#THEY LOVED EACH OTHER SO MUCH

[aquitainequeen]

Here I am, hours later, still crying about Furiosa and Praetorian Jack. George Miller, Nico Lathouris, Anya Taylor-Joy and Tom Burke are geniuses. They completely sold me on just how much these characters loved each other.

Furiosa coming out of a nightmare, wielding a knife, to be caught by Jack. He doesn’t say it’s all right or that she’s safe, she doesn’t say it was just a bad dream. They don’t say anything. Jack eases her back down to her cot and they settle down, aware of each other.

Jack stitching up Furiosa’s shoulder in a hidden spot in the Citadel, Furiosa showing Jack the peach seed that she’s kept hidden in her hair for so long, proving that the Green Place is out there, asking him to come with her, pressing her forehead to his while cupping the back of his head, showing him her love in the manner of her people, and him returning the gesture. After fifteen years, she’s finally going home, and he’s coming with her.

And then...

Spoilers beyond here!!!

And then:

The battle of the Bullet Farm, which is where the strength and force of their love really started to batter me. Furiosa manages to avoid the ambush and get out of the Farm before the gate closes, and Jack could easily have slipped through the gate to join her, but he sees the enemy forces mustering and knows they’ll quickly be hunted down if there's nothing to stop their pursuers. He shoots off a green flare that clearly tells Furiosa to abandon him and get the hell out of there, intending to sacrifice himself so that she has a chance to escape and set off for the Green Place. Furiosa does drive off, but gets maybe five metres before she decides ‘fuck this’ and goes back in to try and save him. And she saves him from his pursuers and she saves him from falling to his death, and they get to their escape vehicle and drive off, with nary a word spoken or exchanged until they’re on the flat and heading for freedom. And even then, all that’s mentioned is what direction they should take to reach the Green Place. That's it. They don’t need anything else. They survived, they got out, they're together, they’re going to be all right.

And they almost make it. They almost get away.

When they’re captured by Dementus and forced onto their knees, there’s no special close up on them; mostly they’re on the edge of the shot while Dementus is ranting centre stage or screaming into their faces. They pay no heed to him. That love infuriates Dementus. He shrieks, he tears at them, but he can’t break them. He doesn’t matter. What matters is that they spend their last moments touching each other, leaning into each other, pressing their foreheads together, breathing deep, loving each other.

There are no parting words between Furiosa and Jack, no declarations or promises or screams of despair, but it hit me so hard and cut so deep that the second to last time we see Jack’s face, he’s craning desperately to see what’s happening to Furiosa, trying to get one final precious glimpse of her, before he’s quite literally dragged to his awful death.

We don’t see Furiosa’s reaction to her torture on multiple fronts, as she is strung up by her maimed arm and forced to watch Jack die. We’ve seen her scream and weep for her mother, but this moment is hers alone. It’s not for us.

How fitting it is that Jack saves Furiosa one last time, as his execution distracts Dementus and his crew from noticing that Furiosa has cut off her own arm to escape.

The last time we see Jack’s face is in Furiosa’s last nightmare.

Furiosa doesn’t mention Jack in her final showdown with Dementus, when she screams about her mother and her stolen childhood. But from what’s shown to us, I think that the spot in the Citadel when she imprisons Dementus and grows the peach tree in the midst of his emaciated, maggot-ridden body…is the same place where Jack stitched up her wounded shoulder, where she showed him the peach seed, where she asked him to come with her to the Green Place and he accepted, where she showed him her love in the manner of her people, where they embraced. Where she avenged herself and Jack, upon the man who destroyed their lives.

Where Furiosa now plucks the first fruit of the tree to bring to the Five Wives, whom she will bring with her to the Green Place.   

[queen-morgana91]

Katara had no idea that Iroh would have saved them and she was ready to die with Aang here

[radcaduceus]

it's hard to see but I think Yasha got Molly's peacock tattoo ;_;

[louissviolin]

“That’s my girl.”

[fredandginger64]

Another great radio show. I've heard Dean sing , "Ill String Along With You" many times but I've never heard him put his heart in it like he did on this particular show. And when Jerry came out singing in his high pitched Jerry voice, "Ill Rope Along With You", and Dean corrected him, saying it was string and not rope, Jerry replies, 'strings break and I don't wanna lose you, bubbe'. Omg these two will kill you! And I love when Jerry calls him bubbe which he does quite often on the radio shows,and Dean slipped up and called him 'jerm' a couple times. God, I love these two together, they were absolutely beautiful!

[scarlct-vvitch]

alas. i am thinking about camilla and palamedes again and making myself upset

[itsme-tori]

I think a lot about how Tara was the first to accept Isabel and even tell her she's special. How that part of their relationship was still alive even when they were "Maddy" and "Owen". The dress scene.....

[misedejem]

The start of the Elpis arc really is just the WoL third-wheeling a couple who spend half the time flirting in a way that only the two of them can truly comprehend, followed by Hyth talking about Emet and Azem with so much genuine affection and adoration that, after it all, you know exactly why separating them for 12000 years ended up having the terrible impact that it did, because it’s so clear how much love there was between them

[hijinks-n-lowjinks]

You know what the gov is right to ban tiktok after it put an asheiji compilation edit in my fyp because now I feel suicidal

[frommybookbook]

I keep thinking about this moment from Perry Mason Returns. Della has been accused of murder and Perry has just gotten the real killer to confess on the stand. And we pan back to the defendant's table and see Paul Jr. be the first to react and to reach out and grab Della's hand in relief, almost before she's even processed it herself.

I know so much of this is just the mother/son relationship between Barbara Hale and William Katt, but I love how it comes across for Della and Paul Jr.

As much as this movie is about Della and Perry, it's also about Della and Paul Jr. They clearly have such a close bond. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Paul Jr. essentially tells Perry to f-off, he'll be working Della's case whether Perry approves or not. And then we get this moment, between these two and not Perry and Della, in this ultimate moment of release, and it's just beautiful.

[byfulcrums]

It's not that they didn't love each other enough, because they did. They loved each other so so much, maybe a little too much, and yet it wasn't enough. It's a tragedy because their meeting doomed them both. The love was there — it wasn't enough.

[fagbearentertainment]

I’m so unwell over Simon and Betty’s conversation rn

Like I can’t put it into good words yet but I’m this image rn

[bitchapalooza]

Danny Pink deserved more…

[thegalaxyinapaperbag2]

that part in that one beatles interview where john, paul, george and ringo all say “WE’VE BEEN TAKING A NAP FOR 40 YEARS” at the same time in a creepy voice is so cute

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

okay i cannot emphasize on how hard chapter 18-19 of nature has taught her creatures to hate made me cry. jon being an impressionable kid and relearning how to be a person with the help of gerry is so, so fucking sweet, and despite not making it out of the institute, what happened mattered anyway. gerry’s actions and resolve still matter even if they didnt reach their goal. and its like. what the fuck.

what fucked me up even more was gerry seeing this kid younger than him and deciding he can *never* be selfish when it comes to jon. he needs to be someone jon can look up to and rely on. but like. hes also just a kid. its horrible, its horrible all the way around, but when you find love in horror you cling as hard and fast as you can until your nails rip off. gerry is just such a good person, man.

I love so much TMA's theme of "the choices you make, even the unfair ones, are the ones that matter." It's this horrible monkey paw situation. It's not that they're utterly helpless in the face of the horrors--in fact, the horrors sometimes can't touch you unless you make the choice to let them. But they can do truly horrible things to guide your choice. It's like Michael--you have to be the one to open its door, but it doesn't have to play fair to get you to do it.

Gerry and Jon fail, back when they're kids. But they still chose each other in the face of horrible consequences. They still chose to love and sacrifice for someone else. And I think that that will always matter.

It's the one thing that Elias can never take from Jon, and believe me--he's tried. Elias can make the choice as unfair and painful as he wants. But it's still Jon's choice in the end. And Jon chooses Gerry. He chooses to love. And that's not nothing.

As to the second thing, I really think the sheer existence of Jon was a total role reversal for Gerry and really just a sign of how good of a person he is.

(I know there’s a lot of debate as to whether he’s the major character death tagged, I’m using present tense because i had to pick a tense but I will leave the mystery of whether he’s alive or not up to y’all the tenses in this post mean nothing).

Gerry is so fucking angry by the time he meets Jon. He’s at this point in his life where he’s in a horrible, abusive, metaphysically terrifying situation that he just can’t find his way out of. He’s tried asking for help, and people chose not to help him. And that’s important—they chose to do it. It’s not that they couldn’t overcome his mother; they explicitly decided to not help him.

The theme of choices and their importance in TMA is, again, just such a huge motif, and it’s no different here. And, moreover, Gerry knows about the importance of choices—his mother raised him to understand them. It is a huge, looming, unshakeable fact in Gerry’s mind at this point: the choices people make matter, and for some reason, everyone chooses to leave him to unspeakable suffering.

Roles are another important thing in TMA—and Gerry very squarely occupies one as the person reaching out for help. He is never the person in the position to offer it, at least not at this point in his life. He is never truly been confronted with the same decision of helping someone being abused that he has proffered others, again and again and again.

He has been dancing along the edges of that decision, however, and he is absolutely fucking terrified that he will make the same one that everyone makes with him. In his statement, he mentioned his mother’s victims—that she stopped hiding them after he tried to turn her in, and that he always told himself that it was too late, they were already dead, and there was nothing he could do.

He also mentions he was lying to himself.

Now, in truth, there really wasn’t anything he could do to help them. His mom really could and would have overwhelmed him, and by the time he saw them, they would have died even if he got them to a hospital. But he still made the choice not to try, and that’s important, and that is a part of himself that Gerry has never been able to forget no matter how hard he tries.

And then there's Jon.

At the start of their friendship, Gerry is so extremely convinced that Jon and he are occupying the same role. Jon is the kid trapped in this world, who no one helps.

It is not until he finds out that Elias made him an avatar that things change.

It's like this: Gerry and Jon are both two kids in a wildly dangerous situation. Their respective adults have brought them down to the edge of the deepest pool in the world. There's no lifeguard on duty, no safety rails, no life vests, and neither of them have been taught to swim. The ground is slick and people slip often, and if you fall in, you will never be able to climb out again.

Gerry knows, viscerally, that his mother has put him in a situation where he is probably going to drown. But, at the very least, she's warned him not to run--even though she forces him to walk at a hazardously fast pace.

Gerry thought that was Jon. Elias brought him to the edge, told him to keep up, and looked on when he fell in and died painfully. Jon was just the less lucky version of Gerry. Both of them have constantly ran the risk of being eaten, but Jon just happened to be the one that got swallowed. He was suffering the terrible fate that Gerry was fully expecting to befall him.

But then Gerry finds out that Elias made him an avatar on purpose. And that's different from what happened to Gerry. Gerry's mother introduced him to the risk of drowning, but Elias held Jon beneath the waves and waited until he stopped struggling.

Gerry realized, then, that, for the first time, he was the guy that could turn a blind eye. He was every single person who had ever turned their back on him.

And it would have been easy for him to do the same thing.

Because while Gerry had realized that there was a difference between him and Jon, Jon hadn't realized the same thing. Jon was not asking Gerry for help. At the time Gerry decided to save him, Jon wasn't aware that he could be saved. Gerry could have kept on the same way they were going before he knew, and Jon would have never once thought the worse of him.

And besides, the Institute, Elias, and the Eye were all incredibly dangerous. Gerry knew he would risk a horrible, painful fate if he went up against them. He had every single reason to not risk what he did.

He could have turned a blind eye, and the only one who would have paid the price was Jon.

Gerry was a little boy in a terrible situation who found a littler boy in a worse situation, and he decided that he needed to be for Jon everyone he never had. Gerry was a kid, and was trying to force himself to walk in some very adult shoes. Jon was just so incredibly fucked up when they ran that he was completely unaware of how wrong things were, and Gerry ended up shouldering a huge amount of the burden of keeping them on track. The car could have been actively on fire in a hurricane and Jon still would have counted it as better than where he was before; Gerry knew why Jon was like this and loved him more than anything, but at the end of the day, he was still very young and very afraid and spent most of the time wanting to cry. It was unequivocally the best part of his life, and he spent most of it wanting to cry.

It was horrible, and it was unfair, but it mattered. The choices that they made in those moments made Gerry Keay and Jonathan Sims more than any single thing Elias ever did, and it mattered.

[fredandginger64]

"Write down this part word for word just like I say it. I know that individually, going it alone, we would not be as great as we are together. When we shook hands on our partnership, I said in my heart, this is forever, 'til death do us part. It still goes! Sometimes he make mistakes, sometimes I make mistakes. But as long as people let us alone, the team of Martin and Lewis will go on!"

~Dean Martin, 1954

Dean so rarely talked about Jerry and himself like this and when he did, you better believe it was coming from his heart. He knew "outside forces", were already involved, and it seemed, to me, he was a little frightened about he and Jerry being apart. Dean hurt too, just like Jerry. He just didn't show it.