#i don't like signalling this kind of thing because i want it to be evident in how i *act*

[scrawnytreedemon]

While I intend this blog to remain a largely news-free space due to the constant hellstate of the world, let me be clear that I stand in full support of both the Palestinian and Jewish peoples who are currently experiencing relentless hate and suffering in these horrid times.

I am disgusted at the number of people, especially "progressives" on this website who have used this situation to spread both Islamophobia and Antisemitism. This goes double if you dared to reblog those "punch nazis/fascists <3" and "[x] are welcome here!" posts while in the next breath spreading dangerous fucking narratives that kill people.

So many people in online political spaces evidently see this as nothing more than a case of picking "sides", when ultimately what matters is supporting the oppressed against fascist governments and militias, wherever they are.

Common people will always have more alike with each other than their leaders. This is not a novel concept. Your activism should always be motivated by love and compassion first, and hatred second. If you use your beliefs as an excuse to find an acceptable target to vent your hatred towards regardless of the actual material outcome, you are no fucking activist.

You're a bigot.

#current events #antisemitism #islamophobia #scrawny rambles #scrawny speaks #again i have not been saying much both for the fact that this blog is meant to be a quiet place #and that i do not consider myself to be a reliable source of serious information and/or morals #but regardless i have been watching i have been taking note #i see you i hear you #and while i am currently in no position to materially help right now #the moment i can i will #i don't like signalling this kind of thing because i want it to be evident in how i *act* #but as this cannot be taken as a given i will say this: #you are welcome here. i am so sorry the world is hateful and vile and i wish i could wipe it all away. #you and your folk did nothing to deserve this and you are right to be scared. and i wish to give you my love. #fascism and genocide are not things to be taken lightly. bigoted 'jokes' are vile and dangerous. human life is what's at stake. #we are heading into a wave of hate that has the potential to repeat history in the worst way imaginable. get a fucking grip. #i'm unlikely to address this further as again. reasons stated above. but i wanted to make my stance clear. #it is late as fuck and i'm pissed. people who should know better miss the fucking memo completely. #i'm fucking glad i unfollowed a popular blogger when i did because look what they're posting now. antisemetic 'jokes'. #i really wonder how common this shit truly is. how many people get away with cloaking themselves as 'progressive.' #or perhaps they genuinely think they are. cognitive dissonance is one hell of a drug. fuck them regardless. scum. #you are no progressive. you are a bigot. a leftist bigot is a bigot regardless of how 'revolutionary' you posture to be. #anyhow apologies for any errors. again. it's late. hope you guys are doing well <3

[bookshelfdreams]

So the German dub is out and I would like to offer up to all of you how it deals with the problem of formal/informal form of address because it's really interesting

(Preface: all of this applies how we as modern people use these forms of address. In the actual 18th century, addressing any adult informally was very uncommon, even between close friends. But we're doing a DJenkins approach here)

(@rocketrouquine wrote about how it is handled in the French dub here; also very interesting!)

The thing to understand about formal vs informal you is that it's about politeness, yes - but that's just a very basic understanding. Yes, you are supposed to be formal with people you don't know, but what they don't teach you in highschool foreign language class are all the things choice of address can communicate. Namely, what distance there is between people. About the closeness of a relationship, what level you're interacting on, about signaling how far you will let a person into your life.

The crew of the Revenge all call each other Du (informal) - except for Stede, who everyone calls Sie (formal). Du is for friends and Stede is not their friend, he is the boss. There is a camaraderie and solidarity among the crew that Stede can't partake in. Sie, in this case, is like a barrier that you put up to keep someone from becoming too friendly with you and reminding them what kind of relationship this is (namely, a purely professional one).

This is underlined by the crew obviously and openly thinking Stede is an idiot - and by Stede calling everyone Du. Is it because he sees himself as a social superior who can address people informally but insists on formal address for himself? That's one way to read it! But more interesting and more accurate, in my opinion, is to read this as an attempt by Stede to make himself part of their ingroup. It's especially obvious when Stede invites Olu and Jim to sit with him on the couch in ep1; he's using Du while Olu very poignantly keeps insisting on Sie. It underlines how visibly uncomfortable Olu is sitting there trying to explain to Stede that people choose a life of crime out of necessity, while making Stede seem even more oblivious and out of place.

Interestingly, Stede uses Sie himself to put some professional distance between himself and someone else. Namely, with the tribe elder from ep2, who he addresses formally. Is this a sign of respect? Sure, he has a tendency to go for Sie by default. But it reminds me more of how one would be per Sie with a doctor or therapist; as a reminder that this is a strictly professional relationship. It's easier to be open and vulnerable with someone who you know isn't emotionally invested in your wellbeing, isn't it?

Stede comes from a background where one is expected to address everyone with Sie unless granted permission otherwise. This is a sign of respect, the same way lower class people on this show tend to use Du as sign of solidarity; on Nigel's ship, all the officers call each other Sie. So when Nigel uses Du with Stede, it adds a layer of disrespect, despite it being perfectly acceptable, since they have known each other as children. This is even more evident with Chauncey, who we see interact more with other pirates; when he wants something from someone (Izzy, Spanish Jackie) he calls them Sie, no problem, while Nigel's crew doesn't even make an attempt at showing some respect at the ep1 tea party.

And then there's Izzy. Izzy and Stede call each other every insult under the sun and also address each other formally the whole time, which is the funniest possible choice. Like. I'm not sure why "Sie Arschloch!" is 1000x more bitchy than "Du Arschloch!" but it just is. It's taking this whole game of distance and closeness to a whole new level; I despise you so much I would never entertain the notion of being friendly enough with you to use your first name. Sie Wichser. It's made even funnier by the fact that for Stede, Sie is much more intuitive than for Izzy. It seems like Izzy has to make a lot more of an effort to keep the Sie up, but he's not gonna be the one to break this particular stalemate first, goddammit.

Finally (because that's the really interesting bit, isn't it) Ed. Initially, in ep3, Stede calls Ed Sie, which, of course he would think to do that while he's laying there half dead and bleeding, I love him. Ed echoes this back, because he's determined to "do this right", make a good first impression, and I thought this would be it, they'd be per Sie until the kiss, like it often goes in media translated from English. Fine, I guess.

But then.

When Ed wakes Stede up, he immediately goes for Du. No warm up, no getting to know each other first at all. And it's great! First of all, because Ed of course is the type of person to just call everyone Du, but also because of what happens next: Stede calls him Du back. This is the first time this particular hand has been extended to him, and oh, is he excited to take it.

(Other people call Stede Du first, Spanish Jackie, the chief, but it's not like this; not an invitation)

Stede isn't meeting Blackbeard, he's meeting some guy named Ed. Someone he instantly makes friends with; someone who has already seen him at his worst and so, who he can be himself with. Someone he doesn't need to put up pretenses or worry about proper behaviour with. This scene would have lost so much had they decided to keep up the Sie.

Remember that camaraderie I talked about earlier? Solidarity among the crew that Stede tries but can't manage to share in? Here it is! Here is the guy who will play dress up with him, who will delight in his interests, who will be his friend.

Yes, sometimes an unprompted Du can be disrespectful. But sometimes it is like this: Hey. I see you. Want to be friends?

#i could have rambled on for hours this is SO INTERESTING to me and they made all the right choices #kudos. praise and kudos. #our flag means death #stede bonnet #edward teach #thoughts #Unsere Flagge bedeutet den TOD 🏴‍☠️

[latteedrawz]

Reasons why I think Jimmy might be a fae:

When splashed with the lore revealing potion, Jimmy became tiny. It might be that the potion is false and just shrunk Jimmy's size, but it is can also be possible that Jimmy turned tiny due to being a fae in disguise.

When talking to the old sheriff [Martyn], the old sheriff calls Jimmy a Pixie. Something EXTREMELY close to a faerie/fae. Not to mention the old sheriff never gave Jimmy his name.

This might not be on purpose but Jimmy is TERRIBLE in PvP lately. He tried killing fWhip twice and failed both times. Faeries are harmed by iron, and Jimmy has a literal railroad made out of it. Maybe it weakened Jimmy but he doesn't even realise it.

Faes don't forgive easily and hold grudges against people who have acted horribly towards them. They sometimes go into the persons way to ruin stuff for them, breaking their stuff.. cursing them... attempting to kill them sometimes as well.

Fae like children a lot more than adults and in some stories are shown playing with them and causing mischief. Jimmy didn't like Hermes at first, but that was only because of Joel. When the law/lore alliance was made Jimmy IMMEDIATELY became nicer to Hermes, even calling him a kind kid at one point. Not to mention Tiny Tom! Jimmy tried so hard to get Tiny Tom back, but that might just be him being a mama bird. It's a cool thought though. [FUN FACT: FAES USUALLY STEAL CHILDREN AS WELL] // EDIT: JIMMY KEPT HIS GOBLIN CHILD BECAUSE HE'S LONELY AND WANTS SOMEONE AROUND, BUT WHEN FWHIP BECOME A NORMAL EMPOROR AGAIN HE THREW THE GOBLIN CHILD AWAY? This gave me many mixed signals.....

Jimmy has NEVER gave his actual name to people in empires, which is James. He uses nicknames for himself near others.

Fae love nature and Jimmy has shown interest in getting more plants and life in Tumbletown, he just doesn't know how to. He has asked Sausage for tips multiple times.

Jimmy might have been a fae at one point and lost his wings, or just ran away from the other faes. It's a cool theory but very unlikely. But then again, we have no idea what Jimmy was before being a sheriff.

Faeries are easily offended and might turn evil if they feel like you have betrayed/wronged them beyond forgiveness. Sounds familiar huh??? *looks at Jimmy and Fwhip aggressively*

Jimmy has done SO MANY THINGS THAT WOULD GET YOU KILLED BY A FAERIE UNLESS YOU WERE ALSO ONE.. He entered a fae ring, said his name near the fae multiple times, accepted a gift from the fae, said sorry AND thank you, went around telling others about his interaction with a faerie, and more... Either Jimmy is a faerie or he's just the faes favourite.

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW!!! COMMENT IF YOU HAVE ANY THEORIES OR EVIDENCE :D I'd love to hear it!!

EDIT: MARTYN/OLD SHERIFF CALLED JIMMY ONE OF THE FAE AND JIMMY QUICKLY DENIED IT!!! Jimmy could be a runaway fae?? Maybe that's why he was so scared of the fae corruption! He might be thinking the faes want revenge.

#solidaritygaming #empires smp #jimmy solidarity #empires 2 #empires season 2 #empires season two #esmp jimmy #mcyt solidaritygaming #solidarity gaming #fae solidaritygaming #the fae #empires smp theory #empires smp headcanon #empires smp spoilers #empires jimmy #sheriff jimmy #mcytblr #mcyt #empires s2 #empire smp #empires smp 2 #empires smp season 2 #empiresblr #empires solidarity #empires smp s2 #empiressmp

[lxdymoon0357]

Sadistic beauty ask request:

How about Minho getting along with Gyerin and her partner and they set him up with a good girl but Minho is too dense to get the signal that she likes him

(I want Minho to be happy and always have a smile on his face.....Duna and Wookyung are dogshit and they can fall in a ditch and I will even set the ditch on fire because I don't care...I wrote this to be very long cause I love my baby, Minho..Kind of me projecting, but well...who's gonna stop me?....)

Byun Minho X Reader:

your millionth reason why Minho is a perfect human....

☁ You were friends with Juyeon and you were her wing-woman for her and her girl Gyerin...and you became their third-wheel (read: child) and followed them everywhere you went cause you were single as pringle and wanted to see the sweet things in life which were Juyeon and Gyerin..

☁ Obviously through this, you would let them vent and one of them was about Duna and Wookyung...You learnt how Gyerin talked about them and after a while, you definitely found out they were horrible people...Gyerin had gotten in contact with Minho after she broke up Duna, and so the two got to be good friends...Minho vented everything that Dune and Wookyung did to him and she vented to you about it cause you know how to keep a secret...You cried for a few good minutes hearing about everything that Minho went through..

☁ Soon, Gyerin and Juyeon set you both up....but Minho was oblivious to the fact that he was st up for a date, not just a hang-out with Gyerin's friend, AKA you, and that Gyerin and Juyeon couldn't make it...for some reason...you and him hit it off and became very good friends and got very close! Too close...actually

☁ You developed feelings for him and even flirted with him...to which Minho was absolutely oblivious about...so it was good when your pick-up lines were too stupid and cheesy and it made things awkward you could pretend you were joking, but it was bad when you REALLY wanted to confess to him...bay boy did not know you were confessing every emotion you were feelings with him and he agreed saying you were his "best friend"...you went hoe and cried to Gyerin and Juyeon in a very ugly manner...they only laughed at your situation...

☁ He was really the perfect human in your opinion, had a big chest and wore glasses despite having good vision, was a literature person, was a bit cocky and rude at time, was beautiful, looked cute while crying (even though you hated him crying), was too good for his own good.....And his obliviousness was your millionth reason why Minho is a perfect human...in your eyes at-least, you don't care, but if someone tried to comment on your baby boy...you weren't afraid to throw hands, feet and even baseball bats...don't try the Minho protectors..

☁ Despite all the obliviousness, you helped Minho with bruises, cuts and anything else Wookyung or Duna would cause after raping him...you ever slapped Duna tightly once, leaving a red mark across her cheek, before treating the bruises she left on Minho from her anger or shit...You told Juyeon about it but told her not to tell Gyerin, Gyerin didn't know about Minho's rape and it would make her realize she got into a relationship with a rapist while the rapist raped Minho...

☁ You also beat up Wookyung once, when you heard about his piercing situation, you went to his home and beat up nicely with Juyeon and Gyerin....made him realize what he did and even reported him to the police...though he bought himself out....But not for long as you presented Minho's multiple bruises as evidence and he got into jail as well...idiot couldn't even buy himself out this time because of how crystal clear the situation was and with Gyerin as a witness as a part of the BDSM shit...

☁ Minho wouldn't let you report Duna for a while because he was still a bit stuck up on her...and you helped him process his feelings, in which you didn't even realize you made him realize his feelings for you...And of-course, you reported Duna to the police and even showed Minho's bruises as evidence...

☁ And you started to become a bit timid with your feelings for him because you felt a bit upset with the fact that he was stuck up on Duna even after what she did to him and so he wouldn't let her go to jail until you explained his feelings to him and reminded him what she did, not knowing he was more and more falling in love with you caring and protective and loving nature...He liked being cared for, having someone be protective of him and love him for who he is...and he didn't know about your romantic feelings and he was also afraid of being in a relationship because of his experience...

☁ You both still spend a lot of time together as you both were mutually pining over each other without knowing it...Naturally, your tried moving on or he tried moving on..but it obviously didn't work, cause it went horrible and ended up comforting...

☁ And you when you flirted, he was completely not knowing what was going on, like you could say, ".....Treat me like your homework! Slam me into your desk and do me all night angrily.." and he would be confused like, "...Y/N I'm a teacher, I don't do homework, I GIVE homework and what would I do to you angrily at night? I don't get it..I don't want to hurt you with my anger...." and you're just there crying and happy cause you failed yet again and happy because this is so cue he's worried for you!!!

☁ Okay...you had to work VERY hard to confess to him, I don't know how but imagine that But still you worked VERY HARD to confess to Minho so he gets the signs and respond, cause you were started to get angry and fall more in love with his stupidness....Oh and yes, he did agree and he cried in your arms for a while and you comforted him and assured him he will never be hurt again and never have to experience what he did with Duna and Wookyung and the next day when Gyerin and Juyeon visited, they opened the door with spare key you gave them and they found you on the bed leaning in a uncomfortable position so Minho, who was sitting on your lap, could sleep in a comfortable positions...you were leaning against the wall and often your head lolled down and often your hit your head against the wall multiple times during the night..At-least Minho slept nicely...your boyfriend...oh that sounds like such a sweet thing and even has a ring to it!!

☁ And thus began a relationship with Minho and you, where you made sure NOTHING, not even wind, caused a scratch on his precious skin...cause if it did, the wind would have to square up...BITCH!

☁ You also paid for everything he wanted to do for a while btw, until he got a good job that is and was able to pay his debt back!!

#navi⌗writes⌗ #navi⌗answers⌗!!!!! #sadistic beauty x reader #sadistic beauty #byun minho #manhwa #sadistic beauty side story #sadistic beauty x you #sadistic beauty x y/n #sadistic beauty fanfic #sadistic beauty headcanons #sadistic beauty scenarios #byun minho x reader #byun minho x you #byun minho x y/n #byun minho headcanons #byun minho scenarios #byun minho fics #gyerin sadistic beauty #juyeon sadistic beauty #manhwa x y/n #manhwa x you #manhwa x reader #manhwa headcanons #manhwa imagines #manhwa scenarios #manhwa drabbles #manhwa fanfic #manhwa fic #manhwa smut

[goldenhickeysandramen]

What if we ask for receipts?

(This post is inspired by some recent posts from some moots on Tumblr)

We spend all day defending Jimin and JK's bond.

All day, all the time, always in the position of defendant, against anons here, trolls on twitter, and in general, hordes of annoying people.

Well then, let's see what happens if we are now the prosecutor, and not the defense lawyer  

Let's see where the hell your receipts are:

- Love expressions: how many times have your favorites declared that they love each other in different kinds of language?. And I'm not talking about the "I love you" that are given to friends for a specific situation (like Hobi leaving for the ms)... or weird hand signals, you know a lot about that and symbols... but big signs of love…

Like suddenly this:

Or this:

 Or this: 

- Intimacy displays: have your favorites given each other hickeys? (this is important...u know I love hickeys)

Have they flirted in front of thousands of people? (and watch out! because here the line between fan entertainment (I won't say the damm word, which I know you don't like) and genuine flirting is very subtle, but distinctive. This is flirting, for instance 😌

Do they've sucked each other's ear in front of thousands of people?

(Or do they have some kink for ears?)

Have they stuck their D's in front of thousands of people?

  (my God, do you realize what they won't do in front of thousands of people)?

- Show the evidence that your favorites live or have lived together (not in the dorms era back in 2018): let's see... let me think... how many times have they suspiciously shared a car, when we didn't know where they lived extra officially? 

Or do have they been at 4 am in the morning together alone, celebrating billboard or actually delivering hickeys? 

Or in the deed of the purchase of a house appears the address where the other lives (91).?

- Samples of tension or awkwardness beyond explanation: look, we have so many receipts here that I don't even know where to start... just look at Jimin's recent bomb and see JK's visit... and well, there it is... the awkwardness of some of their interactions... sometimes it makes you want not to look... sometimes it makes you feel embarrassed... I sometimes think they're going to screw up at any moment.

- Proof of inside jokes that show that they actually WATCH a lot of content together. Do you have any of your own?

- Demonstration of knowing certain personal information. Here I'm sorry, but again we have a lot of receipts. Tae had no idea that JK did a 3 hour vlive. Or Hobi also didn't know about Jimin's "time" (10:13). Instead, Jimin sees all of JK's vlives...and vice versa (as we’ve been able to check recently) and they know most of things they have done, or where they are at each moment (they even know what happened at bae's grandma's birthday)

And now...let’s see and talk about YOUR receipts:

made-up dinners out alone and selfies in bathrooms (not to mention other things you say happen in the bathrooms)

trips for which there is no concrete proof, or which are clearly BTS trips

any close-up, or photo, or mention on vlive....

each pic on Instagram

a look

breathing the same air

stepping on the same ground

And, so far the most robust, outings at their free time. We had in the past months vkook, jihope, hobikook, or vhope outings.

This is what most people are claiming lately. Maybe it is our fault, for having repeated so many times that Jimin and JK were the ones who most "hanged out" together..... now it seems that this mantra is turning against us.....

Well..... NOOOO.... I object your honour!

Because jikook have literally told us recently that they are both super homely. Which I understand. Not just because of their personalities or that they like it, but because outside, they can't be totally free lately. 

Because if JK is constantly being stalked in his country - just look at where he officially lives - and also, as we believe, jikook are a couple, they have a lot to protect and I think they know that the most intimacy and security they have is at home. 

On the other hand, they already know what happens when they are seen in a certain location: that restaurant ends up becoming a crowded place of jikookers or k-army. So, if they go out, they're going to be very careful and most likely they'll go to trusted places, where they don't post their signatures on IG. So, my friends,…WE WON'T KNOW about it! Unless they want to, or go somewhere more public and new.

And then again, Jimin has been busy with his album and hasn't been seen with anyone. NO ONE. The only exception, Hobi's birthday and the drink they had last Sunday or Monday (as a farewell). And we know this because they wanted to tell us... because if they hadn't, or posted any pictures, there would be no receipts from them either (of course! who of us could have been at Hobi's house on his birthday to know?).

But even with all this reasoning … the truth is that friends hang out and that does not mean they are dating. Hanging out doesn’t work with jikook either by itself. Other things must happen (see above 👆 ☺️)

So your receipts, imo, are either conspicuous by their absence or rather lacking in robustness.

Ours, on the other hand, are terrific! Stop asking for more! We've justified enough.

It must be pitiful to ship any “couple" whose ultimate proof of confirmation that they are together depends so much on another couple failing to provide certain evidence that confirms they actually are...the audacity!!! 

#jikook #kookmin #mingguk #jikook kookmin #jimin and jungkook #minkook #jikook kookmin jinkook jiminshiii jk #mingukkie

[yoriyaland]

The Red Means I Love You | Chapter 1

She treats him differently, she doesn't make fun of him or call him names. She was nice, she was pretty, she wasn't very smart but that's okay, he'll help her study. She was becoming someone who he couldn't let go of, he refused to let her go. She was his source of light... she was his everything and he'll protect her forever.

🎤 PAIRING: yandere!ni-ki x Kurasawa Rin

🎤 GENRE: yandere au

🎤 WARNING: mention of drugs, family member passing away, illicit photos

🎤 AUTHOR'S NOTE: sorry it took so long to post part 1, life hates me... also this chapter is a bit short but I just wanted to get this chapter out so you guys don't have to wait more than this but I promise next chapter will be longer

🎤 CHAPTERS: Prologue

______________________________________________________________

The lunchtime bell rang, signalling a temporary escape from the whispers and stares that seemed to follow Ni-ki wherever he went. As he settled into his seat in the quiet classroom, he hoped for a moment of peace amidst the chaos of his new school.

“I’ve heard he got kicked out of his old school, that’s why he’s here because no other school wanted to accept him.” 

“I heard he does drugs.”

“I’ve heard he tried to get with his teacher, that’s why he was expelled.” All kinds of things were said about him. The school was quite boring, they didn’t have lots of things going around so once in a while, new students really bring out the drama. Ni-ki couldn’t care less, he just wanted to get high school over with.

Peace was not to be found. A group of boys, their faces twisted into smirks of superiority, entered the room. Ni-ki recognized them instantly as the ones who had been spreading rumours about him. They swaggered over to his table, their presence looming over him like a dark cloud.

"Hey, new kid," one of them sneered, his voice dripping with arrogance. "You should know your place around here.." Ni-ki despised the way these boys tried to assert their dominance as if they owned the school and everyone in it. He refused to bow down to their intimidation tactics. 

Ni-ki felt a surge of anger rise within him as one of the boys invaded his personal space, reaching out to pet his head with a twisted sense of satisfaction. Though he longed to retaliate, to spit in their faces, Ni-ki knew better than to act recklessly, especially as the new kid in school.

As the tension thickened, curious onlookers cast glances at the scene unfolding before them. Among them, Rin couldn't tear her gaze away from Ni-ki, surrounded by what seemed like a pack of wild dogs. Since their encounter the day before, Ni-ki had occupied Rin's thoughts incessantly. There was a strange familiarity about him, a sense of being different, he somehow remained her of herself. She wanted to get closer to him upon seeing him having no one at all. This was the perfect moment for her to make a move.

"Hey, why don't you guys leave him alone?" Rin said firmly, her voice cutting through the tension in the room. "Can't you see he's not interested in your nonsense?" The seniors exchanged uneasy glances, clearly taken aback by Rin's unexpected intervention. Sensing their hesitation, Rin turned to Ni-ki with a reassuring smile. One of the boys glanced at her annoyingly before telling the group to leave.

"Hi," Rin asked, genuine concern evident in her voice. Ni-ki felt a surge of gratitude wash over him. Despite the rumours and the bullying, there was someone willing to stand up for him, to offer a friendly hand in the midst of his turmoil.

"Hi…." Ni-ki responded, a slight smile curving his lips.

“Is it okay if I sit here?" Rin gestured towards the chair beside Ni-ki, who nodded in affirmation. "Were those guys bothering you?" she asked, taking a seat next to him.

“No, I couldn't care less about them," he replied, glancing away.

“Well, if they ever bother you, just let me know.”

The two spent their break together, although it was just Rin talking and Ni-ki listening but it didn’t matter, he liked it that way. It didn’t take long for Rin to ask Ni-ki for his number, she had always been an extrovert. Ni-ki hesitated briefly but eventually relented, unable to find a reason to refuse. 

“By the way, why do you always have a camera around your neck?" Rin mentally scolded herself for prying into his personal life, recalling past troubles from interfering in a friend's drama, She hoped Ni-ki didn't find her nosy.

“I just…like it? It's been my hobby since middle school. My dad was a photographer, that's why," he explained, fiddling with the camera strap. She slowly nodded, seeming to understand yet a question popped into her head.

“Was?” she mentally face-palms herself for asking such a sensitive question.

“Yeah, he passed away a while back,” he replied, leading back to his chair. 

Although he didn't appear bothered, Rin sensed he might not want to delve into the topic further. Sensing the potential for awkwardness, she changed the subject.

“Can you teach me how to take a photo?” she asked suddenly, catching Ni-ki off guard. Nobody had shown interest in photography since his father's passing, and he hadn't interacted with many people since then.

“You don’t know how to take a photo.” it was a dumb question and he knew it, of course, everyone knew how to take a picture and he knew what she meant yet he just wanted to be confirmed. 

“I do, everyone do but not everyone is an expert at it.” she clarified, trying to convey her curiosity about him.

“I’m not an expert.” he finally looked at her.

“You seem like an expert. I mean like, knowing the angle and the lights and stuff like that, you know?” she wasn’t interested in photographing but she was interested in knowing more about him, so far he still seemed a mystery to her. She usually can tell a person’s personality when first talking to them but Ni-ki is different, something about him made her wanna get to know him more. 

“Alright, I'll teach you but know that I’m not an expert. I can explain about angles and lighting, but I can't guarantee you'll become proficient," Ni-ki cautioned. 

“That’s fine,” Rin assured him

“And I’m probably gonna be the most boring teacher ever,” he added.

“That’s also fine.” “And--” “Oh my god, why all the negativity? What's the worst that could happen? You're just teaching me photography," Rin interjected, dismissing his concerns.

She’s right, what could possibly go wrong? 

______________________________________________________________

“No!” 

“What?” Rin asked confusingly as Nozomi and Hana exchanged alarmed glances, their voices tinged with urgency as they rebuffed Rin's idea of getting closer to Ni-ki.

“DO NOT HANG OUT WITH RIKI!” Nozomi's short hair bristled as she raised her voice, eyes wide with concern. “Zomi, if you keep yelling like that, I swear I'll kick you out of my apartment," Rin retorted, rolling her eyes at her friends' dramatics.

“She’s right, do not hang out with Riki.” said the girl sitting next to her on the bed. “Hana... you too?" Rin's disbelief was evident as she turned to her other friend, who nodded solemnly in agreement. 

“We're saying this because we care about you, Rin. There's a lot of talk about this Riki guy, and it's not good. Rumour has it he's into drugs," Hana whispered conspiratorially, as if afraid of being overheard.

“I also heard he's involved in some shady stuff, like taking illicit photos and selling them online," Nozomi added, her voice dropping to a hushed tone.

“But those are just rumours, right? Don't believe everything you hear, especially if it's from Kokoro. I saw him bothering Ni-ki this morning," Rin interjected, rising from her seat and grabbing her jacket from the floor.

"Where are you going?" Hana's confusion was evident as Rin made a swift exit from the room.

"To get a photography lesson with Ni-ki," Rin declared, leaving her friends behind in a hurry, determined to follow her own instincts despite their warnings.

______________________________________________________________

“Hey there!" Rin greeted cheerfully as she closed the door behind her, coming face to face with Ni-ki. He was clad in all black, with a hood pulled over his head, carrying a backpack laden with camera equipment. It seemed he was more prepared for their first lesson than Rin herself. 

“I don’t have another camera so you will just have to use mine if that’s okay,” Ni-ki murmured, his discomfort palpable as he still wasn't entirely at ease with Rin.

“That's perfectly fine, I'm just happy to be learning," Rin reassured him with a warm smile.

Together, they made their way towards a park near Rin's house. Despite the short ten-minute walk, they managed to engage in lively conversation along the way. Rin seized the opportunity to inquire more about Ni-ki, but he deftly redirected the focus back onto her, and before she knew it, she found herself divulging her life story. 

“This spot looks perfect," Ni-ki remarked, setting up a tripod stand in the centre of the park. Just as they were about to commence their lesson, an unwelcome interruption shattered the tranquillity.

"Well, well, well, are you two lovebirds on a date?" came a sneering voice from behind them.

To Be Continued

#enhypen imagines #enhypen x reader #ni ki x reader #nishimura riki x reader #ni ki imagines #enhypen yandere

[sublimecatgalaxy]

I had a nasty migraine all afternoon (not even sure what triggered it) so I was literally walking around the house in sunglasses because of my photosensitivity 😂😂

Anyways I was wondering if you could do a little fic of Steve/Eddie or both being nice to their girl because she is having a migraine?

That would be really nice. Thanks Lizzy💕 can I call you that? Or do you not like that nickname?

Hi! You can call me Lizzie for sure, I do go by that sometimes and I don't mind if you call me that :)

I certainly can write this for you. I sympathize completely, I understand what it's like to suffer from migraines, I get the regularly and actually get botox injections in my face to prevent them from worsening! It's crazy but it works.

"Hey lovely, I'm sorry I'm late. I got caught up at a club meeting and couldn't get out any sooner-" Eddie stops in his tracks at the sight on me on the floor, curled up just beside our cat Nelson, with a blanket over my eyes, just allowing enough light in that I can see him. He stops and tilts his head at me and before he goes to speak again, I put my finger in the air and shake my head.

"Shhh..." I mumble, rubbing my temples with a sigh, sitting up as my head throbs and he winces for me, realizing that I'm evidently in pain. He makes his way over to me and kneels down beside me, pushing the blanket aside, revealing me to the light and I hiss, instinctively shoving his hand away.

"What's going on?" He asks, caressing my cheek gently, kind, dark eyes looking at me intently as if he can pinpoint what's hurting me and stop it immediately just with his will and want.

"I can't hear you right now, I can't do it." I mutter out but the words don't sound completely right as they come out of my mouth. Eddie smiles with a bit of confusion behind his eyes and I huff, seeing that he doesn't understand what I mean.

"What do you mean?"

"I can't listen to you right now, the words hurt my brain." I stutter out and he sighs, nodding his head with a bit of acknowledgement and he frowns- no- he pouts, with a pitied look in his eyes.

"Oh, you're not telling me to shut up," he nods before whispering, dropping his volume down tenfold, "you have a migraine."

"It's ass." He laughs a little too loud and I stop almost immediately in my tracks with a wince and he apologizes under his breath for his volume and moves so he can pull me into his arms, whispering into my ear.

"I imagine, it typically is."

"Can you get me the usual?" I ask as a tear slips down my cheek and he's quick to wipe it away. I imagine his heart his aching for me like it typically does, his empathy completely taking over his whole body as he worries for me and cares for me until he's tired and yawning.

"Icepack, meds and a heated blanket?" He double checks and I nod, allowing him to help me up and off of the floor, at least to put me onto the bed so I can be more comfortable than I have the last few hours that he was gone. "You should've called the school and told someone to come and get me, I would've come straight home." I shake my head with a small laugh, the first sign of happiness that I've been able to express all day.

"Last time you did that Dustin hunted me down and wanted to kill me for you missing Hellfire. The last thing I need is a teenager on my ass."

"I mean-" He goes to argue but after thinking about it for a moment, he pauses and lets out a small snort at the thought of the last time Dustin was really angry with him for missing Hellfire for my birthday. "No, I completely understand." He holds his finger up for a moment, signaling that he'll be back and he rushes out of the room to grab the things that I so desperately need.

When he comes back, I immediately plug in the heated blanket, settling down on the bed as he gets my medicine ready and he hands me a bottle of water that I know he wants me to drink more than I want to, especially with my nausea.

"Thank you." I mutter, closing my eyes as he shuts the blinds and for the first time today, I can imagine this horrible headache passing and me surviving.

"Need anything else?" He asks, sitting down beside me on the bed and I'm quick to grab him by the front of the shirt, giving the fabric a bit of a tug as I smile up at him.

"You." I coo and he's quick to lay down beside me, slipping under the blanket and I immediately curl into his side with a happy hum, allowing his warmth to engulf me.

"You got it."

#eddie munson #eddie #eddie munson x reader #eddie x reader #stranger things #stranger things fic

[queerfables]

I have this thought that's simmering in the back of my head, and there's some evidence for it, but I simply can't take myself seriously on it, because the idea hits my favourite tropes way too perfectly. I'm, like, 90% sure I should admit to myself that what I actually want is to write fic about this and skip the meta entirely. But apparently this is how I process things these days, so you get my wild projections masquerading as analysis first, and maybe if you're lucky some kind of story later.

So, Nina's partner, Lindsay. Not so much a person as an analogy, right? The consensus is that this relationship is a stand in for Aziraphale's relationship with Heaven, making Heaven the toxic partner holding Aziraphale back from finding real happiness. But the more I think about it, the more I feel like we've taken that assumption and worked backwards from it to prove that Nina is really Aziraphale's mirror and Maggie is really Crowley's.

Look, I realise that drawing the line from Nina to Crowley and Maggie to Aziraphale feels obnoxiously obvious. There are superficial similarities, but does it go any deeper than their general demeanour? When we look at how Nina describes Crowley and Aziraphale - the hard-bitten one who doesn't trust, the soft one who still believes in goodness - I think there's honestly a solid argument to be made that both descriptions could apply to either one of them. I don't think that's conclusive. The thing that's really giving me pause is that Crowley's car and Nina's shop both play Queen. It seems like such a clear signal that they're foils. There's also the fact that the partition around her shop has a very snake-like pattern embedded in it, quite similar in shape to Crowley's tattoo (a detail that pairs nicely with the apple-tree motif on the French restaurant next door).

If Nina is Crowley's mirror, does that mean that Crowley is the one trapped in a toxic relationship? And here's the part where I absolutely cannot trust my brain to give me sensible feedback, because the little gremlin who lives there immediately shuts off all higher functions at the first hint a character might be unwillingly beholden to a nefarious outside force. Especially if they are keeping it a secret.

Could Crowley have been blackmailed or coerced into working for Hell again, despite nominally being estranged from it? I literally could not tell you, because my brain is too busy yelling yes yes yes please oh my god yes. I just love the idea way too much to be rational about it.

I won't insult anyone by labeling this next section "supporting evidence", but here are some ways I think it could fit into canon as it's been established:

In light of my recent meta on how to think about Good Omen's twists, I've been ruminating on some of the big questions I have about season 2. And one of the ones that keeps jostling for my attention is, why are Crowley and Aziraphale not together yet? I don't mean that flippantly, what I mean is - I believe that Crowley and Aziraphale are both aware of the way they feel about each other, and have been for some time. If that's true, what's keeping them apart? Obviously there are quite a few potential answers to this, including the possibility that I'm wrong and they're not both consciously aware of their feelings for each other. But it's an idea I find compelling. They're not together because they're not free yet. And not just in a hypothetical looming threat kind of way.

When Beelzebub summons Crowley in 2x01, Crowley says "I thought we had a generalised understanding." Beelzebub replies, "We don't. You're still a traitor," and then goes on to threaten him with a bounty. The obvious implication is that the understanding they don't have is from the end of season one, that Hell will leave Crowley and Aziraphale alone. But what if it's a different kind of understanding? What if the subtext of Beelzebub's offer for whatever he wants is that he can have enough power to be free of whatever nasty little job he's supposed to be doing on the sly? (Not enough to break free of Hell entirely, though. Never enough for that.)

On the other hand, Crowley doesn't recognise Beelzebub's new face, but they must have been wearing it for a while given all their meetings with Gabriel. Is Crowley bound to the one demon higher than Beelzebub, then? Sorry, the gleeful brain gremlin is the only one available to take questions on this. It sure would be sexy, though, if both the power difference and the secrecy involved were as extreme as possible.

This is a weird little detail that probably doesn't mean anything, but when Aziraphale gets back from Edinburgh, it's early in the morning the day of the ball. The streets are mostly empty and Nina is just arriving for work. Aziraphale helps Crowley put the plants back in the Bentley, and at some point after this, Crowley takes the car and leaves. He must do, because we see him come back. Where did he go? He can't have been gone more than a couple of hours at most, because he arrives back in time to follow Aziraphale around convincing everyone to attend his ball. Okay, fine, maybe Crowley just needed to get away, relax somewhere there's no amnesiac archangel breathing down his neck. But the timeline is so short it seems like a strange detail. It makes me think that Crowley might actually have been hiding something, here. I don't know that this theory is the most likely explanation, but it sure could be an explanation.

And finally, for maximum angst potential, imagine Aziraphale finding out that after everything Crowley said about how toxic Heaven and Hell are, after all the grief he gave Aziraphale for returning to Heaven, that Crowley had been secretly working for Hell all along? WOOF.

#good omens #i am so sorry that there are some genuinely interesting meta details hidden in this self indulgent trash fire #by rights they should belong to something more sensible #but this is the meta we have #fable talks good omens #it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too late and i'm posting this without reading it over again if i've left any sentences hanging no i didn't

[blazehedgehog]

What do you think of AI stuff like DAll-E or Midjourney?

It's not as useful as some people want you to believe. A lot of people pushing for the acceptance of this kind of software are the same tech bros that invested in crypto currency and were trying to sell you NFTs, which should tell you enough.

All of this "it's democratizing art!" and "finally, people can make art even if they don't have natural talent!" is snake oil.

You know where my "natural talent" came from? I started drawing when I was 4 or 5 years old. I drew at least one thing per day for over 20 years. I earned the ability to crank out dumb doodles on a whim.

You can't just show up one day and think you deserve to make artwork without putting in the work to learn and get good at it. Art's importance comes from the length of time needed to learn to master it. And I don't just mean drawings, I mean music, film, food, everything. No matter what it is, effort is value.

Financial value, sentimental value, it doesn't matter. All value is derived from the effort required to make it.

If you can just push a button and churn out artwork en masse, that devalues the importance of art. I mentioned this back with the Martin Scorsese ask, but it's like, which has more value? An original hand-made piece of artwork, or a print of that artwork? Prints are easy to mass produce. You can get a nice, high quality, glossy print of the Mona Lisa almost for free at this point. But the actual Mona Lisa, the original product, is actually valuable beyond value.

Art prints are literally just replicating a single file over and over and over again, but the original is one-of-a-kind and where all the effort is most evident. All the layers of paint can be felt as DaVinci sought perfection in his work. That's what makes it special. That's what makes it important.

My uncle does woodworking. He's so good at it, he gave my Mom an end table that looks like it came from a high-tier furniture store. A mass-produced end table like that would be at least $100. He made it by hand. It is beautiful. I will treasure that end table forever.

Effort is value.

If you spend any length of time looking at art websites where AI art is allowed (such as deviantart or pixiv), what you'll often find is these AI art chumps submitting massive amounts of artwork. They'll submit 10, 20, 40+ images a day, all from the same prompt, all with slight differences, because to them, every single thing the generator produces is worth submitting.

Even when I was drawing regularly, I could only really do maybe one finished piece per day. Two if you were lucky. Not only because sketching, inking, coloring and shading would take so long, but because after I was done the tank was empty. I'd used up all my effort for the day and had no more creativity left to give.

All the claims of "letting people without artistic talent generate art" are bogus because it throws the whole signal-to-noise ratio out of wack. Too much signal in itself becomes noise. And it devalues the effort that real artwork takes, because real artwork is now part of that noise, instead of rising above it.

When anyone can vomit out hundreds or even thousands of AI generated images that are of decent-to-good quality, a lot of what would be considered "b-tier" artwork ceases to be important anymore.

In a world where AI generated images are normalized, only the top 0.1% of artwork (your Mona Lisas) are considered to have real value. And who benefits the most from that kind of stuff? Rich people. Rich people who can afford to drop a million dollars on a historic piece of hand-crafted artwork. And just to be clear: these are exactly the same people who are trying to sell you on how important AI generator software is going to be going forward.

Or to simplify it even more: the people who stand to profit the most from AI "art" are the ones trying the hardest to sell you on its benefits. Because it benefits them more than it will ever benefit you.

Because, full disclosure, over this last week, a friend of mine has been having a lot of fun with Bing's new image generator feature, and I couldn't help but also play with the toy. The quality of images it can generate is shocking.

Microsoft, in their endless desperation to get anyone to use Bing on purpose, is clearly playing with fire here.

When effort is value and value is effortless, nothing has any value anymore.

I understand how, if you aren't an artist, this is all probably incredibly difficult to comprehend. The lure of fast and easy artwork from a simple line of text is a net gain to you, and nothing else really matters to your perspective. But imagine all of the up-and-coming artists who get completely pushed out of the conversation because of how easy it is to crap out endless AI generator output. I spent 20 years drawing every day for results that can be beaten in 20 seconds.

How many future artists is that going to discourage? There's a lot of buzz, now more than ever, about "late stage capitalism" and the way that's manifesting in our lives. When AI generated images are "good enough", how is that going to change the world around us?

You can't just think, "we'll figure something out" because the people trying to control this narrative do not have your best interests in mind. The people trying to control this narrative think they still don't have enough money yet even though there's not much money left to give them.

Their solution is to stop paying people to do work that they can get a computer to do for free, even if it means destroying the entire foundation of human culture. Long term destruction for short term gain. The same old story.

Are they going to get away with it?

(Another good ask along this line is over here, from February.)

#questions #Anonymous #dalle #dall-e #midjourney #bing #ai art #effort is value #ai

[nessinborderland]

I started writing fanfiction because of you but dip in and out of it now because it's so hard to do that kind of thing consistently! You do a great job!

How about something angsty with Banda/Reader like 20 minutes before he gets arrested or something?

Aww thank you 🥹💖 that really means a lot, because I honestly think I'm shit at consistency, especially when it comes to posting fanfic.

And thanks for the prompt, love it 👀 it turned a lil bigger than intended lol

This had to be a nightmare. That, or part of a very sick and very twisted, cruel prank.

Your Saturday had started just like any other. It was just a normal day, where you spent your time catching up with your husband and making love, and watching shows. Just existing. You loved Saturdays. But then night came and with it came the police, knocking on your door and asking for your husband before eventually cuffing him and accusing him of the murder of four women.

Murder, of all things.

Your husband wasn’t a murderer. He was sweet and kind and one of the best people you could have in your life. Not once in your dating or married life had he ever given you any signal of being anything less than good.

Now seeing him like this, dressed in a grey jumpsuit and handcuffed to a metal table… it didn’t even look real.

"Please tell me it's not true."

He said nothing, cold brown eyes looking into yours as he raised a brow in response. You had been in this room with him for five minutes, and that’s all he could give you? No ‘I’m sorry’, no ‘I’m innocent, this is a mistake’, no nothing?

Your breathing shuddered as you tried not to erupt into tears. You had to keep your cool right now, no matter what.

"Sunato... did you- did you do something to those women?"

He let out a sigh before finally saying, "Ask me what you really want to ask."

You didn't have it in you to say the words. Not right now, not with the photos of the crimes so clear in your mind. You had seen the vacant eyes, the bloody skin, and the marks left on the lifeless bodies of young women that your husband had supposedly killed. No, not supposedly; there was too much evidence. He had confessed. He was guilty. You knew he was. But you had to hear him say it.

"Did you murder them?" you asked in a whisper, looking into his eyes. Eyes that looked like bottomless pits of darkness, so empty of the warmth and love that used to be directed at you. But not now.

You wondered if these were the eyes that those women had seen before he made them bleed to death. A shiver ran through you at the thought.

"Do you think I murdered them?" he asked instead.

"No!” you shouted with a slap on the metal surface, hands trembling as you fisted them under the table. With a deep breath, you begged, “Don't play games with me right now...."

An eternity seemed to pass by before he said the words you were dreading to hear.

"Yes."

Who knew that such a simple word could crumble your world?

You couldn't stop yourself from letting out a sob then, covering your eyes with your hands as fat tears streamed down your face. You could almost hear your heart break in two. How could he have done this? How could he confess such sins to you in such a calm tone, like you were the stupid one for not noticing it in the first place?

His next question made you wonder if he could read your mind.

"But you knew, didn't you?"

"I- what?..."

"You knew," he repeated. "You just chose not to believe it."

"How could you say-"

"You caught me washing blood off my clothes so many times,” he said with a shake of his head like he couldn’t believe you. “The nights I got home late, the scratches on my arms… C'mon, love, you are many things, but you're not dumb. You knew what I was doing before anyone else did."

"No, I-"

You had no idea. Of that, you were sure. Yes, you had seen him wash his clothes, and seen the scratches on his skin, and wondered about the late nights… but you had just shrugged it off as normal occurrences. You had never seen any blood, nor you ever had any reason to suspect him of doing anything foul. Cheating? Yes, that had crossed your mind, but never murder. But weren't the signs there? You actually didn’t know, or did you just choose not to see what was in front of you all this time?

"No,” you vehemently shook your head, face contorting as more tears streamed down your face. “I didn't know, you can't possibly believe-"

"If that's what makes you feel better, so be it," he said with a shrug. “But you can’t fool me, love.”

Somehow, those words hurt more than anything else. This man in front of you wasn't your husband. He was a stranger, a twisted version of the man that had been the love of your life since you were a teenager.

You never thought you could hate him as much as you loved him.

"Why did you do it?" you asked after another moment of silence.

"Because I could."

You let his words sink in. Then, another thought crossed your mind, this one making the blood in your veins run cold.

"Ever thought of… of doing the same to me?"

The smile he gave you was enough for you to know the answer.

"You were supposed to die on the first time we met," he started, gaze far away as he remembered, a mock of a fond smile on his lips. "I had it all planned out. You were supposed to be my first actual kill. But then I just," he paused there, letting out a long sigh before locking his gaze back on yours, "I just really liked you, I guess."

You didn't know what to say after his confession. You wanted to scream and cry, hit him until he was dead and bleeding, and make him regret not killing you in the first place. But you couldn't do that to the man you still loved.

So, you stood up and signaled the guard right outside the door. Without another glance at your husband, you walked out of the room, hesitating when you reached the threshold.

"Was it ever genuine?" you asked without turning to look at him. "Did you ever love me?"

A chuckle sounded behind you.

"No," he said, "Not in the way you want me to love you."

#alice in borderland #banda sunato #banda x reader #alice in borderland fanfic #aib fanfic #aib drabble #ima wa no kuni no alice

[shock]

feeling so sappy today. one of my students had a profoundly impactful life experience and hasn't been at school for weeks. ive been supporting the family, who don't usually trust anyone, since that event. today i took that student to the library and together we caught up on work, made it make sense, and helped them get the courage to come back on Monday. i got them a milkshake and took them home, awed at the trust I've been given.

yesterday a kid who's mother died last year was triggered in class and came to me. we invented hand signals so teachers could help. the day before I got a student who was just outside our bus coverage a coat and gloves and I got to watch them walk home warm. on Monday i brought a student's favorite candy because it was their birthday. I got two of them and told them that if they want, they can share one, but one was just for them to enjoy because it was their special day. I told all their favorite past and present teachers, and they each had special individual moments with them. their mom died two months ago and when i asked what they improved on this semester, they said "showing up even when its hard".

one of my students found out their uncle was in critical condition and i was who they told. They update me every day, and when i sat with them at the end of friday and told them to promise that they'll do something this weekend to make themself happy, they smiled and said they would.

one of my students' mother was killed over winter break. I was able to make them laugh before they went home. The last thing that happened before I left for the weekend was a parent telling my thank you, I appreciate you, I appreciate everything you do.

None of this is about me or a pat on my own back, this is me in pure awe of the strength im privileged to witness in people every day. I pursued this field because I wanted to replace the spaces filled by people who looked at me like I was a problem and not a person. it's an unbelievably joyous, complicated, feeling to stand in front of all of these amazing human beings and be allowed to witness their strength. I see moments so similar to my own life playing out in front of me, different because I was there. Different because a kid had an adult that told them they deserve better. my inner child isn't healed by expecting that anyone in front of me needs the solution I never got, my inner child is healed by being invited to participate in the lives of kids who will grow up and be more confident than I was that they deserve respect, love, kindness, with a higher bar for what they're willing to accept in their relationships, from authority, from friends, with a voice they know they can use, with evidence in an adult looking out for them with proper boundaries that are explained.

I've learned so much more from the kids Ive worked with for two years than what was beaten and shamed into me my whole life by the people who claimed to help me. I spend more time with these kids than many of their parents do. It's an incredible feeling to know that every year there will be more kids growing up in my community who know that they aren't a problem to be fixed or solved or silenced, and that I get to have the greatest honor of growing older in my community, getting to be recognized as mentor and friend and family by the people who grow up around me. the longer I do this the bigger my community gets. its a beautiful, indescribable feeling to go to the gas station, the grocery store, a walk, and never feel alone. home is other people.

[beatriceeagle]

Ok so follow-up to the timeline question (sorry, I’m re-watching the series and just discovered your meta, so I am now re-obsessed): Since we know that Peter is already upset in one foot but still manages to be friendly up through the end of the year, why do you think that angst suddenly gets dialed up when they get to Wellington? How does he suddenly go from agreeing to live with Balth to pushing him away entirely? Obviously any answer is total speculation but I’m just curious what others think

"Let's Speculate About Peter" should probably be the name of my blog, honestly. (Singing it to the tune of "Let's Generalize About Men" from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.)

Okay, as you say, most of this is more vibes-based than anything I can tie to cold hard evidence. But I think to answer your question I need to start at the end: How did Peter go from agreeing to live with Balth to pushing him away entirely?

And the answer to that is that he didn't. At no point in the series, and I think probably at no point before the series, does Peter push Balthazar away entirely. Even at his absolute most self-destructive, even when he's deliberately picking fights and coming home drunk, even when he's shouting that Balthazar doesn't need to hold his fucking hand, Peter is always still reaching out to Balth in some ways, some of the time. They do homework together, and Peter invites Balthazar to town with him ("VACUUMING"). They go in together on Hero's birthday present ("Birthday Presents"). Even in "RULES," probably six hours after their huge blow-up in "TOWN," he agrees to Vegan Fridays as soon as Balthazar offers to cook.

The issue that Balthazar had with Peter, pretty much from the beginning (other than that he really, really wanted Peter to stop self-destructing) was that Peter was sending mixed signals. There's a loaded look, then Peter skips his gig. Peter invites Balthazar out for a night on the town, then shouts that he's not his boyfriend. Chickens out on the "CHICKEN" kiss, then tries to kiss him in "Stay."

So when it comes to his behavior towards Balthazar, at least, Peter's actions at the beginning of LoLiLo aren't really a sharp break; it's more of a gradual decline, with lots of ups and downs along the way. And I think that's true of Peter's emotional state generally. He was deeply unhappy in "one foot," and he was deeply unhappy in "RETURNS." And because there's clear evidence of times he wasn't unhappy in the interim, it feels like there needs to be some direct, obvious cause for the downturn, when I think really it was more that he got gradually less and less able to suppress the feelings that were always there. If you were going to look for a direct stressor, I guess I would say that being away from home and suddenly exposed to a lot more alcohol probably did not help. But that's not really a cause—it's just a coping mechanism that causes more problems.

I don't have a ton of direct evidence for that reading, but I think it works in tandem with the push-pull thing Peter had going on with Balthazar, as well—Peter pushes Balth away when he's feeling particularly self-loathing, and pulls towards him when he's feeling lonely or happy, and so the fact that that dynamic has been going on pretty much unbroken kind of indicates that Peter's emotional swings have been too. And you know, we never talked about it much in the rewatch metas because, honestly, Balthazar is clearly taking the brunt of the emotional damage of that phase of their relationship, but I also imagine that the push-pull wasn't particularly healthy for Peter either! Like, he decides he's such a fuck-up that he needs to push Balthazar away, and now oh, look, he's made Balthazar unhappy, clearly he's an even bigger fuck up than he thought. I think once that cycle started it could probably feed into a lot of pre-existing bad thoughts.

#lovely little losers #lolilo meta #meta #all around great guy pedro donaldson #ask

[polarisbibliotheque]

You're Going Home - Devil May Dance (Vergil x Reader)

After Dante's happy drunk dance with his s/o, it's time for Vergil.

Took me a little time, because I had a song for him, but then it all changed yesterday and I finally got over my writer's block ;)

So here we go...

Vergil being happy drunk and dancing around with his s/o

Pairing: Vergil x Reader

Summary: Drinking wine and killing time was something you and Vergil cherished a lot - sometimes, though, the alcohol made the blue devil prone to dancing.

WARNING: Yes, there's drinking to the point of flushing and being a little too happy. If you're underage, I got my eye on you. Do what you will, but know this is rather dangerous if you're not around someone you trust ;)

Author's notes: I had a little hard time with Vergil's song, because I have this thing of "songs have colours and places/objects/feelings" - and some colours just don't go with him at all. Alas, our blue devil tends to match with songs that are terribly seductive, while our red devil matches with anything and everything, specially fiery, high energy ones. Vergil is more to the dark, velvety, deep blue ones - and I wanted this one to be happy.

Guess this is Vergil's version of happiness.

Devil May Dance - You're Going Home

“Unlike my brother, I know when to stop.”

“Oh, I can see that.”

Vergil’s eyes narrowed while resting them on you - your lack of inflection and stale delivery made him know your words were dripping with disbelief.

He poured another cup of white wine to himself and to you. That was your third bottle on that night - differently from him, you only took sips of many bottles while Vergil drank full glasses. The effect, though, was the same on both of you - he just needed a much bigger dose to start feeling dizzy, while you needed to control yours so you both would be on the same page regarding the tingling in your hands and spinning of the world.

“Unlike your brother, you are much more serious when it comes to drinking.” You took the glass he offered you, while another bottle fell into forgetfulness. You had a feeling that one wouldn’t be the last, though. “I can never tell if the alcohol is affecting you… Although…”

But your words found draught and you decided to sip on your wine once more. Vergil’s silvery eyes kept fixated on you, watching carefully over his own glass while he drank. His eyes spoke more than his mouth – and you could see how much he expected you to continue your little phrase.

Not continuing, though, was much more interesting.

“Although…?” Vergil took his time letting the word roll out of his tongue, allowing the usual sharpness on his voice to be even more evident. His eyes, however, told you how much that conversation was entertaining him.

Teasing him in your daily life was already fun – when both of you were drinking and prone to indulge a little, it was always a lot more amusing. Vergil could see that in your eyes, and, in all honesty, it humored him.

It was the type of thing he could only enjoy with you – a kind of vulnerability you happily shared.

“There’s something about you I find terribly adorable.” You took a last sip from your glass, watching Vergil raise his eyebrows in surprise with your choice of words – after all, adorable wasn’t a term people picked to describe him. Ruthless, cruel, sadistic even – but never adorable. “Your cheeks get slightly flushed when you have a little bit too much to drink.”

Lo and behold, there was Vergil: speechless and taken aback. Dante always said you held a strange power over his brother – the power to make Vergil completely reactionless. Nero would say you could break him like a computer locked in a blue screen, and you couldn’t argue: Vergil’s expression could be best described as a complete blue screen.

Reactionless, but curiously enough, containing all the reactions of his soul at the same time.

“Well… At least I can say I’m not the only one.” It took him only a little time to recover – differently from a computer, Vergil wouldn’t freeze on that reaction forever. He kindly signaled to your own face with his glass before taking his last sip of wine, watching you intently as you laughed in delight with your rosy cheeks getting more flushed. “For you, in my respect, are all the world. Then how can it be said I am alone, when all the world is here to look on me?*”

“All in all, it’s only a midsummer night’s dream.” Your dismissive answer made Vergil smile wider and his cheeks grow in its rosy tones. You always had great answers to his literature references – even the most obscure ones. “You think the faeries are here playing with our eyes and hearts so we can see more of the adorable traits in each other and fail to control our feelings overflow?”

“I’d argue this wine was made by the faeries themselves, to induce madness and adoration in the hearts of lovers.” Vergil showed you the empty bottle of wine – making you realize how many you had consumed since you decided to share that night just spending some time together.

“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends*.” As you shrugged, Vergil could only smile with pride. “The wine does help, though.”

“Indeed.” He watched as you got up from your seat, stretching your arms above your head. You finally planted your hands on your hips, staring at him once more.

“Last one?”

“If that is what you wish, my love.” Vergil agreed with his head, feeling the tingling on his legs as he stood up. In the kitchen, he searched for the last bottle of wine that night – neither of you had drank as much as it looked like and, like he said before, Vergil indeed knew when to stop.

As he embarked on his search, you took upon yourself another task: music. It was comfortably quiet, as it usually was when you and Vergil were together, but you did love music – knowing he did as well, but had grown used to remaining in deep silence as much as he could.

With your playlist on shuffle, the first chords of the song swam through the air. As the saxophone started playing its well-known melody, you couldn’t help but to swim in those waves you loved so.

And Vergil couldn’t help but to watch as you looked so free and comfortable within yourself.

He usually would only watch, admiring as your body moved according to the music, following the notes like a siren expertly swimming through the waves of the sea. But that night was caught in the lovely mischiefs of faeries, that he had no doubt, turning all love and madness into the same thing – and getting rid of whatever walls that held delightful feelings away, Vergil found himself walking towards you.

With the sweet notes of brass, you felt his fingers intertwining with yours – Vergil following the sway of your body. You closed your eyes and smiled with delight as it was so difficult for him to have an ounce of acting upon his feelings like that.

Blessed be the faerie wine.

As soon as the lyrics started, you could hear Vergil humming its music so close to you, gradually letting himself go while you joined him in his singing. Holding your hand slightly tighter, he turned you around so you could dance facing each other.

“This city desert makes you feel so cold, it’s got so many people but it’s got no soul…” His voice quietly accompanied the lyrics of the song, making you smile brightly in your adoration: it was rare dancing with Vergil, but it was even rarer hearing him sing.

“And it’s taken you so long, to find out you were wrong when you thought it held everything.” You stepped in closer, feeling as he wrapped one of his arms around your waist – still holding your hand. Vergil was a very good dancer, much different than what Dante would lead everyone to believe. The blue devil knew where to step to gently but certainly guide your own steps, making you dance together as if it was as natural as fighting.

As always, Vergil carried an elegance that bled into you – no matter what kind of song you decided to dance to.

“You used to think that it was so easy, but you’re trying, you’re trying now.” He raised his voice with more assuredness, certain you wouldn’t mind his singing.

“Just one more year and then you’d be happy, but you’re cryin’, you’re cryin’ now.” You sang with your eyes swimming deep in his silvery gaze, knowing quite well how both of you understood those lyrics with your soul, not only your mind.

You didn’t really see what happened – you just felt your feet flying as Vergil guided you in a makeshift waltz across the room, overflowing his heart with gestures as he always did. You held tight on his shoulders, following his steps with certainty; the circles he described as the sound of the saxophone lulled you into dancing so freely.

For a few moments, there were just the two of you in the world. As you looked back at him, Vergil was smiling, cheeks slightly flushed as you pointed before. That was the rarest of sights: it was so difficult for him to smile genuinely, you decided to let go of yourself in his arms, seizing the movement of the song – now quietly back to its lyrics with Vergil swaying with you from side to side as the lyrics talked about a man finally settling down in a quiet little town.

“But you know he’ll always keep moving, you know he’s never gonna stop moving, ‘cause he’s rolling, he’s the rolling stone.” Vergil sang close to your ear, bringing your body closer to his and caressing your hand – he never wanted to let go.

It was clear he was speaking of himself. Vergil knew nothing about settling down – he didn’t know how to live a life humans would deem normal. His life had been all but normal. It was in his nature to move, to keep going to Hell and back, to be a constant question mark in the lives of those who wanted to be around him. It was the condition he and Dante had – as devil hunters, as sons of Sparda. It was the curse they carried; the curse of never being able to build something, to create roots and thrive. He believed his blood was meant only for fighting, only for burning, only for shedding blood.

But you had chosen that long ago.

You knew what being with him enticed – and you wouldn’t have him any other way.

“When you wake up it’s a new mornin’, the sun is shinin’ it’s a new mornin’…” As you sang those words, you placed one of your hands on his sharp cheek, turning your adoration and knowing to his eyes. Vergil had to know – and he would. By those words, he would. “And you’re goin’, you’re goin’ home.”

This time your feet flew not only because of Vergil dancing freely through the house, but by having his arms wrap around you in a tight embrace, taking you from the floor as he slid with you through the place you both called your home. You wrapped your arms tightly around him, laughing out loud as the guitar solo created waves and waves for you to swim together.

It didn’t matter how many times he left, you would always be there. You had told him a thousand times he would always find you, for you’d wait for him like Penelope waited for Odysseus – there was no other you could share your heart with but Vergil.

Whenever he left, whenever he woke up, whenever there was a new sun gracing the skies with its golden rays, Vergil could always be certain that, this time, he would have a home to go back to – not your house, but you.

It was the first time you ever saw him smiling so freely, humming to his heart's content, and dancing with you as nothing else mattered in the world but the music that made your hearts soar together into a new morning.

And Vergil knew when the sun entered the room, shining brightly in a new morning, you would be there by his side - and he would know he was home.

*Midsummer Night's Dream, by Shakespeare

#devil may cry #dmc #devil may cry imagines #dmc imagines #devil may cry fanfiction #vergil x reader #vergil imagine #dmc vergil #vergil sparda #vergil x you #devil may dance #devil may cry vergil #Vergil flushing would be something I'd love to see #he'd 10/10 be the type of drunk who thinks he's got everything under control #and then dances the night away #I wanted to make something more dance-y with him but... I think Verge isn't ready for that yet #he needs a little more of feeling comfortable and putting his guard down #or a LOT more #and yeeeeees I love Midsummer Night's Dream I played Titania once and it has been dear to me ever since xD #Youtube

[trelkez]

Me watching Ted Lasso 3.11:

I truly thought the last few episodes of the show had broken any remaining faith I had in its storytelling, but no. The second scene of this episode: that broke any remaining faith I had in Ted Lasso's storytelling. This season is NOT GOOD. And yet: are they going to make my OT3 canon? Are they?

I'm going to process Ted Lasso 3.11 (mostly) the way I did last week, by doing a rewatch and taking everything in order as it happens. The show's writing is so incoherent at this point that I'm not going to attempt to impose order on it; things just occur. This is the way.

1. Ted's Mom

I spent the entire opening credit sequence mentally reviewing every Ted/Trent fic I've ever read that had some kind of take on Ted's mom – and realizing that whatever we were about to get wasn't going to be as interesting as anything I'd read in fic, because this season is hell-bent on the idea that all conflict can be washed away in the space of a single conversation. 

Remember when I would've just been excited to finally meet Ted's mom? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

2. Jade hates working with her boyfriend

And who can blame her? This woman has one thing, and that is working at Taste of Athens. Come on, Nate, get your own thing!

3. "We want you to come back to Richmond."

So, okay.

I've already written pretty extensively on how badly handled Nate's redemption arc has been. This has been a problem all season long; before I moved back to Tumblr, I was writing small, irate tweets about it.

Let's go back and look at some of the things I said during and after season 2:

2.07: Nate - his characterization has been really consistent: he's always been a jerk to Will, he uses his power over others to belittle them to make himself feel better, he conflates being assertive with being aggressive, this stuff was in s1 too

post-s2, 1/3: the show put a lot of work into showing Nate punching down, his growing narcissism, the ways feeling underappreciated makes him cruel to others and himself; I don't think we're meant to take away that being denied a Nespresso machine justifies a heel turn

post-s2, 2/3: Nate's history with women as shown is not great - when he thinks he's fired he immediately calls Rebecca a shrew; "perhaps you'd like to give me your number, too" to Jade the hostess as soon as he feels like he can order her around; kissing Keeley at all

post-s2, 3/3: when he kissed Keeley I was like, sure, this tracks; (for him) it becoming solely about him being mad that it wasn't enough to get Roy's attention also tracks. but the rest ... and some of the media takeaway ... is weird to me. is this relatable content?? should it be?

What gets me about all of this is that sometimes, this season has almost convinced me that Nate leaking the panic attack story to Trent was just a weak moment for which an otherwise lovable guy should be forgiven – but the evidence isn't there. They were so consistent in how they built up Nate's fall; they seeded that in as far back as season one. They signaled it through hair color! They unfolded it piece by piece, in a deliberate, escalating spiral from which there ultimately was no last-minute escape.

And then we get to season three, and two seasons of careful character building immediately becomes meaningless. Season three's Nate is a different person. This entire season is taking place in an alternate universe. And there's no reason they had to do that, because they had an entire twelve-episode season of increasingly long episodes in which to slowly but surely make Nate a better person! Time for him to learn a series of important lessons that tie into past behavior; time for him to slowly reconcile with his father; time for him to grow without erasing the person he had always been. Time to build him up into a better version of himself.

Instead, this is what we have. And even then, some of the most important parts of the story of Nate's redemption have happened off-screen. Nate quitting off-screen last week was truly shocking; the team discussing Nate's situation, deciding to forgive him, and voting on whether or not to invite him back – that happening off-screen is unforgivable. The West Ham storyline has, thus far, mattered so little to this season that maybe (.......maybe) we can say that severing ties with Rupert wasn't a key part of his journey, even though that's absurd, but Nate's return to Richmond is everything. That's the whole ballgame. 

For Colin to be part of the welcoming committee is truly fucking egregious. Even this very season, Colin is still repeating his affirmation from therapy as he actively works on building up his self-confidence – something Nate deliberately tried to destroy. At no point did I imagine that a one-on-one with Colin wasn't going to be part of Nate's apology tour. But now – one sprig of lavender for Will, and that's all it takes? Nate's treatment of Colin isn't going to be addressed at all? 

This is the same team that collected red cards like candy against West Ham after Roy and Beard showed them the video of Nate ripping up the "believe" sign. Remember the power walk of fury past Nate to open the second half of that game? Why do they now suddenly want him back? Because they heard he was working in a restaurant and felt sorry for him? Because they heard he apologized to Will and decided that was enough? At this point, I genuinely think the writers didn't know how that conversation would go, so they skipped over it. If you aren't sure how to get the team back on Nate's side, just have it happen off-screen; then it doesn't matter how it happened, only that it did. If you only tell and never show, you can make anything happen without having to get from A to B. 

All of this mess, all of this time, and we don't get to be in the room as the team reaches some kind of closure on everything Nate did.

4. "Richmond have won fifteen matches in a row. With two games left, you're just four points off Manchester City for the Premier League title."

Thanks for expositing all of that, Reporter Guy. If it weren't for the occasional infodump, we'd never know what was going on in the team's season! Exposition Characters, you're the true heroes.

5. "That goal is a lie. It should be retracted from the record. I apologize to everyone, especially the kids."

If they had kept to this kind of funny-but-alarming tone without going too overboard on it, Jamie's pre-Manchester depressive episode would've been a lot more effective.

I know this show can handle depression, anxiety, and parent-induced stress in a thoughtful way and balance that with tonally appropriate comedy, but can it do that … anymore?

6. Ted's ever-increasing mom stress

To that end: the way they built up Ted being so put out his mother was in town, I thought for sure we were going to find out he had been dodging her calls about something (was Michelle getting married after all?) and this would reveal whatever it was to the audience. 

I think – I think – that the actual intended effect here is to underscore that Ted ran an entire continent away from his problems and all of his unprocessed trauma, and having all of that catch up to him without warning triggered a stress cascade resulting in the meltdown we'll get at the end. But if that's the intention, what this episode really underscores is that they simply do not know how to handle this sort of storyline anymore. Dottie Lasso is lovely and entertaining and you definitely can look at her and see where Ted comes from, but the Ted parts of this story are about as nuanced as a sledgehammer on concrete.

7. "Trent, your hair is fabulous. It really is. It's just stylin'."

I never thought that Trent would actually meet Ted's mother in the show. I can't wait to see what fic writers do with this. (Please don't get discouraged by however the show ends and walk away, fic writers! We need you now, tonight. We need you more than ever.)

8. Van Damme's mask

This is officially more follow-up on a previous episode's subplot than we have had about almost any other subplot this entire season, and it's about one of the most disposable stories they've told.

9. OT3 Watch: "Shouting is Roy's love language."

Does Trent ship it? One of us, one of us.

10. OT3 Watch: Jamie crying on Roy

There's a lot about this scene I loved, so let's take a break for positivity! That sounds nice, doesn't it?

Jamie bursting into tears and then, when asked what's wrong, saying, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know": intensely relatable. He's already in tears as he walks into the boot room, just barely holding it in, and the second Roy pushes him to toughen up (in general), he loses it, because of course he does: he's dreading another trauma at the hands of his abusive dad, in the hometown that hates him. It makes perfect sense for Jamie to be having a serious depressive episode, and it is entirely in character for him to describe that as "I don't use any conditioner anymore, because what's the fucking point."

This is one thing this season has done well, with patience and consistency: it's believable for Jamie to break down crying on Roy because they put the time in to get these two to that point. Last season, it was a big fucking deal when Roy hugged Jamie. This season, if Jamie is going to cry on anyone, of course it's going to be Roy.

That said: I think it was a mistake to go quite so hard on playing this for laughs. Depression and trauma absolutely can be mined for comedy. "Do you think a depressed person could make this?" works because it's still Ben Wyatt, it's just Depressed Ben Wyatt. Jamie smushing Roy's face around as Phil Dunster gives it his absolute best comedy wailing sob doesn't … feel like Jamie? It just feels like comedy. If the moment isn't organic to the character, probably it needed a rewrite.

"It probably needed a rewrite," the Ted Lasso season three story. – Then again, I wonder all the time how much of this season's problems are due to the infamous production-halting Jason Sudeikis rewrites, so … maybe not? Maybe this season needed fewer rewrites and more Bill Lawrence? Who can say.

("Will, you missed a good one" is a great closing note for the series-long gag of overheard emotional scenes in the boot room. If they do another one in the finale, they'll have overshot it.)

11. "Hey, Roy, would it bother you if we brought Nate back?" / "No, I don't give a fuck."

At this point, I briefly stopped watching. 

I went back to 2.12 to see if Roy knows that Nate was the source for the panic attack story: as of that episode, as far as I can tell, he doesn't. 

I went to 3.04 to see if there was any indication during the West Ham episode that Roy had figured it out by then, but that episode focuses on the "believe" sign, which everyone but Ted seems to be finding out about for the first time.

Roy doesn't know that Nate actively tried to ruin Ted. (Does it make any sense for Roy to not have done the math when he was in the room when Ted opened up to the coaches about his panic attacks? Probably not, but that appears to be the canon.) He does know what Nate was like, particularly toward the end; he knows that Nate abandoned ship for West Ham; he knows that Nate ripped the sign, and he used that to turn the entire team against Nate for the West Ham game; and perhaps most importantly, Roy is not especially known as an easygoing, forgiving guy.

This is a man who carried a devastating news clipping around in his wallet for his entire career and beyond. A guy who couldn't hug Jamie in celebration until he headbutted him to make them even. This is Roy Kent, who is known even by people who don't watch this show as the one with the anger issues.

And he's just – fine? To bring Nate back? He holds no grudges? Roy Kent? We're really going to have Roy Kent as the voice of "yeah, whatever, I don't care" while Beard is left to fume alone?

12. "If you bring that Judas back, I will burn this place to the fucking ground."

Once again, Beard is the only one who's seen season two. And yet, this is being set up as a conflict that Beard has to set aside. 

Has Nate apologized to Ted at this point? No. Was Nate an increasingly toxic presence in the locker room last season? Yes. Do they have any knowledge of his coaching style at West Ham that we're aware of that would suggest that he's had a major personality change? No. Are they currently on a fifteen-game winning streak without Nate? Yes. Are there only two games left in the season? Yes. 

Is there any reason to bring Nate back at this point? No. And Beard, who has been the only one all season long who has retained any emotional awareness of past events, is only allowed to have that awareness so that it can be used as a justifying force for Nate's return.

I support you, Beard. This is all some bullshit. You should be allowed to be pissed about it. 

13. Nora!

Is Rebecca's aside about Nora telling her to stop using her private jet the closest we're going to get to a Nora appearance this season? There's still time for her to pop up in the finale, but that seems unlikely.

14. OT3 Watch: Keeley checking in on Jamie

I was on the fence about whether or not they were going too hard on humor with Jamie's depression until "a suitcase is a drawer without a home … wahh." This is the best they could do for depression comedy? This is a comedy series that did an entire season about depression!! Phil Dunster really is doing his best in this episode, but not even he could elevate that line.

I do like the general concept of Roy going to Keeley for help with Jamie, only for Keeley to make it all worse. Roy being better at comforting Jamie is conceptually very funny. Writing dialogue that does justice to a story outline is tricky, isn't it? Mm.

15. Sam and Rebecca???

Are they doing this, or are they just going to tease it every single episode? Are Sam and Rebecca endgame? Surely not, right. If it were endgame, wouldn't we have gotten into the meat of it a lot sooner than … the finale?

If you know a Tedbecca shipper, maybe give them a warm cookie this week, because this episode did not move that anywhere promising.

(My money is still on Houseboat Guy popping up out of nowhere.)

16. OT3 Watch: Jamie and Keeley follow Jamie home

If this is the first time Keeley is meeting Jamie's mom, that means – he never took her home when they were dating?

Roy staring in absolute slack-jawed shock at Jamie and his mom cuddling on the couch is me. Roy is me. Setting aside for a moment just how much is going on there, I never would have guessed that Jamie had a relationship like this with a mom who was still in the picture. 

In 1.06, Jamie talks about how his mom got him into football and supported him but probably wouldn't be proud of him lately; in 3.06, we hear about a trip they took to Amsterdam when he was a teenager. Is that … it? Have there been other references to his mom? In 2.08, when Richmond plays Manchester City, there is a lot about his dad but no reference to his mom that I remember. The show is so laser-focused on Jamie's dad that I assumed his mother, whether dead or estranged or somehow unwell, wasn't an active force in his life in the present day.

This is a show about dads. They've told us that in interviews all along. Ted's dad, Nate's dad, Jamie's dad, Sam's dad, Rebecca's dad, even a whiff of Trent's dad; Ted's relationship with his son, even Phoebe's relationship with her Uncle Roy. We see Nate's mom, but that is almost entirely about Nate's relationship with his dad. The only characters who get to have meaningful ongoing not-about-dads onscreen relationships with their mothers are Rebecca and Nora, which is … weirdly gendered?

But now, with the curtain about to drop on this show, they're doing a Mom Episode. We get two moms we've never met before dropped on us in one hour. We know almost nothing about these moms, because they've never been made central to the story in a way everyone's dads have been; and here, in an episode titled "Mom City," their stories are still mostly about each character's relationship with his dad. 

Even so, those stories need to fit into what we know about Ted and Jamie. "I love meeting people's moms. It's like reading an instruction manual as to why they're nuts," right? Ted and Jamie's moms, introduced here at the eleventh hour, should shine a light on things we already know about these characters and make us think, "this explains so much."

Does Jamie's mom actually explain anything we already knew about Jamie? Does it actually make sense for Jamie to have had, all this time, a sweet, supportive mom available for hugs on demand, or does this just create a lot of new questions the show doesn't have time to answer? I don't think Jamie's mom as we meet her (or his future GBBO star baker stepdad) are fully outside the realm of possibility for his character, but we could've had more time to untangle all of this if they had spent as much time on Jamie's mom as they did on his dad. Instead, I'm left with: you're telling me Jamie Tartt isn't actually touch-starved? Jamie Tartt?

You're telling me Jamie's mom watches all of his matches … but has never been to one? Jamie's mom got him into football and drove him to all of his practices, but he's playing right down the street and she's watching from home? Jamie's mom is this important to him, but never met Keeley? Jamie's mom is this important to him, and we've only ever heard about her as the reverse side of a story about Jamie's dad? There are some drop-ins you just can't make in the eleventh hour.

Also: what is going on here? I'm with Roy. Wow. Wow.

17. Jade really hates working with her boyfriend

Is this really just a way to get Nate back to Richmond? Yes. Is it nonetheless completely valid for Jade to not want to have to hear about Nate's salty nuts scheme after work hours? Also yes. You might be a girlfriend ex machina, but you are nonetheless valid, Jade.

18. OT3 Watch: Jamie's posters

*chinhands* So are they, like … are they doing this on purpose, or … no, they have to be doing it on purpose, right? Right?? Maybe it won't ever go any further than this, because even now I have a hard time imagining an OT3 becoming canon, but they are surely at least tipping their hat to it. 

19: OT3 Watch: walking off arm-in-arm

Surely they aren't going to make it canon.

20. Pep????

They actually brought on Pep Guardiola for a Ted Lasso cameo? In an episode about Manchester City leading the title race, airing in the same week City won the title irl? I'm legit impressed.

21. Jamie's injury drama

This is honestly the dumbest way to generate in-game drama. Jamie goes out on injury and Ted's coaching masterstroke is to act like they've just lost a player to a red card and now have to defend a one goal lead with ten men? Just in case the training staff can shoot Jamie up with enough painkillers to let him finish the game on an injury he couldn't walk on? 

I know Jamie is their star striker and all, but did Sam, Dani, and Colin suddenly lose their scoring abilities when Jamie hurt his ankle? We just had a major subplot last week about what a heater Sam has been on – did that suddenly disappear? Does this team have no ability to adjust to the loss of a player? They've won fifteen straight games!! In real life, that would be one of the longest win streaks in Premier League history! No team becomes that successful without quality substitutes. Just get someone on the pitch, before Manchester fucking City takes advantage of being a man up and gets the equalizer we're told they've been on the verge of for the entire second half.

Why. This is Ted Lasso, why am I getting hung up on its football strategy? This isn't about strategy, it's about Ted and Jamie. Nothing matters except the conversation they're about to have on the sideline. Everything else happens exclusively to allow that conversation to happen. The football is just set dressing. None of this matters.

It's just so dumb, though. God.

22. Jade hates working with her boyfriend so much

Truly next level of her to blackmail her boss to get Nate fired so she can have some peace in the workplace. Does she only exist in this show to advance Nate's storyline? Yes. Is she doing this to be a Good Girlfriend? Yes. Can I ignore both of those things and pretend this is just a badass move by someone who does not care to mix her relationship and her job? Also yes.

23. Ted Lasso and forgiveness

This season's insistence on total forgiveness – that the past is the past, that holding a grudge is a moral failing or a poison of the soul – is one of its biggest flaws. Everything needs to be tied up just so. Characters can't truly grow unless they let go of whatever anger they're holding onto. In the end, everything must come around to wholesomeness and healing. As the show nears its end, it is doing everything it possibly can to wash all slates clean. 

(Except, possibly, with Rupert. We'll see.)

In a void, Ted's mini-speech to Jamie about how he should forgive his dad so that he himself can heal might be – not something I would at all agree with, but fine, in that I don't have to always agree with characters on television shows and Ted is clearly doing some projecting here re: his situation with his mom. But in this broader context of what's going on with Nate, on the sideline of a game, it just feels … forced, and kind of gross. FORGIVE YOUR DAD SO YOU CAN KICK FOOTBALL. FORGIVENESS FIXES EVERYTHING. Okay, Ted Lasso. Okay.

Remember when Dr. Sharon said, "I think you [still hate your father] too, Ted, and that's okay," and they talked about the things Ted both hated and loved about his father, because it was okay for him to hold both of those things inside him at once? Where has that gone?

24. Manchester Loves Jamie

I'm not going to ask what the point of putting Jamie back on for one minute and then substituting him straight off was – do they truly have no one else who could have put them up by two? – because honestly, the City fan ovation was so unbelievable that football strategy pales in comparison. They spent an entire game booing and shit-talking him in the stands, and then he scores a goal on a wobbly foot and they suddenly realize he's Good, Actually and cheer him off? In a game that could decide the league title?

Manchester City could have won the league title right here in this game if Jamie hadn't scored that goal and the City fans cheer him off? In what universe. In what version of reality. Were there no even vaguely believable feel-good moments they could engineer for this game???

25. OT3 Watch: Roy whispering sweet nothings

They aren't going to make it canon, right??

26. Jamie's dad in rehab

This is one of the only "thing we heard nothing about and then suddenly it happens" moments where it makes sense for no one to know what's going on. It's positive growth for a shit character that I can actually get behind and believe in.

Jamie's dad is here doing the work and trying to get better. Instead of having it as an extremely brief reveal in the penultimate episode of the series, imagine if they had done this earlier and shown his dad getting out of rehab, and spent some time on Jamie deciding whether or not to forgive his dad now that his dad is sober. Emphasize the hard parts. Show them building a new relationship as different people. That would be so much more in keeping with the actual themes of this show than the magical thinking this season has engaged in.

27. Pep??????

"Don't worry about wins and losses, just help these guys be the best versions of themselves" from Pep Guardiola is THE MOST TED LASSO version of Pep Guardiola I can imagine. I cackled out loud. I threw back my head and laughed like a woman eating a salad. A+ comedy, intentional or otherwise.

28. Nate hiding under the desk

Why? Why. I mean, I get why – this humanizes everything Nate did in 2.12 and makes him seem like a pathetic guy who can't even ruin a sign right, and retcons some of the most potent parts of Nate's season two arc to make us feel empathy for him where we might not previously have; I had this issue with the rolling chair pratfall video earlier in the season, too – but it just exhausts me. They couldn't spend the time redeeming him organically, so they're rewriting what's already happened to make it seem less bad.

Going back to Ted's funeral therapy session with Dr. Sharon: remember how Ted had this deep, terrible fear of losing someone he loved because he didn't do enough to make them feel their worth, and Nate unknowingly cracked that wide open when he accused Ted of "abandoning" him? Remember how Nate could only feel important if he was the most important person in the room, so being one part of a team felt like rejection – and Nate at the absolute bottom of his spiral, having already tried to ruin Ted's life in the press, tore at him with every emotional weapon he had on hand?

Now we're going to reframe all of that as, "ahhhh, this little guy, can't even do a harm to a desk chair, look at him hide from cleaners, so sad, someone rescue him from restaurant!!"

I'm so ready for this show to end. It'll be easier to pick and choose the parts I want to hang onto once canon is closed.

29. OT3 Watch: champagne

But they aren't going to make it canon, right?????????

Honestly, get someone who looks at you the way Roy looks at Jamie here. Just incredible.

If this is the most OT3 we ever get, it'll be enough.

30. Beard's backstory

Let's pause here a moment.

As a coping mechanism for whatever the show was going to throw at me in this episode, I made myself a bingo card. Every time I got a square, I won a tiny piece of chocolate. I made some of the squares obvious hits, some of them decent possibilities, and some were wild swings at things I knew would never happen.

Earlier in this episode, I hesitated over giving myself the "Beard Backstory" square for Beard and Dottie having nicknames for each other, wondering if that qualified as our Beard backstory for the episode. And then … Beard showed up at Nate's door.

In that moment, I truly felt I had cursed myself with this bingo card. Don't invite possibilities you aren't willing to see play out on-screen, I think is the lesson here?

"Just like in Les Mis." – Nate, and all of us

I really don't know how to feel about this Beard backstory. In theory, I have no issue with Beard having a backstory about being incarcerated for meth and Ted helping him out afterward, but in practice, I'm not sure it makes any sense whatsoever. Beard has a record that no one knows about? He's been an assistant coach in the Premier League for three seasons and it's never popped up in the Daily Mail that he was in prison on a drug conviction? I know in the real world Ted wouldn't be allowed to coach Richmond to begin with, but just how far into fantasyland are we?

(I also have some questions about the "and then I stole his car" twist. What exactly are the writers trying to say here about people freshly out of prison? He had a difficult re-entry, totally understood; he found a place to land, and immediately turned back to crime? Should they maybe have spent a little more time unpacking this story before they made it canon?)

All of that aside, I'm not sure I really wanted a Beard backstory. For the entire run of this show to date, Beard has been something of a Ted-adjacent cryptid with a very clear personality but relatively opaque motivations, whose history we've learned about through wildly random drop-ins that always raise more questions than they answer. He's a guy who roams the city at night and collects subcultures like stamps. He's in an eternally tortured relationship with a manic pixie nightmare girl who somehow suits him perfectly. His devotion to Ted has never, ever been in doubt. 

I just don't think it actually rounds out the character of Beard to know exactly where he's coming from and why he's with Ted. The mystery is part of the character. Introducing an in-depth backstory in the penultimate episode of the entire show feels … kind of cheap? I would completely understand if other people felt it was long overdue and are happy to get it before the end, but to me, pulling back the curtain feels like a misunderstanding of what makes Beard a great character. We don't need to see the man behind the curtain. Being able to wildly speculate about what makes Beard Beard is a big part of his appeal. 

And to drop this in as a plot mechanism for bringing Nate back into the fold – to make this significant change to a major character as a shortcut on Nate's mismanaged path to redemption – I'm just so tired.

This whole thing where Ted emotionally manipulated Beard into forgiving Nate by invoking Ted's own past assistance to Beard – I'm not sure that comes across the way they think it does. Ted wants everyone around him to forgive Nate and the only one who isn't willing to do it is Beard, so Ted forces the issue by hitting Beard where it hurts to get Beard to project his own past trauma onto Nate's situation. Does Ted really think that Beard stealing his car is equivalent to Nate putting his mental health history on the front page of every newspaper in London? Even if he does, why does he think it's fair to Beard to pull out Beard's trauma like a trump card? 

31. Fuck you, Mom!!

What was Ted's relationship with his mother back home, that she comes to visit him in London and within 48 hours, everything he's been holding onto for years comes boiling out of him in a series of F-bombs borrowed from Jamie Tartt? What was their dynamic like in Kansas, that the minute she shows up his shoulders go up around his ears and he can't handle anyone he cares about liking her at all?

Is this happening now because Ted unlocked all of this in therapy? Is it happening now because he's been away from her for so long? Was he not visiting her on those trips to Kansas? Is it the change in setting – having her in London, in his space, meeting his people?

This whole "thank you / fuck you" speech feels overcooked at best, well-acted as it is, and it veers into some really incoherent areas. When Ted tapped his chest, I thought, "oh god, is he impotent in his soul?" Honestly, that would have made more sense than Ted saying he's afraid to get close to his son because "I know he's going to leave."

Yes, Ted is afraid of losing people, but we know because Ted has said so in therapy that his response to that fear is to pull people closer in. To try to make people feel wanted, feel valued, feel good about themselves.

In Ted and Henry's relationship, if Ted has projected his dad onto anyone, it's been himself. If there is a monster under the bed here, it is Ted's fear of turning into his dad, of having the potential for that inside him. That line would have made 110% more sense if it had been, "I'm afraid I'm going to leave," even if we would have had a lot more to unpack on-screen at that point. As it is, it's just – kind of nonsense?

Did they feel like they had to pull out some extra motivation for Ted having been in London all of this time? They didn't. The degree to which they are trying way too hard in some areas and not at all in others sure is something.

32. I've read this fic

Rebecca and Bex? Yeah, I've definitely read this fic. That "Bex divorces Rupert and takes West Ham" square on my bingo card is going to reappear next week.

33. "Do you know what time it is?"

"It's the time of the season when we do X" is a little too much meta self-awareness for me, and the "I'm going to invoke truth bombs as a concept but I don't actually have one" is clunky execution to set up Ted's cliffhanger line, but the staging: flawless. In seasons one and two, Rebecca comes into Ted's office and stands on the left of the frame, facing right. In season three, Ted is the one who comes into the office and stands on the left, reversing their positions both physically and narratively. That kind of attention to detail is A+. 

(I wish they gave that much attention to the plot, but I'll take it where I can get it.)

What's next?

One more episode left to cram in everything they could possibly want to do with this show! We're on a real run here of episodes that cram in abrupt resolutions to ongoing stories while also dropping in a ton of new elements we don't have time to explore, and I wouldn't expect the finale to be all that different.

- Before 3.11, I thought the chances of Ted going back to Kansas were 85% for, 15% against. Now … I think it might actually be closer to 75% for, 25% against?

This episode pushed so hard on sending Ted back to Kansas, and we're being set up in that cliffhanger for him telling Rebecca he's quitting after the season ends, and – there's still an entire finale to go. Will the episode just be one long goodbye, or will there be some last-minute twist to keep him in London? I think the chances of him staying in London are actually slightly better now that the "I'm going back to Kansas" twist isn't being held for the end. Still pretty unlikely, though.

I say again: if he goes back to Kansas, fine, we can fix that in post. If he goes back to Michelle, I'm turning this car around.

- Every social media feed I have has been frantic with speculation as to whether or not they're going to make the OT3 canon in the finale. My money is on Not Canon – I think a wink and a nod at it is as much as they're going to do – but I'll be happy with anything that isn't a flash-forward in which Jamie has a girlfriend. Just let us walk off arm-in-arm-in-arm with room to speculate, show.

- So Nate goes back to Richmond, Ted leaves, and Nate becomes head coach, right? Just like we could pretty easily guess was going to happen before this season even started? There's still a chance of a surprise shake-up there, but I'd put it at, like … 5%. A 5% chance of this not going in the most predictable possible direction.

- If Ted leaves, does Beard stay or does he go? He stays, right? If they try to convince us that Jane is dying to move to Kansas, I'll have to Eternal Sunshine the entire finale from my memory banks.

- I am very much hoping for a thoughtful farewell with the pub trio. They've earned it.

- It's West Ham they're going to be playing in the last game, right? If Nate's West Ham storyline is going to have any meaning, he has to go up against his old team with his old old team in the last game of the season while Rupert's drama plays out in close-up.

There should also be some simultaneous game drama happening with Manchester City. They were four points down before this game, so on the final day of league play, they'll be one point down. If City wins, they win the title. If City draws or loses and Richmond wins, Richmond wins the title. If City loses and Richmond draws, then … actually, there could be interesting last-minute drama if they're trying to break through on goal differential, but I don't think the show would go that far into technicalities. Richmond has to win, right? They aren't going to send the show off on anything less.

Five days until we're free!

#ted lasso #ted lasso meta #episode reactions

[cavehags]

i'll analyse anything, but i'm floored by the take that a guy who chooses to work overseas going back to his kid bcz he realises there's some things you can offer by being in the same physical space that you simply cannot from a different timezone is the same as being "solely devoted to their child to the wholesale detriment and complete exhaustion of themselves"

and further i've noticed that a lot of these takes come from the position that like. nuclear family is bad, or "i grew up never knowing my dad and it was fine", or "my dad was a deadbeat pos" - but we are talking about a specific kind of situation, which is that you grew up with a dad who was at least somewhat present, who loves you, is alive, has the option to be where you are, could absolutely find work where you are, claims to want to be involved in your life but has chosen to pursue a career that keeps him far away from you. A thing that is only possible because your mom is able to take care of you.

Thats a specific situation and a context - ted lasso and henry don't live in a society where childcare is communal, and they don't live in a story where henry will grow up never having had a dad to miss. There's so much uncertainty, insecurity, and static on the line of their relationship. And if the show is flagging that Ted is feeling that and *wants* to change it!??!?!?! that doesn't seem to be to the detriment of himself. In fact the only person in this scenario who is being forced to devote themselves entirely to their child, is as you pointed out, is michelle, who has to manage the work of parenting a child who is going through that struggle by herself. (no, phone calls to help with homework and child support don't count).

yes totally. the framework of capitalism is not what the show is interested in. ted is making choices freely, from a position of privilege! people act like he's backed into a corner where he's going to kill himself if he stays in america (a totally bizarre claim that a certain bandit of chihuahuas was quite insistent on despite the complete absence of evidence for it) or like he needs to do this work because it's his only option. the reality is that he is a very well-paid professional choosing to work overseas because he likes the job, and he's leaving michelle to suffer the consequences. and the show tells us over and over again that on a personal level, ted feels loyalty to henry and a desire to be there for him that is far more powerful than anything he feels about afc richmond. (which. is the way it should be. when you bring a person into the world.) his panic attacks have signaled to us that he was always uneasy about abandoning henry, and his dialogue throughout this season has said very explicitly that he's ready to go home and be there for him. the argument that he should stay doesn't make sense politically or personally. if he wants to be a good dad, the only option is to go home.

#ted lasso