#anyone new: they didn’t cancel but it’s the final season and it’s only four episodes

[lorelaiislatte]

you’re all welcome to come talk to me about The News but please understand that i am reeeeeeeally having a bad time with it and it’s hitting me in harder and more upsetting ways than i imagined so maybe don’t expect a coherent reply

[freshlyrage]

Running Like Water

Chapter 26

pairing: Javier Peña x OFC (written as xReader)

fic warnings: NSFW Explicit Smut (18+ MDNI) language, strained family relationships, mentions of drug abuse, discussions of insecurities and body image issues, daddy and mommy issues

fic tags: Best friends younger sister, Life-long crush, Friends to lovers, Unrequited love, slow burn, Push and Pull, Small Town Dynamics, Secret Relationships, latina MC, Fluff and Angst, OFC!Jessica Alba face claim, sorry Lorraine I'm bringing you into this, Time jumps, 2 year age gap, pre-canon

word count: 4.1k

IMPORTANT a/n: Hi... I said that if the Celtics won I'd post tonight so ya know! Here it is hehe. LETS GO CELTICS

Finally used the scene in Season 1 episode 5 of Narcos of Javi and Murphy in the car. There's a lot of perspective change in this one, this section will be like this most the time just because are characters are so far apart!

Ok bye enjoy

New Orleans 1988

“Do you remember being sixteen?”

You cackle, playing with the golden bee at your lobe, looking up at your student Chiron. He had been eating his lunch in your classroom for about two months since, the cafeterias ac is shit, his words. You dig into the cake your students bought you, they thought you would cancel their monday practice quiz with a little birthday celebration. They were greatly mistaken. 

Today you're twenty-four. Everytime you think of it your brain freezes.

 You remember being sixteen like it’s yesterday. You nod, washing down the store bought dry red velvety mess with water. “Yes. It sucked.”

Chiron laughs just the same, opening the pink milk box on his tray. “When were you sixteen? In 1950?”

You stare at him with your most deadpan look, shaking your head. “I turned sixteen in 1980. I was living in Laredo, Texas and I spent my birthday alone. I received flowers from my… friend and my mom took me dress shopping two days later. What was yours like?” 

You and Chiron talk every day. You know he lives in a group home, you know he gets excited when he gets asked about his own life and even more excited when someone shares stories about theirs. He reminds you everyday that you want to have a son one day, you guess you’ll tell him when he's older. Hopefully then you could introduce your son to him and have a laugh about it. 

Teaching has given you a purpose. Being away from home has given you a purpose. Knowing no one has given you a purpose. You tell him stories all the time, you’re going to sob when he walks across that stage in May. 

“I went to the arcade with Teresa.” Teresa has been his girlfriend since the ninth grade, she went to St. Mary’s. They met doing community service and Chiron knows that they're going to be married. “She bought me this chain with her paycheck from Rouses. Are you doing anything for your birthday?”

You look at the picture of your little sister and niece sat up on her desk. Little three year old Sol holding Frankies babygirl Annie. “I still don’t know anyone out here but my coworkers so I’ll probably order in, watch Dirty Dancing and wait for a call from my brother.” You think of Javier for a moment, wondering if he knows today's your birthday. 

You wonder if you have crossed his mind. 

You saw him in the paper when you went home for christmas, you didn't visit your mother. 

You went home to simply spoil the babies at Frankie's house. You drove right back to your third floor apartment in Nola. Cried into your pillow until you slept and did it all over again for three more nights. Chiron nods, you have told him small stories about your life because he loves to listen. You’re weary of sharing too much, only offering bits you know will make him feel seen. You let him cry when he said he tried to meet his father during Christmas break and he didn’t show. That's when you decided to tell him about your first trip to New Orleans. 

Chiron frowns and sips his milk. He just got a haircut, flat top style, he had been growing his hair out the whole year for it. “Do you think Javier will call you?”

You smile at Chiron. He had been trying to pry information about your former lover for weeks. It all started after Christmas break when he cried about his father. You told him that family can be found anywhere, that your only family for a bit was your best friend who happened to be your boyfriend. 

“Do you live with Javier now?”

You shook your head, “He moved away for work.” Nearly a lie, you didn’t feel it was appropriate to tell your seventeen year old student the painful details of your life. 

Chiron went quiet for a few seconds, his face going inward. Eyes shy and sad, it happens every time he’s asked about his parents.

“So who is your family now?”

Andrea drops her keys on her kitchen counter being greeted by tiny tweets. She grins from ear to ear, placing her purse down on the couch. Walking to her cage, the two birds chirped.

 “Are you singing Happy Birthday to me?” She gets on her tiptoes, offering her fingers to the babies, they take the chance. “Thank you, mommy’s going to watch Dirty Dancing because she’s lonely. Okay?”

She brings Jewel to her face in a phantom kiss while Harvey finds sanctuary on her shoulder. 

She always wanted pets but her mother never allowed it. The second Andrea put down her deposit for her apartment, she hopped in her car and bought two blue budgies. They nipped and scurried away from her each time she approached them but after two months of persistence they finally warmed up to her. They’re now her best friends. She’s become a crazy bird lady. Just in September she left a date abruptly because she realized she hadn't fed them in a day and a half. Its safe to say she didn’t get a call back from Mr. Henning.

She sits on her couch after loading the VHS and yawning. Her birdies flying back to their cage. 

That was the summer of 1963 - when everybody called me Baby, and it didn't occur to me to mind.

At 6pm she receives a call. Her heart sinks and for a moment she thinks, maybe.

But ultimately she knows not to be so silly, she knows she needs to be angry with him but she doesn’t have it in her anymore. She unravels herself from the nest she’s made on her couch and tip toes on the hardwood floor to her home phone. 

She spoke to Genie this morning, receiving a happy birthday song from her brother and their baby’s incoherent babbles. They say little Annie is upset that Tia Andrea lives so far. 

“Hello?” Andrea shushes her birds, they love to chirp when she’s on the phone. 

“Happy Birthday Andrea,”

 And she knows Don Chuchos voice anywhere. 

Andrea closes her eyes at the sound. She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever and she’s riddled with grief at the sound of his voice after nearly two years. 

“Thank you Chucho.” Andrea remembers the way he looked at her when she sat in the blistering heat on Javier’s wedding day. He looked at her knowingly, he could see that beyond the made up face she was on the brink of a breakdown. “How’s everything back home?” 

“You would know if you stopped by to see me last month.”

She winces. When Andrea came home for Christmas she made it her business to be seen by no one. Especially anyone who knew anything about Javi. 

She was finally feeling better. 

Everything was out in the open now, everyone knew their business. The scandal blew through town, she had to leave.

“I know, I'm sorry. I’m just still working through everything that happened. I knew if I stopped by your house it would bring up old memories.” Since Andrea moved to New Orleans she has gone back to Laredo five times. Two of the times she visited her mother, every other time was a straight shot to Frankie’s home. Calling him to make sure he takes Sol for the day so Andrea could see her too. She would spend two lovely nights on their plush couch and drive home the next day. 

Through the crackle of the receiver Chucho hums in understanding. 

In a twisted way Andrea always wanted him to be her father. She loved the idea of marrying Javier for more reasons than one. She wanted to officially be a part of his tiny family she loved so deeply. 

“Would this be a bad time to talk about him?” 

Andrea, the despondent girl. A girl alone, leaning against her lonely walls, a girl belonging to no one. Is a girl who cannot resist hearing about the one she loved. 

Loves. 

“Yes.” She allows it. He complies because she knows he must have no one to talk to about this. 

“He told me last week that he’s seeing a specialist—therapist, once a week.”

She smiles. She remembers the last time they had sex they talked about reaching out for help. She supposes it’s her turn. 

“That’s- I'm relieved to hear that. Is he doing okay out there?” 

Andrea has a reoccurring nightmare. She’s walking to work, the heat is brutal and her hands are full of groceries. In her nightmare, one of the bags rip open, fruit falling on the concrete. Every time, she follows an apple that rolls until it hits a news stand. And there—there she sees his face. There she reads his public obituary, the slain American agent. There she dissolves to nothing and wakes up crying harder than she ever has. She cried until she felt like dissolving into nothing. 

“He spares me details that would send me into a stroke but you know. It’s very dangerous work but he’ll make it back home in one piece. He’s too stubborn to die young.” 

Her eyes flicker to the ground and her chin quivers at his words. “Do you miss him?” Is all she can mutter. She cannot be alone in this feeling. She doesn’t like to feel this way. She liked to believe that she gets along without him well, but sometimes the wind blows and it reminds her of summer nights in his bed and she isn’t sure she could go on lying to herself.

Chucho sighs, “He misses you.” He doesn’t answer your question. He knows what you wanted to ask. “He doesn’t tell me because he’s afraid, but every conversation I can hear it in his voice. He is still grieving being away from you, still grieving being deceived. I know you are too. But I wanted to call to tell you that he is okay. I want you to be okay too, Andrea.”

January 1988 Bogota, Colombia

There isn't much work being done. Scoping out for a sicario in a hundred degree weather wasn't ideal but it left some time for beers and ramblings. Murphy dug his hand into the cup holder for another sip of Club Colombiano. “So what year was this?” Murphy looks over to Javi. It had been almost a week since he last saw Hertz. His next session is in two days. He found himself walking with less weight. He even finally told Murphy the name of the girl whose picture is taped on the corner of his desk.

“1986” Javier rasps. “I was driving to the church. I was with my buddy Frankie. He was my best man.” He nearly whispers the last bit. “We were late. It was fucking blazing, 110 degrees. The whole bridal party was there sweating their balls off I’m sure. Frankie is shaking like a leaf next to me, like he’s fucking getting married. Looking for a lighter for a joint he rolled. Mind you, we're been in my bride's car since she arrived in a limousine.”

“Don’t tell me you left her at the altar.”

Javier deadpans, “Let me finish my story.” Murphy chuckles, pressing the cold beer to his neck. “He opens the glove compartment and some papers fall into his lap. And boom, we hit a traffic jam. Frankie, my best man, being the nosy fuck he his opens up the papers. He goes, three months pregnant as of June 6th, can't believe we’re both having kids. I swear to god–”

“No!” Murphy gasps.

“Yeah, Lorraine, the bride, and I hadn’t had sex since February of that year. She was showing a lot, I never thought twice when she told me she was five months along.” Murphy is staring at him like this was the juiciest television worthy story ever told. Javier looks blankly into the rolling hills of Colombia wondering why this happened to him. “I had dropped everything in my life to rush into a loveless marriage for the convenience of a family that wasn't even mine.” His eyes cast low and he feels sick. “So I turned the car around. And Andrea was there waiting to watch me marry someone else. In the heat.”

Murphy rarely knew who Andrea was other than the pretty ex-girlfriend whose picture is taped on his desk; he didn’t tell him too much. The story is enticing, he supposes. Exhilarating from the outside.

Murphy grins, “Well, you saved her a lifetime of hell.” 

He knows it’s true, his inner monologue being spat right back in his face yet he can’t seem to swallow that reality. He's a weak man, he hoped that Murphy would tell him he was wrong, that he needed to get up on a plane this instant and find his girl.

He’s silent for a moment. “Yeah, she never spoke to me again, Andrea I mean. She’ll probably be married to a-a stock broker or some shit when I come home.” If I come home, he intends to say but decides maybe this wasn’t the moment. “Trust me, she’s better off.”

“I told my partner, Steve Murphy, about the wedding.”

“That's amazing, Javier.” She sits back down in her brown leather chair, sipping her tea from her small yellow thermo. “How did you feel afterward?” Javier went home to drink himself to sleep. He decides to keep that detail to himself, before reaching forward to sip water instead of fulfilling his urge to light up.

“I felt like I’ve taken some sort of step forward. Then I remembered how it was telling Andrea. Then I felt like I regressed once again, I didn't wake up for work the next morning. This Tuesday I mean.” She’s taking it all in, yet something i n her twinkles. He sees her satisfaction, she knows this is a shy way of telling her he’s ready to talk about it again. Things are changing for him so quickly.

“We were cut for time last week.”

“We were.”

“So,”

“So.” Javier's eyes jet to the plush rug below him. “I walked to her house the night I agreed to marry Lorraine.”

June 18th 1986

He stopped by The Tap before strolling his way into your neighborhood. Sitting on a barstool like he would do back in High School, eyes peeled to the door wondering if his mother would miraculously walk in. This time he doesn’t drink so much, he pushes three beers back and feels sad enough to see you. Sad enough to break your heart. Liquid courage? Is that what they call it? He feels a buzz in his spine.

Somehow he ends up at your door. 

 “Javi, are you alright? It's late.” You whisper, closing the front door behind you. It reminds him of the time he walked to your house after getting wasted. Catching you in Cabaret makeup, you turning bright red under white paint. 

This time you’re bare faced and so much more of a woman. Javier studies you in a buzzed haze, you’re concerned and it’s pissing him off. There you are, barefoot on your porch. Caught off guard and still the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. You step down one step. He wants to drop to his knees and apologize. 

You sense his sorrow so you step back up to be near to his height, placing your hands on his face. Holding his face, “Baby, are you okay?” He knows your worried little face, he knows that somehow in that brain of yours—you’re conspiring what you could have done wrong. Yet it’s never you, it’s always him. You’ve never done wrong.

“Hey…” You whisper, attempting to soothe his quivering chin with a kiss. 

He looks away. Looking into your eyes will kill him. Rejecting your kiss all together. “I’m sorry.” Javier’s voice breaks, and he isn’t embarrassed but he wants to die. He wants it to end because he feels your body go cold without even having to look at you. He’s crying and hiding his face, holding you close and hard. Sobbing into your chest, staining your gray shirt like you did his when he left the first time. “I’m so sorry—I knew I wouldn’t be right for you—Querida, I’m sorry.”

----

He crushes your body with his. He’s muttering words about a wedding, a pregnancy and you’re being crushed. You’re losing air and you hope he squeezes you tighter, hope your eyes fog and you fall. 

Hope to wake up in a cold sweat, and it's all a bad dream. Hope to call him to hang out at the lake.  

He’s crying, and its the worst sound you’ve ever heard. Saying he didn’t mean to become a father. He doesn’t mean to hurt you. He doesn’t know why he hurts you. He says he doesn’t want to be married to her. Calling you sweet names and cursing his own. 

You tell him over and over that it’s okay. Yet you hope he crushes you until you disappear.

 “It’s okay—Javi please, it’s okay— I understand.” You run a hand through his hair and lower your bodies to sit on the steps. It’s 2 am. He’s drunk and unable to give you details without crying in your lap now but you know all that you need to know.

When you saw her—Lorraine. When you saw her wide nose and round little belly you felt fear running through your veins. And you slept with that panic, you dismissed it but your bones felt it. Your intuition told you that the two of you will never be the same. You saw him stare at her belly for a second too long and there—right there— you knew you were in the way of something. 

Eventually he feels okay enough to sit up straight. He still can’t look at you and you miss him in your lap when he does. You miss being able to hide yourself from him. You miss being able to shut your eyes in agony at each word of consolation. Now he can see you, even if he doesn’t look you in the eye he can see you. 

You’re able to understand that she’s five months, that they gave him a choice. To never see her and his child, child— his child— or get married. Through it all you tell him it’s okay. 

“I don’t think I have another choice— I can’t be.-“

“A deadbeat.” You finish for him and he doesn’t respond. The two of you have a million unspoken words between the two of you. 

Look at me, look at what happens when you abandon your child. Look what girls like me put up with. Look at me, you hurt me and I'm still thinking of ways to make it work in my broken little brain. 

He knows what his mother did, how could he ever? How? So you could never find it in you to be angry. 

“I’m sorry— I just can’t.” 

You shut your eyes and lean back into the steps of your home. The sky was bright that night, you couldn’t understand why the universe still presented its beauty during such a moment. 

“When will you get married?” You suppose maybe you like to hurt yourself. 

“They said two weeks.” 

You drop your head into your hands and let out a sob. Heart slamming against your ribs, drowning in it. You fear that you’ll become one with earth, a puddle seeping into the grass ahead of you. You feel his panic next to you. He’s whispering your name, and tearing against the back of your head. Your shoulders wrack and you try to speak.

But you decide silence is all you can handle.

So you stay like this for a few minutes.

“Will you sleep with me tonight?” You ask finally, pathetically. 

And he’s quick to nod, “Yes—please.” His deep voice sends a vibration down your spine. And the two of you walk into your home, without fear—no room for such a silly feeling. 

He undresses and you do too. 

He faces the ceiling and you fear neither of you will catch any hours tonight. You still curl into his chest, for the last time. Feeling his warm tan skin below your ear. You count his heartbeats for minutes at a time. You count your own, attempting to make it stop on your own. Your stomach hurts so badly, you may cry just from that. But you think that you’re a twenty two year old woman who is somehow all cried out. You think of the sun coming up and him getting up to leave, you wonder what the next two weeks will look like. 

You’re sure that if you could you’d stay just like this, together and avoidant until it’s time. Just like you planned a week ago when your only fear was him leaving to Colombia. 

You know he’d do the same because the two of you love pain like no other. You stay in your inferno of a brain for nearly an hour. You know he can’t sleep. 

“What are we going to do?” He asks and you frown. 

“Go our separate ways.”

“I don’t want to.” He’s quick to respond, angry.

“I know.”

“Do you want to?”

“No. But I have to. You have to.” 

“As long as I know you, I'll want you, Andrea.”

You shut your eyes and breathe. You hope he forgets you. You hope you can. You suppose you have to try. 

“After the wedding, I don’t think I’ll ever want to speak to you again.”

You feel him intake a shaky breath. Your heart breaks again. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

His chest rises, “It’s okay. I understand.” You nod, the post of the earrings he bought you scraping his skin. “We probably shouldn’t see each other after today.” He admits and you know he’s right.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think I could be a bridesmaid?” You attempt to joke and he doesn’t laugh. You can’t tell what he does but he shivers. 

“Not funny.” 

“I’m sorry.” You exhale. And there the two of you are pensive. Already missing each other. 

He sighs and it's silent once more. “I really love you.”

You sigh just the same and you love him more. You decide you couldn’t say it out loud this time.

Colombia 1988

His elbow is rested on the arm of the chair and his mouth is pressed to a fist. Eyes closed for a few moments. He thinks of the silence of that night, how he hasn't heard you say I love you since. The words that kept him going, but fuck it, he didn’t feel like he deserved it. He made their life such a mess, over and over again. Again his brain regresses to that of a child, of his own head when he was eleven, when he tore up his mothers room and stained her poetry with his tears. 

He has spent two years suffering, he knows there will be no winning. He lost you. He came here prematurely hoping to win in some way. To bring some good, save some people but he realized there's no winning here either. Just suffering and corruption. The longer he watches people die he swears his faith chips slowly with it.

So he looks over his shoulder once or twice when he leaves his session. There were very few words spoken by Dr. Hertz but what can you do when his story silences so many?

He wishes it could silence his own thoughts but instead it festers and crowds his brain in the most crucial moments. Like when he led a raid in a bar in Medellin and swore the woman who sat at the bar with a gun to her head was you. In genuine panic he freezes, the casualties raised from 24 to 25 at that moment. All because of you—him—all because of his thoughts of you, plaguing him.

And he thinks of you in the most insignificant moments. Insignificant like burying himself deep in the cunt of a woman who’s being paid. He thinks of you and can't keep it up from the guilt. What a curse it is to feel so deeply about someone. 

He remembers once, you lie beside him half asleep and mumbling like you did after sex. You said that sometimes love scares you so much that for a time you wished to never feel it. He thought of you so crazy, he fears he understands you now. 

[not-poignant]

From a media studies perspective, why do you think ending mainstream shows "badly" (i.e. not necessarily sadly, but in a way that's inconsistent with the show's own canon events and characterization) has become so popular? It seems so counter intuitive to actively court bad press

Honestly, there are so many reasons television shows end badly. I don’t know if you’re talking about a certain show (/stares at Supernatural), but I can definitely illustrate some of the reasons TV series end badly:

In the case of long series:

* It went on too long because the show creators were pressured because of money and they just didn’t care anymore. This is the biggest reason long-running shows end badly (anything long running is anything beyond four seasons, imho). Shows often tend to caricature themselves after a time.

Often folks involved will lose sight of their original mission statement. In many of these cases, the best people in the writer’s room and the best directors/cinematographers move onto fresh new shows (they get bored, they can leverage their work experience on a well-known show getting repeated season renewals, they can leave) and that often leaves the more mediocre talent who might not be able to leverage their experience. New staff often can’t be assed properly reading through the series bible for sometimes upwards of 100+ episodes (which will have even more canon behind them), so they retcon.

Actors become tired of the same role and start performing with less verve (they can tell when a show is getting less interesting and they are also hit when the writing isn’t as good). Like you can tell when actors are just done. And like...writers LEAVE. The show becomes driven by inertia, and in a worst case scenario, boredom, bitterness, and lack of interest, leaving a show to limp to its finish line.

* Viewership and money for the studio means that show creators are roped into working on a show they actually wanted to complete at season 2 or 3. They continue, but their ideas are no longer fresh and they become resentful.

* This sometimes also happens to shows that are ‘on the bubble’ and write an official season finale to wrap up the series, only to get renewed and have to do another season finale that often doesn’t measure up to the first one. I’m pretty sure Parks and Recreation suffered from this, but Mike Schur is pretty good at pulling things back from the brink. But he was also incredibly done with that show when he finished it. This has also happened to Elementary (which also managed to pull back with some dignity after doing like at least one or two ‘series end’ finales only to get another one or two seasons). But it’s notably let down shows in the past. Living ‘on the bubble’ is incredibly stressful for series creators and writers who have to kind of be constantly expected to end their show at any point, which stifles new ideas, but must also have an entire new season ready to go in case they get renewed. 

* If something’s really long-running and iconic, no matter what you do, the ending will be criticised because you can’t satisfy everyone, and the legacy of the series is that it ‘went on forever’ - the point at which it ended is the point at which everyone becomes unhappy. * I know I’ve said money, but also, sometimes the cast creators are really aware that the financial livelihoods of the caterers, cameracrew, actors, makeup artists etc. are dependent on each new season. Sometimes it’s hard to stop a show for ‘creative reasons’ (i.e. because it would make a better show) when you know that’s stopping the incomes for everyone except maybe the actors who will get syndication money. Sometimes you keep going because you care more about your crew, than you care about a perfect story, and you just hope you’ll keep telling a good one.

* In the case of things like Supernatural, like, chances are high the writers and creators just never actually cared about their fanbase and cynically queerbaited for money. Now that the show’s over, they don’t need to care about money (from that show) or bad press in the same way anymore. Like, it’s syndicated, it’s going to make royalties for those actors etc. forever. Bad press isn’t going to really hurt a show that’s no longer running, there will always be people willing to drop hundreds of dollars on an expensive collective box-set, no matter how loudly fandom’s complaining. Remember, fandom in many cases is not actually the majority of paying viewership.

(My roommate also added here - he did film and journalism; it’s how we met! - that like, people remember the good seasons, and they will often buy a show for the good seasons. I’m thinking of like, the fact that I own Buffy and Angel and even NCIS and Scrubs even though many of those shows got categorically pretty fucking bad as they went on).

In the case of short, prematurely finished series:

* Netflix’s ‘two seasons’ policy. If a show isn’t driving new viewership at season 2 like it did in season 1, even if it’s critically acclaimed. It gets dumped on a season finale that leaves every storyline open and is extremely unsatisfying. This is why so many great Netflix shows end after 2/3 years. It’s literally written into their policy. This is a hateful fucking policy, but anyway.

***

Your statement ‘it seems counter-intuitive to actively court bad press’ actually doesn’t really apply here at all for also a few reasons:

* A show can sail on bad press, honestly. We are taught in film that like, 100 bad reviews is better than no reviews. If everyone in fandom is shouting to the high heavens about how terrible a show is, you can bet that people who haven’t watched SPN in years actually went and watched how shitty that finale was either for the lolz, the horror, or like, curiosity’s sake. And, sadly, for everyone saying ‘omg the homophobia’ there will be bigots who are like ‘YAY A SHOW FOR ME.’ But that’s just while a show is running.

* Some shows deliberately court bad press for this reason, actually. Like yes, bad press can be damaging, but this tends to be true at the beginning of a series. It honestly no longer matters at all once the series if over. I wish it did. But the makers of a long-running show just do not care about you or anyone else who is unhappy, they’re probably popping champagne that it’s over. That sounds terrible, but like, it’s hard to kind of overstate how tired, bitter and resentful people yoked to creative properties can be once they’re over it (it’s one of the reasons I’ve stopped writing Gwyn and Augus as main canon characters - because I don’t want to become bitter, tired and resentful). It’s one of the biggest reasons why it’s best to end a show early, while it’s fresh, and everyone’s still enjoying themselves.

* A show that has done a bad finale, is no longer really interested in the press at all. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s not going to cause their show to be cancelled, it’s not going to stop royalties from syndication, it’s not going to end anyone’s career (sometimes sadly), and like, it’s literally irrelevant. People screaming about a finale they hate are screaming to the wind, the people who made the show don’t care. (In the case of a long-running show, they really don’t, they are probably very tired, and looking forward to new projects). At this point, the bad press is like, a blip on the radar, they can always go look at all the good press they got for like 10-15 years beforehand.

***

And finally, at the end of the day, it’s a job. And for many people, it is just a job. And some jobs you do well, and some jobs you do poorly. For folks in fandom, it might briefly be ‘their life’ but like, for some of those scriptwriters/directors/actors etc., it’s just they turn up, they get paid, and sometimes they actually hate their job just like someone might hate their job in retail. A scriptwriter’s gotta get paid y’know, they gotta put food on the table, they will take a job for a show they hate, just to get that bread. And that becomes more and more true, the more a show goes on, the more everyone starts to get tired because all the stories are told and they’re being forced to keep working.

That’s life, I’m afraid.

[newobsessionweekly]

Quarantine games🌿

a/n: someone asked for this, I hope I didn’t let you down. I honestly don’t know where that came from. I have a strange mind and even stranger imagination. So, enjoy! 🌿

warning: maybe language and some explicit stuff. word count: 2.305

Arón Piper x reader 🌿

There are so many things going on in the world right now that you can’t even keep the step up with them. First, Italy confronts with this virus-thing and then you heard numbers too big for you to understand. More than nine hundred of deaths in one day in Italy, those news gave you goosebumps. Then you heard the news about Spain having a bad situation as well. You’ve been carefully every time, but this couldn’t keep you inside for more than four days, otherwise you’d go nuts. So when your best friend, Miguel, called and said that he and some friends wanted a gathering to watch together the new season of Élite, you accepted immediately. Inside Jorge’s apartament in Madrid were nine people and a cat, and the place was almost overcrowded. Two episodes and thirteen songs later, the news about a total lockdown and Spain being closed, gathered you in front of the TV. You are not allowed to leave the house , except for emergencies so even if you tried, you couldn’t reached your apartament, is like in the opposite side of Madrid.

“It’s not a big deal, right? We can get over this together.” Jorge told you and it was an subtle invitation to stay over. And you did stayed. The truth is, you were afraid of this situation and you didn’t want to get through this alone. You weren’t the only one thinking like that so you decided to manage this situation together. Danna was supposed to fly back in Mexic to be with her family, but the flight was cancelled. 

 Though you knew this people before, staying so many days together, you got to know them even better, for example how are they in their private space. A few days later, you finished the last season of Élite and all the food in the apartament. Day five of quarantine bring a bore bigger than the Empire State Building. You slept almost all day and ate, ghosting here and there. Danna let you borrow some clothes from her luggage but today you only could find dresses and fancy clothes. 

“Can somebody borrow me a t-shirt or something?” Ester just washed the laundry and now you need to wait them to dry. You weren’t the only one who wasn’t prepared for so many days away from home, you packed, just in case, for three days. Miguel, Omar and Álvaro weren’t prepared as well, but gladely they could count on Jorge and Arón. The latter was supposed to go visit his father’s family in Germany, but his flight was cancelled as well so he got stuck with you.

“I think I still have some clean ones in my baggage. You can look and take anything you like.” Arón responded from the window frame. He smokes too much when he is bored. And drinks. It’s already the third beer and the night just started. But you don’t want to say anything because it’s none of your business. You must addmit he is the one that caught your attention since the day one. You stalked him on Instagram a few days ago, trying to find something about him, maybe some pictures with a girlfriend or anything, but it´s nothing much. He keeps his life privately and that’s a thing you admire most at him. 

Surprisingly, he has an ordonate luggage and you find rapidly a t-shirt. He had many from expensive brands. You loved one shirt from Monclair, and said “why not?”, he said you could take anything you like. You screamed “Gracias, Arón!” and went for a shower.          

----------

After a warm shower, the anxiety started to spread from your body. When you dressed Arón’s t-shirt, a strage feeling attacked you and made you stare at the image in the mirror. You are wearing a shirt that isn’t yours, is a hot boy’s shirt, which fits you strangely perfect. And this smell... the smell of his cologne haunted you these days, but now is closer than ever and you can enjoy it without raising question marks from anyone. However you wished you could smell it from Arón while he is hugging you. “Nonsense, I am getting nuts!” you thought. But this handsome man would help your fantasies only growing day by day. You shooked your head and walked out of the bathroom, just to found everyone sitting round the coffee table.   

“Finally, we thought you died inside and we were just tossing a coin to see who had to rescue you.”  Miguel laughed and made some space for you to sit next to him.

“Good choice, that one is my favourite!” Arón winked at you and took a sip from a cocktail. 

“Ah, lo siento, I didn’t knew! I can change it if you want.” you said quickly, panicked. He smiled at you and waved his hand as in “keep it”.

“So, the rules are simple. Truth or dare. You don’t make any of them, you receive a punishment, alright?” they decided to play this game to animate a little this flat. All day you almost ignored each other and it wasn’t a wise movement. The depression started to fill in and Jorge, because it was his idea to keep all of you there, was feeling responsable for you bad mood. You played Poker three nights in a row, then “Uno” and even “Activity”. You won at Poker and made Arón kinda mad, but unfortunately lost at the other ones. You and Miguel are not a good pair for games. Jorge spinned the empty beer bottle which pointed Álvaro.

“Aye, amigo, truth or dare?” Jorge smiled wickedly.

“Truth.” Álvaro’s response came and everyone mumbled “chicken” at him. He rolled his eyes and waited for a question.

“What scene did you like filming the most?”

“That sex scene in the pool with you and Georgina.” the answer came and the laughs didn’t waited to burst. Then Álvaro had to dare Mina. “Drink that beer from one sip.” And Mina didn’t think twice before she grabbed the bottle.

“Easy with the beers, alright? There are not many left!” Arón attentioned all of you.

“Sure, we ran out of food and you are worried about the beers.” you like very much to provoke him. Arón looked at you menacing. When Mina spinned, Omar picked the truth.

“What is the funniest memory you have from the set?”

“From season 3?” he asked and Mina approved. “Maybe the one when I was supposed to mime a blowjob and he couldn’t stop laughing. I was bouncing my head up and down for a damn take until I’ve literally got dizzy.” he pointed at Arón and laughed while accepted the middle finger. You tought for a minute, that middle finger is like a signature for him, is one of the many specific things for him. 

“You blame me for laughing but you made some funny sucking noises!” Arón defended himself and you laughed even louder. Despite the noises, Omar could hear Miguel when he chose dare and it wasn’t a great idea.

“Mime a sex scene with anyone in this room.” Omar spoken out the final verdict. Miguel picked you up, despite the fact that you refused to do that with him. You wear some kind of short jeans, but they looked more like underwear, so when Miguel made you bend on one of the countertops, you looked like you were naked. He put his hands on your waist and mimed the “in and out” move behind your back.

“Come on, (y/n), you have to moan to make it credible!” Miguel pinched your arm and that made you sceam. “Well, that wasn’t really a moan, but it was better than nothing!” you could hear everyone laughing behind your back. When the torture finally ended, you faced Miguel with anger.

“I hate you for this!” you said, but he just laughed and passed you so he can also spin the bottle. Arón had a strange look on his face. You didn’t know if it was embarrassment or anger or any other feeling, but something bothered him. The bottle stopped in front of Arón and he choses truth. “What are your top three turn-ons?” Miguel looked at you after he spoke and winked. “Puta mierda!” you thought. Now everyone would know something is going on with you. The truth is you have a crush on Arón and Miguel kinda figured it out. The way he smiles, the way he moves, the way he smokes, everything is so perfect at him. Beside the amazing look, he have a good heart too, he’s a funny one and you find yourself some things in common with him.

“Wearing matching lingerie, playing with my hair and maybe the smell of food cooking.” he answered and it heard some of them whistling while and you almost turned red like a tomato. You are a shy one and dirty stuff made you turn red like a tomato every time.

When the bottle pointed you, almost frozed. Someone out there hates you for some reason, you thought. Arón is the last person you would have wanted to ask you. He smiled wickedly at you, licked his lips and made you pick truth or dare. You choose truth, obviously. “Who here would you most like to make out with?” he asked. ¡Joder!, he’s good at it.

“Pure curiosity or you have something in mind?” you challenged him, smiling like a devil.

“Are you gonna answer that or you want to let me find the answer by myself?” he’s not yielding either.

“I’ll wait to see how long would it take you to find out.”

“Fine, dare. Let two people give you a wet willy at the same time.” you crossed the nose.

“¡Joder!, that is gross! No, absolutely not!” you shooked your head.

“Then you need a punishment, (y/n).” someone finally interrupted the stare contest you and Arón unknowingly held. You found out it was Jorge.

“A punishment given by whom?” you hoped from the bottom of your heart not to hear Arón’s name. Not this time.

“Arón. And you are not allowed to reject this one.” ¡Joder!, it was like the game was against you.

“Siete minutos en el cielo con mi.” the others watched you and Arón as you were a fascinating movie, no one came between you. You had to take some time to understand what he said. Seven minutes in heaven. Seriously? You are not sixteen anymore and you are not trying to have your first kiss. You rolled your eyes. You were convinced that he doesn’t stand you a bit, and now he’s asking you to lockup with him seven minutes to what? Maybe he wanted to tell you to go home. You haven’t really talked to him much and you didn’t know him, but you can say, watching him from distance, he is a great man. And that “bad ass” face and attitude he always shows up, it’s just a mask. You thought he is the sweetest person inside there, because he let you somehow see a little of that side. But you had so many question marks. For something you were sure, you had his attention like he got yours. You couldn’t get him off of your head and that drives you crazy.

“Fine, seven minutes in hell. Ah, perdona me, I wanted to say heaven.” you played pretend because you didn’t had any clue what the hell he have in that beautiful head and just at the thought about staying seven minutes only with him, in a small place, made your stomach hurt in a way it never did before. You followed him into the bathroom and then he locked the door behind you. You wasn’t expecting the bathroom to be this small, but him with his big worked out body, occupies a lot of space. Your mouth was dry and you literally couldn’t help but stare at his lips. If you were uncertain about the answer to that question he asked you, now you are a hundred percent sure he’s the one that turns you on.

“You know, I think I found the answer to that question.” maybe he figured out on his own, because maybe you didn’t know how to play pretend, or maybe around him you can’t control yourself.

“Oh yeah, what’s the answer then?” you looked him bravely in his beautiful brown eyes.

“I am the answer.” he approached and you could smell his cologne, or maybe it was just the t-shirt you’re wearing. “And if I’m right, and I’m pretty sure I’m right.” he leans towards you and whisperes in your ear: “Then maybe you wanna know the real answer to Miguel’s question”

“Why would I?”

“Because it’s you. For months you are the first one on my top three turn-ons list. And I think I’m not the only one here who feels this way.” as an answer to his unspoken question, you closed the distance between you with a kiss full of desire. He doesn’t waste any time and responded with as many passion as you put in that kiss. He grabbed you waist and pulled as close as possible. It was a slow one, like nothing outside didn’t matter anymore. Just the two of you, creating a new world. You pulled away from that kiss when you heard a knock on the door and Jorge’s voice.

“You know, I can even offer you my room if you want to, but don’t take away the bathroom, please!” you heard laughing coming from behind that door and felt your cheeks turning red. You looked at the man in front of you and tried to memorise all his beautiful features. He really admitted somehow he likes you, and you couldn’t stop that stupid smile spreading on your face.

[fandompitfalls]

Fandom, Misogyny, and the Struggle for "Clarice"

Originally posted 2/24/21

There’s a quote that, summarized, says, in order for a woman to be seen as an equal to men, she has to work twice as hard. And never more what that brought to light outside real life than Valentine’s Day weekend when CBS aired the premiere of Clarice.

In 1991, Silence of the Lambs, a runaway hit thriller staring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins came onto public consumption and introduced the world to the phrase “quid pro quo” and the name Hannibal Lecter became a well-known name.

In 2013, a series by the name of Hannibal staring Mads Mikkelsen and Hugh Dancy premiered on television and was immediately embraced by the fandom community.  Dating long before Silence of the Lambs, the show features a BSU consultant by the name of Will Graham who is called into service because of his unique ability to profile serial killers.  He develops a professional and later, a personal relationship with Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

In the beginning the question of Will’s mental state was brought up, the reason Lecter was introduced into the series, he was hired on assess Will Graham after cases to make sure his fragile mental state was not deteriorating.  It allowed Hannibal to get close to Will and manipulate him in an attempt to turn Will into a killer like himself.  The show ended after three seasons and during those seasons, the show’s creator, Brian Fuller, made cinematography magic with his sets and scenes, a lot of them gruesome yet exquisite.

Hannibal became fandom’s gory darling, the relationship between Will and Hannibal being the main fodder. This was furthered by the support of Bryan Fuller’s comment in Collider stating that he saw Hannibal as being in love with Will Graham. https://collider.com/bryan-fuller-hannibal-silence-of-the-lambs-interview/

Just this past week, a new twist on the Silence of the Lambs timeline premiered with Clarice. Clarice takes place a year after Silence of the Lambs and the Buffalo Bill murders. She is pulled from the BAU and sent to a task force run by Ruth Martin, the mother of Buffalo Bill’s only surviving member, Catherine.  Created by Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet, Clarice is not affiliated with Hannibal, the Series, in any way, rather, it is a telling of Clarice Starling’s story after the events of Silence of the Lambs.

Here’s where it differs. And remember, this is only the first episode.  By the time I post this, there will be two episodes out.

In the opening scene, Clarice Starling is sitting in a therapist’s office.  The therapist, a man with no name as of yet, is trying to get her to tell him about her feelings regarding the one-year anniversary of the Buffalo Bill murders.  He even has a copy of a magazine that features her on the cover with the title “Bride of Frankenstein.”  The more he pushes the more she holds back, telling him the rots answers that most FBI therapists want to here.  Finally, she mentions the magazine was bought by him as a trigger to see if she would break and he tells her that he thinks she’s not stable enough to go back in the field because she refuses to use to the “survivor” in relation to her encounter with Buffalo Bill.  She is not a survivor, she was never kidnapped, she was an FBI agent doing a job.  He also cites her relationship with Hannibal Lecter, insinuating that it was more personal in nature than he thought necessary.

Before he can put her at a desk, she is called back into the field by Ruth Martin and put under the team led by Paul Krendler, a man who Clarice “upped” in the movie when she was a trainee.  He doesn’t want her there, insists on a profile after seeing the first two bodies and when she can’t give an accurate one because she doesn’t have all the evidence, he tells her she had to tell the press it’s a serial killer.

It’s already shown that Clarice has a bit of trauma with press conferences and this is something that keeps coming back.  The press want Clarice and Paul Krendler just wants her to be the face of his team and tells her that she will say what he tells her to say.  Clarice is not taken seriously by Krindler, by anyone else in the office, (there’s a scene where men from the other unit that share an office, coat her desk drawer with lotion and leave that lotion and a basket in the drawer and then laugh about it).  Clarice is blocked at every turn by men, even her therapist calls Krindler and tells him to bench her because he’s worried about her mental state.

The first time we meet Will Graham, his mental state is mentioned as tenuous, yet the FBI have no problem throwing him right out into the field.  Clarice was a trainee who managed to catch a serial killer, and somehow she’s considered too “fragile” to be put on any cases other than desk jobs.  In fact, throughout the entire first episode, the only person on her new team to take an interest and believe what she says is Thomas Esquivel, an ex-special forces soldier turned agent who believes in what she says.

From the first moment of this show the misogyny was right out on view, there is no hiding that all of the men in this show do not like Clarice because she’s young, she’s a woman and they are intimidated by her talent.  Her only support comes from Agent Esquivel and her friend and former trainee Ardelia Mapp.

I mention the misogyny because it’s not all on the show. It’s from the fans as well. The first time I was reminded the show was on was when I noticed Hannibal was trending on Twitter. The day and time frame Clarice aired its premiere, Twitter was lamenting that they wanted a season four of Hannibal.  While researching for this blog, I used IMDB to get names and plot points.  And came across this comment about the premiere:

“Can we bring back Hannibal, please?

12 February 2021 | by [redacted]

And by that I am of course referring to the excellent series featuring Mads Mikkelsen's amazing portrayal of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. That series had great style, fantastic atmosphere, and stellar directing, editing, and acting. They planned to tell the ultimate Hannibal Lecter story but only were able to make three seasons out of a seven season plan. So, here we have a Clarice Starling series that had been in the works for years but didn't get the train running till now. So the premiere - Meh. Rebecca Breeds makes a very good Clarice but nothing else is up to her level. The cinematography isn't bad but the atmosphere is lacking, the characters are none too memorable, and the storyline isn't attention grabbing enough. I give it about a season at least.”

I don’t know the time when this posted, but I’m not surprised by the comment at all.  Comment and review bombing seems to be the way that fans express their “disappointment” about their old shows not getting anything…or rather, their favorite male characters not getting more screen time.

On the same page, the below link was posted.  This was one day after the first episode of Clarice premiered:

Clarice: Season Two? Has the CBS TV Series Been Cancelled or Renewed Yet? 13 February 2021 | TVSeriesFinale

A freshman series about a female criminal profiler who is pushed down, ignored, harassed because of her sex.  It’s almost a case of life imitating art.

I was going to leave this post as it was and post it today but last week the second episode aired which showed Clarice pushing past childhood trauma to face down a cult leader and a corrupt government system thereby earning Krendler’s respect and her position on the team.  And while Thomas Esquivel told her that a team is only good if each of its members understand that they can trust and support one another, thereby hopefully foreshadowing that this team will eventually accept Clarice as one of their own and in turn she will do the same, it took her risking her life by going back inside the compound, disregarding orders and singlehandedly getting the information needed to put both the cult leader and head of the County Sheriff down for the count for Krendler to finally see her worth and decide to keep her on the team.

I liked Clarice.  It was hard to watch at times, not only because of the trauma she is dealing with as well as the survivor, Catherine, calling her and harassing her, but because of the anger I felt watching Clarice get stepped on time and time again by the men in this show, only to get up and do her job.  Her final speech she makes at the end of episode one about her grandmother is inspiring and gives the viewer a bit of a “in your face” to the men behind her, especially Krendler…even though we all know he’s going to make her life a living hell when they get back to the office because she didn’t follow his rules.  That said, this show is very much a procedural, much like CSI or Criminal Minds. The series follows the format of the movie.  This is not Hannibal.  It’s not trying to be Hannibal, It is trying to be Clarice.  And, as the quote goes, it’s going to have to work twice as hard to even get one half of the respect it deserves.

[duhragonball]

Gohan for the character ask!

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: I think the main appeal of Gohan is that he’s constantly being pulled in two directions.   You can interpret those two opposing forces however you please: Saiyan vs. Earthling, Chi-Chi vs. Goku, fighter vs. scholar, etc.   But I think it’s a pretty relatable dilemma.  

What’s also relatable is that Gohan tries to blaze his own trail, even as he works hard to satisfy everyone’s expectations of him.   The moral of his story is that it’s not always easy to find your own path.  It sounds liberating, but it also means you’re on your own.  

Why I don’t: Very early on, I was frustrated with Gohan being such a major player in DBZ when it didn’t seem like he was qualified for the role.    It took me a while to recognize how important his “hidden” power was to the story.   That, and the fact that the good guys usually only ever involved him in a battle because they had no other options.   I think it’s interesting that Gohan maintains such a low profile during the Androids/Cell arc, so when he finally gets tapped to fight Cell at the end, it’s treated like a huge plot twist.   It’s ironic, because Gohan was so instrumental in defeating Vegeta, and if he had beaten Frieza on Namek, I don’t think anyone would have been shocked.   As it is, he was built up to be the guy who would beat Majin Buu, and everyone’s still mad that he lost. 

For a time, I was frustrated that Gohan was technically the strongest character at the end of the Buu Saga, even though Goku was the main guy.    It just felt wrong somehow, and I’ve seen enough “Mystic Gohan vs. SSJ3 Goku” threads on the internet to know that a lot of people used denial to cope with it.  

None of this really made me dislike the character, though.   I think most of the hand-wringing about Gohan is just a side-effect of that tug-of-war he’s been in his whole life.  Some fans want to see him kick ass, some want to see him settle down and be a student/family man/scholar.    Super tried to play it both ways by having Gohan be out of shape and then suddenly get good after a crash course with Piccolo.   It seemed like half the fans were happy to see that and half were upset.    Personally, I liked that approach better than how they handled him in GT, where he dressed like a nerd in church but could still throw down with Vegeta.   He used SSJ1 the whole time, so what happened to the Elder Kai power up?    GT just shrugged and hoped no one would care.   

For my part, I think it makes sense for Gohan to try to balance fighting and academia and family life.   Team Four Star made a lot of hay out of the idea that Gohan hates fighting, full stop, but I don’t totally buy that.  Gohan may not enjoy fighting for his life, or killing people, but I think he’s cool sparring with his family, for example.  But he can’t just throw himself into it like the others, so he’s got to train hard to keep up, and then he has to work hard at his ill-defined job, and then he has to be a good parent.   That’s the character.   Goku can be carefree, but Gohan has a lot of responsibilities. 

I do sort of wish they would focus on that balancing act, since that’s what Gohan’s all about.  Super only did it long enough to spackle over a plot hole.   “Frieza beat him in one hit, so how’s he going to do any good in the Tournament of Power?   Oh, Piccolo worked him over for a while, so he’s back in shape now.”    It’s not enough, and I think this is why some fans argue over the dilemma instead of appreciating the dilemma.   It’s a feature, not a bug.

Favorite episode (scene if movie):

Gohan just dismantling Cell is the standard by which I judge all wrestling grudges.    The reason WWE sucks is that they’ll have the bad guy Perfect Cell all over the place for months, and then they fuck up the part where the good guy is supposed to turn SSJ2 and dole out sweet, sweet consequences.    If all you know how to do is the first half of the formula, then... well, I’m cancelling my WWE Network subscription, I guess.  I forgot where this analogy was heading.  

Point is, Gohan’s an awesome moment factory.   Take a look.

You can’t go wrong.

Favorite season/movie: Cell Games, let’s be honest.  

Favorite line: When he calls Super Buu a r-- hahaha, no.   I’m actually thinking of the part in the Funimation dub when Cell starts to panic.    In Japan, the narrator explains Cell’s fear, and in Latin America it was meme fuel, but in the U.S., Gohan reminds Cell that he warned him about this. 

“What are you so afraid of Cell? Isn't this what you wanted? I warned you! I told you what would happen if you pushed me too far! But you didn't listen! You forced me to awaken my hidden power! And now that you've seen it, you're afraid...because you know that I'm going to destroy you!” 

It’s a brilliant bit of work, because you can’t see Gohan’s face in the shot, so he can be the one to point out what the narrator says in all the other versions.   They all compliment each other so well.    I cannot emphasize enough how grateful I am for Brickshitting Cell.  

Favorite outfit:

It’s a tough call, but Casual Friday Great Saiyaman is a killer look, and one of the few Gohan outfits that isn’t based on some other thing.   Let’s be real because I am keeping it real: Videl only wanted to unmask Great Saiyaman because she saw his outfit and could not stop thinking about how hot he’d look if he ditched the helmet and cape and wore sunglasses instead.   

OTP: Videl.   Well, Gohan and Videl.    Godel?   Vihan?   None of these sound right.   He should stick with the lady he made a baby with, is what I’m saying.

Brotp: Krillin literally calls him bro throughout the Namek arc, so I think this one wins by default.   On the other hand, Goten is literally Gohan’s brother, so I guess that can’t be ignored.  

Personally, I think of Piccolo more as a brother figure to Gohan than a father figure, since he’s only a few years older than him, so maybe that’s my answer, but whatever. 

Head Canon: I think Gohan is disillusioned with outer space after having traveled to another planet and finding only death and horror.   It’s kind of tragic that this is a kid who should be totally into space and spaceships and he should be telling space facts to everyone who will listen, but that probably stopped being fun after Namek.  

Unpopular opinion: He was never going to be the main character of DBZ.   I think even Toei was hoping for some sort of torch-passing thing, but it never materialized, and Gohan only took the reins because Goku was too dead or Vegeta was too evil to do it instead.   And Gohan never really wanted to be the main character anyway.    I look at him and see a guy who’s totally happy to be the overlooked son of this pop culture phenomenon.    He sees his dad’s parade float and he’s just super-thrilled to see his dad in baloon form.    There’s no sense of “If only I was better at this, and then I could have my own parade baloon!”  That’s Vegeta.   

A wish: Pay Bruce Faulconer whatever he wants and use “Gohan Fights Frieza” in the next anime where Gohan kicks somebody’s ass.    Also, make a new anime where Gohan kicks somebody’s ass.

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: You know, one of these years, some official DBZ story is going to be made where they decide to “get serious” and have Gohan say a bunch of “cathartic” stuff to Goku, calling him a terrible father or some other horseshit.    Like how DC brought back Jason Todd just to have him bitch at what a crappy parent Batman is.    Again, I hope I’m safely cremated before that happens, but so many pompous dopes are gonna gush about a hacky moment like that, and go on their YouTube vlogs to say “it’s about time!”    

5 words to best describe them: Gohan Fights Frieza Dot mp3.

My nickname for them: I... don’t really have one?   Do people nickname fictional characters?   I didn’t know that was a thing.

[bucky-of-the-opera]

Put a Little Boogie in It

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: A night out with friends leads to a horrible, wonderful mistake.

Warnings: language, alcohol

Word Count: 2,323

A/N: This is for @captain-rogers-beard follower milestone One Hit Wonder Challenge! My song is “Mickey” by Toni Basil

You were several episodes into a marathon binge of your latest Netflix show when you heard a knock at your door. 

“One second!” you shouted as you struggled to unravel yourself from your cocoon of blankets. You opened your bedroom door to find Natasha fully dressed for a night out. 

“What are you doing?” she asked coolly. 

“Watching the new season of –”

“Not anymore,” she said, cutting you off. “We’re going out.”

“Where?”

“There’s a new bar opening tonight, and I need a designated driver.”

“Can’t you use one of Tony’s drivers?” you groaned.

She smiled sweetly at you. “But you’re much better company.”

You rolled your eyes. “Fine.”

“Great. Now put some pants on, and meet me in front of the elevator when you’re ready to go.”

You looked down at your exposed legs and tugged on your oversized sweatshirt as Natasha walked away. 

“So much for a cozy night all to myself,” you muttered as you shut your door and started getting dressed. 

A little while later you emerged from you room and found Natasha waiting by the elevator.

“Took you long enough,” she said as she pressed the down button. Seconds later the doors opened, revealing Bucky Barnes leaning against the back wall of the elevator. He looked surprised to see the two of you. 

“Evening, Barnes,” Natasha said as she moved to stand next to him. 

“Romanoff,” he responded.

She pressed the button for the garage level. As she did so, she noticed no other button was lit up. 

You scuttled inside before the doors shut, standing on his other side. “Oh, hi Bucky!”

“Hi, Y/N.” He gave you a quick once-over, his gaze lingering on your outfit. He normally saw you in combat gear for missions or in comfortable clothes for exercising or lounging around on a day off. “You look…nice.” His cheeks blushed a bit as he continued. “Where are you two headed?”

“Nat’s dragging me to a bar.”

“I thought you were planning on watching some new show all night. I explicitly remember you telling Steve you were off duty for the foreseeable future until you finished it.”

“And now she’s helping a friend in need,” Natasha interrupted. “By the way, Barnes, it seems you forgot to select a floor.”

His cheeks grew even hotter. “Oh, uh, you’re right.”

Bucky pushed a random button and then shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. 

The rest of the ride was endured in silence until the elevator stopped at Bucky’s floor. He walked through the doors as you called out to him. “Have a good bight, Nucky.

Natasha had to bite her lip to hold back from snickering. 

Your eyes widened as you quickly corrected yourself. “I mean night! Have a good night, Bucky!”

Bucky smiled as he turned around to face you. “You have a good bight too, Y/N.”

The doors shut once more as you slammed your hand to your forehead. 

“Interesting,” Natasha said. 

“What is?” you asked, annoyed. 

“Oh, you know. Just you and Barnes.”

“There is no ‘me and Barnes’.”

“If you say so,” she said, unconvinced. 

You huffed in response and left the elevator when it reached the garage. The two of you had just started walking when you saw Maria Hill heading your way. 

“Where are you off to, all dolled up?” Natasha asked.

Maria smoothed down the front of her blouse. “I was supposed to be meeting someone tonight. But the guy cancelled last minute. Again.”

“Why don’t you come out with us?” you asked.

“Well, I am already dressed for the occasion. Why not?”

“His loss is our gain,” Natasha added as she whipped out her phone. “Our driver will be here any minute.”

You turned to look at her. “I thought I was driving?”

“You were,” Natasha said. “But now it’s a party.”

***

“What are we drinking to?” Maria asked as she picked up her glass. 

“To Tony, for sponsoring tonight’s event,” Natasha winked. 

The three of you clinked your drinks together before sipping from your glasses.

“So,” Natasha began, “who’s this mystery man you were supposed to see tonight.”

“No one, really. We’ve only gone out twice,” Maria responded as she swirled her drink. “What about you two? Anyone new and exciting in your lives?”

“Not me, but…” Natasha trailed off as she glanced at you.

“Why are you looking at me like that? I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Are you sure?” she continued. “Not even a certain 100 year-old cyborg?”

“Of course not! And he’s not a cyborg.”

“Are you talking about Sergeant Barnes?” Maria asked. “I didn’t realize you two were –”

“We’re not! We’re just friends!” you exclaimed, cutting her off.

“But you want to be something, right?” 

“Is this why you asked me to come out? So you could badger me about Bucky?”

“No, of course not,” Natasha paused, “well, maybe a little. I can’t help it; this whole will-they-or-won’t-they routine is killing me.”

“What are you talking about?” you asked, confused.

She sighed. “I’m talking about the way you’re dancing around your feelings for him. It’s blatantly obvious to every else that you’re infatuated with him.”

You turned to Maria. “Is that true? Does everyone think I…like Bucky?”

“I mean, I’m not around as much as Natasha and the others. But from what I’ve seen, it does seem like you, uh, care for him quite a bit…”

You groaned and buried your head in your folded arms. “I’m going into hibernation when we get back. No one will see me for the next few months.”

Natasha chuckled and patted your back. “There, there. Aunt Nat is here to make all your worries go away.”

You snuck a peek with one eye and saw her slowly push a shot glass toward you. You sighed before grabbing the drink, downing it, and slamming the glass back on the table.

“There you go,” Natasha smiled. “Nothing a little alcohol can’t help.”

“Alcohol is only a temporary fix. I’ll still have to live with the fact that everyone knows I like Bucky.”

“Don’t you think he likes you as well?” Maria asked. 

You fiddled with a thread on your sleeve. “I’m not sure.”

Natasha leaned forward. “Well, lucky for you, I’m very observant.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I see all. Including his pining for you.”

You scoffed. “I don’t believe you.”

“Take tonight, for instance. Bucky was coming to your room to confess his love for you.”

“Natasha,” you warned her.

“All right, I don’t know if that’s why he was coming, but he was definitely on his way to see you.” She took a sip of her drink, leaving you in suspense. “He was surprised to see you dressed up and leaving the compound.”

“That’s because I told Steve I was confining myself to my room to –”

“Let me finish,” Natasha said. “There was no button lit up besides the one I pushed.”

“He already said he forgot.”

“Or he had pushed the button for your floor and was heading for your room when we caught him on the elevator.”

You traced the rim of your glass with your finger. “Hmm, maybe.”

“Not to mention all the times I’ve caught him staring at you. Much like the times I’ve caught you staring at him,” she grinned.

You groaned. “Okay, that’s enough. I don’t wanna hear  your theories anymore.” You lifted your empty glass. “Can you just get me another drink?”

“That, I can do.”

***

A few hours later, you and Natasha finally arrived back at the compound after Tony’s driver had dropped Maria off at her place. There was no way you were going to be able to make it back to your room by yourself, so you leaned on Natasha as she led the way.

She closed the bedroom door behind her when the two of you finally reached your bedroom. After carefully placing you on your bed, she searched your drawers for pajamas. 

Meanwhile, you pulled out your phone and opened Pandora, scrolling until you found the 80s Pop station. The app buffered until a song finally started playing.

You gasped. “I love this song!”

“Really?” Natasha asked. 

But you had already started singing along. “Oh Mickey, you're so fine. You're so fine you blow my mind, hey Mickey! Hey Mickey!”

Natasha rolled her eyes as you continued singing to the song. Halfway through however, you had a revelation. 

“Natasha!”

“Y/N!”

“You can replace Mickey with Bucky, and the song still works!” You sang more to prove your point. 

“Oh Bucky, what a pity you don't understand. You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand.”

Unbeknownst to you, Natasha was already recording your new rendition of “Mickey” as you danced on top of your bed. 

“Oh Bucky, you're so pretty, can't you understand? It's guys like you Bucky! Oh, what you do Bucky, do Bucky! Don't break my heart, Bucky!”

After you had come down from your momentary high, Natasha left so you could finally sleep. But before you did, your phone dinged. Natasha sent you the video she had taken of you. 

You watched a bit of it before deciding to send it to Maria, thinking she might find it funny as well. You turned the sound on your phone off before crawling under your covers and finally dozing off.

When you finally woke up, you felt like shit. I’ve gotta stop drinking with Natasha, you thought. You headed into your bathroom to freshen up.

Minutes later you came back to sit on your bed and checked your phone. You saw a text from Natasha asking if you were still alive. You also saw that you had apparently texted Bucky at almost four in the morning. When you opened the message your heart dropped. Apparently in your inebriated state, you had sent the video to Bucky by mistake.

Your first instinct was to call Natasha. The phone rang twice before she picked up.

“She’s alive!”

“I sent the video to Bucky!”

“What?”

“The video from last night! I accidentally sent it to him!”

You heard nothing for a few seconds, and then Natasha burst into laughter.

“This isn’t funny; I have to move now! Or fake my own death! I can’t face him. Please Nat, you have to do something.”

She exhaled to try and catch her breath. “I think this could actually be good for you. Expressing your feelings for someone can be hard; but luckily for you, your drunk self did it for you.”

“But I didn’t want to tell him!” You collapsed back onto your bed and mumbled into your phone, “I just wanted to watch my show.” You ended the call and pulled your blanket back over your head, eventually drifting off again. 

A loud knocking on your door roused you from your slumber.

You groaned. “No one’s home; please leave a message!”

“It’s Bucky.”

Your breath caught in your throat. You rolled onto your side with your back facing the door as you pulled your knees closer to your chest.

“Y/N, can I come in? Please?”

“It’s unlocked,” you said softly. 

The handle turned and Bucky slowly entered the room, closing the door behind him. He sat down on the edge of your bed, his back to you. 

He sat in silence for a few moments before speaking. “I went on a jog with Sam earlier today. He told me a corny joke that I think you would’ve appreciated.” Bucky glanced over his shoulder at you, but you were still facing away from him. “How do you make a tissue dance?”

Several seconds passed until you finally answered, your voice muffled by the blanket. “You put a little boogie in it.”

He smiled. “So you’ve heard that one? How about this one: What do you call a fake noodle?” 

“An impasta.”

Bucky shook his head. “I swear, you and Sam have the same sense of humor.”

“We have the best sense of humor.” You rolled onto your back to look at him, the blanket resting just below your chin. “Did you come up here just to tell me some jokes?”

Bucky adjusted himself so he could face you. “Yes. But also because I missed your face.”

You failed at trying to hide your smile. “I missed your face too.” You sat up, letting the blanket drop to your lap. “I’m sorry about the video. I blame alcohol.”

He chuckled. “I never knew you were such a good singer.”

“Can we just forget about this whole thing, please? It’s embarrassing.”

Bucky moved so he was sitting next to you, his arm pressed against yours. “I won’t bring it up, but I want to keep the video.”

“Why?!”

“Because it makes me laugh. And because you called me pretty.”

You crossed your arms and pouted. “I didn’t call you pretty. My drunk alter ego called you pretty.”

“But you think I’m pretty too, right?” He nudged you with his elbow. 

“You’re gorgeous,” you said in a flat tone, making him laugh. You sighed. “If you promise not to show the video to anyone else, you can keep it.”

He crossed his heart. “Promise.”

“I need a real promise,” you said, holding your pinkie out to him. 

He squinted at it before locking his pinkie with yours. “I promise.”

“Thank you.”

His eyes met yours. “Ya know, I think you’re pretty too.”

You tried to pull your hand away but even the grip from his pinkie was too strong to break free of.

Bucky moved his face closer to yours, making your heart race. He stopped just mere inches from you, giving you a chance to pull your head back if you wanted. But instead you moved forward as well, your lips meeting his for the briefest moment. When you pulled away, you saw him grinning at you. You smiled back at him before burying your head in his shoulder. 

Don’t break my heart, Bucky.

[lefthandsuzukimethod]

tag people you want to get to know better

tagged by @captain-apostrophe! <3

tagging (but only if you want to): @vexingcosmos, @spectralprongs,  @brehaaorgana ,  @grandsairs, @christinismithe, @serendipitysunnyflower and anyone else who wants to do it!! <33

your name and then what you would have named yourself: ana! i am good with my name tbh idk that i'd change it

astrological sign (sun/moon/rising if you know them): libra/leo/capricorn

when did you join tumblr and why?: i just checked and i have been a part of this hellsite since feb 2009 fladkfmaf i remember there was like a week that almost all of ontd_ffa joined @ once because one of us was like HEY THERES A COOL NEW SITE and i'm still here lmao

top 5 fandoms: like active fandoms or just Things I Like? obv rn like… mdzs/the untamed lmao, but also bnha and ffxv pero like in tiny circles??? idk fandom for me is better when u curate your experience, also yk when people are like hey what do u want for christmas and your brain decides it suddenly doesn't know anything? that's what my brain is doing right now lol, UHHHH lemme get back to you on the rest of them. OH i am also dipping my toes into the bts fandom with @spectralprongs's help!! <3 i'm also still very mad that in the flesh was canceled after 9 episodes

top 5 favorite films: pan's labyrinth, pacific rim, coco, jurassic park, the devil's backbone probably 

go to song when you wanna Feel something: when i want to feel WHAT THO? so many moods, so many songs if you get specific i might have a better answer lol

what’s your religion or faith if you have one?: i was raised catholic, so there's a flavor of catholic jokes that will always make me laugh

a song that makes you feel seen: la respuesta lmfaldfmllkm YO NO NECESITO UN HOMBRE QUE ME JODA

if you could have any career: i wanted to be a photographer traveling the world taking pics and getting paid for it, but idk i'm p ok where i am rn working in immigration law if only because i can help people

do you have a type?: sweet gremlin men with nice bone structure, women who could probably beat me up

what does your heart/soul yearn for: for unprecedented times to be OVER please a bitch is tired

if you had to describe yourself in 5 words to someone who doesn’t know you: I Cannot for some reason it's so hard for me to describe myself lol but if anyone else wants to answer this for me GO FOR IT

favorite subjects in school: photography! art! languages! english! french! music classes!

where does your soul feel most at home: anywhere i can relax with my favorite people <3  

top 5 fictional characters:                                        

top 3 moments in a show that made you ugly cry: OOF moments??? the first ep of futurama with seymour the dog, the season finales of itf, idk i try not to watch shows that are going to make me sad lmao i'm cheating and putting the beginning of up here too

the earth, the sun, the moon or the stars: the earth we are not nice enough to her she's doing her best!!!! the stars are a close second but i don't get to look @ them enough thanks light pollution

favorite kind of weather: SNOWSTORM you can spend all day playing in it and then be cozy inside after with blankets and soup

top 3 characters you relate to: I CHANGED THIS QUESTION BECAUSE I DIDN’T LIKE HOW IT WAS WORDED LMAO but every oldest sibling from the untamed who raised their younger siblings oldest siblings deserve financial compensation!!!, prob the weasley twins who are v smart but also v much not about their grades lol (that's 6 it counts)

favorite medium of art: all of them i refuse to pick one!!! well no i can tell u my least favorite art medium is art made from trash and/or period blood

introvert/extrovert/ambivert: extrovert allegedly

a favorite literary quote: bruh i haven't read an actual book in SO LONG i need to make more time to read

some of your favorite books: remind me about this one i am at work and have forgotten every single book i've ever read

if you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?: i think i'm ok here! i love traveling and visiting new places, but i live super close to a big city and i like having Four Seasons (total landscaping ladfkamdf i'm sorry it was right there)

if you could live in any time in history when would it be?: mmm like cap said, history hasn't been particularly good to female-presenting people, and i'm gonna add that it's also been sorta terrible to not white people. NOT THAT NOW GOING PARTICULARLY WELL LMAO BUT UHHHH. if i could go just like watch history, maybe a period when art/music was having a big boom

if you could play any instrument masterfully it would be: piano!!! i have one but i can only play by ear lmao (it was an inheritance) i should be able to read music after many years playing different instruments but nope none of it stuck

if you have one, what mythological god or goddess do you feel a connection to: i do not have one

and lastly, favorite recent selfie in your camera roll: all of my recent selfies have been mask selfies i sent kie or pics of office puppy on the selfie camera WHOOPS i don't really take selfies

[rachelkaser]

Stay Golden Sunday: Flu Attack

Dorothy, Rose, and Blanche are brought down by the flu and fight like cats in a sack. Sophia observes.

Picture It...

Sophia is hemming one of Dorothy’s dresses in the kitchen as Blanche comes in with one of her own. They’re preparing for a big charity dinner on the weekend, and Sophia’s a little irritable that she hasn’t found a date yet. Rose comes in, feeling a little under the weather, which puts Dorothy’s back up. Rose promises she’s not sick and won’t get anyone else sick. Blanche sets herself up for one of the best zingers in the show’s history.

BLANCHE: Oh you don’t have to worry about me, honey. I never get sick. I take very good care of myself. I treat my body like a temple. SOPHIA: Yeah, open to everyone, day or night.

Cut to, presumably, a few days later, and Blanche, Rose and Dorothy are all camped out on the couch, sick as dogs. Rose feels guilty for bringing the creeping crud into the house, while even illness can’t stop Blanche from primping. Sophia comes in, upset because she still can’t get a date for the banquet, and begrudgingly answers the doorbell. Dr. Richmond, a woman in a snazzy blue blazer, arrives to tend to them. She does a very brief physical exam, palpating their throats and looking into their eyes for some reason -- Blanche is a little nonplussed about being examined by a woman, natch.

From this short appointment, Dr. Richmond determines they all have the flu (Sophia: “I told them that two days ago. Tell them something new for $50″). She encourages them to rest for at least a week, meaning they’ll miss the banquet, and leaves. They’re disappointed at this failure of medicine, and discuss home remedies. Sophia tells a story about Sicily’s Widow Caravelli, who would treat ear infections with a green salve that Salvador, the village idiot, later marketed as pesto sauce.

DOROTHY: Ma, you’re making this up. SOPHIA: So what? I’m old. I’m supposed to be colorful.

Three days later, Blanche and Dorothy squabble over the heating pad -- Sophia rightly calls them out for being so cranky. Rose comes in with a folk medicine book, and is inexplicably cheerful. When Dorothy questions it, it turns out Rose’s Hot Toddy recipe might be a little strong. Dorothy and Blanche continue to fight over who gets the TV, and even Rose’s Hot Toddies can’t keep her from getting snappish. They storm off to their bedrooms just as Sophia comes in an announces she has a date for the banquet.

In the kitchen, the Girls continue to bicker, over the orange juice, the Vicks VapoRub, and the Nyquil cup. When Rose bursts into tears, they start apologizing to each other, the stress of being cooped up and sick making them crazy. They hug it out, promising to get through it together. Sophia enters and tells them that, when she called to cancel their reservations to the banquet, the organizer’s disappointment led her to suspect either Rose, Blanche, or Dorothy won the Best Friend of the Friends of Good Health Award.

BLANCHE: Why, what’d she say? SOPHIA: It wasn’t what she said. It was what she didn’t say. ROSE: What didn’t she say? SOPHIA: How they hell do I know? She didn’t say it!

Immediately intrigued, the Girls start reciting what each of them has done to possibly deserve the award. Rose participated in a walkathon, bikeathon, telethon, and marathon. Blanche volunteered with senior citizens, at a daycare center, and as a volunteer dummy for a CPR class. Dorothy sold peanut brittle to raise funds for a new bloodmobile. Naturally, the competition causes them to turn nasty again, and they all decide to go to the banquet, flu or no flu.

At the banquet, Rose and Dorothy are at the table with their dates -- Dorothy’s doesn’t seem especially happy to be there. Blanche arrives alone and says her date will arrive shortly, and they continue to argue over who’s going to win the award. Sophia arrives with a much-younger man named Raoul, a flower vendor Sophia met at the dog track who can only say, “It’s a pleasure to be here” in English. Blanche arrives with a man named Tommy and tries to pass him off as her date, but he’s quickly revealed to be a waiter -- Blanche’s date didn’t want to be seen with her in her sickly state.

The event’s emcee takes the stage, and tells everyone that Don Johnson, the celebrity guest, isn’t coming, but they have the clothes he was planning to wear. Sure enough, a presenter arrives on stage with a white blazer. The Girls get one last dig at each other as they wait for the award to be given -- Rose even preemptively removes her napkin from her lap. The presenter opens the envelope and announces the name of the winner: It’s Sophia!

Everyone bursts into applause, including the three Girls, as Sophia goes to accept the award (after getting two victory smooches from Raoul). In her acceptance speech, she says very pointedly that she’s lucky to have love and support in her home and wanted to pass it on -- the Girls exchange meaningful looks -- and flexes on everyone by showing off her handsome, young date. The other three Girls apologize to each other again and toast to friendship, sealing it with one final, explosive sneeze.

“The minute I found out you were contagious, I should have thrown you out on the street.”

Confession time: While I think some other episodes from Season 1 are structurally better, or are more touching in some ways, this episode is my favorite. Remember when I said in “The Custody Battle” that the episode was so lean on good singular lines of dialogue that I had trouble picking one for my mid-post header quote? I had the opposite problem here: So many lines of dialogue are great that I had to flip a coin to pick one.

DOROTHY: Blanche Deveraux can’t find a date? BLANCHE: Oh don’t be ridiculous. My only problem is trying to decide which of my many suitors to flatter with an invitation. After all, it’s the social event of the season. DOROTHY: I guess you’ll just have to break a few hundred hearts, Blanche. BLANCHE: I know. I haven’t had to disappoint so many men since Daddy tore down the tree house.

While this episode has no moral, no character growth, and no drama, it’s still the best if only because it has such a relatable story. Who hasn’t been extremely sick and cranky and miserable at least once in their lives? In any other circumstances, the Girls’ nastiness to each other would be shocking and disturbing. But under the circumstances, I can’t say I wouldn’t be behaving the same way.

The Girls spend most of the episode at each other’s throats, and yet in spite of that -- or perhaps because of it -- their friendship feels especially strong. It’s not like they want to be so horrible to each other -- they’re just radiating horribleness and get caught in each other’s crossfire, is how I look at it. And they’re still able to apologize to each other and get past it, twice. I think it’s a great example of how friendship can take a test like this.

BLANCHE: You really think selling candy is going to qualify you for that prestigious award? DOROTHY: Oh, excuse me. I didn’t realize that slipping my tongue to half the firemen in the county was the more lofty social achievement.

Still, message aside, almost every joke in this episode is a winner and lands perfectly, and for that reason alone I will keep this in a playlist of my favorite Golden Girls episodes forever.

There’s really no B-plot to this episode -- instead, there’s more like an A1 plot and an A2 plot. The A1 plot is Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy suffering from their flu while Sophia attends them. The A2 plot is all four Girls wanting to attend the charity banquet and being up for the same award. Since these plots are effectively twined together throughout the episode, it means that all of the Girls get equal screentime and lines throughout the episode.

Sophia does sort of hover in the background, and at first it seems like the episode is going to relegate her to funny lines rather than an important role, as has happened before. However, this pays off in a big way when she wins the awards over the other three Girls, and gives an acceptance speech that shows she was paying full attention to them throughout the week and knows what to say to remind them of what’s important.

I almost wish we knew what Sophia had done to win the award, given the other Girls got to brag about their accomplishments. But I think the fact that Sophia’s the person in the episode who behaves charitably, taking care of the other Girls when they get sick and never really complaining about how awful they’re being and not even mentioning all the things she’s done. It’s still cool to see that the Girls are so community-minded -- and it’s good to remind us of their good traits even as they’re all crabbing at each other.

SOPHIA: *about the Widow Caravelli* She was best known for this green salve she used to make to treat ear infections. One day she gave a batch to Salvador, the village idiot. He misunderstood the directions and put it on his linguine instead of in his ear. DOROTHY: I guess if you’re an idiot with a hearing problem, you do things like that.

Another reason I like this background story about charitable work and the betterment of the community is that it contributes to the feeling that these onscreen characters are people with lives that happen off-camera. I know that’s not really the case, but it’s these details that make them feel so three-dimensional. Everything they do is in keeping with their characters as we know them so far -- it doesn’t surprise me one bit that Blanche came up with a firemen’s CPR class and volunteered herself as the practice dummy.

I don’t think I have any complaints to make about this episode. Every moment is just great joke after great joke, and all four actresses are at their peak. I don’t think there are two consecutive minutes in this episode that don’t give me a giggle. Reportedly, playing sick was tricky for the Girls, as they couldn’t play it too over the top, and the whole crew began to feel ill after the week’s filming just from having watched them play sick.

BLANCHE: You know, this is the first time a female doctor’s ever examined me. Feels kinda strange. DR. RICHMOND: I hear that a lot. You know the truth is, despite the progress that women have made, medicine is still a man’s world. *sticks a tongue depressor in Blanche’s mouth* So, if it’ll make you feel any better, I used to be a man. BLANCHE: *flinches and pulls the depressor out of her mouth* What?! DR. RICHMOND: Just a little female doctor humor.

Part of me does wonder why all three Girls are spending their recuperation on the couch in the living room, as opposed to their own separate bedrooms, but I think at this point in the series they only have one TV in the house. One very minor nitpick is that Sophia seemed convinced, by what the organizer said, that one of her three roommates won the award, when she was the actual winner. I’m not sure what we’re meant to take from that: Did Sophia mishear Harriet McConnell, or was Harriet upset that Sophia’s daughter and friends wouldn’t be there to support her? But that’s a minor quibble at best.

Also, bit of trivia for you: Bea Arthur didn’t usually break out in laughter on set, and the times she did were notable. In Golden Girls Forever, she says she had a great laugh in this episode during the banquet scene when the presenters show off a hanger with Don Johnson’s clothes on it: “I’ve never seen anything funnier in my life.” She added that they eventually had to cut away from her because she couldn’t stop laughing, which tells me that we originally got a Dorothy Reaction Shot at that point in the episode, and I’m frankly sorry we didn’t get to see it.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out this episode’s sudden relevance given the world situation. While the Girls being sick and fighting will always be relatable, them specifically fighting because they’re sick and cooped up together feels even more so given the pandemic and all the not-going-out we’ve all been doing for the last year. Not to sound sappy, but Sophia’s message to her daughter and two surrogate daughters in the final scene that they value the people they have around them, even in the not-so-great times, puts a smile on my face.

Episode rating: 🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰 (five cheesecake slices out of five)

Favorite Part of the Episode:

It’s really tough to pick out just one, but I have to pick the joke I didn’t get until I was an adult.

[five-wow]

now that i’ve had at least twenty-four hours to let the news of the impending end of our show sink in, here is my disjointed post with thoughts, to add to the wealth of voices already out there:

this is probably not a surprise and definitely not something nobody has said before, but i do think it’s important to be said, first and foremost: i am sad about this!! and that is okay and i fully understand and respect this decision by the cast and crew, but that doesn’t necessarily make it less sad.

i’m also very anxious about the sudden countdown. five episodes left to go feels very suddenly very limited for a show that always felt kind of endless to me. i thought i was looking at an ocean stretching towards the horizon and instead what’s left is a puddle. (by which i don’t mean anything bad about the remaining episodes - i have no negative feelings towards puddles. puddles could potentially be wonderful.)

related to the previous point, i’m only realizing now that i fully expected them to push this show into an eleventh (and probably twelfth) season come hell or high water, even if scott might have left (which always seemed like the more likely option than alex needing a break). so even though this is not really a surprise, it is more of one than i would have thought. (at the same time, it should be said that i’m very glad they didn't go the route i thought they would take. it's an unpleasant surprise to see the show end, but it’s also a strangely reassuring one, though it may take some time yet to fully feel the benefits of that over the more immediate sadness.)

to bring something a little more positive into this: i’m very excited for the cast and crew to be able start a new chapter their lives after this! it’s sad to see a thing end, and very emotional after it’s been in some cases a full decade of their lives and careers, but change is good and human and healthy.

not the most salient point, but it does make more sense to me now that we suddenly got irrefutably canon and together tani/junior. maybe that would have happened regardless, i don’t know (they have been building towards it for much longer, obviously), but it still seemed pretty “boom, there it is” to me in the end, because i expected them to draw things out even longer because i don’t think they wanted to write a show where two main characters are happily dating each other even though obviously they have been doing exactly that with steve and danny, but they don’t know that, so sshh.

another story thing: i SO HOPE this news means we get to end the show with steve and danny single and living together. THAT IS ALL I ASK FOR. ALL. I. ASK. FOR.

as a fic writer, this whole thing is making me a little anxious because a) new canon content is good to get the creative juices flowing and b) there is always a surge in readership after an episode airs. with no new episodes so soon, i feel a weird kind of pressure to make the most of this last month of content that will get the fandom active in large groups at specific times, even though that’s not something i’ve ever really taken into consideration while writing or posting fic before.

also, PLEASE show us grace again before the show ends!! she’s been very absent this season to the point where i’m not even entirely sure we’ve heard her name mentioned, let alone that we in any way know where she went to college or how she’s doing there.

same feelings about mary, to be honest. they’re both characters who have been a part of this show since all the way back in the very early episodes of season 1, and they’re also both very important people to steve and danny.

it’s been said, but i’m just. so so sad this thing i really enjoyed and that has been something i spent hours and weeks and months of my life with is now coming to an end. throughout all the other thoughts, that’s definitely one that keeps coming back.

but at the same time, i’m also strangely excited for the idea of series codas, because those are the only kind where no canon content will ever come along and tell us we were mistaken in assuming steve and danny finally figured their shit out. once canon is done, we will have complete free reign. (i’m assuming here that both steve and danny survive the series finale, because killing either of them off would honestly be a very bad way to end ten seasons of making us like them imo, but it would still be true regardless of whether they’re alive in canon. fix-it fic, yo.)

as down as i am, i do also keep returning to the near certainty that it’s better if they quit at a point where there is still some heart to this show left, instead of milking it until it's a walking husk of a thing that nobody recognizes. i’m thankful for that.

BUT ALSO. season 10 was SO GOOD so far. i was genuinely excited for this shift that they seemed to have made from season 9, so it's a little heartbreaking to feel like they're quitting just when things were looking up. (again, though, also a good thing in a strange way.)

totally different approach: i’m glad we're all being respectful about this whole thing! that is wonderful to see and just, generally, thank you all for being cool people.

i’m also grateful i haven't seen anyone say we need to fight to revive the show, especially because this seems to have been a decision made at least in part by alex for his health, which just. it’d be very bad to try to lobby for more in this kind of situation, but it sometimes seems like campaigns to reverse a cancellation have become a set part of the end of very nearly every show with an active fandom. i was a little scared to see that kind of thing here, but it hasn’t happened as far as i know, and that’s good.

in the end, idk, it just continues to be such an odd thing to have a show you love end. it feels like something died, but nothing really did (we still have ten seasons of content, and that’s not going to go away!) and nobody around me irl really shares that feeling, which is a little awkward. i'm in a weird mourning phase where i keep being reminded of The Sad Thing by little stuff and i feel a pang every time, but i can't keep going "this reminds me of h50" over and over and over, because i do that enough on a normal day as is, and it really doesn't need to be tripled. for that reason more than ever, i'm grateful for this fandom, and, weird as it may sound on the surface, grateful to see all of you be sad, too. it takes away the feeling of loneliness it would have carried with it otherwise, and it soothes the sting, and just generally helps process things.

so thank you. let’s make something wonderful out of this last hurrah for the show and characters, and, obviously, there is nothing to stop fandom even after canon is over. what’s left of the show may be a puddle, but fandom really is that ocean with no visible limits, and that should be some small consolation. ❤

[ivory-haired-queens-blog]

Unpopular Opinions: Fandom Edition

Hey none of you asked but I’m here to deliver so here are some unpopular opinions for the fandoms I’m in. Spoilers, duh.

Marvel:

I don’t like Natasha. Or Steve.

Pepper Potts is a top.

As much as I love Loki, his death was nessicary in Infinity War.

Steve should have killed Bucky in Civil War. He was a threat, plain and simple.

I ship Ironstrange/Supremefamily.

Clint should have died in Infinity War.

I love Tony Stark with my whole heart. (Not an unpopular opinion but you needed to know that)

I’m not happy with the end of Endgame.

10 years in the making....for you to do Thor like that?

Not because he’s fat or because he’s dealing with trauma, that’s totally acceptable.

What’s not acceptable is them making Thor into the butt of the joke because he’s fat.

I love the Antman movies.

I’m totally not biased because I loved lost.

(I’m kinda biased)

Shuri is the best Marvel character and would beat Tony Stark in a battle of wits.

(I’m so gay I love her.)

With as many years as Marvel has had the MCU, I am disgusted at the lack of diversity within the movies.

Like it’s 2019 and we JUST got a female empowerment scene in Endgame.

Like I want a gay superhero.

(We have a disabled one thank god. Love you Stephen.)

And don’t give me that Valkyrie/Captain Marvel BS because they never blatantly stated or showed it in their movies.

I want an Asian superhero bitch.

A superhero who is Muslim/Islam/and religion besides Christian.

I think that, as much as I hate Natasha and Steve, they should have been the ones that Bruce first sees in Infinity War. I know it set up the whole “earth is closed today” sequence but it didn’t make sense and was OOC.

I love Stephen Strange and he’s never done a single thing wrong ever in his life I would die for this man.

I like MCU Peter Parker over the origional movie Spider-Man.

Fight me.

I also like the Tony Stark/Peter Parker better than the Uncle Ben/Peter Parker so @ me.

The 100

I don’t ship Bellarke that hard.

Like yes, I think they’re obviously being groomed to end up together. I know the show runners will make them official before the end of the series. I’m not mad about that, I just don’t really care to be honest. It’s like, too obvious.

But there are some cute bellarke scenes

What they did to Monty was bullshit but what they did to Jasper was worse.

I feel no guilt whatsoever in saying that I think that killing all of Mount Weather was what they should have done from the beginning.

Yes, even the kids. Because if you kill their leaders, the men and women will fight back. The colony would have been left with a handful of adults, and a bunch of kids if the origional plan had worked. This is doomed to fail and honestly just killing them all would be better than seeing them kill eachother for food, power, whatever. If that makes sense.

I think that Finn deserved to die.

I think that Murphey deserves the world.

Charlotte fucking killed Wells. Yes she’s young but she knows better than to kill someone. Maybe not kill her, but we all know that Clarke wouldn’t have banished her like she did Murphey. Clarke has a gender bias because Murphey didn’t do anything and she wouldn’t have punished Charlotte as hard because she’s a young girl. I rest my case

Even though what he did was bad and wrong, I don’t think Murphey should have been banished. He’s right. They were all compliant and even excited when he was being hung, but when it’s a little girl all bets are off.

Like Bellamy brought the whole hostage thing upon himself because he fucking tied a noose around Murphey’s throat.

Again, not that what Murphey did was right. He didn’t have to act like that. Jasper didn’t do anything to him.

Also this segment is getting long but the show writers and everyone else just casually forgot that Murphey was TORTURED? Hello? Are we not going to acknowledge that?

I shipped Clexa with my whole heart.

Another actually popular opinion: what they’ve done to Raven’s character this season is bullshit. Her only role is Abby’s moral compass. This is the same girl who shuttled to earth in a Tin Can. She’s better than this.

What the fuck??? Happened to??? Jordan???

Like Madi stabbed him

And then they proceeded to not talk about it for like four episodes and then casually mention it in passing like “oh he saved Pria that means he gets to live”

Like they set up his character to be really important this season.

But he’s not.

I think that Murphey/Emori is the best ship.

I also think that Either Murphey or Emori or Both are secretly double crossing the Primes. (This comes out before the finale of season six)

They didn’t have to do Onyia like that

The opening of season three is so weak that I actually stopped watching the show around that time (I’d been watching since the beginning of season two) because there’s just nothing there in the first like 10 minutes and I couldn’t do it.

Maybe I’m just impatient but it’s bad.

I think that Octavia did the best that she could with what she had available and I think that’s she’s not a bad person for what she did with the fighting pits/cannabalism. And I know that if Bellamy had been in her place, he would have eventually done the same.

Kane was a whiny bitch in season 5.

Why’d the kill Diyoza(I can’t spell) like that?

I liked Joesephine. It was really fun to see Eliza Taylor be able to get a new character in the show. Also props to her for that last episode with pretending to be Joesephine and being Clarke at the same time.

I called the dude being Gabriel from the first time I saw him you peasants.

Octavia’s redemption arc this season is beautiful.

They did....that.....to Kane. I’m angerey.

Lost In space

Not enough people watch this show. (The Netflix remake or the origional)

Seriously guys it’s a good show.

Absolutely nothing is wrong with it.

I love Don West with my whole heart.

I love Dr. Smith with my half heart.

I love the robot with my two hearts.

I love Penny Robinson with all the stars in the galaxy.

I love all of them okay.

There are no plot holes, no inconsistencies, no faulty science and anyone who says (or proves) otherwise is wrong.

It’s confirmed for a season two which should air in like the December-February time area.

It’s a Netflix show so you can binge the entire season in like a weekend.

Seriously watch it.

The Umbrella Academy

Five x Delores is weird.

Luther x Allison is illegal.

Klaus deserves all the push pops in the world.

The handler is hot.

The Comission killed Dave.

Luther is the most boring, Unorigional, straight white guy character I’ve seen in a long time. I hate him so much.

Allison is a queen but her character is brought down by her weird relationship with her brother.

Tbh if I was Allison you know I’d be telling my kids that I heard a rumor that theyd go the fuck to sleep. Like that’s a good thing. Idk maybe I’m just a sociopath.

Istanbul not Constantinople being played over a scene where five murders a squad of Commission people is the greatest cinematic masterpiece ever conceived by man.

“Where are you going” “to save the world” “oh is that all?” Iconic.

None of these are really unpopular but the show writers seem to think differently.

Diego has never done anything wrong in his life like yaaaasss bitch kill your brother at yo daddy’s funeral!!! Work!!!

PaTcH

AAaAHh

Big Theif - Mary is the perfect song to play over Klaus returning from Vietnam.

Will you love me, like you loved me in the January rain?

It’s up there with Goodbye July.

Speaking of Goodbye July....

Z Nation

Many people haven’t watched it

It’s like if The Walking Dead and Zombieland had a baby....and then the baby did a line of cocaine.

It’s wild.

Watching Garnet die ruined every sliver of hope I had in humanity.

I have a special place in my heart for this show because it’s the first show that me and my mom would stay up and watch the new episodes air every Friday. It brought us closer and I can’t thank the cast and show runners enough for this.

So maybe I’m biased, but you should watch it.

Having Murphey switch from being an anti-hero to a villain back to an anti-hero and then to a regular hero, amazing. Astonishing. The peak of human existence.

Even though he’s not entirely human.

What color is Murphey today? Is he pale, discolored, grey, blue, red? We don’t know!

Roberta Warren is the Black Goddess main protagonist that we deserve.

Addison Carver is a functional Bi.

10k is tragic backstory central but other than that, his character development is pretty lacking other than him persuing love interests.

None of these are really unpopular opinions but I doubt any of you have watched the show. It’s on Netflix. Watch it.

Oooooohhhhh George.

Georgia St. Clair could stomp me to death and my ghost would still want to fuck her.

Anyways I’m gay

God damn I have a lot of pent up Gay energy.

Murphey and Lucy have a realistic enstranged father/daughter relationship and it’s heartwarming.

And then they killed her off to save him.

Honestly if you name a character Murphey they can only be assholish bad boys with a good heart deep down sorry I don’t make the rules.

Also if you name a character Murphey I will love them with my whole soul.

I’m so mad they cancelled the show.

I’m infinitely more mad that they named that disgrace of a show Black Summer and claimed that it was a prequel....but it didn’t follow the same cast and had they not advertised it as a prequel I would never have guessed.

Black Summer gives totally opposite vibes than Z Nation does. I get that black summer is supposed to be the worst time that the zombie apocalypse ever had, with cannibals and no food, but it feels like s completely different show.

It’s like if The Walking Dead claimed that it is a prequel/occurs during Shaun of the Dead.

Like....no. They’re....no.

Anyway watch it it’s good.

Detroit: Become Human

Connor isn’t the best character.

This is an unpopular opinion post deal with it.

Markus has to be my favorite.

Honestly this game is so good and not even just graphics-wise.

It’s the same robotic sentience story we’ve been fed for years, but this time it’s from the Android’s perspective and this time all they want is to be free. That’s it.

I fucking hate North.

Hank is literally if Rick from Rick and Morty were serious.

The only correct way to play Connor is to walk the thin line between deviant and regular A.I. Without leaving out Hank. The correct thing to do is make Conner deviant at Jericho.

The only correct way to play Kara is to protect Alice with every fiber of your being. Meanwhile, get close to her. Do not get caught, even if that means dissappointing her.

The only correct way to play Markus is to lead a peaceful revolution. Also tell North to fuck off.

The border patrol guy who either gets Kara and Alice caught or knowingly lets Androids cross the border is the best character. Forget about Markus, this guy sees either “oh fuck androids are killing people, maybe we shouldn’t let this one cross the border” or “Androids just want to be free and are peacefully fighting for this. Let this one and her daughter through.” I love him.

LUTHER.

YES DADDY.

anyway.

Let Out The Bear He Just Wants To Say Hi :)

Even though I think Conner is overrated by the fandom, I do like him.

But he’s not a pure innocent cinnamon roll either.

It depends on how you play, but he has really violent options so stop the “He wouldn’t harm a fly” attitude.

But he is cute.

The home screen for the game is revolutionary (no pun intended) and I hope future game follow suit in making the first impression of the game something cool.

Stealing clothes/money/the fence cutters is literally okay.

Also if you put Kara in white hair you can die.

If in your first actual play through you got the Kara lives at the recycling plant ending but Alice dies, you can die too.

I’ve never actually seen the steal money and go to motel option play out because it’s stupid, especially if you don’t steal clothes. Like that’s begging to be caught.

Stranger things

Billy Hargrove is bad and just because he’s abused does not make what he does okay.

Harringrove is gross and I’m gay so my opinion counts as double.

That being said, there are some really cute fics about Harringrove and I can see the appeal of “good boy falls for mysterious bad boy with a dark past and trauma”

I’ve said I’m gay this whole post because I say it a lot, but I don’t like actually labeling myself but I like girls and boys and everything in between and I say I’m gay kinda as a joke when girls are hot.

That being said...

Steve Harrington calling himself Daddy made me feel things.

Strange things.

Haha get it I’m making a joke to distract you from the daddy part.

Steve Harrington is a good person now, but he was still an asshole before and he can still be criticized for his past.

I used to be hardcore Jancy but after season three I feel like Nancy needs and deserves a break from boys so she can figure out herself and who she is now and what she wants to do without the weight of boys and boyfriends constantly around her.

That being said i still don’t like Nancy because she was flirting/slept in the same bed with Jonathan whilst obviously having feelings for him while she and Steve were still a thing. It’s not cheating but to me it’s close enough to raise red flags.

Robin is perfect in every way.

I don’t like Jonathan. He’s creepy in s1, fine in s2, but then is s3 he doesn’t do anything to or about his male bosses when Nancy is being made fun of because she’s a woman.

Seeing Nancy’s class priveledge/Jonathan’s male priveledge clashing was so cool tbh

Elmax > Mileven > Lumax

Jim Hopper, with all his faults, is still a caring dad.

Plus him threatening Mike made me laugh so hard sksksksks

Steve Harrington deserves the world and then some.

Low key I really want s4 to give in insight on his family life.

I also want him to get an apartment with Robin.

Robins cute tbh but for half the season I though she was a Russian spy. I guess I was wrong.

Mrs. Wheeler shouldn’t sleep with billy (not that she can now) because it’s wrong, but the reason she wanted to is because her husband is so boring and she gave up on her dreams to be his perfect housewife. She wanted a challenge with Billy. Instead, she should leave her pushover of a husband and find someone better.

Anyway Steve Harrington deserves the world.

Yeah okay hate me whatever.

[zacscottysnl]

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE SOUP REVIVAL

OKAY PREPARE FOR A LONG WINDED RANT THAT WILL MOST LIKELY BE INCOHERENT!!!!! 

ill try to break everything down in different sections. i feel like very few even care about this, but The Soup means so much to me and i will defend it to my dying day!!!

ANYway, here are my thoughts on “The Soup Revival” happening in 2020:

1. this whole thing honestly feels like a betrayal to joel and to the entire hardworking crew who made the show from 2004-2015. not only where they barely getting air time towards the end of the series, but they were treated poorly (a whole issue with paying the writers) and they were scolded for making fun of their own network.... which they had been doing for 11 freaking years. and the fact that E! canceled the show for not bringing in viewers and making enough money, but is now bringing back the show with NONE of the original crew is just rude and fcked up! i’m 99% sure they didn’t even mention the revival to anyone before the announcement. not to mention, E! isn’t even addressing that the show was canceled! they’re just saying it’s “returning,” insinuating that the show ended on its own terms (when in fact, they broke the news to joel and the crew 5 weeks before the final episode date)!!!

2. i have nothing against the new host and i’m sure she’s very talented, but there is no soup without joel!!! and yes, i know there were at least 4 hosts on Talk Soup from 1991-2002, but there is a reason why there were four different hosts in the show’s 11 year run, while joel was the ONLY host in The Soup’s 11 year run. joel and the crew were the heart of the show. they are the reason why it was so successful. so to get a new host and re-brand this show as a revival of original The Soup is just so WRONG. honestly, they would be better off to call it something else or to at least consider it as a spin off! if they want to bring back the same format, then fine!!! but give it a different name!

3. which brings me to my THIRD point. the fact that they’re calling it The Soup just makes me think that they’re trying to make money off of something that already has an audience and following. They’re cutting out the hard work of building a new show. i opened instagram yesterday to see the original soup account announce the show’s return, and then went to the profile to find that ALL of the original content was deleted! and not only that, the only thing that remained the same was the follower count. E! knows that everyone misses the the show, so this is a quick fix, money grabbing attempt. and i’m really heartbroken that the old content is gone, almost like it meant nothing to so many people.

4. i could be completely wrong by saying that this “revival” won’t work and that it’ll be canceled after one season, BUT i truly believe that the reason why the original show worked was because of joel and the chemistry he had with the crew. he made the show with his best friends, and that’s why it had so much heart. there will never be another uniquely funny, self-deprecating, self-aware, and original show like The Soup. i can’t imagine that this revival will even come close. (if the new host even utters the words ‘reality show clip time,’ ‘so meaty,’ ‘chicks man...,’ etc. i will flip my LID!!!!!!!!) ((i also think this relates to why The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale didn’t work, but i’ll save that rant for another day))

5. okay i’ll try to make this my last point. i was devastated when The Soup ended, and i wish it was still on my tv every week. but four years later, everyone moved on from it and it’s now remembered for the greatness that it was. joel is continuing to do amazing things and he’s taking roles that he deserves at this point in his career. plus, i’m sure he has nothing but good things to say about E! and the new host and i know for a fact he will wish them well when he’s asked about it. despite that, i think the network really did him dirty, especially because he’s always been so kind and generous, and he’s the reason why so many people tuned into the network every week.

but i guess i’ll just end this rant by saying????? nothing will ever replace The Soup, and that Joel freaking McHale deserves the world! i’m sorry if this rant barely makes sense, it’s hard to put into words everything i’m feeling about it. i tried to leave out the really personal/sappy stuff because this is already too long of an explanation anyway lmao

[allnewalldifferentwildspider]

Why I Dumped...RWBY

If there’s one thing I’ve learned being in fandom is that the audience is not allowed to dictate creative changes to someone else’s work. That is not your place. The trade-off is that you don’t have to be a member of that audience. Once I learned that, I decided that if a series pissed me off one too many times, I would just straight up dump it. Adios, amigo. Go piss someone else off with your shit stories. There are a hundred other things I could be doing with my time. 

When I tell people this, they usually get defensive because sometimes the show I dumped happens to be a show they really like. Which is fine. If it works for you, great. Have fun. But we all have our tastes and personal preferences. 

Sometimes that just isn’t enough for people. They have to know why you would insult them (I’m not and neither are you) by not liking something they like. I doubt most care. Some people just want to be offended. However, there have been some people who are genuinely curious. Usually people who are neutral to whatever show I dumped. They have no dog in this fight; they just want to see my train of thought. 

So you asked for it and here it is. This is my new blog post series where I talk about why I dumped a series. Let’s see if my story and logic will help you see things from my perspective. Let me be clear, I’m not trying to convince you to change your mind. This is just the story of why I made this decision. If you like this series good for you. I don’t. It’s my opinion and I’m allowed to have one same as you.

 We’re going to start off big with RWBY.

For me, RWBY started off as one of those things I kinda heard about on the internet, but never really knew what it was. Then it was on Neftlix and I decided to check out what it actually was. It was a CGI webseries made by the same company that did Red VS Blue led by the guy who did those weird Dead Fantasy videos on YouTube. I watched the first two volumes (because they just can’t be called seasons. We have to be all special and shit) and I wasn’t sure what to think of it. I guess my brain needed time to process it. I watched it again with my brother and then I started volume three on my own. After the volume three finale, I stopped watching and just kept tabs on the show before losing interest completely. There are several reasons that just piled up together so let’s just start at the beginning.

I just don’t think the show is very good.

It was a fucking chore to watch volume one again with my brother. Like holy crap, why wasn’t the show this bad the first time I saw it? Was it going to suck this hard with every viewing? (SPOILER ALERT: The answer is yes.) A lot of the character models look really pale. The animation can be wonky or jittery. The voice acting goes from bad to passable. The pacing is wack. The story is barely told. We spend way too much time on Jaune even though we already have FOUR main characters we have to be tackling. And this is a pet peeve of mine, but they gave names to things that already have names.

semblance = super power

aura = energy

Grimm = monsters

Why won’t anyone just call super powers super powers?

Anyway, those were my initial thoughts. A recurring thought I have about RWBY is, “The idea is adequate but the execution is lacking.” Someone asked me what that meant. Really? Really? You don’t know what words mean? Google it. Your ideas are okay, but the way you’re doing them sucks.

So if I hated the show so much, why did I stick with it after volume one? I liked the characters. I fell in love with Yang. She’s all my favorite parts of female characters put together in one awesome package. A blonde busty badass babe that beats a bunch of baddies? Sign me the fuck up. (Alliteration is fun, kids.) Thanks to some really good fan art, I also started to ship Arkos, Renora, White Rose and Roman Ice Cream (or gelato or partners in crime or whatever it’s called). I wanted to see more Yang and I wanted to see if I would get a payoff after investing so much time. 

I didn’t.

The story goes all over the place. It introduces a bunch of new ideas but never sticks around to develop one. I’ve lost track of how the world works and what our goals are. They created side videos called, “The World of RWBY” that explains that shit. That’s another sign of bad writing. Supplemental material to understand what is going on in the story isn’t fun; it’s homework. More importantly, I shouldn’t have to. It should be organically in the story itself. But it wasn’t because this crew doesn’t know how to. It’s just not there.

Pyrrha’s Death

The main reason I stopped watching after the season three finale. I understand that everyone wants to do their own version of Empire Strikes Back or Avengers: Infinity War. The big battle where the good guys lose. I have several problems with this though. 

1. I agree with Linkara that the only reason you should kill a character is if you’ve ran out of stories to tell with that character. Cheap drama should not be your goal. The problem with shock value is that it only lasts for a second. 

2. You should never kill a fan favorite. That’s how you lose audiences i.e. money. You don’t sell your golden goose, and you don’t kill your cash cow.

I don’t believe that Pyrrha had ran out of stories to tell with her character. Pyrrha was killed just to further Jaune’s story arc which sucks because I barely liked Jaune. I shipped Arkos because I wanted good things for Pyrrha, and really, who doesn’t?

This unfortunately common trope is Stuffed into the Fridge, where female characters are killed for the sole purpose of a male character’s story. It doesn’t matter if Pyrrha was the best warrior in the class or had friends who could have helped her or she could have just ran away or anything really. Pyrrha, my second favorite character, was killed off to jump start Jaune’s character development. Fuck you, Rooster Teeth. And the worst part is, I heard that this was always the plan for Pyrrha. If you have to rely on a trope from 1994, you’re probably not a good writer.

I cancelled my Crunchyroll subscription, and a few people told me to get the fuck over it. 

No. My time. My money. Not interested.

Yang wasn’t ‘for me,’ apparently

This one has a little less to do with the show and more with the fandom (or FNDM, because we have to be all special here). Like I said earlier, I fell in love with Yang. She became my number one waifu instantly. She had everything I liked. Big boobs, long legs, blonde hair, fiery personality, loved to kick ass, loved martial arts, had a great zest for life. It’s like that song lyric, “You are everything I want ‘cause you’re everything I’m not.” I know it’s super embarrassing but I would fantasize about being a character in RWBY and being Yang’s boyfriend. Whenever I would work out I would say it was because I was training to be Yang’s husband. I know it’s lame, but that’s how enamored I was. 

Hell, Yang was the reason I even considered watching RWBY in the first place. I only discovered her thanks to that episode of Death Battle where she beat Tifa.

Then bumblebee happened. 

People on tumblr have this thing where they like to decide what someone else’s character’s sexuality and gender is regardless of the canon. Do whatever you want. The problem was that I am a straight, cis, heterosexual Hispanic male with a tumblr account who likes a character who mostly shipped with another female character. So whenever I try to get matchups or headcanons or imagines, I’m usually ignored. I’m a big boy. I can handle that. What does get under my skin is people going out of their way to tell me that Yang isn’t for me. Like I’m not allowed to like her. When you’ve already lived most of your life with other people telling you that the things you want were never really for you, that sorta thing kinda hits you in the wrong side of the feels. Yang is for bumblebee and bumblee shippers only. I’m over it, but still not cool.

Now I’m hearing that Rooster Teeth might make bumblebee canon to appease the fans. No artistic integrity. I guess I was wrong. The audience is allowed to dictate creative changes if you’re Rooster Teeth. It doesn’t help that Blake is my least favorite character in the series. 

I was upset when Adam cut off her arm in the end of volume three. It didn’t help that it was the same episode that Pyrrha died. Two birds with one stone and all that. I’m glad somebody made a supercut of Yang’s volume four story on YouTube. That was good to watch. It was kinda like Korra’s story in the beginning of Book Four (ugh, just call them seasons!) except with a fraction of the talent.

I haven’t watched anything beyond that, but I have heard of a few things. I’m glad Adam is dead, but that’s about it.

So that’s mostly why I dumped RWBY. Sorry if it was too much, but thanks for reading. Do I miss the show? Not really. I do miss Pyrrha, Yang, and the fan art. Will I ever go back to RWBY? Sorry but no. That’s not how that works. The damage has been done.

tl;dr version

I dumped RWBY because:

I didn’t think it was very good to begin with.

They killed my second favorite character for a shit reason.

My favorite character isn’t ‘for me’ according to everyone else.

[incomprehensiblelentils]

I did not get around to this yesterday but, a short selection of fictional things that meant a lot to me over the last decade! ...it is going under a cut bc it is Too Long sorry lmao.

Books

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: this book came out in September 2017 and I have read it four times already. It’s the kind of book I want to write but I’m not sure I’m clever enough to: every event and every character is so purposeful and you won’t catch everything the first time through. Every time I reread it I find something new to marvel at. I hope the Hulu series is half as good

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: this was the first piece of fiction I ever found with a family with a Chinese father and a white mother. This family is a lot less functional than my family, but I've read this three times because that means the world to me. 

Ash by Malinda Lo: I discovered this in 2011 and it was the first f/f novel I ever read, and as I would later learn, one of a handful with a happy ending at the time, particularly in YA fiction. For a long time, I reread it every time I felt hopeless. I just reread it again last month and it is still as beautiful and meaningful to me as in 2011.

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan: This is an Asian-inspired fantasy (becoming more common now, but still irritatingly rare) written by a queer Asian woman, with f/f. I think it is only the second one of these, after Ash? It is frustratingly rare, anyway. The worldbuilding is incredible also.

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan: We are getting more stories about biracial Asians, but they are still pretty rare and I treasure every one. This one felt so real to me.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth: The first half of this book captures so beautifully what it’s like growing up queer in a religious environment when you don’t even have the words or self-awareness to know what you’re feeling. This was another one I read over and over again when I was feeling low.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater: this is just a book for horse girls. I don’t know how else to describe this lol. I also feel like the romance is super downplayed until the very end, and honestly barely feels like a romance to me, so that’s refreshing!

Movies:

Pacific Rim (2013): I remember having this weird feeling when asked to give my top 3 movies once in high school, like maybe my favorite movie hadn’t come out yet so I couldn’t answer properly. I was right; this is the movie I was waiting for. This is my favorite movie. The feelings this movie gives me is the standard I hold all movies to.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019): but Megan, didn’t this just come out? Yes, and it’s my other favorite movie now. I love (almost) every second of this movie. This movie made me feel a way that I thought maybe I might never feel again, after a certain other franchise movie this year took a dump on my heart. I don’t care that we’re never getting a sequel, we got this and that’s enough for me.

Thor (2011): Those of you who have been around awhile know that I really love this movie. I loved it before we all jumped on the Thor train after Ragnarok and I will continue to love it probably my whole life. It just makes me happy.

Aquaman (2018): This is Thor but underwater and with a biracial hero. It made me cry in the theater and I do not want to hear any negative opinions about it, I find them personally wounding.

Belle (2013): The fact that Gugu Mbatha-Raw isn’t a superstar is tragic, and this movie is gorgeous and lovely and made me feel a lot of things as a biracial person.

Mad Max Fury Road (2015): I remember seeing the trailer for this in the theater and going “yikes that looks like a thing I would never watch.” Joke’s on you, past me!!!! I find this a deeply stressful but glorious film that I can only watch like, once or twice a year.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010): I do not need or want to hear about how this movie is Problematic, I know all of its issues, and yet. It brings me joy and it was one of the first movies I saw when I was just starting to break out of my religious upbringing and I laugh until I cry every time I watch it.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015): I am starting to realize that I am not and never really was a Star Wars Fan, which is to say that like...I love this movie specifically, I love the characters, I love the interactions, I love the stuff that happens. I do not so much love Star Wars as a whole? I like it fine! But this movie is the only part of the franchise to really make me go “oh, I get it.”

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017): This was a weird little movie that nobody saw and nobody talked about, but I adore it because it’s so gentle and romantic. I don’t know how accurate it is to history and frankly I do not really care.

Big Hero 6 (2014): are you tired of me mentioning I’m biracial yet? This movie has biracial protagonists and a cute squishy robot and no romance and superhero stuff and I love it so much.

F8: The Fate of the Furious (2017): I went to go see this on a whim with my wife and it was one of the most joyous theater experiences of my life. I don’t know, I just love everything about it.

TV shows:

Community: This only kind of counts because it started in 2009 but I started it mid-s2 so eh. Seasons 1-3 of this show are written on my heart, I can quote a ridiculous amount of dialogue from them and these characters will stay with me forever. Warts and all, this is my show.

Dollhouse: Another technicality but like, I met my wife because we both loved Bennett Halverson so I gotta put this on here. It’s pretty significantly affected my life! Also I find that it holds up fairly well, if you’re down for the admittedly iffy premise and an ending that’s a bit of a mess narratively due to sudden cancellation.

Agents of SHIELD: I would never claim that this show is “good” but I do think that it has mostly figured out what the hell it’s doing. And it has been a pretty significant part of my fandom life for the last 6 years, so to leave it off this list would feel wrong. It gave me Daisy Johnson, first canon biracial superhero as played by a biracial actor, and for that i will always be grateful.

Warehouse 13: I could not tell you why I fell so deeply in love with this dumb, badly written show that shit the bed in the final episode more spectacularly than I could have imagined, and yet I did! I think probably it is because I love found family so much, and also I find goofy camp charming more often than not. And of course, there is Bering and Wells, the femslash ship that fandom forgot. I will never be over how no one knows what we have suffered!!!!!

Runaways: wow was this a surprise! The Runaways comic is my favorite comic besides Marjorie Liu’s X-23 run, and this show has basically nothing to do with it, and normally that would piss me off but they got my kids’ personalities down so well and all of the actors are so perfect that I really can’t complain. And also, this show has canon f/f and neither of them die at the end! Which is...better than some other shows I could mention!

Doctor Who series 1 and 5: I had a very intense Doctor Who phase in college, and after all was said and done and I quit the show for a time, I realized that although I love a lot of the characters, and Thirteen’s run is pretty good so far, what I really loved was Nine’s run and Eleven’s first season. That is the show at its best to me. Eccleston is my Doctor and Amy is my favorite companion.

Legends of Tomorrow: Look, I am as shocked as anyone that this, the scrappy underdog of the DCTV lineup, is the one that’s most emotionally competent and has the best character arcs! But here we are. Season 4 was some of my favorite TV I’ve seen, uh, ever.

Albums

Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae: I listened to this for basically a year straight after it came out. It’s just ridiculously good.

Something Fierce by Marian Call: This was my on-repeat album in college. i drew a lot of strength from it, and I think that it’s still the best album to recommend to people who ask me about her.

Standing Stones by Marian Call: I heard most of these songs live at concerts before they were quite done yet, so it was really special to get to hear them all collected together like this. I’m going to get a tattoo with a lyric from one of these songs because no one’s quite been able to put my basic philosophy into words quite like Marian.

Heartthrob by Tegan and Sara: Hot Take, I know, because a lot of people hate this album, but it was so affirming to go out and buy A Lesbian Album from A Lesbian Band in 2013.

The Rent movie soundtrack: I know, I KNOW, but in my defense, my parents got me this for my birthday my first year of college and I needed it so desperately. I can definitely still do “La Vie Boheme” from the beginning and probably most of the other songs too.

In the Heights OBCR: I can only listen to this when I want to cry, but it’s my favorite musical. I got to see the show in 2018 and it was incredible. I think it’s better than Hamilton and I can’t wait for the movie to come out.

Trouble by Natalia Kills: this album is really great and also it says fuck a lot, which I used to be very nervous about hearing or saying, and this helped immensely!

[spn-rewrites]

01x13 (part 1)

Season One Episode Thirteen: Route 666

a/n: first, i’d like to say i’m sorry but i’m back if anyone cares at all. i would like to stick to a schedule, a real one, that forces me to do this because the truth is, i do love it. i enjoy it so much but i also have a main blog that i write for as well as working full time and other obligations, so sometimes this takes a backseat and i wish that wasn’t the case. SO! if anyone is reading this, if ya’ll are still out there, please let me know what kind of schedule would be ideal. as always, love you the very most. please reblog if you enjoyed it and any and all feedback is welcome and appreciated. thank you. xx

synopsis: dean gets a call from an old friend that turns out to be more than just an old friend

word count: 4092

and of course, i can’t find a gif for this part so already, i’m a failure

Dean is quick to cancel your current case in Pennsylvania, telling you right outside an old gas station that you needed to head to Missouri again. At first, he is sharp, blunt, and tight-lipped to any details other than the fact that it was an old friend who’s father was killed. It wasn’t until you are in the car and on the way to Missouri when he actually spills the beans and told you and Sam that it was Cassie who had called. 

Cassie seemed so far away and distant to you now, like an old memory that only holds a taste of nostalgia but you sensed by the change in Dean’s demeanor that she was much more than that to him; even still to this day. He’s avoiding eye contact and dismissing all of Sam’s questions. “By ‘old friend’ you mean,” Sam starts, trailing off the end of his sentence. 

“A friend that’s not new,” Dean quips. Sam chuckles at his brother and shakes his head. 

“Yeah, thanks,” Sam says. “So, her names Cassie, huh?” He asks. “You never mentioned her.” Sam crosses his arms over his chest and looks knowingly in Dean’s direction. Of course, Dean never told Sam about Cassie. You were very much a part of that time in Dean’s life and he tried to keep her a secret from you, too. He’d go out late and have midnight rendezvous with her, coming home before John woke up and noticed he was gone. You always noticed, though, and it wasn’t until a lot of pushing and prying that he finally told you. 

“Yeah, we went out,” Dean tells his brother. You inject yourself into the conversation, your head peaking out from the backseat between the two boys. 

  “He loved her,” you sing, looking at Dean. A blush rose to his cheeks but he cleared his throat and shook his head, ignoring you completely. 

“You dated someone?” Sam asks, surprise laced in his voice. Of course, it was surprising for Dean to have dated someone, especially considering his devotion to the work that you do and his constant remarks about Sam and Jessica but he did. And he loved her. “For more than one night?” 

“Am I speaking a language you’re not getting here?” Dean snaps and Sam laughs. You can sense his tension, his reluctance with the conversation and you know he’s stressed about seeing Cassie again. After all, she broke his heart. “Dad I were working a job in Athens, Ohio. She was finishing up college and we went out for a couple of weeks,” he explains like it was nothing. 

“And?” Sam pushes. 

“And, he loveeeeed her,” you sing again. This time, Dean gives you a glare of annoyance and you smile proudly at him. You know this is the last conversation he wanted to have, but Sam won’t stop pushing until he has the details he wants. 

“Look,” Sam says as he shrugs his shoulders. “It’s terrible about her dad, but it kind of sounds like a standard car accident. I’m not seeing how it fits with what we do,” he says. Sam looks back at the road and sits with his thoughts for a moment and then he comes to a realization. “Which, by the way, how does she know what we do?” 

“Dean told her,” you mumble from the back. You’re picking at some loose seams in the seat even though you know Dean would have a cow if he saw you and the words didn’t really process in your head before you say them.  

“You told her?! The secret? Our big family rule number one - we do what we do and we shut up about it,” Sam yells. Your breathing catches and you feel guilty almost for exposing Dean like you did but Sam would have found out eventually. “For a year and a half, I do nothing but lie to Jessica, and you go out with this chick from Ohio a couple of times and you tell her everything?” Sam’s face is turning red and you feel uncomfortable almost. It isn’t easy keeping a secret as big as the one you had, especially when you fall as deeply and as hard as Dean had for Cassie. You never really blamed Dean for telling her, in fact, he consulted you beforehand and you gave him the go-ahead but considering Sam’s negativity surrounding the entire thing, you keep that part to yourself. 

“Yeah, looks like,” Dean says, brushing off his brother’s anger. He wouldn’t admit it, but it was much more than dating for a couple of weeks. You think maybe he would defend himself, yell back, or tell Sam your involvement but he keeps his mouth shut and continues to drive without saying another word. 

The music plays a little louder and the tension grows a little thicker with each passing mile until you reach the sheriff's department in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where Cassie and her family now live. When you go inside, Cassie is having an argument with someone and it looks like she’s losing. When all is said and done, she turns around and sees Dean and they make eye contact for the first time. 

Her eyes go soft at the sight of him like there’s no one else in the room and your heart jumps a beat just thinking about how happy Dean was the last time he was with her. “Dean,” she breaths out like a sigh of relief. 

“Hey, Cassie,” Dean says and Cassie closes the distance between her and the three of you. The two of them stare at each other like they’re in a movie. Like the entirety of their relationship was playing inside the other’s eyes. 

You look up at Sam and he looks down at you with a smirk on his face and you lean up, “see?” You whisper in his ear. Sam smiles wider and looks back at Cassie. 

 Eventually, Dean clears his throat and introduces Sam. “This is my brother, Sam and you remember, Y/N, right?” Cassie nods and says her hellos but her attention is right back on Dean. “I’m sorry about your dad.” 

“Yeah, me too,” she says. 

+++

Cassie takes the three of you to her parent’s home and you sit between the two boys on an old couch with an ugly pattern on it while Cassie prepares tea that no one really asked for, but she insisted so you all obliged. 

“My mom’s in pretty bad shape,” Cassie says as she comes back into the living room with a tray of the tea. “I’ve been staying with her. I wish she wouldn’t go off by herself, she’s been so nervous and frightened.” Cassie sets the tray down on a table and pours each of you a cup of tea. “She was worried about dad.” 

“Why?” Dean asks from next to you. 

“He was seeing things,” she says. When Dean asks for more information, Cassie tells him that her dad swore up and down that he saw a black truck following him. 

“A truck? Who was the driver?” Sam asks as Cassie brings the cups of tea around to you. You take it from her and smile, mumbling a thank you just as Sam and Dean did. 

“He didn’t talk about a driver, just the truck.” Cassie sits down on the chair opposite of you and rubs her hands against her jean skirt. “He said it’d appear and disappear and in the accident, dad’s truck was dented like it had been slammed into by something big,” she explains. 

“You’re sure this dent wasn’t there before?” You ask her. You set your cup on tea down on your lap so you resist the urge to start bouncing your leg. You tap the tap of the little plate instead. 

“He sold cars, always drove a new one,” Cassie says and shakes her head. “There wasn’t a scratch on that thing.” She sounds so convincing that you almost believer her before you get any more information. “It had rained hard that night. There was mud everywhere. There was a distinct track of muddy tracks from dad’s car right to the edge,” she says and then her voice cracks, “where he went over.” She resists the urge to cry as she looks down at her lap and you look up at Dean. His eyes are soft as they look at her, like seeing her in pain was causing him pain, too. Cassie looks back up but her sadness was replaced with anger. “One set of tracks, his.” She was insistent and determined. 

“And the first person who was killed was a friend of your father’s?” Dean asks, trying to get more information about the other victim. 

“Best friend - Clayton Solmes. They owned a car dealership together. Same thing - dent, no tracks,” she tells you. You take a sip of your tea and try not to grimace at the taste of it. You were always a coffee girl, no matter how wired it made you. “The cops said exactly the same thing as they did about Dad - he lost control of the car.” 

“Can you think of any reason why your father and his partner might be targets?” Dean asks her. Cassie shakes her head, no. 

“And you think this vanishing truck ran him off the road?” Sam asks. His eyebrows are raised and he asks her like he doesn’t quite believe her. 

“When you say it aloud like that,” she sighs. The sadness was back. The pain of not knowing what happened to her dad etched all over her face. “Listen, I’m a little skeptical about this ghost stuff or whatever it is you guys are into,” she says and keeps her eyes trained on the ground. 

Dean chuckles and shakes his head, “a little skeptical? If I remember, I think you said I was nuts.” You look up at Dean with wide eyes. He never told you that part. 

“That was then,” she says. Dean bums and nods his head like the answer wasn’t good enough for him but Cassie ignores it and sighs. “I just know that I can’t explain what happened up there, so I called you.”

You look over at Sam and he looks back at you and shrugs his shoulders just as the door opens. All

four of you swing your head around to the front door and an older woman with light brown hair and a trench coat walks in. 

Cassie’s quick to her feet and the three of you follow suit. The woman, Cassie’s mom, puts her hand to her chest when she hears Cassie call for her. She looks at you and the boys in surprise. “I had no idea you’d invited friends over,” she says. She was breathless. 

“Mom, this is Dean and Y/N, friends of mine from…..college,” Cassie explains. Her hesitation between words makes Dean shift on her feet and the two exchange a look that makes you exchange a look with Sam.  “And that’s his brother, Sam.” You wave at Cassie’s mom but she doesn’t smile or acknowledge either of you at all. 

“Well, I-I-I won’t interrupt you,” she says. She stutters over her words and rings her purse straps in her hands like she’s nervous. She goes to turn away when Dean stops her. 

“Mrs. Robinson?” She turns back around to look at Dean. He clears his throat and says, “we’re sorry for your loss. We’d like to talk to you for a minute if you don’t mind.” 

She looks offended at his question and furrows her brows at him. “I’m not really up to that just now,” she says and pushes Cassie’s hand off her arm as she storms out of the living room and up the stairs of the house. Cassie wears a face of sadness and disappointment but you all three give her a smile. 

+++

In the early morning, you and the boys are called to yet another crime scene. Jimmy Anderson, another black man killed. There are police cars everywhere and medics putting a body covered in a black bag in the back of the ambulance and Cassie was arguing with a man that looks like he’s wearing a tu-pay. 

“Did the cops check for denting on Jimmy’s car to see if it was pushed?” Dean asks as you walk up behind Cassie. She turns around to look at him and the man she’s arguing with looks offended that Dean would question his police department. 

“Who’s this?” The man asks Cassie, nodding towards you and the boys. 

“Dean and Sam Winchester, their friend Y/N,” she introduces you and then introduces the man as Mayor Todd. 

“There’s one set of tracks - one. Doesn’t point to foul play,” he says without saying hello to either one of you. He’s quick to dismiss any of Cassie or Dean’s concerns and he seems rather certain. You look around at the scene. A busted up car with the front bumper hanging off. One set of tracks in the mud following it. 

“Mayor, the police and town officials take their cues from you - if you’re indifferent about -“ Cassie starts her argument but Mayor Todd cuts her off. 

“Indifferent?” He asks. 

“Would you close the road if the victims were white?” She snaps. You raise your eyebrows but you always remembered Cassie to be quick and strong and never back down. 

“You’re suggesting I’m a racist, Cassie?” He asks. She tilts her head, taunting him, telling him the answer is yes. “I’m the last person you should be talking to me like that.” 

“And why’s that?” Cassie asks. 

“Why don’t you ask your mother?” Mayor Todd says. He looks up at you and the boys briefly before turning around and walking away. You almost could feel Cassie’s anger radiating off of her. 

+++

Instead of a hotel room, you convinced the boys to rent out a cute little cabin for the few days you’d be in town. Now that you were in it, it kind of creeps you out with the deer antlers on the wall and weird creaky doors. You sit on the edge of the bed and Sam grabs his suit jacket from next to you and starts adjusting his tie. “I’ll say this for her, she’s fearless,” Sam says. He goes right in front of the mirror to see himself as he adjusts and Dean’s standing next to him, doing the exact same. 

“Yeah, Cassie’s a total badass, huh?” You say and walk to join them after you slip on your heels. They click against the wooden floorboards and once you’re in front of the mirror, you fix your lipstick and fluff your hair. 

Dean just mumbles a response to you and as Sam puts on his coat and he looks at his brother. “Bet she’s kicked your ass a couple times,” he jokes. He looks back at himself in the mirror and adjusts his tie. You put your heels on the dresser in front of you and look at Sam in the mirror. 

“She totally has,” you tell him and laugh. Dean looks over at you and glares. You smile at him sweetly and he smacks the back of his hand against your thigh. You were wearing tights but that didn’t protect from the sharpness of his hit. The three of you were dressing as insurance agents this time. All black suits for the boys and a little black dress for you. Paired with the tights, it was rather professional looking but without: it would kill. “What? It’s true,” you defend yourself. 

Sam laughs and then lets out a sigh, shaking his head a little bit. “Well it’s interesting that you guys never really look at each other at the same time,” he says. You look over at him but he looks past you and at Dean. “You look at her when she’s not looking. She checks you out when you look away,” Sam continues. Dean glares are him, too, but he doesn’t respond. “It’s just an interesting observation,” he pauses, “in an interesting observational way.”

“Yeah? Like you and Y/N?” Dean quips. There’s a sharpness in his voice, anger. You snap your head to the older brother and your eyes widen. You hear Sam chuckle from behind you. “Anyway, you think we might have some more pressing issues here?” Dean’s tie is finally straight and he throws his hands up and let them fall, smacking against his thighs. 

“Hey, if I’m hitting a nerve,” Sam trails off his sentence and walks away from the dresser you were all getting ready at. Dean groans and follows him, telling you to leave. You fan out your lashes one last time before grabbing your purse off the bed and following the boys to the Impala. 

You had asked Cassie for any contacts close to Jimmy Anderson. Anyone that could give you any useful information. She gave you the name Ron Stubbins, who you found outside of a bait shop playing checkers. 

Ron is unfriendly at first, a grumbly voice with anger behind it. “We’re with Mr. Anderson’s insurance company. Just here to dot some I’s and cross some T’s,” Dean explains to Ron. 

“We were just wondering if the deceased mentioned any unusual recent experiences?” Sam asks. You hold a small, open notebook in your hands and you tap the end of your pen against the blank page. 

“What do you mean, unusual?” Ron asks. He seems unconvinced and the man sitting next to him was checking the three of you out so closely, you start to feel uncomfortable. 

“Visions, hallucinations,” you say to give some examples, trailing off at the end of your sentence where Dean picks up immediately after. 

“It’s all part of a medical examination kind of thing,” he says. He sounds unsure of himself and Ron senses it. 

“What company you say you were with?” He asks. Dean pulls out a piece of paper that was so obviously fake but he only pulls it out enough so Ron can see that it’s there and Dean tells him you’re with All-National Mutual. 

“Did Jimmy ever say anything about seeing a truck? A big black truck?” You ask. Your eyes are more focused on the man sitting next to Ron, who was now looking anywhere but at the three of you. He looks like he knows something. 

“What the hell are you talking about? You even speaking English?” Ron asks. He goes back to playing his checkers game when the man next to him speaks up. 

“This truck,” he starts. “A big, scary, monster-looking thing?” He asks. 

“I think so, actually,” Sam says from next to you. The man hums and looks away briefly. “What?” Sam asks, prompting him to continue talking. The man looks back to the three of you and sighs. 

“I have heard of a truck like that,” he says nonchalantly. 

“You have?” Sam asks. You’re slightly taken back for some reason. Part of you was questioning whether Cassie was actually telling the truth or just searching for something to blame for her father’s death. “Where?” Sam asks. 

“Not where - when,” the man says. “Back in the ‘60s, there was a string of deaths. Black men. The story goes they disappeared in a big, nasty black truck,” he explains. 

“Did they catch who it was?” Dean asks. 

“Never found him.” The man shakes his head. “Hell, not even sure they really looked. See there was a time this town wasn’t too friendly to all its citizens,” he says. Ron shifts uncomfortably next to his friend and the boys nod. 

“Seems like not much has changed,” you comment and tap your finger against the wooden picnic table the men were sitting at and the three of you turn to walk away. 

“This truck,” Dean says as you walk. 

“Keeps coming up, doesn’t it?” You say. You close the notebook you were holding and hand it to Sam, who tucked it into his suit jacket. 

“I was thinking, you ever heard of the Flying Dutchman?” Dean asks. 

You and Sam both nod, but Sam answers. “A ghost ship infused with the captain’s evil spirit. It was basically a part of him,” he explains. 

Dean nods his head and suggests that maybe you were dealing with the same thing now. “A phantom truck who’s the extension of some bastard ghost, re-enacting past crimes.” 

“The victims have all been black men,” you point out. 

“I think it’s more than that,” Dean says quickly. “They all seem connected to Cassie and her family.” Dean makes a good point and you rack your brain for what the possible connection could be but there was little to no evidence about anything that was happening, so that was hard. 

“Well, you work that angle. Go talk to her,” Sam suggests. Dean nods in agreement and Sam looks at you knowingly and you shake your head, knowing he was about to say something he maybe shouldn’t. “Oh, and don’t forget about that other thing.” 

Dean stops and turns around when you reach the Impala. “What other thing?” He asks. 

“That serious unfinished business,” Sam says and chuckles. “Dean, what is going on between you two?” You feel bad for leaving Sam in the dark about just how serious Dean and Cassie used to be but you were positive it was more serious than Dean even let you know. 

“So maybe we were a little bit more involved than I said,” Dean admitted. Sam shoves his hands in his pockets and you lean against the car. Sam nods his head like he’s not surprised and Dean looks over at you, making firm eye contact. You encourage him with a look and he sighs. “Okay, a lot more. Maybe.” Sam chuckles and looks over at you. You shrug your shoulders and let Dean talk. “I told her the secret about what we do, and I shouldn’t have.” 

You know that last comment has nothing to do with Sam’s outburst about Dean spilling the beans and more about what happened after he told her. Sam was a little more oblivious than that. “Look, man, everybody’s got to open up to someone sometime.” 

“Yeah, I don’t,” Dean snapped. “It was stupid to get that close. I mean, look how it ended.” You flashback to when Dean and Cassie were full force and how happy he seemed. There weren’t so many walls put up and ever since, he seemed to have built more. Sam smiles at him, looking at his brother like he’s trying to figure him out. Dean widened his eyes at his brother. “Would you stop? Blink or something.”

“You loved her,” Sam observes. He’s right, which is why Dean groans and turns around to get into the car but Sam just follows him. “You were in love with her, but you dumped her.” You stay towards the back of the car and let the boys have their moment. You don’t really know what happened toward the end of their relationship. You know he told her and then they broke up, but the details were hidden to you, too. 

Dean looks up at his brother briefly and the look he gave him said it all. “She dumped you?” You ask from behind Sam. The two boys look back at you and Dean gives you a serious look. Sam scoffs, just nearly as shocked as you were. 

“Get in the car,” Dean orders and throws himself in the driver’s seat of the car. Sam turns around to look at you. 

“I told you,” you sing as he walks towards you. He shakes his head and stops when he’s in front of you. 

“Why didn’t you tell me how serious it was? I thought you were mostly just joking,” Sam says as he looks towards the mirror where you can see Dean sitting in the car. His fingers are tapping against the steering wheel and he looks mad, upset, a mix of both. 

“He wouldn’t have wanted me to, you know that,” you tell Sam. He nods and then looks back at you. He puts his hand on your elbow and guides you to the other side of the car. He keeps his hand on your arm as he walks you around the car. “He was happy, though. Really happy,” you tell Sam. 

He puts his hand on the door handle and his breathing hits your ear. “I’m sorry I missed it,” he says. 

“Yeah, me too,” you tell him as he opens the door for you. 

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[blind-rats]

But Veronica Mars is very much the child of many pop culture influences, especially on television. Creator Rob Thomas combined elements of several different series to create something unique and wonderful. If you’re diving into the world of Veronica Mars for the first time, or are a returning fan, here are four series that contributed to its creation that you might want to check out before the new season drops.

Twin Peaks

The influence of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks on almost every single “prestige television” series over the past thirty years is immeasurable. But the show’s fingerprints are especially all over Veronica Mars. The 1990-91 cult classic was centered on the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer, a character we never see in the series except via flashbacks and in the ephemeral “red room.” Her girlfriends from school, Donna Hayward and Audrey Horne, become teenage detectives obsessed with finding her killer. This all leads to a mystery that covered the show’s full first season and part of its second, and which became a national obsession.

Veronica Mars takes a similar approach. When we first meet the titular character, she’s mourning the death of her best friend Lily Kane. Much like Laura Palmer, she was a popular and well-liked student who hid a much wilder side. One that ultimately got her killed. The mystery of both girls’ murder was at the core of both series. Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas cites the show as an influence but said in an interview  “they didn’t solve anything. When you realized they were jerking you around, that’s when it fell off.” However, Thomas might be misremembering. Peaks’ central mystery was solved 14 episodes in… and it took a full 22 chapters for the Lily Kane murder to be solved!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Veronica Mars premiered exactly one year after Buffy went off the air, but many Buffy fans felt the influence of on this new show from the get-go. Both shows centered on small, affluent towns in California that are the focal points for much strange goings-on. In the case of Neptune, CA on Veronica Mars, those goings-on are not supernatural. But that’s really the main difference. The rest of the similarities are numerous. Like Buffy Summers, Veronica is a plucky and sarcastic high school girl, who despite everything is a social outcast. Yet the other students all know to come to both girls when they need the kind of help only they know how to give because of their special skills.

Veronica’s supporting cast is also very much from the Buffy template. Computer genius Mac is her analog for Willow Rosenberg, while her platonic male bestie Wallace Fennel is a stand-in for Xander Harris in many ways. Veronica has a very similar relationship to her dad that Buffy does to her surrogate dad, Rupert Giles. And her volatile relationship with boyfriend Logan Echolls is reminiscent in some ways of Buffy’s love affair with the vampiric Angel. Even in its day, the show was well aware of the similarities and played upon them. Buffy alum like Alyson Hannigan, Charisma Carpenter and even Buffy creator Joss Whedon appeared on the show. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, clearly everyone involved with Buffy was very flattered indeed.

Freaks and Geeks

It might not seem so upon first glance, but the cult “one season wonder” series Freaks and Geeks was also a huge inspiration for Veronica Mars. The 1999 Paul Feig/Judd Apatow produced a show about high schoolers in the early ’80s was a very real presentation at how kids interact with each other and the social constructs of high school life. Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas loved the series, as did many critics at the time. But it found a hard time finding a “hook” for the audience by just being a nostalgic slice-of-life drama. It was sadly canceled after one season.

So Thomas decided to use the teenage dynamics of Freaks and Geeks for inspiration on how his kids interacted, but surround it all with a noir-mystery story to get audiences sucked in. In an interview with Vulture back in 2014, Thomas said, “If you’re going to try to get a teen show on television, give them something high-concept, something that they can market. So I tried approaching my teen character piece through a high-concept idea.” He then added, “I can get a teen show on the air if I sell it as a teenage private eye, and then I can still somehow get some of these small-story show ideas in there.” It might have been another cult show in the end as well, but it lasted two seasons longer than Freaks and Geeks did!

Nancy Drew

If you say the words “teenage girl detective,” chances are the first thing anyone says in response is “Nancy Drew.” Even if the person saying it has never seen or read a single thing involving the character! That’s how deeply synonymous the concept of Nancy Drew is with “teenage girl detectives.” The character first appeared in 1930 and has since gone on to dozens of novels, movies, and a pair of television series. Soon there will be a third one on the way via the CW.

The character has undergone many revisions since being created nearly a century ago, but she has always remained a plucky teenage sleuth who lives with her single dad, much like Veronica Mars does. But the main inspiration Nancy Drew gave Rob Thomas was to create another young female detective in the popular culture who wasn’t Nancy. Veronica was created to finally eclipse her as America’s #1 teen detective. In an interview with NPR, Thomas once said “Nancy Drew…like, I feel like she had her run.” Still, it’s impossible to deny that without Nancy, there’s no Veronica.