#I have a hundred emotions about this finale episode

[the-words-we-sung]

Season 3 ending

So... It's been almost a week since the last episode, almost a week trying to wrap my head around the end of the show, trying to manage my feelings about it all.

It's hard to end up feeling the complete opposite of nearly everyone on my dash but I've come to terms with the fact that I didn't love the ending. I didn't love this last episode. (I shouldn't feel ashamed or weird for saying so but you guys loved it so much that I feel a bit like an outsider right now 😓)

I haven't been a fan of the show for as long as most of you, but it means so much to me. These characters carved a place in my heart and in my head, and they've made me happy for months now. They helped me get through some stuff, made me discover some amazing artists, meet even more amazing people through this fandom. And I loved the story. Even in its darkest, saddest parts, I loved it. I was invested.

I love Wilhelm and Simon, together and separately. They mean so much to me. And I loved season 1 and 2. It made me happy, and sad, and frustrated, and exalted. But overall, I trusted the show and I was not disappointed.

Season 3 was a lot. I liked the first 5 episodes. I can't say that I loved everything about them: I was not expecting things to get so hard for Simon, with no reprieve in sight. I was not worried about Wilmon being endgame (I know it was a big stress for the fandom but honestly I never doubted that they were endgame), but I was wondering how the show would go about tying all the knots it made (I should even say all the knots it added during this last season).

(Under a read more because it's a bit long and I don't want to bother those who don't wanna read more of my frustrated thoughts ^^')

And unfortunately the last episode was a huge let down for me. Yes, it's partly because nothing I was hoping for actually happened, but mostly, it's because the choices they made did not feel very satisfying to me: ⁕ Simon was barely there. We went from him being bullied online/offline non stop for 5 episodes to almost nothing. It makes 0 sense to me. ⁕ Kristina suddenly feeling better: she was having break down upon break down for an entire season, could barely look at her son or even just talk normally and all of a sudden she's back, smiling and agreeing to everything Wilhelm says? I'm sorry but I don't buy it? Where did this Kristina hid during the entire show? ⁕ Wilhelm deciding to not be king, talking for 3min to his parents about it, them agreeing and him running into the sunset with Simon. I'm sorry, what?? I love that they end up together of course, but it makes very little sense to me? It won't change any of the issues they had this season? They're still gonna be famous? And bullied online/offline? (Probably even more so now?). I'm not obviously saying that Wilhelm staying in line to become king was the only or the best solution, but I wanted more from this storyline. I wanted to believe it. And right now, what we got? It feels a bit cheap (and I feel bad for saying that because the ending was cute and romantic and all, but it felt too disconnected from the rest of the show for me ><)

And apart from these few points, the big issue I had with this episode was: The Angst. So that might be a me-problem, but it was too much for my poor little heart (I haven't rewatched the episode yet, and I'm not sure I'll be able to anytime soon ><). I spent like 40min of the episode with a huge knot in the stomach because the heartbreak between Simon and Wilhelm was too much to handle for me. I can see how it was beautifully made, that having lots of throwbacks to the previous seasons, the Wille song, all of that was great cinematography. But it was just too much for me. I got in the season spoiler-free but for this episode? During the lake scene I had to take a break and check online if they were actually endgame because it was starting to actually give me a stomachache. So yeah, this part might be me being too sensitive but I did not like that they made me see them fight for each other for 2 seasons and 5 episodes, but then just giving up for 40min before finally running back to each other during the last 10min. It was just too much sadness for me ><

So yeah, maybe my expectations were too high? But I feel sad, and kinda cheated. Too many things are left wide opened. Too many things make zero sense to me. And of course I'm happy we got our Wilmon endgame, but I'm less happy about how it happened.

It's a bit hard being on Tumblr right now and seeing everyone who thought it was the perfect episode >< And I don't want to "yuck anyone's yum" (as the saying goes), but I still wanna be able to share my thoughts! I probably won't write super angry/unhappy/complaining posts about the season/the finale, but I still wanna be able to chat about it. I did see some posts on my dash from people not being entirely satisfied with this ending so it's a bit comforting. And I hope we can share some nice headcanons, or just discussions about different plot points.

But yeah, I guess that's why I haven't really been active this week! Trying to get over the double heartbreak of the end of the show + being disappointed with the ending! I'm gonna come back though! I miss hanging out here, I just need to strengthen my heart a little bit more :p Gonna get back to writing about my thoughts episode by episode for this season (I can't promise I can rewatch the last one though 😖 It might take me a bit of time to get there). And I want to continue my song analysis of the show!! I'm not even done with season 2 yet, I have some work to do there ^^

So see you back here very soon 😘

#young royals #wilmon #prince wilhelm #simon eriksson #yr season 3 #young royals ending #it's hard to feel negative about something everyone seemed to love >< #I still have a lot to say #to try to express #I have a hundred emotions about this finale episode #all mixing and fighting in my poor brain #and it's hard to put them into words #but I'm gonna try #because I think it'll help me feel better about this whole experience #and I did like some things!! #not everything was bad!! #lots of plot points were actually great!! #(Sara for example!!) #but yeah #a lot to process #(and I'm super up to chat about it all if anyone else feels a bit or a lot disappointed too ^^) #(and thank you Lisa for being there to lament with me 💜) #(also yeah me watching gåsmamman this week was clearly a way to not think too much about young royals ^^') #but on another note #I got my Omar concert tee shirt and it made me super happy #and I still love the cast #to the moon and back #and I'm excited for their next projects #and and and #that's too many tags

[cokezuko]

Red Robin has a podcast

The first episode was made after he got benched from patrol with an injury while quickly getting hundreds of listeners eager for episode two, then he just keeps making them.

They don’t really have any real theme to them, mostly just Tim ranting about what his latest hyperfixation/annoyance/case had taken his sleep schedual away this time.

Viewers have also taken note of this and will have running bets on how deranged this weeks episode would get:

He once gave an hour long rant on how to legally get rid of a shitty neighbor, at one point describing how to make an exploding glitter bomb and giving colorful examples of what to put inside of it, such as rotten milk or fish.

Another episode he was near screaming after dick had eaten Tim’s jolly ranchers and one episode where he seamed to just be too exhausted to emote anymore and so sleepy that his voice was nearly whispering while he talked about the differences between different types of snow before going silent for a whole minute till finally saying “holy shit… I think I just solved string theory…” and then furious white board sounds before finally a thump, the track cuts to a much more awake sounding Red Robin

“It’s the next day. I did not solve string theory, I did however create one of the most algorithmically perfect snow cone recipient in existence.”

#batfam #batfamily #batman #red robin #tim drake #my boy needs to sleep

[everscorner]

Something In The Way You Move

Author’s note: I hope you enjoy reading my first ever one-shot. I got the idea for this after listening to the Ellie Goulding song with the same title. I’m not exactly sure how I would categorise this fanfic, but that’s alright. This is only for fictional purposes only, and please don’t copy my work without my permission. Enjoy 🤎

Warnings: bad language, toxic relationship, flirty men at the bar, mentions of bruises, cheating, implied smut, fluff, angst, relationship issues, minors DNI (let me know if I missed anything)

famous!Reader x Jude Bellingham Word count: 8k words

///

‘“Y/N Y/L/N is the most famous woman in football.”’ Winnie dramatically turns towards you, eyes comically wide, her grip firm on the copy of the British Vogue magazine in her grasp. ‘Bestie, did you hear that? According to this article, you’re the most famous woman in football.’

You chuckle. ‘Yeah, apparently I am.’

‘How are you so calm right now?’

You’re anything but calm, you’ve just mastered the art of concealing your emotions—it’s a skill you developed shortly after meeting Jude. ‘I don’t know. I guess it’s the shock, it still hasn’t sunk in yet.’ 

‘It’s definitely the shock, not that I blame you,’ her eyes flit back to the article. ‘This is insane.’

‘In a good way, I hope.’ 

‘Very good way.’ You watch as she takes in the words of the article. ‘Girl, you’re in Vogue. Like, on the cover! They, like, wrote a whole article about you.’

‘God, sometimes I forget how dramatic you can be, Wins.’ 

Her theatrics are what first drew you to her. Never in your life had you come across someone like Winnie, and now you consider her one of your best friends. The two of you met at a fashion show a year ago, and well, the rest is history. . . 

‘Dramatic? How is this dramatic? This is a big deal, Y/N,’ she shuts the magazine, using her fingers as a makeshift bookmark to save her spot, then sits it on her lap. ‘When you told me you were doing a shoot for Vogue, I didn’t think you meant a cover shoot. Why didn’t you tell me?’ 

Because the whole thing was surreal, ‘cause I didn’t actually think they’d put me on the cover, the thoughts go through your mind.

‘I guess it slipped my mind,’ you state nonchalantly because that sounds better than the self-deprecating thoughts. 

Your cool exterior makes you seem indifferent about the whole thing, but you truly are flattered and overwhelmed. Never in a million years did you think you’d be on the cover of Vogue, and yet here you are. 

‘“I guess it slipped my mind,”’ she mocks with a hearty laugh. ‘Seriously though, I’m so proud of you. And if we weren’t sitting in this car right now, I’d give you the biggest hug.’ 

‘Thank you, Wins, and I know you would.’

You’re in the back of a black Mercedes Sprinter, there is a Netflix crew with their cameras filming you, and you’re being driven to Wembley Stadium where you will watch your boyfriend’s team play a Champions League final. 

The cameras are there because you’re in the midst of shooting an episode for season one of your yet to be named Netflix reality show. It’s been a month of filming scenes with the crew, but you still feel self-conscious having such intimate conversations with cameras present.

Who’s idea was it to give you a Netflix show anyway?

‘Shall I read it to you, then?’

‘Uh, no. No no no.’  

‘Oh, come on. Why not?’

You squirm in your seat and feel your face heat up, ‘Uh, I don’t know, ‘cause it’s awkward.’

It was a hundred percent your idea to stop at the shops to have yourself filmed buying the magazine, you know, for content for the show, but now it feels so silly, almost like you were bragging or something. To have Winnie read the article to you will only make the embarrassed feeling worse. 

‘Why is it awkward?’

You discreetly point a finger towards the camera. 

‘The cameras?’

‘Shh!’ you want the seats to part and swallow you up. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘But this will make great content for the show.’

‘Oh god.’

Winnie laughs hard, she’s clearly entertained by all that is happening. ‘Are you shy?’

‘You know this about me.’ 

She laughs harder. 

‘I’m glad you’re enjoying this.’ 

Not to be that person, but Winnie doesn’t get it. You can almost predict how the internet at large will react to the footage, should Netflix decide to use it for the show. It’s not beneath the world, namely those wretched online gossip rags, to paint you as some self-involved individual who makes her friends read magazine articles that praise her successes. 

Hell, just this morning you made the mistake of reading the comments of a MailOnline article about your recent night out in Madrid. You had been out for dinner with your manager and his wife, and it was your standard MailOnline article—though they were uncharacteristically nice to you—nothing out of the ordinary, so you felt it was safe to venture into the comments. 

Big mistake, and it’s safe to say that in future, you’ll steer clear of the comments section of anything. 

‘Last chance, are you sure you don’t want me to read it?’

‘I’m begging you not to.’

‘Very well,’ she lifts the magazine back up from her lap, her finger bookmark helping her open to the exact page of the article. ‘I’ll just read it for myself.’

‘Let me know if it’s any good.’

She scoffs, ‘Whatever.’ 

With a wry wink, you blindly reach for your phone that’s seated comfortably on your lap and open the Instagram app to update your story. The hope is that this will distract you from your fretful thoughts. 

Again, on the exterior, you’re as cool as a cucumber, but inside, you’re tightly wound. It sounds like an exaggeration, but so much is counting on Real Madrid winning tonight’s match, so you’re praying for their triumph. 

Will it fix the many issues that riddle your life? No, but a win could mean a less tense Jude, and it could take him out of the foetid mood he’s been in lately.

To be fair, the moodiness is not only exclusive to Jude, but you know.  

‘Gosh, I really hope they win tonight.’

The words slip out your mouth before you can stop them.

‘Huh?’

‘Real Madrid,’ you turn to Winnie, who’s engrossed in the words on the page, ‘I really hope they win tonight.’

She looks up from the magazine, and with a kind smile assures you, ‘Don’t worry, they will.’

She’s so optimistic, so sure, and that’s the attitude you will carry with you through this final.

///

It wasn’t easy, but in the end they came together as a team, and Real Madrid won the Champions League. 

The hours that followed the victory were nothing short of chaotic. First there was the team’s celebration on the field, where they received their trophy and medals. Of all the events of the day,  that’s the bit you hated the most. So much was happening all at once, which overwhelmed you and made you unpleasant, and of course, that led to an argument between you and Jude. 

///

A couple hours earlier. 

‘What the actual fuck is wrong with you?’

And more importantly, what the fuck is wrong with you for still putting up with Jude’s shit? You don’t even know how it got to this point. One minute you were teasing each other and making light conversation on the bed of your hotel suite, and the next you were bickering. But that’s how it is with you and Jude lately, there’s no middle ground. 

‘What the fuck is wrong with me?’ he challenges. 

‘Yeah, did I stutter? What the fuck is wrong with you?’ you press, refusing to back down. Usually, he can intimidate you into submission with a harsh look and tone, but not tonight. ‘Seriously, Jude, you’re not even fun to be around anymore.’ 

‘That’s rich coming from you,’ he spits back. 

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘As if you don’t know.’

‘I wouldn’t be asking you if I did, would I?’ 

The fucking prick, and if it were any other day, you’d tell him that he’s a prick, but that would only prolong the fight, and you both still have to get ready for dinner in an hour. 

‘Why are we even having this argument?’

‘You tell me, you started it,’ he throws the accusation so carelessly. 

‘How is any of this my fault?’

‘You’re so childish all the time,’ he answers without faltering, ‘always acting up in front of a crowd.’

‘You bastard!’

‘Then when I call you out for it, you start hurling insults at me,’ he finishes, a smug expression on his face. 

You hate it when he gets this way, so vindictive and purposeful in his aim to hurt you. ‘You’re such a fucking prick!’

‘Case in point. . .’ 

And you think you might cry, but you refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing you teary over him. 

‘That’s it, I don’t want to go anywhere with you tonight,’ you announce after a stretched silence. 

‘Like hell you’re not.’

Your eyebrows come together in a frown so deep, it’s sure to leave lines in its wake. ‘You can’t force me to go with you.’

‘Stop it.’

‘Stop what?’

‘Stop being childish.’

‘How am I being childish?’ With an incredulous scoff, you tell him, ‘You know, there’s something seriously wrong with you. I think that you need to get your head checked.’ 

‘What?’

‘You’re. Insane. There’s something wrong with you, in your head.’ There’s nothing normal about his recent behaviour. ‘If you think I’m going out with you tonight after you’ve disrespected me, you’ve got something–’

‘We’re not doing this shit.’

‘“This shit”? What does that even mean?’

‘I’m not doing this shit with you. What’s this even about?’

‘It’s about you not respecting me.’

‘That’s bullshit, and you know it’s bullshit,’ he responds dismissively. ‘What have I said or done to disrespect you? I only asked why you were frowning on the field.’

‘And I told you that I wasn’t.’

‘You forget that you’re a bad liar.’

‘I am not lying!’ 

‘Keep your fucking voice down!’ he yells right back at you, and his voice is like a whip. 

That’s when the tears spring to your eyes. You know you said you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you cry, but it’s all too much. 

‘Oh, don’t cry.’

‘How can I not when you’re being so cruel?’

Jude’s livid now, nostrils flaring livid. You should shut up, but you can’t stop the words from spilling out of your mouth. It’s like a tap that won’t shut. 

‘And, it’s like,’ sniff, sniff ‘like you enjoy seeing me upset. And I just feel like everything I do sets you off lately, and I don’t know what to do anymore.’ 

The tears are freely falling now, and you don’t bother to wipe them away. You want him to feel guilty for the way he spoke to you. 

‘Why do you hate me so much?’

‘Baby, I don’t hate you. How could you even ask that?’

When he reaches out to take your hand, you move it away from him. ‘Don’t.’

‘I’m trying to bridge the gap. I’m trying to comfort you.’

‘I don’t need your comfort,’ you sound so sad, and maybe that’s because you are really sad. 

You can’t believe the current state of your relationship, and you can’t, for the life of you, understand how it got to this point. You and Jude loved each other, you still love each other. . . Well, you still love him, you’re not so sure of his feelings. 

‘And can we drop this, please? I promise I’m not trying to get out of talking about it, but’ sniff ‘just for now, until after dinner.’

/// 

So you both agreed to a temporary truce, but things are still awkward between you. For example, the ride to the restaurant was silent, Jude barely acknowledged you at dinner, and now he’s somewhere in the restaurant socialising, and you’ve been left to your own devices. 

It’s not all bad though, because you’re not completely alone, you have the other WAGs to keep you company. 

‘How’s your cocktail?’

You wish Winnie had come though, she would make it better, more bearable. You tried to beg and bribe, desperate for her to meet you here, but she’s stubborn and she wasn’t in the mood. ‘A night wasted with cunty football WAGs? I don’t think so.’ Her words, not yours. 

‘Good. It’s a bit too sweet for my liking though.’

‘Same,’ Coralie chuckles. 

You’re jonesing for something stronger, a shot of something, but you’re already tipsy after opting out of dinner—your excuse was that you weren’t feeling well—so rather you stick to the sugary beverage. 

The group of you are at some swanky restaurant in Mayfair, and you’re doing your best to be sociable, but it’s hard to do when all you want to do is burst out crying. 

‘How do you plan on celebrating tonight?’

You shrug your shoulders, ‘I thought this was the celebration.’

‘With the team, yes, but how do you plan to celebrate with Jude?’

‘He has to be up early tomorrow morning.’ 

Coralie rolls her eyes.

‘You don’t like that answer?’

‘It’s boring, is all.’ 

And because you don’t know how to respond to that, you take a sip of your cocktail. 

‘You look tired,’ she continues.

You guess she just wants to fill the silence?

More like over it. It turns out, you’re not so great at concealing your emotions. ‘Exhausted. It’s been a long day.’

‘Filming a reality show is exhausting, huh?’ Coralie chaffs. She leans in towards you, probably to prevent someone from eavesdropping on your conversation. ‘I need all the details.’

Coralie’s sudden shift in topic catches you off guard. This whole exchange is not really going the way you want it to go, but you’re playing along because you really don’t want to sit alone. 

‘Uh, the details?’

‘All of it.’ 

Unlike everyone else at this table, Coralie isn’t a WAG. She’s employed by the team, and her job’s to be sort of an assistant to the players. When you moved to Spain at the start of the season, Coralie was actually one of the first people you were introduced to, and she was instrumental in helping you and Jude find your apartment. 

 ‘Where to start?’ When you draw a blank, you inquire, ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Hm, how did the opportunity come about?’ she turns in her seat so she’s fully facing you now. ‘How long have you been filming? What is the show about? I want to know it all.’ 

The reality show is the last thing you want to be talking about, but fuck it. You’ve been internally spiralling all night thinking about your fight with Jude, and this will give you something else to focus on for a bit. Without giving too much away, you skim over your agreement with the streaming platform, how they approached you with the offer, and the basic premise of the show. 

‘And it’s not weird for you to have the cameras following you around?’

‘I mean’ you finish the remainder of your cocktail and place the glass back onto the table ‘it’s not like we’re filming every day. There’s, like, a schedule.’

‘And how does that work?’

You do your best to explain the schedule and how it’s set up, but you’re past the point of tipsy, slightly over it, and quite frankly, you want the conversation to be over. 

Truth be told, you still can’t believe that someone at Netflix looked at you and your life and thought you were interesting enough to give a reality show to. Not that you’re complaining, the exposure and paycheque totally make it worth it. 

‘And how does Jude feel about it?’

Coralie’s question comes as no surprise. She’s got this little crush on Jude, but it’s harmless, endearing even. 

‘I don’t know.’

‘He doesn’t talk about it?’

‘I mean, we have talked about it, just not in great detail.’ You can hear the defensiveness in your tone. ‘We don’t talk much about work.’

‘But this affects him,’ she presses on, clearly not satisfied with your response. ‘Or will he not be on the show?’ 

‘He will be.’

You’re not entirely sure where she’s going with these questions.

‘He just doesn’t have an opinion on it?’

‘Well, I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him.’

Of course this is a lie. After your manager had reached out to you about the offer, Jude was the first person you called because you value his opinion. 

You weren’t sure you could commit to filming six episodes for the season, and you felt like having the crew and cameras around would feel like an invasion of your personal space. 

Jude felt differently and was encouraging.

‘This could be good for your career,’ he had advised. 

He’s even filmed some scenes for the show. 

‘So you’re like Kim Kardashian now,’ Coralie teases. 

‘Jude said the same thing,’ you smile at the memory. 

‘Well, I’ve got an idea for the finale.’

You cock your head to one side, ‘You do?’ 

She nods, a wide smile taking over her beautiful face, ‘I do. Picture this: you’re on vacation, I’ll let you pick the location, and Jude proposes to you.’ 

Oh you’re not drunk enough for this. And the crazy part is that she seems so delighted with herself—proud even. 

‘What do you think?’

‘No.’ 

‘What? Why?’ 

‘No, absolutely not.’ You feel yourself getting worked up. You’re so moody these days, and it’s not hormonal.

‘At least think about it.’

‘Coralie, no.’ 

‘Okay, okay.’ And you think she might drop it, but she continues to ask, ‘Which part don’t you like?’

All of it. In fact, you don’t want to be having this conversation anymore. But you don’t want to be impolite, so you force a smile as you tell her, ‘Right now, marriage isn’t on the cards for us.’

With her hands held up defensively, Coralie clarifies, ‘It was just a suggestion.’

‘And I appreciate it.’ 

Well, this is a shitfest. Winnie, Winnie, Winnie, you think, I should’ve pushed harder. 

There’s no use in dwelling on the fact, and there’s no use in staying at this table. But if you leave abruptly, Coralie might take it the wrong way. 

‘I need a refill, want to come?’

She points to her still full cocktail glass, ‘I’m still good.’

‘Okie-dokie,’ you raise off of your chair. ‘I’ll see you in a bit.’

Coralie’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes, it seems the annoyance is mutual. You just wish the night was over and you were back at the suite. Part of you wishes you’d bump into Jude, not because you have anything to say to him, but you sort of miss his face. 

‘Get a grip,’ you mumble to yourself as you manoeuvre through the tables. 

You’re miserable, more than usual, and it’s affecting the way you’re interacting with people. Already Coralie thinks you’re a bitch. She didn’t say anything to you, but she didn’t have to, it was written all over her face. And on a different day, the guilt would gnaw at you, but tonight you can’t bring yourself to care. 

‘A vodka tonic, please.’

At least your manners are still intact. 

‘More vodka than tonic.’ 

So you’ll drink in hopes that it will help the time pass quicker, and maybe if he sees your tragic state, Jude might let you go back to the hotel. After tearing into you, of course. 

As if the sadistic fuck would let me leave. 

Knowing Jude, he’d force you to stay but he’d be pissed at the fact that you weren’t on your best behaviour. 

The last time, he called you ‘inconsiderate’. And maybe it’s true, maybe you are ‘inconsiderate’, but he’s no better. Hell, he’s worse, but you can never tell him that. In his heart and in his mind, he is a saint—you just bring out the worst in him. 

‘Thanks.’ 

The tumbler is cold in your hand as you raise it to take the first sip. You wince at the bitter taste of vodka, but it’s just what you need, and you feel some of the tension leave your body. You think you might stay here a while. 

It’s peaceful at the bar. There’s no Coralie and her unsolicited suggestions, there’s no sulking Jude. . . though you’d much rather have him sulking at you than the cold shoulder, at least then he’s showing some emotion. 

‘Penny for your thoughts?’

But then there are the men who think it’s okay to approach you. 

‘I’m John, by the way.’ 

John flashes you a bright smile, and you can’t help but notice his super white and super perfect set of teeth. 

‘John, cool.’

‘And you are?’

Bored. Annoyed. Over this interaction. ‘Do I have to tell you?’

‘It’d be nice, yes.’ He then looks at you, really looks at you, then very thoughtfully, he says, ‘You know, you look familiar.’ 

‘I do?’

‘Yeah, I feel like I know you. . . or I’ve seen you somewhere.’

‘You don’t know me.’

‘No, I think I do,’ he waves for the barman’s attention. ‘I think you’re famous.’

‘Well, you’re wrong.’ 

When the barman comes over, John orders himself a scotch. ‘You know, you still haven’t told me your name.’ 

And so, despite your better judgement, you tell him which sparks a conversation. Of course, he’s a ‘finance bro’—his overconfidence is a dead giveaway—and he’s at the restaurant for his uni pal’s bachelor party. There’s a group of them. 

Without being too obvious, your eyes look down at his left hand, which is conveniently hidden away. Your guess is that John’s got a wife at home, and he’s been allowed out for the night, begrudgingly, of course, so he’s trying his luck with you. 

‘Well, since it’s a bachelor party, shouldn’t you be at a gentlemen’s club?’

He shakes his head, ‘Isaac’s not into that.’

‘Isaac is the groom, then?’

‘Yeah.’ 

‘Well, I’m sure Isaac and your friends are missing you, John,’ you raise your glass to your lips. ‘But thanks for the chat.’ 

Your dismissive tone only spurs him on, you literally see his eyes light up. Clearly, he sees you as a challenge, something to conquer. ‘How about you? Are you here alone, with friends?’

You polish off the remainder of your drink, ‘Something like that.’

‘That’s all you have to say?’

‘Well, I–’ Your body tenses when you feel a strong arm snake around your waist, but it immediately relaxes when you smell the all too familiar scent of Jude’s cologne. 

‘I’ve been looking all over for you,’ he says, strategically wedging himself between you and John, his back turned to him. ‘Hi.’

Jude leans over to take your lips in a deep kiss, you know, the kind that you feel deep in your core. God, you love this man.

‘Hi.’ 

You don’t have to force a smile, because you’re genuinely pleased to see him, and at first you can’t read his expression as his perfect brown eyes search your own, but then he smiles, really smiles, which causes you to relax. 

‘Vodka tonic?’ you offer.

‘No,’ he leans over to kiss you again, this time it’s on your forehead. ‘Is that what you’re having?’

‘Yeah,’ you raise a hand to wave the barman over. 

‘What are you doing?’

‘Ordering myself another drink.’

‘No, you’re not.’ 

The tone of his voice is one you know all too well. You know not to push him, you don’t want to push him, ‘cause things between you are actually good.

‘I’m not?’ your tone is teasing.

‘No, you’re not. Come.’ 

Before you can question where he’s taking you, he leads you away from the bar, and you don’t even get the chance to say goodbye to John. 

‘Jude, that’s rude,’ you tell him, suppressing the urge to smile. ‘And where are you taking me?’

‘Back to the hotel.’

Finally, ‘The hotel?’ 

‘Yeah, we’ve had enough socialising for the night.’ 

///

You release a content sigh. ‘You know,’ you start nonchalantly as you leisurely stretch your limbs and flex your toes, ‘I should flirt with random guys at the bar more often.’

Keeping your hands off of each other on the car ride back to the hotel proved quite the struggle. Jude’s earlier possessiveness had you putty in his hands, and his actions, paired with the alcohol in your system, had you ready to jump his bones. 

‘Don’t you dare,’ he playfully admonishes. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

‘I might be inclined to, I like it when you get like that.’

‘Like how?’

‘Possessive and all that,’ your heart swells with pride at the memory of Jude moving you away from John.

‘Oh god.’

You burst into fits of obnoxious giggles when he buries his face in the crook of your neck and starts kissing the area. 

You and Jude had managed to behave yourself in the car and on the elevator ride up to your floor, but the moment you stepped into your suite, he took your wrist into his large hand and tugged you into him. Without a word, he pushed you up against the wall of the dark entrance hall, and took your lips in an impassioned kiss. 

‘Jude, stop!’ you screech. 

‘Promise you won’t flirt with random men.’

‘No!’ 

The kisses intensify, his beard tickling the sensitive skin. 

‘I swear I’ll scream,’ you actually can’t breathe, and your stomach hurts like you’ve been doing crunches. ‘Babe, please!’

‘Promise me.’

‘Okay, okay! I promise,’ you relent. 

And so he stops. 

‘If we get a noise complaint. . .’ 

‘Who cares?’ Jude rolls back to his previous position on the bed, his back pressed against the mattress, his toned torso exposed. 

Instinctively, you follow him, curling into his side, craving the connection. ‘You don’t care?’

He shakes his head, ‘No, do you?’

‘I guess I don’t.’ All you care about is the fact that things between you and Jude are good again, and all is right in your world. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘You are?’

‘Ravenous.’ On cue, your stomach starts to grumble. ‘I’m thinking of having a burger and–’

‘What’s this?’ Jude’s hand moves down to your left hip bone, and his index finger lightly traces over the bruise that’s starting to form. ‘You’re hurt.’

The forming bruise is the result of you being pressed against the entry table as Jude fucked you. 

‘Oh that?’ you weave your fingers with his to stop their tracing motion. ‘Don’t worry about that, I honestly don’t mind it.’ But when his eyes remain fixed on the spot, you insist, ‘Babe, please don’t make a big deal of it. It was good.’

Like, really good. So good, Jude had to put his hand over your mouth just to stop the wanton moans that were spilling profusely from your lips. 

The heat creeps to your cheeks at the very welcomed memory. ‘And by the way, don’t act like you’re not pleased with yourself.’

He doesn’t try to deny it, he simply laughs. 

‘Exactly,’ you rest your head on his chest and focus on the calming steady beat of his heart. You wish you could stay like this with him forever, and abandon all your responsibilities.

‘I love you.’

Jude’s admission catches you off guard. It’s not his first time saying those words to you, he’s said them countless times in the past, but there’s something about the way he says them now. . . it’s so heartfelt. 

‘And look, I know I’ve been a jerk these past few months,’ he continues before you can say anything, ‘but starting tonight, I promise to be better.’

His words, so vulnerable and pure, leave you stunned.

You blink away the tears that are starting to collect in your eyes, ‘Jude. . .’

‘You don’t have to say anything.’

You drape your arm over his torso, and release a shaky breath. ‘I love you too.’

There’s so much you want to add to that, but you don’t trust yourself to not break down in tears. Recently, your relationship has been put through the wringer, and you admit that you’ve still got a long way to go in terms of repairing it, but this moment is proof that it’s still salvageable. 

After a long and comfortable silence, Jude asks, ‘You still hungry?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Here,’ he hands you the in-room dining menu.

You thank him and start scanning the menu’s offerings. ‘The skinny fries sound good.’

‘I thought you said you were ravenous.’

‘Hold on, I’m not done.’ 

Five minutes later, your main and a side with dessert, were on their way. 

‘And now we shower.’ 

You let out an obnoxious groan. 

‘What?’

‘I don’t want to move from here.’

Jude laughs, ‘Sure you do. Come on, Lazybum.’

‘Lazybum?’

He laughs some more. ‘Yeah, Lazybum. Let’s go.’

Nothing against the shower or anything, but you’re worn out and are too hungry to move. ‘Five more minutes.’

‘No, let’s go.’

You raise your head off his chest, and your eyes lock with his, ‘I can’t persuade you to stay in bed longer?’

‘No, not really.’

‘Oh, babe,’ you whine, and move to straddle him. ‘You’re no fun.’

‘I’m no fun? What do you mean I’m no. . .’ The words sort of fade from his lips when you start writhing against  him, the only thing separating you is the bedsheet.  ‘Stop that.’

‘Stop what?’ you feign innocence, your hip gyrations not ceasing. 

‘What you’re doing right now,’ his hands move to your hips to stop their subtle winding motion. ‘It’s distracting.’

You sigh. 

‘And stop pouting.’

‘Make me.’ 

Jude’s eyes light up at your testy attitude. Then he sits up, and with his hands on either side of your face, he pulls you in for a peck. ‘Behave.’ 

‘Yeah, but babe, I–’

‘Hey,’ swiftly and smoothly, his hand grabs a hold of your wrist and starts massaging the spot just past your palm, and he maintains eye contact when he tells you, ‘We’ll shower, then we can lay in bed after.’

‘Okay.’ 

‘Okay?’

You nod, ‘Yeah, okay.’

Your cooperation earns you a second peck.

‘But babe, can we watch a movie after? My choice.’

Despite having to be up early tomorrow to fly back to Madrid, Jude agrees. A post-midnight dinner with a movie and cuddles from Jude, you like the sound of that. You can’t help but stare at Jude’s pert ass when he gets out of the bed—the guy’s got a hot body. 

‘You like what you see?’

You flush, but make no effort to turn away. If he’s going to give you a show, who are you to look away? ‘Shut up.’ 

‘Pervert.’

‘You’re the one slutting yourself out.’

‘Whatever.’

Then with a final kiss, Jude disappears into the bathroom. Some moments pass, and then you hear the shower water run.

You’re scrolling through Netflix’s romance category when you’re interrupted by the incessant buzzing of a phone. Your initial thought is that it’s your manager—who never seems to sleep—calling about a new work opportunity, but when you grab the vibrating device, you discover that it’s Jude’s phone and not yours. And it’s Coralie calling him. 

You think nothing of the fact that she’s calling Jude at such a late hour. It’s probably something work related that can’t wait till morning, and you’re about to answer the call when the vibrating abruptly stops. That’s when you see the text notification displayed on Jude’s lock screen:

Coralie: I’m drunk and I miss you, call me

Heh? 

Your heart starts hammering against your ribcage and a sick feeling settles in the pit of your stomach. 

What? 

The room starts to spin as you struggle to breathe, and you think you might collapse onto the bed.

Is he. . . Surely he’s not cheating on you. With Coralie? 

‘Babe?’ Jude's voice calls from the bathroom, startling you and causing you to almost drop his phone. 

‘I’m coming,’ you absentmindedly respond back. 

‘Hurry.’ 

The cheek, you think as you punch in his phone’s password. 

The phone unlocks and you think what an idiot he must be—a smart cheater would change the password. 

‘Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute.’

You have a very limited time window, so you’ve got to move quickly. The adrenaline rush makes your fingers fumbley and shaky, but you somehow manage to open the WhatsApp app. Coralie’s chat is right at the top ‘cause she was the last one to text him.

If you had more time, you’d peruse through his other contacts to see if he’s texting other girls. 

‘Here goes nothing,’ you tell yourself.

Then with a deep inhale through your nose, you psych yourself up one last time for what’s to come when you open the chat, and then you open it.

Before the bit about being drunk and missing Jude—drunk texts? How corny—Coralie had sent another lengthy text complimenting the way he looked at dinner tonight, and explicitly told him what she wanted to do to him in the restaurant’s loo. 

The fucking bitch! 

How dare she? How dare she act friendly with you knowing very well that she was sending dirty texts to your boyfriend behind your back? And the worst part is that you believed the friendly act, believed that she had good intentions.

Rah! 

But there’s no time to get hung up on that, there’s plenty of time to do that later. Moving quickly, you scroll up the chat and stop at a random spot. 

Jude: Y/N’s in Paris, come over?

You recognise the date to be earlier in the year, when you were in Paris for fittings and shoots. He’d called you really late that night, and he’d told you that he loved and missed you, and that he wished you were at the apartment with him. Basically, he’d lied to you because Coralie was warming his bed that night.

Fuck them both! 

The text thread carries on in a similar fashion: Coralie texts Jude saying that she misses him, he texts her when you’re out of town, and sometimes, on special occasions, she’d send a dirty pic. Or if she’s feeling particularly giving, a video. 

Fuck. 

You angrily toss the phone to one side, and try to contemplate your next move, but your mind is all over the place, and you can barely formulate a cohesive thought. 

What now? 

‘I got tired of waiting for you, and got out.’

You were so lost in your thoughts, you didn’t hear the shower water shut.

‘Hm?’

‘In the shower, I waited for you.’

You don’t like the way Jude says that statement, the accusation in his tone. 

‘I’m. . .’ what is it that you’re trying to say? ‘Oh.’ 

‘Are you okay?’

Far from it, actually. ‘Hey, are you. . .’ you pause to think about how you want to phrase the question. ‘Are you cheating on me?’

He didn’t expect you to ask him that question, and he seems taken aback by it—shaken even. ‘What?’

But he doesn’t deny it.

‘Are you cheating on me?’ you repeat, enunciating every word. ‘With Coralie. Are you cheating on me with Coralie?’

You watch as his world slowly unravels, and you can see the invisible wheels turning in his head as he cooks up a lie.

‘Well, are you?’

‘What, cheating? What are you on about?’

‘About the messages on your fucking phone, Jude,’ you grab the phone from the bed and throw it at him. It hits his leg and then lands on the floor, right before his feet. The sound it makes leads you to think you might’ve broken it. ‘I’m talking about the fuck dates when I’m out of town, the nudes and videos she sends you. I saw it all.’

‘You went through my fucking phone?’

‘That’s all you have to say? “You went through my fucking phone?”’ you mimic the way he posed that very stupid question. ‘Give me a fucking break, Jude. Yeah, I went through your phone, but you’re deflecting.’

‘I’m not deflecting.’

‘Yeah, you are!’ 

‘Keep your fucking voice down!’

‘Are. You. Cheating?’

It’s insulting at this point. You’d much rather have him lie to you, it would send you over the edge, but this? He keeps deflecting, there’s no flattery, no lame excuses. . . His blatant lack of effort hurts more than the actual cheating, it’s like he doesn’t even care to save your relationship. 

‘Y/N, I’m just trying to de-escalate the situation.’ 

‘De-escalate what, exactly? Jude, I don’t need you to de-escalate anything, what I need from you is the fucking truth!’ And if you could scream at the top of your lungs with no repercussions, you would. ‘When did it start?’

‘When did what start?’

‘Your affair.’ 

‘It’s not an affair.’

As if that fucking matters. ‘You keep deflecting!’

‘I’m not!’ he fiercely defends. ‘I just want you to calm down, okay? I just want us to have a normal conversation.’

‘Well, for me to be calm, you’d need to answer my question.’ When a tear escapes from your eye, you quickly swipe it away with the back of your hand. ‘I mean, I know things have been bad between us’ another tear, another swipe ‘lately, but I can’t believe you’d cheat on me.’

And with Coralie, of all people. 

Jude sighs, and you can’t place his emotion. It’s kind of hard to place when he’s saying absolutely nothing. 

‘Are you just going to stand there?’ 

‘What? Now you’ve got a problem with me standing?’

‘You know that’s not what I mean.’ This is exhausting, he is exhausting. ‘You’re just standing there saying nothing.’

‘You’re not allowing me to speak.’

‘You’re not really saying much, are you? “Calm down” is not going to cut it.’ 

‘Well, you keep jumping down my throat.’

‘Blame shifting? Really?’ You sigh, ‘How do you expect me to be calm when you keep shifting the blame and upsetting me?’

‘This is pointless.’ Jude walks over to the bed and takes his seat at the end of it, his muscular back turned to you, head in his hands. ‘You do this every fucking time.’

The words come out muffled.

‘Do what?’

‘Act irrational. It makes it hard to talk to you.’

So according to Jude, voicing your opinions and concerns makes you ‘inconsiderate’ and ‘irrational’.

‘I’m irrational all the time?’

‘Yes.’ After a frustratingly long silence, he lifts his head from his hands and turns to regard you. ‘Look, Y/N, I’m not going to say I’m sorry, ‘cause I’m sure that’s the last thing you want to hear.’ 

‘So you’re not sorry?’

‘I didn’t say I wasn’t.’ He huffs, ‘I thought it was my turn to speak.’

So you bite your tongue and allow him the space to state his case. 

‘Coralie was. . . a mistake,’ he starts once he’s sure you won’t kick off again. ‘A big mistake and something I regret, and if I could take it all back, I would. There’s no excuse for what I did, and my actions are unforgivable, but baby, I meant what I said earlier when I said I loved you and want to do right by you.’ 

I know I’ve been a jerk these past few months, he’d told you, but starting tonight, I promise to be better.

The revelation of Jude’s affair gives his words a whole new meaning. And to think that for the longest time, you believed that you were the issue in your relationship, that your career picking up and you constantly having to be out of the city was the root of your issues. 

‘We were fighting all the time.’

‘I know.’ 

‘And when I’d take the blame, you’d let me.’

‘And I’m so sorry. I really am so sorry.’ Jude reaches a hand out to you, and you don’t push it away, you let him take your hand into his. ‘It’s something I regret every day.’ 

After a long silence, you have to ask, ‘How did it even start?’

‘Babe, please don’t–’

‘No, I want to know,’ you cut him off. 

He’s apprehensive, but to avoid another argument, he tells you how six months ago, so in December, when you were out of town after a big argument between you, Coralie had come to the apartment to help him with something. For whatever reason, they started drinking wine, and one thing quickly led to another, and the next thing he knew, they were fucking. 

He insists that he felt awful after the act, but that the affair continued because he ‘honestly didn’t have the balls to end it,’ and he feared that Coralie, the woman scorned, would run to tell you about it.

‘And then it sort of got out of hand,’ he continues. ‘Whenever we’d fight or I’d be frustrated with something at work, I’d turn to Coralie.’

‘Why?’

‘‘Cause a lot of the time, you weren’t there.’

So your budding career was part of the issue, your lack of availability led him to turn to Coralie for comfort. 

‘You don’t have a functioning hand?’

With a wry smile, he responds, ‘It’s not the same, and you know it.’

You don’t find the humour in what he’s just said.

‘Too soon?’

‘Way too soon.’

‘Sorry,’ he pulls his lower lip between his teeth, a nervous habit. ‘It wasn’t just the sex, it was the connection.’

‘Connection?’ you pull your hand from his. ‘You act like I’m never home.’

‘Y/N, be honest.’

‘About what?’ You feel yourself getting worked up all over again, ‘Jude, if you’re going to accuse me, at least make it make sense. I make it a point to not be gone for more than three days in a week.’

‘I know, but–’

‘And don’t act like you’re not the one always encouraging me to take all these jobs across the world.’ 

And if you really think about it, in the last six months, he’d been more encouraging than ever of your career. 

‘So don’t give me that connection crap,’ you conclude.

‘Why is your voice raising again?’

‘‘Cause you’re really pissing me off, and you’re shifting all the blame to me.’ 

‘I’m not.’

‘Yes you are!’ tears spring back into your eyes. ‘Just admit that you’re a cheater, and that you lack self-control, and that you’re unprofessional, sleeping with the team’s assistant.’ 

‘Fucking hell. . .’

‘It’s not fair that you’re making this all my fault, and I’m not going to stand around for it.’ 

‘Y/N–’

‘No, Jude!’ 

You’re suddenly interrupted by a light knock sounding at the door. When Jude gets up to fetch your food, you slide off of the bed to take the hotel robe to cover yourself with. You hear him thank the person at the door as you crawl back onto the bed, and moments later, he comes back into the room pushing the room service trolley. 

‘Where do you want me to put this?’

‘I’m not hungry anymore.’ 

Jude doesn’t respond to that, he simply abandons the cart and joins you at the bed, closing the distance between you.

‘Don’t.’

‘“Don’t” what?’

‘Sit close to me.’

‘I’m not touching you.’

‘I know but. . .’ 

How do you tell him that sitting in such close proximity to him clouds your judgement and makes it hard for you to be mad at him? 

‘You know, I could always tell she had a thing for you,’ you sigh as you turn away from him, thinking of all the times Coralie had shown interest in Jude. ‘I always just dismissed it as a harmless crush.’

He doesn’t say anything, but then again, what is there to say? 

‘And, like, tonight, she kept asking me about you.’ In fact, she was very pushy in her inquisition. ‘So curious about the details of our relationship. Our sex life. She used the word boring to describe it.’

‘I swear she means nothing to me.’

‘Does she know that? Does she know she means nothing to you?’ 

‘Yes, of course she does.’

‘I doubt it.’ You turn back to Jude. ‘How are you going to end this?’

‘I don’t know.’ 

‘You don’t know?’

‘Yeah, I don’t.’

This is all a mess. All of it is a big, stinky mess and a scandal like this could be detrimental to both your careers should it come out. 

‘Y/N, I’m really sorry and I regret it.’ There is sincerity in his voice, in his eyes. ‘And if you leave me, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life because you’re the best thing to ever happen to me.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘What’s not true?’

‘That I’m the best thing to ever happen to you.’

If it was true, he wouldn’t have cheated on you with the team’s assistant. 

‘It is though.’

‘Whatever,’ you allow yourself to fall back onto the bed, and with a soft grunt, you say, ‘Well, this is a mess.’ 

‘A big one,’ Jude lies down next to you, and weaves his fingers with yours. 

‘I’m so mad at you.’

‘I know.’

‘In fact, I think I hate you.’ 

His grip on your hand tightens, and you think it might be a pained reflex. ‘I know.’ 

‘And I don’t know if I could ever move on from this.’

‘Please try to.’

You turn your head so that the two of you are lying face to face. ‘So what now?’

‘I don’t know,’ he admits. 

And you’re right there with him. You can’t help but feel like this is the calm before the storm. You wouldn’t put it past Coralie to run to the tabloids to share the story of her affair with Jude just for her 15 minutes of fame. 

But it hurts your head to think about that. 

‘I’m tired.’

‘Me too.’ And on cue, Jude yawns obnoxiously loudly. ‘We should sleep.’

‘Yeah.’ 

So you get under the covers, and try to pretend that your entire world isn’t falling apart. You close your eyes and try to force yourself to sleep, but there’s so much going on in your mind. 

Tomorrow is a new day, and who knows what it will bring you? Jude says he’s sorry, and maybe you’re an idiot, but you actually believe him. And as for Coralie? Well, that’s a subject for another day. 

///

‘I guess I’ll see you when you get back to Madrid.’

It’s the morning after, and when you went to bed last night, you weren’t sure what to expect of your morning exchange, but this isn’t it. Things are somewhat awkward between you, but you’re also being cordial and some version of normal in your interactions, which is nice. 

 ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ 

This morning, Jude joined you for an early breakfast in your suite. During the breakfast, you mostly talked about possible vacation spots for the summer, and revised the previous day’s events. With all the arguments happening, you didn’t really get to celebrate the fact that Jude had won his first UCL. 

‘Are you filming today?’

And now he’s standing across from you, dressed and ready to join the rest of the team down at the hotel’s lobby for their flight back to Madrid. 

‘Yeah, but only later.’ You smile, ‘I can’t believe I agreed to this.’

Jude laughs. ‘My very own Kim Kardashian.’

‘You know me,’ you tease. 

There’s actually something you want to tell him, but now doesn’t seem like the right time to. 

‘Is everything okay?’

His simple question is a reminder that you can never truly hide things from him, he’s just so good at reading you. 

‘I’m all good,’ you assure him. ‘I’m just going to miss you, is all.’

He flashes you a bright smile. ‘It’s only a few hours.’ 

‘I know.’ You walk into him, right into his tall and strong frame, and wrap your arms around his muscular torso. ‘I’m, like, really going to miss you.’

‘Why does it feel like you’re saying goodbye to me right now.’

You chuckle. ‘I’m not. I promise you I’m not.’

‘Okay,’ he presses a kiss to the top of your head. ‘Okay.’ 

You don’t immediately release him, you’re not ready to, but he’s got to go—duty calls. 

‘Text me when you land.’

‘Yeah.’ 

With a kiss to the lips, and an ‘I love you’ murmured against them, he’s gone. 

///

An hour later.

The timer you have set starts going off. 

Your heart is hammering against your chest as you reach for the Clearblue home pregnancy test. After Jude had left, you had called the hotel’s front desk to request a pregnancy test, if they had one. Within 15 minutes, there was a woman at your door to deliver it. 

With a shaking hand, you reach for the plastic stick. 

‘Holy fucking. . .’ 

You can’t believe your eyes. 

‘I’m pregnant.’ 

///

REQUESTS ARE OPEN

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[zombee]

I feel like the luckiest Our Flag Means Death fan in the world after the season 2 finale. By a series of incredible circumstances - including a significant metatextual realization that came in at the 11th hour - it was close to perfect for me.

This essay has everything. Completely normal behavior over a television series. Steven Universe references. The David Jenkins School of Whatever is Best for the Bit. Humbling catharsis.

First: this piece does not exist with the central thesis of “it’s okay to not like something but that’s not the same thing as it being bad.” I feel like thousands of words have already been written on this since Thursday, so I’m going to try to not get too in depth on that.

Second, cards on the table, because it’s relevant and I don’t want to waste your time if this is going to sour your ability to hear me out: I’m an Izzy Canyon hater. For MANY reasons, but from way before the concept of the Canyon existed, (some) Izzy fans pinged me in the same way as Snape/Kylo Ren fans did, and before May 2022 was over I went from genuinely enjoying Izzy’s character and place in the narrative to hating him because his fans made it impossible for me to enjoy him anymore.

(SOME! of his fans. Please don’t keep making me say this, although I’m not going to talk about the Canyon directly anymore after this. I know there are a ton of normal Izzy Enjoyers and even Canyonites, I am literally friends with many of them, please take this all in the good faith it’s intended and if you’re not One Of The Bad Ones then you’re fine! I very carefully don’t go anti-Izzy on main, and when I stopped enjoying his character, I stopped writing him into fics. I’m not trying to be a dick, I just want to be honest. Anyway.)

The season 2 finale made me weep over Izzy Goddamn hands.

ALL season long, I was disgruntled. All season long. I really, truly, DEEPLY appreciated what they were doing with his character and arc, I thought it was wildly on brand for the themes of community/queerness in the show, I saw the vision, I liked it!!! But. I wanted a fucking apology, yall. I needed three seconds of “sorry I called you a slur, Ed :/” and that would have been enough. But I had to let it go. It was poisoning my enjoyment of the whole season, which I loved with very little exception (not none!) and I just had to let it go. I wasn’t getting an apology. That didn’t negate what they were doing with his character.

Yall. They withheld the apology on purpose.

THIS FUCKING SHOW!!!

Let’s go back a bit. I was at the episode 6 + 7 screening, and the breakup shook me. Probably a LOT more than if I had watched it alone in bed at 3am on my laptop - five days of no sleep after NYCC, lots of emotions, seeing it on a big screen with a hundred other intense fans, etc etc - but I did see other folks reacting in parallel ways to me when the episodes aired to the regular public, so maybe I would have felt the same way. Regardless, I was mad at Stede and to a lesser extent Ed. I NEEDED AN APOLOGY FOR THAT FISH LINE. I needed it! “Whativah” autocorrects to “WHATIVAH” in my phone. I was going through it.

(When I rewatched the episode when it aired it was not nearly as bad as I remember, lol)

So now the episode 8 screeners go out and the reviews drop and I think I catch one half-glimpse of a “What a heartbreaking ending!” kind of snippet, and some of my friends who are spoiler fiends unintentionally drop little hints about similar ideas (devastating/heartbreaking/split the fandom) type shit.

And I was a fucking WRECK! about it.

I do love this whole show with my whole chest. I do!!! But I’m not rotted because this is an excellent television show, I’m rotted because two old men kiss each other! On the MOUTH!!! in an excellent television show. You get it, right? I’ve written 700,000 words across almost 100 fics and 98% of them are dedicated to those two men falling in love in different universes. 

So it just did not even occur to me the “heartbreak/devastation/fandom split” would be about anything but Gentlebeard.

Another piece of this that was fucking me up - David Jenkins and his “satisfactory” ending biz. My brain was reacting like this show was ENDING ending, even if I knew logically! that this is just season 2!!! And I wasn’t ready for that, because what if it wasn’t personally satisfying, and I’m a mess about it? Why was I so worried about not liking it? I’d liked the whole season! Even if they didn’t nail the landing I wasn’t going to stop writing fic or hanging out with my pirate community & friends. 

…is what I kept trying to tell myself, but the way anxiety disorders work is funny like that lol. What if I did stop writing fic and hanging out in pirate spaces? That would hurt much more than a show I like disappointing me. And for anyone who’s having that experience with ofmd s2, I’m so very, very sorry. It sucks and that’s where my epiphany came from on Wednesday before the finale.

Because it has happened to me before.

I flit from hyperfocus to hyperfocus, as ya do when you’re spicy, but the last thing to get its hooks in me PROPERLY like pirates was Steven Universe. And I did NOT like the way the regular season ended!!! (I actually really did like most of Future; that’s not what I mean. I mean season 5). I don’t like how they handled the Diamonds, tldr; I think the scope of their villainy got too out of hand, and I was left grieving the thing that had meant enough to me I ran a fan convention for four years based around it. 

Side note: imagine if I had channeled the hyperfocus of almost a million words of fanfiction into an American OFMD con instead. We could have made magic :( I did consult with Our Con Means Death though so I am at least a teeny tiny bit of that one!

I did not like the way Steven ended… but I do respect the story they were telling and think they told it well.

I’m still sad about it. Steven is still one of my most beloved, it will always be beautiful and great to me, but that experience did and does sully my memories. There is so, so, so, SO much more good than bad from being in that fandom, and I cherish it. And I hope, if you’re having this experience with OFMD right now, that you’ll find similar comfort.

But, like I said at the top, “it’s okay to not like something but that’s not the same thing as it being bad” has been belabored already by people better at writing about it than me. I just had the incredible privilege to remember my brush with lower case T trauma and having that experience in my last REALLY big deal fandom. That’s why I had been so extra anxious about being disappointed. Because it happened to me before. It helped so much to connect those two.

So the finale happens, and it’s actually about twelve hours of me going from “eh, rushed but fun, whole season was great” to “THIS MAYBE IS THE BEST SHOW OF ALL TIME, ACTUALLY!”

BECAUSE THIS SHOW MADE ME CRY OVER IZZY FUCKING HANDS!!!!

They literally told me this was the story they were telling this season. “Men can change” “The end  of piracy” “Ed leaving Blackbeard behind (ish).”

As for me? I didn’t get an apology for the fish. Instead, I got “Sorry I was a dick.” “You weren’t a dick. Life’s a dick.”

Just… fuckity BAM. THREE FUCKING SENTENCES resolving that fight. Saying so much in so little.

In real life, should these two men have an actual conversation about this shit? Sure!!! But that’s not how OFMD tells its stories!

It works in symbolism. It works in vibes. It works in an hour’s worth of content into each half-hour episode, and for how much lamenting I have done about the pacing, I would prefer that 100x to having to stretch it out too much.

I have said since March 24, 2022 that OFMD wields anachronism as a weapon. First and foremost, it’s fucking funny, but in addition to that, it’s stating clearly: “This is a fantasy world. This is not real history. This show is about romance (and so much more than that), and the rest is just VIBES!!!”

Sometimes vibes can be historical accuracy. Sometimes vibes can be true emotional poignancy. Sometimes vibes can be Ed finding his sunken leathers in the sea, changing underwater somehow, and coming out of the ocean like the Birth of Fucking Venus, because water and rebirth and mermaids and shit is all very prominent this season. And ALSO, and this is very important! BECAUSE IT LOOKS FUCKING COOL!

I don’t want to do much real Izzy meta here. It’s been said by others, and better than me. But it was telegraphed and it was symbolic – he was the paragon of Traditional Piracy in season 1, for goodness’ sake, and Traditional Piracy is Toxic Masculinity, and he was a part of Blackbeard and Ed had to leave Blackbeard behind (yknow, ish), and he got this ABSOLUTLEY FUCKING LOVELY! storyline about appreciating what a (queer) community can do, and god fucking shit fucking dammit… most of all, best of all (for me), was Buttons landing on Izzy’s grave at the end. Men can change. And Izzy DID!!! He did it for Ed. For love. For community. I am puzzled by “it’s fucked up to use Izzy to further Ed’s storyline” because… this was Ed’s season, in the way that season 1 was Stede’s. And Ed cannot be removed from piracy as a whole (neither can Stede!) so to have this old, set in his ways, coded-queerphobic character blossom to the point he can give this gift to Ed and to piracy… idk man. I just find it so fucking beautiful.

It is okay not to like what they did. It’s okay!!! It’s okay, and it’s okay to mourn, and while it’s not okay to do [insert vile behavior here], it’s okay to carefully examine what you think is “bad writing” vs “what you would have preferred to happen” and give good-faith, textually-based criticism on that.

But I want to remind you over and over and over again, this show works on vibes. It tells its stories leaving many, many, many gaps. There are many things I would have liked to see, and y’know what? I would have told the Izzy story differently. I would have personally done it differently. But it’s not my show! It’s not my show, and I am humbled and delighted to remember that, and to appreciate Our Flag Means Death for what it is and not what it isn’t.

Other words have been written better than I could about the 18 months between seasons 1 and 2 and what that does to us as rabid fans with expectations of how things will go. Millions and millions and millions of words have been written about OFMD, fictional and non, and that is going to color our expectations and experience. We had built it up SO MUCH in our minds and along the way I think some of us forgot (INCLUDING ME!!!) that it is first and foremost about Vibes.

The vibes of Izzy’s death are about rebirth and forgiveness and leaving traditional piracy behind. And he got to die in Ed’s arms, knowing (HAPPILY!) that he had been wrong, and giving Ed the gift of letting him know he is loved, and being a part of something. We had a funeral but we also had a wedding. The only constant is change. Men, piracy, Blackbeard; it all changes. And Izzy found peace in that.

Before my last point, I want to @ myself on things I felt versus realizing in the end it is (I will say it until I’m blue in the face) about vibes.

· I was convinced they left Buttons’ transformation ambiguous because they wanted to leave room for it not having been real. NO!!! It is real, until they decided it isn’t. Magic in the OFMD universe? Fucking why not!!! IT’S SYMBOLIC!!! IT’S IMPORTANT TO ED’S STORYLINE AND THE CENTRAL THESES OF THE SHOW!

· I was unhappy, and still am a little, about the Polycule Situation, but now that I realize Oluwande is Zheng’s Stede… I am less so. The Zheng : Auntie :: Ed : Izzy vibes, btw? Fuckin immaculate.

·        Obviously they touched on Stede/Ed’s “killing people trauma” but I’d reallyyyy like Stede to address it, and even though I think Ed’s is left on a very satisfying note, I’d like him to dip a bit more into it as well. But if they don’t, oh well! It’s not like they ignored it, they just didn’t have a Deep Dive like I Wanted Them To!

· They didn’t deal with Ed throwing Stede’s shit away. They just ignored it! Stede started to collect new trinkets, and I believe that was as much about giving the audience back the old feeling of the Revenge as it was anything important (not to say it wasn’t also important thematically!!!). Just like Ed going back to his leathers is both Extremely Important thematically and about putting Taika back in the leathers because that’s what Blackbeard should be wearing for the epic final scenes for the sake of visually keeping the show consistent. That’s Blackbeard’s uniform.

· Stede’s frilly little outfits my beloved. God I hope they give him back some of his frippery in season 3. I think they will re: cursed suit BUT his journey this season was about something else, so!

· Ed’s stupid little non-profit non-apology, oh my god. It was so funny. And there is a transition from eps 5 to 6 where Ed is back in his leathers and the crew is more comfortable around him. They didn’t have to have him do a Real Apology, it’s implied it was all settled. What was the timeline? A day? DOESN’T MATTER, BABY, VIBES!!!

· Lots more, I’m sure, but now that I’ve tried to let it all go, I’m remembering less of what I wanted and appreciating what I got!

And, last point here, I think it is also very very very important to remember that a lot of people are normal about this show. In fact, WAY more people are normal about this show than aren’t. And that is EXTREMELY! IMPORTANT!!! because otherwise it wouldn’t be profitable and we all know what would happen then. We are the core of it, to be sure. Without word of mouth that stems from our intensity, this show would not be NEARLY as successful as it is. I truly, truly believe that.

But.

Do normies need deeply emotional discussions dissecting the central relationships? No. What normies need is Ed and Stede running dramatically toward each other on the beach and kissing. And I am happy, so fucking happy, to realize that’s what I need too. I’ve got fanworks for the rest.

I love this fucking show and this fucking fandom and its fucking creators so much. Fuck.

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2

[myouicieloz]

Lean on me

Park Jihyo x member!reader

Synopsis: Jihyo takes you out for some ice cream and you finally talk about what happened.

Warnings: reader is recovering from an od episode. mentions of drugs. reader talks about her feelings. sensitive content. guilt, pain. tw: overd0se, recovery.

Word count: 1k.

Notes: -

Pt.1 | Pt.2 | Pt.3 | Pt.4 | Pt.5

“Hey, Y/n… what are you doing here?” Jihyo asks, a bit surprised to see you at the company’s front area. She doesn’t sound mad or annoyed, though. Which is good.

You look at both sides before stepping into her benz. It’s familiar and makes you feel cozy, as you recline the passenger’s seat before turning to her and giving the older girl a shrug.

“My meeting got cancelled for some reason. I could have waited, though, but I don’t really feel like dealing with work today.” You explain, with a tired voice while she makes a curve. “So I was just heading back to the dorm.”

“Smart girl.” Jihyo eyes you for a moment, seeming to sense your exhaustion from simply existing. She always knows your feelings, your needs. She’s the best big sister you could’ve ever asked for. “So, ice cream?”

Your eyes light up a little, and you can’t help but smile as you nod. “Ice cream!”

-

You two sit in front of each other at your favorite ice cream store, not much further from the dorm. The weather is cold, but none of you mind; the gelato is still much appreciated. It reminds both of you of summer, and old times. Before the scandal— before things got so heavy, messy and just broken, overall.

“You know you can ask me about it, right, unnie?” You say, your quiet voice breaking through the awkward silence as you give your cookie ice cream a big bite.

It doesn’t hurt that much to talk about it, not anymore. And you know Jihyo has questions. You know you owe her explanations, too.

Jihyo waits for a minute, maybe two, before finally taking a look at your face, her strong hands gripping her own ice cream with perhaps too much strength.

“Why’d you do it? I know we’re not supposed to ask, but I just keep thinking it was all my fault. What did I do wrong? Why didn’t I notice? What if you do it again because I’m not here enough for you?”

She’s desolated, you know it, as your tears cloud your vision. Crying, unable to hide how hurt you still are, you let your emotions overcome you, just like the woman in front of you. Jihyo’s tears flow through her pretty face just like yours.

You shift uncomfortably in the chair, not interested in your ice cream anymore. You don’t look at her, either, as you answer.

“It wasn’t your fault, unnie; it really, really wasn’t.” You inhale deeply, diverging your eyes to the street as you frown a little. You don’t even know how to explain it to her. At the time, you’d been so angry and in so much pain… it was an impulsive act. One you deeply regretted.

You shouldn’t even be having this ice cream right now—after weeks, your stomach still couldn’t take it. The consequences of your actions haven’t been kind to you.

However, Jihyo wouldn’t understand. Now one truly would.

“I wouldn’t do it again if I had the chance. It was just… I got angry. And I had this pain in my chest that was going on for as long as I can remember, and I just felt so much but felt nothing. It was overwhelming. So, I remembered Nayeon-unnie had the drugs hidden in her drawers and I thought I’d take one, just to relax a little. But when I realized, the thoughts had won me over, and I’d taken just a bit more than the, ugh, recommended.” You take the older girls’ hand, staring deep in her soft brown eyes.

The guilty look on her face has not yet disappeared; you feared it would never really go away. Her new hair makes her look older than her actual age, giving her a mature aura. Just a few years older than yourself, yet it seemed like a hundred years separated you.

You thought about how much you’ve disappointed her by doing it. How guilty Jihyo must’ve felt knowing you overdosed — supposedly— under her care. Because of drugs that were so easy for you to just access and take in.

Sweet Jihyo, who loved Christmas and helped decorate the dorm on every holiday because she loved family events (as much formal as they were. She still loved all of them.). Your big, big sister, who still read you bedtime stories whenever you had a nightmare. Who never complained about picking you up from places and driving you everywhere because you still didn’t have your license. Jihyo, who tells bad jokes and falls in love 5 times a week and makes sure you approve all of her possible interests. Jihyo, who has never skipped your presentations or recitals when you were still at school. Who knew how important it was for you to be warned about wherever the members were throughout the day because you cared about their well-being so much. Your strong sister, who would always argue on your behalf at meetings or interviews so you’d never be uncomfortable or nervous.

If there was someone you regretted disappointing and worrying, it was her. It made you feel even worse, like a failure.

You felt her hands on top of yours, giving you a reassuring squeeze. You looked up, sniffling, to find her smiling at you through her own pain.

“I’m deeply sorry you felt like you were all alone, back then,” You opened your mouth to tell her you knew your members were always so ready to help you, but you simply couldn’t reach out to them, even though you tried so hard to, “But you’re not now. We are right here, with you. All of us. We love you so, so much, Y/n. And we’ll support you all the way. Please don’t drift apart anymore. Lean on us.”

She hugs you, her strong arms evolving you in a warm embrace, and you are soon sobbing like a baby. All the emotions you’ve been suppressing now flow freely, and as much as it hurt, it also felt freeing. To know you have people who love you even though you are so very flawed. Feeling safe in your unnie’s tight embrace, you allow yourself to relax.

For the first time in so long, it finally seems like things will get better.

#twice angst #kpop x reader #twice x y/n #twice x reader #twice jihyo #twice imagines #park jihyo #jihyo angst #jihyo x reader #jihyo x y/n #twice x you #sol writes #sol’s works

[internerdionality]

And just to be clear, it wasn't just Izzy's death or the way it happened that I found incredibly disappointing about that finale. For that matter, while there were some great moments, the entire season felt rushed and incomplete, with a lot of decisions that just baffled me.

The Olu/Zheng/Jim/Archie polycule got no resolution whatsoever and just felt crappily done. It felt like Jim and Olu transitioned from romantic to platonic between seasons and then got shoved at new love interests, instead of actually grappling with the interesting poly dynamics, jealousy, NRE, insecurity, etc., that they could have engaged with. And to be clear I LOVED every moment of Olu/Zheng and Jim/Archie! But it felt like the show didn't believe you can have meaningful romantic relationships with multiple people at the same time, so they had to make it as if Jim and Olu's romantic sexual encounter at the end of last season didn't mean anything and that the two of them are perfectly happy being chosen siblings. This after Oluwande is explicitly described as in love with Jim in the first season! WTF?

It also felt like they just abandoned Lucius and Pete being poly in favor of having a cutesy wedding? Like don’t get me wrong, yay for weddings, but honestly it felt very mononormative and forced instead of queer and affirming. Even if Lucius had like, kissed Fang on the lips right after, or if they'd had more affection shown between the whole crew during the wedding, that would have been something. It just felt off.

Zheng felt like a wasted character by the end. Her just letting Ricky know where all her ships were was unbelievable for how competent and badass they made her out to be, and literally her only impact on the plot was serving as a vehicle to drive Stede from place to place. Also just killing off her entire crew other than Auntie? Hundreds of mostly Asian women? Yeah, that's not a good look.

Why did they feel the need to destroy the Republic of Pirates, for that matter? What actual plot or emotional growth did it create? At the end of Episode 7, I expected Stede to have to grapple with how he's managed to not just bring down Blackbeard but the *entire Republic of Pirates* and *the Pirate Queen of China* to add to his whole "I ruin beautiful things" trauma and instead he just doesn't seem to care at all. Like how did he get from all of his trauma and grief about being inadequate in the first season—the actual trauma that led him to leave Ed in the first place—to "oh, it's not so bad being a failure once you get used to it"?!?! Throughout the season I kept thinking that he was repressing and it would come back up to bite him in the ass but no, apparently he just fixed that issue offscreen? What the hell?

And it was the same with Ed! After all that build up in the first season about how Ed doesn’t like to kill people directly—and maintaining that through the first two episodes, even, which was hard! We never see him directly kill anyone! The guy he shot had already been run through!—he’s literally joking while surrounded by corpses he killed and the show barely addressed the trauma that the character we knew would have experienced. Just a completely dropped note. What happened to Ed's self-hatred that they spent an entire dream sequence episode establishing?

Ed and Stede’s actual conflicts and problems just basically disappeared at the end, with a “oh I actually do love you, babe” glossing over Ed’s very legit reasons for leaving and then Stede (apparently?!?) being convinced to give up piracy without a second of screen time spent discussing it. If felt like they were actually setting them up to just be the toxic lesbians from episode four, how is that a satisfying finale? I honestly would have rather had them end the season apart again, but this time knowing they love each other and they have to do some work to get back to each other. Like, Stede sailing into the sunset after kissing Ed and promising to come back and Ed going "i trust that you will, thank you for giving me the space I need to heal"—that would have been a satisfying place to leave them.

And then Izzy's death... don't get me fucking started on what a complete waste of screen time and acting that was. Wow.

#our flag means death #ofmd s2 spoilers #izzy hands #ofmd #gentlebeard #blackbeard ofmd #boatmance #lupete

[jmdbjk]

Episode 2: Adolescence 

Beyond the Star, produced by HYBE Media Studio

They begin by conveying how important concerts are for them. Concerts. Not performances. Concerts.

They thought they “made it” in 2016 when they booked the Olympic Gymnastics Arena for a concert. It was the dream venue for idols at the time and are amazed they are performing there and never imagined they’d have a concert that big.

During the interviews where they are expressing their thoughts about what performing during concerts means to them, we see footage of different concerts illustrating what they are trying to explain. 

Hobi harkens back to their first concert in October 2014 for The Red Bullet tour, at Seoul’s AX Korea with 6,000 in attendance. He says they didn’t care about how many hundreds or thousands were there, they were just so thankful for the fans who came to see them.

Attendance rose at each progressive concert. Their fourth concert in 2015 had 13,500 in attendance at the Seoul Olympic Handball Gymnasium, and their fifth concert in May 2016 at the Olympic Gymnastics Arena, mentioned at the beginning of this episode, had 25,000 in the audience. They were in awe at how huge it was when they first arrive at that venue, looking out at the empty seats before they began rehearsing.

They were always so emotional during their ending ments, so thankful for what they were experiencing after knowing how hard they’d worked from debut up until the end of each one of those concerts.

In the early years, the hearts of those young men were bursting with passion and to see so many fans supporting them had to be an overwhelming relief, its no surprise their emotions overflowed.

Though they finally saw their hard work being appreciated, the joy was tempered with having to deal with pushback.

One of the things I noticed that was not mentioned yet in Episode 1 was how much pushback, bullying, negativity and hate they received from their peers and other fans outside their team and company from the very first day.

Working their asses off to fulfill their dreams while being faced with all that makes it even more amazing that they stuck with it. 

It was them against the entire kpop industry. We all know how much BTS is hated by other kpop fandoms. We see it daily on the X timeline. The jealousy is real, it's destructive and it's dangerous.

BTS is untouchable now but in 2013, Jungkook was 15 years old. A CHILD! Jin was 20! BigHit had no money. There was a point after debut when they were asked to move out of the dorm because the company couldn't afford it anymore. Underdogs is an understatement, truly what the hell did they think they were doing up against all these established kpop groups, their fandoms and the big 3 companies?

Now, in Episode 2, we start to hear how the guys handled all this. For some of them, they did not handle it very well. Namjoon talks about his panic attacks and how he avoids the internet and going online during a song/album release. 

In Episode 1 we saw Hobi and Jin so thrilled and excited, anxiously waiting and monitoring online their very first album release at midnight on June 13, 2013 and for Namjoon to tell us now he can’t enjoy the thrill of that is so devastating to me. 

When an artist sends their art out into the world, it is like a living part of themselves, an extension of themselves that they lay bare to the world. The visceral reaction of panic when seeing people hate you for it…and the amount of courage it takes to ignore that and keep going and make more art to release into the world…I challenge anyone to show me they have THAT amount of courage.

And I implore you to understand the depths these guys LOVE their fans ESPECIALLY BEFORE THEY WERE BIG to keep doing it in spite of the hate.

Yoongi was incredibly diplomatic when he says “we had a lot of unreasonable controversies.” I would have said "we had a lot of total fucking bullshit that meant nothing thrown at us by a bunch of stupid butt hurt people." There, I fixed it for you, Yoongi.

They had a ludicrous amount of people gunning for them, hating them for being successful, hating them for being different. Jealousy drives people to do the most hateful things.

Jimin says, “having to deny the bad rumors was always so upsetting.”

Namjoon recieved death threats during the Red Bullet Tour. Early on they were accused of chart manipulation because they sold so many albums. This is the company had no money, there was no money to spend on chart manipulation!

They were accused of plagiarism and brought to court and were exonerated because it wasn't true.

Jimin received death threats at the end of the Wings Tour.

Being the humans that they are, with feelings and emotions, Yoongi says they and the fans were getting desperate and spiteful in the face of all this backlash and hate. 

The fan song “2! 3!” was an anomaly. It is somewhat somber for a song dedicated to fans. Most fan songs are light and cheery. But this song fit the emotions BTS was experiencing and bonded them closer with their fans and was again, another instance of the members being sincere and genuine in their expressions. 

The emotional scenes of BTS standing on stage, Army singing the lyrics back at them, waving their purple plastic bagged Army bombs, has to be one of the best memories for them. A truly bonding moment between artist and fan.

December 2016, Mnet Asian Music Awards, they win Artist of the Year. It is their first major award. Yoongi says “in a movie, the ending credits are supposed to roll at this point.”

They’ve reached the top… as they knew it. End of story... 2016? Nope.

Early the next year while they were on the Wings Tour, they were told they were going to the United States for the Billboard Music Awards. No other Korean act had ever done that before. They had no expectations for that trip. They had no idea what they were supposed to do when they got there.

It’s kinda cute seeing them prepare and wondering what to expect. They are so young and you can tell they are trying to figure out if they’re supposed to try to emulate the image of a western pop star.

When they get out of the van at the red carpet event, they all look around the back of the van to the other side of the street and see the fans screaming at them. They knew who the real fans were and they wondered what everyone else thought: perhaps people were just curious about who they were. 

Namjoon wonders how different it may have been had they, the members, been a little more culturally proficient, meaning at that time, they were inexperienced, naive and ignorant about the impact they were making. It was all a big wonder to them at that point. They were thinking “do they even know who we are?” 

Then they win Billboard’s Social Artist award, not a major award but still, it had been won by Justin Bieber for many years prior and now it was BTS’ opportunity to kick in the door. And they did. With all seven pairs of feet. Western artists began to take note and wanted to collaborate with them. The thorn in the western music industry's side had arrived in the form of this team of 7 and their fans.

Yoongi thought it was a one-off token award, but then they were invited to perform at the AMA’s. They can’t believe they’ve made it that far. 

They are soaring and going places they never imagined they’d go. Everything seemed like a fairytale, the success, the adulation, the global attention…

But it was happening too fast, their young minds, their emotional development and sense of self never had a chance to mature and catch up to their work load and the pressures and expectations their image and success placed on them. They never had a chance to stop and assess themselves personally and consider if this level of fame was something they even wanted.

Literally, they never. stopped. working. When they say "we just kept running forward" that is not a euphemism, it is literal.

As soon as one event, concert, appearance, fan meet, photo shoot, shooting Run BTS, music shows, whatever was over, it was on to the next one...from plane to hotel to venue back to hotel back to plane, to be repeated over and over.

In mid-2017, by the time they talked about resting for a while, it was perilously close to being too late. They still had the rest of the Wings Tour to complete through December. Some of them had already considered quitting. Some did not possess the confidence to endure the burden. Some of them wondered if pausing was the right thing since they were doing so well. 

They were confused by how they could be feeling like this after they’d worked so hard to get to this point.

The title of this episode is "Adolescence" and it pertained not only to the members who were just emerging from it and their careers that had gotten past the starting line and now riding an almost out of control rocket to stardom. It also was a point in time for the company trying to get its feet under it, for its leader Bang PD trying to steer this team, to figure out how to manage this worldwide sensation they'd created.

Bang PD had to learn how to deal with his team's enormous success as he watched them begin to burn out. He embraced a philosophy of focusing on the importance for an artist to have autonomy and be happy as a person which was not a thing in the kpop industry at that time. He was worried about their mental well being and their happiness. He suggested a break.

They knew there was an "end" coming eventually. End of contract, military... et al. They pondered the inability to enjoy the fruits of their hard work and that it couldn't "end" with them being unhappy.

We know in 2018 they renegotiated their contracts. 

For a group as close as they were, as committed as they were to their careers and to each other, they had to come together and discuss how they were feeling while being burned out, they had to admit to each other they wanted to quit. We don’t know the nitty-gritty details of how it went down but they worked through it and re-committed to each other and their team.

They didn’t give up and that tells me not a single one of them are quitters.

My own personal thoughts are that they recognized they needed to stop at that specific point in time and regroup. They knew enlistment was coming eventually and the typical life-cycle of a kpop group had been about 7 years when idols aged and younger ones took their place. But they'd reached places in the stratosphere that none other had before. I think they paused, recalibrated and actually let themselves seriously think of a future after enlistment that would allow them to keep up this level of success, to keep pushing boundaries...and therefore they re-evaluated what was in that contract to include things that ensured their well-being so they could grow. That new contract was set to expire this year, well after Jin was supposed to be back from the military and most likely all of them. I am curious to know what that original 2018 contract planning included...

Anyway, I accidentally rambled a lot adding extra context and my own thoughts while watching this episode.

Review of Episode 3 next…

#bts beyond the star #jimin #jungkook #jin #taehyung #namjoon #hobi #yoongi

[yencirilla]

chetney pock o’pea is The character of all time and i’m sorry if you do not get him the way that i do because he is so !!!!! just an old man, who has felt like he’s had no purpose for hundreds of years, finally forming a family after so long. he mentioned the family he was born into not being close, so this is probably the first group of people he’s really felt loved and safe in since he was born hundreds of years ago.

and yes he is hilarious, and he does some silly goofy things but there’s so much more to him than just that. chetney running the bath for imogen after the casino because he know how difficult crowded places were for her. chetney checking in with her after they faced her mother. chetney calling her councilwomen temult in her hometown to impress the people that shunned her. chetney listening to orym talk about his husband, telling orym that he was sure will was really happy with him, and then crafting something honor orym and will’s relationship. chetney pleading for fearne to have something to bring orym back after he was killed.

chetney telling fearne’s mother that fearne deserved an explanation for leaving her. chetney asking about nana morri, using cloth to make her dolls to play with after she learned the truth about her parents. chetney being trusted to carve the wooden box for her parents, and making it look beautiful for fearne. chetney not making fun of laudna for her puppets, and instead making them a house for her to play with. laudna hugging chetney. chetney checking on her after fcg attacked. chetney asking about laudna’s hands when she seemed upset after their reunion, and his words being the reason they got to see laudna in the fucked up version of whitestone.  

chetney comforting fcg after they attacked the group, chetney checking in with fcg about their emotions and making him a toy to better express himself. chetney always trying to protect, whether it be protecting fcg from shithead or trying to get otohan’s attention when she was headed towards fearne. chetney comforting deanna after frida refused her hug, making frida a toy that depicts frida as a protector, because that’s what they both are. i think about the line he says in episode 42 sooo often when annaline tells chetney not to shit where he sleeps, and chetney replies “guess it only matters if you care where you sleep - that’s new for me.” this is the first time he feels like he has a home and a family and he would do anything for any of them.

chetney pock o’pea you are so loved by me!!!!

#i love him and it makes me sad people wrote him off so quickly #yes he's funny yes he's silly but he's more than that!!! #chetney pock o'pea #orym #fearne calloway #imogen temult #laudna #fcg #deanna leimert

[thecleverqueer]

Y’all.

The point of the Clone Wars flashback in the Ahsoka series was partially fan service. Yes. But, those of you that are mad that Obi-Wan and Cody and Waxer and Boil and Mace Windu and Ursa Wren and Gar Saxon and Maul and Bo-Katan Kryze and Rook Cast weren’t in it missed the whole goddamned point of the flashback, so let me explain:

Everyone has bitched tirelessly about Ahsoka being stoic and reserved and “not like herself” (I will die on the “she’s in her forties…leave my baby girl alone… she’s tired, sore and premenopausal…” hill, still…)

Ultimately, she’s been “out of character” because she was carrying all of the Anakin trauma around like a two hundred pound weight on her shoulders. She blamed herself, and she feared who she was so much so that she was unwilling to get close to others and spread the wisdom that the years have afforded her…something a Jedi just does. She couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Enter this sequence… the moment she FINALLY lets go of the Anakin guilt/ hang ups.

I knew something like this was coming. Some moment that changed her back to the more recognizable Ahsoka. The one that embraced her friends. The one that was willing to share the lessons that she learned with others. The one that would have loved to have a padawan of her own. The one that wasn’t always running away, being flaky.

This was it. And, there were two big takeaways from the moment.

1.) Anakin was always Vader, and Vader was always Anakin… and she had nothing to do with that. Her leaving the order played literally no role. It wasn’t on her. It never was. He was already teetering on that line way before she entered his life. I mean, he slaughtered an entire village of Tuskens down to the last woman and child. He said and did questionable shit to Ahsoka herself too throughout their time together. Was he like a brother to her? Sure. Was he borderline abusive at times? Also, yes. Regardless, her eyes were opened in that first battle…where he basically told her to fight or die. Fair, under the circumstances… still, Ahsoka was trained to be a Jedi, not a murderer. Anakin relished in it. She didn’t really, especially when it came to losing her own men in battle. The clones were her friends, her brothers. Anakin didn’t seem to give a shit about the clones. Unsurprising.

2.) She realized that it wasn’t just Anakin’s legacy that she would carry on. She has her own legacy. It doesn’t have to be one of death and destruction. Is Ahsoka a lot like Anakin? Yes. She’s impulsive, hot-headed, stubborn, emotional, and intense, but that’s not all. Ahsoka is caring, patient, understanding, and loving in a compassionate sense. She’s grown wise, strong and sage. Anakin isn’t the only part of her line and that legacy… Obi-Wan is a part. Qui-Gon is a part. Yoda is a part. Ahsoka is a little bit of all of them. It made her realize that she’s so much more than just a warrior. She’s a great Jedi like the ones that came before her. Inevitably, she has a choice. She can choose not to serve the dark, despite it being part of that legacy, and she can pass on what she has learned without fear.

The moment was about just that. It wasn’t meant to actually be an episode of The Clone Wars. The flashback served a very specific purpose as laid out above. There are 133 episodes of The Clone Wars if you want to watch a Clone Wars episode with all the characters of the Clone Wars. This moment was about Ahsoka overcoming her guilt and fear caused by Anakin becoming what he became so that Ahsoka could actually embrace who she is. Specifically.

Now we have a happy, more well-rounded, Gandalf-like Ahsoka that has slayed her Balrog. Now we get to see her be the Jedi she has always been inside. Now we will see her be there for her friends. Now we will see her mentor and share her wisdom and teach the ways of the ones that came before her without fear.

#star wars #ahsoka tano #the clone wars #ahsoka series #ahsoka spoilers #pro jedi #anakin skywalker #shadow warrior #because some of you missed the whole ass point #battle of ryloth #siege of mandalore #ahsoka the white

[david-talks-sw]

why do so many people hate on Mace Windu?

'Cause he's too much of a badass for them to handle! Jokes aside, this is a subject I came across a few times. If I had to guess why?

1. "Mace was a jerk to Anakin!"

A lot of people see Mace as "always being antagonistic towards Anakin". When - if you look at the facts - that's not really true.

In Episode I, sure, Mace initially votes to not let Anakin into the Jedi Order. But shortly after, when it's put to a vote a second time, Yoda is the only one still not wanting Anakin to join.

Implying... that Mace was cool with it!

Hell, there's even a non-canon comic that covered this, with Windu actually arguing letting Anakin into the Jedi Order against Yoda because he thinks Anakin will bring Balance to the Force.

In the comic, he also suggests giving Qui-Gon’s lightsaber to Anakin.

In Episode II, he's actually defending Anakin. He and the Council are confident in Anakin's ability to have his first solo mission, praising Anakin's skills and - in a deleted scene - even reminding Obi-Wan to have more faith in his Padawan.

Finally, in Episode III, at a first glance, it looks like Mace is indeed written in a way that makes him antagonistic to Anakin (the same Anakin who turns to the Dark Side in the same film, so maybe his instincts weren't so off after all...)

A lot of people say "he says he doesn't trust Anakin!" and I've already covered what that's really about here:

TLDR: he says he doesn't trust Anakin when he's 1) on a secret mission 2) with Palpatine. Which makes sense, because Anakin isn't exactly subtle and he has an emotional attachment toward Palpatine who everyone can see has Anakin wrapped around his finger.

Also, if you wanna count it... the novelization of Revenge of the Sith justifies this by the unbearable stress he is under.

A stress due to the Clone War and his whole Order being drafted into being warriors when they're supposed to be diplomats, thus causing hundred if not friends of his comrades to die (and don't even get me started on how hard the loss of clone lives must weigh on him).

Jedi of the Republic: Mace Windu writer Matt Owens seems to echo this sentiment:

"The Jedi are like atomic bombs: they have so much power, but they really don’t want to use it. Mace is a masterful warrior who doesn’t relish fighting. Such use of his power goes against his code, but if he doesn’t use it, what will become of the Republic? As a member of the Jedi Council, he is under pressure because he is a leader. He’s forced into an uncomfortable situation where he is doing something he doesn’t entirely agree with for what he believes is ultimately the greater good. But he has to be sure of himself because he has so many others looking to him for direction." - Matt Owens, Star Wars Insider Special Edition, 2021

So it's not personal toward Anakin at all, but Anakin's whining and making it all about himself certainly isn't relieving the stress.

But hey, let's suppose he is a dick to Anakin in Episode III (he's not, but let's go along with it).

That's still one movie out of three. So if there's a change in attitude toward Anakin from Attack of the Clones to Revenge of the Sith...

... what spurred it?

What event would make Mace go from telling Obi-Wan to have faith in Anakin to having him be adversarial toward him?

It would've been nice to see that in an episode from The Clone Wars, which partially exists to fill in the gaps between AOTC and ROTS.

I mean, was there a time where, for example, Anakin prioritized saving Ahsoka over a bunch of people in a building, leaving Mace to do it himself?

Still, we get moments between them, and they're not all negative:

They have fun banter, at times, right? But then we hear Dave Filoni say that Mace had an issue with Anakin from day one.

"You see, Mace Windu’s the guy that tells little Anakin ‘no, he will not be trained’. You cut to Anakin and he’s like, ‘What??’ There’s this look on Anakin’s face like, 'I’m gonna remember that, you’re a negative, why are you doing that?’ So you have to look at it, the Jedi are - though they mean really well for Anakin – they’re always telling him 'no’. They’re always saying 'no, you’ll be expelled, you’ll have to leave the Jedi Order’. [...] So when you get to that point-- all these things I’m talking about get you to that point where Palpatine’s on the ground and Mace Windu has a lightsaber at his throat and he’s saying “he’s the traitor”. So Anakin’s there and he’s choosing between the guy that’s always told him “no” - that, while he respects him and [Mace’s] not a mentor, but he’s a fellow Jedi - and the father figure [of Palpatine] who holds the key possibly to immortality and you saving this person you love in Padmé." - Dave Filoni, Rebel Force Radio, Star Wars Fan Days III, 2009

So... I honestly don't know who to listen to.

If we're meant to see Mace as "negative toward Anakin" then the episodes failed to convey that properly.

If we're not, then why is Dave Filoni saying the above?

Same thing goes for the recently-published novel Brotherhood, written by Mike Chen.

Like, I want to give the novel the benefit of the doubt and say "yeah, but we're only seeing Mace through Anakin's eyes, so of course the opinion is biased and exaggerated." But then I hear Mike Chen say stuff like this...

"And, like, [Anakin’s] constantly pulled in every direction and the finally, when you go from that to Revenge of the Sith where it’s like “hey, my wife is going to die unless I listen to my cool uncle, who has never been mean to me” and then you have Mace Windu who’s like “TAKE A SEAT, SKYWALKER!” y’know, it’s like who’re you gonna listen to? It really makes sense, it feels very organic, from that perspective." - Mike Chen, Beyond the Blast Doors, 2021

... and it's clear my arguing "unreliable narration" would just be me expressing a headcanon.

2. "Mace represents everything wrong with the Jedi"

Then, another argument I heard once is that he embodies everything wrong with the Jedi Order. As said in this comment here:

Wow, that's a whole bunch of hate hurled in Mace's direction.

Also inaccurate.

The fact is, Mace is - like most Jedi - a space shaolin/buddhist monk. He's incredibly wise and spiritual as heck. But when it comes to it, he's a no-bullshit kind of guy, especially when considering the Jedi being forced into a war.

As Samuel L. Jackson put its:

"Mace is a voice of reason. He thinks before he speaks. He's pretty calculating, mostly even-tempered, and he's not to be trifled with. He knows that the war is coming and he has a pretty good idea who is behind it. [...] Mace Windu has known Obi-Wan Kenobi for a very long time. Mace was a contemporary of Qui-Gon Jinn. He understood his faults and admired his qualities and can see that Obi-Wan has taken on some of Qui-Gon's strongheadedness by wanting to train Anakin Skywalker." - Samuel L. Jackson, as reported in Star Wars Insider: The Skywalker Saga Collector’s Edition, 2021

That doesn't mean Mace isn't compassionate or empathetic. On the contrary:

Here’s Mace taking down a criminal who was using child soldiers.

See that teenager who shoots at him in the final panels? At the end of the comic, he tries to have her freed.

Then, here’s Mace going out of his way to save a Twi'lek girl.

And this post, right here, lists a ton of examples of Mace putting others before himself in The Clone Wars.

Oh, you wanna go Legends? Let's go Legends.

Here’s Mace before and after saving an old lady from thugs.

Here’s Mace being kind to a starving Sith worshipper who tried to start a mob to kill them, choosing talk and mercy over violence.

Here's Mace praising Anakin!

One time, Obi-Wan almost died on a mission. Mace stayed by Anakin's side the whole time Obi-Wan was undergoing surgery.

Here’s Mace calmly agreeing to disagree with a Jedi who thinks the Order shouldn’t have joined the Clone War.

Hell, here’s Mace being nice to animals.

Mace Windu embodies everything right about the Jedi Order.

3. Misc "arguments"...

A number of silly, small things I hear sometimes:

"Oh he called her 'citizen' what an asshole!" He refers to her the same way she referred to herself. Ahsoka's been gone for months she doesn't have context and letting her into the fold in that particular instant would spell disaster. It's not personal, Mace even gives her a respectful nod before the call ends.

Then there's:

"Mace never apologized for the way the Council treated Ahsoka!" Because Plo Koon apologized on behalf of the whole Council.

“You have OUR most humble Ahsoka.” Plural. He’s speaking for all of them, nobody contradicts him, thus showing they agree. It’s a 22-minute TCW episode, they’re not gonna have each Council member apologize individually. It’s common sense. I'd also hazard that the "this was your real trial" line lingered from the first draft of the script as originally, Ahsoka didn't leave the Order at the end of "The Wrong Jedi" and prolly got promoted to Jedi Knight.

Also:

"Mace Windu once believed himself to be the Chosen One, he was jealous of Anakin!"

Uh... I'm just gonna post this one again...

Then there's this one I read which just made me cringe:

*sigh*

Yeah that TOTALLY sounds like something Mace “You Can’t Kill The Zillo Beast 'Cause It’s An Innocent Living Creature” Windu would do.

Intentionally leading his Jedi brothers to slaughter is so typical Mace “Get The Men To Safety While I Risk My Life For Them” Windu behavior.

So, why do some fans not like him?

I honestly dunno.

The only other reason I can think of (like the other Jedi, he's not as flawed as Anakin, some see him and the Jedi as holier than thou, he's nothing like Luke Skywalker) is explored more in detail here:

#Mace Windu #Samuel L. Jackson #In Defense of the Jedi #Jedi Order #Jedi Positivity #jedi order #meta #anakin skywalker #star wars #Master Windu #long post #this one was a long time coming!

[eagna-eilis]

Ach-To and Irish Archaeology

The sequels were my entry into Star Wars and I never would have gone to see The Force Awakens if I wasn't an archaeology nerd.

During the production of Episode VII, a decent number of people with an interest in our archaeological heritage here in Ireland were quite worried about the impact of filming on one of our only two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the island known as Skellig Michael down off the coast of Kerry.

I went to the film to see if any potential damage was worth it, or if they'd do something unspeakably stupid with it in-universe. I wanted to see if it was respected.

And holy hell I was NOT disappointed. I think I walked out of TFA sniffling to myself about how beautiful the Skellig looked and how it seemed like its use as a location was not just respectful but heavily inspired by its real history.

See, Skellig Michael was a monastic hermitage established at a point when Christianity was so new that the man who ordered its founding sometime in the first century CE was himself ordained by the Apostle Paul. The fellah from the Bible who harassed all and sundry with his letters, THAT Apostle Paul. This is how old a Christian site the Skellig is. It predates St. Patrick by at the very least two hundred years.

The steps we watch Rey climb were originally cut NEARLY TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO. They have been reworked and repaired many many times since, of course. Still, the path the camera follows Daisy Ridley up is as much an ancient path built by the founders of a faith in real life as it is in the movies.

A hermitage was a place where monks went to live lives of solitude and asceticism so as better to achieve wisdom. The practice is common to many of the major world religions, including the myriad East Asian faiths which inspired the fictional Jedi.

It is said that the hermitage and monastery were originally built with the purpose of housing mystical texts belonging to the Essanes, one of the sects of Second Temple Judaism which influenced some of the doctrines of Christianity. They also, according to what I have read, characterised good and evil as 'light' and 'darkness' and were celibate.

As such, the use of the island in TFA and TLJ does not merely respect Skellig Michael's history, it honours it. It is framed as somewhere ancient and sacred, which it is. It is framed as a place where a mystic goes to live on his own surrounded by nature that is at once punishing and sublime, which of course it was. It shown to be a place established to protect texts written at the establishment of a faith, which it may well have been.

This level of genuine respect for my cultural heritage by Rian Johnson in particular is astonishing. I don't think anyone from outside the US ever really trusts Americans not to treat our built history like it's Disneyland. Much of the incorporation of the Skellig's real past into a fictional galactic history occurs in TLJ, which is why I'm giving Rian so much credit.

It's Luke's death scene which makes the honouring of Irish archaeological history most apparent though.

Johnson takes the archaeological iconography back a further three thousand years for his final tribute to my culture's beautiful historical temples. This time, he incorporates neolithic passage tomb imagery, specifically that of Newgrange, which is up the country from the Skellig.

I think if you understand what the image represents then it makes a deeply emotional scene even more resonant.

The scene I'm referring to is Luke's death.

As he looks to the horizon, to the suns, we view him from the interior of the First Jedi Temple. The sunset aligns with the passageway into the ancient sanctuary, illuminating it as he becomes one with the Force.

As for Newgrange, every year during the Winter Solstice it aligns with the sunrise. The coldest, darkest, wettest, most miserable time of the year on a North Atlantic island where it is often cold, wet, and miserable even in the summer. And the sun comes up even then, and on a cloudless morning a beam of sunlight travels down the corridor and illuminates the chamber inside the mound.

You guys can see this, right? The similarity of the images? The line of light on the floor?

Luke's death scene is beautiful but I think it's a thousand times more moving with this visual context. Luke's sequel arc isn't merely populated by a lore and iconography that honour the place where the end of his story was filmed, I think that incorporation of that history and mythology honours Luke.

We don't know for sure what the Neolithic people believed, religion-wise. We know next to nothing about their rituals. We know that there were ashes laid to rest at Newgrange. There is some speculation that the idea was that the sun coming into the place that kept those ashes brought the spirits of those deceased people over to the other side.

It's also almost impossible not to interpret the sunlight coming into Newgrange as an extraordinary expression of hope. If you know this climate, at this latitude, you know how horrible the winter is. We don't even have the benefit of crispy-snowwy sunlit days. It's grey and it's dark and it's often wet. And every single year the earth tilts back and the days get long again.

The cycle ends and begins again. Death and rebirth. And hope, like the sun, which though unseen will always return. And so we make it through the winter, and through the night.

As it transpired the worries about the impact of the Star Wars Sequels upon Skellig Michael were unfounded. There was no damage caused that visitors wouldn't have also caused. There also wasn't a large uptick in people wanting to visit because of its status as a SW location, in part I think because the sequels just aren't that beloved.

But they're beloved to me, in no small part because of the way they treated a built heritage very dear to my heart. I think they deserve respect for that at the least.

#star wars meta #ach-to #irish history #Irish Archaeology #first jedi temple #skellig michael #newgrange #luke skywalker #the last jedi #early christianity #neolithic #historical parallels in star wars #star wars and history #star wars and mythology #star wars and archaeology

[dreamlandcreations]

Turning point

vampire!Aleksander Morozova x Reader (A Discovery of Witches AU)

Summary: You are the brightest student he ever met and after he reveals his true nature he can't refuse your request to make you his to let you take part in the experiments for a cure...

Warnings: I have only seen a few episodes of DoW, mention of death, blood drinking, height difference, age difference, idk?, reader basically offering up to be a lab rat but not really, another idea for another series, soooo basically a teaser... and angst (how did this teasing almost fluffy idea get so f–cking angsty?!?!)

He didn't know what he was expecting from the handful of students he just revealed to the truth about the existence of his kind. It's not like he had much to lose, as Genya so politely put it. They were running out of time and despite David's undeniably genius approach and progress so far, it wasn't enough.

Aleksander was carefully inspecting the faces of the students. At first, most of them thought they were joking but after the realisation hit and they started to accept what he was saying, only a few of them were still afraid, but most of them turned into knowledge-seeking academics with hundreds of questions. By the end, everyone has been swept away into learning more about them. Everyone, except you.

That hint of amusement hadn't left your expression since he uttered the word vampire. It didn't take Aleksander long to realise that you already knew.

After living such a long life as he has, not much could surprise him anymore. So it always baffled him when you did just that, no matter how many times it happened before, with the first occasion being the moment you met. However, he was never as perplexed as of now, looking at you with countless questions of his own while he did his best to answer the other students.

With the session finally coming to an end, you approached him and started to speak for the first time today.

"You know you need more samples." It was not an observation but an offer, maybe even a request and your cool tone makes his control snap in a second.

"You knew." He practically growls the accusation and the sound sends a chill along your spine but a gasp later you continue to defy and taunt him, never one to back down.

"Yes?" The answer, with the mockingly raised eyebrow, sounds more like a question, a 'so what?' of sorts and it breaks down another wall in his carefully crafted walls.

Aleksander moves quicker than your eyes could process, standing an inch away from you, grabbing the back of your neck and forcing you to look up at him.

It's a warning but despite your racing heart, you are not afraid.

"What do you think you'll get by this?"

"Time."

He scoffs and lets you go, turning away, trying to collect his thoughts and control his emotions while his instincts are clawing at him to do what you asked. Time. One of the things he still can't get used to is how little you need words to make him understand your meaning, like there's already a bond between you that would enable you to read the other's thoughts.

Time. Time with your beloved books and with him. He remembers your first real conversation, right after you questioned everything and argued at every point during his first class that semester.

You stumbled into him in the library with an absurdly big pile of books and somehow that led to a conversation with a moment still engraved in his mind as he felt the same claws tempting him to make you his that were threatening to tear him apart now.

He asked if you planned to read all that today and after confirmation, he remarked that it would be a long night spent in the library and you should take some time to rest. To which you replied that life is too short and if you had your way you wouldn't waste time on sleep when there's so much to do and even more to learn. The irony of that is you spent all those hours talking to him instead and when he playfully apologized to rob you of your time that you meant to use more usefully, you answered without hesitation that you couldn't have found a better use for it.

The yearning you felt for each other was undeniable from that moment but he would never act on it. His reason always won, until now.

"We'll take samples now and after. You can't deny the value of a new subject like that."

Your clinical approach was driving him mad. Like you didn't listen to him explaining to the students mere minutes ago how many have failed to be turned lately.

"No!" He growled again, at the edge of losing all control.

At your annoyed wordless exclaim, he turned back. His anger gone, tears forming in his dark eyes as he pleads you silently to stop asking for this.

"I will not risk it." It... killing you.

The unsaid words making you sigh in defeat. Or so he thought.

"I'm dying anyway."

The painful truth of your fragile humanity never hurt him more and that makes his last reserve crumble as you ask again, this time clearly stating your wish.

"Turn me."

He is facing you again, reaching out to cradle your face in his palm while he deals with the pain this fight and the though of losing you caused him. You lean into his touch, closing your eyes as he rests his forehead against yours.

"You could turn out to be infected with blood rage too"

It's not an attempt to change your mind, merely making sure you know what you are facing.

"It could prove to be valuable either way." For a second your comment makes him angry again but this time you are the one to grab him before he could pull away to lecture you. "And you would be there to help me."

After calming down, you prepare for the change. Taking all the tests and samples takes almost an entire day and you are exhausted by the end of it but you refuse to let Aleksander stall even for a few hours of sleep.

Once you are done with everything he takes you to his home and you stand in his bedroom, nervous as hell, praying to whoever is listening to let this work.

When he approaches you finally kiss for the first time and it's more than you could ever imagine. It's impossibly hard to refuse to let passion overtake you but you somehow find the strength to pull away. He gently lay you down, pressing featherlight kisses to your neck until you feel his teeth graze the skin and order him sharply to "Wait!"

He pulls away so quickly like you burned him but you don't let him get too far.

"I know I said I want to help with the research for the cure but if this doesn't work if I don't make it..." He wants to cut that thought of but you don't let him.

"Please." He sees that you need to say this so he takes a deep breath and lets you continue. "If I die, I don't want to be cut open. You can take the same test and samples as we just did but I can't..."

He does cut you off this time, grabbing your chin almost hurtfully as his expression says it all. He would never do that to you.

In an instant, you are calm again and nod for him to continue.

Aleksander repeats his previous actions but this time halts on his own, kissing your cheek in reassurance and whispering a command, a plea in your ear that says 'Don't you dare to die!' before his fangs pierce your neck.

"Come back to me!"

#aleksander morozova #aleksander morozova x reader #darkling x reader #the darkling x reader #the darkling #darkling #alternate universe #a discovery of witches au #🌎 #🔥 #🧸 #⚡ #my stuff #my fics

[bluedalahorse]

Hi! I hope everyone is doing well. I am popping up to let you know that I’m alive, that there’s a lot going on, that I still love YR, and that I’m thinking about boundaries and priorities.

I loved Young Royals season three. I especially love how it engaged with the legacy of Erik and the systems of Hillerska. I love that it took the idea of the legal system providing catharsis and that it threw that out the window. I love the way characters got words for what they were going through, how Felice got to name the racism happening to her and August got words to name his disordered eating. Most of all I loved the way Lisa wrote Sara’s relationship with her father and her reconciliation with Simon. That meant so much to me, and I can’t wait to imagine a future for the Eriksson siblings.

Here is a brief list of things I loved about the finale. They were all written in the afterglow of seeing the episode. I stand by them. Especially how much I loved Wille’s ending, and what happened there.

In the coming weeks, I’m sure there’ll be stuff I’m more critical of or don’t feel as strongly about. I especially have mixed feelings about the way Lisa seemed to structure 3.5 in a way that mimics the emotional roller coaster of trauma. I’m not really focusing on that stuff here or now, because I don’t want to. But it’s on my mind, and I don’t know if I’ll end up posting about it here and elsewhere.

At present this post isn’t rebloggable or tagged with much of anything. That’s because I’m trying to figure out the best way moving forward with tumblr. I don’t know if I want to delete this blog and abandon it entirely, but the pressure to present a curated version of myself is too much, and is a pretty big trigger for things like rejection sensitivity and anxiety. The pace here is also too fast and there is no way to keep up with everything, and (forgive me for this cardinal sin in tumblr-land) I wish I had some easier way to not see the same sets of gifs a hundred times with the same commentary. I’m experimenting with slower ways of doing fandom, where I can enjoy myself more.

I do, however, want a way to get the cultural footnotes for Young Royals, especially when they help me write better fic and create better fanworks. I know there’s some pretty darn useful posts about how lines get translated and various holidays and traditions (and looking forward I would like to know more about universities in Sweden, and how the monarchy works and such.) So I want to be able to find the stuff I need without having to spend as much time on what I don’t need. The resource posts people make are truly helpful.

And I also have some other fannish things I want to see here, like Les Mis and Interview with the Vampire. And the memes are nice. I miss the memes.

Before I make the decision about how I engage, I think it will be useful for me to know my priorities. So I’ve thought about them a bit, and I want to make the decisions that align with my priorities. Here’s what I want to focus on moving forward:

I want to spend more time creating. The thing that has always brought me the most genuine joy in this fandom is writing fic. YRS3 ended in a place of possibility for so many characters, and I want to keep writing about them and learning about them that way. (I won’t even lie, of course most of my ideas are about August—August and Kristina working on their intergenerational cousin relationship, August getting pulled into weekly DND sessions with Wille and Simon so they can all get better at being human together while pretending to be elves or something, August doing the personal and liberatory work that allows him and Sara to one day have a Second Chance Romance with they’re older, even August/Nils because oh boy did that season give me ideas about them I never knew I had.) One of my goals is to cut down on browsing time significantly so that I spend more time writing, especially so I can finish Heart and Homeland. I think it’ll make me happier.

I want to spend more time helping others create. Some of the most meaningful experiences I had in this fandom involved being a beta reader or hearing out another person’s fic ideas, and getting to live in that space of creation and collaboration. For that reason, I’d like to still make new YR connections on occasion, especially with people who wanna share their writing process with me. Tumblr may or may not be a place to do that. I’m still figuring out where stuff should happen.

I want analysis to be something I do as part of my creative process, and that’s it. I don’t know if this is fully true, but it felt like ten years ago there was more fandom meta focused on what fans wanted to write in their fanfics, and how their interpretations of canon led to them creating cool art. There was some meta that was about how to interpret canon “correctly” but that wasn’t the priority. Now, it feels like—and this is true even outside of YR fandom, so this is no reflection on YR specifically—there is more emphasis on having the “correct” interpretation of canon. About getting it right, and having the right predictions and interpretations. It feels competitive in a way that wears me down. From this point forward, when posting analysis, I’m going to ask myself, is this furthering my creative pursuits and my understanding of the writing process more generally, or am I just trying to win an argument? If the answer is just to win, then I’m not going to post my argument. That runs counter to my goals.

I don’t want to engage in any space where anonymous discourse flourishes. Even when well-intentioned. Being away for a while was clarifying for me on that point. Turns out one of the biggest triggers for my anxiety and shame are extensive, heated conversations where I don’t know who is saying what and who I can trust. Spaces where there’s a lot of anon conversation are probably going to be ones I block and unfollow first moving forward. It just seems like a good baseline for how I engage.

So this is where I am as of now. I’ll probably continue to hold off on doing much posting in the coming days, but I did want to poke my head up for air for a second to let people know what the state of everything is.

Here’s one picture of the plushes for the road:

And here’s a picture of the waffles I ate on finale day:

Oh, to have cloudberry jam and time spent with friends. These things are truly joyous.

#yr s3 spoilers #yr spoilers #yr season 3 #mostly tagging this in case anyone has those blocked

[angrymac]

season 16 macdennis

I can’t stop thinking about Dennis and Frank’s conversation in “Dee Sinks in a Bog”, where Dennis credits Frank for making him the way he is in regards to his coldness, repressed emotions, and everything with the murder hole.

Based on the particular arc that seems to have been set up for Dennis since Season 12 (with Tends Bar and Dennis’ Double Life), it feels like they are building towards something huge. It has been established that Dennis does in fact feel “big feelings”, and while he could’ve been acting, I don’t think he was, especially considering the RPG scene that directly followed.

Dennis has been repressing his emotions for an extremely long time. We see how his denial affects his physical health too, from his issues with food to his experience with covid. And then we get this moment between him and Frank that feels very intentional.

Mac and Charlie’s big cathartic moments (MFHP and The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain, respectively), both had to do with their fathers, and them finally letting go of their fathers. Dennis’ Double Life was a big episode, but I don’t think it was THE Dennis episode.

I believe that Dennis’ big episode (his MFHP equivalent, if you will) will be the Season 16 finale, in which he will finally confront Frank in some big way and let go of Frank’s expectations / judgments / worldview that Dennis confirmed in S15 that he still upholds to some degree.

Upon letting go of Frank’s (and Barbara’s) expectations, Dennis will finally be able to address the things that he’s been avoiding, such as his relationship with food, his own mortality and ability to get sick, and of course:

his complicated feelings

for 1 (one) Ronald MacDonald.

I truly believe that RCG are setting up an arc with Mac and Dennis, and my main evidence is this:

Despite 15 seasons of subtext, and 4 seasons of Mac being out and canonically in love with Dennis, nothing has ever happened between them. Charlie and the waitress have hooked up and gotten together multiple times. Dennis and Charlie even kissed onstage once.

It would be such an easy plot point to utilize. There are hundreds of ways in which they could’ve played MacDennis for laughs and had them kiss already by now. And if they weren’t planning on making MacDennis canon, I believe that they would have.

So why haven’t they done anything with Mac and Dennis yet?

Because they’re building up to it. And with Mac having gone on his identity arc in Season 15, put some distance between him and Dennis all season, and gotten a comment from Dee about getting a boyfriend, his arc for Season 16 seems clear as well.

Mac will move on and date someone else, and Dennis will repress his jealousy until he is able to let go of Frank’s parenting and finally accept his feelings for Mac.

And it’s going to be a love story for the ages.

#I’m probably delusional but I’m happier this way so #it's always sunny in philadelphia #mac mcdonald #dennis reynolds #macden #macdennis #charlie kelly #Dee Reynolds #Frank Reynolds #iasip #always Sunny #rcg #Mac and Dennis #Mac x Dennis #MFHP #the gang carries a corpse up the mountain #IASIP season 16 #IASIP season 15 #its always sunny in philly #Macdennis season 16 prophecy

[monstrousproductions]

🤩 Episode One Hundred and Ten is live! 🎉

[Image: The Monstrous Agonies logo, teal against a black background. The logo is a complex puzzle cube with M on one face and A on another in a gothic font. End description.]

This week, a listener trying to handle sudden changes in their relationship; and someone finding it hard to communicate…

Listen on our website, on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Full transcript available online.

Tonight’s letter was submitted by Darla and this week's advert came from Bug. Thanks, friends 💖

Lots of thanks to get through this week because we have been blessed with a glut of guest voices! First up, the gorgeous Dom Guilfoyle returns as the voice of The CEO! 🥰

Dom is the creator of @the-mistholme-museum, which takes its listeners on a tour of a museum unlike any other, and @tales-from-the-low-city, an anthology series about a strange underground city and the people who call it home.

We also have Elizabeth Plant reprising her role as Mab, and doing it with as much aplomb as always! See more of her work at her website, at www.elizabethplant.com, and find her on Twitter @CelestielleVA.

This week also features a little cameo from everybody's favourite wine ant, The Understudy, voiced of course by Sophie B. When they're not sploshing about in the bath whittering about Cats (1998), Sophie is a fabulous artist and illustrator. Find them on tumblr @aestheticcluttercore and on Twitter and Instagram @trashlordbarbie

Finally, this is the episode you've all (or at least, some of you) have been waiting for, which features the voices of Monstrous Agonies listeners! Thank you so so much to everyone who contributed, it was a surprisingly emotional process and I'm so glad to have been able to include you in the show! 💞

If you're enjoying the show, remember to sign up for a monthly pledge on Patreon, or make a one-off donation at www.ko-fi.com/hrowen. And if you're not in a position to support it financially, it's always a huge help to share your love of the show and help us get more listeners tuning in! EDIT - and in all the excitement, I forgot to say! The inbox is now OPEN for your questions for the end of season Q&A. Send them in via DM on Tumblr or Twitter, by email, through the website, or send an Ask right here on Tumblr - though if you send an Ask, please specify that it's for the Q&A and let me know what your pronouns are! See you next week at the season finale!

#monstrous agonies #new episode #podcast recommendations #queer fiction #horror podcast #advice podcast #queer creator #lgbt #writblr #short fiction #urban fantasy #dark academia #liminal #mistholme #the mistholme museum of mystery morbidity and mortality #tales of the low city #this is a big one i had to do Sound Design #and we all know how i feel about that #i hope yous like ittttt

[kerubimcrepin]

Episode 35 - The Gobbal Set

Finally, a non-heavy, light little episode. Thank god.

Their conversation is cute, their closed sign is cute, even they're both cute.

Never ask a woman her age, a man his salary, and Kerubim Crepin to tell a single story where he went to Brakmar, despite that seemingly happening many times, between, and those are just the ones I can remember at the moment, his and Lou's "slaughter safaris in Sidimote Moors" or having a rare sword from there.

He's trying to "disappear" all the occasions that may or may not involve Atcham out of his life, as if it's 1984.

He is so normal.

Kerubim would love NFTs.

I love you, Kerubim's Unspecified Adult Responsibilities.

Joris is so special for this.

I like to imagine, that as an adult, he publishes sad """romance""" novels under thirty pen names (lest anyone in his real life learns he has emotions)

They are, in part, musings on why one must imagine someone spending thousands of years of immortality happily, — the same way Sisyphus must be happy, haha.

If Kerubim and Atcham learn about this, he will explode.

He truly is god's strongest Kerubim apologism warrior.

I just wanted to include this because gay people.

He is so bad at this. It's very cute. I love him.

Let the traumatic flashbacks to Kerubim actually almost drowning commence:

I'm insane about researching Joris's psyche.

Is there anything you'd like to tell us, Joris? Does this make you scared frequently, haha? Do you think about this a lot?

A friend had recently convinced me of the headcanon that Joris has OCD (not that I needed much convincing. If you've read my fics, I uh... accidentally gave Joris OCD in one of them. Whoopsie.), and while it's mostly about his adult self, I can see him having inclinations/some form of that even as a child.

Mostly due to the "persistent scary thoughts of someone he loves dying," "being so upset by the concept of changing bedtimes, that is a Nightmare to him," "needing reassurance that his thoughts of Kerubim dying are Not going to happen for real," things, — which look similar to the way intrusive thoughts and thought spirals work, — as well as the "having so much anxiety compared to an average seven-year-old (due to Kerubim and the general home situation), that he sometimes still sucks his thumb while sleeping" thing.

He looks so peaceful here. Cute.

It is interesting that he values something that was quiet and quaint so much. I guess both excitement and the calm, are equally important to him. It makes sense, considering he keeps pivoting between returning to adventure, and then going on breaks again, during his long, immortal life after the series.

(From this show's quietude, to moving between cities, to settling down in Bonta for a little bit. Then, two-hundred-something years later, yet again, more adventures, and yet again, settling down in Astrub. Then in Wakfu, moving to Bonta again, going on missions with Joris, and complaining that he needs his retirement, while getting beat up heavily due to lack of regular training. His switching between these two things is so interesting.)

He's so funny for this.

#ep35 #ro liveblogs dofus #dofus #wakfu #krosmoz