#Also the way it was shown in between the scenes of Bella getting the good review she so wanted

[inexpressiblybeatiful]

Hotel Portofino be like: Bury your gays and also bury your child.

[hatosaur]

ep. 8 thoughts here we go. tw for sexual assault obv.

so i liked the episode, but not really as much as the others. compared to the others, i’m closer to lukewarm. the episode felt a bit rushed in the second half, because the first half spent an adequate amount of time setting up david.

i’m gonna talk about david first to get him outta the way.

i liked most of the details they added for him:

the christian thing -- as i was watching, i thought it was a good way to subtly imply the pedo thing without being overt about it. we also never got to see how much power david had in the game, so those beginning moments of the ep where his unequivocable leadership over the group is shown were really good at silently highlighting that. i’ve also seen it pointed out this being the “traditional” and “correct” way to maintain society and yet immediately turning to eating their own kind because of their one leader, versus jackson being communist and thriving because everyone holds the exact same amount of power, is really, really funny.

the subtle emphasis on traditional gender roles -- i don’t really recall him having this in the game but that moment where he insists he’s that one girl’s father because of his role in the town is a really scary prelude to what role he thinks ellie should take up alongside him.

the teacher thing -- much like the christian thing, but something that doesn’t quite hit till later. creeps me out just thinkin about it.

the detail that i didn’t like, which i feel crumples up all this good subtextual writing and throws in it the bin is david’s attempt to rape ellie. in my post about ep. 7, i was HOPING that they wouldn’t be more explicit about david’s...intentions than they already had been; and they did exactly that, but in the smallest way. in the penultimate moment, in the burning diner, david admits he likes “the part where they fight” the most and reaches for his belt. like...i get it. you want it to be clear-clear that he’s a pedophile, that had ellie gotten to the machete a bit later in the game, maybe he would’ve made that intention clear as well, but why go that far narratively? you already have the building blocks for the audience assuming he’s a creep, you even strengthened it in the subtext, so why make him attempt to sexually assault her, in a burning building i might add????

the only saving grace was bella’s acting chops and, of course, when she kills the mf.

i’m not a fan of craig mazin’s reasoning for his changes nor his understanding of the characters, especially in the bts for this ep. his point about david being right about ellie having a “violent heart” is gross, because no, she doesn’t?? she doesn’t have a violent heart anymore than joel does, or maria, or tommy, because they all live in the post-apocalypse. she’s a literal kid trying to survive and maintain the good that she has, why describe her in such a weird way? when she’s quite literally the embodiment of good and hope in the series??? i know more than you, craig. >:///

a change that i did like was the separation between what happened in the burning building and joel finding ellie. because yes, i agree, the whole point of ellie’s section was for her to come out victorious through her own making. that moment where they find each other again, with all the fucked up additions, did feel all the more relieving, i’ll give it that.

that other change where it’s not joel pulling her close, but ellie going in for a much-needed hug, was really good. to me, it works with the build-up of ellie’s reliance on his protection. “if you die, i’m fuckin’ dead out here” & “i can’t fucking do this without you” were building up to this point where she can (non-verbally) say that she needs him.

in the game, it’s more so “she’s finally safe, thank god she’s safe,” which is still good, clearly because it’s one of the best scenes in the game and because we’re in joel’s shoes, but i like that the show’s depiction of them plays into the dynamic of ellie loving joel’s protection and him just being there for her. shit, i like seeing how much ellie loves joel in the show!!! her cuddling up with joel REALLY felt to me like for a moment, she could pretend for a second that he’s more than some guy transporting her across the country, but like maybe a dad? something like a dad? something precious that she wants in her life for a long time??

the game being from joel’s perspective, we don’t get as much on ellie’s feelings, how she comes to love joel, and i really dig that the show is giving us that. like hey, i know she’s a kid and of course, that means she’ll latch on to him faster but maybe it’s a bit more complex than that, who knows.

HEY, SPEAKING OF JOEL: poor guy’s parts of the ep were way too short :( not just in an “i wanna see joel do more sick shit because this is a gameplay section” kinda way, but also in a “hey, you’re rushing the episode” kinda way. i wanted more of him tearing the place apart in search of ellie. the game had it that way to match the chaotic energies that both parties were going through just to get back with each other! but joel’s portions of the ep were lacking and it seemed like the episode needed that boost. in trying to remember what joel was doing in the episode, the first thing that comes to mind isn’t really his torture scene but him ambling about in the snow. not a great thing. give the man more to do, please. i now see what people mean when they say the action has been neutered a bit.

anyway, back to ellie again lol. 

bella was AMAZING in this. they’re so good at acting and acting like ellie that it’s like??? where they born to play ellie???? she killed all the feral moments, the vulnerable moments, the moments where ellie fucks up. the “ellie is the little girl that broke your fucking finger” moment was PHENOMENAL. 

last episode next week. it’s 44 min apparently?? i’m not liking how that looks. if it were up to me, it’d be a two-parter. a bigass slow burn. one episode dedicated to ellie and joel only, expands their growing relationship after winter, lets them be soft, has the giraffe moment, makes things seem okay, then at the end they get found by the fireflies. second starts with the anna flashback and really digs into what’s about to happen, rounding off the theme of getting into the scientific side of the cordyceps in a neat way, then kicks off the end segment of the game.

here’s hoping they nail it.

[fangerine]

okay. so. i’m gonna be honest. i was not as impressed with this episode of the last of us as i have been for the past three so this post is not going to be as lengthy as my usual breakdowns. though, i want to make it clear that it isn’t that i think this episode was bad. i think, even at this series’ “worst”, it’s still better than most television that’s out right now. 

the thing about this episode, i want to focus on for a bit is this blatant display of innocence and the loss of it that is shown through both ellie and joel, plus (spoilers after the break)

henry and sam!!!

i love that this episode opens up with ellie testing out her new gun. first off, i really can’t get over how good this casting is. bella ramsey looks like a kid, even at 19 years old. 

i know the struggle.

anyways, ellie looks at guns like they’re toys because she is, once again, a kid. in the next scene, though, she’s reading through a pun book.

a gun and a pun book. i think that is the title of ellie’s autobiography.

but seriously, the juxtaposition of those two items in her inventory is so absurd to a point where it’s funny but also sad. when ellie has to save joel, we see it from an entirely different perspective than shown in the game. it’s not as quick. in fact, it’s very slow. like bleeding to death, slow.

we see that ellie doesn’t really know what that weapon does to people who aren’t infected. she knows it shoots, and that it hurts when that bullet hits but beyond that, she doesn’t think about it. but now she has to. she has to think about the fact that she could take away someone’s son. she can take away someone’s ability to walk; their ability to survive in this harsh world. she can take away a life just like that. 

throughout the rest of the episode, joel is constantly trying to tell ellie that what she had to do isn’t normal but the reason it’s so hard for him to say is because he knows that’s not the reality of the world they live in, now. the reality of it is is that what ellie had to do is the new normal, and that frightens him in a way that pedro pascal’s wonderful physicality and body language captures in between the dialogue. 

and at the end of the episode, there’s this really great moment before joel and ellie go to sleep. they’re laughing their asses off at a diarrhea pun, like two five year olds and it’s so heartwarming in such a dumb, loveable way. even the toughest of men can break at a poop joke.

but then we cut to those final shots of henry and sam holding ellie and joel at gunpoint. and that very last frame is of a child, even younger than ellie, putting a gun in joel’s face with this cold, firm expression, on his face. mind you, the actor for sam in this series is nine years old. at least at the time of filming. that’s four years younger than game sam, and there’s a good reason for it.

after joel has said all those things about how wrong it is for a kid like ellie to have to experience all this violence, he has to stare at that reality down the barrel of a nine year old’s gun. he’s seeing children having to quickly grow up and grow numb to all the violence that he’s contributed to.

that’s the real tragedy of the last of us.

p.s.: i want to make it clear that i am not above poop jokes. poop jokes are some of my favorite types of jokes, and any of you who disagree are lying to yourselves. thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[gezellig-writes]

Part 2/??? 😂 Jacob for the ask game!

(Will answer mine when I claw some brainpower back!! 💖)

do I like them

How could I not? One of Bella's best moments was when she called him her personal son. He's one of my favorite parts of this series and his character assassination at the hands of Meyer will always be a tragedy

5 good qualities

His heart- he has so much capacity for love and gives so much of himself to others

He's caring and thoughtful with his time and especially the gifts he gives to his friends and family

He's loyal, maybe to a fault

He's perceptive- its shown more in the books than the movies, but he's easily able to tell when Bella doesn't want to talk about something (or someone) and doesn't push her further

He's literally described by Bella as her personal sun

3 bad qualities

The whole Bella kiss scene before the newborn battle in Eclipse. Just not a fan all around

He's also the type of person who doesn't know when to stop talking. Like its nice, but you don't always need his 24/7 running commentary and it can be a bit much when he and Quil get going

He's not good at talking about or dealing with his own feelings and sometimes that comes back to bite him

favorite episode/etc

The entire sequence when they restore the bikes. Jake dives headlong into it and is so giving with his time and energy and definitely knows how good it all is for Bella

otp

 I can't make a single choice, so you're getting several, that share equal value in my heart

Blackwater- for obvious reasons

Selfpartnered!Jake- This is mostly HC territory, but I really like the idea of him being single and working through his trauma, and learning to love and accept himself

Jake x Bella- This was my jam when I came back into twilight (aka The Movement of the Earth), and I was Team Jacob back when I first read the series. There’s also something so easy about their relationship like they’re two halves of a whole

brotp

I will always have a soft spot for Jake/Quil/Embry and their friendship. There's a ton of history between them, and a lot to work with, and their overall dynamic is quite fun

ot3

I don't think I have one?

notp

Jacob/Edward. I don't get it and I don't think I ever will

best quote

There is a lot to pick from, but I like this one from New Moon:

He sighed a heavy sigh. Then he reached over his toolbox to a paper grocery sack. He pulled out two cans of soda, cracking one open, and handing it to me. He opened the second and held it ceremoniously.

"Here's to responsibility," he toasted. "Twice a week."

"And recklessness every day in between," I emphasized.

He grinned and touched his can to mine

Not much, but I feel like it encapsulates some of his best parts

headcanon

He learned about cars from his Aunt Jane, Nana Doris, and Grandfather Hank (Sarah was the rebel artist in a family of mechanics), who own a garage in La Push. After Sarah's death, it became a bit of an obsession, but also a way to work through grief he had a difficult time processing.

The garage behind the house is his personal sanctuary, but Jacob has just as many fond memories of hours spent with his aunt and grandparents, old country music playing in the background as they taught him how to take apart cars and bikes and put them back together.

give me a character ask

[witchyangela]

Team Edward vs Team Jacob? ( or Maybe it can be that deep)

Unless you’ve been totally removed from popular culture these past few years you have heard about Team Edward vs Team Jacob. It was everywhere for a while and it was one of the things that both drew people to twilight and drive people away. It also, while not inventing love triangles, added a huge amount to their popularity and prevalence in fiction (particularly YA). The other most famous love triangle in YA is of course from the Hunger Games.

However if you ask any self respecting Hunger Games fan about it, they will tell you it’s more than just that, that Peeta represents peace and rebuilding while Gale represents retribution and destruction (at their most simple) and Katniss choosing between them is in fact her choosing her future. This symbolic view of love triangles is rarely discussed Re. Twilight, and with good reason as it’s unlikely Smeyer intended one to be there. However I think, that twilight can be read in an equally allegorical way, so please take a trip with me to find out what’s beyond team Edward and team Jacob.

The very first question, is what do Edward and Jacob represent? The most obvious answer in life and death. Language describing Edward is full of metaphors describing him as cold, as drug like, as painful. Smeyer describes Bella feeling “withdrawal” when she is away from him. Jacob however is associated primarily with the sun and with warmth. There’s also the factor that physically Edward is dead, he has no heartbeat, doesn’t grow, doesn’t eat human food. Whereas Jake has a quick heart beat, grows more quickly that the average human, and needs to eat more human food. In this way Jacob seems to represent humanity at its most extreme, he is more human than Bella, Edward is less.

However this falls apart around eclipse, when Jacobs warmth becomes “burning” however it’s wildly accepted that Smeyer changed Jacobs characterisation drastically in Eclipse, even reverting back to his og characterisation in Breaking dawn. So If we take away that element then Edward and Jacob representing life and death makes sense. However Bella choosing death over life is wrong, right?

Well maybe not. At least not in Bellas mind. From the first line of the series we know Bella is borderline obsessed with death. She is distressingly self sacrificing, the first line of the entire series is her deciding to die “in the place of someone ( she) loves”. And throughout new moon Bella continues to be self destructive. It’s interesting that the famous cliff dive, is to get towards Edward in the form of a halluncination. And she is saved by Jacob. This scene shows at its most basic that Bella leaping towards Edward is her jumping to her death. And yet she chooses it. So it’s fair enough to say that Bella doesn’t particularly want to live.

Which is why Edward is the one she chooses. He offers the option for her to stop aging, to have to never make the difficult decisions that come with age. In many ways Bella choosing Edward is a symbolic death. But it’s also a very attractive prospect for a teenager anxious about aging, with a complex about responsibility. Which let’s face it lots of the people reading twilight were. Choosing Edward is easy because her is an end to all problems. Wheras while Jacob may offer solutions too through friendship and warmth. His path requires effort.

Which is why I think that Life and Death might be too reducative. When in reality they represent Stagnation and Recovery. Bella is put in a position where if she chooses Jacob she will have to work on herself. With him she is actively building the bikes, which are a fairly obvious metaphor. They were broken by someone else, but by putting time and effort in they can work again. Which is very much what is happening with Bella in New Moon, she feels broken but begins to put in work to put herself together.

Continuing the metaphor, in eclipse Edward presents Bella with his own motorbike. It’s fancy, fast, and ready to go. It doesn’t require work to be put in. And Bella sees it how the audience does. That it doesn’t meant the same as it doesn’t have the same love put into it. It isn’t the motorbike that matters but the time spent building it. And again and again Edward and Jacob are shown like this. Jacob gives Bella a wolf charm he spent time and love carving, but Edward gives Bella a diamond, that’s flashy but has no real meaning.

So she should have chosen Jake right? Well yes but it’s not that simple! Bella is clearly vulnerable and what she thinks she wants is what Edward is giving, something ready made, a perfect family, wealth, security, but she doesn’t see that they’re as empty as the bike Edward gives. She could have these things with Jake but she would have to work for them, would have to put effort into making his friends like her rather than have them be her “best friend” immediately. And putting work in is what makes things matter, as I established, but Bella doesn’t see this, she sees the security of the Cullens and is blinded by its flashy-ness. And Jacob can’t compete. Bella wants the end product immediately and he is a work in progress.

So what does this mean? If Bella chooses death and refuses to recover her ending is surely a tragedy? Well maybe! But it’s easier to understand once you look at it from the Mormon perspective it was written from. Because Edwards symbolic death isn’t a end. It is a beggining, and from then on its “paradise”. Bella choosing death is just a fast track to heaven. And hey, why bother trying to make your time on earth good when you know what comes next will be a thousand times better?

But if you remember that post that said “an immortal will never love as a human loves because love is about survival”? Yeah that’s the real Edward / Jacob divide. Eternity is impossible to comprehend, and maybe this is just me but even a “perfect forever” sounds like it would be unbearable. Jacobs version of a happy ending may be shorter and less complete but like the bike and the wolf charm it’s also more real. So it’s easy to understand why Bella, Smeyer, and many readers chose Edward, as a fantasy it’s unbeatable. But if I had to choose? Team Jacob forever!

[mccoyyy]

moving this to my new blog so I can pin it again lol

@stregoni-benefici you are completely correct but I just wanted to expand on this a little bit - also i’m putting this under a read more cause this got a lot longer than i originally thought it would be

sexism: smeyers treatment of female characters throughout the entire series is extremely problematic. like you don’t even need to read deep into the books to see that. the backstories of all her female characters all involve some form of trauma and are significantly more violent than the male vampires (Rosalie and Esme enduring physical/sexual assault meanwhile Edward dies of the flu and Emmett gets vibe checked by a bear).

she also creates the idea that a woman isn’t complete without children/being a mother. every female vampire in the series is desperate for children yet can’t, its mentioned in pretty much every book and extreme emphasis is placed on how tragic this is. a female character wanting children isn’t wrong or sexist at all but the way its written in twilight makes it seem like its something a woman has to do in order to be happy and smeyer pretty much cements this idea by making Bella suddenly desperate to have Renesmee despite showing no interest in children/audibly voicing her thoughts against having children in eclipse and the start of breaking dawn (i’m pretty sure Bella has a line of dialogue in the books where she says something like she didn’t realise it was something she wanted/needed until it happened bit I’m not sure I try not to read/think about breaking dawn)

there’s also the way she writes female characters, specifically Rosalie. its mentioned throughout the series that Rosalie has extreme mechanical skills and multiple degrees in STEM fields but its barely ever shown, and instead her characterisation focuses on being obsessed with her looks (first couple pages of this, written by smeyer for new moon), and being a ‘stereotypical bitch’. for the first three books most of her character/dialogue is based on being cold and rude to Bella. She is unnecessarily painted as the villain for having different views on Bella (quite literally) giving up her life and future to be with a man (which is a whole other can of worms). the same is done to the character of Leah in eclipse/breaking dawn. Leah is a woman in the Quileute Tribe, she has been severely affected by the Cullen’s presence in the area and is painted as a character that the reader is supposed to dislike simply because she doesn’t like Bella/the Cullen’s despite having extremely valid reasons not to

anti-Native - smeyers treatment of native tribes is horrendous. she has profited fr years off of of native american culture for years and has done so without any acknowledgements. furthermore, she also demonises native american teens (especially in new moon) by calling them wild, violent, dangerous and out of control and then uses these stereotypes to create a contrast between the self control and patience of the Cullen’s and make them seem more like the good guys, and the wolf pack being lesser. She does this again with the treatment of Jacobs character in new moon and especially eclipse.

Jacob starts off in new moon as Bella’s best friend. he helps Bella come out of a severe depression caused when Edward left at the start of the book. however in eclipse his character makes a complete flip and he becomes moody, temperamental, argumentative and disrespectful of Bella’s boundaries. his character becomes unrecognisable and despite smeyers claims of a love triangle, it is obvious what the outcome will be. I have seen countless instances of people on this site claiming they hate Jacob because he is a dick/disrespectful/just as unhealthy as Edward. this was done on purpose by smeyer as she uses Jacob to make Edward seem like the obvious and correct choice for Bella. if you need more proof of this, take the scene where Jacob kisses Bella without her consent and she breaks her hand when punching him, Edward swoops in and almost gets into a fight with Jacob for touching Bella without her consent. this is an obvious attempt to make Jacob seem like the villain and Edward the white saviour

there’s also the treatment of the native characters by the white characters in the books. multiple times in the series, the native characters are called/compared to dogs/brutes and have a distinct unpleasant smell. I don’t think I need to explain how this is racist. the pack also helps the Cullen’s/saves Bella’s lives and never receive any acknowledgement/are treated any better by the Cullen’s/anyone really. the pack are only ever used as a way to make the Cullen’s look better.

there’s also some pretty obvious similarities to colonisation with the Cullen’s entering Quiluete lands which then forces them to start phasing into wolves (and I’m pretty sure none of the pack actually want to start phasing). also, remember Leah? the only female member of the wolf pack? because of the change she effectively can’t have children? that has implications.

and to top it all off, after doing all that, smeyer has never once addressed this or even acknowledged the Quileute Tribe.

pedophilic - I mean even without mentioning breaking dawn its pretty awful. first of all you’ve got the blatant sexualisation of minors throughout the entire series. Edward is 17 throughout the series and smeyer is writing literal paragraphs about his chiselled abs. Jacob is 16/17 when she has him running about forks topless with a 6 pack. this is way more apparent in the movies but its still a huge issue in the books and lead to Taylor Lautner being confronted by adult fans trying to get him to sign their underwear, and being forced into being shirtless for most of the movies which made him extremely uncomfortable (Elizabeth Reaser (Esme) briefly talks about this in the ID10T podcast on spotify). and just as a reminder, Taylor was 16 when the first one was filmed and 17 for the second.

Breaking Dawn is a whole other can of worms. the glaringly obvious issue is Jacob imprinting on a literal newborn baby. now the concept of imprinting itself has racist elements to it, but its heavily implied in the series that imprinting will inevitably lead to a romantic relationship. Jacob imprinting on Renesmee and waiting until she is old enough to enter into a romantic relationship (never mind the fact that shes ‘old enough’ she will still technically be 5) is pretty much grooming. The same happens with Quil and his imprint, Claire (a two year old) where I’m pretty sure there’s a scene in breaking dawn where Jacob and Leah are watching Quil play with Claire and talking about how Quil isn’t going to date anyone because he and Claire are ‘pretty much inevitable’ (i might be wrong though, like I said I try not to read/think about breaking dawn)

smeyer has also written a spin off book (its like 250 odd pages) called the short second life of Bree Tanner (Bree is that newborn vampire killed after the battle in eclipse by the Volturi btw). In this book, Bree is 15 almost 16, and another character Diego is 18 which is definitely pushing the boundaries of ok. (also as a side note, funny how Bree and Jacob are literally the same age and smeyer states multiple times how Bree deserved better and is only a child (who straight up kills people), yet when it comes to Jacob he has to be a responsible adult and is vilified for every mistake he makes)

racist - smeyer refused to let Catherine Hardwicke (director of the first twilight) have a diverse cast because she ‘imagined them a certain way’ (white) and it was a fight to get Edi Gathegi cast as Laurent and had to compromise with smeyer to make Bella’s friend group more diverse. this woman straight up refused to hire more diverse actors and only agreed to when they were side characters/villains.

Also in the official companion book/guide to twilight, smeyer literally writes that vampire venom makes you white

‘the venom leeches all pigmentation from the skin into a more indestructable vampire form…regardless of original ethnicity a vampires skin will be exceptionally pale’ (official illustrated guide pg.69)

this is a whole lot of bullshit cause she is literally whitewashing characters, but when you pair this with the idea that vampires possess inhuman levels of beauty it becomes extremely problematic and implies that being pale/white is more beautiful than darker skin tones.

also, if we go back to Laurent’s character for a second. so Laurent is one of the only characters who isn’t described as white (in the books he is described as having a pale olive skin tone) and in the first book he comes across as pretty reasonable (warning carlisle about James/Victoria, travels up to Denali and tries out the veggie lifestyle) but in new moon, his characterisation pulls a 180° (sensing a theme here) and is suddenly trying to kill Bella as a favour to Victoria and is Evil™ despite in the first book he literally says to Carlisle he didn’t particularly like travelling with James/Victoria and was only really doing it for convenience. where did this undying loyalty come from? yet again, smeyer is completely disregarding established characterisation in POC characters specifically to villainise them.

and finally, we have Jasper. for some reason (that reason being that she is racist) smeyer decides to make Jasper a confederate soldier in his human life. if you don’t have a lot of knowledge on the american civil war, the confederacy were the side of the US that seceded from the union in order to keep their slaves. Jasper was a confederate soldier, and not just any soldier, but a major. Jasper was a major in an army that fought for 4 years to keep the existence of slavery (and don’t even try to say that slavery wasn’t the root cause of the civil war. states rights aye? states rights to do what). now there’s an argument out there made by certain fans that a lot of people joined the confederate army out of pride/were forced into it cause of conscription to try and head canon the racism away but like that doesn’t matter. there was literally no need to make jasper a confederate in the first place. if she was so desperate to have a civil war vampire then she could have made him a member of the union. its been common knowledge that the confederacy was racist for a long time now, smeyer has absolutely no excuses here.

a lot of these issues overlap and I have probably missed heaps of issues (so feel free to add on) but hope this helps explain why smeyer can *ahem* get tae absolute fuck

[youwontlikethisblog]

Yo Soy Betty, la Fea

So about a month ago I started watching this show as a form to entertain myself, in other words, ironically.

I was introduced to this novela by the Mexican version of it. I grew up with La Fea Mas Bella and during my depressive episodes that was my go to binge show. One day I was sitting on the couch, as one does, and Betty La Fea was on. I laughed for like a solid minute because I thought that acting was so serious that it was hilarious. See I was so used to the dramatics and comedy effects of the Mexican version that I thought the original was just too serious. So as a form to mock myself and the original novela I went on a search for it. Sadly here in the states the only way to watch this show is through NBC/Telemundo and the ads are just so long and it's not even the complete, all 335 aired episodes. Also for me the NBC website crashed to frequent it just made me miserable BUT that's not the point of this.

Hey, hi, I'm a writer.

I feel the need to say this because this show has... I am extremely fascinated by the writer Fernando Gaitan. I haven't seen any of his other works but this show alone is a masterpiece and I don't mean to say this because of the tropes, the moral, or the characters themselves but the mastermind to create so much detail into three minute scenes, the directing and the acting as well just add such a lovely splash of color, of life to this already beautifully written story.

I'm new to this already well established fandom and while I have read many breakdowns of characters, mainly Marcela, I haven't seen much regarding the story itself and many things said and done that foreshadow certain events.

For example, (I'm not sure what episode I'm on because I accidently bought the bootleg version of this novela so chapters aren't titled) This episode is the one when they offer Betty a 10% commission so that she can get Armando to do business with RagTela. The scene in particular however is when Armando is laying in bed with his fiancé, Marcela.

Now this becomes almost a regular thing that I noticed between the lives out of the office between Armando and Betty. We get back to back scenes of Armando with Marcela and then scenes of Betty at home with family or her friends that it becomes almost a way for the viewer, or if this were a book, the reader, to distinguish the difference of lives these two characters have. Though one could assume one is lonely because they don't go out or have a S.O and only work or count numbers is shown in a home with loving parents that are always worried about their child and present in her life and a loving best friend that shares the burden of being outcaste by society and finding the humor in it then we get scenes of a couple always arguing and then jumping into bed. Of a man that while his S.O sleeps lays awake with unheard questions, whose best friend is constantly placing temptations and pushing him to do wrong by his S.O, and whose parents aren't really present and ever only talk about the company or his relationship with Marcela to then again Betty. However in this part of the episode it's Armando awake while Marcela is asleep while Betty writes in her diary and we hear her monologue and then they both drift into sleep.

This becomes a ritual where the viewer can tell the clear line between these two characters and their own worlds.

Why do I mention this?

Because dreams are often, in the literary world, seen as prophecies or for the reader to interpret the future or the secret desires of the character. In other words, a form of foreshadowing.

Now in this episode Armando is laying in bed with Marcela, Betty is writing in her diary and the scenes switch between the both of them until we are taken to a dream. In the dream Betty is wearing a bright red dress with long sleeves, and a red hat with Armando in a black suit(I have theories based on the clothing they wear lol) . They're both dancing to tango. While Betty isn't watching him much, more concentrated in her movements, Armando is busy watching her. We then see him dip her, where she finally stares at him and they near for a kiss, just as they are about to kiss we hear Betty's name echo and she straightens up and walks away, while Armando is left there confused and alone.

Why do I think the mention of this dream is important?

Up until this we've seen Armando go from feeling indifferent about Betty. He is a terrible boss and constantly yells and mistreats her to then being fazed by her tears, to having moments of being a good boss and defending her. We begin to see a pattern of Armando's change towards her. Even before the terrible plan to use her is set and I believe that Fernando Gaitan used these dreams to not only give a break of humor and show Betty's crush towards Armando but to give the viewers a look into an otherwise unbothered, unfazed, and mysterious character's mind. AKA Armando Mendoza's own personal feelings towards Betty.

This is solidify by the dream they both share the night that Mario tells Armando about the plan to win Betty's heart to secure the company.

When we're learning to be good story tellers we're told that when writing you writer for yourself. The first draft is a huge info dump. While editing you take out all the unimportant factors and scenes, no matter how much you love that scene if it doesn't help with the plot, character development, or pushing the story forward, it's to be taken out of the story. Therefore most things are written with the intention to mean something. The cuts between Armando and Betty before we see this dream signify that it was both of them having the same dream.

I believe that this was the moment we start seeing the bend between their own worlds outside of the office.

Now, I'd love to have more cohesive analyses of the episodes because this is as if a book came to life. A lot of people in the fandom believe that Armando wouldn't had ever fallen in love with Betty had it not been for Mario who told Armando to make Betty fall in love with him to secure the company, a lot of small details in the character development and the story say otherwise and I have no one to talk to about these small details so maybe this blog might change from being a writers blog to the occasional fandom reblog to now being an analytical commenter of Yo Soy Betty, La Fea.

Even if no one ends up reading this, I need to get it out of my system so until next time.

[seattlesea]

Why Percabeth Isn’t a Good Ship (Sorry 2x)

I’m definitely getting cancelled- 

1. Annabeth is physically abusive. The fandom makes this point seem controversial and debatable, but it’s really not. The definition of abuse is hitting someone. Annabeth hit Percy. Therefore, Annabeth abused Percy. Is that really that hard to understand? Annabeth hit Percy for the first time in The Titan’s Curse when she, Percy, and Thalia were looking for the di Angelo siblings. She punched him in the gut when he asked her who he should ask to dance with him. Annabeth knows that Percy can be oblivious at times...but punishes him when it benefits her? The second time was in The Mark of Athena, when she judo-flipped him because she missed him. That’s...what?? Usually when people are worried about someone else, they hug or kiss them, not flip them over their shoulder. And yes Annabeth kissed him first, but the judo-flip was completely unnecessary. Annabeth punished Percy for ‘leaving’ her despite him being kidnapped and his memory wiped. And everyone’s like ‘But Percy didn’t feel any pain!!11!!1!’ The chapter wasn’t in his point of view, so that claim is a guess. Just cause he didn’t say ‘Ow’ doesn’t mean he wasn’t in pain. Also- Annabeth slammed him on a stone pavement on his back. That definitely hurts, even if Percy is a demigod, physically strong, and has gotten hurt a lot. There’s a difference between ‘playful hitting’ and actually hurting someone. Yes they trained a lot, but this isn’t training. This is Annabeth punishing Percy for being traumatized with yet another life-threatening quest and being kidnapped. I don’t remember Percy judo-flipping Annabeth after he saw her again when she got kidnapped in TTC. Besides, the Romans were about to take out their weapons when they saw Annabeth attack Percy, so if all of them thought it was an attack...it was most likely an attack. Even Annabeth said herself “I only attack my boyfriend like that”. The thing is, if it was Percy who flipped Annabeth over his shoulder and slammed her on her back or punched her in the gut, all the fans immediately would’ve freaked out and cancelled him, calling him a horrible and abusive boyfriend, but because it’s the girl hitting the guy, it’s fine apparently. Nothing wrong with it, right? And then Riordan (and the fandom) had the audacity to romanticize that abuse. Abuse isn’t a sweet, romantic gesture. Stop making it seem like it is. That’s disgusting. 

2. Annabeth is also verbally abusive and toxic. Annabeth canonically lowered Percy’s self-esteem, constantly insulted him and his intelligence despite knowing he was insecure about it and always getting kicked out of schools and getting bad grades (even with her so-called ‘endearing’ name for him ‘Seaweed Brain’), and the overall idea of Percabeth is a super smart, pretty girl making a guy with below average intelligence feel insecure about himself. Percy’s self-esteem has plummeted since he met Annabeth and her behavior is never called out or even noticed, which implies some manipulation going on. Annabeth is shown to be extremely capable of manipulating her enemies and anyone else she pleases, and there are quite a few signs she’s using it against Percy (his feelings of obligation, fear, and guilt of and over her, questioning himself, having strings attached, always only thinking of her and no one else in his life, etc.), especially since Percy begins to gradually stop noticing Annabeth’s wrong and toxic behavior as the story progresses. 

3. Annabeth only likes Percy cause he’s the chosen one. Annabeth only hung around Percy since The Lightning Thief cause she thought he was ‘the one’ and so she could finally go on a quest. She literally used Percy to go out to the mortal world and ‘prove herself’ cause really, all she cares about is glory, which is shown multiple times throughout the series with all her pride and ambitions. Plus the fact that Chiron made Annabeth swear on the River Styx that she would keep Percy from danger is a pretty clear sign she didn’t stick around him just cause she wanted to, but because she felt obligated to and cause it would benefit her. Take all of this and it’s kind of obvious Annabeth only hung around Percy cause he was the chosen one of the prophecy, a son of one of the Big Three, and was destined to go on multiple quests and play a big part in the mythological world, which is what she always wanted since book one.

4. It was forced. Since the beginning of book one, it was so obvious that Percy and Annabeth were going to get together that their relationship ended up being boring, dull, and flat. Riordan made it so obvious they were going to be a couple that nothing that happened to their relationship really mattered, cause everyone knew it would work out in the end (which is probably why everyone *wrongly* hated on Rachel) so what happened in between didn’t matter. Their relationship was the typical ‘male lead and female lead’, ‘bad boy trouble-maker skater and nerdy good girl’ power couple that was way too clear. And Riordan made it worse by pushing their relationship and shoving it into the readers’ faces way too much. In MoA Annabeth states that she’s always had a crush on Percy (since they were twelve) which immediately rips all the development their relationship (which was supposedly ‘friends to lovers’, but not anymore) had away. Riordan made up a bunch of honestly dumb scenarios that were legit cringe to make Percabeth seem like ‘OTP’ that really didn’t make sense.

5. It ruined their characters. Percy and Annabeth would’ve been way better off as just friends. After they got together in HoO, all their personality and everything else that made them independent was destroyed to make room for more ‘Percabeth’. All of Annabeth’s skills, bravery, intelligence, pride, ferocity, judgmentalism, and all the other traits and flaws that made her a well-written character were never utilized or even mentioned. All she thought about was Percy, and the same goes for him. His loyalty, sarcasm, humor, obliviousness, etc. disappeared to make room for arrogant Annabeth fanboy. In PJO, they were amazingly well-written and great role models for younger readers (especially Annabeth), but in HoO their characters were exclusively ‘Annabeth’s boyfriend’ and ‘Percy’s girlfriend’. Their characters were completely dependent on each other, and they were way better off as just friends. 

6. Annabeth is way too possessive. And creepy. It’s fine and honestly normal for people to get jealous when another person likes someone they do, but Annabeth’s jealousy was downright creepy. Not only did she not know if her feelings for Percy were reciprocated or not, but she also didn’t know if Percy and Rachel liked each other, either. The very first time she met Rachel she immediately hated her. That’s not ‘I’m jealous cause this girl likes the guy I do’, that’s ‘I’m jealous cause the guy I like has another female friend’. She had no reason to believe that Rachel and Percy liked each other and has no say in who they can like, either. She thought that she and Percy absolutely had to be in a relationship and that he couldn’t even have friends with different genitals than him. And remember when Annabeth literally stalked Percy in The Sea of Monsters? Like when she creeped by his window, constantly watched him, and kept tabs on him just cause she ‘couldn’t find the right time’ to tell him something cause he was ‘never alone’ despite him being alone multiple times and despite the fact that she literally could’ve just knocked on his door like a normal person instead of creeping around his cabin and staring at him through the windows? Again- switch the roles. If it was Percy who was stalking Annabeth, everyone would’ve immediately called him a creep. If- according to Tumblr and almost everyone who read Twilight- Edward is a creep for stalking Bella, then Annabeth is a creep for stalking Percy. 

7. It’s mostly fan love. Honestly, the fandom is the only thing that fuels Percabeth. Riordan just destroys it. He shoved it down the readers’ throats, forced it way too much with really dumb and honestly unrealistic scenarios, and made it abusive and toxic. On its own, Percabeth freaking sucks. The fandom’s version of Percabeth is 1000x better than whatever the hell Riordan was doing, but even that version is toxic. Like, I’ve seen way too many jokes about Annabeth hitting Percy (as if abuse is hilarious and amazing meme fuel and not an extremely sensitive topic that triggers multiple people who actually went through it). Half the time, the fandom fixes Percabeth and the other half of the time they over-glorify and ruin it. The fandom over exaggerates and over glorifies it way too much. It’s not that great of a relationship, to be honest. Most of y’all only like it in the first place cause Riordan made it canon.

8. It was cringey. Like I said above, Riordan wrote some really dumb scenes for Percabeth. I mean- the matching gray streaks in their hair despite Atlas and Artemis not getting any? Percy’s tie to the mortal world while bathing in the River Styx being Annabeth and not his mom, Grover, etc.? Percy only remembering Annabeth, the girl he’s only known for four years and not his mom, the only woman who actually cared for and took care of him or Grover, his best friend who protected and continuously cared about him? Percy turning down immortality only for Annabeth and not even bothering to mention the pain of leaving behind his life, friends, family, memories, etc. behind if he accepted it? The romanticized judo-flip? The whole ‘dark-haired rebellious bad boy/nerdy blonde good girl who can be bad’ trope? Even the boring predictability of Percabeth is cringe. 

9. It’s a bad influence on younger readers. Basically the lesson of Percabeth is ‘Once you get a love interest nothing else in your life matters’. Besides that one single scene that took like three lines in The Son of Neptune, Percy never even thought of his own mom, nor did he think about any of his friends or passed allies like his dad, Rachel, Grover, Paul, Silena, Luke, Ethan, Bob/Iapetus, Tyson, Calypso, Charles, Michael (whose death he accidentally caused), Bianca, Zoë, etc. Even when in Tartarus with the curse of the Arai being forced to remember all the people he forgot and feeling guilty about abandoning Bob and Calypso, all he thought about was Annabeth. Even when faced with the man who broke the heart of the girl who sacrificed herself for him, Percy didn’t even think of her, only his jealousy of Jason. Same thing with Annabeth. She never thought about her mom, Luke, Thalia, her step-mom or step-brothers, etc. It was all about Percy. Cause yes, Riordan, that’s exactly the lesson you should teach your younger readers- forget everyone you ever knew the moment you get a partner. Besides that, it also teaches readers that being rude to people who like the same person as you is completely okay cause no one will care and once you start being rude, bitter, and possessive you’ll get exactly what you want (that’s literally what happened, with Annabeth and with Calypso, too). He also teaches that after you get a partner, everything that makes you you will disappear and you’ll be completely dependent on them and nothing in your life will matter, even your own independent life and personality. 

10. The fandom tries to excuse and explain Annabeth’s behavior??? What??? Since when does explaining and excusing hitting people put you in the right again? And the excuses aren’t even good, too! Percabeth fans use-  Annabeth was full of emotions/mad and doesn’t know how to deal with emotions. Annabeth really loved Percy. It was only one time. Annabeth was worried about Percy and mad that she left him. Annabeth didn’t mean to hurt him. Annabeth didn’t know what she was doing cause she was full of emotions. ??? Annabeth was full of emotions/mad and doesn’t know how to deal with emotions- Annabeth was seventeen years old, the daughter of the wisdom goddess, and is supposedly the smartest character in the series who is shown to be extremely good at reading people and their emotions. And y’all are really trying to say she doesn’t know how to deal with her emotions?  Annabeth really loved Percy- SO? A mother might really love her child, does that excuse her for hitting them for dumb reasons? It was only one time- actually, it was twice, and so what? If someone was slapped across the face ‘only one time’, does that mean they weren’t abused? ‘Abuse’ doesn’t mean ‘hit constantly’, it means ‘hit’. If someone was hit, they were abused. Is that really not a known fact in this fandom? Annabeth was worried about Percy and mad that she left him- last time I checked, people didn’t hit others when they were worried about them. If I was worried that my friend was going to get hurt, I wouldn’t hurt them myself. That literally makes no sense. And again- Percy didn’t leave Annabeth. He was kidnapped. Do y’all not know the definition of that, either? Annabeth didn’t mean to hurt him- yes, cause that’s why she decided to flip him over her shoulder, slam him on a stone pavement on his back, and punish him for ‘leaving her’.  Annabeth didn’t know what she was doing cause she was full of emotions- Annabeth??? the daughter of the wisdom goddess??? not knowing what she’s doing??? huh??? I mean, would any of you really, legitimately try to use any of these dumb excuses to excuse a man from hitting his wife? Hopefully not. And if you did, you would immediately get hated on and legit cancelled. So what makes this any different? Also- I see the excuse ‘Annabeth didn’t know Percy lost his Achilles Heel and thought he was still invincible’. Under different circumstances I’d accept that, but Annabeth knew that Percy’s Achilles Heel was on the small of his back...BUT SHE SLAMMED HIM ON HIS BACK. If Percy hadn’t lost the Achilles Heel, Annabeth literally would’ve killed him. Abusive enough for y’all? Or is attempted murder excusable and still ‘OTP’? 

11. They had no chemistry whatsoever. Was I the only one who felt...absolutely no chemistry between Percy and Annabeth? Like some of their moments were cute, their friendship was really good, and they had a lot of potential, but they didn’t feel right for each other. Remember- opposites don’t attract (they just argue, and no one has ‘another half’ that needs to ‘complete them’, everyone is their own person), they cancel each other out. I mean, Reyna and Annabeth had more chemistry in that one chapter of the New Rome tour in MoA than Percy and Annabeth had in 12+ books. They’re just...not right for each other, I guess. 

I’m definitely getting cancelled-

Edit 2: Sorry if I offended anyone with that last note. Just wanted to let y’all know that I am not here to start any drama, hurt anyone, or disrespect any Percabeth shippers. I respect your opinions 100% and only ask you do the same for me. Like I literally only wrote this at 12 am when I was bored and had nothing else to do and couldn’t sleep (same goes for pretty much everything else I write about PJ). Besides, why argue and start drama over dumb stuff like that when we can just find something we agree on? Don’t like Piper McLean? Let’s talk about that. Think Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano is a queen? Let’s talk about that. Think Nico di Angelo is freaking amazing? Let’s talk about that. Think Theyna would be adorable? Let’s talk about that. Want someone to vent to about writer’s block? Why the hell not? Want random writing advice and tips for writer’s block? Sure, I got plenty. Instead of arguing and starting beef over trivial fictional ships. 

[tundrainafrica]

So I see your a LeviHan shipper!! I enjoy the ship a lot too!! But are there any specific reason that their your favorite?? Maybe you could explain that a little through a list? But anyways I hope your week has been good so far, Sav. Have a good day/night!!!! - Signed by Your Secret Santa 🎄

Hello! Thank you for asking about my week (and my ship). 

I enjoy the ship a lot too!! But are there any specific reason that their your favorite? 

To answer that first question...

You’re in for a long rollercoaster ride of a rant because I don’t think I’m the type of person to ship anything to the point of writing domestic fluff fics unless the I felt really really drawn to the ship. 

Anyway, (slight) spoilers abound! Will keep manga spoilers subtle, mostly Levihan scenes.

Disclaimer: I do not want to start shipping wars. I specifically avoided the words like should or best because I recognize that shipping is generally based on preferences. I respect everyone’s preferences on what they want out of a ship or even a relationship and through this, I just hope to express my own preferences and maybe even gush with people who agree.

1. The ship did not move the plot. The plot moved the ship.

Attack on Titan is not a romance or a shojo, if it’s not fairly obvious from any chapter you would randomly read. As a reader, I would have expected it to fall short with pairings. Most shows which are not romance based tend to have a few pairings which just suddenly end up together towards the end of the manga because “What’s a happy ending without marriage and kids?” There is usually a trend of just pairing of the extras and sometimes, or maybe even more often than not, it just seems to come out of nowhere (ehem... Naruto.). Maybe the relationship worked off screen but I dunno. Like no shipping war here but the only pairing I had full support for was Shikatema. 

In stories classified as romances, there is enough of a spotlight on the sexual tension and mutual pining of specific characters for the romance to be considered reasonable. In my opinion, some authors tend to sacrifice really good world building for a good romance. Objectively twilight for example had some crazy good world building but it just kinda focused a little too much on emo Bella and emo Edward for the world building to actually be appreciated by the casual reader. Tbh though, this is not necessarily bad because people get into stuff for reasons, sometimes, I just wanna read a good fantasy, sometimes I just wanna read a good romance.

Romances though as a main driving point for narratives, require some convenient serendipity moments and sexual tension which can be written well but as a reader, I prefer to see more natural relationships born out of necessity (Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata is a good example of what I’m talking about in a romance novel.)

Attack on Titan through its narrative actually made Levihan seem VERY VERY possible. If I had to compare the presentation of this ship in canon to at least one relationship in other anime, I would compare it to Royai from FMA. 

Like, if Attack on Titan didn’t give us random subtle hints about romantic or just platonic relationships between the two or even about anyone, even if Levi and Hange did get together in the end, it would have been one of the pairings, I probably wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow at. 

But they could be just friends? Which brings me to my next point.

2. Their current situation makes it so it’s only natural that at the least, they considered it. 

Yes. Friends is a valid interpretation for anything. I mean, given our hook up culture, people can fuck as friends too. People probably have made out drunk as friends too. Like I have seen my fair share of this type of bullshit in high school and college and I would say, we do not need a kiss or a fucking session to recognize that something can be a good relationship or to recognize that they have probably thought about it. 

A relationship requires a commitment (conscious or unconscious) to caring for the other, keeping the other safe, recognizing their flaws and thinking about them regularly (Call me scott peck or marriage counselor but like I honestly think the world would be a better place once people recognize that quality romantic relationships are worked for).

Mind you, Levi and Hange lost everything.They literally lost everything from their old life, all their friends, all their loved ones and all they have is each other and they’re forced to take care of a bunch of kids.

There are people who have said before, no one gets very close with someone without ever considering a romantic relationship with them. Or even if they never considered it romantic, they could consider at least “living with them their whole life,” or “supporting them through thick and thin.” The things is, towards the end, they were constantly together and what drove them to that situation is that both of them are aware of what the other had lost. They understood each other more than anyone else and they recognized that they were the only ones left in their own circle and I personally think that is more than enough for a relationship to naturally bloom between them.

3. The relationship and the signs are subtle and it works.

I personally probably would not have enjoyed it if canon showed a romantic relationship of the two after Erwin died. It’s a valid interpretation to consider that it could have happened, based on my explanation for number 2 but Hange is commander, Levi is captain. They have a professional relationship and they have goals and obligations which take precedence over personal desires. They are in the middle of a war and the most which probably could have happened was a secret mutual pining between the two and I think Isayama has injected the most subtle hints which are the most that could have been appropriately put into canon without seeming too OOC. Hange and Levi are not selfish people. They have promises, dreams and obligations which they respect and have committed themselves to already. It has also been shown at earlier points of the manga that they do put their survey corps duties on top of everything so acting on a romantic attraction at that point in time would have definitely been inappropriate. 

I personally think, the scenes of Hange going out of her way to save Levi as commander, killing her other soldiers to save both their asses, suggesting in the forest that they live together instead of go back to the war and not leaving an injured Levi until she had no choice were more powerful than a lot of romantic scenes where people actually fuck and kiss. Kissing and fucking are easy. Leaving the duties and responsibilities they have worked for for five years to keep the person they love alive hits way harder. 

Call it platonic. Call it romantic. But no one like Hange would have deserted her post as commander for a few chapters to take care of a sick comrade and kill her subordinates to save their asses if there wasn’t anything between them. 

4. It gives a great example what healthy relationships can come from. 

I grew up reading sweet valley and chick lits cause I was a basic bitch and I kinda grew up with a somehow unrealistic idea of where relationships come from. Call me a late bloomer but I only actually figured out where the romance and the happiness of a relationship was when I got into one with my best friend for five years. 

It’s the sexual tension and the “will they wont they?” push and pull which can lead to satisfying sex or a happy ending in romance novels. I think in a way, media kinda overglorifies it which kinda gives a lot of young people the wrong idea about why they getting into a relationship is fun in the first place.  Because after the satisfying sex and the kids, what’s next for the relationship?

Years of utility bills, diapers, chores, schedules, parent teacher conferences and compromises until someone gives up or dies. And what kind of relationships can actually thrive through all these? 

Those that have mastered the underrated parts of relationships. These include conflict resolutions, compromises and open communication. I think we have seen enough of those two, even before season 3 that have shown that they know each other very well and they have shown to at least have a relatively equal power dynamic which is a foundation for open communication and mutual trust in relationships even beyond the fucking and marriage stage 

5. They have a great foundation of character development for both parties.

As I mentioned above, they have a relatively equal power dynamic. I love Royai from FMA and I have compared Royai to this multiple times. I would say though I prefer Levihan over Royai because I felt that Royai had more unequal power dynamics? (Though I still think Royai is a top tier ship ). Also, they have shown to tell off the other when they don’t like what the other is doing. They are complete opposites but here is the magical thing. They talk everything out. They’re generally open people to each other and they know each other way too well as hinted in scenes before and opposites work as long as the others are willing to compromise. I think (especially in season 3 and season 4) that they have done enough for each other and have compromised enough for each other in the survey corps that these skills could easily be brought with them even after the war.

That open communication is just what makes them maintaining a relationship while being complete opposites very OC and realistic. Eventually, they did probably did make compromises, which most likely softened or moderated the crazy parts of their personalities which is just a really fun part of their relationship to explore. 

6. It could realistically last so maybe ...

7. A good foundation for happy children?

Maybe it’s how it is written because of the actual story and why would Yams write a romantic drama in a story about genocide and war. Tbh, I would attribute it more to Levi and Hange’s personalities though because Mikasa and Eren have their fair share of drama, mostly one sided though coz Mikasa. This relationship has no drama, no misunderstandings which just further supports my point that they have a relationship that thrives on open communication and mutual trust. Drama is fun like when we’re the ones on the sidelines eating the popcorn but I have third wheeled enough people in my life to realize that I will not support a relationship where both parties are just not ready to be mature about it, in real life and in fiction. 

My favorite couples, in real life and in fiction, are definitely those who keep conflict among themselves and maybe among trusted people. I think one sign of a healthy relationship is one where problems don’t become public through social media or through like 20 people. One important yet underrated part of relationships is the atmosphere of comfort and freedom which encourages both parties to be able to directly approach one another before tensions and uncertainties get out of hand.  

And a life free of dramas at least in the early stages of life just kinda shows at least that both parties are ready to bring a new life to the world? Because like immature parents with shitty conflict resolution skills really fuck kids up man and I passionately believe the world would really be a better place if babies were born out of trust, mutual understanding and open communication instead of sex but yeah, make sex fun to keep our race alive.

So anyway, I guess, I just finished explaining why I love this ship so much while also disclosing my preferences for relationships. 

As mentioned above...

Disclaimer: I do not want to start shipping wars. I specifically avoided the words like should or best because I recognize that shipping is generally based on preferences. I respect everyone’s preferences on what they want out of a ship or even a relationship and through this, I just hope to express my own preferences and maybe even gush with people who agree.

Other pairings which I support for those curious: Shikatema, Royai, Victuuri, Percabeth etc.

Also... To answer your second question... 

My week has been great, some pretty solid life developments but US elections wise, not so great... (WHY IS THE ELECTION RACE SO CLOSE?)

[stormcooper99]

My Top 5 Characters I Want to See in The Batman 2 or 3

Recently Matt Reeves has confirmed that we’ll be getting a sequel to The Batman starring Robert Pattinson returning to play the main role. I myself am excited about this, I love the movie so much! Next to Tim Burton’s 1989 film, Reeves’s 2022 adaption is quite possibly my new favourite version of the Batman.

 Now there’s one question that everyone’s been wondering, what’s next for Reeves’s Batman and which rogues gallery members will he face in the sequel?

 So here are my top five characters I want to see in the Batman 2 or 3. (Note: I’m excluding already previous shown characters such as Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman and Joker).

  5.  Two Face

 Following the ending of the film, Gotham’s main corrupt figures the mayor, police commissioner, DA and Carmine Falcone have all been killed by Riddler. With the new honest Mayor Bella Real things are likely to get better in the foreseeable future. However, there will also likely be a power struggle and a rise of crime.

 This would be the prefect to introduce Gotham to it’s newest DA Harvey Dent. I’m not sure if the relationship between Bruce and Harvey will be the same as in the comics or other films, but his role in aiding Batman could help further develop Pattinson’s character.

 Now I don’t think he should start off as Two Face in the second film, but perhaps near the end of the second one his initial “accident” takes place and continues off into the third film with Harvey becoming Two Face. Having Harvey start as an ally to Batman and end with him as his nemesis.

4.  Killer Croc

 Reeves version of Batman takes a more grounded and realistic take on the more fantasy-based characters. Which makes things slightly limited when comes to introducing Batman’s other rouges. But that’s not to say it can’t be done.

 Killer Croc is one character who could work well and here’s why. We know Croc is man born with a mutation that gives him the scaly appearance of a crocodile. I’ve looked it up and there is in fact a real skin condition where someone can grow scales called Ichthyosis.

 Perhaps this version of the character could be someone who suffers from an extreme case of Ichthyosis. Not to mention now that Gotham City is flooded, it would make sense in a way, it’d be a good time for him to surface. Like a crocodile in water, get it?

3.  Mad Hatter

 If someone like Matt Reeves can make the Riddler terrifying, imagine what he can do with the Mad Hatter. Being one of the lesser-known Batman villains Reeves could probably reintroduce this character to the big screen in a new unique way.

 For those who aren’t familiar with him, the Mad Hatter is a man who believes himself to be the fictional character of the same name from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. This concept alone could work well perfectly for a possible sequel appearance.

 An example being that Mad Hatter could be a serial predator who kidnaps young girls “Alices” and forces them to take part in his twisted tea parties. With Batman having to do detective work solving clues related to Lewis Carroll’s works in order to find him.

 2.   Scarecrow

 Apart from the Dark Knight trilogy, Scarecrow hasn’t been given much screen time as a main villain in any Batman related media. The horror aspect of the first film could follow on well into the two sequels. Especially if Scarecrow the master of fear were to be introduced.

 In The Batman, there is a drug epidemic going on in Gotham called Drops. These eyedrop based drugs were disturbed previously by Salvatore Maroni before Falcone took over prior the events of the film. With Falcone gone it could usher in Scarecrow with his own fear inducing drugs.

 At the end of the first film, Batman learns to be a symbol of hope and not fear. This would be a good chance to have Batman face someone who uses fear and challenge his new hope symbolism. Not to mention Batman being caught in a Freddy Kreuger style nightmare drug hallucination scene would really be cool.

1.      Mr Freeze

 The most likely villain to appear in The Batman 2 (from what we’ve heard so far) is Mr Freeze. Now I’m not sure how they’re going to do Mr Freeze in a realistic grounded way, but Matt Reeves seems sure he can find a way to portray this character to work in the sequel.

 Mr Freeze is a very tragic character, he tries to save his wife Nora from dying from a terminal illness by committing crime. If you haven’t seen Hearts of Ice from Batman, The Animated Series I suggest watching it and you’ll see what I mean.

 Reeves’s Batman focuses on the tragedy based around the characters and how it can effect a person. Having Batman facing Freeze be a great way to establish character development for both of them. A live action version of Hearts of Ice is definitely something I would love to see.

So that’s my top five characters I want to see in the Batman 2 or 3. Let me know what’re yours and why?

[mcmusing]

From the Grand Princess who brought you Mightiest Mutant Maiden, presenting

The

Bland

and the

Beautiful

As with Michael Fassbender and Ian McKellen in dofp, why did they put Gloria Votsis (Alex) and Alexandra Daddario (Kate) in the same episode (Forging Bonds)? In the same show in general? With parallel scenes at that. Let me be clear here. I do NOT participate in that petty fangirl/shipper madness. Any view I express in any post is my genuine reaction after many, many, many re-watches. I can't stand Peyton from One Tree Hill, but I won't deny that Hilarie Burton is more likeable on White Collar. I actually casted Alexandra Daddario as my version of Marvel's Cordelia Frost, Emma Frost's youngest sister, so I have NO hate whatsoever for the actress.

I swear I still associate that violinist statue with Neal and Peter.

Good. You and Alex in the same episode is one thing, but the same scene? That's just unfair. To you.

With that disclaimer in mind, I'm left baffled by the amount of anti-chemistry between Alexandra and Matt Bomer. There's too much 'tell, don't show' in this constantly referenced relationship. What were their intentions- if any- with making the ladies' moments so similar? Both have sexually intimate scenes with Neal, wear blue dresses, and engage in conversations with him that reference their commonalities with him. Neal/Alex the Gorgeous Grifters and Neal/Kate the Attractive Artists.

Some parts of fandom believe Neal's obsession with Kate is rooted in his adoration for all things beautiful. Again, I mean NO offense towards Alexandra, but she's mainly beautiful only when her hair is down. In this episode especially, she looks so uncomfortably boney. She has lovely eyes, but Neal can glance into almost any reflective surface to behold truly breath-taking blue irises. I still chalk it up to Neal having a fantasy of her that conflicts with reality.

Kate stayed clueless about 'Nick Holden' right up until Neal spelled the truth out to her. Teenage Bella Swan gets so much criticism for not automatically figuring out that her small town crush is a mythical creature. Kate is a way more passive female love interest. They're shown engaging in 'climactic' sex, an extreme onscreen rarity for this show (God bless that unique aspect) and it only bores me. Their conversations and reunion scenes leave me so empty.

Alex couldn't get more of an opposite reaction out of me. Her every word and mannerism are so well-acted. She's a classically gorgeous, clever lady con able to captivate the leading male and audience alike. However, she doesn't drift into sociopathic territory like every other female criminal featured on the show. She instantly figured out what Neal was hiding, establishing this unique connection between them. Neal is very protective of women and fixates on Kate to his detriment. Alex is the one he takes huge risks for without expecting sexual payment for his trouble. That's funny with their 'no strings attached' on-again/off-again relationship status in mind. Alex tries to feign indifference, but once they're drawn back into each other's lives in Season 1, she's unable to leave Neal without some form of closure between them. Closure that never feels like the end.

I think the production team knew Alexandra and Matt were a terrible combination. Gloria's extended moments feel almost apologetic for that fact.

We only see the afterglow portion of their bed scene in Forging Bonds. That's literally all that was needed to grasp the heart-pulsing sparks they unleash around each other. Despite how quickly they slept together, I do NOT believe Alex to be extremely promiscuous. Neal flirts a LOT also, but he doesn't rip off his clothing for every female he runs into. He and Mozzie often mention how Alex is the one who makes smart choices. I'm sure she can charm with the best of them, but she's not out using her body to get what she wants. She wouldn't risk contracting a disease or endangering herself that way. All of the other she-cons seem to, but not her.

Before anyone plays the slut-shaming card, first, it's more insulting for the male criminals to thrive on clever scheming alone while the women can only accomplish anything by bartering their bodies or murder. Second, I don't like the idea of Neal constantly sleeping around, either. I think there's a reason the most stable romance on the show is between a husband and his wife.

Since Kate and Rebecca took the worst toll on Neal's mental health, I appreciate the fact that they both stopped being a problem by the end of the series. Sara and Alex, the two love interests who actually helped Neal and showed loyalty even when not romantically involved with him, are still alive. Both also part on good terms with him.The possibilities of them re-entering one another's lives are left open.

Honestly, though, Sara does not seem the type to pine for years unless the guy's name is Raphael. She and Neal had their fun, but as Neal said, they weren't exactly starcrossed. She likely met, married, and procreated with some English gentleman. Of the ladies featured on the show, there really is only one, after lots of growing up on both sides, with whom Neal could build a fulfilling life.

Don't kill yourself.

Do help convince Papa Peter to give Alex a chance 💖

[allsassnoclass]

Hello everyone!  Today is the one year anniversary of my favorite fic I’ve written (so far), Puzzle Pieces!  I thought I’d give a full length director’s commentary to commemorate the occasion.

Spoilers for the fic below!

The idea for this fic stemmed from a few things.  I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of a soulmate au where colors appear on your skin when you first touch your soulmate(s).  I think I initially encountered this in a newsies fic that I’ve since lost track of that was heavily focused on platonic soulmates.  I liked this convention because the possibilities for multiple soulmates are endless and I like the idea of colorful splotches on people.  I also think that identifying soulmates via touch rather than the first sentence they say or some sort of other identifier gives a lot of opportunity for relationships to grow and develop before they know that they’re soulmates.  I am always a little bothered when soulmate aus have people fall right into a relationship and kissing and intense emotions right away when the two people don’t know anything about each other.  This seemed like a way to combat that a little, but I’ll speak more on that later.

The Beginnings

The first record I have of this fic is a message I sent to Helen on May 8, 2020.  The fic was very much only in the idea stages then, as I took over three more months to write it and wrote Too Close to See during that time.  A google doc for the fic wasn’t started until July 20, 2020, and it was titled “soulmate colors au.”  My method for writing is going in order these days, and for this particular fic there wasn’t a specific scene that I started with in mind.  I really was just going or it and making it up as I went, chugging along and seeing what happened.

The Colors

A pretty significant part of this fic is the colors.  When I figured out that colors would appear on people when they touched, I knew that figuring out who had what color would be very important.  Initially I was going to have each pairing have their own color (so for example cashton would both leave blue on each other but malum would both leave green on each other) but I quickly decided that I didn’t like that and that each individual should have a color that they leave, instead.  I sent a message to Bella asking what colors she thought the boys would be, but I can’t find that message anymore and know that while it was similar it wasn’t quite right.  Here’s some reasoning behind each of the boys’ colors:

Michael: I went with red not just because of the iconic red hair, but because it’s a pretty loud and brash color.  Michael (especially when he was younger) doesn’t really filter things, wears a decent amount of his personality on his sleeve, and first reaction that said red to me

Calum: Calum has always been forest green.  This is partially influenced by the empahty hoodie, even though it’s a bit brighter than the green in my mind for him here, but I also think green is a very dependable, stable color.  (I used that color symbolism in one of my fall out boy fics years ago lol) It reminds me of pine trees, and I think Calum can give off that same sense of reliability in weathering the seasons.  It’s a quieter color but can really pop next to another one.  It also worked out nicely that Calum and Michael’s colors were compliments

Luke: Luke gets gold because he is a sunshine boy!  Luke actually was the person I had the most trouble with, because I was flipping between gold, a lighter blue, or pink.  Pink ultimately was too close to red to make me be able to visualize what the marks looked like on each boy to my satisfaction.  It just looked ugly and clashing.  I went with gold because there is a lot of outward brightness in Luke.  He’s the kind of person where if he’s happy everyone else gets a bit happier, and gold also seemed fitting for the eventual shift into a rockstar and the amount of talent he has

Ashton: Ashton gets purple, but a deeper purple.  Dynamic but still relatively stable, has a lot of depth.  Purple is a secret color, but it’s still beautiful and it draws people in.  When I visualize it it ends up being a really dark shade, but in reality he’s probably more of a royal purple than a plum purple.  I feel bizarrely passionate about his color specifically.  I don’t know why that is.

The colors didn’t have any sort of influence on the fic, but they were deliberately chosen.

The World of the Fic: Chosen Soulmates

So here’s the thing.  I feel very strongly about love being a conscious decision that people make over and over.  It takes work.  It takes a deliberate commitment.

Soulmate aus kind of negate that.

So, how do you fix this?  Well, I did that by having these marks not necessarily indicate soulmates.  The way that the marks are described in the fic is that they indicate how easy it should be to love someone and how compatible two people are.  It doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll adore them forever and never leave their side.  You still need to put in the work.  (Luke shows this early on when Michael asks if he loves Calum and he says  “I don’t think I know him well enough for that yet.  I know I will, because the colors say it should be easy and I want to, but not like you do.”  He has made the decision to work toward loving Calum, but he knows that just having the colors doesn’t immediately make them love each other.)  In that way, it almost isn’t a soulmate au, at least not in the traditional way.  Things aren’t inevitable.  There is still an element of choice.

This was also shown with Ashton.  I don’t remember when I made the decision to give Ashton a Tragic Background with his dad, but I know it was relatively early because by the time I wrote his introduction I knew that would happen.  I wanted to give a bit more of a reason for his hesitation to let them touch him, which I was already including because Ashton has always been the least touchy of the band, and I saw this as another opportunity to show that necessity of choice.  It’s sweeter to me for the boys to choose each other rather than to just be stuck with each other, and if Ashton hadn’t actually been a soulmate of theirs then I wanted there to be the assurance that they could still love him just as much, because all love is chosen.

In the end, having a broken soulbond in Ashton’s past was a good way to accomplish all of that.  It’s heartbreaking to not be chosen despite the fact that it should be easy, but once Ashton accepts that Michael, Calum, and Luke are vehemently choosing him with or without the soulmark, it makes his acceptance of their love very sweet to me.  He’s saying that he trusts them to put in the work to love him.  The scene where he talks to Michael in the car and the scene where he accepts their touches and soulmarks are probably my two favorite scenes in the fic.

The World of the Fic: Touch

In a world where the first skin-on-skin contact can indicate whether it’ll be extremely easy for you to love someone, how common would touch be?  Would we greet people with handshakes still?  Would gloves be more common fashion accessories?  Would touching someone be a Big Deal?

Hence, the First Touch was born!

I figured that, with touch possibly being a lot more significant in this world, people would be a lot more careful about whether they make skin-on-skin contact.  Kids would be taught that it’s impolite to try to touch someone, to a more extreme degree than they are now.  Handshakes simply are not a greeting anymore.  Instead, sometimes the first contact people make is considered a big deal, seeing as it can indicate whether two people are soulmates or not.

I figured that Luke especially would enjoy important first touches, because he’s a sentimental sweetie.  Of course, his first touch with Michael ended up being special simply because it was with each other :)

This also let me really lean into Ashton being touch-adverse.  Now on top of not liking touch, he also has another reason to avoid it, which makes every cuddle moment after the first touch even better, because he’s definitely touch starved.  The band cuddles him so much once they share the colors.

The World of the Fic: Platonic Soulmates

Guys. GUYS. I love platonic soulmates. I love them a lot.  I feel very passionately about them.  Romantic love is not the pinnacle of human love, and as someone who cannot at this point see myself with a romantic partner I really wanted to ensure that platonic soulmates were a thing.  Given that information, it’s a no-brainer that I included them in this fic.  Part of the appeal of this type of soulmate au was that it gave opportunity for more than one soulmate and more than one type of soulmate.  As such, platonic, familial, and romantic soulmates could all be indicated by the colors.  I also really liked that there wasn’t any sort of differentiation between the types of soulmates.  One type of love isn’t hailed over the others.  It’s an even playing field here.

That was one of the things that immediately drew me to this type of prompt, actually.  I wanted to write a fic about Michael parsing through his emotions and figuring out what he feels for Calum.  The difference between platonic and romantic love has always been very interesting to me, because I find that the line can be pretty blurry personally.  The best way to do that was to give him a set of soulmates who he cares about equally but in different ways.  

The following excerpt really is the theme of the story to me:  “Calum is an old, comfortable sweater, but Luke is like a favorite pair of shoes.  They both fit him perfectly.  He feels more at home when either of them are around, and although the love he has for Calum is different, he thinks he could love Luke just as much.”  Each of us love everyone we meet a little differently, because everyone is a different person, but different doesn’t mean unequal.

While the fic is about Michael figuring himself out, it’s equally a love story between all four of them.  The moments where Michael finds out he’s soulmates with Luke and Ashton were just as important to me as the moment he and Calum get together, and I really wanted to be sure that each relationship had it’s time in the limelight.  That’s ultimately why the idea of puzzle pieces became a theme (that I added on editing).  I like the idea of all of them coming together to create something bigger than themselves.  They fit.  They click.  They are better for it.  The first time someone referred to this as an ot4 fic it threw me off, because only malum is romantic in it, but I really like that classification for it, because it is.

Asexual Representation (Accidentally)

I didn’t know I was writing Michael as ace until about 4 days before I posted the fic.

Looking back, that’s a little bit ridiculous, because I was brainstorming this fic for three and a half months and actively writing it for two before I realized.  I believe there was a conversation in the discord about ace rep in fics (Bella and I think Heath were part of it, I can’t remember any other participants), and I thought to myself “hey I’m ace and like ace rep, Michael in the soulmate colors au could probably be ace.”  Lo and behold, he already was.  All I had to do was add a few sentences and finish the fic (I hadn’t written the scenes in England yet).

My asexuality definitely influenced the way I had been writing Michael’s confusion over his feelings for Calum.  Part of the reason I myself see the line between platonic and romantic as so blurry is because I’m ace and so much of romantic love in media is tied in with sexual attraction.  When you don’t feel sexual attraction, that can get confusing, especially since most strong feelings of love are depicted to be romantic.

While Michael and I had very, very different paths to figuring out our sexualities, I drew on my own experiences of ace-ness to write him.  This was a bit more apparent in the sequel scene Bedroom Activities, but it ended up becoming a core of the story.  I genuinely don’t know how I didn’t realize that’s what I was writing.

As an ace person, ace rep means a lot to me, given how little of it is in popular media.  I’m glad I explored it so early on in my 5sos fic career, and I’m proud of this one.

Miscellaneous Things

The process of writing this story was, as I stated before, pretty linear.  I went from the start to the end without a lot of planning.  I specifically had no clue what was happening at the Hot Chelle Rae afterparty until it was happening.  The kiss came out of no where.  However, I want to point out that initially I thought this fic would be 8k.  It is now my third longest fic ever written.  I have never learned to correctly estimate how long a fic I’m writing will be.

I have a few various favorite lines, but one repeated theme I love is Michael craving Calum’s touch.  I say he’s touch-starved for him twice, once relatively early on and once at the end, and I love that Calum’s touch has been a constant for Michael.  They had their first touch accidentally and became best friends immediately in the way that little kids do, so Michael has always had him as a constant, tactile presence in his life.  That’s why losing him to Luke scared him so much and why then gaining Luke and Ashton as soulmates is so good for him.

I really like referring to Michael, Luke, and Calum as a triangle.  I first did it in this fic, but it’s now my tag for the three of them.  Idk I just like how equally distributed a triangle is, all sides touching, no one left out.

Branching off of this, one of my favorite lines is when Ashton and Michael do their first touch: “The dark purple reminds him of spilling grape juice on his clothes as a kid, and when he collapses into Ashton he feels like they could have known each other at that age, too.”  There is something so charming about meeting someone later and feeling like you’ve known them your whole life, and that was significant here because Michael has known Calum and Luke since they were younger (although Luke did come in the picture when they were tweens/young teens instead of kids).  I wanted to be sure that although Michael, Calum, and Luke are the triangle, Ashton is an equal part of their soulmate group.  He doesn’t have the same history, but that doesn’t matter because it feels like he does.

Luke’s obsession with soulmate statistics is a convenient plot device and partially a result of his mom being a math teacher.  Above all things, it’s a manifestation of his desire to be loved.  The guy just wants to be loved!!! and he wants others to be loved, too!!!

This is by far my favorite fic that I’ve written.  It’s not perfect (there are for sure two lines that I would change, and I think I could’ve done things differently with the very slight OCD I gave Michael that manifested in his hand washing), but I love it dearly.  It’s the type of fic that I would’ve loved to read, and the response to it has been wonderful.  Thank you to everyone who has read it and special shout out to everyone who has made it to the end of this very long director’s notes <3

[nobody-wants-ice-cream]

Everything Wrong With The Umbrella Academy. Episode 1, We Only See Each Other At Weddings and Funerals.

Some context before the cut: This is all in good fun! I wanted to do a really nitpicky re-watch of the series and found some really cool and interesting things I didn’t notice before. This is meant to have a Cinema Sins-esque tone. However, I did take off a lot more sins than Cinema Sins would have because I do genuinely like the series and the people that made it possible. So all of the good things got one sin off and all the bad things got one sin added. This is a really long post, so grab some popcorn. If there’s anything that I missed, feel free to add it!

We Only See Each Other At Weddings And Funerals

The story opens with a random scene. I know why this is important now, but for a first time viewer this is a strange Russian show with no subtitles. Sin for the fact that this opening scene could drive away audiences when they could have opened with Pogo’s monologue or the sudden birth scene. +1

Sudden birth. I know that this is what starts the whole series, but not once do these assholes discuss the implications of sudden birth. That shit is traumatic and must have induced a lot of trauma in the mothers. Sinning for trauma. +1

The russian ladies all help this poor girl. Teamwork and togetherness gets a sin off. -1

How did they get her swimsuit off enough for her to give birth without just taking the whole thing off? Did one woman happen to have a pair of scissors on her so they could cut the crotch? Because one piece suits are not that flexible downstairs. They didn’t take it off her, it’s still covering her. Sinning for lack of realism or explanation. +1

This narration should have happened much sooner. +1

Buying children. Literally buying children. And he gets seven so he buys them wholesale. Seven sins because Sir Reginald Hargreeves is a dick that bought seven children. +7

One sin off for the soundtrack now. All the songs used in this show are bops! -1

Ellen Page starts playing the Lindsey Stirling Phantom of the Opera piece on the lowest string when the piece starts on a high note. One sin for lack of musicality. +1

Minus one sin for Ellen Page’s vibrato. Not many people pretending to play the violin get that so accurate. That or this was the talented body double. Either way one sin off for musicality. -1

“Please send more food” Reginald Hargreeves is a dick to his adopted children. He didn’t feed Luther enough, so who knows what he did to the ones he didn’t like as much. +7

Also, Luther has presumably spent four years in this base on the moon. Did he hit his head every morning? You would think that he would learn to duck. +1

One sin off for the moon plant. -1

I’m taking 10 sins off for the special effects of this entire series. -10

That car transition between Diego’s and Allison’s entrances was out of place. I know it’s meant to show that Allison is far away from the action. But did we really need that? It’s not shown when transitioning from the red carpet to Klaus in rehab. +1

What is keeping the lawnchair that Luther has on the moon down? It looks lightweight. Does he have it nailed to the moon? Is there now a lawnchair on the moon forever? +1

Tom Hopper is an excellent actor. He nailed the “just got the news that my father is dead” without saying a single word. -1

Diego doesn’t bother to untie the family he saves. He caused property damage and severely injured the thugs that broke in. No wonder Patch has a problem with him being a vigilante. +1

“Allison, will you wear Valentino to the funeral” +1

One sin off because Robert Sheehan has already won my heart as Klaus and he hasn’t said a single word yet. And for the little jig he does when he gets the drugs. Interesting choice, but I like it. I could be biased because I’ve watched the series already, but I don’t care. One sin off for Robert Sheehan. -1

Why was Vanya allowed to be playing to this empty theatre with spotlights on her? Does she have an arrangement with maintenance? Is that why the orchestra isn’t set up? +1

One sin off for the Hargreeves mansion. The set designers did an amazing job.-1 

Creepy shrine portrait of Five is creepy and somehow manages to not look like Aidan Gallager. This could be a stylistic choice to show that Reggie didn’t care about Five, in which case, another sin for child abuse. +1 

Creepy statue of Ben is creepy. And it doesn’t look like Justin Min or Ethan Hwang. Who is this statue honoring? +1

It has been stated that Ben’s death broke up the academy. Yet, the other four assholes stuck around for one more portrait after his death? +1

Vanya doesn’t close the doors behind her when she walks into the mansion. +1

Diego’s outfit is central to introducing his character. However, it is dumb as hell and he probably stabbed himself with the knives in the harness multiple times. Especially the ones on his back. +1

Diego is a dick to Vanya at their father's funeral. I know Reggie was a jackass, but Jesus Christ, Diego. Have some tact. I know this is meant to show that Diego doesn’t have any tact, but this is such a severe line. +1

In the first shot of Reggie’s bedroom there are 6 freaking lamps. What is he, Bella Swan? And later, there are three more. +1

David Castaneda really brings Diego to life with his interaction with Luther in Reggie's bedroom. -1

I know I already took sins off for the special effects, but Pogo deserves another two off. Special Effects team, you did good. -2

“How long has it been since Five dissapered” is the most obvious bit of exposition/foreshadowing. To the point where it reads lazy. Another option would be Vanya asking “How long has it been since” and trailing off from there. Pogo knows what happened. This is a crucial reveal, let the audience wait for it a bit. +1

One sin off for Vanya being a good sister to Five. Fluffernutter sandwiches and leaving the lights on is heartwarming.  -1

Props to these child actors for being able to portray the way Reggie treats them and how that affects their emotions in the scene where they wanted to say goodnight to Reggie. -1

However, Reginald Hargreeves is a dick to his adopted children. I will keep sinning this. +7 

After Reggie shuns and ignores his children, Luther’s hand on Ben’s shoulder is a subtle way to show that Luther and Ben were sort of close, which is what an excerpt from Vanya’s book implies in the comics. Good job directors or actors for making that choice! -1

Robert Sheehan in the office scene. This is where we meet Klaus as an audience for the first time with dialogue, and he fucking nails it.  -1

“Thank God he’s not our real father so we couldn’t inherit those cold dead eyes! Ahh! Number Threee-” The delivery on that line is excellent. -1

Klaus’s dangly necklace that looks kind of like dog tags foreshadowing the real dog tags he wears later on in the show. -1

No way in hell Klaus’s skimpy outfit provided enough concealment for that massive box. In fact, in the shots we do see of his back, we should have seen the outline of the box. +1

Sir Reginald Hargreeves is as obsessed with lamps as he is with collecting children. His office is full of them! +1

“Do you think he wears that thing in the bathroom” “Like in the shower” “Yes, absolutely” Allison and Luther have some good interactions. This is where they really act like siblings making fun of another sibling. -1

A woman who told bedtime stories to her kid about her uncle on the moon forgets that said uncle has been on the moon and judges him when he doesn’t know about her divorce.+1 

“Rumor thing” Way to be specific, Luther. +1

Allison’s expression at the family meeting when she takes a sip of her drink. Emmy Raver-Lampman is what makes this character likeable. -1

Reginald Hargreeves was a dick to his children. The whole favorite spot thing? Yeah that. Golden child abuse victim. +7

Sir Reginald playing tennis with Hitler line. -1

Luther accuses his siblings of killing their father. Have some tact man, not at the funeral. This makes sense for the character and his circumstances, but I am still sinning it because Luther doesn’t think he did anything wrong. +1

I feel kind of bad for Luther after his siblings leave the room. Great acting on Tom Hopper’s part. -1

How did Allison get into the bank? +1

Luther straight up throws this man out of a building! That guy is 100% dead. And then he admonishes Five for being a killer later! +1

“Guns are for sissies, real men throw knives!” is a line that would only be spoken by a twelve year old that has never faced the judgement of people he isn’t related to. Also, Diego practiced this line in front of a mirror. +1

But that throw was badass, so... -1

Also, how did Klaus, Diego, Five, and Ben get into the bank as well? We only see Luther enter. And presumably Five teleported in. So were the rest already in there? +1

Five manages to jump faster than a bullet here, but in episode two he’s a lot slower when jumping from one side of the table to the other. You could make the argument that the table is in the way, but there was a human being and a bullet in the way here. +1

“Woah! That’s one badass stapler!” This is the first sin off because Aidan Gallagher can act, and it will not be the last. For all his grumpy 58 year old man, he also manages to shine while playing a young version of said grumpy 58 year old man. You would think that one or the other would be a little weak, but no he nails both performances. -1

But, how did Five switch the gun and the stapler? And why do we never see him do this again with more useful items like a briefcase or one of the machine guns used by the local commission hires? Can he only switch items with a similar mass? How does this power work? +1

Luther is the one that tells Ben that there's more guys in the vault to kill. Not Klaus who could have been like “a ghost said there's more guys in the vault”. What exactly did Klaus do on missions? He isn’t shown helping the hostages or fighting in any way. +1

“I didn’t sign up for this.” yeah Ben, like it’s a summer camp and not your abusive father buying you as an infant and then forcing you to kill people. +1

Kenny’s mom appearance. Also, the woman mixes leopard print leggings, a black dress, a square pattern cardigan, and a hat with stripes and a pom-pom. +1

“Can we go home now” Ethan Hwang had great delivery on that line. -1

Sir Reginald Hargreeves is a dick to his children. He forces 6 of them to kill, and then makes it seem like it’s all fun and games to the one he isolates. +7

When did they get coats and scarves? Did Reggie bring them coats and scarves while coming down to address the crowd? +1

Also, Reggie was on the roof of a different building with vanya! What did the kids do while they were waiting for him? Stand around and look pretty? Not likely, Ben was covered in blood. +1

Also, when did Ben have time to clean up? He is significantly less bloody in the scene where Reggie talks to the press. Yet his mask, uniform, and a bit of his jaw still have blood. This suggests he had time to wipe down. What kind of magic wipes are these that soak up and remove blood quickly and where can I get them? +1

The way the children wear their scarves show their personality. Luther has it done properly, Diego has his flapping around, Allison and Klaus have tied it fashionably, Five has it done well, but not as proper, and Ben has it done like Luthers. Well done costume people or actors who made that character choice. -1

The entire scene when Klaus attempts to summon Reggie from the afterlife. -4

I forgot that Klaus actually calls him Reggie in this scene. I thought it was just a fandom thing lmao. -1

How did Klaus clean up the ashes without leaving evidence on the bar? Did he vacuum it? +1

The cutesy fighting posters are a great set design choice. -1

Allison had her trauma tattoo refreshed at some point. It’s faded on Klaus, but on her it’s perfectly visible and stark. I’m sinning because they don’t show or tell why Allison might want to do this. +1

Also, that guitar Klaus was cuddling in a later scene, was just in the kitchen for some reason. Why? +1

Five and Ben are not part of the I Think We’re Alone Now dance party. I know it’s for plot, but come on! They don’t even have another dance party later to make up for this. +1

Diego and Vanya totally saw each other when Diego went to close the door between the foyer and the living area. +1

Luther and Vanya’s dance moves. No hate on either though because I dance like them if it isn’t swing or any other partnered dance +1

Diego, Klaus, and Allison’s dance moves. -1

Also, the song is heard all the way in the kitchen. There is no soundproofing in this mansion. +1

Luther punching down the airplane is funny. -1

David Castaneda doing those amazing dance moves in character. -1

Oh hello Five. Nice of you to show up and kickstart the plot into being something other than washed up superheroes are really sad and abused. +1

“Daddy!” -1

Why were Five’s powers affecting random objects? +1

Klaus is the only one with self preservation. “I vote for running” +1

“Does anyone else see little Number Five, or is that just me” is a great line because Klaus can see the dead. However, the dead don’t show up in massive portals, otherwise something like that would have happened when we see Dave in The Day That Wasn’t. +1

Five asks for an exact date and then Vanya gives him “the 24th” real specific, Vanya +1 

Five doesn’t close the fridge properly because that doesn’t matter in the apocalypse -1

“In the end I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum state version of myself that exists across every possible instance of time” “That makes no sense” “well it would if you were smarter” the mark of someone being smart is being able to explain concepts like this in layman's terms. If Five were as smart as he said he was, then he could have been able to come up with an analogy. That or the showmakers have no clue what they’re talking about and wrote a bunch of science-y bullshit to make Five sound smart. +1

Diego was ready to throw hands with Five, someone who looks thirteen and was thirteen until Five explained otherwise. +1

“Dolores kept saying the equations were off” so in other words, Five knew that his equations were off, but he still risked it. +1

But also, Five knew his equations were off, but he was so desperate to see his family that he risked it anyway. -1

Nations Gazette paper has articles that look like they’re actually about the headline. -1

“What part of the future do you not understand.” -1

Aidan Gallagher’s delivery in that scene really set the tone for his character. Impressive. -1

Five decides to dress in the full on school boy getup. Complete with the tie and the blazer when those items aren’t necessary. +1

Aidan Gallagher and Ellen Page are two kick ass actors. They play off each other surprisingly well. -1

“You mean like what happened to Ben” “Was it bad?” What happened to Ben? This remains a sin until they explain it. +1

“May the darkness within you find peace in the light” that sounds really bad. What a horrible thing to have on your statue. +1

Jordan Claire Robbins’s performance of Grace -1

Luther and Diego are so emo that they don't need umbrellas. You’re in The Umbrella Academy! This had to be a personal choice to not carry one. +1

Klaus’s face when Luther dumps out the ashes. -1

The camera cuts to Five when Diego says that Mom gave them actual names. -1

The fight between Luther and Diego is stupid. +1

Klaus and Five fight over who is going to protect who. +1

“Stop it!” “Hit him! Hit him!” -1

The detail on Ben’s statue. It shows his toe and knee have been touched many times by people who presumably miss him and love him. -1

Luther punches Ben’s statue in the crotch, which makes Klaus’s face 10x funnier once you remember that Ben was probably there too. -1 

Luther punches Ben’s statue in the crotch and beheads it, suggesting that Luther had something to do with Ben’s death. -1

Luther punches Ben’s statue in the crotch. +1

Klaus puts his cigarette out in reggie’s ashes. -1

Reggie narration +1

Reggie is a dick to his kids +7

The stupid, bright green jumpsuits +6

What is the point of this exercise? How does running up the stairs make them better heroes? +1

Young Diego either practiced “That’s not fair, Five’s cheating” or his stutter is only there when the plot calls for it. +1

Child Abuse tattoos +12

The fact that Vanya feels left out because she didn’t get a child abuse tattoo. Reggie, you fucked up these kids real bad. +2

We think that Reggie is comforting Luther after he got a child abuse tattoo, but no, he’s actually just attaching monitors to his head. +1

Reginald Hargreeves likes to watch young children sleep. +7

Vanya foreshadowing. Her monitor showing more activity then the cut to her taking one of the pills is brilliant. -1

Vanya still doesn’t close the academy door behind her when she leaves. +1

“An entire square block, 42 bedrooms 19 bathrooms” Five are you a real-estate agent now? +1

“Dad hated children too, but he had plenty of us!” Klaus would be excellent at cinema sins. Seven more for child abuse +7

What are the rules to Five’s jumps? We only really see him jump to places he can see unless he is time traveling or in the instance where he jumps to the car. Speaking of, the car had the keys in it. Reggie, are you trying to get it stolen  +1

Diego is a dick to Allison about her divorce. +1

Klaus and Diego’s interactions make me happy. -1

The Klaus theme is a wonderful piece of music. -1 

Robert Sheehan making David Castaneda laugh. -1 

We get our first glimpse of Luther’s arm here. It’s super weird and vague and only teases the reveal. This is where the ape reveal should have been for the audience and where it would have made sense. Doing the reveal in a later episode is weird. +1

Five doesn’t know how to break correctly, which contradicts “I know how to do everything” +1

Something I just noticed, Five completed the uniform not only with the tie and blazer, but with the hair gel too. +1

The towing guy chooses to sit next to Five at an empty counter. +1

Five looks so offended when Agnes refers to him as “the kid” -1

The creepy smile Five pulls in an attempt to look innocent doesn’t make Agnes scream in terror. Seriously Aidan Gallagher, what the fuck was that that was absoulutely terrifying. +1

+1

Five attempts to relate to a man that looks the age that he should be, but it ends up exceedingly awkward because Five looks 13. +1

The tow truck driver helps him out, but how was Five going to pay for his coffee? We don’t see him with money. Was he just going to jump out to the car? +1

Five never gets his cup of coffee :( +1

“Istanbul was Constantinople/ Now it’s Istanbul not Constantinople”. This whole scene is great. Five plays with them like he did in the bank scene which shows that even if he did age, he didn’t do it around people so he doesn’t have maturity. -1

Five stabs a guy with a mop and kills him. -1

Five stabs a guy in the crotch with a pencil, then uses the same pencil to stab him in the eye. In between he throws a plate at another guy. This is badass. -1

Five jumps in a way that actually does make two of the idiots shoot each other. Which means that technically, Patch was right. -1

Five kills a man with his bare hands. -1

But he stops to put his fucking tie back on. +1

And yet after all that, the goriest thing is when Five pulls the tracker out of his arm.  Props to the makeup department  and Aidan Gallagher’s acting skill for making that look so real. -1

Five should be way sweatier when he walks out of Griddys. Unless he moped that up with some napkins? What are these super absorbent napkins and where can I buy them? +1

Agnes should be far more traumatized. And definitely shouldn’t have survived that. +1

Diego is emo with the monocle. +1

Luther flashback narration. +1

Klaus, thankfully interrupts this. -1 

“Number 6 “Ben” (deceased)” -1

We can see Ben depending on if it’s Klaus or Diego talking. -1

The vigilante mask Diego wears +1

Five jumpscare in Vanya’s apartment. +1

“Rapists can climb” yes Five. Continue with the criminals that can climb. Including you. +1

This whole scene is the best ending to an episode in the entire season. -1

Aidan Gallagher and Ellen Page play off each other with subtle expressions. This acting talent is amazing. -2

“The world ends in eight days and I have no idea how to stop it” “I’ll put on a pot of coffee” roll credits. I love this ending for many reasons. It’s a total mic drop moment. -2 

Overall review:

While actively looking for nitpicky things, I got to see the first in a whole new light. Both the great parts and terrible parts stood out in a way that they didn’t when I wasn’t looking for them. Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, and Ellen Page were the stand out actors in this episode. All three contributed something significant that didn’t heavily rely on the script writers. 

The child cast also really stood out to me. All seven of them had very limited screen time (I am counting Gallagher playing a child version of his character in this assessment) and they absolutely made the best of it. Out of all of them, Ethan Hwang stood out to me because of his overall great delivery. I hope that we see him play Ben in a more in-depth way in season 2. 

Don’t get it twisted, I genuinely like this series and I think that it tells a great story. I just think it’s fun to nitpick and look deeper. After over analyzing everything else, it’s time to get back to basics. Especially because the season 2 trailer could drop any day now. 

Total: 82 sins

Sentence: Tennis with Hitler and Sir Reginald. 

[randomrichards]

BEST MOVIE MOMENTS OF 2020

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Abe Makes Dinner from ABE

Teen chef protégé Abe (Stranger Thing’s Noah Schnapp) hopes that his dinner blending Israeli and Palestinian dishes will mend a bridge between his Israeli and Palestinian families (as well as his atheist father). But he gets a sad dose of reality when he learns the hard way that a wedge between families can’t always be solved with a meal.

“Wait for It” from HAMILTON

On June 16, 2016, Leslie Odom Jr. surprised many by beating Hamilton star/creator Lin-Manuel Miranda for the Best Actor award at the Tony Awards. And now they understood why thanks to Disney+ presenting the musical. And it all has to do with the song “Wait for It.”

In this soulful musical number, Odom Jr. allows us to understand Aaron Burr’s beliefs in letting fate leads his path. Whether it’s winning the heart of a married woman or watching all his loved ones parish, Burr is willing to wait for destiny to reveal why. It also showcases the contrast between Burr and Hamilton. This song changes Burr from History’s villain to a complicated anti-hero.

10)          Deku and Bakugo go full Super Sayan in MY HERO ACADEMIA: HEROES RISING

My Hero Academia always delivers great action scenes and they truly shine in their latest round in the cinema.

In his final battle to protect young brother and sister Mahoro (Tomoyo Kurosawa in Japanese, Dani Chambers in English) and Katsuma (Yuka Terasaki in Japanese, Maxey Whitehead in English) from ruthless power-stealer Nine (Yoshio Inoue in Japanese, Johnny Yong Bosch in English), underdog hero-in-training Izuku “Deku” Midoriya (Daiki Yamashita in Japanese, Justin Briner in English) transfers his “One-For-All” power to hotheaded classmate Bakugo (Nobuhiko Okamoto in Japanese, Clifford Chapin in English). The result is an image of the in super powered form resembling Super Sayans.

When Deku reaches 100% power, the film suddenly turns white then stretches into abstract imagery.

Honestly, the main reason I put this on the list is because it’s pure awesome and I’m not afraid to admit it.

9)            A Survivor Model from COLLECTIVE

This documentary follows the reporters of Romanian Newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor as their investigation into the Colective Club fire in Bucharest that killed 27 people and left 180 injured exposed vast health care fraud that caused survivors to die in the hospital and would bring down the government. Another key focus is a survivor who was so badly burned she lost most of her fingers. The camera focuses on her as she watches conferences about the fire.

In a standout moment, she models for photo shoots. In this moment, we see a beautiful woman who refuses to allow her disability to stop her, revealing her power.

8)            the Wuhan Flu Song from BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM

Many best scenes of 2020 will focus on the bed scene with Tutar and Rudy Gulianni. But I prefer to focus on the scene where Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) performs the “Wuhan Flu Song” at a Anti-Masker Rally. Not only is it deliciously cringy and hilarious, but It perfectly captures all of Cohen’s strengths as a comedic performer.

As with Borat’s previous cringy yet catchy “Throw the Jew Down the Well, Cohen uses the Borat persona exposes the ugliest side of America. Watching the Qanon conspiracy theorists cheering on Borat (under the guise of Country Steve) singing about injecting Obama with the Coronavirus horrifies while splitting sides. This moment reveals the dangerous consequences of misinformation and conspiracy theorists on society. Plus, the song is shamelessly catchy as hell.

Add the fact that Cohen was nearly attacked during this scene shows how far he’s willing to go to make a point and get a laugh.

7)            The Dinner Scene from LET HIM GO

This scene is a perfect example of how you put subtext in a scene. On the surface, It’s just Weboy matriarch Blanche (Lesley Manville) serving porkchops to her daughter in law Lorna’s(Kayli Carter) former parent in laws Margaret (Diane Lane) and George Blackledge (Kevin Costner). But with the context of Margaret and George trying to deliver Lorna and their grandson from her abusive husband, you can feel the hostility in the atmosphere.

It’s a credit to the actors and their ability to hide their aggression under a mask of southern hospitality. It’s especially true for Manville, who brings to life a woman who is a master of hiding her cruelty under a pleasant smile. She may sound welcoming to them, but you can tell something’s off about her. No wonder she’s able to manipulate the police into siding with her. Hell, many audience will be surprised when they find out she’s British in real life.

Lane matches her every step of the way with the most nuanced jabs.

It won’t get as much appreciation due to it’s unassuming nature. But it’s a perfect scene to show how to bring nuance to a performance.

6)            The Restaurant Scene from THE INVISIBLE MAN

At first, it seemed Cecilia (Elizabeth Moss) finally has the drop on her sociopathic control freak ex Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). After days being tormented by him, Cecilia finally has proof of how he turns invisible. Now she goes to a public restaurant to convince her sister Emily (Harriet Dyer). But then a  levitating knife appears out of nowhere and slits Emily’s throat before flying into Cecilia’s hands.

Director Leigh Whannell and cinematographer Stefan Duscio do an excellent job using everyday envirnoments to create a sense of unease. Whenever the camera lingers on a kitchen, you search with anxious eyes for any sign of Adrian. In this case, they use the ambience of a crowded fancy restaurant to create a false sense of security. And yet, you can’t help but wonder if Adrian’s still watching them.

It’s in this scene where title character goes from a good villain to a great villain. Here we see what a cunning monster he truly is. The scene also showcases Moss’s terrific performance as her desperate eyes showcase the complete helplessness she feels in this scenario.

5)            Edna sheds her skin in RELIC

Rarely do the words “horror” and “heartbreaking” go together, but that describes the ending to this underrated gem.

Kay (Emily Mortimer) returns to her family home to care for her mother Edna (Robyn Nevin), who seems to be suffering from dementia. Now she and her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) find themselves trapped in the crawlspace while fleeing a warped Edna, who has been warped by a supernatural force. With contorted joints and decaying flesh, she has become monstrous. At first it seems they have defeated Edna and are heading out the door.

Then Kay looks back to see her mother lying on the ground, struggling to breath. This brings the film into a unexpected turn as Kay carries the creature that used to be her mother to bed. When Kay peels the skin off Edna’s body to reveal a charcoal skinned, dying creature, the film goes from creepy to heartbreaing. Anyone who ever lost a loved one to dementia will recognize to devastating feeling of watching them fade away right in front of your eyes.

4)             The one-take action scene in EXTRACTION

Well, we can’t have a best movie moments of 2020 list without mentioning the 10 minute action sequence from Extraction.

As black market mercenary Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) shields the kidnapped son of a drug lord from other mercenaries, his race across a Bangladesh village delivers all you want from an action movie. Fast paced car chase? Check. Semi-automatic gun battles? Check. Hand to hand combat? Check. Parkour across rooftops? You bet. Sometimes you’ll even get people get hit by cars during hand to hand combat. All of this happens while cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel makes it look like one take.

Sure, sophisticated viewers will recognize there the cuts are hidden. But when director Sam Hargrave is willing to ride on the hood of a car as it races across dirt roads for the sake of a shot, you can’t help but be impressed

3)            Opening Bike Ride from THE CLIMB

The film begins with what sees like a regular bike ride. American Mike (Director and Co-Writer Michael Angelo Covino) and Kyle (Co-Writer Kyle Marvin) are racing across the road of a French mountain before Kyle’s wedding. But then Mike reveals he’s slept with Kyle’s fiancé, resulting in the furious Kyle to chase Mike. Unfortunately, they’re both too exhausted to commit to a long chase.

The whole opening sequence could be its own short film. Covino and cinematographer Zach Kuperstein) shoot it all in one unbroken take, allowing the awkward exchange to flow more naturally. It leads to a hilarious moment when Kyle tries to chase Mike, but neither have the energy to keep going. Plus, it summarizes the reoccuring cycle of the film with Mike becoming increasingly self-destructive and a terrible friend and Kyle being nice until pushed too far.

2)            The Ending from UNCUT GEMS

After spending two hours in a state of panic, it looks like the audience will finally breath a sigh of relief. After locking his pissed off brother in law Arlo (Eric Bogosian) and his goons Phil (Keith William Richards) and Nico (Tommy Kominik) in the Jewelry store with him, smooth talking jeweler and gambling addict Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) makes the biggest win of his life via pinpoint accurate predictions of a basketball game. Now he has millions of dollars; way more than enough to pay off his debt. Everything’s coming up Howard. That is until the furious Phil puts a bullet in Howard’s head and proceeds to rob his store.

With all his reckless behaviour (including putting his girlfriend at risk) and overconfidence, you knew at somehow Howard was going to be punished. But when the flilm cuts to scenes of Howard’s family celebrating the game and his girlfriend leaves with the money, you can’t help but know how bad they’re going to feel when they find Howard dead.

Then the camera zooms into Howard’s bullet wound to reveal the same colourful kaliedescope imagery as shown within the title uncut gems. With Daniel Lopatin’s enchanting new wave score playing, this moment gives the audience a moment to finally relax before closing with Gigi D’Agostino’s L’amour Toujours.

In spite of (or because of) his flaws; Howard is himself an uncut gem.

1)            The little things inspire Joe from SOUL

Everyone recognizes “The Pixar Moment”; that scene that elevates a Pixar film from great to extraordinary. No one can truly define it, but it’s the one scene from the film everyone talks about. It’s the ten-minute prologue from Up. It’s Anton Ego’s reaction after trying Remy’s dish in Ratatouille. Even a lesser Pixar film can have this moment; a perfect example is when Lighting McQueen allows Ramirez to race in his place in Cars 3. Now we can add another film to the list thanks to Pixar’s latest masterpiece Soul.

After a day of escaping the afterlife and being trapped in the body of a therapy cat, Joe Gardner’s (Jamie Foxx) has finally achieved his dream of being in a Jazz band. And he feels…nothing. So, he heads back to his piano to ponder his direction in life. Then he finds the items 22 (Tina Fey) collected while in his body. What results is a moment fans will be coming back to in their moment of need.

As Joe rests 22’s items in front of his piano and starts playing, he comes to realize how a pizza crust and a seed truly meant to her. In the process, he comes realize the moments that seemed meaningless at first had some magic in them. The joy of playing for his father. The feel of the ocean waves flowing on his feet. The taste of a café’s pie.

In a time when many people can’t do any major activities, this moment serves as a reminder of to appreciate the little things in life. I imagine many audiences will return to this scene in their lowest moments.

[our-smooty]

Flowerbeds and Fertile Soil: Chapter 6

Fandom: Good Omens

Rating: Explicit

Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens, )Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer

Tags:  Kidfic, Mpreg kind of, they can choose to present however so idk, Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Crowley Has A Penis (Good Omens), Aziraphale Has A Penis (Good Omens), Aziraphale Has A Vulva (Good Omens), OCs Galor, parenting, using your snake form to avoid confrontation, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Pregnancy, if I missed a tag lemme know

Summary: They could do anything, go anywhere, all without the worry of Above or Bellow making a fuss. Even so, they mostly kept to their little patch of Eden, their cottage and garden and the simple life they’d carved out among the locals. Aziraphale opened a book shop in town, where he only occasionally sold any books (and the ones he did sell, were all modern and stocked specifically for that purpose). Crowley focused his attentions on the garden, and if he occasionally helped their elderly neighbour with her disobedient willow tree, then that was a secret no one needed to know. Lately, however, they had both been feeling rather restless, unbeknownst to each other. Aziraphale tried reorganizing his store, changing the way he tied his bowtie and even ate pizza –something he considered to be far too messy for him personally. Crowley had branched out into birdwatching, and then car maintenance (the human way), and even reading. Nothing scratched the itch for either of them.

Ao3 Link

My Ko-Fi

They ended up calling Anathema. She took it pretty well, and Crowley had the suspicion that she’d expected it in that weird witchy way of hers. She instructed Aziraphale to get Crowley into bed with some crackers and water, and for him to nibble on those until he was feeling better. Crowley complained that he almost never ate anything, being an immortal demon, but decided to try it out anyway, if only because being sick was a new and frankly frightening experience he wanted to be over and done with as soon as possible. And to his chagrin, I actually did help. 

Aziraphale hovered around anxiously, asking over and over again if there was anything Crowley needed, and fluffing the pillows, and fussing with the comforters. Crowley let him do it because who didn’t like to be pampered once and a while? Charlotte and Annabella had crawled into bed too with a few of their dolls and were currently reenacting the scene from the kitchen in great detail. It was honestly so domestic he wanted to throw up all over again, or maybe that was just the morning sickness coming back. 

“Comfortable?” Aziraphale asked, once again re-fluffing the pillow behind Crowley’s back. “Do you need anything else. More water? Tea? A different type of crackers? I can go down to the shop and--”

Crowley leaned over--carefully so he wouldn’t upset the delicate balance in his stomach--and grabbed Aziraphale’s hand. “I’m alright, but I’d be better if you joined us.” He gave Azirpahale a crooked, slightly fragile smile. To tell the truth, he was feeling pretty overwhelmed and more than a little nervous, having all this come crashing down when they were supposed to be enjoying a fun day at the park. Crowley glanced over at the girls playing at the foot of the bed. He needed to keep it together for them if nothing else. 

“Oh well if you insist.”Aziraphale sat on the edge of the bed, then folded himself carefully into the space between Crowley and the kids. “You’re sure you’re alright?”

Crowley shrugged. “Happens to humans all the time when they’re expecting, you heard Anathema. Guess I’ll have to get used to it.” He was trying not to think about it too hard. They’d been going at it like rabbits for the past month with the express purpose of this but now that it was happening Crowley was honestly freaking out a little bit. “You know, I think I did something to my back while I was hunched over that sink, you think you could…?”

“Of course my dear. Scoot up a bit then.” Crowley did, and Aziraphale began the massage. He hadn’t actually done anything to his back, but he knew his angel needed something to do with his hands and this sounded like the most mutually beneficial activity they could get up to with the poppets around. And Crowley had gone nearly 6000 years with minimal contact from well... anyone so this wasn’t exactly a hardship. Not the exciting day out at the park he’d planned but also not the worst day (though he’d live through the apocalypse and thinking Aziraphale was dead so his standards might have been warped).

“That’s nice angel, maybe a little further down, near the wings? Ah, yeah,” Crowley moaned happily, twitching said appendages in the not-quite-there space they resided in. “I always forget how good you are at this.”

“Wings?” Lottie asked, consequently losing interest in her doll and crawling over the bedspread to sit in Crowley’s lap. “You have wings Uncle Crowley?”

“Uhh.” They hadn’t exactly hidden the fact they were supernatural in front of the girls. Normally there would have been concerns about them telling other humans about them, but they were children who often said strange things. The few times Bella had said something of that sort to another human they usually wrote it off as the excited ramblings of a three-year-old. And Lottie was getting to the age where she was beginning to catch on that her uncles were a bit different and actually enjoyed keeping the secret. But neither being had shown the girls their more… ethereal bits so far because honestly how do you explain giant wings to humans who were only just out of babyhood? 

“Does Uncle Azi have wings?” Bella asked, stealing her sister’s doll and hiding it under a nearby pillow for later use. “Show me.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetheart. It would get rather crowded in here,” Aziraphale explained while simultaneously turning Crowley into a pile of mush with firm circular motions to the base of his spine. 

“Aw Hell angel, it can’t hurt to show them,” he said, smiling down at Lottie. Aziraphale sighed but Crowley knew he’d won; the angel was just as weak as he was when it came to the requests of their goddaughters. 

“Language, dear,” he chided before letting his own wings out with a woosh. Crowley followed, careful not to knock Aziraphale off the bed. The room was filled with the distinctly dusty-magic smell of wings brought into the physical plane and both Lottie and Bella gasped. 

“Magic!” Annabella cried, forgetting her dolls and scampering over to grab a fistful of Crowley’s feathers. He winced and pulled back reflexively, which made her little face fall. Slowly Aziraphale took her hand in his and placed it gently on the demon’s wing, showing her how to be gentle. 

“Carefully, like that dearest. Like petting a puppy.” Bella nodded, using the utmost care while playing with his primaries. Lottie joined in as well, enjoying picking through the layers and finding the tiny, downy feathers hidden beneath. Crowley couldn’t hold back a tiny laugh as their hands tickled and prodded.

“Oh sure angel, keep yours out of the way while they muss up mine,” he joked, spreading his wings out more so the girls could see the iridescence of the secondaries and tertiaries. Aziraphale went back to massaging, really getting into the muscles where his wings met his back. 

“I’ll sort them for you later if you want. Besides, I think we’re both overdue for a little preening as it is,” Aziraphale chuckled, grabbing one of his own tertiary feathers that had fallen onto the bedspread and handing it to Lottie. “We’re both moulting all over the place.”

“Are you a bird?” Lottie asked, spinning the snow-white feather in her fingers. 

“Daddy says birds are for watching and not for scaring,” Bella added sheepishly, tossing some of the loose down into the air. 

“Well for once your dad is right, what a shocker,” Crowley drawled, earning a light pinch from Aziraphale. 

“Be nice to Newton Crowley. He’s a lovely young man, if you’d made the effort to get to know him.” Crowley rolled his eyes again but didn’t reply. He honestly didn’t mind Newt and Anathema. They were alright, as far as humans went, and he’d probably miss them when their short lifespans came to an end. But that wasn’t something he liked to think about too often--or when he was sober--so he made the executive decision to change the subject. 

“Are we still going to the park?” The girls both looked up hopefully. Not even the magical reality of wings could compare to the thrill of their local children's park (the one that had been put in suspiciously close to when Charlotte had been born. Crowley had the suspicion Aziraphale had had more than a little bit to do with it). 

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, love,” Aziraphale answered. Crowley groaned and tossed his hair back dramatically. “Oh don’t be like that you were literally passed out in our kitchen not two hours ago.”

‘I’m fine now,” he pouted. Was this how the entire 9 (or however many months demon/angel babies needed to gestate), was going to be? Aziraphale being overprotective and Crowley forced to lay in bed doing nothing? “I don’t feel sick anymore and I ate all the crackers.”

“Please Uncle Azi?” Bella begged, turning her big, dark eyes on the angel and pulling off a pout so manipulative it made Crowley proud. He’d seen Anathema use the exact same look on Newt when she wanted a refill of her drink at the baby shower. 

Aziraphale’s resolve lasted all of three seconds before he nodded and withdrew his wings. “Fine. But only for an hour and only if Uncle Crowley agrees to spend most of the time sitting.”

The girls cheered, accidentally tugging at Crowley’s wings in the process. He discreetly disappeared them back into their pocket dimension and made a mental not to give them a once over that night. Monthly wing groomings were one of his favourite part of moving in together. Back before the Apocalypse Crowley had sometimes gone decades without a proper groom because demons did not--in any capacity--groom each other. Only when he’d seen Aziraphale and they’d been in the position to act friendly had he gotten a good groom in, and he cherished many of those memories. 

“I promise to take it easy angel.” He leaned back and rested his head on Aziraphale’s chest. “Girls why don’t you go get dressed while we get ready?”

Charlotte and Annabella ran off, though not before collecting the majority of the loose feathers from the blankets. Crowley watched them go with a smile before rolling over and spreading himself over his Aziraphale’s chest and shoulder. “Mmm, thanks for the back rub, angel. Really hit the spot.”

“It’s the least I can do, dear boy,” Aziraphale answered, pressing kisses to the demon’s forehead and cheeks. “You’re very cuddly, aren’t you?”

Normally Crowley would deny that fact until he was blue in the face, but right now in the bed, the sound of their goddaughters making a complete mess of their bedroom vibrating through the walls, he felt content. “Feels nice. Kinda surreal but, nice.”

“Nice is a four-letter word starlight,” Aziraphale pointed out, planting one final kiss on Crowley’s lips. “Are you sue you’re feeling alright?”

“Shut up and get me my shoes,” Crowley laughed, kissing back with fervour. “Give a demon a break I’m carrying some sort of Angelic parasite inside me and it’s turning me soft.” There it was easier to talk about if he made it into a joke. Baby steps. 

“Don’t call our child a parasite,” Aziraphale admonished with a gasp. “I suppose it’s too early to pick names, but what about a nickname?” The angel began mumbling to himself as he got ready, purposefully not going near Crowley’s shoes. 

“Ngk,” Crowley choked, blushing scarlet. “Too early, y-yeah.”

Aziraphale smiled slyly. He was enjoying this, the bastard. ‘We’ll have to think about it, won’t we? Well, get a move on dearest, the girls won’t wait forever. Do you need a hand?”

“No,” Crowley growled in what he hoped was a menacing way. Not that it worked on Aziraphale. Crowley watched him practically flounce from the room, entirely too pleased with himself. He never had handed Crowley his shoes.

After changing out of his comfortable clothes and into something more appropriately suited for playing in the park, his third skinniest pair of jeans, shiny leather shoes, and a spiffy blazer covering a deep purple t-shirt, Crowley stomped down the stairs to wait in the entry, completely ignoring the commotion from upstairs. 

“No, Annabella you may not go out in your underthings--and Charlotte what did I say about those scarves? One is plenty--! Oh bugg-blast! Don’t pull your sister’s hair!” It sounded like the girls were giving Aziraphale a run for his money. Crowley considered going back up to give him a hand, but the effort of getting dressed and down the stairs had left him a little lightheaded, so he decided to stay put. If he fainted again Aziraphale would make a big deal and probably refuse to let him leave the house for the next nine months. There was only so much he could do around the cottage grounds and he didn’t want to go completely mad. 

Upstairs things seemed to be calming down anyway. Crowley smiled as he heard one of the girls giggling, then Azirpahale’s answering chuckle. Somebody, he loved that man so much it almost made him want to be sick again, but in a good way. Feelings were confusing. Even 6000 years of experience didn’t give him any advantages. Or maybe Crowley was just a mess; that was also a distinct possibility.

“All good angel?” he asked as Aziraphale descended the steps, Bella on his hip and Lottie trailing behind him. The angel looked frazzled, but fond.

“We got there in the end, didn’t we girls?” he answered, jostling Bella and making her laugh. 

With both of them there it wasn’t as much of a struggle to get everyone’s shoes on and out the door. Crowley took Charlotte’s hand while Aziraphale walked with Bella. The park was only a few minutes walk and once they arrived both girls sped off ahead to clamber over the equipment.

“No monkey bars! Can’t have you nearly busting your heads open again!” Crowley called after them, locating a bench and sitting heavily. OK, so maybe he should have stayed in bed a little longer. His gaze shifted over to Aziraphale as the angel took a seat beside him and debated saying something.

“I have to say I’m glad we decided to come out after all. Best to enjoy these last few days of summer.” Nevermind then. Crowley wasn't going to make a fuss about nothing if the angel was enjoying himself. 

“Before everything turns all grey and slushy you mean?” Crowley hated winter. He wasn’t cold-blooded per-say, but he did usually run at a few degrees colder than most. Which made the winter particularly unpleasant. 

“We aren’t in London anymore Crowley, you know the winters here are beautiful,” Aziraphale remarked, procuring breadcrumbs from one of his pockets and scattering them for the birds. This area hadn’t had many pidgeons before they moved in, but because Aziraphale expected parks to have birds to feed (and there was no body of water large enough for ducks) there were now several groups of birds who visited daily. 

“Freezing. Wet. Full of unbearable holiday cheer. Sounds lovely,” Crowley drawled, conjuring up his own, larger chunks of bread to huck at the birds. 

“I know Christmas really isn’t your thing darling. Oh!” Aziraphale wiggled slightly. He brushed the crumbs from his hand and began running his fingers over his lips in excitement. “Next year, we’ll have a little one to celebrate with. Won’t that be exciting?”

Crowley grimaced to hide the strange way his face wanted to crumple up. “Guess so. You’re not going to make me do the whole “Santa” thing with them are you?” Crowley would never, ever admit it out loud, but the idea was… not terrible? He liked to give Aziraphale presents at Christmas, but that was because giving his angel gifts was practically ingrained in him now. And Christmas gave Crowley the excuse to go all-out more often than not. Would it be the same with the kid; would he want to dote on them as much as he did on Aziraphale? Maybe more?

“But that’s half the fun!”

“Sure, sure. Telling kids a great big man in a sweaty red suit breaks into the house and leaves them things is all well and good angel--quite demonic really--but what about what you have to tell them he’s not real?” He’d been saved that ordeal by Warlock’s parents, or more specifically his mother, who decided that six was a perfectly acceptable age to rid her child of that sort or silliness. She hadn’t intended to be mean, but Crowley had still spent the entire night with an armful of sobbing little boy.

“Hm, I guess that is a little bit of a problem. But that’s years away and humans seem to grow up fine believing in him,” Aziraphale countered, letting his fingers travel up to twirl around one of his curls. A few feet away Lottie and Bella had started making flower crowns. “Girls, what do you think about Santa Clause?”

Lottie barely looked up. “Santa Claus is a tool used by the capitalist government to force people into participating in the endless cycle of purchase and debt,” she answered automatically. “Daddy says not to tell other kids though.”

Crowley burst out laughing, knee-slapping and all. “Oh, that has Book Girl written all over it. And your face, angle!”

Aziraphale sputtered indignantly for a bit before sighing and giving a small smile. “I guess that’s one way to deal with it. Though Saint Nicholas himself wasn’t too bad. Had ale with him a few times in Greece.”

Within a few seconds Crowley had gathered himself enough to sit back up, now leaning heavily towards Aziraphale in companionable closeness. “Sure sure. Of course, you’ve shared drinks with literal Santa Claus.”

“Charlotte stop putting grass in your sister's hair please!” Aziraphale scolded, making like he was going to get up if she didn’t stop. Of course, she listened immediately, knowing that any further misbehaviour would mean the end of their park trip, but Crowley also saw her steal a few flowers from Bella’s pile during the distraction. He’d have to keep an eye on her at this rate. “That’s the sort of thing we’ll need to decide on, isn’t it. To tell them about Santa, or what to do about school bullies…”

Crowley groaned. “Do we have to talk about this now? For somebody's sake I’ve barely been...you know… for six weeks going by what Anathema said. Can’t we talk about all that later?” Not to mention he’d only known for a few hours and was still adjusting to that particular piece of information. 

Every once and a while since this morning Crowley found himself resting his hand on his stomach, subconsciously looking for a bump that wouldn’t be there for weeks, if not months. The idea that there was actually something growing inside him was as weird as it was exciting and for once, Aziraphale was the one moving too fast. Crowley needed time to process all of this but between the angel and the girls, he didn’t think he was going to get much.

“We can stop, if you like. But I do hope you’re up to having this discussion soon. I have to admit, I’m very excited, if a little nervy about the whole business.” Nervy was one way of putting what Crowley was feeling. A right state, too. He just wanted some peace and quiet on this nice park bench while he sorted through some stuff, but he wasn’t exactly sure how to ask for that without sounding like a massive arsehole.

“Nervy, yeah. We can talk about it in a bit?” There that wasn’t too bad right? About as non-committal and non-confrontational as possible. And if it was really a problem and Aziraphale needed to talk well then Crowley would just have to deal with it somehow because there was no way he giving Aziraphale a reason to be cross with him and force himself to go through this alone. “The little monsters will be gone in what, 2 weeks, 3 tops? We can talk then.”

Aziraphale looked like he was going to complain, but stopped himself. He met Crowley’s eyes through the lenses of his sunglasses and Crowley must have been giving off enough signals of stress that the angel picked up on them. “I’ve been pushing again, haven’t I?”

“A bit,” Crowley said with the best casual affect he could muster while simultaneously thanking Someone that Aziraphale remembered from their last argument that he could be a bit pushy when he got excited. And that Crowley was not his usual cool, “water off a duck’s back” self when it came to this issue. 

“Sorry again love. I got a little carried away, what with just finding out and then you getting sick it’s been a rather big day.” Crowley’s head bobbed in sympathy then ducked towards Aziraphale again. This time he went all the way past casual leaning to resting his head on the angel’s shoulder. Luckily, his smell was either being blown away by the wind, or whatever sort of episode Crowley had been experiencing was finished. Which was good because he really, really wanted to sneak a cuddle in. 

“S’OK, I should’ve said something.”

Aziraphale hummed against Crowley’s hair. “At least this discussion didn’t end in you leaving in a huff.”

“Or you running off to get lost in your books.” Lottie had wandered away from Bella towards the swings, though Crowley was sure she wouldn’t be alone for long. She was too social for that, not to mention her sister was a bit of a clinger. 

“That too. How are you feeling now? Not too hot out for you is it?” Crowley resisted the urge to roll his eyes, all too aware that they had only just avoided another fight.

“Stop your fussing, I’m fine. Told you how many times now?” It was mostly the truth. Since the slight dizzy spell after the stairs he’d been feeling fine. He knew enough about human pregnancy to know that morning sickness was a common enough thing. The angel was making a huge deal out of nothing. 

Aziraphale tutted, but still squeezed Crowley around the shoulders where his arm lay. “Yes, yes, I know. You cannot fault me for worrying, I love you so.”

“Ngk,” Crowley answered, watching as Lottie helped her little sister, who had, in fact, followed her promptly, onto a swing. “Love you too, even when you bother me.”

They spent the rest of the early afternoon in the park. Eventually Crowley got up to help Lottie try out the monkey bars safely while Aziraphale took Bella home for a nap. Or for “storytime”, since telling a three-year-old to take a nap was just about the worst thing you could do. Crowley had agreed they wouldn’t stay longer than half-an-hour and that he would call the second he felt off. But nausea didn’t come back, and Charlotte managed to get half-way across by herself without Crowley having to intervene and everything was good.

[letscuttothefeeling]

season three episode three

Let me start off by congratulating the producers – not you Ish – on this great episode. I finally feel like we’re back to THE SHOW. Not a weird Bachelor spin-off with minimal drama and blatantly horrible editing (see: Juliette’s grad party scene, where Chloe’s nails change color DURING THE PARTY.) Nope, we’re done with that and back to the good stuff, so on that note, let’s cut to the feeling.

Come ON MTV it’s like you weren’t even trying. And yes, I created this, and no, I don’t have a life.

I know I’m going to like an episode when it starts off with the angelic sounds of my lord and savior, Ariana Grande. As break up with ur girlfriend, i’m bored plays, we zoom into Cara’s house. Personally, I’m hoping to see Victoria. Alas – it’s just Cara…and Garrett. God, Garrett STOP. Your ex-girlfriend has already outlined exactly how Cara is using you – since she did the exact same thing - and you’re still asking Cara on dates? This is so cringe. Where’s Victoria?!

Even though Garrett can’t score a date, Brandon can! Maybe instead of asking Cara to go look at babies, you should ask her to rollerblade, G Baby. As Amanda and Brandon glide around the Key, we learn that Brandon is celebrating his 24th birthday on Friday! And it’s “24, Like, Karat Gold Slash, Like, Pirate, Sort Of” themed, of course! He debates whether or not to invite Juliette while giving us viewers amazing helmet safety tips. Meanwhile, after Cara has removed G Baby from her property, she makes her way to Chloe’s to checkuppé on her. This is where we learn that Chloe has officially called the cops and filed a police report. I have a lot of opinions, but more on this later.

Okay, something I haven’t touched on because I wish it wasn’t happening I haven’t had time is that Kelsey and Jared have sparked a little romance. If you don’t remember, while Kelsey was dating her random LA boyfriend, Jared was the 86th person she cheated on him with. I see this going well! I mean, it always works out when you leave someone you cheated on for the person you cheated with. Right? Plus, there’s Twisted Tea and mudding involved, so Kelsey can rest assured she’ll be going on sophisticated and expensive dates instead of the shitty and poor dates that Garrett used to take her on.

FINALLY, the C + V scene I need and deserve. Donning a black one-piece that contrasts perfectly with her frozen fruity pink drink, Victoria is effortlessly exuding two polar opposite, chaotic energies. I’m getting “sassy”, but I’m also getting “I’ll fuck you up if you insult my 90’s Quiksilver skater shoes.” AKA, I’m getting Avril during the Girlfriend era. And I love it. As she floats next to Cara in the pool and shockingly proclaims that she’s not into guys, (what?!) I’m on my knees praying to God himself that she become a main cast member vis-à-vis a relationship with Cara. It’s Victoria’s show, and we’re all just living in it, baby. After Cara’s bizarre comment about how her parents punish her by locking her in their wine cellar (weird flex, but okay) Victoria giggles about how dumb Garrett is and we move on.

We leave C and V for a Madisson and Kelsey reunion, but it’s not a happy one. Madisson delivers the unfortunate news that Chloe may be pressing charges. Oh no! I would be really upset by this, but I can’t focus on the content of Madisson’s words because of how she’s delivering them. Madisson, we fully understand that you’ve been to an acting class in LA because you won’t shuttupé about it, so you can stop over-enunciating everything that comes out of your mouth. Thanks!

After Kelsey tells Juliette about her impending stint in Florida prison, she gets understandably upset. Luckily, Boring Robby is there to teach Juliette how to apologize. Don’t say he never did anything for her! I want to point out that Kelsey truly has been redeeming herself this season. She’s been pretty level headed and a very good friend. If only Boring Robby could do the same… Later in the day, Kelsey confronts Robby about another thing Madisson spilled during their meetup. Apparently, while Juliette was fighting everyone last week, Boring Robby had the audacity to applaud her! How gauche. Boring Robby vehemently denies these claims, saying, “Always take the high road, because the low road is way too crowded,” and, “Silence is the best way to react to a fool, and happiness is the best revenge.” First of all, stop lying about things that were FILMED on national television. You’re now Boring Robby: The Liar. Second of all, why are you the human embodiment of my ninth grade Pinterest quotes board?

Grab your pillows and sleeping bags because we are heading to a SLUMBER PARTY! But before anyone can start braiding each other’s hair, Chloe begins to stir the pot, yet again. She delights in bringing up Brandon and Amanda’s new relationship right in front of Madisson. But to distract from the awkwardness, Amanda changes the subject to her missing phone. After the fight, she lost her phone and no one has been able to find it. She starts to give us a play-by-play analysis of why and how she thinks Boring Robby: The Liar stole it. I’m sorry, am I watching Joe Goldberg on You, or am I watching Amanda on Siesta Key? 

It’s the day of the BG’s bday, and I’m so excited to see everyone’s 24 Karat Gold Slash Like Pirate themed outfits! They don’t disappoint - G Baby and Victoria are even matching!! I’ve never screamed so loudly in my life. Garrett obviously refuses to drink, and we’re off to the party. But first, there’s one guest who needs to arrive.

As Alex descends from his family’s PJ strapped with Louis luggage, a BEER, and fresh digs straight from the Siesta Key mall, I can feel the blood coming back into my body. I can feel individual atoms multiplying. I can feel my soul re-entering my empty, hollow frame. I feel exactly like Bella in the fourth Twilight novel, Breaking Dawn. After her half-human, half-vampire baby has eaten its way out of her uterine lining, Edward is forced to do the unthinkable: steal Bella’s mortal soul by turning her into a vampire so she has a shot to survive. (It’s the second time in the series that vampire Edward is forced to resist sucking all of Bella’s enticing blood to save her – that’s true love.) As she starts to respond to his venom, each and every one of her cells begins to freeze over and restore life to her body. Suddenly, she is awake. Her vision is sharp, her mind is clear, and she’s never looked better. And that’s EXACTLY how I felt as Alex exited his plane.

I expect nothing less than for Alex to arrive at BG’s party with three underage Ukrainian mail-order brides. And he doesn’t disappoint. Unfortunately for the brides, he immediately begins discussing relationships with Cara. It’s fun to see Cara pride herself in not cheating on people for the past year. I kind of feel like that should be a given, but okay. As they’re undressing each other with their eyes talking, Garrett is having an interesting convo of his own. Classic Chloe starts stirring the pot AGAIN by telling Garrett that Cara is using him. Really Chloe? Cara is supposed to be your best friend. What’s more shocking is that VICTORIA starts to betray Cara as well. This causes an immediate fight between Carrett. They leave the party and start screaming at each other in the jungle. I’m so enraptured by the fight that I momentarily forget they’re at a themed party and fixate on Garrett’s outfit. Why am I watching Garrett Miller scream in a jungle dressed as a pirate? Oh, right. Anyways.

Even though Cara and G Baby are scream fighting, the party continues to rage on. And everyone is makingoutté. Kelsey and Jared, Amanda and Brandon... something is in the air! It must be the pirate theme. #LetsGetScurvy. But one person isn’t feeling the love – Madisson. With Dad gone, she has no one to kish. Clearly bothered by watching her friend and ex-boyfriend eat each other’s faces, Madisson decides to give Brandon the sad news that Amanda is using him. Whether or not she is, Madisson has no right to give her opinion on the matter. And BG says exactly that. Good for him! Another person surprisingly not making out with someone is Alex. He’s too busy being an asshole to Kelsey and telling anyone who will listen that Boring Robby is bad news. Probably true, but literally no one can be worse than he is, except maybe Pauly Paul. In other news, WHERE IS PAUL.

Unfortunately, the next scene doesn’t involve Pauly or Victoria – just Chloe and Juliette. Juliette shows up after Chloe gets out of work to hopefully avoid jailtime hash things out. Now strap in because I’m about to explain exactly where I stand with the Chloe/Juliette drama, and if you aren’t completely focused, please take a 10mg Adderall, wait ten minutes, and check back in.

Okay, hopefully, you’ve taken amphetamines and can really dial in. Here goes: I realize that Chloe is a necessary evil - it’s an indisputable fact that there would be no show without her antics. No one is as shameless when it comes to talking shit and completely ruining their friendships for the sake of television. And for that, I deeply respect Chloe. (I realize that sounds sarcastic but I am dead serious. Thank you for taking one for the team, Chloe.) But I simply cannot stand when she gets what’s coming to her then plays the innocent victim. Obviously, violence is not cool, and Juliette should be embarrassed by her behavior. But Chloe knew exactly what the outcome of that conversation would be. She was banking on a wasted Juliette reacting horribly. With Chloe, you simply cannot win. Earlier in this episode, Chloe verbatim says to Madisson and Cara, “If the roles were reversed, I would have shown up at her house, apologizing.”

Now cut to this scene, where Chloe verbatim says to Juliette (after Juliette shows up at her workplace) “I really don’t know why you’re here, so if you can please leave and leave me alone.”

Juliette said it best herself – “Chloe is my best friend when I’m miserable. When I’m actually thriving…this type of stuff happens.” Let’s take a moment to analyze the similarities and differences of how Chloe and the rest of the cast handled Chloe’s altercation with Amanda during season one, in which Amanda broke Chloe’s nose and sent her to surgery. After sending Chloe to the hospital, Amanda justifies her actions by saying that Chloe started it first. So everyone is okay with Amanda decking Chloe. The fact is, Chloe started it first here, too. Chloe swatted at Juliette’s hand first. So why did everyone grab coffee with Amanda, but ostracize Juliette? Amanda even had a sit-down conversation with Chloe after her surgery expecting Chloe to apologize. The inconsistencies and hypocrisy present…I CANNOT.

Chloe acts like everyone’s best friend to stay relevant and betrays them the second it benefits her. While I do agree that Juliette is only apologizing because she’s scared Chloe will press charges, I think people who talk shit, unfortunately, get hit, on occasion. Until next week!