#It Does Seem Like Something Bob Kane Would Come Up With

[browsethestacks]

What If...? Bruce Wayne's Mood Had Been Different That Night...

Art by Kerry Callen

[ortizselene]

'Wait! That sounds beautiful! And cold.'

Kaia, as ever, is exuberant and bright and enthused— they love fireworks, she announces, and suggests with a blinding smile that they go.

Ironic, huh? Kind of cruel, wasn't it? All that begging, about bringing Kieran along, her father's insistence that it was family only — and Selene really knew it was really a control thing, knew her father couldn't stand that she befriended a Kennedy and gotten so close — and now she had no doubts her father would cheerfully agree to the idea in present-day.

Selene watches the ice cube bob and tumble in her glass and wonders if she could stomach a trip to Niagra falls like that.

Could she stand there against the wet railing knowing she and Kieran finally made the trip, but there was a fucking wedding band on her finger? One that his brother put on there?

Would Kieran even want to come along?

The answer sits in a deep pit in her stomach.

Selene makes a noise, takes another sip from the cocktail.

"I'll warn you. It's very wet. The mist gets right up in your nose."

She told Kieran that too— except she'd said it with a laugh, said it to be enticing, said it was the weirdest sensation, being coated in that much mist but it was so fun and you felt so alive and I'll talk to my dead and of courses—

Selene has to forcibly steer her mind away from the what-fits of the past.

'Taft seems like a very appropriate cat name. He was … round, with an impressive mustache. Like most cats.'

Selene does actually laugh then. A proper laugh, something she hasn't felt for at least the last week.Pets and presidents are much easier to digest. Even Kane smiles, insists that he's charmed by her little family fact. Kieran, though. Kieran's been silent.

It's bad, it's definitely bad, that Selene snuck a glance to watch for Kieran's reaction instead. But she makes sure she smiles along at everyone's chuckles, nods along as she considers Parker's wise words.

"Taft's a good name. We had a cat— have, actually, and he kind of looks like a Taft. But he got stuck as George Washington."

And then, before she can help herself—

"—Kieran, met him before, actually. He's— he's massive, honestly, he's this massive tyrant who chases people and steals food and sits atop of doors like a fucking gargoyle."

It's innocent, right, the mention of a family cat, and yet talking about it like that, alluding to any sort of history between her and Kieran seems downright illegal. Even if its nothing at all. Even if never breathed a word about her feelings for Kieran to anyone in the room. But she can't help it. It felt like so much of what was inside her mind was connected to him in some way. Her neck itches.

Selene hums.

"Anyway my dad just about had a stroke when I bought a horse a couple years ago and broke tradition."

Selene brackets those last two words in finger quotations.

Selene had smiled, widely, in a way that he hadn’t seen in nearly a decade. It did something to Kieran. It made his chest ache with nostalgia and longing. There existed a time in history when those smiles were a part of Kieran’s everyday life. They were smiles that he sought out and looked forward to. Now, Kieran wondered if he’d only get them in moments like this.

It was painful. For the first time since their reunion, Kieran dared to ask himself if there were still feelings that remained. It was a scary thing to consider.

Especially in the presence of her fiancé. His brother.

Kieran listened as Selene talked about her family’s New Year celebrations. A trip to Niagara Falls, illuminated with fireworks and a laser show. Kieran remembered their conversations in college over the grainy video footage that she’d shown him. Kieran remembered wanting to be there, too, just to see the look on her face next to that kind of backdrop. Kieran had even promised to take her one day, just the two of them.

“Wait! That sounds beautiful! And cold.” Kaia explained, grinning widely. “We love fireworks,�� she declared, speaking for her older brothers and Parker. “That would be so much fun. We should go!” She told everyone.

Kaia took another sip of her cocktail. Kieran could already see her mind buzzing with vacation dates and itinerary planning.

Needless to say, Kieran wouldn’t be in attendance, and he felt … preemptively disappointed on missing out on this nonexistent trip.

“Family presidents?” Parker repeated. “Taft seems like a very appropriate cat name. He was … round, with an impressive mustache. Like most cats.”

Kaia laughed.

Kieran smiled into his drink,  too, wondering how he’d gone so long without thinking about George Washington. He wondered what had happened to the cat, but didn’t feel like it was appropriate to ask. Ten years was a long time. Kieran had already ruined the mood once that evening. He didn’t intend on doing it again.

“That’s very charming,” Kane offered, smiling too. He was still very on edge, and Kieran kind of hated that he’d even offered any of his input in that moment. Kieran just stayed quiet this time, wondering if it’d be rude to chug the rest of his drink and leave at that very moment.

[sirowsky]

The Flowers Always Know

Description: When a mad scientist uses you as an experiment while you’re on holiday, the Heroics only just manage to save you. And in your recovery you become very close to the leader of the group. (Slow burn)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Language, kidnapping, torture (not the gory kind), angst, buried trauma.

Link to Masterlist

Comment: You have a woman that seriously hurt you, at your mercy, and you’re struggling with how far to take it. Meanwhile, Marcus realises he’s going to have to save you from yourself, if he can find you in time.

Chapter 43

  You waited for her to wake up for almost thirty minutes, and that was after you’d taken her to the abandoned warehouse, and secured her to a solid metal post that used to connect the floor to the ceiling. You didn’t know exactly what kind of tranquilizer Tech had used, but it sure was potent.   Her feet were still tied together and you’d placed her on her knees with her back to the post. Her arms were strung up above her head on either side of the post, and secured individually, to ensure she couldn’t use either hand to untie the other.   Her head hung low between her shoulders and her body seemed completely limp. If not for her slow and even breathing, you’d have thought she was already dead.

***

  After your phone had gone to voicemail for the third time, Marcus lost it.   He’d been working on dismantling the containers, no longer needed, while he waited for Aidan to finish his task, and for you to call him. He didn’t do well with idle hands when he was worried about something, and there was so much at stake right now.   Then his phone had beeped, and as he’d read the message, his blood had turned to ice. He’d immediately tried calling you back, but he was routed straight to your recorded voice declaring that you were indisposed at the moment.   Desperate to believe that you wouldn’t do this, that you weren’t cruel enough to do what his mind was telling him were the only reasons you would have taken off with the believed head of the entire organisation you were trying to bring down, he tried again.   The third time was just dumb, but he really was losing it.   He ran back to Tech.

  “I need you to track my wife, right now! Her phone, car, fucking watch – anything!”

  “What? Why? What’s going on?”

  “She took off with Kane, we have to find her before she does something she can’t come back from.”

  “She wouldn’t do that, Marcus. She started all of this because she wants the pain and deaths to stop. She’s a good person.”

  “Yes, she is. But Kane very nearly killed our baby, and as much as I hope that she’s strong enough to resist, I know that the mother in her is the most powerful part of her, and she’s gonna wanna hurt Kane. Even if she doesn’t kill her, she might still torture her, and I can’t let her do that. It would never stop haunting her, specifically because she is a good person. Please, Tech.”

  “Okay, okay. Let me see what I can find.”

  Marcus was beside himself with worry, and his mind was grasping at anything it could to distract itself, while there was nothing he could do but wait.

  “Where are we with the operation?”

  Tech answered him at the same time as he typed impossibly fast on his laptop, and various windows were popping up and disappearing on the screen.

  “Only six more cities left to confirm completion. All the others have been successful.”

  “I’ll check on the kid.”

  He walked over to where Aidan sat on the same spot in the grass. The boy was pale and bathing in cold sweat, breathing hard and visibly trembling with the effort it had taken out of him. With so few locations left, he had been able to let go of most of the birds, but he was exhausted and still had hundreds of birds left to direct for a while yet.   Marcus knew that Aidan’s fate mattered to you, and it did to him as well, so he sat down next to him, and put his arm over the kid’s shoulders. He just wanted to convey that he was there and that he cared, and Aidan seemed to feel it, because his discomfort lessened a bit.

  “I found the car!”

  Tech’s voice reached him from across the field, and he got up, but not before whispering ‘hang in there, kid’ to the boy. Then he sprinted back to his friend’s station.

  “Tell me.”

  “I don’t know what the hell she did with her phone, but I can’t see it at all. I had to break into her car’s emergency alert system, and trick it into believing there’d been an accident, to get it to reveal the coordinates. It’s parked on a street on the edge of a warehouse district, but she could be in any one of a hundred different abandoned structures on that lot.”

  “Just send me those coordinates, I’ll find her.”

  ***

  When she finally did wake up, you felt oddly calm. As though something inside you relished the thought that she was about to wake up to a real-life nightmare. Somewhere deep inside, you knew that you should be disgusted with yourself for reacting like that, but your hatred towards this woman was clouding your mind, and darkening your heart. But just knowing that wasn’t enough to make you wanna stop.    Her head twitched first, and then her hands, as she tried to move against her restraints. When she realised that she was unable to, she tried to lift her head, but she was still groggy, and her nerves weren’t responding normally, resulting in a clumsy few bobs of her head before she managed to draw it back to rest against the post.   She was still too groggy to speak, but you saw the recognition in her eyes when they fell on you, and there was surprise in there as well, which pleased you more than it should have.

  “Hi. I’d say it’s good to see you, Emily, but it just isn’t. I don’t even know what to say to you yet. I’ve been sitting here for half an hour thinking about what I wanna say… or just do, to you, and I still don’t know. But we have time. I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”

  “You… have no.. idea… what… you’re doing.”

  “And why is that? Because you experiment on people against their will, and have no problems with being complicit to mass-murder, if not committing it yourself? Or is it because you’re the leader of a covert organisation of hundreds of agents that do all of that on your behest?”

  She was regaining control of her body, and you could see the contempt in her face as it dawned on her just how much you’d already figured out.

  “How?”

  Her tone was demanding and arrogant, and as the façade of the benign doctor fell away, you didn’t even recognise her face anymore.

  “You told me. Through my subconscious. Word of advice: if you’re gonna give people powers, having no idea what they might turn out to be, don’t show them your fucking face.”

  “Those memories... were removed. The super who took them… he never fails.”

  “He left behind just enough that my powers could recreate a single image for me. But that was enough.”

  “Well, congratulations, you figured it out. You’ll never stop us; our organisation has grown exponentially.”

  “The Society of Inferiority Complex, yeah, we know.”

  “How mature…”

  “An acronym that spelled SIC (sick) was just too appropriate to pass up.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what you call us. Before long, you’ll be introduced into a world where everyone is just as powerful as you. You won’t be so smug then.”

  You got up from the crate you’d been sitting on, and stepped right up to her so you could squat down and face her at eye-level, mere inches away from her.

  “Tonight, hundreds of our operatives have kidnapped hundreds of yours, just like I did with you. We’ve been monitoring your activities for months, mapping your movements, documenting your labs and temporary offices all over the world. You never even knew how many supers live covert lives in today’s society, did you? Well, we found hundreds of them, and after hearing what you did to me, and to those children, they all volunteered to help us. Your own actions created an army of superpowered people hellbent on destroying you. Did you really think you’d be able to beat us? All you’ve done is unite us.”

  “Aren’t you clever, little Rainbow. But, tell me… If you’re such a good girl – why’d you bring me out here? All alone. Where no one can hear us.”

  You pulled back just a few inches, but her question only managed to wake all the anger inside you back to roaring life. If she really wanted to know the answer, you’d happily show her.

  “Because you tried to kill my baby.”

  You dropped all pretence, and allowed your powers to flare freely. The concrete under your feet snapped and cracked, sending long trailing crevices through the floor. Time and erosion had created flaws from underneath, that meant that large sections dropped several inches in some places, sending thunderous rumbles through the whole area. But you didn’t care.   Ordinarily, your mind automatically shielded anything living, standing in your vicinity, when you flooded this dimension with the denser energy of the others that you had access to. Otherwise, you’d destroy every living cell around you by forcibly compressing them until they were crushed. And, ordinarily, that wasn’t something you wanted to be responsible for.   But not this time.   You merely sat there, hands clenched into fists, staring at her, seeing only those eyes that had looked at you with such fondness while you worked with her. Those eyes that had fooled you so completely. You wanted to rip them out of her head.

  “Good show. But we both know you don’t have what it takes to…”

  Your stillness was an illusion. You were slowly gathering an increasing amount of energy into the air around her, and as the space got more and more crowded, her whole body was slowly being crushed.   She fell silent mid-sentence when she realised that your stare was in no way harmless, and a minute later, the first scream escaped her.

***

  The car was unlocked when Marcus got to it. The keys were still in the ignition, and on the front passenger-seat he found a contorted piece of metal and plastic and glass that had probably been your phone. All the materials had melded together as you’d forced them to compact more than they were actually structurally able to.   That was a bad sign, if he’d ever seen one.   There was nothing else in or around the car that could indicate which way you’d taken your prisoner, and the odds that you’d have stayed close enough to be able to hear him if he shouted for you from there, were non-existent.   Using his current, he tried to sense your energy, and was almost startled at how strong a trail he discovered. But, of course, he should’ve known that you’d use your ghost hands to move Kane, to prevent leaving marks on the ground, as well as make it easier for yourself.   He started following the signature of your powers, so familiar to him by now, and it led him into the very heart of the labyrinth of old run-down buildings and factories.   But when he got to a certain point, the energy suddenly quadrupled, snaking off in four different directions.

  “Oh, for god’s sake, woman… Give me a chance, at least.”

  A terrifyingly loud rumbling, accompanied by what very well could’ve been an earthquake, but wasn’t, came from his left, and without hesitating he ran towards it.   The ground was split open and uneven and half-collapsed buildings lined the roads that he followed to get to you. But he still had to run for hundreds of yards until he reached the structure that it seemed to be coming from, based on the directions of the cracks under his feet.   Realising how far you’d allowed your energy to reach, he was once again amazed at just how powerful you were, but also petrified that it might mean he was already too late.   As he made his way inside the lightly trembling warehouse, he heard blood-curdling screams coming from somewhere inside, and his heart fell. But if she was screaming, she was still alive, which meant he still had time.   When he got to the right place, it was like walking into a nightmare.   There was no ceiling above you and no lights were working, leaving the room basking in nothing but the pale and ghostly moonlight. You’d somehow twisted the whole room so that nothing was straight anymore. Posts and beams and even the walls, were all bent or curved or twisted around themselves or something else. The ground had risen in some places, and fallen in others.   It felt like he was walking into a physical representation of what your mind looked like right now. And in a way, he supposed it was.   Kane was still alive, but whatever you were doing to her was painful to the extent that she was shaking uncontrollably against her restraints, pleading like a child for you to stop, in between fits of vomiting and convulsing.   And you were so calm. So viciously calm it was heart-breaking to him. You just sat in front of her, one knee resting on the ground, the other under your elbow, watching her as though you were a cliff and she was the ocean, thrashing against you with all her might, but unable to move your solid frame even a single inch.   If he hadn’t known how much this was actually hurting you, he might’ve found it fascinating. But he knew you so well that all he could see, was his beloved wife being destroyed.

***

  “Hermosa.”

  His voice came to you like a butterfly against a hurricane. Like soft whispers carried on those wings, so faint, but still able to drown out that howling wind in your ears.   Your eyes automatically turned to find his, and the pain that was already overwhelming your heart, seemed to double.   This wasn’t who you were, you knew that. Every fibre of your being knew that, but you’d forced them into silence with your anger. Used your pain as a shield against all those voices telling you to stop.   But Marcus… seeing him look at you with that much fear…   Not the fears you’d seen before, when he’d thought he was losing you, or when you were injured or being threatened, or the fear that you wouldn’t love him anymore after he walked away from you.   No, this time he wasn’t afraid for you – he was afraid of you. Of just what you were capable of, how far you were willing to go, how much darkness you were willing to let into your heart to try and be free of the pain that festered in there.   Your powers were draining you fast. You’d made no attempt to hold them back at all, and if you stopped now, all that exhaustion would come crashing over you, and you’d be unable to finish what you’d started.   But what had you started? What was it you were hoping to achieve here? You’d wanted to hear her scream, and you had. You’d wanted to hurt her like she hurt you, and you had. But did you want her to die? Were you willing to become a murderer just so that you didn’t have to see the falseness of her face ever again?   Confused, but no less angry, you forced your gaze away from your husband, and refocused on Kane, pulling even more energy out to thicken around her until one of her shoulders was pushed out of alignment with the amount of force bearing down on her.   The harsh popping sound was loud enough to reach Marcus’ ears, and her resulting scream made him close the distance between you, while he started begging you to stop.

  “Please… this is wrong, you know that, mi amor.”

  “You know, I remember thinking that if there had just been someone there to stop my torturer, I could’ve been spared so much pain and fear. And then I found out someone was there, but she did nothing to help me. She just watched and enjoyed the show. So, why should I treat her any better? Why should she be spared that pain?”

  Your energy already filled the room, and half the damned district, so when the images started appearing, they didn’t just show up around you, they flooded the whole area. Every memory you had of every moment that had hurt you, throughout your whole life.   There were hundreds of them.

  “The tears I’ve shed could build a lake. Tell me what I’ve done to deserve that. How could anyone do anything bad enough to deserve all of this?”

  “You’ve done nothing wrong, hermosa. Life just doesn’t work like that.”

  “Then I should at least get to avenge myself!”

  Her other shoulder popped, and she squealed and wailed until her voice gave up and she just sobbed instead.   Marcus moved even closer, just a few yards away from you now.

  “You should. You should get to avenge all the terrible things that have been done to you, but you never can. All you can do, is hurt yourself instead. I know you’re forcing yourself not to feel it right now, but this hurts you. You want it to feel good, to make you feel better, but it won’t, because you’re a good person. You are a good person, hermosa. That’s why I married you, that’s why you’re carrying my child, and that’s why my daughter loves you.”

  Missy. Fuck. Why’d he have to mention her?

  “Please, sweetheart. Don’t make me watch you destroy yourself. I already lost one wife… I need you to let me keep you.”

  His voice was so frail by the end of that sentence that you feared a mere breath might break it apart. And yet, his words held so much power. They forced their way under your skin, cooling your blood and pushing the anger out.   But the pain was still just as strong.   Desperate to get rid of it, to be free of everything that haunted you, you collapsed on the ground, and enormous quantities of your sparkling dust poured out of you, flooding the room in every direction, flowing unhindered through all that energy that you’d pumped into it.   The images were still there, snapshots of the worst moments of your life, the one’s that caused you more pain than you could ever voice, and you wished that you could make them solid. That you could pull them out of yourself completely and leave them behind in that room.   The dust pulled the images apart, turning them into three-dimensional representations of themselves, while you watched, actually seeing the magic happen for the first time.   When the sculptures were finished, they solidified, just like before.   A single tear escaped your left eye as you saw your very worst memories turned into some sort of bizarre museum-exhibit all around you. It rolled swiftly down your cheek, and with the way you were sitting, it should’ve hit the top of your left hand, holding you up from the ground. But it never landed.   Instead, it hovered mid-air for a few seconds, before splitting into dozens of smaller drops, that each flew away to one of the sculptures. And as the drops made contact with them, the sculptures turned to stone. Transparent, and still sparkling in every colour on the spectrum, but unmistakably more solid than just the dust.   Once again, your powers had tried to give you what you asked for, what you needed the most. If only the memories could’ve been trapped inside those statues as well. If only you actually could get up, walk away and leave them behind forever.   Strong arms encircled you as Marcus pulled you off the ground and into his chest, and you finally gave in. Now that you allowed yourself to feel it, you were completely spent. You wanted to say something to him, but he didn’t need an explanation, he understood everything, you knew that.

  “Marcus… I’m sorry…”

  He just kissed your forehead and held you closer, but if he said anything, you passed out before you could hear what it was.

Author’s Note: As always, I love criticism, please don’t be shy to let me know if there’s anything you like/don’t like/have questions about.

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[mehenxe]

◈ ◈ ◈ ◈ & ღ & ♫ bc ur a slut for music ; & ✮ (i want explanaTIONS ...gET META W THIS SHIT )

◈ — share some head-canons you have for a muse of your choosing, but x4.

[ elijah kane ] ◈ — all efforts to get him into studying how to make robotics like hyacinth have resulted in a lot of miniature woodland creatures able to sprint across desks. it’s not exactly what anybody had in mind, but hey, you never know if ilya might not want to send in an actual animal for something he has going on. they can call up sugar kane industries ( big face-palm here ) to take care of the job. ( wyatt voice: seriously, you couldn’t think of anything better than sugar kane. ) / hyacinth kane has a nice ring to it. elijah has tested out several different nicknames: sugar kane also for them, mistah k, ( missus k? ), cinthy ... cindy ... ( sean: yeah! cindy k! like cindy crawford! / who the fuck is cindy crawford? / wyatt — / how old are you. ) / he’s had a life-long dream to be able to go scuba-diving off the coast of — some exotic island he can’t remember the name of. beforehand, it was one of those things that he was too afraid to do, but full-out war changes your perspective. in truth, he’s always been a water baby, growing up going swimming in the local rivers and running pellmell down the dirt lanes. he grew out of it, and then grew back into it. whether or not he’s going to be able to do that without monroe tagging along ( and then by default, ilya, and then probably hojin will want to come, and then ravi will have to, and then oliver will want to watch over them and then jinho will buy a whole yacht with his dumb vampire money — ) — ah, well, there’s worse people to spend an extended holiday with. his father will come along too: sit on the deck in a lawn chair and drink a virgin margarita as he deserves after putting up with this whole extended family. and with his son being a you-know-what.

[ alice bedi ] ◈ — there was a time where she was interested in wigs. she had percival sit down on her shack’s bed and watch as she perused through at least fifteen different styles of wigs. each one got a firm head-shake: too rough on your complexion; lilac looks good as a colour, but the style is horrid; why did they think it was a good idea to make a bob that length? a tough customer. she returned back to wearing veils, her preferred style being that of mantilla, or the veil that’s worn to chapel over a jade comb. due to the volume and length of her natural curls, she rarely wears the combs at all, but will if it’s a particularly formal occasion, like that time she accompanied percival to a ‘high-society event.’ ( translation: they crashed a party because he was bored, and she had a bad feeling about him going alone. ) / as the local librarian’s assistant, she’s the first to get in the way when someone is overtly curious: why are you asking so many questions? hmm? the irony is that she herself asks just as many questions — she insists that the difference is: she reads the room and knows when it’s inappropriate to ask them. ( and if she knows it’s inappropriate to ask them, and instead chooses to risk asking them regardless, it’s because she knows it’ll smooth out in the end. / despite what she wears daily, one of her most favourite colours is moss green. there are a multitude of reasons. moss is her favourite foliage. it’s similar to algae, another favourite foliage. and it reminds her of someone who she says is her sister; however, anybody who knows her, knows that she has no blood-siblings. one or the other might be a lie, or both might be the truth. when she’s in a mood, she’ll smear the moss at the base of her neck like a perfume, a splotch of green beneath white.

[ huang shen ] ◈ — he designed an irrigation system to work, specific to his farm, to be able to make rice paddies despite the surrounding environment. it’s a southern crop in the united states, but there was no way he was going to move to the south just to expand the business. his entire family was so relieved about it that they danced through the sprinklers and set off fireworks — and none of them are really into that kind of thing. it’s particularly incredible due to the area they’re in, being very prone to sometimes too much drought and too much rain, and both are responsible for driving out selling numbers of crops. his plan is to switch into an agricultural degree, and perhaps even expand it into engineering, so that he can continue helping this way. / one of his surprises for algernon was learning sign language. for the longest time, months even, shen made it out like he had no idea what was being said, and let damien, as surly as ever, be the translator when algernon was unwilling or unable to speak. in the background, however, he was working with a tutor and seeking to understand better what it meant to be both HoH and mute. then, when algernon’s birthday came around, everyone went silent ( holy god he was so nervous ) and he gave an entire romantic, long speech entirely in sign language. he’s sure that some of it got lost in translation due to how hard his hands were shaking, but the way that algernon kissed him afterwards, it didn’t seem to affect much. now, they communicate constantly on this even ground. / he’s started up horseback riding again — and has roped tobias into doing it alongside him. tobias might have grace on the stage floor, but certainly not on the back of a horse; he somehow ended up upside-down beneath the horse’s belly, and then fell down in a tangle of limbs. shen has taken to the western side of things, re-learning how to barrel race and rope cattle; but he and tobias have had to separate their lessons due to these antics. lucas isn’t allowed to come to any of them; his stupid remarks send them into fits of laughing. ( bold of us to assume he doesn’t just sit in the truck and shout anyways. )

[ deok bae ] ◈ — due to the empire no longer supporting his upgrades, nor looking in his general direction, he has had to find other ways to obtain new modifications. this is including, but not limited to, going and pulling them out of other people’s bodies as catharsis — but usually, he defects to yuri and silas to fix him up. to his chagrin, the LED-light in his forehead has absolutely no use whatsoever, only displaying his brain’s processing as a symptom of installation. he pulled it out himself via the tip of a knife’s blade. the next time that he’s seen by those who haven’t seen him in quite some time, he might be unrecognisable. i am not deok bae — perhaps deok bae is no longer himself either. if there was no connection to eli in his head, he would forget that; perhaps he would merely succumb to the machinery, perhaps he would succumb to the wolf-dom. there are several pairs of teeth in his mouth awaiting for their moment to bite. / when he was a teen, his version of ‘sneaking out’ would be to wheel his chair to the gardens at the back of the temple, where he would sit and think for hours and hours. his father would come and find him there; sometimes, master jhcor would instead. his father would return him back to where he needed to be, but master jhcor would sit beside him and gaze serenely until bae felt the need to speak what was on his mind: his angers, his fevers, his rages. one time, he was surprised to see that it was not master jhcor, nor master deok, but zan coming to sit with him. his heart had sat in his throat the whole time, half-expecting zan to laugh at him or say something particularly piteous. instead, the conversation was — well, looking back, absurdly normal, all things considering. when bae blinked tiredly, zan rose and took the handles of his chair and took him back. he hadn’t intended to ask him to do so, but it was done anyway. / bae drinks a lot of soda. it’s somewhat fitting, if you believe all that talk about how coca-cola can double as a cleaner due to the high carbonation and way it’s made. he does seem to get shiny after several cans — it’s also convenient that he can’t experience sugar-highs nor malfunctions of the liver or stomach due to too much consumption. he considers himself to be a soda connoisseur as a result. he offers a lot of hmm, that’ll taste disgusting comments that annoy the shit out of the others — but then kisung takes a drink and bae ends up being right, so there’s no regrets.

ღ ━ favourite canon ships for your muse(s). are there any you dislike?

there’s ... none that i dislike. there’s moments of come on, but that’s bound to happen. i think the favourite ships are the ... guardian / princess vibes ( whether it’s literal or not: akane / the samurai, quinn / sehrin, jian / elaine ). i also love the growing from previous immaturities towards each other ( grey / tobias, jihoon / wyatt, playboy / jordan ) — and himbos of course ( hojin / ravi!! ) there’s also the whole ... tsh, vampiric aesthetic that we get ( minzhe / yongha ) ... the ones like jisoo / mingfei, cyrian / ulysses, cadoc / pestilence ( exploring violence against but without the stickiness ). of course, if i keep going, i’ll end up listing all of them and then where would we be.

♫ ━ a small playlist for a muse of your choice

for nam jungsoo, because i actually once did make a playlist for him:

1. brand new — sic transit gloria ... glory fades 2. within temptation — what have you done 3. iamx feat. imogen heap — my secret friend 4. florence + the machine — shipwreck (the odyssey) 5. crown the empire — hologram

i mean, the songs are still kinda relevant considering his current character ...

✮ ━ top three favourite muses that you’ve played

but is it possible to pick three favourites ... that’s the real question. maybe. jianguo, because of catharsis, because of cultural exploration and similarities. grendel, because of the depth, the personal torment, the surrounding family. jinho & julius, because of exploring that darkness. and famine — man, now that’s something. there’s a lot more than three though. like blood and jisoo and tobias and arthur. but. the questions INSIST THAT I CHOOSE.

[sometimesrosy]

Anonymous said:

So far all their spoilers have been proven right. You are just pressed because of her comment about Claia & Kim. Oh also you are still acting like Jason and Bob are on good terms and Bellamy wasn't sidelined. She was only speaking facts but you aren't ready to accept it. No worries though. Once this is over we will see which part of the fandom has been proven right, AS ALWAYS.

+++

No. I understand the spoilers are probably based on canon, and I knew that, and said so, when I read them before suspecting who it is. But the spoiler account is not facts. It’s an interpretation of facts. The facts of the 100 are the canon,  the broadcast show. She’s telling us what she saw and/or thought, therefore, interpretation.

And you’re right. I’m not ready to accept it. I don’t accept other people’s thoughts as my own until I have enough information to think and judge for myself. It’s basically a liveblog. At what point did we decide liveblogs were facts? And that we had to have the same interpretation as the liveblogger?

Whenever she made commentary about what it MEANT however, I also knew that this was not a spoiler and was showing her bias.

And no matter WHO is reporting what they saw back to fandom, the report itself is merely their understanding of what they saw, and does not include what they missed, the things they don’t believe, and does focus on their own bias and viewpoint, which means their reportage is biased. If it’s who I think it is, she’s very smart, but she is limited by her lack of ability to practice meta-cognition and double check her own thinking and biases.

And sure, all reportage is coming from the pov of whoever is reporting, that’s why it’s best to get as close to the source material as possible. What we’re looking at with that spoiler account is someone’s INTERPRETATION of canon... which we have not seen and cannot dispute.

It’s a way to get everyone to consider her view point as unassailable, which she likes to do. If it’s who I think it is. And knowing who that person is, if it’s her, I also know she is REALLY biased and thinks everyone who doesn’t think like her is evil, and everyone who disputes her is also evil. And hates JR and hates Kim... and if she HATES those people, we cannot take her statements about them and their work as objective or even true without corroborating evidence, which none of us have. 

This spoiler site has too many biases. Take everything with a grain of salt. She doesn’t always know fact from opinion when the opinion is hers, and sometimes makes things up and calls them facts. Is she doing that here? We don’t know. We haven’t seen it for ourselves. 

It’s something to look at, not take as canon. And I would say that no matter who wrote it. But suspecting who it is, that’s even more true. She’s a plagiarist and not trustworthy. Very suspect ethics. Lies about certain elements to fit her theories and dogma. Not the first time she’s been involved on some level with a shady anon site. Always know the agenda of your speaker. 

As for the other stuff.

Bob asked for time off and JR gave it to him. Why don’t we wait and see what happens when he comes back before we make any decisions about bob being sidelined, but I’m betting you thought bob was sidelined even when Bellamy was in EVERY episode and had equal storylines and screen time with Clarke. Because that’s platform that some people have in this fandom. Also. Bob’s personal relationship with his boss is none of your business. What an invasion of privacy it is to think you know this man’s private life and then go about harassing someone over it. 

I am definitely interested in seeing how this show ends up. I’ve had a lot of my theories end up being right. A lot. Not all, of course, because I’m not a mindreader and I DON’T have access to inside information and I DON’T use that access to spoil the show for other fans like some do because they have no ethics.

Why are you acting like I’m always wrong when quite a few of my theories turned out to be right.

Like Bellamy in season 3. A lot of people said that Bellamy was being turned into a villain. And I said it was a battle for the soul of Bellamy, with Kane on the good side and Pike on the bad. 

Was Bellamy the villain? 

No. Bellamy was the hero. And he used that season to make a decision to take leadership because he knew what was right and what was wrong and he made an effort to apologize, make amends, learn from his mistakes and never do that again.... which led to his being the hero of season 5 and making Clarke realize and remember that she believed in that too and he was her hero.

If that spoiler account is who I think it is, she thought Bellamy was being sidelined and turned into a villain in season 3.

So we can keep going.

IS this season going to be about Clarke and Bellamy saving the universe, or is it going to devolve into BTS squabbles between people who sounds a lot like the girls in Mean Girls, while minimizing Bellamy and thus ruinning the whole 7 year narrative?

I have a question myself, because, it seems like you’re one of those people who keeps being sent to stalk me and send me nasty anons as if I’m not allowed my opinion, or as if a person who spoils the show, risks her friend’s career, betrays all the cast and crew who worked on the show and acts, yet again, like she is the ulitmate authority while preening under the adoration of her devotees, is somehow above reproach even while she badmouths other people.

get your little flying monkey ass out of here. 

[fmlfpl]

Lineup Lamentations - GW35+

Our Transfers, Captains, and Starting 11s for the week!

—

WALSH

TRANSFERS:

OUT: Kane and Calvert-Lewin

IN (for -4 points): Firmino and Benteke

Welp, Kane and Mou hooked me again - nothing new there.

DCL I still love and it is quite upsetting that I didn't own him this season when he was getting all his points and did own him for a strand of just straight blanks and nothingness since the restart. Oh well. I'm sure this is not the last of DCL in my team, and I will look forward to owning him next year. If anything, maybe this barren spell is a blessing in disguise as it may keep his price down a bit and prevent him from having much preseason buzz...

As shouted on the pod, it seems like its a nice time to reunite with old friends. Benteke picks himself, love him so much and maybe he bangs in the revenge game. Just a fun punt.

Bob has been pretty fucking bad for FPL but I love him and haven't owned him all season. I can stomach a few blanks from the lad, but at least I don't have Kane anymore. It's probably not a good sign for my rank that I'm using the tv guide as a significant factor in my decision making process but hey, whatever brooo. I am definitely worried a bit about him starting against Burnley but he did just rest against Villa so maybe he'll be good to go for the duration. Another old friend and someone who I get a lot of xJOY from watching - there is nothing that I've seen from him that leads me to believe he'll get in the points, and I don't think there is some hidden gem here for the run in by any stretch, but I like him so I'm getting him. Basically I figured it's more fun to have him than to start a third Wolves defender..again...and also seems cooler and more fun than any other defender so let's do it :)

GK:

de Gea (SOU)

DDG didn't have to do much so he got a clean. Great job by him and United. It's a good sign that when Ole makes his five subs he's bringing on Fredrick and other shithouses and kind of killing the game dead which doesn't make the last handful of minutes feel so nervy.

Soton are good, though, and I could see them scoring, but with the way United have looked they still feel like a good place to back for cleans. He's not making any saves really to speak of but 3 cleans in 5 from the restart is right about where I thought they'd be.

DEF:

Maguire (SOU)

I am going to roll with the slab over Saiss to keep my shares at 2 for United and 2 for Wolves cleans. Same kinda shit with DDG, he's been individually bad as per but the team is dominating and I see that continuing against Soton.

Dock & Boly (EVE)

Really, really, really, really, really good fixture for a clean.

It's always hard to imagine where an Everton goal could come from and this fixture is no exception. As long as they don't get caught on a counter ping long ball, which they shouldn't do with the extra CB, they should be ok. I expect them to be in cruise control for this game and fully dominate and control it. Whether or not they themselves score, fuck if I know or care, but clean sounds good.

MID:

Sterling, De Bruyne, and Foden (bha)

Besides Raz, no clue if the other two will play 30, 60, or 90 but either way I expect this game to be an absolute fucking.

Rolling with the three City friends till the end seems good, and they are good.

Harry Potter plays some insane stuff and if he rolls out something similar here as he did do against Livp it could get silly. An early goal and the weed hanging their heads could mean many more to follow. That's the hope, anyway.

Bruno (SOU)

Ya, ok bro. Shitting points at the moment. Cool.

Pulisic (shu)

This is suddenly back to being a rough attacking fixture, but with the way Puli has been going recently I'll always back him to return against anyone. Sheffu midfield seems like it could be problematic and they as a team should beginning to feel it in their legs. Chelsea still need to win every game and Sheffu are kinda done for the season so hopefully they are on it and Puli running at Basham et al is too much for them to handle.

FWD:

Benteke (avl)

Back to his old stomping ground with Villa absolutely needing 3 points in this one I could see some goals for us. Just a fun play for me and again gives me something extra to cheer for on Sunday when I wake up to watch the game :)

Firmino (BUR)

He did put them to the sword in the reverse fixture..not that I usually put any stock in such a thing, but hey, it did happen so just reporting the news.

Without Mee I could envision him being difficult for them to contain with his movement so maybe he is going to get in there with some points. It wouldn't stun me to see him on the bench for like Minamino or some shit but hopefully not. Also is nice to have one of Alon's favorites in there to boot. Go get em Bobby.

CAP:

Sterling (bha)

Raz never in doubt.

Didn't start last game...and Jesus has just started a few in a row...so there's a reasonable chance he's playing striker. Love the fixture here and the stars seem to have aligned for the cap shout.

He's been playing really well lately so it makes this a really easy decision for me.

—

ALON

TRANSFERS:

OUT: Alexander-Arnold and Calvert-Lewin

IN: Saiss and Vardy

Off with the hyphenated names they’re banished from my team for rest of season no hyphens fuck it.

Dropping Trent feels akin to dropping Kevin: I’ve probably made a big woopsies here and he’s gonna start 4/4 or 3/4 and haul because he’s the best but... maybe not? Maybe he gets rested/rotated for Burnley as we expect and maybe Liverpool don’t clean rest of season as I personally expect and then I’m doing ok?

Maybe... maybe... 

I’m also just going partially with gut on Vardy vs. Bournemouth more then anything else. Form is some sort of mystical lover and every time she’s in our grasp she slips away and every time we think she’s gone forever she reappears... Hoping the form angel pegs Vardy’s butt-hole this weekend and he hauls.

GK:

Ederson (bha)

Was Eddy worth the funds out the gate? Probably not... But I also know my own weaknesses and I’d’ve probably somehow have talked myself into some shit-can like Foster on no cleans and alas here we are.

I’ll take the points and genuinely expect a clean in all four remaining matches from Citeh.

DEF:

Doherty & Saiss (EVE)

Sheesh this feels yuge. Double Wolves into Everton come on Wolves. Don’t have anything to say I’m just on my hands and knees praying for this clean man...

Maguire (SOU)

Tough one for me to read.

Part of me thinks that the chaotic style of Southampton’s attack will have The Oaf on toast but also part of me thinks ManU will just strangle them to death with their elite possession and passing breaking the press all the time and Soton will be huffing and puffing by 45′... Not sure how this goes but yeah I duno.

Go get’em big guy.

MID:

De Bruyne & Mahrez (bha)

It’s very realistic that neither of my City dudes start and that tilts me off so hard just thinking about watching City do The Seaweed 6-0 or something and not be a part of anything fuck meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee REEEEEEEEEEE!

Martial & Fernandes (SOU)

I still think that these two are the best two ManU guys to get. Tony looked great despite not scoring and what can we even say about the lad Bruno he can’t not run into points right now.

Pulisic (shu)

Gonna be tough to break down but also the possession and pressure should be relentless from Chelsea here.

Hopefully Pulisic taking 9000 touches in the box leads to some FPL points that tricky little fucker I love him.

FWD:

Vardy (bou)

Come on Vardz.

Not a thing I often say but come on you Vardz. Take the Cherries apart baby.

Jimenez (EVE)

Walsh talked me into this (keeping Jim) on the pod and it made a whole lotta sense to me.

Sometimes in life you just need to talk it out with someone you trust like your pod partner and then you can see more clearly and here we are. I actually feel great about a Wolves bounce-back against an Everton side with no midfielders.

Jim should be getting lots of chances and touches in the box and get the fuck in there. Overdue for a pen too maybe Keane or Mina does some mad shit? I haven’t given up on you yet Jim. Let’s go.

CAP:

Vardy (bou)

Whatever, right?

I mean I think capping either of my City guys is completely unreasonable this week (for the record I would cap Raz over anyone this week) so it’s between basically Bruno, or Vardy for me this week...

Why would I cap Bruno there? What’s to be gained? He’s owned by everyone and will be capped by everyone. It’s not fun and it’s not how I play the game.

I see weeks like this as an opportunity to both have more fun and to go for a maybe under the radar cap shout huge chunk rise if he hauls and Bruno is held relativlely in check... No pressure Jamie no pressure at all... Just... save me... Plz...

[helloandwelcometomariasblog]

Review #57-61

Old Review #57: 500 Days of Summer Written 31/08/18

Directed by Marc Webb Written by Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber

I was really, really surprised. I honestly thought they’d showed us the ending at the very beginning, so even when Summer was getting married, I had the confidence that things would turn out well in the very end. But no. She actually did get married to someone else and they didn’t end up together. I LOVED THAT. It was heartbreaking but I LOVED IT. It’s so unique! So unconventional! Even the very last scene was unconventional, how Autumn declined when he first asked. It was both funny and unexpected. This entire movie was full of unexpected twists and turns and I absolutely loved that.

Now, about how I could relate to the film. I think I could really relate to Summer. Not in terms of attractiveness and all that, but the difficulty she had in commitment and how private she was. And it’s weird but Summer’s right, you can just tell. You know when you fall in love.

All in all, a great movie. I loved the twist in the end. I also loved the message. It made me kind of sad though. The message is true, but it made me a little sad. That there really isn’t something like fate and in the end, even the most painful breakup, even the most compatible relationship, even the most unforgettable person, can be replaced by someone new. Christians tend to believe that God has prepared someone special for them. But that’s probably not true.

Old Review #58: The Dark Knight Review Written 20/07/17

Directed by Christopher Nolan Written by Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan, David S. Goyer, Bob Kane

Just finished The Dark Knight, then had a brief squeal fest over the fact that Netflix had the sequel as well. I’d really wanted to rewatch it. I loved it so much when I first saw it. I still can’t forget that well scene. I personally think it’s one of the best I’ve seen in any Hollywood film.

As for The Dark Knight, amazing, amazing, amazing. THE AMOUNT OF SUSPENSE. Honestly, if anyone wants to learn how to write suspense, they should study this film page by page, beat by beat. I’m just going to jot down the amazing bits in bullet points cause I can’t think straight to write full paragraphs right now. But one thing – the Joker wasn’t as terrifying as I thought he’d be. Harvey Dent’s face was much more terrifying.

The amount of choices. CHOICES. CHOICES!!!!

The choices were always equally DIFFICULT. The balance was astounding. Rachel or Harvey? The wife or the boy? The ship full of civilians or prisoners?

The amount of TWISTS. You honestly never knew what was going to happen. I loved that so much. I absolutely loved the scene where that one prisoners gets up and throws the detonator out the window. He was a better man than the police officer. Those kinds of scenes. Where you think someone will be a certain way, and then they totally surprise you.

The Joker was smart. I loved that. I love a smart villain. When you don’t know what the villain is going to do and how, that’s when it gets amazing.

I also love how Harvey turned into a villain too. I also love how they used the two-face concept. That was great. Terrifying, therefore great.

I LOVE HOW THEY KILLED RACHEL. Look, it was great. It was one of the best things the film did. How many times in a superhero film does the hero save the damsel in distress? ALL THE TIME. It was refreshing seeing that NOT happen for once. It was new and positively shocking to see the death of an important person ACTUALLY happen. It was the best motivator, the best trigger for the story to be pushed forward. There was so much force now. The story, the characters, their motivations, became rich and meaningful. Rachel had to die. It was good that she died. (I’m talking about this all from the point of view of a screenwriting freak. Of course I didn’t ACTUALLY want her to die.)

I just love how the film presents choices, and then actually ACTS ON THOSE CHOICES. There are so many films where someone’s in danger, or something terrible is about to happen, and then the film saves it in the last moment. It’s kind of like a cheat. They build up the tension immensely, and then destroy it by making everything all well in the end. ‘Oh, were you scared? Hehe. It’s okay now!’ They’re teasing us.

But this film actually follows through, and that’s what makes it so terrifyingly good. With other superhero movies, whenever a threat is introduced, of course I’m scared at first, and tense, but after a while I’m like, “The hero’s going to save the day anyway.” And it happens.

But with this film, no. If time runs out, the hero doesn’t get to save the day. No deus ex machina. He can’t get there on time? She dies. It’s that simple. They don’t cheat the audience by suddenly presenting a miracle. Things go to plan. How come the good people always get a second chance? Keep things real.

The coin. Leaving it up to chance, Harvey’s coin was the most suspenseful token I’d seen in a film. AND AGAIN, HE FOLLOWED THROUGH. I really love that. That’s honestly what makes the film truly suspenseful. It follows through. So when the next decision making moment comes up, you KNOW they might actually die. The stakes are high and the stakes are fucking REAL. They actually will die. Decisions HAVE to be made, actions need to be taken.

I love that.

Review #59: Fight Club Written 18/07/17

Directed by David Fincher Written by Jim Uhls Based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk 

I want to, no, need to, talk about Fight Club.

It’s a fucking crazy movie. I really don’t like this movie. I can’t stop watching it, but I really, really don’t like it. I guess as a viewer, I could be told the same thing: Just stop caring and let go, and watch the fucking movie for what it fucking is.

But I CAN’T. I’m typing furiously right now because I just really can’t. I can’t bear to see all this crazy insane yoloness. I want it to stop. I want them to stop fighting and I want them to stop doing crazy shit and get their FUCKING LIVES TOGETHER.

I want the main character (do I even know his name?) to honestly get a grip and stop making a mess out of his life. He knows it’s wrong. But he’s so affected by Tyler’s words and his useless charisma all the time that he thinks it’s cool to be so crazy.

I think the movie is kind of glorifying Tyler, putting him up on the same level as a god. There was even a crucifixion moment. And the main character is trying really hard to look good to Tyler (like all his other 꼬봉s) and honestly it’s all a matter of self-esteem. Main character, you don’t need to do all that insane shit to feel like you’re worth it. So Tyler is a charismatic dude. So what. He’s not worth all that effort for you to feel accepted and appreciated. I just can’t with this film.

Review AFTER the film ended:

My mind… is blown away. Has been blown away. Not literally. Thank goodness not literally. I’m really amazed. I wasn’t really surprised at the split personality twist, for some reason. I was just sitting there going meh a little. It was a nice save, though, is what I thought. It was the right move to make in order for us to start understanding and liking the main character. A good move. A redemptive move.

The last 15 minutes? or so? were pretty amazing. Full of tension, and I had no idea what would happen. I loved it when the gun shifted from Tyler’s hand to… uh… Tyler’s. The movie turned out to be so much more different to what I thought it would be. At first I thought it was about fighting, and letting it go, and then it got way too much and I started feeling really uncomfortable, and then it turned out to have some fantasy aspects and got really good.

I’m kind of shaken right now, and I have to go home. But uh, let me talk briefly about what I think the message was.

Don’t FAKE IT. You are who you are. Even if you’re going through hard times. That’s who you are. Don’t hide yourself, don’t fake yourself. Don’t create a fake personality to slip into whenever you feel vulnerable. Let yourself be vulnerable. 강한 척… 하지 말자. I’m really shaken by the film right now. I can’t believe that gun shot didn’t blow his head off. Wtf.

Review #60: Catch Me If You Can Written: 13/07/17

Directed by Steven Spielberg Written by Jeff Nathanson Based on the book by Frank Abagnale Jr., Stan Redding

It’s a really good film. It made me think a lot, and I was never bored. I was always kept in suspense, and I was emotionally moved. I think that’s pretty much enough for it to be a great film. All around amazing in terms of action line and relationship line and character depth and development.

Frank was such a great character. He just felt so multi-dimensional and real. That’s the amazing thing about great characters. You never get the thought that they’ve been made up. You never get the thought that some writer sat at their desk for hours on end developing this “character”. I guess DiCaprio’s acting made it more realistic, but in general, Frank’s character was just really raw. I really loved him. He was interesting, dynamic, and had an intention behind everything. He was really active, he led the story. He was always making decisions. Argh. Amazing. He was always pushing the story on by making decision after decision. Even though he was the one being chased, he was the one making all the decisions and leading the story. Isn’t that amazing? You’d think that the person being chased would be the passive one, reacting to the fact that they’re being chased. Running away and escaping all the time. But no, even his escaping seemed like a feat, a beat, an extravagant decision.

And underneath all that, was his broken soul. That was the most amazing part about his character. He was doing all that because he was broken inside. All he wanted, was for his dreamy, perfect life to be put back into place. And he thought money could solve that. He thought if he tried hard enough, he could get his parents back together. He thought he could give them money, and the three of them could live as a happy family again. He always, always had fantasies of happy families – you see it so clearly and deeply in his eyes when he’s staring at his parents dancing, or when he sees Brenda’s parents washing the dishes together. That was his dream, deep deep inside. And he tried to achieve that and failed. He became disappointed with himself and his life, and came face to face with the fact that he couldn’t save anything – never could turn back time and put things right again – and made the decision that the real life wasn’t worth living. And so he began running away, living a lie. Remember what Carl says in the end. It’s easier living the lie (I think?).

I was so glad Frank came back in the end though. I’m glad he made that decision. See? Until the end, Frank is very much a strong, active character. HE makes the decisions.

I learned a lot. I think this just became one of my favourite films. (2020 me: Really?)

Review #61: Beauty and The Beast (2017) Written 18/03/17

Directed by Bill Condon Written by Stephen Chbosky, Evan Spiliotopoulos

The main problem I had with this film was some of the dialogue. It felt forced, cheesy, too economical. I know that each line of dialogue needs a purpose and you should only write what is needed, but I felt that it was a bit too much here (for example, the scene where Belle talks to her dad for the first time).

However, other than that, I was more than happy about what I saw on screen last night. It was truly enchanting. That is the perfect word for it. It reflected the animated film enough to feel joyfully and uncontrollably nostalgic, but also challenged several aspects of the original to create a more logical, credible, interesting story. It was a perfect adaptation.

When we see Belle for the first time in that small provincial town, in her blue and white dress, we are completely floored and can only watch mesmerized as she walks through the town, the townspeople singing one of the most famous Disney introduction songs.

Said simply, I gained immense pleasure from two things:

Recognizing things from the original film. Seeing how they made it into live action.

The things they did differently. They added bits and pieces to the story to make it perfect.

I'd love to watch it again just to jot the differences down. Also, I was holding my breath during the ballroom dancing scene. Perfect. And when she picked up the plate to drink from it. That was perfect. She didn't teach him to use the fork and spoon. It was like she got down to his level and tried to understand him while also showing him a better way to do things.

It had just the right amount of difference to make people wonder what might happen next. And that's amazing for an adaptation.

[someone-elses-star]

Episode 6x06 Personal Narration

I wanted to narrate my thoughts and such on this episode because it is the first episode of the season with our knowledge of Bob and Eliza’s marriage! Spoilers below!!

John already looks frustrated with Jo! Good!

Sleepless is common? Cool fact....?

Lightning round! lmao

Yes, Clarke is fairly awesome! John don’t be a dick about it! 

Madi....you know....your kid....LOL John

Poor Madi!

They are starting to suspect......

You tell them Madi! Be your commander self!

Creepy dark commander! Don’t hurt my little girl! 

Kinda disappointed it didn’t say Eliza Morley or something. I knew, logically, it wouldn’t, but still.....would’ve been cool!

Family meeting!

Yesssss....where IS Bellamy?

Awww, poor Echo thinking she was ditched.

Raven sorta referring to Clarke? That’s kinda nice.

You so should be a little guilty about some of the things you did Raven! You are really making it hard to love you. I mean, I get it, girl. But she isn’t even Clarke right now. Save your energy.

You probably won’t find him Echo. Good luck!

Yes, John defend your man! lmao

“That seems a tad impulsive” lol

“We’re all the hero of our own story, John.” Great line!

Ohhhhh.....John playing a part to fool Bellamy. BAD MURPHY! You should be ashamed of yourself for fooling your man!

Awwww......pooor Bell! Don’t cry! Hopefully we can still get Clarke back!

Yes, Bellamy! Burn this fucker to the ground! 

Ohhhh....bringing Bloodreina back! Good segue!

Love this new partnership between Octavia and Diyoza! 

Fascinating? Fucking weirdo! lmao.

Lol Diyoza! Get those virgins! 

COMMERCIAL Break #1 Thoughts So Far? I need chocolate. I will help Bellamy burn this place to the ground. I really hate the angle Murphy is playing and he better fix his ass real quick! LOVE OCTAVIA AND DIYOZA! I need a drink. 

New engineer guy is hot. Though pairing him with Raven would be predictable. Please don’t do it....the writers are probably going to do it.

Yes....you DO force people.....will you turn when you realize that Clarke was forced?

206? Damnnnnn......

Echo. I do love you. 

Ewwww.....that poor man! Give him mercy, Echo!!!

See.....poor Echo understands mercy. 

Why stop?

He chose this path? Fucking psychopaths!

You go be your badass self Echo! 

COMMERCIAL Break #2 Thoughts? Commercial already? That was really quick! I really do look forward to Echo’s story. Do I want her with Bellamy? hell no! But not shipping a ship does not mean you can not like a character (or characters) separately from each other. So, yes, I’m excited for her backstory/flashbacks/memories and her evolution this season. Are we going to see more of Bellamy this episode? Is Murphy going to continue to be a manipulative ass? Is he hiding his true intentions from even us (the audience)? I sure hope so! 

There’s Bellamy! He looks ready for war! 

“It’s too bad we can’t ask her” Kill me Bellamy.

Yes, Bellamy. Question Murphy!

You are so GOOD Bellamy! 

You are such a liar Murphy! 

Him continuing to bring up Clarke is ship goals! BELLARKE!

Don’t you dare use Monty’s name in vain, Murphy!

This is so NOT how we do better, Murphy!

Poor Bellamy’s world is falling apart. 

“Don’t we all....” Fucking savage Diyoza! “Screw redemption!”

She’s probably going to eventually join them. Haha

Yes, Diyoza is protecting her new baby, Octavia!

Healing tree sap! SO COOL! 

COMMERCIAL BREAK #3 Thoughts? How are these coming so quick now? Weird thought--can you make that sap into syrup for like pancakes and shit? Just curious. I’m not hungry. A pregnancy commercial about preventing pregnancy because the commercial girl says she can’t even take care of a plant? IRONIC AND HILARIOUS after scene with pregnant Diyoza! lmao. Bellamy is the reveler of truths! He’ll catch on to Murphy’s real game soon. He’s pretty much caught on to all of it by now. 

More Madi badness?! I hate.

Yes, where IS Clarke? That is the real question!

Awwww....Madi’s good memory! LOVE! SO SWEET!!!

Why does that phrase work? The Flame is a chip essentially. But the chant is very witchy. 

LEAVE MADI ALONE! 

Do you guys think Madi might turn dark when she finds out about Clarke being taken over by Josephine? 

“Clarke’s not here.” More than you think......more than you think.

Those messages are so BRAINWASHY!!! EWWW!

Bat your eyes a little more Josephine. That’ll convince them you’re Clarke! 

Even her facial expressions are so un-Clarke. You people suck at realizing this shit! Abby....she’s your fucking daughter! You should know better!

You’re right Abby....IT DOESN’T SOUND LIKE CLARKE!!!

Don’t let your love for Kane blind you from the truth Abby!!!

“I wasn’t aware we needed saving.” YES ABBY! USE THIS INFORMATION! Read the fucking SIGNS!!!!

Wow.......Josephine is almost convincing as Clarke when she fake cries. Almost.

COMMERCIAL BREAK #4 Thoughts? DAMN Eliza deserves all the awards! Playing a new character trying to fake being a different character. But more so, playing a different character in a show where she is familiar with one character (Clarke) and then flawlessly switching to Josephine’s character, and the struggle Josephine is having with pretending to be Clarke. GIVE HER ALL THE AWARDS!!! Is anyone frustrated with Abby not recognizing her daughter is not her daughter? I mean, I know she is going through shit, but my mother would know if I wasn’t acting myself. She knows when I’m having a mood through a non-descriptive text some days. What is her excuse?

Prime family? Pffft

Eliza is doing fantastic showing how ditzy and psychopathic Josephine is.

Eh....now they’re erasing themselves? Is that what they are doing?

You tell him, Raven! 

“Is this your last body?” Great question, Raven! Love you for this, girl!

OHHHH. Echo is knowing shit! 

Echo your azgeda is showing! LOVE IT! 

Echo knows!!!!! Good job, my girl!!!! Love Echo for this!

Echo’s relief that Bellamy is alive is heartwarming. Still don’t like them as a couple. But love them as a family unit of sorts.

Ohhh. Josephine, don’t you go torturing my Bellamy!

OHHHH! It’s this scene! YOU STRANGLE THE HELL OUTTA HIM, Bellamy!

Russel. It’s kinda hard to hate you, but you are still a murderer so......your remorse isn’t good enough!

Wow. Josephine, you really are a manipulative bitch!

I’m really scared we aren’t getting Clarke back.....GUYS are we getting Clarke BACK??!?! SOMEONE GIVE ME HOPE!!!

Is Octavia dying? SHE BETTER NOT DIE! OHHHH.....cut it off? DAMNNNNN!

What the hell did she draw?

A message from what?!?!

Aliens? Do they have aliens? 

COMMERCIAL BREAK #5 Thoughts? So is the anomaly an alien thing? Cause it seems like an alien thing. Is anyone else losing a little hope of getting Clarke back? I want to say with the trailer showing her flashback of Mount Weather, and the return of the actor that played her father, is hopeful because maybe those are guiding points for Clarke inside her head. That she is still mentally there, but just pushed behind a screen somehow. And the only reason Russell and the other Primes don’t know is because they never tried to bring someone back.

Ohhh, Echo is back!

So when do we attack? Yes, Echo! Attack!!! 

NO DO NOT GIVE UP BELLAMY?

How are you going to tell Madi? 

Awww Madi hugging Bellamy is cute, but I want a war! GIVE ME CLARKE back! 

Aww....yes Bellamy cry for Clarke!!! But do not mourn....fight for her!

Yes, be MAD Madi! I don’t want evil Madi, but I do want Clarke back!

Ohhhh banishment? At least she didn’t kill her? I guess....?

OHHHHH! Yes.....kill THEM ALL, Madi!!

This is a very eventful last five minutes!!!

What is the pill she took for?

OHHHH Clarke?!?!?!!?!? YESSSSSS!!!!

LEXA AND BELLAMY ARE BOTH ON THE WALL!!!!! Those are the images she focused on most!

LOVE THAT NEW TRAILER!!! CLARKE IS GOING TO FIGHT FOR HER MIND! YESSSS!!!! PROOF SHE IS NOT DEAD!!!!

[ship-obsessions]

The 100 Season 6 Speculations

Okay, so first of all I want to say I’m loving season 6 so far. Give me all of the delinquent interactions. I’m also obsessed with the Bellarke crumbs they are ALREADY GIVING US and how their repressed feelings for each other were shown (although not directly) in 6x02. A while ago I saw on Twitter that a reviewer compared The 100′s 6x02 episode to Motel California in Teen Wolf and now I totally see it. The way the plant toxin affects the delinquents parallels the werewolves being affected by the wolf’s bane... and the focus on the main group of delinquents (specifically Clarke, Bellamy, and Murphy) parallels the focus on the original core 4 in TW (Scott, Stiles, Allison, Lydia). I absolutely LOVED the core 4 dynamic in TW and I’m already loving this trio dynamic between Clarke, Bellamy, and Murphy. Give me more episodes like this! (and maybe add Raven after her and Clarke make up).

That said, I watched the first two episodes when they were leaked, so I’ve been DYING for the next episode 6x03. (Note: I’ve also been streaming them again since they’ve officially aired, so I’ve watched each one like 4 times). Since new content is finally coming next week, I wanted to get out some of my random speculations for what’s coming up later this season even though we literally know so little about this new planet, these new people, the creepy children, etc.. Of course, being curious (like a psychopath), I went through all of the season 6 episodes on IMDb to see what (if anything) it could tell me. I’m sure someone else has probably already done this, but I found some interesting things I needed to put out there...

6x03 

We already have a name “The Children of Gabriel” as well as a description (Clarke tries to win over the leaders of Sanctum in order to let her people stay. Meanwhile, Bellamy, Octavia, and Echo discover a new threat while on a mission to retrieve the transport ship.), so we have somewhat of a gist of what is coming next week. I don’t think they will fully go into the backstory of these “children of Gabriel” but we obviously know the geneticist from the flashback was named Gabriel and the actor, Ian Pala, is only listed for 2 episodes on his personal page and one of those is Sanctum (uncredited). So I’d assume this means we won’t get another flashback of him specifically or the origins of his “children”. But I do think when Clarke meets Russell and the other people somehow this backstory/history (at least a shortened version) will be explained. We know that the episode titles are all explicitly mentioned or referred to in the episodes themselves somewhere, so that’s my reasoning there.

However, I noticed one other small thing in the cast list that stuck out as strange/interesting. Sarah-Jane Redmond’s character (aka the Sanctum hostage that tried to hijack the mothership) is named Taylee in 6x02 but Tilly in 6x03. At first I thought it could have been some kind of error (idk) but it’s listed the same way on her personal IMDb actor page. Is she playing twins?? Is there validity to this clone theory I saw floating around and read about in the Hypable review?? Either way, I’m definitely interested in whatever that’s about. 

Also, I’m excited to meet JR Bourne’s character this episode! We obviously know he is Russell Lightbourne but after all my research (lol I’m taking this WAY more serious than I ever took school), I’m wondering if he’s not just a descendant of the Lightbourne’s but is actually a clone or somehow has the same consciousness from Mr. Lightbourne (Josephine’s dad) in 6x02 (again saw this in the Hypable article around a similar flame storyline theory since Becca created Eligius tech as well). It’s worth noting that we don’t actually know the character’s real name and Sean Maguire is just credited as Mr. Lightbourne -- no first name. Hmmmmm

6x04

Again we have a name “The Face Behind the Glass” and a short description (Clarke embraces the traditions of Sanctum and tries to make amends for her past actions.), but not much else... (or do we??) This episode is probably where we will see Clarke dancing in the room painting and maybe even the lanterns floating in the sky (ie. Sanctum tradition?) -- I’m thinking several “happy” moments with her. I also have a theory -- going out on a limb here -- that it is where we could see the whole “flashback” scene of Clarke in Mount Weather from the trailer. It’s probably not an actual flashback but some kind of hallucination or psychosis thing again, (or maybe even a dream?) but maybe that is where the title comes from -- she’s literally looking at herself from behind the broken glass in MW’s contamination rooms. OR we’re not quite there yet and it’s referring to the stained glass-looking red window/door thing that Emori was trying to open before going crazy in 6x01. 

The kicker for me in this episode’s listing was Jordan Bolger’s credit as Shaw, who we all saw die in 6x01. In what capacity is he coming back? Maybe it’s Raven’s hallucination or even a dream? I could see them showing us her full reaction once she knows what really happened to him, but I’m not sure how or in what way he would come back at some point in the episode (I say “come back” because the actor will actually appear). It will be super interesting how the sci-fi elements work on this new planet. We’ve already seen the eclipse-induced psychosis but what other strange things will occur or happen to our characters? If they are all facing their demons (ie. Clarke with Mount Weather and Octavia with Blodreina) I wonder how those scenes will be played out.

6x05

Again Jordan Bolger is credited... is Miles Ezekiel Shaw back again??? What is going on? 

6x06 - 6x07

I didn’t really notice anything super strange in episode 6, but GUESS WHO IS CREDITED FOR EPISODE 7: none other than Chris Browning as Jake fucking Griffin. Maybe this is another flashback or memory or hallucination -- assuming by Clarke.

Note: Madi is not credited to appear in 6x06 or 6x08 so I’m thinking her “kidnapping” or whatever happens with the creepy person who is holding her captive in the woods happens in 6x07. Or maybe it’s even earlier in 6x05?

6x08

In episode 8, the cast list introduces 2 notable new characters: Josephine VII and Hope. Okay, so with Josephine VII it could be some descendant of the original Josephine Lightbourne in the 6x02 flashback, but it could ALSO be another hint at this clone and/or flame consciousness theory. But Hope... where have we heard that name before? Oh yeah, Diyoza’s unborn child. But Diyoza hasn’t even had her baby yet and in the promo trailers it looked like she was shot (and possibly killed?). Also, this actress who plays Hope is like 6 years old, not a newborn baby. It’s still weird to me though because what are the chances there is another character -- another child, no less -- with that same name Diyoza mentioned she was planning to give her baby. Just seems a little too coincidental to me.

6x09

Okay, I’m going out on a limb here, but THIS MIGHT BE THE ICONIC RAVE SCENE FROM THE TRAILER. Stay with me... I was originally thinking this would happen earlier in the series when I saw this in the trailer, probably like everyone else, but in the IMDb cast list there are 5 “dancers” credited. I mean it is more logical for a rave scene to happen early in the season (because usually all the good things or happy stuff comes in the first half of the season and NEVER this late), but what else would “dancers” be credited for??? The 100 doesn’t do dance numbers LOL. Anyway this idea has me shook because if it is this late in the season, there is a better chance that Bellamy and Echo have ended things by this point and that super short blurry speck in the bottom right corner of the rave dance scene could be Bellamy (you know what I’m talking about). Will they actually make my LIFE and have Bellamy and Clarke dancing at that rave together? Seems way too good to be true, but I had to throw the possibility out there. I mean who knows, my Bellarke-owned ass can always hope for the best. 

After the slim possibility of that amazing possibility, here’s a scary thought to consider (sounds kind of like the show itself), this is the last episode of the season that credits Lola Flanery as Madi... WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO HER. Does whatever experiment being done on her in the promo trailer kill her? Pls don’t hurt Clarke’s smol child.

6x10

So here is where I started low key freaking out because the cast list dwindles DRAMATICALLY for credits this episode. We only have Eliza as Clarke, Shannon as Jordan, and Luisa as Emori out of ALL of the main characters we know and love. Something major has to happen for everyone else to suddenly become absent from this episode. And I’m a little scared to know what that is.

6x11

Okay thank god, the main characters are all back on the credits list for this episode. ALSO there is a new actor credited as young Echo. OMG an Echo flashback?! Will we finally understand who she was and why she is the way she is? Will I even care to get invested in her this late in the game?

Also, IMDb lists that this is the episode Bob Morley directs!

6x12 - 6x13

Our other mains are gone AGAIN from the cast list. It’s back to only listing Clarke and Jordan among the characters we already know. WTF is going on. I need answers NOW. To reiterate, I’m saying that IMDb doesn’t list Abby, Bellamy, Octavia, Raven, Murphy, Echo, Kane, Madi, Miller, or Jackson in episode 10, 12, or 13 (+ Emori in 12 or 13).

I’m honest to god just hoping that IMDb isn’t fully updated with the entire cast list in these last episodes yet -- is that a thing? pls tell me it is -- because if we don’t have a finale that includes Murphy, Raven, or most of all, BELLAMY... I swear to God I will riot. Of course, I’m hoping no one dies (obvi), but now that we know there is a season 7, could J Roth be trying to kill us with some dramatic cliffhanger where Clarke and Jordan are separated from the rest of the group? (PSA: STOP SEPARATING CLARKE FROM EVERYONE). But if so, why would this absence of all of those other characters be TWO WHOLE EPISODES? And during the two part finale of all things. UGHHH my mind is spiraling, someone pls calm me down.

On the plus side, 6x12 lists Antonio Negret as the director for the episode and we all know he brought us the brilliant (yet angsty AF) episode 5x08 last season where Bellamy poisoned Octavia to save Clarke. But if Bellamy isn’t even in this episode WHY SHOULD I EVEN BOTHER CARING.

What’s left that I missed? Probably a lot LOL. I tried going back to watch what I might have missed from the extended trailer but I couldn’t find the video ANYWHERE. It’s like disappeared from YouTube (says it is “unavailable”). What is that about?

Anyways, the scene with everyone together in the house (standing at the bar, shot looking at us) has to be in one of the episodes where all main cast members are credited -- I don’t think it will be the next one so maybe 6x04 or 6x05? Same thought for the Madi/Clarke reunion, I feel like that is in the same episode. I also have no idea when in the season Bellamy is going to strangle Russell with Clarke and Murphy in the room (again my favorite new trio!). And that being said I’m confused on JR Bourne because he was all hyped up as a new character this season but he’s only credited in the next episode 6x03. Does the strangling take place next week? It can’t right? Because Bellamy is off with Echo and Octavia on the other mission and Clarke is the only one in the castle. Also if 6x04 is Clarke trying to embrace the traditions of Sanctum and make amends, there is no way she could do that the episode after Russell (the leader of Sanctum) is killed. 

Sorry for the crazy rambling and this long AF post, but I have so much on my mind after this speculation deep dive. I need to just go to bed.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Joker (Tim Burton’s Batman)

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Many men have played the Joker over the years: Cesar Romero did it first, Heath Ledger did it best, and Jared Leto… well, he sure did something. But back in the 80s, there came one Joker to rule them all, the one live-action Joker by which all other Jokers are measured: the Joker from Tim Burton’s Batman. It really is a fantastic interpretation of the character, with a fantastic actor giving it his all and a personality that even manages to give Hamill’s take a run for its money. By all accounts, this should be the greatest Joker of all time.

It’s just a shame about how the story handles him.

Actor: Who do you call when you need a madman in your movies? Jack Nicholson, of course! This is probably one of the most perfect casting choices in Burton’s Batman films, which is saying something because literally every character from the comics was perfectly cast in my book anyway. Nicholson actually manages to do what even Heath Ledger’s live-action Joker arguably failed at – play up the clown aspect. Nicholson has the Joker laughing, doing goofy stuff, and just pranking people to murderous extents. It’s what I like to see out of Joker, and they got the right man to make that sort of cartoonish psychopathy fun.

Motivation/Goals: It’s Joker. When does he ever have a tangible goal? Joker really just seems like he does things because they amuse him but, more importantly, he does things because he wants attention, especially if him getting attention takes attention away from Batman. And honestly? This is perfect. This is pretty much exactly what the Joker should be, and frankly, this iteration of the character gets that more than any other live-action adaptation.

Personality: The fact this character is played by Jack Nicholson pretty much tells you all you need to know, and the fact it’s the Joker doubly so; he’s crazy, he’s murderous, he’s a psychopathic manchild, and he laughs at his own stupid jokes. He’s creepy, he’s sadistic, he’s monstrous, and his sense of humor is as black as his soul. In short: Classic Joker.

Final Fate: In one of the most boneheaded decisions the movie makes, it kills the Joker by having him fall to his death.

Best Scene: Considering how much he hogs the screentime in this movie, he gets a lot of these and it can be hard to narrow it down… but see, there’s this nifty little scene where Joker uses a joy buzzer on an unsuspecting mobster. Three guesses as to what happens to the schmuck.

Best Quote: Every other line out of his mouth is great. But I think a certain question he offers up to his victims stands out among the crowd: "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

Final Thoughts & Score: By all accounts, I should love this Joker. Nicholson really is able to capture the spirit of the character, he’s fun, funny, zany, comical, and downright ruthless while still exuding a demented affability that makes him all the more terrifying. But ultimately, I don’t love this Joker. I like him, sure, but I think the movie lets him down in multiple ways.

The first, and most obvious, is making him the killer of the Waynes. While one could argue it adds an interesting angle to Batman’s relationship with the Joker, it also robs Batman’s motivation of its complexity by giving a face to the otherwise faceless Joe Chill who kills the Waynes in most other works. By turning the faceless thug who basically acted as a walking personification of the seedy, crime-ridden nature of Gotham that Bruce would come to oppose into an identifiable character, it fundamentally alters Bruce’s work from a noble pursuit to a quest for vengeance. I don’t care if Bob Kane liked it, it just feels really cheap and tacky.

This is bad for another reason: it gives Joker a definitive backstory, which is never a good thing; it’s one of the reasons I hate Mask of the Phantasm. And this isn’t some elseworlds sort of thing like the 2019 Joker, which shows off a possible Joker origin for its entire plot, this is the first entry in a film franchise, this was an actual Batman vs. Joker film, and they gave us a clear-cut origin story. Joker is best when his past is multiple choice; this is why his backstory in The Killing Joke, his scar stories from The Dark Knight, or again the 2019 film’s plot work and are solid. They aren’t claiming to be the definitive answer to who the Joker is. And this could have easily been rectified in the film in a number of ways, namely by just revealing it wasn’t him or, if they really wanted to go with this, keep him alive and expand upon him in a future film. But, alas, that brings me to my last big issue…

They kill him. They kill the Joker. And look, killing the Joker is not some horrible crime that can’t be pulled off well – Arkham City and the DCAU did it excellently. The problem here is they made Joker the starter villain of a superhero series. He is the first supervillain Bruce fights in this continuity, and by the end of the film he’s dead, something no other live-action adaptation has done to Joker, not even Suicide Squad where they arguably should have put the Joker out of his misery. Any of these elements alone would be easy to ignore, but they all just pile up, not helped by the fact that Joker hogs the screentime to a ridiculous degree, though considering his performance it’s not wholly unjustified.

I know this probably sounds pretty harsh, but all that being said I’d still give this take on Mr. J an 8/10. I think objectively speaking Nicholson captures the essence of the character perfectly, but the bad story decisions hold him back a bit. Even with my issues on how he was handled, there’s no denying that Nicholson gave a unique spin on the character and made him a fun, entertaining villain. Nicholson himself apparently had a blast and loved how much freedom he had playing Joker, and I can’t stress enough any issues I take with this interpretation are not Nicholson’s; going off of his performance alone this Joker is a 10/10. But I’m just not a fan of what the story used him for.

[helenofsimblr]

Sparkie: We have had an anonymous question come in, its asking if Lyra has got a problem with her vices at the moment. Are we headed toward an alcoholic type story for her?

Amy: Lyra is drinking a fair bit its true but I don’t think she’s going down the alcoholic route thankfully. Lyra is generally just engaged in such self-destructive behaviour. I don’t think she’s had a lot of chance to get her head around everything, she has just gone from one disaster straight to another. So I think Lyra is trying to process multiple things at once. She is processing her daughter being on trial and being a monster, she is processing the death of her husband, and she is also processing the fact that her husband cheated on her with her clone.

Sparkie: But we know for sure that St Bob would never consciously betray her.

Amy: That’s right, and Lyra knows that. But it just stings anyway. The worst part of it all is the fact that Kyleigh ended up having the child that Lyra wanted. That is the real stinger for Lyra.

Sparkie: Lyra has another question sent in and this one is saying that Bob’s mom came to visit Lyra, she’s a ghost of course, and warned Lyra that she smokes too much. Does Lyra worry about her health at all?

Amy: Short answer, not really. Lyra’s smoked on and off through the 20 odd years I’ve been playing her but I think this is the longest stint where she has smoked. Must be... the third time? There was after she was cloned, that was about a year, but that was infrequent, then there was when her mom came back that was about two years, and now this time this has been easily three years she’s been smoking. She knows its not good for her, but she just isn’t motivated to take action about it yet.

Sparkie: Is it true you have an obsessed fan, who basically is campaigning to get Lyra to quit?

Amy: Yeah, that is true. They don’t seem to worry about Kyleigh though, maybe because Kyleigh is a vampire and the cigs can’t do her any harm perhaps. I don’t know. At least I avoid doing it in real life!

Sparkie: We are running a bit short of time here, so I am going to rapid fire to finish. I want to know why did Kyleigh come clean to Lyra? She got what she wanted, why not just get away with it.

Amy: Because Kyleigh wanted everybody to know, that she had succeeded, she got to be with Bob one time. It wasn’t about spite entirely, Kyleigh just wanted everybody to know, that she had been with Bob and it was done and nothing could undo that.

Sparkie: Clearly, your two characters have a long and messy history with each other, do they still care about each other?

Amy sort of wiggles her head and then looks back at Ms Kong

Amy: They do care about each other, Lyra hates what Kyleigh did but she still cares about her. And vice versa. Kyleigh has fantasised about killing Lyra a few times. I think Lyra and Kyleigh are a bit like the Undertaker and Kane they’ve had epic rivalries through the years, and they’ve been together and accomplished a lot as well. But I think what Kyleigh did was the last straw for Lyra she just can’t have Kyleigh in her life.

Sparkie: So what secrets do they hold? What would Lyra never tell Kyleigh and what would Kyleigh never tell Lyra?

Amy: I think Kyleigh would never reveal she was involved in the death of Joan. That is something that Kyleigh could never say. Kyleigh sabotaged Bob’s spacecraft and in the end Joan ended up using it and dying in a crash. Lyra I don’t think would ever reveal that despite everything she would give Kyleigh another chance. She would give Kyleigh yet another chance, but she would never reveal that because Lyra has had enough of her and doesn’t want any more pain as a result.

Sparkie: If Kyleigh had a time machine, what would she change in her past?

Amy: The go to answer would be to not set Lyra and Bob up. However, she wouldn’t do this. Because she knows if she did, then Kira, Kane, Kourtney, and even Thaddeus wouldn’t exist. So I think that Kyeligh would instead go back and never sabotage the spacecraft that killed Joan.

Sparkie: And Lyra?

Amy: Simple, she’d go back and stop Judith from getting with Anton. Lyra views Anton as completely responsible for all of Judith’s current sins.

[girlobsessed21]

The 100 Season 6 Trailer Analysis

I knew I was in for a ride when the trailer opened with this:

And I have to hand it to Jason, it is brilliant.

Okay, so the first thing we get is Monty’s words we’ve all heard and shed a tear to at the end of season 5 - “I hope we do better there, I hope Jasper was wrong and that we’re not the problem... Be the good guys.”

The first glimpse of the new season reveals who will be woken up first. No surprises there. And the door opening is a callback to the pilot when the dropship door unfolded on awed faces.

Book II: According to Jason’s interviews, the change here is supposed to be the gang living by Monty’s mantra. Does it look like they are? Absolutely not but more on this later.

“Yes Monty, it is beautiful.” Mountains encompassing crystal waters, images of dreams, gleaming between two suns. Lit blue skies, patched with white. Absolutely stunning.

Kane is alive. Yay! But his health does still seem questionable. That recovery was rather rapid though. I assume this scene is quite early on since they are still on the ship. Well, 125 years is a long time, did he heal during cryo? It is odd, but surely not impossible. Kabby appears to be happy, are all their problems something of the past then due to Kane’s new peace craving philosophy?

On to the radio calls. I’m utterly pleased that this was not swept under the rug. This image is just another one of Bellarke’s soul-touching glances even from afar.

Bellamy is headed somewhere away from the new civilization. I cannot quite make out with whom. Clarke is staring down at a pixel of her “platonic soulmate”, while he is clearly not comfortable with leaving her behind. His face says it all - Be safe. I wish you could come with me. You broke my heart when you left me to die. We know from what Eliza said at Conageddon that they have a good talk. I  would think this chat needs to take place early in the season for them to revive their friendship and partnership. Nothing in the trailer suggests romance, but JR would never spoil something that paramount. Since Bellamy and Echo are still a couple, I only have a shard of hope for romantic Bellarke.

Mosaic-ish sliding doors unveils Clarke in a bright summer dress. Finally some normal outfits, something to look forward to. And then it cuts to Raven bellowing about Clarke’s actions in season 5. Dramatic Sigh. Cut the poor woman some slack, she has saved your lives time and time again. It wasn’t unexpected, Jason hinted at this, just unnecessary in my opinion. I do not agree with Clarke’s actions, but I have empathy, she was only trying to save her child, the only family she had known for six years.

Octavia vs Bloodreina. The Blooreina persona was one of my favorite concepts of season 5. I loved Marie’s portrayal, her batshit craziness and everything that went with it. So, the journey from Bloodreina back to Octavia is one I cannot wait to witness. “Am I a monster? Yes, I am.” The first step in the healing process - Admission.

I cannot quite make out who she is fighting in the scene, I’ve tried all angles, but the person in question is blurred. Perhaps Echo, we do know Octavia is far from pleased with her new sister-in-law. At least we get to see a cutthroat Octavia in action who never ceases to amaze.

“Say I’m your sister?”

“My sister died a long time ago.”

Wow, that blow to the nose must have stung more than being thrown against the railing. I don’t blame Bellamy, she did inflict some unforgivable horrors onto Wonkru and a whole list of others. From what I derive, the Blakes will not find peace anytime soon, but I’m positive they will eventually.

“Salvation comes from faith and good works.” I would like to think Clarke might take these words to heart, sincerely trying to be a good guy. It can also mean some foreshadowing. Reverting back to the scene with Clarke in the dress, the building and surrounding characters emanate a temple-like vibe. Are these people perhaps feigning righteousness when they are in fact monsters?

That island in the shape of a wolf’s head may be stunning, but it gives me the creeps. And just to lure you away from any doubts you may have, a bunch of giggling little kids warms your heart. “Aaaah, these are good people.” This whole place reminisces the fourth The100 novel and Mount Weather. A rat stench flutters by every so often.

I can’t fault the castle though. The place is jaw-droppingly awesome. Don’t know if it’s just me, but it reminds me of the Disney Castle, layers of glory in vivacious colors. I’m expecting Tinkerbell to appear and cover it in pixie dust at any moment.

Those friendly and welcoming smiles, they are the same Presidents Snow and Coin wore on the Hunger Games - Rat Stench. Clarke Griffin in a nightgown - Yes! I love that. A prom or party, just the kind of calm I need before a storm. Oh and feel free to throw Bellamy Blake in the mix with a tux. I don’t think that’s happening though.

So here’s my theory: Once they find the inhabitants, Clarke stays behind to get acquainted with them, while Bellamy and the others return to the ship to wake the rest of their people. This stems from the fact that we only see Clarke living with them. Dancing in colorful sleepwear surrounded by art. I know this won’t last on The100, but seeing Clarke in these sweet in-between moments turns on an automatic smile switch.

Completely unlike Clarke Griffin, she decides to trust them, because she will try to live up to Monty’s expectations.

Right before everything is blown to ashes we get a glimpse of some happy couples. Raven and Shaw (Sorry I can’t be too enthusiastic about this one, I will always root for Murven, but if they’re happy, I’m happy.), Miller and Jackson (Don’t think there’s much that can separate them) and Jordan with a girl is definitely something to look forward to.

The Eclipse Induced Psychosis is slightly mind-boggling. Eliza said this season was the biggest acting challenge of her career, leading me to believe she would be facing her demons in some mind-altering way. The trailer tells a whole different story. I’m getting some 1x09 Day Trip x evil squared feels here.

Bellamy’s new peaceful visage crumbles. Bob said that Bellamy will regress to his season 1 self and I’m assuming the eclipse is to blame. Don’t hate me - I loved season 1 bad boy Bellamy to bits. So the visions aren’t real, obviously, but those that have a dark past, experience this episode in high definition.

Miller followed Octavia into a preventable war.

Echo was a cold, heartless spy and murderer.

Bellamy has a whole list of devils lurking behind him: His sister, his mother, Lincoln, Mount Weather, 300 innocent grounders, leaving Clarke behind in Praimfaya.

Murphy: His parents, Charlotte, Finn, hanging Bellamy up to die.

Octavia - Need I say more? That fight scene with herself is genius.

Clarke - There is one small scene where she says, “Shut up” but other than that, I don’t see her going through it. Does nightblood prevent it?

Is it crazy to think this civilization uses the Eclipse to manipulate people? It’s clear they don't trust them - they label them as dangerous. Murphy shooting at Bellamy and Clarke strengthens this idea. These episodes seem powerful enough to impose harm to those you love.

When Madi wakes up in a hospital bed, my mind immediately went towards: They try to remove the flame.

Bellamy’s words, “It’s time to run away,” tells me he resolves that there is a snake in the grass, hence the actual snake. Clarke might be hesitant if she had started trusting them and when Bellamy and the others flee, she stays behind.

The new girl (don’t know her name) tells Clarke about the dangers of the planet, causing her and the girl to hop on motorcycles to warn and save them. But the dangers lurking in the woods are much worse than the civilized inhabitants. Then, instead of running they return and start another civil war.

I have to be honest it does not seem that much different from previous seasons. There still are no good guys. They still try to find alternative solutions to peace and end up killing people to survive. But I guess that’s what the show is about. Sorry Monty...

[travllingbunny]

The 100 6x02: Red Sun Rising

This is my second time watching this episode - I first saw it a month ago, together with 6x01, when they leaked, and I’m glad I saw the two of them together, because I had mixed feelings on 6x01, but 6x02 was amazing.

This is what I wanted from season 6, and what I hope to see more of: character-focused episodes with characters forced to deal with their issues and repressed feelings, likely due to weird goings-on on the planet - like Day Trip on overdrive. The episode also had very interesting flashbacks to the history of the people on the planet, descendants of the Eligius III mission, and hints about many of the mysteries of the planet.

The toxin was a great way to shake up the characters and their relationships and for repressed issues to come to light. My theory on why Murphy was the only one who turned out to be unaffected is that the toxin brings our repressed issues and resentments, but Murphy indulges in negativity and bitterness towards both himself and others when he's in the normal state of mind, so he was fine. Instead, he showed the nicer, more heroic side of him. Which, one may argue, is what he is repressing.

Speaking of which, I’m still not sure what exactly to think about Murphy’s complaints against Clarke. Some people have argued that all of them make sense in a way - from Murphy’s point of view, anyway. But the things he mentioned range from perfectly legitimate complaints to things I can’t make sense of. And most of them are incredibly skewed and one-sided views of events - similar to what happens when haters in the fandom try to mount arguments to prove a character is horrible. Like blaming Clarke for Bellamy hanging him, because she kind of caused it by blaming Murphy for Wells’ death (as if it’s hard to understand why she lost it over her best friend’s death, after Murphy had threatened Wells), even though she didn’t expect people to actually try to kill him, and did her best to stop it; or blaming her for tying up him and Emori and planning to test her in the radiation chamber (which was actually done by a bunch of people including Abby, Miller, Jackson, now-dead Roan, and Raven didn’t exactly do anything to stop it except verbally protest), even though she instead decided to test herself and risk her life (and was the only one who volunteered for it - while Emori got another guy tested and killed). And I can’t even make sense of the remark about him being tied up while she was with Lexa, and why he called himself “disposable in her games”. WTF? How is Titus kidnapping and torturing him Clarke’s fault? It’s been argued that he blames her for leaving him with Ontari after she left with the Flame to look for Luna, but that’s not what he said. And I’m really done with people using the nickname “Commander of Death” as an insult. Clarke got it because she did everything to save the Delinquents, Raven, Abby, Kane and others, while Murphy was off on a pointless road trip with Jaha. Also, irradiating Mount Weather was the right decision, because the only alternative was letting the Mountain Men win and kill everyone, and finally, Bellamy and Monty also made the same decision and bear the same responsibility for killing all of the Mountain Men.

So, I’m not sure if Murphy really meant all he said, or was just being a d1ck as usual, venting his frustrations and trying to get a rise out of people. But the moment he saw Clarke trying to kill herself, he did everything to stop her, and later they were saving each other when Bellamy went psycho and attacked them both.

I loved the callback to 3x05 Hakeldama. (”People die when I’m in charge.... Isn’t that what you said?”) Clarke remembers Bellamy's words, even after 6+ years. She was obviously quite hurt and thought about it a lot, even though they've never discussed it since.

Clarke's hallucination reminded me a lot of what ALIE!Raven told her in 3x11 - the same idea of her being poison to others and causing the deaths of people close to her. (Although this time Wells and Finn were not explicitly mentioned - only Jake Griffin and Lexa were - among people close to her that died, but they were arguably indirectly mentioned as Clarke’s hallucination said that people die trying to protect you. The idea that Jake’s actions were motivated by wanting his daughter to think of him as a good guy is something we haven’t heard before. It may be a sign that Clarke does not completely idealize him as she seemed to do. I’ve said in my season 4 rewatch reviews that season 4 (and 3b) mentions of Lexa seemed pretty idealized, but those since have made more sense: in season 5, the mention of Lexa’s betrayal at Mount Weather and long-delayed apology, and now, “Lexa died for the same reason” (wanting Clarke to see her as a good guy) is accurate to what their relationship was like in season 3, which indicates that Clarke is .)  On some level, Clarke really has internalized the idea that she needs to save the others from herself, as these are now the things her own subconsciousness is telling her, which she heard as the voice of her mother, telling her to kill herself so she wouldn’t get Madi killed..

It would be interesting to know what exactly Bellamy's hallucination was. He attacked Murphy and Clarke, but he was talking weird/confused stuff about trying to save people. Bellamy's guiding motivation has always been trying to save people, and feeling bad for failing to do it. But I'm sure he also has repressed resentment towards Clarke, even though he forgave her for leaving him last season - he may not have fully forgiven her in his heart. And I'm sure he also has unresolved feelings from the time he blamed himself for leaving her behind and he believed she was dead. He said something weird about how he won't be the one to die this time - but he wasn't. No doubt he's also been annoyed with Murphy quite often, even though they are friends (as of season 5) and we saw Bellamy try to help Murphy to be more positive and love himself in 5x01, but he probably sometimes just felt fed up with Murphy's disruptive and negative behavior. His hallucination seems to have made Murphy a real threat to the group in Bellamy's mind. "I'm saving us, from both of you".

Bellamy also yelled at Clarke, just as he was stepping from the doors of the room where Echo was locked up with Emori, “In case you didn’t notice, Clarke, I don’t need you anymore” - words likely to hurt her as this is something she feared and at one point came to believe during season 5. But it also felt a lot like what we like to call “protesting too much”. Interesting thing to note, Bellamy never told Clarke that he needed her, at any point during the 5+ seasons - it was always Clarke telling him she needed him, or that they needed each other, which he did not deny.

Echo's hallucination and Emori's taunting were both about the fact that Echo is always the follower who does everything for whatever 'master' she attaches herself to. Finally a meaningful character moment for her. The voices she heard were talking about things we'll probably see more of in her flashbacks. She may have an identity crisis and will probably have to try to figure out who she is on her own.

Side note: There is speculation that Echo may have been the one who killed Costia, Lexa's girlfriend, who, as we know, was tortured and killed at Nia's orders and then her head was left in Lexa's bed. This may be the case because the line "Bring me her head" was stressed and repeated twice. At this point, this wouldn't have any bearing on the plot, but it would be a little reveal for the audience to connect some things from the past.)

Emori's hallucination was all about people trying to kill her, which makes sense with her backstory. First she attacked Murphy because she thought he was going to kill her, then she warned Echo and Clarke that Bellamy would kill them all. But she also cruelly taunted Echo, just like Bellamy taunted Murphy and Clarke.

Miller is another person besides Clarke who was turning the violence on himself. During his psychosis, he was yelling that he didn't want to finish like Obika - the man who died last season after being infected by the mutated worms (eww). He was trying to get the bugs/worms out of his skin - which is also connected to his guilt over the things he did and participated in as Blodreina's follower. Jackson also believed Miller had bugs under his skin and was stabbing him to try to get them out. He and Miller were sharing the same hallucination (what is known as folie a deux, shared psychosis, or literally, madness shared by two). As they pointed out in their conversation in 6x01, Miller was the one who did things, while Jackson felt guilty for not stopping things - and not he was trying to intervene save his boyfriend, in his capacity as a doctor.

Clarke and Bellamy are likely to have some interesting conversations next episode, after they woke up, and Bellamy was obviously shocked by realizing what he did to her and to Murphy, and that she had to stab him to stop him.

BTW, now we know what the writers came up with to explain Bob Morley’s leg injury. 

Interesting visual of Bellamy, Clarke and Murphy after Clarke had knocked them out all with a gas:

Octavia is in a really bad emotional place. She clearly feels guilty,,but won't admit it, and instead lashes out, blames and antagonizes the others, provoking them to punish her - even kill her. In the season 5 finale, she wanted a redemptive heroic death, but didn't get it. Living with her guilt, admitting her mistakes, changing, that's much harder. She would rather die.

Also, Octavia on her knees, asking for death, was reminiscent of Bellamy in Day Trip during his hallucination. Is Octavia finally going to have the character development he had seasons ago? But first, she needs to realize that sins don't get "washed away" if you're successful in your intention to get your people to their destination, which seemed to have been her guiding idea during season 5 and the reason why she was so obsessed with being the one to take them to Eden.

Diyoza was amazing as always. I usually don't like to use the word "badass", but what else do I call her? She's direct, no-nonsense, a great military strategist, snarky... what's not to love?

Madi had quite a badass entrance, too. We’ll see how she’ll deal with her ambiguous role of being officially a Commander, while the adults are actually making leadership decisions and leaving her behind to be protected as a child, but Gaia found a nice way to make it look different when she agreed with Abby’s decision to leave her in the ship for protection with “You’re too important, Heda”.

Abby showed her ruthless side when she blackmailed Diyoza with the option of not helping with the birth of her child, and when just sat there while Octavia was getting beaten up, and only finally intervened when she was about to get killed, and Jordan and Niylah were yelling at her to stop it... and even that may have been because she had it pointed out that this was what Octavia wanted. She probably has a lot of rage from Kane's clinical death/almost-death that Octavia kind of caused.

The surviving hijacker said that the trees eat the bugs.(They have eaten them all by now) Interesting planet.

The hijackers are all Nightbloods, as you would expect from descendants of the Eligius mission. So who is the radiation fence supposed to keep out? If the people in the woods are red-bloods, how did that happen?

The hijackers were really concerned with the dead bodies, and in a way that seems to go way beyond normal reverence for human remains. Diyoza told the survivor "Newsflash, they're dead", but I think these people have a way of recreating dead people by cloning or something similar - however, they would also need a way to recreate the consciousness, because otherwise, clones are just identical twins, not the same people.

A lot of the evidence for this comes from the flashback, which was really interesting and full of reveals:

The Eligius mission was on the planet 236 years ago, which means they came to the planet before the first nuclear apocalypse, which happened 229 years ago (97 years + about 6 months that passed from 1x01 to 4x13 + 6 years + 125 years).

Josephine Ada Lightbourne (they made sure that we know that’s her name) and her astronaut father (played by Sean Maguire) are strikingly similar to Clarke and her father, and not just physically. She even draws like Clarke. I still think that Lightbournes may be related to the Griffins, If they are not, then this was deliberately done to draw the parallels.

Josephine Ada Lightbourne is also the name of the author of the Red Sun Rising book - even though the book could have only been written after the first psychosis incident that we see in the flashback, and it seemed that Josie got killed by her father during his psychosis, alongside her mother a bunch of other people.

Speculation based on info from the trailers, promo and details about the next episode:

Josephine was a taxonomist, and her boyfriend, Dr Gabriel Santiago, was a geneticist, and the next episode is called "Children of Gabriel"... Gabriel also mentioned that they have embryos for reproduction, which means they brought fully formed embryos to the planet, or created them there. But if they have been trying to replicate dead humans for two centuries (since Sean Maguire's character killed so many of the members of the mission), they have to have some sort of a method of transferring consciousness, too, because otherwise, clones are just like identical twins, not the same people. Russell (JR Bourne), the leader of the people from the Sanctum, is obviously the descendant of Maguire’s character, both because of his looks and because the trailer revealed his last name Lightbourne.

My impression, based on the info from trailers etc., is that Russell's people are elitist, self-righteous a-holes who decide that only some are 'worthy' to live in their "Paradise". But it's interesting that "Lightbourne" means something very similar to "Lucifer" (or vice versa - the latter is "light bearer"). This doesn't exactly scream trustworthy good guys, and neither does the attitude we see from the trailer, or the fact that they dress like people from the Capitol and live in something that looks like a castle from a Renaissance Fair. And if they really do have a way of re-creating dead humans, would put a whole new meaning to the whole Sanctum thing and the divide between those within and those outside (the people in the woods?) that Russell's people have exiled/are not letting in as unworthy! Stakes are really high if they are basically deciding who the chosen ones are with the right to "live forever".

Rating: 9.5/10

[truthbeetoldmedia]

The 100 6x01 “Sanctum” Review

Last week, ahead of the 100’s Season 6 premiere, executive producer Jason Rothenberg announced that the show has been picked up for a seventh season. This is incredible, especially since at Conageddon back in March, some of the cast teased that if the upcoming season were the show’s last, not much would feel resolved.

So, we go into the season knowing that this won’t be the end for our heroes. However, their trouble may just be starting.

Season 5 ended with the show’s biggest time jump yet — 125 years, to be exact. Monty and Harper decided to live out their lives on the Eligius ship instead of joining their friends in cryo sleep, and to spend that time finding a safe place for the ship’s inhabitants to live. And oh, one more thing — they have an adult son named Jordan (Shannon Kook) who they put in cryo.

In many ways, 6x01 feels like a parallel to the series pilot. A group led by Bellamy land on the new planet (or moon, as Jordan reveals), unsure of what they may find. There’s even a callback to Octavia’s “We’re back bitches!” that really brings that nostalgia to surface.

However, not everything is the same as it once was. In the six years plus cryosleep since the gang first landed on Earth, relationships have been forged and broken, and those cracks haven’t been smoothed over by the long nap. Much of Spacekru, notably Raven and Murphy, still resent Clarke for her actions in Eden. And though Madi seemed to have fixed Clarke and Bellamy’s relationship by telling him about the radio calls, she can’t play peacemaker for everyone.

It’s frustrating to watch Clarke dodge insult after insult, especially when we remember that Clarke missed her friends immensely for those six years she spent on earth with just Madi. However, their anger is unfortunately understandable, and as they are a family, Clarke is still an outsider.

It’s not all bad though, because Bellamy has Clarke’s back from the moment they both awaken from cryo. They seem to have a mutual understanding of that forgiveness Echo talks about as they all sit by the fire. Though it’s a nice sentiment, it seems out of character for Echo to be so forgiving, especially towards Clarke. She doesn’t have the same insight Bellamy does regarding the radio calls, after all. Perhaps she’s the only one who felt refreshed after her nap?

Regardless, there isn’t much time to dwell on feelings because nearly as soon as the explorers land on Planet Alpha, they’re faced with some bizarre new challenges. Rather than people throwing spears at them, it’s bugs angrily swarming around them, chasing them toward a radioactive tower. Unfortunately, Shaw runs into its invisible forcefield and is subsequently killed.

Though it’s heartbreaking to see Shaw go, Jason Rothenberg has revealed that he was killed off due to scheduling conflicts for his portrayer, Jordan Bolger. Bolger has been cast in an upcoming series on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network called David Makes Man.

Kane is put on ice back on the ship for the same reason, as he recently appeared in the first season of Fox series The Passage. Though Kane is technically still alive in cryo sleep, it’s uncertain what his fate will be as the season plays out.

But just before Kane is sent back to sleep, Octavia is awoken. It’s apparent that the long nap didn’t help soothe her anger either, as she angrily reminds Kane and Abby she is a monster — but they are monsters too.

Seeing Octavia awake in the first episode of the season is a necessary reminder that though Wonkru has been virtually disbanded, these characters cannot erase what they’ve done. It seems like Octavia is going to go on a long and tumultuous journey of self-discovery and perhaps self-forgiveness this season. After all, who is she now that she is no longer the Red Queen?

The highlight of this episode is definitely Murphy’s sarcastic and lighthearted commentary. It manages to cut the suspense in many places as our heroes are expecting to find death around every corner (or behind every door).

It’s nice to see a less angsty, but still equally cynical Murphy (Richard Harmon) in this new world. Jason Rothenberg recently said via his Instagram that season six is Harmon’s best season yet, and if this episode is anything to go by, I certainly believe him. A musical number was certainly a new endeavor for the actor, and he killed it (no pun intended).

And then there’s Jordan back in space with Raven, a refreshingly innocent and hopeful other side of the coin. Clarke and Bellamy have essentially been tasked with acting as his parents, and though he is very much not a child, he has a childlike innocence and naivety that none of our heroes can relate to. After all, he’s been sheltered in the safety of the Eligius ship for his entire life.

His overly hopeful demeanor begs the question: What did Monty and Harper tell him about their time on Earth? We can definitely assume they left out the most gruesome and gory parts. However, in his first moments awake since being put in cryo, he’s already being thrust into drama between Raven and Abby surrounding Abby’s pain pill addiction. So, will Jordan be able to maintain his sunny composure for long?

Regardless, his pure curiosity in this episode feels like a reflection of that of the audience, making his character immediately relatable. Shannon Kook has already proven himself a standout and out of everything to come this season, I’m perhaps most looking forward to seeing how Jordan changes like some of our favorites were forced to do when faced with the unpredictability of earth and, more importantly, its inhabitants.

Speaking of standouts though, we can’t not talk about Bob Morley and Eliza Taylor’s impeccable performances in that scene. Yes, the radio call scene.

Up until now, Clarke has been unsure of why exactly Bellamy has forgiven her for leaving him to die. But now, in a moment that really tugs at the heartstrings, Bellamy tells her that he knows about the calls she made to him every day for six years. He apologizes for not being able to answer, and jokingly calls her pathetic, earning a laugh from Clarke that brings us right back to that playfulness of season one and scenes like the Unity Day celebration — just before things went south.

Unsurprisingly, Morley and Taylor are incredible in this scene, emoting a mixture of sadness for time lost and dynamics changing, and hopefulness for a future as friends again (and maybe something more, eventually?).

Despite the chaos that ensues soon after, this moment serves as a reminder that Clarke and Bellamy are and always will be the head and the heart, connected by their mutual understanding of the struggles that come along with leadership (especially on a dying and wartorn planet). It’s so refreshing to see them side by side once again. One can only hope this means that they’ll act as the power duo we’ve come to love so much as they face whatever’s to come on Planet Alpha. Presently, this is figuring out how to deal with the effects of the red sun.

This episode thrusted us into the new world, dangerous unknowns abound. The quick pace seemed to have set us up for the turbulent season to come as our heroes face entirely new challenges including each other. The tagline of this season is “Face your demons”, and in the final moments of 6x01, we can certainly see that the demons are not anything like the ones they’ve dealt with before. Clarke and friends have constantly been troubled with the internal struggle of being the good guy, and with Monty’s reminder to do so ringing in their ears, they definitely weren’t expecting to lose control of that so quickly.

It will be interesting to see how this mantra carries our beloved character through this season, and if it will be able to hold up in this new world. So far, it seems like the answer is a resounding no — not that they have much control over the matter.

The 100 airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on the CW.

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 5 - FLA - Weird Win

The Florida Panthers thought they would be the Carolina Hurricanes by this point: the hot, young club meteorically rising to the top of their division. The Hurricanes seemed like they were a goaltender away for half a decade and patched that up enough last year to make the Eastern Conference Final. They’ve added a lot from coaching to forwards and they’ve only built the beast bigger this season. Florida similarly has pulled all the stops to turn their corner. With two playoff appearances since 2000 that organization has been long hungering for something compelling on the banks of the Everglades. When it comes to Panthers v Sabres there’s little to no history to speak of. None of the Buffalo News’ top 50 Sabres games of all time involve the Florida Panthers. Most Sabres fans of my generation associate them with the Eichel Draft occurring in their arena, the Mark Pysyk trade and… well that’s about it. Neither of those moments are games. To my parents’ generation I suppose the Panthers represent a fun Sabres away game side trip while visiting their retired parents in South Florida. I solicited Sabres twitter for Greatest Game Against the Panthers for Buffalo. Understandably you guys had just as much trouble as me finding anything notable about the 100 matchups these two teams have had over the years. Somehow I ended up getting four games notable enough for them to memorable to some people. Don’t worry, there are three other games against Florida this season. The other three games will get in here as well. The Greatest Game Against for today’s matchup however was submitted by @t31mcgraw. It’s the January 19th, 2001 matchup that saw aging Dominik Hasek defeat young gun Roberto Luongo in a matchup for the ages. It was 0-0 until the last ten seconds of regulation when Sabres forward Denis Hamel blocked a shot and returned it to the Panthers zone to win it. That’s a throwback right there. Now let’s talk about tonight’s game.

This game could have been as contentious as the Habs game Wednesday night. If it was then both teams had a weird way of showing it. This one was a weird one from the start as the first 30 minutes of this game was more or less two drunk men just throwing haymakers at each other in the words of @d4rkbuffalo. Confession: I missed those first thirty minutes due to a work event. I turned this game on confused. 0-0 halfway through the game? Beyond 5 on 5 expected goals most every advanced stats category was dead even through that first period. The Sabres were getting outshot but looking back on this game you really don’t notice it until the overtime period, but we’ll get there. I’m tempted to say the gangbusters powerplay Buffalo has had through the first four games finally hit a wall and that’s why it was so dull but there was only one powerplay opportunity in the first. All five of the other powerplays between both teams were inconsequential. The powerplay didn’t click but it was symptomatic of these two teams just whacking each other will limp pool noodles. Breaking through in this game would take someone or some players making mistakes. And so this one became a game of mistakes. You know who cleans up a game of mistakes? The goalies. Linus Ullmark versus Sergei Bobrovsky is not a matchup you’re expecting to be a spectacular duel, at least not from the Ullmark side. I’m the biggest Linus Ullmark fan not married to him in North America. Even I will say I don’t expect him to win a pure goalie duel against Sergei Bobrovsky but once again: this was a weird game all the way around.

A Sabres powerplay had just ended when Kyle Okposo and Johan Larsson came streaming into the Panthers’ zone in the last minute of the second period. This line has transcended being just a cliché checking line. These three veterans, all dudes we were begging to see shipped out over the summer have had a great start to the season. They’ve played a stout game defensively, frustrating their matchups and even getting the puck entrenched in the offensive zone against better competition. Call it the roaring twenties line or call it the LOG, its making hay out of dirt whatever you call it. Kyle Okposo covered by two defenders gets the puck over to Johan Larsson who shoots over the outstretched Bobrovsky and gets the Sabres out to a 1-0 lead. He falls over Bob like Bobby Orr. Okay. Sure! That’s a lead. I’ll take it no matter which guy wearing a bison on their jersey does it. That goal-less dynamo line finally gets rewarded! Moreover Marco Scandella saved a puck from the goal line in heroic fashion. It was certainly a weird one. Through that second intermission your thinking: okay, scoring effects alone have to even the score in this game, the most weirdly even-uneven game we’ve seen in a while. Then two minutes into the third period the LOG gets right back to work as Zemgus Girgensons skates in, drops it to Kyle Okposo, who drops it to Marco Scandella… yikes not him… *eyes widen* …did he just… score!? Yes, believe it or not, Marco Scandella just tapped it in past Bob like he was an Allstar or something. Did someone drug me at my work party? What is this? This can’t be Sabres hockey, even the new version doesn’t feature Scandella dingers. What’s going on? They reminded us who we were watching, don’t worry.

The Florida Panthers got a new coach over the offseason in addition to the Sergei Bobrovsky. The one and only Joel Quenneville. Three-time Cup winner with the dynastic Chicago Blackhawks. I don’t need to tell you who he is. Evidently the rough start for the Cats got him upset. He was bag-skating dudes in practice this week. Do you think the likes of Mike Hoffman and Aaron Ekblad are taking well to that? You think Eichel is tired of losing? Imagine being Ekblad and not even living in a place that knows you exist! They were not going to lay down and die after a couple scrubs scored on them. This Ullmark fan is going to be honest here: Linus was a little far out of the crease when Evgeni Dadonov came in and snuck it around him. They call him daddy in Miami. He sparked the Panthers comeback and comeback they did. The Cats got up and began shelling for the equalizer. And this is when the first and foremost flaw in Ralph Krueger’s coaching becomes clear. He moved Jimmy Vesey up to Victor Olofsson’s spot next to Jack Eichel and gee, I don’t know. I want Greasy Vesey to get going I just don’t know how to trigger him. Maybe when you’re clinging to a one goal lead late in the third against a divisional opponent isn’t the time. Just a thought. Krueger is still figuring out who to trust in these tight situations and hopefully he soon figures out the Scandella-Ristolainen pairing probably ain’t it. Hell, what do I know after this game? At this rate Scandella scores a hatty against Dallas on Monday, what a weird world! Anyway, after the shelling reached it’s fever pitch in the dying minutes of the regulation Mike Hoffman sunk a tight 4-hole shot and it was even with less than 15 seconds left! Yeah, that was a hair-puller. But it got worse.

I was certain, almost beyond convincing that they were going to lose the game in overtime. It doesn’t take a savant to tell you possession is everything in 3 on 3 overtime. It’s golden goal and its over so the dude who has the puck is making his team multiple times more likely to win the game just by having the puck! The Sabres had maybe a minute of possession the whole five-minute overtime. It’s a low-grade miracle the Panthers didn’t take two points in OT. They didn’t and so we went to the first shootout of the season. This is where the goalies matter most. Linus Ullmark was 2-2 in shootouts coming into this but well over .800 in shots taken on him in those shootouts. He’s a good goalie and the shootout is damn good evidence. No Panther got a puck past him and Jack Eichel and Casey Mittelstadt both had their fancy finishes. The Buffalo Sabres took away the two points and the 3-2 win from this one and successfully completed a two-game overpowering of two big Atlantic Division wildcard opponents. I’ll say this: letting each of these games go past regulation, giving both of Montreal and Florida a point in the standings is not ideal. There is a lot more hockey left, 77 games in this regular season in fact, so let’s see where it goes. I think it’s a safe bet that come next month we’re not talking about the Quenneville Panthers getting bag-skated in practice. They’ll turn it on and so will the Canadiens. The question remains: will the Sabres be a good team in November, December, January, February, March and yes, April? Or do we have another team here that will burn bright early and fade? I don’t know but I really hope we have fun, meaningful hockey in the spring. We’ll have to see, it’s not even winter yet, eh.

You might be reading this on Saturday. If you are tonight is the night! If you’re not… well tomorrow is the day! Tomorrow is the Third Annual Buffalo Pod-a-Thon downtown at Buffalo Riverworks! Doors open at 5:30 and most of the proceeds go to BB&G Charities. That’s $25 at the door and you get dinner with that, so I think it’s a good deal. Once you’re in you get me and about two dozen other Western New York Sports personalities to enjoy. I’ll be the one wearing a Rochester Americans Linus Ullmark jersey. I’m awfully proud I get to wear it the day after a performance like that! I know it will be fun and even if you’re not my biggest fan you’ll find something there you’re into. There’s even going to be a game show I hear! I hope you’ll come on down and come back here Monday night after the Dallas Stars come to town to take on the… wait for it… the 4-0-1 Buffalo Sabres! They haven’t started this well since the Ryan Miller era! Like, comment and share this blog with a friend. Hopefully I see you tomorrow!

Thanks for Reading.

P.S. I want to join the pile-on Alex Nylander. He got a few games on the Toews and Kane line in Chicago and now he’s scratched. That sounds like the guy I remember! I still cannot believe we got Henri Jokiharju for that guy!

[tamalam11]

S6 Episode Titles

So the rest of The 100 S6 episode titles were revealed today. (In the past these haven’t always been accurate titles.) Lets pretend we know anything about anything and see what we can deduce from them, shall we?? Wild Unfounded Speculation Time Commencing!!! 

 6x06 Memento Mori (confirmed title) : “Diyoza learns more about the mysterious Children of Gabriel while Abby continues to search for a way to save Kane.” 

a quick google search tells me 2 things- this phrase is Latin for “remember (that) you will die” and that the dictionary defines it as “ an object serving as a warning or reminder of death, such as a skull.” I don’t think its much of a stretch to guess that this episode its going to be dealing with death/mortality. Either Gabriel's himself, or Murphy struggling with whether or not to actually take Josephine up on her offer, or maybe even Murphy & Bellamy dealing with the fact that Clarke is “dead.” And obviously, as the episode description says, Abby dealing with Kane’s dwindling mortality. 

6x07 Nevermind (confirmed title): “Clarke's past catches up to her.”

I don’t need to google this one. It’s written by returning Writers Room Alum, Kim Shumway, who divides the fandom in Love/Hate for her. Personally, I have no problem with her. She wrote one of my all time favorite episodes, S3′s Nevermore. Which this episode’s title is clearly a play off of. Nevermore is a character driven bottle episode that deep dives into character relationships and histories (and had quality Bellarke content). If Nevermind isn’t the episode where we see Clarke in Mount Weather (ie: when she Faces Her Demons), I’ll eat my hat, as they say. The fact that IMBD credits Jake Griffin as among the characters in this episode helps me feel even more certain. 

6x08 The Old Man and The Anomaly 

Gabriel. Obviously. We’re either going to learn about him in the anomaly, or go into it with him. OR we’re already in it with Clarke and she comes into contact with him. Thought I do admit, there doesn't seem like enough time to get Clarke to the Anomaly and my previous theory is looking less and less likely. 

6x09 What You Take With You

Is someone literally going somewhere? What you take with you when you leave a place? Probs not. More like...what you take with you when you leave a relationship, a person, a non-physical space of being. What you take with you is what you learn, or what you’re given by another person- forgiveness, love, growth. Someone is dying, breaking up, or coming back. (It’s interesting to note that IMDB lists Kane as in this episode. I know its not a credibly source, but still.) 

6x10  Matryoshka

this was another google search. and hole-lee fuuuuuuuuuck.  Matryoshka is the name for Russian Nesting Dolls. If you aren’t familiar with those, they are hollow wooden dolls that open up to contain another smaller hollow wooden doll until you get down to the smallest, solid, wooden doll. The original. The Origin. The First. Gee, I wonder what this could be a metaphor for? Honestly though, I wonder-- which Russian Nesting Doll are we revealing? Josephine The First? Or Becca Pram Heda??????  

6x11 Ashes to Ashes

A Bellamy heavy episode, rumored to be just characters sitting around talking and having sex, directed by Bob Morely...... and named after something related to death???? The phrase Ashes to Ashes references “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” which is often said at funerals over grave sites. Though it could be literal, as this show does like to burn things down AND we see Murphy holding a torch in the trailer. But none of that jives with what we know about the episode. Or think we do, anyway. Unless we lose someone in the previous episode, and this is a quiet episode that actually takes a beat and allows everyone to reflect and mourn. Wouldn’t that be a nice change of pace? This is also the episode that IMDB lists Azgeda Warrior and Young E/cho. So its also the E/cho backstory ep. I would be down if Ashes to Ashes references her death. But more likely it’s Be/cho talking and having sex because I never get nice things. 

6x12 Adjustment Protocol

This sounds like a military phrase. Maybe it’s a Diyoza heavy episode?? IDK why, but this one seems the most likely candidate to be a fake title. It just sounds off. Like, it doesn't fit with the flow of the other titles. But then, maybe that’s the point. Maybe the whole episode will be that way. According to IMDB, this is directed by Olicity Fandom fave Antonio Negret. And the only main players are Bellamy and Clarke. Consider me baited. 

6x13 The Blood Of Sanctum 

Season Finale. Literally, we’re going to spill the blood of Sanctum?? That’d be pretty On Brand. Or, like, metaphorically, we’re going to like be the blood of Sanctum? Like, it’s gonna be ours?? Who the hell knows.