#she wasn’t doing her job for a decade which means things are BAD

[kay-elle-cee]

@jilytoberfest 31 Prompts: Day 24 || 843 Words || Read on Ao3 —

“The eclipse is going to be over if you don’t bloody move, Moony.”

“I’ll move in a minute, Peter, I just put my eye to the thing.”

“There’s a line behind us and James still has to go, hurry.”

Lily’s watching the squabble between the four men at the front of the line with amusement. There’s an urgency that overtakes people when an astrological event happens, and this solar eclipse is no different. The line behind the men is filled with several people, bouncing eagerly for their turn to look through the telescope at the Sinistra Observatory before the eclipse is complete. Looking across the heads of the crowd, she catches the eye of her coworker Alice and the two share an exasperated smile—they had known the crowds would come en masse today, and that always made for great people-watching.

The man at the telescope moves out of the way to stand by his tall friend—long black hair tucked behind his ear and looking at the line behind them with a smirk on his face.

“I knew I threw a fit about it, but getting here early was a smart move.”

The shortest of the group is now looking through the telescope, letting out a breath of awe that fills Lily with a kind of pride—a bit silly, really, seeing as how she wasn’t in control of the cosmos, just a facilitator for viewing it safely. When he finally makes to step away, the last of their group—tall with (she can’t help but notice) muscular forearms and a wild mop of black curls atop his head—steps to the side with them.

“Oh, did you not want to look?”

She doesn’t know why she’s addressed him, holding a hand out to stop the next group of viewers from moving up in line. His eyes meet hers with a bit of surprise.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

She frowns. “The next solar eclipse through this spot isn’t for another forty-seven years. Are you positive?”

His friends are doing a poor job at hiding their amusement, and maybe Lily feels a little bad at the way the man’s cheeks tinge pink but it’s a solar eclipse for Christ’s sake.

“Positive. It’s cool and all but I’m just…not very into space.”

Her hand drops and the slightly-irritated next group runs up to the telescope, all of Lily’s attention on the man. His friends take a few steps away, whispering amongst themselves as Lily’s eyes widen. “What do you mean you’re not very into space?”

“I’m just not, alright?” He casts a glance over at his friends, who seem to be enjoying the fiasco. “Are we ready?”

“Nah, mate,” the tallest one says. “We’re enjoying this.”

“But—there’s so much we don’t know about the universe…you can’t just not like it. What about space travel, or the makeup of planets or stars or the vastness of our galaxy? The fact that there’s trillions of galaxies other than our own? All the new images showing them to us in resolutions we couldn’t even dream of a decade ago?” She lets out a little chuckle of disbelief. “It’s just all so…vast. How can you not care?”

The man shifts uncomfortably, eyes flickering from her face to the line behind her as he drops his voice. “Well if you must know, that’s exactly why.”

“What?”

“There’s just…so much. So much we don’t know, so much we can’t even fathom. The amount of time it takes for light to travel or a picture to develop…it’s freaky, alright? And it just goes on forever? A beginning out of nothingness and then just…continual growth forever? Forever?” His cheeks continue to flush with his every word, Lily struck silent by the urgency in which his tirade picks up speed. “And how did the universe form in the first place? What space existed for space to appear? Nothingness? I literally cannot wrap my head around it. And we’re the only planet that sustains life? That we’ve ever seen? What the fuck?”

The man takes a breath and Lily blinks. “Wow.”

“Sorry,” he apologizes, running a hand through his hair with a sigh. “I just—once I get thinking on it, it kind of just—”

“Tumbles out?” she asks with a raise of her brow, a smile tugging at her lips. “I’m the same. Well, the same in the opposite, you know, opinion of things.”

“Maybe he just needs someone to properly explain things to him,” someone calls from the side, and when Lily looks, the sandy-haired man has his hand clamped over the tall one’s mouth, the shortest of the three trying to bury his snickering into the collar of his jacket.

“Oi!” Scared-of-Space yells in their direction, and Lily can see a new wave of blush travel up his neck.

“Don’t worry,” she whispers conspiratorially, “you’re not the first person I’ve met who’s afraid of space.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she nods, a smile breaking out on her face. “You are the first one above the age of twelve, though.”

“Ouch.”

“I’m teasing.” Lily smiles, and he returns it with relief.

#it's (always) you #jilytober2023 #jily #jple #james potter #lily evans #31 prompts

[igglemouse]

Episode 2 ~ Bound By Blood

Narrator: Life could certainly be better for Julius Tourneau but he was a man coming to realize that what gave life meaning was the people you surround yourself with and he could not have picked a better wife than Jana. Sure, he didn't see her as much as Maria who was always around him but when they did come together they often enjoyed each other's company. Tonight they decided to share a dance.

His relationship with Jana had been rocky at first, she agreed to marry him because she understood how it would raise her reputation among other vampires but she did not agree to become one of his multiple wives. She didn't sign up for that but over the years he had done a great job of convincing her that it wasn't so bad because he treated her like royalty which is what she desired most.

Unlike Tabitha she was allowed to play politics and had a seat on the council. She was allowed to be the enterprising woman she always wanted to be and unlike Maria she was well, free. The redhead had basically been a puppet of Julius, a happy and content one to be sure but a puppet all the same.

"I do like our current plan," she said as they grew tired of dancing. Not physically tired, they were vampires after all, but having he had a desire to hold her and she had a desire to be held. 

"I'll do anything to keep you all alive," he said softly. This was his weak point she knew. Since Violante had killed his father and so close to killing his mother he knew that he was vulnerable. The dysfunction of the council and Caleb's constant adversarial position to his was a minor distraction to the immediate threat the Blood Roses posed.

A mostly mysterious group led by an ex-lover of his and a hunter  named Violante who had chased obsessed over killing him for decades now. He had devised a plan to crush the Roses and he felt like finally things were falling into place.

"Tullus will deliver her right to you," Jana said, a smirk on her lips, knowing that once again her husband would win in the end. He always won.

Index - Next

These poses were made by the super talented @helenofsimblr​ who made them for this couple some time ago and I am now just using them! Thank you Helen and I hope I’ve done the poses well!

#season 1 #the sims 4 #the sims #sims legacy #iggleverse reborn #sims 4 legacy #my sims #gen 1 #laverne tourneau #julius tourneau #jana gross

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

“Where the Crawdads Sing” (2022) movie review:

Short review:

It’s fine, I guess, if you can ignore the huge leaps in logic, story inconsistency, forced melodrama, and the twist ending that felt like a “subversion of your expectations” but only for the sake of doing so. 

Letter grade of D+ / C- 

Long review:

DISCLAIMER: I did not read the book, so this will be solely a discussion about the movie.

So...yeah. This may be one of the few times where I fully agree with the Rotten Tomatoes score. When I saw that it was sitting at 36%, I wasn’t convinced since the movie looked like it had a lot going for it. Murder mystery, strong female lead, based on a best-selling novel, and tackling heavy themes like abuse. This movie LOOKED good. It was only after watching the movie did I realize that maybe the trailer did too good of a job selling people on the story.

Maybe the problems I’m about to discuss are a result of the movie being an adaptation, which means a lot of material from the books may have been cut. At it sits right now, it feels like there is a lot missing from the movie. 

First off, what the focus of the movie was supposed to be on. The trailers make it seem like the story is about a young woman dealing with being ostracized by the town she’s living in. To the people around her, she is the “marsh girl”, this boogeyman-like person who is the subject of many ghost stories and rumors. But, that’s not what the movie is actually about. There’s only one real scene where Kya Clark deals with the town’s bullying (when she ran away from school). Other than that, the REAL movie is about her whirlwind romances with Tate and Chase. 

This is a huge problem for me because the closing argument of the movie doesn’t feel representative of the movie as a whole. The defense attorney talks about how the town feared her and didn’t understand her, but you never really see the town do that except for one scene near the beginning. Sure, the prosecution’s witnesses said bad things about Kya, but that’s expected, especially since they were close to Chase. Maybe this is just me but family members bad-mouthing the suspected killer isn’t the same as shunning a girl just for her lifestyle. 

It’s not enough to say Kya is shunned by the town, we need to see it. Emphasize that point because it’s literally the closing argument of the movie. 

But okay, so the movie is actually a melodrama about two, failed romances. Sure, that’s fine, I can deal with that. Except the romances feel so contrived that I felt like I was watching the first draft of a cheesy, young adult romance novel. 

Let’s start with Tate.

Tate’s romance storyline...hurt my brain. I guess there was chemistry there, but it was the type of chemistry where two gorgeous people just stare at each other and you’re supposed to assume they like one another. Because aside from looks, how their relationship progressed didn’t make sense to me. Their first kiss literally happened because Tate talked about the tragic deaths of his mother and sister, which was immediately followed up by them frolicking through some leaves in the wind. And then, they nearly had sex for the first time because they saw some geese flying in (were they geese? That’s just my guess). I guess people are turned on by birds on a creek/marsh/swamp/lake.

But what truly bothered me about Tate’s storyline is that this man left her for years WITHOUT an explanation. I would’ve been fine if his excuse was that he had been drafted for Vietnam since the war was during this decade, but the character’s actual excuse was that he thought Kya would never leave the marsh. So, after promising to never abandon her...he abandons her. And yet, they still get married at the end. 

Was I supposed to like Tate? If so, his abandonment of Kya was so egregious that it essentially ruined his character in the second half of the movie. Even leaving Kya for one year would’ve been bad enough, but the movie makes it clear that it was for several years. And the thing is, I think the audience is supposed to be pro-Tate since he’s part of Kya’s happy ending. I’m not saying any of this because I’m #TeamTate, I’m saying this because Tate’s inexplicable abandonment of Kya actually hurt the storyline.

Alright, let’s move onto Chase. 

For the most part, I thought the movie did a decent job at setting up Chase. He’s the “nice guy” who starts off great, but then is revealed to be a violent abuser who Kya must escape from. You’re not supposed to like Chase (unlike Tate) and the movie made it clear with its portrayal of the character. 

My complaint about Chase’s storyline is more indicative of the movie’s problems as a whole. This whole movie feels like cheap, forced melodrama, like a soap opera but with a higher budget (so...the CW). For example, the scene where Chase is outed as having a secret fiancee. The revelation was so sudden and forced that it was unintentionally hilarious. It’s not enough that Chase is an abuser, no, he has to have a secret lover who Kya never knew about. 

The fiancee doesn’t come back up in the movie, if I recall correctly. So...if this character is only there to serve as a “shock” reveal...maybe...cut the character? The fiancee reveal isn’t necessary to show that Chase is an abuser, that point is already made when he smacks Kya. Yes, I am aware that it was the fiancee reveal that led to Chase becoming violent, but the movie could’ve done Chase’s heel turn in a much more natural way. 

Maybe Chase turns into a violent drunk like Kya’s father? You see him drink beer several times in the movie, that could’ve been a subtle way of showing that Chase was becoming an alcoholic. Or maybe Chase learns about Tate and becomes a jealous monster when Tate comes back. There are several ways to do Chase’s storyline without having to resort to the forced twist of “I had a secret lover this whole time”. 

Now...the ending.

I’m actually not opposed to the “accused protagonist was actually the killer” twist...in theory. This type of twist can work, but it’s usually done when the author is portraying the protagonist as the TRUE VILLAIN of the story. For example (SPOILERS FOR TWO OTHER MOVIES):

1) Primal Fear: Edward Norton’s character reveals he faked his personality disorder in order to escape a guilty verdict.

2) Body of Evidence: Madonna’s character was guilty the whole time and is actually the kind of person everyone thought she was (a gold digger who murders her lovers)

So, what is the movie trying to say here? That Kya is the boogeyman that the town made her out to be? “Oh, but she needed to kill Chase because he’s evil!” Sure, I get that, but the twist hurts the story since it validates the town’s perception of Kya as an unrepentant murderer when most of the movie is centered on portraying Kya as this misunderstood person. 

If this is the angle that the story was trying to take, why not just have Kya admit to the killing? Have her claim it was either 1) self-defense or 2) she needed to do it because Chase left her no choice. The attorney can argue that, under the circumstances, Kya killed Chase “in the heat of passion” (voluntary manslaughter). At the very least, Kya could avoid facing the full wrath of the judge and jury, especially since Kya’s story could make her look sympathetic. 

This ending really left a bad taste in my mouth. In addition, it was another example of the forced melodrama that was prevalent throughout the movie. What did Kya killing Chase add to the movie? Aside from casting Kya in a negative light, it felt unnecessary, especially since the ending already felt stretched out. 

Aside from the story, the leaps in logic were pretty hard to take in. Now, I’m someone who watches Marvel movies, plays games like Persona, and watches shows like Stranger Things. I can suspend my disbelief just fine. But somehow, this movie was pushing it, especially since the story took place in the real world:

1) So I guess Social Services doesn’t know how to do their job? It’s not like Kya was moving around like Jason Bourne, she’s literally living in the same house throughout the whole movie. No one bothered to investigate the house for more than five minutes? Also, she sends out mail from where she lives. The government can’t track her down that way? (my girlfriend, who does social work, was frustrated by this as well)

2) Speaking as a law school student, the courtroom scenes ranged from “Okay, not so bad” to “Please god, make it stop”. Every time the lawyers approached the jurors, I wanted to punch something in the room.

3) This feral swamp girl looks surprisingly good, like she’s a Hollywood actress or something. But seriously, Kya did not look like someone who was surviving alone in the wild. Yes, she had a house, but it was still her alone against the wilderness. She looked like someone living in the town, which goes against her whole story.

4) Kya, the feral swamp girl, becomes a best-selling author...sure. I feel like I’d be more accepting of this plot point if we had actually seen more examples of her poetry. Instead, the movie just assumes that the audience will accept that Kya is an amazing writer. 

5) Kya, who was a murder suspect, somehow got away with hiding evidence within her books. You’re telling me the police wouldn’t put her books into evidence? It’s not like there was a secret compartment either, she just taped Chase’s necklace on one of the pages.

6) The defense attorney making it seem like Kya murdering Chase was too ridiculous worked a little too well. So many things had to go right in order for Kya’s murder scheme to work. 

Okay, I’m exhausted. My advice, just go watch “Top Gun: Maverick” again. Or “Thor: Love and Thunder”, that’s a fun movie. Oh heck, even “Minions - The Rise of Gru”, people seem to like that movie.

/

/

/

Other nitpicky complaints:

1) It’s not a good look that Delia Owens, who is wanted for murder, wrote a story where a young woman gets away with murder. 

2) The army (marine?) brother coming back didn’t really add to the movie. I know he tells Kya that their mother died, but the character doesn’t actually do anything in the main story. Kya could’ve easily learned her mother died through the newspaper or something.

3) What was the point of the cat in the courtroom? They showed the cat sitting on a chair like it was significant or symbolic of something.

4) Kya and Tate never moved from that one spot in the marshes. Sure, let’s just stay in the area where the townsfolk hate my very existence and is the area where all my traumas occurred. You’d think that Tate would’ve convinced Kya to move at some point, especially since he’s a college graduate.

#negative reviews #where the crawdads sing #wtcs #2022 movies #2022 films #films 2022 #movies 2022 #movie review #film review #delia owens #olivia newman #kya clark #tate walker #chase andrews

[gillianthecat]

Scattered* thoughts on GAP episode 1

*I'm serious about the scattered thing, I'm not sure if any of this makes any sense.

I liked it! I will keep watching it! I didn’t watch the trailer and mostly filtered the tags, so I went into the episode pretty ignorant of the plot.

I'm going to get my complaints/concerns out of the way first. 

- I think my biggest obstacle is going to be the business setting, especially a social media/marketing/influencer type business. That was the thing that... didn't ruin, but certainly lessened my enjoyment of Roommates of Poongduck 304. It’s just something I find inherently both boring and annoying. I kept zoning out or pausing and getting distracted during the business parts.

- on a related note, Lady Sam seems like a terrible boss, in a way that also makes it seem like she's bad at running a business. Now, there is a long tradition of terrible bosses in romance, and it doesn't make her irredeemable for me. Already I really like what I've seen of her outside of work! But it is a big obstacle to overcome in liking her and wanting to see her with Mon.

- The third obstacle is very much a me thing, and something I wish I could change. For the past three or so years I've really struggled with reading about or watching women as characters in romance. A lifetime of misogynistic and objectifying depictions of women suddenly caught up to me, and has made it difficult to enjoy even well written non-misogynistic portrayals, especially in romance settings. Unfortunately, this seems to extend to queer women in romance, not just straight stories. There's a very narrow range of women characters (in romance, this is mostly about romance contexts) that get past that these days, and Mon and Sam don't quite fit. That's not to say I dislike them! They do intrigue me. It's just that in order to enjoy them I have to keep pushing aside all that baggage that has accumulated.

Onward to the rest of my scattered thoughts:

- I love that so many of the cast from Secret Crush on You is in this. Perhaps it’s just another job for them, but it feels supportive. I think I did a little scream when I saw Seng & Billy's cameo. And when Sam asked, "who is the other plate for?" I just knew it would be Heng. And a second later he appeared, so I felt very proud of myself. (I only saw him in the opening credits; remember I haven't watched the trailer.) I mostly skipped Sky’s storyline in SCOY, so my strongest association with him is as Phoenix in War of Y, which means that my initial reaction is not to trust him. But I hope he does turn out to be an ally, even if I’m getting the vibes that he really does want to marry Sam.

- I really like Mon's family, especially her stepdad. The family dinner where he and Mon are conspiring about how she can apologize to her mom was adorable. And I liked the nuances and the obvious love in Mon’s subsequent conversation with her mom.

- I found it both weird and sweet how encouraging they were of her decade-long obsession with a stranger. It’s sweet that they were so supportive of her as a general principle (and of course a huge contrast to Sam's grandmother). But also it just seems very weird to encourage your child to plan out her life based on her obsession with a stranger and be so sure that she’s a good person to model based on one interaction over a decade ago. It makes sense for teenage Mon to do that, but for her parents to join in less so. Perhaps it's related to Sam being royalty? I don’t have enough understanding of Thai culture to interpret that.

- Despite the absurdity of Mon planning her life around her obsession, I enjoy it. At first I wasn’t sure if she realized it was a romantic/sexual crush, or thought it was just idol worship, but it now seems like she does. I was never a queer teenager, but I appreciate everyone on here saying that it feels like a very queer experience.

- I really liked both crash-into-you scenes. And the first time we got the trope doubled up! Mon is very good at looking up at Sam with adoration in her eyes. I like Sam's annoyance with her that is starting to be replaced by interest, or curiosity at least. And the bit with the hair caught in the bracelet was very entertaining.

- My favorite moments were any time Sam and Mar were in a scene together–their chemistry is great! So I have hopes for enjoying this series over all. That moment in the bathroom especially - the tension! Plus Sam’s incredibly awkward flirtation with Mon at dinner. Does she even know that she’s flirting? I can’t tell yet what she’s thinking.

- I like the coworkers as a group and as a Greek chorus, even though watching the terrible working environment stresses me out.

- As @thequeenofsastiel says, despite her being a terrible boss, the rest of her life makes that understandable and sympathetic. (I have no insight to add to that right now.) I really felt for her in that dinner with the grandmother - the pressure that she’s under to make the company work. I think mostly I will be frustrated if the show tries to tell me that she’s actually good at running this company despite all the onscreen evidence to the contrary.

- I did appreciate the parallel of Sam saving Mon from being run over from a car again at the end. And a second crash-into-you with even more sexual tension.

- I thought I had more thoughts about this episode on Sunday, but I can’t remember them now/don't feel like writing them out at the moment.

#gap the series #gillianthecat reacts to gl #thai gl #my ramblings #office settting ql

[lilshocker8]

Refuge Rulers Masterlist

Somewhere to keep links to all my stories and story ideas for this world!

Main Series The main, multi-chaptered fics focused on the titular Refuge Rulers and the people around them.

Summer, 1899

In July of 1899 there is a Newsboys Strike in Lower Manhattan in every iteration of every universe. The people involved and the outcomes change, but there is always a Strike, and there is always a story surrounding it.

This is just one.

COMPLETE

The Solitary Situation

The Strike is won and Snyder is arrested. Unfortunately for the Newsies, arrested doesn’t mean sentenced, and they have a long year ahead of them making sure the man called Spider actually stays behind bars where he can’t hurt anyone else.

Somehow, this is the least stressful part of the year.

COMPLETE

5 to 1 (Never Tell Me the Odds)

Race always assumed that when he was older he’d marry some nice girl, have a couple of kids, and live happily ever after.

That is not what happens.

(Or: Life rarely goes the way you're expecting)

PLANNING

Intercuts Stories that take a look at events in the main series from a different perspective, or which occur during the events of the stories but off-screen.

You Jump Or You’re Screwed

Crutchie is dragged off to the Refuge, and he accidentally learns a bit more about the brothers that have been tormenting him.

COMPLETE

For Every Working Kid

The Crusade is a brilliant idea, if Katherine says so herself, but as with most great ideas it can't be done alone. Luckily Katherine is very good at recruitment - even people she never meant to recruit in the first place.

COMPLETE

Ain’t We the Hoi Polloi

With the strike settled and their father finally able to get a job again, Davey and Les no longer have to sell papes. Davey finds it harder than expected to step away, and he ends up bringing some of his new family home to his old one.

NOT STARTED

Where Better to Escape Trouble

When Jack brings her a boy looking for a job, surprised is the least of what Medda is feeling. But she’s never been one to turn away a child in need – even if that child is Oscar Delancey.

NOT STARTED

Backstories Exactly what it sounds like.

Bonds Beyond Bridges

When Mush is released from The Refuge he goes to Brooklyn, because that’s what you do to stay out of Snyder’s clutches. However, he finds himself drawn back across the bridge when he meets a Lower Manhattan Newsie who makes him feel like a person again.

COMPLETE

Proud to be Part of Your Revolution

Bill had never thought about how different his life was from that of his best friend until he nearly gets the other boy killed.

COMPLETE

This Is Entertaining

Darcy Reid can’t remember a time in his life that Katherine Pulitzer wasn’t present, and, as stressful as she’s made his life, he wouldn’t trade a minute.

NOT STARTED

Guess He Didn't Take Care of Me

He doesn’t do family, never has. It’s never done him any good, after all, and caring about people only ever hurts in the end.

COMPLETED

Terrible

The worst parts of life don't seem so bad if you have someone to come home to at the end of the day.

NOT STARTED

Future Fics Stories that look towards what happens in the years and decades after the strike is settled. (Mostly intercuts for 5 to 1)

What Was Ours

When she first met Jack, Katherine found him cute and vaguely amusing, but she never dreamed it would go farther than that. Now she can’t picture a life without him.

NOT STARTED

Hello Beautiful

Specs and Romeo are far from a perfect couple, but they’ve always made things work. But this may be what finally tears them apart.

NOT STARTED

No Use for Moonlight

Annie Cohen has a plan. It's a good plan. A great plan, even. One that's going perfectly right up until she accidentally falls in love with the completely wrong person.

NOT STARTED

#Refuge Rulers #newsies #masterlist

[tuiyla]

Sometimes I wonder if the actors knew how offensive some of the stuff they said/did on the show was. I mean I know it was their characters but still.

There was a lot of biphobia from Kurt, Blaine, Santana and even Brittany. There was the line Blaine said in the script read in 5x20 where he said "I'm gay and you're mostly lesbian" to Brittany!!!

Also the Britney 2.0 episode was super offensive and basically just spent 40 minutes mocking someone's mental health which is a huge problem and something a lot of people struggle with.

I know it's not the actors decision but do you think they knew how offensive some of this stuff was.

Also the whole IKAG episode was pretty bad and when Brittany and Sam got together and she said something about "lesbian bloggers" I have to see that as a dig about the Brittana fans!

I know that Naya, Heather and Darren were straight so it may just be that they are uneducated on these things.

I appreciate things like Kevin talking about the Lights Out mess in the Q&A episode of the podcast, but it’s ultimately not the cast’s responsibility. Am I curious what they thought of certain things, sure. Am I desperate for someone to cover IKAG with a critical eye, very. But I think fans already put way too much on actors and expect them to represent characters and their stories way beyond the constraints of the media itself, and that doesn’t feel fair. I’m general on the side of protecting actors’ privacy and right to do their job and not owe anyone anything more.

With things like Britney 2.0 especially I feel like we shouldn’t expect anything from the actors. Sure I like it when they’re self-aware and Jenna and Kevin are at times critical of the show in their podcast (old and new) but this is a typical example of, like, what are we expecting of them? It has been a decade now but particularly when the show was on, I’m sure it would have felt like biting the feeding hand to call out the biphobia or something. If I were an actor on a major network show and given Problematic material I wouldn’t be happy about it but man, it’s my job to say it. And we’ve heard how volatile things sometimes were on the set despite the general alleged good working relationship. I don’t blame people for not wanting to risk RM’s wrath with a public condemning.

I don’t know if they even stopped to consider this kind of stuff. With something like Artie’s offensive lines, Kevin clearly has. And again I’d kill to know how everyone truly felt about IKAG. I don’t know, maybe they knew. I’m sure there were certain things on Glee that raised eyebrows even then. Kevin, Jenna and Harry talk a lot about things not aging well in the Throwdown episode of the Showmance pod. But again, at the time no one was gonna risk a job. I don’t think anything was that egregious on Glee, it’s more like things adding up. But I mean for sure things like mocking Britney Spears and the consistent biphobia were cringe at best and cruel at worst. So no one get me wrong, the biphobia and the SA stuff and all these poorly handled, poorly framed things were bad, it just wasn’t SO bad that it would absolutely warrant an actor having to apologize for it.

Going back to actors’ privacy and all, I don’t like to a) assume their identities and b) make assumptions based on those assumptions. It especially feels strange to say they might have been uneducated just because they wouldn’t have those first-hand experiences e.g. with queer issues. A leap too big for me. And this is a can of worms of its own, but I think we shouldn’t assume with Naya in particular - in terms of identity, that is. There was that View interview that some take as her confirming she was bi; me, I don’t know and I don’t think we need to know. We never will know. Was Naya Rivera straight, was she queer? I say let the dead rest. Either way she was clearly a fierce ally who fought for that lesbian storyline to exist in the first place so whether she personally considered e.g. the biphobic things they had her say messed up or not, that’s really not for me to know or judge. I don’t really feel comfortable shifting that responsibility onto actors, which I understand is not what you’re doing but it’s dancing too close to that edge for me. Even if Darren, Naya and Heather were all Super Woke™ even back then it’s not like they could have done much to fight the biphobic lines. Actors have some say in these discussions, sure, but no one wants to push their luck.

Heather in particular has said some things in the past, iirc during season 4′s run especially that pissed people off but even still I don’t think being a little tone deaf or not living up to fan entitlement should warrant that much criticism. For other things too, I think she gets too much shit because people expect her to be this Representative when she’s just a person. They’re all just people. They’re actors and they get paid to say the words as they’re written. There’s some creative freedom with that but it’s up to the director/producer’s discretion. So again, maybe they were aware of how messed up the more iffy things were, maybe not. My bottom line on questions like these is that it’s not our business and not their responsibility.

#anon #i hope this doesn't come across harsh or anything #we can ponder of course i just have my lines when it comes to discussions around the cast #glee asks #glee cast

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #278: PRESSURE

April, 1987

WOW, the East Coast Avengers book is a sight for sore eyes!

The Lost in Space-Time Arc in West Coast Avengers was, y’know, fun enough, minus what happened to Mockingbird. But I’ve missed the East Coast team.

Where did I leave them, anyway?

Well, the Masters of Evil led by New Zemo occupied Avengers Mansion and tried to destroy the team, taking advantage of them being distracted by personal problems and down a Namor.

With the help of Ant-Man, Thor, and Doctor Druid for some reason, the Avengers manage to take down the Masters and take their mansion back. In a kind of Pyrrhic sense. The mansion is well and thoroughly trashed.

It was a bad time in general but Black Knight and Hercules specifically had the shit beaten out of them. Hercules is in a coma and Black Knight should be resting up but isn’t. 

The Masters fared worse. Zemo is dead, Blackout is dead, and Moonstone flew head first into a cliff and broke her neck.

So the Avengers won. They triumphed over evil. But it probably doesn’t feel great to have won. The roster is shaken up and their headquarters is broke.

So what now?

Apparently, according to the cover, Tyrak again. Why do the Avengers fight this dude so often? I mean, this is only the third time, I think, but that seems a lot for a guy that isn’t, strictly speaking, an Avengers enemy.

And Doctor Druid is here for some reason.

With the Avengers Mansion like or adjacent to being a shambles, one week later scavengers come to scavenge.

I mean, the security system probably doesn’t exist anymore. No more security tentacles or stunulators.

Nothing to stop these dudes from just shooting out the lock and picking over the scraps.

Just kidding, unlike after Disassembled, the Avengers are smart enough to be guarding the Mansion so people can’t just pick over the scraps.

Man, is Disassembled a dumb thing that I don’t like.

Anyway, I wasn’t entirely accurate when I said its the Avengers keeping people from looting Avengers Mansion now that its a mess.

Its also the giant hole in the floor, which one of these idiots falls into and breaks his leg.

Of course, after the idiot falls into the giant hole in the floor, Wasp does swoop in and blast the floor, sending another of them falling down.

Hmm. Potentially brutal.

Wasp: “Did you think the Avengers would go off and leave our building unguarded? Even for looters, you boys aren’t too bright!”

Wasp, side-eyeing the post-Disassembled world through the decades.

One of the looters tries to flee, only to run into Captain America.

The dude already being in a panic and Cap being Cap i.e. having the combined sternness of every disappointed teacher in the world and every disappointed dad at the same time, the guy just instantly surrenders.

A friend of mine likened it to a softer version of what Ghost Rider does. A Parent Stare.

Wasp comes in dragging the only other conscious looter like a misbehaving puppy.

She then calls the police and asks for a pickup on five break and enterers, two of them needing an ambulance for a fractured leg and a wrenched back. Presumably the two that fell in the hole that was left in the ground floor.

Captain America: “You fellows are lucky that you picked the Wasp’s watch to break in... Captain Marvel might not have gone so easy on you!”

The Looter that surrendered to Cap: “Yessir... lucky.”

Looter that Wasp beat up: “Oh, shut up!”

Oh. I thought Monica’s reputation for being rough on people was from Nextwave but I guess not entirely. If Wasp dropping a dude down a hole was considered the softer option compared to what Monica would have done.

So with the looters taken care of, Wasp has to get back to all the other business she has to manage as chairwoman.

Cap mentions that the mansion should be secured for reconstruction in another few days, which will help. And also: “Don’t get discouraged... You’re doing a fine job! I don’t know how we’d get along without you!”

Encouragement that Wasp doesn’t quite like to hear actually.

She’s actually getting disgruntled with the responsibilities of leadership and would really like to just fuck off on vacation for a while.

... Do Avengers get vacation days? So many people have left the team for so many different reasons in the past.

I guess she’d just feel shitty leaving right in the messy aftermath of the Masters of Evil’s attack.

Wasp flies off, leaving Cap on mansion watch, to go visit coma Hercules in the hospital.

He’s still in a coma.

The doctors think that he may have sustained brain damage from being dogpiled by six beefy supervillains but they really can’t conclusively say. Presumably because his godly anatomy is weird and difficult to run tests on. Breaks needles and et cetera.

Wasp tells the doctor to get Hercules the best specialists he can find. Money be damned.

While at the hospital, Wasp also visits Jarvis, who isn’t in a coma.

In fact, he’s healing up nicely.

Jarvis: “I do feel much better. What Mister Hyde did to me seems like some horrid nightmare... until I try to move too much!”

You’re a cool guy, Jarvis.

Jarvis also thanks Wasp because his mother has mentioned that Wasp and Captains America and Marvel have been checking up on her to make sure she’s holding up.

Jarvis gets wheeled off to have his knee replaced. So add that to your Jarvis trivia sheet: has artificial knee.

Wasp: I’m so glad Jarvis is doing better. It still hurts that we couldn’t protect him from the Masters of Evil! Shielding people from danger is part of our job as Avengers... the failure is so much worse, when it strikes close to home!

Wasp has one more person to visit in the hospital (wow, so many people wound up hospitalized in the previous story) but she finds to her extreme annoyance that Dane Whitman, Black Knight, has checked out of the hospital on his own initiative.

The doctor said it would be alright as long as he took things easy but as Wasp puts it, Dane’s idea of taking it easy is to work ten hours instead of twelve.

Wasp returns to Giant Four Freedoms Plaza.

In a fun bit, that’s where the Avengers are temporarily headquartering since the mansion got trashed.

When the Fantastic Four’s building got launched into space, the Avengers put them up in the Mansion.

So now that Avengers Mansion got trashed, the Fantastic Four have reciprocated by... leasing the Avengers an office floor.

Wow, Reed.

To be kind I’m going to assume Wasp insisted on paying rent. The Fantastic Four has fewer random millionaires on their team than the Avengers do.

Having returned to her temporary office, Wasp has so much work to do.

She has to contact government liaison Mr. Sikorski and ask what the hold-up is getting the Avengers their new security clearances.

The contractors can’t give her a solid start date for repairs to the mansion.

The federal and state government each have their own demands.

She has to assuage Namor’s attorney about Namor ghosting him despite demanding that his trial by ASAP.

And Wasp hasn’t heard from Wasp either! He sure would have been helpful during the Masters of Evil’s attack!

She has so much to handle that she nods off and has a black and white stress dream where everyone blames her for being a shitty chairwoman. Also, they’re all dressed up.

I like the touch of Namor melting away to water because of commitment issues.

Good job, Jan’s subconscious.

Anyway, Wasp wakes from her stress nightmare to the much better news that She-Hulk is in this book again.

And She-Hulk is here because!

Because she wants to apologize for being out of town with the Fantastic Four (in FF issues 297-298) because she’d have been so helpful if she had been around!

Wasp: “Life is full of ‘could haves’, Jen. Don’t let it bother you.”

Also because Zemo timed the Masters of Evil attack when the Avengers would have the least help, including making sure the Fantastic Four would be out of touch.

But She-Hulk still feels bad so she offers to help Wasp tidy things up around the temporary office. Mostly by lifting heavy things and moving them.

Hulks are very handy for redecorating.

She-Hulk: “Things have been pretty hectic -- ?”

Wasp: “The worst! Stopping the Masters of Evil was easy compared to dealing with this endless paperwork! I’d like to burn it, but I have to arrange for the mansion’s rebuilding... and work up a new Avengers roster! Hercules is lost to us indefinitely, and I don’t know where to find -- !”

She-Hulk: “Look no further! I can return to active duty right now! The Thing is back with the F.F. and I’m pretty much at loose ends! I was going to take a vacation -- but if you need me, I’m yours!”

Yes, yes, yesssss!

She-Hulk back on the team!

Definitely a promising replacement for Hercules!

Also, Wasp gives such the hilarious wistful expression when She-Hulk mentions vacation.

Because Jan would dearly love one!

Jen (She-Hulk. Wow, she and Wasp have almost the same abbreviated first name) is also able to explain whither Black Knight after he left the hospital.

Turned out he went to Hydrobase.

Y’know, that floating artificial island off the coast of New Jersey that oceanographer Stingray leased to the Avengers as a place they could keep their Quinjets due to the FAA being butts about the Avengers keeping dangerous jet fuel in the middle of a city.

Anyway, at Hydrobase, Black Knight is quarterstaffing with Doctor Druid, who is here for some reason.

Black Knight mentions that its weird that a sorcerer like Druid is so good at hand-to-hand combat but Doctor Druid explains he’s not really a sorcerer. His powers, apparently, are mostly of the mind.

So.... a psychic? Explain your powers in depth. You are in a comic, sir!

When complimented on his quarterstaffing, Black Knight explains that he picked it up while stuck in Crusade times.

And Black Knight earns some respect back that he lost when the Crusade times thing was first revealed.

Black Knight: “It wasn’t a pleasant time, Druid. The Crusades sounded so noble when I was a kid.. but there’s nothing noble about war, especially a holy war! I had to learn the hard way!”

I’m glad that Black Knight is no longer a dude who thinks the Crusade times was a fun times.

Quarterstaffing time is interrupted by Wasp who rings Hydrobase to give Dane Black Knight a piece of her mind. The angry, concerned piece.

Wasp: “Dane Whitman, have you taken complete leave of your senses?! You have...”

Black Knight: “... A concussion. Yes, Jan. I know... but I figured I could rest and recreate out here as well as I could in the city. Look, I even brought a doctor along to keep me in line... you remember Anthony Druid!”

Doctor Druid reassures Wasp that he’ll make sure Black Knight doesn’t overdo things, which addresses her concern that Black Knight is going to... I dunno. Rupture something. Fall down some stairs. Do something stupid.

She might be worried even so if she knew that she was part of the reason why Black Knight left the hospital.

He was going stir-crazy having her visit every day. Being all concerned for him while he’s sulking that she doesn’t see him as more than a friend and teammate.

Yes, Black Knight checked himself out of the hospital early despite having a concussion because he was upset about the friendzone.

Not cool, Dane.

But at least you’re not going full resentment about it.

And hey, you’ll apparently get a stupid love triangle of your own someday soon. It will involve making out with Sersi of the Eternals and Tony Stark will be forever jealous about it.

Anyway, Hydrobase’s perimeter security alarm goes off so despite his concussion, Black Knight gathers his gear to go check it out.

I feeeel like this is exactly what Wasp was afraid of.

Unsurprisingly, the intruder is Tyrak the Treacherous. Just like the cover foreshadowed by plainly revealing it.

Hydrobase doesn’t not have defenses but the thing about superhero base defenses is that they keep the common riffraff out but are completely ineffectual to any serious threat.

So some stunulator cannons pop up and start VOOP VOOP VOOPing but Tyrak just walks through them and smashes them underfoot.

Black Knight is hellbent and determined to be useful, feeling like he didn’t contribute a lot during the Avengers Under Siege arc and dammit he wants to prove himself!

Also: he’s assuming that since only one dude was detected, the one dude is a single commando or a scout. Someone he can pretty much engage one-to-one without being killed.

So he’s not pleased that Tyrak is a big beefy dude.

Actually, it’s funny that Tyrak was originally a spy. In fact, he was introduced disguising himself as Triton to infiltrate the Avengers.

But since the Avengers beat him the one time, he’s been 100% just a physical threat as he forgoes any espionage or subtly and just tries to beat up the Avengers.

And he’s so beefy because Attuma had science done on him to buff him up but it seems a waste to turn your best spy into a bruiser.

Anyway, instead of trying to infiltrate or sneak or whatever, the dude just marched onto Hydrobase, ripped a tree out of the ground and tried to hit Black Knight with it.

He’s alarmed that Black Knight manages to cut the tree in half and deduces that Black Knight’s incredibly cursed sword must be magic... because its not like it can’t be any of the dozen other reasons why a sword might be super sharp.

Just gets the right guess on the first guess.

Anyway, he does the Hulk clap and knocks Black Knight’s atomic steed airbike out of the air.

Tyrak plans to stab Black Knight to death with his own sword but he’s interrupted by Doctor Druid who I guess decided to follow Black Knight and really make sure the idiot didn’t hurt himself.

Druid throws his cape over Tyrak’s head. It doesn’t distract the guy for long (but does convince me I hate Doctor Druid’s costume. It needs to be broken up more by other colors or details or something. It looks like he’s just wearing footie pajamas.)

So Doctor Druid tries to use his MIND POWERS to convince Tyrak that he doesn’t want to fight.

But Tyrak resists them.

So is Doctor Druid going to be one of those kinds of psychics? Where it never works when it would be most helpful?

Like, and sorry for singling you out, Karma from early New Mutants who had the power to take over people’s minds. But it would never work on the main bad guy because that would be a boring way to end a conflict. So she was eventually written off the team.

Are you going to be like that, Doctor Druid? Are you going to be useless?

But speaking of someone not useless that he’ll end up screwing up, Captain Marvel Monica Rambeau shows up.

She was alerted by the Wasp that there was an intruder and because Monica does her homework (seriously, its been mentioned several times that she read all the back issues files and recognizes stuff from them), she recognizes Tyrak. And knows from his previous appearance that Vision was able to stop him by dehydrating him with his Solar Beam.

Monica can do one better by turning her body to infrared radiation and blasting him with it.

Its Super Effective.

Wasp and She-Hulk arrive right afterward and everyone gathers to discuss the incident.

When Monica is suggesting that they shove Tyrak into a holding tank for questioning, Doctor Druid senses brainwaves from Tyrak that indicates he’s playing possum.

Good job not detecting that sooner, Doctor Druid.

Useless ass psychic powers.

I guess I have to take it back that the dude is never subtle anymore because he feigned unconsciousness so he could sneak attack Captain Marvel, taking out the person who can hit his type weakness for double damage.

She-Hulk gets pissed that this fish man is punching her friends so slugs him hard in the stomach and chest but he recovers fast enough to just punch She-Hulk into the ground.

He planted a Jen tree.

Knocking a strong opponent into the ground where they won’t have good leverage to get out is a decent strategy. Plus, you can say you drove someone into the ground like a tent stake.

Wasp does what Wasp does, fly around tiny size around a man to distract him and defiantly tells him he’ll never beat the Avengers.

She seems to realize that a full-power sting in the right place might turn the tables but then decides against doing that.

Which does not go unnoticed by Black Knight.

Black Knight: Sting him, Wasp! Don’t you see his secret? Maybe she doesn’t! Maybe I’m the only one who’s guessed it. With his reach, I’ll get only one chance at this...

Black Knight acts on his hunch and uses his super cursed sword to... slice open Tyrak’s suit.

He figured that Tyrak must have a moisturizing system to keep him nice and hydrated when walking around on land. And he just let all the water out of it.

So when Captain Marvel infrablasts him this time, he’s not refreshed by his secret water. And She-Hulk climbs out of the hole he punched her into, and does him a punching for good measure, knocking him out but for real this time.

Good job, Dane! And you were thinking about quitting the team out of insecurity!

The Avengers shove Tyrak into a holding cell, a holding cell clearly intended for a smaller fishy fellow.

Seriously, this is prisoner cruelty. He doesn’t even have room to stretch!

Its temporary anyway. The Avengers are turning him over to the maritime authorities as soon as possible.

So... is that the coast guard or what?

Anyway, Tyrak easily confesses that he had no idea that the Avengers were here. He just knew that Namor sometimes hangs out on Hydrobase.

Tyrak was going to beat up Namor to regain favor with Attuma.

Didn’t work out well for him.

Leaving Tyrak to his soak, Wasp and Doctor Druid have a walk and talk.

Wasp thanks Doctor Druid for his role in the fight, despite Druid’s protestations he didn’t contribute much.

Doctor Druid also confesses he was hanging around the hospital hoping to study the extremely cursed Ebony Blade.

Hence him being conveniently around when Black Knight was checking himself out of the hospital.

Wasp has a confession of her own.

She figured out Tyrak’s weakness, same as Dane did. But she held back and let Dane handle it because she was sick and tired of people telling her they can’t get along without her! She wanted someone else to save the day!

Wasp: “Just once I wish someone would say, ‘hey, Jan! Why don’t you take some time off... you deserve it!’ But no one ever does... no one will let me off the hook!”

Doctor Druid: “Janet... there’s only one who can do that... you yourself!”

So three days later, Wasp calls a meeting.

She-Hulk and Thor have rejoined the team as active members.

Very strong roster shaping up!

Wasp has also invited Doctor Druid to the meeting to nominate him for membership.

Cap seconds the nomination (still Wasp’s biggest supporter as chairwoman) but that brings the roster up to seven and he guesses she decided to expand the team.

No. Instead she’s stepping down from the team and as chairwoman.

SHE WANTS A VACATION, DAMMIT!

But she’s also responsible so she finished setting up a new roster, finished the plans for the mansion renovation, and cleared up all the tasks she needed to.

Black Knight protests her leaving but she points out that if Vision hadn’t usurped the team, her term of office would have ended by now anyway.

And also, she wants a vacation, dammit.

Her last act is to put Cap(tain America) in charge as acting chairman and then she fucks off. To vacation.

And Captain America opens the floor to nominations for new chairman.

OH BOY I WONDER WHO IT WILL BE =D

You will also wonder, so read the next post. And follow @essential-avengers​ and also like and reblog.

#essential avengers #avengers #essential marvel liveblogging #tyrak #the wasp #she hulk #captain america #captain marvel #Monica Rambeau #black knight #doctor druid #for some reason #thor #they need to update the cast box on the cover #hercules is still in a coma #black knight learns self worth by fighting a fish man #wasp is fed up with everything #she hulk is back!! #fancy stress dreams in black and white

[charlotte-of-wales]

H&M Documentary Review: Episode 3

(my commentary is in italics)

LAST ONE LFG

- starting off with the engagement interview. Meghan calls it an orchastrated reality show. Oh, the irony

- They say the interview was scripted and they were told ahead of time which questions were going to be asked. 

- She said they (assuming it’s the palace) didn’t want them sharing their real story during the interview? I mean, was she looking for an Oprah style interview orrr

- little History lesson now. Long talk about slavery in the British empire than cuts to a child singing God save the King.

- James Holt (Executive Director of Archewell) telling the world he doesn’t know how google works and never bothered doing further research on things he never learned at school. Such scholar!

- David Olusoga, made a point about how with time London started to look like the capital of an Empire composed of non-white people with more and more black and brown people moving there; how there was an attempt to redefine British institutions and stuff. He says the moment he realized things were changing was when the engagement was announced (which is funny to me because that would make sense if Meghan was from the Commonwealth....she isn’t).

- ms. I’ve always been known for my brains didn’t know what a walkabout was

- Harry said he tried to help Meghan as much as he could but there wasn’t much he could do in terms of fashion (it was funny because Meghan was talking about these earrings she bought online, she still had the tags on some of her clothes, her zipper broke, she wanted to wear British designers and how quickly did that relatability change when she had access to that Duchy of Cornwall money)(ALSO this plays into the “she never got help narrative” but didn’t she have one of Queen Elizabeth II’s former aides helping her?)

- they showed a picture of her trying on an outfit which I think it was for the engagement photo call and thank god she changed bc that was not cute

- “someone can just call themselves a royal expert” idk babes ask scoobie

- Harry says a royal expert is the same as a royal correspondent.....no

- Harry goes on a rant about the invisible contract between the Royals and the press and is just not true. So far this has been the episode with the most lies yet. A couple quotes:

- “Anyone can be a royal expert. The whole of it is to try and lend legitimacy to media articles, and they get paid for it. That press pack of royal correspondents is essentially just an extended PR arm of the Royal Family”. 

- “There’s been an agreement that’s been there for over 30 years”

- UGH. First time watching I actually got mad. This idea that the Royals somehow control the media is bs and Harry’s insistance on it will only encourage sugars to run with their narrative that negative stories about the Royals (mainly William) are burried and bad stories about Sussexes were planted by the palace. Doesn’t work that way, buddy. Royals and the media (especially royal reporters who have been on the job for decades) do have a closer relationship but to say they’re an extended PR arm of the family is insane. They’re still journalists. 

- More explanation of the Royal Rota and this one didn’t come from Harry so it was actually accurate. Cut back to Harry saying BS again tho. 

- Harry: “it all comes out to control us. Like, this family is ours to exploit. That trauma is our story and our narrative to control” BABES THAT WHAT YOU’RE DOING AS WELL!!!! you’re exploiting your family and their traumas and YOU ARE controlling the narrative because your family can’t say anything and YOU KNOW THATTTTT

- gosh this is so repetitive. They are even reusing footage of Diana being chased. WE GET IT. Move on. 

- random but they’re showing footage of old Charles and his eyes are deep blue. Never noticed that. Thought William’s eyes were all Diana, guess not. Moving on. 

- James Holt saying the whole family had an obligation to perform and if they don’t, they fall out of favor with the papers. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN JAMES? You mean to do their jobs and shake hands? Get their picture taken? Share pictures of their kids a couple times a year? Gosh, making it sound like they’re circus monkeys. This man is annoying. 

- I can’t help but roll my eyes. These are two of the most privileged people in the world and I’m sure it sucked to be chased by the paps but some people struggle with putting food on the table like???? have some common sense. 

- Meghan’s friends saying there were paps staying outside their houses (MOST of which were in the US btw, keep that in mind)....I mean, sure Jane. I did not know the names of any of you before this but whatever floats your boat.

- damn Meghan’s friend throwing her mom under the bus to defend her wow these people have the best family dynamics ever

- Doria talking about being chased by the paps....in LA. Not the British media then. 

- Meghan talks about Samantha Markle. Says the media wanted Doria’s side of the family to be the messy one but Doria was too classy and it was the Markles creating issues. Said her and Samantha barely had a relationship.

- Oh wow, they brought Samantha’s daughter Ashley to talk. Meghan said “Ash” was dragged into the drama by the media but this is the first I’m hearing about this niece?

- Anyway, Ashley was not raised by Samantha but they reconnected and eventually feel out again over Samantha’s opinion on Meghan. Meghan and Ashley are quite close. 

- interestengly enough, although Meghan found Windsor to be medieval and the Royal Family too formal she loved Christmas at Sandrigham? Even if it’s known to be very formal

- She says it was amazing and it was like this big family she always wanted and it’s fun....so I guess they did welcome her after all?

- They talk about Princess Michael of Kent and the brooch

- the white dude who thought it was okay to wear a n*zi costume and use racial slurs lecturing me on unconscious bias. 

- oh so they are addressing the n*zi thing. Alright.

- Harry claims it was one of the biggest mistakes of his life and he just wanted to make things right. He met with a Rabbi and a Holocast survivor. (imo you shouldn’t have to do any of these to know you’re not supposed to wear a n*zi costume but  ya know, H is clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed). 

- Interestingly enough.....it was one of Harry’s biggest regrets in life and yet I’ve never seen a proper apology from him? And he didn’t talk about his use of racial slurs in the army?

- “I could’ve ignored it but I learned from that’. congrats you want a cookie for doing the bare minimum, sir?

- mr. and mrs. equality being introduced by their titles in a country where titles do not exist. lovely. (ps they walk into a room full of military people and the way none of them give a single fuck lmfao)

- this man talking about his experiences in the army RIGHT after talking about the n*zi controversy and DOES NOT address his use of racial slurs. He doesn’t care. If he did, he would have apologized. 

- “Jeez, I went to war twice” LOTS of opinions surrounding this statement, but I;d rather not share them. Just *eye roll*

- they made a POINT to show Meghan talking about Me Too and female empowerment and a reporter saying Kate didn’t wear black to the BAFTAs and Camila never talked about Me Too. Because nothing screams women supporting women like bringing down women in the family to make yourself look superior. 

- Tim Burt - strategic advisor to Archewell - saying the causes the Royal Family champions are strictly non-controversial. Not true. 

- Meghan saying there’s no class on how to act like a princess. Girl......

- Harry saying the press invents a lot of protocols which might be the only true statement he has given in this whole doc!

- they really are showing her getting fittings for the Carolina Herrera dress only for it to fit her the way it did. I can’t even. (I’m pretty sure the guy is the creative director for Carolina Herrera, he was there and that was the best they could do> Gosh)

- Meghan saying she could never wear the same color as the Queen but also not the same color as the other senior members of the family. BS. The family usually color coordinates. 

- She says ^ that is why she usually never wore color in family events and stuck to camel and white which is funny since Camila and Catherine wear white quite often. Plus, she did not choose a neutral color for Louis’ christening, did she? When everyone else in the family was in neutral colors. 

- Again, she said the neutral tones was so she could blend in. She certainly was not blending in at Louis’ christening. 

- Ashley (Meghan’s niece) implies her relationships were being managed (aka controlled) by the Palace. Sure, Jane version 294958583849.

- They immediately start talking about their comms team making it seem like every phone call they make has to go through someone else. BS. Ashley babes, Meghan had her own phone. If she didn’t text you, she didn’t want to. 

- They keep using Jason’s pictures. I would sue.

- Meghan saying she had compassion for their comms team (aka Jason) for dealing with the shitshow that was the PR before the wedding. Interesting version of compassion you have since they are all accusing you of bullying. 

- Meghan says the guidance at the time was not to have Ashley come to the wedding. That makes zero sense; it would be better press to have more of her family members there. Maybe her invite was sent to one of the celebrities Meghan never talked to before but who, for some reason, were at Windsor.

- now onto the Commonwealth talk.........

- listen, saying wealth was extracted from the colonies and flow into the British Empire is true. Saying the British elites benefited from it is true. I just it VERY interesting that neither Harry nor Meghan seemed to have an issue with that previously. In fact, they don’t talk about it themselves, they let other people do it. Both of them benefited from that wealth inequality through their associations with their royal family. 

- to say things are the same in the Commonwealth countries today as they were 100 years ago may be true, but these countries have their own governments who played a role in that. 

- girly is now praising Harry for educating himself into becoming “anti-racist” if you refuse to apologize for your mistakes then you aren’t anti-racist. Harry hasn’t. All he does is lecture people on things he actually does not understand. 

- I’m sorry James Holt sounds incredibly naive and good riddance that he is no longer working with the Palace. This man genuinely couldn’t tell those pictures of Thomas were staged at first??? Be for real

- Also, I truly did not know Thomas was supposed to fly to the UK and walk Meghan down the aisle until like 10 days before the wedding. 

- more about Thomas. I do wish they went a little deeper on their relationship because Meghan used to be a daddy’s girl and they were close and yet Thomas never got to meet Harry and next thing you know he’s doing pap walks?

- doc ends right before the wedding.

Oof. The other two were boring but this one made me mad lol. This doc is all over the place and I’m interested to see what the general public will think of it.  

Next 3 episodes coming out in a week.....

#susx doc

[audreythree]

on a completely personal note i am losing my MIND rn so there is a rant under the cut

so for background: i do volunteer work with middle and high schoolers. my official title is department secretary which basically just means i am the main organizer/admin/busywork-doer for the group. i’ve been doing this for like ten years so i’m good at my job (and perhaps more importantly, i like my job). we have a retreat coming up this weekend but my boss just got married last weekend and is therefore out of town (bad planning but okay) but the department is large enough and experienced enough that it’s usually not an issue and we’re able to cover it without him because we are good at our jobs

given all of this information tell me WHY my boss’s boss assigned a completely separate person who is totally unrelated to our department to organize the whole thing. somebody please tell me because i am PISSED

she has literally never worked with our department before and she doesn’t know the kids. like she literally dumped all of the 13yo boys in a hotel room together without an adult chaperone/older kid room captain like girl they’re good kids but if you leave them in a room together alone they are going to pull the fire alarm at some point during the trip like that’s just inevitable. so as soon as i saw her room assignments i was like hey….. maybe we should reevaluate this a lil bit

and now she’s just straight up DOING MY JOB and listing herself as the point of contact and i’m like honey i already have all the phone numbers, i have the parent group chat ready to go, and you don’t even know everyone’s names

i’m just so annoyed because it feels like they think i’m not capable and the department isn’t capable even though we’ve done this every year for a decade. i get along great with my boss and i thought he trusted me because i’m basically his #2/girl friday/right hand man but i’m like. idk i’m upset. i get that it could’ve been totally out of his hands if his boss insisted but also why wasn’t he like “i trust my team, they can handle it”?? and now it’s just kinda like. okay well why am i even here

i don’t want to have to bring this up because it just feels so unnecessary but depending on how the trip goes this weekend i have a feeling i’ll have to say something because this is just really not okay. like listen i do this voluntarily because i find it rewarding and i feel like i’m able to do good work but if i don’t have the space to do that work why am i here. and if my boss doesn’t value his team enough to speak up for us, why are any of us here

idk i’m sad

#emily rants and also raves a little bit #personal

[valerie]

TWITL - week 35 - Long Weekend

Finally, it's September! After very warm summer days, the temperatures cooled down on Friday, giving us a touch of autumn weather. I could have worn a flannel shirt but I didn't. I feel like I missed my chance because according to the forecast, we're going to have warmer days (high 80s/low 90s) for a bit longer. Saturday was cool enough for me to wear a sweatshirt when I went out, so that was nice. https://flic.kr/p/2oZpU3V August is the longest month of the work year for me. We don't have any holidays or breaks the whole month and it always seems even longer with the hot weather and adjustment to the new school year. I did take a day off (for the Sam Hunt concert) so it wasn't all work every weekday of August for me. Whew! Still, I am so relieved that it's now September and the cooler weather on the first day of the month was such a tease but I'll take it. https://flic.kr/p/2oZAm41 before and after - new hair I went to the salon on Saturday for a haircut and eyebrow wax. Vanessa, my usual stylist, always does such a great job and I always enjoy seeing her. She gets my hair, which is probably why I've been seeing her for the longest time. A decade at least? Time flies! And I finally got to wear my latest Sam Hunt sweatshirt. Fits nicely and I like it! I remember thinking that I wish it was a darker color when I bought it but now I realize that I have so many black hoodies/sweatshirts that having different colors is a good thing. https://flic.kr/p/2oZskWj Happy Meal! I remember when Happy Meals were like $2.15 or so. They're more than double that now! And instead of small fries, you get baby fries and apple slices to go along with the hamburger and toy. Hits the spot though, if you're going for a snack-like "meal." https://flic.kr/p/2oZqagm that's my stapler So here's some personal commentary about social media... I have a HARD time unfollowing people on social media, especially people I know in real life (family/friends). If I don't want to see their stuff, I'll just mute them or restrict them. If I don't want them to see my stuff, too bad for me. My profiles are public and I think it's rude to block people I know in real life unless we've had a serious falling out. And as far as I know, I haven't had a serious falling out with anyone in the last ten years or so and certainly not with anyone I have a chance to see in my daily life. So imagine my surprise to find out that someone I know in real life has blocked me from their social media (FB/IG). The very curious thing about this is that I KNOW that I have done NOTHING to this person to warrant such a move. Maybe they thought that I wouldn't notice. Maybe they thought I'd think it was a "mistake." Maybe it has nothing to do with me but even if it doesn't, my "guilt by association" makes no sense because that person didn't do anything either! Whatever the reason, I'm irritated and a bit offended. I won't confront this person. It isn't worth it to stir up drama. They have their reason for doing what they did and maybe that reason will make its way to me. I know it wasn't anything I posted on my account or commented on theirs. It's truly a mystery if one assumes we're all adults in polite standing. But maybe we're not in polite standing. I just don't know. But I'll get over it. https://flic.kr/p/2oZq9UQ MUSIC I'm finding myself wanting to listen to something new, something different. Apparently this means OPM (Original Pilipino Music). I'm gravitating towards the pop and R&B songs, which are almost all in Filipino though I have chosen a couple of English language songs. I'm slowly buying the songs that catch my ear from Apple Music OPM playlist. I've bought multiple songs from Zack Tabudlo and Arthur Nery. Just today I bought two songs from Al James. I seem to have a harder time finding female artists that I like but I'll keep listening. TV Ahsoka - This show is good but it feels so tailored to the fans of Clone Wars and Rebels. And I only know that because I watch re-cap shows like ScreenCrush and HeavySpoilers. Now I understand why someone might be annoyed with the MCU with all the different threads that are connected but I would argue that you don't necessarily need to see the other Marvel movies to understand the Guardians of the Galaxy movies (though it helps to have seen Infinity Wars and Endgame before the last GoTG movie). The problem I have with Ahsoka (and once again, I have enjoyed it so far) is that I am not curious enough to know more about the characters to watch two whole animated series about them. The show itself should show me what I need to know and for the most part, I suppose it does. I just know I'm not enjoying it as much as a diehard Rebels fan... https://flic.kr/p/aJ7q38 long ago roses Just realized the date (4 of September) and I was taken back to eighteen years ago and our trip to the east coast. We started off in Georgia then headed up to Maryland. On this day eighteen years ago, we were specifically in the Atlanta area and we were all dressed up. Good times, good times... https://flic.kr/p/2oZSqAV Read the full article

#tv

[harrison-abbott]

Uncle Poe

UNCLE POE

My uncle Poe’s wife died a few weeks back. I wasn’t able to go to my aunt’s funeral because I wasn’t in the same country – was working in another – but I was genuinely saddened and wish I’d been there.

 I’ve only been to a few funerals in my life, when I was a kid, and she was one of the first of the family to pass in my older years. Anne was her name. She was two years younger than Poe. Which is odd because I always thought he would die before her. This is a mean observation.

 Anyway. When I got back to the home district I thought I’d drive up and see Poe. To offer some kind of condolence, if he wished it.

 It was nearly thirty degrees. Around noon. Poe lived in the sticks and it was a 90 minute drive and I sweated the whole way. I’d told him I was coming up to visit; he was not the type of man you surprise-visited. And yet I was nervous that he would be angry with me that I wasn’t at Anne’s graveyard.

 When I say ‘sticks’ I mean that he lived in a village. I used to go here when I was a tot with my Dad (Poe’s brother) on these lil hols, which were magic when I was that age. Must admit also that I preferred Anne far more to Poe back then. She was this colourful woman and chirpy; whereas I was scared of him. Gruff, rough, rigid man. He had this factory job which he worked in his whole life and I’m sure he was good at it, cos he was boss by the end of the days.

 (Poe also served in a famous war. The most famous one – the only ‘moral’ one – fighting for the ‘good’ side. He was conscripted and had never wanted to join. And he’d obviously seen some heavy detail. Was part of that hunk of history.)

 I got into the village.

 There was this tiny shop. They sold flowers. I knew that if I brought flowers up to Poe’s he would be personally offended and probably take the piss. I bought him a pack of the beer he liked and some peanuts and cigars. Those are the things he liked, and another reason why I was surprised he’d outlived Anne, cos she was such a sober woman.

 Ten minutes later I was driving up to his house and he was sitting outside on his armchair. He waved and smiled when he saw me.

 Poe was old, but he looked spectacularly old now. 78, was his tally. He staggered up from his seat.

 “Hey there, little nephew,” he said. He wore sunglasses and leaned on a stick and I went up the stairs to greet up after getting out of the car.

 And my plan, across the whole ride, had been to say to him, “I’m so sorry about Anne, Poe.”

 But I just bottled it up and failed and hugged him instead, very softly, and felt his razory shoulderblades and ribs and he was a bit awkward about the embrace too and pulled away quick.

 “Come inside, man,” he said.

 And I held the door for him because I could still move well enough. And felt bad that he couldn’t. He shuffled into the building. It was even hotter inside than it was out. We went into the sitting room. Poe sat at the table and laid his stick against it. I showed him the beer and cigars and he grinned and thanked me.

 He took his sunglasses off and he had these heavy green eyes. I’ve never known anybody that had green eyes before. Was a reason that Anne fell in love with him five decades back, no doubt.

 “Thanks for the beers, lad,” Poe said, “can you get me a glass of water as well too?”

 I did so.

 He drank some of the water and then we cracked the cans open and we lit up the cigars. And started talking about football.

 “So we sold our best striker,” he began, “for a bargain price. That’s our club in a oner, isn’t it.”

 And we got all nerdy about the game.

 As we spoke I looked around the room and I noticed it was suddenly different, from when I’d last been here. That must’ve been … umm, two years back, when Anne was still alive and we didn’t know she had cancer yet. It was Christmas and I came over here and spoke to Poe as I was doing right now at the table in the kitchen and there was dark snow outside: but back then the room was livelier, decorated.

 I got what it was.

 Poe had taken down the photos from the walls. And the little joke-signs that had been there too; the fridge magnets too and even the flower pots under the window. He’d cleared the house away. I first realised when I saw this patch on the wall above the sink – where once had stayed a nice framed photo of Anne and Poe together. The patch behind that was bare now and the paint was different, fainter. It hadn’t aged.

 I wondered where he had put all her stuff. But didn’t want to ask.

 And all this went through my mind as we talked about sport.

 Both of us could tell we barely followed the game currently anymore. Because we supported a historically bad one. It was the same old act of underachievement, every year: getting to cup finals and losing them: gaining another runners-up medal.

 I didn’t have a wife or kids or anything. My big brother did. And both of my parents had passed quite some time ago, and it was odd to think that now it was just Poe, myself and my brother who were the last of the clan of this family.

 All the while the sun pumped outside in hypnotic orange.

 I hadn’t yet said the line to Poe.

 He couldn’t drink as much as he used to. Neither could I. He held and puffed at the cigars with wise skill.

 I was just about to say my line to him, was right about to risk it, when he said,

 “Just nippin to the toilet, bud.” And he got up and walkingsticked out of the room and left me there with the radio playing sweet and soft. Poe liked gemmed rock’n’roll, but at a low volume these days, and so did I. It was a strange thing to sit there in this house which had been so evacuated. Stripped.

 The window at the far end was open and I could hear the birds and I thought I wish I could be a bird and not have to feel human sadness or grief and wish I could sing as well as that. Whenever I should wake up, I wish I had the ability to make melodies as well as those and that that was all my life was. And, why should I complain? I’m not the one who is fully grieving here.

 Poe came back from the toilet. He lit another cigar. Me too. And I opened two more cans for us. His sunglasses were right next to the box of cigars – these big fat black things, belonging in a museum.

 We clinked beer cans.

 “Uncle Poe?” I said to him.

 “Uh hu?”

 “I’m really sorry about … Anne. I’m really sorry she’s gone.”

 He drank some of his beer. And then his face dropped and he put the can down. His eyes crumpled. And he twitched as if he’d just been stung or something. He rubbed his eyelids. It’s quite the astonishing thing to see somebody you’d never expect cry to sob for the first time. Except, it didn’t really happen with Uncle Poe.

 Because he reached out to his sunglasses and put them on again. And he shook himself up. All embarrassed. With his eyes all black summery squares once more. He didn’t say anything. He just offered a handshake. And his grasp was tough and manly, and he was a man.

 And then we just got back to talking about football again.

[moonflowerlesbians]

Hey hey hey you yes you! How do you feel about helping me save a school?

If you’ve got a tiktok pretty please consider engaging with the account @themsaproject (link in reblog). My old school is in serious danger of being shut down which puts the employees out of work and a community without its Montessori school. MSA is a non-profit school that has been open 50 years, and I’m spending my summer trying my darndest to save it.

I would be so so grateful if you could share this post and go check out the tiktok @themsaproject (link in reblog) I’m using to try to raise money for much-needed repairs.

Or you can donate to the efforts directly through Cashapp $MSAProject or Venmo @MSAProject! Any help will go a long way and is so, so appreciated 🌏🕊🦋

#I hate asking for help especially financially but yall its BAD #the founder and head of school died of covid and uhh #she wasn’t doing her job for a decade which means things are BAD #signal boost #Montessori

[phoenixyfriend]

Rey Gives No F*cks About the Grandfather Paradox

Okay so since nobody’s suggested a fic under these terms, I ended up expanding on this post on discord and things snowballed. We kept to the basics of the entire plot revolving around Rey really hating her grandad and leveraging her blood relation to not be unalived about it.

With contributions by @atagotiak​, @dracothulhu​, @thepallaspalace​, and several others. The title comes from @gelpenss​.

The basic thing I absolutely need is this: Rey gets thrown back to the middle of the clone wars, and the subsequent plot leans in really heavily on her being, genetically-via-clone-dad, the daughter of the guy running the entire galaxy.

Nobody knows what to do with her.

The timing is mid-TCW for the past (because I want Ahsoka there) and vaguely between Episodes 8 and 9 because I... never watched E9 and don’t want to worry about the timeline. The only things that matter is that Luke is dead (he can die as he did in canon) and that Rey knows she’s Palp’s granddaughter (not the way she does in canon).

We'll say Luke found out from Anakin's panicked force-ghost and just went "well, fuck, okay, I should tell her this before she ends up in a situation like mine and finds out mid-battle or something."

Luke, prior to time-travel: Okay, so, now that I'm dead I know some things I didn't before. Like who your parents were. In the interest of full disclosure because I was in a very similar situation and I don't want you learning the way I did, I'm just going to come right out and say that your father was a clone was Sheev Palpatine. Rey: ... Luke: Are you okay? Rey: I don't know who that is.

(She grew up on Jakku, the history education was a little subpar.)

Setting The Scene

Imagine Rey showing up during or immediately before the clone wars. There’s this phenomenally powerful feral teenager from a desert backwater who tells you that if you ran a paternity test, it would probably pop up the Chancellor. She may or may not bring up cloning. She accuses said Chancellor of being a Sith Lord.

Your other phenomenally powerful feral teenager from a desert backwater, who may not be a teenager anymore but only barely, is very offended by this because Palpatine’s a Very Nice Old Grandfather Figure, but also he’s a little full of side-eye because if the blood test comes back as proof, then Palpatine had a kid and didn’t even know about them, or lied to Anakin, and that’s! Bad! Family’s important!!!

Palpatine hears about this daughter he apparently? Has? And is very confused because the timing doesn’t match up with ANYTHING he was doing, so the kid isn’t natural, and he says as much. (There is an explanation! It’s not a correct explanation, but he does come up with one.)

Finn and Poe and BB-8 all get dragged along because why not have the gang there? Nobody that’s already born, because [handwave] conservation of souls or something, IDK, point is the only person dragged along that’s even remotely close to already existing is Luke’s Force Ghost, who mostly hangs around begging Rey to be less impulsive. Finn is good because he is a nice polite boy, but for actual useful information they need Poe. The unfortunate situation is that the three do not land together. They land at the same time, in completely different corners of the galaxy. This means that nobody is there to curb Rey being her most impulsive self.

Time travel Rey knows two things. Luke’s dad ends up evil. Palpatine has always been evil.

She can solve one of these problems by killing the other, yes?

Rey: Ready to Rumble

See, the initial idea was this: Rey tried to break into the senate to kill Palpatine, got arrested, and then used the "he's biologically my father" card to get out of jail free. (Force Ghost Luke follows her like “please take five seconds to think this through.”)

But.

But.

It would be very, very, very funny if The Force just dumps her in a flash of light in the senate building and she just attacks Gramps on sight. Just a shouted "YOU!" and no-hesitation attempted murder.

Palpatine has no idea what's going on.

Rey took maybe two seconds to get identity confirmation and then started swinging.

[Image Description: An individual in a green metal helmet with an eye slit, holding a pistol. In the upper left, upper right, and lower middle are the phrases “I do not know who I am...” “I don’t know why I’m here” and “All I know is that I must kill.” End description.]

Of course, she gets arrested. There are Master Jedi in the Senate. There are Clone Troopers. Palpatine isn’t the weak old man he pretends to be. Of course she’s stopped.

But she isn’t executed in time for Palpatine to stop her from ruining his entire reputation.

Immediately after Rey fails to kill her Shitty Granddad, Luke's ghost shows up and begs her to not talk about the Sith thing because it will completely undermine everything she's trying to do. Pass off the attempted murder as something else!

Rey, panicking: "that fucker left me on a desert planet for 10 years!" "You owe me 19 years of child support you son of a Hutt!"

The Jedi have to do the investigation, because the girl showed up with a laser sword, and the conversation is, uh... interesting. (“Where did you get that lightsaber?” “I got it from a mysterious old pirate lady I never met before. I don't know, I was being shown around by a smuggler and a Wookie.”)

Interviewer: Why did you try to assassinate the Chancellor? Luke: Say it wasn't assassination. Rey: It wasn't assassination. Int: You weren't trying to kill him? Luke: Assassination has to be politically motivated. Rey: This was, um... not political. Assassination is political, right? Int: You mean this was personally motivated? Rey: Yes. Int: I see. What personal motivation? Luke: Jakku! Rey: He's my grandfather. Int: ... Rey: Possibly father. Nobody was very clear on that. Int: ... Luke: Tell them to run a paternity test. Rey: Oh hey, a blood test would tell us which, right? Int: ............ Rey: I spent ten years as an orphaned scrapdealer on Jakku. He's my father. I'm kind of a little angry. Int: ........... Luke: Good job, kid. You bought yourself some time. Int: I'm going to get a medic to see about that parternity test.

Obviously, it comes back positive. Congratulations, Sheev, you’re the father.

Rey comes with a ready-made built-in excuse for hating Palpatine that nobody can question or fault her for!

Rey, pouring Truth into the Force: I didn't even know I was related to the Chancellor until a few months ago, but it's his fault I grew up the way I did, and he should take some responsibility!

The entire thing is mostly kept hush hush but someone leaks it to the press and Palpatine's ratings tank.

"Chancellor, I think we'll need to waive family visitation until she wants you a little less dead." "I would like to find out why she wants me dead, and indeed, where she came from." "...sir, for your own safety--"

Who would win? A master plan years in the making spanning decades of manipulating and work? or One (1) paternity test

"Okay, so, Rey Palpat--" "Ew, no, I don't want his name." "You--okay. Sure, we can understand that. Is there a name you would prefer to put on the paperwork?" Rey, who would have gone by Skywalker in honor of Luke but can't do that when Anakin is right there and all: "Can I think about it?"

Rey: I don't know what I want my last name to be but I know I don't want his, and most of the people I’d want a name from have famous families like you... Luke's ghost, pointing out the Literal Nobody that she cares about a lot: How about Solo? Rey: ...Solo, then.

(A few months later she runs into Poe again and he offers for Finn and Rey to both take his name because honestly they need SOMETHING but at that point she’s already decided on Smuggler Dad.)

Backtrack a bit. We’ve got a bigger cast.

They all arrive separately. Poe, for one, does better than Rey, who is aiming for a murder, but not quite as well as Finn, who is currently being adopted and hidden like a secret cat by a bunch of Alpha Clones on Kamino. He vibes with the names-or-numbers thing. He doesn’t necessarily tell them where and when he’s from, but he’s very sweet and a great liar and they adopt him wholesale anyway.

The Finn situation is just... "Buir Ti, we need you to hide this man, we've decided he's our little brother but if Nala Se finds out she'll make him leave."

Of course, this leads into Shaak Ti teaching Finn how to Jedi.

Maybe consider Finn needing to almost be tricked into learning Jedi things because he willfully forgets it could apply to him. Finn does not like to think of himself as special, which is super valid, but frustrating for Shaak Ti when it comes to, you know, getting him to acquire knowledge. Finn's training at some point is "here, levitate objects with the Force to entertain the tubies." It’s a lot easier to convince him to practice when it involves the babies.

(Everyone on Kamino looked at Finn and went “oh I love him I’m keeping him and teaching him things.”)

(He’s just very lovable.)

Poe, meanwhile, buys the trust of Anakin Skywalker via R2D2 declaring BB-8 the absolute most baby of droids. R2D2 met BB-8 three hours ago but.

"Hey Obi-Wan this is Poe I met him like five days ago but R2D2 says he checks out because his droid is a baby." "That's nice, Anakin, did you know the Chancellor has a daughter who tried to assassinate him in broad daylight yesterday? Because guess who had to stop the Chancellor from getting assassinated by his daughter in broad daylight yesterday."

A summary so far:

Finn, on Kamino: Hey, um, I don't know where this is, but it's not where I was a few minutes ago. Do you think you could get me a comm? What's your name? Poe, on [dice roll] Denon: Oh, hey, you're General Skywalker? Nice to meet you, I'm so sorry about my droid, she's a little excitable and thought your R2 unit looked like a friend of hers-- Rey, on Coruscant: DIE, GRANDFATHER

Finn: [Peacefully vibing on Kamino, unaware of the chaos and bonding with the clones] Poe: [Trying to explain how he knows someone who tried to kill the chancellor and defend Rey] Rey: [Arrested for trying to kill the chancellor]

Just... just...

Anakin: Some guy ended up lost on base yesterday with his droid, how’s your day going? Obi-Wan: I had to stop someone who claims to be the chancellors daughter from murdering the chancellor after she seemingly blinked into existence in the Senate building. Poe: 😐

(Poe: Oh, so that's where Chaos^2 went.)

Poe: In her defense, she is his... well we don't know if she's his daughter or granddaughter, but she's definitely related to him, and she definitely grew up in a shitty situation that was his fault, so...

(Poe is trying very hard to explain this and not get arrested on the military base.)

As you’ve probably guessed, what's especially funny about all of this for me is the fact that Palpatine is fully aware that this girl shouldn't exist, but can't find a single piece of evidence about where she came from. He didn't start any experiments that could result in a female child, and he didn't have sex in that period of time, so where the hell--

Rey spends so much time in jail... BUT they do eventually assign her a Jedi Master. Possibly before she actually proves her evil grandfather is in fact evil. Most votes went to either Plo Koon or Obi-Wan. Plo, because he’s dad-shaped, and Obi...

"Obi-Wan, you already raised one feral desert child with implausible amounts of power, you handle this." Rey in return is very "Sweet, you vaguely remind me of Master Luke," and nobody knows who the hell she's talking about. Obi-Wan is NOT on board with this plan, she'd really be better off with Plo or like........ Mace.

Reunion Tour

What I need out of this is the eventual Finn and Rey reunion scene that is just excited screaming while someone in the background explains to Shaak Ti that yes this is apparently Palpatine's terrifyingly force-sensitive daughter who hates him.

(Finn senses Rey’s approach and just. Gathers the everyone to wait. He’s just :D REY MY FRIEND REY GUYS MY FRIEND REY IS COMING.)

Anakin shows up with Poe--just a guy who signed on to the military, no big deal--and then Poe and Rey are EXCITED and everyone's just like "Cool, how do you know this literal terrorist child?" And Poe has to scramble and "Uhhhhhhhhhhhh she saved my droid from a scrapheap once and BB-8 is basically my child so I owe her one."

Rey knows that Anakin ends up evil so she’s maybe not actively hostile but definitely very “I’m watching you.” That said, she vibes with him on a lot of things that he maybe doesn’t actively notice.

Rey picks up a snake, snaps off the head for venom avoidance, and starts biting off chunks. Obi-Wan's reaction: [undisguised horror] Anakin and Ahsoka: Ooh, where'd you find that? (Obi-Wan: And now I’m up to three feral children.)

What Does Palpatine Even Do?

OBVIOUSLY at a certain point, Palpatine is just phoning up every ally he has to figure out who broke protocol to synthesize a daughter for him.

So of course, Palpatine blame Plagueis.

She'd have been born five or so years before Naboo, just a few years younger than Anakin. It's such an EASY theory to build a conspiracy around. It is ENTIRELY WRONG, but it’s plausible! And anyone who might have been involved to say otherwise is probably dead!

A random bio-kid shows up you can’t possibly have contributed genes to? Maybe it’s the evil bio spark that did it.

Palpatine tries to placate her with the ‘my genes were stolen for an experiment and I didn’t know’ thing. It doesn’t work because her actual main complaint is he’s evil in her future but he tries.

It'd be a struggle to even get access to her, because of the aforementioned “maybe don’t try to talk to the daughter(?) that hates you” thing, but you know who Palpatine does have access to? The Chosen One.

Rey kind of decides on her favorites early on (she gravitates to Dad Energy and Sad Old Men so Plo and Obi-Wan are on her list, and that means decent time around Anakin and Ahsoka). It's really easy to talk Anakin into helping to some degree because "he'd like to connect to a daughter he never knew" and "a child of her power on a planet like that, you'd know her struggle, my dear boy" and so on. Anakin tries to connect! He tries to play up Sheev’s kind political work and how it can’t have really been his fault! It doesn’t work. Rey does not believe a word of it. Mostly she doesn’t even seem to hear him.

Rey's just like "...oh right, you're the melted mask that Kylo Ren was always ranting about," which means absolutely NOTHING to Anakin, but he mentions it to Palps, who loses his goddamn mind trying to figure out what she's talking about, because it also means absolutely nothing to him.

Here’s the thing: Rey’s already decided that Obi-Wan is cool, because Luke said so, and Plo Koon is dad-shaped, and she also gravitates towards earnest kindness in general, like she made friends with Finn real quick, so Ahsoka? Already getting along great.

She doesn’t dislike Anakin, really, he isn’t evil yet, he’s just... meh. She’s a little suspicious and she likes him less than the others but... Anakin.

Rey, to Anakin: You are my least favorite. Anakin, to Palpatine: YOUR DAUGHTER HATES ME???

And he goes from “she’s a lil standoffish” to “she doesn’t like me” to “she hates me” as is normal for Anakin.

It’s just an escalation of this one time Palpatine wants Anakin to not have rifts and trust issues with a person, at least not until later, because he needs information.

Meanwhile, that very moment, Rey is just like "huh, nobody here is listening to me about how make a sixth-hand carburetor work, where's Luke's dad?"

Anakin is venting to Palpatine about how hard it is to talk to Rey, and she's over in the Temple just like "Hey, that guy was useful last time, I should ask him," but also she only ever thinks of him as Luke's Dad.

(At one point, Obi-Wan is having a bit of a break down, and then Anakin starts having a breakdown about that, meanwhile the clones are (badly) trying to hide Finn behind their backs, Rey is watching Ahsoka practice and being like "I want two lightsabers," and Poe is trying to keep R2 from stealing BB-8 and Force Ghost Luke is just face palming in the background.)

(Rey deserved a saber staff, maybe one that can detach and turn into a jar’kai set. Possibly a pike. Mostly I just wish she got more chances to whack things with a big stick.)

#Rey #Finn #Poe Dameron #Sheev Palpatine #Luke Skywalker #Anakin Skywalker #Obi Wan Kenobi #Darth Sidious #Plo Koon #Shaak Ti #Ahsoka Tano #r2d2 #bb 8 #star wars #time travel #Rey and the Grandfather Paradox #Phoenix Posts

[toukatan]

You read every gojohime fic???? That's amazing!!! What are your favourites?

hello anonie! i guess i can say i’ve read at least a good 80% of all the fics, at least. probably. most likely because the fic tag at the start of the year was tiny and now the community’s grown so much there’s almost 600 of them. that’s insane to me. like hello?

i have a lotta fics that come to mind, that i should honestly make a master post on because i love them all. so here are a few many that came to mind immediately as i typed this up.

gojohime fic recommendations!

multichapter

limitations by ohmytheon 

“Parenthood chooses you," her mother used to tell her, but Utahime never understood that saying more than the moment she realized she was pregnant with Gojo Satoru's child. They were never meant to be something serious - never meant to be more than they were - and yet they both suddenly find themselves in a world that doesn't care about their desires - and that brings them closer in a way that no one else can understand. It won't be easy and it won't be kind to either of them, but it appears as if the universe has other plans for them

no one is what they were before by ohmytheon 

The world broke when Gojo Satoru turned on jujutsu society. It's not the hopeful place it was before, but Utahime has never been one to give up. Until she's placed in a dangerous position directly in his path, and she finds herself trapped in a web that doesn't seem intent on ever letting her go.

and touch me like you never by ohmytheon 

In public, Gojo is a special grade bastard, especially to Utahime, and has been all their lives. He knows exactly what insults to throw and what buttons to push to drive her up a wall. In private, however, he's got quite a few other things to tell and show her, which only makes things more confusing. It would be easier if she could avoid him entirely, but for some reason, he won't let her go entirely.

gravity by aerfei

This is Utahime, fierce and indomitable, and this is Satoru, who despite holding the world’s regard, still craves something that Utahime has had all her life. Coming together is sometimes an act of desperation, and sometimes a deliberate choice. Or: An Iori Utahime character study, through the lens of her relationship with Gojo Satoru, starting from the beginning and ending at the Goodwill Event arc. Manga spoilers and (at least 95%) canon-compliant through (at least) chapter 135.

count every single leaf in autumn by florieneofthesea

“I told my family we’re dating.” Utahime’s hand hovers over the door. “What?!” (or: Gojo tells his family that he's dating Utahime to get them off his back, so of course they invite her to the dreaded family dinner™)

favourite colour by otherthingsonhold

At 28, Satoru Gojo's responsibilities only start to multiply. With his clan looking to him to lead the family, and the balance of the universe in his hands, Gojo isn't thinking of much else. But when his mother brings something to his attention, the only thing Gojo can do is follow through. But how is Utahime Iori part of all of this?

gojo catoru by ashittywriter

Utahime is tasked to catsit a suspiciously large Persian dollface cat with pristine white hair, the most boop-able nose, and to top it off the cutest cerulean eyes. Too bad the cat also happens to be her idiotic colleague Gojo Satoru.

at the tail-end of spring by florieneofthesea

Utahime doesn't expect to remember her ex's number off by heart but it comes in handy when she's a little less than sober outside a club in a city she's not familiar with and her battery on three percent. She just wishes things turned out differently for them. (Or, post-break up exploration where outer forces refuse to let them have their happy ending.)

a second chance by onewordmore

In another world, it wasn't Geto who sneered down at humanity, regarding them to be worthless monkeys that deserved to die. In another world, it wasn't Geto who openly defied the Jujutsu Council and brought down terror and fear to all. In another world, it wasn't just Amanai Riko who died that day, amidst the cheers and delighted cries of the insane. And Utahime was going to learn, first hand, the consequences of her own death.

from you to me by onewordmore

A drabble series regarding Gojo and Utahime. From fluff to smut to angst to love. This is going to have it all.

oneshots

oceansize by aerfei

The marriage is arranged by their families, small clans both, with all their hopes and traditions laid gently upon the shoulders of their only heirs -- and yet, this distance is impassable.

under the cover of darkness by ohmytheon

It takes a little alcohol, early morning hours, and a game of truth or dare for Gojo and Utahime to admit some difficult truths to each other.

risk/reward by ohmytheon 

No punishment had ever been more effective in making Gojo do his actual job than receiving praise from his secretary - or more grueling than when Utahime withheld it.

like a good roommate by ohmytheon

Utahime has a problem: her bed wasn't delivered to the new apartment. Her ridiculous roommate, Gojo, has a solution - but he's kind of panicking on the inside.

aware of us by halspur 

“We did alright, didn’t we?” Gojo put his phone down after taking several dozen photos of Tsumiki walking across the stage, his eyes soft. “I mean, we were just kids, too.”

love song by halspur

“Because you’re weak.” Gojo said, muffled into the thin skin of her throat. “I can’t leave you alone.”

tear you apart by halspur

“I don’t want to be mean to you,” Utahime’s cheek was pressed into his spine, her voice muffled. “I like you.”

cuddles are for clean boyfriends by just_trying_my_best_everyday

Utahime finds Gojo Satoru sitting right behind the door, blindfold hanging on his neck, completely soaked in blood and petting her cat with both hands. And he stinks.

honey by florieneofthesea

Gojo Satoru experiences love a decade before he fully realises it.

roots by florieneofthesea 

At the start of winter, Utahime starts to cough up blood. She thinks maybe its just the lingering damage from her last mission, but the coughing persists and it starts to scratch her throat, and itch at her lungs and when she finally makes the trip to Tokyo to ask Shoko for her help, she doesn't even get the first word out. Shoko welcomes her at the entrance to Tokyo Metropolitan Technical School and Utahime hacks up a single, pale blue petal, smattered with blood. She stares down at the flora on the ground and wonders if she's been cursed. Utahime looks up, and Shoko's eyes are wide.

to have and to hold by ashittywriter

“M’sorry," Gojo said his voice slurring at the end. "But please go away, I have a girlfriend." Utahime blinked in confusion. What the fuck? 

souvenir by PrettyKittyLuvsU

“Aha!” Gojo tugged something out of his pocket, his long fingers curled around it as he held his hand behind his back. His other hand waved before him, a cheeky grin splitting his lips. “Ora, ora! Hold out your hand.” Utahime stared flatly. “Ora, ora!” Gojo persisted, continuing to wave his hand as he grinned. “Hold out your hand already!” Utahime scowled at the hand swaying infront of her face. She had half a mind to slap the man instead, but her students were closely watching. Even Gojo’s students, the second years mainly—for Sukuna’s vessel was apologizing profusely as the brown haired girl continued kicking him while the quiet one made no effort to stop her— looked in fascination at whatever ridiculous souvenir Gojo wanted to hand her. Utahime slowly lifted her arm, already planning on throwing the thing back in Gojo’s annoying face. Gojo gets Utahime a very special kind of souvenir. Set during the start of the Goodwill arc.

dayum this exposes me huh? i do be reading a lot but what can i say i love to see it. all these fics are amazing, to the writers y’all are doing fantastically like my goodness you be really putting ya girl in a loop with some of these fics with your plot-lines and doing it flawlessly. can’t thank them enough for them, their hard work and time!

be sure to show the writers some love and support with comments, bookmarks and fight that dayum kudos button when it smiles at you because lemme leave more—

i think they’d really really appreciate it when they hear the bing and be sure to check out all of their stories including the ones in the pairing tag! happy readings 😙✨

#there’s so much more. i gotta make a master post but yeah send your love to the writers #they’re amazing and deserve all the love and support #🤍💫✨ #gojohime #fic rec #anon #asks #replies #nitatalks

[unhealthyfanobsession]

If you’re still taking prompts:

“Keeping a secret from your best friend is difficult... but when that secret is that you're madly in love with her, it's downright impossible. At least that's what Cassian thought, until he was a little tipsy and sharing a sleeping bag with said best friend. (College, modern AU)”

With smut please?🧎🏾‍♀️🙏🏽👀🥺

Oh hey bestie! So I think maybe you had like after a college party in mind for this but I went a… different way. Also it’s only smut-adjacent because I think good smut requires a Drabble of its own I think I’m sorry. Hope you enjoy!!!

Camping.

Nesta had two weeks between the end of her internship and the beginning of her last year of college, and somehow, she let herself get dragged along on her sister’s annual camping trip.

Their whole friend group was weird and twisted around like Ivy vines with who was closest to who, who was related to who, who was dating who, who had slept with who’s father (looking at you MOR!), and Nesta tended to avoid the big group things.

But this was only Feyre, Rhys, Azriel, and the real reason she was there… Cassian. Fucking Cassian dragging her off into the woods.

Nesta loved her sisters. She did. She wouldn’t spend time with them and pretend she didn’t hate their boyfriends if she didn’t love them. (Pretending not to hate Rhys and Lucien, for Nesta, pretty much required the energy of a full time job.)

She loved her sisters. But she was there for Cassian. Because she liked Cassian. Genuinely and entirely liked him. Nesta Archeron liked another human being. They’d been best friends since eighth grade when he tried to ask her out on the swing set and she elbowed him in the jaw.

Saying yes to that middle school date would’ve been the worst mistake of her life. Because then she’d have had this short drama filled relationship with Cassian and she wouldn’t have gotten to keep him. And she really loved that she got to keep him. Even if sometimes she wished he’d been her first kiss instead of Tomas.

Anyway, when he said he was going on this camping trip Nesta realized she had to go too. Because there was no way she was spending her free time somewhere that he wasn’t. He was her person. The person she wanted to spend her free time with.

“Pathetic,” Cassian grinned, plucking the pack right off of her back as if it weighed no more than a purse. As if she hadn’t been struggling under its weight for the past 4 kilometres.

“I agreed to camping. I didn’t realize a 7 hour hike was involved to get to the damn place.”

“Two hours at most, sweetheart.” Nesta scowled, pretending, as she always did, to hate his little endearments. “And all of the best spots require a hike. Otherwise they’re overcrowded.”

“Maybe overcrowded is a good thing. Maybe overcrowded means loud and safe instead of offering ourselves up to be a bear buffet.”

“I’ll protect you from any bears, I promise, Nes.”

Nesta glared. “You’re going to fight off a bear if it tries to eat me?”

“Of course I am,” Cassian nodded. “These muscles aren’t just for show.”

Nesta laughed. “How sad I’m going to lose my best friend on this trip. Don’t worry I’ll come up with something nice for the tombstone. “Here lies Cassian. Tried to fight a bear so his muscles would have a purpose.”

“I take it back, you can get eaten by the bear.”

“I’m going to shove you in front of the bear.”

Their water break had landed then both a few hundred feet behind Feyre, Rhys, and Azriel, so Cassian kept hold of her backpack as they moved, teasing her that he was still faster with two packs than she was with none.

When they arrived at the little clearing Nesta had to admit it was beautiful. Serene. A big patch of grass surrounded by trees with a stunning view over the mountains from a clearing just a few feet away.

“Worth the hike?” Cassian asked as he set up their tent. That was the deal. If Nesta was going to camp then he had to do all of the work. Because she didn’t know how to do it. Also he had to share his tent with her because seriously? Why would she own a tent? She wasn’t a damn mountain man.

“It is really pretty.”

“I told you you’d like camping, Nesta!” Feyre called out from over fifty feet away where Azriel, Cassian, and Nesta all banded together to force her and Rhys to put their tent. Far away from the other two. Nesta was so not sleeping on the ground AND listening to her little sister have sex all night.

“Cassian?” Consciousness pulled lightly through Cassian’s sleepy mind. “Cass? CASS!” He shot bolt upright, body instinctively turning to Nesta, looking her over, checking her for injuries or any other thing that might have her yelling his name into the pitch black tent.

“Oh good, you’re awake.”

Cassian laughed. It was probably 3am and she’d just woken him up, and still he was laughing. Man he had it bad.

“What’s up, buttercup?” He made a show of flipping around to face her even though he couldn’t really see her.

“I’m freezing.”

As his eyes adjusted, Cassian looked her over with a frown. She was bundled up in her sleeping bag, wearing his sweater… which he hadn’t given her, but he had discarded in between them before he went to sleep so that was fair game he guessed. It was far from the first time in over a decade of friendship that she’d stolen his sweater, but man… it still did something to him.

“Your sleeping bag isn’t made for below freezing temperatures, is it?”

Nesta stared at him. Blinked. “No. Why would it have to be? It’s August!”

“It’s colder up in the mountains,” Cassian explained. “Especially over night.”

“Great. I’ve been brought into the mountains to freeze to death and now Eris is going to win the gold medal for our year.”

Cassian laughed, “Well I can’t allow that. The horror.” This was probably a bad idea. No it was definitely a bad idea, but the words couldn’t be stopped from leaving his mouth once they popped into his mind. “Come share mine.”

Cassian half unzipped his sleeping bag and made a show of shuffling himself over.

“You’re too big.” She said.

“Thanks I work out,” Nesta glared at his cocky smirk. “Come on Nes, it’s this or letting Eris win the gold medal.”

Nesta huffed, but unzipped her sleeping bag and crawled over to his, her legs were cool as they tangled with his in the tight sleeping bag. Cassian pulled her in, one arm wrapping instinctively around her shoulders to pull her against his chest, before he zipped the sleeping bag up again after her.

This had been such a bad idea. But what could he do? Let her freeze?

Cassian told Nesta everything, so it was already difficult enough to be keeping a secret from his best friend... but when that secret was that he had been madly in love with her since middle school, the situation became impossible. And pulling her perfect body tight up against his and wrapping her in his arms, hands moving up and down her shoulders quickly to try and warm her up, was not helping the situation.

“Thanks,” Nesta murmured sleepily. “I’m already a lot more comfortable.”

Me too, Cassian thought but would never say.

“Hey Cass?” Nesta’s voice was teasing. “What do we do if you wake up with morning wood?”

Cassian chuckled into her hair, a little bit drunk on the familiar scent of rosehips and iron will.

“Then I guess we’ll finally have sex.” He deadpanned.

Nesta’s jaw dropped. Ok. Bad joke. “I’m not having sex with you for the first time in a tent Cassian!”

Now Cassian’s jaw dropped. That was her issue with his suggestion? “I… Nesta I was joking. But… the tent is the problem? The only problem?”

“Grow a pair!” Nesta batted at him with her hand, an impressive feat considering she was all but pinned between him and the sleeping bag. “I thought this was you finally making a move.”

Cassian stared down at her. It was pitch black, but even with just the shadowy outlines of her features, he could see her exact expression in his mind.

“I wouldn’t use you freezing as a ploy to make a move, Nesta.”

“And why not?” She humphed, “it’s the perfect opportunity.”

“It’s… coercive.”

“Do I look coerced to you, Cassian?” Nesta ran her foot up his bare calf and Cassian shuddered.

“I can’t have sex with you if you’re looking for a friends with benefits, Nes.” Nesta paused her movements. “I… fuck, our friendship means so much to me and I’m so afraid to fuck it up. And if we start having sex I won’t be able to handle it being just sex and you’ll start to resent me so we just… shouldn’t go there.”

Nesta’s arms wrapped around him now, struggling to span the full width of his chest. “And if it wasn’t just sex?”

“Please don’t fuck with me about this,” he whispered. Low and Ernest in a way he almost never was.

“What?”

“Dont joke about this if you’re playing around or I don’t… you have to know, Nes. You have to know how completely in love with you I am.”

“Yeah,” Nesta tucked her head under his chin. “I know. I’ve just been waiting for you to make a move.”

It was dark. Cassian could barely see her. But there, with his arms around his best friend in the world, sharing a sleeping bag to keep her warm, Cassian nudged her out of his chest and found her lips in the pitch black.

Why had he kept this secret for so long? Everything in the world was better when he was kissing his best friend.

#nessian #drabbles open #nesta archeron #acosf #nessian fanfiction #cassian #nesta and cassian #a court of thorns and roses #sarah j maas #a court of silver flames #a court of mist and fury #acotar #feysand

[mysmegrace]

i recently installed mystic messenger again after like a month or more of not playing (was afraid of someone finding the game in my phone) , and it felt good to "see" the characters again , so can i please request headcanons of the rfa seeing mc after a long time ?

hello, that's completely understandable lol. i remember back in 2016 when i played it the first time around (i deleted it after the first bad ending and didn't play again until 2019 lol) and was worried people would look on my phone and see it. oh how times have changed lol. but of course!

RFA Seeing MC After a Long Time

---

yoosung kim:

you attended the rfa party during the last summer you had before going to college.

life was looking up for you.

you found an amazing boyfriend, started becoming independent, and got a good summer job.

things only got better when you found out you had gotten accepted to college.

only problem was that the college was in the US, and your friends and lover were in South Korea.

as much as you loved your new life here, you reminded yourself of your feelings before meeting the rfa.

how everything you created here would only be temporary.

but now, you didn’t want to stick to that anymore.

your life was going so well, and you knew yoosung wouldn’t be happy about you leaving to go across the globe.

however, it was too good of an opportunity to let it go.

this was what you were to planning to do for the last decade.

if you were to give up now, all your hard work would be for nothing.

you were incredibly conflicted, but eventually choose to follow your passion at college overseas.

and yoosung was frantic about it.

he wouldn’t be able to see you, protect you, help you, feed you, walk with you, the list went on.

however as he’s gotten more mature over the past few days, he knew he didn’t have the power to stop you, nor should he guilt you about it.

besides, he wanted you to pursue something you were passionate in and become successful.

some sacrifices would just have to be made.

that didn’t mean he would let you go either.

the two of you made a promise to call, facetime, and visit each other as often as possible.

you’d make it work.

so with much regret, you left to the states.

and when the holidays approached, you decided to bring yourself to him as a gift.

it had been months since he saw you at this point.

you both could enjoy the holidays together while relaxing.

it was a win win.

and what better way to carry out your surprise than by showing up to his front door at 10pm?

and that’s exactly what you did.

giving the door a good few knocks, you waited until you were greeted by yoosung standing in his unwashed pajamas, staring at you.

it took a few seconds for it to click who you are, yet once that processed, he was overcome with joy.

you thought it was adorable how his hands flew to his face as he began to pull you into a hug shortly after.

you were met with only parts of words as yoosung couldn’t explain his excitement fast enough.

and you were ecstatic as well.

you never realized how much you missed him until you were reunited with him again.

hence why after you two spent the holidays together, you found it incredibly difficult to leave again.

however with his encouragement, you went off to work your hardest so he could meet a successful you the next time you reunited.

hyun ryu / zen:

much like zen, you were an actor too.

you were a much lesser known actress, but you had began building connections.

and those connections all paid off when you were offered a new role in a movie that was predicted to be going big.

you couldn’t be more grateful.

yet as you began reading farther into the offer, your heart slowly sunk.

if you were to take the role, you would have to relocate to germany for the next 9 months.

you wanted this so bad, but you didn’t want to leave zen alone for 9 months.

he if could, he would join you in germany.

but he already had a role to work on in south korea.

as much as you wanted him to join you, you didn’t want him to give up his role he had been working so hard on for the past year.

you were conflicted, and knew it would be best to talk about it to zen.

not only to see what he thinks, but to ease your feelings.

and once you had the discuss about it with you, you came to a conclusion.

you would could, keeping in contact with him everyday.

though zen was heartbroken about it, he knew how much you wanted this and how much this would advance your career.

so with a heavy heart, he sent you off.

the moment you left on the plane, he was already longing for your reunion.

9 months never went by so slow.

when you were with him, there was never enough time to bask in each others love.

but without him, everyday had an extra 8 hours.

even though you were working 24/7, time stayed still for days on end.

yet when the production ended a month early, all your worries and stresses eased as you could finally reunite with your love in person.

without thinking, you packed all your stuff up once you got back to your trailer to get the next plane back to seoul.

you hadn’t even thought to tell zen until you boarded the plane.

too late now though, as you weren’t aloud your phone on the plane.

what an idiotic rule, you thought.

but perhaps it was better this way, as you could surprise zen with your return sooner than expected.

you gave into the tiredness that followed you around for the months prior, awakening to the speaker saying you’ve landed.

in your half awake state, you got off the plane and called for a cab.

it only took an hour to reach your destination, in which you got more sleep on the way there.

you thanked the driver before heading out, practically running to the front door.

you knocked, hoping to make zen believe you were only a door salesman or a mailman.

you heard some footsteps approaching behind the door in a hurried state, before the door opened and you were greeted with your future husband.

his expression changed in the speed of light once he quickly realized who you were.

you were met with a tight embrace, doubting if you could breath for a second.

zen pulled away not too long after, his excitement getting to him as he said “i didn’t think you were supposed to be home so soon!”

to that, you could only giggle as you admitted the reason behind your surprise.

zen was more than happy to see you home earlier than discussed before.

“this day is too important, we have to do something now!” zen said as he got dressed up to go out in the christmas weather.

with a small laugh, you agreed.

the rest of your day was spent going out to cafes and buying presents for the other rfa members.

and to your luck, the movie turned out a huge success.

not only in germany, but in korea as well.

things worked out for the best, you thought.

but one thing was for sure, you weren’t doing that again.

jaehee kang:

jaehee had brought up the idea of opening a cafe, to which you were 100% in on.

however, in korea you had to have a culinary certificate to own a cafe.

i dont know if thats legit or not i completely made that up

but if you had to get a certificate, you were going to get it in the best way you could.

and a college you had come across was perfect for that.

it was a good price and had a great reputation.

there was one problem however, and that was that it was located in france.

which was a 12 hour flight away from seoul.

you knew there was no opportunity like it, but you couldn’t stop yourself from being on the edge about it.

you didn’t want to leave your friends and family here for 2 years while you went off to another country on your own.

plus who knew if something would happen to you while you were aboard?

your concerns were slightly lessened after you brought up your worries to jaehee, and the encouragement she gave you was overwhelming.

she suggested for you to go for it and that she would hold everything down in seoul while helping the rfa in planning future parties.

on the upside, it would give her more time to save up more money for the opening just in cause it was needed.

with hesitation, you decided to go along with her words and study in france for some time.

you would miss each other, but you both knew it was what you two needed to ensure a sucessful future.

while you were aboard, jaehee would attend culinary classes in korea here and there.

you would keep in contact frequently, but never had the money to go back to seoul on holidays to reunite.

so once those two years had passed, you were out as fast as possible.

you loved france, but you loved your girlfriend more.

you hopped on the plane home, eager to see everyone again.

and once you arrived at the airport in seoul, the first thing you saw as you exited the plane was your girlfriend standing there, eyes focused on the doorway waiting for your arrival.

and once your eyes met, you were quick to run up to her while opening your arms to hug her strongly.

two years was such a long time to be apart, but all was well now.

shortly after, the two of you opened the cafe and were met with an incredible amount of support from the community and rfa.

now you were content to settle down in seoul with the love of your life.

jumin han:

you were very business driven, which jumin liked about you.

even having your own fashion company.

you were unlike many other women he had come across before in various ways.

but the downside to your business focused mind were your frequent business trips.

some would last a day while others would last a week.

though this recent one you were expected to take was unlike anything you had ever had to do before for work.

it suggested you stayed in china for a month as you worked out many business issues and proposals.

while your company had began trending recently, you had never expected this.

the first thing that came to your mind once reading the email was your husband.

you felt horrible when you had to leave him alone for a day, but a month?

you couldn’t even imagine how much that would hurt him.

however, this wasn’t something you could just refuse.

if you did, you weren’t sure if your company would continue standing.

and so later that night, you told jumin everything over wine.

how you didn’t want to but knew your company wouldn’t survive without it.

he didn’t know what to make of everything.

this came at the worst timing.

he needed to stay in korea for the time being for business, so he couldn’t join you in china either.

reluctantly, he supported you in your travels.

he understood your situation, but made you promise to call him every night.

which you had no problem with.

and so with a sad smile, you had left a few days later.

things were frustrating in beijing, but you at least had the comfort of your husbands voice to fall asleep to.

everyone at the office noticed jumins shift in mood as soon as your left.

yet without a voice of concern, things carried on as if nothing happened.

the day you were set to come back, jumin cancelled all plans to spend the day with you.

you needed to make up for the time the two of you lost, and you needed to rest in the comfort of your own home again.

thankfully, your company didn’t meet it’s downfall just yet.

in fact, it was now prospering.

saeyoung choi:

your day was going as it normally would.

well, as normal as a day with saeyoung can go.

yet it all changed when you got a call that your brother had gotten into a bad car accident, and the situation wasn’t looking good.

you didn’t know how to react, so many emotions and fears were overwhelming you.

you knew you were your brothers emergency contact, as he had no one else close to him in his life, so it was no question about why they called you while you were in seoul and he was in brazil.

but after learning about the situation, you quickly realized that you needed to get back to brazil as soon as possible.

they didn’t know how long he had left, and the remainder of his days would require for him to get help to do everyday things.

with your eyes barely spilling over, you told saeyoung everything.

you were met with a hug as he comforted you.

when you brought up the fact of needing to leave, he didn’t think twice before giving you his blessing (though he knew you didn’t need it).

it would be hard on him because he wouldn’t be able to join you as he was in an active mission, but he would keep in touch and make sure of your safety from countries away.

after all, he would do the same if saeran were in your brothers position.

the next day, you backed your flight to brazil, packing only what you needed.

your days in brazil passed in pain, as you watched your brother fight for his life daily.

until one day, his body gave up on him and he passed.

you were devastated.

you were on autopilot in public and breaking down in your hotel room when no one was around.

after attending your brothers funeral and a week of mourning, you began to book your ticket back to seoul.

yet in your state of heart ache, you didn’t realize the change in the countries health as the coronavirus started running through every town in the nation.

planes were unavailable and travel was banned.

now you were stuck here for the next 6 months, always hopping the next month would be better and you’d finally be able to go home.

saeyoung was on his toes all the time, not feeling the same without you.

and you missed him more and more as the days went on.

when the time finally came, you rushed to buy a ticket, though most people weren’t flying due to their fears surrounding the situation.

the plane was empty, allowing you to sneak your phone, sending a text to saeyoung.

“i’m on the plane home now” you typed.

saeyoung was overcome with joy to see your message.

though you had to isolate for 14 days, at least you were in the country and close to him.

once you got off the plane, went into isolation, and tested negative for covid, you ran to your shared home.

opening the door to be greeted with the same old smile that teased you every morning was a refreshing sight.

you ran up as he lifted you in a tight embrace, swaying you side to side in a wave of excitement.

after months of stress and anxiety, you could finally breath.

that realization alone was enough to make you burst out into tears of relief.

your feelings were contagious, as you saw saeyoungs eyes starting to water as well.

you were finally safe and sound in his protection, and that was all he could’ve asked for..

---

01:51 AST - 09/01/21

#mystic messenger #mysme #juminhan #jumin #jumin x mc #707 #saeyoung choi #saeyoung x mc #luciel choi #yoosung x mc #yoosung kim #zen #hyun ryu #jaehee kang #jaehee x mc #mystic messenger headcanons