#all this to say but yeah for the right person who steph can't live without? she drops everything for them even if it hurts

[rickie-the-storyteller]

Happy STS! Choose any WIP. Don't give spoilers, but what would you say is the "point of no return" scene? The scene after which nothing will ever be the same again for your characters and there's no turning back? Why did you choose that specific scene? Was it difficult to write?

Thanks for the ask, @clairelsonao3! I appreciate it.

(Sorry for the late answer btw.)

It's just that, it's super hard for me to answer questions like this without spoiling it lol. And I also feel like the "point of no return" tends to vary in terms of which character we're talking about lol. In a lot of my WIPs, there are multiple characters that get their own separate arcs and storylines, even if there's a main protagonist that gets most of the focus.

(More below)

For Steph's Crew (I'll just choose this since it's the main WIP I'm focusing on), everyone in the main friend group has their own storyline, but Steph is the protagonist. For her, the "point of no return" happens before the events of the story even start. It is when she runs away from home. She moved to London to live with a new foster family (who already had a daughter named Melanie... who she never got along with), but it didn't work out. She stayed with them for a while, but then she and Mel had this massive fight, and that was the last straw for Steph. So she left without the family knowing, and she currently lives with her boyfriend, Ben. And that's how her character starts out in the story!

This whole deal was really hard to write because I wanted it to have an impact. I also struggle to write about stuff that I haven't experienced or am not completely sure about... like, I'm not familiar with the foster care system, and I actually have a strong relationship with my family (and I'm especially close with my sister, so I can't even relate to the whole fighting with Melanie thing lol). But I also really care about giving the right vibe. You know when you watch something on TV, and you can tell it's supposed to be a dramatic scene that you're meant to take seriously, but you just... can't? Yeah, that's what I personally try to avoid.

The way I tried to go about it in the story is by hinting at/casually mentioning it throughout, through conversations and stuff. But then there are actual chapters that give proper detailed flashbacks to her life in that family, as well as her relationship with Mel. And all of that comes to a head towards the end, where we get to Stephanie's second "point of no return" moment - getting disowned by her foster family once and for all. Which is a whole other thing. Something I will not be getting into right now, because if I did, we'd be getting into proper spoiler territory... like, stuff I haven't posted from this story yet lol.

[haven-sent]

character stats

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟷    :    𝐓𝐇𝐄    𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄.    

NAME  : stephanie “steph” gingrich

EYE COLOR  : hazel 

HAIR STYLE  /  COLOR  :  straight, shoulder length dark brown hair, experimented with a couple of different streaks of colour in high school.

HEIGHT  :     5′7

CLOTHING STYLE  :    exclusively in jeans at all times. formal event? black jeans. during the summer she’s pretty much only wearing tank tops to show off those drummer arms (deceptively buff looking, she is weak af). every other time it’s graphic tees, raglans and band tees, usually with a flannel or oversized button up thrown over the top and then a hoodie on top of that for winter. converse, or combat boots if she wants to add a little height. she basically just settled into her grunge phase in high school and never left it. if you see her not wearing a beanie you have witnessed a rare, almost mythical, sight.

BEST PHYSICAL FEATURE  :    her smile. absolutely adorable and incredibly infectious. also i love arm.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟸    :    𝐓𝐇𝐄    𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄.    

FEARS  :    getting close to people and them leaving her, losing loved ones, failing at her music career, ending up alone, disappointing her friends.

GUILTY PLEASURE  :    cheesy 90s pop, dancing when nobody’s watching, fruity cocktails, musicals

BIGGEST PET PEEVE  :    disorganization, being beaten at ANY game (she’s a very sore loser).

AMBITIONS FOR THE FUTURE  :    touring the world in a band.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟹    :    𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒.

FIRST THOUGHTS WAKING UP  :   coffee immediately needed to wake up, planning out what she wants to say on the radio that morning, if there’s a specific song on her brain that she wants to play.

WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT MOST  :    music - whether it’s a song she likes stuck in her head, or if she’s thinking about writing something. daydreaming about what she’d do if she made it big and had a steady career performing.

WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT BEFORE BED  :   her friends - the benefits of living in a small town is she gets to see and hang out with them pretty much every day and it always lets her go to sleep with a smile on her face.

WHAT THEY THINK THEIR BEST QUALITY IS  :    if anyone ever asked she’d say her smokin’ hot looks - an easy way to deflect. what she actually thinks is probably her sense of humour - she finds herself funny and most people seem to as well. her actual best quality is her ability to listen to people and know what they need to push through something tough.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟺    :    𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓’𝐒    𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑?

SINGLE OR GROUP DATES  :    group - steph gets nervous around girls she actually likes and a group setting where she can pull focus from herself makes her way more comfortable.

TO BE LOVED OR RESPECTED  :    to be loved, but she’s scared of having to give it in return without a safety net.

BEAUTY OR BRAINS  :    bit of both, but brains add to the hotness.

DOGS OR CATS  :   cats. canonically will literally risk getting mauled to pet a cat.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟻    :    𝐃𝐎    𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘…

LIE  :    not usually, unless it’s necessary (usually to help cover for someone else). if you ask it of her though be warned - her pokerface is terrible.

BELIEVE IN THEMSELVES  :    it varies. she knows she’s good at what she does, she knows she’s hot, she knows she’s funny. objectively she knows all of this but she always falters at believing that it’s enough.

BELIEVE IN LOVE  :    yes. she’s been in love before and believes she could fall in love again. she’s just hesitant.

WANT SOMEONE  :    yes. anyone.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟼    :    𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄    𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘    𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑…

BEEN ON STAGE  :   quite a few times, she loves being on stage and performing in front of people.

CHANGED WHO THEY WERE TO FIT IN  :    not really. she’s never had the attitude of wanting to fit in with people who won’t like her for who she is and her interests. she doesn’t consider them worth her time. but she does suppress some elements of herself sometimes so as not to turn people off.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟽    :    𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐒.

FAVORITE COLOR  :    red or purple.

FAVORITE ANIMAL  :    cats. otters are also super cute.

FAVORITE BOOK  :    gideon the ninth.

FAVORITE GAME  :    dungeons and dragons

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟾    :    𝐀𝐆𝐄.

DAY THEIR NEXT BIRTHDAY WILL BE  :    december 17th

HOW OLD WILL THEY BE  :    29

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟿    :    𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇    𝐓𝐇𝐄    𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄.

I LOVE  :   soft guitar melodies, headbanging to old 80s metal when no one’s around.

I FEEL  :    i might never be good enough to get what i want.

I HIDE  :    what i need if it might interfere with what others want.

I MISS  :    my dad, arcadia bay, gabe.

I WISH  :   i could get back the people i’ve lost or left behind.

tagged by: @reivontulet tagging:  i don’t know anyone here well enough yet to be tagging y’all out the blue but if you see this and want to do it please feel free

[jostenneil]

Hi, did Chuck Dixon (when he was writing Stephanie) have Spoiler go on an anti-abortion rant? Also, the people who complain about politics in comics usually on care about left-wing politics being present in comics, I haven't seen much people complain about Dixon's copganda.

yeah, i believe it was around the 60s issues of his robin run? basically stephanie got pregnant from some random boyfriend she had (who as i remember quite literally appeared out of nowhere) and when she and her mother went to talk to the principal about it stephanie made a big fuss about how it wasn't right to abort the kid and she had to take responsibility, etc etc. it was very opportunistically timed given the debates that were going on about abortion in the national court system at the time, and i imagine it's something he did on purpose as such

dixon's propaganda, to me, makes it sort of easy to ascertain why so many of tim's fans are white (at least from what i've seen). i think he was very much writing from a sort of lived experience of the average straight white male teen at the time and so it's no wonder that so many writers in the present are fanboys of him. i think they felt recognized bc their experience as part of that demographic was recognized even tho we're obv aware it could hardly be called a unique experience, let alone an interesting one. and so the sociopolitical mindsets of the time and that showed up in his books were glossed over bc for the audience that was most avidly consuming them, this was the norm. they didn't realize there was anything wrong with it bc they weren't part of the demographics that that narrative existed at the expense of. it was a book about an "all-american" teenager even tho in this case "all-american" entailed overwhelming heteronormativity, misogyny, and conservative politics cleverly disguised as exercises in personal agency. even with the readings of tim having internalized homophobia i think. . . a lot of white fans fail to realize that that reading can't be divorced from misogyny in his case specifically. like it's fine to read him as gay and obv i'm happy that a mainstream character (well. i suppose that's debatable in the current comic landscape) like him was revealed to be gay, but i think that, again, bc of that general atmosphere of capturing the life of an everyday, "all-american" teen that dixon tries to pass off as normal, a lot of people treat tim's experience with girls in that book as some sort of run of the mill awkwardness and discomfort with a sex he doesn't and will never understand, when it's just. . . dixon being a misogynist who doesn't know how to write women without making them subservient to a man's narrative. regardless of whatever you ship that's something you have to acknowledge, and like, i don't even like tim's relationships with steph or ariana, they're very suffocating to read about, but again, that's bc they're misogynist. i honestly think it even does a disservice to steph and ariana to act like it's fine for tim to treat them like shit just bc he has internalized homophobia. like idk i just think there's better ways you could go about interpreting that he's gay (and this is not to say there aren't in fandom, obv the way people interpret his interactions with kon is there, but i'm just specifically referring to how people use his relationships with the girls in their reading of him being gay, and how there's a lack of acknowledgement that misogyny fuels it more than anything) and overall i wish people would be more cognizant about the way they analyze and interpret dixon's narrative bc of how much harm it perpetuated under the guise of "all-american" normalcy

[stxleslyds]

I have read your thought about the Batfamily, now I really want to know your thought about the one who started it, the Batman himself. We can't ignore the fact that Bruce is abusing his children, but there's also some moments where he's being a good father to them. But some of his act doesn't make sense.

He's beating his children, then calling them his son after. He act like a mad man after Damian's death (yeah, they did Jason dirty in here), feeling sorrow and desperately wanting to ressurect him, but then neglecting him continously in the future. I didn't know much about Cass, Bruce seems to always be a good father to her. But her fans once pointed that Bruce (or DC) is too hard on her to not killing/too soft on the others, because the other batkids has killed some villains while under Batman and still got to continue putting on their costumes.

What is exactly Bruce character? How is his relationship with every one of his children?

I feel like Batman can't be in a good relationship with one of his children without destroying his relationship with the other. I always love parents and children relationship in comics, but with batfamily sometimes it just so 'fanon-y' and some are hurtful.

I stopped reading Batman book for a long time. And come back reading that wedding and city of bane arc, because I want to know how they killed Alfred. And honestly those run are terrible. The issue basically just a batcat fanservice, with the worst Batman and Catwoman characterization ever. The batkids didn't even got many appearance and treated awfully as if they are just extras, even if they all are capable and have connection with Alfred.

Hey there Anon!

My thoughts on Batman and Bruce have changed over the last few years, he wasn’t the character that introduced me to DC comics but what I got to read from him at the time seemed good. As time went by, I started to feel like the whole concept of Batman was overrated and he kinda tired me in entertainment such as movies and all that. He never truly was a character that I actually liked so by the time that I read Under the Red Hood I knew that I liked Dick and Jason better than Bruce.

Batman was interesting but I was completely indifferent about Bruce. That whole thing changed around the time that the New 52 was sort of ending, there I started to heavily dislike Bruce and then that turned into pure hate. Now, I am just tired of the guy and every time that he appears in Dick or Jason content my day is ruined.

I hate that DC has been writing Bruce as an abusive and manipulative person and father to his “kids”, he has done a lot of wrong to them in comic history but all went to shit (in current comics) when Bruce tried to manipulate Jason into reliving the day that he died and his resurrection in Batman and Robin vol2. #20 and when he beat Dick and manipulated him into becoming a spy after telling him that he had told everyone that he was dead in Nightwing vol.3 #30.

Bruce was a horrible human being in the pre-New 52 timeline too sometimes, mostly towards Dick but in a way, it felt like Dick was able time and time again to get away from him a little bit. Now none of his kids are given the opportunity to turn their backs on Bruce, they are kept in his surroundings no matter how abusive he becomes towards them.

My biggest problem with Bruce’s abusiveness is the fact that the writers never treat it like he acts in an abusive way, they never make him apologize or have an internal discussion where he realises that he was in the wrong. “Bruce is a horrible person to his sons but it doesn’t matter because he is right and he is Batman so that’s that”, that’s the message that I feel DC is selling us. Bruce never receives punishment or is called out for his behaviour, Dick was never able to tell Bruce that what he did to him was unforgivable, he never got the chance to explain to anyone that he didn’t play dead, and when he came back from Spyral he took all the shit from his “family” himself.

Sometimes DC does something even worse, they try to hide Bruce’s neglect with things that never happened like they did with the Ric thing in Dick’s case. Dick was passed around from villain to villain when he was most vulnerable and at the end of it all DC had the guts to say that Batman had been watching over Dick all the time. Like, why lie in such a blatant way? Does Bruce enjoy watching his son suffer from a far or was he too much of a coward to tell Dick that he was a shit father, got stuck in a hole and then decided to play “Cat and Bat” with Selina instead of caring for any of his children?

The situation with Damian’s death and resurrection was a whole thing that was meant to prove that Bruce loved Damian and considered him his son. But in their effort to make Bruce look like a good father to Damian they completely destroyed his relationship with his other kids and that was also the start of Bruce referring to Damian as his ONLY son. And like you said after Damian was resurrected Bruce ended up neglecting him afterwards which ultimately led Damian to run away.

His relationship with Cass and Duke is something that I cannot explore because I am not into those characters and they are involved in books that I am not interested in. So I cannot say anything about that.

With Tim it’s complicated because I feel like his relationship with him was never actually father/son it was more like mentor/mentee and that seemed to work better for them, ever since they started the whole family thing Bruce started to act a little bit too rough towards Tim and that ended with Bruce punching Tim during the “City of Bane” arc. Bruce never apologised or was shown realising his mistake, but DC made sure to explain that Bruce was going through a rough time so that’s why he did it. It was pure rubbish and I dislike it a lot.

I answered an ask a while ago about how I thought Dick and Jason could become family the way that DC treats the “Batfamily” within comics and I came up with the idea of the “Dickfamily” because I felt like DC made a big mistake the moment they revolved the Bat family around Bruce and not Dick. Bruce is a character that is known for being lonely and for being surrounded by darkness that he only manages to escape through the light of Robin (Dick Grayson because he was the first), he was always depicted as someone who is hard to work with and considers his teammates only co-workers and not friends. He is a difficult person to connect with, so why on earth did DC come up with a family surrounding that man? (I actually know the answer to that question and it is: money, DC did it to sell more comics under the Batman name but we are going to forget about that here, let me be petty).

Why would DC make it all about a man that doesn’t connect or goes out of his way to say that he “works alone” when Dick Grayson is standing right there? DC hates that they created a character like Dick because he is just better than Bruce at everything, he just is, he is better family to Alfred, Jason, Tim and Damian, he was even written as a better father to Damian than Bruce ever was!

Bruce is just not a people person or a person that forms strong bonds with people. And that makes the whole “Batfamily” concept suffer and come off as something forced that doesn’t actually work.

Tom King was one of the writers that tried to kill the concept of the “Batfamily” with Bruce and Selina becoming a couple and by continuously saying that Selina was who was the most important person in Bruce’s life and the one that made him a better person. All Tom King did with that is make fans and non-fans of the “Batfamily” feel rage. Like, I might not like the “Batfamily” but there is no way that Selina comes first to Alfred, Dick or Damian, there is just no way and if that were actually true then that’s boring.

All the writers that have pushed the “Batfamily” concept (try) do it in a way that makes it look grand and of actual essence but without putting any work on it, if you ask me the “Batfamily” (if there has to be one) should only include Bruce, Alfred (he do be dead though), Dick, Tim, Cass and Damian (I suppose Duke too, I don’t know much about him). The “Batfamily” has to be small because that way you can actually build relationships and make them matter. Having Kate, Steph, Jason and so many others involved in a concept that was made to fit around Bruce looks stupid! Bruce has had almost zero connection to Kate and Steph in the last ten years and Bruce’s “relationship” with Jason is a complete joke!

Bruce is just not the character that is meant to be surrounded by too much people, and he is not a good person towards his family so the whole ass concept should be thrown to the trash and finally let it die. But money is important and if there is something that DC will never stop doing, is milking Batman for content that can be (sometimes) pretty basic.

All in all, I think Bruce sucks and that his “kids” shouldn’t be dragged back to him ever again or at least for a long while. All of them would actually benefit from not being involved with anything relating to Batman. Dick could benefit from Bruce and other Bat-related characters staying away from him and letting him live his life in Bludhaven. And Jason? My sweet Chonky? He would be in such a better place if Bruce disappeared from his life, imagine the actually good books we would have if Jason was free to act the way he was meant to do as the Red Hood…

(We saw a little bit of that in the back up story of Detective Comics by Rosenberg, Batman is still involved but he and Jason are definitely not on the same side of the story! So excited for Task Force Z!)

I don’t know If al that I just said answers your question but I hope you have a fantastic week Anon!

[roswelldetails]

RNM 2x06 - Sex and Candy

EPISODE SUMMARY:

Maria’s (Heather Hemmens) investigation into her mother’s disappearance leads her and Alex (Tyler Blackburn) to the home of a mysterious boot maker named Travis (guest star David Anders). Meanwhile, on her journey of self-discovery, Isobel’s (Lily Cowles) night out leads her into the arms of someone unexpected. Finally, after making some major scientific strides, Liz (Jeanine Mason) is dealt a devastating blow. Geoff Shotz directed the episode written by Rick Montano & Vincent Ingrao (#206). Original airdate 4/20/2020.

DETAILS:

Max and Isobel's fight:

Lights start flickering when Max starts getting aggressive and then get brighter as he gets more worked up.

The first attempt to expel it seemed like he was causing an earthquake.  He blew out all the windows in the gym, knocked Isobel down, and there was shaking.  But it didn't seem to go beyond that room - no damage is seen when Michael arrives or around town.

Note, after the earthquake thingie the lights go out 

His hands are doing the electric power thingie and THEN he also grabs the lightning.

I think Isobel used her telekinesis to stop it and then push it away, which seemed to work...but if so then why couldn't Noah do that last season? 

Was it the sheer volume of electricity? There was definitely MORE than with Noah.

Michael uses his telekinesis to manually reset Max's heart.  This is very smart of him. Note that he's using his own heart/pulse to get it right.

They are using the antidote to Liz's serum to try to heal Max's mind. 

Michael says that they've been giving him antidote injections for three days (time jump).

Three days of antidote and no new memories for Max.

Isobel remembered her blackouts within a few hours of getting injected with the antidote in 1x10.

Note: Liz hesitated using the antidote this way in 1x10 because Isobel could still be dangerous and they didn't know about the 4th Alien yet.  There doesn't seem to be a similar hesitation with Max. Because Liz trusts him more? Because him forgetting her is more personal? It's not like there isn't a chance that Max is still dangerous…

Maria arranged a Mexican market in the Pony parking lot to subsidize her income.

Buffy the Beagle is Forrest's dog!

Maria comments that the meteor shower makes animals act strange. And humans too.

Forrest and Maria are organizing an open night mic at the Wild Pony.  Free drinks for performers.

Maria clearly approves of Forrest and Alex getting to know each other.  She smacks Alex for his awkward flirting.

The bootmaker's farm is about an hour outside of town.

The Science:

Kyle and Steph are watching a "surgical separation of craniopagus twins".

Craniopagus Twins = twins attached at the cranium/head. (Aka not a heart surgery).

"Did you know, ever since 1947, twin births in Roswell are higher than the national average? Maybe it's aliens."

Speaking of awkward flirting…. "You're just my favorite person I can't stand."

The Spanish:

Le cambio una bolsa de chiles para mi papá...for the free fries next time you come to the Crashdown.

Liz is bartering.  She says basically, I'll trade you a bag of chiles for my papa for free fries next time you come to the Crashdown. 

Note, the captions for this are wrong and use the Spanish word for grasshoppers instead, but you can clearly hear Liz say chiles. Thanks to @rosaortecho for pointing that out to me.

Max says:

I'm trying to eat clean. Uh, tiene carne seca sin como se dice, preservativos.

He's trying to say, basically, does the jerky have preservatives. 

Quiere carne a sin preservativos?

Basically, you want meat without condoms?

Lo siento. Uh, no lo entiendo.

I'm sorry, I don't get it.

Él quiere decir conservantes.

He means preservatives.

Gracias. Estoy embarazado.

Thank you. I'm pregnant.

Michael asks Max who he's texting. Max says everyone has been messaging him but Cameron is the only one who hasn't responded, which isn't like her.

Wildly curious who he was texting though.  It's not like he's a social butterfly. His mom? The sheriff? Who? As I pointed out to some friends the other day, he spent his 21st birthday getting trashed with his SISTER. This is not a trait of a guy with lots of close friends.

Just as another note, Michael says he ghosted her. When exactly was that? Yes, Max ran out on her in the middle of a handy in 1x03, but they addressed that the next day.  She "broke up" with him in 1x07, but they were still good right up until she left town. 

Isobel:

"Does he seem different to you?"

Alex and Maria playing "Never have I Ever" in the car. Good way to do background on characters.

Maria has never cheated on a boyfriend

Alex has never been in a real relationship. Not even "Kellie Sommer-something".

Alex says that whenever he was with a woman he was trying to disappear.  Except for Sophomore year after Battle of the Bands. Seven Minutes in Heaven in Haley Moore's hall closet. Alex and Maria kissed and it was Maria's first kiss (and boob graze).  She always thought she'd marry Alex. Had to come up with a new plan after he came out. 

Alex says "I did too."

"Kissing you in that closet was the first time in my life that I enjoyed touching someone."

Max picks up Liz for their first date…

Just as a note, Save Tonight was the opening song in the pilot of OG Roswell. During the "oh, Max Evans is staring at you again." exchange between Liz and Maria.  So, it might go well with new beginnings or something ;-)

The Science:

"Psychogenic amnesia limits retrieval of stored memories, but if we light up your limbic system and gustatory cortex with some familiar signals…"

"Your milkshake might bring all my memories to the yard?"

**Note, second reference to this song in the context of Liz bringing Max milkshakes. First was in 1x06 by Isobel. Hmm. 1x06 and 2x06… maybe they should crack this joke in 3x06 too.

"Sometimes when people wake up from comas they have different personalities, different tastes even…"

Everything you ever wanted to know about psychogenic amnesia:

But, my main takeaway is that it's a specific type of amnesia where there's abnormal memory function but no brain damage or other clear cause of it.

Limbic system:

Basically the part of your brain that stores emotion, behavior, and long term memory.

Gustatory cortex:

Basically the part of your brain that processes taste.

Maria compares Michael to Chad because he starts fights and lies.  Alex disagrees and lists ways that he was doing good things:

He lied to protect his family from Alex's family.

He shouldered the burden of a murder he didn't commit for ten years so that Isobel didn't have to.

He pushed Maria away to protect her - which might be a good thing too because of all his baggage. 

First Date:

Max went to Ranch camp one summer and dislocated his shoulder while trying to read Lord of the Rings on horseback. #nerd. 

Liz references the gala as not their first date, but there was also the desert in high school.  I guess she doesn't count that either. 

Side note: Cam and Liz talked about him peacocking in 2x03, but that kinda felt out of character at the time to the Max we knew.  This Max DOES seem like he's peacocking a bit. Got dressed up, taking Liz horseback riding. He admitted to trying to one up whatever they did together before. Just an interesting (to me) observation.

Liz looks panicky when Max suggests truth serum (because Science!Liz probably could make truth serum), but once she realizes he means whiskey she's like, "oh yes, that's fine." Oh Liz… 

Diego details:

They were engaged just last year

Liz left without saying goodbye

Bioengineer 

They were working together on the Denver study

They would come home and keep talking about work

He had ideas to help improve it

They both spoke The Science

He pushed her to get better at The Science

When the funding was cut she realized she loved the work more than him

Liz couldn't figure out how tell him that so she packed her things in the middle of the night, hit the road, changed her phone, and blocked him on Facebook.

**This is the first time LIZ has mentioned social media. Interesting given the crap Maria keeps giving her about it!

Travis and fresh warm milk. What is up with it??

"Nice ring. Does it keep you from burning up in the daylight?"

David Anders introduces himself as Travis.

Just as a point of interest, Maria researched enough to find the bootmaker, figure out where he lives, but she didn't get his name??? 

Vampire Diaries/Originals reference.

Travis says he can't help with car stuff.

The milk was from a cow named Jennifer.  He milked her for the last time today. (Creepy).

Weird contradictory statements from Travis:

"You're the best thing I've seen in a long time."....

"Mm, I'm sorry. So many customers and all their ugly faces get all sewn up and stitched together in my mind."

"Yeah, that's the woman that bought them boots. While back. Nice lady. She paid cash."

Second reference to animals behaving strangely during a meteor shower:

"Meteor shower's got my girls singing a bit off key tonight.  Jennifer, she likes a good lullaby."

"Okay this guy is going to turn us into skin suits." (OG reference? Or just general sci-fi?)

Meteorchella at Planet 7 (Coachella-style party during meteor shower?) with any excuse to add sparkles!

Kyle says he's at Planet 7 because he's trying not to hang out with people from high school.

Isobel says she's trying to have fun without feeling like prey.

Don't think the details of Kyle/Isobel dancing matters all that much, but as a point of amusement I'll share that in the panel on Tuesday night they shared that Lily whispered something different to Trevino on every take...And they got progressively dirtier to the point that she finally felt like she crossed a line and profusely apologized.  Also the lick was a Lily addition. 

Max's confession about killing the drifter:

Kind of an interesting thing, comparing the first version of the drifter story in 1x06 to the 2x06 version. 1x06 was more dramatic, but 2x06 was more personal, I think. 

1x06

"There are moments that define our lives, and there are moments that divide our lives. Incidents that separate us into two different people: who we were before and who we will be after. Forever…One day we were children and the next we were something else. I was a killer. Michael an accomplice.  And Isobel...Isobel was broken."

2x06

"I killed a man once, on a camping trip. This drifter came out of nowhere, attacked Isobel.  I wasn't even thinking. I killed him. With this. I arrest people who kill people. Most of them usually regret what they did. You know, you can just tell that they're forever broken. It's like a piece of them dies with their victims. So when I could feel that darkness, like I had to kill, I wanted Isobel to let me die. Because I couldn't risk hurting even one innocent person. Cause life just wouldn't be worth living."

Kind of an interesting narrative choice to confess to murder on a first date and then have the girl just brush it aside. 

"No, it just hit me why you're so happy and idealistic, and I feel like an idiot. You are that way because you don't remember me. It's a clean slate.  It's like when you got out of the pods with whatever memories you had erased it's probably for your own good."

"Last I heard you were the love of my life."

"Your cohorts, they left out some details. Cause if you had your memories I'm positive the worst thing that's ever happened to you is connected to me. And I can't bear the weight of making you remember that again."

**Note, second time this has been implied.  Last time was by Michael in 1x08 regarding the alien symbol.

"...it's gotta have some connection to us right? Maybe it was something we saw somewhere before the crash."

"Sorry, are you, Max Evans, acknowledging that we must have had lives before we hatched out of the pods? You never want to talk about home."

"Hey, Roswell is home. Look, I'm sorry man. You're right. I've spent a lot of time not talking about where we come from or why we're here.  Keep thinking I can pretend the past away and just be normal. But if Isobel's blackouts are some alien thing, then I need to know more. Okay, and this symbol? That's all I have to go on. I mean don't you think it's strange that we don't have any memories? I mean, no parents, no language. We weren't infants, man. We were seven."

"I just figured our memory faded. Over 50 years in those pods. Maybe it was just time. Or maybe whoever put us in those pods doesn't want us to remember."

Travis and Trevor's house...with added bonus of his ring that Alex comments on.

Leather ribbons/strips on the wall are for (from?) Hayley and Gertrude. More cows, I presume. 

There's also a framed Purple Heart on the wall next to a photo of Travis?

"War really messes with a man's mind.  Gets it all twisted up.

Timeline issue!! Alex says Mimi was missing for 3 weeks, but according to the clearly established timelines in 201-203 it was 4 weeks (or a month ish).  I wrote about this here:

Maria put her jacket on a scarecrow to trick Travis. And did she leave it there?

(Answer: yes. She doesn't wear it for the rest of the episode. Smart of her, actually).

Michael sees Trevor come out of the house and is about to shoot him. Maria immediate knew it wasn't Travis and threw herself in front of Michael's gun

Trevor shoots Travis.

A bullet from the Crashdown shooting falls out of Max's journal.  Does it look like it has blood on it? Or maybe just ketchup? If it's THE bullet it would make a lot of sense that he kept it hidden - evidence that Liz was shot. See this comparison between one of Wyatt's bullets in 1x02 and the one Max finds in 2x06

"Sorry about my twin here. He's had a rough go."

"Combat does not make you an axe murderer."

"No, it wasn't the combat. It was the R&D. If a paramilitary group ever asks you to take part in a study, you run the other way. He showed up a few weeks ago. Locked me up out back. Lucky y'all showed up when you did. Gave me a chance to escape."

R&D is a military acronym for Research and Development. (Aka...The Science.)

Priscilla - the cow Mimi's boots were made from.

This is literally the only direct information gained about the boots from this little sleuthing excursion. 

Well, and that Mimi paid cash, which isn't like her.

Side note - I didn't really know what Paramilitary meant, so just in case any of you are also not good with military stuff, Paramilitary groups are like private armies. Like, I dunno, the private security firm that Jesse and Cam discussed in episode 2x04. 👀

Male doctor operating on Steph clearly states:

"All right we're approaching an arterial junction."

A female doctor replies and its less clear.  What I hear is...Blood gasses are back? Anyone else hear something that makes more sense than that?

He replied something like...the stint through here

She says something about pH levels.

Max admits that he didn't know what would happen when he decided to bring Rosa back.  He just wanted to fix the worst thing that ever happened to all of them.

"I can't believe we were Shyamalan'd by an evil twin."

I think Alex is referring to the twist ending? Or maybe just the insane axe murderer stuff.

M. Night Shyamalan wrote and directed the Sixth Sense, Signs, Split, etc…

During this scene is the first time we see Michael's tattoo… it's on his arm. I struggled with getting a cap of it, but I know there are gifs going around.

I had every intention of detailing the dialogue in the trailer scene, but before I could get to it, Carina posted the script, so I didn't think it was a good use of my time. Here's the script:

The next morning, Alex calls the Sheriff from outside the trailer for an update.

The Sheriff tells him that Travis and Trevor burned their home and ran...weren't caught by the sheriff.  Which means we may not have seen the last of them.

The Spanish:

"Oh my God. Dios mio, Max. I took off your pants before I even said I love you. I'm some kind of zorra."

Dios mio basically is Oh My God! So Liz really was spiraling. She went, "Oh my God, Oh my God..."

Zorra - female version of Zorro. Basically a vixen, bitch, prostitute… the internet has all sorts of fun words that it translates into. 

"I call this one Visceral Werewolf Part 2, dedicated to my boy Chee Chee, may he rest in peace."

Can we have more Bert? Bert is the best. Also kudos to his goofy friend who is wayyy too excited about this.

Forrest's slam poem:

Locked up for days,

Time slipping away,

On my knees I would pray to break free from this cage.

But bargaining for keys, you forget hidden fees.

And wishing for what you’re missing ain’t the same as living the dream. 

And now I’m fighting to stay on this side of the cage.

Even though I know a part of me wishes I’d stayed. 

Ain’t no prophet or rebel or savior or devil

Could have predicted, fought, cheated or leveled. 

A life with potential that’s squandered, 

A comfortable cell is a question I ponder. 

Am I a free man or a prisoner wanderer?

Max's memory flash:

Young Max, chained to the ground as described in 2x03. 

Max looks scared.

He's dressed all in white like the 1947 aliens after the crash (As shown in 1x12 and 2x03).

He's in a cave or something like a cave. 

Holes in the wall are glowing an orangey red color.

The ceiling is like the alien ship material with the alien symbol in it.  

A figure approaches from behind him, bends down, and places a hand on his shoulder.

It mirrors the figure approaching Nora in 2x03 and touching her shoulder before burning the military men...probably the same person? Noah? The stowaway? Someone new?

After the figure touches Max, he looks at the hand, and then a red glow lights his face.

MUSIC:

1. Xocoyotzin Herrera "Esperanza"

2. Jose Luis Lepe "La Carreta"

3. Eagle Eye Cherry "Save Tonight"

4. Lousiana Red "I Done Woke Up"

5. Whissell "Magnetic"

6. Stop Dead "Alchemistress Dance"

7.  Orville Peck "Turn To Hate"

8. Kim Petras "Close Your Eyes"

9. Orville Peck "Queen Of The Rodeo"

10. Moontricks "The Fall"

11. Years & Years "Hypnotised"

12. Jordan Critz Feat. Birdtalker "Through Your Eyes"

This time I couldn't find the Whissell and Stop Dead tracks on spotify - however the Stop Dead track is referenced at being by Chelsea Dawn in the closed captions.  Which I did find. Trying to confirm this. Let me know if anyone else had better luck!

[safitheartist]

Yeah, it did come of as a bit too agresive but I do realize you didn't mean harm so I apologize if my response seemed belitteling in anyway.

We all make mistakes and misunderstandings happen, so lets move past that.

I would like to clarify something though, since I really want people to understand where I'm coming from:

When I say these kind of tropes are harmful I do infact come from a genuine place. I'm currently studying children's education, meaning I am rather passionate about children's emotional and psychological development (I am not claiming I am an expert since Child education and Child psychology are two very different things and like I said, I am a student, however I do have a bit more insight on this topic).

If I say something is harmful I don't mean it in a 'look it's harmful!!!! How dare you like that stuff!!!' manner without anything to back me up, however I do realize this is the internet and you are right about people often having this kind of utterly motives, I don't fault you for suspecting that kind of stuff. What I mean is really 'Hey, stuff like that can really mess children up and it kinda pisses me off.'

Especially if done as clumsily as DC (and Marvel too, but I don't read them that much so I don't feel as passionate about it) has done in recent years.

Comics are a medium that is regularly consumed by children and adults a like and they do have a inpact on how children understand the world around them. If a child is introduced to the themes of death being something that is avoidable their first real live encounter with it can be really confusing and hurtful. This stuff can really complicate the griving process, especially the first time around.

Like, I'm not saying you can't do this kind of stories at all, but they have to have a impact and shouldn't be resolved as quickly as has been the norm as of late.

The characters need to treat it as something genuine that actually hurts them and need to react in a manner which is relateable to the reader. If the character is actually meant to be dead or just fake dead or comes back to live later doesn't matter here.

Because it's still meaningful and treated respectfully. It's the constant feeling of the characters missing somebody and aspiring to become better people because of the memory of their fallen friend/family member that truly matters here.

And DC has done so in the past, having their characters react to the death of a loved one like it actually is the death of a loved one.

One good example for that would be how Robin's and Red Robin's writers have treated the death of several of Tim's friends. They showed a genuine period of griving which defined Tim's character into adult hood. The old comics always treated death as actual death and if people came back they recognized that it is sureal and also not always a happy occurrance.

Good examples for that would be Jason Tood coming back as the Red Hood, Steph's death being revealed to having been staged and the lasting damage that had on her relationship with Tim. Even Damian's death made it significant by portraying his PTSD in his solo title, with helish nightmares that quiet literally, showed him fearing to return to hell, motivating him to become a better person.

Compare that to now. Tim's death hardly had an actually noticable impact. Character's who died before literally joke about it in a dinner while telling their newest family member he might also die as if it isn't a big deal, the character development Damian had in his solo has been returned to zero, Bruce is marrying his girlfriend, the characters actually depicted as griving are glossed over or it's just mentioned in passing that they do to remind people that Tim is 'dead' (Heck, they included that Tim died in the introduction of Raven's mini series for literally no other reason then reminding people that it happened.) But it's never actually anything with substance.

Everything just seems really superficial and meaningless and I can't relate to it.

And it really bothers me on a personal level, which is why I made this post. It really destroys the experience for me which is a shame because I used to love these characters. If you disagree then that is fine for me, but these are my personal opinions and thoughts.

Like maybe some good writers still handle death right in the sea of DC's recent titles, but if so I haven't seen head or tail of it. So I probably don't care about said characters to begin with.

The meaningless DC comic death.

Honestly, DC’s death problem has gotten to the point where making the characters react to the death of a loved one just is plain out stupid.

Like, they are so obssesed with killing off characters and bringing them back just for a quick attention grabber that they literally stripped the concept of death away from their material.

Like, heck, people are killed and brought back to live in the span of one comic nowadays.

I mean, what’s the fucking point? “Buhu they might die, yeah right. I give them two issue-wops they are already back and none of this had any fucking point.”

It’s so infuriating. At this point people writing their characters griefing the death of a loved one seems contrived and unrealistic.

Tim Drake’s ‘death’ honestly was the last nail in that coffin in my opinion. This entire concept was handled so clumsily and had so little weight that you could have cut it completely and instead have the characters believe he is missing in action. Fucking hell that would probably have been a more interesting development since Bruce wouldn’t have a excuse to sit on his stupid ass and propose to his on off girlfriend while Tim is rotting in a prison cell somewhere.

Like honestly, this entire plot point just serverly damaged other ongoing plots and the characters involved with them. Bruce proposing to Selina seen in the context of Bruce literally having lost his son, what, two month ago just seems cold and inappropriate.

The only way they could have made that story line worse would have been having him propose during Tim’s funeral. Apparently writers have gotten so detached from the mere concept of losing a loved one that they just fucking stopped caring.

DC comics has become a universe without any significant stakes. Like I try to keep up with the events but I can’t help feeling any kind of investment I felt just fade away as death is handled less and less gracefully and nothing really has any inpact.

Like just answer me one question, one simple question:

Why should I care about a bunch of immortals who ‘risk their lives’?

Death isn’t a permanent thing in DC comics. It’s not something ground breaking and shocking anymore. It has no impact on any of the characters.

At this point death is a inconvenience at best. Seeing characters handle the after match is no longer compelling or relateable in their universe. It’s basically the equivalent of a snoty teen crying about their broken nail.

It’s annoying and only prompts me to role my eyes now.

My brother and me had a conversation yesterday. We were talking about this shit and we wondered, what would it take to make comic book writers realize the meaning of death?

It’s quiet frankly a insult to people who have dealt with death in their live. And it’s a very harmful trope that really shouldn’t be put in media commonly consumed by children.

The concept of death is a painful constant in our reality. It’s not something that should be sugar coated and doing so can actually be quiet damaging to children who are experiencing the griefing process for the first time.

I know everyone likes to pretend children never are confronted with stuff like that but the bleak reality is that they are. Constantly.

And the idea that carp like this might be their first introduction to the concept of death enrages me. Can you imagine how confusing stuff like this could be to a child when they lose somebody or are about to lose somebody when their first introduction to the concept of death was that it is something you can undo?

It’s a huge problem both DC and Marvel have and it’s something that’s only going to get worse as time goes on.

Also for clarification, I don’t mean stories who subvert the concept of death can’t work out but they still need some form of stake. Like look at stuff like Rezero and Angel Beats, both of these serieses subvert the concept of death by adding intrugide layers, Rezero with the concept of a protagonist who constantly has to suffer through his own death and the death of everyone around him, with each time leaving significant impact on his of mental state. Angel Beats on the other hand makes it clear that their characters already are dead and uses their unability to die from bodily harm as a comedic relife while still having the concept of the characters disappearing for good after they fulfilled their lingering desires, while it’s later revealed that the characters are reborn it still has an impact since it’s kept open ended on how exactly their next live pans out.

DC hardly ever utterlises a character death these days, or if they do they retcon all efforts that were made to do so not long after (looking at you Teen Titan’s Damian).

Like, I honestly don’t know why I should get invested in these stories anymore. Give me one good reason.

I’m sorry but I prefer stories that actually have stakes and heroes who actually have shit to lose.