#the problem with there being 5 seasons is that there is so many names and tags

[justawritterwithideas]

law in pink | s.r

♡ next part ♡

summary: when the BAU needs an extra helping hand, Washington decides to send the best of the best, but what they didn't expect was to see... pink.

warnings: a bit of stereotypes, beyond that a bit of comedy and fluff. there may be mistakes in writing because I wrote it too fast :(

this story is spencer reid (season 7) x ssa elle woods!reader

words: 1,649 words.

a/n: elle woods from legally blonde comes to my mind constantly because is one of my favorite movies, so I wanted to make a mix called "ssa elle woods"; I hope you like it and you can understand the idea of reader as elle woods, I also hope I didn't portray it wrong and that it will be misunderstood T T

The BAU needed a hand with the rising crime wave, so, straight from Washington they sent the best of the best from their office.

And of course Penelope had to investigate.

According to her research, you had graduated from Harvard with honors and had given the honorary alumni speech at your class graduation. In addition, you were a part-time Harvard professor of Political Theory during the fall and part of a prolific group of researchers in your Washington office, which had the highest rate of successfully resolved cases in the last 5 years.

In addition, you had achieved on your LSAT a score of 179 out of 180 points.

Something inside Penelope reminded her a little of her friend, Spencer Reid, in you.

But what she didn't expect to see when she looked you up on the interwebs was the fashionista and family friendly life you had. The way your apartment was decorated with a pretty pink aesthetic, your outfits videos that reached millions of views and your day to day routines were the mantra of many girls, being all perfectly edited.

With that and more, anyone would think that your job was not to be a federal agent, but an influencer.

Penelope was already smelling perfume from her computer, and that made her more than eager to meet you.

It was seeing one just like her in front of her screen.

You were the perfect candidate to be her new best friend.

The clacking of your heels and the smell of your Chanel perfume filled the entire BAU office, causing the complicit glances of all the workers who were there.

"Have you seen Barbie yet?" "Is the model missing?" "What about her? Maybe she's a lost intern. First-timer problems."

Everyone was making comments you'd heard more than once in some police office, maybe it was the way you dressed didn't go along with the aesthetic they had or how feminine your attire might be, but that's who you were and for a couple of comments about your appearance and the stereotype they had they weren't going to sour your day.

"Excuse me, are you looking for someone?"

You turned to see a tall, dark man, who was watching your outfit from last season's Prada fit you to perfection.

"Oh! Finally someone nice." You commented with a smile. "Yes, I'm looking for Agent Aaron Hotchner."

"He's my boss, would you like help finding his office? I can help you."

"That would be great, thank you very much..."

"Agent Morgan, Derek Morgan."

"It's a pleasure, Agent Derek. I'm Y/N, nice to meet you."

You didn't like to introduce yourself officially as an agent, it made you look rather intimidating if you did, and that was what you didn't want.

It wasn't a long walk to the wooden door which was adorned by a plaque with the name of the person you were looking for.

"This is it, you come for a case? Any family members involved?"

"No, I'm coming to help. Thank you very much, by the way."

You gave him one last smile before knocking on the door, hearing a "pass" from inside.

"Who was the girl you were escorting, Derek?" Emily watched the man reach them, peering curiously inside Hotch's office.

"Her name is Y/N, she said she was coming to help, but... I don't know, she doesn't look like someone coming to help, maybe she's a witness."

Spencer's eyes scanned the situation, trying to conclude who the mystery woman inside his boss's office was about, but coming up with nothing on the spot. Like his friends, they were all searching for an answer to the abiding doubt in his head.

Who exactly was that girl and why had she said that? She didn't seem like a person whose job was an office job, but not one that was very risky either.

But before they could say anything, Aaron came out of the office with his ever-serious face.

"Meeting in 5" was the only thing he announced, so the group took heed and went to the place.

Once inside the office, Penelope found herself with her dear friends, who were trying to figure out the causes of the recent meeting.

"You don't know Pen either, do you?" J.J. was the first to speak.

"No idea, Hotch just asked me to be here."

"Just like everyone else." Rossi replied, settling around the round table with his coffee cup.

The conversation didn't last long when Hotch entered the boardroom.

"Good. I know there's no case yet or apparent reason to get them together first thing." Hotch began. "But as you may know, the last couple of months have seen an increase in crime for the BAU, which is exactly why we've been given extra funding to bring an extra agent onto the team."

Sounds of excitement came from everyone's mouths.

"So I've been contacting old colleagues, who recommended the best of the best. So they've transferred an agent from Washington to help us."

"Boy, they must be desperate." Derek's comment drew a few chuckles.

"I'd like to introduce you to the SSA, Y/N Woods."

Everyone's countenance changed to one of surprise when they saw you walk in, smiling in the friendliest way possible.

The same girl who looked like a model fresh off a runway was the newest member of the BAU.

"It's nice to meet you all, I hope we can work well together." You set your Prada bag to the side, being able to scan each of the members quickly.

"Woods, this is SSA Emily Prentiss, Derek Morgan, Jennifer Jareau, David Rossi, dr. Spencer Reid and our technical analyst, Penelope Garcia."

"Hey, I know you." You commented in the direction of Garcia, who was smiling politely. "You were the girl who commented on my recipe for the vegetarian tacos."

"Yes! They looked exquisite."

"Thank you very much, I hope they were helpful. We need to be a little more conscientious with our four-legged friends."

Spencer didn't know if he was dazzled by the whiteness of your teeth or the warm way you had entered into trust with Penelope with a simple recipe.

"Woods, Garcia. You'll have time to talk."

"I'm sorry, sir." They both replied at the same time.

"Fine, I'll go prepare the case, Garcia come with me."

They both walked out of the meeting room, leaving you alone with the rest of your new group of colleagues.

"I didn't know you were an agent." Derek was the first to break the silence surrounding them, causing you to turn in his direction.

"I didn't mean to mention it, I'm not a person who usually blurts it out just like that on the first interaction. You never know what kind of person a stranger is." You commented before you could look at him again. "No offense."

"No problem."

"From Washington, right?" Your gaze went to the blonde, who was watching from her position with a warm smile.

"That's right, even though I'm from California but I moved to Massachusetts after getting into Harvard, and then to Washington when I got an opening in the federal office there. So I'm from here, there and over there, but I'll always be a California gurl." A chuckle came out of your mouth after making a reference to the Katy Perry song, bringing your hands to your sides.

"Harvard? What did you study?" Spencer looked more and more interested.

"Law." You commented offhandedly. "I actually studied Fashion Merchandising at UCLA with a 4.0 GPA. But I wanted to prove myself and decided to get into Harvard Law."

"Switching from Fashion Merchandising at UCLA to Harvard Law is a big jump, how much did you get on your entrance exam?" Rossi asked.

"179."

Everyone's surprised face made an impression on you.

"What, like it's hard?" your eyelashes fluttered softly, before you remembered what you were holding as a "peace offering". "By the way, I made cookies yesterday for being the first day and making a good impression." Your hands went to your bag, pulling out a heart-shaped tupperware. "They're lavender and butter, it's a recipe I read on a fairly well known blog forum, they say Paris Hilton gets her recipes from there."

You held out the tupper to each of them to take out a cookie, leaving it on the table in case they liked to take out more.

"If they like more, just pull out. There's enough for everyone." A little smile tugged at your mouth. But before you heard any response from either person, the catchy ringtone of Gwen Stefani's "Rich Girl" interrupted any culinary criticism. "Excuse me..." Your hand went for your phone, which didn't surprise others by being pink, and you left the room letting out a "Woods" as you answered.

"This is new." Derek said.

"And delicious." Emily took another bite of her cookie.

"She's different than what we usually know." Rossi looked at the rest, taking a second cookie out of the tupper. "But I don't mind at all, in fact, I think new always comes in good."

"True, it's always good to have someone new and with a different vibe."

The group turned to look at Reid, who was holding the cookie with his right hand. The young man wasn't usually one to blurt out a comment, just like that, least of all referring to a girl.

"Oh kid, you find her attractive." Derek was the first to smile in amusement.

"What, no." The voice in a higher pitched tone than normal was what gave Spencer away.

"Spencer likes Y/N." J.J annoyed, walking out of the office laughing along with Emily.

"That's not true!"

"See ya, lover boy." Derek commented along with Rossi, who was gently patting his shoulder with a knowing smile.

And so it was that Spencer was left in the meeting room with his cheeks as pink as his new co-worker's heels.

♡ next part ♡

If you like it, don't forget to like and repost it.

a lot of love, alme. ❀

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid blurb #spencer reid fanfic #blurb #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #spencer reid x elle woods!reader #legally blonde is superior #alme was here!

[skamenglishsubs]

Subtext and Culture, Young Royals, Season 3, Episode 6

Out here in the real world it's been a week since the cliffhanger ending of episode 5 where Simon broke up with Wilhelm, but in-universe it's just the next day, and Wilhelm is being comforted by Felice.

Subtext: This entire episode is incredibly meta, there are so many times characters say things that reference earlier seasons or episodes, or the entire series as a whole. This is the first time, and Felice is saying what we're all thinking. IS IT REALLY OVER?!? 😱

Blink and you miss it: Felice gives Wilhelm her sunglasses and dries his tears so he can hide the fact that he's been crying. Also, look at that gorgeous Swedish summer. It is so pretty.

Culture: The third-years are painting the banners that go on the trucks on graduation day.

Culture: They're also signing each others' student hats, which is a common tradition. You can just sign your name or write something funny or do whatever.

Culture: This car is what we in Sweden call a sossecontainer. It's an old 90's Volvo, it's square, it's ugly, and it was pretty cheap and reliable, so it was very common and popular among working class and the lower middle classes. It was never a high-status car, so it perfectly illustrates the Eriksson family.

Subtext: Oh look, another throwback to season 1 when Sara argued with Simon about their dad, and said that he should stop giving people second chances.

Culture: Oh look, another poem by Karin Boye. This time it's Eternity, a poem about cherishing your time with your loved one, and the text is about how good times feel like an endless summer, which is what it certainly looks like for the kids and their teacher in the lush landscape. But just like in the poem, their endless summer is about to end.

Culture: This is pretty much exactly the reason used when real-world Lundsberg was temporarily closed.

Culture: And Wilhelm isn't wrong, the shitty traditions are in the walls of the place, it's always been like that, and it's always been upheld by everyone involved with the school, parents, teachers, staff, and students.

Subtext: Since this is the last episode, let's prepare the viewers to say good bye to the show, and let's do it with a little montage of students crying and taking their stuff down and emptying their rooms.

Culture: This is a 100% factually true statement, Göteborg is the worst city in the world. Source: I'm a native Stockholmer, and you just have to trust me on this, ok? Look, it's just common sense, alright? Don't listen to people from Göteborg, they're just jealous they're not living in the glorious capital. Also, they talk funny. And they have no sense of humour! And everyone is named Glenn or something.

Culture: I don't think they're referencing an actual school here, and the current Norwegian royal children went to school in Norway, not Switzerland. But the current Danish crown prince went to some boarding school in Switzerland for a while, but then he went to the Danish elite boarding school Herlufsholm. However, it was rocked by a bullying scandal in 2022, so they had to pull him out of that one and deny all knowledge of the events. Feels familiar?

Culture: Solliden is the private summer palace of the real-world Swedish royal family located on Öland, an island off the south-east coast of Sweden. The show has consistently stayed away from every likeness with the real world, but I guess they couldn't be arsed making up a fictional summer palace for the YR royal family so they went with something familiar.

Subtext: Farima is talking about the problems of finding a new school for Wilhelm from an academic perspective, but he's just thinking about how this means he won't be close to Simon any longer.

Culture: Vincent and the boys are pouring one out for Hillerska. It's a way to toast a dead friend, or in this case, a place.

Blink and you miss it: August places a king chess piece on the table before telling his friends that he's Wilhelm's reserve and might be king someday.

Subtext: And he's still so blinded by the glamour of it, despite everything. Thankfully, his friends can bring him down a couple of pegs.

Blink and you miss it: While Wilhelm is returning Kris, the book from last season, the second book in the pile is a book by Kjell Westö, Den Svavelgula Himlen - Yellow Sulphur Sky. It's about a working class kid in Finland becoming friends with his upper-class neighbour family, and his struggle maintaining a relationship with the girl of the family because of their class differences. Slightly on the nose there, show.

Meta: Henry interrupting our boys at the worst possible time is just a running joke at this point. How many times has it happened now? Four times? Five? Read the fucking room, Henry!

Subtext: Last chance to have a party together, but also last chance to see Simon, "maybe ever". Oh no, we have to start preparing for a sad ending!

Culture: Red solo cups are not a thing anywhere outside the US really, but you can buy them as a gag gift in Sweden, because to us they're just a weird movie prop we've seen American movies. Every other party scene in the show has featured regular plastic cups.

Culture: Drinking with the teachers?!? Yeah, sure, why not, everyone is an adult.

Subtext: Emo outfit? ✅ Sitting on the floor? ✅ Full of self-pity? ✅ Exaggerating the catastrophic state of his world in the way only a 17yo disaster boy can do? ✅

Meta: Another throwback to how Wilhelm was referred to as the party prince back in season 1.

Blink and you miss it: Felice hides the wine bottle behind her back before Malin comes in. She knows, Felice. Malin knows everything.

Meta: Another throwback to when Wilhelm was eating the dirt at the very same football field that disaster emo boy Simon is now sitting at together with his friends, who are trying to convince him to go to the final party.

Subtext: This time, August isn't just sorry that he got caught, he is genuinely sorry for everything he did to Wilhelm. He in turn forgives August, and we're all getting closure for this plot point.

Meta: Hey, hey, hey guys, do you remember that scene in season 1 episode 1 when Sara helped hold Felice's hair while she was throwing up? We're doing a throwback here!

Meta: Hey, hey, hey guys, do you remember that scene in season 1 episode 3 when Felice told Sara that maybe you don't have to speak the truth all the time? Well, Sara still doesn't understand why you would lie, but this time she's right, Felice was right to tell the truth.

Blink and you miss it: Stella and Fredrika are making out at the party, Felice saw it, and is making a very funny face. This is also why Stella rudely rejects Rosh, because of course she's gonna choose Fredrika, Rosh was just a distraction to make her jealous.

Subtext: Vincent is talking about Nils, who just came out, but August just saw Sara, and that's the whoever he wants.

Subtext: But despite saying that he doesn't care about anyone else seeing them, he still ducked behind a stack of pallets for this conversation.

Meta: This is a brutal Fleabag reference.

Cinematography: This scene is overwhelmingly lit in that sickly greenish fluorescent hue, but there's golden light coming from somewhere, so Sara and August share one final kiss in that golden light. But there's not enough of it to go around, not enough for their love to last, so August is left standing there alone, and all the golden light is gone.

Cinematography: Wilhelm and Simon left the party sometime after midnight, this is supposed to be a very early morning summer sunrise, and our boys are just gonna be bathed in the golden light throughout the entire scene. Gods, it is pretty.

Meta: Hey, hey, remember that scene in season 1 when Simon was singing that song, and Wilhelm instantly fell for him?

Meta: Hey guys, remember that scene in season 1 when they were discussing welfare politics in class and Simon threw shade on Wilhelm? This is a throwback to that.

Cinematography: Just fucking look at this shit. What a nice view. The nature and the sunrise is pretty, too! Going naked into the water? Yeah, that's a rebirth metaphor as well. Lisa said so!

Subtext: This entire scene is basically Wilhelm trying one last time to get Simon back. They said they weren't gonna, but he's trying anyway. They're talking about that politics class where Wilhelm couldn't speak up because he was "not allowed". So he's still bound by his royal duties, which is why Simon broke up with him last episode.

Subtext: And since Wilhelm is still stuck, he's left on dry land, while Simon swims away from him, free. Guys, I'm thinking we're actually gonna get a sad ending! This does not look good! 😭

Blink and you miss it: Stella and Fredrika are sleeping in the same bed and making out the morning after, and millions of #Stedrika shippers are rejoicing! Yay, fanservice!

Blink and you miss it: Walter is helping Henry up after he passed out in the grass outside after the party, and millions of #Walty shippers are rejoicing! Yay, fanservice!

Subtext: The last photo Wilhelm takes down from his wall is the one with him and Simon, because that's the most important memory of this place.

Blink and you miss it: Wilhelm shuts off his red lightstrip in his room. Those lights have typically been a symbol of his love for Simon, but he's turning it off. Sad ending confirmed.

Meta: Listen, it's a lovely little song that Simon wrote for Wilhelm, but it's 100% fanservice, it's referencing events in the show that Simon actually didn't witness, and it's even referencing the soundtrack to the show itself! I mean, come on! And we're getting yet another sad boy Wilhelm montage of him moping around Hillerska with his earbuds.

Subtext: Remember how the frog snowglobe was a gift from Erik, who in turn got it from their grandpa, the king? It's so obviously a symbol of the monarchy, but Wilhelm is dumping it in the trash. Are we... Are we not getting a sad ending?

Cinematography: The shot of the flag being raised is cut off at half mast, which is a pretty universal symbol for mourning. Oh ok, we're back on track for a sad ending.

Subtext: This is the first time this season that Simon speaks Spanish with his mom, and the first time in the entire series that Sara does, which shows that they're fully themselves again, they've pulled themselves out of the Hillerska world.

Culture: The graduating students are having a champagne breakfast before the graduation ceremony, that's also very common in Sweden.

Subtext: Felice and the rest of the choir decided to have a little rebellion and not sing the boring old Hillerska song, and instead the new improved one that Simon made last season. No-one told him about the switch though, which is why he's so surprised.

Culture: After the ceremony, the graduating students will run out of the school to find their parents and family and friends, who are waiting for them, usually with a big sign with the most embarrassing baby picture they could find of them.

Blink and you miss it: August's mom and stepdad have also made a huge sign with an embarrassing picture of August Malte as a kid. Adorable.

Lost in translation: The queen is saying "lilla gubben", which literally means "little old man", a very common term of endearment in Swedish families. The show has been pretty consistent in that Wilhelm's family are all using normal words, just like any other family would. So it's pretty funny that despite everyone else using titles and styles all the time, to Wilhelm, his parents are simply "mamma" and "pappa", as if he was a regular kid.

Subtext: As a graduating student you get little gifts from your family, flowers, champagne, stuffed animals, all with a blue-and-yellow ribbon so you can hang them around your neck. August is family, so the Queen gives him one as well. Of a frog with a crown. Which is a symbol of the monarchy in the show. Wilhelm threw his frog in the trash, August is getting a frog from the Queen. I think there might be symbolism here! I think we're setting up August to become the next king! Do we dare hope for a happy ending?

Cinematography: Just fucking look at this shit. The composition, the contrast, the height difference, the distance between them. It's so pretty. And they're talking about how good it was while it lasted, just like how a TV show with a sad ending can still be an amazing experience. Hint hint.

Subtext: We're saying our goodbyes, Wilhelm and Simon are saying goodbye to each other, Wilhelm wishes Simon a nice summer, just like how Simon wished Wilhelm a good Christmas back in season 1, and just like back then, they both understand that they love each other, but can't be together.

Cinematography: And then Simon exits the scene, again, leaving Wilhelm standing there alone, again, having seemingly chosen his family and royal duty.

Culture: It's common to either rent a truck as a large group of students, or to be driven in a flashy car alone or with a friend. The two girls in the centre are sitting in a very nice Aston Martin, while a bunch of their classmates are on a truck. I can't make out the full text on the banner, but I think it says something like "Lock up your sons because tonight we become like animals".

Culture: Svensson is a very common Swedish last name, so to "be a Svensson" basically means that you're super average and mediocre, you're like everyone else. Whereas these elite kids are used to having everyone else bow and scrape for them, so that message is on brand.

Cinematography: We're in the car, it looks like the ending of season 1, and we're doing a close-up of Wilhelm's face. We're ready for the fourth-wall-break of him staring sadly into the camera, having been once again broken down by the system and not getting the boy. We've said goodbye to everyone, roll the credits, start your crying...

Cinematography: ...except the show isn't ending here. We're having an honest conversation between Wilhelm and his parents for the first time. Because every other time he's said that he doesn't want to be crown prince of the next king, he's been angry or upset, he's been threatening, and definitely impulsive. But he's never wanted any of it.

Cinematography: His parents let him go, they open the door to their van, Wilhelm exits, and the show turns up the volume of the soundtrack. "Energetic music" my ass, it's the Harmony theme! It's the main theme of the entire show playing as Wilhelm runs away.

Subtext: Oh, yeah, August sees him run away, and understands that he's next in line now. Sorry buddy, sucks to be you, but never mind that now. RUN, WILHELM, RUN!!! GET YOUR MAN!

Cinematography: The shows turns into the most perfect rom-com, with Wilhelm chasing down Simon's car through the incredibly lush and green Swedish summer. He catches up to them, tells Simon that he ditched the crown for his own sake, and asks if it's really over between them.

VAD FAN TROR DU?

As if the soundtrack wasn't triumphant enough, it now starts playing As Long As you Are Here as they throw themselves in each other's arms. Happy ending! They're crying, I'm crying, we're all crying! 😭

Cinematography: A montage? With all the best scenes between our boys from the entire show? With the text of the soundtrack perfectly matching the montage? I should be outraged at how cheesy this is, but it is perfect. Perfect. I love it. I swear, this fucking show.

Subtext: Finally we are at the true ending of the show. Wilhelm has managed to escape Hillerska, him and Simon and Sara and Felice have all escaped the hierarchies, the expectations, the duties, and the toxic environment of the school. He arrived in a Ferrari, and is now running away with his boyfriend and friends in a crappy Volvo station-wagon. The stiff suit jackets are gone, they're all in white, his hair is ruffled in the wind, and for the last time ever Wilhelm looks into the camera. And he smiles.

He is finally free.

#young royals #young royals subtext #young royals analysis #young royals season 3

[teeny-tiny-revenge]

It's home cinema manufacturing time! 🏴‍☠️ Gonna put my pirate show on my shelf! (I'm doing an Arts and Crafts Project and I'm making it everyone's problem.)

After seeing how much they cost, I abandoned the idea of getting a Blu-ray writer for now. For the time being, good old DVDs is what it's going to be! My TV is old and not very big, so DVD resolution is gonna be fine.

It's been ages since I last burned a DVD. For the full experience, I'm gonna create nice menus and pretty sleeves for the boxes. Graphic design is my passion! Um.

Well. First needed to find a program to do stuff with. I'm a Linux guy, so I'm using Devede. (Which is free, btw. In case someone else wants to do a low cost spot of putting pirate show on the shelf.)

DVDs fit a maximum of 120 minutes of video. So, four episodes, I thought. But after a quick attempt, the program refused to do more than three (maybe because of the menu also taking up space, and four episodes cutting pretty close to the 120 min mark?). Anyway, three episodes per disc it is. It's a pretty nice runtime for watching the entire disc, IMO. An hour and a half, and then you can return to reality to realise you should probably eat something, or go to bed because it's midnight.

OFMD with its current two seasons has a total of eighteen episodes, which is divisible by three. You get the following setup:

Disc 1: Pilot, A Damned Man, The Gentleman Pirate - That's pretty good, Stede's introduction to piracy all on one disc!

Disc 2: Discomfort in a Married State, The Best Revenge is Dressing Well, The Art of Fuckery - All bangers. Great to watch together, our boys meet and shenanigans happen!

Disc 3: This is Happening, We Gull Way Back, Act of Grace - Many romantic moments, lots of great scenes, shit hits the fan at the end there. Alright!

Disc 4: Wherever you go, there you are, Impossible Birds, Red Flags - ... Pain and angst! What have I done!?! The disc of horrors. Gotta make sure to have tissues at hand when I watch this. But hey, it also has messy bun Ed! Small mercies.

Disc 5: The Innkeeper, Fun and Games, The Curse of the Seafaring Life. - Another disc with all winners. I love all these episodes so much! (You can watch this disc to recover from the trauma of the previous one!) But seriously, this one slaps.

Disc 6: Calypso's Birthday, Man on Fire, Mermen - Great combination again. Season finale! Love and excitement!

... Honestly, except for the psychological damage of putting all the most painful episodes together, this is coming out pretty cool. Says a lot about how good the show is. I actually really love all the episodes (yes even the painful angsty episodes of massive depression). Thinking about this little project really reminded me how much I love this entire show.

So, we got a tracklist, now menus, then we can burn this stuff!

I did the menu backgrounds in GIMP. Realised I have a big folder full of screenshots I took myself, screenshots someone else took and posted on Tumblr, official promo pics for the show, and I have no idea anymore where most of them are from, because I named the files according to what's on them. Which is useful for when you want to find pics (Need a picture of cursed suit Stede? I have files named that, easy peasy!), but not so great if you wanted to give credit to whoever took a given pic you used. (It's probably @sherlockig or @ofmd-ann or @blakbonnet. Please feel credited, your beautiful screens and gifs brighten my day, and some of them are now probably part of my DVD menus. Shrunk down and cropped, but, yeah.)

I originally wanted to structure my menus as having the title of an episode, then some pics from it, then the next episode, then pics from that, and so forth, but I couldn't convince the program to give me the necessary padding between the menu items, so I ended up just putting the episode images below the menu. Still like it.

Anyway, DVD menus can also play sound! Behold a crappy video of my beautiful creation (provided entirely for sound):

It plays Gnossienne N°5!

More crappy pics of my other disc menus:

Gonna make them some nice sleeves next. Some day. Gotta make sure they all work properly first. So. I'll be on my sofa, watching my DVDs. With menus! (Edit: here are!)

#piracy ho! #ofmd #teeny rambles #ofmd dvds

[hopeymchope]

Oh GOD the fiendish David Zaslav is rebooting Harry Potter with a new "extremely faithful" adaption of the seven books. J.K. TERFling is heavily involved, she's executive producing, and they've made a TEN-YEAR COMMITMENT already.

Five Rapid-Fire Thoughts I Had in Reaction to This News:

Fuck Zaslav. (Btw, did I mention that — after deleting half of HBO Max's original content — Zaslav has now announced a price hike to the newly christened "MAX" service? As if giving a shitload of money to the planet's most notable TERF wasn't enough fuckery. FUCK that fucking shitheel.)

See below.

3. All y'all who were like "Boycott Hogwart's Legacy or You're Automatically a Terrible Person" or whatever because Rowling was going to make like a 1% royalty off of that game had GODDAMN BETTER boycott HBO MAX (....uh, sorry, it's just "MAX" now, I keep forgetting bc that name sucks — "HBO MAX" wasn't all that good a name to begin with IMO, but now it's worse) from here on out. YES, I know it's harder to boycott an entire streaming service that may contain OTHER content you want, but c'mon now, just bootleg anything you want off MAX in the future. (I'll help! I will send you a link or whatever if you need assistance. Message me. It's cool.) Because this is going to make her SO MUCH MORE MONEY due to involving her FAR MORE DIRECTLY. FUCK. WHY. Why did they fucking do this.

4. There are so many things in the books that are either A) poorly explained workarounds for continuity/logic issues or B) extremely problematic that the movies were actually BETTER for ignoring them. Can't wait to see the scene where every single known Time-Turner gets accidentally broken shortly after Prisoner of Azkaban in order to ensure the characters can never use time travel to fix their problems again! SUPER excited for the plotline where Hermione has to learn that she's silly and wrong for trying to free slaves because the slaves are fucking happier being enslaved! OH BOY!

5. God, a ten-year production commitment UP FRONT. I hope they lose so much money on this stupid-ass project that they wind up dragging their feet to produce future seasons for so long that the contract runs out before they've gotten farther than like, the third novel, and then it just dies on the vine. Would be HILARIOUS.

#harry potter #wizarding world #fuck david zaslav #j.k. rowling #there's a reason her initials are “JK” #it's because her existence is a fucking joke #jk rowling #anti-jkr #hbo max #streaming services #fuck zaslav #david zaslav #hogwart's legacy

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 6

Post Shrimp Jump Conspiracy Board Special

Hey y’all! Welcome back to Seacaster Manor where the shrimp party is still raging and the Bad Kids are balancing being cooler than ever with some serious sleuthing. We get a lot of new information this episode so I wanted to try out a new format for this week. I often talk in a metaphorical way about putting items up on a Conspiracy Board but I want to actually try that now that we’re a little over a quarter of the way in and have multiple overarching things happening. This is going to be a lot less linear than usual but bear with me. Gotta shake things up a little so I don’t get burnt out! There’s still fourteen more episodes to go! 

The Rat Grinders

The Bad Kids’ de facto rival party got a lot of screen time in this episode, which makes sense: Adaine declared the party their nemeses over Goldenhoard or anyone else they’ve fought, which is saying a lot. Before this point, we knew the following facts about them:

1) They got their name because the only enemies they’re recorded as killing are low level ones (including rats) that they grind in the woods behind the school, showing a willingness to follow the letter but not spirit of the rules but also an impressive amount of dedication. 

2) Their leader seems to be rogue, Kipperlily Copperkettle who is type A as hell and has a LOT of free time to kill having found the rogue professor (or at least having the rogue professor find her). She’s running for class president on a platform based around “fairness” which is a theme that’s come up more than once this season. 

3) Also on the team are emo Bard Reuben (who seems to be related to the new Artificing teacher and who shares an agent with Fig) and nonplussed Barbarian Mary Ann (who is buffing herself magically somehow).

4) Kipperlily specifically asked about where Kristen was able to create a new god. Now how, where. An odd question. 

This episode, we learned a lot more, so let's throw them on the board and make some connections!

5) The Rat Grinders have a new cleric named Buddy Dawn (something Kristen’s brother mentioned two episodes ago). He’s from Highcourt and moved with his grandparents. He’s got super Mormon+Southern “Bless Your Heart” energy and Kristen doesn’t like how familiar it feels. His vibes are clocked as well meaning but kinda judgey. 

6) Buddy Dawn was *specifically requested* by the party. Of course, requesting a cleric isn’t weird–why wouldn’t you want one? And Helioism seems a pretty common religion in the region so odds are good that if you get a cleric is would be a Helioic one. But, paired with KP’s question about Kristen, it makes you wonder if the plan is to recruit a Kristen expy and try to get lightning to strike twice.  

7) At the beer pong table, we meet the RG’s archer who is an elf named Ivy Embra. She’s got some flirty, catty energy (which we see when she interacts with Fabian and Mazey respectively).

8) We also meet the party wizard, Oisin Hakinvar, who is a Conjuration specialist with a focus in summoning. He’s a blue dragonborn which means that he has a great great great (etc) blue dragon ancestor he can ping when he needs barrels of diamonds, no problem. He has so many in fact that when Adaine lies badly that she’s also swimming in diamonds, he kindly offers to let her borrow some of his “extras”. But she turns them down, calls him great, and then panics and runs away to commiserate with Fabian who is also panicking about a flirty moment with Ivy. Oisin, for his part, seems driven to distraction and can’t make a single other shot all night. Cute! But–

9) As much as I want to wholeheartedly love Oisin (and honestly do and will until I am given direct evidence to change my mind) I have to point out that KVX, known evil bank, did change its logo from red (Goldenhoard’s color) to blue (Oisin’s Ancestor’s color) and there is a shot in the trailer of the party fighting a blue dragon. Connected? Maybe.

10) From investigating some yearbooks, the party also learns that the Rat Grinders have existed since Freshman Year but, at the time, they were called the High Five Heroes. They all look a lot more smiley and a lot less intense–Rebuen’s not even emo. It was the lineup from above, minus Buddy and plus a frost Genasi cleric named Lucy Frostblade. They learn that she supposedly died in their Sophomore year but specifically during a period near the end of the year where grades are locked and it wouldn’t affect their party comp which is…convenient. 

11) Fig tries to investigate this by disguising herself as Lucy and seeing how Ivy and Oisin react. Only Ivy sees her but she doesn’t seem shocked at all to see her allegedly dead party member She just raises an eyebrow and ditches the game to talk to her. Fig bails (and rolls only a 12 to stealth away) so we don’t get any extra info but just the fact that Ivy reacted that way is pretty juicy info as is.  

12) The other Rat Grinders don’t seem to be at the party but the members are skeptical about that. On the other hand, when Ivy leaves, it’s because Oisin pulls her aside and says, “Kipperlilly’s calling”. So it’s possible there was a Team A and a Team B for whatever the Rat Grinders were doing that night?

13) And speaking of what they're doing, we do have a theory. When Fabian checks some damage in the basement where Max and some other kids were smoking "gorgenfern" he sees that something called a cloud rider engine was smashed up pretty bad and in a suspicious way–gorgenfern doesn’t make you rowdy. Fabian checks the security tapes he obviously has and sees that some ice mephits came in and riled people up to the point of crashing into the engine. Adaine conjured some earlier in the party and as far as her arcana check can tell, they’re here, but there’s suspicion that Oisin–a conjuration wizard–could have done it. It’s certainly within his skillset. A cloud rider engine allows a vehicle to fly on clouds and it’s not clear if it was simply smashed or if something was stolen from it. 

14) Max isn’t a Rat Grinder but he did ask them all if they wanted to smoke with him and Ivy offered Fabian snuff so Riz is suspicious that the RG’s are trying to get them kicked out of school for drug use now that they have a non-Aguefort principal who presumably cares about silly rules like that at the murder school. 

That’s basically what we know about the Rat Grinders! So, to sum it up, I’d say the conspiracy board bullet points are:

Supposedly dead cleric Lucy Frostblade: What actually happened to her and why isn’t Ivy surprised to see “her”?

New cleric Buddy Dawn: Why was he specifically requested? 

The High Five Heroes: What caused them to turn into the Rat Grinders? And, as they seem like they were more gung ho their first year, why did they never pivot to fighting things other than low level monsters?

Do they actually have beef with the Bad Kids specifically or are their vibes just terrible? Were they trying to sabotage them by offering drugs? Did they break the engine on purpose and, if so, why?

Oisin: Is he chill or is he working an angle? That question technically goes to Ivy as well but I’m almost certain she’s fully working an angle, lol. I’m getting straight up Aelwyn vibes from her.

Class President: What is KP’s angle re: running for class president? This seems like something she’d want to do either way with her personality but her policy of fairness dovetails too neatly with Grix’s appearance and Cassandra’s inability to say the phrase, “It’s not fair,” last episode.

How did KP find the rogue professor and is that relevant?

And finally, why did KP want to know about where Kristen created her Freshman year god? Well, that question may be partially answered in our next section. 

God Stuff

There is a lot going on this season with celestial shenanigans between Cassandra and Galicaea and even Yes! So let’s mark out what we know.

1) Cassandra was possessed by some kind of rage entity via crystal shards that were expelled from her body. Her status is kind of up in the air right now as the party was shunted away to safety by Connor Counterspell (RIP) and all Kristen has left of Cass are some glowing, purple shards. 

2) Earlier in the fight, while lucid, Cassandra said, “I thought you were dead” about some unseen entity. Later, Kristen heard from a creepy voice that said, “She is at my side once more”. It then threatened her and slid out the rotting corpse of Yes! as a sick joke. Likely that these are the same person or at least connected. 

3) Gorgug identified that the rage stars are similar to what’s going on with Ragh’s mom, Lydia so it was put on the docket to get in touch with her about that–especially because Kalina specifically told them to track down Ragh with her last lucid words. 

4) Tracker’s Galicaea rebrand is going really well. Her social media is really popping and the endless night probably didn’t hurt. 

5) Kristen on the other hand, hasn’t been doing so hot. Due to a bunch of negligence based in lack of time management and personal uncertainty, she hasn’t been evangelizing much which means only she and Craig stand between Cass and her permanent destruction. 

6) Kristen can’t contact Cass telepathically and says she can’t use her magic which is Not Great if you're as danger prone as the Bad Kids. 

Alright, that’s all the old business so let’s move to the new business. 

7) When Kristen talked to her parents, we learned that Helio doesn’t have a chosen one since she left but we learn that it’s more serious than that. Helio also can’t choose a new chosen one. He only gets one. With Kristen gone, the whole religion is without a chosen one.

8) At a certain point, Tracker finally gets a hold of Kristen and says some harsh but true things about Kristen but, more relevant to the conspiracy board, she talks about her girlfriend Nara and Adaine, as a fellow high elf, clocks her as coming from a family of moon goddess clerics in Falinel. That raises the question: is this run of the mill teenage rebellion a la the theme song, or is she some kind of plant? We’ll hopefully get some more info from Aelwyn since Adaine texted her about it.

9) The real juicy stuff happens when we talk to Ragh’s mom. The fiend in Lydia's gem is called Bakur. Her having him in there doesn't make her rage--she's raging to keep him trapped but that's it. Her personality is the same. 

10) Bakur was a pit fiend and the right hand guy of a dead god whose name we don't know (hmm, another dead and nameless god). Bakur can't even say the god's name. It's like, weird god rules and Lydia explains in a weird vague way: gods not being able to use loopholes and saying names being powerful and rules changing for non-mortals when gods die.

11) The one very concrete info we get is that a god can only come back in a place where they were born or created. The reason Bakur’s plan failed is that he tried to bring back the nameless god in the Red Waste and not where they were created. 

12) Rana (Lydia’s party cleric) is away and Cormyr (the party sorcerer) is dead but Lydia offers to put the party in touch with Rana and Cormyr’s family because they have more stuff related to this and they were the ones who knew more about this than her. 

Following? Good. So let’s distill this down to bullets again:

Holy Helio. The corn god doesn’t have a chosen one anymore because Kristen up and left. What does that mean in a concrete sense? What can a chosen one do that a normal cleric can’t? Is Helio gonna ask Kristen to do anything this season now that we know that this is a special position that only one person can fill? Is it until she dies (or at least dies for real)? Would a fanatical Helioic person try and kill Kristen to open up that slot?

KP specifically asking WHERE Cassandra was created seems clearly tied to the info Lydia gave about only being able to resurrect a god where it was created. But what does that mean exactly? Is she trying to resurrect the same god as Bakur? Did she just assume that wherever Kristen made her god is probably where most gods are made and, thus, her best bet? What’s her angle? Is this an evil plan for just a “this will get me a good grade” plan?

Where in the world is Cassandra right now? She is MIA right now which means Kristen’s powers are too. Though I wonder if she can draw on those shards to cast spells.

We obviously can’t be sure but it seems like the voice Kristen heard and the person that Cass thought was dead is likely that unnamed god. What’s his deal? I’m sure we’ll have more info for this bullet soon. 

Is Tracker’s new girlfriend Nara, much like Ecaf, a turncoat? 

With Helio, Cass, and Galicaea all being in the mix, is there any kind of family angle being played. It doesn’t come up a ton but they are very much related. 

MISC

This is a section for a few points that don’t yet fit under the main two headings of the season but still need to go up on the board. 

Why would Aguefort program a robot that acts like Grix? Is he supposed to be like or is he hacked? If he is hacked, who would be able to do that? The new artificing teacher? The old one?

We learn that Aguefort has made a lot of contradicting proclamations and all of them are canon, so you’re able to pick and choose what you want to cite (I feel like I’m in law school again). Lots of room for loopholes which could be useful later. 

Adaine, while very drunk, had an oracle vision of Kristen at a birthday party, giving a victory speech to a bunch of teens on election night as a crescent moon hangs in the sky. The Crescent moon potentially gives them a time frame if they look into it (and it specifically being mentioned makes me think of Galicaea even though not every moon thing has to be connected to her). And we know Gorgug’s birthday is near the Frosty Folk festival so maybe that’s why the hats.

Speaking of, we know there’s a connection between Riz’s mom defending someone for money crimes re: that Festival and Gorgug’s parents hosting it so that’s something to remember. 

This isn’t something for the pin board per se but this season introduces a stress token system for downtime! I’m sure I’ll talk about it more when we use it for the first time next ep but, for now, gotta say he’s really ramping up the pressure on our kids! And, to that point, let’s do a quick check in with everyone and see what they’re up against!

Character Board

Adaine

-Adaine is still facing major money troubles. After last episode, not only is her job terminated, but she actually owes 2.5 gold for her uniform. 

-It looks like she might be developing a bit of a crush on the cute dragonborn (yay) but he’s a Rat Grinder (nooooo). I will say though, cross party romance could be a lot of fun and also my favorite NPC in this show is Aelwyn whose top 2 traits are famously Criminal and Loves Adaine so I am honestly fine with this either way lol. 

-Speaking of Aelwyn, I’ll put the sister stuff together: When Adaine calls her to ask for dirt on Nara she says, “Working, will call in five.” And when Adaine questions the fact that it's 5am on a Saturday, Adaine just gets a winky face emoji back. Suspicious! 

Fabian

-Fabian has to juggle the new 150% course load (bard/fighter) as well as his new party house reputation.

-He has a lack of adult supervision which also means a lack of adult care and it seems to be affecting him more than he’s willing to let on. 

-But honestly his biggest obstacle is probably himself right now, lol. He made himself a new nemesis in Gertie Bladshield and I am not confident he can handle this honey trap mission with Ivy without the tables being turned on him. 

Riz

-Riz is also facing money troubles, but for him that’s kind of business as usual unfortunately.

-He has a TON of extracurriculars to keep track of but he so far seems to be handling it pretty well and is picking up some interesting allies (that double as votes for Kristen’s campaign–campaign manager is also an extracurricular he’s taken up): the aforementioned Gertie Bladeshield (Apiary Club), Sprak LeFevre (Aviation Club), and Molman Holden (Soil Club). Always good to have new allies and Aviation Club seems like it could be really useful later! I can see him making some luck checks to successfully say, “I know a guy” in a tight spot based on how many clubs he’s joined. 

-He also has the Reliable Talent ability now which means he’s incapable of rolling lower than a 21 on things he’s proficient in which includes Investigation. We’re about to be getting some INSANE lore dumps. 

Gorgug

-Gorgug has his insane 400% courseload happening and I didn’t notice this until it was pointed out to me but Zac actually leveled Gorgug DOWN in Barbarian to take an extra level of Artificer! That’s commitment. But I can’t imagine Porter, who already has a problem with him, is gonna like that. 

Fig

-Fig would hate it if I didn’t start this list by saying that she hella misses Ayda and that’s her biggest problem. 

-But she also has her album to worry about and we actually get the bombshell during a conversation with Mazey that she’s not even sure that she still wants to be a bard.

-On top of that, she’s taking Barb and Warlock classes along with the Bard classes she’s finally going to. 

-She has her gnarly Gilear curse happening that’s seemingly connected to whoever the boss who owns the pride armor is. 

-She has beef with Rebuen and is living her double life as Wanda Childa to try and learn whatever she can about him/the Rat Grinders. 

-Both she and Wanda are wanted by the Solace FBI.  

-On a positive note, she really endeared herself to Mazey by sweetly sticking up for her when Ivy was being catty. If Fig wasn’t so devoted to Ayda I could have read their interaction at the end of the ep as flirty. Regardless, nice moment and great ally. 

Kristen

-Welp, her god is, if not dead, MIA which is arguably the biggest deal of anything on any of these lists, especially since it’s tied to her magic AND her grade. 

-Next of course is the potato to her meat on her plate: her campaign. But that’s actually going really well, especially after this party. Her biggest issue is whether or not she can get Fetty Wap to homecoming and, lbr, in a pinch Fig can just disguise herself as him. When has that ever not worked?

-She also has this unnamed god (or whoever it is) taunting her and threatening her specifically which isn’t ideal. 

-But I honestly think she was more fucked up by the conversation which Tracker where her ex basically outlined everything she needs to get together in her life and then posted a pre-written pic with her new girlfriend. That’s gotta sting. 

And that’s it! I wanted to focus on the specific nuggets of info we got this episode and start to connect them with what we knew so far. Different format, I know, but I’m feeling experimental this season and I might switch it up a few more times as Junior Year goes on. I love covering Fantasy High but, like I said at the top, I have to keep it fresh so I don’t burn out. See you next time when Brennan makes the stress we’re all feeling an actual game mechanic! Fun!

#Dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #d20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #spoilers #the report card #when I started doing these no one was doing proper recaps #now other outlets are and I'm thinking pivoting to commentary rather than straight recaps might be more fun #but I'll see how I feel

[autisticlancemcclain]

fic rec friday 54

hello and welcome to fic rec friday! where, on friday, i rec five of my favourite fics.

all i want for christmas by tusslee

“Listen,” Lance squeezes Keith’s fingers in his hands, “I’m as bad at this as you probably are and this is going to be really cheesy, but that’s the way I was raised and I know I act like an idiot around pretty girls, but I’m an even bigger idiot around you. Go ahead and try to guess why that is. No, actually don't do that."

this one is gonna be an xmas special!! even though im writing this before halloween lol. anyways. this was so cute!! lance being all stressed about what he should get keith bc he's all in love w him any everything. so real.

2. You're Here (Where You Should Be) by @blue-wanderer

"And if you’re worried about the cameras just take care of them.” “Take care—! Take care of them? With what, Keith?” “I don’t know?” Keith asks, busily testing his foothold in the gate and generally ignoring the rising storm cloud of ire behind him. “With a gun?” “A gun? This isn’t some sort of black ops storming an enemy base thing! This is a Christmas tree thing!” “I don’t see a difference? You’re the sharpshooter. Shoot out the cameras.” “Let me just pull a gun out of my ass, Keith!” “OK, problem solved,” Keith agrees, taking another step up the gate. “Nothing is solved you dumb country space redneck!”

Or Keith and Lance may be disasters at decorating, but Christmas still manages to work its magic on them.

i bookmarked this like a year ago and let me tell you all i needed to hear was dumb country space redneck and i was hooked 😭😭 and it lived up to the name fr. hate the canon ending? want lance to not be a farmer while still acknowledging his struggles with homesickness? want some whipped keith and meddlesome kosmo? want some cheesy xmas feels? click ahead!

3. make my wish come true by angelbolt

“A world where one has to fight for custody of one’s boyfriend is a godless one,” Lance muttered, slumping so he was leaning against Hunk. Shiro exchanged some final words with Kolivan before the screen blipped out. Ah yes, the ideal Christmas Eve: long boring talks and war meetings. Wonderful. ❆❅❆ keith comes home for christmas.

fun game idea: take a shot every time you see a klance xmas fic with a mariah carey lyric. lol. ANYWAYS yall know me and established relationship + early season dynamics!! i am obsessed!! and this fic delivers!! grumpy lance pov who just wants the rest of the world to fuck off for a couple days so he can have his bf around. he's such a voice of the people

4. i'll be home for christmas by @thespacenico

A severe bout of winter weather threatens to stop Shiro from making it home for his first Christmas with Keith. Shiro is ready to do whatever it takes to keep his promise.

okay this one is from darcy's i've got you brother, which i am obsessed with and have cried over several times, and which just recently updated! this fic is so cute and a adashi with young keith always fucking gets to me, man. they're just so. shiro being so desperately determined to keep his promise to young keith who has had so many promises broken that he doesnt even expect shiro to try. but is happy that he does. sobbing.

5. the greatest gift of all by dumpsterdiva

Keith’s mouth hung open for a few seconds before he stammered, “D-do you really mean that?” Lance looked a bit sheepish as he said, “I… It’s crazy, right? I mean, it’s way too soon. You know I was kidding.” Keith straightened up. “Well, I’m not. Marry me.” “What?!” “You heard me, you coward. Marry me.” “That’s the worst proposal ever!” “Worse than you threatening me with marriage so I would stop talking about how amazing you are?”

YOU GUYS KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT PROPOSAL FICS. i feel ksjbskdbqjdbqwlwd about them. okay. and throw in a christmas setting??? and banter?? and a MODERN AU?? i am doing my best, people. this fic had me shoving a pillow into my face and screaming.

that’s it for today!! happy holidays! merry christmas!! i’ll see y’all back next friday for the next fic rec post!!!

#i like them being gay and stupid and soft and surrounded by xmas lights #its so healing to me #keith puts the rizz in christmas btw #vld #voltron #lance #lance mcclain #keith #keith kogane #fully almost wrote keith mcclain #u know what??? #keith mcclain #best kind of accident #keith would so do that by accident #like on a mission report or something #GASP okay i was looking for a fic tonight #well the tonight i am writing this which is october 27th. i wonder if ill actually do it lol #established klance #fic rec #fic rec friday #christmas #blade keith #soft keith #longpost #soft lance #soft klance #broganes #shiro #takashi shirogane #keith & shiro

[vettelsvee]

SO... YOU'RE LEAVING? | Sebastian Vettel

f1 masterlist | history series masterlist | season 1

history series season 2: part 1 | part 2.1 | part 2.2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6

summary: diana is about to finish her third year of university, which means that she has to say goodbye to seb for now... especially after she realizes that yes, she might be in love with red bull's golden boy

word count: 4319

warnings: not actually! first seb and di "date", and last chapter with them just being the happy friends they seemed to be. pay attention to future chapters' trigger warnings because there will be many of them that might be hard to read for some of you

taglist: [@theseerbetweenus @annewithaneofthegreengable @vincentvanshoe @formulaonebuff @roisinivy] if you wanna be tagged in each part just tell me in the comments <3

a/n: the best is about to come omg. i'm so happy and so scared at the same time because the next two chapters are gonna be THE ONES (everything is going to hell)

feedback, as well as reblogs and comments, are truly appreciated!

2009

Spanish Grand Prix Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain

May 9th Saturday

It was Friday, the day of free practice sessions, and the circuit in Montmeló was bustling with activity.

Diana was in one of the quieter corners of the paddock, near a catering area. The table in front of her was cluttered with textbooks, notes and an open laptop displaying several documents, all filled with complex formulas that would be completely indecipherable to anyone without at least some knowledge of Mechanical Engineering even for the blonde-haired girl, who was already halfway through her university studies and, unfortunately, becoming increasingly demotivated.

Amidst the mix of noises from fans, journalists and engines, Wagner was engrossed in trying to review all the content she had learned since March. She was tackling problems that seemed to make no sense while taking small sips of her iced coffee, lovingly prepared by the girl who was serving her. Valentina, she thought her name tag said.

The morning progressed, so did her study session. The girl hadn't noticed, but when she did, it was already two-thirty in the afternoon. The pain in her head was so intense that she just wanted to stop and take a well-deserved break. Her ambition, however, made her want to keep her head down and push through to ensure that the results were better than they already were.

Sebastian, after finishing the first free practice session, wasted no time in rushing out as soon as he stepped out of his vehicle. Still in his racing suit and his helmet resting under his arm, the German headed out for a walk, hoping to grab something to eat that didn't involve vegetables without his trainer, Edward, catching him red-handed.

He just wanted to clear his head before the second practice session, but his mind played against him again as he spotted a familiar figure.

The Red Bull Racing intern was sitting at a slightly secluded table. Her blonde hair, slightly tousled, fell over her shoulders, while her gaze was absorbed by the screen of a laptop, although occasionally she would glance down at some papers in front of her, covering the entire surface.

Sebastian knew Diana had been studying hard for weeks, but things seemed to have gotten worse. They had spent a lot of time together for Sebastian to know perfectly well that Diana Wagner was the epitome of academic excellence and perfection. She studied on every flight and free hour she had, regardless of where she was, who she was with, and what noise surrounded her. Every time she had a gap, she used it to get ahead with her studies or any work assigned to her due to her "job" situation.

The boy was afraid to approach the girl because he didn't want to bother her, but much to his regret, he decided to do so when he heard, from just a couple of meters behind her, her murmurs of frustration and, surely, overwhelm. After a brief greeting that startled her, making her even jump slightly in her seat, her eyes met the pilot's:

"Seb! Hey, I didn't expect to see you here."

The girl greeted him with a smile, setting her pen aside and closing her electronic device. Her eyes filled with excitement upon seeing Sebastian, who had caught her off guard: she didn't expect to see him there, especially with the second practice of the day scheduled to start in less than an hour.

"I'm doing some exercises to review all the content for the exam I have on Monday," the Austrian explained, pointing to the pile of notes on the table. "I'm a little nervous, and I'm studying everything in Catalan, so sorry if I say a word you don't understand..."

"It's tough being multilingual, isn't it?" Vettel said ironically, trying to change the subject to help the young woman forget about her studies. "You know German, English, Spanish, and, from what I can see, Catalan," he enumerated with his fingers. "Any more languages?"

"No," she quickly replied, "but I'd like to learn to speak a language you don't know so I can say things to you without you knowing what I'm saying."

After saying that, Diana quickly got up from her seat to approach her friend, taking him by the arm and kissing him on the cheek. Although it was somewhat contradictory on Sebastian's part, who hadn't been completely honest with the twenty-something, they had gotten used to this type of greeting. Sometimes desperation gnawed at him because their lips ended up so close to each other that, let's not deny it, he had been about to try to kiss her on more than one occasion.

"I don't know Spanish," the boy complained. "The only things I know are gracias, lo siento, and no."

"Perfect, although no is an universal word," Diana responded in perfect Spanish. "Anything else?"

"Te quiero," he told her with horrible pronunciation. "Is that right?"

Diana laughed, completely ignoring him as her cheeks turned a much too bright red, which, out of nowhere, had begun to embarrass her a lot. Sebastian simply lowered his gaze and regretted the last thing he had said.

He had to stop being an idiot not for Hanna or for Di, but for himself.

"I'm sure you'll do great on the exam," he resumed the previous conversation, more nervous than he had expected. "You work hard day in and day out. In fact, sometimes, more than Rocky, I hear you reciting things that make no sense."

The blonde nodded. However, a feeling of doubt and, at the same time, guilt, invaded her.

"I hope so," she replied sincerely. "The first year of university was really tough for me. I had trouble with some subjects," she confessed, "and I even had to retake exams because I failed more than I would have liked."

"And now look where you are. You don't have to worry so much about this, Di," the boy replied. "You're intelligent, and you're capable of this and much more. Trust me: everything is going to be better than you think."

Despite his reassuring words, the blonde noticed that the lack of confidence persisted in the eyes of the girl in front of him.

"When do you have exams?" the boy wanted to know. "Are you going to continue with us, or...?"

"No, not for now… I mean, not for the moment," Diana clarified before Seb could finish speaking. "I'll stay here, in Barcelona," she said with determination, although deep down, it made her sad. "I start on Monday, and with that and the final project submissions for the end of the semester, Helmut suggested that I should stay home and focus on my studies."

Sebastian nodded, understanding what the girl meant. He was relieved that she was staying in the city where she grew up but, at the same time, he was a little disheartened because he didn't know exactly how long he would see her.

Diana Wagner had become a fundamental part of his life, and although he knew they would talk every day as they had been doing since the beginning of that season, it wouldn't be the same as being able to spend physical time with her.

Although maybe it would help him to set aside his obsession and start focusing a little more on his girlfriend, whom he seemed to have neglected in his mind and feelings.

"Di, seriously, you shouldn't worry so much," the blonde insisted again with a smile. "I've been seeing you study more and more, especially in recent weeks."

"That's what I told you before, Seb. I don't want to fail again. I can't disappoint my father..."

Sebastian could hear how his friend's voice trembled after mentioning the man who gave her life. He didn't know if it was exhaustion, overwhelm, or how undervalued she felt in those moments: Vettel had no doubt that Diana was on the verge of a mental breakdown and needed to get out of the loop of physics, mathematics, and engineering as soon as possible.

He hated that Diana was so insecure. If only she knew her worth...

"We all have tough times, Di, but that doesn't define who we are, what we're capable of, and certainly not our worth as a person," he tried to clarify, putting his hands on her shoulders as he looked her in the eyes.

The blonde smiled gratefully at him, although she still carried that persistent concern on her shoulders. Studying was the only thing she had had under control in her life, but her desire to give up was growing stronger when she had to face an increase in the difficulty of the material and the multiple rejections she received for being a woman trying to live a "man's life."

"Why don't you leave this for a while, and we go for lunch?" Seb suddenly suggested.

Diana glanced at the makeshift library that had been created on the metal table, not entirely sure of what she should do.

"I'm not sure if it's the best idea, Seb. I have so much to study and review..."

Sebastian, however, wasn't going to take no for an answer: carefully, he began to tidy up the chaos the girl had created, trying to organize the neatly numbered notes and the books, as if they were treasures.

"Your studies can wait a bit," he muttered as he dismantled all the mess. "A meal with me, before Free Practice 2, can't."

"Okay, Seb. You win again."

The driver smiled triumphantly and immediately tried to pack Diana's belongings as best as he could into his backpack. Then, he extended his hand to her, which she gladly took, and they headed towards one of the nearby restaurants.

In the end, lack of time consumed them, so they ended up sharing a salad in the Red Bull hospitality area. Although it was filled with a positive and welcoming atmosphere, the somewhat curious looks focused on them bothered them, especially Sebastian, who knew they were already speculating in their heads about whether he had ended his relationship with his girlfriend.

Couldn't a boy and a girl just be friends?

"I've been watching Formula 1 since I can remember. My favorite has always been, and will be, Michael. I hope he returns someday."

The blonde took a sip of her water bottle and smiled nostalgically. To her surprise, she ended up telling the German more than she had intended, and she had given a much longer account than she had time for about her parents, her sister, and the majority of her family members who, luckily, no longer seemed to be.

"My mother died when I was 14," Wagner recounted carefully as she remembered the image of her deceased mother. "It was a very difficult time for our family, so my father suddenly decided that moving to Spain was the best thing to start over and distance ourselves from the pain."

Sebastian didn't know what to say. He had a lump in his throat, and all he wanted to do was run away from there.

"I'm sorry, Di."

"No, don't be," she replied kindly, swallowing back the tears that were beginning to form in her eyes. "It was a complicated time, and my relationship with my father changed a lot after that. We had a hard time moving forward," she continued, "but I'm almost ready to leave home."

Immediately, Diana regretted what she had said, even though that was all she wanted. She couldn't think that way, especially when her father was in a rather delicate state of health, and her sister was just a teenager who still had a lot to learn.

The conversation continued, and Sebastian tried to avoid those delicate topics for the girl. Quickly, he asked Di about her likes: he found out that she was a big fan of Spider-Man and of comics and superhero movies in general. She loved food, although most of the times she had to control herself because, otherwise, her weight would skyrocket at lightning speed. He also told her a little about his family and how the adoption of Lara went, whose biological parents gave her up for adoption because they were just teenagers who had made the mistake of conceiving her.

They didn't have time for much more because Britta, twenty minutes later, appeared, demanding Seb's presence in the garage at the request of Rocky and Christian. Diana ended up staying there, finishing what was left of her plate, and she bid the boy farewell cheerfully, wishing him luck.

An hour later, Diana, who was with some mechanics discussing some improvements to the car of the number 5 driver, saw Vettel appear, a little tired, immediately heading towards his engineer while wiping the sweat from his forehead. She decided to approach him as soon as he finished talking to the Frenchman; his fatigue seemed to still be present, and from what she could see, he had already drunk almost three small bottles of water and a bit of isotonic drink.

"I think I'm going to go home now," she began to say, knowing that the young man wouldn't mind in the slightest. "I need to rest for tomorrow, and you should be doing the same."

She knew that if she told him that as soon as she opened the door of her house, she was going to go to her bedroom to continue studying, he wouldn't leave her alone. A little white lie didn't hurt anyone.

After all, everyone lied, right?

Sebastian looked at her, slightly frowning. He could boast of knowing their facial expressions and reactions quite well, and he knew perfectly well that what she was saying might not be as true as she made herself believe.

"Di... I know you're worried about university, but you also need to relax and rest. We could go for a walk, if you want."

"I don't want Rocky or Britta to get mad at you for seeing you leave when you should be focusing on tomorrow's qualifying," the blonde stated. "We have to be responsible, but..."

"But what, Diana?"

Little by little, the German approached Wagner, who began to tense up for no reason. She knew that Seb was right: her obsession with studying had been increasing lately, and maybe she needed a little break.

"Don't worry about them, Di," Vettel continued, gently caressing the girl's shoulder. "I'll take care of them later. Now it's our turn to relax a bit and forget about everything. We deserve it."

The afternoon passed peacefully but, to the surprise of both young people, much faster than they thought. They enjoyed the warm sound of the Catalan capital and its overwhelming atmosphere. Although Diana was uneasy during the first few hours and felt guilty for enjoying herself and not studying, she gradually let herself be carried away by the German, realizing that she needed to disconnect from everything, even beyond her studies, more than she initially thought.

They started by strolling through some of the city's most renowned streets, not forgetting to take a look at the Sagrada Familia and stopping to enjoy the ice creams from one of the girl's favorite places, which the driver insisted on paying for. While they enjoyed the refreshing taste of mint and the sweetness of chocolate, they headed, at Diana's request, to a quiet park she used to go to when she needed to leave her house. Sitting on a bench, they continued the conversation they had started at noon, discovering more about each other if that was possible.

Well, except that Sebastian had been dating a girl named Hanna Prater for about three years.

By the time they realized the night was starting to get late, it was already nine o'clock. When Diana saw the hands of her watch pointing to that hour, she started to feel uneasy because she knew her sister would be home alone. She didn't want the day to end, let alone say goodbye to Sebastian, but the responsibility of acting like a mother to the youngest in the family called her.

"Seb, I think I should go back home," the young woman interrupted the moment when Vettel approached to read the menu of a restaurant even though it was written in Spanish.

The boy lifted his gaze from the sign and fixed it on the blonde, who looked somewhat uneasy.

"Don't worry, I'll accompany you," Vettel saw Diana was about to speak to refuse again, so he anticipated her, "and before you say anything, yes, I'm going to take you even if you tell me not to because my hotel is not very far away," he lied as best as he could.

Diana tried to object, still insisting that Sebastian needed to rest for the qualifying race the next day, but it was all in vain because the German was too stubborn, causing the Austrian to eventually accept.

After parking the car in a parking lot near the building where the blonde lived, Sebastian asked the girl, in a friendly tone, if he could come up to her house. Saying that he was curious to meet her family was a bit rushed, but he really wanted to know more, as much as he could, about her.

Obviously, Diana didn't refuse.

When they entered the building, they took the stairs to the second floor and, as soon as the university student opened the door, the lively sounds of Mario Kart coming from the living room started to be heard. They entered the room and saw Amelie, Diana's younger sister, immersed in a race, with Yoshi in the lead, and she kept moving the controller with enthusiasm. When she glanced at Sebastian, she immediately stopped the game, surprising her sister.

"Wow, hi, you're Sebastian!"

The mentioned nodded and greeted her back, letting the teenager continue playing the video game. With curiosity, he turned to Diana and blurted out, suddenly, where their father was.

"He's at the hospital... working," the blonde assured, trying to hide the truth as calmly as she could.

"What are you saying, sister? But if dad is..."

"He's working at the hospital, Ame! Don’t you remember?"

After the shout of reply from the older of the sisters, a kind of tension in the living room began to be palpable. Shaking her head, and trying to control her breathing while counting backward from ten, Wagner left the living room and headed to the kitchen, leaving her sister immersed in a game with the driver.

As she began to prepare dinner, and as angry as she was with her sister at that moment for almost jeopardizing her position as an intern.

Sebastian was so focused on the game that he didn't realize that the vibrations of his phone were becoming more and more frequent until a loud ringtone started to sound. He took his phone out of his pocket and, seeing who was calling, he sighed; as much as he was having a good time in the company of the Wagner sisters, he forced the girl to stop the game so he could answer it.

"Yes, Rocky?"

The driver replied a bit more gruffly than usual, but he couldn't help it: he was havinga great time in the company of the Wagner sisters for someone to ruin his party. He could see how, at the same time he headed to the hallway to speak more privately, Diana appeared at the kitchen door, with one eyebrow raised, and her hands and face covered in flour, just like the apron she was wearing.

"I need you to come back to the hotel immediately. We need to go over the strategies for the qualifying, but I didn't want to bother you because I knew you needed this day to relax."

The boy put on a rather unfriendly face when he heard his engineer speaking in plural, but he knew he was right. After exchanging a few meaningless sentences, especially about how he had spent his afternoon, he hung up and returned to the living room, where the little redhead was looking at him with quite intimidating eyes.

"What's wrong, Sebastian?" Amelie's curiosity was impossible to control.

"I have to go back to my hotel to talk to my engineer," he smiled, crouching down to be at the girl's height, sitting on the couch. "I promise that as soon as I can, I'll come back and we'll play all the games you want. And, if you want," he added, "we can convince Di to join us."

She nodded with an understanding smile despite her disappointment.

"I like that you call my sister Di," she revealed, leaving Vettel completely stunned. "I wish everyone had the affection for her that you have."

“Why do you say that?” Now, Sebastian was overtaken by curiosity.

"Because I've read with dad some really mean things people say on the internet about her."

Sebastian was intrigued by Amelie's words, and he wanted to know more about it, but he knew it wasn't the right time to delve into the subject; he would investigate it on his own. He said goodbye to the girl with a smile and headed to the kitchen, where Diana was still immersed in the preparation of a dinner that, more than that, seemed like a banquet.

"Di, I have to go. Rocky called me saying that if I'm not there in an hour, he's going to break the brakes of the car so I crash tomorrow," he joked in bad taste, causing the girl to scream at him.

"Don't say that, idiot!" she hit him on the arm forcefully. Immediately, she worried if his words were true. "Did he really say that?"

The German couldn't help but laugh. He loved Diana's innocence, and he would never stop loving her no matter what happened between them.

"Shall we meet tomorrow then so you can guide me when I realize the brakes aren't working properly?" he continued in an ironic tone to try to make the girl laugh.

"Of course, Mr. Vettel."

Diana accompanied Sebastian to the door with a kind of mixed feelings that she couldn't explain. Surprisingly, the driver felt the same. Neither of them wanted to be apart from the other, but neither was brave enough to say it, let alone show it.

When they reached the door, she instinctively opened her arms to give the boy a hug, who was leaning against the door frame.

"Thank you for making me feel better today, Seb," a shy smile appeared on her lips. "It's been a wonderful day, and I'll definitely start reading the Spider-Man comics you bought me totoday. Really, there was no need for you to buy them!"

Sebastian reciprocated the hug whispering in her ear "You're welcome, Gwen Stacy." After they separated, Diana made a gesture as if she was about to say something else. Sebastian just leaned forward, seeking the lips of the girl who had him so confused. She didn't know what to do, so she closed her eyes as calmly as she could in anticipation, so that just before their lips met, the German abruptly withdrew, regretting what he had just been about to do.

Confusion and rejection began to show on Diana, who felt pretty bad about herself at that moment.

"Seb..."

The girl's voice trembled like it had never done before. Sebastian took a step back, stumbling as he tried not to fall down the stairs; his gaze was fixed on the ground, trying to find the right words to apologize.

"I'm sorry, Di," he tried to express himself as best as he could. "It was a mistake… I shouldn't have done it..."

Diana, even though she knew it didn't make sense, felt hurt and, above all, vulnerable. She just swallowed and nodded, downplaying it even though she wished things were different.

"It's okay, Sebastian," she murmured bittersweetly. "There's nothing to worry about. After all, we all make mistakes."

Sebastian, without responding to that, turned around and quickly left the apartment, leaving Diana completely alone at the door, trying to fight back the tears that were already coming, and a feeling of rejection that she had never felt before.

She just wanted the ground to swallow her up at that moment; the slightly open door of the apartment across the hall, which allowed her neighbor to clearly want to know more about the scene she had just witnessed, seemed to say otherwise.

"Well, my dear! Who is that handsome boy I saw leaving your house and who has left you like this?" 

The woman, about forty years old, had stopped hiding behind her door and had decided to come out just to point and laugh quietly at the sight that, surely, Diana had.

"It's none of your business, Chari," the Austrian snapped rather sharply. 

"My dear, I'm sorry if I bothered you..." she pretended to be surprised, "I just wanted..."

"No, that's enough. Stop being so annoying!" the girl interrupted, already tired of the woman.

After saying that, Diana entered her house and slammed the door aggressively. She hated Chari, her demanding studies, that her father was getting closer to death, and above all, that her head was lost in thoughts that made no sense.

Lost in her thoughts, the dyed blonde didn't realize that Amelie was looking at her with curiosity, a little surprised by the bipolar behavior that her older sister seemed to be having that day.

"What's wrong, Diana?"

The innocent look of the youngest, combined with her curiosity, broke the silence that had settled in the house. The eldest, still lost in her thoughts, completely confused about what she was feeling, tried to bring to light, as best as she could, the words she had been holding back for too long and that she was eager to share with someone:

"I think I like him, Ame. I think I like Sebastian Vettel."

#f1 #formula 1 #sebastian vettel #sebastian vettel fanfic #sebastian vettel fic #sebastian vettel x fem oc #sebastian vettel x oc #fluff #sebastian vettel fluff #history #diana vettel #emma stone #sebastian vettel imagine

[canonizzyhours]

I've been dying to talk about this, so bless whoever is running this blog. Really appreciate having the space to do so. But okay, the sudden jump in Izzy's characterization and motives in season 2 really quite bothered me, to the point where I can't even jump on the "Calypso's Birthday is the best episode" train and things equivalent. As someone who did view him as more of an antagonistic presence in season 1, and someone who believes him to be rife with toxic masculinity, a lot of the jumps in this season just felt...unearned?

Maybe unearned isn't quite the right word, because I don't think anyone has to earn kindness or anything of the sort. Maybe jarring is a little better suited.

But I digress. It was just so odd to me to see him go from telling Ed that his softness and femininity was "a fate worse than death" to wearing drag makeup and singing a love song in front of the entire crew. You know??

I was actually quite on board for the developments in the earlier episodes—excited, even! To see him experience the repercussions of his actions, and have to quickly backpedal and change his tune before even more damage could be wrought was very interesting. I also liked seeing the rough and tough façade crack. I adore seeing any sort of toxic masculinity begin to falter. So I actually really loved seeing him cry, seeing him receive comfort from Frenchie and Fang, and just...slowly unspooling whatever mentality he had been locked in.

That's just the thing though—slowly. It felt natural in episodes 1-5 to me, because he was working alongside the crew and being more receptive to their kindness—to the atmosphere Stede had fostered. And even him working alongside Stede felt natural to me because it was like, "Okay, this twat is here and he's here to stay, so I might as well learn to work alongside him just as I have with everyone else." Not to mention also that Stede showed kindness and mercy numerous times, which I'm sure has to resonate with anyone on receiving end.

But then all of a sudden comes episodes 6-7, and so many moments that just had me scratching my head or feeling outright uncomfortable. The drag show in particular, but also the morning after interruption, the "made your boyfriend blush," the "I think you're good for him," etc etc. Because, genuinely, where did any of that come from? Where did acceptance and vulnerability to that degree come from?

The morning after interruption just feels so off to me that it has almost become my new "Oooo Daddy" moment. Meaning, I watch Ed and Stede talking, but then skip over Izzy interrupting them. I just can't even watch it. Because, Izzy joking about gay sex?? Izzy congratulating them for having sex??? Where and how???

Him being more receptive to kindness and camaraderie is one thing, as is working better alongside those he had a problem with. I'll gladly take both of those developments. But him suddenly just being okay with the things he thought deserving of death? The things he called Ed a slur for? The things he thought "did something to his boss' brain?" And then some, because he was even allowed more open vulnerability and femininity than Ed was???

And also, I know that a lot of his vitriol and toxicity stemmed from the fact that he didn't want to lose his anchor: Blackbeard. Blackbeard was power. Blackbeard was a threatening name to stand behind. Blackbeard was something of a shield for him. With Blackbeard in place, he had credibility and power of his own—the ability to throw his first-mate status around. Without Blackbeard, as shown at the end of episode 9 in the first season, he has none of that. No backing, no power, no credibility, no ground to stand on. And anything that came to threaten that, aka Stede, was immediately a giant no-no, because it would take that safety net from him.

But then, when he crams Ed back into that box at the end of the first season, I think it's the breaking point. The horrible pit Ed falls into finally clicks something in his brain, and makes him realize it's not sustainable for anyone. Like, after years and years and years of trying to hold Ed in place, it's finally bad and severe enough for him to realize that that's no longer an option, that it's damaging and that there are repercussions.

Which, again, nifty development! No longer being ugly towards Ed for his own personal gain? And maybe trying to stand a bit on his own? Sign me up!

Yet, to me, that still doesn't explain the sudden jaunts towards queerness and femininity! It still feels out of place with everything he said and did in the first season! Not only to Ed, but to Stede, Lucius, etc etc!

And maybe, admittedly, I'm even more bothered by all of this because it throws even more fuel onto the "he's the main character" fire. He gets so much of this limelight, and for what? Surely because his days were numbered, and so there was this inclination to give him his moments. But I couldn't really enjoy any of them, because they just felt so...off, and I knew they would only give a select group even more kindling.

Which is unfortunate, because queer joy is beautiful, and should be celebrated. As should growth. As should kindness. But in this instance, it just feels like so many pieces are ill-fitting, or that, with an ironic quote usage here, that, "the atmosphere on this ship is...fucked."

Anyway, thanks again for the space, and for allowing me to say my piece, as jumbled as it may be.

#124.

#ofmd #izzy hands #canonizzyhours #❤️

[imfromthemiddlekingdom]

Felony saying that everyone in the universe can access the force if they tried hard enough makes me want to deck him in his fugly face

He’s ruining all established canon in real time. Speed running the absolute destruction of continuity of the SW universe and people are still rooting for him and his blorbo self inserts like there’s no tomorrow. Literally the whole reason I no longer engage in Ashoka content is because he massacred my girl and made her so one dimensional that my Mary Sue self insert fanfics OCs I wrote when I was 14 looks well developed compared to the absolute bland “girlboss kick ass take names” personality Ashoka has right now.

There were so many opportunities for him to explore the absolute potential of angst and conflict within Ashoka in this new series, to give her character a believable story of grief loss and growth yet he threw it all away because he wanted his OC to be the specialist girl that ever lived. This series could’ve been used to explore Ashokas conflicting feelings regarding the Anakin that taught her and was a mentor to her whilst trying to connect it to the monster that killed her family and hunted her culture into almost extinction and tried to kill her, a person he confessed to love as a sister, on Malachor. It could’ve been a good send off to a great character, to have her face that the Skyguy she put on a pedestal in her mind was in actuality the worst sort of scum and have her try to come to terms that just because she can forgive him for being the genocidal maniac he was and still hold love in her heart for who he used to be and also understand why the Jedi, her family, wasn’t the reason for their own downfall.

But alas. We got another series of “the Jedi caused their own downfall!!! Anakin did nothing wrong ever and him killing all my family and everyone I’ve ever known is so not his fault!!! It’s definitely the fault of the unbending stuck in the past council!!!”. Instead of a series that could’ve made Ashoka’s “departure” (literally never going to happen with felony at the helm, he’s going to find a way to make her immortal and then show up 200 years in the future to be the protagonist of another light v dark fight since she’s his special SI) from the series tie in nicely thematically and canonically with every other Star Wars media we have, he decided that the best way to have this series go down is 1) everyone is force sensitive if they tried hard enough ig and 2) the Jedi were bad!!! Their protocols don’t work! They were mean to my little meow meow Anakin Skywalker the greatest Jedi of all times™️ therefore he got to kill them all!!!!

Got a bit off topic but I’m still so mad that he had this chance to make Ashoka truly experience growth like the first 5 seasons of TCW yet he decided maintaining the badass rebel without a cause aesthetics for her was more important then good story telling.

Honestly though, my main problem with this series is that he decided that apparently everyone in the universe can be force sensitive if they “just tried hard enough”. Like your Midichlorian Count no longer matters since even if you were Force-Null you can still be special!!!!

This takes away any and all urgency in the Jedi Fallen Order games. It makes Cals journey absolutely redundant. It throws away all the tragedy contained in having inquisitors being force sensitive kids kidnapped from their parents and tortured till they give into the dark side. If all beings are able to use the force in his universe then there are no consequences to the inquisitors not finding the Holocron that holds the names to all force sensitive children in the universe. There would be no need to them to chase Cal and the Mantis Crew throughout the universe to obtain what they have. They could’ve just went down to any random level in Coruscant and take homeless Force-Null kids and train them.

Even better! It makes the entirety of the KOTOR games redundant!!!! Oh and I guess the hidden path is also redundant since everyone can be force sensitive and no one truly needs more saving from the empire over others :/ totally not like these kids that were saved by the path would’ve been taken and tortured into inquisitors, definitely not since EVERYONE is force sensitive nowadays or is it just the ones Ashoka trains herself because she’s the “living embodiment of the daughter uwu she’s so special and unique look how well she can train a non force sensitive to be force sensitive!!!”

Everyone in the Star Wars universe has Midichlorian’s in their blood. That is a fact. It is also an established fact that the amount each person has is different and is not determined nor dependent on lineage. Force-Nulls typically range in the 1000-3000 count and you need 7000 to be force sensitive and higher to be accepted into the order. (The order isn’t the end all be all of force cultures, Rouge One shows that Jedha’s force culture isn’t restricted to only force sensitives as the Guardian’s were never specified to be only a religious order of force sensitives. And high canon doesn’t depict many other force cultures but we know that there are many force cultures in the universe that co-exist with the Jedi with which the Jedi weren’t in opposition towards; literally not even the witches of Dathomir were oppositions anywhere outside of the battle fields.) You don’t need to be force sensitive to be part of a force culture (Jedha literally has pilgrims who come far and wide to make a pilgrimage to the holy site and not all of them were force sensitive), Sabine could’ve very easily been taught the tenets of the Jedi without retconning her to be force sensitive or making everyone in the universe force sensitive.

No where in either the EU or High Canon did anyone ever say that you have to be force sensitive to be a badass or to make a difference. Hera did not hold the title of the best pilot in the universe just for some rat of a man to come and say that Anakin was the best because *muh force sensitivity!!!!* Some of the most heroic and most influential (good or bad) people in the franchise are Force-Null! And that’s great! It means that the force doesn’t make anyone better than anyone else! It’s a quirk of the universe! To retcon that everyone can and is force sensitive if they tried hard enough is literally cheapening everything the franchise stands for. Andor did not literally give us an entire story about how Force-Nulls in the Galaxy makes just as much of a difference as force sensitives for felony to come out and say that “you know what??? Midichlorian’s are a scam! You get a force sensitivity! You get a force sensitivity! Everyone gets a force sensitivity!!!!”

Sabine was great as she was in rebels, why cheapen it with “oh she’s actually force sensitive all this time!!!” When we could’ve stuck with badass Force-Null Mandalorian can kick your ass five ways to Sunday with her paint bombs and blasters you force wielding asshole!!! Like why even do that felony. Do you want people to hate her??? Nvm ofc you do, you need Ashoka to be the best in every way possible even if it means ruining every other beloved character in this franchise👍

#Star Wars salt #star wars #ashoka series #Ashoka Tano critical #anti anakin skywalker #anti Dave Filoni #fuck you felony I want to punch you in your rat face #Ashoka series critical #the Midichlorian count should mean something felony!!!!! #why are you making Ashoka a Mary sue😭 literally give her a personality that isn’t kickass take names please I beg #sw salt #I hate it here #jedi positive

[klonnieshippersclub]

Assuming that Hope is included in your AU in which Bonnie and Klaus are together, what makes a Hope parented by Klaus and Bonnie different from a Hope parented by Klaus and Hayley to you? What do you think a Klonnie fanon Hope would be like compared to canonical Hope Mikaelson?

I have no problems with canon!Hope or offering thoughts with her. I just sometimes feel discouraged to share them because fans get very defensive when thinking of Bonnie and Hope together. Or even the possibility of Bonnie being her mother. Not to name anyone directly but some comments about Bonnie and the Bennett’s are rooted in racism and microagressions.

Nice question! Not to bash Hayley’s parenting I think she did the best with what she could. In so many stages of Hope’s life season 4-5 to for example Hope is so timid or depressed due to her lack of family. All of that protection for what? It only made her more isolated and sadder. What I would do is build-up on what we’ve already seen through Bonnie’s experiences to mesh with Klaus experiences. A lot of the time and I do understand Klaus can be difficult. Hayley uses Elijah for parenting opinions. She even jokes with Elijah once about how Klaus can visit Hope sometimes in their perfect world with her, Elijah and Hope. Bonnie wouldn’t want that for Klaus. To me Klaus feels so emotionally distant from Hope is because he is never forced in positions to be there. No one should force anyone to be a parent. But how many times does the series allow Klaus to parent? Why create the baby plot if it isn’t going to benefit the Mikaelson’s in anyway? Hope barely knows her family, the foundation is not there.

All of that being said I would have Klonnie be more interactive with Hope. Allow Klaus the space to make the mistake with Hope and allow them to talk like a family. I feel as if season 5 is the only time Klaus ever has a MATURE conversation with Hope. I can imagine Hope being standoffish with Bonnie originally. Bonnie knows best in what it is like being a young witch in the world targeted for your gifts. Not having a real understanding on where she belonged as of yet. Bonnie also knows life as a witch and life as a teenaged girl before the supernatural world. Bonnie would suggest more normal activities for Hope to try. Treat her as if she’s also a person behind being a “tribrid.” Be understanding of Hope decides she wants to pause as they try to bond.

As for Klonnie!Hope think about Bonnie and the upbringing that she had. Her parents were absent but she had a present mother-figure in Grams. Considering Sheila and Abby likely had a tumultuous relationship (with Sheila being a teen mom and Abby being flighty), Sheila probably saw raising Bonnie as a second chance. She wasn't able to truly parent Bonnie since Rudy didn't want Bonnie spending too much time over there though. Bonnie knows what normal families and childhoods look like. She saw how the Gilberts raised their kids. With Bonnie's knowledge and strong maternal nature, she'd be able to support Hope's emotional needs better than anyone and guide Klaus on being a better parent. He would NOT be disappearing on his kid for years with Bonnie around. Klonnie!Hope gets a sense of normalcy that canon!Hope does not.

#bonnie bennett #klaus mikaelson #klonnie #bonnie x klaus #klaus x bonnie #the vampire diaries #tvd #rikkisinbox #anon ask #the originals #Hope Mikaelson #bonnie x Hope #Hope x Bonnie #Honnie

[iphone18pham]

i saw your itzy as the love languages (which i loved btw) and i was wondering if you could do the same with newjeans if not that's 100% ok have a nice day <3

Newjeans as the 5 love languages

Disclaimers! Bad grammar, Not Proofread

Paring: Newjeans (separate) x Reader (No Gender Mention)

Masterlist: GG,   BG

AN:I'm glad you love it i hope this is what you wanted and sorry this took so long I had some school and family problems.

MINJI - Physical Touch

(YOU AS AN IDOL)

She's the one that gets jealous because the other members are "taking you away from her"

She tries to not make it obvious but people can sense her jealousy from a mile away

She would hold your hand and give you pecks on your cheek in front of the members to show them that your hers

She would find a way to hold your hand while performing like performing OMG at the beginning when you guys are standing behind Hanni

Kisses all over yours and Minji's face

(YOU’RE NOT A IDOL)

Loves when you put your fingers through her hair

Cuddles on the couch while watching movies

Being the unofficial leader of Newjeans brings stress so give her some messages once in a while

She will give hugs from behind while she kisses your face

You guys are always close together when going out

HANNI - Words of Affirmation

(YOU AS AN IDOL)

She totally says pick up lines to you I bet she has an app on her phone that gives her daily pick up lines

Complements you on your dancing, singing, and your everything

She knows she can make the members jealous so she does

tells how pretty you are and how she is so lucky to be your girlfriend and sometimes it gets really annoying

She would say i love you like every second if she could

if you guys weren't together like if one of you guys had to leave Korea because of being a fashion ambassador or something she would always stay up at night due to time differences just to say i love you and she misses you and that she can't wait to see you again

(YOU’RE NOT A IDOL)

Loves texting 'I love you <3' every day

She also likes when you text her good luck before shows/concerts

she still brags about you to the girls

she sometimes during lives would say somethings about you but you have a code name so no one knows

DANIELLE- Quality Time

(YOU AS AN IDOL)

Tik toks

I feel like she loves doing tik toks with you like to the amount that its too much and it gets annoying

She loves to go to the beach maybe just for a walk or swimming or just for some air

Would totally be the one to plan a way to sneak out of the dorms and roam the streets with you

She would totally have a movie marathon with you

Loves to go to a park or amusement park with you

Plays just dance with you even though she usually loses

(YOU’RE NOT A IDOL)

Loves short road trips together

She likes to go to the movies with you

So many tik tok drafts and privates that only family and close friends can see so you don't expose that your dating

Loves to go shopping and get ice cream/hot chocolate (depends on the season) with you

Cuddles while you guys just talk about your day is a must

HAERIN - Acts of Service 

(YOU AS AN IDOL)

I feel like Haerin has a nonverbal way of showing her love for you

Not that she doesn't say I love you it's just that she is better at showing than telling

She loves to help you with the choreography

Loves making snacks for you/with you

Loves doing your hair

She loves sharing clothes with you

Would share her blanket with you

(YOU’RE NOT A IDOL)

Still would teach you the choreography

Loves to make snacks for movie marathons

Would love to help you with homework and projects

HYEIN - Gifts

(YOU AS AN IDOL)

Loves it when you make her strawberry cakes

She would love it when you get her kpop albums like bts or twice albums

Loves making a kpop collaborative playlist with you

I heard her bias is Jin from bts so you better give her some photocards of him

Loves to go out to eat with you

She really loves it when you surprise her with stuff

(YOU’RE NOT A IDOL)

She can pull some strings to get you something signed from her idol friends

Gets you nice seating places at their concert

Loves to get you clothes and accessories

Loves trading stuff with you from other groups albums

Loves ordering food for you

Gets you chocolate and snacks

#newjeans #newjeans x reader #x reader #newjeans minji #NWJNS Minji #kim minji #hanni pham #nwjns hanni #hanni x reader #danielle new jeans #danielle #newjeansdanielle #HaeRin #newjeans haerin #haerin nwjns #hyein new jeans #hyein #newjeans hyein #newjean #nwjns icons #kpop gg #kpop

[none-ofthisnonsense]

Merlin liveblog (partly for @thisisjustmefangirling )

Season 1 Episode 1:

I’m halfway through the first episode, and so far HOW IS MERLIN SO LUCKY ALL THE TIME. (Also, why has everyone been in Doctor Who?!)

I’m coming into this with some background - I think I watched the first 5 episodes a few years ago? But I don’t really remember them well. Apart from being shot in the heart by Katie McGrath’s beautiful outfits. And also, being on tumblr, I have some mutuals who are fans of it, or I’ve seen gifsets when scrolling through some blogs. And I also do know basic Arthuriana, so I can guess in what position some characters are meant to end up. I’ve got a little background knowledge but not that much. Onto the liveblog!

Merlin you’re behaving like a dramatic teen. Which I guess you are, I don’t really know how old you are.

“Look, I’ve told you you’re an ass, I just didn’t realise you were a royal one.” BEST BOY MERLIN but also he can definitely hurt you and holds power maybe don’t challenge your social superiors too much Merlin mmk?

Merlin. Don’t challenge him. You won’t win.

Yeah tbh if I were Arthur I’d probably laugh too.

Merlin he’s been training his whole life and has power and has weapons and has armour WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN WIN YOU AREN’T ALLOWED MAGIC

“Wow. And how long have you been training to be a prat?” See Merlin gets the best lines but that’s dangerous for him.

Slight discrepancy: how does Arthur know Merlin’s name?

Yeah if I were Gaius I’d have that reaction too. Merlin has NO self-preservation instinct.

I like the music. (Also apparently this was filmed at Pierrefonds, so that’s cool!)

YEAH “OH GOD” WHAT DID YOU THINK MERLIN??? That you’d win??!

(Let’s just pause for a moment and appreciate all those historical inaccuracies. They’re painful but also there are so many it almost warms my heart. They’ve COMMITTED to being historically inaccurate. Though I suppose this is fantasy anyway.)

I like both leads’ actors.

And of course he sees Gaius and loses.

“He may be an idiot, but he’s a brave one.” Merlin summarised in one sentence. This boy is DUMB.

“There’s something about you, Merlin. I can’t quite put my finger on it.” See I’m starting to get why this was explained to me as Destiel before Destiel.

“How could you be so foolish?” We are all, at heart, Gaius.

See Merlin’s problem is he wants to be special. Not to be that person but you’re a servant in the (fantasy) Middle Ages you were always going to be a nobody. Being special is very 2000s not so much 1300s.

Aaaand he’s a dramatic emo boy.

Gaius we love you. You’re so kind and honestly the most relatable character. Gaius is great I love him.

OUCH that looks like it hurts.

Oh fantasy medieval painkillers! That’s cool.

It’s not that I don’t like Eve Myles but I specifically chose Merlin to avoid seeing her and John Barrowman all the time. So. I’ve been seeing her pretty much nonstop for a few weeks. I was sort of hoping to catch a break.

Uther is realistic. (As much as a fantasy character from the fictional Middle Ages playing a mythological king from a fictional kingdom can be realistic, but he is!) Both as a father and as a king. I don’t necessarily agree with him, but he’s definitely the most fleshed out character so far.

That voice is creepy and after watching Torchwood CoE it reminds me of the 456.

Merlin come on. Really?

The camera work on this series is………interesting.

Y a un couvre-feu ou quoi? Pourquoi y a personne dans la cour?

Merlin you’re having too much fun with those dice.

Ohhhh is this the dragon Gaius told him about?

OKAY YEAH IT IS DEFINITELY I didn’t expect us to see the dragon so quickly.

So he has a destiny. Great. We already knew that. But I guess this is establishing characters.

Merlin not understanding is me. Yeah I’m confused too don’t worry.

“If anyone wants to kill him, they can go ahead, in fact I’ll lend them a hand.” At least Merlin is coherent, and funny. If extremely dumb and foolish.

“No. No. There must be another Arthur, because this one’s an idiot.” BAHAHA OKAY THAT’S FUNNY

Oh we get the theme music again when Merlin is asking all his questions.

Yeah again Gaius I get you. Also that’s the bedroom of a teenage boy what did you expect, did you want it to be clean? Gaius you’re aiming too high. I have a 15-year-old brother the most I can wish for is for him to open the window once in a while.

One thing I do like is how well-lit the castle is. It’s nice for once.

Oh please tell me he isn’t getting a crush on Morgana. Noooooo please why does every character always have a crush in these shows can my aroace heart be soothed for a while instead of crushed at every occasion

Merlin is a teenage boy with hormones okay. Check.

Okay Merlin just squeaking to imitate Gwen is funny.

Gwen where are you though?

And she arrives! Gwen and Gaius are easily the most relatable people.

I loooove candle lighting.

OHHHHH I FORGOT ABOUT THE REFLECTION THING NOOOO WHY IS SHE DYING

Oh so Merlin and Arthur have spotted each other- nope that’s just Katie McGrath in an incredible dress that won’t be invented for centuries but since when is accuracy the point of this show. The inaccuracies make it better

Isn’t she your cousin or something Arthur?

Gwen is so sweet! But also. The foreshadowing is starting. “Not that I’d want to marry Arthur.” WELL YOUR NAME IS GUINEVERE. SO I GUESS YOU’RE HEADING THERE ANYWAY GWEN I really hope he improves.

“No, I like much more ordinary men like you.” Gwen is realistic! She doesn’t have ideas above her social station! Finally a character who has some knowledge of where they stand! But also no Gwen please don’t fall in love with Merlin that’s just a bad idea

Gwen deserves better than this world. She’s so sweet and nice and frankly dealing with stuff she isn’t paid for enough. #GiveGwenARaise

Oh phew thank god it’s established she doesn’t like him I don’t think I could have borne it.

Merlin is very much a self-centred emo teenager while Gwen is reasonable and sweet and dealing with so much bullshit I promise Gwen you deserve so much better than dealing with him.

Guys believing the female characters for once would have made a nice change. I guess not, huh?

I love Uther’s voice.

I almost expected her to start singing Memory from Cats but no it makes sense that she’s singing something else actually

I’m 95% sure Eve Myles is dubbed here but also medieval music had lyrics.

OH IT’S A SPELL

The darkening as the spell takes effect is well-done and a touch I wouldn’t have imagined. But also what in the Sleeping Beauty

Merlin I thought you said you’d help anyone trying to kill Arthur? Apparently not, huh?

Those cobwebs look sticky.

How has Merlin not gotten caught yet?!

So he saved Arthur’s life huh. Quite a different reaction to twenty minutes ago. Is this character growth? Or is it him realising how bad it would be if A died? (Or am I just having fun interpreting his joke too literally)

“You shall be Prince Arthur’s manservant.” BAHAHA I LOVE UTHER

the absolute DESPAIR on M and A’s faces

Gaius is having fun.

Oooh a magic book! This’ll be interesting!

Aaand the episode ends.

#I maybe won’t do these posts that often in case I binge #Merlin #bbc Merlin #Merlin s1 #Merlin s1e1 #the dragon’s call #merlin liveblog

[hlficlibrary]

HL FIC LIBRARY ✤ AUTHOR REC

AO3: LiveLaughLoveLarry

Tumblr: @loveislarryislove

STATS:

✤ Number of fics: 88

✤ Posting Since: 2014

TOP 5 FICS:

1️⃣ You Took My Heart By Surprise {T, 39k}

There is reason to believe Prince Harry’s life is in danger. After a failed kidnapping attempt, Louis is assigned to guard Harry around the clock. He is the best at what he does, but he has a tendency to not get along with clients. Louis and Harry start off on the wrong foot, but it soon becomes clear that neither is at all what the other expected.

Queen Anne met Louis’ eyes. “While your file documents many remarkable accomplishments, it also contains a number of early terminations. Why is that?”

“It all depends on what your priorities are,” he said slowly. “If your primary concern is protection, I’m your guy. If you’re looking for someone polite…” He shrugged. “I don’t generally try to be rude, but social graces aren’t what I’m being paid for. If someone values being sucked up to over being protected, that’s their problem.”

“You seem quite well-mannered,” Anne said, frowning.

Both Nick and Louis snorted at that. “You’ve only known me for ten minutes,” Louis said. “Give it time.”

2️⃣ Though the Seasons Change So Quickly (Keep Them Buried In My Heart) {G, 6k}

A series of moments of Harry and Louis' relationship through the years, from the very beginning to the present, through the perspective of those around them. It's beautiful and it's brutal, it's awe-inspiring and it's awful - it is what it is.

"He’s special, Gem," Harry says. "He’s different. Different from anyone else I’ve ever known. I think-”

Gemma holds up a hand. “Slow down, buddy,” she says. “You’ve only known him a few months.”

“I know,” Harry says again, his fingers tugging at the designs embroidered in the blanket. “But it’s still true.”

Gemma studies him for a long moment. It’s interesting, she thinks. She’s never seen him like this -– not really. He’s almost glowing, a smile constantly either present or hiding just below the surface, and while it could just be the band as a whole making him so happy, she somehow doesn’t think so.

3️⃣ Funny How The Stars Crossed Right {NR, 17k}

Liam and Louis round the corner to see a horse trotting around the ring. She (or maybe he) is a beautiful animal, with a dark black coat and white socks. A tall man in riding clothes sits atop the horse, speaking softly. He’s completely focused on the horse, and doesn’t notice their entrance at all. Dark brown curls spill out from beneath his helmet, and his expression is one of total joy.

“Who’s that?” Louis asks, finding himself oddly breathless.

“That’s Chester,” Liam says. “He’s an angel.”

Louis is about to comment that he looks like an angel, but then pauses. “The human or the horse?”

Louis is a photography student, assigned to do a project at Greenfield Stables. Harry is a veterinary student, working part-time at Greenfield to gain experience and make a little money. They both have something to teach the other.

4️⃣ Might've Took The Long Way {M, 21k}

It's been two years since Harry and Louis broke up. They were that couple in high school -- you know the one; been together forever, hopelessly in love, all over each other, the whole nine yards. Even when Louis went off to university, they found a way to make the distance work.

Until they broke up.

Now Harry is back in town, and no matter how many times Louis tells himself they can't be together, they keep falling right back into each other.

“They got a name?” Bebe asks.

“What?”

“Your ghosts,” she says, her voice suddenly soft. “If you want to tell me, I mean. I know I said I wouldn’t ask, but. Sometimes it can help to exorcise them.” She pauses, and chuckles. “Other times, vodka works better than sage.”

Louis holds his breath for a moment, building the courage, before he finally murmurs, “Harry.”

“Sorry?”

“Harry,” Louis says again. The name feels like a time bomb in his mouth, but it hasn’t blown up yet. “His name was -- is -- Harry.”

5️⃣ The Things You Hide {NR, 27k}

Louis has been an MI6 agent for four years. Now he wants out. Unfortunately, his superiors have other ideas. Their solution: a 'mission' in the Greek Islands, one that's more vacation than actual work. Harry is an avid photographer who shows him around the area. He's open and carefree and everything that Louis wishes he could be. Along the way they fall in love, and maybe Louis learns a little about love, a little about lies, and a whole lot the meaning of home.

HIDDEN GEM:

💎 what's left of my halo's black {E, 22k}

As Harry sucks lovebites into Louis’ neck, Louis hopes that one day those marks will cover the way he can still feel Alex’s handprints burned into his flesh.

As Harry’s nails drag scratches along Louis’ back, Louis hopes that one day the scabs on his heart will heal and drop away just like the scabs on his skin.

As Harry fucks him down into the mattress, the bed shaking with every thrust, Louis hopes that one day his mouth will forget the shape of Alex’s name, won’t trace it over and over as the heat builds inside him, won’t want to scream it when he comes. Maybe one day he’ll open his eyes, as he slowly floats down from his post-orgasm haze, and won’t expect to see Alex’s face smiling back at him.

But today is not that day.

A year after a devastating breakup, Louis is still trying to put himself back together - but getting over a breakup is hard when you work as a wedding planner. Thankfully, his coworker Harry is the most supportive friend Louis could ask for. But Harry has some secrets of his own, and they send Louis' world spinning off its axis all over again.

#ficrec #authorrec #livelaughlovelarry #loveislarryislove #hlcreators #hljournal #hltracks

[dragonfly0808]

Musa: The Thesis

Kay so… this one involves one of the biggest spoilers of s3 due to one of the biggest changes I made there revolves around Musa and I will be discussing it after the First Things First part. So please please please if you haven’t read up until Season 3 Chapter 24: The Space Between Where Our Ends Meet, DO NOT READ PAST THE FIRST THINGS FIRST PORTION OF THIS THESIS

I’M SERIOUS PLS DON’T

First Things First

The first words I have in Musa’s character sheet are small sassy goth.

One of the main things I focused on with Musa, especially in the first season is her struggle to be vulnerable. Musa has lived the past 5 or so years with a closed off dad and never got a real chance to truly mourn her mom due to her having to learn to pretty much take care of herself, because of this she becomes very defensive and doesn't trust many people, and it causes her to struggle with being vulnerable, making her feel weak to do so. Here we see her open up slowly to the girls and not really talk that much about her home life until s2.

This is also where the main problem in her relationship with Riven comes in, but we’ll talk about that later on.

Musa, along with Aisha was the loneliest Winx before going to Alfea, and this plays into how protective she can be over the girls, she knows what it’s like to have no one so she is more than ready to throw hands for her girls any day of the week.

Love’s a Loaded Gun, Nobody Wants to Fight

A theme we see with Musa is her not believing she’s really worth a lot of time. She worried about staying one place too long and becoming an inconvenience or sharing her hurt and becoming a weight.

We see that it really takes a lot for her to believe that she is not being selfish or ‘too much’ by expressing herself or deciding to stay in one place, namely Tecna’s home.

Musa has a lot of feelings regarding feeling like she’s being shut out.

She’s working on not shutting people out herself but when others do it to her, she could just have a breakdown since she is so sick and tired of her dad doing it to her and that’s just about the worst thing you could do to her.

She’s a tiny bit afraid of love. Not so much of love itself as just, the thought of losing someone she loves again.

Haunted

So… this is the part with the huge S3 spoiler so PLEASE TURN BACK NOW, THIS WAS ONE OF THE MOST IMPACTFUL MOMENTS OF S3 MY INBOX WAS FLOODED FOR A WEEK IF YOU HAVEN’T READ IT YET TURN BACK NOW

So, in s3 chapter 24 Musa gains her Enchantix… and kills Stormy in the process.

First off the second I decided to do s3 I knew I was gonna change how Musa got her Enchantix cause I think we can all agree she got the short end of the stick in the OG.

I also already had in mind killing off either Stormy or Darcy but Stormy just fit more.

I combined these two ideas by changing Musa’s Enchantix to be gained by taking down a building over herself and Stormy due to Stormy loosing control of a curse.

Now, this could’ve gone very differently so why did I chose Musa to be the one to kill Stormy?

Honestly? I felt like it would impact her the most.

Now, obvs any of the girls would’ve been hugely impacted by taking a life (see Tecna) but taking the life of one of the Trix who they’ve known and fought for so long is another level of personal.

And, just like Bloom, Musa can be a very angry person and she hated the Trix’s guts and maybe a tiny part of her would’ve been glad with them dead, but actually having a hand in it…

It creates very conflicting emotions and a mountain of trauma and feelings of inhumanity and just confusion for our girl which we will get to see a lot more of in s4.

Thoughts Behind her Main Relationships

Tecna

I love Tecna and Musa, they are very much a friendship between unconventional girls who don’t always come across as they mean to.

They both struggle to make friends for different reasons but the second they meet they realize that they are quite similar and so never push each other outside of their comfort zone at first and that’s what allows them to become close enough to then push one another.

Musa gets what makes Tecna tick and makes sure that she’s comfortable, she makes sure she gets her alone time and makes sure she doesn’t get overwhelmed.

Tecna gets that Musa doesn’t want to talk about herself so instead gets her to open up about her music.

And it’s through this that they start to trust one another and by s2 we see them knowing each other well enough to keep the other from spiraling.

When Tecna’s confused about her feelings for Timmy, it’s Musa who reminds her that it’s okay to not be ready for a relationship. And when Musa and Riven first kiss, it’s Tecna who suggests they take it slow since she knows how skittish they can both be.

At this point, they push one another when they need to.

They are crucial to each other’s growth.

Riven

I always loved the idea of Rivusa but hated the original execution.

I really like the idea of two kids who have been so hurt by the people that were meant to protect them figuring out how to love each other. How to be open and trusting and just how to work as a couple.

Riven and Musa fall very slowly over the course of a year and a half, they get to know each other, be friends, quite crucially: they’re able to be vulnerable with each other. Which is huge for both of them.

And, when they realize that these feelings are serious and more than just a crush, they are both terrified.

I’ll talk a bit more about Riven’s feelings on his thesis but for Musa, she’s scared of this failing, of flying till the bone crush like the queen would say. She’s scared of it going wrong and losing someone she loves so much.

The part I love about this is that this means that even after they get together we get to see them fuck up. Because just because they’re together doesn’t mean they’re just going to forget years of trauma and having their walls up.

And, in my version, once they’re together, it’s Musa who fucks up by keeping secrets and not being able to bring herself to be vulnerable.

I think my fave part about writing these two is writing about how they grow together both as individuals and as a couple, how they learn to communicate and be vulnerable and realize that they are both here to stay and that this relationship is soft and safe and everything that they have been denied for so long.

That’s what this couple is to me. Two kids learning to love and not be afraid of it.

Helia

Helia and Musa are the writers of the group, due to them both being artist and having had past or present issues with their fathers and being vulnerable, it made sense for them to be platonic soulmates.

They’re the kind of people to spill their guts out of paper and just take a pen and truly speak, word vomit comes out in prose and metaphors and long words that just make you feel serene.

That’s how they find it easier to communicate.

They bond over words and music and the crushing weight of a knot in your throat not letting you speak when it matters most. The falling feeling of everything coming out wrong when spoken but in a beautiful way when written.

Helia is the only person Musa co-writes with for her songs, because he gets her voice as a songwriter in a way that no one else does.

And Helia shared his favorite poems because he knows she’ll get them in the way few could.

They are the artists who write not just because they enjoy and love it, but because it’s a crucial part of who they are, of how they process things and how to keep going.

If you wanna get to know these two, the best way to do it is to look at what they write.

And that’s why they just click.

Who is Musa in this Rewrite?

Musa is a girl who’s hurt. Who has lost and has had to almost raise herself.

She’s done the best that she could but the best she could do to protect herself at the time, back home with her father was to build walls around herself.

She’s someone who is learning to be open and vulnerable and to believe the people she loves won’t leave.

She’s someone trying to leave behind a toxic environment and mindset.

Someone who is, in one word haunted. By her past, by both her parents be it in different ways, by words, by Stormy.

But she’s learning to live with it, to still grow and to not take steps back in her journey.

She’s an artist finding her meaning and voice.

—————

Masterlist

Musa Moodboard

Musa’s Instagram

Musa and Tecna Moodboard

Musa and Riven Moodboard

Musa and Helia Moodboard

—————

so this one took so long cause I couldn’t figure out how to word certain things and tbh I feel like this one is the worst one so far so pls validate me and tell me it was good I feel like crying but I think I managed to get everything across

#winx rewrite #winx headcannon #winx club #winx fanfic #winx #winx headcanons #winx club rewrite #winx musa #veiled wings and shattered panoramas

[get-hamilton-on-your-side]

I've been seeing posts like these going around lately, and I don't want to start Discourse™️, but I do think it's an interesting conversation to be had.

OP mentions that this is a sentiment occurring in younger viewers, and I think there are lots of reasons for this response. I'm in my early twenties, and growing up, romance was pretty much guaranteed for any book/movie/TV series with a YA audience, even if it wasn't specifically in the romance genre. There were largely popular romance series, of course, (Twilight, The Selection, etc.), but romance was also integral to several series NOT centered around romance. The Series Which Shall Not Be Named ends in a hetero utopia, where basically every member of the original crew grows up, marries each other, and all have kids. Almost every main character of Rick Riordan's series experiences a committed romantic relationship, with the exception of Reyna, (although she's mostly a side character throughout HoO) and Meg (who is a god, and an actual child). The Hunger Games has fewer romantic pairings, but the marketing for those movies were very dedicated to the "love triangle" narrative between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale.

The dedication to establishing romantic relationships does appear somewhat differently for male/masculine and female/feminine coded characters well. For example, I've seen multiple series have a sort of "7th wheel syndrome" where one member of a friend group is made fun of and/or left out in some way because they're the only one not in a relationship. Shows like The Big Bang Theory majorly have this problem, where every character's main goal in life is to fall in love and have a family. In TBBT, Raj has major dating troubles and actually ends up settling for an arranged marriage because his friends are all married and he doesn't want to end up alone. Riordan's HoO series, once again, paints Leo as a tragic figure for being the only single person on the Argo II, but his self worth is finally in tact by the end of the series when he saves the day and gets the girl. Fez in That 70s Show is regularly made fun of for his inability to get a girl. It's not lost on me that many of the male characters in these situations are POC.

While male characters are set up with a last-minute shoehorned romance, female characters (particularly white women) are often given a love interest planned from the beginning. I love Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles but I was kind of dumbfounded by the end because every one of the 8 major characters ends the series in a committed relationship. Every single Disney princess up until 2012 had a prince (although, this has since changed---the only princess post-2012 with a prince is Anna).

And then, of course, you have the plethora of sitcoms that end with every character (or at least every main character) happily in a relationship. New Girl, Parks and Rec, Friends, The Office, The Good Place, Ghosts (US). Even shows like Phineas and Ferb assure the audience that the couples stay together when they're grown up. Almost every Marvel and DC superhero has a love interest, and most action heroes have a girl to save.

Don't get me wrong, I think many of the romances in the media I've talked about so far are good, well-written, and well-established. But based on the previous track-record of shoehorned romances, that is a concern I have about shows like Stranger Things (I won't talk much about The Bear because I haven't seen that show). Stranger Things has highlighted friendship as a major theme in the show, but as the characters have grown older, they've explored various romantic relationships as well. Many people online have already discussed how they fear relationships will be shoehorned in at the end of Season 5, since it is the final season. Ships like stancy, where it's clear that they wouldn't really work well together. I agree with Maya Hawke's sentiment about delving deeper into her friendships. It has been established that she has a crush on Vickie, but we've barely seen them together, and in a show that has to balance SO many different characters, I'm not sure it would serve the show well to put Robin in a romantic relationship. (There is, of course, another conversation to be had about how minority characters are presented in romantic relationships in media. Lesbian relationships are less commonly found in media and they can be really important to some viewers. My agreeing with Hawke is just my 2 cents as an ace lesbian. Other users have also mentioned that when it comes to The Bear, it can be harmful to perpetuate that a Black woman character shouldn't be in a relationship with the main white guy. I haven't seen the show and I myself am not Black, so I won't weigh in on that aspect, but it is another thing to consider in this conversation).

With romance so prevalent in media, it makes sense that our generation is taking a steep turn in the other direction. We've been shown all our lives that romance and sex trumps friendship in importance, but that's not how many of us actually live. Younger people are having sex less. I'm 22 and I'd say half of my friends are not currently in a romantic relationship, and many of them aren't looking for one. I know plenty of adults as well who are happily single, not looking for any more romance in their lives. Even the way people are experiencing romantic and sexual relationships is vastly different from what is shown on TV as there are more openly queer individuals, queer platonic relationships, and polyamory is becoming more prevalent.

I'm not an expert by any means, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. This is all based on my own observation and there is still a lot of media out there that don't have romance as a focal point, media like The Lord of the Rings, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Letterkenny, Bob's Burgers, Reservation Dogs, What We Do in the Shadows, Derry Girls. Shows like Doctor Who have characters in romantic relationships, but the romance is never placed above friendship with the Doctor. The amount of romance in a piece of media also relies on the genre it's in. I've mainly been discussing comedies, science fiction, and action, but other media such as horror, for example, treats romance and sexuality differently.

Still, showing romance, sex, and innuendo in media isn't counterculture, as is suggested by that second Twitter post. It's almost everywhere you look (and lots of kid shows/movies even include those kinds of jokes, as is shown by the amount of videos I've seen titled "I Didn't Get This Joke as a Kid.") I know we're on the internet so people don't care if they hurt other people's feelings, but acting like people who want a little less romance are immature or stupid can be hurtful. There's room for all different types of relationships.

TL;DR, I think a lot of people are just tired of media treating romance and sex as the most important relationship you can have with a person. We're not saying no media should have romance or sexuality or innuendo in it. It's just that as media diversifies, I think it's important to diversify the types of relationships highlighted as well. There's room for romance, sex, and friendship in media, and I don't think people should judge others for wanting positive representation of friendship.

#romance #aromantic #asexual #i'm just tired of shoehorned romance #tv #media #books #movies #bringing this convo over from twitter because that site is a hellscape i don't have enough characters there and i hate making threads #also tumblr understands me better than twitter #let's keep this conversation respectful though #multiple things can be true at once

[foreverformula1]

How are people thinking that Verstappen doesn’t care?

I have a lifelong personal feud with the societal belief of how not crying or smiling hear to hear 24/7 with showing teeth means that someone isn’t happy enough.

But he doesn’t even have a resting face. I would understand other peoples’ point of view (while disagreeing) but I truly can’t right now.

He looks always happy and content. Even last race (when this discussion came up). Do we see the same person?

He also is one of the most educated drivers in the sport. He knows the countries, drivers and tracks better than most drivers who have been in it for at least 5 years before him.

He always celebrates with the team, smiles to the press too. I think that those who think that he doesn’t care are projecting. He looks like any other driver especially after getting used to winning. But he always looks grateful.

If anything, I have noticed that at least what his public image suggests, he doesn’t have many other interests aside F1 and motorsport.

Even Sainz, who got pole and arrived 3º in the race (his firsts of this season & at Monza!) somehow looked abnormally unfazed and the Sky Sport Italia noticed it and commented that he probably was tired. I could understand a curious reaction to him, but Verstappen? He’s good, what’s there to get confused at?

Is it because he doesn’t cry? Because he doesn’t act like his career depends on every detail even after being established?

With all due respect, he’s a grown man who has been winning since he was 17/18 years old and he still reacts positively and excitingly sometimes even. All the other drivers also don’t cry after every win. Especially after receiving the pole tire/prize , after the first or second time they look just normal with a smile.

And please, since multiple people have been naming how even Kimi reacts more than Verstappen; get over it, you know very well that he doesn’t. Just because he cried a couple of times, it doesn’t make him more grateful than Verstappen. Listen to the differences in the way they talk and what they say. I am going to leave it here, Kimi defenders know but pretend not to so I won’t rant about it. I am sure Kimi loves F1 and is somewhat grateful for it. But his attitude is not great and I am not referring to his nonchalance.

And let’s not make it a privilege issue as if Verstappen’s family was swimming in money just because his father was in F1 and had connections. They were surely at least upper or middle class but he had the sponsors (also thanks to his parents’ connections) and probably a freaking ton of them since he was winning literally everything (look it up, it’s seems unreal). He had the privilege that many drivers didn’t but he freaking deserved everything. He skipped F2 and won races in F1 a year later. That’s hard work being rewarded with opportunities. Sacrifices are still sacrifices. His entire life is around racing. His knowledge in racing is higher than other drivers too.

Sorry for the long rant, this discussion truly rubs me off. It’s based on a fantasy/imagination and it makes me angry that people over the age of 14 years old still think that you must portray emotions a certain way for them to be real and valid, especially because he is showing them. The “problem” is that he doesn’t cry each time. Plus, it takes for granted that he doesn’t have a personal life that affects him once in a while. Not only that, but he’s literally like every other driver, unless they are midfield or lower and struggling.

Edit: I suspected something when that one user wrote that he doesn’t care unlike Vettel as the latter won Girll the Grid and Verstappen arrived 2th, as if there aren’t 18 other driver behind him which would suggest that they literally care even less but doesn’t criticize them. But I was sure it was pretentious and not just a differing opinion when it ended with how he doesn’t care because he is a homebody who likes his cats and doesn’t party and drink alcohol (something not advised to indulge into too much for athletes). The eugenic belief that introverts are mentally insane or evil has bothered me for my entire life; I almost didn’t get the last phrase because it was very not relevant and completely out of pocket.

#f1 #formula one #formula 1 #mine #max verstappen #redbull racing #f1 2023 #monza gp 2023