#everyone's done a gifset or whatever of the scene where she asks him his thoughts on abortion

[mortalscience]

ten caps per episode - Law and Order Criminal Intent - s01e11 - The Third Horseman

Eames: "From locks to lock n load." Deakins: "Next step for Mr. Griscom is lockup."

[jcmorrigan]

001 - Kingdom Hearts

Favorite character: On the villain side: VEXEN IS BEST ORGANIZATION XIII MEMBER. Shoulda stayed evil, though. I like it when he complains and screams about everything and hates everyone. He's one of my favorite villains, just, like...in general. So fun to write. Also attached to Demyx, but I actually liked him more in III than II because it reminded me of my rawr lolspeek weeb days when I f/o'd him without knowing what f/o'ing was and then transitioned this to shipping VexDem like heck. On the hero side: MY GIRL KAIRI! But honorable mentions go to Sora, Riku, Aqua, Ven, Terra, Xion, Roxas, Lea, Ienzo, any Disney character I loved beforehand (this is way too fuckin many to list), Merlin (OKAY I WILL SINGLE HIM OUT), Yen Sid (I'LL SINGLE HIM OUT TOO), you know what let's also single out the Mickey+Donald+Goofy power trio...just...any KH hero who isn't part of the Yozora stuff or the KHUX stuff. ...Except I also LOVE Strelitzia, and she is the only KHUX-exclusive kiddo I care about but I care about her MANY. (Oh, and there's a least fave I have who's a "hero" but that's a debatable label). I would go on about why I love all of them but...that's too many characters to elaborate on

Least Favorite character: See, I think the real answer is Yozora, but the thing is I just tend to forget about him or not care (unless I'm doing a weird AU where he's Noctis' bratty Nobody, don't ask). He kinda represents the Shark Jump and I don't like watching that scene where he literally petrifies Sora for not being strong enough. But again, I can just kinda forget about him if he's not fed to me through a social-media unit. The one I LOVE TO HATE is Master Eraqus. The man actually triggered me back in the day. He is purity culture. He is the overbearing parent who will not accept you unless you are perfect. He is by and large the reason VAT didn't communicate with each other properly. He was the one who taught Aqua to think in absolutes. He lied to Ventus for years and then insisted to kill him was the only option, and then, when Terra tried to defend his brother figure/friend without knowing WHY Eraqus was doing such a thing, Eraqus didn't offer an explanation and instead switched targets to Terra citing that the problem was Terra's lack of OBEDIENCE. Eraqus is just very "my way or the highway" and uses his moral high horse to justify doing things that utterly lack compassion in any regard, which is something that GETS to me on a deep level, and let me tell you, I hated him for so long until I realized he was actually a super fuckin fun guy to imagine as a Bigger Bad in AUs that either have the KH protags teaming up or have villain protags needing a "greater good lawful evil" figure. And I just have found too many good memes about him cheating at chess and killing children. I have to laugh. Making fun of him is fun. He's a ridiculous character. That said, this recent trend of "erase everything bad he ever did and paint him as the ultimate hero of the saga" makes me raise eyebrows for SEVERAL reasons

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): VexDem, SoRiku, Kairi x Jaune Arc (RWBY), Aqua x Rosalina (Super Mario Galaxy) x Bayonetta, IsaLea, Ventus x Papyrus (Undertale), that was six but they all needed to be mentioned

Character I find most attractive: Ienzo. HOO BABY he is adorable. I saw someone make a Valentine's Day gifset of KH and FF characters shortly after III dropped and seeing his smiling face paired with a romance quote made my heart FLUTTER

Character I would marry: Probably Ienzo, see above. He's also a very kind guy. Favorite redemption in the modern era.

Character I would be best friends with: I hope the Destiny Trio would adopt me into their friend circle the way they've tended to do with every other inter-world denizen they've come across. I would love to have them as my positivity squad. Or, y'know, two positivities and one "it's okay to screw up" guy. Just. I would love to hang out with them. I often worry that I'm unlikable to my faves, but even though I would usually prefer to hang with the villains, I can pretty much guarantee these three would be open-minded about me. (Do I kiiiiinda wanna be friends with Vexen though? Of course I do. He'd hate me but maaaayyyyybe he would see me as one of his pet idiots who makes him look smarter, and we could bond over our fragile egos?)

a random thought: You ever think about that one NPC lady in Traverse Town who refused to tell you where she was from because it was none of her business? You ever wonder where she WAS from? What her world was like? How she ended up being the survivor of the Ansem Apocalypse when it hit her? All I know is that when I read her lines out loud (I used to read KH speech balloons out loud all the time), I gave her a Southern accent for no discernible reason and I stand by it. That woman has a twang.

An unpopular opinion: I don't want KHUX to be canon because I feel it's smaller-scale and takes a lot of mystery out of the worldbuilding. I always assume that the KHverse just includes ALL worlds in fiction, and that includes their thousand-year histories, meaning the Age of Fairy Tales should've happened long long long LONG LONG LONG ago and not five generations. And whatever screwed up the world should've been more than just five people having a fight, and whatever saved it should've been more than just five people getting along, and Daybreak Town really suffers from having to stick to mobile-friendly graphics and therefore is the least aesthetically attractive KH town ever, and I don't like that Lauriam and Elrena used to be such selfless people. I do still love Strelitzia because she's shy and relatable and quirky (sitting on the roof) and she questions authority and if you go with shipping subtext she's probably bi (or pan?), but I don't like the "Lauriam's dead sister for his arc's drama" bit. I liked when Marluxia was angry because he wanted to run Organization XIII but it was in the hands of an idiot who wasn't him. And more than anything I just like imagining that the Age of Fairy Tales was something bigger, further in the past, and more mysterious than something designed for a mobile game. Scala ad Caelum, however, I like a lot better because there IS a lot of mystery there and also it's a very pretty town with an amazing design.

my canon OTP: I really only count the Disney couples as the "canon" ones, so this is a question of picking my favorite Disney couple that shows up onscreen. I hope I'm not forgetting an important one, but I think the title has to go to Aladdin/Jasmine, which is always perfect in everything. (This would be an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT STORY if KH had ever adapted Treasure Planet, and if it ever gets the mind to adapt Treasure Planet then even if I don't care about that game I will immediately declare that Amelia/Doppler takes the KH canon OTP crown. *taps watch* Get on it Squenix)

Non-canon OTP: SoRiku, which I counted as "basically canon" after DDD until III decided it wasn't sure. But I'm just a sucker for how DDD is the two of them all "HE'S GOT MY BACK AND I'VE GOT HIS AND I'D DO ANYTHING FOR HIM SO LONG AS HE'S HAPPY." It's just the best kind of Friends-to-Lovers, except when you take all canon into account it's Friends-to-Rivals-to-Enemies-to-Friends-to-Lovers and that's a very juicy dynamic. BUT ALSO: VexDem, which is a nostalgia ship SO STRONG I had to accept that it eclipsed my former Vexen ships by a mile and I wanted to go back to my roots. That one, I have a much longer essay about that I'll just have you refer to so I don't repeat myself for pages. To make a long story short, their scene in III was JUST DELICIOUS.

most badass character: OOF THEY'RE ALL BADASS but in the end it's between Sora and Aqua, because Sora gets the widest RANGE of abilities across the series that he masters while Aqua gets the most POWERFUL abilities due to her Mastery (Command Styles seem like they'd be the most OP things ever in-universe and I'm here for it because flashy battle moves make brain go brr).

pairing I am not a fan of: SOKAI, Xehaqus, RikuNami, Vanitas/anyone not evil

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): OH BOY. KAIRI THE MOST. YOU ALL KNOW WHY: lack of screen time, Fridging for drama, forced romance to invite death flags (they really wanted to milk that death to get people talking didn't they?), giving Alyson Stoner ZERO direction to actually follow up on Hayden Panettiere's performance. But then I remember that they made Vexen redeem and lose his entire personality and I just...uuugghhhh. I can't believe he died twice in this series. And then Demyx is FUN but also I know he's flipped sides as well, which means he won't be fun much longer! Xehanort seems to switch motivations to whatever makes him the biggest threat (and several of Eraqus' old flaws seem to be mysteriously glued onto him), Sora isn't a motormouth anymore, Riku just doesn't get anyone who cares about him anymore because everyone's distracted by Sora and Kairi, IS ANYBODY GOING TO ADDRESS THE ACTUAL ISSUES THAT DROVE THE WAYFINDER TRIO APART, oh God Marluxia and Larxene you're good guys now what have they done to you

favourite friendship: I really like each of the trios. But you know what's even BETTER than the trios? If you put...all of the trios together...meaning Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Aqua, Terra, Ven, Roxas, Xion, Lea, Hayner, Pence, Olette...and then you added Isa back in there...and you gave them Ienzo...and you brought back Naminé...and you say that Subject X is Strelitzia and you have her turn back up so she can have justice done...AND YOU HAVE AN ULTRA KEYBLADE GROUP OF FRIENDS. As for Vexen, any purely platonic relationship I have for him is a crossover but trust me I have many crossover pals for he

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: See everyone I listed above in the friendship question. They can either mentor me or let me be their big sis/mom. But also, I will GLADLY be Merlin or Yen Sid's daughter. (But also would I kiiiiinda wanna be a VexDem daughter? This is the worst idea. Still wanna try)

[casebasket]

The Mystrade Treatise

I am long, long out of the Sherlock fandom, but I still have a soft spot for mystrade after ~ 7 odd years (the only thing I really cared about in the show), so when a friend asked about mystrade I hit them with a spontaneous 2000 word block of text. I thought I’d share it as an homage to the still quietly existing community of mystrade shippers out there. Basically, in this essay I will argue for my interpretation of how the BBC TV show Sherlock (2012) establishes an implied relationship between Mycroft, (The Government) and Lestrade (The Force) in the subtext. This analysis will be broken down to two parts: 1) show chronology / their history and 2) their compatibility, which can be further split into 2a) personalities and 2b) external circumstances. 

(The beginning is the only formal(ish) part of - I’m calling it a treatise -, the rest of the piece is written in “I typed it all in messenger app” style. This all came out off the top of my head, so if you think I’m missing something I’m open to the callout)

TL;DR: I’m still mystrade trash and I’m pulling the receipts on mystrade canon

1) Their history - it's clear they know each other and are in communication with each other since the very beginning - and very likely even before - the events of the show. Just a show tidbit, the ending of the pilot episode has Lestrade watch John and Sherlock walk away happily staring into each other's eyes and tell Donovan about their potential as partners, whereas the actual first episode replaces him with Mycroft talking to his assistant Anthea, which shows their character parallels. In one aspect, their role as "aggravated older guardian" is a shared one and one that - rationally, but in fanon - allows them to commiserate with other another. Also, Mycroft kidnaps John in his very first day of him meeting Sherlock, so reasonable to conclude he did the same to Lestrade, so they've clearly met. And, I believe it's canon that Lestrade helped Sherlock with his drug problem, so he's clearly run into Mycroft, whether it's because his brother's OD'd or found with possession or whatever whatever. The possibilities are endless.

We have hints of them knowing each other throughout the show - in season 2 episode 2 the Hound of Baskerville (I am surprised and appalled I know this off by heart instead of more important things), the duo meets Lestrade in a tavern where he's clearly back from holiday and when Sherlock eggs him by basically calling him Mycroft's lackey, he, aggrieved, says "I don't just do what your brother tells me", which is a line I still unfortunately remember over 5 years later, and that is the first precedent set in canon that they clearly communicate. We can interpret this line, given the circumstances, that Mycroft asked him to cut his vacation short to go check up on his brother, and Lestrade, being whipped, was like fine.

This is mere speculation, but in that mini episode, Many Happy Returns, Lestrade is listening to Anderson go on about his conspiracy theories on how Sherlock is still alive, and at the end of it he passes a newspaper article about Sherlock, and he smiles at it like he KNOWS he's still alive somewhere even though he just walked out calling Anderson on his bullshit and dismissing his theories, and I like to interpret that as Mycroft told him Sherlock's still alive. Plus, when Sherlock greets him after his two year absence, the way Lestrade reacts is less “am I seeing a ghost because you’re supposed to be dead” and more “you’re finally back I already know you were alive because my boyfriend Mycroft told me”. 

The first time we see them in frame together (in the mystrade community this is famously known as the 29 frames moment because they only showed up for - 29 frames, like 2 seconds) was in season 3 episode 3, where Sherlock goes missing and everyone looks for him in the hidey holes they know of. Lestrade is seen in Mycroft's office while Mycroft tells him about potential hiding spots. Honestly he did look hella dismissive and rude but you know what? Everyone was stressed. But this shows not only is Lestrade trusted in his secret government offices - and likely this was the secret one because it looked like a cellar - but he trusts Lestrade implicitly. When Sherlock is about to leave on a plane, Lestrade's in a pub watching the TV screen when Moriarty's face is all over it and the very next scene we see Mycroft on the phone with someone getting the news that this was happening. Coincidence? I think NOT - Lestrade called up Mycroft and told him, CANON.

And then there's the Christmas special or whatever it was, about the abominable bride, and yes, this one is set in Sherlock's drug fevered mind, but that only means that, in Sherlock's mind, he sees the two of them as a set (Sherlock ships it confirmed lol). During the whole episode when we see the canon versions of Mycroft and Lestrade they are together as a unit. When John leaves him, Sherlock's mind goes to the most reliable thing in his life to help him, which is his brother (and his brother's boyfriend) and his friend Lestrade to help him, together. Sherlock asks the two of them to help him dig up a body and they share a Look, which is clearly Mycroft's way of asking Lestrade to do the dirty work of actually digging and Lestrade resignedly concedes because there is no other way to analyse the Look, and in the next scene we see Sherlock and Lestrade digging in a grave while Mycroft holds up a lantern because Mycroft doesn't like legwork and Lestrade, clearly his boyfriend in Sherlock's mind, understands this and is willing to accommodate.

And then we have the whole of S4, or as I like to call it, Johnlock hell but mystrade victories!, because in s4e1 when Mary is shot in the aquarium, the first person they look at is each other, indicating they take some level of comfort or seek it out from one another in a room full of other people, also the two of them arrived together so they clearly coordinated, also when the gun was lifted Mycroft looks shocked and steps back a bit while Lestrade moves forward in a “ready to step in” protective gesture, and this all happened in the same frame, and there are gifsets of this happening, and everyone was quietly screaming (Johnlockers in pain, mystrade shippers in "look at them sharing a frame together look at these scraps we're getting"). In the second ep we don't see them together but we do see Mycroft getting hit on by Lady Smallwood and he looks hella uncomfortable about it, while Lestrade is talking with another detective and Sherlock shoots him down telling him she's not the one (because clearly we all know who is the one and Sherlock knows it's his brother).

Oh yeah also jumping back to S3, Mycroft is saying no one can match him and he sees everyone as goldfish but Sherlock is like oh really and was lowkey concerned about him and that's how the mystrade fandom got this whole goldfish thing and it's adorable (special shout out to duchessclovery ‘s masterful fanvid romcom series A Fish Called Greg), and in the wedding ep Sherlock calls Mycroft to attend the wedding but he refuses, and Sherlock says "specter in the feast" to entice him and I like to interpret that as him lowkey jabbing him with a *in*spector in the feast because Lestrade was there looking tired and lonely throughout the whole ep lmaaaaaaaaaaaaao.

Anyway back to S4E2, Mycroft is getting hit on, Lestrade is the most tired we've ever seen him, Sherlock is trying to waive off Lestrade's suitors to save him for his brother. Why is Lestrade so tired? Yes, he's questioning a suspect or something, but also! maybe it's related to his love interest getting hit on, who knows???? And lastly, the last ep of S4, the golden era of mystrade, at the very end of the episode after we've seen Mycroft at his most vulnerable, Sherlock asks Lestrade to "take care of him (Mycroft). he's not as strong as he seems". This was an explicit request by Sherlock, addressing Lestrade correctly for the first time, to take care of his brother, and Lestrade says yes. Of course I will. S4 ended with the promise of the him taking care of Mycroft and honestly I don't care about the entire episode except that part

 2)    A: their personalities: so, Mycroft, as his colleagues know him, is ~ the ice man ~. He's hard to know, even harder and more stubborn and isolated than his brother, and on top of that he's like, contractually obligated under his top secret government job to not be known. That makes him, and this is canon as Sherlock discussed his loneliness with him in S3, even more lonely than his brother, and probably, as much as he likes to think himself more accommodating than his brother and he can definitely pretend for the sake of appearances, more difficult to deal with than Sherlock if he really sets his mind to it. But he's not a complete block of ice - after all, ice can melt - and he has soft spots for his family, esp. his unruly little brother, and by extension (maybe more necessity than real care, but still) the people his brother affiliates with. Because Sherlock is so tricky to deal with, I believe he has a soft spot for people who share that softness for his spiky sibling, and no one cares for Sherlock as he does except for Mrs Hudson, John, and Lestrade. Lestrade's done it for even longer than John, and in the show plays a somewhat paternal figure to Sherlock despite him causing him even more stress sometimes than solving cases for him would relieve. Lestrade is shown to drop everything to help Sherlock when he needs it, and is considered one of his best friends when Moriarty put a sniper on each of Sherlock's closest acquaintances (Lestrade was a target). Lestrade always saw the good in Sherlock despite everything, and believed he could be great. Very few sees the same potential, or shows that level of kindness for - lets be honest here - someone we would want to kick in real life. Lestrade's kindness and patience, enough to deal with Sherlock, surely can be extended to involve Mycroft, as Mycroft's protectiveness extends somewhat to Sherlock's friends.

And this is not a one way street of just Lestrade being kind and accepting. The people Sherlock surrounds himself with appear dull, and have "normal" lives, but secretly either have a florid past (Mrs Hudson) (and her present with the race car and her quick thinking when the flat gets ransacked) and/or crave adventure and danger and intrigue (John) (Molly). Lestrade is the probably the same. He seems aggravated by Sherlock but still like him a whole lot and truly care for him, and you don't go into policing if not for some kind of excitement. He has a failed marriage with his wife who boringly cheated on him with a PE teacher, like how predictable and cliche, and they broke up. Lestrade is loyal, and he wants to fix things, but in the end it doesn't work out. The show doesn't really tell us why, but given what we know of his work and his habits, he probably spends way too much time on the job and in part, neglected his home life. That isn't to say the cheating his wife did can be condoned, nor was it justified, but it does tell us that Lestrade is a workaholic who craves excitement and adventure which explains his attachment to Sherlock. Who else can match that with him in a relationship? Another workaholic who surrounds himself in government intrigue and MI6 bullshit cloak and daggers who also share a soft spot for the most annoying detective consultant, of course!!! For all we know from the show, Mycroft is Lestrade's one constant relationship outside of work. Their common interest is keeping their shared loved ones safe. Beyond that, even though Mycroft feels bored by everyone because "no one is as smart as i, hohoho", Sherlock used to be the same but he found John. We see Lestrade able to hold his own against Sherlock sometimes too, and he is a detective inspector, so as much as Sherlock likes to call him dumb we know that Lestrade's actually pretty smart. If he can hold up his own against Sherlock, he can hold up his own against Mycroft. Mycroft needs someone with the patience to go through all his bullshit, and Lestrade needs someone smart and interesting and protective, because as a protector himself sometimes you forget you need someone to protect you in turn. And that is basically their whole thing - two fierce guardians, trying to protect the world, finding they also need protection, and finding it in each other (end of season 4). Also there's this scene where Lestrade is sitting by his desk with his feet propped up while he eats a donut and says "not my division" which looks exactly like this scene where Mycroft is sitting by his desk with his feet propped up looking smug, or as the mystrade shippers like to call it, "boyfriends picking up each other's behaviours". Essentially, the johnlock relationship sort of parallels the mystrade relationship in that we have a smartass, spiky, secretly vulnerable one paired with a badass, patient, relatively more sunny one. But more mature. And also preferable. The two of them share some kind of relationship that has reached the point of nonverbal understanding, as we can see in their quiet glances towards each other during the few times we see them on screen together, that requires a level of trust and time. 

2)     B: compatibility in external circumstances - this is a short one, it's mostly that they're both workaholics who needs someone to understand their unpredictable work schedules, and also how minimal their social life can get being a) married to work and b) work can be classified and you can't tell anyone about your case files / government coverups. No one could understand the need for secrecy and getting up in the middle of the night for a case/subterfuge than Mycroft and Lestrade, as their career roles work in tangent with each other. And they share (1) chaotic child between the two of them, so they just. get it when one receives a call telling them to fish this loud annoying bitey man child out of the Thames. Their jobs get in the way of establishing close relationships, so who better to relate to than another who live the same kind of life and can understand?

[panharmonium]

Hey! Loving the Merlin takes on ur blog, and I wanted to ask—what are your opinions on Morgana? Haven’t seen a lot of talk abt her. I loved her, esp in season 1, which is also my fav season cuz after that I feel like things started to make less and less sense, lmao. I understand her descent into villainy (mostly, but why does she start to hate Gwen so quickly? feel like that could’ve been handled better) but I would’ve loved to see some solidarity between her and merlin!!!!!

hi there! :D

so, i LOVE morgana.  most of what i’ve said about her has been in the tags of gifsets that are now scattered haphazardly around my blog; i don’t think there are larger pieces yet besides my finale round-up (urgh lol), and most of that is just a function of time - i can’t possibly write expansive tracts of meta about every single merlin thing i love, because i love the whole show; i’d never leave my computer again.  i generally sit down to write long essays about whatever grabs my mind at a particular moment, even though there are a bazillion other things out there i love just as much. XD

but with morgana, i also feel like part of the reason i haven’t written much about her is because up until three and a half weeks ago (....oh my god, was it THREE AND A HALF WEEKs???  IT FEELS LIKE A YEAR) i hadn’t even finished the series yet, and the whole time i was watching this show i was sort of...waiting to see whether they would finally tie her arc together.  i didn’t feel like i could say too much about what was happening with her, because my evaluation of her arc was going to depend on where the writers finally chose to take it and whether they brought it to the place i thought it needed to go.

and...they didn’t, obviously, which is what i sort of suspected would happen, though i was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt all the way up until the end, because i don’t believe they ever wrote themselves into a corner with her.  there were things they could have handled with more depth, definitely, but i do not believe that they ever dug themselves into a hole they couldn’t climb out of.

i. what happened to you, morgana

essentially my opinion (just mine; nobody else is obligated to share it) of morgana is this: that the series ended before her arc was over.  

to me, season 5 was the nadir in our characters’ journeys.  they had reached their lowest point, their...“darkest hour,” to quote the show itself.  and in many familiar storytelling formats (the ones that have the most in common with bbc merlin, at least), we take our characters to a moment where they hit rock bottom, where everything is going wrong and things seem hopeless, and then we light a spark under their butts that starts the process where they fight their way out of it.  the nadir isn’t the endpoint of the curve; it’s the point where characters start climbing their long, slow way out of the pit.  it’s what they have to overcome in order to earn their eventual triumphant ending.

to me, season 5 was that nadir, for morgana and everyone else.  i never would have imagined season 5 to be the final season of the show, if i hadn’t known it was beforehand. i would have read season 5 as the show’s ‘empire strikes back’ moment.  the episode that ends with our team losing, but with a whole other episode remaining where they can fight to Make It Right.

i view merlin bbc as tantamount to a cancelled tv show, to be honest.  i know that’s not necessarily what happened (though it does feel pretty weird that they officially announced S5 would be the final season only four weeks before the finale was about to air??  very bizarre), but regardless of the actual behind-the-scenes-whatever, the fact of the matter is that for me, the series doesn’t end.  it stops.  and those two things are not the same.

this is particularly relevant to morgana because, as you said, there are aspects of her character arc that weren’t handled as deftly as they could have been, but if the show had brought morgana’s arc to the place where it felt like they were going in 5.09, they could have rescued so much of what came before.

to get into more detail -

i think the biggest issue with morgana’s arc for me isn’t so much what she does, it’s what we’re not shown as she does it.  

i fully believe that morgana would eventually start working to ensure uther’s downfall.  (obviously.  she’s been presented as the voice of moral authority on this show since episode one, and there’s no reason to believe that she wouldn’t ultimately start rebelling against the king’s oppressive policies.)  i believe that she would reject arthur, eventually.  and i believe that she would reject gwen, too.  but i don’t believe the show illustrates enough how painful this would be for her, or how conflicted it would make her feel.  

and again, as i said, there are my own personal opinions, couched in...some personal experience with certain kinds of family conflict - but i do understand where morgana’s bitterness toward arthur and gwen comes from.  arthur, for all that he’s “a better man than [his] father,” never fully breaks with uther the way morgana does.  he has his own little rebellions, yes, but ultimately he always falls in line.  he tolerates his father’s actions even if he doesn’t necessarily agree with them, and he continues to support uther even after uther is revealed to have lied about being morgana’s illegitimate father.  and because of this tacit acceptance of uther’s poor behavior, arthur reaps benefits and privileges galore.  morgana is cast out with nothing, whereas arthur, who didn’t even take a stand for justice, wants for nothing.  arthur is sitting pretty on the throne of camelot because he continued to bestow his honor and respect upon a man who deserved neither of those things, because he chose the villain of the series over his sister, even knowing what uther did to her.  and that’s gutting, for her.  he betrayed her.

(and there are things to be said on arthur’s end of this, too, of course - morgana doesn’t ever confide in him; she doesn’t come to him for help or give him a chance to even be informed about what happened to her before she jumps into invading camelot and dethroning uther - so for arthur, her sudden turnaround comes as a total shock, and HE feels betrayed, like he has no choice but to fight her - i mean, it’s just a big mess.)

but i understand why she hates him.  he continues to stand with a man who did demonstrable evil, despite the harm that was specifically done to morgana herself.  and by shutting up and letting atrocities be committed in front of him, arthur escapes the harm that morgana suffers for speaking up.  i understand why morgana is so bitter about it.

and gwen is a very similar situation - from morgana’s point of view, gwen is playing the arthur to arthur’s uther.  gwen sides with arthur over morgana, despite knowing full well that arthur’s policies harm people with magic.  gwen abandons morgana for her love interest, and for morgana that’s just like - “why would you do that?  i was your friend before he ever cared about you, i loved you before he ever did - don’t you see the evil he’s perpetuating?  don’t you care what he does to people like me?”  

that’s why morgana tells merlin, “don’t think i don’t understand loyalty just because i’ve got no one left to be loyal to.”  she feels like everybody who supposedly cared for her ultimately dumped her because her situation interfered with their comfortable, morally uncomplicated lives.  they weren’t willing to acknowledge what was done to her, and they stuck by the man responsible for it, and it seems incomprehensible to her, that they would make that choice, when his misdeeds are known and out in the open.  i can’t blame her for wanting to raze the city to the ground.

HOWEVER.

while i believe that all these things are completely plausible, i don’t believe that the series shows us appropriately how these things would be tearing morgana apart inside, underneath the rage and the armored front of  ‘you brought this on yourself, so burn in hell, i don’t care.’  

there are moments where the show gets it right.  when morgana wakes up after uther dies and says that she felt his pain - it’s not presented as gloating; she’s - almost confused.  uncertain.  like she doesn’t know what she feels.  when she confronts arthur at the end of season 4 (i thought we were friends/as did i) there’s real pain under the surface there.  when they confront each other at the beginning of season 5, too (what happened to you, morgana/i grew up) - you can feel the undercurrent of something deeper there, too.  and that moment with mordred in 5.09, when he appeals to her humanity (i hope one day you will find the love and compassion which used to fill your heart) - that is an amazing scene.  the show absolutely nails that moment.  morgana hesitates.  you can see the grief and the - the conflict written all over her face.  it’s perfect.  it’s exactly the turn i would have expected morgana’s arc to be taking, at that time in the series.

but then the show just stopped.  and without taking morgana’s arc further - without following it through all the way to its conclusion - there’s never any resolution to all the ways the show dropped the ball earlier.  all the moments where morgana appears to be just...evil-smirking her way through her revenge, the way she suddenly seems to have no feelings for gwen whatsoever, the utterly lost opportunity that was the “enchanted gwen” arc (which could have been such a powerful exploration of their broken relationship) - all those could have eventually made sense and fit into a narrative where morgana’s conflicted feelings finally begin to escape the stranglehold in which she has them choked, where we start to see the pain of these destroyed relationships rising to the surface.  

i can understand how morgana would just - shut off her feelings about these people.  she had to close her heart to them - the alternative would have been too painful.  but underneath - we know it wouldn’t be that easy.  we know it eats at her.  and it’s just - so incredibly frustrating that the series was starting to go there - the moment with mordred in 5.09 feels like the beginning of morgana’s big crisis of faith - and then the show just Stops.

so the thing about morgana for me is that, like you said, the show does drop the ball on illustrating her quick descent into evil-villain territory, and they especially drop the ball on her break with gwen, but all of it could have been salvaged, if they had committed to following her arc all the way through to its conclusion.  instead they chose to kill her (and everybody else, lol) just as her deep-rooted internal conflicts were finally starting to rise to the surface.

ii. we can find another way/there is no other way (aka the merlin problem)

i’ll say right up front that anything i say here is, as always, just my personal interpretation of things.  this is not necessarily the One True Way this show is meant to be understood; it’s just my own preferred read.

i have definitely seen some things in my brief foray into internet fandom that are sort of...piling on merlin for abandoning morgana or “gaslighting” her, most of which seem to be centered around the beginning of episode 2.03, which is weird to me, because the whole point of that episode is that merlin does help morgana, in the end - he’s the one who doesn’t gaslight her.  he defies gaius and takes her to the druids, specifically so they can tell her yes, she does have magic.  he tries to distract the attacking knights in order to enable morgana to escape with the druids permanently, like she wants.  and when the attempt fails, and they’re brought back to camelot, he comes to morgana’s chambers specifically to check on her and to assure her that he won’t reveal her secret to anyone, and she’s grateful for this - she thanks him, she’s appreciative of everything he did for her, she feels comforted to know the truth and to know that someone else knows it, too.  this episode ends with their relationship at a high point - it’s overwhelmingly positive, and it doesn’t take a nosedive until 1.12, when morgana gets in way over her head and merlin thinks she’s trying to murder them all.  (and even in that episode, it’s worth it to note, merlin is still covering for her magic in front of arthur, giving her chances.)

(and obviously also, of course, the end of that particular situation gets Real Bad Real Fast, which could be a whole post in and of itself, so let’s stay focused on the earlier eps, for now.)

the criticism of merlin in those earlier episodes seems to stem solely from the fact that he doesn’t out himself to morgana, which i can understand - i mean, i like the idea of a ‘merlin+morgana secret magic squad’ AU as much as anyone - but i’ll be honest and say that nowadays, i’m not quite as willing to condemn him for it as i might have been on my first viewing.

i’m not willing to condemn him for it at all, actually.

(and again - as i said, these are my own opinions!  everybody else is welcome to have different opinions!  we all engage with media differently, and there isn’t a right or wrong way to approach this situation, just whichever way feels best to you.)

so, for me, i’m not interested anymore in telling merlin that he should have revealed himself to anyone, at that point in the story.  it would be different if he had been like - continuing to tell morgana ‘oh, no, you don’t have magic, don’t be crazy,’ or if he had been pretending to hate magic like everyone else so he could blend in, but he doesn’t do that, at the end of the episode.  he sends her to the druids.  he chases after her when he realizes she's in danger.  he openly acknowledges her magic, he supports her in having it, he makes sure she knows she has nothing to fear from him.  by the end of 2.03, he’s gone to great lengths to help her; he’s already made certain that she knows he’s on her side and that she can trust him.  she clearly knows that he accepts her and that he supports her - those are his responsibilities to her as a fellow human and as a friend, and those are exactly the responsibilities he makes sure to fulfill.  she knows her secret is safe with him.  

now - whether or not merlin feels safe enough to out himself, after making sure morgana knows he accepts and supports her, is his own business.

i think there are a number of reasons why it wouldn’t be fair for me to criticize merlin for continuing to conceal his secret, the first of which is something i already mentioned in another piece - that a marginalized person’s first responsibility is to their own safety, when forced into hiding under oppressive social conditions.  merlin isn’t obligated to reveal himself for anybody.  he’s not obligated to put himself in danger out of some kind of...responsibility to the community.  (not at this point, anyway.  it gets more complicated later, as merlin becomes more powerful, which i also address in that other piece, but that’s all in the future for him and not relevant at this moment.)

i think it would be easy for me to forget that merlin isn’t safe, in the early seasons.  we’re so used to thinking of merlin as ‘the greatest sorcerer to ever walk the earth,’ because that’s what we keep being told he’s going to become, but again, that’s all so far in the future for him.  merlin in the early seasons can do some things with his abilities, but not consistently, and not to the level where we can reasonably expect him to resist the entirety of camelot’s army, if they were to come for him.  merlin is in real danger, and he’s not evil for being unwilling to share a secret about himself that would ensure his death, if it somehow got back to the wrong people.

second - i don’t think it would be fair for me to discount merlin’s personal history, either.  merlin’s life didn’t start in camelot, and he hasn’t even been in camelot for all that long, comparatively, by the time we get to S2.  season one takes place over a few months, starting in either spring or summer and ending in the fall (after the referenced harvest in 1.10/1.11, but before winter sets in).  the weather is nice by time season 2 starts, so we can probably assume that S2 takes place once winter has passed (although, it’s technically possible that S2 takes place over the same autumn as S1, I guess...but it’s not made clear to us, timeline-wise.)  either way, we just really have to remember that merlin’s stay in camelot by the time we reach 2.03 is still this blip compared to the rest of his life.  

it would be very easy for me to say that merlin should have told morgana, that there’s no way she would ever have given him up - and i probably would have said that very thing, after the first time i watched the show - but like - nowadays, i really think i have to step back from that certainty and be a little more gentle.  we say we “know” that morgana wouldn’t have willingly betrayed merlin’s secret at that point, and sure, i agree, that’s probably true - but does merlin know that?  

of course not!

i think he hopes that.  i think he would dearly like to believe that.  i also think merlin grew up in a situation where he couldn’t fully trust even the people he’d known all his life, with two (vital!!!) exceptions, and he has been in camelot with a bunch of brand-new people for less than a year, and he can’t be certain of them, however much he wants to be.  (and that’s not even considering the possibility of accidental betrayals, or coerced ones - remember, the witchfinder shows up in S2 also, as just one example.)

remember that exchange merlin has with freya, later this season?

“you can’t always trust people.”

“i know.  that’s why i left home.”  

merlin is not used to showing himself to people.  he has been taught all his life to NEVER, EVER show himself to anybody.  everyone in camelot who finds out about his magic finds out either by accident (like gaius or lancelot), or necessity (like freya and gilli - though gilli is interesting, because i think merlin’s decisions there are motivated precisely by the choices he didn’t make with morgana - which i’ll go into more later).  

in twenty-odd years, merlin has only ever told one person about his magic.  and even that generous assumption requires a little bit of inferencing for us to determine, though i think it’s likely enough, if not confirmable.

(i am, in case it’s unclear, referencing 1.10, when merlin is explaining to will why hunith sent him away to camelot: “when she found out you knew - she was so angry.”  that, to me, has always been a signifier that merlin told will about his magic, as opposed to will finding out by coincidence.  i know there are a lot of headcanons floating around out there about various...accidental situations that may have occurred which forced merlin to reveal his magic in front of will, and those are all obviously totally fun to play with, but after hearing this particular line - i never understood that to be the case, to be honest.  we’ve seen hunith enough to have a pretty solid understanding of her character.  she and merlin are always easy and gentle together, she’s so kind and calm and thoughtful - i can’t imagine that she wouldn’t have understood, if there had been some kind of accident that forced merlin’s hand.  she’d be just as afraid for his future safety, of course, and she would have wished he’d told her right away, but she wouldn’t have been “so angry.”  

...she might, however, have been “so angry” if she’d found out that merlin had specifically undermined every sacrifice she’d ever made to keep him safe/ignored every single one of her warnings/rejected every cautious thing she’d been telling him for his entire life and TOLD somebody about his magic when it wasn’t remotely necessary.  that’s the only scenario i can imagine that would prompt merlin to say “she was SO angry” in that half-awed, half-intimidated tone, with that little headshake, like it was such a singular event, like it’s still formidable for him to remember.)

so anyway, that said - it’s too easy for me to say ‘he should have told morgana/gwaine/gwen etc; they would never have turned on him,’ as if it would have been such a simple thing for him to do, as if there were no dangers associated with their knowledge even if they would never have willingly given him up, as if he was refusing to do it because he didn’t want to, or because his fears were overblown, or because he was foolish for thinking they would ever hate him for his gifts.  i think that really minimizes the reality of his struggle, and the danger of his situation.  without the pressure of some crisis to force his hand, merlin has only ever willingly revealed himself to one person.  that person is dead.  that person died specifically ensuring that merlin could stay safe and hidden from the rest of the world, morgana included - merlin’s continued secrecy is a gift that was bought at an impossibly high price, and it’s not simple for him to contemplate squandering it, especially with no guarantee that things will turn out okay.

because there IS no guarantee that things will turn out okay!  a lot of the “merlin should have told morgana” online talk centers around the idea that knowing about merlin’s magic would have kept morgana from feeling alone/betrayed, thus preventing her from turning to the “evil” methods she uses later, but again, i don’t think we actually know that at all.  solidarity between merlin and morgana would have been a nice thing, definitely; i’d like to see that too, but i don’t think the fact that she and merlin are both magic-users would have guaranteed harmony between them.  merlin and gilli are both magic-users, too, and merlin expects this to be enough to convince gilli to “see the light,” but the fact of the matter is that merlin and gilli just have very different ideas about what it means to do the right thing.  merlin thinks it means biding his time and waiting for change to come from the top (because he’s been TOLD by greater powers that this is the right course of action, of course; let’s note again that merlin’s situation is extremely complicated) whereas gilli thinks that doing things merlin’s way makes merlin complicit with an unjust regime.  gilli says ‘i shouldn’t haven’t to wait for someone else to give me my rights.  i’m going to take them myself.’

the fact that merlin and gilli share a bond as magic-users doesn’t protect them from an ideological divide that puts them on different sides of the same struggle.  i’m not sure that merlin and morgana wouldn’t have still ended up in the same situation, eventually, if merlin had chosen to out himself to her - but doing so would certainly have made him a thousand times more vulnerable to attack.

third - it’s also important to remember that if we’re going to hold merlin to this rigid ‘he should have told morgana everything/confided in her/trusted her at the expense of possibly his own life despite the fact that she exists at the completely opposite end of a rigid social hierarchy as him and he’s known her for less than a year’ then maybe we ought to raise the bar for morgana, as well.  morgana is very clearly shown to trust and appreciate merlin at the end of 2.03, but by 2.11, when alvarr and mordred show up and convince her to steal the crystal of neahtid, she doesn’t hesitate or come to merlin at all, despite the fact that we never see him do anything to lose her trust between then and now.  she never asks him for help, even when she’s uncertain about alvarr’s methods, and that leaves merlin in the dark, only privy to confusing images of her sneaking around and acting suspicious.  and even with that, merlin doesn’t condemn her for what she does, the same way he doesn’t blame her when she tries to kill uther in 1.12 - he helps arthur retrieve the crystal, but he doesn’t give morgana up.  and he doesn’t hold any kind of grudge, either - in the next episode, merlin doesn’t even suspect her, at first - he thinks it must be her magic protecting her; he doesn’t even consider the idea that she has anything to do with the illness, not until kilgharrah tells him.  

and even after that, he STILL covers for her in front of arthur, and he gives her a chance to come clean to him - but she doesn’t take it.  

i’m not condemning her for that - i get why she would be afraid to admit to such a big mess - she was in way over her head and didn’t know what to do.  but if we’re going to cut morgana this much slack and accept her fears as a valid enough reason to block a potential moment of connection, then we have to accept that merlin’s fears were valid, too - morgana’s descent into “villainy” was not something we can pin solely on merlin’s already overburdened shoulders.  the end of season 2 was not some kind of one-way failure.

in summary: merlin and morgana were trapped in an impossible situation.  they were both victims of the same oppressive regime, and both of them had very real, very dangerous obstacles to letting themselves trust in and reach out to others, and i think pitting them against each other while forgetting who the real villain was is unfair to them both.

also, a brief postscript: circling back to the first section of this piece, where i talked about how season 5 just stopped before anyone’s arc was finished - merlin and morgana could have had so much more, if we’d gotten another season.  their relationship is really in the pits, by season 5, but there is this deleted scene where arthur is reflecting on what happened to morgana and blaming himself, and merlin says arthur shouldn’t take the blame, that “there were others better placed to help morgana” (implicating, of course, himself) and that was SUCH a jumping off point for their story to have continued.  merlin wanted to do better by her.  he blamed himself for what happened to her.  and morgana, for her part, was starting to question herself, as we saw during her confrontation with mordred in 5.09.

there were places for this relationship to go.  it wasn’t a lost cause.  but the writers decided that it made more sense to just...eliminate everybody at the exact moment when things were poised to possibly change.

the story wasn’t over at the end of season 5.  but the show was, and i am always going to regret those many lost opportunities.

[ragnarssons]

Okay I’m gonna need y’all to have a little faith in my man Bellamy Blake. > First, while the memory of that sentence might be true (is true, according to the script), it’s still one sentence from Bellamy, extracted after hours and hours of him literally wanting to erase the Primes from the surface of their own planet. That moment occured right after Bellamy tried to kill Russell (umm something Josephine didn’t care to mention to Clarke?) > We also know that Bellamy’s decision is driven as much by Clarke than by Monty. Both, in his mind, at that moment, friends he’s lost and both friends who asked him to do better and to be the better person. We have scenes making it canon; again 4x13 for Bellarke and 5x13 for Monty/Bellarke- and now only Bellamy. Bellamy was in his mind at that moment, the last one able to carry Monty’s legacy, and Clarke during all these episodes where they were “coming together” with the Primes, made it especially clear that she wanted to do things differently and that she wanted to turn a new leaf. > We also have to take into consideration all the people Bellamy also had to take into consideration- these conversations he had with Murphy aren’t there just to paint Murphy as a “selfless benevolent potential new leader”. Bellamy is the leader and will remain the leader- Murphy had a point tho, as selfish his motivation was. And guess who is among these people? Madi and Jordan. Literally Monty’s son and Clarke’s daughter. Bellamy HAD to do better, if not for himself, then for his friends’ children and to offer them a better future than what they’ve known, and what pushed Clarke and himself to take horrible decisions (not to mention, how it “killed” Octavia, in a moral standpoint). That’s the triangle of relation Monty, Bellamy and Clarke have: all three of them are parental figures. And who knows better than to wish for a better future for someone you consider as your kid, than Bellamy Blake, huh? He was the OG dad! That’s also why, for example, Jake let himself be floated without creating a whole mess inside the Ark. What would be good for his people and his own family, if the people on the Ark had turned against their government and a whole war would have blown out in the middle of a spaceship that was, at the time, seen as humanity’s last hope? (funny how Jake appears precisely on that episode, ya kno!) > From Clarke’s perspective, it can be interpretated that Bellamy accepted Clarke’s death to accept a deal. Which was NOT what happened. Bellamy accepted a deal DESPITE Clarke’s death. These aren’t the same thing, actually, they’re almost the opposite. He didn’t “give up” on Clarke to make a deal with the Primes. He had NOTHING to give up on since she was dead in his mind. But Clarke doesn’t know that. She doesn’t know what they learnt about the chips and the hosts, the videos and whatever Josephine and/or Russell told them. > Also, that’s me, uh, but I thought Clarke to be totally irationnal to expect Bellamy to want to fuck the Primes after all of this. But to me, it totally works with what she’s seen in her own mindspace: especially the scene with Blodreina. Clarke is so sure that she’s worthless to Bellamy and that he never forgave her, that of course, seeing an image, as brief and misleading it can be, of him “abandoning her” fucking HURTS. Basically, Josephine miraculously managed to show Clarke an image of someone “treating her” as she thinks people treat her. All that by capturing a 10 seconds scene after hours and hours and hours of Bellamy wanting to kill everyone on Sanctum because of what they did to Clarke. It’s manipulation 101 but at that moment, inside her own mindspace, after everything she’s been through, Clarke was too broken to see it. She had faced too much doubt and self-hatred to see how obvious of a manipulation it was. > I’d like also to point out that Bellamy is RIGHT when he says “it what she would have done”- literally, Clarke already DID something similar. Actually, she did what I talked about earlier ^^^^ Remember on s2? And she did it with the man she was in love with, literally, at the point. She accepted the idea of “giving up” on saving Finn, to secure an alliance with Lxa and the Grounders. Bellamy SAW it, Bellamy LIVED it. > And what do we know of that moment? Clarke sacrificed her own “soul”, and mind and peace and happiness (potential, with Finn) to do so. That’s also what Bellamy did. The thing is, Josephine talked to Clarke as if her people had chosen to LIVE with her death. But Bellamy said “now we SURVIVE”. There is a gifset going around showing Clarke’s reaction to Finn’s death and Bellamy’s reaction to Clarke’s death and him making the deal. BOTH of them are showing to survive after what had happened, because it was the thing to do. Not because they wanted it, but in order to make the other’s memory WORTH something (Clarke “if this fails, he died for nothing” and Bellamy’s “we do what Clarke would have wanted”). Thing is, contrary to what Josephine said, Clarke’s people - Bellamy especially - won’t live “happily ever after”. And that was SHOWN on episode 6. There is a meta also somewhere, that I think I reblogged about how the theme of the season is survival vs living. To me, that���s exactly it, and it was especially showed with Josephine’s flashbacks. Her “opposition” with Isaac was relying on that especially: how he wanted to live, and how the Primes are just SURVIVING. I mean... did Josephine marry? Did she have kids? Was she ever happy? Well no! She even lost the dude she was in love with! Their “thirst” of survival made her lose the man she was in love with, and created a whole war among these people! And Bellamy was NOT thinking about living without Clarke. He was thinking about the SURVIVAL of their people. He was making the sacrifice himself, to assure that Clarke’s death wouldn’t be in vain. He sacrificed his own want for revenge, to insure that their people would live; people that Clarke loved, people for whom Clarke “sacrificed” herself on 4x13 or several other times. But as “Monty” himself point out on this episode too, SURVIVING is not what he meant! He didn’t mean to survive despite other people’s crimes, he meant living, and that means, evolving, learning, trying, loving, etc. > Also let’s all remember that the moment, the moment Bellamy saw a whisper of life in Clarke, the deal was OFF. He doesn’t care about the compound anymore, proof being the fact that Russell’s explanations about it were muted from Bellamy’s perspective. He doesn’t care about surviving if he has a chance at LIVING. And damn isn’t it a very very strongly platonic new Bellarke theme huh? So... LIVING for Bellamy is only if Clarke is alive? In-te-rest-ing. He’s ready to throw it all away, be like “fuck sacrifice” just to get Clarke back! And that’s!!!! SO PLATONIC LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!!!!

[edourado]

Distance

Ok. So. @superrpowerlesshuman made a an amazing gifset (and I know that if I put a link in here it won’t appear in the tags, so help an author out and reblog it, please?) and I thought I’d write a little something to go with it, because it really did evoke soemething in me. 

I really do hope you like it, and that you don’t mind my dwelling into the scenario you created. 

Raise your hand if you need more kastle o/

Much love. Hope this pleases. 

She sees him from across the bar.

Looking… Normal. Standing there with the people watching the band, no guns no blood no bruises, just a dark button down, jeans and those boots.

He smiles at her, almost sheepish, and it is, honestly, a shock. She’s so used to seeing him angry, mad, desperate, stubbornly determined to do something she didn’t want him to do.

His smile is something, she realizes, unfamiliar to her. Karen Page can count on one hand the number of times Frank Castle actually honestly smiled in her presence.

All those times, though, it always meant something.

Foggy is rambling away, already so drunk, and she had drank more than him.

“I don’t know what to do, K”, he mumbles while Karen is distracted by the sight of Frank, trying to figure out how the hell did he know she would be here, in this particular bar. “She’s so mad at me, and I don’t even know how to fix it.”

She looks back at her friend, who had dropped his head on the wooden surface of the bar.

Really, she had been happy to accept his invitation for drinks, he needed to vent, this fight with Marci had been driving him crazy for almost a week, now.

“You wanna go get a drink?” He had asked, miserably, while they closed up the office, and she said yeah, sure, let’s get hammered.

At first, she had wished Matt wasn’t tangled up in endless meetings with Luke Cage and Danny Rand all day, he might have been able to help her with a distraught Foggy, but now she was glad he couldn’t make it. He would not be happy with Frank’s presence.

She was, though. Extremely happy.

He had skipped town after the last time she saw him, and she had been sad and angry and heartbroken, adamant on stopping this, putting an end on this thing, this thing of theirs, she had decided to cut it.

If he didn’t want her, he didn’t want her. Not like she could force him to love her back.

Except she knew he did. She knew it, because Frank sucks at lying, he could push her away all he wanted, but she knew it, because of the flowers and the bomb and the bullets he took, all the bullets he took to save her, his eyes and his face and his hands and his words and the way he said her name and the way he held her hand, tight and firm, like he never wanted to let go.

Karen knew he was lying. Still, she was angry.

She only found out he left town when another pot of flowers found its way to her. This time, to her front door, not from inside a backpack.

She got home from work and there they sat, with a card that read her name, a simple “Happy Birthday” and a phone number.

She had ignored the flowers, at first. Brought them in and put them on the kitchen counter, and then walked away, to take a shower. She made herself dinner, and didn’t look at the flowers.

She did the dishes and didn’t look at the white roses.

She tidied the apartment up and didn’t acknowledge the bouquet, bigger than its predecessor, not as big as the one Danny Rand has sent that morning, and not as elaborate as the one from Tower’s office.

In the end, when she was lying in bed, ready to turn in for the night, she picked the card up and typed the number in, and her thumb had been hovering above the call button for almost five minutes straight when her phone started to ring, startling her, and she dropped it.

Blocked number.

Frank.

“Happy birthday”, he said in her ear when she picked up.

“Didn’t think you knew”, she said back, almost regretting taking the call, because his voice made her miss him immediately, desperately, her lungs threatened to collapse, so much she missed him.

“Give me some credit, Kare.”

He was in Nevada, he told her, and she didn’t ask if he was there chasing the New York gangster that was tending to business in Vegas, and he didn’t volunteer that information.

They talked for maybe five minutes before saying good night, and she wondered if that was the last she was going to hear from him, if this had been his way of saying goodbye.

But he called the next night. From Utah, this time, and his voice was a bit different.

They talked for ten minutes, and he asked about work, if she was ok, but he sounded tired, so she asked if he was ok.

“Drove all day”, he said, and Karen wondered if he was getting ready to sleep, too, like she was.

He texted from Wyoming, because she was already in a call when he tried, so he sent one word, that she saw when she hung up:

“Busy?”

It was after midnight when she fell asleep, picturing him in the motel room he told her he was sleeping that night.

When he was in Iowa, he asked about Wilson Fisk, and the Bulletin, and his voice sounded harsh.

When he told her he was in Kansas, she tried not to let her voice betray her disappointment. All this time, she allowed herself to imagine he was making his way back.

To her.

But there was Kansas, and then he stayed in Louisiana for a while. From there, he called from a different number, and told her to throw away the old one, even if she was never the one to call. It was always him, and she learned to expect those calls, always after dark, always after she was tucked in bed, never on a Friday or on weekends.

Frank would always call her on Wednesdays or Thursdays.

.:.

He was in Tennessee, she thinks, when she called him, on a Tuesday, and they talked like they weren’t who they were. Light and soft and she allowed that lilt to her voice, the pointless question just to keep him speaking, the nonsensical comment and the joke that just might be a little, tiny bit, blink and you’ll miss it flirty.

Karen had the ritual, now, of getting home, eating, showering, turning off all the lights and then picking up his call, and he started to call more frequently, started to tell her a little bit about what he was doing, and she was glad to hear it was not more killing.

He was in Chicago when he said he missed her. It was almost December, and she said she missed him, too, her toes curling inside the thick socks she had on.

Every night, now, that’s how he ended their calls.

“Miss you”. Always soft, always careful, like he was afraid she would hang up on him a few seconds too early.

“Miss you, too”, she always responded.

.:.

He stayed in Chicago so long, she thought he was not gonna leave. He was there when the year ended, and she was on the phone with him while people counted down.

It was 00:01 when he said he missed her, making her wish she were in bed and not in Foggy’s apartment, surrounded by people, listening as the fireworks went off.

“Miss you, too”, she said, like always, taking a risk, really, because this time Matt was right there, with his superhearing and tendency to meddle. With an eye on her friend, just to make sure, she heard Frank take a deep breath, but he didn’t hang up, like always.

“I miss you”, he said again, low and short but firm, clear, and, again, she responded.

“I miss you, too.”

.:.

After Chicago, she lost track of both time and his location. He still told her where he was, but she made a point not to keep track anymore, because he was not coming back to her, so it was best to just let him be, and enjoy what little contact she had with him with these calls.

But even that, she knew, would have to end eventually.

But everytime her phone rang, and it was dark and quiet outside, she would hesitate for one second before picking up, sliding into bed and closing her eyes, imagining him to be there by her side.

And, every night:

“Miss you.”

.:.

This was not Josie’s, nor was it the diner they usually went to after work, it was not their usual scene. But Foggy seemed to know the guy behind the counter - like he knew everyone, apparently.

It was not better than Josie’s, but it was bigger than Josie’s. There was a small stage where a band played, and it was a little strange, seeing all these rough guys and rough women listening to what sounded like a hybrid of blues and ballads with a dash of country, soft and melodic and beautiful.

Foggy wallowed and he drank and he let it out, venting about how he didn’t really think he’d be here, because he wasn’t even sure what he had done (but he knew, he just didn’t know how to get out of it).

“What should I do, K?”

“Well, first, you’re gonna stop calling me K.”

He did that when he was drunk.

“Why is she so mad?!”

“Because, Foggy, you lied to her.”

“I didn’t lie! I just… Omitted the whole truth in order to protect both her physical integrity and her feelings!”

“Next time, maybe, instead of pulling this patronizing behavior, take it into consideration that she is also a very good professional that can help you. Marci’s a big girl, Fog, you don’t have to lie to keep her safe.”

“I know”, he said, forehead on the counter again, and Karen wondered if it was actually sticky of if she was just imagining it. “Shit, I know. But she won’t talk to me, so I have no way of apologizing. Will!”

The bartender made his way to them, looking both amused and impatient.

“More spirits, please.”

“Don’t you think a Sprite would be better?”

“No!”

Will looked at Karen, who shrugged, and then sighed, walking over to refresh Foggy’s glass.

And that’s when Karen saw him, suddenly, as if her eyes were being drawn like magnets, there he was, instead of Massachusetts or Ohio or Indiana or China, for that matter. And he looked back at her, that small, sheepish smile playing on his features, almost like he was a normal man, a normal guy coming back home to his… Whatever it was that she was to him.

“I don’t know what to do, K.” Foggy whined on after taking a sip of his fresh drink, dropping his head to the bar again right after. “She’s so mad at me, and I don’t even know how to fix it.”

She was barely comprehending him anymore, so stunned she was at the sight of Frank standing there.

Son of a bitch. First he rips her heart out of her chest just to break it, and then leaves, and then…

“You do know what to do, Foggy. You just have to… Suck it up and do it, even if sounds hard, right now.”

“But she’s so scary.”

“No, she’s not. She’s just frustrated, because you fucked up. But she loves you. You have to go there, apologize and try to fix it.”

“How do I fix it?”

“I don’t know! You’ll have to figure this one out by yourself. Or, better yet, ask her for help, I doubt she’s gonna deny it. Can you excuse me for one minute, please?”

“Are you gonna leave me, too?” he asked, big eyes on her, so drunk, poor thing.

“No, Fog, relax. I’m just gonna go to the restroom, that’s all.”

“Oh, ok”, he said, but she was already moving, walking towards the direction she had seen him, and when she turned a corner, there he was, almost hidden, waiting for her.

A million things, she wanted to say to him. A million and one, but she started with the basics while he leaned off the wall and took a step towards her.

“What are you doing here?”

His finger pushing a lock of her hair away from her face felt like a mild current, something charged but soft, creating a wave of pleasantness to pass through her.

“Wanted to see you.”

“You wanted to see me. Jesus Christ, Frank, I should shoot you where you stand!”, she let out, slapping a hand on his chest when he lifted both his hands to catch her face. And she might as well have tickled him, because he smiled.

“Please don’t.”

Karen looked at him, trying to tell herself that this was not what she thought it was. Maybe he needed her help again, and this was just another stunt he pulled to get her attention.

But he had never looked at her like this, not quite like this, he had never held her face between his hands like this, he had never stood this close, never like this, never when it’s not dangerous, never…

“I miss you”, he whispered, forehead touching hers, nose touching her cheek, breathing quietly against her. “Everyday, Kare, I miss you.”

She had her eyes closed already, a part of her enjoying, ready to jump, begging to surrender, to latch on, to believe him, she wanted to believe him so bad, she did believe him, but-

“Where have you been, then?”

“Making sure. Trying to… Get better, to figure out some things.”

He kissed her cheek and she got a hold of his shirt, honestly and sincerely unintentionally pulling, and he got closer, chest to chest toe to toe and her knees were about to give.

“Mainly missing you, though.”

Karen angled her head when he moved his hand to the back of her neck, opening her mouth to say something, to take a breath in, to let a breath out or to scream, who knows, but he kissed her, lips over hers, making a noise from his throat that made her arch her back slightly, just a tiny bit, towards him, which in turn made him move, open his mouth, swipe his tongue against her lip and then against hers, and there it was again, that cotton electricity, that feeling of finally, this is what you’ve been waiting for, this is it, that’s why you fought so hard that’s why you cried so much that’s why you miss him so much-

He kissed her like he had done it before, like he knew her, like he knew them, and it felt new but it felt… God, it felt…

It felt like them. Like Frank and Karen, like their thing that she could never explain to anybody, “why do you care so much about Frank Castle?” and “you two have a connection”.

That’s what it felt like. Obvious but private, particular and unexplainable, his kisses and his hands around her, her arms around him, her back against a wall, suddenly.

“Wait wait wait”, she said against his mouth, and he touched his forehead to hers yet one more time - just like they do - and hummed his question.

“Foggy, uh… Foggy’s gonna come looking for me. He tends to wander when he’s drunk, I should… I should get back.”

“Ok.”

And a nibble on her lower lip, chest pressed tight against hers, Lord almighty, she’ll fight the world for him-

“Ok, let me go.”

It was difficult, giving that up. Peeling herself away from him and that little corner he had backed them up against. She had repressed those kind of thoughts for so long, trying to get used to the fact that there is no Frank and Karen, but yes, there is, he’s here, he’s-

She pushed him away delicately, and he went easily enough, letting go of her lips last.

“Where, um…” Her thoughts, all over the place. “You’re not, you’re… Where are you going, now?”

“No plans”, and another little one, tiny one, just a little one kiss, to the very corner of her mouth. “So wherever you tell me to go, I guess.”

It seemed impossible, to stop kissing him, but then the image of Foggy wandering after her and catching her all tangled up in Frank Castle entered her mind, and she pushed him away again.

“Ok. Ok. Um… Go to my apartment. Ok? Can you wait for me there?”

He nodded, looking at her full of something that was almost completely foreign. Like that other time he was at her place offering her flowers, or when he met her by the water, before it turned dark and sour and difficult.

“Right. I’ll put Foggy in a cab, and then I’ll meet you there.”

“Ok.”

Looking at his face, she tried to put herself right, to go back to Foggy, the tip of her fingers roaming Frank’s face.

“Please be there when I arrive. Ok?”

“Ok.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. Go.”

Her arms around his neck, just one more time, just one more, just so she didn’t walk away and started wondering if she imagined him, and his were firm enough around her waist to reassure her.

“Right”, she said, pushing him off and walking away.

Before she actually let go of his hand, though, she turned back.

“How did you know I was here?”

“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Um… Lieberman.”

“Lieber- You hacked my phone?”

“Not your phone, just your GPS.”

“That-” She interrupted herself, and took a short breath. “We’re gonna talk about that.”

“I’m sure we are.”

And then she walked away, feeling like she just had been in another dimension and then back.

“I drank your drink” Foggy informed her when she sat by his side again. “It was getting cold.”

“That’s fine, Fog. What do you say we head home? Hmm? Sleep this booze off so you can go and talk to Marci tomorrow?”

“But I…” He sighed, and Karen tried not to look at where Frank had been. “But we haven’t found the worm, yet.”

“I think it’s better if we don’t find it this time. Come on.”

He still made her sit down to finish another drink - “last call, come on” - and she had to hear him mumbling about Marci and some nonsensical thing about Matt and the Nelson deli and Punjabi lessons before he accepted it was time to go.

She took care of their tab while he drank from the bottle of water she got for him and tried to put his jacket back on.

After what seemed like a lifetime, she was able to put him in a cab and then hail one for herself.

Karen had just turned the kew on her lock a second time when she heard the bolt unlock from inside, and then the door knob was yanked away from her hand when the door swung open, and Frank pulled her inside, slamming it closed the second he was in, his arms around her, his mouth on hers, lips and teeth and tongue and that noise from his throat, hands pulling her shirt from inside her skirt, she kicked her shoes off, put her arms around his neck, opened her mouth to his kiss, made a noise of her own.

She had missed him, too. Much, much more than even she realized.

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: 1x05 Twilight’s Last Gleaming

I’m a new fan of The 100, who first binged it last year, August to November. This is my first full rewatch of the show. I was planning to start it anyway and finish it before the season 6 premiere on April 30, and when I saw that Fox Serbia was airing a rerun (Monday to Friday, 40 min. after midnight, with repeats the next day), starting on 1st February, it was a great opportunity to start my rewatch in HDTV on my beautiful new TV. I decided to do write-ups and tag other fans on SpoilerTV website, as I did when I was first watching the show. But my posts turned into full blown essays. So, finally, after over a week, I’ve realized: Why don’t I post them on my Tumblr blog, too? I’ll copy my write-ups of the first 7 episodes, and then I’ll post my rewatch posts after I watch each episode. (The next one, 1x08, is on Monday’Tuesday.)

Spoilers below for all 5 seasons of the show. I go of on a tangents and make a lot of references to future events.

Rating: 8.5/10

This episode really shocked me and emotionally affected me back when I first watched, and it's when I first realized the show didn't pull punches.

Killing individual characters for shock value - that's nothing new, but killing a bunch of innocent people like that, having the audience expect throughout the episode for them to be saved at the last moment, and then instead they die anyway, when it could have been stopped... I really wasn't expecting that. Now it's far less shocking after you've seen The 100 use mass murder as a plot device multiple times. Well, this is not a murder, technically, since the people eventually volunteered for it to saved their loved ones. But before Abby decided to be seriously badass and show Jake's video to everyone and tell them the truth about the Ark dying, the 100 being sent to the ground, and the upcoming culling, the Council was planning to straight up murder 320 people and then lie about it, claiming it was an accident. And, as Clarke points out to Bellamy in this episode, it's certain that those would have been working class people rather than the Ark elite. The class issues the show keeps stressing is of those things that keep it from justifying the Ark leadership for their actions on the grounds of survival, tough choices, blah blah blah, and I'm glad for it. Jaha was here planning to be one of the people who died (but I bet a large part of the reason was because he thought his son was dead... which he was, just not for the reasons he thought), until Kane convinced him not to. They had a back and forth about who's the better leader, with Jaha arguing Kane had the strength to make tough choices, and Kane arguing later that Jaha was able to inspire people. And they were both kind of right, but not in the way they thought. Kane has changed a lot during the show, from pragmatist to idealist, from pessimist to optimist, but he's always been a guy who 100% believes in whatever course of action he's chosen, thinks it's right and throws himself into it, in a way that often comes off as a bit naive. But he does suck at winning the popular vote, going by the fact that he was never elected Chancellor and that he lost to Pike in S3. While Jaha somehow managed to get elected, bull&s.hits really well in a speech in episode 1x07, and in S4 we see him give speeches to the people for the benefit of Clarke and Bellamy that show how good he can be at swaying people, even when he's not in power. But S2-3 also showed the most awful version of his messianic complex and influence. Something else that has always bothered me about the culling is, we see people sacrifice themselves for their children (like Tor Lemkin for his daughter Reese) or their romantic partners (the guy who wants to do it for his wife), which is something we see multiple times in the show. But we don't see how their loved ones feel about it, whether they tried to stop them (Tor's daughter Reese didn't realize what was going on, but the adults did). How will Reese will about losing her father when she learns what he did, and that he did it for her? In the next episode, we see the husband of one of the victims in the culling in 1x07, and in S5 we learn Kara Cooper's father was one of the 320. I wonder how many of the people from the Ark that lost there loved ones are even alive by S6? This is also the episode that made me feel better about the Clarke/Finn/Raven love triangle, because it was dealt with much better than I expected. Another reason why this was a turning point when I was really on board with the show. Speaking of that love triangle - this show really loves the scenes where Clarke is shocked and hurt to find out someone has a girlfriend by seeing him reunite with her and kiss her. They did the exact same thing in S5. And both times the camera zooms on Clarke's face rather than on the couple, though in this case, they didn't go as far as to blur Finn and Raven out of focus. But these are two very different situations, of course. Among other things, because in S5, it was no one's fault, while this situation is fully Finn's fault. I've loved the way Clarke dealt with learning Finn had a girlfriend, absolutely not doing the "being catty and fighting over a guy" thing, but the exact opposite. She's heartbroken, but she immediately bottles it up. She clearly hates being the 'other woman' and her instinct when feeling unwanted is to completely withdraw. You know who definitely isn't dealing with it well? Finn. He's clearly uncomfortable as he wasn't expecting Raven to come, and then he goes to indicate to Clarke that he would like to continue a relationship with her, which she refuses... so he then goes back to Raven and acts like everything is fine, because if Clarke doesn't want him, why not stick with Raven, and has no intention of telling Raven that he slept with someone else, or that he's in love with Clarke or that he would like to be with Clarke. Just like he never thought it would be right to tell Clarke that he has a long-term girlfriend on the Ark. Speaking of relationships, but in this case, not very serious ones, one of Bellamy's friends with benefits we see him in bed with in this episode, Bree (the blonde one), is the same girl who came onto him and presumably had sex with him in season 4, while partying as one of Jasper's end-of-the-world suicide group, and who went on to be one of those who killed themselves. But I'd be lying if I said I would make that connection if I didn't see it on The 100 wiki. The other girl, Roma, ends up killed by the Grounders in 1x07. This was still the time when Bellamy was often acting in a very frustrating way - due to his narrow focus on just Octavia and himself and not yet the group as a whole or people in general - and massively screwing up things, and never more than in this episode, by stealing Raven's radio and throwing it in the water, so Jaha couldn't come down to execute him. Now, he did know about the Ark being on its last legs, but had no idea about the culling before Raven told everyone. I predicted at the time that we'll see Bellamy feeling super guilty later, since he doesn't outwardly show it much in this episode, and boy, did we see that in 1x08. (Much more than we ever did from Jaha, who was actually directly responsible for it, but that's what Jaha is like, always justifying his actions as necessary.). Here, Finn, Clarke and Raven confront Bellamy about the radio, and the former two learn about Bellamy shooting Jaha, while Bellamy learns Jaha survived, but with a massive difference between how Finn and Raven confront him and how Clarke does. The former two are basically like "You're the worst" and Finn calls him selfish, while Clarke - already at this point - seems to understand him better and have a much better opinion of him: "You're not a murderer. All you have done is to protect your sister", though she then gets angry at him a bit later, asking if he even cares that he caused the deaths of 320 people. It's so weird that the flares the 100 use to signal the Ark won't help at all (the Ark leaders, aside from Abby, will just dismiss them), but will end up burning a Grounder village and cause more conflict with the Grounders. Which is so consistent with Murphy's Law - not the episode or John Murphy, but actual Murphy's Law - whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. But just to be clear, the Grounders using that to justify their war was utter bullcrap. There's no way anyone intelligent could consider the 100 an invading force (LOL) after seeing what they were like (and we know they did: Lincoln was spying on them and making notes) and anyone who's not a small child knows that people can't be considered guilty for causing things by complete accident, which they never could have predicted happening. (I just had to have that mini-rant because people who try to portray both sides as equally responsible, or even demonize the Delinquents and/or excuse the Grounders, get on my nerves, a lot.) A minor-running theme in this episode: at the beginning of the episode, when Clarke and Finn are lying together in the afterglow, before their super-brief relationship came came to a crushing end after Raven came back, Finn - always the one saying romantic things - mentioned a falling star and making a wish, which Clarke was initially confused by, since she just thought of meteors in real world terms and didn't know about that old superstition, while Finn said he had read about it. At the end of episode (in a moment I've seen in a few Tumblr gifsets!), when everyone is watching the flares, Clarke and Bellamy are looking at them together and she asks "What would you wish on a falling star" and then assumes Bellamy wouldn't understand what she's talking about. But she obviously does (the guy has read a lot), since he says "I don't even know what I would wish for". Which is probably true, and sad - I imagine that he had never given any serious thought to what he actually wanted out of life, beyond "Protect Octavia - make sure she is not discovered." Of course, the scene was also an occasion to show Clarke looking sadly at Finn and Raven, so we'll know she's actually really heartbroken and pining. There's more pining from Clarke in the next couple of episodes, and after that, IIRC, fortunately barely any. BTW, let's just take in the fact that Clarke, in all 5 seasons, has never actually properly dated anyone, or specifically, she had one friend with benefit with no stronger feelings involved, and she had the two romantic relationships (with people she had known for a few weeks. and who both relentlessly pursued her romantically and made the first moves) which lasted a few hours each and consisted of having sex exactly once, but were portrayed as epic romances, where 95% of the overall relationship, in both cases, consisted of not dating, but a lot of angst, betrayal, and ended in death, and Clarke getting traumatized and feeling guilty (without actually it being her fault). It's amazing how similar overall her relationships with Finn and Lexa are, including in how much they lasted and how much focus they had on screen and for how long, but one is almost completely forgotten and ignored by the fandom now, while the other one is over-hyped.

[i-am-adlocked]

Reasons to Love Adlock #3

I was going to answer @aurora-borealisss​ on her post when she said: “we actually got stuck because we couldn’t indicate when exactly it all started. I mean when did Sherlock fall for her and who, in the end, was the first one to fall in love with another?”

I’d say just go to my tag: Reasons to Love Adlock. It’s just some “metas” I wrote about Adlock and stuff.

She said to feel free about details... It was supposed to be short but... 

FACTORS ON HOW SHERLOCK AND IRENE STARTED THEIR CHEMISTRY

I don’t think Sherlock and Irene fell in love quickly, but we can never really pinpoint the exact moment they felt their own definition of “love”. I personally think they both felt the something after their first meeting. It wasn't love at first sight. It was more on something after first connection. It just so happened that they had a deep connection immediately on the day they met.

I don't think love perfectly suits Sherlock and Irene. They're them. Somehow, it just makes sense. How do you explain Adlock? It's Adlock. The name itself explains their relationship... A relationship too complicated for us to comprehend, but it's too simple for either of them.

I never believed they were confused with their feelings. They knew exactly what happened to them... They just don't like it.

But there is only one exact moment where they addressed it... confessed it, even. That scene where Sherlock opened Irene’s phone.

But how did they get there?

01: INTRIGUE

Happened the moment they made business with royalty.

Sherlock was directed by the Queen of England to get the photographs from Irene. Irene was directed by the Napoleon of Crime to get the meaning of the codes from Sherlock.

Sherlock was intrigued with...

Irene's cunning personality

how Irene handled with the authority (royal family, informing them of the existence of the photographs)

how bold Irene is to ensure her protection against the royal family

how she intimidates people with her power play

Irene was intrigued...

with Sherlock's stubborn personality

with how Sherlock handled with the authority (royal family, refusing to be decent because he doesn't like anonymity)

with how bold Sherlock is for going in public wearing nothing but a sheet

with how he intimidates people with his unpredictability

02: FASCINATION

Happened on the first twenty seconds (I timed them) after meeting for the first time.

Even though they had twenty seconds before being interrupted, they had already started a huge game and when they don't plan on losing.

Sherlock was fascinated...

with her audacity to be entirely nude

when he knew she was doing this to put him off balance

when she kept flirting with him to intimidate him

with her confidence

with her playfulness

Irene was fascinated with...

with his stoicism at the face of her nudity

when she knew he was doing this to tell her he's not going to lose

when he kept eye-contact with her to intimidate her

with his self-control

with his evenness

03: HARMONY

Happened when CIA trained killers attacked Belgravia.

Most of these happened nonverbally (which says a lot tbh).

Sherlock harmonised with Irene...

when he looked at Irene to point out that she's involved with something bigger than just clients

when he looked at her to stop her from continuing after she tried to tell the agents that Sherlock doesn't know her combination so he and John won't stand in the crossfire

when he looked at her in desperation for help in opening the safe

when he looked at her to ask if there is a trap in the safe

Irene harmonised with Sherlock...

when she looked at Sherlock to point out she doesn't know how truly dangerous her phone is

when she looked at him to tell him that she tried all she could to keep them both out of this mess she had created for herself but had not gone as well as she'd hope

when she looked at her own body to tell him her body's the answer

when she nudged her head to tell him to dock under the safe

Here’s a GIFset of this exact whole thing: LINK

04: RESPECT

Happened when the other took domination.

Sherlock respected Irene...

when she managed to render an agent unconscious using her element (knowing the human body)

when she threw him unbalance by touching him

when she was a full-on dominatrix again, using her whip

when she proved him wrong (surprising him by not going down without a fight for her advantage, something he usually does)

when she managed to beat him

Irene respected Sherlock...

when he managed to open her safe using his element (knowing whatever the hell he knows)

when he threw her unbalanced by accusing her

when he was a full-on detective again, using his wit

when he proved her wrong (surprising her by observing her physical body for his advantage, something she usually does)

when he managed to engage her

05: CONNECTION

Happened immediately after Belgravia.

Sherlock...

shared his mind palace (something he values so much)

listened to her intently despite already solving the case (he could have easily filtered her out)

made her physical form wear his coat in his mind palace because he felt that they were equals

tried looking for her frantically when he woke

Irene...

shared her time (something she needs, being on the run)

stayed beside his bed to talk to him despite him being unconscious and her running away from the police

went out of her way to bring his coat back

More meta about this: LINK (more words + ugly and first GIFs I ever made) Another link about their behaviour in this scene: LINK (less words + GIF)

06: DISTANCE

Happened after the day they met.

I believe this is when they felt something for the other.

In between those times, something happened between them that even I cannot explain. In between those times, they've delved deep into the other. I doubt they were confused with their feelings. I think they are perfectly aware of what's happened to them... that they've grown a something for the other.

Irene knows what love is. Sherlock knows what love is. 

They know something shifted between them after their first meeting. It was attraction but as they had distance, they started to reflect on more about the other, thought too much about the other... until attraction became something more than what they bargained for.

From their first meeting alone, they found out more about the other than they'd like to have or what they were planning to have. Irene wasn't just a woman to steal photographs from. Sherlock wasn't just a man to remove out of her way. They've grown an interest with the other...

...and as they had that distance, I think they started to realise how crazy they are, how alike they are... and they both know they've felt it, whatever "it" is for the other, but they didn't want that.

Them being them... It made several reasons why they can't address it besides the fact that they are stubborn and don't want to admit that they both lost a war they tried to start.

Sherlock can't because...

he's a detective with many powerful enemies

he's going against Moriarty

he's earned the reputation of not falling victim to emotions

he identifies himself as married to his work and work alone

Irene can't because...

she's a businesswoman with many powerful clients

she's working with Moriarty

she's earned the reputation of not falling victim to emotions

she identifies herself as someone who likes women a little bit more

With that, they try to supress and brush everyone else off when they try to question them. They are not machines, though. They show enough to others. They're humans, too. It happens. They just don't try to be bold about it. It just is.

07: DEFIANCE

Happened before Christmas until Christmas itself.

I think, after they realised what's happening to them...

Sherlock defied...

the government (Mycroft) by hiding important information/property

his previous desire to stay stoic about her death

his own integrity of not taking a cigarette over anything

himself by submitting to his grief over her

Irene defied...

the network (Moriarty) by trying to get out of her deal with Moriarty

her previous desire to not grow attached to him

her own integrity of not trusting her phone to anyone ever

herself by submitting her life in his hands

I have made a more detailed meta about this part here: LINK

It shows more on their defiance against Mycroft and Moriarty. How Sherlock actually withheld information even when it was unnecessary and the reason why Irene actually faked her death.

08: RESIGNATION

Happened on New Year's Eve.

Sherlock was resigned...

when he has to accept that she had actually died

enough to write a violin composition in her name

when he was forced by his own emotions to express his grief

and broke John's belief that he would never be heartbroken over a woman

enough to make John realise he cares about her

Irene  was resigned...

when she has to accept that she can't convince John

enough to take her phone back for his own safety

when she was forced by John to confess that she's not dead

and broke John's belief that she's only using Sherlock to mess with him

enough to make John realise she cares about him

At that point, they had already lost on each other. John was already a witness to the downfall of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler against each other.

They're already showing signs of something with each other, and they both know it. They have to force themselves to admit to it at that point because there's no point in denying it to themselves. This is the point where they address to themselves that this is definitely something they can just suppress. They've done so much. It's too stupid to deny something blatantly obvious to themselves.

And I think they were both aware of how the other was taking it at the same day.

Irene felt Sherlock has feelings for her...

when he let himself be known that he was there at Battersea (he could have easily left the building when Irene sent that text but he didn't)

Sherlock felt Irene has feelings for him...

when she let herself go and admitted to John about her own feelings about Sherlock (when she said "Look at us both" to John, that did it)

But even then, they were both uncertain about the other, but they had sensed that there is some mutual connections involving either of them.

09: UNDERSTANDING

Happened after Battersea.

Irene understood...

that he needed some time alone to process the fact that she's alive and was in shock, which is why she stopped John from following Sherlock

Sherlock understood...

that she wanted an intial text from him instead of a reply as a small indication that he wants to keep contact which is why he greeted her

After New Year's, they both probably were now more sure that the other has reciprocated their feelings... and they are both very pleased with it... because they had just gone through hell denying it to themselves so it must have been freeing to know that both of them were torturing themselves because of what has happened.

I think they both blame each other for being like this HAHAHAHHA

10: ADMISSION

Happened when they saw each other again until now.

When they saw each other again, there’s no doubt they’re already aware of each other’s feelings... and they’re both elated to seeing each other again.

They’re much more playful with each other via sass. 

“Who’s that?” “Killers?”

“I assumed you’d pick something more specific than that but thanks anyway.”

They’re both not adhere to complimenting each other.

“Oh, you’re rather good.” 

“You’re not so bad.”

AND OH GOD, THE EYE SEX THEY HAVE TOO MUCH EYE SEX AT THIS POINT

What happened in that fireplace scene... They’re already aware of what is going on between them but I think they had different agendas at that point.

Sherlock...

checked her pulse and pupils to confirm that she truly has feelings for him... he didn’t know he was tricked... he didn’t have a reason to check her feelings at this point... he just wanted to make sure for himself... why? because he wants to know it’s legit

“It’s not the end of the world.”

After confirming her feelings, to him, it’s not the end of the world, it’s not their very last night... He’s finally taking her up on her offer. He’s telling her that they probably even might.

Irene...

wanted to have that dinner because she knew she had betrayed him and this is the only chance she has left with being with him before he shuns her away for hurting him... she knows that if he leaves 221B by then, she would never have dinner with him. ever.

“Too late.” 

It’s the end of the world for her. Mrs Hudson calling Sherlock means that Sherlock will be sent to Mycroft. Sherlock will know what she’s done. It’s the end of the world.

Meta on how their physical affection changed since this scene: LINK

At the end of the scene with the negotiation with Mycroft...

At that point, they are both hurting. Sherlock is confused because he was pretty fcking sure Irene had feelings for him... Irene is sure Sherlock will never forgive her what she’s done... Both of them were sure. They were a giant almost but Moriarty had to meddle with both of them...

...and here, they both address and do not deny that they have feelings for each other... and...

im dead

im just dead...

im dead guys...

idk how to continue :)

ive gone down to adlock hell too much... 

im getting stressed

i love them so much

im sorry

[thegeminisage]

Jace, Magnus, Raph :D

THATS SO MANY THANK U

JACE:

favorite thing about them: everyone likes to sort of categorize jace as this mostly douchey guy but he’s actually kind of Softe if you dig a little and like not to be basic but i like that about him

least favorite thing about them: WHY YOU ALWAYS LYIIIN

favorite line: “dazzle me” @cathy not one word

brOTP: JACE AND ALEC…give me more of that good parabatai shit…….my other favorite thing about jace is it’s implied he knew alec was in love with him for a long timeor at the very LEAST since alec’s bad reaction in 1.04 and he played dumb (partially because he hates talking about feelings yes but also) for alec’s benefit. just not to make things weird. it would have been easy to make him be weird about it. straight guys are assholes. but he wasnt and thats real nice.

OTP: he’d be miserable without clary to the point where he still wanted to smash even when he thought they were related, so

nOTP: jace and alec. STRICTLY platonic on jace’s end! it’s not necessarily that i think it’s ~problematic~ god knows you couldnt pay me to touch that discourse i just think the dynamic is much richer and deeper when it’s a one-sided romance and jace was still cool about it. idk i find that totally refreshing and fascinating and like a pretty new take, at least to me personally. why ruin it by turning it into run-of-the-mill slash? (i say this as someone who writes a lot of run-of-the-mill slash, don’t send me mean messages) 

random headcanon: he likes [REDACTED], which technically was cathy’s headcanon first

unpopular opinion: he’s never done anything wrong in his life ever…look i know he has but like leave him alone?? idek why i feel so strongly about this he isn’t my favorite character i don’t stan him i’m not super invested in him…i just don’t think he’s done anything wrong, aside from the fact that he lies a lot. i was totally siding with him over alec during their season 1 tiffs.

song i associate with them: natalia kills - kill my boyfriend :)

favorite picture of them: sorry but i dont really have one

MAGNUS:

favorite thing about them: his body language! he’s like always on the go, all his lil flourishes, how expressive he is–expression-wise and with his body language. he uses his hands to talk and since warlocks use their hands for magic that’s like an awesome character detail. my second favorite thing is how fucking cool he is. i love when he does magic. he’s so cool oh my god he’s like the HEIGHT of cool

least favorite thing about them: not to be problematic but he’s a little TOO perfect. let him fuck up once in awhile! so far all we’ve gotten was the seelie queen thing and that was half alec’s fault

favorite line: “i’m the high warlock of brooklyn” YOU TELL EM MAGNUS

brOTP: MAGNUS AND RAPHAEL IS CANONICAL ACE/BI SOLIDARITY AND I’M SO HERE FOR IT

OTP: well obviously magnus and alec

nOTP: i dont really?? see him shipped with anyone else??? i guess my notp is imm*rtal h*bands…alec would absolutely hate being immortal, whether by magic or being turned. he would HATE it. i have a series of fanfictions outlines to explain my feelings on this matter more thoroughly someday

random headcanon: i made a gifset about it on my other blog (you can see it at /post/172404479554/ if you know the url) but i think maybe he doesn’t always like being a warlock. like, the magic is great! he loves his people! he loves being able to do cool stuff! but his parents basically died because of it (trying not to be too spoilery, sorry coralie), and being immortal when you have to watch people die is hard. he’s pretty sensitive about his cat eyes, maybe in a way that’s more worried about what other people will think than someone who dislikes himself? i feel like maybe he used to dislike himself a lot more intensely and sort of had a long time to unlearn it and now most of the time it’s fine but he just still has his bad days and tender spots. i feel strongly anough this, clearly

unpopular opinion: again im gonna have to go with being anti imm*rtal h*bands…i mean obviously people can write what they want & no skin off my nose but i wish it wasnt QUITE so popular bc its hard to find fic i like w/o it

song i associate with them: man i have a really great one for alec like that could kinda be malec but not a magnus-only one sorry

favorite picture of them: literally any picture with cat eyes i love his cat eyes so much

RAPHAEL:

favorite thing about them: CANONICAL ASEXUAL!!!!!! i can’t tell you how much that means to me. it’s a first for me! i watched this whole show for raphael. second favorite thing: he’s still religious. that’s real brave imo

least favorite thing about them: WHY DID HE DO THAT…i cant say what he did on coralie’s post i already said a magnus spoiler but i cant believe he DID THAT im heartbroken for him and so angry at him what an idiot why didn’t he ask for help

favorite line: number one winner is the entire scene about the stars with rosa but close runner up is whenever he speaks spanish. not because it’s sexy or whatever but because he almost exclusively does it when he’s trying to be intimidating. literally i have a gif of him going “adios >:)” when he’s about to commit murder

brOTP: if i had an entire show about magnus and raphael i would be happy. alec who? but raphael and rosa kills me too

OTP: raphael and izzy, come on, come on, show, i’m begging you! simon who? this is where it’s at! i can’t believe she talked about his asexuality like it was a perk rather than a hurdle. i get weepy when i think about it for too long

nOTP: please for the love of god stop shipping with him with simon

random headcanon: dislikes kissing. i may be projecting a bit here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ at least i finally have a character i can project on!

unpopular opinion: rizzy isn’t predatory on either side they both did that and they both owned up to it and got better stop trying to paint one of them like a creeper and the other like some precious innocent victim

song i associate with them: every single song i put on the ace playlist i made the other night

favorite picture of them: i made a gifset of him with the ace colors and that’s my favorite one. it’s at /post/172511018559/ on my other blog if you know the url

(send me characters!!)

[accio-ambition]

WORLDS COLLIDING FOR SOME CAPTAIN COBRA SWAN GOODNESS. Ugh, yes. I hope you guys enjoy it. I know I do.

As always, a humongous thank you to @sotheylived, @shipsxahoy​, @queen-icicle-fandom, and @captainswanbigbang for supporting and getting this project through at some point in time in the past...god, seven months? Is that right? Math is not my strong suit.

Summary: Bouncing around with her son for the majority of her life, Emma Swan has told herself she’s happy in the city. It’s where the most camera operating jobs are, and that’s how she makes her money. But when an old friend calls her and asks for her help on a new project in small town Maine, Emma finds herself in a place she’s never been with people she doesn’t know filming a profession she knows nothing about. But when the captain of the ship she’s filming begins taking a keen interest in her and her life, she finds herself wondering whether she might just catch something other than fish. Deadliest Catch AU Rating: M Content warning: Character death, some violent situations

FFnet/Ao3/Cover/Snapshots/Gifset

Chapter Nine

Emma’s got her laptop out on the table, a plate of Granny’s finest onion rings at her side. Over the past couple of weeks, she’s accumulated approximately 67 hours of B roll, every minute of which she has to go through, edit, and send off to Jefferson, who has to approve it before filing it with HQ. So far, she’s made it through about an hour and a half.

(Thank god Ruby knows to keep the onion rings coming.)

She’s just cutting up a scene consisting of the boys playing cards down in the galley while waiting for Jones and Liam to figure out their plan of attack for the day when someone slides into the booth bench opposite her.

“So, tell me, Swan,” Jones startles her. “What is it that makes you tick?”

Exporting the clip and jotting its name down on the growing list of file names, Emma sighs. Of all the people she wanted to see right now, Jones was not one of them, especially on one of her rare days working away from the Jolly Roger. She sets her pen down and glares across the table in frustration. “My charming personality and sense of humbleness,” she says, her face unmoving and her voice monotone. She’s not in the mood for his shit.

“But of course,” he chuckles, nabbing a ring from her plate. Too late, she smacks his grabby fingers away. “I would’ve thought it was those sky high walls you’ve got me climbing, but the personality.” He munches on the onion ring thoughtfully. “No, that makes sense now.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “In case you can’t tell, Jones, I’m a little busy here.”

“Oh, no, I can see quite well.” Setting his clasped hands atop the table, Jones leans toward her, closing her laptop fractionally. “I can tell that you’re using whatever is around you to protect you from something.” He cocks his head to the side like a curious puppy, almost like he’s trying to read her. “Guard you from falling a little bit in love with this town. Or at all.”

“Really now?” Emma says, unbelieving.

(That is what she’s doing, technically speaking. Force of habit - distraction to keep herself safe. It’s worked so far, that’s for sure.)

“Indeed.” Jones nods and steals another onion ring. “Your work, your lad, your impending order of – what was it, pancakes?”

“Waffles,” she corrects himself. Emma pulls her plate closer to her, even though he has the arm length to reach across the table and take her food as he pleases. “If you had been up as late I was dealing with a sick 10-year-old, you would’ve been as grumpy as I was.”

“I’m sure that’s true.” He raises a brow and points at her. “But you did have a cup of coffee in front of you, so I assumed you’d be slightly more pleasant.”

Emma shrugs. “Assumed wrong.” And in her mind, that’s the end of the conversation. If she were in his shoes, she would bid him farewell and leave, get out of his face.

But when had Jones ever done a thing she would do? Instead, he continues to sit opposite her and appraises her. For a moment, Emma tries to return to editing her B roll, but she feels his gaze on her and it makes her nervous.

With a grunt, she slams her laptop down and glares at him. “What do you want, Jones?”

“I just want to get to know you, Swan,” he says quietly. “You’re the first civilian I’ve let on my ship, love, and from what I can tell, you’re going to be making yourself a frequent member of my crew.” Jones begins to trace his fingertip all over the tabletop, appearing to draw little nothings while he thinks over his next words. “I need to know who I’m working with. I need to know who is going to jump in the sea after a crewmate if they fall in and who’s going to stand back and watch.”

“Well, I can already tell you that I’ll be standing back and filming. That’s literally my job,” Emma quips back. Then she raises an accusatory brow of her own. “So, is that enough information?”

He sighs in frustration. “Something small,” he pleads. “That’s all I ask.” He searches their surroundings as if for inspiration. “Perhaps where you and Henry were before you came here.”

It seems like such irrelevant information. It’s something that he can find out by asking Jefferson or David or even Ruby. It’s safe. Still, she thinks about it, then decides to respond. “Phoenix,” she says. “Henry and I were in Phoenix before we came up here.”

“Quite a different landscape, isn’t it?” he asks, to which she makes some nonverbal sound of agreement. “How long were you there?”

“Less than a year.” Emma shakes her head and opens her laptop once more. “Look, Killian, I really do have to work on this stuff.”

Across the table, she sees his eyes light up despite her obvious dismissal and, idly, she wonders why he suddenly seems really happy to be rejected by her. “Perhaps we can talk later then,” he suggests.

“Sure, if you really want to,” she says with a shrug. It’s inevitable: they’re going to have to talk to each other in the future because they work together on a boat - ship - that she knows very little about. She doesn’t exactly want to die out at sea.

“Trust me, love, I really want to,” Jones murmurs eagerly. Finally, he slides from the bench and stands next to the booth. Emma watches him cautiously for his next move.

What he says next surprises her.

“When do you pick the lad up from camp?” he asks.

Emma’s thrown by the weird question, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Quarter after three. Why?”

“How about I meet you two when he’s free and I take you to my ship?”

If possible, her brows sink lower on her face. “Why?”

Jones shrugs. “Well, you may have seen the inner workings, but your boy hasn’t.”

And that’s got her eyebrows shooting up to her hairline.

(They’re getting quite the workout today.)

“You want him to give him a tour of your boat?”

“Ship, Swan, the Jolly Roger is a ship,” he groans, rubbing away at his forehead and the frustration her mistake causes him. “Yes. I think it’s good for a lad to know where his mother will be working, if not to meet some of the folks she’s working with as well.”

“Really?”

He nods, digging his hands into his pockets. “We’ll just pretend he’s come to your office for a little while. Meet your boss and such.”

“You’re not my boss,” Emma scoffs. “If anything, I’m your boss.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “I do love a woman in charge.”

Emma slaps his arm. “Fine. Meet me outside the schoolyard at ten after three.”

He leans forward in a slight bow. “As you wish, Swan,” he says, before walking away.

“Don’t think you’re going to charm me by quoting Princess Bride!” she yells after him, then scolds herself because she’s going to have a hell of a time editing her B roll now.

She whiles away the day doing busy work, trying not to think of what Killian had basically accused her of earlier. She knows she has walls. She knows she walks around with heavy armor around her heart. For good reason. Her life was on the right track until a man came along, got her pregnant, and then left her to take the fall for his crimes. Of course she’s going to have trouble trusting anyone after that. She thought she had loved Neal, gave him everything, only to receive nothing as thanks.

But for Jones – practically a stranger, someone she considers a coworker at most – to call her out on that. It’s unheard of.

Her past experiences are what make her eyebrows raise in confusion, but pleasant surprise when she strolls up to the elementary school to find Killian chatting with some of the other parents there. He’s laughing jollily at something a woman is saying, his arms crossed over his chest as he throws his head back. She walks up to them and clears her throat to get his attention.

“Swan!” Jones shouts in greeting. He gestures to the woman he was talking to by casually swinging an open hand toward her. “Have you met Aurora?”

“Not yet.” She leans forward with her best people smile and shakes hands with the woman. “How are you?”

“I’m good, thanks,” Aurora says. She seems nice, much like the rest of the people in Storybrooke. Very domestic in her vintage dress and long hair, waiting for her children to get out of summer camp. “Killian here was just telling me about your son. I think my Phillip has been talking about him.”

“Oh, you’re Phillip’s mom,” Emma says in recognition. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Yeah, Henry was really excited telling me how Phillip had invited him to his birthday party.”

Aurora chuckles. “Yeah, he’s really excited about it. Turning double digits and all that.”

“Is the lad really turning 10?” Jones asks in disbelief.

Aurora hums and nods.

“My god, I remember when your husband burst into the Rabbit Hole and bought everyone a round in celebration of his birth,” he chuckles.

Aurora laughs. “Yes, I remember that as well. I wasn’t all too happy with him after that.” Her phone rings. As she takes it out of her pocket and finds who’s calling on the screen, she sighs. “Speaking of my darling husband. Sorry, I have to take this.”

They wave her off, Aurora heading off to the other end of the playground to speak with her husband. Emma, on the other hand, turns to Killian and says, “You’re here.”

“Of course I am.”

“You’re here early.”

He shrugs nonchalantly. “Sometimes Mary Margaret lets the children out early for some extra time on the playground, especially on a nice day like today.”

Emma tilts her head toward her shoulder. “How’d you know that?”

“I hear things around town,” he reasons with another shrug. “Mary Margaret Nolan, bless her heart, made her and David’s presence known the minute they moved into town.” Killian chuckles and shifts his feet a little closer together. “She came knocking on our door with cookies to introduce herself a couple days after they’d come.”

“Huh,” she hums. “Sounds like her.”

His eyes widen a bit and his brow cocks up. “You know her?” he asks.

“I should hope.” Emma says, licking her bottom lip and shaking her head. “We moved in next door. And I knew her and David when I was in school.”

“Really? You’ll have to tell me all the embarrassing stories one day.”

“Hmm, don’t count on it, buddy,” she says with a smirk, satisfied that she’s managed to shut him down.

(For now.)

(He’s trying to get under her skin even more so than he already is. Trying to create excuses to spend more time with her in an effort to make her like him, she’s sure.)

(And now that she knows he lives down the street from them and he knows they live next door to the Nolans… well, it’s a small town. She wouldn’t be surprised if he came knocking on their door unannounced.

Emma doesn’t know if she could handle that.)

The bell rings and the kids start to stream out, slowly, then in a huge crowd. As a now-sixth-grader, Henry may be a little taller than the rest of the kids, but he’s told her before how his classroom is also the furthest from the doors. So when the crowd starts to thin, that’s when she starts really searching for her son.

He appears, wet brown hair in his eyes, his pack slung over one shoulder. Henry spots her and starts jogging toward her, but slows back to a walk when he sees who’s next to her.

“Hey, kid,” Emma says happily, avoiding the obvious question in his eyes. Henry tucks himself under her arm in a side hug, her arm resting on his shoulder. “How was camp?”

“Fine. We went to the pool and they taught us how to dive.”

“You know all about that, now, don’t you?”

He nods. “I practiced on my back stroke while they taught the other kids.”

She laughs. “And how’s it looking?”

Henry shakes his head, his nose crinkling up in disgust and dissatisfaction. “Not much better.”

“I’m so proud of you, kiddo.” She reaches both arms around him and hugs him tightly.

Henry leans into her side, his still-damp hair soaking through her shirt. He speaks so quietly she has to lean down when he repeats it. “Who’s this?”

The moment of truth: Emma glances up at the man, who’s remained silent so far, waiting until she gives him the go ahead. His expression, however, has opened up into something she’s never seen before. It’s kinder than anything she’s seen on the ship. Granted, she hasn’t known him that long, but it’s still a bit eye-opening.

After a moment of hesitation, Emma repositions the two of them so they’re facing Jones. “Um, Henry, this is Killian Jones,” she says. “He’s the captain of the bo-ship,” she quickly corrects herself. “Of the ship that I’m filming on.” With the smile of a mother who can’t help herself but be happy around her child, Emma introduces her two worlds. “Jones, this is my son Henry.”

Killian pushes out his hand for a shake. Henry obliges timidly. “Lovely to meet you, lad,” he says. “Your mother told me that you had really hoped she’d be hanging out with pirates.”

Emma reaches out to punch Jones in the shoulder, scoffing, “I did not!”

“Swan, please,” Killian playfully pleads, rubbing at the spot on his arm where she hit him. He crouches down in front of them until he’s squatting low enough to have to look up at Henry. He leans into her son. “Do you want to know my ship’s name?” he asks conspiratorially. Henry, of course, nods. “The Jolly Roger.”

His eyes go wide. “Like Captain Hook?”

“Exactly.” Killian’s pointer finger moves and bops Henry on the tip of the nose, surprising both of them. Henry giggles and Emma can’t help but smile at the noise. “Would you like to see it?”

“Yes!” Henry shouts enthusiastically. The shy kid from minutes ago is gone as he looks up at Emma with bright excited eyes. “Mom, can I?”

Shrugging, Emma glances over to Killian, who sends her a wink. “Why not?”

“Awesome!” Jones stands up and gestures toward the water. In all his youthful joy, Henry takes the lead, half walking, half jogging in front of them with his back to all opposing traffic. “Can I steer it?”

“Afraid not, m’boy.” For what it’s worth, Jones matches his steps to hers, a slow sort of trudge that isn’t exactly exuberant but isn’t exactly hesitant as well. “We’ll have to stay docked today. My crew is making sure she’s all ready for whatever happens this season.”

“But can I steer it some time?” Henry asks, coming to a halt in front of them.

Killian looks at Emma for the correct answer. She’s not quite sure what he sees there, but Jones turns back to her son. “We’ll see, lad. We’ll see.”

Emma hangs back as they walk to the harbor while Henry and Jones walk together in front of her. Henry’s regaling him with tales of their travels – how to tell a good New York street vendor from a bad one, how nice winter in Phoenix is – and Killian, surprising her yet again, reacts genuinely and accordingly. Unlike other people – specifically men who’ve wished to pursue her romantically – Jones is treating her son as anyone should: like her 10-year-old is a person.

She catches up to them once they reach the docks, only to hear Jones say, “What in heavens do you mean, you’ve never seen snow?”

Henry shrugs. “We were always somewhere warm in the winter time. I might have seen it when I was a baby, but I don’t remember seeing snow anywhere but on TV.”

Jones looks at Emma. “I am appalled, Swan. You’ve never let your son experience snow?”

She shrugs, internally chuckling at the apparent family trait. “There were never any jobs where it was snowy.”

“A likely excuse,” Jones scoffs. They come up to the bow of the ship, Henry basically hopping on the balls of his feet. “Well, here she is.” Emma comes up to his side and accidentally brushes against his hand with hers. “The Rolly Joger.” His voice cracks, causing both her and Henry to laugh at his slip in words. “I mean, the Jolly Roger.” He blushes and scratches behind his ear. “Shall we board?” Henry nods fervently. Killian gestures to Emma. “Ladies first.”

She rolls her eyes, but heads up the steps of the gangplank before Henry does. “Watch your step, kid, there are ropes everywhere.”

“How would you know?”

“I work on this ship, remember? It’s like my office,” she says, wrapping her arms across her body to keep the sea breeze from making her more uncomfortable than she already is.

Always happy to be the center of attention and talk about something he's obviously passionate about, Killian shows Henry the captain’s roost and the inner belly of the boat. Emma notices that her son seems to be enjoying this time with Jones – some boys’ time that he’s never really had much access to. It’s not like his father was around, or any of the men she sought company with were appropriate for her son to hang out with.

Emma realizes that, though she might not exactly like Jones, maybe her son knowing and liking him might not just be the worst thing ever.

When the tour is finished, Henry’s eyes bright and cheeks flushed, Jones ushers them off his ship, onto the gangplank, and back to the docks. Once again, Henry’s basically jumping up and down between the two of them, practically hanging off of Killian’s side and surely his every word.

“Did you enjoy yourself, lad?” Jones asks.

“Yeah!” Henry shouts. “Are you sure we can’t take her out today?”

“’fraid not.” Killian looks at her. “The day is late and I should think your mother wants to get some dinner in you and then get you to bed.”

Emma nods in agreement. “Jones is right, Henry, it’s getting late.”

She turns and faces the sun to start their walk home, her flip flops slapping against the wood of the docks and then the concrete of the sidewalk. But she stops when she realizes that her son isn’t following her, or he’s dragging his feet and she’s had the kind of day where she can’t deal with that. Looking over her shoulder, Emma finds he hasn’t moved, still on the wood of the docks, staring up at Killian.

“Go on, Henry,” Killian chides him with a small smile. “We’ll take the ship out soon. You can be my first mate.”

But that’s not what her son wants promised. Even from her position a couple yards away, Emma can spot the determined features on Henry’s face.

“You promise she’s gonna come home?” Her son is so serious when he asks that it nearly breaks Emma’s heart. It’s not like she doesn’t understand where he’s coming from: his father’s already left him, he doesn’t have any brothers or sisters. Just as Henry is all she has in her world, she is all he has in his.

But Killian, being the ever-confusing man that he is, crouches down so that he’s at Henry’s eye level. He sticks his hand out to her son.

“I promise.” His voice is surprisingly stern and serious.

Considering his proposal for a second, Henry finally takes Killian’s hand and shakes it. “And you, too?”

“Of course, lad,” Killian assures him, standing back up. “Liam and I have always come back to shore. If anything, we’ve only got more reason to make it home.” His eyes flicker over and catch Emma’s, as though to make sure that his words don’t go unnoticed.

And they don’t. Not by her. No, she hears every word, said and unsaid.

(It sounds like he’s coming back for them. For her. And the mere idea does not sit well with her at all.)

(Mostly because it settles nice and warmly somewhere in her middle.)

But the insinuations fly over Henry’s head. He nods solemnly and then smiles brightly, as he tends to do. “Thanks for showing me around the boat.”

“It’s a ship, lad,” he corrects him gently, “and it was my pleasure. I’ll take you out on it someday soon, aye?”

“Okay!” With that, Henry finally catches up to his mother, allowing Emma to wrap her arm around his shoulders. “Goodnight, Jones.”

“Goodnight, Henry,” Jones bids him. “Pleasant dreams, Swan,” he says with a wink.

She rolls her eyes and only allows herself to smile when she knows he can’t see it.

[antthonystark]

I don't really get why are people are mad they continuously ask Magnus for help? Clary and Jace are Magnus's friends he cares for Clary a lot and he's not as close with Jace but they've been shown to have a friendship. Also Alec is his boyfriend so?? And Clary and Jace are the main characters and Magnus helping them gives him a bigger role. And it would be an issue if he never got his own character development but he has plenty of scenes without Clary and Jace. Sorry this is a mini rant

i’m of two minds on this (surprise surprise)…..like on the one hand, it shouldbe acknowledged that magnus has had issues with people, often specificallyshadowhunters, before when it comes to being taken advantage of etc. like hedetails in his conversation with maia in 2x07. and of course, there is the important consideration of the natural friction between shadowhunters and downworlders as a result of the myriad problems with their society. i guess when it comes down to it, im not a fan ofthe “poor beleaguered magnus vs. evil selfish shadowhunters” narrative,but i also dont buy the whole “everything between everyone is a-okay and happy and love”either? like with the vast majority of things, the actual truth is probablysomewhere in between. 

so turns out i had lot more to say about this that i … .may be thought… anyway under the cut

the reasonwhy im not a fan of the first one (poor magnus vs. selfish meanies) is it seems to contradict magnus as acharacter almost entirely…both his personality and his power would insulateagainst something as extreme as all that. of course magnus is an extremely generousand compassionate person when he wants to be, which leads to such problems (as we saw in his relationship with camille, where he gave a million times more than he got), which does leadto issues of being taken for granted or taken advantage of like the ones he talked about with maia in 2x07, so it’s not likeit’s something that’s not a thing - it is a thing, but when it becomes thatmuch of a thing in people’s interpretations, taken that far, it justseems like it’s woobify-ing him, like he’s not a manipulatable child, he cansay no if he really doesn’t want to do something. 

but basedon that and more crucially to me, at its worst, it seems like it’s doing adisservice to magnus based on my understanding of his motivations and character, to appear asthough the only reason he would ever want to be involved in the main conflict(i.e. the fight against the genocidal, downworlder-racist megalomaniac) isthrough reluctantly helping the shadowhunters - rather than acknowledging thathe has an equally significant stake in the game and that it’s not magnus unwillinglyhelping with someone else’s personal quest, but rather it being something verysignificant to magnus and his storyline as well. so it’s not always “those damnshadowhunters always asking magnus for help” but then things like stopping agreater demon or, like, preventing a war in the downworld are not just goalsfor clary/jace…..like magnus cares about the outcome of the events just as muchif not more?? so that’s what i guess i don’t understand.

like yousaid, the second magnus would not be involved somewhere where he should be,people are rightfully going to be saying that he’s being “sidelined” from the mainaction. so its this weird thing where the diegetic thing – in the narrative,magnus being asked for help – is bad, but the non-diegetic thing thatwould result from that diegetic thing not happening – in real life, important lgbt+character of colour being sidelined from the main conflict – would also bebad. like people pick and choose, sort of, what they’re going to look at only at face value in the narrative, and what they’re going to look at from a broader consideration of the real world interacting with the narrative (diegetic/non-diegetic are the wrong words but it’s late and i cant think of the right ones). so honestly sometimes I struggle to understand where people arecoming from on this issue tbh.

like,there was a gifset going around recently that was trying to, uh, illustratethis narrative, where magnus didn’t get paid for all the help he did orwhatever, where at least half of those instances he was paidand/or volunteered freely to do it. so firstly, there’s a differencebetween “magnus wants to help” and “magnus is forced to help” that ifeel like people don’t…..get…..so often. both have happened, solike i said, the truth is in the middle. but, like, people often have such a vesteddislike for shadowhunters as characters (or specifically clary and jace) thatthey project that onto magnus who, to be fair, does have a dislike and mistrustfor shadowhunters in general, but in my view clearly cares about clary and jaceand the gang as friends (harry himself said that in as many words in his lastinterview). so it’s not exactly a stretch that he would want to help them whentheir lives are in danger, to me, i guess lol? 

ultimately,i think that the most crucial difference arises in the way that one reads that particularrelationship. if you read it as magnus being superficially magnanimous andcivil while having a deeper-rooted dislike, vs. if you read it as magnus beingsuperficially disdainful while have a deeper-rooted affection. if the former,you’re more likely to be upset by the way magnus is ‘treated’ by the two mains,whereas if the latter (which is in my opinion the way the writers meant toframe it, regardless of course of how it came across to people), maybe not so much. another dimension to this is the downworlder/shadowhuntersdynamic, in that Shadowhunters often view themselves as superior in anyinteraction, which – unpopular opinion time – doesn’t apply to the same extentto clary since she wasn’t raised with these notions of superiority like theother characters, including jace, to be fair. i feel like this dynamic is more salientalso in official rather than amicable contexts, e.g. when magnus is at thetrial or strengthening the wards for Robert, but it would be stupid to say itdoesn’t play a role even in the everyday interaction between friends. so,again, it’s complex. it’s not one thing or the other, but really both, so thenreally neither. in my view.

i keepreferring to “truth” but the truth of the matter is, it’s going to dependwholly on interpretations, and i think the reading of this relationship is animportant one in the way that one views it.

alsothere’s also a difference between “wanting to help”, “being forced tohelp” and “sort of being expected to help and not really being thanked forit because he’s an established good guy™ in the show allied with the grouprather than an outsider to the group and/or some neutral figure and in film/tvthe good guys dont usually thank each other unless there’s a higher purpose forit in the narrative”

with thatlast one, i think people, maybe a bit punch drunk on fanfiction, don’t alwaysget that things in regular scripts/narratives that are even a littlebit extraneous do not get to stay in. so things likepeople barging through doors happens because the script needs fat trimmed andit’s less time consuming to start a scene like that than with a knock (andusually with a knock there’s again some purpose, e.g. alec knocking in 2x07when he normally doesn’t so magnus is by the door bc it would be an awkwardshot imo for alec to walk in and stride all the way over to wherever tf magnusis chillin to grab him and kiss him lol – similarly, there was no knock in 2x09 bc malec were over at the balcony and it wouldunnecessarily elongate the scene by having them walk over to the door to answerit etc……like im sure they didn’t think that hard about these things or theycould have done them the other way without giving 2 shits, it’s just thatnobody ever thought people would care this much about doors lol – and, in thenarrative, lbr…if magnus didn’t want someone in his house would they be in hishouse……just think about it). i mean, people don’t even say “hello”or “goodbye” on the phones in any film or tv show i’ve ever seen unlessthere’s some reason for it, so scenes with the good guys standing aroundthanking each other for helping …… i honestly don’t think i’ve seen a scenelike that that doesn’t serve some higher purpose. by that, i mean the primeexample is alec thanking magnus for stuff - obviously, the narrative needs toestablish alec as this person who cares about magnus, so rather than havingeveryone line up and say thank you, alec is the person who most often does itbecause a scene like that with alec and magnus would not beextraneous, because it serves the higher purpose of establishing a thingbetween the pair. just like clary thanking jace establishing a thing betweenthem in, say, 1x07; or clary thanking alec and being rebuffed in 1x08establishing their continued conflict that plays a role in the followingepisode; etc. like does that make sense, where i’m coming from in thatregard? like, when connection needs to be established between characters, it is – jace and magnus’s little moment ashe hands over the stone in 2x03, for example. if it’s not constantlyreinforced, it’s maybe (no shade, just a thought) because the screenwriters don’tfind the connections of friendship or at least fondness between the charactersas dubious as some of the viewers.

MOSTIMPORTANTLY, like i said before, the sense of superiority over downworlders indoctrinatedin shadowhunters from an early age is not illusory or unimportant, and ofcourse that is going to inform the interactions between magnus, a downworlder,and other shadowhunters, young or old. so again as i said in my opening statement,it’s as little a case of pure love and rainbows and sunshine as it is the otherextreme interpretation of this issue. a lot of the stuff people talk about –they have a point. often, that stuff – e.g. people calling magnus “warlock” disparaginglyas the most obvious example, but many others as well – is deliberate by the writers, because this issuebetween the two strata of the shadow world isn’t something that they ignore,since they…ya know.. wrote it in the show. however, some of the stuff peoplesay borders on the ridiculous. as usual, the golden mean can usually be foundbetween extremes.