#I don’t remember which ep this is in but one also starts with a nice ‘lance misses home’ moment. It’s probably episode.... 4...... yea

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Happy Wednesday Fandom :) We got a trailer! Some bits in is for our couple not a ton but I am intrigued what S6 will bring. This episode has me grinning the entire time. Just fluffy cuteness the entire time and I was so here for it. Kid talks and amazing moments. Good one. This ep Is comedy gold.

5x17 The Enemy Within.

That theme I talked about last ep is how we start off. How adorable they are when they find each other at the station. Lucy speed walking to catch up to him. Tim with the biggest smile on his face. Like he didn’t just see her in roll call earlier. *heart clutch* Just happy to see his wifey at work. I love the effect this woman has on him. (Another theme in this ep). I just love S5 Tim in general. Happy and light seeing her come up to him. Making his day with her presence. Damnit I love them so much. Lucy starting off with him not hating her LMAO His smile dropping off asking what she’s done? Haha

Be more married you too my goodness. I do love how quickly they fall into step with each other as they speak. Seriously never had a couple with such good physical chemistry without even touching. The flirting here is amazing. We watch Tim not really be mad and fighting back a smile in the second gif. Once again the effect this woman has on him is incredible. She is beyond adorable with her retort of how he should reply. We all know Tim could never hate her. Angry, exasperated or annoyed. Yes ha But never hate.

We find out Lucy was playing the long game for getting back at Tim for something. Clearly before they were together since it was for a Tim Test few months back. He wants to know which one? She can't remember...It was bad enough to make her do this but not enough to remember which test. Oh Lucy. lol Angered her enough to do this then forget she'd done it ha Tim asks once again 'What did she do?' Lucy lets him know she signed him up to be a mentor... For make a dream.... Tim is exasperated af asking when she planned this? Lucy dreads the answer but tells him today….

Lucy goes on that a 12 year old cancer patient named Jordy is on his way. Tim walks away from her and I LOVE her grabbing his arm. Making him stay put. Tries to put a good spin on it. Saying he would be lifting up a sick kid. What could be more important than that? Tim commends her for her answer. Telling her nice job boxing him in. Except he’s not going to let her get away with this. Did she really expect him to do this solo? LOL Sassy Tim has arrived and is throwing back her own words at her. Lucy doesn't have a leg to stand on. Just concedes and joins him. Fantastic start to a hilarious episode for them.

Jordy arrives and Tim and Lucy couldn’t be cuter. The way they look at each other is precious. Also hello height difference I always welcome you to our screen. The way Lucy is looking at Tim while he talks to Jordy. Like she needed another reason to be in love with him. Getting glimpses into Tim as a dad. That instant ovary explosion. Don’t blame her one bit.

Tim couldn’t be cuter saying he heard he wants to be a cop. Jordy doesn’t seem as enthused as Tim and Lucy. Nonetheless Tim looks super cute saying they’re going to take him to processing. Lucy’s fully bodied shimmy is so adorable I cannot. She is very excited to play parents with Tim.

They’re in processing and Lucy is trying to get Jordy to engage. Tim isn’t short on sarcasm in this episode. I’m dying it’s so funny. Telling him to look miserable LMFAO. Lucy’s face. Chiding her husband a little bit. But also realizing how unhappy this kid is. Love her walking up to him and sharing her worries as well. Tim noting he looks like he hates them. Lol Lucy doesn’t disagree….Saying maybe he hates his picture being taken? Or he’s miserable cause he’s tired from being sick?

Tim says they should just move onto the next thing then. They turn around and Jordy is gone. Had this kid for all of 20 minutes and they lost him already LOL This episode is so great. Had me rolling the entire time. I remember seeing a hilarious post after this premiered. Celina dealing with her sisters murder, Angela/Harper/Grey dealing with Elijah. And Tim and Lucy keep losing the same kid LMAO They are the comedic relief in this one for sure.

Lucy is in a legit panic. It’s so funny. Saying she doesn’t know what she’s going to tell the foundation. Full on sarcasm saying she can’t wait to tell them they lost him. LOL Tim is so calm and chill. Saying they didn’t lose him... he’s just misplaced LMFAO. Oh my lord Timothy I’m crying I’m laughing so much. She is being the worried sick parent and he’s being the calm one.

I love them looking for Jordy whilst also talking about their future kids. Getting me all in my damn feels. Tim being so friggin chill about them finding him. Lucy saying when it’s ’OUR’ kids OUR. They’re so casual about it. I’m losing my damn mind. That when it is their kids he better take it seriously. Tim defending their future kids also making me feel things. Saying ‘Our’ kids would never pull a stunt like this.

Look at Lucy’s face when he makes that remark though. She is beaming watching him talk about their future kids. They’re trying to murder me in this ep and I’m very ok with it. I may need to go lie down but I’m ok haha Lucy gets caught up in the thought of them having kids. And is pulled back to the present with Tim’s sassy departure LOL Saying they’re doing great so far. Sarcasm king in this one and I love it so very much. Lucy's face when he leaves too funny.

They run into Aaron and he has Jordy. Lucy looks so relieved. She asks what they talked about? Aaron says he kept asking him what his childhood pet was. Lucy looking confused as hell asks why? We see this kid stumble and get nervous for first time. Saying it’s for a report…Tim's face smelling BS but he isn't sure why. They’re trying figure what to do next. Tim suggests the war room? He doesn’t seem excited…Lucy mentions K-9 unit. Ask if he likes dogs?

Tim is over this kid. Saying what kid doesn’t like dogs? (I mean he’s not wrong…) Lucy scolding him like only she can. Such a wifey scolding too it’s so funny. Tim makes the kid sit while they figure this out. Lucy says maybe the impound lot? This is where Uncle Tim comes in and I love it so much. Talking about his nephews and what they’re into right now. My heart. He seems very confused on what it actually is they like and it’s hysterical. Pop culture never been his strong suit and I love him for it. I'll be honest idk what ghosts on the toilet is either. LOL

Lucy is enjoying his explaining this stuff. Amused really. You can tell she’s cracking up as he goes on. Picturing him with his nephews and loving that mental image. They're so busy flirty they don’t see Jordy take off on them again. They turn around and he’s gone….They lost the kid again LMAO Back to being worried parents. They ask the most clueless guy in the building if he’s seen Jordy? Ha Of course he hasn’t…Nolan is lucky he knows what's going on in his own SL.

They’re in Sally Port looking for Jordy. Legit looking under shops. Don’t hate the shot of Tim in this scene. Hello booty shot. His phone starts going off and he groans as he comes back up and says it’s a Grey. Lucy voices her irrational fear about Grey knowing they lost him twice. I’m rolling. Why would he know that Lucy? LOL Tim’s face is everything to this comment of hers. Loves his panicked wife and her ridiculousness.

Lucy is legit pacing back and forth while Tim is on the phone. Grey is asking him to run an OP for him. The last thing Tim needs on his plate right now. It is sexy how he coordinates it and says he’ll fold in later. Mmm. Then asks Lucy if she’s enjoying her revenge for his Tim Test? Lucy says she isn’t... Does a cute little love tap on his arm and has him follow. I love it.

They find Jordy at a computer. Tim scares him and asks what the hell he’s doing? I love the in-sync head tilts. They see he is googling how to delete traffic tickets. Lucy goes off on a nerd rant about how those are processed in a different office. She catches herself and looks at Tim. He’s so used to her nerdy ways at this point doesn't phase him in the least.

Just backs what she’s saying. That even if he could do that here it’s a crime to do so. Poor kid folds. Says his dad told him to because they couldn’t afford the fines. Tim asks if he really has cancer? Lucy scolds him once again. I love this. He tells them yes that part is true. Lucy asks if he wants to be a cop? He says no they’re wack. Lmao The way the look at each other I cannot. The kid wanted a football game not this. HA

Tim mentions if he’s googling this no way he’s a a hacker. Asks how he gained access to the computer? Jordy hands him the sticky note. Tim is so damn incensed I’m dying. Lucy asking did Smitty really need a sticky note? He couldn’t just remember this? I love the way Tim snatches the note and takes off. He is so very done with this day and this kid. Smitty's incompetence being the icing on the cake of his day. This episode is comedy gold I love it sfm.

They bring Jordy’s father in. Telling him they could charge Jordy with a crime. That he had illegal access to a police computer. The dad starts to panic and says they can’t do that. He’s just a kid. He has cancer. Lucy says no one wants to charge Jordy. Him on the other hand… Mr. Yates starts to freak out more. Saying it was just couple tickets. Lucy mentions it’s 37....

Holy crap dude that’s a lot of tickets. That him using his son. A minor no less to help out makes it a felony. One that could send him to jail. The dad pleads with them. Saying his medical costs are crushing them. That if he doesn’t pay for the tickets he’ll lose his license and car. Saying he knows he messed up. He can’t go to jail his family needs him.

Then we hit one of my favorite portions of this episode. Their silent communication has always been a glorious wonder. It hits new heights in this scene. Because the minute he looks at his girl he knows what that look means. It’s why he answers with a ‘Lucy really?’ He goes from you can’t be serious. To how am I supposed to say no to that? Lucy doesn’t have to say a damn word.

That’s the beauty of their connection. Says everything she needs to in that puppy dog look. Man is whipped and we all love it. Her empathy shining through and getting to Tim in this moment. I said it couple times in this episode. The effect this woman has on him is immense. It was continuously through out this one. In the best way possible.

That man has zero defense against that look she gives him. Absolutely zero. Can you imagine a little version of Lucy doing this to him? If they end up having a daughter. She’s gonna have this man wrapped around her finger. Just like his wife does. God help him haha All Lucy had to do was give him that glance and he was in shambles. As we all know Tim would do anything for that woman standing next to him.

He came into this conversation ready to put that man in jail. But then the love of his life looks his way and it’s over. I’ll never be over how amazing their silent communication is. We are so lucky to have a couple this amazing without even saying a word. There’s that country song ‘You say it best. When you say nothing at all.’ If that ain’t them. Tim folds and says he’s not sending Mr. Yates to jail. I love how he looks at Lucy before he tells him that. Knowing she is the reason behind him is doing this.

It’s so good. Man is so soft for his girl and this scene is proof of that. Ugh I love it. Melissa’s and Eric crushing it per usual. Tim says he can go to Daddy and me Traffic school. There’s an arcade that Jordy will love it. As if Lucy needed another reason to love this man next to her. Mr. Yates asks how he can make it up to them? ‘Be a better father to your son’. Hot damn you tell him Tim.*fans self* Mmm. Yum. Got to be soft but still little authoritative at the end. I’ll take it.

We rejoin them in the station. Tim done with his OP for Grey. Lucy coming over mentioning his how Daddy and me traffic school sounds fun. Tim replying 'Yeah Jordy will get 5 dollars in tokens too.' Lucy letting him know it was a really nice gesture. I love her coming up to him and letting him know this. Making sure he knows what a wonderful thing he did for them. That it was so sweet. This scene makes me squee for so many reasons.

Tim letting her know he wanted to throw that guy in jail. You could tell when he entered that room he was ready to throw down. It wasn't sitting well with him Yates putting his son in a position like that. Lucy replying ‘But?’ Tim bestowing the best compliment he could on her. Touching on the theme of this episode I think. The fact she’s a good influence on him. I mean it exudes out of him now a days. She already was before they got together. Now it’s increased ten fold the effect Lucy has on him.

Lucy and her view of the world. A thing that used to drive him absolutely bonkers. So much so he tried to show her the underbelly of L.A. to dampen it. That same light and view has now rubbed off on this man. Soaking him in that sunshine she gives off. I can’t with how many feels this is giving me. And he’s telling her as such. He’s known for a long long time what a good influence she is. But he’s telling her in person. With heart eyes galore to boot. Such love and admiration on his face for her. *internally screaming*

Naturally he complimented her so she needs to do one right back. Telling him with just as much adoration and affection might I add. That he’s going to be a great dad someday. We know that’s true. Also we know Lucy is already picturing him as that great father to their kiddos. I just love how causally they talk about their future kids. It’s a thing that’s just an eventuality. The level of comfortability around the topic just shows us where they're at. How serious they both are.

Tim needing to tease her now that they’ve been soft. It’s so damn funny. Look at his pleased smile when he does it. Look at that man in the final gif. Could power a city with that smile. He so loves to tease her. Lucy is exasperated with him but still smiling regardless. She loves this infuriating man in front of her so much.

They couldn’t be happier or more adorable. It blows my mind still we get to have them together. Not only that but this level of ship goodness. Straight flirting, complimenting and teasing. They’re so in love I might pass out from all my feelings haha Such a good ep for them.

~~~

Side notes-non Chenford

I do love Angela getting to be the one to take Elijah out. So fitting. Also that scene with Charlie and Wes holy hell.

Thank you to all you amazing readers. For all the likes, comments and reblogs. We only have 5 left episodes in this season. Unreal. Shall see you all in 5x18 :)

#Caitlin Rewatches The Rookie #chenford #chenford hiatus #waiting on s6 #S5 #5x17 The Enemy Within #the rookie 5x17 #otp: doing my job #otp: you know me so well. too well. #otp: some things matter more #otp: you did good #otp: you're nothing like him #otp: just doesn't feel like pretend #otp: unless it is #tim x lucy #tim bradford #lucy chen #the rookie #lucy x tim #eric winter #melissa o'neil #tim bradford x lucy chen

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Talking Buddie Language: Ep 6.12

How is everyone?!? Did we all survive?!? I know for a damn fact that this episode was such a long time coming and it was done so well. We were so well fed this episode and I don’t think I’m going to get over all the Buddie goodness we got. It really does show that they’re slowly working their way towards Buddie becoming canon and I for one am so thrilled by it! There’s a lot to discuss about these two tonight, so I’m just going to get right into it.

Maddie Buckley’s Brigade

I love me some good ole Buckley siblings content! It was so nice to see Maddie fussing over her little brother especially since he is alive and well enough for her to fuss over. These scenes were definitely needed in tonight’s episode because of one reason and one reason only and that is to highlight the massive difference in how Buck is around the other people in his life and how he is around Eddie.

When Maddie is fussing over her little brother, cooking him food and whatnot, he reassures her that he “Is fine”. We all know when we tell people we’re fine that we are not in fact fine lol. His sister doesn’t believe him but she leaves him be because she knows he can be a stubborn bull. So she starts sending in reinforcements because she wants her brother to know he is loved and cared for, which is honestly such a beautiful gesture.

Before we get to Buck’s other sister, we see Buck laying on his new couch that his mother must’ve chosen for him. It’s so important to focus on how stiffly he’s laying down. You see him mentally trying to calm himself down by taking in deep breaths but the discomfort is clear as day on his face. He can’t fall asleep because he can’t relax on the damn thing. Thankfully he is saved when he hears someone knocking, ok pounding, his door.

I really love what they’ve done with Hen and Buck’s friendship this season. They’ve almost cemented them as this close brother-sister pairing because Buck needed someone who isn’t Eddie, to rely on for certain things. And I think, as I’ve mentioned in my previous metas, that this friendship will be great help to Buck when he has other things that he’ll be trying to work through in the near future. The key difference is that Hen is actually viewed as a best friend to Buck, as you can see how fondly but friendly he looks at her speaking. He’s not actually making eye contact but basking in Hen’s voice, even if he’s a tad bit exasperated. This is such a huge difference to how he looks at Eddie later on in the episode, which is exactly why I wanted to include it here.

Hen, just like Maddie, is concerned over Buck’s well-being and asks him about his visit with his cardiologist. Once again, he tries to reassure Hen but doesn’t sound convincing. He’s avoiding eye contact which indicates him keeping his true feelings from her and I think Hen knows that he’s not really being honest with her.

H: You think it’s gonna be bad news?

B: Thats the thing, I don’t uh, I don’t know. I mean I really do, I uh feel fine.

H: But?

B: But I also felt pretty good right before I got struck by lightning.

Now just to refresh everyone’s memory (as if anyone can even forget) what exactly happened right before he got up on that ladder?!?! Oh yeah of course, Eddie calling him cowboy in that cute flirty way he does. Coincidentally that was also the very first thing Buck remembered when he woke up in his coma dream. He looked back at Eddie and that was the last thing he really saw, the thing that made him feel pretty good before he got struck. This just further confirms that Eddie is always on Buck’s mind, even if it’s not the most obvious thing. Hen probably didn’t know what he was talking about and sure he could be talking about anything really. But the fact that Eddie said that to him, and that was the first thing he remembered in his coma tells me that it made a definite lasting impression on Buck.

Buck Runs To His Safe Place, Eddie

I will never be over this scene. There’s just so much goodness that came from Buck running to the one person he knows will be there to welcome him with open arms at any given time. The one person who he can be his true self with. As Buck once told Eddie, “You don’t have to pretend with me.” Well Eddie is the only person Buck doesn’t have to pretend with either which is why we had those scenes with everyone else checking in with Buck to show how different things are with Eddie.

First of all, Buck went to Eddie. Eddie has been giving him space and knows that Buck knows he can come to Eddie at any given time. I love how the moment Eddie opens the door and sees Buck, we get that soft little smile that is only meant for Buck. The little breath he lets out shows how immediately calm he is upon seeing Buck. His entire demeanor changes really in a split second. This is literally the definition of a man who’s at least a little bit in love.

The way Buck just walks in and immediately goes to Eddie couch, puts his shoe clad feet up on the table, and gets comfortable really does drive home the whole “This is Eddie’s house. I’m not really a guest” thing. And the fact that Eddie just lets him do as he pleases because he also knows that this is a safe place for Buck, really proves how close these two are. People can complain all they want about the lack of Buddie scenes. But the quality scenes, like tonight’s, really do tell us that these two are something else. They’re not just your average best friends and it’s further shown when Eddie just lets Buck be.

E: Hey.

B: Please don’t ask me how I am.

E: Okay. You want a beer?

B: Probably more than one.

E: Guess all that company must’ve wore you out.

This exchange just shows that there is never a moment in which Eddie tells Buck no. He just accepts him for who he is and doesn’t ever push him. Buck tells him not to ask how he’s doing, Eddie just takes it for what it is and agrees. This is a great example of a strong partnership. They just know each other so well that nothing needs to be questioned. You just are there for your partner and be what they need you to be in that moment, something that Eddie did in that scene. He also proves that Buck and Eddie talk and discuss things. Eddie knew that Buck had a lot of visitors. Sure he could’ve known that from Maddie but we know from previous episodes that these two always talk and know things about the other that their other friends don’t know.

It’s very interesting that this episode was written by Andrew, who also wrote 6.01. We see the Genuine brand beer they were drinking during their family dinner in 6.01. And he was the brilliant mastermind behind the whole couch metaphor!! Literally as Eddie is coming back with the beers, he sees Buck comfortably sleeping on his couch!! Buck, who had to mentally prep himself to sleep on the couch in his own loft, fell asleep on Eddie’s old couch within seconds of sitting down. That’s because of the level of trust that’s there. He trusts Eddie and knows that he can just fall asleep in his presence and know that he’ll be safe the entire time. It’s also the familiarity of the couch that made it easy for him to fall asleep on. He’s slept on it many times before and it’s familiar to him. It’s his couch!!!

I think one of Eddie’s love languages is acts of service because you can see him opening up the beer bottle that he was going to give to Buck before he sees him asleep. He knows Buck is capable of opening a bottle himself, but it’s the small thoughtful things like that, that truly makes me crazy with how damn soft Eddie is. How damn gone he is on Buck. Also he’s so cute with the little cheers thing. It reminds me of his whole “Go team” in 4.12 😂

Lastly, the final scene where the camera pans from Eddie to Buck is super important when it comes to foreshadowing what’s to come. Buck is laid there asleep, but he has his left arm hung on the back of the couch. The way this is framed shows that there’s meant to be someone that fits right underneath that arm. Someone who’s going to fit there perfectly. I think this is foreshadowing the end of this season where he finally realizes who his perfect couch is and how it’s been there this entire time, right underneath his nose. I can just so perfectly see one of the final scenes in the finale being Buck sitting on this same couch, with Eddie right next to him. Buck’s arm is wrapped around Eddie’s shoulders and we are left with the confirmation that he finally knows who he wants. I don’t know just how exactly things will play out, but I will say the framing of that final moment definitely makes it seem like there’ll be someone there sitting next to him on that couch in the near future!

Buck and Eddie Have a Heart to Heart In The Kitchen

I cannot. I cannot. I have not recovered at all from this scene nor do I anticipate recovering from it for many months to come. I have just one word that sums it all up and that is DOMESTIC.

We get Buck waking up from his little nap and he looks around and is immediately reassured with his surroundings because it’s home to him. He immediately seeks Eddie out and finds him in the heart of the home, the kitchen. I’m still screaming about the fact that these two finally had a long awaited heart to heart in the heart of their home.

B: How did I pass out so fast?

E: You fell asleep before I got the beers out of the refrigerator.

B: Sorry.

E: No worries. You still want that beer?

B: Uh, maybe some water.

E: Agua on the way.

B: Thank you.

E: Here you go sir.

So much to unpack here. First of all we get confirmation that Buck passing out that quickly was because he just felt safe and comfortable in Eddie’s presence and his home. Eddie breaking out his Spanglish was so cute because he’s just being his silly little self and not putting on a facade in front of Buck. When he calls Buck sir, it’s meant to keep things light. Eddie knows how his partner is feeling and he doesn’t want to add more to it. So he sticks to what he knows and engages in a light tone.

Something to pay attention to is how Eddie keeps glancing over at Buck. He’s packing his son’s lunch but keeps looking over every few seconds. He does it so softly too that there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that he’s looking at him with such fondness. Now I think it’s because he’s giving Buck the space he needs to gather what he wants to say to him. But I also think he’s doing it to reassure himself that Buck is alive and well. That he’s in front of Eddie and that Eddie didn’t really lose him like he thought. Let’s all remember how horribly Eddie took Buck being in a coma. The man couldn’t even look at him when he usually can’t look away. The kitchen scene is prime example of Eddie not being able to look away once again.

As Eddie waits for Buck to say something, I don’t think he was fully prepared for the conversation they had.

B: Hey what do you remember about getting shot?

Eddie immediately looks away from Buck at the mention of the shooting. He deflects and tries to hide from Buck. He realizes just then that he can’t really run away and that he’s been working on being more open about things, especially in the presence of Buck. So Eddie tells him the truth. Well as much of it as he can without giving too much away.

E: There was this searing pain. Felt like I got hit by a bus. I was still standing. I remember falling, everything got dark.

He shakes his head while looking away from Buck, which clearly shows that he’s trying to forget about what he felt in that moment. It’s hard to relive trauma and that’s what he was doing then. But then he looks right into Buck’s eyes as he says:

E: And I thought, this is it.

He holds contact with Buck’s eyes as he continues to describe the feelings he had as he lay there dying.

E: This is the last moment of my life. Then I woke up in the hospital.

B: And that was it?

Buck is kind of questioning Eddie here because a part of him can sense that Eddie is hiding something. And he is hiding something. He’s hiding his true feelings and thoughts during the moment he got shot. He’s not fully prepared to deal with those feelings and what he realized as he was laying there fighting for his last breath. It’s all in the avoidance of eye contact as he tries to come up with a believable story. I was always under the impression that getting shot was Eddie’s “oh” moment and seeing him hiding his true feelings from that day further proves that.

E: That was it. No bright white lights, no trippy mind puzzles. Just thought I was dead and then I wasn’t.

Eddie really tries to make Buck believe the story he’s come up with but the one thing he forgets is that this is Buck. Buck is the one person who probably knows Eddie better than he does. So with Buck looking at Eddie with his brows scrunched, you know he’s not really buying what Eddie is trying to sell him. Or that he’s trying to but doesn’t quiet believe it fully. There’s so much that they’re still not discussing and I don’t know if it’s because Eddie isn’t ready to tackle those big feelings he has for Buck or if he thinks Buck isn’t ready just yet to hear them. Either way, this entire moment convinced me that Eddie is aware of what he feels for Buck and probably has been since that moment he got shot and he tried to reach for Buck. He literally wanted Buck to be the last person he sees before he made his peace with death. Just like how Eddie was the last thing on Buck’s mind before he died after the lightning strike. Such delicious deliberate choices are continuously being made.

We all know how Eddie is with feelings. I will say it’s so amazing to see him opening up like this, and not running or hiding behind his son. You can clearly tell that therapy has been doing wonders for Eddie. But one thing that is still a part of him is the fact to divert attention away from him, and on to the other people, he loves and cares for, which in this instance is Buck. He was honest with Buck so then he wanted honesty in return.

E: So now am I allowed to ask how you are?

The softness and delicacy in his voice when he asks Buck this really kills me. He’s been dying to ask. We all know how much he cares about him and he had been giving Buck what he wanted. But he’s not the type to just sit there and not check in. So he asks after he himself opens up about his trauma because he can’t anymore. This is such a domestic moment between partners. I’ve seen my own parents care for each other’s well being like this. His voice is laced with utter love and you can tell he’s not teasing anymore. He genuinely wants to know and he knows that Buck will be honest with him because that’s how their relationship works.

B: Uh, honestly Eddie, I uh, I don’t know.

This is the first and only time we see Buck truly be honest about how he’s feeling. He doesn’t default to the “fine” he’s been telling everyone else. This is his Eddie, his person. He’s not going to lie to him. A wonderful parallel just in this episode was how Bobby mentions that Athena helps him feel like he’s on solid ground. Well who made Buck feel like that in this episode? Oh yes the person he literally ran to for safety 🥹 I also want to note how the way he’s looking at Eddie is literally so soft and his eyes hold so much love in them. It’s very romantic because he’s not putting on an act and he’s truly letting himself be. You can’t compare this look he’s giving Eddie to the platonic one he gave Hen earlier in the episode. This one contains so much depth and love in his eyes that really makes you rethink how these two can be platonic (they’re not).

E: You died Buck.

The sheer heartache you can hear in those three words sends chills down my body. He’s clearly still so affected by Buck dying. He can’t even look at Buck when he says that and he scrunches up his face like he’s in physical pain. And in a way, he was and still is because half of his heart died and he had to live in a world without him for 3 minutes. He was the one that brought him back to life, and we are not thinking about the effect that had on Eddie. Then he had to sit there and wait to see if he would come back to them. It’s a hard thing watching your significant other suffer in pain especially when they’re comatose and hooked up to so many machines. So there’s clearly a lot of unresolved issues that Eddie is struggling within himself because of Buck’s injury.

I found Eddie’s advice to Buck to be a work of art. He’s clearly learning from therapy and opening himself to feeling things. He’s not the same Eddie from season 3 where he told his team that Buck should be a man and men don’t cry bla bla.

E: You’re gonna feel a lot of different ways about that. Sometimes all at the same time. I found the best way to process it is to… allow yourself to feel it.

Now Eddie can be speaking about his own personal brush with death but he can also be referring to what he’s going through in that moment with how he’s dealing with the fact that Buck died. I think in this moment, the viewer can interpret it one of two ways. Because sure he could be talking about how he dealt with his own almost death, but I feel like the pain that’s etched on his face is of something a little bit more recent.

B: Which you do eventually right? You process it. 

E: Everyday you open your eyes in the morning, you feel a little less surprised the world’s still there.

Some thing about the words that Eddie was saying, made me think of Lev from the happiness convention. Pair that with Buck seeking answers and reassurance from Eddie because he’s scared and we’re kinda back to him seeking answers to what makes him happy. I will say, however, that it is very refreshing to see Eddie really talk about feelings and really be there for Buck during his recovery process. That whole kitchen scene paralleled when Buck was there for Eddie’s breakdown last season and it’s honestly crazy how similar they are. Like I keep saying, deliberate choices continue to be made and it’s all slowly coming together.

Eddie and Buck Share A Cardiologist

I loved that Eddie’s cardiologist from last season was back as Buck’s. Their interaction was important because we finally see Buck not being impatient to go back to work. He’s scared and he’s being cautious and he doesn’t want to die on the job, again. It’s wonderful character development for sure.

B: Hey you um see people who’ve been through near death experiences all the time right?

Dr. S: It’s an unfortunately large percentage of my clientele.

B: What happens to them after? They just go back to their same old lives, go back to being the same old people?

Dr. S: Some do. They tell me that almost dying, makes them appreciate what they have. But for others, they’ll walk out of my office and decide to quit their job or leave their spouse. And for some reason a lot of them want to go to Italy.

The reason I want to bring this up is because once again Buck is seeking answers in other people. He’s terrified and doesn’t know what he’s meant to learn from this near death experience. I think it was deliberately done where Dr. Salazar mentions the things she does. I say this because we know Buck isn’t going to quit his job and he doesn’t have a spouse to leave. That leaves the first thing she mentions which is appreciating what he has. I think this foreshadows what’s to come for his journey in the remainder of this season. I think we’re all working towards Buck accepting the people he already has in his life and understand that he’s had the perfect couch in the form of Eddie and Chris this entire time. To further back up these claims, she continues to explain by using a water analogy. Water in which ties Buck, Eddie and Christopher together…

Dr. S: Water finds its own level. People do too. Recovery is a bumpy road, but eventually everyone finds their equilibrium.

Finding your equilibrium is basically finding that perfect balance in your life. The things that make you happy and make you feel at ease, kind of like the journey Buck has been on. It was perfect because it further foreshadows him figuring out who he needs in his life in terms of a potential life partner. Someone who levels him and we all know who that person is ☺️

Buck Tells Maddie To Stop Trying To Fix Him

I love any and all Buckley siblings’ scenes and I think it was funny how the one who is always trying to fix everything went to his sister and told her to stop trying to fix him.

The conversation between these two was eye opening because of what was being said.

M: Whatever it is you’re feeling, you don’t have to hide it.

B: When I wake up and I mean like every single time, I have this checklist now that I run in my head. Like a way to test. I’m really here…Never night in my coma dream.”

The specific word choices of not having to “hide” what he is “feeling” makes me think we’ll come to see a time where Buck tries to hide his real feelings from a certain someone. I don’t know how to explain it but that wording wouldn’t be just thrown in there if not for a later more impactful purpose.

The thing with Buck’s checklist is that it really shows how he is struggling with the aftermath of his injury. He’s living in this world scared. But the only time we didn’t see him doing a mental checklist is when he woke up at Eddie’s. He immediately knew he was alive and where he was. Didn’t struggle at all because he knew he could seek Eddie, who was only a room away. It was also nighttime. Throughout the episode, anytime anyone visited Buck or he visited someone it was during the day. He only went to Eddie’s at night. There’s got to be a reason for that checklist moment with Maddie in the end and why the fact that it was never nighttime in his coma dream was emphasized. The same coma dream in which was missing an Eddie Diaz. The same Eddie Diaz that he now wakes up to and doesn’t feel that fear he feels when he’s by himself. This show is doing something. It’s slowly starting to plant those seeds and have the Buddie tree grow by the end of this season and I really do think with everything we were given, especially in this episode, that it’s a big inevitability on these two getting together romantically. It’s only a matter of time now friends until these two idiots realize what they’ve been wanting has been in front of them this entire time! I, for one, can’t wait to see their story continue to unfold.

Once again, if you’ve read all of this, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am really proud of this week’s meta and I couldn’t have done it without the lovely @aa-lionheart for all her help 💜 if you’d like to be added to my tag list for these weekly metas, please let me know here! I look forward to seeing how these next few episodes unfold with these two!!

#buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911 spoilers #911 speculation #911 on fox #911 meta #buddie meta #maddie buckley #hen wilson #buddie language meta

[leefl00f]

Essay I made pls read it

essay I made for the fun of ep 7 & 8

Just don’t kill me for this

You know, call me crazy, call me bias, but the more I think the plot over, the more I start to think that nuzi isn’t gonna work out in the end or it’s gonna fail in some way. 

Think about it, really think about it. Have we seen N and Uzi make a spark between each other so far? No, plus now that we know that J’s possibly gonna be in one of the final episodes, she definitely helped V in some way when she was entering the labs. 

Also are we not gonna talk about the first drawing of Uzi by Liam? The one that predicted majority of what the episodes were gonna be about? 

Uzi has a heart crossed out beside her, that has to mean something. Everything on that picture always means something’s gonna happen. So here’s what I think will happen:

Uzi decides to sacrifice herself, maybe she felt like it was better for her to go for the sake of her people and the ones she cared about  

N sacrifices himself, and she has no love 

My third one was that she didn’t like like anyone and lacked the want for romantic love, but that was stupid 

Another pointer (and people are gonna call me stupid and bias for this but I’m gonna get back to nuzi in a minute), the spark 

“Electric love- The touch of a love interest will either literally or metaphorically feel like a shock of electricity.”

According to tvtropes.org, creators of certain works tend to use this trope to tell the reader that the character’s love interest is the one or that the character is making a connection to them. At this moment, N and V are making a connection, the day that they met was a huge impact on their story together in the manor. 

It was obvious that N loved V in this scene, and we see more of this in ep 5 in the library where he was reading to V despite her being in a stasis like state. He cares for V and still does to this day. 

“Is V…okay? Like, in the future?” 

- N, Episode 5: “Home” 

And listen I know I’m looking at the past eNVy, but it still plays a role at how N and V looks at each other now. I know that most of you guys disagree with this and that present eNVy is a lost cause. But you want to know why I still have hope for those goobers?

Because I saw this subplot before 

Character meets another character (love interest), they fall in love- (N and V meet for the first time, this isn’t really dug into much) 

Something happens for them not to be together, and only one of them knows- (manor massacre, the trio turning into DDs) 

One of the characters tries to push the other away to protect them (secretly out of love), only making it worse- (V trying to kill Uzi in Cabin Fever)

Character (og love interest) leaves- (V sacrificing herself for the others, no I’m not saying that the scene was primarily for the shipping y’all can shut up abt it)

Am I the only one seeing the pattern here? This plot normally ends with the character coming back to their original love interest in the end of the story, about no matter what happens between two characters, they’ll always find a way back to the other. 

How? By said character (og love interest) coming back in a dire time. (possibly at the end of ep 7) 

And now for how V treated N, again in the third dash she’s doing just that, trying to protect him for the truth bc she thought he couldn’t take it. And yes, it wasn’t nice for her to do the things she did to N in that time, but I’ll always remember this conversation between the two. 

“V, if you’re hiding something, we can figure it out together. Even if we each have the pieces, please, what do you know—“

-N before getting his head chopped off by V, Episode 2: “The Promening”

“What’s best for you, even if you hate me for it.”

-V, Episode 2: “The Promening” 

“Even if you hate me for it.”, V knew what she signed up for when it came down to protecting N (again another example for the lil subplot I listed above). We see her actively push N away from the truth throughout the series, which results in him wanting to dig even deeper as to what’s actually going on. Sure, she could’ve just spilled the beans to N, but where’s the fun in that (Story wise)? 

And now that we know we’ll get a J plush once episode 7 or 8 releases, there’s no doubt that she helped V escape and/or kill the sentinels. There could also be a possibility that while the sentinels were dragging V back alive, J bumped into them and saved her like that. But who knows? 

However, I do not agree with what she did to N, it was mean and unacceptable. I’m only saying this bc I saw this plot before where there was a mean character that did the other wrong but it was to protect them (that, or they didn’t know how to show it, but the second one’s ridiculous). 

Now onto nuzi 

Look at their hands 

There is no spark when they intertwine their hands. Think back to what I said previously on how sparks are important when it comes to romantic relationships in robots. Throughout ep 4-6, there was no spark. And even in the season finale trailer, still no spark. 

I believe that nuzi will fail not for the fun of it, but we know how Liam likes to play around with his characters in stories such as this one. I’m not trying to hate on it in this post now, but the more I think this over, the more I start to realize how this might go down in the end. One or the other is going to sacrifice to save the rest and it’s gonna be N or Uzi. 

However, I could be wrong with this whole analysis and glitch might give us the kissing or spark scene between our main characters in the last two episodes. But my point still stands about the spark. 

N and Uzi never had one so far, which will possibly be their downfall in the end. 

That is all for this post, I accept that nuzi is a ship, but I’ll die before I accept it in my heart. This isn’t to ruffle any feathers or start drama, these are my own thoughts and opinions on the matter.

#floof speaks #:3c #murder drones #floof rambles #shut up Floof #murder drones uzi #uzi doorman #md uzi #uzi murder drones #n murder drones #serial designation n #v md #murder drones v #serial designation v #v murder drones #n x v #Shut up and let me have this #getting my thoughts out #srsly tho don’t attack me for this #It’s what I think will happen. Keyword: think

[fandom-geek17]

Why I actively think Tyler will be redeemed and Wyler will be endgame based on actual clues and my knowledge about movie-making (and not just because I am a raging Tyler apologist)

This is a long one so strap yourselves in, hahaha

First of all, Hunter Doohan confirmed that Tyler’s feelings for Wednesday were real because he didn’t know who she was or her significance to Laurel’s plan when they first met at the Weathervane. But I’d go even further and claim that he didn’t know her significance during the entire first episode. If he knew, why would he ever offer her a ride out of Jericho and offer her the police file that inadvertently led to her cracking the case and bringing Laurel down (but the argument could also be made that that’s why he gave her that file, to bring his abuser down).

Wednesday makes it abundantly clear over the entire season that she has no interest in Xavier whatsoever and is constantly turned off/annoyed by his presence and antics. And this might just be me personally, but Xavier reminds me a lot of an ex of mine who was extremely entitled, selfish, immature and giving major incel vibes. I feel like Xavier is the type of guy who is nice to a girl only when he is interested and/or wants something. And the way he treated Bianca at the Rave’N (immediate no-no) and immediately goes into pity party-mode whenever someone rejects him just irks me. But again, that might just be me.

Now compare that with Wednesday’s reaction to Tyler’s antics. Wednesday is not someone who wants closeness in the beginning, in any shape or form. She is honest, direct and blunt, with no interest in pretending she enjoys something to be polite. Yet she doesn’t object when Tyler manhandles her in ep 2 (in the forest), she never denies her interest in him in ep 4, her first reaction to attending the Rave’N with Xavier is ‘a bullet to the head’ whilst her reaction to attending with Tyler is to immediately start looking for a dress in her closet. She often seeks out his company when she doesn’t really have a reason to, like when she went through the trouble of going all the way to the Weathervane to ask Tyler about the meetinghouse instead just asking anyone else working at Pilgrim World. These small details are to me the ‘signals’ Tyler was referring to. And I think he also just felt the energy between them, or maybe when you’re a 16 year old boy, most things can be interpreted as ‘signals’ if there’s an interest on his part. Or it was just straight up manipulation, as Hunter stated on his instragram. Either way, we can’t deny that Wednesday seems to enjoy Tyler’s presence more than Xavier’s.

Speaking of Wednesday, this is WEDNESDAY ADDAMS. People claim Xavier is the “healthier choice”, which might be true for any other character. But I feel like it’s very OOC for Wednesday to choose one above the other for being “healthier”, not that I believe Xavier would be much healthier. Wednesday went as far as canonically confirming that Tyler is her type BECAUSE he’s a serial killing monster.

The Addams’ Family have a long history of embracing all things weird and unconventional. Fester would be over the moon hearing that a Hyde of all outcasts (his young crush) has captured Wednesday’s heart. Gomez and Morticia would be more than happy to give Tyler all the love and security he never got from his own family. Morticia smiles fondly when Pugsley mentions missing being waterboarded by Wednesday, I don’t think she would have any trouble embracing a traumatized outcast submitted to abuse and torture and then forced to do someone else’s bidding against their will. She mama-bear instincts would kick up.

Hunter Doohan also said that one of the things he looks forward to exploring in season 2 (now confirmed, yay!) is Tyler’s relationship with the Hyde, pulling each side. Who is the real Tyler and who is the Hyde? Does he have active control over the Hyde’s actions or are they all controlled by his master? Remember, we technically have no idea what Tyler did of his own free will and what he was forced to say and do (including that last fight in ep 8). I imagine the Hyde being more of a split personality rather just than man vs monster. The question is if only the Hyde-personality had access to his monster form.

We see that Tyler rebelled against Laurel when he could, when he wasn’t actively forced to do something. For example when he slipped Wednesday the police file (if we believe that theory) and when he chose to keep Eugene alive (Laurel said “take care of it”, clearly meaning “kill him” but since she never used the word ‘kill’, I believe he saw his chance). He also keeps pointing Wednesday in the right direction, even when he probably wasn’t supposed to according to his master, like when he helped her find the meeting house, helped her break into Laurel’s home, chased her and Enid into the basement where they could find more clues.

Grooming, abuse, torture, manipulation, and mind control!!! Need I say more? Tyler is a true victim of his circumstances and society. We must admit that it was pretty easy for Laurel to sink her claws into him. Lonely, traumatized boy with one dead parent and one to emotionally constipated to raise him through his trauma, and here comes Laurel and offers him the truth about his mother in exchange for mommy kink sexual advances until she kidnaps him to torture as she pleases in a cave. She basically presented herself as the sexual version of his mother that Freud loved to say young boys were so vulnerable to. Of course this lonely boy would fall for her act. Laurel even described herself as a plant metaphor in episode 4: some carnivorous varieties use sexual trickery or deception. She then made him think this entire nefarious plan was about him getting revenge on the way outcasts treated his mother.

We see Tyler screaming out for help, subtly and literally, when he tells Wednesday that he wants to “get out of this hellhole town” and later when he’s screaming in the bathtub in ep 3.

The writers keep mentioning Wyler’s “primal attraction” and how Wednesday is drawn to Tyler’s dark side even from the start when she didn’t know what he was. And I truly believe he feels the same way, he is so smitten when she states she would dump piranhas in the swimming pool again. They are both attracted to the darker aspects of their personalities, whereas I feel like Xavier has this romanticized view of Wednesday in his head and when she disproves that by being her morbid, honest self, his first instinct is to whine and feel sorry for himself. He doesn’t embrace every part of her character.

Netflix makes Wyler a large part of their promotion of the show, going as far as pinning Wyler-positive comments on Instagram and making Wyler at the dance their thumbnail for the show on Netflix and hyping Hunter Doohan in general.

If you compare Wyler and Wavier scenes, they tend to play very soft music and use soft/warm lighting during the Wyler scenes. Wavier scenes, sometimes have this too, but never as prominent as with Wyler. From what I’ve seen with other media, that is usually foreshadowing of the producers’ larger plan.

I have a Filler Couple Theory! And that is that the couple that becomes canon in the middle of a show’s entire runtime is almost never canon by the time the show ends. There are exceptions, of course. But generally, shows tend to follow a similar format: couple 1 is introduced as an idea in season 1, they may or may not become canon but the tension is there, for whatever reason couple 2 becomes canon in season 2/3 to create drama and more tension before couple one becomes endgame in season 3/3 (example Stancy in ST, Benvi in NHIE). An exception to this rule is if couple one is a blowburn over several seasons without a love triangle (example: Peraltiago in B99). The writers of Wednesday have planned 4 seasons. They end season 1 with Wyler broken up, hint that Wavier might take more precedence in season 2, and yet still keeps hyping Wyler as much as they do. I think Wavier will be a distraction/filler for Wednesday as Tyler regains her trust and they build so much sexual tension.

So, this was long and kind of all over the place. But as Enid, I write in my voice. And I will admit that some of these points may be down to pure manipulation on Tyler’s part, especially the signals thing. But part of what I love about this show is the ambiguity, the moral grey areas, the way they make a point of embracing the dark side of humanity and loving the characters through it. Until the show canonically confirms that there is no hope for Tyler/Wyler, I will continue to ship it. And I want to add that my will to ship Wyler has nothing to do with who I would personally choose for myself. If given the choice, I would date Enid before my mind could form the phrase ‘toxic relationship’, and I’m very much one of those boring straight people. But as a romantic partner for a dark, morbid character like Wednesday Addams, I would choose Tyler any day.

Tagging: @therulerofallpotatos

#wednesday series #wednesday netflix #wednesday addams #tyler galpin #tyler x wednesday #wednesday x tyler #wyler #weyler #tysday #Laurel gates #just my thoughts and opinions #i'm not looking for hate #everyone is entitled to their opinion #but be polite please

[elcpsstuff]

The Summer I Remembered You (C.F) (Part 9)

A/N: This series needs to SLOW DOWN. I remember being on ep 1😭

Synopsis: It’s the Fourth of July in cousins

—

The fourth of July in cousins is a big deal. Susannah always goes full out by decorating the entire house. This year, it’s gonna be different, I can feel it.

John would be coming up for the fourth, and even though it’s with his girlfriend i’m still happy to see him. Things have been tense with me and Laurel this whole summer. I didn’t know if Mr. Fisher was coming.

Here I am attempting to put a sheet on the bed, but it won’t budge. I’ve never been good at these, and after a couple of tries I end up falling onto the bed frustrated.

“Need some help?” I look over and see Conrad leaning on the wall. My face instantly turns red.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah sure.”

He comes over to me and we’re so close, but I don’t say anything. He has this smug look on his face like “I’m better than you” which made me annoyed but also blush at the same time.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I mean, I wouldn’t say that Conrad and me are like friends again, because you sure has hell don’t look at your friend and think “I wanna kiss you.”

But we’re something.

“See, that’s how you do it.” He says smirking.

“Shut up.” I say while throwing a pillow at his face.

“Hey!” He throws one back and then I just look at him for a second contemplating if I should even ask, “Is your dad coming up for the fourth?”

He shakes his head, “No.”

“Okay.” I say silently.

How are you doing with Laurel and John?” He asks and it’s because a long time ago I told him about my relationship with Laurel and John. I cringe at the thought now.

“I guess i’m fine.” I say shrugging.

“Your obviously not.” Conrad argues.

Why does he suddenly care? I wanna be angry at him, but I can’t.

I hear some commotion downstairs and then I hear Johns name being called. It’s the perfect excuse. Conrad is way ahead of me already though.

“Guess it’s time to meet the new girlfriend.” Conrad teases.

“Shut up.” I smirk and then we both make our way downstairs. Jere, Steven and Belly are already waiting by the front door and staring at the window.

“Damn, she’s hot.” Jere says pointing at the figure.

“Ew, Jere stop!” Belly hits him on the back and he whines a little. He’s such a kid.

“That could be like, your new future stepmom.” Conrad says nudging my shoulder. I practically barf at his words trying to imagine that 20 something year old being my step mom.

Once John and the girl who was named Victoria came in, we all said our awkward hi and then made our way outside. The girl was really nice, but the last thing I needed was another change of moms.

The debs ended up coming shortly after and once we were all settled in, I couldn’t help but notice Nicole and Conrad in the pool. I tried not to look but my temptations always got the better of me when Conrad was involved. He was smelling her. Okay?

“So yn, Belly, Shayla? I heard your all debs this year.” John says uplifting the mood.

I smile and nod, “Yeah, i’m excited.”

Laurel sighs, “I just don’t understand why girls wanna be apart of it. It’s clearly just for people who don’t know who they are and think a debb ball can shape their personality.”

Ouch.

Me and Belly stared at Laurel awkwardly and Shayla said she had to use the bathroom. It’s best she got out of there.

“So, me and Belly are just girls who don’t know who they are, what they want, but we want a deb ball to shape our personality?”

Laurels face turns red. “That’s not what I meant yn.”

Belly rolls her eyes, “That’s what it sounded like.” It was actually nice to have Belly on my side. We felt connected again.

“Will you both stop it? Yn, stop enabling bad behavior for your sister. Be an example.”

Laurel was starting to raise her voice, and I could tell something else was on her mind. Maybe it had to do with John bringing his new young girlfriend, but whatever it was, was making her angry.

“I’m not doing—”

“Stop arguing me.” At this point people were starting to stare more than I would have liked.

“Just because yn said something I agree with doesn’t mean she’s “enabling bad behavior.” I can think what I want.” Belly protests.

Laurel laughs, “Sure. I need a drink.” And with that she was gone. I saw Conrad’s eyes linger to mine and he had the last look I wanted to see on his face. Pity.

—

A couple of minutes later, I was bored out of my mind and saw Jeremiah, Conrad, and Belly in the kitchen. I rushed in their to see what they were doing.

“Yn! Come help us!” Jeremiah yelled. I nodded and Jeremiah pulled me by hand into the kitchen. I then sat next to Conrad who was squeezing pomegranate into the blender.

“Adam would be so pissed if he found out we were using this.” I say laughing.

Conrad then turns to me, “He won’t find out, he’s not here.” He sounded a little happier than I thought he should and Jere got kinda annoyed, but me and Belly ignored it. The whole time she was eyeing me and Conrad which made me feel weird.

I added the vodka and Conrad tipped it so it could go even more which made me laugh. “Conrad!”

“You know what my favorite thing was?” Conrad says while blending the drink, “Whenever Laurel would put Adam in her place she would be like “Adam”

“Hey kids!” The weirdest thing just happened. Mr. Fisher walked through the door. Great timing by Conrad. Jeremiah smiled and went to hug Mr. Fisher and me and Belly stood awkwardly occasionally giving each other looks.

Conrad stayed silent. I noticed his hand shaking under the table and I grabbed it, stroking his fingers with my thumb. I knew all about Conrad and Mr. Fishers relationship. It wasn’t pretty.

I knew Conrad didn’t want him here, but why? What could he have done that changed Conrad so drastically?

Susannah and Laurel came inside and Susannah tensed up immediately. It seemed the only person happy to see him was Jere.

“Conrad, can we talk?” Mr. Fisher says but Conrad shakes his head, roughly letting go of my hand. Just like that, his guard was up again.

I felt this urge, this want to be there for him. He didn’t look okay. I knew the look on his face all too well. It only happened once, but when it did, it was scary.

—

Last Summer, Age 15 (Almost 16)

Mr. Fisher constantly compared the kids. Even though Conrad was the golden child, did that even matter? I knew Conrad wanted to be nothing like him, and I respected him for that. Poor Jeremiah didn’t know any better, though.

They had just had a nasty fight. Susannah, Adam, and Conrad. Conrad had jumped in to defend Susannah, but it only ended bad. Me and Belly were listening from the pool, because they were screaming so loud we didn’t need to go any closer.

10 minutes after the fight I knew I needed to find Conrad. I ran inside despite Belly’s questions and walked upstairs. It wasn’t until I heard pacing footsteps and heavy breathing that I went towards Conrad’s room.

“Conrad?” I ask.

No response.

I walked into his room to see him walking back in fourth, holding a hand to his heart. I shut the door immediately and run over to him.

My hands are on his face, but worry is all I can trace.

“Con, what’s going on?”

“I-I- c-can’t..”

My eyes widen at this sight. I had only seen it in movies, but I knew he was having some sort of attack. Panic Attack.

I pulled Conrad’s hands away from his heart and looked deep into his eyes. “You’re okay. It’s fine. Follow my breathing.”

He shook his head at first but I started to stroke his hair and eventually we fell onto the bed together. His head was buried in my neck and he was still trying to get his breathing back to normal.

“Conrad.” I whisper and he looks up.

His eyes are bloodshot red and my heart was breaking for him. I have never seen him like this before.

“Is this about the fight?” I ask.

“I think..” He says laying his head back down. His grip on me becomes tighter.

“Your okay. Breathe, Conrad.” You continue to stroke his hair and even place a kiss on his head.

“I need you.” Conrad whispered.

My heart felt like breaking into tiny little pieces. But at the end of the day, Conrad was the one who could put me back together.

“I’m right here.”

“Don’t leave me.” He practically begged.

“Conrad. I’m not gonna leave you, okay?” He turned to face me and then he just nodded.

I wanted to kiss him. Right then and there. So bad.

Instead he laid back down and I stroked his face while he hugged my stomach.

Something had changed. We never had acted on this tension that was always here. We knew not to. But things were changing, and I didn’t know how much longer of an act I could put up.

—

Present Day:

The debs and boys all decided to go down to the beach with the margaritas we had made. We were all sat in a circle.

Belly was having a little bit too much fun, and the drinks were getting to her. “We - we should play a drinking game?”

Jere laughed, “Tell that to your boyfriend, look who we found.”

Cam comes around the corner smiling but he’s not alone - he’s with Josh. Oh boy.

I could see Conrad’s insides curl up at the sight of Josh. It made me feel weird, excited, and angry at the same time. I decided to ignore them because I couldn’t deal with him. He acts like he likes me and then completely doesn’t care.

“Josh! Cam!” Me and Belly both signal them to come over to us, and Josh smiles sitting next to me.

“Long time no see.” He says through a smirk.

I giggled and even though Conrad was looking at me, I don’t care. My life isn’t centered around him, and I’ll do anything to prove it.

Belly smiles, “Alright! Let’s get on with that drinking game.”

“Cheers to that!”

And so we did.

Too many margaritas later, I felt fucked. This isn’t the most, but I definitely do feel fucked.

“Okay, okay, what if we play never have I ever with a twist?” Nicole suggests in her half drunk state.

“I’m interested.” Steven adds.

“Basically instead of all putting a finger down, someone asks someone else if they’ve done whatever, and if you’ve done it you drink.” Nicole explains.

“That’s confusing.” Gigi says.

“Sounds fun!” Belly counters.

So we played.

When it was my turn, I looked around to see who I was gonna ask. I looked them dead in the eye until they were looking back at me. Jere smirked.

“Jere, i’ll pick you.”

“Fine, what?”

“Never have you ever, fucked around with two people from the same family?” I closed my mouth with my hands, and I was shocked. Usually I would never ask that, but drunk me was the total opposite of me.

“Easy.” Jere immediately downs the drink and we all start making gagging noises. He really is a man whore.

After a couple more go arounds, it was safe to say everyone was fucked up. Conrad was the only one close to sane which surprised me. He always surprised me.

“Alright, Alright, yn your turn.” Nicole says pointing at me.

“Hit me.” I say.

“Never have you ever..” She sits thinking for a minute until a smirk plastered her face.

“Had sex before?”

Fuck.

All eyes were on me, and either answer was just bad. My eyes dared not to graze Conrad’s, but boy was he staring at me.

“Nah, yn is clean.” Steven says but I don’t move.

“Yn?” Belly asks in a suprised manner. Even Josh was staring at me.

“Uh..” I looked down at my drink, thinking about what my next step should be.

Steven looks at me with wide eyes, “Yn..?”

I sigh, “I would drink.. but..” I slowly put my drink down, “I can’t. Because I haven’t.” A wave of relief fills me when everyone starts laughing and saying i’m such a tease. Conrad isn’t laughing though. He looks like someone just punched him.

“gosh yn!” Shayla jokes.

—

After we left the beach, I stumbled back to the house obliterated. We were sat on a bench and we’re watching the boys play football, (by that I mean me and belly staring at Conrad)

Belly ended up saying some shit about Taylor and Steven hooking up to Shayla which made things weird, so they ended up going somewhere else. I don’t know if they left or not but I couldn’t stop staring, thinking. Conrad.

The way he looked at me when Nicole asked that question. It broke me. But he could do that. Break me, love me, and my heart would still belong to him.

Eventually it was just me and my margaritas watching him, so I got up and made my way back to the house.

My body aches for more of the margaritas. So that’s what I did. I downed a shit tone of them. If Belly had had 7, I had 14.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

So here I was walking around the house laughing to myself. How ironic. I heard the outside shower turn on and in a fit of desperation run over to where the sound is coming from. Low and behold the Conrad fisher is there.

“Hey.” I say.

He half smiles, “Do you mind?”

“Not at all, actually.” I reply. I usually would never even dare to think these words, but maybe getting drunk will help me get my emotions out.

I continue, “Everyone left. So drink a margarita.”

“Okay just leave it out there and I’ll get it after.”

It was too late, I wasn’t even listening to him. I was fucking staring at him. His abs. His wet hair which could do many things to me i’m ashamed to admit. He’s so beautiful. Beautiful things are made to be admired.

And Conrad Fisher was beautiful.

“I’ve always liked you with wet hair.”

Conrad then turned around in the shower and his face dropped a little, but remained calm. “What’s so romantic about wet hair?”

I shake my head, “You just don’t get it. You never do.”

He goes to say something but I hold my hand up. “Allow me to demonstrate.” Without another word I run into the shower, the cold striking my cutoffs and crop top.

“What are you doing?!” Conrad yells over the water.

I smile and ruffle with his hair, “This is romantic, Conrad.”

He then grabs my arm and brings it back down, but he doesn’t let go. Not right away. His touch lingers.

Then, my heart dropped. I knew I had to ask him while the time was right.

“Why did you look at me like that earlier?” I ask.

He looks at me shyly, “What do you mean?”

I roll my eyes at his confusion, “When she asked me that question! Don’t act like you don’t know.”

I could see his cheeks turn red and then his gaze is all I can see. He stares into my soul. My body feels like it’s on fire but I don’t mind. As long as I’m burning with him.

He steps closer to me and moves a strand of my hair out my face. “You know why.”

Longing turned into regret. Regret. I should’ve never asked. I already knew the answer.

“Yeah. I do.”

And then I was rushing away.

—

My eyes open to the lights being turned on in the room. My head is cluttered with thoughts. I had no idea where I was.

“How you feeling?” I turn to see John which makes me smile.

“Horrible. I don’t know what came over me.” He smiles and sits next to me on the bed.

“That makes two of you, but at least you weren’t so drunk you knocked over Susannah’s cake stand, along with her too.”

I cringed, imagining that happening in my head.

“Well, at least you didn’t run into the outdoor shower where Conrad was and start playing with his hair.”

My dads face turns red which makes me giggle slightly.

“What happened between you two? You were best friends.”

I shrug. I wish I knew, and a while ago I would’ve known. But it’s a shit show of a summer. Everything I thought was true wasn’t.

“Where’s everyone?” I ask.

“Belly’s sleeping, Jere and Steven are shooting fireworks. Conrad’s.. I don’t really know.”

“What about Susannah and Laurel?”

John sighs, “Big fight. Laurel left.”

I gasped, “What?” All he does is nod.

“She was being really annoying today though.”

“Don’t talk about your mother like that, yn. You know things have been hard and I know she shouldn’t blame you for things you can’t control, though. I’ll talk to her, okay? She loves you.”

I nod and he kisses me on the forehead, “Get some more sleep, ynn”.

I nod and lay back down as the lights shut, the door closing behind me.

I close my eyes and imagine everything I had been hoping for. And when I open my eyes, I think it might be coming true.

—

A/N: AHHHH! You guys were like 2-3 chapters away from the major drama I can’t believe it! Yn and Conrad drive me crazy sometimes but we’re okay🫶🏻

tag list: @kkrenae @callsignwidow @drikawinchester @johannelis2302nely @allnrsnz @galaxy13sworld @paytonloiselle @i-think-you-are-gr8

#the summer i turned pretty #conrad fisher #jeremiah fisher #team conrad #team jeremiah #tsitp #belly conklin #conrad x reader #love #summer love

[bloodynereid]

Reapers & Ravens

<< prev | chapter iv | next >>

pairings: jordan li x oc

tw: swearing, mentions of migraines, mentions of experimental pills, canon typical violence, weed, bad parents, mentions of death, rufus...

description: the story of a girl. a girl cursed by compound v to live a life without touch.

a/n: so... hi sorry this took so long to write and post. it's also a little shorter than the rest cause honestly when i was rewatching this ep it was sort of more focused on certain character dynamics and world building (which i tried to emulate). vic is going through it and... i added some little allusions to her past in this chapter. hopefully u all enjoy and... my ask box is always open so lmk ur thoughts + if you want to be added to the taglist <3

Walking through the stretch of patrons and trustees I finally spotted my dad standing off to the side, talking to a girl who was quite literally my age. Fucking hell, goosebumps appeared on my arms and a disgusted sneer overtook my face. That seems to be my predominant facial expression anytime I’m around my dad - the real version of him. 

Bundling up the layers that made up my skirt I ducked and nudged my way towards him, uttering a variety of sorrys to anyone I had bumped into. I was in a hurry after everyone had dispersed to get changed and make excuses to respective parents. We had to find Emma - as quickly as we possibly could.

“Dad! Look I don’t have time to explain but I have to go.” A scowl twisted his face and he reached for my gloved hand as I turned to go.

“The night is young plus you’re being rude to uh-”

“Lily.” The girl said with a flutter of her eyelashes, I felt sick to my fucking stomach.

“No dad, I really need to leave. I have to help my friends.”

“And suddenly you have friends.”

“Fuck off dad like you care. I came and I played the part of the perfect daughter, I don’t need to get your permission to leave.”

“I’m just trying to get you to stay in the top 10-”

“That is literally all you care about! You know what I’m going to go, I don't want to cause anymore of a scene.” I rolled my eyes and turned back to the sea of people with a sigh. I walked, or rather stormed my way to the reception doors but stopped short when I remembered… Gemma. Shit she should know that Emma was missing. 

My eyes turned towards the crowd once again and thankfully I found her sitting in between 2 identical girls who were wearing the same outfit. Oh that must be Mia. She was absolutely drop dead gorgeous, her curly brown hair was tied back in a slicked ponytail and she was wearing a blazer and a short skirt - showing off her toned muscles from football.

“Hii I see you found some company.” I said with a smile on my face and looked at the trio. Gemma was blushing like mad and the brunettes had flirty smiles on their faces.

“Oh shit uh hey Vic. This is Mia. Mia meet my roommate Vic.”

“Hi. Nice to meet you.” Mia’s silky voice came from one of the girls, it filled the atmosphere like honey, obviously I had heard some rumors about her before but holy shit.

“You as well. I love your outfit. If it’s ok can I pull Gemma away for a bit?”

“Oh yeah of course ,I’m going to go try to find some booze. Actually if I don’t see you here’s my number.” I watched as Mia’s duplicate took a pen out from one of the random pockets on her blazer and scribbled down a series of numbers on a napkin before signing it with a kiss. 

“Don’t miss me too much darling, we were just getting started. Plus I already have my date for tonight.” Mia added as she slipped into the crowd with a wink. Her duplicate followed closely behind her with an arm thrown around her shoulders. I turn to look at Gemma with raised eyebrows as she tries to giggle quietly.

“So…”

“Nope, we are not talking about this now. Tell me what happened.”

“Emma is missing.”

“What?” She exclaimed loudly and jumped up from her chair, making it wobble dangerously close to falling.

“Look, you remember I told you about my little adventure with Andre. Well, he did something stupid again. He sent Emma down there.”

“Shit. Okay what do we do?”

“First we need to get changed and then we’re meeting the group at Andre’s car. We’re going to try and locate her with the GPS.”

“Fuck okay, okay, let’s do this.” We nod at each other in agreement and then leave the memorial ball, quickly getting up to our dorm and changing into more casual clothes. There is no way that I was going to wear this dress to go to a search party.

“I found the tracker!” Marie says from one of the sandier parts of the field, we had spent over 30 minutes combing each and every corner of this damn field with our phone lights. The night was also growing colder and colder by the minute, maybe wearing a thin cardigan was not the best move. 

“Maybe this is good… I mean she got out of the hellhole.”

“Andre? We are literally standing in a meteor sized hole. How do we know she’s even alive?” I asked with a clearly frustrated tone lacing my words.

“Woah let’s not immediately assume she’s dead okay?” Gemma loudly declared as she stood next to Cate right outside the hole.

“Yeah exactly! Maybe Sam can jump like Maeve does? He landed here with Emma and then jumped again?”

“What were you thinking?”

“I had to do something.” Andre stuttered out while Marie looked at him with probably one of the most intensely angry looks I had ever seen.

“You didn’t do anything! You just dragged Emma into this fucking mess.”

“Woah okay how about we just calm down for a second?” I said, trying to mediate the clearly escalating situation but before I could take a step closer to the pair, our phones all went off at the same time. Jordan took out their phone first and scrolled through the message.

“They released the new rankings.” They said, causing me to pull up the same message on my phone. Oh shit.

“Andre is obviously still first, Marie second, I’m still five and Vic, you’re sixth.”

“Eh figures the dean hates me for whatever reason.” I said as I quickly locked my phone and slipped it back into my pocket.

“What?” The entire group looked at me with confused looks on their faces.

“How should I know? She was the one who interviewed me and I don’t know! She had this weird vibe to her the whole time.”

“Okay pending our talk about whatever the hell that is about, we really have bigger fucking problems than rankings.”

“Yeah says you, Mr. Number one. But I agree we do. Turns out the school has a whole fucking underground angel of death clinic! We don’t know who’s in on it. It could be the entire staff. And what are you going to do? Run around solving this like Nancy fucking Drew? You guys are going to end up like the fucking cricket.” Jordan says exasperatedly, walking closer and closer to Andre.

“Emma. Her name is Emma. And she is in so much shit right now because of your fucking friend.” Gemma answers as she too walks down into the crater.

“Woah okay Gemma chill. I don’t think they meant anything by it.”

“Jordan’s right.” Cate exclaims as she follows Gemma down.

“Thank you.”

“Look whoever Emma is, she isn’t fucking here.”

“Hey Cate! Come on.”

“No you come on. This girl could be fucking dead Andre. I told you not to do anything stupid. We are in over our heads.” Cate says as she starts to follow Jordan back to the place we parked the cars.

“Fuck.” Gemma exclaims as I grab her hand with my gloved one, smiling slightly at her. I rub circles on her palm to calm her.

“Look we’re going to figure this out okay? I promise.”

“Yeah okay I really need to sleep.”

“Me too. Let’s head back okay?”

“Yeah.” I put an arm around her shoulders and started walking towards Cate and Jordan but not before taking a look back at Marie and Andre mouthing a quick ‘bye’.

I laid in bed listening to the music blaring through my headphones. The morning sunshine was streaming in through the windows and I hadn’t even gotten a wink of sleep. My brain likes to hate me on days like this. Insomnia only seemed to arrive at the time when either everything was going to hell or I was stressed. Today it was a combination of the two.

Insomnia was also one of the worst possible things for my particular power. It’s usual insistence to absorb life seemed to be dialed up to 3 thousand. It’s typical itchiness under my gloves had now grown into a horrible irritation that was steadily spreading over every single cell of my body.

Eyeing the plants on the window sill I finally made up my mind about the debate I had been having with myself for over ten minutes. Maybe absorbing just one of my spider plants couldn’t hurt right?

Just as I was pulling the fingers of my glove off my hand, I distantly heard Gemma running into my room. I pulled my headphones off and looked at my roommate who had the giddiest expression all over her face. 

“Uh yes?”

“Guess who’s on campus right now?”

“With the way you’re acting I would say Santa Claus.”

“What no? I mean close but no.”

“Well then who?” I asked as I pulled my glove fully back on again. The singing under my skin only getting worse and worse.

“Tek Knight.” The moment that the name left Gemma’s mouth I felt my face scrunch up in disgust. You learn a lot about people when you grow up around them and… Uncle Tek was a staple in our household after my dad met him at some random premiere.

“What? Why are you making that face?”

“Nothing. I didn’t know you liked the whole Tek Knight thing.”

“Oh right yeah I love those shows. I mean they’re pretty bad but that kind of makes them good you know?”

“Yup totally get that. I, shit, I need to get to class. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry! But come find me if you do see Tek Knight, I need to ask him stuff about some of the episodes.”

“Okay! See you in a bit.”

I adjust the straps of my canvas bag and start to scratch at my wrist. I had specifically chosen my least scratchiest gloves right before leaving the dorm but they didn’t seem to be doing me any favors. Fuck. I buried my head in my hands and tried to just fucking breath.

That only seemed to make the situation worse. Even with my eyes closed I could still practically hear everyone’s life flowing through their very veins. After everything that I had learnt about Vought and what they were doing in the school I really didn’t want to take another one of the pills.

The sounds of bustling students started to fall away as the itchiness grew and grew. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to go cold turkey on an experimental drug with one of the most volatile powers.

I suddenly came down to earth when a hand started shaking my shoulder, my entire body jumped and I grabbed hold of whoever’s hand was shaking me and twisted on instinct.

“Woah Vic. Vic! Calm the fuck down.” My eyes flew open and it felt like the fog had cleared up, looking down at me with a disturbed look over their face was Jordan. Jordan whose hand I currently had in a weird death grip.

“Fuck shit. Sorry.” I said as I let go of her hand and went back to scratching my wrist.

“No umm don’t worry about it. Are you okay?”

“Yeah fine. What’s up?”

“Fine? Dude you literally nearly pulled my arm off.”

“Yeah I’m sorry about that. I’m a little stressed, I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Me neither. It seems like this whole fucked up sit- Wait is that Rufus?” 

“What?”

“Why the fuck is Marie talking to Rufus?” I turned my head and leaned to the side so the tree wasn’t blocking my view and right there was Marie talking to some bleach blonde dude. 

“Rufus? As in the one you warned me about?”

“Yeah the very same.”

“Huh. Wait oh shit where are they going?” I asked as Rufus started to lead Marie with a hand on her forearm.

“No idea but we should probably follow them. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah I should be fine in a bit.”

“Ok maybe take a nap soon?”

“Only if you join me.” I said in a sing-song voice as we started to follow Marie and Rufus. I felt another headache starting to form behind my eyes but shook it off. Time to sort out priorities… like flirting with Jordan.

“Flirt.”

“Tease.” I wink at them and she just throws her head back and laughs before shifting and nudging my shoulder with theirs.

As we followed the pair I got more and more nervous, especially when they got to the dorm rooms. I exchanged worried glances with Jordan and continued to shadow them. I only broke out into a full on sprint when Rufus shut the door to a dorm behind him, pulling Marie inside.

“Shit! Rufus open the goddamn door!” I yelled as I started banging with my gloved fists.

“Rufus you creep you better open the fucking door.” Jordan screamed beside me, I moved out of the way as they hit the door harder and harder, until it finally gave way with a blast of her power. What I very much didn’t expect to see was Marie suddenly covered in a spray of blood and Rufus falling to the side, clutching his dick?

“Marie fuck. Are you okay?”

“Nice work. Now come on.” Jordan said in a calm tone as we hauled Marie up from the floor and they passed her a towel. I spared a glance back at Rufus and sent him the bird before we left the dorm room. 

“Are you okay?” I asked Marie, sending her a small smile. The added adrenaline was not helping the forming headache.

“That was fucking dope. How did you do that?” Jordan added.

“Uh I have no idea, I’ve never been able to do that before… should we call somebody?”

“Nah, that guy deserved it.” I said as I rubbed my fingertips on my temples.

“Are you okay?” Marie asked as she nervously clutched the towel in her hands.

“Oh yeah, fine. No need to worry about little old me.” They both looked at me with raised eyebrows and Jordan had a whole calculating look on their face that was frankly slightly freaking me out.

“Hmm sure.”

“Also Marie what the fuck were thinking going to him for help?”

“I can’t just do nothing.”

“Ok before this turns into another fight, no idea why the fuck you guys hate each other so much but I’m going to go. My head is literally killing me right now.” Jordan’s face relaxed from one of slowly building rage to something much softer.

“Vic? Do you want to go down to the health center or something?”

“Nah I’m going to go lie down for a bit.”

“I’ve got to go as well. Get this blood off of me.”

“You know, maybe a thank you would have been nice!” Jordan yelled out towards Marie’s already retreating back.

“For what exactly?”

“Wow next time we won’t go around rescuing again.”

“You didn’t do anything.”

“Fucking did.”

“I exploded his dick.”

“God you guys are so fucking childish.” I said with a slight laugh in my voice and started to walk down the hall.

“Because we distracted him! Tagteam cocksplosion am I right Vic?” I chuckled and just let Jordan put her arm around my shoulders after they jogged up to my side. 

“Whatever you say darling.”

I had been able to sleep for a few hours before I was rudely awakened by a really loud phone call. The headache continued to persist and the itchiness was at an all time worst.

“Hello?” I spoke into the phone’s speaker, my voice was groggy and scratchy. I should take some Vought pills… no, nope not again. Not unless they are a necessity.

“Darling! How are you Victoria?” Spoke the overly cheery voice of my honorary uncle, his baritone seemed to rattle through my brain.

“Uncle Tek?”

“Yes darling. How would you like to have a feature on the show? Andre walked out and a little birdie told me that you had known Luke.”

“Only for a few hours…”

“Perfect that should be enough. Can you meet me at Auditorium 5 in 20?”

“Uh… sure?” 

“Wonderful. See you soon kiddo!” The phone line clicked off and I let out a loud groan into the empty room. Fuck me.

For ten torturous minutes I stood in front of my mirror trying to get myself into a slightly presentable state. My eyeliner kept getting messed up because of my shaky hands and everything else just seemed to be impossible to do. Finally I was able to just slick my hair back and throw on some lipstick before walking gingerly out of the door and towards the Performing Arts school.

“Kiddo! Wow you look so old now.”

“That’s what happens when time passes, Uncle Tek. How have you been?” I asked as the taller man engulfed me in a quick hug. I suppressed the flinch that the action had caused. The pain was getting worse.

“Good, good. I really did miss you Victoria. I’m sorry I’ve gotten so busy.”

“Oh that’s okay I’ve been insanely busy as well. What exactly did you need me to do?”

“Just answer some questions, we just need some extra background on Luke.”

“Uh okay.”

“Wonderful, have a seat and we can get started. Three free thugs set three thugs free. Three free thus set three thugs free.” 

I flinched slightly as I sat down on the cushioned chair and started to run my gloved hands over the seams. You can do this.

“So here we are joined by Victoria Oaks, daughter to the actor Adrian Oaks - better known as Frostbite. How well did you know Golden Boy, Victoria?”

“Oh not well, I mean I’ve known Andre for a while but I only really met Luke a few days before the official first day of school.”

“And what did you think of him? Did he seem deranged to you?” My body immediately tensed up and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

“Luke was a perfectly normal and stable guy. He was also genuinely nice.”

“Have you heard of how many serial killers were also known as ‘nice’?”

“Yes of course but Luke wasn’t like-”

“You did say that you only really knew him for a few hours. How would you know his true nature? Also sorry for my poor choice of words, instead of serial killer I feel like the word murderer or monster might be more apt.” My jaw dropped in a shocked gasp, my brain wasn’t ready for this kind of barrage of information. I thought this would be a normal interview, especially because well I knew Tek. 

“Uncle Tek… what are you trying to get at here?”

“Just the truth Victoria. The whole truth.” Fuck this, no wonder Andre walked out on this interview. I had always been glad that I never got to be on the other end of Tek’s interrogation tactics, now I know why.

“Look, Uncle Tek. My head is killing me right now, would it be okay if we just postponed this?” I said, trying to be as nice as possible. Tek’s face fell, almost as if a switch had been flipped.

“Shit cut the cameras. Kid are you okay? Are you taking the pills?” I narrowed my eyes at him and shifted to the right.

“How do you know about the pills?”

“I do still talk to your dad, you know.”

“Right yeah. Uh, would it be okay if I just…”

“Of course, I’ll walk you back myself.”

“You really don’t have to do that, plus I need to make sure you take those pills. Your dad might actually kill me if I don’t take care of his daughter.” You mean his asset I thought.

I laid in bed after Tek had dropped me off with a promise that he would call me in a bit. He also insisted I take the pills. Looking down at the silver packaging I felt my spine shudder. Those little green pills could do wonders right now but what were they actually doing to my powers? 

Looking back on it I can’t even remember how I started taking these, there was never a reason as to why. They just appeared one day and dad made me promise that I would take them. I must have been 7 or 8 maybe. It was just after another one of the incidents… or was it?

I scrunched up my eyebrows in contemplation as I continued to stare at the green tablets. I had to be at a Superhero Branding class soon and it would be better to actually be vaguely coherent when I attended it. So…

“Fuck it.” I poked one of the little capsules out and popped it into my mouth before washing it down with a sip from my water bottle. I’ll go cold turkey tomorrow.

I twirled my pen between my fingers as I watched on to the clusterfuck that was Tek Knight interrogating someone. If I looked anything like Marie did in this moment I was probably a mess on camera. Ugh. At least the headache was gone and my power had quieted down into a soft hum under my skin. All it had taken was one tiny little fucking pill that I didn’t even want to take in the first place.

“Jordan’s the hero. Not me.” I shook out my stupor as I focused on Marie again. Holy shit she actually did it. I looked over to Jordan and they had a similar look of shock on her face. They must have realized I was looking over at them because she turned to lock eyes with me. I mouthed ‘holy shit’ and they responded by mouthing ‘I know’ back.

The whole class watched with bated breaths as Marie grabbed her bag and basically stormed out of the classroom. I looked over to Tek and rolled my eyes before grabbing my own bag and shoving my tablet and books into the small space.

“Hey! Jordan, wait up.” I exclaimed as I jogged up to the door where they were already pulling the handle.

“Yeah?”

“Want to hang out or something? I found some extra weed in my bag this morning and well… it kind of looks like you need it.”

“Are you just trying to stop me from following Marie?”

“What! That is a baseless accusation. Why would I ever…” I exclaimed in an overly dramatic voice but when I saw that Jordan wasn’t all that amused I changed my tactic, “Yeah I am. Marie just went through a Tek Knight interrogation™ so maybe just give her some space. I promise I will come with you when you want to talk to her.”

“Yeah I- I get that. Let’s get some of that weed you were talking about.”

“Where the fuck did you get this shit?”

“Hmm?” I asked as I shifted over on the bed so I was now facing Jordan, their face was totally blissed out. They looked ethereal. 

“This is really good weed.”

“Oh yeah… I grow it.”

“What?” Jordan turned to look at me this time and actually seemed sort of surprised that I had been staring at her so intensely.

“Yeah… I mean I love plants and I got bored one day. It’s all legal in LA, plus my dad is keeping it up for me.”

“You’re so fucking cool.”

“What are you talking about? You’re literally the definition of cool in my book. You’re funny, awesome and really fucking incredible.” I said, poking Jordan slightly in the shoulder with a playful smile on my face.

“Sureee. God I wish I could fucking kiss you right now.” My jaw dropped in the same instant that Jordan’s face went from calm to ‘OH SHIT’.

“Oh fuck wait forget I said that I’m high, yup I’m high-”

“Woah Jordan, chill. I also would love to kiss you right now.” I interrupted Jordan’s frankly very cute rambling by pressing my gloved fingers to their lips and smoothing over the skin on their cheek. A second later they shifted and he looked at me with the most beautiful smile.

“Really?”

“Yes really. I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while actually.” I giggled slightly and continued to stroke my fingertips lightly over his features. Their hand came up and dragged my gloved hand to his mouth where they placed a delicate kiss over my fingertips, then my knuckles, then-

The door flew open with a bang and we jumped apart as if we had scalding water thrown over us. Standing in the doorway were Emma, Marie and Gemma - all with varying expressions of concern, awe and surprise on their faces.

“Uh we’re sorry to interrupt whatever this is but we need to go.” Gemma said with a desperate tone in her voice.

“Right yup okay. What’s going on exactly?” I asked as I jumped up from the bed and started to straighten out my gloves. “Wait- Emma?”

“No time to explain. Sam is planning to kill Dr. Cardosa. We need to go.”

“Shit, Dr. Cardosa. He used to work with Brink. I know where he lives.” Jordan said as they smirked slightly in my direction. I smiled back and stood there for a few seconds, as if entranced by their eyes.

“Great, let’s go then.” 

“Right yup.”

I jogged in behind Jordan and started to take off my gloves. This Dr. Cardosa’s house was actually pretty nice, the paintings were also tasteful huh? Who thought an evil doctor had good taste in art?

I heard the refrigerator hitting something hard before I saw it. Andre was standing with his arms outstretched towards who I assumed was Sam, who instantly threw it off and turned towards Andre with rage painted all over his features. But he stopped short when he caught my eyes. He narrowed them and tilted his head.

“I know you. How did you get out? ARE YOU WITH THEM NOW?”

“I-uh I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen you before in my life.” I stuttered out, this whole situation was just getting weirder and weirder. And how the fuck would he know me?

“I recognise your voice. I’m Sam, we used to-”

“Woah okay maybe we should just take a second to breathe.” Sam took his eyes away from mine and looked at Andre.

“You- you fucking caught me. You’re one of them!” 

“We didn’t know who you were then.” Marie exclaimed as she started to make calming gestures with her hands.

“Sam let us help you!”

“No Cate! You are never touching me again! Get the fuck out of here. You’re all fucking puppets.” That made me stop short, puppets? That seemed to rattle something in my brain that I couldn’t quite understand.

“Sam, you said I was your hero okay? Let me help you.”

“No, no. They’re not.”

“What the fuck is his problem?” I turned to look at Andre, that fucking idiot. 

“Andre…”

“What did you just say to me?” Sam grabbed Andre and proceeded to smash him into the hard floor, actually cracking it before throwing him into the fireplace. Holy shit. Marie then did her whole cool blood manipulation stuff which was quite honestly insane to see in action while I just stood there sort of frozen.

The pill’s effects had started to wear off and the migraine was coming back full force. The itchiness was building up quite steadily and without the gloves on my hands all I wanted to do was grab someone and take and take and take. 

I was thrown out of my stupor when I realized that everyone had somehow gotten outside while I was busy staring down at my naked hands. The short nails covered in remains of black nail polish seemed to glare at me. Begging to just scratch something. 

“Victoria, Victoria look at me.” I looked up to see that Dr. Cardosa was steadily moving towards me with his hands steadily up in the air.  “You need to take the pill.”

“What?”

“You need to take-”

I groggily opened my eyes to bright sunshine streaming onto my face. Fuck that was weird. I brought up my hand to wipe the sleep from my eyes when something hard seemed to hit my face instead.

I brought my hand up in front of me and realized it was covered in some sort of diamond shell… and my gloves were gone. Looking down I also realized I was very naked, lying in bed next to Jordan.

What the fucking fuck?

hope you enjoyeddd - i literally did research on vic's powers for like an hour to figure out that last scene. lmk what you think !!

taglist: @neapolitantoebeans @scorchedfangirl @losers-club6 @vvyuqi @bubblebuttwade @fix5idiots @ponypickle @nellyboosworld

#gen v #gen v fanfic #gen v amazon #gen v spoilers #andre anderson #jordan li #marie moreau #luke riordan #golden boy #the boys #the boys fanfic #the boys tv #oc fic #gen v tv #victoria oaks #maria writes #the boys series #the boys amazon #cate dunlap #emma meyer

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 7

Fast Times at Aguefort High

Welcome back to Fantasy High where the Bad Kids are, as the episode’s title suggests, being stress tested in a major way! Before we hop into that though, we have a few short scenes at school to get through, starting with a surprise assembly called by Principal Grix. 

There’s two main orders of business. The first is to introduce Agent Clark who is going to be investigating because of Fig’s shenanigans over the past 2 seasons. Fig Disguises herself as Kristen causing a scene that forces Adaine to burn a portent roll to cancel a Nat 20 and Agent Clark to go off on a very intense rant about the improper use of Disguises, which we mostly don’t hear because the Bad Kids are busy doing bits. 

After that’s done, Grix subjects all of the students to a mandatory drug test and starts literally throwing bolo nets at the students who fail—including Max Durden of course. VP Jace is alarmed and chases after him as he chases after students. Riz was already hella suspicious of Max pushing gorgenfern on them iat the party and now interrogates him about his motives as he cuts him out of the net. Max insists that his only motive was that smoking fantasy weed is awesome and that he’s never gotten in trouble like this before. Riz asks if any of the Rat Grinders were down in the basement with him and he says that they weren’t but Ivy was supposed to be down there. She was the one who hooked him up with the fern. Everyone notes that with suspicion. 

The conversation pivots to the fact that KP has a fleet of food trucks outside offering free food as part of her campaign. Riz is on guard but everyone else kinda wants to chow down–for recon reasons of course. After a quick aside where the idea of Adaine solving her money problems by dealing drugs is discussed and quickly rebuffed–they check out the food trucks and find that the food, unfortunately, slaps. Adaine ritual casts Detect Magic to see if the food is charmed in any way and she finds that it’s not but that the paper the food is in has some vote for KP subliminal messages implanted. Which is, como se dice, INTENSE for a school election even though they brush it off.

They discuss going over to KP (who is campaigning with a bullhorn while Mary Ann hands out flyers) and intimidating her but Kristen decides to take the high road. Of course, her version of the high road involves going over in a cowboy hat full of salsa and offering to let KP dip chips into it because this is still Kristen we’re talking about. 

Kristen and KP have a very smiley but catty conversation. Kristen implies KP was at the shrimp party but KP denies and says she was busy. Kristen shoots back that she thought she was done with all her classes because the rogue teacher found her (info she got from Riz via Jawbone you’ll remember). KP gives a tight smile at that and Kristen later on a 14 Insight sees that not only is she not rattled or insulted, she’s actually the kind of person who loves breaking the spirit of the law and getting a technical success over a traditional one. Hate that! KP says that it’s nice to be able to focus and asks how things are going with Kristen’s goddess. Kristen, for reasons I can’t fathom, says that her goddess passed and then immediately backpedals and changes it to “passed the test to give me more spells” and tries to “Spiderman away”.

????????????

Luckily she has the best friends in the world and they all team up with various spells to help her make a flashy, magical escape that’s so bombastic a bunch of the food trucks drive off in terror. 

As this happens, KP says into the bullhorn, “Your goddess passed? How can you cast spells?” So it looks like that is now public knowledge. 

Also, as an aside, Riz brings this subliminal message to Max since he’s a conspiracy head and, by their estimation, a pretty cool guy. Max says he’s on the case.  

OK, Now let’s jump into downtime! The way this works is that for the clump of time time that each bit of downtime runs for (this one is from the start of the school year to the beginning of November) each Bad Kid can make a series of rolls in the following categories: Academics, Popularity, Money, Job/Money, Extracurriculars, Relationships, and Mystery. Each roll they make, the DC goes up by 5 and failing some tracks have higher consequences than others.

Having a signed MCAT means you get to roll advantage on all Academic tracks after your first. Succeeding wildly means you get extra fun stuff. 

Fig and Kristen are in danger of expulsion and if they fail their Academics by more than 5, they’ll be expelled. And Brennan says Kristen’s Academics rolls will be hard without a god

Adaine is rolling her Academic track with disadvantage until she can get enough money to get to “well off”--diamonds aren’t cheap! (Girl, take Oisin’s diamonds, I’m begging you).

And, if at any point they want to reroll, they can by taking a stress token. They can only take 2 for each roll. The players can’t see this but whenever they take one there is a countdown to 5 and it’s parked by increasingly bigger and gnarlier red crystals which, considering the theme of this season is Concerning. 

Fabian gives Bardics to everyone but Riz and Riz takes one of Fig’s corrupted Bardics. Even though this is a long period of time, they’re each only allowed one Bardic (not sure if that’s per person–like they could get one from Fig and from Fabe–or period). Likewise, Adaine can only get help from Boggy once. 

OK, that’s all the nitty gritty. Let’s jump into everyone's rolls!

ROUND ONE

Riz predictably knocks out Academics with his DC 5 roll. He gets a 24. Boom, A+ in Rogue class and he’s not breaking a sweat. 

Adaine rolls for a job and rolls an 11 which passes but she needs a 25 to get to well off. Her passing roll is enough to get her a job as Basrar’s with Aelwyn as her one reference. 

Fabian rolls Popularity and gets a 20 which is a high enough success to get a perk: He’ll now get advantage on charisma whenever he meets someone new at school AND he’ll get advantage rolling on another track because some other student will just help him. 

Gorgug rolls all four of his Academic tracks at once–3 Artificers and 1 Barbarian. He doesn’t have an MCAT so it’s way harder than it should be. 

AND YET. 

His first roll is a 21. A+ no Sweat. His second roll is a 13 which is a C. He takes a Stress token. Nat 1. He takes another stress token. Nat 20! Another A+. He rolls his third Artificer track with advantage because of the last roll.. NAT 20 AGAIN!!! Ayda would be so proud! AND Brennan said that if he crit he’d get something super secret and special (some kind of academic resource). Excited to find out what it is so soon! His Barbarian roll is a 23 which is high but just a C since the DC keeps going up. He decides he’s cool with that. 

Kristen, before she rolls, goes to her cleric teacher Yolanda and fills her in on everything re: Cassandra. Yolanda says that if she wants to stay on the cleric track she’s going to need to do extra papers and academic stuff to make up for the lack of magic. She’ll need to get her spells back by the end of fall semester or else she’ll fail just as a matter of course And she needs to perform a miracle. You know, casual stuff. Although this is Kristen so maybe it is kind of casual. 

Yolanda does a divination spell on the Cassandra shards and we don’t learn what, if any, info she gleans from that but she does tell Kristen that as long as she still believes in Cass, she shouldn’t be fully gone. Cass can’t work through her right now so she’ll have to step up and work through Cass. 

After confirming that the Shrimp Jump doesn’t count as a miracle, she meditates on Cass and doubt and how it’s helped her in her life. When she thinks about doubt as the first step of escaping a bad situation, all the doors and windows in the room she’s in unlock–a minor bit of magic which means that she’s not totally cut off from Cass. The feeling she gets is that the cable is still there, there’s just not any juice running through it. This–tending to her religion–counts as her Extracurricular roll btw and she got a 22 on a DC 5. 

She hosts a little ceremony as almost an apology and tribute to Cass and Craig shows up! Good old Craig. 

Moving on to Fig, she suddenly has the idea that I’ve been wondering about all season: why not become a paladin to Cassandra? She needs followers. And Rebellion and Doubt go hand in hand. She seems wary cause it’s such a rash decision but Kristen encourages her to go with it.

She goes to Warlock classes where Zara once again offers her a signed MCAT before they take a field trip to the Bottomless Pit–Fig’s domain taken from Gorthalax. It’s backed up with work she’s ignoring and she tells everyone to just build a giant recording studio. Sure. 

Fig tells Zara that she’s kind of her own source of warlock power which Zara says is dangerous because it’s super easy to break a promise you made to yourself. She advises Fig to find a promise that she can make to herself that she won’t break. 

Fig then sees the Pride Armor behind her which says, “Ruin you have brought here.” Fig tells Baby to check in on who owns that armor and what its deal is. (Which is good because this is definitely the kind of thing that will SERIOUSLY bite you in the butt if you don’t stay on top of it). 

Then she rolls for her Warlock classes: 24! Fig’s an A+ student! 

ROUND TWO

DCs are higher now and we’re gonna start with Gorgug this time. 

He rolls for the Owlbears and is now at a DC 25. He fails and is told then if he fails this track 2 more times, he’ll be kicked off the team. He takes a stress but still fails, playing a truly trash game against the Hudol Hellions. 

Fabian rolls for Academics next and tries to get help from Mazey. Brennan makes him roll for the boldness of getting help from her after blowing her off but with a 22, he’s successful and has a flirty conversation with him. He also rolls a 22 on the DC 10 Bard Academic track. 

Then, he does his Fighter roll (DC 15 but with Advantage cause he has a signed MCAT) and gets a THIRTY TWO. 

His DC 20 Owlbears check? TWENTY THREE.

Fabian is the most popular kid in school, maximum party legend, lofi study nights at his house every weekday, captain of the Owlbears, and straight A student. You truly hate to see it gang.

Adaine rolls Academics next and takes the Help action from Boggy so she can roll flat. That’s a 22 on her DC 10 check. Party nerd, keeping it together even without diamonds (and eggs). 

Then, she decides she wants to put her jacket to use and become the school dealer, not of drugs but of things like extra pencils and erasers. Brennan lets her make another Job track check and with a 22 (DC 15) makes 2d10 gold. 

She does another roll (DC 20) to try and get the AV club’s help checking the Seacaster Manor security footage for info on the suspicious Mephits but even with a stress token, she can’t find anything. She does know that if they WERE her mephits then they must have been compelled because they wouldn’t have acted like that naturally. 

Also, she absolutely isn’t doing her oracle gig even though elves keep showing up at her job. Adaine, just charge them! They’re rich!  Take money from the Falinel 1%! It’s easy and ethical! 

Finally, Brennan makes her roll to keep her panic in check with all the stress and she succeeds. 

Riz rolls for his Extracurriculars next at a DC 10. Brennan allows him to do all of them at once if he takes Disadvantage. He does so and rolls a Nat 1 but with Reliable Talent, that becomes a 10+9=19. He’s doing every club he can and he’s acing it! 

October is apparently Riz and Gorgug’s Birthday (which I thought was supposed to be at the folk fairy but either I misunderstood or Brennan misspoke–either way just chalk it up to the time quangle, gang) and they have a joint Ice Cream party at Basrar’s. Gorgug gets an artificing gift card from his bio-parents who are coming down to see him at the Frosty Folk Fair which is coming up. 

Fig tells her bard teacher that she wants to do an independent study, causing her to float away in tears (though she absolutely allows it, apologizes for her behavior via email, and says she’s welcome back any time). 

Gorgug is having a harder time with his teachers (or at least with Porter because Henry loves him). He asks Fig what to do and she tries to trick Porter into signing Gorgug’s MCAT. He sees right through her and, to Gorgug’s dismay, signs Fig’s MCAT instead, saying that she’s been such a good student just from auditing. In contrast, he tells Gorgug that he needs to get an A+ or he’ll be kicked out. “Must be nice,” Gorgug laments to a baffled Fig who truly was just trying to help her friend. The signed MCAT confers the same benefits to her even though she’s not officially going for Barb levels. She is officially on the books as a Barb/Warlock multiclass. 

She does check out Paladin classes however. The poncy knight Halo St. Croix (love these names Brennan) isn’t really her speed so she checks in with one of the multiclass teachers at Brennan’s suggestion. Guess who the paladin/barb specialist is? Lmao, it’s Porter and Zac is so over it. Like, not Gorgug I felt that annoyance coming from Zac Oyama the real life person. Porter tells her that Rage and an Oath are two sides of the same coin because you’re raging to keep the oath to protect the people you care about. He does a very cool Divine Smite to demonstrate his abilities and Fig is on board for private lessons, calling him “sir” and rolling a 22 on this track (I think a DC 10 right now). A+ in Paladin. Insane. 

Kristen rolls for Popularity. It’s a DC 10 and she rolls a 12. Riz asks to take stress for her and Brennan says yes but he’s the only one who can do that for other people. I wonder if that’s an in the moment judgment to keep the whole table from taking bullets for each other or a true Riz special but, either way, it totally checks out. She rolls worse and Riz takes another stress which puts her roll at a 21. She gets the same Charisma perk as Fabian. 

Next Kristen has to do her homework which she does with advantage because of her newly gained perk. It’s a DC 15 and she gets an 18 to pass (with a C) and then an 11 on her actual research which is on Osmir, the god of magic and secrets. While doing this research, she learns that there is a lot of value in faith that’s not evangelistic and evergrowing (something common in Helioism and the Moon religion) and it can be just as powerful to have one follower who prays every day or monasteries that do their own thing and don’t do converts (which seems kind of like what Osmir’s vibe is).

ROUND THREE

Fig rolls Mystery (DC 15) to find out what Ruben’s type is so she can continue her infiltration mission. She takes a stress to reroll to get a 19 and learns he isn’t picky and actually has a big crush on Wanda Childa and hopes she’ll be at the Frosty Fair that he’s headlining. She’s delighted and magically inserts herself into his dreams to keep that fire burning. 

Fabian does a DC 25 relationship roll on Ivy and fails. He takes 2 stress tokens but fails twice more, leaving her unimpressed with him and his friendship with Mazey. She sneers and says that if it gets cold he can “wear her like a sweater”. Fabian is absolutely taken aback by the cruelty and Emily’s disgusted, “Oh my God,” at the table really sums up my feelings. I knew I never liked that bitch. Before Fabian can make a hasty retreat with an excuse about getting a phone call, Ivy gets close to Fabian’s ear and says, “You missed your shot playboy.” 

He also gets 10k gold for being a trust fund baby. Yay for Fabian. 

Riz does a DC 15 Mystery Roll for the crystal stuff and gets a 23 (2 away from a bigger clue). He learns that Ragh was in middle school when the crystal was put into Lydia so there’s no danger of him being an avatar of any kind of bad magic. 

He does another roll to research Lucy (DC 20) and a Nat 1 becomes a 21. Rogues are so good you guys. 

He learns that they never found a body but scrying magic confirmed her dead. However, it was low level scrying so all it really confirmed was that she wasn’t alive on the material plane. That still leaves a lot of options that are not quite dead. 

More info: She went missing near Lake Shimmerstone which is near the woods the Ratgrinders grind rats at. And, most notably, in that two week period where grades didn’t count anymore, she submitted paperwork to change her god but then submitted paperwork to cancel the first set of paperwork. Riz doesn’t see who she wanted to change her god to though. There’s nothing written there. 

Adaine does a Mystery roll to see what’s up with Grix. It’s a DC 25 and even with a stress she doesn’t make it. She’s not grasping anything but the uptick in bureaucracy is very weird and worrying. 

Finally, Kristen rolls Mystery to try and find out more about Lucy. It’s a DC 20 and she gets a 19 after taking a stress token. With Fig’s sketchy bardic that takes it up to a 27. 

She goes to talk to her teacher again and asks about Lucy and whatever happened to her. Yolanda gets somber and says Lucy was a wonderful student, sad but very kind. She worshiped a goddess named Ruvina who was an ancestral goddess of giants and giant-kin. Her domain is winter and sorrow. 

Kristen asks if she was thinking about switching and Yolanda is confused and alarmed. Lucy never would have switched to another god. She was extremely devoted. Kristen mentions the request form and Yolanda says she never got it and didn’t give approval–she wouldn’t have been at school when the form was sent. She thanks Kristen for bringing this to her attention and when Kristen rolls insight, a 27 tells her that her teacher is sincerely upset and frightened at what this info might mean. 

Yolanda says she’s going to talk to Grix but Kristen points out that the guy who throws nets at kids probably isn’t the best person to confide in. Yolanda agrees and plans to talk to VP Jace instead. Before she leaves, she gives Kristen a token that says “When the only thing you can believe in is believing.”

Listening to this conversation gives Riz a brain blast. What if the name on the god change form wasn’t blank or redacted. What if it was invisible, like the name of a god you can’t say? He uses some of his dad’s celestial spy gear and, sure enough, there’s something there that can’t be read by mortal eyes. 

This is where we exit downtime and everyone has taken some level of stress. Fig has one. Riz and Adaine have two. Kristen, Gorgug, and Fabian have three. They’re all fried and coping in ways that range from being hermits (Adaine) to not slowing down lest the wheels fall off (Riz). There’s a way to reduce stress but Ally says it's hard and Brennan says they can’t try till next time. Based on their stress, they’ll have to pick certain things to have disadvantage on (which isn't great considering there’s def gonna be a fight next episode and we don’t know how long until the next downtime period). 

We finish off the day of the Frosty Folk Fair which will be held at Gorgug’s house. Riz realizes he forgot to look into the fraud case his mom is defending but it’s too late now. 

At Mordred, Lydia is making a killer breakfast and she also has all the stuff the party asked her to get about her Bakur quest. Since he’s a fiend, they all expected it to be written in Infernal but no. The texts are written in the language of the Giants. 

Honor Roll

Gorgug for Acing His Artificing Classes

It’s honestly absurd how proud I am of Gorgug for this. Like I fully recognize that this is a fictional character and these were just random rolls but guys, he’s doing it! 

Detention 

Ivy for Minitaur Racism and Extreme Bitchiness 

Ok look. I love characters who are bitches. Aelwyn is my favorite FH NPC. That’s well known information. But this is a nuanced thing. I’m not out here for any character who just shows up and is mean. You need style. You need flair. You need a decade of family trauma and suppressed affection you don’t know how to express. 

Ivy just showing up to be full on racist to Mazey? Jail. 

It was like Brennan looked Lou right in the eyes and was like, “If you pursue this character after this point I absolve myself from any responsibility.”

Fabian, my guy, you are under absolutely no obligation to date Mazey if you don’t see her that way but for the love of whoever Kristen is praying to right now, don’t pursue Ivy! 

Random Thoughts

Kristen’s range is such that in one breath she can be telling Max that “if we all do drugs he can’t net everyone” isn’t a union and then in the next breath she’s encouraging Adaine to sell drugs.

A little surprised Fig didn’t run into Bucky when she crashed Paladin classes. 

Curious if when KP said, “Your god passed, how are you casting spells?” in the bullhorn if that was purely to spill her secrets or if she was also genuinely baffled by that. 

I didn’t mention this before but Fig is purposefully tanking her Popularity track to focus on other things/be more stealthy. It’s good she’s not prioritizing it because it seems like she’s doing literally everything else she can! It’s interesting how right as Gorgug is digging more into techy things and magic, she’s dipping more into martial classes. I am so curious to know what her character sheet looks like by the end of the season. If she doesn’t want to take full levels, she can always take the Magic Initiate feat for some paladin spells. 

In a clutch bit of detective work from Riz, we learn that the god’s name on Lucy’s sheet can’t be read by mortal eyes. I know Kristen would be loath to do this, but I bet she could get Helio on the phone pretty easily and get him to read it for her, maybe for a price. Maybe he’d even do it pro bono if he’s not mad at her–Kristen thought he sucked but from what I remember he was pretty chill. 

The timeline of Lucy’s supposed death is throwing me off. If she’d died Freshmen year the Rat Grinders would make sense to me–why leave the woods if your cleric died the first week of school? But this seems like it was their M.O. even before whatever happened to Lucy. So what’s the deal? 

I also can’t get a read on whether the Rat Grinders (by which I mean KP and Ivy–the ones I trust the least) are pro or anti Lucy. Like, is whatever they’re going now a ploy to bring back Lucy (if she’s even dead at all which seems doubtful) or is it a second attempt at whatever did her in, now with Buddy as the sacrifice? I’ve seen people speculate that the Rat Grinders are mad that Kristen and Gorgug were resurrected by Aguefort while their cleric was not and that’s why they hate the system but that theory hinges on whether they cared about Lucy or not. So curious to know what their group dynamics are when they’re alone. 

If Lucy’s got is a god of sorrow I wonder if this nameless god was a god of rage.  Also wondering if there is any connection between the frost giant thing and the frosty folk fair thing.

I sincerely love this downtime system and I think it’s great that we’re getting more of the high school experience this season. I wonder how many times we’ll get to do this. 

I was expecting to have to ask Brennan in a Q&A what Gorgug’s nat 20 would mean, not that it would happen twice back to back on his first set of rolls! I can’t wait to see what he unlocked! 

On another note, Porter really needs to let Gorgug get his MCAT. Yes, his grades are slipping like Porter said they would but that’s kind of a self fulfilling prophecy from forcing him into this position.

Yolanda Badgood is weirdly comfortable talking to a student about others students' private business but maybe it's an adventuring school so it would be weird if students weren't breaking into school records from time to time. They literally teach students to be rogues after all.  

EDIT: Coming back a day later to make this edit because I can't believe I forgot to mention my new favorite corruption of KP's name: Littledoggy Girlcollar. Chef's kiss. No notes. They are really dragging Brennan's ass for this name--the name of one of his ACTUAL PCs. Lmao, brutal.

The main additions to the Conspiracy Board from this ep:

Not from the ep but we learned from the just released map that KP’s family owns a real estate company (thanks to the anon who gave me the heads up). I wonder if that’s why they keep grinding in that one specific plot of land. Maybe she knows something about the land that others don’t because of intel from her parents. 

Lucy seems like she was a good person and switching her god is so out of character that it was deeply worrying for her teacher. We have to wonder if she even sent the form or if one or both of them were forgeries, perhaps by a rogue. And if she did send the form, was she coerced and then quickly changed her mind? 

The dead god Bakur was trying to raise seems related to giants and Lucy worshiped an ancestral giant god. We need more to go on but that’s an obvious connection. Did KP learn about this nameless god via Lucy and decide to use it to her advantage?

No idea if this is at all relevant but Lucy's people are said to be from the Mountain's of Chaos in this episode. That's also where Tiberia Runestaff--Adaine's divination teacher who kinda sucks--is from. Doesn't necessarily mean she's implicated but it does mean she might know some information.

#Dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #d20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #spoilers #the report card #this episode was a dream to recap #love it when they're this straightforward

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - A New Entry My Top 10 BLs of All Time

March 2023 Wk 4

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Bed Friend (Sat YT, GaGa & iQIYI uncut) ep 7 of 10 - the plot remains much the same and I am getting very concerned they extended this one as it’s starting to flag. Might have been my first high heat 10/10 candidate if they had kept it at 8 eps. Bummer. I mean it’s still good and I’m still enjoying it, but... character development is a thing.  

Future (Thai Sun YouTube & Gaga) ep 2 of 5 - Drunken gathering is such a hallmark of this franchise. Tiny bit of James flirting! (He’s my fav character ever since Love Mechanics original and the punch). Fuse is right to be worried about getting drunk bc he wants to be able to take care of Ana. I love the actor who plays Top (the ex). I’ve said it before (Remember Me) I really want him to get his own series. Also adventures in translation, Top did not say “I can’t believe you’re dating this man”, he said “I can’t believe you’re dating this kid/child”. These two are the ULTIMATE over dramatic college gays. Their relationship has NO drama but they will make it anyway. 

Pastsenger (Thai Weds Gaga) 4 of 12 eps - I like it more and more each new ep. The leads are developing a fun playful relationship. It’s a bit slapstick for me but it’s not offensive or boring. 

A Boss and a Babe (Fri YouTube) ep 5 of 12 - I don’t know. I’m just finding this one kind of boring now. Although, it looks like we are getting cute boyfriends next week so that might be nice. 

Tin Tam Jai (Tues Gaga & iQIYI) ep 6 of 12 - Side couple advanced into lap sitting and tongue kisses out of nowhere. Good tongue kissing, even if surprising. Higher heat! Yay! They’re a great pair, but would it kill Thailand to give us character development with our high heat?

Chains of Heart (Sat iQIYI) ep 7 of 10 - the confusing whateverness of waisted chemistry continues to confuse. 

The Promise (Thai Weds YT) ep 5 of 10 - I don’t know what’s going on with this show. That’s it? He just fell in love with bestie and then punished bestie for his own feelings? Seriously? WTF. ON HIATUS UNTIL APRIL 19. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Our Dating Sim (Korea Thurs Viki) eps 7-8fin - Absolutely wonderful. There is a time laps but it’s the good kind - NO SEPARATION. Couple of moments when I doubted they could pull it off. But CONGRATZ! We have a new entry into the very rare 10/10 club. I have go change all my best of lists but this was worth it. Final thoughts below. 

Unintentional Love Story (Korea Thurs iQIYI) 5-6 of 10 - (here’s how I’m getting it) KBL rarely gives quality sides dishes but these two are legend. Poor tattooed player hottie is always getting punched. Don’t get me wrong the leads are great too. It’s fun to watch two sets of bisexual identity crisis being handled entirely differently because of good characterization. I say “ouch” a lot while watching this show. Also “awwwww.” I do worry their cafe has no customers tho. 

The Eighth Sense (Korea Weds Viki) eps 1-2 of 10 - With 10 episodes of about 40 minutes each this has got to be one of the longest BLs Korea has ever given us. However from tone, filming style, opening credits, and trailer I am guessing this could be sad. If its KBL doing JBL style then we are in His the series territory, but it could be more in the Blueming vein. I’d give it 50/50 odds. There’s always a chance it wants to be “taken seriously” which is the death knell of BL. Also if a lead smokes it means that one or both will cheat. (I don’t make the rules, the Japanese yaoi gods do.) OK, but do I like it? Yes, actually, it’s... interesting. It’s got a bit of an age gap, country boy/city boy, the acting is great, characters complex, good chemistry and tension. It’s a bit chewy and sticky and less perfect than most KBL (do I detect a touch of Taiwan?). This one is deploying BL tropes (messy eater, shoulder sleep, protective seme, there’s even some hyung-slinging) but it isn’t in the KBL bubble, there’s sharp edges, we may get a coming out sequence or even a bashing. It certainly will stay interesting. But proceed with caution. 

A Shoulder to Cry On (Korea Tues Viki & Gaga) eps 5-7fin - What both these kids need is a little affection and a lot of therapy, not romance. The punishment for flirting in class thing was funny. They are such boyfriends by ep 5 - Sitting together, sharing a glass etc…Terrible awful grueling confession rejection. 2 year time gap. Much needed in this case. Then another 2 before the epilogue. Honestly, the most unlikely thing about this show (after the casting) was the prospect of an out gay Korean cop. No kisses for us. Narrative indicated that there should have been at least a fish kiss, but not happening with them in the same Kpop group. I’m starting to think I really just prefer KBLs where they use actors and not idols (Semantic Error excepted, of course). I’m assuming the next 2 eps are bts. Final thoughts below. 

It’s Airing But ...

Love Syndrome (Thai Sat WeTV) stopped at ep 2 of 12 - I’m just not into any aspect of it (except Lee Long Shi and I can watch him in Tin Tem Jai - see above pic, awesome side dish action) - saving to binge if the end is solid.

Venus in the Sky (Sat YouTube) pilot/tester?) 0 of 10 - not entirely sure what’s up with this one distribution-wise, but the pilot was cute, classic university-set pulp. I hope it happens because the leads are cute with good chemsitry and I thought it was fun. However, it totally holds together as it’s own little short story too. 

Cafe In Love (Thai ???) 10 eps on Ch3+ - Thai pulp, about trying to save a coffee shop. FairyGodBLer came through for me, but I’m collecting to binge just in case. It’s my new policy with the grey stuff. 

Destiny Seeker (Tues WeTV Thailand) 10 eps - it’s not on any WeTV I can get ahold of. Bad Buddy the pulp rebirth meets Japanese handsome host club action. Same as above.

Make a Wish (Thai Weds ?) from WaGa Creative staring Fluke Natouch (OhmFluke UWMA etc...) & Judo (The Miracle Of Teddy Bear) in a medical-fantasy. It seems to be a light-hearted romance with a comedic flair. About a doctor who sees ghosts and a deity who resides in a Bodhi tree that earns merits whenever he fulfills a wish based on a y-novel by Sammon (Manner of Death, Triage). Too hard to find.

Finished this week

Our Dating Sim (Korea Viki) I enjoyed every aspect from the casting to the very simple premise to the quietly smooth execution. Sure it’s very low stakes, but that makes it high domesticity and extremely warm and gentle. This is a fuzzy blanket of a story. Do we call this cozy BL? Why not? This one is going to live in my rewatch pile, I can tell already, and you know what’s best about it? Every single episode is in that pile. There’s no skipping with this one, it might be good natured and calmly sweet but it’s tight and the pacing is excellent. It perfectly suited KBL’s short-length tendencies. Full review. 10/10 I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS SHOW HIGHLY ENOUGH

A Shoulder to Cry On (Korea Viki & Gaga) - Adaptation of a manwha, high school set bully romance, staring Jaehan & Yechan BOTH from Kpop group OMEGA X, so no kissing. All in all this was a painfully awkward watch for me, and while beautiful and decently acted, the story and characters rendered it ultimately disappointing. I think we shouldn’t let Korea do bully romance. 4/10 FATALLY FLAWED 

Jack O’Frost It was fine. I never really cared about the characters or their relationship. Not to slag off the acting (which was superb) but the narrative bored me. 5/10 WATCH ONLY IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO 

In Case You Missed it

Ai Long Nhai got a special ep on iQIYI. 

Eternal Yesterday is getting a movie version with additional content if you want extra suffering. 

A few things have been announced but mostly Thai, Japanese, and 2 (yes, 2) Chinese Omegaverse (Desire and Couple or Not). It’s doubtful these will pass censorship, so I’m not gonna bother tracking until they actually get international distribution. For Thailand, I’m excited about Waterboyy 3, which NOT a remake (hally-fucking-luya) but a new installment, and stars KaownahTurbo (Love Stage!!! et al). Although why the fuck they don’t put Est Supha (swim champ) into one of these is a mystery to me. For Japan, they’ll start airing sooner rather than later, so expect me to start tracking those. 

Next Week Looks Like This:

04.06 Our Dining Table AKA Bokura no Shokutaku (Japan Gaga) - I AM SO EXCITED I LOVE THE MANGA 

04.07 My Beautiful Man Eternal (Japan ????) - 3rd installment, movie which means it’ll be a pain to get hold of. 

No proper post for April but remaining releases are: 

04.14 Naked Dinner AKA Zenra Meshi (Japan Gaga) - not really my thing but yes I’ll watch it 

04.15 My Story (Pinoy YouTube) - not my fandom but I will give it a go

04.18 Step By Step (Thai WeTV) - office age gap, I am all in! Even though it’s WeTV. Sigh. 

April is looking a bit slender so I might start watching Destiny Seeker or Cafe in Love, or both. 

2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED)

Adventures in Captions

Ai Long Nhai special both reviewing its own plot and having fun with English. 

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

The danger in dating an older boy. (Future) 

Love triangle in one photo! (Promise) 

(last week)

Current Kpop earworm? Nada, the comebacks have been disappointing recently. 

#this week in BL #bl news #BL gossip #upcoming BL #new BL #best BL #BL reviews #Thai BL #korean bl #Taiwanese BL #Japanese BL #live action yaoi #Rakutan Viki #gagaoolala #GMMTV #Bed Friend #Love Mechanics #Pastsenger #A Boss and a Babe #Tin Tam Jai #Chains of Heart #Our Dating Sim #Unintentional Love Story #The Eighth Sense #Blueming #Ai Long Nhai special #Eternal Yesterday movie #Chinese Omegaverse BL #KaownahTurbo #Waterboyy 3

[alwayzraven]

Kardeşlerim Ep 103

Elif didn’t believe what Sengul said. Ayla told her that Sengul was drunk. Berk couldn’t lie to her anymore and told her that what Sengul said was true, that they are siblings. They went home, Elif was in denial, she thought Berk and Ayla were messing with her. Ayla told her that Berk is her twin brother. She told her how she couldn’t have a kid and how she wanted to take them both but Resul refused. She said that her dad asked Resul:"which one do you want?" and Elif went crazy because they were babies and they were treated like objects to be sold. Elif said that her father was capable of doing that but her mom wouldn't. It’s sad how Elif thinks her mom is an angel when she went to Ayla to ask for more money. Ayla brought the papers she had with Berk and Elif’s information. Elif asked Ayla if that’s how they found her and Ayla said that it was a coincidence, Sengul knew her mom. Elif thought that Ayla wanted to bring the two siblings together and that’s why she wanted Elif to live with them. Elif told her that she was a good person. Elif asked Ayla who was born first and she said Berk. She was so happy that she has an older brother now. They didn't tell her how her mom died. Elif asked Berk when he found out and he said that he found out recently. Elif understood that Berk and Ayla fought and Berk left the house because of this. She also remembered how Berk was nice to her at school. Elif hugged Elif and she told him that she didn't want him to leave.

She told him to stay with her and he agreed:”Okay, I am not going anywhere, I am going to stay here with you”.

Ayla told Berk that she was happy he was coming back home and he told her he was doing it for his sister and not her.

Next day at school, Berk and Elif came together. Berk said that if anyone touches Elif, they will find him in front of him. Elif told him that she can protect herself. Omer asked Mahir when his sibling was going to come out 😂 Listening to them talk about siblings, Tolga remembered Leyla. I wonder if this means the truth about her accident will soon come out.

Lydia made fun of Elif for liking Oglucan. Lydia told her:”at least I have a chance but you don’t” Susen told her that she probably didn’t beat her up enough last time and Aybike was like:”wait you beat her up?”. I completely forgot that Aybike didn’t know about this, but her reaction was so funny 😂 Elif told Oglucan that she has a boyfriend and then she held Tolga’s hand. After the chaos ended, Berk came with coffee for Elif and study notes. Then Tolga came into the classroom and Berk asked him when he and Elif started dating. 

I feel like Berk didn't believe them, He had a "this is so sus" look

I am not the biggest fan of Tolga but the way Yasmin talked to him when Mahir told her that he doesn’t like her was disgusting and disrespectful 😬😬 

Aybike and Berk went to take a walk by the sea after school. This scene was an ad for a laundry detergent.

Aybike:”isn’t this nice? We came after school to get some clean air. It looks like the grass was cut recently, it smells nice”

Berk:”Yes, I like this smell so much.”

Aybike:”Okay, I have a question for you! I am wondering, has Berk Ozkaya ever rolled in the grass before?”

Berk:”It’s a nice question! Unfortunately, I didn’t, my mom didn’t let me”

Aybike:”Okay, fortunately, I am by your side now and everything has a start”

Berk:”No way, Aybike! Am I a kid to roll like that in grass?”

Aybike:”Yes, of course”

Berk:”There are people, can’t you see? They will say we’re crazy”

Aybike:”Forget about the people! Let them say whatever they want to say! Also, it is our greatest right to misbehave.”

Berk told her that their clothes will get dirty and Aybike told him to just lay down on the grass. Berk layed down but he was saying that people were looking at them.

Aybike felt that her sweater got wet and Berk said the grass is wet that’s why. Their sweaters got dirty and Berk was worried about people looking at them. 

Aybike:”Imagine that you got back from the stadium”

Berk:”and you were our goal keeper, right?”

Aybike:”Yes”

Berk:”Mashallah, my love”

Elif and Berk were studying. Berk borrowed his mom’s tablet but  he didn’t ask her first. Elif liked how Berk called her “sister”. She pinched his cheeks.

Then she said she got an idea and pinched his arm. Berk asked why she did that.

Elif:”Don’t they say twins feel each other's pain? I was wondering if I would really feel your pain”

Berk:”ThEy FeEl EaCh OtHeR’s PaIn. Did you feel it?”

Elif:”No, it was a lie, I didn’t feel anything”

Then, Ayla brought katayef (it’s a dessert ). Ayla saw the tablet and she panicked. She has a copy of the video of Veli’s murder on it, she copied it before she showed it to Akif. Berk thought her reaction was weird and thought she was hiding something. Elif tried to feed Berk but he said he doesn’t eat sugar and that his mom knew about this but maybe she was doing it on purpose bc she doesn’t want him to stay fit 😂 I CAN'T WITH THIS DRAMA QUEEN 😂

The next day, Berk told Omer that they called them to do a test shoot. Berk’s friend called him and told him that they needed models and Berk and Omer applied. Aybike was supportive but Susen didn’t like it because she knew exactly where this was going 😂 When they got to the studio, Susen was surprised that there were only female staff. One of the staff told her that the director doesn’t work with men, she only works with women, the industry was dominated by men anyway. At first, Aybike was supportive then Susen told her to look at the makeup artist who was doing Berk’s make up. Aybike started to get jealous. She told the makeup artist that Berk’s freckles were so beautiful so she shouldn’t cover them with foundation. The makeup artist got annoyed with her and told her to leave. Omer was up first, then Berk was next then both of them were photographed together and then the director said:”Bring out the models!”

Aybike and Susen:

Then the director told them to stand closer to each other. She said she wants to feel that energy and Susen was like:”I think I am feeling a lot of energy, we’re done here”

Aybike was calling Berk but he was enjoying the fact that she was jealous 😂

Director:”okay kiss him”

Susen:”KISS WHO?”

The girls couldn’t wait for the shoot to be over and then they dragged their boyfriends out of there. They were walking by the sea when the sprinkles went off and we got one of the most beautiful scenes in this season. Berk of course was super thirsty despite all the water coming out of the sprinkles around him. 

Concerning Sarp and Asiye in this episode, they have been at each other's throat. Sarp has a nickname for Asiye: “kıvırcık” which means “curly” because her hair is curly. Unlike Omercik, it’s not a nickname that’s meant to make fun of her, it’s actually a nice nickname. He used it non-stop in this episode. I am just wondering if they are really making Assar happen now that Mahir is out. Some Asdor fans think that it was their “power” who kicked Mahir out of the show and not Mark’s bad acting. I saw one of them saying we’re gonna do the same to Sarp except Atakan can act and he is not going anywhere unless the writers decide to. Anyway, back to Sarp’s accident, Sarp wanted Asiye to delete the video. I think he was afraid of his mom finding out that he wrote those bad stuff about her on the walls but still, I think after his fall and if he explains to his mother that he was trying to kick the Erens out, she will forgive him so I am curious about why Sarp will defend Asiye. It’s not clear if it’s Sarp who pressed charges or if it was Seval. The police will come and ask him about how he fell at the hospital so let’s see what he’ll say then.

In the teaser, it looks like Aybike went to Berk’s house.

Berk:"I love you more than you love me"

The teaser shows Berk holding a clip that says "You have a message" then when he opens the clip it says "I love you".

Aybike probably gave him this clip. I just love how she has been showering him with love lately ❤️

#kardeslerim #kardeşlerim #ayber #recap #turkish shows #turkish dizi #turkish tv show #turkish series

[watchingspnagain]

Rewatching It’s a Terrible Life

Welcome to “Sam and Dean are Just Steps on the Bossman’s Ladder: A Supernatural Rewatch Blog” with Lor and Mace!

Up today, s4e17: It’s a Terrible Life

Dean Smith works a middle-management white-collar job at Sandover Bridge and Iron, and Sam Wesson is a grunt in the IT department there. Sam thinks something about this life is wrong, and when he runs into Dean he could swear they’ve met before. But Dean brushes him off until employees start dying real weird in the company. When Dean witnesses an IT tech stab himself in the throat during a panic attack over filling out a form incorrectly, he accepts that Sam might be on to something. The two work together to research the company and the deaths, eventually realizing the ghost of the company’s founder is compelling workers to kill themselves if they don’t give Sandover their all. Smith and Wesson dispatch the ghost (after finding some helpful tips online from the Ghostfacers), and eventually Dean’s boss reveals that he is actually Zachariah, an angel who arranged this little interlude for Dean to help him remember that he is and always will be a hunter at heart. Dean doesn’t take kindly to this interference from the angels and promises that one day he’ll stab Zachariah in his face.

Below is a log of our real-time reactions as we watched. Remember that there may be spoilers for any part of SPN’s 15-season run here. Note also that the nature of our conversation is adult and thus it may contain adult language and themes.

 [and we begin:]

Lor: bounces I love this one

Mace: 

it is a good one

he looks so ridiculous in that shirt and tie

Lor:

and I love that this show is like "ep 16: torture, hero almost killed by a demon who tortured him in hell for 30 years. ep 17: alternate universe shenanigans"

mmm. someone should maybe take him out of them

Mace: 

they like to mess with us

Lor:

yep

Mace: 

LOR.

Lor:

wot?

innocent

Mace: 

simmer down

Lor:

NEVER

Mace: 

omg this guy plays such a hilarious weirdo on Psych

Lor:

Zachariah?

Mace: 

yeah

Lor:

omg Dean Smith. you do not need to lose any weight. eat a cookie

kill a ghost

Mace: 

HA

Lor:

LOL Sam's face

Mace: 

SAM IN THAT POLO

Lor:

YES

even Dean Smith makes "no homo" jokes when no one else brought that up pets him go to therapy, baby

Mace: 

it’s crazy to me that Sam is uncomfortable in this fake life but Dean suspects nothing

YEP

Lor:

DID YOU TRY TURNING IT OFF AND THEN ON

yeah it is WEIRD

Mace: 

HAHAHA

Lor:

but it fits with his "I can fit in anywhere thing"

Mace: 

hm. I wonder if it’s more “I’m so unhappy in the life my daddy forced me into” thing

Lor:

oh definitely

Mace: 

my god he FITS in that shirt

Lor:

YAAAS

he should really stop being work buddies with this asshole

Mace: 

(omg I am seriously wearing almost EXACTLY that other dude’s outfit right now)

Lor:

HAAAAHAHAHAHA I LOVE IT

poor Sam doesn't fit in his cubicle

Mace: 

graphic t with ratty flannel over

Lor:

it is the BEST outfit

Mace: 

oh Sammy, sweets, I’ll nap with you

Lor:

MACE

simmer down

Mace: 

I love how he does NOT fit into that cubicle

Lor:

YES

Mace: 

Dean’s profile. just DAMN, son

Lor:

YAAAAAS

they made him extra pretty this ep and I love that they bothered

Mace: 

he cleans up super nice

Lor:

Dean, you know you have some vampire romance novels under your perfectly made bed

Mace: 

SNORK

“you overshare”

HAHAHA

Lor:

the tiny montages of the workplace mundanities

Mace: 

YEP

“I hope they spank me” this boy is naughty

Lor:

LOL

look, we've all been where he is. no evil ghost needed

Mace: 

HA

Lor:

EW

Mace: 

oh GROSS

SHOULDERS

Lor:

YAS

omg Dean's pretty pretty face. his LIPS

Mace: 

RIGHT?!

Lor:

omg Sam and Dean are both researching it and asking the same questions on their own. i love it

Mace: 

YES

“did you shave?!”

Lor:

lol

"the dash-Rs"

Mace: 

“hey, guy”

Lor:

omg his back in those suspenders

Mace: 

right?

omg EW

Lor:

RIGHT?

i always forget this one has some serious ew horror moments

poor Dean so shook

Mace: 

but not as shook as a normal person, which is kind of awesome

Lor:

the way his voice kinda fails on "neck"

YES

I love the way he just totally took charge with Ian (even though it didn't work)

Mace: 

why did he bring his bag?

yeah

Lor:

security laptop. it makes him feel safe

Mace: 

emotional support laptop

Lor:

YES

"NOT NATURAL"

Mace: 

HA

Lor:

"no that would be nuts" HAAAAAHHAHAHAHA poking fun at their own show history

Mace: 

SNORK

Lor:

"some skills I happen to have"

Mace: 

okay settle down, Taken

Lor:

I admire from afar

Mace: 

Dean’s arms in that shirt

Lor:

HEY. SETTLE DOWN

Mace: 

“right?!” BOYS

Lor:

"I am dying to check this out." "Right?" YES

Mace: 

SNORK! Look, I’m always like this. It’s weirder when you do it

Lor:

LOLOLOLOL

Fair enough

Mace: 

your desire to trot at any given moment is, like, lukewarm

Lor:

at best

Mace: 

which is, of course, completely cool - PUN INTENDED - I’m just saying that when you bump it up to hot-trotting, it’s just different

Lor:

LOLOLOL

I get it

Mace: 

whereas my trotting enthusiasm always runs at toasty, minimum

Lor:

except for the GIANT BOWL OF APPLES

eat a food, Dean, I beg you

Mace: 

HAHAHA

Lor:

LOL toasty trots

DON'T BE A SNOB DEAN SMITH

Mace: 

right?!

(also, their NAMES)

Lor:

your daddy raised you better'n that

Mace: 

did he, though?

I think you mean Bobby raised him better

Lor:

(YES I am kissing whoever decided to give them OTHER gun names platonically on the head)

Mace: 

(HA)

Lor:

Bobby is his dad in the universe, that's what I meant

Mace: 

omgomgomg

Lor:

HAAAAHAHAHAHA GHOSTFACERS

"instructional videos"

Mace: 

GHOSTFACERS

I forgot they were in here!

Lor:

THIS IS LIKE THE BEST JOKE that they learn how from them who they hate who learned it from them

I LOVE IT kicks feet in glee

Mace: 

YESYESYES

Lor:

nrrrrrf Dean's dumb buttondown tucked into his dumb dress slacks

Mace: 

YES

“yeah now sucks"

Lor:

his portfolio is in the sewer. poor rich baby

Mace: 

HA

Lor:

"useless douchebags the Winchesters"

"possibly all states"

Mace: 

HAHAHAHA

Lor:

and Dean's face at the idea of digging up bodies

Mace: 

YES

omg Dean hiding

Lor:

YES

oh man another super gross bit coming

Mace: 

UGH

“…what?” SAM

Lor:

YES

eeeeeeeeew

Mace: 

EWEWEWEW

poor Bean

Lor:

poor sammy

"take the stairs"

Mace: 

HAHAHA

Lor:

aw Dean's little swallow

Mace: 

YES

Lor:

"I have no idea"

Mace: 

oh boys

Lor:

hey! stop throwing my Dean around into things!

ooo the teamwork

Mace: 

YES

Lor:

I love that Sam immediately clocks that the way to help Dean is not to help him but to dispatch the ghost

Mace: 

YES

so smart

“that was amazing!”

Lor:

HE HAS A FIRST AID KIT IN HIS OFFICE

pets him

Mace: 

yeah

“how would we live?”

HEALTH INSURANCE

Lor:

"you don't wanna go fighting ghosts without any health insurance" I LOVE HIM

YES

Mace: 

I LOVE that Sam instinctively knows who he is

HE WENT TO STANFORD

Lor:

YES

RIGHT?!

And his family is Bobby, Ellen, and Jo

Mace: 

well, Bobby at least

“you don’t know me, pal” ooof

Lor:

"you should go" sigh

YAS SAM

Mace: 

YAS SAMMY DO IT

Lor:

GOD HIS ARMS

Mace: 

YES

he BENT the poker MY GOD

Lor:

YES

Dean, hold out for your own angel

Mace: 

HA

Lor:

gross

Mace: 

yeah

Lor:

THE WAY THE COLOR DROPS OUT

Mace: 

OMG YES

Lor:

"my GOD am I hungry"

Mace: 

HAHAHA YES

Lor:

trots in with a bag of cheeseburgers and fries and pie

Mace: 

HA

Lor:

"gross. no thank you"

Mace: 

“gross” HAHAHAHA

Lor:

lololol Dean

ass clowns in monkey suits

Mace: 

how did they not realize how he would respond to this?

Lor:

his idiolect! I cannot

RIGHT?

Cas coulda told them. No way they ran this by him

Mace: 

nope

daddy issues

he’s not wrong there

Lor:

"I will stab you in your face" AND HE DOES

Mace: 

HAHAHAHA

Lor:

his face journey after "fornicate with women" is something else

look, Dean, I'm here to tell you you can hunt and still have the lattes

Mace: 

HAHAHA YES

and fuck all of them for doing all this to Sammy too but not bothering to explain

Lor:

RIGHT?

Mace: 

and HE’S THE ONE WHO ACTUALLY PASSED THE STUPID TEST

Lor:

like Sam goes from "my brother is beat to hell in a hospital bed" to being mind fucked and then no one bothers to tell him what's up

RIGHT?

Mace: 

so mean. he needs comforting.

Lor:

I think we've talked before about how if they'd given Dean a life HE MIGHT ACTUALLY HAVE HAD, like running his own auto shop, restoring cars, with either Cassie or Cas, he would have STAYED THERE FOREVER

Mace: 

YEP

#watchingspnagain #watchingspnagain 4x17 #spn #supernatural #spn meta #spn spoilers #spn 4x17 #watchingspnagain angels #watchingspnagain dean's hedonism #watchingspnagain meta #watchingspnagain normalcy #watchingspnagain color palette

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 43: Don’t Worry About Ryou, I’m Sure He’s Fine.

I was missing pants with reasonable waist lines where I could sit down and eat at the same time, and I as like “wow, I do not even have time to write the Yugioh blog but I really want to write the Yugioh blog to remember a time when pants were normal.”

And so here we are.

When I was reminded that, in fact, no one’s wearing pants in the flashbacks anyway. But it’s fine, I guess.

Last we left off Seto and Aknadin were having a heart to heart where Aknadin was trying to pull a Darth Vadar and Seto was not having it.

It’s like if Luke Skywalker was already an imperial officer the entire time. It’s like Darth chopped off Lukes hand and Luke’s like. “Damn it, Dad! I’m on the Dark Side already. I work for Palpatine. He’s right there. We both say Hi to Palpatine as we walk into work every single damn day of our lives.”

(read more under the cut)

And then Seto just kinda stewed in denial for a bit about every Dad substitute he has ever had.

Like I would say Roland is the closest thing Seto has to a functional Father, and even I, a true Roland stan, would admit that Roland would ABSOLUTELY end the world (though, he would do it wholly unintentionally.)

I had honestly forgotten that Hassad was a character now, and the idea that Seto, who generally doesn’t want his family grievances aired out in public, also has to have the peanut gallery from this random Egyptian god-like character is very funny to me. Like getting unsolicited life advice from the robotic Discord mod.

Anyway, was anyone thinking about Ryou? because I sure wasn’t prepared!

He’s still there!

He’s still there just passed out on the steppies! The steppies that are from like 5000 years ago and covered in spiders. Seto just casually walking over him and not even bothering to like...move his body.

Maybe give him like a pillow or something? Drape your massive coat over his coat? try to wake him up a little bit? No?

We’re just going to leave Ryou like this?

Can’t imagine why Ryou would want to kill his entire class and the entire world considering how freakin nice everyone is to Ryou’s near-corpse right now.

And speaking of near-corpses

It was at this point, where most people would be like freaking out, even just a little bit, that the golden disembodied eyeball started glowing in Seto’s pocket.

Just youknow, the golden disembodied eyeball of Seto’s previous co-worker/Dad stand-in/Guy that Tried to Kill Him and Mokuba and Steal His Company. Yes, that thing is still in his coat pocket, and it’s been I want to say like 6 or 7 episodes of this gross thing rolling around next to his wifejet keys, his loose change, and a couple gum wrappers.

Like Seto is just so over it at this point. I feel like S1 Seto would be mad freaking out right now, screaming for Mokuba and getting on his little helicopter to blow up this tomb by dropping a satellite from space on it.

But this Seto is like “That’s a lot of bodies. Anyway, lets go fall into a vision from this cryptic eyeball from hell.”

And it was weird!

We get to see Aknadin’s explanation for why he’s feeling cray, and it’s because he’s jealous of his brother.

Don’t ask me what Seto from the future was thinking when he saw a flashback contained within a vision of the distant past. Seto again, is just kind of over it, and will take anything that this world throws at him.

After hearing this explanation, Shimon was like “This is why we hate wizards.”

Seto was feeling conflicted, because he received a lot of one-on-one tutoring from Aknadin about how to properly do sales taxes, and once had a sword fight with him, which I guess is Dad stuff, if it’s 5000 BC.

But yousee, none of this matters because Aknadin knows the secret password to get Seto to do anything you want, and for once, the password is not “Pegasus.” It’s the other password.

Shout out to the story boarder for mirroring both Seto in the present and the past with this same clenched fist position. Just to REALLY hammer in how much Seto both thinks that past!Seto is an idiot, but is also exactly that idiot at the same time.

Which is when Kissara wakes up and is like “brah knock it off I’m trying to sleep.”

Back at the palace, Kissara decides to book it towards her True Love She Just Met, and Bakura kind of watches this go down and is like “Nice.” And by Bakura, I mean Tristan.

Because Tristan is still, in fact, possessed, and no one else has noticed, much like how I didn’t notice he was possessed for like 3 entire episodes.

So they decide to take a break from trying to find Yami’s name to instead get Barbossa to stop crying and give him a snack. This entire time they were also equally famished, but as we’ve noticed with Ryou, getting very hungry is just Shadow World things.

TEA. We JUST went over how the entire city of graverobbers got turned into a haunted tea set can you NOT???

Pharaoh is RIGHT THERE, don’t eat his family!

So in a weird animated sequence, the gang flies across Egypt on the back of Barbossa, who as I mentioned before, has a face that goes into a bucket we will call “Reasons why American children in the 00′s hid their anime interests from their friends.”

But it’s OK, because he’s canonically dead! 🎊🥂🎉

I would add him to the death count, but 1. He sucks and 2. He never actually existed in the first place, Yami apparently just shoved him into the past as a cheat so his friends could get a ride.

Which was super necessary, this kids are completely unable to travel if Kaiba isn’t there to drive them.

Tristan has been so many weird ass men in this show.

Is this payback for that time Tristan refused to let Bakura take over Mokuba’s body in S1? Maybe. But also it was just really convenient because Tristan is such a mix of weird characteristics from obsessing over literal melons, obsessing over janitor stuff, and being horny af, that him being possessed is just camouflage.

Bakura remembers how Yugi ran to Yami’s side at their last confrontation, and how after one pep talk, Yami was able to completely recover from being indirectly hit in the balls when Aknadin threw a sword at the nads of Slither the Sky dragon. Bakura was like “yes. This is what I will do as well. This is the power I need. The power of friendship from the one who knows me better than anyone else!”

Bakura then realized who was right outside that tomb, whom he went out of his way to lure right there at it’s entrance. The soul he needed this entire time that was always there, but he just never really appreciated.

And then he let Ryou bleed out on the steppies.

That’s right he let his own Ryou passed out on the sharpest most brutal steppies known to man, in order to steal away SETO KAIBA, the least supportive friend in the Yugioh Universe, in order to save Bakura’s soul.

Seto Kaiba. Was used to save. Bakura’s. Soul.

Bakura gave Seto Kaiba a haunted eyeball, so that way Seto would come to this tomb, and then Bakura could use him as an extra life mushroom.

Seto Kaiba, who doesn’t even know what continent he is on.

YOU LANDED IN EGYPT FIVE MINUTES AGO.

Y’all my long Covid is a lot, and flu season has been absolutely killing me this year becuase flu with long covid is just...well it’s a bad time. But when Seto Kaiba landed in Egypt, looked up at Cairo, and in the dialogue of the show was like “this place sure looks familiar” I was like...his brain.

He was just at the museum. He was just talking to Ishizu. he’s in the valley of the kings! There’s just no saving Seto Kaiba, his poor borked brain.

And I get it, he once had a hallucination about past Egypt, in particular...

BUT YOU IN EGYPT, KAIBA.

Which is fine because he will not be using said brain.

RIP Seto Kaiba, it was nice knowing you.

We’ll wait until I see the explanation for whatever the hell just happened next episode before I add him to the deathcount. But welcome back, Bakura.

Back to play another round of cards. Bless this show and their obsession with card games that refuse to end.

I’m glad it got back to cards eventually, but they took me on a little ride this episode, I really don’t know where it’s going anymore, and that’s not just my brain fog talking. Seto is possessed, the other Seto is...Bakura...Bakura is also Tristan, and the puzzle necklace is not actually on Yami currently. Like it wasn’t really covered here, but Yami might be able to die now? Maybe?

Anyway, a lot to unpack, but a good time overall. This show is freakin bonkers man, I forget when I’m updating regularly, but then I step away for a little while and it’s like “yes. This is why I’m recapping this goldmine. It is a miracle that this show exists because of how weird it is, but I’m here for it.”

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

#Yugioh #YGO #Yu-Gi-Oh #S5 #Ep 43 #Ryou Bakura #demon king bakura #Seto Kaiba #Yami #Yami Muto #Yugi Muto #Tristan Taylor #Joey Wheeler #Tea Gardner

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

OOOKAY WELCOME BACK, apologies for the week-long delay, I was sick all week and had to deal with some other family stuff, but! I’m more than ready to watch now and might actually watch two eps, but we’ll see.

what is this episode six? SEASON 4 EPISODE SIX HERE WE GO

before i get started I’ve been thinking about Azure way too much and now I’m suspicious of how sketchy they make him and am second guessing my guess that he’s up to something, it’d sure be nice if they’re just doing that to throw us off and he fr is just chillin or doing his best, STILL SEEMS SKETCHY BUT AAAA

okay okay

so we got Tang, we got Mei, we got a glimpse of Mk, so this ep might be Mk and Pigsy? or maybe just one of them and they run into somebody else? Heck if i know LETS SEE WHAT ITS CALLED

oh

OHOHOHOHOHO

OKAY

ITS PIGSY AND SANDY THEN

SHOW ME THE MONSTER

OH EXCELLENT

BIG OL MASSIVE GIANT SWORD HOLY HECK SKELLETONS

RIP PIGSY FOR LANDING HEREBGD;SLFKMASDF

SHA WUJING TIME BABBYYYYYYYY

I love that Pigsy has his rake now and it looks natural for him to summon it but he still doesn’t identify as being Zhu Bajie, hang on WHAT IF THE TITLE IS ACTUALLY ABOUT PIGSY AND NOT SANDY WAITBGSDL;FM

HECK THAT’D BE INTERESTING BUT I DOUBT IT ANYWAY LETS WATCH THIS HECK I’M

its been a week my mind is whirling I HAVE TOO MANY THOUGHTS

SANDY MOMENT :D!!!!!

SCREAMS!!!

OKAY OKAY

SO

HECK WHATS GONNA HAPPEN?

HE ALRIGHT?

HE CRY

IS IT A TRAP?

SKETCHY?

HECK IF I KNOWGBS;LKFMAE

A H?

BABY???

Pigsy: ahaha, hang on a minute- Pigsy, internally: holy heck this ain’t good-

CAN’T EVEN REMEMBER SHA WHATS HIS NAMENBGLS;DMF

WHATEVER LEFT ALL THOSE BONES?

:D

SANDY RIGHT?

MAKES GRABBY HAND S

SANDY WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOINGBGLSFD;AWEF WHEEZINGNBSDLKMSDMFMODS

I’M

*star wars voice* ITS A TRAP

Nah that’s p funny dude whats with the uwu voiceHGL;KASJFSD

Those are some fire eyebrows ngl

AH YES NOT SO GREAT PIGSY GOTTA FIGHT TIME GHSD;LFJ

“uh.. yeah sure”

Pigsy fr

HELPGMLSDMFF

FINALLY A WORTHY CHALLANGER

U H

“oh nuts”

WHAT DID HE JUST

CALL THEMGNSDL;F

GIBRONIES??

HELP??

giant bros is what i got out of that for some reasongbsdl;fmks

ALSO MAN

U H

THAT’S A LOT OF DEAD GUYS KILLED BY SHA WUJING

POOPER SCOOPERSNLKDSF

OH LETS GO SHA WUJING TIME

HORRIFYING WE LOVE TO SEIGSD;LKSMF;OE

A FREAKING WRESTLING MATCHGBDSF;LMOEWF

OKAY CALLED IT THO PIGSY AND MK EP GOT IT

I AM

KINDA FILLED WITH MORE FEAR FOR MK THAN PIGSY RN FOR SOME REASONGNSDLFM

SWORD GIRL GUYGBDSFLK;MAOWE

Mk absolute beloved

I love how they’re animating him in this season actually he’s so shaped

SCREAMS

WE’RE HERE

OH PLS

THE

THE FLASH THERE

WITH MONKEY SMILING AND HANGING OUT AND SHOWING OFF

OH HECK MORE FLASH HANG ON FRAME BY FRAME TIME

paused on Wukongs smiling face and y’all I am normal about this monkey *nods nods*

Okay so stonneeeee again, cracking open like an EGGG

OH AND NOW WE GOT A LITTLE CARVED SONE MONKEY IN SOMEBODY’S HANDS CUPPED IN SOMEDOYS HANDS

kay well its not wukong’s hands, that sleeve is too flown, and the hanfu looks green nd gold hmm interesting

WELP YUP P MUCH CONFIMED MK STONE MONKEY OF SOME KIND IG WHICH ONE IS HE?? IS HE LIKE?? ONE OF THEM?? OR??? ANOTHER THING ENTIRELY?? WHAT APPROACH ARE THEY TAKING HERE?? AAAAAAAAAAA

AND THEN INK MONKEY MOMENT

is it monkey king… isss ittt- I mean it looks like him but it’d be funny if it just turned out to be ink Mk or something though I don’t know how that’d work GHSDLKF;JSD

Mk is big worried

oH BOY WE’VE GOT THE SILLIES, THE DORKS, THE PEOPLE THAT GREETED WUKONG AT THE DOOR GHSDLKFJAWEF

“FIFTY YEARS??”

B

BETWEEN THE TWO OF US

I’M

ECK

I’M GONNA CRY WHY THAT’S SO FUNNGYSBFAL;WEFM

MK

“Wowwww…” IMGMSDMNFL;SDKF

ALRIGHT

CALING HIM HEADBAND

MAYBE I CAN GIVE YOU POINTERS ON THE OTHER SEVENTY

THATS SO SILLY I LOVE HIMGNSD;LKFM

Its so funny how he’s just unphased by those guys, bruh’s been through enough that nothing anybody could say is impressive or threatening in this momentn;lsdkmfwe

THE SCREAMING BEHIND THE DOOR PLS GHSDL;FJ;SDF

AH MK SMILE

OH BIG SHADOW HELLO

OH OLD MAN SCOOP

HE’S SO EXCITED

PLEASE DON’T KILL HIS EXCITEMENT

.

AYO??????

SIR?????????????

YOU’RE NOT EVEN THE REAL GUY ARE YOU?? HOW DO YOU KNOW???? CONFUZZLEMENT??????? PARDON???? EXCUSE ME????? EXCUSIE MOI???

OKAY WELL BACK TO PIGSY AND SHA WUJING IG LETS GOOOO

Sandy’s biggest regret, all the lives he’s taken ig

OH

;-;

oh man

heck

here we go i’m gonna love this exchange probably

SO

OKAY

WELL

I ADORE THAT

PIGSY IS “well I aint’ that” *shrugs* LIKE

I LIKE THAT Y’KNOW

OKAY BUT NOW I’M WAITING FOR LIKE

EITHER SOFT MOMENT

OR BIG PIGSY MOMENT

SITS AND WAITS

I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO WHATEVER IT IS

FIGHT THE SANDY

AAAA PIGSSYYYYYY

OH THE WAY THEY ANIMATED HIS EXPRESSION DURING THE ALL THE WAY HOME PART PLEASE THAT’S EXCELLENTNBGGKMSDF

SKELLENTONS STILL YELLINGSDNF,MSDF

WHOAH HEY

HEY

OKAY WAIT

PAUSE PAUSE

KAY IS IT GONNA BE

THE YOU WANNA SEE A MONSTER

AND THEN HE GOES BIG

OR

IS IT GONNA BE DO YOU WANNA SEE A MONSTER AND HE SHOWS HIM A MIRROR TYPE THING

SORRY I JUST LOVE THESE CHARACTERS SM

AW

THINKS PIGSY’S WORTHY THAT’S SWEET- OH GENUINELY THO PIGSY BEING JUST AS POWERFUL MAKES ME HAPPY IG BGS;LDKFMSOF

OH BACK TO MK

YEAH HOW DO YOU KNOW SIFU

“there is little i do not know” OH YEAH ALRIGHT, THANKS GOOD EXPLINTION I’LL TAKE IT BGSL;DKFM

HEY WHY WHACKY

HEY

HEY R U D E

HOLDS MK IN MY ARMS GENTLY

DON’T HUSH HIM HE’S DOING HIS BEST AND HE TALKS WHEN HE’S NERVOUS

AND HAPPY

AND JUST IN GENERAL HE’S A DELGITHFUL LAD

STUTTERING VOCALLY OUT LOUD RN

“I’m I to believe Sun Wukong is the greatest master in history?” WDYM WHAT

HEY STOP HITTING MY BELOVED LAD

AND SHUSH HE IS PRETTY GREAT |;A;/ THATS HIS SIFU YOU TALKING ABOUT

HELPGMLFS

OKAY THERE WE GO

ITS I AM THE GREATEST

GOTCHA FAM YOU’RE DOING GREAT

HAHA

NOT THE ONLY REASON

SIR PLS HE’S THE MONKEY OF THE MIND ITS HIS THING

WHEEZINGNLSD;FKMSD

HELP

THIS MAN AGGRESSIVELY ASKING ALL THE QUESTIONS EVERYONE WATCHING THE SHOW’S BEEN ASKING PLS HGSLDFJ

DOES MK REMEMBER ANYTHING??

HECK WAIT I’MNOT READY FOR THIS IT’S BEEN FOUR SEASONS AND WE’RE GETTING ABCKSTORY I’M NOT READY

AW HIS FACE

PLS

SCREAMS

HE FR

HE FR

LOOK

OKAY I NEED AMOMENT

GIVE ME

TEN MOMENTS

AAAAAAA

|;A;/

ITS LITERALLY THE PICKING HIM UP OFF THE STREET AND GIVING HIM NOODLES TROPE I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT SINCE SEASON 1 PLS

anyway tho lad covered in mud, stone crack, yup, this lad a stone monkey BUT HEY I’M

HECK

WHAT DO I EVEN THINK ABOTU THIS WE FINE

Pigsy smiling at the little lad tho ;-; pls

i REMEMEBR PIGSY

AH??????

AH???????????

OH VERY WELL

HANG ON I’MJUST

WHAT IS THIS

HECK

HELPGFMDS

MK JUST THROWS UP

A H???

KAY WHAT AM I SUPPSOED TO THINK ABOUT ALL THIS HANG ON

IT FEELS LIKE ITS GOING SO SLOW AND SO FAST AT THE SAME TIME

HIS LITTLE FLASH THERE WITH LADY CRAFTING ANIMALS????

BROKEN STONE MONKE ON GGROUND???

WHAT IS ALL THIS HECK I FEEL LIKE I DON’T RECINGIZE ANY OF THIS RN ITS BEEN TOO LONG SINCE IV’E READ THE BOOK

Pls just give this lad back his mentor ;-;

HECK ALRIGHT PIGSY TIME

WOW

PIGSY ACTUALLY

VIBIN

OH

OH HECK HE HAD A MOMENT

|;A;/

HECK I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH BRAIN TO REALLY APPRECIATE THESE BITS RN

HYPE PIGSY MOMENT

THE BLUEST GUY I KNOW

;-;

YEAH

WELL

;-;

OH sha Wujing buddy

AW MO

PLS

AW

JUST TOOK MO

THE POWER OF THERAPY CAT

PLS

HEART SHAPED FIREWORKS

YUEAH LAND ON PIGSY

I LOVE YOU AL

AW HUG MOMENT

COME ON

YEAH ALRIGHT

SOFT MOMENTS

TANG SCREAMINGNLDSFDS

OKAY WELL THEY’RE SUS OF AZURE NOW TOO IG NICE FUN OKAYGBSDLFK

AAA WHERE’S MY MONKEEEYYY WHERE’S THE #1 MONKEY OF ALL TIIIIMMEEEE

we probably won’t see him huh

SO

LOOK

KAY

gimme a sec I need to think about this

it was used to form another okay

lays down hmm

hmmmmm I’m not sure

hoooowwww i feel about that

Y’know?

Like I’m all for cool monkey past and all that, v neat and stuff, but like :T I’m a big fan of swk being one of a kind, like who’s going there grabbing his rock and compressing it into another little monkey? unless it was like… he was designed spiciifcally to beat swk, if you know what i mean

u h

hang on hmmmmmmm

oKAY I’LL PROCESS THIS LATER MOVING ON

CAN’T BELIEVE THEY REALLY LEANED INTO NO PARENTS NO NAME FOR MK

.

actually big fan of that bit, i like that a lot

he’s gonna say something wrong and get hit in the head again right? I am-

MONKEY KINGNGSL;KMFSD

YEAH ALRIGHT

WELL THANK GOODNESS ITS NOT THAT

HGDSLKFJL;DSKAF

W RO N G

HMMMMM

INTERESTING

WELL

OKAY

SO WE’RE NOT GETTING A STRAIGHT ANSWER

“not even I know what you are” WELL THANKS THAT’S REAL HELPFUL

“I’m just Mk!”

“The Monkey. Kid?”

*surprised pikachu face* /j /j /j

HM OKAY HERE WE GO WHAT NOW

OH INK MOMENT HI

OH BOY

HORRIFYING THANKS

YOU NEED TO GET ON OUT OF THERE MATE

OH THE SHADOWY EYE THING

OH HI

MK OR MONKEY KING INK

AHA

MK INK

SO WHY AND HOW?????

OH THAT

OH I LIKED THAT THO

THE HEADTILT THING

BIG FAN

ALSO BIG FAN OF HIM NOT BEING WHAT MONKEY KING IS BUT SOMETHING ELSE THAT’S NEAT GLAD THEY DIDNT’ LITERALLY MAKE HIM LIKE

I DUNNO ANYWAY

UH

RIGHT

SO

RIGHT

U H

I FEEL LIKE I GOT EVERYTHING BUT ALSO MISSED A LOT Y’KNOW????

I’M STILL NOT SURE HOW I FEEL ABOUT MK BEING PART OF MONKEY KING’S ROCK EGG THING OR WHATEVER THE HECK HAPPENED THERE

BUT THE INK MONKEY MK LOOKS EXCELLENT

I DON’T KNOW WHAT HE’S DOING THERE THO SINCE LIKE

U H

ITS A JTTW BOOK HE WASN’T THERE DURING JTTW WAS HE??

I’M CONFUSED AS TO HOW THIS SCROLL WORKS MAN BUT MOVING ON

MONKEY MK REAL WE BEEN KNEW

OKAY I JUST WANT TO WATCH THIS WITH MY BROS NOW SO I’LL END THIS HERE

MIGHT WATCH EP 7 LATER TODAY OR THIS WEEK SINCE I DIDNT’ WATCH AN EP LAST WELL AS I MENTIONED, U H

SANDY’S BIGGEST REGRET, KILLING A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF PEOPLE, I DO FIND IT FUNNY HOW THERAPY CAT AND NOT SPEECH WAS WHAT IT TOOK TO SNAP HIM OUT OF IT GJDSFLSDF

MAYBE A BIT OF BOTH

I THINK THE SPEECH SAID MORE ABOTU PIGSY THAN SANDY THO GNEUINELY AND I’M VIBIN WITH THAT

ALSO I NEED TO CRY OVER PIGSY TAKING MK IN SCREAMS

I LIKE THESE CHARACTERS, BIG FAN OF THIS SHOW FR

HECK I REALLY WANT MORE PIGSY AND LITTLE MK MOMENTS, LIKE DESPERATELY, THEY SHOWED UP ONE MORE TIME I WANT LIKE A REAL FLASHBACK SO BADLY BUT I DION’T HTHIK WE’LL GET IT AAAAA

OKAY KNOX OUT

#knox reacts #lmk s4 spoilers #monkie kid season 4 #lmk s4 english #I'm sure everybody's watched this by now but just to be safe n all that hGJKSDLJF #HECK I'M HAVING MIXED EMOTIONS #AAAAAAAA #WE FINE #THE ENDING REALLY SCRATCHED MY BRAIN WITH THE ANIMATION THO LOVED THAT

[pluckysidekick]

OMG. We went 180 degrees from last week’s desert to this week’s paradise of riches in CW’s Nancy Drew land! We knew Larry Teng and the whole crew wouldn’t abandon us with the BTS content. After the seemingly epic filming of episode 6 when it was all quiet on the set last week, we’ve gotten hints from Kennedy and onset photos for Ep. 6, we’ve heard from exciting new ND writers, and saw some glimpses for Ep. 7 that’s filming right now. Let’s get into it!

I have to start with this incredible “team meeting” cast photo Kennedy posted in non-wardrobe from the Icarus Hall set. So happy to see them together, masks and all! Note Leah with her tablet, Maddison with her phone, Alex going old school with his yellow lined pad and pen, while Tunji and Kennedy are both like “I don’t need to write it down, I remember everything” 😂.

Larry shared twin pics from (presumably) the Ep. 6 set of the women and men of the Drew Crew, and they are perfection.

Nancy, Bess, and George having a heart to heart at the Claw is everything to me. I love these three together whether they are talking ghosts, relationships, career, family, or anything else. Also note the wardrobe, loving George’s yellow blazer and Docs especially. And of course, the Claw is closed, no customers as per usual!

Seeing Ace and Nick together in action is just…no words. Love their looks, love the intensity, just the best two characters together. Of course we’re wondering what’s going on - are they dumpster diving? We saw George and Bess in front of a burned out van back in Ep. 3 - is there a junkyard theme this season 😂?

Ace’s shirt looks a lot like the one he wears in 2x15 (Tom Swift episode), and it’s also a very similar (but slightly different) to two earlier looks, the cast photo from Ep. 2 and the early morning pickups photo from Ep. 3? 4? (some kind of blue/green button down and white T-shirt combo). Coincidence, or is there something else timey wimey going on with Ace? BTW if anyone from production is reading, we’d love to see a nice colorful old man shirt for Ace in one of the eps (also thank you for reading lol).

Speaking of Ace, Kennedy gave us another heart attack on Twitter this week when she gave an emoji hint for Ep. 6 that amounted to someone dying “a little.”

Since we know from Larry that Ep. 6 epic and special effects heavy, I wondered in an earlier post if the crew tries to break the curse in this one. Could things have gone wrong, with Ace being “mostly dead” (shout out to Carly for the perfect Princess Bride reference)? Did they trigger the curse instead, or deliberately try to flatline him like Nancy once thought about doing to George? Or can they somehow use the shroud to flatline Ace and George, revive them - and possibly switch bodies? The possibilities are endless.

Alex did show up for the Ep. 7 team meeting pictured above, so here’s hoping Ace recovers to be with his soulmate (and all that entails) for him and for us, e.g. we’re expecting great things that top that S3 finale dreamscape scene of Nancy and Ace!

So excited to see new writers working on ND this season! Lauren Andrea and Tiffany Irene both posted pics from the set and talked about how great the experience was. So important to see diverse representation in the writers’ room, and also love to hear about how awesome the whole cast and crew are on ND - it really shines through in every episode IMO. So happy for them, and can’t wait to see their words come to life in S4!

Onto a few early hints on Ep. 7. Maddison posted an IG story that Ep. 7 started this week (confirming Larry has a break while he preps Ep. 8, which we know he’s directing). Check out her cute white top from wardrobe hanging up in the closet. DP Nick Thomas posted some gorgeous, spooky photos to his stories from the Historical Society exterior. Are those Riley and Maddison’s stand-ins? Ace and George? Or some combo? Can’t wait to find out.

I may have broken Tumblr’s long post rules, but really hope you enjoyed the pics and speculation. I am almost done with Chapter 9 of The Space Between (S4 spec. fic), it will most likely go up next week. If you haven’t tried it already, I can promise lots of action, angst, and wackiness with the whole crew including meetings at the Claw, Ace and Nick bonding, Ace’s earring, and much more to help tide us over. See you soon, my guess is we get tons more content!

#nancy drew #nace #nancy drew cw #ace [redacted] #nancy x ace #cw nancy drew #ndcw #ace x nancy #nancy drew season 4 #nancy drew s4 #maddison jaizani #kennedy mcmann #alex saxon #tunji kasim #leah lewis #bess marvin #ned nickerson #george fan #author: pluckysidekick

[theonevoice]

Rumination n. 2 - About Fallen Angel

One aspect of Good Omens that I don’t see as much praised as the amazing writing of Neil Gaiman and the unbelievable performances of Michael Sheen and David Tennant, but I find crucial to the gut-wrenching beauty of this second season in particular, is the wonderful soundtrack by David Arnold.

The music of this show is just brilliant, to a point where it feels almost arrogant for me to point it out, like it would sound weird if someone came out of the blue saying “You know, that Beethoven guy is actually rather nice”. So I will just pick one single track that, to me, summarizes how much the soundtrack helps carry the weight of the story, packing layers over layers on each scene and adding to the writing and the acting an extra expressive space that can be filled with even more facets of the main themes.

I’m thinking in particular of the scene at the end of ep. 2, with the pivotal dialogue that, for the first time, really cement the alliance between Crowley and Aziraphale as two individuals who are not entirely conforming to the expectations of their respective sides. By the time this dialogue rolls in, something massive has just happened: each of them has been caught red-handed by the other, doing and feeling things that negate their respective “company policies”. Crowley has been found out not wanting to destroy Job’s goats, let alone kill his children, and Aziraphale has been found out unable to endorse the dire implications of the Bet. Lucky them, this all happened between the two of them, nobody else is involved or informed, and this reciprocity allows them to pause for a moment and start reflecting on their situation. We know, of course, that this moment was waiting to happen since the conversation on the wall of Eden, when Aziraphale is visibly touched by the slightest sliver of doubt (his expression tells us that what Crowley is saying about God putting the Tree in such a prominent spot, as if to induce temptation on purpose, does make a point, despite him not wanting to speculate, possibly because he remembers all too well how dangerous it is to ask questions in Heaven), and since their meeting before the flood, when Crowley realizes that he doesn’t like the perspective of having innocent people killed, which is not a strictly demon-like thing to feel (and he knows it because his comment about the indiscriminate extermination of everyone via the flood is “this is more the kind of thing that you would expect my lot to do”, which, transitive property applied, means that he is upset about at least some of the things that Hell throws at the earth). But the Job encounter is the first time that all of this has actually been said (more or less) out loud by both of them.

So what about the music?

The track playing with the final dialogue is titled Fallen Angel, and I find that there is something heartbreaking in it. Yes, of course, it is a quote from Aziraphale’s line, when he desperately refers to himself as “a fallen angel”, but “fallen angel” is also what Crowley is, despite what he himself would like to think.

We talk a lot about how much Aziraphale is the one in constant denial – denial of Heaven’s dark sides, denial of his own sometimes shaky moral stance (let’s not forget that, between the Arthurian period and the meeting at the Globe, he has agreed to go around tempting people on behalf of Crowley, which means quite literally doing Hell’s work), most of all denial of his own feelings – and this is certainly true. But I feel that we should also recognize how much Crowley is in denial in his own way, specifically denial of the traces that his original angelic nature has left behind. Or rather, of those parts of angelic nature that he held on to even after being cast to Hell. Now, as much as I love the interpretation of their last exchange in ep. 6 as Aziraphale offering to “change Heaven for him” rather than asking him to change for Heaven, I still think that Aziraphale has been forcing on Crowley a distorted still-an-angel portrait because in doing so he is blocking out at least some of his internal struggle (and this “weakness”, in my opinion, makes his character even more vivid and lifelike). But I also think that Crowley’s angry reactions to having his chosen identity denied by the only person in the universe that is dear to him are tinted by the trauma of the Fall.

And the music in that scene, I believe, is telling us just that. Of all the tracks in season 2, I find Fallen Angel to be the most melancholy one together with The End?, and possibly even sadder: because The End? starts playing when both us viewers and the protagonists are in a literal, I would say almost medical state of shock, unable to master the emotional resources needed to process what just happened. Fallen Angel on the contrary is a desperately calm moment of reflection on what their situation in the universe is, on how their respective cages are hurting them, and how painfully hard it is to summon the courage to escape them, to even think of escaping them. It seems to me that even the set choice confirms this mood: after an entire episode spent almost exclusively in closed, sometimes claustrophobic spaces, they are finally “outside”, on the top of a cliff (like when they briefly met at the beginning of the episode, but now the dry canyon is a beautiful gulf), watching a calm blue sea under a calm blue sky: everything is wide open, vast, unobstructed, with no living thing around as if they are alone in the universe, their thoughts and fears can flow freely and unrestricted. And in this moment of honesty, when they for the first time open up to each other, we have Fallen Angel, which is not just sad, is also nostalgic. But how and why can it be nostalgic? If the title only refers to Aziraphale, nostalgia makes no sense, because his feelings in those moments are feelings of desperation and angst. But if the title refers to both of them, then it does make sense, because nostalgia is the pain of something that has been lost, and while Aziraphale has not lost anything yet, sitting next to him there is someone who has lost something that cannot entirely be forgotten. Surely, one could say that by now Aziraphale has lost his original “innocence”, but I would argue that, on the wall of Eden, having just given away the flaming sword, he was already letting that sliver of doubt creep in, and he was definitely not comfortable with discussing the flood. Furthermore, telling his first lie counts as a loss (of innocence and peace of mind) no more than it counts as a gain (of awareness, freedom, and self-actualization). On the other side, Crowley was denied the chance to work his situation out in such a safe space. He just lost his original status over asking questions.

If Aziraphale is in denial of the traits of his personality that make him not entirely angelic, Crowley is equally – if not more – in denial of the traits of his personality that still link him to an ideal of good that is, or at least should be angelical. And it is a quite visible denial. He is annoyed by the smallest allusion to his good qualities, but as soon as he lets his guard down he goes back to remembering that he “didn’t mean to fall”, just “hung around the wrong people”, that he “didn’t really fall”, just “sauntered vaguely downwards”. That’s why Fallen Angel can be nostalgic. It’s not just about Aziraphale contemplating for a moment that he could be (or deserve to become) a fallen angel, but it’s also about the actual fallen angel sitting next to him, who, as much as he wants to paint himself as tranquil and satisfied with his situation, is still aching from the absolute pain and terror that he felt when he was cast out of Heaven. He used to be, after all, the angel that we see before the Beginning: he was so sure that just asking questions could not get him into trouble, he had no intention of rebelling or leaving. This – obviously – does not mean that Crowley is still an angel or wants by any means to go back to being an angel: he could never go back to that, exactly because he has experienced too much grief to be ever able to fit in the narrow mould of an angel again, to be able to just bask in the joyous light of God’s will in the unshaken certainty that it is entirely Good and Just and Forgiving. He has first-hand experienced that it can be cruel and unjust and unforgiving. He has forged and conquered an identity of his own, but it is an identity born out of the pain of not having a place to belong. He had to carve out a new path for himself, he didn’t mean to, he barely realized that it was about to fall (“didn’t have anything on the rest of the afternoon… next thing I was doing a million light year freestyle dive into a pull of boiling sulfur”).

So let’s look at what is happening from Crowley’s point of view. There you have an angel that has just violated the Heavenly code of conduct, and he is so pure of heart that he is just going to turn himself in to a blind and vindictive authority. If he let him go ahead, there is a chance that this could give him a fellow “demon who goes along with Hell as far as he can”, but at what cost? If Aziraphale’s conflict is a conflict between living by his own independent judgment (which includes choosing Crowley over obedience to Heaven) and staying true to the side “of good, of truth, of light”, Crowley’s conflict is a conflict between the need to escape solitude by pulling Aziraphale to his side and saving Aziraphale from the trauma that the Fall gave him and that being fallen still gives him.

A couple of millennia later he will joke about how being damned “is not so bad when you get used to it”, but Fallen Angel playing under this dialogue in ep. 2 tells us that he would never put Aziraphale through what being damned really means. He is a demon who is actually saving an angel from the risk of becoming a demon himself, because he knows how deeply and irreparably that can wound your soul, to the point that you would rather lie than admit it. “I’m a demon, I lied”: I know what it means to be in this place, don’t drag yourself here, it’s a realm of exile and loneliness, let’s agree that an angel can still be an angel even if he steps out of line from time to time, let’s create a margin of maneuver that did not exist when all this happened to me. Now it’s too late for me, but not for you.

So, to wrap up, thank you David Arnold for your invaluable work.

#good omens 2 #go 2 speculation #go2 spoilers #good omens #david arnold #fallen angel

[why-so-serious-lucifer]

K-pop Discography Deep Dives: Gfriend

A Disclaimer: I was planning, when I first started Tumblr, to be a lurker, but then I began an office job and needed something to listen to to keep myself occupied. And then, I started going through entire K-pop groups’ repertoires, album by album, and jotting down my thoughts. And then, I stumbled into K-pop tumblr and decided, you know what, there’s at least four people on this hell site who would read in depth rants about these discographies and at least five who wouldn’t read it and then get mad because it’s kind of our job as K-pop fans. My lukewarm takes should be taken with an entire silo of salt and the knowledge that this is completely for fun and occupying my very bored, very neurodivergent brain. With that being said, enjoy!

So, let me lay out my credentials for Gfriend: I’ve been a Buddy since I stumbled across MAGO in a compilation in 2020 or so, and needless to say I was crushed to find out that they disbanded. I still consider myself a Buddy, and in the last few years, I’ve listened to all their title tracks and a decent amount of b-sides. So, this deep dive is less of me getting into a new band and more of me seeing…hmm what else can I discover? Obviously, a lot of bias is involved here.

Gfriend debuted in 2015, in the heyday of 3rd generation, with a “schoolgirl” concept not unlike their peers Lovelyz, TWICE, and WJSN. Also, as a side note, their intros are all great, even from the beginning, and I wish that more of the interesting quirks that make them so great carried through into the rest of the songs.

Their first song, Glass Bead, has more of a classical spin than I remembered from their earlier work, and I enjoyed it, Me Gustas Tu, and Rough more on re-listen. Glass Bead is sweet: it’s good, but to someone who’s listened to as much k-pop as I have, it doesn’t stand out as very unique. From the album, Neverland is pretty good too.

Me Gustas Tu’s intro starts with gentle water and the song itself continues the feeling with an overall sunny vibe; it’s another nice one, but another that feels like a lot of others. As a hidden gem, Under The Sky has great drive and payoff, and would’ve made a better title track in my opinion.

I know a lot of people absolutely adore Rough. I’m…not one of them. Don’t get me wrong; Yuju’s belted power notes are always a pleasure, and her voice with the electric guitars makes such an excellent contrast. Eunha’s high voice also stands out, but Umji’s, Yerin’s, SinB’s, and Sowon’s are great too, and their different tones all harmonize well together.

I wish that the energy of the rock guitar or the orchestra carried through more, because there’s something about the song that doesn’t feel fully realized and I can’t say what it is. Rough is less a moment of standing apart from their peers and more a very gentle sidestep—but definitely a marker of what’s to come. Hidden gems from this album are definitely Say My Name and Someday, the second of which uses the classical touches quite well.

Their first few titles are a bit formulaic, but Navillera, despite at first fitting it, has much more drive and heft, and by the time we reach the guitar solo and the accompanying power note, it feels earned. It takes the best parts of the previous songs and melds them together into something great. I confess that I know this song by heart, and all in all, it’s an early highlight that I find myself liking more each time. Hidden gems from this album include Mermaid and Compass (with a special shout out to the harmonica in Distance).

Fingertip picks up where Navillera left off, with a good sense of humor in its 80’s action movie spoofing. It has one of the few dance breaks I adore, and I found myself bopping my head. And the catharsis! One of the things I love most about k-pop is when songs build to a point where everything just lights up, and Fingertip has this in spades. My hidden gem for this EP is definitely Crush.

Next up is a return to form in Love Whisper, which feels very much like Spring, and has a calming energy, but the song itself isn’t anything trailblazing. It’s a bit meandering and the orchestra isn’t used enough for me. It’s also a lot like Me Gustas Tu, which again, doesn’t mean that either is a bad song, but it does mean that both stick out less.

Summer Rain also has a nice opening, but it feels more dramatic and symphonic, which sets it apart from the rest of Gfriend’s songs at this point. It isn’t my favorite either, but I like it more than Love Whisper, Glass Bead, Me Gustas Tu, and Rough, which I classify in the same category. From the album, Rainbow is the definite winner, with Red Umbrella close behind.

Sunny Summer offers a different view of the same season; it’s upbeat and while carrying through the youthful energy of their earlier work, something about it also feels more grown up, as though a goodbye to their younger selves.

I’m probably reading way too much into what should be a fun song, but it reminds me of the feeling of a last summer vacation after high school and before adulthood. Either way, I’d say that my hidden gem from this album is Vacation (for its boundless energy)

With Time For The Moon Night comes the second big shift in Gfriend’s sound and the start of a new era. The intro, Daytime, sounds right out of a Disney movie, and the song delivers. It begins peacefully, and eventually gently glides into an introspective sort-of ballad that toes the line between sad and hopeful. The whole album is honestly great, and my favorite of the EPs so far.

That being said, I’d like to take a moment of your time to discuss Bye, which may be my favorite of Gfriend’s b-sides. It’s a ballad, yes, but so much more. It blends a full orchestra, an electric guitar, and some of Gfriend’s most affecting vocal work to date. All in all, it’s one of those album tracks that could’ve made an excellent single, and I’m so glad I rediscovered it in my deep dive, because I may or may not have replayed it three times.

Sunrise, perhaps appropriately, feels like Time For The Moon Night’s opposite twin, with lyrics that are just as sad combined with a far more hopeful and well…sunny spin on it. It’s many people’s favorite Gfriend song, and while it isn’t mine, I can’t deny that those choruses, especially the final one, is a hell of a knock-out.

Memoria, while technically a b-side, is also a Japanese single, but it’s so ethereal and lovely that it deserves a shout out. Hidden gems from this album include Only 1, and A Starry Night, but the stand-out has to be You Are Not Alone, both for the adorableness that is the title and for the surprisingly poignant follow-through.

Fever is a departure from the sound Gfriend’s been cultivating and seems like a bit of an odd choice. It’s not a bad song but it’s not great either; it’s pleasant, but it slips in and out of the ears, without any staying power. The girls’ voices feel underutilized, which is unusual for them, and I’ll never understand the impulse to have an anti-drop rather than a power note. I don’t have a hidden gem for this album, but I did like the whistling in Smile.

This album also highlighted something I’ve noticed: a lot of Gfriend’s b-sides start out with a really unique or interesting instrumental (like Smile) but don’t carry it through to the rest of the song, and thus leave it sounding like a lot of other songs.

Flower is the one song I really did like from the album, although it’s a Japanese single and so not technically a b-side. It also takes Gfriend’s music in a different direction (in this case, tango) but the gamble pays off! It’s a pretty good song; not their best, but a nice break.

After this, we finally reach the Modern Witch Trilogy, what I would consider their Magnum Opus, and unfortunately, the end of their time as a six-person group. Each part of the trilogy is magical in its own way: Crossroads is classical and grounded in emotion, Apple is ethereal and delightfully entrancing, and MAGO is empowering and warm at the same time.

The first song of the trilogy is Crossroads, which is definitely the most melancholy of their titles, finally giving the orchestra time to shine. The song’s best moment is undoubtedly the short section of a-capella before the last chorus’ soaring take-off, with the girls’ voices absolutely feeling like some sort of desperate plea to the stars.

My hidden gem for this album is definitely Labyrinth, which, in a 2023 world, I could totally see being a pre-release with a music video; not a title track instead of Crossroads, but with it. Here We Are is great too, and the other b-sides hold their own.

Next in the trilogy is Apple, which simply oozes magic and power. At first, I worried that it would be another Fever with a nothing chorus, but it proved me wrong! It doesn’t quite have a climax but it’s still absolutely engaging and unique.

This is another great album, and it was so hard to pick a hidden gem. The trio of the electro Eye of The Storm, the ballroom waltz of Room of Mirrors, and the dance floor of Tarot Cards are pretty neck-and-neck. But if I had to choose, Room of Mirrors is my favorite.

And at last, we reach MAGO! MAGO is, I’ll be honest, one of my all-time favorite k-pop songs (we’re talking Top 10), and I’ve loved it since I first heard it. To say everything I want to say would take forever, but if I had to name a few, here we go. The song has such great drive and heft and never stops moving, even when it slows down a little. It explodes with confidence and self-expression, and it’s a song that stands out because that empowerment doesn’t fall flat.

There are so many good songs from this album too: the rock in Love Spell, the brightness in Three Of Cups, and the R&B in Secret Diary, but my favorite without a doubt is Wheel Of The Year. Look, I’m a total sap, and it’s the exact kind of song that I adore: sad and happy, hopeful, emotional, inspiring, and all about the power of friendship. In the wake of their disbandment, it’s hard not to see this as a lovely farewell, to both the fans and each other.

It’s hard to overstate how much I adore the Modern Witch Trilogy. All three of these titles also feel so…queer to me? Obviously, as a queer woman, everything I view is through a queer lens, but between the found family separated in Crossroads, the forbidden temptation of witches in Apple, and the all-female be-yourself disco club in MAGO, I don’t think I’m reading too much into this. But I’d love to hear other opinions on this.

My top 5 songs are MAGO, Wheel Of The Year, Fingertip, Crossroads, and Bye. But I loved their whole discography, and as much as I ragged on Fever, there weren’t any songs I actually disliked, and it would be a highlight in a less incredible body of work. I’m also Wiccan, and the Wheel Of The Year is such an important thing for us that it felt like it was made just for me. I admit, when I started writing about their later songs, I even got a bit emotional and even more when I found out that the members themselves helped write some of them.

Gfriend, to the surprise of no one, gets a 9.5/10 from me. I can’t really imagine a discography more suited to me personally, although I think that anyone who appreciates great voices, disco, orchestral spins, or witches would find something to love here too. The only reason the score isn’t higher is because I haven’t done that many deep dives yet and I want to leave some room, lol.

So, I’ll see you next time, for a boy group!

#Gfriend #K-pop #K-pop girl groups #eunha #sinb #yerin #umji #yuju #sowon #viviz #disco #vintage #classical #review #k pop deep dive #Spotify

[digitalgate02]

Why BelialVamdemon was the final enemy:

As many people know i do not like Vamdemon as the final enemy in 02, though i started to understand the said decision in some recent rewatches.

Short answer: it's because of Daisuke's backstory. Vamdemon is Daisuke's nemesis.

Long answer: It's a bit more complicated than you think.

Many people love to claim Daisuke had no development in 02, or that his development is limited… But as my friend Shiha had written before in her 02 metas, 02's development is not by individuals and yes by relationships. Which means you only realize Daisuke's growth by watching how he interacts with the kids.

As for the statement of "wanting Daisuke to not change" -- this does not mean no progress, but rather his personality would still be the same. He does change through 02 and 02 material, and if you try to claim he didn't, please rewatch the series with caution.

Anyway, one of the three peaks of Daisuke's character arc in 02 material is ep 49-50 -- in which we learn the enemy is Vamdemon and the kids have to fight him in order to save everyone. While the others seem to lose their hopes, Daisuke keeps in front of them and also does not force the others to fight (Daisuke tells Ken the jogress won't work if he loses his nerve, on ep 48.) so yeah this seems like a single solo battle against the final enemy.

As Daisuke and XV-mon gain strength to fight Vamdemon, and Daisuke notices his whole optimism and faith in themselves is turning XV-mon's attacks stronger… Well, this is where Daisuke learns the gist of that bizarre place.

But what does this have to do with Vamdemon, you may ask. Well, it's related to a certain track released in 2003, in which reveals more details of the digimon event Daisuke was involved before becoming a Chosen Child:

If you wear goggles… do you become strong?

Not really… but when I wear them, I guess it’s like, my feelings become stronger…

I…want to be stronger.

Eh?

I want to become stronger and protect my sister, my Mom, and my Dad! I want to beat the bad guys!

“Bad guys”…?

Like… the light, white ones, or the big, scary ones! The black bad guys that are hidden in the shadows!

Are you talking about… Digimon?

They rounded everyone up, and threatened us. Then they made us go to sleep…

That was from… three years ago… when Taichi-san and the others were the first Chosen Ones. Vamdemon was attacking Odaiba back then. I was captured along with my dad and the others…

I wasn’t enough to stop them myself. But… I saw him. A person wearing goggles and riding something that looked like a huge dinosaur! I saw him beat the bad guys!

You saw that? I… by the time I woke up, it was already dark. But you’re right. In that night sky—

These big, shadowy, bad guys were all spread out across the sky! But the person wearing goggles… and his friends… they combined their powers and defeated them all!

I forgot about that. Yeah, I did see that. Dad, Mom, and Sis don’t really remember much about that time… and I only have faint memories of it myself…

If I have that kind of power, I can protect everyone. With power, I wouldn’t have allowed us to be captured in the first place. I would have stopped the tears!

To sum up this whole dialogue: Daisuke meets with his past self, a very different Daisuke before 02 events. Without audio you might not get it, but it's a whole track with Kiuchi Reiko voicing both present Daisuke and past Daisuke.

Well, this whole dialogue points out a few things: One, Daisuke definitely witnessed Taichi and his group on Aug 3, but possibly did not recognize them for some reason (the novel has Daisuke himself cameoing in the third novel's version of those events, in which Taichi has to distract Daisuke to not see the digimon, and later a scene of Jun comforting Daisuke, being witnessed by Mimi who comments "it may be nice to have a sibling")

Two, Daisuke wanted to protect the others. He complains about not being strong enough to protect his own family and the victims of Vamdemon's invasion. So Daisuke from 1999 was seeking for a way to become stronger in order to protect his family.

And what is what Daisuke says when everyone breaks their illusions? Ah yes, "I need to get stronger" huh?

So, okay, now we know all of this... I can finally go straight to the point: Vamdemon is the only digimon enemy suitable for Daisuke's character arc closure. It starts with Adv's Tokyo arc setting, and ends in 02 48-50. As many people would love, say, Daemon or Millenniummon as the final enemy... We have to at least realize those wouldn't have a strong impact on Daisuke's character and his message in ep 49-50.

Because... I don't think if this was planned since 02 got greeenlighted at the end of Tokyo arc but, what's cooler than having one of the kidnapped kids from Vamdemon's invasion by the one to beat Vamdemon alongside his friends and the whole Chosen Children network, including the girl who witnessed Wizarmon die for her and Tailmon? And also with the power of the Dark Seed kids, the recent victims of Vamdemon, who got their power of dream and made them true restored by those six kids?

Really, at least i can see the meaning behind this.

(And before you come to claim this only proves 02 is too focused on Daisuke-Ken -- read Shiha's post about this first.)

#motomiya daisuke #digimon adventure 02 #ni's digitheories