#i love rewatching it’s such a fun experience! when you know what’s going to happen so you see more of it everywhere

[sharkieboi]

hi okay so i’m rewatching Starstruck and

a) being able to binge it as the Complete Experience with the Adventuring Party(s) right after each episode is very great and I like being able to revisit the story this way

b) I actually think this is my favorite season of character art in general, and in particular Sundry Sidney’s portrait is no contest my absolute favorite character art of all of D20

[wsdalt]

i rewatched the felps prison stream and here's some fun facts that people who didn't watch his stream might not have known:

-the stream starts in media res with the saint music playing and him silent

-there's no facecam or chat on screen (a stylistic choice for qsmp specifically because i'm pretty sure he streams again after the priosn event is over and he has both)

-he was very shocked about the fact he's been asleep for months

-he has difficultly distinguishing dreams from reality/real memories he has, and often throughout the stream isn't sure if he's actually awake

-he calls himself a saint a lot but when empanada asks if he's god he says he's not actually sure what he is. later he also admits he's not sure what his powers are exactly

-the saint music emanates from him without him necessarily choosing for it to--as seen when he was playing hide and seek, and it kept playing even though he was trying to tell it to stop (ooc i think this was just felps trying to be found while still roleplaying, but in-universe this appears to be canon)

-sometimes before he blesses people the saint music plays and he stares silently at whoever he's about to bless for a few moments before blessing them. this isn't the only way he can bless people though--it can also be more casual

-is constantly trying to be taken to the heavens as a way of escaping prison

-vaguely mentions his death during fuga again! During the scene he's been taken to the interview room and is told to wait: "i think i will die. again." (i believe the fuga death is the one he's talking about because most qsmp deaths aren't significant for players and he's mentioned cellbit killing him in prison twice beforehand while on qsmp. but as i said, it's vague)

-his response to the question "if you disappeared for a few days where would you go?" was "I think, um… I went to an experiment? In an ice block? (suddenly intense) That's what happened to me before! So, I don't know if it would happen again! (calm again) So, I don't know, I don't know… Maybe to heaven?"

-loves pasta

there might be more fun facts but this is all i can think of right now \o/

[scoobydoodean]

ok so I deeply love and respect your thoughts on supernatural because the majority of them line up with what I've been thinking for years but you said something the other day that I keep turning over in my brain and it was something along the lines of carver liking dean more than sam - I know you're in the middle of rewatching s4 but I would love to hear you expound on that (if you have time) because I remember being in the fandom while carvernatural was airing and it was pretty much when the deangirl exodus started. in fact I think people tore into him worse than dabb even 😭

feel free to hold onto this until later when you start the carver seasons if you wish :)

<3 I'll go ahead and answer this one, because it's more of a "broad strokes" thing for me, and I've been rewatching very slowly (on purpose) so that could be a very long wait.

This is so funny because I can just picture Sam fans reading it and turning red and their blood boiling with the fire of a thousand suns but the TL;DR is that season 8-11 (Carver era) broad strokes to me are:

Sam sucks and is a worse brother and person than Dean.

Sam spends the first two seasons of Carver's run thinking he's a better person than Dean anyway and then the second two knowing he sucks, deciding to embrace his moral flexibility to keep Dean alive no matter the cost, and trying to mend things.

Dean is circled by many potential suitors who also in a sense represent Sam replacements because Sam sucks: Benny, Cas, Crowley, and Amara.

Dean knows that Sam sucks and part of him wants to get tf away from him very badly but another part of him feels guilty for wanting that. Family is suffering. Family is a chain around your neck keeping you tied to them via guilt. (Demon Dean represents the desire for escape, as does Amara).

Everybody wants to be with Dean, be Dean, and/or be loved by Dean. Dean is love. Dean is the world. Dean is the reason for existing. Everybody is lovesick about him. Sam is just there.

Sam needs to stop blaming Dean for so many things and learn to own his own choices.

That was fun to write down.

Longer commentary/explanation below the cut.

Season 8 (Carver's first season) literally begins with a Sam character assassination. It begins with us learning that Sam knowingly left Kevin to spend the rest of his life kidnapped and tortured without even telling a soul what happened to him. Not only did he abandon Dean and Cas as well but he didn't even look for them, and refuses to give a satisfying answer as to why.

Season 8 Sam's abandonment as distinct from previous behavior

I have had people this year who I love and respect tell me they don't view this as a character assassination and say they believe this is in character for Sam. I simply do not agree with that. I talk about this as it relates to Kevin here.

Sam has displayed selfishness and a big ego at many points in the series up to season 8. He's told a lot of lies (sometimes to the point of gaslighting), he's gone behind Dean's back to do things that affect Dean's life, he's taken traumatic experiences Dean opened up to him about and ultimately harmed Dean with them, he's shown resentments and anger, he's displayed jealousy, he's displayed a sense of superiority. He has never abandoned his brother to die without even trying. The Sam of season 3 would eviscerate season 8 Sam for this.

Sometimes Sam says and does things he shouldn't, but his crimes do not include "abandoning Dean to die without even looking for him" up to season 8. Many of his crimes happen at least partly because he really really doesn't want Dean to die or is desperate to save his life. He lets go of his anger at John and returns to make sure Dean is safe in 1.11. He refuses to give up and finds a way to save Dean in 1.12. In 1.22, he's willing to put John's life at risk for revenge, but in 2.01 he gets into an outright screaming match with John in the hospital under the belief that John's prioritizing the demon over Dean. Sam spends all of season 3 raging and angst-ing about not being able to save Dean to the point of considering and doing some shady as hell things/abandoning some of his more stalwart moral stances (3.05, 3.11, 3.15, 3.16). Dean's death and later, the desire to secure his safety/future, is one of the catalysts for Sam's descent into drinking demon blood (3.09, 3.16, 4.04, 4.09, 4.12). When he dies in "Swan Song", he urges Dean to pursue a normal, safe, life because he knows that at that point in time, Dean wants to get out but has always felt trapped (2.09, 2.10, 2.20, 3.01, 4.12, 4.16). Even Soulless Sam (who isn't the same as regular Sam) tried to look for Dean in 6.09 "Clap Your Hands If You Believe"—it was simply that when leads for the night dried up, he hooked up with someone because he had nothing more to go on and in soulless Sam's head that was the reasonable thing to do. But soulless Sam also certainly isn't representative of the real Sam—the fact that he doesn't care as much is supposed to point us to differences between him and regular Sam. Season 8 opens with Sam abandoning Dean in a context that makes him arguably worse than his soulless self.

(I talk about why Sam actually abandons everyone in season 8 in a very long post here).

Season 8 and 9 more broadly

So Carver has Sam abandon Dean to die without even trying. Then he has Sam refuse to give any kind of actually reasonable explanation that makes sense to anyone who was paying attention. Then he has Sam say that he's going to leave the life and Dean needs to get over it and accept that Sam's new life will not include contact with Dean (just like his life at Stanford didn't). While saying he's going to leave, he still wants to exert control over Dean's relationships and leverages the threat of leaving (as if he were going to stay) to get Dean to shut up about Sam abandoning him and then again to try and get Dean to cut ties with Benny. He wants to kill Benny before knowing a single thing about him. He assigns someone (Martin) who he knows is mentally unstable and has a more black and white perception of monsters to track Benny and gets Martin killed. He watches Martin knock Dean unconscious and chain him up in a room and doesn't stop it because he wants Benny dead that bad, but then has the audacity to act as if Dean sending him a fake text is worse than Sam literally chaining him up in a room to prevent Sam from killing an innocent person (someone Sam would normally—btw—defend based on episodes like 2.03 and 4.04 or even a few episodes ago with Kate in "Bitten"). He tells Amelia he wants to fight for their relationship then the moment Dan says they should leave the choice to Amelia, he leaves so that it becomes his choice, and then he returns for one episode just to be a homewrecker. He insists on doing The Trials while promising to survive them and giving a big speech about how he's going to save Dean from his own suicidal ideation and then drops the promise as if it never existed two episodes later. Sam loses confidence in himself to complete The Trials and then acts like Dean is the one who doesn't believe in him because Dean is caring for him and insisting he rest and this is an unforgivable offense. At the end of the season, he basically says he's going to commit suicide because Dean has friends besides him. He acts as if he deserves to be Dean's most trusted confidant after an entire season of him being an absolutely fucking terrible brother and acts like Dean is just a big meanie whose feelings are irrational.

After all of this, he has the audacity, in season 9, to suggest that Dean is a bad person who can't stand the thought of being alone. He tells Dean he's the worst person ever and they can only be work partners from now on because Dean is so so bad and evil for stopping him from committing suicide and then not telling him about Gadreel. At the end of the season he admits this was a lie. He just wanted to punish Dean (9.23).

I can see how—if you were watching live at the time (I started watching when season 11 was airing) you'd lose hope. You'd quit the show over all of this, because it seems to go on forever. It's like torture. I would drop kick season 8 Sam into a pit full of lava without hesitation so I get it. If I believed that Carver was actually saying "Yes so true Dean is The Worst™️ and Sam is morally superior <3" for two seasons straight I'd quit the show too. But that isn't what he's saying. We're supposed to read between the lines and realize how unbelievably full of shit Sam is—how deeply selfish and hypocritical he's being. How yes—Dean has made mistakes—but Sam is NOT a better person than him and has gotten away with some absolutely rancid garbage. And season 10 and 11 go on to beat you over the head with it if you didn't get it the first time.

Season 10 and 11

Season 10 opens with this dialogue from a demon:

I heard the rumors. I said "no, that can't be." A Winchester, one of us? But it's true, isn't it? Whatever soul you had; whatever boy scout code you cuddled up to at night; it's all gone. Leaving what? Look at you!

We're meant to think she's talking about Dean who just woke up with black eyes, but then the camera cuts to Sam torturing her, demanding to know where Dean is.

In 10.03, we learn that Sam talked a man (Lester) into selling his soul so he could use him as bait. Demon Dean ends up being assigned to fulfill Lester's deal (to kill his wife for cheating on him). Dean immediately clocks Lester as having cheated on her first and kills Lester for being an insufferable hypocrite... and while he's doing it, I'm pretty sure he's also thinking of Sam's flaming hypocrisy.

SAM: I never meant— DEMON DEAN: Who cares what you meant?! That line that we thought was so clear between us and the things that we hunted, ain’t so clear is it? Wow. You might actually be worse than me! I mean, you took a guy at his lowest, used him, and it cost him his life and his soul. Nice work.

NOTE: 10.03 also recalls 4.21—an episode Sam fans have always tended to emphasize as a "Dean crime" episode where Dean risks Sam's death to force a detox. Sam does the reverse—pumping Dean full of human blood here in 10.03 and explicitly risking his death.

Sam gets Suzie killed in "The Werther Project" while searching for The Book of the Damned.

SAM I’m sorry, okay? I’m so sorry. SUZIE Lot of good “sorry” does me. Look at me. Look….at….me. [She points to her corpse.] There she is. The first casualty of your misguided mission. But what’s another human life to you? Anything’s worth it, as long as you two make it out alive. And how’s that search going? Any closer to a cure? SAM This isn’t real. You’re not real. SUZIE You think Dean’s the wild card, the loose cannon. But don’t you see? Making deals with witches, opening Pandora’s box down there? You’re the reckless one. You’ll do anything to keep clinging to that doomed brother of yours. How many more will die, Sammy? You know it. You have to be stopped. And the only one who can stop you is you!

A few episodes later, Sam orders Oskar's death for a spell to remove the Mark of Cain. I've seen hilarious posts before about how he had no choice but to do this because MoC Dean is so scawy and bad but that quite explicitly is not his motivation. They could have done so many other things. Throw him into space. Bury him in a really deep hole. Put him in something like The Cage. But Sam didn't like any of those options, because all of them meant being without his brother, and he's realized he doesn't want to be without him no matter the cost (10.18).

SAM So, awhile back, we had a chance to, um…close the gates of Hell. And in order to do that, I would’ve had to die. And, I was okay with that, and I am okay with that, but Dean was not. And so, he uh… CHARLIE He saved you. SAM Yeah, he saved me. CHARLIE And let me guess, in doing so, he did something you didn’t want, and that pissed you off. And you said something that hurt him? SAM Yeah, that sounds about right. [...] SAM You know, when Dean came to get me at school, I-I told myself… one last job, you know? One more job. And then when – when I, um…. When I lost Jess, I, again, told myself one more job. There’s always one more job, you know? And one more job, and one more job, and then I was gonna go back to law and – and to my life. CHARLIE You were the Dread Pirate Roberts of hunting. SAM Yeah. I guess I really understand now that….this is my life. I love it. But I can’t do it without my brother. I don’t want to do it without my brother. And if he’s gone, then I don’t…. CHARLIE I got it. I-I do.

This all culminates in 10.23, where a very mentally unstable MoC Dean attempts to reason with Sam about them both being evil and needing to take themselves out:

DEAN: Remember when we were in that church, making Crowley human, about to close the Gates of Hell? Well, you sure as hell were ready to die for the greater good then. SAM: Yeah, and, Dean, you pulled me back. DEAN: And I was wrong. You were right, Sam. You knew that this world would be better without us in it. SAM: No, no, no, wait a second. You're twisting my words here, Dean. DEAN: Why? Because we -- we track evil and kill it? The family business? Is that it? Look at the tape, Sam. Evil tracks us. And it nukes everything in our vicinity -- our family, our friends. It's time we put a proper name to what we really are and we deal with it. SAM: Wait a second. We are not evil. Listen... We're far from perfect, but we are good. That thing on your arm is evil, but not you, not me. DEAN: I let Rudy die. How was that not evil? I know what I am, Sam. But who were you when you --when you drove that man to sell his soul... Or when you bullied Charlie into getting herself killed? And to what end? A-a good end? A just end? To remove the Mark no matter what the consequences? Sam, how is that not evil? I have this thing on my arm, and you're willing to let the Darkness into the world. SAM: You were also willing to summon death to make sure you could never do any more harm. You summoned me because you knew I would do anything to protect you. That's not evil, Dean. That's not an evil man. That is a good man crying to be heard, searching for... some other way.

Dean is saying a lot of shady shit here, but some of what he's saying... isn't wrong?

Sam is willing to let The Darkness destroy the world, and he does, and then standing in the aftermath of a town being destroyed by the force he unleashed, Sam says:

SAM: I unleashed a force on this world that could destroy it . . . to save you. DEAN: And I told you not to. SAM: And I'd do it again. In a second, I would do it again.

Thousands of people are dying and Sam says he would do it again. This post about Sam's actions versus Dean stopping Sam from closing the gates of hell is highly relevant.

Season 11 continues with Sam taking a little more responsibility for his own decisions, while praying for Dean to live (11.02):

SAM: So . . . I know it's been a long time, but . . . Dean and I, we've -- we've been through a lot of bad. But this is different. This is my fault, and I don't know how to fix it. And if I have to die, I've made my peace with that, but . . . Please. Dean deserves better. Dean deserves a life. There are people out there, good people, who are going to suffer because of me, and I am not asking you to clean up my mess. Hell, I don't even know if you're out there, but . . . If you are . . . And if you can hear me, I, um . . . We need your help, God. We need to know there's hope. We need a sign.

And then there's the VERY long-awaited apology:

SAM When I was with Lucifer, he, um... He showed me things. It was like a highlight reel of my biggest failures. DEAN Yeah, he was messing with you. That's what he does. SAM Give me a sec. I should've looked for you. When you were in Purgatory, I... I should've turned over every stone.

Family (Sam) as chains

While all of this is happening, we also have Benny and Cas and Crowley and Amara.

Benny is contrast—someone whose goodness and selfless loyalty only makes Sam's horrible flaws stand out more sharply in season 8. Under the influence of the specter, Dean says, "Benny has been more of a brother to me this past year than you have ever been" and Sam can't stand it. It haunts him so bad he tries to kill Benny, and can't get over it even after the end of the season when Benny is fucking dead. He is unable to accept that the contrast between himself and Benny is his own fault.

Crowley and Dean's flirtations begin in season 9, as Sam suffocates Dean, and at the end of the season, Crowley has literally convinced Dean to run away with him. In 10.01, there is a delightful phone call where Crowley rubs it in Sam's face that Dean is with HIM:

SAM I don't know how you did this, what kind of... Black-magic stunt you pulled, but hear me --I will save my brother or die trying. CROWLEY You know what tickles me about all this? It's what's really eating you up. You don't care that he's a demon. Heck, you've been a demon. We've all been demons. No, it's that he's with me and he's having the time of his life. You can't stand the fact that he's mine. SAM He's not your pet. CROWLEY My pet? He's my best friend, my partner in crime. They'll write songs about us, graphic novels. “The Misadventures of Growley and Squirrel." Dean Winchester completes me, and that's what makes you lose your chickens.

It's this cruel callback to Sam's jealousy of Benny and Cas in season 8—how Crowley convinced Dean to finally ditch his smothering, controlling brat of little brother who can't stand him having friends, and now Dean is having the time of his life howling at the moon. The problem is, Dean also feels a little bit like maybe Crowley wants to control him too, and that isn't working for him.

Amara in season 11 goes on to further speak on terrible brothers who think they're better than you, who leave you betrayed and diminished, who abandon you. She's raging against the concept of family as chains—she wants revenge... but all the while she's in pain because she still loves her brother. Amara's attraction to Dean is based on that commonality—what she feels is a shared experience and how she wants to cut the last remaining pieces of love she feels for her brother away so she can finally be free of the pain of him—and she doesn't care if she destroys everything—including herself—in the process. (See: Dean slowly losing his identity through the MoC arc). Sam and Dean's relationship is in rehab over this whole season though, and so Dean's role ends up being to convince Amara not to destroy herself—to instead do what Sam and Dean have done and make up and work on improving their relationship.

[justlikeeddie]

all of layton and nikita's strictly dances ranked CORRECTLY by ME

14. Samba, Week 1

unfair to have to rank this one really because nobody really knows what they’re doing in week 1. FASCINATING to go back and watch this though. obvs this is strong in the context of a first week dance! but knowing where they’re going to go from here… this is the one and only time you can see that nikita is dancing layton through the steps and keeping him afloat. they’re not yet a PARTNERSHIP here. they don’t KNOW each other!!! anyway good luck to these boys with navigating what they are going to experience over the next three months <3

13. American Smooth, Week 10

the infamous bottom-two dance. a result which i believe was undeserved!!! but the american smooth IS the most boring category on strictly unfortunately, so it’s a humble placing for this one. i did not love their outfits, for once! why don’t they go together. why does nikita look like peter pan. however, obviously i liked it when they both picked each other up and did a little skip in the air. also enjoyed how much craig enjoyed being bammed up by the ending.

12. Rumba, Week 12

controversial to place this so low in the ranking perhaps?? obviously this was a complex routine that they performed beautifully AND was very tender and intimate. but the rumba is the second most boring dance on strictly after the american smooth i’m afraid I’M SORRY. however, points awarded for nikita saying afterwards that dancing this felt like the rest of the world fell away and they were the only two people in existence. girl what

11. Salsa, Week 5

a great dance! fun! good vibes! their first lift! followed by a bit that i like where nikita has to sort of kick layton upright again. loses points ONLY for being perhaps their least homoerotic dance, which one of them, i guess, has to be.

10. Tango, Week 6

all the ingredients for greatness are here. TANGO. HALLOWEEN. layton is in high goth drag. nikita looks a bit like paul gross as geoffrey tennant as hamlet in the flashback sections of slings and arrows s1. but weirdly i don’t think this dance quite lives up to the level of drama i expected from it. having just rewatched it i think it’s because they’re ACTING like it’s a MELODRAMA, and it FEELS like they’re acting, as opposed to the way they usually totally inhabit the narrative of a dance. however. the switch from this vibe into the denouement - the BACKFLIP (fuck!!!) - and then the breathy, drawn-out final moment, which they suddenly ARE inhabiting, braced over each other and staring into each other’s eyes like they are ON GOD going to fuck in the middle of the dancefloor, is astonishing. once again i am asking the bbc if this is what they thought they were going to air

9. Cha-cha-cha, Week 4

okay. we are entering the section of the list where everything from here on down pretty much makes me feral. layton is everything in that jumpsuit. the THROW into the SPLITS. the raw sexual dynamism somehow contained within nikita taking layton’s coat for him. unbearable.

8. Charleston, Week 12

off the charts crazy. how can people move like this. they CARTWHEELED across the STAGE for what felt like YEARS. points only deducted for the fact that when nikita cried in the interview afterwards because he loved layton so much he had to do it in this extremely silly outfit.

7. Quickstep, Week 2

they danced the equivalent of a gay leyendecker illustration in week 2. IN WEEK 2 THEY DID THIS. they’re having so much FUN here. and to follow up on the week 1 ranking, the transformation from them feeling like a professional and a celeb to two people actually dancing together happens SO fast. it’s only a week later, but already something’s changed; layton’s totally at home in the routine and nikita’s REALLY enjoying it. it’s just so nice and i love them so much :’) also the quickstep is one of my favourite strictly dances because it’s inherently funny watching grown adults run full-pelt around a room and occasionally do a little skip. perfect 90 seconds of television.

6. Viennese Waltz, Week 3

ok so this is actually one of their lowest scoring dances on the show. but NOT according to my ranking. this ought to feel as faux-dramatic as the vampire tango but it doesn’t. something is HAPPENING between them in this dance and it’s real. i could write paragraphs about the eternities contained within the long, long seconds of them holding each other after it’s over, which goes on for long enough that the editor just has to like. give up and cut away from them. i’ve been linking to the bbc’s youtube clips throughout this post, but if you have access to iplayer i strongly recommend you watch this dance as aired (i have linked to the timestamp for your convenience) in order to see the full effect of this ending. there’s something about the combination of… the sincerity of the dance. the gender of it all. the refusal to break character. nikita’s slightly baffled-looking parents in the audience lending whatever the fuck is going on here a bizarre frisson. i’m completely obsessed with it

5. Jive, Week 7

the first thirty seconds of this dance genuinely make me feel like i’m coming up. overwhelming transition from the sexy sexy opening section (why are they dressed as little sailor boys? why are they touching like that?) into the supercharged beat of the side-by-side. people pay good money to feel like this. as has been pointed out, the jive is not a traditionally racy dance, and my question to nikita as choreographer is: why

4. Showdance, Week 13

cunt. cunt. cunt. cunt. the absolute fucking serve of the matching slutty magician elbow-length gloves. nikita dropping his hat while layton executes everything perfectly. obviously in the finale, homophobia won <3 but my god. they ATE. no notes.

3. Paso Doble, Week 11

i have said this before. but dancing to BACKSTAGE ROMANCE. in a show where i (facetiously) believe they may be experiencing a BACKSTAGE ROMANCE. seems illegal. anyway. this dance is insane. almost worth them being in the bottom two in week 10 in order for them to produce the unbridled energy of this comeback. as a category the paso doble has similarly melodramatic energy to the tango, but this performance is so unlike the slightly campy vampire number; they’re IN it, they’re living and feeling and breathing every moment. something about the mood of this dance, the power dynamics of it, nikita on the floor looking up at layton in awe as he emerges at his absolute fucking fiercest - happening in THIS week, rising above the stress of relegation and the overwhelming tide of online hate, is, like, pretty incredible, tbh. also the series of searingly erotic snapshot poses at the beginning of this routine are among the worst things i have been subjected to on this show, and as you may be gathering from this list, this is a crowded category.

2. Argentine Tango, Week 8

god it was a TOUGH GODDAMN CALL on these top two places. and tbh i think this is actually, truly, their best dance. the sheer SKILL here… whatever the move is where layton has to jump in the air and kick his little leggies around… stunning. i don’t really have a comical paragraph to write about this because i genuinely think it’s an incredible piece of dance and there’s not much more to add to that. however, extra points for the truly unhinged decision to do some dom nikita roleplay at the end? again, please watch this one on iplayer to experience the full unedited effect.

1. Couple’s Choice, Week 9

as i say. probably, technically, the argentine tango is better. but if i think about any element of this routine, i immediately black out. i cannot stress enough that he is standing on his back. he is STANDING. on his BACK. nikita choreographed this dance and he was like. i want you to stand on my back. PLEASE don’t worry about it. watching this routine is like looking into the sun. if i saw two men doing this in the club i would have to politely turn away to respect their privacy. also sorry to do this for a final time but i also need you to watch this one on iplayer because nikita stays on that pole at the end for so much longer than you are expecting and then does something sooooo unnecessary. this dance should be expunged from the internet so that i never have to contemplate it again.

[becauseimanicequeen]

Since I love shows that make me speculate about theories, I rewatched the first episode of 4 Minutes last night just for fun (and to spot some new clues, for example, that it looked like Tyme was shot at those abandoned buildings where the gambling headquarters were, how Tonkla reacted to the black cat, the set design in Great's room, etc.).

Two days ago, I expanded on one of my theories, the one about Great having an out-of-body experience throughout most of what we saw in the first episode, which I believe is caused by him having a cardiac arrest (the patient at the beginning of the episode).

While rewatching the episode last night, I noticed two other moments that support this theory (which I would've noticed the first watch if I hadn't watched it at 1 am due to the Olympics opening ceremony, lol).

The first moment is when Great starts to feel unwell in the elevator at the beginning of the episode, there's a moment when you hear a shot-like sound and the screen flashes... That could be linked to the defibrillator used to restart Great's heart in the present (which we see in the beginning sequence).

He also holds a hand on his chest whenever he feels unwell, which happened in the elevator (pictured above), but also when he has his second "4-minutes phenomenon" (which is what Den called it in his research).

There's definitely something going on with his heart.

The second moment that supports my theory (that most of what we saw in the first episode was Great's out-of-body experience) is what we find out about Den's research. He has three unnamed patients talking about their out-of-body experiences, and then Lukwa gives us more details.

Her heart stopped beating, she didn't know what was happening, she just lived life normally but it was like the events of her past were playing in her mind, and while it felt real, the odd thing was that she could see 4 minutes into the future.

That sounds very much like Great's experience, doesn't it?

That also explains why he saw those flashes of him and Tyme together.

Those flashes are basically his present self's memories (the person who had a cardiac arrest at the beginning of the episode). So, even though the Great we're following now (the out-of-body experience version) has these visions of himself and a man he probably hasn't met before, the present-time Great has met Tyme, which is where those memories are coming from.

Could I be wrong about this? Sure. It's a Sammon story after all.

Am I overanalyzing? Probably. I mean, my wild-ass, delulu theories during DFF have already proven that I have a tendency to do that with certain shows, lol.

But, does it also make sense? Yes. So this is definitely a possibility.

If this turns out to be the case, however, the big question for me (at this point) is what purpose this has. It's not like an out-of-body experience can alter anything, right? It can't rewrite the past, even if Great does things differently while having his out-of-body experience.

So, what's the purpose of it all? My guess is that it's about collecting information. Perhaps something that will help him (and possibly a shot/dying Tyme) when he wakes up after his cardiac arrest. Or something that has to do with his dad's illegal business. Or both. Or something entirely different.

Whatever it might be, I can't wait to find out more.

Is it Friday, yet?

[deathsbestgirl]

txf mytharc: pilot

preface: what you can expect from this series of mine.

i’m likely going to talk about each mytharc episode in full (at least nearly). the point of this isn’t to focus on mulder and scully, but there will still be a lot about them. we mostly see the mytharc through their eyes, and their partnership & experiences are a major part of that (and i think at this point, it’s clear i never shut up about them!). so for those that don’t really care about the mytharc, you might still find things to enjoy. at the end of each post, i’ll do a little summary of episode connections. i’m doing this as i rewatch so i will not have watched the future episodes yet – so please forgive any mistakes in details! i’m also pairing this with reading myth x: one fan’s interpretation of the the x files mytharc, and i’ll include some pieces that helped me unravel certain things, or that i’m simply keeping in mind as i rewatch! but mostly, this is just me enjoying the show. it’s what i think about when i watch. if it’s not your cup of tea, i completely understand. i do welcome discussion, but i make no promises to engage. i’m just sharing my little thoughts on this show that i really, really love.

something i get caught up in every time i watch the pilot is what csm & the syndicate were thinking (specifically in regards to assigning scully to the x files with mulder — i will probably talk about this over & over).

in the pilot we don’t even know about the syndicate. we meet section chief blevins, and other men with no names. including csm, who doesn’t even speak. he stands there looking stressed and smoking, observing scully and listening intently to the whole exchange. at the beginning, it’s hard to imagine how deep this goes, how widespread the government conspiracy is and it’s what makes it so fun for me to go back. we have so much more information later on, and we can take it back when we rewatch. there are so many connections to be made and although a lot of it doesn’t line up perfectly, i think it’s way more in line than people say. for me, there are several reasons that fit in with the world of the x files. first, there are so many unreliable narrators, people dealing in lies and coverups, only letting mulder & scully and whomever see what they want them to see. they purposely feed certain beliefs, and stifle them at other times. csm’s goals are muddled: he wants mulder on his side, he’s trying to save the human race/shape it into his own creation. he pretends to be a chess master, but as he says in sixth extinction/amor fati: he is one man.

the pilot starts with a cold open, a young woman running through the woods in her pajamas. we see a male figure and a bright white light. next thing, the young woman is lying dead on the forest floor as a team documents the scene and tries to identify her. detective miles identifies here as karen swanson and walks away, as the other investigator shouts “it’s happening again, isn’t it?”

next we follow special agent dana scully into the hoover building and to blevins office. he peppers her with questions about her fbi experience, if she’s heard of fox mulder and the x files. she’s young and open and maybe a little too honest. every time i try to write about the pilot something i always end up writing: scully understood what these men wanted her to. i don’t think it’s what csm wanted, but it might be what the syndicate wanted. scully was expected to debunk the x files, and if she did, they would probably reward her with whatever promotion or job she wanted within the fbi (or better, recruit her to the syndicate?). but as will consistently happen, they underestimated her. i’m not sure any of these men could have predicted what her & mulder would come to mean to each other. i don't think they could grasp her honesty or goodness, her ethics & morals, her complex beliefs & sense of justice. they live in a world where everyone is selfish & cruel, where they do what is “necessary” or what they're ordered to, where people will always choose themselves above others, but that is not scully. and it isn’t mulder.

(aside that maybe isn’t necessarily relevant but the thought always pops into my mind: it’s very interesting to me that they have this meeting with her and just send her down to mulder’s office. there’s no meeting with mulder, scully and their superiors together. all of it strikes me as a punishment for mulder, and a test for scully. i really think there’s something of interest to them in scully’s background. scientist, medical doctor, navy captain’s daughter, semi practicing/lapsed catholic. in theory, she could have been a perfect fit for the syndicate. but i really think most of them lack an understanding of people, of humanity. they deal in the worst of humanity – and mulder & scully are the best of humanity.)

initially when i started this (my little notebook) i was going to focus on just csm. but lately, the mytharc has gripped me. i don’t typically rewatch those episodes, unless i’m watching the entire series or a season in full. or a specific arc (like the cancer arc of course). but i’ve been slowly watching the mytharc episodes and they all connect, intricately, weaving a complicated web of truths & untruths & half truths. it’s so detailed and convoluted and maybe confusing. and so i wanted to go piece by piece. as i’ve said before, i don’t think everything lines up perfectly, and it isn’t supposed to. this is a global conspiracy, we learn things as mulder & scully do. they are largely on the outside of it, trying to break in to expose the truth & hopefully dismantle it. they are continuously misled, misdirected, stonewalled. there are many different projects with experimental science developing different defenses/giruses/andmtidotes, with different goals. evidence destroyed or stolen, tampered with. they are manipulated and used and discarded and returned and nearly killed as the syndicate sees fit at the current time. but so many things connect back to the pilot. the writers may not have had a show bible, but they most certainly looked back to pick up different threads and carry them through.

after scully’s meeting, we follow her down into mulder’s basement office. scully knocks on the door, opens it when he responds and takes in the whole atmosphere. he jumps right into it, letting scully know he’s aware of what her assignment is, that he looked into her background, and starting in on the case. in mulder’s way, he starts testing scully too, and i think she passes every single one. even if she’s saying things he doesn’t really want to hear. at the least, she takes him seriously (enough) to give rebuttals and show she cares. i’m not sure mulder has ever distrusted a single soul, but at least scully earns it.

the few things we learn about the case, what makes it an x file: the marks on the girl’s back, the compound in the surrounding tissue, no clear cause of death. and the fact that there’s a string of these killings in bellefleur, oregon with similarities to other cases in shamrock, texas and sturgis, south dakota.

mulder poses two questions, the first:

maybe what you can explain to me is why it’s bureau policy to label these cases “unexplained phenomenon” and ignore them.

scully has no answer, but i do think this starts her mind rolling. right here she’s put on the path of radicalization, in her scully way. the second:

when convention and science offer us no answer, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?

and i think this moment sets up their roles. scully responds with “the girl obviously died of something. if it was natural causes, it’s plausible that there was something missed in the post-mortem. if she was murdered, it’s plausible there was a sloppy investigation. what i find fantastic is any notion that there are answers beyond the realm of science. the answers are there. you just have to know where to look.” mulder, the believer, turning to the fantastic. scully, the skeptic, turning to science. this is my favorite thing about them, it builds the way they communicate and is a huge part of building trust between them. it’s also a major part in how they get to know each other. it’s always been one of my favorite things about them. it’s built on listening, not just pushing their beliefs or agenda. they always incorporate what the other says – as in, scully tends to shape the science & investigation around his theories. it gives her a place to start and build from. and scully’s science refines mulder’s theories and gets them closer to the truth.

it very quickly becomes one of the ways they depend on each other, setting up expectations they don’t yet understand the implications of and will take them years to rewrite (still built on the trust blooming from this first scene).

as soon as they’re in oregon, even still on the plane, the weirdness starts. unexpected turbulence, radio interference, inhuman like corpse unburied, the metal implant in the nasal cavity. mulder isn’t surprised by the turbulence or radio static, he marks the spot with an x. scully is just confused and baffled by his behavior (i love it). during the autopsy, they’re a little combative. my favorite moment is when mulder tells her:

i’m not crazy, scully. i have the same doubts you do.

this is an important moment for scully. he cares what she thinks, and she does take him seriously. i think it’s easy to think that she doesn’t, she does dismiss his ideas initially. but she’s still following him, peppering him with questions. they talk it through every time, and that’s special. it only gets stronger.

when mulder lifts peggy o’dell’s shirt to find the marks on her back, scully is so angry (she’s afraid) and she storms out of the building – mulder immediately follows her. she doesn’t believe these are alien abductions, she doesn’t know yet what the marks are, what the experience is. she has questions and she wants answers, she wants the truth. scully doesn’t believe his theory of alien abductions, and he asks her “do you have a better explanation?” and this is the first time he directly asks what she thinks. to me, this is the scene that really determines their dynamic. what mulder takes from this conversation is scully really does want the truth, she cares. and that’s important. and scully asks: “what were they doing in the forest?” cut to mulder and scully in the forest, scully pocketing dirt, detective miles coming upon them. (he listened to her, and the next step in their investigation becomes trying to answer that question!)

in the car, she shows mulder the dirt. he asks if it’s a campfire (it does look a lot like ash). but scully tells him it was all over the ground. right after, the car loses power and they lose nine minutes. scully doesn’t witness the time change but mulder is ecstatic.

this all leads to the motel room scene. scully has marks on her back and she can’t see them and the marks on peggy o’dell scared her. you could see it in her face, even through her anger & annoyance with mulder. the fact that she goes running to mulder, clearly afraid and vulnerable…it showed something else to mulder. this moment lets him see beyond ‘scully’s a spy” and her disbelief/skepticism. mulder cares about people, and he cares about scully despite himself. so when she turns into his chest, he puts his arm on her shoulder. shocked at her vulnerability, the way she seeks comfort from him. mulder lets her stay in his room, gives her a blanket to curl up on his bed as he sits below her and tells her about samantha.

usually this scene is discussed because of the intimacy between mulder & scully, but we learn a lot about the mytharc here too. samantha “disappeared from her bed one night” and there was no evidence, no contact, and no one would talk about it. he went to oxford, got recruited by the bureau. (while they’re having this conversation, someone is lurking outside the motel room.) he finds the x files and he was allowed to indulge because of his success and connections. mulder tells scully:

i’m telling you this, scully, because you need to know, because of what you’ve seen. in my research, i’ve worked very closely with a man named dr. heitz werber and he’s taken me through deep regression hypnosis. i’ve been able to go into my own repressed memories to the night my sister disappeared. i can recall a bright light outside and a presence in the room. i was paralyzed, unable to respond to my sister’s calls for help…listen to me, scully, this thing exists…the government knows about it, and i gotta know what they’re protecting. nothing else matters to me, and this is as close as i’ve ever gotten to it.

he covers sam’s abduction, how he found the x files, why he’s allowed to work on them, and the first inkling (for the audience) of a government conspiracy.

this is when mulder gets the call about peggy o’dell. (scully’s jump at the phone ringing is striking. she was so focused on mulder and what he was telling her, everything else faded away.) they go to the scene and mulder is shocked to hear peggy was running – “on foot?” just really cracks me up. as he’s focused on talking to the man driving, scully is taking a look at peggy’s body and makes note of the time on her watch, which is stopped. but just then, mulder learns ray soames’ corpse is missing. when they get back to the motel, it’s on fire with scully’s laptop, pictures and evidence inside.

theresa nemman approaches them in the chaos, they take her to a diner to hear what she has to say. she talks about finding herself in the woods, not knowing how she got there. she tells them she has the marks on her back too. she’s afraid she’s going to die too. her nose starts to bleed, like peggy’s did earlier, and as scully jumps up to grab napkins for her, theresa’s father, dr. nemman shows up with detective miles to take her home. this is when they realize det. miles’ is billy’s father.

mulder & scully have a brief conversation, brimming with their frustrations of losing their files & evidence, being denied access to a girl who needs help and wanted to talk, realizing how much these men are concealing. scully’s putting together dr. nemman’s & det. miles’ involvement. “they know” vs “they know something” – leading to mulder’s ultimate question (at this moment lol) of what’s in the other graves. when they go to check, the graves have already been dug up. the only other bodies already taken. at the graves, mulder puts together that billy miles is responsible. scully starts to follow his thoughts. he talks about time being stopped, he pauses “you think i’m crazy” and scully…she’s silent for a moment before telling him about peggy o’dell’s watch. another huge moment to me. she doesn’t believe it’s alien abduction, but she starts to understand the way mulder’s mind works, the connections he makes and the subsequent leaps. she doesn't keep this information from him despite it feeding a theory she doesn't agree with.

they head over to see billy miles. mulder talks to the nurse and scully starts to examine billy, finding his feet dirty, covered in the same dirt she found in the forest. a boy, who has been in a coma for years, completely bedridden and seemingly unaware of what’s happening around him. and scully is ready to run with this. he was out in the woods!!! and another important moment, mulder grounds her. reminds her of what she needs to do, her reports, procedure. and i think this is the moment that cements their roles – but shows they can also switch as need arises. mulder didn't understand how much he needed the science & evidence until he had someone ready to find it. so they go back out to the woods to get another sample of the dirt. that’s when they hear theresa scream and they go running. det. miles hits scully over the head and goes running after mulder, holding him at gunpoint as theresa continues to scream. and i love this moment too, because mulder appeals to this man’s better nature, urging him not to let billy kill another person. mulder stops him from shooting his son too. we see the marks on billy’s back, as a white light starts to overtake the scene with leaves blowing like a cyclone around billy & theresa. when the light finally fades, billy is conscious again, theresa is safe and the marks are gone from billy’s back. instantaneously.

the ending scenes are billy under hypnotic regression with dr. werber. mulder in the room with them. scully, blevins, the other man from scully’s meeting, and csm observing. billy talks about the aliens, the tests, the implant. the tests didn’t work, and the aliens were destroying the evidence. killing the abductees…mulder and scully make eye contact through the glass. cut to scully reporting to blevins. she can’t substantiate anything, they have no evidence, how do you prosecute?? this is what blevins & company care about. but scully held onto one piece of evidence: the implant, made of a metal that could not be identified, the implant billy miles claimed was controlling him. she leaves it with blevins, and when she exits, she watches csm enter blevins’ office. she has no idea who this man is, but he has been present at crucial moments and she took notice. she doesn’t understand yet but she won’t forget him.

in the end, mulder calls scully late at night to tell her the case file on billy miles has disappeared. csm is walking into the pentagon storage facility, filing away the metal implant with others just like it.

the pilot really lays a lot of groundwork. the implants, the marks/scars. the abduction experience, time loss, electronic interference, hypnotic regression. deformed corpses. government connections. disappearing evidence, constant interference. samantha’s abduction.

episode connections (before i watch future episodes):

conduit: small detail, but the ash-like dirt reminds me of the sand & glass at lake okobogee.

duane barry: he has an implant in his nasal cavity, much like the one they find. later on, in the anasazi trilogy, we learn scully has a chip in her neck which later connects her to other female abductees and carries through to cassandra in patient x/the red and the black.

cancer arc: billy miles indicates the exact place scully gets cancer.

reduxes: blevins is exposed as the mole. for the first part of the first season, scully reports to him until the x files is reassigned to skinner’s jurisdiction. his involvement isn’t fully explored, but he doesn’t completely disappear.

deadalive: ray soames’ transformation – possibly a failed attempt of what happens to billy miles & others, and nearly happens to mulder. also similar to the bodies mulder finds in anasazi.

csm: he’s there for scully’s meeting with blevins, he is there at the end for billy miles’ hypnotic regression. he is the most prominent figure in the conspiracy, as far as what we see, with a direct hand in scully’s & mulder’s experiences.

samantha’s abduction: there are two different versions of her abduction. truthfully, i think they just changed the story to work better for them. BUT (as i’ve mentioned before) i think it fits well into the mytharc later on – within the framework of the show, i think it’s possible samantha was abducted twice. conduit, paper hearts, demons, and another episode.

myth x:

one thing i really do like about this book is that it breaks down all the players. each group of aliens are given a clear name (which appear in the show but was never completely clear to me until this time around). michelle bush purports that the aliens abducting the oregon teens are walk-ins, representing the divine. they’re supposedly good but don’t know how to go about their goals. in some ways, this rings true. it’s the walk-ins that “save” samantha from more suffering. it’s like the walk-ins cassandra spender believes are trying to help them. bush describes their goal as “reintegration of both halves of the whole (alien and human) using natural means; this results in a single sentience allowing a return to physical and spiritual harmony.” which on paper, doesn’t sound bad. but their methods are as harmful as any of the others (alien and human alike).

[bronx-bomber87]

Good evening fandom! Welcome to my inaugural mini review post. Holy hell I can’t believe we’re finally here. These probably won’t be as detailed as normal like I mentioned. Mini review is the goal. It’ll be initial thoughts and feelings. Which will be fun cause all the other seasons other than S5 I had ton of time to reflect on moments. These thoughts for S6 could change when I rewatch the season for review purposes this summer. The exciting thing is having those first reactions. That's what these will be.

So you're getting hot off the presses thoughts haha I just watched it couple hours ago. These are thoughts I had while it was happening. With some editing to make it readable ha Want my reactions be as authentic as possible with these. Why I avoid spoilers tbh. Be interested in seeing what everyone else’s are as well. The gif library was an absolute turd so I didn't get to use all the gifs that were made yet. So I made some. Anyways this so friggin exciting to delve into so let’s get started.

6x01 Strike Back

Tim got scruffier from the finale to now-and I’m here for it. Mm. Plus he's in Metro gear. Phew Lord. Something about scruffy Tim gets me going. Adore them riding together automatically after their battle. I truly love it. The little things I continually love with them. Also LOVING the Metro call sign. Yum If this going to be his call sign all season I am about it.

Oh my lord why is her sitting at his desk so squee worthy to me? It’s getting me all in my feels. I love that Lucy can just use his office as her own. So cute using it to steal it for some study time. I love this so very much. Then her asking if they can ride together so he can quiz her? Tim doesn’t hesitate for a moment before saying yes.

Still amazes me we’re in the place with them. The Tim of old would’ve groaned and moaned about such a task. He jumps right on it for her. Ready to help her out. Even though he’s not sure how much it’s gonna do. Clearly very aware Primm is out to get her. That is common knowledge now.

Lucy is right when she says it sucks. That she has to battle this and face possible wild cards.. It isn’t fair when she's earned her spot more than most. Fought and clawed for everything she's done in this department. Definitely more than Nolan... Hey wouldn't be a review if I didn't pot shot Nolan would it? lol I love Tim finding a solution for them. Saying they can take out do the box calls all day. Widen her knowledge a bit on it. Sharpen her skills with odd calls.

I love her grateful smile when she says 'Thank you.' Loves this man. Damnit they’re so cute their banter coming out of his office is on point. Tim saying she learns best when she’s pissed off. I mean if that isn’t her rookie experience with him in a sentence. Lucy saying this feels like she is giving him permission to be an ass. Heh it kinda is no matter what Tim says.

You know he kinda loves being able to make her his boot again in some form. He is going to enjoy himself with this. There is no doubt about it. That's why he's doing that smile of his. Lucy calling him out knowing this man so well. Pointing her finger and all. God I love these idiots so much. Tim trying to tell her just his smile. Uh huh sure it is Tim.... Lucy following after him with a smile of her own. These dopes I've missed them so damn much.

I’m very much loving Tim has not really shaved in 6 weeks ha. The scruffy remains and I’m excited about it. Lucy is starting to question asking Tim to help her. We all know she learns best from that man sitting next to her though. I also always enjoy when she gets to drive. Another micro shift that has changed that I love so much. Her heart eyes when he says Angela’s cop brain is just booting up LOL Loves this goober of man.

Lucy absolutely losing it and going on a rant of epic proportions had me rolling. LOL Massive emotional downward spiral happening here. I’m dying as I watch Tim take it in. God Eric the master of expressions crushing it again. This was a huge one for her holy crap. Nuclear really. Well done Melissa getting all that in with one breath basically. By the time she’s done I’m cackling at Tim’s expression. LMAO Oh my god these two. God I’ve missed them so much it pained me.

Lucy knowing Tim's reply without even looking at him. Just epic married status at this point. Doesn’t even have to look at him or for Tim to say anything. It’s already there because of that crazy good connection they have. How deeply they know one another. It’s so good. Tim being the smart man he is says nothing. Lucy knowing he’s thinking it haha

Lucy coming to conclusion she will do crazy wild card during the day and the manual at night. She will sleep when it's over LOL Tim shaking his head. Knowing there is nothing he can say right now that'll make this better. Or to derail her crazy train of thought. This is like S1/S2 them with the added benefit of them being together now. It’s glorious.

Getting serious Plain Clothes Day vibes from this episode as well. Except this time Lucy light years away from who she was then. Confidently reciting what she’s going to do Tim nodding along. Tim wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t rock her boat a little though. Lucy getting in her head about the crime scene now. Tim isn’t wrong she did tick all the obvious boxes. That the point of today is looking for wild cards. That’s what he wants her to engage that brilliant brain of her's in. It's why he's here.

To zero in on the 'Out of the box thinking'. Poor Lucy spirals out not being able to decide if she wants his help or not. I ADORE Tim telling her it’s ok to not know the answer. Not shaming her in the least just needing her to make a call. God how far we’ve come. Tim pushes her because he knows that is when she learns best. Trying to add a little urgency to her decision making. Unfortunately it backfires. I kinda loved them calling each other by their ranks in this heated exchange.

Lucy is so flustered it’s giving me PCD vibe once again in the best way. The sprinklers turn on and Lucy panics. There’s the wild card….We watch as a bullet leaves this man’s body and enters the storm drain never to be seen again. Lucy being so very disappointed in herself. It’s reminiscent of the disappointment she showed in s1 but only now she's far more experienced. So it hurts much more now….Oh Lucy my heart. You poor thing. Couldn’t have gone more wrong if she tried.

I can’t believe they played clown music upon her entrance.... Beyond cruel but that's cops. Always taking shots when people mess up spectacularly. Tim trying not laugh.... Babe she is spiraling right now maybe don’t lol Poor thing I would be mortified too. I love how both Tim and Lucy smile when they see Wes and the wee one. My heart. She wants Wes's opinion and he just crushes her with logic. Ugh She needs a hug. Bad day for our girl.

Lucy continues to break my heart as they sit in front of the crime scene. She is on the verge of tears. Verge of a breakdown it feels like as well. Killing me softly. Saying she should skip the detectives exam. My girl. Tim doesn't want her to give up. I will say this fight I feel like I would be Tim. Trying to be so supportive it’s come off as agreeing with her she can’t do it. When really he was just trying to be supportive of whatever she wants.

Can't win for losing right now Timothy. She is in a bad way right now. Lucy has some weight to her argument though. if I was her in this moment I would feel the same way. If I’m in a bad headspace I need reassurances. So I can relate to both of them in this fight. It’s not a fun time for either of them. Tim is still learning that emotional depth he needs to have with her in these moments.

Being supportive has worked before so he's not sure why it's backfiring right now. They’re solid but always room to grow beauty of them. Lucy spots someone pull up to crime scene crying. She has them peel out with Tim not really understanding why. Lucy catching her digging through her trash. She ends up getting a confession. Phew Well done Luce.

Oooh this final scene. Oh my damn lord. This is some PRIMO productive angst holy hell. Eric and Melissa came out swinging with it. I knew they were going to have one more scene about it. I just didn't think it would be this explosive. I adore Tim picking up on how short she is with him. Grabbing her by the arm and confronting her. Growth continuous growth for them both continues to show. Love it. Look at Tim being the one to come at this. I’m so proud of him.

Throwing her words from 5x21 somewhat back at her. Saying this isn’t going to work if she isn’t honest with him. Then Lucy really lays into him. Now do I think he purposely undermined her? No I don’t. Not ever. That’s not in his DNA to do that to someone he loves. I was deeply hurt for him when she suggested this. You can see how hurt he is when she says as such. He’s getting emotional and it makes me as well. I just wanna hug him.

Tim as we know is a DEEPLY loyal person. Also one of my main relations to him as a character. To purposely hurt someone they love isn’t fathomable to a loyal person. It's unthinkable. You have to hurt them first. To undermine Lucy would be to hurt her so he would never. To be accused of such by your favorite person? That cut's so insanely deep for him. I haven’t seen him this hurt since the 'Tim Test' line from her in 4x08. I’m legit wounded for him. He is so upset she could think that of him.

Now Lucy might be onto something with the subconscious part. He could’ve done it not realizing what he was doing. Because love isn’t rational. Man is hardwired to protect her and want to keep her safe. So I could see this especially with her psych background. I think this is solid guess at what happened. Now was this the right time to lash out at him for Isabel stuff? I don’t know…

Felt like a low blow when he was already down for the count. She is throwing him daggers with her eyes most of this conversation. Feels like its more than just the UC right now but that's just my guess at this point. Let's not forget she was having UC doubts towards the end of last season.

Now do they need to have these fights and conversations? HELL YES. My god this subject needs to be discussed. Especially with how 5x20-5x21 were. Want to reiterate this is my first impression. I was literally writing this as I experienced their fight for first time. When I rewatch it this summer this could change. My POV could shift. But right now I see a man who only thought he had her back and was raked across the coals in this moment.

So for me right now in this moment I feel like Lucy had pent up frustrations and took it out on Tim. The protective side of me for him isn’t pleased with that tbh. Doesn't mean I love Lucy any less. I adore her so much. You all know that. But my gut leaned towards Tim in this fight. That may be bias idk but it’s how I felt when it was said and done. Tim was very very defensive when she brought up Isabel. Which hasn't happened in awhile. But his emotions were heightened and he was on the defensive before they'd reach the topic of her.

Lucy basically kicked him while he was down and he felt it. I'm not discounting her feelings at all. She is allowed to feel overwhelmed. Has every right to be. She is STRESSED and it is coming out in all kinds of ways. Ways that aren't like her. I think she stewed on this thought the ENTIRE shift and it came out in the worst way. Which also isn't like her. What she did had him defaulting back to old school Tim. Cutting off the conversation before more emotions were to be had or he said something he would regret.

Basically cut the fight off at the knees and walked away. Lucy’s face says it all when he walks away. She wasn’t expecting that. Shocked he just left her like that. Oh Lucy, you wounded him more than once and he retreated HARD. Leaving her standing there wondering what the hell just happened? God this is so good though everyone. This is the type of angst I'm all for. What a way to start the season off hot damn. Hurts so good angst to get us going. I could not be more excited for where we go this season. Feel free to comment on this. Love to chat with you all about this. All uncharted territory for us all. We're in for quite the ride.

~~~

Side notes-non Chenford

Who are these friggin people? They’re insanely ruthless. Like Rosalind level ruthless in how they just dispose of people. Sending two their team out as a distraction to be blown up. Jesus. Then sniping their own guy. They’re smart but cold af. Then killing who I thought was the boss at the end. Shit. Consider me intrigued.

I liked the 6 weeks later. Makes sense need to do a time jump.

Celina being more afraid of Tim than Harper. LOL little does she know they’re basically the same person haha

Poor Aaron wants to be back in the game and can’t be. I agree with Grey he’s not ready even if he thinks he is.

God I love Nyla Harper. Took that mofo out like the complete bad ass she is. Came with repercussions which made me sad for her.

Angela being more excited to see burritos than her husband lmao I love this woman.

Feeling little potential flirty action for Aaron and his therapist.

[jamiewintons]

Vinsmoke Sanji NSFW Alphabet

18+ ONLY! F!Reader. I have only seen the live action so this is purely OPLA!Sanji. The Fickelgruber alphabet is nearly done, but I just wanted to do something for Sanji since I rewatched OPLA again the other day! Reblogs and comments are always appreciated <3

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Sanji wants to keep close to you after sex, holding you in his arms and pressing kisses wherever he can reach, whispering in your ear about how wonderful you were.

B = Body part (favorite body part of their partner’s)

He loves your hands, and he’ll often hold them while you’re having sex or he’s going down on you. Also, he’s a big fan of your hips and thighs, and will take any opportunity to squeeze or caress them.

C = Collar (do they mark you as theirs in some way?)

Sanji likes to give you hickeys to prove that you’re his, but if you don’t want others to see them, that’s fine with him - he’ll just leave them in places that are easily covered, and then they’ll be just for the two of you to look at.

D = Dominant (do they prefer to dominate, or be dominated? are they a top or a bottom?)

He’s more dominant usually, but he has no problem with allowing you to take control if that’s what you want. As long as he’s making you feel good, he’s happy.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Sanji’s decently experienced, though not quite as much as his demeanour would have you believe. He certainly knows what he’s doing, however, and is rather proud of how good he is at pleasing you.

F = Fuck (do they prefer to fuck or make love?)

Make love, though that doesn’t mean that he’s soft and gentle the entire time. You’re never left wondering how much he cares about you, because he’ll show it with his actions and his words.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Sanji definitely laughs and smiles a lot when you’re having sex, and often cracks jokes especially when you do something cute.

H = Hot (what turns them on, gets them going)

You honestly turn Sanji on by simply existing as your beautiful self, but you can always get him going by licking/sucking on his fingers. It never fails to drive him absolutely insane.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Sanji is so romantic, he’ll do anything and everything to make it special every single time. I’m talking roses, champagne, chocolate-covered strawberries, and anything else you can think of. Plus, he practically worships your body and treats you like a goddess.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Sanji loves to help you get yourself off every once in a while. His chest pressed up against your back while he holds your thighs open, your hand desperately rubbing at your clit while he talks you through it…

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

He’s very much into dirty talk, and foodplay seems pretty obvious. He loves to praise you a lot too, and I think he’d enjoy some roleplay as well.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

At Baratie, he likes the occasional sneaky rendezvous in the pantry - having you pinned up against the door with your legs wrapped around his waist, him having to kiss you throughout to keep you from moaning too loud…

On the Going Merry, you have very few opportunities for privacy, so he likes to take any possible chance to have fun with you while he can. I imagine that you’d end up having sex in some pretty weird places.

M = Mood (what’s the foreplay like? how do you get them in the mood?)

Sanji loves foreplay, and if you have the time to spare, it’ll sometimes go on for hours. He’ll want to kiss and touch every single inch of your body, especially any areas you happen to be self-conscious about. And once he gets to your legs, he can get very distracted just feeling them up.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He’s not into degradation (beyond a bit of light teasing) or anything that will hurt you.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Sanji is the king of eating pussy - he’s incredible at it and he knows it, and he thoroughly enjoys doing so. He’d never turn you down if you wanted to return the favour, but as much as he enjoys receiving he far prefers giving.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

He almost always starts off as slow and sensual, but will often change pace in the middle of it. If you ask for a change of pace, he’ll make sure to give you what you need.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Though Sanji usually prefers to take his time, he does like to indulge in the occasional quickie. He finds it incredibly exciting and sexy, especially when you’re doing it somewhere you shouldn’t.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

He’s certainly game to experiment and take risks, but only after the two of you have had a thorough conversation about your boundaries and needs. Sanji would never want to do anything without your express permission.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Sanji’s stamina is relatively good, and he can last quite a long time, especially when he spends a long time on foreplay. Unless it’s a quickie, he’ll want to make sure you come at least once before he gets inside of you, so you’ll definitely be satisfied even if he doesn’t last that long.

T = Tryst (are they into casual sex or one night stands?)

Sanjj may be a massive flirt, but I think that sex is something that he takes very seriously and he only does with someone he truly cares about.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He’s a massive tease, both during sex and in your regular life. When you’re in bed together, he’ll often spend an exorbitant amount of time just kissing down your torso or up your legs before even getting close to where you need him. Outside of the bedroom, he loves to whisper dirty things in your ear and then grin widely, especially when he has to go somewhere - because he knows that you’re going to be thinking about him until he gets back.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Sanji’s pretty unashamed of moaning loudly, and he also talks a lot during sex. He’s always whispering in your ear about what a good girl you are, how well you’re taking him, etc.

W = Wait (how long do they wait before having sex with their partner for the first time?)

Sanji will wait as long as he needs for you to be ready. He’d never dream of pressuring you into something that you’re not ready for, and he most certainly won’t judge you. Having a chance to be with you intimately is an honour for him, and if it’s one that he has to wait for then he will do so gladly.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

We already know that Sanji is ripped, and he’s packing for sure. This isn’t entirely relevant to the question, but I also imagine that he’s very warm, like if you’re cold he’s the perfect hot water bottle.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Pretty high. If you ask him if he wants to have sex at any given moment, there a 99% chance that he’ll say yes.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Sanji doesn’t fall asleep that quickly - he loves to spend a while simply holding you and softly whispering before helping you clean up.

[veryinactiveartist]

Moodboard & Fic pitch(?)

Mira Phillips & Jonathan Levy × F!Reader

Scenes from a marriage

Moodboard made by me

Series Synopsis (no current fic title)

No longer Married, Jonathan and Mira's tedious yet loving affair is still going strong years after their divorce, but Mira can't help but suggest something more for their relationship thanks to a dream then later a chance encounter with a young woman, whom she finds out is in a housing and financial crisis.

While Jonathan finds the idea exciting, he becomes reluctant when Mira's desired women turns out to be one of his students. It doesn't help when Mira has taken the initiative to house his student and employ her as a full time nanny for their daughter.

Now thanks to the force proximity, mira insists Jonathan gets to know Ava's new nanny. Lucky for her, it doesn't take long for Jonathan to grow smitten but unfortunately for the young sweetheart, she isn't aware of Mira's plans and only assumes the best out of people she shouldn't.

Warnings & Tags: NSFW, Smut, mentions of cheating (from Jonathan), mutual masturbation, threesome, M × F × F, M × F, F × F. Mild dubcon (?), alcohol consumption (mainly wine), power imbalance, abuse of power, teacher student relationship, boss employee relationship, Bisexual reader, homeless reader, Mira and Jonathan share reader, sexuality inexperienced reader, age gap relationship, reader in her early 20's, hidden nanny camera, voyeurism, reader being watched (without consent), false sense of comfort, no happy endings for reader(mostly).

Author rambles & Notes

Hey guys! Hope y'all don't mind my brain dumps, I think going forward I might post fic ideas to keep track of them when they're not priority. As of now I'm working a warehouse job and most of my shifts will be 12 hours so that doesn't give me much time till the end of November, so for now I'll be posting miscellaneous one shots for media I mainly consume. Primary Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles. Any long winded series I plan for TLOU and SFAM wont come around till mid to late 2025. As of now I plan on posting a Javi x reader fic Sunday evening/Monday afternoon and I'll see what happens from there.

While the show was quite an experience and frankly it's something I would only watch once and never again do to the emotions cause as I'm a child of divorce. While I was happy when my parents separated, Jonathan and Mira's relationship felt close to home and reminded me of my folks and was quite overwhelming. To clarify the characters don't remind me of my parents simply their relationship during the divorce and how quickly they'd turn on each other. It's something you never get to see shown in media and I do appreciate that but watching the show once was enough for me.

Though thanks to this fic idea I'm down to rewatch for research purposes when I start writing at some point. I can't say when I got the idea, it was a gradual process of ideas and what else would these people be capable of as they get to the point of character De-Evolution. So what if we got to see what happens in those years we don't see and leads to that ending point in the show? Where they don't care about being good people anymore.

Also why not try out some smutty fun before the disaster? Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac are hot in character so there's some mild self indulgence in here.🤭Anyway I think I might post fic pitches for any series ideas going forward as they won't be on the forefront of my mind. I know I don't have followers other than 2 (I love you guys) but If more people come around in the future than I hope this will raise any interest. That's it for now. ❤️

[blinkysrewatchparty]

Welcome to Blinky's Rewatch Party!

Hello Nighthawks, Sniggles, and Latte Hattes! You've found the official tumblr page for Blinky's Rewatch Party--where we organize semi-regular watch parties of Nightmare Time 2 episodes as part of our campaign to both share our love of NMT and hopefully get our grubby little hands on Nightmare Time 3!

Current Rewatch Party Planning Polls: None Currently Active!

FAQ with all the basic info under the cut!

WHEN ARE THE REWATCH PARTIES?

The Rewatch Parties are every other Saturday, at two different times, so that as many people as possible can participate directly! The schedule for the current round of Rewatch Parties is:

HOW CAN I PARTICIPATE?

Here on Tumblr, we will be using the tag "Blinky's Rewatch Party." You can use the tag to liveblog your rewatch, or wait until the story is over to post any and all thoughts at once. If you can't make either of the chosen times, that's okay! The tag's not going anywhere; simply watch and post your thoughts whenever you can. And remember to check out the tag to see what other people are saying!

If the Tumblr tagging system isn't your ideal communal watching experience, that's cool too. We're set up on several other social media platforms that you are welcome to check out!

Also you can follow this blog! It's not super necessary, but it will make keeping up with any updates easier. Also, likes and ESPECIALLY reblogs of any and all posts are greatly appreciated--I don't really care about notes for notes' sake, but since the whole point is to keep people watching Nightmare Time, I'd love for the parties to reach as many people as possible!

WHAT OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS? HOW DO I FIND YOU THERE?

We'll be hosting the watch parties here on Tumblr, but also on Discord, YouTube, and Twitter.

Our discord is currently invite only! DM this account if you're interested in joining and we'll see what we can do. The server is super chill and fun and there's a surprising amount of discussion and theorizing about Chumby.

We don't have a specific YouTube page (yet!)--we'll simply be hosting the watch parties in the comments sections of the Nightmare Time episodes themselves. This will have the added bonus of really showing increased interest in NMT, and getting us one step closer to our ultimate goal: MORE HATCHETFIELD!

The link to our twitter is here: https://twitter.com/BlinkysParty. We will be using the hashtag #BlinkysRewatchParty.

For more information on participating in the Rewatch Parties on various social medias, go here.

WHO RUNS THE WATCH PARTIES?

That would be me! Hello! My name is Brooke (she/her), and you may know me on here as @man-down-in-hatchet-town. I want these watch parties to be as positive an experience as possible, so please feel free to reach out to me on this page OR man-down with any thoughts, questions, or concerns. Unlike Hidgens, I promise I won't show you my résumé!

Our discord is also largely managed by the amazing @abarryswiftexit! They are super cool and friendly and the real hero of this whole endeavor.

YOUR ART IS SO COOL! WHO MADE IT?

I'm so glad you asked! Our awesome text graphics and unbelievable avatar are all by my wonderful fandom best buddy @its-short-for-jackalope. Seriously, guys, their art is so good and interesting, so be sure to check it all out and give his page a follow!

Thanks, Jack! 💜

AND THE BIG ONE: WHAT HAPPENED IN 2005 TO MAKE THE HATCHETFIELD TIMELINE SPLIT?

I actually don't know this one (though I have lots of thoughts and ideas, help)! But I do know that rewatching Nightmare Time will help us get the chance to find out. So let's get our Bliklotep on and do this thing!

[crookedfandomquill]

Alright, folks, I rewatched the Bo’re Life arc this week, and I have thoughts and a newfound appreciation for it (what? Me? Liking the Bo’re arc?It’s more likely than you’d think). As my mom used to say at the start of road trips or our semi-annual family viewing of The Sound of Music: buckle up, chitlins. 

Okay, first off: this arc is a lot easier and more interesting to watch the second time around. I suspect that’s because I’m not chomping at the bit to just get back to Tantai Jin and Susu in the real world, since I already know what happens. This time, I can settle in and appreciate Bo’re Life without the urgency of “when is the actual story going to come back, fuck you writers”. It’s also very fun for me to draw parallels and find foreshadowing I didn’t notice before. And, having done so, I present the following thesis: the Bo’re Life arc strengthened the overall story both as a tragedy, and as a “happy” ending.

Addendum: I have a lot of thoughts about what constitutes a happy ending, and my thoughts on TTEOTM in this regard are complicated. Essentially, I would argue that the ending, while certainly sad, isn’t a “tragedy” in the narrative sense. While the individual happiness of the characters takes a real blow in the end, they do accomplish their ultimate goal. It’s a pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless, and it’s implied that they will get a much happier ending as individuals sometime in the future. That doesn’t mean it was as satisfying as it could have been (it seems clear that TTJ will come back but I'm pissed we didn't get to see it), and I know a lot of viewers will totally disagree with my opinion. But I digress! Let’s get into Bo’re Life.

Bo’re Life threw a LOT of information at both protagonists, and the roles they played in it didn’t correspond neatly with their own destinies, which kind of baffled me the first time around. Ming Ye represented both what Tantai Jin could aspire to be, and the mistakes Susu needed to avoid in neutralizing him. Sang Jiu represented both Susu’s traumas and doomed loveline, and Tantai Jin’s fate if Susu failed as Ming Ye had.

The parallels between Bo’re life and real life perfectly underline the tragedy of the story: both protagonists are shown beforehand the choices they must not make, but because of who they are, they make them anyway.

Susu was an idealistic and traumatized woman with a mission, so she was always going to fail like Ming Ye did by putting the greater good ahead of love and communication. Tantai Jin was a disempowered and naive man falling in love for the first time, so he was always going to be just like Sang Jiu and give his fragile heart too fully, then shatter under the weight of betrayal. Bo’re Life both foretold the tragedy, and failed to prevent it. 

It could be argued that Tantai Jin and Susu played the wrong roles in Bo’re Life to avoid tragedy in the Jing arc, but they played the right roles to avoid it in the cultivator arc. In the mortal world, Susu needed Ming Ye’s experience of losing everything because he neglected his heart. And Tantai Jin needed Sang Jiu’s experience of subsuming herself in another person so recklessly that she lost her soul to it. Neither of them got that, and so they repeated the tragedy of 10,000 years ago: Susu by loving and then betraying Tantai Jin, and Tantai Jin by allowing his obsessive love to run unchecked.

But as cultivators, 500 years later, they both ended up relying on the virtues of the roles they played in Bo’re Life. Susu channeled Sang Jiu’s optimistic love and staunch loyalty to repair her relationship with Tantai Jin and become someone he could genuinely rely on. And Tantai Jin needed Ming Ye’s sacrificial love and dedication to the greater good to understand and execute his subversion of destiny.

This time around, they were both where they needed to be, playing the roles fate assigned them… but drastically changing the lines. Susu became a goddess, just like her mother, the only being who could defeat the Devil Lord. And Tantai Jin became the Devil Lord, just as he was born to do. But there was no battle between them, no great war like 10,000 years ago. Just like during their dance at the Jing water festival, Tantai Jin played his part, then surrendered.

And, just as she removed his mask 500 years ago, Susu saw through his act to who he really was, who he’d always been.

They redeemed the very mistakes they made at the end of their story in Jing: Susu, who couldn’t trust him and destroyed him as a result, finally gave him her trust, even as he wore the image of her greatest fears. And Tantai Jin, who was so desperate for her love that he killed her trying to keep her, finally let her go to save the world. 

The Jing arc ended with both of them as the worst versions of themselves: Susu vengeful and traumatized, Tantai Jin obsessive and broken. As she died, Susu threw Tantai Jin’s destiny in his face, calling him the greatest curse and rejecting him in this life and the next. In his last days in Jing, Tantai Jin devolved into despair and denial, unable to cope with the grief and betrayal. They didn't learn the correct lessons in Bo're life, not this time around.

By contrast, the cultivator arc ended with both of them as the best versions of themselves: Susu capable of trust and forgiveness and elevated to godhood, Tantai Jin whole and loved and able to overturn his evil destiny. They learned, not just from their own mistakes, but from those of Ming Ye and Sang Jiu. And it helped them win.

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

I Am All In Rewatch - Episode 2x9

But if you'll notice in that scene when she came up at the end, one of the last scenes in the whole thing..and she's coming up to say, hey, you know, I still dig you and you're part of my life and you know this kind of thing, and she she's saying what she's not saying what she mean. She's saying what she means without having to be direct about it. So, um, and I'm fixing a watch. I had a tiny little watch screw driver. I had it face open. How does Luke know how to fix a watch? Couldn't fix a toaster, right. Exactly what is he doing, like with an intricate piece of jewelry that is very complex? How is he in the watch fixing a damn watch?...So this is a choice that you make, because I remember making this choice. And I'm not saying that this was a genius choice. It was just a choice because they always tell you in acting school the genius is in the choice, right, And that's the mark of you know, an actor or an actress. What choices are you making? Now I I could have been without that watch. I could have been with many other diner like things. A watch is not a diner like item at all. And I said to myself, and here's here's a perfect example of somebody overthinks. Here's a but here's a perfect example somebody overthinking something trying to make a point that nobody got. And I don't know if they got it or not. But Props came to me and says, what do you want to be doing in this scene? Because if you know, it's a big kind of important scene. I said, And I should have said you know, there are any number of things I could have done that would have maybe been a better choice than trying to fix an intricate piece of jewelry that happened to be a watch. Um, I could have been doing nothing. I could have been wiping. I could have been doing the Ketchup bottles. I could have been, you know, with my receipts...I thought to myself, in my actor brain, it's either the best or the worst choice I think I ever made, uh was Luke doesn't know what time it is because his watch is broken. Luke doesn't know what time it is with Lorelai. He doesn't know what time it is in his life with her, and he wants to fix the watch because she if she's running around with young guys and not having deep experiences, then what the hell is wrong with me? I need to fix my watch and be so I can know what time it is. That was the thought process. So I thought of it symbolically and I thought, you know, get me a watch. I'll fix a watch because he doesn't know what time and I didn't tell them in the prop department because Luke didn't know what time it is and they decided to keep it in...It's not bad on a certain level. It's kind of genius right?...Anyway, there you go, that's just a fun...Well, you know, I he became very relaxed, and he's smiling and looking down and being a little bit shy. He was in love again because he fell out of love. I don't know if he fully fell out of love. But it was like, is this girl just ridiculous and like, am I just know what? Like he was confused for that episode. Yeah, I think I think his ego took a hit and he sort of came back. You know, guys, guys can be delicate creatures. -Scott

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Late top 5 ask because I just thought of it: 5 shows that you are always down to rewatch

What a great question that is also such a mean and incredibly evil thing to ask me, wen-kexing-apologist, Chronic Rewatcher lmfao

So fun fact I have seen KinnPorsche 14 times, Our Flag Means Death 11 times, The Old Guard 11 times, Heartstopper 11 times, The Eclipse probably 6 times, Bad Buddy and ITSAY 4 times, etc, etc, etc. And those are counting all the times I have watched a show all the way through. This is not counting the number of times I have actively gone back to watch specific episodes or specific scenes.

See the problem is sometimes I hyperfixate and then I just have to watch it until it is out of my system, sometimes an OST pops in to my head and then I get the urge to watch the show again, and sometimes I agree to edit the transcripts for the backlog of @the-conversation-pod and @bengiyo and @shortpplfedup start talking about a show and I'm like "ahhh good times! I should rewatch that!"

So you can imagine the stress I am under. I'll have to do this by category

Show I Am Constantly Rewatching: Bed Friend

gif by @perths

I know what you may be thinking, and yes you are correct I am in this rewatch for Uea's emotional journey. Uea is my sweet summer child, I love him, I have adopted him in to my family, his happiness is my happiness and I love love love watching him go from a quiet, reserved, unhappy character who keeps getting put in unfair situations through no fault of his own in to this confident, vibrant, happy person who is on his way towards healing. Often times it can be hard for me to pick A Favorite thing; a favorite character, a favorite scene because there are so. many. good. ones. But I am constantly, and I mean constantly rewatching the scene in Episode 8 where Uea tells King about his past. I have lost count of how many times I've seen it, no even kidding I watched that scene before I went to bed just last week. I will always always be down to watch that show because I love seeing how far my boy is able to grow with just a little bit of love, care, and therapy.

Show I Would Rewatch for an Instant Mood Boost: If It's With You

gif by @jimmysea

I have a difficult time understanding/feeling emotion in my body unless I abstract it in to fiction. So when I experience strong emotions it is typically when something super happy or super tragic happens on screen, in a book, during my D&D game, etc. One of my absolute favorite things is when something makes me so happy that my body is no longer able to contain it and I have to do the Neurodivergent Hand Flappies(TM). I think I spent 80% of this show grinning so hard it hurt my face and doing the Neurodivergent Hand Flappies because it just...they made me so happy. Amane is so sweet, and he deserves happiness, and he is getting his happiness and he's just full of sunshine and I already rewatched this show like immediately after it finished. This show joins my This Could Fix Me list.

Show I Would Be Down to Rewatch for Emotional Catharsis: Eternal Yesterday

gif by @duckflyfly

I have not rewatched this show...yet. But I want to, and I know that I will eventually. I can only imagine that it is sadder and more evil the second time around. I cried soooo hard over this show. But it is beautiful, and it is healing, and the pain is a good type of aching pain that comes with coming to terms with grief. With acknowledging grief. With finding where the beauty and peace lie within death and memory, and the way its claws dig in to you and leave you changed forever. Ghosts can be warm, and this show makes me warm despite it all.

Show I Would Be Down to Rewatch for Content: I Told Sunset About You/I Promised You the Moon

gif by @thii-nii

I think I am in @shortpplfedup's camp about how you find new things to think about every time you watch this show. I actually desperately, desperately own I Promised You the Moon several rewatches because I have seen ITSAY four times at this point and IPYTM once. I am currently rewatching IPYTM with a friend who is seeing it for the first time, so that should help. But the first time I watched this show I was unable to function to notice anything, and it wasn't until the third time I'd watched ITSAY when I was rewatching it to prepare for the podcast panel, that I finally was able to form any level of coherent analytical thought to it. So I would rewatch this at any point just to see what more I could pull out of it.

Show I Would Be Down to Rewatch But Haven't Yet: 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us

gif by @dingyuxi

Bold, based on how intense of a reaction I had to this show, I know. But this was one of my favorites, I never wrote anything about it because I was too busy having a literal mental breakdown over it, one that was so bad I almost had to bail on the entire show with like...20 minutes left of it, and I originally nixed my plan to show it to a friend. BUT I have watched the specific scene that did me in (and only that scene) and it went over fine once I knew to expect it so I do want to watch the whole thing again. I have a friend who I have been forcing to watch BL shows I liked and I watch them with her, and this is on the list. However, I am currently running her through I Promised You The Moon and What Did You Eat Yesterday? Season 2 so this show is still quite a ways out from a rewatch because I am not a total monster and want to give her some modicum of emotional break between those two shows and 180 Degree.

Bonus:

Show I Would Never Rewatch: Enchante

I hate this show truly an unreasonable amount. I hate Theo so much oh my fucking god. I refuse to watch this again and I'm mad that I finished it.

ASK ME MY TOP 5 OF ANYTHING BL

[bitterseaproduction]

An Indispensable Silver Lining | The Hobbit Ref Dump

So, I can’t (see: don’t want to) go on with An Indispensable Silver-Lining until I can sit down and rewatch some Desolation of Smaug to pin down some character locations, and I really wanna decide if I’m going full movie-verse or embracing a specific fanedit or book+movie mix and what timeline I want to hold myself to for Thorin—

Can you believe I started this fic thinking ‘I’m not going to get bogged down by canon or details this time. I just wanna write for the fun’? 😂 That went well.

Point is, just because I want to gather some canon facts? It hasn’t stopped me from writing up 1500 words of a chapter 2+ plan, or over 6 THOUSAND WORDS of long-term storyboarding in less than THREE DAYS covering Smaug and the men/dwarves/elves factions and the orcs and some of the bagginshield progression and the ‘act 1’ climax and like three ways ‘act 2’ could break bad, and— well, you can tell it’s a true passion project when I keep stepping away, think of another thing, and scramble back to my phone to jot down a few hundred more words in whatever moments I can steal. And, more pertinent to this post, I can’t stop devouring a ton of resources and inspiration.

So, with that in mind, I thought I’d just share something of those sources! For fun, for later reference for myself as I write, for practical use if you’d like it yourself, or maybe you just want something else to read and these are great fics/lore bits to choose!

Updated May 15th, 2024. Additions marked with a *

The Hobbit Trilogy Fan Edit Sources

A Comprehensive Guide to Fan Edits of the Hobbit Trilogy An older list, but viable for what it covers

Help on choosing Hobbit fan edit? Which is the best? A second reddit list, a bit more modern.

FanEdit.org: Lord of the Rings franchise A comprehensive list of options for The Hobbit + other LotR works

* Specific Fan Edits

I still need to watch all of the edits I've found properly from beginning to end, but after skimming through a number of options, looking for specific wants and do-not-wants in each and reading/watching a few things on how each version was created, I think I have narrowed my interest down to these three fan edits:

Chris Hartwell's Hobbit Trilogy A very comprehensive cut that keeps pretty much all of the movie beats intact, just trims down the trilogy's more clunky spots to create a more polished film experience. (i.e. a reduced Radagast, Alfrid, older Bilbo, some of the action scenes, etc.) Generally prioritizes Bilbo as the MC and his dynamic with Thorin as the through-line of the story and includes some of the extended scenes that highlight both, which I really appreciate.

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again An edit that more fully cuts some of the less loved factors of the movies like the Tauriel romance, but not nearly as cut-heavy as a lot of the more well-known fan edits.

The Compromise Cut Very similar to 'or There and Back Again' but more ambitious in rearranging footage to create new beats to cover cuts vs 'or There and Back Again' being more of a clean 'straight from the source' cut.

~

For my purposes, Hartwell's will probably be my go-to for full lore and plot inclusion & the most 'bang for my buck' while being a cleaner watch than the OG, while There and Back Again or The Compromise Cut are what I would share with friends who despise some of the film-only content, but are willing to give the trilogy another try.

I know there are a number of other great edits of there, M4 and MapleFilms being especially loved, ~but~ I set a rule for myself that any edit that cut the carrock hug was instantly out, so these were the three I landed on.

Resource Websites

The Encyclopedia of Arda Tolkien Gateway LotR Online

Specific Details

TEoA: A Viewer’s Companion (AUJ) TEoA: A Viewer’s Companion (DoS) TEoA: A Viewer’s Companion (TBoFA) TEoA: Longbeards + The Other Clans

TG: Quest Motivations Generally good overview of the point of the quest and what happened.

TG: Smaug Role / Gandalf motivation "Following the sack of Erebor, Gandalf felt that Sauron would take advantage of Middle-earth's weakened state and attack Rivendell and Lothlórien or try regain Angmar; he also feared that Sauron "might use" Smaug "with terrible effect". [...The White Council] attacked Dol Guldur in TA 2941, while Sauron and Smaug could not "help one another". [...] his adversaries were able to drive him from the fortress with relative ease. [...] Sauron abandoned Dol Guldur willingly, and returned secretly to Mordor, where he would openly declare himself in TA 2951, and began preparations for his final war to dominate Middle-earth."

TG: The Arkenstone Arkenstone info from book and adaptations

* Khuzdul Words for Fanfiction Writers A resource for Khuzdul words for - as the name says - fanfic writers!

Durin's Line Tapestry from DoS Shows the family connections with original book birth dates for all. Even though it was presumably made pre-sacking in 2770, and 3 of the company depicted were born after Erebor fell. That... is curious.

The Line of Dwarves A more thorough (and intriguing) look at the dwarf lines and relevant dates, all book-based.

Comprehensive Genealogy Chart of all the Hobbits from J.R.R. Tolkien's Legendarium My gosh is this expansive... and hard to load up on a screen, but if you don't want to miss something, check this!

HOBBIT FAMILY TREE: How are Bilbo, Frodo, Pippin, Merry, and Sam related? The less brain-breaking hobbit tree that focuses on the main 5 from the books.

Lord of the Rings Hobbit Family Tree More of a middle-ground on the 2 above options.

* Prominent Hobbit Families and Individuals A lovely breakdown of the hobbit families as a group, what they are like and who are the crucial members of those families.

Bag-End PJ Hobbit Map Crucial for Bilbo background & any Shire scenes if they come!

* Untangling Middle-Earth's many routes to evil A map of where all of the characters traveled in The Hobbit and The Lord of the RIngs! I found this handy when I was trying to track Gandalf in particular.

A chronology of The Hobbit A day-by-day breakdown of the journey in The Hobbit, great for what-ifs and assessing likely travel times!

Suggested Alternative Timeline For The Hobbit by @avelera A very nice older post on a potential timeline alternative for The Hobbit films. As said above, the films do use the original dates in places, but as this post says, they don't always make sense about it. This is a nice option to consider instead.

Major Inspiration Fics

Backs To The Wall by @conkers-thecosy My current top TH/LotR read, a great active WIP, definitely a direct inspiration to me with the failure to get into Erebor leading things off course! And I'll likely have a parallel Laketown focus for a bit, though nothing as detailed and lived-in as Conkers' fic. And, aside from great writing and general motivation to write TH/Bagginshield, I love the portrayals of the characters (BILBO, Thorin, Gandalf, Dwalin, Nori, Bard and the Bardlings--) and pairings. Definitely tempting me towards Dwalin/Nori here!

And I'm Your Lionheart by Lee_Whimsy There always seems to be a fic in every fandom of mine that draws me in very early, becomes an instant fave, and then hangs there unfinished but perpetually on my mind. The 'one that got away' fic. This is it, and I shall forever love it, and you can just bet it will bleed into my takes somewhere, especially with Gandalf and Legolas and Bard and Fíli, if I recall correctly. I should totally reread this, or at least sections of it. Reading to the 'end' is... painful.

The Most Precious of Treasures by @sapphireshelle91 Another long untouched WIP, but a VERY different one, as it is a) post-TBoFA, and b) features a female Bilbo and parentshield with dwobbit!Frodo. I include this one because a) I love a number of the characterizations, b) if 'And I'm Your Lionheart' gives me the infrastructure and maintenance inspiration for Erebor, THIS fic delivers on the politics and intrigue, and c) I am a HUGE sucker for parentshield, be it biological or adoptive, so naturally I'm contemplating it for my own fic. Still iffy on which way I'll take it, but I've fallen down some intriguing rabbit holes in regards to Shire culture and Bilbo's background while considering the biological option, and I'd be loathe to abandon those ideas now. But either way, this fic deserves a definite nod for motivating me to come up with ideas.

Home Behind and Home Ahead by Etharei Love the characterizations in this one, and anything that gives me a tap into Bilbo's character is appreciated. And I don't know if I'll draw much on it for this fic in particular, but I love all forms of parentshield and this is a lovely dynamic between the three characters, so I'd happily draw from it in the abstract.

* Planting a Hobbit by @northerntrash I adore the vibe of this! A sweet 'Bilbo in Erebor' AU focused on the dwarves (Thorin especially) being so silly and endearing in their efforts to make Bilbo happy, and featuring some nice world and dynamic building in the process.

* Bad Blood by @conkers-thecosy Yo~ give me a nice what-if any day, and having it feature a protective!Bilbo + ardent!Thorin + gremlin!elvenking in the process, with a side of dwarven culture and royal politics? For it.

* [explicit!] Safe and Distant by Lindzzz I ADORE a Bilbo like this. A Bilbo who isn't oblivious about his feelings or denying them, but whose self-image/image of Thorin makes him unable to Comprehend anything not one-sided could come of those feelings. Who celebrates Thorin's good regard with joy and accepts it as 'enough' and 'more than he could ask for'. Who would probably just combust at the idea Thorin might want more, might want something beyond what their adventure can provide, just as Bilbo does... or just as Bilbo would, if he would allow himself to even accept that as a possibility. A Bilbo who finds the idea of Thorin wanting him back terrifying, because to hope for that and be wrong? It would shatter him. ...Yeah, I am very, very for this Bilbo. (And that doesn't even touch on the Thorin or the last chapter, omg-)

* [explicit] Canoodling by @avelera This fic is sweet. This fic is funny. This fic touches on differences between the Tolkien cultures and misunderstandings and the unique ways that could affect intimacy with a couple, and you know that bagginshield is a gold mine opportunity for all of that. I love any explicit work that plays with experience levels and expectations and lets the couple mess up and then swing it back around to lovely afterwards, because that's realistic and relatable and thus, when done right, all the more attractive a read! And this one does it well, a good foundation read.

[storytellering]

When and how did you discover DMC? And what makes you love the franchise?

Ohh, great question anon! Personally I was always kinda peripherally aware of DMC as a franchise - when I was early in middle school (around 10/11) I started really getting into anime and manga, and that was before I really spoke fluent english that much, so I was primarily looking for stuff that was either dubbed or subtitled in my native language - there was one TV channel that broadcasted dubbed anime, and it was really not that many back in the day... but somehow, the dmc TV anime was one of those! I really loved it, and I must've rewatched it a billion times - it was one of the late night programs so I remember sneaking out past my bedtime to plug my headphones into the TV and watch it, haha. But still, I didn't own any game consoles, and I didn't know how to use the internet too well yet, so all I could do was think "oh, dmc sounds so cool, sure wish I could actually play the games and get more context some time.", and it kinda stayed that way for the rest of my life! In 2019, even though it was completely out of my immediate sphere, I heard word of dmc5 out on the internet, and though I'd forgotten most of what I'd gathered back in middle school with the anime, I did remember it being something I'd been peripherally interested in for a long time, and then - I admit it, I was startstruck by how hot the main 3 characters looked on the cover art, LMAO. I still couldn't play most games (all I had was the aforementioned nds, a wii u, and and older mac laptop), BUT exactly for that reason I'd learned to just watch playthroughs of the games I was interested in - and i was immediately interested in dmc5, like I said at a glance just bc every character was very attractive to me, but you know how it is, my dick has lead me to places I wouldn't even go with a gun, etc etc. I just had this almost fugue state moment of reading everything I could on the wiki about the plot, the lore and the characters, saving a cutscene movie video of the game to watch later, and being SO into how pretty much every ship would be incestuous and very drawn to what that would entail for the characters, going on a fic reading binge..... and then literally forgetting ALL about it within the week. Like, literally, if you'd asked me if any of that had happened before I actually properly got into dmc, I'm not sure I would've been able to remember that happening at all. AND THEN, finally, this backstory comes to a head in december 2020/january 2021 - that was the year where I got my first job, (i know, what a year to do that, LMAO. it was a waiter job too) so for the first time in my life I had a little bit of extra money to spend, and so I decided to get myself a ps4 as a christmas gift so I could finally catch up with all the franchises I'd been wanting so bad to get into but had missed out on, or those I'd had to get into via watching someone else play, and could finally experience firsthand. DMC5 was one of the very first games I got myself - and I still have texts with my best friend from that time to remind me exactly when the very first time I booted the game was (january 15th, 2021). I'd like to say it was love at first sight, but it actually... kinda wasn't. I had forgotten most of my past interest, and at the time, I just kinda experienced it as a game that was really fun, really cool, and kinda put to the back of my mind (though I will say - my immediate reaction WAS that I'd genuinely, honestly never had that much fun playing a game before. Like - maybe it's because I hadn't really played any console game up to that point, but... video games had always been something that, while i was really interested in, I just kinda suffered through to experience a story, or something I powered through because I wanted to see it through to the end, actively enjoying the process on the way there was rare, for me - and dmc was genuinely just fun. Even without the plot to drive it forwards, I liked playing it just to play it, and that was like an INSANE concept to me back then lol).

(I'll have to continue this in a RB bc it turned out I have way too much to say and going way over the character limit WHOOPS stay tuned lol)

[writing-for-life]

Sandman Master Post and Intro

(I’m on a brief hiatus, but the queue is fed. Replies might take a bit longer right now.)

Hi, I’m so glad you’re here! This started out as a small blog but has developed a horrifying (^jk) life of its own over the past two years, so it was about time I organised the links and tags to all my Sandman stuff for you to make it easier to find your way around.

I love getting asks, about analysis, about my fics, prompts or generally just to chat, so see this as an encouragement to slide into my inbox…

[For quick reference:]

[The Ultimate Sandman Character Tag Library]

[The Women of the Sandman Tag Library]

[Sandman Comics: Original Artists Library]

[Sandman Reread (Comics)]

[Sandman Rewatch (Netflix)]

[Sandman S2 News, Casting and Speculation]

[Sandman Reference: How to Collect the Comics, Companion Books, Annotations/Reference Literature etc]

[Sandman Movie Concept Art by Jill Thompson & John Watkiss]

[In Light of Recent Allegations]

Ordered by topics (recommended):

Sandman Meta-Analysis: My literary/conceptual/psychological analyses. I have also written some musical and art metas. You will find further links via all three.

The Sandman Book Club Community: Just follow the link if you’d like to join.

Sandman Fics & Poems: My own work, mostly m/f and f/f canon pairings and OCs, both long fics and shorter works.

I’m also Dream’s Therapist. I think we all agree he needs one.

Sandman Art (general tag that contains all art posts, from fan-art to gif-sets. Separate tag for official Sandman artists. Plus the very few pieces of my own art I’ve ever posted on here).

Sandman March Mania was an event we specifically ran for the comics art lovers, so check it out.

Sparkle Content Curation (a not-quite-serious collection of Dream/Morpheus thirst-trap fan-art and unhinged posts). Please also peruse the tags #contraceptive sparkles, #glitter herpes and #murphy and his cool hat (yes, I am sort of responsible for the #muhulhu tag on here) if this hell-site has left you in a state of being desperate for laughs

A Little Intro…

…and why this blog will keep on existing

Once there was a girl with so many words, so many images, so many songs in her head that had no place to go. So she decided some of them will just go here…

Well, that sounds a bit contrived, but it’s not entirely untrue. Apart from the “girl”-part, because I’m at the younger end of Gen X. Or the “no place to go”-part, because some of my work actually *did* go places. Just not the stuff I decided to put on here…

Which is mostly Sandman stuff right now, let’s be honest (I fell in love with it when I was 16, and it still has a tight grip on me three decades later). And the fact that my blog a wild mix between my metas, my fanfic and a bit of my doodling already shows the pull in different directions I have experienced for most of my life:

I guess I’m just a multi-hyphenate who can’t make up her mind what she wants to do with her life, so she tries to do it all and ends up burned out half of the time.

Somewhere along the way, I managed to publish a few novels under a pen name, and only a select few people know about it. And I intend to keep it that way.

I used to draw much more (mostly pencil and ink), but between working and having a family, something had to give, and if I have to choose, writing always comes first. But I doodle and experiment a lot in Procreate, and it usually helps me when I procrastinate on my writing. I drop the odd drawing in here (like my profile pic), but I don’t see myself as a fine artist, and I’m in perpetual awe of the talent I see on here.

This is just an account for unapologetically being me, with all my hyperfixations—and undoubtedly some pointless shitposts just for fun…

In light of recent happenings, I explained my personal stance and, by extension, why this blog will keep on existing.