#but i feel like thats gonna be important later

[autisticjoshrusso]

ok ok ok. a post about josh, buck, and maddie at dispatch as promised. (and because i dont feel like writing a whole separate post or repeating myself etc, if im pointing something out as evidence for my autistic josh headcanon, it'll be in parenthesis like this) also this is long because im going basically line by line in some places so just be prepared for that and such.

the first thing i wanna say before anything else is that like... as far as how this conversation fits into the larger narrative, i was fairly disappointed, due to the way that including this scene like this is kinda implying that the racism was fine because of being closeted etc. HOWEVER. luckily for my sanity it is pretty clear that from a character perspective, that's not at all what's being said by josh himself here, and we can be pretty certain that he is not aware of tommy's past behaviors. in fact he has almost no facts or context about the situation, which i'll get into later.

now that the disclaimer is out of the way, im gonna move onto character analysis and will not be touching on what i think the narrative might have meant etc. any further. like this is going to be purely talking about character dynamics and dissecting the dialogue etc.

we start out right away by skipping all the exposition right into a hard cut of maddie reacting to the news that tommy and abby were engaged. LOVE this set up we get right into the important part quickly and we as the audience only have to hear information that is new to us, not the information being repeated back to the character for whom the information is new.

and oh maddie. i love you so bad. she's like DAMN thats crazy, and then makes the obvious turning people gay joke. her energy here is sooo like it didn't make sense until looking at it in retrospect, but she's shocked and invested yet not taking it very seriously as a concern for buck, because well, she's having a baby and this is objectively not that serious comparatively <3 but i do love that she sees buck's reaction and quickly reins it in and is like woah im kidding im not actually being homophobic holy smokes. which. it kinda still is a little. but i think she's allowed <3

and then... josh enters the scene. he apparently only walked in as buck was saying "-kissed a boy" so of course he had to be like huh? gay shit? something gay? boys?? what's going on over here? and i love that for him. and i love that maddie immediately is like oh hi bestie i catch u up to speed on the tea <3 the maddiejosh bestieism is so back we never lose <3 and that fact that she's like. feeding in the facts in a way to dramatically amp up the tale i love it. she really said man the things my baby brother gets himself caught up in are wild.... anyway <3 true sibling behavior is finding the perfect balance between being supportive and being so so annoying <3

and she is supportive still. like when it becomes clear that there's something deeper going on here she does try to help him work through it. and its so interesting to me the way she is sort of seriously contemplating his words and is shocked when josh not only speaks up but is being very serious and equally focused on the problem at hand. it's like... she's trying so hard to figure out how to help her brother with something she doesn't fully understand that having someone else speak up to help them kind of shocks her and boy does that say something about their lives and the buckley sibling dynamic!

side note, the way josh is jokingly like "she didn't bring her personal life to work, unlike SOME people" and maddie's little look of mock offense?? they're so cute i cant handle it.

i also really love how the shots are framed during this conversation. at first, even when she's not talking and is just listening to josh talk, maddie is still in frame, we're still getting her reaction, she's an active participant in what's going on. and then there is the one shot where she's talking and josh is out of frame, hidden by buck, because whatever reaction he might be having isn't important, it's a buckley sibling moment. (he's not an active participant at that point; he's entirely observing and reacting and gathering information, not dictating the direction of the conversation whatsoever.)

it's only when josh gets very serious and it starts to turn into a heart to heart moment just between him and buck that maddie is allowed to leave the frame. it still goes back to her in very brief cuts when her reaction is relevant, but she steps back out of focus and let's josh handle the conversation. and i love that so much. thank GOD someone else is helping buck sort out his problems that isn't his parentified sister or just generally someone more marginalized than him. it was kind of getting irritating to watch, as much as i love buck so much. like dude... the emotional labor. watch it.

and man. this conversation guys. everything about it makes me an insane crazy person. ive already mentioned this in the tags of some other posts but like... its so fascinating because on the surface it is such a cohesive conversation, but when you really break it down and analyze both of their expressions and body language alongside what they're saying, you can start to see the cracks in it. what one of them is saying is not what the other one is hearing, in both directions. they are having two different conversations and i think it's critical to analyze both of those conversations and how they are interacting with each other. what josh says, what josh hears, what buck says, and what buck hears are four entirely separate things happening alongside each other.

the first part is josh trying to get a sense for how serious this relationship is to buck. when buck falters at the question of "do you love him?", he elaborates with follow-up questions that, to josh, define "love" or close enough to it. answering "yes" to those questions is close enough to a "yes" to the question of "do you love him?".

(which. ok. the particular choice of questions makes me insane because they do essentially boil down to "do you prefer this person to solitude and grant them an equal or greater importance to yourself?" which is sooo... it's said from the point of view of someone who greatly values their solitude and would not easily grant someone that level of importance.)

unfortunately, well, buck is NOT someone who greatly values his solitude, and puts other people before himself quite easily. buck would answer "yes" to those questions for basically anyone. josh does not know or understand this about buck and takes buck's answers at face value, while buck is taking this as sort of... it's hard to explain, and i think others have done a better job of capturing buck's perspective already tbh. he's convincing himself that he loves tommy here because josh is unknowingly handing him that information and expectation, and buck loves to mold himself to fit an expectation etc.

and then comes the second part, which... i think this is where it is most critical to realize that josh has none of the context about tommy, abby, and buck and those respective relationships. by his own admission, he didn't really know much about abby or about her breakup with tommy beyond the fact that it was upsetting. he didn't hear the way tommy talked about abby to buck at dinner, and he definitely didn't get to see any of the real fallout and damage to her psyche that tommy leaving her caused.

but buck did! im not inclined to rewatch s1 to get any exact quotes or anything but from what i remember, she either outright said or implied that she was so heartbroken because tommy left her because of her mother's illness. buck is understandably very upset because he understands exactly what she went through and how, unless abby was lying to not out him, he didn't exactly come clean with the breakup, and left her feeling like it was her fault, like there was something wrong with her or she was being weighed down by caring for her mother. he calls tommy's behavior exactly what it is: dishonest and cruel.

but josh doesn't know this. all he is hearing is a young, freshly out bisexual calling a gay man "dishonest and cruel" for having been engaged to a woman for his own protection. and he responds exactly how you'd expect! he reminds him of queer history and the fact that he doesn't really have a right to judge the people who grew up and had to survive in a world that was much less safe to come out in.

(and i said in my other post that's still doing numbers that "pre-Glee/post-Glee" is an actual queer discourse talking point and makes sense that it'd be used here, as awkward and cheesy as it seems, but it's also a win for my television/film/popular media/hollywood culture/etc. as a special interest headcanon. <3 we love to see it)

and it kills me because of course buck is just going to take this at face value and decide he needs to stop feeling the discomfort he's feeling, leading to the subsequent doubling down and over committing that is typical of his unhealthy relationship patterns.

(and then at the end of the speech josh has to literally announce that he's leaving DSJFHJKDSKJ. because walking away/ending conversations is so awkward and difficult and the easiest way to mitigate that is to lean into the Dramatic Homosexual Stereotype mask or whatever <3 i've long been of the opinion that josh is someone who uses the behaviors associated with queer men and queer masculinity as the blueprint for his neurotypical mask, which is why he often comes across as being just a little bit off from the Funny and Bitchy Gay vibes that it seems like he's going for. and boy did his exit from this scene just reinforce that headcanon so hard!)

they wrap the scene with a little bit more levity too which is kind of nice to like. move on from that. because it got kind of heavy there for a second.

overall i do like what this scene accomplished, but like i said at the start, i think it has some really unfortunate implications that weigh it down for me. still, always nice to get more josh content, especially when it's pretty consistent with his character as established AND not at all related to doing his job. we got to see him and maddie being goofy and maddie being allowed to let someone else deal with buck's problems for a second. and the whole thing was very well shot! excellent camera work going on throughout.

i don't actually know how to end this post so yknow. im gonna make a dramatic exit now or whatever <3

[sweetsncandies]

AAI2 SPOILERS!

I find it really funny that the first thing Edgeworth does is to order the elephant to stop hitting Kay like its going to do anything LMAO

[sunnykeysmash]

Charlie: "Hey, uh, Dennis, uh, get to Frank as fast as you can. I have Malcolm and his dad."

[mildcicada]

[rhythmic-idealist]

Chase Trinaeste POV Shepherds of Haven fic? Yeah………….. Chase x MC fic? Yeah.......

And another friend’s OC is also mentioned in here? …..Yeah…………… dw about it..........

Listen though. L-listen:

---

You gotta learn to braid.

Thinking about it, your head is immediately gifted with images of him irritatedly brushing it out in the morning and chewing you out for bad technique. Better yet, he wears it to breakfast, thinks it’s good, and then chews you out only after Trouble makes some no-brained comment and he looks in a mirror for the first time. After all, you’ve got nimble fingers, makes sense to assume you were trustable.

Rock’s head is in your lap.

And his hair is going everywhere, and he’s always clearly taken his time with it (at your best guess he uses five different products at least), so that’s why you’re thinking about it. Don’t people with long hair sleep with braids, sometimes? Lavinet would probably teach you, and do you the favor of not announcing that you’re about to use your skills for evil.

He’s been like this since about five in the morning. You’re a light sleeper. As needs be, you rise either with the sunset or with the sun. Or elsewise, if you’ve got to— you have what some might call an uncanny sense for a well-timed catnap.

So you’re up again, working out the couple little kinks in your back from dozing upright like that. It’s another of the perks of the job: learn to sleep anywhere. You have a lot of little resume filler skills like that, just a tragic lack of resume to put it on. Idly, you wonder over the nonsensical notion of putting one together for the Order once your writing gets good enough to, and you’re kind of attached to the idea now. Blade wouldn’t read it, especially considering you’re already in, but there’s some small giddy joy you get out of the idea of putting it in his possession anyway. Maybe Trouble would read it. Maybe Shery would think it’s juicy enough that she can’t keep her hands off it, and then roll in the guilt about it for a few weeks after. ...No, you can’t do that to her. Funny as that is, she could read with permission. You might be cruel, but she’s a horrible choice of target.

Anyway— So you’ve been watching him be like this since about five in the morning, and thus have evidence of him being like this since about five in the morning. You remember falling asleep late last night, though. Waiting for him to drift first. It was probably one, two AM.

When six-thirty rolls around, you’ll have to wake him, you have a bright and early morning dose of espionage on the schedule today (it’s why the two of you are all the way out here, plus Lavinet and Ottilie graciously hosted in another wing) and you can’t have a grouchy Hero of Haven who hasn’t had a good hour or more awake to put his silver tongue back on.

Something something joke about that tongue’s many talents.

Head in lap is a surprise at all. It’s one of those things— Rock has done this thing to you where all your defenses are the ones that keep coming down first.

It feels a little like getting grifted. When you’ve caught onto a grift, though, and you’re playing along to see what or whom or where they take you to, you don’t feel like you’re in danger, because you’re good. You’re in as much danger as you want to be, or more like: when there are unpredictable variables, you know more or less where they’re going. Rock makes you feel like you’re teetering on the edge of something you don’t fucking play with, and it doesn’t help that he likes to open his mouth sometimes just to remind you you’re rolling off a cliff.

Anyway. Then you get this, and you wanna be a charming shit about it, as usual (and you intend to), you just also wonder how much he’s falling off a cliff.

He gets bad nightmares. You know that because of the trip to the Reach. You do also know it because of the tightness in Blade’s lip when you mentioned it offhand later— there’s history there; they’ve been worse than that. You also know it because you picked the brains of a couple recruits who were standing around griping after Trouble sent them for something like twenty laps around the compound (not a real intuitive head for numbers on that man): apparently, it was Captain Nomura they’d been gossiping about, and Trouble was a hardass about it.

It’s the one thing that makes you feel borderline… even. If not even, then at least okay with it.

That’s a lie, you’d probably feel okay with it anyway, you got down to being okay with whatever he’s doing to you the minute you realized you were this invested. It’s just something you use to put things in perspective. There are things you didn’t exactly expect to peel open for him, about you. But there are also things he’s not asking to broadcast publicly to every hard-luck-fleer who wanders onto the Shepherds compound to recruit. Rumors about the head of the Thieves Guild abound, but the unflattering ones are usually less true, and the untrue ones abound so plentifully that no one knows heads or tails of that, anyway.

Feels fair he should have secrets from someone. You’re still gonna fucking dig your way into them before they bury him alive, it’s just. Yeah, you haven’t had your brain pulled open onto a projection screen.

So he has nightmares. You’re not actually sure how often. Technically, you don’t have proof they haven’t gotten better since you last heard. But since you’re not bound to the same evidence requirements as a court of law, and since it’s become a roulette game of how grouchy Rock’s gonna be minute-to-minute, he was dodgy about the prospect of rooming with you or anyone on this mission at all, and he’s recently had a god or demon or trick of the light try to tell him (plus all of the rest of you) that he’s less Mage and more something else’s torn out rib, you can look at two plus two plus two and say probably.

You’ve learned how not to dream. It’s basically the same as learning how to wake up when you want to. When you did dream, you dreamt of mutiny, imaginary holes you left and getting torn down through them. You were always yourself in your dreams—some people are characters, tropes, or other people they know, apparently; you wouldn’t know. Now you keep that in the waking world, and you keep ten paces ahead of it.

That’s the thing you’re deadly sure about in him. That he’s keeping ten paces ahead of something. You—your whole tether to his side—account for anything from like one to like eight of them, as far as you can tell. That’s all you know.

…Well that’s the quick way to tell it. He’s keeping ten paces ahead of something inside the Shepherds. Could be Blade, but you’re not sure why. Could be the Autarchy, but that’s too simple for you. Doesn’t feel like it. Could be Ottilie’s God-given plans for a pretty obvious heathen, but your nose also says it’s not that easy.

He looks dead asleep right now. Comfy, you’d kind of go so far as to hope. And anyway you look at his face, still waters, and you’re a little afraid to even brush his hair out of it.

You don’t even know if he meant to lay his head down on you at all, if that’s a cliff he made his shaky peace with (or if it’s a cliff at all, if means anything to him, Hael if you know) or if he was just miserable.

You don’t know if it’s you, like the stillness might be the effect of having another body in the room that he’s willing to lay his head against— …or if maybe he just doesn’t get them every night. Or if there is one under there. But you hope he’s not dreaming.

You try to bask in it, for now. Try to pose like a king with a sweet little kitten in his lap, like a guy painted on the front of a romance novel with the sweet, innocent angel he’s seduced to lay over him, nightgown slipping down her shoulder. You spend an hour with only walls to watch, dutifully still so he can finish sleeping, and it’s only a small handful of times that you have to stop and breathe through a creep of bile up your throat.

Six-thirty hits.

“Good morning, Sunshine.”

“Mmf. What.” Rock spits a strand of hair out of his face. Yeah, you probably could have done him a favor on that instead of leaving it there for him to wake up to. But it’s funny, so, you know. Win-win.

“The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, Ottilie’s slaughtering her morning chicken—” (she is not).

Rock seems to parse the reality of where he is, and peels himself up from you, sitting facing away from you— and then he glances at you over his shoulder, for a moment, and everything about it is horribly, disressingly raw.

He looks at you a little too long. The thing about Rock is his rules are a lot like yours, and you are not supposed to say anything about it, but he’s looking at you, like he’s asking you to, and it lasts a long time.

Then he goes to brush his teeth.

[indigopoptart]

man i love the people im surrounded with. how did this happen. youre all so lovely😭

[iknaenmal]

okay. today i will go on a difficult mission. i might not come back (will ask i friend if they want to hang out)

[sea-buns]

it just set in for me that i start community college this upcoming monday literally less than a week from now and i want. to throw up

[mikodrawnnarratives]

almost done with revisiting supernova... just gotta get my hold on the audiobook back

[queer-omens-in-the-archives]

I hope your week gets better 🫂

thank TwT

[orcelito]

Got my score back for my presentation, & it was About what I was expecting. I knew the weak point of the presentation was how dense it was + how much I had to cover, and as a result I did end up largely reading off of the slides. Tried to insert some extra information about the stuff, but didn't have much in the way of discussion built into my slides. So like... I can accept that criticism lol (even if it does sting a lil 😭)

Overall tho I got an average score of 8.6, professor score of 8... I'm not sure actually what will count for my grade. Is he including his score in the average at the top??? Also 8.6 is also not right. When I calculated my score from the tallied numbers, I got 8.31 for class average, 8.29 if I include the professor's rating in there as just one. For some reason, what he wrote is higher than either?? I certainly won't complain about a higher score, though I'm confused lol

But yeah people in general praised my research and preparation. Also video choice. Yay!

I will now try to focus on the good points and not worry so much about the bad. Regardless of any of it, 8.6 or 8 (out of max 9) is generally Pretty Good. Might as my professor for clarification on the grades when I next see him.

[themindelectricdemo4]

WEHHH SO MANY OF MY PROOFS OF ANNIVERSARIES FOR MY F/OS ARE IN PALCWS I DONT HAVE ACCESS TO ANYMORE T_T

[spade-club]

I wanna make some sort of relationship chart for my in-sys family dynamics (a ship chart would also be cool actually!) But I'm confused about the best way to go about visualizing that information. I just want a cohesive list of how everybody feels about eachother!! Bc its hard to keep up with it all sometimes. Esp with Juice and his lack of memory sharing :( idk how he feels about anyone really, except for cece (besties).

[silverislander]

i know logically in my brain that i have a disorder that makes it hard for me to focus and do work, the symptoms of which are not gonna go away bc other people need/want me to do stuff, and still like. i'm behind on a bunch of shit for school rn and i'm kind of spiralling over it bc WHY IS IT HARD. this is stuff i like doing and that i want to do. and i can't for the life of me fucking do it and the deadlines are coming up and i NEED TO FUCKING GRADUATE so it has to get done

[logansargeantsbabymom]

Therapy

Logan Sargeant x Fem!Reader

TW: hurt/comfort & cursing

F1 Masterlist

Follow my instagram account (THATS STRICTLY FOR THIS BLOG) for updates on when i post and fun stuff like that!

instagram

Logan's been so focused on working out that he hasn't noticed that his phone has been ringing the past minute and a half, not at least until there's a banging on his home gyms door.

Logan's head snaps towards the door at the sudden noise, taking long but cautious strides to see who's there, opening it only to reveal a less than pleased Y/N standing there.

"Hey," Logan says breathless as he wipes sweat from his forehead "You could've called first"

a scoff leaves Y/N's mouth "I just did, you've blowing me off this past week. I need you to talk to me"

Logan's first season in Formula 1 wasn't the best, he was a bit underweight, not following the diet his trainer gave him and he wasn't managing his energy well in the car which would burn him out and either made him DNF or finish last, which was really getting to him.

"I'm working out, Y/N, I'm busy." he pants, going right back into the exercise he briefly put on hold.

"You're gonna make their weight requirement in the next 10 minutes?" Y/N spat, a little harsher then she intended it to come out but she still stood her ground, making Logan stop and stare at her.

"Thanks you for being so supportive of my work" Logan said with sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"Because you've been such a champion of mine?" Y/N scoffed. It's true, Y/N just recently signed a contract with WWE's developmental program NXT and not even a single congratulation from her boyfriend.

Logan turned around, fire burning in his eyes "What's that supposed to mean?"

Y/N looks back with an icy stare "What do you think it means?"

Logan just stares at her dumbfounded which causes Y/N to pinch the bridge of her nose in frustration before she continues, "I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to talk about my needs? What needs?"

"Did I say that?" His eyebrows knit in confusion as he stares at her urging her to explain.

"You didn't have to say it, it's implied." She rubs her forehead in anger

Logan whips around in utter confusion "How is it implied?"

"You're the athlete and I'm the girlfriend. That's how you feel right?" That causes Logan's hands to cover his eyes and roughly rub his temples as he senses an argument brewing.

Logan absolutely hated arguing with his girlfriend, but ever since his first season started that's all they ever seemed to do. Logan left the TV on all night? Argument. Logan ate something he shouldn't have? Argument. Y/N left her shower towel on top of Logans beach towel? Argument. Y/N forgot to lock the ferret in the cage and now Logan's keys are missing and he's late to a very important William's meeting (he wasn't making it anyway, he took too long acting like Taylor Swift during the ERAS tour in the shower)? Argument.

"Can we talk about this later, please" Logan tries to change the subject so he can finish his workout

"When Logan? When is later?" Y/N raises her voice an octave higher than she intended.

"Not tonight," Logan said, tears of frustration forming on the brims of his eyes threatening to spill.

His response made Y/N's face contort with anger in a way he's never seen before that he made a mental note of never to make her that mad again because he was scared.

"I have been working out all day. I have up since 4 this morning. I have tried to make their weight requirement for a week, and I am nowhere!" Logan yells, those tears of frustration once threatening to spill have now poured out his eyes with more following in pursuit.

"I've been telling you how unhappy I am for months!" tears have now also started flowing out Y/N's eyes as they argue.

"Everyone's unhappy in Miami! That's what Miami is!" Logan screamed has he throws a 5 pound dumbbell on the floor by the bench

"I don't know how to get through to you anymore. You keep shutting me out! You keep putting up these fences!" Y/N's hands tremble in anger as she throws them up, running her fingers through her hair

"I'm not, I'm not shutting you out" Logan states as he wipes the tears from his face but to no avail as more tears spill from his green eyes

"You're a million miles away all the time" Y/N's voice trembles as she lets the tears free flow.

"Actually, I'm right here." Logan says with the straightest face you can have as a crying arguing mess of a man

"Are you Logan? Actually? Cause I know you" Y/N says as the tears slowly stop falling.

"You're right. I've been distracted, but I promise you, after I make this requirement-" before Logan could finish his statement, he gets cut off

"After the requirement?" Y/N whispers in disbelief

"After the requirement!" Logan confirms in a harsh tone

"Everything is after the requirement!" Y/N screams

"Yeah"

"What if you make the requirement and nothing happens? No William's contract extension? You don't go straight to point positions? You're still a bad driver, You still DNF, You don't get signed with anyone else? What then, Logan? What about me?!" The tears that briefly stopped streaming down her face started back up and flowed faster than this time.

"I can't move with you to Orlando. I can't leave my career behind" Logan ripped off the band-aid, he couldn't put off the real reason he's been avoiding this topic, why he's been avoiding Y/N.

"You think I don't know that?" she trembled.

"What," Logan stops, unsure of what she means and what he wants to say next, a million thought in his mind at what his girlfriend just said to him, but not one of those questions are coming out of his mouth right now "What are you...? What is this? What do you want?" he finally manages to choke out

"I guess I just, I wanted you to tell me not to go" Y/N finally lets out and that's when all the emotion she's been bottling up for months comes out, unable to stop the sobs she chokes out. She's a shaking sobbing mess on the floor and all Logan could do was just stare. He knew she'd been hurting at his cold shoulder treatment but he didn't think it hurt her this bad. He couldn't believe that he was watching her hurt this bad because of him and there was only one question floating in the back of his mind...

why don't I feel bad?

[love-byers]

mike's weird language when he talks about el and their relationship

part of the equation of stranger things relationships is building the relationship through emotional connection, not physical intimacy and outright saying how you feel. it's a trope in st that the couples refuse to admit their feelings for some time before getting together. "we're just friends", "she's not my girlfriend" etc etc. the denial is super endearing. and even when the couples are finally together, this doesn't change. they're literally just the same duo same friends, but they kiss sometimes. they barely even acknowledge that they're together. it's a great trope in my opinion.

so a couple years ago i was rewatching st and made a list of everytime mike said something weird. meaning, every time mike did not adhere to this formula and stood out from the rest of the couples. i made a tiktok about it too so im basically quoting that in this post. something i stressed in that video was that because we have the other couples as source material, clearly the writers are capable of not doing this. they are capable of writing a good serious relationship, but they're choosing not to with mlvn. so keep in mind, the other couples (besides maybe stancy) do not do this and mike is supposedly, according to his own words, is madly and deeply in love with her throughout all of this and knows it.

Season 3

"Romantic time with my girlfriend."

i'll cut this one some slack, it's just that if you were truly madly in love it would be more like "I'm spending time with el". but thats all he views it as, romantic time with his girlfriend. going to his girlfriends house to make out with her. romantic time with his girlfriend. not bonding with the person he loves.

"Did you think we were never gonna get girlfriends?"

mike is hyperfocused on the word girlfriend. she's not el, the person he loves, she's his girlfriend. he doesn't say "did you think we were never gonna fall in love?" and look i get he's only like 14 here but it's the fact that he later claims he was in love with her the entire time and knew it. he literally claims it was love at first sight.

get girlfriends. he got a girlfriend. he didn't fall in love.

"It's not my fault you don't like girls!"

again the hyperfixation on girls, get a girlfriend, liking girls. mike, why are you more focused on the fact that el is a girl and your girlfriend than the fact that she's el?

"You're the most important thing to me in the world."

finn's delivery of this is so.....

and the fact that el just stares at him blankly afterwards, like she did not buy that lmao

Season 4

"That's because she's my girlfriend, Will!"

it's not "that's because i love her and want to talk to her" or something like that, it's "thats because she's my girlfriend and that's what you're supposed to do when you have a girlfriend" not "because she's el and i love her". that plays into mike's whole charade in lenora, he's just doing things he thinks he's supposed to do when you have a girlfriend.

"You're a superhero!"

that has nothing to do with who el is as a person, especially at that moment because at that time, el didn't have her powers. at the time, everyone believed they were gone, she wouldn't be saving the world anymore. but mike is still saying how incredible she is because she's a superhero.

i hate dr brenner so fucking much, but he did say something i really agree with. el kept going back to the concept monsters and heros, and he says those are things of myth and fairytale. not everything is black and white. this is real life, not a made up story with clear good and evil. and ultimately that helps her accept what happened with 001. he was 100% right there.

then here comes mike talking about monsters and superheros again like WRAP IT UP YA'LL ARE TOO GROWN FOR THIS

"You're the most incredible person in the world!"

again, he says that, but doesn't say why. he just expects her to believe him. it's such a broad statement and doesn't connect to anything about el and her personality/interests/ideas.

"Maybe I should've said something, and if I would've said that thing, maybe she'd want me there with her, wherever she is."

he wishes he'd just said it so she'd be satisfied and want him there and he'd know she's okay, he doesn't wish he'd said it so el would know in her heart that he loves her. "i love you" to mike isn't a geniune confession of his feelings, it's a thing. it's a thing that you say. it's something he thinks he has to say because that's what couples do and it's what el wants. if you fell in love with someone at first sight you do not refer to an expression of your love for them as 'that thing'.

"Maybe I was worrying to much about el. . ."

i really don't know what he meant by this. if she is the most important thing to him in the whole world and is deeply in love with her, why in the mother FUCK would he be apologizing TO WILL for worrying too much about her. there wouldn't be too much worrying when you love someone that much.

"You can fly, you can move mountains I believe that."

she literally can't.

"I love you for exactly who you are. You're my superhero."

the first time i saw this i literally thought "oh thats not..."

because it's.....not. one or the other would've been....fine i guess. but the first preceding the other is just not it. i love you for exactly who you are, and that is my superhero. is that all she is to you, mike? el expresses constant worry of being a monster, a bad person. she's afraid that she's a monster with or without her powers. but dr owens said "I'm willing to bet you're one of the good ones." fucking OWENS said something more reassuring than her boyfriend and supposed love of her life, mike wheeler.

THATS NOT ROMANTIC.