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yellowsuitcase · 3 years

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Let me help you // Draco Malfoy

Request: heyy, I wanted to make a request bc I love your writting sm!!! I was wondering if u would like to do an imagine where the reader is on the Gryffindor quidditch team and after a match she is tired and Draco helps her shower or sth like that? maybe smut if you feel like? idk u are the writer and if u can could u include prompts 33 and 98? omg im sorry if this is too long honestly just do whatever feels confortable to u i just had that idea, thanks keep up the good work.

A/N: I started writing this soon after I received this request because omg the amount of smut I’ve been writing has been k i l l i n g me and I knew I could turn this into something super fluffy, so I did. It may not be my best, my wrist has been hurting a lot and my fingers do be swollen. But I hope you enjoy!

Summary: After an intense quidditch game, Y/N is really sore and Draco helps her wash up.

Warning(s): None... it’s super super fluffy :)

Word Count: 3.1k

Prompts: 33 & 98

Y/N stumbled into the quidditch changing room and sat onto the nearest bench. She was utterly exhausted from the match. Her team, Gryffindor, had versed Ravenclaw, and even though they had won, it was not an easy fight. Y/N was a beater; thus, she often threw herself in front of the bludgers to wack them with her bat. In this particular game, they had been tied with Ravenclaw at 70 - 70.

{During the game}

Y/N was scanning the field for bludgers when she noticed Harry had spotted the snitch and was chasing after it. Her heart leaped with joy until she saw it, a bludger heading straight for him. She zoomed towards him without hesitating and raised her bat to hit it away, but then the worst happened. Y/N dropped her bat. The Ravenclaw seeker was hot on Harry’s tail, and if Y/N let the bludger hit him, she knew they’d lose the match, and it would be her fault. So, she grasped her broom and slowly placed her right foot on the wooden handle. Once it was stable, she let go of her broom entirely and lifted her left foot onto the broom. She was now riding it as if it were a surfboard.

Her eyes narrowed in on the bludger. Just as it was moments away from crashing into Harry, Y/N leaped off her Comet 180 and landed on top of the hurling ball. She gripped the bludger tight and gritted her teeth as she was thrown around in the air. It was getting harder and harder to hold on, but then Y/N heard the cheers from the crowd; Harry had successfully caught the golden snitch. Gryffindor had won. She quickly looked around and found that the bludger was driving her towards the stands. Faced with only two options, Y/N held her breath and let go of the bludger. Screams and gasps erupted from the crowd as she fell. But no spell saved her, and she hit the ground with a thud. Her legs seemed to have taken the brunt of the fall, and her back was definitely affected, but luckily, the bludger had lowered her close to the earth, and when she fell, she only dropped about eight or nine feet. Still, her team promptly rushed over to her with worry in their eyes.

And now she was sitting on an old wooden bench, trying to gather the strength to lift her arms and begin pulling off her boots. Her teammates were already long gone since Madam Hooch had held Y/N back after the game to assess her. By the time the silver-haired woman had determined she was alright, her friends had already headed to the showers. Y/N sighed softly, slowly bent over, and began untying her boots. All while doing her best to ignore the pain. The knot was loose when she heard loud footsteps drawing near. Y/N quickly snatched her wand from her locker, just to be safe, and turned towards the tent entrance. A few moments later, Draco, her boyfriend, came bursting inside. He was terribly out of breath and stopped to put his hands on his knees and regain steady breathing. As his chest heaved, he picked his head up to scan the room, spotting Y/N instantly. A look of relief washed over his face when he saw her, and he straightened his back. “Thank Merlin, you’re still here,” he mumbled while taking long strides towards her.

“I’m fine, Draco, seriously. You didn’t have to run all the way back here,” she scolded her boyfriend gently, trying to convince him and herself that she was perfectly fine. But the Slytherin paid her no mind. Instead, he kissed her head, knelt down in front of her, and began untying her quidditch shoes. “I can do it myself!” she insisted. Draco raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? Alright then, do it,” he retorted while rising from the floor. Y/N gulped. She hadn’t expected Draco to believe her. But, she wasn’t one to admit weakness so easily. She took a deep breath and once again bent herself over and took her thick laces into her hands. Pain spread through her back, but Y/N was determined to prove Draco wrong. She started to untie and watched as the opening of her boot grew wider. Soon enough, she finished and tilted her head upwards to smirk at Draco. But he didn’t seem bothered.

“Go on then, take it off,” he prompted. Y/N stifled her frown and redirected her attention to her boot. She first tried to lift her leg up to place her calve atop her opposite knee, but once she engaged her thigh muscles, pain washed over her, and she quickly relaxed her leg.

Next, she attempted to straighten out her leg and push the boot off, rather than pull. She gritted her teeth and slowly raised her foot off the floor, holding it in midair for about two seconds before her leg began to shake, and she dropped it back down. Draco huffed angrily and knelt once again. “Must you push your limits every single game, Y/N? You can’t even hold your foot an inch off the ground!” he reprimanded as he slid off her boot. “Oh, piss off, if I hadn’t made that jump, we would’ve lost the game, and you know it,” she snapped. Despite his obvious anger, Draco delicately slid Y/N’s other shoe off her foot and started unbuckling her knee pads.

“Y/N, you got extremely lucky. If you had missed your jump, you probably would’ve died,” Draco reminded her with a scowl on his face. “You got lucky, Y/N. You probably would’ve died, Y/N,” the Gryffindor repeated in a mocking tone. Draco threw her knee pad to the floor and rose to his feet. “You’d better fix that attitude,” he spat while glaring at his girlfriend. “Don’t you understand? I almost had to watch you fall to your death. If you had simply lost your footing or couldn’t get a grip on the bludger, I would’ve had to watch you die.”

Suddenly, Y/N truly realized the risk she had taken. Draco was right; she could’ve really hurt herself when she decided to take that leap. She looked up at Draco and saw he was still quite angry. But behind the fury, Y/N could see the hurt in his eyes. A sigh escaped her, and she rubbed her hands down her face. “I’m sorry, Dray, you’re right. But I had to do something, if I didn’t then, we would've lost, and it would’ve been my fault. And what if Harry had gotten hurt? You know how people are; they’d be so angry with me for failing to protect precious Potter. I’ve already fucked up in the past, and I couldn’t—”

“Shh, shh. It’s alright darling, I know,” Draco hushed her as he sat beside Y/N and took her into his arms. “Look, I’m sorry for getting mad at you. You did something brave out on that pitch, and all I’ve done is berate you when I should’ve been congratulating you. But you’ve got to understand that you scared me, Y/N. You put your life in danger just to win a game.” Y/N turned to look at Draco, her eyebrows raised. “Technically, I always put myself in danger. It is quidditch, you know,” she said pointedly. Draco rolled his eyes and kissed her head. “You know what I mean,” he muttered. Silence fell over them for a few minutes as they leaned against one another.

“Come on, love. Let’s get you to the showers,” Draco said while rising to his feet. Y/N took his outstretched hand and winced as he pulled up. She gathered her belongings and walked with Draco around the corner to the bathroom. Y/N walked through the door, not expecting her boyfriend to follow her inside. “What’re you doing?” she asked accusingly. “Following you to the showers,” he answered plainly. Y/N paused. “But why?” she questioned since his reply hadn’t given her any new information. “So I can help you,” he told her. Y/N scoffed and shook her head at him. “I don’t need help showering, Draco,” she stubbornly stated.

“I think you do,” he replied.

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Y/N…”

“I don’t need help,” she hissed.

Draco sighed. “Just let me help you, darling. Please?” he pleaded with her. Y/N glared at him. “No,” she spat. “Don’t you have homework to do? I thought you mentioned having that Transfiguration essay to write,” she said as she gripped the edge of her jersey. “You’re more important,” Draco told her firmly. Y/N blushed and began to pull her shirt off, but she stopped once it reached her head. Her sore back screamed in pain; she couldn’t raise her arms any further. Instead, she resorted to wiggling and flailing about, hoping it would somehow slide her shirt off. Her arms began to ache, and she was about to give up, but luckily, an external force named Draco gently pulled it off.

Her boyfriend chuckled at her with a smug look on his face. “Now may I help you?” he asked, eyebrow cocked. Y/N grumbled to herself but placed her hands on Draco’s shoulders. He pressed a quick kiss to her head and stuck his thumbs through her belt loops. Slowly, he pulled her pants down and knelt on the floor to help her step out of them. Then, he did the same for her underwear. Y/N was able to get her bra off by herself since it didn’t require raising her arms. And once she did, she realized she was stark naked. A blush heated her cheeks, and she quickly covered herself, feeling self-conscious.

Draco laughed and shook his head at her. “Darling, I’ve seen you naked before. Why so shy?” he asked. Y/N nibbled on her lip and hesitantly lowered her hands. “It’s just... different like this,” she said quietly as she tried to push away her embarrassment. Y/N wasn’t naked to have sex with Draco; she was naked, so he could help bathe her. And somehow, that was more intimate than sex.

Y/N and turned towards the stall, ready to walk into it, but then she second-guessed herself. She glanced at the shower then back to Draco, not sure if she should wait for him. It seemed as though her lover had sensed her hesitation. “Start the water; I’m right behind you,” he assured her. So Y/N turned the knob and quickly stepped out of the way to avoid getting blasted with cold water. Her eyes returned to Draco as she waited for the shower to heat up. She looked him up and down as he yanked off his shirt and hung it up on top of hers. His now exposed pale chest and torso looked tempting, but Y/N kept her hands at her sides. She stuck her hand out to check the water temperature. It was warm enough, so she stepped under it, letting her eyes flutter shut.

Draco soon finished undressing and moved into the stall, pulling the curtain closed behind them. Y/N was wetting her hair when she felt a sharp pinch on her stomach. “Hey!” she yelped, opening her eyes to see Draco smirking at her. He quickly pressed a kiss to her forehead and rubbed where he pinched. “I saw you staring. You’re not very sneaky, are you, love?” he teased. Y/N swatted his shoulder and turned around to face the water spouting from the showerhead. On instinct, she reached up to rustle her hair but was soon halted by the return of searing pain in her back. Draco noticed this and gently put his hands on her shoulders, rubbing softly. “Just relax darling, I’ll do everything for you,” he said sweetly. Y/N huffed, still holding onto her pride. But then Draco’s hands landed on her head and began massaging shampoo into her hair, and an involuntary sigh of pleasure escaped her. She couldn’t remember the last time someone washed her hair for her; it felt incredible.

After Draco shampooed her hair, he switched places with Y/N. His back was now facing the water. He rinsed her hair until all the soap was down the drain. “You doing okay, love?” he asked, checking in on his girlfriend. Y/N nodded, too relaxed to speak. He switched places with her again and gathered some conditioner in his hands. “Y/N,” he called. She hummed in reply. “I think you should see Madam Pomfrey,” he told her quietly. A soft whine fell from Y/B's lips. “I know you’re only sore, but she probably has something to ease the pain.”

Y/N adamantly shook her head. “I’m fine, Draco. I don’t need to see her,” she argued. Her boyfriend sighed as he worked the product into her hair. “You’re probably right,” he muttered sadly. Y/N instantly filled with regret upon hearing the defeated tone in his voice. She really didn’t want to make a stop at the Hospital Wing, but she knew it would put Draco at ease. Reluctantly, she sighed and said, “We can stop by before bed.” A soft kiss was then planted on her back. “Thank you, darling.”

As Y/N waited for the conditioner to seep in, she turned around to face Draco, making sure her hair wasn’t under the stream. She kissed him sweetly and pulled him into a gentle hug. The Slytherin wrapped his arms around her and slowly began rubbing her tender back. Y/N groaned and let her head fall onto his chest. “My poor girl,” Draco muttered. “How bad does it hurt, love?” he asked. Y/N closed her eyes and pressed herself closer to him. “When I lift my arms, it feels as though it’s been lit on fire,” she confessed. Draco hissed and dug his thumbs into her back, trying to give her a deeper massage. “Same for your legs then?” Y/N nodded. “I think I really strained them when I took that jump.” Her boyfriend sighed and gently pushed her back under the water.

Y/N once again instinctively reached for her head and felt pain wash over her. She felt tears of frustration well up in her eyes, and she let out a soft cry. “I know, darling, I know,” Draco consoled. “It’s been a long day, let’s rinse your hair, wash you up, and we can go. Alright?” he asked. Y/N nodded as her tears began to fall. Her lover pressed yet another kiss to her temple and grabbed a nearby rag, squirting soap onto it. He squeezed out the excess water and gingerly pressed it against her skin, where he began rubbing. He first cleaned her arms, then began scrubbing her chest. When he reached her breasts, he very carefully dragged the cloth over them, making sure they got enough soap.

Y/N wiped her tears as Draco continued to clean her body. She looked down at him as he rubbed her legs. Suddenly, she noticed the fact she hadn’t shaved and was covered in hair. She was immensely uncomfortable with her boyfriend seeing this, so she attempted to pull her leg away from him. Draco promptly looked up at her. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” he questioned, a worried expression on his face. Y/N shook her head but said nothing. “Then why’d you pull away?” She averted her eyes and breathed in deeply before saying, “I didn’t shave.”

Draco’s eyebrows furrowed together, and he looked back at her legs. “Y/N, do you actually think I care that you’ve got hair on your legs? That’s perfectly normal, darling,” he told her as he pushed himself up from the floor. His eyes found hers, and Y/N felt her stomach churn. “I would never shame you or love you less simply because you have body hair. I don’t care if other people, or even you, think it's unbecoming. It’s a part of you, and I love all of you. Understand?” he asked, his tone firm. Y/N nodded, and Draco kissed her nose, making her giggle. “Good. Now, let’s get you all rinsed off, and we can head out of here, yeah?”

Y/N stepped fully underneath the water and let all the soap on her body wash away. Draco reached for her shoulders and turned her around so he could squeeze out her hair. He did this a few times before deeming it free of conditioner. Y/N then turned off the water and soon found herself wrapped in a big fluffy towel. “Oh!” she yelped in surprise as Draco twirled her around to face him. He smirked and began to rub her arms up and down in an attempt to get her body warm.

“Stay there,” he instructed her. “I’m going to find some extra towels,” he said. Y/N nodded and watched as her lover ran butt naked to the other side of the bathroom. She giggled and giggled until he returned to their stall and hastily threw a smaller towel onto her head. “Shut up,” he muttered. Y/N stifled her laughs as she pulled the towel off her face. Draco shook his head at her and tied his own towel around his waist. “Give me that,” he said, gesturing to the cloth in her hands. Y/N handed it to him. He placed it on her head and aggressively rubbed it against her. “What’re you doing?” she yelled from underneath the towel. “Drying your hair,” he replied. “That’s not how you do it, you git,” Y/N laughed.

“Well, this is how my mum used to do it when I was little,” Draco argued as his girlfriend continued to giggle. Soon, however, he removed the towel to find a messy-haired Y/N. “Cutie,” he whispered. “No, you,” Y/N retorted. Draco narrowed his eyes. “No, you’re definitely the cutie here.”

“I beg to differ, I am not.”

“Are too.”

“Are not.”

“Are too.”

“Draco!” Y/N whined. Her lover chuckled and quickly pulled her into his arms, squeezing her tight. “You’re the cutest, sweetest, most adorable person ever. Alright?” Draco asked. Y/N sighed and nodded her head. “Fine, I’m the cutest,” she agreed. Draco smirked and planted a kiss on her lips. “That you are my love. That you are.” A momentary silence fell over the pair as they held each other close. But then Y/N lifted her head and gazed into Draco’s grey eyes. He stared right back with unwavering adoration. “Thank you for helping me; I’m sorry for giving you a hard time,” she apologized. Her boyfriend smiled softly. “That’s alright. I’ll always give you help, even if you don’t think you need it,” he replied. Y/N nestled her head against his still wet chest and sighed happily. “I love you,” she whispered. Draco hummed and began swaying her left and right. “I love you too.”

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mrs-hatake · 3 years

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here comes the bride: chapter one

pairings: levi x female!reader + minor zeke x female!reader.

genre: alternate universe, illegal car racing, suggestive themes, arranged marriage, strangers to lovers, slow burn, falling in love, eventual smut, heavy make out sessions, hurt/comfort & fluff.

Prologue

A/N: aaannnddd we're back!!apologize for the delay but I've been super busy with japanese and suffered from a writer's block but we're here now so it's all good!

a huuuuggee thank you for my tumblr friend @petrichor-writes for brainstorming and proof reading this chapter :(

trigger warning at the end for a traumatic reaction due to the loss of a loved one.

this fic can be found on ao3 under copycatshinobi

“I can’t believe she’s doing it at a hospital of all places.”

“I think it’s nice of her to be so considerate.”

“Still, I can’t believe she’s doing it here.”

Y/N ignores the hushed whispers as she gracefully makes her way to her mother’s private suite.

It’s not like she isn’t aware of what they were talking about. Everyone working at the hospital has gotten wind of the spontaneous wedding occurring today in one of their few V.I.P rooms. And, frankly, Y/N doesn’t blame them. It isn’t unheard of nor is it uncommon for people to get married at weddings but to arrive at the hospital in a wedding gown while her groom, the priest and her family are all waiting for her in her mother’s quarters.

If the roles were reversed and Y/N was working at the hospital while some rich heiress was going to get married, she would probably be gossiping with her colleagues as well. She might even feel empathetic towards the girl if she discovered the truth behind her marriage.

Y/N glances down at her wedding dress.

She is wearing a pearl white sweetheart cut wedding dress with tiny specks of diamond embedded into the bodice of the dress. The dress is maxi in length and hugs her snugly, accentuating all of her curves. The train of her wedding dress is held by one of the nurses attending to her mother so that it will not stain. Not that the hospital floors are dirty, this is one of the most prestigious and expensive hospitals money can admit you in, nothing but the best for mother, so it is unfathomable for it to be dirty. Nonetheless, it is still a hospital and anything could happen.

Her make-up is minimalistic yet simple and it highlights her natural beauty, making her pleasing to the eyes.

Outwardly, she appears calm, collected and elegant but her heart is beating erratically, badum badum badum it goes, louder than any drum heard in a rock song. Her palms are sweaty and if she releases the colorful bouquet, sweat stains will be seen on the wrapping.

She is shaking like a leaf threatening to fall on a windy autumn day. Her throat is so dry that she wouldn't feel hydrated if she chugged a whole gallon of water. She feels lightheaded, as if walking on clouds and her stomach churns with the threat of unleashing all of its contents of buttered toast and milk upon her beautiful dress.

Click, click, click, goes her high heels, in perfect harmony with her booming heart and they both stop when she reaches the door to room seven seven zero two.

Y/N closes her eyes and inhales shaky puffs of air with great difficulty. The comforting hand on her shoulder from the nurse accompanying her goes unnoticed by her as it does nothing to ease her nervousness. A fleeting thought goes through her mind, she could turn around and she would run, lungs on fire, to the safety of her bedroom and would magically travel back in time to when she was a child. Her mother is healthy and Y/N’s existence is unchained.

Badum, badum, badum, badum and the door handle is twisted downwards.

When Levi was informed by his father that he is to be wed to the chairman’s oldest daughter and the heiress of Hoken, their partnering company for the past twenty five years, he felt conflicted.

Levi had been infatuated with Y/N since the day their fathers had introduced them to one another. The world around him melted, only Y/N appeared in the blank void he was floating in. She had a charming smile on her pink lips that made Levi’s ears heat up in embarrassment.

With time, he had noticed Y/N personality despite their brief interactions. She is polite, soft spoken yet confident and detrimental. She isn’t scared to back down from an argument yet never once did she seem rude with her eloquent vernacular.

Achingly, Levi is reminded of his mother back in her prime. When she ran Sicherheit , the insurance company his father is currently in charge of. He doesn’t remember much of his mother as she had been taken away from them in a tragic accident, what Levi does remember, is her fiery spirit whenever he had the opportunity to visit her at work. Though, unlike his mom, Y/N seemed tamer in comparison, kinder. However, that only peaked his interest in wanting to get to know her and see what she is truly like.

This is where Levi’s conundrum comes in. He wished he would form a relationship with Y/N through traditional practices; being friendly with each other, sharing contact information, going on dates until they slowly fall deeper and deeper in love, so deep it feels like they’re falling to the cold and dark abyss, though, it’s not cold and it’s not dark, for on the other side, is the most beautiful place they’d ever witness, a place built from their love.

However, after listening to his father’s explanation of this instantaneous wedding, Levi understands that he does not own the privilege to live out his fanciful daydreams. Levi must carry out the duties as the acting CEO of his retired father until he fully inherits the company through the merging of the two companies by marrying Y/N. His heart bleeds for Y/N, he knows the chairman’s wife is a beloved woman who is cherished by her two daughters. And Levi is quite familiar with the pain of losing one’s own mother.

Still, regardless of the order of how they came to be, be it in the traditional route of them flirting, dating and then finally falling in love or skipping all of the steps, Levi can’t say that he isn’t pleased with this spontaneous wedding as he will be marrying Y/N, the woman he had been infatuated with for two years.

Y/N is ethereal, is what his brain screams at him as she steps into the private suite in nude colored six inch heels and a long wedding gown. Levi’s eyes are instantly drawn to her shoulder length hair which she has it in a semi-up hairdo; one half is pulled up and the second half cascades down her shoulder blades in elegant waves, two locks of hair framing her face giving it a more youthful appearance.

And as Y/N steps further into the room, her father hooks his arm with hers and leads her to where he is currently standing, right in front of the edge of her mother's bed, and Levi hears the chairman's wife choking back a sob and he really can’t blame her because he honestly feels the same way. After two years of yearning and pining after the woman of his dream, he is finally able to marry her.

Chairman Masamune parts with his daughter leaving a delicate, yet lingering kiss on her hand. And if Levi had been paying attention to the chairman instead of his breathtaking bride, he would’ve noticed the tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. The chairman returns to his place next to Tsukiko who is currently filming the private ceremony on a handheld Panasonic video camera with a wide stretched grin.

The two of them silently listened as the priest began the ceremony, Levi is certain that chairman Masamune’s wife is joyfully weeping as she is finally witness to her daughter’s wedding.

Levi’s heart is beating louder, drowning out all of his senses. Suddenly, it feels like everyone in the room has vanished, save for him and Y/N. The beeping of the monitor, the chairman’s wife’s tiny little sniffles, the whirring of the ventilators, all of them were gone.

Only when the priest had announced, “It’s time to recite your vows.” did Levi feel everyone around him teleported into their little universe.

When they are asked to recite their vows, the ever attentive Levi doesn’t miss Y/N’s despairing tone of voice, a battle she had terrifically lost before she could even put up a fight.

“You may now kiss the bride.” The priest announces and an electrical jolt brings Levi to life.

He glances at the priest, as if to confirm what he had just heard, and the man subtly nods his head in encouragement for him to proceed.

Levi doesn’t allow his anxiousness to show on his face as he lifts his hands with firm steadiness to unveil his bride. Though, he fails to hold in a gasp once Y/N’s beauty is fully revealed to him.

She has her gaze cast downwards, but when she hears his gasp, as if he were strangled by some deranged man demanding him for any valuable items he has on him, she lifts her gaze up and locks it with his.

And what Levi sees in those eyes that he had admired so dearly, is the reason he hears a sharp crack onto his erratically beating heart.

Y/N’s eyes are soulless, as if this is the last place she’d rather be in and Levi is the last human being she would rather marry, like their wedding is the last thing she wanted, and he wasn't wrong in making that assumption nor does Levi blame her.

But god does he wish she wanted him.

He is in a similar situation as her where he is forced to marry someone he is barely an acquaintance with, though, the glaring contrast between them is that he is in love with her and she isn’t in love with him.

Levi didn’t expect Y/N to possess enamor when she stood before him on their wedding day, however Levi hoped that she would appear a bit more bashful towards this whole ordeal. Though, he supposes one of the reasons he had fallen for her was her honesty.

Circumspect in his movement, like a predator trying not to scare off its prey, he leans in and does not overlook the way Y/N’s muscles tense up and her eyes shutting tight.

Pain plunges deep into his abdomen at the reaction, however, he does not blame her. He sees the way her eyelashes moisten, a silent prayer for him not to kiss her lips.

A soft coo could be heard from his left side, where Y/N’s mother is resting on the bed, as he plants his lips on her forehead in a gentle yet affectionate kiss, which he hopes conveys all the love he actually felt for her.

After the ceremony, Levi and Y/N made their way to their new apartment that chairman Masamune had gifted to the both of them.

The drive there was silent, eerily so, though it did not unnerve Levi. His attention is focused on the road as images of their little wedding replayed in his head. After Levi had kissed Y/N’s forehead, soft cheers erupted and Levi could’ve sworn chairman Masamune had been silently crying.

Tsukiko had bought a small wedding cake, only two tiers, with orange blossoms scattered here and there. Levi took a mental note to look up the meaning behind that particular flower that Y/N’s sister had chosen specifically for the both of them. Though, he has an inkling that it has something to do with love and prosperity.

They arrive at their apartment complex and Levi is aware how deafening Y/N’s silence was during the ride. He kept glancing at her from time to time, to make sure that she was okay, and he wasn’t surprised to see her blank expression still intact.

Even when he parks the car and kills the engine, Y/N is as quiet as a mouse.

“Do you...Need help?” Levi asks with a small voice - it felt odd to use his normal voice when his wife is in such a state of silence - and gestures to her train.

Y/N's pout deepens a bit and she shakes her head no, exiting the car with the train of her dress bunched up in her hands and she closes the car door with her hip- a bit loudly and perhaps in irritation though Levi but said nothing quirking an eyebrow - and goes to wait for him at the lobby.

Their new home is on the eighth floor and lights were switched off when Levi unlocked the door, allowing his wife to access, without bothering to switch on the lights.

Levi holds back the sigh that’s threatening to break through and flicks the light switch. To both of their surprise, their apartment has already been furnished in a modern-esque design with a dash of color.

The living room is located at the end of the entrance hall on the right and when Levi rounds the corner, he sees Y/N hunched in front of the coffee table, where a bouquet of red roses is on the centre of the glass top, and is reading a card in her hand.

Levi contemplates coming up behind her to read the card, though, he instantly dismisses the thought when he remembers how invasive that would be of him.

He leaves her be for now and continues to explore his new home.

As Levi wanders around the apartment, Y/N glances down at the card in her hand and rereads it again, a heavy and anguished sigh silently escaping her lips.

Congratulations on your wedding, Y/N. I’m sorry I couldn’t attend, i bet you looked gorgeous as always.

Your bags have been packed for your trip tomorrow. I’ll watch over your apartment while you’re gone.

Have fun!

With love,

Yukiko

Yukiko was Y/N’s nanny while growing up. She had been charged with her care for as long as Y/N could remember. Both her and her sister had their own nannies that watched over them while their parents were busy. Yukiko and Mei were like mothers to Y/N and her sister.

Her mother had informed her before her wedding day that nanny Yukiko would be staying in the same apartment complex as her and Levi, just one level below, and she will be taking care of their home during the day and will return to her own kids at night.

Placing the card on the glass table, Y/N sits up and guesses her way to her bedroom, dreading the night ahead.

The new home that Mr. Fujikawa has provided for them is luxurious but it has that oddly homey feel to it. As of now, his favorite place is the kitchen. He doesn’t know how to cook but the lavishness of it bubbles his blood with excitement, bringing a slight smile to his face as his head fills with images of him cooking his and Y/N’s meals.

He opens the fridge and it fuels the excitement within him even more as it is filled with all sorts of food and drinks. The cabinets are filled with colorful spices, plates and glasses in different shapes and sizes and some had coffee and an assortment of cereal. Levi scrunches his nose at the boxes of wheat and artificial honey flavor.

Levi easily spots the guest bathroom, glancing in, he is impressed by the size of it. It’s so big it has space for a shower stand, a bathtub, a state of the art toilet and a porcelain sink with a very large mirror above. If this is the guest bathroom, he can’t imagine what the bathroom in the master bedroom would look like.

Overall, the apartment is spacious, furnished and most importantly; clean to Levi’s relief, though his inner germaphobe urges him to clean it himself as soon as he is able to. He subtly nods his head.

All that there is for him to see is the master bedroom and a guest room. He peeks his head into the guest bedroom and is satisfied by the sheer simplicity of it. Though, he takes note how bare the guest bedroom is and is conflicted by whether it being unfurnished is a good or a bad thing. On one hand, it’s good that it’s in such a state so that their guests could decorate it how they see fit. Yet on the other hand, it’s bad because what if they had an emergency where someone needed to stay and they didn’t have any blankets or pillows to give to them? Levi makes a mental note to purchase extra blankets, bed sheets and pillows to keep inside the closet for future reference.

Stepping out of the room, he almost runs into Y/N but he quickly steadies himself and gestures for her to go right ahead. He rubs his temple when she walks by, Levi had seriously underestimated the difficulties of a one sided love marriage. Well, it’s one sided to him as Y/N is mostly likely unaware of his true feelings. She probably believes that this whole marriage is loveless and is nothing but a business transaction, though that brings a deep frown to his face.

Levi refrains from sighing and follows after his wife… until he accidentally bumps into her. He ignores the annoyed look thrown his way and peers into whatever thing that has his wife standing in the middle of the doorway.

Ah yes, one bed.

Glancing at his wife, he doesn’t miss the way her shoulders are tense and apprehensiveness glimmers in her eyes.

Clearing his throat to bring attention to himself, Levi smoothly says, “I’ll take the couch until they furnish the guest bedroom.”

The way Y/N instantly relaxes, shoulders sagging, fills Levi with disappointment. He understands why Y/N feels uncomfortable sharing a bed with him, he is a stranger to her after all. Though, Levi had that glimmer of hope that maybe Y/N would be okay with performing the basics of marriage.

He brushes past her, he could practically feel Y/N’s eyes on him as he walked, her intense stare is burning him alive and it makes his skin crawl as he collects his nightwear that he had sent to the apartment as per Mr. Fujikawa’s instructions. This time, he silently sighs.

Once Levi leaves the bedroom and makes a beeline to the living room, Y/N let’s go of a breath she hadn't noticed she was holding. She closes the bedroom door and leans against it, head tilted backwards until the top of her head brushes against the wooden door.

She should feel guilty that her husband will be sleeping on the couch but since he was the one who offered it, then it’s not her problem.

So, why did she feel a sharp pain in her heart when she glanced at the empty bed?

The hotel they arrive at - after taking a two hour flight at nine am sharp - is small in size and is designed similarly to traditional Japanese houses with a genkan entrance hall and Shōji partitions, no doubt an ideal lodging for foreigners who romanticize Japan.

The soft thud of the tatami floors as the bellboy places their luggages is deafening.

It was eerily silent and Y/N briefly wonders if the young adolescent is aware of Y/N’s distaste in Levi and the fact that she isn’t quite satisfied with the marriage. She bets that he’s going to gossip about them in the staff room.

Y/N leaves the unpacking to Levi and heads straight to the window which overlooks the hilltop the hotel is built on. The red leaves of the forest below stretches for miles into the horizon. If they hadn’t driven through that very forest in the minivan the hotel provided to pick them up from the airport, Y/N would’ve believed that the hotel was sailing through a sea of blood.

Rummaging through her purse for her phone, she snaps a couple of snapshots and sends it to the family group chat.

Instantly, she received a reply.

What a breathtaking view!!

Send us pictures of you and Levi!!

Read her mother’s messages, probably written and sent with the help of Tsukiko.

Withholding the urge to roll her eyes and sigh heavily, Y/N responds.

We’re a bit tired from our flight 😔 but i’ll make sure to send some pics later 😊

Levi and Y/N have their first lunch together as a married couple at the garden located behind the hotel. It is dangerously close to the cliff edge but there are railings for people’s safety and, honestly, the view is just breathtaking.

Their menu is the standard Japanese cuisine, it is quite expensive but considering their honeymoon expenses are paid by her father, the cost didn’t concern them.

Levi and Y/N are seated at the honeymoon table, under the shade of a large Rowan tree. The wind passing through the branches made the red leaves seem like they were murmuring.

Once the two had placed their order, their waiter politely smiles at them and asks, “May I take your picture?”

Y/N is going to refuse when Levi beats her to it and agrees. She would’ve thrown a nasty stare his way if the waiter wasn’t there.

The tall waiter holds Levi’s iPhone and angles it how he sees fit...only to frown and glance over the device, “Scootch a little bit closer, please.” He motions with his hand for the two to lean in.

Working a corporate job where Y/N had to meet countless clients everyday and hold meetings with several businessmen had taught her how to excel a fake, yet authentic, bright smile. She makes sure to fake a look of affection as she can feel Levi lean silently into her.

The camera clicks and the waiter coos for another picture because they looked absolutely adorable. “Put your arm around her and ma’am, please show me something. You’re too beautiful to have a closed lip smile.”

Y/N’s eye twitched at the requests of the waiter and she thought about complaining to the manager but she did as told and allowed for Levi to hover his arm over her shoulder. She is certain that he could sense the way her body tenses in response to his close vicinity but she ignores it.

Y/N isn’t doing it for appearance sake or to be considerate of Levi’s feelings, on the contrary, she doesn’t give a flying fuck what other people, especially Levi, would have to say about her. They could call her ungrateful for all she cares.

The only reason Y/N smiles into the camera, allows for Levi to be near him and pretend that the two are having a good time rather than the awkward atmosphere they’re in, is because of her mother.

Her mother who had given her the world on the palm of her calloused hands. Her mother had screaming matches with her father for her daughters. Her mother who had sacrificed so much for their future.

So, she slaps a smile on and poses for the camera.

“Gorgeous!” The camera man smiles after taking two more snaps and returns the phone to Levi. “You two make a lovely couple.”

The rest of their day goes about in a similar manner. Her mother had booked a trekking expedition with a group of tourists for their first day and they would constantly stop to take pictures. Y/N could feel the muscles in her cheek throb in pain for constantly stretching her lips for nearly five hours straight.

Seriously, she doesn’t understand why they had to take so many pictures and in so many places. They took ten at the temple hidden in the forest (She counted them herself), took a couple by the river (some with Levi), under the trees (Levi mostly took pictures of her which irritated Y/N but she couldn’t do anything about it as she is in a public space and going to jail is not worth it) and they eventually took a group photo at the end of their trek with Levi’s arm barely making contact around her waist.

She dreads to know what else her mother had planned for the two of them for the next three days, she groans.

Later that night, after the two had their dinner and Y/N sent all sixty five images to her family group chat - that Levi is now a part of- -and her mother blows up her phone with messages of how cute they were together and how glad she is that they are having a good time, Y/N encounters a dilemma- scratch that, two dilemmas, that she had forgotten during her busy and exhausting day.

Dilemma number one is that her nightwear consists of flimsy and see-through babydolls in pinks, purples and baby blues.

Y/N closes her eyes, sighs heavily through her nose, and curses silently at Yukiko for packing her luggage. Of course she would pack something like this. She had been practically praying every night and day for Y/N to get married so it is only natural to let herself get carried away by whatever assistance she believes she’s delivering.

Irritated, Y/N grabs the purple one as it is the darkest shade and rushes to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Levi had gone to the lobby to take an important phone call and felt like she’d rather be flung over the cliff than have her...husband see her in such a ludicrous piece of attire. If you could even call it that.

The second dilemma is that since they are residing at a traditional Japanese hotel, they have to share the smallest tatami bed Y/N has ever seen.

Actually, the tatami bed is large and spacious but to Y/N who is going to be sharing her first night in the same bed with Levi, it feels like the bed is small and it will force her to press against Levi. She feels a shiver rush down her spine at the idea of having Levi holding her in her sleep.

She would’ve cried at how her life turned out, but Levi would notice and he would ask her questions. Something Y/N did not want, thank you very much.

Just as she slips under the covers, their door opens and in steps Levi, who pauses at the doorway when he notices the bed and lack of furniture in the room. He says nothing and makes his way to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

Nearly half an hour later, which felt like mere seconds to Y/N, her heart thunders in her ears when Levi opens the bathroom door and stands at the edge of the bed.

She schools her expression, not allowing for any hint of nervousness to slip through. Though, her breath hitches and her heart won’t stop beating loudly.

And just as Levi sits on the edge of the so-called bed, Y/N swears that her heart stopped beating entirely and she feels like she's about to pass away.

“I know this makes you uncomfortable.” Levi starts and Y/N resists the urge to raise a single eyebrow in surprise. “I can call the front desk for an extra bed if you’d like but I doubt it would fit.”

Despite the two staying in the honeymoon suite, it is still a bit cramped. The only privilege is that they have their own private bathroom and onsen. Other than that, the room is nearly the same size as every other room in the hotel.

Which is why Y/N shakes her head, surprising both herself and Levi.

Levi instantly recovers from that moment of shock and nods his head. “Okay. I promise I won’t touch you.”

Y/N nods her head in return and watches as Levi switches the lamp, engulfing the room in complete darkness, and slips under the sheet.

He leaves enough space between them, enough to let Y/N feel comfortable, but also without having Levi to worry if he is going to fall over or not, the fall wouldn't be too much, but he'd rather not.

It takes them a while, both holding their breaths in anticipation for the unknown before they slip off to dreamland.

Their honeymoon vacation goes on in a similar manner. The two of them would eat breakfast, engage in whatever activity Mamiko had planned for them, take pictures together and send them to the group chat, and end the night by the two of them going to bed, without uttering goodnight.

It’s their last night at the hotel and the lovely couple would depart in the morning.

Y/N is spending her last night in the private onsen - an activity she regrets not engaging in much sooner as it would have helped soothe her aching muscles- and stares at the clear night sky.

She feels a bit disappointed as she was hoping she would see a sea of stars since she never had the privilege seeing them living in the city but not having any light pollution from towering buildings is still something she is grateful for, the pictures of the night sky in her camera roll attest to it.

A rush of air escapes her lips as she submerges her body deeper into the onsen until the water covers her mouth. Slowly, her eyes flutter shut at the tranquilizing atmosphere.

Y/N is so relaxed that she doesn’t hear their hotel room door unlocking and Levi shuffling into the room.

He briefly glances at the bed and is surprised to find it empty, the sheets still made. He stands outside of the bathroom door, leaning his ear against it and listens for any movements. When he hears none, he frowns.

What if she finally built up the courage to run away?

He thinks but then quickly dismiss the thought with a shake of his head.

Just as he is about to call her, he spots the sliding doors which lead to the private onsen in his peripheral vision and pockets his phone.

He slides the door open, and somehow manages to stifle the slight gasp that was about to rip through his lips at the sight he is greeted with.

Y/N.

Naked.

And in the onsen.

Levi licks his lips, suddenly feeling them dry.

Y/N has her shoulder length hair in a messy bun, a few strands framing her exposed shoulder that is littered in moles and freckles, some big, some small, dark brown, light brown, they were endless.

There’s a tingling sensation in his fingers, overtaken with the urge to trace over every single mole on her body.

As if in a trance, Levi’s feet quietly move to the edge of the onsen, and he crouches down, hand stretched out ready for his fingers to lean in and poke the mole on her neck, when his phone buzzes in his back pocket and Y/N emits a terrified shriek.

She glances over her shoulder, and sighs in relief when she spots Levi standing behind her. Though, her relief quickly melts into anger and she hurries to turn around, back facing Levi, and undoes her bun to shield her exposed neck even a bit and wrap her arms around her frame.

“Pervert.” She enunciates loud and clear.

“I-I’m sorry.” Levi apologizes in vain.

When Y/N doesn’t respond, Levi rubs a hand down his mouth and chin and excuses himself to the lobby.

Y/N is angry. That much is clear.

She doesn’t take any more pictures the next day during breakfast before their departure, and doesn't even bother hiding her displeasure.

And Levi can’t really blame her.

He did step out of bounds the previous night. He broke what little trust Y/N had in him because he was consumed by a foreign and powerful spell, her skin called him like a siren and he ached to touch her.

He knows he deserves every glare thrown his way but Levi can’t help but to long for Y/N faking her joy during their short honeymoon where they pretended to be the happily married couple Levi had been fantasizing over since the day he had met her. It wasn’t true but at least it’s a thousand times better than how Y/N is currently treating him. Like dog shit she stepped on.

The second Levi and Y/N step foot into their apartment after a two hour plane ride and a thirty minute ride to their new home, Y/N rushes to her -their- room and is out of the front door faster than Levi could blink. He stares blankly at the door, sighs and plops on the couch with his head in his hands.

“Give her time.”

Startled, Levi lifts his head up and is met with an elderly woman that he had failed to see, too busy watching the angry storm that is Y/N.

“Who are you?” Levi asks, emotional exhaustion finally slipping into his tone of voice.

“Yukiko, Y/N's nanny.” She replies with a charming smile. She places the towel rag on the kitchen island and stares at Levi with kind eyes.

“Would you like some tea?”

The boiling anger inside of Y/N slowly cools down as she recklessly drives her way to the hospital. She is aware that she is being irrational with her anger, knows that as a couple they will have to see each other naked eventually, but she wishes it was a different situation. She sacrificed her own happiness for her mother and agreed to be in an arranged marriage.

She understands that Levi did not see much of her nakedness yet she still feels extremely uncomfortable with the idea of having a strange man laying his eyes upon her naked frame. She felt violated and scared that he would somehow lose himself to his animalistic nature and be consumed by lust and desire to take her then and there.

She knows that she is valid in what she is feeling and is having a rational reaction.

Y/N arrives at the hospital parking lot and stares into the mirror to fix makeup that was ruined by the tears of frustration collecting at the corner of her eyes. When she is satisfied with her appearance, she smiles at her reflection and makes her way to her mother's private suite.

“Y/N!” Mamiko greets with as much joy as she could possibly muster. Even though she is extremely tired and Y/N can see the life slowly draining from her eyes, Mamiko won’t allow them to hinder optimistic spirit. She and Y/N know that she is a fighter and won’t give up so easily.

“Where is Levi?” Her mother asks when she fails to see her son-in-law.

“He’s home.” Y/N replies. “He’s feeling a little bit tired.”

Her mother’s lips forms into a silent ‘o’ and nods her head in understanding.

Y/N takes a seat next to her mothers hospital bed and holds her wrinkled hand in hers, her thumb running across her knuckles and asks, “How are you feeling today? I've missed you.”

The soft pitter patter of the rain outside is drowned by joyous laughter emitted by the two women in the hospital room.

Mamiko is in the middle of telling the story about how she nearly set the temple on fire on her wedding day because she was so nervous that she accidentally knocked over a lit candle and watched with horror as it rolled around until the hem of her aunt’s dress caught on fire, the plump woman was screaming loudly enough to be heard from miles away. Everyone had panicked and Mamiko just wanted to crawl into a hole and die in embarrassment.

No one was hurt as, luckily, someone was smart enough to put out the Fire.

“Mom, you're such a klutz!” Y/N giggles. “How you manage to get this in life is a mystery I will never know.”.

Mamiko wipes a single tear as nods her head in agreement. “Honestly I mostly winged everything. It is some miracle you and your sister have reached this age without any major injuries.”

This makes Y/N laugh harder, her stomach twisting in knots but in a good way. She hasn’t laughed like this in a very long time and she misses her mother's stories.

Sadness threatened to rip the happiness from within her and nestle itself deep into her heart at the known future that is coming their way, a future where her mother is no longer in it. She is sure she would have been overcome by it had it not been for the nurse to knock on the door and open it to inform them that visiting hours are over.

Y/N leans in to kiss her mother's forehead and just as she leans back, her mother cups her cheek and caresses the smooth skin.

“You’ve made me so happy.” she says.

Y/N gazes into her mother's eyes, confusion clearly written in them. “What do you mean? I didn't do anything.”

Her mother smiles that motherly smile and replies, “I got to live long enough to see you married and I hope I live even longer to see myself as a grandmother.”

Instantly, tears gather at the corner of her eyes and Y/N chokes back on a sob.

“You’re going to see it happen, I promise.” She ignores the fact that she is lying to her mother but she can’t tell her the truth, that she is unhappy with her marriage to Levi. Can’t possibly imagine herself being sexually intimate with him and bless her with a beautiful child. She let her mother be blissfully ignorant.

“I love you.” Her mother sniffles in between sobs.

“I love you too.” Y/N shifts her face to the side and kisses mother's palm.

“Say hi to Levi for me.” Her mother smiles up at her, “He's a good man, give him a chance.”

All that Y/N could offer in return is a small smile.

Y/N returns home to her apartment and spots Levi sleeping on the couch with his arm covering his eyes.

A small voice inside of the back of her head tells her that she wishes that Levi had stayed up to wait for her return yet another voice, a louder one, is glad that she doesn't have to see Levi awake; she did not want to deal with him after the events of the previous night.

Opening the fridge, Y/N notices a plate of rice and curry that is wrapped up for her to heat up, no doubt that nanny Yukiko had made for her.

She contemplates on having dinner but ultimately decides that she isn’t hungry enough, still angry about what happened with Levi and feels a cloud of melancholy looming over her after visiting her mother.

She is happy that she had the chance to visit her mother after the honeymoon but seeing her mother weak and frail on the hospital bed ripped her heart into tiny little pieces. Her once strong mother is now a shell of her former self and her beauty is a ghost in the past that can only be seen in pictures.

Y/N unlocks her phone and scrolls through the photo album until she finds the picture she is looking for; the one had taken on her wedding day where she was hugging her mother and kissing the top of her head. She brings the phone closer to her lips and presses a long kiss.

“Goodnight.'' She whispers. “I love you.”

Come Morning, Levi is awoken by a loud scream.

He falls out of the couch, and bumps his head on the tile floor but when he hears that heart wrenching screaming coming from his wife’s room, he scampers to his feet and clumsily makes his way to their bedroom.

What he sees when he opens the door has his heart coming to a sudden stop.

Y/N is clutching a fist-full of her hair in both of her hands, tears rolling down and her face red as she continues to wail loudly at the top of her lungs.

Levi’s breathing quickens and his thoughts are clouded with confusion as he is unaware what he should be doing. Should he crouch next to her, gently un-fist her hands and hold her face in his hands and ask her what was wrong. Or does he remain by the door, wait for her to calm down and see if she would tell him what had happened.

Luckily, Y/N’s phone ringing made the choice for him.

He hears the melody of an upbeat song and follows the source of noise and finds the phone under the bed. He fishes it out and sees that Mr. Fujikawa is calling.

Glancing at the bed where his wife is still wailing, he answers her phone.

“Hello?” He greets, his voice shaky.

“Levi, is that you?” Mr. Fujikawa asks. Levi nods his head but remembers that the other man can’t see him so he gives a verbal response.

“Good. I was calling to ask how Y/N is fairing, but i think you also deserve to know. Listen, I'm not sure how to say this so I’ll be direct. Mamiko passed away early this morning.”

#aot imagine #levi x reader #levi x y/n #levi x you #levi imagine

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lightsandlostbells · 4 years

Text

wtFOCK season 3, episode 4 reaction

Kiss kiss fall in love? More like kiss kiss stay away from me.

I have to warn you. This is the episode where I lost it. I had to go back and edit so much unhappy capslock out of my notes.

Episode 4

Clip 1 - Het drama again

Zoë shows Milan a video of the shooting prank. Milan asks about romance on the trip, Robbe says there were too many people and too little privacy.

Senne and Zoë have tension because Zoë is pissed that Senne was partying? And that he was posting pictures of parties on IG when she wasn’t there? I mean … look, I’m never a William fan, but this seems like Zoë’s problem. If you can’t trust him to behave when you’re gone, you SHOULDN’T BE WITH HIM. And if you feel like you can trust him, this dude going to bars or whatever shouldn’t bother you. At least it seems to be portrayed as Zoë’s issues. Milan mentions that she’s jealous. He seems to like Senne, and I do find that dynamic cute so far.

I do appreciate that the Noorhelm drama this time is boring and not like “Senne was mad about how Zoë handled her sexual assault” levels of offensive.

That being said ... Robbe’s story. Where.

If you’ve been telling a very tight story so far, where Robbe’s personal journey has been steadily progressing clip by clip, then a clip like this wouldn’t be that bad. We absolutely have not been watching a tight story. Even with the next clip of Robbe doing some introspection, I’m like ... can we not make every scene count toward his story when there’s so much catching up to do? Ten seconds of Robbe looking vaguely troubled out of a two-minute clip that’s mainly about Zoë and Senne’s relationship does not count. A better writer would find some way to make Zoë/Senne parallel to Robbe/Sander, like how Noora talking about William and “if he loves you, he’ll choose you” in the first clip of episode 4 is relevant to Isak sitting there texting Even and Even choosing his plans with Sonja over Isak.

Clip 2 - Milan and Robbe talk gaydar

Robbe checking out Sander on Britt’s IG … finally, some cyberstalking. Did he take a screenshot of a pic of Sander? Lol.

Milan sits down and asks Robbe his opinion of a guy on Grindr, sexy or not? Robbe is lukewarm, giving neutral answers, Milan says he’s allowed to have an opinion on whether a guy is hot or not.

It feels SO WEIRD to have this clip so late, and I’m trying to like … recalibrate my brain so it’s not just because it’s later than usual. I don’t inherently hate if a remake changes up the order of clips. But the problem is that we’re now FOUR episodes in and it feels like Robbe’s sexuality crisis has just begun, I guess? Or rather, efficient storytelling would start out with this clear view of what Robbe’s issues are, rather than muddling into it a few episodes in.

Milan’s all, this guy says he’s not gay, but he likes to blow guys. This turns into a conversation about Milan’s gaydar and how to know if a guy is gay. In the original scene, the purpose of this conversation with Isak and Eskild was there as a way of Isak figuring out if Even was gay. That ... does not really fit this version, because this clip is so late in the season. Isak was getting Eskild’s wisdom right after meeting Even, when he had nothing but a BJ reference to go on. But Sander eyefucking Robbe while kissing Britt and leaning in to kiss Robbe should be pretty big clues to Robbe that Sander likes men, no? And that he likes Robbe specifically. Yeah, Robbe might be doubtful because Sander is still with Britt, but nothing new has happened since the almost kiss to make Robbe doubt! It would make way more sense if they’d adapted the opening clip of OG season 4, with Even texting Isak that he had plans with Sonja, into the clip prior to this one. If Robbe had texted Sander an invitation to hang out, or even just a “hey, what’s up?” and Sander wrote back “plans with Britt” then it would be an understandable transition for Robbe to have some doubt about Sander’s sexuality in this clip, like hey, maybe he’s not actually into me, after all.

The scene might make sense if you think about Robbe listening and applying Milan’s words to himself. Thinking about how there’s “something trapped in them that desperately wants to come out.” Wondering if it’s obvious to other people that Robbe is gay. It still doesn’t quite work and I actually doubt that was their intention (I think it was all about how to detect if Sander is into guys) but I am searching for any scraps of Robbe introspection, so.

OK, at least they had Robbe immediately look up Grindr (I laughed that he searched “grinder”). Good! Sexuality conflict! Why is it so late! Although it was probably more about trying to find Sander rather than a personal move on Robbe’s part.

This is a very gay song, btw (I Like Boys by Todrick Hall).

Clip 3 - Robbe and Yasmina talk het drama

Aaron talks to Robbe about sitting close to his teacher to see her boobs and the teacher saying she knows why he’s sitting there. I highly suspect this is just a dream Aaron had, unless the teacher said it in a pissed off way. Throw his ass in the back row, big-breasted teacher!

Robbe meets up with Yasmina. Yasmina wants to know the dirt from the seaside, Robbe fills her in. Soooo are they good friends, or what? He tells her about Aaron and Amber and they laugh and stuff. I mean it’s cute and all but like … where is this coming from? Did they become great friends in the S2 that I didn’t watch?

And that’s the whole clip … again, I ask what was the point?

To establish that Robbe and Yasmina are friends? Way to undermine the development and importance of that relationship by basically cutting through the buildup and hard work to the payoff. Sana and Isak meant more to people BECAUSE they started off prickly and grew to like each other and respect each other via their actions and words, right? That their conversations were more interesting because of their opposing views and resulting friction? That the friction was extremely relevant to the religion discussion?

Was the point to talk about Aaron/Amber and how Amber supposedly isn’t interested? We don’t need Yasmina’s commentary on that at all since we could see how Amber herself reacted to Aaron. Like if Yasmina was all, yeah, Amber couldn’t stop talking about Aaron, she says she doesn’t like him but I think she does, then I guess I could see the relevance of this conversation since it’s “new” information ... but it’s just the same shit we already know. And again: why spend so much time on a SIDE HET ROMANCE during a gay character’s season? Two of out three clips in this episode so far have been about side het romances!

This clip was just not needed at all except to set up Robbe and Yasmina so the impending religion conversation feels mildly less like two characters who have barely spoken on screen suddenly have an intense and somewhat personal talk. Something they could have done in earlier episodes instead of the other repetitive, unnecessary clips they’ve done this season.

Clip 4 - Dance chicks

At Noor’s dance performance, Robbe’s pals are drooling over the performers (and honestly being rather inappropriate and distracting). At least they got Robbe’s lack of interest right. Even though they have established this FIFTEEN THOUSAND TIMES with the lack of interest in Noor, like this clip almost doesn’t feel necessary at this point! If they’d had it earlier in the season, sure, but now it feels redundant. Like we really super mega get it by now that Robbe’s not into the girls.

The instructor thanks the performers at the end and Robbe says that he was “so gay.” Hey, except you know what? THERE IS NO BUILDUP TO THIS MOMENT. ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NONE. Except for the homophobic jokes from his friends in the previous seasons, but there’s nothing I can recall in this season. But more importantly, Isak’s similar comment was prompted by him taking the gay test in a preceding clip. Taking a quiz about generalizations of gay people, rooted in homophobia! Which Isak applies to the dance teacher! In order to distance himself from being gay! WE GOT NONE OF THAT HERE. For fuck’s sake.

There is no setup or reason why Robbe goes from being somewhat neutral about gay people with Milan asking him about the Grindr dude two clips ago - where Robbe is just kinda like, yeah OK, whatever, you think everyone’s gay, Milan (but he’s not overly grossed out or homophobic) - to this moment where he’s making a derogatory comment about a person he perceives as flamboyantly gay. This scene just happens because it did in OG. And the thing is, obviously you can attribute Robbe’s reasoning here to internalized homophobia. We know internalized homophobia exists and why he has it. But this is a scripted narrative, and any scripted narrative needs to have things happen for a reason rather than just because.

I remember complaining that Skam Italia had a bizarre take on this scene. But that’s nothing compared to the laziness on display here.

Jens is like WTF at Robbe’s “so gay” comment, it’s clear he’s not feeling it. I do like that Robbe gets defensive when Jens scoffs at him. They ask Robbe why he’s such a downer lately and if it’s because of his dad, or because of the Vlogs. Robbe blames the vlogs and yells and walks off, they’re confused.

Lol I just realized that I don’t think there was any followup to the prank from the seaside trip that had Robbe all pissed off. Nothing to show that the boys reconciled or that Robbe didn’t get over it right away.

I have a big problem with the way the boy squad is characterized so far, and it might be because they come across as more self-absorbed than other boy squads, as well as having a more superficial bond. I feel like so far they’re a rather cynical take on teenage boyhood. Again, not expecting them to be perfect or to be overly mature, but this show has to do a lot of work to make me believe they have the empathy or maturity to deal with Robbe’s situation kindly. (EDIT from the future: lol)

Clip 5 - Robbe and Yasmina talk religion

Oh shit, somehow I didn’t connect that dots that Aaron mentioning the teacher’s boobs would lead to THE boob teacher making an appearance! Unless there are multiple teachers with notable breasts at this school.

Another scene of Robbe not interested in breasts ... I mean, not to sound like a broken record, but this would have been good about three episodes ago.

The teacher is talking about religion and Darwininsm and creationism, which prompts Robbe to complain about how people still have religious beliefs in 2019.

Heavy fucking sigh. Have we gotten ANY religious moments from Robbe’s mom this season? Or from anyone else? Do the writers realize that Isak grilling Sana about religion was prompted by his OWN MOTHER’S religious beliefs and his fear of her judgment of his sexuality? No? Not surprised.

For real, Robbe just complains about religion out of nowhere … and like, obviously religious homophobia isn’t a rare thing, it exists. But it has not been established why Robbe in particular cares about the effects of religious homophobia, compared to say, the casual homophobia of his friends, or gay stereotypes, or gay bashing … we don’t know why religious homophobia has PERSONAL relevance in Robbe’s life. And yes, this is a concern for every gay person! But from a STORYTELLING perspective, there should be some focus as to what Robbe’s main fears are about being gay. Lack of acceptance from his peers? His family? Religion? Violence? Homophobic slurs?

I would say based on previous seasons, the most compelling basis for Robbe’s internalized homophobia would be the homophobic attitudes of his friend group. A revised take on the dance chicks scene might have been done with this in mind, but it wasn’t, and so it’s all just very muddled.

Anyway, Robbe goes on this tangent and asks Yasmina why she believes in God. The teacher voices what I thought and is like, why the fuck are you talking in class?

Again, there is NO BUILDUP to the involvement of religion at all. They have this shoehorned in friendship, I guess so he can ask her. He does bring up homosexuality at least, and how religion is so black and white.

Yasmina asks him what he believes. ONE THING they got right: they had Robbe challenge Yasmina on an intellectual level, and so Yasmina challenges him on an intellectual level right back. Because a lot of their dialogue is lifted right from OG, that’s why it works. LMAOOOO. Yasmina points out that homosexuality is an evolutionary “dead end” so therefore it can’t be genetic, so what is it? A disorder? A choice? I will also give some credit for her invoking the most anxiety-causing options to get under Robbe’s skin.

But the tone of their friendship does come across very different, because in the previous scene they seemed like good chums who had a rapport, and here it’s like Robbe lashed out at her for no reason, even less than Isak did with Sana, because Robbe just decided to torch his friendship with Yasmina out of the blue. I guess the answer is that Robbe is cranky so he decided to grill Yasmina over religion, but again, the fucking question is: why was he cranky? Two clips before this one they were on warm, friendly terms. In the last clip, he lashed out at his male friends, but that has nothing to do with religion. What the writers are asking us to do is basically just imagine all the stuff that’s happening in Robbe’s brain instead of doing their jobs and showing it to us. You don’t have to spoon feed us but you don’t also get to stick a few peas on a plate and wonder why we’re going hungry.

(REALLY. IT WAS NOT PROMPTED BY ANYTHING, NOT A TEXT FROM HIS MOM. WHICH IS WHY ISAK WAS UPSET AND LAUNCHED HIS INTERROGATION AT SANA.)

(CAUSE AND EFFECT, MOTHERFUCKER)

Clip 6 - Bowie playlist

Robbe is doing homework when Sander sends him a Bowie playlist. Robbe listens to Space Oddity and has a brief Moment. It’s very nice but wow, wouldn’t it be even better if Robbe fell for Sander listening to that? Say, in the last episode? Before they almost kissed? And before Robbe was suddenly declaring himself a Bowie expert to Noor?

Sander calls him, I like Robbe fixing his hair before he answers. It’s a video chat, gotta look his best! They have an actual conversation about Bowie and they flirt. Sander invites Robbe to the cafe later and Robbe is happy except then Britt is in the background and apparently she’s going with them, so it’s not a date after all, oh no. Robbe’s actor is good at subtly conveying his disappointment here.

Robbe hangs up and sticks his head against the bed (lol) and then goes back to Grindr. He immediately gets messages for horny sex and then gets rid of Grindr.

At first I was like, yay, this clip had a clear point and a sense of cause-and-effect, but now I’m like ... ehhhhh. Because the purpose of Robbe checking out Grindr is either A) so he can look for Sander or B) so he can check it out as a general way of exploring his sexuality (or both). The suggestion is that it has a lot to do with the former, because it was part of Milan’s advice as to how to find out if someone’s gay. But it’s a little weird here, because Robbe just saw that Britt was coming along to the cafe, so he should be discouraged about Sander. I mean, I think it’s still possible that he’s trying to figure out if Sander likes him because he’s getting mixed signals between the playlist and Britt, but it’s just a little off. And as for option B, I’m not sure why now of all times is the best time for that, like if you think about it, the sting of getting his hopes dashed should be the predominant emotion here, would he go straight to Grindr just to be like hmmm, maybe I’m into dudes?

And it bugs me because there is a super easy fix to this clip! Just have Sander send the Bowie playlist, Robbe listens to it, and as he’s daydreaming and smiling a bit, he gets out his phone and checks out Grindr, ready to search for Sander. But there are too many sex messages so he’s just like WTF and gets rid of it. Then Sander calls and they have this conversation that ends in Robbe being reminded that Britt is still in the picture. (Or he doesn’t need to get the sexy messages at all, I mean they’re kind of funny but I’m not sure they’re plot-necessary here.)

Noor texts him that they’ll meet up later. It’s not 100% clear but it sounds like she knew about meeting up with Sander and Britt, so that means Britt probably told her previously. Which is a little bit of different context from OG, because I was under the impression that Even asked Isak to hang out with them hoping that they’d be alone, and then somehow Sonja found out and made it into a group thing with Emma, making Even grumpy. With this it seems like it was planned as a group thing from the beginning, Britt knows they’re meeting up later.

Or wait, when Sander says he’ll give Robbe advice at the cafe later, does that mean Robbe already knows they’re meeting up? That would make sense because it’s what happened in OG (Even invited Isak in an earlier clip and then Isak found out Emma and Sonja were coming in a later one). They’re incorporating all kinds of OG elements in this episode so I wouldn’t be surprised. But I assumed that this was the invite because we didn’t see Sander talk to Robbe earlier this week? Shouldn’t we have seen that clip since it’s the first time they’ve interacted since they almost kissed? I checked the texts for this episode and I don’t see anything like Sander inviting Robbe, either? Did I just miss something? What is going on?

Clip 7 - Robbe is late to meet Noor

Later that day …. Robbe rides a bike. Very fast. The music is dramatic! This would not be out of place for an O Helga Natt scene

And yet it’s not OHN, it’s Noor? Noor seems annoyed. Because Robbe is late. OH NO THE TENSION WHATEVER WILL WE DO. WE CARE A TON ABOUT ROBBE AND NOOR.

Noor is super pissed at him and starts screaming and shoving at him. What the actual fuck? She complains that she thought he was dead or something and is mad he didn’t even send a message. She says fuck you and walks off. Robbe follows her on the bike.

I don’t know how popular this opinion is, but Noor did not come across as great here, like when I watched it I was baffled at her response. I say this as someone who is chronically early and also gets annoyed at lateness. She has every right to be annoyed that Robbe is late and that he didn’t message her to tell her he’d be late, and I get that there’s supposedly more to her reaction than just this one incident. But the screaming and especially the shoving at him is just WTF.

Also, she told him to meet him at 19:00, and the beginning of the clip is at 19:21 (I see what you did there) and Robbe arrives like a minute or two later. So he’s 20 minutes late, which is certainly annoying, especially because it’s dark and chilly outside, but IMO not a cause for “I thought you were dead or in an accident!” and the OTT reaction.

Clip 8 - Robbe and Noor fight

Sander and Britt are in the cafe, Robbe and Noor argue outside about him giving her mixed signals. Has ... he ...?

OK, I’d say I half-see her case, and I half-don’t. If Noor can somehow sense Robbe’s disinterest during their makeouts or lovey-dovey moments or w/e, then I can buy that. I think there are slight moments where he doesn’t seem into it. But Robbe has put so much more genuine effort into their relationship than Isak did. He hasn’t even turned Noor down for sex, really, they’ve just gotten interrupted every time, or she’s thrown up. He didn’t want to go to her dance performance except then he told her he would go approximately thirty seconds later. He went to her dance performance. He went to the seaside with her and kissed her and slept in the same bed with her. This is the first time he’s actually fucked up with her.

Noor sounds ridiculous right now. “Do you still love me?” Uhhhh what??? You’ve been dating for less than a month, really? Did he tell her he loved her at any point? I’m serious, is there some material I missed? Some nuance in the language that didn’t completely translate?

I get it, I’m watching insecure overdramatic teenagers! I’m just wondering if I’m supposed to be on Noor’s side here. They could have portrayed this less OTT and more fitting to Robbe’s actual offenses.

Anyway Robbe and Noor have a screaming fight in the street and he says he can’t breathe anymore because of her. I can buy that even if it’s dramatic because he’s feeling trapped by her due to his sexuality. She walks off, Sander and Britt come outside. Britt goes after Noor and hugs her, Sander sings Space Oddity to signify the crash and burn of Robbe/Noor. He has on a Pink Floyd shirt so at least his musical taste is more varied than Bowie.

Clip 9 - Robbe and Sander by themselves

Robbe and Sander drink alone at the bar, they don’t think the girls are coming back. Sander texts Britt and then tells Robbe they’re going to do something else. He shows him Britt’s text saying that Noor needs some time alone. I mean. this drastically changes the context of them going off together … it’s not because they want to be together, necessarily (although they do) but it’s by default now.

So they leave.

Yeah, I do not love what they did with this scene. It’s short and to the point but I want to point out a few things.

First, because again, there’s no need to break up most of these clips into such short, choppy scenes just because 15 or 20 minutes have passed in-universe. It might be exciting if you happen to be watching and following at the exact time these are being posted, but it also messed with the flow of the scenes and the build of emotions. Imagine if we cut off after Isak and Even left Emma and Sonja and then 10 minutes later we got them riding around on a bike. We’d missed that beautiful transition from the silent, empty room to Isak on the bike and then Head Over Heels kicking in. That’s one of my favorite moments in season 3 and it’s because of that transition. It’s because I was sitting there watching this uncomfortable scene and wishing Isak and Even could be alone and then they got to be alone and my stomach swooped! If you break up moments like those, there’s just not as much build. (Or imagine - horror of horrors - an O Helga Natt where Isak gets the text from Even and it cuts off after he runs out of the church and then resumes when he arrives at the school, so we don’t see his journey. You lose so much.)

Second, there is a curious lack of romantic/sexual tension in this scene. It’s there on Sander’s end, I think, or at least you can read it there due to his focus on Robbe and even some of his body language. Robbe, on the other hand, seems more upset that his girlfriend who he doesn’t even feel genuine attraction to has walked out on him rather than the fact that he is sitting next to the boy he’s crushing on, alone together, right before they share their first kiss later that evening. And it just makes me want to know why.

I don’t blame Robbe’s actor at all, because it’s the director’s job to tell him how to play the scene. But I rewatched this scene trying to be generous, and there is not a single shred of attraction or tension from Robbe toward Sander. He checks the cafe door when it opens, he asks Sander to text Britt, and when Sander suggests they leave, Robbe’s first instinct is to ask what if Noor comes back. He sits there moping into his beer the whole time. He doesn’t sneak looks at Sander. He doesn’t try to talk to Sander about anything except Noor and Britt. No banter, no discussion that’s focused on them, Robbe-and-Sander, you know, the main couple of this season (supposedly). It doesn’t even feel like he’s consciously trying not to look or interact with Sander because of the romantic tension. No, it genuinely feels like Robbe’s #1 thought right now is Noor. Does that make sense to you? It makes sense for him to be a little out of sorts due to the fight, but does it make sense that Robbe seems to have no perceptible reaction to being alone with the guy he likes? Does it make sense that they didn’t take this chance to throw in some romantic and sexual tension in order to pave the way for the kiss that is going to happen very shortly? Gotta say that I think this scene exemplifies my earlier complaints about how Noor was so prevalent early in the season and how Robbe/Noor was built up. Because once again, Robbe/Noor has taken precedence over the undeveloped Robbe/Sander pairing.

Finally, as I said above, the situation makes it so that Robbe and Sander are on their own by default, not by choice. Combined with the bizarre lack of tension, that makes this scene fall totally flat. There’s no sense that these two really really want to be alone together. There’s no joy in them running off together. Robbe actually seems reluctant to go off with Sander. And not even because he’s fearful of what might happen, ooooo things might get a little gayer than I can handle right now, but like he’d rather sit here and drink and think about his girlfriend.

It’s like they were concerned that Isak and Even were too mean to Emma and Sonja so they decided Robbe and Sander would only be alone because it was the girls’ decision to leave them, not the other way around. We even get that text from Britt so we know that Noor totes isn’t coming back and it’s OK for them to leave. I have no idea what their actual motivation was to construct the scenario this way, though. I would love to know. (The answer would probably annoy me so I’m better off not knowing.)

It’s little stuff like this that makes me want to sit down the writers/directors/whoever’s behind wtFOCK and have them watch scenes from Skam S3 and write an essay on the construction and execution of clips. Do some homework about timing, tension, narrative structure, and everything else that makes S3 work.

Clip 10 - Smooch time

It’s 21:21 so you know what’s happening. Also, bullshit! Why is this happening so fast. You haven’t earned this!!!!

Sander buys them booze. The Sander actor is very good, honestly. I like his screen presence. It is a testament to his abilities that this relationship is working for me at all, because it sure ain’t the writing. (Robbe’s actor is doing well, too, but the writing is dragging him down since he’s present for all this nonsense.)

This scene of Sander and Robbe drinking and riding bikes is genuinely good on its own and they have strong chemistry when they’re allowed to show it. They have easy banter and interaction, there’s a callback to the booking.com reference from when they met. Really, this part makes me sad, because I can see the potential here! If the writing was GOOD, if the story had a legit direction, if it was just better storytelling all around … this season could have been wonderful, they had the right guys to do Isak and Even’s story justice. Instead it’s like this one terrific moment in a sea of wtFOCK.

If they go in the pool I will roll my eyes. C’mon, guys, you DO NOT HAVE THE SYMBOLISM to do this scene. It had a meaning in Skam, in most of the remakes it’s just an arbitrary location.

Yep, it’s a pool.

Sander takes off all his clothes so he jumps in bare-assed, and Robbe laughs. Sander yells at Robbe to get in the pool so Robbe does a fucking striptease while Sander watches, more or less, and he’s about to get in the pool in his underwear, but Sander is like “all the way or no way” so Robbe takes off his underwear after a brief moment of hesitation and jumps in. So they’re naked in the pool. Cool cool cool.

Seeeeee, on the one hand this COULD be a moment of liberation, I could see it, taking off the clothes and jumping in as a representation of abandoning the stale hetero life or w/e. But I don’t think wtFOCK has built anything resembling a clear arc for Robbe, to the point where this act means anything, really. (Can you imagine Isak doing this in episode 4? I don’t know if it fits his character at that point, but I could at least be like, OK, this is part of his ~rebirth and I think we’ve built him up enough that this moment of liberation feels like a culmination of something.) I’m also not totally sold on the way they presented this, like we’ve got a closeted gay kid alone with his crush and the crush takes his all his clothes off and then Robbe takes all his clothes off with only the barest reluctance (but he’s not like … distressed or worried, just kinda like “aw, man!”) For some closeted gay kids? Sure, guess I could see it! But in the context of “this kid is struggling with his sexuality and he’s alone with the boy he likes and he’s supposed to be going through Some Shit”? Why doesn’t this have a bigger reaction in Robbe? Since they are drunk and not necessarily overthinking things in the moment, however, I will let this slide. Cynically I think this is mostly about trying to make wtFOCK Sexxxxy. I’m not a prude and I don’t have an objection in theory to a teenage couple skinny dipping together, but wtFOCK has a trend of taking a thing that happened in OG and going “How can we do this but more?” and these remakes know Evak is the big sell in fandom, so. They’re making it spicier. (EDIT from the future: Jumping ahead to later content on wtFOCK ... they very much are trying to make it Sexxxxy.)

Also, these guys just haven’t had a lot of buildup yet! And I can see like … rewriting this scene so the first kiss isn’t necessarily some epic release of a simmering tension and growing love, but more of a tentative, pivotal moment with a gay kid kissing a boy for the first time, and having the relationship grow from there. But wtFOCK isn’t doing that, it’s trying to do the Evak thing with the epic romance, and they haven’t earned it.

They go underwater for the breath-holding contest, Sander tries to kiss Robbe (Robbe’s eyes are pointedly closed so this feels like some unnecessary POV breakage) and Robbe shoves him back. He’s still in a good mood, though. They go back underwater and Robbe kisses Sander. Yay, I guess.

Lol, I don’t actually want to sound like a bitter asshole. The song choice is lovely! The cinematography is pretty good! And like I said, they have nice chemistry. It’s just that the storytelling has been so messy up to this point that I can’t get too invested. The very first clip I saw in real time for Skam season 3 was the pool scene - I had just discovered the show a few days prior, and I kept watching the clips on repeat. I could not get enough of this story. I really really needed those guys to kiss. Yeah, I recognize that at the time the story was brand new and this wasn’t the fourth iteration of the same pool scene and the sixth first kiss for this couple, and you really can’t recreate that feeling of not knowing what comes next in a remake like this. Still, I think that if the writing had just been better, I could have been happy and invested in this moment.

I also think that the pool scene in particularly has a tendency to get written in kind of a rote way in the remakes. Some of them have put their own spin on it - I had plenty of criticisms of Skam France’s S3 but I did enjoy their first kiss and I praised that they made up their own symbolism - but some of them have gotten so close to the original, the exact same banter, the interruption at the end, and it doesn’t feel natural for those versions of the characters. I’m not sure if the remake showrunners think that the original scene is something the fans want to see or if they’re being lazy or if they think the OG is just that good (which it is, lol). I don’t think any remake has been that faithful with their O Helga Natt clips, by comparison.

Anyway they get caught, yadda yadda.

Clip 11 - Morning after the pool smooch

Robbe gets up and sees Zoë looking at Senne, seemingly hungover, on the couch. She makes coffee to spite him since the coffeemaker is loud.

Zoë asks Robbe about last night and says Noor was at the door. Robbe doesn’t tell her what really happened. Apparently Noor looked like she felt bad. I don’t think I can handle more Robbe/Noor, guys. I appreciate that OG didn’t drag out Isak’s thing with Emma once he kissed Even, but I’m not confident this won’t happen here.

Zoë asks if he’s all right. Man, the most effective relationship this season is probably Zoë and Robbe? Which is fine! But like … boy squad ain’t great, Sander and Robbe aren’t well developed, they fucked up Yasmina and Robbe already, Milan and Robbe are way behind schedule…

What if the reveal were that Sander were in Robbe’s bed?

It’s not. Instead, Sander texts him as a cover of Space Oddity plays. Robbe has angst and blocks Sander on WhatsApp. Ohhhh my. Another thing I appreciated about OG? That Isak was all in after he kissed Even, and that the angst came from different places besides the typical gay coming out storyline of “kissed a boy, regretted it, went back in the closet temporarily.” Not that it’s unrealistic, just that it’s done so much.

I think we’re supposed to take away that Zoë saying Noor was there looking sad made Robbe reconsider what happened with Sander? Or just general internalized homophobia. I don’t think the latter is totally out of Robbe’s characterization based on what we’ve seen so far, although I wish there was clearer writing so it felt more like “Robbe has internalized homophobia that made him block Sander” and less like “????? internalized homophobia I guess.” Again, I’ll letting this slide because I can also rationalize it as him being a little drunk last night, and now that he’s sober he regrets his choice, even if I don’t think this is a great choice at this stage in the season.

Clip 12 - The heaviest of sighs

The subs helpfully gave a trigger warning for homophobic slurs so I knew this was going to be “good.”

Robbe is listening to music as he goes home. Sander comes up to him, smiling, wanting to know why Robbe blocked him. Robbe says to leave him alone, that Sander got him drunk and took advantage of him.

L M A O welp, this would soooo kill this ship for me if I were invested.

FIND SOMEONE ELSE, SANDER, YOU DESERVE BETTER

Oh, so Robbe also shoved him and called him a dirty f****t! What a great romance!

No, really - this is the EXACT THING I was so glad that Evak DID NOT DO. I’m not saying their romance has to be free of flaws, that there can never be fuckups, that Isak can’t ever hurt Even and vice versa. But this is such a common and ugly trope in gay media.

Robbe goes inside and slams his door, Milan asks what’s wrong, Robbe tells him to leave him alone. We get Milan’s POV and not Robbe’s at the end.

Anyway lmao. wtFOCK indeed.

Did you enjoy the cuddle scene in Skam, where a same-sex couple got to be tender and sweet and open with each other for almost seven minutes? A clip that felt refreshing and even revolutionary for its normalization of gay intimacy? Hahahaha, fuck you.

Okay, seriously though. It’s not a problem that we didn’t have the cuddle scene immediately after the pool scene. It’s not a problem that they want to change up this storyline and make it their own - though again I would ask the creative powers at wtFOCK why they’re making these particular choices. It’s not a problem if Robbe and Sander’s relationship has some extra bumps along the way to their happy ending.

WHAT EVEN PROMPTED THIS CHANGE IN ROBBE, like I get the answer is “internalized homophobia” but Robbe was BUCK NAKED WITH SANDER IN THE POOL so like. Can we please get SOME context for why he suddenly had a freakout? Can we please get some narrative structure with cause and effect? Can we get a fucking reason that Robbe went from 0 to 100? Because if it was just the blocking Sander on WhatsApp, that’s one thing, but accusing him of sexual assault and calling him slurs is so vastly beyond that. If we’re supposed to take away that Robbe feels bad about Noor, that still doesn’t explain the ugliness of his reaction, rather than just telling Sander that he has a girlfriend and it was a mistake or whatever.

I’m going to add that I understand that Robbe went through some additional homophobic shit from his friends in previous seasons - I remember Moyo saying crappy things to him in S1, and I watched a S2 scene where the same thing happens. So I can understand if Robbe’s internalized homophobia is very strong. But they’ve also cut out so much stuff in this season that added to Isak’s internalized homophobia (no mom’s religion making him anxious, no gay test, no gay generalizations from Emma...) If they want to rely on internalized homophobia from previous seasons, then we really need a reminder in this season, such as his friends making homophobic jokes, which I do not recall hearing so far. And they need to show what happened between the kiss to provoke such a homophobic reaction.

After Sander said that thing about not knowing if anyone would ever love him … why did they do this? I love me some pain in storytelling but this isn’t just angst, this is needlessly cruel.

There is, believe it or not, a middle ground between “conflictless fluff” and “cruel homophobia and assault allegations” where you can have some tension, even have Robbe have a freakout, without bringing in this kind of material. Robbe could have told Sander to stay away without accusing him of assault or calling him slurs. He could have said he wasn’t gay or that it was a mistake or even “I was drunk” without following it up with “and you took advantage of me.” All of these options might have stung for Sander and for any viewers who were hoping for morning-after cuddles, but they also create conflict without pushing it over the edge into OTT cruelty.

HOW I WOULD REWRITE THIS EPISODE:

Ahahahaha

So far this season is like a disconnected set of scenes from Skam S3 with bonus filler scenes and unnecessary clips about non-Robbe things. It’s getting hard to think about rewrites because the point, if you will, so often so unclear. It’s also hard because this episode squeezed in so many OG scenes that were missing from earlier in the season that it’s like, well, shouldn’t we have had this a few episodes ago? Should we just leave them out now?

Okay. Start by getting rid of the first clip in this episode that’s mostly about Zoë/Senne, bump up the Milan clip. We start with Robbe looking at pics of Sander on IG, Milan comes in and asks if there was any romance on the trip, then they get into the Grindr talk, etc. The Grindr talk makes more sense before Robbe almost kisses Sander, but like. We can’t do anything about that now. What might be better is if the whole “how do you know if a guy is gay?” thing takes a swerve into not just Robbe trying to figure out Sander, but to something uncomfortably close to Robbe’s own behavior (like IDK, referencing body language and how a guy will lean in closer, like Robbe did with Sander) and then Robbe gets cranky because he’s worried he’s too obviously gay to other people. After Milan leaves, he starts looking up stuff like “how to act straight” or “how not to seem gay” or whatever. That leads us into the next clip...

... the dance chicks scene. Now we’ve seen plenty of Robbe being disinterested in girls already, so this time we’re going to show him trying to be interested in girls instead. Like he’s watching his friends’ annoying horny reactions and he’s clearly trying to imitate them and join in, but we can see that he’s awkward and not totally feeling it. But he’s trying. Then after the performance, Robbe makes the comment about the dance instructor being so gay.

There is a problem, IMO, in that Robbe’s friend group has been shown to be more homophobic than the average boy squad (as seen in S1 and S2). And frankly I don’t really believe yet Jens is the type to shut down a homophobic comment. Like in S2 Moyo and Robbe straight up start calling each other f*gs and Jens is like chill, no one here is a f*g, but if there were, you should date each other. That’s his idea of intervention. So I’m not sure how to handle that.

I don’t love this idea, because I hate what they’re done with Moyo in particular, making him pointedly more homophobic (to be discussed in a future reaction) but Moyo and Aaron could perhaps laugh at Robbe’s comment and start riffing off it, while Robbe is sitting there pretending to laugh but looking increasingly uncomfortable, and Jens notices something is off with Robbe, and he tells the guys to knock it off, the guy is gay, so what? Big deal. Then aside from the other guys, he asks Robbe if something is wrong, and Robbe snaps at him or attributes it to family problems again.

I was going to also say that the setting for this clip doesn’t really allow for Sander to swoop in, like Even did to return the snapback, but actually maybe it could? Noor could have invited Britt and Sander to watch the show, right? So maybe when Robbe makes this gay joke and his friends are laughing, Sander comes up while Britt is talking to Noor and is like, hey guys, what’s up? Robbe’s friends are just like, oh nothing, did you see how gay that guy was? Then Sander is like, sorry, what’s the problem with being gay? He tells them off a little. Meanwhile Robbe is standing there awkward as fuck, not looking Sander in the eyes, while Sander is looking at him for backup, but Robbe just makes an excuse to bolt. Maybe he walks past Noor without saying anything, so she looks confused.

Now onto Robbe and Yasmina. Man, I truly hate saying this. But: If you are not going to incorporate other religious themes into this season, then you don’t need to redo the Isak-Sana friendship. Again! I don’t like suggesting this! But what actually is Robbe and Yasmina’s relationship bringing to this season when it’s portrayed like this?

They left out the weed blackmail, which is really just a plot device in OG, but it’s a plot device that sets up Sana and Isak’s thread. It also gets Isak to kosegruppa to meet Even, something which is irrelevant here.

Sana’s main tie to S3 is Isak’s mom. Isak’s mom is religious, that makes him anxious, and it’s a hurdle to coming out to her. Robbe’s mom is not religious, Robbe’s internalized homophobia doesn’t seem to have anything to do with religion specifically other than this one scene with him and Yasmina. It’s just a disconnected tangent. What’s more, what is Yasmina’s eventual advice going to do for him? Sana’s advice led Isak to come out to his mom.

I really like Yasmina. If there’s another way that her presence is relevant to the themes of this season, by all means let’s find it and include her. As it is, either make it that Robbe’s mom is religious and include the Robbe-Yasmina subplot, or don’t and leave it out.

I would love to see in-depth and meaningful friendships develop among all the characters in the Skam squads, just because I love all those kids. Jonas and Vilde? Even and girl Chris? Eva and Mahdi? I don’t care how random, let’s have them all! But there is a finite amount of time per season, and we can’t extend time for all possible relationships - just the ones that are most relevant to the story we are trying to tell.

I mentioned above a fix for the Bowie playlist clip that makes it have a little more sense to me. If you include Sander in the dance chicks clip like I said, you could have Robbe thinking about Sander again and wondering if he’s into men since he called out the boys’ homophobia. That’s how he ends up on Grindr. Then Sander sends him the Bowie playlist, Robbe listens, Sander calls and they talk, Robbe apologizes for bolting out of there the other day. Sander invites him to the cafe later, Robbe’s all :D until he realizes Britt is there and is coming too, then he’s :(

He’s late to meet Noor and Noor is upset, but not like ... screaming and shoving at him. She’s more snippy and passive-aggressive, she walks off. She says she’s upset because he ditched the dance performance without talking to her, and then he’s late to meet her, it seems like he just doesn’t care that much. They have a fight but it’s like a normal fight and not The End of the World. Just tone down Noor’s OTT anger and make it more natural.

I don’t have a preference in this version whether Noor and Britt leave the cafe and Sander and Robbe know they’re not coming back, or whether Noor and Britt just go to get some air and cry it out and Sander is like fuck it, let’s leave. The important thing for me is that Robbe sits there with Sander, painfully aware that they’re alone, and there’s lots of tension and awkwardness and his brain is clearly hyper-focused on the proximity of Sander’s knee to his own. They banter and flirt and then when Sander suggests they leave, Robbe acts like he wants to go.

Don’t do a pool scene for the first kiss. Give a shit, make it your own. Except IMO they have done so little to establish this relationship in terms of larger themes or symbolism that they have nothing to choose from.

Man, what if THIS episode was about going to the seaside, after they had been talking for several episodes, and they kissed in the sea when they were alone? That would be at least somewhat plausible? A take on the pool scene/underwater kiss that wasn’t the exact same.

You could do something related to graffiti, perhaps? Instead of breaking into a pool, they break into the tagging place or wherever. Or something else related to Sander’s artwork, because I know that this comes up in their version of O Helga Natt.

I’m not wild about adding this blip in Robbe and Sander’s relationship after the kiss, because of how much ground we need to cover the rest of the season (it messes with the pacing yet again) and also just because I like that Skam didn’t do this expected route. However, if they wanted to make Robbe try to shut out Sander again: the strongest case for his internalized homophobia seems to be his friends. So have him meet up with them again the day after kissing Sander. His friends bring up Sander and how weird he was at the dance performance about the gay instructor, like it’s just a joke! He took their comments way too seriously! Is Sander gay or something? And maybe Robbe tries to defend Sander - no, he’s a cool guy, really - and then his friends are like, pffft, what, do you have a crush on him? Robbe denies and everybody chills out, but Robbe seems troubled. Maybe this is when Jens finally gets a fucking clue and realizes something’s up with Robbe, and in the future there’s a scene where he shuts down gay jokes. For now, though, we do see how Robbe would feel compelled to go back in the closet. Sander texts him and Robbe blocks him.

Now we come to the worst part. So. Take out Robbe calling Sander a sexual predator and a homophobic slur and pushing him, that’s for sure. If he must reject Sander, do it in another way. “I’m not gay.” “I was drunk.” “It was a mistake.” “I have a girlfriend.” It’s not actually hard to do this clip without adding this ugly taint to their relationship.

Since I’m trying to think of rewrites without just copying Skam, here is a radical change on how to include a post-kiss freakout from Robbe earlier on so the pacing isn’t as odd. In previous recaps, I suggested Sander should be introduced earlier as a mysterious stranger that Robbe is trying to find. Well, maybe we can rework that. Robbe and the mysterious stranger share a kiss in episode 1. They’re hiding from the police or security or something after getting busted at a party or while tagging or w/e, and they’re both a little drunk and high on adrenaline, they’re smiling and laughing because they actually got away, and it just ... happens. The mysterious stranger can initiate it, but Robbe tentatively reciprocates before running away. Robbe freaks out and it’s after this that he starts heavily pursuing Noor. Because, you see, he’s not gay, he was just drunk, and it was all that other guy’s fault. But at least he doesn’t have to see that random guy again, right? No one will ever know. Just like no one will ever know if late at night when he can’t sleep, he does a Google search to see if he’s gay if he liked kissing a boy or if he can’t get it up with his girlfriend. Or if he goes on Grindr to see if he can find the mystery dude. It’s a bust and Robbe gives up and settles into dating Noor. Except in episode 2, OH SHIT, he’s introduced to Sander again via Noor, and it’s awkward and fuck, Sander has a girlfriend. Well, that’s good, right? Totally not a bummer. Anyway, Robbe tries to avoid Sander or tiptoe around him but they end up spending time together because they’re stuck at the seaside under the same roof. Maybe they directly address the issue by Robbe saying he’s not gay and Sander being like “me neither” (which technically is not a lie, lmao) and brushing it off as a mistake, or maybe they both pretend that it never happened. Maybe Robbe is more aggressive about it at first and Sander is like, whoa dude, chill out, I’m not going to tell anyone. Still, they get to know each other, there’s heaps of sexual/romantic tension, and in episode 4 (or 5 or whenever) they kiss again and it’s Epic.

This arc is definitely not the same as Isak’s or Evak’s and I absolutely won’t claim that it’s in the same league as what Julie Andem did, but I can see a narrative arc like this making some sense. Better than trying to do Isak’s arc half-assed.

It occurs to me just like … how little we know about any of these characters in terms of subtext or something? No hints about Sander’s background, really? Let’s get some clues in there.

I think something I miss about Skam was how kind it was. How all the characters were at heart, good people capable of the most generous love and empathy. And maybe we’ll get there with these characters in the end, but overall, so many of these people just don’t feel like that! There’s so much more ugliness and cruelty involved in this story, and it doesn’t feel like it’s done with good intentions, like to show the audience how to handle these situations and to heal.

There’s this weird attitude of defense where cruelty, tragedy, and negative events are defended in the name of realism and there’s a backlash to the backlash, acting like the critics just want fluffy plotless hand-holding and cuddling, a conflict-free season, or a story where no one makes mistakes. And it’s like people forget that in Skam season 3, the story was FULL of angst! We know Evak get their happy ending but like … from episode 1 all through O Helga Natt, the story is packed with conflict. People hurt each other. Even in episode 10, not everything is perfect. It is very possible to do angst and conflict without this ugliness. Like … I have to assume people weren’t here for episodes 5 and 6 of Skam S3, or for the hotel scene, or episode 9 up to OHN, because I can assure you, there was no lack of angst. There was just a lack of shock value gratuitousness.

As always, let me know if I missed something due to cultural or linguistic context.

#wtfock reactions

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blaster-aichi · 3 years

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Cardfight!! Vanguard Extra Story IF 20 things

changing up the formula for the week

12 seconds in and we’re threatening murder, a new record.

What did we do to deserve Miwa and what did he do to deserve the treatment he gets from the writers?

When there are only bits and pieces of his original memories coming through, having the most nightmarish moment be one of them, one could only imagine how unsettling it is for one poor ultra-soft boy. And if it might cause him to sympathize with Aichi’s belief in brief moments, from undeniable proof that engaging in Vanguard has hurt a number of people around them.

Weekly yearning for the relationship between Outside World and IF World to get an explanation rises.

IF continuing with the softest Kai-kun faces, cause of death determined. That is all.

The fact that Morikawa’s dismissal serves towards the plot is startling, but at the same time, in-universe, it’s still baffling why he was chosen as opposed to anyone else. Perhaps because of his role in Aichi’s actively playing the game? But otherwise, drawing a blank.

There is a lot to say about the Kourin/Miwa scene, see below.

Semi-sortof-half-right about the Miwa/Takuto collusion but also see below.

Weekly yearning for the relationship between Outside World and IF World to get an explanation intensifies.

The Dinner Table Scene. Rena.exe has stopped working. See below, I flip the table.

This is the most adorable thing ever and boys, PLEASE.

Miwa picks up the mantle of roasting characters, the KaiMiwa is strong.

Pot. Kettle. Mirror. Bitch?

The choice to have Dragonic Overlord’s Deletion visually mirror its occurrence during the cardfight-based season is a strong choice; due to its haunting Kai-kun since it penetrated the IF illusion, and his facing Ibuki without letting any distress showing, in spit of what he’s seen, it demonstrates just the strength of his character and builds on his being able to take the punches and roll with them thus far.

Everyday, I relate to Kai Toshiki even more.

Very much appreciate Emi chiming in where Ibuki is concerned because though the emphasis is on his relationships with Kai-kun, Miwa and Suiko, their time understanding one another in episode 7 remains a personal favourite thing from the season.

Suiko’s intervention to protect Emi and Shuka; yes, yes, yes! Best big sister doing her thing.

Along the same line of thought; Miwa taking the bullet to save Kai-kun feels a natural conclusion to his role within IF, but also playing upon how he stressed Kai-kun’s happiness was his priority in his cardfight with Neve. His strongest trait through the franchise has been his dedication to his best friend, no matter the cost to himself, and seeing that occur in the literal sense feels as though it was always a case of when, not if. Although with the likely remaining time left in the season and its focus, there won’t be a spotlight shone on it again or for Kai-kun to really convey his feelings about it, it was nice to see and think about through the day after.

Episode 102: the KaiMiwa edition.

All Hail the Overlords and their Realizing.

Kai-kun takes back his other part-time job of literally roasting people with Miwa gone.

Though it’s likely down to how he was recruited into the Sanctuary Knights (and his past being repaired erasing the entire ordeal from his perspective), Ibuki’s lost memories of joining them begs the question of the fate of everyone’s memories once the timeline is fully restored, given it hasn’t been made clear if there are two different versions of characters that exist or their Outside World selves pulled inside and overwritten to fit IF’s continuity. Cases such as Emi, Aichi and Kourin in particular, seeing as Naoki, Shingo and Miwa have thus far retained their memories of IF despite returning Outside.

Not entirely sure why Kourin is so aggravated by the Sanctuary Knights’ numbers thinning when Naoki, Shingo and Miwa felt much more like nuisances to her and it means she’s alone on Aichi’s side. But okay, play cosmic fuckery with your sisters.

IF 21 preview

Rekka sighted. Hopes raised for her re-entering the story properly raised. Hopes realized when the preview caps from Bushi’s Twitter confirm as much

The season that continues its joke of memeing anime deaths.

With the perspective of Kourin’s weekly nightmarish face and the typical use of the angle, eager to see the girls getting the upper-hand over her, as it dawned on me that Naoki and Shingo had weekly stints being the main antagonistic force but Kourin, in essence, is on four and counting. And with the jarring fact that Aichi’s just sitting back, possibly oblivious, possibly not?

The unidentified Sanctuary Knight in the preview had gotten hopes up that Misaki was finally entering the fray but the aforementioned tweet popped that like a Genshin Impact Anemo slime. Rude.

the four breakdowns (for comical effect, it was one Wild call)

Takuto: From what’s been shown of Takuto, one could summise that he’s unable to leave Sanctuary by some force Aichi (or Kourin, with or without using Aichi to do it) has imposed on him, but considering his position, his personality doesn’t quite fit. With the gravity of the situation, particularly when he had pinpointed Aichi as the strongest Psyqualia fighter and (Destiny Conductor) personally input extra restraints to keep him under control, with him being the enemy, it's puzzling how Takuto is so lax. Even more in that he didn’t use Miwa as a means of passing on any message to the other Tatsunagis. While he couldn’t be expected to know Ren and Rekka were dispatched specifically to find him, one would imagine it was natural there would be someone coming and he may have been able to offer anything from within Sanctuary and its populous. But apparently not.

Kourin: To be honest, the way in which Kourin is being handled rubs me the wrong way, and in a different way from Legion Mate (if anything, its the very opposite problem to then in some regards). It appears to be a sentiment spreading among viewers, at least from what have been able to discern. But in regards to this episode alone, she’s proven herself atrocious at her job. Why wander around a public school in her Sanctuary Knight uniform? Why alert Miwa to her being outside the door? Why divulge essentially her entire job description when all he said was her name? Why are you hovering in a public school? Also has no room to talk about Suiko and Ibuki with how she is around Aichi, let alone around the other Sanctuary Knights and playing bodyguard between the two. It feels with each week she becoming even more territorial and possessive of Aichi.

The Dinner Table Scene: This was initially what really stood out as jarring. The scene feels out of place in many regards; from Aichi’s behaviour to its serving no purpose (not when Takuto’s very last line right before it already established they’re two peas in a pod). If anything, it strikes as antithetical to IF Aichi until this point; it’s possible to excuse his lack of reacting to Naoki’s removal from the scene in 18 as being kept in the dark to keep him from struggling to process the news, but with the time that’s passed and losing two others, there’s no way in hell he isn’t aware. Yet he isn’t fazed, not even when Vanguard has essentially ripped away people from him and played right into his beliefs. The choice of setting is peculiar; was it just for the gag of Ibuki having a biscuit for a meal? (does Kourin get groceries in her uniform too?) To be truthful, it feels like the two could have met elsewhere in the castle — the throne room, Aichi’s quarters, a corridor where the city could be seen through a window with Ibuki’s back to it (or it behind Aichi so Ibuki could watchthe view past him) — whether Kourin was involved or not, but additionally, Aichi’s acceptance of Ibuki (and in spite of their past and the Deletion, which hazard a guess he remembers in full) simply doesn’t feel coherent. With how vicious they were to one another, even with the dust settling and them both moving on plus Ibuki’s role in IF thus far, wouldn’t it make sense that there would be some tension between them? The scene as a whole encapsulated some of the concerns that had at points during the season, though it’s redeemed itself with some. But where Aichi is concerned, I worry greatly it’s much like Legion Mate where it feels they don’t know what to do with him and are putting off him making a move personally until the end, drawing out Kourin and the new element of fuckery with characters’ pasts. Don’t want to get down on this season, it’s got its highs and lows like any other, but the episode in particular was concerning and this scene was the pinnacle of those feelings. It could sweep those worries aside with a great episode (for like the fourth time because it keeps coming back strong when alarm bells ring).

The Pacing: Courtney initially mentioned the episode feeling rushed and when sitting down and thinking it over, have to say that agree. Assuming IF is running a tight schedule with OverDress around the corner, it probably wouldn’t have had the time, but it may have benefitted from the episode being drawn across two. It would have allowed time for Kai-kun and Suiko to try and grapple with Ibuki turning coat, as well as draw out the tension of his being on the enemy’s side, the rapid resolution takes away the threat that has been made to Suiko in her own predicament, and Miwa could have been allowed more time to fully flesh out his actions thus far, as well as anything else that his meeting with Takuto could have provided. Though we’re all well familiar with him, there could have been more glmpses into the unique friendship he has with IF Kai-kun and how it might have contrasted their Outside World’s selves’.

Probably debunked super-fast again but will dream:

Misaki’s absence due to her being Aichi’s Sanctuary Knight secret weapon:

Stemmed from the glimpse of the Sanctuary Knight in the preview and the hype that it might have been Misaki’s re-introduction to the story, given her disappearance since epi 8, even when Kamui returned and Shin filled in her gimmick at Card Capital in epi 16. With the emphasis on Miyaji in Reboot, her lack of presence has been particularly strange, with not so much as a passing mention other than her appearance in the ED. Judging by Kourin and Aichi alone appearing in the preview, it feels safe to say she, Naoki and Shingo won’t be a part of the illusion being forced upon Suiko, prolonging this. Maybe Izumi is simply busy with other work and reading too much into it, but dreamt up a theory for the heck of it.

Whether to recruit the Miyaji Cardfight Club as a whole or in response to identifying Kourin’s apparent independent agenda, Aichi brought Misaki aboard, keeping her a secret from even Kourin and the other Sanctuary Knights. With Kourin overstepping her boundaries and their numbers withering, Aichi’s patience runs out and Misaki is revealed, usurping Kourin’s place by Aichi’s side and delivering a devastating blow to her, who has been fiercely loyal to him but recognizes how far gone he has been driven. Misaki’s appearance is coupled with her verbally tearing into Kourin and dealing her comeuppance (which honestly, she really deserves and has for some time now), Aichi may or may not be there so that the sight of himself and Misaki continuing on without her twists the knife.

It would also echo the interactions between the Psyqualia Zombie Aichi and Misaki, with Kourin watching on helplessly with Naoki and Shingo. Just thought it’d be a neat call-back.

#Cardfight!! Vanguard #Cardfight!! Vanguard IF #cfv spoilers #long post

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hopeperspectives · 4 years

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An Extraordinary Haru-Found-by-Chance Day

For a drama I literally found by chance, I’m quite shocked at how invested I was throughout its run. It has been about 2 weeks past its finale but I am still closely following news and interviews of the cast (who seem like such a lovely bunch to be around!)

*spoiler alert*

So how does one become “aware”?

Extraordinary You is primarily about the lives of high-schoolers who are manhwa characters. These characters act with motives (controlled by a writer) while they are on “stage” (the actual storyboard that manhwa readers see, whoever these readers are), and in the “shadow” (their life sans the actual storyboard). Unaware characters do not remember what happen in “shadows” - giving “aware” characters the chance to do whatever they want (e.g., skip school - I wonder why they didn’t do more of that).

But, how do characters become “aware”? I assumed the very first character who became aware in Secret was probably Dried Squid Fairy (Lee Tae Ri), but how did he become aware in the first place? How did Dan Oh become aware beyond just realising randomly one day that she has memory lapses? Is the writer’s intentions for his/her characters to be aware and hence she recycles them on purpose so they have a chance to be aware?? *Mindblown*

It’s great to see Kim Hye Yoon as a less angst teen.

I’ve come to know of Hye Yoon through Sky Castle (which I suppose is where most people know her from) and then found that she was also in Goblin (as an extra... pun intended). I will not lie but I was half expecting Dan Oh to start screaming like Ye Suh as soon as she made her appearance. Still, it did not take long before I believed Dan Oh as a tiny chirpy bubbly princess.

Although she was an extra in Secret, Dan Oh was in almost every scene there is in Extraordinary You. Hye Yoon probably had such a tight unimaginable schedule (given this is a live-shoot drama), but she delivered over and beyond. She was the cute factor, drama factor and emotional factor. I never needed to guess what Dan Oh was feeling or thinking because Hye Yoon helps me understand Dan Oh’s every move and motive. This. Girl. Can. Act. and we should keep an eye on her (her dimples are also super adorable).

“Haru yah...”

He appears as a nameless and rather clueless extra (who for almost 4 episodes had no face or name to his fuzzy silhouette). The first thing he says is “Eun Dan Oh” (during the summer camp after stacking her fallen rocks); which is really sweet since he muttered her name even before she named him. Interestingly, it is also the last thing he says before disappearing from the Secret manhwa *still collecting my tears*.

It’s also interesting how the first word Dan Oh actually ever hears Haru say is “sorry” (while being lost in the woods). I felt it was so apt as that would probably be the first thing Haru from the previous manhwa would have wanted to say to Dan Oh after somewhat having a part in killing her *collects more tears*

Rowoon is a new face to me (and to my utter surprise, he was actually in Where Stars Land. Like really?! How did I miss his handsome face?! And Hye Yoon adding to her SF9 collection as she moves along... Hahaha!). It was quite fun to see Haru ver.2 and Rowoon being slightly mean (because how can that face be anything but a cute puppy).

Haru’s character development was slightly tricky to handle. He transforms from meek to bold, from unnoticeable to in-your-face-Baek-Kyung-back-off mode. Hence I can understand when Rowoon says he gave a lot of thought to Haru’s thoughts, and he definitely made Haru believable.

While we are on Haru, let’s get this off my chest, Haru’s ending in Secret was just pure cruel. Haru only had a life in school and now he doesn’t even graduate from it?! And I cannot deal with how Dan Oh did not know about this till the last minute. I guess such a cruel ending then makes the meeting in the next manhwa more bittersweet. I loved how they were just extras because that means they can do anything they want in the shadow while being aware. But I also want that manhwa to last forever so we don’t have to go through another separation and another period of unawareness.

That fluffy fuzzy first love feeling...

*music* “Neon naege maeil cheot sarang...” That feeling is so palpable. Hye Yoon and Rowoon nailed the dating scenes so well. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen another love that is so pure. I have no more words to say. It’s just love in its most basic form.

What’s up with you, Baek Kyung?

Moving on to our other lead. There is such a strong Baek Kyung fandom for reasons I cannot fully understand; maybe it’s because Lee Jae Wook is such a cutie behind the scenes, but Kyung is really kind of a j*rk. Baek Kyung really only redeemed himself in the last few episodes where he was slightly more human, less mean, and more active in taking over his character setup. Jae Wook though does some pretty good emotional scenes for a rookie!

Those other relationships...

Nam Joo and Joo Da’s relationship was an unconventional one. I actually liked how Nam Joo was never ever self aware. It brings the whole relationship to another level when a self-aware Joo Da decides it is more important for Nam Joo to be happy than for her to follow her true feelings.

Oh bless Do Hwa’s heart, he was so adorable. I was a little upset that Do Hwa didn’t get a girl. He was such a reliable friend to everyone (especially when Haru and Dan Oh lost their awareness, he was there for them). And he doesn’t even get a role in the new manhwa?!?! I really wanted to see this threesome again!

Again I have never seen Jung Gun Joo, Kim Young Dae or Lee Na Eun in any of their previous works, which seems to be the running theme of this drama. It is a whole bunch of rookies (probably extras in their previous works) who are brought together to this project and they made it work. I also liked that little last minute story of Dried Squid Fairy and Soo Hyang (thank God he found out she was aware at the very end). There was no purposeless character (though barely scrapping through is Kyung’s brother but since Bae Hyun Sung looks remotely like Park Bo Gum, I’ll let him slide).

Who had that extremely challenging job of framing?

It takes a lot to put together an entire production on film; i.e., actors don’t just turn up to say their lines and leave. Lights, costume, makeup, logistics etc. are all so important in creating the whole viewing experience. It made us believe Extraordinary You was a real alternative world. Its camera work itself deserves a mention.

The leads (or in fact Hye Yoon with any of her male coactors) are almost a whole 30cm ruler difference in height. While that is extremely adorable for us as viewers, it must have been a nightmare for the camera to frame them. While my finite knowledge limits me, let me try to explain why I am so amazed with the camera work.

Take for example this frame (from episode 21 where Do Hwa finds out about their relationship). These two screenshots were from the same shot that lasted barely 2 seconds. You can see the camera starts framed such that Dan Oh’s necktie is not seen (so as to have a fuller shot of Haru) before it subtly pans downwards which also then results in Haru’s hair being slightly off the shot when it ends. It is such a minute detail but it matters since the last shot properly frames Dan Oh (who is the one speaking at that point). Of course, kudos to the actors too because such a tight frame means in order not to go out of shot, Rowoon and Hye Yoon need to act within a tiny amount of space (not that we are complaining...). And this is just one shot of many shots in one scene of many scenes. *mindblown again*

Besides making Hye Yoon stand or sit on boxes which do not get filmed (e.g., above - there is no way a tip-toed Dan Oh can reach that height), I liked how the planning of the scene involved her going on other random platforms/ chairs/ stairs (which do get filmed) to create a different feel - so she’s not always looking up at them.

As viewers, we obviously don’t see that much details when we are fully engrossed in the actual plot. But yes, behind the scenes work deserves so much more credit than it gets.

I finally conclude...

I never thought I would like a high school drama that much, but Extraordinary You had it together. It wasn’t perfect, but it was genuine. I’m still a bit on the fence about its ending and whether I like the idea of Dan Oh and Haru being the only ones aware in the next manhwa. But I like that I am left thinking. And I will probably be thinking of this drama for a long time to come.

Verdict: I LOVE IT! To watch again!

#extraordinary you #kim hye yoon #rowoon #lee jae wook #haru found by chance #Jung Gun Joo

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inmyarmswrappedin · 4 years

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Isak season rankings (so far)

I’ve seen people doing this, and while we wait for SKAM Austin to get renewed 🤞 I thought I’d rank the Isak seasons that are out so far, according to my personal preference. People who wanted to read my Matteo and Cris meta, this is the very short version of it.

Warning: I am super critical in this ranking. If you’d rather read only compliments, don’t click the Read More.

SKAM s3 – Isak: I don’t consider myself a Skam supremacist or whatever the term in vogue is these days. There are many things about Skam that I’m not happy with. I wasn’t really into the idea of the remakes at first, but when they started coming out I hoped that some of the stuff I had issues with in Skam was handled better in the remakes. That said… I never had issues with season 3. I think it’s as perfect a TV season as it can get. The writing, the acting, the music, the cinematography… Everything has a reason for being there and nothing got unresolved. I don’t feel Isak’s season needs “fixing.” A good remake of Isak’s season, for me, is one that takes what Skam did and flips it and does entirely different things with it, not one that aims to tell the same story with cosmetic changes here and there.

DRUCK s3 – Matteo: I’m not sure if Matteo’s season would be as high for me personally if it weren’t for David, tbh! I fell in love with David before I even knew his name was David. My main issues with Druck s3 are these: Druck put a lot of effort in adapting the original storyline to David and Matteo’s personalities, but I don’t see the same effort with the internalized homophobia storyline. I don’t think the writing is consistent there. I also didn’t like the way they hinted at Matteo having a MI, but never committed to it. In fact, I’m not even sure the writers think Matteo has a MI? When the writers have done interviews they’ve talked of Matteo as a “slacker-type” character, not a character with mental health issues. I also have really mixed emotions about the way David’s outing clip was scripted and shot. But overall I had so much fun watching the season, I love David, I love David and Matteo together, and I love a lot of the musical moments. And honestly, it’s amazing that the writers decided David’s movie was going to be Only Lovers Left Alive, built the whole character around that idea, and that single trait explains so much about how David views himself, Matteo and the world.

SKAM España s2 – Cris: If it weren’t for David’s existence, Cris’ season would have the second spot. My issues with Cris’ season are that I feel like the writers had a much firmer hand when adapting Eva’s season. With Eva, they seemed more confident about getting rid of iconic moments or putting their own spin on them. With Cris, I felt like the criticisms they got in Eva’s season about getting rid of iconic moments made them try and include them even when they didn’t make sense for Cris and Joana. I’m thinking specifically of using 21:21and the pool scene, which had no significance for Cris or Joana’s characters. I also thoroughly hate Lucas getting hate crimed, and yes, it was handled better than in other remakes, but still. I’m from Spain, so yes, I’m aware of the cultural reasons for doing it, and I still think it was unnecessary on every level. (I’ll probably write something longer on this, because I do want to get into the ~cultural reasons,~ but not right now.) The music isn’t amazing because the music licensing costs in Spain are more expensive, but it does affect my overall enjoyment when the use of music was one of the things I loved about Skam. I also think Skam España tried to keep every fandom satisfied, which led to a more scattered season. (That said, compared to Skam’s Sana season, the POV was tight as fuck.) I don’t like that Cris and Joana didn’t have a sex scene. I understand that Irene was a minor at the time, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that Skam and Druck delivered extremely beautiful, non objectified sex scenes, and Skam España didn’t. Now, for the good: aside from the moments I mentioned, Cris and Joana were fully their own characters, Cris isn’t Isak and had her own struggles and character flaws she had to overcome, same for Joana. Cris and Amira’s friendship is everything, and considering how other remakes have handled friendships between a LGBTI character and a character of color, it’s almost enough to declare Skam España the holy grail of remakes. Also, one of the reasons it’s sad that the focus on the girl squad moves to the boy squad for Isak’s season is that the squad is at its most supportive and loving of the main in Isak’s season. By contrast, Eva, Noora and Sana’s seasons are full of betrayal and infighting. It was really so gratifying to get to see the girl squad support and love Cris. I also really liked that it was almost two queer seasons in one, with Cris and Lucas having their own journeys on Youtube and the episodes, which sometimes converged. I also loved the exploration of Viri’s character. Loved the borderline PD awareness content on instagram, for me the only valid use of Minutt for Minutt by a remake. I’m aware of the elephant in the room I’m not mentioning, but I feel like if it hadn’t been for the actors going wild on social media, that scene would have been a non event. Which brings me to…

SKAM Italia s2 – Martino: I really liked Eva Brighi’s season and I was really looking forward to Skam Italia’s take on Isak’s season. I really liked Martino in season 1. Martino’s season opened with a very powerful, factual voiceover of queer Italian people calling into a helpline to set the tableau of what it means to be queer in Italy. And then… it just got off the rails, man. Now, I did finish season 2 (racial slur and all), but I’m not sure I would have if it hadn’t been the first remake of Isak’s season. First off, they switched the order of the seasons, but instead of doing their due diligence and keep developing the Eleonora and Edoardo relationship (like Skam España did), they simply sent Eleonora to the cornfield to avoid having to deal with it. Second, the Skam España writers forced a few Isak and Even elements on Cris and Joana that didn’t fit them… Bessegato forced plenty more elements that didn’t have any relevance to Martino and Niccoló onto them. The obvious network interference when it came to Martino and Niccolò’s intimate scenes. And when I say intimate, I don’t mean sexy sex sex scenes, I mean the scenes that in Skam were Isak and Even existing in their own bubble. In Skam Italia, these scenes were intruded upon by the boy squad again and again. I’m not sure whether the Skam Italia fandom realizes that the reason the Italian boy squad is so loved is because they had a much larger role in Martino’s season that infringed on Martino and Niccolò’s dynamic. Anyway, I thought the boy squad was gross, honestly. The way the volleyball scene was shot was less about Martino’s discomfort and more about close up shots of a 14-year old actress’ sweaty butt and crotch. And for my money, I can’t understand why keeping Francesco Centorame meant they absolutely couldn’t cast an actor of color to play Luca. People talk about wtFOCK using certain tropes for shock value, but can we talk about the way Skam Italia had Niccolò literally run around Milan naked and giggling for the viewer to see? It appears that Skam was too tactful only giving us a glimpse of Even’s bare ass leaving the hotel room. We really needed to sensationalize the whole event, or otherwise it would fly over our heads how serious Niccolò’s crisis was. And Bessegato’s instagram tantrum when called out on Niccolò randomly dropping a racial slur mid-conversation was just the cherry on top. Oh, and I also hated the inclusion of Martino’s mom, but that’s more personal, so I’ll leave it at me having an issue with that decision because of hugely personal reasons I won’t go into. (Edit: I forgot to say that Filippo’s Pride speech is one of the best remakes of that scene, if not the best so far.)

Didn’t finish:

SKAM France s3 – Lucas: Okay, so here’s my Skam France story. Unlike a not small part of the fandom, I did watch s1 shortly after it came out. Now, I love Eva and Isak on Skam, they are two of my very favorites. I didn’t like Emma or Lucas. However, I love Jonas Vasquez and I felt like Yann was the only phase 1 remake Jonas that really did Jonas V justice. Not Jonas A, not Giovanni G, not Marlon F. Yann. So I came into s3 not very interested in Lucas (or Eliott to be completely honest), but fully pumped to see my boy Yann be the supportive friend Jonas had been in Skam and Yann had been in s1 and s2. Folks… I ragequit Skam France the moment Yann abandoned Lucas in that bench. And yeah, it can be argued that, while they used that moment for shock value, they stuck the landing. I personally disagree, the damage was done there, but it can be argued. Anyway, that was the end of episode 6, and by then I knew I didn’t vibe with Lucas (hadn’t liked him since s1 as aforementioned), Eliott had done nothing to get me onboard, couldn’t care less about the girl squad being forced into the season through network mandate, hated Basile and the Daphné/Basile storyline, and was bored as hell of people fawning over Arthur when the character was as lacking in substance as Mahdi, but fandom never went crazy over Mahdi in the same way (fun fact! Despite Skam fandom being much larger than any remake fandom, there were never essays about how great Sacha’s acting was, how carefully constructed his character, there weren’t people fighting for Mahdi-related usernames… I could go on). I simply can’t understand how the writers came up with the whole Polaris thing and then dropped it entirely after episode 4, and didn’t bother coming up with a twist on that motif. (You know, like the R+J and Pretty Woman twist, or how Druck used the vampire motif, or how Skam España used the Dangerous Liaisons motif throughout the season.) Like… Instead of using an existing piece of media, they created one tailored to what they wanted to do, but they didn’t follow through with it? Almost completely wasted the potential of the Lucas/light/darkness symbolism/motif. And, as I’ve mentioned with Skam España, I realize that the music licensing costs for France are astronomical, but again it does affect my overall enjoyment of the show, and the piano music didn’t make up for it.

wtFOCK s3 — Robbe: I gave Skam France six episodes before I quit. By the middle of week 2 of wtfock I was already checked out. The decision to delay Sander’s intro just completely ruined the pacing and anticipation for me. The lack of a tight POV was another nail in the coffin. How utterly loathsome Moyo and Jens were in that first week and a half was another factor. The way they resolved the issue of Milan leaning in for the kiss with Robbe was yet another. The wtfock characters having no nuance (most of them have one character trait, the most any of them have is three) was another. Initially I quit watching because I thought I’d write episode by episode posts, and I wanted to keep my reactions fresh. So I just read the transcripts. And every single thing I read in those transcripts only served to prove I was right in dropping it. But here’s one thing I liked! I liked the blurring of the fourth wall with the spray painting of the garbage truck and the garbage truck servicing Antwerp at the time the season aired. (I could draw a parallel between the garbage truck being the first motif the season deployed, and how the rest of the season turned out, and... well, I guess I just did.)

#skam #druck #skam españa #skam italia #skam france #wtfock #brain vomit

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daresplaining · 5 years

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Hey, Idk if you know this but imma ask you anyway cause I think you’re cool. ANYWAY, how do other hero’s react when they find out Daredevil is blind? (You have any HC’s that go along with it?)

Hi, and thanks! I’m happy that running a comics blog is considered cool.

This doesn’t actually come up as much as you’d think, because this kind of revelation almost never starts with people discovering that Daredevil is blind. Matt is (mostly) good at pretending he can see while in costume, since that’s an illusion he feels the need to maintain. Instead, what usually happens is this: someone (a fellow hero or otherwise) will learn that Matt is Daredevil, they’ll assume he fakes the blindness, Matt will then explain about the hypersenses, and that will be that. Sometimes he’ll be asked to prove it, but not always.

[ID: Excerpt from Kesel’s Daredevil run. Matt and Foggy are standing together in an office. Foggy has his back to Matt (and the reader).]

Foggy: “Okay, Matt– you can stop pretending, now.”

Matt: “Foggy–?”

Foggy: “This whole ‘blind’ thing. I know you’re really Daredevil! Some ‘best friend’– lying to me all these years… playing me for a fool…”

Matt: “No, Foggy– you’re wrong! I thought you understood… I really am blind, from a childhood accident that heightened my remaining senses–”

Daredevil vol. 1 #353 by Karl Kesel, Cary Nord, and Christie Scheele

[ID: Daredevil and Karen Page are sitting together in a large, fancy, primarily green sitting room.]

Karen: “And, your brother ‘Mike’… the aerial explosion in which you ‘died’… even your ‘blindness’… they were all nothing but ingenious frauds!”

Matt: “Two out of three right, my darling! I never had a brother… and that explosion was trumped up to flush out a would-be blackmailer! But, I have been blind for years… perhaps in more ways than one!”

Karen: “Really blind? I don’t… understand…!”

Matt: “When you get down to brass tacks, Karen… neither do I! As Matt, I told you once about the childhood accident that blinded me! That story was true, but not the whole truth!”

[ID: A panel showing a montage of Daredevil doing cool acrobatic tricks against an orange background.]

Matt (off-panel): “For, in some mysterious way, the same mishap that robbed me of my sight… amazingly sharpened my remaining senses, to far beyond those of other men… enabling me to avoid disasters, and to perform athletic feats that few people even dream of! Taste… touch… smell… hearing… all my senses were heightened! Except perhaps for that secret ingredient called… common sense! Why else would I never have told you before… that I love you?”

Daredevil vol. 1 #58 by Roy Thomas and Gene Colan

[ID: Daredevil and Black Panther are swinging in tandem across the nighttime city.]

T’Challa: “DD… I know I promised no questions… but I have never comprehended how a blind attorney can battle crime with the best of them! –If you truly are blind, that is!”

Matt: “I am… but I’ve got some other super-senses that just won’t quit! Remind me to tell you about ‘em sometime!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #69 by Roy Thomas and Gene Colan

[ID: Daredevil and Spider-Man– who is in his black costume– are crouched on a rooftop, talking.]

Peter: “So… ‘Peter’, huh?”

Matt: “Yup. And in case you’re wondering, my handle is… Matt Murdock.”

Peter: “You’re kidding, right? I mean… Murdock’s blind… I mean… that is… uh, let’s go someplace and talk about this…”

[In the next panel they’re in Peter’s apartment, and in civvies. Matt is sitting on a chair, wearing a white shirt and blue pants. Peter is walking into the room, wearing a green shirt and blue pants.]

Matt: “Faintly acrid, but a nice apartment.”

Peter: “Boy, you really must be blind. And yeah, I had a fire recently. Let me understand– you could tell when you heard my heartbeat as Peter Parker and later as Spider-Man that we were the same guy? That’s some power. What do you call it?”

Matt: “Listening.”

Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man vol. 1 #110 by Peter David, Rich Buckler, and Bob Sharen

[ID: A panel of Luke Cage and Danny Rand– both in civvies– standing on a rooftop at night. They are looking up toward the viewer (at Daredevil, off-panel). Danny is holding up a newspaper.]

Luke: “You can put that down. He’s blind.”

Danny: “Oh, he really is blind. I thought he was pretending because of all the heat on him.”

Luke: “No, he’s really blind.”

Danny: “Oh.”

Daredevil vol. 2 #38 by Brian Michael Bendis, Manuel Gutierrez, and Matt Hollingsworth

These are just a few examples, but you get the idea. It’s very rare that someone figures out that Daredevil is blind without it being tied to a full-on secret identity reveal. The best example I can think of is this great moment from one of the Daredevil/Batman crossovers. Trust the World’s Greatest Detective to figure it out…

[ID: Daredevil and Batman are standing together on a rooftop at night.]

Bruce: “Let’s say you’re visually impaired. You favor your other modes of sensory input. A subtle inclination of your head when there’s a sound. An extremely slight flaring of your nostrils, probably indicating olfactory acuteness. You’re practiced– or possess sensory enhancements– making your powers of observation markedly proficient.”

Matt: “Thanks. Yours aren’t bad, either.”

Daredevil and Batman by D.G. Chichester, Scott McDaniel, and Gregory Wright

I love this because Matt’s blindness and powers would affect his body language, and I kind of wish that more characters– particularly those with combat expertise– would notice. As it stands, pretty much everyone who knows that Daredevil is blind also learns about his hypersenses immediately afterward, and since there’s always been a tendency for writers to allow Matt’s powers to get him out of situations that would generally require sight, his blindness doesn’t come up as much as I wish it would within the context of his actual hero work and team-ups. The little evidence available suggests that his fellow heroes are accommodating (we get little details, like the fact that the text on Matt’s Avengers ID card is written in braille) and they’re generally impressed by him, but they don’t make that big a deal of it. Sometimes they’ll forget he’s blind, but he is quick to remind them. In the wider context of the Marvel superhero community, a blind superhero isn’t that weird, no matter what Brainwashed Wolverine™ might claim:

[ID: Wolverine and Matt (in costume, but without his mask) are fighting in Matt’s apartment. Wolverine is slashing with his claws; Matt is trying to restrain him]

Logan: “Hands offa me, you blind freak!”

Matt: “This isn’t you that’s saying this. You have to fight it, Wolverine. You’ve just been reprogrammed.”

Logan (caption): “Listen to you, Murdock: talking like you’re some kinda super hero– Ever wonder why they didn’t ask you to join their fancy teams, big shot? Ever wonder why you always work alone? ‘Cuz you’re blind. Handicapped. Oughta hear the sick jokes they crack behind your back–”

Wolverine (2003) #24 by Mark Millar, John Romita, Jr., Paul Mounts

(This comes after a long rant about how Matt gets more dates than him. Brainwashed Wolverine™ was going through some stuff in this issue…)

One context in which Matt’s blindness does come up is in his interactions with other blind superheroes. In these cases, it usually serves as a source of bonding. Gerry Conway gives us this weird-yet-touching issue in which Matt encounters a blind hero from another dimension:

[ID: Daredevil is standing over a figure (Tagak), who is wearing a purple and orange skin-tight suit and a leopard-print mask that covers his whole head.]

Matt: “Now maybe I’ll get some answers! Like, number one… who you are… and number two… how you pretend to see– when you’re blind!”

Tagak: “How…?”

Matt: “Big clue: the way you hesitated just now… and let’s just say it takes one to know one!”

Tagak: “Then you…? It seems there is much to speak about, my friend!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #72 Gerry Conway and Gene Colan

Since Matt generally works so hard to hide his blindness while in costume, it’s notable that he shares this information with Tagak within minutes of meeting him– especially when he didn’t actually have to.

Here’s a more recent example, from after Matt has revealed his secret identity to the Inhuman superhero Reader:

[ID: A panel showing Reader sitting at a table, with Matt– in civvies and with his arm in a sling– standing next to the table.]

Reader: “Wait… are you really blind? Gotta admit, I kind of liked being on a team with another blind guy.”

Matt: “I’m really blind.”

Reader: “Then how…”

Matt: “You’ve got your tricks, Reader, I’ve got mine.”

Daredevil vol. 5 #609 by Charles Soule and Phil Noto

This example is a bit more complicated, since (spoiler alert) it’s all in Matt’s head, but 1. this conversation seems in-character for Reader anyway, and 2. the fact that Matt would want him to react this way is still significant.

And then there are the villains! One of my favorite examples of Matt’s blindness coming into play in his hero work is this great scene from Waid’s run, in which the Jester– having learned Matt’s secret identity but assuming that the blindness is just an act (as everyone does at first, see above)– sets a trap that is entirely vision-reliant…

[ID: Matt, in civvies, comes across a life-sized dummy of Foggy hanging from a noose. He perceives it in an unrecognizable form with his radar sense. This alternates with panels of the Jester, who is sitting in front of an array of computer screens and getting increasingly agitated.]

Matt (caption): “And what is this? A Jaycees haunted house? Who are you supposed to represent?”

Jester: “He’s staring right at it! Why– why isn’t he reacting?”

Matt (caption): “Real dead bodies have a distinct odor, Jester. This smells like foam rubber and latex. What were you trying to accomplish here? Fail.”

Jester: “React, damn you! That’s your best friend hanging from a noose! Anyone who’s ever seen Murdock in a fight knows the ‘blind lawyer’ gag is a put-on! Open your eyes!”

Daredevil vol. 3 #32 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Javier Rodriguez

I don’t really have headcanons as much as I have a wish to see more of this sort of thing in the source material itself (though I would love to hear other people’s headcanons, if they have some!). We’ve come a long way, in general, from the “Matt’s senses more than compensate for his blindness” attitude that plagued early (and some more recent, unfortunately) Daredevil comics, and Waid’s run in particular made great strides in this area, but I always feel like more can be done. I want Matt to hang out with more of the Marvel Universe’s other blind characters (there are a bunch of them!). I want his blindness to come up more often in his team-ups with sighted heroes. We’ve seen antagonists target his hypersenses, but I was surprised and a little disappointed that, back when his blindness was public knowledge, his rogues didn’t try to use that against him. On the other hand, we got awesome things like this during that period…

[ID: A panel showing Matt on the street, in civvies, signing an autograph for a blind kid with a service dog.]

Daredevil vol. 4 #11 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Matt Wilson

…which is another of the many reasons I’m sad it’s over, as Matt/Daredevil interacting more with the non-powered disabled community is another thing I want– including negotiating his identity as a superpowered disabled person.

There’s a tricky line that needs to be walked in handling this aspect of Matt’s character. In making his blindness too prominent, or too debilitating, there’s a risk of turning him into a caricature or making it seem like a burden rather than a simple fact of his existence. Matt is a complex character, and his sensory array is only one part of that complexity. But he is one of the most prominent blind characters in comics– if not media in general– and I still feel like there are a lot of stories surrounding this part of his identity that haven’t yet been told, in the context of both the civilian and superhero sides of his life.

#nightwing1536 #Daredevil #Matt Murdock #Asks #Sensory Shenanigans #Adventures in Continuity

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thecarmillacurator · 4 years

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Season of Love movie review and news for new Natasha Negovanlis movie.

So two things: First, Carmilla’s own Natasha Negovanlis will be in Tello Film’s 2020 Holiday Movie, “I Hate New Year’s.” Woot woot! Check out Tello’s twitter (https://twitter.com/tellofilms) for more information.

Hey @tellofilms may we have an Elise Bauman cameo, pretty please? Or Kaitlyn Alexander? Or Sharon Belle? Or Anne Briggs? You get our point. You’ll get a built-in Creampuff bank of pre-purchasers and free social media marketers for your trouble, guaranteed.

Second: Season of Love. I rented Tello’s Season of Love Holiday film online yesterday and greatly enjoyed it. I’m not a Hallmark Holiday movie kind of lady, but this definitely had more gravitas than I see in Hallmark movies, and in my opinion to call it a ‘Lesbian Hallmark Movie’ would be unfair to the film. It’s simply more elevated than that. I even liked it enough that I’ll be re-watching it today. For my in-depth review, click to go beneath the cut below.

What I liked: The couples had chemistry ranging from good to really good. (There’s no Hollstein-level chemistry here, but that would be asking too much for mere mortals, wouldn’t it? Just kidding.) I enjoyed the romantic arcs. It was a romantic comedy, but wasn’t all the typical Christmas fru-fru (though it was still a lot).

Couple #1: Mardou and Iris. Mardou (Laur Allen)’s performance was especially well done, and the character had more engaging subtly than you typically see in Holiday movies. For you to understand that Mardou has been in love with Iris (Emily Goss) for years but has been exercising mature and caring restraint to not show it, to carry the movie, the role *had* to be portrayed with not just body language, but with sincere facial expression, especially with the eyes. Props here go also to choices made by the writers and execution by the director relating to the actors’ interactions and positioning. Iris’ performance was almost as good. I say “almost” because while the story gives Mardou a very serious, almost tragic role, Iris’ role shoulders lower levels of comedy in addition to the serious undertones of what her character is going through. This is accomplished through physical humor and situational levity (often related to depression-related awkwardness) with brief forays into the ‘useless lesbian’ brand of awkwardness. (One scene is *truly* a laugh out loud moment, and Emily Goss’ facial and body performance here was right on point. I had to pause the film just to finish laughing, and then watched the moment twice more just for fun.)

Couple #2: Lou and Kenna. The arc between the brewery owner, Lou (Jessica Clark), and welder, Kenna (Sandra Mae Frank), was a super cute idea in theory, and was actually super cute in terms of how it was carried off, though it needed more situational authenticity. This arc gets plenty of laugh moments, as that’s its primary role in the plot. Lou is beyond adorably clumsy. The filming/artistic decisions relating to how Lou sees Kenna in various supermodel-esque mini-shots are cringe-worthily hilarious. The mix-in fact that Kenna is deaf and Lou has to figure out how to navigate this is both heartwarming, because it brings in something society generally sees as a disability and again, the basis for a good part of the humor. The actors have good chemistry together. The height difference is again, ‘super cute.’ Lou’s blatant pining and angsty awkwardness is both relatable and charming. Kenna is fun. Her roommate is also fun.

My nitpick: (Nitpick? Maybe just disappointment over a missed opportunity...) This arc is where the film slips into a Holiday movie trap of not being authentic to setting. The reason this is a real shame is because both brewing and welding, combined into female love interests, is a hot idea for a wlw story. And so I wanted to see an actual female welder and a female brewer, rather than just pretty people given the titles. I know enough about brewing from watching documentary shows, visiting breweries, and doing my own research (I’m a long ways into a WIP of my own that involves a brewery and a brewmaster incidental as a sub-plot to my main plot) to see that Lou is a brewery owner only in name only, with no real development given here, nor attempt to make it look or feel real. The same goes for the welder: I’ve never welded, but my father has, and I grew up with a fair bit of rag-tag rural living and was around equipment and welders enough in my early life to know that nothing about the way Kenna is portrayed makes her being a welder authentic.

I give this arc a thumbs up. It’s just... it could have been amazing instead of simply good.

Couple #3: Janey and Sue. The final arc is between Janey (Janelle Marie) and Sue (Waverly Earp Dominique Provost-Chalkley). They’ve been on-again-off-again sweethearts since high school, but life keeps getting in the way. Janey is in the military and Sue is a musician with performance anxiety related to singing in public. She also has a recently-ill mother, and finances are tight. This arc has some sweet elements, and the actors are cute together. I’ve not yet entered into the Waverly kingdom of fangirling, but Dominique is definitely a talented actress and plays the role perfectly: It’s impossible not to be engaged with Sue’s emotions and experiences through Dominique’s expression of her.

There are some bittersweet notes throughout this arc, and it is by far the most complex relationship of the movie even though it is secondary or tertiary in the film. In reality, it could have been the most impressive of the three stories, if the film had given it an ending that was realistic relative to Sue’s particular brand of anxiety. (Spoiler: They didn’t. Here is the one truly glaring point where the movie falls prey to the Holiday movie curse: Something unrealistic happens, essentially an invisible fairy-plot mother waves a magic wand behind the scenes and a personal struggle for Sue that shouldn’t be overcome so easily- if at all- suddenly is.) It would have been more powerful if Sue’s arc had ended without the typical holiday triumph in the ‘resolution’ stage that follows the narrative ‘crisis,’ and instead used the ‘crisis’ stage as a springboard for Janey and Sue to grow through the realities of her anxiety together, coming to a deeper understanding of the other, and maturing their love.

Music Bonus: The song Sue/Dominque plays at the end is fabulous! I would buy it on iTunes in a heartbeat if it were available. (It’s not. A big ‘why not’ aimed squarely @tellofilms.) There’s a music video on Tello, which you can see (but it might be pay to access). There’s a version on youtube, but be ware that whoever put it up isn’t officially related to the film or the song/song writer/performer and their transcription of the lyrics is off in several places. With how incredibly well Dominique sings, it would be great to see her reunite for a song with Natasha Negovalis (previously together in the Carmilla Movie, 2017) in Tello’s future 2020 Holiday film, since it will be about a music star.

In conclusion: The stories were decently solid, and were definitely enjoyable. There’s plenty of kissing scenes ultimately, so there’s payoff. It’s sweet. It’s cute. It is all HEA. There was humor mixed in throughout. It could have handled a higher production value, as sometimes between sets and sound, you can tell it’s not quite up to a movie theater release standard. It would be nice to see it not be every one of them all perfect-looking people. But, that being said, it does well. While well above the typical Hallmark holiday standard (for me, anyway), there were places where the stories could have taken on a bit more depth. (Oh: Just to warn you: There was one bizarre moment in the middle at a Christmas party with an encounter that felt out of the blue, didn’t make sense given who was theoretically invited to the party, and jerked me hard out of the viewing experience. Also, I suppose it could be a trigger for some people, though it’s relatively mild. I understand the point they were trying to make, and agree with it, but it did not belong in this movie, or at least in this scene.)

If you have the $6.99 spare to do the digital three-day rental, or $14.99 to purchase (I rented but will probably go back and purchase as well), head over to @tellofilms and take the risk. It’ll be a holiday pick of mine for years to come.

Please watch it if you’re so inclined! Doing so will hopefully brighten your day, and will help support the people who make generating wlw content of increasing quality possible for all of us to enjoy.

-- Happy New Everyone from @thecarmillacurator

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theincompetentgenius · 5 years

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Drops of the Ocean (Sirius x Reader)

@aoryuucchi: MC is really sad because, even when she knows that Sirius doesn't pay her attention because he has work to do, she feels lonely and unloved. Sirius realizes it and reassures her that he loves her very much. A lot of fluff~

Hey, sorry for the wait! I’ve been busy with holiday and getting ready for college (wish me luck!) with a bit of writer’s block, but I’m back. Also, I gave this story an alternate ending because I really liked it??? But it’s super angsty so PLEASE SKIP IT IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ IT (It will be tagged, so don’t worry-- the true ending is a very fluffy ending). Also, it might have been too cheesy, so sorry in advance (fluff is my weaker spot)!

Title: Drops of the Ocean

Fandom: Ikemen Revolution

Pairing: Sirius x Reader

Word Count: 1660 (+255 for the alternate ending)

The pebble rippled across the pond. I threw another rock, hoping it would skip farther than the last. However, the rock fell from my hand a second too early and fell in the water, swallowed by the surrounding water.

I sat down with an irritated sigh. Throwing rocks in the pond had become my past-time since Sirius was swept away with his work. An uprising in the southern sector of the Black Territories had led to severe riots and strikes, leaving Sirius to handle the mess created by irresponsible cooperation. Weeks of paperwork, negotiating, and planning had passed. The only time I saw Sirius was when he returned from his outside duties. It lasted for five minutes.

Part of me felt foolish. Sirius had to deal with pressing issues that needed his complete attention. He had real problems while I was whining about the lack of attention. It was childish. I wanted nothing more than these feelings to dissipate, but a dumbbell weighed over my chest. Everyone thought I was understanding about the entire situation, but it became a facade. Time separated us, leaving my patience on a tight-rope.

My hand patted the ground for another pebble. Instead, it was greeted with grainy, crunchy sand. I sifted for more stones, but the sand was bruised with uneven, empty pockets. Those were probably the homes of the rocks that I chucked into the pond earlier. With nothing to throw, my time at the pond felt pointless.

I got up and dusted the sand off my dress. As I made my way to the Black Army, I heard galloping hooves in the background. Someone shouted my name. I turned around and saw Sirius waving at me. Although I wanted to run, my feet stood in place and I waved back with a thin smile.

Once Sirius mounted off his horse, he rushed to me. It took a few seconds to pull my feet out of the ground, but my eagerness overtook my stubbornness. It felt a little cheesy, but my chest grew tight as I ran towards him. It was a rare opportunity to see him outside of his work and I couldn’t let this opportunity slide. He grabbed me by the waist and lifted me into the sky. I placed laughed as he twirled me around, my loneliness drifting along with the cloud beside me. Sirius placed me down and I enveloped him in a hug. We held each other in silence.

He released me and we plopped on the grass behind the sand. Sirius placed his hand over mine as we watched the water glimmer against the sun. Although the quietness was soothing, there were so many things I wanted to say. Yet I didn’t want to be a burden.

“Is something wrong?” Sirius tilts his head, meeting my eyes.

“No.” I look away.

“You can tell me anything. If it’s something important, I want to help you.”

Was it something important? The longer I thought about it, the more tears I felt pool around my eyes. This entire problem was completely one-sided and frugal. Why did I have to over-complicate the situation? Sirius wasn’t intentionally trying to hurt me. He was simply side-tracked.

I shook my head, but the evidence was stacked against me. My eyes were brimming with water. I tried to brush them away, but a few tears rolled down my cheek. Sirius took his thumb and wiped them from my face.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “It’s just that we-”

“Haven’t seen each other in forever,” Sirius completed my sentence. His eyes flashed with guilt as he realized what I was trying to say.

Sirius gave the first of his many apologies. “I had no idea that my absence was affecting you.”

“No, no. I was being overdramatic for no reason. You’re busy.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t spend time with you,” Sirius got up and lent his hand out to me. “You have to let me make up for this mistake.”

I took his hand and we began chatting about all the times we had missed. He told me about a harvesting festival his men had come across, where he nearly burned his tongue from eating their spicy meat. In return, I told him about the time Fenrir and I nearly burned down Luka’s kitchen while trying to make Seth an edible birthday cake. The color nearly drained from Sirius’s face and I assured him that I avoided the fire with my quick wits and fire extinguishing skills. He didn’t feel any better.

He ran to the edge of the shore and I followed behind him. I wasn’t sure what he had in mind, but Sirius only grew closer to the water. Soon, the water crashed against the heels of his boots. I inched closer to the shore, but the moment my toes collided with the sea foam, I ran back. Sirius’s left foot was on the sand while the waves brushed against his right foot. He beckoned for me to come over, but I couldn’t move. The water was too cold and I didn’t know how to swim; I had no intention of drowning. He assured me that everything will be fine and he would be beside me in case a dangerous situation unfolds, but I simply stared at the lingering sea foam. After a few moments of mental debating, Sirius steps out of the water and held his hand towards me. I tiptoed towards the waves once more, feeling creases forming against my brow. The tide rushed to me, drawing past its previous shoreline but I sped ahead and remained untouched by the water. As if being scolded by the ocean, my feet were trapped within the sand and my hands were folded behind my back.

Before taking another step, Sirius stopped and turned to me. “If you don’t want to go any further, then that’s fine. I know you’re scared of deep water, so we can do something else. I don’t have anything else to do today and we can always explore around the nearby town.”

I shook my head. Sirius and I were spending time together by the pond (which now seemed more like a beach) with no distractions. While we could go somewhere else, I was oddly enjoying the entire thing: scaring the living out of myself while having Sirius guide me through the not-so-turbulent waters. Also, I felt slightly guilty that he had to give up the rest of his day for me. I didn’t want to cause any additional trouble for him.

“No, I don’t mind. In fact, you can help me overcome my fear of deep waters. Consider it a very important task that you must accomplish today!” “On whose orders?” He raised an eyebrow. I crossed my arms and thought for a moment. “Um………” “We’ll say that’s a direct order from the queen,” He laughed and patted my head. “Wouldn’t that be on your orders then?” “Although I’m the Queen of Spades, you’re the queen of my life.”

I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and pointed towards the water. “Onwards then!”

“Alright milady,” Sirius bowed.

I laughed and gave him a curtsy in return. “As long as I don’t have to swim, I’ll be alright.”

“You don’t need to swim. Just stand beside me and hold my hand,” He winked. I nodded and strolled towards the shoreline. The ominous blue of the ocean faded from my sight as my eyes were focused on Sirius and his radiant smile against the glimmering sunlight. His purple eyes held a warmth that gravitated me closer towards him. As I stepped in his direction, he took an additional ten steps forward-- closing the distance between us. The knot in my chest slowly disappeared.

My feet had reached the wet sand. It curled around my toes and cling to my skin like the last grains of rice in a finished bowl. Sirius hopped out of the water and took off his boots. He rolled the sleeves of his pants, and with my permission, pinned the hem of my dress towards my knees with a spare pin in his pocket. He took my hand in his. Soft but firm.

“Are you ready?”

I didn’t respond but gave him a smile. With a tight grip on his hands, I slide towards the ocean with my left foot. “This is not so bad.”

Sirius laughed. “Compared to the shenanigans that Fenrir pulls, this is heaven.”

“He’s not as crazy as everyone paints him to be. In fact, you can hold a stable conversation with him for an entire minute if you really try.” I glided against the wet sand and my feet touched the water. My knuckles turned white and Sirius wrapped his arm around me.

“Looks like you’ve accomplished something that will take me years to understand.” He said. We took another step together, the water rushing past our feet. I put my hands on his chest for extra support. The two of us watched the waves crash against each other, huddled against each other. Flocks of birds flew over our heads and Sirius labeled each bird as a person in the black army. I pointed to mushroom-shaped cloud behind them, but Sirius thought the clouds looked like sunflowers. Maybe he was getting old.

“Don’t be silly,” I stretched to reach his forehead and brush the idle strands from his face. Maybe that would give him a better view of the clouds. However, I use too much force with no support to push myself towards his tall structure. A strong wave knocks me over, drenching me in saltwater. Sirius grabbed my hand, steering me towards him, and I landed on his lap. For a second, I simply blinked. I looked up and our eyes meet. Laughter bubbled in my stomach as the two of us laughed over my klutziness. It was embarrassing, but I was with Sirius. That’s all that mattered.

A/N: Alright! I hope you enjoyed that. It was difficult because everything I touch turns into angst. In fact, I might have gotten carried away and might have created an alternate ending that’s not so sweet and happy? If you’re interested, keep reading. If not, just skip this.

TW: Drowning

We spent the right of the time in the water. One splash turned into an entire water fight and we were completely soaked. It was a matter of time before the sun had set and the sky had grown black. Sirius realized that we couldn’t walk around in wet clothes, so he went to fetch some outfits from the nearest clothing store. He insisted that I went with him, but I wanted to spend a little more time in the water. Although he was worried, I assured him that I could handle it on my own. With much reluctance and sneezing from my end, Sirius scouted for dry clothes.

I stared into the blue. It was calling for me, wish for my presence. I walk over to the waves, closing my eyes as the waves wash over me. It was a small bath.

A sudden wave knocked me over. My arms falter from the weight and my mind is filled with sheer horror. I stumble from the fall, trying to grab something for support. Tension seared through my arms as I struggled to keep them out for an imaginary hand, pulling me out of this monster. My body submerged into the water. My eyes widened with fear and I flailed my arms. My feet kicked out, trying to propel herself towards the land but the force of the tide pulled me back. I continued to thrash and scream. The water entered my mouth, silencing me.

The water rushed against my feet at a steady rhythm.

#ikemen revolution #ikemen kakumei #ikerev #ikerev sirius #sirius oswald #ikemen revolution sirius #ikerev fic

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ot7-hoes · 5 years

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henlo¡ i've recently found your works and they are amazing, i hope you guys can write more in the future and become bigger since everyone deserves to read your stuff. i'd like to request a ANGST one shot (it can be with either jk or jm, or with... whoever you want tbh) with chubby! reader, i feel like that minority is left out in the ff world and even if im not chubby myself i want to read different stuff and understand different feelings. hope you guys can take me into account! love you lots💜

A/N: Hey Sweetie! Dezzy here. Thank you so much for making this request. We loved working on it and love talking to you! I hope you like it!

Planning: Sunnie, Bunny, Dezzy

Writer: Dezzy

Word Count: 1837

Spring had always been your favorite time of year. The flowers blossoming, the beautiful weather, it was all so wonderful to you. For the first time in a while, your idol boyfriend, Park Jimin, was on a break, which meant he spent every second with you. You loved how caring and clingy he was, always being a cuddly person yourself. He loved showing you off and telling people about your relationship, which made you uncomfortable sometimes, but he was just proud to be yours. You were a little on the chubbier side, so you were very self conscious and insecure and mainly wore clothes that covered your body, making sure not to embarrass him by your appearance.

Today, however, you felt great. You wore a flowy sundress with a light cardigan. The weather was gorgeous so you decided to get out of the house and do a little shopping at the outdoor mall. Hand in hand, you and Jimin had scoured the racks to find summer clothes for the both of you, finding a bunch of things that looked amazing. You decided to take a little shopping break and get some ice cream in a little shop. You sit by the window, enjoying the view as you eat, making small talk as you people watch. “Aw, look at that couple. They’re so cute.” You say, pointing at a couple wearing matching light blue sweaters. “Yeah, well, we’re cuter.” He smiles at you, making you blush.

“Excuse me, miss.” You turn your head to see an adorable little boy looking brightly at you. “Hi, sweetie. Can I help you with anything?” You ask softly. “Can I feel the baby in your tummy?” He asks, and your heart sinks. Your face visually drops, but you put on a small smile, still trying to be sweet to the kid. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but there’s no baby in there.” You reply softly. “Kwongwoo! I’m so sorry, ma'am. He doesn’t have any manners.” The mother rushes over, grabbing the little boy by his arm. “It’s okay, don’t worry.” You smile, hiding your hurt. She pulls him away, and Jimin gives you a sad look, but you brush it off, not wanting to ruin the day with your insecurity. You can see the woman kneel to talk to the boy, trying to keep her voice down, but it doesn’t work.

“Darling, you can’t ask women if they’re pregnant. Some women are just a little more…” She trails off, hoping he gets the message. Apparently, he does. “Fat!” He says, proud that he finished her sentence, but sending a dagger through your heart. Your fake smile fades, and you set your bowl of ice cream down on the table. “I think I’m done.” You say, looking out the window. “Baby, you only eat half of it though.” Jimin whines, but you shake your head in protest. “I’m not hungry anymore.” You say, pulling your cardigan tighter around your body. He nods in understanding, leaving it at that.

“Ooh, let’s go in here. It looks cute.” He says, wrapping his arm around your shoulders and guiding you towards a small boutique. “Jimin, I kinda just wanna go home.” You admit, not wanting to be in public anymore. “Just a few more stops. Please? I’d really love to spend my day out with my love.” He begs, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Alright.” You sigh in defeat, remembering that you can’t let your low self esteem ruin his day. He guides you into the shop, you standing back as he searches through the racks. “This would look so cute on you!” He says, grabbing a flowy flower print tank top. It is cute, but you know your arms wouldn’t look good in it. “I don’t know.” You say, looking away from it. He holds onto it, intent on purchasing it. He looks through the pants too, finding some cute high waisted shorts. “These are perfect! And they’d go great with the tank top.” He says, holding them up. All you can think about is the way your legs and all your cellulite would ruin the look. You say nothing, and he pouts a bit.

“Excuse me, ma'am?” He says, and you watch as he calls over one of the employees. “Can I get your opinion on something?” He asks her. “Jimin, please don’t.” You beg, not wanting to draw attention. “Yes, how can I help you?” She asks, and you just hide behind Jimin. “Don’t you think these would look amazing on my beautiful girlfriend?” He asks. “Oh definitely. She’s gorgeous, she could pull off anything. That dress you’re wearing is super cute, miss.” She says, and you peak out from behind his shoulder, seeing the genuine smile on her face. “T-Thank you.” You say softly. She helps Jimin check out the clothes and you’re on your way to one more store he’s been dying to take you to, full of beautiful gowns.

“Jimin, don’t you think these are all a bit too flashy for me?” You ask, looking around at all the dresses. “No way. Just like that lady said, you look amazing in anything.” He smiles, taking your hand in his as he looks around. He gasps and turns to you, smiling. “Baby, close your eyes. I want this to be a surprise.” He says with the biggest grin on his face. You shake your head softly, but do as he says, closing your eyes until he tells you to open them, the dress he chose already paid for and in a bag. “Alright. We can go home now.” He says, still smiling.

Once you get home, he brings all the shopping bags to the bedroom, calling you in there. “Now, can you please try this on? I think it’s gonna look gorgeous.” He says, holding the bag from the dress shop. You nod, and he leaves the room, leaving you alone. You pull the dress out, and it’s incredible. It was a light pink color with a ruffle top, spaghetti straps, a long skirt, with soft lace on the torso. It’s beautiful, but you’re afraid to try it on. No, you have to. He wants you to. You nod in determination as you strip your clothes off.

The dress is beautiful. You absolutely adore it. There’s one main thing you don’t love though, the way you look in it. It shows too much skin for your liking, the waistband squeezing at your love handles. You make it look lumpy, and you can’t help but tear up. It’s such a gorgeous dress you’re ashamed that you make it look terrible. It was probably expensive too. You hate wasting Jimin’s money. Maybe you can return it. The little tear drops turn into you fully sobbing as you sit down on the edge of the bed. “Baby, is everything alr- Sweetheart.” Jimin pushes the door open, rushing over you. “What’s wrong?” He asks, kneeling before you and wiping your tears. “It-its the dress.” You sob, completely breaking down.

“What about the dress, my love? What’s wrong with it? It looks amazing.” He cooes, trying his best to calm you down. “It is amazing, but I make it look horrible.” You sob, holding your face in your hands. “No you don’t. If anything, you make it look even better.” He assures you, his voice calming you down just a bit. “No I don’t. My fat arms are just on display now, you can clearly see my muffin top, my thighs are stretching out the top of the skirt. It just, doesn’t look right on me.” You tell him, not crying as much anymore but still upset. He cups your cheek, rubbing the tears away while giving you a sad smile. “Come here. I wanna show you something.”

He grabs you by your hands and gently pulls you up off the bed, guiding you to stand in front of the mirror, his toned chest pressed against your back. You see your reflection, but turn your head to avoid seeing it. “Baby, please look.” He begs, hugging you around your waist. You cave, looking in the mirror and tearing up again at the sight of you. “No no, sweetheart. Please don’t cry.” He says, reaching up and wiping your tears again before placing small kisses on your bare shoulders. “You wanna know what I see when I look in this mirror?” He asks. You nod, his chin resting on your shoulder, his hands slowly and gently running over your body.

“When I look in this mirror, I see the love of my life, the most beautiful woman in the world. Maybe not the definition of beauty to everyone else, but absolutely perfect in every single way to me. I see my girl, that looks amazing in any outfit, has the cutest smile, the sexiest curves. You give the best hugs too, you know? It’s like, with you, I can hug you as tight as I want, and I’m not afraid to break you like those toothpick hostesses on TV. I can squeeze you and kiss you and cuddle you as much as I want and I’m not afraid.” He tells you the last part while squeezing you tight, peppering kisses all over your cheek, making you giggle. “And that laugh, God that laugh is music to my ears. Y/N, do you remember when I was struggling with image issues and an eating disorder?” He asks, the memory of it breaking your heart. “Do you remember what you told me back then?”

“That you were much more than your appearance and your health is more important that your looks.” You recall. “And that you loved my cheeks being chubby because you could poke them a lot.” He chuckles. “Yeah, I remember.” You giggle, relaxing a bit. He turns you around to face him, still holding you around your waist as he brings his hand up, wiping away the rest of your tears. “Y/N, you are so much more than what’s on the outside. You’re beautiful inside and out, and I couldn’t think of a better woman for me. I just want you to see the perfect woman I see.” He says, placing a small kiss on your forehead.

Now, your tears aren’t sad, but happy. “Someday, hopefully. It’s gonna take time though.” You smirk, but he just smiles back. “Well then, I’m gonna do whatever I can to move the process along. That dress really does look amazing on you.” He tells you, looking over your body. You look back in the mirror, your newfound confidence from his sweet words making you realize you do look incredible in it. “Now, how about you take it off and get into some comfy clothes so we can have a little movie night.” He suggests. This man really does know you so well. You nod in agreement, grabbing some comfy PJ’s and changing into them before joining him on the couch for a comfy night in with the man of your dreams.

#bts #bts imagine #bts smut #kpop smut #park jimin #jimin #bts jimin #angst fic #fluff #bts fluff

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choupetit · 5 years

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GOT Recap: Iron Throne

Airdate: 5/19/19 Season 8, Episode 6 (Finale)

Well, here we are, everybody! The Game of Thrones Finale has dropped and I for one was completely loving it. It was so riveting and they were totally able to justify Dany’s mad queen arc, plus, the way they tied up all the loose ends was truly spectacu ---oh for the love of god, I can’t do this anymore! Here’s the truth: The finale was GARBAGE! It was disappointing and boring and, honestly, we all deserved better. I know people say “You can’t please everybody.” I get that. But, dude, when the majority of people ain’t happy, you’ve done messed up.

That said, it’s dunzo and now we all can walk around dazed, like the survivors of King’s Landing, trying to make sense out of the madness. I suppose, in a way, I’m grateful that the previous episode was so god awful, because it really helped me prepare for a let down. So in that sense, expecations were met. Let’s remind ourselves how this series, as a whole, was truly a special thing…most of the time. It’s just too bad it had to end this way. This is by far my least fave episode to recap, but I can’t just let the final notes of the Song of Ice and Fire go unplayed, so here ya have it: My final GOT recap of “Iron Throne”:

Yo. The massacre of King’s Landing is over – or is it? Tyrion Lannister -clearly not considering his own life or survival- has decided to stick around and take a long walk through the charred human remains and toppled buildings. Jon Snow and Ser Davos follow him, equally stunned by the devastation. White ash covers everything. We see a handful of shell shocked survivors as Tyrion passes through the streets to make his way to the Red Keep. Jon tells him not to go in without backup, but Tyrion insits on going it alone. He gets into the castle and makes his way through the ruined map room and down the stairs to check on the secret passageway that he told his bro about. It’s all moody and sad…but also confusing, because we saw the ceiling collapse last episode and it didn’t seem like there would even be a basement left to go to. But maybe I’m just being a stickler for things that make actual sense. Tyrion finds a giant pile of rubble blocking a passageway. A hint of light peeks from the top and he manages to climb and pick his way past the blockage. Seems totally safe to me to disturb the unstable structure and debris.

On the other side, there is another huge pile of rubble and Tyrion spies Jaime Lannister’s golden hand peeking out of the rocks. Yeah, that’s right, the ceiling - and presumably entire structure - came crashing down on Jaime and Cersei Lannister last episode and yet here we are with body pieces barely covered. Tyrion clears away a few bricks and voila! He has excavated Jaime and Cersei – nestled close together. That whole thing is so…whatever. I mean, Tyrion seems pretty upset, but when you look at the surrounding scene you’re just like “So…if Jaime and Cersei had simply stepped a few feet to the right, they would’ve been fine?” It’s all kinda dumb, if I’m being honest. But Tyrion’s feelings are real, and he’s devastated to see his siblings dead in each other’s arms.

As Jon and Davos make their way through the city to the Red Keep, they come across Grey Worm with a handful of Lannister soldiers on their knees, about to be executed. Jon’s all “Whoa, man. The fight’s over, these dudes should be prisoners!” And Grey Worm is all “I’m following my queen’s orders to kill her enemies.” Jon wants to talk to his superior – aka Daenerys – and Grey Worm’s all “Cool, let me know how that works out.” He proceeds to cut the throats of each of the kneeling men. Yowzers, that is cold!

Meanwhile, Arya Stark walks up to the crowd of Dothraki who are hooting and celebrating outside the Red Keep. It’s nice to know that the symbolic white horse at the end of last episode was able to carry her a full two blocks and then disappear for his next Lyft fare in King’s Landing – it’s surge pricing right now, people.

The Unsullied stand at attention, lining the long stairway up to the Red Keep and Jon slowly walks up. Grey Worm is already there – dude, the Unsullied are FAST! Tyrion stands to the side. Drogon swoops overhead and lands in the courtyard and a few seconds later, Queen Daenerys Targaryen walks out to the top of the stairs to address her loyal Dothraki and Unsullied troops.

She speaks to the crowd in Dothraki and then High Valyrian and gives a super creepy Hitler-esque speech “Thanks for helping me liberate the city, y’all! You guys have been so supportive and we are not going to rest until we have liberated the entire WORLD from the shackles of life!!!” All of Dany’s supporters cheer. “Also, we are going to have a big potluck tomorrow to get to know our 27 surviving King’s Landing citizens! This is a reminder that I’m making my famous ambrosia salad flambée and I really don’t want anybody one-upping me, so please steer clear from any and all other pineapple dishes with cool whip, m’kay? It might just push me over the edge. You guys are the best! See you tomorrow at 3pm near the charred moms and toddlers where the garden used to be!” Jon and Tyrion don’t understand a word she said, but they’re pretty sure it ain’t good. Of course it’s not – ambrosia salad is not meant to be flambéed, it’s gonna be a disaster. But at this point, nothing Dany does would surprise me anymore.

Tyrion steps forward and stands next to Dany, who goes “You freed your brother, traitor.” And Tyrion goes “Yeah, but you just massacred a city, psycho, so there! Oh and btw, I don’t want to be your hand anymore.” He removes his pin and tosses it down the stairs – y’all that is a bigger burn than what Dany just did to all of King’s Landing! Daenerys’s guards escort him away. Frankly, I thought she would just barbecue him right then and there, so things are going better than expected.

Jon stares warily at Dany who coolly gazes back at him and marches into the interior of the Red Keep. I don’t get how anybody can believe this is a sound structure, but then again all the building code enforcers are likely buried under a pile of rubble.

Suddenly, Arya pops up next to Jon who is surprised to see her in King’s Landing. She tells him of her plan to kill Cersei, “but your queen got there first.” Jon is quick to remind her that Daenerys is everybody’s queen. Arya retorts “Tell that to Sansa.” She also warns Jon that now that Daenerys knows his secret lineage, she’ll probably kill him one of these days.

Shortly after, Jon pays a visit to Tyrion, whose makeshift prison cell is a room filled with off-season Pier 1 decorative vases. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment. Tyrion attempts to turn Jon against Dany and gives him a whole spiel about how people with access to weapons of mass destruction and a penchant for mental instability somehow shouldn’t be allowed to be in power. Jon’s all “Meh, it’s not really my decision to make. I’m gonna focus on the things I can control – like the tightness of my man bun and the number of steps I’m clocking on my fitbit. Dude, this whole King’s Landing trip has got me up to 50K steps and it’s not even lunchtime!” “O-kay…but Dany really needs to be stopped.” There’s a bunch of bumbling convo about how Tyrion really did love and believe in Dany and how love clouds reason. Jon tells Tyrion “Love is the Death of Duty” and Tyrion is blown away by the poetic insight, then realizes it’s Jon saying it and goes “Did you just come up with that on your own?” “Nah, man. Maester Aemon said it to me once.” “Yeah, that makes more sense. Well, let me just take that gem, flip it and reverse it: Maybe sometimes Duty can be the Death of Love…just sayin’.” This wordplay is way too much for Jon to handle and he has to take a seat. Probably as a defense for the writers to take Dany down the path of crazyville, Tyrion points out all the cruel things Daenerys has done in her pursuit of the crown and he says she was cheered on and thus validated in feeling that she is right and good. When Jon tells him none of it matters now that the war is over, Tyrion goes “Is it though? She won’t stop till she’s the queen to everybody in this world – how is your family going to react to that? And do you really think that she won’t kill you, too, one day – the person with a better claim to the throne?” Finally, Tyrion tells Jon that he has to make a choice – and has to make it now. Visiting hours are over and Jon leaves, making no commitments either way. Just Jon being Jon, folks.

Jon approaches the entrance to the throne room – Drogon is guarding it. The dragon stirs from a pile of ashes, gives Jon a once-over and deems him worthy to pass. Damn straight, ‘cause he’s a true Targaryen!

Meanwhile, Daenerys enters the throne room – or rather, what’s left of it. The roof has been blown off with several of the exterior walls missing and the floor is covered with so much ash, it looks like a blanket of snow. She stares at the Iron Throne - solitary in the open space -and walks toward it. At last, she reaches it and touches one of the swords. This throne has always been so far from her grasp – even in her vision from the House of the Undying she never did manage to touch it - this moment has been a long time coming.

She turns to see Jon Snow at the doorway and she tells him a boring story about her childhood and how she assumed the Iron Throne was this gigantic behemoth of a throne. Jon is just all “Hey, gurl…so…your soldiers are still slaughtering peeps in the street. That’s pretty effed.” Dany is all calm with crazy eyes saying things like “We can’t hide behind small mercies – sometimes you have to kill a whole bunch of innocent people to save an even bigger bunch of innocent people.” When Jon asks her if she’s actually seen all the children that she’s killed in the streets – children, women, men who had nothing to do with any of this, he insists that mercy has to be a part of the vision for a better world.

Dany’s just all “I’m a visionary – I get that it’s really hard for you to see the grand scheme here, since you know nothing, but just trust that I know what is good and right.” It’s a callback to the convo Jon had with Tyrion just five minutes ago. Jon asks “Well, what about everybody else who thinks they know what’s good and right?” Dany replies, slightly flippantly “They don’t get to choose.” She asks Jon to be a part of her awesome dream and of course he tells her “You’re my queen. You always will be.” They kiss and embrace.

Then, mid-hug, THWUMP! Jon plants a dagger into Daenerys’ chest. Dany didn’t see this coming and is flummoxed. She collapses and dies in Jon’s arms, a trickle of blood spills from her mouth as he lays her on the ground.

Sensing a disturbance in the Force of the Mother of Dragons, Drogon flies up to investigate. He sees him momma lifeless on the ground and gives her a few nudges with his nose “Wake up, mama!!!” It’s all kinda heartbreaking if you can forget the entire last half of the previous episode where Drogon and his mommy were burning up all of King’s Landing.

Drogon looks at the dagger in Dany’s chest and then at the Iron Throne and Jon. He breathes in deeply and you can see the fire near the back of his throat. Holy Moles, is he going to toast Jon and then we see Jon arise from the flames? Nope. He lets out a huge stream of fire…not on Jon, but on the throne. What?! Is Drogon a big dumdum for thinking the pointy throne killed his mom or is he such a genius that he understands the Iron Throne is a symbolism for power, the pursuit of which ultimately led to his mother’s demise? We’ll never know, but either way, I think we can all agree it’s a weird reaction coming from the dragon. But it looks cool, so I guess there’s that. Drogon melts the entire throne to the ground. Then he picks Daenerys up gently in his talon and takes off. Jon is completely unharmed and would ya look at that – no dead body! Thanks Drogon! Now Jon can be all “I dunno where Daenerys went…she said she was going out for some milk”, and nobody will be the wiser. #PerfectCrime

We get a close up of Tyrion’s face – he wakes up from his prison cell floor and guards take him to the old dragon arena. Judging by the length of his beard, several weeks have gone by. Grey Worm leads him to a semi-circle of seated noblemen and women. It’s pretty much all the noble families left in Westeros - about a dozen or so peeps: Yara Greyjoy, the new Dornish prince, Robin Arryn and his adviser, Ser Davos Seaworth, Ser Brienne of Tarth, Lord Gendry, Samwell Tarly, Edmure Tulley and a few faces we don’t recognize, plus the three Stark siblings: Bran, Arya and Sansa.

When Sansa asks where Jon is – he was supposed to be at this meeting - Grey Worm replies that he’s their prisoner and the Unsullied get to decide who earns a get out of jail pass to attend the Westerosi Nobles Summit. Hold the door, people!! Wait a second. First of all: Jon’s milk cover story didn’t work??? Also, are we supposed to assume that Grey Worm has just been hanging out twiddling his thumbs waiting for somebody to tell him what to do? Isn’t he second in command to Daenerys and thus the new person in charge? Wouldn’t Tyrion and Jon be dead already for their crimes? And who called everybody for this summit anyway? Ok, none of these questions will be answered, so let’s get back to the action:

The gist of the gathering is that all the nobles have to decide what to do next, since there isn’t a monarch to make any decisions for the realm. Tyrion, the prisoner, is the dude who gets to do all the talking and comes up with a plan where all the nobles should just get to vote on who should be king. Sam suggests they try a democracy and everybody yucks it up. Lame. Edmure Tulley tries to nominate himself and Sansa tells him to sit the eff down.

Then Tyrion goes on to suggest that the person with the best stories should get to be the ruler – because, ya know, it’s stories that unite people. And who has a better story than Bran Stark? Um…pretty much all the other perfectly qualified women in the half-circle. Sansa objects that Bran doesn’t want to be king and besides, he can’t have kids. But for Tyrion, this is a minor detail: Who better to rule than somebody who doesn’t want the power? And let’s just elect rulers rather than passing down the throne via birthright! From now on, all the nobles will get to vote for their next king or queen. When Tyrion asks Bran if he’s ok being the Big Kahuna, Bran with his super dead-in-the-eyes mug goes “Why do you think I came all this way.” HOLD THE DOOOOOOOR, people!!!! Are you saying Bran knew this WHOLE time that he was going to be king? Are you kidding me? Is this the dumbest thing ever? Do I now have to pick apart a gazillion instances that make this so messed up if Bran always knew where things were going? No. We’ll stop here.

Everybody votes for Bran except for Sansa who goes “I love you little bro, you’re gonna be awesome as king but I can’t support you because the North is going independent baby. We’re ruling ourselves!!!” And Bran just nods. Now everybody else feels like a total moron for not putting in any special requests for their regions when they voted “Aye” for Bran. Ha, suckers!

Finally, to conlude this extremely boring scene, Tyrion names Bran king and puts in a super offensive name in his official title: Bran the Broken, first of his name…yadda, yadda. Bran looks around at everybody super hurt and goes “You guys have been calling me that behind my back this whole time?!” To get back at him, Bran tells Tyrion he has to be hand of the king. Grey Worm is all “You can’t do that! He’s our prisoner!” And Bran’s all “I can do what I want cause I’m king! Nanny, nanny, boo, boo! Also, Tyrion messed up big time and now he has to dedicate the rest of his existence to fixing his mistakes.” Um, seems like a pretty cush job to me, frankly.

They also throw in that the Unsullied can take The Reach as their own land, since pretty much nobody in Westeros lives there anymore. It’s the equivalent of telling them they can have Nebraska, and guess what? Nobody wants it.

Next, Tyrion visits Jon, whose beard is also looking cray from all the weeks of growing it out. He gives him the news: The Unsullied wanted Jon dead and the Stark sisters wanted him released, so Bran hit a compromise wherein Jon has to go back to the Wall and live out the rest of his days there, just like a regular Night’s Watchman: No wifey, no kids, no lands. Jon’s all “Why the hell is there even still a wall?” –“Duh, because.”

We see a freshly groomed Jon walk through the docks of King’s Landing, accompanied by two dudes from the Night’s Watch. Grey Worm gives him the stinkeye from his ship – the Unsullied are heading to Naath. Hey, maybe Grey Worm can find himself another nice girl from there!

Jon says goodbye to his siblings/cousins. Sansa is now queen of the North, which is pretty much what she always wanted. She laments that they lost their king, though. When Jon tells Arya she can still visit him she’s all, “Nah.” She wants to explore the seas west of Westeros where the maps end – so basically, our girl is gonna hang out in Hawaii for the rest of her life, hopefully doing more Eat Pray Loving than colonizing.

Brienne of Tarth is seated with the big Knight-o-pedia book in front of her. She finds the entry for Jaime Lannister and adds on to it. She is sure to mention that he had the best sex of his life with her, in spite of his tiny cock. Or, ya know, she takes the high road and puts in something really nice about him dying while protecting his queen. Ugh, Brienne, why you always gotta be so good?

In the Red Keep, it’s time for the very first small council to convene. Tryion gets all the chairs ready just so, and then in walk Ser Davos, Samwell Tarly, and Lord Bronn of the Blackwater – he finally got Highgarden, btw. They exchange some banter which falls short.

Soon thereafter Ser Brienne of Tarth and Ser Podrick Payne (awww he got knighted, too) enter with King Bran. Bran notes they are still missing a few positions: boring, boring, and dullsville. Then he goes “Does anybody know what Drogon is up to?” He was last seen flying east and Bran excuses himself to do some Professor X-ing to see if he can find him. But of course, we don’t actually get to see Bran warg. The small council continues with the boring business of figuring out how to spend money on rebuilding King’s Landing and it all ends with Bronn gunning hard for new brothels. Ugh. Seriously.

At the Wall, Jon arrives to be reuinited with his good pal Tormund Giantsbane and also: the bestest direwolf of them all, Ghost! This time, Jon gives Ghost an affectionate cuddle.

We get a cross-cut of a bunch of dull scenes of Jon, Arya, and Sansa getting dressed and walking. Sansa is crowned Queen in the North, Arya sets sail on a ship with the Stark sigil and Jon walks out to the Castle Black courtyard.

In the final scene, Jon heads out on horseback with Ghost and Tormund and a slew of Wildlings returning to their home. Has he abandoned the Night’s Watch? Is he Lord Commander again and can do whatever the heck he wants? Is he finally a ranger and is just going out on a temporary jaunt with his pal Tormund? Who knows. But it’s worth noting that the series finishes in the exact same way as it started: Men leaving the wall to head North into Wildling territory. The end.

And there we have it: 8 years of Game of Thrones came to a lackluster end with the Starks all on top. I’m still processing the weirdness I feel about the show ending this way. Truly, watching the episode was so dull at times that I just wanted it to be over already. While this could have been a much worse end to the series, it certainly wasn’t satisfying. But after the bombshell they dropped in the penultimate episode with Daenerys going nuts, I guess this final episode of the series didn’t have anywhere else to go that would have made it much better.

There are gazillions of cool things that were introduced throughout the previous seasons which were rendered somewhat pointless in the end. I would have loved more exploration and explanation of the mythology and its origins: The Children of the Forest, the Three Eyed Raven, the Night King, the previous defeat of white walkers and how they came back, the Lord of Light, all the fire priestesses in Essos, where the dragon eggs came from, the faceless men, etc. Also, I guess Varys’ letters about Jon being Aegon Targaryen were never delivered – or peeps just didn’t care? [shrugs] Oh well?

I thought this past season would be bittersweet to watch, but it took such an unfortunate turn in storytelling that I just wanted the bad plotlines to end. Season 8 never did live up to the hype of fan theories that were swirling about for two years. Can we blame it for coming up short? Kinda and kinda not. All I know is that I feel oddly cheated by the final season. Taken as a whole, though, I still love the show. I was always blown away by the sweeping visuals, the epic battle scenes, the engaging complexity of the characters. The acting, sets, costumes and music were all amazing. And of course, there was the joy of ruminating over all the possibilities of what might come in the next episode, and discussing the show with my fellow fans. Very few series are as special and engaging as Game of Thrones and I’ll miss it for sure. It’s nice to know there may be some amount of redemption for the story, when George R. R. Martin finally releases the last two books. So I’m holding onto hope for a slightly more satisfying end to this saga. Thanks for joining me on my recap adventures each week! It’s been a fun ride. And now my ‘caps have ended. Sorry, but I had to.

#GOTrecaps #gameofthrones #GOT #Game of Thrones #GOTS8e6 #GOTFinale

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natasha-cole · 6 years

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Perfectly Imperfect: Part 1

Pairing: Rob Benedict x Reader

Series Summary: They say that when you find your soulmate, you feel it instantly. Upon that first meeting, your souls connect and the entire world as you know it changes. It’s destiny… fate. It’s common knowledge that it happens for everyone. It's supposed to be perfect.

Just when Rob and Reader have each given up on the idea of ever finding their soulmates, their worlds change in one unexpected moment of fate.

The connection is there; but even they know this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.

More nonsense under the cut...

Warnings: probably swearing, slight angst, and a bunch of fluff

Word Count: 1785

Square filled: Soulmate AU

Chapter Summary: Rob has met Reader countless times over the past few years. She’s a fan, so it’s completely normal that they’ve interacted before. What isn’t normal is the fact that this particular interaction between them today is the moment when fate decides to catch up with them.

Notes: Because I was dealing with a long period of writer’s block, naturally I get past that by starting something that I really shouldn’t. You know me, I start new stories before I finish the ones I’ve been working on for ages (I’ll finish them eventually).

Anyway, this short series actually fills a square for my @spnfluffbingo card, so it’s okay.

More Notes: Okay, so this was weird for me to write because I’ve never written soulmate AU’s (I also maybe think the idea of soulmates is super corny, so I just had to give it a shot). This will be fast paced, super corny, and angsty with a healthy dose of fluff.

Rob’s POV

Rob had always dreamt of the moment when he would meet his soulmate. Every person had one. It was a given, it was fate, it was expected to happen. Even after all these years, he never gave up hope that it would happen for him. That is, until recently.

The last of his tight-knit group of friends had recently met their soulmate. In fact, they had all been at a convention just like this one when it happened. It was an almost too intimate thing to witness; that exact moment of connection, the look on each of their faces as the realization washed over them. That fateful moment was also the moment that Rob decided he had given up.

It was odd enough that he was the age that he was now and had still never found his person. It wasn’t necessarily rare that people didn’t match until much later in life, but it certainly wasn’t common either. He couldn’t pretend to not notice the way his family and friends looked at him sometimes; especially when he was at an event alone while everyone else was with their person. He learned to ignore the looks of pity and the knowledge that, when people talked about him, it was usually about how strange it was that he was still alone.

Instead of dwelling on his loneliness the way that he used to, he learned to become content with it. He focused mostly on work; acting and writing and music. He just chose to lose himself in a busy life so that he didn’t have to think about how lonely he really was.

The notion of having a soulmate seemed like a fairy-tale to him at this point. He had heard all of the stories. He understood that, when you finally met your person, you’d feel it in your soul instantly. It was hard to imagine the feeling when someone explained it to him. He couldn’t imagine meeting a stranger and suddenly just knowing that they were it for you. But, the way others talked about the calm and the warmth that took hold in that key moment made him want to experience it for himself someday.

Then, there was the idea of colors. It was even more far-fetched than the other stuff that came along with soulmates. As with anything else soulmate related, he had only heard stories about this as well. It was something that you couldn’t understand unless you actually went through it. He tried to understand; but even people around him couldn’t explain it enough for it to have any real impact. The thought of it though intrigued him.

“Hey, you okay?”

Rob blinked quickly, broken from his thoughts as he heard Rich call out to him. He glanced up, nodding at his friend who was staring at him in concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just daydreaming I guess.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m perfectly fine.”

“Man, I really worry about you.”

“Stop worrying,” Rob chuckled as he stood up to follow his friend from the greenroom. “I was just thinking about all the work we have to do this weekend.”

“That’s all you’re thinking about?” Rich smirked.

“Absolutely. I’ve got a packed schedule.”

“Hey, maybe this will be the weekend,” Rich said happily.

“The weekend for what?”

“When you meet your person.”

Rob frowned, sort of annoyed by the fact that his friend was probably the only person in his life who refused to give up on the notion. Every con weekend was the same with him. He always announced with full confidence that this could be the weekend that it finally happened. He was always wrong. Still, Rob couldn’t find it in himself to ever tell Rich to just give up on it already. No matter how much Rob had given up, he thought it was sort of endearing that someone never did.

“Yeah buddy,” Rob said as he forced a fake smile. “Maybe you’re right.”

Rob moved through the first half of the first day of the con as usual. By that afternoon, Rich had pretty much left him alone on the whole soulmate thing. Even Rob knew that Rich was mostly remaining so optimistic about the whole thing in an attempt to make his friend feel better; eventually, he’d drop the topic after he had sufficiently made a big deal out of it for a while.

Rob sat at a long table in the vendor’s hall with his band-mates, each of them ready to start signing autographs for the impressive line of fans that had shown up. This was his favorite part of work. While he was unable to form a soulmate connection, the connection he had with fans was enough to make him forget about that for just a while. He loved to talk to them, to listen to their stories, to see their excitement upon meeting them. If nothing else, at least his music helped him to connect with people.

About halfway through the line, he stopped for a moment to take a deep breath. The line had been moving quickly and he was becoming a bit overwhelmed with all the people and the talking. When he composed himself, he nodded to their handler, who had stopped the line for a moment, indicating that his moment was over and he was ready.

The next fan stepped in front of him and he glanced up, realizing that he had been pretty terrible and hadn’t taken much time to really pay attention to the fans as they came through. Now, he had taken that moment; and he grinned up at the woman as he quickly recognized her.

“Hey, Y/N,” he said softly. He recognized her each time he saw her. She had been to many conventions and many Louden Swain shows, it was hard not to remember her by this point. There were always a handful of fans that he knew by name, and she happened to be one of them.

“Good to see you again,” she replied with a smile.

“It’s always a pleasure,” he added. “What embarrassing thing are you having me sign this time?”

“Not embarrassing,” she laughed, probably recalling the last convention she was at in which she had managed to find the most humiliating headshot from the beginning of Rob’s career, just to see if he’d sign it. He did, by the way. “Just our photo op from earlier.”

She held the photo out to him and he chuckled as he studied it. She always managed to come up with great ideas for ops, it was something that he learned very quickly about her. Every time he saw her face in line in the op room, he’d smile because he just knew she’d do something to take him by surprise. This particular op had been a bit different though. It had been the first time that she offered to let him choose the pose.

Given the fact that he was familiar with her and they were sort of friendly, he had pulled her in for a tight hug and placed a kiss to her cheek. It was an op unlike any other op they had ever had together, and he really sort of liked it the most.

“I can handle that,” he said as he reached out to take the photo.

It was mostly by accident; but as Rob’s hand grasped onto the photo, his fingers barely grazed hers. It was nothing out of the ordinary. They had touched innocently many times before.

But, the second his skin came into contact with hers in this very moment, everything changed. He felt it immediately somewhere deep inside of him. A longing? A need? Something like a familiar sense of anxiety that was only heightened in this moment. That feeling in itself was odd. He assumed it was a fluke. Yes, touching her had an immediate effect on his soul, but not in the way that it was supposed to. At least, he was certain it wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

He paused with that photo still in his hand, glancing up at her in shock. As he did so, the world around him began to fall into place. The gray world that he had become so used to seeing each and every day began to change. It was so sudden and almost blinding. He could see it all now. The vivid, almost violent red of her dress; the luminous shades of Y/H/C he now saw in her hair; and most importantly… those beautiful Y/E/C eyes that he had never noticed before. How he suddenly knew the names of these colors he was seeing, he didn’t understand; but the stories that he had been told all made sense now. Going from seeing nothing but shades of gray, to now experiencing these intricate colors all at once and so suddenly was overwhelming.

He stopped breathing, blinking rapidly as he tried to make sense of the fact that his entire life was changing in an instant.

His eyes locked with hers and he took note of the way she had also froze in place. Her expression was as equally shocked as his was.

Rob became suddenly aware of the fact that they were staring at each other, connecting right here in front of all these other people. At least, he thought that's what this was. Still, he was unable to look away from her as the colors around him continued to shift; the new feelings within him still twisting and turning.

The world around them seemed to stop as they stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. People around them moved in slow motion, hundreds of voices almost muted as they lost themselves in this moment. No one else existed anymore, not right now.

He kept his eyes on her, almost as if he couldn’t even look away even if he wanted to. He noticed the way her own eyes welled up with tears, most likely due to the overwhelming emotions that they were each feeling in this very moment. He himself was holding back since he was very aware of the fact that this was happening very publicly; which was definitely not the normal way for this moment to happen at all. In fact, he was also aware of how completely not-normal this entire thing was from the beginning. Regardless of how unsettled he felt over it, he knew that this woman was his. That fact outweighed the loud voice inside of him that kept telling him that this wasn’t right.

“Hi,” he said softly, forcing his smile this time. “I’ve been waiting for you for so long.”

Forever Tags (tag me in everything!)

@destielschild

@sorenmarie87

@smoothdogsgirl

@kocswain

@culturebay

@itsfunnierin-enochian

@typicalweirdbookworm

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@robfangirl

@soythedemonqueen

@southernbell91

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@internationalmusicteacher

@tas898

@katsanders

@collinscosmicentity

#rob benedict x reader #rob benedict rpf #soulmate au #spn fluff bingo #perfectly imperfect

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quiet-mask-of-uncertainty · 5 years

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TAG/ASK GAME

it’s a bit late but this week was really busy so i’m doing this now. I was tagged by the cutie @remvs-lvpins thank you, sweetie! i’m sending a big hug to you.

Nickname: Chiarina, Chichi, Chichio, Chiaretta, Chia, my flatmates call me Princess because i love pink, sparkling things and i’m hopelessly romantic.

Bonus: what am i supposed to say here? i’ll follow Julia and give you a random fact about me: i love sloths, they’re adorable and lazy, so cute!

Zodiac: I’m a virgo... i can’t be more specific because i’m not into those things but apparently this says i’m a perfectionist... yeah, it can be.

Height: 1,60 m. I’m a little shorter so yeah, heels are a real thing.

Last movie I saw: Dead Poets Society for the thousandth time, yeah i can’t get over that movie and i even rewatched it last month but i was in the right mood and i needed it. don’t judge me, it’s amazing and it makes me cry every single time.

Last thing I googled: “cursus honorum romano” yeah i’m still studying latin literature and i needed a little review

Favourite Musician: mmmmh i think i’ll go with The Script. i love almost every song of them and i can’t wait to hear a new album and maybe go to another concert... possibly without being forced to stay home due to school things (Lucy, ti penso e ti voglio bene <3)

Song stuck in my head: A Lovely night from La La Land soundtrack, I've listened to this soundtrack when i was doing my houseworks last days and now my mind keep singing this one. luckily it reminds me the time i went to the cinema with my friend for this movie, yeah we were surrounded by lovely couples kissing each other, it was awkward but we had fun.

Other blogs: nope ahaha i don’t have one lovely and interesting blog, so i don’t know why should i have more.

Do I get asks: naaaah, i’m not that cool! but i’ve found lovely people who keep messaging me, bless you, i love you all <3 you make me smile every time!

Following: let’s say i’m following 208 blogs

Amount of sleep: well i need a lot of sleep in my life, at least 6/7 hours or i’m annoying, usually i sleep like 8 hours? but at the moment a little less, i’m probably too stressed and my mind keeps overthinking about everything i have to do before my exam next month so...

Lucky number: i don’t think i have one, yeah... lucky numbers are not my thing, but if i have to choose maybe 16? it’s my birthday.

What I’m wearing: noooo bad question, really bad! i’m at home, i’m supposed to study so i’m in my grey, warm pyjama pants, with an orange t-shirt that was originally my dad’s, and a blue flannel sweatshirt. also christmas socks with reindeers. i’m super sexy... ahahah

Dream job: i want to become an archaeologist, i’d really loved to! but it’s so difficult and even if i’ll study a lot it’s not certain at all. i can also be a teacher with my study background and this is my plan B, i love teaching and i love italian literature, latin and history (and those are the subjects i could teach) so i’m would be happy even in this scenario.

Dream trip: Greece! I WANT TO GO THERE! last year i took greek archaeology as an exam and after that i planned my perfect trip to greece and i can’t wait to go there, now i only have to find the right company ahahah that means someone who wants to follow me around museums, archaeology sites, cultural monuments and who can handle my exited mood (and me analyzing every single piece in the museum like it’s the most important thing in the world).... not easy

Favourite food: ah ah ah how am i supposed to choose? i think i’ll go with my grandma’s lasagna, because when you taste it you can’t eat any other lasagna.

Play any instruments: i played the piano for years... i’ve dropped it 6 years ago when my teacher got pregnant and the next one was a nightmare who spent our weekly hour yelling at me about not practicing enough. i felt miserable and i stopped taking lessons. but, idk, maybe i’ll start again.

Languages: italian and english i guess, yeah i’m not the best english speaker or writer but i think you’re understanding what ‘I'm writing, well more or less, so i can say “english” too. i’m also studying latin so i’m showing off a little and put it here ahahaha.

Favourite songs: it depends on period, mood, life... at the moment? i’ll choose three: lost stars (Adam Levine), Arms Open (the script) and poesia senza veli (ultimo)

Random Fact: i love thinking about sounds, if i’m reading and i find a word that i think sounds nice or in a funny way i’ll probably keep repeating it out loud a lot, then i’ll send my friends a voice mail rambling about it. it’s weird but it makes me happy and it brights my days.. writing it down makes me feel weird but well, this is me.

Describe yourself as aesthetic things: ah... i don’t know if i’ll do this right. ehm.. yellowed books, rain sounds, handmade gifts, long handwritten love letters, cinnamon scent, long tight hugs, romantic movement, holding hands, walking barefoot, museum dates, art prints, reading poetry in a whisper, funny voices in voicemails, kissing cheeks, colorful highlighters, movie nights at home. is this any good?

ok, that’s it. if you want to do it feel free to. i’m only tagging @pollaluci because i want to read her aesthetic thing and i don’t want to bother everyone else.

#it's me Chiara

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youveneverbeenalone · 6 years

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Inktober for Writers/Fictober:

Day 27- Cage (Darejones)

So, two out of three ain’t bad. At this point, it’s likely that I’ll stay behind, but I will still finish, so help me. I took liberties with today’s prompt, because I don’t think that whoever created this list meant for it to be interpreted this way, but oh well. Also, sorry but they needed to argue a little more. This piece fits with all the others from this month, though is a direct sequel to Day 7- Confusion.

As always, prompt list here list here, and links to previous days at the bottom. Let me know your thoughts if you’re so inclined. Thanks for all the support!

Day 27

Their second big fight is almost entirely his fault. And it all starts with a question.

But it’s not really a fair question, and he knows it, though he has to do something to make up for the fact that she practically forced him to get checked by Claire. And it’s not that he doesn’t like seeing Claire, but lately she makes him feel uneasy, and pretty damn guilty - particularly when Luke is around. So when they get to his place and he’s in his room changing out of his armor, he calls over his shoulder to her where she sits on the couch, drink in hand.

“So what all happened between you and Cage?” He uses the most innocent tone he can, but immediately her heart starts to race, and a flush rises on her cheeks.

“Why do you want to know?” She sounds particularly cagey as she answers him, and he can feel her staring daggers into his back as he steps into his sweat pants.

He carefully pulls on a t-shirt, minding the bandaged wound at his side, and gathers up his suit as he walks out toward his under-the-stairs closet.

He shrugs, still working hard to keep his voice neutral. “No reason in particular. He just made a comment tonight which confirmed my previously unvoiced assumption that you two used to date.” He pulls open the doors and places his gear in its trunk, and he hears her scoff and mumble under her breath.

“I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘dating’.”

He closes the trunk with a huff of a laugh and crosses toward her on the couch, cocking his head at her. “Well, do you mind if I ask what happened?”

The sigh she lets out is long and exasperated, almost pained. She’s silent for long enough that he starts to wonder if he should have let these particular sleeping dogs lie. But after an awkward beat, she throws back the rest of her drink, wiping her mouth with the back of hand as she swallows. Then she speaks, voice clipped.

“I’m an asshole. That’s what happened.”

His brows start to furrow because her tone is nothing but bitter self-reproach, and he didn’t mean to poke what is clearly still a very sore spot.

“Jess, I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me. I just thought it might help to talk about it, because you still get a little tense whenever he’s aroun-”

But he doesn’t get the chance to finish that thought, because she’s cutting him off, her tone prickly.

“Yeah, well you’re one to talk. What happened between you and Claire, anyway?”

He closes his eyes and nods his head. “I deserve that. And I suppose it’s only fair.” He reaches for the glass she poured for him earlier where it sits on the coffee table, and takes a big drink before letting out a long sigh.

“Well … I, too, am an asshole. I’m also a stubborn, reckless idiot with a savior complex and an allegedly non-existent sense of self-preservation. We barely even got together before all of that became too much for her to handle. But I don’t blame her. I do tend to be the center of entropy in the universe.”

With an internal grimace, he realizes that all came out surprisingly wistful, so he huffs a weak laugh at himself as he tries for some self-deprecating humor to lighten the mood. But it doesn’t seem to work. Instead of laughing with him, she sits, silently assessing him as the tension between them thickens. He raises his glass to take another drink as another awkward beat passes.

But eventually she speaks, and with an exaggerated and tightly controlled calmness that barely masks the defensive tone underneath. And all of that works together to raise his anxiety by several degrees.

“So you still have a thing for her? Is that why you hate interacting with her so much?”

His eyes go wide as saucers because this is definitely not how he intended for this conversation to go. Suddenly, he’s leaning toward her, because he has to make her understand what he’s actually trying to say. He takes a deep breath to keep from sounding desperate, because that probably won’t help his case any.

“No, Jess, I don’t have a thing for her. And I don’t hate interacting with her, I just … God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I guess I’m a little jealous.”

Her brows draw down in confusion. “Of Claire?”

He runs a nervous hand through his hair. “No. Of Luke.”

But apparently that still isn’t enough of an explanation for her. “What are you… Why the hell are you jealous of Luke if you don’t still have a thing for Claire?”

He lifts his free hand, making a mindless gesture in the air as if it will help him find the words with which he is suddenly struggling.

“Because it’s not really about her. I-it’s the principal of the thing. She couldn’t handle being with me, in large part because of my vigilante activities, but she can handle it with Luke just fine. And I have to think that’s because he’s more capable… stronger. ‘Unbreakable’.”

He hates the disgust that drips from his lips as he says the word, but it’s an issue that has been festering and itching under his skin for weeks now. And it’s finally bad enough that it’s pushing its way to the surface, meaning he can ignore it no longer.

But she still isn’t getting it. She turns toward him on the couch, and gives him a hard stare. “What- Where is all of this coming from?”

“Jess, come on. Where do you think? You saw what happened tonight. I tried to take down a whole group of guys by myself, but I got shot in the process. Because I wasn’t quick enough. Because I wasn’t strong enough. Because my skin isn’t bulletproof.”

He’s sure the face of confusion she’s making is a good one if it matches even a fraction of the confusion that’s coming across in her voice.

“Right. Which is why I chewed your ass for rushing in all by yourself, like an idiot. Thank God that point has finally managed to sink in your thick skull.”

That’s not his issue, though. He shrugs as he tries again to get her to hear what he’s saying. “Yeah. But if it had been Luke? He could have taken down all those guys on his own. Easily.”

She freezes in a shrug for a moment. “… Okay? And?”

He huffs a sigh and deflates, shoulders rolling forward as he forces out the thoughts that have been hounding him for weeks.

“And I couldn’t. Because I won’t ever be able to do the things he does, no matter how hard I train. My senses don’t stand up to super-strength and bullet-proof skin.”

Her whole body goes rigid, and her tone turns downright frightening with the acid lacing it. “Okay, I think you need to revisit your feelings about Claire. Because if you’re not still carrying a torch for her, I do not understand what’s causing this existential crisis.” But right as she finishes that thought, she cocks her head at him and lets out a bitter huff of a laugh.

“Wait, wait. I think I get it now. This is some kind of dick-measuring contest, isn’t it? That must be why you asked me about him - to see how you measure up. And because you need me to tell you about how much of a train wreck our relationship ended up being so that you can feel superior to him in some way? Jesus.”

If his eyes were wide as saucers before, they’re full on dinner plates now, but he can do nothing but gape at her as his tongue goes numb and lifeless in his mouth. Anxiety starts coursing through his body, and it’s only his muscle memory and breathing exercises that keep him from hyperventilating. Because holy shit, what is even happening? His free hand reflexively curls into a white-knuckled fist as he tries to formulate a coherent response and stop her from thinking anything worse about him.

“Jess-”

But, apparently, she’s still not done.

“Goddammit, Matt. I’m fucking you. Not Luke. So what the hell do you want from me, here?”

He can’t help but hang his head. It takes him a few tries to finally answer her, and his voice is low and harsh.

“It’s not you, Jess. It’s me. Because I don’t … I don’t fit. You and Luke are ridiculously strong. Hell, Danny is too, part of the time. But not me. All I can do is fight. But that’s not always enough, and I’m …”

Suddenly, his chest is getting too tight and his breathing is becoming labored, preventing him from finishing the thought that is running on loop at maximum volume in his head.

I’m not enough. I’m not enough for the group. I’m not enough for you, Jess.

But something in his face must give his inner dialogue away, because suddenly she’s sighing and shaking her head, voice hesitant and strained.

“Look, I’m sorry if I made you feel bad earlier. But you’re still missing the point. And fuck strength, okay? You’re a very capable fighter, and you add plenty to the team. But I’m telling you that you need to learn how to accept help. Because in most of these situations, it’s suicide for any one of us to go in alone. Luke included.”

He sits silent and still for several beats, his head is in his free hand and elbows on his knees. Eventually, he calms his breathing and his overwhelming anxiety enough to try swallowing his pride and speaking.

“So, uh, I don’t know what to say. Except that I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to subject you to that very embarrassing meltdown.”

But she just shrugs at him. “It’s whatever. I did chew you out pretty hard before. So, I guess… sorry for that.”

“Actually it was a very effective ass-chewing. It made me start thinking about my limits. But, unfortunately, those thoughts about limits quickly transformed into thoughts about my insecurities. Then the topic of exes got thrown into the mix, and it was very… not good.”

He’s happy to hear her scoff at that. And this time when she speaks, her voice is much more pleasant to hear, a mixture of concern and confusion.

“But seriously, why does it bother you so much?”

He lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Well, when it’s the four of us … it makes me feel like a liability. And when it comes to you and me, it’s because… I can’t match your strength. Not even close.”

She shrugs at him again. “But why the hell does that matter? Do you really think you need to? Because I’m going to hurt you? Or, because you think you need strength to impress me?”

He hangs his head, because now that she’s saying it out loud, he can hear how ridiculous it sounds.

She huffs an exasperated sigh at him. “That’s what I thought. So a word of advice: knock that shit off right now. You don’t need super-strength to impress me, Murdock. I’m already here. And besides, I wouldn’t have made such a scene in the warehouse if I didn’t already care about you.”

He can’t help but chuckle under his breath and give her the tiniest of smiles at that. And as he does, the knot of anxiety that has been coiling in his stomach starts to loosen. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She smirks at him for a beat, then crosses her arms in front of her chest. There’s a playful challenge in her voice as she speaks this time.

“Damn right, you’re sorry. So what are you gonna do about it?”

A small, slow smirk spreads across his face as he places his glass on the coffee table and slowly slips off of the couch and sinks to his knees. Then he starts to slowly move toward her, pausing at her feet. He takes one foot in his hands and slowly lifts, brushing her pant leg up just enough to press a soft kiss to the inside of her ankle.

“What are your thoughts on groveling?”

She hums at him, as though she’s considering his question carefully. “Hmm, it’s a start.”

He switches feet then, pressing another soft kiss to the inside of her ankle as he chuckles. And suddenly all of the worries and insecurities of the last hour start melting away as she threads a hand through his hair and leans down to align their faces - so he knows she’s being serious.

“I meant it when I said you don’t need strength to impress me. So why don’t you use that Columbia education of yours to start thinking of some other ways to do that.”

And he can do nothing but smirk at her. Because, somehow, she always seems to know what to say to quiet his racing thoughts.

He still has some of his own work to do on that front, though, and he knows it. And, he will admit that he does still wonder about her relationship with Luke, if only because of the pain and regret she still feels about it. But that’s a conversation for another time, when both of them feel less defensive and vulnerable. For now, he’ll try to be with her in this moment, free of the insecurities and doubts that so often plague his mind. Because she’s right here - smirking at him, her hand in his hair. And if that isn’t proof enough of her interest, he’s doesn’t know what else would be. And he will do everything he possibly can to make them both forget about his lack of super-strength.

Day 26 | Day 28

#inktober for writers #fictober #my fic #a prompt a day #darejones #messica #mess #matt murdock/jessica jones #matt x jessica #mattjess #jessica x matt #matt murdock x jessica jones

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