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#i'm glad we got a new Big Thing to focus on

english-history-trip · 1 year

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Ever see a depiction of St. George and the Dragon? It's pretty fair to say if you've seen one, you've seen them all: Georgie on a horse stabbing a flailing dragon creature, princess piously kneeling in the background, vague landscape alluding to the homeland of the artist's patron.

The most varied part is the dragons. No one had a real definition for the thing, it seemed. For your pleasure and entertainment, I have ranked some medieval depictions based on how impressive George's feat seems once you see the dragon.

Paolo Uccello, 1456

This is a terrifying beast. The hell is that. Uccello was one of the first experimenters with perspective, so the thing also looks surreal, like it's taking place on Mars, or a Windows 95 screensaver. I would not want to fight that, I would not want to be tied to that. (Sometimes the princess is tied to the dragon for some reason.) 10/10

Horse thoughts: Maybe if I look at the ground it will be gone when I look up

Unknown artist, c. 1505

This is a rare change of form for the dragon; it's the only one I've seen actually flying (or at least falling with style). It doesn't look particularly deterred by the spear through its throat, either. Also, George looks appropriately nervous. On the other hand, it hasn't got teeth, it seems to be fuzzy rather than having scaly armor, and George is bolstered by his army of Henry VII and his children, most of whom definitely didn't actually die in infancy. Still, wouldn't want to fight it, wouldn't want my pet sheep near it. (Sometimes the princess has a pet sheep for some reason.) 9/10

Horse thoughts: I am so glad I wore my mightiest feather helmet for this

Raphael, 1505

We are coming to Dragons With Problems. This guy looks about comparable in size to George, and does have wings, but doesn't seem to be using these things to his advantage (and has he only got one wing?) And how does he deal with the neck? He does have a comically small head, but holding it up with such a twisty neck seems complicated at best. But most egregiously, he is doing the shitty superheroine pose where he is somehow simultaneously showcasing his chest and his butt, with its unnecessarily defined butthole (more on this later) (regrettably). 8/10 bc it's Raphael

Horse thoughts: AM I THE BESTEST BOI? AM I DOING SUCH A GOOD JOB? WE R DRAGON SLAYING BUDDIEZ

The Beauchamp Hours, c. 1401

We had a spirited debate about this one at work. Again, the dragon has gotten smaller, and this one hasn't got even one wing. He's basically a crocodile. So the debate became: would you want to fight a crocodile if you had a horse and a pointy stick? Would the horse trample the animal, who can't get on its hind legs, or freak out and throw its rider? Would the pointy stick be enough to pierce the croc's thick hide? In this case, George seems to be controlling his horse and putting his pointy stick in the dragon's weak spot, so we can be impressed by his skill and strategy. However, his hat is dumb. 7/10

Horse thoughts: Dehhhh

Book of Hours, c. 1480

Here we have the same kind of croco-dragon, but George's focus on his strategy has gone out the window. He's flailing around, not even looking at his target, he's about to lose his pointy stick, he hasn't got a hand on the reins, and his sword seems to only be poking the invisible dragon over his shoulder. All he's got going for him is that his hat is slightly less dumb. 6/10

Horse thoughts: Yay, new friend! Come play with me, new fr- what is happening

Final dragons put behind this Read More for your safety:

Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1432

I'm thinking this guy is at least semi-aquatic. Webbed feet, wings that seem more like fins, bipedal but top-heavy, jaws that seem more for scooping than biting. Maybe she's crawled up here from the nearby body of water to lay her eggs, and this is all a big misunderstanding. Moreover, George's dagged sleeves seem entirely impractical for the situation. 5/10

Horse thoughts: i got my hed stuk in a jar and now it is this way forever

Unknown artist, c. 15th century

I hate this. I hate everything about it. Why has it got human eyes and teeth. Why is its nose melting. Why has it got a dick on its face and balls under its chin. The fin/wings are back but they look even more useless. Also, George is shifty as hell, schlumped over in his saddle with his bowler hat thing over his eyes. The baby dragon at the bottom eating some hapless would-be rescuer is kind of metal. 4/10 at least the thing is gonna die

Horse thoughts: I Have Smoked So Much Crack

Book of Hours, c. 1450

Remember what I said about the buttholes? First, sorry. Second, yeah, we're back to that. I'll admit this one is less about the danger from the dragon itself than the very specific choices the artist has made. They didn't need to do that. It's a lizard. They don't even have. And it's like they had an orifice budget and they skipped an exit wound for the spear to focus. Elsewhere. It's so detailed. And George had an even dumber hat. 2/10 take it away

Horse thoughts: I Have Smoked So Much Weed

Book of Hours, c. 1415

This is just bullying. There isn't even a princess. That is clearly an infant. Look at that smug look on George's face as he swings his sword that's bigger than the whole little guy. This is the equivalent of when DJT Jr. hunted those sleeping endangered sheep. 1/10

Horse thoughts: ....yikes

And this is the previous one, but now the baby dragon is cute. He's chubby. He's got toe beans. He's Puff the Magic Dragon. His eyes have already gone white, implying that George is just kicking its corpse around for funsies. What's the difference between the dragon and the lamb in the background? That the dragon is dead, like our innocence. This George is truly deserving of the dumbest hat of all. 0/10 plus one more butthole for the road

Horse thoughts: Perhaps it is we who are the buttholes.

#art history #nonsense #hot takes #I am doing a St. George painting and have been wading through reference material #manuscript #fuck me I didn't notice van der Weyden managed to sneak a butthole in his too #the definitive list #when knighthood was in flower

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hairmetal666 · 8 months

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Eddie Munson gets famous at fifteen, after a YouTube video goes viral.

He's the kind of famous where he can't leave his house without being mobbed; where his name is plastered across grocery store tabloids and every fifth Pop Crave post; who has to make special arrangements with stores, whose body guards have body guards, who's forgotten what it's like to be normal. He's the kind of famous with well-chronicled stints in and out of rehab

And he thinks, at thirty, why not do a reality show? Why not let everyone in the world into his life because they're there anyway?

There's this guy on the crew, beautiful as a fucking sunrise. He's all golden-tanned and chestnut-haired, with these big hazel eyes that makes Eddie stomach swoop deliciously whenever they happen to meet his.

His name is Steve.

And Eddie, well. He's learned his lesson about jumping into relationships. So, Steve is nice to look at, and that's all there is to it.

---

They're at the studio, and Eddie, he only smokes when he's recording but he's "not allowed" to do that inside. So, he steps out into the alley behind the building, eyes falling shut as he hands search his pockets for his pack of Camels and his Zippo.

"I didn't realize you smoked," a deep voice says from the darkness.

Eddie startles, eyes flying open. Steve is leaning against the brick of the building, cigarette perched between his pursed lips.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. I'm Steve. With the crew."

"Eddie," he answers by instinct.

"I know," Steve chuckles. His hazel eyes are golden in the yellow streetlight.

"Oh, right." He lights his cigarette and inhales deep.

"I really like what you're doing in there." Steve nods his head towards the studio.

"You a fan?"

"Never listened to you much before. Not really a metal kinda guy, but I like it."

People aren't usually honest with Eddie. It's refreshing.

"Glad you're getting into it! How's your--uh, job going?"

Steve laughs. "First assistant camera, that's my job." Eddie's expression must read a total blank, but Steve only smiles. "I make sure everything's in focus while we film"

"Is that--hard?"

"Sometimes," Steve agrees. "How do you like being the star of a reality show?"

Eddie huffs out a breath. "It's more fun than I expected. Like, sure it's weird to have you guys follow me around, but at least I invited you, you know?"

Steve's dark eyes are fathomless in his perfect face. "You'll let me know? If anything happens that you don't like?"

Eddie nods, taken aback by the serious line of Steve's pretty mouth. Before he can respond more, the back door creaks open, Gareth's backlit shape leaning into the alley. "Eddie? They're ready for you."

"Duty calls." He smiles at Steve as he stomps out his cigarette. "See you around."

---

Eddie goes to a house party in the hills. It's just a handful of people, all of them he's known for years, no cameras in sight.

Someone asks how things are going with the band. Eddie doesn't think anything of it. Why should he, among friends? Why should he when they already know the resentment that Gareth, Jeff, and Freak have for him? Eddie got signed and not his band. The guys--they never really forgave him, think he could have tried harder.

So, he says--he says--"I wish they didn't resent me so goddamn much still. To this day! They're millionaires and they're pissed at me? Fuck that. I got them here. I got us all here."

They're filming the next day at Eddie's house. He's working on a new song, engrossed in his acoustic and his notebook.

He's so in the zone, it takes him a second to register when Gareth bursts into the house.

"Fuck you, Munson," Gareth screams. "What the fuck is this shit?" Eddie's own voice pours from Gareth's phone, and Eddie's stunned speechless for dozens of seconds as he tries to comprehend what's happening.

"I didn't--" he tires. He raises his hands placatingly, but his minds a whirlwind, thoughts a tangle, heart a mess of betrayal and hurt and fear.

"We should be fucking grateful?" Gareth yells. "You spoiled piece of shit, fuck you!" He lunges towards Eddie, but Steve darts from behind the camera, moving to block Gareth's path.

"Stop filming," Eddie shouts. He lifts his arms to block the shit. "Get out," he snaps at the crew. " Now!"

He and Gareth scuffle towards a set of double-doors, heated words low and unintelligible.

"Don't come in." He tells the crew. "Steve, I mean it. Tell them to stop."

Eddie shoves Gareth into the other room, slamming the door behind him. Still, the mics pick up the screaming fight between the two men.

Hours later, Eddie finally makes his way back to the main part of the house, finds Steve standing at the kitchen island.

"Why are you still here?" He's too exhausted from the fight to put any inflection into it.

"I was wo--I wanted to make sure everything was okay," Steve says. He relaxes against the island. "Are yo--is everything okay?"

Eddie's laugh is humorless. "Something like that."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

The tears he kept at bay with Gareth prick at his eyelids until they burn. "Not really, no."

Steve nods. "We could--you wanna watch a movie?"

This startles a laugh out of Eddie, one that has tears flooding his eyes and he has to blink fast, look down, anything so Steve doesn't notice.

"You know what I want?" he says. It's soft enough that maybe Steve, across the kitchen, wouldn't hear.

"What?"

"To have friends who won't sell me out for a couple thousand bucks." The tears start falling, his throat choked with emotion.

He wants to stop, embarrassed to be crying in front of Steve, but now that he's started, sobs shake his shoulders and he can't keep quiet.

Steve reaches for him. "Is this okay?" he whispers, hands rubbing circles against his back.

Eddie nods, cries for a while as Steve makes soothing motions against his back.

"I just wish I was normal," he mumbles when he has words again.

Steve's hold on him tightens. "I'm sorry, Eddie."

Shame hits him then, too hard to ignore, and he steps away. "I'm gonna--I'm gonna go. I--Thanks again."

He ignores the sound of Steve calling him back.

---

Eddie's playing a show. He's playing a show in a small club, something he hasn't been able to do for years, but he's doing it right now. It's electric, vibrating through his body, the crowd screaming along with every word.

So much of this is because of Steve, and Eddie can't think about it, because men like Steve aren't for guys like Eddie.

As he plays, his eyes scan the small crowd, find Steve easily. He's gazing at Eddie, lips slicked pink and parted, eyes shining. Eddie knows this look; the naked desire obvious. A heat he never lets himself feel for Steve blooms low in his abdomen, but--

He wails into his mic, forcing his thoughts away from that path. He has a show to play, one that's pumping his veins full of satisfied adrenaline. Nothing can ruin it.

When the show ends, Eddie is high, endorphins and adrenaline pounding through his bloodstream.

Eddie, the band, and the film crew make their way out the club's backdoor. There's a car idling close by, but they only get a few steps in before there's shouting; the ear-shattering click of dozens of camera shutters; overwhelming burst of flashes.

Eddie is disoriented, dizzy; the rapid shift from the best night he's had in years, to this, mobbed by paparazzi, people screaming his name, crowding their small group. He stumbles, black spots still obstructing his vision.

Arms catch around him, holding him steady. "You okay?" Steve asks.

Before he can answer, one of the paps yells, "Munson's wasted! Can't even walk!"

"C'mon, Ed, I've got you," Steve says.

"Just get into the booze, Munson, or someone had Molly too? Maybe a little coke? That used to be your thing, right? Snort a little blow and do a show?"

Eddie tenses, almost stops, but Steve keeps him going.

The crowd surges around them, more voices yelling, more flashbulbs popping, the guy saying, "He can't even stand without help! You got a real problem you know?"and he just--can't anymore. He whirls out of Steve's grasp, lunges for the guy.

"What's your fucking problem, man?" Eddie hisses. "What did I do to you, huh?"

"Real tough, Munson, huh?" The man sneers. He shoves Eddie hard, knocking him back a few steps.

Eddie's vision fuzzes out, brain buzzing. He snarls, knows he does, knows he's losing it, can't make it stop.

Strong arms wrap around his waist, pull him off his feet. He fights it until he's pressed into a wall, until cold hands cup his face.

"Baby, baby, you have to calm down," Steve murmurs. "You have to breathe, can you do that for me?"

"I want--he can't--I--"

Steve presses harder against him, bodies joined. "You're having a panic attack, yeah? Can you breathe with me, baby? Match me?"

Eddie nods, tries, wants to be good for Steve.

He calms, as much from the breathing exercise as being held by the most beautiful man he's ever seen. Pressing his face against Steve's neck he says, "why are you always around for my worst moments? I'm such a fucking mess."

"I don't think you're a mess," he says. "I think you've gotten hurt, you've gotten cornered. And your reactions are normal."

"Why do you even care?" Eddie asks.

Steve doesn't even pause. "Cause I like you, Eddie." His hold tightens for a second. "I like you a lot."

Eddie scoffs. "Yeah, you like Eddie Munson, the hot rockstar. Not the loser who cries in your arms"

Cold air hits Eddie as Steve steps away to meet Eddie's eyes. You want to know something? I didn't expect to like you at all. I admit, I bought into all the stories on the internet. But you were never anything like that, Ed. Not even once."

Steve takes a deep breath, turning away as his cheeks grow pink. "And you--you're always going out of your way for people. The day I knew I was gone for you? Three weeks into filming. There was this kid interning. You didn't know a thing about him, just some twenty-year-old, and you sat down and talked to him. Were genuinely interested in everything he said."

"Steve," Eddie's voice breaks. He has to cover his mouth, lips a wobbling mess.

"I want to give you normal, Eddie, as much as I can. If you'll let me."

The moisture tumbles free from his eyes, streaking down his cheeks. Eddie laughs. "God, Steve, you're--I like you, too."

Steve brushes the tears away. "So, you'd go on a date with me?"

"I think I would really like to go on a date with you, yeah."

Steve leans in, slow and gentle, placing a soft kiss at the corner of Eddie's mouth. It lights him up like a fresh struck match, nerve endings on fire. He thinks it's so much more than like already.

"Take me home, sweetheart," he says.

"Getting fresh with me, Munson," Steve smirks. "I won't have you using your rockstar wiles to seduce me."

Eddie's laugh echoes off the brick of the surrounding buildings. "Oh, sweetheart, my rockstar ways will destroy you."

"That a promise?"

---

Six months later, the first and only season of Welcome to Hell premieres. Instead, of chronicling a rockstar's debauched and wild lifestyle, it's a soft and charming love story. It shows Steve and Eddie growing closer, Steve working late into the night, to give Eddie the hint of normalcy he's so desperate for, to make him happy. It shows Eddie's eyes track Steve across a room, something like sadness crossing his face. It shows a concert that Steve arranged, the fight with the pap outside the venue, brief glimpses of Steve and Eddie in the aftermath, the gentle kiss.

In the last interview of the season, the producer asks Eddie if there will be a season two of Welcome to Hell.

Eddie smiles, glances off camera, which pans to find Steve in worn jeans and a Metallica hoodie, hair messy and wearing glasses. He gazes at Eddie, smiles this soft, aching thing.

"Nah, I don't think I need it anymore," Eddie answers. Throwing the camera a smile that matches Steve's.

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 12 days

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Miraculous Ladybug Season 5 - An Overview

Well... that certainly was... the fifth season of Miraculous Ladybug.

While I was overall mixed on Season 4 with how much it varied in quality, I think I have a more concrete opinion of Season 5.

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Yeah, this season was a real pain to review, but not for the reason you'd think. Most of the episodes were either dull or average, so there wasn't a lot for me to really talk about. Of course, when things were bad, dear lord, were they bad. This analysis is somehow longer than my Season 4 one and the ranking post. Other than real life stuff getting in the way, there's a damn good reason why this took so long to finish. I basically wrote a college thesis on this season.

The Things I Liked About Season 5

Let's get all the good things about this season out of the way first.

For one thing, one of my biggest complaints about Season 4 was sort of rectified, the portrayal of Adrien. While I still have problems with him (which I'll get to in a later section), they're more about his impact on the story. As for his personality and attitude, it's a big step up. There's much less complaining, he's more active in the action, and is far more intelligent. Compared to Season 4, where Cat Noir was affected by an Akuma's powers or taken out of commission in order to raise the stakes eleven times (Lies, Mr. Pigeon 72, Mega Leech, Guiltrip, Optigami, Sentibubbler, Wishmaker, Simpleman, Ephemeral, Penalteam, Risk), here, funnily enough, it only really happened five times in Season 5 (Jubilation, Illusion, Derision, Emotion, The Final Day). It's honestly amazing. There were times where I thought he was going to be taken out or get portrayed as an idiot, but that almost never happened this season. Even some of the weaker episodes this season featured Adrien in a more active role, like “Passion”, “Reunion”, “Elation”, and “Deflagration”.

Also, as much of a problem that I have with Cat Noir trying to Cataclysm his enemies, I'm glad that the show at least tries to acknowledge this by showing his worst nightmare is a world where everyone is dead because of him. It's not handled well, and it's only done just to bench him for the finale, but I'll at least give the writers credit for putting in the effort to give him more nuance. It's a hell of a lot better than what they did with Gabriel, but I'll get to him later. By extension, his relationship with Ladybug is much more tolerable. The two work together well, talk about the conflict with Monarch more often, and for the most part, feel like actual partners. Yeah, that dynamic falls apart towards the end of the season, but again, I'll give the writers an A+ for effort.

Another thing I like is that this season tries to focus more on character pieces, with episodes focusing on characters like Nathalie (Passion), Kagami (Perfection), Luka (Migration), and Zoe (Adoration). They're not handled the best, but I'm glad the show is at least trying to give the supporting characters time in the spotlight, even though they don't have their Miraculous anymore.

Speaking of, I like the idea of the Alliance rings. It's really the only time Gabriel actually takes advantage of his status as one of the most influential people in Paris to push the use of something specifically designed to help give his Akumas more power. Given how prevelant the marketing for Alliance rings is, it's easy to see his plan working in the long term.

We also had a couple decent new Akuma designs, like Safari, Bugfighter, and... uh... Yeah, I got nothing else. This is pretty much the most praise this season is going to get from me. Sure, I'll go into some other aspects I like during later sections, but other than that, this is it. Hell, even the parts I listed earlier are only mentioned for the ideas they present, not the way they're executed.

The Final Season... Of Filler

We've finally made it to Season 5, the climax of the conflict with Monarch. This is going to be epic, with all kinds of compelling stories that can be used for episodes, leading to a final product that will go down as—my God, why is this season so boring?!

Like I said earlier, this season was a lot harder to review than Season 4 was, and this was one of the biggest reasons why. As bad as that season was, I at least had stuff to talk about. Here? Almost nothing. A good chunk of the episodes I reviewed just didn't leave an impact on me. Most of them were either forgettable, mediocre, or just okay. Some of the episodes had decent ideas and a handful of good scenes, but it wasn't really enough to reach the highs of earlier seasons, including Season 4.

It's strange, because at first, it seemed like the show was learning from its mistakes during the first three episodes of this season. “Evolution”, “Multiplication”, and “Destruction” were far from perfect, but you could at least tell the show was trying something different. There was tighter continuity, clever mind games on both sides, a rare instance of nonlinear storytelling, and major changes to the status quo. They explained why Monarch can't just beat up Ladybug and Cat Noir himself, why the Rabbit and Rooster Miraculous can't be used to end the story, and why the Alliance rings were created.

When Ladybug got the Rabbit Miraculous after failing to get the other fourteen back, you would think that this would lead to an arc where Ladybug and Cat Noir gradually reclaimed the Miraculous from Monarch until the final battle, but what did we get instead in terms of plot development?

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For what was supposed to be the final season, it felt like almost nothing happened. Sure, as always, the show tried to trick us into thinking stuff was happening, but several plotlines introduced this season were either abandoned or rushed through after a few episodes. The Resistance? Only relevant for five episodes, and even then, they didn't do much (Illusion, Deflagration, Confrontation, Revolution, Representation). Trying to discover how Monarch is giving the Akumas Miraculous powers? Only relevant in a single episode (Illusion). Felix having the Peacock Miraculous and being a total wild card? Only relevant for three episodes (Emotion, Pretension, Representation). The reverse Love Square? Only relevant for four episodes before it petered out (Determination, Passion, Reunion, Elation). Lila manipulating Kagami for some reason? Only relevant for two, maybe three episodes if you count that one scene in “Emotion”, and that was dropped in favor of her learning Monarch's identity offscreen (Perfection, Protection).

You'd think for a season with stakes this high, there would be bigger stories or more character drama, but we got nothing. The only real ongoing story we got was the Love Square finally happening, and trust me, I'll get to that later. There were plenty of ideas for story arcs here, but the writers pretty much ignored all of them.

Retcons! Retcons Everywhere!

This one's shorter, because it's a problem with the show in general, and I'll go into more detail about specific examples of this later on.

Miraculous Ladybug is a show that has always struggled to be consistent with its lore, worldbuilding, characters, story, and... well, a lot of things. I've talked about how often the show retcons things in order to justify whatever story they need to tell, not just for individual episodes, but story arcs too. There were so many episodes with stories that contradicted previous events or changed the motivations of certain characters on a whim.

In case you didn't keep track, here's a little highlight reel of some of the retcons this season.

Evolution: After both him and Ladybug were able to use multiple unifications last season with no problem, Monarch can't use too many of his powers without collapsing in pain. It also goes against what was established in “Kwamibuster”, the idea of using multiple Miraculous being enough to damage your sanity, where here, Monarch's body is damaged.

Multiplication: Adrien's reason for falling for Marinette was due to all the times she helped him, when it was usually the other way around in earlier seasons.

Determination: Adrien reveals he's had feelings for Marinette since the events of “The Puppeteer 2”, even though it never influenced any of their interactions between that episode and this one. It also contrasts the previous episode, where it said that Adrien was just starting to fall for Marinette for different reasons.

Derision: Chloe's bullying of Marinette had severe psychological damage that explains why she acts the way she does around Adrien... but ignores the romantic feelings Marinette has had for Luka and Cat Noir, and didn't act the same way around them, to say nothing about how she acted around Nathaniel when he had a crush on her during “The Evillustrator ”.

Intuition: The Snake Miraculous somehow makes Gabriel's Cataclysm wound worse even though the form of time travel it uses is mental, not physical.

Protection: Gabriel and Tomoe want their children to be in a relationship, yet Adrien and Kagami kept it a secret while they were dating.

Adoration: Zoe suddenly has feelings for Marinette despite showing no signs of it beforehand.

Emotion: Felix reveals he's doing everything for Adrien's safety, even though in his previous few appearances, he's done nothing but screw his cousin over by smearing his public image.

Pretension: Felix is against using a Sentimonster to defend himself and Kagami due to not wanting to force an innocent creature to follow his orders, yet he had no problem using a Sentimonster in the very last episode and in his next appearance.

Revelation: Lila has multiple secret identities she uses while pretending to be the child of several women, which had never come up at all during the last four seasons.

Representation: Kagami apparently learned Marinette was Ladybug right before she was akumatized in “Perfection”, yet Monarch didn't learn this like he did with Luka.

Do you see the problem here? Hell, I didn't even list every single retcon, or else we'd be here all day.

I don't get how a show that wants to be serialized can keep changing details like this. It's not even a case of the show replacing its writers with new ones who don't know as much as the old ones. This is mostly the same writing team for almost four seasons at this point.

Sometimes, the show will retcon stuff in order to justify stories when it doesn't need to. Remember how at the beginning of the season, Marinette was feeling guilty about her failure at the end of Season 4, and that influences her hesitance to accept Adrien's advances? The writers sure didn't, as “Derision” exists to give Marinette a whole new reason to not be comfortable around Adrien. Why the hell would you give Marinette a perfectly valid reason to not want to pursue Adrien, only to write an episode that gives her a different reason to not want to pursue Adrien? There was literally no reason to do this, especially during the last season of your first major story arc!

This season is clearly trying to be the most serialized of the bunch, yet the writers keep changing details about the story like that one Wallace and Gromit meme.

Season 5: The Show's Greatest Hits Album

Something I've noticed about this season is just how repetitive it can be. I know that sounds weird given this is a show that literally gave us the Status Quo-Yo, but please hear me out.

So many major story arcs and focus episodes are just rehashed versions of older things in this show, and not just the reused Akumas. Not only does the first half of Season 5 restate how complicated things are for Marinette's love live and how she can't love Adrien after what she did (something she gets over rather anticlimactically once Adrien confesses). Then there are other times where even plotlines established this season will get reused, and more often than not, it's worse.

In “Perfection”, Kagami is akumatized thanks to Lila's lies, and manages to break free from Monarch's influence thanks to her friends showing that they care for her. And then four episodes later, Kagami is akumatized again thanks to Lila's lies, only this time, she isn't able to break free. What... what was the point of having that emotional scene in “Perfection” if you're just going to treat her like a run of the mill Akuma a few episodes later?

And it's not just that. Big moments that happened in earlier seasons are pretty much redone but with a few changes to make it seem like they're different. Did you like seeing Adrien give up being Cat Noir in “Kuro Neko”? Well how about seeing Adrien and Marinette give up being superheroes in “The Kwamis' Choice”? Did you like seeing Chloe break off her friendship with Adrien in “Queen Banana”? How does seeing Adrien break off his friendship with Chloe in “Derision” sound?

But the worst of this has to be in the last seven episodes of the season. So much of what is essentially the culmination of five seasons' worth of story is just recycled. Let's go over why. In “Confrontation”, Marinette (and by her, I mean Sabrina with help from Marinette) manages to outsmart Chloe and Lila and put an end to their tyranny in the classroom. What are the next two episodes about? Marinette needing to outsmart Chloe and Lila, only now, they have reign over the city. This feels like something that should have been one major story, not something split up into two two-parters. Hell, you can't even say it's original to see Chloe in control, because this is also something that was done back in Season 1's “Rogercop”, only with the titular and the police following his orders for no reason instead of Chloe and her bootleg Daleks.

But hey, if an army of robots capable of using Miraculous powers, at least we can expect something even more creative for Monarch's ultimate plan, right? Yeah, Project “Perfect Alliance” is just a combination of Chloe's murder boxes and the exact same plan in “Heroes' Day”. People are brainwashed like in “Heroes' Day” and they get Miraculous powers like the robots in “Revolution”. Seriously? Nobody took a look at this and thought “Didn't we do this already?”

What's the point of making these two different evil plans when they're essentially the same thing? Why not give Chloe's robots various weapons instead of Miraculous powers if you're going to have an army of villains who have the same Miraculous powers two episodes later? Why not make it so the Miraculized are really the robots designed to help Chloe, only here, they have the ability to turn anyone wearing an Alliance ring into one of them, sort of like the Borg from Star Trek?

It's clear that after four seasons, the writing on this show has gotten incredibly stagnant if the major plotlines are just reused from earlier seasons. At best, it comes across like blatant fanservice, and at worst, it's a symptom of the writers struggling to come up with new ideas for stories. Either way, this is one of many reasons why not a lot of people are looking forward to Season 6. How can you expect interesting stories in the future when the writers keep recycling their old ones?

Felix and the Struggle With Sentimonsters or: This Is Starting to Sound Like a Bad Comic Book Plot!

Before I get into the problems with Felix this season, consider this: With Chloe (who I'll get to later), she was an example of someone who wouldn't get a redemption arc. Felix? This is the writers intentionally trying write a redemption arc. How did that turn out?

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The obvious problem with Felix is mostly due to, like a lot of things in this show, poor time management. He only had three focus episodes, and in that time, the writers needed to explain his motivations, establish him as a wild card, have him realize the error of his ways, develop his relationship with Kagami, and help out Marinette. They really wanted to do a lot with Felix, yet with how rushed his arc was, I have to wonder if there was some trouble behind the scenes that prevented him from getting more focus.

It doesn't help that what little we got was confusing as all hell. I've already gone into detail about the problems with Felix's motivations not explaining his actions, but here's a list of all the problems with Felix.

If Felix wanted to get the Peacock Miraculous from the start, why didn't he try stealing that in “Felix”?

If Felix cared about Adrien, why did he spend most of his appearances mocking him and ruining his reputation by impersonating him in “Felix”, “Gabriel Agreste”, “Risk”, “Emotion”, and “Representation”?

If Felix knew who Gabriel was, why did he come up with this elaborate plan to get the Peacock Miraculous in a trade with him instead of going to Ladybug for help in “Strikeback”?

If Felix realized Gabriel was dangerous and capable of wiping him out, why did he decide to give him fifteen Miraculous in exchange for a single Miraculous without doing anything to stop him in “Strikeback”?

If Felix could easily get rid of Gabriel with a single Sentimonster like he did in “Emotion”, why didn't he immediately do that as soon as he got the Peacock Miraculous in “Strikeback”?

If Felix wanted to stop Gabriel, why did he decide to wipe out all of humanity alongside him in “Emotion”?

If Felix cared about innocent lives, why did he decide to wipe out all of humanity without showing any remorse except for when he had to get rid of Red Moon in “Emotion”?

If Felix didn't want to create any Sentimonsters just to end their lives in “Pretention”, why did he do just that in “Representation”?

If Felix knew Marinette was Ladybug, why did he choose to tell her who Gabriel was in an unnecessarily complicated way instead of telling it straight to her face in “Representation”?

If Felix really hated his abusive father, why didn't he show any hatred for Gabriel (who gave Colt the damaged Peacock Miraculous and did nothing to stop the abuse) as well during his little play in “Representation”?

If Felix cared about stopping Gabriel, why did he only decide to go to Ladybug for help when Gabriel was getting in the way of his relationship with Kagami in “Representation”?

If Felix was willing to tell Marinette about Gabriel being Monarch in “Representation”, why didn't he do anything else to help her stop Monarch in “Comformation” and “Re-Creation”?

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With how many flaws his plans have, I'm surprised Felix hasn't said anything along the lines of “My pwan is gweat!”

For someone who claims to be doing a lot of things for Adrien, Felix tends to either screw over his cousin as part of his plans or forget him entirely. I don't mean he screws over Cat Noir, as his identity is one of the few things he doesn't know, but rather, how little his plans actually benefit Adrien. Putting aside his previous appearances in Seasons 3 and 4, in the span of a single episode, Felix pretended to be his cousin and smeared his public image, used a Sentimonster to wipe out all of his friends and loved ones while needing to be told by Adrien that doing so wasn't cool, and after that, he pretty much abandoned caring about Adrien.

Yeah, starting with “Pretension”, the writers once again change gears so Felix's primary goal is to help Kagami, not Adrien. It's Kagami that really helps inspire Felix's true turn to good, it's Kagami who he chooses to visit when she and Adrien are taken to London, and it's Kagami that helps him decide to tell Marinette Monarch's identity. Even though he only has three major appearances, the writers still decided to shake up his character arc for some reason. How does a team of paid writers struggle to stay consistent with any story or character arc they've written?

The worst part is that for a redemption arc, Felix shows little to no remorse for his actions. Not once does he apologize to anyone he's personally wronged, like Adrien, Marinette, or Kagami. He doesn't see anything wrong with giving Monarch more power and depriving Ladybug of almost all of her allies, and he had to be told that wiping all of humanity from existence was a bad thing. Felix has done so many terrible things in his quest for freedom, which isn't a bad idea, as it could make for an interesting discussion about whether the ends justify the means, but the show doesn't go that route. Instead, despite doing almost nothing but making things worse for Ladybug and Cat Noir, we're supposed to see Felix as a great person who just wants to have friends. Sure, having good social skills is a big part of being able to manipulate others, but let's just ignore all the people he's tricked and assume he doesn't know how to properly socialize with someone without stalking them.

It doesn't help that of all the characters this season, Felix makes the most progress in stopping Monarch. Puting aside his little genocide attempt in “Emotion”, he actually made an attempt to take Gabriel out of the equation, and later on, passed on intel about his true identity to Marinette. Think about that for a second. Marinette, despite being a hero with the ability to deduce what to do from simple clues given to her, isn't the one to figure out Monarch's identity. Instead, she has to be told who Monarch is, and is able to beat him only because Felix told her what to do. The worst part is that Felix doesn't even take part in the final battle when he has no excuse to not get involved. Remember, he doesn't have to worry about getting snapped away by Gabriel, so even though he cares so much about Adrien and Kagami, he does nothing to save either of them from their glorified solitary confinement.

Felix isn't a character. He's a glorified plot device who only shows up to advance the story instead of letting any character make progress by themselves. While Marinette and Adrien are focusing more on their love lives this season, Felix is the one actually getting things done. Because God forbid the two characters the show is named after actually do anything to stop the villain this season, am I right?

And that's not even getting into the Sentimonster stuff. Yep, to our collective horror, not only is Felix a Sentimonster, but it's also hinted that Adrien and Kagami are Sentimonsters too. I'm not sure why the writers are so hesitant to flat out say the latter two are Sentimonsters after all the obvious hints, especially when this is a show that loves to overly explain every plot detail and character trait. I don't know. Maybe they're just hedging their bets in case things don't go over well with audiences, but I can't possibly see anything bad coming from this. After all, how can you think of any uncomfortable implications stemming from the three major victims of child abuse literally being inhuman monsters who are physically unable to resist their abusers' orders?

With the Sentimonster “reveal”, Adrien and Kagami, two characters who were previously doing their best to be independent from their parents as they could at their age, are now physically incapable of even having a single negative thought about them without being ordered around while showing no resistance. Like I've mentioned before, it's a blatant retcon because it's never explained why Gabriel and Tomoe didn't do this during Seasons 2 and 3. It also gives the writers the opportunity to remove any agency Adrien and Kagami have in the plot, even though one is one of the two main characters, and the other plays a crucial role in helping another character expose the main villain's identity.

We're supposed to see Gabriel and Tomoe as wrong for ignoring their children's protests and forcing them to do things they don't want to do, but it doesn't lead to an arc where Adrien and Kagami rebel against their parents and break free from their influences. As soon as either Gabriel and Tomoe touch their respective rings, Adrien and Kagami are completely helpless, and there's no way for them to resist because of how powerful the link with their Amoks is. There's no hint that they have the potential to break free from their Amoks' influence, and the only time we saw that happen, it was a complete accident that Felix didn't even cause (Representation). Adrien and Kagami are both reduced to damsels in distress thanks to being Sentimonsters, and even though the show is trying to say they're trapped in a terrible situation, there's never a way out.

The most Adrien and Kagami do is express frustration with their situation, but most of the progress made in escaping their bad relationships is done by their respective love interests, Marinette and Felix. Yes, support systems are important, but rather than help Adrien and Kagami earn their freedom, Marinette and Felix do pretty much all of the work to save them during the latter half of this season. Hell, they couldn't even get that completely done by the time of the finale! Gabriel dropped dead and Adrien thinks he's a hero and Kagami's still living with Tomoe, only now she has her Amok ring. We're supposed to see this as a happy ending when they're both still influenced by their abusive parents, even if they don't have any physical control over them. The whole idea behind making Adrien and Kagami Sentimonsters should have been something about them, but with Gabriel and Tomoe, the writers only see them as helpless victims who can't do anything to save themselves. Sure, both of them have fought supervillains before, but we can't have them actually showing agency, can we?

I'm going to get into other ways Adrien and Kagami's characters were butchered this season, but for now, let's get into all the uncomfortable things this plotline implies. Now before I go any further, just remember that I am far from an expert on abuse or child psychology, so please take what I say with a heavy grain of salt. If there is anyone reading this who is a victim of abuse or knows someone who was, please don't be afraid to speak your mind about my analysis or correct me if I get any details wrong.

I get that making Adrien, Kagami, and Felix Sentimonsters was probably done so it'd be a way to explain the concept of child abuse to younger audiences, specifically to show how helpless the situation can be for victims, but the problem is how the allegory is handled. It wants to show how cruel the idea of child abuse is, but it doesn't want to outright vilify abusers like Gabriel or Tomoe. They usually try to sugarcoat it by saying that the two have good reasons for doing what they do, but that's a common problem with abusers. Abusive parents almost always believe that they're doing the right thing while their children think that they're just being punished for their own good, and the season ultimately takes that stance by the end.

The show is clearly trying to use the Sentimonster concept to tell a story about abuse, but I have no idea what exactly it's trying to say about it. “Child abuse is bad”? Okay, then why aren't you going to condemn the abusive parents for being abusive parents? And no, brief mentions of abusive parents who we never actually see onscreen don't count (Derision, Pretension, Representation). “Help out abused children”? Big talk coming from the season that only has two people actually fight to help the victims of child abuse, while treating another victim of child abuse as getting her just desserts (Revolution). “Parents have good reasons to do what they do”? Yeah, that normally applies to stopping your kid from getting a tattoo, not forcing them to whatever they want against their will.

The thing about writing abuse is that you need to acknowledge just how unhealthy it is, and do whatever it takes to take them out of the toxic environment. Here, nobody ever tries to remove Adrien from the toxic environment or tell him that what his father is doing isn't right. Sure, Felix tries to take Kagami away from her abusive mother, but that was only for like an hour at most, and then he just let her go back to her mother. Adrien doesn't even get that luxury. Hell, he isn't even allowed to know just how terrible his father was because he's just a sensitive baby according to the show. Portraying abuse victims as too emotionally fragile to know the truth is a pretty bad idea because, like I mentioned before, a big problem that abuse victims go through is that they're conditioned to see their treatment as normal at best, or see it as their fault at worst.

Like so many other serious topics discussed in this show, the writers clearly want to tell a story about abuse, but they're too afraid to actually take a proper stance on it, so they kept trying to play it safe in an attempt to not get backlash from audiences. Of course, because of that, they ended up portraying victims of child abuse as soulless husks who have almost no free will of their own, while ending the season by having them still under the influence of their abusive parents, even the dead one. Real bang-up job, there, writers. It says a lot when a Spider-Man PSA from almost 35 years ago did a better job tackling child abuse than you did.

And finally, let's talk about how this season's treatment of Sentimonsters indirectly influences our perception of them across the past two seasons. Even though the Sentimonsters created have shown almost no individuality from Seasons 2 to 4, only now are we supposed to see them as sentient beings, with Felix himself even taking offense at the idea at being called a Sentimonster. Never mind the fact that Felix never actually comes up with a proper alternative, so he just comes across as whiny when we're supposed to see him as a champion of the Sentimonsters.

In regards to the narrative the show decided it now wants to tell about Sentimonsters, I have two questions.

First, why should I care about Sentimonsters if the previous two seasons have portrayed them as nothing but soulless killing machines? If you're going to write a plot twist that changes the way we see Sentimonsters, you need to explain why we were wrong to only assume they're dangerous, especially since Argos' first Sentimonster literally wiped out all of humanity. For comparison, Ultraman Z did a similar plotline by having the main character realize that several of the monsters he killed as the titular hero weren't intentionally trying to harm humanity, so it caused him to doubt himself as a hero before he vowed to start finding non-violent ways to stop monsters if he could, while viewing the act of killing monsters that couldn't be reasoned with as a necessary evil. This show has no such arc and just expects us to ignore all the damage the Sentimonsters have caused since the end of Season 2.

Second, what about the Sentimonsters whose lives have been snuffed out by Mayura, Shadowmoth, and even Ladybug? The writers want us to sympathize with Sentimonsters and believe they get a bad rap? That's fine, but even if we did, what about the ones who were already wiped out of existence? Are we just not going to talk about them? Why should we only value the lives of Felix, Adrien, and Kagami and not any of the other Sentimonsters created in previous episodes? What, because they're not main characters, their lives don't matter?

All in all, everything about the Sentimonster was either poorly thought out or too preachy to take seriously, and Felix is emblematic of those problems with how he and the Sentimonsters are written. Oh right, I forgot Felix had a sidekick too, Kimberly—I mean, Kagami.

Kagami Never Hesitates to Be a Complete Idiot

If you read my overview of Season 4, I sang high praises for how Alya was written. Season 4 managed to take a character I had previously disliked and turn her into one of my favorite characters in the show. Now, with that being said, I want you to imagine the opposite of that happening to a different character, and you have my feelings on Kagami this season.

It's weird how, after she had made it through the past three seasons with her character somewhat intact, the writers decided to give her even more prominence by involving her in two separate arcs this season... and only made her nothing more than a damsel in distress who constantly needed to be saved in both of them. I'm not saying that Kagami should be able to beat the crap out of Monarch with her bare hands, but my point is that Kagami just lost so much agency this season.

When she wasn't being manipulated by Lila (Perfection, Protection), she was playing second fiddle to Felix and acting like he didn't hand over almost every Miraculous in Ladybug's possession to Monarch (Pretension, Representation). It's really strange, considering a defining character trait of hers is her hating liars like Marinette does, since it's why she dumped Adrien, yet here, she gets tangled up in the schemes of two different liars, Lila and Felix. I can at least get Lila (as dumb as her episodes are), since she's supposed to be seen as this master manipulator, but she just brushes all of Felix's crimes aside because he “doesn't know how to express himself”. Because even though she's always been loyal to Ladybug, she has no problem working with one of the only two people to betray her trust. But she loves Felix, so that makes it all okay.

What made Alya's arc last season work was that even though she was primarily Marinette's confidant, we also got episodes showing her struggling to balance her own desires with what needed to be done for the greater good (Optigami, Sentibubbler, Hack-San, Rocketear). She had to step up and become more than just one of the many temp heroes Ladybug called on, someone trustworthy enough to temporarily use the Ladybug Miraculous. Yes, she made bad calls, but when things went south because of her bad decisions, she normally took responsibility for her actions and vowed to do better. With Kagami, we don't get any internal conflict like that at all. She just blindly goes along with whatever Lila and Felix say, and even when bad things happen as a result, she never even thinks to call out either of them other than rarely saying something along the lines of “Hey, not cool.” (Protection, Pretension).

Kagami just doesn't get to do anything on her own terms this season. Her entire arc revolves around following Lila and Felix around like a lost puppy. And just remember, we're seriously supposed to act like Kagami is trustworthy enough to see that her defending Felix from Ladybug is enough to prove that he's a good person deep down... when this same season showed her easily falling for Lila's lies and getting akumatized twice as a result. It's like believing Dr. Nick can perform a life-saving kidney transplant after seeing him botch an open-heart surgery.

Even Kagami figuring out Marinette is Ladybug, something that should be a big deal like with Alya and Luka learning last season, is something we learn through a flashback and is, you guessed it, is only relevant to one of Felix's plans. And yeah, reveal your friend's secret to someone who someone who betrayed her. What could possibly go wrong? Again, when Alya screwed up, she was at least able to admit it to Marinette's face. Kagami never tells Marinette that she knows, and never faces consequences for throwing her lot in with Felix. What's her excuse, that she has too much love in her heart for Felix?

Speaking of which, let's talk about the biggest problem I have with Kagami this season, the way her relationship with Felix is handled. Let me make one thing clear: my problem isn't with people who ship the two together. Much like with the Love Square, my problem is how the show handles this romance. The two had almost no episodes together, and from what little we saw of them interacting, Kagami didn't like him, and for obvious reasons. But then “Pretension” came. Not only did Felix develop feelings for Kagami offscreen, all it took for Kagami to fall for Felix was a single conversation where he showed basic human decency. Yeah, Marinette fell for Adrien for similar reasons, but at least she and him took a while to actually get together. These two shared a handful of conversations, and now they're just made for each other.

The problem with this is that the relationship basically reduces Kagami to Felix's girlfriend and sidekick. All of her major appearances post-“Emotion” were in relation to Felix. She only helps him because of their relationship, and their relationship was the whole reason why Kagami convinced Felix to do what he should have done from the start, tell Ladybug who Monarch was... even though Astruc said this kind of relationship was toxic when discussing Lukloe.

You see, the difference between Lukloe and Feligami is (MAKE UP EXPLANATION LATER AND DON'T ACCIDENTALLY LEAVE THIS SPOT BLANK). And that's why we shouldn't see this as blatant hypocrisy on Astruc's part.

While it's par for the course, given how almost every female character in this show is connected to a male character in some way, the way Kagami is written this season is still part of a bigger problem. Kagami is not everyone's favorite character and not one people fiercely discuss as much as Marinette, Adrien, or even Chloe, but it's still baffling that out of all the characters in this season, Kagami would arguably sustain the most damage out of the entire cast. Given that this is the same season as Nino becoming the braindead leader of the Resistance, Chloe's brief stint as a tyrannical mayor, Nathalie choosing to do nothing about Gabriel until she was about to die, the baffling reveal of who Lila supposedly is (again, more on these later), or... really, a lot of things with both Marinette and Adrien, this is actually saying a lot. If you want to look at it at a particular angle, Kagami's actually a direct victim of practically all of the biggest problems in this season and I've had to mention her a lot more in this analysis than I anticipated. Then again, I suppose that's me showing more care to Kagami as a character than the writers did.

The Story of The Resistance (In Name Only)

I've already gone on about how underdeveloped most of the temp heroes are, so you can imagine the season where they try to help Ladybug without superpowers doesn't really change my opinion of them.

Remember how in episodes like Season 1's “Antibug”, Season 2's “The Dark Owl”, and even this season's “Jubilation” made it clear that trying to be a superhero without a Miraculous or proper training was essentially suicide? You know, how it was better to leave things to the actual superheroes? Well the writers sure didn't, as now we get to see a bunch of idiots try to take on supervillains with paintball guns and whatever they can throw at them. I'm pretty sure the writers put more effort into all the codenames themed after condiments than actually coming up with creative ways to fight Akumas. Because we all know how hilarious (citation needed) the flower codename gag from “Gigantitan” was, so let's do something like that, but for multiple episodes this season.

I'm just going to be blunt here when I say the Resistance this season sucked. Putting aside the fact that the writers couldn't come up with a less generic name or a name that wasn't already taken by the Ox Miraculous' power, this subplot was just so pointless. You have a team of former heroes who want to find a way to help Ladybug and Cat Noir stop Monarch, and rather than do things like pass intel along or find ways to stop people from getting akumatized, they decide to try taking them on themselves with their most powerful weapons being paintball guns. Congratulations, you now have all the equipment you need to take on Bart Simpson in a fight. Sure, they try to pass on intel to Ladybug and Cat Noir in their first episode, “Illusion”, but Nino's plan was so stupid, they ended up helping Monarch in the long term by letting his civilian identity into their team. Oh, I'm sorry, did you forget how Gabriel and Lila were inducted into the Resistance at the end of “Illusion”? It's okay, the writers did too.

And the idea of them passing on intel could have worked, as it would give Marinette a support system to help solve problems she can't figure out on her own, following up on her character arc from Season 4 where she learns to put her trust in people, but like a lot of things this season, the writers got bored halfway through and decided to change up this plotline. Now, they're prepared to fight anyone who gets akumatized. How many Akumas did the Resistance manage to stop completely on their own? One, and it was offscreen (Deflagration).

Trying to make the Resistance seem competent and effective comes at the price of making the villains look like idiots who can't handle a few teenagers without superpowers. Monarbug, someone who managed to unify with the Ladybug Miraculous, lost it thanks to the Resistance dogpiling him. Then, later on, they managed to stop Nightormentor, an akumatized Gabriel, by just throwing stuff at him. Do you have any idea how lame this makes Monarch look? It's like that scene from Robocop 3 where that kid somehow managed to make ED-209 as loyal as a puppy in a matter of seconds. It's not cool to see it happen. It diminishes the threat the formerly menacing villain posed.

The show loves to play up the Resistance as this amazing underground organization Nino is so proud of, but it doesn't work because you can count the number of times they've actually helped out on one hand, and even then, that's being that word Chloe doesn't know the meaning of (Deflagration, Revolution, Representation). Even then, they still fall for Lila's lies which, like Kagami, doesn't help establish any of them as trustworthy. The whole Resistance subplot is basically an excuse to make it seem like the former temp heroes aren't just sitting around, which again, isn't a bad idea, but nothing comes of it. We don't get to see any of them worry that they can't do anything without their Miraculous, we don't see where or when Nino got the idea to form the Resistance, and we don't even get any scenes where the worry about the captured Kwamis. The show just has them all operate under the same goal and makes it seem like they're making a difference when they barely do anything. None of them really feel like characters, and it shows this season.

Nino, despite labeling himself as the brave leader of the Resistance, is anything but. He constantly brags about how effective he is, but not only does he let anyone into his top secret organization without even thinking if they can really be trusted, all of his genius plans amount to, you guessed it, throwing stuff at the brainwashed people with superpowers. He's also so confident that he was awesome as Carapace when all he did was occasionally help Ladybug out with his Shelter, and then whines about not being chosen by Tikki and Plagg when Scarabella and Kitty Noire temporarily take over (Illusion, Deflagration). He's also so poor at gathering intel that not only did he fall for Gabriel's ruse and act like he figured out how the Akumas have Miraculous powers, he didn't even know his best friend was going to London until he got on the plane (Representation). I wasn't kidding when I said Nino was such a terrible leader, he makes Zapp Brannigan look competent by comparison.

And remember when Alya was a major character? Neither does the show! Out of the entire season, she was really only relevant to the plot when she became Scarabella for a few days, and even then, she didn't think that maybe she should take off the Alliance ring that monitors her every move if she's going to be a full-time hero again (Transmission, Deflagration). There is absolutely no follow-up to anything that happened to her in Season 4. She doesn't regret blowing her cover, she doesn't worry over not being able to help Ladybug as Rena Rouge, she doesn't worry about the safety of Trixx, she doesn't even consider the fact that she's not used to going back to full-time hero work after half a season of being undercover as Rena Furtive. At best, the whole thing with Alya exposing her cover to Nino last season gets played off for the sake of a cheap joke (Illusion).

Then there's Zoe. Like Season 4, I can definitely say that out of all the supporting characters, she was certainly one of them. They clearly try to give her these big moments in an attempt to endear her to the audience, like her brief stint as Kitty Noire or her coming out to Marinette, but because of how nonexistent her character development has been, these don't feel earned. I can't buy her friendship with Marinette or anyone else because of how little she appears. Hell, she was specifically introduced to act as a good counterpart to Chloe, and she did nothing to really contribute to her ultimate downfall other than sharing a single conversation during “Revolution”. That's how little the writers care about her, they don't even have her interact with the character she was designed to replace. I take back what I said about her being a Mary Sue way back in my “Sole Crusher” review, because at least those types of characters get plenty of focus in the narrative. All I can really say about Zoe after two seasons is that at least she's more interesting than Socqueline, a character so boring, this is the only time I'm going to mention her in this entire analysis.

And that's it for the Resistance. Only three side characters are actually worth talking about this season. That is how pointless of a group they are.

Chloe’s Arc That, in Case You Forgot, Was Totally Planned From the Start

I really don't know what else to say here. Remember, this entire blog was started because of how upset I was by Astruc's response to criticism of the Season 3 finale, specifically how Chloe's “damnation arc” was claimed to have planned out from the start.

For the sake of argument, let's go over this arc and just what happened with this character over the past eight years. In Season 1, Chloe started out as a standard high school mean girl who used her father's influence to get whatever she wanted, but wasn't that much of a threat compared to Hawkmoth and the Akumas. In Season 2, we got to see a different side to her that started a character arc, showing she was capable of changing and becoming a hero in her own right. In Season 3, while it seemed like Chloe was changing for the better, the finale had her betray Ladybug and go back to being the same mean girl she was before. In Season 4, we were introduced to Chloe's never before seen half-sister, Zoe, who only existed to replace Chloe as the user of the Bee Miraculous, and even though the very same episode where Zoe first got the Bee Miraculous hinted that there was still a chance of Chloe changing, the rest of the season acts like she's always been a menace to society with no redeeming qualities. In Season 5, Chloe was portrayed as a heartless monster who is worse than the main villain of the entire show, is simultaneously smart and cunning enough to bully Marinette in a way that would leave lasting mental scars for a year and also too incompetent to take seriously, and even though the season has made a big deal about how terrible child abuse is, her being sent off to live with her verbally abusive mother is seen as a perfectly suitable punishment for her.

I don't know what's worse, the fact that none of the writers had second thoughts about this character's “arc”, or the fact that Astruc probably thinks he made an antagonist as complex as Lady Macbeth. I also love how, despite all this supposed planning, not once do we get any explanation as to just why Chloe hates Marinette so much other than the fact that one's a rich person and the other is the main character in a cartoon.

Chloe's character was already going in a downward spiral in Season 4, but with Season 5, it feels like the writers just abandoned all attempts to be subtle and were determined to stop people from liking her. Like, it's amazing just how much time was spent hammering the point home. She got more focus as a villain than Lila and even Gabriel. We had about eight episodes this season that featured her in a major antagonistic role: “Determination”, “Deflagration”, “Derision”, “Adoration”, “Revelation”, “Confrontation”, “Collusion”, and “Revolution”. Almost a third of this season is dedicated to showing how evil Chloe is, as if she's somehow worse than people like Gabriel or Tomoe. And that's not even counting episodes where she got a line or two to remind the audience of how bad she is, like “Multiplication”, “Passion”, and “Reunion”.

The weird thing is that even though this was supposed to be the season where Chloe was at her worst, it still seemed like the writers couldn't make up their minds on what they wanted to do with her. For example, let's take a look at her relationship with Monarch. In “Multiplication”, she believed that Ladybug and Cat Noir should just give Monarch what he wants, implying she's still on his side. Then, in “Determination”, she blamed not having the Bee Miraculous on why Monarch was able to win, implying she wants to stop Monarch. And then in “Deflagration”, it's hinted that she once again willingly accepted an Akuma out of a desire to get revenge, implying that she's still on good terms with Monarch. Finally, in “Revolution”, she initially wanted to arrest Monarch when he arrived in her office, and had to be convinced to work with him again. Seriously, this is almost two seasons after she started working with Monarch in the first place. How the hell are the writers not sure if she's working with the villain or not?!

Of course, that's the least of my problems with Chloe this season. One such problem that it seems like the writers specifically went out of their way to ruin the few positive relationships Chloe had just so her fans would have less ground to stand on. Her friendship with Adrien? He finally decided to write her off as irredeemable just as he learned just how miserable she made Marinette (and only Marinette) at the end of “Derision”. Her friendship with Sabrina, as one-sided as it is? She doesn't even see Sabrina as a friend anymore, specifically referring to her as an underling starting with “Adoration”, and then Sabrina turns against her after she finds one specific scheme to be going too far. The sympathy Ms. Bustier had for Chloe, even though it wasn't relevant to her character after “Zombizou”? Chloe basically ignores any attempt made to reach out to her, and we're supposed to act like her wanting to help Chloe get a decent education because it's her job as a teacher is the stupidest idea in the world. Chloe's relationship with her own father? This season decided to make Andre out to be a man mentally broken by the bad treatment he gets from his daughter and totally not a corrupt politician, and outright disowns her in favor of adopting someone who isn't even his biological daughter.

It already felt like Season 4 exaggerated Chloe's negative traits, but now, the show doesn't want anyone to like her in-universe, as if showing basic human decency to her in the first place was off the table. Remember, in “Revelation”, Marinette's speech to Adrien was basically copied and pasted from one of Astruc's tweets, as if this was meant to address anyone who still liked the idea of Chloe changing for the better.

And trust me, I'll get to the characters who actually got redeemed later.

For now, let's talk about the main issue I have with her portrayal: The writers want her to be seen as a threat... but they don't want her to actually be a threat. Almost all of Chloe's appearances this season had her acting as a pawn to either Gabriel or Lila. This season also started to use dumb blonde jokes in order to show how incompetent she is, like having her struggle to understand the concept of the word “generous”, making her out as an idiot. The whole point of the “irredeemable villain” archetype is that the character is usually so big of a threat, there is absolutely no way of talking them down, so they need to be stopped through the use of force. Chloe is far from a threat, which is why all this talk about her being a monster falls flat.

At the end of the day, Chloe is easily at the bottom of the hierarchy of the villains on this show. She has no Miraculous like Gabriel, she has no advanced technology like Tomoe, and she's nowhere near as cunning as Lila is. The problem is that the show wants the audience to see Chloe as if she's the worst of them all. Fine, she may have the most obnoxious personality and least amount of redeeming qualities by the writers' standards, but this is a superhero show. You don't just rank villains on how mean they are, but also by how much of a threat they are to the hero. The moments where we're supposed to take Chloe seriously, the show keeps reminding us that she's only getting as far as she has because she's being used by other villains. It makes the moments where the heroes triumph over her ring hollow.

I'm not even joking here when I say that out of the show's entire rogues' gallery, Chloe is literally the only one who actually gets punished. Sabrina was able to wash their hands of her association with the bully, Andre was more than happy to give up his position as mayor and kidnap Zoe, Tomoe was never even exposed, Lila only faced a minor setback when she was exposed, Nathalie was healed by the wish, and even though he died, Gabriel died a martyr who never actually answered to any of his crimes. But Chloe? As fucked up as it was, she was the only one who received some form of punishment for everything she did. Congratulations, Ladybug and Cat Noir! After five seasons, you finally managed to defeat the Ringo Starr of your rogue's gallery, and all it took was unlocking the full power of your Miraculous.

I was initially angry at the show for just throwing away a character arc and mocking anyone who was interested in it, but now, I'm angry at the show for a different reason. Even if we were to assume that everything about Chloe was planned from the start, that she was supposed to be a fallen hero turned enemy, the show did nothing with it. If you're going to make Chloe a full-blown villain, then go nuts with the idea! Have her dedicate her life to beating Ladybug out of hatred, maybe even through a suit of armor like Princess Morbucks. Instead, this is the writing equivalent of intentionally setting your house on fire, but deciding you don't need the insurance money.

I'm actually going to say something that might sound blasphemous, especially coming from someone who has spent a lot of time talking about Chloe's character assassination, but I'm just going to admit it: I think Chloe should have been the next Hawkmoth, not Lila.

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Yes, that's probably what you're thinking, but I'm serious. Think about it. Between her and Lila, who has the closer connection to Marinette as an enemy? Who has a more fleshed out reason to hate Marinette? Who got more focus as a villain this season? Who has more resources at her disposal? Essentially, the show put so much effort into making Chloe out to be Marinette's most personal enemy, that it makes no sense for them to not just go all the way and make her the next big bad. The writers already go on and on about how irredeemable she is, so why not make her an actual threat for a change?

But no. Instead, let's just keep her as comic relief who somehow gets more screentime than almost every other villain this season. That's a good way to tell our story, right?

Now You See That Evil Will Always Triumph Because Good Is Dumb... And So Is Evil, Apparently

This section should be relatively easy for me to get through, since not much has really changed with the villains since Season 4. They're all still idiots even though the show wants us to see them as a threat to the equally idiotic heroes.

Let's start with our only newcomer to the show's rogues' gallery, and definitely the weakest, Tomoe. I'll give the show a lot of credit with the foreshadowing for Tomoe here. Unlike other plotlines where the show bashes you over the head with obvious hints like with the Sentimonster stuff, the hints leading to the reveal of Tomoe being in leagues with Gabriel are far more subtle. They spend a lot of time in Seasons 3 and 4 discussing things offscreen (probably about some version of the Alliance rings), and both of Tomoe's akumatizations happen offscreen as well (since their conversation would give away their alliance). It's handled pretty well... which is more than I can say for Tomoe as a villain.

Tomoe is just such a confusing character, both conceptually and the way she was used this season. She's meant to be Gabriel's new confidant after Nathalie decided to stop being a villain while still mooching off him, but she pretty much does the same things Nathalie does, including the constant nagging about how inefficient he is. She even serves the same role Nathalie served in earlier episodes as Gabriel's technical advisor. Tomoe is basically a second Nathalie, with the only differences being that she's blind and that she wants Kagami to be with Adrien. Of course, this makes no sense because, like I mentioned in the retcon section, Adrien and Kagami tried to keep their relationship secret before their breakup. How could Tomoe not notice this? What is she, blind—oh right...

There's also the issue I have with the way Tomoe's nationality and disability is portrayed here, and how it really highlights how terrible this show is with representation (not to be confused with the episode of the same name). Like with my Sentimonster section, if there's anyone reading this who is disabled or a person of color, and you'd like to say anything about this part or how this show's representation is handled, feel free to voice your opinion or correct me if I get anything wrong.

With Tomoe, it feels like the writers slapped on every Japanese stereotype you could think of and called it a day, because we've seen all of these before. She's dressed in very traditional Japanese attire, is named after a famous Japanese warrior, uses a kendo shinai as a cane instead of a walking stick, is a strict parent to her child who expects the best from her, makes references to Japanese culture like samurai (Pretension) and taiko drums (Protection), is a technological genius, forces her child into an arranged marriage, and uses Japanese honorifics while talking with Gabriel even when they're not speaking Japanese. I'm not saying Japanese people can't talk about their culture at all, but when you're writing a character who happens to be a person of color, you need to do more than make references to their heritage.

With Tomoe, almost everything she says is referencing her heritage, which makes it come across like the writers cared more about her being Japanese than anything else. Because somehow, the writers were worried kids wouldn't pick up on the fact that she's Japanese... when she's wearing something that makes her look like she just stepped off the set of an Akira Kurosawa movie.

But hey, at least they say Tomoe is Japanese. I don't think there's a single indication that she's blind. At most, they give her the stereotypical superpower every blind person in superhero media seems to have, enhanced hearing. Of course, while characters like Daredevil and Toph Beifong have in-universe explanations for how they're able to “see” without their eyes (Daredevil's enhanced senses came from the same chemicals that blinded him in the first place, while Toph learned an advanced Earthbending technique that gave her the ability to sense others through vibrations in the earth), Tomoe just has them because the writers thought it would be cool. I know it might seem strange to say this after I talked about how too much focus was given to Tomoe's Japanese heritage, but you'd think more would be done with her being blind, and how it would factor into her motivation to create a better world through technology or her ideology about self-discipline. Instead, she acts like every other character on this show, to the point where all three times she was akumatized, she got her sight back.

The main problem with Tomoe is how other than her heritage and disability, she has almost no personality other than being a strict mother to Kagami (something that is also a negative Asian stereotype) and her vague ideology about suppressing her emotions. She's basically a female Gabriel, and because she's a woman in this show, lacks any depth or redeeming qualities. There just wasn't enough time to really develop Tomoe as a character in the same season she was revealed to be a villain. Sure, they try to hint at her having history with Gabriel, but that never goes anywhere, and we never even learn just why she's working with him in the first place other than some vague desire to make the world more technologically advanced in spite of also being a traditionalist who loves honoring old beliefs. Just remember, Chloe got eight focus episodes as a villain this season, yet Tomoe only got one.

Now for Lila, the most competent of the villains... by comparison. The show clearly wants her to be seen as a master manipulator in the same vein as David Xanatos from Gargoyles, but how they show it is just poorly executed. Sure, sometimes she would get ahead in clever ways during episodes like “Illusion” and “Revelation”, but other than that, a good chunk of her plans rely on contrivances that we're supposed to see as part of her plan when she would have no idea if it would actually happen or not. In fact, let's go over all the things Lila did during her last five episodes of the season and see how her master plan played out.

Step 1: Revelation – Convince Ms. Bustier to hold another election for class representative, lie your ass off to get the position while making it seem like you rejected an Akuma, and win the election.

Step 2: Confrontation – Tamper with confidential school documents while hoping your enemy doesn't plan anything to stop you, and if your plan falls through, abandon your identity entirely and hope nobody ever tries to look for you.

Step 3: Collusion – Convince your pawn to record a conversation between the mayor and the man you somehow know is Monarch and then after the conversation leads to an Akuma forcing him out of office, tell your pawn to accept an offer from Monarch's civilian identity that you somehow knew he'd make, leading to your pawn becoming the new mayor by force who everyone is too stupid to even think of opposing.

Step 4: Revolution – Tell your pawn to take an offer from the same supervillain she's willingly worked with before, watch her go mad with power and assume that Ladybug and Cat Noir will defeat her, and then in the chaos from her defeat, assume that one of Monarch's associates will randomly leave her computer behind for you to use.

Step 5: Re-Creation – Develop an immunity to magical nightmare dust, hack into the heavily-guarded mansion you know where Monarch lives while the city is being swarmed with supersoldiers, hope you don't run into Monarch or any heroes trying to stop him on the way there, take the hole created by a Cataclysm you know would be there, assume that Monarch will lose, and seize his Miraculous from the ruins of his lair that you somehow know how to navigate after surviving all of reality being rebooted.

General Patton, eat your heart out. I think we all know who the real tactical genius is here.

Seriously, how the hell did she even know half of the stuff involving Gabriel and Tomoe would happen? Yeah, she had Tomoe's laptop after the events of “Revolution”, but she didn't see how their final fight would play out. You could also argue that we technically never saw her go into Monarch's lair during the final battle (all we got was a shot of her looking down into the hole Bug Noire created with her Cataclysm), but why didn't she go down if she disguised herself to infiltrate Monarch's lair? Was she just scoping out the area? Was her entire plan just to steal Monarch's Miraculous? There were so many ways this could have blown up in her face, so let's go over all of them, shall we?

What if Ms. Bustier didn't agree to hold a reelection for class representative?

What if Marinette won the reelection anyway?

What if Lila wasn't able to escape during the chaos caused by Monarch's Megakuma targeting Mr. Damocles?

What if the school managed to contact one of Lila's moms and tell her about what her “daughter” did?

What if Chloe wasn't able to record the full conversation between Gabriel and Andre?

What if Andre agreed to use the police robots without any manipulation?

What if Miss Sans-Culotte wasn't able to get Andre to resign?

What if Andre did resign, but managed to appoint a interim mayor until the next election?

What if Chloe didn't accept Gabriel's offer?

What if Chloe didn't accept Monarch's offer?

What if Chloe managed to arrest Monarch with her robots and got all of the Miraculous herself?

What if the French military was sent to stop Chloe's abuse of power?

What if Ladybug and Cat Noir weren't able to stop Chloe and lost their Miraculous to Monarch?

What if Chloe double-crossed both Lila and Monarch and managed to get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous herself?

What if Tomoe didn't carelessly leave her laptop behind during the final battle with Chloe and her robots?

What if Tomoe realized she lost her laptop and sent someone to track it down?

What if Tomoe installed a kill switch on her laptop to make sure nobody would be able to do anything with it in the event it got stolen

What if Ladybug didn't learn Monarch's identity?

What if Lila fell victim to Nightormentor's nightmare dust?

What if Lila was attacked by some of the Miraculized before she could make it to the Agreste Mansion?

What if Gabriel caught Lila while she was attempting to sneak in?

What if Ladybug caught Lila while she was attempting to sneak in?

What if Nathalie caught Lila while she was attempting to sneak in?

What if the Gorilla caught Lila while she was attempting to sneak in?

What if some of the Miraculized caught Lila while she was attempting to sneak in?

What if Lila got caught in the crossfire during the final battle between Bug Noire and Monarch?

What if Bug Noire didn't Cataclysm the floor and beat Monarch at the entrance of the mansion?

What if Bug Noire wasn't able to defeat Monarch?

What if Ladybug managed to find the Butterfly Miraculous before she did?

What if Ladybug caught her while she was trying to find the Butterfly Miraculous?

Do you see why I only think Lila is the most competent villain by comparison? A good chunk of Lila's “plan” amounted to her waltzing over and reaping the benefits from every coincidence she's around to see. And she's supposed to be this criminal mastermind who thought this all out from the beginning?

Lila's planning makes about as much sense as her motivation. Why does she hate Marinette and Ladybug? They both called her out on her lies back in Season 1 and 3 respectively (Volpina, Chameleon). That's it. This is enough for Lila to want to become a supervillain and terrorize Paris. I get that the idea is to contrast with the more noble goal Gabriel had as a supervillain, but you need to give more of an explanation if you want the audience to care about Lila becoming the next Hawkmoth.

At the very least, if the writers wanted to build intrigue about Lila, have this be the season where she first appears. Build her up as this mysterious new girl who wins over Gabriel's trust, only she has an agenda of her own. By having most of her appearances be this season, it's more obvious that she has a bigger role to play, and would eventually become the next Hawkmoth. Instead, it seems like the writers put a bunch of names on a dartboard, Lila's name was the closest to the first dart they threw, and that's how they decided who Ladybug's next arch-enemy would be. And once again, Lila hasn't even touched a Miraculous in five seasons, yet we're supposed to believe that with the help of that vague glowing light she saw as soon as the first put on the Butterfly Miraculous, she'll be able to take on eighteen superheroes who have plenty of experience fighting Akumas?

Speaking of, let's get into the final main villain, Gabriel. Compared to the others, he had a pretty decent start. He felt a lot smarter than he usually did, like how he used his influence to market the Alliance rings in order to boost his Akumas' powers, or once again trick Ladybug and Cat Noir into thinking he isn't Monarch. He even managed to outsmart Scarabella and Kitty Noire by using the Alliance rings to learn their identities, and almost got their Miraculous as a result. For the most part, Gabriel was a pretty clever villain who capitalized on every screwup the heroes made, and actually came across as a threat... that is, until “Protection”.

Starting with “Protection”, Gabriel decided that even though he has only a few weeks to live at best, he needs to focus more on meddling in his son's love life instead of getting Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous in order to save his wife. It comes across like he cares more about stopping Marinette than he does stopping Ladybug in the latter half of the season. Hell, Gabriel doesn't even set up any plans for what would happen to Adrien if he died despite once again claiming to be doing everything for his family. Also, for some reason, he really wants Adrien and Kagami to stay together and become a couple for reasons that I can only assume is because of some kind of social commentary on the rich. Is Gabriel trying to start a eugenics program? Is this how Khan was born?

The abrupt detour Gabriel's motivations take is connected to one of the bigger problems with this season: How Gabriel's Cataclysm wound is handled. We're supposed to sympathize with Gabriel and how his days are numbered thanks to what happened, all while he's desperate to achieve his goal... when not only did Gabriel Cataclysm himself at the beginning of the season, he almost never brings up his wound until the writers want to add unnecessary drama to the story. At most, he'll either flinch in pain a little because of the wound (Elation, Perfection, Intuition, Protection, Emotion, Confrontation), or show his purple hand to show how serious it's gotten while saying he doesn't have much time left (Passion, Pretension, Revelation, Collusion, Conformation). At least, we're supposed to see it as serious, as the injury never really gets in the way of his plans.

Rather than a painful injury that's slowly killing him, the show treats Gabriel's injury with the seriousness of a sprained ankle. Yeah, it's painful, but nothing serious. Aside from one episode (Intuition), we don't see Gabriel struggle that much with his deteriorating health or how it gets in the way of his plans. Compare this to how Nathalie's condition has been portrayed. As Season 3 progressed, Nathalie got weaker to the point of forcing Gabriel to abort his second outing as Scarletmoth (Ladybug), she became so sick, she had to be benched as Mayura by the end of Season 3, and needed cybernetic crutches just to help her walk during Seasons 4 and 5. While I criticized her sudden wrinkled appearance by the events of “Representation”, the show still made it clear that Nathalie was struggling to go about her everyday life over the course of the last three seasons. As for Gabriel, whose condition is supposedly more serious to the point where not even the Ladybug Miraculous can heal it? At most, it's less something influencing his belief that he has nothing left to lose, and more a mild injury at best.

Another problem I have with Gabriel is the same one I have with Tomoe and Lila: The lack of a proper backstory. Yes, we know the basics of it (his wife is comatose and/or dead, so he became a supervillain to get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous and save her), but we know nothing about his life before that. Thanks to “Revelation”, the most we get is that before he became a fashion designer who took an interest in discovering the Miraculous, he used to work in fast food like Skeet from Jimmy Neutron. Hell, the two even have similar haircuts.

Whether Gabriel knows the difference between salt and sodium chloride is still up for debate.

The show wants to say that Gabriel used to be different, but we don't get to see that side to him. If you want to say Gabriel used to be nicer, then give us a flashback to show how much Emilie's death affected him. That way, it would also give the scene in the finale where he breaks down have more weight to it, as it would show him letting down his emotional defenses.

Also, why was Gabriel so interested in the Miraculous in the first place if he found the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous before Emilie got sick? The show establishes that Gabriel went exploring with Emilie and Nathalie, but why? What were they looking for? How did this lead to them getting into fashion? How did Gabriel and Emilie get so rich if Amelie inherited the Graham de Vanily fortune? This was the season that was supposed to wrap up the storyline regarding the Agreste family drama, yet we still know so little about them or how Gabriel and Emilie even met.

Finally, let's get to the Akumas. The season makes a huge deal about how dangerous Gabriel is now that he has almost every other Miraculous at his disposal, how hard the battle against him will become. How do the Akumas reflect that idea? Very poorly. Twelve of the season's Akumas were reused models (Ikari Gozen in “Multiplication”, Darker Owl in “Jubilation”, the Collector in “Illusion”, Glaciator in “Elation”, Sole Destroyer in “Deflagration”, Dark Humor in “Derision”, Riposte Prime in “Protection”, Vanisher in “Adoration”, Matagi Gozen in “Pretension”, Hoaxer in “Revelation”, Reflekta in “Confrontation”, and Nightormentor in “Representation”), and only ten of them were original (Manipula in “Determination”, Safari in Passion, Kikou in “Transmission”, Ryukomori in “Perfection”, Gold Record in “Migration”, Bugfighter in “Intuition”, Miss Sans-Culotte in “Collusion”, Queen Mayor in “Revolution”, King of Plastic in “Action”, and the Miraculized in “The Final Day”). I've also gone over this several times, but despite the main gimmick being that the Akumas have Miraculous powers now, the show never really explains why Monarch can't just give them those kind of powers himself, especially when he could easily recreate Miraculous powers as far back as Season 1 (Copycat, Antibug, Volpina).

Most of the Miraculous powers didn't actually feel like upgrades and just excuses to recycle Akumas on the basis of acting like they have new powers when it's almost always just giving them the same old powers. Either that, or with the new Akumas, they'll just make it so their only powers are related to their Miraculous powers, like Safari getting all of her gear thanks to the Goat Miraculous' Genesis, Kikou and Ryukomori's only abilities being related to their respective Miraculous powers, or Queen Mayor getting the power to control robots with multiple Miraculous powers. There were exceptions like Manipula getting the Ox Miraculous' Resistance as an added precaution, or Vanisher mixing her stealth with the Dog Miraculous' Fetch, but they were few and far between.

Overall, almost every villain this season was just so underwhelming. While the Akumas were once again mostly reused character models, we learned almost nothing about the villains other than the fact that they're idiots. Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot the fact that by the show's logic, almost all of the villains aren't really villains. Let's talk about how the show handles redemption arcs now.

The Redemption Misconception or: The Power of Love Always So Strong?

While younger readers might not understand this, there was once a time on the internet where one of the most debated shows was Steven Universe, and mainly for one reason: How it handled the topic of redemption. Pretty much every major antagonist had changed their ways by the end of the show, including Lapis Lazuli, Peridot, the Cluster, Bismuth, Spinel, Jasper, and even the Diamonds. While the quality of each of these redemption arcs varies from character to character, as is the moral status of each character, there's one thing I can say about how the show got the moral about redemption across: It was consistent. Aside from one or two characters like Eyeball or Aquamarine (who were more ignorant than anything else), there was never a case about someone being physically incapable of changing their ways, which tied into the overall theme of how important compassion is. With the way Miraculous Ladybug handles its redemption arcs, I unfortunately can't say it does it the same way Steven Universe does.

Pretty much every major villain, antagonist, or associate in the show gets a redemption of some kind. This includes Nathalie, Felix, Sabrina, Andre, and even Gabriel, while Chloe, Lila, and Tomoe are all viewed as beyond saving. The problem is rather than actually acknowledge the things any of them did as wrong before they start to change their ways, pretty much every “redemption” in this show amounts to downplaying their crimes. If the writers don't retcon the story so characters like Nathalie, Sabrina, and Andre were forced to help a greater threat instead of being willing accomplices, they'll retcon the story so characters like Felix and Gabriel were perfectly justified in their actions due to having a tragic backstory. Yes, while the point of a redemption arc is to have a former antagonist realize the error of their ways and turn a new leaf, it doesn't mean that the character who goes through this arc was never bad in the first place.

Like a lot of problems with this show, this is obviously contradicted by the way it handles Chloe. Any argument made on why every villain who was redeemed this season was stated to not apply to Chloe for some reason.

“Felix is a victim of child abuse and has a lot of emotional baggage!” Funny, because I remember in “Derision”, Mylene made a point about Chloe having a deadbeat parent not being enough to justify her actions, so by that logic, Felix shouldn't be getting away with anything.

“Sabrina and Andre were being forced to go along with Chloe's evil plans, so it's not their fault!” Chloe was also a pawn in Gabriel and Lila's schemes, yet we're still supposed to see her as evil. “But she still went along with Lila's plan!” By that logic, so did Sabrina and Andre, since they still listened to Chloe for a while instead of distancing themselves from her far earlier than they did.

“Gabriel and Nathalie are doing everything they can to help Adrien while they're both in poor health! Chloe didn't actually care about Adrien!” Sure, it's clear that (according to the retcons in Season 4), Chloe only cared about Adrien as a meal ticket, you can't say Gabriel and Nathalie care about Adrien either, since one is an abusive parent and the other did nothing to actually stop the abuse. Also, why should I feel bad for either of them when they routinely endanger lives and are only on death's door because of their own terrible choices?

I'm not saying that the show doesn't make decent points about why Chloe can't be redeemed. The issue is that these rules are never applied to anyone else who does get redeemed. The show tries to use characters like Chloe and Lila as a cautionary tale about how easy it is for your kindness to be taken advantage of, yet we never get any examples of compassion being a key factor in any major redemption this season.

Pretty much every villain who changes their ways only does so out of self-interest. Nathalie was fed up with Gabriel's constant failures and her own declining health, Felix only cared about doing things that would benefit himself like hooking up with Kagami, Andre was more than happy to resign even though he was forced to do so by an Akuma, Sabrina chose to stop helping Chloe after one particular plan goes too far (without actually apologizing for all the times she still went along with Chloe's schemes, no less), and Gabriel only stopped trying to hurt people once he got exactly what he wanted and died a martyr.

For a show with the lyrics “The power of love always so strong!”, why do we never actually see the power of love in action? And it's not just them. Whenever a character shows some form of compassion for an enemy, it's usually met with a dismissive attitude or fails miserably, and if it's not that, it's all lie to trick someone else.

In “Illusion”, Gabriel's plan to throw off suspicion that he's Monarch involves pretending to let Ladybug and Cat Noir get through to him.

In “Derision”, Rose pointed out Chloe's relationship with her mother as an excuse for why she's so mean, only for Mylene to argue against that despite being in a different boat than Chloe is.

In “Revelation”, Lila kept lying about having a caring attitude and believing that anyone can change, which was obviously meant to mock anyone who had that kind of viewpoint.

In “Collusion”, Ms. Bustier tries to reach out to Chloe after everything she's done, only to lose her job as a result.

In “Re-Creation”, the whole reason Bug Noire manages to beat Monarch was by putting him in a situation that would take advantage of his compassion for his wife, and later on, Gabriel manages to get the upper hand by taking advantage of Marinette's own compassion for him.

For a magical girl show, these writers are really terrible at teaching the lesson about showing kindness to your enemies, because more often than not, it's just violence that solves everything. Just ask the citizens of Paris in “Revolution”.

It doesn't help that the morality in this show isn't a complicated spectrum that weighs every action a character does and allows for other stances besides good or evil. Instead, it's like a light switch with two settings: “So good, you volunteer at the local children's hospital” and “So bad, you voluntarily send children to the hospital”. Characters in this show are either good or bad, and there's no room for in-between. Even when characters supposedly do change their ways, the show goes out of its way to claim that this is what they've always been like, which completely undermines the idea of what a redemption arc sets out to accomplish.

The thing is that I've actually seen examples of “Character X was only doing bad things as part of their plan!” and “Character X was only forced to do bad things for the villain!” done with one character, and it was a very recent example too. In the recently concluded Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger, one of the major villains was a tyrant named Racules, who took advantage of several monster attacks to secure more power for his kingdom, but later on, it's revealed he had a reason to do so. Long story short, Racules was the latest in a long line of rulers who was essentially blackmailed into carrying out a war by an immortal being from space named Dagded. However, Racules had a plan to secretly find a way to kill Dadged, and it involved playing along by pretending to be a heartless tyrant. By playing up his persona of a villain, not only did Racules drive his brother Gira (who was revealed to be an immortal creation of Dadged) to gain the weapons necessary to fight Dadged, Dagded trusted Racules so much, he decided to give him the power to kill an immortal. Guess who Racules chooses to kill as soon as he gets that ability.

While the reveal that Racules was good all along happened very late into the series, it worked far better than any redemption in this entire show for one reason: Racules isn't let off the hook for what he did. Everyone, Racules included, acknowledges that he did terrible things for years, and as soon as the situation is resolved, Racules is imprisoned for his crimes. Racules even admits to going mad with power at one point before he focused on his goal again, and he doesn't complain while he's in prison.

We never get any moments like this with the other redeemed characters. Nobody ever acknowledges that they went too far. They do one or two good things, and therefore, they're perfectly okay in Marinette's eyes.

Like a lot of topics it covers, this show wants to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to redemption. It wants to show characters changing their ways, but it doesn't want to actually hold those characters accountable for their actions. It wants to explain that not everyone can be redeemed, but it doesn't want to explain what causes people to want to redeem themselves. It wants to have an idealistic view of solving problems with compassion, yet it goes out of its way to mock those with that same ideology while claiming that violence is the only answer.

Maybe if Astruc spent less time arguing with people on Twitter over the concept of redemption, he and his team could have put more effort into fleshing out the all of the half-baked redemption arcs this season.

Adrienette Is Finally Canon! The Love Square? What’s That?

Well, it finally happened. After seven years, five months, fourteen days, 115 episodes and three specials since the show originally premiered in France on October 19th, 2015, Marinette and Adrien have finally gotten together for real. No cop-outs, no reset button, no misunderstandings, this is real. Credit where credit is due, the writers could have easily kept stalling and wait until the very end of the season for Marinette and Adrien to get together and called it a day, but they gave us over half a season of them in an actual relationship. Unfortunately, this also meant the writers had to rush the development of the relationship in order for Adrienette to become official in the first place.

Like a lot of stuff in the first half of this season, the writers pretty much speedran through the plotlines building up to Marinette and Adrien getting together. During the course of a mere eight episodes, we got a plotline about Marinette feeling guilty for letting her feelings for Adrien make her screw up, a plotline where Adrien realizes he has feelings for Marinette, a plotline where Marinette falls in love with Cat Noir, a plotline where Adrien stops having feelings for Ladybug, and finally, a plotline where Marinette stops having feelings for Cat Noir. These are all plotlines that we should have gotten over the course of the past four seasons, but instead, the writers are just cramming them all into less than a dozen episodes.

Considering how this was meant to be the final season originally, you can tell the writers realized they actually had to actually resolve the “Will they or won't they?” plotline instead of just padding things out like they normally do. But that's the problem. This was something fans, shippers, and general audiences were told to look forward to for years. Keep in mind, one of the biggest arguments you could make for just why the writers waited until Season 5 for Marinette and Adrien to officially get together was because they had something HUGE planned. This is a big deal for the show, something you can't take too lightly. If Astruc and the other writers were so intent on hyping up Adrienette for over four seasons to the point of showing two alternate timelines where they get together to tide viewers over, they needed to make sure they had a payoff so incredible, so satisfying, that their audiences would see it as more than worth the wait.

Just how was the big moment where Marinette and Adrien officially got together this season after so many years of buildup?

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To be perfectly honest with you, I had absolutely no goddamn idea that the end of “Transmission” was meant to signify them finally starting a relationship. It just felt like the writers were doing the same thing about them being friends with a hint of something more on the horizon, but then the opening of “Deflagration” made it clear that here was major progress made in their relationship, though Marinette denied it due to her own anxiety, and by “Perfection”, it's confirmed that the two are dating. I just... really? This is how the two finally get together? It just... happens? No big dramatic confession? No romantic first date building up to this? Not even a kiss? The two talk for a few minutes, watch an Akuma fight, and now they're an item. Are you kidding me? Sure, most of the big moments in their relationship are saved for after they get together, but there's the problem: the writers half-ass the moment where Marinette and Adrien get together! It's more or less an afterthought in a two-parter involving a battle with Monarch where nothing was really accomplished.

You'd think for all the uncertainty Marinette felt over her feelings for Adrien this season, them getting together would be seen as a big moment, but it just doesn't for some reason. While you could argue it's a lesson in your fear of confessing being harder than the act itself, not much attention is given to Marinette growing closer with Adrien, because, for some reason, the writers decided to hold off the love confession and the first kiss for far later in the season (Pretension, Revolution). That's right, even after Marinette and Adrien finally get together, the show still needs to find a way to draw out the development of Adrienette.

I don't get it. Why couldn't the confession and kiss be what cements Adrienette, so more focus could be given to other plots? You can't say the “Will they or won't they?” stuff is the only draw to Adrienette, because there are plenty of plots you could write now that Marinette and Adrien are together. You could have an episode where Marinette invites Adrien over to breakfast with her parents in a follow-up to “Weredad”. You could have an episode where Marinette and Adrien try to go out on a perfect first date, only to struggle to balance their superhero lives getting in the way. You could have an episode where both Marinette and Adrien worry they're not good enough for each other, only for them to realize they love each other for who they really are. You could have an episode where Marinette and Adrien finally get closure on their former relationships with Luka and Kagami respectively. There were plenty of options for stories here, yet rather than do literally anything like that, not only did the writers drag out Marinette and Adrien's first kiss, they had the main villain take a break from trying to get the Miraculous to focus on breaking up the two.

As I mentioned earlier, we get a new arc all about Gabriel trying to break up Marinette and Adrien so Adrien can start dating Kagami again. Now I know what you're probably thinking: “IOTA, wasn't it implied that while Adrien and Kagami were dating, they were keeping their relationship a secret from their parents? Why are their parents suddenly obsessed with them getting together?” Well, you see, the answer to that is... that I have no answer because this makes no sense and is yet another excuse for a story arc that is somehow relevant to the overall plot. It's because of Gabriel's irrational hatred of Adrienette that Adrien is sent to London, and as a result, is absent from the final battle.

The sad thing is that I honestly thought Marinette and Adrien had some cute moments as a couple this season and had some believable chemistry. It's nothing groundbreaking, and there are plenty of flaws that I'll get to later, but for all intents and purposes, they still made a decent couple. It's just too bad that everyone else won't shut up about how amazing they are together. When their friends aren't trying to set up these cinematic scenarios for Marinette and Adrien that keep failing (Perfection, Protection,), they're gushing over how amazing of a couple the two are (Transmission, Deflagration, Revelation). At best, it comes across as the writers saying “How do you do, fellow shippers?”, and at worst, it comes across as the writers taking a victory lap while treating Adrienette as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Adrienette just dominated the latter half of this season, and it really got in the way of the overall story regarding the conflict with Monarch. What's that? You're saying I forgot something, like the other three sides of the Love Square. Ah, good eye, my friend.

SO DID THE FUCKING SHOW.

For the thing that got a lot of people interested in the show in the first place, the rest of the Love Square is criminally underutilized this season. Marinette randomly develops feelings for Cat Noir for a handful of episodes, Cat Noir randomly moves on from Ladybug, and I don't think we even got a single Ladrien scene this season. It really felt like the writers realized this was meant to be the last season, so not only did they have to get Marinette and Adrien together as quickly as they could, they also had to acknowledge the other sides of the Love Square. Of course, they did that without actually doing an identity reveal.

There are theories that the reveal was going to happen this season with how much Marinette and Adrien only talked about each other and not their superhero partners (implying they both knew who the other was), but the writers changed it at the last minute because they got renewed for more seasons. I suppose it makes in a meta sense, but what about the in-universe explanation? What's stopping Ladybug and Cat Noir from learning each other's identities when literally every other hero in Paris can get their Miraculous back, even the ones who had their identities discovered? Were the writers so uncertain if people would still watch the show if there wasn't any mystery in Marinette and Adrien's relationship? What exactly is there left to explore with the Love Square when Adrienette is canon, while Ladynoir, Marichat, and Ladrien are all dead in the water?

Like a lot of things this season, the handling of the Love Square started off strong and gradually petered out to the point where I just don't care anymore. I started this season assuming the reveal would actually happen, but of course, the writers just won't let this subplot die already.

Adrien Who?

While I don't really have a lot of bad things to say about Adrien compared to last season, this is unfortunately part of the bigger problem with how he was handled this season.

Like I said earlier, it seemed like the writers actually learned from their mistakes last seasons with how Adrien was written during the earlier episodes last season. He stopped whining about how he was totally important and started pulling his weight in battle. He was very active in fighting Akumas and actually felt like an equal to Ladybug. Yeah, Ladybug still called the shots, but the two stopped bickering over stupid things and had more conversations about other things. It didn't matter if they were more casual chats about their lives (Perfection) or discussions on the enemy's plans (Intuition, Revolution).

The problem, like a lot of things this season now that I think about it, comes in the second half. Remember how last season made a big deal about how wrong it was to leave Adrien out of the loop with so many secrets? Once again, the writers seemed to have forgotten this major story arc that they wrote themselves. Now, not only does Gabriel crack down on his horrific treatment of Adrien through his ring, not only does Adrien's character regress to being nothing more than Marinette's trophy boyfriend, by the end of the season, Adrien is literally reduced to a damsel in distress who needs to be saved, instead of, you know, A SUPERHERO. And remember, the writers were very proud of how this was planned for almost a decade, all because they got to supposedly subvert fairy tale tropes.

I feel like this whole “Save Adrien” plotline could have worked if Adrien wasn't already a superhero, and was just a civilian Marinette knew. Yeah, it would still be using an overdone trope, but at least if that happened, Adrien would have an excuse to not be able to fight back as opposed to the several he made during the finale. Instead, for the majority of the season's second half, Adrien takes a backseat to a major story arc revolving around his family and isn't even given proper closure by the end.

“But IOTA!” You might say. “The show's called Miraculous Ladybug, not Miraculous Cat Noir! Of course Ladybug has to save the day! She's the main character!” That may be true, voice in my head, but here's the thing: If Adrien wasn't going to be part of the final battle, why wasn't this about Marinette's family? Why not make Monarch Tom or Sabine trying to bring back their spouse? Marinette is the main character, yes, but so much of the backstory in this show is connected to Adrien's family. The show tries to connect Marinette to this through her relationship with Adrien, but with how often she and Gabriel fight over what's best for him, Adrien kind of just sits around, not protesting against his father in the slightest. I'm not saying Adrien should be the main character. I'm saying that Marinette should be tied more into the story if you were going to base a lot of the drama on her perspective during the final battle. It's almost like making it so Adrien physically can't rebel against his father was a stupid way to keep him out of the conflict.

Why the hell couldn't we have gotten a scene where Adrien's connection to Gabriel was broken? There were plenty of options the writers could have used. You could have had Nathalie steal the other ring back from Gabriel to give to Adrien, have Argos use the Peacock Miraculous' powers to override Gabriel's commands, or have Adrien unlock a new form of Cataclysm that severs the bond with his Amok. And that's not even getting into the excuses the show made for why he can't get involved, because God forbid one of the two main characters in the show's title get to take part in the final battle.

In fact, I'm pretty sure this is why Felix was introduced, to do the things Adrien should be doing. Felix is the one who has a vendetta against Gabriel, a deeper connection with Kagami, knowledge that he's a Sentimonster, and an overall influence in the plot. The writers are so obsessed with coddling Adrien that they created an entirely different character to fill in a role for him, and Felix wasn't even in the final battle. And just remember, Adrien was originally created to replace Felix in the story, so Felix taking over Adrien's role as the character who helps advance the plot makes even less sense.

Even if the final battle is meant to be over Adrien, it comes across less like Marinette and Gabriel are fighting over his freedom and more who gets to control him. Gabriel doesn't use his wish to free Adrien from the shackles of the rings. He just gives Marinette the rings and hopes she won't do the same kind of things he did with the rings. Nothing changed over Adrien's treatment except who gets the keys.

It'd be one thing if Adrien at least chose Marinette over his father, but Adrien isn't even allowed to know the full story on anything, not even the Sentimonster stuff. Okay, putting aside the fact that Adrien has lots of friends and family to help him cope with this, maybe I can buy not telling him about Gabriel. Not telling him he's a Sentimonster is something I can't excuse. This is like not wanting to tell someone they have diabetes and hoping they know how to use their own insulin while they're downing Pepsi after Pepsi. It's not just a matter of hurting Adrien's feelings. His fucking life depends on those rings. He should obviously know to keep them safe and not trade them for magic beans or something stupid like that.

But the biggest problem with Adrien this season is how it goes against everything the show has said about him and his relationship with Marinette/Ladybug the last four seasons, and especially Season 4.

For the past four seasons, the show has loved to say that no matter what happens, Ladybug and Cat Noir will always be here for the other, even against the world. Put aside how unlikable Adrien was last season, that was the ultimate lesson, about the two reaffirming their bond. And yet, here we are in the Season 5 finale, when literally the entire world is against Ladybug and Cat Noir, and Cat Noir is nowhere to be seen.

One of the main reasons why Adrien jumped at the chance to be a superhero was the freedom it gave him from his restrictive lifestyle, and how it led to him making more friends at school. And that very same story ends with Adrien admitting it's a good thing for him to stay inside and never acknowledge the fact that his father was kind of a dick. Remember, this was planned in advance for YEARS, and absolutely nobody thought it contradicted one of the most important aspects of Adrien's character: his desire for freedom. Now the same person who would demand to not be kept in the dark about so many things (Lady Wifi, Syren, Lies, Sentibubbler, Rocketear, Risk) is now sitting around like a coward while everyone else saves the world instead.

I still think Adrien was at his worst in Season 4, with how much of an whiny and insufferable idiot he could be, but Adrien in Season 5 is a close second. Yes, I wanted him to stop acting out and demanding that the world cater to his every whim, but I also wanted him to prove he was as valuable as he says. The first half of this season seemed to understand this kind of criticism and reminded the audience that Cat Noir was still useful, but when the actual story kicked in, the writers were so determined to keep the secret identity bullshit going, Adrien somehow got less focus as a hero than the Resistance, a group of temp heroes who actually lost their Miraculous. And consider the fact that this season wrapped up the drama with the Agreste family, so for all we know, Adrien will get even less screentime next season.

If Adrien is supposed to be an invaluable ally to Ladybug, then why doesn't the writing accurately reflect it?

The Problem With the Biggest Idiot of Season 5: Moronette, “Of Course I Know What I’m Doing!” Royal-Pain, AKA, Ladydumb

You know, it's funny. I kept defending Marinette when the writing kept making her out to be a terrible hero last season while Adrien got by without a single criticism, to the point where I considered Adrien to be the worst part of the entire season. Oh, how the tables have turned with dear old Marinette, as the season that chose not to criticize every single action she took is when she's arguably at her worst.

You have to wonder if the writers finally realized how much crap they put Marinette through over the last few seasons by having her always forcing her to learn some contrived lesson and were like, “Oh yeah, she's supposed to be someone the audience is supposed to root for.” Unfortunately, they went way too far in the other direction with how they handled Marinette.

The way Marinette was written this season felt eerily similar to what happened with Adrien last season. Suddenly, her personal drama is of the utmost importance (Determination, Passion, Reunion, Elation, The Kwamis' Choice, Perfection, Migration, Derision, Adoration, Pretension, Representation), she's making incredibly stupid decisions in battle (Evolution, Destruction, Determination, Pretension), she becomes the moral compass of the show who lectures others on what to do (Revelation, Confrontation, Collusion, Revolution), and she's never really called out for her actions by the other characters despite how often she makes things worse.

So much of the first half of this season is the exact same crap over and over again. Marinette complains about how hard things are for her and her conflicting feelings for Adrien. I wouldn't really mind something like this if it wasn't for two things.

First, there's no real arc involved with this. Marinette keeps complaining about her love life, and she never really learns anything from it. She doesn't even get to confess to Adrien and show her growing as a character. Adrien confesses to her, and bam, the two are a couple now. Glad to see all the discussions about Marinette's anxiety was completely pointless since she doesn't get to be the one to really confront her inner demons. Well, there was one time in “Derision”, and we all know how well that turned out, right?

Second, more often than not, it seems like Marinette is prioritizing her personal life over the situation with Monarch. You know, the guy who has access to fourteen different Miraculous? After you only managed to get one back? I'd understand if we got this kind of arc in the earlier seasons, but by doing this, you're undermining the current threat Monarch poses. She's even willing to give up being a superhero if it means being with Adrien. That is how important her love life is to her. She's willing to let Tikki force the responsibility onto someone else if it means she can be happy. Of course, this isn't too surprising, as Astruc once said that the show is supposed to focus primarily on romance, not superhero action.

THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES.

Just like with Adrien last season, the show seems to care more about Marinette's personal issues at the expense of other characters. Do you want to know how many episodes this season focused on Marinette's love life in some way? EIGHTEEN (Multiplication, Jubilation, Determination, Passion, Reunion, Elation, Transmission, Deflagration, Perfection, Derision, Protection, Adoration, Emotion, Pretension, Revolution, Representation, Conformation, Re-Creation). Literally two-thirds of the season includes Love Square drama. Even if you want to be generous and count both two-parters as single episodes, that's still more than half the season. This is yet another problem with waiting until what was originally supposed to be the last season to resolve your plot. You need to force all of this development through almost every episode until people get tired of it.

Because of this, Marinette basically took over the narrative of Season 5. Almost every major conflict revolved around her, even the stuff with Adrien. Rather than make a story about Marinette and Adrien working together to break free from Gabriel's influence, Marinette is the one who has to do the heavy lifting and save Adrien herself. I've already talked about this with Adrien, but it bears repeating, as this is same issue I had with Season 4. Just like how Adrien got more focus during a story arc that should have been about Marinette last season, Marinette is now getting more focus during a story arc that should have been about Adrien, to the point where Marinette gets to use Adrien's Miraculous during the final battle with Monarch.

I'd at least be somewhat forgiving towards the shift in focus if Marinette actually got to do anything to advance the plot herself. Because of how often the show focuses on Marinette's love life, very little time is dedicated to showing Ladybug making an effort to actually stop Monarch. The closest we got was in “Illusion”, and that was a plan spearheaded by Nino. Like I said earlier, Felix does more to advance the plot out of any character, even Marinette, THE ONE THE SHOW IS NAMED AFTER!

We have three separate episodes where Ladybug has Monarch at her mercy, but she decides to talk about how she's totally won and that Monarch can't get away at all, and then Monarch gets away in a matter of seconds. I just... this is “SHOOT THEM WITH THE DEHYDRATION GUN!” levels of stupid here! The only reason Monarch gets as far as he does is because Ladybug can't just grab any the Miraculous he has all over his body.

We're seriously supposed to see Marinette as an amazing hero when she keeps screwing up every opportunity she gets to stop Monarch. In the span of one season, Marinette went along with being forced to retire because she got a chance to date Adrien (The Kwamis' Choice), chose not to form a temporary alliance with an Akuma even if it meant possibly getting the Peacock Miraculous back and stopping a potential threat (Pretension), had absolutely no plan to stop Lila until someone else came forward with information on what she was doing (Confrontation), decided to let another Akuma force the mayor out of office (Collusion), and failed to stop Gabriel because she got tricked again and was completely helpless as the entire universe was recreated before she took credit for defeating Monarch afterwards in the new reality and then decided to honor the insane supervillain's wishes and keep her boyfriend completely in the dark about the truth even though she learned not to keep secrets from others (The Final Day) and MY GOD, I HATE THIS SEASON SO MUCH.

When Marinette isn't making terrible decisions, she's lecturing others on how to act around their enemies, and when I say “how to act”, I mean “refuse to give them even the slightest bit of respect after doing the bare minimum to help them try and change”. Marinette really lets her own personal biases toward Chloe and Lila get to her this season with how the latter half of the season had her tell others not to even consider trusting them because of how easy it is for them to take advantage of kindness. You know, something you'd hear someone like Superman or Spider-Man teach kids about.

In fact, here's a little game any aspiring writer can play when writing superhero characters: If you can't imagine someone as noble as Superman saying something like this...

Marinette: But sometimes, the good we think we see in some people is just a reflection of our own, and we end up being fooled by our own kindness.

Unless your intent is for them to be flawed or in the wrong instead of a complete paragon of virtue, you need to go through your drafts.

And just like Adrien, even though Marinette keeps screwing up, she's never held accountable for her actions. She's never allowed to be wrong, and is almost always the one who gets to lecture people, mainly towards the end of the season. A good example of how poorly written Marinette is this season is when she whines about Ms Bustier not punishing Chloe enough when not only does she fail to understand that Chloe is still being punished, but she did absolutely nothing to bring Chloe's cheating to her teacher's attention when as class representative, it's her job. I don't care how stupid that idea sounds, that's what the show goes with, and it makes Marinette's inaction come across as very irresponsible.

But then again, neglecting her duties at school is nothing compared to acting like Marinette didn't fail to save all of reality while not showing the least bit of remorse for it. I'm just saying, when even Ben 10: Omniverse of all shows does this kind of story better, you know you've screwed up. Again, we're supposed to see it like Marinette won because the universe is in one piece, when, once again, SHE FAILED! Like I said, she failed at pretty much everything she set out to do this season and didn't stop Monarch outside of warding off his Akumas. This is seriously how the show was supposed to end, with Marinette failing to save the universe and the audience just needing to accept it. Well, in case it wasn't obvious on my front, I don't. Hell, forget Ben 10: Omniverse. Even Star vs. the Forces of Evil had the main character save the day, even if it meant potentially screwing over countless lives by destroying all magic in the world. Marinette? “Well, everyone I know and love is technically dead and the madman I spent five seasons trying to stop gets to die a martyr, but everything looks like I saved the day, so that technically means I didsave the day! Man, I'm a great hero. Good thing the other characters basically exist to remind the audience of how amazing I am.”

If there's one thing to take away from everything that's happened, it's that this was the season where Marinette has arguably become one of the biggest examples of a show failing to make the audience like their main character. There was much time dedicated to rationalizing and trying to justify the worst possible decisions she could've made and acting like she's still an amazing hero. Stuff like this only serves to further validate the criticisms people have had for her as a character ever since Season 5. And remember, this is coming from someone who went out of their way to defend Marinette last season. In an attempt to show her at her most heroic and virtuous, Season 5 pretty much cemented Marinette as a terrible main character, a terrible superhero, and a terrible role model for children.

Eight Years for This?

I'm going to be perfectly honest with you guys. This season just broke me, and there was a good reason why this analysis took so long to write.

While there were a number of outside factors that made it hard for me to get the time to write (work, the holidays, family gatherings, etc), there were still times where I either didn't have a lot of material to work with, or I just couldn't find the motivation to work on the reviews. I guess throughout all these years, I figured that after all this buildup between the Love Square and Adrien's relationship with his father, there would at least be something I could find this season that would allow me to say this was worth the wait. Unfortunately, it was just disappointment after disappointment this season, with a universally hated finale to boot.

To me, this was the season that burned away the remaining goodwill I had for the show, because there's just no salvaging it at this point. The writers pretty much butchered every single character in some way, excused the main villain's actions for a sorry excuse for a heroic sacrifice, and literally reset the universe so all of the characters we've come to know for almost a decade technically don't exist anymore. Even the cliffhanger for Season 6 really excites me, because why should I care about a character we still know nothing about becoming the main villain? Why should I care at all when the writers have made it clear they don't care either? They don't care about writing character development, they don't care about writing consistent lore for their world, they don't care about approaching serious subjects with the delicacy they deserve and they certainly don't care about telling a consistent story.

Season 5 of Miraculous Ladybug was a failure in every conceivable definition of the word. It failed to deliver a satisfying conclusion to any of the stories that had been set up for years, and if this was how the main story ended, I don't really have a lot to look forward to when Season 6 premieres.

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dwindlinghaze · 6 months

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a flight to paris

(remus lupin x reader)

summary: you and remus have been in an established relationship for years but one day you received an unexpected break up call from him.

contents: she/her pronouns, modern!au, angst (?), break up, inspired by a barbie movie, my horrible english, i wrote this out of boredom, oh and this is a multipart :)

　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

on most days you enjoy your summer holiday. you have a part time job in which you worked for a magazine, having your own personal workspace in the office headquarters and all.

your days are mostly surrounded by the latest style, magazine covers, hollywood gossip, and beautiful photoshoots of women. it was fun, really. that is if mr. wellins wasn't your boss.

he's a walking patriarchal figure. hate is not enough to describe your feelings towards that man.

"i don't think that's a good idea to put in there," you spoke during one of the meetings.

"what do you mean? it's a good one, everybody will be intrigued!" he scoffed.

you shifted uncomfortably in your seat, glancing at the others but they just gave you a warning look. no one dared to go against mr. wellins. "it just doesn't feel right y'know- to put that in there considering it's just an allegation and not confirmed?"

"but we focus on marketing here! who will pay your wage if it weren't for these nosy people who read and buy our magazines? we have to find a way to get our sales higher!" he said sternly, glaring at you with cold eyes.

"look here, if you put that article, surely our reputation will be stained. you don't want that to happen do you? we just need to find something else- something more positive and harmless but still eye catching. like the new box office movie that everyone has been talking about lately. it doesn't harm anyone, in fact it's supporting them. what do you think?"

every one of your co-workers nodded in agreement, waiting for the boss to reply.

he looked bored. "you know that flapping thing you just did with your mouth?"

"you mean- expressing my opinion on what's better for the sake of your company?"

"yeah that," he rolled his eyes. "stop doing that."

"i think y/n's right, makes me wish she were the boss," one of your co-workers mumbled under her breath.

he looked sharply at the girl, "i can easily fire you."

"oh no no, i feel like we just- need to discuss about this more you know?" you defended.

"oh get off this place. end of discussion!"

"we can talk like in the coffee shop, or the commissary-"

"not me getting off, you getting off. get out you're fired!" he slammed his fist.

"wha- what? fired?" you said breathlessly, eyes widen in shock.

you got to your car, speeding to get home and just curl up in the arms of your boyfriend- remus lupin. you needed him. his constant whispering of sweet nothings, his warm embrace, his smile that can rip away all negativity.

just like magic, your phone started ringing with remus in the other line. screen lighting up, his pretty face on the screen. you smiled, so big and decided to stop at one of the parking lots nearby.

"hello?" you heard the sweet voice of remus lupin.

"oh rem! i'm so glad you called!" you exclaimed, heart warming at his comforting voice.

"things aren't right with us and you know it. they haven't been for a while," he said. his ever-lovely voice that makes you feel safe was nowhere to be heard. your heart dropped, chest hurting all of a sudden.

"what?" you choked on the verge of sobbing. "remus come on."

"i'm breaking up with you... right now." he said it like you don't matter to him at all. you clenched your phone, eyes already hurting from the incoming tears.

"you're not... are you serious? what are you saying?" you thought your day couldn't get worse, but the universe said otherwise.

"it's over. and if you're smart, you'll forget i exist."

and just like that, the line disconnected. you couldn't stop the tears from falling out of your eyes. not only have you lost your job, you also have lost your remus.

you never thought he would ever break up with you. especially since you both were in a strong relationship of four years. no matter what problems appeared on the surface, they always got resolved.

wiping your tears away, you tried to drive safely to lily's house. your best friend. you needed someone to talk to. someone to pour your heart out.

"i lost my job and he broke up with me," you said in shame when she opened the door to see you with red rimmed eyes.

"he broke up with you because you lost your job?" lily gasped.

"no... separately," you sobbed. then you told her the whole story of how you've had lost your job and how he broke up with you on the phone in your car just then.

"what kind of guy does that!" lily said in disbelief. it's so not remus to break up with you like that. knowing how much he loves you since forever ago. you two are perfect for each other. nothing could ever compare to the bond you both had.

"i guess a guy with no real emotions," you huffed, reaching for lily's tissue.

lily suggested for you to call remus again, 'cause no way is someone like him said something like that to you. there was no response though, he's not answering.

"maybe you misunderstood. what did he actually say?" lily asked once more.

"he said that it was over, and if i were smart i'd forget he ever existed," his words ringing in your ears.

"does he speak another language where it means 'i love you'," lily tried, you shook your head.

"that's it," she picked up your phone. "i'm blocking him from your cell, e-mail, everything! you do not break up with anyone like that! when i'm done, we're gonna go somewhere that you love. a place where you feel happy and good about yourself."

"i wanna go far away," you mumbled.

"that's right, you should go far away and clear your head! forget about them. men are getting harder to like these days," lily agreed, snapping her fingers.

"i'll go far away... like aunt milicent's!" you said.

"aunt millicents?" lily asked.

"yeah she's a designer in paris. has a fashion house and everything. i always loved being there. tons of people, energy, fabrics, and dresses... and my aunt in the middle of it all! oh how i want to be like her when i grow up. that's it i'm going there!"

"super fun!" lily exclaimed, truly happy for you. "when are you going?"

"right now! i can spend the last weeks of summer vacation with her," you managed to crack a smile, "i don't need remus. what i need is to book a flight to paris."

"remmy, you can't help me with our summer project if you're on the phone all the time," jessica said, snatching remus' phone out of his hand.

"i just don't get it, i can't get through y/n at all!" remus said in exasperation, brows furrowing in confusion and worry clouding up his head.

"i'm sure she's fine," jessica said, fluttering her lashes.

remus was unconvinced, he couldn't focus the whole time. "it has been since yesterday."

"y/n is a busy person. she'll call when she gets the chance... in the meantime...," she jerked her head towards the script.

"do we have to tape that again... i'm not an actor, i probably sounded stupid," remus scoffed.

"you sounded beautiful," she said, smiling flirtatiously at him.

remus was too fogged up on the thought of you to notice her behaviour. you never ignore him like this. no matter how busy your lives were, you two always made time for each other.

"lils look!" marlene gasped, pointing at remus and jessica sitting together on the table across the room.

"oh no. don't tell me that boy dumped y/n for jessica," lily said in annoyance and disbelief.

the two of them walked over, crossing their arms. "are you kidding?" lily said coldly, shooting daggers at remus.

"lily, marlene! where's y/n?" remus asked, sitting up from his chair. he didn't know why they looked upset.

"why do you want to know?" marlene questioned.

"i can't reach her! i've called, i've texted, i've emailed. nothing worked. is she okay?" remus said desperately.

"y/n's fine. she wants nothing to do with the twat who dumped her over the phone!" lily scolded.

"wha- huh- dumped her?" remus asked in shock. he would never dump you. you're everything to him. "i would never do that, c'mon you guys know how much she means to me!"

"you know what uhh i actually need to run, see you," jessica said, slipping away from the table. nobody paid attention to her though.

"don't play dumb! she told us what you said 'it's over and if you're smart you'll forget i exist'."

"wait what?" remus exclaimed, eyes travelling towards jessica who was chuckling guiltily. "that line... a part of the script i read yesterday. don't say you recorded it and play it back to y/n," he said, eyes closing painfully.

"i'd be happy to tell you that," jessica said, batting her lashes. oh what a nerve. "it was a joke. i never thought she'd actually believed it. she must have serious doubts about the relationship."

remus ignored her, turning towards lily and marlene. "where's y/n? i need to see her now," he said, heart racing at the thought of you.

"uh- she's kind of..." lily slowly replied, eyeing marlene, urging her to finish the sentence.

"in paris."

"paris? paris, france? since when was she going to paris?" remus was panicking. he knew he messed up and he's willing to make it right again.

"uh a long story..."

"what should i do? i need to talk to her as soon as possible," he scrunched his hair, brows knitting.

"y/n went through a lot yesterday... you know what you can do to make her feel better? a grand romantic gesture! don't just call her. go book yourself a flight to paris, show up to her aunt milicent's doorstep, and prove how much you love her!" lily said.

"she'll love it!" marlene agreed.

"i'm on it," he opened his phone to search for a plane ticket. "i'll book the next flight out of london."

#remus lupin x reader #remus lupin fluff #remus lupin imagine #remus lupin x reader fluff #remus lupin fic #remus x reader

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vitaminseetarot · 6 months

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PAC Pick a Ride: Your Next Big Adventure 🌌🌠🌃

Thank you for voting in my latest poll! I'm surprised and glad to see that Next Big Adventure won by a landslide! Seeing as we have the New Moon in Sagittarius on the 12th, it makes sense that we are collectively interested in seeing what the next chapter has in store. Please note that some of these other topics mentioned in my polls may appear in future pick a card readings, so stay tuned.

So without further ado, let's get into our piles! Pretend as though you are a Knight from your favorite tarot deck about to embark on your next journey. Please choose your mode of transportation:

1 - Plane 2 - Ship 3 - Motorbike 4 - Train

Pile 1 - Plane

Cards: Re-Evaluate, Pencil Sketch, The Pilgrim, Ceres - Nurture, Patience, 26. Protection - Finding What's Important; I Magician, 10 of Pentacles, 4 of Pentacles, XIX The Sun Channeled Locations: Canada, Singapore, Morocco, Ukraine, Australia, Philippines, UK, New Zealand, NYC, South Korea

Hi pile 1, you've chosen to travel by air, bypassing all the long troublesome routes. After all, the sky's the limit! Isn't it nice to measure your distance by how the crow flies sometimes? You're ready to catapult yourself into the next big adventure; I can tell there's a lot of excitement to see what's ahead here. You'd rather get to the next phase of your life instantly yet with ease. This is likely the pile with big career goals, especially if moving or actual traveling will be in the big picture. Maybe you're dreaming of traveling by plane as part of your future dream job? You don't just want to get there, as great as that is--it has to be done with intention.

You're in the process of drawing out what your next life would look like. The future seems full of creative possibilities, but with Pencil Sketch next to Re-evaluate, you're being asked to pay attention to the details. How do you want things to go one month from now, and one year from now? As great as it would be to have an entire decade mapped out, it's unrealistic, but it doesn't mean you can't draft some concepts. You should have something in mind, though, instead of setting out with a knapsack and praying for the best. If your next career or long term project could be anything you wanted, are you going to hop into something for 10 years that doesn't end up panning out in your favor, or would you rather delicately test something for a year before diving in? Moving forward can be exciting, but if you're going by plane, you will need some coordinates.

I think your reading is super straightforward, pile 1. You've got a lucky edge going for you with the tarot cards here. Whatever kind of career goal you have in mind, you may have a chance to "make it big" at some point. That won't come without a lot of foresight and careful investment, however. Don't try to rush into any big decisions right off the bat. I occasionally see the Magician card as the one signifying "read between the lines". If any contracts get involved, be very careful and read thoroughly. Don't be afraid to ask questions or seek clarification. The ones giving you the contact would rather see you jump in it blind, but you've got the crafty Magician energy to help you out during this retrograde period.

As eager as you are to begin your next journey, you're being asked to consider what you want to grow over the long term. This reading wants to shift the focus away from the end goal, even if there's a message here about acting with intention. Setting intention doesn't mean straying away from the present moment to only consider what happens in the end. Part of paying attention to detail means being aware and present in what's happening around you. The present moment is a crucial aspect of your growth period, and it wants you to gently guard after and care for your goal as though it were a plant. You know the fruit of the plant will be ready to eat when it's there and fully ripened, but in the meantime you can enjoy its flowers and fresh budding leaves.

Enjoy the gentle growth process, because once you do start to take off, you may be shocked by how high you'll find yourself in mere seconds. The initial lift of the plane as it begins to run with the sky can give you a wonky feeling like your whole world is shifting and moving with you. Your sense of time can change, requiring adjustment. If you're unprepared, the change could feel overwhelming. Make sure that by the time you're ready for that big takeoff in your work or projects, you will have built up a solid foundation to ground you once you're ready to come back down to earth. That's how you'll build lasting success in your life's next adventure. Stay optimistic, because that positive shift could come sooner than you think!

Pile 2 - Ship

Cards: Limitless, Calla, The Alchemist, 10. Capricorn - Achieve, Express Love, 11. Invention - Burning with Passion; X Wheel of Fortune, 4 of Wands, VII Chariot, 10 of Swords Channeled Locations: India, Greece, Ethiopia, Thailand, Spain, Iceland, Turkey, Croatia, South Africa

The seas are calling you, pile 2, calmly asking you to take only what's truly needed with you. The water's may be choppy, but out in the expansive blue seas, you can feel connected to the coasts of the entire world. With a firm grasp of the ship's wheel, you designate yourself captain as you adjust your sails and set your sights for the hidden treasure that lies ahead--or perhaps beneath your anchor. You're entering your next big adventure lit up with grand ideas for what to do all laid out on your map. Over the vast horizon, anything could happen, and you could find yourself shaking hands with anybody new. This pile may be seeking proposals or offers of some kind, ones that will let you dream bigger than you have before. This pile likely has a good idea of where to go next, or at least some interesting things written down.

These cards ask you to make peace with some aspect of your past. It could be that whatever you had planned before didn't entirely work out in your favor. As much as the online community talks about how rejection is divine protection, sometimes having plans fall apart is not going to feel good, even when you're just glad it's over with. The worst thing can be the feeling of not knowing what to expect after a fall. But your next chapter is showing a lot of promise in things to come, so don't let your past be the omen of your future. The tides are turning right now, and if you can focus on what you'd like to accomplish next, you'll be able to shift those tides in your favor. The first step is to see that you've survived the bad times, and that in itself makes you a victor. With that, you can move ahead with more confidence than before.

That's the thing about Capricorn energy: it thrives in conditions that others would consider too harsh or demanding. It's the drive to take the roughest materials and make diamonds from them. Once you can decide to make peace with what you've gone through, you can take the nuggets of wisdom you've garnered to make a beautiful new path for yourself. You dissolve the worst of your experiences and bring them together to make it better, as the Alchemist card suggests. The difficult times and failed attempts were not for waste; you've gained a lot of valuable growth that will provide a smoother current toward success in your next endeavor. This could be the pile that wants to start a business. Please know that simply starting a business, or even taking the first steps to plan one, takes a lot of guts already. If you've managed to go that far, congratulations! It takes a lot of hard work for a new business to be survive the long haul. So celebrate your milestones, no matter how small they seem.

Part of what makes this next chapter so fortuitous for you is how the energy is transiting through. You could be hit with a wave of inspiration from out of nowhere. If you've been stuck in one place without any wind to carry you through the fog, be prepared for that big splash! All hiccups set aside, you're still brimming with a lot of zeal for your next idea. You may even receive a cascade of insight, so be sure to write these things down as they come. You never know if something silly and small could end up helping you out later on. Your next big adventure is going to put the spark back in you, with a feeling of having a second chance at life, as Calla lilies represent rebirth. Don't be afraid to get excited over what's to come, pile 2. Your faith that things will work out for the better is contagious, as is your gratitude for the accomplishments you've made so far.

Pile 3 - Motorbike

Cards: Breathe, Snowboard, The Heir (Rx), 5. Leo - Shine, Balance, 21. Resilience - Finding Your Limits; 6 of Cups, Queen of Cups, Page of Wands, XIII Death Channeled Locations: Mexico, Italy, Midwest US, France, Norway, Egypt, Chile, Brazil

Your pile is like the fiery passion of the wands suit. Independent and bold, you chose to take open road for your next adventure, blazing a new path in front of your very eyes. You have an eagerness to take the world by storm, going wherever your first impulse wishes to carry you. This pile has a lot of drive to move forward to the next chapter with as much speed as possible, optimistic to find that next golden opportunity. And you're not afraid of a little showboating along the way. You even have the Snowboard palette card, which is a sport involving nothing but speeding down slopes and catching incredible air. This pile is the most excited for their next adventure.

Except actually, pile 3, you're being asked to slow down a little bit. And I get it! I get that this message can be so frustrating when you see what looks to be an endless highway yet the speed limit says 55. That might be a good pace for many folks, but for this pile it's not nearly enough! The thing to keep in mind is that this process of moderating your pace is for your overall benefit. See, you have the only reversed archetype card in all the piles. The card speaks of untapped potential, which is still there. It's simply saying that whatever you're seeking to do next, you're not totally ready because there is too much you're still carrying with you. To go with the motorbike analogy again, any leftover baggage from your past is going to weigh you down so it's in your benefit to review what you have before you can move forward. The more you let it go, the faster you'll be able to pick up the pace.

You have a lot to be proud of with how far you've come already. This pile likely thrives on challenges and sees overcoming them as a big part of spiritual development. Which can be true in many cases, and you demonstrate clearly that you're not afraid of what's to come next. It may come as a shock to you that your next chapter might be a little more quiet than expected. This is likely because, if you've gone through a lot of growth in your last chapter, it makes sense to have some downtime to balance things out. The Queen of Cups can be introverted energy, but she knows how to use her alone time to replenish her soul with art and meditation. You may have more time to spend by yourself steeped in creative drive rather than trying to accomplish too many things in the outer world.

This is one of the more spiritually oriented piles; over this next big phase in your life, your creative skills may flourish and evolve to another level. Maybe for a while you've been inclined towards artistic pursuits, but feel a desire to expand upon what you're already doing. With this energy, you're in alignment to have more time and energy to devote towards passions like painting, sports, or music. In this way, you can take that immense enthusiastic drive from the Page of Wands and channel it into something constructive or purposeful, even if you don't intend to monetize it.

Your next big adventure is tackling the speed limits that exist within you: the self imposed beliefs that tell you how fast you can go or where you're allowed to proceed. Thing is, in your inner world, you have a lot more freedom than you would on any highway. You can choose for yourself how you wish to manifest your passions into the world, and you can decide how much or how little passion you put into your work. Things like imposter syndrome can be their own mountains to climb, and this time around you're more geared up than ever to take it on. Once the spiritual mountains have been overcome, you'll be able to top anything the next chapter in life brings you.

Pile 4 - Train

Cards: Nucleus, Billiard Green, The Gambler, 44. Sixth House - Sustainability, Trust, 1. Vision - Contemplating the Future; XVIII The Moon, 10 of Wands, 3 Cups, XV The Devil Channeled Locations: West US, Sweden, Japan, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Slovenia, China, Germany, Switzerland

You've picked the solid, earthy pile of moving forward to your next adventure by train. Locomotion is slow but it's steady and reliable with time. Fully embodying the principles of inertia, once it moves it keeps moving, but it takes a lot of initial effort to get things going. Something you've worked on is slow going, but you're close or nearing the finish line. Once this is accomplished, things will move much more smoothly for you without so much push. Your next chapter will be steady, but it will be easier than before because it's already in motion.

I find this pile intriguing, y'all. You have Gambler above the Billiard card, and the Devil card shows a casino as well. It's almost bringing to mind old train heist movies. There's action, adventure, mystery, and a lot of fun here in this pile. Your next big adventure could involve having more chances to go out and have fun with friends. You could meet new friends around this time who will have a lot of extra pep in their step. They'll get you out of your shell if you've been in one for a while. Alternatively, if you see yourself as a party loving daredevil already, this new friendship may slow you down and protect you a little, in a good sense. They'll either be the head to your heart, or the heart to your head.

This pile is definitely more inclined to go with the flow in the next chapter. I almost typed 'glow' on accident, so perhaps you'll also experience basking in a 'glow' of some kind. You could be overcoming a huge obstacle at this time and look forward to more unstructured down time. You're encouraged to take time to enjoy yourself before moving to the next phase, but to also balance it out by taking moments to see where you'd rather go next. It's easy, after a huge achievement, to lose pace once the "now what?" sign is reached on your path. Go-with-the-flow doesn't necessarily mean 'fuck around and see what happens', lol. Try to find a middle ground here between playing and planning.

Your work-life balance will likely have some kind of pressure valve released like steam. You've had to really push for what you wanted this year. When opportunities looked scant, you had to tap in to your own power and immense resources to pull through. You've done so in flying colors. So your desire for freedom and thrills after a hard chapter is totally understandable. If you're not finished with something, there's almost a temptation here to run from it now and deal with it later. This isn't recommended; push through to the end because soon you will find yourself on the other side basking in the glow, and relaxing will be so much easier once you're fully done.

There's also advice to not get too carried away with material desires here. Your next chapter may have your finances fluctuating up and down, so try to stay steady with investments. If a windfall comes in, don't spend it all in a day. The Trust card here is talking about how you trust yourself with your resources and energy. When you're able to carry a greater amount with more responsibility, more will be added to you in due time. You're being asked to make small and consistent investments with wherever you're putting your value and resources into. Nothing wrong with wanting to splurge on something nice of course, especially if you've been working hard and you want to reward yourself. This is more to do with long term investments over the next few years.

This reading has not been evaluated by the FDA to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease or infection. Please ask your physician before going online.

2023, @VitaminseeTarot ™

Decks Used: Tarotwave, Starcodes Astro Oracle, Citadel Oracle, StarDragons, Opal Oracle, Starlight Messages, Color Palette cards

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unexpectedreylo · 6 months

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So, It Wasn't Planned After All

https://x.com/RichEisenShow/status/1734703529552699725?s=20

While Adam Driver is making the rounds to promote "Ferrari," he drops by the Rich Eisen Show and when asked about Ben Solo during the True or False segment, Adam spills the tea.

He doesn't get asked much about Star Wars so this is the first time I think he's talked about his character arc since TROS was unleashed upon us 4 years ago. And he drops the bomb that the Ben Solo thing wasn't planned from the beginning. That's right, Bendemption happened late in the game. He says that JJ Abrams told him the idea was Vader In Reverse (starts out vulnerable, ends entrenched in the dark side) and he kept that concept in mind throughout the time he filmed the ST, until they changed it with the last film. Adam has alluded to the concept of Vader In Reverse before but this is the first time he's gone into greater detail about it, including the revelation that the decision to turn Kylo from the dark side came during the third film.

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone who read the Duel of the Fates script and it explains why Ben hardly says a word during his scenes on Exegol. Abrams and Co. conceived of Kylo Ren as an evil bastard whose destiny was to get eviller; killing Han Solo was meant to be what sent him down the path of no return. Then two things happened: TLJ and Driver's commitment to humanizing Kylo Ren. People loved Kylo and Rey together (hence Reylo exploding in popularity) and they fell in love with Adam. They empathized with Kylo. So they changed course with TROS, a little. Kylo returns to the light as Ben but he is quickly dispatched once the big battle is over. I believe Ben's death was for two reasons: one, they were less invested and focused in Ben's part of the story than we were and two, there was always the intent to end the Skywalker line so Star Wars could focus on new characters. Remember, Rey essentially turned Skywalker into a title that could be transferred to anyone.

That the story changed over the course of the trilogy isn't that big a deal. There was no Chosen One prophecy until the prequels. Leia wasn't Luke's sister until Lucas wrote ROTJ. Han wasn't guaranteed to get out of carbonite because nobody was sure if Harrison Ford was going to come back. Instead of a tyrannical, ruthless bastard like Lee Pace's emperor in Apple TV's Foundation show, Kylo Ren gave us quivering lips, teary eyes, and mooning over the heroine who is supposed to be his enemy. When Rian Johnson introduced the bond between Rey and Kylo, Abrams and Terrio explained it as a dyad and made it prominent in the film. The kiss got put in because Reylo was so popular. Okay, fine.

The problem was they never should have made the Jedi Killer from early drafts Han and Leia's only child. As an old Star Wars fan who saw every film since 1977 and followed the Skywalker clan for over 40 years, I didn't want to see Anakin Skywalker's grandson end up even more evil than he was. What a huge bummer that would've been, even worse than if Rey was killed off. (For the record, I hated the whole Darth Jacen thing so much in the legends books I stopped reading them.) Abrams and Terrio probably realized it was going to be a problem returning to the idea that Ben was too evil to save; TROS already comes off as a tragic ending rather than a happy, triumphant one. And it goes against the whole message of Star Wars. So it ends up being Vader 2.0 and fans hoping Ben would survive were disappointed. I wasn't fond of the idea of exile or something as Ben's fate prior to TROS, but now I think that probably would've been the best outcome. It would've left a lot of possibilities to explore in future SW stories without having to come up with a convoluted explanation for bringing him back.

As much as they fumbled the ball, I'm glad they at least spared us Evil Kylo 4 Ever and Adam's turn as Ben was great even without anything to say besides "Ow." Adam sounded a little disappointed to me but maybe I'm just reading into it too much. In any case he has also stated in recent interviews he would be open to returning to Star Wars, so I guess we can still be hopeful even if he doesn't appear in the upcoming film. (Just don't wait 30 years, okay?)

#adam driver #kylo ren #ben solo deserves better #ben solo #reylo

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jinhyun · 9 months

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↬part two

"then I think about summer, all the beautiful times

i watched you laughin' from the passenger's side"

pairing: hwang hyunjin x reader

genre: written series, angst, fluff, friends to lovers to exes to lovers, she fell first but he fell harder, yearning, mutual pining, non-idol au, baker!y/n, movie producer!hyunjin.

word count: 11.3k

warnings: y/n has self-sabotaging tendencies, cursing, mentions of alcohol, eventual smut, mature content, MINORS DNI!!!

tag list: open. send me an ASK to be a part of it, otherwise i might miss it. i will only be adding people who are willing to reblog the chapters and/or comment on them, because it does take time out of my day to tag everyone and likes or straight up cricket noises do nothing for me in return if i'm honest.

a/n: helloo, it's been a long time but here we are again with a new part. this turned out longer than i expected and i apologise, but i wanted to mainly show how these two got together and how it was that things started off for them, as well as how the dynamic of their friend group used to be before everything went down. in other words, and as you can see in the verse of the song i quoted, this part's gonna be more on the fluffy side (but not completely lol), so i hope you enjoy this small part of their story!

feedback is very dearly appreciated<3

You had never been a big fan of packing, but you were quite excited about the trip with your friends the next day. To be honest, you did not used to be a big fan of camping either, until that first year in college when summer came and Jeongin mentioned this one place he and his family used to go camping when he was little.

Everyone was so excited about it that you couldn't say no. Seungmin wouldn't have let you miss out on it and abandon him anyway.

And, in the end, you were glad you hadn't stayed home instead. It turned out to be a really precious bonding time for all of you, to the point that you all agreed to make it a summer vacation tradition — every single year of college, without missing a beat, all eleven of you would drive outside the city and ventour into the forest to have what you liked to call your much needed healing time.

Although the entirety of your friend group had graduated college last year, you had promised to keep making time for your yearly camping trip.

Minji hadn't been able to keep that promise that particular year, given she got an internship in the States and had left a little over a month and a half before summer started. She had promised over and over before leaving that she would most definitely make it next year, and you were all counting on that.

You were sad that she wouldn't make it, for now you would only have Hyejin to fight the potentially annoying male species you'd be hanging out with.

And there was also the fact that you thought Hyunjin wouldn't feel like going anymore. Sure, he would go, for he had promised and he loved spending time with all of you, but a part of you believed he wouldn't be the same since Minji wouldn't be there — that he wouldn't be as eager about the trip as he always was.

It was the way he hugged her and visibly didn't want to let go when you had all gone to send her off and she was about to walk through security. After witnessing that, you had convinced yourself that Hyunjin wouldn't be himself until she came back.

You had decided to give him space. You knew you'd be the same if you ever lost Seungmin, and that without being in love with him.

It would be good for you, too. Giving Hyunjin space and letting him find himself without his beloved best friend meant not seeing him for a while, and therefore, finally being able to focus on moving on from your stupid crush on him.

Only that you wanting to give him space didn't exactly mean he wanted to take that space away from you. So you knew when not even a week after Minji's departure he was calling you up to hang out.

Most of your friends would be there, minus Felix and Hyejin, who had already made plans alone, so you accepted. It had started out just like that, at least — hanging out with your group of friends, the way you always had. But now his attention was only on you, and his eyes would oh-so-naturally fix on you like it was their default target.

It didn't stop there. Hanging out with everyone else yet only focusing on you turned into making plans for just the two of you. You had been ecstatic the first time he asked you out — as friends, of course. He had a shitty day at work and wanted to go out for some coffee, but he didn't feel like being around a large group of people. You accepted in a heartbeat, so happy about getting to spend some time alone with him that you completely forgot about the whole 'getting over him' goal you had going on.

So happy to finally get the attention you wanted from him, that you didn't stop for one second to think whether he would be asking you to get some coffee with him if Minji were still here.

But it didn't matter, because one coffee date turned into two, and then two turned into three. Friendly dates turned into 'oh, maybe this is not so friendly' ones. Sunset walks turned into watching movies at either one of your places. Late night calls on the days you didn't get to see each other turned into texting all throughout the day, every day; which led to getting goodnight and good morning text messages with definitely-not-so-friendly hearts attached to them.

Just like that, Hyunjin was just as eager as every other year to go on this trip. And you? God, you couldn't wait for the day to arrive so you could spend even more time with him. You were mainly expectant of the bonfire at night — you had always loved the way the fire illuminated his factions from afar. He always managed to look extra cozy and your heart would flutter with every single glimpse. This year, though, you hoped you'd get to sit next to him, and maybe, if you were lucky enough, you'd get to share a blanket with him; as childish as it sounded.

Your daydreaming got interrupted by your phone buzzing on your night table, making you jump from your bed to pick it up and then feel your heart do a backflip when you read Hyunjin's name on the screen.

Fixing your hair as fast as you could and making sure your face looked presentable enough for him to see, you answered his video call.

"Hey, cutie" he greeted as soon as your face was visible on the screen.

You smiled timidly, feeling the heat reach your cheeks at the sound of that simple pet name. "You do realise it's midnight, don't you?"

"You answered anyway" he smirked triumphantly, earning a roll of eyes from you. "Why? Did I wake you?"

"No," you shook your head, looking down to your packed bag on your bed. "I was kinda going through everything I needed to pack, to make sure I won't forget anything".

"Well, in case you forgot to pack mosquito repellent like last year, I'm glad to inform you I've kindly packed some for you".

A small, breathy laugh escaped your mouth. "Why, thank you" you brought a dramatic hand to your chest. "Did I really traumatize you last year for that to be the first thing to come to mind when packing for me?"

"I wouldn't say traumatized…" he mumbled, looking down to what you guessed was his bag, as he unzipped it. "But you did make me so fucking worried when you came out of your tent that morning all covered in mosquito bites, so…"

Watching him show the repellent bottle to the camera, you couldn't help the throaty laugh that ran past your mouth this time, hearing him follow along the moment the sound you made reached his ears.

"You really didn't have to…"

"Did you remember to pack it this time?" he tested you.

"No, but—but," you quickly emphasized at the sight of his daring eyes. "Minnie always brings some. I was just too lazy to go up to his tent at night when I realised I hadn't asked him for it last year. I didn't think it would be that bad".

"Well, now you've got your own personal bottle of it" he pointed out, stuffing it back into his bag. "So no need to go to his tent if you forget to ask him for it again".

Too enchanted by that thoughtful act of service of his, you didn't realise you were staring until he blushed and cleared his throat.

"What?" he shyly asked.

"Huh?" you snapped out of it.

"I don't know, I… you weren't like, saying anything and—"

"Oh, no, I just…" you felt your cheeks burn once again. "Thank you. You're cute".

He laughed breathily, almost inaudibly. "I'm cute?"

"You know what I mean" you glared.

"I'd like to think you mean something else, though…"

You needed to take a deep, rather shaky, breath at that. Keeping yourself composed was not an easy thing to do when he said things like that.

"So, um… What were you calling for?"

He shrugged, letting you get away with your change of subject and lying back on his mattress. "Just wanted to talk to you".

"At midnight?" you raised an eyebrow.

"Got a problem with it?"

"Not really," you chuckled. "But we're seeing each other in a couple of hours, in case you forgot".

"Oh, I'm well aware of it," he nodded, tiredly placing an arm over his eyes. "Still wanted to talk to you before going to bed".

"Clingy" you teased.

The smile that curved up the corners of his plump lips made you wish you were there with him, lying your head on his chest and playing with his hair, instead of having to settle down for seeing him through a screen.

"It's gonna be a different trip this time around, huh?" you mumbled after a few seconds in which silence had taken over.

"Yeah…" he agreed quietly, removing his arm from his face and lying on his side. "It's gonna be weird without Minji".

You hummed in response. "I'll only have Hyejin to fight you guys now, and that's when she and Lix aren't all over each other".

"You'll have me, though" he smiled innocently.

You snorted. "Please, you'd drop me in a heartbeat to join the guys when they pick on me".

"That is so not true" he argued, squinting his eyes at you.

"I guess we'll see what happens when the time comes," you taunted him. "You think you'll still be able to have as much fun?"

"You mean without Minji?"

You nodded silently, bracing yourself for the answer you didn't want to know yet had not been able to stop yourself from asking about.

"Sure," he nodded confidently, making your heart feel at ease. "I've got you, it's gonna be just as fun".

"You think so?" you whispered.

"Of course!" he reassured you. "Let's go in the same car tomorrow, we can sit together and share earphones".

"I'm taking Changbin's car" you pointed out.

"Cool," he nodded. "I'll let him know I'm taking his too, then".

"No but, you know what that means, right?"

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Not really…"

You chuckled. "It means he'll make me go on the passenger seat so I can lead the way for him, since he always seems to miss the entrance to the camping site".

"Can't he have someone else to do it?"

"He doesn't really trust any of the guys when it comes to giving directions," you shook your head. "And I respect him for it, honestly. Last time we had Felix give out directions we nearly ended up in Busan".

He puffed his cheeks cutely, in a way that had your heart melting in a second. "Good thing Airpods are a thing then. We can still share".

"And miss Binnie's carpool?"

"You know what, if you hate me just say so".

A throaty laugh escaped your mouth at his salty remark, staring at him through the screen in such a loving way that for a second there you feared he would realise your feelings for him.

"I guess we can share Airpods" you rolled your eyes in amusement, having him happily laugh under his breath. "Don't be too surprised when I start singing along to whatever Binnie's playing on the radio, though".

"I will feel slightly neglected but I get it" he sighed overdramatically.

Covering the yawn coming out of your mouth with your hand, you sleepily stared at him on the screen. "We should go to sleep now…"

"Are you trying to get rid of me now?"

"I'm sleepy..."

"But you look so cute like that" he cooed.

"It's nearly one in the morning, Hwang Hyunjin" you tried your best to sound stern and hide your smile. "We leave at seven".

"Alright," he sighed once more, closing his eyes. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?"

You nodded, a small smile making its way on your face. "See you tomorrow, Hyunie".

He smiled blissfully. "See you tomorrow, cutie".

-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-♡

"Can we stop to get some food?" Seungmin asked from the backseat.

You laughed over Changbin's heavy sigh next to you. It had only been half an hour since you left Seoul, and there was still another hour to go, yet you couldn’t say you were entirely surprised over your best friend’s request.

The trip had been smooth so far, way too smooth — Changbin and Jeongin loudly singing to any song that came on the playlist being the only sense of disruption in the car. You remained silently staring out the window, lightly bopping your head to the beat of the music coming from the Airpod you were sharing with Hyunjin. It was a funny contrast, having Binnie and Innie singing at the top of their lungs to nothing but upbeat songs, while Hyunjin and you listened to slower, calmer ones and quietly stared at the passing scenery outside.

The somewhat balanced atmosphere you all had managed to create was just bound to be disrupted by your best friend at some point.

"I asked you all if you wanted to stop for food before hitting the highway and you said you wanted to have breakfast at the camping site".

Seungmin pouted, childishly sinking against his seat and crossing his arms over his chest. "I wanted to live the full camping experience, but I take it back now, I'm hungry".

"Well, too bad because I'm not stopping until we get there".

Hearing Seungmin whine behind you in what sounded more like a tantrum, you couldn't help but laugh, staring at him through the rearview mirror before your eyes unconsciously fixed on Hyunjin by the window. He was laughing over your best friend's scene too, and his eyes were already on you. You held his stare through the reflection for a moment, enjoying the sight of his smile and the sound of his giggle before you looked down in a poor attempt to calm your racing heart.

Clearing your throat, you reached down to the backpack by your feet and rummaged through it until you found the snacks you had packed that morning before heading out, precisely in case something like this happened.

Without a word, you reached your hand behind your seat, giggling to yourself when you felt the pack of cookies being snatched from your hold not even a second later.

"You're the best, I swear to God" Seungmin managed to say with his mouth already full. "You better be selling these at our coffee shop once we open it".

You chuckled. "I will".

"Wait, those are homemade?" Jeongin asked from the middle seat.

"Mhm…" you nodded, leaning slightly back when he peeked his head through your seat.

"You have more?"

"Take some from Seungm—"

"No way, they're mine" Seungmin growled.

Rolling your eyes, you leaned down to your backpack once more, defeatedly looking for another bag of cookies you had thankfully packed as well.

"These are double chocolate chips," you let Jeongin know as you handed them to him. "Please share them with Hyunjin in case he wants some".

"I do want some!" he stated from behind, having your amused eyes instinctively fix on him through the rearview mirror, right as he eagerly dug his hand into the bag.

"And what about me?" Changbin whined. "You all are lucky I care about your lives and can't just turn around and snatch them from you right now".

You chuckled, reaching your hand behind your seat, and opening your palm. "Minnie".

The sound of his name coming out of your mouth was all it took for a single cookie to be reluctantly placed on it.

"Here," you called Changbin's attention, motioning for him to open his mouth.

"Is it red velvet?" he asked, opening his mouth and taking a bite regardless, as he was ready to eat whatever it was you decided to feed him.

As soon as he tasted them, he dramatically threw his head back and hit the border of the steering wheel.

"Fuck! They're so good".

You laughed, lightheartedly shaking your head at his reaction. Not even ten seconds later, he was opening his mouth again and leaning slightly over your side for you to feed him the remaining of the cookie you had managed to get from Seungmin.

Having fed him and watching him happily munch on it, you leaned back against your seat, closing your eyes to go back to listening to Hyunjin's playlist like you had been doing before this whole cookies situation took place — only for Traitor by Olivia Rodrigo to start playing.

Almost jumping from your seat, you turned around, staring at Hyunjin in utter disbelief while your jaw comically dropped.

"You did not just do that" you accused him.

He chuckled, staring down with a proud smirk at the unlocked phone in his hands as he seemed to look for another song. His point had already been made.

"What happened?" Jeongin wondered.

"Nothing, Hyunjin's just an idiot" you replied, tauntingly squinting your eyes at Hyunjin, only for his smile to grow.

"At least I'm not a traitor" his smile turned into a cynical smirk.

"A traitor why?" Seungmin's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Who's a traitor?" Changbin joined in.

"It's nothing" Hyunjin brushed it off, his eyes never leaving yours.

"Oh, so you guys have reached the internal jokes stage now?"

"Shut up…" you felt the heat reach your face, turning around to sit properly and look ahead to the road.

Olivia’s voice stopped being heard, and it was replaced by Lauv’s, as I Like Me Better began to play. You looked down to your lap and tried to contain your smile. It had been ages since you last listened to that song, and a part of you, the delusional one that was head over heels for Hyunjin, wanted to believe he was dedicating it to you right then.

Looking out the window when you managed to conceal your blissfulness and everyone seemed to already be back in their own world, you decided to just focus on the road and stop giving too much thought to the song choice of his throughout the ride. He was using a playlist after all.

Nevertheless, you couldn’t help your mind from wandering and daydreaming all the way to the camping site, making it hard for you to focus on your duty as the designated human GPS.

You weren't sure if Changbin was right about you and Hyunjin having reached the 'internal jokes stage' yet, but you realised later that day that you had definitely reached some kind of complicity. You couldn't put your finger on when along the journey of the two of you growing closer it happened, but now your eyes would naturally lock whenever someone said anything slightly funny or even questionable. It was as if you wanted, needed, to share even the most minimal and mundane of things with each other.

And you hadn't noticed it was that obvious to everyone else until Hyejin pointed it out when you were setting up your tent later that afternoon. To say you were struggling a little bit was an understatement; it was a tent for three, and usually Minji was there to help set it up as well. You would definitely have some extra room that night.

Still, as focused on finding the correct corner of the fabric to stake it to the ground as she was, Hyejin managed to bring the topic up.

"So, what's going on with you and Hyunjin?"

"What do you mean?" you frowned, letting go of the fabric you were holding onto.

"Oh, come on, I'm not blind" she squinted her eyes. "Something definitely changed between you two".

"I mean, yeah, but…" you shrugged. “We’re just closer now, I guess”.

“I’ve seen the heart eyes, Y/N”.

“As if my heart eyes for him are anything new”.

“I meant his”.

You went silent, feeling your cheeks heat up and your hands shake. To have someone else notice it, too, only made it feel more real.

“You guys need help?” Felix interrupted before you could try and say anything back.

His arm was naturally resting over Hye’s shoulders, and although she visibly appreciated the offer, she settled for an obnoxious roll of eyes.

“We’re not damsels in danger” she playfully shoved his arm off.

Felix snorted. “Maybe not but you guys are clearly struggling here”.

“I could use some help” you admitted, getting a triumphant smile from Lix before he grabbed the fabric you had let go of a minute ago and began to stake it to the ground.

“But what about our girl talk” Hyejin pouted.

“Girl talk?” Felix looked at her with furrowed eyebrows.

She nodded, and just like that his eyes went to you — realisation hitting him in a second.

“Let me guess, you guys are talking about Hyunjin”.

You nearly choked on air. “We're not”.

"We're not?" Hyejin teased you, receiving a glare from you in a heartbeat.

“Ah, you guys can go on then" Felix nodded understandingly, with a glimpse of a smirk curving up his lips. "I already know all about it anyway".

Hyejin raised both hands up in defense when your glare was once again on her. "Don't look at me, remember he's Hyunjin's best friend after all".

Lix's smirk was now on full display. "I know things neither of you two know".

"There's not much to know, though? Right?" you awkwardly fidgeted in your place. "Hyunjin doesn't talk about me, does he?"

Felix and Hyejin exchanged an incredulous look, deciding right then to just leave it there and let you figure it out on your own. They knew you well enough to know you wouldn’t believe any of it unless you heard it directly from Hyunjin; and maybe even then you would still doubt it all.

“Anyway,” Felix shrugged, going back to his previous task. “Let’s set this shit up”.

“Language!” Hyejin reprimanded him.

You laughed at the exchange, going over to Hyejin so you could work together while Felix focused on the other corner of your tent. Even though you could feel their stares on you, you were just glad the topic seemed to be over with.

-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-♡

Turned out that setting up a tent with Felix and Hyejin was just a call to be kicked out of it as soon as it was done, so they could take a nap inside and just like that make you their third wheel. Not like you really cared, for you took a blanket and placed it under one of the trees that were farther away from everyone.

Lying down on it, you used your arms as a pillow while you looked up to the bright green leaves and the rays of sunshine peeking through them. You truly loved this camping site. It was quiet, with enough space for your entire group and the right amount of distance from other campers in the area.

The grass was green and abundant, the trees provided enough shadow for you not to go mad over how hot the summer weather was, and there was a lake only a five-minute walk from there. You would probably go there a little before the sun set; everyone seemed to be too immersed in their own activities to propose a walk to the lake anytime soon.

Seungmin and Jeongin were still setting up their tent, as they had been too busy whining about having to set it up before to actually do it. Chan, Han and Changbin were drinking and chatting the afternoon away, after having managed to clean up and put everything from your lunch away, since they had been chosen to be on cleaning up duty by a very fair game of rock, paper, scissors. Minho was lying on a blanket a few meters from you, scrolling through his phone. Felix and Hyejin were napping; and Hyunjin… you actually had no idea where Hyunjin was.

“Wanna go to the lake?”

As if reading your thoughts, there he was, kneeling on the edge of your blanket as he patiently waited for your answer.

You tilted your head up to look at him, still a bit stunned over both his timing and his suggestion. Nevertheless, you nodded, not having to think twice before you sat up.

“Are the others coming?”

“Nah,” he shrugged, standing up and giving you a hand to help you up as well. “They said they’re going later”.

“Shouldn’t we wait for them then?” you quietly asked.

Hyunjin brought a dramatic hand up to his chest. “If you don’t wanna be alone with me just say so”.

You scoffed, acting just as offended as he was. “That’s not what I said at all?!”

“Then?” he smiled, tilting his head in the lake’s direction.

Rolling your eyes while the biggest of smiles took over your face, you followed him. He knew the way to the lake by heart, you realised, as he seemed to avoid branches you wouldn’t have noticed were there if it weren’t for him dodging them before you. Although maybe it just had to do with the fact that you were too focused on him to pay attention to your surroundings.

After five minutes in which thankfully you made it out intact, you finally reached your destination. You smiled at the view of the crystalline water and the strong reflection of the sun on it, which you had to look away from in order not to be blinded. It looked the same as every other year, and a part of you was happy it remained the same throughout the time.

“Where are you going?” Hyunjin asked, eyebrows furrowing in confusion when you started walking towards the water.

“To lie down?” you answered, in what had seemed like more of a question.

“Not here” he shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Minho and Changbin are fishing here later”.

“So?”

“So, you know how loud those two are when they get frustrated” he reminded you, walking over to you and taking your hand so he could drag you with him. “I came here to recharge”.

Too stunned over the unexpected feel of his strong yet soft hand holding yours, you didn’t even object. You simply let him take you whenever it was he wanted to take you to — heart eyes stuck to the back of his head as he led the way.

“Recharge?” you mocked him regardless.

"Yeah?" he said, as if it was obvious. "Don't you need time to be alone and recharge after being with too many people for too long?"

"It's not even dinner time yet".

"And I'm already drained".

You chuckled at his tiresome remark, but decided to just leave it at that when you reached a bunch of rocks that blocked the way.

“Where exactly are we going?” you wondered, confusedly letting go of his hand when he began to climb them.

"Come here" he called, reaching his hand out for you.

“You want to lay down on top of these rocks?” you questioned, taking his hand nonetheless and allowing him to help you up. “Like, the view might be better, but I’m pretty sure lying down on sand is way better than lying down on a bunch of hard as hell rocks”.

“Oh, hush,” he amusedly shut you up, placing a gentle hand to your back after having let you go first so he could make sure you wouldn’t slip —and that he would catch you in case you did—. “You just keep climbing up and shut that pretty mouth of yours”.

You shut your mouth; not because he told you to, but because his words sounded lovely —although taunting— enough to bring heat to your cheeks and make you forget how to speak altogether.

He could tell the way you were feeling, you realised when you heard a breathy laugh escape his mouth. He was enjoying it too much, but it was fair, considering he wanted to have that kind of effect on you.

Thankfully, the climb up the rocks wasn’t that high, otherwise the tension taking over while his hand remained on your back and his heavy breathing would faintly hit your shoulder every other second, might’ve become too overwhelming for you to survive.

As soon as you reached the top and took a seat to look around, you were confused. You weren’t sure exactly where it was that he wanted you to go to next or even where to look at once up there, so you just turned around to him with knitted eyebrows as he finished climbing up and took a seat next to you. However, after taking what felt like five seconds to catch his breath, he stood up.

“Okay, now let’s go down” he offered his hand once more to help you up.

“What? Like, to the same place we just came up from?”

He chuckled, amusedly shaking his head before he leaned down to grab your upper arm and help you up. “Will you just trust me on this?”

“I mean, you could be taking me to my deathbed right now and I wouldn’t even know”.

He rolled his eyes, carefully guiding you over to the other end of the rocks, so you could begin your two minutes journey down. “Everyone knows you’re with me right now, wouldn’t be really smart for me to murder you”.

“Reassuring” you smiled cynically, earning a throaty laugh from him and a light —actually reassuring— squeeze from his hand.

Without another word, you let him help you on your way down. It was cute how focused he was on making sure you wouldn’t have trouble with it and wouldn’t get hurt, to the point he tripped at one point; thankfully only right before you reached the safety of the ground, so it didn’t really matter.

"What even is this place?" you breathily let out, turning around to finally take a look at your surroundings.

It was only then that you realised what he had meant by ‘alone’ and ‘recharging’. The place he had taken you to seemed to be another shore within the same lake; a much smaller one, which could comfortably fit around five or six people at most.

The rocks formed some kind of fence around a few meters of the lake, which was tall enough to keep people from seeing what was on the other side, and which made most of them —you included— believe that was all there was to it: Just a bunch of rocks.

Only the curious ones who were willing to climb said bunch of rocks for no apparent reason, like Hyunjin, were privileged enough to discover such a gemstone.

"I don't even know, to be honest" Hyunjin laughed, walking up to the spot close to the water where one of the rocks blocked the sun and provided some shadow. "Found it the first time we came here. Minji and I were taking a walk and I felt like climbing all the way up the rocks and came across this place. I don't think anyone knows about it".

"Well, I surely didn't" you confirmed, looking around in awe. It almost felt cozy, like a small fort you would build as a child. "You and Minji did a pretty good job at keeping it from us".

"Oh, Minji doesn't know about it".

You stopped in your tracks, almost not believing your ears. "She… she doesn't?"

"Nope," he shrugged, sitting down on the sand and patting the spot next to him for you to do the same.

When you hesitated, visibly having a hard time believing him, he sighed.

"Why'd you even believe I told her?"

"I mean… Wasn’t she with you?” you questioned, finally sitting down next to him.

He shook his head no. “She didn’t want to climb up with me. I mean, she was wearing a dress, so I guess it’s understandable” a chuckle abandoned his lips, and a bittersweet smile crept up in yours over the fact that he even remembered what she was wearing on the first day you ever came here years ago. “But yeah, I saw this place from all the way up and just kept it to myself. I could use some peace of mind during these trips”.

“You say it like we’re chaotic as hell” you laughed.

“Aren’t you?” he taunted.

You playfully shoved him away. “You should really include yourself in that sentence, Hwang Hyunjin”.

“Nah, I don’t think I belong there” he denied, having a hard time holding his smile. “Which is why I kept this place all to myself this far”.

You bit your lip, concealing a smile not to show how flattered you were to be the first and only person he had ever shared this place with — for not only had he told you about it, but he had taken it upon himself to pull you away from your group of friends and take you all the way here with him.

“Minji would be so mad if she ever found out you kept this from her…”

Hyunjin shrugged, resting his head on yours and making goosebumps form on your skin. “I don’t have to share everything with her”.

“She’s your best friend, though” you pointed out.

“So?” he asked, sitting up. “Do you share everything with Seungmin?”

You stayed quiet. He had a point. You did mainly share everything with him, from your achievements to your failures, and from your happiness to your sadness. But there were still a few things you kept to yourself, like the way you had felt about Hyunjin all along. Yes, he knew you had a bit of a crush on him, and he also knew you had grown closer since Minji left, but your actual feelings for the guy next to you, he had no idea about.

Your feelings for Hyunjin were something you had decided to keep to yourself and deal with on your own. There was too much at stake, and you wanted to believe you’d have enough control over the situation in case things went south. As long as you didn’t tell anyone, even if it was obvious in their eyes, you liked to believe you would be able to just forget about it all at the snap of your fingers.

Hyunjin nodded to himself at your silence — unaware of what was going through your mind yet knowing that just like that he had proven his point.

“Besides, she’s a blabbermouth. She would’ve told everyone else by now”.

You snorted, looking down for a moment to hold your laughter and missing the way his eyes lit up at the sight of you. "I'm telling her you called her that".

"Ugh, don't tell me I brought a snitch to my precious secret spot" he whined, dramatically resting his head on your shoulder. "Is that all, though?"

"Hm?"

"I was supposed to tell her because she's my best friend?"

“No, but…” you stayed quiet for a moment, pondering whether you should say what was at the tip of your tongue or not. "It's just…"

"What is it?" he straightened up, furrowing his eyebrows as he waited for your answer.

"This is such a stereotypical making out spot".

He snorted, disbelief written all over his face. "What?"

"Yeah, like, think of all the couples that have found this place at some point and used it to do their thing".

"Ew," he cringed, glaring at you right after. "You did not just ruin my favourite spot for me".

"I'm just saying," you laughed, playfully shoving away the accusatory finger of his that was pointing at you. "This is like, the perfect making out spot to bring the person you have feelings for".

"I brought you, didn't I?"

Your cheeks were hit by a rush of heat instantly, and not even lowering your head helped you hide from him what his words had done to you.

"Stop…" you lightly shoved him away with your shoulder. "I guess it caught me off guard that you didn't bring her here at some point since you've always been in love with her".

"In love with her?" He looked incredulous; you just nodded. "I'm not, though?"

"Hyunjin…" you murmured, almost begging for him not try and fool you.

"I haven't always been in love with her…" he mumbled, looking down for a second before his eyes locked with yours. "Definitely am not in love with her anymore".

You smiled bittersweetly. "Right".

"I'm not, Y/N" he reassured you.

"Since when?" you wondered.

He said nothing — simply staring into your eyes was enough for you to have your answer.

Whatever was going on between the two of you was unspoken, recent, and therefore he couldn't give you a proper answer without having it turn out as a confession and risking scaring you away.

He wasn't confident enough to verbally confess the feelings he had caught for you this past month yet, but the sincerity in his eyes had managed to give you the answer you were looking for.

Since she left.

Since you and him grew closer together and something changed in the way he saw you.

"Is a month or so really enough to get over your best friend?" you mumbled.

"It's not like I was head over heels in love with her" he mindlessly played with the sand under his hands. "It was just… a little crush".

You laughed under your breath, shaking your head rather weakly as you laid your back on the sand — mentally scolding yourself for not having brought your blanket with you to lie down on.

A little crush. You should know about it.

You were sure just a little crush wouldn't make him look at her the way he did, and it most definitely wouldn't have him unconsciously call her the most beautiful woman his eyes had ever seen.

But you were done arguing with him. In the end, it changed nothing — he did feel some type of way for her before she left; and even after she left, up until you had come up to change that now, apparently.

Besides, no matter how hard you tried to fight it, a part of you believed him. He looked at you different now. He acted different around you. And although you tried not to fall for it, deep down you knew it was already a lost battle.

Not knowing what to say nor what to feel about his advances, you closed your eyes. You could feel him staring at you for a while, yet you were too shy to acknowledge it, until he finally laid down next to you.

"Are we napping now?" Hyunjin asked, changing the topic after getting the hint about you no longer wanting to talk about the whole feelings thing.

"You said you wanted to come here to recharge, didn't you?" you smiled.

Although your eyes remained closed, you felt him smile brightly next to you. "And napping is your way of recharging?"

"Isn't it yours?"

"I just wanted to come here and spend some time with you, if I'm honest".

At that, you opened your eyes. Much to your surprise, his dark brown ones were already focused on you.

"Thank you…" you smiled sweetly.

He looked confused. "What for?"

"For trusting me with your precious secret spot" your choice of words had him rolling his eyes. "I won't tell anyone about it, I promise".

Hyunjin smiled, no longer being able to hold himself back and throwing an arm around your shoulders. You didn't fight back when he pulled you to his chest, if anything, you made yourself comfortable on it.

"In case it wasn't clear, even if you did tell someone, because I can’t really trust you with Seungmin,” his statement earned an incredulous scoff from you. “You're not allowed to come here with anyone else but me".

You chuckled, shaking your head and closing your eyes once more as you relaxed under his touch. "Would never even dream to betray you like that".

-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-♡

"What took you guys so long?" Chan asked as soon as you and Hyunjin arrived back.

The sun had already set a couple of minutes ago, and you were met with an already lit up bonfire while all your friends sat down around it.

You didn't even have the chance to play your late arrival off by silently sitting down until someone noticed you had finally made it back, for all their eyes were fixed on you since the second you reached your camping spot. Not even the few branches you had collected on your way back, to make it seem like you had wandered off together with the intention to collect some for the bonfire, would help you out of this situation.

Having everyone silently questioning you right then, you came to the conclusion that maybe taking a nap wasn't the brightest of your ideas — not when you were a proper five minute walk from your camping spot and hadn't set up an alarm to wake you up from the dream you were having in the arms of the person your heart felt most at peace with.

Hyunjin shrugged, refraining from giving them an actual answer as he nudged you to walk over to them and throw the thin pieces of wood you had collected into the fire, later taking a seat next to each other by it.

"You know what's funny?" Changbin spoke up next to you, with a hint of a smirk already showing on his face. "I'm pretty sure I saw them walking towards the lake, but when Minho and I got there later they were nowhere to be seen".

Once again, all eyes were on you. This time, though, you managed to see some dropped jaws.

"Did you guys get lost in the woods or something?" Han teased, rapidly moving his eyebrows up and down.

"I'm watching you, Hwang" Seungmin glared at him from the other side of the bonfire, earning a laugh from all of you.

Hyunjin raised both hands up, pleading innocence. "I did nothing".

"Did Y/N do something then?" Changbin teased.

You rolled your eyes, pressing a finger to your mouth "Quiet".

"Is that a yes?"

"Oh, my God" you whined, covering your face with both hands in embarrassment.

“Okay, okay. Leave the lovebirds alone” Hyejin came to your rescue — kind of.

“Have you guys had dinner yet?” you tried to change the subject.

“Nice save” Minho saluted you. “But no, we wanted to hang out here for a bit before. It got pretty cold”.

You nodded, silently. As if on cue, a light, cold breeze hit your body, making you hug yourself instinctively before you leaned closer to the fire and reached your hands out in hopes to get warmer.

Your eyes snapped back towards Hyunjin when you felt him leave your side, watching him go to the tent he was sharing with Lix and get something you could not quite tell apart from the distance, given how dark it was over there. When he got close enough to the bonfire again for you to see what he was holding, however, you smiled.

Before the words ‘thank you’ could even leave your mouth, he was placing a blanket over your shoulders and sitting down next to you.

“Anyone else?” Hyunjin asked, holding out a spare blanket he had brought just in case.

“Me!” Hyejin raised her hand from three seats away, reaching for the blanket Hyunjin was now offering her and then throwing it around her body — in the matter of just one second managing to look like a burrito.

“Gotta step up your game, Felix” Han called him out, shaking his head in feigned disappointment.

“Fuck off” he glared at him, only for his girlfriend to laugh next to him and pull him into her embrace.

Felix smiled in adoration, resting his head on Hyejin’s while he made himself cozy under the blanket she had just shared with him.

“I just got called single in like five different languages” Han sulked.

You laughed at the scene playing in front of you. Well, mainly at Han and his antics, for you could only smile and stare in awe at the lovely couple cuddling right there. They were so happy. They had always been happy together, always so unproblematic, and you could only wish to ever be part of a relationship like that.

You didn’t want that with just anyone, though, and the fact that the person you wanted it with was sitting right next to you did not help your case at all.

It was tough to be craving that much intimacy with someone who was right there, yet things weren’t clear enough between the two of you for you to just go for it.

You wanted to be able to do with Hyunijn what Hyejin had just done with Felix. You wanted to just rest your head on his shoulder and pull him into your embrace. You wanted to be close to him in every way possible, feeling his calm breathing next to you as you enjoyed the sight and warmth of the fire.

And maybe you were overthinking way too much, for sharing a blanket while camping was not that deep and it didn’t precisely have to mean anything, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to offer it to him, because, to you, it was that deep and it did mean something.

Silently staring at him as he had by now joined the new conversation you were not paying attention to, you felt your heart melt at the side view of his bright smile.

You didn't know how many minutes had gone by, but at one point you felt him shiver, and then lean towards the fire just like you had done before, as he looked for the warmth of it.

Looking down to the fluffy fabric hugging your body, you felt guilty to have taken his blanket when he clearly needed it too. You knew it was the chance you had been looking for to offer him to share it and that way cuddle him as platonically as you could, but after giving it a second thought you came to terms with the fact that you didn’t have enough courage to do so. Instead, you offered him the whole blanket.

“Huh?” Hyunjin questioned, taken aback when you took it off and handed it to him.

“You’re cold” you stated the obvious, motioning for him to take it.

“So are you” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but it’s your blanket”.

Hyunjin stayed silent for a couple of seconds, eyes going from you to the blanket in your hands and so on. Then, as if a lightbulb had just been lit up above his head, he smiled.

Taking the blanket from your hands, he threw it over your backs, making sure you’d hold onto the other end before he made himself cozier next to you.

“We can share”.

You bit your lip, lowering your head not to show the effect his actions had once more had on you. How could he make it look so simple? Just throw a blanket over your bodies, pull you closer and then say that you could share, like it was nothing?

A part of you was worried he would feel your heartbeat racing, even though your arm was the one leaning against him and not your chest. It was just beating that hard, and you grew even shyer when your eyes locked with Seungmin’s. Somehow, you felt like one look at you and Hyunjin snuggling up —if you could call it that— was all it took for him to figure everything out.

The crush you had told him about months ago, only then was confirmed right in front of his eyes not to only be one simple crush. And most definitely not a one sided one, like you had claimed it was back then.

“Something wrong?” Hyunjin asked quietly, leaning in towards your ear for only you to hear.

You shook your head no, smiling softly before turning your head to him. “Everything’s fine”.

Perfect, actually.

Hyunjin nodded, moving closer to you and hesitatingly bringing his hand up to hover your back. “Is it okay if I…”

Catching on with his intentions when he lightly tapped your back, you hummed in affirmation; tensing up for a second over the unknown feel of his hand on your waist, before you relaxed under his gentle, loving touch. You were nervous, of course, but it would've been odd for you not to ultimately feel at ease when his thumb began to draw small circles on the curve of your waist.

Maybe you got too carried away, or maybe you simply stopped worrying too much, but you found yourself resting your head on his shoulder — not even having time to doubt your own actions before his head was resting on yours.

As cliché as it was, you wished that moment would last forever. It felt so natural, like your head belonged on his shoulder and his hand belonged on your waist. Like you belonged together.

Your friends had silently agreed on not teasing you anymore; just carrying on with the conversation as if seeing you together like that was by now a daily occurrence.

Hyunjin pulled you closer, and with his lips faintly brushing the crown of your head, you began to doze off.

His phone buzzing in his pocket managed to stop you from falling asleep completely. However, he, too, was so immersed in the comfort your touch and warmth brought him, that he didn't even feel it moving directly against his body.

"Your phone" you quietly brought it to his attention.

"What?"

"Your phone's buzzing" you clarified, lightly pressing your legs to his so he could take a hint.

"Oh, right" he finally got it, earning a small laugh from you as he reached into his pocket and took his phone out. "It's Minji".

You couldn't help it, but your body tensed up.

"Minji?" Han asked quite eagerly.

"Isn't it like six A.M. over there?" Hyejin's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Hyunjin shrugged. "She's Facetiming, hold on".

Watching him sit up straight and fix his hair right before taking the call, you moved slightly away from him, putting some distance in between the two of you. That small action of yours didn't go unnoticed by Hyunjin, but he decided to say nothing. It must've been nothing after all, right?

"Hey!" He greeted her cheerfully as soon as her face was on the screen.

"Hello~" Minji answered rather cutely. Your stomach twisted. "How's everyone?"

"Everyone's okay, they're all here, actually" Hyunjin let her know.

That simple statement was all it took for your seats to be taken over by all your friends — all ten of you trying your best to fit on the small screen that Hyunjin was struggling to keep as far as possible from his face, so that everyone could have a look.

Staring at your friend through the screen, you could tell she was just waking up. She was at the other side of the world, after all. But even then, when her hair was still messy and her face was completely bare, she managed to look as endearing as ever.

She looked happy. Tired, of course, given what time it was over there, but happy nonetheless. That same welcoming smile you knew so well was still intact, even while she was being attacked with questions from the entire friend group.

You tried your best not to look at Hyunjin all throughout the conversation. You knew it wouldn't do you any good to see him looking at her — not when you already knew the oh-so-special way he did. That one look in his eyes he only had when it came to her.

You also tried your best not to think of how usual these video calls were. They were best friends, for fucks sake, and they were half a world apart from each other on top of that. If it were you and Seungmin, you knew you'd be calling on a daily basis.

But Hyunjin and Minji were different. And the selfish part of you didn't want to think he was Facetiming her every single day when that seemed to be your thing now.

As stupid as you knew it was, you couldn't stop your head from hurting right then; all because of your own intrusive thoughts.

"We miss you!" Han shouted.

"Yeah, you should call the whole group more often" Chan accused her.

"Oh my God, you should show us around the filming set sometime" Felix excitedly requested.

"Have you met any celebrities?" Jeongin asked.

And the fact that everyone was talking so loudly and eagerly to the phone, as if its microphone wasn't working or something, was definitely not helping your abrupt headache.

"One by one, people. Please" she joked. "I miss you all so much and I will get to you in a minute, but I called Jinnie, so…"

"She said priorities," Minho joked with a roll of eyes. "Let's leave before our dignity hits rock bottom, guys".

Chuckling at his salty remark and watching everyone stand up so they could either go back to their seats or straight up go somewhere else after the bonfire bonding had been interrupted, you hesitated for a moment. Ultimately, however, you stood up too — not being able to decipher the look Hyunjin gave you when you were no longer sitting next to him, and your end of the blanket remained unattended.

Without much thought, you went to the place that felt the most familiar and, therefore, the most comfortable — Seungmin. He was back on his previous seat, mindlessly scrolling through his Twitter feed when you took a seat beside him.

He didn't even budge when you placed your head on his shoulder, silently reading whatever Tweet he decided to stop at.

"You should've brought the blanket" he said plainly when a breeze of cold air hit your bodies, eyes not leaving his phone. "It's cold".

You snorted. "It's Hyunie's blanket. You can go get another one to your tent if you're that cold".

"Just go ask your boyfriend for it, he's giving it to you in a heartbeat".

Your jaw dropped at his nonchalant statement, not minding holding back when you pushed him with both palms and almost made him fall off his chair.

"You're a menace" he accused you, holding onto your upper arm for dear life.

"You started it" you defended yourself.

"Just go get a blanket!" He motioned towards his tent.

"It's your tent, you go".

"Fine! But I swear to God I won't be shar—"

"Um…" Hyunjin's low voice brought your attention to him.

He was awkwardly standing in front of you, folded blanket in his hands while his eyes travelled from you to Seungmin, almost as if pondering his next move.

In the end, they focused on Seungmin.

"You think you can, um…" he nervously cleared his throat. "Leave us to it for a bit?"

Your heart skipped a beat, and your eyes fixed on Seungmin, who was already squinting his eyes in your direction.

The things he had to do for you and the sake of your romantic life.

Standing up without another word and with a quick glance to Hyunjin, he went over to Jeongin and Chan, who were busy chugging two of the beer cans you had no idea were there to begin with. Next to them was Hyejin, who was now holding Hyunjin’s phone as you supposed she was the next to talk to Minji one-on-one.

You frowned. You would’ve thought Minji’s conversation with Hyunjin would go on for ten minutes at least. Had it only been two minutes? Three at most?

Hyunjin took a seat next to you, placing the blanket around your body. His hands remained on your shoulders, tenderly massaging them before he rested his head on yours. You pouted, leaning into his body and burying your face on the crook of this neck.

"Why'd you leave?" he asked.

You shrugged, unintentionally tickling his neck and making goosebumps show up on his skin.

"Hm?" he pushed it, gently nudging you.

"Didn't wanna interrupt" you replied quietly.

"Interrupt?"

"Yeah, like… Minji called you, so…"

"She just wanted to tell me about what happened at the studio today and the instructions the director was giving, you know, to give me some tips since I aim to get there at some point".

You smiled weakly, being reminded of how even when it came to their careers they were a better fit than you and him. An actress and a film producer. It was a match made in Heaven.

"It's not like we were talking about anything top secret" he tried to reassure you when you wouldn't reply.

"No, but…" you sighed. "I don't know".

“Tell me”.

“It would’ve just… We were being way too cozy, and she was watching, I didn’t want to have her think that we’re—you know…”

Hyunjin frowned, looking down to his fidgeting hands on his lap. “But we are, though… Aren’t we?”

You looked up at him in surprise, and he could feel his heart flutter at the sight of your shining, incredulous eyes.

“We are?” you asked in a whisper.

“Do you…” he bit his lip, silently looking for the right words. “Do you really think I’m in love with her?”

You shrugged, sitting up and leaning away from him.

“Y/N…”

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, it’s always been so obvious”.

“It was nothing, though”.

You snorted at that, shaking your head in disbelief while you focused on one of the trees in front.

“I mean it,” he reassured you, cupping your chin and guiding your face in his direction, giving you no choice but to look at him and feel your breath get caught in your throat over how little distance separated your face from his. “Whatever silly crush I had on her is gone by now”.

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me”.

“But I do,” he disagreed. “I do need to explain myself if it’s gonna jeopardize my relationship with you”.

“R-Relationship?” you whispered again, this time almost inaudibly.

"I mean, not like—I know we don't," he panicked, and you couldn't help but smile ever so faintly at the way his eyes opened wider than usual and his cheeks became a bright pink. "I'm just—in the future maybe, like…"

"Like…" you trailed off, giving him the little push he needed to go on.

Hyunjin took a deep breath. His hands were no longer cupping your face, but nervously shoved into his pockets instead. Suddenly, he had lost all the sudden confidence he previously had when it came to making it clear to you that he no longer wanted anything to do with Minji.

But he wanted things to be clear between the two of you. He wanted you to know that whatever it was he once felt for her, was now gone.

He wanted you to know he wanted you.

So, earning back every ounce of confidence he once had, he took his hands out of his pockets and held yours in them — his thumbs ever so tenderly caressing your soft skin, staring at them with the softest of smiles before his eyes went back up to your already elated ones.

“I like you, Y/N” he confessed. “I really, really like you".

"You do?" you murmured, not believing your ears.

"Mhm…" he nodded, feeling shyness hit him like a truck all over again yet refusing to let it take control over him. "I want to give us a try, I want to be with you, and… I just, I don’t want you to believe I'm stuck on Minji when I'm not".

You looked down to your lap and simply nodded, silently — visibly enough for him to know you heard him, yet not confidently enough for him to think you trusted him.

Everything he had just said was exactly what you wanted to hear. He wanted to be with you. Not her, you. He liked you, and wanted to give your relationship a try. Then why was your gut not allowing you to feel as happy as you should be?

"Can you please say something?" he whispered, nervously biting on his bottom lip.

"I, I don't…"

"You don't like me back?" he assumed; defeat clear in his eyes.

"No, I do!" you clarified embarrassingly fast, not even getting to feel ashamed about it after seeing the way his whole face lit up. "I do. I do like you".

He laughed under his breath, blissfully — thumbs still drawing circles in the palms of your hands, only this time it felt playful.

"What's stopping us then?" Hyunjin asked.

You shrugged, letting out a sigh as you looked up to the sky. "It's not even been two months since she left…"

He sighed heavily, cupping your face with one of his hands and making you look at him once more. "I know it seems like too little time, but I fell so hard so fast for you, Y/N. I can't even understand it either, but I did".

"What about when she comes back…"

"Does it matter?" He tilted his head in confusion. "I'll be with you, nothing's gonna change".

"She's coming back in five months," you pointed out, a small smirk curving up your lips. "You really think we'll last that long?"

Hyunjin giggled, resting his forehead on yours and smoothly pulling you closer to him by firmly placing a hand on your back.

"I think we'll last longer than that, actually".

That did it for you. Those confident words coming out of his mouth, his lips only inches from yours and his strong hand on your back, were all it took for you to shut down every rational part of your mind and to let your heart take over instead.

You wanted to be with him, and he wanted to be with you. So what if he used to have feelings for your mutual friend; it didn’t have to be so complicated.

And maybe, in the long run, that had been your biggest mistake. Pushing all your worries aside and just diving into your feelings for him. Rushing into things. Letting go of your inhibitions that night and never looking back from a decision you made in the heat of the moment.

Your biggest mistake was forgetting about the reason you were sitting all the way across from your previous seats around the bonfire to begin with, and why Hyunjin had come up to you in order to comfort you and reassure you of the way he felt for you.

The reason of all your insecurities was currently at the other side of the world, and Hyunjin was all the way over here with you. It was just that easy to forget about your concerns when the cause of them was nowhere near. Especially when the person your heart was crazy about was holding you so close.

Chuckling at those words that had made you risk it all, you placed your hands on his chest and softly nuzzled his nose. "You think so?"

"What, you wanna bet?" He challenged with a raised eyebrow.

You shook your head no immediately, as a laugh escaped your throat. And with each shake of your head, you moved closer to him — until there was no more space between your mouths, and your puckered lips were softly pressing on his receptive ones.

They felt just like everything you had ever dreamed of, but better. They tasted sweet, just like him; and they somehow felt even softer and plumper than they looked.

With your heart speeding up in such a way you had not felt in so long, you pulled away, feeling your cheeks burn up while your face remained buried in his neck in a poor attempt to hide from what you had just done.

"Oh, no. No," he warned you, tilting his head towards your hidden face and placing his hand on your neck — gently, yet strong enough to manage to make you look up at him. "You don't get to kiss me and then pull away before I get a proper taste of you".

His lips were trapping your bottom one before you could even register his words. He pulled you in closer, hand travelling from the back of your neck to the side of it, so that he could hold you still while his thumb was faintly pressing on your throat.

He deepened the kiss in no time, tilting his head to the side right as his tongue traced your bottom lip for you to open up. Once you did, he was greatly met by yours in the middle — tenderly massaging each other for a brief moment, before you focused back on sucking and teasing your needy lips.

"Did this answer your question?" he whispered against your mouth.

Too far gone in the sensation of his addictive lips on yours and the way his hot breath hit your mouth as it mixed with your own, you struggled to find your voice. "W-What even was the question?"

Hyunjin giggled, louder this time. Both hands cupped your cheeks, and his thumbs tickled your bottom lip as they faintly traced it. "You're so cute".

You looked down, not being able to hold his stare after hearing such a statement come out of his swollen, pink lips. Hyunjin laughed under his breath at the sight of it, planting a soft kiss on your forehead before he pulled you into his arms and fixed the blanket that was sliding down your shoulders.

"Are you two lovebirds done exchanging saliva?" Minho asked from the table a few meters away, mindlessly opening a red cooler.

Hyunjin rolled his eyes, and you shyly buried your face in the crook of his neck like it was oh-so-natural by now.

"Is that a yes?"

"What do you need?" you reluctantly gave in.

"You're literally the only person apart from me who knows how to properly fillet a fish, so…"

You sighed, sitting up and giving Hyunjin a lingering, apologetic look before you stood up.

"I can help, too" he stood up immediately after you, leaving the blanket by your chairs and following behind you.

"I actually need your help chopping the veggies" Hyejin caught him by his t-shirt before he could even reach your side.

"But I can help Y/N cut th—"

"You don't even know how to cut a fish" Hye mocked him.

"No, but—"

"Just give it up, lover boy" Seungmin shut every hope of his down, placing a firm hand on his shoulder and dragging him with them to the other end of the table. "Come join those of us on veggies duty, Y/N's not going anywhere".

Throwing one last glance your way and watching you fold up your sleeves right before you got to helping Minho, Hyunjin smiled. He wished you weren't interrupted because of veggies and fish duty, and therefore you could still be sitting down by the bonfire, all alone, making out like he then realised he was desperate to.

But Seungmin was right. You were not going anywhere. For as long as he stayed by your side, and for as long as he made you feel safe enough in your relationship, you would stay.

For as long as you knew he was yours and you were his, you were not going anywhere. And he planned to keep it that way, so there was truly nothing for him to worry about, right?

tag list: @brinnalaine @slut4colinbridgerton @sherryblossom @svintsandghosts @phenomenalgirl9 @meloncremesoda @jxcesstuff @nhyunn @armystay89 @mal-lunar-28 @143hyunes @seungminstaehyun @cutiespaghetti @chaotic-world-of-the-j @its-me-hyunjin @kwanisms @hyunfruits

#skz #stray kids #hyunjin #skz imagines #stray kids imagines #hyunjin imagines #skz fanfic #stray kids fanfic #hyunjin fanfic #skz scenarios #stray kids scenarios #hyunjin scenarios #skz x reader #stray kids x reader #hyunjin x reader

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the-final-sif · 1 year

Note

I still REALLY WANT dsmp s2 ;-;

I'll be honest, as much as I enjoy the thought of DSMP S2, I'm actually a lot happier that Dream is putting it down for now, with the idea that it might happen at some point in the distant future.

Like, there's a lot of things at play here.

First and foremost, just on a motivation and mental health perspective, it was pretty clear that DSMP was a really big drain for Dream. After Techno passed away, Dream was essentially carrying all of the major plotlines in some fashion or another. It was obviously really hard for him to do and keep up with, and I'm glad he's putting that down for now.

Second, it's really hard to not take into account how Techno's passing influenced how all of them see the SMP. Lots of different lore SMPs have gone through player changes, but the DSMP is the only one I know where a streamer actually died during it. That can make it really hard to go back to on an emotional level. And I absolutely get why that would play a part in demotivating/making a S2 difficult.

Third, the DSMP was kind of stopping Dream from being able to do other things. It was eating up a lot of his time, and if he tried to work on another major project, join another SMP run by someone else, etc, he was gonna get hounded about why he wasn't working on x plotline on the SMP. Putting it down lets him go do other things without that pressure. And honestly I'm really excited to see the other things he wants to do.

Fourth, I'm going to be entirely honest, I think the DSMP was due for a culling even if there was a S2. There are a number of people on there who got invited at various points that didn't really fit in with the server anymore. Dream moving onto other projects, possibly starting or joining other SMPs, etc. All of that means he can pick and chose who he invites to stuff, bring in new friends and not invite people who he isn't close to and who don't seem to want to spend time with him. I think that's much healthier, and it's something I'm excited for. I want Dream to be able to go back to just playing with his friends.

Fifth, kind of as a cumulative...

The amount of pressure and weight that the DSMP put on Dream in particular, what with how much of the story revolved around him, how other streamers would constantly need him for storylines but wouldn't go start ones without him, how people blamed him for everything that they didn't like, etc, etc. Particularly when Dream didn't even stream or make videos for the SMP. He was doing a shit ton of work for other people, and getting a ton of shit thrown his way for anything people didn't like. And for what?

It was honestly kind of an unfair set up. Particularly with how much people loved to blame Dream for things, or act like he was the only one who had any say in anything. When things go weird/not how fans wanted in the Last Life SMPs, you don't see everyone blaming Grian for it as if he's the only person who has any say. But somehow with the DSMP, Dream took a ton of shit for things that were clearly outside of his control or relying on other people.

All of this accumulated in Dream being very trapped in what he did. Something that's really bad for people with ADHD who tend to do best when we can have several different projects to move between. And who don't tend to do well when there's a lot of pressure for them to work on one specific thing that they may not want to work on.

Dream and the others putting down DSMP S2 for now means that Dream gets to work on stuff he'll actually enjoy. It means he'll get to focus on spending time and energy on people he actually enjoys spending time with. People who are his friends, and not people he hasn't talked to in over a year. He'll get to create brand new things, new SMPs, new characters. And hopefully he'll get to join in other people's projects too! Where less of the workload is on him!

I'm excited for that. I'm excited for Dream to get to do stuff he's always wanted to do, and get to move on to new projects.

I know some people are gonna be really sad about that, but honestly, I'm not. I'm excited to see where Dream ends up going, and what sort of stuff he creates. You might even find that it fills a similar space in your heart to what DSMP S2 might've. Who knows?

#sif answers #Anonymous #dreamwastaken #dream smp season 2 #dsmp #dream smp #dream smp s2

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richonnesbitch · 5 days

Note

hey babe! I was wondering what do you think Rick’s best friendships are (besides the obvious Daryl) and what about Michonne?

And other than each other of course

Great question!

To be honest, I haven't seen the original show in a while but if I remember correctly Aaron was a great friend to both Rick and Michonne! Aaron supported Rick throughout his choice not to fight against the saviors while most people were really against it. Rick even opened up to him about how Michonne disagreed with his choice, which is a big thing for Rick to do imo. And also Aaron supported Michonne when everyone was against her for not letting new people into Alexandria! Again my memory may be wrong but I think he was the only one to defend Michonne at that meeting about the Kingdom and their fair? He said something along the lines of "We put Michonne in charge of security for a reason. Her judgement has saved us time and time again."

Michonne has had many friends but sadly they all died. Btw, I don't include Andrea has a great friend. She chose a warm bed over a friend. Some of her great friends would include Carl, Siddiq, Nat, Bailey and Aiden! I think her and Rosita also had a good friendship but we never really got enough focus on it, sadly. Carl and Nat were definitely her BESTEST friends though. They were always very protective and supportive of her and its heartbreaking she lost that.

Anyway this is why I'm so glad Rick and Michonne have each other again. I can't help but think about how when Rick was having Lori hallucinations literally everyone thought he was crazy. Remember the one person who didn't? Michonne. She told him it was normal and even tried comforting him by telling him she went through something similar with talking to her dead boyfriend. And I think it worked because Rick made a little joke about it with her right after. And when Michonne was out looking for Rick everyday and believing he was still alive and needing her, everyone thought she was crazy. Everyone thought she was crazy for not letting new people into Alexandria or wanting to help the kingdom with their fair. But personally I think if Rick was there, he would have done the same. He would have done whatever it takes to keep his children safe and alive, even if it meant closing out the rest of the world to Alexandria. He would have supported Michonne every step of the way and absolutely no one would have talked down on her leadership had he been around. Rick trusts her judgement and guidance wholeheartedly. And he also understands wanting to protect his children more than anything. I really love that quote about them loving each other because they both understand each other's craziness. It's just part of their beauty.

#michonne grimes #rick grimes #richonne #the walking dead #twd #the ones who live #towl

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cowgurrrl · 1 year

Text

I Know the End

Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!reader (plus platonic Ellie Williams x fem!reader but we focus more on Ellie in this fic)

Author's note: I didn't know how to end this but I kinda love it how it is!!

Summary: "We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster that we go bankrupt by the age of 30 and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything— what a waste." - Luca Guadanino, Call Me by Your Name aka you and Ellie talk about what's important [2.1k]

Warnings: a little bit of backstory, Ellie being a disaster lesbian, fluff, a time jump of sorts (Ellie is 18 and Charlie is 2)

It only took a whole day of running around with Dina and Ellie, but you've never seen Charlie fall asleep so fast. You were exhausted, and Joel had to run errands and then patrol, but Charlie begged to go outside in the spring sunshine the moment she woke up. Dina was supposed to come over and hang out with Ellie alone, but when she heard Charlie's two-year-old demands, she changed their plans. "Let's go to the park!" Dina agreed, much to Charlie's excitement and Ellie's confusion. You watched as Ellie looked at Dina when she wasn't looking, something familiar shifting behind her eyes before she pushed it away.

They left to go to the park and were out all day. Charlie was half-asleep in Dina's arms when they finally came back, but that didn't stop her from clinging to Dina when you tried to take her. Before the infamous Charlotte Miller pout could take full effect, Dina leaned back so she could look at her. "How about you tell Ellie to invite me over more often so we can play? We don’t even need to hang out with stinky Ellie if you don’t want to.” She said, and Charlie laughed, letting you take her from Dina's arms. Ellie blushed and rolled her eyes at Dina's teasing, but there was no heat behind it. You wonder if you and Joel were as obvious as Ellie and Dina are. Charlie was asleep in bed not even thirty minutes later, absolutely exhausted from her girl's day out.

When you walk back downstairs, you find Ellie sitting on the porch, watching the last bits of sunshine disappear behind the mountains. Her shoulders are relaxed, and she seems lighter. She doesn't jump when you step onto the porch to join her. Her eyes are stunning in the sunlight, all golden brown and happy. You look out at the purple and pink rays as they shine across the green fields and take a deep breath.

"Charlie said she had fun with you and Dina today." You say, sitting next to her, and she smiles.

"Good, I'm glad," she says. "We had a lot of fun with her." You turn to look at her and see that same blush invading her cheeks. You smile and turn your attention to the chipping paint on one of the chairs Joel built.

"So, you and Dina-"

"Don't." She cuts you off before you can even start, and you laugh. She looks at you like you're crazy, but you shake your head and pull your legs up to your chest.

"You're an adult. You're allowed to have your own life. I just… would like to be in on it." You say. She sighs and rubs her eyes, the wheels in her head spinning so much that you swear you can hear them.

"It's complicated," she admits, and you smile. You remember the number of times you gave the same answer to Tess when she asked about you and Joel. Saying it was complicated allowed her to fill in the gaps you were too scared to even look at. "What?"

"Nothing. You just sound like someone I used to know."

"Can I ask you a question?" She asks, and you nod. "How did you... know that you loved Joel?"

"That's a big question," you admit. She winces and opens her mouth to retract it, but you stop her. "Have I ever told you about how we met? Or what we were like in the beginning?" You ask, and she shakes her head. You look at your wedding band as you trace your memories back to the very beginning and almost laugh at how stupid you two were.

"I met Tess first. She got me out of some trouble with FEDRA, and I owed her a favor. One day, she asked me to do a drop with her smuggling partner. I don't remember what her reasoning was, but I agreed. He hated me. He'll say he didn't, but he did. He thought I was a rat and wanted nothing to do with me."

"Why did he think you were a rat?"

"Because I was." You admit, and Ellie furrows her brows in confusion.

"Wait, what?"

"I had a kid at home that I needed to feed, and I was desperate, so I did the shitty FEDRA jobs, smuggling, raiding, whatever. I made a good amount of money. Not enough to make us rich, but enough for me to keep her alive and buy ammunition when it came through," you say. "When Jane died, I just… kept doing it. I had nothing else to live for, and that kind of hopelessness is a hot commodity in QZs. It makes you deadlier, more ruthless, quicker. People wanted to hire me to do their dirty jobs because they knew I could do it and not flinch."

"I never knew that." She says, and you nod, but you don't look at her. You focus on the chipping paint and how it feels under your nails when you pick at it. "Did you kill innocents?"

"I never asked about the targets, but yeah, probably. Joel's done things like that, but he never got as deep as I did. I think he hated me because he saw how similar we were, and it scared him, but we made a great team. We kept doing runs, and we barely spoke for the first few times but then... I don't know," you shrug, looking up from the paint. "Something changed. I started caring about him, and he started caring about me, but we never talked about it. We just existed together. It annoyed the shit out of Tess, but I think she knew we had to work it out one way or another. When she died, we were both lost. She was our lynchpin. She kept us together and focused. She made us a team,"

"But then we started traveling with you, and he started opening up. We started talking, like really talking, for the first time. We talked about our daughters, our pasts, everything. I saw a different side of Joel that I had never seen before, and I realized how much I loved him. I think I fell in love with him years before that but didn't realize or didn't let myself feel it," you chuckle and shake your head. Ellie's eyes haven't left yours since you started talking. You imagine her brain moving as fast as possible, trying to put the pieces together. "The fucking apocalypse happened. You would think that would make people want to admit their feelings before it's too late, but not us. It took years for us to admit we loved each other. We wasted so much time. And even now that we're married and have you and Charlie, I still wonder how our lives would be different if we had been honest sooner." You look at her pointedly, and she sighs.

"Is this the part where you tell me that love is all we need to heal or whatever bullshit?"

"No, this is the part where I tell you exactly what I said to Joel years ago," you plant your feet on the porch and turn to look at her fully. "Something terrible happened to you. A lot of terrible, awful things happened to you, and I'm sorry. But you don't need to keep punishing yourself for the past. You are worthy of all the love in the world, and someone is here, willing to give it to you. Don't fuck it up." She doesn't say anything. She just nods. You smile and reach for her hand, her fingers cold to your touch.

"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, but I know Dina would be lucky to be loved by you. Any person would be. And when you're ready to bring the person you love home to us, I promise to love them as much as you do, okay?" You ask, and she squeezes you with tears in her eyes.

"Okay." She agrees. You don't say anything more. You don't need to. You just squeeze her back and take in the last bits of sunshine, watching Joel slowly appear over the hill. You laugh together at how small he looks, and Ellie says something about him getting slower as he gets older. You manage to pull it together once he’s close enough to hear, and he smiles seeing you two together.

"Hey there, cowboy." You call as Joel starts walking up to the porch. He walks over and kisses you before walking over and kissing Ellie's forehead.

"What are y'all doing out here?" He asks, squeezing Ellie's shoulders as he stands behind her. She swats at him, making him laugh, but he stays nearby.

"Talking," Ellie answers.

"'Bout what?"

"Us." You say.

"Uh oh."

"When do you think you realized you were in love with me?" You ask, and he smiles.

"From that very first day."

"Bullshit, Miller!" You yell. Thank God Charlie is the world's heaviest sleeper; otherwise, she'd be wide awake. "You were so mean to me when we did that drop."

"You were just as mean as I was."

"I guess that's true," you say. "God, Tess was so annoyed at us."

"She always said that she was gonna lock us in a room one day and not let us out until we figured out what was wrong." He says, and you smile as a pang of bittersweetness hits you. If it weren't for Tess, you would've never met Joel, and you definitely wouldn't have learned to love him without those late-night conversations with her.

"Did she ever do it?" Ellie asks.

"No, but she sent us on more drops together. Somehow, I think that was her way of forcing us to like each other."

"Man, she was the coolest."

"She was," you say as you look at Ellie. "She really cared about you." She nods, unsure what to do with that information but taking it in anyways. Ellie looks at you, probably knowing you would be easier to persuade than Joel.

"Is it okay if I stop by Dina's?" She asks, and you smile.

"Be home before the sun comes up, please." You say, still trying to set boundaries with her but also trying to let her be an adult. She's out of the chair and down the porch stairs before you can blink. Joel follows her movement with a confused look but doesn't try to stop her. You walk over to him and wrap your arms around his neck. He snakes his hands around your waist and pulls you close enough to smell his shampoo.

"Didn't they just hang out all day?" He asks, and you laugh.

"She's gotta go do something important. I'm sure she'll tell us about it later," you say. "How was your day?"

"Better now that I'm home." He says as he kisses you, and you roll your eyes.

"Cheesy."

"Do I get to ask you when you realized you were in love with me now?"

"Oh, I know the exact moment I realized."

"You do?" He asks with a pray, do tell look on his face, and you nod.

"Yep. It was my birthday, and I didn't want a big fuss, but you and Tess remembered. You got us out of the QZ and took us to one of the old buildings with a picnic that Tess made, and we watched the sunset over Boston. You traded something expensive for a nice bottle of wine, and we passed the bottle back and forth, and I looked at you as the sun was setting, and I remember thinking, "oh, fuck. I think I love him," You tell him, still seeing the moment clearly in your head after so many years.

"Do you remember the night we had to spend outside the QZ because we got caught up in a deal, and it was too dangerous to sneak in with all the soldiers?" Joel asks, and you nod. It was still early on in your relationship. At least two years before you realized you loved him. The leaves were just starting to change as fall approached, and he let you sleep with his jacket on because you were shivering so much. It was the first act of kindness he'd ever shown you. "That's when I realized I was in love with you." He finally answers, and love blossoms in your chest. He's staring at you with those big, brown eyes Charlie got from him, and you think you would do everything over again. You know you would do everything over again.

"So, you fell in love first." You tease.

"Oh, big time."

🍓

taglist: @evyiione @nyotamalfoy @abbyhaslongshorts

#the last of us #joel and ellie #joel miller #joel miller x reader #the last of us x reader #ellie williams #joel miller fic #joel tlou #joel miller the last of us #ellie and dina #look for the light #the last of us hbo #ellie the last of us #joel miller fluff #joel miller x female reader

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marvel-starwarsfangirl · 3 months

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"The Return" thoughts

I said it earlier after my first viewing, but this episode proves why Crosshair is such a compelling character. I love him so so much and I realize that I resonate with him deeply.

I also love how the title of this episode can refer to multiple things be it characters, locations, or ideas. It really is a perfect fit.

Spoilers below

I have no words for how beautiful and perfect this episode is. Although I would've liked to see Crosshair being accepted back by his brothers in that cliffhanger, I was still overjoyed to see him finally on Pabu. He finally gets to experience island life. Unfortunately, his hand is still acting up. After today's episode, I genuinely believe that his tremors are a result of physical damage combined with psychological factors. His identity has been ripped apart, he's lost so much, and his turmoil regarding his brothers still lingers. The moment where his hand trembles at Hunter's words solidified that for me.

AND ECHO RETURNED! I missed him so much and it's relieving to see that he's doing well. Mama Echo is home. I love how he's written in this episode as well. Echo is someone who has a strong set of values that he follows and believes in to his core. This makes him a great mentor/parental figure and to see that here was amazing. He's always there to break up Cross and Hunter's fights and he gives Omega sound wisdom and advice. He validates her feelings but also acknowledges that she did make the right choice in escaping. I assume he's older than the Batch which also makes sense in why he can parent them so well. He's the voice of reason and the braincell carrier.

Overall, I really enjoyed the action and plot of this episode. When Crosshair mentioned he knew a place that could bypass the imperial encryption, I had a feeling of where he was talking about. Still, to see the outpost consumed by the environment of Barton IV hits hard. Of course, nothing prepared me for seeing Mayday and the other clones' helmets. Seeing Crosshair set the helmets up as a sign of respect hit hard. Aside from that, the episode does a great job of letting Crosshair and Hunter try and reconnect. It isn't easy due to their avoidant natures. However, both still relied on each other when danger struck.

Looking back, I'm glad they got the reunion of Omega and Crosshair taken care of so they can focus on finding Tantiss and freeing the other clones. I thought we'd get a whole season of just Hunter, Wrecker, and Echo wandering around while Cross and Omega are stuck. Now, we get new dynamics and seeing the bonds between brothers reborn.

Crosshair and Omega still continues to be an amazing duo. He loves her so much and is so comfortable around her. Omega playfully calling him "little brother" and his smile is so sweet. I still think Cross is the baby of the family. There were also moments when Cross sounded like Tech when he yells and it honestly makes me buy into the fanon idea that they're twins. Anyways, Omega still supporting her (big) little brother is so endearing. Same with Wrecker and him returning the armor to Crosshair. So touching. And the hug! Crosshair finally got a hug and I'm so happy.

Now, Hunter and Crosshair. I loved how their relationship was handled. Both distrust each other and lash out due to lack of communication. That being said, both of them didn't hesitate to rescue the other when danger struck. They still love each other deep down and I'm glad they came to an understanding at the end. There's much to work on, but they're moving forward.

(also Batcher is best emotional support dog!)

(also also, seeing Crosshair's crestfallen face at the mention of Tech hit the feels)

#star wars #the bad batch #tbb crosshair #tbb omega #tbb hunter #tbb wrecker #tbb echo #tbb spoilers

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givemea-dam-break · 1 year

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hi my love, can you do anthony lockwood x reader

possibly with prompt 17 or 24 from the angst list?!? ive been craving some lockwood angst recently and i love your fics so who else could i ask to fulfill my needs

a/n: yes yes yes i have been dying for angst it’s my favourite thing to write. i'm so glad you like my fics! feeling honoured rn. this is shorter than some of my other fics, but i hope you like it!

warnings: angst, language prompts: "You're not my friend anymore, remember?" and "You left, you left, and now you have the gall to come back like nothing happened." gn reader

Your day couldn't have gone worse.

Originally, your plans for your first day off in weeks had been to spend your time in the library nearby, listening to the rain on the tall windows as you read in your favourite seat before stopping off to grab a takeaway on your way home.

Of course, things can never go to plan in a world haunted by ghosts.

To preface, the Visitors aren't the problem, not today at least.

You've reached a particularly good chapter of your book when things start to go wrong. You're completely content just reading away, sipping on some tea in your travel mug, when a shadow looms over the pages, making it hard to read.

Looking up, slightly irritated, you say, "Hey, do you mind moving, please?"

Then you see the face, and the irritation melts into something more: fury.

Anthony Lockwood stands before you, soaked with rain and dripping all over the floor. His hair, usually neatly brushed, looks like a wet rat, and his cheeks are flushed from the November chill. From the way he smiles, they remind you a little bit of apples. You like apples considerably more than you like him.

"What do you want?" you ask.

Lockwood points at the free chair next to you. "Can I sit?"

"Absolutely not."

"Right." He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat. "Can we talk?"

"Also, no," you say, returning your attention to the book. "Goodbye."

A sigh. "(name), please, it's important."

"Important enough to bug me on my only day off? No, I don't think so."

You hope for a moment that he'll turn and walk away, but this is Anthony bloody Lockwood, and when does he ever listen to you? He moves, sinking into the seat beside you, and crossing his legs. You make a point of ignoring him, continuing to read the last paragraph you were on.

"We need your help."

No response. You keep on reading.

"(name), please. It's a big case, and we could really use your Talent."

Again, you ignore him, silently mouthing the words as you read them. Your focus on him strays, and for a minute it's as if he's no longer there, but the scent of bitter tea and citrusy shampoo lingers, taunting you.

Swiftly, you shut your book and stand, grabbing your bag. The action seems to shock Lockwood, and his daze gives you enough time to slip the book back into its slot on the shelves and storm out of the library.

Alas, Lockwood has long legs and catches up momentarily.

"I don't want to talk to you," you grumble, pulling your hood over your hair as you step out into the rain.

"I know, and that's my fault, but, please, listen this once. We -"

"Need my help. Yeah, I got that." Squeezing through a crowd of kids heading into the library, you continue, "But, thing is, I'm not an agent anymore. And, even if I was, you're not my friend anymore, remember? You gave up that right months ago. I wouldn't help you even if my life depended on it."

That stops him short. You keep on walking, arms crossed tightly over your chest.

"You're not an agent anymore?" he asks, catching up once more.

You scoff. "Haven't been since that last case we went on, and I don't plan on becoming one again."

Judging from his expression, he hasn't taken the news lightly. He almost looks betrayed, and that makes you want to strangle him. He's got no right.

"Why not?"

"Because," you say, stopping at the side of the pavement, out of the way of other people, "you left. You left me there, Lockwood. And now you have the gall to come back like nothing happened! You don't just do that."

His frowns. "I didn't leave you."

You want to scream at him, to pull your hair out. It feels like you're about to explode from the rage you're feeling.

"Yes, you left. I was left in that goddamn maze of a mansion by myself while you and George, what? Went to go have some celebratory doughnuts? Not all of the sources were secured, Lockwood. I almost died trying to get out of there."

"I didn't -" His face blanches, and he looks like he's going to be sick. "We thought we'd secured them all."

"Well, you didn't. Want to know why I didn't go back to Portland Row for a week before getting my stuff? I was in the hospital recovering from ghost touch. Took my a month to regain full use of my right arm, you know. I almost lost my arm, in fact. But you didn't ask, you just stood and watched as I packed my stuff."

That makes him angry. "What was I meant to do? There was no stopping you."

"I wanted you to try," you say, and your voice wavers. His expression softens. "If you'd tried, I might've stayed. I might've forgiven you. But you just watched. You never asked me where I was for that week. No, you were busy revelling in your success and hiring other agents."

"We needed another agent, anyways."

"You should've checked on the one you had!" Your breathing is heavy, and your head hurts from the myriad of emotions swirling around. "I'm not - I'm not doing this right now. Today was meant to be a good day. Goodbye, Lockwood. Don't come see me again."

You start to walk away, but his hand clasps around your wrist. Scowling, you tug it from his grip, looking at him incredulously.

"I'm sorry, (name)," he says. In his defence, he's being genuine, but that doesn't mean that you're having any of it. "I am. About all of it. Please, can we talk it out?"

Thank god for the rain, because it hides the tears in your eyes. "No. I - I'm going home, and you're going to leave me alone. I don't want to see you again."

Lockwood's jaw goes slack. "Please, I'm sorry. I can't lose you."

"The minute you left me alone on that case, you lost me," you say. "I don't care how sorry you are. It does nothing. It doesn't stop me from seeing the moment I almost died every night when I sleep. It doesn't change the fact that I don't trust you anymore."

"(name) -"

"I pray that your new agent, Lucy, 'the Superstar' - that's what you called her on live TV, right? - I pray she doesn't have the same fate. I hope things work out well for you, Lockwood, truly, but that doesn't mean we'll ever be friends again. Now, I'm going home."

"Please don't go." His voice is a little shaky. It's the most emotion you've seen from him other than that fake smile he gives to the press. "Please, I'll do better."

You shake your head. Then, wordlessly, you turn and make your silent, miserable trek home.

#lockwood x reader #anthony lockwood x reader #lockwood and co x reader #lockwood and co fanfiction #lockwood and co #lockwood and co netflix #anthony lockwood #george karim #lucy carlyle #fanfiction #x reader #givemea-dam-break

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whispangleblogger · 9 months

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I am not somebody that hops onto the "comic discourse" a lot. I usually prefer to talk things through with my friends and share opinions in private.

But since Tangle more or less got ignored so far i take the chance and talk a bit about her appearance in 64

She jumps in as a supportive character towards Whisper and helps her to prevent another breakdown. While yes, there was a scene in Urban Warfare that did the exact same thing, i feel like with issue 64 we finally see how strong of an impact this support actually has on the page. (I talk a bit more about Urban Warfare further down this post.) I don't even dare and call this bait (Edit: Not my words btw. i saw this used in another heated post. I personally never felt baited in any form. If anything, the girls relationship is one big highlight in these comics.) because it simply isn't. Here is a character that cares for her partner and also is uncomfortable with the whole situation to begin with. She has to decide where her priorities lie. Her reaction is to be expected to be focused on a trembling Whisper and all i can say is i'm glad we finally have a good depiction of that.

Tangle has the right to approach Whisper in ways i think no other character is able to, she earned it and it pretty much shows on this page. Softly taking down Whisper's mask and checking on her, the body language in these panels is chefs kiss. She's truly a bouncy girl, but it's good to see her being serious every now and then, i feel like it's a side of her that people usually tend to ignore. (And i really don't know why that is.) Evan Stanley does always an amazing job if it comes to showing Tangle in a different light or how she cares about her friends and loved ones. In regards about the current arc and even the last one, i feel like this post is a good chance to add my personal take to it as well, since it's been on my mind for a good while now. I feel like 64 finally makes a step into the right direction again.

To elaborate a little on that, i wasn't really a big fan of Urban Warfare, simply for the fact that it's pacing is all over the place. There were a lot of things that needed to be covered, to name a few: - new team building - Whisper's trauma - Lanolin introduced as a new character - a LOT of other teams jumping into the scene - the city itself all squeezed into a 5 book arc. One more book compared to a mini series that usually gives full focus to a set of chosen characters.

To make this clear, there are also good things in Urban Warfare as well but thanks to the fact how rushed the whole story felt in it's core it's a bit hard to enjoy the good bits as well...

Misadventures still deals with the same pacing problem and i believe that is where the real issue lies. As a reader/collector of the books and longtime fan of them, all i can say is:

I wish the comics would get their old, well cared, time for details back. Yes, a story like the Metal Virus was a long run but in the end it was a fantastic read. Mini arcs like Trial by Fire (Still one of my favorites), that focus on other things instead of the usual action, are also very important for character development and add a lot of depth to them. Endless Summer is a great example for such addition as well. These books provide insight into character interaction we usually don't see otherwise. Of course i have no idea how much SEGA is involved into everything if it comes to general decisions like how long one arc is supposed to last and when the next one should start.

(The next part is based on my personal taste, this has nothing to do with the general narrative of the books. I just want to share my thoughts about this since i really don't write them down a lot.)

As a little side note, i feel like Lanolin is a great character so far. Her stubborn and rule book like demeanor as a leader is refreshing to say the least. She also seems to be really close to how her creator ABT imagines her to be and i really appreciate that. But i can't help it and feel like her team dynamic with Tangle and Whisper comes of as rather… rocky ? On a combat level of things it works really good but on a friendship level it's somehow lacking atm. There is this boss and coworker relationship going on that feels more like real work. Obviously though she's new and needs more time to get better established. I guess we will see how this plays out in the future. I'm all in for a good or funny team dynamic but i also can't help it and feel like she works better as an addition to Jewel, running the restoration, the navigator typ that sends intel via com instead of a field combatant. Even if she proved she's good at close combat as well during her encounter with Whisper in 64. That being said, i am all open for surprises and more character development on her part. This is really just a "now" opinion and can easily change over time. I like the sheep, i really do.

#IDW Sonic #Whisper the Wolf #Tangle the Lemur #Whispangle #Just some thoughts i wanted to get out of my head #long opinion posts always take forever to write - language barrier demands extra brain juice - cries in german #Thanks to my friends SomethingSonicRelated - Honeydew - DillyWolf and ScurvyPiratehog for looking over this post #providing some additions as well #64 was a good read overall #the Whispangle moment was soft and needed #not adding more details about the issue in general since i still try to keep the theme of the blog as it's focus.#I think the post speaks for itself :>#There are still moments i hold really high and dear to me from the last arc #best example's probably my pinned post heh <3

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666writingcafe · 2 months

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A Trip To The Past

Upon grabbing Not-Solomon's hand, my vision goes momentarily black, but then I find myself in a brightly lit meadow with lots of colorful flora. This has to be somewhere in the Celestial Realm; everything's overly saturated.

The last time I was in the past, I was with Barbatos, observing the memory of Lilith's death. We had to hide in the shadows to make sure we weren't spotted, or we'd permanently alter the memory.

You don't have to do that this time.

Great. Not-Solomon's in my head. I am tired of people walking in and out of it like it's their own place, because it's not.

Reach up towards the top of your head.

Confused, I do as he instructs, and something burns my hand.

Except when I pull it back to see how much damage I've done to it, there's no mark. Which means I've assumed the form of something that's resistant to this kind of bodily damage. And given that I'm in the Celestial Realm...

"Why, hello there." A voice pierces through my thoughts, forcing me to focus on the person standing before me. A rather familiar looking person.

"I don't think I've ever seen you around before," Asmo continues. "What's your name?"

You can use your real name.

"MC," I answer. Asmo smiles.

"That's a good name. It suits you. I'm Asmodeus, but you probably already knew that. Everyone here does." He pauses. "You don't work for Raphael, do you?" I shake my head.

"I just arrived here," I tell him. "I got separated from my group, and I have no idea how to find my way back."

Good. New angels go through an orientation-like process.

I had no idea that was a thing. I just figured I'd play up the sad, pathetic, and clueless schtick. It's worked to my advantage before.

"Great!" Asmo quickly adds,

"Not the bit about you being lost. That sucks. I'm just glad that you don't work for Raphael."

"Why?"

"Well, you see, I went to something called a party in the human world the other day. I'd never been to one before, and I wanted to see what it was all about. It was a costume party, and so I simply pretended I was a human dressing up as an angel. That way I didn't have to hide my wings."

"What did you think of the party?" Asmo's face lights up.

"It was so much fun!" Just as quickly, his expression sours. "But Raphael says it's a wicked and immoral thing to do."

"He's not entirely wrong. People tend to overindulge at parties." Asmo sighs.

"I suppose you're right. A lot was happening at that party, things that are considered taboo here." He pauses again. "Raphael found out about my little adventure and has called me in to see him, but I hate getting lectured, especially over something that's not that big of a deal. I should be able to have fun every once in a while."

Interesting. I wonder if this party served as the catalyst for Asmo to eventually become the Avatar of Lust. If he disagreed with Raphael about something small like the nature of parties at this point in the past, did he begin questioning more serious things further down the line?

"What're you doing here?" The sudden appearance of another person causes Asmo to scream, which in turn causes me to jump.

"Beel, you nearly gave me a heart attack!" he shrieks. "Don't scare me like that!"

"I don't think I was being particularly scary," Beel replies, looking slightly confused and sad. Once Asmo composes himself, he asks Beel to open up the Celestial Realm gates, and Beel simply answers,

"No." Asmo protests, but Beel's attention is no longer on him, but rather on me.

"Who's this?" he asks. Before I can even open my mouth, Asmo chirps,

"Oh, this adorable thing? That's MC. MC, this is Beelzebub, one of the cherubim. You probably know this already, since Beel's quite famous, but he guards the gates at the Celestial Realm."

"I remember my group leader mentioning him a couple times," I respond.

"Group leader?" Beel appears to grow concerned. "Did you get lost, MC?" I nod my head. "Are you okay? Asmo hasn't tried anything on you, has he? He likes to hit on anything that moves."

"I'm okay--"

"Beel, what an awful thing to say!" Asmo interrupts. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't go around accusing me of randomly hitting on everyone I see. It's not as if I'm happy to be intimate with just anyone, okay?! I care about who they are. I just happen to feel love towards everyone I meet, that's all." Beel doesn't seem convinced.

"You look like you're hungry," he remarks to me. "I have a few sweets Michael gave me earlier if you'd like something to eat."

"I'm okay, but thank you. Besides, if they're a gift, you should keep them for yourself." Beel sighs.

"I wish I could, but I'm trying to lay off the sweets. I've been eating too much recently, and I feel like I've gained weight as a result."

First Asmo, now Beel. Did something specific trigger Beel to start eating more than he ought to, or was it more gradual? More importantly, do these actions mean that they were somehow destined to become the Avatars of Sin, even if no one realized it at the time they occurred?

Signs. Of course. That's why Not-Solomon transported me to this particular period of time: to observe the early signs of their eventual fall. But why?

And then everything hits me at once.

If you were to spend any real time here–and not just in the areas prepared for visitors–you’ll find that it’s a rather dark place.

You're the one person I can trust fully.

I desperately want to hold your hand.

I need you, MC.

It's Simeon, isn't it? He's at the crossroads Not-Solomon was referring to. That would explain why he seemed so worn out at the cafe earlier; his mind has allowed him very little rest, and why would it? This is a potentially life-altering decision for him. Does he remain an angel, or does he fall and become something else?

The brothers made their decision a long time ago, but I have a feeling it won't be as easy for Simeon. They at least had each other. Simeon has Luke to think about, because I doubt he's going to take the young angel with him. I know that he wants Luke to maintain his innocence for as long as possible, and falling would expose him to some rather dark truths.

Which means the only way Simeon can actively protect him is to remain in the Celestial Realm. But is he willing to pay the price for it? Luke's purity, or his own happiness?

And how am I supposed to help Simeon decide which path to take?

#obey me shall we date #obey me mc #obey me asmo #obey me asmodeus #obey me beel #obey me beelzebub #obey me simeon #obey me nightbringer

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yutaholic · 5 months

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Thank you for even making that post because I honestly feel like I’m going to explode!! Championing every issue is EXHAUSTING. I have such empathy fatigue. Bombardment of “rules”, behavioral guidelines, services, companies, networks + food brands & PEOPLE to boycott ALL THE TIME. Fandom is space many of us come to unplug from reality…it’s certainly my hyperfixation & ppl be like “well then get another one because you shouldn’t support–” IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT. Fuck. I can’t take it anymore. Calls to action being in EVERY single place have weakened my mental state even more than it was before which was already on “pending disability” level of severe & now I’m just. burned t-absolute-f out….at everything!! I can literally FEEL myself unraveling. Kpop stans & their toxic activism can go to hell. They’re so worried about making sure to condemn others for “not doing enough” or being bad people, that they don’t even realize their actions are making them into bad people. This shit takes a toll on mental health, there is science behind this, it is real and what happens to human beings when inundated with constant terrible news, and it’s not just being ~too privileged to care~ but these performative mfs have no concept of blacklisting anymore and just want to assume the absolute worst about someone, call them names & wish harm on folks who are at the end of their ropes! It’s maddening! So even if compassion fatigue isn’t why you didn’t go out of your way to Denounce and Drag™️ him (bc you totally have the right to simply not want to do that on a fanfic blog!) I’m just glad someone else stated that this is supposed to be an ESCAPE. fuck.

Baby, burnout will fuck you up. Don't do that to yourself. Take the time you need and recoup. Life is a constant war and you can afford to lose a battle here and there to focus on your own health and well-being. Getting yourself back into a good place mentally will be a huge win. We both know the ppl obsessed with performative activism aren't doing anything from a place of compassion. The real ones are out there making change, not sending people death threats online from the comfort and safety of their mommy's basement.

When I posted the pic of NCT Dream and Big Time Rush, I wrote in the tags how BTR was something my sister and I loved and bonded over. We watched the show even though it was obviously a kids show and we were both adults. It was just something that gave us joy. My sister passed away years ago and anything BTR-related will make me teary because I think about how much we laughed together over it.

So the first thing I get are messages over how problematic BTR is, that I should delete the post or I'm pro-genocide if I don't dislike them. Ngl that made me so upset because I got a bunch of faceless people trying to taint some precious memories of me and my sister. If they came at me trying to educate me on things I didn't know that would be different, but it's straight to judgment and hatred toward me over something I posted that was totally innocent.

Meanwhile I get criticized for posting about a kpop group instead of reblogging every call to action post. I donate my money to these causes, but I don't post about it because I don't need my ass kissed for doing what I know to be right. I am 1000% sure the anons in my inbox that try to police me have never given a dime to anything, but are policing people's blogs for not reblogging posts or talking about it more.

I feel bad that I haven't been very active on here this year so I try to come on when I have some free time to interact with you guys. I make a silly post about Doyoung and get anons tearing into me for it like I'm his social media manager. Okay so because the world is going to shit we aren't allowed to enjoy anything?? Can't make jokes about anything. Can't show support for anything. Just wrong on every fucking count.

Believe me I am so goddamn aware of how lucky I am that I can sit here and say I'm very privileged that I live comfortably in the life I have. I know what's going on in the world and I do my part to help where I can, but I also have to keep functioning. I don't want every minute of my life to be seeped in anger, I did that for a long time and it not only eats away at you, it makes you ineffective in actually changing the things making you angry in the first place.

This was just supposed to be a blog where I posted my stories. One of the few places I could go and not constantly be reminded of how fucked up the world is. I've always said that people who told me reading a fic of mine made their day a little better or helped them escape for a bit were always my favorite. That was what I came here for and I loved being able to share the tiniest moments of peace and quiet with others through stories with guaranteed happy endings.

I'm frustrated because I have 4 drafts ready to go next year. I got the story posts done and made all the headers. But I don't want to post them. I have no problem admitting I'm selfish and spiteful. Even though I can turn off anon, I can't block these miserable people and I don't want them reading my stuff. They don't get to consume my content and then tell me to off myself right after.

A massive fuck you to those of you that ruined this blog for me.

#empathy fatigue is real #and the reason these shitheads arent getting tired #is because theyre not doing any of it from empathy

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