#2) YOU HAVE BEEN CONSISTENTLY SCREWING EVERYONE ELSE OVER FOR 4 SEASONS

[patchedstars]

"you're just gonna screw me like everyone else in my life"

[crusherthedoctor]

Can you list anything you unironically like in the games (and cartoons and comics) that you don't like?

I won't bother mentioning music, since that goes without saying and is to be expected for a Sonic game... unless you're Chronicles.

Sonic Adventure 2 (mixed gameplay-wise, annoying story-wise) - While I prefer Sonic's SA1 levels for a number of reasons, I still think his and Shadow's gameplay in SA2 is fun on its own merit. I also don't mind the treasure hunting gameplay returning or how big the levels are this time around, since Knuckles and Rouge are still fast and not '06 levels of slow. It's mainly the gimped radar that creates the unfortunate domino effect of making them a problem.

- Introduced Rouge, one of my favourite characters for how playful she is and how she's a lot more nuanced and intelligent than you'd expect.

- Some genuinely good scenes, like Eggman's trap on the A.R.K and Sonic escaping from the G.U.N. helicopter.

- Had some good ideas going for it, like the Pyramid Base and the Biolizard as a scientific monster instead of an ancient one.

- Despite my thoughts on the backstory itself (or rather, its execution), Shadow has enough depth and subtle qualities and occasional unintended hilarity to stand out from the typical dark rival characters you see in media.

- The Last Scene's music in particular is one of my favourite cutscene tracks in the series.

Sonic Heroes (mixed gameplay-wise, loathed story-wise) - The gameplay is fun when you're not being screwed over by repetitive combat, overly long levels and/or ice physics.

- Boasts some of the most consistently Genesis-worthy environments in the 3D games, up there with SA1's and Colours'.

- The in-game dialogue that isn't the same tutorial drivel repeated ad nauseam can be interesting, funny, etc.

- Reintroduced the Chaotix, which provided me with another character I quite like in the form of Vector.

- Bringing Metal Sonic back in full force and front and center in the plot after a long absence (not counting cameos and the like) is a perfectly fine idea. Just... not like this.

Sonic Battle (decent yet repetitive gameplay, mixed story-wise) - Emerl's arc is compelling, and it earns the emotional weight of having to put him down at the end.

- While some characters are iffy (read: Amy), other characters are extremely well-handled. Shadow is probably the prime example.

- Gamma's belly dance healing animation is fucking hilarious.

- When I was young, and the game was first announced, I was really excited about being able to play as Chaos. This proved to be my downfall when it turned out he was arguably one of the worst characters in the game due to being slower than me during the writing process, but I still recall that excitement fondly.

Shadow the Hedgehog (comedy classic) - The sheer amount of legendary stupidity this game has going for it makes it practically impossible to actually hate. It helps that it's not quite as white-knighted on the same level as '06... usually. You know you're in for a unique experience when you hear a gunshot every time you click something in the menu.

- By extension, Black Doom never gained an unironic fanbase like Mephiles/Scourge/Eggman Nega did, which means I'm a lot more willing to take Doom's dumbass brand of villainy in stride. He even has a unique design... a terrible one that rips off Wizeman granted, but alas, even that is a step-up from Fridge Shadow and Bumblebee Eggman.

- Despite being... well, Shadow the Hedgehog, some of the environments would fit right in with any other Sonic game, like with Circus Park, Lava Shelter, and Digital Circuit. Even the Black Comet levels look pretty cool.

- This game understands amnesia better than IDW does.

Sonic '06 (what do you think?) - The obvious one: Shadow's character was handled pretty well, even if it came at the cost of everyone else being a dummy and being forced to interact with Mephiles.

- Like SA2, there are some good moments, like the Last Story ending sequence with Sonic and Elise.

- In the greatest form of irony ever, I like Solaris as a concept and design(s), and its backstory has potential to serve as a parallel with Chaos without being a complete ripoff. Iblis sucks, Mephiles sucks, but I'm fine with Solaris.

- Introduced legendary characters like Sonic Man, Pele the Beloved Dog, Hatsun the Pigeon, and Pacha from The Emperor's New Groove.

The Rivals duology (apathetic outside of Nega-related grumbling) - There were some cool zone ideas in both games that were sadly let down by the restrictive and limiting gameplay. I particularly like Colosseum Highway for thus far being the only full-on Roman level in the series instead of merely having a couple minor hints of Roman, and Meteor Base for the unique scenario of the space station being built into an asteroid. These level concepts and others deserve a second chance IMO. (At least Frontier Canyon got a second chance in the form of Mirage Saloon, amirite?)

- Ifrit has a better design than Iblis. Not saying it's amazing, but the Firebird motif it has going on is a lot more interesting for a fire monster than the Not-Chaos schtick they had with Iblis.

Sonic and the Secret Rings (a very frustrating gaming experience) - Erazor Djinn, A.K.A. Qui-Gon Djinn, A.K.A. Dr. N. Djinn, A.K.A. I'll Take It On The Djinn, A.K.A. Not From The Hairs On My Djinny Djinn Djinn, is one of the best villains not associated with Eggman in the series. He's a Mephiles-type character done right, and there's actual weight and reason to his actions, however sinister or petty.

- I don't have strong opinions either way on Shahra as a character, but the Sonic/Shahra friendship is sweet and well-handled.

- The ending is one of Sonic's greatest moments. The sheer contrast between how ruthlessly he deals with Erazor and how comforting he is towards Shahra speaks volumes... Still gonna make fun of the mountain of handkerchiefs though. (Before anyone lectures me, I understand the significance of it and can even appreciate it from that angle... doesn't mean I'm not allowed to poke fun at it. :P)

- Another game with some redeeming environments. I love the aesthetic of Night Palace, and Sand Oasis looks gorgeous too.

Sonic Chronicles (my personal least favourite game in the series) - Uh...

- Um...

- Er...

- I like Shade's design?

Sonic Unleashed (overrated game and story IMO) - The obvious two: the opening sequence and the Egg Dragoon fight deserve all the praise they get.

- Seeing Eggmanland come to life was an impressive moment to be sure. While part of me does feel it didn't quite measure up to what I had in mind (ironically, the Interstellar Amusement Park ended up being closer to what I had in mind), it still looks badass and works well for what it is. I also don't mind the idea of it being a one-level gauntlet... key word being idea.

- Obviously, the game looks great. Not a fan of the real world focus (real world inspiration is fine, but copy-pasting the real world and shoving loops in it is just unimaginative), but it can't be denied that the environments look good.

- This game pulled off dialogue options a lot better than Chronicles did, since they didn't rely on making Sonic OoC.

Sonic and the Black Knight (just kind of boring all around) - Despite my gripes with the story (Merlina wasn't nearly as fleshed out as her unique anti-villain status deserved, which ends up severely undermining the ambition of the plot in more ways than one, and the other characters go from being useless yes men for King Arthur to being useless yes men for Sonic), I will admit it provides interesting insight into Sonic's character.

- Like '06 and Secret Rings, the ending is very nice... well, aside from Amy being an unreasonable bitch ala Sonic X at the very end.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (apathetic) - The admittedly few new concepts sprinkled within had promise. They may not have been as fleshed out as they could have been, but level concepts like Sylvania Castle and White Park, bosses like Egg Serpentleaf and the Egg Heart, and story beats like the Death Egg mk.II being powered by Little Planet, all could have been brilliant had they been better executed.

SatAM (apathetic outside of SatAM Robotnik-related grumbling) - I'm not a fan of the environments on the whole due to them looking too bland or samey, but there are some exceptions that look pleasant or interesting, like the Void.

Sonic Underground (apathetic) - The character designs make me feel better about myself.

- Does "large quantities of unintentional meme material" count as a positive?

Sonic X (mostly apathetic outside of Eggman's handling) - Helen was a better human character and audience surrogate in her one focus episode than Chris was throughout his entire runtime.

- Actually, most of the human characters not named Chris were legitimately likable. Including everyone in Chris' own family not named Chris. Hilarious.

- Despite arguably having the most Chris in it, I actually don't mind the first season that much, partly due to slight nostalgia from seeing it on TV when it was new, but mostly because Eggman actually acted like a villain for the most part, and certain other characters weren't quite as flanderized yet. It's season 2 and onwards where things started going off the rails IMO. (Incidentally, Helen's episode was part of season 1...)

The Boom franchise (apathetic) - Along with Chronicles, the games provide yet more proof that just because someone isn't SEGA/Sonic Team, that doesn't mean they're automatically more qualified to handle the series.

- The show had some good episodes here and there, and Tails' characterization was probably the most consistently on-point out of the cast.

- Despite not exactly being favourite portrayals for either character, even I'll admit that many of Knuckles and Eggman's lines in the show on their own were genuinely funny.

Archie Sonic (pre-reboot is mostly terrible, post-reboot is mostly... bland) - Whenever I doubt myself as a writer, I think back to Ken Penders, and suddenly I'm filled with a lot more confidence.

Sonic the Comic (apathetic) - Fleetway isn't a comic I tend to recall much of aside from how much of a loathesome cunt Sonic is, but IIRC, Robotnik's portrayal is pretty good. Different, but good.

IDW Sonic (stop pissing me off, comic) - Putting their handling aside (and being too obviously "inspired" by MGS in the latter's case), Tangle and Whisper are good characters IMO.

- Same goes for Starline, before he was killed off-screen and replaced with Toothpaste Snively.

- Execution aside (noticing a pattern?), the zombot virus was a fine concept on its own and an interesting new scheme for Eggman.

- I get to remind myself that I've never drawn scat edits and posted them publicly on Twitter.

[mc-critical]

What are your thoughts on Ibrahim? For me it went from indifference and dislike in season 1 to liking in season 2 and becoming my favorite male character in season 3 tbh. Actually the only good male character by season 3 (season 4 has many other options too). He is probably the most complex and well written character and I really sympathise with him. His arrogance was his downfall but if Suleyman wasn't such a bitch it wouldn't have been lol. He wasn't wrong in that imo. He was a slave, a fisherman's son but his intelligence and skill took him farther than anyone else and it's not wrong to be proud of such a feat. He deserved the pride more than just about anyone, even Suleyman. What I dislike the most about him is his treatment of Nigar after their relationship ended. She's my favorite character and although their relationship itself was my favorite in the whole show (other than Nurbanu and Selim) it ended really badly

Ibrahim is one of my most conflicting characters on the series: one time I feel like I don't get the appeal, especially not the stans in one Bulgarian forum, he doesn't elicit such a strong emotional reaction in me as he does in others, but then once he hits an incredibly strong arc and I begin to analyze his character and all its dimensions, I come to love him for what he is and realize how much effort has gone in conceiving and developing him. He's certainly the most well-written male character that isn't a sultan or a prince in the entire franchise. (the sultans aren't the brightest, but the bar is so high when it comes to their writing. There isn't any of them that is badly written. The princes are also well developed, but now that I think about it, Ibrahim surpasses some of them as well!) He's delightfully fleshed out with every detail; his actions, while morally ambiguous at times, are very understandable and you can clearly see the deeper, nuanced reasons why he does what he does. His arc was a sight to see from beginning to end and watching it reach its inevitable tragic conclusion was heartwrenching. At a point he became so important to the narrative, whether it was intentional or not, that the show (or actually, S03B in particular, because S04 was absolutely fantastic!) began to lowkey miss something without him. He had such a strong presence that couldn't be matched by anyone else after him.

[To be brutally honest though, I find his dynamic with Hürrem in terms of screentime to be kinda overrated. Not that it's bad or anything, quite the contrary - their chemistry was great, they were consistent and fun to watch, they had quite a few great scenes that were definetly more than Hürrem and Mahidevran's, I dare even say this is one of the most solid antagonistic dynamics of Hürrem's writing-wise, but I just find it sometimes gets way too much credit? It's weird, I know.]

The most interesting thing about him is, without a doubt, his fatal flaw that I... actually don't think is arrogance. It's not up for argument that Ibrahim can definetly come off as arrogant, but the arrogance is rather a manifestation of his fatal flaw, not his fatal flaw itself. I believe that it's precisely his inferiority complex that is the root of his vulnerabilities: as you said, he's been only a fisherman in Parga, and his background is both a source of memories where he can recall his more "innocent" days with his family and a tough spot for him where he is consistently reminded of something that is already in the past after all he has achieved. He did want to return to Parga, to see who he used to be one more time, but after that it's as if he never gets a chance to forget, to put it behind him. He pretends he has forgotten, but that consistent reminder of how he has started seems to be constantly haunting him to the point he begins to remind himself of it. It's not only people like Figani, Iskender Çelebi or the other members of the divan in early S01 that don't let him forget, it's as if he himself doesn't want to forget. It's undeniable that he had climbed up to heights he wouldn't dream of and the role of a grand vezier needed getting used to and to be dealt with with care. On one hand, we could argue that he reminds himself of Parga as a way to preserve his moral compass, in a way, to realize when and how he has screwed up or remind himself of the limitations of how far can he go, for Süleiman is his friend and companion who he wouldn't want to disappoint. But on the other hand, the more he rose in the hierarchy, the stronger became a wish for him to exceed these limitations placed upon him by everyone around. Süleiman is able to give him everything if he wishes, so why not let it happen? Then he's going to prove to everyone, prove to his inner demons, this sense of inferiority that he, in fact, can not only become the most politically adept grand vezier there is, but a person who has his own country within the country and can rule it with ease. The political arena ultimately becomes a target of his inner conflict where he projects more power than anyone else, is most influential and does the best in order to gain the goal, not only to gain SS's approval, but show that, yeah, he can do his best for the role he's put in, fixating on the Ottoman country he claims to be a ruler of and his apparently endless rights. It turns into a coping mechanism where he can escape his past and background and he gets so sucked in it that his self awareness becomes less and less. That's where his arrogance comes from and I feel that if he didn't possess that complex of his, he would've managed things way better and had more self control, as a result. He was a very good politician in the show, setting in motion many good strategies (his strategy gave them the Mohacs victory after all), having a strong, pragmatic mind and many innovative ideas and if he didn't try his hardest to convince himself he's worth something that isn't just the story of the fisherman in Parga, Hürrem wouldn't stand a chance against him.

This inferiority complex is the reason for his infidelity, too. He loves Hatice dearly and he never expected that she of all people would do the very thing he dreads the most. Her pulling rank on him came as such a shock for him that it seemed he would never forget or forgive. It put infinetly more salt to the wound, deeply hurting his ego and the self-esteem he was just beginning to gain. That's why he let himself in Nigar's hands for so long, for she would only want to please him, for that relationship would have no limitations whatsoever and wouldn't restrict Ibrahim in any way. It was something that was his, something the dynasty would never touch or learn about. I love Nigar and Ibrahim's relationship, too. Principally, I'm not a fan of love triangles at all, but that one is a notable exception for how wonderfully, but crushingly psychological it is. It wasn't added in only for the sake of the drama, it was set up for very long and it was like the characters actually got there through their own actions and they had to truly face that struggle to flesh out and evolve. But there wasn't genuine love there, not in Ibrahim's part. That was his biggest weakness speaking, causing the illusion of love, not the real feeling of it. He wanted to preserve this relationship as the fisherman in Parga, but to me, it felt like he showed something more similar to his own confident assertions of the power of a grand vezier than actual regard for Nigar's feelings. It all was a lie he wanted to believe, because of his ego's denial, and he believed it so much he told Nico that Nigar was the person he truly loved in E51. And when he did get out of the lie (the monologue in E57), see how he reacts differently in front of her now - he turns off every single try of hers to give him affection, he reacted very badly when he learned she was pregnant, it was as if he wanted her to wake up from the dream and move on, too? And due to his inner conflict that perpetuates his arrogance grew even more in S03, he got over Nigar, but not over her child. Esmanur's birth made him return to and enforced his old habits that made him consider that child as another piece of solace, something out of the dynasty, also only his, trying so desperately to have her live with him and Hatice. The infidelity and the way he treated Nigar after he realized the error of his ways are ones of the worst things Ibrahim did, along with Leo (now, I get he wanted to knock Hürrem down a peg, but that was admittedly much for me.) and while I understand why these events and interactions came to fruition, I can't justify him for them.

I agree that had Süleiman not given him as much power, his inferiority complex would be highly downplayed, at the very least. He underestimated the possible consequences of Ibrahim's rise and it really doesn't look like he knows him as much as he thinks he does. Whether he did it to test him (SS's lasting reminders that Ibrahim gets closer to death) or because he loves him dearly and wants to embrace his potential ("I want you to use that mind only for me!") or both, it's like he gave him both too much freedom and too many boundaries at once. I mean, I understand why SS executed Ibrahim: his affirmations, no matter their backstory and how metaphorical they are, pose a definite threat for a padişah and along with his growing paranoia of betrayal, he couldn't be sure how far he was going to go anymore. It's as if Ibrahim crossed every line, openly acting like he controls the padişah and his state in front of the fellow pashas, efendis and ambassadors and that couldn't be controlled anymore. It's as if he had done his best efforts to bring him down to earth, but since none of it was working, he decided to act accordingly. The many "failures" of Ibrahim have been piling up in the narrative in the span of 81 episodes and I get why SS would finally snap for what was the final straw. However, doing so much unprecedented stuff for a grand vezier was bound to bring disasters for the padişah due to the chance in his mind that he would try to question or prevail over him, hence Süleiman should've realized that it was only natural one would want more and more. And that happened with S03 Ibrahim - he fought more and more with his inner demons, hence wanting to have more and more to be validated by the others and by his own ego that perhaps wouldn't feel satisfied regardless.

While his fatal flaw underlines his complexity, it also gets complimented by his many positive qualities: his love for Hatice was very sweet in the beggining and after the Nigar plot, it turned out to be really genuine - their reconciliation was very telling in that aspect; his relationship and loyalty to Süleiman deserves respect, even though his inferiority complex came in the way, he still would never give him up and never once lost hope in his recovery when he was in his deathbed and while that may become up for debate in S03, he would never openly stand against him and would gladly try his best to please him; his bond with Mustafa is amazing, too - I love how he practically raised that kid and gave him sound advice as well as his mother; that said, his relationship with Mahidevran deserves more appreciation and it is one of the most reciprocal and understanding, soft and "carefee" dynamics of the show; I love his dedication to his family and how he loves them as much and remembers them with the same fondness as ever before. In short, when going in depth, this multifaceted character has so much to offer, like, wow!

Okay, when I first watched the show, there was that point where I felt Ibrahim overstayed his welcome and I even wanted for Hürrem to finish him already (heh, those were the days! 😅) but now when I've rewatched and reexamined MC many times, I see that despite of his few negative traits, everything about this character flows so well and so organically and it's one of the characters in the series that have aged really well with time in my eyes. And I respect him so much for that.

[handonhaven]

So a few things popped into my head, and will most likely stay there for a while.

1. This whole long hair thing with Landon. I refuse to believe they went through all that trouble just for a ten second scene. I believe they did all of that because we're gonna get a flashback episode so we can find out what happened to Landon and how malivore ended up possessing him. And I think this because I like to thing that episodes Aria wasn't in at the beginning of the season/or episodes he was in only a scene or two that's when he was filming the flashback episode. Because sometimes they do film episodes out of order for whatever reason. And I will go on believing this until October when I'm either proven wrong or hopefully proven right.

2. When this thought popped into my head I got mad and sad all at the same time. Because this is now the second time they've separated Handon from each other for months at a time. NOT once but twice they did that. First with Hope jumping into malivore and everyone forgetting her. So the whole summer and a couple months into the new school year they were away from each other. Then again when Landon ended up in malivore. So they were separated again for another two, two half months maybe. I refuse to believe it's any long than that. Since seasons 2&3 are one school year. My reasons for thinking that is because the season 2 final(3x04) was Handons 1 year anniversary and they started dating about half way through the first school in season 1. But anyways I don't I'll ever be able to forgive the writers for doing that to them. Just like I don't think I'll ever forgive them for giving us a whole season without the real Landon.

3. So I have this theory. So you know how there's been this pattern the last two season finals with either Hope getting separated from Landon or Landon getting separated from Hope. Well I think if they keep up with that pattern then the real season 3 final will be Handon getting separated from everyone else. I'm not sure how or why it'll happen but I think it might. But I like to think that when they get malivore out of Landon, Handon leaves to follow some type of leave. Or maybe Clarke does what he tends to always do and he screws them over and they somehow end up in the prison world or trapped in a alternate reality(I think that could be fun to see).

4. What is up with people trying to say that Landon is dead just because malivore is possessing his body. That's not how possession works, the person doesn't just die because someone takes over their body. That's never happened in the history of posseson in the TVDU(or any other show I've seen). And if Landon was really "dead" then what would be the point of those Handon flashbacks during that inspirion scene? I mean come out is peoples dislike and misplaced hatred for Landon run that deep and they'll try to come up with anything just to kill him off? You know what let me not good down that rabbit hole.

5. Okay I don't mind maliLandon being a thing for now. But I just don't want it to last very long. Because I want to real Landon back. And for him to finally be out of pain(again I don't think I'll forgive the writers for putting him through that). I know malivore will be more active in season four but just let it be in a different body not Landons. After this season I want him to be done going through trauma for a long while(and Hope) like just give him half a season with nothing bad happening to him or even a whole season with nothing bad happening to him. I know the chances of that happening are very slim but I can dream can't I.

6. So I saw this theory and I'm not sure how they came up with that or even if they were kidding. But they think that Ethan might be one of Malivore kids. I don't think that's the case, I truly believe that Ethan is just human. I feel like he couldn't be one of malivore's kids because he can be compelled and because his mom was never erased from peoples mind. And Landon can't even before he activated his powers back in season 1. And honestly I just want Ethan to be the one human teenager on the show. I know this show is about supernaturals but that's doesn't mean every character we met should be or has to be supernatural. But maybe that's me. Any thoughts on this theory?

7. You know I wouldn't be agaisnt seeing more of malivore's kids. We know for a fact that Landon is the youngest and last kid malivore had(at least we know that as a fact as of right now. They might change their minds about that). And Clarke is the oldest out of all his childrens. But what about the others kids malivore had. Are any of them still alive and if they are where are they? Are they all like Clarke personality wise or are some of them like Landon? I don't know I feel like that could be fun and nice storyline to do at some point if they ever decide to.

8. I feel like triad might be making a come back for next season. Because this season triad was mention a quite a few times. So maybe they'll come back into play next season. Like maybe MG finds out about another facility from his mom or something.

Wow that got longer than I meant too lol. Came here to talk about 3 things and ended up talking about eight. Lol my mind just got the better of me and I just needed to keep going.

I’ve thought the same thing. If they really pinned his hair back for all those months just for that one brief scene, I’m gonna laugh. Because why on earth would they go to all that effort for a small detail like that? It’s not like they’ve been consistent or realistic about other little things like that, so it had to have been for flashbacks. And my thoughts exactly. I had also wondered if that’s why he wasn’t in 3x14 or 3x15, because apparently, some contracts require the actors to have episodes off (which was why he wasn’t in 2x14 I guess). So if he had been filming flashbacks earlier on, maybe that’s why they were required to give him time off during 3x14/3x15? But it would make sense if he had filmed back during like 3x07 or something when his hair was long. That’s really what I’m hoping. And yeah, if we don’t get it in October, I’m gonna cry.

Ugh, yep. I realized that as well, they separate them every season. The writers are cruel. Yeah, literally, it’s like every summer/into the new school year! And yes, I’m not sure exactly how long with Landon though, but it would’ve had to have been at least a couple months? But the whole timeline for season 3 has made no sense. I had thought season 1 started in like February or something, since the twins’ birthday is in March (1x06), so I figured Handon got together like middle/end of March (1x08). Then Hope would’ve jumped into Malivore around April/May, then we got a new school year throughout season 2. But then 3x04 is when it gets confusing, because I figured that was probably around April, since 2x15 would’ve been mid-March because it was the twins’ birthday again. But then with 3x05, they had the ���3 weeks later” and then in 3x06, it seemed like a new school year was suddenly starting? And not long after, they were dressing for colder weather in coats and stuff, so what happened to the summer? They should’ve just said “3 months later” in 3x05, that would’ve made sense. So I have no idea what time of year it is in the show now. Some people thought it was spring again because of some posters at the high school? So who knows how long Landon was actually gone, I’m confused... sorry to go off on a tangent about the timeline haha. But anyway, they’ve still been separating Handon every season for way too long, and it’s terrible. I don’t think I can forgive them either, and same thing with Landon! I still can’t believe we went almost an entire season without him! I’ll never be over it.

Ooh, interesting... okay, I would actually love that haha. If they’re gonna be separated again, let it be together. I’ll take it! But yeah, it could happen. Maybe something will go wrong or they’ll get screwed over, but they’d be together this time around. But I feel like them ending up in a prison world again would be so repetitive, but I wouldn’t even be surprised haha. I think it would be fun to see too though. I had actually thought that might happen in 3x04 when they both were in the prison world, but that did not last long. But who knows, it’d be nice to see something different though, but I’m not sure what other alternate reality they could end up in. But I’m sure the writers could come up with something. Even if it was like a chambre de chasse or something where they had to be put in one of those for whatever reason, that would also be nice because they could get a break and be together that way. I think as long as they’re together and not separated from each other again, I’ll be happy (I think haha). And if they could finally have a break on top of that and be able to recover after everything, that would be ideal.

And I have no idea. Exactly, have they not seen the rest of TVDU? That didn’t happen, and I don’t think I’ve seen that happen in other shows either. So true, we saw Landon’s memories in that scene, that came from Landon so he can’t be gone. Yeah, those people are just so desperate for him to be gone, they’ll try to come up with anything to give themselves hope. They thought he was dead for good after he was stabbed by the golden arrow too. And after they spent an entire season showing how much Hope loves Landon, idk how anyone could possibly think they’re just gonna get rid of him.

I’m a bit torn when it comes to Malilandon. Because on the one hand, I feel it needs to last a significant amount of time. They’ve been building up to it since season 1, this is the main villain of the show finally achieving his goal (part of it anyway), so it’s a huge deal. And I feel they shouldn’t rush through it, plus Aria does such an amazing job, I want to see more of him playing that. But on the other hand, I need Landon back now. I want him out of pain too because I cannot believe all that the writers have put him through. I just want him to be okay again. And one of the issues as well is that he has been possessed for a long time, at least a few weeks now, maybe even a month or so, but they didn’t show it when I feel they should have. But I feel like they could make up for that by showing flashbacks of what Malivore has been up to all this time, and that way we would see more Malilandon, but they could get Malivore out of Landon sooner without it feeling too rushed and like we hadn’t seen as much of Malilandon maybe? Idk, them keeping Landon’s time in the prison world and Malilandon a secret made for some good plot twists, but I’m not sure it was worth it tbh. Because now there could be problems with us not seeing as much of that as we should. I would’ve preferred them letting the audience know what was going on with Landon and showing it throughout the season, while still keeping the other characters in the dark. But yes, if Malivore is still a big part of season 4, he had better not be in Landon anymore. I can’t imagine he will be though. And I completely agree, they better leave Landon alone after this. He and Hope shouldn’t have to go through anymore trauma at all, but at the very least, they need a break. True though, unfortunately, I don’t think they’ll let them have a whole season without something bad happening either.

I can’t see Ethan being one of Malivore’s kids. I think, besides Landon obviously, most of Malivore’s children would be pretty old. And they’ve implied throughout the whole show that Landon is the one child of his that was actually born, which took a very long time for him to achieve. I just can’t imagine he would’ve done that twice around the same time since Ethan and Landon are probably around the same age? At least within a couple years of each other? Plus you’re right about the compulsion thing too, that’s a big giveaway. And also, I think his mom would’ve mentioned something about it, like how Seylah knew, if that had happened. But she wasn’t at all aware of anything supernatural before. So if that ended up being true, that would be extremely weird I think, and would feel very forced and out of nowhere. And I’d like for Ethan to stay a human too. True, I feel like they could bring more humans into the show without everyone being supernatural, so it might be a nice change to have a human as one of the mains.

I’ve thought about that too, and I don’t think I’d mind seeing other children of Malivore either, as long as it was done well, of course. Because yeah, what happened to the rest of them? It’d be very interesting to see if there are others who are still around and if they also hate Malivore and want him gone, or if there are some who would side with him. That could make for some good new characters or villains. And if there were some who were good like Landon, I’d like to see Landon interact with them and maybe have some sort of sibling relationship with them too. So I agree, there’s definitely potential for some cool storylines.

Yeah that could be true. They really just kinda dropped triad after season 1. Where did they all go? They’re still out there somewhere so you’d think they’d go back to that at some point. And yes, something could happen with MG and his mom. And also, is he not curious what happened to his mom and the rest of triad? You’d think they’d try to find out what’s going on with them after what happened when they’ve supposedly disappeared. So yeah, I’d say there’s a chance they’ll bring triad back at some point.

Haha, I feel that though. There’s just too much that goes on in this show, it’s easy to go on about it.

[aros001]

Going in blind: Watching season 5 for the first time. Random thoughts.

Episode 1: Well...that dinner got dark. From what other fans have told me apparently Glimmer gets a lot of hate for her decisions during the series and I just find that odd. I was more annoyed with her in the early seasons where her actions were more harmless simply because she had no patience and wouldn't listen because of her immaturity. Season 4 and here though? Even her most reckless and risky actions have at least been fueled by the genuine desire to keep people safe during a very hard situation. Even here, yeah, she tells Prime something it's very bad for him to know but he was going to have Adora and everyone else literally murdered before her eyes if she didn't. I can't really be mad at Glimmer for making a bad choice when it flows logically and fueled by the desire to keep the people she cares about from being slaughtered.

I don't think we've ever seen Catra this completely at the mercy of another person before, save maybe for Shadow Weaver when she was a child. She has nothing to offer that Prime doesn't already possess. Nothing he wants that he can't get for himself. Her relationship with everyone these past few seasons have been either "I'm your commander and you have to do what I say" or "You are my commander and here's the reason you have to keep me around". This time she has nothing to protect herself behind and the only reason she's still around is because Prime might think of a use for her later.

I love having Scorpia on the heroes' side.

Episode 2: That ending though.

I think what helps elevate Entrapta for me and keeps her for being annoying or irritating is that the show really sells that she just genuinely has trouble understanding why she should/shouldn't be doing certain things. It's not stupidity or even pure self-absorption, she just struggles with people and social ques while machines and science is a lot more straightforward. Heck, she was probably able to bond so well with Hordak because work together in the lab was them meeting on a common middle ground she could understand and relax in. The way she's trying to overcome the issue to help save Glimmer reminds me a little of Mob from Mob Psycho 100, feeling a little frustrated in not understanding something that she knows she should be.

Episode 3: Anybody else get a Disney's Hercules vibes at the end there?

Catra: "Besides, O Oneness, you can't beat her! She has no weaknesses! She's gonna kick your...!"

Prime, smiling: "I think she does, little sister." [Strokes Catra's hair] "I truly think...she does."

This episode really sold how completely isolated Catra is. With the sole exception of Glimmer, she's in space, no idea where exactly she is, onboard a ship filled with nothing but Prime and hundreds of cultist clones. Throughout the entire series we've seen Catra push everyone away and now that she's in a situation where she is almost well and truly on her own with no power, freedom, or authority, she seeks out the one other person around to find any sense of comfort in. Despite everything, Catra doesn't like being alone.

Little child Catra lashing out because she didn't want Adora to have any friends other than her kind of reminds me of Glimmer and Bow during the Princess Prom episode. I imagine it's the same mentality. Growing up in isolation, even if in different forms, and finding only that one person they feel thay can really lean on, there is that fear that they'll find someone else they like more and start caring about them less, or even outright stop. The difference is Bow set Glimmer straight, assuring her he'll always be her friend no matter what but he's not going to be just solely dedicated to her. Her fear was understandable but she was not respecting him as a friend either. Adora never really had that with Catra, one because she was much younger and less mature than Bow, and Catra was probably all she had too, to an extent. As we saw season 1, she was always trying to look after her, even when Catra needed to take responsibility for herself. Bow is not Glimmer's keeper, while Adora too often was that for Catra, so Bow and Glimmer have a better foundation of mutual respect while Adora and Catra's dynamic has been really screwed up for a long time.

Kind of tying into that, despite all that's happened between them, the minute Adora hears Catra's in distress she starts panicking and tearing up. The last time they saw each other they were very much enemies and Adora was done reaching her hand out to her. I suppose you could make the argument she's really been hoping all this time that Catra would finally do the right thing for once, just probably didn't expect it to be like this.

Prime better not mind wipe Catra like he did Hordak.

Episode 4: See, calling the heroes the rebellion now makes sense since they are rebelling against the established power, which is Prime.

Love that trick with the reflections, where you can sort of see/sort of can't see She-Ra. A nice little tease for what I imagine will be a big reveal later.

I really like that explanation for what Bow's going through. Last season's finale was the last he'd seen Glimmer and was desperately trying to save her, and he's been consistently worried for her since then. Now that she's safe he's starting to let himself process his other emotions towards her, and I totally get it. It's hard to be mad at someone when you're also terrified over what might be happening to them, even if your anger is justified. While I get why Glimmer last season did what she thought she had to, it was still a big risk that Bow warned her about and she didn't listen, putting them all in danger. This situation and Glimmer's words is a very mature way of handle this topic. He's not wrong for being mad and it's not a contradiction to what we've been seeing from him this season. Humans and emotions are complicated.

Episode 5: SHE HAS PAAAAAAAAANTS!!! (I will miss the cape though)

That almost makes up for them cutting Catra hair. Seriously, that mane was beautiful!

But boy, speaking of Hercules, that return of She-Ra definitely felt like Hercules emerging from the pool of souls to save Meg.

With the one clone being disconnected from the hive mind and having a breakdown over it, that does make me wonder if Hordak has been connected to it. Wasn't he deemed a defect because Prime couldn't connect to his mind? I suppose it's possible that flaw was corrected. Clearly Prime can take over minds other than just his clones, like with Catra. But if he could do that I'm wondering why he just didn't when Hordak was first created and he instead cast him out to Etheria.

Was Catra purring at the end? I swear there was a sound that sounded like purring.

Episode 6: Assimilation is easily one of my biggest fears in fiction, be it zombies, Borgs and Cybermen, Get Out, the freaking Sapphire Dragon from Xiaolin Showdown that scared the hell out of me as a kid! Just the concept of having your free will and autonomy completely ripped away from you, potentially with you still being aware but unable to do anything about it, is horrifying! At least with Prime's chips the process is reversible.

Anyway, in lighter plots, I kind of love Wrong Hordak. He's really funny. I feel bad that he's being deliberately misled, but he really shouldn't be following Prime anyway, so...

I do like that Adora is being a little more tough on Catra. She needs kindness, yes, but she also needs honesty and discipline, the kind that has actual love and care behind it, unlike what she got from Shadow Weaver. Adora is genuinely trying to help so Catra needs to stop acting like a brat and LET HER HELP.

Episode 7: Catra was definitely purring.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume people probably ship Scorpia and Perfuma. Not that I have any problem with that. It's like the Midoriya/Todoroki ship; I don't ship it myself but I totally get why others do. It's a relationship based in mutual respect and one of the characters having a significantly positive effect on the life of the other. As long as the shipper themselves is not horrifically toxic, I don't care.

Also, I don't think I've ever been so intimidated by Mermista before than I was with that one shot of her in silhouette, just before the reveal she was chipped.

Episode 8: Okay, I definitely love Wrong Hordak. Just that realization of his. "Horde Prime...lied to us..." There's just something about it that's so full of character. Obviously he's a brainwashed clone but he was truly devoted to Prime and just to find out that he would keep something so big from them, from the hive mind that's supposed to be so open to him and each other, it destroys everything he ever believed in. It's hilarious to watch him prepare to lead his brothers in a revolt against Prime.

I assume magic is Prime's "weakness" in that he himself cannot control it. Obviously he can control magical beings like Spinnerella and have them use magic but magic itself is too free and too powerful for him to contain and fully fight back against. He's all about order and stillness and magic is basically chaos.

Episode 9: I like to believe the mushroom kingdom they saved is a Mario reference.

Something I like in hero stories is "the power of a name" or "the power of a symbol". Something as simple as Superman's S-shield can have so much weight and meaning behind it just because of the person it's tied to. She-Ra isn't just a powerful warrior to the people of Etheria, she's a hero of legend. We saw it touched on even back in season 1 how much Adora returning She-Ra to the world meant to everyone. She-Ra to them is a symbol of hope. If they have her on their side, then they believe they might be able to win and with that ordinary people can find the strength to fight too. It's something I think the Green Lantern put best with how the Blue Rings of hope supercharge the Green Rings of will but lose a lot of their functions when the greens are not around. Hope is useless if you don't have the will to also act, but in turn hope can give people the will to act. The more hope they have that they can win, the more they will fight to win.

That was the nerdiest comparison I've ever made.

Episode 10: I appreciate a good bad dad joke and that's why I can't approve of "punderstand". It's too much of stretch to flow well. "Ruined" was good though.

I'm less surprised that Scorpia's been chipped and more that she's even alive. She was at the bottom of the ocean when the roof broke and she's a scorpion woman. I don't think water is a very friendly element for her. She's even commented on how good the desert was to her.

I wonder her She-Ra mode is not working for her simply because Adora is exhausted; mentally and physically. I don't think she's ever used the form this continuously before, and she's been doing it without the First Ones' sword that she has experience with. Her new sword and its transformations may be made out of her own energy for all we know. And then there's just the emotional toil of having Catra back in her life while it feels like more and more of the world is being turned against her.

Episode 11: Oh, I'm definitely shipping Hordak and Entrapta.

I think Re:Zero has spoiled me on dark magic. While Micah with his dark magic is a threat, in this show and many others dark magic basically just equates to "spooky, evil, bad stuff" magic that isn't that different from most other kinds of magic other than being either harder to control or more geared towards causing harm. In Re:Zero, dark magic was DARK. It felt unnatural, like a perversion of how their world's magic is supposed to be and that it didn't belong in this reality. Micah's dark magic is basically "I'm attacking you with shadows, oOoOoOo so scary!"

Not really surprised Catra left. She just got Adora back and now she's potentially about to let herself die. Perfuma said it best, letting people in and letting herself be vulnerable is hard. Caring about Adora and watching her die would be a huge blow, so Catra would rather curl back up into her shell and block out Adora again than have to risk taking that hit.

Episode 12: I keep saying it but now having them right next to each other, yeah, Mara's She-Ra outfit is better than Adora's. I don't know, there's just something grander about it. Anyway, on topic, I'm a big fan of superheroes and legacy and all that and I really like Mara's words to Adora. All she did and sacrificed was so that others, especially the next She-Ra, wouldn't have to do the same. It doesn't matter how noble and heroic it is, tragedy is tragedy and anyone who knows that kind of pain doesn't want anyone else to have to go through it.

I'm not surprised by the love confession between Glimmer and Bow. I felt it could go either way with them either hooking up or just staying really good friends, but that in itself is a sign of how good and natural their friendship is. I can easily buy how it would evolve into something more between them. The situation they're in probably helps. When Glimmer was taken they both thought they might never see each other again and that fear and worry probably caused them to reevaluate how they feel about the other. They've been clinging to each other since getting back, as every day could be their last. Something like that is naturally going to push two people together.

Episode 13: So...are there any plans for a season 6? Or a comic continuation like Avatar and Korra got? Because this was a good finale...buuuuuuuuut I feel there are definitely some things that needed a bit more exploration.

This is typically why I like stories with epilogue endings, especially those set some number of years in the future. Little glimpses of what everyone's doing now, allowing the audience to fill in for themselves what happened in-between. There's nothing wrong with this episode but it does just kind of...stop. They beat Prime. Everybody's cheering and happy. Adora suggests they bring magic back to the universe. And...that's it. We don't see anything more. No aftermath, no post-war, nothing. We end on the moment of victory, and while it's not a bad moment it leaves the ending feeling a little incomplete.

It kind of feels like the writers either really had to rush to the ending to make the 13 episode deadline or simply didn't want to address whatever happens with Catra and Hordak now. With the bigger threat of Horde Prime it makes sense why everyone puts aside past issues and works together. But now that the crisis is over, naturally everyone would have to address everything the Horde had done to Etheria for years with Hordak and Catra leading it. Don't get me wrong, I believe that Catra loves Adora, I believe Adora loves her, and I believe Catra wants to be a better person. It's not like I'm saying she needs to be locked up or executed. But she did cause a lot of damage and put Adora especially through hell, and just because Shadow Weaver is the one who screwed her up so bad doesn't mean she doesn't have any responsibility for her own actions. So it just would have been nice to get even a little bit of lip service to show that Catra would be trying to right her wrongs from this point forward, instead of just "Prime's gone, everyone's happy, bye!" At least with Entrapta she seemed to genuinely not understand why what she was doing at the time was wrong and Scorpia, like Adora and Huntara, defected from the Horde to do the right thing despite it being even more part of her upbringing than anyone else. I can't even imagine what happens with Hordak now.

Don't get me wrong, this is far from the worst I've ever seen a redemption handled. I haven't read/watched any of Boruto outside of the movie and Gaiden tie-in but I've read all of Naruto and there is no reason that Orochimaru should just be walking around and casually talking with people after all he's done. Kaiba in the Yu-Gi-Oh manga built an entire theme park to try an murder Yugi and his friends and they bring it up like twice after that arc. Kylo Ren turning back to the light was one of the potential paths for his character, so that made sense in TROS, but they essentially did "He died heroically and therefore totally redeemed himself for every terrible thing he's ever done."; basically a cop-out. Catra's alive and can at least potentially still own up to her actions and work to redeem herself. And I love Steven Universe, but kind of like with Catra nearly killing everyone (including herself) via the unstable portal, fans have naturally pointed out that the Diamonds enslaved and committed genocide on multiple planets and really faced no consequences for that other than "Stop it". Catra's not at the gold standard of redemption stories, which for me is probably Zuko and Endeavor, but she's far from the bottom. I think the best way to describe it is that Catra had as good, if not better, reasons for being so bad and screwed up as Zuko did, just as good step-up for turning good as Zuko did, but she didn't have nearly as much payoff afterwards to make it feel like a full journey like Zuko did.

But enough about all that. Love the basically goddess She-Ra Adora became. Given the emphasis on healing powers with She-Ra we've had, I'm guessing that's essentially how she destroyed Prime. She purified Hordak and Prime was basically an infection within him. I like when heroes snatch victory from the jaws of defeat but I also when there's an implication towards the villain that "Wow. I never stood a chance." She-Ra's power just dwarfs his. Full potential realized by Adora and he was just gone.

Also I don't know how I forgot that Prime could jump into the bodies of his clones but his possession of Hordak got me. I genuinely couldn't think of how he'd survive after Hordak shoved him off the edge (set free by the power of love!).

And even if the ending feels a little incomplete, the episode itself still did well with my emotional investment. I was gripped by during Catra's confession and the tension within the heart.

Season 5 and overall series verdict: I'm very glad I saw this series. Even though its ending falls a little short for me, this was still really good. Seasons 3 was probably my favorite overall but this story had a very good flow to it. It steadily built up bigger each season, with Catra and Hordak being really compelling villains driving the whole thing. Not that Prime was bad. He was a genuine threat and his cult of clones is a good creepy concept. He's just not as good as the other two. I'm sure part of what elevates him up is because I'm thinking of the JL director's cut but Hordak really is just better Steppenwolf. Everything that worked about that character, Hordak is that to an 11.

Given how I've talked about her more than any of the others, Catra is probably my favorite character. Just the damage that girl has been through. I always understood why she was doing what she did, even though there was rarely a moment I'd agree with exactly what she was doing. Again, it's one of the reasons it feels like the series just kind of ended. There's a lot to be seen with Catra's character now, a lot that can be done, and it just feels like a shame to really not show any of it. This isn't a fault of SRPOP itself because so many series, especially animated and anime, are guilty of but it always bugs me when a series ends on two characters hooking. Relationships are interesting, I'd argue more so than the build-up to them, but no writer ever wants to actually explore them after the hook-up. I never cared about Korra and Mako being a couple but I still found their relationship as a couple more interesting and character building than any of the will they/won't they build-up to it. And I actually like the idea of Adora and Catra as a couple. It's a big reason why I'm so happy the Harley Quinn animated series got renewed for a third season, as it otherwise would have just ended on a hook-up between two characters who, like Adora and Catra, love each other but have had a complicated dynamic for a while. I believe Adora and Catra love each other, but they've got a lot of stuff to work out and I want to see that! Catra's got abandonment issues and that in turn caused her to be unhealthily possessive over Adora. Just seeing the two of them try to work through that alone would be fascinating.

Like I suspected early on, Scorpia's my favorite supporting character. Entrapta's a decent 2nd. Took a small dip when it seemed like she was joining the Horde over feeling abandoned by the princesses when they thought she was dead but that picked back up once it was made more clear "Oh, okay, you're not being petty or stupid. You genuinely don't understand." It made her a more interesting character, and I love her and Hordak's relationship.

Least favorite characters...probably Sea Hawk and those three former Horde friends of Adora and Catra. I never hated them but I never cared about what was happening when they were on screen. They fill out the world a bit, they drive the plot, they're not wastes of space, they even get some laughs. There are just so many other characters in the series way more interesting than them.

Biggest surprise for me was definitely Glimmer and Bow. I never thought I'd dislike them but the best friends characters in series like this can kind of go one way or another with how relevant or deep they are. Glimmer especially I was surprised how much I was invested. She really grew a lot as a person throughout the series and I thought the dilemma over the Heart of Etheria was a good one.

Honestly there's a lot more I could talk about but I have only so many words and my thoughts are a jumble right now so I'm going to leave it at that. I will say I really appreciate how supportive you all on this Reddit have been. It's something I hate about some other fandoms I'm in where they basically are so toxic that they make no one else actually want to watch/read the thing they're fans of because they can't help but associate it with them.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/o2p6wq/going_in_blind_watching_season_5_for_the_first/

[imogenlefay]

oooh, a ship game! tagged by @perfectromanceinmymind​ who i just started adoring more for reading Imzadi. ok, let’s get into this!

rules: Movie/TV ship questions; answer with a GIF; no repeats

1. First ship - Janeway and Chakotay (Star Trek: Voyager)

yeah, I KNOW. since i started my rewatch i’ve been complaining about how boring chakotay is and how captain mom - i mean mommy - i mean janeway deserves someone way more interesting. hell, i’m pretty sure i’ll be shipping Q with her over chakotay. and just see waht will happen when seven of nine shows up. ...but yeah. sue me. it’s THERE. it’s obvious. it’s just also very, very boring. 

2. First OTP - Lily and James (Harry Potter)

so, i know, tons of issues with harry potter. but that was a fandom i was super invested in. ctually, not sure that’s the right way to put it. i was super invested into the books, waxed and waned a bit... and the funny thing is, i didn’t care about the whole harry-ron-hermione-ginny thing until i started reading fandom things and was totes fine with whatever was happening (actually kinda rooting for ginny since book 2). didn’t really care about these ships. but lily and james? from first finding out about the marauders, i was on board of that ship. also, snape was a creep and a horrible person, and a nice guy, and that was not romantic

3. Favourite current ship - Sebastian and Blaine (Glee)

do i have to say it? seblaine from glee. these two have barley 15 minutes of screentime, but the chemistry is just there. i still think they were set up to be at least a midgame ship that fell through when grant gustin was busy with the flash, which given the writing on glee and the insistance on klaine as an endgame might have actually been for the better, but there’s just something about them. if blaine’s in the room, sebastian’s eyes are on him. when sebastian shows up, blaine’s mood lifts. Just so much potential, wasted again - but that’s the glee thing. 

4. Shipped from the first minute - Dean and Castiel (Supernatural)

sooooo, i won’t say they’re canon, but they’re half-canon and broke the internet. now, keep in mind, i stopped watching supernatural around season 8? the one in which metatron showed up, idk. it got so boring how every season another main character was the bad guy, the winchesters got more toxic, and of course, the treatment of cas. so i’ve seen from gift that got super toxic. but come on. i’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition. best entrance ever, electric chemistry, gradually growing connection... i’m ignoring most of supernatural canon, but that was magic. 

5. Wish they had been endgame - Barney and Nora (How I Met Your Mother)

my shipping history with himym is... spotty. i liked ted/robin, was fine with them breaking up, and reaaaally got into barney/robin. until they got together, were awful and broke up. sure, i blamed the writing, but that short stint killed my enthusiasm. enter nora. sweet, smart, confident nora who is not ashamed to admit she’s a romantic and clearly state what she wants, who calls barney on his bs and won’t let him walk all over her. and also, the first woman barney actually wanted to be in a relationship with. even with robin, lily had to bully them into it. i thought she was really good for him, and he was at his best with her. hated how she was pushed aside to bring back more barney/robin drama (who srsly brought out the worst in each other) still my headcanon that he runs into her again when he’s more mature, caring for his daughter. but alas, has to remain a headcanon. (also, it’s a pic cause i literally can’t even find a gif)

6. Wish they had been canon - Bashir/Garak (Star Trek: DS9)

sorry, not sorry. the dynamic between is amazing - the brilliant but naive new doctor, excited like a freaking puppy, meeting the mysterious spy pretending to be a tailor while trying to move away from his past. there is SO much chemistry, fascination, intrigue between them, even if they aare so fundamentally different. just... damn. except at some point midway they stopped giving them scenes. were they afraid of the chemistry? idk but i’ll spread the rumor. because we were cheated. 

7. Ship everyone else hates - Ted and Robin (How I Met Your Mother)

i get it. the writing had issues. writing an endgame ahead of time can backfire. ted backtracking to robin again and again gets really annoying. the mother was seriously amazing and i still can’t believe they pulled her off so well after all the buildup. and the pacing of wasting a whole season on a wedding for a couple that gets divorced within like five minutes is awful. i know all that. but i honestly think they work. their first relationship was seriously sweet - nothing like the trainwreck between barney and robin - and for them to come together when the timing is right, they both grew and matured, and are in the right places in their lives... idk, they work for me. 

8. Don’t even watch the show but still ship - Rory and Jess (Gilmore Girls)

i literally only know gifsets of them. they look cute. 

9. Wish they had a different storyline - House and Cameron (House MD)

i seriously shipped them so much in season 1. their date was sweet, especially how before wilson told her to please not break house’s heart. but after the date, they just threw it out. i had some hope again when she left his team and returned as head of the ER, just cause i thought it changed the power dynamic and maybe they had a shot. that’s what i would have liked to see. that they work together occasionally, and he starts seeing her more as an equal and maybe build something from there. would probably been way healthier than the toxic crap with cuddy. 

10. Actually endgame - Emma and Hook (Once Upon A Time)

oh hi, jennifer morrison, haven’t seen you in a bit. so, i also stopped watching once upon a time, as the stories got too wild and i never got into regina’s big redemption, which consisted of *checks notes* deciding she’s redeemed now and screw anyone who disagrees. but i did love captain swan. did not see that coming. like, sure, hook flirts from their first interaction, but i was against them, given how antagonistic they were. but come season 3 and neverland, and their kiss? and damn. they took chemistry, and actually built something from it, and this time, it freaking worked. which is rare. so yes, so many issues with the show, but these two? ready to set sail, captain! 

tagging @blainesebastian​, @seblaineaddict​, @glitzgustin​, @ejaycaswell​ and @liloandsoon​, as well as anyone else who wants to take a spin at this

[mysterylover123]

BNHA Rewatch: Episode 38 “Encounter”

mysterylover123

S2 ends with a casual trip to the mall. Nothing else to see here, no siree.

It’s odd for Tomura to designate the “types he hates most” when he hates basically everything. Anyways, Dabi and Toga! aka TotallyNotToya and Yandere Best Girl. Tomura slinks off to go pout in his room like a spoiled child. It’s almost funny.

NO KAMI HANDS OUT OF DEKU’S EYES!!!!

May I just say it is a great injustice that Sero was failed and Mineta passed. Sero tried to save the little creep. Justice for Sero! 

Another Rational Deception! Iida is outraged - how will we ever trust anything you say again?  I wonder if he’s channeling the fanbase here.

Deku inviting Shoto to join them is a Tododeku classic. (Also, BTW, there’s an audio drama where Todoroki and Bakugo, after blowing off Class 1-A antics, run into each other and get stuck together by a villain’s quirk. It’s hilarious, and clearly self-aware about fans shipping them).

OMG DATTE ATASHI NO HIRO IS PLAYING! i guess because they don’t play the ED in this ep. Ah well. Shopping! Iida getting nervous about buying the right kind of shoes! 

Tokoyami, being one of Deku’s many spouses, is rebuking him for scaring strangers with his odd behavior.

Ho boy. This stuff. To fully convey the boredom/annoyance that I feel every time this show decides to replay the same damn scene with Ochaco over the next freaking season, I’m going to start up a “Uraraka Crush Counter”. We had one last ep. Now we’re up to 2. The counter goes off every time Uraraka 1) is made by someone to wonder if she has a thing for Deku 2) freaks out and 3) doesn’t actually answer the freaking question. 

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

I will say I kinda ship it. For Tomura’s sake, of course, not Deku’s. But he does find so much clarity from this one conversation with Izuku, and he’s definitely a character who could use a real hero in his life (me speaking as a manga reader who knows his backstory). Of course, not in a ‘endgame’ kinda way, and Tomura has plenty of LOV ships that are more fitting...but I do have a weak spot for Villain/Hero dynamics. 

HELLO DARKNESS MY OLD FRIEND

Deku’s reaction to this is chillingly telling. He’s not concerned that Tomura is going to kill him. But with the idea that innocents around him are going to die...that gets him to cooperate. Deku’s complete disregard for his own life strikes again.

“So tell me about your childhood.” “Well, it all started with my shitty dad...”

Does this count as a separate Uraraka Crush Counter? I’m gonna say yes. 3.

Deku explains to Shigaraki quite well exactly what he’s missing: That pesky theme that’s been hanging around all season, MOTIVATION. Bakugo’s drive last ep to be the best. RG noting that Mineta wouldn’t survive at UA without a proper motivation in the Final Exam arc. The Hero Killer’s convictions, despite his evil, inspiring people. Everyone needing motivation to win in the Sports Festival. And Uraraka’s motive, right at the start of the season.

 The only one missing a clear motive, then, is Tomura. (Possibly because he doesn’t, deep down, really want to be a villain, but is stuck in that role anyway). But now, Deku gives him one. He gets it. Nice going Deku. (I’m just kidding with the sarcasm of course Deku you brave sweet best boy.)

Tomura hand flashbacks no! MLA ARC FEELS!!!

NO NOT MY DEKU!!!!

“Is that a friend?” Wha Ochaco wtf do they look like friends? Tho it is Deku so you never know...

“What’s All for one after?” This exchange - I have a theory: Tomura already knows that Deku is OFA9. He knows the whole deal. Hence why he’s so unsurprised by Izuku knowing about OFA, why he asks his advice, why he notices him especially. AFO figured it out and told him. That’s my theory.

We end S2 on a rather somber note, with Deku and mom bidding goodbye to All Might and his Cop Waifu Tsukauchi, as the latter two contemplate Toshinori’s future as a hero. No Datte atashi fantasy AU ED here; just soft, sad music as the credits role, and we transition into the somber and serious Season 3. 

Season 2 of BNHA is, as I’ve said before, the most consistently strong single season of TV I’ve ever seen. Every episode is at least solid, and all three arcs are incredible overall. Season 1 is good but not Standout overall, season 3 has lower lows and higher highs. Still, NGL, I do look forward a little more to Season 3 (and that’s not just because it has Odd Future, I swear, totally not) and it’s huge, game-changing moments, because S2 is just the beginning. It’s a season about motivation, about laying the table and setting up the pieces. Season 3 is the one that knocks them all down.

But not to start s3 right away! The next few days I’ll be watching the stuff in between the 2 seasons instead. 

BKDK CORNER:

Nothing in this episode per se, but this omake does answer the question I had after watching this for the first time: Why didn’t Bakugo freak out about Deku saving him? 

Answer: Ochaco

Ooh boy I want to repost this whole Omake for the corner. Can I? Screw it, I will.

I guess this one’s also a big Kacchako/Izuocha omake too, huh?

Ochaco ships it I will not hear otherwise.

Ooh “so cool” she really is becoming like Deku isn’t she?”

You get it, Ochaco. You are an ally. Never think that I’m against you because you’re Deku’s ‘official’ Love interest or the storytelling of your crush is a little repetitive. ILU.

SHE SHIPS IT SHE SHIPS IT

“Behind my back, how could you? I’m disappointed in you too, Uraraka-san.”

OMG She Freaking Did it! The one thing that would’ve made S2 better would be if it ended with this getting animated (It came out in July 2017, there could’ve been time to sneak it in! Please let there be a filler void in S4 so it can finally be animated)

BEST GIRL OF THE EPISODE: No new best girls this ep. 

RANKER: Biggest Shock Moments in BNHA

5 “You got your quirk from All Might, didn’t you?” Episode 60

4 “Mirio has lost his quirk forever” Chapter 163

3 “Let’s have a chat, Izuku Midoriya?” Episode 38

2. “Tomura Shigaraki, my apprentice? He’s Nana Shimura’s Grandson.” Episode 49

1. “So you’re going to get...” Chapter 213, aka OFA 6Q.

[ruffiorocks]

Lena in episode 2

Sooo.. building on my review of the last episode.

Andrea talked about the lenses like they were a drug. She talked about how many hours Lena has been using them and she even says she 'cutting her off' that Lena wont get another pair from her.

I think these are designed to be addictive and Lena has a full-blown addiction to them and they have really messed with her mind.

Lena talks about how you can warp with reality using them and now she wants to perfect humans by making sure they can't hurt eachother.

Lena's perfect world is one where she isn't being abused, betrayed and consistently lied to. We've only seen her punch Kara in her VR but it seems to me that isn't the only fantasy she has had. All that time spent on there punching Kara over and over? Nah I don't think so.

I think Lena has become addicted to a VR world, her perfect world where no one hurts anyone else and in her addicted and still devastated mind she wants to make that fake world a reality.

Lena Luthor has had her tech consistently stolen and used for nefarious purposes in the past and she hates it! Lena has never been one to betray people or deliberately harm them for her own vengeance. (She killed Lex to protect the world).

So that I'm getting from this is a drug addict parallel. Addicts will lie, cheat and steal, they will do this to the people they love to get a fix and I think that's what's happend to Lena.

Lena is now going against everything she believes in, she's stealing (Andrea tech) she's lying (pretending to forgive Kara) she's kidnapping (Eve) and she's deliberately used Eve as a host for her AI and as far as she is concerned the only thing she can rely on. All to achieve her fantasy world of perfect humans that won't hurt and betray eachother.

Obsiden Tech is a drug and Lena is an addict that is lost in a fantasy and is doing everything an addict would do to get the next fix.

Andrea took the lenses and Lena said to Hope/Eve that she didn't need them because she'll make her own tech. She is obsessed with what she has experienced in that world and she no longer feels she has real people or friends in her life. Lena in season 4 told everyone her plans to make humans super and valued input, this Lena is so far gone she isn't talking to anyone anymore. The idea that Lena says 'screw it I'll make my own ' is the equivalent to cutting an addict off. If an alcoholic is deprived of alcohol they will find a way to get it on their own, same with a drug addict.

Lena cried when she did a that to Eve, she knows it's wrong but she's so lost in this perfect vision she's been lost in she sees this as the greater good. Bear in mind Lena didn't want to hurt Eve at all, she doesn't want to hurt Supergirl either.

But this does beg the question, Lena wants a world where people don't lie and hurt eachother, she even says that people lie but it isn't their fault, it's just the way they were made. Sooo.. does that mean she doesnt want to lie to Kara anymore? She doesn't want to make her feel pain and hurt? Isn't that what Lena's vision is about destroying?

Edit:

Hope is the first step in Lena's addiction. We don't know if she built Hope before she uses Obsiden or after. I reckon it's about the same time. So Hope is not capable of lying or causing harm as Lena says at the beginning of the ep, Lena talks to Hope as though she is a real person, she got all excited the way she used to with Kara. Lena wants the world to be like Hope, but I think she's forgotten to a point that Hope is just something she made and isn't real. Lena giving her a physically body and basically merging her with a human seems to be her way of making her own perfect person, a physical person that can't lie, or cause harm (foreboding much?) A prelude to how she believe humans should be. It's not being done through malice or hate or villain take over the world stuff, it's a drug addicted, severely damaged woman's vision of how she can protect man kind from its self.

Thoughts?

[let-it-raines]

Second in Command (32/35)

Summary: Life as the “spare to the heir” isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be when you’re the supposed screw-up of the family, but people don’t know what really happens behind closed doors. 

Rating: Mature 

A\N: Hey look, I changed the title from epilogue to just being a chapter count. I was keeping it that way for consistency, but, you know, I felt ridiculous once we got to about part five of this so called epilogue. lol. Anyways, here’s a nice, long chapter full of all kinds of goodies (it’s another Christmas chapter, you say?) that I enjoyed writing. I hope you enjoy reading!

Out of curiosity (and maybe a little bit of a call for inspiration), what would you guys like to see out of their future since the last three chapters will be skipping around a bit?

AO3: Beginning | Current 

Tumblr Chapters: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |

Sequel Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

Tag list: @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @kmomof4 @wellhellotragic @ekr032-blog-blog @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @captswanis4vr @kristi555 @teamhook @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @artistic-writer @branlovesouat @dreadpirateemma @alys07 @andiirivera @emmas-storybook @superchocovian @in-spirational  @cs-forlife @qualitycoffeethings @shireness-says @jonirobinson64

The tree in their living room is Andy’s new favorite thing. He likes the lights, the way the multiple colors glisten off of each other and off of the baubles and ornaments that adorn the lush green branches that fill the room with the fresh scent of pine. They’ve got a Christmas tree in nearly every room of their house, at least downstairs, and if she had decorated more than just this one, she would have officially felt crazy. They had other people decorate since they had to host some diplomatic officials from Denmark last week, and Brennan wanted things to be, in his words, appropriately festive.

She’s got a kid who isn’t even three months old. She doesn’t need to be “appropriately festive” and hosting dinners in her home when there are several places they could host them that wouldn’t have her pulling her hair out every time a throw pillow got out of place.

Okay, so Killian is the one who got stressed about the throw pillows everywhere, but she pretty much felt stressed all of the time while people were moving trees in and furniture out, completely changing her house from what she’s accustomed to. Well, she wasn’t stressed all of the time. Just most of it. She likes the decorations, but she also knows that they’re going to have to go through all of this again when the holidays are over and it’s time to put the decorations and trimmings away until next year.

Maybe there won’t have to be as many decorations and maybe she won’t feel the need to pull her hair out as someone knocks over her favorite framed portrait of she, Killian, and Andy that was hanging on the living room wall above the lounge chairs where a Christmas tree is now resting.

And if she’s not pulling her hair out, Andy is definitely going to. He’s very much into grabbing her hair or her earrings whenever she’s holding him, and her hair has been permanently in a braid or bun for…awhile. She did have it blown out last week, though, letting Abigail mess with it when she brought the kids over for lunch, and it was kind of nice to walk around with bouncy curls and shiny hair that’s not been mangled by a kid. Not that she really minds wearing her hair up. She usually does that anyways. Andy has just changed a lot of things about how she and Killian operate in their day to day life.

Right now, though, he’s lying on his playmat on the floor doing his tummy time with toys hanging above him while she lays on the floor with him. He can lift his head but only for a little while, and when he does, he’s always looking at the tree or at her. Maybe she needs to take him around the house so he can look at all of the trees in the house so he’ll get that gummy smile on his face that he gets whenever she or Killian talk to him.

It may be the cutest thing that she’s ever seen in her entire life.  

She may be biased.

Maybe she just needs Killian to get home from work so that she has another adult to talk to today, especially since Abigail and Liam are working today hosting some kind of Christmas party in the gardens just outside her front door. Emma thought about going, but honestly, there’s far too many kids who will swarm around she and Andy for her to be comfortable with walking out to the gardens. Besides, how could a nice party like that with all of its food and goodies be better than lying on the floor of her house with a baby who has finally come around to liking spending time on his stomach…for a little while.

The fact that he’s not wailing right now is a miracle.

A Christmas miracle maybe.

It’s not even Christmas. It’s not even Christmas Eve, but it kind of feels like this has been the longest holiday season in the history of all of the holiday seasons she’s experienced. It’s definitely the kid. This time last year she wasn’t even pregnant, so it’s weird that she has Andy right here with her now.

She got pregnant sometime around this week last year, which is super weird to think about, but also kind of fascinating.

Like clockwork, he starts wailing the moment he’s on his mat for more than ten minutes (she knew that it was too good to be true for him to like it this much), and even though she hates it, she’s going to let him suffer for one more minute before she lets him up and sits with him while she watches TV and does some last minute Christmas shopping. She’s got all of Killian’s presents and her parents’ presents bought and wrapped under the tree, but it’s difficult to think of gag gifts for the entire family. She already knows she’s going to get several things about being a mom or pregnancy or talking about her kid too much (Killian is going to get something like that too), and she wishes that everyone else had something as easy to pick on in gift form.

Though she did find Liam a sticker for his car that cautions other drivers that a student driver is behind the wheel because of him backing into a tree last month. It’s not her best work, but she’s desperate. She has no idea how Killian has done this for his entire life, especially when he used to despise his family most of the time. Actually, that’s probably what helped him out.

If she wouldn’t actually insult Allison, she’d get her something about being an overbearing mother-in-law ever since Andy was born, but Emma doesn’t have a death wish, so that’s definitely not happening.

Maybe.

She might get really and truly desperate. She definitely shouldn’t get Allison something rude.

But she still thinks about it.

“Alright, baby,” she sighs, getting up from the floor and picking Andy up with her and holding him against her chest while she walks around the room in an attempt to get him to stop crying. It’s miserable when he’s miserable, and she’s honestly not sure if it upsets her because he’s upset or because his cries are piercing. All of the kids at the party hundreds of feet away can probably hear him. “See, we’re not doing it anymore today. We’re all finished, I promise. We’re just going to chill out, okay?”

She rubs her hand up and down his back in as soothing of a motion as she can, and his cries do eventually quiet, especially as she moves him to stand outside for a minute when Indy needs to go to the bathroom. It’s not too cold, the sun shining down on them, but he’s not dressed for staying outside so she quickly hurries Indy inside and moves back to the living room to turn the television onto something with bright colors and noises that he’ll like.

It’s days like this that make her ready to go back to work, but she’s not going to complain about getting this much time off, not when she knows how rare it is for a lot of moms back home...not that America has been her home recently, but sometimes it’s hard for her to shake it off that she’s technically British. And just because her body feels less like it’s been run over by a tank than it did last week, doesn’t mean that having to do too much after not sleeping is a great idea.

Plus, nursing is hard, and she and Andy have to take a nap every afternoon just for her to make it to eight o’clock at night.

It’s better when Killian’s around or when her mom comes over for a few hours, but they’ve both had to work every day this week before taking off for the holidays. She gets Killian and Andy all to herself tomorrow though, and she’s excited. She’s kind of thinking that she’ll get Killian to help her bake some goodies to give out to their staff to go along with their gifts. She’s gotten better at baking, can make really good pies, but Killian definitely has the better touch and actually knows how to make things look much nicer than she does.

Sometimes she swears that he could make those food videos online that she spends so much time watching, but she just knows that’s never going to happen.

The front door beeps as it opens, and she gets up from the couch, bringing Andy with her as she makes her way over to greet Killian before he goes searching for them in the house. She sees him first as he’s struggling to take his tie off, finally getting it only after strands of hair fall down on forehead with the effort. He must have really hated wearing that tie today. Then again, when does he ever like wearing one?

“Hey.”

He looks over toward her voice, his lips pressing together until they part and he smiles with his entire face, teeth on display and lines bunching up around his eyes.

“Hello, my loves,” he sighs, and her stomach does a little twitch at how happy he is to see them as he walks toward them, bending down to kiss her, his freshly trimmed scruff tickling her, before he brushes his lips over Andy’s head. “Have we been good today, Andy boy?”

“Eh,” she moans, handing him over to Killian as Andy is pretty much gob smacked to see his dad, “he’s been fine. Some good moments. Some bad. We just had a fit a few minutes ago so I’m hoping that things will be fine now.” “Ah,” Killian sighs, looking down at Andy and adjusting him in his arms before he looks back at her. “What about you? I’m sorry that I’ve barely been able to answer my phone.”

“Babe, it’s fine. We have lives outside of each other, and as much as I miss having an adult to talk to when everyone is busy, I like having time by myself even with my new practically permanent attachment.”

It’s true. Sometimes she craves the days of always being around other people, like she did a bit today, but she really does love getting to have time with just she and Andy. He doesn’t judge her if she sits on the couch and pigs out all day or talks to the television to tell characters how idiotic they’re being.

“I know. So good day?”

She nods. “Good day.”

-/-

“Do you grab the gray hat?”

“It’s in the bag.”

“What about the socks?”

“I’ve got several pairs in the bag.”

“His bear thing for when it’s cold?”

“The bag, darling.”

“Okay, but what about – ”

“Emma,” Killian sighs, walking over to her and cupping her cheeks with his hands while he looks down at her with his lips pressed into a thin line, “I have every single thing that we wrote down on the list plus more. And if we forget something, since I know that’s going to be your next question, we’ll simply go out and buy it.”

“I know, I know. I just…I just,” she mumbles, blinking her eyes a bit, “I’m terrified that we’re going to forget something vital. I mean, we’re going to be away from home for days. What if I forget food or something?”

He quirks an eyebrow, and she knows that she’s said something stupid even before he points it out. “Unless you can somehow manage to leave your breasts behind, I think we’ll be fine.”

“You know what I meant.”

He applies a little more pressure to her cheeks before he leans down and presses his lips against her forehead. She closes her eyes, savoring how it feels just to be close to him like this. “It’s going to be fine. We’re going to have a nice holiday full of good food and good company with lots of people who will want to love up on Andy. He will not be in want for anything.”

“Sometimes I really hate that you’re a rational person.”

“Aye,” he agrees, swiping under her eyes, “and sometimes I really hate how you make split decisions with your gut, but we usually balance each other out. Of course, right now you’re over planning to the extreme.”

“Listen, bud, you’re the one who’s been talking about this being his first Christmas and all that jazz, and I know for a fact that you over plan all of the time. I’m not being that bad.”

“You’re being pretty bad.”

“Yeah, okay, but when we get there with an entire train car full of things and you’ve forgotten your briefs, don’t come crying to me.”

“Oh, darling,” he croons, waggling his brows while he flashes her a cheeky grin, “I won’t mind and neither should you. It’ll give you easier access and all. There won’t be any almost disasters like last year when my mum almost caught us in one of the dens.”

Her cheeks heat just thinking of that, and she can do nothing more than shake her head back and forth. He’s so dumb sometimes, but he’s got her laughing when she’s been having this irrational (or maybe totally rational) fear of forgetting something while traveling with Andy for the first time.

“That one was totally your fault,” she laughs, stepping closer to him and wrapping her arms around his waist, simply wanting to hold him for a moment or two.

“It was,” he quietly admits, moving his arms to rest around her waist, hands falling to her ass. “You okay?”

She nods against his chest before she brushes her lips over his collarbone. “Fine. I’m a little tired, maybe a little bit stressed, and I’d feel better if we were already all settled in at Sandringham.”

“Soon,” he promises. “Soon.”

And it is soon. Andy miraculously sleeps throughout the entire train ride, the constant motion probably helping when she was convinced that it was going to keep him up and upset him with the rocking. He does wake up when they’re trying to settle inside, and it pretty much takes ten people to do the work she and Killian did to get everything on the train. But soon they’re swept up in greeting family, chatter and laughter filling one of the sitting rooms as they all fill up on tea and coffee while nearly every person comes over to her and asks if they can have Andy for a little while. She’s definitely okay letting other people have him while she’s in the same room. She can keep an eye on him while also not having to worry about anything but getting to drink her coffee and talk to Abigail and Rebecca while Brennan is holding Andy while he’s sitting on a sofa with Allison on the other side of the room.

Everything is a bit chaotic, but she kind of likes it that way right now. She likes the way she and Abigail can’t get through a conversation without laughing, Rebecca looking at them like they’re crazy, and she likes the way that she can hear Killian and Liam laughing even though they’re nowhere near them right now. She’s got this big crazy family who she loves despite how they treated her when they first met, and she goes to bed that night with her face aching from the smile that’s been there all day.

Christmas Eve is the same, even if the schedule is a bit more rigid than any other day. She’s got a long list of all of the ridiculous things and traditions that come with being in this family, but the amount of outfit changes she goes through on this day where they don’t even leave the house has got to be one of the most ridiculous. It’s nice that she can stay in jeans and a sweater for the first part of the day as they eat a late breakfast and head outside for the football match. She’s not playing this year, not quite feeling up to getting absolutely roughed up like what happens every year.

Seriously. Killian and Liam do not play nicely. She honestly thinks it might be worse since they’ve become close, but she was never exactly here to watch beforehand.

“Is Mummy going to win?”

“Maybe,” she shrugs, adjusting Andy in her lap as she talks to Alex and keeps Lizzie between her calves. She’s pretty much being trampled by kids, but she doesn’t mind since she’s the one who is choosing to sit today out because she’s tired. “Or maybe your daddy will win. They’re on different teams this year.” “Mummy is with Killian,” Lizzie tells her, leaning back until her head is resting right at Andy’s socked feet.

“Exactly.”

“And we’re with you.”

“Yep,” she laughs, reaching down to tug a little at Lizzie’s hair while Alex yells as Liam almost scores a goal, “you guys are on my team.”

Liam’s team wins, and she already knows that Killian is going to be in an absolute mood. He’ll go on and on about how Liam will have bragging rights for the entire year, and she’ll have to feign sympathy. Sure enough, Killian come jogging up to her afterward, the hair on his forehead sticking up in at least ten different directions while sweat beads at his temples.

“You know, I probably lost because you didn’t play this year.”

“Please,” she laughs, holding her hand up so he can help her rise from the ground, Andy secure in her arm, “youdefinitely lost because I didn’t play this year.” Killian scoffs, rolls his eyes a bit even, before his attention falls to Andy who is reaching his hands out for his dad. “You want to go see daddy, baby?” she coos, hanging him over to Killian. “He probably needs some comforting after his tough loss.”

“You’re so comforting.” “I know,” she promises, pressing up on her toes to brush her lips over his cheek. “Maybe next year you’ll win.”

“Maybe, but now I’ll have to deal with Liam bragging for an entire year.”

Yeah, she knew that’s exactly what he was going to say. It’s almost scary how well they know each other.

Or maybe she simply knows that her husband hates losing to his brother. If she had a sibling, she’d probably be the same way. Hell, she’s that way with Killian whenever they compete against each other when out at an engagement.

She’s only slightly sure that their relationship is normal.

“Happy Christmas,” Killian whispers into her skin the next morning, the way his lips are brushing against the nape of her neck making a shiver run down her spine and reach her toes.

“Mmm,” she hums, twisting over on the mattress so that her nose rubs against Killian’s and his eyes light up even in the darkness of the room. How is that even possible? “Merry Christmas.”

“It’s early,” he murmurs before his lips find hers, their mouths coming together in a soft and comforting kiss that seems to go on forever in the quietness of their room. She’d let it go on forever, let their lips constantly stay moving, constantly stay connected, but she does have to breathe at some point. That might be overrated as the happiness that seems to be an almost unceasing lately settles in her chest.

“So you say,” she says breathlessly, rubbing her nose into his cheek and allowing herself to find comfort in the way that their lips brush over each other every time one of them speak. “Why are we up?”

“Because it’s our first Christmas with our little love, and I figured you would want some private time with him to make some of our own traditions.”

She nods her head, Killian’s scruff brushing against her skin before she quickly and sweetly glides her lips of Killian’s again, giving him a long, deep kiss to thank him for knowing what she wants nearly every time, to thank him for helping to give her this family.

“So you want to go wake up the sleeping bear?”

“Aye.”

She rises from the bed, stretching her limbs out before adjusting the top of her pajamas, pulling her shirt up from where it had fallen as she slept, and even though she knows that she should get ready before they go to church this morning, all she really wants is to spend time with her baby. He’s awake in his bassinet when she finds him, his small body clothed in pajamas with cutely drawn snowmen covering them.

“Hi, sweetie,” she sighs, reaching down and picking him up when he reaches up for her, the smile on his face as bright when he recognizes him. “It’s Christmas, Andy. Yeah, we’ve got lots to do today, but mommy and daddy want to spend time with you after we’ve got you all changed.”

He’s surprisingly easy this morning, and she knows that it has nothing to do with the holiday. He has no idea that today is supposed to be something special. To him he’s simply in a new environment with different decorations than at home, and really, spending the morning opening presents for him and telling stories is more for she and Killian than for him. He won’t remember any of this, won’t remember how Killian practically packed an entire new library of books for him, won’t remember how she tells him the story about how on Christmas last year she and Killian decided that they wanted to expand their family so they could have him, and he won’t remember the way that the three of them sit on the ground next to a tree with all of their faces cast in different colored lights while he laughs in fascination over Emma sticking her tongue out only to make it disappear, making him scream out in giggles.

She’ll remember though.

She’ll remember it all, and with the way Killian is looking at her, fondness obvious in his gaze as his eyes never stray from his face, she knows that he will too. She also knows that she’ll remember the way something flutters inside of her while blush rises on her cheeks as she’s reminded once again just how loved she is now.

Just how loved she’ll always be.

-/-

There’s a line of dresses in front of her ordered by color and size. Some of them are seem simple, just plain chiffon dresses, while others sparkle and shine under the light of her bedroom. She’s been married to Killian for over two and a half years, has been having to wear these gowns for even longer than that, but she’ll still never quite get used to how people send her dresses whenever she has an event to go to.

She wore jeans to work pretty much every day of her life, and she definitely misses that sometimes.

But she’s apparently being overwhelmed with gowns right now since it’s her first official event back from maternity leave even though she’s not really going back to work until sometime in the spring. She’s done a few things here and there, but most of them have been family events like Christmas two weeks ago or Andy’s Christening back in November. So she hasn’t disappeared like most people assume (seriously, she stumbled across an article the other day saying her pregnancy was fake and that’s why she didn’t make a public appearance with Andy at the hospital and it’s how she managed to look so good at the Christening of her fake baby…this is what she gets for using Ruby’s snapchat and scrolling through the stories, but she does appreciate the fact that they thought she looked nice), but apparently it’s become some kind of big deal for her to show up in public.

She’s kind of thinking that people are just pissed that no one has managed to get any paparazzi pictures of Andy outside of his Christening. And they only released the one picture of him when he’s sitting with her, so she and her son are just mystery human beings, she guesses. But she doesn’t have any regrets. This is right for them, and she wouldn’t change anything.

She’s feeling a little overwhelmed by the dress selection in front of her, but she doesn’t have any regrets.

“What should Momma wear?” she asks Andy who’s on his playmat doing his tummy time. He actually likes it today, so she’s super thankful for that. He’s growing a lot, and what he likes and hates are definitely already changing. “Do you know, baby? I bet you’d like the ones that have flowers on them so you can pull at them, which probably means those are not the ones.”

“Are you talking to yourself, darling?”

She turns her head to the door of the bedroom where Killian’s standing with his arms crossed over his chest and a smirk on his face that makes her stomach twist. But in a good way. She didn’t even hear him come upstairs.

“I’m talking to sir Andrew over there. I like to think that he talks back.”

Killian barks out a laugh before walking toward her and coming to stand behind her, immediately wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on the top of her head. “One day he will, and his first word will be couture.”

“Do you practice that with him?”

Killian hums behind her, and she can feel the vibrations of it all the way down to her toes. Now would be a really good time for Andy to want to take a nap, and then for she and Killian to turn their phones off and have some private time. “I practice the words mummy and mama with him, mostly because I love you so damn much and talk about you all of the time.”

She scoffs before twisting in Killian’s arms and putting her hands on his chest, making him move a little bit as she studies his features, trying to figure out whatever the hell it is he’s trying to woo her with. “Did you do something?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You’re a very sweet man, so it’s not out of the blue for you to try to butter me up with all of your pretty words, but I know for a fact that you would sell your limbs for Andy to say your name first. So why are you lying?”

“I’m not lying, darling. Andy and I really do talk about you all of the time. You’re our favorite subject.” She looks over to Andy, making sure he’s still where he’s supposed to be and not having some kind of meltdown, and she wishes she could somehow figure out what Killian is up to. It has to be something. “But I do have a little favor to ask of you.” “There it is,” she laughs, backing up from him only for Killian to slide his hands into the back pocket of her jeans and pull her back to him. “What ever could you need from me?”

He dips his head down and quickly slants his lips over his in the way that takes her breath away every time. And he knows that too. The man is a damn good kisser, and if she wasn’t so curious as to what he wants, she’d turn to, like, human jelly right then and there.

Now that would be something else.

“Goodness gracious, babe, just tell me.”

“Well, I was thinking.”

“That always goes so well.” “That joke never gets funnier, love.” “I think that it does.” “Anyways, I was thinking about all of these beautiful gowns that arrived for you today and how you’ve agreed to be my date for the prom.” “It is not the prom. We’re not teenagers in America.” “Yes, but I feel like I’m a teenager in love when I’m with you.”

“I will literally say yes to whatever you’re about to ask if you promise to never be that cheesy again.” “I can’t make that promise.” She slaps his chest and shakes her head, her gaze traveling between Killian and Andy. “Get on with it then.”

“So I’m thinking after we go to the BAFTAs,” Killian continues, palming her ass the slightest bit, “that instead of coming home to our lovable little munchkin, you and I go to a hotel. Or we can come here. But the point is, we don’t have a baby to come home to.” “What are you planning on doing with him?”

He’s not going to make the kid disappear or something far more nefarious, so she doesn’t even know why she asks.

“I’m planning on him staying with your parents for the night. They have a nursery for this purpose, love. And we just installed the new security system and fence for them.”

“You want me to leave him for an entire night?” He nods his head up and down at the same time that she feels tears forming in her eyes. Nope. She’s not going to cry. She’s not. Leaving him for an entire night doesn’t terrify her or anything.

It terrifies her a lot.

“Darling, it’ll be fine. It’s just a night, and if you want to wake up before the sun rises to go pick him up, we can. I will miss him just as much as you do, but we’ve got to graduate from the ‘just a few hours’ thing we’ve been doing. Plus, we can have a night together without a baby monitor sitting next to the bed.” “So you want to leave him so we can have this fancy date and then have sex? Because we can have this fancy date, come home and check on him, and then have sex.”

“Aye,” Killian laughs, backing them up to the bench in front of the bed and sitting down, pulling her down on top of him with a squeal, “we could, but I’m not even saying we have to have sex. You know as well as I do that neither of us are fans of planned sex, so that’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m just suggesting one night, just you and me, no baby. I don’t care what we do. We can sit in our pajamas and eat room service until we’re so bloated we can’t move all while talking about how we love the rolls on Andy’s arms. Maybe we immediately get there, strip out of our clothes, and make love like we did when we had just gotten together and your parents went out for the night and left us alone to have the entire apartment together. Or maybe,” Killian sighs, placing a kiss on both of her cheeks that makes her smile, “we simply get a full night of uninterrupted sleep.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Which one?” “All of them.”

“So you’ll consider letting me take you fifteen minutes away from him for less than twelve hours?”

She both wants to an doesn’t want to all at the same time. She knows that she should, that he’ll be fine without her, and she really does think that the night will be nice. They deserve to just be them every now and then. “Well, when you put it like that, I’d be ridiculous to say no.”

“Good,” Killian sighs, kissing her again before moving her off of his lap so he can pick Andy up from the floor and blow a raspberry on his stomach that makes Andy laugh like Killian’s just done the most hysterical thing in the world. “Did you hear that, little lad? Mummy has agreed to go on a date with daddy, and you’re going to spend the night with Mimi and Papa. Yeah, you are.”

“I could still change my mind.” “I expect that,” Killian admits, walking over to her with Andy in his arms. She reaches over and moves his hair off of his forehead. At the rate it’s growing, they’re going to have to get it cut before he’s even one unless it all starts to fall off like she’s read about, and she’s not ready to think about that. She’s just now thinking about spending the night away from him. “You should wear the emerald dress, darling. It’ll bring out your eyes, and I know you’ll look beautiful in it.” “How can you even see what it looks like from here?”

He shrugs as much as he can with Andy on him. “I looked through them when they first arrived.”

“Why?”

“I was curious, and I knew that you would spend far too long deciding even with the help of your assistant in training.”

She walks toward the rack of clothes and thumbs through them until she gets to the emerald dress Killian was talking about. It’s beautiful, they all are, but this one seems light and airy, like it will flow as she walks. It also looks like it’s going to dip down her entire chest and require some major taping so she doesn’t flash everyone with her breasts. She’s not even sure if she can wear this.

She kind of wants to wear this.

“You realize this shows my entire chest, right?”

“Aye, that’s why I like it.” “Such a man.”

“Never claimed to be otherwise, and you know that I have some very specific feelings about your breasts.”

She does end up picking the emerald dress and getting it altered. She really liked that way that it dipped down, and if she could get away with it without Brennan and Allison having a heart attack, she’d wear it just like that. Instead she gets some lace added to it, and as she’s zipped up into it the evening of the BAFTAs, she’s happy with the way it turned out.

For someone who has been walking around the house in leggings and a sweater with her hair falling out of a messy bun, she’s kind of excited to be this dressed up. She’s not a fan of the shoes she’s got to spend all night in, but for the first time since Andy was born, she feels a bit…she doesn’t really know how she feels. She feels put together, like she’s about to go out and have a nice night with her husband and not have to come home and deal with someone else’s bodily functions, which is exactly what she’s doing. She thought about backing out of Andy spending the night with her parents several times in the last few days, but she always convinced herself not to.

It was really hard.

She’s super obsessed with her child no matter how many days he makes her want to pull out her hair, and she doesn’t see that obsession tampering. She just doesn’t.

So tonight will be good. It’s a baby step, and she’s going to go on a date with Killian, even if her preferred date with Killian is sitting in their bed in comfortable clothes eating good food and having the television playing in the background all the while they’re hysterically tired and telling awful jokes that have their stomachs hurting from all of the laughter. It may be a bit boring, but she likes doing that with Killian. It’s how they got to know each other, and it’s them in every single way.

That’s what they’re going to do later. She’s about to rack up a hell of a room service bill and absolutely not care about the diet and exercise plan that she’s been on. She deserves it.

She wonders if they have macaroni and cheese. They better have macaroni and cheese. She did not eat nearly enough macaroni and cheese when she was pregnant. Killian kept the food in the house far too healthy, even if he would let her indulge in her wants of cherry pie and cupcakes. Or really just the icing. She’s pretty sure Killian kept a secret stash of icing somewhere in the apartment just for her.

He just wouldn’t tell her where.

It’s probably still somewhere. She and Andy are going to go on a hunt for that sometime soon while Killian is at work.

Her dress is far too tight for her to be thinking about all of this food.

“Hot damn,” Killian whistles, walking out of the bathroom and straightening his bow tie. Hot damn is right. So maybe there are some benefits to going out tonight outside of the macaroni and cheese. Her husband looking fucking attractive one of them. “I see one smoking hot mum.”

She feels the blush rise in her cheeks, her entire body heating, and she simply shakes her head back and forth, her earrings moving with it. That’s one of Killian’s new favorite things to say, and while she knows he probably picked up on it from Ruby, she doesn’t mind. “Thank you, babe. You look nice.”

He winks at her before stepping a little closer to her, the tips of their shoes touching while he runs his hands over her shoulders, the metal of his wedding ring cool against the heat of her skin. He leans down to press a kiss against her right shoulder, then her left, and her entire body tingles with the mixture of his lips and newly trimmed scruff against her skin. Okay, so this night is sounding better and better. Or at least feeling that way.

“Your mum is waiting downstairs with Andy so we can say goodbye, Thomas has already had our bags sent to the hotel, and all of Andy’s things are packed up and loaded into your mum’s car. You ready to go?”

She nods her head before they make their way downstairs. She has to hold her dress up a bit and hold onto Killian’s elbow as they walk down the steps, but when she’s finally down on flat ground, she feels a little more accustomed to walking in heels again. Plus, she can hear her mom talking to Andy in the sitting room next to the front door that’s pretty much where all of his toys downstairs tend to find their home when she and Killian decide to clean things up.

Imagining what it’s going to be like when he gets a bit older and can actually play with the toys by moving them around himself is terrifying. Killian might go insane.

No, Killian will go insane.

“Oh, look, Andrew,” her mom coos as she and Killian come into sight, and Emma tries not to laugh at how her mom nearly always calls Andy by his full name. She’s just thankful she doesn’t walk around calling him Prince Andrew Killian. Every time someone calls him by that name, she cringes a bit. She understands, but she cringes. He’s just Andy and sometimes Andrew if it slips off her tongue. “Mummy and daddy look so nice, yeah, they’re going to have a date, and you’re going to spend the night with Mimi.”

“Let me cuddle him for a minute, Mom,” she says, taking a step closer and taking Andy into her arms and cuddling him against her skin while he reaches for her earrings. “Be good for Mimi, baby. I know me saying this doesn’t help, but I can hope. Yeah, I can hope that you’re going to be a good boy.” She looks up at her mom all the while she runs her hand up and down Andy’s back, feeling the softness of his little sweater. It makes him look like a grown man, and she finds weird enjoyment in dressing a baby in similar clothes that Killian and her dad wear. He’s got this beanie and plaid shirt that match Killian’s, and it’s adorable. “You’ve got all his stuff? His milk, the warmer, clothes, diapers?” “I packed the bag, love,” Killian tells her, stepping up to her and placing his hand on the small of her back. “Everything is in there.” “Okay, okay,” she sighs, nodding her before kissing the crown of Andy’s head. “I love you, baby. So, so much. Mom, call if anything’s wrong or if you’re just overwhelmed. Or maybe just to tell me how he is. We can come at any time.” “Sweetie, I know how to take care of a baby. You two go have fun.” “We will,” Killian promises as he takes Andy out of her arms and hugs him for minute, whispering words in his ears that she can’t hear before handing him over to her mom.

God, this is going to be hard, but she can do this. Most moms have already done this. She can do this.

“Let’s go, love.” Killian puts his hand on the small of her back again and guides her out of the apartment, grabbing her clutch along the way.

After twenty minutes in the car, every single one of which she worries about leaving Andy overnight with her mom despite how much she wants this night, Thomas is pulling them up to the drop-off zone at the BAFTAs, and she is already blinded by the lights of the cameras. It’s almost like her eyes have become adjusted to the lack of photographers over the past few months, and she can’t quite get adjusted to it this quickly, especially when the sun has set.

“It’s just for a few minutes, love,” Killian promises, stepping out of the car and holding his hand out to help her out, her dress having to be kicked as she moves. “And then we’ll be inside and get to watch the show.” “Thank you.” She successfully gets out of the car, smoothing her dress out and doing a quick last minute adjustment to her dress and earrings before Thomas and Isabelle lead them along the carpet and through the crowds until they’re in the building. “I’m excited to be here even if I seem a little wary,” she promises later while they’re standing behind the doors that will lead them to their seats.

“I know,” he tells her, holding his arm out to offer her support before they walk down the stairs. “We’re going to have a nice night, Andy is going to be fine, and I’m going to consistently remind you of how absolutely beautiful you are.” “I like you when you’re sweet.” “So always?”

“Eh.”

It’s only a quick walk down the stairs, but she feels like she might as well be walking the stairs of a football stadium with how everyone is staring at her and standing. That’s something she’ll never quite get over. Truly. People stand for her when she doesn’t deserve it in the slightest. She understands that it’s tradition, that she’s part of a historic family, but to her, she feels like she should be standing for all of these actors and how absolutely obsessed she is with their work. But life is weird, and even with all of these oddities, she knows that she wouldn’t change anything to get to keep the people who matter most to her.

Not at all.

The show is great, and it speeds by, even during the slow moments. Killian keeps her entertained, whispering his own commentary during every presentation and all of the attempts at humor, even when several of the jokes are about the two of them. She’s heard much worse about herself, so a little friendly fire is nothing. She honestly kind of likes it. Who is she to not like a good bit of comedy?

Nearly every break that happens they have someone come up to speak to them, and she falls so easily back into her role of someone who can have a conversation with a brick wall and still attempt to make it interesting. But tonight actually is interesting, and she’s getting to meet people who have made her laugh and cry all while within the comfort of her own home whether that home be in Maine, an apartment above a pub, or in Kensington. By the time they’ve been there for hours, she can feel smile lines in her cheeks and an ache in her feet despite having been seated for most of the night. Mostly, though, she feels the way Killian’s thumb is moving over her knuckles in a soothing pattern for the entire night, and it brings her a comfort that no one else in the room could.

They bow out before the show is over, walking through dark hallways made of concrete to find their way out a back entrance so they can privately get in their car and be driven to their hotel where the exact same thing happens, Isabelle checking in for them while Thomas gets them up to their suite without running into other guests. She’s sure it was quite the ordeal planning that, that Thomas would have much rather they stayed at home, but she doesn’t think about it too much and she toes out of her heels and lets her feet sink into the plush carpeting of their room while Killian undoes his bowtie, unbuttoning a few buttons as he goes to expose the dark hair on his chest.

She steps over to him, her dress trailing on the floor around her legs as she moves, until she’s close enough that she can undo the buttons on his shirt, deftly flicking them open until she can see the way his stomach muscles move with each heavy, steadying breath that he takes. Her finger traces along the line of hair, and she feels him twitch, which only makes her smile to herself, a bit of giddy anticipation settling inside of her at how her touch electrifies him. It’s powerful to have that kind of effect on someone else, but she knows that it’s not just her. He does the same thing to her.

“So we’re skipping dinner then?” he breathes out, his voice hitching while she continues to press her nails into his skin, scratching and tracing around his nipples all the while her eyes stay trained on his skin, on the way that his collarbone is peeking out from under his shirt and jacket.

“Oh no,” she laughs, finally tilting her head up to look at him and the way his eyes have darkened since she last saw them, “we are definitely eating later. That was promised to me. I just want to do this first.”

“To work up an appetite, aye?”

“Aye,” she mimics, pressing up on her toes and wrapping her arms around his neck, hands in his hair, before she softly glides her lips over his in what is one of her most loved moves. His hand rests on the small of her back, the weight heavy and comfortable all at once while the fingers of his other hand thread through her hair, gently pushing her forward at the same time that his tongue flickers out to tease her. He’s unhurried in the way that he kisses her, just as she is with him, but it’s almost like there’s an urgency with the way that he caresses her with both his tongue and his hands. There should be no urgency. They have all night with no risk of interruptions, but with how frantic they have been lately, she understands that worry of having to be taken away from more pleasurable activities in order to be with their son.

“I need…I need to take off this dress.”

“I plan on getting there,” Killian murmurs against her lips before he tilts his head and trails his lips across her jaw, making the heat pool in her belly in that familiar, yet always thrilling way. “Was actually plan on getting there pretty soon.” He pulls back from her, the loss of heat instantaneous until his finger trails along the concave of her breasts, making her own breath hitch as she did to Killian earlier. “I’ve had a particularly nice view this entire evening, but I would so enjoy having a better one.”

“You could always just say you want to see my boobs. That is why you liked this dress after all.”

“But where’s the fun in that?” he questions, slowly dragging his fingers across her skin until he’s moving all of her hair over to one shoulder, kissing each inch of skin that’s now exposed. She hears the zipper move, feels the dress loosen so she can breathe, but mostly she feels Killian’s lips and his scruff as he adorns her skin with his caresses.

They’re an expert in this, have been for nearly a decade now, but they take their time undressing each other, laughing to themselves with she struggles to get the Spanx that’s been squeezing her stomach all night off in several movements that she knows cannot at all be attractive. Killian simply shakes his head, his lips stretched apart in a smile so wide that his eyes close and the lines around them crinkle, and she feels a similar one stretch across her own lips as she finally gets the material down around her feet. Such are the hazards of giving birth and then having to wear a tight dress.

Such are the hazards of simply being a woman and having to wear a tight dress.

Killian’s a bit more rushed with his pace after that, and while she can feel his headiness pressed against her thigh, warm and hard, he takes the time to kiss her, to move over her, and she’s practically squirming by the time his fingers trail through her folds while his breath ghosts over her hipbone and the stretch marks that reside there. She’d been so self-conscious about them for awhile, so worried about the way that they mark her skin, and while those feelings haven’t gone away, she tries to remind herself that she literally gave life. Those marks are nothing to be ashamed of.

And Killian has never once treated her differently because of them. She knows that’s what should happen, that he should never judge her for how her body changes, but she also knows that she’s one of the lucky ones.

In more ways than one.

He continues to tease her even as he moves back up her body, every touch setting her skin aflame in a way that she struggles to describe, to comprehend really, and she’s thankful when his mouth brushes against hers again so that she can cup his cheeks and hold him steady while her heart beats at a quick, steady rhythm within her chest.

Steady, she thinks. Killian is always steady. And yet he’s always thrilling, exciting, unexpected even when she knows his next move. He’s everything including flawed, especially including flawed, but she loves him. And they work. That’s all that really matters to her. They work.

After sinking into her, his heat encompassing her even more, he settles heavily within her, somehow weighing her down and lifting her up. It doesn’t matter if they’re frantic or slow, if they’re caring or harsh, because some things always stay the same. He always feels good inside of her, rocking within her and dragging skin against skin in a way that she knows makes both of them lose themselves for awhile.

It’s a good feeling.

Sweat beads at her forehead, likely causing her makeup to run, but she doesn’t really care, not with the way she craves this heat. Her nails trail along his back while her legs wrap around his waist and rest just above his ass as he leisurely drags himself inside of her all the while slanting his lips over hers in a warm slide. This is one of her favorite spots, favorite positions even with its frequency, and Killian always somehow manages to drive her into madness with the spots that he hits and the way he knows just what to do.

Being with someone for so long…it’s like nothing she ever would have expected it to be.

She whispers words of love and affection into his ear or against his lips, usually having to take a moment to catch her breath or to mutter a curse when he hits a particularly good spot or gets into a good rhythm while she matches her hips to his, and he does the same to her, his voice deep, husky, breathless against her skin. As the coil in her stomach tightens, every one of her senses dulled to the heady feel of Killian dragging within her, she almost cries out in pain before the pleasure reaches her. It’s not always something that reaches down to her toes, there’s not always those metaphorical fireworks, but tonight she feels a buzz across every inch of her skin while the love of her life drags his lips up and down her neck, his movements finally becoming frantic when he gets to feel the buzz too.

Once they’ve caught their breaths, she doesn’t want to move, just wants to stay with her cheek resting against the firmness of Killian’s chest, his heart beating a steady rhythm that reaffirms nothing and everything all at once. But she knows that she has to move, that at least one of them does if they want clean sheets tonight, and thankfully for her it’s Killian moving first, his lips brushing against the crown of her head before he moves and her cheek falls against a pillow. It’s comfortable, but it’s not quite the same.

By the time he comes back and sweetly cleans her up, she can feel her eyes fluttering closed, the business of the day catching up to her, but she also can feel a heaviness in her breasts, one she knows she can’t sleep with, so she does eventually get out of bed, going through their bags until she can find her breast pump. It’s a new normal, a normal she loves even with its inconveniences, and as Killian settles down next to her in bed, the muscles in his thighs obvious in her eyeline while he has one arm wrapped around her shoulder, his fingers playing with the tips of her hair as always, she thinks about how good all of these changes are.

“What do you want to eat, my love?” he asks as the machine makes this awful noise that happens nearly every time.

“Is it not too late for room service?”

“I’m sure they’re probably not expecting an order, but it does say it’s always available.”

She hums, closing her eyes for a moment, sleep calling her again almost as much as the food does, almost as much as her instinct to wonder what exactly it is that Andy is doing right now. Is he asleep? Did he eat using the bottle? Has he cried too much? Does he miss her? Can he sleep without she or Killian being there to soothe him? Does he even know that she’s gone?

“I miss him too, love,” Killian promises, and she wonders if she voiced her thoughts out loud or not, “but Dave texted me to let me know that all is good. He’s been fast asleep for hours.”

“Is he happy, do you think?”

“Of course he is.” When she feels Killian’s lips brush across her forehead, she has to close her eyes and take a deep breath in an attempt to keep the tears that are stinging behind her eyes from falling. It’s the strangest feeling in the world to struggle being apart from someone who can’t even speak yet, but she’s got this heaviness in the pit of her stomach about not being with him. She worries about something happening, about her not being there for it, and she knows that she needs to change her course of thought before she falls into the deepest of rabbit holes.

“He’s happy,” Killian insists again, “and I hope you are too. I love you.”

“I love you,” she whispers back as she rests her head on his shoulder. “What kind of food do they have?”

“Whatever your heart desires.”

She’s not even entirely sure what Killian orders, but she knows it’s all indulgent and probably too much for them. While they wait, she hangs up her gown, making sure not to mess it up for when she wants to wear it again, and begins the long process of removing her makeup and brushing through her hair, which is only more tangles now from the way Killian’s fingers tangled themselves in it and from the way sweat gathered at the nape of her neck. But eventually she’s makeup free with her hair in a simple braid, and she’s changed into pajamas that are possibly the softest thing in the world. She thought about not getting dressed, figuring that she and Killian won’t let this night be a one-time thing, but she really likes these shorts and top.

It’s a night full of indulgence, of letting themselves fall back into who they are when they’re not parents, and she absolutely stuffs her face with macaroni that’s far too fancy when she would literally eat it out of the box and with this cherry and chocolate cake that she really wants to take home with her. She might get to with the way that Killian has some of it on his cheek, the chocolate icing smeared right over the scar that resides there. She doesn’t know why, but it makes her lose herself in laughter, her stomach literally convulsing with happiness, and she’s pretty sure that it’s some kind of chain reaction thing as Killian laughs too.

His laugh is one of the good ones.

The clock ticks past three before they finally fall asleep, food put away and pajamas discarded just like she knew that they would be, and she can actually feel the smile on her face, happiness practically radiating off of her, and she dips into a slumber with the solid, steady rhythm of Killian’s heartbeat against her cheek.

It was a damn good date, one she’d like to repeat over and over again, but as they languidly get ready the next morning, enjoying the softness of the sheets and the pillows too much to get out of bed too early, she feels a bit of anxiousness wanting to be back with her child. Killian won’t admit to it, but she knows that he does too by the way his fingers fidget against her thigh and the way that he checks his phone to see if her parents have said anything else. So much earlier than they probably intended, they get Thomas to guide them out of the hotel and drive them to her parents’ house.

He’s waiting for her in his swing in the living room when she walks in the room, and her heart absolutely lifts or resettles or does something insane when he smiles up at her, recognition in his light blue eyes that she’s decided are going to stay that way forever.

“Hey, little man,” she sighs, a giggle escaping her as she smatters kisses across his face, relief settling over her that he’s just the same as he was when she left him. “I missed you so much.”

She holds onto him tightly, checking all of his features, before handing him to Killian because she knows that he needs the comfort too. She can see it in his eyes, the way they flutter closed when Andy is first in his arms, and she continues to feel the same way that that she has all night.

Happy.

“You ready to go home?”

“Yeah,” Killian sighs, smiling down at her before he dips his head to quickly glide his lips over hers all the while Andy squeals in his arms, “I am.”

[thegeminisage]

i’m gonna liveblog my rewatch of 2.08 because i can

it’s stupid long so here’s the cut

just to give you an idea of how fast this switch flipped for me at the start of this episode when uther is like “u will find no one who embodies nobleness better than my son arthur” i went “PFFFFFT” & had a good chortle

i have a lot to say about this duel challenge sequence. 1. why are strangers always coming in and tossing their glove on the floor. everyone in that room is armed. just take them out! 2. arthur picks up the glove first this time, unlike 1.03. guess he can learn after all 3. he does it BEFORE SEEING HER FACE god classic he’s so fucking stupid

everyone getting their panties in a twist over having to fight a WOMAN when in reality she goes on to kick his ass is like...both tiresome & hilarious

i used to really be on the fence about the Vibe between merlin & arthur because while they seemed quite happy to die for one another from the get-go most of the time arthur is just being MEAN and merlin isn’t as mean back and it’s like :/ ok i don’t get what everyone else is so heart-eyes over. but in 2.08 they do a lot of confiding in one another and just general talking about plot-stuff where arthur’s insults are...not absent, but kept to a minimum, and idk it’s nice! it’s nice. less like arthur is a massive bully and more like they’re Companions. i’m not hopeful about it lasting bc this show doesn’t know the meaning of the words “consist continuity” but it was reeeeeaally good here

arthur’s face when he lost to a G I R L and uther just walked out with no comment. even back when i still hated him i was like “ouch”

that being said it was a welcome change of pace to see merlin giving ARTHUR shit for once. finally

upon morgause and morgana’s first meeting when morgause says “i hope you will remember me fondly” i went “WOW THAT’S GAY” because i didn’t KNOW and cathy told me later she had to put her head in her hands for five whole minutes. don’t shoot me i’m just the messenger they’re the ones who wrote it that way

my favorite thing about morgause is that i couldn’t immediately figure her out. i’m in the habit of throwing out guesses about future plot points for fun, because i’m a writer and that’s how i deconstruct things, and since this show was kind of meant to be kid-friendly i’m usually right. but as far as morgause went...i didn’t have a clue. i had NO IDEA this whole ep would be like this

i’ve said this before (not on this blog tho) but arthur is like...really eager to die. i keep joking that he has a death wish but upon further reflection i don’t think he’s actively seeking to end his life as much as he would be relieved to die for something noble like honor or whatever because then he would have...done it right, if that makes any sense, and wouldn’t have to worry about screwing it up anymore. he doesn’t want to die but he craves a good death. to prove to his dad and himself that he’s made of the right stuff?? i’m not being very clear. this concept requires more thought

it’s REALLY a lot for me that uther would rather throw arthur in his own chambers than have him find out about ygraine. yyyyikes

merlin sneaking in that rope was so cute. he finally got the group’s communal braincell for a few minutes

on the other hand after the troll episodes i am SO tired of dung being played for laughs. i really suffered

also man i’m so glad morgana finally got some sleep it’s what she deserves

this Dead Parent talk really mcmurdered me. both merlin and arthur lost a parent when they were very young & they now cannot remember said parent and we HAVE THAT IN COMMON so every single word they said was like an arrow straight to my heart!!!!!!! like as good as the ending to this episode was (and OH it was good OHHHHH it was GOOD) i think this right here is what truly softened me up towards arthur. this is relatability, this is emotional vulnerability, this is a genuine human connection made between EQUALS and frankly it’s exactly what i’ve been wanting from these guys for a season and a half. their willingness to die for each other is good stuff to be sure but it’s EMPTY without some meat to back it up & we’re finally getting what we deserve

“i’d do anything for even the vaguest memory” like they didn’t have to go that hard & read me for filth like that but they did. they did. arthur. babe. my guy.

almost every time someone comes in to speak with uther he’s eating and he has like an entire mini-banquet in front of him even though he’s all by himself. like, an entire plate of grapes, a whole-ass chicken, an intact loaf of bread, a bowl FILLED with whole uncut apples...wtf??

“what would YOU know about magic, merlin?” “nothing ;)” i did have a good chortle truly

i’ve already made my points about arthur and a good death but MAN he was hasty to put his head on that chopping block for no good fucking reason at all. holy shit. him casually doing that swing-thing he does with his sword to the axe ahead of time really adds a lot to this entire thing and also aged me ten years

when arthur was like “what if my father’s attitude towards magic is wrong” and “surely not everyone who practices magic can be evil” i gasped so fucking loud. so fucking loud

and the worst part is you can practically feel merlin’s heartbeat pick up. just LOOK at his “wtf am i hearing is this for real could my dreams actually come true” face. but at the same time, he’s got to be the one with a healthy suspicion here because arthur is in over his head. so he STILL can’t trust it. and then naturally it goes to hell so quickly that the chance for merlin to confide in arthur is lost. i can’t believe this took 4 irl years and five seasons. watching this live must have been like TORTURE. i’m practically bingeing it and i’m still suffering deeply

it’s very odd to me that arthur specifically said his mother died before he opened his eyes but the first thing ygraine says to him is that she remembers him staring up at her. to me that’s an obvious clue that she’s a fake, and the cutaway during that line to merlin’s face tells me he had the same suspicion (and that he’s kind of horrified by it)

ARTHUR FEELS SO GUILTY FOR HER DYING AND I’M ALSO DYING AND SLDFKMGHLSKDFJH

i know for a fact that ygraine’s telling of these events is slightly altered from the truth too...there’s no way that uther would have been so overcome with grief that he went on to commit genocide if he knew beforehand that his wife would die and was willing to sacrifice her

on the other hand, there’s also a cutaway to morgause’s face during this speech in which she looks surprised or confused at what ygraine says, which doesn’t add up if she was pulling these strings, so...What Is The Truth

not to be like this but merlin bearing witness to this whole series of events is like...there’s some things that once you go through them with somebody things between you change and there’s a new intimacy there...i don’t expect much from a show that likes to return to the status quo but in my heart it’s how i feel

OH BOY HERE WE GO. arthur arrives in camelot and pulls his sword out as soon as he leaves his horse leaving a visibly spooked merlin behind him this is the STUFF

“arthur was born of magic” is really a hell of a line because even though i already knew this backstory i hadn’t stopped to consider it like that...no, magic is not a crucial part of arthur’s identity and how he views himself the way it is for merlin and morgana, but it’s still a part of his history and what made him who he is, that made him alive and different from other people. his hatred and fear of it becomes so much more tragic in that light. i think also there was such a clear line drown before between people who are magic and people who are not and for me, mentally, arthur kind of...swapped sides, or is at least straddling the border

merlin’s absolute FURY at uther’s hypocrisy is like...........fucking. another thing i wanted to see for a season and a half. imo there’s not nearly enough meat to the fact that merlin is magic and ultimately serves uther who is trying to decimate him and his kind - has actually SAVED UTHER'S LIFE on MULTIPLE occasions. this is the first time this show actually went “hey uther is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people and that’s really not at all ok” and i am SO into it. like, no, he’s not misguided. he’s not “just grieving.” he’s a murderer. he’s responsible for genocide.

the final 9 minutes of this episode feature arthur pendragon being absolutely FURIOUS. he’s LIVID. he’s PISSED. and i love it more than anything else this show has done so far

i genuinely, truly believed he didn’t have this in him. never in my WILDEST DREAMS could i have imagined arthur doing this. i had written it off as the stuff of fanfics. but holy shit my man snapped

HE👏DID👏THAT👏

reasons i did not see this coming at all even a little: 1. i figured there was no way arthur would get over his anti-magic thing until near the end (i know it must come back later, but STILL) 2. i did not believe for one second he could ever seriously stand up to his father for more than a few minutes at a time 3. most of what’s making arthur so goddamn pissed is that he thinks his dad killed his mom on purpose but he’s also showing a fair amount of horror at the fact that uther hunted down and killed everyone even remotely associated with sorcery like animals. do you know what that is? does anybody else understand the enormity of this? HE IS SHOWING EMPATHY. i DID NOT believe he was capable of it.

i do feel a way about how uther started this scene from a place of cool confidence - he was handing out orders, “leave us and no one comes in,” manipulating the situation, “she was lying to you, magic users are trying to destroy us,” and finally trying to close the door on the topic and reassert control, “i am your kind and your father and you will SHOW ME SOME RESPECT” - and arthur was not only having none of it (the way his eyes narrowed as uther’s casual “she was lying”...oh boy) he TURNED THE TABLES and had uther ON THE DEFENSIVE. the number of times we’ve seen uther shut other people down and get his way because he’s king and everyone is afraid of him and this time uther was the one who afraid LITERALLY for his life. HOW’S THAT TASTE BITCH god it was SO satisfying. like, there’s one shot where arthur is walking slowly towards him after all his verbal tactics have failed to de-escalate the situation and he’s in the backround with his eyes so fucking wide and he looks TERRIFIED. i LOVE IT

“you are my son. you would not strike an unarmed man.” “i no longer consider myself your son” AND HE STRIKES HIM

HE👏

DID👏

THAT👏

when i say that i LITERALLY screamed i am not at all exaggerating or using hyperbole. cathy asked twice if i needed to pause & collect myself. i could not have paused if my life depended on it

i’m really on the fence about merlin stopping arthur. on the one hand, arthur has suffered enough and doesn’t need to suffer more by having to carry the guilt or dadmurder. under the other, uther is a monster and needs to die, and the entire world would be better off without him

like...arthur’s face when he says “you have caused so much suffering and pain”...he really finally got it. for one beautiful brilliant moment he understood

i am NOT on the fence about merlin lying to arthur. that was the wrong way to do it. arthur 6000% deserves to know the truth and that’s only gonna come back and bite them later i’m sure (unless it never comes back at all in which case i’ll be pissed)

i’m not sure that arthur would have backed off if they had told the truth and said “uther didn’t realize your mom was gonna die so really that part wasn’t his fault”...he was really mad! but he might’ve. lying was not the way to go. i’m so angry at literally everyone in that scene for allowing arthur to walk away believing he was wrong. he was so full of conviction and he was about to do a really good thing - not good for him personally, but good for the world - and everyone he trusts lied to his face in order to maintain the status quo and not have to deal with anything ugly. i HATE it. i’m team arthur now. i’m in the arthur defense squad. all those dumb liars aren’t good enough to be his friends!!!!!!

like, even his dad’s words were sooo carefully chosen to avoid lying but also avoid telling the whole truth. even in that moment when arthur was laying it all bare and they could have made some sort of progress as character and as people. we had to go BACK TO THE STATUS QUO

Once Again Arthurs Heart Is Hardened To Magic i hate it thanks

honestly look uther telling arthur that he’s a trusted ally in the fight against magic should make him feel a lot more distressed than what we got. i mean i’m sure he’s glad his cover is safe but he should realize that if uther approves he’s doing something wrong

furthermore, uther hasn’t changed a bit. he says he came to thank merlin and that merlin is a loyal servant and trusted ally, but then threatens his life before he leaves. honestly we should have just let arthur stab him

i do appreciate them making a point of mentioning that merlin was tempted to let uther die and that it would have been better for him if uther HAD died and he only did what he did to protect arthur but like...there were ways to do that that didn’t involve lying i think. this is an optimistic show most of the time. it wouldn’t have messed with my suspension of disbelief if arthur had dropped the sword knowing the real whole truth! but no, The Status Quo

i don’t know if i will still love arthur so much in the coming episodes.................we’ll see. i’m kind of nervous because i don’t know how they’re ever going to top this. i think we peaked right here and it’ll never be this good for me again

[nightlyarrows]

GHOSTS OF HIS RELATIONSHIPS PAST (2/4)

yesterday tristan was visited by cassandra in his dream. his first girlfriend, his first lover, his first heartbreak. it was funny because it was a double heartbreak. he lost his girlfriend and his best friend all on the same day. he was a fool to think that the next night was going to be any different. just like tradition he dreamed again. this time the hunter’s dreams started off nice again, detailing his next relationship, but then heartbreak followed before he was able to wake up. welcome to the story of tristan falco and trenton van der bilt. never mess with someone who has too many appearances to keep up, the archer learned that the hard way.

their story started off as one of brothers. they started off on the university’s football team together and quickly hit it off. there was something about them that made them feel comfortable around each other. tristan finally found another best friend after losing isa in middle school and isaac in high school. this one was going to work out for him. he was going to be more careful. during their second semester together they both rushed for pi kappa phi and they got in. after initiation they were going to be brothers forever.  ❛   nothing shall ever tear us asunder.   ❜  was the motto of their new brotherhood and it couldn’t be anymore fitting. they only lived thirty minutes away from each other and both drove, so when they went back home they nearly spent the whole summer together. 

late june was when this story came to a shocking twist. tristan never really had to question his sexuality. after reading the notebook and saying he would have loved to date both noah and allie it wasn’t really a question for him. both superman and wonder woman were hot in his eyes. there was no denying it, yet in real life he had never had a crush on another guy. cassandra was the only one he had been romantically involved with and that wasn’t really love. so when the two men were out on their boat, laying together after a swim, tristan realized that he was screwed. it was happening again. the sun was setting and his body was warming as he looked over at his teammate, his fraternity brother, his best friend. that day he suddenly became awkward around trenton and the other male was quick to notice. 

he became distant for a while, but the man had connections. not only was he the poster boy for the golden boy, but he was a politician’s son. tristan couldn’t stay away from him for forever without getting questioned. the next time that they saw each other was in the middle of july. the van der bilt’s celebrated the fourth of july together so all of their friends and families could come together. trenton invited tristan on the claim that he missed his best friend and wanted to introduce him to his family. after a game of football he took him to his room and pushed him up against the wall, quickly kissing him. the archer was almost frozen in fear. he was both confused and aroused at the same time. he couldn’t think straight, literally, but he was thrilled to know that the feelings weren’t one-sided.  ❛   i know.   ❜  was all the socialite whispered before kissing him again. as he started working his way down his body he looked up at tristan and whispered again.  ❛   but you can’t tell anyone. this has to be our secret.   ❜   

they slept together that night. it was muffled, quick, messy, but soft at the same time. he was too confused to question anything, but since they were sharing the room he couldn’t think to himself. for the rest of the weekend his mind was foggy and that’s how it was for the rest of the summer. tristan and trenton would meet together to hookup or spend time alone. it felt like a couple, but just hidden from the world. their dates were always deep in the woods where no one would see them, on their boat in the middle of the ocean, behind rows and rows of books. a part of tristan was just happy that he was able to have the man that he loved in some way. another part of him felt like a dirty little secret though... he couldn’t tell anyone without betraying trenton’s trust, so he didn’t. he thought that he was just in the closet and needed time to come out, so he could wait. true love never had a timer, it was eternal. 

nothing change when school started again. sophomore year was filled with muffled kisses in the locker rooms when everyone was gone. quick fuck sessions in their room when none of the brothers were around. more dates in the middle of the woods. when they would sit together on the top of a tree and have food, cuddle, and just talk tristan could feel like it was going to last forever.  ❛   after this is all over i’ll be yours fully. this is only temporary. just give me time.   ❜  those were all whispered into his ear when trenton felt him pulling away. for the following year he believed the other man too. his throat would dry up when he was alone in their room, waiting for the man to come back from hanging out with who knew which cheerleader. it felt like it was closing up as he hovered his fingers over the other’s contact, almost writing him a message. tristan always felt himself pulling away.  ❛   i’m not his boyfriend yet... i can’t be getting jealous like this.   ❜  

even though they continued, tristan tried his best to move on by their junior year. nothing was happening and he could feel like he was being dragged along, but he couldn’t help the hope that he still had. he couldn’t help the fact that he loved trenton with all of his heart and wanted to wait for him. the other men didn’t seem the same. hell even the women didn’t seem appealing anymore. he didn’t want any of them. yet one day when tristan forgot something in his locker room and had to go back late his heart almost broke for the second time in his life. his breath hitched when he saw someone getting blown. maybe he wasn’t the only guy that had fun in there. yet when he looked close enough he saw that the man on his knees was no other than trenton. whispering sweet nothing to the other. tristan wasn’t that mad. this didn’t seem like how they had hooked up and he spent the whole time watching like some creep. his heart was tearing, but this was rough. this was simply a fuck and it made sense since the quarterback had been pulling away from his secret lover. he just needed to get his nut off tristan convinced himself. 

yet during their senior year everything changed. tristan made sure that he was consistent with trenton so he’d never feel the need to go looking for anyone else’s body. during christmas he was invited back to the van der bilt’s, once again the whole family got together. this time he wasn’t the one in his lover’s room. angela wesley was the one occupying that bed and he was so confused. was this another coverup? another desperate attempt to not get close to him? during christmas eve dinner, that tristan had helped prepare, trenton decided to make an announcement.  ❛   angela and i are getting married.   ❜  were the only words that the archer heard. his senses slowly left his body and he felt numb. his vision was blurry, he only heart a small buzzing sound, he couldn’t touch or taste anything. god he was losing it and he couldn’t afford to be a mess in front of the whole family. 

tristan toughed it out. by now he was an expert at hiding his emotions in public, so he waited until they were alone again. the woods were bitter cold now and the snow had covered every single inch, but the skies were clear that night.  ❛   why?   ❜  that was all tristan could bring himself to ask. he was promised they would work out, he was promised that the other just needed time. all trenton did was laugh at first. oh god it was happening again. the same scene. they were in the woods, it was dark, his lover was laughing. this was supposed to be different. tristan’s breath suddenly hitched again as his secret whatever finally spoke.  ❛   did you think you were anything more than just a fuck buddy and friend? dude, you’ve seen my family. i love you, yeah, but it’s not like i can exactly marry you. gotta admit though out of all of the guys i’ve fucked around with you’ve given me the most experience, so like kudos or whatever. don’t take this the wrong way, but you knew it was never going to last.   ❜  

he wasn’t doing this again. tristan couldn’t handle this. he just pushed passed trenton, packed his bags, and excused himself from the family. his father needed him, there was some emergency and his flight got cancelled was the excuse. no one knew that night that tristan spent christmas eve driving and when the clock struck midnight he was still in his car, on his way home, crying. christmas day, four days after his birthday, and he welcomed in the jolly season heartbroken again.

[mashitandsmashit]

America’s Got Talent: Season 14 - Judge Cuts 1

Round 2 has begun!

Brad Paisley had an honest and humble personality about him; Pretty likable judge, but not one who’s going to really stick with me...

As for the acts that advanced, I’m quite satisfied! Not all of my predictions were correct: I guess just switch out The Sentimentalists for the other underdog, Emerald Belles, and neither me nor FrankDoc had Sophie as our top guess for the GB, but I think we both knew she was at least in the running...Hey, if nothing else, we finally have a girl in our GB line-up for this season (not counting various members of Detroit Youth Choir).

Of course, as with every Judge Cut, there will be a few “martyrs” if you will...The Sentimentalists still weren’t anything amazing as far as mentalist acts go (and I’m saying this as someone who’s already pretty hard on these kinds of acts), but it wouldn’t have hurt to have them in the line-up...

Andy Rowell, as expected, was backed into a corner and performed karaoke for a song that just didn’t lend itself to the same humor that “Tequila” did...He probably knew that he was screwed and was like, “Meh, whatever...”

Duo Togni wasn’t bad; The crazy spinning was something I haven’t seen from an aerial act before on this show, and Howie got a pretty nice view from the best seat in the house!

I know Matthew Richardson is getting some MAJOR martyr status, and I suppose he might have deserved it more than the act that everyone’s complaining about advancing over him...But when you look past the dream-catcher hoop and the recordings playing in the audio, he seemed to pretty much do the same tricks he did last time...Though I guess he is a major candidate for a Wildcard position considering how popular he is...

Damiyr was pretty boring, and I’ve heard several people perform that song on this show by now...What exactly made the tough choice between him and Klafford again?

The one act that I felt REALLY deserved it (but knew he wouldn’t due to not seeing him in the auditions) was The Orange Magician! I have two words for this act: ...Not bad! (He appears behind me and grins menacingly.) OKAY, IT’S GOOD, IT’S GOOD!!! (He nods and mouths, “It’s good!” and then vanishes.) But seriously, best quick-change act I’ve seen yet, even if some of those costumes were surely other people...

And now on to the acts that DID make it...

7: Emerald Belles. There were a few cool moves near the end, but this was mostly just the same stuff we saw in their audition...Howie’s still not a fan, so unless their hundreds of family members are willing to pitch in on votes, the Quarter-Finals are surely as far as they go...

6: Lukas & Falco. Dog act? Check! “Greatest Showman”? Check! Any other “Simon loves” boxes you want to check off for future performances? This was overall quite solid for them, but this does beg the question...Where are the hoops!? I mean, it’s a dog act with a circus-themed set, and you don’t have him jump through ONE HOOP!? Oh well, I’d say they earned their place regardless...

5: Sophie Pecora. I guess it figures that the GB would go to a sad child like her...But I do like her! I think the raps in her songs take a little getting used to, but a lot of new things do...I don’t have too much else to say...Except that her daddy Shane Dawson should be proud!

4: Chris Klafford. In my opinion, this wasn’t quite as effective in showing off his dynamic range as the “Imagine” cover...But the song was effective enough, further emphasized by that soulful voice of his! I think the only reason why Brad picked Sophie over him was because she came first...And then he probably INSTANTLY regretted it once this guy performed! And again, him against Damiyr!? As if it was EVER a contest!?

3: Ndlovu Youth Choir. Not quite as good as their audition, but I still greatly enjoyed them! I guess if they rock out to Toto next time, we’ll be good! Otherwise, I still have no idea how you pronounce “Ndlovu”, and that guy in the front doing most of the talking is still adorable enough that you could just pinch his cheeks!

2: Berywam. I’m somewhat biased, as I acknowledge that this wasn’t quite as consistent as their audition...But when it got hot, it got scorching! I was worried about them for a moment, but at least now they have another shot to win back the crowd...

1: Messoudi Brothers. And the award for biggest step up of the night goes to...Their audition was pretty forgettable for me; Not much I haven’t seen before...But boy did things get crazy really quickly THIS time! And once their old man joined in the fun, the proverbial mic was dropped! (Yup, they earned a mic drop over Berywam!) And all this...with very little time for rehearsal! (Also, on a side note, I love how it shows them getting dressed when we KNOW they’re about to take all that off again in just a few minutes...)

And there you have it! The Golden Buzzers are feeling increasingly formulaic, and some of the acts didn’t quite bring their A-game, but at least they put through all the acts that mattered (and Emerald Belles...Could have been worse...)

Next week, our guest judge is a basketball player I’ve never heard of who’s married to one of our main judges, so whatever...

Hopefully we can break away from singers getting all of the GBs, because to me, V.Unbeatable has already made a much bigger impact than ANY of the singers in this round! (Yeah, guess who I’m rooting for next week...)

Be back later with my full predictions...

Edit: While not all of the acts for next week have been announced yet, we do have seven acts confirmed that we saw in the auditions (and one who we DIDN’T see, but no need to talk about him). Those acts are Bir Khalsa Group, GFORCE, Lamont Landers, V.Unbeatable, Olivia Calderon, Ryan Niemiller and Dom Chambers...All of them are MAJOR candidates, though I am kinda rooting against Lamont simply because I’m in no mood for another Daniel Emmet situation this year...

We’ll wait and see if any other candidates are announced, but so far, V.Unbeatable still looks like the only one of the bunch that SHOULD get the Golden Buzzer...

Edit 2: Okay, NOW it’s tough! We can now add Gingzilla, Adaline Bates, Robert Finley, Izzy & Easton, ADEM Dance Crew and Verba to the collection...Some good acts WILL be cut! I don’t think I can bring myself to predict who will be advancing in this one, because almost everyone is either someone who I don’t want to leave so soon, or someone who looks...obligatory...

I guess out of the singers at least, Lamont looks like an easy cut, I could probably go on fine without Olivia, Adaline might be expendable, and honestly, as much as I like Robert, I can see him not making it past this round either...GFORCE is one of those obligatory acts I was talking about, but then again, the judges have been seeming less stupid this season, so sending an act like them ahead over the other ones I was just talking about might ironically be against character this time...So I guess the only REAL lock in this category is Gingzilla!

But that’s as far as I’m going with predictions for this one...I can already tell it’s going to be rough...

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 17 - VAN - Theft

Some NHL teams are evergreen. Most of those teams are in Canada. On these teams, in these fanbases, hope spring eternal. Vancouver has one of these NHL teams. In spite of being the worst team over the last three years cementing consistent mundane hockey, new players and narratives always come along to keep Canucks fans keyed into the campaign. I respect it. We can learn something from those fans. Today our 1970 expansion rivals came to Buffalo for an afternoon matchup. Early Saturday afternoon in your PJs the day after the first snowfall of the season here in Buffalo… it just warms the heart. In Vancouver it was a 10am game. I consider myself a bit of Breakfast maven so that would’ve been next level. Back to the teams: playing this incarnation of the evergreen Canucks wasn’t going to be a blowout. This was the battle of two of the greatest young Swedes in the game in Rasmus Dahlin and Elias Pettersson. This was to be a fun matchup but one you have high expectations of the Sabres out of. Speaking of high expectations: God bless the troops on this Veterans Day weekend; seeing all the veterans in military regalia before the game and in the crowd reminds you just how special this big funny league is in that we get to screw around and talk shit while those men and women serve in warzones. God bless the troops and let’s play some hockey!

The first period was more even than it looked. It looked like the Sabres were solidly buzzing the Canucks and when you got a goalie like Jacob Markstrom in net with a sub .900 save percentage that’s a really great thing. Nathan Beaulieu jumped on the defenseman scoring pileup on a shot from Kyle Okposo in a neat redirect goal. Johan Larsson very nearly made 2-0 when he rung one off the post toward the tail end of the period. I thought that shot came from Eichel until I realized the sinister reality both him and Sam Reinhart had headed back into the room. Reinhart had gotten a puck off the face but there was no word on Eichel. The anxiety continued in the second when only Sam came back immediately. It was a massive sigh and a round of applause from the crowd when Eichel did come back about five minutes in. The period he returned to was very different from the first: there was no flow and no chances. Vancouver outshot Buffalo and more than a couple great saves by Carter Hutton kept it even. I left one Loui Eriksson out of my description of what this Canucks team is made of in our last New Look Sabres and he made me pay tapping in a long-deserved Vancouver goal at 18:16 of the second. The game immediately turned into a track meet that a much younger player named Jake Virtanen used to slingshot a goal past Hutton with 34 seconds left in the middle period. Suddenly this game had become the higher-scoring affair one would expect.

The final frame started out a bloodbath. A game that was fun at one point turned into a series of cheap shots and penalties that just grated at anyone who likes these teams. Erik Fucking Gudbranson, the most overrated player in Canada, sunk a shot from the wall past Hutton to put Vancouver on top 3-1. What followed was a parade of stupid by the Buffalo Sabres. Everyone held their sticks too tight and Tage Thompson did about everything short of buying the bus ticket to get himself sent down to Rochester. They looked dead in the water and I sat down to write a really dreary post about how this team is showing their not ready to break their playoff drought. Then Jeff Skinner said he didn’t want to be on the old Sabs and scored a goal on a feed from Ristolainen. Okay, that was with less than three minutes left and it still didn’t seem like they’d comeback. Then they came back on a Ristolainen shot that Sam Reinhart guided into the Vancouver goal. Just like that we’re in OT. I watched this extra mini period with my arms crossed. You see: the parade of stupid did not end. Vancouver held more of the possession and it felt like it was a series of lucky blocks that kept this game going. In spite of giving up a penalty to go 4 on 3, the Sabres held onto go to the first shootout of the season which ended in Buffalo’s favor because of the only guy who played a complete game: Carter Hutton. 4-3 Buffalo wins in a theft.

I feel like a broken record repeating all the negative takes on Rasmus Ristolainen but gee, that was not a worthwhile penalty he took in the second. It was just an ungodly play from a guy who is paid to be a bit better than that. Evan Rodrigues was once again a hungry devil in this game and I can’t help but feel his goal is coming. It very nearly did in a third period breakaway this game. The defense seemed to disappear halfway through this game and I can’t exactly explain why. The Scandella Bogosian combination needs to end. Dahlin played well but no one else really did. It was clear as day that they got off their game in the third. Frankly, it was a violent period: chippy with nonstop chases and the constant fear someone is going to actually get hurt. The Buffalo Sabres may have won this game because Elias Pettersson broke his stick in OT. They may have won it because of Reinhart cashing in on a very generous rebound in the dying moments of regulation. They may have won it because of Johan fucking Larsson! But they did not win this game because they were the better team. This is the opposite of the second Rangers game when they were better and lost. Sure they didn’t give up and managed to get two points but merciful God, this game was just terrible. Positives: they didn’t screen Hutton all that much and won against a team that also likes scoring up close by the net. Their home record is awfully nice. Ugh, this game was just brutal for the heart rate.

Let’s all take a moment to praise Johan Larsson. Let’s be positive. Jack must have been brewing a bottle of secret stuff a la Space Jam because Larsson looked like a new player in this game. He’ll be the only Sabre not named Carter Hutton looking back on this game in a positive way. These guys got Tampa Bay on Tuesday and in spite of the recent record against those guys they’re not going to give you any chances from behind. I got to calm down. Share this with your friends as a PSA about robbery. Like, follow the blog and leave a comment for me. These games you yell and scream but when they come out as W’s I suppose it’s best to celebrate rather than complain. Let’s Go Buffalo.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Casey Mittelstadt’s first shootout was worth putting him before Jeff Skinner. That maybe his wheelhouse: I want him going after Eichel in the shootout from now on.  

[ooc-but-stylish]

My thoughts on and hopes for Iris West

I liked Iris in the first two seasons of The Flash. Candice did a good job of capturing the charm, warmth and spunk of the character from the comics. I feel like Westallen is dragging her down and not allowing her to develop her identity outside of her relationship. I hated how they stripped away her autonomy in the third season. The theme of the season was free will vs destiny but Iris’s choices were diminished. It still pisses me off that they went with the Oh I will try to heal this screwed man with my love shit with Savitar. But what pisses me off the most is that our Iris West the woman who constantly risked her life for a story, the woman who wanted to tell the public about the unknown, the woman who tried to give the public hope, gave up her career to become Mrs. Star Labs. 

That shit is really backwards. I don’t care that the writers are trying to overcompensate by making Iris the boss, they took a huge part of her identity away. As a woman who is trying to break into a STEM field I could relate to Iris West in the first two seasons when she was trying to make a name for herself. I really related to her when she was trying to break into journalism and she had to prove herself. When she took risks to get a story or tried to give the public the truth. I loved it when she had to go against her editor in season 2. I am happy that at least towards the end of season 4, Iris is reclaiming that part of her identity. I honestly want less Westallen stuff next season so we can see Iris being a kickass journalist. I would love it if she started her own online news paper or something. 

Good submission. Thankfully, CP also wants Iris to go back to her roots in being an actual journalist and not just Barry Allen’s cheerleader.

IMO, the writing was always sub-par with Iris with the quality getting worse in later seasons, and a lot of it has to do with the writers not getting what issues there could possibly have been around Iris’s character in the initial seasons and then fixing the wrong problems with wronger solutions, or them just simply not caring about her at all to write her well compared to similar characters on the network or in the genre. 

She was a journalist in Season 1, but the B Plot of her reporting had to be contrived into a tangential relation to the A Plot of Barry vs. Reverse Flash. She was a journalist, but she had to be the last person to know that Barry was the Flash. She was a journalist, and didn’t learn a thing about Wells and Reverse Flash being one and the same, with that plot going to Mason and Mason getting killed off with her never finding out about that either. She was a journalist, and her most notable moment was showing Wells in 1x11 that she wasn’t going to ask “soft questions” so he could avoid being held accountable about the Particle Accelerator explosion and that’s it. She was a journalist but somehow consistently not allowed to be intelligent on her own, finding things out by chance or fate or whatever.

So instead of fixing that so that her plot established her character traits outside of propping up the Flash, they… made her more and more of a prop for the Flash,  like the only way she could be relevant was by not being herself. Aside from the subplot with Francine, where Francine existed just to die and also introduce Wally into the show. But I mean, Iris could’ve been writing articles about the breaches, or about people being seen in two places at the same time (suggesting Earth-2 doppelgangers), or whatever Grodd was up to when he had some episodes. 

I can’t even remember what Iris’s editor tried in season 2 that she went against. … Okay, now I do. It was that whole Trajectory bit, right, with the editor illogically suggesting that Iris write a piece about Flash “going Rogue” with 0 proof it was even him, then unprofessionally assumed her wanting a conversation with him was automatically a date. And it’s good that she didn’t take nonsense from her editor, but that was the writers sliding into “Iris as the Flash’s cheerleader” when Iris herself (in season 1) wanted to prove that she was a serious journalist interested in things that weren’t just about the Flash. We already know she thinks the Flash is a hero. We know she believes in him both in and out of the costume. We don’t need her writing articles about that. And a lot of season 2 even ignored actually developing Barry and Iris’s relationship beyond “Oh hey, remember how we were married in this other Earth, where most of the people we knew were had 180 in their personality, including us? Haha, yeah, good times” so they couldn’t even do WestAllen correctly.

So like, in and out of her job, Iris was pretty much just about Barry in what screentime she had. And she only moved on from Eddie because Eddie told her to in a video that didn’t exist until Barry changed the timeline.

Then again, Iris could have been way worse in S2. She could’ve been Patty Spivot.

Yeah. I said it.

Patty in Season 2 was pretty much explicitly there to be a Female Barry Allen– a scientifically minded, socially awkward, babbling comic book geek who wants revenge against a metahuman for the murder of a parent, but since she’s not actually Barry and is in a separate body, writers could portray her so that she’s such a fan of Barry that she read all of his reports, and totally gets him and his jokes you know? Lawlz! ���. Yawn. Her character was a Flash and Barry fangirl right down to her willingness to drop her plans to go to college if Barry admitted he was a superhero. So like…. people saying they shipped “Spallen” over “Westallen” and citing Patty as the better character were really transparent. Patty didn’t bring anything to the table except being the genderbend of the main dude and willing to stop her whole life to be with him. The point is the writers are just awful.

Then season 3 was all about Iris dying and she had the least amount of screentime/episodes in it: what screentime she did have was replaying her death over and over and over and over and over, and if it wasn’t her dying it was trying to reassure everyone else that if she died anyway, to move on. For a season about Iris, a lot of the focus was on how the guys in her life would handle it and not about her own life and ambitions. She didn’t have a single thing on her bucket list to get done? She wasn’t going to fight for her own life?

It’s like, the way CW writers are approaching Iris is like their network never ever had 10 seasons of a superhero show with female journalist side characters in it before. You know, the show with not one but two Daily Planet reporters doing something other than writing about Superman constantly– and I’m pretty sure the first person that did get attached to Superman’s exploits and putting them on the paper was Jimmy Olsen.

[zalrb]

I probably shouldn't be asking you so maybe this is for the hard core Elena anons. Why is Elena their favorite character? *Imo* -- the writers made Elena a very mediocre character but in saying that I still love SE. I love SE because of how they were written and I believed what was written & portrayed onscreen. With Elena I think she had potential to be a good character but they didn't allow her to be flawed on her own. They didn't allow her to grow from her experiences or hear her 'voice'.

I think it may be because of who she was supposed to be, like I’ll post a response I did to an ask once.

Anonymous: Can you and your mutuals help me get a firmer grasp on Elena's character?! Stefan and Caroline both have (IMO) a few clear, salient strengths and consistent flaws, but most other TVD characters, including Elena, are just sort of whatever the current storyline needs them to be at the time. I hate that the show's female protagonist doesn't have a clearly defined personality.                                                                                                                                                                               

Elena does have a clearly defined personality the problem is that the personality lacks follow through and therefore it doesn’t have clearly defined execution.

Elena is supposed to be a deeply empathetic and compassionate person who loves passionately and makes reckless decisions to keep those she loves safe. She is supposed to be a caretaker, which is why in 2x04 when Caroline is trying to drive a wedge between her and Stefan she tells Elena she’s too maternal not to have kids. She is supposed to be understanding and non-judgemental, which gives her the ability to ‘see the good in everyone.’ She is also supposed to have “darkness” in her because she will do morally questionable things to ensure the outcome she wants and she can be emotionally manipulative although that’s mostly towards Damon. And after watching season 2, I’m realizing she is supposed to have a legit martyr complex.

But like I said, the problem is follow-through. Elena can’t have a martyr complex when the narrative works so hard to keep her from actually having to sacrifice anything, the intent to martyr herself is not enough because it makes the audience go, easy for you to say, Elena, you don’t actually have to be the Bonnie in this situation, do you?

Elena being empathetic and compassionate doesn’t really work that well when she’s dating the man who single-handedly terrorized each and every one of her friends and she doesn’t even come across as a good friend because when she is with her friends, if they’re not talking about her problems and are instead talking about Caroline’s issues and the one, two times they talk about Bonnie, Elena doesn’t say much, she usually just shrugs or makes a noise (and that’s not Elena’s fault, that’s the writing’s fault).

Her being maternal and caretaker doesn’t work well when Elena doesn’t actually do much to show this. All she really does is hug people and that’s not enough. When Jeremy is a legit drug dealer in season 1 and gets into a fight with Tyler when he’s drunk and has an actual bottle, Elena literally lets Jeremy walk away, she pretty much let’s Jeremy do his own thing, if she’s as worried about him as the show is trying to tell us she is, then that’s when Elena goes to the smokers den and drags him into class, it’s when she’s blowing up his phone and calling everyone he hangs out with. She needs to be involved not passively concerned.

And the other thing is because Elena is supposed to be such a nice person and the show just wants to make her this wholeheartedly good person they forget that good people can have complex emotions. Like this is a weird example because the whole point of The Good Place is that the protagonist Eleanor was shitty when she was alive and now that she’s dead, she’s trying so hard to be a good person but either way, she’s ready to make a sacrifice for the friend group and she’s telling another friend he has to make it with her and he’s like But I don’t wanna! And she’s like I DON’T WANNA EITHER, MAN, but we HAVE to do this because they don’t deserve to suffer for something that we did! This is what it is to be a good person! Elena should have that. Elena should struggle with the idea of martyring herself, she should be like Stefan, do you really think I want to die? I’m seventeen, of course I don’t want to die, this entire situation sucks but what sucks more is that everyone else is bending over backwards doing things that will get them killed to make sure I stay alive, I would rather just be dead. You can call me selfish if you want, but none of you are dying if I can help it. Just something like that. Instead we get her having a breakdown over the fact that she was supposed to grow up and have kids and not become a vampire, they should’ve changed that to her breaking down about the choice she made but also not regretting it.

And then even with the darkness … I mean you see her do things like stab Rebekah in the back and have Damon compel Jeremy (it should not have been Damon, putting the man who killed her brother in charge of compelling his memory to keep him safe is fucked up, but that’s not an Elena thing, that’s the writers not paying attention to the dynamics they’ve created) but in seasons 4 and 5 when it was supposed to be how Elena has changed and her “purity” level has been hella diluted, the issue with that is she actually isn’t darker, she’s just screwing Damon and that makes her shitty, not dark. And every “dark” thing she does like kill Connor and turn off her humanity is because she’s Sired to Damon, that’s the show protecting her and not making her actually dark so they don’t follow through. That’s the issue.

[calliecat93]

ST: The Next Generation S4 Watchthrough Episodes 2-5

Family: I fully expected the episode after the whole Borg thing would just be another typical episode that maybe brought it up, but otherwise be business as usual. Thank God that they didn’t go that route. This was the follow-up needed, a calmer, more introspective episode. No aliens. No politics or social issues. No heavy action. Just a cool-down, character-driven episode to let the audience breathe and allow character development. Picard of course is the big plot, going back to France (is this a joke because Patrick Stewart is British?) to reconnect with his family and deal with the trauma of the Borg assimilation. Robert is kind of an ass… but he does care about Picard and does ultimately help him open up about the trauma. Seriously, Patrick Stewart’s acting in that scene? 100% perfect. I like his sister-in-law and nephew as well and I liked finally seeing Earth outside a Starfleet base/an area not technologically advanced. We also met Worf’s adopted parents! While they’re a little much, they clearly love Worf, did their best to adjust in properly raising a Klingon child, and I’m just glad to see some actual competent/caring parents in something. Crusher and Wesley’s plot isn’t much… but not gonna lie, if my mom hadn’t been in the room I’d have likely cried. Wesley watching the hologram of his deceased dad… while Wil Wheaton’s acting was a little underwhelming… yeah God that hit far too close. My dad died three years ago and I still get choked up about it sometimes. And when Crusher was going through Jack’s belongings and picking up his uniform? Just… damn. I’m so glad to see an episode that just… lets the characters develop and grow without having to add a whole bunch of melodrama or an over-complicated plot or anything like that. It’s about family, and it was freakin’ perfect. 5/5.

Brothers: Well… I should have seen this coming eventually. Lore is back folks. Oh but it’s not just him. After three seasons, we finally meet the infamous Dr. Soong. Guess this is why Data wasn’t in the last episode, his family issues needed one all their own. So first… Brent Spiner deserves every freakin’ acting Emmy ever because he played all three of these characters. Yep, all three at the same time in the same episode. And he plays all three with great distinction and character and… the man is freakin’ good. The whole episode was just… damn. The first half where Data essentially hijacks everything.. yeah if Data ever went evil, everyone would be screwed. That was legit horrifying… though why they left Data alone on the bridge when something was clearly wrong with him I’ll never know. As for Dr. Soong himself… I’m not sure how to feel about him. Oh as a character he’s great. Brent Spiner really put a lot into him. I’m just not sure whether to call him out or feel bad for him… but maybe that’s part of the point. And Lore? Well… while he’s certainly evil… I actually felt bad for him? I can’t blame him for being angry and resentful because… yeah him being deactivated/disassembled while Data got to live out a life and shown clear favoritism is very understandable. He truly feels like the angry older brother whole Data is the younger, more inquisitive brother not quite sure what to think. Soong does seem to regret decommissioning Lore, especially now that he’s dying (which Lore’s actual emotional reaction… it was possibly an act but IDT it was, again excellent work by Brent Spiner), and it does feel like he summoned the two (even if Lore was unintentional since he didn’t know he’d been reassembled) to make some form of amends, but IDK if it’s legit regret or some form of ego. It really feels open to interpretation or perhaps a mix of both. Despite that, Soong being killed by Lore who escapes with the emotion chip not designed for him implanted to wreak havoc again in the future… yeah him accepting that it’s over and his and Data’s goodbye with Data calling him ‘father’… again, just perfect. This whole episode was perfect, Event the subplot with the two kids was done well and served as a good parallel to the Data and Lore situation. Those two were able to forgive… but I don’t think it will be that simple for Data. I’m still hoping that Data gets happy things later (WHEN DOES HE GET HIS KITTY?! I WANT HIM TO GET HIS KITY!), but still a fantastic episode. 5/5.

Suddenly Human: So in this episode, we have a human boy who was raised by an alien culture known as the Talarians. Due to being raised among them, he acts and views himself as a Talarian moreso than he does a human. Well… that’s certainly an interesting episode topic. It’s kind of like with Worf, a Klingon, having been raised by humans, albeit they did try to keep his Klingon heritage intact as much as they could. I think that this may be the first tme we’ve had a human being raised in an alien culture? Spock may have kinda counted, but he was half-Vulcan, half-human, and still had both parents so that’s still a different situation compared to someone born and raised human until his parents died and was taken into the very group that caused their deaths. I guess the title character in Charlie X back during TOS may have also counted, which I do get similar vibes from especially the whole ‘captain super awkwardly stepping up as a father figure against his will’ part… albeit I feel more sympathetic towards Jono than Charlie who went thoroughly power-mad, plus Charlie very clearly didn’t want to go back to the aliens. Jono just wants to go home. Honestly… IDK how to feel about the situation. I get wanting to have Jono connect to his human roots and being concerned about him being among the Talarians who have a… rather ruthless, very patriarchal lifestyle. However, the man who took him in does genuinely love him and it does seem like he’s been accepted into their world and he’s content with that. It’s where I get the crew’s concerns and while a little too excessive Crusher’s concern about Stockholm Syndrome does make sense somewhat… but I’m also like ‘this is his choice, if that is what he wishes then grant it to him.” . Trying to make him get in touch with his roots as though they know what’ best for him when they absolutely don’t, no matter how well-intentioned… yeah don’t agree with that. Even if he has remaining family on Earth, then as sad as it is, he gets to make that choice for his life no matter what the consequences may be. IDK is they intended to bring up the moral complexity of these kinds of situations because there are solid arguments that you can make for all sides here, but I do think it’s there and is very much a relevant topic in today’s world. I’m very much on the ‘make the choice for yourself and allow one to make that choice’ opinion. Allow them to learn about their heritage and the truth about how they ended up where they did, and let them decide what they’d like for themselves/how they’d like to lead their lives. Ultimately that’s what Jono did. He understands what happened and he finally expresses missing his parents and the trauma he endured due to it… but he also chose to remain with his adopted father and those who raised him, but maybe now more open in getting in touch with his Earth/human heritage. IDK if it was the right or wrong choice, but it was his choice. 4/5.

Remember Me: 🎶Though I have to say goodbye. Remember me, don't let it make you cry.🎶 Sorry, the Disney/Pixar nerd in me required me to do that XD Okay in all seriousness... guys they did it! They made an episode centering on a female character (Dr. Crusher) aND IT WAS ACTUALLY GOOD! So we have huge chunks of the crew disappearing and everyone’s memories of them wiped… except for Dr. Crusher. So… I won’t go into the plot twist here. Like with The Survivors it is really something I’d rather not spoil. But damn, I already liked Dr. Crusher… but this made me love her. The poor woman keeps questioning her sanity because of all the disappearances/memory gaps. To everyone else, nothing is out of place. To her? Everything is breaking down. I do like that the crew does listen to her and take her fears seriously. No one questions her going insane, Troi even telling her that if she thinks that something is wrong, then she’s acting as she should. Even when it’s only Crusher and Picard, despite clearly getting tired of it… Picard still listens to her and trusts her word. With how in both this and TNG they sometimes have dropped in common sense, it’s just so nice to see them treat this situation seriously and carefully and not act like Crusher is just a hysterical woman. Which she is not. While she understandably is freaked out and upset, she acts competently and intelligently especially when it’s only her left. Again, without spoiling anything, the way she gets out of it shows just how freakin’ awesome she is. Just an overall really good episode and Thank God that Dr. Crusher finally got the focus that she deserved. Sorry Pulaski, but them ditching you was worth it for this~! 4.5/5.

Wow we are off to an excellent start! Brothers may be my favorite episode in the whole show thus far. Much more to go, so hopefully the quality remains consistent. We shall see~!