#and having now rewatched it a decade later I can confirm that it is even stranger than I remembered

[ferociouslycreativemystery]

Picture if you will:

You are 14 years old, and like the rest of your class you are very, very happy today, because today you and your entire year (60-ish students) are not having any classes for the afternoon. No, you are travelling downtown, because there's a movie festival underway, and you've all been invited to watch a movie at an old cinema! Wahoo!

So you and your teachers get on public transport and make your way to the venue. It's a lovely sunny day, a slight chill in the air, and while you wait on the pedestrianised street outside between the rows of fancy old houses, your language teacher tells you about the origins of the literary quotes that are emblazoned all long this stretch of road. Apparently people have been complaining that the metallic letters become a slipping hazard when the streets freeze over in winter. Eventually, you are let through to the lobby.

The place is clearly old—in the classy way. It's not huge, but large at a sort of human scale. The auditorium looks more like an actual theatre than a cinema, courtesy of the floor being quite flat, with the dramatically arched ceiling towering at least three stories above your head. There appear to be balconies of additional seating stretching along either side of the deep room, though as it turns out they will remain empty on this occasion. You students seem to be almost the only ones in attendance.

Your school has plenty of room to spread out even just keeping to the ground floor. Friends group together in clusters with plenty of seats to spare between them, as you all sink onto the red velvet cushions. The backrests have dark wooden frames around the edges of the padding. You manage to get a place near the edge of a middling row, alongside your friends and only a few seats away from the aforementioned teacher. Even she, who spent much of her '70s youth in Paris, and who can be quite particular, comments on how nice the venue is.

There is a small strip of stage poking out just below the large silver screen, which is stretched up inside the frame of a heavy pair of red stage curtains, that have already been drawn apart. Silence falls as a presenter walks up to a podium on the stage. He informs you all that the movie you are about to watch is Italian, and that its director has flown over to be in the room with you for today's screening. This is his first film. He will be staying for a short interview as well as taking questions from the audience after the viewing is complete. So, without further ado: let's get on with the movie!

Clearly they are hoping this experience will make an impression and awaken the young audience's curiosity about films and filmmaking. And it really will be making an impression, because somewhere along the line, the communication between the organisers and the students now making up the vast majority of their audience has broken down. The teenagers have no idea what movie they are about to watch.

It's a film called Short Skin, a name that you are unlikely to forget in the coming decade or so. It revolves around a 17 year old boy with a medical condition called phimosis: a thickening of the foreskin which means it cannot stretch, preventing him from getting an erection without experiencing significant discomfort and pain. This, of course, takes a heavy toll on his relationships with girls his own age and his masculinity.

This is the movie that you will be spending the next hour and a half watching with your classmates in this spectacular cinema.

It goes just about as well as you might expect. As the story plays out, there are some fairly standard awkward teenage scenes, some budding romances held back by all the age-typical angst, and plenty of full nudity shots that get incredulous reactions in the room. Of course there's a general sniggering. A fair amount of half-scandalized, half-titillated exchanges in low voices between all-amazed friends up and down the many rows of seats. Apart from the ones who are staying as silent as mice, perhaps in the hopes that this will prevent them from associating with whatever is going on right here, right now. But what none of you can do is anticipate what is… about to come.

In their quest to become men this summer, the boy and his friend catch an octopus at the beach. He brings it home and washes it in the bathroom sink. This is when everyone collectively remembers a conversation from earlier in the film, where his friend was making some bold claims about the origins of the American word for figa. He's thinking about it. A close-up shows the tip actually touching it, then the front door slams and he quickly shoves the octopus back in its plastic bag. He brings it down to the kitchen—presumably to be disposed of after he has greeted his family. In the next scene, he arrives at dinner to find his mother and sister enjoying seafood.

He asks for the bread basket.

But we are not done! Oh, no no no no. He goes out, buys another octopus, brings it home to the same bathroom. In a sustained shot, from the level of his bare buttocks, hands holding the tentacles tightly wrapped around his hips, and his face and torso clearly visible in the mirror:

He fucks the octopussy.

When he is (finally) done, we hold on the following shot for long enough to permanently sear it into your memory:

You have half the movie left to go.

The audience has no questions for the director when the film is done. The teacher, who spent the entire movie making loudish mortified exclamations, says that if she'd known what movie you were invited to watch, she would have probably asked if they had another option.

I still got an afternoon off from lessons though, and a pretty good story to tell out of it as well, so I wasn't complaining.

[randonwilmonfan]

I'd love to talk more about the locker room scene in S2 E2 of Young Royals, where Wilhelm tries to convince Simon to get back together with him, in the process (sadly) demonstrating that he believes his mother's feeble offer to "talk" about him possibly coming out when he's 18. This takes place after his almost-removal from Hillerska.

Plenty of people have already pointed out how Henry snitched on Wille and Felice’s kiss, but apparently didn’t choose to tell anyone (as far as we’re aware) about Wilhelm almost pleading with Simon to get back together with him during that post-almost-dragged-out-of-Hillerska conversation. And that's definitely an interesting thing to chew on. But there's more...

Here are a few other things that stand out to me too:

First -

I think it’s worth pointing out the obvious — Wilhelm clearly sees Simon in his future long-term (possibly for the rest of his life). The way he casually says to Simon “So, we’d only have to keep it a secret for 2 years” implies three things very clearly.

a) He immediately and easily sees himself together with Simon in 2 years and beyond. Actually, specifically, definitely beyond. Because his eye is on the prize: coming out and living openly with Simon *after* he turns 18 — implying his focus is entirely on the intended afterwards period. He doesn’t even blink at that idea; it’s obvious to him.

b) He also really doesn’t seem to think 2 years is a big deal. For a teenager who’s only lived 16 years on this planet (only approximately ~11-ish of them in a state where they’re forming conscious memories) to think 2 years is just a drop in the bucket is kind of wild. Even 6 months feels like forever to a kid. So Wilhelm — a child — viewing time from this perspective suggests he’s likely balancing 2 years out against a much longer expanse of time; hence why those 24 months would look so minuscule and shrug-worthy by comparison. In other words: he sees himself with Simon in the LONG long term. Two years is nothing if you’re imagining growing old with someone and spending the rest of your many decades on this Earth with them. (All of this is pretty much confirmed later on in S2, when Wilhelm offers to abdicate the throne for Simon.)

c) He also doesn’t seem to think Simon should be appalled by the idea of waiting for 2 years. Yes, sure, we can chalk part of that up to selfishness and lack of mentalization / empathy for Simon’s point of view. But I’m going to suggest it’s more than that. My takeaway is that he assumes Simon also sees them as endgame, and so naturally wouldn’t be bothered by waiting a bit longer in order to spend forever together. (Sadly the conversation does not play out that way for him; ouch. Though no shade to Simon: what he said in response was realistic and fair.)

Second -

I think we have to rewatch his interactions with Simon as Henry slams a door and slowly walks past them with a raised eyebrow. Because, in S1, that Wilhelm would have immediately jumped away from Simon to create distance and try to pretend there’s plausible deniability about what their relationship has been and could be again. That’s (one) part of the whole point of S1: Wilhelm is not ready to be brave enough to face a homophobic aristocratic world and take a bold stance to stand by Simon.

Instead, in S2 E2, he sits still. He stays right next to Simon. In fact, he *leaves his hand resting directly on Simon’s thigh.* And he knows someone is coming their way! He heard the door slam inside the locker room. Obviously he knows someone else is here. But he doesn’t jump. He actually doesn’t really stir much at all.

He sits there like it’s of no importance, and he doesn’t care who sees. Or, even, who overheard this very intimate, vulnerable, and pleading conversation. A conversation in which the future King of their country is almost on the verge of begging his ex to please be his again… not just for now, but for multiple years’ time. I mean we’re like 2 steps away from Wille practically offering Simon a “promise ring” (not sure if that concept holds up in Europe, but it’s basically a very pre-engagement type thing in the US; it’s not common though). (Their convo also makes it very clear Simon was the one who dumped him and that he’s having trouble accepting that and moving on.)

Yet he doesn’t seem perturbed or disturbed by Henry’s presence and overhearing and seeing them. He doesn’t seem embarrassed at all. He’s not ashamed of his love for Simon. Even more specifically, he’s not afraid of people (Henry) seeing him put his heart out on the line, and of them knowing that he wants Simon back - not for just a hook-up, but for a very long-term, serious, committed relationship. And he doesn’t make any moves to emotionally or physically distance himself from Simon, despite Henry’s clear witnessing of this private moment.

This is a subtle way to show that, even though Wille hasn't yet gone through his full S2 journey of self-awareness and self-growth, he has still already begun changing and growing after the end of S1. So he’s at least started to learn some of his lessons about what he needs to do differently.

Anyhoo, the whole point I’m trying to make is… gosh there were so many fascinating things happening in that scene. And they rush right past us in the blink of an eye! But there is so much meaning built into every small interaction and non-interaction there, and into every nonchalant assumption the characters casually voice.

I’m sure there’s more meaning and are more details I missed, too! What did you think? I’d love to learn more from others’ perspectives, too. :)

[rapha-reads]

IWTV rewatch

(fascinated by the choices made between books and show so I gotta study them like bugs under a microscope. Spoilers for the whole show and the books)

Season 1 episode 6 [Like Angels Put In Hell By God] - part 1/2

- [Louis] "Excruciating pain was the proof I was still alive." - that's one way of confirming proof of life.

- [Daniel] "'He could fly?' [Louis] 'Yes.' [Daniel] 'Like Superman?' [Louis] 'Not like Superman. Superman is a fictional character.' [Daniel] 'But in the air, with a 'fuck you to Newtonian physics' flying?' [Louis] 'He said it was more like floating, arising at will, propelling in a direction by the decision. He called it the cloud gift.'"

Love how Louis is adamant in pointing the difference between Lestat and Superman: one's fictional, the other is very much real. No fiction here, no sir-e. And hello canon callback, the Cloud Gift.

- [Daniel]"That's the voice of Doctor Fareed Bhansali." - EXCUSE ME. WHAT. WHO. HOW. WHAT. Filed under things that mean nothing to the non-book readers but will make the book readers lose their minds.

- [Louis] "Are you still dreaming about our first meeting, Daniel?" - I'm gonna go ahead and say, yeah, from what we know of that meeting now, that's definitely the stuff of dreams. Bad dreams, that is.

- [Daniel] "Can you fly, Louis?" - helloooo PTSD.

- [Louis] "I suppose he thought if he exposed all his power to me, I would never feel his equal and the relationship would suffer." -… Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that exactly what it came to be? Also, in book canon, Lestat doesn't like using the Cloud Gift. It's very tied in with Akasha and the abuse he goes through at her hands, and he resents that loss of control and bigger divide between him and humanity.

[Daniel] "'He only beat me the one time, Officer. It's not his fault.' Classic Stockholm, eh, Doc?" - still tripping over the fact that THAT'S Doctor Fareed, oh shit, 1, he's hot, 2, THAT'S FAREED BHANSALI. Oh, and also, Daniel is right and he should say it. But also he doesn't have all the facts, which are 1, we love Lestat, 2, one murder attempt kinda makes up for it, they're even now, and 3, "memory is a beast".

- [Louis] "Are we the sum of our worst moments? Can we be forgiven if we do not forgive others ourselves?" - THIS. I don't have more comments, just this, so much.

- Oof. Welcome to physical therapy. As a vampire, that must be excruciating.

- [Louis] "'If you ever wanna talk about what happened to you while you were gone, you know you can, right?' [Claudia] 'Uh-huh.' [Louis] 'Or you could just tell me his name, write it on a scrap of paper.' [Claudia] 'You gonna be my knight in vengeful black?' [Louis] 'I am the knight.'" >> 80 years later, "I own the night", we love character development when the seeds are planted from the beginning. And puns, we love puns too.

- [Lestat] "The Book of Hours, extremely rare, 15th century. Silver and gold in the vellum, palettes of blue and old rose." - I want that book so bad… Ahem. I mean, nope, forgiveness will not be bought by gifts, no matter how impressive or expensive.

- [Lestat] "Perhaps we should let him decide if he wants to see me or not." - I think the coffin flying out of the window is a very clear answer.

- You know what, I'm ready to incorporate in my belief system that Emily Dickinson is a vampire. After all, s2 already said Samuel Beckett is. Let's add the Brönte sisters to the list too. Not the Austens tho, I don't think so.

- I love how mature Claudia looks in that hairdo.

- [Lestat] "I'm nothing without both of you." - sweetie, you need to grow an independent self.

- [Louis] "For six years in all, these raw and desperate mea culpas came like the tide. And for six years, they were greeted with silence or fire. We burned more gifts than bodies in that decade, but they would not stop coming. And Lestat's relentless determination began to crack my considerable armor. Perhaps it was the modesty of the gesture. But in the spring of 1937, one broke through."

If they were real people, I'd say" girl, no, run, stop". But the beauty of fictional characters is that the more messed up, the more compelling, and I am on the edge of my seat getting ready for Lestat to come crawling back and for Louis to fall even harder.

- Aaaaaaaaaah, Lestat singing!!!! Rockstar Lestat wheeeeeeeeeeeeeen.

- [Louis] "The audacity of it all was matched only by its sincerity" - that's the definition of Lestat, that here.

- [Louis] "Six years of begging, you think a song's gonna get a rise out of me?" -… Babe, you just swam the Mississipi and broke down a door, I'd say he managed it.

Also, hello again, Sam Reid's training routine. Man, that chest.

[Louis] "Write me a song and put your lover's voice in it?" - I don't know if I wanna applaud Lestat's boldness or rip his heart out for his casual cruelty.

Sorry Antoinette, nobody ever holds a candle to Louis in Lestat's eyes…

- [Daniel] "'You took Lestat back.' [Louis] 'The vampire bond. There is no human equivalent.' [Daniel] 'Lover, murderer, maker. You took him back.' [Louis] 'It's a bond than can never be fully severed. A bond like that makes you believe there's only the two of you on the planet.'"

Daniel Molloy season 1: giiiirl he's abusive and violent and a cheating liar, why would you take him back?

Daniel Molloy season 2: never mind, better the guy who loves you and would have died to save you even though he's the one that broke you than the psycho besides you who's been lying for 80 years and is the reason your daughter's dead, I am now the number one Loustat defender.

Mate, same.

- I am absolutely mesmerised by Louis's eyes in this episode. Oh, boy, how is he so, so beautiful.

- "His name was Magnus. He took me from my room in Paris, as I kicked and screamed. He kept me for a week, locked in a room full of corpses - some freshly killed, some bloated and black. But they all looked like me - my coloring, my physique. My own eyes staring back at me from rotting faces. He fed on me every night. And then he put me back in the tower with the look-alike corpses. I thought for sure I'd be one of them, but instead he turned me into this. No grand history of vampiric origins or physiology, no rules, no counsel. Just a sweeping hand to a pile of money and the sight of him throwing himself into a fire. And then I was alone. I thought… 'I can't drink hot blood. I can't feed on others.' I cried. I called to God. I didn't want this. But I have a capacity for enduring. It's why I don't particularly like being abandoned."

Aah, this is such a fascinating moment. Lestat is trying so hard to remain impassive and neutral, but his voice wavers all through the story, and his gaze is distant and clouded when he recounts the worst parts, his fear, his loneliness. And then Louis looking at him with so much compassion and so much pain, fully empathising, and Claudia, even though she also feels some modicum of pity, immediately looking to Louis and seeing that he's fully back to loving Lestat, and for his sake, for his sake only, she agrees to Lestat coming back… Beautiful.

And then when you think about Lestat's origins as a vampire (and we haven't even touched on his human history because damn that part too is hard), enduring is really his main trait. He's a survivor. In every meaning of the word. Survivor of rape, because that's what his turning is, survivor of several types of abuse going back all the way to his childhood, survivor of his own demons,… As Louis said, are we the sum of our worst moments? In Lestat's case, I feel like the answer is clearly "no. We are the sum of how much we're trying. We mess up at times, we fail, we hurt each other - but we keep trying our best and we keep trying to stay true to ourselves and we make amends and we recognise our faults".

A pause, here. Breathe. And then onto part 2.

episode 1 | episode 2 | episode 3 | episode 4 | episode 5 | part 2 | episode 7

[ckneal]

About a month ago, I had a fairly random revelation that Lilith was to Lucifer what Adam was to Michael. Not in the sense that she was ever his vessel, as all humans capable of serving that role are purportedly descended from Adam and Eve, and, while it’s never specifically confirmed to be true for the Supernatural universe, most lore surrounding Lilith sets her up as being too old for that.

And I also don’t necessarily mean that Lucifer and Lilith were in love—Lucifer is too egotistical and arrogant for me, personally, to believe he’s capable of a true romantic bond, and it is twice stated that he lost his virginity to Kelly Kline, in settings that leant themselves toward his credibility on this subject (musing aloud to an uncomprehending Kelly in the privacy of their bedroom, and awkwardly grappling for something to say in his first unplanned meeting with Jack, respectively)—leading me to believe that the recognizable sleazy substitute for love (lust) was not present between these two either. But, I do think that there was a connection there, and I do find myself curious about it.

After all, Lilith was willing to die to set Lucifer free from the cage. And yes, I am aware that she had made a deal with Michael to help set off the apocalypse, and she was obligated to carry out her part, but has anyone ever wondered what exactly Lilith got out of the bargain? She’s not exactly written like Eve, from season 6. She is not mothering toward demonkind. I can’t see her sharing Michael’s motivation to bring God back. The one who stood to benefit from her sacrifice, was, in fact, Lucifer. (And Michael, obviously.)

I think that the bond Lilith and Lucifer formed was a bit similar to what Adam and Michael had, in that it came from a lack of choice. I firmly believe that Lilith and Lucifer spent a decent amount of time together in Hell, just the two of them. Likely for a much longer period of time than Michael and Adam did in the cage. We don’t know exactly when Lucifer made Lilith, but we do know that he was out and moving around for awhile after the apple incident that Gadreel was incarcerated for—after all, Cain was a grown man when he caught Lucifer circling Abel and agreed to take the Mark. And bible ages are a little strange, but let’s say that that’s a good couple of decades in earth time. That’s much longer in Hell. Assuming that Lilith was turned prior to Cain, that’s a long time with Lucifer and Lilith being the only two occupants of Hell. (Well, except for Ramsey and her hellpuppies; remember she was pregnant when Lucifer saved her from extinction.)

And I wonder if in that time, the two of them could have developed a begrudging sort of friendship? Just from the forced proximity—Michael was clearly capable of decimating Lilith on sight if she went back to earth, and there weren’t exactly a lot of humans wondering around that early on in the species to provide her with cover—not to mention a meatsuit. She was pretty much stuck there, while Lucifer was presumably laying low, while he got his schemes together. Setting up the horsemen, binding Death, somehow getting and hiding the demon tablet, creating the Princes of Hell, and such. . .Just a lot of stuff, and where he used to have a vast multitude of siblings to talk to, he now just had this snarky little corrupted human soul, and I think—I think—they became friends.

And Lucifer considers this to be the filthiest thing that he’s ever done—on par with the most torrid, disgusting affair that anyone has ever had, and he still hates everything about it to this day. That’s why Lucifer never once talks about Lilith. He is nauseated by the fact that they were the original frenemies, completely disgusted and powerless to resist their intense conversational chemistry, and if they saw each other tomorrow there’s a tiny part of him that will still light up because no one has ever been more thoroughly on his level.

And it’s fucking mutual. If they saw each other tomorrow, they would exchange the most vehement of insults, maybe even physically attack one another, shouting their hatred at full volume—and then a few hours later be spotted at a coffee shop, passionately talking trash on Sam Winchester, and set terrible, terrible plans in motion that will plague Sammy’s life for the next several years. When they part ways, they would both feel intensely dirty, telling themselves that this will never happen again—but Lucifer has never been one to resist temptation, and at 3am finds himself sending that text message he knows he’ll regret later. . . “So what are your thoughts on Dean? ;)” And off they go again, all night long.

And that’s why Lilith was willing to lay down her life to set Lucifer free. And it’s also why she had her moment of doubt, when she nearly got Sam to agree to that demon deal. She had a moment of realizing that she was about to die for an asshole she doesn’t even like.

I personally like to think that Michael was the archangel who nearly came blasting in to defend Chuck that night, when Dean pulled the plug on the deal Sam was about to make (and before you try to tell me that wasn’t a real deal because Lilith was planning a trap—rewatch that scene, Sam was the one who played dirty by reaching for the demon-killing knife; Lilith was busy eyeing his crotch through his jeans and feeling up his chest). After Lilith smoked out of her meatsuit, I like to think that Michael followed her and gave a kind of prep talk, telling her that it’s important that they remember their motivations, shameful though they might be

At which point, Lilith just bursts into tears, crying, “Oh god, you’re right. . .He’s my best friend—how did this happen? How did this—Oh god, oh god, oh god, I’m going to be sick!”

Lilith sobs into Michael’s wings, while Michael is just sort of stuck standing there, because Lilith is gripping one of his four heads with both hands as she cries, while the other three are looking around for help, intensely confused because he, of course, was talking about bringing God back, and now he has no idea what to do to get out of this uncomfortable social situation that he does not understand.

And thinking about Lucifer and Lilith and Michael and Adam as parallels, it gets me asking these questions about how things would go if the roles were reversed. Would Adam willing lay down his life to free Michael from the cage? As a fanfiction writer, I enjoy the idea of saying yes.

In fact, I’m a little enamored with the idea of a parallel world where everything is flipped. Where it’s Michael in the box, and Adam running around breaking seals, Adam on that final, fateful night—after having had his moment of doubt in which he’d lured Ramiel into a secluded spot and offered to stand down and nearly banged Ramiel’s brains out in the bargain—but that’s all past, and now he’s firm in his resolve. Adam standing in front of a mirror—but instead of the white gown that Lilith wore, Adam’s in a black suit, dressed as if it were his wedding day, though he’ll never see his groom. And Raphael appearing at his elbow, looking concerned—instead of some random follower of Lilith’s, and Adam telling Raphael to be happy. Everything is going to be okay.

And it’s Adam reclining against the alter, all serene anticipation as Ramiel—the second Prince of Hell, who rejected his place in the succession because all he wanted was to live out a quiet life with his fishing gear, well away from the Pit and the Life—comes storming into the church with Zachariah at his side, assuring Ramiel that he’s trained for this, he can do it—only to have Azazel come bursting in behind them, shouting, “NO, RAMMY! IT’S WHAT HE WANTS!”

[jonghours]

How much of INCEPTION and the ATEEZ Stroyline is based/tied to the concept of Nolan’s Inception (2010)

(I won’t be going into the details of the INCEPTION MV because I believe it must be analyzed with the THANXX MV and Diary film altogether, so I won’t touch on it here!)

okay after years of rolling my eyes everytime someone mentioned Inception in film school I went back and rewatched it just for the sake of this post so you all better not let this flop!

1. What is the concept of Inception?

First of all, for those who have never seen it, Inception takes place in a reality in which people can enter their own and other people’s dreams. They create the world within dreams at will and make them so they can suit their every need and desire. The reasons why they use them in the movie aren’t relevant, but the concept is. 

In the movie is explained how people prefer the world in the dreams so much that they spend so much time in them they lose track of what is real and what is not. The dream becomes their reality.

The people in the dream can dream in within dreams, which is the concept of this ATEEZ comeback “Dream In Dream”, these are called levels. The deeper you go in the dream (the more levels you create) the slower the time passes. You could spend decades and grow old inside those dreams but when you wake up, it might have just been days, maybe just hours in real life. This could be related to ATEEZ’s concept of “always staying young” I don’t know if this could be the case, but I believe this different levels might also be the “parallel universes” of the ATEEZ Storyline, but I hope that’s not the case because I personally don’t like this theory.

I believe there are multiple ATEEZ MVs that fall under this Inception concept, and that each one is a different level, but I’ll get into that later in the post.

Here is a shot of Inception of a group of people sharing a dream and the INCEPTION promotional teasers

2. The timer // hourglass

When a person or a group of people (the case in both the movie and the ATEEZ storyline) enter a dream, they set a timer to wake them up. Once it does, no matter how many levels deep you are in a dream, it will wake you up. I think this might be tied to the hourglass, and how when its sand goes upwards might represent the waking up and the oportunity to submerge in a dream yet again. This could make sense in the Diary Film when Hongjoong turns the hourglass around, since is tied to the INCEPTION MV.

3. The roles

In the world of the movie you need a group of people with special roles to create the perfect dream, and I believe each ATEEZ member might have one. It’s been made clear that there are two groups in the INCEPTION MV.

There is Yeosang, San and Wooyoung, who carry a glass ball that is also seen in the ILLUSION MV.

meanwhile, the rest of the members have the spinning tracticoid from the movie itself, even if it’s hard to appreciate

Now, what the hell is a spinning tracticoid. In the movie, each person has a totem, a personal object that belongs to them and them only, and this is the protagonist’s

I’ll get to what a totem is and how it’s important for ATEEZ’s storyline in the next point. Meanwhile, back to the roles. I mentioned the two different groups because I believe Yeosang, Wooyoung and San might be architects.

In the world of the movie, architects design the world of the dream, even if is not their own dream, they can create it. This could explain the ball, since I always saw it as some kind of “holding the world” metaphor. Also it made me think of that shot in ILLUSION where Wooyoung changes the world with a simple movement of his hand

there are also forgers, people who can take the appearence of other people inside dreams with the intention of manipulating the subject of the dream by making them believe they are said person. This might be a reach, but I’ve always found it weird that when San stares at his own reflection in the Say My Name MV, he sees Yeosang

could Yeosang be the forger? Maybe San? Wooyoung looks startled when he sees HALAteez Yeosang in front of him, so he might have come to the realization that he’s not the person he was staring at?

If San is an architetc that would explain why all the objects in the Say My Name museum scene were created the day he was born (this is a clue confirmed by Wooyoung btw)

also, (and this is another reach) there are chemists in charge of creating sedatives that are strong enough to make deep dreams possible. In the movie, creating more than two levels of a dream is already hard, so they need do drink these sedatives to be able to fall into these deep levels, so it made me think about the toast

Could the content of the glasses be the sedative? Are ATEEZ falling into another dream? The color shceme seem to match, but as I said, a reach

3. The totems

As I mentioned before, every person has a totem. These are small objects that help the people that sumberge into dreams to remind themselves that they are still sleeping (or make sure they are actually awake), so they won’t get them consfused with reality and get lost in the dream.

Now, every ATEEZ member has their own object. I mentioned this briefly on my post about FEVER being tied to Say My Name, but long story short, each member has a personal object. They’ve had them since HALA HALA/SMN, but they became more relevant in the ANSWER photoshoot.

Hongjoon’s... weird thing

Seonghwa didn’t have an object in the HALA HALA era, and unlike the rest of the members, he got no object on his plate during ANSWER, because of course Seonghwa is special

Yunho is a special case too, because he used to have the walkie-talkie during HALA HALA, but then moved to the compass

Yeosang actually owns the compass during HALA HALA, but then moves onto a pocket watch

San has his vintage binoculars

Mingi keeps his walkie-talkie

Wooyoung, who previously had nothing during HALA HALA, shows up owning no less than the hourglass, go big or go home I guess. However it’s important to note that the hourglass isn’t in the plate the teaser picture

finally Jongho, who didn’t own anyhting either during HALA HALA has a telescope

Now, I don’t know if this is relevant, but in the wolrd of the movie, no one should touch your totem, because then they would be aware of it’s weight and shape and could create an exact replica to convince you that you are awake when you are still dreaming, so I wonder if the compass who changes owners so frequently has something to do with that

4. What MVs are related to the Inception concept?

As I’ve said and we already knew, the concept is about dreaming inside dreams, or more simply put, sleeping. So what MVs have we seen with ATEEZ sleeping that have long been theorized to not be “real”? WAVE and ILLUSION (of course UTOPIA too) and also, apparently, WONDERLAND.

ILLUSION and WAVE are easy to tell here, and I believe these two MVs are actually dream levels. Actually I’m almost sure ILLUSION is a dream withing WAVE. Look at these shots and compare them to the INCEPTION ones

also, at the beginning of the WAVE MV, all members are sleeping and just waking up. I’m almost certain ILLUSION takes place inside of Seonghwa’s mind, and that’s because he’s the first one to open his eyes at the end of ILLUSION and beginning of WAVE. Also Seonghwa has been tied to dreams and dreaming for a really long time.

I believe they are waking up from ILLUSION into WAVE, which I believe is another dream inside a dream, from which other MV I’m not sure. It’s hard to to put the dream levels in order without all the clues. Also, in the movie there is a place called limbo which I will talk about later, but in the movie they say this about it “[...] when we wound up in the shore of our subsconcious we lost sight of what was real” which makes me think of WAVE

Now, I wouldn’t have tied WONDERLAND to the Inception concept if it wasn’t for the various, obvious visual references to it, such as

the stairs or paradoxes

the elevator

also that scene where one of the architects bends the reality of  adream over itself reminds me in cocnept of the WONDELRAND stickers, the overlapping worlds

5. Limbo

When you are far too deep in a dream and try to wake up, you might end in the limbo, which an uncunstructed dream space full of nothingness except fot the remain consciousness of the person whose dream belongs to. That might be the dark place seen in the Diary Film and the end of INCEPTION, but I cna’t say so yet

[ayankun]

WandaVision episode 6

FIRST OFF

Whenever I go back to pause things for clues, and find exactly what I’m looking for, I don’t feel justified, I feel that much more insane:

It’s really hard to make out, but I had an alright look at it on my folks’ QLED, and it’s definitely a flying saucer doing an alien abduction on what looks to be a person inside an old CRT TV (with some kind of robot head/boombox on top???)  There are secret aliens in this show, you guys, the facts don’t lie.

HmmmMMMM I wonder if Agnes is as innocent as she looks:

Also, I didn’t see that she was wearing the brooch in this ep, and I was majorly disappointed in that.

Two things here:

No, that’s not a twins joke.

Another Moonmen Confirmed

I know green is his color or whatever, but that hat is literally 10 years ahead of its time

Also, I took the playing-DDR-at-home scenario at face value, and only on the first rewatch did I realize it was a very pointed turn-of-the-century reference.  I am an Old.

There’s a good, subtle Rule of Threes in this ep.  The Setup:

The Sokovian Halloween flashback works on so many levels.  It’s so funny:

The fact that they went trick-or-treating at all

The “speaking Sokovian”

The treat being a fish

They have to share the fish

The concept that this event gave them an infectious disease

“You probably suppressed a lot of the trauma” -- it’s a good sitcom joke but.  the trauma is the joke.  The joke IS THE TRAUMA!!!

Elizabeth Olson is a dream with all her wonderful faces she has this ep.

Vision’s unsettling passive-aggression-sitcom-cooperation whiplash is WOW, consider me unsettled!!!!!!  “Be. Good.”  UGH.

(Just noticed one here, but there are a number of continuity errors in this episode, enough to be distracting later on, and is this a deliberate choice?  Please let it be deliberate.  I didn’t watch a whole lot of Malcolm in the Middle, is it known for its continuity errors?

)

“It’s their first Halloween.” LOLOLOL they are TEN YEARS OLD and this is their FIRST halloween I LOVE IT

DOUBLE RED HERRING CONFIRRRRRRRRMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Agent Jimmy Woo accidentally identifying himself as the sassy best friend added 20 years to my life.

Found.  FOUND.  Not “created,” “manifested,” “willed into being using my insane witch powers.”  Third Party Confirmed.

I like that it’s the 90s and we can swear on TV now.  “Hell” “kick-ass” “damn it” “fu---dge”

I think the most biting part of Vision finding the whacked out folks is that the soundtrack just kind of ... ignores that anything’s wrong.  Yeah, it’s kinda-spooky Halloween music, but it’s still 100% in-world kinda-spooky-sitcom-Halloween-episode music. 

OKAY LET’S TALK ABOUT THE AD:

As a 90s child, let me tell you, this is a blisteringly accurate representation of children’s marketing from the period.  The shark is wearing sunglasses AND he has a surfboard!!!  And he’s selling you yogurt of all things!!!!!  This is the supreme distillation of what being a child in the 90s was like.

How disappointed I am that they went with crab instead of lobster.

Heard it through the grapevine that this is a representative of Wanda’s imprisonment on the Raft.  That happened in Civil War, right?  So the next ad is The Snap?  We’re running out of iconic decades, too. so, hold on, new thought.

90s: Civil War

00s: Infinity War

10s?????: Endgame???? or?????????

??: Whatever happened between Endgame and WandaVision, given that the ads are stepping forward through Wanda’s IRL life events!!

I don’t want to know how many episodes are planned/announced, but I don’t know what to expect from the format after they run out of decades from which to draw.  Maybe there are only one or possibly two “sitcom” episodes left.  Maybe after that it just breaks down and they can pick and choose from the worlds/styles we’ve already established.  That’d be p neat.  A very unique kind of chaos.

god she’s so cute

Okay, somebody explain to me Pietro.  I honestly walked away from last week thinking he was just some townsperson chump, but then I was reminded that this is the Quicksilver actor from all those X-Mans movies I never watched, soooo people are saying Multiverse Confirmed?  But, if this is X-Mans’ Pietro, then why did he die the same as MCU Pietro?  Or is he literally MCU!Pietro’s corpse, given that he looked all dead same as when she saw Vision’s corpse?  If MCU!Pietro, then why different face???

????????????????

Also I found him highly suspicious, what with all the questions he was asking.  But the only sort of person who would truly want to know the answers to those questions would be someone who already had them ... so I think he was just asking on behalf of the audience, and the delivery was all wonked out.

Rule of Threes - The Reference:

Ok, real talk, whenever computers/networks/data/encryption/servers/mainframes et al come up in mainstream media, I just look away.  I don’t need the kind of psychic damage that comes with such egregious mishandling of the topic.

That being said, does Hayward having eyes through the barrier mean that he could possibly be involved in getting it set up?  Because look.  If Hayward-after-Hayward’s-Villianous-Ends is one antagonizing force, then is there really room for the Third Party (Confirmed) antagonizing force that’s lurking in the negative space silhouette of the Inciting Incident?  With Wanda as the Red Herring antagonizing force, that’s just.  There’s just too many villains, alright?  We gotta start merging these plotlines.

(then again, when I just said “eyes” I realize probably understanding the true nature of his new secret “CATARACT” project will clear a lot of things up.  I’ll wait for enlightenment)

Agnes’ license plate in this episode is 0A1-B2C, which I think is a reference to the way reality is getting pared down to bare bones at the edge of town.  Note that this is not the same license plate number as seen last ep.

ALSO, I drove home behind a NJ plate just an hour ago, and was staring at it for a long time, trying to fit it into the puzzle before A) realizing that this was Real Life and not part of the show and B) WTF is a NJ plate doing in front of me in California.  In any case, I can confirm that NJ plates do not appear to have this number-letter repeating format.

So let’s talk Agnes.

Demonstrated knowledge of the situation in ways others haven’t (”There’s the star of the show” “kids, you can’t control ‘em”)

Shows up when needed most (explained as being Wanda’s doing, but is it)

When Wanda was having her babies, though, who was trustworthy enough to be summoned?  Was it Agnes?

Wanted to babysit REAL BAD

Was in the opening credits framed possessively with the twins

Doesn’t appear to have an IRL identity according to Jimmy’s crime board

Keeps talking about her husband but we’ve never seen him.  Highly unlikely that he’s real

Was the one to find Sparky “dead” - internet thinks she was lying to Wanda about how or possibly if he was dead (I’m trying not to read the theories, so idk exactly what the angle is there)

In an episode where everyone is wearing their original comic outfits, Agnes is dressed as (and laughs like!) a witch

She name-drops Wanda as the one controlling everyone; Norm (or the guy playing Norm) only said “she” and “her” -- meaning Agnes?

Naughty

So we’re 99% sure Agnes is Agatha Harkness, right?  I never read no comics, so I’m taking the internet’s word for it, but from what I can tell, I think we must be right.  If that’s the case, then I’m thinking it’s not impossible for her to be pulling some strings around here (giving Wanda a justification for her “that wasn’t me” doorbell ring, for example, and pulling a double red herring on the fact that she shows up whenever the narrative Wanda her nefarious scheme calls for it).

To devil’s advocate myself, though, we also have Monica’s word that it was Wanda in her mind, lessening the impact of Agnes falsely confirming what Norm only implied.  Also she’d have to be acting for Vision’s sake (and ours) and, if so, then what did Vision’s brain-touch really do, and how did she know he’d find her there, and what did she intend as the result of that interaction etc etc.

If Wanda’s (or Wanda + Third Party Confirmed (Agnes??)’s) powers aren’t enough to sustain the simulation of life on the edges of town, how much worse is it going to be now that there is even more area to try to control???

I don’t know if this is strictly an intended read, but the idea of Halloween as a fun, scares-for-entertainment’s sake type holiday, the rounding off the edges of concepts like “skeletons and ghosts are what people are after they die, let’s decorate the town with them and have a good time” kind of is a haunting parallel to the nature of Wanda (et al) covering up the horrible truth of the situation with this happy-go-lucky sitcom glamour.

How much does one hate seeing Vision giving his life for the greater good (the greater good) for the second time?  In other news, I think I’m seeing some specifically Mind Stone type energy-colors coming off of him, and very little Wanda type energy-colors.  Third Party Confirmed.

Also, I was thinking from last week that perhaps Hayward’s Villainous Ends included capturing the reanimated Vision to be one of those Sentient Weapons his organization is all about, but I Do Not Think his reaction to seeing that sought-after prize disintegrate in front of his eyes really matches up with that theory.  Again, will be patiently waiting for Jimmy to check his email to see what CATARACT is all about!

Rule of Threes - The Payoff:

Also, anyone ID the movie playing in the background?

Ok, final thought.  I watched this about four times today, and on the big-ass TV at my parents’ house finally paused and got up close to see what that white shape is in the reflection.  Thought it might be a skull, but, it’s worse.

These caps do not contain enough data to verify my claim, but I PROMISE YOU it’s a TV

A square old thing with a round screen and antenna on top. 

I SWEAR to you, when I looked into the TV, into Wanda’s eyes, only to see the reflection of a TV, of her looking at me looking at her I had a visceral fear reaction.  Like.  LEGIT nauseous skin crawl.

(All the other episodes have ended with our POV as the fourth wall, from the general (or exact!!!) position their household TV is known to be.)

This is my favorite show Of All Time.

[cheap-hangover]

GoldenEye, plot holes, and movie logic - part 1 of 3

Most James Bond fans or even casual viewers seem to like 1995‘s GoldenEye. For me, it was one of the first James Bond films I’ve seen, having gotten DVD’s of GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies not long after seeing Casino Royale in a cinema and renting a DVD of The Man with the Golden Gun from a DVD rental shop afterwards (don’t ask me why that one; also, pardon the dated technology). Only later I got to watch the series as a whole and could judge the movies not just on their own, but also as part of an over forty – now almost sixty – year old legacy. GoldenEye still remains one of those I know the best, since I own the aforementioned DVD’s.

Fom the production history, the James Bond brand was resurrected after an unprecedented 6-year hiatus after the undeserved commercial failure of Licence to Kill. (EDIT: And, more importantly, a legal battle, which delayed Timothy Dalton's return. When the problems were resolved, he only wanted to do only one more, but he was faced with a choice of three movies or none. He chose the latter.) The hype was real – new Bond, new director, new decade, new political landscape – and it got fully satisfied for many.

Not for me.

I admit, I’ve always been a sucker for the more „realistic“ takes on the spy genre (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy comes to mind) and realistic movies in general, but James Bond has never been a proper spy, not even in the books. That said, I like adventure thrill rides too – but not to the point of Roger-Moore-ridicoulous. And here lies the problem. While I can definitely enjoy the spectacle and all those wonderful (masterfully shot) set pieces, I am constantly being thrown out of the story when I can’t suspend my disbelief. It’s not the only Bond movie to do that to me, Goldfinger comes to mind, but that's a different kettle of fish and I may talk about it in a different post. Due to man's herd mentality, I felt wrong when I read constant praise on this film everywhere and nothing to confirm my feelings. How can a majority be wrong, right? (This sentence is only half sarcastic). So I decided to give it another chance. I'm not going to describe the whole of the film, that would make this long post into a novel. I'm just going to point out the good, the bad, and other interesting things that occured to me when rewatching this feature and also split that into three parts. So, in the words of Jeremy Clarkson, here we go:

Act I - Archangelsk The film starts very strong, with a gripping sequence of a mysterious man running on a dam and jumping down its side on a bungee rope. Nothing wrong here, I've loved that opening, especially when we're greeted by Éric Serra's bold soundtrack right from the gunbarrel sequence. Then comes a minor let-down, when Bond is cutting through a roof with a laser. I'm not a fan of unrealistic gadgets and the dart-winch gun with a cutting laser simply doesn't cut it for me. Especially when you can see that the beam doesn't line up with the cutting line, because the roof is actually being cut from the inside.

Bond playfully dispatches a defecating soldier and proceeds to pose his way through the corridors. Yes, I don't like these poster shots with a handgun brought up to one's face, vertically in profile. I'm not a tactical expert, but from what I know, there are ways for moving indoors with a handgun ready in front of your eyes, and this is not one of them. Next is meeting with 006 and quietly shooting their way to the gas tanks...with the silencers sounding like Hollywood instead of real ones (yes, I'm that pedantic). Also, apparently their victims die of stroke, because there is no blood. I know, PG-13 and all that stuff, but this is James Bond, it's not meant for kids! It's for grown-up immature men. Anyway...the alarm is sounded and colonel Urumov (I know he's credited as Ourumov, but that's only to prevent anglophones from pronouncing it Yurumov) comes in with his soldiers armed with AK-74 rifles (wooden stock) and chinese Type 56-1 rifles (under-folding stock) dressed to look like AKS-74's. I love the look of an AKS-74 (side-folding stock) that 006 captures, I even had one as an airsoft rifle. It was rather front-heavy. On the other hand, Bond's captured AKS-74U (shortened) must have been really handy. He loves to pose with it in this movie, just like with his Walther PPK. Most of the AK's have a very fast cyclic rate, faster than the usual ~600 rounds per minute that the AK-family shares. Also, almost bottomless magazines, as opposed to 30-rounders. I do appreciate the correct shape of muzzle flashes, though I still question their size. Logically, that much propellant left to burn outside the barrel is just wasted energy and it gives the position of the shooter to the enemy - and the mod. 74 cartridge was developed concurrently with and for the AK-74. Video footage of the real thing confirms that.

Urumov and his men are no more capable than the inept agents. The colonel can't secure the area properly and puts everyone at risk. His men are even dumber and even more trigger-happy. Luckily for Bond, they've attended Stormtrooper shooting practice and Bond manages to escape on a conveyor belt. When he slides down from it outside the building, we can see that during some cut, he and 006 have travelled tens of floors from the bottom of the dam to the top of the gorge. It's a fast action sequence, so adding the climb would dilute the flow, but it was genuinely confusing until I sat down and thought about it.

Then we come to the (in)famous aircraft scene. I'll skip the action to the point when the pilot-less plane reaches the edge of the runway and immediately goes into a dive. I'm not a pilot, but an aircraft like this should be capable of being flown hands-off, meaning no force on the stick is required for level flight. IMO, it should either stall and fall off the sky, or take off and then stall and fall off the sky. Or I'm just talking rubbish and a dive is exactly what a plane like this does when it's too slow for level flight. Bond manages to jump (on a motorcycle) after it, fall faster along the same trajectory (it's a very deep gorge), get inside, struggle with the stick, eventually get the elevators working and with a Stuka siren scream (sigh) manages to pull out of that dive. Where do I start...all objects fall basically with the same acceleration, air friction on both Bond and the plane should be similar. The plane is slower, therefore it still must be flying, whereas Bond is falling with little forward velocity. When he catches up to it in the vertical, the plane will be too far away in the horizontal. Mind = boggled. For non-history buffs, that high-pitched wailing sound was only produced by German WWII dive bomber (Sturzkampfflugzeug, hence "Stuka") Junkers Ju 87 via little wind-powered propellers mounted on the landing gear struts, meant for demoralising the enemy. It's a common Hollywood trope which says "this aircraft is going down" (usually resulting in a crash). After Bond manages the impossible, he gets back above the gorge to watch the facility explode and we get a seamless transition to Tina Turner singing.

In summary, there are some minor flaws, some painful clichés, one plot hole, one great stunt, one incredibly stupid stunt, great action and great music. And all that before the title sequence! For the continuation of my rambling, wait for, or see part 2, if it's online by the time you read it. Have a nice day.

[aion-rsa]

The Mandalorian Season 2: Boba Fett’s Return Explained

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This Star Wars article contains spoilers.

From the very beginning, Boba Fett has inspired The Mandalorian. Showrunner Jon Favreau’s “toy box” approach pitched protagonist Din Djarin as a Boba Fett-like figure, and although the two are quite different in terms of personality and history, the iconic silhouette of the space western gunslinger is very similar. 

But now Boba Fett himself is back in The Mandalorian season 2, played by none other than Temuera Morrison in a very brief cameo. At the very end of the season 2 premiere “The Marshall,” we find Boba watching from a hill as Mando rides off with his old armor, a scowl on the old Mandalorian’s face that would silence a krayt dragon. With all the Mandalorian history and bounty hunting on the show, it was only a matter of time before we finally got to see Boba in the flesh!

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While new Star Wars fans may not be as familiar with Boba Fett, fans who’ve spent hours rewatching the Original Trilogy of movies likely let out a shriek when Morrison hit the screen on the live-action series. The helmeted bounty hunter first appeared in the Star Wars Holiday Special in animated form, but more famously in The Empire Strikes Back as a mysterious figure able to talk back to Darth Vader without consequences. Although he’s barely on screen and speaks very few lines in Empire and Return of the Jedi, his iconic look and intimidating swagger have made him one of the most popular characters in the saga. Most Star Wars fans will recognize his iconic T-visored Mandalorian helmet, jetpack, and gauntlets that can shoot either missiles or ropes for capturing bounties alive. His entire storyline in the Original Trilogy involved hunting down Han Solo for Jabba the Hutt, and he’d fit right in The Mandalorian’s Bounty Hunter’s Guild.

Morrison isn’t the original actor to play Boba Fett: that’s Jeremy Bulloch, who wore the helmet in the Original Trilogy. Other people helped bring the character to life, too. John Morton filled in as body double for Bulloch and Jason Wingreen provided the voice. But Morrison played Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones and is, therefore, the live-action face for all of Jango’s clones, including Boba. This is also why George Lucas later dubbed Morrison’s voice over Wingreen’s performance for the DVD release of the Original Trilogy in 2004.

Unsurprisingly, Boba Fett’s return has sparked a lot of talk among fans, who will likely spend the entire season theorizing how the bounty hunter was able to escape his fate in Return of the Jedi and what his arrival might mean for The Mandalorian. Let’s discuss…

Why Is Boba Fett Returning in The Mandalorian?

Disney has already tried to bring Boba Fett back to live-action twice since it purchased Lucasfilm and the rights to Star Wars in 2012. In 2015, Fantastic Four director Josh Trank was attached to direct a Boba Fett movie that was originally going to be announced as a third Star Wars Story standalone movie, along with Rogue One and Solo. According to an interview with Polygon, Trank “quit because I knew I was going to be fired if I didn’t quit” after Fantastic Four‘s dismal performance and the well-known behind-the-scenes drama during production.

The Boba Fett project was revived in 2018, with Logan director James Mangold set to helm the movie, but this second attempt was also shelved after Solo‘s tepid turn at the box office that same year. Simon Kinberg, Rebels producer and Dark Phoenix director, would have co-written the movie.

In 2020, The Mandalorian provides perhaps the best re-entry point for Boba Fett. Not only does it star a main character with a similar occupation and a taste for carbonite, but it delves deeper into Mandalorian culture as well as what happened to places like Tatooine after the fall of the Empire. Even though Boba Fett isn’t Mandalorian by blood, the fate of Mandalore could still affect him personally, especially since his father was a member of that culture, even if Jango was treated like an outcast by the planet’s pacifist government. Would Fett still be an ally of the Empire after what they did to his father’s people?

The show first teased the return of Boba Fett in the season 1 episode “The Gunslinger.” That episode ends with a mysterious figure inspecting the body of Din Djarin’s latest target on Tatooine. When does this moment take place with respect to Fett’s timeline? Has he just escaped the sarlacc or has he spent the years since Return of the Jedi as a hermit in the desert? Has he been following Din’s tracks all along? The cameo seems to confirm Boba’s hermit status, as we see him wearing black robes and carrying a rifle as his own protection. (He very likely wants his armor back.)

But has he also been tracking Mando? When it comes to a bounty as big as the one on Din and Baby Yoda‘s heads in season 1, there’s no doubt that the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy would have heard about it. And if the underworld has forgotten him after he was swallowed whole by the sarlacc, what better way to reclaim his reputation than by collecting the bounty no one else could?

That’s not to say that the bounty hunter has definitely returned as a villain. For one thing, this could just be a cameo or perhaps the very start of an arc that will see Boba following our heroes around, waiting for the right moment to reveal himself.

However Fett’s story plays out, it could set up future adventures for the character, just like the ones he had before Disney erased the classic Legends continuity from canon.

How Did Boba Fett Survive the Sarlacc Pit?

Fett’s death in Return of the Jedi wasn’t the end for the bounty hunter in the pre-Disney Legends continuity. In fact, he lived a long life that stretched decades beyond the events of the Original Trilogy. But how did he survive a fate as gruesome as being slowly digested over a thousand years inside of the sarlacc?

Fans learned in the classic Dark Horse comic series Dark Empire by Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy that Fett’s armor allowed him to survive inside the sarlacc and fight his way out, blowing up the creature in the process (a move very similar to how Mando escaped the belly of the krayt dragon in “The Marshall”). The novel The Mandalorian Armor by K.W. Jeter further explained that it was rival bounty hunter Dengar who found Boba Fett half-dead in the desert and nursed him back to health.

From that point on, Fett became a regular character in the Legends Expanded Universe, featuring in many bounty-hunter focused books. He also made a brief cameo in the 19-book New Jedi Order series and appeared in the Jedi-focused Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi books. In fact, Fett lived on until the very end of the Legends timeline, completely defying the odds after his initial demise in Return of the Jedi.

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Boba Fett eventually became the leader of the Mandalorians, which had a sprawling culture and even their own official language in Legends. Fett had a family and his granddaughter ended up assisting in the training of Jaina Solo, Han and Leia’s daughter.

As in the Sequel Trilogy, Legends included the continuation of the Skywalker-Solo clan, and, while Fett mostly kept to himself as the leader of a third faction sometimes opposed and sometimes allied with the Republic, he was involved with incorporating Mandalorian fighting into Jaina’s Jedi training. He also became a formal ally of the Jedi in the war against Jaina’s brother, Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus, in Legacy of the Force.

Will the Disney canon do something similar with Boba Fett’s post-Return of the Jedi story? We don’t know what the studio might have in mind for Fett, or whether he will eventually turn into a more sympathetic anti-hero character, but it wouldn’t be surprising if some elements from his Legends storyline were brought into the new canon. That’s exactly what Disney did with Grand Admiral Thrawn, another character whose Legends story was pieced together in a new way in the canon animated series Rebels.

How Boba Fett Might Connect to Baby Yoda 

Boba, as we all know, isn’t a traditional Mandalorian — he’s a clone. He wasn’t born on Mandalore, he wasn’t connected to a traditional cultural/religious covert like Din Djarin in The Mandalorian, and his father Jango, a killer willing to sell his clones to the Republic, doesn’t exactly seem like a traditionalist in the vein of the Armorer or Mandalorian leader Bo-Katan Kryze. 

There’s certainly some kind of cloning plot being woven into The Mandalorian. In season 1, Ugnaught hero Kuill suggested that Baby Yoda could be a “strand-cast,” a type of bio-engineered clone that Emperor Palpatine hoped to use as the perfect vessel for his spirit after his original body was destroyed in the Battle of Endor. We know that Dr. Pershing, an Imperial scientist, wanted to experiment on the Child before Din decided to rescue him. Was Baby Yoda part of the Emperor’s plan to find a new vessel or a clone of Master Yoda the Emperor planned to turn to the dark side?

Or is Baby Yoda the result of a separate strand-cast experiment that worked where so many of the Sith’s failed? If this is the case, the Empire would undoubtedly want to see how the Child not only survived the cloning process but also became powerful in the Force. As we learn in The Rise of Skywalker, the Emperor’s own clones were all massive disappointments on that front.

What if Boba Fett is hunting Baby Yoda for what’s left of the Empire? Would they feel any sort of affinity toward each other if they’re both clones, or would Boba Fett be the cold-hearted killer to Din Djarin’s heartfelt foundling? The potential clone connection could make for a captivating storyline in season 2.

Fans certainly have had a lot of time to come up with opinions, headcanon, and theories about the bounty hunter. Fett speaks sparingly and radiates intimidation, even if his most famous role features him falling into a large pit. Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars added to Fett’s backstory and showed him learning the ropes of the bounty hunting trade. All that could be paid off in The Mandalorian, depending on how the show incorporates Morrison now that he’s made his return.

The Star Wars franchise has been in a rather uncertain place since the Disney purchase, with movies doing well at the box office but cultural cache falling. The Mandalorian is one of the most unquestionably successful and high-quality parts of the franchise right now, so it’s a good business decision to bring a very popular character to the show. We’ll see what that means for the story. 

The Mandalorian season 2 airs Fridays at 12:01 pm PT/3:01 am ET on Disney+.

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[queencatherynerhys]

Stuck With You - Chapter 1

Summary: Neal Caffrey had met his fair share of interesting women over the years. Once or twice he thought he had known what love meant. But he learned what being in love was like when he met her. Now he must face a future without her. How will he survive?

A/N: I know I haven’t been non-existent in Tumblr world and TRR fandom. I’ve been working on this story for a while. I was looking through fanfiction stories and realized there’s never really been a Neal/Female OC angst story that caught my eye. I just don’t know why, so I decided to write one of my own.

The character’s voices might be a little different than you’ve come to know if you’ve watched the amazing show. If not, I highly recommend it. White Collar is one to binge through these uncertain times we live in. I’ve rewatched it several times now.

I apologize for any errors. I feel like I didn’t capture it very well. But please leave a like or better yet a comment if you like it and I will post the next chapter.

Disclaimer: Characters mostly belong to Jeff Eastin. OCs and the plot concept are mine.

Tags: @devineinterventions2 @madaraism @theroyalweisme @drakewalkerwhipped @drakesfiance @hhiggs @hellospunkiebrewster @alicars @mrswalkerreynolds @mfackenthal @simplyaiden-blog @hopefulmoonobject @blackcatkita @cocomaxley @boneandfur @lizeboredom @crayziimaginations @umccall71 @zarina-x-zig @writtenbycandy @ranishajay @heatherfilliez @drakelover78 @indiacater @pens-girl-87 @katurrade @speedyoperarascalparty @greyeyedsmile14 @barbaravalentino @zilch3 @mynameiskaylabella @darley1101 @blznbaby @trashbagfullofflannels @bella-ca @highlyselectiveextrovert @kacie-0156​ *I just used my usual tag list. Let me know if you want to be taken off if you don’t want to receive notifications about this story. Also let me know if you want to be added.*

Four days earlier...

Earlier in the week, the FBI caught wind of an unidentified man that came into the city in the hopes of selling a stolen Rembrandt painting in New York. It sparked their attention because the particular piece hadn't been seen or heard for at least two decades. The storm on the Sea of Galilee went missing in 1990 and now it has resurfaced.

Peter and Neal followed the trail of clues and they managed to set up an appointment with their mystery man in Gramercy Park. As per protocol, the FBI staked out and waited for their man to show up from the confines of a worn utility truck parked two blocks away from the meeting site. Peter, Neal, Jones, and Diana all took a screen of their own and watched for anyone suspicious to show up.

"There," Neal pointed on his screen as an anonymous man sat down on one of the benches. He was a young man in his late 20s to early 30s with brown hair, but what caught Neal's eye was his demeanor. His knee was bouncing up and down, his fingers were fidgeting, and his eyes kept glancing and looking around nervously. This man was no art thief. He was just a young man. He looked at Peter to tell him, but from the looks of it he already knew what he was going to say.

"Guys, I don't think this guy is our man. Just look at him. He doesn't even come close to the profile of an art thief. I don't think this guy can steal a candy bar from a gas station. I think we are looking for another guy. This guy is just a middleman," Peter told his team.

"I agree, boss, so what's the plan?" Diana asked.

"We send Neal in to find out what he wants, and go from there," he answered. He watched as Neal stood up, fixed his tie and suit, and flashed his signature, smug smile before exiting the van.

Neal confidently walked towards the bench the man was sitting on, but before he could even come near him the young man glanced at him, ducked his head, and appeared as if he whispered something to an earpiece. Guess that confirms the theory of this guy being just a patsy, but now Neal knew he'd been made. Without showing realization, Neal kept walking acting as if he was just taking a stroll through the park.

He made a big loop back towards the van and informed the others when he got there that the still unidentified knew who Neal was and he informed his partner, or employer, of him through the use of an earpiece.

"By the looks of it, he knew who I was. I don't think this plan is much of a plan anymore, Peter," Neal said.

Peter had his thinking, planning face on. Then, a brief look of hesitation flashed on his face. No one else would have caught it but Neal was a master at detecting facial expressions, subtle or otherwise. He saw it. When Peter turned to him, he saw it in his eyes. He beckoned him to talk outside the van so he followed.

"What's up, Peter?" Neal inquired.

"I was thinking. This guy came to New York out of the blue to sell a valuable, stolen painting. What does that tell us? He's desperate to get the piece out of his hand, so he needs to find a buyer fast. What if we put a middle man on the table?" Peter explained.

"A fencer?" Neal questioned although he knew it was the right answer. "Where are we going to find someone good enough to act as an art fencer? Diana? She's good, but I have a hunch this guy is going to need someone more well-versed in the world of fine art. I would suggest Mozzie but he's been...occupied...since the Cape Verde fiasco. So who else is there?" Neal explained.

Peter looked at him with a look of hesitation with just a dash of regret. It dawns on Neal why he was looking at him that way.

"Oh, no. No. No, Peter, No. You are not bringing her into this," Neal began to object to his friend's idea.

"Neal, listen, she's the only chance we have of catching this guy. With her background in situations like this, who could be more perfect?" Peter tried to persuade. Neal was still not convince. He did not like this at all. Not one bit. Peter had one more card to play to try and get Ryne to do it.

"Well, how about we ask her opinion on it?" Peter slowly asked. He had come to know the young woman well in the year and a half she's been in Neal's life. He knew if anyone could change Neal's mind, it's her.

Neal had always been the romantic. Peter had seen him fall too easily and get heartbroken and dealt with loss no one should ever have to go through. He truly thinks that Neal loved them in his own way, but not the way he loves Ryne. Of all the women he's seen come and go, Kate, Alex, Sara, even Rebecca, in his friends life she's the only woman he was the most protective about. He could admit that seeing his friend care about someone the way he cared about Ryne gave him hope that Neal could have what he has with Elizabeth. A home, a family, love, happiness, contentment on where he is and what he has.

"Fine. Come by the apartment later," Neal gave in and walked away but not back to the van.

"Where are you going?" Peter asked him.

Neal turned around and a flashed a bright smile, "To make my case before you show up." He arrived at June's house and as he does everyday since he moved in he went to say hello to his beautiful, kind landlord before making his way upstairs. He looked everywhere on the lower floors for her, but he figured she currently wasn't home so he headed upstairs to his apartment.

The rich tones of a lively piano music being played gradually became louder as he ascended the narrow stairwell. A grin began to form on his face as he remembered the animated conversation they had about bringing getting a piano to his apartment.

"Come on, babe. It's all I'm asking. Everything else in the apartment is yours. I just want one thing that's for me. My own mark on Neal Caffrey's perfect apartment," she said in almost whiny, but endearing voice.

"Ryne, I just don't see the practicality of having a piano in here. Do you know how hard it will be to get it up here? And where would we put it?" Neal reasoned while tying his tie in front of the tall mirror beside their bed . He turned around to face her after he finished fixing himself.

She sashayed toward him slowly, enticingly, until coming to a stop in front of him to fix the lapels of his designer jacket.

"There's plenty of room in front of the bed," she suggested, almost pouted, and looked at his blue eyes with her big, hazel one pleadingly. The only thing missing was batting eyes, but she was not a little girl begging for candy. She's was a sophisticated woman who knew that the man in front of her would give her the world if she asked for it. He couldn't resist her, and she knew it.

"Ugh, fine, you can have a piano in here," he gave in and laughed when she jumped for joy at getting what she wanted. "The great Neal Caffrey tamed by big eyes and pouty lips. What have I become?" He looked down and shook his head with feign disappointment.

She lifted his face by the chin and flashed the brightest of smiles before she closed in and gave him a passionate kiss. One of his hands held the back of her head while the other wrapped around her waist to bring her closer to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and threaded her fingers through his brown locks.

Had he no plans of meeting Peter, he would have gladly had his way with her on the apartment they now shared. Funny, even though Sara lived in his apartment for a brief time he never considered them sharing his home. It was always his, and Sara was there conveniently due to circumstances at the time they were dating. That's not the case with Ryne. She's different. He wanted to share everything with her, to be with her, to spend every waking minute of his life in the comfort of her arms. It was at that moment he realized he wanted to be hers forever.

Neal Caffrey was smitten with her. He knew he had never felt like this with anyone before. Sara had been close to capturing his heart, but she demanded a life he couldn't give her. With all the women that came to his life, she's the only one that didn't want anything from him. She didn't demand him to change, to be less the conman and more the honest-living-type-of guy. She encouraged and loved that he needed to live an almost free-spirited life. She simply loved him, Neal Caffrey, and all his facets, no more and no less.

"I love you, Ryne Beneventi, more than anything in this world, more than the finest art or jewelry. If you would have me, I want to be yours forever," Neal proclaimed as he pulled away from the kiss and looked deeply into her eyes. He held her closer to him. Neal had never in his life said those three words to anyone but her.

Kate knew he loved her, but he never said the words aloud. It was always implied, assumed. Alex was a spontaneous relationship. They had something, but not enough for those words. With Sara, he came close. He realized he fancied the "domestic" life with her. He cared for her perhaps a bit more than the others. He even proposed to her as part of a job they were doing. Rebecca, she, was a different case. A loose canon not worth mentioning.

But Ryne, she was the light in the darkness. She was his compass when he felt torn on which direction he should go. She was the breath he needed to live.

"I love you, Neal Caffrey. And I am yours as much as you are mine. Forever," she replied with a bright smile as she caressed his cheek softly with a warm, soft hand. He leaned to her touch and kissed the back of her palm before pulling away.

He would have loved to have stayed with her the whole day, but almost in cue his phone began to ring. His leash beckoned.

In the present, Neal shook the memory away and proceeded up the flight of stairs towards their apartment. He opened the door quietly as to not disturb her. He leaned by the doorway mesmerized by the picture painted in front of him with Ryne lost in her world of music simultaneously filling him with joy and contentment he never knew he could feel.

[cblgblog]

On that Siberia fight in Civil War

Rewatched Civil War recently and just…need this of my chest.

First thing, Steve saying yes when Tony asked if he knew about Bucky killing the Starks.

If the implication is that Steve did know unequivocally, for sure, then that should’ve been handled a lot better. What we were actually shown was a blink and you’ll miss it shot among a montage of HYDRA’s greatest hits that was, at best, an implication. And Steve’s being shown this by a computer version of an evil Nazi, who admits in the same breath that HYDRA’s whole thing for the last 70-odd years has been lies and manipulation.

It’s possible that Steve could’ve gotten better confirmation later. He could’ve gotten it from Bucky’s file, the one Nat gave him at the end of Cap 2, he maybe could’ve gotten it during the 2 years he was looking for leads…it could have happened. But they needed to show us if it did, because that HYDRA clip show? Not enough for a solid “yes” on Steve knowing.

I always took Steve saying yes as Steve being Steve in a bad situation, knowing that saying he didn’t know was a lie, so he says yes. Because he knew more than Tony did, and it’s not like Tony is going to take a “Yes, but let me explain” answer. But regardless, it needed better handling, if we’re meant to believe that Steve did know for certain.

Now, Tony attacking Bucky, even though he acknowledged 5 minutes earlier (with his Manchurian Candidate jab) that he knows Bucky isn’t responsible for Winter Soldier’s actions. So many people hate this, and rightfully so. I will say that I don’t condone it, but I understand it. Off the top of my head, the usual anti-Tony arguments here are

·       The loss was decades ago, not recent, he shouldn’t be reacting so strongly

·       He should’ve gotten some therapy and handled his grief like an adult

·       He hated Howard anyway, why react so violently?

Yes, the loss was decades ago, but it’s still a man watching his parents be murdered. By the man standing a few feet away. With Tony’s mind and his instant “I know that road” we can assume he’s played out the scenario in his head a thousand times over the years. And that’s when he thought it was a car wreck. Watching your parents get murdered is going to screw with anyone’s mind, even someone healthy, which Tony so isn’t.

He should have gotten therapy, dealt with the loss in a healthy way, but he clearly didn’t. He even says during the MIT demonstration that he actively avoided processing his grief. Which isn’t an excuse for his behavior, but does explain it somewhat. Wounds heal if you treat them. If you don’t, there’s festering, infection, scarring…the 20-odd years on it’s own wouldn’t have automatically softened the loss.

Tony may have hated Howard, or parts of him, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t love him too. If he didn’t yearn for the man’s approval, he wouldn’t have made such a speech about not getting it in IM 2. If he didn’t care, it wouldn’t matter. Parent/child relationships are so much more complicated than just one thing, and if there’s abuse or neglect, even more so. On a side note, Howard always seemed more the absentee dad, the careless dad who talks without knowing the damage of his words than the raging abusive drunk the stans want to make him out to be. Which in this case means it’s more likely that Tony didn’t all out hate the guy, even before Endgame where we get the Tony and Howard scenes.

And even if he did, Tony’s feelings for Howard don’t have to matter here, because he says “I don’t care. He killed my mom.” Even if he hated Howard completely (which later canon disproves), okay, he’s still hearing his mom begging for her life.

So, it was a cruel, manipulative tactic by Zemo, and I get why it pushed Tony to doing what he did.

Here’s the thing. That doesn’t make it okay. It doesn’t make his prior actions throughout this and other movies okay. Should Steve have told him about Bucky? Maybe, if he knew for sure, which again, don’t think he did. But Tony’s actions on finding out are pretty solid proof that Steve had solid reason to shut up, too. The video exacerbated the whole thing greatly, yes. If Tony was thinking a little more clearly, it maybe wouldn’t have gone that far.

Does that mean that Steve could’ve told him in a better moment and Tony wouldn’t have reacted in a similar way? Hell no. He might not have physically attacked Steve, or had Bucky there to beat on, but that doesn’t mean we’d get the lovely fanon of Tony forgiving and forgetting, doing his best to treat Bucky, giving him a wing in Avengers Tower…hell no. He still would’ve hunted Bucky down, or tried. He still would’ve been out for blood.

Tony hasn’t had a healthy brain in years. He’s been a mess of fear and anxiety and misplaced savior complex. Even if Steve had told him the truth at some point in the 2 years between Cap 2 and 3, it wouldn’t have gone well for Bucky.

And I kind of get it. Mind controlled or not, the guy physically murdered Tony’s parents. That’s hard to just shrug off. But ultimately, Bucky didn’t have a choice in it, it was not Bucky who really pulled that trigger, and it’s not fair to try to kill a man for something he couldn’t control.

And again, I do not totally hate Tony for that fight. I can understand why he did it. He’s a damaged man, he was manipulated. But, not an excuse. Every other Avenger has some kind of trauma equal to or worse than anything Tony went through. Nat was sterilized, tortured. Clint had his mind controlled and killed innocent people because of it. Bruce turns into a green rage monster and, at least in early films, has little to no control over the destruction he causes.

Everyone on that team is damaged, but Tony is the only on who gets a free pass for everything because of it. Tony’s parents being killed by Bucky wasn’t revealed to him until the end of the movie. The Accords are still the equivalent of hitting a nail with a sledgehammer, a terrible solution to a legitimate problem. He’s still using them as a way to deal with his guilt, and you don’t do that when it affects countless other lives, including those of your friends. He still shot Sam at close range…why? Because Sam did the very human thing of trying not to get shot out of the air? Because Vision, a member of Tony’s team, shot down Rhodey?

Even if you go for the fact that Steve lied, and he is a terrible friend, and that Tony ultimately trying to actually kill Steve for it was a somewhat understandable reaction in the moment? Doesn’t excuse Tony’s behavior. In Civil War, in AoU, in Infinity War when literally no one else on either Avengers team cared about The Accords, the airport fight, but he’s still hesitating to call Steve when the fate of the universe is at stake.

I can understand why Tony does a lot of what he does. I think some of it is more complex than some of the antis who are more anti than me do. Understanding is not an excuse. Being hurt and traumatized yourself doesn’t excuse giving anyone, especially your friends, the same treatment.

[mittensmorgul]

Look, I know you've covered this already but I just want to reiterate how AWESOME it is that several lines and scenes of s14 were deliberately drawing our attention to the in‐betweens, to the fact that these guys have lives outside of what we seen and that they have significant moments in those off screen lives. I just fricking *love* that.

Hi hi! I know you sent this like a week ago, but I really wanted to have time to sit down and detail all the moments in s14 where they’ve used this device before replying– both for the sake of completeness in demonstrating just how critical they’ve made these “in between” spaces to the overall narrative, as well as for my own general reference purposes. :P

I’ll start by saying that the show has done this on some level from the start. I mean, the entire series begins with a cold open in 1983 before jumping 22 years into the future to begin in the “present day” of October, 2005. We begin our introduction to the story of Supernatural immediately aware that there’s already a metric fuckton of backstory we’re due to have filled in, and we’re primed to begin looking for more pieces to flesh out that history from the moment the first scene airs.

*clenches fist* STORYTELLING

I’m currently in mid-late s7 in my eternal rewatch, and even s7 uses this device MULTIPLE times. I mean, s6 does this, as well, immediately informing us that a year has passed since the events of 5.22, and gradually filling in the missing events from that gap, using Sam’s soullessness and then post-re-ensoulening amnesia about his soulless time, him “scratching the wall” and beginning to piece his own memories together, as one entry point into this “filling in the blanks of the past for full understanding of the present” storytelling device. The other major expression of this device in s6 is Castiel’s story throughout the season, which doesn’t truly begin to fill in all the blanks and answer all the questions until episode TWENTY.

(I am not defending this storytelling choice, because in s6 it served as a metaphorical “punishment,” which is still so skeevy I struggle to watch the season as a whole… in Gamble Era, characters are “punished” for remembering their past– Sam for his guilt over what he did while soulless, and eventually Cas for his hubris in believing he could devour the souls of purgatory without consequences… and again, what I get from Gamble Era overall is an unkindness to all the characters… this Erasure of Identity. For years now, I’ve read this exchange from 6.09 as a bit of an indictment of the story of that era by Ben Edlund:

SAM: So you’re saying having a soul equals suffering.DEAN: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.SAM: Like, the million times you almost called Lisa. So you’re saying suffering is a good thing.DEAN: I’m saying it’s the only game in town.

but back to the point)

S7 employed this technique in really in-your-face obvious ways, showing us time skips with little montages that cover several weeks in a matter of less than a minute, during which we’re shown the tone of the events of the “missing time” and are being told directly how to fill in those blanks:

7.01 shows this montage through Dean repairing Baby while receiving occasional updates on Sam’s recovery and Cas’s Godstiel rampage.

7.03 gives us a montage of Dean’s healing leg while he’s relegated to the sofa in the cabin watching tv… weeks elapse like this before the action picks up again.

7.10 uses flashbacks as Bobby lays dying to directly show us a fuller snapshot of who he is as a character, and why he’s been so important to Sam and Dean as their adoptive father figure

7.11 uses another “weeks pass” montage to show us Sam and Dean’s grief and their respective ways of handling Bobby’s loss

7.17 uses another flashback montage as Castiel literally rebuilds his identity from these moments… can’t really be more anvilicious than this about the import of filling in the narrative gaps…

But over the years, this has evolved in the narrative from these blatantly obvious tells to something we’re being low-level reminded of in nearly every episode through a constant implicit assumption that these characters have lives outside of what we see on The Magic Rectangle for 42 minutes a week. The show’s gone from literally subtitling these scenes and telling us exactly what we’re seeing to requiring our assumption that all we need to learn how to fill in the blanks is to assume these are actually real people who casually reference things we never knew before from their own lives and assume we know all the characters well enough by now to correctly fill in the blanks they so casually point out to us, or even expand on vast swaths of otherwise “missing time” from what we actively see of their lives from an otherwise minor comment made in passing…

Gosh, ain’t it nice when writers assume their audience is actually intelligent, considerate, engaged, and caring like this? Honestly in this day and age of GOTCHA! oneupsmanship, of authors attempting to demonstrate their intellectual superiority over their audience, it’s rather refreshing.

One more thing before we jump right into s14. Dabb and Company have been “educating” us on how to read these subtextual instructions for years now. We had the Mixtape Revelation in 12.19 that idiotically devolved into fandom arguments over what a mixtape itself was intended to symbolize, with people arguing that the thing itself had no inherent romantic implications (which… wow… but people be dumb sometimes…). I’d argue that regardless of what anyone has convinced themselves the gift meant symbolically (or didn’t mean symbolically for people with their heads shoved so far up their butts they actually made that argument in a public forum with a straight face and actually got mad about folks who actually know better…), what it meant NARRATIVELY was that the original gifting of the tape was something that had happened in the past, that we-the-audience previously had no knowledge of this particular interaction between Dean and Cas, and were being SPECIFICALLY TOLD that even though WE DID NOT SEE IT HAPPEN ON SCREEN, it absolutely, definitely, CANONICALLY ACTUALLY HAPPENED regardless of that fact.

Not only did that unseen exchange canonically happen, it was discussed by Dean and Cas in a casual fashion, as if it was simply one moment in a past filled with moments just like it. In a season where the episodes leading up to this one were filled with comments about Dean and Cas calling each other regularly (conversations that we never see, yet are informed casually happen constantly offscreen), and Dean’s increasing distress over NOT being able to reach Cas for several episodes, it’s impossible NOT to draw the conclusion that this lack of communication is HIGHLY IRREGULAR and therefore SOMETHING WE SHOULD ALL BE CONCERNED ABOUT. We didn’t need to *see* all of this to apply this fact far more broadly to the entire narrative, and understand there were massive gaps between what they could show us in 42 minutes a week versus what the baseline background life is for all of these characters in those between-times.

They doubled down on this in s13, specifically in 13.06, both with the “Dean and Cas regularly watch movies together” comments AND in the casual knowledge Cas shares with Jack about Dean’s sleeping and coffee drinking habits. It’s not just these isolated facts that we’re supposed to take away from these sorts of exchanges, but what they mean in the larger context of their off-camera interactions and relationship as a whole.

So that said, let’s move on to s14, where this has honestly evolved to the next level. The rest of this is going under a cut for now, because the totality of this post is something like 7700 words...

14.01, Stranger in a Strange Land:

The season begins with a montage of Dinkle’s actions over a period of weeks, talking to different people and asking what they want. We don’t see every one of these conversations, but we can extrapolate out from the ones we DO see and infer how all of those experiences guide his subsequent actions (as well as Dean’s subsequent emotional and psychological state later down the road).

But we’re shown one more of those conversations INDIRECTLY, from an offhand comment of another character, where we’re both reminded of Dinkle’s little conversations, AND reminded that they don’t constitute the sum total of those conversations. There is much we haven’t seen (and will NOT see, because this scene renders any additional on-screen time to cover the tone and content of those conversations superfluous and redundant), and yet we still understand the importance and gravity of Dinkle’s entire occupation during those missing weeks:

Kip:You see, recently, I had a revelation. You know, somebody asked me what it was that I wanted. And I realized that after 600 years as a demon walking the planet, destroying, drinking, defiling – you know, the Three D’s – I didn’t know. So, I sat back, and I gave it a good think, and I realized exactly what I wanted.Castiel: And what is it?Kip: Everything.

We also see this from the other side of the narrative– through the progression of events occurring at the Bunker in Dean’s absence. Sam’s despair is conveyed not only in dialogue in his conversation with Mary, it’s conveyed through just how poorly he’s looking after his own wellbeing, not shaving (visual confirmation of his mindset informing us of what his life’s been like over the previous weeks), not eating or sleeping (we’re told, and believe because of how he’s presenting himself, but also emotionally informs us of how he’s been affected by his ordeal), while simultaneously having stepped up to lead the army of AU Hunters– i.e. people from a world where war against Michael has been their lives for more than a decade, and are literally bringing that experience to THIS world, metaphorically going back to the start of their own battle to a world where Michael is only BEGINNING to enact that war on this world, who now have the experience of having survived that war and the knowledge gained while having fought against it, but also a chance to stop it before it can be allowed to start again. Or that is the hope, you know?

We’re also seeing Jack struggle with guilt, with adapting to life without the magical powers he’d been born with, and being forced to confront what is truly important to him, and what his own humanity means to him.

We’re subtly being reminded of VAST quantities of canon upon which the current character developments are resting.

14.02, Gods and Monsters:

There’s a lot of “backtracing” through character arcs in this one, which I’m gonna boil down to the general themes:

Jack seeking out his familial history, seeking out Kelly Kline’s parents to make a personal connection to his mother’s past in order to better understand himself now

Cas relating parts of his own past to Jack (falling and becoming human, not mourning the past he can’t change but finding strength in himself regardless of his current circumstance, and to have patience while his circumstance will change in future) (aside to remind folks that this setup at the beginning of the season is entirely about subverting his words through his own actions throughout the season… with 14.14 being the massive turning point again for both Jack and Cas)

Nick’s setup of beginning to fill in the blanks from his own life after a decade of having lost everything to his possession by Lucifer. He’s got a lot of catching up to do, and a heck of a lot of blanks to fill.

the absolute knowledge that the show is 100% aware of how they’ve trained us to look at the narrative this deeply, using character mirrors, foreshadowing, parallels, etc., and that they’re keen to use this power against us. And it’s up to us to understand the difference between “things being presented to us for the purposes of subversion” and “things being presented to us to fill in narrative blanks.” Like the entirety of Dinkle’s conversations with both Dean and Lydia the vampire. Heck I’m already down to bullet points and I’m gonna need to extrapolate on this one… *sighs*

Let’s start simple, with a couple of quotes:

Michael: Why do you think I dumped your brothers and sisters in plain sight? Why do you think I let you escape?Lydia: You let me escape?Michael: Rule number 1 – you can’t have a trap without bait. That brings us to rule number 2, which says once the trap has been sprung, you don’t need the bait anymore.

and

Dean: Get… out!Michael: I don’t think so.Dean: You can’t!Michael: Oh, but I can. Because, see… I own you. So hang on and enjoy the ride.

Because the first defines and contextualizes the second… Do I really need to elaborate? No? Oh good, then we can move on!

14.03, The Scar:

Again, using the trope of amnesia and memory recovery to illustrate the emotional and psychological impact of “missing time,” if not the entirety of the content of that missing gap. In addition, to Dean recovering his memories and demonstrating his reaction to his own lost time, the two respective cases of the week (Darth Kaia, learning how she came to this universe, and everything she’s endured at Dinkle’s hands also informing further the information we learned in 14.01, and in the bunker Jack and Cas helping heal Lora of a witch’s curse that was literally stealing time from her in the form of her own life energy).

I love demonstrating how “filling narrative gaps from the past” is not only built into the inherent structure of the narrative like this, it’s also the entire purpose of all the character development we’re witnessing, as well as setting the foundation of the entire story going forward.

We had that in spades from Jody, putting in plain words what we all saw happening in 13.10:

Jody: They have a right to know but I can’t. I promised Claire human cases are mine, but anything “monstery” I’d loop her in: this. God. Claire’s been doing so good. I mean anything connected to Kaia, she’s a powder keg. First loves strikes quick, and then to lose it like that. Wow, you two are having a time of it.

Confirming the subtext of Claire and Kaia’s relationship, while simultaneously informing us of what Jody, Claire, et al’s lives have been like since then, filling in a huge narrative gap with just a few innocuous comments. But there’s one more example from within the span of this episode:

Sam: Okay, look, I’m just saying… you said you let Michael in, then, bang you’re back in a blink. But for me? You were gone for weeks. I didn’t know if you were alive. I just need you to talk to me, to slow down so I can catch up.

Sam, defining the narrative gap and begging for information to fill it with. And then at the end of the episode, he gets an answer, but it’s nothing like what he expected or hoped for:

Dean: And it wasn’t a blink, being possessed. I make it sound like that, but it wasn’t. I don’t remember most of what Michael did with me because I was underwater, drowning, and that I remember. I felt every second of it – clawing, fighting for air. I thought I could make it out, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough. And now he’s gone and he’s out there putting an army of monsters together and he’s hurting people. And its all on me, man. I said yes. It’s my fault.

And it’s still not really an answer.

14.04, Mint Condition:

Narrative gap reshuffle yahtzee. I’m just gonna give a few links to meta already written for this one, because it’s about the journey, and being informed enough to pay attention to all the sights along the roadside as we go:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179792849870/when-in-doubt-sing-mittensmorgul-i

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181790806615/questions-and-their-empty-spaces

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179742780230/mittens-help-dean-says-he-loves-hatchet-man

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179734411135/i-love-there-wasnt-any-acknowledgement-about-dean

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179724128520/stuarts-my-best-friend-we-watch-movies-and-eat

(gotta throw in at least one destiel reference…)

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179700702490/hey-mittens-just-wondering-if-you-could-help-me

And because this reading list is already getting long, I just want to use this post to point out how the use of narrative mirrors informs our understanding of those one-off characters through our established understanding of the main characters, enabling those mirror characters to serve their function in the story. Davy was not subtle with pointing that out in this episode, and it’s an essential tool in understanding the bigger picture of the narrative. But it’s also a device in filling narrative gaps by recognizing and applying the subtextual lessons being demonstrated:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179695858820/a-few-observations-on-the-mirror-characters

So this isn’t just about individual lines at this point, but an entire narrative shift that the writers spent the entire first half of s14 laying out for us through these sorts of storytelling lessons hidden just under the surface of the story itself. Brilliant.

Basically, if you’re NOT making these connections and using your brain to flesh out the entire world pointed at in the narrative gaps, you don’t really have a hope of understanding the bigger story.

14.05, Nightmare Logic:

Aah, the superpowered djinn, 3D walking metaphor for filling in gaps from the past to find wholeness in the present. Also, one of Michael’s “monster traps” he laid out in order to lure in and kill unwary hunters, which he believed (and the monsters themselves believed) made them more powerful, but in reality became the vehicle through which the Winchesters were eventually able to gain the upper hand… they survived the encounter and walked away with new knowledge about both themselves AND Michael’s bigger plans that had been evading them before this episode.

Information fills narrative gaps.

The djinn itself has been “enhanced” from djinn we’ve seen in the past, able to create its illusions in reality rather than only within its victims own minds. What was imaginary becomes tangible. Subtext becomes text.

We also get AU!Bobby’s backstory, which demonstrates that this alternate version of Bobby is really nothing like our original version, and the sum of his life experiences have made him who he is.

We also get another “zombie” reference, which the more I think back on this entire season (and Jack’s long obsession with zombies in general) is an interesting metaphor for this sort of viewing, not engaging with the deeper text and instead shuffling across it without looking deeper. Because pretty much every time someone suggested the monster could be a zombie, it’s definitively shown to be something much more complex once they begin to dig for answers.

(we also have Dean discussing his past, his relationship with his father, and talking about how setting that baggage aside and living in the present, and for the future, is something he’s worked long and hard to achieve for himself. And we’ve seen some of that journey for him, but this was a huge step for him, which will become profoundly more evident in 14.10 and 14.13)

14.06, Optimism:

Oh, we wanted zombie references? Well, alrighty, have some zombie references! Via the entirely self-deluded MotW character, masquerading as a person with a sad backstory of being “unlucky in love” while all the while she’s a necromancer who murdered and resurrected her boyfriend as a mindless zombie she enacts a brutal game with for her own personal pleasure: luring in suitors and letting her zombie boyfriend kill and eat them. Worst honey trap ever.

Speaking of honey, the other MotW is a fly dude who couldn’t find love among his species and exiled himself to live alone among a pile of rotting corpses of his victims. I mean… ew.

But back to our necromancer, who is a lonely librarian, who is surrounded by stories and laments that people in her town aren’t interested in stories. All the while she’s not engaging with her own reality, and has decided that her own version of the story is an accurate reflection of reality (while the rest of us shake our heads in horror because whoa no hon…)

We also learn AU!Charlie’s backstory, with the constant reminders that what Sam keeps mistaking on the surface level for “his Charlie” IS NOT HER. Man, I feel that feel, AU!Charlie.

Jack: What's 'courting?'Dean: It's what you do before you start dating.Jack: Oh, and that's the thing you do before the sex.Wanda: Sometimes you just have the sex.

Yes, Wanda. Sometimes you skip all the courting, all the emotional and interpersonal stuff, and just go right to the sex. But then you tend to just walk away after without any sort of deeper connection having been made. One night stands are fine, but they’re very different things from deep interpersonal relationships.

You can absolutely engage with Supernatural like a one night stand. The story’s fun on the surface, but ultimately the courting is what provides the deep payoff.

14.07, Unhuman Nature:

We get back to the twisted story of Nick, and his quest to understand himself. He’s filling in more of those horrific gaps in his history and getting closer to the Worst Possible Conclusions about himself. He ENJOYED being Lucifer’s vessel, and wants that feeling of power back, even if it wasn’t HIS power, just being the vehicle for that power is enough for him, more important to him than even discovering the truth about himself. At the bottom of himself, he’s just an empty douchebag-shaped vessel for pure evil.

What a fucking delight >.>

Nurse: Uh-huh. Family medical history? Let's start with the father.Dean: He's dead.Nurse: Cause of death?Castiel: He was stabbed through the heart, and he exploded.Dean: Okay, you know what? We don't have time for this. All right, he's sick. His name is Jack Kline. His father exploded. There, you've got all the basics. Now what does he need to do to see a doctor?

Well that simplified the whole “filling in the backstory through the narrative negative spaces” thing in this episode, didn’t it?

Jack: Since I've been alive, everyone assumed that I would be this special 'person' who goes on forever. Only now it looks like forever might be a couple of weeks, so--Dean: We don't know that.Jack: What I do know is I'm done being special. Before my life is over, I want to live it. I just want a chance to get a tan or see a hockey game... get a parking ticket... get bored... and when it's all over -- die.

I mean, isn’t that what all of TFW kind of wants? They want to not be “special.” They want the universe to stop picking on them specifically. They want to just live their lives until they’re done.

Jack: You once told me you and your father did the exact same thing. It was your happiest memory of him.Dean: I didn't say that.Jack: It was how you said it. I could tell. I guess my point is that if I don't make it... The stuff I'd miss -- it wouldn't be things like Tahiti. Or the Taj Mahal. I'd miss more time with you. I'm getting that life isn't all these big, amazing moments. It's time together that matters. Like this.Dean: Well, who'd have thought hanging out with me would make you sentimental?

Dude. Dean. Everyone thought this. You are the king of “family is the most important thing in the universe without which I am nothing.” Talk about Jack filling in that particular blank for you.

14.08, Byzantium:

Aka that one where we discover something important to Jack in his own Heaven-- and it’s literally a missing scene from 13.06 and their road trip to Dodge City where they stop for burgers. UNPROBLEMATIC FAMILY BONDING IS JACK’S HEAVEN. And it also fills in a past narrative gap, specifically from an episode that was structured around filling in narrative gaps. WE’RE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, PEOPLE.

We also have the return of Lily Sunder, now grown old since she’d completed her revenge quest against Ishim and the other angels who’d wronged her (including Cas, who literally killed Ishim FOR her). Talk about filling in a lifetime worth of gaps, and her literal near-lack of a soul she “fills in” through one final sacrifice made of love, which earns her redemption and entrance to Heaven.

I mean… those narrative gaps are looking pretty important here right about now.

Also, what’s that other big gap I haven’t mentioned yet? Oh, right! A villain literally known as “The Empty.” I’m sure that’s not meta relevant to the importance of the narrative empty spaces at all...

14.09, The Spear.

Sequel to The Scar (since the spear is what left Dean with the scar in the first place, so we’re back on our Dinkle nonsense again). There’s a lot of blank-filling going on in this episode.

Remember Garth? Well, as he’s reintroduced in this episode it appears as if he’s gone over to the Dark Side, but of course we learn he’s actually there as a deep cover agent for the Winchesters. This tells us they’ve been keeping in close touch with Garth all this time, despite us not having seen him on screen in ages. (FIVE YEARS!)

Remember Ketch? Well, he’s also doing deep cover agency stuff for the Winchesters, but with a level of incompetence that reminds us all that he’s still not one of the good guys, no matter how hard he’s trying, he’s still… falling a bit short. But at least they’re still keeping contact with him. And BOTH of these characters appearing after a while offscreen reminds us that TFW truly aren’t alone in the world, and they DO have this network of people (at varying degrees of competence still ranging from typical bumbling civvie to TFW themselves).

This entire episode was also a massive reference to Die Hard. Just… it was Die Hard: Supernatural. And we know Dean has referenced this movie endlessly. But the funniest thing: Die Hard isn’t actually referenced ONE SINGLE TIME in text in this episode. Nobody points out the similarities between the situation at the Hitomi Plaza at Christmas with Die Hard. Narrative negative space ftw.

And then we have the reveal that Michael had somehow left a “secret back door” open into Dean, and was able to just jump right back into him when it was convenient to do so. I.e., when he was losing the fight to Dean. He had a cheat code at the ready, because his possession of Dean had been operating on cheat code rules since the start in 13.23. His entire possession of Dean was a violation of the “standard rules of angel possession.” Consent of the vessel being primary. Even BAD consent has been enough in the past-- tricking the vessel into saying yes, backing them into a corner. I mean, remember s5 and the horrors Zachariah was willing to go to in order to secure Dean’s yes? Not even manipulation here with this version of Michael. Even if the face of Dean’s abject rejection of his possession, he refused to vacate the premises. Which is an interesting narrative blank to fill in, yes? Angels may have these rules, but for some reason-- is it Michael’s supreme power? Is it the fact Dean is his “destined vessel?” is it a factor of this Michael being from an alternate universe that might operate on different rules? Is it a factor of Dean’s own lack of conviction in his demand that Michael get out? Whatever it is… it is interesting.

We also catch up with Darth Kaia, who after months of balking at the notion, hands over her spear to Dean with the promise that he’ll return it after he kills Michael. It would solve her ongoing problems with the monsters Michael had been relentlessly sending after her. But he also promises to help her find her way back to her own universe. And now we don’t even know if any of that is possible… (aside to say that I’m now crying over the loss of Wayward again, and I feel this lack of resolution here is a damn pointed statement on that from Bobo.)

14.10, Nihilism.

Nihilism being a descriptor of Michael’s basic personality, in this case.

The most long-term relevant narrative negative spaces in this episode are Sam and Cas venturing into Dean’s mind, and literally using what they know about Dean to find where Michael had locked him away. They literally rely on their knowledge of who he is as a person as a map to find him, and then as a codex to actually get through to him and break him out of the illusion Michael had trapped him in. And then they all turn around and weaponize all of that to lock Michael away in Dean’s mind fridge.

Metaphors, anyone?

Meanwhile, Michael literally insists he’s telling everyone the truth about how Dean really feels about them, but it’s all… ALL OF IT… a manipulation and a lie.

(aside to admit that at this point I have been working on this post on and off for the last 12 hours, can barely remember what the point of it even was, and regret everything. I think we were supposed to be discussing Narrative References To Stuff That Happens On Screen, but at this point, that is so deeply intertwined with the narrative structure as a whole that I’m having trouble separating out textual references to offscreen stuff from the actual content of the story as a whole… yes this is already approaching 5k words at this point, and no I don’t care anymore :P)

14.11, Damaged Goods.

Dean is given information (that we have not yet seen) by Billie (again, offscreen) about “the only way to save the universe.”

Disclaimer to note that we STILL haven’t seen exactly what Billie showed Dean in her magical destiny book… which fact in itself can be open to myriad interpretations, because canon itself has shifted from this point in the canonical timeline to what we have actually witnessed unfold, which fundamentally differs between what Billie told Dean and what actually transpired on screen.

This… is major.

Also, Nick, and the effective end of his story… or is it? He’s finally got his personal backstory filled in, and turns out he was just a dick all along! Surprise! Because his “truth” never actually mattered to him. It was all a lie he told himself from the very first moment he was ever introduced on screen back in 5.01. He was never a good person who’d been used by Lucifer and manipulated into doing terrible things. He was always just a bad person who’d been looking for an excuse to do terrible things. Lucifer was just his excuse.

Dean fills in some horrific bits of their childhood for Mary through the metaphor of Winchester Surprise. Apparently delicious to Dean, but yikes… stuff like that’s really not healthy…

14.12, Prophet and Loss:

So, Donatello might not be as brain dead as previously believed! Let’s fill in that backstory, through a broken prophet who can’t be fully realized because Donatello’s technically not dead, so the new guy is getting a distorted message because Donatello’s interrupting the signal.

Dean asked Sam not to tell Cas about his Drama Coffin plan, but of course Sam had immediately told Cas about his drama coffin plan anyway…

CAS: Sam. Maybe if I spoke with Dean…SAM: It wouldn’t matter. Believe me, I-I I’ve never seen him like this. He won’t listen to me. H-He just – No. If we don’t find some way… Dean’s gone.

But then just a little while later, when Dean talks to Cas and learns that Cas knows his entire dumbass plan:

DEAN: Really?SAM: Dean, it’s Cas. I had to tell him.

Well, some time in the previous few hours, when Sam hasn’t been trapped in the car with Dean (which we know he has been canonically), Sam’s first priority was calling Cas to tell him about Dean’s plan. Like… duh… 

14.13, Lebanon:

I love this episode on every possible level. It drops us at the climax of a hunt and just trusts us to understand what’s going on. Someone has been murdered for their collection of supernatural artifacts, and it’s been traced to this shop, where the owner trades in dangerous artifacts… all of that happened offscreen, yet we understand the context if not the specific case itself. Beautiful.

Then we have the cursed pearl that apparently grants a wish. Dean uses it to theoretically wish that Michael was out of his head. In monkey’s paw fashion, instead of just granting the wish through the simplest means, the wish actually attempts to rewrite history (this is the sort of thing that differentiates a “cursed object” from a “magical cure”) in order to remove the root infiltration of Michael into Dean’s life… by literally bringing John Winchester into the present time from 2003, removing him from the entire timeline to this point and changing EVERYTHING.

Talk about filling a narrative negative space. Cas doesn’t know them, Dean never went to Hell. Hell, Dean never even went to collect Sam from Stanford. NOTHING from the entire history of the series as we know it actually happened AT ALL.

D:

At least we got to see Zachariah get stabbed again. Sam deserved a turn, you know? :’)

But we also have the other half of the episode-- the case in Lebanon, and seeing the Winchesters through the eyes of the locals. Talk about a HUGE reminder of the things that happen offscreen. They go to the post office, the local shops, and have a weird reputation around town, despite most of the townsfolk accepting their brand of weirdness. It’s… weirdly refreshing, seeing how they’ve gone from “hunters of urban legends” in s1 to “actual urban legends themselves” in s14. The power of storytelling at its finest.

In this case, so many personal blanks were filled in for Mary, Sam, and Dean just by being able to share a single family dinner with John in the aftermath of everything else. In the end, Sam and Dean CHOSE their own lives, and smashed the pearl with John’s blessing, putting everything back the way it was. The most powerful line in this entire episode, to me:

John: Dean. I, uh -- I never meant for this.Dean: Dad, we pulled you here.John: No, son. My fight. It was supposed to end with me, with Yellow Eyes. But now you -- you are a grown man, and I am incredibly proud of you. I guess that I had hoped, eventually, you would... get yourself a normal life, a peaceful life, a family.Dean: I have a family.

HE HAS A FAMILY. :’)

It might not be what John ever imagined for him. Or even what Mary wanted for him when she rejected the hunting life the first time around. But it’s the family Dean earned for himself. The one he CHOSE for himself. And he wouldn’t trade it for anything-- not even for the family he was born into, or a white picket fence he used to think he should have.

And then after this… everything changes… again…

14.14, Ouroboros:

Right. That one where everything changed. Where everything from Billie’s Books of Certain Prophecy to Jack’s soul to Dean’s certainty about… pretty much everything… went up in a swirling whirlpool of burning grace.

Yes, the episode where they burned the spiral narrative structure and were clearly beginning the inevitable run toward endgame. I mean it had been hinted at as a possibility before this, and 14.13 was certainly a product of the inevitability of endgame, but this episode sealed the deal.

They could’ve technically still gotten away with 14.13 as a one-off product of “very special 300th episode” and still continued down the narrative spiral that they’ve been circling for years now, but in retrospect from beyond the rest of s14, this was the official burn point.

So the story shifts radically in very fundamental ways from this point on, and reference to the past become… different. But what happens offscreen in the context of these episodes going forward takes on so much more weight as a result. We’re now “living in the present” with these characters.

We have Sam’s relationship with Rowena, which has clearly developed to the point of casual intimacy. Rowena confronts Sam in ways we’ve never seen before, demonstrating a confidence in their interactions DESPITE Billie’s assertion that Sam will be the one to “kill” her. That has strangely given her a sense of… comfort… with Sam, that’s demonstrated in the fact that they work together through this entire case-- paired off much the way Dean and Cas are.

Again, like in 14.06 and 14.13, we’re dropped into the middle of their case, and only informed that they’ve been tracing this monster through numerous other towns in this episode, requiring us to extrapolate out their entire hunt from discovering there might be a case, to the point where they’ve even brought Rowena onboard to help give them an advantage of a monster that had repeatedly eluded them.

The monster itself has an advantage in that it can literally see the future and escape before they catch him, until they discover the huge gaping hole in what it can actually see-- Cas and Jack are literally invisible to it. He can’t see THEM coming, specifically. The importance of actually reading what we DON’T see. Because if the monster hadn’t been so confident in what it COULD see, he would’ve understood that he was missing a critical piece of information-- the door literally shut itself in his vision of the future and he didn’t bother to stop and question WHY. And it was his downfall.

The narrative is telling us that missing this key gap-filling information is effectively our downfall as viewers.

14.15, Peace of Mind:

Hooray, we’re back to simple “missing scene” levels of text to latch on to, and I don’t have to swim through the whole of the narrative structure to make a comment. Wheeee! (sorry it’s been like 14 hours since I started writing this reply and I’ve achieved Peak Mental Exhaustion for it) :P

Let’s reflect on how all of the characters managed to delude themselves in this episode, and simultaneously approach their own personal concerns without actually talking to each other directly… and then instead focus on this exchange:

Dean: Oh. Hey! How was Arkansas?Sam: Arkansas was, uh It was weird.Dean: Heard you wore a cardigan.Castiel: Yeah, I told him about the cardigan.Sam: Great. Thanks.Dean: And the wife. He said you were, uh, really happy.

Yep. Proof again of offscreen communication happening, in a way I can yell and point at without having to write paragraphs to explain and defend. :P Aah, just like the simpler days of our past… which hey, is also a narrative theme of this episode! Nostalgia!

14.16, Don’t Go In The Woods:

Or, that one where we discuss why we don’t share everything with the general public, while Jack… behaves poorly with the general public, and then hides that fact from Sam and Dean. Also, we have this confirmation of offscreen conversation:

SAM: You got it. I'll grab Cas.DEAN: Mm. He actually left.SAM: What?DEAN: Early this morning.SAM: Why?DEAN: I don't know. Something about being cooped up in the bunker for a few weeks. We all need to stretch our legs. I get it.

Dean… had a whole conversation with Cas… and didn’t even mention it until Sam specifically asked about Cas. Stuff happened offscreen… big important stuff… and we’re only getting a peek at it now. Not only that-- because this will be VITAL to remember two episodes down the road-- they have been cooped up in the bunker “for a few weeks.” In 14.15 ONE EPISODE EARLIER, Dean complained to Sam that he’d been driving them literally from case to case without a break:

Sam: (Sam was in the map room flashing back to Maggie and the other hunters dying. He looked sad as he went to the kitchen) Found us a case. Arkansas.Dean: We've just done three back-to-back Hunts. I need some rest. At least a night. We both do.Sam: Yeah, well I'm leaving in ten.Dean: Like I said, not good.Castiel: Maybe I should go with him. And you can stay with Jack.

So the events of 14.16 are clearly after a hiatus of several weeks. Again, things have happened offscreen, and we’re only learning about them in the absolute most casual statement-in-passing sorts of ways, but these tiny references are pretty earth-shattering.

14.17, Game Night:

The timeline isn’t concrete, but I’ve written in several places that I believe 14.16, and 14.17 flow one into the other, just based on these subtextual sorts of cues-- Dean’s statement in 14.16 that Cas had been feeling cooped up after several weeks in the bunker, the fact that Cas had only LEFT the bunker at the beginning of 14.16 and we only see him reach his destination of talking with Anael now in 14.17  (and how long do we REALLY think it took him to find her and convince her to meet with him? Especially when the events of 14.17 take place over about 36 hours before bleeding directly into 14.18…). So this timeline that I’ve understood presupposes the gap of “several weeks” of being cooped up in the bunker to have elapsed between 14.15 and 14.16 as suddenly resolved itself into all of them willing to spend time in the bunker as a family… except for Cas, who’s on an as-yet unspecified mission.

This episode reinforces those missing scenes, through showing us the very different mission Cas is on, finally addressing the seriousness of Jack’s condition, but also paralleled through Mary’s growing suspicions of Jack that she’ll be unable to ignore by the end of the episode…

Jack even addresses this “but in that scene you didn’t see play out, this important thing happened!” IN TEXT, TO MARY:

Mary: If Sam and Dean saw what you did, they would be as worried as I am.Jack: Are you gonna tell them?Mary: You need help, we'll help you. We're your family.Jack: You can't.Mary: We care about you, Jack.

And now the things that happen offscreen have been lampshaded as being CRITICAL to understanding the whole of the story. And the divide between the two can be fatal...

14.18, Absence.

Literally, the title itself is telling us to be aware of what’s missing.

But we finally get the payoff on the “missing information” about those several weeks spent cooped up in the bunker-- Sam was literally not there. It was Dean and Cas, alone with Jack.

Sam: You know, after Maggie and the other hunters died... I just left. Just dumped Jack on Cas and left.

That happened in 14.14. The other hunters dying. But we KNOW that Sam had not left on his own at that time. He’d dragged Dean and Cas and Jack on three consecutive hunts in the aftermath of that to avoid going back to the bunker, in the run up to 14.15. THIS was the payoff of that “cooped up for weeks” comment in 14.16… because SAM hadn’t been cooped up with them. He’d dumped Jack on everyone and run off on his own after 14.15…

But this episode doesn’t stop there. It takes each character individually and pushes them through memories of the past, of Mary specifically, but those memories do so much narrative heavy lifting I can’t even begin to yell about them here. I’ll just link a post:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/184195342200/you-know-when-deans-turns-around-after-that

Wait, I found that post while looking for the one I’d set to to find, but it’s in my Narrative Negative Space tag, so yay? Bonus. This is the one I’d meant to find:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/184144189665/drsilverfish-mittensmorgul-mittensmorgul

There. My best thing from s14. And I’ll leave this episode at that.

Oh, and with the reminder that if Dean and Cas had truly still been at odds over Mary’s death, then Dean would not have brought Cas to Mary’s funeral pyre. Period. 

14.19, Jack in the Box.

Aka that one we’d all figured out what the big plot thing was just by the on-the-nose nature of the title, months before it aired.

At least the drama coffin got blowed up good?

14.20, Moriah:

The most meta meta to have ever meta’d. There’s not much happening offscreen in this one aside from the entire setup and premise of the episode as a whole. Again, we’re dropped into a hunt and expected to understand the setup, the legwork that’s already been done. We learn that Dean has been in touch with Cas, but they’re investigating different avenues. We see Chuck FINALLY answer Cas’s prayer for help from 14.17, but Chuck’s idea of “help” isn’t helpful in the least.

We understand the fundamental nature of the extent of the personal little lies Sam and Dean tell each other (Thanks for that one, Jack!), and therefore are being asked to reassess which comments from their past were the full, honest truth, and which were the comfortable performance they put on to maintain their own projected self-identities.

And whoa.

It’s now 3 am, and I’ve been working on this post on and off for the last 16 hours. And I am tired, and officially out of mental steam to keep thinking about it. So I’m gonna post it. All 7700 words of it. I hope this helps... :P

[amandajoyce118]

Agents of SHIELD S6E06 “Inescapable” Easter Eggs And References

In this week’s episode, Fitz and Simmons find themselves reunited, but sharing a mindspace while the Chronocoms want them to work out time travel. It leads to some unexpectedly therapeutic tracking through old memories.

As usual, there are spoilers. Again, SPOILERS if you haven’t yet watched the episode. You’ve been warned.

Spoilers.

Seriously.

Last warning.

The White Room

This is probably unintentional, and the white room they end up in is likely just meant to look like the blank slate it is, but… it made me think of another white room from Marvel Comics. Specifically, the White Hot Room. That’s the name of the Purgatory like space that the Phoenix Force inhabits pretty often. It’s also where Jean Grey recharges and accesses all of her memories when she and the Phoenix re-merge. It’s just a very striking similarity since Dark Phoenix was just in theaters (and the movie doesn’t use that comic book aspect at all).

Fitz’s Proposal

If Fitz’s proposal sounds familiar, that’s because we’ve heard it before. Last season, when he found Jemma, she couldn’t hear him, but he gave her nearly the exact same speech. (Edited to add: She also answered him the same way he answered her when she proposed last season. Nice. And she knew exactly how his speech would end, which means she must have asked him at some point last season how he proposed when she couldn’t hear him. Also, right before Fitz proposes, you’ll spot his bad hand twitching a bit, a nervous tick Iain has kept using since his season two injury. Love the character consistency.)

Alice In Wonderland

A hole appearing in the white room that Jemma escapes through and Fitz following her into her own childhood bedroom feels like a very intentional nod to going “down the rabbit holt” and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Jemma’s Room

I know I’m going to miss some things in Jemma’s room, but there is so much going on in here. Obviously, the book about her and Fitz, but there’s more. We see she’s a Jane Goodall fan because that photograph features prominently. There are stars on her ceiling, likely a nod to the times she spent studying the stars while recovering from surgery as a kid. She has so many samples on her shelves that I wish I could actually see what they all are. There’s a Winnie the Pooh which doubles as a nod to the Disney parent company and it being one of those very English animated properties (edited to add it is technically Canadian) for kids. Not to mention fellow MCU alum Hayley Atwell starred in Christopher Robin. Right next to Winnie is a Paddington Bear, which is a nice touch. Also, the butterfly painting on her wall that looks like it’s a little mixed media with butterfly pieces on the bottom? That was in Jemma’s Hydra apartment in season two. (I remember that odd detail because I used it in a fic.)

Edited to add that Jemma has a serious thing for butterflies that makes me curious. In addition to the butterfly print from season two, there are framed butterflies on shelves, and sample vials of other butterflies in her collection, and even butterflies on the tea set that she and Fitz have in the white room. I wonder if it’s because they were easy for her to study as a kid, or if she was fascinated by their transformation, or something else. Is that something else, perchance, something to do with Sarge’s Snowflake? She does like to go on about how people become beautiful butterflies after she stabs them. Is this just a weird bit of foreshadowing? Showing a connection between them? Is Snowflake another’s world’s version of Jemma? Oh, that would be weird. But food for thought.

Also edited to add: the book doesn’t just feature Fitz as the prince in the stars and Simmons as the princess looking for him. It also features Mack as a strong bear and Daisy as a quick rabbit, which are interesting choices. I’m assuming it’s them only because they’re the friends they call later in the episode. I mean, it could be that the animals are Daisy and Piper since they went to space together, but that would make Davis the monkey? lol

Cuttlefish

Okay, I’m editing this one in because it struck me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to include it until I looked up the sea creature. So, I initially thought this was a nod to Jemma talking about fish in the pod at the bottom of the ocean in season one. And maybe it is. But, the cuttlefish is actually from the same taxonomic class as squids... like the symbol for Hydra. Nice nod either way.

Fitz’s Academy Dorm

Hey, Bonus mention of Anne Weaver! I enjoy her. The show should try to get her back for a cameo or two.

Okay, I’ll admit I was too focused on them processing the memory to focus on everything in Fitz’s room, but I did spot that massive Manchester banner. Just a reminder that’s Fitz’s team and Hunter is not a fan, as we learned last season. I might catch more on a rewatch, but feel free to tell me what I missed in both of their rooms.

Edited to add: Fitz is wearing the “same” dark blue hoodie that Jemma wears around the base in season three when she returns from Maveth. It’s not actually the same, but we’re clearly meant to think it’s the same one that fits her because it is far too small for Iain to be wearing it over two more layers of clothing. Also, even before Jemma mentions Fitz being manic, you can actually seen hand drawn monkeys on the wall like what Fitz did in the prison cell. Only a few before they start discussing his state of mind and then show Jemma looking at them on the wall. Also, the tie that Fitz wears when they meet Coulson is hanging on his coat rack.

Side note: I found it interesting, though I loathe the term, that Jemma says she friendzoned Fitz in that scene. That means that Jemma at the Academy must have had some inkling that Fitz had a crush on her. Or, this is just Jemma looking back on it with the benefit of over a decade of experience with Fitz and realizing it. Either way, it confirms that Fitz always thought she was the coolest, even while he was busy arguing with her.

Jemma Needs Therapy

I love that Jemma’s problems locked in a box are an amalgam of all her traumas. (Also, it’s funny to me that she has a little pink safe on her dresser that she could have locked her troubles away in, but instead, it’s the easy to open jewelry box.) This version of Jemma looks like a monster, but she’s wearing her shirt from Maveth and shreds of her Kree-slave attire, carrying the shiv from Maveth, has gold paint on her forehead from her time in the future. (Edited to add: she’s also covered in dirt with a hoarse voice, and I’ve noticed some people think that’s a nod to her emerging from a grave in the Framework, which is a good catch. I thought it was simply to make her look more like a monster, but it makes sense that it’s a nod to what she discovered in the Framework now that I’ve watched the episode again, and this “monster” only emerges after they’re faced with the Doctor.) She’s the embodiment of all the bad things Jemma has gone through, and Fitz is right that she’d be better off with therapy instead of keeping the English stiff upper lip.

Meeting Coulson

The scene where the two of them meet and get recruited by Coulson makes me wonder if it happened immediately before we meet them in the pilot episode. Why? Because they’re wearing their pilot episode clothes, though the hair, of course, is not exactly accurate. (Edited to add: Simmons telling Fitz, “yes, I’ve heard the stories, don’t be weird” is a nod to Coulson’s death being on record. They weren’t at a high enough clearance level to actual know he was alive.)

Edited to add: can we talk about how significant it is that Fitz “fights” the demon version of Jemma on the part of the quinjet where he first thought he was going to lose Jemma? It’s where he couldn’t get his parachute on in “FZZT” and Ward went to save her instead. I just found that location choice interesting. It’s not the bus from season one. It’s definitely an updated quinjet, probably because they don’t have the same exact set pieces anymore, but it looks strikingly similar. Demon-demon asking Fitz if his lungs or bones will go first? That’s a nod to the scene of she and Daisy torturing an alien this season when they were looking for Fitz. Clearly, though she saw the intimidation and torture as necessary, it left it’s mark on her.

Also, I didn’t mention in when I initially posted this, but I think them choosing Daisy and Mack to save them speaks more to how they view them than just what cast was available. We’ve seen Hunter literally pull Fitz out of prison, yet he chooses Mack to save him from Jemma. Why? I feel like he might trust Mack with Jemma’s trauma more than he trusts Hunter. Because Mack was there for most of it, and because Mack was there for his own recovery in season two before he became closer to Hunter. Likewise, Jemma calling Daisy and not May, or Elena? That’s because Daisy has had her back for a year in space. She’s seen Daisy literally take out an entire room of badguys while drugged up on puffies, so of course, Daisy is her first choice. Daisy has also already had the Doctor in her own head when Fitz had his psychotic break last season, so it’s a bit of symmetry there too.

Trapped In A Pod

Okay, so it’s sweet that they realize they don’t just have to rely on one another and call Daisy and Mack for backup against the dark parts of their minds. I enjoy that, as well as the symmetry of them both getting to see each other’s worst parts. What I really love here though is that this is the angrier version of the season one pod scene. The two of them run away from their troubles only to be trapped together in an enclosed space, yet again, to yell at one another about all the things they haven’t had the chance to argue about before. Watching the scene, I literally said that the only thing that would make it better would be if it was actually at the bottom of the ocean. Of course, they realized that and it filled with water. Of course. The arguing in the middle of the water, just as it did in season one, leads to their confessing their feelings. It’s a lovely, symmetrical, story of their relationship, this episode.

That Makeout

Leopold and Demon Jemma going at it while Fitz and Simmons argue? This just further proves that all that bantering in the early seasons was really foreplay, right?

That’s all I’ve got, for now. I’m sure I missed some things just because of the nature of the episode. It’s taking us on a walk through memories, some we’ve seen, so there are likely more that are harder to spot. Let me know what I missed!

[wunderlass]

Roswell episode one - notes from an under-caffeinated rewatch

For absolutely no reason, after episode six I decided to go back and rewatch the existing episodes with fresh eyes and perspective. These are my thoughts, questions etc, posted episode by episode before the new one tomorrow night.

I’m focusing less on Malex since that seems to be where the majority of meta gets directed.

(No sideblogs we post every hyperfixation on main, but here’s a tag to blacklist and a cut to save your dashboard).

Well the alien crash certainly looked like a weather balloon. Lots of tattered fabric which is very odd.

Liz is surprised that Max is still in Roswell – I guess she assumed he would have carried on with his previous travel plans when she changed hers.

Carina confirmed on Twitter that Liz has been back for holidays (she just hasn’t seen Max) which makes sense or this is a very subdued reunion between Liz and Arturo after 10 years. But I like that since then I am marginally less sad for Papa Ortecho.

Liz is very conveniently closing up on her own there. Also, considering the town hates the Ortechos, I guess the Crashdown serves great food because they apparently all kept going there.

“I’m not one of the bad guys, Liz.” Now, I really hope that doesn’t end up being a horrible piece of foreshadowing in hindsight. I don’t want to rewatch this pilot in, say, five years, and think “FUCK YOU MAX EVANS.” Yes, now we know he’s done bad things, but depending on your view of human (alien?) nature that does not fundamentally make him a bad person.

Max is genuinely surprised that Liz remembers anything about him. Guess he’s been torturing himself in that decade assuming she forgot allll about him.

His line about protecting people definitely now belies that guilt has been his primary motivator for ten years. He’s quick to change the subject – leading onto:

He tries to say he’s sorry about Rosa (the source of his guilt) – this suggests they never spoke again after the desert trip – but Liz changes the subject, providing him with an easy out.

Healing Liz is the least he could do since he is directly responsible for her being shot. In hindsight his desperation to heal her is as much motivated by that ever-present guilt as it is love. And he’s probably surprised it worked this time when it didn’t for Rosa. Has he used his powers at all since that night? Their conversation later on suggests not.

He doesn’t go back to check on Liz, leaving that to the sheriff. Avoiding her again? She seeks him out in their next encounters (not him).

“Self-righteous lecture” in the drunk tank – okay Michael but you flaunting your powers like that is dangerous for all of you. You don’t know at this point that Max has broken his own rules.

“You’ve never done anything for anyone!” is still a strange line, though oft-debated. Michael helped in the cover-up, took the fall for Isobel and gave up his chance to get out of Roswell. Hardly nothing. But maybe it does refer to Michael basically becoming a drifter after that point and not doing anything to try and put right what they did.

Max does not confide in Isobel. She has no idea he still carries a torch for Liz. I don’t think she knows much about him at all, for all the time they spend together. His emotions are buried deep.

Michael makes plenty of digs about Alex’s dad. I think something went down after the hammer attack where Alex had to choose between Michael and his father – and he chose his father. Probably still craving acceptance despite everything. Maybe Michael pushed him away deliberately, but the bitterness on Michael’s side here would make that less likely.

Rosa really wanted Liz to get out of Roswell. She might not have been the best big sister but she still wanted the best for Liz. It’s sad that what happened coloured Liz’s perceptions of Rosa and really, robbed her of her chance to grieve for her sister.

“Can you keep a secret?” “Of course.” Yep, Max is great at keeping secrets. Liz…not so much.

Max is torn but his loyalty to his siblings is just about stronger than his pull towards Liz. I think only that all-pervading guilt sways it. But Michael and Isobel were right to assume Max was the weak link all those years ago.

Was Maria Rosa or Liz’s BFF? Or both? (if she was Rosa’s it makes sense she wasn’t at prom, as she would have graduated a year or two earlier).

In ten years has Max actually tried to love again, or has he shut himself off, at least emotionally? Did he decide it’s too big a risk to get attached? Even Isobel has a distance from Noah. Maybe it’s easier for Max to not even try and therefore live in the dream of what might have happened with Liz.

“I don’t dance in this town anymore” – her last dance was with Max.

I could be team Kyliz but they just don’t have that Echo chemistry.

Jim Valenti’s brain cancer – legit or somehow induced because he knew too much?

Max is offended by Liz calling him a stranger but, like, you are.

Much has been written about that Peak Whiteness statement, and Max’s quite callous disregard for why Liz hates Roswell. The aliens are far too wrapped up in their own fear of what might happen to them to do anything about the suffering of others (and ain’t that a metaphor). But when Max says that his family are happy – are they really? Or just living that comfortable lie Isobel spoke of?

“My life is ordinary” but miserable.

So who did put the pods in the cave? (I know, I know, one big mystery at a time).

Why oh WHY did nobody question the random mute kids found near the alien crash site? I know most people will treat the crash as a local myth/hoax and not make the connection, but surely this stuff made local news? Trying to locate their families before getting them adopted out? Did Jesse Manes/Jim Valenti (the sheriff!) not hear about this and go “this is weird, maybe we should keep an eye on these kids or dig a bit more. How have they never ended up on Manes’ radar?

Also exactly why was Michael harder to place – was his power manifesting even then?

Kyle does a lot of non-surgical medicine for a surgeon.

Isobel stopped messing with minds after Rosa died and only started again in episode 3 when she was trying to influence Liz. Cue blackouts. Maybe the cause of the blackouts is something as simple as using her powers.

The almost kiss here mirrors the almost kiss in episode six and they are both things of aching beauty.

Is that hope we see in our expression, Max? Don’t get too comfortable with it.

I don’t think Jesse Manes’ is all that bothered about protecting the world. He’s just eager for war. He longs for an excuse to cause pain. The description of the aliens is a description of himself (…could it be? Surely not?)

Also, how exactly does he know all of that? If only one known alien ever survived, what makes them think the aliens are so terrible? What exactly has this project been chasing for so many decades if there’s so little evidence of the aliens being out there? (I wonder if anybody ever dug up a desert corpse with a handprint on his chest).

[becauseimsensational]

Killing Eve rewatch: “Sorry Baby”

The last time we saw Eve is a stark contrast to the first time we see her in this episode. At the end of “Don’t I Know You?” she was screaming and crying out for her best friend and partner of over a decade who’s just been murdered; at the beginning of “Sorry Baby,” she’s silent and standing still, quietly seething at Bill’s memorial service while everyone around her is singing hymns. Not only is she devastated at Bill’s death, she’s furious. He died for no reason, he was only there because she insisted, and then Frank ‘Dickswab’ Haleton has the audacity to give Bill’s eulogy? Eve is visibly and at times audibly displeased with what Frank’s saying, because he’s lying through his teeth. He didn’t know Bill all that well, and he fired the both of them; surely his wife knew that, even if she doesn’t know the true circumstances of his death? I think what finally tipped Eve over the edge was Bill’s daughter crying. It was too much, knowing that the last time she was Bill holding her, he jokingly predicted his own death. (Lots more analysis under the cut)

Eve telling Elena she wants to kill Villanelle is a dramatic shift in her characterization. I hesitate to call it “growth,” or frame it in too positive of a light, but it’s certainly a shift. Until Villanelle murdered Bill, I think Eve’s only intentions were to find her and have an incredibly in-depth interview with her. But once she killed Bill, Eve’s focus has shifted to getting revenge and avenging Bill’s murder. What’s interesting, though, is that Eve doesn’t just say, “I want her dead,” she says, “I want to kill her with my bare hands.” To me, that line means that when Eve finds her, she’s going to strangle her. (I say strangle because I don’t really think Eve’s got the upper body strength/psychopathy it takes to beat someone to death with just her fists.) If that’s what she meant, that’s a huge departure from the mild-mannered MI-5 security officer we met who screamed bloody murder because she fell asleep on both her arms. Now, I am not a psychologist by any stretch, but I’d like to think that my psychology and forensics classes and all those seasons of Criminal Minds I watched religiously have finally come in handy. Strangulation is a crime which suggests that the perpetrator had a personal vendetta against the victim, but it’s also a crime of power and dominance that requires physical strength and emotional/moral (i guess?) dissociation. Thus far, Villanelle has been the sole wielder of all the power in this cat-and-mouse game she and Eve are playing; to Eve, strangling Villanelle would be the ultimate way to usurp her power and avenge Bill at the same time. 

Yes, I know I’m not supposed to like Villanelle after she savagely murdered Bill, but...come on, that scene in her apartment with Konstantin was hilarious. Between the plethora of pastel balloons to the very expensive-looking cakes, not to mention her utterly ridiculous outfit, it’s hard to truly hate or revile Villanelle. She’s a ruthless killer, yes, but she’s also got this childlike whimsy about her that’s hard not to find endearing. (Plus the fake facial hair was oddly cute for some reason? Idk, I can’t explain it) The exchange in her bathroom, however, was what made that scene so memorable for me. For someone like Villanelle, I was expecting some sort of reaction when Konstantin said she’d have to work with a team; she’s too narcissistic to actually want to work with anyone else, but she’s also undeniably good at what she does. Also, I’m not an assassination-planner, but having too many people working on any kind of project is a bad idea. Surely you don’t really need three people to take out one person, right? And to me, more people at a crime scene equates to more things that can go wrong, so how anyone thought that was a good idea is still beyond me. The tension in this scene that we’re left to reconcile with comes when Villanelle implores Konstantin to open the second gift, then casually tells him it’s for his daughter. He looks horrified as she throws his earlier words back at him: “Did you think I don’t know anything?” She should never be underestimated, and no one should ever try to predict her next move; the tension here comes from her knowing something she shouldn’t know, something he clearly didn’t want her to know.

Watching Villanelle interact with Diego is just hilarious. She wants to be there, doing her job, but with other people? Not so much. Especially when one of those other people is a man with a purple Patagonia windbreaker and a contemporary bowl-cut, and to add insult to injury, he’s making her sleep in the van instead of an actual bed. This would never have happened if she was working solo, she’d get a hotel and wake up without a crick in her neck. 

Her interactions with Nadia were coded differently from the very first time their eyes met onscreen. The way Villanelle said, “Oh...Your hair’s grown” indicated to me that they knew each other very well at one point, and the fact that Nadia immediately jumped on top of her to beat her was a sign that they were lovers. I’m not sure if it was because of the addition of someone from her past, but I think Villanelle showed real vulnerability in this scene. When Nadia said, “We’re here to kill a member of British intelligence,” Villanelle’s gaze instantly went to the floor and she started to pout, ever so slightly. To me, that facial expression communicated that she was worried they would be killing Eve Polastri, and before she got a chance to run her fingers through that luxurious mane. But Jodie Comer’s acting is so nuanced that I didn’t read her facial expression as that the first time I watched. It wasn’t until my second watch, when I realized they deliberately cut from Villanelle’s face to Eve’s that she was thinking about her. 

Oh, Niko. Dull, paranoid Niko. I mean yes, he’s lovely and stable and a good man, but he doesn’t realize how important this is for Eve? Catching this asshole who’s sewn discord all over Europe, who now has killed her best friend? That’s all Eve wants in life. Niko? He just wants to be a maths teacher and play bridge. Pathetic. I think this is when their relationship is starting to crumble, and it doesn’t start until Eve says, “I know you care about me, Niko, we all know you care about me! Sometimes I think it’s all you have!” That’s a deep cut. She’s realizing now how dull he is, and how he’s trying to stop her from doing what will make her happy. Eve isn’t settling for boring anymore, not now that she’s MI-6 and she’s got a best friend to avenge. 

Oh GOD, the suitcase reveal. I loved how at first when she unzips it, she had to look at the tag again because “wait...where are my clothes? These aren’t mine, this isn’t my—oh...I guess it is?” Until she gets to the perfume, she’s confused. And then she’s horrified. All the note says is “Sorry baby x,” but it’s enough to freak Eve out, because now she has to come to terms with Villanelle’s true intentions. Villanelle could have sent her the knife she used to stab Bill if she truly wanted to intimidate Eve, but instead she sent about 5,000£ worth of clothing, plus shoes and perfume. The clothes are all her size, which is just such an intimate thing to know about someone you’ve spoken to once in a bathroom for forty-five seconds. 

I think Villanelle might have given Nadia the codename “Fanny” for a couple potential reasons. Firstly, “Fanny” is quite a rude word for “vagina” in British slang, so it’s possible she just wanted to embarrass Nadia by giving her a name that was a double entendre. The other reason, I think, is that she’s implying that that’s all Nadia was to her. Coupled with the way they interact, i.e., how close they stand, how they look at each other, if I were a first-time viewer, I’d definitely infer that they had been a couple at some point. 

Of course, those suspicions are confirmed during that three-way standoff between Villanelle, Nadia, and Diego. Nadia yelling out Villanelle’s real name is a really subtle but pivotal moment for the audience, because she’s been trying to distance herself from her Russian identity this whole time. She refused to even tell Konstantin, the person to whom she is closest in this whole world, her real name, and she won’t speak Russian anymore. This is the first time we hear it, and from Nadia’s mouth: “Oksana!” She actually looked like a deer in headlights when she heard her real name, which makes sense if you think about it. That was probably for the first time anyone’s called her that in years, especially if even Konstantin doesn’t know it. And then once Diego was taken care of, she started speaking Russian to Nadia, which was obviously just to gain her trust, and also maybe because Nadia’s English wasn’t as polished as Villanelle’s, as evidenced in the scene with “Frank’s mother” when she mixed up her prepositions. 

Even on my first watch, Eve just stopping was not a surprise to me. She’s finally got a long, extended look at the woman who murdered her best friend and all she can do is stop and stare, even though the woman has a gun. 

Random observations: 

-Have I missed it five times, or have they truly just not said Bill’s baby’s name?? Like there isn’t even a baby credited on IMDB so I couldn’t even find it there. #GiveBabyPargraveAName2k18 lol 

-It’s been sprinkled throughout, but I noticed it in this episode most especially: bird imagery. At the very beginning in the cathedral, the pulpit is a gigantic golden bird. Later, Eve is wearing Niko’s shirt from the first episode with birds on it, and you can see a painting on their wall with a man trapped in a bird’s beak. Diego’s holding a sign which advertises “UK Bird Watching Tours,” and then a kestrel flies by. Birds are, traditionally, a symbol for freedom, and who on this show exemplifies freedom more than Villanelle? She's free from morals or ethics, and she's free from fear of the law because the organization protects her. But let's not forget about Eve: I think the birds could also symbolize how she's finally spreading her wings gaining more confidence in herself and not allowing her fears to hinder her from chasing what she wants. (Or birds are just common imagery and I'm grasping at straws)

- As ever, Carolyn’s stone-faced delivery of her lines cracks me up! Where is Fiona Shaw’s Emmy nom for best supporting? There’s just something so cutting about “It is disappointing when the mole is the one who looks most like a rodent,” and Dickswab wasn’t even there to defend himself.

-Once Nadia realizes who Villanelle is, she can’t really look Diego in the eye or even stand to have him touch her. She looks visibly uncomfortable every time he calls her “baby” or “pumpkin.” And she’s obviously told him about Oksana, so...idk lots to unpack there if she would’ve stayed conscious this whole episode. 

-”Have some respect" is the funniest line to me. Like...dude, what in the past few hours of knowing her makes you think she holds respect for anyone but herself??  

-I really really really wanted them to be murder girlfriends, not for her to murder* her girlfriend. (*I know she wasn’t actually murdered in this episode)

-”Running and crying” was literally me in elementary school gym during pacer test season, i feel you Dickswab that shit’s brutal

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

What do you think about the scene in 3x07, where Stefan is locked up and Elena tells him to find hope and that she refused to love a ghost forever? (After she got Lexie’s help to try and break through to him)

Honestly, I have very mixed feelings about that scene. On the one hand I love that the scene reinforces the theme of hope and not giving up that’s key to their relationship, particularly in season 3:

I love the song choice. It’s such a beautiful song that sits in the background comfortably and doesn’t dominate the scene but adds to it nicely. And the lyrics, “Why can’t ever see what’s in front of you,” relate perfectly to their current situation. Stefan is sitting there looking Elena right in the eyes and he still loves her, yet because he doesn’t have his humanity he doesn’t quite see her properly. In that moment he can’t necessarily connect how important to him she actually is and even though he’s clearly affected by the thought of losing her, it doesn’t have the full emotional impact because he doesn’t have his humanity.

I love the way she takes his face in her hands and beckons him to meet her eyes. You can see the reluctance on Stefan’s face, how he tries to avoid her gaze, but he can’t help but give into it:

(sorry it’s so dark, this scene is impossible to colour)

And I love what she tells him the moment he meets her eyes and she has his full attention:

This is her displaying her faith in him and trying to reconnect to him in the only way she knows how. She’s reminding him that even if everyone else has given up on him and believes he’s a lost cause, she knows him better than anyone and she knows that he’s strong enough to find his way back to his humanity. Also, as the woman he loves, she is simply asking for him to fight - fight for his humanity, for himself, for her, for them, and she has every right to ask him to do that, just as she did in 3x05 when Klaus had compelled Stefan to feed on her.

What I don’t like is what Elena says next:

I understand why she says it. It’s because she knows how much Stefan loves her and thinks the threat of losing her will be enough to snap him out of it and get through to him. However, it feels wrong and out of place. At this point Stefan has only been without his humanity for one full episode and let’s be honest, he doesn’t do anything that bad in that time. Yes, he’s Klaus’ lackey, but that’s not his choice, just as having his humanity switched off wasn’t his choice. In 3x06 all he does is keep an eye on Elena like he’s told. He pushes over a guy on the running track which is completely out of character and a result of him not having his humanity, but I can’t recall him doing anything else wrong. And let’s not forget that this happens in that same episode:

So at this point Stefan is clearly still capable of being saved. His humanity is there, his love for Elena is there and Elena is able to connect with him profoundly in this moment. Later on in 3x06 she told him what she tells him again in 3x07:

Again, this is proof that there’s still an incredibly strong bond and love between the pair. Their relationship certainly isn’t over, Stefan’s humanity is lingering beneath the surface and Elena is right there with him, willing to fight to get him back.

In 3x07 the worst he says to Elena is the following:

Like that’s honestly the worst it gets up until this point and this is clearly when he’s in a fit of rage and crazed from blood withdrawal.

So when Elena says he’s going to lose her forever I can’t really understand why she’s saying that so soon. Yes, he has lost his humanity and he’s clearly a darker version of himself, but she hasn’t even really begun to fight for him yet. It’s been a matter of days since Klaus compelled him and so far things have been going well considering Stefan has no humanity and his history with blood lust. He’s still in town, he’s feeding, but he’s not killing relentlessly, he’s not out of control and most importantly, he’s still connected to Elena in some way and she still has a hold over him. It’s not like he became a complete and utter monster overnight that was completely ruthless and detached from everything he cared about and the person he was before. So my question is what has he done to warrant Elena saying that? Furthermore, it’s completely contradictory to what she says right before it. She tells him she still has hope and that she hasn’t given up, yet in the same breath she’s telling him he’s going to lose her forever. What?

I just have a lot of problems with that dialogue, the most basic being that the timing of it is just atrocious. It’s as though Elena is trying to play the tough guy act with him, but it’s not nearly tough enough and is again contradicted by her softness moments before. What’s even more frustrating is that Stefan is clearly still in there. If you go back and rewatch that scene, you can see the various emotional stages he goes through, but I’ll break it down in gifs.

The disappointment and resignation of “I knew this would happen” when he thinks Elena has given up on him:

The flicker of hope and curiosity when Elena tells him she hasn’t given him up:

The reluctance to show his vulnerability but inability to deny Elena:

The contemplation and pain at the prospect of losing Elena forever:

The acceptance and turmoil at Elena saying she won’t love a ghost for the rest of her life:

Everyone will interpret the emotion in Stefan’s expression differently here, but what no one can deny is that there is emotion there and a bloody lot of it considering he’s supposed to have no humanity.

Elena is supposed to know Stefan better than anyone, she can read him and instinctively know what he’s feeling, so why can’t she sense that she’s already getting through to him? Why can’t she see the emotion in his face that we can? By the time Lexi left she had already started to break down his walls, because Stefan didn’t want to turn off his humanity. It wasn’t a choice, so getting him to reconnect to his humanity again wasn’t going to be that hard. It wasn’t like Elena in season 4 whereby she didn’t want to turn it back on again because she couldn’t face the pain of losing Jeremy or Caroline in season 6 with her mom. Stefan turning his humanity on wouldn’t have taken a lot, the main obstacle standing in his way was Klaus. Being involved with Klaus meant it was easier for Stefan without his humanity but he managed all summer with Klaus with his humanity still in tact.

So my point here is that I feel like although Elena was just trying to get through to him in the only way she knew how, there were so many more appropriate things she could’ve said. Honestly, I think she should’ve been comforting him more than anything. It annoys me that the second he had his humanity off he was demonised by everyone (including the writers), despite the fact that none of it was his fault. First of all, he was forced to go away with Klaus in order to save Damon’s life and suffered so much because of it. He was forced to gorge on blood after spending decades battling his blood lust, Klaus pushed him over the edge and encouraged him to embrace being the Ripper, he had to kill and feed on innocents to keep Klaus satisfied and as if all of that wasn’t enough, he was then compelled to turn his humanity off. Elena wasn’t the victim in any of this, she hadn’t suffered because of Stefan’s actions, because nothing that he had done to hurt her during that time was his choice. Yet in this scene there is an inherent sense of disdain from Elena as though she’s saying, “I deserve better than being treated like this and I will find better”. But in reality, Stefan is the one that is in the most pain in this moment and he is the one that needs the support, not her. 

With that in mind, Elena does frustrate me in this scene, because it would have been so much more effective for her to say: “I haven’t given up, Stefan. I still have hope, but I can’t do anything until you get yours back. Fight for it. Don’t let Klaus win. He took your humanity from you and that wasn’t your choice, but you have a choice now and you can choose to fight. I know who you are, the person you want to be and it’s not this person. You made a decision before to reject the blood and the person it made you, you can do it again. No matter what happens, I’m here for you. Let me help you. Please, Stefan.” Do you see the difference? Elena should’ve been affectionate, supportive and encouraging. She should’ve been comforting him and reminding him that nothing that had happened was his fault, and that she’s there for him 100%. Instead, she essentially told him “I’m not giving up on you but I will soon if you don’t get your humanity back”. Where is the support in that? All that does is confirm Stefan’s worst fear that he’s going to lose her, which is only stripping him of his strength and resolve. If Elena had made it blatantly clear she was there for him and they were in it together he would’ve been more likely to want to fight. The way she phrased what she said made it seem like Stefan was alone and it was all down to him to save himself. Her proclaiming he’ll lose her and she won’t love a ghost forever is inherently contradictory to her saying she hasn’t given up on him. Why describe him as a ghost? That sounds like she believes he’s completely lost and does not give the impression that she has hope. And saying he’ll lose her forever, when does that happen? How long does he have to find his humanity before she decides to give up on him? It doesn’t feel right that she’s putting a limit on that because when you love someone there is no limit on what you’ll do. In reality, it’s healthy that she’s willing to end the relationship for the sake of her own sanity and well-being, but it’s also completely un-feeling and unrealistic of a person that is deeply in love. Elena should be telling him she will go through hell and high water to get him back, promising him that she’ll be there no matter what happens so to be so defeatist so soon is wrong.

I finished watching Outlander tonight and through all of this I can’t help but compare Stefan and Elena to Jamie and Claire. At the end of season 1 Jamie suffers a horrendous trauma (he’s kept imprisoned, raped, psychologically and physically tortured by a man that has previously violently attacked him) and naturally, after suffering through all of that Jamie completely loses himself. He’s traumatised and detached from himself, the world around him and his wife, Claire. It’s so bad that he is suicidal and asks his friend to kill him to put him out of his misery. Claire bearing witness to this is fraught with grief and desperate to do anything and everything she can to make him see sense and bring him back to her. First of all, she “steps into the darkness” with him and forces him to remember the trauma he suffered to break him and get him to open up about what he went through. When the walls start to drop the emotion pours out of both of them and this is what happens (I uploaded this specifically for this meta because it was frustrating the hell out of me that I couldn’t find it anywhere online and it’s necessary to see it to make the comparison). Although what Jamie went through was significantly different than what Stefan did and a lot more traumatic and horrific, both men lost part of themselves and that’s why this comparison is so relevant. Claire is trying to get through to the man she loves in that scene just as Elena is trying to get through to Stefan in 1x07, and even though I am comparing the two, in reality there’s no comparison. The conviction and desperation that Claire displays is heart-wrenching, yet where is that with Elena? The man she loves has been stripped away and this is her chance to get him back, but how pitiful is her attempt to do so? There’s no emotion, no conviction, nothing. I don’t want to get too bogged down in comparisons, but the reason I chose to use Jamie and Claire in this scenario, is because I feel like that’s what the 3x07 scene between Stefan and Elena should’vebeen. Elena is acting as though it’s last chance saloon and that if Stefan doesn’t find his way back, it’s over for them and on that basis it should’ve been a lot stronger and more impactful than it was.

I’m going to end this here, because I feel like this is morphing into something entirely different than it started, because I’m realising that the issue stems from the acting because Nina just can’t act lmao. But to sum up my thoughts on the 3x07 scene, I like the sentiment of it, but it needed to go even further. It was much too brief and not nearly emotional or angsty enough for the nature of the scene. I also think the dialogue should’ve been different and tweaked in the ways I explained above.

[anythingstephenking]

Time Traveling Swing Dancers/Teachers/Assassins

Welp, I did it y’all. I made it full circle to the book that started it all, 11/22/63. I read this brick of a book back in 2016, which lead me to The Stand, which led me to a journey towards 73 novels. Bless your heart, 11/22/63.

I just love this book. My first read through back in the day took me only a couple days; my second trip back in time took me almost a week, still a feat for the 800+ pages of book. Let’s go.

Another tale, like Under The Dome, that ruminated in King’s mind since the 70’s but came to fruition in the 21st century. Although the idea kicked around in King’s head for decades, he was daunted by the research that would be required to tell the story properly, so I think he waited until he was swimming in that sweet sweet money to hire a research team. Per usual, I am speculating.

But King did have a research assistant on this book, that much is true. He also consulted with the likes of Doris Kearns Goodwin, a treasure of American history, who gave King some real fun ideas about what might have happened if JFK had lived. The research was obviously thorough, and like it or not, you sure learn a lot about real-life Lee Harvey Oswald in this work of fiction. You’ll also squiggle in your seat through reminders of racism and hate that lived out loud in the 60s, different but also the same as we see today. History doesn’t change everything.

King has said that the extensive research and reading he did to prepare to write this story confirmed in his mind that Oswald acted alone. While it’s fun to imagine conspiracy theories of magic bullets and a second shooter, if King believes, I’m inclined to believe. If QAnon has taught us anything, it’s that Americans love a conspiracy theory. If Jack Ruby hadn’t shot Oswald in that parking garage, we may have learned what actually happened on November 22, 1963. If Oswald had gone to trial and had been placed under oath. If his last words weren’t about how he was a patsy. If, if if. Maybe Jake should have stopped worrying about stopping Oswald and stopped Ruby instead.

So, yeah, Jake Epping. Our hero of this tale. He’s a writer that teaches and lives in Maine. I mean, if I had a dollar for every time I started a book summary with that sentence, I’d have like $10 bucks and I probably go buy myself a fancy coffee of something.

Jake’s a teacher and loves hamburgers! Who doesn’t. He get’s them cheap at his favorite diner, from the proprietor named Al Templeton, who harbors a pretty rad secret that he’s gunna toss onto Jake. Now, why Jake? I mean, I don’t really know. Al doesn’t have any family and Jake is young and unattached? I suppose at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter, because Jake, like Frodo Baggins before him, is off on an adventure.

Because Al’s diner is actually a portal back in time. We all suspend some disbelief - it’s some version of a thinny (maybe?) that plops you from present day back to 1958. The rules are this: however long you spend in the past, you can return to the future just 2 minutes after you left. Al says there’s no impact on quick trips - Al’s been going back and forth for years buy ground beef for his cheap burgers - but when you do something that might change the future, the past will push back. We learn that Al is very, very wrong, but more on that later.

Al’s set out to save John Fitzgerald Kennedy from his head exploding, but the past gave him lung cancer and he didn’t make it to ’63. He’s back in the present and ready to tag Jake into the ring to get back to the fight for him. Jake hesitates but not NEARLY enough. Seriously, if some stranger told you had to go back in time, follow around a total assmunch for 5 years and live WITHOUT CELL PHONES OR NETFLIX?? I don’t care how delicious the root beer in 1958 is. Fuck that.

Jake goes. A couple times actually. He’s first interested in saving Harry, the high school janitor’s family from being murdered, which is a real noble cause. The past gives him diarrhea, and he wears a diaper to take out the bad man. He fails the first time (diarrhea), heads back home to “reset”, and back to 1958, succeeding the second time around. Sayonara douche.

We cross paths with Beverly and Beep Beep Ritchie in Derry, where Jake spends a fair amount of time in 1960. The town is dark, creepy and troubled, and Jake hates being there. Little interconnected web of the King-o-Verse is always there, and I love every second of it. 

Jake heads to Dallas to wait on Oswald, realizes he hates it (lol, fuck Dallas-Fort Worth), and moves out to the country instead. He gets a nice little job and meets a librarian, and our heroine, Sadie. Sadie’s got some real baggage in the form of a psychotic ex-husband (men are mostly the worst in this book) but her and Jakie fall in love anyways. She’s a well written, strong female lead and I haven’t loved a female King character this much since Lisey.

General consensus is that the mid-section of this book is that it drags a little bit, but I couldn’t disagree more. Sure, does Jake putting on a big theater production have literally anything to do with Lee Harvey Oswald? Nope. But I loved all Jake’s time in Jodie, Texas. He falls in love with Sadie, they are lovely and happy, and albeit doomed because of time travel, it’s a wonderful distraction from all the heaviness.

That said, PLEASE Stephen King, DON’T WRITE SEX SCENES LIKE THIS. ::Monkey with hands over eyes emoji:: The sex stuff is awful. There’s a lot of broad references to Jake and Sadie’s love life, like “She looked. Then she touched.” Gross.

Exhibit B:

She said, "Don't make me wait, I've had enough of that," and so I kissed the sweaty hollow of her temple and moved my hips forward ... She gasped, retreated a little, then raised her hips to meet me. "Sadie? All right?"

"Ohmygodyes," she said and I laughed. She opened her eyes and looked up at me with curiosity and hopefulness. "Is it over, or is there more?"

"A little more," I said. "I don't know how much. I haven't been with a woman in a long time."

It turned out there was quite a bit more … At the end she began to gasp. "Oh dear, oh my dear, oh my dear dear God, oh sugar!"

Guys, this passage was from Sadie’s FIRST TIME. She comes? And Jake notices there is blood on the sheets afterwards. But she orgasmed. Yeah ok, sure.

Other than poorly written Harlequin romance passages, the rest of the story clips along with lots of fun (and not so fun) bits, leading the the culmination of Jake (spoilers) killing Oswald. Sadie dies in the process and it is heart wrenching. But at least the world got saved?

WRONG. Another gripe is this; Jake goes back to 2007 and it’s a fucking post apocalyptic wasteland. Nuclear war has ruined the globe - Jake somehow crosses paths with Harry the janitor, who gives him a 5 minute synopsis of how everything went to hell. It is TOO SHORT. Why do we spend so little time here? I want more dystopian future.

We also get a brief bit about how each trip back isn’t a real “reset” - each one triggers a new “string” or parallel universe. Al’s diner isn’t the only passage, and anyone that has read the Dark Tower books gets it. Al was dumb and Jake was dumb, and at the end of the day Jake resets the past and saves this new string from nuclear fallout but you know those poor souls that were on that timeline are still fucked?

Anywho, the end is lovely and King changed what he originally planned (which was lame) at his son’s suggestion. Good job Joe Hill. Maybe I’ll read some of his books someday.

So that’s 11/22/63. This is the latest in King’s bibliography that I have already read, so I’m headed into the last 20 or so novels without any spoilers at all. I still haven’t even let myself watch The Outsider on HBO yet.

Speaking of adaptations, Lisey’s Story on Apple+ starts airing on Friday. Will be watching and hope that it is better than The Stand.

9/10

First Line: I had never been what you would call a crying man.

Last Line: Then the music takes us, the music rolls away the years, and we dance.

Adaptations:

A Hulu miniseries! They did 2 seasons of Castle Rock, so they’re a-ok in my book. Anything not produced by ABC is a-ok with me. I watched it when it aired and it was pretty decent IIRC. I’ve started rewatching, but only made it through the first episode so far. It’s a hard rewatch knowing what a creep James Franco is. And his fake goatee in the first 30 minutes is the actual worst.

The show takes its own liberties with the plot which is fine; Jake gets a partner in crime named Bill; without Bill we’d have a lot of internal Franco monologue I’d guess. The show is well cast and well acted, and has an 8.2 on IMDB, so it’s doing a lot better than most King projects.

James Franco channeling his inner Annie Wilkes.