#bonus points if he nopes the fuck outta there too

[rendevok]

Hyperspecific narumitsu trope i love #2: after they get together, it takes Apollo 5 seconds of seeing them within 10 feet of each other to recognize it

#bonus points if he nopes the fuck outta there too #it's just funny. everything can be an apollo bullying device if you're clever enough #trucy would probably know immediately as well but its not the same kind of knowing that apollo would have #trucy is like “oh my dad's finally figured it out. yay!” #and apollo is like “oh. oh NO. my boss kissed the chief prosecutor. maybe even worse- OH GROSS I DONT WANNA THINK ABOUT IT GOD NO-” #i dont want to tag this because im lazy so bone apple tea mes amis

[headoverheelsforramsey]

Hiiiii! Here are this week's different questions lol

Not Yet Wed Questions

Note: Great Scott! This week, we are going back in time to MC’s intern year. Think of Ethan’s relationship with them at this point and answer the following questions accordingly. It is entirely up to you when in year 1 this takes place (pre/post Miami, pre/post CH 15, etc). Feel free to answer with dialogue or pictures or both :) Have fun!

No worries. All of this is off the record and HR will never know!

The setting for this answers is:

For Both

When I first saw them, I thought__________

What is your coworker's most used swear word?

Quick: What color are their eyes?

Three people at work your coworker hates?

What is your coworker’s strangest or most endearing quirk?

If they had a crush on anyone at work, who would that be?

(Bonus round! Feel free to skip.)

Never have I Ever:

come into work hungover

had a fistfight

been kicked out of a bar

gotten a tattoo

broken someone’s heart

been in love

For MC (Ethan is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

What do you find the most impressive about him?

Last thing he texted you?

If he asked you out on a date, what would you say?

For Ethan (MC is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

What specifically do you find attractive about her?

Last thing she texted you?

If she asked you out on a date, how would you respond?

Hello Hello Bree! My weekly dose of sunshine has arrived! 🤗

Sorry this took so long I am literally neck deep in assignments.

Anyways can I just say that these questions were just brilliant!! Book 1 is so close to our hearts and Ethan MC dynamic back in the day was priceless. 😂

Just a fair warning this contains a lot of pinching noses and rolling eyes because that's what book 1 Ethan used to do all the time. So now let the fun begin! 🤩

The setting for this answers is: Post Chap 15, before the ethics trial.

Ethan : Remind me again why I am doing this?

Meera : Because you are unemployed and have a lot of free time, also because I asked nicely? (with puppy eyes)

Ethan (Rolls eyes)

FOR BOTH

When I first saw them, I thought__________

*Both of them wait for each other to answer*

Ethan : You go first, this was your idea.

Meera : Oh boy. Why do I have the feeling you are going to hate me even more after this?

Ethan : I can't hate you more than I did when I first met you.

Meera (expectantly) : So you are saying the hatred for me has declined since then?

Ethan : Just answer the damn question.

Meera : Okay fine. I thought "why is this person being so rude to me? I am still a kid I am still learning. Such an asshole, gotta keep outta his path."

Ethan (looks at her amused) : I thought "ah shit here we go again. A new bunch of nerve wrecking idiotic interns incoming."

Meera (dramatically opens her mouth and places her hands on her chest) : Ouch! Rude!

Ethan (sly grin)

What is your coworker's most used swear word?

Meera : Jesus. Christ. Jesus Christ. He is religious that way. (winks)

Ethan : Very funny Rookie. She on the other hand has an explicit vocabulary in slangs but I think I have heard holy shit, holy cow, holy fuck the most.

Meera (excitedly) : See I am religious too. Also look at us twining in swears.

Quick: What color are their eyes?

Meera (immediately) : Ocean Blue! No, Celestial blue!

Ethan (looks at Meera, surprised)

Meera (suddenly concious) : Blue. Just plain simple blue.

Ethan (thinks for a moment)

Meera (puts a hand over her eyes)

Ethan : What are you doing?

Meera : I won't let you cheat.

Ethan : Cheat? I don't cheat.

Meera : Ofcourse the great Ethan Ramsey doesn't cheat. Then go ahead and ans---

Ethan : Dark brown.

Meera (impressed with him)

Three people at work your coworker hates?

Meera (heaves out a long dramatic sigh) : Ask me whom he doesn't?

Ethan : I tolerate most of them though.

Meera (chuckles) : I think it'll be Dr. Thorne, Dr. Myles and Dr. Hirata. Atleast these are the ones he complains about the most.

Ethan : Hmm. Fair enough. Bose here obviously hates that back stabbing "friend" whose name I'd rather die than learn. And I think Dr. Emery and Dr. Mirani also falls under this list.

Meera : Full point for the first one, but I think Aurora is a good person overall, she has some issues, which we need to work out. And I don't hate Zaid, I just don't like how he is always in a grumpy melancholic mood.

Ethan : Which is very justified of him given that he has to work with the interns the majority of his work hours.

What is your coworker’s strangest or most endearing quirk?

Meera : Easy, pinching the bridge of his nose and rolling his eyes when annoyed, which is all the time by the way.

Ethan : I think adjusting her glasses when it threatens to slip from her nose and forming her lips in a strange way when concentrating.

Bree : I am sorry doctor could you just explain the last part better.

Ethan (rolls his eyes and tries to do his best impression of Meera's pout)

Meera (chuckles) : That's not how it's done, Ethan. This is how it's done (pouts)

Ethan : Yeah same thing.

If they had a crush on anyone at work, who would that be?

Ethan : Crush? What are we? Highschool students? I am not answering that. (prepares to leave)

Meera : I think it might be Dr. Emery.

Ethan (stops short on his way out, turns around and takes a seat again) : Really Rookie? Fine you want to know her crush? It's that scalpel jockey, or that paramedic guy she is so friends with or maybe that other Indian intern roomate she has.

Meera : What! No. They are my friends. What made you think that?

Ethan : What made you think Harper is my crush?

Bree : Okay doctors let's move on to the next round.

Never have I Ever:

come into work hungover

Meera : Nope!

Ethan : Never. We are doctors we might get someone loose their life.

had a fistfight

Meera : Yes.

Ethan (looks at her unbelievingly) : I thought you were the harmless kind.

Meera (smugly) : I am mostly harmless, untill you get on my bad side. What about you?

Ethan : I'll have to say no.

Meera : You punched Nash though.

Ethan : He didn't punch me back, so doesn't count Rookie.

been kicked out of a bar

Meera : Unfortunately yes.

Ethan : Unfortunately yes too.

Meera : What?! The great Ethan Ramsey?

Ethan : Stop calling me that. I am a human afterall and I had some very stupid friends back in med school.

gotten a tattoo

Ethan : No.

Meera : Yes.

Ethan (smirks)

broken someone’s heart

Meera : Not that I know off

Ethan : I am not proud of it but yes.

been in love

Ethan : No.

Meera : Expected. For me it's yes. Maybe it didn't last but I can't say what we had wasn't love.

For Meera (Ethan is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

He thinks he won't practice medicine anymore because he can't solve Naveen's case but I know he won't be able to resist helping people and ofcourse that is what Naveen always wanted. So, professionally, he is doing wonders. Inspiring thousands of hearts, guiding hundreds of young doctors and saving millions of lives. The diagnostic team has becomes globally recognised. He has written another book or two. Maybe won the Lasker Awards.

Personally, I hope he is happy and not lonely. He needs someone by his side. Someone who can tolerate his sarcasm and critisisim. Someone who will put a smile on his face when he wakes up beside her. Maybe he'll have a family, if that someone is really strong-willed. (let's out a dry laugh)

What do you find the most impressive about him?

His passion for what he does. He just lights up and enrapts the entire room when he speaks about medicine. And I just get lost in the sea of passion in his eyes. Also his stubbornness and unwillingness to give up is really impressive.

Last thing he texted you?

I'll show you wait.

He ordered about half a dozen books on Medical Law and Ethics for me.

If he asked you out on a date, what would you say?

(stays silent for a long time)

I don't think so he will. Like the chances are really really thin but trust me if he does I wouldn't dare say no. (colour rises to her cheeks)

But yes that's in a different world. A world in which we don't live. (sighs wistfully)

For Ethan (Meera is not there)

Where do you see her in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

If she manages to save her lisence she'll be a wonderful doctor. She'll save innumerable lives and be one of the brightest stars in medicine. I am sure she'll secure a spot on the DT and maybe even lead it someday. She'll make me proud. (smiles genuinely)

Personally I hope she'll be with someone who loves her more than anything and that she is with literally anybody else but that scalpel jockey. She'll have a loving caring partner who'll cook her meals when she comes home from a twelve hour shift. She'll have amazing friends especially the ones she has now. They really love her and they didn't think twice before helping her out with Mrs. Martinez's case.

Maybe she'll have a family. A few kids who will also grow up to show a stunning reflection of their mother.

What specifically do you find attractive about her?

Ethan : I can't say attractive but I'll say I like her personality. She has a magnetic one that makes sure to turn heads any time she walks into a room. Also I love that she cares so deeply about people and she is willing to go out of her way to put a smile on these people's face. Like for example Mrs. Martinez.

Bree : So is this "like" or "love"?

Ethan : Did I? Did I just say love? I am so sorry I meant like.

Bree : Could you enlist something physically attractive about her?

Ethan : If I have to. I'd say I love, er... like, like her laughter. It literally brightens the entire room. (blushes)

Last thing she texted you?

"Thank you Ethan"

If she asked you out on a date, how would you respond?

(sighs) I would feel lucky to go on a date with her, but right now in this situation? It's too complicated. I can't jeopardize her career, so it's a no form me, despite my actual feelings.

This was so fun! Thank you once again @jamespotterthefirst

Tagging my usual : @starrystarrytrouble @mm2305 @charisworld @choicesfanaf @potionsprefect @genevievemd  @shanzay44 @little-flowers-on-heaven @schnitzelbutterfingers  @coffeeheartaddict @gryffindordaughterofathena @chemist-ana @adiehardfan @custaroonie @ireneadlerisseggsy @takemyopenheart @natureblooms24 @mainstreetreader @izzyourresidentlawyer @a-crepusculo @quixoticdreamer16 @starryeyedrookie @barbean

Please let me know if you want to be added or removed. And if you want to sit out only the answers to the ask games hit me up too. There won't be any hard feelings. I promise. 💜

#newlyweds game with our host bree #queen bree supremacy! #ethan x meera #asked and answered #messrprongs

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Top 5 Best Executed Deaths

A few weeks ago, I did a list talking about the Top 5 Character Deaths That Made Me Side-Eye the Writers and I thought it was only fair that I talk about some of the character deaths that I thought were actually done well. So consider this like a companion to that list. 

Like I said in that T5F, this is TWDG, a game series all about people surviving in a world overrun by zombies. Naturally, characters are going to die. Some of these characters get pretty shitty deaths that only happened to fill a quota, some had effort and thought put into them and how they were going to effect the story and remaining characters. These are deaths that served their purpose, progressed the story, or are an understandable conclusion to a character’s arc. 

Do keep in mind that when I say that I enjoy the way these were done/handled/portrayed/whatever, this isn’t me taking joy outta watching these deaths play out. Hell, I kinda hate most of the deaths on this list, but just because I don’t want this character to die or I wish they stuck around longer doesn’t mean I can’t recognize when it’s executed well, y’know? 

5. Larry and the meat locker incident

So.... Larry’s an asshole, y’know? He made it on another T5F because he sucks. No one likes Larry. 

He treats Lee like garbage, treats his own daughter terribly, and is overall just a piece of shit. That being said, he played his role well. He did what he needed to do which was be a antagonistic character within the group who posed a threat to Lee by threatening to expose his past. He creates a lot of tension within the group, he puts all this pressure on Lilly, you can’t even attempt to show any kindness to him because he doesn’t care about anyone but himself and Lilly. 

That being said.... his death scene is pretty good. Y’know, you play through ep2 for the first time and you’ve just discovered that these people are cannibals and they have you locked in a fucking meat locker so they can butcher you later, and Larry is freakin’ the fuck out because he’s pissed. Lilly is sick in the corner, Kenny is desperately trying to find a way out because they have his family, and Clementine is terrified, and Lee is just waking up. 

You go over and try to calm Larry down because he’s pounding at the door and this dude.... this bastard has the gall to be like “Fuck you, you must really hate me! I’m plannin’ on bein’ around waaaaaay after you’re dead! I’ll be the one to put you down!”

Then he has a heart attack. 

And you’re stuck in this meat locker with him. You don’t know if he’s alive or not-- Kenny immediately deems him dead, Lilly is desperately trying to resuscitate him, and they’re both yelling at you. You gotta decide if you’re gonna help Lilly try to bring him back, or if you’re gonna help Kenny make sure he doesn’t turn. 

Not matter what you do, Kenny smashes Larry’s head in with a damn saltlick because I guess he missed the opening of the episode where they remind you that your actions have consequences. 

Larry’s death has lasting effects on your relationships with both Lilly and Kenny, though more so Kenny since no matter what, Lilly loses it a little and ends up murdering Carley/Doug and leaving the group. But boy, Kenny will never forget the time you didn’t wanna play hero with him and smash a guys head in right in front of his daughter. 

It’s a damn good scene, I gotta hand it to ‘em. I hate Larry and I can’t say I miss him, but I can definitely see both sides of the argument on what to do there. Plus it’s... I dunno, a creative death? and I kinda like that? No one else is out here getting their heads done in with a saltlick, y’know? 

Anyway, Larry sucks but his death? Well done. 

4.  Minerva and the tragic showdown on the bridge

Oh man, I really am digging my own grave with the Minnie crowd lately, huh? Ah well, I’m sure it’s fine. 

Listen...okay, look. I have a lot of feelings about the bridge scene. On one hand, I hate it. On the other hand, I kind of love it? 

Like, does it piss me off that Tenn dies here because I trust AJ? Yep. Do I still wish they had maybe put Lilly here so that she could actually do her job as a villain? Sure. Does it upset me that AJ ends up shooting his best friend in order to save Louis? Totally. Does it annoy me that Minerva just won’t fucking die even though I shot her and the walkers keep nom noming her? Absolutely. 

That being said, I can’t pretend that Minerva’s death isn’t pretty great.... which I know will upset the Minnie crowd who always talk about how it’s bullshit she died here and she deserved a redemption arc... but lemme explain. 

Looking at the game itself, the text and story progression, Minerva was never going to get that. She was never set up as someone we were gonna “fix” or as someone who would have a change of heart and switch to our side. From the moment we meet her, she’s too far gone. The delta have their claws sunk deep within her, they brainwashed her, forced her to murder her own sister, and she has completely given up. She never expresses any desire to go back to the school. Nope, the delta is her home now. Her family. And it’s tragic. She and Sophie proof of what would happen to the Ericson crew if the delta go ahold of them-- “which twin will you be?” y’know? 

She fucks us over instead of actually helping us, we escape, the boat explodes, but Minerva doesn’t go down with the boat. Nope, she makes it to land and well... she fucking loses it. She sees her delta family get taken out by walkers and she goes nuts with her gun and gets half of her face chewed off by a walker.

So yeah..... she’s dead. Almost. They try to act like we’re supposed to believe that she’s really dead after she gets surrounded by walkers and throws the grenade at Clementine and all that but c’mon.... unless I see a body or a walker version, I don’t believe shit. 

Which brings me to the bridge.... there’s a lot of dread building up to Minerva’s final appearance, and you just hear her singing the damn song and bringing a bunch of walkers with her. Not to mention that she already looks dead. She looks like a walker who can talk, and not gonna lie, I like it. It’s freaky and sad and fucked up and adds so much to her character at this point. I mean, she’s here to kill Tenn so that they can all be a family again. She’s smiling and relieved that she’s dying and boy she just can’t wait to take Tenn with her and it’s not great.

She’s here to die and to take someone down with her, and she’s not leaving until she does. Hell, if she can take Clementine out, that’s just a bonus at this point. 

ALSO can’t forget that if AJ does shoot and kill Tenn, Minerva is still alive as she’s being eaten by walkers and she looks so damn happy as she reaches out and says, “Yes, come with me...” 

Like..... it’s so fucked, and I hate that I love it. From a storytelling standpoint, it’s a fitting death to conclude Minerva’s character and it impacts everyone there in more ways than one. 

3. Duck and incredible emotional impact

Oh, Duck... poor, poor Duck. 

This one has stuck with me and I hate it. I was never one of those players who hated Duck from the beginning. It’s interesting to go back and see how people reacted to him in the first couple episodes because a lot of them didn’t like him. They found Duck to be annoying, loud, stupid, and would even wonder “yeesh, when can I kill this kid?” 

Which is yikes but not gonna get into that right now. 

But from my understanding, Telltale got wind of this and knowing they were gonna kill him off, were like “Okay, y’all dumb, so here--” and they added in that little segment with Detective Duck where he helps Lee figure out what’s been going on with the stole meds. It’s a cute scene where we get to hang out with Duck and he proves that he’s not stupid, he’s just... y’know, a child. 

Then the motor inn gets attacked, shit goes down after they escape, and it’s revealed that Duck was bitten. 

Oh man, let me tell you about emotional impact both on the characters and the player because wow. 

Duck’s death is slow, drawn out...and since it’s early in the series, there’s a lot of denial, mostly from Kenny. They find the train and Kenny fixates on it because to him, if he gets it working and they can just get away, Duck can recover. Duck isn’t like the others, he’s just a little sick and everyone is making a big fuss about it. 

Then you have Katjaa, who starts out in that denial stage but she moves into acceptance a lot quicker than Kenny does and well.... that might be because she made up her mind about what she was going to do, which that is a whole other layer of fucking despair to this situation. 

They also do something that I like with Kenny by adding that depth of him believing he had something like this coming after what happened at Hershel’s farm. Y’know, when he grabbed Duck and took off, leaving Shawn to die? Yeah that. 

He’s been so adamant about protecting his family to the point where he doesn’t have anything for the rest of the group, aside from Lee if he helps kill Larry. He did what he could to keep his wife and child safe and in the end, it didn’t matter. Duck still got bit, and now everything is shit. 

Then when you thought it couldn’t hurt even more, you find Katjaa dead in the woods and you still have to take care of Duck, whether you have Lee shoot him or have Kenny do it, or even just leave him to turn. Either way.... Duck’s death is just one big ol’ despairing oof.

It’s really good, guys. The music, dialogue, scenery, the pain....They really nailed Duck’s death in such an emotional way and it doesn’t just end there. This sticks with Kenny all the way through S2 and changes him as a character. It impacted Clementine and Lee greatly because this kickstarted Chuck telling them that Clem would end up just like Duck if things didn’t change. 

S1 just... knew how to kill off its characters... well, for the most part. 

2. Marlon and the death that had to happen whether we like it or not

Sigh.... okay. 

So... Marlon. Lemme tell you some things about Marlon’s death. 

First, I hate it. Nothing new there. If you know anything about me, you know that I am vocal in my desire for the Marlon redemption arc, for the “Marlon lives” AU’s and the “Marlon lives longer but dies differently” AU’s. I like Marlon as a character, I find him to be a fascinating character study. Ray Chase’s performance as Marlon brings so much personality and I love it.  So naturally, I wanted more of him in TFS. 

Here’s the thing. I may want all of those things, I may take a lot of joy from discussing these ideas with you guys and coming up with different scenarios,  theories, AU’s about him, and I’ll always be the first one to be like “I hate that Marlon dies in ep1, I wish AJ hadn’t shot him! Woulda liked for him to stick around longer!” 

But with the story TFS is trying to tell, Marlon has to die. AJ has to shoot him. I don’t like it, you don’t like it, no one likes it.... but that’s just how it is. 

Marlon is presented to us as this chill and genuine guy trying to keep his group safe and together. He feels the pressure of being responsible for all the lives in this school and that’s a lot to put on a teen growing up in the apocalypse. 

Then we learn that hey, the twins didn’t die. No, last year they ran into Abel and Marlon made a deal with him where he traded the twins in order to save himself, Brody, and the rest of the school. He wanted to plan a rescue mission, but he was too scared, so he and Brody kept it to themselves. They made up a story about the twins dying and moved on, but that continued to weigh down on them. 

Then Abel comes back, Brody freaks out, tells Clementine the truth, and Marlon hits her so hard that it kills her. 

And it gets worse. 

You go through the whole confrontation with Marlon trying to cover his ass and blame Clementine for Brody’s murder, he’s waving AJ’s gun around and threatening to shoot Clem while everyone is gathered around watching. It’s raining, it’s super dramatic and tense and I love it. 

In the end, Marlon gives up and he just wants to leave. Let him become a bad memory, he’ll never come back, just let him go. 

Then AJ shoots him in the head unprompted. He just.... he just does it and then wonders why everyone is looking at him like he’s a murder baby. 

Marlon’s death is crucial, not just to kickstart the plot but also for AJ’s character arc. His death affects everyone in that school. It makes Clementine question herself and if she’s raising AJ right, it breaks Louis’ heart, it pisses off Mitch, it sets Violet off on her bullshit. Everyone is hurting and confused because they don’t know what to do. Marlon is dead and AJ, this tiny toddler, was the one who pulled the trigger. 

From the beginning, we’re told that AJ is always listening, watching, and what we do will affect him for better or worse.... and maybe you don’t think much when you tell him to always aim for them head, but when he says exactly what you taught him after murdering Marlon...? Yeah, you’re sitting there like “Well, fuck.” 

But if this didn’t happen, if AJ didn’t kill Marlon, then.... there’s not a lot left. Sure the raiders are still coming, but AJ no longer has to go through what he has to or realize how much he hurt everyone. He’s no longer on that path that made him such an interesting and layered character. 

Sure, you coulda made him shoot someone else, but the fact that it was Marlon is what made it impactful.

Ugh, it’s good and I hate it. I hate it so much. 

1. Lee and the death that broke all our hearts

.......Just-

-y’know?

What else is there to say?

Well, alright, I’ll explain. 

We play as Lee in S1, we go on this whole journey with him and develop him as a character, establish relationships, and care for Clementine. He’s a great character. I did a list on why he’s great, too, if you wanna check that out but all you really need to know is that we all loved Lee.

Lee’s got a lot of baggage, given that he was on his way to prison for murdering the dude who was sleeping with his wife. But then the apocalypse happened and he got a second chance to do some good... or I guess bad? if you do a scumbag Lee run? 

Anyway-- no matter what, he cares for Clementine and it’s nice to see them bond over the course of the season... so when shit hits the fan and Clementine gets kidnapped by the Stranger, we’re just as upset as Lee is.

Then Lee gets bit.... and we realize that even though he’s our playable protagonist, he was never safe either. He gets bit and I can still remember the feeling of like... a bowling ball dropping in my stomach and my heart hurting because no... no, no, not Lee. I basically became Kenny like “No, he’s different! Lee isn’t gonna die! Being bit doesn’t mean death!” and while that is technically true.... had to face it: Lee’s going to die by the end of the season. 

Ep5 of S1 is a whole journey... We’re dealing with trying to save Clementine while seeing Lee get worse and worse-- he’s passing out, he’s growing paler and slower and it’s hard to watch. You maybe get a little bit of hope if you decide to cut his arm off, but that’s just... it’s too late for that. 

Not only is he fighting this, but then you got Ben who gets impaled and Kenny “dies” putting him outta his misery and Lee’s powerless to do anything. So great, that sucks. 

But at least he’s got Christa and Omid.... until they get separated at the Marsh House and Lee’s gotta get through a herd of them by himself. 

This slow burn is so good. His condition gets progressively worse but he’s so determined to get to Clem that it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have time to think about what is inevitably going to happen to him, even if the player does. 

And just.... the final scene... y’know, the actual death scene? 

It’s so good. It’s a beautiful, emotional punch in the face. Like, way to end your game like this... Lee is trapped her with Clementine and he can’t walk, he can’t get up no matter how much Clementine begs him to try, he just- he can’t. He knows it’s all over for him and so he has her handcuff him to this heater so that no matter what, he can’t hurt her and just.... their final moments together where Lee is minutes away from death but is struggling to tell her as much as he can and I’m crying.

Then of course, the final choice-- Do you shoot Lee, or do you leave him to turn?

Both ending hurt my soul, but they’re both great in different ways. Shooting him is so heartbreaking... seeing little Clem sobbing as she points the gun at him and closes her eyes, then it cuts to black as the shot rings out and you hear Lee’s final breath....

BUT THEN YOU HAVE THE LEAVE HIM ENDING WHICH-

Lee manages to tell her more when you choose not to shoot him, but just watching Clementine get to the door and her little “don’t go” before Lee closes his eyes and falls over limp... falls over dead, I just--

Ouch... I am applauding this through my ugly sobs. 

It’s the best death in the series. It has everything and then some- emotional impact, works to progress the story and characters, amazing dialogue and performances.... It still gets me to this day. 

---

Honorable Mentions

-Mark’s death technically happens off screen, but I mean, c’mon... Mark wasn’t the most compelling character, but everyone remembers what happened to him. Everyone remembers walker Mark. What happened to him showed us just how fucked the St Johns were and it’s excellent.  -Brody’s death is pretty good, too.  -Abel’s death is an interesting one. He’s a garbage can, but they managed to humanize him just a bit by the way he hands his soon-to-be demise.  -Badger when Conrad kills him. It’s super good.  -I’m looking over this list now and it’s kinda funny that not a single S2 death made it here... it’s almost like all the character death that happened there was because a quota needed to be filled and who cares about complex character development when you got Kenny and nothing really matters I guess... ugh. The best deaths would probably be Carver, and Kenny when you shoot him but they’re not good enough to be in a top 5 so.... good job.

---

So... that was fun. What do you guys think? Do you agree with my choices or nah? Do you have a favorite death I didn’t list that you thought was well executed? Let me know, I’m curious. 

Have any suggestions for future T5F’s? Feel free to send ‘em in! :D

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Next week’s T5F

#twdg t5f #twdg clementine #twdg aj #twdg louis #twdg lee #twdg violet #twdg tenn #twdg minerva #twdg lilly #twdg larry #twdg kenny #twdg katjaa #twdg duck #twdg marlon #twdg brody #twdg mitch #twdg #twdg abel #twdg carver #twdg badger #twdg conrad

[anunvalidcritic]

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: S1 - EP5

(DISCLAIMER: MY OPINION IS MY OWN AND CAN BE DEEMED INVALID TO THOSE WHO DON’T CARE FOR IT.)

I want to apologize for posting this so late. I got the times confused! Any whoo there better be a fuckin’ tag team in this episode after what happened in the last episode....

                                                    TRUTH

smfh he fuckin’ raged on that guy. Like his 

Get that fuckin’ shield back now!!

Bro the blood on that shield is a fuckin’ sight to see.

BUCKY and SAM better tag team that motherfucker!!!!

come on BUCKY you fucked IRON MAN during a tag team get his ass!!!!!

aww shit now BUCKY is Stitch with a glitch

bruh they just need to 

“I am CAPTAIN AMERICA.” - JOHN W. 

BRO HIS ARM!!!!!! (oh well...)

HIS BACK IS OUTTA COMMISSION! GO TF TO SLEEP!!!!!

great shot of BUCKY holding the shield..

No one can honestly blame SAM for turning the shield in. He didn’t know they were going to do that to it. 

“Sometimes there’s nothing to do until there’s something to do.” - JOAQUIN

this is not the time to save your ass JOHN

“I only ever did what you asked of me, what you told me to be and trained me to do, and I did it. And I did it well. [] You built me. Senator, I am Captain America.” - JOHN W. 

The beginning was him telling the truth, but that last part was him being delulu

JULIA LOUIS DREYFUS!?!?!?!?! With purpler hair!?!?!?

now you know damn well that there’s information on that business card. 

ofc, he went to the memorial sight.

BUCKY got the glock ready 

“I took the liberty of crossing of crossing out my name in your book. I hold no grudges for what you thought you had to do.” - ZEMO

ZEMO has better morals than fuckin’ JOHN W. 

I mean kinda sticks out in Wakanda AYO...

“Them stars and stripes don’t mean nothing good to me.” - ISAIAH

Shiiii.... I’d be bitter too tf

motherfuckers locked him up

smh ofc they told them it was a fuckin’ Tetanus shot

30 years... that’s a long fuckin’ time...

Shout out the fuckin’ nurse, bro!

“You think things are different? You think times are different? You think I wouldn’t be dead in a day if you brought me out? You wanna believe that jail is my fault because you’ve got that white man’s shield.” - ISAIAH

He has a point SAM you’re being a little to optimistic about this one. 

“They will never let a black man be CAPTAIN AMERICA.” - ISAIAH

yeah go home SAM because that’s all you can do at the moment

SARAH + eyes + BUCKY = love at first sight

“Hi, I’m BUCKY.” - BUCKY lmao

“They don’t care that you wear small T-shirts, have six toes, or that your mom is your aunt.” - SAM

“But don’t flirt with my sister. Because if you do, I’ll have CARLOS cut you up and feed you to the fishes.” - SAM

ROFL said “okay” real quick 

That man did not fuckin’ do that. We all know it was KARLI. 

if I could rip that shit off the wall, I would.

lol those kids are funny :D

The way that shield comes back like a boomerang is crazy.

Damn BUCKY it took you til the fifth episode to say “I’m sorry” but total understandable. lol

BUCKY fiddlin’ that book around all nervous and shit..

“You weren’t amending, you were avenging.” - SAM

que Avengers theme song

ICONIC DIALOGUE

SAM - I’m sure there’s at least one person in that book that needs closure on something, and you’re the only one who can give it to ‘em.”

BUCKY - “Probably a dozen.”

SAM - “That’s cool. Start with one.”

BUCKY - “Good talk.”

SAM - “You know KARLI won’t stop.” 

BUCKY - “You call me when you have a lead, and I’ll be there. Not neccesarily as a team.”

SAM - “Nope.”

BUCKY - “We’re not that good.”

SAM - “Definitely not.”

They’re such a funny duo

I think we all know who he’s gonna start with.  

I was just thinkin’ that the boat needs a good paint job now

“I’mma show them. I’mma go out and change the world.” - SAM

lots of people feel that way about life bro... such a true thought to have in one’s mind

TRAIN MOFO TRAIN!!!!!

THAT WAS A COOL FUCKIN’ MONTAGE!!!!!!!!!

BRUH i fuckin’ love KARLI’s accent lol

KARLI has really lost her mind now. I understand how she feels, but this isn’t the way to do it. 

“One world. One people”

finally, he’s opening the Wakandan suitcase

it’s a fuckin’ suit isn’t it!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOOOOOOOOO NOT A FUCKIN’ CLIFFHANGER!!!!!!!!

BONUS CREDIT SCENE

wtf is this man doin’

not him making some raggedy daggedy shield and painting it to look like the real one!?!

See Ik JOHN was gonna reach his fuckin’ breaking point...

I bet SAM and JOHN are probably gonna duke it out, one on one, in the last episode!

wait a minute... ain’t his arm still fucked up??

_______

I’ll tell you what I really don’t want this show to end but I understand what Marvel is trying to do in their universe but god this a good fuckin’ series! Unfortunately, my next tfatws post will be the last but boy was it worth the ride! If I don’t know anything I know this... we better not and I mean WE BETTER NOT run up Chris Evan’s Clint Eastwood in this last episode iykwis LOL. Until that time comes, remember everyone’s a critic when their opinion matters the least. 

Here’s a link to past and future episodes:

EP1 - EP2 - EP3 - EP4 - EP5 - EP6

#the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws #Marvel MCU #MCU #sam wilson #anthony mackie #sebastian stan #bucky barnes #erin kellyman #karli morgenthau #wyatt russell #emily vancamp #sharon carter #daniel bruhl #baron zemo #joaquin torres #danny ramirez #georges st-pierre #desmond chiam #julia louis dreyfus #ayo #florence kasumba #disney+

[toukenramblings]

Video Games: Mutsunokami Yoshiyuki, Aizen Kunitoshi, Atsushi Toushirou

Oh ho, a fun lil headcanon set like this is so funnnn~!

Warnings: Not much I suppose?

Mutsunokami Yoshiyuki

Sweet MuMu adores video games where we can travel the world. Fantasy world, modern world, past, present, future, he don’t care! An open world game will suit him best! There’s so much to do, and like a lil puppy, MuMu want’s to explore it all!

Extra bonus points if there’s a part of the game where there is something to do with the ocean. He adores the sea after all! Boats, driving them, exploring the ocean, exploring the unknown, oh this TouDan will drink that shit up.

The games that come to mind are Assassin’s Creed: III, Black Flag, Syndicate, Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. Why? Most of them deal with exploring new lands and some of them deal with piloting ships! III, Black Flag, Odyssey, Origins, Valhalla to be more specific. Syndicate has guns and classy fashion. A little too much for Mutsunokami but he loves playing with the guns in the game - they are very similar in make to his own after all. he also rly likes the sea shanties in odyssey because i rly like them too

If Mutsunokami wants to relax and not play Assassin’s Creed where he goes around stabbing everything that moves, he will play Subnautica or Abzu or Journey to relax. Maybe even Animal Crossing! He loves the cute little animals but I personally think that games where he can just explore the world and meet new people and learn lore just make him happy the most.

Games MuMu would never play are horror games or anything with spiders in them. So Bayonetta and Devil May Cry are out. He loves the idea of gun-toting protagonists but nope, nope. Spiders? Bye fam.

Now that I think about it, he would just be Blathers. He can play Animal Crossing but Gods help him the minute he sees a spider in that damn game. “I THOUGHT THIS WAS A PEACEFUL GAME, WHY ARE THE SPIDERS TRYING TO KILL YOU” cue controller thrown at the television.

Oh MuMu adores party games! Can’t play Smash Bros or Mario Kart for shit. Watch him pay too much attention to the background and yeet himself off of the stage because he saw something shiny. He can kinda play though, but again he gets distracted the most. Buuut ask him to play Mario Party with the rest of the swords and damn right he will play!

Can and will make video games turn into a drinking game. MuMu adores competitive gaming with the rest of the citadel. Will start taking bets on who is gonna win and lose, and sure he may be a pouty loser but he’ll be fiine. But damn right he’ll yeet a tantou to ensure his win. No he won’t he’s not that cruel.

Mutsunokami also adores rhythm games! Taiko no Tatsujin because of Don-chan and the idea of playing with a lil taiko drum as a controller. He’s very much into music after all. There are times when he stops playing a game to just listen to the music and take it all in!

A guilty pleasure game he plays is probably Ghost of Tsushima. No he’s not checking out Jin’s ass whenever they go to a hot spring, what are you talking about? MuMu enjoys it because sometimes just going back to your roots and stabbing a ho is just what you need. dear khotun khan, eat shit

Aizen Kunitoshi

Aizen is also super big on rhythm games. As said above with Mutsunokami, Taiko no Tatsujin will be a favorite of his. He has a secret collection of Don-chan merch, no one is stopping him damn it. Just fucking tRY and take away his precious Don-chan(s). The only ones that can touch his prized collection are the rest of the Rai swords, other peeps he is close to, and maybe you if you two are close/you ask nicely. Get him some Don-chan pajamas and he’ll cry.

Aizen is also pretty good at fighting games, Street Fighter coming to mind because he adores over the top bullshit and the colors! The colors! He mains Ryu though, but he’s more than willing to try new characters!

He’s also pretty competitive at times, so he would adore playing fighting games with the rest of the swords at the citadel. Hotarumaru and he are always playing Smash Bros or Mario Kart, which ends up with a lot of broken controllers. Hotaru has been slightly banned from planning highly competitive gameplay though.

Other games that I know Aizen will be into will be Animal Crossing when he wants to relax. He loves the little yearly festivals and events in the games and it kinda mirrors how life works in the world. Of course he adores Digby and Isabelle, and has threatened Tom Nook with Hotarumaru before. “Don’t you cheat me you stupid tanuki, don’t make me get my brother in here.”

Games that Aizen cannot play are puzzle games. He doesn’t mind them, he just finds them really boring. He watches Akashi play them sometimes but even then, Akashi will conk the hell out. If you play them and have Aizen on your lap watching, Aizen will be amazed at how you are so good at them!

Aizen cannot deal with horror games or sad emotional games. He’s pretty emotional himself and will need a lot of hugs after. He will refuse to play Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons as they remind him of Hotarumaru and himself a lil too much. Horror games is because he’s too scared to. Hotarumaru doesn’t mind them, he likes playing them while Aizen and Akashi cling on to each other and scream in terror.

Aizen also loves games that not only have great music but the visuals and colors just catch his eye. Katamari Damacy comes to mind and he loves the main character a lot. The music! The colors! Ohh man its the best.

A guilty pleasure game he would love is the monster catching genre, Pokemon is an idea but he also loves Yokai Watch. Yokai Watch feels a lil more closer to home, plus Yokai Watch had a crossover with Taiko no Tatsujin! He immediately wasted no time and effort to try and recruit Don-chan. iM STILL TRYING TO GET DON-CHAN ON MY TEAM U LIL SHIt but also im rly biased towards yokai watch and digimon

This lil guy will also love collecting plushies of any characters of the games he plays! Don-chan is his first choice of course but catch him and Hotarumaru in a little cuddle puddle with 70 other plushies from various games!

Most of all, Aizen loves games where he can play with others! Friends, family, you! It doesn’t matter to him! He’ll drag you from your office to relax and just cheer anyone up with something fun! “Come play with me! You promised after all, master! I’ve found a rEALLY cool and fun game to play together with Hotaru!” bless him he’s trying his best

Atsushi Toushirou

Like Aizen, Atsushi will mostly enjoy multiplayer games because of his multitudes of brothers, younger and older. He’ll pick out games like Mario Party, Mario Kart, classics for sure. But then there’s games like Wario Ware or Smash Bros. He wants to play games with as many people as possible! He loves it when he can play with you and his brothers!

If Atsushi wants to play something more solo, he will play something along the lines of Cooking Mama. Houchou got him addicted to it gee i wonder why Houchou loves the game so much but Atsushi just loves the dishes that he can prepare and it almost feels like he can cook! He once tried to follow exactly what Cooking Mama did in the game for cooking once uh...it did not end up. But none the less, he loves the colors and the music of Cooking Mama!

He is also a big ol fan of life simulation games, Animal Crossing being his favorite. Again he and his siblings can all play together and the calm atmosphere almost lulls him to a peaceful sort of sleep that he adores the most. He loves the relaxing vibe and sometimes wishes to live there, wherever the hell these guys live.

Next to Yagen, I think Atsushi will lowkey adore horror games. Yagen does it just to get a rise out of the rest of his siblings and Atsushi is kind of the same. Sure Yagen finds the most gorey and atmospheric based horror to scare the crap outta his siblings, Atsushi will probably play the more jumpscare based horror games just to get a scare outta them too! What good is a horror game if you’re not scared as well??? Damn right he’ll wait until it’s night time to play these games!

Atsushi also does love RPG games! Star Ocean, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, come to mind first. He just loves going on big adventures! Exploring new worlds, meeting new people, learning new things! Bonus points if the game has a really emotional story, catch him and his brothers crying about whatever happens on screen.

Atsushi has a secret fondness for rather childish games. Pokemon, Yokai Watch, so on and so forth. YEs he’s trying his best to be mature and stuff, supporting you his saniwa and all, but sometimes he just wants to be himself and have fun! He has a few mascot plushies from his brothers too, shhh.

Atsushi is also terrifyingly amazing at turn-based strategy games. Mario + Rabbids being a favorite because of the colors and overall fun atmosphere. Fire Emblem is a close second. He knows exactly how to keep his units and characters alive, what upgrades to give them, so on and so forth. “General! Come look at what I did in my game! Wouldn’t it be cool if we could also do something like this?!” he says that as Rabbid Luigi yeets himself off of normal Mario and soars through the air like a bird, landing gracefully without hurting himself. Atsushi no.

He’s the most likely of the TouDans to get into the indie gaming scene, looking at new and upcoming content creators to see what they make! He wants to support them as much as he can!

He’s also one of the more responsible of the TouDans in terms of games. Others will start buying them on a whim but Atsu knows there’s a budget to be had! He isn’t as money crunching as Hakata or anything but he knows his damn limits!

Another game genre he’s secretly into are visual novels. He loves the budding relationships between characters, romantic or not, he loves seeing where they end up! It’s like he’s growing with them!

#touken ranbu #touken danshi #touken ranbu x reader #touken ranbu imagine #tkrb #tkrb x reader #tkrb imagine #mutsunokami yoshiyuki #mutsunokami yoshiyuki x reader #mutsunokami yoshiyuki imagine #my writing #aizen kunitoshi #aizen kunitoshi x reader #aizen kunitoshi imagine #atsushi toushirou #atsushi toushirou x reader #atsushi toushirou imagine #https://toukenramblings.tumblr.com/tagged/Chaotic%20Citadel%20Correspondences #Chaotic Citadel Correspondences

[steponmepinkjun]

I NEVER FINISHED MY STORY OMG. ok so i left off at being too proud to tell my friend she was right and kpop fucked hard. the difference between u and me is that i’m too good of a liar. too good. i kept up the “i hate kpop it’s cringe” facade for ALMOST TWO WHOLE YEARS, I SHIT YOU NOT. why? bc my dumb ass, extra ass, dramatic ass self thought “ok if i’m gonna have to deal with the embarrassment of admitting i’m wrong, i better do it in such an extra ass way it’ll knock ur socks off so hard that YOULL be the one embarrassed not me.” the original plan was to learn the entire choreography to bts dope, bc it’s the song that she told me to listen to and inevitably the song that got me into them, but later switched to bts fire bc i saw too many of those “choreo matches w any song” videos, and then her birthday party came up. and here’s the real kicker. her birthday is April Motherfuckin Fools. so it would be So Perfect for me to reveal my kpopism as a birthday present And a april fools prank in one. so i was Set on the Reveal being on april 1st, but the day rolls around and god that choreo is so fucking hard and i am Not a dancer. never have been. so i abandon that and go ykno what… i’ll do it Next Year. BC MY BITCHASS WAS LIKE NO THE MOMENT IS TOO PERFECT TO DO IT ON A NORMAL ASS DAY ITS GONNA BE ON APRIL FOOLS ON HER GODDAMN BIRTHDAY OR NOT AT ALL. a year rolls by, i’ve told most of our friends except her and they’re all in on it, i’d made so many subtle kpop references to her without her realising they were fully intentional and had too many scares where she almost figured me out but i lied my way out of it, and i’d given up on showing off with choreography bc i couldn’t make that shit look good. i’m not a dancer. i am, however, a rapper, and a damn good one, so i inhaled the agust d mixtape and decided i’d just rap the eminem of kpop’s anthem at her face. in korean. and change the lyrics at the end (if u haven’t listened to agust d, the bridge repeats “i’m sorry” a lot) to “i’m sorry i kept this from u for so long” and “i’m sorry i actually ult got7 not bts” (this was like the april after skz debuted ok i was holding onto got7 for dear life knowing full well skz we’re going to convert me smh) and the best part? she never saw it coming. her official present was a cd with a bunch of kpop on it but she thought it was just a personalised mixtape for her so i told her to play the first song out loud and she knew the song Instantly. it has a long intro so she was like “i guess u did listen when i recommended u this song!! i knew you’d like it since u like rap so much!!” and then i started rapping and i shit u not. she started SCREAMING. like the initial reaction was her jaw dropping and then instinctively covering her mouth but when i kept going and she realised i wasn’t fucking around she just fucking screamed like a banshee. at the end during the sorry bit i threw off my jacket to reveal a got7 shirt on the inside and she fell off her chair and started rolling around on the floor. needless to say it was every bit as satisfying as i thought it’d be LMAOOOO afterwards her ass was like “I CANT BELIEVE U HID THIS FROM ME FOR OVER A YEAR” and when i tried to explain my ego couldn’t take the “i told u so” she was like “you know i wouldn’t have made fun of you for it right? i would just be glad you’re not hating on my boys anymore” so basically i’m a big dramatic fool and she was always too good for me.

don’t mind the weird spaces here my ipad is being all fucky wucky w me rn. damn sad to hear ur sideblog experience didn’t go so well, i’d have shown u the cool side of the fandom if i knew 😤😤 leading u thru the cursed halls of kpop stan tumblr like a sketchy tour guide that’s actually 3 small raccoons stacked on top of each other like a trench coat, like “over here we have the fanfic writers that honestly need to publish a book, over here we have the gif makers that are responsible for my entire camera roll, if we take a quick swerve past the death threat anons and the twt fanwar screenshots - mind ur feet bub the 14 year olds were tryna make a grab for ur ankles - ah here’s the holy grail of shitposts, you might be here for hours, to the right we have the weird aussie side of the fandom that projects our childhoods onto chanlix but also all the members as we decide what their life in australia would’ve been like, and down there is a secret trapdoor to the blogs w endless random headcanons that will make you laugh, cry or blush depending on if the author woke up and decided to choose violence today. enjoy your Stay!” but then again i’m not so active on tumblr anymore (ngl you’ve become the highlight of my tumblr experience these days, interaction wise,) so maybe all my Local Hotspots are inactive now. i know a bunch of them are, it’s sad. “i don’t fw stan twitter for the same reason i don’t hang out in meth dens” oop. guess i’m a meth addict. no but i get u i rly do, it’s a hellhole out there, but the fact that things get shared and spread a lot easier than on tumblr and how short most things have to be (therefor keeping up w my adhd attention span without having to resort to the mental torture that is tiktok, with the added bonus of not always needing headphones.) that i just. couldn’t leave if i tried. maybe i should try being active on tumblr again but it’s a dying site in comparison.

“their music doesn’t consistently hit for me as much as skz” i’m sorry we can’t be friends anymore. what. what. you don’t dramama ramama ramama hey? you don’t feel a little jealousyyyyyy, naega anin? you don’t shoot out, shoot out, shoot out, or aremdaeun love killa love killa? you can’t be your hero du du du du du du du du du dududu? u disappoint me. literally like everyone i know who likes skz music likes mx music like it’s a rite of Passage. they’re kindred spirits, monsta x music is like skz’s music’s cool but mildly heterosexual older brother. neither of them know what a bad song is it runs in the family. and both their music runs in my VEINS. whenever i describe my music taste they’re always the first two that come to mind, skz being my number 1 bc they are my best boys but mx bc of the Flavour. pls listen to the entire the code album then get back to me 😤🙌 ok but fr ur so right they are 7 of the finest men i ever seen (yes i say 7 bc i’m including wonho cause he deserved better and i’ll die on my ot7 bullshit.) like don’t get me started on them either LOL i LITERALLY downloaded that one insta video of changkyun working out his back n arm muscles w his tattoo showing bc i needed that shit saved for Science. they could do Anything w me like frfr. yes vixx is the bdsm contract group i’m telling ya they wildin. or at least they were. it’s been years since their last comeback idk what they’re doing anymore tbh. and yeah that makes sense, savouring the hyperfixation i feel it, but also i’m so attached to skz that i never let it die. like i hyperfixate on other things and other groups but i will Always go back to skz cause they’re my homeboys. hell, they’re my home. being a predebut stay i’ve spent more time w skz than most of my actual family members at this point. but that’s just me you do u boo xx just know that if ur anything like me ur never letting go once skz it’s been my longest lasting fixation cause they hit like Nothing Else Do. ik i’ve already said that but i cannot stress it enough. they’re really special. i’m gonna stop here before i get all sappy and emotional bc i really love those boys so fucking much and i don’t drop the L bomb often. SIDE NOTE I WOULD LIKE TO SEE UR LIST OF GROUPS RANKED BY THORSt. i need to judge ur Taste. and omg cat&dog is such a guilty pleasure song bc the lyrics make me cringe so much bc while pet play can be fun they be doing it in more of an “i’m an innocent soft dogboy uwu” kinda way that just Does Not Sit Right with me. it comes back to the objectifying of asians that asians themselves don’t help in industries like these and maybe i’m looking too far into it when rly it is just wholesome n cute or maybe they are into some pet play shit idk idc i will bop to the song regardless but i will not acknowledge the lyrics nope.

YOURE RIGHT THO SKZ’S OPENNESS IS IN FACT, A BIG DEAL, i’ll grab them for u if u want but i found these twt threads of skz supporting the lgbt community and i just felt a special kind of happiness man like sure the delusional part of me likes going “haha they’re gay” bc my brain likes to imagine them as my polycule of mlm boyfriends bc sometimes thats what gives me the serotonin to get me thru the day ok don’t judge but also bc it’s nice knowing that yes i’ll never know them personally, but at least i can support them knowing they’d respect my gender identity and my pronouns, they’d respect who i choose to love, and that’s already more than the general public can say so shit, it is special! it’s special that they don’t treat being cishet like the norm - they constantly remove gender from their songs and speech entirely, they don’t assume all stays are female anymore, we don’t talk abt the babygirls incident cause we got babystays in the end outta that ok, and it’s just. so refreshing and important to me bc i can’t get that anywhere else!! like my semi ults are the boyz and while i love them very much and there’s no way all 11 of them are straight i refuse, i do get just a little bit sad whenever they she/her their fandom by default and call them their girlfriends n shit even tho i do still identify as a girl, i’m also genderfluid/nonbinary/transmasc, and i have a very love/hate relationship w my womanhood and rarely use she/her pronouns, cause it’s like, do you not see me? see us? the ones who aren’t cishet women? i mean i know kevin does bc he congratulated a fan who came out as nb but it’s just not the same as the openness we get w skz. like how do i trust cishets i could be supporting them as a queer person when in reality they’d call me a slur. what would i know, behind the screen? so it’s so good that skz go the extra mile to make it a safe space for everyone. this is already long enough i will reply to the second half of that ask in another message… tomorrow cause it’s 1am and i’m tired gn -felix bi anon

I'mma have to start putting these under a readmore so that i don't absolutely make everything who is still following me for some reason go totally fucking insane 😂

NDJDHWJJAHFNAKBSJSBFBHHDBDNAJD YOU HAVE NO IDEA THE FACES I WAS MAKING READING THIS, I WAS FUCKING CACKLING AND GASPING EVERY OTHER SENTENCE SO HARD THAT I SCARED THE CATS NDJWHSHSB the fact that you went "oh you want me to get into kpop? Give me a hot minute, and I'll give you a whole ass private concert for free" biduehsjdbd biiiiiiiiiiitch you're a fucking ICON, I stg I could NEVER 😂 (and not just because I couldn't find a tune if you gave me a printed set of Google maps directions and that I embody the steriotype that white people can't dance, like my sister kept sensing me tiktoks of the whole "dance like a white girl" trend going lmfao look it's you and eventually I was like "sis please this trend has me feeling like being white is a disability and these mothafuckers are being ableist 😭 also I could NEVER be that on beat so yall ain't even doin it right 😭😭😭😭"). Tbh if I told one of my friends (lol what friends, i got jokes) to get into Skz and they showed up at my bday and performed the entirety of I Got It I would simply shower them in money and go "aight everyone else go home, you are no longer needed, you are being laid off, your position has been eliminated, we're downsizing, the company is moving up and you're moving out, you are not qualified for this role any longer, best of luck with future endeavors" 😊

I think part of the reason I can't deal w Twitter is the exact reason I refuse to leave tumblr, in that I've been on tumblr since 2006 and twt since 2008, and tumblr literally has not changed at all, not even a little, whereas going from the early days of twt where there were no corporate sponsorships or ads and you had to manually copy and paste someone's tweet and @ them to retweet it, to how it is now, like 90% ads and showing me shit from the timelines of people I don't even fuckin follow n whatnot, it's just not enjoyable. Idk how anyone finds anything on twt, it confuses and frustrates me because I am old and have not adapted well to technology changing 😂 But arguably, the skz fanbase doesn't want me on skztwt anyways so like it works for both of us lmfaooo. I am old and cringey, and also still think of twt as stream of consciousness whereas tumblr is your teenage bedroom where you can decorate the walls with anything that interests you. I do really love the nonsensical kpoptwt shitposts tho fhshsbdjjss like it is a very specific flavor of mental instability that I enjoy immensely 😂 OH and also I initially misread part of that and thought you were saying you actually irl do meth and I was like 😳 WHAT DO I SAY TO THAT. HOW DO I HANDLE THIS. Like how do I express like "I wasn't being judgy of people who use substances cause I've been there but I was just being insensitive 😳" And then went back and reread it and was like WHEW, IM JUST AN ILLITERATE FOOL 😂😂😂😂 ejeywhdhrhjwbfbdjshdhdhd I spent like an hour bwign like "IS THE REASON WE GET ALONG BECAUSE THEY'RE ON METH???? WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS INFORMATION??????" hrhehshe I am literally a fuckin idiot it's fine

It's not that I don't fw them, it's more like... Okay so like there is no situation in which I am going to skip a skz song if it comes on shuffle. You will not ever catch me NOT in the mood to listen to Sunshine, if God's Menu comes on we are THROWIN the meager amount of booty meat I got hither and thither, I could be in the happiest mood of my life but if Ex comes on I will stop to SOB. And I'm not like that with most music, so mx just falls into the category of "there is a time and place." Idk why but it just doesn't forcibly grab hold of my heart and ass the way skz always does. I really don't WANT my skz fixation to ever end, but I know that eventually it'll stop giving me dopamine bevause my brain is my worst fucking enemy 🙃 like my arcana fixation is to date the longest running hyperfixation I've ever had, going on almost three years, and I used to not be able to spend every single second of every day thinking about Asra, but now... I just feel nothing when I look at arcana stuff. As you can probz tell by the fact that I hardly post arcana anymore 😂 So I know that eventually all my happiness will end, it always does, I can never stay just as obsessed with something as I was for long. I CANT SHARE THE LIST BECAUSE I DONT *HAVE* TASTE YET 😭 I'm basically just compiling a list of any group someone tells me I should look into, ranked by how strong the kitty purred upon googling pics of them 😂 My mom read my ass to FILTH over txt lmfao she was like "they're not that adorable. Maybe your standard for adorableness has gone down with You Know Who still on hiatus 🤔" bfjwhdhd like MOMMAAAAA THE LIBRARY IS CLOSED 😂 she attacks me any time I even hint at stanning other groups, she is a skz purist and stans skz only, unofficial Momma Stay of All Stays keeping me in check lmfao.

I feel like skz really do follow thru on their promise that they're a safe space for stays, it's nice to see that they hold space for anyone and everyone in their fanbase and do it in a really simple and elegant way, I feel. Like they never make it seem like "okay here are the fans and here are the token weirdos that were only recognizing to make a buck off of them" the way a lot of artists make it feel like 😑 like they don't go out of their way to act like it's some revolutionary act to do the bare minimum of not shitting on certain parts of the fandom, if that makes sense. They feel very "yeah, of course we love all our stays, this is a welcoming space for literally anyone, that's how it should be, that should be normal," instead of like "Hi fans we love you 😊 and special shoutout to you ell gee bee tee folk, make sure to buy my rainbow merch after the show!!!" you know? Like, they're the friends who would never make you feel weird or different for some shit, the friends that take the attention off you if something they know ur sensitive about comes up, instead of weirdly snapping at whoever brought the unfomfy thing up which ruins the mood and makes you feel tiwce as bad, yk? They just give off this vibe that they, and the space they create with their music, is just a genuine and chill place to be and hang out and relax and bond. I feel like they'd be the friend group that is so goofy and sweet and silly and accepting and lovely and always makes you feel loved and excited to be alive 🥺 They are all good noodles 🥺🥺🥺

#felix-bi-anon #asksteppie

[mycandylovefanatics]

Heey guuurl can you write a headcanon about how boys will act at a party with candy (but they not a couple yet) and how they flirt and tease eachother, how they act and if they kiss/make out at this party how would it be? (For Cas, Armin and Nath) Thanks and keep writhing cause reading what you write always made my day so much better 💛

I’m glad my stuff makes your day better that’s so nice ;-; reading that made my day better!

Castiel

Honestly, Cas MIGHT only be going to this party because you’re going. It’s not that he doesn’t like his peers, or parties in general, but when he finds out you’ll be there he’s more inclined lol

He won’t show up until a bit later, but as soon as he gets there his eyes scan the crowd for you. He won’t come up to you right away though, he just kind of watches you. He likes seeing you dance and have fun. He’s sippin’ his beer, enjoying the laughs that come out of your mouth from whatever it is you’re talking about with your friends

But then he sees some guy eyeing you from across the room lololol and he KNOWS this dude is gonna try to make a move when he starts walking towards you. But then, nope here comes Cas, inconspicuously shoving through people, and before you know it he’s behind you. He puts a hand on your shoulder, “Hey, little girl.”

Other guy is salty asf lol

He’s not a dancer so he won’t join you, but he does play the drinking games with you, partially because he wants to make sure you’re not drinking too much and partially because he just likes being around you.

His flirting is very straight to the point, but not super bold? Depends on what Castiel we’re talking about, high school or UL. He’s not afraid to compliment you that’s for sure. He’ll say things like “That dress looks really good on you,” which in itself is a simple thing to say but there’s a certain tone and glint in his eye that lets you know that he’s REALLY saying “you look fucking hot and I would tap that”

He starts to get a little more touchy as he gets more alcohol in his system, so as the night goes on he’ll go from just standing really close to you, to maybe having his hand on your thigh, rubbing circles with his thumb. He’s not trying to get in your pants or anything with this, it’s simply just a show of affection. But he won’t deny that you having really nice thighs lmao

He’ll probably kiss you AFTER the party. He’s never been the type to enjoy being super affectionate in public, regardless of if it’s just a random hookup or someone he actually cares about. He’ll invite you to his place, or maybe yours. Doesn’t matter. But unlike in UL I don’t think his intentions when he invites you over is to try to have sex with you. He simply just wants to have some alone time with his crush lololol

You’re both sitting on his couch, talking and laughing about whatever, and when you’re in the middle of a sentence he just goes for it and kisses you. It’s super slow, and kind of sloppy but all in all nice. I imagine his lips to be super soft and warm lmao. This probably does indeed lead to a makeout session, and maybe further if you want to but he’s not trying to have a one night stand with you so you don’t have to worry if he’ll ghost you after he gets some.

Oh and it’s a super nice makeout too because you're straddling him, and his hands are just traveling all along your body. You can tell he’s trying really hard to not trail down too low though lol it’s cute. And he really likes it when you run your fingers through his hair so do that

Nahthaniel

Nath is more inclined to go to parties regardless in UL, than he would be in HS. So he was probably already going but when he learns you’re going to be there it’s an added bonus. So he waits in excitement for you to show up if he gets there before you, or if he shows up later then he doesn’t bother waiting to approach you.

You’re minding your business, maybe ordering a drink or something when outta nowhere you can feel his breath on your ear. “I’m glad that you’re here.” He thinks your little flustered face is cute, he enjoys keeping you on your toes lol

Also not a dancer but he’ll at least get on the floor with you maybe, spin you around a bit. You’re doing most of the dancing and he’s just enjoying the show

He’s a little more touchy at first. He does these little small acts of affection but he’s a lot less shy about it than he would have been. Like he’ll move your hair out of your face, maybe tucking your hair behind your ear but he lets his hand linger for a little bit, trailing his fingers down to your chin and giving you that cute little side smirk he has. I hate him but i love him ugh

He doesn’t follow you around like a puppy dog but he still keeps tabs on you, and he’s with you for most of the night anyways. He makes sure to keep shady looking guys away from you, giving death glares to anyone who thinks they have a chance lmao.

Your kiss probably happens after the party as well. He offers to walk you back home, and you’re standing in front of your door. He’s not expecting you to invite him in but if you do of course he won’t object. He’s about to leave when he says goodnight, and kisses you on your cheek,  but then he pulls back and notices your faces are really close right now. So he just goes for it.

It’s really gentle and careful at first because he wants to see what your reaction will be, but then he sees that you’re returning the kiss and he goes all in. He pulls you in by your waist and you guys are going to town in front of your door lmfao. You may as well just go inside so you aren’t freezing to death. But I mean with how hot your bodies are it probably won’t matter.

Armin

I personally don’t see Armin to be much of a party goer! I mean he likes them but he’d much rather be at home with his games. And if we’re talking UL Armin, well it was discussed that he’s got some big IT job or something so I’d imagine he wouldn’t have too much time to go to parties? But when he learns you’ll be there his outlook changes and he’s suddenly available lmao

He wastes no time in walking up to you, and I’m assuming you guys have an unspoken agreement that you like each other lmao. So he’ll come up to you like, “Hey there, cutie!” Ahhhh i miss him ;-;

You’re like the only reason he came to this thing in the first place so you spend the entire night together. And Armin is a bit more outgoing than the other two so he will dance with you and he’s not shy about it. He’s probably a bit awkward but he doesn’t care cause he’s having fun with you.

He’s verrrry touchy-feely, whether that's standing super close to you or full on putting an arm around you. He isn’t shy about the fact that he likes you and clearly you like him too so why not be bold about it? Expect a lot of teasing from your friends though lol especially Alexy

His flirting isn’t like smooth talk, it’s a lot of joking around and things like that. Humor and physical touch is how he flirts. He loves making you laugh. So just imagine sitting at the bar with him, cracking up at something he says with his arm draped around you having the time of your lives. Ahhh so cute.

He’ll probably kiss you on the way home or something too because he doesn’t want to deal with the relentless teasing you know you’ll face from Alexy. Probably taking a walk or something through the park. I could totally see you stopping for a late night snack like ice cream or something and eating it in the park. You’ve got a sprinkle on the side of your mouth and he licks it off, simply trying to be a goofball but then he’s like… you know what why not so he kisses you right there. Ice cream is probably gonna be forgotten about lol.

Your makeout is slow, and very heated. You both have to really restrain yourselves from being too handsy in public lol when you break away his face is this really cute shade of pink but your’s probably matches

[apiratecalledav]

Is there other stuff that makes you think hbo messed with gendrya?

Oh, man, I’m probably gonna be thought of as the Murray Bauman of the fandom…. But yeah, there’s actually quite a bit that makes me think that it’s possible. When season 8 first aired, I thought that maybe executive meddling shot them down for some reason, most logically to protect spinoff potential.  They might have let the show “test the waters” but ultimately wanted them left ambiguous.

I thought it was… interesting… that Gendry and Arya had by far the gentlest, most amicable breakup in the entire series— and that it was over Gendry’s lordship that he straight up said wasn’t worth anything without Arya—when HBO UK made a cryptic tweet that made me wonder if someone high up was leery of the pairing/fan reaction.  If they wanted the option for an Arya Stark spinoff someday, I could see why they wouldn’t want her to end in a relationship they thought might be poorly received.  

I also thought that maybe since Gendrya went so far out of the show’s usual M.O. (to the point that it was one of the very few things about season 8 that I was wildly off about) that their thought process might have plausibly been something like, “Gendrya can’t be endgame? Well, fuck it. We’ll go all out and have them do pretty much everything else: Make out, spend the night together, save the world, say, ‘I love you,’ and get down on one knee to propose.”

I also thought that I was probably just a tinfoil-hat-wearing weirdo saying, “My OTP wasn’t definitively endgame! It must be a conspiracy.”

But I rewatched the whole season a little while ago and I noticed some things that I think are… interesting. Although, you should keep in mind that it was during two VERY long and VERY boring days at work where I had nothing to do.

I could just be shipper trash, seeing what I wanna see. Maybe not. I’m just saying that I’d believe it if something was up. From the way they portrayed Arya and Gendry, in general and especially in comparison to Jon/D-ny (I’ve anti tagged but if you don’t have blacklisting enabled, this is your fair warning), I could believe that the writers like the ship. And while Arya is certainly not the poster child for perfect mental health, there isn’t anything to suggest she would be toxic in a long term relationship. She isn’t selfish or cruel. I also don’t think that she hates herself the way that Sandor and Jaime did and that she believes she deserves to be “punished” or alone. She didn’t say anything to Gendry about not wanting to be a wife, just not a lady. 

They’re consistently portrayed as a healthier/more favorable foil to Jon and D-ny:

In 8x01, D-ny swoops down on Winterfell and is cavalier as fuck about resources.  She has no comment about food except that dragons eat “whatever they want.” The next scene, we see Gendry running to catch a chunk of dragonglass that was about to tumble out of the wagon. He tells everyone to be careful because they need every last bit of it. He then goes on to climb up the wagon, much like Arya did in the pilot episode. I think it’s even in the same spot. If not, it’s very similar.

Also 8x01, D-ny tells Jon, “keep your Queen warm” and while they are kissing, Jon keeps opening his eyes and freaking out because scary dragons are eyeballing him. And D-ny is pretty much like, “Don’t worry about it, it’s cool.” Even though she’s already made a few jokes about how if they decide to roast Jon then he’s shit outta luck and she threatened Sansa. Then the very next scene is Gendry and Sandor just before Arya finds them. Arya teases Gendry as well but she also defends him from Sandor, compliments him, jokes he should “keep close to that forge” if he’s cold and tells him not to call her Lady Stark. They laugh and banter and all awkwardness fades away and they’re both grinning like dorks. Arya actively wants Gendry to see them as equals; D-ny subconsciously wants Jon in his place.

Even as the dead are practically in their backyard, D-ny keeps obsessing about the throne. Meanwhile, Arya’s station doesn’t bother Gendry anymore because he knows it doesn’t matter. He also signed up to help Jon immediately without asking for anything in return.

Arya and Gendry each seek the other out in 8x02 but Jon spends a lot of it trying to avoid D-ny until the last moment

8x02 Arya and D-ny find out Gendry’s and Jon’s parentages. It makes no difference to Arya, she loved Gendry when he was a barmaid’s bastard and she loves him when he’s a king’s son. Jon’s  bio father shatters D-ny’s whole world.

Most of Jon’s family (this includes Sam) distrust and fear D-ny. Jon and Sandor like Gendry and Sansa and Bran have no complaints at least.

Their ~love scenes~ have a few shots that mirror each other, too.  But we see the buildup for Arya and Gendry, their conversation, their first kiss, undressing each other. We see Jon and D-ny and in the middle of things, during a montage explaining how they’re closely related and narrated by Jon’s little brother. Not exactly sexy. Then it cuts to Tyrion lurking nearby looking troubled and finally ends with an ominous shot of the Targ flagship in the dark and gloom. Meanwhile, Arya and Gendry are alone, not related, and are the sole focus of the scene. There’s not even music.

In 8x04, at the funeral, Gendry and Arya are initially a good distance apart. Then after they light the pyres, you get a shot of Arya with (an admittedly very blurry) Gendry visible over her shoulder. Meanwhile, Jon and D-ny stand together while lighting the fire and then they part.  

Gendry’s “I love you” to Arya is enthusiastic and happy and D-ny’s to Jon is coming from a place of mourning at best and it’s straight up manipulative at worst.  The words “I love you” are rare in this show. I can only remember Jorah saying it a couple of times, Littlefinger to Cat and Sansa, Joffrey pledging to wed Margaery, and Robb to Talisa. The only times it’s not sad or creepy are Robb and Gendry.

These two scenes are the most glaringly obvious. But to summarize, Arya tries to set Gendry “free” when his life changes in a direction she doesn’t want for herself and D-ny tries to put Jon into a corner and make sure his life CAN’T change into one that she doesn’t want. 

So with that stuff in mind, I could buy that maybe they wanted Arya and Gendry to reunite in King’s Landing and try to save civilians together.  Or maybe have Jon ask Gendry to take Arya as far away as he can before Jon goes to that throne room to do what he has to do. Hell, look at Arya’s final scene as is: She’s on a ship and then you see her Stark sigil on the sail against the sunlight… If Gendry was with her, that’d sure look like a happier version of D-ny and Jon’s scene from the end of season 7…   While probably a bit too on the nose for GRRM’s books, I could see the show implying that Gendry and Arya are the second, more hopeful verse of the Song of Ice and Fire…

Other Season 8 Subtext-y things:

Marriage imagery; Arya under Gendry’s cloak. Bonus points for it being shown during these lines from Jenny’s song: “spun away all her sorrow and pain/and she never wanted to leave.”  “She spun away and said to him, ‘no featherbed for me.’”

Pretty much all of Gendry’s scenes in season 8 are with Arya or he’s with Sandor, talking about her. The small handful of times he’s not with either of them, he’s with her siblings and other people connected to House Stark like Tormund and Davos and even Sam and Edd.  After their “breakup” he virtually disappears. Pretty much the ENTIRE reason they brought him back was for Arya and to be tied strongly to House Stark.

Beric and Melissandre, who once wanted to sacrifice Gendry for “the greater good” and caused Arya to turn towards a darker path, sacrifice themselves to defeat the dead, not only saving Arya’s and Gendry’s lives but guiding Arya further into “light.” To the point where she literally ends the Long Night.

Gendry tells Arya that she’s beautiful and he loves her and gets down on one knee to ask her to marry him… Which is so wildly uncharacteristic for this show that I still can’t believe that it’s real. It’s by far the most traditional romantic moment in the entire series.  I suppose it could just be fan service, but 8x02 would have sufficed on that front. Not to mention that “fan service” in this show has never been something so wholesome.  

They could have done the proposal differently. They could have had Gendry say crap like, “Now we can settle down and live a boring, respectable life” or something else that would have been really unappealing to Arya. It actually would have been another connection to Robert/Lyanna, where Robert only loved his idea of Lyanna. But nope. They could have framed it as Gendry trying to do the honorable thing or “they’re gonna marry us off anyway, at least we like each other.” But nope.

Gendry could have been put off by Arya’s combat skills but he was turned on by it. She even used her “game of faces” voice on him and it didn’t send him running for the hills.

They also could have easily had Gendry be too “tame” for Arya but nope.  Her face at this part just kills me.

They made a thing out of Gendry being “forever loyal” to D-ny after she legitimized him but he had jack shit to say about her at the Great Council and was all too happy to vote for King Bran, even after Arya had turned him down.

A follow up to that other post in regards to a Gendry-ish looking guy grabbing Arya and asking if she’s seen his wife, Alanna: Magaery’s cousin with the same sounding name gets a GRRM-esque weird spelling: Allana with two Ls and one N. As opposed to the more traditional spelling that looks more like Lyanna….

One of the surviving lords at the Great Council is specifically from the Storm Lands. He’s probably who has had Storm’s End for the last few years and maybe he doesn’t deserve to get kicked out by a boy who doesn’t have any idea how to be a lord and doesn’t even want to be a lord without Arya.  He even has a name: Lord Une.  The Dornish prince doesn’t have a first name but this guy does?

Also, Une is a very unusual name. It’s not from the books and it doesn’t really sound Medieval Europe-y, either. Maybe there’s an inside joke or something? That’s definitely not a name you just pull from the air.  

Arya lights Beric’s funeral pyre but if Sandor didn’t have issues with fire, I think he probably would have done it as Beric’s last surviving friend. It kind of gives us the sense that Arya can do what Sandor can’t—which of course, she ultimately does when she decides to leave Cersei while Sandor, who has missed so much being hurt and angry, can only have peace/forgive himself is if he stops Gregor forever. 

In the very next scene after the funeral, we see Gendry and Sandor talk about Arya. Sandor basically says that normal, living people have emotions and hormones and it’s not a bad thing.  Sometime later, we see Sandor scare off a girl who makes a pass at him. The next scene is Gendry and Arya. Arya also ‘rejects’ her love interest but it’s in an infinitely more thoughtful way. We already know that it’s easier for Arya to be close to other people than it was for Sandor. Arya just has a little bit more to go until she’s completely ready for something serious.  

Episodes 1 and 2 establish a pattern of “Sandor then Gendry.” It’s how they arrive at Winterfell. It’s how they reunite with Arya. It’s how Arya visits them towards the end of 8x02. Sooo again, I could see at one point the intention was for them to reunite in King’s Landing. Possibly during that bit where it keeps cutting back and forth between Sandor and Arya; “hateful” Gregor grabs Sandor up to throw him around and “loving” Gendry lifts Arya to save her from getting trampled. Nora, the name of the kind stranger who does help Arya, is essentially the “female equivalent” of Gendry’s name.    

According to the leaked outline of season 7, Gendry was originally supposed to be rescued by Benjen beyond the wall. In season 8, he has scenes with Jon, Sansa, and Bran, and even Edmure and Robin. ALMOST LIKE THEY WANTED HIM TO MEET *ALL* OF ARYA’S FAMILY. I’m pretty sure only Tyrion has met more Starks and Tullys than Gendry.

The “Ice battle” was at Arya’s childhood home and the “Fire battle” was at Gendry’s. And yeah, I think it’s pretty damn weird that a capable, uninjured soldier who has knowledge of King’s Landing isn’t there.

They gave them a reference to The Princess Bride: “As you wish.” Comparing them to a beloved couple from a modern classic is a good sign. Comparing them to most likely a childhood favorite? Even better. Comparing them to a couple where their other famous line is “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a little while.” And Arya and Gendry are still alive.  Actually, it might be a coincidence but they do have a SHIT-TON in common with The Princess Bride. GRRM is a fan, too, so maybe it was discussed at some point. It’s certainly uncanny if it wasn’t at least partially intentional. But that’s a different post.  

Sandor knows about Gendry and Arya and he doesn’t rip Gendry’s head off. Gendry basically got a blessing from Arya’s last legal guardian.

Their outfits reflect each other’s houses, Gendry’s clothes having some very Stark direwolf-like scratch marks and Arya’s scabbard is yellow and black aka Baratheon colors.

I haven’t listened to it yet, but apparently in the leaked audio commentary for 8x06, they talked about how Joe wanted Arya to notice how hot Gendry looked.

Other stuff that makes me think that the writers like Gendrya:

They gave them a lot of time and focus. Even in season 8 where they had very limited time. And objectively speaking, that time probably should have been spent with Arya and her siblings.

They had Arya befriend Gendry earlier and easier than she does in the books.

In behind the episode of 8x02, Benioff talked about how you choose to spend your last night on earth says a lot about you. The very first example he gives is Arya wanting to be with Gendry.

They are always depicted positively:  They trust each other; they respect each other; they make each other laugh; they protect each other.  Even during their “breakups” in season 3 and 8; they are honest and accepting of each other’s decisions.  These two are young and inexperienced but they manage to be more mature and healthier than 95% of the other couples.  Their relationship also doesn’t doom them the way that Robb and Talisa’s did.

They changed stuff from the books to make it– not more romantic per se given Arya’s age– but certainly shipping fuel that fit more into romantic tropes: How they meet, how Gendry discovers that she’s a girl, how Arya blatantly checks him out when he’s shirtless. Their long one-on-one and emotional “goodbye” scene where Arya says, “I can be your family.”

They changed/added lines to foreshadow “My Featherbed,” aka where Gendry is legitimized but gives it up for Arya: “I have a son, you have a daughter. We’ll join our houses” but leaving out how Robert specified Joffrey and Sansa. Changing “you’ll marry a king” and “no, that’s Sansa” to “you’ll marry a high lord” and “no, that’s not me.”  Davos telling Gendry how he became a lord to help his son and it actually got Mathos killed in battle.

The main bullet points of season 8 were largely what I was expecting and I was at least in the ballpark about a lot of the details. Like did I predict King Bran? No, but I knew he belonged in the south because he named his direwolf Summer. I knew the king or queen would be a dark horse and I was fairly certain Tyrion would be Hand. The few things I didn’t anticipate still seemed to validate the main themes and messages I thought that GRRM was going for. Like King Bran. Now I can’t believe I didn’t see it. Who better to “end the game of thrones” than someone who doesn’t want to play and also can’t be plotted against?

Gendrya is the one major thing that tripped me up. Seriously. I would have bet my fucking car that if Gendry didn’t die, he’d walk away from a lordship and be with Arya on her ship, even if the nature of their relationship was ambiguous.  

So I could believe that they wanted or at least expected Gendrya to be endgame since season 1 and someone told them no. It could have been GRRM but I must admit that I have a difficult time believing that.

I guess I could see GRRM having the point of their relationship be that Arya is upfront and honest about what she wants and Gendry respects her decision and doesn’t turn into a bitter/mopey drunk. Or that Gendry dies and Arya doesn’t wallow in it forever… But there’s so much that makes me think that Gendry is meant to be the “sweet” part of Arya’s bittersweet ending, and at least be her True Companion.  Not to mention they’re still too young to really have a relationship in the books. Well, at least Arya is. And those particular parallels to Robert and Lyanna fall pretty flat in my opinion if they’re not romantically involved.   I mean, come ON. How the hell could it NOT end with the possibility of Lyanna’s niece/ Jon’s sister and Robert’s son/D-ny+Rags cousin???

Possible HBO Shenanigans:  

I thought it was kinda funny that HBO UK–not Game of Thrones but an official HBO account– made a tweet shortly before 8x02 aired implying that Arya is eighteen… when she’s more likely sixteen (lots of reasons, not to mention that Maisie has even said that Arya is sixteen.) And sixteen is the age of consent in the UK anyway.  As far as I know, that was the only public attempt by HBO to quell controversy in an already hugely controversial season. Like, after The Bells, I don’t think anyone at HBO tweeted about “Ideally, good rulers don’t commit 2.5 times the amount of war crimes as the Night King.” So I do have to wonder if there’s a reason that they’re particularly invested and protective about Arya’s reception…

There was a huge shitstorm when Tommen and Margaery got married and pretty much most of that stuff was off screen.  Sure, Arya’s a bit older and Maisie was in her 20s while Dean-Charles was still in his teens… but people do tend to get much more outraged when it’s a girl with an older guy than vice versa.

There was also a big shakeup when AT&T acquired HBO and they got a new CEO early in 2019, a couple of months before season 8 aired. The former CEO seemed to have been championing Bloodmoon, that prequel that got canceled recently. He might have been pulling more for a potential Arya show back when the season was still being written… the new people at AT&T also seemed extremely upset over what the budgets for GoT and Big Little Lies did for their bottom line.  

While HBO has stated emphatically that there are no current plans for an Arya spinoff, they were sure to tack on a “right now, a sequel […] doesn’t make sense for us.” I do believe that this is something they want to have in their back pocket.  There’s a lot of interest in the idea and if House of the Dragon does well, I won’t be shocked if five+ years down the line we get at least a movie or a limited series about Arya. It’s by far the easiest, since her character can be isolated from everyone else and there are tons of cool places to explore. Hell, if they were really desperate, they wouldn’t even need Maisie Williams to come back. They could just recast and say she’s wearing someone else’s face to hide from mercenaries or something.  

GRRM gave an interview talking about how certain characters who have “a high Q rating” (popular) get pushed into more screen time. Bronn is almost certainly one of those characters. He’s always been a self-serving asshole, but the things that made him feel more like an affable rascal—his funny lines, his genuine and open fondness for Podrick—are all but gone in season 8. Not to mention that there’s the implied possibility he’s dying from some “pox.” In the outline for season 7, he’s much closer to “Season 8 Bronn.” Like, he was the one who was originally going to ask Jaime about Widow’s Wail and call Joffrey a “See-You-Next-Tuesday.” When Olenna said it, it was pretty funny. But coming from Bronn, it was a real dick move. I could believe that their “treatment” of Bronn in season 8 was a bit of a middle finger to him. The same way I could perceive Gendrya’s portrayal as being a “fuck you” if they weren’t allowed to actually be endgame.

TL;DR: Gendry and Arya are one of the very few healthy couples in the entire series,  and it could be argued that they even get “special” treatment. Both of them lived and while Arya certainly has been traumatized, she is not a walking dumpster fire who wouldn’t be good for him. It would have been only too easy for them to be portrayed as incompatible or worse but they weren’t. Their breakup is over a virtual nonissue. So it’s not out of the range possibility that they were a victim of executive meddling.  

And please spare me any “bUt D&D aRe ToO STuPId tO dO tHis.” I’m not campaigning for them to win Pulitzers any time soon, but the notion that they’re complete nitwits is just silly. They both have M.F.A.s  from very good schools and their scripts/outlines that I’ve read have a lot of really clever and really well-thought-out references, ranging from history to poetry to literature to even The Rolling Stones.  

I’m not saying that they intentionally did all this stuff but they certainly could have if they wanted to.

#gendrya #gendrya positivity #arya x gendry #gendry #arya stark #anti jonerys #anti daenerys #game of thrones #a song of ice and fire

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Finland to Eurovision with a meme icon and his side-kick

“heeeeeey what is that song on that video???” Definitely not Darude - Sandstorm. Grow the fuck up.

I mean that they basically threw off the open call for songs from Finnish artists, instead opting for having one artist national final, usually one very known but very gettable-bored-of name so that they could get some more viewership rather when they pick a random nobody from a bunch of other random nobodies. Last year YLE got themselves an artist whose Eurovision ticket was long overdue, but this year they went the extra step and brought us HIM.

No, not that HIM. They can't go anyway as they've already disbanded. I'm talking about HIM.

Yes, THAT HIM. Meet Toni-Ville Henrik Virtanen, which thankfully has a pseudonym to publish his music with - Darude. Almost 20 years ago he published this beautiful techno single "Sandstorm" with lyrics like "du du du du du du du du du du du du". And now it's become the big-ass target of memery for the past few years on the Internet, with Darude being very well aware of it all - I don't think he has escaped questions about "Sandstorm" now that the Eurovision interviewers media is on horizon and interviews literally every single representative, no matter if they're shy or unpopular with the bookies at all.

And even if "Sandstorm" was the only thing to shake his tiny little Finnish world, it did not break Darude to be just a one-hit wonder (well he still looks like one but yeah) and he's got more music out ever since. And it probably sounds a little too tragic when YLE resorts to just nagging and begging Darude to represent their nation, even kinda secretly hoping that thanks to him Finland can have a qualification just solely for the meme factor. Darude even said so that he at first rejected their calls, but this year became THE year for him to go, and he's not alone obviously - his credited vocalist friend for this ride to Tel Aviv became Sebastian Rejman, a bit washed-up media star who already did some collaborating with Darude.

So the format was basically the same for this year's UMK - artist announced separately, then each of their 3 songs gets published every week on a specific weekday, with single cover art and a music video already, and the Finnish people together with international juries vote for the best track. Simple as that. Unlike with Saara Aalto though, all Darude & Sebastian songs were barely even distinct from one another in sound - just techno songs that have a piece of "Sandstorm" with themselves. Well only 2 do anyway. But still, techno/house songs to listen to on the radio when you're driving and minding your own business. And I had hard time picking favourites but all of them were alright I guess. Yet somehow my least favourite happened to win... and that was "Look Away", very much so inspired by natural disasters and how do we all ignore everything around us. No matter if it's a storm or hurricane or tornado or wind throwing sand at our eyes.

I don't know why the song didn't click with me all that much at first, I suppose it was because it's just a mindless gloomy techno song that raises global awareness (we already have Denmark talking about that, but they're insisting that "love is forever", while Finland is just... getting up more seriously in all this), and besides that, it's just incredibly repetitive. It consists more of the pre-chorus-ish chorus (I mean the line "is it in my head? Am I the only one?" and that other line preceding) and the actual chorus that mostly goes like "look away, look away, look away...". Even to the point when the song ends with some additional “look away”ing but under a different drum beat. What's it with Finns having a passion for the word "away"? We already had seen them sending a "Sing It Away", which was basically a cheer-up tune telling you to sing your problems off... while this year? We're trying to NOT look into the problems dead in the eye. We're looking... erm, uh, away.

But now I do have to say that I somewhat like it. Tell it to ya - the B minor chord is possibly one of my least favourite music keys, so I might as well be a little bit more negative on it if takes the song with itself to sound incredibly dull and painfully meh. So thankfully we'll be hearing it live half a step lower (idk if that's what it is with most EDM singers in Eurovision that shit like this can be possible, as well as idk why are they allowed into Eurovision in the first place. But seriously, why can't you just choose the same key you sang in in studio for Eurovision...), which made the song sound better to me - as a Nightcore junkie, I am passionate about hearing songs in different keys all the darn time, to see in what key would a certain song sound the best. It's usually the song's key that makes me like a song better or worse live rather than a live performance itself (though in some NFs I can see which of my favourite acts are DoA by not even emoting towards them - my emotion has to be evoked, and if I evoke it on purpose, well then, I'd just rather stay motionless completely on anything and only yelp if a song causes me to do this unexplainedly). We'll see how Sebastian will execute his singing live. As for now, he's the captain of this sinking ship that hit a small iceberg (another one of the disasters we usually "look away" from until it's found in our history books). Not Darude. Darude's just merely a musical hold-up of the disaster. It all has to depend on the vocalist and if the staging clicks with the audience. Sure, Darude can put on a red wig and green sunglasses so that he could click with the meme audience, but that won't get the Finns far.

So I like this song, it actually has some cool musical moments thrown in (I like the piano for one), I can enjoy this off my free time. But Estonia does it better at the "Finno-Ugric EDM-ish entry about Mother Nature's tantrums" category and I ain't even sorry for saying this. But I gotta be sorry for Darude. This year's UMK had the lesser care about it because... well, these songs weren't exactly inspiring or anything, and with people wanting something groundbreaking, their hopes kept on vaning away with each and every song release of the UMK entries': "oh so the next 2 two songs will be good right?" "oh so then the last one will be the best one, yeah right?" "...oh, okay then .-." And him, as the Finnish meme king, should have deserved a better year for a better Eurovision stint, so he could have become something à la Epic Sax Guy. Right now I mostly see a middle-aged DJ with 2 kids, not a redhead dude with green sunglasses looking shadily on us. And that's okay sometimes because memes don't necessarily need to be remembered for memes (just like I mostly remember Kanye West for music, and then memes come second), but Finland's gonna take a miracle to get through, and I hardly see any. That's an aina mun pity.

Approval factor: Eh, it's alright, but I would certainly not hold it up to high regards post-contest? lol.

Follow-up factor: it's kiiiiinda bleak knowing that after giving us probably one of the most favourable dark horse efforts for Eurovision they're now going down the dancier route, with one entry after being a banger, the other being a dad banger. Ah well. It doesn't flow so neatly in my eyes, it seems.

Qualification factor: almost dead in the tracks. Finland flows anywhere they can, having a lot of bad luck for 3 years this decade, and I doubt that the juries will be supporting this heavily, considering they are better at rating good vocalists over bad ones, so I don't think this will sail through. But I secretly have hopes in this. It's not that bad, but Estonia is in this semi too, and it's a friendlier EDM track, so I don't quite think that repetitive will out-compell the good formulaic. Plus, Sebastian has a lot to fix vocally, and I doubt that he will carry Finland any further if he doesn't fix anything, so so far the chances of Finland aren't looking up imo. Bottom 5 at the semi is more likely if not already the actual outcome. Maaaaybe 10th in the semi at best, but I doubt it.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

The more this section pops up in my works, the less I wanna recap national finals anymore. I hope there’s more breather moments with me having to review a lot of internal selection songs in between the ones from NFs, because this whole season was an utter disaster, and it’d help if the next one isn’t. So let’s check in on Finland's selection’s best:

• But seriously, did anyone ever see Darude as a Finnish representative coming??? No??? Me neither. I was just sitting there, waiting to see if there's a hope for Mikael Saari (you know, that balladeer guy from previous UMKs - I do believe some audiences love him just as much as Saara Aalto, who only was on one UMK and one Euroviisut) to be announced on this special separate programme. Nope - the trilingual hosting trio of the programme that included Krista Siegfrids in it as the token Swedish speaker just happened to happily proclaim Darude as THE Finnish hopeful... and the world was s h o o k e t h. Just look at him go. His smug grin is still iconic on here.

• During the wait for all the UMK songs to pile up, the excitement for Darude faded away and everyone moved on to support other countries. I can't blame them, because I have found like one decent song this UMK that's still worth listening to twice a year or so - "Superman". Where Darude becomes the everyday hero for ordinary people that have difficulties in live to do mundane stuff. Maybe this song would have made him look like a better meme than his current entry would have? Just watch him go on his DJ booth dressing like a knock-off superhero because EBU doesn't allow blatant advertising. A way better gimmick than Gromee's snakey hands. Alas, no one will have to hear "Superman" anymore. Granted it's just an EDM song just like any other, but somehow I liked it best, end of.

• There's at least one memorable screenshot from UMK as well, so I'm happy with that. I saw this pop up on my Twitter time line and I could not stop laughing inside. Seriously. Krista and this other guy should host ESC provided Eurovision is ever coming back to Finland. They had a lot of iconic outfit changes during the NF itself (and the NF itself had "Look Away" with some dancer on a cube but they scrapped the tall cube for Tel Aviv entirely), but those floral onesies are my favourite.

Now I kinda hope that there’s something that will alarm YLE in the meantime that Finland needs a better approach for Eurovision and we’ll see another fully-fledged UMK in the works next year, and then Finland can be great again. For now, I’ll just wish “onnea” to Darude and Sebastian, with hopes that people don’t look away from their song at all! (but most likely they will so what’s the point.)

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #finland 2019 #darude ft. sebastian rejman #look away #finland

[cyb-by-lang]

First Ever Inter-Universal Uzumaki Family Reunion

Anonymous said to cyb-by-lang:  What would the meeting between canon-Naruto and CYB-Naruto, or canon-Naruto with CYB-Minato & CYB-Kushina like?

Hmm. That sounds like an excellent idea for a minific...

(idk, I just write the thing)

On the whole, dimension-shenanigans were something Naruto tried to avoid a lot even if he knew Obito could do weird stuff with space-time and summoning was a part of the weirdness and--who was he kidding? He only stayed out of space-time stuff because he didn’t have the toad contract or a Sharingan, because otherwise that stuff was cool as hell and he wanted in on that excitement.

Thing was, space-time stuff was also something that could get outta hand real fast, so Naruto was a little less than surprised when his first try at the thing went and blew up in his face. That was how all basic fuinjutsu went, but he had the necessary reflexes to throw the scroll and the seal array into the sand table once it started smoking.

BANG!

“Eight out of ten,” his mom said, already helping him fan away the worst of the smoke and the flying bits of sand with a big ol’ Wind jutsu. “The explosion was a lot smaller this time!”

“I think I’m getting the hang of this!” Naruto grinned, despite the debris covering him from head to toe. ‘Maki would have called him a soot-sprite or something, but that was only ‘cause she wasn’t on the real dangerous stuff yet. She’d get around to it.

“Just don’t get too carried away.” His mom’s voice wasn’t really upset or anything, so Naruto bounced on his heels for a little before he helped clear away bits of ash and stuff by fanning his jacket at it. She already had the Wind jutsu covered, so he could be a bit of a goofball about it.

Then both of them paused. Once all the smoke--chakra-based or otherwise--was gone, the sand table didn’t look quite like it had pre-explosion. And not because it was in itty-bitty pieces.

“Owww...” said the kid, who was sitting in the middle of the blast zone and looking pretty unharmed for all that. He was wearing a ton of orange, just like Naruto liked to. He was blond, too, and with a fox-like expression of frustrated pain on his face as he poked and prodded at it.

It was like looking into a scruffy mirror.

“Naruto, what did I tell you about pranking people with clones?”

“Don’t do it when Dad’s around?” His mom didn’t really look happy with that answer. “I didn’t do it, though! I promise!”

Kushina only stared him down a little longer, then blew out a sigh. “Okay. I believe you. But then, where did...?” She paused mid-sentence, her eyes glowing a little like they always did when she poked Yin Kurama for an opinion.

Naruto blinked owlishly. “Uh... Mom?”

Kushina didn’t answer, staring openly at the kid. Her hands had come up to cover her mouth, so there was clearly something weird going on, and Naruto didn’t know what it could be. Worse, his mom wasn’t talking as fast as she usually did, so something was double wrong.

Got any idea what’s going on?

...I can sense another me. Does that count, brat? was Yang Kurama’s grumpy reply.

It took a second for that response to sink in.

“...So, do I have a twin brother you and Dad forgot about?” Naruto asked, as his bizarro-clone moaned and groaned about a headache.

Kushina shook herself, recovering enough to scowl at her son. “I’d have remembered that, given how long I spent pushing--”

Oh no! “Nope! I don’t need to hear that story again!”

“Can you guys stop yelling?” the kid yelled at them both, just for bonus hypocrisy points. He scowled up at them from the wreckage of the sand table. “Geez, you’re lou...” He trailed off for a second, then his eyes almost bulged out of his head and he reeled back in shock. “Who the heck’re you?! I didn’t make any clones or nothin’!”

“I didn’t either!”

“Naruto, stop!” Kushina interrupted, slicing a hand down between the two boys like she was delivering a taijutsu chop.

“Okay, Mom.” / “Who’re you?”

Both boys looked at each other. The stranger spoke first, frowning thunderously. “No, seriously. Who are you supposed to be? You look way too much like me to be just some random enemy ninja. Is this a transformation thing? Or a genjutsu?”

He said it all in one breath, exactly like Naruto would have.

“I dunno who you’re supposed to be, but I’m Uzumaki Naruto!” was the instant response. Some part of him was bristling at the idea of another kid stealing his thing, even if they were basically twins.

“You can’t be! There’s only one me, except when there’s a ton of me!”

“Shadow Clone jutsu?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“He knows because he is, too. Two Narutos,” was Kushina’s quieter interjection, and she was looking back and forth between both boys even as they stared blankly back at her. She bit her lip for a second, then said, “We need to go find your father right now. Kei-chan, too.”

“Huh? I don’t--you...you know my dad?” And wasn’t Naruto’s other-self-dude just getting all shiny-eyed about it.

Naruto didn’t know what that meant, but it couldn’t mean anything good. If this really was another version of Naruto, then what the fuck had happened to him? “Yeah, we do. See, if you’re really another me--another Naruto--”

“There’s no one else who could be!” Other-Naruto snapped. “I’m the only Uzumaki anybody knows.”

“Not the only one,” Naruto countered. “Heck, you’re not even the only Uzumaki here who isn’t also me. ‘Cause this is our mom.”

“...Huh?”

Yeah, this was gonna be one hell of a long afternoon. Naruto could just tell. But he figured that if his other self got that gooey over meeting their mom--who looked like she really, really wanted to hug everyone and everything and especially Other-Naruto--then Naruto figured it was all off to a weird start.

Good weird, though.

#Naruto #Naruto Uzumaki #Kushina Uzumaki #Catch Your Breath fanfic #anonymous #asks

[yeehawpaddington]

10 faves in 10 fandoms

I was tagged by Actual Bully, everybody’s favourite clown fucker, and biggest Oswald stan,@endless-nygmobblepot I know this is like a week late but . I’m incapable of making decisions so this took way fucking too long,,,

Gotham - Oswald Cobblepot - I love this tiny bitch, oh boy. I’m pretty much constantly rooting for him and just every season finale the dude has fucking killed it. Green puzzle bitch is cool too sometimes IT - Richie - this fucking kid, man,,,, the whole "I told you we shouldn't do the thing and you made us do the thing and we're in trouble so I GUESS ILL FUCKING SAVE EVERYONE UR WELCOME" is such an asshole thing to say and ABSOLUTELY something I'd say. Oh we're about to die and it's you're fault? Cool I'm gonna make sure u fucking know, bicth and then I'm gonna save u because I'm Good™. My actual Trash son. 

Achievement Hunter - Geoff - This doesn't really fit in with the others considering he isn't a character but he probably means the most to me of all the people on this list. He's genuinely an inspiration and an all around great human being. Anytime he talks about his daughter or the rest of AH and how much he loves them, it makes me so fucking happy. I simultaneously want to one day be as great a person as Geoff is and also fucking wish my parents were half as kind and accepting and full of love as he is. I just fucking love Geoff, man.

The Raven Cycle - Gansey - This was actually pretty hard to pick considering how much I love all of the squad but, at least at the moment, Gansey’s a little ahead. He just cares so much,,,,, He’s a good kid. the show better do him justice or i swear to god IASIP - Dennis - this was fucking tough because I love and hate them all equally but the golden god is a specific brand of garbage that I'm apparently all about. Season 12 was a good Dennis season okay! the last episode doesn’t exist, not in my sunny! Star Wars - Finn - what an inspiration tbh like my boy was raised by The Bad Guys to go hurt innocent people and the first instances he is made to, he nopes the fuck outta there and saves everyone. He's been through so much and still has so much genuine hope in the good. I cry about Finn constantly tbh B99 - Gina - Probably the person here I relate to the least but I just love her so much. I can't really explain why because I could never do the goddess that is Gina Linetti justice. She's just so Iconic™ Dirk Gently - Dirk - Honestly he's just a giant ball of actual sunshine. I also really relate to him in that I never have a single clue what I'm doing EVER but just kinda wing it. Even though he cant possibly know so, he tells himself everything will work itself out in the end (probably?) which is fucking me as hell. The way he says “I bURNT your HOUSE DOWN?!” fucking kills me every time Shadowhunters - Magnus / Maia - I could t decide on one because I love them both so much. They've both been through so much shit but haven’t let their pasts make them unkind and cold (unlike some people sebastian u can choke). Bonus points, they’re both bi icons sooooooooo Game of Thrones - Sansa - Once again, she is someone I want to be like. Her strength and persistence is so fucking incredible. I'm so proud of where she is right now fucking up all those who wronged her mmmmm god I wish that were me

I’m only gonna tag @fistingkittxns​ because 1. i don’t mind bothering her and 2. the more people see her cursed username, the better. ruzzie b u better fuckin do this ily

#thanks for tagging me elaenor #squadfam #dirtboi

[itsclydebitches]

heyy you're still accepting prompts right? so I was thinking... what if jesse woke up during cassidy's fight with fiore and deblanc and watched most of it happen unnoticed by any of them - bonus points if he watched cass lick the blood off the floor *wink* - and then confronts cassidy the next day about it

Title: Five Second Rule 

Summary: Same as above prompt

Fandom: Preacher

Words: 3,060

Warnings: Blood, dismemberment, disgusting fetishes... 

Pairings: Jesse/Cass

Where to Read it: Below the cut or on AO3 (AO3 recommended for formatting)

Five Second Rule  

“You’ll experience shit in your life, son,” Jesse’s daddy had said, stirring a pot of cheap pasta and letting the words hang. “Real god-awful, gut-wrenching, soul-searching, testicles-drawn-up-between-your-ass shit. But nothing, nothing is gonna compare to a Grade A hangover.” He’d looked down for the first time, marinara staining his clerical collar and a bright sheen to his eyes. The Reverend took a swing from his bottle. “Us Custers can deal with anything, Jesse, except the shit we bring on ourselves,” and he took another massive, endless drink.

Jesse had believed him. Through all the fights and bad runs, missteps and bouts of stupidity, he’d always come back to the bottle. Not just for some kind of solace, but for comparison as well. Broken bones would never be as bad as the pounding that came after a night of drinking. Broken promises couldn’t compare to drinking alone.

Nothing was worse than what they did to themselves. He’d somehow taken comfort in that.

Now though? Now Jesse knew his daddy to be a goddamn liar. Because nothing compared to this.

His head didn’t just ring or pound, it was splitting, and oh, he’d used that expression before sure, sure, but never to describe the literal, impossible cracking open as his forehead got the messiest divorce in recorded history. It was a life changing kind of pain. The sort of pain that either drove you mad or threw you to new heights, and Jesse hadn’t been experiencing it long enough to figure out which was which. Hell, who could think in all this? Not him. He was nothing but pain, pain of the head, pain of the mind, the soul, and Jesus Mary Joseph that must reside in the intellect because his heart was thrumming just fine.

About a thousand miles a minute, but otherwise fine.

He wanted to groan about it, maybe scream if that would drown out some of the pain, but all Jesse could manage was the tinniest, most pathetic whimper, something he wasn’t even sure made it past the back of his throat. It gave him something else to focus on though— small as it was—and slowly, so goddamn slowly, he started taking stock of the rest of his body. Because he did have a body. He existed somewhere outside of this pain.

His legs, for example, had gone tingling cold after...however long he’d been out. His feet felt like concrete blocks nailed down to the floor. His arms were similarly heavy; his head might as well have been the weight of the world. Cracking his eyes open was a Herculean task that nearly sent Jesse back down into the darkness.

What the hell had happened to him?

Something big. Something awful and changing. Lost amongst his own attempts at thoughts, it took Jesse an indeterminate amount of time to realize that the sounds of pain he was hearing weren’t just byproducts of his own mind. Someone was suffering nearby.

Someone other than me, he thought, inner voice dark with the humor. It was enough though, and with that final push Jesse was able to open his eyes, taking in the sight of his church around him.

A church covered in blood.

The word ‘contradiction’ came to mind. As well as ‘fitting.’ Somehow they both seemed right and were able to exist cohesively, side-by-side. Bleary-eyed and cotton-headed, Jesse catalogued the smears of blood along his pews, tiny splatters on the far wall, the growing pool that was quickly spreading towards him. It seemed to be coming from something over there and—oh.

Oh. That was a leg. Not... attached to a body.

Well fuck.

That more than anything told Jesse to get the hell off his ass and move. Fight. Run. Whatever needed doing. That seemed an impossibility though given the weight of his limbs and how exhausting it was just keeping his eyes open. Jesse was used to painful exhaustion, but he’d never experienced anything quite like this. He had a vague, fuzzy memory of someone opening the doors and plowing into him...then darkness. Was that who he was hearing now? Had he been attacked?

“You filthy fuckin’ gobshite,” a voice said. It was gravel, a mouth full of sand.

And Jesse knew that voice.

“That’ll teach you to play with gardenin’ tools, stupid little asshole.”

Oh my god.

It was like some bad special effects. One moment Jesse just had a gory display of blood and leg to stare at, the next Cass flew into view, bearing down on a tall and gangly man who—huh—also seemed to be covered in blood. There was a chainsaw involved (so that was that sound) and by the time Jesse realized Cass was freaking dismembering the guy it was already over. There was a torso and limbs and half a head decorating his floor, and Cass stood amongst it all with the cheekiest grin on his face.

A dim part of Jesse, roughly labeled ‘common sense,’ told him that this was a Not Good thing he was witnessing. The larger part, accurately labeled just ‘Jesse’ thought,

Holy fuck that’s hot.

Jesse knew he’d always been attracted to power. It was Lisa Delver back-talking their eighth grade teacher, then pulling up her skirt and flashing them all in a manner that was more ‘don’t fuck with me’ than ‘fuck me.’ It was the nameless man from out of town, taking him out behind the bar like a goddamn cliché, but making Jesse give instead of take for once in his life. Most recently it was Tulip; Tulip with her hard fists and sharp words, with a thrill for danger and addiction to power that ran even deeper than Jesse’s. They fed off of one another like two mirrors facing each other: a reflection of a reflection of a reflection.

Now though... now there was Cassidy.

Cassidy, with a chainsaw in his hands. Cassidy, drenched head to toe in gore. Cassidy, looking like a goddamn kid in a candy shop as he surveyed the damage he’d laid out on person and property. The irony (unbeknownst to Jesse) was that he’d just been granted the greatest power ever known and he still looked upon Cass with dilated eyes, something obscenely untouchable about him in that moment.

Which of course made Jesse want to touch all the more.

His body was having none of it though. He still couldn’t move his legs or his arms, let alone get something going that was worth offering. Even his eyes were growing heavy again. Cass was a red slit that kept disappearing momentarily and Jesse realized with a pang that he was slipping back under. He hauled himself to the surface with a massive breath that went entirely unnoticed.

“What a waste this is,” Cass was saying. Jesse caught him shaking his head. “Bloody fuckin’ waste. Hmm... that kinda fight takes a lot outta a guy. You don’t mind if I forget my manners for just a moment, do you, padre?”

What Jesse would given to be able to answer, because at that moment Cass made words so fucking obsolete by slipping to his knees and scooping up a handful of the still fresh blood. It was deep enough for that, a steady stream, and Cass titled his head back, pouring it down his throat like a mortal finding ambrosia. It coated his teeth and slipped down his chin. His shirt was a ruined mess and Jesse watched, hypnotized, as that Adam’s Apple worked overtime. Cass was a dying man drinking by the handful until suddenly even that wasn’t enough. Jesse lost all breath as Cass dipped his head directly to the floor and licked a long strip parallel to the man’s broken wrist. Cass hummed in the back of his throat then, pleased, and Jesse felt an answering ache thrumming within him.

I have to remember this, he thought, as Cass kitten-licked blood from the crevices of the wood. I’m passing out, but... gotta remember this.

Jesse’s eyes slid shut. He could still see Cass behind them though: a bright red outline in the darkness.

He had just enough time—and this was an afterthought, now—but just enough time to think,

Oh. So the bastard really is a vampire.

It didn’t put Jesse off at all and he finally, finally slept.

***

Jesse woke up seven hours later in a slightly better state than he’d fallen asleep. That is, his limbs were no longer bent at unnatural angles, his head wasn’t beating on a collection of drums, and the church was miraculously clean. Jesse stood staring out over his domain for a long minute, wondering if everything he recalled from last night was just one messed up, fever dream.

Then Jesse shrugged. “Don’t think I care if it was.”

Nope. He was making this a reality. Whether it would be for the first time or a repeat didn’t rightly matter.

“No, sir. Doesn’t matter one bit…”

Decision made, Jesse made a beeline out of the church, his pace more akin to a bloodhound than a man suffering from the hangover of the century. And heh, bloodhound, wasn’t that just hilarious? Jesse let out a dry laugh as he passed the ‘Open Your Holes to Jesus!’ sign and wondered if he hadn’t suffered some sort of stoke the night before. His eyes were crusty from sleep and his shirt was already sticky with sweat—and Jesse felt his physicality more than he ever had before. He raised his arms above his head as he walked, stretching, rolling his head like a boxer preparing for a fight. His pace was light and quick and he made it to Joe’s in record time.

Joe’s was a run-down, dingy sort of place. The kind of establishment that didn’t deserve the name “restaurant.” Just call it a “dive” or a “hole” and give a warning to all your pals that they were likely to shit out whatever it was they chose to put in—quickly too. Still, it was a part of Annville history, for better or for worse. Little Joe had inherited it from Joe Jr., who inherited it from the first Joe way back in the 60’s. The family would serve you greasy burgers and fries for a better price than the chains and all the soda you could want to wash it down. You didn’t insult the food and didn’t comment on the hygiene, and they’d feed you at any hour of the day, no shirt, shoes, or manners required. It was a system that benefited pretty much everyone.

Jesse had no reason to believe that Cass was there, except for the fact that he wasn’t at the church, the bar wasn’t open, and he quite literally had nowhere else to go. Sure enough the hunch paid off because Cass was lounging in the furthest booth, munching on a meatball sub.

He had tomato sauce all over his chin and Jesse’s stomach tightened; stained white skin like a clerical collar.

Walking forward was something straight out of a dream. He was well aware that it was a decent crowd for a Thursday afternoon, with more than half the spots filled with familiar faces, all of them hailing him with some sort of greeting. It meant that part of Jesse was on autopilot, raising his hand and shooting smiles at random. It also meant that Cass was given plenty of warning.

When he looked up he didn’t seem particularly phased, like he hadn’t dismembered two men last night and presumably hid the evidence while Jesse slept. Cass just gave him a sunny smile and a sweeping gesture to sit.

“Padre,” he said, all syrupy sweetness.

“Cassidy.”

“You’re lookin’ well rested.”

“Mmm, not so much.”

It was a game they were playing, though Jesse was the only one in on the rules. Cass knew damn well he’d been splayed out on filthy wood all night, but he wasn’t meant to know that... and he didn’t know that Jesse already knew. It was one of those stupid, convoluted moments that him splitting a grin ear to ear. Jesse made himself comfortable in the booth across from Cass, sneaking a hand over the table to drum his fingers near Cass’ wrist. He pictured the severed hand from last night and breathed deep.

“You’d never believe the dream I had,” Jesse said, keeping his voice just this side of innocent. “Remember drinks the other night? You telling me you were a—ha!—vampire, of all things?”

Cass had slowed in his eating. He paused entirely now, mouth pursed, before resuming and stuffing a couple chips into his gob. “I remember,” he said. “Finally gonna believe me then?”

“Oh well,” Jesse dodged that with a wave of his hand. “It’s just, it kinda got to me, you know? I ended up with this crazy-ass dream of you tearing these two shucks limb from limb, bleeding them dry, and then, would you believe it? You were licking the blood straight off the floor, like some sort of animal.”

Cassidy froze. Jesse went for the kill.

“Didn’t your mama ever teach you good manners?”

And there it was, that wonderful point of confusion, where Cass wasn’t sure if Jesse knew or really thought it had all been a dream. That right there was power and Jesse reveled in the brief expression of panic, Cass’ tongue poking out to nervously trace his lips.

“Sounds like quite a nightmare,” he settled on, finally meeting Jesse’s eye.

“Well, I wouldn’t necessarily call it that,” and Jesse scooped up some of the sub’s sauce, rubbing it between his fingers.

Cass’ eyes blew wide.

“That so?”

“Yep.”

Jesse loved all of it: the realization spreading across Cass’ face, the sticky liquid between his fingers, the hustle and bustle of so many others around them, acting as a constant reminder that this wasn’t a private space. Nonetheless, Jesse sucked the sauce off his fingers, slow and steady, then reached for a spoon without pausing to wipe them down. Cass followed every movement as Jesse scraped down the bun and brought the spoonful over his lap.

“Don’t the kids call it something? The five second rule?” Jesse kept his movements slow, giving Cass plenty of time to see what he was doing. “Tut, tut. You waited far longer than that.”

The sauce was thick and came off the spoon in one glob, falling between Jesse’s spread legs and hitting the floor under the table. All he had to do was tilt his head—a single look—and Cass caved, shucking his skinny frame off the seat and sliding to the floor. He was gone in a flash. Nearly fast enough that someone might think he wasn’t human.

“Good boy,” Jesse said.

He couldn’t know if vampires had enhanced hearing as well. A squeeze of hands on his calves said they did.

Jesse was careful though, hesitant even, scanning the restaurant for signs that they’d been noticed. It looked as if everyone was just going about their business—Davey working through a mound of cheese fries, Alice and William Becker arguing about that goddamn mortgage again, a gaggle of kids running screaming between the counter and the door—and Jesse took a chance, spreading his legs to take a peek at the sight he’d created.

Cass was on all fours in front of him, ass high enough in the air that it brushed the underside of the table. If Jesse had been the bloodhound earlier than Cass was the starved, mangy mutt, licking the sauce straight off of Joe’s filthy floor with neither disgust nor pause. Jesse was equally revolted and enthused with the image.

When he was finished—when the spot was cleaner than it had probably been in years—Cass’ mouth latched onto Jesse’s leg instead, sucking a strip there that was somehow burning straight through his jeans. Jess tensed, shifted just slightly, opening his legs all the wider. He didn’t know if he’d actually spilled any sauce on his pants or if Cass was just coming up with excuses now, but once again, he didn’t really give a damn.

So Jesse snuck a hand down too, fitting it into Cass’ hair and tugging hard. They couldn’t go too far here, not even oblivious Jenny at the side table would fail to miss her Preacher’s face if it started twisting in rapture, but he needed a little something more. Hand trembling, Jesse scooped up some of the excess sauce and brought it down with his left, uncaring as he hit more strands of hair and what felt like Cass’ nose. Jesse just needed Cass’ mouth on some appendage of his body before they moved on to...whatever the hell this was becoming.

“Not blood,” he whispered. “Sorry about that, but—”

Cass sucked Jesse’s finger into his mouth with reckless abandon, giving just as much, more, than what he’d offered in the church. Jesse got to see before and now he felt, resulting in him letting out a noise so strangled and helpless that it brought a mortified blush up to his cheeks.

“Preacher?”

Aw, hell.

Young Sasha trotted over, pink-cheeked in her first week on the job. She gave Jesse a sunny smile that only faded as she caught sight of the other empty booth. “Oh, where did Mr. Cassidy go?”

A sharp pain shot through his knuckle at ‘Mr.’ Jesse kept his own smile fixed in place.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s...taking care of some business.”

A swirl of tongue in appreciation; a gentle scrape of teeth.

“...okay. Were you, um, gonna take care of his check?”

“Mmm hmm. I’m used to looking after him,”—the reverberation of a growl.

“Great! Did you want anything else first?”

“No, no. I’ve got everything I want right here.”

Sasha left again, Cass dug unforgiving nails into Jesse’s legs, and he whispered directions to a nearby alley that had catered to him more than once. Jesse pocketed one of Joe’s knives as well. Dull, but serviceable for their needs.

“Here’s your check, preacher.” Jesse felt Cass’ bite in time with Sasha’s smile.

Oh yes, life was gonna give you shit sometimes, none more so than what you made for yourself. His daddy had taught him that. But this?

This right here was not a part of that heaping pile.

#Preacher #AMC Preacher #Jessidy #prompt #preacherfic #another prompt fill WOOO! #*deliberately does not look at the still massive list left of things to write* #Anonymous

[thegeminisage]

a long fucking post (sorry)

bc my browser quit so i just copied it into notepad and kept going and didn’t break it up bc frankly i couldn’t be bothered lol i’ve #struggled today anyway:

i...i dont have any stuff to make spicy food with?? oh my god..........

where do i even...find

lol i could go back to the plateau but i’d probably be Sad.

i guess i have no choice :/

wow i miss the old man

pfft i can see farosh from here but it’s so close i’d never make it in time

SOMEDAY /shakes fist

seeking out shelter from a lightning storm inside the ruined temple of time makes me Very Sad

man. man. there’s nothing i wouldn’t do to set this right

except the main story, i guess, hahaha

OMG A RAINBOW

just for a short moment i didn’t even have time for a picture...wow wow wow

all right i’ve got enough peppers and i’ve had MORE than enough of the plateau im outta here

i fast traveled back to that one shrine i couldnt figure out before

i realize now i was probably supposed to use my paraglider hahaha but i just didnt think of it

theres a chest in here that i cannot. get. oh my god

[death montage]

GOT IT

lol and all that for a little sword

BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS thank god i have a fast travel point now

and that’s all done! time for more of The Story

normally i’d cut this off here but it’s p short so far so w/e

except.......idk where to go next. i know i want to find the zoras, but

which...direction are they. like, i even googled it

i’ll ask my brother and attempt the naked island again while i wait. i read somewhere you can drop your stuff before you properly set foot on there and it helps a bit. plus it’ll be something he hasn’t done, haha

well, so far so good - i managed to drop a few of my best items and a  small amount of food - apples and raw fish - before i stepped on, but i forgot to drink the defense up elixir. i DID remember to eat the extra hearts food, though, and a good thing, bc i came on during a fucking storm in the middle of the night and nearly got killed by some weird yellow octorok popping up out of the ground. fine now tho, all out of extra hearts but other than that good - found some shrooms, a sword, and an axe

oh my god i hit a barrel and DIED bc there was an electric chuchu in it!!!

okay trying again...in the storm again...forgot to drink my defense bonus again...Greay

one orb down!!

lol and i died AGAIN bc i underestimated a bokoblin...i can't take out camps from afar with no arrows!! maybe i can try bombs next time, sigh

i hate getting out to this island

i hate everything ABOUT this island. it is deisnged to kill you. endless skeletons and fire chuchus are great if you need materials and weapons but the chuchus set everything on fire. and there are octoroks ringing the whole island AND on the actual island - there's no safe ground ANYWHERE!!

remembered to drink my elixir but nearly left the stuff i dropped floating in the ocean lol

one orb down AGAIN. 

gotta be a smarter way to do this bokblin camp on the hill. i can't take them all on at once and i can't detonate any of the explosive from afar with arrows, and bombs get me noticed. i can't take that swarm of enemies with no armor. no way.

YES camp down lmao i blew up the barrels with my own bombs since the fucking chuchus noticed me anyway

now i can COOK THINGS thank you thank you

YES now i have hearts up and attack elixirs!!!!

time to fight the blue hinox (:

HAHAHA WOW MY HEARTRATE IS SO JACKED RN

he has so much defense even with my elixir ;_; im too afraid to get close enough for an attack

i wish i had a defense booster!!

NO oh god a lightning storm now of all times!!! no!!!!!!

I CANT EVEN CLIMB THE CLIFFS TO ESCAPE HIM IN THE RAIN

oh my god can he follow me into the water...?

wow it's lightning for the next three hours what the fuck?

aaah the music stopped..he's laying back down...i hope his fucking health doesnt refill

i tried using chuchu jelly to make explosions but they didnt hurt him, only my weapons did bc of my elixir...but im sooo afraid to get close to him, if he kills me i have to do ALL this again

i wanna wait the storm out before i fight him again but i get the feeling the storm was triggered by him waking up bc it's nonstop lightning on the little forecast thingy

god there's not even anywhere to take shelter i just have to pray i dont get struck

yeah it changed back to normal rain as soon as he started snoring...he BETTER not have his health back

NOPE HE DOESNT BUT I GOT UP CLOSE TO HIM TO HIT HIM AND I'M SO SCARED LMAO MY HEART IS POUNDING SO HARD IM SO STRESSED

at least it isnt storming

nooo i hid in the water again and he slept and some of his health came back )))): i am never gonna get him, this is gonna take hours!

as if that wasnt bad enough there's another bokoblin camp with a MOBLIN on top of this big ledge

maybe i can get some arrows at least :/

good news: managed to cheese the bokoblin camp up top. have in my possesion 13 arrows. bad news: hinox is definitely back at full health rn

ok. so im up here where hinox can't actually go (i hope...) and i have my bombs and 13 arrows, plus all these extra bows and weapons and even a pot to cook some more stuff in. i can do this. i can do this.

ok he can't get up here he can't even hit me with projectiles but IMMEDIATELY the lightning started up again so lmao (:

luckily i have found the perfect position from which to roll bombs down at him lol

so this is only gonna take all year ASSUMING i dont get sturck by lightning.

no no no no no NO NO NO

the blood moon!!! why now!!! oh my god!!!!!! can ANYTHING go right oh my god!!!!!!!!!!

at least im far enough down on the ledge the camp up there cant see me

but i'll have to clear out the other one again if i ever manage to kill the hinox and get his orb

:| he keeps trying to go to sleep lol which. no bitch no more health for you jesus fuck

he can't get any of his rocks to land on me and only about every third bomb lands on him lol

his health is sooo low im so tempted to go down and take a swing w/ my weapon, but if i die now and lose all this progress i won't be able to deal so im gonna stay patient and cheese it til the bitter, bitter end

HAHAHAHAHA FINALLY

FUCKING EAT ME YOUR GARBAGE MONSTER GET W R E K T

I PERSEVERED!!!!!! STAYED DETERMINED okay now if not for the blood moon that'd be the end of it but no i gotta clean out that one camp AGAIN without dying

i can do this i can do this i can do this

i......i did it

all thats left is to drop my items and put in the last orb

oh my god!!!!

oh NO if you drop too many they start vanishing ok....choose carefully then

lol ALL THAT FOR A SHRINE TO SOLVE this better be one of those no-puzzle chest only deals

LMFAO i have to reclear the big camp to get in the shrine...oh my god...oh my god

ah well maybe i'll get some more shields i accidentally glitched all mine away

should be easy with all my stuff back

aaaand im stuck down here at the camp i cleared out bc its storming. at least the blue moblin got struck by lightning in a stroke of what i can only assume is divine justice

ok the storm has FINALLY passed

i am FINALLY inside the shrine and have a fast travel point

i got 300 rupees, which is garbage, and i got to watch that stupid monk turn to dust.

ooh whoa there's a rito out here!!!! hi!!!!!

lol a training course for flying...20 rupees a pop. now i know what the fucking chest was for. god.

ah i can't do the course and im so tired of failing at things...i guess i'll leave them for now altho i bet you get a SICK upgrade

no wait i looked it up and its just rupees LMAO no thanks

im never coming back to this fucking island ever again

also: forgot that i did not actually explore the sunken ruins earlier bc of Weather, am going to do that quickly before quitting

oh god oh no i landed right here and there's some fucking masked walking beast getting ready to attack me Why God

IT'S A CENTAUR I THOUGHT IT WAS SOMEONE WITH A HORSE IT'S CALLED LYNEL WHY WHY WHY

god okay we're doing this i guess jesus fuck

if that wasn't bad enough farosh is flying above us LMAO and i still can't shoot him

I! KILLED HIM! bc i had a DEFENSE elixir

i wish i had snapped a better pic than his dying body tho :/

o h w e l l

oh!! i found a memory while exploring!!!!!

HAHAH HOOOOOLY SHIT

oh my god...oh my god...

so it was the four pilots of the original jaegers and two are dudes and two are ladies!!! so there was an even mix in the scene #nice

the voice acting was good and still so unexpected

and the MUSIC oh i love the music when he's remembering something

it felt like a scene from any zelda game, but one near the end—except i'm still at the start

it's so similar to how everyone like, rallied behind link at the end of tp to help him beat ganon, but...this time we already know link failed

god!!!!! this is so good!!!!

every time i find myself thinking "this is an amazing game but it just doesn't feel much like zelda" it comes back and gets me

aaaaaah

and i found a shrine here!!! #nice

altho i'd really like to be done for the night lol

it was super easy thank goodness

omg no the dragon flying earlier must have been naydra bc there naydra is :'))) hey bud

ah and i ran into kass the accordian playing rito again ;w;

anyway now that im FINALLY done with this pronvince tomorrow i can go find the zoras!! yay!!!!

fun fact my very first username was "[not my name, some random one, not telling what it was] of the zoras" bc i love them so much

#personal #loz blogging #botw spoilers #no really this one is hella spoilery #i saw A Cutscene #anyway im glad im liveblogging all this #i never want to forget how much i hated eventide island (:

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Montenegro to Eurovision with 6 young souls

(this is a pre-vamp review so take this whole thing as “something I wanted to publish but my schedule was withholding until it was specifically time for them to be reviewed”, therefore, this is a bit of a retrospective review. Will tackle on its revamp later!)

Montevizija, which finally has an official Twitter account (we all should forget the times some dude named Vasilije pretended to having made one), offered us another batch of 5 songs for another year, actually revealing all of them beforehand this time and not just the snippets! Joy to the world I guess.

You gotta love Montevizija for it being the most underrated ex-Yugoslavian national final btw. Granted, it only lasted for 2 editions as of now, and it will take years to grow bigger as a thing, but so far, for us the NFs that are ingrained to our brains more are Dora, EMA and Beovizija (and even Skopje Fest when THAT was used to pick an act and not just served as a festival like it originally was meant to be), therefore Montevizija seems more shunned. But what do you expect when the lineup of 5 for two years in a row is not exactly as stellar as hoped for? Well, there are gems here and there, but they haven’t really won on either years (or at least not on the 2nd year if you call Vanja’s song a gem too), and yet somehow they find someone who call them great. But for me this Montenegrin entry is not. :L

And who is up there to be colossally blamed for its existence? None other than this group of 6 refering to themselves as D mol (with “mol” decapitalized for whatever reason... they used to have hyphen separating the ‘D’ and ‘mol’, but now they scrapped it altogether, an anime death I’ll never forget). Worth noting that I, as a 19 year old, have this particularly ugly feeling I must get rid of, and that’s the one of “feeling old”, already at my age. And this is how I felt seeing that the band whose song I am not fond of today is made up by members that are of 16-17 to 21-ish years old!!! So my heart insists that I shouldn’t go too hard on these poor younglings, even if this is just me, currently tackling the brethren of my age. Prepare as I’ll go to shred their composition they’re going to Tel Aviv with, “Heaven”, to bits.

Although, what I call “shredding to bits” is merely just nitpicking the reasons the original version (keep bearing in mind that I haven’t heard the revamp yet) sucks imo, and idk, the new “Heaven” miiiiiiight just grow on me, but I heavily doubt about it because I never cared for it in the first place (youhouuu, they were my last in Montevizija ‘19 for a reason), and I’m rather looking forward for the new faves from the 8 songs I haven’t listened to yet rather than those that were already chosen. And even the Eurofans were not quite fond on the revamp, as some think the additional ethno sounds made it sound worse (and of course there are some that kinda like it or think of the song as their guilty pleasure). So why shouldn’t I? :O

Anyway, old “Heaven”. The first sounds on here to grace my ears on this song consist of one light piano note being tapped to an exact rhythm and a confused baby girl stuttering. And I’d’ve maybe enjoyed this more ironically at some point if it weren’t for the latter sound effect being re(ab)used later in the song!! Ugh I hate it. The lyrics are fine I guess... though isn’t it ironic the only English song in Montevizija’s lineup this year won?? It’s like the Montenegrin people were openly cringing when being the only ones to understand Vanja comparing his life to cat’s and mouse’s and calling his heart “the most expensive toy” in his song and then they were like “you know what? Let’s let the WHOLE Europe understand how terrible our lyrics are! ^_^” (no but for real, who still uses “I’m in heaven, falling straight into your heart” as a pick-up line? Did they travel through time from 1998 to 2019 or something???)

Speaking of the 90s, the whole song smells like a dated cliché of that period. You know, the kind of “the high school prom song from that 90s teen sitcom’s who you’re forced to watch when your elderly aunt is in the house with you and there’s nothing else on TV” dated. Dated even more than “Chain of Lights”. Seriously though! It includes the pathetic “wah wah” bassline, mid-tempo beats, the boy/girl-group harmonies... catch me puking sugar-coated cheese to this, no thanks. Oh and if you already read my “Zero Gravity” review (which you probably never even bothered to after seeing how much text would you have to read), I definitely mentioned that I’m not a fan of those “two verses-two choruses” songs, and especially those kind of ones that aren’t sounding like something suited for radio (e.g.: Poland 2018, “Light Me Up”)... this obviously sounds like something from the radio of the times the at-the-time senior highschoolers are currently over 30 or slightly over 40, and that should be 4 and a half minutes long. These verses could just not be more ridiculously dragged out for the choruses to prevail and get stuck in our brains... fucking welp [sic] me already.

Well, if there are any brownie points I could give this, it’s pleasant, it’s harmless if I don’t take into account the cheese vibes this emits, and all this bunch are made up by up-and-coming talented singers that clearly deserved a better song...

And the staging concept in their NF was cool tho (illustrating their power of D mol), and I applaud the couple chemistry I guess

Oh and this below is one of the most underappreciated memes this Euroseason:

*stares into your soul in Montenegrin*

So yeah. Oh and the Rizo(tto) guy who is self-aware of his hotness and the hotness of the much older Eurovision guys this year, but he’s not doing it for me so that I could be in heaven falling, so he’s getting a hard pass.

All in all - a nostalgia cash-in made to appease the housewives from Podgorica to Skopje, from Novi Sad to Štúrovo, and nothing quite else, sung by a cool bunch of people that if anything are deemed this year’s "great people with an unfortunately too dated song and a shitty draw” by me. I don’t know much of their personalities but I do believe that even if they like what they’re singing, they’d be much better off doing a better sounding throwback, at least. So that even the disappointed-by-”Heaven” Eurofans could at least call it “so dated but a BOP!”. And hey, I’m aware of those fans that will likely be pissed at me for not bopping along to this, but I said what I said about it and yet again, if revamp changes my mind, I will change my opinion, but right now I’d not prefer to. Grumpy Adio.

Approval factor: Hell with the no. I would like Vanja back instead. At least he made himself a somebody to be cared about even if the Eurofans didn’t quite adapt to his song in return.

Follow-up factor: somehow, both “Inje” and “Heaven” were/are seen by the masses as instant NQs, so it somehow doesn’t sound like Montenegro is following a great path so far. And after this year anything that audience favours and wins can be seen as a way better follow up after something meh coming after something wrose.

Qualification factor: For the n-th time, I’m yet to check the revamp out to state where this will actually go, but being put 2nd in the draw is a massive stab in the knee, as demonstrated by even the national finals this year (Electric Fields in Australia Decides, Aly Ryan in Unser Lied für Israel, Lisa Ajax in Melodifestivalen final... the only glaring exception is ZENA in Eurofest but is it me or these producers did this just so they could be all like “heeeey we put a winning song on 2nd just to show that a NF song can win from ANY draw! ANY DRAW!!!” lol nope), and from it only a few lucky souls have crawled out victorious (Nathan Trent for example, the draw might have pushed him down in the semi but he got up again!). D mol, for as young and developing in talent as they are, don’t seem to be such. You can be young and pitied for your personality, but you always can at the same time have a song that completely crushes your chances to do well and sweeps up the last shards of hope right in front of your eyes despite being an angel worthy of protection (Ari Ólafsson, anyone?). Unless the D molians work all their magic and the random ethnic vibes into their favour for some reason, but for now it ain’t gonna work.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

And even then, what was so interesting about Montevizija 2019?? Let’s see...

• First off, let’s address one meme of the beginning of 2019 that Facebook may or may have not used purposefully to upgrade their automatic “facial recognition” skills - the 10 years challenge. Our first one of this season is the sassy maneater who spent her ESC stint by trying to unlove a guy so hard that he just couldn’t oblige - Andrea Demirović. Her decade-later A-game happened to be this one song she sang in her mother-tongue: “Ja sam ti san” (I am your dream). Now, I wasn’t particularly into it - I enjoy some electro tracks out there (like hello, “Igranka” is one of my favourite Montenegrin entries, and 2013 entries overall as well) but this one just ended up being the right amount of cool AND overbearingly unsettling for me to not really fancy it. Kinda like “Red” by HyunA - I can only bop to this if I don’t care about the fact I actually hate it, oops. (Or maybe it is just because Andrea once again used a composition done by one of those “rent-a-NF-songwriter” people. Which is at least better than collabing Ralph Siegel who’s stopped being relevant ever since starting to work with San Marino, or even since the hilarious attempt of a peace song sung by the original common framework, six4One. But since Michael James Down has co-contributed to one of the better Montevizija songs last year, I will not allow myself to think it’s thanks to those kind of songwriters.) Nevertheless, the Eurofans actualy kind of loved this song, but sadly, Montenegrins and the international jury did quite not, and she didn’t land on to the superfinal 2 (as opposed to a superfinal 3 last year, to which she could have easily qualified if it still were a 3). Here’s her song to y’all anyways (and the performance too, which just needed to include some random monster dudes dancing around... why? Because Eurovision! ^^):

• Speaking of Andrea, during the results part there was this one shot of hers where she was pictured just casually chilling on her phone, not giving a damn that she’s being underrated on the scoreboard. Not only she was badly rated, but this moment was such an universal #mood!

• In between the finally final results announcement (which I didn’t really know when exactly was it taking place because the winner wasn’t really said out loud before the event I will describe next was taking place??) there was this lottery going on of who would be the lucky two audience observers that’d win tickets to Tel Aviv... hilariously enough though, it somehow malfunctioned and there were some sort of errors regarding the announcement of the RIGHT winner <3 but the winners happened and I hope they’re getting to go to Tel Aviv at some point during the Eurovision events! Hope they don’t feel startled by the lack of taken seats this year.

• Unlike Eesti Laul, Montevizija this year took up the job of showcasing tweets of Eurofans, and somehow this fellow fella ended up seen by a handful of Montenegrins AND international viewers. Take a wild guess which of them know what a daddy Serhat is.

• And who could not forget the magic flying envelope for to announce the winner of the NF:

there must have been some Harry Potter magic in there :O

As for what touches the other songs, well there’s the last year’s fan fave Nina Petković with another song, but it’s no “Dišem”, so don’t even bother. Or bother, but imo it’s just okay-sounding, nothing that groundbreaking or pleasant enough to be competitive. The other few songs were also nice but I’d like not to make this longer as my other write-ups, to be fair. Sucked to be Mr. Kállay-Saunders who, as the international juror chosen for this national final, had to rank its songs... as that NF happened right on the same day his second A Dal 2019 performance was taking off. Not that the international jurors were supposed to be present in Montenegro on the day of this NF, anyways...

Anyway, despite all this goddamn criticism (that could’ve flown more smooth had my computer not restarted in the middle of me doing paragraphs for this review), I’m fare welling the D mol-ians and would like to wish them a heavenly Eurovision experience. ^_^

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #montenegro 2019 #d mol #heaven #montenegro