#I was starting to think I wouldn't write any meta for this season

[louisinart]

rewatching ofmd s1 and I'm absolutely blown away by how much Jim comes into themselves by the end of season two. Knowing the character they become its really stunning to see how disengaged and cynical they are at the start of it all.

Their motivations are almost entirely reactive, to escape Spanish jackie and then to live out their nanas dream of justice. The while time they are in survival mode, moving quickly and efficiently and quietly. Ultimately, moving how they were trained to and nothing else. Because it works! It works so well that I didn't consider something might be missing.

But in season two they're made to be messy, loud. They are stuck on Ed's Breakdown Ship and so have to act differently than they ever have. Not just because they are yelling and screaming and covered in blood cutting a guys leg off, either. They're connecting and caring and critiquing and supporting, they're emotionally engaged in a real way that they very much weren't in season 1. Every day on Ed's ship is horrible, but at least they're present for it. Every day pushes them to be in survival mode but they refuse. They tell fang a story, they kiss Archie back. When Ed says "kill or die" they say "no."

And then, after all that, when they finally get to rest again? Yeah, it's a rough transition, but once they get through it they're absolutely fucking teeming with life. They're painting on a mustache, they're creating conspiracies, they're crossing boundaries to get olus girlfriend back. When the dust settles Jim is inhabiting themselves in a way we haven't seen in the show previously. There is a richness to their character that feels incredibly natural and earned, to the point that I didn't even notice it until I went back to season one and realized how lost they were.

Its pretty obvious that this show is about Ed and stedes collective mid life crisis, but it wasn't until now that I realized its also Jim's coming of age

[stromblessed]

Mizu's spectacles, and the levels of her disguise

In drafting some more Blue Eye Samurai meta posts, I find myself writing out the comparisons between what Mizu can and cannot hide about herself, and how that affects how she moves through the world.

Like, I get the jokes about Mizu's glasses, if only color contacts had existed back then, etc. etc., and I think (hope) that most viewers don't take the glasses jokes seriously, as in "I don't care about the suspension of disbelief because BES is a cartoon." But I wanted to write these thoughts out anyway without burying them in a text post about something else.

I think the points I'm going to lay out here are viewed very differently by different people, so please feel free to add to this post, reply, or put your thoughts in the tags!

Not only do Mizu's glasses not actually help her that much, there's surely more to Mizu's mixed race appearance than just the color of her eyes.

In my view, this was pointed out in episode 1:

I'm willing to bet most of us were expecting young Taigen to say "blue eyes," not "ROUND eyes."

Obviously this is still about Mizu's eyes, but not even spectacles can hide their shape.

I don't think the show is obligated to point out everything about Mizu's face that isn't quite as Japanese as the people around her expect. Though the creators have said that they specifically designed Mizu - and her clothes - to read both as "white" and as "Japanese," as well as both male and female. I think there's more about Mizu's features that read as "white" than just her eyes.

This is where my own headcanons start entering the picture, but it's my impression that people can just tell that Mizu looks different, whether or not they can put a finger on exactly how.

There's the little girl who looks at Mizu and then hides on the way into Kyoto:

When there's more to your face you'd like to cover up than just your eyes, big hats are a big help!

By the way, most of these examples have to come from the first half of the season, since by the second half, either Mizu is too preoccupied with fighting henchmen, or everyone Mizu is facing knows who she is already, and she therefore has no reason to hide her mixed race identity.

It's worth mentioning that the mere fact that Mizu has to hide multiple aspects of her identity - her mixed race and her sex - results in her having to choose clothes that really, really cover her up, which doesn't win her any favors either:

(Zatoichi reference, anyone?)

If it were as easy as, for example, tying her glasses to her head and wa-lah, nobody would ever know she was half-white - then (1) Mizu would've just done that long ago, and (2) Mizu wouldn't be so on guard and on tenterhooks 100% of the time the way she's depicted in the show, even when her glasses are on.

Her spectacles sure don't help her in the brothel, which is full of observant women who are trying to seduce her, meaning they get good long looks at her:

Mizu never takes her glasses off, but they still send a woman to her who has light eyes, thinking that must be what will interest a blue-eyed man:

No wonder Mizu gets mad after this, lol

So Mizu never takes her spectacles off in the brothel, it's dimly lit inside, and the women can still tell that she has blue eyes. I'm getting the sense that Mizu putting on her spectacles isn't a guarantee that people suddenly can't tell that she looks different.

And yet no one spots that she's female.

Mizu can hide her breasts, can wear her hair in the right style, can hide what's between her legs, can walk and talk and behave like a man - and she's been doing it for almost her entire life, to the point that not only is she very good at it, but the threat of being found out as female is deadly, but isn't presented in the show as omnipresent.

Let me explain.

She threatens Ringo for nearly saying the word "girl" out loud, because while she's constantly ostracized for being mixed race, being a woman traveling without a chaperone, carrying a sword, and disguised as a man will get her killed or flogged or arrested or some combination of these things.

But in addition, it's been drilled into her since she was a child that if she is discovered as female, the combination of her being mixed race and female will identify her as someone extremely specific, someone known to some bad people, and she will be killed:

I think of it as Mizu thinking to herself, "Being found out as mixed race means I'm treated badly. Being found out as mixed race and a woman means I'm dead."

Mizu's hair is cut as a child. But she isn't made to wear a big hat, or cover her eyes somehow, or anything like that. Because hiding her sex is a more successful endeavor than hiding her race.

Ringo finds out she's female by accident, but once Mizu accepts the fact that he won't rat her out, she relaxes pretty early on in the season. Because the threat of being found out as female is mitigated pretty much 99.9%, since Mizu has gotten so good at being a man. And also, because most of the time, people see what they want to see. Even if Mizu's face makes her stand out as "not 100% Japanese," no one in the world of BES looks at Mizu's clothes, her bearing, her sword, hears her voice, and will ever in a million years conclude that she is a woman, because expectations around gender roles in the Edo period were so rigid and so widely enforced.

One detail that proved this to me is after the Four Fangs fight:

Ringo takes off Mizu's clothes so he can stitch her up, then leaves her clothes off even after he's done. He doesn't even throw her cloak over her as a blanket or anything. There's a little a straw (pallet?) as a divider there on the left, but anyone could just peek around it and see Mizu and her chest bindings. (I think it's mostly there as a windbreaker.)

And Taigen is right there, but he doesn't give a shit:

Opinions probably vary hugely on this, but my impression is that because the show doesn't make any kind of deal about Taigen being in the room with Mizu here, my guess is that Mizu isn't in any danger of Taigen thinking she's female. Even when I watched the show for the first time, I assumed that Taigen had seen Mizu out of her clothes here, and that he thought nothing of it.

Eat your heart out, Li Shang (Mulan 1998). I actually do think that this scene is a direct and purposeful side-eye to that movie, lol

There's obviously some nuance to how "severe" being mixed race is compared to how "severe" being a woman is for Mizu:

After all, Swordfather can't bear to listen to Mizu confess to being a woman.

So a Japanese man can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants in BES. A Japanese woman has limited options: marriage, religion, or a brothel. A mixed-race man is an eyesore in this story. A mixed-race woman is a death sentence.

May as well eliminate the female aspect, and do what you can about the mixed-race aspect. Because that's just realistic.

Meaning Mizu can avoid the strictures Edo society places on women. But she can't avoid the repercussions that come with being mixed race. And I truly don't think that it's just because "there's no brown contacts yet."

[blackbird-brewster]

Meta: Jemily Queerbaiting

With the huge influx of posts saying 'Jemily is gonna be canon', I really appreciated seeing this post because OP was completely correct. I didn't want to write an entire dissertation as a reply, so I'm making my own post with my personal opinion on this. (All sources are noted in footnotes)

Before I began this rant, for anyone who thinks this is anti-Jemily. It is not. I have shipped Jemily for 18 friggin years and that's never going to change. This post is specifically my thoughts about queer baiting.

First off, I need to note that the showrunners (and the cast members who use social media) KNOW what a huge queer following this show has and that's why we got pansexual Tara Lewis in S16 [1]. Which, in itself, was SOOOOOOO important!!! Our first canonically queer main in SIXTEEN seasons was a middle-aged Black woman!!! That's phenomenal. (The fact it was horrible rep, because they instantly ruined her relationships once her queerness served it's plot point is a whole other post entirely)

In my opinion, the 'big Jemily moment' Paget posted about on Twitter [2] (and AJ hinted at during a recent IG live) is simply queerbaiting to get people to watch S17. I know a lot of you are newer to the fandom and I love your enthusiasm, I really do, ship and let ship, but listen, let's be real, Jemily is not going to be made canon. The showrunners aren't going to suddenly say (after 17 seasons) 'Surprise, Jemily is endgame'. This show has never cared about queer rep and now that CBS/Paramount have already ticked their queer rep box with Tara, they won't be in any rush to add any other characters to it.

Please buckle in, I've got a lot of thoughts on this matter --

What is Queerbaiting?

If you aren't aware of what queerbaiting is, here's a good definition:

Historically, queerbaiting has carried two meanings: the first is an act of aggressive heterosexuality to shut down queer subtext on screen while still teasing and catering to the queer audience in advertising, public relations, and fan engagement strategies; the second is an existing homoerotic tension between two characters played up on screen while met with derision by the professionals behind the scenes. [3]

The Medium article quoted here is from 2017, a time when parasocial relationships were really starting to take over social media. In 2024, actors are now only a mention or tag away online, they have direct conversations with fans, and this process has allowed for an even deeper form of queerbaiting.

Oftentimes online, actors are asked directly about certain ships and while some ignore these questions (usually to avoid breaking their contracts or other repercussions), others (looking at you, Paget) choose to instead tease fans about queer ships. She's done this for years upon years and if I've learned anything in the past twenty-years of existing in fandom spaces it's this -- don't hold your breath. In it's original meaning, for something to be deemed as queerbaiting there had to be malicious, or at least, purposeful intent to string queer fans along by teasing them with suggestive content about the ship in question, while knowing this ship will never come to fruition in canon.

The thing to remember is, Paget and AJ aren't the only ones who know about Jemily shippers -- the network and showrunners are well aware of this ship too. When networks/showrunners figure out they have a strong sapphic fanbase, they love to use that to their advantage to get more viewers and higher ratings. Queerbaiting is a goldmine to keep fans watching long running shows, look at Rizzoli and Isles, Supergirl, and OUAT for examples of this.

Jemily and Queerbaiting:

Ever since Emily joined the BAU in S2 (2006), there have always been fans who ship JJ/Emily (shoutout to the old LJ forums!). Way before celebs were just a tweet away from fans, back when all our fics began with disclaimers so we wouldn't get sued by networks, we went to great lengths to keep our fanworks far removed from actors/showrunners attention.

As far as Jemily goes, this reply from Paget in a 2009 interview with TVGuide.com [4] (which has now been deleted from their site unfortunately, but there are quotes on Tumblr still [4.a]) confirmed some fans' worst fear -- the actors had found our fanworks online.

TVGuide.com: Of course, a band of fans want her to hook up with Hotch.

Brewster: I know! I didn't realize that fans make these videos on YouTube? A.J. Cook sent me a hilarious one that made it look like Prentiss and J.J. were having a secret lesbian affair. You know, when Hotch was blown up in the SUV, we shot this scene where he's in the hospital and I'm standing next to him, looking at his bleeding ear. Our director came in and said, "Paget, you're looking at Hotch like you're in love with him. It looks really weird." So now, every day, Thomas [Gibson] and I flutter our eyelids at each other.

This was the first time I recall anyone acknowledging Jemily shippers publicly and at the time (Jan 2009), the show was still in Season Four (just before CBS fired both AJ and Paget [5]). Paget genuinely said it's 'hilarious' that fans shipped JJ/Emily. Even now, I'll see people say 'We know Paget and AJ have seen Jemily fanvids, so they obviously ship it too' -- but those same people rarely acknowledge the full context of the original answer. Paget not only thought JJ/Emily were 'hilarious', but then she doubled down and turned her reply back to how she and Thomas liked to play up the chemistry between Emily/Hotch.

While no one can say for sure which video it was that AJ sent Paget, just knowing they were watching JJ/Emily fanvids sent a bit of a shockwave through the femslash side of the fandom. To some it felt like an invasion of privacy, fanworks are by fans for fans -- knowing the cast were poking around in fandom spaces added an extra layer of worry around what we fans were posting online. Fifteen years ago, it used to be quite taboo for actors to outwardly discuss shipping or other fanon for whatever show they were in, and we fans were usually comfortably removed from the actors altogether.

Of course, now it's the norm for fans and actors/showrunners to co-exist online and interact with one another. This connection has opened new ways for shows to queerbait their fans. Pretty much every show has some form of social media account now and there is no doubt that the people running those accounts keep up with the most popular ships and hashtags. Not to mention that actors are constantly barraged with questions about whether they ship their character with x,y,z, or whether they think a ship should be made canon, etc. These interactions only serve to benefit the shows themselves, because whether the conversation is for or against a certain ship, it's all just free publicity (Why do you think CM now has a TikTok account?)

Every time AJ or Paget say anything about Jemily, the queer side of the fandom loses their minds. But this has been going on for YEARS now and every single time, it turns out to be nothing but social media hype and queerbaiting. Remember this AJ post? [6] Or what about the notorious reply by Paget to a fan, where she talks about how she and AJ held hands under the table 'for the shippers' [7] I've seen this cycle over and over again, so perhaps I am cynical, but I'm not getting my hopes up that Jemily will ever seriously be canon.

It's widely known now, after both Kirsten [8] and Paget [9] have talked about it, that there was an early idea where Prentiss was supposed to be queer, but that was ultimately scraped before it ever made it on screen. For context, please remember, this show has been airing for nearly twenty years. It began in 2005, during the highly conservative Bush administration. Queer people didn't have rights in the US, we couldn't get married, we were rarely protected under discrimination laws, and we could even be fired for simply being queer (in some states). Diverse queer representation on screen was extremely limited to things like 'The L Word' and 'Queer as Folk' (both aired on Showtime, so they were behind a paywall. And as far as tLw goes, that show was extremely male-gaze focused and is horrible in nearly all regards if you try to rewatch it now). As far as prime time shows went, queer rep was even more rare. Which is why Emily wasn't queer from the get-go.

Yes, things have changed since 2006 in terms of queer rep on TV. We have a myriad of queer identities represented in TV and film nowadays, which is why I think it's so easy for newer fans to say 'lf she was supposed to be gay anyway, they should just make Emily queer in canon!' I know this is what fuels most fans' demands for Emily being confirmed queer, and I get it, I DO. I would be all for it! However, I do not, in one hundred years, actually believe that is going to happen after they already canonically queer confirmed Tara in S16. The fact we even got ONE queer character is ground-breaking for this show.

It's also worth noting, that in the time between Paget's departure in 2012 and her return in 2016, she became very active on Twitter. This was when more and more fans began asking her about Jemily and after Kirsten's AfterEllen interview, fans also pushed for Paget to address the possibility of Emily being gay. 'Pushed' is actually an understatement for some of the outright harassment she would receive. (AJ received some of this harassment too, but less so because she doesn't use social media ass often) Back then, neither of them replied to these things directly. Yet, no matter what either woman posted, the replies were full of Jemily stans begging for her acknowledgement. (Did you know 'stan' is literally a term coined for stalker fans?) I remember one time AJ's friend was missing and she posted info on her IG about it, you know what the replies were? People asking her about Jemily. It was genuinely sickening.

Within this context, it was no surprise to fans when Emily came back in S12 , she and JJ's friendship was seemingly erased. The two women were rarely on screen together in the late seasons, plus the writers saw fit to even give Emily not only one (Mark in London, but two, on-screen boyfriends for the first time in the entire series. I personally do not think these changes to Emily's character were coincidence, I saw the hellscape of what people would say to AJ and Paget online and I fully believe that upon Paget's return to the show, the showrunners purposely tried to distance JJ and Emily to dissuade the more abusive side of the fanbase.

Can I prove that, no. But it is the only reason I can think of as to why Emily S12+ seemingly didn't care about JJ anymore, despite their deep and meaningful friendship. I mean, they both CROSSED THE WORLD to go rescue each other in prior canon -- but when Emily comes back, they acted like they barely knew each other. This was even more prevalent in S16, when JJ's main storylines all revolved around Will, and Emily barely looked at JJ in the entirety of ten episodes. (Remember how Prentiss didn't even hug JJ after bomb, but she did go hug Luke?)

So, do Paget and AJ earnestly ship Jemily, or are they continuing the long tradition of queerbaiting us? Who fucking knows, not me. But based on the history of this fandom, I think I can make a safe bet. (Interestingly, if you search all of Paget's twitter for the word 'Jemily' [10] she only has 3 direct tweets mentioning the ship. I don't think it's a coincidence that two are within the past few months since they started filming S17 (the other one was a RT of Kirsten (who tagged something Jemily)

This is all to say --

Just because Paget and AJ have publicly talked about Jemily,, this doesn't mean it's ever going to happen on screen. And you know what, THAT'S OKAY!! There has been this constant outcry (after Tara became queer confirmed) of 'Do Emily next' or 'Why wasn't it Emily with a girlfriend!?' and 'Jemily needs to be canon in S17!' -- as if people believe their ships aren't worth anything unless they are canon.

That couldn't be further from the truth! Fandom is built on headcanons and fan interpretations and rare pairs and all types of shippers. Your ship does NOT need to be canon for you to enjoy it. I will ship Jemily forever, no matter what. I don't think there will be some magical queer plot in S17, at best, we might actually get to see Emily/JJ on screen together again and after the train wreck that was S16 -- I'll take whatever I can get.

And hey -- if I am completely wrong, if Erica Messer pulls a Korrasami out of her hat, I will be ecstatic. I will be happy to be proved wrong, but at the same time, I'm not going to lose sleep over it and I'm DEFINITELY not going to go hound the actors about it on social media.

Sources:

[1] 2022 Digital Spy article about the importance of Tara's coming out

[2] 04/18/24 Paget Tweet

[3] 2017 Queerbaiting article from medium.com

[4] 2009 Broken TVGuide link

[4.a] Tumblr quote from the above TVGuide Interview

[5] 2010 Kirsten interview screenrant.com

[6] 2019 AJ Instagram Post

[7] 2020 Paget video on Twitter (via @karasluthqr)

[8] 2015 Kirsten interview AfterEllen.com

[9] 2016 Paget Interview CriminalMindsFans.com

[10] @PagetPaget search 'Jemily'

[ao3cassandraic]

I’m wondering about your thoughts on something I’ve been musing on after S2. How good is Aziraphale’s reading comprehension? How much does he understand subtext and metaphor? Because his behavior this season struck me with the impression that he didn’t really understand the books he collects. He’s clever at puzzle solving, and contains vast knowledge; but he always seems to take things at face value (when he’s not willfully misunderstanding), and refuses to give up black-and-white thinking, which would make it very difficult to analyze texts.

Angels, demons, language, and culture: part 1

You sure ask the difficult ones. (Which is great, I'm totally jazzed about it!)

I delayed answering this ask because it sent me off in a lot of directions:

What is an angel's starting knowledge base?

In contrast, how and what do we humans learn about our world and one another?

Which of these learning methods is not really available to an angel?

What do humans learn from books, fiction especially?

What kinds of information get left implicit in books because authors are humans writing for other humans?

How would an angel fill in those blanks? How would those blanks distort an angel's notion of How Humans and Human Things Work?

What would angels generally and either Aziraphale or Muriel (because yeah, it's hard to have this discussion without thinking about Muriel too) specifically read human-authored fiction for?

I don't have all the answers to the above questions. Not even CLOSE. I happily invite my fellow meta-ists to weigh in on any or all of them!

But let's see what I can tease out. We'll start with factory settings, so to speak.

Angelic vs. human factory settings

(questions 1 through 3)

Angels have (one) language. They have music -- or, at least, they can sing Her praises (likely by rote). At least some, like our Starmaker, have the knowledge to do specific jobs. Note that Aziraphale not only doesn't know how to make stars and nebulas, he's not even clear on what a nebula is. We can safely assume from that that angels don't all possess the same set of knowledge and skills purely by virtue (heh) of being angels.

We don't see, however, how much of what they know is simply an angel's birthright versus how much of it is somehow educated into them. We also don't know how She divvies up necessary knowledge, though I'd think it safe (given most takes on angelology) to guess that angelic rank and intended function are part of Her calculus, perhaps even the whole of it.

What strikes me hardest is that angels seem to be created either as adults or children (which is what I believe the scareable "cherubs" are), and they may well never change that state. The Starmaker is childlike in some ways, but not a child. Likely never was a child! Aziraphale, Before the Beginning, isn't childlike at all; his personality seems pretty close to fully-formed.

And children learn so very, very much. Babies learn so much as babies, while their neuroplasticity is super super plastic! Especially they learn about relating to other beings! (Which the Starmaker is conspicuously Not Real Great at, honestly -- absorbed in the work of creation, the Starmaker does not pick up the feelings Aziraphale is laying down at all.)

Children also learn one OR MORE languages, and that "more" is rather important, because language shapes how we think to some extent (the extent of that extent, and its nature, are objects of fierce debate among linguists and neuroscientists), and different languages shape us differently. Just as Crowley (as plenty of theologians argue) did humanity a favor with the whole knowledge-of-good-and-evil thing, the Tower of Babel (assuming that was a thing that happened in the GOverse; no reason it wouldn't have, I suppose) added a whole lot of nuance and complexity and competing understandings to humanity's sense of itself and its universe.

Exactly how angels and demons manage to speak all human languages (which Crowley indicates they can) isn't clear. If we accept that the Tower of Babel happened, both Heaven and Hell must have had to figure out a way to deal with it.

We do see, however, that angels and demons can be fluent in human languages without being fluent in human thought or human cultures. Gabriel and Sandalphon speak perfect English yet barely know which end of a book is up. Hastur and Ligur can't disentangle ciao/chow. And, I mean, actual food? Fuhgeddaboudit. So I see their linguistic facility as a sort of Douglas Adams Babel fish: it can translate an angel's or demon's thought into the target language, but it can't help an angel or demon think like an actual speaker of that language.

As an example, Gabriel can tell Job and Sitis about their new children, perfectly fluently. His purely-linguistic fluency does not help him understand that they loved their old children, much less why.

This may explain why Aziraphale studied French under M. Rossignol. He perhaps didn't feel he understood how French speakers think, and was interested enough in that to learn the language (as other meta-ists have noted, the language of love!) the human way.

So yeah, if I have a conclusion here it's that angels and demons can seem as off-center as they often do from a human perspective because they wholly missed out on a key period of human brain development.

What they have in its place appears to be... rules. Which is, I think, where I'll take this next.

[potterandpromises]

the LA plot for omitb has the trio in hollywood bc a movie is being made about them and based on the onset pic with their actor counterparts (they were wearing what the trio was wearing in the pilot ep), part of the movie theyre making is set during s1 which theo is an integral part of so most likely there might be a character based on him in the movie too. do you think they'd have theo in s4 in any capacity? id honestly be upset if theyd drop theo the way they dropped oscar

*Spoilers*

I am at least 95% certain Theo will be in at least one episode of season 4. Mostly because they wouldn't have brought him back in season 2, fleshed him out, then brought him back and fleshed him out again in season 3 if they didn't want him around for the long haul. They especially would not have had Mabel move in with him. In other words, the writers seem more invested in his character then they ever were in Oscar's or Lucy's.

The ≈5% is in case there was a scheduling conflict/other issue with James Caverly (which I think is unlikely, just based off of interviews and what I know of his career.) My understanding is that they wrote Oscar out at least in part because of a scheduling conflict, though I'm not actually sure. Or I could maybe see Theo skipping a season if they star-packed the cast so tightly they decided they didn't have time for him. But season 3 had a similar set up with a bunch of new faces and they still made time to have him come in, help out the with case, sweep Mabel off to his apartment and then peace out, so I'm expecting season 4 will likely be similar in that regard.

Side note: I don't think we'll get a Theo and Will story line this season, because of the aforementioned star-packing. Which is too bad! I'm predicting James Caverly and Ryan Broussard will be in another One Killer Question together where they'll talk about being brothers and I will have to silently scream about how we're deprived of seeing them together in the show. One day!

Anyway, as to whether Theo will get a doppelganger, I'm agnostic. He is an important character in season 1, but I don't know that the in-universe OMITB movie will end up getting made, and thus get to the point of the story where Theo would need to be cast/shown (wow, this is getting too meta, I don't know how to write that sentence.) The script leak I saw indicates that the counter-trio will be following our trio to New York, for research, I'd assume. In real life, many adaptations start pre-production and don't end up getting made, so we won't definitely be seeing that adaptation. It's also possible the plot will diverge significantly from the podcast, like the Brozzos reboot, and he won't even be a character. Though the clothing and method acting would suggest that's probably not the case, at least not at first. Again, I'm agnostic as to where that whole thing will end up.

I'm expecting lots of meta comments on Hollywood and writing. Like aging-up Mabel's character so there isn't such an age gap between her and the guys (because audiences "won't believe" their friendship otherwise? for romantic possibilities?) but still not casting an old women, because misogyny. If they do have a Theo in the movie, I wonder if they'll address disability erasure when it's seen as too difficult or not narratively interesting, or the issue of casting abled actors as disabled characters.

Also, and this is a side note to the side note: Selena was seen filming as Mabel in the courtyard while the wedding set was up, wearing a baby blue sweater and mini skirt similar to the one she worn in 2x07. Mabel only wears blue in (or directly before/after) episodes where she's with Theo. Climatically it's about matching his color scheme/apartment, emotionally it's about getting closer to him. Now, this could be a stretch. I've tried to think of ways it could be stretch, like it could be to match someone else's color scheme, I guess. But the pattern is real. So that might put your mind at ease a bit, too.

The too-long-didn't-read of it is that while I think we had real reasons to worry last season, the writers keep committing to keeping him around and Theo has multiple storylines set up for the future. So I wouldn't worry. As for an OMITB movie counterpart, I have no idea, but wouldn't hold my breath.

[karuuhnia]

Okay, I doubt anyone’s ever gonna read this, but I just need to write down my thoughts on Good Omens Season 2. (Beware of spoilers) 

The Characters

First of all, I love, love, LOVE the writing and especially the acting of everyone involved! Both Michael Sheen and David Tennant (and everyone else) gave absolutely stunning performances! I also like that the main cast was a lot smaller than in season 1, so everyone had more time to shine. Great choice! (I did however kinda miss God’s narration and meta commentary).

My favourite new character is Muriel by far. She is like Aziraphale's cute, naive, dorky little sister or niece and I had the biggest smile on my face whenever she was on screen! I hope to see more of her in season 3 (which we probably will since she now runs the bookshop).

What I also liked was that Nina and Maggie don’t just magically fall in love in the end. I mean, they barely know each other and Nina is still in a relationship for most of the season. I liked that they even call out Crowley and Aziraphale for trying to force a romance between them instead of treating them like real humans with free will. (Was that a slight call-out to shippers in fandoms? Who knows lol) I hope they'll find love along the way, but I'm glad they were portrayed as realistic human beings.

Gabriel goes from smug, condescending asshole everyone loved to hate to adorkable himbo and I'm all for it! lol I wasn't in the fandom back in the day, but apparently Gabriel x Beelzebub was a popular ship and I can only imagine how happy the fans must be now that it became canon! I didn't see it coming at all, but it played out really well and didn't come across as forced. I just found it a bit funny and sad that these two fell in love and decided to break away from Heaven and Hell to be together in only a couple of years whereas Crowley and Aziraphale haven't managed to do that in more than 6000 years.

Which brings me to...

The Last Episode

We all know the last 20 minutes of episode 6 were absolutely heart-wrenching, but I wouldn't have it any other way! It was the perfect ending/cliffhanger in all regards and both their decisions make perfect sense. I wouldn't have wanted Crowley and Aziraphale to get their happy end at this point in the story because they're simply not there yet, character-wise. 

Also, then a huge plot point and conflict would miss from the final 3rd season. I live for the angst and the drama and I can't wait for satisfying character development and the ultimate, heartfelt conclusion. (Please, Neil! ;__;)

Character Analysis

Crowley: 

The most interesting things for me were the several hints that Crowley used to be a very high-ranking and powerful angel before he fell (maybe Gabriel’s predecessor?). 

In S2-1 Aziraphale already knows who Angel Crowley is and looks at him with awe and admiration. (In German we have the great expression "jemanden anhimmeln" - roughly meaning sth like "to admire someone as if they came from heaven")

Crowley was part of the designer team of the universe and worked together closely with the higher-ups. He was also entrusted with starting the engine of a quadrant.

He is a creator and visionary who loves the stars, the planets, the whole universe and sees the big picture. He also uses critical thinking and encourages others to do the same.

The miracle he performs with Aziraphale to hide Gabriel’s identity is so strong that Heaven thinks the most powerful of Archangels must have done it. Since Aziraphale hides Gabriel from Hell and Crowley hides him from Heaven, but the alarm only goes off in Heaven, we can assume that Crowley had a bigger part in the miracle.

He can somehow deceive other angels from recognizing him as a demon: Gabriel, Michael & Co. in the Ijob episode and later Muriel when she first comes to observe Aziraphale. 

He can change the weather and cause fire or lightning at will.

He still has access to classified files for dominions or above.

He literally brings the guy who was killed by the demon horde back to life like it's nothing.  Short update: Neil recently said that Mr. Brown wasn't actually dead but only held captive during the battle. Well, Crowley at least healed Mr. Brown's injuries and removed his traumatic memories.

He is the only one in a room full of high-ranking angels who recognizes Metatron as what he is.

But it’s also implied that Crowley may have memory loss after he was kicked out of heaven because the angels did to him something similar to what they want to do to Gabriel now.

He doesn't remember working on the universe with Saraqael.

He remembers being in the Great War, but not battling right beside Furfur.

He vaguely remembers discussing gravity with the other angels, but he doesn’t remember why it was a good idea.

He seems to know exactly what the amnestic Gabriel is going through (the empty house metaphor, the physical pain of trying to remember etc.)

Crowley is hiding a huge trauma and it becomes really obvious how hurt and lonely he really is. 

In S1-5 we learn Crowley was tortured by being thrown into a pool of boiling sulfur, just because he dared to ask a few questions and make suggestions. Heaven is cruel beyond all measure! (But because of their chronic lack of communication I doubt Aziraphale knows exactly how much Crowley suffered both physically and mentally.)

At the end of the Ijob episode in season 2 he laughs at the distraught Aziraphale because he knows what it’s really like to have fallen. The thought of someone like Aziraphale going to Hell is ridiculous to him. And he wouldn’t wish something so terrible on anybody anyway, especially not Aziraphale. He knows first hand what Heaven does to “traitors”.

He’s been tortured and kicked out of Heaven, but he doesn’t resent creation itself like the other demons do, quite the contrary. He often goes out of his way to help humans, even if it means punishment from Hell. 

Because both Heaven and Hell are cruel and toxic, he decides he doesn’t want to be on any side in this eternal and pointless conflict. This, of course, leads him on a very, very lonely road.

Maybe this is why he (consciously or unconsciously) latches onto Aziraphale so much: He notices Aziraphale’s own doubts about the heavenly plan really early on. So he constantly encourages him to question his beliefs and own morals. 

I don’t think he does it for overly selfish reasons, he just wants to show someone else that not everything is black and white and that Heaven’s plans are not always as good as they want to come across. But of course he also doesn’t want to be all alone anymore.

Aziraphale:

Aziraphale is, first and foremost, a guardian, a protector. But we can’t forget he is also a warrior and a leader. 

In the beginning he was wielding a flaming sword, in S1-5 he is supposed to lead the heavenly troops into battle, in 1941 we learn he owns and knows how to use a gun. In S1-6 he is willing to shoot the Antichrist (who is in the body of a child I might add!!), but Madame Tracey stops him.

He likes spending his time helping others and indulging in his quirky little hobbies, but if he needs to, he steps up and becomes a leader (e.g. the stand-off in S2-6 when the demons and angels shout at each other and he takes control of the situation).

Aziraphale embodies many positive core values: Love, loyalty, politeness, kindness, forgiveness - which sometimes lets him come across as naive. He is also a big people pleaser. 

In Season 2 we once again see how much Aziraphale values and loves humanity (more than we deserve tbh). His heart is so big and full of love for them. He is his best self when he can do good for humans and he thrives off it. The thought of innocent people, especially children dying is really the only thing that ever convinces him to go against Heaven’s rules/orders (seen in the entirety of season 1 and in season 2 in the Ijob and graverobber episodes). 

But because of these core values he sometimes acts pretty holier-than-thou and hypocritical: He tends to try to make others do the dirty work so that he can wash his hands of responsibility.

We also learn that he sometimes abuses his heavenly powers to get what he wants. I mean, organizing a ball itself is a very wholesome idea, but he literally manipulates everyone’s clothes, feelings and behaviours, making them do or feel things they wouldn’t normally do in this situation. Nina is the one affected by this the most: She just got dumped and is sad and angry, but Aziraphale’s magic doesn’t allow her to feel those very valid emotions. He only means to do good, but ultimately he forces his will on the participants of the ball. And he doesn’t even realize it! This is not okay. 

There is this one very meaningful line in Season 1 where Aziraphale says: "You go too fast for me, Crowley". And it really shows in every aspect of his personality and character design. 

Aziraphale always wears similar, familiar clothes and barely changes his hairstyle over the centuries. Crowley on the other hand looks completely different in each time period we see him. Crowley lives in the present, goes with the time, Aziraphale lives in the past, can’t catch up. 

No matter how often Heaven disappoints and mistreats him, he still desperately clings to the idea that their plans and institution are good at their core. Even after more than 6000 years Aziraphale is still so obsessed with the idea of good vs. evil, Heaven vs. Hell and to an extent even Aziraphale vs. Crowley. Yes, the two have become visibly closer and more familiar with each other since season 1, but Aziraphale still thinks in the good side vs. the bad side ("my people" vs. "your people", “Of course you said no to Hell, you [not “THEY”!!] are the bad guys!”) absolute, whereas Crowley has distanced himself from both sides long ago and only wants to be with Aziraphale.

Besides their lack of communication this is their biggest problem: Aziraphale can’t accept Crowley for what he is - or is not anymore. 

First there is some sort of resentment and caution towards this fallen angel, of course. But Aziraphale wouldn’t be Aziraphale if his big loving heart held onto those feelings for long. He quickly sees that Crowley isn’t purely evil as demons are supposed to be. He likes and WANTS to see the good in everything and everyone.

Aziraphale begins to enjoy Crowley’s company over the centuries and eventually trusts him completely. But due to his indoctrination by Heaven he still unconsciously believes that Crowley, as an evil demon, is beneath him, Aziraphale, who is a righteous and morally superior angel. And while he has compassion and sympathy for Crowley and his terrible fate - he also somewhat pities him. (And being pitied is certainly nothing Crowley wants.)

This is the reason he is so incredibly happy about the thought that he could give Crowley his angel status back. As sad as it is to see how little Aziraphale understands Crowley after all those millenia, it feels completely in-character why he wants Crowley to be an angel again. He sees that there is still so much good left of the former angel he admired so much. He witnessed how brilliant Crowley used to be, an angel who loved creating and gazed at the universe with such exaltation. How happy he was, how bright, how enthusiastic in what he was doing! 

This plays right into Metatron’s hands in the last episode. 

Early in the season Crowley is offered a huge promotion in Hell if he finds Gabriel. And Crowley doesn’t even consider it for a single second - even though he hates Gabriel (He still clearly remembers the "Shut your stupid mouth and die" and all the other horrible things). When Aziraphale is offered the new position as Supreme Archangel he hesitates at first, but as soon as Metatron suggests reinstating Crowley to angelic status, he agrees in delight. Aziraphale thinks now they wouldn't have to be separated, they could even be together officially and it wouldn’t be reprehensible anymore because they’d now both be angels, both on the “good” side. They’d finally be equals and could even do good together, change the system.

So of course, from Aziraphale’s perspective, making Crowley an angel again would solve all of their problems (or what he perceives as problems). He, Aziraphale, wouldn't have to have a bad conscience anymore for spending time with someone who should be a mortal enemy. He could finally “fix” Crowley, make him truly good again. But of course it backfires horribly.

Their relationship:

As much as I loved the funny banter, the wholesome and adorable slice-of-life moments, this season made one thing really obvious to me: There is a big power-imbalance (for the lack of a better word) between them in their relationship. 

As far as we've seen, Crowley is almost always the one who gives, Aziraphale is almost always the one who takes. When Aziraphale wants something (e.g. protect Gabriel, take the Bentley to Edinburgh, have Crowley take care of the bookshop in his absence, organize a dance etc.), Crowley initially refuses - but in the end always gives in to what Aziraphale wants. 

Aziraphale is very outgoing, has a whole little community with the vendors in his street, actively mingles with humans and has hobbies (reading, collecting books, eating at fine restaurants, listening to music, practicing magic, going on little detective adventures etc.). What I’m saying is: Aziraphale has a life for himself, even after becoming a persona-non-grata in Heaven.

Crowley on the other hand... He either goes along with what Aziraphale does/wants or sleeps in his car (and takes care of his plants I guess). That's pretty much it. He doesn’t get any new tasks from Hell and only communicates with Shax on occasion when she brings him his mail or random news. He is so isolated from Hell, Heaven and Earth that literally his only reason for existing at this point seems to be Aziraphale. He practically has no ambitions or life of his own. Aziraphale always lets Crowley be his rescuer because it makes Crowley happy. But isn’t it sad that Crowley is only ever happy when he can protect and be around Aziraphale? Crowley’s whole life revolves around him and nothing else. This is not healthy!

Think back to season 1 when the bookshop burns down and Crowley thinks he’s lost Aziraphale forever. He is a mess, he screams and cries and breaks down. It was only for a couple of hours, but he’s experienced what a life without his one true friend is like and the loss hits him so hard, it hurts even us as an audience! 

And the worst thing: I don't think either of them really notice all that - because they don't TALK! Nina and Maggie were so right: The two idiots never really talk to each other about their true thoughts and feelings. 

There is so much miscommunication and misunderstanding of each other's needs because of that:

Aziraphale is internally conflicted about what he wants (be a good angel of Heaven vs. be with the enemy, an "evil" demon).

Crowley knows exactly what he wants (to be with and ONLY with Aziraphale), but he can’t muster up the courage to say it. After all, the last time he spoke freely about his thoughts, he was branded a traitor, tortured and cast out by Heaven.

So they constantly fail to find a solution that both of them are happy with:

Both in Season 1 and 2 Crowley asks Aziraphale to leave everything behind and run away with him, not acknowledging Aziraphale's undying love for and loyalty to humankind. And he gets rejected for it both times.

In S2-6 Aziraphale asks Crowley to come to Heaven with him, not acknowledging how Heaven has hurt Crowley, not accepting him for who he is. Instead he wants to fix him. Over the years he has also become so used to Crowley always being there for him, he takes his help for granted. So when Crowley actually stands his ground for once and refuses to do what Aziraphale wants, it shocks Aziraphale to his core. He’s never been rejected like that.

They aren’t humans, they are both ageless, sex- and genderless, asexual, otherworldly beings, so human relationship standards don’t apply to them. We can also see that in Gabriel’s and Beelzebubs relationship. Their love is something emotional, not physical. They don’t kiss or even hug, they just look at each other and sing "Everyday" - their personal love song - before they go off together. 

Crowley and Aziraphale have spent so much time away from Heaven and Hell and lead almost human-like lives on Earth. So in a desperate, last ditch effort Crowley chooses to show his emotions in a very physical, human way, a way that beings like them wouldn’t normally do. But it’s his very last chance to make Aziraphale understand. So he kisses him. It’s an angry, sad, messy, utterly unpleasant kiss, it’s painful to look at. 

Aziraphale doesn’t kiss back, his hands are erratic. He is so torn. His heart and his brain tell him two different things. He needs Crowley, but Crowley refuses to come to Heaven with him. 

And what is the first thing that comes to Aziraphale’s mind after the kiss? “I forgive you!” Because that’s what he’s good at, right? Forgiveness. He told Maggie that in the first episode of the season. I don’t know what exactly he wants to forgive and I’m not sure he knows himself. 

When they part they’re both in emotional agony, they both feel betrayed. Crowley storms out, but still waits outside his car. He still has this tiny bit of hope left that Aziraphale will come with him after all. He only gets in and drives off once he sees the doors to Heaven close behind Aziraphale and Metatron.

Metatron’s plan

I read some theories that Metatron poisoned Aziraphale’s coffee, but I really, REALLY hope that this isn’t true. It would take away all the gravity of Aziraphale’s decision if he is just drugged to go along with Metatron and comes to his senses once the drug wears off. That would be boring and lame!

I also don’t think that Crowley and Aziraphale switch appearances again as they did in Season 1: Clearly Metatron would be able to see through the disguise, he is much more powerful than the angels after all.

No, I think Metatron cleverly manipulates Aziraphale by giving him the opportunity (or rather the illusion thereof) to make changes in Heaven with Crowley at his side. Aziraphale is so convinced that Crowley would be full of joy and gratitude at the prospect of becoming an angel again. He once again fails to understand that this is the exact opposite of what Crowley wants.

Metatron on the other hand appears to know Crowley much better in that regard. He remembers how powerful Crowley is and how far he fell for asking the wrong questions. He loathes Crowley and would never want him in a position of power in Heaven ever again. So from the outset Metatron knows that Crowley would not agree to become an angel again, that’s why he makes that specific offer to Aziraphale in the first place. It’s his clever way to make the two fall out with each other, to separate them and still win Aziraphale over for his plan.

I just wonder what his real goal is here. Michael or Uriel seem like a much more logical choice for Supreme Archangel if he really only wants to go through with the next Armageddon. That can’t be everything, right? He knows that Aziraphale actively worked on preventing the first Armageddon. Why would he think Aziraphale would now be on board for the second one? Metatron can’t underestimate Aziraphale that much, right? He’s way too cunning to believe that Aziraphale is weak-minded and gullible.

I mean, I’m not too versed in religious mythology, but doesn’t the Second Coming of Christ mean Judgement Day and that God’s kingdom takes over the world after smiting all enemies? That doesn’t sound like something Aziraphale wants (especially the smiting of all enemies which would include Crowley). So why does he still agree to go with Metatron after learning about this??? 

Does Aziraphale think he can outsmart Metatron and all the other high-ranking angels and avert the end of the world when he’s in a position of power? I mean, he is intelligent, he must have a plan after hearing about the Second Coming, right? That would at least somewhat explain his very weird and uncanny smile during the credit roll. I just don’t know what to think about all this.

My best guess is that Aziraphale will first try to undermine Metatron and speak to the Almighty Themselves (something he already wanted to do in season 1 but was denied), and also to make positive reforms in Heaven. But Metatron sees this coming of course. To make Aziraphale his obedient puppet he will simply threaten to erase Crowley from the Book of Life should Aziraphale ever dare to step out of line.

Crowley never told Aziraphale about what he and Muriel found out in Heaven - that Michael & Co. were actively planning Armageddon 2.0 before Gabriel went renegade. But now Crowley can’t do anything to help prevent it because he knows that Aziraphale is completely at Metatron’s mercy.

I’m dying to see how this will all play out, but at this moment I’m just confused and unsure about all of this. 

So what do I want/expect from season 3?

I want Crowley to overcome his trauma, his pain, his trust issues, all the rejection and loss he faced. I want him to be able to be himself: Free, loved, respected, cared for, accepted. I want him to live a happy life with, but not live FOR Aziraphale. I want him to make other meaningful connections. Maybe with Muriel? She is the only other kind and good-hearted angel we see in the show and a friendship would benefit both of them greatly in my opinion. 

I want Aziraphale to fight for Crowley, to protect him for once. When they meet again I want him to do the stupid apology dance for three hours. I want him to finally accept Crowley as his best friend, his soulmate, his true love, his equal. I want him to take Crowley’s glasses off, look him in the eyes and then be the one to lean in for a kiss. A kiss that isn’t forceful and desperate, but heartfelt and genuine.

As for the plot of season 3… I’d really like to see a flashback of the often mentioned Great War between the angels and soon-to-be-demons. I’d also like characters from season 1 to make a cameo appearance if possible. Apart from that I don’t have any predictions or big ideas (as I said before, still very confused about Metatron’s plan). 

I will put my faith in Neil Gaiman and Wait and See (TM) what he ultimately comes up with. :’)

[encrucijada]

PÍA RAMBLES #8

you might have seen this post or this wip intro. i'm here to talk about this book because i think it's really cool @teddywriting and i wrote almost 40k words by simply playing dolls with our ocs.

(yes i will be using screencaps of before sunrise, 1995 for any and all subsequent updates regarding this project thank you very much)

what's weird about this book in particular is that, despite maripaz and theo taking up way too much space in my brain, it's also incredibly hard to talk about them?? i know every single detail about them down to what they might order to eat at a mcdonald's, and yet i feel no one outside from teddy and i really knows these characters. their lore is weird and a bit convoluted and explaining it feels like i'm trying to explain the plot of a television show with like 18 seasons of character development you just had to be there to witness to understand even a fraction of it.

but first some basics about the actual book

title: babylon boy (book 1 of the home habitat duology)

genre: literary fiction

category: i say adult because there will be no censoring of topics but in this first installment our protagonists are around eighteen years old. you might consider that ya but i wouldn't

a small summary: having independently run away from home for their own reasons, theo and maripaz meet while homeless on the streets and form an alliance of convenience to survive. while theo vehemently denies the drug addiction he’s nursing, maripaz tries to deal with the way both want and revulsion seem to exist in her at the same time. falling in love is probably the easiest thing they do.

teddy and i are co-authoring, as in we both write the words. they will be primarily working on theo's chapters and i will be primarily working on maripaz's chapters but we'll both be involved in fully crafting this story.

talking about your book is hard when all that happens in it is character work so even whether someone gets sick at one point feels like a spoiler you want people to be surprised by.

we created mari and theo in 2020 on a whim. i can't even remember what prompted it exactly. we wanted a new pair of characters to play with and we decided to make two assholes to bicker and be mean to each other. this iteration saw three reincarnations before we put the characters on the shelf and almost resigned ourselves to them being a miss... if not for one important detail... i really, really believed they should have kissed. this first version of them would eventually be known as the homeless au.

looking back it's Wild thinking about how different mari and theo used to be. we moved onto new aus to play around with, landing on a superhero-type beat that became their new canon for a while. we had fantasy and sci-fi and musicians and hadestown and the raven cycle (that last one did so much for us it's insane). every new thing we tried shaped them more and more until they were unrecognisable from their original versions. one day i really want to go through their threads from start to finish and look at that change in real time.

there was a new thesis to their characters and it was no longer "what if two awful guys with issues were forced together and tried to bite each other's heads off". instead we were looking at two characters that through every new incarnation became more sincere and gentle. they had meta-narrative character development.

(every new au also gave us more characters to populate the world including but not limited to theo's twin sister, maripaz's seven siblings, alex, philip, a whole lot of parental figures, a quirky cast of friends... but i'll talk about them some other time)

then i did it again. in the 2.0 version of the homeless au there was one scene i loved beyond words where an argument between our two protagonists resulted in maripaz punching theo right on the mouth. when she tried to swing a second time he stopped her hand and warned her that if she wanted to hit him he would hit back. they fought and the scene ended. i said to teddy: they should have kissed. we laughed and imagined how homeless au would go now that their characters had changed so much. we started thinking about it more and more until we were moving the pieces of their cinematic universe around to fit this new idea... and suddenly we had plot for a book that would revamp that original homeless au... and a sequel too! (but more on that second one another time)

teddy started a rp thread of what came right after the opening scene of babylon boy, where theo and maripaz would shoplift and he would steal the angel necklace she wore (<- this is important)... and we just kept going... and going. we'd already had a few keys scenes to work towards, one those being that punching scene that started it all, as well as the ending. teddy added two new scenes we began calling the halo scene and the church scene, and we moved something we called the pool scene into this book from another au. we just had to fill in the blanks... fill in the blanks we did.

these right here are the names i gave each individual thread of the roleplay-ification of babylon boy. their purpose is not so much to be chapter titles but to make specific scenes easy to find for future reference. though obviously i had to be a bit artistic about it.

i don't know if babylon boy will have chapter titles, and if they will have some sort of theme going on (usually i like just putting two words together to create some imagery). "angel face" is probably what i would title chapter 1, but i also hesitate on that decision because i think i would like to save angel for later.

these threads are less of a draft and more the skeleton of a draft, that's why i called it a draft 0. its purpose is to give teddy and i direction and reading through them i already know how i want to shift the timeline and how i'd rewrite some of the scenes to make them a lot better, but it did give us a great cause and effect look of things. the way teddy and i approach our roleplay threads is more loose than what i do with @on-the-river-lethe (with whom i'm currently roleplaying draft 1 of our book lupine trail and also a giant hunger games au). fluffy and i write responses between 1k-4k words, they are basically chapters. teddy and i instead do a quick call and response, mostly focused on dialogue, we build on top of each other and neither of us really knows where a thread will go when we start.

there are no actual non-roleplay words written for babylon boy thus far. teddy is in charge of chapter 1 as we open with theo's pov but we are both busy or focused on other things. right now we're enjoying the playing around stage of the process (which i don't see going away even once we start seriously writing, i know for a fact we'll probably do various roleplay-type passes to babylon boy).

you've probably noticed the christian imagery is rampant here. it happened kind of by accident and the already mentioned halo scene is entirely to blame for it. like i said, teddy and i have this very "yes, and," approach to storytelling together where we kinda build on top of what the other puts down. teddy gave me the description of one (1) scene where theo sees a halo of light around maripaz's head and i decided "well, this is now i thing that is here to stay". church scene really brought it all together and there is a scene in book 2 adeptly nicknamed the angel scene that is kind of the culmination of this.

the imagery is almost exclusive to theo's pov as mari is more the subject of the imagery than the one pushing it forward. teddy and i will be doing our most to fill this book with visuals: characters lined with stained glass windows, lights shaped like hearts, signs and graffiti that say meaningful stuff.

babylon boy, as the title suggests, is more theo's book. both he and maripaz have meaningful arcs but theo's is really at the core of it, mari takes centre stage in book 2 (titled gossamer girl). i think i talked about this somewhere before but the titles just kind of... happened. gossamer was relevant for that superhero au and it's just a word i really adore so i wanted to use it on the title. you can't go wrong with alliteration so gossamer girl it is. and because i love when books in a series match i had to do something with boy. like gossamer i adore babylon for some reason, and so we got babylon boy. i wasn't sure about that one because while gossamer girl made sense with the theme, what did "babylon boy" even mean, exactly? teddy came in clutch and analysed the title for me. they connected it to theo's drug addiction and now i can't think of any two titles that are more perfect for this series.

like i said, there are no actual words written for this book so sadly i cannot share any excerpts. but i will share

Festival was very much the result of teddy and i having just watched before sunrise, 1995

we watched before sunrise, 1995 because the mannerisms of the two leads reek of maripaz and theo

"until a miracle happens" became a recurring thing said in the draft and it wrecked me

Our Fears is probably my favourite thread both thematically and visually. followed closely by Church Angels, though that one is mostly visually

The Pool is the longest thread with about 90 responses and all of it is beautiful. i would probably consider it the companion to Our Fears

"mutual pining they're both just idiots"

the closing image is probably my favourite one of the book

the core themes are very much trust, love, and communal help. we've got such an array of npcs who simply... help. i love the human race.

i'll probably do another update before we start properly writing talking about maripaz and theo as characters specifically. a bit of a crash course on who they are, really.

anyway. i'm giving you a golden star if you read all of that ⭐ do ask me or teddy about this story!! we'd be happy to talk about it. or even just about the characters.

cheers, pía

[eldrai]

I’ve been reading lots of stuff about autistic Hotch. How do you think Hotch stims? Are there any gifs/examples from episodes?

OKAY so this is going to be a long list because I just went back through the episodes I've seen up to specifically looking for examples! But thank you for asking. I've been meaning to collect examples somewhere.

(I'll preface this with saying that everyone stims and just because I mention something here doesn't mean anyone is automatically autistic because they do that too.)

The main thing I can think of is what I very descriptively call "the hand thing" he does.

This is probably the clearest example of it in a gif I could find. What I mean is the way he rubs his thumb over the ends of his fingers. I see it as a fairly subtle way to stim and it tends to come up mostly when he's either thinking or stressed. That's the main thing I've picked up on because he does it quite a lot; I haven't gone over the earlier episodes specifically yet - only skimmed certain parts based on the incidences of it I found going through screencaps from @masterwords - it seems most prevalent in the earlier seasons.

A few more examples - they don't all have the actual motion in them but you can see his fingers curled up like that. He also brings his hand up near his face somewhat often, again usually when he's thinking.

He also does it a ton while walking and standing in general. Some more screenshots (thanks again @masterwords)

Two occasions stick out to me, both when he was distressed or highly worried at least. First is in Omnivore (4x18). It isn't strictly the thumb-over-the-fingers but it is similar, with his hand balled up and almost hiding his face at first.

And the second I really like because we get the hand stim very clearly but also rocking! It's in 2x08, when Derek refuses to step away from the lady with a bomb under her car. Please ignore the choppy editing and audio lol I just needed to show this:

Here we also see the same thing he does in the above gif of 4x18 - the teeth grinding. I think that's only when he's under a fair bit of distress though.

I've been keeping track of it from now on partly because one day I'm going to compile everything into one absurdly long meta. So I've undoubtedly missed many times and my timings might be a little off but here's some if you want to see examples:

LDSK - 11:23

3x15 - 3:00

1x08 - bomb + rocking

2x15 -

5x03 - start + middle

7x07 - tapping

3x12 - 6min

3x11 - 22min

2x23 - 6min + 30min

2x19 - 39min

2x08 - 31min + earlier

2x05 - 29min

2x02 - 37min

1x21 - 30min

1x16 - 17min

4x18 - after bus

9x06 - 24min with pen

9x08 - 8min 10s

9x09 -5min 30s, 7:57, 22:40

9x11 - 29:46

9x13 - 6:55

9x14 - 4:40, 29:50

As you can see, it's the most noticeable for me in the early seasons. 9x06 was around when I started keeping track as I watch, not retrospectively, for context.

Not all of these are the hand thing! Some are things like when he picks up a pen he tends to keep it in hand even when he's not actually writing anything, just slightly fiddling with it constantly. And again that's nowhere near JUST an autistic thing but I notice it in addition to the main hand thing.

Another thing is, mostly when he's anxious and holding something like a phone, he'll tap his fingers lightly against it. I have a clip of him somewhere on my blog doing it in 7x07.

There's also what he does with his hands when he isn't stimming that's interesting to me.

Hotch spends a lot of time with his arms either crossed or his hands in his pockets. Often the hand thing and the crossed arms happen at the same, where he'll have his right arm across his chest and with his left running his thumb over his fingers.

I find it really interesting because I read that as trying not to stim. Because if his hands are in his pocket, he can't. If he's got his arms folded, he can't. I'd imagine it fits well with him and his backstory. He's quite reserved in general so it makes sense he wouldn't want to stim very openly even if it's a subtle thing, and then you add in the implications from 1x08 and it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine he was discouraged, whether consciously or not, not to.

Then again, it could also simply be a comfort thing to do something with his hands rather than not stimming. Could be counted as stimming itself - something like pressure.

But in order of most to least frequent, the canon stimming I see from him is

The hand thing

Fidgeting with pens, etc.

Teeth grinding

Rocking

[stagefoureddiediaz]

I'm not sure who to ask, but you always seem happy to answer questions, so I'm sending this your way.

I'm "newish" to the fandom. Never really kept up with spoilers and metas and things like that. So, I'm curious if you could tell me: Has the buddie speculation always been like this? Like, it just seems like the people promoting the show are really pushing thoughts to connect to Buddie happening.

And it's fun and exciting. Don't get me wrong, but I guess I'm just wondering how prepared I should be to not get my hopes up?

Love your blog, and I hope you're doing well ❤️

Hey Nonnie

I'm so sorry its taken so long to get round to answering this ask. I am always happy to answer asks and I'm so glad you sent this my way - even if I'm not sure if I'm the best person to answer it!

firstly welcome to the fandom - I hope you enjoy being a part of it with us!

in answer to your actual question, it depends on if you mean the promo team or if you mean the teams making the show - as in the script writers, set, props and wardrobe departments etc.

If you mean the former, things in terms of promotion aren't really that much different from pre season 6, we've had a bit more from cast members other than Oliver this season than last (they let Ryan out of his cage a little bit for starters!!) , but its not really been that much different to before.

If you are talking about the teams making the show then yes they have stepped up their game considerably this season. A lot of people rat on Kristen Riedel as showrunner, which I think is grossly unfair -things might've been a bit bumpy in transition when she took over -(I personally think she tried to take too much on by writing, directing and being showrunner, but she realised this and stepped back in order to do right by the show and that says a huge amount about her) but actually we are getting a lot more tying up of loose ends and making use of things in canon that wouldn't have happened under Tim - KR is a master of making use of what canon has already put in place to build on the story and flesh out characters far more than we see in a lot of shows.

It is important to note that the showrunner has final say about pretty much everything that we see on screen, about what is being put out there - if KR didn't want the step up in buddie related metaphors such as the couch then we wouldn't be seeing it on our screens so the fact we are seeing it is telling and there really isn't any other way to read it other than the intention is there from the show for Buddie to go canon - slow burns are just that a slow burn - we're not going to get it all given to us in 2 episodes - that would be a diservice to the characters and to the work the show has been doing. They started the build up for this at the beginning of season 3 (I remain convinced that it wasn't part of the plan in season 2, just a happy accident that they decided to play around with a bit in the later part of the season to see if it had legs or if it was just a bit of a flash in the pan) and there has been a very purposeful build up since then.

KR and the PR department are not going to explicitly say 'oh yes Buck and Eddie are endgame' in interviews - that would spoil the journey and they are never going to do that. I keep saying it , and others do to, Buddie going canon is huge - it will literally be the first queer romance slow burn on television that has been done with intent and given the same amount of care and consideration as a heterosexual slow burn on any other show and there is absolutely no way they are going to ruin the build up or the moment it happens - they want us to be kept guessing until it happens - that is good storytelling, they want us to still be surprised when it happens because even if we know its going to happen we don't know how or exactly when.

This show is incredibly good at taking us in one direction before changing tack and misdirecting us for a little bit. None of us were quite prepared for just how badly Buck was going to deal with his Everest sized mountain of trauma -we knew he was traumatised and we knew he needed to deal with it, but not a single person saw just how badly it was going to play out (or how much it was going to hurt us when it happened), but we do know that the show likes happy endings and likes to show healing so however bad it might be right now, Buck will come out the other side a better person who has had some major growth and ready - ready for Buddie canon - because he wasn't there yet - we all knew that!

I am totally prepared to be wrong, and feel free to come at me with knives if I am, but there has been too much intentional build up this season (and even last season which was building us up to where we are now as well) for things to go in any direction other than Buddie - we just have to trust the show and the process and enjoy the ride because I have no doubt its gonna throw us another curveball or two on the way but when we get there its going to just be so epically good!

Sorry I think I went of on a bit of a ramble 😳😳😳 but I hope it was worth the read! I'm always here to answer questions!

[watchingspnagain]

Rewatching The Real Ghostbusters

Welcome to “In Which Dean Gets Hangry and Clenches His Butt Cheeks, Sam’s a Better Boyfriend Than God, and the Boys Go Meta: A Supernatural Rewatch Blog” with Lor and Mace!

Up today, s5e9: The Real Ghostbusters.

Whatsherbucket (who is now, apparently, sort of Chuck’s girlfriend), calls the boys with an emergency, but when they show up at the hotel, they discover it was a ruse to get them to participate in a LARPing convention based on the Supernatural books. They find themselves surrounded by people dressed up as and pretending to be Sam and Dean, plus people in monster costumes. Chuck’s there, too, of course, although he’s not having a good time (stage fright, plus girlfriend trouble - WHB is still hung up on Sammy). The boys are sort of confused, and very horrified, and pretty darn angry. And then people start dying, for realsies. A couple of the LARPers end up helping them, sort of, to find the ghosts responsible and dispose of them, and the boys come a little bit to terms with the idea of others seeing their lives as enviable. Chuck promises not to write any more books, and WHB turns out to be an unexpected source of quality info: she knows who has The Colt.

Below is a log of our real-time reactions as we watched. Remember that there may be spoilers for any part of SPN’s 15-season run here. Note also that the nature of our conversation is adult and thus it may contain adult language and themes.

 [and we begin:]

Lor:

I hate Chuck but I NEED that jacket

   Mace:

Dean’s eyeroll

   Lor:

I'm with Dean on the eyeroll

  

 Mace:

HAHAHA

   Lor:

I enjoy this ep but Becky makes me want to put a swizzlestick in my brain

   Mace:

HAHAHAHA YEP

   Lor:

OMG Sam's little startle at the scarecrow

   Mace:

omg Sam getting startled by the scarecrow

HAHAHAHA OMG

   Lor:

LOLOLOL

   Mace:

were there actual conventions going on by this time?

Lor:

I thiiiink so?

   Mace:

because HILARIOUS

   Lor:

YES

the boys' reactions. i love it

   Mace:

YESYESYES

   Lor:

omg Dean looking at Sam

   Mace:

HAHAHAHA

   Lor:

"IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE BOOKS DON'T READ EM, FRITZ"

   Mace:

YEAH, FRITZ

“SWEET LORD YES” HAHAHAHA

   Lor:

lol

 “for food and shelter?"

   Mace:

fuck you, Chuck

RIGHT?

   Lor:

I'd feel bad for him if I hadn't seen the rest of the show

   Mace:

EXACTLY

   Lor:

"leave this to the grownups" Dean, honey. come with me, we're gonna get cookies

   Mace:

SNORK

   Lor:

Dean is DONE but he also wouldn't mind the gift card to Sizzler

   Mace:

Dean’s into the sizzler card

HAHAHAHA

   Lor:

LOLOLOLOL

OMG the low voices with the dudes

   Mace:

YES

   Lor:

"how'm I supposed to vanish?"

I love the meta

Mace:

it’s pretty clever

Lor:

this is two meta eps in a row

   Mace:

they’re softening us up for the hard shit on the way

   Lor:

YEP

"but you seem different"

   Mace:

uhhuh

   Lor:

"I don't have time to play Star Wars, guys" look, Mr. Meanie

   Mace:

HA

“you have no idea"

   Lor:

"off limits to nerds" He's funny and it annoys me that he's funny because he's a jerk

   Mace:

HA

he deals with the public. I’m willing to cut him some slack

   Lor:

HA! FAIR

"if it's just me, I look stupid" and then his boyfriend's eyebrow raise

Mace:

YES

these two are adorable

   Lor:

"stay in character" and all he does is lower his voice haaaaahahahahaha

YES

   Mace:

YES

omg their gleeful giggles and smiles

   Lor:

YES

   Mace:

okay ew

   Lor:

right?

I hate scalping stuff

   Mace:

yeah

   Lor:

ew, Becky

Mace:

yup

   Lor:

Dean does NOT like it when people go after kids

   Mace:

he does not

   Lor:

"give me the map, chuckles" "you're the chuckles, chuckles" LOLOLOL

   Mace:

omg Sam really wanted to say “cool it” HAHAHA

HAHAHAHA

   Lor:

YES

they're Rufus and Bobby, omg

   Mace:

YES

Dean. Don’t yuck their yum

   Lor:

yeah

but also: FUCK 327

   Mace:

yeah

Lor:

"i don't think they care because they're FICTIONAL CHARACTERS"

   Mace:

HA

   Lor:

"you wanna win the game, right?" he's so snarky

   Mace:

he really is

   Lor:

someone needs to feed him

   Mace:

he does seem a bit hangry

   Lor:

right?

   Mace:

aw, he paid for their drinks

   Lor:

I never noticed before they repeated the pouring the shot... shot and first it was Dean and then it was the dude playing Dean

YES

   Mace:

cool

“screw you very much"

Lor:

HAHAHA

"i'd say no" OH JUST WAIT, CHUCK

   Mace:

right?!

   Lor:

gratitude and a sandwich

   Mace:

HAHAHA

“sigh” HAHAHAHA

   Lor:

OMG FRITZ read something else

   Mace:

I kind of love Fritz

   Lor:

i do too honestly

   Mace:

welp bye Fritz

   Lor:

poor Fritz

   Mace:

poor Fritz indeed

   Lor:

"how do you feel about angels?" ONE OF THEM SHOULD BE IN MORE EPISODES

   Mace:

HAHAHA YES

   Lor:

"just give her the puppydog thing, okay?"

   Mace:

YAS

aw, these guys are ADORABLE

   Lor:

YES

   Mace:

Dean, don’t call a grown woman sweetheart

   Lor:

omg he called her sweetheart

   Mace:

HAHA

   Lor:

LOLOLOL

there is one man who's allowed in my book, and it's Dean Winchester. everyone else is on notice

because he's DEAN

   Mace:

YEP  

I assume people have made much of the virginity anecdote and Chuck being god?

   Lor:

I... don't know

I know a lot has been made of him later claiming to have had both boyfriends and girlfriends

   Mace:

i don’t remember that! Ha!

   Lor:

omg Barnes and Damien believing in ghosts but not Dean

   Mace:

YES and Dean’s eye crinkle when he smiles at them

   Lor:

YAS

"who wouldn't want that?"

his reaction is so WEIRD

Mace:

“howdy partners” oh Dean. relax your butt cheeks

   Lor:

HAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

   Mace:

omg Sammy don’t make me smack you upside

   Lor:

lol

   Mace:

CROWLEY

   Lor:

omg Sam's face when she says didn't you read the book

   Mace:

CROOOOOOWWWWLLLEEEEEYYYYY

   Lor:

YAAAAAAAAAAAS

   Mace:

it’s about ding dang time

omg that Dean smile SHIT

   Lor:

YES

"it's not jumping the shark if you never come back down" haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha

   Mace:

SNORK!!!

[raayllum]

I remember starting the show because my friend told me about Callum and Rayla and how cute they were together. But after binge watching all 5 seasons, I just feel like the writers don’t really give a damn about them, in many ways, compared to other couples. But, to be fair, I have lots of issue with the writing. But, to me, the primary idea was to make Callum and Claudia a couple (no, I don’t ship them together), because they actually have a background, development, even chemistry too. So, I don’t understand why the writers changed their minds on this (please, tell me if they ever addressed this issue). I just think that him moving on from a childhood love, like that, out of nowhere to Raylla was again a bit odd and out of nowhere. Because nothing indicated that in the first 2 seasons. Same goes to Rayla too. And, in S5 they have acted more as friends than anything else. It’s just weird. What’s your opinion about this? And again, I don’t ship Callum with Claudia, it’s just my opinion after watching all seasons.

Thank you for sharing your feelings, I definitely have been in fandoms where the Big Ship (canon or fanon, in show or in fandom) have just not been things I could click or with or understand, so you have my sympathies. The crew has gone on record saying that Callum and Rayla being a couple was not originally the plan (we don't know if there were any endgames being considered for either of them as alternatives, but I lean toward no) with Janaya and Ruthari presumably being the main couples. This changed in 2x04 with the lightning flash and moment the two share on the boat, "everyone in the room saw it" (legit quote from showrunner) and they began to write and develop it. It is unknown if they went back to add or shift anything in S1 (we know the crew works on seasons simultaneously) but it wouldn't surprise me given the vibes

I definitely can't promise to change your mind (I'm obviously a big Rayllum shipper and I have been since S1, so I'm clearly coming at it from a different perspective) but I do have some metas that do address what you've brought up, I'm gonna link them below and then do a quick summary in case you understandably don't wanna read all that!

Rayllum and Loneliness (Post S3): a meta about how it is likely (now confirmed in supplementary material) that Rayla grew up pretty friendless and a deeper dive into how Rayla is/was the first person Callum had who was unequivocally his peer and his friend (as Soren bullied and Callum's crush - as well as other things - made him and Claudia have a fair amount of distance.)

Callum and Claudia: You Already Did (Post S3): On what appeal the ship has, why it may not appeal to others, and why I don't think Callum and Claudia were actually that close pre-S1, the various factors why, and why they were doomed to fall apart since 1x02.

How/Why Callum's feelings for Claudia and Rayla Were Overlapping (Post-S3): Exactly what it says on the tin, mostly because he is obsessed with Rayla lowkey in S1 (trying to get her to laugh three times in 1x05, taking a flirty tone with her when they aren't arguing in 1x06, etc) and then outright devoted in S2, trusting her over Claudia in 2x03.

Rebuttals to Rayllum Reservations (Claudia, Pacing, Etc) Post-S3: Pacing, emotional intimacy, platonic development and romantic feelings, etc. Probably the simplest meta and the most on brand for what you're (presumably) looking for, but the other metas I think uh do contribute nicely to explaining why Rayllum is what it is and som of the reasons it appeals to people.

It's also honestly not surprising to me that in S5 they just feel like Friends (hopefully best friends) given that a decent chunk of the Rayllum fandom, myself included, are on the aromantic and/or asexual spectrums, and don't really care if they're Romantic as long as they're Life Partners. (Aspec Rayllum tag here) Callum and Ezran are two of the, if not the, most important people in Rayla's life, and Rayla and Ezran are two of the most important people in Callum's life. To me, romance / devotion / whatever you want to call it intermingling makes sense. One of the things I've loved most about S4-S5 is the fact that whatever they are, they have each other's backs, and they care for and protect each other, no romance required, which hits different since they do both also have romantic feelings for each other. It's just not a pre-requisite for them and a lack of it is never something they'd hold against one another. In other words:

Chemistry is also something that's hard to pin down sometimes - like all shipping preferences are subjective, but evaluations of chemistry tend to be in particular (for example, I don't really think Callum and Claudia have chemistry in that way, but that doesn't mean that they can't or they don't).

That said: platonic Rayllum tag here and foils Rayllum tag here, and I hope whatever parts of the show you do enjoy, well, give you joy.

[starseneyes]

Chenford REWIND- Lucy Chen / Tim Bradford - The Rookie - Season 3 Ep 14 & Season 4 Ep 1

Hello, beautiful humans (and the random cat or dog who might be looking over someone's shoulder).

I had a request for 4x01, but it didn't feel complete without the context of 3x14, since they flow into one another. So, I hope you'll bear with me as we dive into both.

SPOILER WARNING: This is a spoiler zone. I will spoiler all of these two episodes, and reference past material. I do try to write these as though I'm watching them for the first time, but please bear in mind that I am up to date to 5x12.

Ready? Let's dive in!

Threshold

"You can never let down your guard. Never relax. Because if it comes, when it comes, you will have to do everything right. Because one wrong word, one wrong move, one wrong look, and you're dead."

Holy cold open, Batman! You may think, "Why is she starting a Chenford meta with Nyla's speech?" Because... these are the stakes.

This is what's at risk on this op, and everyone knows it... including Tim. His ex-wife did UC, so he's intimately familiar with the pang and anxiety of not knowing what's going down with someone you love when they're on assignment like this.

But I think it's important for the audience to be reminded of the stakes. Lucy Chen didn't chose a safe job to begin with, going into law enforcement as an officer. But UC is a totally different beast. Instead of heading into the lion's den armed with all your tools, you're going in often blind and alone.

Lucy Tips Off The Cops

Let's be real, Lucy spotted the car and decided to send a message. She has no phone, no way to contact anyone, and she needs to make sure that this goes clean.

Best way to do that? Tip off someone on the other side. She saw her opportunity, and she took it. Smart gal.

"It's Lucy." "What do we do?" "Treat it like any other stop, but we do not run anyone in that car."

Tim spots her face in the mirror before he even gets out of the car. Jackson is obviously worried, but Tim keeps his concern in check while they're in the Shop together. He knows from his years of experience that the only thing they can do is stay calm and not blow her cover.

"There's no way these cops are gonna let us go."

I love Lucy's glance back at the mirror and Tim's back at her. It's likely a trick of editing, but it gives us the feeling that they're in sync—they're looking for one another, in this moment, but for different reasons.

Tim wants to be sure she's safe. She wants to be sure he makes it out of this alive.

"Look, before we start shooting cops in broad daylight, just let me try something, okay?" "What?" "Flirting. I haven't gotten a ticket since I was 16. I know how to get out of them, okay? Just trust me."

She's looking in the mirror, again, at him. He's looking back. She's hoping and praying he'll play along.

And, honestly, he's the perfect person for this. There are so many other officers that this wouldn't have worked with. But Tim and Lucy have a very deep running trust and respect for one another.

Plus, Tim knows how UC goes better that most. He's already prepped Jackson on how to proceed, and he's going to take point.

"I'm sorry, officer, was I going too fast?"

Tim's clenching his jaw so often I'm afraid it's going to seize. While he's doing a good job of keeping his emotions in check, they're there. He can read from the situation that it's not a good one.

"Yes, ma'am. You almost caused an accident." "We're in a hurry. It's my brother's birthday and I haven't gotten any party supplies."

Clever Girl. (yes, that's a Jurassic Park reference. I AM nearing 40, so it's totally my childhood). Lucy's sneaking in information and hoping Tim's going to grab onto it.

"License and registration, please." "C'mon, you don't really need that, do you?"

Tim has leaned towards her, placing a hand on the car door. It's not a move he'd normally make, but it's Lucy. Lucy seizes the opportunity to place her hand atop his.

Tim glances down at her hand, putting the pieces together of what she's doing. Because, come on, Season 3 Lucy would not randomly place her hand on his.

He knows this is a message... I don't know if he understands the situation is fraught with mortal danger, but he knows he needs to stop what he's doing and pay attention to what she's doing.

"You should come to the party after work. We'd have fun." "Yeah, I bet we would."

Tim chuckles a little before his line, and the "yeah" to me is in answer to her. Because what she's just told him is that this party isn't happening, yet. She doesn't need him, yet.

And much as Tim hates this, he's going to follow protocol and he's going to walk away. Lucy holds his gaze, and while we don't see the reverse, I'm sure he's feeling her message.

"Alright, I'm gonna let you go with a warning this time. But slow down, okay?" "Yeah, I promise."

She puts some smile into her voice, but it drops from her face as soon as she meets his eyes, again.

"Thank you so much."

That was for Tim. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you for understanding me. Thank you for not blowing my cover. Thank you for trusting me.

"Yeah. Have fun at that party."

The "Yeah" is for Lucy. Yeah, I hate this but I'm doing it. Yeah, I know you can handle this. Yeah, I've got your back and always will.

The second line is for the car to show that her ploy to flirt with him worked. And Tim holds her gaze a last second before he walks away.

"See? Cops are easy. You just gotta know how to play them."

But she's watching him in the mirror the whole walk back to make sure he's safe. He has no idea she just saved his life.

"She is clear that if she is in over her head, she can pull herself out." "She won't, and you know it. There's no quit in Chen."

Remember their conversation after DOD? It was the first time Tim pointed out Lucy's lack of "Quit", and I'm glad it comes back, here. Tim knows Lucy well enough to know that she will see it through to the end. Like him, Lucy Chen finishes what she starts.

Gosh, these two are such a match made in heaven. But, they're not there, yet.

"Look, she's due for a check-in at Midnight. I will take her temperature then. If I feel like she's in too deep, then we can go get her."

Why does this feel like a friend trying to calm a worried spouse? It does, right? Lucy is no longer his Rookie, but he's very concerned about her well being.

"Call me right after." "Alright."

We're still in the phase of other people telling Tim how Lucy's doing—but Tim needing to know. And I don't think he even knows why he needs to know. But some part of him needs to know that she is okay.

Because much as their relationship shifts over the years, I think this whole ordeal pulls a lot to the surface that was lingering beneath. Yes, I know as someone who is up-to-date with 5x12 that there are many new obstacles, issues, and arguments coming their way. But this episode is important.

Tim is worrying more than he should about a fellow officer. Yes, we have seen how fiercely loyal he can be to those who cares about. But Tim is taking the worried husband position, here. And it's so bloody inappropriate, but Nyla doesn't call him on it.

But the woman's not oblivious. She's known Tim a long time, and she knows well enough that it's not the time to argue with him. She's going to placate him and get him out of her hair.

"Lucy missed her check-in." "She's cooking."

Excuse me. Timothy Bradford, did you come all the way back to the station just to check on your not-Boot? Like, you didn't even trust Nyla to call you? Instead you're showing up at the station to check on your girl.

Tim, we see you!

"You don't know that for sure." "She's either cooking or she's dead." "She's not dead." "Then she's making product. From the chemicals she stole, we know it's meth. Alright. That takes four to eight hours. Look, you and I both know it's against the law for her to allow product she cooked to hit the streets. If we don't find her, she's gonna stop it by herself... or die trying."

And now Nyla's listening to him. Watch the wheels turn as she processes what he's saying (which is mostly for the audience because, as he pointed out, Nyla already knows all this).

Again, they're telling us the stakes. We have to understand what Lucy is willing to do. And why it's stressing Tim the eff out.

"You're not a nobody, are you?" "No, I'm a cop and you're under arrest." "You stole my line." "I thought you said she needed rescuing."

Tim. Look at you braggin' on your girl. We know he was worried about her. He wouldn't have driven all the way to the station in the middle of the night if he wasn't. But in front of her, he's bragging on her and her badass self.

We stan a man who doesn't fear a strong woman.

"How'd you guys get here so fast? Not that I'm complaining." "When you didn't report in last night, Sergeant Grey called the chief who called every law enforcement agency in Southern California." "400 cops just spent the night looking for you."

Including your husband, who hasn't slept all night knowing you were out here and needed help. Tim is already going above and beyond for Lucy. For all of his "not my job" talk, he's the one who's really there for her. He's the one checking in on her. He's the one worrying about her.

And, let's be real, Lucy's never had anyone like that in her life. Her parents haven't supported her, and non of the guys she's dated have stuck. But her former TO, hard-ass Tim Bradford is the guy who steps up to play husband when she's in danger.

"I need superglue, hair pins, and your badge."

First off, how on-brand is it for Tim Bradford to show up to a wedding and still have his badge on him? And how awesome is it that his future step-daughter already knows it?

"Thank you both for believing in me."

This line hits hard based on Lucy's background. Her parents have been un-supportive in her ambition. She hasn't really had people in her life who believed in her, but the more she's at Mid-Wilshire, the more she's finding a whole new family.

Found family tropes are my jam because I live in one. 20 years ago, one night at University orientation, I met the people who would be the best friends of my life. We are raising our children together. We vacation together. We party together. We mourn together.

Because, for whatever reason, sometimes we need more than our blood family. Found family is a gift, and I'm so thrilled for mine. And that Lucy Chen found hers.

"To tell the truth, I kind of missed it."

Lucy's eyes trail past Nyla and Grey... to where Tim talks with Officer Jan. Tell me she didn't miss Tim! While she was alone in that hotel room playing chess with herself? Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?

"Um, will you excuse me?"

Nyla takes a sip of her drink, going with the flow. Unsurprising that the woman who was missing is going to talk to the man who was obsessed with her being missing. But, Grey's, "Where the heck is she going?" cracks me up. He full on turns around to see why Lucy would cut off a conversation with her Sergeant. Of course, it's Tim.

Officer Jan seems to know when to get out of the way of true love and excuses himself.

And Tim. Can't. Help. Himself.

Lucy is stunning in that green dress with the red lips, her hair pulled back, but still flowing, and that slit. Girlfriend understood the assignment and showed up to the wedding in style.

Tim's eyes trace over her with an abandon we've rarely seen from him. He's not over-thinking this moment. He's not in work-mode. It's very rare, at this point, that we see him and Lucy outside the structure of their status as Officers.

But here, in the ambiance of romance, Tim Bradford checks Lucy Chen out.

"Nice suit. Nova would be impressed." "Nova was a little thirsty." "I like to think of her as assertive." "Mm."

Flirty Banter Alert. Folks, we have flirty banter. And Tim smiling at her!? This scene took me out the first time I watched it. Because Tim's not a smiley person by default. He's a bit broody, grumpy, gruff, and non-plussed. And that's fine.

But there are situations that make him smile, and I love that Lucy Chen flirting with him is now on the list.

"First solo op and you take down two major drug traffickers. Not bad." "Thank you."

That's a huge compliment from Tim. And that's what Lucy wanted. Her little Praise Kink wanted to hear what Tim had to say, and she hoped it would be good. Lucy turns to walk away, but even as she's moving away from him, his mind is stuck on her.

You can see the wheels turning in his mind. He just spent the entire night looking for this woman, worried out of his mind for her. He hasn't felt that kind of attachment in a really long time, and something in him is seizing this moment.

And you know the circumstances are just right. Lucy made it through the night, proved her badass self, and now she's wearing that stunning dress and she's a few feet away from him. He doesn't want her that far away.

"Hey Chen." "Yeah?"

Lucy looks back, with zero expectations.

"Save me a dance."

He says it as he walks away to join another conversation. Because he's not ready to fully face what he feels, yet, but he also wants to make sure he doesn't miss this moment.

Saying it on the move means he doesn't have to watch her face to see how it registers... He's not ready to see her response, but he somehow knows it will be "yes".

And look at Lucy Chen. He's still framed in the shot, which I find fascinating. Like, what was the mentality behind it? To show he's not really that far away? Not really that unattainable? Just out of reach?

Lucy nearly twirls with the impact of those words. They stir something in her akin to her Praise Kink, which I really think also ties into her Tim Kink.

Because, come on, there's been something between them for ages. Like, they could have had angry sex and it been fiery and explosive but that flame never matured to a stable fire—one to be fed by love and dedication to one another.

They're not there, yet. But in the beauty of the wedding setting, Tim Bradford asked Lucy Chen to dance. And that can never be taken back. It's a part of their story forever, now. The veils over Tim's heart started to come down just enough to let a little light in.

Life and Death

"I almost got us all killed." "That trip wire was nearly invisible. I only saw it because I had the right angle." "That's not the point. I should have known to look." "Well that sounds like a failure in training. Perhaps you should bring it up with Tim." "Can you imagine?"

Let's be real... Lucy's best friend was killed. They were just at Lopez's wedding waiting for her to walk down the aisle, and now she's missing. Lucy's beating herself up for not being perfect, and the way Nolan tries to cheer her up is by ragging on Tim.

And, come on, we know they've done enough of that over the years. To Nolan's credit, he's trying to get her to chuckle, at the very least, and stop being so hard on herself.

And, no, I'm not addressing N*cy. Not ever. But they make good friends.

"I can't go back to the apartment. his empty room." "You don't have to. You can stay with me." "I don't want to impose." "No. Lucy, you shouldn't be alone right now." "Thanks." "Yeah."

"Lucy". Not "Chen". Lucy. At this stage, he doesn't address her as Lucy, often. But right now, they're all vulnerable and exposed.

Just a few days ago he was worried sick about Lucy. They got her back and had the emotional high of that combined with the euphoria of a wedding... only to be tossed back into uncertainty and heartache with the loss of Jackson and Angela's abduction.

Emotions are running high for all of them. And sometimes that necessitates stripping away formalities for the sake of survival.

Tim of a few years ago wouldn't have extended this to Lucy. But he knows her, now. She's a friend. She's someone who he cares about who is hurting. And he won't let her go through it alone.

That says so much about Tim Bradford. About how he can be so rough around the edges and yet so soft for those who he cares about.

"I'll take the couch." "Wait, I thought you were setting that up for me."

Lucy. In. Tim's. Clothes. I mean, we've seen her sleeping before and her shirt sleeves are nowhere NEAR that roomy. This implies she rode with him to his place, and that they didn't bother stopping by hers.

I know there's nothing sexual about it, at this point, but it's still so incredibly metaphorical. He's letting her into his world. Because, damnit, this former Rookie is already under his skin... even if he's not ready to face it, yet.

And she's wearing the moonstone ring. It was hers and now it's strangely theirs. She wore it. He found it. He carried it. And now she wears it, again. It's traveled with both of them, and its history is all the more complex for it.

"I'm not gonna have a guest sleep on the couch." "And I'm not gonna kick you out of your own bed. Come on. Get up."

First off, I love that Tim admits to thinking of Lucy as a "guest". This isn't a work-thing in any way. This is a friend thing. He's being here for her emotionally as a friend. Not so long ago, Tim would have denied the moniker, but there's no denying it, now. "We're friends".

Tim doesn't fight her any further. After all, he's doing all this to try to be there for her, to support her. They're friends. We saw how far he'd go for Lopez to make sure she had a dream wedding. And with this act of love, we can see he's done pretending Lucy is nothing more than his former-Boot.

"Um... do you need anything?"

Have you ever seen Sense & Sensibility with Emma Thompson? The late, great Alan Rickman's character, Colonel Brandon, is aching when the girl of his dreams, Kate Winslet's character, is ill. He asks for an occupation... for something he can do. And I feel like Tim is a kindred spirit.

When Lucy was taken in DOD, he couldn't sit still. He needed to do something. He's helping her now because he needs to give her more than words. He's more of a "show" guy, remember? He's showing Lucy that he cares, and he wants to make sure he gives her what she needs.

"The last 24 hours back?"

Ah. Another post-DOD parallel. Because Lucy's still looking for her time machine. This time, Tim feels less responsible for her pain... but he still would do anything to stop it.

"I'm afraid I don't have that power." "A hug?"

It's a long shot, asking Tim Bradford for a hug. At least, that's what Lucy thinks. But Tim Bradford would do anything to ease her pain. "Give me an occupation", his heart cries.

"Yeah, come here."

He crosses to her and pulls her close. Lucy sniffles as she leans against him, and his hand briefly goes to her hair, as it did in DOD when he first held her on the ground as she sobbed.

It's the first time since then that they've been this close. It's a terrible, sad reason, again, that brings them together. But proximity makes it harder to ignore the growing gravitational pull.

"It's okay." "Thanks."

He pulls away from her, not letting it linger. His eyes go back to the couch, where he was ready to sleep for the night. But it's his hands that have my attention.

His right hand gives her left forearm a gentle squeeze of encouragement. And his left rubs up and down her right. The short embrace is lingering. He doesn't want to stop touching her.

And this isn't the passion of two people looking at one another and thinking, "The one." There's a raw need here to feel something other than the heartache and pain.

Holding her in his arms, he feels it. That all he has to do is not break away to feel something completely different, and for her to feel it, too.

He looks down to her and sees this beautiful, vulnerable woman in his arms. There's a charge that passes between them as her eyes flick up to meet his. There's an openness there, on her part, looking for some comfort.

That's why she asked for the hug, right? Physical comfort. But there's something else now that's pulling him toward her as much as he's tearing himself away. Because he would never take advantage.

Lucy is hurting. Her best friend is dead. And no matter what Tim is feeling in this moment, he's not going to make a move. The last thing he wants to do is take advantage of someone who is hurting.

With a quick glance at her lips, he removes himself from the situation. And that's when Lucy realizes why.

Besides asking her to dance a few days ago, Lucy has no reason to think that Tim would have any interest in her. She hasn't seen the way he worries when she isn't there. She hasn't seen how his face softens when he asks others how she's doing. She hasn't seen him wrestling with what he feels for his former Rookie.

This is the first time she's seen it. He was right there holding her one moment, and with the briefest charge, he retreated. Yes, he did the right thing. But he left Lucy Chen standing there, speechless.

Did she imagine it?

Tim goes to his room and closes the door. He lays down on the bed he turned down for Lucy. I mean, come on, that's such amazing care! It looks like this is his side of the bed (closest to the door in case of emergency, furthest from the window), and he was giving it to her.

He lies down and tries to clear his head of the woman on the other side of the door.

Lucy heads for the couch, but her eyes trail back to his door. She didn't imagine it. Look, Lucy is confident in herself, sexually, and Comfort Coitus is not out-of-the-question for her. It would feel good to feel good.

And the bonus is that maybe it would allow her to explore whatever there is between her and Tim. Because even though neither of them would put a name to it, at this point, there's something there.

Tim closes his eyes, but opens them, again. Because when his eyes close, he sees her. His gaze trails back to the door. Because he's second-guessing himself. Maybe she would want it, too. Maybe he should have asked. Maybe he shouldn't have been so hasty.

And Lucy's on the couch looking back at that door. Because the more she lies there, the more she thinks about what it would be like to be with Tim Bradford. And if he's willing to be with her, too, why the hell not?

Tim looks away from the door and pumps his pillow up behind him, as if that minor adjustment will adjust his thoughts away from the gorgeous woman on his couch. He looks almost disappointed in himself. "What are you thinking?" Because Tim Bradford isn't ready for this, yet.

Would it be awesome sex? Hell, yeah. Would it be the best foundation for a relationship? No. There's still so much for these characters to unpack on their own and together. For Chenford to really work, it has to happen at a time when they're both emotionally healthy enough for it to work. We're not there, yet.

But, damn, Lucy wants to be. She finally can't take it anymore and throws off the blanket. She stands, taking her first steps towards Tim's bedroom. It's a risk, sure, but in this moment, she's willing to take it.

And, remember, I said all of this is a combination of the perfect circumstances to bring them here. Separated from the moment, she'll second-guess it as much as he'll try to deny it to himself. But in this moment, Lucy Chen makes a bold move.

Just in time for Tim to walk out the door on the phone with answers. Lucy tries to hide that she was on his way to him because the moment has passed. For him to see her on her feet now would be embarrassing and awkward, right?

"We'll be right there."

This implies others know that Lucy came home with him tonight. And because they all know Tim so well, they wouldn't even suspect that something might've happened between them. Tim's wounds from Isabelle haven't yet healed, and he'd be a fool to fall for another UC, right? Right!?

Yeah, boy's already falling... but he's not ready to face it, yet. And now there's no room to discuss what might have been because they're both focused on the task at hand—saving Angela.

"What about Max?" "Who the hell's Max?"

Look, this isn't Chenford, but this is one of those general appreciations of Eric Winter because Tim always reacts. Even when he's in a group of people, Tim reacts.

You might say, "Well, duh, people react". But some actors almost pull back on their characters when they're not the center of attention. When the camera is capturing him, Eric Winter is Tim Bradford. The man acts with his entire body, all the way through his fingers.

So, if you happen to watch this scene, watch Tim's face after that last line there. It sends me rolling, and it's nice to have a smile in the middle of a heavy episode.

"Did you get her?" "No."

There is something poetic about Tim calling her right at the moment she was ready to fall apart. Now she has a task... an occupation... something to busy her mind.

"We're going to Plan B." "I don't like Plan B." "Join the club. It's what we've got."

Lucy gets set up while the others get ready on their end.

TIM

Look, I don't know if this was a mistake or if Lucy goes back and forth on what she has on her phone for him, but right now, it says "TIM" when he calls. And that makes me feel all sorts of things in the context of this episode for Chenford.

"Tim? Please be careful."

"Because I can't lose anyone else." A wall has come down between them that they can never erect (heh), again. No, they didn't sleep together. But Tim let her into his world. He let her into his home. His clothes. His arms.

And that brings them that much closer to one another.

"I always am."

Nyla, my apologies that you're the one to have to witness all this Chenford goodness the past two episodes. Like, this seriously sounds like a sign-off between a worried wife and a man confident in his abilities.

Tim and Lucy at the Party

Look, I know it's little, but I love the touch that three months later, when we see them outside of work, he's still standing by her side.

This episode is a real catalyst, I think, for so much of what happens in S4 between these two.

FAST FORWARD: Tim dates a short-haired blonde girl who is nothing like Lucy all season and is awkward and embarrassed when Lucy finds out about her (via him arguing with his sister). Come on. Tell me that man wasn't running from his feelings for Lucy! And that hug later in the season wouldn't have been possible without this one. It all starts here.

As always, thank you for reading! If you have a request, please leave it in the comments and I'll take it under consideration! I really love writing these.

On a day like today when I've been in constant pain, it's been a grand distraction when I wasn't helping with Pinewood Derby cars, jumping on the trampoline, playing "telephone" with the kids, patty-cake, movie night, getting poster supplies for Student Council, and paying bills. Typical Saturday around here! May yours be a joy.

[soapdispensersalesman]

I finished watching The Cleveland Show last Friday, been wanting to write a review of some sort about it but couldn't really find the words to do so yet.

It's an interesting spin-off, I remembered when it first started airing in the Netherlands around 2010-ish that I was intrigued by the idea of a "black" Family Guy spin-off, not yet realising that Cleveland was being voiced by a white guy at the time until shortly afterwards. I did remember the characters from the show, the slightly uncanny character designs compared to Family Guy, and of course Cleveland's rap! I used to keep an mp4 of that rap on my MDA Vario IV Windows Mobile PDA, playing that on the Windows Media Player app as I fantasized about becoming a musician as I was listening to very niche music from chiptune to underground rap music I came across on YouTube that mostly sounded catchy as my English listening skills weren't up to scratch yet.

I vaguely remembered episodes where the stories just felt "off"

But enough rambling, let's get to the actual review:

(Beware of spoilers)

The first episode was MUCH funnier than I remembered, I was prepared for the absolute worst and poorly aged jokes for a 15 year old show but I honestly thought it was hilarious! The meta joke of the "black show written by white people" sets an interesting tone for what I think the idea of The Cleveland Show was. I genuinely enjoyed the first season of The Cleveland Show, the cutaway gags were neat too, although one might notice that there's just a different vibe in the air, I still struggle to put it into words in a way that makes sense, but the animation style feels different from Family Guy and American Dad. I should mention that beyond looking up the writers, I have not yet looked into the team behind The Cleveland Show (or any of Seth's shows for that matter), so it wouldn't surprise if different animators worked on this.

I've mentioned this before, but The Cleveland Show's animation style resembles that of a Playstation 2 game. It might be the fast-paced "stop and go" animation where characters quickly move from pose A to B when talking ans background characters sometimes being so static that they keep staring at a subject that has since disappeared. There are so many scenes where you could add a loading screen behind and it would feel natural lol I'm on the spectrum btw

Season two was also pretty funny and enjoyable! I do start to notice that the whole "black comedy" part of the show starts to disappear, but the stories surrounding Cleveland's family still make sense to me and show interesting characters dynamics and growth.

Season three is where the show started to lose me a little. Even though this show has little to none necessary need for canon events and continuity just like Family Guy and American Dad, the stories just did not make sense to me strangely enough. What might have been a contributing factor for me is the character designs on The Cleveland Show being far more detailed than any character I've seen in Family Guy and American Dad, most camera compositions being in medium-medium close added to those details as it felt more like a "single camera sitcom" compared to those total shot multi camera sitcoms.

I feel like I was "hate watching" season four to some extent. But the episodes just did not feel interesting to watch. A large majority of season three and four felt like "filler episodes" if that make sense. Not literally but there's that feeling you experience when watching those episodes that feels similar to watching a filler episode of any show with a more canon storyline.

I can see why the show got cancelled because you could feel the decline, I do wonder what a "finale" would've looked like. In any scenario, the family would probably return to Quahog either way but it would be nice to give the characters some closure.

Here's a list of other thoughts as the formatting of this pose is already messy enough:

Love the guest stars brought on this show, Ye's character Kenny West still gotta be my favourite character. Ye's voice acting sounds a bit monotonous as of he's either reading the script out loud or having a difficult time saying his lines with the time codes. I'd kinda love for his character to make a return to Family Guy or American Dad.

Gus is another character I love and HOLY MOLY you're telling me that David Lynch voiced Gus?! That discovery made me love Gus' character even more!

The hurricane episode missed the mark for me! The family trying to navigate around Junior being an atheist has such potential to make for a powerful storyline, but sadly misses the mark so much! The family does not find common ground with Junior and then completely ruins it when Cleveland sneezes and Junior says "god bless you!"

Choni's introduction to the show feels so unfortunate. They painted her so cocky and it made it difficult for me to sympathize with her during her first episode. it's sad because her character in general is pretty lovely.

Cleveland Junior being a spy who got rid of the original Junior is so funny to me and I choose to believe that this is (still) canon in Family Guy

I disliked the international episode with a passion, but the German segment parodied a certain "Persona 2 character" that acquainted me about info surrounding the writers that suddenly made me aware why so many characters were... like the writers (Forgive me for the vague wording for I'm not informed enough but have zero issues with these characters, it was just a bit notable, especially as they kinda took the place of what I feel like initially was supposed to be black characters)

I watched multiple reviews about the show on YouTube to see if they experienced similar things I did and could put them into words, I agree with how all of them point out the bond in Cleveland's family and how everyone learns to get along, make mistakes, and learn/grow from them!

Like most other fans, I wish that Family Guy involved Cleveland's family more often! Seeing Rallo and Roberta just standing in the background despite probably being the strongest two characters back in The Cleveland Show is such a shame to seeing them reduced to a "Boondocks ripoff" punchline.

Donna's ex husband getting together with her mom makes me realize that Donna is now technically canonically also the older sister of Roberta and Rallo.

That's pretty much all, might add more thoughts later.

[piperslovebot]

Thinking of how to write a self-destructive Leia.

I'm planning on writing a dark!Leia fic taking place in between season 1 and 2.

Background:

Leia, at her worst, tends to let other people get into her and question almost everything. And just in general, letting her insecurities get the best of her.

In Summer Storm, Leia is confident in her relationship with Jay and happy about what they have, but it's after a conversation with Nikki that she starts to spiral. She ends up putting her hands back when she kisses Jay.

In Achy Breaky Heart, Leia is happy with Jay at first and just everything, but when she finds out he has a dog, she begins to panic. Right after, she asks Jay about the dogs' names, breeds, personalities. And it only gets worse when she finds out that Jay has a sister, and she starts to wonder what is even means for her relationship.

The way a self destructive!Leia could be written:

Like Donna, Leia dyes her hair, Not blonde, but something more colorful like pink, purple, or blue.

Also like Donna, Leia would start smoking, purposely failing assignments and tests, cutting classes to get her parents' attention (like Donna did when Bob and Midge are fighting)

If she's single, Leia might start hooking up with someone. Not like several people, and she wouldn't go all the way. At best, she'd go third base.

Like Eric, Leia would start drinking more as a way to numb the pain. She might meet a buddy who seems to want to listen, but really just appeals to her vulnerabilities to get what they want.

Also like Eric, Leia would keep her guard up and pretend things are fine. At breakfast or any family gathering, she'd act like she's doing fine and that she has it all together, but soon the truth will slowly unveil.

I used @einsteinsugly's Donna meta & @randomwriter23's Eric meta to help with this!

[norsecoyote]

I do not as a rule read a lot of fanfic. This is partly because I don't get much time to read, period, and partly because I still have a bit of a cringe reaction to the whole concept, but also because I will get turned off a story quickly if the author gets something wrong either about a character (which I gather is common) or about the broader themes or point of the original story.

This is by way of saying that, now that I've thoroughly outed myself as an unironic fan of French children's animated superhero show Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir, I want to do what I believe is the next required step on tumblr.com: complain about something the fandom gets wrong.

Fair warning: this is not a meta-post about fandom or fanfic generally, this is 100% me, a nominal adult, bitching about People Being Wrong About Miraculous On The Internet. You stand at the Cringe Event Horizon; read on at your own risk.

So: the central interpersonal tension that powers the show is the "love rectangle" between the leads, where Marinette loves Adrien and Chat Noir loves Ladybug but neither knows the other's secret identity. The obvious solution is absurdly simple: reveal their identities and collapse the quantum superposition of crushes.

A ton of fanfic about the show does exactly that: contrive some scenario where they accidentally discover who each other are, they kiss, they live happily ever after (plus or minus one maniacally obsessed supervillain). And I get why, I think -- the show absolutely looks like it's going to keep this will they/won't they tension going forever, since it's one of its two central narrative motors, and a whole ton of early episodes play with one of the two trying to get closer to the other, failing, and returning exactly to the status quo. Given that, it makes sense why fans would want to just write the goddamn resolution already; it isn't until S3 that the two start making any real progress towards being together.

But. The problem, on many levels, is that the show's writers are smarter than that. Like on the very basic one, the show makes clear from very early on that the old master who gave the heroes their powers explicitly forbade them from revealing their identities, because doing so would let Hawk Moth find and defeat them. And this isn't like an arbitrary concern: Hawk Moth's whole deal is corrupting random people and getting them to work for him, so if he ever happened to even accidentally akumatize someone who knows their identities, that's more or less the whole ballgame. If you're writing a story where Ladybug and Chat Noir learn who each other are but they haven't defeated Hawk Moth yet -- and there are a bunch of these -- you have missed something rather crucial about why they couldn't just do that already.

(The first half of S5 -- which to be fair only came out a year ago -- does a very clever thing where it systematically explores basically every possible workaround to this issue, considering every new power or possibility opened up by events from across the previous four seasons, and methodically rejects each one by showing how it wouldn't solve the actual central problem. I bring this up not to throw shade on any fanfic authors, most of whom were writing before S5 released, but to credit (again) the show's writers for the depth of their understanding of what makes the show tick.)

More fundamentally -- and this is an insight very much stolen from that CJ the X video -- on a character growth/emotional level, Marinette and Adrian aren't ready to be in a relationship yet. Like, sure, they will be perfect for each other, but (at least for most of the series to date) they aren't yet. Marinette starts out with an extremely adolescent crush on a literal fashion model, and Adrien at first is clearly much more in love with his unexpected new freedom as Chat Noir than anything specific about his new partner. They are, to put as blunt a point on it as the show itself repeatedly does, kids.

And, critically, the show understands that they both need to learn to accept themselves first. From an adult perspective it's just duh that you can't have a mature romantic relationship without a solid sense of self (and self-confidence), but that's not remotely obvious to kids at the age of the show's target audience and it's genuinely refreshing to see it acknowledge and reflect that obstacle. One of the few active benefits of the show's extremely episodic pacing is that the writers have time to show both protagonists' slow but genuine character growth, Marinette building up her confidence in her own abilities and decisions and Adrien forging an identity separate from his father's business asset, until when they finally start building something real together in the fifth season it feels genuinely earned.

This emotional arc, in other words, is baked into the show's structure from the very beginning. Fanfic that tries to shortcut this process has, again, fundamentally failed to understand the characters it's nominally telling a story about. Like, I get wanting to experience the emotional high of seeing your favorite characters get their happy ending, but -- the fact that they can't just get that is kind of central to their entire characterization! Are you even writing about the same characters at that point?

[nancys-braids]

I've recently fallen down the Nancy/Marjan rabbit hole, which I never even considered before the amazing fics you and others have started writing and sharing, so thank you!

But as season 5 gets closer and closer I'm starting to get a little nervous. I've shipped noncanon ships before, but this is one that I'm now so invested in and so fully behind that I'm worried how I'll feel when I have to crash back to reality and they're very much not together in the show.

So I wanted to ask, if you'd be willing to share your thoughts: do you think there's any chance of Nancy and Marjan becoming canon? I really need to know if my hopes are valid or if I need to start preparing myself for disappointment!

hi anon!

thank you, im glad you like my stories as well as some of the lovely fics others have written!

i can understand the anxiety and uncertainty with a new season.

when discussing canon sapphic ships on cable tv, there's some murky water there. canon sapphic ships are certainly one of the lowest rates of representation we see. there are certainly some amazing ones out there, and I don't say this to concern you or bring anyone down. it does give me hope that on the original 911, we do have a canon lesbian relationship for the entirety of the show, so it wouldn't be unrealistic to expect a canon sapphic relationship on Lone Star.

I would absolutely love to see them together on screen, and I certainly think it is possible, and I hope the writers do give it to us. With the rumors of season 5 being the end and being a short season, that does make it seem less likely. (look to this post on ways to interact and boost numbers in hopes of a renewal)

that being said. I think a lot needs to happen before they could become canon.

first of all, im still holding out for a nancy and mateo breakup in season 5, even without a nancymarjan canon arc. I really don't like them together and he doesn't treat her well in my opinion.

then, some type of sexuality realization from marjan. right now, she shows the nonverbal signs of a closeted lesbian to me. (I head canon her as a demisexual lesbian, but don't know how lone star writers would do with an asexuality spectrum storyline). her and joe aren't really in a relationship in canon, so we don't have that to write out, but her sexuality is complex to me, especially with her faith, it could get complicated.

with all that said, I think it's very possible, and what we have in canon, writers can certainly build on that.

that being said, whether or not they go canon, we always have fanfiction, fan art, fan meta, and fandom friendship over these ships we love and that can go long past when shows go on.

you are certainly always welcome to come into my asks or dms and scream about them, or talk about it whenever you want, I adore talking about them with others who also love them. or if discord is your thing, we do have a nancymarjan discord server that is small but always welcome to new members.

if you're still here, thank you for listening to me ramble!