/makes you forget like the Rememberball (sp?) from Harry Potter.

5.) I know Keaton was against a lot of BJ screen time, but since this is the final installment, I think if they evenly spread out a couple minutes of him here and there, it won't ruin the "magic". Random example but Chris Hemsworth only had like 30 min of screen time in the first Avengers film, but it definitely feels like he's onscreen more. Not saying there should be an hour worth of Beetlejuice screen time but maybe 30-35 of screen time spread out could work.

6.) If Lydia is going to willingly marry BJ this time then the two of them need to TALK more in part 3. This time around they can talk about how BJ fell for her, what he likes about her, about Lydia's anxieties, her being at a crossroads with her show being over, making Astrid a priority, BJ cheering her up, making her laugh, BJ also sharing personal stuff and scaring off Astrid's bullies.

7.) Exploring BJ and Lydia's psychic connection. This time she can project herself to him if she needs to, and he's able to temporarily share his powers with her. Maybe a scene of Lydia possessing BJ to dance as payback, but it ends up leading to a playful and energetic dance number where they both end up having fun together.

8.) Delores and BJ somehow switch places where she gets his curse where if you say her name 3 times she gets summoned/banished and gets locked up in BJs old grave. Beetlejuice is now the new "soul sucker" who turns to Rory and says, "I'm taking back every last shred of Lydia you took from her." and proceeds to suck out his soul, burp and says he tastes like shit. Beetlejuice raises his hand and pressed it against Lydia's, essentially returning the stolen "energy" her toxic ex bf took from her.

9.) The wedding actually happens this time at the Deetz home because third times the charm, and because BJ losing a third time is boring and predictable. BUT there's a curveball: Beetlejuice can't leave the house until he can find someone to pass his "soul sucking" powers to (since it would be dangerous for a mortal to be walking around freely with that kind of ability).

BJ is irritated by the turn of events, but says he finally got his bride and promises someday he'll take Lydia to Hawaii for their honeymoon but in the mean time they can get plenty of practice for their honeymoon in their home. XD He then gives Astrid some money to "scram" and go to the movies to give them some privacy and to "come back after the cigarettes part". Then proceeds to carry Lydia up the stairs bridal style.

What do you guys think of my ideas? What kind of stuff do you think is essential for a BJ3 film?