#( -throws Wyatt like a boomerang- )

[kinglyisms-archived]

♚ — @empyreous ;; Wyatt & Jian. Stater Call.

It's Friday Night and for the Starlight Bar that meant it was half-off drinks and kareoke night. On nights like this, Wyatt likes to bartend, but mostly just to help rather than working as a staff that counted. So that he didn't need to rush around and could leave the bar to help out on the floor if he needed to. Drunk people tended to be rough on the kareoke machine and they've broken it more than once while swinging the micophone around.

He also carried drinks to tables that were ordered and made sure no one was doing anything dangerous or agressive. Since Friday Nights could be quite busy they tended to be overwhelmed with everything, making the night a bit more difficult, till the wave of peple started to calm down or they threw people out.

Wyatt already had broken up two fights, threw them out and spent half an hour in the back doing dishes. He had just carried them back up to the bar and placed them away when the bartenders asked for his help catching up with the orders. They had three bartenders on shift and weren't doing horrible, but one of them they were still training on making drinks.

He nodded his head and tucked the drink tray away before looking across the bar for someone who hadn't been served yet. Spotting a man he moved his way over to the bar and leaned against the counter top. He spoke loud enough to be heard over the music but not enough to shout at the customer. "What can I get you?"

[qqueenofhades]

So...let’s talk some more about this Wyatt vs. Flynn dynamic re: their treatment of Lucy. Because I have Thoughts (as you know) and I know YOU have Thoughts.

Woooooooooowww hoo yep do I have a lot of Thoughts.

(Disclaimer: Probably don’t read this if you’re a diehard Wyatt/and/or Wyatt and Lucy fan. Because I don’t hate him – I’m still invested in him and I love the idea of him and Jessica and what’s possible for that to go and him fixing his screwups. But we also have a full season of canon text to analyze and well. I’m gonna analyze it. And honestly he…. has a long way to go.)

First, as I said in the other ask, we’re all well aware how much Flynn fucked it up with Lucy in season 1. Repeatedly and face-palmingly and over and over, to the point that him getting a 1 in the Garbage Date Manifesto instead of a zero (or a negative eleventy billion) was an improvement. But here’s the thing: Flynn and Lucy were enemies. Or at least they were sorta-not-quite-enemies but still fighting each other despite his soft spot for her. The point is, they were nowhere near a relationship of any sort, and if they’d actually had Garcy be any more than a connection/understanding/gentle gaze here and there, we’d probably have judged them. Because that’s not a relationship we’d think Lucy should get into, and indeed, she doesn’t. She stops being scared of Flynn in 1x02. She calls him on his bullshit from then on out, repeatedly, and even when there’s the obvious thought that this scary murder machine could hurt or kill her if she does. She straight up challenges him to kill her for not helping him in 1x11 because she knows he won’t. When she sees him again in 1x14 post-all this, her reaction is to… order him to order his minion to let go of her (AND HE DOES). There is no filter or fear in her reactions to Flynn. She calls him straight out, and he apparently loves it when she does. (And again: THEY’RE STILL ON OPPOSITE SIDES. They’re not in any sort of relationship.) She has the strength and confidence to tell him exactly how she feels at any given time, which is usually that he’s being an ass. Which is also generally correct.

When Flynn comes to the bunker in s2 (after holding a grudge against Lucy for all of five seconds), that’s post-1x16 and “what if God led you to me” and things start changing for them. Flynn walks into the bunker in 2x03 literally seconds before Wyatt runs out of it to see Jessica. THEY PHYSICALLY CHANGE PLACES IN LUCY’S LIFE. And that’s… exactly what proceeds to happen?

Starting in 2x04, Wyatt chooses Jessica, doubles down on that choice, and while perhaps not wanting to, starts to and then continues hurting Lucy, mostly emotionally but in 2x10, physically as well. He is possessive of her while also having brought his wife back to the team’s shared home, having loud sex with her, and apparently thinking he’s entitled to a special relationship with both her and Lucy. (Rufus calls him directly out for forgetting about everyone else in the bunker in 2x10, which praise. Yep.) He slut-shames Lucy (twice!) for thinking she might have slept with Flynn in 2x07, and keeps barbing at her for it at every opportunity (”you and Flynn, huh” in 2x09, even after throwing a fit getting Denise to keep Jessica safe back at home/heard they have a baby on the way.) He generally acts insecure and throws his weight around (”stay away from her” in the 2x07 scene with Flynn) in a way that is… pretty unattractive. Sure, he has a few nice lines in there/tells her that she’s Lucy Preston and that’s pretty good, but he’s just so unpleasant in 2x07, and… still doesn’t get around to apologizing for it. By the time he’s begged Jessica to come back with him in 2x10 and told her they’re family and promised to fight for her, he finally gets home and then… tells Lucy that he loves her? Which he frames as doing what Rufus wanted, but yet again, he’s boomeranging back to her/immediately trying to cling to her after having lost Jessica, and keeping her in his back pocket as his second choice, yet again. And that is… mmmmmm.

Meanwhile, the narrative is insisting to us that Lucy and Wyatt love each other (or at least other characters keep SAYING it, almost as if we wouldn’t be able to tell otherwise) and we’re supposed to be rooting for reconciliation. This is totally different from when Flynn and Lucy are adversaries in s1; there was no expectation that the behaviour would necessarily be any different. They were treating each other as people on opposite sides of the fight (and aside from throwing her onto a couch in 1x02, which – obviously, bad, but not the LEAST of what he would have done to Wyatt in that situation – Flynn has never hurt her EVEN WHEN THEY WERE OUTRIGHT ENEMIES.) Instead, the implicit message of the narrative is that Wyatt’s bad behaviour is all right or understandable or whatever else because “he loves her!” Apparently. Wyatt even has the excuse of being in a relationship (or at least a brief one) with Lucy, we’re supposed to buy that this the man we want her back with, and…

While this is going on, Lucy is biting her tongue. She’s swallowing back her feelings. She’s sacrificing her emotional availability for Wyatt’s needs, over and over, while he notably does not return the favor. Even when she and Flynn were ENEMIES, she was fearless in telling him what she thinks – she can’t even do that with Wyatt when they’re LOVERS? (Or ex-lovers.) Their entire relationship becomes Wyatt doing what he wants or needs or thinks he should, and Lucy silently swallowing her pain and letting him do it, and this being framed as a noble sacrifice on her part. (Which it is, but… very one-sided since he doesn’t return the favor.) She walks on eggshells around him and only in 2x07 gets to tell him what she really thinks about the situation (and he still doesn’t seem to get it). There’s just… not a lot of equal ground there, and it becomes painful and frustrating to watch as a Lucy stan. We can’t understand why, even for the sake of a deep connection, she’s giving him SO MANY CHANCES. She cares for him a lot and they need each other; I’m not disputing that. But after 2x03, he pretty much vanishes from her life as an equal and reciprocal emotional support, and that place is taken – often in very obvious ways – by Flynn.

Because starting with 2x04 and the first mission they go on, Flynn is all in on his new role/relation to Lucy. She asks if she can trust him in 2x04, he nods, and that’s it. He doesn’t look back. He fucks up a dude when she gives him a look, he goes crazy getting a gun to save her (and the others, but lbr it’s mostly about her). Comforts her and tells her she’s nothing like her mom in the Lifeboat scene/does her seatbelt. Then when they arrive into the Wyatt/Jessica situation of awkwardness, Flynn takes Lucy’s arm and physically shields her from Wyatt (while glaring at him) and gets her out of it. Again. They were technically still enemies, or at least very wary allies, in 2x03, but she told him they needed him more and bam. That’s it now. Off he goes.

In 2x05, after Lucy’s frazzling day with Wyatt and Jessica, Flynn goes over after his own bad day and supports her. In 2x06, obviously, it’s beautiful and we’re all dead and he’s both tender and protective of her and owns up to his failures in the past and gives her THE CHOICE ABOUT A FUTURE RELATIONSHIP. He knows he’s fucked up badly and she would be justified in like “nope I don’t want anything else.” But she takes a chance (even after how Wyatt has hurt her) and opens up to him and he does the same. They get back and they’re incredibly happy and then Wyatt turns up, trying the “you keep Flynn on a leash?” line trying to once more get sympathy and commiseration from Lucy. But she rebukes him (gently but plainly) and defends Flynn. And of course goes to his room that night because that’s just how safe she feels with him now???

In 2x07 she’s incredibly comfortable with him, and he’s been gazing at her with heart eyes, and then defending her right to make her choices to Wyatt. AND ALL THIS TIME, FLYNN HAS BEEN EXPECTING NOTHING FROM HER. He has never once acted like he has any claim over her or that she owes him anything for the attention and care and support he’s been giving her. Never. Once. Doesn’t reciprocate the jealous boyfriend act on Wyatt. Keeps the focus on Lucy and her choices. Doesn’t make it about his feelings for Wyatt; he hates the dude, but he constantly keeps stepping away to let Lucy talk to him if that’s what she wants. (While Wyatt can’t stop bitching about Flynn and judging Lucy for her choice to get close to him.) Flynn never ONCE lets his feelings for Wyatt get in the way of that possibly being what Lucy wants. (As he says in 2x10, he… probably still does want to kill Wyatt in some way, even if he’s full of hot air and wouldn’t do it.) He is so careful of her feelings and her choices that he can’t tell her she’s beautiful in 2x08, when she asks him about the journal (and see all my metas about how she went to him from a place of HOPE and not anger). He doesn’t get around to telling her that he loves her in 2x10 and would probably have avoided it even if Wyatt didn’t interrupt them. He sees them together at the end of 2x10 and assumes Lucy’s taking Wyatt back and you can see his heart break, but he doesn’t get in the way. Again. Never once acting like she has any expectation to treat him in a certain way or let him in, and is just determined to give her everything he possibly can to make sure she doesn’t regret it.

As I’ve said many times, I’ve dragged Flynn over the coals A LOT. But the instant he was in any kind of relationship with Lucy (however loosely defined), almost… all the garbage went away. He was loving, gentle, attentive, supportive, careful, respectful, tender, protective, and sacrificial around her, and never once said or acted like she owed him anything for it, because he knows he has a long way to go and is fully willing to put in the work. While Wyatt, who we’re told over and over is in a relationship with/loves/cares for/whatever with Lucy, is the one acting like a giant bag of dicks, entitled, selfish, jealous, and immature. (Lucy tries to reach out to him in 2x09, he lashes out at her again, and then tries to help her get on the horse as she’s about to ride off with Flynn. Her “No, Wyatt, I’ve got it” becomes a little pointed in that situation, one thinks.)

And of course. I don’t even need to talk about 2x10. (Though I probably will.) Flynn was the person that Lucy talked to about her mother’s death and her disbelief that Carol’s biggest regret was not raising her Rittenhouse from the start. Flynn was the person to see Dark Lucy and to literally pull her out of it and hold her through the worst moment of her life. Wyatt was available to take that moment, but he didn’t. If they wanted Wyatt to be the one to do it, they would have set up the story in a way that enabled it, but nope. When Lucy finally, comprehensively breaks down after all the shit she has been through and the people she has lost this season, she breaks down in Flynn’s arms. He is the one to comfort her without words (also Goran can fight me in an alley for the “unspoken” thing, because LITERALLY!) Then we focus on Flynn’s face back at the bunker, watching Wyatt and Lucy talk, as much as the scene itself, and see his pain. That is… a weird thing to include if it was just about W/L.

I started the season being 100% certain that for better or worse, Wyatt/Lucy would be endgame. I’m now like…90% certain, maybe less, because it sounds like they’re at least open to the possibility of discussing that her relationship with Flynn turns romantic (JFC, Shawn Ryan gave “romantic” and “deeper than romantic” as options!!!! Abigail said Lucy HAS FEELINGS for Flynn and doesn’t trust Wyatt!!!) If this was any other show, I would be 101% certain that Lucy and Flynn were endgame, because this entire season has been one big anti-parallel between him and Wyatt, and almost entirely to Flynn’s benefit/redemption. And I love him to bits, but I can tell you, I wasn’t expecting that.

So. Yeeeeahhh.