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siriusbunbryist · 5 years ago

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In defence of Abed x Annie.

Thanks to the magic of Netflix, I’ve rewatched Community at age 24, and still found Abed and Annie to have hit the heartstrings as much as I did when I was in high school watching the show for the first time.

But watching the series in its entirety just reinforces my thought that Abed and Annie had so much potential that was wasted, and it’s a shame that the writers planted all these seeds to only decide that perhaps this direction was not worth it / too risky / unfavoured by the audience. But I mean, Alison Brie herself (and I’m assuming Danny Pudi as well) endorsed them! Find here and here.

This was a pairing that with all the crumbs scattered throughout the show (I think we are all aware of these crumbs I speak of), could’ve easily played the “oh we’ve been secretly dating this whole time” trope during the last episode and it would’ve still made sense.

Naturally I did some scoping, and of course unsurprisingly the J.eff x Annie pairing takes the cake, while not a lot of love for Abed x Annie. So here are common points of contentions I see surrounding Abed and Annie, and my rationale on them.

Before I start, a note - I fully respect the J.eff x Annie ship and I don’t intend on starting a ship w.ar/debate. I understand where their support comes from! I just needed to vent because no one else in my social circle watches this show. No hate please.

1. Abed doesn’t see Annie romantically

I think on the contrary it’s been set up rather long ago that Abed at the very least is attracted to Annie.

Exhibit A: “What are you making” in Beginner Pottery

Exhibit B: “Flat B.utt and the one Abed wants to nail” in The Art of Discourse

This video basically explains it! The summary: Annie is Pierce’s favourite, Pierce constantly insults Britta, therefore Britta is flat b.utt.

Exhibit C: Not even trying to hide it in Accounting for Lawyers

But, a romantic interest has to be further built upon finding someone attractive right? There has to be intrigue to their character, such as

Exhibit D: “I can only connect to people through... movies” in English as a Second Language

youtube

It is pretty obvious here that Annie is a rare someone who has successfully broken the impartial screen that Abed filters everything through. Jeff saw it too which is why he said Annie was the ark of the covenant before Abed fell for her disney face. I can only imagine Abed to be quite struck with Annie’s infiltration.

A romantic interest should also share common interests, such as

Exhibit E: “Which makes Annie is my third favourite show” in Paranormal Parentage

I’ve said before that for Abed, a guy who lives life and communicates through comparing it with television and movies, it’s not unthinkable for him to be attracted to someone who genuinely watches his favourite shows and commits to roles during cosplay. And who, besides Troy, would fit this profile? Annie.

And finally, the biggest indicator of it all, we also see how Abed views the Jeff and Annie pairing in everyone’s favourite episode Remedial Chaos Theory. Keeping in mind that the timelines are rendered by Abed, out of all the timelines, J.eff and Annie only kis.sed when Abed left the room for pizza. As well, as conjured in Abed’s head, Evil Jeff and Evil Annie only existed as a couple in the Darkest Timeline. To me at least, it’s arguable that this alludes to Abed’s omniscient “director” standpoint that he may be the obstacle in the Jeff and Annie relationship - pointing towards him perhaps harbouring feelings for Annie.

2. Annie doesn’t see Abed romantically The general consensus on this point is that Annie is only attracted to Abed when he’s playing a character. I rather think that being attracted to someone, and being attracted to someone during role play, aren’t mutually exclusive. Let’s take a look at the different characters that Abed played.

Don Draper: serious, sophisticated, and smooth.

Han Solo: immature, flirty and a smarta.ss.

Batman: mysterious, complex, and brave.

Three different personas, yet Annie responded to all of them. Since the common denominator to all three is that they are played by Abed, I would like to offer a counterpoint that perhaps the attraction to Abed has always been there, it’s just emphasized when Abed plays a character. Who knows, role playing might even be Annie’s ki.nk. After all, during For a Few Paintballs More, it is shown that Annie is disappointed when Abed dropped the Han Solo persona after the battle ended.

Annie also loves big romantic gestures. Who’s better than doing that than Abed? Since the beginning, Abed has already been doing big romantic gestures of varying degrees for Annie. With this, it’s not ridiculous for Annie to see Abed as a romantic potential.

Exhibit F: Staying in a room for 26 hours in Social Psychology

Annie: You sat in a room for twenty-six straight hours. Didn’t that bother you? Abed: Yeah I was livid. Annie: Then why didn’t you leave? Abed: Because you asked me to stay and you said we were friends.

Exhibit G: Rescuing her from “captivity” and inviting her to move in in Remedial Chaos Theory and Studies in Modern Movement (even Troy was surprised at Abed’s invitation)

Exhibit H: Tearing down the Dreamatorium in Studies in Modern Movement

Annie: What about the Dreamatorium? Abed: Oh it's staying. The Dreamatorium is more important than any of us. But you're more important than our bedroom so we put the bunk bed in the blanket fort.

Bonus: Confirmed by Alison Brie

3. The show was about Jeff and Annie

Dan Harmon said that Community’s approach is that anything and any pairing is possible. We see this is as the series started with the classic “player vs smart snarky girl” trope with setting up Jeff and Britta as the main pairing. We also see Troy and Annie as the potential B couple in the show. The writers also threw Pierce and Shirley, Annie and Britta, Dean and Jeff, and even Chang and Britta in for a laugh.

And then the show subverted this all by introducing Jeff and Annie, and made Troy and Britta a couple, showing us that Community is a show that intends on breaking these classic sitcom stereotypes by experimenting with different pairings. Abed and Annie was no exception to this, as the writers often pair them up in different shenanigans and hint at possible grounds to explore*.

A few examples: Han and Leia in For a Few Paintballs More, Hector the Well Endowed and the Elf Maiden in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, spy partners in Modern Espionage.

No doubt that the show dabbled in and out of Jeff and Annie throughout the series. However, to say that Jeff and Annie was the primary pairing in the series would mean overlooking Jeff and Britta. Especially when Jeff and Britta have the whole love-hate dynamic, three(?) marriage close-calls, and emotional snippets such as helping Jeff reunite with his father in Cooperative Escapism in Familial Relations.

Anyway, not to discredit Jeff and Annie, but knowing that the show explores the possibility of different pairings**, why write off Abed and Annie?

* Not to mention that the cop pairing in The Science of Illusion was originally written with Abed and Annie in mind! ** We also see a stray Abed and Britta during Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps.

4. Annie is in love with Jeff To keep this short and shipper-goggle free, Annie has said on numerous occasions that she’s in love with the idea of Jeff, not Jeff himself. Specifically this scene in Virtual Systems Analysis:

Abed as Annie: "…We love Jeff…" Annie: "No we don’t, we’re just in love with the idea of being loved. And if we can teach a guy like Jeff to do it, we’ll never be unloved, so we keep running the same scenario over and over hoping for a different result."

And this scene in Conventions of Space and Time:

Annie: All right, I may have been play-acting that we were married, and then the staff thought you were cheating, and I had to save face. Jeff: Do I have to worry about this? Annie: No, I was just daydreaming. I mean, I've married you at least a half a dozen times. And Troy. And Zac Efron.

Not to mention that their conversation in the finale says it all.

Jeff: I don't wanna be fine. I wanna be 25 and heading out into the world. I wanna fall asleep on a beach and be able to walk the next day, or stay up all night on accident. I wanna wear a white t-shirt without looking like I forgot to get dressed.* I want to be terrified of AIDS, I want to have an opinion about those, boring a.ss Marvel movies. And I want those opinions to be of any concern to the people making them. Annie: Well I want to live in the same home for more than a year, order wine without feeling nervous, have a resume full of crazy mistakes instead of crazy lies. I want stories and wisdom, perspective. I wanna have so much behind me I'm not a sl.ave to what's in front of me, especially those flavourless unremarkable Marvel movies.

*Shipper-goggle on: Part of me thinks this is a reference to Abed, whose iconic style almost exclusively comprises T-shirts. What Jeff is saying is that he wishes he is 25 again with his future open before him, someone who compatible with Annie, but here he acknowledges that he isn’t, and lets her go in the end.

5. Abed and Annie wouldn’t work as a couple Another point I see is that Abed and Annie are strictly platonic and are more like brother and sister. On the basis that they have made out a couple times and are attracted to each other, I would disagree with the sibling statement.

Troy, in contrast to Abed, I think actually resembles a more sibling-like relationship with Annie. Although Troy and Annie have the strong friendship of Abed and Annie, when disregarding the high school crush stage of season 1, their storylines never dwelled further down an attraction path, nor was there any specific episode that was dedicated to a deep dive of vulnerabilities and confrontation between them. As a comparison, Troy and Britta had opportunities to explore these setups (Troy admitted to lying about his b.utt stuff story and Troy helped Britta face Blade) - an indication that Troy and Britta were heading into non-platonic territory. Jeff and Britta too, had several opportunities to confront their feelings (up till the very last season), a clear indication of a non-platonic relationship.

For Abed and Annie, what I think pulls their friendship towards actual love interest potential is best pinpointed to Virtual Systems Analysis. Annie’s participation in the Dreamatorium prompted her to not only fully submerge into the way Abed thinks and comprehends his surroundings, but she also got to understand and address Abed’s stubbornness and flaws in a vulnerable way, confronting some of her own flaws as well.

Abed as Shirley: Your hospital school, young lady, is a simulation being run through a filter of other people's needs. Abed's been filtered out because nobody needs him. Annie: I need him!

And to point out this little tidbit in VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing,

Annie: That's why Abed is like a brother to me. You guys are so alike. Abed: I can't accept that based on one time machine story.

This whole episode, instead of establishing Abed is like Annie’s brother, I would argue is rather doing the opposite. Abed and Annie’s hyper antics in the episode were basically matched by Anthony and Rachel’s blatant indifference and confusion. For lots of Abed and Annie supporters, this episode was a major setback. But I think it instead highlights how in-sync they are with each other, which is a good thing.

Another point, despite Annie trying to prove otherwise, Abed and Anthony had different vibes, and each shared different dynamics with Annie. And as Anthony pointed out in the end, who were Abed and Annie trying to replace in the apartment? Troy. The person who they are trying to fill is Troy - their roommate, their brother, their best friend. Troy was the brother role that neither Abed and Annie can fill for each other.

In Basic Sandwich, we get this exchange:

Abed: The point is, this show, Annie, it isn't just their show. This is our show, and it's not over. And the sooner we find that treasure, the faster the Jeff-Britta pilot falls apart. Annie: Got it. Thank you, Abed. Abed: You're welcome. I have a girlfriend. Annie: What? Abed: You were about to start a kiss lean. Annie: I was not.

Not only did Abed saw right through Annie’s anxiety and comforted her in his own uniquely Abed way, but he also felt the need to remind her of his girlfriend. The fact that he broke the fourth wall here is likely the writers’ way to be meta, but simply acknowledging the tension and bond there says a lot in between the lines. If tension does not exist, there would be no need for this line.

Besides, instead of thinking that they’re strictly platonic (which of course is also okay), they would rather work great as a couple. In terms of opposites attract, Annie grounds Abed with just the right amount, while Abed clearly encourages Annie to be her true self and be immature. Such as this scene in Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism,

Annie: I’m following him. Troy: You moving in here was supposed to tone us down!

Annie also doesn’t just tolerate Abed’s idiosyncrasies, she actually likes them and fully participates as multiple paintball games and cosplays would tell us. Special shoutout to the missing lovers footage in Wedding Videography, which through Britta, actually shows us that Annie is the only one who would go along with Abed’s projects - while Britta found the project extremely weird and unhealthy, Annie thought it was fun and commits well to her role.

And while others may tiptoe around Abed, Annie isn’t afraid to call Abed out when he’s out of line and makes a point to teach him about empathy in Virtual Systems Analysis. Remember that Britta tried teaching him this but it didn’t work as well.

I am Abed Nadir... And I don't know a lot of things everyone else knows. I wander the universe with my friend, Troy, doing whatever I want. Sometimes accidentally hurting innocent unremarkables. This week, however, Troy went to lunch and I adapted. I now have the ability to enter the minds of others using an elusive new technique known as "empathy".

As well as in the entire episode of Cooperative Polygraphy.

They also know each other best. Abed knew her cushion preferences, was the one who spelled out her true pas.sion for forensics, and after living together, Annie knew how to navigate Abed’s peculiarities and to soothe him whenever he had a nervous breakdown.

Annie also knows him so well that she can predict his reaction.

They are also each other’s exception. Annie was always the one who manages to pull Abed out of a trance and back to reality, usually with touch.

Abed is also very forgiving with her. An example is when Annie seemingly lost all common sense because she broke Abed’s special edition dvd in Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism.

Annie: Well, Batman, on behalf of all of us that aren't perfect, can I just say I'm sorry I broke your DVD? Abed: Apology accepted. But I wouldn't mention it to Abed. That guy's pretty ruthless. And that's coming from Batman.

And in Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas, Annie was the only claymation doll that didn’t have a weird form (except Troy as toy soldier of course). Annie was a ballerina because Abed sees her as a creature of grace. Abed was also the first one who got her “brighter tomorrow” diorama and responded with enthusiasm.

They are also in the same stage in life. As Dan Harmon explains the choice of Abed and Annie being the ones who leave the group, with Troy gone, Abed and Annie symbolize the many possibilities of the future - a possibility that makes them viable. I like to think Annie transfers to the LA FBI office after her internship and they reunite.

And as the Spice Girls said, “if you wanna be my love.r, you gotta get with my friends”. In Paleyfest, Dan Harmon says this about whoever Troy and Abed ends up dating, “I mean a woman that comes into either of their lives is either going to drive them apart or she's going to have to be really accepting of a very special relationship”.

Britta tolerated their friendship but to a point of asking Annie to distract Abed for alone time with Troy, Troy dumped the librarian as she called Abed weird, Robin disappeared, Rachel we never got to see much of, but was pretty quiet and separated from the group. From this, logically speaking, Annie would actually be the perfect match for Abed, as we all know they’re the ultimate trio within the study group and a transition from friends to more will be natural.

Oh, and, Abed is wrong. They’re not Chandler and Phoebe with little storylines together, they’re Chandler and Monica.

Anyway, that’s it for my super long rant/analysis. Community the series is done and over, so there isn’t a need for any ship war. All I want to say is, if #andamovie happens, hopefully, the writers will actually take a leap.

#abed x annie #community #annie x abed #abed nadir #annie edison #sorry if you've seen this already i'm trying to figure out why my tags won't work #mine #thoughts

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ordinaryschmuck · 4 years ago

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What I Thought About that ONE SCENE from “Covention

As promised after my "Young Blood, Old Souls" review, I am going to review the rest of The Owl House episodes that I missed. And now that they're all on Disney+ (WATCH ‘EM), I'm currently making an effort to rewatch every episode to gather my thoughts for each one. Unfortunately, they're going to be my general thoughts and won't include any in-depth analysis.

However, the episode "Covention" has such a great scene that I have to break down what makes it so incredible. I'm, of course talking, about the “Hallway scene,” which is a definitive moment in Luz and Amity's relationship. And here's how:

(By the way, you’re gonna want this scene on standby while you read this. Because I have no idea how to get pictures from the episode and add them to a Tumblr post. And I’m too lazy to figure out how.)

Luz runs off to find Amity: Keep in mind that Luz had no reason to do so. Amity treated our favorite weirdo like garbage, and Luz had every right to just let Amity sulk. And yet, she still goes off to check on her. Why? Because it's in Luz's DNA to help others when they're clearly in distress. That willingness to be a kind-hearted person is why Luz is one of my favorite characters. She has moments of drawing the line when someone takes it a step too far, but her heart is always in the right place when the time calls for it.

Where Luz finds Amity: It's odd how fans refer to this scene as "the Hallway Scene" because Amity isn't really in a hallway. It's more of a dark corner if anything else. However, the exact name of her location doesn't matter because it's how that location is shown that makes an impact, due to how it perfectly illustrates who Amity is and how vital Luz is to her. Here, we see Amity down and depressed while sitting alone in the dark, where Luz is watching while in the light. This very idea comes more poignant soon, but there are a few things I want to mention first.

Amity’s tone when Luz apologises: Let's give a round of applause to Mae Whitman, who did a great job at this moment. She perfectly captures someone who is trying hard to be angry but is too distraught that she can't completely hide her real emotions. You see it better when Amity snaps at Luz, and her expression briefly changes into something more sad than mad. It's a sign that she's capable of thinking against her "can't show weakness" mindset that her parents clearly drilled into. So kudos to everyone in charge of that.

“You made me look like a fool in front of the Emperor’s Coven. My future!”: Notice how she says, "My future." Not "My dream" nor "My desire," either of which would make it clear that it's something Amity wants. Instead, she says, "My future." Hinting that perhaps joining the coven isn't entirely what Amity wants. I'm sure that she's somewhat excited to do so (You don't make an adorable squee at the idea of joining something if you're not into it), but the way Amity says "My future" gives the impression that it's more of a requirement for her. That if she fails to do this one thing, then she will face a worse punishment than the tedious task of finding a new career path. And it’s the fear you see in her eyes that all but confirms this.

“I have been working my whole life to get to the top!”: This shows so much of Amity than fans could have ever realized. First off, it reveals that Amity is more than just some snooty rich girl who tries to be better than everyone else to boost her own ego, like many other characters (Looking at you Boscha). Instead, we see Amity's reason to be the best is so that she can work hard at getting "her future." It also hints that she ever takes a break to be a normal kid, given the "my whole life" aspect of this line. This pretty much gets confirmed in later episodes, and it really shows how genius the show's writing is in the way it can be subtle and blatant at the same time.

“Say it! Say you’re not a witch!��/”...I’m not a witch…”: This is Luz's arc for the episode, coming to a complete end. At the start, Luz fought back Amity's resentment with even more hostility. But after seeing how upset Amity is and exactly why she's upset, Luz decides to give in. You can tell it pains Luz to admit Amity's right, both from her tone and expression, but it's apparent that it is something that she needs to say. However, Luz doesn't call it a day after admitting what Amity demanded to hear…

Luz performs her light spell: Instead, Luz meets Amity halfway by explaining her own situation in a peaceful manner. And this is what I meant when I said that Luz is vital to Amity. It's no coincidence that Luz's first spell is a light spell. She brings light figuratively, and literally in this case, to everyone she cares about. Look at Amity's face when she stares at the light spell. She's clearly amazed, and for a brief moment, we see more than that bully that she acted as in the beginning.

“That’s nothing. A child could do a light spell.”: But the sad thing about brief moments is that they don't last forever, as it doesn't take long for her "show no weakness" mentality to come back. This is shown through the fact that Amity physically, literally, retreats back into the darkness and passes Luz's accomplishment off as nothing special.

“But...I’ve never seen it cast like that.”: And yet, Luz broke through anyway. Because now, not only is Amity curious, but she's interested enough to rebel against that toxic mentality for quite possibly the first time. It's here that we get a glimpse of the person Amity could be. The person she wants to be.

“It doesn't come naturally to me like it does for you, so I've had to improvise.”: And it's here where Luz once again sees a chance to get Amity to open up. A chance for Luz to find common ground and explain that while Amity thinks that Luz has it "so easy," the reality is that the opposite is true. That she also has to work hard, but she doesn't have a fear of failing when her efforts don't work out.

Amity unbinds the Everlasting Oath: I love this. Not only because Luz didn't have to ask Amity to do this, but also because Amity doesn't give a reason for doing so. Did she consider the duel a draw because they both cheated? Or did she finally see the person Luz really is and decided to do the right thing? There's no clear answer, and that's why I love it. Because even if it's the ladder, Amity can easily use the former as an excuse for why she showed weakness. And if it turns out that Amity did decide the duel is a draw, then it still works because it makes sense for her character at this point in the story.

“Humans have no magical ability. But I doubt that’ll stop you.”: Do me a favor: Read that quote. Don't just read it in Amity's voice, or read it as how it was said. Read this quote as exactly how you would say it if you haven't seen it before.

...

Did you do it? Because it looks like a compliment, doesn't it? Almost as if Amity is telling Luz that she does have the capability to become a witch. Despite her setbacks. Well, that's what this could be if not for Amity's tone. For it suggests that she's indifferent to Luz's success. But because Luz still broke through to the nice side of Amity that she wants to show to the world, Amity finds a way to try to be kind while giving the appearance that she's following her parent's mentality.

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So, yeah. This scene is f**king amazing. Through the span of a minute, here's what we get: So much development from Amity, why Luz is such a kind and supportive character, and the beginnings of their complicated relationship. This might just be the best, well-handled scene in the entire series, and it doesn't have elements of what makes recomend the show. There is no fantastic animation, there is no hilarious comedy, and there is no LGBTQ+ representation...Ok, there might be that, but you have to squint to see it. This scene is just two characters talking, and through their conversation, we learn and love so much more about them.

...

And yet, people STILL wonder why Lumity is the most popular ship of the fandom. It's because of s**t like this, people. It's because of s**t. Like. This.

(But seriously, though. This is a great scene from a great episode!)

#the owl house #luz noceda #amity blight #lumity #what i thought about #the owl house analysis

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himbo-buckley · 5 years ago

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INTIMACY, SEX AND BUDDIE (BETTER KNOWN AS I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS SHOW, SOME OF WHICH ARE RELATED TO THE BEFORE MENTIONED TOPICS) - Part 3

Well, hello there (again)!

 I got to say, this was both my favourite and least favourite part to write because by now all my theories are (hopefully) explained enough that I can just ramble about the characters and connections and ya’ll will forgive me if I stray away from what’s actually happening in this episode. Which I will do. A lot actually.

On the other hand side I have so many thoughts about what’s happening and this is gonna be long af as I started writing on part three at the same time as I wrote part 1 and 2 and I barely found things to cut, which means we are clocking in at a casual 7700 words. So maybe get that drink now, cause it’ll be a ride!

Also the links to part one and part two

And look, by now you probably know the drill but I’m just gonna give you my preface again:

This meta was supposed to be a lot shorter and only talk about how both Buck and Eddie use sex to distract their respective partners from whatever topic they actually wanted to talk about but since I decided to rewatch the show to make sure I don’t miss any such scenes, it has exploded a bit and taken on more topics

I should also mention that I am a Buddie shipper and while I tried, you will find several references and arguments for the ship in this Meta, not all of which necessarily call for a romantic pairing but just: These two are deeply connected and you cannot look at one without discussing the other and they are each other’s strongest emotional connection.

I should also preface this by saying that the whole of the 118 has some obvious intimacy / commitment issues except Bobby (which is sort of surprising) but *John Mulaney voice* we don’t have time to unpack all of that!

On another note I cuss a little in this Meta because my parents let me listen to TicTacToe as a small child and after that it never stuck that cussing is wrong so, uhm, parental supervision is advised or something

This Meta will so far have FOUR parts now. The original plan was to do three, one for each Season and is organised by episode so you could technically follow along, but due to personal reasons, also known as *feelings*, Season 3 has already exploded disproportionately and for readability reasons I have split it in two (this is part three, the cut will happen after Christmas, it works storyline-wise)

And now, for our next instalment of I read too much into things: Season 3A (also called: „Eddie Diaz, stop being such a boy scout (Wait, no, not like that!)“)

Episode 3.01:

911 as a show has a fairly interesting way of storytelling where it sometimes feels a little like they cut together snapshots of lives in regards to certain topics. And because of that you only ever see a small part of the lives of the characters. That being said: I hate hate hate how 5 months passed between the Season 2 final and the first episode of Season 3 and aside from a few offhand remarks we get virtually nothing. Also it’s very unrealistic that Bobby and Athena didn’t have any parties for 5 months, like nope, I don’t believe you show!

That being said, I appreciate how much time it took Buck to heal because it’s realistic! And also most importantly gets Oliver Stark a chance to truly shine!

I wanna take this chance real quick, to thank the producers and writer both for writing Evan Buckley the way they write him and for casting Oliver Stark to play him because omg, it works so well! Look, Oliver Stark is attractive. He is buff and handsome, but he is not perfect. He is Tinder-buff, not MCU-I haven’t seen a drop of water in a month-buff, he’s the kind of fit that will fill the whole screen one minute and make you say „Wait, I thought he was wider than this!“ the next (you know how everyone always talks about the hips to shoulder ration of Chris Evans? Yeah, the opposite of that) . And he has a really pretty face but his nose is a little too cocked and he has scars and there’s the „adorable facemark“ and he seems so damn dorky which is exactly why Evan „Buck“ Buckley works, why he is hot. And he gets to be emotional and sensitive and caring on top of that and yeah, I don’t know if I wanna be him or date him anymore either. Like he singlehandedly made me rethink my view on dating, just because I am hoping for someone like him.

Anyways, that’s probably something none of you wanted to read about in a META so we’ll get to the juicy stuff now, alright?

One thing that I realised as I watched season 3 for the third time just now is how often it repeats itself. It feels a bit stagnant at times, the way the characters make two steps forward and one step back all the time, most notably in Bobby.

I wanna talk about Bobby for once because you can not look at Buck in Season 3 without looking at Bobby as well. These two characters are connected the same way Buck is connected to Eddie. Most things Buck does character wise in Season 3 are caused by Bobby’s actions, in the same way most of Eddie’s are caused by Buck.

And the thing that 3.01 tells us from the get go? Bobby thinks of Buck as somewhat of a son (which we knew already) and Bobby sees himself in Buck, which is why he does what he probably hoped someone would have done for him the 10 or something years ago when he hurt is back and holds him back. There is also the fact that he tries to teach Buck to have a life outside the firehouse, though that is something he probably should at some point in the near future actually voice to Buck, because Buck on his own can not draw these conclusions from Bobby’s actions. Buck on his own thinks it’s about him not being good enough and so he works himself to the bone to try and proof otherwise. (Someone please just finally tell him what a good boy he is? Yeah?)

As for the scene during the party, you could actually see how much Buck had to force himself to be that open and that vulnerable with Bobby (and not just because he is *literally* having an embolism) and that hurts because to this day Buck has not realised that Bobby will always be there to catch him. Buck still thinks he needs to proof himself to Bobby because of his firing in Season 1. And would you believe I actually cried a little typing these words?

And now I’m gonna talk about my agenda, also known as Buddie real quick, and point you toward the fact that while we have seen Eddie be vulnerable with Buck and Buck be vulnerable with everyone else we have not seen Buck be audibly vulnerable with Eddie and I do not think this is a coincident at all.

Look, Eddie is a guarded guy, right? He has a hard time being vulnerable, a hard time asking for help, a hard time giving up control. But he does all these things with Buck and he does them willingly and with barely an outside push, which is different to say with Bobby. Eddie let’s himself fall with Buck and by doing so raises Buck’s self worth and gives him the feeling of being in control Buck craves so much (while Eddie sort of despises it because he feels like he always has to be the one in control), but it also means that Buck is afraid to let himself fall with Eddie because it might mean Eddie won’t trust him again. Buck generally is a very emotional guy and he doesn’t seem afraid to voice his weaknesses, in fact he is probably too aware of them and too willing to let others poke at them, except with Eddie. With Eddie Buck always tries for strong, because he knows Eddie needs him to be and because he thinks, if he’s not, Eddie will see what everyone else saw and leave him. On Eddie’s side I do think by now he is more than willing to catch Buck and still let himself be caught in return. At least at this point.

(also, if we do ever get Buddie I could see a reverse of the Shannon-Eddie situation happening where Eddie is the one being open and Buck has a hard time being emotionally vulnerable, afraid it’ll scare Eddie off and he’ll leave like everyone else.)

But then, one could also point out that Eddie probably knows all the things going on with Buck anyways because I truly think they know each other inside out and are two feathers of the same bird and same recognises same and all that - it’s just that Buck is someone who needs to actually voice his feelings to deal with them, so unless he voices his vulnerabilities to Eddie, for him, the other guy doesn’t know them. (Except Eddie does know.) (and man, I wish the rest of the 911 would finally figure out that with Buck you always - always - have to say things! You can’t just imply. You can’t think your actions speak loud enough. You need to actually use your words and do so in a way that leaves no doubt because that boy thinks so little of himself and he will make himself doubt every nice thing that ever happens to him.)

Now, moving back to what’s actually happening in the episode and why all of this is important:

We have the very important talk in the Station were text points out some of the things I just said and Eddie realises that he needs to do better, so he pulls a Buck and steamrolls him. (also do we truly believe that Carla was out of the country? Do we? Do we not think Eddie spent the whole ride over coaching his son on lying to his best friend because Eddie is just like that?)

Also I love how before this Maddie is talking to Josh and she says something along the lines of wether she should push Buck or coddle him and it cuts to Eddie trying the first.

On Eddie’s side of this meta we somewhat learn where Eddie’s issues stem from and it’s of course Daddy issues because this show loves them very much. (Seriously, out of 5 firefighters 3 have confirmed absent fathers causing issues and one has it heavily implied. Tim Minear, do you wanna talk?)

Also, Ramon Diaz probably threw in a „real men don’t cry“ with his macho speech about just brushing shit off and thereby emotionally crippling his child further, because he seems cliche like that.

Sidenote: The Buck and Christopher relationship is so beautiful and important and „Some cool outfits, too.“ is one of my favourite lines, though I do have to say - as someone who works professionally with kids - that this is what really shows how much Eddie truly thinks of Buck and how much he trusts him because it’s safe to assume that Buck has never been alone with Christopher or any child for longer and has never had to take care of one by himself and yet Eddie just trusts him to take care of his son for what is probably a 24h shift. Truly magnificent. An unparalleled relationship. So meaningful.

Episode 3.02:

No actual relevance but I do wanna point out that the thing about the mom being the love of boat guys life but her son being her’s? Yeah, that’s Eddie (and Buck).

Also, Buck’s just a natural at being a dad (not because of the fun stuff but the stuff when he knew exactly how to distract Christopher when those bodies floated by) and at some point I need Eddie to point this out to him and I need him to voice his jealousy about it, because Eddie? Not a natural dad.

(I actually think that is something that is true about a lot of things for these two. I mean yes, Buck is a hard worker but I think only in areas he is already naturally gifted (remember that whole thing with the Seals? “You just have to be badass, which I am?”) and he generally doesn’t try if things don’t come naturally because Buck hates failure because Buck already feels like a failure. Meanwhile Eddie seems like the kind of guy who has this huge capacity for learning, so even if something doesn’t come naturally to him (like fatherhood) he has the determination and willingness to try and try again until he finally gets it right and is perfect because Eddie, too, hates failure.) (And now I wanna see more about their childhoods because I could actually see Buck be somewhat of a gifted child in his youth who never learned how to actually apply himself and because of that has always been told he had so much wasted potential while Eddie was either an overarchiver or a slacker, I’m sorry I don’t make the rules. Or maybe I am projecting.)

Episode 3.03:

I read somewhere on tumblr that Ryan Guzman and his wife thought Eddie and Lena would be a thing and where actually on board and I was like? No?

I mean I do love the way she takes one look at him and decides he needs his ego checked (and also Eddie is like: ui, me like-y! (maybe because he misses another person that used to be an asshole to him right off the bat?)).

Also love all the references to Eddie being in the army („The 118 is huffing it“-scene comes to mind). Again, kudos to Ryan Guzman for always acting with all his body, because you can always feel the army training in his posture like the way he usually stands just a little bit straighter than everyone else (well, at least that’s what it looks like to me, someone who has not been in the Army and knows only like two people that got drafted and no one who went willingly, because my country generally doesn’t do that these days ).

As for what is happening in the episode, I think it’s a reference to Shannon that Eddie dealt with that couple that, despite loving each other a lot and getting along fairly well, decided to get divorced. Which is what 911 should have done with Shannon. (Me being salty about Shannon? It’s more likely than you think.)

I also think it’s a nice parallel the way both Lena and Buck are so desperate to search for their missing loved one with no regard for their own safety and I’m assuming Eddie saw Buck in Lena’s actions as well, which is why he trusts her so fast. (Because Eddie just like Buck is looking for connection and intimacy but Eddie is even worse at creating it than Buck, so he just tries to recreate the one working bond he truly has.) (Something actually proven in text by Eddie: becoming a firefighter because he misses the army.)

And I know everyone and their mother has already pointed out how Eddie was not worried about Chris at all because his son was with Buck and he knows Buck would never let anything bad happen to his son ever.

Which is why *that* scene is even more heartbreaking, because Eddie has so much trust in his Buck and kudos to Ryan Guzman because man, the way you see Eddie steel himself for what Buck is saying? The way you can feel him pulling himself together because Buck needs him to hear this. (Look, the scene is about a father learning from the person he trusts most in the world that his son might be dead and they could have easily forshadowed Eddie’s fighting ark by having him react negatively and violently here but instead he stays calm because it’s Buck and Buck for once needs him to be the one in control - also, on a less ship-y note because Eddie’s world is falling apart right there and he needs to keep in control because if he doesn’t, he will probably never be again.)

Which brings us to that scene in the loft, and listen, I know I said at the end of part 2 Eddie barely had any character development in the two seasons since we met him, but uhm, this scene? Proves he had some development, because right then right there he is so fucking vulnerable with Buck. It is of course part of him being a protector because just like with Shannon in 2.04 he realises that this is was Buck needs him to be right now, so vulnerable it is.

I do think however that it’s beautiful how Eddie apparently took the time during a fucking natural disaster to figure out that Evan Buckley needs him to use his actual words, so use his actual words he does.

And I do wanna point out that this is something he never had with Shannon, Eddie was never able to figure out what is wife of what? 7-8 years needed of him but he does know what his best friends needs. And wether that is just Buddie or just plain old character development, remains to be seen.

(Though we should mention that it wasn’t a permanent thing, Eddie does fail Buck a few times in Season 3 (but he also doesn’t a few other times) but we’ll get to that when we get to that!)

Also, honourable mention to Maddie Buckley-Kendall for getting that phone call and probably nearly dying of a heart attack and then having to race to the VA thinking the worst and probably imagining her very selfless brother either being already gone by the time she gets there or close to dead - only to probably arrive there and see Christopher in a bed with Eddie sitting next to him and Buck sitting vigil a few feet away because he doesn’t think he deserves to be with the Diaz’s anymore but he also can’t bear to part from them!

And another mention to the poor stranger who probably never got their phone back.

Also a teeny bit mad they forgot to give Oliver scars on his legs.

Episode 3.04

First of all I gotta say Eddie is such a boy scout goody two shoes with his whole „Well, it’s mandated!“ (also he’s been probably hanging out with Buck a buncha times in whatever many weeks passed since the Tsunami and therefore knew how hard his best friend worked on this and he’s gonna be supportive, kay?)

That being said, remember when I talked about two steps forward, one step back? Yeah, that.

As for the lawsuit, look, we could argue all day on wether it was justified or not, but I personally do think Buck had a basis. But he was also acting rash and hadn’t thought all the implications through and should have used his words instead, but quick reminder: Buck has severe abandonment issues and he has problems with emotional intimacy - so the whole talking about it? Not that easy.

Also, imagine working for months to come back to work, the one thing you think you’re good at and thinking you have everyone’s support only to find out the person you love like a father has betrayed you, probably with the knowledge of everyone else. Yeah, you’d lash out too!

Even though, I have to point out it’s not his normal MO (which is why we see him regret it almost immediately in the next episode).

As for Eddie in this episode, he has not one, not two, not three, but four whole conversations about feelings! You go buddy-boy. Embrace that character development! Don’t take a step back! … or, nevermind, we all know what happens next.

That being said I think it’s interesting that while Chimney clearly confides in him, Eddie does not confide in him in return but rather talks to female!Buck. I mean, talking about his struggles with his son and his family worked with him and Buck so why not with him and Lena (cause Lena isn’t Buck).

I do think Eddie and Chimney are close, but Eddie just doesn’t feel the same connection to him as he feels to Buck.

As for Eddie being so beautifully open and vulnerable with his son and saying like the exact opposite of what he had been taught: Eddie loves his son. He loves his son more than anything in the world. And if Eddie can’t let himself be vulnerable with him, who can he be vulnerable with? Especially when it helps Christopher.

(Also, Eddie by now recognises what is wrong with him, he just doesn’t think he can change it but he can prevent it from happening to his child.)

Episode 3.05:

This episode has a lot of shit happening and I have a lot of thoughts, most of which are relevant to the episode. But we’re gonna start slow, ease you in:

Boy do I love overprotective Dad!Eddie! How long do you think did it took Carla and Christopher to convince Eddie to let Chris sleep over at his friends? A month?

In other news Buck is just the picture of regret during the deposition and yeah, he should be. The whole thing is harsh. Never sue your friends, no matter how justified, if you want them to stay your friends! But it’s so obvious Buck didn’t know it was gonna go down this way because he did not think this through at all.

First off: Remember how in part 2 I said Buck and Eddie’s storylines were connected and how earlier I said Buck was the catalyst for Eddie like Bobby was for Buck?

Yeah, that’s the episode for all of this.

It’s not as obvious as in Season 2 because usually it happens over two episodes but it’s no coincident that after last episode Bobby triggered that shift in Buck, Eddie is now suddenly careering out of control as well - it’s because Buck is his catalyst, his *trigger*.

Please watch 3.04 and 3.05 back to back and tell me Eddie doesn’t make a 180 between those episodes. He goes from worried about his son to punching people in parking lots. What changed? Well, he could no longer talk to Buck. And Buck is his anker and his catalyst, the one person he doesn’t have to be in control with (which he really could use considering what he is going through with Christopher). And when you take that away he spirals. (Also there is the deposition where his best friend betrays him by talking about his dead for less than a year - wife, a topic Eddie has been avoiding in regards to his feelings since … well, the day it happened, probably.)

And I’m not saying the whole street fighting thing wouldn’t have happened if Eddie wasn’t such a boy scout and said, screw the chain of command and just called Buck to bail him out, but that’s what I’m implieing.

Also the scene between Eddie and Lena, I mean, I’ve already talked about it somewhere else but I do wanna point you to the way it is phrased: Eddie „wasn’t allowed“ to call Buck. Meaning he wanted to. But you know: Boy Scout.

Now, let’s talk about the grocery store fight because I have so many thoughts!

And what I love about these two episodes, as well as the next one, is that they show both the connection Buddie has as well as the contrasts between them:

One of the biggest differences in Buddie is how they deal with fear and obstacles and it is visible throughout all their lives and specifically these three episodes.

Evan Buckley is a force of nature, he is a fighter, he sets a goal and he reaches this goal with a single minded focus, steamrolling through everything in his way until he reaches said goal. Just look at the lawsuit and remember how his original plan was to get everyone to sign a letter of support for him.

When something frightens him, Buck doesn’t run away he runs right into it, tries to destroy it or be destroyed. He fights. And if that doesn’t work, he finds a way around the problem, but always going head to head with the thing because Evan Buckley is very determined and very self destructive.

Just look at the way he held onto Abby for nearly a year after she had left: Instead of dealing with his feelings of abandonment and the fact that the woman he loved left him, that boy dug his heel in and fought tooth and nail to keep what little he had left of her, of them. Refused to acknowledge being left for months. And when he finally leaves he literally compares himself to a ghost, because you know, he is just an empty shell at this point.

It’s also why he falls so hard for Ali because he is just desperately looking for something to cling to and so he transfers all those un-dealt feelings onto her and then he get’s hurt and his problems become bigger and different and Ali can’t deal - not surprising considering they had barely a foundation. They just went from 0 to 100 in 2 seconds and that just never works out, unless you’re in a very expensive sports car.

I also truly think at times Buck hides behind the loud mouthed, dumb adrenaline junkie persona he got going on as it keeps people from looking deeper, because Buck is very scared they won‘t find anything deeper - or worse, decide they don’t like what they see (and hey, he even got that confirmed by Ali leaving! and Abby! AND MOST IMPORTANTLY MADDIE!).

(Which, to push an agenda real quick, is why I ship Buddie so hard? Because they do have a foundation, they have been emotionally intimate with each other, they’ve seen the worst of each other and still went: I’m gonna have your back. And they have pulled a lot of shit on each other in the two years since meeting! Like, I’m sorry 911, I love you, but please never try and tell me they will have a deeper connection with anyone but each other because it’ll be a damn lie and you know it! If you don’t wanna do Buddie, let those boys get emotionally healthy and THEN give them an endgame but don’t try and replace Buddie with Loveinterests. I’m serious. I might stop watching!)

Eddie meanwhile is much more open with his feelings in the sense that he is less open in general so it’s far more noticeable when something is bothering him *because* he is subtle about it. Because Buck is so loud and so open and all about what you see is what you get, you don‘t assume he is hiding anything because you already see everything, right? (Always hide the real shit in plain sight, you guys, that‘s where no one remembers to look!) But Eddie, Eddie keeps his cards close. Sure he is funny and nice but he is also fucking reserved! And when something bothers him he draws into himself even more and that’s something that shows, that people will take notice of.

Eddies reaction to bad things (also known as *feelings*, because that boy is fucking repressed) happening is running away. And I am not saying he is a coward, I am saying he probably thinks he is and I am saying he runs away from his problems - that’s what 3.15 was about for Eddie: embracing his family (his vulnerabilities) and from what I‘ve seen in the last few days floating around in spoiler *now* Eddie has to learn to face his problems and not run away.

Which will be hard because Eddie deflects a lot.

It‘s funny (in a way that is not funny) that Buck, the fighter, is like the least aggressive guy around while Eddie, Mr quiet and reserved, who is all about running away from his problems, is so physically aggressive - except it is not and makes a lot of sense.

Season 3 truly shows how they deal with problems and I love it, I love them and this show so much!

Because Buck deals with the bombing by working tirelessly to come back to work, he deals with losing Christopher by nearly killing himself trying to find him and he deals with his fear of being replaced by filing the lawsuit to get his job back - which is also why I have to agree with Eddie: Buck truly has a one track mind. He sees the problem and nothing else. That makes him an amazing firefighter but an exhausting guy to be around because he does not give up.

I think in canon we only ever see Buck give up twice, maybe three times once with Abby and once with Christopher, both times he nearly killed himself first. (And one could argue that neither of these times he actually gave up, he was just out of options and time.) Tbh the only actual time he gave up was with Ali and that was probably his one track mind just not having any capacity to deal with a girlfriend on top of everything.

Eddie meanwhile deals with his wife dying and his best friend nearly dying twice and his son being traumatised and his best friend not being allowed back to work and his best friend filing that lawsuit by ... not dealing with it. He just moves on. Runs away from his feelings and his pain by fighting. He can’t deal with - can’t fight - his actual feelings so he fights something else. He lashes out. Becomes feral. That’s literally the gist of this episodes voiceover!

So tbh as much as I like that they resolved that lawsuit within one episode I am a bit bummed that we hardly saw anything of the 118 and especially Eddie without Buck there (specifically during his fighting time) mainly because I think we would have seen Hen and Chimney with Cap and Eddie maybe with Lena but generally keeping his distance, hiding away from them. (I don’t think Eddie just brushing past Buck in 3.06 was just about Buck.)

I truly meant what I said about 2.01 and Eddie taking one look at Buck being an asshole and deciding this one is gonna be his friend. Because while Hen and Chimney have been nice and friendly with him from the get go, they never give him shit the same way they give each other or Cap or Buck, and Eddie needs that. He needs someone who isn’t afraid to call him out and push back, both to get Eddie out of his own head and to make him feel comfortable enough to do the same. Which is why he bonded so fast with Buck and Lena (also, would he have bonded with her like that if Buck had been there? Probably not. Eddie is like the definition of „I only have the emotional capacity to care about three people at a time and two of them are my son“), because both held him accountable for his shit, which no one else on the show does, specifically not Hen and Chimney who treat Eddie as the guy who is good at most things so they just overlook the shitty stuff. And Cap does the same, because Eddie has a lot on his plate and Cap understands his issues better than anyone else’s.

Ya‘ll just need to watch the supermarket scene! It‘s all there!

Buck is in the store trying to create a moment so he can talk to all of them (meaning he is pushing, leaning into the problem until it gives), tries to make the problem go away by apologising (remember what I said about trying another way? Working hard didn’t work. Accepting his predicament didn‘t work. The lawsuit didn’t work. So now he tries talking it out - which he should have done to begin with, but hey, I’m not his therapist (sadly)) (It’s too bad it only worked to a certain level as we saw in the next episode but oh well, that’s actually realistic.)

Meanwhile Eddie has none of it because Eddie is currently running away from his problems so he can’t have his problem stand in front of him buying cat laxatives. So Eddie goes feral, and makes it all about Buck and his mistakes and then throws Christopher under the bus because that man is fighting for his life and he has nothing left to loose!!! I truly love this scene so much, you guys. It’s so revealing about these characters.

(I also shouldn’t have to point out that most of the stuff Eddie said to Buck was about Shannon, right? He was saying the things he was feeling about Shannon and he was throwing them at Buck because Buck was the one who brought it up, but also … look, it’s just ship-y from here all right?)

As for what I said about Hen, Bobby and Chimney in regards to Eddie? I know Chimney made some remarks but come on! Had it been any of them or Buck who yelled at someone like that they would have all interrupted and tried to diffuse the situation. But because it’s Eddie they sort of let it happen. (Also tbh because it’s Eddie and Buck and everyone is a little mad at Buck but they are something different to each other.)

Also, not to push my agenda, can we just talk about how comfortable Eddie has to be with the 118 but especially Buck, how much he has to care, to scream at him like that? Because he is reserved and he always tries to let go of his feelings and he hides so much. And I know part of it is that Eddie is coiled too tight already and about to burst but it’s also about Buck and the fact that Eddie expected better from him because Eddie has such a high opinion of him. Like sure he gives him shit sometimes but I think it’s because Eddie always expects the most of Buck (and Buck rarely lets him down). (And now I did go all ship-y)

Just compare this with his relationship with Shannon: with Shannon Eddie always is the one to make decisions, in part because he believes that’s what a man should do but also in part because he doesn’t trust her - and that was even before she left. Eddie trusts no one but himself for the most part but he does trust Buck, because to Eddie Buck can hardly do wrong. Which is why the whole law suit probably hit him so hard cause he expects everyone to let him down all the time but Evan Buckley? The guy he trust with his son more than anyone else? That guy? He expected better off! And that my friends is beautiful.

As for the voiceover it does poise one very central question for Eddie’s character: If he gives up control, will he be able to regain it? Because that is Eddie’s biggest fear and why he always holds everything so tight: he thinks if he lets the floodgates open once, he’ll never be able to close them.

In other news: Ryan took his shirt off.

Episode 3.06:

Before I write another 2400 words about our boys, I wanna remind you of that scene of Bobby, Chimney and Eddie wearing sun glasses, with Hen wearing her normal glasses, standing round, looking like an album cover! *plays „Clique“ by Kanye West, Jay-Z, Big Sean*

Do you think Athena and Hen talked about Bobby and how he would / does handle Buck? They did, didn’t they?

Also love how Hen and Chimney are super welcoming because one, they know what it’s like to be the odd one out and two, they love Buck and actually see his point of view. I believe. Now if only someone would remember to tell him.

Like, come on, they probably sit in the ambulance gossiping all the time!

I really love that we saw some bonding between Buck and Hen and Buck and Chimney in this episode because as much as I love Buddie we do not see enough of those combos (we don’t see enough of Buddie either).

Also the whole two steps forward, one step back? That is Bobby in this episode.

Now, we have to talk about the apology scene because this is Buck, expressing himself, being vulnerable. I love this episode a lot especially in regards to this Meta because here we see all the things I explained for the last episode: Buck is expressing, trying his best to make the problem go away while Eddie avoids it.

Also, you know, there is the whole illegal fighting thing that is visible on Eddie and look, if you did something like that would you willingly spent time with the one person who will call you out on it or will you avoid him like the plague? Especially if the last time you saw him you were screaming bloody murder at him in the middle of a grocery store! And the next time you see him he calls you out for your bruising. Yeah, guys, that’s just realistic.

Also bit of a reach, but the reason this is part of my discussion of 3.06 and not 3.05, which is Eddie’s relationship to Buck. Remember how 3.03 ended? That beautiful moment that made Oliver Stark cry on Instagram live? Remember how Eddie said „It’s his turn to save you now.“? Yeah, what happened to that?

Okay, Eddie is not an expressive guy. He is bad with feelings. He hates having them. And here comes Evan „Buck“ Buckley and he is just the polar opposite. Sure, he’d rather not talk about his feelings either but he has a lot of them and he *likes* having all of them and he wallows in them and that is probably a lot for a guy like Eddie to deal with. Especially when I do think Eddie understands somewhat where Buck came from and he probably feels guilty af about making Buck feel like he was being replaced. About not seeing the pain Buck was in. About not being there for him - which is why he lashes out, because guilt can make the healthiest people do horrible shit and Eddie is far from any definition of healthy at that point.

But I do have to say I am reaching with this and if I ever meet Tim Minear I will have him explain the fight scene and the apology scene to me word for word because it has to be deeper, right?

It can’t just be Eddie lashing out, and saying exactly the things he knows will hurt Buck because he is mad mad mad? Yeah, I know, whatever.

(Because even if that is the case? This is still the scene where a guy uses his best friend as a substitute to get his anger for his dead wife out in a somewhat healthy manner.)

Which is why I love both these scenes immensely, because it shows exactly how differently Eddie and Buck deal with things, because Eddie avoids them or gets mad and screams at them while Buck, actually does something fairly healthy and try to talk it out - but like only as his last option. He tries anything but talking before that, except with Eddie because they are connected and he finally *finally* lets himself be emotionally vulnerable with Eddie.

Which is also why the apology scene is so important to me, despite thinking while a bit rash, Buck wasn’t exactly wrong in his actions. I would have hated if they just brushed the grocery store over or made it about Eddie and the issues he had at the time. Instead they gave us this beautiful scene where Buck finally - FINALLY - gets to explain himself to someone, especially Eddie, the guy who he hurt the most because Buck is his anchor, and Eddie actually listens and then he gets it and he is like, oh, I wasn’t wrong! He really deserves all my trust!

So you know, that’s just beautiful, wether it’s platonic or romantic.

Episode 3.07: no relevance

Episode 3.08:

I wanna say something right of the bat that is probably controversial as hell:

Eddie did not want to share with Bobby. Eddie likes Bobby, he trusts Bobby, but he wasn’t really feeling like sharing with Bobby.

The reason Eddie talked with Bobby about all of this? Well, first of all it was bound to happen, sometimes things need to be said and then it doesn’t really matter who you’re talking to.

Also Eddie? Boy Scout. Army man. Chain of Command. If your superior officer tells you to share - you share! There. I said it. (This is not a Bobby Nash - stan account)

Also: „A friend of mine told me I needed an outlet - think I found it.“ - no, you didn’t Buddy boy, it’s why I’m currently 10.000 words into an episode by episode analysis of your character! (can you tell I am slowly going off the rails with this?)

But I do love how we finally got to see sassy!Eddie again. I missed you, babe!

As for the kitchen scene and the look, yes, I know, Maddie was looking at them like that because she just called them out about gossiping and they turned around and gossiped, buuuut … ya’ll also realise that Chimney was apparently *not* aware that anything was wrong with Eddie when Eddie had been acting weird way longer then Hen. He nearly punched Buck in a grocery store, he comes in with new bruises like 3 times a week but sure mate, he is all normal! (Or you know, Buck is just hyperfocused on Eddie)

One thing that freaks me out every time I watch this episode is how completely fucking nonchalant Eddie seems by the fact that he nearly fucking killed a guy. To quote Lena Bosko, professional plot pusher: „What the hell, Eddie?“

And then of course 3.15 happened and we saw Eddie shoot multiple people, so he probably learned how to compartmentalise and I guess I need to remember this is a TV show and no one actually died. But wow, I really need this addressed more because I have such mixed feelings about this.

And with regards to this I wanna say something even more controversial: Eddie got off easy. Yes, the guy willingly went into that ring but Eddie nearly killed him and all Bobby wanted to talk about was why Eddie was fighting? Again: What the hell?

Another thing this episode firmly proofs is that Lena is really just a poor substitute for Buck because Eddie doesn’t actually know anything about her, he just uses her as a sounding board because, well, Buck wasn’t there and he was lonely?

As for the actual conversation happening, yes, there we have it, in plain sight, Eddie needs to be in control because he thinks this is what Christopher needs him to be and as I’ve said before Eddie will always do anything for Christopher, even if he hurts himself in the process.

Also, remember when Lena told him he needed to show and tell his son how he felt so Christopher knows it’s okay to feel that way as well? Clearly didn’t stick of he would not feel this intense need to be in control. Which is realistic, you don’t just unlearn behaviour you had for like 30 years just because someone gives you some good advice once! (Man, my life could be so different!)

I’m also not a fan of Bobby’s „She died.“ because while yes, it wasn’t her fault that she left this time, grief isn’t rational. And even without the looming divorce Eddie has every right to be upset and to be angry at the world, and yes, even his dead wife. She’s dead. It doesn’t hurt her anymore. (Although that would be one feeling he should probably keep from Christopher.)

Not to mention Eddie feels guilty as hell. His anger? Mostly at himself. The sentence “I broke his mother”? Broke me as well.

But I also understand Eddie because while he may be grieving, his son is clearly traumatised by the whole situation, as seen in 3.04, and Eddie is trying his best and look, his outlet wasn’t the healthiest but um, at least he realised he needed one? He addressed that? That’s growth (sorta).

Amount of shirtless!Eddie scenes: 2, which feels a bit like overkill for one episode (pace yourself, Tim, this isn’t Game of Thrones)

Episode 3.09:

Frank! My main man Frank! Ui, I love him! When Tim calls me to come consult for Season 4 because clearly by now I am an expert on his characters and the way they should act, I will tell him to bring Frank back. I miss Frank. I hope he’s doing okay. He deserves the world. Also really wanna meet Rosemary.

And hey, as someone who has worked in the mental health sector and probably will again come October (if I manage to finish my degree by then, urgh, Corona, you are destroying my thesis!), I love that scene on the sofa so much! All of them openly sharing that they have been in therapy and talking about their therapists and just, uh, that scene makes me all tingly!

Before we get into all the emotional things I’m just gonna add the scene on the sofa to my list of scene I don’t fully understand. Like, what emotion exactly was Eddie supposed to be conveying because to me he sounds angry. And why should Eddie be angry about Buck sleeping with his therapist? What reason could he have?

Okay, yeah, maybe it’s a little exasperation and annoyance because apparently Evan Buckley is just coasting through life and doesn’t even take therapy seriously. Idk. I haven’t read the script.

But it does lead us to Buck giving Eddie shit, because, as I’ve said before, that’s what Buck does.

As for the therapy scene, yay, there is a mention of the nearly dead guy! Who is not dead. Yay!

I do love Eddie’s reasons for going to therapy and really trying, even though he is not clicking with Frank. He is such a good dad! (Also I’ve been debating for like 20 minutes whether Eddie would be more comfortable sharing with a woman or with a man and for some reason (his connection with Buck vs his relationship with Shannon) I think he’d be more comfortable with a man. Idk. I could be wrong. - Also Eddie is probably always uncomfortable talking about his feelings, so there is that!) His reasoning shows also yet again what I said about both Buck and Eddie before: they are protectors. They will make themselves vulnerable to help someone else. It’s a thing.

Also I pulled out my pocket edition of ICD-10 to check and while we don’t have enough information to give a full diagnosis, it’s safe to say that he is supposed to be going through a depressive episode. Because yes, sometimes depressed people aren’t sad, sometimes they are fucking angry.

Now, as for the Evan Buckley of it all and that scene: I read another Meta by someone clearly much better at this than me that stated Eddie uses Sarcasm as a way to deflect, which is exactly what is happening here because Eddie is not as fine with everything that happened as he pretends to be. I think he has just come to the sudden and horrible conclusion that his tipping point has been Buck no longer being in his life and so he decided it was easier to just move on then deal with his feelings (which is what got you into this mess in the first place, Edmundo, so please rethink,) if that means Buck back in his life.

I also think Eddie deflects here because he realises how much what he did and what he said actually hurt Buck in return and Eddie doesn’t fully know how to deal with that. And look, if they actually start discussing their issues then Eddie will have to admit his guilt and Eddie will have to say he’s sorry and right then he is still too pissed to do so, so he decides to move on.

Ah, the wonderful clash of Eddie thinking actions speak louder than words but Buck needing to hear the actual words.

Sidenote: I sent the kitchen scene to my roommate, stopped before they played the video game and asked her what she thinks happened next. And to quote „Love me <3 <3 <3. Please fuck me“ - because yes, she did take one look at them and decide the one with the puppy dog eyes was a bottom. That’s also a quote.

Episode 3.10:

Eddie really is trying so hard to be a good dad, isn’t he?

I also love the little head shake Eddie gives after Chris ask Buck about spending Christmas with him, because he clearly has already talked about the whole thing with Buck. And I’m not gonna talk about the framing. Other’s have done that before and I don’t actually know that much about it in first place.

Also it is cute as all hell that Chris asked Buck in the first place and also heartbreaking.

Other than that this episode doesn’t have that much of a relevance for this meta, because if I have to start discussing Buck’s other issues as well this will never be done.

Before I let you go, I wanna say something real quick:

In the past few days there have been several posts about content creators and liking vs commenting / reblogging on my dash and I just wanna say this is true for meta writers as well! Look, I love everyone who likes this because validation, but I’m not actually writing this meta for myself, I’m writing this because I have thoughts and I wanna share them with the rest of the class and have the class discuss it with me!

So please, reblog this and comment under or in the tags or come to my ask or my messages, even if it’s only to tell me that my punctuation is shit!

Anyways, @angelcamael and @greyhello here’s part 3!

#buck meta #eddie meta #buddie meta #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buck #buddie #911 meta #911 #911 fox #textpost #mine #meta #season 3 #my meta

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whyarewecalledtheshipname · 4 years ago

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kh3, khux, recoded spoilers:

ramblings about unreality, the BoP, and the journal:

ngl i'm hella late to the party and i'm still not super familiar with what ideas and theories have been made regarding khux shit, unreality shit, etc. these are thoughts i had after rewatching recoded.

i know the maleficent/book scene isn't novel, but i wanna ramble about it anyway.

a question i had when listening to some khux talk: is it agreed that MoM made unreality? bc we know he hid there, right. idk how or since when, i'm guessing it's where he originally disappeared to.

But what's our understanding of that scene in the khux finale, where MoM's telling Darkness about the fictional world, the world he couldn't even conceive? Where neither light or darkness rules?

i've only watched that scene a few times, and i'm not clear on whether MoM's talking about the fictional world as if it already exists, or something he's envisioning.

pff i can't even organize my thoughts lmao. So, my guess at this point is that MoM was envisioning/imagining this world where neither light or darkness rules (and where voices and eyes can't reach but idk what dictates THAT particular rule). By simply imagining/thinking of it, i don't think it resulted in that world becoming real. Cause i thought he said something about that idea having to be "realized", but rewatching that specific scene, he doesn’t. If anyone knows for sure if he ever mentioned something like this i’d appreciate confirmation. [EDIT: MoM does specify putting your imagining into realization in the fan translation, which is more direct/literal and often times more accurate than the official localization…🤷🏽‍♀️]

But—IF it's not enough to /just/ think of it, and you do have to literally put it into realization—. My interpretation of what that means is, you know, putting the idea into action. /Making/ it real. Manifesting it. And that can happen any number of ways. Namely, in this case, putting it on paper. In the Book.

THE BOOK, UGH. The recoded scene. I know it kinda basically confirms that the book can create worlds but again i wanna scream about it a little.

But first. So far, i have that idea. Now as for the actual sequence of events, mmm. My brain goes all over the place for that one. Bc before rewatching those scenes, the question took form of "what came first? the chicken or the egg?" bc an idea i had heard was that Verum Rex, the game, could be a documentation of what's going on in unreality. And i've been flip flopping on that.

for me it would depend on whether unreality as we see it was spawned (that's the word i use) as soon as MoM originally thought of it, and wrote it down. Bc then Verum Rex could be made in the image of that world. On the other hand, if Verum Rex is like, 'additional' realization of the /idea/, then that would mean the game came before (most/some of) the world. But i think the first option is more likely.

So MoM conceived the world --> MoM wrote about it in the Book --> the world became real --> SOMEONE made the world into a game

and that gets into my thoughts about who tf has access to unreality, at least to the extent that they can see into it and observe it, and how. and obv, square enix (in kh) made the game. and square enix is literally "the powers that be" so. kinda an obvious option. but anyway.

i covered my main points ig. so time to scream about how tf this even could happen and why. not that i have any actual answers bc how tf could a book make worlds.

recoded. GOD, RECODED. If i didn't already ramble about HOW the Book could make worlds then i'm about to.

idek where to start lmao. Maleficent. she brings up the book, after she and pete have been rescued/released from the datascape.

(And what IS the datascape exactly? WHAT does it encompass? is the datascape in recoded strictly the data made from the journal? like, could there be multiple datascapes based on different source materials, or based in different devices/computers? ????)

“Yes, considering legend has it the book can conjure, making an entire world filled with beings and powers that have yet to exist.”

So that's just there. We've seen this. So this is assuming we can take the legend as (probable) fact. I'm assuming the Book really /can/ make worlds.

this next part about fairy tales i'm including to like cover my bases and see if anyone has thoughts about it bc i have not thought too much about the concept of fairy tales in kh and what it could mean:

“Really? A book that can just make up a world? I don't know. That sounds like nothin' more than fluffy, pink, kids' fairy tale stuff. It just sounds too good to be true"

“Ah, but who’s to say a fairytale’s not true?”

So that's that about fairy tales. (omg cinderella, dreams coming true, true love's kiss, sleeping beauty, WHHHHH--)

“And I ask you, how does that differ from this world they call the ‘date escape’?”

THIS BITCH. (the quote not maleficent lol) I know that early theories and probably current one's still, suggested unreality/quadratum/other-shibuya were data worlds, or something akin to them. and i mean, yeah, i wondered too, bc of the glitchy stuff with sora’s heart station in the secret episode.

but also, like. this whole world manifested "outside" of kh's reality. like, is it even possible that it COULD be /just/ data? As in, could data just exist on it's own like that? (or is there more? if the part of unreality we see /is/ data, is it only the data aspect of a bigger whole? i've seen a theory talk about this, is why i even bring it up)

If what we see of unreality so far is data, like, does that data exist within something? does it /need/ to?

and if unreality is data, like. i feel like it'd have to be different than that data worlds we see in kh. pure guesswork, but i feel like it's /more/ than just data worlds. /Bigger/.

"how does [world created by the BoP] differ from [datascape of the journal]?" thats the thing, too. essentially, what's the difference between the Book, and the journal.

sHEESH i just rambled in my notes. it's a bunch of guesswork, and idk if i should even put it here. gimme a sec.

okay well might as well address this while i’m here. my guess is that there IS no difference. there is no difference between the BoP and fucking jiminy’s journal, ability wise. We know the BoP doesn’t actually predict the future, it was simply written in the past after the future had taken place.

inherently, there’s no difference.

the difference between their CONTENTS however. one accounts the future (that has already happened, this is kinda important imo). the other records the past.

two things they both share. 1) the events in both books already happened 2) we saw them happen. in reality.

just like the past is fixed and unchangeable, so is the future (bc it’s already happened). We know this.

so what ISNT fixed and unchangeable? if literally all of time IS?

fiction.

okay, well, duh.

this is where my ideas become pure assumptions.

my guess is that like i said, neither of these books holds any special power over the other. and if my next guess is right, then neither of these books holds any special power over literally any other book (in kh).

this has no bearing on my main points above. (did MoM not discover unreality, did he THINK of it? i think he did. did MoM write his idea in the BoP? i think he did. did writing it down result in the idea manifesting as a world? i think it did.)

the idea is that ANY book [any MEDIUM, for that matter (books, shows, movies, games)] can create worlds. THIS world (or these, that we’ve seen in the secret ending and secret episode) is just the only one we’ve been shown.

i could not tell you how. and i could not tell you why. the only guess i currently have is that fictional ideas (given a medium) create worlds bc that’s Just How Things Work in kh. like, it’s literally just the laws of physics of kh.

For SOME fucking reason, fictional worlds given a medium spawn real worlds, outside of kh. hence, unreality. (bc they’re outside of kh reality, and bc they’re Not Real. fictional)

What about the BoP and the journal then? The shit in there doesn’t manifest as a separate world because it has already manifested in reality. That’s why i was saying it was important that the future already happened. bc if you wrote about a hypothetical future, not simply recorded the future as witnessed through your time traveling eyeball, then that would therefore be fiction. even if it’s based on the real world, this hypothetical future would not consist of real world events. An AU, basically. like real world=canon, hypothetical future=noncanon (fanfiction oop) (nonfiction vs fiction)

so if you wrote your fake future shit, it would hypothetically spawn as a world in unreality. IF the idea of the creation of worlds through fictional ideas given a medium pans out lmao.

On the other hand, the power to create worlds really could be special to the BoP or MoM himself. but the reason i don’t assume that in the first place is due to his wording in his khux scene.

“If you imagine hard enough, you can make anything a reality.” (maybe it’s just phrasing. maybe only he has the power and he’s just not specifying it but 🤷🏽‍♀️)

this brings me to Pete in kh2 LMAO LEGIT i just remembered that one theory video about how the fuck pete manifested a whole ass time capsule world by WISHING for it. if all it takes is JUST IMAGINING (in the case of fictional ideas) and WISHING (in the case of real world events), that would throw this whole post out the window lmao.

if imagining ISNT enough, and you DO have to go through the step of /realizing/ your idea, by giving it a MEDIUM, then.

and the reason i stick so much to the concept of giving things MEDIUMS is bc of khux. and this is all based on the english versions of the game.

at this point i’m not even connecting random dots, i’m scribbling all over a blank page but. it reminded me of time travel. to time travel, you leave your body behind, resulting in just a heart. to restore the body, the physical form, you need two things at your destination. Someone with memories of you, and a medium.

a mental/non-physical element, and a physical one.

memories could equate to imagining. a medium to restore the physical form could equate to a medium through which to express a fictional idea. and these two things combined results in a physical manifestation. Except one process restores real people in reality, and the other process creates people/places in unreality. (bc worlds don’t time travel or do they oh god)

the likely thing is that these two things aren’t related at all, esp since i’m working with the assumption that the second process even exists.

there’s also this random google definition of the word medium as it relates to computers: “a particular form of storage for digitized information, such as magnetic tape or discs” 🤷🏽‍♀️

another random idea/question regarding the process by which we’ve seen mediums result in worlds. the journal was converted into data with mickeys fucking macbook computer/machine. and that resulted in the worlds and people written about in the journal being recreated as data, hence data worlds and data characters. (and real people can enter data too without necessarily being data themselves but that’s a random note)

would the writings in the BoP require a similar process? or any other book/medium for the matter? obviously it wouldn’t be the exact same process or it’d just result in a data world, and a fictional data world would just be a video game at that point. is writing it at all the process? i mean i already assumed it is but just thinking.

i thought maybe Verum Rex could have been the process for this world specifically. The video game could be the writing converted into data but i don’t think the time aligns. Like, Verum Rex is like the best selling game right now. and MoM conceived and potentially wrote the idea down back in the age of fairy tales. I don’t know what time shenanigans could explain that time gap.

imo the wildest part of this whole thing is just the assumption that writing down a fictional idea results in the creation of a whole ass world in a whole different plane of existence lmao. like i said, i could not guess as to why this would be the case, only that it could just be part of the physics in kh world. Action, reaction. Conception, manifestation.

if anything, this whole concept of ideas becoming worlds would just be a fourth wall thing. get an idea, put it on paper, make worlds. ofc everyone has recognized the meta-ness of all this lmao i’m here trying to rationalize it in-game.

i had more quotes i didn’t add lol, in regards to the similarities between the BoP and the journal. it’s kinda additional stuff about why i do or don’t assume the things i do. (the first maleficent quote is the biggest tho for me)

“Don’t you think it might just be worth our while to search for a connection? Perhaps there’s a link of some sort between that so-called journal of theirs and the Book of Prophecies.”

(“so-called” why this phrasing? is it that maleficent suspects the journal is more than it seems? is it just the eng dialogue or just maleficent’s speech pattern?)

at this point i’m mostly gonna copy/paste my ramblings, so it’s gonna be messier:

So clearly they’re telling us to LOOK for the connections between the journal and the book. is it for proof that the book of prophecies CAN make worlds?

and also, does it make worlds OUTSIDE of kh BECAUSE you can’t change fate? it depends on the power of the book, and what gives it that power. (if it’s a power exclusive to the BoP after all)

lmao admittedly, this can be encapsulated by stuff Spuuky said during one of his streams about how Jiminy’s journal is OP bc you could create literally anything by writing it down bc converting it into data would make it real, and able to directly affect and interact with the real world. And at that point i was like bruh it’s not the journal it’s the machine but??? LMAO ARE THEY SO DIFFERENT AFTER ALL, i hate this game

and, another random question, does stuff from unreality manifest in kh? and if it does, does it do it on its own or would someone in kh need to access unreality and carry the ideas back over to kh? i already asked this earlier, and my end assumption for now was that verum rex did NOT just leak into kh by accident, someone brought the idea over. and the reason i don’t think it was MoM is because i’m guessing MoM doesn’t work at square enix in kh (nomura is MoM theories incoming lol). And MoM is hiding in unreality (tho he seems to have been coming back to kh every so often when he sees fit, such as his intervention with xehanort).

imma leave this for now, my thumbs are RIP

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darkpoisonouslove · 5 years ago

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Winx Club Season 2 Thoughts (4kids) Part 2

Since my thoughts are a bit scattered with this season and the post was getting long, I decided to separate them in two posts. You can find Part 1 here. This part picks up from 2x14:

- Ugh, pls no. Diaspro. Dammit.

- She’s making laws about fashion? What are this girl’s parents doing and why are they allowing this? She has them as confirmed later on in the episode so why is she making laws when she’s apparently not responsible enough to be given that power?

- Ooh, weather spells. Those look really good. I already said this but I am so happy that we get to see them have classes and learn new magic. It’s really cool and I am so totally here for it!

- Why isn’t Stella going with them?

- I can’t stand Sky’s parents. They are absolutely terrible. And the way Samara shouted at Bloom... jeez, rude! I know you’re a queen, but my god, have some fucking manners, will you? Sky turned out spectacularly considering these two are his parents. (So I might have a theory that he’s adopted.) Probably because they just left him to the servants to look after him which was most certainly his lucky day bc he was raised by good people. I am not even sorry for all this bitching. Erendor and Samara are the fucking worst and you can’t convince me otherwise.

- Also, to keep at this, he was about to introduce his girlfriend to them and they’re just there like “I hope he falls in love with Diaspro again”. Why are you such horrible people and parents?

- Seriously, Bloom? Why would he want to introduce you to his parents if he wanted Diaspro? Ugh, I can’t anymore with this.

- Oooh, nice! I see Bloom and Flora have learned some things in Griselda’s classes. And Brandon didn’t turn into shredded cheese so that was great too.

- Why the sudden change in Diaspro? I mean, not that I mind. She could be such an awesome character if they would just give her a proper arc and character development, and let it stick too. It was just weird. Might have been just Flora’s influence. I would love to believe that. And the fact that Diaspro isn’t heartless and actually listened when the Wrong Righters put things in perspective for her. Btw can we talk about how amazing her design is and how beautiful she is? (Also, Chatta don’t encourage her.)

- Even Sky admitted his parents are terrible. “They’re not usually that nice”? Boy, I feel so sorry for you, Sky.

2x15:

- Damn, I love how Musa defeated Stormy! And those were the runes Palladium taught them about. That’s awesome! I love!

- Wow. That was some makeover there with Stormy.

- Brandon is giving out kisses? And Stella agreed to that? Wow, okay. Stella is feeling very generous today. XD

- Poor Musa! It’s hard when parents are being like that. I get that he is still grieving but damn, that doesn’t mean he should make her cry. And threatening her to withdraw her from Alfea and her friends. That’s just cruel.

- Ahh, some clarity has finally been shed into the princess matter. So she’s unofficially a princess. Okay. I got it now.

- Aww, that dream seemed pretty bad. Poor baby. And that part about “everything in me is music” and her resolve to do what she loves... I’m fucking crying! *sobs* Why is it that Musa and Layla always get the rawest arcs?

- Wow, Codatorta is all black-tie? XD

- Seriously, how did Stella let her go out on stage with that outfit?

- Why do they always have to use their parents against them? I am so mad about this. But awwwwwwwww at the singing part! And look, Riven is hyping people up. And he met her dad. And her dad is okay with her singing. Awwww! (Just so you know, I am still crying.)

- You gotta love the animation mistakes, though. Faragonda started out next to Saladin, then she was a seat away, and then she moved over an entire row. Nice one! Why is no one looking for continuity?

- Aww, Stella and Layla hugging Musa. And then the song with Stella was cute!

2x16:

- I couldn’t find the 4kids version of 2x16 (meaning I couldn’t be bothered to look for it more extensively because it was late and, of course, I will watch the creepiest episode right before going to bed) so I watched the RAI dub and I won’t be going into any detail here. This is pretty much the one episode that has been sealed into my brain ever since I was little. I always loved it because it was so nicely creepy (though, I am not sure how exactly I handled it when I was a child (I’m not exactly big on horror if you haven’t grasped it already since the episode isn’t really that scary but I still find the part with the “three sisters” kinda scary with the way they talk and Winx being cornered by them)). I liked the way the legend was built and that with the mirrors cracking was actually kinda cool. Also, I love the moment everyone starts fawning over Winx’s “costumes” and Mitzi can’t get any attention. And yeah, good lesson that the way you read the signs may not be true to what they’re actually pointing to.

2x17:

- (I already talked quite a bit for 2x17 and 2x18 last year when I rewatched them so I will not go into that much detail about them either... Or will I?)

- And even despite that, I absolutely can’t not mention that scene with Griffin and Faragonda in the beginning of 2x17 bc it is so goddamn dramatic and extra and Griffin just teleported to Alfea to make a 20-second scene (I counted them because, yes, I am that obsessed with this scene) and then disappeared again. I love!

- Lol, Ediltrude and Zarathustra, I can’t. They are so obviously sisters. I don’t get it, though. If Cloud Tower doesn’t take well to intruders, why did it let the Trix take over it and was kinda helping them even before they started sending energy in its veins? Is it because they’re witches and studied there so it doesn’t consider them intruders? Also, I love how the thing about Cloud Tower being a living organism has never come up before nor did it ever again.

- Aww, poor Mirta. But hey, she and Lucy finally fixed that friendship. That was actually kinda cute. I liked it. Lucy didn’t have to be such a bitch even if she was feeling betrayed but I actually get it so... All is well when it ends well, right?

- Stormy really doesn’t know how to manage her emotions, does she? Someone get her some therapy, please. She’s going to explode if she keeps bottling everything up.

- Aww, poor Lucy. The way Stormy blasted her. I feel really bad for her. And she was so scared (rightfully so). Somebody help her. (and get her therapy too)

- I am not really a fan of the catfight spell idea. I think they could’ve just let Winx disagree simply because they disagreed. They are friends but they can have different opinions. They don’t have to be under a spell to have a reason to argue.

- Oh, so Griffin can sense there’s someone at her door but she can’t fucking tell when some other shit is happening at her school. Makes total sense.

- Poor Lucy, though. She was so scared.

- What the heck was Stella doing anyway? She was just sitting around without doing shit. Was that the genius plan, hon?

- Okay, why did Bloom decide she could handle the Trix on her own when all of Winx couldn’t really beat them together?

- Yeah, Griffin can put a spell that the Trix can’t get through around the Heart of Cloud Tower but she can’t send her own energy into its veins to make Cloud Tower itself kick them out. Makes perfect sense.

- Layla and Musa actually teaming up with the witches was really cool. And they would’ve won too if the Trix didn’t get the statues to fight for them. (I actually liked the witch lounge btw.)

- Seriously, look at the Trix’s powers. How do Winx keep getting away from them? Darcy can legit blind people with that optical darkness spell. How have they not won with ease yet? But yeah, why destroy her immediately when we can wait for her friends to show up and save her? Sounds good.

2x18:

- “Is that Miss Griffin?” Can’t you see? Of course, it is.

- I gotta say that at least she was smart enough not to put the Codex with the Heart. Because as we saw, that was way too easy to figure out

.- “Forget about them” Yeah, so they can try and kill you. Nice one, Flora!

- Why is Stella so bitchy in these episodes? What is the problem, Stella? Why can’t you just chill? Aaaand... Now they’re trapped. Great!

- Can we talk about the fact that Griffin’s plan saved all their lives? So yeah, “wicked”. Right. Never mind they would’ve died otherwise. Although, why the hell didn’t she take the other teachers with her? Surely that would’ve made getting control of the tower back easier. Why doesn’t anyone do anything smart dammit?

- So Darcy can make herself look like Griffin but she can’t make herself sound like Griffin? Is that it? That’s what I’m getting from this scene because she didn’t try to talk to Lucy and Mirta.

- “We’re in the classroom that belongs to that weird witch teacher.” Which one? I think they all fall under that category so you’re going to have to be a bit more specific.

.- Poor witches. Getting eaten by their own school. I hope Griffin will get them some therapy after that.

- Oh yeah, now the Trix are stronger. Even though they were losing against Layla and Musa in the previous episode.

- How will going back to their dorm rooms help when the entire tower is going insane? This doesn’t make any sense.

- Oh, look! Just a simple deduction was all it took to figure out the location of the Codex. Easy peasy, right?

- Yeah, let’s do convergence when we don’t fucking know what we’re trying to do. Nice one, you guys! Also, poor Discorda. But why does Cloud Tower have a pixie? This is so weird. Though, kinda good I guess since they’d been trying to make out the witches all evil and having a pixie there is a step in the right direction.

2x19:

- Yeah, just keep blasting without focusing your energy. ‘Cause that’s totally effective. Also, ugh, why Avalon again?

- Aww, Bloom saw Marion and Oritel. And of course she doesn’t remember the dark force in her dream. It would’ve been so easy.

- Why the hell would Bloom listen to Locket, you know? (I mean, she had a point about Locket trying to look into people’s hearts but still.)

- Poor Timmy. He doesn’t know what to do and now that. At least he’s not mad at Bloom. (In all fairness, it wasn’t her fault.)

- And that makeover didn’t do much good. But of course not, when Avalon lied to them about what they should do.

- Bloom, I know you’re not yourself, but for the love of everything sacred, stop destroying the books! This is hurting me!

- Damn, she got shrunk. And is still causing trouble.

- Oh, that chase in the pages of the book was actually kinda cool.

- I think Winx should have just put their everything into stopping her earlier. i know they didn’t want to fight her but it was obvious they wouldn’t be able to get through to her and that she was spelled big time.

- That with the pixie kiss was kinda weird but cute. And yeah, sure, Bloom is grateful to Locket for sticking with her but still won’t listen to her about Avalon. Will it kill you to be a little more mindful of the man?

2x20:

- Okay, that vacation idea was so random. Although it looks like it was necessary. They just didn’t stop fighting.

- Yeah, sure the boys can’t socialize. Who is even watching to make sure that they won’t? Please.

- Ugh, Avalon, the absolute bitch. Of course he’s pretending to be poisoned.

- Aww, that Riven and Sky friendship moment was really cute. And Sky lying to him about Musa but then hitting the actual tree Riven was warning him about. XD And Layla beat them both, lol.

- Palladium blushing like that at Avalon. Hmm... I wonder what he needed that love potion for. I hope he knows that that isn’t exactly ethical.

- Okay, so how the hell did they have time to sew their suits together? That just doesn’t make sense but okay. At least they stopped fighting.

- And of course, why the hell would anyone tell them that such a thing as Charmix exists? That is totally not relevant. Not to mention that they should’ve gotten it earlier. Bloom should have gotten hers back in season 1 when she learned who she was and accepted it and Musa should have gotten her at the concert in Red Fountain. But of course, that only appears now. I mean, makes total sense.

2x21:

- Yeah, it’s a realm free of magic but because your Gloomix multiplies your magic, you’ll still have some. That’s just... not how it works. If it’s a realm free of magic, there shouldn’t be any magic. Otherwise, it simply is a realm that consumes your powers but if you can find a way to keep them above a certain level, you can still have them.

- Okay, but if I was Layla, I would feel bad about Stella feeling bad but I wouldn’t blame myself. She couldn’t have known. It’s not that she’s bad at friendship. But hey, at least Stella told her how she feels and she got her Charmix.

- Okay, yeah, Darcy has the power of mindcontrol but they still haven’t won. Yeah, makes perfect sense.

- Aww, it was sweet of Brandon to talk to Musa about Riven. And she told him how she felt and got her own Charmix. That was cute.

- “My lips kinda hurt.” Smooth one, Brandon.

- And they’re at the edge of a cliff now. Damn what a (literal) cliffhanger of an ending.

- Oh, no. Poor Layla just fell off the cliff like that. And now she can’t climb back.

2x22:

- Well, at least the Charmix reloads itself quickly. Even if it also gets exhausted quickly.

- Aww, Layla also got her Charmix. That was actually a very heartfelt moment. It almost made me cry.

- And Tecna finally admitted her feelings for Timmy. Now if only Flora can do the same with Helia.

2x23:

- Aww, the pixies are sick. Poor babies.

- Real Avalon at last. Fucking finally. Also, that spell was super freaky but it’s got me thinking about what you’d have to do to perform it... And now I’m getting ideas here.

- Oh, they’re getting special training for the Charmix now? Never mind that they weren’t even told that thing existed. Makes so much sense. (I don’t know why I’m surprised anymore.)

- I know Faragonda was trying to encourage Flora but it felt more like she was scolding her and was being disappointed by her tbh.

- Awww, Griselda said she’s proud of Flora! That is so cute! Also, I love how even Griselda can see that Helia is so into Flora but Flora herself can’t.

- Oh, pixies are born from the flower of life? That’s... kind of weird but okay.

- Flora finally told him! Great! I can’t help it at the moment when she yelled after him and then was like “Opps, he heard me. What do I do now?” XD And she also got her Charmix. That’s gotta be one of the best days for her.

- You mean Faragonda never asked to see the letter she sent to Avalon even though she is well aware Darkar is out there and is doing literally everything to get his hands on the Codex? My god, what epic dumbassery, I can’t. Seriously, they could’ve just handed him the Codex, it wouldn’t have been much worse than what they’re doing now.

- What does he want? Gee, I don’t know. The Trix were after Bloom and Avalon’s been preying on Bloom since the very beginning (and they even figured out he was the one who turned her evil) but what the hell could he want? Beats the hell out of me. At least Tecna finally put it together. And, of course, it is too late.

- Poor Stella, running around with that glass of water like that.

2x24:

- Aww, the pixies want to go too. That’s... probably not the best idea but it’s not like they can do anything about it.

- Poor Brandon! I think Sky would be scared, too, if he’d been through what happened to Brandon. (Not that he wasn’t already. XD)

- Tecna a few episodes ago: “Just because I come from a technology-based realm doesn’t mean that I don’t have emotions.” Tecna in this ep: “Consider me your new computer.” Amazing.

- Aww, that dragon was kinda cool. Too bad it tried to kill them.

- Oh, look! Flora’s got this! Nice! And we saw her Charmix.

- Brandon probably shouldn’t have said that about Sponses (did I even get his name right?) But they were in luck there with Sky’s attack taking out both Amentia and the guard.

- Okay, Stella’s plan wasn’t completely solid but they still pulled off that emergency take-off so... that’s okay.

- And Bloom is dark now. He just literally sent darkness into her heart, wtf.

2x25:

- Oh, damn! The Trix really upgraded these monsters. But now they’re drained, I kinda feel bad for them. I know they’re evil but dammit, they worked for their rewards and they aren’t going to get anything because Darkar is like that. Why is he so obsessed with Bloom? This is getting creepy again.

- Awww, Riven is being so supportive and such a team player! I love this! Can we let this fucking stick goddammit?!

- Oh, damn! Helia absolutely pulled off that rescue! Nice!

- Awwwwww, Griselda being there like “Our kids” is literally the most adorable thing ever! I love. And thank fucking god Faragonda finally decided to go help. It was about damn time. (Especially considering the stupidity with Avalon. (I am still not over that.))

- Hey, the convergence is working this time! Cool!

- Aww, Saladin can’t go with them bc of health issues. :/ (Though, pretty convenient that they had to take Codatorta considering what happened later on.)

- That goodbye was so cute! Brandon with that cheesy line! XD And Helia and Flora’s first kiss! But hey, what do you mean Tecna and Timmy don’t get a kiss? I know they already kissed once but give them a proper goodbye at least. And I am absolutely ready to cry over Riven and Musa!!!! He finally admitted his feelings! And that hug! I also liked the Layla and Sky moment, however short it was.

- Damn, Kerborg is... That thing. I liked him more as a... bat (thingy?). And they are in trouble but at least the teachers showed up on time this time. (kind of)

2x26:

- Yeah, “completely under control”, sure.

- “The ultimate power couple”? Um... Ew?!

- And they’re splitting up. But eh, it all works out so... good for them.

- I gotta admit I am not a fan of that thing with the colors that Stella did. It felt like she couldn’t be useful for anything else so they just shoved that in there. Nice one, you guys. Also, what do you mean that they don’t have straight As? After the shit they go through, how can anyone write them any mark different than A tbh? I mean, they saved the universe. What more do you want from them?

- The boys are catching up with them, too. Nice.

- “His confidence is bigger than his abilities,” Well, yeah, you’re not wrong there. XD Also, aww, damn! :/ They just killed Kerborg. So sad! (Alexa play Despacito.)

- Oh, damn! That Trix convergence is... creepy. But kinda cool. I like it.

- Riven sacrificed himself for Musa! (Could’ve just pushed her out of the way but anyway.)

- And Sky dropped the L word. And it had the desired effect. His speech was actually rather cute. I liked that part about him feeling the goodness of her heart when she healed him back in Red Fountain.

- Griffin and Faragonda’s shield is holding up well. Their convergence is also super powerful.

- Speaking of convergence, that was some amazing sync between Winx. And they wiped him off the face of the universe. I love how nobody is talking about the fact that they just killed a guy. Granted a very possessed guy, but still.

- Aww, Faragonda and Griffin toasting together was so cute. “Griffy”. I can’t. XD Same for Codatorta and Knut arm wrestling.

- I am so happy for Layla and that she finally has friends. Also, look at her being all matchmaker with Riven and Musa. Aww, and Piff said her first word!

- Tecna and Timmy and Helia and Flora were so cute! And of course we can’t forget about Stella and Brandon who are the king and queen of cheesy romance. XD (I love them! They are so made for each other.)

- Aww, Bloom gave Kiko little wings! That was so adorable. Also, good to see him again. And I do believe that was her first kiss with Sky (honestly, I don’t pay much attention to them). But they just had to hijack the photo like that.

This season was definitely better than I expected. Did it have a shitton of stuff that didn’t make sense? Well, yes. But was it engaging? Mostly. I would’ve loved it more if Avalon and Darker weren’t pissing me off so much but there was some solid action and heartfelt moments. Also, Layla is really cool and I’m glad they decided to include her and that she found her place in the group. I don’t really love the Charmix as much as I used to when I was little but damn if the Gloomix doesn’t still rock hard! And you gotta love the actual classes we got to see! So I actually liked this quite a lot.

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razberryyum · 5 years ago

Video

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The Untamed/陈情令 Rewatch, Episode 8

(spoilers for everything MDZS/Untamed)

[covers MDZS chapter...none, really...Team CQL pretty much goes completely rogue for this ep]

WangXian meter: 🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰

I really thought that Wei Ying should have named his binding technique “无聊” (“wu liao”, aka “lame”, “silly”, “boring”) in honor of Lan Zhan, since that’s his favorite response to Wei Ying. It’s a shame he didn’t end up doing that, felt like a total missed opportunity, especially since he never did decide on the actual name. The two names he came up with, “sharing clothes” and “no clothes” (according to Viki's translation), felt little more than just Easter eggs for novel readers since we know eventually the two of them do partake in both states of dress and undress. In the context of the actual technique, they really don’t make much sense. However, interestingly enough, in the WeTV subs, the two name choices were actually translated as “binding” and “bonding”, which definitely seems more applicable. Based on my limited knowledge of Chinese words, the Viki translation seems to be a more literal translation of the words used, so I’m not sure how the WeTV team came up with binding and bonding instead, unless those are the figurative meanings of those Chinese characters. I would love it if a fellow fan who is much more Chinese literate could school me on which is more accurate translation, but seriously, how much cuter would it have been if Wei Ying had just gone with 无聊?

Team CQL deciding to throw in more yin metals to the story was really a stroke of genius considering how much mileage they got out of that little invention: they got to introduce Xue Yang and eventually the Yi City boys earlier, provide a more extensive backstory for Lan Yi which of course also impacted other plot elements downstream, utilize Wen Ruohan more as a villainous character (which I personally consider a minus), stretch out the running time for more episodes, and most importantly, create more bonding opportunities for Wei Ying and Lan Zhan. First time I watched this episode I straight out cheered when Wei Ying skipped out on his Yunmeng fam to go after Lan Zhan; I thought that was so adorable. I was so looking forward to their adventures together. Too bad their alone time only lasted a few minutes...literally less than 4 minutes; I actually kept track this time around. Originally I thought that Nie Huaisang was brought in to be a third-wheeler because it would have been too suggestive for Lan Zhan and Wei Ying to spend time together off on their own, but after finishing the show and seeing all the other times they've spent together all alone, I soon realized I was totally overthinking things and it really was for the story's sake. One point I was never clear on was how did NHS clue into the fact that Jin Guangyao was behind his brother's death, since qi deviation actually seemed a reasonable explanation for his demise. Guy was bleeding through all his face holes, but he also had the ghost puppet lines on his neck. Because of NHS' experience here with Lan Zhan and Wei Ying when they faced off against the Wei villagers he was able to see firsthand how people affected by the Yin metal looks so I wonder if that's how he made the connection with what happened with his brother since Nie Mingjue also had those veiny markings on his neck. This had to be the only opportunity he had to see ghost puppets up close since he didn't really participate in the battle part of the Sunshot Campaign.

I could be way off base of course and perhaps the actual answer is more obvious than that, but one of the reasons I look forward to rewatching the show is filling in these gaps I have in terms of the plot and seeing if my conjectures to what I previously hadn't figured out yet are correct or not.

Another benefit to NHS' sudden appearance was seeing how Lan Zhan seemed almost jealous at how chummy Wei Ying was being with him. He didn't look thrilled at all when NHS popped up, and then that look on his face before he turned away from them was really the epitome of disapproval. Actually, he looked a little pissed. I wonder if he was actually disappointed to be reminded that Wei Ying's overt friendliness was not just reserved for him, since he was just as exuberantly social to NHS as well.

But progress was being made in their relationship just the same: take the fact that he didn’t fling off Wei Ying’s hand when he grabbed hold of him. Prior to their time in the cold pool cave, I doubt Lan Zhan would’ve allowed anyone to touch and lead him that way. In fact, he’s straight out said before that he doesn’t like physical contact with others. Obviously that’s no longer the case anymore, especially when it comes to Wei Ying. It's only the first of many more instances of hand grabbing and other touches between them. It's so exciting watching their relationship slowly but surely growing all over again.

Although, when it comes to Wei Ying, I think it takes a much longer time for his feelings toward Lan Zhan to undergo any change from close friendship. I'm probably alone on this, but while I think he likes Lan Zhan a lot, I don’t think his feelings went through the same transformation to love that Lan Zhan’s did until much, much later. Or at least, not in the way that he is actively aware of. He clearly felt an instant kinship with Lan Zhan, but I think it takes a long while before he even understands that it’s different from how he feels towards someone like Jiang Cheng or even Nie Huaisang.

Watching him as he admired Lan Zhan's beauty, I was naturally tempted at first to ascribe more meaning to his reaction than just appreciative appraisal because I wanted Wei Ying to be enamored with Lan Zhan already. But the truth of the matter is, now that I’m able to take a step back and really assess their relationship, I don’t think Wei Ying was quite at the maturity level yet to be able to properly comprehend what his admiration may actually be an indicative of. Wei Ying has a big heart, which is one of the most lovable qualities about him, but because of his heart and it's boundless capacity to love and care for others, I think even he himself can't decipher the differing levels of feelings he might have for different people. And because it will take him a long time to realize the greater significance behind his attachment to Lan Zhan, it’s really heart-breaking how he almost carelessly friend-zones Lan Zhan at various points in this first part of their lives before he finally wakes up. In fact, I can pinpoint the exact moment when I believe he wakes up, but since it's still in the far future, I’ll save my further ramblings on that matter until then.

Bunny Time with the Yunmeng Sibs

I love bunnies a lot and I also love the Yunmeng siblings a bunch, so naturally I wanted to love this moment completely as well, especially since seeing Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng nuzzle bunnies is just one of the cutest sights I've ever been laid eyes on. Unfortunately, there was one thing that put a damper on the scene for me and it was seeing Wei Ying throw that poor bunny at Jiang Cheng. That wasn't a stunt bunny he tossed, it was the real thing. I rewound several times just to confirm it. I winced so hard the first time I watched the scene that I think I gave myself a toothache, and even now I still grimace a little when I see it. For my peace of mind I have to assume Wang Zhuocheng (who of course portrays Jiang Cheng) did catch the bunny and the take we saw was not a do-over because he actually missed it so they had to redo the scene again. I will also have to assume that the bunny was the same bunny throughout the rest of scene which means it survived the toss and it was just fine afterwards since bunnies are usually fragile little creatures and are susceptible to heart-attacks at just the slightest shock (and being suddenly tossed in the air would definitely qualify as that). The alternative is just too gloomy otherwise. Chinese productions don't generally have a good track record when it comes to animals so...yeah...I gotta stop thinking about it and just focus on the siblings cuddling the cute rabbits.

I hope someone adopted the bunnies and the cast and crew didn't just cook and eat them afterwards.

ChengQing

It actually just crossed my mind tonight that Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing's ship name actually sounds like part of the Untamed's Chinese title. I don't know why I didn't notice it before. The extra "g" probably threw me off. Anyway, the way this scene started was rather odd because based on the way they greeted each other, it was as if Jiang Chen and Wen Qing were on the outs, like they just had an argument or something. Which doesn't make sense because the last time they saw each other was at Cloud Recesses, where Jiang Cheng was still making puppy eyes at Wen Qing while she was making her lantern wish, but then cut to here and it's like he's not even that thrilled to bump into her again. What happened to his little crush on her? I was kinda disappointed.

Wen Chao is a Close-Talking Creep

I don't like Wen Chao but I absolutely enjoyed He Peng's performance of him because he is so effectively creepy and shitty. Just the way he purposely invades Big Bro Xichen and Wen Qing's space as he threatens them totally made my skin crawl. More than once I've wondered how the hell Wen Qing was able to grow up around him and not get harassed in the worst way. He's also such a petty dick, with the way he purposefully dirtied big brother's rug for no good reason other than to be a shithead. But then, later on, when he's called to be totally pathetic to the point where he's downright sympathetic, he was able to pull that off with equal aplomb. So even though I almost hate his character, I do want to take this moment to give some love to the actor, whom I think did a really good job. Playing villains is sometimes an equally thankless job as playing the straight man, especially with villains like Wen Chao which aren't meant to be alluring like Xue Yang or likable like Jin Guangyao. He could have easily veered into caricature territory, which I actually thought the actor for Wen Ruohan did so that's why I didn't like his performance nor was I able to take him seriously as a character, but He Peng's Wen Chao always seemed grounded to me. I think a big reason for that is because the actor, in his own words, viewed his character as an arrogant, spoiled rich kid instead of a soulless villain and therefore chose to play him that way. As a result, I think he was still able to infuse Wen Chao with a small degree of humanity. The fear he felt whenever he had to face his dad was palpable. He's basically like a bully because his upbringing allows him to be one, but ultimately he's still a weak human being. That's why, when he turned into a sad, sniveling shell of a man under Wei Wuxian's torture, I found him really pitiful and actually felt bad for him.

Odds and Ends

Seriously, why the hell was Wen Chao able to hold the yin metal with his BARE HAND like that??? They've been saying time and again how powerful the metals are, how full of resentment they are, how normal people can't just handle them cuz even a highly cultivated person like Lan Yi was done in by just one piece, so how come a medium-powered mofo like Wen Chao was able to just hold as if it was just a some rock he picked off the ground? Even if the yin metals were only just activated from their dormancy, they're still soul-sapping implements of evil, so this really should not have been possible.

The dear translators kept on calling Wen Chao's bird an "owl" and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out WHY. There is nothing about that thing that resembles an owl, imho. It looks more like a raven with eagle talons and the sounds it made were like that of a hawk, so I really can't figure out how they got owl from that. Even the Chinese words for owl ("猫头鹰") is completely different from the characters used for that bird. I mean, I guess it could be one of those deep dives like how they came up with "Childe" for all the male honorifics, but seriously why even bother? Probably would’ve been easier to just call it a raven since that's what the cloudy mass looks like the most. Although I must say, I do love the way it looks: I like that they use the evil smoky effect for it since it’s suppose to be a bad birdy. I think it's one of the more successful CGI effects in the show.

Team CQL can be proud of themselves for the owl/raven/whatever effect, but then they should also dunk their heads in the toilets for this shitshow at the Wen Village. There was no consistency to these guys...some had the whited out eyeballs that up until then, all ghost puppets on the show have been shown to have, but then some, like that female extra in the front had regular eyes. And then some of the extras were rolling up their eyes. It's like, was there NO direction give to these guys? This whole Night of the Living Not Dead scene was a complete embarrassment. Any tension they were trying to build up for this scene was completely destroyed as soon as these walking jokes showed up.

Lastly, I had to laugh when Wei Ying quickly divulged the secret of the yin metals to Nie Huaisang without much prompting whatsoever. He JUST pledged himself to secrecy in front of Big Bro Xichen and Uncle Lan in like the last episode, and he already broke the promise by this one. What was more amazing was that Lan Zhan didn’t even bat an eye at it nor did he even try to stop him. I guess they both completely forgot about the promise already.

Question I Still Have

Actually, I’ve had this question since the beginning but now seems to be a good time as any to ask this, since this episode ended on those guys: WHY they're called "ghost puppets"? I've actually never heard of the Chinese words they used for the zombies before, on any other show. Was this terminology just a creation of the Untamed’s scriptwriter just for the show. And if so, I still don’t understand why they have to be called ghost puppets since they’re clearly NOT ghosts. Calling them "living" puppets would’ve been more appropriate. If someone has some insight on this, I’d appreciate the knowledge drop.

Overall Episode Rating: 7 Lil Apples out of 10

Disclaimer: The Untamed would not be possible without Mo Dao Zu Shi and Mo Xiang Tong Xiu-laozi. I mean no disrespect whatsoever with my humble comparisons between the novel and the live action, even when I sometimes favor the changes in the show. All hail MDZS and MXTX-laozi always and forever!

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dannifielding · 5 years ago

Text

When I don’t feel like writing, or when I’m hiding from writing Danni, I tend to fall into rewatching Supernatural. And, as such, Amelia tends to rear her head and I get flashes of scenes from the episodes I’m watching.

I’m an OC fangirl, sue me :P

Anyway, I don’t know if anyone is interested, but this is what I write when I’m not writing Danni. I’ve tried to put them in some order, and most of them kinda just... stop. I just thought some of you might be interested 🤷‍♀️

It’s very long, so under the cut.

Also, you may notice a change in ship. She jumps, a lot. I mean, I don’t blame her, it’s a very hard choice, but be warned.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Season 06- somewhere near the middle

-------------------------------------------------------------

“I’ll go get Amelia,” Sam declared, standing up from the small table. Dean nodded his agreement as he continued to look through the case files.

“Tell her to Fed up,” he instructed and Sam rolled his eyes.

“What else would I tell her?” he countered. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Dean retorted and Sam glared, resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at him, and stormed out of the room and to the one next door. He knocked on the door a few times.

“Amelia, we’re found something,” he called but there was no answer. He frowned and knocked again. “Amelia?”

There was still no answer, which was rather unusual and gave him enough concern to pull his gun out along with the spare keycard to her room. He unlocked it and stepped cautiously in. “Amelia?” he tried. “Are you here?”

There was no one in her room, but also no sign of any struggle or any distress at all. There was the sound of the extractor fan in the bathroom though and he lowered his gun, feeling rather ridiculous and also rather glad that Dean wasn’t there to see his over reaction. He walked over, all ready to knock on the door and let her know.

“Fuck.” He froze, hand up to knock on the door, at the loud moan that came from the bathroom. “Fuck, Cas.”

When his brain kicked into gear, his first overwhelming thought was horror, then embarrassment, then a little bit feeling gross that he’d caught his childhood friend in a rather compromising position.

He then thought, as the childish part of him reared its rarely seen head, about telling Dean and how they could tease the hell out of her for having to spend her time solo.

“Amy…”

The gruff voice was a lot more startling and his eyes widened because he didn’t struggle to place it at all. It was a voice he wouldn’t have bet any money on hearing. Were they…

He turned and walked straight out, only taking the time to close the door quietly so they didn’t know he was there. He walked straight back into his and Dean’s room and stood by the door. Amelia hooking up with someone wasn’t exactly news, it was just one of the things she had in common with his brother. Cas, though… How did that even work?!

“Did she say how long she’d be?” Dean asked, fastening his cuff on his shirt. He hated wearing the shirt. He felt like he was going to a wedding. He glanced over at Sam and frowned at the look on his face. “Everything alright?”

“Um, I don’t think she’s coming,” Sam replied, then immediately grimaced at his choice of words.

“Why?” Dean asked.

“She’s- uh- she’s a bit busy,” he replied, pointedly. “In the bathroom.”

“In the…” Dean started before his eyes lit up. “Oh! Walked in on her riding the train solo, eh?”

He was smirking slightly but Sam shook his head. “Not solo,” he corrected and Dean’s mind suddenly filled with a million and one more ideas.

“Man or woman?” he asked.

“Angel.”

Dean frowned. “Angel?” he repeated and Sam nodded. They weren’t exactly best buddies with the angels, and most of them were dickless ken dolls, who the hell would…

His eyebrows shot up. “Cas?” he asked and Sam nodded.

“Oh yeah,” he confirmed. “Getting pretty hot and heavy as well.”

“How do you know? Getting a good listen, were you?” Dean shot back. Sam didn’t appreciate the tease, but Dean did appreciate his offended response.

“No, they were,” he pulled a face, “loud.”

Dean scoffed. “Nah, I’m not buying it,” he said bluntly. “She’s always had a little crush on him, but this is Cas. Cas. He wouldn’t know what to do with a naked chick even if she was stood in front of him explaining the instructions.” He pointed at the wall. “In fact, we took him to strip club and he did exactly that.”

“I’m telling you, it was pretty clear- Wait, you took an angel to a stripclub? When was that?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean dismissed. “That can’t be Cas. She must have just been getting a bit carried away.”

Thud!

They both looked at the wall that separated the two rooms like it was about to break down and reveal something worse than hell behind it. There was another thud.

“Bar?” Sam asked and Dean nodded.

“Bar.”

~0~0~0~

Amelia checked again to see if the light was on in the room next door. It was dark now, and getting late and neither brother seemed to be about. They’d not left her any messages, or asked her to go with them, so she assumed they hadn’t disappeared on anything case-related, but it was always a little concerning when people in their line of business weren’t where they were supposed to be.

The first time she’d checked she’d given them the benefit of the doubt, the second time though was rather more worrying and so she knew she had to find them. She was about to call Dean when she heard the distinct roar of a ’67 engine and relaxed slightly. The Impala pulled up and she held her hands out in confusion.

“Where the hell did you two go to?” she asked as Dean climbed out first.

She looked annoyed and confused, but Dean immediately remembered the thud on the wall. “To the bar. We found a lead,” he explained, storming to the door to their room.

She followed him in. “I didn’t hear you go,” she said. “When did you leave?”

“Like, three hours ago,” he replied, pulling off his jacket. God, formal wear was just awful. How did people wear suits all day?

“Wait, what?” she asked. “Why didn’t you come get me?”

“You- er- you were busy,” Sam offered, pointedly, as he locked the door behind him.

“No, I wasn’t. I could have come too,” she protested. “Why are you leaving me out of this?”

Dean looked at her,unimpressed by her anger. He motioned between him and Sam. “Oh, we’re not leaving you out of anything,” he told her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Sam went to go get you. He walked in on you getting off in the bathroom.”

She wasn’t expecting that. She tried not to act too surprise, instead going on the defense. “I was having a shower, Dean,” she corrected.

“No, you weren’t.”

She glared at him. “Fine, whatever,” she exclaimed. “Like you’ve never gotten a bit frisky when you’re on the road and needed some time on your own.”

“Oh, I hold my hands up to that,” Dean replied before he pointed at her. “But you weren’t alone, were you?”

“Yes, I was…”

-------------------------------------------------------------

Season 06 Episode 18

-------------------------------------------------------------

Cas touched them both on the top of the head, and they were gone. His arms lowered rigidly and he turned to look at Amelia. He could sense her unease, and he didn’t blame her. He was confident in his ability to bring back Sam and Dean, but there were bigger issues that may stop him. He needed to be careful, everything hung in the balance and if he failed them, if he failed her…

Castiel!

He grimaced, unable to meet their gaze. “I have to go.”

“Already?” she asked, a little surprise. “Cas, you’re exhausted.”

“I’m fine,” he said, hoping to reassure her but immediately realised how sharp his tone had been. He met her gaze and her concern did not abait. “I’m fine,” he said, this time softer.

Bobby cleared his throat, uncomfortable. “What about getting the boys back?”

“Pray for me in 24 hours, and I’ll return.”

“I’ll pray for all of us,” Bobby muttered, turning around to pick up the timer. By the time he looked around, Cas had disappeared in a flutter of wings. He started the countdown and looked at his goddaughter, who was staring at where Cas had been stood. He still wasn’t sure how much he approved of her and Castiel, but she was happy, and ultimately that’s all that really mattered to him.

“You alright there, Princess?” he asked and she looked at him like she’d forgotten that he was there.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m—I’ll be fine,” she told him. “Beer?” He nodded and she headed into the kitchen and opened the fridge. She then immediately shut it. “How are we out of beer?” she muttered to herself. It was a pretty strong staple in their house, the milk went sour before they ran out of the good stuff. “Uncle Bobby, gotta nip to the store!”

“Alright, Princess.”

She grabbed the keys to the Impala – Dean would never know, nor did he need it right now – and smiled to herself. “I might drop in on Jody,” she called. “Want me to send her your love?”

“Piss off.”

She chuckled to herself as she stepped outside. She liked to spend time with Jody, they got on rather well and it was nice to have someone who knew about the bad in the world yet still lived a normal life.

She started when the door shut behind her and Cas was stood there. She frowned. “I thought you had to go?” she asked him as she walked over. “Is everything alright?”

Her concern felt both wonderful and incredibly deceitful, as every encounter they had together now did. She was always worried something would happen to him, that he would get hurt, but he knew that the moment she found out what he’d done then it would all fade away and he would be left with nothing.

“You seemed concerned,” he told her. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I am concerned, I want you to be okay,” she replied, using his own words against him.

“I am fine,” he promised.

“You’re tired,” she countered. “I can see it, Cas. You know you can’t hide anything from me. Me being concerned for you isn’t going to change.”

Again, it was like a stab in the heart for him. “I don’t want you to worry about me.”

She smiled slightly. “I don’t want you to worry about me,” she told him. A small little smile broke out on his own face as he realised that she was pointing out the pointlessness of him trying to stop her being concerned for his wellbeing. He’d never stop worrying about her.

“I suppose it would be fruitless if I tried to convince you that you don’t need to?” he stated and she nodded along.

“Can I convince you that, although worried, I am also fine?” she asked and he shook his head.

“No, I guess not,” he said and she shuffled slightly on the spot, smiling fondly at him.

“I’m fine, Cas,” she promised. “I’m sure you can’t spare the time to check on me every time you see me frown.”

He couldn’t. It was definitely out of the question, but he’d not been able to stay away when he’d seen the look on her face. He never could.

Castiel!

His head hung. “I have to go,” he told her before looking at her, desperately hoping she could offer him a reason to stay that he could, in all good conscience, take.

All she could do was smile sadly in her own heartache. “If you need me to come, Cas, if you need me to fight…”

“I will,” he cut her off before she could finish her offer. He never would. He wouldn’t risk it, even if he had no other option. He gave her a little head bow and disappeared.

She stared for a moment before taking a deep, sad, shaking breath. Every time he disappeared in the flutter of wings, she worried that he would never go back. She knew it was both foolish and selfish, but she didn’t worry about him losing the war, she worried about losing him to the war. She worried her hands together and she pulled herself together. She wasn’t going to cry, or mope about. Sam and Dean were in the past finding the ash of a phoenix for their big task, her Uncle Bobby was doing his best to help cull the rise of the monsters they had seen. She needed to pull her weight, and at the moment that meant fetching the beer and visiting her friend.

She really wished she’d kissed him, though. She would hate to regret that if something…

She shook her head and purposefully turned towards the Impala, about to barate herself for being such a sap.

Cas was stood right behind her. She almost walked straight into him. Instead he grabbed her and pulled her in for the kiss she’d wanted to give him. He held her tightly, like she was all he wanted and it never failed to make her insides flutter. She clung to him just as tightly and wondered, for a moment, if the war could just wait a few minutes.

He broke off and pressed his forehead against her. “I really have to go,” he told her lowly. “I want to stay.”

“I want you to stay too,” she told him. “We’ll get some time next time around.”

It was hope they both had, and a fact that was diminishing every day. They both missed each other terribly, and it was something they couldn’t share. There were bigger things going on, and neither of them wanted the burden of being too sad.

With one, last, briefest kiss he was gone and this time she knew he wasn’t coming back. Well, not until it was time to bring back Sam and Dean.

Still, she smiled coyly to herself and did a little, happy dance on the spot. She’d gotten her kiss, and it was good.

She then quickly looked up at the sky. “You better not still be watching me,” she warned the air before she finally climbed into the Impala

Despite how much he wanted to, Cas wasn’t watching her. Her Uncle Bobby was, though. He watched her out of the window with Castiel, watched how happy she became just at him being there, and couldn’t help but feel a little happy himself. The ‘dad’ part of him didn’t want anyone near his little girl – man, woman or angel. However, times were crap and any sort of goodness was more than welcome, and he was glad it was happening for her.

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Season 06 Episode 18 Ending

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“You can’t be serious. You’ve only just healed yourself up, will you just sit down for a few minutes?”

“I can’t,” he snapped, frustrated not with her, but with how many times they’d had the same conversation, always wishing for a different outcome. “With Rachel, I need to find out who else is turning against me before it’s too deep to stop.”

She understood, she really did. It was just so hard to watch him go. But he didn’t need her to be clingy, he needed support. “You better come back,” she warned.

“I always do,” he replied. He looked at Dean. “If you need my assistance…”

“Yeah, we’ll call,” Dean finished for him. “Just- Just take care of yourself, man.”

It was an uncomfortable sign of affection, but Cas took it gratefully. “I will endeaver to do so,” he told them all. Just as he readied himself to disappear, to head back to what was going to be a messy cleanup and more paranoia, Amelia’s hand shot out and caught his.

She didn’t look at him straight away as her heart pounded painfully. More than ever, something felt very wrong with her angel and the panic was almost overwhelming. Their life was full of darkness at times but she was suddenly hit with a wave of pure terror at the idea of him leaving.

She looked up and met his gaze. “I love you,” she told him.

All four men were very surprised by the sudden declaration from her, but none more than Cas. They had said it to each other before, that was true, but she’d been rather open with the fact that she didn’t feel comfortable saying it in front of her family. He knew they, as a little group of illfitted humans, could contain their emotions a bit too much, and hid behind bottles of alchol. He didn’t mind, because he knew that she meant it when she said it, and he had absolutely no doubt over his own feelings for her. But hearing her say it so bluntly when he knew she would rather keep it between the pair of them gave him a rush of reassurance he didn’t know he needed.

He could do this, he could win this war, no matter what it took, because there was a beautiful, caring, hopeful woman who backed him every step of the way.

He held her hand tightly. “I adore you,” he replied before flying off.

Amelia stared at where he had been stood for a few moments more before turning to look at Sam, Dean and her Uncle. Immediately they all looked away, caught at staring at her. “Not a word,” she warned, her voice hard. She didn’t threaten them, but all of them quickly nodded.

“No, no, nothing to say,” Dean quickly agreed.

“Nope,” Sam added.

She nodded once before turning and walking out of the house. They all watched her leave before Sam turned to Dean.

“Did she…”

“Yep.”

“Do you have any idea?”

“Nope.”

~0~0~0~

Amelia wasn’t sat outside long before Dean appeared. He sat on the hood of the car, his feet dangling next to hers. “You know, I think we’re getting a bit old to be sitting on top of a pile of cars,” he commented. She didn’t reply, so he handed her the bottle of beer. They sat in silence until he took a swig.

“So, the big ‘l’ word,” he stated and she looked at him.

“Dean…” she started in warning.

“Hey, I’m not here to judge,” he promised. She relaxed slightly. “I’m just thinking that it must suck, watching him leave all the time.”

She turned to look at him, about to shoot some snarky comment about how it must have sucked leaving Lisa, when she saw the sympathetic look in his eyes. He wasn’t making fun of her, he was being there for her. Her best friend, through everything.

The lump in her throat that she didn’t seem to be able to get rid of felt like it was trying to choke her again so she swallowed it down. “I’m terrified,” she replied quietly. “All the time.” He didn’t interrupt, he just sat and listened and once she realised that she couldn’t stop. “I mean, we’ve got the Mother of all monsters roaming free down here, but we’ve got a war going on over our heads that’s bigger than anything we could even imagine. I-I thought we’d stopped the apocalypse, but it’s just a moment away from being rebooted and I should be worried, I should be focused on that but all I can think about is—” She trailed off for a moment, her voice disappearing again. “There’s this angel, in the middle of it all, who’s holding it up by the skin of his teeth and I’m going to lose him to it. I’m going to lose him to this war. Even-Even if he wins, he’s going to give everything to it and I’m going to lose him.”

She ran a hand over her mouth. Saying it in her head was fine, where she could quash it down and hide it behind a full wall of denial. There was something about saying out loud that was more devastating than any thought she’d had so far. “I’m going to lose him.”

“Hey,” Dean said, pulling close and she started crying. “You’re alright.”

She clung to him tightly, once the tears started coming they didn’t stop. The weight of the fear crushed her. She curled up towards him and he realised, for the first time, just how much she had been hiding from them all. He knew they were sleeping together, he’d known that for a while, but he’d thought it was more a friends-with-benefits type affair, with maybe with it being a little less casual. He thought she had been optimistic about everything, she was always telling him to pull his head out of his ass when he was complaining too much.

He tightened his grip on her, rocking her slightly like he had done to both her and Sam when they had been kids.

“He’ll be okay,” he promised her. “You’ll see. For a scrappy little angel he has it all under control.”

“I’m so scared, Dean,” she whimpered. “That war is going to tear him apart.”

“I know, I know,” he replied before shifting her so he could look her in her eyes. Big, wide, wet eyes that looked at him like he knew all the answers. “You’re right, it’s terrifying, but you know what? We’re not alone in this. We’re all going to be fine, we’re all going to win and we’re all coming out the other side of this, alright?” She sniffed. “Alright?”

She nodded. “Alright,” she said softly. He knew she didn’t quite agree with him, but that was alright. He could pretend a bit longer that he believed it so she would too.

“You know,” she started softly, a little timidly, after they’d sat in silence again for a while. “He took me to Disney World.”

-------------------------------------------------------------

Season 06 Episode 21 Ending

-------------------------------------------------------------

Dean scrambled into back of the car, holding Lisa as tight as he dared. Ben climbed into the front next to Sam without even thinking the moment the blonde held the door open for him.

“Amy!” he barked. “Get in the damned car!”

“There’s not enough room. Get the hospital,” she commanded.

“You can’t stay here, there’ll be more demons around,” Sam told her.

“There’s not enough room,” she repeated firmly. “I’ll make my own way. Get to the hospital, save her!” She slammed the door shut, knowing that they didn’t have time to argue with her.

Dean didn’t want to leave her there, but knew she was right and despite his concern knew that she could take care of herself. “Ben, give her the knife,” he instructed. The boy, still in shock, stared at his mother because he couldn’t see anything else. “Ben!” His gaze snapped up. “Give her the knife.”

He hadn’t said a word since the demon had poofed out of his mom, and that wasn’t any different as his handed it out of the window that Sam had already wound down for him. Amelia nodded then stepped back so Sam could zoom away. She just hoped they would be okay. She hoped they would make it in time to save her.

There was a bang behind her and she spun, knife firm in her hands. She couldn’t stay where she was, she had to move. She started running away from the warehouse, only to quickly get lost within the dark, empty streets, which seemed to be completely devoid of all traffic, so her lowjack options were no existant.

When she felt safe, she stopped, panting, placing her hand on her thighs as she tried to catch her breath. She hoped to God, if he was even still out there, that Lisa was going to be alright. No one should lose their mom like that, and Dean… she knew Dean would never forgive himself.

She needed to do something. She hated feeling so helpless, that was all she was feeling. Helpless and alone and she just wanted to be at the hospital so she could help them, but she couldn’t. She didn’t even know what town they were in. Hell, she didn’t even know the state.

She also hated that she constantly felt like she was on the verge of tears. She hadn’t cried this much in years and she hated being the emotional one. No, she didn’t mind being the emotional one, she hated being the emotionally weak one. But there she was, standing on a sidewalk, totally alone and crying because she knew the one option she had was the one she desperately didn’t want to take.

“Cas!” she screamed. “Cas! Please!”

There was a fluttering of wings and she was still on high alert, so she turned around again, knife ready as if it would have made any difference. He already looked horrified and he stepped forward. “You’re hurt,” he stated.

She held her hand out and, to his credit, he stopped in his tracks. It took her a moment to realise she was covered in blood. “No, no, it’s not mine,” she quickly told him. She then reached up to her painful nose. “Well, most of it isn’t,” she said. “Some-Some of it might be, I’m not sure.”

“What happened? Who hurt you?” he almost demanded but all she could do was stare at him. Now he was here, his eyes blazing brightly, passionately, all she wanted was to both run to him and run as far away from him as possible.

“I—” she started before shaking her head. “I shouldn’t have called you. I shouldn’t- I shouldn’t be even thinking of you, but it was the first thought that came into my head.”

He looked creastfallen, her words physically wounding him. “If you just let me explain,” he started and she shook her head.

“No, no more explaining, no more words, Cas,” she said firmly. “I don’t want to hear it, you’ve hurt me enough. I’m not going to let you again.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. I’m trying to save you,” he insisted. “I do love you, no matter what you think.”

She nodded. “I know,” she said softly. “I think that’s why what you’re doing hurts so much.” There was silence between them but, before she could falter, she took a deep breath. “We found Lisa.”

His shoulders relaxed slightly. “I’m glad,” he told her. “I was looking.”

She didn’t doubt it. “She got possessed by one of Crowley’s bitches and stabbed herself. Dean’s taking her to the hospital, but I don’t think she’ll make it. I think she’s going to die.”

That immediately took his relief away and she felt a little bit of pleasure at knowing that it did. It felt dirty, but she liked it. “I never meant for this to happen. If I had thought that Crowley would hurt them, I would have done something sooner.”

Her face hardened. “Then do something now,” she told him. “Save her.”

“Of course,” he replied. “Where are they?”

She shrugged. “I don’t even know where I am,” she said, almost whimpering. “But-But they would have gone to the nearest hospital. I-I don’t—”

She was shaking, she was in pain and he stepped forward. “You are hurt,” he said decisively. “Let me just—”

She moved instinctly away from his hand. “Don’t,” she instructed. “Don’t help me, help her. Please, Cas. Please, just-just save her. Don’t let her die.” Her voice broke and her head hung. Her hands moved in front of her until she was holding them in front of her like she was praying. “Please, if she dies, Dean will never forgive himself, and please just help him.” She fell forward, onto her knees. “Please, Cas. Help her. Help him. Help me.”

Her begging broke his heart, and he was absolutely horrified to watch her fall to her knees in front of him. It shouldn’t have even been a thought that he wouldn’t help them, and that she thought that he wouldn’t help her was even worse. He also knelt on the floor in front of her and took her face in his hands to force her to look at him.

“I will always help you,” he promised. “You never have to fear me.”

She used to always be so sure that she knew when he was lying, but now as she stared at his bright grace, she wasn’t sure if he truly meant it. “I’ve spent so long being terrified of losing you to this war, that I missed the fact that I already had,” she whispered, devastated.

“You haven’t lost me. I’m right here.”

She shook her head. “I think that you’re further gone than even you realise,” she replied. She leant in and kissed him, and he welcomed her, holding her close, terrified of letting her go.

She broke the kiss softly. “Save Lisa,” she commanded softly. “Please.”

He nodded.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Season 09 Episode 01

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Dean didn’t know what to do. He hated feeling that he was out of every option. He hated feeling like there was nothing he could do but leave it up to ‘God’. Who the hell was he, anyway? He was a doctor! He was supposed to be clinical, unrelentless and smart! He wasn’t supposed to leave it up to some smuck who had decided to leave the world to burn!

God wasn’t going to answer. Cas wasn’t going to answer. The angels out in the world weren’t answering yet and he was sat in a chapel and he really wasn’t sure where to go from there. He was on his own and without ideas.

He couldn’t just sit there. He got off the bench and stormed out, each religious symbol just pissing him off more and more. His brother was dying. His best friend, the woman he loved, was dying. He didn’t know what to do anymore.

~0~0~0~

Amelia Miller was strapped to every machine that could keep her alive, but that was all they were doing. Much like Sam, the doctors were convinced that everything that made her up had long gone. They kept her breathing, they kept her vital signs nice and steady, but that’s all they did. They kept her alive.

Dean had washed the blackness from around her eyes. He’d taken the time with a soft cloth, apologising for messing up her makeup because he knew it annoyed her when her makeup was smudged. Her lids felt much too soft for there to still be any eyeballs underneath, but he kept cleaning and he didn’t dare check. He needed her to still be okay. He needed some good news. For once.

He spent his time between her and Sam, waiting for an answer off someone. He couldn’t sit still.

Amelia was on her own when she sat up in bed. Her eyes were wide but she couldn’t see anything. Her mind was foggy but she still tried to look down. In the darkness shaped appeared. She felt down her arms, feeling the wires and tubes that were attached to her. She didn’t know what they were for, she didn’t know where she was, but every part of her said that being attached to anything was a bad idea. She winced as she ripped the patches off her skin, scrambling with her fingers to find and detach herself with as little pain as possible, but also as quickly as possible. She didn’t remember much of anything, but her fight or flight instinct was telling her to fly.

She was starting to see more shapes, more shades of light in the darkness as she stumbled out of the bed she was on. She moved over until she found a wall and followed it along with her hands. She just needed to find the door. She just had to get out.

Someone grabbed her and she screamed, turning and pulling her fist back. “Let me go!” she screamed.

Whoever it was caught her wrist. “Woah, Amy, calm down,” the voice tried but she used their grip to turn them around, trapping them against the wall. They groaned at the force she used and she used the feeling of power to try and calm the panic she was feeling at her vision being gone.

“I don’t know who the fuck you are, but you’re going to tell me,” she snarled.

The person didn’t struggle. “Amy, it’s me, it’s Dean,” he told her. “Remember? Dean Winchester.”

Amelia faultered slightly. “Dean?” she asked.

“Yes! Can you- Just let me go, alright?”

Dean could very easily throw her off, she knew that, which was why she wasn’t too sure if she believed him or not. His voice sounded right, though, and she couldn’t prove it anyway. She backed off and the person immediately grabbed her arms. “Hey, you’re alright,” he reassured her. “Do you remember me?”

She nodded as she, in turn, reached out and took hold of his arms. “Yeah, I do,” she replied softly. “What-What happened? Where are we?”

“We’re in hospital. You and Sam—” He paused as his voice caught, which wasn’t reassuring. “You were both in a bad way. Lets get you back to bed, eh?”

She held onto him tightly, shaking her head. “I-I don’t know where the bed is,” she admitted. “I-I can’t see anything.”

Dean wasn’t surprised at all. Her eyes were bloodshot, with barely any white left, except for her iris which were bleached right out of most colour. He’d definitely not seen anything like it, not on anyone living anyway. He shifted so he was holding her close. “That’s okay,” he told her. “It’s probably just a side effect. Come on.”

He helped her sit down on the bed. She felt it dip as he sat next to her. “What do you remember?” he asked gently.

“Not a lot,” she admitted. “I remember being with Sam, and you turned back up to get him to stop the trial. We helped him outside and then…” She shrugged. “Then I woke up and I can’t see. What happened?”

Dean didn’t say anything for a moment. He didn’t know where to start. “When Sam stopped the trial it hit him pretty bad,” he started softly. “He’s in a room down the hall. They don’t think he’s going to make it. I’ve-I’ve called Cas, I’ve prayed to everyone but no one’s listening.”

“No,” she whispered, horrified. “No, that can’t be right. No matter how busy Cas is, he’d never leave Sam to die.”

“Metatron really had him convinced he was doing the right thing,” Dean replied. “But, whatever happened, it was what Naomi said. The angels fell.”

“Then—” She turned to Dean, trying to see him in the small amount of shadow she could see. There was nothing. “How am I alive?”

“I don’t know,” he told her. She flinched slightly as something brushed against her cheek, before she realised that it was her hand. He was turning her so she was facing him properly.

“I guess I’ve not come out of it well, though, have I?” she said softly. “Do I look bad?”

“Nah,” he replied. “Your eyes just need to heal. I’m surprised you even have any, after…”

“After they were burnt out?” she finished for him. His hand dropped from her face. “Did I leave wing marks?”

He nodded, then realised she couldn’t actually see him. “Yeah, I thought you were dead.”

She reached out slowly, hand shaking to copy his move and cup his cheek. His stubble was really starting to grow in. His cheeks were damp. She wished she could see his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” she whispered. “About Sam, about everything.”

She hugged him tightly and he held onto her like there was nothing else keeping him grounded. She sniffed, then started crying softly, then started to sob. Dean held her onto her tighter. “Let it out,” he said encouragingly. “Just let it out, Amy.”

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” he promised. “We’ll fix it. We’ll find Cas, or whoever, and we’ll fix it.” He pressed a kiss on her hair. “We’ll fix it.”

~0~0~0~

Sam’s eyes flickered as he woke slowly. “Where are we?” he asked almost instantly, even before he’d woken up properly. He sat up in the passenger seat and Dean took his eyes off the road for a moment to glance over at him.

“Woah, Sam?” he asked, trying to keep his attention on his road but all he could think about was his little brother, who looked like he was waking up from a long nap rather than a next-to-death experience.

“What?” he asked.

“Okay, take – take it easy,” Dean instructed. “How you, uh – how you feeling?”

Sam shifted in his chair, trying to get the crink out of his back. “Tired,” he replied. “Tired. Like I – like I slept for a week.”

“Well, try a day,” Dean corrected, much to his surprise. “You've been out since the sky was spittin' angels.”

“What the hell happened?”

Dean looked him over for a moment, like he assessing him. “What do you remember?”

“The church, feeling like crap, the angels falling…” Sam’s eyes widened. “Amy! She was-She was dead. Oh my god…” He looked ready to start bawling, or panic, or something.

“Calm down, Sam,” she said from the back seat. “I’m fine.”

He spun in his chair. “Woah!” he exclaimed at the sight of her. She was still bruised up, her eyes looked like she’d been poisoned.

“I guess I don’t look alright, Dean,” she said pointedly. She was staring roughly at the back of his head, then turned to where Sam was. “How are you feeling, Sam?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he dismissed. “What happened? You were on the floor. There were scorch marks. You had no eyes.”

“It was something to do with Metatron’s spell,” she explained. “I guess the angels falling must have really done a number on me.”

“But your eyes. You look like you’ve gone seven rounds with Andre the Giant.”

She shot him a little sardonic smile. “For decorative use only, I’m afraid,” she replied. “They’re all but useless.”

“You’re blind?”

She nodded. “Pretty much. Making me all but useless as well.”

“Hey!” Dean barked. “I told you about that. We’re going to fix it. The fact that they grew back at all says you’re probably going to get your eyesight back eventually.”

Sam turned back around in his chair, falling heavily against it. They’d watched her scream, and the light burst from her like an angel who’d been killed with a blade. She’d fallen to the floor with burnt out eyes and burnt out wings. She’d been dead. Seeing her lifeless body was the last thing he remembered before he’d woken up.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” he said sincerely.

“You too,” Amy replied softly. Sam was. He was grateful and releaved that they were all okay.

He frowned, looking at Dean. “You've been driving around with me passed out in the passenger's seat for a day?” he asked, confused.

“Oh, I mean, I stopped, you know, let a few Japanese tourists take some pictures. Nobody got too handsy.” Sam rolled his eyes. “I knew you'd pull through,” Dean told him. “I meant what I said at the church. You're capable of anything, Sam, and hell if you didn't prove me right.”

Sam cleared his throat. “Good. 'Cause we got work to do.”

-------------------------------------------------------------

Season 10 Episode 14

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Sam shut the barn door closed behind him. Dean dipped back into the shadows. This was all happening so fast. He’d expected more time, he’d wanted more time. It was one thing to be fine with the idea of dying, it was quite another to be facing it square in the face of a man who he’d seen way too much of himself in.

He turned to Amy, who looked ready to fight, and he knew that her mind was racing over every single way she could help him. Always by his side, forever faithful. Everyone else – his parents, Cas, even Sam – came and went. She was always by his side. It kept him strong, and focused. As long as he had one person to look out for, he was okay. As long as he had one person who cared about him, he was okay.

He was going to miss caring about that.

He grabbed her hands which caused her to look at him in mild surprise. “I love you,” he told her with every last bit of conviction he had. If he was going down swinging, he didn’t want anything left unsaid. He wanted her to know that, while he was still himself, she had taken over his heart.

“Dean,” she breathed, eyes wide. “I—”

He cut in before she could say it. He knew she was going to, but he wasn’t sure he could handle hearing it. “And I’m sorry,” he continued, his voice gruff. “I’m sorry that it won’t mean anything soon, but right now it does and I do.”

“You don’t know that,” she insisted. “I know you’ll be okay, Dean. Even if you don’t.” She tugged on his hand, bringing him closer. He didn’t fight her. “You’ve always been so fucking pessimistic.” She leant up and kissed him. It was frantic, and rather hot, and it didn’t last long enough. The barn door opened behind him and Crowley stepped out first, followed by Sam.

/// Episode stuff.

“Plus, I need you three out here, to take out whatever comes out of there,” he said. “And I’m serious I mean, whatever comes out there.” He looked between the four before his eyes fell on Amy. “But not her,” he said. “You three. Not her.”

“Of course,” Cas replied and Amy nodded slowly. She was a coward for it, she knew, but she didn’t want to take Dean out. She didn’t think she could. Whatever came out there would have his face, would be her friend, no matter how messed up.

She didn’t realise how defeated she’d felt until Crowley handed the Blade to Dean, and he looked at it like he was finally complete again. Not happily, not hungrily, just whole again. Her hand shot out and she grab Cas’s tightly, squeezing it as she struggled to hold herself together. He looked at her, stunned slightly, but didn’t let go. He let her take her comfort, he would always let her.

“Dean?” Sam asked, concerned. Dean slowly looked to his brother before giving him the reassuring smile of an older brother who was trying to downplay how scared he was so his little brother would be okay.

“I’m good,” he promised before turning and walking away. He stopped just before the stairs that led up to Cain, free hand resting on the banister. “Not her,” he insisted again.

Amy swallowed, the lump in her throat hard. “I’m- I’m going to go outside,” she told him, trying to put some force behind her voice. “I’m not going to be here for any of it. I promise.”

He nodded, satisfied, then headed upstairs. The moment he disappeared through the doors she turned to Cas. “Help,” she whispered and he quickly nodded, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“I’m going to take her to the car,” he told Sam, who he was sure was barely listening. He nodded though and sent Amy a soft smile.

“Good. That’s a good idea,” he encouraged. “We won’t be long.”

Cas led her outside, to the Impala, which sat waiting for her owner to return, even though it was just a car. He was going to put her in the passenger seat, but she opened the back door before he could even be a gentleman and hold it for her. She sat down on the padded seat, door wide open. She stared straight ahead and Cas stood just outside, awkward but on guard.

“Go inside, Cas,” she told him. His brows furrowed confused.

“No, you need—”

“I need you inside, Cas. I need you,” her voice broke, “I need you to be there for Dean. I will be fine.”

He knew she was right, and that if Dean came out as badly as he had seemed to think he would, then he was needed more inside than standing watch over her. He just knew there would never be a time he would rather be doing anything but keeping her safe. “I wish you wouldn’t lie to me,” he said gently.

She looked up at him, and a genuine smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “It’s not a lie. It’s a hopeful statement. Hope is never a lie, Cas. Go inside.”

He nodded and, after giving her shoulder another squeeze, shut the door and left her alone. She sat facing straight ahead, and then she cried.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Season 11 Episode 04 Ending

-------------------------------------------------------------

Amelia could have laughed at the sight of the Pizza spot that the door opened up next to. She’d been there so many times that she didn’t even have to be able to read the neon sign. The street was familiar, the sound of the road was familiar. She actually in Lebanon. The stupid angels hadn’t taken her far at all.

She stumbled down the street, trying her best to not walk too heavily on her ankle whilst, at the same time, moving as quickly as she could. She didn’t know how long she had before the angels came back but she wanted to be as far away from the building as possible. And, preferably, back in the Bunker.

She rushed past the first car she came across because she knew that, with its rather new computer system, it would take a bit longer to hotwire. The second one, though, was a bit of a fixer-upper and barely took her any time at all. And, considering that she could see two of almost everything, she had been sure that she would have electrocuted herself before she’d have gotten the car started.

She swerved quite a lot. The pain wasn’t debilitating as it was tiring. Everything ached so much, her wrists stung so much, that it was hard to actually be in pain. Every time she blinked she felt herself drift off further inside her head. It took everything she had to keep herself awake long enough to park outside the Bunker. She fought with the door, mainly because the door handle kept moving around and refused to stay in one place.

But soon enough, she opened the door, and stepped inside. She smiled even though the cuts on her face stretched painfully. She was safe. She was home.

Down below, Dean, Sam and Cas all rushed into the meeting room from the study. The two humans had their guns drawn, while Cas held his angel blade tightly.

“Who’s there?” Dean barked angrily. “How did you…”

Amelia stumbled forward, clinging onto the railings tightly. The cut by her lip was starting to bleed and she was rapidly loosing the fight against being unconscious. Her knuckles turned white with the strain of standing.

“Amy?” Cas asked, sounding as perplexed as normal. She turned, heading towards the stairs. She made it down three before she lost, her eyes rolling into her skull before she tumbled down to the bottom.

“Amy!” Dean cried out, rushing over to her side. He dropped next to her to feel her pulse. “She’s alive,” he told them both. “Cas…”

Cast didn’t need telling twice. He reached down and pressed his fingers against her temples. “She’s just unconscious. Minor concussion from the fall.” With a flash of light he healed her. “She’ll wake up soon.”

“What the hell happened to her?” Sam asked, looking down at his childhood friend.

“Don’t know,” Dean said gruffly. “But when I find out they are going to pay.” He moved to scoop her up, but Castiel took hold of her and lifted her with ease before he could.

“I’ll take her to her room,” he stated. “Then I will scout the area. She may have been followed.”

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Season 11 Episode 14 Ending

-------------------------------------------------------------

Amelia felt sick. As she fell to the ground, her stomach churned and her chest ached. Sam was panting and Dean looked horrified, and she didn’t blame them, but neither of them knew. Neither of them knew what she’d done. What her and Cas had done. What her and…

She gagged, the bile rising and she shot off the floor. Dean and Sam watched her dash out and they quickly followed, only to hear her throwing up into the sink. They paused outside because neither of them wanted to deal with vomit, but then she screamed.

Dean immediately pulled out his gun, just in case Cas-Lucifier-whatever had turned up but she was on floor, hair clenched between her fingers as she started sobbing hard. “Woah, woah,” Dean said, crouching down next to her. “Hey. He’ll be alright. Right?” He looked up at Sam for backup, who also knew that her distress was coming from Cas’s new roommate. “Right?”

Sam quickly nodded. “Of course. It’s Cas, isn’t it? He’s survived-Well, he’s survived a lot. He’ll be fine.”

She shook her head. “I-I can’t…” she sobbed. “You don’t understand. I-I feel so—” She rubbed her arms and Dean frowned. She wasn’t comforting herself.

“Dirty,” he finished for her, much to Sam’s surprise. She nodded, which surprised him even more.

“You don’t—I—” She looked up at Dean. “I’ve been doing worse than I let on,” she told him, almost ashamed. “Since me and you- Well, since we stopped being a me and you, you know?” She swallowed hard. “Then, after the whole ‘angel’ debacle, I got worse. I just—” She met his gaze. “Everything sucks. Everything fucking sucks, Dean, and I—” She started crying again and he rubbed her arm. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to…”

“I know,” Dean replied. “It’s okay. What happened?”

She swallowed. “I felt lonely, and sad and god knows that I needed to feel sexy…”

“You slept with Cas,” Sam finished and she nodded, again looking so ashamed of herself. It hurt Dean, he could feel it, but he didn’t say a word. He had given up the right to anything from her. They were friends now, nothing more.

“A few times,” she admitted. “And it was—” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Because all that matters is that I didn’t sleep with him until like, two weeks ago.” She was shaking. Every part of her felt like unclean. “I didn’t sleep with him until after we spoke to Lucifier.”

Dean and Sam shared a look. “Until he was Lucifer,” Sam said.

“I-I didn’t know it was him,” she sobbed. “I should have known. And… And I had no idea. And Cas has no idea. I-I did that to Cas!”

Dean pulled her close. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

-------------------------------------------------------------

Season 12 Episode 01

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“It’s worth a shot.”

The bunker door opened and Dean shot up. Mary immediately pulled out her gun, although it took her a moment to tear her eyes off the tiny thing Dean had been using that, apparently, was a computer.

A woman stumbled in, hand on her head. “Cas!” she called. “Sam?!”

Dean and Cas shared a look. “Amy,” they both said. She walked down the stairs, wincing at the light. She’d been hit on the back of the head and left for dead in the forest. She wasn’t sure who by, or why, but she knew it wasn’t good.

“Cas?!”

“I’m here,” he started, motioning for Dean to stay put. He stepped out into the briefing room. “Are you alright?”

“Some bastard attacked me,” she grumbled. “I don’t know where they were…” She trailed off, spotting the blood on the floor. “What happened here?”

“There was a woman. She blasted me away and took Sam,” he explained. “And, Amy…”

“Amy?”

She had been walking over to Cas so he could heal the egg on the back of her head, but she froze at Dean’s voice. She leant to the side slightly and saw him standing in the archway, a soft smile on his face.

“Dean?” she asked softly. That wasn’t right, it couldn’t be…

“Hey,” he replied with a little wave. She pushed past Cas, who understood her happiness all too well. She rushed over to Dean, coming to a stop at the bottom of the small steps down, staring up at him with wide eyes.

“Is it…” she started, reaching out to place a hand on his chest. He nodded.

“It’s a long story,” he stated. He was going to quickly explain what was happening but she pushed him back just enough to be able to pull him down into a kiss. Her arms went around his neck and he pulled her closer with his hands on her waist. He hadn’t known how much he needed to feel her lips on his, but he couldn’t resist deepening in, despite Sam being in danger and his mom stood in the shadows. She tasted like life, and booze, and everything he had known he was going to miss when he’d died.

She was the one to close the kiss and he pressed his forehead against hers. Both of them kept their eyes closed as they lightly panted. “Dean?” she whispered.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Is-Is that your mom hiding over there?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “The Darkness brought her back.”

“Oh, that’s...” She pulled back slightly. “That’s actually quite amazing.”

He smiled. “It is, isn’t it?” he agreed. He kissed her again, although not the passionate one he’d wanted when he’d come back to the Bunker, then turned to look at his mom, keeping an arm around her waist so she didn’t go too far away. “Mom, this is Amelia. Amy, Mary Winchester.”

Amelia gave her a small wave. “Hi,” she said lamely. “I mean… I don’t know what I mean, actually. I’ve heard so much about you it’s strange to see you here.”

Mary looked between the two. Between her eldest son, who was four years old not long ago, and the woman who he now had his arm around. The woman who, in her eyes, had practically chucked herself at her son.

She looked up at Dean. “Sam?” she reminded.

Amelia frowned at the obvious dismissal, but also looked up at Dean. “Do we know who took him?”

He shook his head, letting her go. “We have a car, though,” he replied. “Let’s go.”

-------------------------------------------------------------

Season 12 Episode 02

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There was a knock on her door but Amelia didn’t even look over her shoulder. She just continued to fold up her clothes, neatly putting them back into her drawers, her mind focused purely on the organisation of her room and not on anything else.

There was another knock, but she didn’t say a word. She chucked the next item of t-shirt over her shoulder onto the floor, missing her discard pile by miles.

“Woah, if that’s the reaction every time I come in the room, I’m going to have to come see you more often,” Dean said as he stepped in, closing the door behind him. She closed the drawer she was working on. The last she had seen of him he’d been in the kitchen, starting his way through a six-pack and she’d left him to it.

“You’re more than welcome to the discard pile,” she replied. “Although I’m not sure if you’d fit in any of them with the podge you’ve put on recently.”

“Hey,” he replied, offended. “I’m as fit as I’ve ever been!”

They both smiled at each other but the silence fell over them again. Amelia turned back to the drawers, starting on the next one. “How’s- How’s your mom doing?” she asked as casually as she could.

“Tired, I think,” Dean offered. “She’s had a lot to deal with.” He watched her keep her head down, pulling out items from her dresser. She wouldn’t even look at him.

“Well, we all have,” she replied. “Jumping 30-odd years into the future must be hard, but she’ll settle eventually. She gone to bed?”

“Yeah.” He walked over, standing beside her. She still didn’t look at him, chucking another piece onto the discard pile.

“Don’t blame her. It’s late,” she said airily. “I thought you’d all be asleep by now.”

“So you thought now would be a good time for a spring clean?” he questioned. She shrugged.

“No time like the present. I’ve got so much to get rid of and I was delaying doing it because it’s a pain the ass, but it needs to be done and...”

“Alright, alright,” he interrupted. “What’s wrong?”

She paused. “What?” she asked, sounding confused. He knew better and just stared at her until she glanced up at him. He could see the tears shining in her eyes and he grabbed the clothing from her hands, chucking it back into the drawer.

“What’s wrong?” he asked again. She swallowed hard.

“You-You were supposed to die,” she started. “And-And then you didn’t, and then your mom is back from the dead after over 30 years, and then Sam’s gone and there’s this whole new British Men of Letters bullshit and I can’t even imagine what that’s like. And then I-I had to watch you go, and then you weren’t dead and-and the first thing, the first thing, I do is kiss you!” She chucked her arm out to the side. “That’s not an okay thing to do, but I-I do it anyway and your mom and Cas are right there and you’re just back from the dead and who does that? Who does that, Dean?!”

If her rambling wasn’t an indication of her panic, the way she was getting louder and louder certainly was. Even after all this time he still felt out of his depth when she became incredibly upset. He held his hands out in front of him. “Woah, woah, woah,” he said. She stood still, despite having been moving to pace around, and stared at him, looking almost manic. “If-If you’re worried about me not wanting it, let me tell you,” his lips pulled up into a smirk, “you’ll not hear any complaints about it from me.”

She knew he was trying to cheer her up, and that his words weren’t necessarily lies, but it just felt like a stab in the chest. She didn’t reply straight away as her thoughts jumbled through her head, each digging a little deeper in her own spirialing self-disgust.

“I know Cas is in love with me,” she told Dean, much to his surprise. “I know he’s never stopped, not since we-not since Sam jumped into the cage. And I’ve never-I mean, he’s still in there. You’re both still in there. And knowing all that, knowing that when I was broken thinking I had lost you he was there for me, and I just… And you had your mom, and all I could think of was… Was…” She shrugged. “Kissing you,” she whispered softly. She met his gaze and her pain was more visible than he had seen in a long time. “I can’t keep watching everyone die,” she whimpered. “It’s too much…”

He pulled her close, wrapping her up. “I know it is,” he told her. “I know, and I’m sorry. But I’m back, and I’m not going anywhere. No one is going anywhere.” She was shaking and it broke his heart. His hold on her tightened. “And Cas understands,” he continued. “We both do. We both know what we’ve done to you. He won’t be angry, he won’t have even thought twice about it.”

“What do I do, Dean?” she asked. “I can’t keep losing you.”

He didn’t have an answer, he never did. There was always a part of him that would sacrifice himself to keep his whole family safe and happy, and that included her. He knew his normal instinct would be to took her hair behind her ear and gently encourage her to go find Castiel, who would bend the world to make her happy.

But he’d almost died, and as happy as he was that his mom was back he knew that wasn’t going to be an easy ride.

So instead of tucking her hair behind her ear, he tilted her face up to look at him. Confusion flashed through the pain and he couldn’t help but just watch her for a moment.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised again. “I—” He swallowed hard. “I can’t lose you again either, Amy. I came looking for you because I need you too much.”

“Really?” she asked and he knew she had a very valid reason to doubt him. He just smiled and cupped her face, threading his fingers through her hair. He tilted her head a little further and kissed her again, softly and she whimpered into it. He didn’t deepen it, he closed it gently and watched her eyes flicker back open again.

“If you’ll have me, I’m not going anywhere,” he told her. “We’ve lost too much, this whole messed up little family we have has been torn apart too many times, and if we can, for one moment, have some happiness? I say we take it with both hands. Because we deserve that. We deserve at least that.”

She nodded and her lips pulled into a small smile. One little pep talk wasn’t going to change the world, he knew, but if he could make anyone smile for a while he’d take it. He placed another kiss on her lips before untangling himself. “Go to bed, Amy,” he instructed. “We’re not done, yet.”

She chuckled lightly. “Are we ever?” she replied cynically. “Lucifer’s still out there somewhere, right?”

He pointed at her as he headed to the door. “Exactly,” he stated. “And I have a mom.” He couldn’t help the smile that spread. “Can you believe it?” he asked her. She shook her head.

“It’s the first miracle we’ve had in a long time,” she agreed. “I really am happy for you. For both of you.”

He turned, opening the door and Amelia thought of all the clothes she’d chucked on the floor and how she would have to deal with that in the morning. She picked up the bra that Dean had ripped out of her hands and thought about how she needed some new ones. She thought about the trench-coated angel that she was pretty sure she had been god-awful to and how she needed him more than she cared to admit. She thought of Sam, who had gone to bed absolutely blindsided by his experiences and his mom. And Dean, her Dean, her best friend and the person who used to make her feel safe above all else, and how she had just began to feel the same again before he’d gone to his death, and it had been torn away from her.

Her heart raced, her panic spiked and, as always, her goto way to deal with it was to push it under everything else. “Dean?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

She shrugged slightly, showing her uncertainty over everything. “Spend the night.”

He knew that, in their pain, they all dealt with things in different ways. Sam would obsess, he would drink, and Amelia… Well, she had a very distinct way of drowning away her problems. He watched the smirk slowly spread on her face as his eyes glanced at the underwear she was currently holding.

He stepped back in and closed the door. Who was he to say no to that?

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Season 14 Episode 03

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Dean was never sure how he felt about the hugs he got whenever he came back from one of his stupid ideas. After all, it was his stupid stunt that had caused all of the worry and pain in the first place, everyone should be angry, not happy to see him. However, it was also nice to know that they were happy to see him regardless.

He had expected one from Jack, but he’d been a bit wary which he also could understand. Cas, on the other hand, didn’t show any trepidation as he held him tightly for a moment. Dean managed a pat on the back, but not much else. He wanted the comfort of his family, but he wasn’t sure he deserved it yet.

“Where’s Mary?” Jack asked once the greetings were done. Dean glanced around again at all of the hunters, looking for the blonde-haired one he couldn’t see.

“She and Bobby stayed back in Duluth to clean up the, uh -- uh, the situation,” Sam explained, casting another sideways glance at his older brother. Dean tried not to shift uncomfortably, knowing that the situation he was referring to was the one he’d created.

“Yeah, well, speaking of cleanup, I, uh I need a shower,” he told them. “Just gonna, you know, tell Amy the good news. She in her room?” He motioned over his shoulder, expecting them to just direct him to her. Instead there was a shared look he didn’t like at all. “What? What’s happened?”

“Um, she’s still in the infirmary,” Cas explained. “She’s still not well enough to leave.”

Suddenly a little paniced, Dean looked between him and Sam. “What?” he asked.

“She hurt herself…”

“Whilst on a hunt,” Sam quickly cut in, which just told Dean it had nothing to do with a hunt at all. “She was-She was fighting some vamps, they managed to get the best of her. We’ve cured her, she’s-she’s just resting.”

Dean just looked at his brother. “Uh huh,” he replied. “Well, that’s a load of crap.”

Sam sighed. “Look, Dean—”

“I know I’ve been out of the loop for a few weeks,” he interjected before he could lie to him anymore. “But I would rather like to not be kept purposefully out of it. That never goes well for us, does it?”

Cas and Sam shared another look, as if debating between themselves whether or not they should tell him.

Jack, on the other hand, was completely oblivious to their silent conversation. “She hurt herself,” he told Dean, who blinked in surprise. Jack’s brows were furrowed slightly. “It’s a human thing, apparently. I don’t quite understand, but Castiel explained it like she had a really bad flu, but in her head. Her bad thoughts were stopping her brain from thinking properly, like if her nose were blocked.”

Dean’s heart stopped for a moment before he turned and all but ran out of the room. Sam opened his mouth, wondering if he should call after him, but he just sighed inside. He turned to Cas. “Could you…”

“I’m on it,” he told the younger Winchester before following Dean.

“Was I not supposed to tell him?” Jack asked. “They are family, and you said family could know.”

Sam took a moment before clapping his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “It’s fine,” he replied. “I think Dean just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”

~0~0~0~

Amelia really wasn’t sure that she needed to be trapped in a room anymore. She understood their concern – well, actually she didn’t, which had been part of the issue, but why couldn’t she just be trapped in her own bedroom? They complained that she slept all the time, but without anything else to do what was she supposed to do, exactly? Wallowing in her own misery was what had gotten her there in the first place.

She had just come from the small bathroom that the private room had, chucking the covers off the bed when the door opened behind her. Immediately she felt on edge and she sighed heavily. “Sam, I just went to the bathroom. I don’t need help with that,” she told him firmly.

“Amy?”

She quickly turned and saw Dean stood there, looking as shocked as she felt. He was wearing a vest and shirt combo – something she had never seen him voluntarily wear – but she barely paid attention to anything than the faint glow in his eyes. She took a step back, the side of the bed jabbing into the back of her knees. “How-How are you here?” she asked before she straightened slightly, smirking slightly. “I see that getting in really used up all of your mojo, didn’t it?”

It took a moment for Dean to realise what she was saying, and thinking. “Amy, it’s me,” he told her. “It’s really me.”

She stared for a moment, deciding whether or not she believed him. She was sure that if Michael had been in Dean still he wouldn’t have looked so rough around the edges. And it would explain the way he barely had any grace at all. “Dean?” she whispered and he nodded. She quickly rushed over, chucking her arms around him but, unlike Cas, Dean wrapped her up tightly and buried his face in her hair. He hadn’t expected to ever see her again.

“How-How are you even here?” she asked him.

“Michael left,” Dean explained. “I don’t know why, and I don’t know if I care right now.” He pulled away, looking down at her. He’d expected her to be in a bed, strapped to machines and barely alive, like some sort of movie scene. He’d not expected her to be up and about, or as grumpy as she’d sounded. “What the hell, Amy?” He grabbed her wrists, looking at them. There were no cuts, he’d been expecting cuts, but she was clean.

“Oh, Cas cleaned me right up,” she told him cynically, pulling her hands back. “Regular guardian angel, that one.”

#amelia #bits and pieces #for anyone who'd interested

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makeste · 6 years ago

Text

BnHA Chapter 226: Oh Shit We’re Caught Up

Previously on BnHA: The still-captured Giran warned Re-Des that the League wasn’t going to give a shit about rescuing him, and reminded him that if the League sicced a Noumu on the Army they were as good as dead. But Re-Des was all “nah they don’t have any Noumus to sic at the moment” and give an annoyingly thorough summary of his deductive reasoning. Meanwhile in the town, Kizuki, a.k.a. the Rita Skeeter of BnHA, pestered Toga for an interview. She seemed to have done her research, too -- she knew Toga’s age, and that she ran away from home after graduating middle school. None of Toga’s friends or family saw it coming, apparently, and Kizuki -- whose quirk allows her to turn anything she touches into a bomb -- wanted to know the deal. She allowed Toga to suck up some of her subordinates’ blood, then promptly exploded it. She then asked Toga why she’d abandoned her normal life. In response, Toga smiled one of her crazy smiles and was all “a normal life? what’s that?” Lol okay. Anyway, the last few pages were peppered with as-yet-unexplained flashback scenes, so I’m guessing we’re about to find out just what makes this girl tick at long last.

Today on BnHA: We explore Toga’s backstory in a series of flashbacks. Basically her quirk gave her a fascination for blood which her quirk counseling never properly addressed, and so one day she just snapped and killed a dude. But she was such a cute little kid though. Whatever Toga I still love you. Anyway, so back in the present, Kizuki tries to psychoanalyze Toga and makes her out to be a victim of a society that doesn’t have a place for her. Kizuki says that Toga will become a martyr for the Liberation Army’s cause. But Toga is all “fuck that” and breaks free of Kizuki’s clutches, transforming into Ochako using the last of the blood she took back during the forest arc. Kizuki mocks the seemingly useless transformation, stating that she knows Toga can only change her appearance on the outside. Unfortunately for Kizuki, this isn’t entirely the case, as it’s revealed that while transformed, Toga is able to use the quirks of whoever she turns into. She proceeds to float Kizuki way up into the air and then release her, splattering her onto the ground. Like, she’s definitely dead now, oh shit. Anyways so it’s pretty awesome, albeit grisly as all heck. Now to wait for the rest of the League to follow suit and kick some Liberation Army ass.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 226, which, wait, this is chapter 226. Oh shit lol. But I’m posting this a week after I first read the chapter so any ETAs will reflect that.)

okay so we’re opening with a flashback to a news story or something?

injured but didn’t kill? that doesn’t sound like the Toga we all know and love :’)

hey what the

is Toga not her real name??? didn’t we get confirmation from Gran Torino back during the Pizza Delivery mission? what’s up with that

(ETA: this is really weird, though. they never once refer to her by name during any of the flashback scenes. maybe this is just for stylistic purposes? I don’t think her name is supposed to be any sort of big secret but who knows?)

anyway so yeah

that just means she lub him, guys. that’s just how she is. poor Saito

(ETA: btw Caleb Cook pointed out on his Twitter that this looks to be the Deku lookalike from the previous chapter. so if he was one of AFO’s kids, that’s kind of interesting that AFO had no issue with Tomura hiring his son’s killer later on. I don’t personally think there was any AFO relation though.)

oh wow

rude. that’s my best girl you’re talking about. she’s just a little vampirish, what? Vlad King can make people’s blood fucking do tricks, and you don’t see anyone accusing *him* of being devil spawn. smh

awwwww

cats do this all the time and people fucking love cats! I’m telling you, these are double standards!

oh hey we’re back in the present

so Kizuki is all “so you think you’re living normally? lol you weirdo” basically

and she’s looking at the smiling blood-covered Toga and is all “so this is your ‘true face’“

she’s calling her “the very embodiment of the dark side of superhuman society.” girl what

okay look, I’m not saying Toga doesn’t have a screw or two loose. and yes, she is very fond of blood. but if we’re going to call someone the literal embodiment of the dark side of society then can I interest you in a few other choice candidates, though?? Toga is what we like to call Mostly Evil. there’s a big difference between Mostly Evil and All Evil! Mostly Evil is Slightly Good! whereas with All Evil, well, with All Evil there’s usually only one thing you can do. (accuse them of being the protagonist’s Secret Dad.)

anyways

nooooo my sweet demented child is coughing and teetering onto the ground

jesus it’s almost like she’s been FUCKING BLOWN UP FROM THE INSIDE OUT good grief

and now Kizuki is all “you poor thing.” hey Kizuki you can fuck off right now thanks

HEY

LADY UNLESS YOU WANT TO CATCH THESE HANDS YOU HAD BETTER STEP AWAY FROM MY POOR HURT CHILD AND STOP TOUCHING HER FUCKING FACE

-- oh shit, though!!

[flips open notebook; clicks pen] don’t mind me lady please continue

I mean, I would imagine one of the goals of the program would be to embrace the fact that you’re different. that’s hardly an isolating thing in a society like this one where everyone is so unique that the established word for their superpowers literally means “individuality”

(ETA: on a reread, it actually sounds like the program is intended to do just the opposite of that and the goal is to get everyone to fit in. how the hell they expect to accomplish that in a society where everyone has wacky abilities is beyond me! no wonder the program has issues if this really is the case though.)

but anyways I’m sorry to interrupt, please keep talking about quirk counseling and how it didn’t work for Toga while I sit here and quietly take my notes

you guys oh no she’s too damn cute. I can’t

oh boy

?? and why the hell not, though? sure it might freak some people out that she likes her steaks a little rarer than most, but I don’t see why they couldn’t have accommodated this the same as any other quirk. people donate blood all the time; couldn’t she have gotten a legal supply for her own medical needs? the live animals and such are a bit weird, true, but again, it’s not all that different from what your cat would get up to given half the chance. I feel like they could have found other outlets for her to channel some of that bloodlust, while helping to sate any physical cravings with the aforementioned donated blood supply. if you ask me, whoever counseled her dropped the ball honestly

(ETA: and her parents, too. this makes me want to rewatch the first season of Dexter actually. too bad Toga’s parents weren’t like Dexter’s dad.)

anyway let’s watch society fail poor Toga

well that didn’t take long

see this seriously doesn’t make any sense to me though. IT’S QUIRK SOCIETY, GUYS. NO ONE IS FUCKING NORMAL. WHY CAN’T YOU BE BETTER PARENTS. HOW ABOUT THAT ONE THOUGH

I honestly can’t decide if I’m glad we got more insight into Toga’s headspace, or annoyed that they went and gave her Secret Angst. the problem is I don’t think she needed Secret Angst in order to be a good character, or a likable one. I’m not so sure I really like the implication here that It’s Not Toga’s Fault, Because Society Failed Her. like, I’ve talked about my feelings on this kind of thing before. I prefer It Is Her Fault But She Owns It Though. just because I like when characters take responsibility for their own shit and it’s not just excused or handwaved

but on the other hand, Toga is the type of character who doesn’t need redemption so much as rehabilitation. so it is good to get some kind of an idea as to why she went off the rocker, in that respect. idk. I have mixed feelings, maybe by the time I post this recap I’ll have sorted it out more in my head lol

(ETA: yeah so after reflecting on it some more, it’s more like she was always the way she is, and was just repressing it, and then one day got tired of repressing it. being told she should act one way when she felt like her true self was someone totally different. so it’s not really “society fucked her up” so much as “she was already a little kooky and they just failed to properly address it until it was too late.” so that’s fine, I guess. it’s about what I expected. and hey, at least we got some cute Baby Toga scenes out of the bargain, so.)

anyway now Toga’s making to stab Kizuki and shouting at her to shut up. oh damn

OH DAMN

(ETA: oh you might want to be careful with that Detnerat merch though, lady. seems to be on par with Hammer Tech in terms of reliability.)

DID YOU BLOW UP TOGA’S FUCKING FACE HOLY FUCK

HOLY SHIT SHE REALLY DID

if that’s the case then why are you guys trying to kill her

oh for fuck’s

said sacred text will gloss over exactly how she died though, I suppose? you guys are such fucking hypocrites. you act like you’re the saviors of the world bringing freedom to everyone, but those ideals only seem to hold up so long as they’re convenient. “blah blah blah society is so evil and doesn’t care about people like you. meanwhile we will straight up murder your ass, but never fear, your death will help ensure that no one else has to endure the cruelty of this apathetic world”

like, imagine beating someone with a stick, while screaming at them about how society wants to beat them with a lot more sticks just like this, but not to worry though because their death will make sure no more people get beaten to death with sticks by society. I’m really bad with metaphors you guys, but do you feel me though? just, fuck these guys so hard

I like that Kizuki apparently seems to think Toga is actually dead, though, because honestly. she should be, lol

...or maybe she doesn’t think that, because now she’s asking Toga to correct her if she made any mistakes with her conjectures

and Toga is rolling out of her grasp and ducking off!

GO TOGA!! RUN LIKE THE WIND! I DON’T LIKE HER EITHER! EXACTLY, YOU’RE NOT UNFORTUNATE, THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING. she’s trying to make you out to be some helpless little victim, but it’s like, bitch, she chose to be evil in order to live her best life so go fuck yourself

TOGAAAAAA

THANK YOU!!! FUCK OFF WITH THAT SECRET ANGST BULLSHIT. STOP ACCUSING HER OF FAKING IT LIKE YOU KNOW HER SO DAMN WELL

she says that just as everyone else kisses people that they like, she sucks blood from the people she likes

EYYYYYYYYY

YESSSSSSSSS TOGA THIS IS WHY YOU’RE MY BEST GIRL

oh my god. okay so someone sent me an anon ask early Thursday afternoon (ETA: this was last Thursday April 25; I read the chapter on the 26th) to the effect of “the mystery has been solved; she CAN use quirks”, so I’m getting an inkling that we’re about to see Toga do some zero gravity bullshit and I’m here for it. but unfortunately I’m spoiled for it. please give me time to read the new chapters when they come out, guys. since I’m writing down my reactions, I’m not able to just read the manga on my phone as soon as chapters come out; the whole process takes me a good hour or two usually, and I prefer to read on my computer since the keyboard comes in handy when I’m typing out a novel in response to whatever bullshit is happening lol. so with work and everything, that usually means I don’t get around to it until the late afternoon/evening most of the time

anyways I know I probably sound bitchy but it’s not really a big deal. but I just wanted to bring this up now, because if and when Horikoshi finally reveals Kacchan’s hero name 17 years from now and I get spoiled on that before I read it, that’ll be a different story lol. I will rampage, guys. or more likely I’ll just learn to turn my asks off on Thursdays and Fridays until the chapter is read! anyways!

-- hold up, quick question, can Toga heal herself by transforming into someone else?? it just occurred to me, and I need to know right this instant

so Kizuki is all “I see, you keep a stock of blood!” and I was like “duh” but then I remembered Kizuki didn’t read the Basement arc. so

well that answers that. shoot

-- except hold up, again! because Spoiled Me knows that’s not actually the case! she can use quirks too! so maybe it can heal her. I mean, this lady didn’t even know until one chapter ago that Toga used blood to transform, so I don’t know where she’s getting all this “I’m well aware!” bullshit from. you don’t know shit

so she’s laughing and mocking Toga and saying she probably just wanted to look cute when she dies

...I mean, I was about to get indignant, but in all honestly why did Toga transform into her though?

so basically she transformed into her because she envies her? is that why she listed her on her list of People She Officially Likes?

but her saying that she wants to get closer to the person she loves makes me think she hasn’t given up. if she’s anything like All Might (you know, because everyone is always comparing Toga to All Might), thinking about Izuku is probably helping motivate her to stay alive!

lol, yep

and oh shit I think the thing is happening!!

holy fucking shit, wait up. I was all “so what, she’s going to float her to death?” and then it all of a sudden occurred to me just how fucking deadly Ochako’s power actually is, which I never thought about before because this deadly power was safely in the hands of the sweetest, kindest girl in existence who’s never tried to use it for anything remotely sinister aside from that one time she tried to crush Bakugou with hundreds of rocks

but like, she could float her all the way out into space, if she wanted! but the much more likely option, especially given that this is a series where falling from things actually hurts, is that she could simply float her up and then fucking splatter her on the ground holy shit

aaaaaaand up she goes!

yeah that’s right lady. “only her appearance changes” my ass

holy shit

SHE’S ALREADY SO HIGH, HOLY FUCK THIS IS TERRIFYING SHE REALLY IS GOING TO DROP HER ISN’T SHE

now she’s running around and tagging all the rest of them too!

holy shit!!!! I can’t! my brain’s going like a mile a minute because not only did Toga just get 1000% deadlier, but Ochako did too, retroactively! and just, so much newfound respect and awe for my girls

HOLY SHIT

SHE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW??! you seriously never once realized this this entire time??

quirk counseling has failed her in more ways than one. she could have gone to U.A.! she could have made an amazing hero. honestly she still could aside from the fact that she doesn’t want to. (and also, y’know. the murders. and such)

ahhhh now she’s coughing up blood, so I guess that’s a no on the “can she heal” question then

honestly that makes no sense if it only transforms her on the outside. half of the outside is based off of what’s inside! if you’re changing appearances that should mean your entire body transforms. particularly if she can use quirks! it means her DNA is transforming too

but whatever, for the sake of enjoying the story I’ll just shut up about this now though

anyway so Kizuki is all “it can’t be”, just as thousands of villains have said before her, usually immediately after it was incontrovertibly proven to them that Yes It Can Be Though

she’s asking if Ochako’s quirk got stronger just now because of her fear of death

and Toga is all “nope”

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT

SHE DID FUCKING SPLATTER HER, HOLY SHIT!? HORIKOSHI “LET’S CHOP OFF ALL FIVE OF HIS FINGERS!” KOUHEI STRIKES AGAIN

and fucking lol at Toga thinking she’s just like Izuku because her body is all beaten up and dying. :’D Deku you’re such a terrible role model

and so I guess she’s fully on board with Tomura’s whole “destroy everything” plan now, then. well shit. I wonder how quickly they’ll be able to heal her up. what with her being so absurdly powerful all of a sudden, I wonder if her injuries will have a lasting effect on her ability to use her quirk, similar to what happened to Aizawa after USJ. might be a good idea honestly

lastly, “cute is evil” makes absolutely no sense, but damned if I’m not 100% on board with that slogan. just something about it that I like. or maybe it’s just due to the context here, lol. whatever it is, I’d buy a coffee mug with that printed on it

and here we go. so that’s it for new chapters until May 10th or thereabouts. if only there was something coming out in the interim that could tide my superhero cravings over. like a new Avengers movie or some shit. lol

(ETA: I have to hand it to Endgame, it’s done its job distracting me and then some. I’ve seen it twice now and it’s just as devastating the second time! I’m just about finished working my way through the five stages of grief now though, so we’re good. but now that I’m done wallowing, I need my villain arc to come along and cheer me up again. come on Tomura. do your thing boy.)

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha 226 #toga himiko #uraraka ochako #lol sort of #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #methinks it's time to go back and figure out how many different people's blood toga has collected #the only two I can think of off the top of my head are deku and camie #the latter is probably a non-issue since she only had an infinitesimal amount #and in all likelihood she'd run into the same problem as monoma if she tried to duplicate ofa #camie on the other hand is a whole different can of worms #she could potentially do *so much damage* you guys #and who knows how much blood she has since she had her in captivity for days #this is a potential gamechanger as far as villain plans go #can't wait to see what they get up to after this arc

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larenoz · 5 years ago

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Roswell New Mexico - Live Rewatch - Ep 1 - Pilot

So I don’t really have much in the way of original content on my blog. So I decided it might be fun to post the live blog I’ve been doing on discord of the rewatch our server is doing for Roswell, New Mexico over the hiatus period.

I’ve only posted my comments, so there might be a couple of bits that look out of place. These are my responses to other people’s comments. I’m up to episode 6, so I will post the backlog and then do one a week until the re-watch is complete.

Be warned, there is swearing.

--------------------------------

Sorry, cat decided it wanted a cuddle

I love the glass effect, it's so cool

You may not plan to see the small people again, Liz but we know it's gonna happen!!

Not gonna lie, I love poltics in my TV

You quote that verdict to him, Liz!!

That vent tells us so much about Liz in such a short period of time.

You're finally back says Max.Because he's been waiting for that to happen the whole time.

Excuse me Sheriff, with that good girl comment. Rude!

Arturo, playing along with Liz's mpreg story.

Fuck, I just realised - mpreg is canon!?!

Rosa!!

I want antenna headband

Cream on a milkshake is wrong.

So many people in this show have pretty eyes!!

Nooo.

Damn that's alot of lights to replace

I love that damn bullet hole in Liz's dress. It was the first indication they weren't gonna make everyone dumb as a bag of rocks and drag the storyline out FOR EVER.

Hoverboarding. Iz!!

Hey there Kyle!

Annnd here it comes, I'm in love.

That smug fucking grin. The song.

That look when he's trying to get the keys. That look would make you do just about anything.

That Michael monologue. It just gets better everytime I watch it.

Without a doubt, top 3 best character intros ever.

And we're only 15 mins in! I need to make less comments

I didn't think anyone was reading!! :wink:

"Untie some loose ends" - you go Iz

Oh Max you fucker. Telling Michael he wouldn't do anything for anyone else. Excuse fucking you.

Ok, blasting Max across the room is kinda hot. But then his guilty face! :sob:

And god, that little shoulder touch on Iz one the way out.

Another example of non-verbal storytelling. In one scene we get the fractured relationship between Max and Michael, we get that Iz and Michael are close and that both boys defer/protect Iz. So much with so little. It also sets up the physicality of the broken relationship between Max and Michael.

Others have commented on how Max is physically intimidating with people, and literally pushes Michael around, but to be fair, Michael is pretty much the same with Max (but never really with anyone else that we see on screen though we hear about it.

And then in a few lines, Iz gives us a lifetime of fears and concerns - dissection, prison, lying and hiding to loved ones - the rest of the season in seconds of dialogue

Ah, the ONLY thing that gives me Max feels is how dismissive both Iz and Michael are of Max's feelings about Liz. Especially annoying consider Michael should really fucking know better.

Yeah, because he's been pining for Alex just as long.

Unrequited love hurts just as much. Kiss or no kiss.

That's my take anyway.

Here it comes...

Typing may get bad. Cat is sitting on chest and I can't see keyboard.

Seriously, there is nothing overtly relationshippy or sexual, no pointed stares, but just how soft Michael is, even as he's making the real Manes man comment, you just know these two have a past, and that past was probably intimate.

The casual sex comment though, oh yeah they've fucked. That is such a fuck you comment to an ex.

And again with massive story in few words - Alex knocking his leg. "3/4 of one"

That run and tell Daddy line. The nastiest thing Michael says in the entire season, although we don't know that yet. And it strikes such a dissonant tone, even though we don't know why. I'm gonna put it down to things changing so much between shooting the pilot and the rest of the season.

Just my humble opinion but the shirt changing scene could've lasted longer. Just sayin'

Maths, lots and lots of maths

I love the glass SFX

Rosa!! "All our lives that kids been making eyes at you"

Oh Liz, such a good sister. Fixing up the memorial. And the braclets

Ah, sneaky Liz appears

Oh yeah can he keep a secret

Liz begging Max to tell her she isn't loosing her mind. Fuuuck.

Not cool Michael. Great control, but not cool.

Racist Hank, you douche bag

And Maria introduced as taking no shit from ANYONE.

Iz and her slideshow. I love that line.

Why is Iz so vehement that Michael would be so upset about telling Liz?

Max loosing it and Iz looking quite surprised. Forshadowing

yes, Iz no like about it. He is in love with her.

Ah Iz, Iz, Iz. "Too many secrets, things she can't ever know" you don't know the half of it.

Fall in love with someone else. - If I could have, I would have. Fuck, Max, I feel you on that one.

Jesus, how do all these guys make dark flannel look so hot?

Dance it out. i don't dance in this town anymore, Kyle...

Hot take, I know everyone is mad for Trevino's cheekbones, but honestly, they aren't my thing. But his eyes, gods, his eyes. He has the best eyes on the show. God that make me sound like a freak.

"whatever" with that tiny, tiny almost invisible smirk. Yeah, you think you're all that

He manages that whole distraction use me, use me speech without coming off as a total wanker. And that is pretty amazing.

The station promo/ad on my cable channel has a bit for Roswell - tag line: "Beam me up hotties." Too right.

Scientist Liz!!

Needs answers now.

Fuck you Jesse Manes

I hate you already.

No Kyle, don't do it. But thank fuck he doesn't just start talking,

Yeah, nah Max. That's not how it works. It's not ok if people are nice to you but shitty to everyone else.

Why should Michael like the world? it's been pretty shitty to him!?!

Liz with the serial killer joke, just with the wrong person!!

The pods are sorta cool.

They could've been so chessy.

Now we know why the three of them are so close. And just about the only real bit of exposition on the show.

But will you Liz? Will you keep the promise?

Secret Bunker No 1

"This matters to you, so I'm here". :heart:

Do what Michael, what could you possibly mean?

"Just like you did 10 yrs ago".......

What are you max? Just a guy from Roswell

In Max's favour, when he says he stayed in Roswell, and didn't follow Liz because of Iz and Michael, he doesn't sound resentful, which is sort of what you'd expect here. I like that.And Max going to the reunion for Iz. And Liz tagging along even though she's expecting a bad reception.

"i don't save people all the time. I never save people" But you saved Liz, And why is that Max?

OT re Trevino's eyes. It was that gif set of him laying on his stomach on his bed (?) with his doggo, looking up to the camera. That angle, OMG, his eyes....

And no verbal confirmation, just Liz realising exactly what Max said - that even though he's in a job where he'd be in contact with sick/dying people alot, he's never saved anyone before. Omph

Of course you remember the very first time you met, Max.

Little kid Max is sooo cute.

Ah you big sap, Max.

No kissing. An "Echo" of what he feels for Liz.

Nice choice of words there writers.

We see what you did there.

So far it's taken me 2 hrs to watch 50 mins

Fuck you again Jesse Manes

Swoon Kyle's eyes.

And we have Kyle's first exposure to the fact that the govt knows about aliens and did medical type stuff to them. Does this hover in the back of his mind from now on? is this the reason for the quick reaction to his fathers actions at Caufield.?

No he's fucking not cooking meth. Seriously, Alex, what the fuck?

Sorry Alex, not cool, not cool AT all.

I want to see the outakes of Tyler saying phenyl-2-propanone

Because I'm a bitch like that

Yeah, that so serious up close and personal for straight people....

And there is Alex's nastiest line - You're wasting your life. Gods, that is such a shit thing to say to Michael.

And re outtakes because Tyler would laugh and do that thing where he covers his mouth as he trys to stop himself giggling. That's soooo cute.

But anyway, back to the show...

Oh, he wants to hold something, Michael but it's not your hand...

Macho cowboy swagger.

Did it get old for you.

No it did not get fucking old for him. At all.

Michael walking away with arm around girl. Noting for those who say they didn't realise Michael was bi after watching the pilot. How?

How could you miss it?

You go Maria - dying alone of syphillis to bitch

Maybe Liz does still dance in Roswell!! She just needs a good reason.

And that song begins.

"You can't hide from who you are". Alex's prothesis as he looks at himeself skating in the slide show. Fucking killing us.

And it only gets worse-

I don't thnk that's an unpopular opinon at all. That's totally where I see his headspace. But that does result in him saying some nasty shit to Michael. And it's because we know it's not true that it hurts so much.

Fair warning it may take me half an hour to get through the next 2 mins of show!!

Long shot - "Nostalgia's a bitch"

Fuck, the way Michael looks at Alex as he's leaning against the door. People have started wars to have someone look at them like that. That's Greek epic shit right there.

Then cut shot to Max and Iz looking at Liz.

Alex expecting Michael to be gone from Roswell.

"Is that what you want" as Michael takes a step closer. Not "wanted", but "want".

"What I want doesn't matter" as they both slowly sway towards each other. Bullshit, Alex. What you want is ALL that matters. Fuck everything else.

Michael's eyes flicking up to Alex's face....

And Michael launches himself at Alex like a dying man.

God, how do you even describe that kiss?? Everything about it is just.......

But it's more than just the fire. Its the tenderness of Michael gently craddling Alexs' head even though the kiss is passionate and desperate.

Battery break

And then, back to reality - Iz knows that Max has told Liz.

And then Jess Fucking Manes (I fututus et mori in ignie cunne) (don't look that up it's very bad swearing) talking about being monsters who despise compassion and love. Projecting much.

"Thrive on our tragedy". Die MF Die

Despise Love over a visual of Michael and Alex. Die some more you MF

But you haven't told Liz everything have you Max. There's still some stuff you're hiding.

"When the truth hunts you down"

Yeah, that truth is going to hunt you down and fuck you up Max

My house just wobbled.

No, there isn't a secret that is safe.

And people will be caught in the crossfire - have already.

"What's lost will be found, when the truth hunts you down."

Well doesn't that one line sum up a ton of shit that goes down in the rest of the season.

And fin

3 hrs

That was not what I planned.

#roswell new mexico #Roswell Nm #roswellnm #liveblog

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ettadunham · 5 years ago

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A Buffy rewatch 5x18 Intervention

aka is weird love better than no love???

Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.

And in today’s episode, Spike does something super creepy and surprisingly decent at the same time, which pretty much sums up his whole character. Meanwhile Buffy should go to therapy, and Sarah Michelle Gellar seems to be having the time of her life as BuffyBot.

You know, it’s my fault. I got into a rant about how Tara is the only one who always treated Buffy without judgement and with understanding, and the next episode on my rewatch naturally ended up being Intervention. The one that has the joke of Tara trying to be considerate of Buffy’s situation post-Joyce’s death, and then going “are you kidding, she’s nuts” upon the whole revelation that Buffy was supposedly sleeping with Spike.

(Which kind of has the same energy as Uncle Iroh’s “No, she’s crazy and she needs to go down” from A:TLA if you ask me tbh.)

But you know what, I’m still gonna be doubling down on my Buffy/Tara feelings, because Tara’s not wrong in assuming that it was a weird turn for Buffy to take at this point in her character arc. And a season from now, when Buffy will actually be sleeping with Spike, and judgement will be the last thing she’ll need, Tara will be right there to offer her understanding.

Anyway, that’s it for that segue. Let’s talk Buffy.

It’s all fun and games, with me talking about my own emotional numbness, until Buffy starts repeating those words back at me. There really is a reason why I feel so close to Buffy as a character to this very day - and in many ways, now more so than ever.

I talked about this a lot with Riley’s departure, about how that whole conflict and Buffy’s emotional unavailability wasn’t about Riley (just as Riley’s insecurities weren’t really about Buffy), but I love that we’re exploring this out loud now.

It’s just good storytelling and character building. We understand that Buffy has been closed off for a while now. Going back to the Riley angle, I will say that while it wasn’t Riley’s responsibility to make their relationship work, he certainly didn’t understand Buffy’s struggles at the time. He was too caught up in his issues to realize and internalize that it wasn’t about him.

So yeah, that relationship wasn’t going to work out, but it still weighs on Buffy that she felt unable to open up and take that step to try. It’s not about Riley, or even romantic relationships in general. Buffy fears that she’s unable to express her feelings to all of her loved ones.

She’s even scared that her mother didn’t know how much she loved her. (That’s absolutely not a soul-crushing thought that makes me over-identify with Buffy’s current emotional state on a whole new level. It’s fine. I’m fine.)

Buffy then attributes this process of her “turning into stone” to her being the Slayer. Which... I’d argue isn’t truly the case for her, both in the story and on a metaphorical level. At least not directly. What made Buffy become more guarded was trauma, plain and simple. Being a Slayer is a part of many of her traumas, but in itself, it’s neutral.

At least that’s my interpretation. For the most part. We’ll find out of course in season 7 that the Slayer power actually comes from demons, which re-affirms Dracula’s point earlier in this season about there being “darkness” to Buffy’s power. Then again, as season 7 generally revolves around the theme of power, one might ask if power can even ever be neutral?

We’ll circle back to that in season 7.

The point being is that while there are definitely darker elements attached to being the Slayer, in this case, Buffy misses a nuance by singling out Slayerhood as the root cause of her emotional detachment. Sure, being a Slayer who kills things doesn’t help ones mental health - but that’s also because it’s a traumatizing experience.

You need therapy, Buffy.

Which I guess is kind of what this Slayer quest thing works as. Kind of. When the First Slayer starts talking about how Buffy’s full of love, and how she just had some painful experiences that now stops her from opening up, and how she’ll needs to embrace all of that, pain and all... That was nice. It was a nice validation for Buffy about her feelings.

But then it was all “love will lead you to your gift” and “death is your gift” and “our time’s up, your questions were answered, now scram”, so that was some overall shitty therapy session if we’re being honest here.

And then there’s Spike.

I have no idea what to do with Spike.

The whole Buffybot thing is super gross, and just thinking about how Warren programmed and probably tested all of that... Yikes, yikes, yikes.

Is it funny and well-written? Yes, it is, I’m not even gonna lie. But it’s also just super gross.

By far the most interesting scene that happens because of this whole scenario is that last one between Buffy and Spike. I like how it’s set up in the script too. I mean, well, “like” may not be the right word, as part of that is Xander making this whole argument about “poor Spike, he’s got beat up and his toy is gone, boo-hoo”... But I like that that’s the red herring to the audience to make us believe that they actually fixed up Buffybot and sent her back to Spike.

As opposed to what actually happens with Buffy pretending to be Buffybot to try and find out what Spike told Glory. Which is also set up by the same scene between the Scoobies.

Watching that scene, knowing that it’s Buffy is a very different experience. You start noticing the thoughtful looks Buffy’s giving to Spike, and the ways she’s manipulating the conversation to make sure that she gets an honest response out of him. It’s intriguing, to say the least.

In an episode that’s filled with Spike at its worst, this one scene is somehow enough to bring me back to that porch scene between the two. As Buffy puts it, what Spike’s done for her and Dawn in this episode, and his words to who he thought was Buffybot about his devotion to Buffy were real. And Buffy accepts that.

The kiss itself gives me a pause though. It feels too much like Spike is being rewarded for being a decent person for once, not ratting out a 14-year-old girl to a demon god. Especially since at this point, it doesn’t feel like something Buffy would initiate or want on her own.

Then again, it’s also a reveal. It’s how Buffy lets Spike know that he was being played, and that he’s not gonna get his sex robot back. But she won’t forget what he’s done for her and Dawn regardless.

And I think that once again, as with the porch scene, we can see that there’s a connection of honesty and understanding between Spike and Buffy’s characters that goes both ways. So maybe there’s a way to look at that kiss as not just a reward, and not as a confirmation of Buffy’s own feelings for Spike at this point... but as a sign of that connection.

Meanwhile Dawn’s kleptomania is becoming a problem. Giles is cooking dinner for Buffy and Dawn, and no one’s appreciating Tara’s protection spells. As is the case with many episodes of this season, there’s a lot of fun stuff going on with the entire gang and their dynamics, which I greatly enjoy.

Next episode is gonna be a bit of a tough one, especially since I plan to touch upon some super non-controversial fandom topics like Willow’s sexuality. Should I open up that can of worms? Probably not. But will I? Most likely.

Almost certainly.

#buffy rewatch 2k19 #btvs talk #btvs

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athyrabunlord · 6 years ago

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Thoughts and Notes about ep1-5

This is a continuation of this post here, and some extras too. It’s less casual and more organized this time.

I now have rewatched ep1-3, and then watched ep4-5 which I was strongly recommended to do because those will answer some of my questions.

Tl:dr version - ep4-5 did nothing to endear the MC duo (if anything, it did the opposite), but provided interesting insights on other characters and thus are worth the watch

The (once again very long) version:

As said above, I have now watched ep4-5 as per recommendation because I’m told that I missed a lot from skipping ep4-5, that reading summaries wasn’t enough because that messes up the narrative. Fair enough, I agree with that and therefore decided to watch for myself.

Before that though, I rewatched ep1-3 just to see what else I could have missed. I must say that it was very interesting in this rewatch now that we know more about Nana and Hikari. Many of Nana’s lines in these earlier episodes are indeed foreshadowing. Her friggin’ first line is a foreshadowing.

One thing to add here that I missed mentioning in my previous post is that, yes it’s strongly implied that Karen have not participated in the loops’ Revues/that ep1 is the first time she participated.

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Notes about Ep1:

The narration of the play Starlight, of little Karen and Hikari and when they made their promise; the play’s cast was the girls in their Revue outfits with Hikari on the very top

Maya pointing out that she couldn’t see Hikari’s heart, which both Kuro and Nana expressed their surprise’; since the scene switched to the stairway, we don’t know what Nana’s expression is then - surprise about that insight on Hikari, the rogue factor, or surprise about Maya able to sense that? Ep7 did reveal a lot, but not all yet

I knew Kirin’s eyes were green but now that I’m staring at them, I think they’re the same/close to the shade of Nana’s green

Hikari would’ve lost to Junna if Karen hadn’t intervened, and then Junna lost due to the element of surprise.

Revue of of Passion - with help of ep8, it’s obvious now why Hikari would’ve lost, she no longer had her passion after all

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Notes about Ep2:

Just as Kirin warned, both Hikari and Junna reminded Karen not to speak of Revue in public (the first rule of Fight Club is, you do not… cough); Mahiru’s reaction was confusion, Nana’s was surprise, implying this could be the first she finds out of Karen participating the Revue

Maya and Claudine, pls go a get a room X”DDDDD the chemistry between these two good lord

Hikari noting that Karen doesn’t have enough shine, that’s why she wasn’t chosen in the first place; Karen countered that what Junna said made her heart doki/making her want to understand and try harder (on top of the fact Hikari’s back with her here)

Nowhere was it stated that ep1’s 3-way match didn’t count or does count; however, the fact ep2 is “Day 2 Audition” implies there is some sort of impact

Junna said the moment she became Stage Girl was when she was 8; interesting note is that it’s implied she watched a play of Starlight or similar, but the cast was shown as mannequins in contrast to ep1

Revue of Desire- Junna wants to be a star; she wants to shine and step out from the shadows, to surpass Maya and Kuro and thus she tried and tried so hard just to keep up; in my rewatch here, I note that Karen didn’t even talk-no-jutsu… she just said she wants to become stars with Hikari, and the next moment landed that decisive blow

After that, Kirin remarked he now knows why Karen wasn’t originally chosen, implying Hikari and Karen’s fate are shared

Maya defeated Kuro but neither’s stories are shown enough at this point to judge whose desire is stronger

Summary: still cannot accept Junna’s loss. If Junna doesn’t have as much talent as the top girls, she at least has passion and work ethics and desire to win which Karen lacks at this point; even if I take a step back and say Karen’s desire is stronger than Junna’s… so, having a goal to due to a childhood promise is more favorable/stronger in the Revue than a desire to reach the star through hardwork? Hmm. I’ll just say Junna lost because she was overthinking and, quoting her, the simple-minded ones are stronger lol

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Notes about Ep3

Nana seems (pleasantly) surprised when Junna and Karen seem so close; could be due the fact this rerun truly is different

I really must mention I like the start of Claudine and Futaba’s growing bond/dynamic

Kaoruko talking to Mahiru about how Hikari’s presence brought all the changes; it could’ve been just an off-handed comment, or does Kaoruko know more than she seems? (even though ep5 appeared to be her first entrance to Revue and her centric ep6 didn’t confirm that)

Still irked by what Karen told Hikari - “I’ll be back after I win!”; I’ll just put it as her being idealistic and believes that her dream is enough fuel to lead her to victory, especially after the match against Junna

Seriously, Kuro and Maya, I have a room all prepared, go for it, let it all out gah pls just go at it

Revue of Pride - Maya expressing surprise that Karen is even in this Revue; meaning she has never considered Karen as a possible rival, or she thought Karen didn’t have a goal/reason to be top star; she asked Karen just what had she offered in exchange, to reach for the star? Indeed, what had Karen offered?

Kuro vs Futaba, and flashes of the other girls in their Revue outfits (but only Nana’s katanas were shown); was this implying that there have been other matches by this Day 3 of Audition already? If anyone has a chart of who’s fought who already on which days, that’d be great (I’ve seen some on twitter but can’t find them anymore).

Allow me a moment to gush over Maya’s part in the duet of ep3 again. Those lyrics are just so damn good lol. And also goddamit that beautiful animation

Instead of herself, Maya mostly talked about Kuro; I’ve already talked about this in my previous post but yeah, I love them. This is KuroMaya

Interestingly, after her victory, Maya said “the passion with her (Kuro) is…”, trailed off; well, I guess we’ll wait for a Kuro-centric ep to find out more

Hikari trying to intervene but couldn’t; implying Kirin really did sneakily allow Karen to crash the audition in ep1, or Karen has some sort of power that allowed her to sneak in without Kirin’s notice

Conclusion: while Maya is indeed more superior in skills than Karen, this being Revue of Pride implies that due to Maya’s pride/confidence in her skills and acknowledging what’s at stake, she defeated Karen

============================================

Anyway, finally here we are, ep4-5. I took into consideration all the points that those arguments have made against my post and what I should look out for:

explanation/evidence in Karen being so powerful (ie. improving enough to defeat Claudine)

The impact of Karen losing to Maya has on the plot/character development

The resolution of the Mahiru-Karen relationship (as well as, the Mahiru-Karen-Hikari situation)

The Karen-Hikari bond being a strong enough fuel for the viewer to relate to and root for them

Summary/Notes about ep4

Once again we’re shown that little Karen and Hikari’s promise was made after they’ve seen the play Starlight; however this time, while played by the girls, they’re in the actual play’s outfits and the two as the lead; for the first time, we’re shown exactly what happened after the two leads reached the top; Karen was… affected by the red light (interestingly, her own jewel color), and then the scene continued to the next line of how ‘their dreams could never be’

Bana-nice; Nana seems happy at the new term, perhaps because that’s never happened in any of the reruns before

Sigh, really, making a ruckus in the morning, disturbing most of your dorm mates’ rest, and ditching your hallway cleaning duties, that’s just rude and disrespectful; Karen did apologize and promise to be back soon (which she didn’t)

Kaoruko talks to Futaba about the Revue audition, foreshadowing ep6

Hikari reminding/making sure Karen remembers their promise, and the two chatting about various things, while walking around the city dragging her suitcase and making Karen chase after her for the whole day; I’ll… just leave it as because Hikari haven’t been back to Japan for 12 yrs and thus want to do a bit of tour around; also, Karen mentioning she felt that she and Maya were on totally different stage

Important Note: we’re shown yet again that Kuro was practicing, as per all previous episodes; that’s 4 eps in a row; why specifically keep showing her practicing, out of the other girls? I’m really excited for her centric ep

Also seriously MayaKuro please, I beg of you, do something about your sexual tension *writhes* a claymore couldn’t cut it in half X”DDDDDD

Ahem. Kuro asking Maya why she’s in the Revue, and Maya replying she’s jealous at the very thought of someone else being the Top Star; implying she wanted to win to keep their status quo of her being no.1 and therefore, her partner/no.2 will remain Kuro

Hikari trying to warn Karen of the stakes, of what it means to lose at Revue; Karen just assuring Hikari she won’t lose again because she wants to shine, that she’ll be so brilliant and intense that she won’t lose to everyone;

Hikari reminding Karen there could only be one winner; Karen refuted that Kirin never said that - rather, the winner could be whoever presents the most dazzling revue; Hikari is in disbelief since there’s no way they’d get special treatment like that; Karen assures Hikari it’ll be okay (At this point, I think that’s exactly what will happen lol)

Once again, Nana looks very happy about ‘bana-nice’ and that this is the first time they made up alibi to get past roll coll for the absent duo

It was never shown that Karen or Hikari contacted the girls that they won’t be back; sure they ran out of money but, surely their phone still have battery? If not, that’s utterly irresponsible of them to just get out like that and expect things to work out

The rest of the girls are such amazing friends; Karen thanked Junna for doing her cleaning duties; in spite of the dorm head finding out and Junna freaking out about the hardcore training as punishment, the bottom line for Junna is that she’s glad Karen and Hikari are safe; the rest of the girls welcome them back

Conclusion, if you really ship KarenxHikari, you’ll probably enjoy it. If not, well, you’ll enjoy all the other moments and appreciate the other girls.

===========================================================

Summary/Notes about Ep5:

For Mahiru, Karen has always been a source of light, absolutely brilliant; however, so are the others in this prestigious Academy; Mahiru thought everyone but herself is radiant; it’s implied that she’s been struggling with this inferiority complex for a long time

Once again, Nana seems pleased at Karen’s change; however, her gaze was cloudy and displeased when the GroupB girls suggested Hikaren as the leads, that she should move forward and strive for improvement; def foreshadowing of ep7

Mahiru had such trouble waking up Karen in the morning, shown in previous episodes; now, Karen woke up early to train with Hikari, now that she’s made a promise to Hikari that she won’t lose again and will catch up to Maya. Good for her to finally be motivated, but coming from Mahiru’s POV, that’s painful. The unspoken question of “I’m not good enough to motivate you?” lingers in the air

We learn about Mahiru’s background; that she came from a large family, who owns a farm, and it had a been a huge deal for her to get accepted into the Academy, enough to get interviewed

After a bit of… stalkerish behavior from Mahiru (which I suppose is meant to be presented as comical but I just cringe) in which Hikari is always present and thus stopped Mahiru from really doing anything, Mahiru finally snaps, telling Hikari not to steal her brilliance which is Karen; Hikari is irked by the casual use of the word ‘steal’ (which is explained later in ep8)

Mahiru receives the mail about the Revue, marking this as her first fight

Revue of Jealousy - in a way, this makes sense why it’s only now that Mahiru qualifies to participate in Revue; on a side note, I really, really dig the song…

The whole thing is presented as comical in an almost psychotic, creepy way; of course, Mahiru’s completely snapped; she’s scared of losing her place, of losing her shine; she’s the one who had always been by Karen’s side but now…

Mahiru’s. Weapon. Is. Badass.

Also, a note, you -can- intervene in other Revues somehow; if Mahiru or Karen wanted, they could have started fighting Maya and Futaba; Kaoruko and Junna; Hikari and Kuro then and there

Anyway, it’s very painful to watch Mahiru chasing after Karen. “I just want to be useful again.” “Do you not need me anymore?”

After Mahiru’s self-deprecating rant, Karen counters that Mahiru has her own shine and lists all the qualities she likes about Mahiru, making her recall the joy of being accepted to this Academy and so on

And then, Karen won. If going by my above points, this is Revue of Jealousy so in that aspect, Mahiru definitely should have won. If not, still I don’t see how Mahiru so easily lost. As mentioned in my previous post, where is the supposed damage from being repeatedly thwonked by that mace/scepter? Karen did a ‘homerun’ to win but, urgh, she won because she made Mahiru recall her own shine??

Afterwards, we’re shown Mahiru acknowledging her own shine, which has always been there since middle school, and that she won’t rely on anyone anymore.

Conclusion: I tried to remain as neutral as I could but now I’m sitting here, tasting bitterness and just overall horrible for Mahiru. Those summaries I read before were nice and sugarcoating in comparison now that I’ve watched the real thing. If the ep’s intention is to make viewers feel horrible for Mahiru, then in that aspect it’s a successful delivery. If the ep’s intention is for the viewer to accept Karen and root for her… My opinion of her went from neutral to you’re such a horrible friend who doesn’t deserve Mahiru at all. I want to like you Karen, I really do because you’re the MC, but I really can’t, not after ep5.

I feel like full extent of Mahiru’s despair was just dismissed. Her issues, not just the jealousy of Karen being ‘taken away’ from her side, felt really downplayed. Sure, Karen did give her hope and the other others’ acknowledgement at the end, the warm and family-like atmosphere soothe her, but the scale is just too much to justify that change. You do not just overcome years of feeling inferior over one supposedly inspirational speech. Ep 5 isn’t just horrible on the Karen-Mahiru relationship now, it’s a slap in the face to the character of Mahiru. I’m… appalled. Really, put yourself in Mahiru’s shoes.

Now, going back to the four points I listed before writing about ep4-5, none of them are answered/resolved. Karen trains yes, but Kuro has been training for so much longer and she was better than Karen to start with. Karen losing to Maya made her want to start training harder and her plan to defeat Maya is to become more radiant. Um, ok. The other two points I already said above.

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And so, I’ve come to a final conclusion that:

You either adore Revue Starlight in spite of its faults (or for some people, blind to the faults), and/or ship Karen x Hikari and/or considers Karen a good MC;

or;

You’re still watching Revue Starlight by ignoring its faults because you like the other characters/ships/elements too much, and/or really don’t care for Karen x Hikari and/or find Karen lacking as MC.

If you’re watching the series and don’t belong to the two groups I mentioned above, please, please comment on this and shed some light as the middle(?) ground since it’d be nice to see a completely different perspective.

#athyra rambles #personal #shoujo kageki revue starlight #good lord it's 3AM #I think I cared too much #but I'm glad to have done this at the same time #all my hope for redemption is resting on Kuro's episode #and the actual resolution of Nana's subplot #for now lemme just hug Mahiru

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wlwkiryuu · 7 years ago

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nanami is a closeted lesbian

this was a theory of mine i used to have just minor evidence for, but after i tried to search up that evidence to compile i realized i actually have a LOT more than i bargained for! so heres ALL the evidence i have so far under the cut :’)

(also please note that i am adding my own personal experiences as a lesbian to this to derive this headcanon, so as they say: your mileage may vary! this is just for fun although i certainly wouldn’t put it past ikuhara + the producers of the show to hint that nanami isn’t straight.)

OK first off nanami seems to have a crush on miki waaayyy back in the sunlit garden prelude, when he's first introduced. but then she gets jealous when it turns out he’s too busy crushing on anthy.

she then decides to do everything she can in that one episode (snails. garter snake. octopus. you know the one) to get anthy out of the picture,

but then eventually it turns into her getting obsessed with utena and anthy themselves rather than getting them out of the way between her and miki.

compare nanami trying to humiliate anthy in front of miki vs her trying to ardently spy on utena and anthy to the point where she knows their schedules in order to sneak that curry into their class. it’s because of her own personal vendetta against them at this point. and THEN compare THAT to nanami trying to warn utena about akio in season 3 near the series finale even though there was literally nothing that required her to do that.

what's even more interesting is that nanami’s repeatedly been said to be one who never gets her own hands dirty when she’s up to no good; and yet in regards to utena and anthy?

she’s DEFINITELY more than willing to get her hands dirty. these two are just that special enough for her to be worthy of her attention.

(and even after touga is out of the picture—that is, once he’s basically revealed himself as the manipulative asshole that he was towards his sister all along—utena’s still deemed worthy of attention by nanami, who goes so far as to warn her about akio, which is...hmm! interesting!)

and what's even more worth mentioning on top of this is that whenever nanami humiliates someone? she usually succeeds in it! a prime example would be keiko in her black rose episode. even at the end, she just comes crawling back to nanami. but utena and anthy...they really end up testing nanami to the bone. and of course, that’s what makes their dynamics with nanami so interesting!

but more on that later. the main point here is that this is one of the first (if not the first) times nanami’s bullying has ended up hurting her rather than her victims. and it consequently opens up nanami’s eyes. she begins to regard these girls in a whole other way, on her own footing. which is kind of a major step in her making tensions with her brother reach a peak, until the season 3 arc comes crashing down on her. this makes her eventually realize she will never be able to see touga in/be with touga in the same way ever again, causing her to resolve to cut ties with one of the only men she has a eminent relationship with.

buuut back to the miki episode. notice nanami’s word choice when she praises miki! pride of the school. almost like she's inclined to like/settle for miki because of this, because she considers herself a pride of the school as well. she focuses more on his status and supposed superiority than anything; that’s the kind of thing nanami’s after/the kind of status she thinks makes her better than others as well. and you know who else she/the rest of the student body considers a pride of the school...?

yep! this asshole! and obviously she can't fulfill being loved that way with her brother bc a) she’s explicitly screamed and shoved him away when he tried to make an advance on her because she knows that kind of relationship is not right and b) her devotion to him to the point where she completely ignores other guys is a product of her idealization of men + compulsory heterosexuality.

(for clarification: touga is saying the top half after nanami pushes him away when he tries to advance on her, and nanami is saying the bottom half).

and here we have obvious proof that nanami does NOT want him as a partner and NEVER wanted him like that all along. so what am i trying to get at here? that she KNOWS touga kiryuu is unattainable. a significant aspect of compulsory heterosexuality is getting crushes on/idolizing guys who are idealized/unattainable. you can't get the guy anyways, so it's both “proof” that you're straight, and no one can say you never acted on that “crush” because getting that guy is impossible anyways.

this matches the theme in revolutionary girl utena surrounding the generalization/idealization of men by women forced into compulsory hetereosexuality perfectly (i mean miki’s literally called a “prince” because he has all these “ideal” noble qualities: rich, kind, good-looking, honest, talented, good grades/prodigy) and honestly provides a great parallel to utena and her “prince” (i say “prince” and not simply akio because touga toys with this idea as well in order to make utena lose her duel with him in episode 11!)

you know that scene where anthy’s wearing the dress nanami gave her and she watches it get wet and tear away at anthy’s clothes? you know, the classic introductory oh shit, nanami’s actually a huge asshole moment?

yeah, so upon rewatching that scene i realized the entire scene PLUS the part where utena rescues anthy and starts dancing with her is cut in between in various places by nanami’s commentary:

so its safe to say this whole scene is from nanami’s point of view.

...yeah. NANAMI’S point of view. and its ALSO worth mentioning that this is the first time nanami’s ever seen or heard of utena at all. thus begins our closeted disaster femme icon’s first taste of lesbianism.

oh and of course, the iconic scene from nanami’s egg where this happens.

ok WOW lots of good stuff here. yes, on the surface level, of course, the specific moment in context is where nanami confuses preferring to have a girl as a child to preferring girls romantically. but then again, it’s not like nanami actually laid an egg. revolutionary girl utena’s metaphor soup! there’s more to things than just face value.

what i’ve seen as the most universally accepted interpretation of this episode is that it’s about puberty, and specifically, the taboos involving menstruation. and of course, this completely makes sense! egg motif? check. tsuwabuki literally mentioning that nanami has to attend a health class? check. the episode starting out with a dream where nanami is a child, then paralleled throughout the rest of the episode with current, teenager nanami? check. touga talking about “eggs” disparagingly? check. the episode is about puberty, maturation of feelings, and adolescence, meaning that discussing sexuality is really not too far of a stretch in an episode that pretty much covers puberty in general! it totally matches the whole “coming of age” theme in both this episode AND the series (albeit it’s done in more serious undertones in the non-nanami bits of the show).

and you know what’s even more interesting? when touga hints that nanami liking girls is wrong, she doesn’t immediately jump to the fact that she likes guys as her defense. rather, she jumps to her specifically loving touga as her defense. and as i pointed out earlier, she knows she doesn’t want touga romantically. miki whom?

not to mention this gem:

...yeah. nanami’s first time seeing the “eggs” in question being put to use is by guys, and she’s visibly disgusted/horrified by it. not subtle at ALL, ikuhara.

and what’s MORE that i realized just from this one iconic episode? the alien motif.

ah, nanami’s incredibly absurd imagine spots. gotta love those! and they all fit a particular theme: alienation. and it’s honestly really odd to think about how nanami has this constant fear of alienation throughout this episode (and arguably throughout the series); she’s rich, popular, and consequently has the whole student body in the palm of her hand. and yet she STILL believes she’s not normal. really kind of parallels being closeted/”hiding something,” doesn’t it? and it’s cleverly referred to again upon nanami’s big arc in season 3, when her entire world comes crashing down as she believes her and touga aren’t actually siblings.

(the scene in question is right when keiko slaps nanami because she tells touga that “he shouldn’t go out with a girl like her [keiko].”)

ostracism/fear of ostracism seems to be a popular theme for nanami throughout the series.

so in this episode, nanami soon transitions from imagining being alienated to being behind her peers instead.

it’s constantly established that nanami only has eyes for her brother; the “only one she loves” is him. she’s never shown interest for any other guy, which is paralleled especially well in keiko’s black rose episode; nanami’s vicious attitude towards keiko manifests because keiko turns out to have eyes for the only one nanami has eyes for.

keiko’s the one acting “normally”; nanami’s the one seen as overtly possessive.

and, of course, knowing the nature of nanami’s character, her idolization of her brother is painted to such absurd extremes that she essentially shows she absolutely refuses to find another relationship. she’s in a “fairy-tale world”; she refuses to grow up, which even her brother admits at times.

another common aspect among closeted lesbians is the feeling that we’re “late bloomers” for failing to find any sort of interest in men. and so, thus, the line mentioned earlier that describes nanami’s fear, “being late compared to most people,” could very easily fit into this context.

and regarding tsuwabuki? yeah, this just sums it up perfectly.

miki’s so brutal in this episode, i love him. brutal but accurate!

and then, of course, we get that sweet, sweet confirmation again:

immediately followed by miki spitting out the truth yet again.

oh and interestingly enough, even with tsuwabuki, where she blatantly treats him like her personal servant, she still doesn’t want to let him go; particularly, she doesn’t want to let him go to other girls.

even with a (give or take) 10/11 year old child, nanami refuses to acknowledge him interacting with another girl. simply because he’s a guy.

an extremely common and integral part of nanami’s character is her constant desire for acceptance (lots of episodes showcase this! namely nanami’s egg and cowbell of happiness). she’s a “late bloomer” who shows no romantic desire for men whatsoever; therefore, she fulfills this criteria for “normalcy” by having literally every other relationship with guys except for romantic, as shown with touga, tsuwabuki, and even saionji and miki to some extent. but for the most part —it’s shown with touga and tsuwabuki, simply because they’re the most obvious examples of non-romantic relationships: siblings and a literal elementary schooler. it’s kind of funny, almost; it’s like nanami thinks “having relationships with guys” is just one of many things she’s obligated to cross off on her checklist for societal acceptance, and literally goes in the most roundabout way to achieve it without realizing what it even means (i.e., romantic relationships with a guy, not just a relationship in general), and completely failing.

and all of this leads me, of course, to the final aspect to analyze: nanami’s relationship with utena.

yeah, it’s pretty safe to say they don’t get along on the best of terms at first. nanami even tried to kill utena during their first duel!

so it’s incredibly interesting to see their relationship evolve after the events of that skirmish.

regarding their first duel in particular, the duel lyrics have a LOT in them to unpack.

My eternal self The eternal stranger Two relations Two births Scales of mystery Human constellation

“my eternal self” versus “the eternal stranger” brings up some interesting parallels. touga seems to be the eternal stranger, with whom nanami believes she is closer to than anyone else, and yet she seems completely unable to figure out his inner workings and who he really is as a person. no matter what she’d like to or not like to admit, touga is and always has been a complete mystery to her. this “human constellation” can thus never be truly connected. but you know who else is a mystery to nanami?

yep! the boy-girl of ohtori herself. you have to consider this isn’t only a duel provoked by touga; it’s a duel with utena. a duel between nanami and utena. their relationship is bound to be mentioned in the song as well. which is exactly why i believe nanami says this right after utena technically “wins” the duel by slicing nanami’s rose off.

nanami’s essentially setting herself up for a long, long rivalry spanning the rest of the series with those five words. it seems like nanami’s more interested in seeing what makes utena tick than her own brother, whom she claims to be the “only one she loves.” simply challenging utena isn’t enough; she has to understand her in order to defeat her. and this ideology is called back to later in nanami’s second duel with utena!

nanami ends up giving one hell of a fight the second time around. despite only fighting her once prior, she ends up knowing all of utena’s moves beforehand and dodging them. that’s how well she knows utena’s fighting techniques.

now lets look at the nature of the duel itself. what exactly makes nanami want to challenge utena a second time?

individuality! distinction! that’s what nanami wants. she dreads the thought of being “one more fly in the swarm.” now that she’s discovered her relationship with touga’s been lying on top of a foundation of lies the whole time, her world comes crashing down. she doesn’t want to adore her brother anymore. she wants to surpass him, and so, essentially, escape her problems. and so, in a sort of roundabout way since utena was the reason behind nanami’s meddling and tensions with her brother, she believes defeating utena will be the key to defeating all of her problems.

and, spoiler alert: it isn’t. the fact that nanami isn’t able to win this duel is especially important. even after she’s able to jump the hurdle of her brother, she fails to jump the hurdle of utena. she wants to “surpass everything,” that is, leave the old her behind. and at first it seems like she’s succeeding to leave everything behind...except for utena.

touga serves as the last link nanami has towards any sort of affection towards a guy. and in this duel, she straight up BREAKS it by admitting there was nothing between them at all.

and THEN utena asks if nanami feels better. even though she, like...literally just lost the duel. given utena’s character it’s probably just her naivete showing through, but given the underlying messages this series is ridden with, it probably refers to how nanami “defeating” touga was FAR more important than her actually defeating utena—that is, she never needed to defeat utena in the first place to feel better.

so, what we get from this is: a) nanami succeeds in breaking her bond towards touga, but b) fails to break that bond with utena.

🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

and of course the lyrics here in this dueling song as well:

You, me, our nature Our nature, our nature Free will and existence

who’s it about? the nature of the kiryuu siblings? the nature of nanami and utena as they act as foils? the ambiguity of the song is what really makes it interesting. not to mention—free will and existence. nanami wants out of this oppressive system. and she believes utena is the key to it (and, well, she’s not wrong!). take of that what you will symbolically, metaphorically, ikuharaesquely, etc.

and that free will and existence line just leads me to believe that nanami’s a foil to anthy in regards to utena, since free will and existence is essentially what utena fights for anthy to achieve in the end, and what anthy desperately desires: autonomy. and, so, given that these two are foils in regards to utena...well, we all know what anthy is in regards to utena.

...yeah. exactly. imagery/parallelism they didn’t absolutely HAVE to do, but did regardless.

and, so, by the end, even nanami’s seemed to have caught that inescapable sense of fondness for utena. she comes entirely out of good will on her own accord to warn utena of akio, and doesn’t even consider giving up when utena brushes her advice aside.

she’s insistent on drilling into utena’s head that she should get out of that house—even though doing so wouldn’t benefit nanami at all. utena promptly points out how uncharacteristic of nanami this is:

to which nanami immediately snaps back with:

nanami’s essentially admitting that utena’s the one who’s permanently altered her character and made her much less of a selfish brat (although she still has a loooonnggg way to go, obviously) than she was prior to the series canon. utena’s the cause for everything, direct or indirect: clashing with touga, getting over her brief crush on miki, developing a sense of empathy while transitioning from a desire for social acceptance to a desire for social independence...it’s all been catalyzed by utena at some point.

so, in brief?

utena revolutionized nanami’s world (see, i can’t even look at that sentence without thinking about how gay it sounds).

OKAY, so first off: thank you so so much for reading this far! i want to get into my last point of contention now, which is a super subtle conversation between utena and nanami near the end of the series but speaks VOLUMES, but before i do, i just wanna show two marginally interesting screencaps that fit this theory suspiciously well because i really want to save the best part for last.

exhibit a:

nanami + physical contact’s only ever been shown in regards to her brother. and yet the second utena comes into the mix...well, despite how trivial this scene is, the reaction is pretty satisfying.

exhibit b: nanami’s reaction to juri in the video game.

just tattoo i love women onto your forehead next time, nanami.

now on to what is possibly my favorite exchange in the entire series—that’s how much i love the underlying subtleties in this scene. utena brings up having “blood type-B” when talking to nanami in said scene. why? because just a few episodes earlier...

nanami finds out touga’s blood type never correlated genetically with her family’s.

which, later on in the episode, she ends up telling utena (and the fact that at this point she’s trusting utena enough to even marginally tell her what this whole mess is about is gratifying in itself).

so basically, the importance of this conversation?

(for clarification: utena’s saying the first half, and nanami’s saying the dialogue on the bottom-most screencap).

it shows the COMPLETE 180 nanami and utena’s relationship has gone through. misunderstandings and petty arguments and hostilities into something that’s blossomed through adversity to a relationship of mutual understanding. and, it feels like, for the first time in either of their lives, they’re actually in the loop on something, rather than being hopelessly confused in a maze of the bells and whistles of student council, the mystery behind the eternity duelists seek at the arena, the end of the world, the complete enigma that is touga kiryuu, and can finally just interact in this sort of liberating way that shows both of them at their best with one another.

and what i love about this is that nanami doesn’t get mad at utena. she doesn’t snap about how she spoke too soon about the whole incident. it’s questionable if she even cares about the whole incident now, considering the ties she broke off with touga at the climax of her second duel. rather, she knows what utena’s jokingly pointing at, and the two are in a mutual understanding of how much they’ve been through together in the hellscape that is ohtori academy.

but, the BEST part of this entire exchange? the part that shows probably the first time nanami’s ever gotten actual happiness from someone, something that shows that she’s finally past the superficial happiness from her unwitting adoration of touga that’s essentially been crumbled to dust by the end of her character arc, allowing her to finally set aside pleasing others and end up potentially discovering herself, far from when she first met utena?

nanami’s final reaction to her.

#revolutionary girl utena #nanami kiryuu #utena #rgu #let nanami...........have a gf..........2k17 to forever...........#meta #my meta

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calliecat93 · 7 years ago

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RWBY V5, CH14 Finale Review: Haven’s Fate

Well my friends, this is it. It’s been one Hell of a volume. It’s had it’s highs, its had it’s lows. But we’ve gotten through them all and once again, we are at the end of the season. To recap, Raven has thrashed Cinder, opened the vault, and is now faced with Yang. Who will leave with the Relic? Will our heroes fall all over again? Or will triumph be ours? For the final time this volume, lets find out.

Overview

The White Fang have been defeated thanks to a combination of Ilia, the Menagerie forces, and the Mistral police. Adam has risen back up, but Blake is already facing him. Once more, he tries to scare her. He mocks her on how she still couldn't face him alone, but this time our favorite catgirl is having none of it. She even outright tells Adam that she is not there for him, which noticeably ticks him off. But he still tries to talk her down, mentioning his new powerful ‘friends’. You know,t he same one who literally told him this recent development was his problem, haha. Thankfully, Sun joins in and points out to him that for all his talk, no one is standing for him. Indeed, the WF has been rounded up, none of Salem’s cult is beside him, and Adam is standing alone.

To rub salt in Adam’s wounds, Blake tells him that he can say what he wants to make her feel bad. But ultimately, she has better things to be worried about. Like I said in the last review, Adam has lost the power that he has over Blake. Is she still scared? Yes. But she isn't running away. She is facing Adam down and no longer gives a shit about him or what he tries to do for her. Her priority is Haven and her friends, not him. To Adam, hearing that Blake sees him as a mere roadblock causes him to finally attack. But Blake and Sun's combined efforts force him to run. Sun tries to go after him, but Blake stops him as all they’ll be doing is walking into a trap and allowing Adam to pick them off. Plus, now he can experience what it’s like to run. Farewell Adam, it’s not the end of you, but i will take the satisfaction of seeing you squirm for now.

With things under control, Sun reminds Blake of her team needing her. So Blake heads back for the school , and good thing too. Even after being impaled by Weiss’ summon, Hazel is still going strong with Nora even noting how fast he’s regenerating his Aura. That is some massive will power, man. Everyone is getting exhausted, and things don’t get better when Hazel manages to break Weiss’ summon. Thankfully, Blake lands a blow on him and joins Ruby and Weiss. She’s alarmed by Weiss’ injury, but there’s no time to worry. Ruby shoots Leo’s weapon before he can fire it, provoking the headmaster to run for it. That leaves only RWB against Mercury, Emerald, and a still raging Hazel. With Ruby leading the charge, the three girls face them off... but sadly we won’t get to see it. Which is my only criticism of this chapter, but... it’s pretty minor because of what happens next.

In the vault, Raven tries to talk Yang into leaving. But Yang is having none of it, figuring out that Raven is the Maiden and having been told of how the process works, there’s only two likely chances of how Raven got the power. Raven gets angry at Yang seemingly obeying Oz and Qrow, but Yang points out that she’s asking questions, advice that Raven herself gave. And it’s not long before through those questions, Yang deduces that Raven did indeed kill the former Spring Maiden. Raven confirms it, trying to call it a mercy kill. Spring was a scared girl who failed at Raven's training and since she’d be hunted with her power, Raven built up the girl’s trust in her before killing her. Wow, just... wow.

This provokes Yang to call Raven out BIG TIME. She calls Raven out on flip flopping between being merciful and a survivor. How she let Yang and the others walk into the trap not because she thought Yang could handle it as she claimed, but because it meant she could have an easier time getting her way. Raven, growing more and more angry, tries to defend herself. She says that Yang doesn’t know her or how many hard choices she 's had, which... Yang agrees with. The only Raven that she knows is the one her father told her of. A woman who was complicated, but always fought for what she believed in. whether it was for her team or her tribe. Then she asks if Raven killed ‘her’ too. At first, I thought Yang meant Vernal, but after like five rewatches I realized that Yang meant Raven herself. She’s asking if Raven killed the Raven that Yang had heard so much about. The Raven that Tai had fallen in love with and had a child with. Had Raven killed any good and just within herself and become nothing but a cold, cowardly ‘survivor’ who only knows how to run? Because to Yang, it sure seems that way.

Raven snaps, her Maiden mask even flaring up. She yells at her own daughter for her harsh words, trying to claim that she’s stared down death multiple times and did what others won’t. Yang shuts her up. Remember how Qrow said Raven has a skewed view over family? Well she has a skewed one over strength too. Strength isn't about doing things that others won’t or being able to punch something harder than anything else. Strength is when you face what scares you and put others before yourself. It’s when you do the right thing and face up to your mistakes. It’s when you take what’s happened to you, and grow into something better because of it. Yang knows this better than anyone. She got dismembered and abandoned. But she grew past her more violent approaches to things, she faced her fears and went to Mistral and her mother, she chose to join the war to be there for her sister, and now she’s here facing her own mother for her loved ones. What has Raven done? She’s abandoned her family. She’s ran away when things got too stressful. She used others for her own gain, which led to Vernal dying. Raven is powerful, but as Yang’s arm trembles once more, she points out that power doesn't equal strength. I am so proud of this girl right now, you have no idea.

Raven snaps once more, yelling at her own daughter for speaking to her that way when she herself is trembling. But Yang, clearly on the verge of tears, admits that yes, she is scared. But she’s still standing there, refusing to run. And for that reason, Raven is going to step aside and let Yang take the Relic of Knowledge. Why? Yang angrily says why, because Raven fears Salem. If Raven takes the Relic, then she’ll be painting an even larger target on her back. Salem will come at her with everything that she has and on top of having the Maiden powers, the bandit leader will NEVER be able to get away from a conflict that she’s tried this long and hard to avoid. But the solution is simple, Raven can let Yang take the Relic, become the target, and Raven can go off with none of the villains knowing that she’s Spring (until Cinder comes back, if she does at all) and be left alone once more. In other words, Raven can let Yang, her daughter, take the fall for her and get away scott free.

Throughout all of this, it is clear through Raven's expressions that she knows fully well that Yang is right. But through stubbornness or guilt, she has yet to confirm it. But in a genuinely heartbroken tone, she tells Yang not to take the Relic, saying that she doesn’t want to get involved in any of this. Yang agrees that she doesn't want to... but she will anyways. She’s not going to run away. If Salem wants to come after her, she’ll wait for her. She walks towards the gate, shoving Raven aside. The bandit is left shocked before, in one moment of vulnerability, cries. She says she’s sorry, and all that Yang can say is that she is as well. A familiar sound effect then plays. When Yang turns around, Raven is gone and all that remains is a lone black feather. Yang goes forward, arriving at the Relic which... looks like an oversized ornament, But it looks cool! When at the podium, all that Yang can do is give in to her emotions and fall to her knees, crying over everything that has happened over the course of the volume.

Meanwhile, Lionheart rushes into his office. He goes through his desk, clearly trying to gather up any possessions he needs before making a run for it. But he’s stopped by the Seer Grimm. Not gonna lie, with everything else that had happened, I had completely forgotten all about that... thing. Salem questions what is happening and after failing to play if off, Lionheart confesses everything. How Cinder changed the plan, how Qrow had the students with him, how the White Fang got stopped, essentially how things went to Hell but weren't his fault. Salem’s response? Well... she doesn't have one. The Seer remains silent, which is never a good sign. Leo tries to beg for a second chance, but still silence. Realizing that something is up, he aims his weapon... and the Seer knocks it off his arm. Leo tries to run, but his leg is grabbed. All that Leo can do is beg for forgiveness and be shown mercy before the Seer’s tentacles wrap around him and drag him off-screen. All we hear is the sounds of... something... there’s stabbing noises but also some kind of disgusting monster noise. Considering that Grimm do eat humans, ugh... yeah... the last we hear of Leo is him, in a pained, anguished voice plea one more time before he is finished off. Salem, looking outright bored, merely says ‘Coward. Damn, that was... that may be one of the most gruesome scenes in RWBY history. Which with Cinder’s attacks on Amber and Vernal is saying a LOT.

Back with the others, the three remaining villains are completely cornered by RWB and JNR. Even so, Emerald insists that Cinder will come back soon and have the Relic. They will win... but unfortunately for her, she is proven wrong. The elevator rises and with it Yang, who is holding the Relic. No Cinder in sight, and we have no conformation on her being dead or alive at this time. Ruby is relieved as Emerald falls to her knees. Mercury, realizing that they've lost, tries to get Emerald to move. It’s actually kind of nice to see some form of concern from the assassin, even if IDK if he’s genuinely worried about Emerald or about getting away. But Cinder's loss causes the thief to have a complete breakdown and to lose control of her Semblance. It causes the room to go dark and a disturbing image of Salem to appear. I... I honestly cannot describe it in words guys. It’s even more creepy than Leo’s death. It doesn’t last long, but everyone is left shocked and trembling as Ozpin confirms that despite it being an illusion, that was indeed Salem. We then see Hazel, who is carrying Emerald, and Mercury running away as Adam watches form the trees. The Battle for Haven is over. The triumph goes to the heroes.

With the fight over, Blake is able to meet back with her parents and Sun. The WF have all been taken into custody, but Ghira confirms that Adam did indeed escape. But Ilia walks in, pointing out that the WF won’t follow someone who ran out on them and now the organization will be left divided. Safe to say, they won’t be causing any danger to anyone for quite some time. For now, Ghira suggests forming a new Faunus brotherhood that will remain committed to bringing peace and equality. Sun, in the meantime, sees the others and pulls Blake away, encouraging her to go to her teammates. Have I ever mentioned that I love Sun? Because I love him.

Yang hands Qrow the Relic, confirming that Cinder is gone, Vernal is dead, and Raven has escaped. Qrow’s not happy to hear that, but he is relieved to see his niece safe and back with them. With the fight over, Ruby finally collapses in exhaustion, but luckily Weiss is there to hold her steady. Blake approaches the two as Yang runs over to check on her sister. Ruby asks Blake why she’s there, which Blake is also wondering. That’s gonna be a fun story to tell, huh? But luckily, Blake confirms that she isn’t going anywhere. Ruby says that’s all that matters before she and Weiss look at Yang, clearly worried about her reaction. And as a new, absolutely beautiful song titled All That Matters plays in the background, Yang slowly begins to smile, agreeing with the sentiment. Weiss holds out her arm and the four girls embrace. My friends, after two volumes and over 20 chapters of being splintered apart, Team RWBY is together once again. I won’t lie, I was crying throughout this moment. Heck, just typing this out is making me teary eyed. It made this finale worth it to me. It was what I was hoping for since the end of V3 back in 2016, and at last it’s happened in the most beautiful way possible.

Qrow goes to check on Ozpin, but he has reverted back to Oscar. The poor kid is exhausted from all the strain and used up energy, but he has a message from Ozpin. The next step is to take the Relic and go to Atlas. That’s all he gets out before passing out completely. Qrow watches the girls reunion before turning to the relic. It glows and you can hear a kind of whispering noise coming from it, which really sells it’s otherworldly feel. And as Qrow lets out a resigned sigh, the chapter, and with it the volume, ends the same way it began: a cut to a black screen. A perfect bookmark.

But of course, we’re not completely done yet. First, I LOVE THE CREDITS SONG. It is called This Time (From Shadows P2) and not only was a new Blake song long overdue, but it is just an awesome, uplifting song that shows how Blake is no longer hiding withing the shadows. If I didn’t want the soundtrack already, I absolutely need it now. But there is still the stinger to go into. When the credits end we, surprisingly, cut to Patch. Tai is there, so this stinger already wins points cause I have missed best dad so much OMG. Tai is tending to his sunflowers... but is stopped when he hears something. He stands and turns, seeing a lone black feather fall before him. Three guesses on who it is. Tai is surprised, but his expression soon turns into a serious, almost angered one as the volume truly ends. IDK if this is gonna be like V4′s stinger and be used in V6 later, but regardless... yep, Tai and Raven reunion is finally happening guys. And going off Tai’s face, it’s not going to be pleasant.

Review

My God... I do not at all know where to begin with this one. Well... lets talk about Raven and Yang first. Because Dear Lord, this episode, just... just this episode.

I have made my stance on Raven very clear. I do not like her. Sure the previous chapter showed that she isn’t evil and has some humanity, but I still don’t like her. It’s like Yang said, she used people, abandoned people, and we can confirm that she murdered an innocent girl as an act of ‘mercy;. My final stance on Raven is that I like her as a character, but I hate her as a person. And yes, there is a difference. Raven is a very complex character. She is cold, cowardly, intelligent, and cunning. She may be distant and dismissive over her family, but she does care about her tribe and did show to sincerely care about Vernal. She’s an interesting anti-villain who is willing to do bad things, but does have humanity.

However I still ultimately hate her. I am sorry, but she is a coward who willingly used and abandoned others for her own gain. While she clearly feels guilty for letting Yang take the Relic and bury herself into a fight that in her eyes is unwinnable, she brought all of this upon herself. She abandoned Yang. She tried to manipulate Yang. When Yang failed to take the bait, she was as cold to her as she was to her own brother. A brother who has now disowned her for willingly aiding a monster wanting to kill humanity BTW. Raven made these choices, gave Yang every reason to want nothing to do with her, and see her for what she truly is: a coward. Does Raven have a chance at redemption? Maybe. And with how she has gone to Tai, I am very interested to see what’s going to happen between them. Is Raven going to try to make things right? Or did she only go to Tai because the portal to him, and by association Tai himself, were all that she had left? But yeah, in the end Raven still allowed Yang to take the Relic and become a target, but does seem to realize that everything that Yang said was true. We’ll see how things play out in the future. But I am glad that Raven ultimately survived, there’s a lot of things that can still be done with her such as her relationship with Tai, the Maiden powers, and of course any info on Team STRQ. So I happily wait to see what happens next.

But the true champion of this chapter is Yang. Oh my God, Yang. She has had a lot of development this volume, which is both good and bad. But I’ll elaborate in my overall V5 review. For now, lets just talk about the chapter. Yang had come a long ways from the early days. She has come to understand what strength truly is. Like I said, it’s not how much power you can dish out, it’s facing the things that bring you down and owning up to them. Yang both in this volume and V4, has face her demons. She learned to calm down and think smarter. She faced her mother after years of searching. She made it to her sister and joined the war to be there for her. She confronted her abandonment issues and while I wouldn’t say she’s over them, she’s willing to let Blake back in. Yang rose from the ashes, and became a stronger person due to it. She has become calmer, smarter, and despite her fears she will face them and anything else that comes her way. It’s one thing to not be afraid, it’s another to be scared but face those fears anyways. Blake put it best, Yang is the embodiment of strength. Both physically and mentally, and I could not be more proud of her.

But regardless, this took quite a tool on Yang. After so long, Yang finally met her mother... and it went as badly as it can get. Their relationship is incredibly bitter, but it’s clear that the two do still have some familial feelings towards each other. I think that Yang does want to have her mom in her life... but she knows that it’s unlikely. And ultimately, she’s going to stick with her sister and her uncle. Her family. When she collapses in the vault, it’s clear how much all of this has had on her. Yang has ultimately pushed Raven away and the chances of making amends is more slim than ever before. Now Yang is left in a war that she knows that she could die in and now has a target on her back. Raven ultimately left her to take the fall, and she’s stuck with it. But as she said, she’s going to face it. For Ruby. For her family and team. For herself. She is Yang Xiao Long, and she will be armed and ready for whatever comes her way.

What sold this scene was, of course, the voice acting. Barbara and Anna Hullum did a fantastic job in this scene. You can feel the anger, contempt, and heartbreak radiating off of them both. In a dialogue-heavy scene where you absolutely had to nail the performance to get the emotion across, they both nailed it. Not gonna lie, this might be Barbara’s best performance as Yang yet and Anna has done an amazing job across the board. Major props as well to Miles and Kerry for directing them and getting the to give the best performances that they can give. Barbara did warn us that the finale was gonna be emotional, and boy was she right. Kudos to you ladies, you’ve come a long ways!

As for everything else... man, what else can I add? I am disappointed that we didn’t get to see more of the fights not in the vault, but again I understand that they needed to focus on those moments. I honestly really loved this finale. Yeah there was no massive brawl, but honestly topping last week’s Maiden fight was going to be very difficult. Some have complained about the length, but remember that we got 14 episodes instead of 12. They didn’t need to cram a whole bunch of stuff into the finale, hence why we got the Maiden fight last chapter and the final confrontation between mother and daughter here. There didn't need to be a huge fight. This volume was focused on character moments and development. Sure, fights are nice, but this was always a show about it’s characters and how they handle the events thrown at them. I feel that the volume nailed that and this chapter in particular showed that. I am very satisfied and anxiously await more.

So... what happens now? Our heroes have won and retrieved the Relic. The next step is to go to Atlas. Whether they’re going to head there immideatly (which is gonna be hard due to the lockdown) or we get a bit more time in Mistral is up in the air, but we’ll find out eventually. As for whose going, Team RWBY most likely will and chances are, we’re going to get plenty of Weiss and her family drama. We may also get to FINALLY meet Professor Polendina and learn more about Penny’s purpose. And there could still be a chance for her to be rebuilt if the professor has a memory unit, albeit she may not remember Vale or Ruby, But hey, she’d be alive again! As for the girls themselves... there may still be some issues between Blake and Yang that have to be sorted out. But we can assume that they’re going to try, and i n he end the team is back together.

As for everyone else... who can say? Qrow and Oz/Oscar going to Atlas is also pretty guarantee. But IDK about JNR, Sun, Ilia, or anyone else. Ilia would be possible since she comes form Atlas and specifically Mantle. But I can see her and Sun being left behind to help the Belladonna’s with the Faunus. Sun would likely come back for when they eventually go to Vacuo, so he wound’t be excluded forever. As for JNR... IDK. I could see them staying in Mistral to let Jaune train with his Semblance, but again who knows?

As for the villains, it’s probably safe to say either Emerald will want vengeance and stick with the bad guys or she’ll break away since with Cinder gone, she has zero reason to stay and take out her vengeance herself. Cinder herself... it’s still unclear if she’s dead or not. But either way, it’s probably going to be a while before we see anything about her again. Also, remember that Watts is a disgraced Atlas scientist, so it is very likely that we’re going to get some dirt on him. But it’s safe to assume that with the failure of the Attack on Haven, the baddies are going to be going at our heroes harder than ever. Can they face it? Well, we won’t know until Fall. But it’s going to be a wild ride regardless.

Conclusion

There is nothing else that I can say. The finale was heartbreaking, disturbing, and beautiful all at once. It allows closure for some things, but leaves plenty of doors open for the future. I loved this chapter, and I find it a very fitting conclusion to one Hell of a volume. I’m going to be doing a full V5 review in the future, where we’ll go over both the bad and the good of the volume. But until then, this is the end my friends. Thank you for reading my reviews, and than you Kerry, Miles, Gray, CRWBY and Rooster Teeth for all the hard work that you have put into not just V5, but the entire series. It was an exciting ride from start to end, and I am sure that Monty couldn’t be prouder of all of you.

So that’s it for me guys. As I said, a full V5 review will be out soon. I also will be reviewing RvB Season 16 (and the other seasons) when it begins in the next few months. I’m also going to be watching Gen;Lock when it premieres, but I’ll have to see if it sticks with me before I decide if I want to review it. So if you follow me, keep an eye out for all of that. RWBY Reviews will return this Fall with the start of Volume 6, so until then thank you for reading and remember to keep moving forward.

#rwby #rwby reviews

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himbo-buckley · 5 years ago

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Sex, Intimacy and Buddie (better known as I have a lot of feelings about this show, some of which are related to the before mentioned topics) - Part 4

Ciao, ragazzi,

i bims, die Kriz and I will be your tourguide today. (Yes, we’re on first name basis now, congratulations, kid, ya’ll earned it!)

Okay, so I rewrote this intro like 5 times by now. 3B has been so hard on me in a way that the rest hasn’t been. While I was writing 3A I had so many thoughts and ideas and conclusions from the get go, my main worry was to fit it all in and to make it coherent. And it took me a while to get there with 3B - but don’t worry, my friends, I did not disappoint and it is just as long as part 3, despite Tim Minear personally coming to my home and vibe checking me for saying he had daddy issues. Which is fair, tbh. Sorry bro, I’ll stop calling you out like that. (No, I won’t.)

Also if you need a „quick“ refresher of what happened so far or you just forgot, here are:

part one - part two - part three

And also, the usual spiel:

This Meta will so far have FIVE parts now. The original plan was to do three, one for each Season, and have it organised by episode so you could technically follow along (which is still true), but due to personal reasons, also known as *feelings*, Season 3 had exploded disproportionately and for readability reasons I have split it in three parts - there is part 3 which ends with the Christmas Episode, part 4 which spans what aired of 3B so far and the final part 5 which will include the final and my conclusion, if by then I am able to form thoughts again / still

Alright you guys, drumrolls please: part 4 (also called „*butterfly meme* Is this growth?“)

Episode 3.11:

I wanna be honest with ya’ll, Season 3B is sort of a mixed bag for me, because while yes, all the episodes have been great viewed separately, they just feel so … separate from each other, and with 3A having so many episode-spanning arks, it’s a bit of a letdown to return to the standalone episode format. Especially because it makes the whole two steps forward one step back thing so much more apparent as it feels like what happens in one episode has no consequence for the next. It felt a little like they burned through too much in 3A already and didn’t know where to go from there. Which is also true for me, so maybe I should stop judging.

Anyways, I’ll stop bringing the house down now.

Let’s continue with: Don’t you just love stan-ing two adorable, complicated badass firefighters? Yeah, me too.

Also, I wanna see the Doc again. Tim, can we? He could be friends with Frank? We could see them have tea and talk about those dumbasses at the firehouse? (And also legs, since, you know, Frank only has one?)

And also the bank guy, Harrison was fun. (This whole episode was.)

And I know it has nothing to do with Eddie or Buck or Intimacy or Sex (okay a little with those) but I do wanna point you to that damn meatball scene, because it’s so chaotic? First, why are all the ingredients laid out on the table but Maddie is making balls already only to then cover them in water? Look, I’m basically vegan (haha, how long do you think I’ve waited to shoehorn this in here) and haven’t cooked meat since I was … fourteen, probably? And even to me that just seemed wrong! Not to mention AFTER touching raw meat, Maddie only cleans her hands with a towel before opening the door? You used to be a nurse, Madeleine / Maddison! (Do we know her full name? I feel like we don’t.)

One thing I really love about 3B (so far) is how happy and settled my main man Edmundo Diaz is. It’s in the eyes, you guys! I don’t know if it’s a Ryan thing or a deliberate acting choice but whatever it is it translates well (haha, well, yeah, we’ll talk about that one later) into his character and it really makes you feel like Eddie is so much better. Like for all the analysis of Eddie I’ve been doing, I didn’t notice how much colder he grew since the beginning of Season 2 until this episode came and suckerpunched me with the warmth in his eyes. Good god, proceed with caution! Oliver could call me right now and say „Look, Buddie isn’t real, I just keep getting lost in Ryan’s eyes.“ and I wouldn’t even be mad, I’d just be like „How’d you get this number?“. (It was Tim, wasn’t it? Damn it, we talked about this, mate! I wanna meet his cat, not him!)

The episode doesn’t hold a lot of relevance in terms of this meta (aside from some parallels I’ll talk about in a moment) but I still want to discuss it a little bit because it means a lot to me. I just love Howard „Chimney“ Han with all my heart.

I wanna say something controversial now because we’re 500 words in and I feel like I haven’t made you regret reading my rambling yet, so here is controversial thought of the day #1: All these fucking characters are grey as fuck except Howie. Howie is good to the bone. He is the goodest boy. He is so gentle and sweet and non malicious and yes, I am including Evan in my list of grey characters because he pulled some SHIT! Okay, a little bit of shit. Things have been *implied*! (I don’t even know anymore. Maybe he’s just off-white or something.)

And what’s the worst my best friend Howard „Chimney“ Han has done on this show? Lied to his girlfriend a buncha times so she likes him better? I lie all the time. I just lied to my mother 5 minutes ago (Yes, Mom, I’m working on my thesis.)! And Howie just lied to make someone like him better. That’s not bad, that’s horrible self esteem!

Which brings me to another thing I wanna say because thank you, Jennifer Love Hewitt. If anyone from the cast gets to call me, it’s you, because you clearly had your thinking pants on when you took one look at Chimney and said: I want that one! You a real one and I will name check you on my way to heaven - not, that they’ll let me in, but the thought counts?

Now, lets talk about those parallels I mentioned before:

The Hans vs. the Buckleys.

Now, we still don’t know a lot about Mr. and Mrs. Buckley and what exactly made them bad parents (though I’m firmly team a little neglectful but not abusive) but we know a lot about Mr. Han.

One thing of the bat I wanna mention is that this episode confirms that Maddie at least had a hand in raising Buck - which doesn’t actually have to mean too much, because based on JLHs age, her relationship with Dough and the way their sibling relationship is played it’s safe to assume that Maddie is supposed to be between 5-10 years older than Buck (assuming she started nursing school after High School at around 18 / 19, which I think takes 4 years in the US? And she was an ER nurse for 8 years, making her AT LEAST 30 in Season 2, but considering how she emphasised that Buck noticed something was wrong with Dough even as a teenager and she met Dough at 19, I’m gonna assume Buck was younger then 16 because Dough won’t have shown his abusive tendencies right of the bat, so probably about 12 / 13, making Maddie like 6 years older than him? And since we DO have a definite age for Evan, Maddie is probably around 33 in Season 2 (which also works because they wanted to put her and Eddie in a relationship and Ryan Guzman is in his early 30 as well). And look, as the youngest child of two people I would call more than adequate parents I can tell you: older siblings always have a hand in raising you, especially when the age difference exceeds 4 years. One of my sisters is 5 years older than me and I was more scared of telling her about having a bad grade than I was of my parents, so…

Anyways, back to what is actually happening in the episode and how it both parallels and contrasts the Buckleys and Hans.

Like Maddie and Howie are the older siblings and Buck and Albert are the younger siblings, yet Buck and Howie are paralleled as are Maddie and Albert. Also, Howie resents his brother for the relationship he assumes Albert has with their father, but Maddie recognises that Buck probably had similar experiences growing up as she did. Of course one could argue that Howie and Albert never had a relationship before while Buck and Maddie grew up together, but look, Maddie was in an abusive relationship for quite a while and hadn’t been in contact with her brother for 3 years prior to Season 2 but it’s safe to assume they didn’t have too close of a relationship before that either, or the Buck we know would have gone to Maddie to investigate and find out why she dipped. So…

(Despite all of this, Maddie knew she could come to her brother for help in Season 2 meaning one, our boy is such a good boy always and the Buckleys can’t be all bad if Maddie knows she can count on her brother, meaning she didn’t think her parents screwed him up too much in the time since she moved out and gradually left his life. Just another thought.)

I also love how her firm believe in the strength and meaning of familial relationships triggers a shift in Howie. Please keep this in mind for when we discuss 3.16 in a few minutes, friends.

Also that kitchen scene has all my heart. They really said kitchens are a Buddie thing now, didn’t they? (Also from a non shipper perspective, Maddie and Buck are just the sweetest and for a TV show actually fairly realistic siblings. At least if I compare them to my siblings and I.)

Also in terms of the actually topic of my meta’s: this is our first indicator that Eddie considers the 118 his family. And we have another moment of Chimney seeking reassurance / being open with Eddie. I love that they have a friendship like that. (He was so excited about meeting Chimneys brother as well. A little bit puppy and like another reason why Evan and him are friends. (As if we need more)) Also love that Eddie is secure enough to voice these feelings!

(Eddie really does seem so healed in this episode? So open? And happy? Damn, Frank, you know your shit! My man had some growth.)

Now, for some sidenotes to round off this episode, because I have some and I wanna share them:

On the Buckley parents, I think the episode wants to imply that they had plans for Buck? Maybe career wise? Because in the pool scene he says something along the lines of: „Sometimes you have to put / get a little distance“ and since it’s been implied that Buck is also from Pennsylvania or somewhere close by, we can assume that he was talking about himself here. Like he moved all the way across the continent.

I’m also just gonna throw out a prediction for Season 4: since Nia is only a foster child and like 2 years old, it’s safe to assume that she has been only recently taken in. While I do not know the US-Foster system, I do have some knowledge about the German system, so I’ll just predict that either one or both of the birth parents try to get their child back.

Or they just sort of forget about all of this by Season 4.

And I really really really dislike the cancer storyline and how the show is handling it, at least in this episode, specifically in regards to May, who in my opinion, has been both written and treated by the show as someone younger than 18 here, only for the show to then turn around and go all: wow, such an adult, look how wise she is. So awesome. Like nah, son! 3A has shown that she is much maturer than she was treated in this episode.

And Eddie finally got to say „seen this before“ again. I feel like he says that a lot. Should I start a counter for that too or do ya’ll just wanna think about him naked for a bit? (I know, you guys, I know! Should I befriend someone who can make me a bunch of gifs of shirtless Eddie I can pepper in every time we get to heavy around here?)

Episode 3.12:

Ah, yes, „Fools“! The one episode I have to say I can not look at without wearing my shipper goggles. So be warned.

Which is why I’m gonna start with the elephant in the room: Ana Flores.

Now, I’ve seen (and maybe liked / reblogged / queued / drafted (Idk anymore, I’m up to 600 posts in my drafts, 300 in my queue and like 300 liked / reblogged already)) an interview with Ryan Guzman where he talks about Ana and how he isn’t sure yet wether they are heading for romance and how it needs someone incredibly badass to get through Eddie’s defences, because Eddie is barely over his wife’s death and yeah, that! Look, if you’re here, I’m gonna assume you have read the other three parts of this „meta“ and therefore know that I am a proud member of the Shannon Diaz - defense squad and will fight anyone who says a bad word about her. And you will also know that I attribute most of the stupid things Eddie did in 3A to the fact that Shannon died. So there. All caught up.

Now, as for Ana Flores herself (and I’m writing this after 3.16, so who knows what happens next): She might be in Season 4 (I think the interview said something about it or she tweeted something) but I don’t think it has been confirmed yet? So considering what Ryan said they probably won’t end up in a relationship by the end of Season 3 (again, please remember when I am writing this).

I’m not gonna comment on the actress aside from saying, damn, I wish that were me! Other than that? I don’t really care about actors unless I think they are hot and then it’s more of a: uiiii, me like-y. (Madeleine Patch, call me!)

As for the actual scenes, well, I have mixed feelings.

On the one hand side, as I’ve said before, I work with children and the idea of dating the father of one of my babies is just plain wrong to me. So there is that. Morally speaking that storyline would be trash. (And very OOC for Mr. „My son needs to be protected above all“)

Then of course there is what’s actually happening between them which, one, from the get go she seems to not reciprocate Eddie’s advances (he keeps telling her to call him Eddie, she keeps calling him Mr. Diaz). Also that whole speech about horses? Yeah, I know you’re an english teacher but ähm, what? (Put it on the list, Tim, I need answers!)

To sum it up (and explain why I brought up Shannon aside from how much I like her), I don’t think it’s headed for a romance quite yet? They may be playing the slowburn game, but I think it was more like Ali in Season 2. Because as @greyhello pointed out to me in Part 2, Ali might have been there to show us that Buck was ready for a commited relationship and it had never been Abby that made him like that, just as Ana is here to tell us: hey, Eddie is finally accepting his wife’s death and maybe, possibly, some time in the near future, ready to date again. Probably. We’ll see.

Aside from that, I actually think a little crush could be something healthy and healing for Mr. control issues. But, again, we’ll see.

So, elephant addressed. Now let’s move on.

Sidenote: I feel like the parent-teacher conference made Eddie really regret so many of his life decisions. Someone needs to tell Buck so he can make a million puns from here on out and drive Eddie crazy.

(Sidenote: Carla said „big blue eyes“! You know who has big blue eyes? Ah, now I’m just clowning.)

Now this episode returns to the Season 2 formula of giving Eddie and Buck similar storylines:

Because while Eddie meets someone he could potentially be interested it, Buck is also made aware of his single status and the fact that he hasn’t dated in a while.

I do think Buck’s stance in this episode was both curious and familiar. Familiar because it reminded me a lot of Eddie in 2.04 and I think, just like Eddie did before Shannon came back, right then Buck is closing himself off from making connections, be they physical or emotional, because he got hurt too much.

Which is why I call it curious. Because I can not decide wether I consider his behaviour growth or a step back. In Eddie it would definitely be a step back, but in Buck who had been so willing to take any chance for physical intimacy just for the sake of a connection in Season 1 to now at least seem somewhat settled in himself and comfortable with what he has does feel a little like growth? (Then again 3.16 shows us he is just scared of getting hurt again, so probably just covering up is depression.)

Also, again with the kitchen! That puts us at five (?) scenes of Buddie talking about each other or with each other in a kitchen setting (six, if you count 3.03). Now I’m probably clowning myself real hard right now, but whatever!

But I do wanna point out how comfortable Eddie and Buck are discussing Eddie’s parenting struggles, which just shows how much he trusts him.

Now I know, I myself have made a textpost about Eddie discussing his parenting struggles with literally anyone, but ya’ll know I was kidding, right? It isn’t actually true. In canon he talks with exactly 5 people about Christopher:

They are Christopher’s therapist in „Triggers“, Carla, Hen, Lena … and Buck.

Now, here comes something interesting: For Carla and therapist, it is literally their job to help Eddie with his parenting struggles, but all the other scenes? Connected to Buck. Yeah. That.

Look, the Hen scene in the Christmas episode literally involves Buck and as I’ve said both Eddie’s and Buck’s reaction here heavily implied that Eddie has had a conversation with Buck about his fight with Chris before telling Hen all about it.

As for Lena, again, she is *literally* there as a substitute for Buck. She uses his locker. Her name is taped over his - and that is actually such a nice visual, that I wanna talk about it real quick, because I’ve seen it called disrespectful a few times and I don’t agree.

One, the fact that they left the „B“: funny af, someone from set dressing is probably laughing themselves silly about this and is allowed to call me now; also a constant reminder who’s locker and place she is actually occupying. Also how she can never really fully replace him, she can’t cover the hole he left fully, he is always there, lurking.

Two, the fact that it is tape: tape is slightly see through. It is temporary and easily removed. Tape is just a quick, momentary fix. Tape can be taken off / away without effort.

So to sum it up: There’s no one he trusts more with his son.

Which is also why Buck is there at the end: because Buck is who Eddie trusts. Buck is who Eddie goes to when he’s struggling as a father. Buck is who Eddie wants by his side cheering Chris on. I mean, they are literally pushing him together while Carla films (stands on the sidelines, ready to help as needed, but not fully a part of their family unit).

So, to go back to the elephant in the room? Right now I’m not at all worried about Ana Flores.

On another note it’s also one of the last real Buddie scenes we got in 3B so far and while I do understand that there just wasn’t any storyline for them to do such a scene organically, I am very worried about what it could mean. Because I still remember when Teen Wolf stopped putting Tyler H and Dylan in scenes together because people kept screaming queerbaiting.

I don’t want that to happen here. I love Buddie and what it could represent but I’ve also written too much about their respective characters AND their connection by now to disregard how meaningful they ALREADY are and how important even as a platonic pairing they are. Because they make each other so much better and proof that straight man can have deep connection with each other and how two flawed people can help each other heal in a way that I don’t think any other relationship in this show shows.

Back to the episode, though. The ark between Christopher and Eddie here is truly beautiful and I love the way we see Eddie growing as a parent. And I think the show wrote those scenes so well and they felt truly natural and were incredibly important, both for Eddie and Christopher.

I do think, as much as I love Christopher always being Eddie’s number one priority, no matter who Eddie ends up dating (yes, even if he dates Buck) we need to see a bit of a shift here. (Also, just in general, because Christopher will grow up, even if he’ll never be as independent as a fully abled bodied child might someday be.)

Eddie needs to learn to let go of control and of Christopher a bit. Look, a partner will never come before Christopher for Eddie (unless Chris is like in his 40s and has moved out and is living his own life. And even then it’ll be close.) but in order for anyone to ever fit into his life he needs to make a little space at the top and that includes taking away a bit from Christopher.

(Also just selfcare reasons, you guys, parents need to learn that it’s okay to sometimes think about themselves! And we already saw Eddie break once cause it became too much, how easy do you think that can happen again?)

Sidenote: We all know Buck built that, right? He’s been shown again and again to have some mechanical / maschinary (?) understanding plus fairly interesting problem solving skills.

Episode 3.13:

I love the locker room scene. Firstly, it’s a definite reminder that these three have bonded a lot and it’s such a sweet familial scene.

Also Eddie’s advice: yet another hint that he’s healing from Shannon’s death.

Compare it 3.08 and the conversation Bobby had with Eddie. There are no definite callbacks or anything like it, but it is very very very obvious that Eddie is talking about his dead wife here. Who he told he loves her in her last moments. So there.

Now, as for the healing part, could you imagine 3A!Eddie saying something like that to anyone?

Even in 3.03 or 3.06 with Buck, the person he lets himself be the most vulnerable with, there are still always terms and conditions with his words.

He trust no one more with his son, which, okay, is what the scene was about and what has the highest priority in his life but still, his trust isn’t bound to himself, it’s bound to his son, not to himself, not something he has in general for Buck, but something he has for Buck in regards to his son - that Eddie trusts Buck with himself is only ever implied.

He forgives him - „also what it means to be a part of a team“. Eddie sort of impersonalises his forgiveness here, he doesn’t forgive him because he’s Buck and he’s Eddie, he forgives him because they are part of the same team.

With Eddie there is always a wall.

But here in the locker room there isn’t. It’s just: if you love her, tell her, cause you might not get another chance - Eddie certainly doesn’t have another chance to tell Shannon.

And okay, you might say, isn’t that kind of a condition as well? Saying ‚I love you‘ because tomorrow isn’t promised? And sure, it kind of is. But Eddie’s also basically saying: once upon a time I told my wife, who art now in heaven, that I loved her as she was dying and then I got real mad at her and the world after because she left me and she was planning to leave me anyways and now I’m here and I’m over that and I’m just glad I got to tell her ‚I love her‘ one last time. I’m no longer angry.

Growth, you guys.

Episode 3.14:

I feel like the writers read some of ya’ll’s Buddie fanfiction, realised how it mischaracterised the relationship between Buck and Chimney gets and said: not on my watch!

In other words: If Eddie and Buck are different sides of the same coin, Buck and Chimney are the same sides of different coins. They share so many traits and experiences!

Now, this episode. Man, you guys, it really has me stumped. Part of me thinks it doesn’t have relevance and part of me keeps going back because it thinks it does?

Oh man, you guys, I’m lost. I don’t know.

All right, executive decision: no relevance, just another drop on the breakdown-stone that is 3.16.

Someone please tell my man’s boy they need him!

Episode 3.15:

Fun fact to start ya’ll off: this was only the second episode I watched somewhat live being a little new to town and the first I saw without spoiling myself on tumblr. So it has a special place in my heart any way you look at it.

(But then again this episode also involves several of my nightmares: drowning! being below earth! Being in small enclosed spaces! Being buried alive! Huge amounts of mud that will not leave your clothes and fingernails for the next six hundred years!)

Also, uhm, did I say „Fools“ was the *one* episode I could not look at without shipper goggles? So I’m contradicting myself. It happens. Move on. (Yeah, or repress it and join a fight club! Also name check me with your therapist, please! We may have breakdowns but we do them healthy around here!)

Because these fuckers went off! Whew! I’m serious, after watching the episode I sent a clip of that scene to my roommate and asked to rate how platonic this was. Which she did not. Because she doesn’t know math, apparently. - My point is, she sees it and she doesn’t know the show.

In other news this episode convinced me Oliver is pulling an Andrew Robinson (and yes, I know he said it was in the script but then Andy also followed the script, so…).

Sidenote: Eddie is the oldest, right? Damn, for some reason I thought he was the middle child. He has big middle child energy.

(Also why they namedrop Galveston like that? I googled it an it’s just a town? Why, Tim, why?) (At this point he is just torturing me, I know it. This feels personal.)

Anyways, this episode, you guys! I have thoughts! (And they are very hard to put in order so please excuse any jumping around at this point.)

The birthscene is great and can we just for a moment think about 25 year old Eddie hugging his mother in law so very lovingly? He’s so happy here. So soft. (Also I’m about to turn 25? I would not be able to deal with being married right now either?)

And yes, this episode confirms that Eddie has killed people, and while I know it was selfdefense, I just, it’s very weird to me because these characters have become so real to me, so to see one of them kill without a care is kinda off-putting. (This is why I will always consider Eddie grey and why I can never consider Buck white - because he had been planning on joining the Seals meaning he had to consider the possibility of killing and has probably learned to kill (Do you think that’s why he’s so non aggressive? because he knows he could take everyone down?))

I’m just gonna come out and say it: anyone who says Eddie isn’t impulsive has not watched this show. In fact I’d even say he is more impulsive than Buck.

Yes, Buck will do weird and dumb shit on a whim because the thought just crossed his mind and it sounds good and he doesn’t think about the consequences, but just does it. (I could make a case that our boy has ADHD but this is not what this meta is about)

But Eddie? Eddie is impulsive in his reactions. Everytime he is in distress (emotional not physical) he stops thinking about consequences and just starts reacting. Especially if it’s about a child!

Shannon is pregnant - lets sign up for the army.

Our child has a developmental disorder - lets stay in the army.

My parents want to take away my child - lets move halfway across the country.

(Not allowed to talk to your best friend? - lets go streetfighting.)

Eddie probably thinks these things through to a point and he mostly has a plan, but he is so reactionary. He is like a raw nerve and that’s what makes him impulsive.

It’s why, instead of letting them pull him out enough until he can radio, Eddie cuts the fucking line. Because this is a child, this could be Christopher and Eddie needs to be enough to save him.

(Are you crying yet?)

I’m not gonna talk about Afghanistan except to say: ah, Eddie. My man, you are enough! Always!

(But maybe that was his guilt over killing talking? Maybe he does feel bad?)

Also why did the woman emphasis ‚Staff Sergeant‘ like that? Was that an indicator that Eddie got promoted?

Also Eddie the fucking boy scout / alter boy / goody goody two shoes trying to get up because of a superior office despite lying in a hospital bed (and not even having been cleaned from his blood yet, urgh that’s gotta itch!)

Sidenote: in light of 3.16: do you think Eddie still talks to Mills, Binder, Norwahl and what all their names are or do you think that would be too hard for him? I’m leaning toward not talking but I really liked Mills (she reminded me of Buck and Lena, tbh.)

And now, for our regular scheduled program: Shannon and Eddie.

First of all I loved all of it. I loved that we could really understand why Shannon left. I love how much they clashed but still had those little moments of recognition.

And look: The juice box scene was very rough. Eddie is likely currently suffering from PTSD, definitely having a culture shock and here is his wife who is barely holding on as well and she just wants to leave, she can’t deal anymore and both of them are so desperate and wow, just wow. Kudos Ryan and kudos Devin Kelley, I’m sad we won’t see you again, but I do hope I’ll see you somewhere else one of these days!

I’ve talked about their relationship a lot already, so I’m not sure if I have any fresh takes but I will remind you of a few you already know:

Eddie is not in love with Shannon after Afghanistan (haven’t decided yet if he was in love with her in the birth scene)

Shannon *needed* Eddie to open up to her just as much as she needed to be open with her

Eddie was not able to be emotionally intimate with his wife

they cared about each other very very much and I do think they tried

they are family (remember what I said in part 2 about Eddie talking to the 118 about Shannon? This here proof that he definitely defended her actions at some point to them as well)

Shannon was in an impossible situation with her mother and a special needs child and likely burned out and just … she needed someone to have her back, which Eddie couldn’t because he himself was suffering from PTSD at that point

I’m still mad as fuck, they killed her off! If they give Eddie any other endgame romance that isn’t Buddie without like two seasons buildup after killing off HIS WIFE I will riot!

Which brings me to Eddie and his parents which was rough, you guys!

Look, as someone who worked with children I can see where his parents are coming from in that scene but also wow, just wow.

How cold and insensitive and fuck, no wonder someone is repressed as shit, that was horrifying and I really can’t talk about this more than to say this hurts and also explains too much about Eddie. (Can we have the locker room three bonding about having horrible parents in Season 4, please, Tim? And can Buck come too? We could do it at the loft?)

As for his conversation with Christopher, obviously it was cute as fuck and also I love how he began the conversation talking to his child like every adult male I have ever met talking to a kid about something he knows will go over it’s head („It’s like we’re talking about completely different people.“). (Okay, maybe not just adult males. Maybe we all talk like that around children sometimes. I know I do.)

I really liked how they reinforced once again that Eddie wasn’t a natural at being a dad (compare how he holds his son to season 1 Buck who most definitely knows how to handle a child (And now I’m wondering if him being good at it was always planned or a „Oliver did a great job the first time we had him interact with a child so we decided to make it a trait“-thing. Damn you, Tim, for making me think so much!)) but became good at it because he was willing to learn and he cared! Dads of the world (also Moms, we aren’t all super duper either) take note!

That being said the conversation also left a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth because, one, it felt a little petulant of Eddie to turn around and leave for LA, the way it was presented here and two, Christopher at that point didn’t understand yet what Eddie was actually asking him about and it felt a bit like manipulation. Please everyone, do not consider a conversation like that consent from a child. Any adult can get a child that age to say anything they want because children just want to be liked (It’s why when children are involved in criminal proceedings it’s so hard to interview them because children follow every suggestion because they think this is what the adults want them to say.).

Now, let’s talk about puppy!boy for a second!

In 1.05 Buck tells Abby: „no one is good when it’s personal“ - well guess what buddy boys, this one is very personal for one Evan ‚Buck’ Buckley, thank you very much, that boy is losing it.

Okay, let’s compare it to the episode before and then two episodes later:

Now, obviously the situation with Maddie was a little different. Mainly because this was a hostage situation and he realised (because Seal training, remember?) that there wasn’t a lot he could do to help her right then but then again … neither was there in Season 2 when Maddie was in danger and he still acted far more frantic in the car with Athena than he did here? Like the only stupid thing he did was drive a little dangerously this time?

And of course, two episodes later we see Bobby react when Athena is in danger and while we don’t see him be frantic we do see him get ready to kill someone, so, yeah!  It could of course be inconsistent writing or deliberate to keep the attention and worry more on the people in the call centre but since they haven’t pulled anything like that before I’m leaning more into my clowning.

I mean, we also have to consider that Buck was Eddie’s lifeline here, he was supposed to be the one to get him out, so he feels extra responsible but then again we have Hen make this comment about having two cut lines, which of course says that Hen thinks that one: whatever reason Eddie had to cut his line will definitely be considered a just as valid reason by Buck to cut his line but also: BUCK WOULD DECIDE TO DIE DOWN THERE WITH EDDIE. Sorry for the yelling, but no, I do not think Buck acted out of character in 3.14.

(Which is very irresponsible, you guys. You are fathers! What happens to Christopher when ya’ll die in a well somewhere in fictional California? I can not live in fictional California! I will not be taking care of your child, Buddie! Figure it out yourself! No. We are done here! This conversation is over!)

(Okay, not quite, because I actually don’t think that would be realistic! More realistic: Buck giving Eddie his harness so he can get pulled out first and then dying down there alone.)

Like I’ve said in the at the beginning: Oliver might be pulling an Andrew Robinson. It might have just been the way they thought Buck would act if he lost Eddie while being responsible. It might have been fever making him delirious (which, btw, kudos! Because you can hear how sore his throat was and omg, that shirt hurt!)

Never mind I found the heavy focus on Buck in an episode about Eddie fairly curious - which is why now it’s video-talk time!

First: I will not bear Shannon slander around here! Yes, she was in way less scenes than Buck, but the actress also was never a main character, so ya’ll need to remember there are like 2 scenes of them as a family. And they probably didn’t have the time, money and energy to film some just for a montage - especially considering that the three of them have hardly been a family together, because first Eddie was gone and then Shannon, so…

But yes, we do have to admit that Buck was in most scenes, and yes, we do have to consider the implications of this which are: Buck is definitely a vital member of the Diaz family and when Eddie says: I’m always gonna come home to my family, this now includes Buck and I hope we see him tell him that at one point in the final cause I need him to!

And then of course there is also the radio scene in the beginning (which lead to one of my proudest tumblr-moments to date in form of this post!) which did ease us into the concept of Bucky-boy being a member of the Diaz family! So it is canon now?!

One thing I wanna point out about the school scene in the end in regards to this is that little boy’s question. Sure they used it as transition to calling Christopher his good luck charm but, uhm, why did they have Buck ask about it in the beginning then? Why have this sort of unnecessary callback to the beginning of the episode unless they want us to remember Buck?

Something to ponder for the next week, I think.

Also the episode sort of reinforced my believe that we don’t really have to worry about Ana Flores. Sure, this scene was also a chance for Eddie to redeem himself in front of a teacher he screamed at just a few weeks prior but the only interaction they had was her asking that question at the end and Eddie hardly looked at her.

(Also, if they really wanted to reinforce Eddie being interested in her, they could have had Carla make a dig about it in the beginning, even with Christopher there, but they didn’t, which to me confirms that they don’t really know what to do with her yet.)

At least Ryan was finally taking his shirt off again, I know that’s like catnip for ya’ll.

Episode 3.16:

One thing that really confuses me is how many people seem to think this episode points out only how important romantic relationship are and I don’t see that?

I mean, I see that it’s one of the points that is being made but I don’t think it’s the only possible reading of this episode.

To me it was about connection and family more than anything.

It begins actually with Eddie (the person most connected to Buck) being the first person to decline Buck’s invite, not in favour of spending time with a romantic partner, but because he has a prior commitment with his son! (And several other people, including, but not limited to, at least 2 other nine year olds. For Eddies sake I hope less than 5 or that Carla is around because he is a single father and children unionise by nature.)

And it continues with Buck by forming a connection to Red and then bonding with Maddie.

And can I just say, before we delve more into all of this, how proud I am of Evan „Buck“ Buckley after this episode? Just look at him!

This is Buck at his lowest, lower even than during the lawsuit, because back then he had something to fight against, which he doesn’t have here. Because he can’t stop other people from leaving him (that is the whole point of the episode after all) and what does he do? Instead of going full on Buck 1.0 and just finding the nearest interested person to form a meaningless physical connection with to substitute for the lacking emotional intimacy he craves so much, he goes to a bar alone and befriends an old man. And spends the rest of the episode bonding with him. And bonding with his sister. And addressing his issues, both with his sister and his family. That is huge!

(Which is why I’ve decided him not wanting to date? Symptom of his deeper issues, yes, but also a sign of growth.)

And I’ve seen some people on my dash talk about how, compared to most other 911 episodes, this episode has a fairly bleak ending, which one I agree with, two think is actually a theme with Buck centric episodes, but three don’t actually mind / think is a bad thing? It’s fairly realistic after all.

To get personal one second: I remember being a very idealistic 20-year old intern working in the foster system five years ago and my mentor, who was less than 10 years older than me but fairly badass teaching me something that technically is a well known proverb but that I, a idealistic 20-year old, had not actually understood until I worked there and saw it myself: manchmal muss man den Karren an die Wand fahren - translation: sometimes you have to let the trolley drive into the wall, which means sometimes you have to let things play out till it’s natural end before you can help. Or to use an english proverb: Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom.

And this is what I’m thinking - no, hoping - is happening here. Because, look, you don’t just solve like 20 or more years of abandonment issues in one episode and considering what a big part of Buck’s character from the moment we met him they have been, that would have been unsatisfying to watch anyways! What we need right now, in terms of Buck’s storyline is catharsis. A cleansing. Buck needs to get to his worst (which I think he did or he will, once he talks to Abby) before he can begin to get better, can begin to heal, can begin to learn that he is not alone. And that is not a bad thing!

And yes, I know our boy is suffering and we along with him because we all love Evan Buckley to death but sometimes you gotta let things break so you can fix them instead of just putting tapes over the holes you see (haha, see what I did there?).

As for the episode, here we go:

I wanna start with something else real quick which is Hen’s subplot which I found important. Because they addressed that hey, she went through a trauma not to long ago as well and maybe she is not as okay with it as we thought?

Also it shows Bobby’s double standard again, but then I think he would have reacted differently if the guy had died and it was evident Hen realised she should never pull a stunt like that again. And maybe I’m giving Bobby a bit to much credit right now. Urgh.

I do wanna say, while Chimney seemed fine at the end with what went down we did see his reaction in the next episode and honestly he is mad, it’s just that Hen is his best friend and Chimney lives on the principle of forgive and forget so there.

Now I do really like the rope rescue scene because it was badass and also because Eddie seems so done in the beginning and Bobby just looks at him like: well, he’s not doing it alone and he’s probably not gonna cut his rope!

(Also notice how Eddie cut his rope willingly but Buck’s was cut for him? What does that mean? - For reals, I may see the connection but I can’t yet make out the meaning.)

But I did appreciate Hen’s comments about them being their best guys a lot! I kind of want an episode like they used to do on Star Trek were they focus on background characters and give us the way everyone probably sees Buddie as some kind of superhuman supermen who pull the craziest stunts and somehow make it! And now, let’s get into Evan!

First of, I now Cindy was meant as a parallel to Abby but I also think to Ali because Abby didn’t leave because she couldn’t handle the fear but Ali did. So there, a sort of Ali Martin mention! Thanks for listening, Tim.

But of course with everything else Cindy is quite the parallel to Abby from the way she just left and Red never really got closure, just like Buck.

What is interesting though is that Red, different to Buck, doesn’t want closure. He wants to remember the good times and imagine what could have been. (This could of course be due to the fact that his life is about to end.)

Buck on the other hand side really craves closure, and look, I know when we first learned she is definitely coming back I was really unhappy about that, but since then we learned they run into each other which makes it fine to me. Because I thought we’d have another instance of Buck running after Abby for validation and I did not want that. But he’s not actually running after her, it’s just a coincidence so I’m happy for him getting a chance to have closure, finally.

And this is were I think the episode proofs that it’s not about romantic love as the only way to be fulfilled, first because after talking about Abby Buck asks „Do you think I’m lonely?“ which is not about romance at all (had they wanted to make it about love it would have been: „Do you think I’ll find love again?“ or something). Also the conclusion of this episode is Maddie telling Buck he is different to Red because he has her (and in general those scenes between them, yes, they were also about Abby because she was another person Buck has been left by but just like they mention a best friend in terms of people Maddie left behind it is not about the romantic aspect, it is about people he loves in general), because he has a sister and she won’t leave him again - so there, familial love! The pinky swear! The importance of family. (see 3.11)

Also had it really been about love you know what would have happened since then? We’d have seen Buck calling Abby! Maddie would have said something about Buck still being young and having time to meet someone! Instead Abby and Buck run into each other by accident and Maddie makes a pinky swear to never leave again, so yeah, I just think sometimes we need to wait for how stuff plays out before we judge.

Now of course I wanna mention the pool scene as well.

Firstly, I know we already traced a lot of what Buck says at the end back to Eddie and the grocery store but did ya’ll here Chimney say: „Seems like your making this about yourself“ and Bobby implying the same thing, so yeah, I wonder if it was them quoting Eddie or if this is what everyone is supposed to be thinking or if it was just a setup for the breakdown at the end.

Also let’s talk about Eddie real quick here, because I found it really weird that they didn’t reference his platoon from Afghanistan here? Like they could have easily have him say „I’m not in the army anymore but I still talk to my old platoon.“, especially since we MET them one episode before. So either they didn’t think of that, they wanted to reinforce the fear Buck has or Eddie may just be as lonely as Buck?

(Guess which way I’m leaning?)

(Look, children are great but they are no substitute for friends and adult conversation, just saying!)

But I love how hard Mr. Stoic and emotionally unavailable tries to reassure Buck, tries to be there for him. And also did ya’ll notice how, once Eddie speaks for the first time Buck’s focus never strays from him. Hen and Chimney and Bobby talk as well but it seems as if Buck never looked away from Eddie. (Which, definitely get that, he looked good here.) Also how Buck stresses the “That better not happen to us“ - man, what conversation could he be referencing? Man, I wish I had memorised this show by now so I could tell you about two scenes that happened in 3A between Buddie where the topic of us was emphasised a lot but alas I don’t and I can’t.

What the pool scene also proofs once more is that the 118 just like an actual family has a lot of communication issues because Hen and Chimney not being in contact with Tommy or so is a completely different situation but because of their bad communication they don’t realise that this is something they need to explain to Buck because they think this is about Red.

Bobby doesn’t get it either tbh.

But we all know who does, look, I said it about 3.03 and I’ll say it now: Eddie knows Buck. Eddie understands Buck. And Eddie is on the path of realising that Buck needs him to say the actual words and not just let his actions speak! And my my if all of this pays off I will be one happy camper! (Hums Rihanna “We found love in a hopeless place”)

On a sidenote I hate that Red pegged Buck as a hothead because he really really isn’t! He’s just excitable and sometimes struggles with expressing himself and that frustrates him!

Also I never noticed the apartment had an outside area? did we know this? There is a grill?

Also really would love to see Gigi / Dana Strattford again, I liked her, she’s pretty! (But not like to date one of my guys, Tim, kay?)

(Also whats Officer Williams up to these days? Asking for … a friend?)

And to round this episode up: Oliver still looked so sick at times and they put a lot more makeup on him than they normally do? Usually you can see the slight scaring on his face but this episode you couldn’t but you could see the tears / snot mixing with all the makeup when he was crying and honestly, not his best look! (He still makes it work, though! Just saying, I miss 1.02 / 3.02 / 3.03 Buck, I know these episodes hurt but visually they are peak!)

Episode 3.17:

Was that episode amazing? Yes.

Am I still cackling about Oliver Stark having too much leg? Yes.

Did I love the Frank mention with all my heart? Yes.

Was Michael’s meet cute in an elevator less gay than any Buddie scene we got so far specifically any in 2.01 also known as their meet-ugly? That was a rhetorical question, you guys.

As for that comment I wouldn’t put too much stock into it. I mean, if you’re a single guy and you get invited out to fifth wheel at a double date with your sister and her boyfriend and his best friend and her wife, no matter how close you are, you will feel awkward so of course you invite the other single guy who happens to be your best friend who happens to be part of the friendgroup AND the team you’re working with making this a definite team/family/work - outing.

That being said: it took me 23h to come up with a reasonable explanation for this comment and I did scream at my laptop and pause the episode after it was made and I have been thinking “Buddie” confirmed about 100 times since then!

Also, they just spent a shit ton of time together, right? Like, if Buck’s there than so is Eddie and if Eddie is there than so is Buck and I’m clowning and not calm anymore!

Maybe “Buck invites Eddie” can be our always?

In other news this episode has absolutely no relevance for anything, but I love it deeply.

And we made it you guys! It was slower going but it worked!

Thank you to everyone who read so far and thank you to everyone who has been liking and reblogging and commenting! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to express how much this means to me!

(Also please keep doing that! I too am an excitable puppy looking for validation!)

Now, to tag:

@angelcamael, @greyhello, @ipleiade, @the-family-we-choose-118 @chimbuckleys @sevensoulmates

#buddie meta #buck meta #eddie meta #911 meta #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buddie #911 #911 fox #season 3 #textpost #mine #meta #buck #my meta

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lanceinblack · 7 years ago

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Paralells between Allurance and Klance

Hey! So while rewatching Voltron I noticed a lot of parallels between Allurance and Klance which, to me, are really interesting so I decided to post my thoughts here. I’m gonna put it under a read more because it will probably be pretty long. (warning: I’ll look at it from a neutral point, so if you’re strongly biased towards one of the ships you might not get what you want/have a different opinion than me.)

OK! Let’s get started. I’m just gonna say that I only rewatched season 3 and 4 so there might be a lot more paralells that I missed. Anyways, let’s see what I noticed. Also, whenever I say this moment felt stronger shippy wise, I’m more judging on the way it got framed, how it felt etc. Because all of this moments are way more than just “shippy moments”.

1. The shoulder touch™ Both take place in season 3, episode 2.

They obviously paralell each other, taking place in the same epsiode and all. I think a big difference between those two is the way they were framed. While in the first one, we see Keith and Lance framed in the middle, both being equally in the shot, the Allurance scene focuses more on their faces but we never get to see a shot that frames both of them like in the Klance scene. (oh yeah, also Keiths gay gasp™) So in my opinion, the shoulder touch is a little bit stronger in the Klance scene. (On a side note: the moment Lance’s hand touches Keith’s shoulder the music shifts from tension into something softer, while in the Allurance one the music seems to build up excitement till Allura says “go!” but whenever I will talk about music in this, it’s only my personal view, so I’m not gonna get too much into it.)

2. Watching the other while they fight Both take place in s3e6 At the beginning of episode 6, Lance looks through his visor and soon notices Keith, proceeding to watch him for some seconds. (about 8 secs?) There is no reason to watch him but he still does before he shoots an enemy that was aiming at Keith. Shortly after we see him helping Hunk out (and Hunk doing the sweetest thumbs up ever known.) After that he looks at Allura (still through the visor), then we as the viewers see her fight for some time (and I fell in love with her once more). Directly after that we see Lance taking off his eyes off his visor so we can assume he watched her all this time. He smiles and compliments her. So yeah, he watched her whole fight, I’m not gonna count the seconds as it is obviously longer than him wachting Keith. The difference between the scenes is that we see Lance watching Keith through his visor (which is basically the same as watching through Lances eyes) the whole time.

We don’t get this with Allura. Still, considering he watched her a lot longer and how totally thrilled he was by her fight (”Well, that was awesome!”) I think the Allurance is stronger in this one.

3. Bonding moments Allurance scene is s4e6 and Klance scene is s1e5 I’m just gonna drop this awesome post that summarizes that comparison perfectly It even has awesome gifs I can’t provide, so you should totally check it out! This post is also the one which made me realize that there are a lot of paralells between Allurance and Klance.

4. Being vulnerable/opening up to the other Allurance scene takes place in s3e2 and Klance scene takes place in s3e6 Here I’m gonna compare the bedroom scene to the one where Lance has to give up blue. In both, Lance is opening up about his insecurities, doubting himself, etc. There is actually a LOT to say about these scenes individually but I will try to keep it to the important stuff. Let’s start with Allurance. In fact, it overlays with the shoulder touch scene I talked about in the beginning. When Lance begins to doubt himself as not only the leader but also as a paladin, the red lion roars for him. But even then he is still convinced it’s not because of him. Allura then proceeds to tell him how accepting Keith as the leader proved how he values a strong team over his own need of glory.

Ok... so Allura obviously wants him to understand that the red lion, in fact, chooses him. What doesn’t really sit right with me is the way she is wording it. It sounds like by Lance not being the leader the team is doing way better and that’s one of the things that makes Lance reallly insecure. (Because Lance has that mindest that by being the leader you are proven to be worthy. He’s still just really hyperfixated at flying the black lion so he can show everybody how much he’s capable of. At this point, he doesn’t fully understand that being the leader doesn’t make you more or less worthy and wanting to be the leader just because of wanting to prove something is wrong and I also think that’s a reason why the black lion didn’t respond to him.) But yeah, she basically confirmed his “I’m not meant to be a leader” by saying the team is doing better like that. But she also reassured him in being a paladin, disproving the “I’m not meant to be a paladin” statement, also pointing out that Keith needs him as his right hand man. Also important, Lance shows her his vulnerable side. He has a crush on her and still doesn’t mind showing his deepest thoughts to her. That says a lot about the progress of their relationship and Lance himself, I like it.

Now let’s look at the paralleled Klance scene. I’m not going too much into the details of the scene (Keith taking off his jacket, him being happy Lance came only to then be sad that Lance just came because he’s the leader, etc. There are still a lot of important things, so I would recommend reading a meta about the bedroom scene.) OK, that being said Lance opens up about a lot. He sees himself as expendable, as the weakest paladin, etc. It’s obvious that he trusts Keith and he also is not ashamed of showing this side to him, same like with Allura. Which, I just love about both scenes. He explains the situation to Keith, saying that he thinks he should just step aside because there is no lion left for him and they need everyone else more than him.

And yeah... Keith sweetie, that’s a bit not so helpful. Lance even takes a step back, he’s almost out of the frame. I think Keith is a bit taken aback by Lance’s insecrurities... he’s just... genuinely confused about how Lance can even think such a thing. Lance decides to leave after that thanking Keith in a rather... dejected voice, like he’s still not convinced. Keith seems to notice that and calls Lance back. (also, wow, what a common trope.)

And I think his little comment, his waaay more open posture and the way this was framed is just... very, very soft. Keith realized that his former used method to reassure Lance totally went the wrong way, so he decides to try something else instead. Social interactions on a deep level are not really Keith’s element but he still overthinks this and gives his best to at least cheer Lance up. We get to see Lance again, his sad look turning into a small smile and proceeding to smile when he leaves. (which is important! When Keith leaves voltron, his smile immediately falters once he turns, so I think Lance really felt better in some way.) Again, the music shifts into something very soft. There is actually a lot more to this scene, but I’m gonna stop here and skip to comparing stuff.

To be honest, it’s not that easy to compare these two like it was with the others because... they are just very different and to fully analyze them you also have to look deeper into Lance as a character (and of course also Allura and Keith.) In the Klance scene, Lance opening up doesn’t happen because of a situation that brings his insecurities out like an impulse. In the Allurance scene he’s just hit with the situation of blue shutting him out, forcing him to overthink things on the spot. This time, Lance decides himself that he wants to speak to Keith about his issues. Yes, there also is a situation that causes it (more paladins than lions) but it’s not as urgent as in the previous sene. It doesn’t hit him on the spot. He probably thought a lot over the whole thing before deciding to go to Keith so he can speak about it. Keith, his rival. (lol, nope.) Ok, so the fact that he chose him to open up about his issues says a lot. Forget that “well, you’re the leader now” Lance gives Keith, Shiro is already back and if you have someone on the team you would prefer talking to you would still go to them despite them not being the leader. Why didn’t he go talk to Allura, when he obviously already got reassurance from her before? Like I said, he is not afraid or ashamed of showing his vulnerable side to her so that’s not the reason. So yeah, he chooses to talk to Keith for many reasons, a lot of them probably being personal ones. Again, the framing is very different. I already talked about the framing in the Allurance one when I talked about the shoulder touch. In the Klance scene Keith and Lance seem very... closed off in the beginning. Arms crossed, a lot of distance between them. Only when Lance is about to leave the framing changes completely. We see Keith through Lances eyes, being more open than ever, smiling a soft smile. What they both share is that Lance opens up in the first place. He trusts them. But they also both share a negative side. They both didn’t... really come through to Lance, since they both kinda missed the point, although being unaware of that. I mean, Lance himself probably doesn’t say this things and expects to hear “No, we need you. You are our sharpshooter and you are irreplacable!” He wants and needs to hear that but not only Keith and Allura are totally unaware of that but also Lance himself. So yeah... it’s hard to tell which scene had more impact on Lance. And since this is way more than just a “shippy moment” I can’t say this or that ship is stronger here. Only looking at the framing, music, animation I would go with the Klance scene but in the end they both are very similar in their negative and positive ways.

5. Reassuring the other Klance scenes are s3e1-3 and Allurance scene is s4e6 Before I go into that one I gotta say that these moments are also clearly leadership moments for Lance. They don’t really... serve the purpose to provide shipping fodder but are more scenes to develop Lance’s character/his leadership skills. And they are obviously also very, very important moments for Keith and Allura. They are character development scenes for the three. Still, since a lot of people take the Allurance scene as romantic I want to make that comparison because I’m tired of the “this is romantic and the m/m or f/f thing is not even though they are so smiliar. why? because I said so” mindset.

Gonna start with the Klance ones. I didn’t just choose one scene, because Lance actually never stops reassuring Keith from episode 1 to episode 3 of season 3. There is the hey man™ scene, the shoulder touch™ scene and also the scene on Thayserix. Ok, I could probably talk pages about the scenes, so I’m gonna focus on the Thayserix scene since it resembles the Allurance one the most. We know that Keith basically... fucks up at first. He follows Lotor right into his trap, not listening to what the others have to say, not even stopping for Allura when she falls back. He kinda has this tunnel vision. He only stops when Lance finally breaks through to him. Later, when the team gets split up, he realizes his mistake. He finds Lance and opens up to him, confesses his mistake and just shows a lot of his vulnerable side. Which he rarely ever does. Lance tells him that, yeah, he did kinda fuck up but they, together, will have to fix that. Keith seems to understand and proceeds to go make it right this time. Let’s have a look at a shot from this scene.

(Seriously, this is a cinematic masterpiece, I fell in love with that shot.) So, we see Lance and Keith in their lions, hovering towards each other. The background is a mix between blue and red, coming together as purple in the middle (where Keith and Lance are). This might be my personal opinion, but it gives me a LOT of romantic vibes. Especially with the colors in the background. (you know, since Keith is the red paladin... Lance is the blue one... together they make purple...)

Ok, now let’s have a look at the Allurance moment in s4e6. When they don’t know what to do, Lance encourages Allura to use her power to get them out of there. And his speech ist just... very heartwarming, to say the least. He really, really assures Allura that she can do this, she can. He even tells her that she is the heart of voltron, which... ugh, so sweet. He certainly gets through to her and she tries her best and also succeeds. (you’re doing amazing sweetie.) Allura then thanks Lance for all he said to her. (Which... is so good? And he really deserves to be thanked? And honestly... Keith never did that, which bugs me. Or anyone else tbh.)

after that Lance gives her the softest look ever. (like, really. I think that face and the bonding moment one are the softest Lance has ever looked like) and he even says “that was all you”, giving her all credit for what she did and prasing her. (God, Lance you are sch a good boydi) Also, the music while he’s giving the speech gave me goosebumps. It’s very nice. So, yeah. Looking at this scenes in a shippy way, Allurance is way stronger here. But I also only focused on one of the 3 Klance “reassurance” scenes we have. TL;DR: Allurance and Klance have a lot of moments in the show that parallel each other and if you interpret one of them as romantic but say the other isn’t or can’t be interpreted as such (this goes for both sides) then you are just a hypocrit.

#vld #lance (vld)#keith (vld)#allura (vld)#voltron #klance #allurance #vld s3 #vld s4 #shipping #vld meta #meta #my thoughts

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