I love seeing people use the locked tomb tags as a place to declare a moral stance on bad shit like abuse/incest/various upsetting things. bestie, this is the locked tomb. you’re in the Various Upsetting Things fandom. you’ve read the books. “if you ship campal you’re disgusting” baby these kids play with corpses like legos and regularly sweat blood “we HAVE to talk about ianthe and corona’s terrible relationship” yeah let’s talk about how their codependency rocks and I think they should get grosser and weirder and worse “stop shipping pyrrha with the younger characters“ baby she fucked a corpse. I hope pyrrha puts her dick in literally everyone. grow up

here’s a list of the best, mediocre and worst kdramas i watched in 2020

no one asked for this but it’s happening because i have thoughts (also all opinions are my own if you disagree then get well soon i guess... no i’m kidding make your own posts about it don’t hate me please) ahsjsj anyways click to read a lengthy post and if you actually read the whole thing then thank you i hope you enjoy this wild ride! 

THE BEST KDRAMAS -

mystic pop up bar - this show had everything i ask from a kdrama literally i can name it all found family (to real family), well thought out characters, a mystery plot, special effects, soft romances that were well written, a happy ending! no show in 2020 even comes close to how good this one was! the writers literally guided you throughout the whole thing so you could come up with theories and didn’t do a ‘aha! gotcha’ thing where they want to prove the audience wrong but they wanted us to be right and satisfied! the worst part about the drama is that it’s still so underrated and people just brush it off as some random fantasy show but it’s so much more than that! 1000/10

flower of evil - who doesn’t want to see lee joon gi being the son of a serial killer, living with the name of a man who is in a coma, and hiding his real identity from his wife who is a detective? this show constantly had me at the edge of my seat on a weekly basis so the emotions i went through while watching this are unparalleled! the writers also did such a good job on writing a coherent story that made sense and tied up all the plot points in the end. just a really satisfying show to watch! 10/10

where your eyes linger - i literally bought a $8 viki pass to watch this show so it should tell you everything you need to know about how i feel ahsjsj the episodes were 10 minutes long but we got a good story with well written characters who got character development in a total of 80 minutes it’s insane! honestly it’s still hard to believe this show had rookie actors because they were just so emotive that you could feel all the happiness, sadness, yearning and pining! probably one of my fave kdramas this year because of the acting that i always constantly rewatch! would recommend 10/10

crash landing on you - okay so this drama was actually released on my birthday last year and it was a time in my life when i was going through a lot so maybe it’s the comfort this show provided me through that time this is why i have such a soft spot for it? like the romance was good, it was funny, there was found family, the nk soldiers were all softies, there were strong female leads, soft male leads!!! ahh!! no other show on this list made me think about the unification of south korea and north korea irl because i wanted se ri and jeong hyeok to be together 4ever! but the only issue i had with this show was the ending they gave seung jun if they didn’t do that i’d give this show a 10/10 but just for that they get a 9/10

psycho but it’s okay - this was one of those shows where you’re literally like ‘wow everyone here needs therapy’ but this show was amazing i loved the story telling and how each episode related to children’s book/fairytales! the writers also did a good job with how carefully they talked about mental health in depth without villainising their characters but actually tried to make the audience understand why they were this way which included all the side characters too who had a well thought out story in each episode! also the dynamic between moon young, kang tae and sang tae was everything to me the actors all did an amazing job portraying their characters, it truly was a healing drama. the only thing i didn’t like about this show was the whole plastic surgery plot with the mother like that was very far fetched but it provided drama so i’ll let it slide because the rest was amazing. this show is a solid 8.5/10

18 again - another underrated gem! who would’ve thought a remake of that zac efron movie could be this good!! lee do hyun stole this show for sure the way he portrayed his character and gave heart eyes to his kids (when he’s only 25 irl was the best thing i saw this year ahsjs) i loved the family dynamics in this show, i loved how it talked about what it’s like to be young parents and how society still think it’s taboo to be divorced! it’s a show that makes you laugh and cry at the same time and that’s why everyone should watch it! however, the biggest clown thing this show did to me though was that i got sls for the first time while watching a kdrama... hwang in yeop if u’re reading this i love u and u deserved better 🤡 that aside this show was a 8/10

itaewon class - i actually didn’t watch this drama as it was airing because i thought i wouldn’t enjoy the plot but when i watched it i binged the whole thing in 2 days and my biggest regret is i didn’t watch it sooner! everyone knows i have a soft spot for park seo joon since he’s my favourite actor i’ve literally watched all his dramas like he could star in the trashiest drama out there and i’d still watch it and be like wow (looking at she was pretty 👀) this show aside from the acting had one of the best revenge plots in a kdrama! just watching a character realistically hustle his way to reach the top while fighting the corrupt man whose son killed his father was so so satisfying to watch! however, the love triangle in this show was questionable idk what they were trying to do with that but it personally annoyed me! but still i’ll give this show a 7.5/10 because i enjoyed it a lot!

do you like brahms? - kim min jae and park eun bin.. that’s all you need to know about why this is a good kdrama! i’m usually not a big fan of melodramas and everyone knows i prefer rom coms but this show was just so perfectly melo that i loved all the angst and pain we got!! also just watching two introverted people awkwardly fall in love was amazing! the characters story arcs were also handled pretty well with song ah finally learning to speak up for herself and joon young learning to express how he truly feels! but... the love square? was probably the most annoying thing the rest in my opinion was nicely done! i know people had mixed feelings about the ending but i loved that after all the pain joon young and song ah went through they got a happy ending together! 7/10

find me in your memory - okay this show started off very slow and it was confusing at the start but as it progressed everything in the plot started to fall into place! i mean this show really took opposites attract to a new level where the male lead could remember every single detail from his life but the female lead had to forget some of her traumatic memories to help her cope with her life! they were also tied together through a mutual character who was a big part of their lives in a different way! just an interesting melodrama with interesting characters i liked it! and moon ga young... i love you queen!!! 7/10

THE MEDIOCRE KDRAMAS -

more than friends - was the storytelling in this show groundbreaking? no. was the acting decent? yes. also probably the main reason i stuck with this show until the end! i think we can all agree lee soo had the best character development on this show he started off as a bad boy who wore one ear stud to actually becoming a well liked character... who else did it like him? no one. also the chemistry between the mains was 🔥 but the second male lead was so annoying is there a opposite word for second lead syndrome because i had that for sure! i think the best part about this show was the people i watched it with on here... shoutout to the five of us ahsjsj also this show introduced me to a talented actor/singer like ong seong wu (y’all know my kpop knowledge is nonexistent so no i didn’t know he was in a band called wanna one) all in all a predictable show but i had fun watching it so 6.5/10

tale of the nine tailed - i didn’t actually watch this show i watched it through gifs and instagram posts ahsjsjs so am i qualified to talk about my opinion definitely no... will I talk about it anyways yes lmao. lee rang deserved better that’s all goodbye and take care. 5.5/10

start up - probably one of the most awaited opinions. y’all thought this would be in the worst kdramas section but i decided to give this show some rights. the show started off strong, lost it’s way after episode 6 and then the last episode gave me what i wanted so i have mixed feelings. the writing was not the best i think we can all agree, love triangle as a plot device? wow so groundbreaking 🤡 the characters on the other hand... i loved every single one of them i mean ship wars? i don’t know her. the show had a lot of potential that was wasted but we also got some cute moments between the characters so there was really no winning or losing with this show? but in all honesty you can’t put a talented cast together like this and then just decide to give the audience a mediocre plot but the writers did exactly that! i think i can redirect y’all to my ‘crimes this show committed’ post for a in-depth analysis. lastly nam do san was a GOOD and REFRESHING male lead and ji pyeong was also a GOOD and FUN second male lead!!! this show gave me the ugliest ship war ever that i was transported back to my high school tvd days so thank you for that!! but the cast was loveable and all had a lot of chemistry together so here’s a 5/10 maybe that's too generous but... i think the reason why i didn't enjoy watching this show as much was definitely because of the tag on here lmao

THE WORST KDRAMAS -

the king eternal monarch - i miss clowning this show so much. the amount of braincells i lost while trying to understand this plot... i should be compensated by the writers. however, woo do hwan was a treat to look at on a weekly basis... however the writers kept decreasing his screen time even though he had a dual role... make it make sense? and i cannot comment on the plot of this show because i still don’t understand anything? also in my opinion tae eul and lee gon were the most bland couple of 2020, there was no chemistry between them and there was just a random kiss in episode 5 and they randomly said i love you... where was the development? also lee gon was soooo boring and such a one dimensional male lead! literally all the side characters were so much more interesting and the cast was good... but this plot. 2/10

do do sol sol la la sol - i wanna fight the writer who decided that the plot twist on the show would be that jun is a minor? i had no expectations from this show but it looked cute and nonsensical but that plot twist made me run the other way so fast that i never looked back! just because jun is a boy they really thought this would be excused like lmao we all have critical thinking skills???? the clown behaviour. a solid 1/10

record of youth - i hate this show so much. imagine not utilising park so dam who just starred in the biggest oscar winning movie to her full potential. imagine just making her a love interest to park bo gum’s character in the year 2020. i watched it up until episode 6 and i kept waiting for her character to get development... but it never happened so i dropped this show. also this show featured the MOST useless love triangle i have ever seen in my life like what was the point? also park bo gum’s characters family was straight up annoying (minus the grandpa) but they got so much screen time like that should’ve been given to park so dam... also villainising a gay side character for no reason at all in the year 2020? this show was a waste of my time i want the 6 hours i spent watching this back. -100/10 

backstreet rookie - i watched one episode of this and literally wanted to rip my eyeballs out of my head. idk what ji chang wook was thinking when he signed this drama i think he lost his ability to read because that's the only reasonable explanation for why he chose to star in such a dumpster fire show! this show had a racist character... had a high schooler kiss an adult... sexist jokes... just the worst things you can think of in a drama... this show had it. i still can’t believe so many people watched this show to the point where it had better ratings than pbio... really made me question everyone’s taste? but sorry can’t relate my taste is excellent so here’s the rating this show actually deserves -1000/10

if you made it this far... thank you for reading. let’s continue to love some kdramas together and get clowned by others in 2021! looking forward to it 😅

So my dear friend @kittytudor and I were discussing some takes the fandom has on Dazai and especially his interactions with Mori and I thought I’d share

I really hate the train of thought that goes like “they’re super smart so they know life has no meaning and nothing matters” like that’s cynical for no reason whatsoever and just nihilistic

Yea when you are intelligent you see all the bad in the world and feel like you’re powerless to stop it a lot of times but the things is

You know scientists see beauty in everything geologist will get excited about literal dirt a marine biologist about a gold fish. When you’re intelligent you see all the bad but also all the good

However it’s easier to see the bad and often times it clouds your view but part of the healing process is starting to see beauty and happiness in the smallest things and I think that’s a journey Dazai is slowly going on.

So I really don’t think intelligence is the issue here and I’m gonna assume you’re an edgy bastard if you say so

I feel like Dazai’s issue is more the environment than anything and the lack of meaningful relationships. I know we clown the scene where he says actually living is okay now 1 day after meeting Chuuya but here is the thing. This might have been the first time he had someone his age who wanted to hang out with him or even less just someone his age who tolerated him. I personally know nothing about his life pre mafia but you can assume it wasn’t a good life if at age 14 you decide the bloody mafia is preferable to wherever you’re at at the moment

In my opinion Mori didn’t encourage it per se but he didn’t try to stop it either I really think that for him he did not expect Dazai would go through with it (again) and /or as cruel as it sounds if he actually did it which Mori didn’t think was likely he had one less rival to worry about but I really think that’s Mori’s reasoning for staying “neutral” for lack of a better word on this issue

That being said I’m sure being surrounded by death and suffering did not do any good for an already depressed 14/15yo

Which leads me to the second point. I really don’t think Mori expected Dazai to leave or tried to make him leave. For Mori Dazai was a powerful asset because of his ability and because of his intelligence that y’all are obsessed with. So why would you want to push that person away and it’s not like he was encouraging him to suicide here which would make much more sense than wanting him to leave.

And I have evidence

I’m gonna start it with: Oda did not die to set an example I don’t think so no. In his conversation with Chuuya he said something like “being a leader means making sacrifices for the well being of the group” or something like that and that’s what he did here.

He sacrifices Oda to get the permit.

The strange thing is I do think Mori meant what he said to Chuuya that he is a leader but also a servant to the mafia he wants the mafia to gain more power and that’s why he did what he did to get the permit.

I do think it could be a lesson to Dazai but not in the “if you cross me this is gonna happen to you” because Oda didn’t cross him Oda didn’t want power he is the last person who was interested in that. I think if anything it was more a lesson as in “when you take over this is something you’ll have to do and I’m showing you how it’s done”

Evidence for that is he was chuckling when he mentioned that possibility that Dazai would kill him and take one someday. And I agree that Mori

Wouldn’t mind if that was better for the Mafia. Like he wouldn’t make it easy for him and he wouldn’t give up but if he is defeated he wouldn’t be angry or annoyed because like I mentioned above I do think he was genuine when he said he is also a servant to the Mafia

My other piece of evidence is that when he showed Dazai the permit he seemed proud of what he’s done. The way he presented it and the entire scenario he seemed proud more than smug. If he really wanted Dazai out I feel like he would’ve been more smug about the whole thing and we know he can do that well.

And obviously there is also the fact he offered him not once but twice to come back. And what’s interesting is that the first time the offer was secret like he sent Gin and Higuchi and it was in a shady ass tunnel

Now the other time is where it gets interesting because it was very public in front of Dazai’s colleagues the black lizard and Fukuzawa.

Now Mori is a smart guy but also he has a sense of pride as we learned so I really don’t think he would risk being humiliated in front of Fukuzawa of all people just to mess with Dazai and he seemed genuinely surprised when Dazai said “you kicked me” and he didn’t offer him to just come back no he offered to be back as an executive and having Dazai decline and clown him in front of Fukuzawa like that I don’t think he would risk that if he was just playing

The thing is Mori is smart but he has tunnel vision in my opinion. He was so focused on getting the permit he forgot that this plan has consequences that aren’t just “we get the permit”

And also one of Mori’s issues is that he never takes into consideration people’s emotions. You can predict human Behavior to a certain degree a lot of times you can know what to

Say or what to do to get a certain result but the thing is humans aren’t algorithms they don’t always operate on logic they have emotions. And these emotions can be so strong that they override any crumb of logic left which is something I think Mori fails to understand. That’s why he didn’t expect Dazai to leave he forgot about the emotional factor.

That’s what Mori lacks but Dazai has and my evidence for this is a scenario we laughed at because it was presented in a funny way but I think that’s something that shows that Dazai is better at this 4D chess game than Mori.

On the Moby Dick he knew that Akutagawa would abandon everything to talk to him. If Dazai only operates by thinking about logical Behavior he wouldn’t have told Atsushi to do this but he realises that the emotional factor is one of the strongest drives humans have.

And you know I think Mori knows that when it comes to 4D chess Dazai would defeat him but he doesn’t mind that he isn’t scared of that. In dead Apple he couldn’t have possibly known the whole business with the pill but he told Chuuya to interfere. Mori has a strange sense of trust towards Dazai even now that they’re part of different sides.

I think Mori is has always been aware that although he says he does Dazai doesn’t actually want to die and I think the scene with the hyper and hypo tension medication in 15 shows this. If you actually want to die why would you Mix medicine with effects that cancel out each other and Mori is a doctor he knows this. That’s why I think he didn’t expect Dazai to commit and that he believes Dazai actually wants to live and because of that he will try and preserve himself and by extension Yokohama which is why he told Chuuya to go in dead apple, which is why he let Akutagawa go on the Moby Dick in season 2 because he realized Dazai wanted him to go there and he trusts Dazai to a certain degree .

I really feel like his underestimated the emotional factor and this will ultimately lead to his downfall. Like he didn’t expect Dazai to leave he wouldn’t expect anyone to react super emotional to god knows what he’ll do and thereby underestimate their response to that which will make him meet his end.

I don’t think the “you kicked me” is Dazai in denial he acted ok emotions or at least that’s not the whole thing. I think that Dazai’s reasoning for saying that is this:

Oda died so Mori can get more power which was part of Mori’s plan all along so looking at the bigger picture it was Mori’s plan and actions who drove me out of the Mafia so he basically “kicked me out”

Also I wanna add that I feel like Mori because he underestimates the emotional factor he doesn’t understand to this day why Dazai left like he knows it’s related to oda he can follow that train of events but in his mind it doesn’t make logical sense why Dazai would do that which is why he didn’t manage to win Dazai over back to The Mafia because in his mind be doesn’t know the logical reason why Dazai left which is also another reason why he was so surprised when Dazai said he kicked him

Also I’d like to add that I really don’t think he felt threatened or wanted to just get rid of him

Dazai was already suicidal so if it would very easy to make it look like that. And like I mentioned before if it was the best choice for the Mafia I really don’t think Mori would be that bothered about being replaced by Dazai.

I also don’t think he thought Dazai would be more useful on the outside because once again why lose a valuable addition like that

And it’s not like

He wanted to use him

As a spy or anything we know that would’ve been arranged differently see Ango

So Mori the logical guy he is wouldn’t want his enemies to have someone with Dazai’s ability because that’s a pain in the ass and also

He wouldn’t want an insider like Dazai to join his enemies and spill all his secrets. Dazai had a very high rank and like I said I don’t think Mori expected him to leave so he had no reason to hide things from

him so even without his ability he would be a very strong asset to the Mafias enemies so there is no way Mori would think he is more useful on the outside since

1. we already said mori has tunnel vision he couldn’t possibly predict that much that he thinks Dazai is better out

2. We established that he isn’t afraid of him

3. He wouldn’t want the ability and the information to fall into his enemies’ hands

4. If he was actually scared and wanted to get rid of him making it seem like suicide or actually driving him to suicide would be much easier especially since mori is a doctor

So yeah this is long thanks if you read until the end it was super fun to write this id love to know what others think I’m sorry if it’s a bit unorganised it’s copied from my notes app

back at it again with the lukewarm takes y’all

catherine is literally the best i love her

lorenz has the skinniest longest nose i’ve ever seen he’s out here looking like asmongold and i can’t unsee it now or ever

ashe x byleth C is uh... honestly most of these byleth supports are just a biiit too one-sided feeling for my taste lmao. i’m hoping that doesn’t last. i think it wouldn’t be as obvious if there wasn’t voice acting, but that makes the completely silent gaps in conversation like... awkward

ANYWAY ON WITH THE STORY. to jeritza’s room

‘the professor and i will protect you’ yeah gurl we got u

this death knight guy is nothing compared to arthas or any of the horsemen from wow so i’m like ready to punch his dick in

“one of us will die, the other will live.” okay edgelord, calm down.

“this is what a real man looks like” sylvain you’re just a baby, chill

something that i do like about the gameplay is how everyone starts out as a kind of like, mediocre/plain “class” and can be promoted from there. it’s a nice way of dealing with reclassing that actually makes sense finally. like, i don’t wanna sound like a giant baby but something that drove me nuts about reclassing was how deeply entrenched in some of these “classes” characters would have to be to pick them, let alone to excel at them, so it was super hard to imagine constant reclassing going on, particularly from a pre-trained perspective. like your heavy armor knight isn’t going to suddenly be like weeee time to become a pegasus knight!! 

but when everyone starts out as like a noble or commoner it feels more fitting that they might study/choose a path for themselves. 

fanfics were always really jarring when people reclassed entirely and you just had to roll with it lol. but this way i think it’d be easier to buy into whatever a ‘fic presented you with?

anyway...i like it.

shamir...babe...i love u

also, lol... death knight “this is a game to me” oh please...ur weak

“i am the flame emperor” lol okay we have another edgelord on the board

“i’ve never seen you look so happy before. it’s downright mesmerizing” dimitri plz... stop flirting with me. i am a god, and u aren’t even a king

“it’s probably jeritza” nah he’s too much of a child’s birthday party clown to be the culprit and also that is WAY too easy if this is the truth i will riot

flayn, dear, i will protecc u with my life. and also you need to learn some self-defense like,,, yesterday

“i have closely scrutinized everything about you” okay well hopefully not EVERythiNG

jeralt is a good egg

wyverns fly south for the winter? okay so now i’m picturing people looking skyward not because the sight is magnificent, but because the droppings would be magnificent and they need to dodge it before it lands on them

querencia (jang han seo)

🎤 hello and gather around fellow himbo lovers, here is a small fic about our beloved and his life after That guy kicks the bucket. also idk how i managed to turn this into a love story? anyways lmfao, hope y’all enjoy! 

Everything felt so different.

Truthfully, Han Seo never imagined what his life could be like, would be like, without the proverbial ever tightening noose around his neck. One that had been unexpectedly and disappointingly placed on him as a child by the one person that was supposed to remove such things. He was now free of that person, and the fear that stemmed from veering off the path set by them, but wasn’t entirely too certain that he was free of that feeling. 

His muscles couldn’t shake it. The sudden chill to the bone, the anticipation of retaliation from an act that hadn’t yet occurred. Such an act that could never occur anymore given that his brother was dead. He knew this, but his mind had never been good at accepting possibilities that were positive. 

This much was evident in the case of his relationship with Vincenzo. There was no reason why the stoic yet baby faced Mafia member would want to keep him around, at least not any that he could see. So, Han Seo spent the first few weeks asking the question both silently and aloud, will you kill me? Vincenzo had the motive, it’s not exactly like his hands were clean in his previous dealings with Babel, and he most certainly had the means.

It wasn’t until Han Seo was told that because he was trying to make amends, he wouldn’t end up in the Jang family crypt well before his time that he started to feel at ease. Still, for months after that conversation, he still had the nagging feeling that some invisible fist was lurking around every bend. 

Regardless of that, Han Seo decided he would not waste his liberation however short lived it might have been. He made up his mind that he was going to do all the things that he was either too scared or outright forbidden to do before. The first thing on his list was to clean up his business. Luckily for him, the Guillotine file made it easy to weed out the snakes in the grass and allow him to steer Babel in the direction that the core of the business was about. 

The hardest part was going to be restoring the public’s faith in the organization. Cha Young told him as much, and advised him not to agonize over it as there will be new corruption that will grab their attention (and hers). He intended to be the Chairman that such a company deserved, and therefore continued to study no matter how nonsensical and outdated the information seemed. 

The second order of business was moving out of the place that felt more like a prison than a home to one that he liked. The realtor immediately recommended a few luxury places, but he turned them down to their surprise. Maybe it was due to the fact that he had seen what the quest for material wealth had done to his family (or more realistically because he wanted to be closer to newfound hyung  and his girlfriend). 

Either way, the house he settled on had its luxuries, but in a more affordable and quaint neighborhood. Han Seo even went as far as to attempt painting on his own, which went as well as expected for someone that didn’t even know the difference between a brush and a roller. 

Being able to do what he wanted proved to be chaotic at times. There was no one to stop him from going on last minute trips to Jeju just for oranges and a quick dip into the ocean. Or to take away all the sweet and savory snacks that he found at these things called convenience stores. 

He would stay up all night sometimes, not to binge watch all the shows he missed out on, but just to sit in silence. He didn’t know that the quiet could be so nice. That it was a space of tranquility and relaxation rather than one filled with anxiety. Of course, Han Seo more often than not regretted the choice not to sleep and ended up at the cafe a few blocks from his place. 

While obviously no one had better coffee than the one at Babel, he found himself going to the cozy spot with increasing frequency because of her. The first time he saw her, she was deciding on which apple to choose from the basket beside the register. He then noticed that her canvas bag was filled with art supplies, and decided that it was a brilliant idea to draw a conclusion. 

I think the one to the right would make a great subject on paper, he grinned. 

She stared at him in a way that made him contemplate whether to not she was related to Vincenzo hyung before replying flatly:

I’m looking for the tartest one to go with my tea. 

He was left a bumbling mess of flustered sounds and rapidly blinks, not getting the opportunity to insert some retort that undoubtably would’ve put him deeper into the realm of idiot. 

The following morning he went again. No cup of coffee, not even the ridiculously overpriced espresso at Babel, would give him that jolt of electricity he felt under her gaze. And sure enough, she was there. This time her apple sat upon a folded napkin right beside her tea, and in front of them both was her sketchpad. On the page? A picture of the fruit. He couldn’t control the noise of exasperation that left him as he passed her table. On his way out he tossed over his shoulder with a grin so wide it hurt:

Nice drawing. 

Their interactions continued in that same vein. Short, filled with just the right amount of bite. The balance of who had the best and last say constantly shifting, becoming somewhat of a competition. 

You’re outside today, is that weed your subject?

As if there weren’t enough clowns in this neighborhood already.

You buy a lot of lattes for an artist that’s supposed to be starving.

Ironic coming from the gentrifier walking around a working class neighborhood in thousand dollar shoes.  

He had look up what that g word meant after their last exchange.

There was something else he never got to do in his past. Sure, Han Seo had the occasional date or two, but commitment? That was out of the question. It wouldn’t have served his brother well if there was anyone around that would motivate him to step out from his hold. The realization that he never had a serious relationship hadn’t hit him until he started to have inconvenient thoughts during board meetings about stuff like taking a long afternoon stroll, and holding hands with her.

Han Seo could barely focus on the stack of jargon dense reading before him. He sent Vincenzo a text saying that he was coming over with soju, not waiting for a reply before making the short journey to Geumga. Cha Young’s face fell when she answered the door, muttering that she thought he was her delivery, but lit up once she saw he brought along alcohol. After poking around the rice he begged for them to share and sighing loudly for half an hour, Vincenzo ushered him out. He implored him to get a hobby so that these late night visits wouldn’t become a habit.  

He was confused by that. Weren’t studying and running a company hobbies? On his walk back home he spotted a flyer that someone was offering private classes for beginners painting. The nightmare of a time he had trying to get the walls in his kitchen evenly colored popped up in his brain, instantly making him tear off one of the numbers. He didn’t exactly know how learning to paint homes was going to be a practical hobby, but hell, he would have something to show Vincenzo later. 

While he was on one of his impromptu trips to the seaside, Han Seo had his assistant set up the class for him to take when he returned. As a gift for the instructor, he thought it would be nice to bring them an extra bag of oranges. If the session sucked, or if he hated it, at the very least there was going to be something to brighten the mood. 

The day he got back, he even went as far as to tidy up the place on his own and put some fresh flowers around so the air was lightly scented. He practically waited at the door until the alarm sounded to let him know that his instructor arrived. 

Is this a joke? She huffed.

No, I didn’t even know you were the teacher! His protest was adamant. I was on a trip and even brought back Jeju- He paused. Han Seo knew he wasn’t the brightest, but bringing up the oranges seemed like it would upset her given their previous history. 

You brought back what? Her brow raised.

Mmm, good energy! Don’t you feel the vibes from the ocean? He spread his arms wide. 

Han Seo waved her inside hurriedly, trying desperately to get past the awkward exchange. Of all people, he never would’ve thought it would be the neighborhood’s cute sass machine. A small noise of happiness couldn’t be stopped from escaping him as she accepted the invitation. Her eyes scanned the place without restraint, nose wrinkling when she took a look at the kitchen. 

Where are your supplies? A slender finger ran across the surface of his counter. 

Supplies? He thought that was included in the price for the lessons. 

She sighed, placing a sketchbook, brushes, and small pots of paint onto the table. It was now very apparent to him that the advertisement did not mean what he thought it did. Thank goodness he also didn’t decide to open his mouth about that beforehand, it probably would’ve made her smack him with her bag. 

Here, the materials were slid over when he sat. Paint something.

His facial expression surely mirrored what he was thinking. Han Seo had no recollection of ever trying to do this, not even during the course of his way overpriced private school education. She urged him on with a nod, only relaxing into her chair when he flipped open the book and picked up a fine brush. 

There was nothing in particular he wanted to paint. Hell, he didn’t even know if he wanted to paint at all. This was simply something random that came up when he needed it. 

To avoid being chastised, he dipped his brush into the light blue color and started swiping randomly across the blank page. He swapped the brush and added some dark green, then pink, and finished if off with small dots of white. At the end it looked like something a toddler would’ve considered a masterpiece. She eyed it with surprising interest. 

You clearly didn’t know what you wanted to achieve with this, or why you were doing it at all. 

Han Seo was about to interject with a prideful defense before she continued. 

That’s good. It’s better to work with an unbiased mind. Her eyes met his. Your technique is shit though. 

He laughed, like truly laughed. It was a full bellied, unashamedly loud, attack of sonic waves. She seemed to find it amusing, a hint of a smile dancing across her lips. 

Alright, let’s start with how to actually hold a paintbrush. 

There was no telling when their interactions had gone from less than playful banter to warm and friendly (still with a side of joking). Han Seo couldn’t put his finger on it. Did it happen during the second lesson where he mistakenly put paint on her hands, and didn’t settle for no when he said he would wash them off for her? 

Or was it the time he was running late for work, but the barista already had his order prepared because she told them that he was on the way? Perhaps it was the time she had to reschedule their Saturday morning for the evening instead, and all he could think about was trying to replicate the color of her alcohol flushed cheeks onto the page before him. 

Han Seo had never done the whole confession thing before, so he wasn’t sure about how it worked. An unfamiliar kind of anxiety crept up his spine as he poured glasses of wine and organized a fruit plate. Soft music played in the background accompanied by the crackle of the expensive candles he bought specifically for the occasion. Her mouth parted slightly as she took everything in once she arrived for what was supposed to be an ordinary session involving watercolors. 

Wow, got a hot date later or something? Her legs seemed to automatically take her to the table. 

Actually, He brought the glasses over to where she sat. It’s for you. 

Oh…She gasped. A few seconds passed that felt more like minutes before she picked one up and held it high. Cheers then!

Something about it made him feel like he made a mistake. Did he misread their change in demeanor towards one another? Was she truly just being kinder to him because she considered him to only be a friend? Han Seo tried to not let the embarrassment he felt seep into the room, keeping a smile locked and loaded for when she made a witty remark about stuff like him painting in the most inappropriate white button down. 

Don’t you have something to say to me? She quipped, neatly putting her things away after he finished. 

Me? I- no…I... He clenched his fists. Why couldn’t he come out and say it?! This was as good as a chance as he was ever going to get. If he let this opportunity slip, he wasn’t sure if there would be one again. He had to act, he had to-

What sounded like a small growl came from her as she raked her hand through her hair. She pulled him closer by the collar of his shirt, her nose just shy of rubbing against his. 

Jang Han Seo, when are you gonna stop driving me insane? She murmured, labored breaths dancing across his cupid’s bow. 

If only she knew how true and reciprocated that question was to him too. From the moment he couldn’t fight against thoughts about her entering his mind, to the smile she wore when he stepped across his threshold, and the way she said his goddamned name, it was all enough to make him want to combust. To burst out of his skin, transforming into something or someone else entirely. A person that fully accepted that there were no more restraints on their lives, that they was no more fear and no more betrayal. Someone that was completely in control, and free to take what was theirs. And so he did. 

It was painful, almost, the first time he kissed her. The second time even more so. By the third time, coupled with the question of her tongue prodding at his bottom lip, Han Seo had shedded the last of his previous being. He cupped her face, thumbs toying with her curled sideburns as he consumed her. Quiet whimpers made way for desperate cries, shivers were replaced by the searing heat of skin on skin. 

The high he’d chased fruitlessly so many times throughout his life was finally achieved with his arms wrapped tightly around her, their bodies pressed together as she shuddered and sighed his name. He was in disbelief that what he had experienced was real, so he chased it again and again, receiving the same result each time his sweat slicked forehead bowed to meet hers. 

Han Seo would learn that it could be obtained outside of that space they filled with the tangible evidence of their desire. It was also in buying melon flavored ice pops to eat in the park together on sunny days. The look on Vincenzo and Cha Young’s face when he timidly made the introduction. Her expression when she took her first bite of Hee Soo’s tteokbokki. When Mr. Nam and her had an hour long debate on which shade of red made the most realistic fake blood color. The flashing Best Chairman Ever coming from her phone when Babel secured their biggest deal yet without any dirty deals behind the scenes. 

That feeling, one that outshone the other by such a long shot that it was nearly eradicated, had been there all along in the life he’d made. She just helped him see it.  

“brick walls” || l.dh

anon: idk how to do these but I’ve had a story idea for a while 🥺👉🏽👈🏽. Y/n has an emotional breakdown at a party and asks best friend ! Haechan to drive her home (idk why she’s having a breakdown but I very much like angst🥺

pairing: lee donghyuck/lee haechan x reader

featuring: seo yoorim and mark lee

genre: best friends to lovers, high school!au, angst, fluff, we going sad boi hours y’all

warnings: mental breakdown, curse words, usage of alcohol

word count: 4K

a/n: dhshdhd I am SO SO SO SORRY that I took a long ass time to finish this, again I’m really sorry fhshd pls don’t hate me

You were never the kind to let your walls down. You had a stone wall surrounding a kingdom that was your heart, the sole place that stored your emotions. But of course, that wall was never there to begin with. It started out as pebbles surrounding it, which soon turned into bricks, and the older you got, the higher the wall started to build.

You would never admit it, but deep down, you blamed your parents for making you turn out like this. All those arguments and discouraged words tore you down as a kid, so you learned to deflect those words to be stronger. Still they were your parents. Sure they were bad at some aspects, but they had their golden moments. They did raise you and gave you home. Your family was broken, and you learned how to live with it.

Donghyuck was a different kind. He was always smiling and happy. He was literally the sun. The mood maker, the class clown, he made people feel better. You were someone who was quiet and barely smiled. Rain clouds followed you wherever you went whereas Donghyuck made flowers grow on the ground he walked. He was also the sun that made your dark clouds go away.

You were a different person when you’re with Donghyuck. He made you laugh and smiled wider than anyone ever did. Whenever someone asked him how he could be friends with someone like you, he always replied with the same thing with no hesitation.

“You don’t know them like I do.”

Donghyuck was your getaway. Your door to another dimension. His presence made all your worries go away. He meant everything to you. You wished you could tell him that.

It’s obvious that he has feelings for you, so painfully obvious. The way he stared at you like you were his world. The way he subconsciously holds your hand in his every time you’re together. You were on his mind twenty four seven.

You chose to ignore his feelings. You knew it was selfish for you to do so. You thought if you pretended that you didn’t know that he was in love with you, and just continued to be best friends, everything would be fine. No one would get hurt.

Did you feel the same? Of course you did. You love him so much that it physically pains you knowing that you’ll never be good enough for him. He was sunshine and rainbows, you were raindrops and thunderstorms. You knew that it wouldn’t work out between the both of you, you couldn’t even love yourself. How could you love someone else?

It was unfair to you and Donghyuck. You knew you couldn’t keep leading him on, one day, Donghyuck was going to confess to you and you’d have to face the harsh reality of rejecting him. But you never expected that day to come so soon.

You and Donghyuck were in his car, the both of you were driving back from your weekly movie nights in the local theatre. Donghyuck had Conan Gray’s newest album playing from his radio. You had no objections to his music choice, a few months ago, the honey-skinned boy managed to convince you to listen to Conan Gray’s discography.

When he finally reached your home, he parked outside of your driveway and turned to look at you. You were busy getting your bag off the floor to notice, when you were done, you turned to bid him goodbye but caught him staring at you with a familiar look. The same look he always had when he was with you, he looked like he was in love.

You knew he was going to take advantage of the situation to confess to you. You needed to get out of the vehicle. You had too. Your fingers gripped the door handle but his voice caught you off guard.

“Y/N...” his voice was as soft as silk, he gently grabbed your arm so you were facing him again.

You tilted her head, looking at him with those innocent eyes of yours, yet behind that mask was a pair of panicked eyes. His hands moved until he was holding yours and he started to play with your fingers.

“You’re amazing, you know that right?” He started off. His eyes were trained on your intertwined hands. “You’re beautiful, smart, and strong. I wished you could believe me whenever I tell you how perfect you are,” he slid off one of his silver rings and placed it on your index finger. Your breath hitched at the action. He finally lifted his head up to look at you in the eye, love surrounded his brown irises.

“I like you— no, I love you. I love you, L/N Y/N.”

And there it was. The words you dreaded to hear. The cold air from the car’s air conditioner pricked your bare arms as you shakily pulled your hand out of his, the silver ring easily slid off your fingers and you heard it drop into the cup holder. You watched his face morph into confusion.

“No,” your voice wavered as you closed your eyes. “No, you don’t,” you opened your eyes and repeated. This time your voice was firm.

Donghyuck furrowed his eyebrows. “Yes, yes I do, Y/N. I love y—“

“Stop!” You pressed your hands to your ears. “Stop saying that! You don’t love me.”

He reached over to grab your hands but you flinched backwards. Your back was now pressed into the window as Donghyuck stared at you with a different look this time. His eyes had a thin shield of tears, the look of love was gone and replaced with hurt and disbelief.

“D-Don’t say that, I do love you. I love you so much, Lia,” he tried again.

“No, you don’t, Donghyuck. You...you can’t.”

“Why not, Y/N? I love you! Is that not enough?!”

“Because I don’t!” You spat. Your breathing was heavy and your eyes were filled with tears. But you looked Donghyuck in the eye and said it again. “Because I don’t love you.”

The two of you stared at each other in silence, with tension rising every second. And finally a stray tear escaped from Donghyuck. That was the final movement for you to swing the door open and run into your house. You couldn’t bear to stay in that car any longer, you couldn’t stand the sight of seeing him sad, broken like you.

You slammed your bedroom door shut, ignoring your parents confused faces, ignoring everything. Your back was against the wooden door. It was official. You broke the school’s sunshine, you broke your best friend, you pushed the boy you loved away. You choked out a sob, and soon the tears flowed down your cheeks. You covered your whimpers and sobs with your hand and closed your eyes.

There was no turning back this time. It was done. You rejected him and you saw how the tears formed and how he flinched when you said you didn’t love him. You lied to him. You cried yourself to sleep that night, knowing that no one else in the world, loved you anymore.

It had been weeks since his confession. Haechan didn’t go to school for 4 days. When he returned, he acted like nothing ever happened and that he was still the same old happy go lucky boy. The only difference was, he stopped approaching you.

He stopped waiting by your locker in the morning with a cup of coffee in his hand, he stopped sitting with you at the cafeteria, he stopped yelling your name from across the hall. He didn’t even spare a glance at you when you crossed paths in school. You convinced yourself that it was better this way. It was bound to happen anyways, no one ever really stays forever.

Of course news spread fast that you and Haechan were no longer the duo. Haechan never denied nor confirmed that you stopped being friends so the students took it upon themselves to say what they wanted to hear.

“Did you hear? Haechan confessed to Y/N last week and they straight up rejected him!”

“I heard they laughed at his confession and called him an idiot.”

“They’re such a heartless bitch. How could they treat someone like that?”

“Right? Haechan was going to leave them sooner or later. They never deserved him.”

At first the words were like a knife being stabbed into you, but you soon let yourself turn numb to them. The rumors weren’t true. You never laughed at him, yet your mind mocked you.

They’re right, you are a heartless bitch. You don’t deserve him.

Today was not a good day for you. Fridays seem to always suck for you. It started out with the little things in the morning, you overslept and was almost late for school. Your parents were arguing over something petty that they barely noticed you slipped past the door. Since you were late, the bus had already left, so you were left with no choice but to sprint to school.

You barely made it to school in time and luckily you reached before the final bell. But you were then sweaty and the thick blazer you were required to wear was not helping. Later during lunch, someone accidentally bumped into you and split their drink all over your white button-up. You desperately tried to rub the stain off, but with no avail, there was now an orange stain on your uniform. And you knew for a fact that your mother was going to give her an earful for staining it.

And you were right, the moment you stepped into your household, you could feel the tension left over from this morning. Your mother noticed the big stain immediately. One thing led to another, and it turned into an (another) argument. Your mother started accusing you of not caring enough about anything.

She was still yelling when you slammed your bedroom door shut. You let yourself fall against the door with your palms pressed against your ears, trying to drone the yelling out. Your mother was right, you don’t care, you stopped caring. Oh, how you wished you cared.

Honestly, you didn’t know how you let Yoorim convince you to come to this party. Not to mention you were underage and you didn't drink alcohol. You spent most of your days wallowing in self pity. Everywhere you went, you heard Haechan’s laughter ring through your ears. Yoorim was the only one other than Haechan who annoyed her way into your small personal bubble. The tall girl dragged you to a party thrown by some college students to “help you get over Haechan”.

Sweaty bodies and loud music filled the atmosphere, the stench of alcohol floated around you. The party scene made you sick and dizzy. It hasn’t been 30 minutes and you already regret your decision. Sighing, you pushed yourself off the kitchen counter you had been leaning against since you arrived and went off to find the one who dragged you here. You mentally lectured yourself, what were you thinking? Yoorim was a wild spirit, obviously she wouldn’t be there babysitting you. As you pushed past the bodies of drunk teenagers, you started to feel bad about finding Yoorim.

But you had already caught the taller girl in your field of vision. There she was, playing beer pong. The small crowd cheered loudly when the orange ball went in the red solo cup. You shook your head, maybe you shouldn’t disturb Yoorim. Walking home was always an option. Just as you were about to turn back, Yoorim called out your name.

“Y/N! Over here!”

You grimaced but still obeyed nevertheless. Yoorim threw her arm around your neck, her height giving her the advantage to basically head lock you. You looked up to see Yoorim’s cheeks to be tinted pink. She was already drunk. You tried to balance yourself but found it hard due to the other swaying around in her steps as she tried to aim at the cup.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw a familiar mop of black hair. You squint your eyes at the sight. When the figure turned around, your eyes met. You froze and your eyes widened.

Mark Lee, Haechan’s best friend.

What was he doing here? Judging by Mark’s expression, he must know about what happened between Haechan and you. Mark had a sad look on his face, it was sympathy. He gave you a sad smile and small wave but you were still frozen in place. The loud cheers slowly drone out of your ears.

If Mark was here, does that mean he was here too?

As you struggled in Yoorim’s hold, you tried to crane your neck to find the familiar face. Anxiety starts to fill you up, what if he was actually here? You can’t face him. You didn't know how. You avoided each other like the plague, whispers of others followed the two of you like a trail of blood. What were you going to do if you saw him? Would the people here start whispering too?

And suddenly, you felt the stares of others on you. A million pairs of eyes fixated on your trembling figure. Their faces were blurred but they’re mouths were moving. They were talking about you, spreading rumors about her. Everyone was pointing their fingers at you.

You squeezed your eyes shut and your grip tightened on Yoorim’s arm. You couldn’t breath. You didn’t know what overcame you, but with one powerful tug, you dragged Yoorim out of that crowd. Ignoring the confused stares of others and Yoorim’s protest, you dragged her until you were somewhere quiet. When the noise died down in your head, you finally let go of Yoorim's arm.

“What the fuck, Y/N?!” Yoorim yelled at you. But you couldn’t hear anything. Your back was facing her and your hands were pressed against your ears, an action that became a habit. Tears swelled up around your eyes and you kept blinking to push them away.

You were then forcefully turned around by the taller girl. Yoorim's eyes were burning with anger at your unexplained actions. Maybe it was the alcohol that clouded her vision but she didn't notice how your eyes had a veil of tears over them.

"What was that for?!" she demanded. "We were having so much fun and y—"

"I want to go home, Yoorim."

Yoorim stopped mid sentence and stared at you in disbelief. "Go home? Y/N it hasn't even been an hour yet—"

"I said, I want to go home!" you repeat yourself through gritted teeth. You clenched your fists at your sides as you looked Yoorim in the eye.

Yoorim narrowed her eyes at you. "No, Y/N. You don't get to go home. I took you out so you can relax and shit but right now you're just ruining everything! What the fuck is wrong and why won't you fucking tell me?!"

"I—"

"You always do the same shit. You run away from your problems and you push anyone who wants to help you away! Do you know how exhausting it is to keep up with you?! I tried so hard to be your friend but in the end you still push me away. This is why Haechan left you!" Yoorim gasped and she immediately slapped her hands over her mouth. Her outburst seemed to sober her up. You stood there with your eyes wide opened in shock and lips slightly parted as you soaked in Yoorim's words.

"I— I'm so sorry, I…I didn't me—" Yoorim stuttered out. She reached forward for you but you jerked backward. With every step she took, your feet moved back. You shook your head. You felt the tears finally falling down and with that you turned on your heel and ran.

"Y/N!" you heard Yoorim call out but you didn't look back.

Tears blurred your vision as you tried to navigate your way through the crowded house. Small "excuse me"s left your lips as you pushed past everyone. You had to get out of the house. You couldn't break down right there in front of everyone. Yoorim's words still echoed in your head.

You run away from your problems and you push everyone away.

Do you know how exhausting it is to keep up with you?

This is why Haechan left you!

No, no, Yoorim didn't mean it. She's drunk. She was intoxicated. She wasn't thinking straight. She wasn't sober.

But the drunk mind speaks from the sober heart.

And it was true. All you did was run and run away. You never face your problems. You couldn't face Haechan after rejecting him. You never confronted your parents. You never tried to clear the rumors about you. You thought that hiding away behind her four walls could save you.

And Haechan was the one picking your walls down with a stone pickaxe. When you saw how your walls started to crumble, panic rose inside. You started to patch the holes made by him. You didn't want him to see how broken you really were. You couldn't let all your burdens onto him. You had to let him go.

You were so deep in your thoughts that you didn't notice you bumped into someone. "Sorry," you whispered and withdrew yourself.

"Y/N?"

Your eyes snap up to the owner of the voice.

Mark.

Mark looked at you with a worried look. He gently grabbed your shoulders to balance you. "Y/N, are you okay?" he asked in a worried tone.

You shook your head and reluctantly shoved Mark away. You stumbled in your steps as tears continued to gather around your eyes.

"Y/N, Y/N! Wait up!" Mark called out but the wall of dancing bodies blocked him from getting to you.

You finally found the door and your face was greeted with the cold wind of the night. You gasped as you stumbled out of the house. You walked down the stairs of the porch and crouched down. Your hand was over your heart as you breathed in heavily. Fresh tears still stained your cheeks and there was a heavy ringing in your ear.

You slid down against the white porch, sucking in short breaths. Your hand found your phone in your back pocket and dialed the first number that came to mind. You wanted to go home and do nothing but curl up in a ball and cry.

You raised the phone to your ear. "Please pick up, please pick up," you whispered to yourself.

"Hello?"

He picked up. He actually picked up. It has been weeks since you heard his voice. Oh god, how you missed hearing it.

"—llo? Y/N?"

"D-Donghyuck?" your voice was hoarse, it was barely a whisper. You didn't even know how you managed to say his name within your shortened breaths.

The moment he heard your strangled voice, he was suddenly alerted. "Y/N? What's wrong? Are you crying? Are you okay?"

You felt another wave of the blues washed over you. Tears started to fall and you let out a choke. "I-I'm s-s-sorry, Hyu—ck," you hiccuped.

You could barely blabber out formed sentences, let alone words. All you repeated was "I'm sorry" as you sobbed to Donghyuck through the phone.

Donghyuck's heart clenched at the sound of your cries. "Hey, hey," he softly called out for you. "Where are you? I'm going to come get you, okay?"

"I-I don't k-know, some pa-party with M-Mark. I-I-I don't know w-where, I'm sorry," you sniffled.

"Hey it's okay, stop saying sorry. Stay on the phone with me okay?" You could hear his keys jiggling from the other side. You nodded at his words as he kept continuing to talk to her. "I'm here for you, Y/N."

The entire car ride back to Donghyuck’s place was silent. He didn’t say anything and the only sounds that came from you were your sniffles. But he kept a hand on your right knee the entire time, the action gave you a sense of comfort.

He wordlessly let you into his house, thankfully his parents were out of town. You didn’t need more people to question your tear-stricken face. Donghyuck told you to take a shower and he’ll prepare some food for you. When you emerged from the bathroom, your face now cleaned and hair damped. A set of his clothes were neatly placed on his bed for you.

It was your favorite hoodie of his that you would “borrow” from time to time and a pair of grey sweatpants. His clothes were big on you, but it made you feel safe, like a warm blanket being wrapped around your thin frame.

Donghyuck knocked on the door and asked from the other side, “Can I come in?”

Your lip twitched into a small smile at his question. You found it sweet that he was asking permission into his bedroom. You replied with a soft “yes” and the door opened, revealing Donghyuck with a bowl of ramen.

He set the bowl at his desk and the two of you were now facing each other. Awkwardness filled the atmosphere. You didn’t know what to say and Donghyuck couldn’t get the words out of his mouth. You stood in silence, the awkward tension was suffocating.

“I-“

“I’m sorry,” the words flew out of your mouth before he could say anything. “I’m sorry about the other night in your car. I lied,” you confessed. The tears were starting to build up again and your gaze never left the carpeted floor. You took his silence as a sign to continue.

“I’m...I’m sorry that I pushed you away. I didn’t mean it when I said I didn’t love you, Hy—Donghyuck,” you winced when you stopped yourself from calling him “Hyuck”. That nickname was for close friends, and you were almost strangers. It didn’t feel fitting for you to use.

You took in a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m sorry,” you repeated for the nth time of the night. “I-I do love you, but you don’t deserve me. I’m broken a-and messed up. You deserve better,” you finally raised her head to look at him with your glassy eyes.

His expression was unreadable. You’ve never seen it before. You squeezed your eyes shut, your hands fisting at the sides of the hoodie as you anticipated his next movements. You heard his soft footsteps advancing towards you.

You quietly gasped when Donghyuck wrapped his arms around your shoulder, pulling you in for an embrace. He raised his left hand to stroke your head, gently resting it against his collarbones. “It’s okay, Y/N,” he softly said, “I forgive you.”

Those three words hit you like a train and the tears came flooding out once again. You buried your face in his shoulder and your hands clenched at the back of his shirt. Donghyuck held you as you cried, whispering sweet nothings into your ear. He let you cry out until there were no more tears in your system, until he was sure that the walls surrounding your cold heart would be weakened.

You spent most of your time building up brick walls around your heart. You spent years feeling numb and putting up a tough facade. Donghyuck spent most of his time breaking down those walls. He spent his days poking at your heart until it was beating again. You never felt loved and he made sure that he loved you until his very last breath. And for once in forever, you didn’t mind getting your walls taken down.

“Destiny’s Child” and the Destiny of...Them

So that was..........A Lot.

Liked A LOT about it, a lot more than a usually do with Buckleming, but uh, some issues.  Eugenie didn’t really need to bring up Busty Asian Beauties, that had gone and we didn’t need more of it.  And I hate any mention of John Winchester that is positive, whether it’s in an AU or hammering home how poor of a father he is, but other than some details, this was a wild ride that I mostly enjoyed and have a lot to talk about.  They certainly crammed a lot in there.

Starting from literally the very beginning, they’re hitting us with some sick parallels in the “Then” portion of the episode.  Listen, y’all know me.  Y’all know I am.......Not A Fan of M*g or M******l, I am, however a Rachel Miner stan, so when the “Then” started out with the pizza man and the cringy kiss from ��Caged Heat” I sorta rolled my eyes but held out hope for a Rachel cameo bc I.....lov her.  But then.............”I learned that from the pizza man” is compared directly with Dean being mistaken for a pizza man?  And then eating pizza in like 20 different scenes?  Could the production be louder???????  There is, in my opinion, literally no other way to take that, that was a sequence that basically said “Dean taught Cas how to kiss” and I will not be accepting dissenting opinions at this time.

Also AU Sam and Dean were so dumb and I appreciated their stupid Fiat and the song that played when they got out of the car, thanks Amyn, I appreciate you dawg.  And then Sam and Dean explaining it to Cas?  Thanks base gods.

Cas was so fucking sassy in this ep and I......love him so much.

The idea of killing Amara is interesting, mostly because it brings her into play again, we saw in the beginning of the season that she just....doesn’t give a fuck about any of this, but the boys don’t know that, so maybe she’ll become an ally?  Idk, here’s hoping.  I miss her.

And when Cas and Dean have this exchange about the occultum:

“It was housed for hundreds of years in an ancient before it was-”

“Plundered by pirates!”

“No-”

“It was...dug up by tomb raiders!”

“No.”

“It was...seized by the king of the dead and his warlords amiclose?”

“Looted by invading mongol hoardes for trade on the black-”

“Black market, yeah I was gonna say that next, that was the next one.”

Like.....can y’all say MARRIED?  Anyway.

Danneel and Gen???  Together???  Ruby and Sister Jo????  Together???? I’m gay.

I’m SUPER interested in the convo that Jack and Cas have in the kitchen, specifically about Dean:

“Will he ever forgive me?”

“You know, Dean...he feels things more acutely than any human I’ve ever known.  So, it’s possible he could work through this.  One day he may explode, let it all out, breathe deeply and move on.”

“How long will that take?”

“I don’t know.”

Can we say PARALLELS fam??  First of all, Cas is so in tune with Dean, he knows him so well, knows how much he cares how deeply he loves.  Honestly it causes me chest pains to think about it for too long.  But Cas knows this because he just went through it, Dean “couldn’t forgive” and “couldn’t move on” until he had an Outburst in Purgatory and begged asked Cas to forgive him for how he acted.  It’s an interesting parallel because it isn’t a direct parallel: Dean was the one that asked forgiveness of Cas, not the other way around.  It’s a little detail, but at this point every little detail seems to be important down the road.

Also there were a lot of Looks between Dean and Cas and they were all soft and I gtg

And then we get the big mention: the first mention of Cas’ deal since last season.  I knew the writers wouldn’t just write this plotline off, and Cas is, “far from happy” as he says himself.  So.....not to clown.....but if getting Jack back doesn’t make him happy............what does? (I think we know)

And then Cas in the Empty, looking for Ruby, and runs into “Meg” (Rachel I missed u).  And I think it’s fascinating that the Empty appeared as Meg specifically.  The Empty knows Cas, of course, but, more specifically, the Empty knows EVERYTHING about Cas.  “I know who you love, what you fear.”  And the Empty appears to Cas as someone that he TRUSTED, not as someone that he loved.  It’s an important distinction, because if the Empty wanted to appear as something that would RATTLE Cas, it would appear as someone that he loved or hated, but he trusted Meg, that’s why it appeared to him as her.

Also, “go get her, pizza man” after that intro?  Really just hammering home that Dean is the pizza man with all the subtlety of an elephant imho.

Also Concerned Husband Dean is alive and well, he doesn’t even hesitate, he makes Jack bring Cas back immediately, important information be damned.

But before Cas leaves, Empty!Meg says something that should NOT be glossed over, about Death’s plan to defeat Chuck, “Funny thing about her plan though, she didnt say anything about needing you.”

How many times have we heard this this season?  How many times has Cas occupied the negative space?  “No one mentions Cas,” the loudness of his absence after the breakup, when he was kidnapped by Leviathan in Purgatory, not being mentioned in Billie’s plan, and now? Fret not my friends, I know so many people are worried about Cas, but Andrew Dabb is a Cas stan first and a human second, and all of these mentions or lack thereof of Cas being a part of the endgame?  It just makes him all the more important, because he’s a surprise attack, Chuck never sees him coming because he doesn’t consider him important.

And when Cas comes back and Dean calls him an idiot?  Some serious callbacks to one of the gayest episodes and one of my personal faves: “Lily Sunder has Some Regrets.”  They be married.

AU Sam and Dean were very wrong and I did not wike it and that’s that on that tbh.

So they get to the church, Sam holds the door against the hellhounds like the badass boy he is, and Dean and Cas really do just stand exactly where a couple getting married would stand, with Jack standing where the officiant would stand.  I mean.....it’s LOUD.  It’s just real LOUD in here.  Also pretty fucking ON THE NOSE that Jack stands in front of Jesus, Cas in front of Mary, and Dean in front of Joseph.  I’m not qualified to do religious iconography meta but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh come on now.

That snake sequence...Jack’s life flashing before his eyes before he gets his soul back?  Ya boi weeps.  Buckleming had no right to write something as amazing as Jack’s snake sequence and final scene, it shouldn’t be allowed and it was not what I was expecting.

So.....there was a lot happening in this episode but, y’all know I sound like a broken record here, Dean and Cas were, once again, the overwhelming and blatant focal point.  Sure I watch with my eyes tuned to them especially, but they’re really cranking up the volume over here.  The Empty deal is back and unresolved, Cas talks to Jack about Dean’s forgiveness, Dean’s fearful when he thinks he’s lost Cas again, the fucking pizza man.  It all points one direction.

i like that dummy. Like crazy. You can’t even imagine, dude. [sequel]

*this is pt 1, pls read that before this one if u haven’t!

**sorry this took 5 years also y’all are seniors in this dont worry they arent like freshman or sophomores and like thirsty like that lol

pairing - jock!jaehyun x fem!reader

word count - 2.3k

genre - soft sheep fluff, if u squint i guess it’s might be suggestive at one part(?)

[ 10:32 A.M ]  To say that the first minute of the walk outside with Jaehyun was not awkward as hell would be a horrible, horrible lie. Your eyes seemed to dart everywhere but the jock next to you, who stayed surprisingly silent. You wonder if this was a joke; some sick bet that the basketball team set him up to. 

They were infamous for their ruthless pranks, with their victims ranging from babies fresh from middle school to the most ancient of teachers. You shudder at a junior year memory of seeing Mr. Dong’s boxers for the first time.

Yeah, they pantsed him not once, not twice, but three times before the poor guy ran out screaming.

You remember Jaehyun laughing and doing stupid handshakes with his friends when they found out he resigned the next day. Your feet pull to a halt.

Is he going to laugh at you like that too?

A pair of weathered checker Vans appear in front of your hi-tops. “What’s wrong? Are you actually sick?” 

The concern in his voice was even more concerning for you. This wasn’t what you expected. You inhale sharply, before looking him in the eye.

“I should be asking you that! Did you take some mind altering drug this morning? How can you-” You grab the crumpled confession from your pocket and fling it at his chest. It falls limply between the two of you.  “-throw this thing at me?”

“I mean, I’ve been throwing things at you all year,” He says coolly, picking the ball up. “You just happened to finally open one. Pity you didn’t catch my paper planes. Those had little hearts on it. Or my paper cranes, those had-”

“It isn’t funny, you know.”

Jaehyun puts his hands in his pockets. “What isn’t?”

“Playing with other people’s feelings,” You bite the inside of your cheek. “I know you and your little basketball team think it’s the fucking BALLS to make other people feel like shit and I don’t know what stupid bet this was, but-”

“So you’re sad about it?”

“…what?”

“You’re sad at the possibility that I might not like you?” He takes a step closer. “That this all might just be a bet?”

“I-”

With one firm tug on your wrist, he pulls you closer. His breath feels warm on your forehead. Your heart pounds so hard in your chest you wouldn’t be surprised if it just pops out onto the floor.

“Well, you’re wrong.” His arm snakes around your waist so suddenly and so firmly that you wonder if you’ll go into cardiac arrest. “This isn’t a bet.”

You’re so close to him now you can see the little snow-like freckles on his nose from summer. The warmth around your waist feels electrifying.

“Jaehyun, what-”

“I said it in the letter, said it in class and I’ll say it again. I like you, Y/N. And I like you a lot. And I also get the feeling that-” He gives you a shit eating grin. “-you feel the same way.”

“…maybe.” You mumble, eyes fixated on a piece of lint on the ground.

“Maybe?” He grabs your chin so you’re facing him. “You gonna break my heart, Y/N?”

You see yourself in his eyes, and for a moment, you wonder if he can see himself in yours.

“Jaehyun…” Your start, but inaudible words come out of your lips again. Jaehyun puts a teasing hand up to his ear and lean over.

“I can’t hear you, Y/N. Speak loud-”

“-okay you know what, fuck it-” You inhale sharply. “-you’re too CLOSE, Jaehyun. I CAN’T THINK PROPERLY BECAUSE YOU’RE TOO CLOSE TO ME AND MY HEART IS BEATING TOO FAST.” 

Your face feels hot and you’re certain you look like a tomato again. You look away, the cringe from the words that came out of your mouth sinking in.

WHY DID I SAY THAT? ARE WE IN WATTPAD? WHAT WAS THAT, Y/N? You internally scream at yourself, wondering why he wasn’t saying anything.

There’s a pause where the warmth around your waist disappears. An unconscious pout appears on your lips from the absence of his touch, an action that he most definitely notices. 

“That was a good enough answer for me, ma'am.”

And suddenly, your back is against the lockers with Jung Jaehyun’s lips on yours.

He tastes like the pink lemonade from the cafeteria, a little too sweet, a little too artificial, but you don’t feel yourself pulling away anytime soon. His arm finds its way around your waist again and his fingers draw soft circles down the small of your back. Your hands go down from his hair to his neck when he brings your body even closer. It’s only when you nibble on his lower lip that he pulls away, his cheeks dusted a very warm pink. For a moment, it seems like he’s going to kiss you again, but instead he takes a step back and turns around.

As he fixes his hair, the tips of his ears peek out of his locks. They’re scarlet red like syrup on shaved ice. 

How cute.

You don’t think you’ve ever seen Jaehyun blush before - or embarrassed, for that matter. To be frank, you wondered if that was even possible, since his smug face seemed to be the only thing he ever wore when he strode down the school hallways during lunch or when he sat at your dining table during neighbourhood parties.

“Where did you…” He says slowly, lips slightly red and swollen. “Where did you learn that?”

“Learn what?” You say innocently, slightly proud of yourself for making The Jung Jaehyun flustered for once. 

“You’re a good kisser Y/N,” He shakes his head, taking a step towards you again. “So who have you been kissing?”

A surge of confidence flows through you from the compliment. 

“Sorry Jaehyun but-” You smirk up at him. “-I don’t kiss and tell.”

He raises an eyebrow, inching in again and placing hand next to your head, trapping you. You look at his lips and back at him again, with a gaze that almost dared him to come to you again, almost challenged him to capture your lips in his again and not pull away so fast this time. 

“Y/N,” He growled under his breath. His eyes suddenly looked very hungry. “If we weren’t in school I swear-”

As if it knew that words that were not fit for a school were at the tip of Jaehyun’s tongue, the bell rang. Students poured out of classrooms, some groaning about their classes, some excitedly talking about the weekend, some looking like plain zombies who lost their taste for human brains. 

You saw Doyoung come out of a hallway with Mark and Yuta who, although you thought you were quick enough to push Jaehyun away without anyone seeing, were quite sharp. 

“Well…I guess I’ll go to Chem now.” You clear your throat, slinging your bag (fell off your back when you were making out) over your shoulder.

 As you start to walk away to catch up with Doyoung (who walked past the two of you secretly with a devilish smile), Jaehyun catches your wrist again, in an almost panicked way that a child might do when their parents leave them at a kindergarten for the first time. 

“Wait! Uh…will I see you again today?”

You look at his wrist, smiling. “If you want to.”

His grip relaxes, and he puts his hands in his pockets again. “Today, 6:30 at the quad?”

“So late?”

“Why? Think you’ll miss me too much?”

You roll your eyes, turning away again.

“Just joking, just joking,” He pulls you back. “I have practice. Oh! You could come watch if you want. Straight after school, at the courts. You know, I’m known to be pretty sexy when I play basketball. Sweaty, glistening, sometimes my shirt comes up-”

You put a hand in front of his face, covering his dumb wiggling eyebrows.

“Sure, sure I’ll come,” You wave a hand as you begin walking away. He doesn’t stop you again but instead his dimples go back on full display. “I’ll probably be watching Taeyong though, he’s really handsome-”

The second bell rings, the only people left in the hallway are the two of you, an amused Doyoung and Yuta and Mark who are eavesdropping at the back.

“Y/N!”

You run before he can catch you again, and stop hastily when you reach Doyoung at the end of the hallway. The look he’s giving you makes you want to punch him. 

“Did. I. Not. Tell. You. That. Boy. Likes. You.” He says, each time he claps after a word making you groan more. ‘What. Did. I. Say. You. Clown.”

“Yes, yes, you were right.” You sigh as the two of you enter the class and settle down in your lab seats. 

“So, what happened exactly?” 

“Well,” Your hand stops shuffling your backpack for your textbook. The image of Jaehyun pinning you to the lockers flashes in your mind, his hand on your waist… “Nothing much.” You say, rather unconvincingly.

“Boo, don’t lie,” Doyoung says, flicking on his horn-rimmed glasses when the teacher begins to give a rather boring presentation on acids. “It was a trick question, I saw y’all nasty asses kissing.”

“How did you-”

“When I told you that you were lewd, I didn’t mean to act on it! And to think! In this holy educational institute, where a fourteen year old freshman baby could’ve seen, y’all nasties were-”

“DOYOUNG!” 

Suddenly, the class is quiet, and the teacher, a very weathered man who was apparently a retired scientist called Mr. Yang casted you a very offended glance. You can see Doyoung trying his best not to laugh and you pinch him on the leg.

“Is there a problem, Y/N? Or rather-” His eyes narrow on Doyoung, who was now biting his cheek to prevent a smile. “-a problem with Doyoung? Do you want me to move you?”

“No, no. Ah Doyoung was just-” You peek quickly at the presentation behind him. “-telling me a fun fact about hydronium! It was so shocking, I couldn’t hold back… Yes, I could not. Sorry about that, sir.”

Though unconvinced, he let out a grunt and continued on, the class going back to normal. You let out a deep breath and tried to focus on the moving dots on the screen that were supposed to be particles. 

“You know, I was lying earlier. I only saw the two of you talking. But wow. Did you actually kiss him? Was he good? Did he do tongue?”

You bite your lip to stop another shout from erupting from your lips. Something told you this time Mr. Yang would kick you out for the rest of the year if you interrupted him again.

You resorted stepping on Doyoung’s foot very, very hard.

- and back to somewhere not so far away, in the past -

“Y/N!” Jaehyun shouts, a smile on his lips at the girl’s retreating figure. He shook his head, still in a slight daze from what just happened. However, he had no time to recover as two slaps on his back and a very loud “DUDE” sounded in his ear.

“MARK! You scared me, oh my god,” Jaehyun says, rubbing his ear as Yuta slings his arm around his shoulder.

“So,” Yuta says, exchanging mischievous grins with Mark. “how was the nurse’s office?”

“Huh?” Jaehyun says in confusion, before retracting almost immediately. “OH! Yeah, you know…Y/N put some ice to her forehead…”

A snort came from Yuta and Mark started giddy laughing like he inhaled some helium gas. 

“STOP LYING, DUDE. We saw you, alright? Acting all mushy by the lockers and looking into each other’s eyes like you were Romeo and Juliet or something.” 

“What the-weren’t you in class?”

Yuta rolled his eyes. “Do you really think we would actually do self-study? You have severely underestimated us, Jeffrey.”

The three of them began walking towards the courts for P.E. It was Jaehyun’s favourite subject but the only thing that he thought about the entire time was you. Your awkward but adorable confession, your flushed cheeks when he confessed to you, the feeling of your lips against his… 

For the first time in his four years of high school, his P.E classmates found him utterly useless during a game of sports.

“Is something wrong with Jeffrey today?” Someone said from the showers after the lesson as Jaehyun was changing his shirt. 

“I’m fine!” He shouted back, even though he wasn’t really. Very soon he would be going back to the courts but there would be one small difference. You would be there, watching him, and something about that got his heart pounding very hard, indeed. 

“Yeah, right.” Someone else chimed in, also from the showers. “Jaehyun’s got himself a girlfriend.” 

“Yeah they were smooching-” 

“Yuta, Mark, if you don’t want to run ten laps, you’ll shut up now,” Jaehyun says, quickly swiping on some cologne on his wrist. Taeyong, the basketball team’s forward raised an eyebrow at this. 

“Cologne? Jaehyun do you actually-”

Jaehyun was too engrossed in shoving his stuff into his Superdry as quick as possible to notice Taeyong had been talking to him. It was only when the bag was over his shoulder that Jaehyun turned to him, with a look that Taeyong could only describe as determination.

“Taeyong, bro, if a crazy girl wearing a denim skirt and red hi-tops stares at you later during practice, tell her to back off, and that she needs to stop looking at you, okay?”

Jaehyun pats the older boy’s shoulder and begins to walk away, a spring already forming in his step at the thought of seeing you.

Taeyong blinks. “What? Who’s that?”

“Some dummy who made me miss class. But you know what?”  

He turns back again, a twinkle in his eyes.

“I like that dummy. Like crazy. You can’t even imagine, dude.”

fin.

YGO! Questionnaire

Tagged by @cipher-wise

Pleasantly surprised to be in one of these, so let’s go

Favorite series: *Gestures to icon* Is it any surprise I’ll be picking GX? I love GX with all my heart and soul. The story’s pacing is very good and never feels like it’s dragging its feet to get to where it’s going, most duels are over in less than a full episode with the longest one being three, there are so many good characters to get invested in, and this boy right here is your protagonist.

Look at him blow kisses to the audience after beating Crowler, how could anyone not love Jaden Yuki? I care him so much. Even the filler episodes in GX are pretty fun to watch most of the time, and it’s the good kind of filler that may not advance the plot much or at all, but it’ll give you plenty of good memories to take with you. Who could possibly forget the eggwich thief? Not to mention the soundtrack fucking slaps.

Favorite protagonist: I mean...

Yeah it’s Jaden. GX hooked me immediately when I started watching it because of how much I loved this boy. He’s that perfect mix of cocky and sweet when it comes to dueling because he’s confident in his own abilities, but he never stops having fun and being amazed at what his opponent can do, he cares about all of his friends and does his best to help them with their problems, he’s kind to strangers, and he has exactly half a brain cell. 

I feel the gif speaks for itself, but Jaden’s dialogue when he turns around here is “I’m such a sucker for things like this! I’ll help you, ma’am!” Dorothy says “No, you’ll be late... Don’t you have a test today?” And Jaden replies with “Who cares if I’m late? I couldn’t leave a lady in trouble!” Jaden Yuki is my absolute favorite protagonist.

Favorite rival: Oh man is that a tough one. Am I allowed to pick two? It’s a hard call to make between this dumb edgy bitch-

And this dumb gay bitch

Honestly they’re tied for favorite rival in my book. I absolutely loved Chazz when I watched GX, and I thought his arc about breaking through his inferiority/superiority complex and learning to accept loss as a part of life without letting it define him was wonderfully written, and seeing him grow as a person throughout the show just made me feel happy for him. Shark... I really thought I wasn’t going to end up liking Shark at first, but god he just gets so much better as Zexal goes on, starting out as this mean spirited middle school bully in episode one, and slowly ending up as Yuma’s boyfriend closest friend. It’s incredible to look back at how Shark acts when he’s first introduced and compare it to... season 3, I think it was, where just hearing the words “Yuma’s in danger” is enough to send him running to his rival’s side. Chazz and Shark. They are my favorites.

Favorite BFF: Him

Crow Hogan is an absolute treasure and he was my favorite part about watching 5Ds. This little bird man first gets introduced by stealing cards for his kids and clowning on Sector Security, and he’s a source of so much good throughout the show. Excellent best friend (technically brother but I’m counting him), wonderful father, 10/10 person all around. Plus the fact that the only thing stopping him from berating his bitchass brother even more was Yusei having to literally pick him up and pull him away is definitely extra points in my book. What a powerful little bird. His only weakness is people that are taller than him, which is unfortunately most people.

Favorite GFF:

Yuzu. Have I actually watched Arc V yet? No, but I’m still picking Yuzu for my number one here. Tea and Tori are just awful characters, I’m neutral towards Alexis, and Akiza... Did have potential to be something interesting on her own, despite how uncomfortable she made me in seasons 1-2 of 5Ds, but her relevance is alllll downhill from there. I’ve seen one clip of Yuzu yelling at a man eating pie and calling him a 100th rate duelist, and that was all I needed to know she would be my favorite. (Clip here) 

Favorite villain: Oh boy

The fuckin carrot is my favorite villain, and I say this as someone who fully believes he didn’t deserve to be in the last episode. Vector did some fucked up shit in his day, and he only continued to do fucked up shit in Yuma’s day, but I have to say he was pretty effective when it came down to his goals. He got things done and went right for what he wanted by taking direct action to seize Don Thousand’s power, and he manipulated Yuma perfectly by preying on his kind nature and love for Astral to use him to further his goals. 

...Plus I mean just look at his subbed dialogue God he’s such a slut. Evil slutty alien.

Tl;dr Vector was a horrible horrible person, but he was a good villain, and he was so entertaining whenever he was on screen that it was impossible not to like him. Still kinda wish he got what he deserved though, and what he deserved definitely wasn’t another chance.

Speaking of Don Thousand though, can we talk about how unfairly pretty he is? If I had to pick a runner up villain in terms of looks alone, it would definitely be him.

God it was not fair how pretty the big bad of Zexal was. He’s fucking gorgeous, and in my opinion, the best looking villain at the very least.

Favorite card: *Sweats in Duel Links* Favorite? There’s so many cards out there to pick from, but since I’ve already broken the rules with my two favorite rivals, I’ll be picking two of each card type: Spells, traps, and monsters. One for the aesthetic, and one for how often I make use of it.

First up, the Aesthetics group

What can I say, Vampiric Koala is such a cutie, Dwimmered Path has some really pretty card art, and Rainbow Life is an eternal flex on any heteros I may encounter while playing Duel Links. Nothing better than a gay trap card.

Now for usability

Dragon Knight of Creation is suuuper helpful in any dragon themed deck and has a permanent slot in my decks for Mokuba and Kaiba, PoG is always a fun way to boost up weak monsters to ridiculous heights, and Dark Bribe just lets you block your opponent like “Okay I know you wanna hurt me but I will let you draw another card if you do not do that thing”, and they can’t refuse you.

Favorite episode: I’ll be copying cipher’s format here and picking one for each series, but this will still only total out to five for me since I’ve yet to watch past Zexal ^^; Soon I’ll get to Arc V! One day...

Season 0: Episode 16:  Turnabout by a Hair's Breadth - The White-Robed Crisis I’m a sucker for my son Joey, and this was a good Joey episode about him and his sister, plus it was nice seeing that doctor get what he deserved :) Duel Monsters: Season 5, episode 12-14:  The Deciding Match for Duel King - Yugi vs. Leon/Golden Castle of Stromberg/KC Grand Prix Ends  Probably a weird batch of episodes to pick, I know, but a lot of DM was kinda forgettable to me, and these are some of the few episodes I do recall. I just... really felt for Leon’s situation, and I wanted good things for that boy. I care him. GX: Season 3, episode 34: Dark Fusion! Inferno Wing!! Jim. Jim Jim Jimmmmm. This was the episode that finally made me understand why saviorshipping was a thing because it hits you with all these memories Jim has of Jaden and shows how they bonded before all this Dark World shit happened, and the whole thing was very emotional. 5Ds: Season 4, episode 2-3:  Recollections, Entrusted with a Friend's Dying Wish God Crow, my precious bird son. I really liked the backstory they gave him, despite how much it hurt. It was probably the best character development he got in the whole of 5Ds, and let you see a side to him you probably wouldn’t expect. I loved watching him get his justice. Zexal II: Season 2, episode 5-6:  Alito the Silent Fighter - Reunion of the Passionate Duelists!/ Be Revived! The Duelist Soul That Transcends Life!! I picked these episodes for Nistro and Nistro alone. He was one of my absolute favorites in Zexal, and seeing how well he and Dextra were doing was good for the soul. Just look at this good lion man right here.

Look at him!!!

Favorite decks to use: Elemental Heroes, Aromages, Red Eyes, Six Samurai, and Crystal Beasts.

Fusion, Ritual, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum, or Link: I’m a simple girl, I love fusion/tributes for how easy they are, but synchro can be pretty fun, too

Years in fandom: ??? Even I don’t know the answer to this one, friends. I used to be in the fandom when I was in middle school, wrote/read a few fanfics here and there, but then I fell out of it for... Well I’m 22 now and only got back into things 6 months ago? I started rewatching the abridged series of Duel Monsters in March, and from there I just wanted to consume actual Yugioh content and never went back.

Who am I tagging: @finding-fallen-petals @dizziedaikonn​ @chazzaroo​ Go wild y’all

@otumbalt

The message you sent was fanmail, I think! And as such, I couldn’t reply directly (tumblr confuses me sometimes and I couldn’t find a reply button. If y’all know better pls do let me know if I need to put my clown shoes on LMAO). Thank you for the kind words though!! I really appreciate it, and I’m looking forward to more complexity from Cybird, too! 

That being said, I did want to touch on something you said because I’m still drowning in my feels and languishing. “the push and pull between comte’s rationality and his desire to love and be loved was something that I really enjoyed from his route” you. you get it. There’s nothing I love more than a man that’s self-aware, and it’s such a rare treat when it comes to fiction, at least in my experience. 

Some spoilers for his MS beneath the cut to explain why this resonated so deeply with me, so no touchy if you’re waiting to read on your own! c:

Because that’s exactly it. At first he is 100% just trying to help her get situated. He’s being rational. Sure, he’s excited to have a guest--he likes meeting new people in general, learning what he can from them (can you feel my uwus). But it’s only when she debuts that he begins to realize that this isn’t just enjoying her company. He finds her dazzling, far beyond what constitutes friendly curiosity. If that sounds too convenient, I can confirm that he takes her to the venue of her debut, dressed in clothes he picked out (which he emphasizes is something that greatly pleases him, looks wonderful on her). And he begins to wonder if this is what it feels like to have a daughter, to look on with earnest fondness and want only the best for her.

But the sugar daddy act ends REAL quick.

There is an attending nobleman that comments on how lovely she is, insinuates a kind of desire to know if she’s single or not with his attraction. And he suddenly becomes quite incensed by that comment, feels genuine irritation. Combined with that is the moment in which MC becomes a little nervous, says that she’s unsure if she’s really worthy of this kind of attention. Comte, in his POV story, is shocked to hear that she’s anxious. She powered through lessons on decorum and dancing, never once complained about his days-long fussing. And he realizes that it’s not because she didn’t feel any discomfort, but because she chose to be strong--chose to keep trying. This is the moment in which he realizes that he cares for her deeply, and that she doesn’t see herself clearly. She’s beautiful in the conventional sense, absolutely--but it’s more than that for him. She’s beautiful because she’s always doing her best, always cares about the people around her enough to try to power through. And that’s what the people around her were truly responding to. Anybody can get dolled up, but to be admired or loved usually requires more substance.

And so he tells her that, caught in the moment of realization. “You’re beautiful...” And she replies that it’s all thanks to the attire he got her, the jewelry gleaming from every part of her. But he falters--tries to clarify, before the opportunity is lost and dies in his throat. 

That was only the first step in his long and exponential descent into love for her. The thing that’s so moving about Comte is that he tries so very hard to contextualize with the knowledge he has. Remember, he keeps telling himself, she’s from the future. She has a place to return to. No matter how curious, no matter how attracted, he was never meant to enter that picture. They were two of a very different kind, irreconcilable in that regard too. Tainting her with his selfishness, with that desire for companionship that’s always been such a difficult obstacle for him, isn’t her responsibility. It’s his. He needed to put her first. And he had every intention to.

Until she saw the wavering parts of him, the fragile ones that only come out in glances--beyond his control, beyond his good sense. And she handled his worries with such care, such compassion that it strikes him to the very core. There’s a good number of chapters where he’s trying and utterly failing to stop her from doting on him, falls into her little gestures of kindness, of attention. 

It takes Leonardo to stop and say that his attempts are pathetic. That it couldn’t be clearer that le Comte is hopelessly in love with her. His indictment forces Comte to backtrack, forces him to try and cut her off entirely. He’s mortified at himself, at his failing self-control. Four hundred years and he can’t manage to stop instigating feelings between himself and one woman in the space of one month? And more than anything, he truly is under the operating assumption that this is in her best interest; that he must stop if this if it is to end in anything other than tragedy. For him, it the ultimate culmination of his own failure to take responsibility, exercise foresight, and consider her feelings.

Needless to say, none of this goes to plan in the end. 

Now, I’d like to clarify something. MC, this whole time, doesn’t really find any fault with all of that. She thinks it’s nice to see him let down his guard, doesn’t mind comforting him when he confides in her now and again. She just sees the man that chose to care about her first, and fell in love with his conscientious concern for people. She doesn’t see his vulnerability as a shortcoming, the way that he does. And that’s where the tension arises. Because Comte is literally staring at his hands internally screaming at himself, while MC is like “you know if we made out, that would be awesome. Can’t believe I might become the foster mom to nine weird genius vampires, but you never know what life brings amirite”

In that way, the route is almost funny, but mostly sad, in how ridiculously inaccurate Comte’s self-perception is. He thinks that asking for help, asking to be cared for, is fundamentally a breach of conduct. Not just...being a person that needs support from time to time?? (He does me a big concern ;-;)

Regardless, and maybe it’s just me, but there’s just something so moving about seeing him so affected? He truly does everything in his power to prove that he is unworthy, does everything in his power to believe that he’s unworthy. But MC won’t be swayed, no matter how scary or difficult things get--no matter how great the gulf of time or life is between them. No matter how many times being with him might result in her being threatened, she doesn’t care. Sure it’s scary, but she doesn’t deem it enough to divide them. She tried to distance herself “for own good” too, following his lead, and it just didn’t work for either of them.

Would you all like to know what it is that gets him to finally acquiesce? What it is that makes him raise the white flag, any defensiveness gone, only endless love and trust taking its place? The second where his desire to love and be loved wins out, all rationality scrapped?

They discuss the events of Vlad’s abduction, and Comte levels with her. Says that if what happened is enough to destroy whatever attraction for him that she had felt, he wouldn’t judge her. She was still more than free to go home, to live her life. When she protests, he pulls his trump card. He gets very serious, looks her in the eye, and asks what she thinks about turning. If he were to pose the question, what would be her response?

And MC, bless her heart, says that she hasn’t decided, because that is something for them to decide together. She certainly won’t force him to do it, but she wants to know what he feels about it before coming to any kind of concrete decision--or even temporary one. Because that’s the whole point. That’s what it means to be in love with someone. It means having someone by your side, someone that’s there to listen and put you first--just as they should be putting you first, too. It means that any course of action is made hand-in-hand, that we check in with each other first; that we hear and help each other out, no matter how confused or paralyzed or exhausted. That’s what makes Comte start laughing with relieved delight, any hesitations gone. That’s when their relationship is solidified, when Comte chooses to devote himself--no matter what hardships the future brings--to her. Because for the first time in his life, he knows he will never have to carry anything all alone anymore, and he is at ease. 

In short, thanks Cybird I’m sobbing now and forever for one gold pixelated man pls don’t look at me

Smile For Me, the cycle of abuse, and breaking the cycle

(warning: mentions of child abuse, general violence, and death)

Okay so y’all know how much I love this game. A good portion of my love for SFM comes from the all the different ways you can interact with the characters, and in particular the various ways you can go about making them happy. You can let Dallas believe that Mirphy feels the same way for him and allow him to create for his “muse”, or you can let him down gently and lead him to realize he can and should paint for himself. You can kiss pretty much everyone in the Habitat to show how much you love them all!

You can also punch nearly everybody. And cheering up Tim Tam in particular requires this.

You can cheer up Randy by getting someone to open his pickle jar, or you can bash his skull in with it until it shatters and spills all over him. You can return the duck to its owner, or burn it in the fire. So many instances of potential kindness and potential cruelty are swayed by just one little thing, and oftentimes putting forth kindness takes significantly more effort than being cruel.

It’s no accident that acquiring the punching glove is required to begin the ending sequence, regardless of what ending you’re going for, yet the kiss that is required for the two preferable endings isn’t inherently necessary to do so. I honestly do believe that one of the central themes of Smile For Me is abuse and the supposed perpetual cycle it can fall into, as well as whether you’re going to allow the cycle to continue or try to break the cycle.

Think for a minute. You can’t initiate the ending sequence without both cheering up Kamal and getting the required items to unlock the door to Habit’s office from Wallus, and while cheering up Wallus and getting his photo ID only require a quarter and the flashy camera, retrieving a toothbrush to cheer up Kamal requires having the punching glove to find the “secret stash”. What do you punch? Habit’s face, of course. Or rather a poster of his likeness right next to a “no punching” sign, hinting in a reverse psychology manner what you need to do there. And if you only do the bare minimum to finish the game, that’s the only course of action available to you in the final confrontation. You punch Habit straight into the pipes of his own harmful creation. The easiest route is one of cruelty, one of perpetuating violence, and ends with the presumed death (I only say “presumed” because even though the evidence seems pretty strong that this route kills Habit there’s no body to be found later, and idk if that’s just the no-graphic-violence-in-the-moment nature of the game or what) of an already long traumatized man who went a little too far in his initially altruistic goals.

But to get the kiss, something that is integral to either the neutral ending itself or to facilitate the thing you need for the good ending, you have to do more. You open the terrace art gallery and flip through the slides, and by the time you find Jerafina’s glasses you’ve probably gotten curious to see what’s up with the rest of this little slideshow.

And of course you see Him. And in the remaining slides you realize what he’s done, and what that little boy was subjected to, most likely over and over again for years before he could finally be free. But of course, if you take the time to find and read the diary entries you’ll know that he was never truly free, that Boris could never get out from under the shadow of his horrible parents and their expectations that he had no obligation to fulfill but felt he had no other choice.

And learning this is just what likely happens along the way to receiving the kiss. Sure you can end things with just a kiss, and therefore get the neutral ending where Habit’s still alive, but it’s unfulfilling. Getting what’s needed for the best ending, ie. growing the tooth lily, requires so much more effort put into it. If you don’t take a slightly easier route of looking up a walkthrough, you need to both cheer up the people who have diary entries (all of whom iirc aren’t required to cheer up for story progression) and receive one from playing the carnival games (also optional). You need to cheer up Jerafina to get the kiss, and convince Jimothan to give you a drink by using Wallus’s photo-less ID. You do need to be a little cruel and help Millie “bean that clown with a golf ball” to even get the seed in the first place, but if you’re like me you can choose to do that before fully cheering Ronbo and then make up for facilitating a child’s rude actions by giving him a reminder of a lost love. And while I don’t remember whether or not this is the case, because I cheered up everyone in my playthrough and all playthroughs I’d watched prior and since have done the same, I’m fairly certain that you also need to cheer up everyone in the Habitat to obtain the best ending.

Reading the diary entries tells you not just how to grow the flower, but gives you glimpses into Habit’s whole story. The trauma he suffered at the hands of his own parents, who were supposed to love and care for him and instead treated him like scum. The bullying he received from his peers because of his broken teeth. The stress of being funneled into a life he never wanted and not even getting a single bit of gratitude for helping people the only way it’d been acceptable for him to do. And how it all broke him. How it led him to try another approach, one that seemed like a hopeful glimmer on the surface, but would inevitably lead to, at best, him pushing away the man closest to him and frightening another employee to the point where he sealed himself in the walls. And if you don’t put in the work to make things right, a lot worse can happen.

It’s easy, in terms of effort put into gameplay, to punch Habit out the window. To continue the violence. A kiss may stop the violence for a while, and require a little more effort, but it’s just a pause. There’s nothing definite, it’s unfulfilling. But if you put in the hard work, you really make a genuine effort, you can grow a beautiful flower of peace and hope. You may not have started the abuse, but it’s your choice to continue the cycle or break it.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I feel that the requirement to perform a brief act of indirect cruelty (helping Millie harm Ronbo in order to get the flower seed) may be symbolic of how Habit himself became a touch cruel in his attempts to bring happiness to the world. And when you reunite him with his lily, he realizes the scope of his own actions and how far off the deep end he’s gone. But someone had faith that he could be better than how he’d been treated. Someone looked at his life and felt that he deserved better. And depending on whether or not you paired the lily with the kiss (I didn’t, only because I forgot to get another kiss after growing the lily AAAAAAAA), you can show him that he’s still worthy of love in spite of everything he’s done.

Statesman: Ablaze  Ch.2: Off the Grid

(a/n: here is chapter 2 of the one thing im super frickin proud of. thank you @pomelloe-me​ for bullying me in our shared google doc to make sure i get things done. ily <3)

“Can you leave the window down? My car smells like fucking fried chicken, and while it may be your fave food it's not mine.” Alicia said, shutting her car engine off. Pom chuckled, obliging her friend’s request. Both women stretched, their joints popping, as they clambered out of the small car and started their walk up the small driveway. 

The Agents had opted to live as far away from the brewery as they could, wanting to make a safe and work free environment for them to escape to. It was a pale green  3 story victorian house with white accents, and a small front porch. Two white rocking chairs moved slightly in the wind, and a white porch swing on the far right end swayed with them. A black and white rip n dip doormat sat under a black double front door, the words "go away" floated next to a white cat flipping any visitors off. A purchase Pom had made while online shopping in the wee early hours of the night. One that Alicia and Dena had found rather hilarious and Carey had simply shaken her head. 

“I’m gonna murder your boyfriend, he’s as dumb as a fucking rock, I swear it!” Alicia exclaimed, walking towards the front door of the shared home, twisting her head this way and that in a vain attempt to pop her still stiff neck.  She could hear Pom curse at her under her breath. “What was that? Use your words miss ma’am” Alicia teased, knowing Tequila was a nuisance for Pom. He had been Alicia's friend first, and one-day on a whim she had invited them to a carnival accompanying the rodeo that was in town. Soon, the three of them were inseparable. Tequila however soon developed feelings for Pom, his endless pining no secret to anyone. The ex-rodeo clown meant well, and when he wasn't trying to convince the southern beauty to go two-stepping with him, the two got along very well. 

“I said he ain’t my fuckin’ boyfriend,” Pom responded, she was frustrated but smiled all the same. She reciprocated the crush but put her job as a Statesman agent first. She refused to let anyone or anything jeopardize her career. The brunette removed the brown cowboy hat sitting on her head, using it to fan herself in the heat, waiting for Alicia to unlock the front door. 

“Whatever you say!” Alicia sang, throwing the door open. Pom followed the woman into the entryway, shutting and locking the door behind her. The smell of delicious food wafted towards where the two girls stood, as they began dispensing the arsenal of personal weapons they had into their designated shelves in the entryway. Pom hung her hat on the hook on the wall next to the door. Alicia groaned, taking her box braids out of the ponytail she had forced them into, massaging her scalp. 

"I don't know how you can stand having those things pulled back like that!" Pom said, emptying her pistols before placing them back in their holsters. 

"Trust me, one I'm gonna shave my head, and I only kept them in because I spent so much on them for that one assignment. Why waste money? Carey Ann, is that your cooking I smell?" Alicia called, making her way further into the house. She paused a moment, kicking her shoes off in the mudroom off to the left. 

“Yup! I’m in the kitchen, y’all! Make sure you leave your shoes in that mudroom, I just swept!”’ Carey called out to them from the direction of the kitchen. 

Whatever she had been making since she had come home had made the house warm and cozy, the warmth of the oven lightly combating the aircon. Carey was the oldest of the four women living in that house. She had recently moved to New York, assisting Agent Whiskey in running the New York office. Occasionally, she would return to their humble abode in Kentucky. Most household responsibilities fell on her, their other roommate Dena had been away for almost a year on assignment in Europe seeking out an alleged brother agency. Usually, Pom and Alicia were left to their own devices, sticking to take-out orders, or the occasional soup and grilled cheese combo Alicia cooked up. It wasn't often Alicia or Pom cooked, let alone cleaned. It was nice to have their Agent Mom back in town.  

Pom hastily unzipped the sides of her boots, sliding them off to reveal her cute space patterned socks, ‘The best feeling ever is taking your shoes off after a fuckin’ long day of work.’ she thought to herself. Pom’s hair stuck up in odd angles, no secret the hat that had been resting on her head all day. She combed her fingers through it, the brown tresses fell to her shoulders in thick, uncontrollable waves. 

“It’s good to see you here, and not on a fucking screen, ma’am.” Alicia snooped through the pots on the stove, hungrily eyeing Carey’s homemade fried pork chops, mashed potatoes, and mac & cheese warming idly on the stove. Alicia only two kinds of southern cooking, her Grandma Beaulah's, and Carey's (a close second).  

"Yeah, bitch. I thought you might have forgotten about us.” Pom called out from the living room, where she had placed herself comfortably down on the couch, flicking through something on her phone. She sighed, still no response from Whiskey. Had she upset him without realizing it? ‘Fuckin’ Whiskey, I wish he could’ve told me instead of ignoring me like a dumbass.’ she thought, shutting off her phone and tossing it to the other end of the couch.

“Well, if y’all acted 24 and 25 years old and not little children, you wouldn’t need me to come home to cook and clean for y’all. Dena hasn’t even been here and she still keeps her room clean!” Carey teased, swatting Alicia’s hands away from the food. Even if she had been present, Dena and Carey were definitely the neatest of the four. Carey had tried in vain to get the other two younger women to help, even going so far as to leave everything to pile up. It had taken a roach crawling across Alicia's face one night in her sleep to finally get them to step up. Now they kept a chore list on a dry erase board in the laundry room, and the katsaridaphobic agent no longer left dirty dishes in her room. 

“Girl, they’re clean. And for the record, Pom and I do take care of ourselves! For example, I did all the laundry in the house and Pom got rid of that possum that was living in the roof. Perfectly responsible.” Alicia said smugly, giggling as Pom chimed in quietly from her spot on the couch about the ‘Cunt ass possum that tried to eat her fucking face even though she had given him a slice of ham as a fucking peace offering headass’. 

“Pom, why don’t you come join us instead of mumbling with your colorful vocabulary from the couch; the food is ready.” Carey laughed, shaking her head at her roommate's antics. She grabbed the rolls out the oven, before removing her apron and oven mitts. She moved to pull a pitcher of sweet tea out of the fridge, and then stood back proudly to admire her work. Dinner was served. 

“You sound like my fuckin’ mom,” Pom uttered as she hoisted herself up from the couch, making her way into the kitchen to wash her hands. 

“I may as well be. But enough bickering, I missed y'all two!” Carey said, carrying her plate of food to the table where Alicia already sat eating. 

“I’m not really hankerin’ for anything, but thanks, Carey. I love you…fuck head.” Pom told Carey with her unique version of affection, leaning against the island in the kitchen and removing her rusty-colored jacket from her body. Pom's jokes and colorful nicknames were her own brand of love, and while it was offputting the first time she called you something like "hoe bag", you learned to acknowledge the underlying "I love you".  

“Well at least stay and sit with us, I’ve got something to tell y’all,” Carey said, patting the chair next to her. She needed to tell somebody about how she and Jack had recently started seeing each other. She figured he had already told Tequila, and felt justified in telling the girls. Pom sat down in the chair with a grunt after placing her jacket on the table. 

“Oh do tell, this wouldn’t happen to do with a certain mustached cowboy would it?” Alicia batted her eyelids, and suggestively wiggled her eyebrows. Pom knew exactly what this conversation was going to lead to. She wasn’t a fucking idiot; she noticed every small exchange between Carey and Whiskey, it was just something she had an eye for. The two had known each other for over two years and had recently started to go out with each other seriously. It was a wonder they hadn't started fooling around sooner.

“W-well...about that” Carey giggled nervously, maybe she wouldn’t tell them after all. 

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Carey Ann! Are you fucking Ole Jack Daniels?!” Alicia exclaimed, pointing her fork accusingly at the shorter Agent. Pom couldn’t help herself from letting out a loud chuckle, moving her long legs to sit cross-legged on the chair. 

“Alright, fine. Whiskey and I may or may not have been seeing each other exclusively for the past year while I’ve been back and forth from New York.” Carey said, casually taking a sip from her glass of tea, the clinking ice cubes being the only sound for a brief moment. 

“I fuckin’ knew it!” Agent Rum pronounced with great amusement, looking over at Carey with a menacing smile. 

“YAS BITCH, OH MY GOD! Tell us everything, and I do mean everything!” Alicia said, standing up and playfully pulling Carey into a noogie. 

The girls laughed, Carey pushed Alicia back into her chair before smoothing out her blonde curly hair. Carey was glad that the girls hadn’t reacted negatively like she thought they would. She had missed this comradery with the girls while staying in New York; she leaned forward fully retelling everything that had been happening. It was nice to finally be home. 

* * * * * 

Pom Graham was awake earlier than the rest of her housemates, as usual. Most nights she would stay up until midnight listening to her favorite kinds of music and trying to gain motivation to do her beloved hobby of painting. But she never slept for long as her natural body clock woke her up just a few short hours after she fell asleep. Still, she was always filled with so much energy. 

Pom tip-toed out of her room and down the flight of stairs in hopes of not waking her friends. She was already dressed in her usual outfit that the others rarely saw her out of. The living space downstairs was decorated with rustic, but comfortable furniture and pots of greenery scattered around. Photographs and posters could be found on the walls. 

She threw herself on to the couch in front of the large, technologically advanced television. With a press of a button on the remote, the screen came to life with the morning news channel. ‘Boring.’ Pom thought, ‘Carey must have been watching it last.’

“The daughter of beloved Kentucky senator, Xavier Dobios, is still missing and it’s sending everybody into quite the state of distress…..” Said the monotone voice of the news reporter on the TV. Pom scoffed at his words. 

“Fuck off, ‘beloved my ass’” Pom returned in a sharp whisper, smiling with amusement. She clicked another button and the kid’s channel started to play. Pom never really liked to watch television, but when she did, she would always turn on the channel that entertained her most.

“Good morning, Pomegranate.” Came Carey’s sweet but groggy voice from the doorway leading into the kitchen. Carey was dressed in cute, pink pajamas and her hair was quite the mess. She let out a big yawn. 

“Mornin’, you’re up early,” Pom responded, turning her head to give Carey a nice smile. Carey walked back into the kitchen to start preparing coffee and breakfast for herself and her housemates. 

“What do you want for breakfast? And I know you don’t like coffee, so what do you want to drink?” Carey asked from the kitchen to Pom. She sat there thinking for a moment before answering. 

“Peanut butter toast. And some water. Bless your heart, Carey.” Pom returned gently. Carey was surprised to see how calm she was. She was used to seeing the hot-tempered, mischievous, and swearing version of Pom. But she appreciated seeing this side to her too because Carey knew that’s who she really is. Pom never failed to make her laugh and smile. 

Carey made food and coffee with the sound of Pom watching the kid’s channel playing in the background. Alicia probably wasn’t going to be awake for a few more hours but Carey poured her a cup of warm coffee just in case. 

“I don’t know how you have so much energy all the time, Pom,” Carey said as she sat on the couch next to Pom, handing her the plate of peanut butter toast and a glass of water. She sipped on her own cup of coffee just the way she liked it. 

“I’ve consumed so much fuckin’ sugar in my life that I’m constantly on a sugar high.” Pom joked to her friend, smiling. Carey laughed, the sound mixing the soft sounds of the old Victorian settling over them. It wasn’t often they got a morning to themselves, and they knew they’d have to head to work soon, but for now, HQ could wait.

“GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!” Alicia yelled, bounding in the kitchen shattering the quiet moment the girls had settled into with their breakfast. Carey and Pom sighed, watching as she effortlessly leaped onto the island in the middle of the kitchen. Her gray sweatpants slung low on her hips, her lilac sleep shirt wrinkled, and her braids still wrapped up in the bonnet on her head; she looked crazy.

“What in Sam Hill are you doing?!” Carey said, standing up and rushing to try and push the taller woman off. 

“I have some good news, bitches! Dena’s coming home sooner than we thought!” Alicia was elated, it had been almost two months since Agent Sangria had been in contact with Statesman, and more importantly her roommates. She had been advised to keep all communications, few and far in between. Should there be a brother agency, it would be in Statesman's best interest to not alert them of their presence in their territory; what if they were a rogue organization? The return of the lively Latina was definitely a cause for celebration. 

“Wait, how do you know?” Carey asked, realizing that Alicia wasn’t budging off her pedestal. She looked over at Pom who looked just as puzzled as she was, no one had any recent contact with Dena. Everything had been dark. Pom got off the couch to get closer to them.  

“Well, as y’all know, I spend most of my free time in the lab with Ginger. And I was able to create a concealable communication device!” Alicia said proudly, taking what looked like a normal bottle of concealer. But the girls knew better, Alicia was a crazy tech wiz and inventor. Her and Ginger both could put Tony Stark to shame.

“How does that shit even work… it’s fuckin’ makeup.” Pom questioned. She couldn’t remember the last time she had set foot in the lab, or the last time she wore makeup. Pom would rather be training and being troublesome with the male agents than behind a vanity or in a lab coat. 

“Listen, I know it looks a little out of sorts but I promise it works! And the cosmetic part of the contraption is fully functional.” Alicia opened the packaging and did a swatch of the makeup on her arm. A perfect match.

“Say we can’t take any phones or even our glasses with us? Who’s gonna suspect a woman with a compact mirror and bottle of concealer? The idea is we use the idea of the fragile female that men have created against them. But my feminist spiel aside, I talked to Dena and she should be here by the end of next week!” Alicia got down from the counter, slipping her “concealer” into the front pocket of her black backpack. 

Pom leaned against the counter as she smiled, "You’re a genius.” She said to Alicia softly.

“I’m no Ginger Ale, but I try! Also, I’ve been making a bat prototype for you in the lab! I meant to surprise you for your birthday but I can’t wait any longer.” Pom smiled at this. Alicia started to continue but paused. The Statesman designated ringtone grew louder from where it was playing on their tv. Well, duty calls.

The three agents made their way into the living room, Carey grabbing the remote from its spot on the ottoman. Once they had all settled themselves on the comfy couch, she pressed the answer button. 

“Good morning, Angels!” Champagne greeted; the great window behind his head visible on the tv screen. It wasn’t uncommon for Champ to contact them while they were at home; saving more discreet missions for the four of them to take care of. It saved time, resources, and quite frankly more lives than if they were to send Whiskey, Tequila, or any of the other male agents instead. Hence the moniker, “Angels”.

“Good morning, Champ!” Alicia crowed, shifting to sling her legs across Pom and Carey’s laps making herself comfortable. Pom hastily grabbed Alicia’s feet from her lap and started to tickle them with no remorse, and her loud and mischievous laughs filled the room. 

“Would y’all stop? Jesus Christ.” Carey said, pushing Alicia’s legs off the couch and inserting herself between her and Pom. “Sorry, Champ, continue please!” Carey said, turning her attention back to the man on the screen. Pom was holding back her laughter as best as she could. 

“Well, when y’all are done horsing around, I have something for y’all to take care of. As you know, the senator is hiding his daughter trying to make it seem like she’s been kidnapped. Tonight, he is hosting a gala to impress some of the big wigs in the country and gain more support. I need y’all to infiltrate the gala and expose this sun’ a bitch before he can carry this tomfoolery on any longer.” 

“Do I gotta dress all fancy and shit?” Pom asked, pulling her jacket tighter around herself. She had makeup, she hated dresses, and if she didn't hate her unruly hair getting in her face, she'd hate doing it too. 

“I would prefer it if you did. The senator is very conservative, and has a strict dress code for this event.” Champagne said. Pom sighed angrily at this. 

“Awe, c’mon, Pomegranate. I thought you liked playing dress up.” the screen expanded to show that none other than Agent Whiskey sat next to Champagne at the grand mahogany meeting room table. 

“Whiskey!” Pom exclaimed with joy. A big grin was on her face now. She tucked her messy waves of hair behind her ears. Pom could feel her heart racing with pure happiness. Whiskey was the closest thing she had to a father, and she practically glowed in his attention. 

“Howdy darlin’, you ready to join your old man on the dance floor?” Whiskey tipped his hat, grinning at the young agent. 

The adopted father and daughter duo were the best partnership to come out of Statesman; Whiskey having taken Pom under his wing, saying that he saw himself in her. A troubled girl who needed a little guidance and TLC, and had unfathomable potential. Whiskey had promised Pom’s mother that he would ensure that the young woman would be taken care of while she was in the states. A promise that had been well kept. 

“While I’m all for sappy reunions, I need you, girls, to get gussied up and make your way to that gala ASAP! I’m sending Whiskey to pick y’all up at 0800, We got a party to crash.” Champagne said, ending the video call. 

Alicia stood and looked at her phone, an invitation addressed to a Penelope Vontrapp, and associates lit up her screen. “Well Miss Pom, or should I say Miss Penelope; it looks like you get to play the part of the daughter of some rich oil tycoon.” 

“Fuck you, I’m not wearing any fuckin’ makeup!!” Pom said while jumping off the couch to sprint up to her room before the others could stop her. 

“YOU’RE LUCKY THEY’RE MAKING A BIG DONATION IN YOUR HONOR! OTHERWISE, I’D BE FORCING YOU INTO A DRESS AND PUTTING SOME BLUSH ON THOSE CHEEKS!” Alicia shouted up the stairs, knowing that Pom was going to put on the same suede pantsuit she wore to all Statesman functions. It would be a cold day in hell before anyone forced her into a dress, and Alicia knew better than to even try and wrestle her into one.  

“Will you curl my hair, please? May as well get some joy out of tonight.” Carey remarked, making her way up the stairs. Alicia noticed the sad air around her friend, she stopped reaching out to grab her friend's arm. 

“What’s wrong? You were all chipper early, now you’re all….” Alicia made a fart noise with her mouth, hoping it would bring a small smile to her Carey’s face. 

“It’s nothing, I promise. Just forget it, okay?” Carey pulled her arm away, continuing up the stairs. But it wasn’t really anything. Was it right for her to feel a little envious that Whiskey hadn’t acknowledged her? Had Champ told him something? Or was she just overthinking? Either way, they had a mission to focus on, and this worrying and pining could wait. 

(a/n: thank you all for reading and standing by while i get in the swing of things. i now have a masterlist, and post with who and what yall can request will be coming soon. <3 roach)

*scrolls through someone building an entire assed post of just tags so their LGBT history-blind take only feeds straight to their followers and doesn’t spread to where reasonable people will point out the passive aggressive homophobia* Ah, I see what you’re doing, trying to maintain both faces of relevance. 

Be them bitters, antis, meta fandom, or even “positive” fans, if you’re literally only here to see who you can feed absolute horse shit because you don’t like the world outside of your limited experiences, seriously, fuck off

So I’ll repeat for the class: Text is text whether you understand the text or not. Queer history isn’t suddenly not queer history because people don’t understand queer history or don’t know the queer history. If I said “I like vagina” and someone didn’t know what vagina is, me being queer isn’t subtext. Just because someone can choose to route around it and go “I bet you do since you have one!” to try feebly to no homo it, doesn’t make it subtext. It’s fucking text. 

People not understanding, say, 15.7′s low visibility text as inherently, inarguably queer text within actual like, LGBT history, that’s a processing problem on their end. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong to want better visibility. Hell, clown away that the show seems to be turning it up, hope for the best (but don’t put your full heart into it for obvious reasons). But the song remains the same. 

But I guess argue with idiots long enough, eventually people have to get down to their level and forget it was idiots they were arguing with.

Queer deletionism is fucking trash behavior. Expecting queer authors to use valuable space (or energy for that matter) to argue trashbag long put to rest opinions is at best, hilarity and at worst, insulting.

Those who live in queer culture have faced and laughed off these people more than trump bots. I don't know why anyone feels entitled to it. Fandom would do well to do the same.

And yes, you can be queer and still be living in het culture. If you’re performatively competing with the dumbest of dumb takes that the community put to bed while you were in diapers (MUCH LESS CHOOSING TO REPEAT THEM AND GIVE HOMOPHOBIC NONSENSE PLATFORM OF YOUR OWN ACCORD), that’s a you thing.

Alexa how do I sit down an entire fandom for a queer counterculture course

because conservatives seem to have done a damn bang up job of convincing younger or less journeyed queerfolk that using phobic ideas like “I’m straight, even if I hate women and only fuck guys” actually flies as “fair” or “identity” to concern oneself with instead of quite literally being infamously known as internalized homophobic bullshit, or extending that to the LONG RESOLVED multi-gender group encounters which, you know, that also is fucking queer by LGBT history whether you wanna debate who put what in what hole where and how and I don’t know how to de-code people who choose to double down on these opinions. I don’t care if your BFF dudebro friend had some muligender fivesome and insists he’s fucking straight, I really don’t /care/, this shit got resolved ages ago guys, I’m not even fucking with you.

That kind of dialogue is literal poison and isn’t supposed to be fucking welcomed around here and I’m not sure who taught this fandom their LGBT culture but some of y’all need a goddamn refund.

WHY the FUCK are people running right-facing phobic-originated talking points and calling it progressive representation battles what the fuck. Is it the same as the bronlies with the cat laser I talked about over here? Argue with idiots long enough you start acting like an idiot, argue with homophobes long enough you start talking like a homophobe and get redirected? What even--

Choosing to take the platform or arguments up of bigoted people, about LGBT people and LGBT issues and content, rather than simply knowing your LGBT culture and standing for what things mean -- that says more about the offender than about the content. Just because people say for example being LGBT leads to/means pedeophilia or incest doesn’t make it true (Like the people saying the B in LGBT secretly means Beastiality). You don’t /argue/ for them and say “well that’s how they interpret it so [prove a negative] or it’s valid”, no, you fucking side with the LGBT community, start by trying to educate them, point out there is no room for that horse shit, and if and when they abjectly refuse to learn better, banish the offender to the goddamn wilds. And yet here this fandom is... doing... pretty much all of it.

EXPECTATIONS + everyone

PENELOPE    my  expectations  for  penelope  were  actually  pretty  spot  on.  i  thought  that  the  confidence  wasn’t  an  act,  which  it  isn’t.  that’s  genuinely  her  personality  y’all.  and  then  that  she  had  more  than  the  capability  to  be  a  soft  bitch.  i  was  also  correct.  what  surprised  were  the  next  two  things  in  particular.  one,  i  didn’t  realise  her  insistence  on  putting  a  stop  to  josie’s  co-dependence  was  a  cue  to  her  own  co-dependent  traits  and  the  longer  she  went  along  that  path,  the  more  they  would  be  nurtured.  it  manifests  differently  than  it  does  in  josie,  but  it’s  equally  unhealthy.  this  girl  literally  died  for  her  girlfriend.  yikes.  and  two,  i  was  surprised  by  how  truly  selfish  she  is.  we  all  know  she’s  the  selfish  and  josie  is  the  selfless  and  so  on  but  she  is  a  genuinely  selfish  person.  to  her  core.  i  was  surprised  by  the  truly  relentless nature  of  her  self  interest  and  equally,  the  fact  that  her  self  awareness  of  it  doesn’t  make  her  want  to  change  it.  HOPE    my  expectations  for  hope  were  pretty  consistent  with  her  surface  level  reality.  i  always  knew  she  had  about  45  ongoing  identity  crises  and  that  most  of  them  tied  in  her  family.  adult  vs  teenager,  desires  vs  duties.  the  typical  heroine  stuff.  and  while  that’s  still  true,  and  is  an  absolutely  enormous  complex  in  her,  i  have  come  to  realise  i  underestimated  the  true  extent  of  her  damage  and  how  it  affects  her.  the  level  of  pathological  doubt,  abandonment  and  in  turn  saviour  complex  and  desperation  this  girl  has  going  on  cannot  be  understated.  i  am  truly  surprised  she  functions  as  well  as  she  does.  i  always  knew  she  loved  people  hard  and  uniquely,  as  both  part  of  being  a  mikaelson  and  simply  part  of  being  who  she  is,  but  i  came  to  realise  how  deeply  that  runs.  hope  mikaelson’s  love  is  like  no  other  and  it  is  consuming  and  can  be  overwhelming  but  it’s  also  incredibly  beautiful.  if  she  loves  you,  she’s  going  to  love  you  for  the  rest  of  her  life,  whether  she  wants  to  or  not.    i  now  think  that’s  another  reason  why  her  i’m  dangerous  to  people  complex  exists.  she  knows  that  the  way  she  loves  people  has  pushed  them  away  before  (  ie,  in  her  mind,  her  father  as  a  child  )  and  equally,  she  knows  if  she  lets  people  in  and  loves  them  like  she  can  and  they  leave,  she’ll  be  fucked.  people  are  dangerous  to  her  too,  but  she  can’t  truly  admit  that  without  admitting  why.  like  i  said,  i  was  surprised  by  how  deep  that  runs.KAI     at  this  point,  i’ve  been  playing  kai  for  a  long  time.  he’s  a  violent,  manipulative,  incredibly  intelligent  sociopath.  none  of  that  has  ever  been  a  surprise.  the  one  surprise  that  i  found,  that  entirely  subverted  my  expectations,  was  that  he  is  capable  of  something  akin  to  love  that  isn’t  narcissism.  this  first  became  clear  to  me  through  his  relationship  with  lizzie  because,  yes,  it  may  have  started  out  as  manipulation  with definitively  malicious  intent  but  it  did  bleed  into  genuine  want  to  see  her  succeed.  he  might  have  given  her  stockholm  syndrome  but  he’s  given  himself  just  as  much  of  a  problem.  he  cares  about  her  now,  wants  to  turn  her  into  what,  in  his  mind,  jo  could’ve  been.  it  didn’t  surprise  me  he’s  given  up  hope  on  jo  but  it  did  surprise  me  that  it’s  projecting,  subconsciously,  onto  lizzie.  basically,  he’s  a  made  monster  and  everything  that  made  him  is  still  very  much  there.  whether  he  acknowledges  it  or  not. ETHAN    me,  a  clown,  hasn’t  actually  written  ethan  that  much  but  i  will  give  a  few  of  my  thoughts  that  are  somewhat  relevant.  i  expected  the  fact  he’s  a  good  guy  to  be  consistent  but  he’s  also  very  selfish  with  the  way  he  feels.  he  might  not  use  it  in  a manipulative,  almost  malicious  in  some  cases  way  like  penelope  does,  but  that  doesn’t  mean  it  isn’t  real.  he  won’t  let  anyone  else  be  stepped  over,  yes,  but  he  also  won’t  let  himself  be  pushed  around.  he  knows  he’s  a  good  guy  and  there’s  a  level  of  shit  he  simply  won’t  take.  will  100%  call  people  out  on  their  bullshit  eventually.  unless  you’re  maya.  then,  well,  you  could  get  away  with  murder.  his  aggression  is  very  intense  and  genuine  (  probably  even  more  intensified  now  that  he’s  triggered  his  curse  )  but  the  lengths  he’ll  go  to  surprised  me.  he  may  have  killed  someone  without  recognising  the  situation,  but  the  will  to  do  so  was  still  there.  was  it  on  an  entirely  moral  ground?  honestly,  i  don’t  know.  unchecked  aggression  and  a  morality  complex  can  be  a  literally  deadly  combination.  CHRISTIAN    christian  has  taken  all  of  three  breaths  so  far  but,  thus  far,  everything  has  been  consistent.  major  self  preservation  down  to  brushing  truly  corrupt  things  under  the  rug.  accepts  corruption  as  a  part  of  life  and  more  so  a  part  of  his  life.  his  survival  is  paramount.  everything  else  can  burn  in  his  wake.  MAXWELL HARVEY/JACKSON ACKERY    y’all  know  the  maxwell  story.  as  a  tl;dr,  obviously  i  didn’t  expect  him  to  turn  out  to  be  a  cannibalistic,  sado-masochistic  psychopath  with  narcissistic  personality  disorder  but  here  we  are.  i  knew  something  was  wrong  from  the  echoes  of  neuroticism  and  fixation  that  were  there  from  the  start  but  when  he  started  to  turn  the  corner,  it  truly  blindsided  me.  and  even  now,  as  i  know  what  he  is  as  a  full  picture,  he  still  finds  ways  to  surprise  me  each  and  everyday.  he’s  in  a  continual  process  of  evolution  and  i  truly  have  no  idea  where  the  train  stops.  as  for  jackson,  he  was  actually  a  revamp  of  a  previous  muse,  also  called  jacks.  i  gave  him  a  revamp  when  i  brought  him  back,  basically  totally  changed  his  backstory,  and  i  knew  something  was  again  a  little  off  from  the  word  go.  he  still  cared  about  people,  however,  so  i  wasn’t  that  concerned.  once  max  came  into  the  picture  however,  who  jackson  was  in  full  became  clear  very  quickly.  jackson  is  a  very  high  functioning  sociopath  who’s  sadism  and  violent  tendencies  have  been  nurtured  well  by  max’s  intentions  and  their  symbiotic  venom-esque  relationship.  the  fact  that  jackson  is  still  a  consistent  presence  in  max’s  narrative  and  his  own  body  surprised  me,  but  it  also  has  come  to  make  perfect  sense.  they’re  two  halves  of  the  same  whole.  they  basically  wrote  themselves  into  existence  and  i  just  watched  with  rapt  entertainment. CALLUM    honestly,  my  expectations  for  callum  have  been  pretty  spot  on.  i  knew  he’d  feel  differently  once  he  killed  someone  again  and  it  became  very  clear  to  him  everything  he  remembers  is  in  fact  real.  it’s  given  him  a  sense  of  innocence  lost  that  was  to  be  expected,  but  not  nearly  as  much  as  i  thought.  he  hasn’t  reverted  back  to  the  person  he  was  when  he  was  first  alive  but  he  also  isn’t  entirely  callum,  so  to  speak,  anymore  either.  he’s  in  a  path  between  and  honestly,  that  makes  sense  to  me.  what  will  really  come  to  interest  me  is  what  happens  next.  AIDY    honestly,  point  blank,  i  expected  aidy  to  basically  be  gay  and  bored  and  not  much  else.  i  was  not  right.  i  knew  she  had  something  going  on,  which  as  you  can  tell  is  a  theme,  but  she  really  was  just  quiet  and  bored  for  a  long  time.  it  was  only  when  she  swapped  bodies  with  harlow  did  i  realise  that  her  boredom  isn’t  boredom,  so  to  speak.  max,  for  example,  is  bored  because  he’s  a  narcissist  who  he  thinks  no  one  (  sans  parker  )  can  measure  up  to  him.  that  makes  every  interaction  worthless  in  his  eyes  and  therefore,  makes  him  feel  bored.  aidy  is  simply  apathetic.  the  reason  she  was  quiet  and  bored  was,  actually,  because  she  doesn’t  feel  anything.  she  feels  one  baseline  emotion  and  sparks  of  things  that  could  be  compared  to  things  like  love,  or  excitement,  or  involvement  that  people  even  like  max  can  feel.  aidy  can’t  and  doesn’t  feel  them.  the  only  things  that  truly  enthuse  her  so  she  looks  like  she  can  are  murder,  luxury,  and  bonding  with  people  who  feel  the  same  way.  they   fill  the  void  where  her  emotions  would  be.  other  than  that,  she  exists  at  a  cool  medium.  apart  from  max,  i  have  to  say  she’s  the  muse  i  was  most  surprised  by.  pleasantly  but  still.  BRADLEY    like  with  ethan,  i’m  a  clown  and  i  haven’t  written  bradley  all  that  much.  i  know  that  he’s  a  dumb  bitch,  primarily  interested  in  the  capitalist  side  of  the  world,  and  knows  that  he  has  to  take  responsibility  for  his  stupidity.  i  don’t  think  he  always  does  stupid  things  on  purpose,  but  because  he’s  such  a  genuinely  self-serving  opportunist,  it  backfires  on  him  9  times  out  of  10.  i  think  he’s  learning  from  his  mistakes,  especially  with  the  whole  arlo  situation  that  he  feels  genuinely  bad  about,  but  i  don’t  think  it’s  enough  for  him  to  entirely  quit  cold  turkey.

Skam France season 3 has come to a close and I have a lot to say. So buckle up. I’ll start with the fact that I’ve learned to give a show and it’s showrunners a chance before I start hating and bitching. I remember that I once said that none of the remakes could emulate the level of perfection that Skam OG season 3 had to me when I saw it for the first time. I said that if I had it my way none of the remakes would be able to touch season 3. Beyond that I showed Skam France so much hatred at the start. I said I hated the girl squad, I said I disliked Lucas and Yann, I said I had issues with the casting and acting, and I gave up on it. I’d personally like to kick my own ass. Like me now and past me can square the fuck up.

I should’ve given them a chance because Skam France season 3 is without a doubt one of the best pieces of teen media that I’ve seen in my life. That’s a big statement and I want y’all to know that I don’t say it lightly. This is coming from someone who’s watched most of the teen shows available for me to watch since I was a teenager myself. I don’t give a shit what anyone else says, this lived up to the OG in every way possible. And they truly proved me wrong. Like I was fucking wrong. Y’all don’t understand how negative I was about Axel playing Lucas. I was like he can’t act and there’s just no way he’ll pull me in like Tareji playing Isak. I didn’t even want to watch season 3 and I truly was not going to until I stumbled into the tag on the day the ‘call your girlfriend’ clip dropped. I caught up and holy shit. Bitch I was beyond wrong.

This season of Skam France will forever have my soul in a tight ass grip. It was so tonaly different than OG. It’s like it turned the dial from a 10 to a 100. I feel more than comfortable with calling this a reimagining rather than a remake. Lucas was not Isak and Eliott was not Even to me. Sure they had the same choices but also vastly different mindsets that led them to those choices. And even somewhat different results at times. Because of that it became its own entity for me and that’s all I ever wanted from these remakes. As each episode passed it became impossible for me to personally keep comparing it to OG beyond trying to predict when clips would come. Although it was a similar story the important thing is that nothing felt exactly the same.

The France team took this story and tailor made it for their characters, their country, and the message they wanted to communicate. I was so scared that this remake in particular wouldn’t take any big risks but they did. They changed some personalities drastically, reworked storylines, upped the dramatic feel while keeping it realistic, added and rearranged clips, changed up the roles everyone played in Lucas’s life, and made the symbolism fit their own story. It was so beautifully done. Once I saw Vendredi 20hr27 1 and Samedi 9h17 I began to think this was one of those very rare cases where gold was struck twice. My thoughts were confirmed with the rest of episode 5 to episode 10.

Because of the way they made me feel with each clip drop I will always revel in the fact that I got to watch this one truly live. I came in pretty late for season 3 of OG during hiatus week. I missed all the actual tension, the back and forth, generally most of the struggles other than the MI storyline. But this time boy did I feel everything. Like I said before I came in to this one at the ‘call your girlfriend’ clip and couldn’t stop daily checking the tag until this last clip. I legit felt what Lucas did and for a show to give me emotions like that when I’ve ‘seen it’ not once but twice before....I don’t have words y’all omg. This whole season was painful, powerful, beautiful, and brilliant. My heart still hurts.

Now I’m going to touch on the hate briefly y’all. Stick with me. Though I personally loved every choice David and Niels made with this season, they couldn’t please everyone. People wanted to yell bad writing when something didn’t go their way or how they thought it should’ve. There was no trust from some. Even when we all know exactly how this show works. Of course characters were going to say and do stupid shit because guess what? They’re 16. They also didn’t react the same in every situation either which real humans wouldn’t. So nothing was ever OOC to me. Just like people, the characters changed through each experience and I adore them for keeping that aspect of life. It was truly so amazing to see everything happen in real time and see how these characters developed day by day. Every character had some sort of development even if Lucas was the focus. I’m sitting here in tears yet again just so amazed and so grateful that we got this remake and the chance to meet all of these amazing characters. I adored the relationships between Lucas and his support system aka le gang & le crew & le coloc. I fell in love with the characters of Lucas and Eliott, and their love. But most of all I fell in love with the story of Lucas and his journey to accepting and educating himself.

I also loved the fandom because man y’all we are some passionate messes. With all the theories, meta posts, clip reactions, gif sets, memes that were made to brighten everyone’s moods, David Baguette, THE HUNT FOR ELIOTT’S INSTA, the running gag of Eliott being a ghost lmaoooo, THE CLOWN MAKE UP, us wanting to give Axel an Oscar, loving Maxence to death, WANTING TO FIGHT AXEL FOR POSTING THEN DELETING PICTURES IN 5 SECONDS, religiously watching Maxence’s lives, Ouba and Brian, Axel being a meme, the bunny hat from Maxence’s live, TRAJEUDI AND VENDREADI, and overall just everything. It was the most fun I’ve had watching an emotionally taxing show. When it made me cry, y’all made me laugh. So thank you. Ready for round 2?

Now I’ve got to talk about the cast & crew. I can’t even put into words how proud I am of Axel, Maxence, David, Niels, and everyone else in the cast & crew. Like they all made this season something that I’ll never forget. I’m going to be rewatching forever and showing anyone that is interested in a journey of acceptance and understanding. David and Niels went in with a vision and I saw it in all its beauty. They truly went there hardcore. Sometimes it was hard to even rewatch clips because it was so aligned with certain parts of my experience. I remember when watching OG and Italia I saw myself in Isak and Martino and I was so scared that I wouldn’t have that with Lucas. But I did and I’m forever grateful for that.

Axel truly made me feel everything and if I could personally say thank you to him I would. I’d also like a second to apologize to him for any doubt I had in the past. Of course he won’t see this but still. I’m beyond sorry. I truly couldn’t imagine anyone but him playing Lucas anymore. He knocked it out of the park and I hope he’s as proud of himself as we are of him. And Maxence, first acting job? Sorry I call bullshit. His portrayal of Eliott was one of the most amazing debuts I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m insanely proud of him. He’s one of only a small handful of people that I’ve seen portray bipolar disorder so well. Like to the point where actually diagnosed people felt represented. That’s so beautiful to me. That they got to see themselves represented in a character that was handled with the utmost care. I’ll end the praising on this note, casting Axel and Maxence was one of the best decisions ever made. Trust me when I say no matter how much we love Elu we’ll likely never love them as much as those two do.

Okay in conclusion, Skam, Skam Italia, and Skam France are the types of stories I wish would’ve been out there way before now. I’m so happy that the teens of these days that are struggling with their sexuality or mental illness will get such realistic, heartwarming, and amazing stories like these. I can’t believe this is the final clip we’ll have from Lucas’s perspective but I’m so happy his journey has come to a ‘to be continued’. He’s been to hell and back over the course of these two and a half months. Even though there will be no true ‘happy ending’ there’s definitely a bright future ahead for him, his support system, and for the love of his life Eliott. In case the cast and crew ever foolishly forget, I’ll never not be thinking of them. Ugh love them and love y’all. Now onto our French queen Imane!! Viva la France!!

Succession S2E2 Thoughts

Overall: 

Much better than the terrible agony that was the first episode. 

I still want to wrap Kendall up in a hug and transmit some life into him by osmosis. Shiv...I’m sorry, but I know a lot of you really love her, but I...really don’t. I have some sympathy for her, because she is the person made by a very hostile father and a very hostile world. And there is an element of me being biased towards Tom (although I will admit--will list--all his horrible qualities; I’m just glad he has a decent handful of redeeming ones), but Shiv is a pretty cold person (and yes, I would say that about Logan as well, and Roman--them especially--so I’m not calling her cold simply because she is a strategic, smart woman. But I feel like she has the capacity to be a decent person, with a decent heart, but she will never allow herself to be that kind of person. And that’s the tragedy of her for me. 

Her and Tom’s relationship is, in my view, incredibly unhealthy and fucked up. It’s a one-way street, and they could really be so much better, but...I don’t think they ever will be, unless Tom somehow...takes over, but *snort*. Talk about a clown running the circus. Whew. But yeah, as long as Shiv has so much power skewed in her direction and she doesn’t hesitate to use it and hold it over him, theirs will not be a relationship composed of equals, but Tom will continue to think, in his demented brain, that somehow they mostly are? King and Queen? No, no, Tom. Nice try. But you’re not on that level. It’s true that I see very small, slivers of moments when they need each other, but I...have seen...honestly, I can’t remember seeing one moment where it was clear that Shiv really loved him, just that she needed him. And those are very different things, at least for me. My dream scenario is that Tom can work up the nerve to leave her and be with someone who actually deserves him, but...that’s a different show, certainly not this one. So I suppose I’ll have to sit back and watch this trainwreck. 

Actually, I find it interesting to see the relationship between Logan and Kendall, and Shiv and Tom. They are very parallel in some big ways. Logan and Shiv are both very dominant, both dictate the terms of the relationship, both steer it, manipulate the other person at will, are both strong-willed and strategic but can be cruel, and both place their own interests above everyone else’s. They’re the controllers. Kendall and Tom, at least in this season so far (Tom has always been), are the submissive ones, the yes-men, acting at the behest of their counterparts, both very insecure about their relationships with those counterparts, although, granted, Kendall has passed over into dead-eye territory, where Tom has some life left. I can see how being in their position might be at times comforting, not having pressure on them, kind of enjoying the freedom that being submissive and simply obeying offers. And, really, in the dynamics of both relationships, I really feel for Tom and Kendall. Shiv is, of all the children, most like her father, and was from the beginning, but I think she’s leaning more and more that way, which...is a bad way to lean if you want to cling to some part of your soul. So I...am a bit worried about both Kendall and Tom, but I know something’s going to give at some point. In some way. So I’m...interested. 

One last thing: what made this episode so much better than the first one, for me, is the attention paid to the absurdity of the characters and their lives. That is the glory of the show for me. When it tries to get me to truly sympathize too hard with characters who, by and large, are not very sympathetic, I...am very turned off. Because we’re talking about uber-rich douche-bags who only care about themselves and their power. The only sympathetic characters (and even the moments when sympathetic characters have sympathetic moments and aspects) are ones who show motivations other than power grabs and greed. BUT, when the show highlights the absurd nature of...this entire palace drama? It’s at its height. Its at its best. This episode had a ton of that, and I was very grateful for it. The Vaulter dude was always a great vehicle to highlight some absurdity, and he came through here. Greg, of course, highlights the absurd aspects of Tom and the Roys in general. Connor himself. Amazing. The absurdity bouncing around in this episode made it so, so much better than the first one. 

Overall, B+ episode. 

As I watched: 

Oh, yay, the theme park! Been looking forward to seeing these parts. 

Beavis and Crackhead. Nice.

Aww, MM, you’re getting gray and it’s so...weirdly cute. Damn it. Also I can watch you try to get popcorn out from between your teeth with your tongue all. day. long.

Hmm, Logan listening to Shiv. Roman sees what’s happening. He’s not as stupid as he seems. Which we knew, but it’s nice to see. 

Mondale! And the Mondale voice is back! Tom & Mondale might be my favorite friendship on the show. 

The amount of time Shiv spends looking at her phone instead of talking to and listening to her husband is...pretty fucking sad. She LITERALLY walks away from him when he’s talking. Cool. 

“It’s not really a thing.” UM. WUT. No it’s a huge thing. One partner wanting to fuck other people, while the other one clearly doesn’t really want to is...a huge thing. And not talking about it is going to make everything worse, but sure, okay, continue thinking it’s not really a thing. 

Oh god, it’s kind of painful, how hard he’s trying to...rationalize that he’s okay with everything about their relationship. And trying to like...show he’s ready all the time, always down to fuck, just in case she was wondering. Heh. You can see the insecurity just coming off him in waves. 

Ha. I’m sorry, writers, but...an American wouldn’t say “cheeky” like that. Someone needs to check the British-isms. But it’s nice to see even a show like this mess up. ;) 

I mean, yes, this is a drool-worthy penthouse, but settle down Tom, or I’m worried you’re literally going to start fucking the sofa.

One of these days, Tom is going to actually...not roll over like a submissive dog. Maybe. 

*sings* Tom and Greg, together again, wheee! Tom and his punching bag. Tom, you better watch out, because at some point the bag is going to punch back. 

Um. Tom. I’d go easy on the creepy sexual metaphors. You can’t quite speak with the...disgustingness of Roman. Please stop trying.

LOL Name me one principle. Although, god, this is the ugliest side of Tom. How willing he is to compromise himself for advancement. He’s honestly...kind of a whore sometimes. And it’s his least appealing aspect of his character (his most appealing, of course, being his handsome, handsome cute face). 

By the way, non-Americans, real Americans don’t throw around this many “fucks.” And we don’t constantly speak in sexual metaphors. Granted, I’ve never been among these kinds of...terrible people, but still. 

OMG, her name is actually CYD PEACH?! Wow. No wonder you’re a badass bitch. With a name like that, who wouldn’t be? 

I kind of like this news lady, talking to Tom like the moronic asshole he is. Her sarcasm is just oozing out of her and I love it. This was such a great scene. 

Rough first day, Tom. But, hot damn, is he actually motivated to do...real work? Color me interested to see how this goes. 

Gerry, you’re amazing. You might be one of my favorite characters. 

IPAs that looks like run-off at the car wash. Ahahahahahha. Great line. 

OF COURSE CONNOR HAS AN EMAIL BULLETIN. Actually, Connor might be one of my favorites, too. He represents the most what I like about the show. The absurdity of it. It’s when the show strays too far away from pointing out absurdity that it gets...not nearly as enjoyable. 

Another great example of the absurdity: The conversation between Roman and Connor about the president. 

Ha, yes, Roman invited you to dinner because he’s learning your game, Shiv. He’s learning, against all odds, how to 

You did a thing. Mazel Tov. Another great scene with Roman and Tabitha. 

Oh, Tom, baby, you’re so nervous to...talk to your wife. Heh. That’s kind of sad. And ahahahhaah, you still think you’ve even in the uh, line of succession (too on point?) for CEO. Oh, Tom. You idiot. And, Shiv, you are...you don’t think Tom should get the big job, please. Come on. I wish she’d...be truthful about how much she wants it, at least with Tom, JFC. But honestly isn’t really in her vocabulary, so... ALSO, RAWR. Let me say how SHOCKED I AM that Shiv gets turned on when she thinks about herself being powerful. She gets off when she literally has Tom by the balls. Shocker. Shocker. 

AHAHAHAH, GREG’S APARTMENT SHOPPING. YES. LOL. THIS IS GREAT. Greg is the best. AWW, DID KENDALL JUST GIVE GREG AN APARTMENT? AWWWW, KENDALL! Aww, that awkward hug was probably the most physical affection Kendall’s had in...a long time. LOL. OMG KENDALL WANTS TO BE BUDDIES WITH GREG. YES. 

Oh boy. The most awkward dinner in history. Tabitha is so chill. OH NO, TOM AND TABITHA ALONE IN A ROOM. YOU SHOULD TRY SWALLOWING SOMETHING. OMG JKFDL;AJFKLAFJKSA;KJFDL. AHAHAHAHA. YEEEESSSSS. I like when the relatively powerless characters make a cutting power move. 

NOTHING IS WRONG WITH HIS BODY. DON’T YOU, EVEN. 

Okay, seriously, y’all stop making fun of Tom so hard. Jfc. My heart is going out to him here, honestly. Tom can be a dick sometimes, but this is cruel stuff. 

OMG OMG OMIG OGMD OSALJFSAL;FJSK TOM I’M SO PROUD OF YOU. I’M SO, SO PROUD OF YOU. FOR TELLING SHIV TO FUCK OFF. YES. I’M SO DAMN PROUD OF YOU. DKFLS;FJDKSAOMGGGGGGG. It’s nice to see the tiniest hint of backbone. 

Oof, this is what Tom and Shiv call “talking”? Meh, yeah, Shiv, you need him. You need a stable presence. You need a loyal sounding board. You need a yes man. Their relationship is so fucked up. Yiiiiiikes. They’re pretty much the WORST at open, real communication. 

Oh, boy, oh, boy. Poor Greg. Kendall, you dick. Making this your drug party. Ugh. I’m so fucking disappointed in you. (I’m still pulling for you, though.)

Guh, yeah, the scene in the car with Shiv and Gil...these kinds of scenes really show Shiv’s ugly side. (And Gil’s for that matter.) People needing the upper hand. People shitting all over each other. People needing to be right. 

Logaaaaaan, you’re such a dickheeeaaaad. A manipulative, awful dickheeeaaaad. Although, what a great line: make yourself at home. In...daddy’s office. 

Jesus, Kendall, you need a real car, man. 

AAAAH, IT LOOKS LIKE THE HUNTING EPISODE IS NEXT. AWESOME.