#cause my brain is always stuck in the comfort of rewatching one of those three shows

[lyxchen]

I could watch so many new shows, but instead I keep rotating through the same three seven-season-twenty-episode shows that I've rewatched 5 times each

[tenpintsof-sundrop]

What’s your favorite song or top three from each FOB or Paramore album? Both are in my top five favorite bands. -Rotten Anon

oooh damn. I might come back and do Paramore later because I love all their albums too

My Favourite Song From Each Fall Out Boy Album

forcing myself to pick only one song from each album and including LPs, starting out strong with

Evening Out With Your Girlfriend -> Calm Before The Storm

I used to listen to this LP all the time and this is one of the songs that sticks in my head the absolute most. I love it - I love early, rusty Fall Out Boy. It's so genuine and - seeing great artists before they hit their stride is so charming and still so enjoyable

Take This To Your Grave -> The Pros and Cons of Breathing

There are a lot of great songs on this album, and I struggle to pick a favourite - but the amazing thing about Fall Out Boy for me is that hearing their music sometimes is just the thing that you need to hear. And the line 'want to hate you half as much as I hate myself' - even if it's moody and cruel, sometimes it just feels cathartic to hear.

Also I really love the title of this song, and I am absolutely gonna use it for a fic title someday

From Under The Cork Tree -> Dance, Dance

This is such a basic bitch answer, and this album has so many amazing songs (I think every single FOB album for me is a straight listen through with no skips) - but Dance, Dance was one of the first FOB songs I ever fell in love with. Ever. And rewatching the MV over and over again, trying to learn that stupid dance is one of my first FOB lover memories - and the song always holds up as one of my favourites

Infinity On High -> I've Got All This Ringing In My Ears And None On My Fingers

This is my much less basic bitch answer lmao. Again, all the albums are a straight through answer for me - but this song makes me sing the fucking hardest when it comes on. The first few notes always sink into my brain in the best fucking way, and I just find this song so ultimately satisfying to listen to. Best on the album

Folie A Deux -> Lullabye

I don't even fully know if this one 'counts' because it's a bonus track, but fuck it - it's my favourite. I absolutely love every track on this album, but the first time I heard this song, I was instantly brought to tears, and since then, it has been a huge comfort song of mine. If this existed in the 80s, this would be my anti Venca song.

PAX AM Days -> Hot To The Touch, Cold On The Inside

I got this EP when I bought a CD copy of Save Rock n Roll (back when I used to consistently buy CDs lmao) - so I used to listen to this EP all the time. And this is the song I consistently search up the most to listen to - it gets stuck in my head often. But I think every song on this EP is fun and really awesome

Save Rock and Roll -> Young Volcanoes

My favourite from this album used to be Where Did The Party Go, but over time it has definitely shifted - this is the song I listen to the most, and I sing it the most. I just love it so much

American Beauty/American Psycho -> Fourth Of July

I really love every single song on this album, but this one is really special to me for personal, comforting reasons, and I love it a lot. I've been listening to it a lot recently for comfort and it's really special to me

MANIA -> Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea

This album competes for being my ultimate favourite, and I really love all the songs on it - but this one fucks. This song goes so fucking hard. And like - listening to a song that makes you feel like you could successfully kill God is a win

So Much (for) Stardust -> Love From The Other Side

Leave to FOB to come back with one of the greatest albums of all time. Again, this might be a basic bitch answer cause it was the single - but I listened to it over and over again and it never flops. And they released it with one of those signature weird ass 00s style Fall Out Boy MVs and seeing that MV and hearing the song for the first time literally brought me to tears because it felt like returning home, so I can't not deem this my favourite <33

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: 4x07 Gimme Shelter

This is the first  of my favorite episodes of the season. The second half of season 4 is much stronger than the first.

The main event of this episode is the first “black rain” – radioactive, potentially fatal rain, which all the characters try to run and take shelter from, but the episode is very character-focused, with small, intimate scenes of characters interacting with just one or two other people (sometimes not even in the same location). There are some expected and some unexpected character pairings. The black rain is just a catalyst to see how the characters feel about themselves – some are desperate to survive, some feel that they don’t want to survive, some are desperate to save everyone and feel like a failure if they don’t.

Again, we have three main plots in three different locations, with different groups of characters: as people in Arkadia quickly ran back into the ship, but some remain outside, Bellamy goes in the rover, trying to save a Delinquent and his father who are far away from Arkadia;  there’s a development in Octavia’s relationship with Ilian, while they take shelter in a cave, which ends up having a surprisingly positive effect on her; and the third plot is focused on Emori and gives her a lot of screentime and development, as she starts fearing she would be made a guinea pig for the new Nightblood solution and is determined to do everything to avoid that fate. Harper also gets a subplot of her own, for the first time.

After the fake alarm about black rain that Jaha used in the last episode to save Ilian from an angry mob, this time the real black rain falls and causes the people in Arkadia to all quickly run inside in panic, and go on to wash themselves. (Realistically, they should have been washing their whole bodies rather than just the upper body – but this is a network show after all, and actors supposedly refused to take off their pants…)

In the chaos that happened when a bunch of people ran towards Arkadia, Harper didn’t help a man who tried to hold onto her, and pushed him away, obviously scared of falling down herself – but he fell to the ground and got exposed to a too big a dose of radioactive rain, before he was dragged inside when everyone else was already inside. After he gets severe radioactive poisoning and is certain to die, Harper feels deeply guilty. Kane tells her to go and tend to the main in the med bay, but this doesn’t help assuage her guilt, and after the man dies, it causes her to feel terrible about herself for the rest of the season, and was no doubt one of the reasons why she developed suicidal tendencies.

Bellamy’s storyline is simple but effective, due to really good acting and good writing. He takes a rover and a slightly torn anti-radiation suit during the rain to go find two people from Arkadia who have found themselves far away - a man called Mark Colton, who asked for help by radio, and his son Peter, who was one of the Delinquents, and who is already suffering effects of the exposure. This would be more meaningful for the audience if we had known Peter (most of the 100 were just extras that we never really got to know), but it is understandable why Bellamy is all the more motivated – he’s felt personally responsible for saving and protecting those kids, almost like he’s always felt responsible for his sister. Throughout this, Kane keeps talking to him on the radio, on a private channel, while Mark is calling him and desperately asking for help on another line. Bellamy’s mission fails because the rover gets stuck in the mud and Bellamy cannot get out to fix the problem while it is still raining due to his suit being torn, though he actually almost did that, before Kane managed to change his mind. He is desperate to save these two people now – “we save who we can today” – because his guiding motivation in life, ever since he was tasked with the responsibility for his sister at the age of six, has always been protecting and saving, and he feels he has failed to save or caused deaths of so many people. Most of all, he feels like he has failed with his sister – he is not even sure if she is alive, since she walked into the woods on her own, and he’s worried about what Octavia’s state of mind is now and that he barely recognizes her (“What is she now? Is she even alive?”).

Kane tries to convince Bellamy that Octavia can take care of herself, but also that he should stop trying to save everyone: “You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved”. Kane genuinely cares for Bellamy and tries to play a pseudo-father role to him, and though Bellamy, this time, shows a certain annoyance with that when he tells Kane (“No more lessons”), he does take Kane’s advice to heart – he repeats it at the end of the episode, and it informs the way he deals with Jasper and the rest of the people who choose not to survive Praimfaya in the upcoming episode. But when Kane tells Bellamy that his mother would be proud of the man he had become, and that he certainly is, Bellamy reminds him: “You floated my mother”. This is a very interesting moment, and one I’ve always liked, because it shows that forgiveness is not such a simple, yes-or-not thing for Bellamy. Even though he has accepted Kane as his mentor and forged a strong bond for him, even if he has maybe mostly forgiven him, he still refuses to forget and ignore the past.

Surprise, surprise, Octavia and Ilian run into each other in the woods again, or rather, he’s managed to find her again, and even though he is gruff and keeps saying she doesn’t need his help, he says he owes her because she didn’t kill him (?!), Huh, well, that’s an interesting point of view. “You could have murdered me, but you didn’t, how nice of you”. I guess Ilian must not have experienced much of actual decent human behavior, if these are the standards he judges people by. They are forced to run for cover and hide in a nearby cave together. Ilian seems to realize that she’s also damaged and messed up like he is, and talks about his trauma – constantly seeing his family’s faces everywhere, the memories of nicer times with them, and the awful things he did to them (he killed both his father and brother, as we saw, and cut his mother’s fingers, which is why she bled out from in the end). He tries to get her to talk about what happened to her, but she refuses and tells him that they are different and that she’s a much darker person: he feels the way people are supposed to feel when they kill someone, but she doesn’t feel anything. She is suicidal and walks out in the rain, and Ilian saves her. Then, as he is trying to stop her from running out of the rain, she kisses him and begs him to have sex with her to make her feel something. This “make me feel something” trope is pretty common, and it wasn’t hard to predict that things would develop that way between those two. Up to this point, nothing was unexpected, though it worked, due to really good acting – Marie Avgeropoulos sells dark!Octavia and suicidal Octavia really well.

After sex, Ilian prepares to go back to his farm, and invites Octavia to come with him if she wants. Octavia lingers a little, then throws her weapons in the fire and goes after him, offering to take him home by giving him a ride on her horse Helios to his farm. This was the first thing that was a bit unexpected to me in this story the first time I watched it. After how dark thing this relationship started, with Octavia almost killing Ilian to take out her issues on him, and with how generally edge-lordy she has been, I didn’t expect this relationship to develop in a more positive way, and so quickly. It’s not a rushed romance like so many others in the show because, for once, we’re not supposed to think they’re in love, they are just both screwed up and damaged, Octavia is grieving and having a rebound, Ilian has been through worse and has no one left, but they’ve bonded, he certainly helped her heal to an extent, and finding someone more messed up than he is probably has helped him, too. Octavia seems generally drawn to people who are gentle and with a positive outlook on life and who can balance out her anger and aggression, even though I’m not sure if anyone can really heal her, since she has been damaged all her life, due to the way she grew up. She was damaged way before Lincoln died, and way before she was sent to the ground, even way before she was arrested and her mother executed. But, at least for a moment, she chose to and genuinely tried to have a positive human relationship and go live peacefully on a farm, instead of using violence and murder to numb her feelings.

Clarke arrives to Becca’s lab and reunites with Abby, she learns some bad news about Raven’s condition, obvious from a scan of her brain (but Raven, just like Jasper, Monty and Jaha, doesn’t appear in the episode), and in turn, Abby learns the bad news about the lost barrel of hydrazine, which means they cannot go to space to synthesize Nightblood there.  But Abby tells Clarke about the new plan: they can make people Nightbloods with Luna’s bone marrow, but they would have to test someone in the radiation chamber to see if it works. Obviously, this is disturbing as they could kill the test subject, but Clarke insists they have to do it in order for everyone to survive. Abby is more tormented over the moral implications of it – Clarke has already been there and is already used to having to make terrible choices that her old self from early season 1 would have been shocked by. Later, Kane tells Abby over the phone that her humanity is her greatest strength, but: “We need to survive. Then we can all find our humanity back.” Words that will become Abby’s motto, and remains that for years.

After talking with her mother in the lab, Clarke goes with Emori to the residential part of the lighthouse, which feels very comfortable - Murphy is cooking, music is playing, and Clarke goes to take shower and finds a bed, and for a moment, she is enjoying it probably thinking about how nice it would be to have real, domestic, normal life, instead of this constant fight for survival. This is different from the makeshift rooms in Arkadia, or the palace-like glamour of Lexa’s tower – it’s like a regular home from back before the apocalypse.

But while the next episode is focused on Clarke’s and Abby’s moral dilemmas, this one is a big Emori episode. Emori has overheard Abby’s and Clarke’s conversation in the lab, and, immediately concluded that she will be the test subject, as the outcast, the one they don’t care or need, and is determined to avoid that fate. Whether they would have been able to make that decision on their own, we don’t know, and it’s debatable, but Emori is right that she seems like the obvious pick if they would have to choose someone as “expendable” – it wasn’t going to be one of the doctors or the king of Azgeda, Abby was obviously not going to want to test Clarke, and Emori had no real ties to anyone other than Murphy, who wasn’t exactly held in high regard by himself. I’ve always liked Emori because she was a well-written anti-heroine with a backstory that explained her personality – since early childhood, she’s been used to distrusting people, thinking that she is an outcast that everyone finds disposable and that she has to be really ruthless to survive – and I really liked that the show here showed both how ruthless and how manipulative she can be, while not making her into a villain.

This episode also has interesting interactions between Emori and Clarke – two characters who had barely shared scenes before. A thief breaks in, and Emori overpowers him, and claims he is Baylis, a man who used to torture her and her brother. On first watch, I completely believed her, and I bet most viewers did. Emori is that good at putting on an act – she has been practicing all her life, after all – that the audience is fooled alongside Clarke and Murphy, She uses truth for deception – telling Clarke that she, Clarke, with her privileged upbringing, and family who loved her and told she was special, doesn’t know what it’s like to be cast out, thrown away like garbage as an infant, because of the way she was born, and be forced to steal and kill since an early age. Clarke admits she can’t know that, but knows what it’s like to feel like you have to kill.

Emori asks Clarke if she has ever killed for revenge, Clarke shakes her head – this is true, she has never done it. It was always out of necessity - to protect someone, to survive, to free herself, or a mercy kill. Even Dante – that was about desperately trying to prove to Cage that she was serious. The one time she thought she could kill for revenge was Lexa in 3x03, for very personal feelings of betrayal, and she wasn’t able to go through with that. She even passed the opportunity to kill Emerson for revenge in Polis, because it could have jeopardized the peace she was fighting for, which was much more important.

But Emori is actually not looking for revenge here, either – it is out of necessity, too, or what Emori considers necessary. She beats up “Baylis” and acts like she is going to kill him, while he insists he is just a scavenger trying to find food for his family, but Clarke suggests they make him a test subject instead. If they have to potentially sacrifice someone – Emori has just made the decision so much easier for everyone: they can feel better if they know the person they are maybe going to kill in a human experiment is an abusive monster. He isn’t, actually – not that he is a good guy, either. He’s a thief who broke into the lighthouse and attacked a person and may have killed Emori… but by the same standards, Emori would be also considered bad, she’s also robbed and killed to survive, and so has Murphy. As “Baylis” is injected with Nightblood, Emori cooly admits to Murphy that she doesn’t know the thief and that he is not Bayli, she just wanted someone else to get tested instead of her. Instead of being shocked, Murphy admires her even more than before: “Now that is a survivor’s move”.

This episode makes for almost a two-parter with the next one, God Complex, where this storyline gets its resolution.

One of this episode’s biggest strengths is the amazing music - both Tree Adams’s score, and the song “State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.)” by Jim James, which plays over a montage of various scenes near the end of the episode.

Timeline: Like most episodes, this one takes place very soon after the previous one – since Clarke, Roan and the barrels of hydrazine were on her way to the lab at the end of 4x06, and they get there at the beginning of 4x07. Which means this takes place about two weeks since the start of season 4/end of season 3 (i.e. the time when Clarke shut down ALIE and the City of Light).

Body count: As we find out at the very beginning of the next episode, 18 Sky people died from exposure to the radiation, including Louis (the man that Harper didn’t help), Mark Colton and his son Peter. 

Peter is the first Delinquent to die in season 4. That means 57 Delinquents have died so far, and 43 are still alive (including Clarke, Octavia, Monty, Jasper, Miller, Harper and Murphy).

Rating: 9/10

[raisedbyfandomwolves]

Hey! That's literally it's default, it doesn't know better, so don't go suing my poor brain!😖😭 Well, it's semi-sound in Fullmetal Alchemist, but i doubt your usage of their concept is what they had in mind😅 And Yeah, okay, food point😂🙈 ...Oh god, don't remind me of Tony, I'll NEVER get over that pure emotional damage (like, literally🤣 I used to read 98% Tony fics, now I can't bear that or rewatching the old movies cause his fate breaks my heart🙈) but very good point... (TBC3)

(TBC3:) Let's just hope McQ and Tom will be kinder to Ethan than the MCU was to Tony (but I guess the chances are higher? Unlike Tony Ethan didn't always get blamed for every other character's BS?🙈) Yuup, they ABSOLUTELY deserve their HEA!😍🙈 Hehe, that would BOTH be awesome! They can just give Rebecca her own AND an Ilsa movie!😍 I doubt there is any one of us who's NOT still bitter about it🙈 (Actually, I didn't think of this as a possible ending til you said it, but the more I (TBC4)) (TBC4:) think of this as a possible ending til you said it, but the more I think of it, the nicer it would indeed have been if they recalled that scene and how from that point everything spiralled so why not change the answer this time to let them have their HEA🤔🙈) HER REACTION WAS GOLDEN AND PERFECT AND TOTALLY EMBODIES NOT ONLY WOMEN BEING JUST AS BADASS AND NO DAMSELS IN DISTRESS AS WELL AS THEIR MUTUAL TRUST AND RESPECT!😍😍 Yuup, tho Ethan is less stubborn about the martyr (TBC5) (TBC5) thing than Kara is IMO and more into just saving the world🤔 No, it's really not thought through yet😅 What I described is literally just the few thoughts I had during/shortly after the film and the 2 scenes I got stuck on🙈🤷🏻‍♀️😅 (😅) Probably, tho to be fair, 13 really is a bit much, even I startled at it😅🙈 Oh, wait, you do? Nice! And yeah, that's what I was gonna ask(ofc only if you're comfortable with that!!!🙈) Haven't noticed a Secretary on Discord yet🤔 (8 messages, sry)

Well it should, that's its job! Maybe suing it will finally make it work like it should! (ꐦ○_○）

I'm expanding on the concept! That's totally acceptable! I'm glad you see it my way. (￣^￣) (BTW, "food point"... Is Venti hungry?)

Sorry but it was the first example that came to mind... T_T Yep, let's hope so. (True, but then again Ethan's always getting himself into situations where he gets disavowed and/or framed so...) Agreed on both counts! This is a classic "Why not both?" situation. XD

We'll die of old age with this bitterness still in our hearts... =_= (Yep, it would have been easy and full of meaning but those writers were just too stupid to think of it... =_=)

ABSOLUTELY AGREED! ヽ(○｀・v・)人(・v・´○)ﾉ

True, he goes all out to save the world but he's not a death seeker like Kara...

"Few"? I'm almost afraid to ask what your idea of "a lot" is. XD

It really is, you really outdid yourself. XD

Yeah, I'm totally fine with using Discord. Send me your tag in a separate message and I'll add you. Oh, akane171 has Discord too and I mentioned this to her so if you want we can form a tiny group/server thing for just the three of us in addition to our individual private conversations. =)

[friendlycybird]

1X11 - Little Dipper - Rewatch

Yes, I’m still doing these. I’m sorry it’s been so long.

I don’t have much preamble to this one. Let’s just get started, shall we?

Hang on, I need to listen to the things Gideon lists from Journal 2 again real quick... Zombie attack, Blood rain, and Demon Caterpillars. Ford devotes a decent amount of Journal 3 to The Undead, were those pages a redundancy from Journal 2? I’d think it was just additional information but it all seemed pretty fundamental... regardless, I’m a lot more curious then I should be about Blood Rain and Demon Caterpillars.

Stan’s first reaction to someone who *might* be from the IRS showing up on his doorstep is to vanish in a puff of smoke and try to escape with his money stash. ...I’m probably overthinking this, but it seems there’s some stuff to unpack there. I won’t waste any more time on it for now. Moving on.

So not only did Stan instantly figure out it was a con, he figured out Gideon was behind the con. I’d love to know how. Is it just that he doesn’t currently have any other enemies? Or does he think so little of the scheme he assumes it could only have been thought up by a ten-year-old? I mean, it’s obvious why he didn’t fall for it, he never entered any sweepstakes and he’s not an idiot. But how did he know who was behind it? And he had to have known who was behind it otherwise he’d have left it at “suck a lemon”.

Ah, right back into form. I’m only to the themesong and I already have three paragraphs. Nice.

Okay but. How did Soos notice a literal millimeter? That’s totally impossible. One millimeter apart they look the exact same height, how did he just...know...that Mabel was taller?

Stan waking up super excited to make fun of someone is funny. Also, paused to type this and I’m loving their expressions. Mabel is just grinning, Dipper’s fuming, Stan is excited and Soos...well...Soos just looks...slightly concerned. I love Soos. And of course he goes on to recommend against giving Dipper TOO hard of a time. I kinda doubt Stan actually misinterpreted it as Soos joining in picking on Dipper since like...he’s known Soos for years... but more like he just saw an opening Soos left and took it.

Also I COMPLETELY forgot that Mabel high-fives hard enough to hurt Stan. People high-fiving hard enough to hurt others always makes me think of Miles Luna from Rooster Teeth? But also I desperately need a fic now where Ford and Mabel high-six, and then Mabel leaves the room and Ford kinda shakes his hand out a bit and Stan just like...smirks ‘cause he saw that coming.

Literally a foot to the left and Dipper would have been in so much trouble with that Mountain Lion...

Fic Fuel moment of the day: The giant butterfly. ...how many other animals do you think wander through those enlarging beams? How many of them do you think suddenly get a lot more dangerous when they do? ...Just in case anyone needs a random threat in the woods to send people running from for plot reasons. I’m sure I’m not the first to think of it but I still thought of it!

There Soos is, noticing millimeters again. I think it might be a thing. Your average Gravity Falls character has one borderline paranormal ability. Mabel can knit sweaters superhumanly fast, and Soos can see individual millimeters.

Paused again for a bit, and look at Soos’ face! He’s so happy for Dipper!

How does Mabel jump from “Magic thing” to “Wizard in the closet” and then remain CONVINCED there is a Wizard in the closet?

Y’know...that distracting Gideon bit was kinda a risk? Like it paid off and the termites totally backfired on Gideon but like. The jar coming open could STILL have set those things lose on the shack. The only way I could imagine Stan knew how that would play out is if Journal 1 had a more detailed entry on those things then Journal 2 so Stan knew they’d turn on Gideon? Otherwise...pure luck.

...does the whole bit where they’re fighting and randomly re-sizing parts of each other’s bodies remind anyone else of the episode of Rick and Morty where Summer uses that re-sizing machine and ends up...y’know. Like that.

I kinda love Dipper’s flat “really?” when Mabel accadently tells Gideon what the flashlight does.

Say, where’d Fiddleford get the money he shoved at Bud?

Gideon is creepy, full stop.

Mabel getting distracted by gummy koalas that are literally almost her size while Gideon interrogates Dipper is...one thing.

The thing that strikes me though...is that...Dipper has known this whole time that there were other journals. He has Journal 3, after all. But there’s never been any indication he’s so much as tried to go looking for the others? Gideon, on the other hand, gets one whiff of Journal 1, having no clue that Journal 3 even exists, and starts interrogating Dipper about it.

It occurs to me to be SO grateful that Gideon never realized he could just kill Dipper, thereby proving his violent intent to Stan, and STILL ransom Mabel for the shack.

Also, I really should’ve known what kind of visual to expect from the near end of this episode the minute I saw Soos in the room of mirrors.

It’s come to my attention that I overanalyize every goddamn word that comes out of Stan’s mouth. Emphasis on Over. Because like, a glance in the mirror and wondering about a random physical feature isn’t that...like it doesn’t actually merit much if any consideration. But I’ve been stuck for much longer then I’m going to admit to trying to form the question... was the complete thought behind “Were my ears always this big?” more in the direction of “have I changed that much in the last thirty years” or more “were my ears always noticeably different then Fords?” ...or was it, as I genuinely think is most likely, just a passing thought without a connection to anything and my brain just really needs to get its breaks checked?

And can’t let Soos trying on the Fez go without mention. Not much to say about it, except that it makes me kinda warm and fuzzy to know that when he says “One Day” he’s right.

Gideon also really should have opened with something a bit more convincing then a phone call? Like...he’s a fucking creep but he’s also kinda bad at being a fucking creep? Which. Is technically a huge relief but it sorta fucks with my villain brain.

...I want to be mad at Dipper and Mabel for getting distracted by the height thing, but they’re twelve. I can forgive them. I love Mabel trying to ride the hamster to freedom though. 

Gideons family has a doggie door but there’s no sign they have a dog. 

Hey, why was Susan at the bus stop if she wasn’t gonna get on the bus? 

Yet again my villain brain scolds Gideon some. Not for not having a better plan this time, but just for his obvious flaw of vanity. Getting a gummy koala in your hair shouldn’t delay your plot, it should speed it up because you know someone is trying to stop you. 

Gideons observation that they would have defeated him if not for their bickering seems a little...I think the phrase is On the Nose? But. Kids show, it’s allowed lines like that. That said, Dipper. If she brings you back to unequal heights you can take the flashlight back and FIX IT. It’s not that big of a deal. 

Hi. Soos uses his own name as a verb for messing up. I’m okay. It’s funny. ...it also hurts. 

Soos is ADORABLE. I can’t get distracted by that though. This is about important stuff about the episode. Stuff that at least pretends to be worth over-thinking. Which means I really need to focus on Mabel and Dipper making up. Mabel doing something that makes Dipper upset, but she does it explicitly as a reaction to Dipper’s behavior is...well it has some rather more lighthearted parallels to some of the elder Pines twins drama, doesn’t it? 

Stan in the mirror maze just makes me happy though. I can’t help but feel like some part of him was going “I’ve always wanted to do this” the whole time. 

So, I pause the episode to ponder if I want to make a big deal out of Soos’ reaction to falling off of Gideon being to shout “Tell my story!” because, y’know, there’s something to talk about there...and my partner decides to fill the silence making a joke about it. She starts singing “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story” from Hamilton, and I crack up laughing. Had to pass that along. I really do think there’s something to be said about Soos as a person from that reaction though. Hell if I can identify exactly what, but there’s something. 

...villain brain is scolding Gideon again. If he hadn’t stopped to monologue, he would have succeeded. It took a minute for Dipper and Mabel to get into position for tickling, and in that minute he could’ve taken the time to shrink Stan...but for some reason he wanted to make threats and back him literally against a wall first. 

I love Stan’s awkwardness when Gideon devolves into hysterics. I love even more that he actually tried to comfort Gideon a little before physically rolling him out of the shop. 

I felt really bad for Soos here, being forgotten like that. I still do, honestly. I love him so much. Of course...that was also their first confirmation that Soos was okay after that fall. ...Which also feels bad ‘cause for all they knew at that point Soos was dead. Yikes. Also, I wonder if they ended up just somehow gluing that crystal back together, or if they went out into the woods for another one. 

The scene at the end with the grand-prize check showing up at the door...did Stan actually not play a sweepstakes like I thought above and this new thing is somehow a mistake, or does he just...not for one second consider he’s lucky enough to have actually won? Fidds being the runner-up is also interesting, he’s just...not ready for that kind of money yet. 

I always feel like I need a better way to wrap these up then just my reaction to the ending, but I pretty much never have one. Sorry.