#and while I’ve told him he’s on his own after s4/the specials

[mophobia]

I watched Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead last night so… y’all might be hearing from me a little if I can find some time in my busy schedule this week haha. God how can one man (I say man, I mean stupid little twat) make me so angry so easily.

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 3: Apdnarg is Really Hard to Spell

 Yo guys, people are getting vaccinated, the sun is parting through the clouds, and I felt so nice that I even stopped listening to quite so many throwback 00′s BTS mashups (and yet I keep clicking on these dissonant catastrophes thinking “this time it’s got to be better. This time they’ll figure it out.” and like, no. Turns out you can’t match Brittany’s Toxic with BTS’ Black Swan. You can’t do that.)

This must be a sign that things are getting better. If anything, it means my personal tastes are improving. I mean I only clicked on like 3 “Dark Academia” Playlists where I could pretend I’m some sort of spooky witch in an abandoned library with a bad music player and basic taste in classical music (like can we ban Satie from Youtube for a little while?). Hell, I might even do a prompt update to this blog!

Yeah, you heard me, I’m actually going to stay ahead of the update schedule for Yugioh Abridged (maybe. I haven’t actually watched cuz of spoilers, I just noticed the thumbnail pop up on Youtube and was like “Damn it, they came out of hiatus??? I got hurry UP.”)

Anyway, speaking of the sky parting.

I’ll have you know my bro said this is actually more like a circumcision and it was one of the worst thing I have ever heard.

We get a chance to take in this lineup of confusing and varied character designs, and Joey. who is...still Joey.

The animators probably had to hold a strike in order for them to put Yugi in the audience, lets be real. There are TOO MANY PEOPLE in this shot and one is wearing a turban where you draw every single wrap. I hope those artists charged by the line.

Tea has a subplot where she’s just very frustrated with everyone she knows. They have been traveling together for like many weeks and got trapped in a foreign country so I get it. But at the same time, it’s kind of hard to picture Tea with female friends.

Because right now you got this 12 year old child, the other duelist who does not care about anything besides cards, and Kaiba’s 3 dragon cards that we’ve all collectively decided are female.

Hell it’s almost like the writers are asking themselves why Tea is here. Maybe they forgot. There’s no more ghosts to bus, no more people to knock out with her ass with random Olympic feats. Tea’s just sidelining.

(read more under the cut)

Mokuba is a itty bit bit taller this season, and so I guess that means he can legally climb on top of the cherry picker in order to give a riveting speech.

Really says a lot about Mokuba that he is so unphased about talking to, I dunno...an entire planet of people. Kind of a shame we never see this courage from Mokuba used for anything other than talking really, really big and giving everyone around him a really hard time.

Mokuba takes a moment to dunk on Yugi Muto, as is Kaiba tradition.

And then introduce the first pair of duelists, which obviously must be between the few people in this tournament that we actually know and care about.

Thankfully, in between last episode and this episode, Yugi has figured out who his own Grandpa is. This is a relief, because Yugi is such a mess, that I was fully convinced it would take over half a season for him to recognize it. I mean how long did it take him to figure out he shares a body with a ghost? Like half a season?

Instead Yugi recovered gracefully from not recognizing his grandpa, but it’s not like he bothered to tell anyone else, so the rest of our cast is just gonna be like “Is he my hairdresser? The guy who delivers my mail? Who is this guy who made absolutely no significant changes to his outfit or voice?”

Like sometimes this show goes full Spongebob silly kid’s show and you never know when to take it seriously or not. They might be sacrificing the entire cast next episode. I really don’t know. But for now their big concern is who is grandpa??? Like an innocent card version of “Are you my Mother?”

Faced with public speaking, Yugi decides to have a melt down.

We have seen him face monsters, we’ve seen him on TV dozens of times, he’s been in multiple competitions...but give a speech? Of course he can’t do that. The kid doesn’t attend enough school to know how to do that. Them’s learning skills.

And that was when a newly assembled wife-jet spliced through the sky like a souped up razer scooter and deposited 1 fully equipped Seto Kaiba in a Buzz Lightyear jetsuit.

THE RECOVERY.

Seto always watching over his Brother, ready to save this awkward party if it kills him (and it really should, that suit is held together by two seat-belts), making sure to get on that platform before Yugi starts going off about how he’s half an Ancient Egyptian. (Ah, life before social media. You could just be hella famous and also half a dead dude and people would just not know. I kinda miss the time before I knew literally everything about everyone.)

Please admire how close those flames are to setting Mokuba’s heavily hairsprayed mane completely alight. It would be an unforgettable spectacle.

These were absolutely just random ass jet packs that Gozaburo Kaiba made to kill hell tons of people, right? Like Seto found it in the family cabin, clutched to the heart of some crispy fried corpse and was like “neat! Mokuba! I found a cool toy!” and just plucked that thing out of that skeleton’s clutches and has been flying around for months?

Like this is Seto Kaiba’s Butter Glider, right?

Seriously what type of vehicle license do you need for one of these things? RIP My ‘Seto only has a scooter license’ headcanon.

Which I’m only even thinking about because I’ve had to try and make an appt with the DMV for days to get a freakin REAL ID. I went to sleep in 2019 and I could fly on a plane. I woke up in 2021 and it’s like “Want one last screw you?” and just...can 2020 please stop screwing me over? It’s March.

Anyway, the Jet is removed soon after, so no, this is not part of his new outfit. He goes right back to his Post-S4-Trauma-Normcore.

After wrestling this competition out of his brother’s hands and confusing everyone in the audience, Roland must have gotten the memo to cut the microphone before Seto got too excited and we were quickly ushered on to the next stage of the tournament.

One sec...the BTS Mashup playlist I just clicked on did a Black Swan X 7 rings mashup and it’s the worst thing my ears have ever heard.

Holy crap. I had to actually turn down my volume. Like...Ariana Grande already has music that has way too many overlapping singing parts on it--and then lets just stick a 52-person boy band on top? That’ll fix it. Yeah. Go ahead.

Wow. Even I had to change the song and you know how much I enjoy pop culture mistakes.

Spot the Mickey but like a million times easier because it’s a Massive Dick Shaped Dragon.

Yep. That’s my grocery shopping outfit. Except maybe not a lab coat and a duel disk. Wish I had a duel disk, that would make social distancing just a hell ton earlier. Just a “Yo, only one person in checkout, please” and then bap them on the head with a propelled discuss/hologram.

Anyway, Grocery shopping/Doctor man dueled the Purple Hair Boy, and considering that Purple Hair got screen time and shook Yugi’s hand once--I think that Doctor man doesn’t stand a freakin chance.

Good. I hate him.

Also, every time he breathes he’s gonna fog up his glasses. I have experience in this area. He can’t read his own cards in the same way I can’t read my phone if I’m in the refrigerated aisle.

So the way this tournament works, is everyone has to sit in the stadium to watch the show. Kinda like showing up to a football stadium just to watch a recorded TV monitor...but then again...that is how it feels to watch a football game at a football stadium when it’s live (at least with the tickets I usually get.)

And as we watch Grandpa waiting for his competitor, we find out that his competitor (Joey) is too busy eating snacks to give him the time of day.

Why do cartoon hot dogs always have lettuce? Is that seriously supposed to be relish? Or is there a place in the world where you put lettuce on your hot dog?

Sorry, bro has just informed of his favorite hot dog order, which is absolutely terrible so I will share it with you: a Five Guys hot dog with ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, onions, mushrooms, pickled peppers, and you guessed it--topped with freakin lettuce.

My own kin. How am I over 30 and just finding out that my baby brother thinks it’s normal to walk into a restaurant with normal god-fearing law-abiding people and order lettuce and mushrooms on a hot dog?

I have fully failed him.

The rest of this episode is watching both Joey Wheeler and Mokuba have a shared panic attack while Seto does freakin nothing.

Please remember that Seto has both a jetpack and a dragon wife plane and could have easily solved this problem. But nah.

Then again, Seto Kaiba has given this crew so MANY rides, that maybe he’s tired of being the Soccer Mom for the team?

Like they don’t actually say this episode, but Seto was the one in charge of like...this entire place, do you think he made the 2 for 1 special just to get Joey where it hurts the most? Or does it actually not take any subterfuge to screw Joey Wheeler because he’s just naturally this way?

Like Mokuba wasn’t there when Joey was told “stay right here, and then we will all go together to fight Dartz” and Joey was like “I’mma save Mai from herself although she told me not to!” and then he Hella Died. But, Mokuba did see the result, AKA, Joey’s dead body being carried on the back of Tristan. Maybe Mokuba never realized that Joey died because he went out of his way to be late?

Lets do a tally of every time I can recall with my dodgy memory that Joey was threatened to be DQ’d/pretty much was DQ’d either by his own fault or no fault of his own

-When he wasn’t allowed to go on the boat to Murder Island because he was a stupid nobody kid who did not have a dueling glove

-When he wasn’t actually supposed to be in Pegasus’ tourney and was, in fact, secretly using half of Yugi’s entrance ticket the entire time

-when Bandit Keith stole the ticket that Joey got from Yugi so then Joey had to borrow Mai’s ticket although she had just used it so it really shouldn't have counted. Because, really anyone could have just piggy backed off of each other’s ticket until the whole boat went through that castle.

-When his account was hacked to get entered into Kaiba’s tourney when Kaiba very clearly told him he could not apply solely because he was Joey Wheeler.

-When he was late to his sister’s eye surgery because he got mugged by Marik’s Rare Hunters, so she almost refused to do the surgery.

-When Joey got possessed by Marik, and as Marik, threatened to murder everyone else in the tournament including both of the Kaiba brother’s who’s tournament it was, and then chained himself to Yugi Muto to throw both of them to the bottom of the ocean.

-I think there was a point when he threatened to attack Kaiba in Kaiba’s own tourney while not possessed? Like several times?

-when he got struck by Lightning and almost did not stand up fast enough after being struck by lightning, which is apparently a type of DQ in Duel Monsters.

-When he tried to save Mai from getting hit by a fireball, but then Yugi did it instead, and then so many people were standing on the dueling platform that Kaiba couldn’t possibly DQ them all.

-When he entered the restricted area of the blimp in order to hassle Kaiba into landing the Blimp, which Kaiba did not do.

-When Marik killed Joey before Joey could press the “go” button on his duel disk to play the card that should have won Joey the match.

-When he was dueling a lawyer in a digital universe but then the dice was like...weighted? So Noah had to walk over and be like “The hell is this weighted dice? This is my perfect digital world? How did you even do that?” and then Joey won because the match was no longer legit.

-When Joey yelled at Noah too much and so Noah turned Joey to stone for being a rude ass spectator

-When Mai was like “Wheeler and Valon, listen closely: do NOT murder each other” and then Joey did a murder on Valon so she was like “I guess I have no choice, I was very clear” and killed Joey straight up.

-When Joey decided to block Seto’s fireballs while Joey Wheeler WAS a playing card, somehow disrespecting both Dartz and Seto Kaiba at the same time.

-When Joey was playing cards but then got absorbed into a giant Leviathan and basically couldn’t play anymore after that.

-There’s probably hell ton of S0 stuff I just haven’t seen yet.

-This episode

And Joey runs fast for a montage of wacky things that really have no business being in a theme park. Things like this:

(remember when Bakura almost died from a rock that ended up being a balloon? It comes full circle.)

The stuff that the Kaiba brother’s think is normal and fun.

Anyway Joey fights off a bunch of hologram snakes and bats and everyone is like “Should we tell him it’s just holograms???” And it’s like wow, guys, how many times have these ‘holograms’ straight up murdered Joey Wheeler and everyone else on this cast? Too many? Because I have a google doc with so many deaths on it. 7,805,844,048, to be exact.

Anyway, he gets there with five seconds to spare and Mokuba’s like “well at least you were still entertaining while we filmed you in front of a live audience being a total spaz for 15 minutes straight, so I’ll let you go.”

Grandpa and Joey start playing, Joey completely oblivious that this is just an older Muto, while Hawkins walks up awkwardly and is like “hey guys. I’m so sorry about this.”

(welcome to my font choices, for those new here, I have to make weird font color choices to make sure it’s legible for the colorblind and also for the non-colorblind. This one is not much contrast, so I may change it up in the future, but for now, this is Grandpa Muto’s new font. I apologize to every graphic designer reading this. Please don’t tell anyone who has ever hired me for graphic design about this blog.)

What’s funny about this exchange is that after they find out that Yugi’s Grandpa is Apdnarg (HOLY my brain cannot get around the spelling for that, and I will not change it in the caps. I cannot do a ‘pdn’ ever again), they don’t stand on his side of the field or anything. Hawkins is legit Solomon Muto’s only fan during this exchange and like...damn. Way not to back your Grandpa, Yugi.

Yugi immediately strides up to Mokuba to non-confrontation-ally inform him that he has stepped over a line and Mokuba is like “what are these things you say called ‘lines?’”

According to Mokuba, Solomon Muto begged him to be in the competition so he could relive his glory days (glory days making no sense here, because the game has only been released for the past 15 years, so glory days is like...the before times that can only be referring to disgraced archeologists and Pegasus ((who is, in his own way...a disgraced archeologist, too))) and Mokuba was like

“You trained Yugi Muto, right? Hey that’s good enough for me. This drama is gold. People will eat it up. Hell yes. Don’t be afraid to abduct him a little bit. Maybe trap a couple people in a digital hellscape for a little while? Now we go by Pegasus house rules here, so fire as many lasers as you want, but just make sure not to hit anyone in the face. Oh man, we are going to be swimming in cash. Love it, Muto Sr, love it.”

But I dunno, I feel like Grandpa won’t make it past next episode. It is Joey. We kinda need him to make it past Ep 4 of the arc. If Grandpa Muto becomes the new Joey Wheeler, that will be a weird transition for this show to make.

But that’s all for today, as always, here is the link to read these in chrono order becuase there’s SO MANY that you don’t need to read backwards--don’t do it--just use the chrono tag (and I don’t know if you can add compound tags, but I did separate the Season from the Episode, so if you write S4, it should only pop up stuff from S4. I didn't’ do that to seasons 1-3 though because I just...didn’t.)

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

And because I brought it up: here it is, the best BTS Mashup that I found on my deep dive. Like legit--this one isn’t a mess:

Most of other ones are horrible in a fascinating way. Like I’m not even a BTS fan, I think I sort of age out of that metric, I’m just bored and quarantined. And lets be real, we all appreciate a good bop when we hear it.

[chat-noir-always-here]

Debunking “Adrien is perfect”

  To voice a rather non-Marinette-like opinion of Adrien: He’s not perfect. He’s never been perfect. He has, in fact, been riddled with flaws from the very beginning. Part of the reason Chat Noir gets hate is because he serves to exaggerate Adrien’s flaws and make them more obvious, destroying the perfectionism façade. And the sooner Marinette tosses the “I love the perfect Adrien” filter in the trash where it belongs, and starts actively recognizing and acknowledging his faults, the better off the endgame relationship will be.

 Long post is long and I don’t like cuts, cuz i’ve lost a few posts in the past using them. Please filter the tag “long post” I use it for walls of texts like these. 

First of all, flaws are just one of the many things that happen when someone either learns something the wrong way, spends too much time in the wrong environment, lack any decent role models... really there are a plethora of causes. What i mean is character shortcomings aren’t necessarily reasons to hate the character themselves. They’re more or less internal obstacles put there to be overcome in order to portray character growth. Of course spending an exaggerated amount of time with these characters without seeing them overcome particular shortcomings is frustrating it does not necessarily mean they will never be redeemed or developed and are/were deserving of hate.

 Except for Gabriel. That creature belongs behind bars.

 Most of Adrien’s flaws come from his toxic home situation:

The Miraculous Wiki puts Adrien at fifteen. Meaning Adrien has only been actively leaving the house (for public school and the occasional social get-together) for about a year. His fourteenth birthday was one of the earliest episodes and im assuming his fifteenth birthday happened off screen between the s3 finale and the new york special.

Regardless the majority of his life was spent in isolation and his only company was his immediate family, Nathalie, Felix and Chloe. None of whom are particularly good role models except for Emilie. Maybe.

He’s rather overworked for a 14 y.o. boy. On top of school, he has fencing, piano and Chinese lessons. This leaves him with very little time for himself. 

He lost his mother. In Feast, Adrien expresses Emilie was a source of joy in his life--”Only Mom can make me laugh like that.” Felix marked the one year anniversary of her disappearance.  Worse still, we’re led to assume all Adrien knows is that Emilie disappeared. Did she abandon him? Was she kidnapped and killed? He doesn’t know. He has no closure regarding her absence. 

On top of losing his mother, his only remaining parent is an emotionally manipulative and abusive prick. Gabriel has denied Adrien a birthday party, threatened to take Adrien out of school just because he can, never lets him have friends over for any reason, hardly ever makes time for Adrien and only once in a blue moon will actually sit and eat a meal with the poor kid.

And on top of all of this he’s not out of the woods yet. He’s still living with his abusive father. He’s still not allowed to see his friends outside of school much. He’s still got a packed schedule. He still doesn’t have closure regarding his mother’s “disappearance.”

Looking at it like this paints Adrien in a rather sympathetic light.

 Marinette doesn’t know Gabriel is Hawk Moth either, but she does understand Adrien is lonely, isolated and in need of a source of love and comfort. She also understands to some degree that his heart is delicate, so she constantly handles him with kid gloves and looks on him with a perfection filter. 

We see how Mari reacts to upsetting Adrien in Malediktator when she softly whispers an apology after Adrien expresses his sorrow over everyone celebrating Chloe’s departure. She’s seems pained and distraught over causing him to be upset. Thus the reason Marinette calls Adrien perfect isn’t that she never sees any of his flaws--she just cannot acknowledge or process them under these conditions. Shes too busy trying not to hurt him. She also has shown some signs of having extreme anxiety, which messes with ones head and makes it difficult--nearly impossible--to think straight. She wants to be the source of love and comfort he desires (and already is in a way) so his faults go unprocessed.

But what are Adrien’s flaws?

1. He has trouble standing up for himself. 

He’ll take a stand for others.

 He stood up to Chloe on Mylene’s behalf in Horrificator and on Marinette/ Cheng Sifu’s behalf in Kung Food. He stood up to Lila in Oni-chan and Ladybug. He stood up to Gabriel in Simon Says--but as Chat Noir, not Adrien. 

There have only been two-ish instances of Adrien, not Chat Noir, standing up for himself. I say -ish only because he was kinda standing up for Lila in the first and Chloe in the second. 

First in Volpina he stood up to Ladybug for how she handled the situation with Lila. He personally believed she handled the situation poorly (which she did--there were/are serious consequences for that. still) and although he was kinda wishy-washy in conveying that it was only because he was scared of sounding too much like Chat Noir. Her partner. Her chief-of-staff. Who can and will call her out on such behavior. 

Second in Malediktator, when he more or less told Marinette she was wrong to be happy about Chloe leaving. Granted this was partly him standing up for Chloe, but aside from her—he, Adrien, was deeply upset chloe was leaving on such bad terms and made sure Marinette understood that. 

Abused children tend to be somewhat submissive/agreeable/etc. They have trouble speaking out when they’re uncomfortable or don’t want something or think a particular action is wrong. Usually because they are anticipating some kind of punishment for speaking out or afraid of offending the other person to the point that said person wants nothing to do with them anymore, or both.

 For Adrien to fix this particular flaw, he needs to prioritize himself and his own wants more. However he also needs someone who doesn’t chastise him for doing things he likes, tending to his own needs and setting boundaries. Kagami is not that person--she’s actually quite demanding of him and cold. Her understanding of relationships isnt great either, which is why these two really aren’t that great for each other. 

2. He puts his faith in the wrong people

  Adrien’s fucking household is about as toxic as it can get (please don’t take this as a challenge, S4). On top of his immediate family consisting of his abusive, toxic, terrorist father, there’s his cousin Felix. Felix who squished cheese under Adrien’s pillow, stole his phone, pretended to be him and sent an outrageous and awful video to his friends. 

 There’s also his mother Emilie whom, despite his love and adoration of her, lied to him for who knows how long and messed around with a broken miraculous to the point it forced her into an indefinite coma and left Adrien at his father’s mercy. There are theories that she did this for her family but nothing concrete or canon has been proven--all we know is that Emilie had been having frequent dizzy spells while she was still awake and using the peacock miraculous, and that she anticipated her fate and Gabriel apparently promised to save her.

There’s Lila, as well. “She’s not dangerous. She just craves attention.” Wrong, Adrien, she’s very dangerous. She is conspiring with your father to spy on you, attempted to get Marinette expelled from school, tricked you into leaving Ladybug alone with a supervillain whom she personally requested to kill Ladybug, pinned Marinette against a bathroom wall and almost got her akumatized, actually got Marinette akumatized and nearly cost you both the Ladybug Miraculous and TIkki. She isn’t just dangerous she is an actual threat, whether or not she is the future Hawk Moth who sent Timetagger after you when you were children with time-sensitive powers. Adrien has a slightly better understanding of that after the events of Ladybug and Oni-chan, so hopefully he will be on his guard at least in regards to Lila.

 The reason for Adrien’s overly trusting nature may lie in the fact that literally everyone closest to him, everyone for the first thirteen years or so, was toxic and/or a liar. You know what happens when you can’t trust anyone around you? You live with it. You accept all these bad people as they are, without making any effort to establish healthy boundaries. Adrien certainly lived with it--how’s an abused, isolated boxed-and-sheltered son supposed to know what healthy boundaries are when he’s lacking any healthy connections? I bet he can just barely endure all the anguish but he can’t stand to be alone so he just tolerates it. Not to mention the most guilty is his father. Where else is he supposed to go?

Like a frog sitting in a pot of water, you don’t realize you’re in trouble until the water is too hot. So you just accept it--all the bad feelings--you accept it, live with it and it still hurts but you rarely complain. Because anything is better than being alone. 

I think Adrien understands, deep down, that the love he is clinging to, the love provided by his relatives, isn’t really there. But if he looks at it too long and lets this knowledge sink in he’ll lose it. He really did lose it in Chat Blanc-- just that sky-crashing-down-on-him realization that he didn’t have his fathers love, hadn’t had it for a long time, just completely ruined our boy. 

 Of course the knowledge is there. It’s literally right there in front of his face and it’s only a matter of time before he is forced to turn and look and face the music. At which point I hope Marinette knows who he is and has a plan to save him otherwise Chat Blanc is just going to happen again. 

3. Yes, he takes the flirting too far sometimes

No--that doesn’t make him toxic.

Yes, Adrien overreacted to Ladybug never showing up in Glaciator. He shouldn’t have been upset with her in Frozen for not accepting the rose. He should have told her the damn truth about being forced to leave the city at the same time she was in the New York special. 

 However, he also apologized for overreacting in both Glaciator and Frozen. And again, abused kids live in anticipation of punishment for their mistakes. Adrien’s father has taught him that the slightest mistake can result in loss of freedom or trust, even if its circumstances beyond his control. And he now understands that Ladybug isn’t going to blindly punish him for being honest with her, which he now knows to do. 

 He makes mistakes, apologizes for them, and learns from them. That’s not fucking toxic--it’s natural, human and allowed. 

 He’s flirty and suggestive, yes, but the minute she signals she doesn’t want it or isn’t feeling it he stops. He has had immense trouble with not flirting with her, despite her telling him she isn’t interested multiple times. That much is true. But he truly and deeply cares for her and he would never force himself on her and it isn’t because he knows she’ll kick his ass if he does. It’s because unlike the vast majority of his family, he’s actually a decent human being. 

 He has even begun to “flirt platonically,” toasting their partnership and friendship rather than offering a romantic relationship she can never say yes to. If that isn’t the most soft and respectful fluff I don’t know what is.

 4. He is leading Kagami on

Did he cheat? I’m actually not sure. Thomas is being vague in his tweets and won’t give us a decent answer (because he likes “watching fandom burn”--i mean MOOD but clarify please). 

 Here’s what we know and have observed: 1. Chat Noir told Ladybug “I have a girlfriend” 2. He immediately followed that up with “It’s not good at all. I just said that to make you jealous”  3. He allowed Kagami to kiss him in the new york special 4. but he has trouble telling girls not to touch him--been a problem since episode one. Yes its generally cheek kisses chloe gives him but sometimes its not and he looked downright uncomfortable in a lot of cases of physical contact with her and with Lila 5. he seemed rather comfortable with kagami kissing him--except he did say no to her kissing him in the finale 6. but he’s also trying to move on from Ladybug and be with Kagami  7. If he were in a relationship with Kagami, he’d likely keep it a secret because both of their parents are controlling of them and may not allow it 8. His understanding of relationships and girls is kinda dreadful due to not having his mom around for advice and his father’s general lack of a concept of what healthy romantic relationships and boundaries are, and, as Nino put it, not being able to understand signals very well

Adrien’s current relationship status is up in the air. I’m about eighty percent certain he’s dating Kagami--but there’s still that twenty percent chance he’s not.

 Putting aside the question of whether or not he and Kagami are official, Adrien’s been attempting to move past his feelings for Ladybug. Which--won’t sugarcoat it--he kinda sucks at. At the same time, Kagami is aware he is in love with another but lacks the understanding that his moving on will take time. 

 The main issues here is that Adrien knows who he wants but can’t have her. Kagami is a wonderful person herself and he wants to get to know her better, but they aren’t really a good match and they are both going to get hurt in the end (Love Victor anyone???). Until that happens we are going to have some questionable moments in the show, and we just need to remember that Adrien is a child with a poor understanding of relationships, and not an evil person. Kagami doesn’t necessarily have a great understanding of them either--”Your indecision hurts me Adrien,” “Adrien you and I are perfect for each other!”--and she has flaws of her own she needs to unlearn. 

 For the time being, Adrien is leading Kagami on (it needs to be said--even if they aren’t dating he’s flirted with her, given her roses etc.) I say leading her on because, no matter how much Adrien believes Marinette is just a friend and they weren’t flirting in New York, loyal boyfriends who wish to be monogamous don’t dance with other women.

 Or look this happy when that other woman touches them

Does this make Adrien a deceitful and hateful character? No. Does this make him an unworthy character? No. It makes him an abused child with little to no concept of healthy relationships. 

Also Adrien’s friends, including Marinette, have no reason to believe he is dating Kagami. They know he is interested in her and she in him, but as Nino said, Adrien has a hard time picking up signals and understanding their meaning. Not to mention the boy is fifteen. Flirting skills, understanding boundaries, and other relationship concepts are a challenge even for ordinary fifteen year olds in healthy environments to grasp--case in point: Marinette.

Adrigami and Lukanette are simply not going to end well. The Love Square is the endgame and ultimately both Lukanette and Adrigami are going to fall apart to make that happen--I knew that going into the possible Adrigami and Lukanette  territory that the finale created.

 Kagami is a strong, intelligent person--she’s likely going to be the one to end it given what we’ve seen. I don’t like to think about what might happen then--she may be akumatized and Chat Noir would feel rather guilty and may not be able to fight her. But they will both come out of it with something they needed--Kagami will understand (as Marinette needs to) that Adrien isn’t her perfect soul mate incapable of making mistakes. Adrien will understand relationships better. 

 Its unfortunate that this has to happen in order for Adrien to learn due lessons, given that he actually does have someone who can talk to him about girls and relationships and loyalty: Nino.

 Given what Nino wasted no time in scolding Mari for spying on Adrien and Lila when she confessed doing so in Chameleon, as well as how he treats Alya, I undoubtedly believe Nino would be the one to come out and say “You can’t dance with Marinette when you’re with Kagami.” 

 Assuming he is with Kagami. 

In conclusion: Adrien is flawed but not deserving of hate. He is a traumatuzed child stuck in a toxic household who lacks proper mentors. Marinette, Alya and Nino are out of the loop about his potential relationship with Kagami. And Marinette and Kagami both need to acknowledge Adrien is imperfect. Nino and Adrien need to do guy talk like two seasons ago. 

Also Marinette probably has some intense anxiety issues. But more on that later.

[possiblyimbiassed]

John’s “therapeutic” blog

I’ve been fascinated by the wealth of content in John Watson’s blog since I first noticed it; I think it was some time after S2. For being a complementary work to a TV show, it’s surprisingly well crafted and packed with information. Joe Lidster, who has written the fictional blogs and websites of John, Sherlock, Molly and Connie Prince, is a screenwriter who has been working also with Doctor Who and its spinoff Torchwood.

Unlike the rest of the content within the BBC Sherlock franchise, for example the online game ”Sherlock the Network”, the escape room “The Game is Now” or the book “Sherlock Chronicles”, John’s blog is fully available online for free, you don’t even have to register anywhere. And unlike the other blogs of the franchise (Molly’s and Connie Prince’s blogs and Sherlock’s website), John’s blog is lengthy and has a lot of posts in it. It gives us background and explanations of cases that aren’t mentioned in the show, or only referred to, and I also think it provides a “second opinion” of what we see in the show. It’s a bit like what John says in TLD:

It certainly seems like this blog has been created as a special little treat for the fans, since most of the casual viewers of the show probably don’t even know it exists ‘IRL’. But I think the blog is much more than that; partly because it’s so heavily referenced in the show – with frequent, accurate and exact pictures of it (at least until S4) – and partly because it tells us so much about John’s character. I think John’s blog is significant and important in trying to analyse BBC Sherlock. And maybe the version of John we see in the show will actually get more nuances to it if we look at the blog, which is expressly written by John himself?

More under the cut.

As some of you might know, I’ve written a meta series (X) where I try to explore the idea (originally from @raggedyblue​) that the blog describes the ‘real’ events in John’s and Sherlock’s life more accurately than the show, and that what we see in the show up until HLV is Sherlock reminiscing their life together while reading up on the blog. In my view, the show might be Sherlock’s embellished and dramatized version of the events - ironically a bit similar to what Sherlock usually accuses John of doing in both Doyle’s canon and on the blog. But I find the blog’s writing style far more prosaic than the show, and also more prosaic than Watson’s stories in ACD canon; in BBC Sherlock the roles might have been inverted compared to canon. 

An example of this would be the scene in TEH (which I talked about in this meta over a year ago) where Mary is (supposedly) reading the following un-published post directly from John’s blog editor:

“His movements were so silent. So furtive, he reminded me of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent. I couldn’t help thinking what an amazing criminal he’d make if he turned his talents against the law.”

Something doesn’t seem quite right here, though. While the rest of the post is text from another, already published, post (The Speckled Blond), this first part is taken almost verbatim from ACD’s story The Sign of Four (SIGN). It describes a crime scene where Holmes has just “whipped out his lens and a tape measure and hurried about the room on his knees, measuring, comparing, examining, with his long thin nose only a few inches from the planks and his beady eyes gleaming and deep-set like those of a bird”. I see a big style difference between this and the rest of John’s blog. Since the quote above never appears on the ‘IRL’ blog, I’d rather believe that in BBC Sherlock this is merely wishful thinking from Sherlock that happens inside his Drama Queen Mind Palace. This impressive description is, I think, what he would truly wish that John had written. ;)

I also suspect that the continuing references to different blog posts in S4 are all made up in Sherlock’s mind, since John’s blog ‘IRL’ stopped updating after TSoT, when Sherlock hacked it and took over the storytelling.

Be that as it may, this meta is a reflection upon what John Watson’s famous blog actually might stand for, and what I believe it tells us about his character. In these months of quarantine, I’ve been passing the time by reading through the whole online version of the blog and taking notes of it.

Therapeutic origin

It seems like the initiative for John to start a blog came from Ella Thompson, his therapist. I believe Ella’s initial idea was therapeutic; if it was almost impossible for John to talk to her about his feelings and inner problems in their sessions, she might have found it difficult to help him. Therefore she suggested that he write it all down on his own instead. And if Ella could persuade him to talk about his life on an online blog, she would also be able to read it.

Of course this wouldn’t be the same as if John told her about his inner reflections in confidence, in a real therapy session, but maybe the blog would give him an incentive to talk about his life at all. And you have to start somewhere.

At the end of TST we see Sherlock visit Ella, but when she asks him to “open up completely” he refuses. 

If S4 is happening inside Sherlock’s head (as I believe it is), this might have been Sherlock’s way of trying to psychoanalyse John, to ‘solve John’s case’, by envisioning the therapy situation in his mind palace. A well-known method of Sherlock Holmes is that he tries to put himself in the other person’s place and think about what his own response would have been to the situation. In ACD’s  story The Musgrave Ritual (MUSG), Holmes says: “You know my methods in such cases, Watson. I put myself in the man’s place, and, having first gauged his intelligence, I try to imagine how I should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances.”

Which is also evidence that the character of Sherlock Holmes does indeed not lack empathetic capacity. Also in the show, John’s assertion that Sherlock “doesn’t feel things that way” etc. is basically BS in my opinion. The problem is that John refuses to see this.

John’s state of mind before Sherlock

John’s first three blog posts (in the middle of December - January) seem to completely lack motivation.

And this is maybe what one could expect from the deeply depressed John (as he appears in the beginning of the show), isn’t it? No surprises there.

Everything seems meaningless, and John only makes two attempts at blog posts to comply with Ella’s recommendations, but he doesn’t actually write anything in them. After the second attempt his old army friend Bill Murray tries to contact him, but John seems to have cut off his ties with the rest of the world; he doesn’t answer the comment.

At the third attempt over a month later, John seems to want to delete the blog he has started, but lacks the technical knowledge to do so. The fourth attempt is just a snide comment to Ella:

She doesn’t respond, however (not very surprisingly perhaps). Instead, John’s sister Harry discovers the blog and tries out this means of communicating with him. But John ignores her.

But at the fifth attempt at least John has gone out with some friends and describes it – almost bitterly. Sadly, it also seems like John met up with them mainly to avoid his therapy session with Ella.

So, the problem is that whatever Ella may have thought that the blog would mean for John’s healing, I think she aimed well but unfortunately missed the target. John Watson does not ‘open up’ himself on the blog. When he finally starts to really write - after he met Sherlock - it’s not actually about him (supposedly); it’s all about Sherlock. Basically, John goes directly from ‘Nothing happens to me‘ to ‘Sherlock happens to me‘.

What the blog tells us about John ‘after Sherlock’

John’s blog may be all about Sherlock, but there isn’t actually that much praise for Sherlock in the blog posts as one might think. My impression is that John applies his (perhaps somewhat overestimated) writing skills to project his own failures and self-loathing on his closest friend. More than anything else, I think the blog is John’s emotional outlet for his frustration over his unsatisfactory relationship with Sherlock and his own inability to improve it. Instead of trying to actually talk to Sherlock, he uses the blog to vent his frustrations over Sherlock, speculating wildly about what he believes Sherlock is thinking and feeling.

The stories and adventures are thrilling and entertaining, yes. But his assessments of Sherlock’s character are really not very uplifting. John doesn’t strike me as an ‘analytic’ person, which in this case means that John’s theories about Sherlock are rather based on his personal emotions than logical conclusions. It’s sometimes even a bit difficult to follow the chain of events in John’s posts, because it’s usually so intertwined with his gossipy and out-of-context comments about Sherlock’s personality.

Unfortunately, Sherlock doesn’t seem to realise this projection, and neither do we see him address the issue of John’s misconceptions about him. I believe Sherlock takes many of John’s jibes and insults at him at face value, which – sadly - only adds on to his own self-loathing. I also think that Sherlock trying to draw conclusions about his mysterious friend through the written blog might be a mistake; it may eventually tell him a lot about John’s problems, but to see these he needs to look behind all the cover-up of blatant criticism of him, Sherlock. Maybe that’s what Sherlock’s trying to do in S4, by setting up scenarios in his mind palace?

Judging by how John comes across on the blog – and in the show – I think Sherlock’s claim “You’re abnormally drawn to dangerous people and places” in HLV is a perfectly sound analysis - on the surface. However, I think one must read between the blog lines in order to see other possible motives for John wanting to hang out with Sherlock. Reading John’s posts textually, he gives a strong impression that he’s there for the adventures; when there is danger in the air, John’s never bored.

In the comment section Sherlock never mentions John’s evaluation of his character. Instead he repeatedly criticises John’s writing style. I get the impression that this is Sherlock’s subtle way of getting back at John without having to directly address John’s misconceptions about him. As I said above, I think John’s writing style is very different from Watson’s style in canon; far less respect for Sherlock and a far more prosaic and simple language. Canons Watson seems careful not to speculate much, while John does this all the time.

Examples that form a pattern

There’s a good deal of praise of Sherlock in John’s posts, but it has almost exclusively to do with his admiration for Sherlock’s intellectual capacity; he’s repeatedly described as ‘clever’ and after the Fall, John claims that “nobody ever really outwitted Sherlock”. But in fact, I’ve found very few blog posts where John doesn’t also criticise or complain about Sherlock in some way or another. And there are only two posts (out of a total of 45) where John says something positive about Sherlock’s character:

1. After their first meeting he calls Sherlock “strangely likeable” and “charming”.

2. In what John meant to be his last post ever (he believed Sherlock was dead), he calls Sherlock “funny”, “charming” and “everything a good person should be”.

On the other hand, there seems to be nothing in John’s own (supposed) opinions about Sherlock that he regards as too negative or inappropriate to publish online. I very much think this is about self-loathing; he projects his own shortcomings on his “psychopath” friend and flatmate. Like it’s always a relief to have a scapegoat. An additional explanation might be that if John is closeted and in public denial about any romantic feelings for Sherlock, this makes him not want to appear too ‘besotted’ on the blog. ;) Thus, he might believe he needs to compensate the praise with criticism. Problem is, with this contradictory approach the readers might ask: What is John’s actual relationship to Sherlock? Handler? Hostage? Lover? Concerned citizen? It’s hard to claim he’s a ‘real’, professional colleague, since John’s actual profession is a medical doctor. But why would John be friends with a psychopath? 

To seriously claim that his best friend is a psychopath seems perfectly OK to John, though – he does it repeatedly, and quotes Donovan’s claim that Sherlock “gets off on it”. At the end of A Study in Pink, John talks about Sherlock and the serial killer as if they were both psychopaths, one undistinguishable from the other:

“The taxi driver drove him to a college of further education so they could both educate each other on - well, on how their minds worked, I guess. It's not something I'll ever really understand and, to be honest, I'm not sure I ever want to understand it. To be that much of a psychopath. To be that above the rest of us.”

John even seems to pretend to prefer ignorance to understanding, only to find one more opportunity to blame Sherlock. Here are some examples of other things John calls Sherlock publicly on the Internet:

Arrogant 

Rude

Imperious

Pompous

Madman

Freak

Childish and

Not safe. 

He also says on the blog that Sherlock is spectacularly ignorant about some things, like the solar system. 

Little Freudian slips

In the post titled The Speckled Blonde 

(which is basically a re-count of canon’s The Speckled Band - SPEC) John’s closet angst reaches new heights:

Apparently John finds it important to preventively point out to his readers that he was not sharing a bed with Sherlock. Or, actually, that he even preferred sleeping on the floor before sharing a bed with his flatmate. The thing is, however, that the information that they spent the night in Julias bedroom isn’t at all necessary for the story, since - unlike in ACD Canon - nothing of importance apparently happened during that night. John actually tells us nothing about the night as such. The only ‘feature of interest’ is that Sherlock found a suspect bottle of bubble bath on the victim’s night table, which he took to Barts for analysis (and he was right - the bath had killed Julia by poisoning). Obviously, John could have described this crime scene investigation entirely without mentioning that they had spent the night there. So, if this little morsel of information was so embarrassing for him, why did he even include it? Hmm... 

In my biased mind, I can only think of two alternative explanations (not mutually exclusive, though): 1. John had spent so much fantasies and subconscious energy on reliving this night that he just couldn’t keep this info entirely to himself (Freudian slip), or 2. Something actually happened that night - something that had no bearing on the case. After all, John never says that he slept on the floor, only that he was going to sleep on it. ;) 

Speaking of bubble bath, I find the fact that Julia died from it slightly suggestive, and even metaphorical, as such. Because there’s also another case on John’s blog describing someone dying in a bath: The Deadly Tealights. The victim suffocated in a bathroom where the candles consumed all the oxygen. John has included this little comment:

Why does John bring up the idea that a person taking a bath with candles would potentially be judged? What has his own bath routines to do with the crime case? Does the victim really need John to find excuses for his private life? Methinks this rather might be John’s closet angst speaking again. Someone has tried to belittle John for liking baths, and apparently John seizes the opportunity to vent about it on the blog. Metaphorically, this tells me that the closet is suffocating for John, and that the ‘chemistry of love’ is involved.  

John - The Moral Compass

John is often referred to as the part of the duo who a) is more sociable and b) works like a sort of moral guide to Sherlock. The detective, on the other hand, is shown as a “sociopath” who supposedly doesn’t understand this kind of things. And – to be honest – Sherlock doesn’t actively say much to contradict this perception; sometimes he even appears to agree with it.

(I think his actions should be a clue to the contrary, though).

According to the blog, John seems to believe he himself is the adult one in this acquaintance, the one who does understand the rules of society. He repeatedly calls Sherlock “childish”. Judging by John’s descriptions in the blog, one might almost think that John had been forced to hang out with Sherlock, trying to do the best of it. But seeing as it’s entirely voluntarily it’s a bit hard to understand, for example, how John can blame Sherlock for “leaving me and Sarah to be kidnapped” in The Blind Banker:

John makes is sound like Sherlock left them to the enemy deliberately, knowing that someone would come after them. But weren’t they at home, supposedly on a date? If John didn’t like it, couldn’t he have left any moment and gone out to continue the date he was supposed to? But no; John counts himself among the innocent persons whom Sherlock “involves in his adventures”:

After reading the whole of John’s blog, all I can say is that this guy is a living, breathing contradiction. How can he be Sherlock’s moral compass if his needle is spinning all the time? :))

In The Great Game John describes himself as just a “pawn” in Sherlock’s and the killer’s great game, equalling himself with the other victims. With his insinuations, he indirectly blames Sherlock for the death of 12 people and goes back to Sally Donovan’s “freak” accusations:

Another interesting bit is this, describing Sherlock’s reaction at the pool, when John for a moment appeared to be behind everything: “I should have been horrified that he'd even doubt me for a second…” Wait – what!? John is capable of telling the whole world the most damning rubbish about his friend, but if Sherlock for any second doubted John, he’d be horrified? This part is also of interest: “But the laser sight simply moved to Sherlock's head and I was forced to let go. For a second, I wondered if Sherlock would have done the same for me but then all I knew for certain was, at that moment, I knew I was going to die.”

Before that, John had just described what could easily be interpreted as Sherlock calmly trying to talk Moriarty out of having John killed, but to John this was just “The two men talked, both clearly pleased to…”.  In John’s view, he was the only one who was forced to let go of the killer because of the threat to Sherlock. Honestly, who is it, between the two of them, that most appears to lack empathetic capacity?

Creds and Competence

John appears to be a rather honest, humble and straightforward in the show, quite competent in his medical profession, and in TSoT he is highly praised by Sherlock:

But on the blog John is more ambiguous, and he isn’t always modest. Sometimes he appears to enhance his own role in the crime solving and take credit also for things that are clearly Sherlock’s doing. For example, in The Great Game there’s this: 

“Between us, we worked out that while Connie's death had been made to look like the result of a tetanus infection, it had actually been caused by poison - their houseboy, â–“â–“â–“â–“â–“, had overdosed her on Botox!”

But if we’re supposed to believe the show, John actually believed it was a tetanus infection, while Sherlock deduced and later demonstrated poison:

John also expresses a slightly childish vindictiveness in making a lot of fuss about Sherlock’s failures; every single time Sherlock can’t solve a case, John points it out on the blog with glee. It almost gives me the impression that the doctor is suffering from inferiority complex. He even uses  “Sherlock Holmes Baffled“ as a title for one of their cases.

This seems to be written in jest, since Sherlock frequently is rude about other people’s lower intellectual capacity, but actually hates ‘not knowing’. 

I admit that this may be funny to joke about once, but it gets a little tiresome that John has to point it out every time. Why does John even do this, even as Sherlock has explicitly asked him to not publish the unsolved cases? Which I assume would not be good for their business? 

If John truly is Sherlock’s colleague, wouldn’t he also be more interested in helping to solve the cases, rather than talk about the failures? It seems to me that John is struggling so hard against his own feelings for Sherlock that he feels the need to provoke rather than help him.

The Most Inhuman Human

Sherlock’s supposed lack of humanity is a recurring theme for John; he claims that “people” want to know that Sherlock is human, as if anyone - on the blog or in the show - except John had ever questioned this. 

I can’t remember anyone on the blog except John showing an interest in this issue, though. In the post Many Happy Returns he writes this (my bolding): 

“Yet the video... it showed the other side to him. He was rude, yeah. Arrogant. Apparently lacking in anything resembling empathy. But I'd forgotten just how funny he could be. He was so charming. So... human. It's bizarre because most people would say he was the most inhuman person they'd ever met. But he wasn't.”

He wasn’t? Wow - great revelation, John! [sarcasm :)]. But who said that, actually? Not even the haters and trolls on John’s blog ever claimed Sherlock was inhuman. It’s one thing that Donovan and Anderson called him a freak and a psychopath, but John is the only character I can think of who has ever implied that Sherlock would not be a human being. Only John calls him a ‘machine’. Which is a load of BS of course; John really doesn’t strike me as a professional doctor when he says this, even less as a friend - always trying to mark the distance.

So what’s Sherlock’s ‘complete lack of empathy’ in that video actually about (mini-episode here)? Was it because he didn’t want to go to a birthday dinner with people? Hardly - John seems to understand this about Sherlock. Or was it maybe because of his comment: “How can John be having a birthday dinner? All his friends hate him!” Well, this probably hurt a bit (even if I rather think he sounds bitter and jealous - he wants John for himself ;) ). On the other hand, Sherlock then backtracks and seems to regret his little outburst:

Mary’s role in John’s life

The blog is where Mary Morstan appears to be introduced to John; on John’s first blog post about at least a year after Sherlock’s ‘death’, she suddenly just shows up in the comment section, sending him kisses and inviting him out:

John ignores her, though, and when his sister asks him who Mary is, he doesn’t answer. Mary seems to hang in there, however, and the next time she appears is on the Deadly Tealights post (the one with the dead flatmate in the suffocating closet bathroom). And now she’s called Mary Morstan. Next time is The Inexplicable Matchbox. Both times her only comment is ‘ignore the trolls’. John rather seems to ignore her, though. Finally, he finishes his Many Happy Returns post (which was supposed to be his last) with saying that he has now “found someone” (without naming them) and should concentrate on that. 

All this is a little bit weird, though, considering Mary’s comment in TEH, when she is logged in and reading aloud from the editor of John’s blog: “The famous blog, finally!” As if she hadn’t already read all his posts and tried to interact with him on the blog? Hmm. 

In the show Mary just seems to come from out of nowhere, suddenly showing up in the graveyard holding hands with John. 

Her anonymity reminds me of Doyle’s treatment of Mary in canon, where she’s only mentioned by name when she’s still a client, before she marries Watson.

On the blog Mary is not mentioned by name until over a year after John met her, in spite of her presence in the comment section long before that. And it’s not until John’s first post after Sherlock’s return - The Empty Hearse - that John says something appreciative of her. Suddenly she is (still without name) "...the best thing that's ever happened to me. Sorry, Sherlock :)”. For the rest of the blog posts, John’s (very scarce) answers to Mary’s comments are never flirty or appreciative in the least. Mary’s own last comment, on the very last post - this time written by Sherlock who hacked the blog after John’s and Mary’s wedding - is this: “SHERLOCK! SHUT UP NOW!”

None of this gives me the impression that John has fallen in love with Mary. The silence with which he treats Mary on the blog rather makes me think of her as someone basically not very important; a sort of substitute in a desperate attempt to fill an emptiness in his life. And I think it might be significant that as soon as John recognises the existence of Mary in his life, he seems to use her as a sort of buffer towards Sherlock. A façade. First it’s the gleeful “Sorry Sherlock :)” comment above. Vindictive, it appears. And then, in the post Happily Ever After, John insists that his and Mary’s impending (heterosexual) marriage must clearly be the reason why Sherlock chose to help a gay couple getting together, one of them leaving an abusive marriage which was basically a façade. This whole ‘conclusion’ is so stupid that I’m rendered speechless.

Summary

To summarise - for those of you with enough patience to have followed all my ramblings in this marathon meta - I think the picture of John’s character that we can discern from reading up on the whole of his blog possibly tells us even more about him than the show. If the show reflects Sherlock’s mind, albeit almost entirely focused on his own perception of John Watson, this blog might actually give more insight into how John’s own mind works. I think it shows us someone who is struggling desperately with his own feelings. Someone who is trying to mark a distance that he believes is healthy for him, but that he actually doesn’t want, towards the object of his affection, by criticising them. The full-fledged, living, breathing contradiction that is John Watson comes to its full right by the blog. We could almost say he’s ‘human’ :). Kudos to Joe Lidster and the other showmakers for providing us with this gem.

Tagging some people who might be interested: @raggedyblue​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @gosherlocked​ @sagestreet​ @sarahthecoat​  @tjlcisthenewsexy​​  @elldotsee​​ @88thparallel​​  @sherlock-overflow-error​​  @yeah-oh-shit​

[lycorogue]

“What did you expect me to do?”: In Defense of the Car Scene and Alya

Okay, so I’ve been seeing a lot of salt lately (and I tend to follow blogs that stay positive and relatively salt-free with regards to the fandom) about the car scene towards the end of the Miraculous Ladybug NY special.

Mainly the “stupidity” of the writers having Alya demand that Marinette should have said something to Adrien when the car pulled up.

“Couldn’t you see he was just waiting for you to tell him to stay?”

I’ve seen fans counter “it’s not like it would have changed anything” or “what could she do against his father’s wishes” or “her asking him to stay wouldn’t have stopped Gabriel from demanding he come along” and other such arguments.

And, yes, as viewers and as adults (I believe most, if not all, of the blogs I follow are run by adults), WE know that those are all true. Gabriel, as Hawk Moth, has just set a dangerous supervillain lose on the city with a way to make NYC even MORE dangerous by turning the superheroes against the city as well. He wants his son the HELL out of there ASAP. Nothing anyone would say could change his mind.

We also know that the only reason Adrien was allowed to go in the first place was because Gabe-y was going to NYC himself and figured it was a convenient way to not have to hide that he’d be even MORE absent from Adrien’s life for a few days. Especially given that Nathalie is clearly bedridden after the events of the S3 finale and so Gabriel can’t even outsource his parenting onto her.

HOWEVER, as the CHARACTERS, none of them know that.

What they DO know is that Marinette is apparently a miracle worker. As far as they are concerned, Marinette is the Mr. Agreste Whisperer. There have been a couple of times that she was able to convince Gabriel to let Adrien do something. If she’s involved, he can go to birthday parties. He can host a Christmas dinner. He can return to school. He can sneak off to a movie. He can do impromptu photo shoots for his friend’s fashion line. He can go on international class trips. Heck, the fashion show that showcased Marinette’s winning derby hat MAGICALLY DREW GABRIEL AGRESTE HIMSELF OUT OF HIS HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MONTHS! One of the FEW times he’s left his mansion in a year (at least). 

If Marinette could do all that, despite the odds, despite Gabriel Agreste seemingly being steadfast in his decision, then why can’t she do so again? Why couldn’t she ask Adrien to stay with them, and then try to talk Mr. Agreste into allowing it?

She refused to sit idly by when Adrien said he wouldn’t be able to go on the New York trip. She stormed over to the Agreste mansion and “convinced” Mr. Agreste to let his son come. 

“My father told me everything. The only reason I can enjoy this beautiful sunset is you. I thought it would be impossible, but you believed in it. You're always willing to take a chance on something or someone, even when no one else is.”

...even when no one else is.

Marinette doesn’t give up on anyone or anything!

Until that moment. That moment when Adrien desperately needed someone to fight for him, to prove to him he’s worth fighting for, to validate that people DO value him and want him to stay. The moment when Adrien needed Marinette’s determination and positivity the most, and she failed him. (Not to salt on Marinette. I totally get why she froze. I’m just putting this in the perspective of the characters)

He had told Marinette that “You're always willing to take a chance on something or someone, even when no one else is,” and yet, apparently this is the point where Marinette draws the line. This is when she’s no longer willing to take that chance. HE’S not worthy of that chance anymore, and with everything that just happened between him and Ladybug, he FEELS that to his core.

Alya sees this. Alya can SENSE how much Adrien needed his defender in that moment, and Marinette just threw in the towel on him. Yes, Nino begged Adrien to not go, but it’s been shown multiple times that Nino truly doesn’t have any power over what Adrien can and can’t do. Sure, it may be a small bit of comfort that Nino wanted him to stay, but it wasn’t what Adrien needed in that moment. 

THAT is why Alya was so pissed at Marinette. All those times that the girl did over-the-top stunts to try to get Adrien’s attention. All the times Marinette has gone to bat for Adrien over “silly” things in the past. All the energy Marinette puts into proving Lila is lying. Then the ONE TIME someone clearly needs her to go to bat for them, and she BAILS!? THAT is when Marinette suddenly doesn’t think Adrien’s worth the effort!? Worse comes to worst, if Gabriel shrugs Marinette off and still demands that Adrien comes with, at least then Adrien still knows someone is willing to fight on his behalf, and that’s something.

But this? Not a single word? It snaps Alya. Trying to get over Adrien is one thing, but now Marinette is overcompensating to the extreme where she’s not even being a good FRIEND to him. Nope. This shit is NOT going to fly with her.

So she storms up to her bestie. She yells at her. She has no clue what inner turmoil is going on with Marinette. She knows nothing of Chat Noir. Honestly, at that moment I don’t think she even realizes Ladybug and Chat Noir are in NYC.

True, it’s a dumb move to send Marinette racing after Adrien in the rain when the city is on lockdown and a dangerous supervillain is on the lose. I’m sure Alya beat herself up about that the moment Marinette was out of view and Alya had a moment to calm down.

BUT THE GIRL IS FOURTEEN! SHE’S ALLOWED TO BE LASER FOCUSED AND NOT SEE THE BIG PICTURE WHEN HER EMOTIONS TAKE HOLD. KIDS ARE ALLOWED TO MAKE MISTAKES.

Also, let’s just face the facts. The amount of times Alya puts HERSELF in danger for a scoop, she probably doesn’t even truly grasp the potential consequences. I mean, yeah, she’s cut back on the self-endangerment a lot after becoming Rena Rouge, but still. Besides, NYC is flooded with superheroes, and at this point none of them have been influenced by the supervillian yet. As far as Alya’s concerned, how much danger could Marinette truly get in, right?

Plus, Alya never expressly told Marinette to go full-romcom-trope and chase Adrien down; meet him at the airport to beg him to stay. She just yelled at her best friend to shake her out of whatever teenage BS was going on with her trying to get over Adrien and make a flippin’ decision already (not that Alya was making that easy, but that’s for another post). Marinette simply made that decision on her own and Alya didn’t stop her. Maybe she tried, but Marinette moved too quick. We don’t know. The camera was on Marinette.

That notwithstanding, once Alya sees the news and knows that Marinette is now MIA, she probably has a MAJOR breakdown. We didn’t see it because it wasn’t important to the plot, but I trust that Alya doted heavily on Marinette the second she returned. Apologizing for her outburst and not focusing on if Marinette was okay. This is probably also where that 180 about deciding how Marinette feels about Adrien came from. Alya demanding Marinette figure it out NOW potentially put her in danger, so instead Alya has decided that Marinette SHOULD go at her own pace; there’s always tomorrow. We’ll see if that continues in s4.

Now, would I have written this whole car scene differently to try to avoid all of those narrative pitfalls? Maybe, but I’m also not a professional scriptwriter, so I can’t really critique those who are for their judgement calls. They went for the emotional gut-punch, and they kept the characters in-character. That’s all I can really ask for from them. 

At the end of the day, while it is always nice when shows take on the responsibility to educate their viewers and show them healthier ways to accomplish things, it’s not expressly their job. Their job is to entertain, and that scene WAS entertainment. It’s only with emotional and mental maturity, as well as an analytical and critical eye, does this scene present itself as problematic and therefore no longer enjoyable, despite it being fairly accurate with regards to how teenagers might think. 

Now, I’m not saying we CAN’T criticize the show. By all means, go ahead. I am still reading the salt and internalizing why it’s there so that I can learn and be better with my own writing. However, we should also be aware of how our own views and personal demands on storytellers might jade us to the show. In doing so, we should then be cautious about HOW we criticize the show, because the last thing this fandom needs is more salt.

[buildarocketboys]

8 and 12 for the autism asks?

Woops, sorry anon, you gave me the opportunity to infodump about autistic!Nathan and I'm afraid I took it lol

8. If you have any, what are your special interests?

Honestly at the moment it's probably mostly just Heroes (and specifically Nathan and Peter Petrelli lol). Like I usually say cooking/baking but somewhere in the past few months that's kind of faded out a bit and I don't love doing as much as I did, which is a shame. Apart from that I've kind of been having fairly short-lived hyperfixations (I'm currently watching season 4 of Glee after stopping at s3 last year, which was probably the wisest place to end but never mind).

12. Do you headcanon any characters as autistic? If you want, tell us why you headcanon them as autistic.

Aha...see my previous post. But I'm gonna give a rundown on why I headcanon Nathan as autistic, because I think it's a headcanon with a lot of evidence:

- Fake smile/exaggerated facial expressions

- makes weird/awkward comments/jokes (gifset)

- Stims (even though he masks a lot) (gifset)

- Scripting (gifset) - also his career/s as lawyer/politician are ones that involve a lot of talking/interacting with people but a. They're things that you can probably script/practice a lot of, go over every scenario etc and b. Nathan sucks as a politician lol. Like he can deliver a speech OK, but he was gonna lose (and knows he's going to lose) when he's running for Congress which is why Linderman has to kidnap Micah to fix the vote and also he literally only becomes Senator in s3 bc the Governor sees him having a mental breakdown on TV and obviously thinks 'this guy will be so easy to manipulate'

- Echolalia (there are several examples of Nathan repeating back something someone's already said to him, I think my favourite is in the s1 finale when Claire tells him that "the future isn't written in stone" and he repeats that back to her later when he flies in to have his Big Damn Moment

- Tripping over his words/words running into each other (gifset)

- Black and white thinking ie in Haiti when he's like ‘If I don’t save the world I’m basically evil’

- on the other hand, difficulty knowing what the right thing to do is, relying on other people to tell him - His whole ‘what is right/why can’t I tell the difference speech’/asking Peter what he should do

- in .07% - difficulty comprehending/empathising with a large amount of people/finds empathy difficult for people he doesn’t know/care about - I have a fairly developed headcanon that's pretty much canon about Nathan's Big Damn Moment saving Peter/New York really being entirely bc of Peter and his empathy for him (and knowing/being told by Claire how much it'll kill him to be responsible for the deaths of millions of people, since Peter has a hyperempathetic streak bigger than he is) - but yeah, that. (Actually I might make a post about this bc there's a fair amount of detail in it that's basically what I take from what we're actually given in canon and I think it would make a nice piece of meta. I talk about it with Anni all the time.

- despite not exactly being the most honest/moral person, Nathan's also really not that good at lying, especially when he has to do so spontaneously/improvise. Family brunch is probably the best example of this

- the people that Nathan most vibes with (as in, makes a real connection with that isn't shallow and based on him masking and trying so hard to fit in) in the show are characters that are either neurodivergent/mentally ill in canon or who I headcanon as neurodivergent/autistic: Nathan+Hiro (who I also headcanon as autistic), Nathan+Matt [who's canonically dyslexic], Nathan+Niki [DID(/multipersonality disorder lol, which is obviously poorly handled by the show but still, the mentally ill/ND vibes)], Nathan+Peter obvs. Claire's probably the only one who doesn't fit this but a. They don't vibe immediately, Claire takes a while to actually understand him and b. Claire's best friend is Zach and her S4 gf is Gretchen. Both of whom have incredibly autistic vibes. Claire is basically the ND equivalent of a fag hag (in the nicest possible way - I love her)

- kind of a sad/horrible one, but when Arthur says ‘I made you’ to Nathan in s3 it really gives me Lovaas being like with an autistic person you have to build the person from the ground up gross dehumanising vibes. Arthur is the worst lol

- Is actually extremely emotional (and a lot of his actions are extremely emotionally motivated - for better and for worse) e.g. Angela talking about him being ‘overly theatrical wrt Kelly’s death/calling him a sap, and him not even being able to look at the photo Meredith shows him of Claire (that whole scene really shows how hard he tries to mask his emotionality to his own detriment; he can barely look at the photo bc it's so much, and then he doesn't get Meredith to call Claire back - even though he basically came down to Texas to meet her - because he doesn't know how to handle his emotions about finally meeting the daughter he thought was dead without losing it)

- Obsessiveness (the hundreds of photos of Peter thing+him literally calling himself obsessive)

- Mostly blank/unemotional facial expression and relatively monotone voice even when talking about/in extremely emotional situations (e.g. I’m not leaving you Peter). His voice *does* show emotion sometimes but only in really intense situations and even then rarely (I think this is partly masking, partly his natural expression)

- Doesn’t like touch (apart from if it's Peter/someone else he feels safe with) especially when emotional (gifset) also his and Claire's hug in s1 is extremely awkward lol

- Burnout/losing control of his life (s2 and also kind of s3 - Nathan's a mess). Basically all the mentally ill Nathan stuff - side effects of autistic burnout/masking for basically all his life

[beautifulterriblequeen]

A little epiphany about the moon arcanum

(submitted by @lily-lilou​)

Hello ! I just realised something about the moon arcanum and I wonder what you would think about it:

Remember the other day, when you asked “how do you kill death?” and I answered “death is an emptiness of life, darkness is an emptiness of light”?

And remember in S1ep1 when Rayla said “moon reflect sun, as death reflect life.”, Implied: sun is life, moon is death? 

Well, something bothered me with this last point. Because, if the moon was only death-related, Moonshadow elves would just be “empty” since they are all death and shadow/darkness. No light, no life. It doesn’t make sense. (I mean, we’ve seen in the novel that, indeed, some of them are really dark, as dark as a dark mage like Viren, it seems, but not all of them.)

While looking at Callum’s spellsbook, I saw that the moon arcanum is indeed death-related. But it’s also dual. 

And suddenly, I had my little epiphany: 

The moon has no light in herself, what she reflects is the light of the sun. And the light of the sun is “life”. So indeed, without it, the moon is “empty”.

But that’s my point, she does reflect it, and so: when the moon shines in the night, does she bring life? no. Does she bring death? neither.  What does the moon do, then?

She reflects light when shadows and darkness are surrounding you, she makes them receded, she allows you to see in the dark.

Seeing light in darkness, isn’t this the definition of “hope” itself? 

So now, my little theory about the duality of the moon being “death-hope”, it’s really neat (’>_>), but what about the show, what could prove my idea?

Well: the world is about to be engulfed in an all-out war, darkness and death are on almost every hearts, on the verge to destroy everything. And the moon, with her Moonshadow assassins, reflects “death”. But if my theory is right, shouldn’t she also reflect “life”, shouldn’t she bring “hope”?

And here goes Rayla, bright little light in the dark, sparing her enemies for the greater good, ready to sacrifice her life for a chance for peace. She’s the reason her little team’s adventure was possible to begin with, after all. 

I mean, seriously, if the moon is dual, if one aspect of it is “death” and the other is “hope”, wouldn’t this explain “different” Moonshadow elves like Rayla, Lain and Ethari? 

Just like a lot of sunfire elves are more connected to the destructive aspect of their arcanum and have a “heat mode”, and a few other are connected the more comforting and healing aspect of it with “light mode”. Why wouldn’t Moonshadow elves be like that too? With a lot of them related to the destructive aspect of the Moon (death), and a few others more connected to that other facet of it: hope. 

As for Lain and Ethari, why do I think they’re more “hope-related” than death?

We haven’t seen a lot of them yet (and I’m waiting for S4 to see more of Ethari). However, the few elements we have is already not bad:

Lain literally saw “hope” in the egg’s survival. As for Ethari, even if he wronged Rayla in his grief, he did broke the spell and help her. Without him, they would have never made it in time to the Storm Spire, Rayla wouldn’t have been here to stop Viren, who would have probably killed Zubeia. 

So sorry, it’s a little longer than I thought, but I hope you’ll be interested. (if not, sorry for waisting your time - and sorry if my english isn’t… arf, sorry if it’s torture, I have no one to check on it)

good night :)

-----------------

Hey, thank you for this! I love seeing other people’s ideas! I’ve spent plenty of time pondering Moonshadow culture and philosophy because its duality is so fascinating. But the way you’ve put it gives it a beautiful new spin: hope in the dark. And I do agree with you, because I can think of several times when Moonshadow elves acted as that hope when things got dark--and not just Lain and Ethari, either.

You said that the moon acts like a kind of mirror, reflecting the light (and life) of the sun even in the darkest places. Like she’s encouraging everyone to hold on, because the day is coming back again. In such darkness, even the smallest bits of light make a big difference. And I think that’s exactly what we get from the Moonshadow elves.

Tiadrin and Lain left their daughter behind because duty was so important to them. That’s noble, but also sad. Yet Tiadrin valued life so highly that she tricked Viren into sparing the egg, just on the odd chance that someone could rescue it later somehow. I bet she was betting on Runaan right then. Saving the egg was her light in the dark, and so was hope that her good friend might rescue it when she couldn’t. And he did try once he saw it, but neither of them could’ve predicted that Rayla would find it before they did.

Ethari did ghost his daughter while he was suffocating in his own grief. He couldn’t stand up to the whole village in that moment. That was a very dark time, for him and for who he might’ve turned into. But then Rayla came home, innocent of the crime spoken against her, and Ethari knew he’d been wrong. He broke through his own darkness and became the hope that she needed.

Lujanne straight-up told Callum that humans can’t do magic, while sitting in the seat of her own power. That was all she knew, even as an experienced mage, and though she was kind, she definitely had her people’s misinformation and prejudices against humans and dark magic. And yet, when Claudia and Soren came, and Rayla asked for her help to escape safely back toward Xadia, Lujanne used that special exclusive magic, and her own personal Moon Phoenix to help test the intentions of Claudia and Soren, and it helped them stay safe.

Even Runaan has some very bright spots in his dark story. He saved Rayla’s life once he realized he’d endangered it. That cost him dearly, but he paid it willingly. And despite all of his broody loner tendencies, he lets his extended family drag him out on his own birthday. He does special things for Rayla on her birthday. He definitely does something special for Ethari on his, too. He’s a stabby dark angel of death, and probably the darkest Moonshadow elf we’ll ever meet, But he knows what love is, and it makes him break the rules, just like Ethari did. He let Rayla live when the conventions of his profession demanded otherwise. We never got to see what kind of trouble that might’ve gotten him into. But I bet it wouldn’t have been a hit back home.

And don’t get me started on Rayla. She’s very grumpy and rule-oriented much of the time, but her soft heart can’t resist doing what’s right if it clashes with what’s expected. She learned that from all her parents, and she can’t help being their daughter at every turn, acting as she’s seen them all act, following the rules right up until her heart tells her otherwise.

See the pattern? All of these elves live in a society that’s strict and ordered with very clear rules. But they’re still people, still individuals with hearts and minds. And they keep finding little ways to be soft despite their hard world. They are the night, and the night is very black and white. But they all live for the light of the moon, and for its hope, its love, and its promise.

Moonshadow elves have a rough job. They guard the dark and the dead and all things scary and creepy. They are what’s in the dark. That fits well with why they’re not supposed to be afraid: they’re supposed to be the scary ones. 

In a way, I see Moonshadow elves as the recycling of Xadia. Part of a bigger cycle, like day and night, part of an endless cycle that will never stop. 

They deal with death and spirits. Usually people don’t like to think about those things. They’re unnerving. Just like we humans don’t really like to think about our garbage bins. But when you recycle, you take old gross dead things and you turn them into something new and useful again. 

When we trim shrubbery, it’s so that the plant can grow more healthy. When we separate our glass and metal and cardboard, it’s so we don’t pollute the planet and kill life unnecessarily. When something dies in the forest, the itty bitty creatures come out and take care of it, reusing all those nutrients, passing them on and turning them back into life and health. Even mushrooms and molds are recycling. You may not like their job. It may seem icky to you. But imagine a world where everything that died or was discarded just. Sat there. Stinking forever. Would that be better? No, it wouldn’t, eew. 

The recycling that happens in the natural processes of the world is mostly invisible to us. It happens on a very small scale, or underground, or in the dark. But it happens. It’s happening right now, all around us. Invisible, if you will. And from that slightly distasteful, invisible, endless process, we will get fresh leaves on our trees, new flowers, new generations of helpful insects and animals, and a lot fewer gross smells on the breeze. You’re welcome!

The moon is the hope in the dark. But that hope is borne out by the individual choices of the elves we know and love. When they choose to be soft, to be heroic, to be selfless or sacrificing, they’re acknowledging that they are part of a bigger whole, an entire ecosystem of elves and dragons and even humans, and they act for a cause bigger than themselves. No one has a better sense of their place in the bigger scheme of things than Moonshadows, I think.

I’m eager to see what Rayla’s arc will be like from here, because it’s looking more and more likely that she’ll literally arc away from her Moonshadow upbringing instead of cycling back to it. She is the hope in the dark of her people. Will she save them, will she step away from them, will anyone come with her? Will it go smoothly does ghosting count as smooth, or will there be trouble?

All good thoughts, @lily-lilou​, all good thoughts. Thank you for sharing your ideas!

[gooferdusted]

hypothetically, if I were to write a fix-it/rewrite au fic, (thinking of starting at s5 but debating starting earlier) what are some storylines you’d take out/change, characters you’d save/kill, and specifically changes to sam’s character/arcs you’d like bc i need ideas

ok. ok. I'm gonna try to not go completely off the fucking rails while I write this up but I gotchu (also these r all just my own hot n spicy takes so like. pick what u like, it's all goodie goodie)

• no time passing differently in hell. literally four months is ~Enough!~ a year is enougghh!!!!!! like I get that they wanted to make hell this horrible unreachable thing but u can still like... get that across without having it be this unfathomable chunk of time out of a persons life. like sam was down there with TWO very pissed off angel's for 180 years??? how can he still speak english??? how does dean remember ANYTHING about his old life when mentally more than half of it was spent being endlessly tortured until he finally cracked??? its just.... Too Much...

• ON that note, I feel like later on they never rlly had sam and dean bond over the fact that like... they are genuinely the ONLY two people on earth who have survived actual hell. I mean we got that one off line from dean at some point but??

• no chuck as god. just a greasy greasy rat man getting insane stories projected into his brain. and on the topic of that.... I dont like the reflection of the real life fanbase in the spn universe??? they're pulp fiction novels, it should be all like 50 year old + ladies who picked them up at the local bargain bin, not b*cky r*sen

• I like... WANNA say smth abt s4..... bc I think the way that they handled things were a little out of character BUT I also think that was lind of the point??? like the angels and demons were manipulating them to say/do things they would normally never say/do to eachother to drive a big enough wedge between then that they would eventually say yes to being the vessels. like it hurts to watch sooo much but it did drive the plot forward in a very particular way that probably couldnt have happened otherwise. that being said, when the levee breaks makes me sad, and I dont want to see sam crying for his dead mother alone in a basement! cest la vie.

• sam and dean.... are Friends...,, why did we all forget that..... watch hell house and maybe I'll calm down.....

• PSYCHIC SAM!!!!!! you all know me. you know how I feel about psychic sam... robbed. s4 finale rlly had sam like "drinking that much demon blood has truly changed me forever..... theres no going back now...... 😔😔" like ok. ok. where are your superpowers. where are they.

• I wish some of the other special children had made it out :(( I really liked andy and ava (also sam finding other friend who are like him??? queer allegory??? spare queer allegory?????)

• I also dont think the roadhouse shouldve burned down!!! that shouldve been a Staple Location like Bobby's house. same w Missouri's, literally why did we only visit her once.

• ur sending an ask to my blog so I assume this is just a given for u but!!! we're takin away the misogyny. we're takin away the fetishization! anything that would be given the greenlight by joss whedon we are putting straight in the trash. <3

• this is mostly a thing in later seasons like. idk 9-15, but no ppl knowing who the winchesters are. they are NOBODIES. they pop up like little meerkats and fuck everything up beyond repair.

• also no fancy tech. no iphone 76z or whatever the fuck. sam has an ipod 1. the wheel is so stuck he can barely press play anymore. remember when he literally just tore off the top casing off his laptop and threw it away? more of that.

• no nice clothes. NO nice clothes we fuckin hate that. everything sam and dean own was purchased pre 1995 and dean is an expert at removing blood stains and sewing up jackets. dean will walk into a laundromat with a tide pen and just start goin for it like that scene in deadpool.

• tbh.... I feel like the issues in later seasons are really this massive horrible domino effect. like I could say heres how to fix s7-10 but the fact is if shit hadnt gone down lile it had in s7 s10 would be a different story entirely.

• I am gonna do it tho bc I suck <3

• s6: soulless sam was funney but did that really go anywhere? no. tbh I dont remember what happened w cas and I'm just not going to look it up. it's just not in the cards for tonight. dean w lisa.... ehh.... I've discussed this at wayy too much length w mushroom and we both agreed that dean would probably keep hunting to keep his mind off things and to try and honor sams sacrifice. I guess theres an argument to be made for the fact that it kind of was Sam's dying wish that dean just go fin her and live a normal life but... idk. purgatory was. . indeed a Concept..... that could have maybe gone somewhere if it didnt rapidly spiral into....

• s7!!! I mean. jesus christ. I know some people like this one but jesus christ. the way they literally couldnt commit to having sam have genuine mental health problems after centuries in hell or to just magically wipe them away..... bobby dying halfway thru.... charlie was a bright spot I suppose, but her intro is not my fave episode w her.... idk what the fuck happened w cas, I guess he was god. the leviathan designs were kinda neat but like oh my fucking god it wasnt worth it.

• s8: uh. rough start. idk why the turn tables so suddenly and dean's like "why didnt u look for me >:((" bc??? yall agreed not to???? at the VERY least they couldve had sam been like "I legitimately had no reason to think u werent dead and in heaven and tha wouldve been a little rude of me to pull u out of that." but we went for ~drama~ to make it spicy I guess. ouygh. bunkers there!!! that was cool!!! MoL is a cool concept!!! altho... it doesn kinda contradict the whole sam and dean are nobodies thing... idk. trials of hell was like... cool in theory but bad in practice unless they were planning on ending the show for realskies. and they did not.

• s9: uhh... hated gadreel! hated that shit! wish they had spun that whole storyline to be more "hey sam I noticed u were s*icidal should we maybe address that??" or even like.... I mean dean probably couldve just TOLD sam abt his plan, he had already convinced him to stay alive by that point??? there was no reason to lie!!! plus the betrayal of gadreel not being who he said he was wouldve been like. literally enough drama, we didnt need to fracture the team again. and cas was??? where exactly??? be was human for at least half of that season but hey didnt know what to do w him so they chucked him in a convenience store??? good lord.

• s10: got no suggestions for that one, just toss it

• s11: ok... shes cute.... we can forgive her.... the lore is shaky at best but the episodes SLAP and the characterization is *chefs kiss*. it's been a hot minute since I've seen it so if smth sucked I dont remember and I plan to keep it that way!!!!

• s12: n.. no. no mary. no mary unless we're doing it right. and I promise u doing it right was not poorly ripping off kingsman. couldve brought back bobby!!! if they desperately wanted some drama couldve brought back john!!! actually fuck that, no way

• s13-15: no thoughts, only jack kline <3

[trulisthetic]

I had a bad day today. I did something stupid and got in an online argument with someone who told me that Jim and Pam were an unhealthy couple. I told her why I don't think that's the case without insulting her and got shot down anyway. What would you make of it?

This turned into a monster-post. Oops.

First and foremost, I’m really sorry that you had a bad day. My understanding is that that “someone” wasn’t very kind and respectful to you even though you were towards them. You know, the internet is such a wild place. Under the cover of online profiles we create for ourselves we sometimes act in ways we wouldn’t in real life. We forget that there is an actual person on the other end and not a heartless machine. And being on the receiving end of that... well, it sucks. I’m sorry you had to deal with that today.

I get that you feel like you did something stupid - because yes, online arguments don’t often get us anywhere, they only end up frustrating us, even hurting us sometimes. But trust me when I tell you this: If you were respectful and didn’t insult her, then you did absolutely nothing wrong. This wasn’t your fault. They’re the only ones accountable for their behavior. I get that you feel off right now, but really, all you can do from this point forward is; just keep swimming :P 

All that aside, not everyone is going to agree on everything at that is granted. And it is okay. That’s what makes the people that think like us and share our interests so special and beautiful in our eyes, you know? It’s okay if somebody on the internet doesn’t think Jim and Pam are a healthy couple. Maybe they trigger something for them - a reminder of a past relationship that didn’t end well. Or maybe there is no reason for it - this is just the way they view it. All of those are fine, everyone is entitled to an opinion. I would even be interested in hearing them out, because, honestly, I can’t think of how Jim and Pam’s relationship could possibly be considered unhealthy. But from what I understand - and correct me if I’m wrong! It’s just what I got from the way you phrased your question - the person you argued with didn’t really have many points themselves, they were just arguing for the sake of arguing, finding problems when there really weren’t any. And that’s what’s really problematic. When people go out and shout accusations of unhealthy and problematic and abusive relationships, all they do is make a fool out of the REAL problematic and abusive ones. And that’s the true tragedy in all this.

Now onto Jim and Pam themselves. It never even occurred to me that this would be an issue; their relationship being considered ‘unhealthy’.

Since day one, Jim and Pam have always ALWAYS brought out the best in one another. And I believe that anyone who argues on this point in particular has been watching a different show. I mean seriously, they were written this way. Their love was, to its core, written to be of the purest kind. They have a strong base as friends, which is the best foundation you can have in a relationship. And they’ve always been each other’s “person”, since the first season. The one they turn to every time they have a problem, like when Pam is frustrated with Roy, or when Jim dies of boredom. They’re partners in crime, their time together is full of the most awe-worthy combination of mischief and touching moments, and just... joy. Have you seen two people happier to just be with each other’s presence? Have you seen anyone’s eyes light up the way Jim’s does every time Pam “chooses him” when she’s “bored” or when she tells him he has “very nice teeth”? Have you seen on anybody else's face that wide smile (with the tongue peeking between the teeth) that Pam gets every time Jim takes a second too long to choose a jellybean flavor, or buys her a coke for a round of jinx? Those two bring the greatest amount of joy to each other, while doing the smaller, most insignificant things. The only thing that could possibly make them wrong would be if their relationship was toxic.

And Jim and Pam’s relationship is not toxic.

Let's look at some signs of a toxic relationship okay?

It feels bad. All the time. Well. I kinda just went through that. The only times it’s felt bad for them was when they were apart, in season 3 mostly, and then in season 9. And yes, they had marital problems. So, SO many couples do, if not every single one. They handled one situation poorly, and it backfired on them, and they drifted apart. And then they found their way back to each other. At this point, I want to quote one of my favorite pieces of writing, ever. I use it a lot, but it applies here so perfectly, so... @acutelesbian said: “A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life. Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.” A while later, she reblogged her own post and added: “I never expected this to be my most popular poem out of the hundreds I’ve written. I was extremely bitter and sad when I wrote this and I left out the most beautiful part of that class. After my teacher introduced us to this theory, she asked us, “is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?” We were all a bunch of teenagers. Naturally we said it was a feeling. She said that if we clung to that belief, we’d never have a lasting relationship of any sort. She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed. At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice. Everybody said that it was a choice. It was a conscious commitment. It was something you choose to make work every day with a person who has chosen the same thing. They all said that at one point in their marriage, the “feeling of love” had vanished or faded and they weren’t happy. They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation. The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to recreate something worth falling in love with. The divorced ones said they chose to walk away. Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way. I understood why arranged marriages were successful. I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments. I’ve never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin. I’ve chosen the people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding something to adore even on the ugliest days. I no longer fear the day someone who swore I was their universe can no longer see the stars in my eyes as long as they still choose to look until they find them again.” There it is. So. Jim and Pam had some issues during season 9. They didn’t communicate well, they made some poor choices, they didn’t handle the situation they were thrown in very gracefully. And yet they made a choice, the choice to stay and push and fight for their relationship. They went to therapy, together. They opened up, discussed their feelings, communicated, worked out a solution. They chose each other, even though at the time they weren’t each other’s favorite person. They went through a rough patch and came out of it together, stronger than ever. And HAPPY. If that’s not the epitome of a healthy relationship, then I don’t know what the fuck is. Having said all that, I think I also covered these signs of a toxic relationship:

You avoid saying what you need because there’s just no point. 

There’s no effort.

Nothing gets resolved.  So let's move on to the next ones.

You’re constantly braced for the ‘gotcha’. This is for when there’s a trap in every statement or question, and even though everyone makes mistakes, yours are used as proof that you’re too uninvested, too wrong, too stupid, too something. And this is seriously as far from Jim and Pam as humanly possible. They’re seriously the exact opposite of that, always lifting each other up and supporting one another through their mistakes. 

When ‘no’ is a dirty word. “I think I want a wedding-wedding.” “Cranford? No.” “I don’t know if I want this.” “I don’t think you should go to Philly tonight.”

The score card. Let me show you how wrong you are. Before they were together, they both had some “weak” moments, during which they didn’t exactly act fairly. Not once in all these years have we EVER seen one call the other out on their past mistakes. They’re not keeping score, they’re discussing them, dealing with them and moving on. There isn’t a more mature way to go about this.

There’s a battle – and you’re on your own. Again. In every chance they get, in any problem they face with third persons, they always stand by the other’s side and lift them up and support them. Just like when Pam was there for Jim when Ryan made his life hard in s4, or when Dwight terrorized him with the snow in s7. And just like when Jim made the list for Pam when Robert California set her aside, or when he demanded answers by her side from the dude who did call “a dork like that” back. Those two are a team, and not just when they’re planning ways to prank Dwight, or they’re sharing looks across the room over how ridiculous Michael is being.

Privacy? What privacy? Oh, I LOVE this one about them. How they get to be individuals and they are not defined by one another. They get their private time, private hobbies, and that’s such a healthy part of a relationship that so many just overlook. The only time that wasn’t the case was when they were using the world’s smallest Bluetooth - but it was so obvious that they were both craving it so much because they were missing each other, and they were both more than comfortable with it. Until that conversation with her classmate happened, which I’m sure signaled the end of that way of communication for them. But remember all those months they were apart? Remember how Jim TURNED BACK halfway to New York because “I’m not that guy. And we’re not that couple”? Remember how respectful they’ve always been of each other’s need for privacy?

The lies. Oh the lies! The only lie between the two (If you don’t count the “I can’t” of Casino Night and the “It was three years ago. I’m totally over it.” of The Secret) was when Jim didn’t tell Pam that he started a business in Philly. Which he told her an episode late, by himself. And it served as the perfect opportunity to show just how steady the foundations of their relationship are, and how much they trust and faith they have in one another and in their love. I’ll never forget how Pam reacted to realizing that Jim is keeping something from her. She didn’t call him out or corner him for answers, she simply waited for him to tell her when he’s ready. Then when the idea of an affair was thrown on the table, Pam shrugged it off, saying “Jim? No. He loves me too much”. And it’s not easy to say that theoretically, much along actually act on it. But when in season 8 Kathy hit on Jim while they were in that hotel, there’s a deleted scene of Jim and Pam on the phone, and Pam is actually joking about the whole thing. It’s impressive and miraculous just how deeply these two trust each other, and believe that they would never hurt the other like that.

Physical or verbal abuse. Or both. We’ve seen Pam being handled roughly by Roy, and then we’ve seen the way Jim treats her, like she’s the most precious butterfly. And HEAVEN HELP ME, the guy was too scared to look at her for too long in the beginning. He’s the most gentle and caring man I’ve seen, in words and actions alike. And the very same goes for Pam. The only time she’s spoken badly to him was when she said “Shut it” as she was storming off Michael’s office when she found out he was dating her mom and Jim knew. And she was clearly very upset and not acting like herself. But we can all agree that this is not a pattern of behavior, and that Jim and Pam have NEVER, EVER been abusive towards one another.

Not including the other in big decisions. This is the only one that’s kinda true. Jim decided to buy his parents’ house, then decided to start a business, then Pam decided to sell the house, all without including the other. Despite those, that was an issue that they were not blind towards, and Pam even brought it up in season 9, and it was one of the problems they worked through at couples therapy. And that’s exactly what a healthy and mature relationship looks like.

So there you have it. Those are the main signs of an unhealthy relationship. Wanna hear the definition of a healthy one?

A healthy relationship is when two people develop a connection based on: Mutual respect. Trust. Honesty. Support. Fairness/equality. Separate identities. Good communication. A sense of playfulness/fondness.

In a healthy relationship you:

Take care of yourself and have good self-esteem independent of your relationship

Maintain and respect each other’s individuality

Maintain relationships with friends and family

Have activities apart from one another

Are able to express yourselves to one another without fear of consequences

Are able to feel secure and comfortable

Allow and encourage other relationships

Take interest in one another’s activities

Do not worry about violence in the relationship

Resolve conflict fairly: Fighting is part of even healthy relationships, the difference is how the conflict is handled. Fighting fairly is an important skill you help you have healthier relationships

Have respect for sexual boundaries

Are honest about sexual activity if it is a sexual relationship

Accept influence. Relationships are give and take; allowing your partner to influence you is important; this can be especially difficult for some men.

Trust each other and be honest with each other

Have the option of privacy

Now, let us all think each and every one of those through. And let’s think about it twice before we accuse perfectly healthy relationships of being toxic.

That’s all I have to say. Sorry, this was so long, and thank you for staying to this point!

All I know is that, for me, Jim and Pam’s relationship - along with that of my parents’ - is the healthiest one my eyes have ever seen. And I feel so lucky to have discovered those two gems. 💜

[twdmusicboxmystery]

The Divine Comedy Theory, Part 1

All right, here’s my Divine Comedy theory that I’ve been working on the past few weeks. First, let’s remember that tptb said the golf club in Still represented the 9 circles of Hell. The 9 Circles of Hell come from Dante’s books, including Divine Comedy and The Inferno. So they’re obviously using those books as symbol templates.

But the point is, that much of it isn’t a theory. It’s fact. Tptb CONFIRMED this. It’s now just up to us to try and figure out the interpretation, HOW they’re using it. And that’s what I’m attempting to do here.

We also saw a sign reading, “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here” near Rick and Negan in S8. That is also a Dante thing. In the Divine Comedy (TDC) that sign is seen when one is entering hell. More on that later.

I decided to divide this into 2 parts because it’s very long. Today, I’ll summarize the Divine Comedy itself and talk about how seasons of TWD might correspond to the different circles of hell. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about Still and the “Abandon all Hope” sign. Here we go:

THE DIVINE COMEDY: A BREAKDOWN

The story starts on Good Friday and ends on Easter. Obviously, that's a good sign.

We start with Dante who is lost in the dark wood. Above him, the sun shines on a mountain peak and he attempts to climb it to get to where the sun is, but his path is blocked by a leopard, a lion, and a shewolf. (Yes, I'm side eyeing the she-wolf thing as well.)

Discouraged that he can't get to where the sun is, Dante returns to the dark wood. He sees the ghost of the poet Virgil, who says Dante's path must take him through Hell but Virgil will guide him and eventually he will reach his beloved, Beatrice. He also tells Dante that Beatrice, who is deceased, and two other holy women are the ones who sent Virgil to him. They knew of his plight and took pity on him. (I really think this is probably the tie to the three Marys.)

So, they head into Hell. This is where we get the sign, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." 

The first region that Dante enters is actually the anti-inferno. It's what you might call the antechamber or waiting room of hell. There are still people there, though. Those who couldn't commit to good or evil, fence-sitters who wouldn’t make a choice. They chase a blank banner while hornets bite them and worms lap up their blood.

To actually get to the gate of hell, Dante and Virgil have to go across the river. They do and then they reach the first circle of hell, which is called Limbo. Here, there are pagans. Those who never knew Christ.

The second circle is for those who committed the sin of lust. They swirl about in a terrible storm. The third circle is for the gluttonous. They lie in the mud and endure a rain of excrement.

The Fourth Circuit is for the avaricious and the prodigal. They charge at one another with giant boulders. I was a little confused by why the prodigal would be here. In the Bible, the prodigal isn't generally regarded as a crime or sin. But reading further, the prodigal son did waste the resources that his father gave him before returning to his father and asking for forgiveness. So, these are people who are wasteful in a really bad way. Apparently, they charge at one another around a semi-circle, smack into each other, turn around to go the other way, and repeat it all again.

In the fifth circle are the wrathful. The struggle with each other in the river Styx which is a swampy and fetid cesspool. The Sullen are also there, and they lie beneath the water, choking on the mud.

The sixth circle is for the heretics. The circle is populated by tombs which are surrounded by flames.

The seventh circle has three rings and houses the violent. The first ring is for people who are violent toward others. They spend eternity in a river of boiling blood. The second ring is for those violent toward themselves (suicides). This is kinda interesting. They endure eternity in the form of trees. (I don’t think TWD uses the trees as suicides, necessarily, but maybe more for people who inadvertently caused their own deaths through their actions. I was thinking about Deanna saying of Pete, “Let the trees have him.” Which suggests she’s consigning him to hell. Just a thought.) The third ring is for those violent toward God (blasphemers) violent toward nature (sodomites) and violent toward art (usurers).

The eighth circle is full of evil pockets of people. There are 10 pockets. I opted not to go through them all here because, at least for now, I don’t think they’re relevant. Just ten types of sinners such as flatterers, thieves, people who took bribes, etc.

Finally, the Ninth Circle. In order to reach it, they descend into a well that leads to a frozen lake. In the first ring are those who betrayed their kin and they are standing up to their necks in the frozen lake. The second ring holds those who betrayed their country, and they are standing up to their heads in a frozen lake. In the third ring are those who have betrayed their guests. They lie on their backs with only their faces sticking out of the water. The fourth week ring is for those who have betrayed their benefactors and they are completely submerged.

At the center of this ring is a shrouded, gigantic form which is Lucifer. He has three mouths that are chewing on three sinners: Judas Iscariot, Cassius and Brutus. Those who famously betrayed their masters.

Dante and Virgil climb down Satan's clothing to get to the very bottom of the 9th circle of hell. Interestingly, Dante is carried on Virgil's back. So, we have a serious piggyback going on here.

After they climb down Satan, they cross the river Lethe and emerge from hell on Easter morning before sunrise.

HOW IT MAY CORRESPOND TO TWD:

Okay, so that’s a very broad synopsis of TDC.

Let's talk about a few different ways we can possibly interpret this. First off, my very general theory is that (and we’ve said things similar to this before) that the post-apocalyptic world = hell and in a sense all our characters are Dante. Which means the walkers in this analogy represent the souls who are already in hell. Think of it this way. In the story, Dante is a living person that has to pass through hell. In fact, in many of the circles, the gate keepers and such try to keep him from passing because he’s still alive. But he always gets special permission to do so. So, it’s a “being alive among the dead” sort of theme. The dead, of course, being the walkers.

And the reason that’s important is because some of how we can interpret this is based on how walkers are portrayed throughout different seasons. Let me also say that this is a very loose interpretation and I’m by no means positive I’m interpreting this right. Some of this is hard to nail down.

So, I tried to make different seasons and arcs of the TWD story fit the different circles of hell. For example, I would say this analogy really starts in S4, because I think it's purposefully placed and wouldn't have begun heavily until Gimple took over. So, I think all of S4 was the anti-inferno or antechamber before they got to hell. In the same way that S4 foreshadowed many coming arcs, this was just a little bit beforehand.

Crossing into hell would be Beth and Daryl's separation. I was thinking that the first circle, Limbo, which is described as housing those who never knew Christ, might be Terminus. (Beth is the Christ figure and she never made it to Terminus.) The second circle is for those who lust and they walk about in a terrible storm. I thought of 5x10 and the storm they went through there. The third circle is for the gluttonous. This one stumped me a little bit. Its still rain and a storm, but it talked more about mud and people being blown around in the storm. So, it could be part of 5x10, but I also thought of the big storm they had in FTWD S5. I'm not sure about that one.

The fifth circle talks about people running at one another with huge boulders. I thought of the rock quarry in S6. 

Total side note: I was looking for a picture of the rock quarry to put in here, and I came across this pic below. Quint means 5, and then of course it actually says “Gate 5.” I’ve always thought this pointed back to S5, to show that Glenn’s death fake-out is a template of Beth. But this may also point to this being a symbolic representation of the 5th circle of hell. Just saying. ;D

Then there's the sixth circle. It talks about people struggling with each other in the river Styx and it swampy and fetid. The thing that came to mind here is the swamp walkers in S8. This was when Tara was still trying to kill Dwight and Daryl and co took all the kids away from Alexandria and to Hilltop. Remember, they made a big deal about swamp walkers? So I wondered if this could be in line with that in season eight. The walkers show what circle of hell therein.

Another tier of the sixth circle is tombs surrounded by flames. I think the thing that embodies that more than anything else we've seen would be the Whisperers. We saw the burning of Hilltop and the Whispers represent death anyway. I could see Alpha representing a heretic in various ways, not least because they pretend to be walkers when they’re not.

What I’ve said so far is what I discovered and got super excited about a few weeks ago when I first started doing this. Because it told me that by using this template, we might be able to get an idea of when Beth would return.

But you can probably see the first problem I ran into. If we’re only at the sixth circle, we still have three more circles before Beth returns, right? (Assuming that she returns at the end of this and Dante emerging from hell on Easter will signal Beth and Daryl reuniting.) But I don’t think it will be three more seasons or whatever until we see her. Truly.

So, I kinda got stumped because even reading through the seventh, eighth and ninth circles, nothing was jumping out at me that suggests we’ve seen the events corresponding to those circles, yet. I'm sure we could find some way to compare them to events in the story, but just nothing really obvious stood out.

But don't despair yet. I was originally a little unsure about this, but I started looking at the actual events of Still, it made me feel much better. I think I understand now why it's laid out this way.

So once again, come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about Still, and then about Rick, and maybe about the chess theory. Stay tuned!

[shirleycarlton]

The Lost Special: Family Matters (As Do Relationships) HAS BEEN COMPLETED!!

Click here to read this novel-length S4 fix-it fic!

Summary:

   Sherrinford is not really the name of some high security prison. That was just a figment of John’s frantic coma dream. And Eurus is not actually Sherlock’s sister. That’s just something random she said to John before shooting him. Sherlock and John were never actually estranged. That was just their act to cover up what really happened to Mary – or Rosamund Moran, as her real name has turned out to be. Sherlock does have a secret sibling, though, and his name is Sherrinford.

   After finally eliminating Moran – though in a rather dramatically different way than they had envisioned – and exposing the truth about Eurus, John encourages Sherlock to delve into his past and to find out whether the reasons to keep Sherrinford away from Sherlock were the right ones, and to discover what really happened in 1981. Along the way, Sherlock and John gradually, finally, stop keeping each other at a distance, and eventually become a proper family of their own.

[cover art by the wonderful @88thparallel​!]

Rating: Mature Chapters: 40/40 Words: ~145K Tags: S4 fix-it fic, nothing was as it seemed, unreliable narrator, John’s alibi theory, Sherlock and John were in cahoots against Mary the whole time, villain!Mary, TFP was John’s coma dream, John’s mind bungalow, Eurus is a liar, she’s not The Other One, there is an Other One though, Sherrinford, Redbeard, Redbeard was a dog after all, misunderstandings, alternating POVs, friends to lovers, missing scenes, happy ending

So this fic is 100% canon compliant, but with a twist. Things we saw on the show are now seen from a different perspective, which suddenly creates entirely different meanings of what really happened. (John never actually forgave Mary, but only pretended in order to get custody over his child, John and Sherlock acting estranged was just an act for covering up the fact that John really shot Mary, the hug scene was the version that John told his therapist, the cases Sherlock solves in Eurus’s murder maze are cases he’s actually solving while sitting at John’s hospital bed and waiting for him to wake up and which John incorporates into his coma dream, etc.)

With many thanks once again to @callie-ariane​ for her absolutely amazing and indispensable transcripts of the show and to my assiduous and invaluable betas @mama-orion​, @mydogwatson​ , @88thparallel​, @thelanding​ and @vampjon​​!

I also want to thank all of the people who I’ve asked for all sorts of advice during the past three years and who have given some of their free time to help me shape this story into the most realistic narrative I could: @deaflock, @ewebie, @julzann, @original-welovethebeekeeper, @quietlymischievous, @smirkdoctor, @myspecialhell, @fatto-il-misfatto, @johnlockismyreligion, @chained-to-the-mirror​ and Hannah.

#johnlock #s4fix-it #that fic based on fandom meta #alibi theory #nothing was as it seemed

[bellamygateoldblog]

THE 100 7X07 LIVEBLOG

Warning: Long. I’m sorry. I was excited.

• First thought, I'm being forced to watch without subtitles & and it might just be me but these actors are impossible to understand on the first listen.

• "The shepherd teaches us that winning the last war brings upon the final evolution of a species" so....aliens? ALIE? Ascending into a 'higher' form of existence meaning either life after death (ALIE style) or these people want to become Gods?

• They "believe in transcendence" so i must be on the right lines.

• Bardo have "different plans" for the two killers. Void!Echo might be cominggggg.

• "Death is life" / "may we meet again" / "death is not the end" — "winning the last war brings upon the final evolution of a species"???? I’ve connected the dots.

• I'm sorry but all this hyper-focus on Clarke and being "The Key to everything" is kinda embarassing me, like 😳 it's just so odd. That this alien cult from another part of the galaxy/universe is fixated on this random teenager born on a space station around Earth. I know, I know it's to do with Becca's tech, but it's still very much sounding like the "super important special protagonist" trope which I hate and until that detail about the code/tech is revealed it will continue to make me rme. LMAO.

• "Rise and shine errand boy" OK MA.

• Indra is out looking for their friends which confirms LGBT wrath squad literally told nobody they were leaving, and since Gaia was kidnapped, there's no news from them at all.

• Emori trying desperately to help Murphy stay out of hell. At first I thought she was reassuring him, but she was explaining why he needs to do these “errands,” because she believes in his ‘vision’ of hell last season.

• "besides [Murphy's] worshipped me for years."

• Memori is the inverse of Bellarke. There, I said it.

• "You don't know me very well-" / "i know you went into that tavern to save a child at great risk to yourself..." is the pretty much the exact same scene as Murphy's with Luna in s4: "you don't know me very well" / "I know you stole medicine to save [a child]..."

• Luna's spirit followed them across the galaxy/universe this season.

• I don't know anything about chess but the fear on Murphy's face when Slim Sheidy moved his Queen makes me think Emori is in danger this season for as long as he's still alive.

• Echo indirectly preaching "love is strength"

• "You don't talk about yourself much and you're a shapeshifter"

• Dude maybe Echo really is getting an arc this season.

• "Bellamy this isn't real" implies she's had to shut “this” down before, and that there's been something between them for a while. And Bellamy literally shut her up with a kiss, telling her and us that she’s being silly. Also, Echo was the one putting it off.

• Tall girlfriend short boyfriend rights!

• The shot of the ring becoming Echo's eye. Oh my GOD.

• "I know you're in pain Echo, I feel it" what a dumb fuck thing to say LMAO what gave it away?????? The way I'm crying right now in front of you??????

• "I'm the monster from Hope's bedtime stories"

• Octavia:

• WE'RE VOCALISING THE PARALLEL NOW HUH?!

• Octavia is telling EVERYONE else what we already knew. The parallel was NEVER to Finn. It was to Octavia. After Lincoln died. TELL EM.

• "I wish I hugged him instead"

• Octecho Murphamy parallel oh jesus.

• Octavia is like "no Murphy Echo! I'm not letting you go until you admit you're not useless! it's not your fault!"

• Octavia telling Echo love is the answer, love is what she needs, not death or violence. Love is strength. Here we go bitches.

• "YOU'RE MY FAMILY TOO"

• !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! “YOU’RE ONE OF THE HUNDRED”

• Am i actually right with all these Echo theories i’ve had? I’m feeling so validated.

• It’s a shame none of these scenes will be edited and made into gifsets by fandom the way other Clarke/bellarke/anti-Echo-centred ones have been them with their none-existent Finn ‘parallel’ lmaooooo, because nobody cares for Echo and Octavia.

• Everyone is yelling for Echo. I feel that.

• Diyoza is checking her nails. I feel that too.

• "THAT'S DISHES YOUNG LADY" ajaksjajsjskasjsjdkskdjdj

• I'm so sad we're back in Sanctum😔😔😔

• Emori is fr pregnant.

• Are we really doing a sexism thing, here with Shiedheda and Murphy? I thought those things didn't exist anymore?🤔

• "how you respond to the loss of your Queen will tell me which you are (a leader or a follower)" — I'm going to be unhappy if Emori dies just so Murphy can become a "leader" by the end. Don’t. Especially not after this conversation about “not liking women very much.”

• Well there goes that theory of Hope favouring Murphy from the stories because she was told he was similar to her father. Sigh.

• "I like you John, you amuse me" is a pretty good way of summarising how his character has been used this season.

• "Everyone I ever loved was killed fighting in wars. Some that didn't need to be fought"

• "I LIKE OUR CHANCES" callback.

• Men who?

• "Violence and rage will only destroy your soul"

• “Revenge is a game with no winners” motherly advice vs “They loved people too. Where does it end?” / “it doesn’t end here. I don’t believe in karma” motherly advice.

• These quotes are making me nervous about void!Echo. I hope she gets brought back from the dark eventually. Or makes the dark her bitch.

• This Diyoza-Hope scene looks paralleled to the Octecho one! Thus Echo also wants to "go back to the way things were."

• "They took my mommy away" — Like ‘they’ took Octavia's and Echo's. Two other warrior women in the same group. Clarke dealt with the loss of hers. Madi with the loss of hers. There’s Gaia and Indra’s strained relationship. Emori + being cast out by her parents. The child sacrifices. Murphy + Sheidheda’s mother throwing him in the conclave meaning he doesn’t like women. Is this season about mommy issues?

• A little confused why he’s talking about Lexa as if she directly stole his legacy. Wasn’t he in power when Indra was a child?

• Octavia is laying there staring at a blank book.

• I'm dying at Octavia monologing, completely oblivious to Echo cutting her face with broken glass behind her. LMAO. She's become so accustomed to Echo's whimpering she's not even phased anymore.

• Dying again at Echo out of nowhere just going DO YOU KNOW WHY AZGEDA WARRIORS SCAR THEIR OWN FACES?

• Octavia, again:

• "We do it to symbolize that the pain is over. The wound is healed."

• That's such a good explanation. And here begins Echo's healing journey. As her wounds heal over the next few episodes so will she. And by the end her scars will symbolise that journey.

• Here Echo goes again being the smartest person in the room, always. "We're not prisoners, we're recruits."

• Tasya is making me super uncomfortable with the jittery, eery way Echo is moving around. I love it.

• The way Echo casually saunters out of the fucking room with not a single care in the world oh she knowsssss. AJDKSHFJSF

• Echo leading again!!! Making the decisions. Octavia following after her (literally) and backing her.

• "This is how my people show they're ready to go to war" — making everyone extremely uncomfortable and I love that for her. Also, "my people."

• Embracing her Azgeda-ness.

• Octavia understanding and jumping in to aid Echo's plan combined with the close-up of Echo's determined abliet slightly unhinged expression makes me believe Echo is leaning into her "spy" along with her Azgeda and going undercover, making them believe she's on their side when she's not. But there's still a part of me thinking Echo is spiraling and is going to war out of habit and because she feels she has nowhere else to go/ "no home." Aka, the detail to finish off the S7 O/E parallels: "this is who I am" / "I'm here for the war."

• Furthermore, her scarring herself could be a callback to Octavia telling Ilian to help her feel something.

• I love this season a lot.

• Back in Sanctum again😒

• How does a chess game take all fucking DAY?

• OH 🙂 That's how.

• Yeah it makes absolutely no sense Raven would ask about Octavia before Echo.

• Raven looking at Clarke when finding out Bellamy's dead as if she isn't the only one there who's his actual family, who spent 6 entire years with him + more. Raven Clarke-Prop Reyes strikes again.

• Clarke's like *sad confusion*

• The scene of Clarke finding out about Bellamy's death didn't feel so much about her as it did "well what does this mean for them now?"

• "From the ashes we will rise" becomes "from the ashes, through the bridge, the shepherd will rise" Gotta say, not as catchy.

• "please call me Bill" - No. No Bill. Only Cadogan.

• We're going back to Earth this season aren't we?

[jesslivesau]

jess au @iloveeverythingwaytoomuch

pre show jess: doesn't know anything except that sam told her some fucked up shit and she didn't really believe him much like amelia didn't believe jimmy but what's clear to her is that sam's upbringing was deeply fucked up in what might've been some kind of apocalypse doomsday cult and she can say "sam, it wasn't real" as much as she can til she's blue in the face but it isn't going to change the fact that sam is Deeply Fucked Up by Shit. and it upsets her and confuses her but he does a good job of setting it aside or knowing when to give in and he's such a sweet and Loving Dude otherwise so she just files it away in her bf trauma bank and keeps cheering him on

s1 jess: your bf's CRAZY brother shows up says he needs help finding your bf's CRAZY dad who may or may not have been part of a doomsday cult and you say, bitch i watched the heaven's gate documentary there is NO WAY i'm letting you leave with him, but he's not gonna Stay cuz he insists it's just for one night (and his brother DOES seem relatively stable, like, as a person), so jess insists she'll go too. while she's in the back seat sam tells dean he told her everything dean's like lol. sure. you believe in ghosts, sweetheart? and jess is like no but i do believe that i'll kick your ass if we don't get home in time for sam's interview tomorrow morning. and then the whole white woman thing happens and she's like oh fuck it's REAL but they DO GO HOME and instead of jess dying on the ceiling there's like idk ghost mary on the ceiling or some shit and they NARROWLY escape the fire together andddd idk they can't go back to stanford cuz it's not safe and their apartment complex literally went up in flames. there’s a more complex reason here but idk what it is. maybe it was brady (demon brady) who died or something IDK LISTEN ITS JUST AN AU

anyway all of season 1 when they’re trying to track down john jess is the voice of reason asking why do they need john in the first place? And eventually sam is like listen we don’t need HIM but if he’s got research on where yellow eyes is, that’s what we need. and dean is mad about that and he’s mad at jess and they bicker like crazy. and sam sleeps on the floor because dean is like dude cmon. don’t make me sleep in the same room as you and your gf together. maybe meg gets replaced by meg possessing jess, and she doesn’t get thrown out the window so when they exorcise her she just needs a hospital and then she’ll be ok. and that would explain why she’s in the hospital and not there for the finale, but can meet up with sam & john & dean in the hospital after

s2 jess: sam is so consumed by grief and fear that jess is actually the first one to notice that dean’s spirit might still be still Around. i’m imagining a scene where sam is asleep next to dean’s bed and jess is awake, and she slowly looks around towards dean and you see ghost!dean Connecting with her for the first time

obviously, all the grief episodes keep happening. maybe jess got seriously hurt as well tbh so she goes back to her parents house to recover; there’s an episode where the boys go meet her parents and dean and sam’s Daddy Issues come out in full force. eventually jess is back and kicking ass and slowly getting along more with dean, partially perhaps because of dean’s Grief Response to john’s death, which is that all the anger and hate comes bubbling up, and jess is like i don’t fucking know this dude, but from what sam’s told me, i hate him, which is not something that sam is in a position to Deal With right now. things proceed pretty much along the course

i am considering now if jess could also be a special child. she also has some kind of psychic abilities but i’d have to choose something cool for her. anyway if she IS then that gets her in the town with sam in all hell breaks loose which i think is the best place for her during that arc? i know all the other special children supposedly had to die but maybe her psychic power was to go inviisble or something lmfao i don’t fucking know. anyway dean has his sad monologue but jess either (a) fully shuts down or (b) just goes STRAIGHT to hunt down whatever the fuck his name is. jake? leverage man? that would be dope actually. and then actually dean, sam, bobby, and ellen actually meet her at the hell’s gate

s3 jess: truly does not understand why they’re hunting. gets into arguments with the boys all the time about how this is pointless, if you’re not gonna try and save yourself then why can’t you just put it down and let yourself have this year?? and dean’s a little bit like you know what jessica that makes a lot of damn sense. but it makes sam mad and they argue a lot about it and jess probably takes off halfway through the season. maybe after malleus maleficarum? partly cuz that’s the ep where ruby more or less becomes part of the team and also when she confirms that she can’t save dean from hell. and i just feel like jess would be like i cannot.... Sit Here.... and watch you both drive yourself into the ground. dean, if you’re gonna die, sam’s coming after you. you knew that. you just didn’t want him to go first.

maybe dean hits her lmfao and sam screams at him for it and jess just Walks Away, tearfully

s4 jess: so jess bailed midway through s3, but when dean wakes up and starts making calls in that phonebooth, he calls bobby and bobby hangs up, so he calls jess. and she comes and gets him.

jess and sam are obviously not together anymore, but jess is totally civil with sam and even with ruby. she’s like we can work together, it’s fine, whatever. and this is the season where dean and jess really bond and become a good Team. and cas is just usually confused why jess is Around but eventually gets used to her. i’ve toyed with jess being jewish which would lend a good and also funny perspective to all the heaven and hell stuff

jess heard about hell first from dean, but not the specifics of the stuff that dean told sam, not until after on the head of a pin. she’s their Lore Expert on seals and is trying to identify as many of them as possible so they can put in place safeguards, and maybe that bumps her up against angel priorities for an episode. maybe we get an episode where cas has to Threaten her 00 and he can say something like sam and dean are important..... you are not. remember that. and then [flappy wings vanish]

uhhhh jess’s siren in the siren episode....... is just like a carbon copy of sam lmfao. which is extremely funny and sam and jess will both kind of awkwardly clear their throats and not address that. i guess jess is just fucking stuck with bobby during the finale because the point of her presence is that she’s so USELESS to both demons and angels

s5 jess:  i’d probably add in an early episode where her parents are killed, probably by demons because the demons know they can’t touch the winchesters due to angel shit but they can fuck up jess as much as they want. then when sam and dean temporarily split up jess would go with dean cuz she’s a hunter now and has nowhere else to go and it doesn’t feel right to just sit around with sam. or maybe she also leaves and splits up and doesn’t stick with dean cuz she’s processing her own traumatic shit. at any rate, early in the season there’s a moment where sam is Gone and dean and jess are drinking together and talking about their feelings and they have a moment where they gaze at each other in the eyes and almost lean towards each other.... then jess goes you know what? this is fucking weird and dean is like oh thank god you said that absolutely this is too weird

in The End, it’s revealed that jess was killed and no one will tell dean more information or talk about her until he finds out that she was pregnant when she was killed (presumably with sammifer’s baby)

in changing channels they get put into a telenovela and sam and jess have an tearful emotionally charged confession scene in spanish. this is about when sam and jess finally get back together [cue cheering]

in the chuck eps it’s revealed chuck rewrote it so that jess died on the ceiling in the first book cuz he was like “i just didn’t think it made sense for her to be alive! it was literary symmetry that’s all!”

in sam, interrupted when sam is all high on meds that’s when he says lots of kooky sweet shit to jess about wanting to MARRY her and have a FAMILY together and it’s sweet and also dean throws up in his mouth a little bit having to hear it

in my bloody valentine the thing that jess is hungry for is Family but i do not know the logistics of how

in dark side of the moon jess does die with the boys but it takes a while to find her, tho they eventually do in one of sam’s favorite memories (probably from the first time they met or something). she’s like what the fuck i’m jewish

no, i have no clue how she factors into swan song. she just does, ok. lucifer can snap her neck along with bobby’s

s6 jess: she tried to check in with dean occasionally at the braedens, and actually had dinner with them once but started checking in less and less as the year went on, and it turns out she knew that sam was back and she’d been hunting with him + the campbells and a couple things

when dean finds out he is truly FURIOUS, but jess is like dean i saw you with lisa and ben! i saw you getting better! i saw you happy, i saw you ok, and hell i’ve only known you since you showed up in palo alto five years ago but it was the most at peace i’ve ever seen you, and i couldn’t take that away from you, and neither could sam.

she’s also like yes, dean, he’s different, he’s colder, it makes me sad but who was the one who put up with YOU when you were spiralling after your dad’s death? or when you were all buttoned up after you came back from hell? he did! so show him a god damn OUNCE of empathy, would you!

and when they find out he’s soulless jess is like. hm. and dean is like i TOLD you there was something wrong with him!!! and jess is like i mean.... yeah....... and maybe i didn’t really want to admit it... cuz.... the sex was So good.........

[soulless sam winks at her]

anyway, s6 happens the way it happens and that’s fine

s7: the only important thing that happens in s7 is that Season Seven, It’s Time For a Wedding! is actually about some sort of monster and the only way to kill it is to cast a spell but the spell must be cast by “two warriors joined before god” which means married and cas is awkward about it cuz he doesn’t want to Presume Anything 

and the whole episode is lots of sam and jess being like “i mean, of course, if you want to..... .like, but if you DON’T, that’s also totally fine, of course.... you know.... whatever you’re comfortable with” until finally they’re in the final battle and cas has to marry them the way barbossa does for will and elizabeth in potc and when dean is pinned against the wall by the monster he goes “DAMMIT JESS WILL YOU KISS MY BROTHER ALREADY” and then sam dips jess in a kiss and the monster is instantly obliterated [heart eyes]

i truly genuinely do not remember anything that happens in s7. anyway jess and sam are married now

s8: sam was with jess the whole year dean was in purgatory. they were struggling to get back to normal life after everything. dean is still fucking mad that sam didn’t go looking for him. i assume everything else goes pretty much according to whatever the fuck happened in s8 except jess at one point has to go to bat for benny cuz sam for some reason hates him so much

i’ve been toying with the idea of jess doing the trials not sam but i mean how can i take that away from my Boy

s9: i do not know anything that happened in this season ):

s10: see above

s11: see above

s12: now i never watched s12, but in this au there is no lucifer’s son jack. instead jess gets pregnant midway through the season; cas finds out first because he can sense it and he’s like why does it feel like there’s an extra being in the bunker, and then he spills to dean cuz he can’t keep a secret, and then dean is like “oh shit what are you gonna do” and jess is like well!!!! sam and i.... talked about this. we were.....open to the possibility. and dean is like wtf how could u possibly bring a child into this world that’s fucked up adn cas is like [wipes tear] that’s beautiful

anyway when they come back from some kind of hunt (probably something that involved claire) and sam and jess are in the bunker, sam goes “jess, seeing claire, seeing jody and the girls.... it makes me think.... i wanna have a family with you” and jess hugs him and then cas walks into the bunker with dean and is like “oh, have you told him about the baby?” and everyone SCREAMS at him

and cas uses his annual miracle allowance to just reverse time about 30 seconds so when he enters the bunker he just goes “i have nothing to say” and Fucking Leaves

the baby is born in the back of the impala in the s12 finale, on the way to the hospital. dean is devastated. he’ll have to reupholster the WHOLE THING. sam accidentally names the baby john but they don’t want to tell dean that so they decide to call him jack.

s13-15 gets to be mostly about how cute it is to have a wittle baby in the bunker. cas is the best babysitter because he loves babies and is very powerful so he can protect him. the occultum nonsense in s15 can be about finding a Safe Place for baby jack, no matter what happens to the rest of the world. sam tells jess, you go with him, you’ll be safe there. dean tells sam, you go with them, you’ll be safe there. all of that good good cute family stuff. was it the best idea to have a baby in the middle of constant apocalypses? maybe not, but like, they are ALWAYS in constant apocalypses, so at some point you just have to bite the bullet

anyway. please clap

[phoebehalliwell]

I loved your cataloguing all of prue’s potential kids!! Like the detail that went into it is *chef kiss* I can’t wait to see what story you come with with Sheridan and Warren! Also, that post got me thinking, what do you think would have happened had Andy become a whitelighter and come back? How do you think that would have effected his and Prue’s hypothetical kids? Like would one of them been the twice-blessed do you think?

it’s 2.2k under the cut bc idk how to shut up

okay so for a whitelighter!andy & prue i think The Move would be like in the s3 finale the source has tempus reverse time but then like idk knocks out leo or whatever because he knows that without him there both prue and piper will die from their injuries what he doesn’t know is that there’s a certain other whitelighter who will watch from the fringes check in but not interfere for risk of being caught going against the rules but when he sees piper and prue inches from death and no way leo can get to them in time, andy has to make a choice. he has to heal them. oh but now we have the elders all pissy because whitelighters are only supposed to work with their own charges their not supposed to run around freelance healing other people’s charges that’d be chaos so clearly there needs to be some consequences and andy’s ready to like gracefully take whatever’s dealt out to him and prue’s like I Think The Fuck Not and like goes to bat for andy talking about how she would have been dead without him how the charmed ones would be gone without him really rains hell down on the elders so they’re like ᵒᵏᵃʸ ᶠᶦⁿᵉ ʷʰᵃᵗᵉᵛᵉʳ ʷᵉ ʷᵒⁿ’ᵗ ᵖᵘⁿᶦˢʰ ʰᶦᵐ ᶦᵍ ʸᵒᵘ ᵈᵒⁿ’ᵗ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵇᵉ ˢᵒ ʳᵘᵈᵉ blah blah blah so prue and andy talk in the heavens and it’s sorta awkward at first bc prue’s like so. you’re not dead. that’s good. bc you know. you’re not dead. and andy’s like yeah. but like he’s reading the subtext here bc he Knows prue and she’s saying i’m so happy your alive but i’m really hurt that you never told me. that i mourned you and thought you were gone forever but you weren’t you were right there. and andy’s not entirely sure what to say bc like. what was he supposed to do. and he understands how prue feels but he couldn’t have just orbed in like hi i’m a whitelighter and you’ll never see me again it was better for prue to mourn and move on so she that had a shot at happiness but now he’s face to face with her and what i thought it would be better for you? it sounds hollow so instead of trying to explain himself he just says the first thing that comes to mind i never stopped loving you and he’s ready to orb back into the ether or whatever bc while the elders won’t punish him for saving prue & piper they’re still not jazzed and he’s still not allowed to interact with them when prue kisses him and tell him like i lost you once i’m not about to do it again marry me. and like they’re married within the hour bc by now the charmed ones have done this before they can do it on a speed round mode and the elders are like hey we said- and prue’s like sorry i can’t hear you over the sound of holy matrimony suck my balls blah blah blah like end season 3 i’m not sure when prue would have her first child though and if it would predate wyatt bc like. y’know her career’s still very much in its early stages she’s still on the up & up and her and andy haven’t actually like been together in a minute so there’s a lot of catching up to do whereas like piper and leo have consecutively been together longer she’s owned p3 longer than prue’s been a photographer so she’s already p locked in on that & she can do her job sitting down which is a plus. so i think in a whitelighter andy au wyatt will still be born first but patricia will be born within the same year, maybe six months after wyatt and i don’t think wyatt would really be like the twiced blessed bc like patricia would be Right There and he’s just no longer special enough to really warrant a prophecy y’know? i also think in this au it would take longer for prue and andy to move out bc y’know like again they just got andy back but i think she would still be out of the house by the end of season four beginning of season five ish i also think like the thing they really didn’t consider is that their kid’s gonna be half whitelighter so when piper’s like yeah have you vomited orbs yet lmao prue’s like wait. especially bc like andy’s only been a whitelighter for like a year or two and they’re both like oh word what does this mean and like they have leo and sorta piper to answer their questions but it’s sorta like they’ve got this vibe that no matter what happens like we’re in this together we have each other’s back we can do anything real power couple vibe they’re very like sappy like they’re aware they’re sappy & they’re not gonna stop.

& then a bit on sheridan & warren bc in the specific au i’m gonna write them in it still starts the same as it did here but i am keeping prue’s canon death in s3. and so like s4 the twins are still toddlers and i think piper and phoebe would still offer to watch them on like weekdays or whatever bc they still have a bedroom in the manor and jack still sorta lives in a bachelor pad and like the kids do have magic powers and jack definitely is there more and shows up more bc those are his kids and one day he shows up and there’s a demon attack and he like knew prue fought demons but he had never y’know. been in the line of fire so to speak and he’s like does this happen a lot and piper’s like yeah sort of and phoebe’s like there’s no need to worry warren and sheridan are totally safe here and jack’s like really because the scorched wallpaper begs to differ and piper’s like we understand your panic but like we can keep them safe and jack’s like no i don’t think you understand my panic those are my sons they’re my only kids and they’ve already lost prue i’m not. i’m taking them with me. and like the girls get where he’s coming from (paige is also here she just doesn’t really know jack so she’s hanging out with leo in the kitchen like 😐) basically they bind warren & sheridan’s powers and phoebe modifies the dominus trinus (now the dominus dualis ig) and tells jack that when they’re ready this will give them their magic back. and so like he moves them into his place but it’s not built for kids and so he’s on the hunt for a new place but also like a new jobs bc like bucklands blows without prue and almost everything there reminds him of her and he really just needs a fresh start so when he gets a job offer in japan he packs his bags & the three of them are off and then it’s like maybe four years in japan and then we’ll say he goes to new york and that lasts maybe two years and now warren and sheridan are like in elementary school and he knows the hopping from place to place isn’t like good for them and he really needs to settle down for a place that’s gonna be like Home and he knows he has to return to san francisco. so 2007 he’s back in san francisco he does not cross paths with the halliwells again and he sorta feels like he should bc like sheridan & warren Are Witches that’s like part of who they are and like he and prue had agreed before that they would raise them with magic because prue wishes she had known she was a witch she had always thought that had she had come earlier to the craft she could have done more good maybe not lost as many people and jack knows he has to unbind their magic eventually especially bc that was what prue wanted and like prue was always right but like. fuck dude. his kids were wizards. witches, whatever. like how is he supposed to raise kids with magic. like should he just go back to the manor and be like hi raise my magic kids for me he doesn’t want to do that those are his kids he doesn’t want to dump them off somewhere much less the place where their mom died so basically he keeps postponing it he keeps blowing it off and the kids are growing up normal & safe but still it’s gnawing at him bc it’s not what prue wanted and he doesn’t want to send them into the world unprepared and like sheridan & warren are like sixteen now and he’s like fuck. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. what am i doing what am i gonna do i don’t know a goddamn thing so he’s like fuck it. hi god it’s me jack. i don’t believe in you and i don’t really believe in praying but here i am on my knees bc i’m lost. i think i’ve fucked up but i don’t know how to make it better, i want to do the right thing but i don’t even know what that is, would love some like. guidance. or something. i guess. and he like waits because like magic is real so like. hey god. do something please. and nothing happens and he’s like whatever this is why i never went to church blah blah blah That Night he dreams he’s at p3, which is weird because it’s been closed for like eight years and jack hasn’t thought about it in like twice that long but that’s where he is. and it’s like empty and a bit messy like there’s been a concert but now it’s late and everyone’s gone home. everyone except him, and the raven haired woman at the bar. prue. and listen jack doesn’t cry okay he doesn’t saw marley and me and like didn’t even sniffle (lie, he cried) but he sees prue and well uhh he’s crying a lil bc like fuck. he misses her. and he misses her confidence and the way she always seemed to have the right answer and could always manage to save the day and he misses her. and he’s like i hope you’re here to answer my prayers and she smiles at him bc he’s always so glib and stupid and it drives her up the wall but she still loves it about him and she’s like actually, i am. and idk she talks with him and quells his fears and he’s like how do i even bring that up to them he guys you’re wizards -witches. yeah that. like how do i even broach that. and prue’s like get the spell. and be ready. and she just sorta vanishes and he’s like cool are you gonna save the day like you always do but he can already feel she just isn’t there anymore and he’s like okay :/ and he wakes up and it’s like three am and he wants to go back to bed the whole magic thing is just niggling at the back of his mind so he gets out of bed and hunts down his old briefcase he had from all the way back at bucklands and finds just like a blank unlabelled folder and takes a deep breath and in it are some old photos of prue and him from the 90s and a thick folded up piece of paper with a torn edge and he carefully unfolds it and in like a really nice script is the unbinding spell and then like warren and sheridan are like dad? why are you awake right now and he’s like why are you awake right now? and they twins sorta share a look and warren’s like weird dream and sheridan’s looking over his dad’s shoulder and sees the pictures of prue and is like is this mom? and he takes the pictures and jack’s like yeah those are from. they’re from a long time ago. and sheridan and warren are looking at these pictures and like they wanna ask something but aren’t sure how to say it so jack goes first and he’s like your mom wanted you to have this and hands them the spell and they’re like what. is this? and he’s like its a spell. to unbind your powers. magic powers. i know i should have told you earlier and i’m sorry but i- are ghost real? what? like. can dead people... y’know... and jack breaks into a smile bc he’s so glad that they actually got to like. meet prue. have at least one memory of her. and so sheridan and warren take the spell and are like. so do we read it? and jack’s like idk i’m not a witch yeah i guess so y’know  hear now the words of the witches, the secrets we hid in the night. the oldest of gods are invoked here. the great work of magic is sought. in this night and in this hour, i call upon the ancient power. bring your powers to we brothers two, we want the power, give us the power. and like the apartment shakes and idk the lights flicker and the brothers are like cool. now what. and jack’s like i don’t know. guess we’ll find out.

[s3r-en-d1p-ity]

Ego // Sweet Pea (part 1)

first imagine for sweets <33333 did this in honor of Riverdale s4 coming out ehehehehe also this is from the pov of sCaRLEtT bc I really like that name eheheh

As a serpent, she had an ego just like all of the other members. When Scarlett Calahan’s dad died the day she turned 13, FP was quick to follow James Callahan’s (known as JC) orders and she became a serpent.

Only, Joaquin, FP and Jughead were the only ones who knew that her dad died. FP told all the Serpents that he was diagnosed with alzheimer and that he should be left alone.

Scarlett had an amazing group of friends, until that fateful day. Her, Fangs, Sweet Pea, Joaquin, and Toni were that group of friends that everyone wished they had. When JC died, she moved to the Northside, enrolled in Riverdale High for freshman year, and abandoned her group of friends. She was taken under the wing by Fred Andrews, per se FP’s request. Because her and Archie were the same age, they got along quite nicely. Archie wasn’t bothered that she came off as rude sometimes, or that she had a massive ego and was quite the pessimist. He was, however, bothered by the fact that she was a Serpent.

“I just don't understand,” Archie had shrugged one day, sitting on his bed doing homework while Scarlett sat across from him, staring at that stupid football poster on his wall. “How could you be apart of a gang that’s so... violent?” He had said it like he was disgusted. And he was. Disgusted that a girl he was so in love with was in a gang, full of drugs, murders, and thieves.

“Dad’s request, Arch. I don’t mind, though. It makes me feel like I’m in control of something.”

She continued to show up to Serpent meetings and sometimes special occasions, if necessary. She fit in nicely in the corner, observing. On rare occasions, Tall Boy noticed her and gave her a smile.

Of course, even after she moved to the Northside, Joaquin was always in contact with her. On Fridays, when he wasn’t at the Wyrm, he’d climb up to her window and she’d tell him about her week. Sometimes during meetings he’d slip in the back with her.

At school, she didn’t have very many friends. Archie and Jughead, of course, but they all usually stayed clear of each other during school. Betty was very much creeped out by Scarlett, so that meant Kevin was too even though he was dating her best friend.

By the middle of sophomore year, everyone had found out that Scarlett was a serpent. She didn’t bother to hide her serpent jacket, and wore it to school. Josie started talking to her more, probably to use her as a charity case.

Cheryl, who was okay with her before, began the shaming as soon as she found out. All Scarlett could do was clench her fists and squeeze her eyes shut to avoid a fight, but one too many times that didn’t work.

One by one, everything crashed. She was accused of Jason Blossom’s death, found out her best friend and FP were partly responsible for Jason’s death, found out Mustang was found dead in a bathtub, and Joaquin had to wish her a tearful goodbye before he left town for good. Fred was shot, she spent days in the hospital, and the Black Hood was born.

“So, a little birdie told me today was your first day at Southside High? How’d that go?” Scarlett asked, finding Jughead typing on his computer at Pop’s.

Jughead looked up, smiling at Scarlett. “It was... interesting. Place is a shit show, I feel bad for all of them.” Jughead shrugged. Scarlett laughed softly, not expecting anything more from the Southside.

“Yeah? How was lunch? No Ghoulies messed with you, right?” Scarlett piled on the questions, narrowing her eyes. Jughead snorted, shaking his head.

“Sat alone. This girl named... Toni Topaz? You probably know her. Anyways, she showed me around and invited me to sit with her and the serpents since my dad’s one. I said no, and blah blah blah. Day went on and I met uh... some very interesting people.” Jughead explained.

“Yeah?” She raised her eyebrows. “Yeah. I know Toni. Who’d you meet?” Toni had since brushed her off after she left the Southside. She remembers one time, just a few months after she cut them off, she was walking back to the trailer park to talk to FP, and Toni slammed her against the wall and slapped her.

“You think you’re so cool, ditching us for Northsiders huh? Were we really that bad? Stupid bitch, you may be a serpent by tattoo now but you’ll never be a serpent by heart.”

“This one guy, he asked me about you. His name’s Fangs I think? He seemed like he genuinely cared. Then, Toni cut him off before I could say anything and told him to shut up. This other guy, Sweet Pea rolled his eyes. Sweet Pea’s a real jerk, got mad at me because I wouldn’t hang out with them after school.” Jughead said.

Her heart jumped at the mention of Sweet Pea. She’d always had a huge crush on him when they were younger, and even now sometimes she found it hard to get him off her mind. She hadn’t talked to him or seen him since before she left unexpectedly. On another note, The fact that Fangs asked about her too surprised her.

Her phone dinged, and she picked it up only to find Fred messaging her that Archie was going to be with friends tonight and that he was almost done making dinner if she wanted some.

“Hey, Jug, I gotta go. But... will you do me a favor?” She asked, sliding her phone in to her pocket. Jughead hummed in response, looking up at her. “Tomorrow, you know, if Sweet Pea gets his head out of his ass, would you ask him about me?”

Jughead furrowed his eyebrows, but nodded nonetheless. I waved goodbye to him and then left, hopping on my motorcycle and going home, thoughts of Sweet Pea in my head.

Not but a few days later, Archie’s video of the Red Circle spread around and the red dot painted on white t-shirts everywhere began to make her feel sick. She had voiced her opinion to Archie, who completely brushed it off. The first red Circle meeting was held at their house, where Scarlett stayed in the kitchen and did her homework, since she had nothing better to do. She also just wanted to eavesdrop on them.

Then, there were people at the door. Veronica walked in to the kitchen, breaking Scarlett from her trance. “Um, Scarlett? Your... buddies are here. And I think they want to cause trouble.”

Cause trouble my ass, Scarlett thought. If only Archie could use his brain, this wouldn’t be happening right now. She got up, walking down the hallway to where everyone was crowded around the front door.

She pushed past everyone, joining Archie. “No, Scarlett-” Archie started, but was cut off by a tall black haired hottie she didn’t recognize.

“Calahan? This is the fucking idiot you’re living with? I thought Jones was lying.” He scoffed. Then, she recognized him.

“Sweet Pea?” She mumbled. He stared at her for a second, then looked back at Archie.

Before she knew it, they were all outside. She watched, with slight pride. She’d never doubt the Serpents’ pride.

After a while, she began to feel like something was going to go wrong. She saw Dilton bend down, pulling something out of his pocket.

“Oh hell no.” She grumbled. She ran over to him, tackling him to the ground. Then, she groaned in pain and felt Dilton do the same. The knife had sliced them both. Then, a gunshot rang out. She sat up in pain, seeing Veronica with a gun in the air and the Serpents racing away in their bikes.

Dilton was helped up by Reggie, and Archie grabbed her and helped her inside. Scarlett could tell Archie was pissed, so she didn't say anything to him when he stormed out of her room.

“Did you guys really jump Dilton Doiley and Scarlett? She’s a fucking serpent.” Jughead stormed out to the courtyard at Southside High during lunch. He approached Toni, Fangs, and Sweet Pea who all looked at each other.

“Where’d you hear that from, Jones?” Toni scoffed, crossing her arms.

“Archie.” Jughead responded plainly, looking between all of them.

“No,” Fangs shook his head. “The idiot stabbed himself, and when Scarlett tried to stop him from stabbing Sweet Pea, he stabbed her too.” 

Sweet Pea’s eyebrows raised in surprise, unaware of this. Of course, somewhere down inside his black heart, he had a soft spot for Scarlett. That spot was covered by a hard shell though, especially after she left them for some stupid Northsiders and thought she could remain a serpent.

“Um.. speaking of Scarlett... How is she?” Toni asked carefully. Jughead sighed, shrugging. “No one really knows these days. Not even me or Archie. Used to talk to Joaquin, but ever since he left... not really.” He explained.

“She was still talking to Joaquin? He never said anything about her.” Fangs said, looking at his friends. Toni shrugged, confused too.

“Um.. she’s coming to my trial tonight. If you guys wanted to see her.” Jughead added. Toni nodded and looked at Fangs. Sweet Pea only scoffed, mumbling something under his breath.

Scarlett found herself standing in the corner at the Wyrm, like always. Just this time, she didn’t have Joaquin making unnecessary, hilarious side comments. As  if someone was reading her mind, a tall figure appeared next to her. “Didn’t know you actually came to events like these.” Sweet Pea scoffed. She rolled her eyes.

“I’m a serpent, whether you like it or not, Sweet Pea.” She snapped back, not bothering to look at him, and lose her whole I’m-a-bad-girl facade.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Calahan.” The tall boy replied. He stepped closer to her, and she only straightened her posture to show him she was just as tough as him. “You may think you’re a serpent because of your jacket, or your tattoo, but you’ll never be a serpent by heart. How could you be, if you ditch the people that need you the most? Your own family? If you never show up to the meetings, mingle with the enemies, you could never be a serpent.” Sweet Pea said, in his slow, deep, intimidating voice.

Scarlett snickered, stepping closer to him. They were chest to chest. “Honey, you’ve got me all wrong. I’ve been here the whole time. Maybe not the same school, but I’ve been at all the meetings, all of the important events, hell, I was there when you were initiated, I was there when Toni was, I was there when Fangs was. You just didn’t see me. And, don’t assume things if you don’t know the whole story. You think you know shit, but you don’t. Get your head out of your ass.”

“I should be the one saying that to you, Calahan. You think you’re hot shit, prancing around with the Bulldogs, pretending you don’t know us. You ditched us for crying out loud! And not once did you explain, or even say bye! This is the first time I’ve seen you in 3 years, for gods sake!” He yelled.

I rolled my eyes, pushing past him and walking out of the bar. I could hear his footsteps behind me, and before I knew it, I was being turned around and my lips were pressed against the one person I’ve been dreaming of kissing since second grade.

i think this is really bad ahahahah i didn’t edit it oops

[fulcrumahsokaamidala]

Fan Fic Catch Up: WIP

Hello, everyone!!! So this is me thanking awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and all the time they put into their fics. ♥️ I want to recommend spectacular fanfic stories I’ve read since my last spectacular Saturday post! ♥️ Which was last November!!! Saturday spectacular post will resume this Saturday. Will still be tagged as #saturday spectacular fic rec

This is the third of three catch up posts.

Completed multi-chapter fics

WIP fic

One-shots

by your side by ppperaltiagooo | Brooklyn Nine-Nine | WIP

Summary: in which jake is sent undercover again and amy finds out she is pregnant while he’s gone.

The What If Harassment Alternative  by portlandborn | Brooklyn Nine-Nine | WIP

Summary: What would have happened to Peraltiago And our intrepid detectives, if Amy had reported her mentor captains ugly behaviors?

Did I Forget to Mention That My Dad is a Supervillain? by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: When Felicity told Oliver about her father, she wasn’t lying per se. She wasn’t completely honest either. It’s just that ‘my dad left us’ sounded better than the truth.

Or: A Series of one shots in which Felicity’s dad is a supervillain and we see how Oliver and the team finds out.

PrepPy GoThic LoVe by @cruzrogue | Arrow | WIP

Summary: New Freshman at MIT, Felicity wants to party and she meets another drunken party guest Oliver and they hit it off. Not really thinking of consequences have a wonderful time together. Oliver been to two different schools and this one he finally wants to do better because of a beacon of hope that rubbed off on him with just one night a passionate gothic girl changes him for the better.

Thinking Out Loud by @dust2dust34 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Olicity fluff drabbles. So much Olicity fluff, you'll want to eat a pillow. From my Tumblr 'One Line of Dialogue' fluff prompt request.

You've Gotten Into My Bloodstream by @dust2dust34| | Arrow | WIP

Summary: My collection of (mostly) alternate universe meetings/fics featuring Oliver and Felicity, ranging from tattoos to Bratva to best friends to college to ghosts to exes meeting up again to vampires and werewolves.

Room for Rent by strawwolf | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Oliver's been kicked out of his house, lost his company and his money. Fortunately Felicity has kindly offered to let him stay at her apartment. With the two of them living together in close quarters, what could go wrong?

Elizabeth Grace Smoak by @lynn8828 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: What if Felicity and Oliver briefly had met before he got on the Gambit? Despite her best efforts, Felicity was unable to get in contact with the famous Oliver Queen after having a one night stand with him and getting pregnant with his child. After raising their child for five years after finding out that Oliver died on the Gambit, she finds out he is alive and knows that she needs to tell him about their daughter. But will he believe her?

Artemis by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: When the Queen’s Gambit sank, two people were stranded on Lian Yu. Five years later, four came back.

Daughter of the Demon by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: What if in 1988 while traveling through Las Vegas Ra’s al Ghul bumps into a nice waitress named Donna Smoak and they have one-night stand together? A little bundle of joy named Felicity Smoak is the result. In 2014, the Demon Head becomes aware of his youngest daughter’s existence.

The Ravager by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Slade Wilson’s plan for revenge against Oliver took time, money and no shortage of lives to pull together. His plan didn’t anticipate Felicity Smoak. How will his plan change now that his lost-lost daughter is working with the very man he’s trying to destroy?

Felicity of Themiscyra by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Years ago, Donna Smoak left the island of Themiscyra and her sister Queen Hippolyta behind to live in man’s world. She never told Felicity the truth about where she came from. As a result of the Undertaking, Felicity discovers some of her Amazonian abilities and makes an interesting new friend: Diana Prince.

The Daughter That Was Left by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Before the Gambit, Oliver Queen met QC intern Felicity Smoak. When he boarded the Gambit, he left something behind. Now, five long years later someone is waiting for him.

I Scream But No Sound Comes out by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: When Oliver returns from Lian Yu after five years, he comes back different. What happened there damaged more than just his body. How will his friends and family deal with this new Oliver?

an adventure like no other by @inlovewithimpossibillity | Arrow | WIP

Summary: During their road trip in the summer of 2015, it's not food poisoning that ails Felicity in Thailand, but it's not helping the team either. It seems their road trip bliss has carried Oliver and Felicity away and now they're facing an adventure they were never expecting.[a post-s3/s4 canon divergence, unplanned pregnancy fic]

Like Real People Do by more0rLessJess | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Felicity Smoak has had a rough couple of years and all she wants to do is move on with her life and start her own tech company. After an incident at Queen Consolidated, she quit and accepted a job working as a technical analyst and computer expert at the Starling City Police Department, where she’s stuck for at least another year thanks to the non-compete clause she signed in her Queen Consolidated contract. But as much as she’d rather be in the tech world, she does love being able to help others. Plus she gets to do that with the help of a certain Detective, who she may or may not be attracted too.

Oliver Queen just finished five years in the Army Special Forces and is only working as an SCPD Detective because his best friend and fellow soldier, John Diggle, said it would be good for him to help pull his life together after years of hardships in the military. Oliver expected to hate the job, but what he never expected was meeting the IT girl with a heart of gold and her own demons to deal with.

Captain Quentin Lance just wants a functioning police department.

Hope for the Holidays by @hope-for-olicity | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Felicity and Oliver meet over the holidays when they find love right next door.

You are my Always by @felicityollies | Arrow | WIP

Summary: mini drabbles of olicity; missing scenes, semi-canon, and au settings. all of them can be read independently.

“Time for a story” Drabble Series by @smkkbert | Arrow | WIP

Summary: This fic shows Olicity and their life as a (married) couple with family. Although Olicity (and their kids) are the protagonists, other characters of Arrow and Flash make appearances. It started as a drabble series, but developed more and more into a full domectic AU. Although some chapters are still drabble-like, there are longer storylines by now.

Pieces of Always by @so-caffeinated​ | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Life continues after Forever is Composed of Nows.Ongoing non-linear collection of family moments for the Queens. You do not need to have read FiCoN to enjoy this, but it will spoil the end.

Let me know if you want to be tagged!

@hope-for-olicity @emdee8907 @malafle @laxit21 @icannotbelieveiamhere