#it's also been ten years since the events of the s1 finale that happened on his 32nd birthday

[commsroom]

HAPPY 42ND BIRTHDAY DOUG EIFFEL!! that's a big one for pop culture referencers everywhere, but don't panic: it's just life, the universe, and everything. 🚬🍕☕🎶📻🎧📼🎉🎂🌟💝🎁❣️ (traditional dougmas gifts)

[patolemus]

Okay so this is an Actual Thing(TM).

Consistency was never really all that important for the writers of the show. Dates are tentative at best and if you try to piece a timeline together you’ll inevitably have to rearrange some things (trust me on this, I’m writing a time travel au and it’s been an ordeal in and of itself. I’m using my actual, real-person-me calendar to put dates in the years 2003 through 2005 just to have a clear enough picture). The show never confirmed specific dates for a lot of the events that have happened and most of the things you find on the wikia are either extrapolation by the fandom or approximations.

It’s not that the writers can’t give accurate timelines—because they have. It’s just that usually they don’t bother.

Derek’s age in particular is never clarified for a variety of reasons. The original concept was of a 19 year old, and in s1 we’re shown a drivers license that puts him more or less at 23 years old. This was later said to be a fake ID to make Derek look older, so we can guess he’s actually not 23 and is in fact 19.

And the thing is, Derek acts like a 19 year old in season 1. He acts like a very traumatized and grieving 19 year old. From a psychological standpoint, it makes a lot of sense that he’d relate more to younger people, since he went through a very traumatic experience when he himself was a teenager and still hasn’t been able to move past it. Also, his sister was just murdered. S1 and even s2 Derek makes a lot of sense as a character and as a person.

So that’s the information we’re starting with. We know the Hale House happened “10 years ago” (which makes no sense since Derek wouldn’t be a teenager no matter how old you make him, but again, the writers don’t care for consistency) and that Kate and Derek had A Thing that may or may not have been nonconsensual.

As the seasons go by though, Derek’s role in the series and the information the writers provide changes. He goes from being an enemy-slash-reluctant-ally to a mentor. And mentors are notoriously older than the mentee. On the other hand, s3 gives us information on the Hale family, and confirms the Hale House fire happened in 2005, six years before s1 happens instead of ten. They also tell us Derek was 16 when that happened, which automatically ages him back to the 23 years old he was according to his drivers license. That may have been an attempt to straighten out his age, but since they had confirmed the ID was fake it was never clear, and a lot of people conceived him to Be Younger, so it was confusing to say the least.

(I have to add as a side note that part of this decision was because of the fact that Tyler Hoechlin looks like that with a beard, but that’s a whole other thing entirely.)

S3 shows him as a much more mature and collected individual as the stage is set for Derek to give the Alpha spot to Scott, which could be attributed to him finally starting to heal from his trauma, but I don’t have enough faith in the writers to give Derek any type of justice, so.

Anyway.

Now, you would think that’s fine, except they’ve built Derek as a younger character, they have sided him with the younger kids. A lot of his actions become increasingly weird and creepy when you age him, and it takes away from his consistency as a character. That, in my opinion, is a failure from the writers, but that’s just my prerogative.

After s3, they age Derek even more because they realize, among other things, that with Derek’s current age, his relationship with Kate would be considered statutory rape because he was a minor and she wasn’t. And since Kate takes a relevant role once again, they should probably… rectify that, I guess. Most of his relationships are with older women so maybe the writers decided it would be best if Derek was also older. I also think it’s because around this time they decided to drop the sterek narrative, WHICH WAS A THING THAT HAD BEEN CONSIDERED AND EXPLAINS SO MANY OF THEIR INTERACTIONS IN THE EARLIER SEASONS, but what do I know.

Basically, this whole mishap happens because the writers weren’t sure where they were going the first few seasons, and Derek was never meant to be as important and popular as he became, so they didn’t specify his character until much later, when it became clear the fandom had a lot of interest in him. It’s a chronic case of inconsistency, and Derek is its main victim.

(I hope this makes sense, I feel like I totally just rambled and vomited a lot of information lol).

I NEED a formal apology for being weirded out by sterek because I just saw some shit with Tyler Hoachlen talking about how inconsistent his characters age is.

AND UPON REWATCH IT ISSSS!!! At the beginning Stiles openly States Derek is just a few years older than them (presumably 2-3 max), but as the show goes on I SWEAR they start treating this man like he's in his thirties!!

AND I KNOW y'all are gonna mention how Crystal Reed was older than Tyler Hoechlin and it's trueeee, but it's all about the perception. None of them were actually highschool age but we perceived them to be and then Derek just like kept getting older and older.

By the end he was pretty solidly roped in with the adults. In my mind there was the pack (Scott and the gang), the adult pack (parents+ Derek), and the puppy pack (you all know who all that refers to).

Basically my dumbass with short term memory forgot that Stiles literally says Derek is a few years older than him, and I got confused about the legitimacy of these fictional characters relationship.

[lesbianrobin]

hey guys it's me again back on my bullshit <3 wanna hear my theory about how tommy created king steve? warning it’s like 2800 words long okay let's go!

So, at first glance in S1, the Steve and Tommy dynamic seems somewhat obvious: King Steve and his loyal sidekick. This post is me arguing that the only reason we really have this perception is because Steve is the more attractive of the pair (no hate to Chester Rushing, he’s very cute, but. Joe Keery) and because Tommy himself encouraged it. Tommy was actually the more “dominant” partner in the duo. I believe that it was Tommy who encouraged Steve to lean into the “King Steve” persona and who encouraged belief in this persona among their classmates, all for his own benefit.

Before we can really get into it, I have to establish something about Steve’s character, specifically that he bases his self-worth and self-image almost entirely on what others say and think about him. I’m basing this assumption off of a few key moments in the series, but I don’t want this to be insanely long so I’ll try to focus on season two where this trait is most evident.

At the Halloween party, Nancy tells Steve that they killed Barb and that their “love” is bullshit, and then later outside of the gym she insists that he isn’t being fair or reasonable in his anger with her. The next day Steve shows up to her house with roses, rehearsing an apology (”I’m sorry... what am I sorry for?) even though he doesn’t feel that he’s done anything wrong. That’s important: apologizing even though he doesn’t actually believe or understand his feelings and actions to be wrong. He’s trusting Nancy’s perception that he’s been unreasonable above his own hurt feelings and his own perception that he’s done nothing he needs to apologize for. Then, at the end of the season, he tells Nancy that he may have been a shitty boyfriend, but he’s a pretty damn good babysitter. 

Sometime between going to the Wheelers’ house with flowers to apologize and talking to Nancy at the Byers’, Steve did a pretty serious 180 from “What the hell am I sorry for, what did I even do wrong” to “I was a shitty boyfriend and you should go be with Jonathan.” The last time he interacted with Nancy was prior to the flower incident, so what happened to cause this shift in perspective? I’d like to suggest... that nothing happened! 

See, Steve is on a pretty linear emotional path in S2 after the Halloween party. At first, he’s so upset that he can’t even look at Nancy, asking Jonathan to take her home. The next day he avoids her until she confronts him, at which point he’s rather confident in his own feelings that Nancy has hurt him and doesn’t love him like she should. As time goes on, though, he loses confidence in his feelings. He buys her flowers to apologize. He isn’t remotely angry with Nancy or Jonathan once they show up together and it’s pretty clear that something’s going on between them. Finally, he calls himself a shitty boyfriend. I think that the more time passes, the less Steve believes in himself, and the more he tends to default to believing others despite his own feelings. As the anger fades, he questions himself, and since he loves and trusts Nancy, he’s inclined to believe her! Since she doesn’t love him, he must have done something wrong. Because Nancy doesn’t love him, because she wants Jonathan, because their relationship was “bullshit,” he now believes he must have been a shitty boyfriend.

Sidenote, in S3 he says a lot of shit about how he’s a loser with no future, and the way he says it indicates (to me) that it’s something he hears quite often, likely from his father. Even though it’s pretty normal to be working minimum wage the summer after you graduate high school and not have things figured out yet, even though he’s literally helped save his friends’ lives, perhaps even helped save the whole town, Steve has internalized the idea that he’s a total failure at the ripe old age of 18 (19?) and I can’t help but think that it’s because his father has told him. So. Also in S3, he says his hair is his greatest feature, and apparently people literally call him Steve “the Hair” Harrington so like, maybe he just knows he has really good hair, but he ALSO might be responding to the nickname by saying like, “Oh, okay, the hair is Objectively my best feature, okay.” Just a little bit of speculation!

I know this is a lot of my own personal opinions and speculation, but if you can get behind it, let’s keep going! If Steve is someone whose every belief about himself is a direct response to the words and feelings of those around him, if he places the opinions of others above his own feelings, it would logically follow that he might be easily emotionally manipulated.

So, let’s apply this lens to his friendship with Tommy!

Let’s run down the list. Steve cleans up after Tommy, making excuses for his shitty behavior, even wordlessly giving Carol his own food at lunch after Tommy ruined hers. He allows Tommy and Carol to have sex in his mom’s bed, and as indicated by their familiarity with the bedroom and knowledge of where the spare sheets are, this is a regular occurrence. He’s also always seen driving the two of them around. 

Neither Tommy nor Carol is ever really seen doing anything kind for Steve. They tease his girlfriend, then later use his heartbreak as an excuse to graffiti some shit and make cruel jokes about Nancy and Jonathan. That’s just not the behavior of a couple hangers-on to the most popular kid in school! Neither of them ever even pretend to give a shit about Steve. It seems that Tommy and Carol were very comfortable using Steve for his big empty house and his nice car and his popularity at school because they’d been using him for years at that point, and they thought there was no way he’d ever ditch them.

I think it’s generally accepted among fans that Steve and Tommy have been close friends for years. Tommy’s familiar with Steve’s father’s infidelity, and is comfortable enough to joke and laugh about it with Steve. The two of them just... operate like people who’ve existed around each other for a long time. So, if we accept that Steve and Tommy have been friends for awhile, we can then accept three things: the two of them know each other very well, Tommy is used to having fun at Steve’s expense, and Steve is used to allowing it.

When Steve does finally stand up to Tommy and Carol, Tommy turns on him immediately. It’s an incredibly fast turn. He shoves Steve up against his car, physically threatens him, and proceeds to taunt him angrily even as he’s driving away. Specifically he yells, “That’s it, run away Stevie boy, run away! Just like you always do,” and continues to shout variations on this phrase even after Steve’s driven far enough that Tommy’s only yelling to himself. The fact that Tommy keeps shouting after Steve can’t hear him indicates that he is genuinely very upset by Steve’s standing up against him and Carol. His fury, however, as indicated by the speed with which he turned on Steve, seems to be less like that of one who feels betrayed by a friend and more like one angry at some perceived loss or threat. 

Now, let me just state the obvious: that was a really weird thing for Tommy to be yelling!

There’s no real precedent at this point (or any time) in the show for Steve “running away,” unless you count him running from the cops, which... Tommy also did, and which also happened, like, ten minutes ago, which I don’t think would really qualify for the wording “like you always do.” Tommy also suddenly calls him “Stevie boy,” which (correct me if I’m wrong) nobody has called Steve thus far. Maybe he’s just trying to mock and belittle Steve in any way he can think of, but it’s just... weirdly specific. The whole thing is a bit of a non-sequitur.

But! Remember how we established that Steve and Tommy, by virtue of having been friends for a significant period of time, know each other pretty well? Remember how Tommy is knowledgeable about Steve’s father’s infidelity, so familiar that he’s comfortable joking about it? Keep that in mind.

This phrase that Tommy shouts at Steve only makes sense in the context of some offscreen information that we the viewer are not privy to, but which Tommy and Steve are. What might that information be? Nothing in the show indicates that Steve has a history of picking fights prior to the incident with Jonathan. He’s a fairly respectable suburban kid, what is Tommy accusing him of running from? It’s my opinion that the only logical answer is that Tommy’s referencing a specific event with Steve’s “asshole” father, or a specific phrase that Steve has perhaps often heard from his father. I’m gonna ask you to sit on this assumption for a minute, and I’ll come back and support it soon.

Okay, so that’s S1 out of the way. At this point, a few things are clear: Steve has issues with his dad. Tommy knows about those issues. Steve allowed himself to be used by Tommy and Carol for some indeterminate yet significant amount of time before finally snapping and dumping them completely, something which infuriates Tommy.

Tommy is also in S2! And... all he does is tell Steve that Nancy and Jonathan are skipping school together. He never actually interacts with Nancy or Jonathan; he shows up in S2 entirely to mock Steve, to use his deepest fears and insecurities against him. 

First thing: in the S2 shower scene after basketball practice, Tommy makes it a point to shove Jonathan and Nancy’s relationship in Steve’s face. Billy doesn’t know Steve, so he attacks his basketball skills and his keg stand record, but Tommy? Tommy knows about Steve’s dad cheating on his mom, he was there for the S1 fistfight, he knows how monumental infidelity is to Steve, especially in the case of Nancy and Jonathan, and so that is what he chooses to torment Steve with, and it clearly strikes a nerve. 

Now’s where I circle back to my assertion that Tommy was referencing/quoting Steve’s father while yelling at him back in S1. S2 makes it clear that Tommy  knows Steve’s biggest insecurities, and he intentionally exploits them for his own purposes. This, combined with the way Tommy demonstrates intimate knowledge of Steve’s family situation and the fact that his words just don’t quite make sense in context, the fact that “Stevie boy” sounds like something a father may call his young son, makes me believe that at some point, Steve told Tommy about something his dad said that hurt him, and Tommy remembered that to use against him later. 

This paragraph is just speculation on what Tommy might be referring to, so skip if you want, it’s entirely my own opinion. We know that Steve’s parents sleep in separate bedrooms and his father can’t be trusted not to cheat, and thus we might assume that they argue a lot. Maybe his parents get into lots of arguments, and whenever Steve chooses to remove himself from the situation, he’s accused of running away. Maybe Steve runs off whenever he gets in trouble with his father. There’s a lot of possibilities, but either way, “run away, Stevie boy, run away just like you always do” just... sounds too personal and specific to be something random and meaningless that Tommy came up with on the spot.

Now, in S2, Tommy also appears to have latched onto Billy rather quickly after Billy’s arrival in town. Coincidentally, Billy is kind of obsessed with Steve and taking him down, despite the fact that Steve never sought him out or challenged him in any way. Steve has been minding his own business! When they later end up in a fistfight, Billy says that he’s “been dying to meet this King Steve” that people have been telling him about, and I can’t help but think... who would make it their priority to talk to Billy about Steve Harrington? Like, new guy from California moves to my small Indiana town, I don’t want to tell him about some popular guy at school who’s gotten kinda lame and quiet lately, I want to ask him about himself, or tell him what we do for fun around here, right? So who might be incentivized to talk Steve up to a guy who’s clearly itching for a fight, a guy dying to prove that he’s top dog? Who did we see hanging out with Billy a couple of times?

Did you say Tommy? Because it’s Tommy! It certainly seems to me as though Tommy saw an opportunity in Billy. The opportunity to befriend someone with a certain social power (much like with Steve), but also the opportunity to torment or get back at Steve in some way. I think that Tommy intentionally inflated the character of “King Steve” to Billy in the hopes that Billy would pick a fight with Steve and Steve would get his ass kicked without Tommy having to get his hands dirty.

Which makes me wonder... what if Tommy played up that King Steve image to people besides Billy? Other kids at Hawkins High... or perhaps Steve himself. Remember how Steve internalizes things? Believes that he must be whatever others see in him? Yeah.

Let’s say you’re an asshole teenage boy who wants it all. You want to be popular. You want to have a spot to hang out with your girlfriend with no parents around. You want to feel strong and powerful. You meet a kid who could give you all of that, and all he wants in return is friendship. He doesn’t even seem to care if that friendship is genuine or not! All you have to do is hang around and make him feel like a cool kid. Convince him to throw a small party, you and your girlfriend get free reign of his nice big house. Make sure he knows that he’s got Prom King potential, that he’s the top dog, and you get to be one of the popular guys, too. It’s a pretty sweet deal if you can recognize the opportunity for what it is.

One last thing: Actual Steve is nothing like he seems around Tommy and Carol in the start of S1. Making friends with Dustin and coming up with a goofy handshake, singing to cheer Robin up in S3, singing into the bat to try and cheer Nancy up in S1, holding her hand during their first time, unabashedly telling her she’s beautiful and that he missed her even if only an hour had passed... Steve is a very emotional, dorky guy, and we never really got to see that side of him when he was around Tommy. I just find that interesting in light of the fact that Steve and Tommy seem to be otherwise rather close. Steve was clearly playing a part to some degree while around them, and in S3 he explicitly says that he behaved the way he did in high school because he was concerned about what others would think of him, about losing his popularity. Even prior to their argument, Steve was wary around Tommy, concerned about losing his friendship despite the fact that Tommy was a pretty objectively shitty friend.

So, here’s what we know. Tommy knows a lot about Steve, including his private family issues, and he isn’t above using that knowledge to hurt or manipulate Steve. In fact, he seems to be really good at it. Tommy benefitted from Steve’s popularity, from him throwing parties and living up to the “King Steve” image. Steve followed Tommy’s lead in their friendship, cleaned up after him, made excuses for him, and let him get away with just about anything. He masked aspects of his personality that didn’t fit the image that he and Tommy aimed for. He was desperate to retain Tommy’s friendship and afraid of letting the mask fall. Tommy was furious when Steve rejected him, taunted Steve with deeply personal jabs, and a year later he latched onto the new “top dog” in town with record speed. Steve is a completely different person when he’s around Tommy versus when he’s around Nancy, Robin, and the kids. Most importantly, we know that Steve has a tendency to construct himself in the image provided by others. 

Taking all of this into account, I think that Tommy Hagan met sad, rich, handsome little Steve Harrington, saw just how lonely and desperate he was to feel a sense of belonging, and used that to nudge Steve into striving to be the person that Tommy wanted him to be: King Steve. 

[gascon-en-exil]

A Game of Thrones 10th Anniversary Season Ranking: Part 2

Link to Part 1

Time for the bottom half of the list. The four seasons here will surprise no one, but the order might.

#5 Season 6

You can tell what I most what to talk about here...but there's an order to these things.

S6 actually has a bunch of great ideas, but they drown beneath the most slapdash plotting and character work the show has seen yet in order to set the stage for the narrower conflicts of the last two seasons. It's notorious for bringing back characters who haven't been seen in a season or longer only to kill them off (Balon Greyjoy, Osha, Hodor, the Blackfish, Rickon, Walder Frey) or awkwardly graft them back into the main plot (Sandor Clegane, Bran). There are plot threads that ought to be compelling but are too rushed in execution, like the siege of Riverrun, Littlefinger's hand in the Battle of the Bastards, or Daenerys's time back among the Dothraki and then finally getting the hell out of Meereen. Arya hits on the only interesting part of her two-season sojourn in Braavos - a stage play, of all things - only for it to stumble at the end with a disappointing offscreen death and some incomprehensible philosophy ahead of the start of her murder tour of Westeros. There's also so much cutting off the branches, enough to be conspicuous; the final shot of Daenerys leading an armada of about half the remaining cast she assembled partially offscreen says that better than anything else. Well, not anything....

Highlight: Without exaggeration, the opening of S6E10 is easily my favorite sequence in all of GoT. The staging, the music, the mounting suspense even as it becomes increasingly obvious what's about to happen, the twisted religious references particularly in Cersei's mock confession to Unella, Tommen throwing himself out a window because he can't deal with the reality of how terrible his mother is, how Cersei gives absolutely no fucks whatsoever about murdering hundreds of people at once in a calculated act of vengeance largely prompted by her own poorly thought out actions - I love it all. It's the single most masterfully-executed act of villainy in the whole show - Daenerys torching King's Landing probably has a higher body count, but the presentation there is all muddled - and if I had any doubts about Cersei being my favorite multi-season major character they were silenced in this moment. The explosion of the Sept doesn't sit perfectly with me, because I liked the Tyrells and because of what I said about deaths like theirs and Renly's in the previous post under S2, but I think that unease only cements the strength of this sequence. It's an overused phrase in fandom these days, but GoT at its best is all about moral greyness that gives its audience room for multilayered reactions. Cersei nuking the Sept and making herself the sole power in King's Landing, which in a sense is just a more overt example of the kind of character/plot consolidation elsewhere represented by Daenerys's armada, is one of those events that's impossible to approach from a single angle if you care about any of the characters involved. And hey, it's not in the books (yet, presumably), so unlike Ned's death or the Red Wedding the GoT showrunners can take the credit for realizing this one.

Favorite death: Even leaving aside the Sept and related deaths there's a lot of good ones to choose from in S6. Ramsey is cathartic but too gory for me, Osha's was a clever callback but a little delayed, it's hard to pin down specific deaths when Daenerys incinerates the khals, and Arya only gets half credit for Walder Frey and his sons when she saves the rest of the house for the opening of S7. I'm thinking Hodor, not so much because I enjoy his character or the manner of his death but because it's a clever bit of playing with language (that must have been hell to render in other languages for dubbing) wrapped up in some entertainingly murky consent issues and some closed time loop weirdness. It's all very...extra? Is that the word for it?

Least favorite death: Offscreen deaths continue to be mostly letdowns, in this case Blackfish and the Waif. Way to botch the ending of Arya's already near-pointless Braavos arc, guys. Speaking of Arya, this spot goes to Lady Crane, whom the Waif somehow kills with a stool or something. It's a dumb way to send off an entertaining minor character.

#6 Season 8

I swear that I'm not putting S8 this high solely because of Jonmund kind of sort of happening. I've never been very interested in either of them and the sex would be far too bear-on-otter to suit my pornographic preferences, but even so the choice to close out the series with them is hilarious.

I really don't need to elaborate on why S8 is down here; everyone who's ever watched the show has done as much in the nearly two years since it wrapped up. I do however need to explain why I've ranked not one but two seasons below it. My biggest argument here is that I don't believe it's fair to critique S8 for problems it inherited from earlier seasons. A non-comprehensive list:

Mad Queen Daenerys: unevenly built up beginning from S1 and continuing in some form through every following season

The questionable racial optics of Dany's army: also seeded as early as S1 and solidified by S3 with the Slaver's Bay arc

Cersei only succeeding because she makes stupid decisions and then lucks out until she doesn't: apparent from S1, directly lampshaded by Tywin in S3, fully on display with the Faith Militant arc of S5-6

Jaime not getting a redemption arc or falling in love with Brienne: evident with his repeated returns to Cersei throughout the show as one of the most consistent elements of his character, particularly in S4 and during the siege of Riverrun in S6

Tyrion grabbing the idiot ball/becoming a flat audience surrogate mouthpiece: started in S5 around the time the showrunners ran out of book material for him and wanted to make him more of a PoV character and his arc less of a downward spiral, although I've seen arguments that changes from the books involving his Tysha story and Shae set him on this trajectory even earlier

The hardening of Sansa's character: began in earnest in S4 and never let up from there

The strange ordering of antagonists: set down by S7's equally strange plot structure - the Night King had to come first with that setup

CleganeBowl and the dumber twists: from what I've heard the whole thing of writing around fans on the internet guessing plot twists started pretty much when the book content ended, so S5-6 maybe?

Yes, there's plenty to criticize about S8 on its own merits...but just as much that was merely the writers doing what they could at that point with deeply flawed material.

Highlight: This may sound cheesy, but the better parts of S8 are almost all the cinematic ones, whether that's E2 being a bottle episode with tons of poignant character send-offs before the big battle, a handful of deaths with actual satisfying weight like Jorah's and Theon's, and an epilogue that incorporates both closure for individuals and the broader uncertainty of messy socio-political systems that GoT has always been known for before working its way back to the Starks at the very end for some tidy bookending. Even imperfect moments like the Lannister twins' death and the resolution of Sansa's character felt weighty and appropriate based on what had come before.

Favorite death: Forget about the audio commentary attempting to flatten Cersei's character; Cersei and Jaime Lannister have an excellent end. Cersei especially, as the scenes of her stumbling her way down into the catacombs as the Red Keep crashes down around her really show off how her world is abruptly falling apart and how she retreats into her own self-interest at the end in spite of her demise being at least partially of her own doing. There's some stupid moments associated with these scenes, like Jaime dueling Euron to the death and CleganeBowl, but I can excuse those when the twins end up dying exactly where you'd expect them to: in each other's arms, in a ruined monument to their family's grand ambitions that, like Casterly Rock itself, was taken from another family.

Least favorite death: Quite a few dumb ones in S8 have become forever infamous. Missandei sticks out, and for me Varys too just as much because of how the writing pushes him to do the dumbest thing he could possibly do purely for the sake of killing him off ten minutes into the penultimate episode. But no one belongs here more than Daenerys Targaryen, killed at the height of a rushed and uncertain villain reveal by a man who takes advantage of their romantic history (who is also her family, because Targaryens) to stab her in a moment of vulnerability - pretty much only because another man tells him that Daenerys is the final boss. Narratively speaking that might be the case, but even so this is the end result of multiple seasons of middling-to-bad buildup. Not even Drogon burning the symbolism can salvage that. Also Fire Emblem: Three Houses did this scene and did it better.

#7 Season 5

...Yeah, we're going to have to go there.

Sansa's rape is not a plot point that personally touches me much. It's terribly framed in the moment and the followup in later seasons is inconsistent at best, but it's not a kind of trauma I can relate to. On the other hand, in the very same episode Loras is tried and imprisoned for homosexuality, and Margery faces the same punishment for lying for her brother. That hits much closer to home, not just for the homophobia but also for the culture war undertones of the not!French Tyrells persecuted by a not!Anglo fanatic who later reveals himself to be the in-universe equivalent of a Protestant. The trial is just one part of Cersei's shortsighted scheming, just as Sansa being married off to Ramsey is part of Littlefinger's, and both of them get their comeuppance in the end...but it's unsettling all the same. I especially hate what the Faith Militant arc does to King's Landing in S5, swiftly converting it from my favorite setting in GoT to a tense theocratic nightmare that only remains interesting to me because Cersei is consistently awesome. What's more, pretty much everything about S5 that isn't viscerally uncomfortable is dragged out and dull instead: the Dorne arc, Daenerys's second season in Meereen, Arya in Braavos, Stannis and co. at Castle Black. The most any of these storylines can hope for is some kind of bombastic finale, and while several of them deliver it's not enough to make up for what comes before, or how disappointing everything here builds from S4. S4 has Oberyn, S5 has the Sand Snakes - I think that sums up the contrast well.

Highlight: S5 does get stronger near the end. As much as his character annoys me I did like the High Sparrow revealing his pseudo-Protestant bent to Cersei just before he imprisons her, and there's a cathartic rawness to Cersei's walk of atonement where you can both feel her pain and humiliation and understand that she's getting exactly what she deserves (and this is what leads into the climax of S6, so it deserves points just for that). The swiftness of Stannis's fall renders his death and that of his family a bit hollow, but it's brutal and final and fittingly ignominious for a character with such grand ambitions but so little relevance to the larger story. The fighting pits of Meereen sequence is cinematic if nothing else, and even the resolution to the Dorne arc salvages the whole thing a tiny bit by playing into the retributive cycles of vengeance idea (and Myrcella knows about the twincest and doesn't care, aww - no idea why that stuck with me, but it's cute all the same). Oh, and Hardhome...it's alright. Not great, not crap, but alright.

Favorite death: I don't know why, but Theon tossing Myranda to her death is always funny to me. Maybe because it's so unexpected?

Least favorite death: Arya's execution of Meryn Trant is meant to be another one of the season's big finale moments, but the scene is graphic and goes on forever and I can't help but be grossed out. This is different from, say, Shireen's death, which is supposed to be painful to witness.

#8 Season 7

I can't tell if S7's low ranking is as self-explanatory as S8's or not. At least one recent retrospective on GoT's ruined legacy I've come across outright asserts that S7 is judged less harshly in light of how bad S8 was. If it were not immediately obvious by where I've placed each of them, I don't share that opinion.

Because S7 is just a mess, and the drop-off in quality is so much more painful here than it is anywhere else in the series except maybe from S4 to S5 (and that's more about S4 being as good as it is). The pacing ramps up to uncomfortable levels to match the shortened seasons, the structure pivots awkwardly halfway through from Daenerys vs. Cersei to Jon/Dany caring about ice zombies, said pivot relies largely on characters (mostly Tyrion) making a series of catastrophically stupid tactical decisions, and very few of the smaller set pieces land with any real impact as the show's focus narrows to its endgame conflict. As with S6 there are still some good ideas, but they're botched in execution. The conflict between Sansa and Arya matches their characters, but the leadup to that conflict ending with Littlefinger's execution is missing some key steps. Daenerys's diverse armada pitted against Cersei weaponizing the xenophobia of the people of King's Landing could have been interesting, but there's little room to explore that when Cersei keeps winning only because Tyrion has such a firm grip on the idiot ball and when Euron gets so much screentime he barely warrants. Speaking of Tyrion's idiot ball, does anyone like the heist film-esque ice zombie retrieval plotline? Its stupidity is matched only by its utter futility, because Cersei isn't trustworthy and nobody seems to ever get that.

And how could I forget Sam's shit montage? Sums up S7 perfectly, really. To think that that is part of the only extended length of time the show ever spends in the Reach....

Highlight: A handful of character moments save this season from being irredeemable garbage. As you can guess from my screencap choice, Olenna's final scene is one of them, even if Highgarden itself is given insultingly short shrift. S7 also manages what I thought was previously impossible in that it makes me care somewhat about Ellaria Sand, courtesy of the awful death Cersei plans for her and her remaining daughter. The other Sand Snakes are killed with their own weapons, which shows off Euron's demented creativity if nothing else. I like the entertainingly twisted choice to cut the Jon/Dany sex scene with the reveal that they're related. And, uh...the Jonmund ship tease kind of makes the zombie retrieval team bearable? I'm really grasping at straws here.

Favorite death: It's more about her final dialogue with Jaime than her actual death, but again I'm going to have to highlight Olenna Tyrell here for lack of better options. She drops the bombshell about Joffrey that the audience figured out almost as soon as it happened but still, makes it plain what I've been saying about how Jaime's arc has never really been about redemption, and is just about the only person to ever call Cersei out for that whole mass murder thing. There's a reason "I want her to know it was me" became a meme format.

Least favorite death: There aren't any glaringly bad deaths in S7, just mediocre or unremarkable ones. I still think the decision to have Arya finish off House Frey in the season's opening rather than along with their father at the end of S6 was a strange one that doesn't add much of dramatic value.

[danger-force-season-1-episode-1]

S1.e1 || Danger Force Season: 1 , Episode: 1 || (Full)-Episodes

S1.e1 || Danger Force Season: 1 , Episode: 1 || (Full)-Episodes

Watch [Danger Force] “Season 1” : Episode 1 (S1E1) Exclusively on Disney+! ⚜ Enjoy watching! Watch Full Episode Online Complete! ⚜P.L.A.Y ►► https://123movies.nextflixtv.com/tv/99583-1-1/danger-force.html

⚜‘Danger Force’ Se1 Ep1: ‘Late Night Ned’⚜ From the producers of “Laguna Beach” comes Danger Force, the ultimate summer series that follows a group of young adults confronting issues of love, heartbreak and looming adulthood. As these friends spend the summer together in their beautiful hometown, they come of age while trying to figure out who they are and want they want to be. The promo suggests that this new antagonist has something to do with the connection that leads to the flashbacks. Danger Force is leaning into flashbacks more and more throughout its final season. On Danger Force Season 1 Episode 7, “New Season,” there was a flashback to a quiet moment between Echo and Bellamy. This tactic may work in the show’s favor if it is able to move the audience, and the story doesn’t get lost in translation. Final seasons are perfect for flashbacks, callbacks, and so on. Danger Force hasn’t been able to dig into much of this because so many of the characters are spread out on too many planets, and all of those planets have their Disney+ issues. It’s a complicated web that’s only at the very beginning of becoming clearer now that Clarke and her team are on Bardo. That being said, Danger Force Season 1 Episode 1, “Late Night Ned,” looks like it’s giving us some answers about how things got to be the way they are, but it’s doing so through the introduction of new faces in a familiar place. With Sanctum, Bardo, and all of their respective habitants, it’s difficult to think about getting to know even more characters this far into a show’s final season. Hopefully, Danger Force can pull off this story in a way that directly serves the main characters without adding another planet and too many new faces to an already long list. Are you Curious about what’s on the coming next on Episode 1 : Late Night Ned | Click on the Link that we provide here to watch The Full Show of this Late Night Ned! ⚜Thank you for visit our official page and officially streaming partner of lot of TV Network Show all over the World on “Ontvs.best & official.streaDisney+-movie.com” this is our new websites that you can visit through the article that we publish here. We provide the best streaming exclusively Online everywhere, anywhere, and at anytime. During this Quarantine is the best to keep yourself to stay safe and work at home, study at home, to safe more life and to stop spreading of the Covid-1. We work together for the world And we are here concern about that, so we provide to you all the entertainment show to fill your free time and watch streaming of the Series and Show that you like full and completely free! We update it Daily and you can also request through our website, we wanted to say thanks for your Support and We also hope that we can always make you satisfy with our streaming!⚜

Danger Force Danger Force 1x1 Danger Force S1E1 Danger Force Cast Danger Force Premiere Danger Force Disney+ Danger Force Eps. 1 Danger Force Season 1 Danger Force Episode 1 Danger Force Late Night Ned Danger Force New Season Danger Force Full Episodes Danger Force Watch Online Danger Force Season 1 Episode 1 Watch Danger Force Season 1 Episode 1 Online ⚜LIKE AND SHARE✬ TO YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA : ⚜VK: https://Vk.com/ ⚜TWITTER :https://twitter.com/ ⚜FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/ ⚜INSTAGRAM : https://www.instagram.com/ A television show (often simply TV show) is any content produced for broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, cable, or internet and typically viewed on a television set, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed between shows. Television shows are most often scheduled well ahead of time and appear on electronic guides or other TV listings. A television show might also be called a television program (British English: programme), especially if it lacks a narrative structure. A television series is usually released in episodes that follow a narrative, and are usually divided into seasons (US and Canada) or series (UK) — yearly or semiannual sets of Late Night Neds. A show with a limited number of episodes may be called a miniseries, serial, or limited series. A one-time show may be called a “special”. A television film (“made-for-TV movie” or “television movie”) is a film that is initially broadcast on television rather than released in theaters or direct-to-video. Television shows can be viewed as they are broadcast in real time (live), be recorded on home video or a digital video recorder for later viewing, or be viewed on demand via a set-top box or streamed over the internet. TV SERIES The first television shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within a very short range from the broadcast tower starting in the 16s. Televised events such as the 2020 Summer Olympics in Germany, the 16 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famous introduction at the 16 New York World’s Fair in the US spurred a growth in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 16 World Series inspired many Americans to buy their first television set and then in 11, the popular radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “Mr Television” and demonstrating that the medium was a stable, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The first national live television broadcast in the US took place on September 1, 2020 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets. The first national color broadcast (the 2020 Tournament of Roses Parade) in the US occurred on January 1, 2020. During the following ten years most network broadcasts, and nearly all local programming, continued to be in black-and-white. A color transition was announced for the fall of 2020, during which over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later. In 1980, the last holdout among daytime network shows converted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season. Formats and Genres See also: List of genres § Film and television formats and genres Television shows are more varied than most other forms of media due to the wide variety of formats and genres that can be presented. A show may be fictional (as in comedies and dramas), or non-fictional (as in documentary, news, and reality television). It may be topical (as in the case of a local newscast and some made-for-television films), or historical (as in the case of many documentaries and fictional series). They could be primarily instructional or educational, or entertaining as is the case in situation comedy and game shows. A drama program usually features a set of actors playing characters in a historical or contemporary setting. The program follows their lives and adventures. Before the 2020s, shows (except for soap opera-type serials) typically remained static without story arcs, and the main characters and premise changed little.[citation needed] If some change happened to the characters’ lives during the episode, it was usually undone by the end. Because of this, the episodes could be broadcast in any order.[citation needed] Since the 2020s, many series feature progressive change in the plot, the characters, or both. For instance, Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere were two of the first American prime time drama television series to have this kind of dramatic structure,[1][better source needed] while the later series Babylon 1 further exemplifies such structure in that it had a predetermined story running over its intended five-season run. In 2020, it was reported that television was growing into a larger component of major media companies’ revenues than film. Some also noted the increase in quality of some television programs. In 1980, Academy-Award-winning film director Steven Soderbergh, commenting on ambiguity and complexity of character and narrative, stated: “I think those qualities are now being seen on television and that people who want to see stories that have those kinds of qualities are watching television. Thank’s For All The Support And Have a Good Time! Find all the movies that you can stream online, including those that were screened this week. If you are wondering what you can watch on this website, then you should know that it covers genres that include crime, Science, Fi-Fi, action, romance, thriller, Comedy, drama and Anime Movie. Thank you very much. We tell everyone who is happy to receive us as news or information about this year’s film schedule and how you watch your favorite films. Hopefully we can become the best partner for you in finding recommendations for your favorite movies. That’s all from us, greetings! Thanks for watching The Video Today. 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[baldwin-montclair]

Baldwin’s Nightingale (Part 13)

Characters: Baldwin Montclair/OC

Timeframe: After the S1 Finale, TV Show canon MOSTLY with some S2, Shadow of Night and Book of Life.

Summary: Whilst Baldwin deals with business away from Sept-Tours, Alisha copes with his absence and the impending wedding.

Tag requests: @christi14 @poemfreak306 @pookie-cleary @hofficoffi @stormyheart326 @simplytimeless @wonderlander594

The Story So Far

Alisha tossed and turned for two hours after Baldwin’s departure. She would never have imagined that sharing a bed with someone for just two nights would so spoil her for when she was then left to sleep alone.

Getting comfortable seemed like an impossibility, she was either too warm with the covers over her or too cold without them, she missed the heat regulating coolness of her vampire’s skin and the feeling of safety in his arms. The loss of this made her think of the first time she had it, their first night as husband and wife.

When he was so initially so gentle he seemed almost fearful that he’d break her if his movements within her were too insistent.

Tormented by the memories of their various intimacies, she gave up on the fruitless quest for sleep and instead got up, pulling on her underwear and Baldwin’s discarded shirt before wandering over to a small table where Alain had placed the chest containing her ‘dowry’.

Alisha picked it up, finding it surprisingly heavy, and brought it to Baldwin’s desk where she sat and opened it once more.

She gradually emptied the contents onto the desk, the folded papers that spoke of wealth contained in both stocks and properties, and, the glittering jewels.

With everything on the table in front of her, she noticed an old parchment style letter complete with seal.

Madame De Clermont.

The name on the front was not written with either a ballpoint or a fountain pen. It was clearly a quill, making the letter old, how old she wasn’t was sure.

In truth, she’d never opened a letter like this before and tried cracking the seal with the Ouroboros depicted. That then allowed her to unfold the parchment and frown at the almost unintelligible writing.

It took a moment to focus on the characters before she was able to decipher it.

Daughter,

The fact that you are reading this should already inform you that I am no longer of this world and greatly regret not having had the chance to meet you.

I write this letter in the hope that it will one day be opened although I have long feared it will not be. If I am wrong in this, please know that there would be no-one more delighted to be mistaken than I.

My wife will guide you in what it means to be Madame de Clermont, she is my right hand, as my son will need you to be for him. Heed her advice in all things as she knows well how to manage difficult men. Love and obey my son and you will find no greater, nor more loyal a protector.

Let me also take this moment also to stress that it does not matter to me whether or not you are of our kind, nor is it a prerequisite that you be changed. Even an old man can learn when he is wrong, and, consequently, hope that his past folly has not deprived a most beloved son of his happiness.

If Lucius loves you and you love him, you both have my blessing.

Your Grateful Father,

Philippe de Clermont

Alisha sat back in the chair, pulling Baldwin’s shirt tighter around her in a vain attempt to feel close to him, much in the same way she’d given him the ribbon.

Oddly, she no longer noticed an aroma of church incense on him as she had when they first met, clearly he’d just attended mass with a liberal use of the cloying smoke.

Now, his burning campfire scent mixed with the notes of rich leather served to perfectly sum him up, both attempts to control and utilise nature, conquer it, prove oneself above it.

Civilised.

As soon as there was light, Alisha was ready for her walk, just around the grounds of the fortress but enough for the cold November air to keep her alert.

The place was peaceful and she didn’t encounter another person, for around ten steps, when Gallowglass jogged out the door behind her.

“Mind if I join you, fancy a walk!” He asked the question that was in no way a question.

“I don’t mind, and I’m sorry.” She glanced across at him.

“Sorry?”

“Baldwin has put you on me-sitting duty whilst he’s away,” she smiled and shook her head when he opened his mouth to protest, “don’t worry, I’m not about to make your job harder. In fact, tell me what his command is and I promise I will help you stick to it.”

“I’m grateful for your offer Auntie, but a command from Baldwin is no a thing that bears repeating.”

“Alright,” she thought to herself, “then give me the jist.”

“The jist,” he stroked his scruffy chin in thought, “is that whilst you are outside, I am not to let you out of my sight.”

“Wow,” she whistled, “that’s more restrictive than I thought it would be.”

“Really?”

“Yes, who’s going to step foot on De Clermont land?”

“There are other ways to snatch someone than on foot.”

“There’s really not.”

“Please tell me you know that some witches can fly?”

She laughed at this.

“What, like on a broom? I think you’re making fun of me.”

“No broom needed, I’ve seen it, I swear!”

“Okay,” she regarded his expression, and believed him, “good thing my only threat comes from a vampire and not a witch.”

“When the congregation finds out about you and Baldwin, the only creatures who wont resent you will be your own kind, and us here, obviously.”

“I appreciate that, and you’re being so welcoming, even if having to follow me around is kinda super unfair to you.”

He had to chuckle at that but even through his cheerful exterior, there was a hint of sadness.

“Trust me, it’s not the least fair task I’ve been given,” he shook his head and the cloud of heaviness dissipated, “and what else am I going to be doing?”

“Planning more mischief with Marcus?” She suggested.

“Unfortunately not, Granny’s sending him to London to collect some miniatures from an auction house.”

“Well, since you’re stuck with me, I have a question for you.”

“Hit me.”

“Do you remember a party here in the past? Something to do with Baldwin’s father and his support for a French King.”

“Henry of Navarre?”

“Yes, were you here?”

“How do you know about that?” He asked with a hint of uncertainty.

“The tapestry, Marthe didn’t know much about it because she and Ysabeau weren’t here. So, were you?”

“I was.” He admitted.

“Then you’ll know, why was the tapestry moved, what happened at the party?”

“It wasn’t a party, Cicogna, the Venetian Doge brought his entire court, they were supposed to be here for a week but one of his musicians was killed. It was blamed on a spy in Sixtus’ retinue. Grandad gave his support for Navarre anyway. Nothing really happened.”

“You count a murder as nothing happening?”

“Just one murder? Aye!”

“Then why did he have the tapestry moved?”

“No idea, Why do you want to know?”

“Honestly?” She asked him.

“Yes.”

“It’s a mystery, I have a fraction of a story and it drives me a little crazy.” She confided.

“So you married a notorious secret keeper?” He asked.

“Fair point,” she smiled.

“Auntie, the past is not something you need to worry about, you’re his mate and that’s all that matters.”

“Thank you Gallowglass.”

Alisha couldn’t help but recognise the strangeness in his statement.

If the present mattered because she was indeed Baldwin’s mate, she wondered what happened in the past that, according to Gallowglass, she needn’t worry about. It did make her think on Philippe’s words, to what ‘past folly’ was he referring.

Perhaps she really wasn’t getting to quench her idle curiosity and decided it not worth causing upset just to learn some gossip.

“So, wedding?” He changed the subject.

“We’ve agreed to give the go ahead.”

“I know, Baldwin spoke to Granny earlier, you did well to escape without her catching you.”

“He called, earlier?”

“Yes, and no, you cannot speak to him or see him before the church.”

“What,” it was her turn to stop, “I can’t see my husband for how long?”

“Jesus, the wedding’s in two days, I’d happily take not speaking to your husband for two millennia if it was on offer.” He chuckled.

“Two days?” She asked, feeling the blood drain from her cheeks.

“Granny works fast, I think she made most of the arrangements before she even got off the phone. We do have a seamstress on staff mind you, so that won’t be a problem, just do as Victoire says, she’s the one with the sewing needle.”

He stopped, his expression turning to one of concern.

“Aw hell, here,” Gallowglass directed her over to a low wall, “sit there, head between your knees before you faint on me.”

She followed his direction without argument, as he hovered nearby, not sure what to do. The vampire custom was clear on not touching the mate of a higher rank vampire but his compassion was at war with this rule.

“Maybe the whole wedding thing has made more of an impact on me than I thought,” she agreed, “are you all religious?”

“Both myself and your husband were pagan, Baldwin obviously much earlier, but Philippe would not have that, we would be Christian, serving one master.”

“God or Philippe?”

“They were both one in the same, I think he could relate, one heavenly father overseeing his children, and he did inform most of the Church doctrine.”

“You’re telling me that Baldwin’s father wrote the Bible?”

“No, I’m telling you that Grandad had a very firm hand in deciding which accounts made it into the final canon.”

“That is...terrifying.” She admitted.

“Why?”

“It doesn’t ever concern you just how much power and influence your family have had over the past two thousand years?”

“Closer to three thousand, and it’s your family now too Auntie.”

She nodded gravely, the responsibility Ysabeau had mentioned suddenly becoming painfully clear.

“Come on, you need to eat something.”

Alisha had no idea how much of an event breakfast was in Sept-Tours, tea, coffee, juice, bacon, eggs, pastries and so much fruit.

She couldn’t do much more than pick at croissant as the table bustled with conversation between every inhabitant of the fortress.

“Isn’t there anything I can do to help?” Alisha asked Ysabeau, who was sitting with Margaret on her knee, the child staring adoringly up at the vampire.

“It is already in hand.”

Alisha had the sneaking suspicion that Ysabeau already had most of the arrangements made before they arrived at Sept Tours, and knew that her step-son would relent.

“After breakfast we will have Victoire make some preliminary measurements for your gown.” Ysabeau’s eyes drifted to the different coloured ribbon around Alisha’s wrist, a ghost of a smile on her expression.

“Have you invited my aunts,” Marcus asked her, “and my cousin?”

“Baldwin will notify Miyako himself but I have invited Verin, Stasia and Freyja.”

“Aunt Fanny’s already in France, she’ll be here before the wedding, I guarantee it.” Marcus smiled, looking forward to seeing Freya.

“What about your father, Marcus? Matthew and his wife...Diana? Are they not coming?” Alisha asked him, causing a weight of silence to fall over the table.

“They won’t be able to make it, unfortunately.” Ysabeau answered.

She realised that Baldwin hadn’t actually told her what had happened with them.

Judging by Ysabeau’s tone - and the way everyone was suddenly studying their breakfast - now was not the time to find out.

“Where is the ceremony happening?” She asked instead.

“Saint Lucien,” Ysabeau seemed relieved by the change in topic, “it will be a Catholic ceremony, if there are no objections?”

“N-no, of course not. What can I do to help?”

“You can learn the Latin phrases you are expected to say and under no circumstances are you to speak with or see Baldwin until the wedding.”

Her cell had been broken by Christina several days prior and without a replacement, it would be easy for Ysabeau to enforce this rule.

“I understand,” she accepted, “and I want to thank you, for everything you’re doing for us, I really appreciate it. I’m sure Baldwin does too.”

Ysabeau almost corrected her, she was keeping a promise, nothing more.

“You are welcome,” she said instead, surprised that her rules had not prompted an appeal against them.

Ysabeau’s gaze was that of appraisal, like she was sizing Alisha up for some unknown purpose, task, role.

The rest of breakfast passed in general conversation until Victoire arrived to collect Alisha for her fitting.

Ysabeau watched until she was gone.

“I do hope Freyja is on her way,” she told Marcus, “if Verin and Stasia arrive first, they will eat that poor girl alive.”

“To get an accurate measurement, you must take those off.” The vampire told Alisha.

“O-okay.” She answered, hesitantly removing the warm, bulky sweater, jeans and vest until she was standing in just her underwear.

“Our priest is...conservative, which means that there will be no bare shoulders or arms.” Victoire decreed as she measured around Alisha’s waist.

That’s when she remembered, the very obvious hickie on the inside of her thigh that she’d noticed in the shower that morning.

She could only hope that Victoire either did not see it or would be too polite to mention it.

It had been acquired during Baldwin’s deliciously cruel teasing the night before, clearly it was some primal impulse to put a physical mark of his claim upon her.

“I don’t mind,” Alisha rushed to protest, “I trust you, with the design.”

In truth, she just wanted the two days to be over and was willing to do whatever it took to make them pass as smoothly as possible.

She started to believe Baldwin was mistaken, about the mate bond, it didn’t just lie with him. When he left, she felt a distinct tug at her heart that was, throughout the day, starting to feel like a vast chasm was opening up, hollowing her out.

“You will be beautiful on the day Madame, I guarantee it. You shall even render Sieur Baldwin speechless!”

Just as she was about to respond, the door to the room opened and a tall, blonde and stunning vampire entered.

“Um, hi!” Alisha greeted, still standing, in her underwear.

“Freyja,” the woman answered simply, as though that was explanation enough, “do you know who I am?”

“Baldwin’s sister?”

“One of them,” she answered with a smile, giving Alisha a frank up and down appraisal, “I’m here to help prepare you for the ceremony.”

“Ysabeau said I have some phrases to learn, in Latin?”

“You...do not speak Latin?”

“No.”

“French?”

“Nope!”

“I suppose it would be pointless to ask how familiar you are with Ancient Greek?”

“Not pointless but the answer would still be nuh-uh.”

“I assume Baldwin chose me as your chaperone due to your...unfamiliarity with our ways.”

“But Gallowglass-“

“Is your guard, do not leave this building without him.”

“Yeah, he already warned me of the hazard that is flying witches.”

“Good, dear Matthew’s mate Diana was taken from here by a witch, one who possessed the power of flight.”

“What happened to her?”

“Tortured, they were lucky to get her back alive.”

“They?”

“Matthew and Baldwin mounted a rescue. He didn’t tell you?”

“No.“

“I’m sure he will, he simply does not want to worry you with inconsequential threats. Baldwin has no patience for fragility, of body or of spirit but you seem to be the exception.”

“I’m not fragile.”

“Of course you are, and I am not saying that as an insult. You’re a warmblood, a musician too I hear. Not a warrior but we have enough of them in this family already. We will find a role for you, one that will suit your sensibilities.”

“A role? I’m getting married, not applying for a job.”

“Everyone in the family has a role, a purpose that furthers the de Clermont cause.”

“I though my role would be to support my husband.”

“Would that be enough for you? Would you not like to carve out your own function?”

Freyja’s words resonated, she never really thought about her place in the family beyond that of an extension, attached but not entirely a part of it.

“What role could I possibly fulfil that has not already been taken?”

Freyja’s smile was triumphant.

“We can figure that part out together!”

“Is that why he asked you to help me?”

“I have some more modern ideas when it comes to preparing the uninitiated for their new life. Verin and Stasia would not be as patient, I’m afraid. He must really care for you, to admit that a kinder approach is sometimes appropriate. My brother does not like to admit when he is wrong.”

“And Did he?”

Freyja snorted.

“Of course he didn’t, his request for my assistance was admission enough.”

“I have what I need for now Madame, we will have a fitting tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Victoire.” Alisha gave the woman a grateful smile.

“Wait,” Freyja told Victoire whilst keeping her eyes on Alisha, “I assume you would like to keep the dress intact after the wedding?”

“I would, yes.” Alisha agreed.

“Victoire,” Freyja turned back to the seamstress, “please keep that in mind when you are devising the fastenings. A newly mated pair kept apart for two days and nights, too many buttons and the dress will not survive.”

Alisha stifled a smile at the vampire’s candour as she pulled her clothes back on before Victoire left them.

“We need a man to give you away at the ceremony.”

“I’ve probably spent the most amount of time with Gallowglass so far-“

“It cannot be Eric, or Marcus, Baldwin’s their uncle. Ideally it should be a daemon.”

“The only daemon male I know is Nathaniel.”

“Perfect, ask him. It should also help with securing the daemon’s vote in the congregation, their leader is his mother after all!”

Alisha read over Philippe’s letter for the tenth time, taking time she should have been using to get ready for dinner. Meal times seemed to be an event in general in Sept Tours.

There was something regretful in the words of the deceased patriarch, guilt too, perhaps. Still, sitting at the desk was not going to urge her up to get ready and she reluctantly stood.

At the door to the shower room she heard a noise, the unmistakable sound of a phone vibrating, the cell phone Nathaniel had given her - alongside his agreement to give her away - ringing on the bedside table.

“Is everything okay?” She said as she answered the call, already knowing, in her bones, who it was.

“And hello to you as well Sweetheart.” Baldwin’s tone was teasing.

“Two days Baldwin! Our wedding is in two days.”

He was silent for a moment then sighed.

“I know,” he admitted, “Ysabeau works faster than even I give her credit for.”

“Surely you’ll be back by then, I’d kind of like you to be there!”
”I will be, I promise.”

“I hope so, Victoire has already measured me for my dress.”

“Oh?”

“Yep, and luckily your mark went unnoticed by her and Freyja.”

“Mark?”

“Let’s call it a token of affection,” she rolled her eyes, “that you so kindly bestowed on me last night with your merciless teasing, on your desk.”

“Ah,” he answered in understanding, “I am sorry, I forget how easily warmblood skin bruises.”

“So it wasn’t deliberate, a plan to mark your territory?”

“When I’m between your thighs, I don’t have the presence of mind to formulate a plan.”

“It’s really mean to talk like that when you’re so far away and I’m all alone in a big bed tonight. I might have to please myself.”

“Do something for me.”

“Record and send it to you?”

“N-“ he stopped.

“Well?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Stop,” she giggled, “what were you going to say?”

“I was going to ask you to wait. There’s no way Ysabeau will let me near you until the wedding anyway.”

“Are you asking me to ‘save myself’ for you because that ship has hoisted anchor by this point.”

“Two days, wait for me?”

“I can do that,” she agreed with a smile.

He went silent for a moment.

“Baldwin?”

“I’m sorry, for almost depriving you of this wedding. Everything happened so quickly I just didn’t think having this was something I-“

“Needed?”

“Deserved.”

“You’re a good man Baldwin, you deserve to be happy.”

“Good men don’t live as long as I have.”

She wasn’t sure what it was about conversation over the telephone that lent itself to such openness from him. Still, the sound of a door being knocked on the other side of the line stopped her from answering.

“I have a meeting before the Congregation hearing so I must leave you now Sweetheart.”

“Then go be big boss man,” she encouraged, “try not to kill anyone, and remember that I love you.”

She hung up just as Freyja breezed into the room.

“I would turn that off and hide it if I were you. Ysabeau is very strict with rules!” The woman headed straight for the wardrobe.

“I have to go wash up.” Alisha got up and made her way to the door, hearing his voice made the separation much more difficult and she had to pull herself together, preferably not in front of her sister-in-law.

“Take your time,” Freyja stated with sympathy, “no red eyes at dinner, and I’ll leave this dress out for you to wear. My sisters will be in attendance and I will help you make a good impression.”

___

PART 14

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep1 Part 1: Yugi Ditches Algebra, Cards Become Real

Ah, a new season a new day. It’s Season 4. And we’re going to start of with:

A deep sea sub. Sure, why not?

So Yugi’s unofficial other grandpa, Arthur Hawkins, AKA one of the member’s of this show’s only really happening OTP has decided to kinda ditch his Granddaughter Rebecca and go to the bottom of the ocean. Don’t blame him. Down here is where, I guess, he will come across this very Grecian looking structure.

Like Yugioh nonchalantly passes a lot of bad history at me but like...he’s in the Atlantic Ocean and there’s Grecian style stuff everywhere?

Why? I mean at least he’s not in the Pacific but like...Yugioh. Anyways, we’re not in Greece but the show had very little time to invent a brand new ancient architecture style although I would be super down for that.

But like...here’s the thing about columns--you can go really deep into column lore and people are really freakin picky about columns and what they mean, and this could have been a low key hilarious place to make an entirely new column order just for Yugioh. They could’ve done it and they decided not to. It’s OK, I’ll save it for the Marik’s Boat Time spinoff they’ll never ever make.

But I just want to bring up just real super fast that Noah and Gozaburo must’ve known about this place for years right? Like they super lived underwater and had robots poised to attack mankind stationed all over the sea floor so...we can pretty much guarantee they already knew about this place?

Just gonna bring up what a shame it is Noah freakin died.

Also want to bring up what a shame it was that Arthur didn’t show up at the beginning of S3 and be like “hey Yugi, I was just in the neighborhood, noticed you got picked up by an undersea gang, what’s up?”

(read more under the cut)

Anyway, there he is, our 70 yo adventurer, who has more energy than I have at under half his age. Arthur Hawkins needs to take it down a few pegs.

Or is it Hawkings?

Wtv.

Anyways, I gave Hawkins this tweed colored font that I just realized is nearly the same as Joey’s so it’ll change if he ever comes back.

Thanks for that prologue, Yugioh. Anyway, apparently no one on this side of Japan freakin cares, because despite finding what looks exactly like Godzilla’s lair on the bottom of the sea, we’re gonna instead fixate on Rex and Weevil.

Y’all I was going to make a joke about “why does this show fixate so much on Rex and Weevil at the beginning of so many arcs?” when I remembered that Bakura basically murdered all the other mean mini bosses from S1 except for Bandit Keith, who probably got deported by now.

I had to think long and hard just now about whether or not I’ve used that joke before because it is S4 and y’all I just don’t even remember.

(I have a very long story about Warby Parker that I just deleted fyi)

Rex is a Christmas plaid now because there are too many characters in this show.

Now that Rex and Weevil have been reunited, which is surprising because I just assumed these two have been Bert and Ernie-ing it up in some condo in the NYC, They say:

I almost forgot about the secret side-plot of Yugioh, that everyone is a cheese monger and very open about it.

So anyway, they’re off to have a very simple storyline of “I will try and Challenge Yugi Muto for God Cards” which...good luck with that, it only took 2 seasons for Yugi to finally accept his challenge from Seto Kaiba. Have fun following around Yugi Muto for 2 seasons.

When there’s a...really bizarre twist that happens. Just a very weird turn of events. Like recall that it’s the middle of the day, and the sun is shining, and there’s people and cars everywhere, and it’s a good neighborhood, and then, like playing Pokemon in tall grass, this guy just appears in front of them.

And guys, I’m from the Bay Area and I have slipped and fallen right on top of my phone on Fillmore which was DEVASTATING so like...their unstoppable speed walk down this 12 degree slope is...

I think they wanted to run into them, I really think they did. I think people in this town are so desperate for any excuse to fall into a horrifying disaster that they are just magnetically attracted to anyone wearing an oversized blanket.

Also this guy’s look is...kind of forgettable. It’s somehow weird and also forgettable at the same time. Hit that sweet spot for me. I don’t even remember this guy’s name, it was so forgettable. I’ll look it up later. Maybe bro will do it. I dunno. He wears a Monocle so like...that’s all I can say about this guy.

OK so I just checked in with Bro and then Bro made a weird rant about this guy being called Gurimo and how bro had some strong opinions about Season 4. Then Bro said a statement that really stuck with me, although I only remember part of the statement which was: “...this guy can just go get more monocles from Forever 21 and Hot Topic...” which made me very quickly realize my adult brother has never entered either a Forever 21 or a Hot Topic if he thinks a cultist in a monocle would purchase monocles from there.

I learned a lot and now you have to know this too.

And in case you’re wondering “did Rex and Weevil deserve this?” No. He just immediately decided to steal their soul on the sidewalk in front of Women’s Foot Locker from what I assume is just down the street from Yugi Muto’s house/game shop.

(how did this storyboarder nail the 3/4 degree angle on Weevil here? Do you know how hard that is to do with not just glasses but weird ass chunky glasses?)

Ah, a duel disk that can stab yourself in the stomach with two very poorly laid out barbs.

Very nice rival to Kaiba’s duel disk that will behead you if you don’t fling your arm out just right.

So like...did he steal a duel disk from Kaiba and then mod it? Is that what they did? The whole point of duel disks is that you’re linked up to the Dueling Facebook or whatever...so did this Cultist buy a normal duel disk from Toy’s R Us and then say “ahahah I’m going to do so much card crime!” and then start modding it with help of a cosplay forum? Like what’s the story here of how this guy spent all of last year (and definitely all of last season) modding this duel disk over a computer desk, some metallic acrylic paint, and a sauntering iron, feverishly asking his forum if anyone can 3d print some sick ass runes for his soul-sucking duel disk?

And then I guess this guy dueled both Rex and Weevil at the same time? Like this was all off screen...but why didn’t Rex and Weevil just leave? Just don’t pull out your duel disk and you’re probably good?

Just so many ways to have avoided losing your soul in the first ten minutes of Yugioh.

Anyway, on the other side of town, Tea is worrying about Yugi which is basically her normal.

Joey and Tristan decided to meet up with her, not because she was clearly in distress, but because Yugi isn’t around, and why worry about Tea when instead your friend Yugi is probably going to destroy the world the moment you turn around (and he did. Yugi absolutely effed everything up the very moment these three took their eyes off of him)

And what was weird is that it took Yugi until, I dunno...several streets over to kind of come out of the ether and be like “heeey Pharaoh...um...what’s up?” Like it took him this long to say something. Probably so that by the time they would have walked back to school math would have been over.

So...did Yugi just not notice at first? Like it’s sort of amazing what these two don’t know what the other one is up to. Including this situation that little Yugi absolutely should have picked up on.

As it turns out, the cards are speaking very audibly to Pharaoh. This should have been somewhat of a...youknow...red flag...since Yugi can’t hear them but Pharaoh can. But, Yugi’s like “well...we’re so used to everyone just giving us the answer and that being the right call, I guess this must also be the right call.”

And...although he had quite the head start, These three are more than willing to drop the hell out of class and rack up those absences. I’m gonna assume they had to make up another wild excuse about Tea’s cat to that one teacher to get out of school just like last time, but they did all that offscreen.

And then Tea just kind of snapped, and she did so with a smile the entire time.

Her wording was somewhat different, but she did basically say something along the lines of “if you don’t remember me telling you this a million times, you are an idiot” and Pharaoh didn’t have an answer and so it was like he said without saying anything “yes, I am.”

Which he will further prove like five minutes from now.

Like Y’all, bless his cursed perfect ass, but Pharaoh is the biggest idiot in this show. Sometimes he’s brilliant, but if he’s ever left to his own devices, just the biggest idiot. He got duped by some guy pretending to throw his voice so that his cards looked like they were talking to him. Pharaoh thought cards can talk.

And so that’s how Pharaoh freakin caused the Apocalypse. The first of many.

He did so just so very easily.

His cards started wigging out, the tablet started icing over--it was like “hey remember what took 2 seasons to build up to? Well screw it.”

Also this happened, apropos of absolutely nothing.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand cards are real.

I mean they’ve been real for a few seasons but now the cards are officially real and they’re not cute like Pokemon. They’re all really gross and roided out and they probably have a funky smell. All of them.

I knew we’d get here eventually I just didn’t know it would be SO fast.

When no one was paying absolutely any attention--when my entire focus was inside of this museum, that was when cards became real.

Well...

...time to shove em into little balls I guess. Anyways, that’s it for this update because this episode was a lot of stuff so I’m gonna split it so y’all have it easier and so I have it easier too.

And if you just got there this is S4, if you want to start reading these from S1, here’s a link to the collection in chrono order, it’s basically like reading a Victor Hugo length of book except its just me ranting about WTF is going on in OG Yugioh for 100+ episodes, knock yourself out.

[patrickbrewerisgay]

It’s been — checks watch — 43 years since Second City Television first aired, and Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy are still flexing their comedic skills in made-up towns in 2019. With Schitt’s Creek, the show created by Levy and his son, Dan, they’ve revived that familiar slow burn: The show premiered on the CBC in 2015, but it wasn’t until the fourth season that the fever spread. This year, Schitt’s Creek received four Emmy nominations, including acting nominations for Levy (as patriarch Johnny Rose) and O’Hara (his wife, Moira), costumes, and Outstanding Comedy Series. In a three-way phone call, we discussed their respective nominations, their teary final days shooting on set, and whether we can expect to see Moira during her favorite season.

Congratulations to you both. Did you talk yesterday? 

Eugene Levy: Yes, we did. We were actually on the phone. [The publicist] Gab was watching the live feed and I guess my category came up first, and she phoned me to say that I’d been nominated, and right after that Catherine’s category came up, so I just heard, “You and Catherine have been nominated.” And then she tagged Catherine in on the phone call and we were actually on the phone while they were watching the livestream.

Catherine O’Hara: And that’s when they announced Best Show!

EL: And then we heard, “Well, the show got nominated.” And that was the best of all worlds. That was like really exciting news, because that really gives a nod of recognition to every single person that works on the show. It was actually a very exciting call.

COH: [laughs] It was. We were kind of stunned. We were just stunned and laughing.

Did you do anything to celebrate?

EL: I went out with my brother, who’s one of our producers, Andrew Barnsley; Deb, my wife; and Sally Catto, who runs CBC up here, and we went down to Soho and had a little celebratory dinner.

COH: That’s lovely. My husband, Bo [Welch, a production designer], is nominated for production design for A Series of Unfortunate Events, but here we are in cottage country, where it’s the last concern of anyone, what’s going on with the Emmys. But we’re excited at our cottage, and we toasted each other and the shows. But today we kind of said, “Okay, we’ve got to stop talking.”

Both of you have been at this for a couple of years, and I was wondering, is it still exciting?

EL: Well, it was exciting yesterday on the phone. It was a pretty exciting day, don’t you think, Catherine?

COH: Absolutely. Anytime anyone pats you on the head and says, “Good job,” it’s always nice, and I’m especially happy for Daniel. This was his baby to begin with. It’s a lovely thing to have anything to celebrate in life. I’m happy.

EL: It’s actually more exciting that it’s happening now in our fifth season on the show. I keep thinking, had this happened after our first season, it could have been a lot tougher to maintain this caliber over the next four or five seasons. But the show has built so nicely in terms of following and viewership, and how it’s been embraced by the critics. I mean, it was an exciting year after our fourth season when we end the year making a lot of top-ten lists; that itself was incredibly exciting, where you get the feeling that your show is being recognized for the first time. Now in our fifth season, we get the Emmy nominations, and we still have one more season to go, so I just love the arc here and how the show has caught on. I’d rather have it this way than starting off like a bat out of hell and then trying to hang on.

COH: Yeah, it’s almost like we got to do the show in an old TV–world way before the internet, where you just build the show according to your own instincts and develop the characters and try to make the best show you can make. It was so nice to not feel like you were too affected by outside sources or outside opinions. We were on our own to build the show, in a way that TV shows used to get to do.

It feels increasingly rare to make TV outside of the rapid-fire response of social media. Schitt’s Creek feels like the little show that could, and because of that, was preserved on its own island that people discovered slowly.

EL: Yeah, I don’t know if that has to do with shooting the show in Toronto. It reminds me of when we were doing SCTV and how removed you are from the mainstream of show business, so you’re relatively unaffected by it. You just get the feeling you’re going into the studio, you’re going to work and then you’re going home and having dinner. And SCTV as well had a nice build to it over the years, where it caught on with fans and critics. You really just get to focus on the work and eventually the work kind of speaks for itself.

COH: I think it works for shows or movies that get to go to remote locations, too. They get away from the head office and focus only on the work, and you have a better chance of succeeding at what you’re attempting.

Do you think that might be a benefit to being a Canadian production? 

EL: I think so. With our show, I guess you can prove that you can work and produce a show here in Canada that can get the same kind of recognition that any other show can get — mainly, I guess, getting Emmy nods. I got an email from Rick Moranis. It said, “Congratulations. 37 years between Emmy nominations, not bad.”

COH: [laughs] That’s great.

EL: Yeah, I think it helps to be able to focus on the work just shooting away from the mainstream of the business and avoiding getting caught up in the hype.

You also just wrapped shooting the final season. What was the last day on set like? 

COH: I think back to the table read. I think we got a lot of the good weeping out of our systems at the table read for the last two episodes. At lunch hour while you’re shooting, you do a table read for the upcoming episodes, and the upcoming episodes that day were the last two episodes of the sixth season, and when you shoot your scenes, you’re not in every scene with everybody, so you don’t get to see everything get shot, but we got to see everybody read their last scenes and it was really emotional. I mean, there were lots of laughs, because the scripts were great and funny, but oh my god, they were also so heart-wrenching for us. I had to go back to shoot that afternoon, and Moira wears a lot of makeup, so I looked like Alice Cooper.

The last day was just, “Oh.” Every moment is like, “This is the last time we’re going to do this. This is the last time we’re going to stand here,” but it was sweet. It really felt like I was part of a really lovely, talented family. It was hard to say goodbye, but the last episodes are really a lovely goodbye.

EL: Catherine’s right, it really started with the table read, where you got to lose a few pounds in tears. And then as we wound down, we would be wrapping certain sets: wrapping the town hall set, and then wrapping Café Tropical, and then we were wrapping the motel set, so every last scene in all these sets, there also was a nice emotional moment between characters. A lot of tears. And then we get to the last day, and once again it was quite emotional. Although there was a lot to do. On the one hand, you know that if you’re breaking down for 20 minutes having a nice sob-fest, then you’re adding 20 minutes on to the day. It was a very sweet, rewarding way to end the series.

Moira Rose, of course, is an actress. What would she say in this scenario, if she got a surprise nomination?

COH: [laughs] I went to the Tonys a month ago. I got to present a musical number for Beetlejuice, and my husband said that Moira would have called them ‘the Anthonys.’ [does Moira’s voice] “So lovely to be here at the Anthonys.” So now I’m trying to think of what it would be for [the Emmys]. I was thinking ‘Emily,’ then I was like no, it should be ‘Emmanuel.’ [does Moira’s voice again] “It’s so exciting to be nominated for an Emmanuel. Finally, they got it right,” Moira would say, to be clear. I would not say such a thing.

EL: Didn’t Dan tweet something about, “Finally, Moira —”

COH: [laughs] “— gets her Emmy,” or something, yeah. Oh, who would care more for this? I try to keep a level head here, and thank goodness I’m a Canadian, so I’m raised to not take show business all that seriously. But Moira, oh my lord. This is it. The Crows Have Eyes, she was already seeing Oscars for that. So this is a win. This is a win for Moira.

EL: Well, it would be great to see Moira at the podium.

COH: [laughs] I already did that in Canada, though. I did that for the Canadian awards.

Would you ever consider doing it in character again?

COH: Well, I’m not gonna talk about getting up on the podium. Don’t get me sucked in. But it’d be fun to present an award, let’s put that out.

EL: How about doing the carpet as Moira?

COH: The carpet as Moira! Yeah, I usually can’t help myself. If I’m answering questions about Moira, I can’t help myself. I go in the Moira zone, yeah. She’ll probably leak out. She’ll be dying to be there.

And both of you have already satirized this whole awards campaign with For Your Consideration.

COH: Yeah, that’s why I say, please don’t suck me in.

EL: That’s just how it starts, it’s the what if, “What if? What will you do if?” And the more that gets planted, the more it becomes just like, “Ahhh!” Yeah, that’s what For Your Consideration was all about. You know every single twitch that signals falling into that trap, so you’re extremely defensive about it for all those reasons.

COH: I remember for my character, it was also, “Why not? They have to nominate someone, why not me? Someone has to win, why not me?” Let’s remember that movie. Let’s keep it in mind.

EL: I have to watch that again, actually.

COH: Yeah, this is good timing for it.

EL: I haven’t seen it since it came out.

COH: Yeah, it’s a good reminder. It’s a cautionary tale.

But also, these things happen, and are happening!

COH: Yeah, it’s fun. All good fun.

EL: Well, you know, to be honest, the most fun aspects of this thing are moments like yesterday, being on that phone call when it first happens and experiencing that excitement and surprise. And then just getting to go to the party. Whether you walk out with a statue or not is really not the thing. The fact that you’re there with everybody else pouring their heart and soul into whatever shows they’re working on, and you’re there at the party with some lovely, talented people who you respect and admire. You’re on the same team, so to speak, with the other nominees, and that’s really the joyous part of it all.

COH: You’re right. I was reading the nominees yesterday and saying, “Oh, I get to see them, I’ll get to meet them, I’ll get to tell them how much I love their show.”

Like who? 

COH: Patricia Arquette, love her. Love Escape at Dannemora. And Ben Stiller, who directed it. Yeah, I’m happy for them. Benicio del Toro and Paul Dano, I love that series, amazing. Love Succession.

It’s so good.

COH: Oh my lord, yes. It’s just so much good material. So much talent. Laura Linney, Ozark, everyone. John Oliver. Everyone! I’m excited to see everyone. And Eugene! I’m very excited to see Eugene again. In a tux, no less.

EL: Yes, in a tux.

You’ve known each other for over 40 years. What do you think makes a working friendship like that last?

EL: I don’t know how that works. I think we’re probably two of the un-show-busiest, un-show-business-iest kinds of people. I think we’ve always taken our work seriously, but you know, Catherine’s just a regular person. Like, you don’t get caught up in the trappings of the business that you’re actually in. And nothing has really changed in all of these years. Catherine hasn’t changed at all.

COH: No, and you haven’t.

EL: At all. And you get to enjoy what you’re doing in a very real way, the way other people get to enjoy what they’re doing. And it’s just fun to be around, it’s been that way since the very beginning.

COH: Yeah, same for me. I respect Eugene, I trust Eugene, and I know that when we talk about the work, it’s about the work. But I say, “Eugene’s a gentleman,” and what comes with that is a certain lovely amount of diplomacy, or gentlemanly behavior, good manners. It counts for a lot when you’re working day-to-day. Since SCTV, this is the most amount of time we’ve spent together. We see each other periodically through our mutual friends — Martin Short, especially. It feels like family who live in different cities. You know, you don’t see each other all the time, but when we do, we pick up where we left off. It helps that Eugene keeps giving me jobs, so thank you, Eugene. [laughs] I think that’s probably the main thing that keeps us together.

EL: Excellent work, Catherine’s done.

COH: Thank you, Eugene.

[blackjacketmuses]

hc; team dr and the show

DRV3 headcanons for the actual Danganronpa TV show and other pertinent things!

Under a cut for length, whew!

DR Seasons

Previous: two main games + anime + UDG + light novels etc; the Hope’s Peak Arc

Year 1 - s1-6

Year 2 - s7-12

Year 3 - s13-18

Year 4 - s19-24

Year 5 - s25-30

Year 6 - s31-36

Year 7 - s37-42

Year 8 - s43-48

Year 9 (final) s49-53

Recent History / The Fall of DR

In between years 6 and 7, the team switched the full writing team out from professionals to megafans -- there was a pretty big recruitment drive on the forums. The new team started writing on season 37.

From that point on, some fans noticed a slow downturn in the writing of the series. The fanwriters would pull from previous seasons -- especially the Hope’s Peak Saga -- for much of their plot elements and backstory, and even in victim/culprit/motives. A lot of things became derivative as the fanwriters only focused on feeding their nostalgia and repeating what they loved about the show, and some complaints were made on forums of how tropey, cliche, and sterotypical the plot and characters got at points, especially with the slow increase in pop culture references. Not only that, but things kept getting more brutal.

But despite a chunk of the fandom disliking the way the show was going, most fans didn’t care -- the dissatisfied fans were outnumbered by those who loved the show still. To them, it was the repeated elements that kept them coming back. The murders, the death, the familiar and beloved plot elements and the characters that fought despair to make sure hope always won, that was what they wanted. Maybe for some of them it was cathartic, but it blinded them to how the series was going downhill. All they wanted was their fix.

In season 49, the newest in-game Mastermind was introduced: a cosplayer and megafan named Tsumugi Shirogane, who had been on the writing staff since season 42. It was then that a larger portion of the fans became disillusioned, as Tsumugi slowly began the worst run of the show’s history: as the seasons ticked by, it was clear that the woman was obsessed with the Hope’s Peak Arc and the series was her life -- to unhealthy levels. And in the five seasons she ran, she visibly treated the whole thing like her personal dollhouse, living out her fantasy of being the next Junko gleefully with no consideration for anything but her own personal enjoyment.

Four seasons went by relatively calmly -- even if they were increasingly erratic and increasingly full of pop culture references and tropes and stereotypes -- and then...no one is sure what the catalyst was for Tsumugi Shirogane’s complete psychotic break, but it happened on live TV at the climax of season 53 after one of the most plot-hole-filled and ridiculous season’s in the show’s history. It and the protagonist’s -- Shuichi Saihara -- speech to the fandom at large finally struck a chord with even the diehards in the RoboChat, and the season was shut down with a non-ending.

In the wake of this, a lawsuit has been filed -- Rantaro Amami, Kaede Akamatsu, Shuichi Saihara, et al. vs. Team Danganronpa -- in which the participants of Season 53, as well as others from previous seasons, are seeking reparations. The charges filed are, among other things, Endangerment of Minors, Criminal Negligence, Copyright Infringement, Defamation, Improper Medical Care, and a whole hell of a lot of damages thanks to psychological trauma.

The show has been suspended pending a thorough investigation into the studio -- there have been hints that the show has been operating without proper paperwork or inspections.

How The Show Works

Danganronpa is a virtual reality game show. The contestants -- 14 of them, plus the mastermind (a staff member who works with the crew from inside the game) and the AI audience camera “Robot” -- are all given the most basic of debriefs (their memories will temporarily be suppressed in favor of their in-game character’s persona, and they will believe the game is real), and are then all hooked up to the computer simulation via Virtual Reality Pods.

Once inside the ‘game’, as mentioned, their real selves are temporarily suppressed and replaced by their character’s persona -- they keep their name and appearance, but are otherwise turned into Ultimate students. The contestants all choose only the basics of their personas, the application form having a request section, but the final say on talent, backstory, and personality is the studio and writers’. They do not tell the contestants what their personas will contain beforehand. However, their personas cannot be far from their true selves: the simulation cannot rewrite personalities entirely, simply enhance certain traits or diminish other ones, or add a few odd quirks. Most contestants are similar to -- but not exact and certainly not as intense as, their in-game personas.

The contestants, once they are in the game, do no longer know that they are in a game, and believe the events of said game are completely real -- as such, the trauma and death feels completely and utterly real to them. Once a contestant dies in game, they are released from the simulation, and are taken to the medical room for a cursory physical examination in order to make sure their avatar’s ‘death’ did not leave any physical damage. This done, they are sent to the Contestant Lounge (a comfortable room with chairs, cots, a bathroom, a snackbar, and a huge TV showing the live stream) where they are to await the season’s end. They are allowed their phones back, but they are only allowed to call immediate family, and they are not allowed to leave until the season is over.

Fandom

While the fandom was almost entirely unified before the Writer Swap, afterwards it became more split. While roughly a quarter of the fandom became increasingly dissatisfied with the direction the show was taking under the new staff of fanwriters, most of them did not mind, and some didn’t even notice a change. Arguments broke out between Diehards and the rest, who collectively coined the term Reserves for themselves after the Reserve Course in SDR2, and though nothing came to real-world blows, there was definitely a schism.

The Reserves grew in number after season 49 onwards, and eventually even the Diehards had to admit the show wasn’t what it used to be, thus its shutdown after season 53.

Popular Knowledge

Unlike Tsumugi’s claims in the climax of season 53, the series is far from universally watched. It is a rather popular show, but it isn’t near top ten, or even top fifty. It isn’t even broadcast on TV itself: the episodes are released through the Team DR studio onto their streaming site, which also contains the link to the RoboStream and RoboChat, which is the live feed from their proxy’s cameras and the survey chat. It is reasonably popular, but far from universal pop culture. The games are far more known than the reality show itself.

Applications

Applications can be found through the Team DR website, and mostly only people who know about the show apply to be on it. It is not common knowledge -- at least a third of the fans believe the show to be entirely faked, with the characters completely fictional -- but the rest do know and do apply.

The application process is simply a form and a video, and requires only that the applicant submit proof of their attendance at a high school and that they be ages 15 to 17. It does not require any sort of parental permission (something they are getting hit for in the lawsuit), and does not do background checks (which is how underage kids have gotten into the show), but it does require at least a dozen or more pages of NDAs.

Survivor Perk

The Survivor Perk concept was introduced after the Writer Swap as incentives. A particularly selfless or MVP player in the game would be targeted in the final trial to “sacrifice themselves in the name of hope” -- and then would be given the option to play again in the next season. It was not used in every season, but came up sporadically as a concept.

RoboStream / RoboChat

The RoboStream was another concept introduced around the time of the Writer Swap as a way to bring the viewer base closer to the game itself: a live first-person stream from the POV of one of the contestants themselves, so the viewers could feel part of it. This concept was introduced in season 38 as M1-R41, an Ultimate Robot character whose appearance was slightly based on Chiaki Nanami from SDR2. She was immediately a favorite, and the RoboStream -- in its own section on the website -- was loved by the fandom as well. She would appear in every season afterwards as a staple alongside the mastermind until season 52.

As her repeated use in the show went on, however, M1-R41 -- pronounced and romanized by fans as Mirai -- who was in reality an AI, became increasingly self-aware, retaining memories of past seasons and realized what was going on and her real purpose, keeping it within the show itself. This manifested in season 52, where she and one of the contestants turned on the show in chapter 5 and were killed by the Exisals (who were as of then unmanned). She was decommissioned after that, and a new AI/Robot, as well as the new audience survey RoboChat system was introduced for what would end up being his one and only season -- K1-B0.

[midnatt-heronweather]

2020 review

Disclaimer: You won’t hear much about the virus in this. I’m not a denier, I know the damage and destruction covid19 has caused and the death toll, therefore I am not yet cold enough not to realise this is going to sound completely selfish, but that is my decision.  My reviews focus on MY year. Just so you’re aware. “I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.” Bob Dylan.

2020... What can I say?

This was the year I decided to officially identify as Non-Binary, not that anyone actually cares or believes me or things i'm "(insert stereotype at will)" enough. except for those very VERY rare people who do and who actually listen and hear me when I speak

Anyway -It has been a trashcan fire of a year since February/March February when I saw the Hu and Counterfeit alongside Ally. And I say February/March because that was the weekend I say my year ended...the good part anyway. Because it was that weekend when I got the ultimate honour, privilege and miracle of meeting Jason Carter, After that it was like a Dementor had French kissed the year and I can’t be the only one who thought it? Conventions and gigs postponed, rescheduled and ultimately cancelled, masks, social distancing, lockdowns the works. And can I just say - I didn’t clap, and I don’t feel in the slightest bit ashamed for it. Despite or maybe because I have friends and a few family who work in the NHS I couldn't bear to be a part of the hypocritical BS idea. I live in a country that will clap for their 'beloved' life saving NHS but then stand silent when Pay rises are frozen and when the NHS is in danger, we as a country expect a lot but don't lift a finger to gave back, clapping doesn’t pay bills. But...Bright points in the year let’s try staying positive and leaving the crap outside shall we...well... The main one has got to be that the US finally found their sense and President Elect Joe Biden will b sworn in January 20, 2021. After that... I’ll have to get back to you. Oh...no..no that’s not one... seriously I’ll have a think and get back to you. Conventions: Just one this year, for me, because of the obvious... But what a convention FCD Events presents 2258 a Babylon 5 Conventions: Where, as well as finally being among actual self confessed fans and being able to tick a b5 convention off my bucket list after starting cons way too late to attend the OG cons I did the impossible... I MET JASON CARTER... have I mentioned this? Have I? Should I say t again? I MET JASON CARTER!!! Also Mira Furlan, Tracy Scoggins and Patricia Tallman, but I met him! Finally! And... Just a reminder I did warn you guys, several times that it was likely hell would freeze over if I ever got that particular honour, do not say I didn’t. I’d never done an FCD before, I’d meant to, even bought a ticket but it just never seemed to happen, but the second someone said b5 con, I was so there! Karan Robinson made my year by making me the Anla’Shok uniform. And Nadine added the cherry on top by making the belt buckle that ONLY Marcus and Entil’Zha Sinclair wear: D (for the record: Velcro still hates me) David one of the organisers of FCD kept randomly shouting “We live for the one.” And when people other than m actually knew the response and responded... dude kick in the feels I kid you not. Next Year (Angel Willing) Adam and I are attending the Teen Wolf conventions entitled “Howl at the Moon 4” in Paris, France... which is cool on so many levels not least of which being I get to meet JR Bourne and Daniel Sharman again and get to visit the church of St Julian of the poor. And yes, there are cons planned here in the UK. But... well. It’s already looking Grey, and not the good kind. Music and Gigs: Two gigs one after the other at the 02 Ritz in Manchester. The First:

The Hu a Mongolian band who Ally really likes and I think are pretty cool. They are amazing live there’s no doubt, can hold their own in England even in a room of idiots. The 2nd :

Counterfeit (also with Ally) I went VIP and got to meet the boys again, and listen to a Q&A with them. I will forever love them, not just because of Jamie’s acting side despite what people say. Didn’t realise how special until recently though because;  after keeping fans going and hyping up new singles during lockdowns, they recently decided to go their separate ways. Jamie’s gone solo and he’s put three songs out on YouTube. _ I was meant to be attending a one off gig by Ruelle and Fleurie both of who had music used on Shadowhunters, even talked my friend Lou into it, but it was a victim of the lockdowns and things and I’m not the optimistic type so I doubt it’ll ever happen now, will be lucky if even one of the ladies comes over here if I’m honest. Recently I’ve rediscovered a love for Black Veil Brides and their leader Andy Black’s solo stuff. Olivia Hyde of Bad Pollyanna recently killed everyone in her black unicorn’s fanbase with an amazing solo album, me included. Ally has introduced me to a few interesting bands this year, *Wingtips – very 80s Goth, very Ally (translation: very cool.) *Allegiance Reign – a Japanese Samurai metal band,  not sure what Ally actually thinks of these guys, she found them while perusing YouTube and thought of me :D Suggestions greatly accepted, I am always up for giving new stuff a try. Hopefully next year things will even out and gigs will be able to be put on again. TV and Fandom’s: *We FINALLY got Roswell: New Mexico in the UK, and ITV blitzed through 2 seasons in less than a month, but it was enough for me to decide I loved it, maybe more than I did the original. Alex is my fave, but obv Michael isn’t half bad, nor is Max when he’s not making goo-goo eyes at Liz. * Finally got to see 9-1-1 Lone Star and I absolutely love it, (I kinda knew I would from all the talk) * Decided to give the Charmed reboot a 2nd look and it’s proved addictive, now waiting for s2 to be downloadable on Amazon or something. *In march I was so, so excited for the return of The Expanse and the fact the main cast were coming to a con in the UK, then.. The verse went to hell. I still Love the Expanse, but I’m not as die hard as I was, not for lack of trying. Still love it for Anna of course, any excuse to see her. *After 15 years Supernatural finally ended in 2020 with season15: I stopped watching religiously at the end of season 6 but that does not mean I stopped liking the show just that I didn’t like the direction (like with The Expanse recently) I loved watching the reaction of the fans, and how much they (we if I’m counted) mean to the cast. * I have to mention Cursed... If only to say HOLY HELL DANIEL! 𝑴𝒚 𝑭𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝑻𝑽 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒘𝒔 𝒐𝒇 2020 Cursed 9-1-1 Lone Star & 9-1-1 Warrior Nun Prodigal Son Penny Dreadful: City of Angels Doctor who (Officially season12) Roswell s1&2 (it counts cos ITV only just got the reboots) Charmed s1&2(it counts cos E4 only just got the reboots) Call the Midwife (s9 btw) Our Girl Strike Back: Vendetta Friends: “Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

My understanding of "friendship." is skewed, and I’m not saying that to be "Vulcan." it’s honest, and anyone who wants to know how or why just has to ask. But let’s leave it at that for this. It makes some things more stark... and I've said this recently, but this binfire has made even me more aware of who’s out there in my verse, whose pack, who’s potential, and who’s just pathetic. The last I’m not going to waste my breath on. The first two: Pack and Potential (read: new acquaintances /potential friends) Pack: Yes I go on about friends as 'Pack like a person whose OD'd on Teen Wolf... because I am so :P My pack as a whole are varied, and spread out across this country with a few dotted around Europe and Aus. hopefully they know who they are because I don't do mushy crap as they know. But if they do know, they know I'm there when I'm needed and more than willing to sod off when not. Yorkshire brass makes me frank and I’d hope fair. There are 2...mayb 3 who sit above the rest, in special place for the things they've done and things they've been through with me. I make no denial of that. But everyone is important to me. I wouldn't change them for anything.... Ok... tell a lie, maybe 1 or 2 when they do my box in, but that’s only like for a week maybe less. I've spent too many years and got too many scars and burned too many photos and bridges because of fake people and users to not be honest to a fault. It’s who I am. Potential: the Counterfeit gig in Manchester, 2258 and yes even Tiktok have given me the opportunity to make some interesting acquaintances this year, and some I hope will become friends in the real in the future, but for now I will say - "I am defensive, stand off ish, sometimes bull headed and of course opinionated, but I am by no means blind. Or blinkered despite what may be said of me. I am there when needed, if I can be of use, just poke me."   Ave Atqua Vale This section has its own post these days. Sadly. Pictures Will try and make one of my “a year in ten pics.” Posts later. Final words While I am not fond of this time of year, Enjoy your celebrations whatever for they may take, I will be watching The Magicians / Call the Midwife and plotting 202? Cosplays. I will be here when (fk knows why) I'm needed. Otherwise-  Compliments of the season, now go get a beer, i'm sure you need it after reading this crap.

in the words of The one and only Jason Carter  “Hindsight is 2020″

[typotigress]

Worldbuilding: Calendars

When I first started writing The Forgotten Hollows of Jordaré I hit a problem that I absolutely did not want to deal with: Dates. [warning!  Howto Mathematics included!]

Dates and time systems are an icky thing for most writers whether you are writing in a modern or historical time, or even a purely made up one like my own.  - Use a modern system like the Georgian, or even cultural such as Chinese or Hindu, then you lock yourself into a few situations (historical events clashing, becoming outdated [i.e. “Today - 1980″], and sometimes it pollutes your fictional world with the reality with such a simple connection.)  - But making one up invokes a whole load of extra work for you, and if not done right you are going to confuse readers and yourself nine out of ten time.  Even if you do a cop-out where you simply change every month/day name to some new random term, you either go back to confusing your readers or it just become obvious you ripped off good old George!  It’s just easier to not bother.

I wanted to avoid dates so much that I even went as far as to write in story: “Cole was becoming rather annoyed as the people of this area did not seem to bother keeping track of dates, only the week days.”  A+ for avoidance!

But you know what?  I still couldn���t get away from it.  The story took a turn that I didn’t really think ahead on, Cole was hunting down a beast and acting like a detective in trying to figure out its habits, and so I made myself a private calendar with loose dates just to keep track of my own events.  And you know what?  I still confused the hell out of myself.  Calendars are horrible!

But they are also a fantastic thing and one of the marvels that make just one of the attributes of any civilization, ancient or modern.  And one day recently I came across a three part video series by Artifexian on calendars for a fictional setting [Soli, Lunar, Lunisolar]  With my mind blown and my creative juices flowing, I decided to just dive right in into making up my own system and lore behind it!

Not to discredit his spreadsheet he provides and uses, it gave me some ideas, but it actually didn’t really help me in making things clear.  Sure, I figured out that I wanted to do a random number of 381.2 solar days in a years time, and that I ended up making a random-ass number of 11.4529(goesonforever) lunar cycles per year; and that I wanted to do about 11 months in the year with a rather boring structure of 35 day months(5 7-day weeks) except for the last month which was 31-32.  But that still didn’t help me with one thing: Calendars are used to keep track of important events.

So here comes the adventure and the how I did it for you to make use of if you so chose.

I have a solid structure that avoids the Gerogian complication where one year January 1st falls on a Sunday, while the next year it could be Monday, all funky days happen in the month of winter, which for my primary culture is counted as not a month but a time of mourning, and from winter solstice it is then counted down to the start of the new year.  Only complicated thing to mentally note is that every 5th year it is a leap year and so there will be 32 days during winter. (I have yet to devise month names and such)

That is a compact version above will help a lot in over all my story at a glance, but that wasn’t enough for me because my cultures follows the moon phases and I needed to know when those happened and at any given year without need of counting forwards or back.  I wanted the program to do the hardwork for me.  So, onward to the convoluted mess of logic and if statements!  Took me 3 whole days of headaches but I managed to figure out a way that gave me the lunar cycles of the year with a 94% accuracy, which is good enough for me at this point.  And if you wish to do the same for your own world, keep reading as to how I did it and the math logics devised. (and keep in mind, I’m not a math major so if you are smarter than me and know how to make a cleaner system, kudos to you please teach me, sempi!)

I started with inputting my data.  B2 How long my solar trip around the sun was to be in days, B3 how long my lunar cycle would be in days (the time it takes to make one full pass from full moon to new moon back to full moon), B3 I then divided the my year by my lunar cycle to get my cycles per year.  Because I have a .2 in my solar year length, this means each 5th year would be a leap year, so B4 was just a flat number. B7 was [=B1/B6], and B8 just worked out the Solstice cycle with [=B1/4] (4seasons.) D1 was [=1/B1] to get the fraction amount of what a passing day equaled as part of the year, and D2 was [=1/B2] for the same reason, what a passing day equaled to the total cycle.

With these numbers in place, if I so chose to change my year length and/or my lunar cycle duration, it will automatically change ALL the information accordingly and should still be accurate.

Now for the complicated portions.  For this reason, I am going to link you to the .ods file I created to see for yourself and tinker, and get a better look at the math as I’m sure all I’m going to say won’t make as much sense.

H2 [=B1*H1] - if it is year 1, there then will be 381.2 days passed at end of year since calendar start.  If it is year 0009, 3430.8 days will pass.

I4 [=B1*(H1-)] - same as H2 but minus 381.2.

M6 [=I4/B2]  - this gave the total of lunar cycles that completed. year 1, none, year 9 a total of lunar 91.623 cycles had passed.

M7 [=ROUNDDOWN(M6)] - strips the decimal value.

M8 [=M6-M7] - captures the decimal value

N7 [=B2*M7] - how many rounded days used in past lunar cycles.

N8 [=B2*M8] - same as above but just with the decimal value which will be the days remaining until the next full moon.

Now... this will give me the means to get an output that will tell me the month/day dates for the inputted year of when the full moon will be.

redundantly: R1 [=-N8] and S1 [=R1]

S2 through S13 is a series of [=S1=B2] upstepping where it takes the previous total and adds the next lunar cycle.

T2 through T13 is a series of this [=ROUNDUP(ROUNDDOWN(S2)/35)] to give me the current month of the year.

U2 through U13 is a series of this [=ROUNDDOWN(S2-((T2-1)*35))] to give me the current day of that month that the full moon falls on.

V2 through V13 is only a round down statement for each number in the relative S  column and went unused in the finished product.

How does ALL of the above work? All that leads up to N8 as the star of the show.  By taking the decimal value (ie the left over days of the year that have not completed a lunar cycle) from the previous calculations and multiplied into actual days, this number of days subtracts from the start date of the new year, and thus offsets the calculations in the R1 thru V13 grid.  In year 8 there was a total of 20.75 days remaining in the year after the last full moon, so by subtracting 20.75 from our normal 33.284 lunar days, we end up with 12 days into the new year being the full moon.

WOOF!

For most people, that may be all you need because your actual calendar could be drawn out remain the same as dates do not change, you would just put notations down in pencil for the important changing dates such as the moon cycles and any cultural festivals revolving around lunar cycles.

For me, to have a visual representation of what I am use to with the Georgian calendar, I went one step further and started taking my final lunar date grid and having it read by the year calendar via a series of Conditional Formats.

I am not going to get into conditional formats today as that isn’t nearly as important as everything else I covered and there is other people out there that explain their use.

I do hope you found that both interesting and helpful and hopefully not more confusing than it needed to be, and if you use this knowledge to craft your own calendar for your fictional world, I would LOVE to hear about it :D  Take care, happy worldbuilding!

[avrilsky]

Fanfiction Writers Appreciation Day Fic Rec List.

Since it is FanFic Writers Appreciation day, I figured I make a quick list of some of my favorite WayHaught fics. Every single writer in this list has managed to take these characters we know and love and make them so much more. They bring them to life, each one in different ways and it just amazes me.

i'll be waiting for love (to come around) By coffee_music_books 

How Waverly and Nicole's lives take them to each other, one day at a time.OR Waverly and Nicole and the days of the week.

Really anything by this writer is fantastic.

i wish you'd live like you're made of glass By @piratekane

“You can’t change what the world has decided has to happen.”

Nicole huffs, frustrated. “But why can I see things if I can’t change them?”

Her momma chuckles. “That’s just the way it is, baby. I know, I know. It’s not fair and it’s a lot of responsibility, but it’s our… our blessing and our curse." 

In which the Earps aren't the only ones who are cursed.

Oh man, what can I even say about this fic? It’s just really fucking great and such a different take on season 1.

Run With The Devil By @youreagoodliar

No one knows why they do what they do. Some say it's thrill. Some say it's greed. Some say it's fear. All anybody knows for sure is that ten banks across the United States and Canada have already been robbed- and the women behind the crimes show no signs of slowing down.

Listen, it was really hard to pick just one of Half’s fics because I love every single one of them.

I'm Ready (When You're Ready for Me) By @iamthegaysmurf

Also Known As: Haught's History

*****Follows the canon of the show as closely as humanly possible while still giving Nicole a backstory. Begins with Nicole arriving in Purgatory as a rookie officer fresh from the Academy, and will follow her all the way through the finale of Season 1. Her backstory will be revealed through flashbacks and conversations, there will be many fill-in-the-blank and missing scenes, and her perspective on the canon events will also feature.*****

Again, it was really, really hard to pick one fic. Haught’s History has my all time favorite Nicole backstory. The amount of detail that Smurf puts into every chapter is so incredibly amazing.

In Fate's Hands By @skillzyo & @iamthegaysmurf

An oracle without a past meets a soldier who shouldn't have a future. Together, they must find the drunk who needs to accept her fate. All three of them unite to defeat the man who desires to be a god.

This fic is so beautifully written and everything just flows together so nicely that it plays out like a movie in your head. And if you haven’t read it yet, you really should.

small town gun By @sunspill

Waverly Earp doesn't remember Nicole Haught, but Nicole Haught remembers Waverly Earp.

Fluffy wayhaught, Nicole backstory.

Once again so damn hard to pick just one fic. Just go read everything by them.

One-Eighty By @sensitive-pigeon 

The year is 2020 and only two Astronauts of Ares 22 and 23 volunteered to remain on Mars for the mission of a lifetime: Janitor duty. One hundred and eighty days of isolation with only each other for company… along with thousands of fans, over-protective Mission Control, and a “Roomba” with a hat.

Too bad they can’t stop driving each other insane.

WayHaught on Mars, what more do you need? No but seriously, this is an amazing fic. Pigeon has done such a wonderful job with this fic and also with Get Lost, which you should go read. 

Like a Boomerang By @haughtbreaker & @jaybear1701

Months have passed since the S1 finale and a recently rescued Waverly struggles to come to terms with the horror she's inflicted while possessed. The team must band together to stop a mysterious revenant while Nicole and Waverly try to repair the bond that's barely keeping them together.

Such an amazing story by these two. It somehow breaks your heart and fills you with hope at the same time.

We'll Break Till It Gets Better By @thewaywedo33

"Seven hundred and thirty six days.

Nicole isn’t sure why the detail pops into her head first. There’s a noisy cadence of other thoughts crowding her brain, begging for acknowledgement, yet she’s stuck on a number.

Seven hundred and thirty six days since she last laid eyes on Waverly Earp. And now, one simple fact is staring her in the face in the form of wild brown eyes and ash smeared cheeks.

There won’t be a seven hundred and thirty seventh."

Or, the one where Waverly gets sucked through a hell dimension portal weeks before Wynonna gives birth, and everyone struggles to figure out how to go on without her. When she returns unexpectedly to find everything has changed without her, things get even more difficult.

As much as I love Open Range Heart (Honestly how could you not love Haught on a Horse), this fic just holds a special place in my heart. It’s so painful but so damn good.

The Tree By @haught0pocket

She's trekked the desert in search of The Tree. The Tree has answers. What is she looking for?

Listen, I live for soulmate aus and I have possibly read every type there is but this one here is probably my all time favorite. It’s so different than normal soulmate aus and so well written and I just love it.

The Shadows On My Wall Don't Sleep By @kendrene & @iamthegaysmurf 

It's their first time and Nicole still can't quite believe it's happening. But what she knows is that she will do her hardest to make sure it's perfect for Waverly. Except that sometimes, no matter what you do, perfect remains tantalizingly out of reach. OR The one where Nicole comes downstairs after the lovemaking.

The way these two write Wayahught making love is fantastic but what really blows me away is the ending. They manage to make you feel everything Nicole is feeling in that ending scene and it leaves me awestruck.

[sweetsunrayssr]

A Shrine - Gordon’s Garage

In Cameron’s Pilgrim I mentioned the Japanese shrine that Cameron talks about over the phone. Every twenty years the shrine is rebuilt with new material, looking the same as the original, but not actually being the original. Joe thinks it’s beautiful, while Cameron explains she believes people do it for how the process makes them feel, the doing of it. Following Cameron’s explanation of the Japanese shrine rebuilding, these shrines are physical manifestations and reminders of a process that the characters wish to repeat.

In this series, the process is not so much about building a computer, creating or playing a game, or achieving a business model. Those are all just a medium to these characters to connect with the people they want and need to connect with, even if they are not always aware of it. Ultimately inspiration comes down to the people you relate with and how curious you are about what is happening in the world.

Each pivotal character has a shrine, representing their connectivity to somebody who inspires and motivates them, and by the 4th season we can see a returning pattern of what they try to recreate and from the very beginning season 4 identifies to which location or “shrine” this is tied to. The bond they try to hold on to, reestablish or set-up with a particular person is automatically linked in their mind to a certain room or building in their memory.

Because a building or a place is durable and physical a “shrine” is easily mistaken as lasting and always perfect. In reality it is but a momentarily event when everything feels perfect and ideal. Other events and bonds are like the elements eroding at its perfection, and in the worst case scenario natural disasters or demolition teams with a wrecking ball. Each character is aware that their shrine is under possible threat at any given time, and tries to deal with this in their own particular way.  

This meta-analysis will limit itself to discussing Gordon’s Shrine.

THE GARAGE

We see the Japanese shrine in 4x05 in Pilgrim as Donna is transported to it with the avatar. Gordon’s lit up tent in the camping scene in 4x01 has the same warmth, and thus is a visual “shrine identifier” moment from Gordon’s POV. Gordon has a memory vision of Joe leafing the IBM BIOS binder in his garage morphed into the camping environment, right before we are treated to that beautiful image of Gordon’s warmly lit tent.

When in 4x05 Gordon asks Joe what he saw for the future in the garage back then, Joe  explains was how it would feel to work with him, “the doing of it”, and how that was more important to him than the actual end result. So, we could have no clearer comparison of what Gordon tries to recreate whenever he works together with Joe: that doing-of-it feeling with Joe in Gordon’s garage ten years ago, an idealized moment full of potential when their bond was just perfect.

SEASON 2: SURROGATES

Throughout the seasons we learn that the garage was always important to Gordon, even before he met Joe. He grew up in an autoshop, and he made his first computer project for Comdex 81 with Donna in his garage. So, the garage was always a shrine location to Gordon, but not until he reverse engineers the IBM chip for the BIOS with Joe does it become an ideal moment that he continues to seek, rebuild and re-enact in some way, and can only be perfect if Joe is his partner in it.

At the start of S2, after Cardiff is sold, Gordon intends to return to his garage, proclaiming it on TV even in an interview with the host no so incidentally called “Chip”. He intends to do it alone, but can’t help tell Joe in the elevator, who apathetically agrees that is what Gordon should do. Excited like a child, he orders several computers, sets them up, admiring the blank slate, but soon finds himself stuck. He can’t do it alone.

Since consciously Joe is still out of the question as a partner in that moment, Gordon reaches out to Donna and Mutiny instead, seeking a problem he can help solve for Mutiny (Tank Battle) and eventually writing Sonarys, which ends in disaster.

Simultaneously he reconciles with Joe on a personal level, enough for Joe to contact Gordon to help set up the Westgroup mainframe. Gordon sends Joe packing when this conversation occurs in Gordon’s living room, but he agrees to do it when meeting Joe in the garage parking lot.

Since it’s only a one-time deal, Gordon surrogates Joe with his Cardiff engineering team to build computers on demand. But again that fails, and on top of it he learns that Joe is moving to California with Sarah (again in the Westgroup garage). Gordon is so rattled that he can’t find his car anymore at a garage parking lot, gets lost, falls and is taken to the hospital. On the surface, Gordon’s breakdown seems amped by having business competition, but the whole breakdown occurs after he already discovered his rival is already total loss. And the doctor specifically stipulates to Donna that his breakdown in the garage parking lot was not related to his neurological disease, but purely psychological. Hence, Gordon’s arc in S2 emphasizes that Gordon’s well being and happiness relies on having a work & friendship relationship with Joe. He literally falls apart and is lost without Joe in his garage shrine.  

It is actually Joe’s visit to Gordon’s garage in the S2 finale to return the chip back to Gordon’s shrine that gives Gordon the fire to successfully transform himself from a hardware engineer in a world that is fast gearing to a virtual network world into a successful software coder: Gordon changes a few lines in the malignant Sonarys to turn it into an anti-virus cure. Except Gordon picked his family and Mutiny over working with Joe and learns that Joe built Macmillan Utility with Gordon’s program.

SEASON 3: ABSENT SHRINE

The entire shrine is destroyed, as there are no garage scenes for Gordon in S3. Throughout that season Gordon maintains that he does not want to work with Joe, not even if Joe offers him 70% of Macmillan Utility. He truly believes this and that is why we don’t see him in an actual garage.

When Joe gives Gordon credit and hands him a 20 million company, the two patch up their friendship and want to work together, but it proves impossible. There are various plot causes for it, but the visual absence of the garage-shrine is the tell. The browser project depends on Cameron and Joe isolates himself in the basement. Gordon may have built the network successfully by himself upstairs, but it is an empty success for Gordon with Joe in the basement. Callnect looks more like a Cardiff office floor than a garage, and Gordon was unfulfilled by that, as much as he was by the Giant-professional.

RE-ERECTED BY CAMERON

It is not until the opening scene of 4x04 that the garage shrine has been rebuilt for Gordon. Cameron uses it as a temporary autoshop when she brings her bike in and repairs it. In the same scene Haley inquires whether Scientology is a religion or a cult. A Comet is a returning object in space. And Joe and Gordon bond in the office agreeing with each other, absolutely content with what they have done. So, we have all the elements to identify a returned shrine moment: garage, a spiritual element, the name of a recurring event of the past, and Joe and Gordon being a bro-romance team all wrapped up in one scene.

Once the shrine is erected again, Gordon wants to preserve the shrine via maintaining control. Remember how he offered Joe 49% of Macmillan Utility in S3? Sure, giving Joe even 1% was a miracle, but that specific number shows how great a need Gordon has to control Joe. Another way he tries to have control over Joe is by wanting to keep the shrine exclusive for them alone. He does not want a third party influencing Joe, especially if they might pitch an idea to Joe that Gordon is not yet on board with, and then Gordon gets outvoted. Gordon has his gifts and talents, and a conservative reasonable voice to ground a development team is important, but he is also the person with the most limited view. He only truly innovates when being outvoted and all his excuses are thrown by the wayside.

An ever constant person he does not want around Joe is Cameron, but in S1 we also saw how obnoxious and insulting he was to Simon, and in S4 he’s just as wary of Haley being brought in initially. Sure, in S4, his need to keep Cameron out of the equation is not entirely selfish. He cares for Joe as a friend and he has witnessed him pine away in the basement for three years, for one reason only – Joe’s in love with her. And it is not even wrong that Gordon tries to look out for himself as well, when a miserable Joe usually means that Gordon is left out in the cold to muck around by himself.

What Gordon fails to account for is that he put the fuse in the dynamite in S1 when he made the unilateral decision to take out Cam’s OS. Nor does he recognize and is not fully aware how Cameron has been instrumental in re-erecting his garage shrine:Cameron advised Joe to give Gordon credit

Joe wouldn’t have been meticulously keeping all those post-its with urls if he had not been waiting for Cam.

Cam’s remark on how Joe would soon run out of post-its gave Joe the idea to index the web. Despite initially chastising Cam about this and remarking on it negatively to Donna over dinner, he’s now running a new company that he actually has nothing but fun in.

Cam helps Gordon see that Haley just want to spend time working with her father

Cam puts the dash on the T by bringing in her bike and actually making Comet a garage setting.

Joe’s complacent, cooperative and happy in a way he has never been before

When in 4x01 he tells Cameron it probably is for the best for Joe that their meeting at Gordon’s birthday party didn’t go so well, that’s ok. He’s just looking out for Joe. When later he tells her she was cruel to give Joe fire for the mountaintop unwittingly, Gordon may tell himself he’s just looking out for Joe, but that would be a lie. He’s upset with her, because she inspired Joe to a new idea and Gordon sees the signs that threaten the status quo. He is at least as out of line as Joe is in 4x05 about Katie to both Cam and Joe when he discovers their romance has been rekindled. Since Gordon cannot control who Joe chooses as a romantic partner (hell, Joe is 5 years his senior), his next step is to use passive aggressiveness against Cam’s presence at Comet, while Joe lights up like a Christmas tree with Cam in his lap checking out Rover’s HTML.

Initially, Cameron is not eager to get on board of the team and makes the adult and respectful decision to stay out of the business side. But the start of 4x04 was the moment where Cameron’s professional interest is piqued and she is right in her prediction that Comet will run into trouble once the web expands further (Rover would not be the sole company looking to solve “search”). If Gordon had not acted like a jerk to her in that scene, she probably would have ended up helping them. Instead, she bows out and respects Gordon’s wishes of business exclusivity. She has no hunger to develop a new computer game and physically stays away from Comet ever since, eventually leading to the circumstances at the start of 4x05. Joe and Cam have their actual first fight over Cam’s refusal to help them out for even two days. Even if Joe has no full scope on all of Cam’s reasons yet, he does instinctively identify Gordon as part of the issue. Worse, his best friend is not just keeping Cam away from Comet, but Gordon is having fun with his own lover at work. Joe lashes out to Gordon about Katie, because he’s envious.

MUTATED SHRINE

The volatile argument between Gordon and Joe reveals that Comet was turned into a playground by Joe’s initiative. Joe bought and wanted the air hockey. Joe’s probably also the person behind the pool table, the foosball, and the surfing competition. So, Joe turned the autoshop setting into S2 Mutiny. Just as we hardly need any outspoken explanation why Joe refused to leave the basement, screwing around with post-its (instead of Cam) for three years, we hardly need Joe to vocalize his subconscious motivation to make Comet’s work environment into a playground: he wants and needs Cameron there. 

Gordon’s objections to Cam being part of the professional equation and Cam respecting it and stay away from the place, leads to Joe mutating it into something else, as well as Cam using Bos’s plea for help to prove to herself she can write a brilliant algorithm, putting Rover one over Comet in the “competition” (which is actually a false competition: a guide of great websites is fun, but ultimately not the answer that a search engine is), and puts his relationship with both Joe and Haley in jeopardy.

SOLUTION?

Unless Gordon allows Joe the freedom to seek inspiration with a muse, his shrine is doomed for destruction once again. One of the possible solutions to allow Joe into bringing other partners into the shrine and still preserve a balance of opinions is for Gordon to bring in someone as well. In S1, Gordon brought in Donna for Comdex 83, and the Giant with Cam’s OS would have been a success if Donna and Gordon hadn’t been so careless with inside information that led to the Slingshot. In S4, Gordon’s bonding with Katie likely aims to do the same thing. Unfortunately it may already be too late. The seeds have been sown already.

Note: I will post other shrines for other characters as well, and point out how they may be self-sabotaging as well. So this meta-analysis does not have the intent to put it all on Gordon.

[aceholmes]

Ten Things that Could’ve Happened to Jenny Calendar

It’s my second attempt in writing for the Buffyverse. I’ve written this as a ‘what if’ fic, if the events of Passion had gone a little bit differently. Written as a fic for Calendiles day, I wanted to explore the possible paths that Jenny would’ve took. I’ve tried to place a bigger focus on Calendiles, although a little bit of Jenny/Lilah might have snuck into the fic. I’d like to thank Celia @jenny-calendar​ for coming up with such a great event.

Here it is on my AO3!

Note: Parts I-IV would’ve taken place around the time Passion would’ve taken place. Parts V and VI take place around ATS s1, and Part VII takes place after the events of A New Man. Part VIII would’ve happened alongside all the other shenanigans in Once More With Feeling, Part IX would’ve happened in BTVS late s7 and Part X takes place at the end of Chosen.

I.

Willow blinked back at Jenny, her youthful eyes streaked with worry.

“A-are you sure?” The girl stuttered, in her own concerned way. “I mean, it’s a public place, and Angelus is still out there. What if he decides that, he wants to come hunt us down? Angel knows we do a, a lot of research in the school library.”

Looking at Willow, Jenny wanted to avoid saying something along the lines of ‘Hey, the chances of that seem pretty slim’. It would come off as artificially optimistic, given the serious, life-threatening reality of the situation.

“Hey. It’s no big matter. Teachers stay back in school all the time,” Jenny offered, shrugging. “Just go home, Willow, I’ll be fine,” She leaned back in her chair and stretched her limbs. “It’ll only be one more night at most.”

“You could come over to my place,” suggested Willow, with a sense of quick urgency. “I’ve got a computer round there, and I’m sure we can whip something up fast enough to de-invite Angelus. We’ve got everything we need! The rhyming couplets, spells, spices, everything we need to keep Mr. Broody off the welcome mat.”

Jenny cracked a smile at Willow’s humour. Turning back to her computer, she resisted the thought of following Willow home. After all, she’d prefer working on a computer she was familiar with. “It’s okay, I mean, how are you going to sneak me out of your house without your parents noticing?”

“Are you really sure it’s safe here?” Willow pressed her lips into a thin line, tugging her shirt nervously.

“Well, and if I turn into a vampire tomorrow, I’d give you the first stab opportunity,” suggested Jenny, hoping to see a smile appear on Willow’s face, but her expression had hardly changed from when she first came to seek Jenny that day. “That was a joke.”

Willow shrugged. “Alright then,” She turned to leave, but stopped short, swerving around. The motions sent her hair whipping around her shoulders like an amber curtain. “You know, you should really talk to Giles. He hasn’t been doing so well lately. And I mean, I can just see it, you miss him too, don’t you?”

Jenny thought for a moment. “Maybe. Maybe I do.”

–

II.

This was the second time Jenny hurled herself out a window.

Well, the first didn’t really count, considering that she was possessed by Eyghon, and it wasn’t the most pleasant experience. In fact it was possibly far from it.

Recent events flashed through her mind as she hurtled towards the ground.

The translation’s done, at least. My computer’s busted, though. Wasn’t there a disk? It’s possibly still out there. But there’s not much I can do if I don’t survive this. Oh, well. If it’s the last thing I’ll ever think before I go out with a bang, Buffy, I’m sorry I couldn’t–

The impact happened, and she heard a crunch. Relieved to find herself still alive, she scrambled to her feet in a panic, glancing up at the gaping hole the broken window left for a split second before making herself move. Brushing off the leaves from the pile she had landed in, sharp wisps of pain shot up her left arm, and she knew she had possibly landed herself a broken wrist, or at least sprained it. A cut slashed across her cheek dripped, wet. Trying not to cringe with pain, she pushed herself up to her feet, gritting her teeth so much she could hear them grind.

She didn’t know where Angelus was, but she had to keep on moving. Ignoring the arrows of pain in her lower back, she limped towards the car, her heart in her mouth as she silently counted down to the moment Angelus would finally catch up with her and grab her from behind, and drink.

Upon reaching her car, she let out a huge sigh of relief when she found that she had forgotten to lock her car and that she’d left her keys in the ignition - which could’ve been a bad move, honestly, but it didn’t matter any more as she sped off, not even stopping to buckle her seatbelt. After being chased and nearly killed by a rabid vampire, and leaping from the fourth floor of the school building and miraculously surviving thanks to a pile of leaves, dying in a car crash was perhaps the least of her worries.

Keeping track of Angelus was hard, since vampires don’t show up in mirrors, and it was very hard for Jenny to keep her eyes on the road and occasionally glance back to check that Angelus wasn’t tailing her. Honestly, it was made even worse by only having one functional hand to grip the wheel with, and Jenny had never held onto another object as tightly as the steering wheel of her car. It seemed that he was gone by the time Jenny pulled up outside Buffy’s residence on Revello Drive, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. Digging in the glove box, Jenny fished out a cross, which looked seemingly large enough to fend off a vampire approximately the shape and size of Angelus. (Does the size of a cross affect its effectiveness against a vampire? Something that she’d never considered, but Rupert probably had some scientific answer to that. Or at least, as scientific as the supernatural could ever get.)  

She staggered out of her car, and towards the house as swiftly as she could manage, with all the resolve she had left. “Buffy,” Jenny croaked, her head spinning. Slumping against the front door like a rag doll, she gave three firm knocks on the heavy wooden door, all the while holding her breath and hoping that Angelus wasn’t still lurking around.

Jenny got a huge shock when the door gave way, and she could’ve tumbled across the threshold had it not been for Willow.

–

III.

Joyce let Jenny stay the night after hearing that the Sunnydale computer teacher was targeted by Buffy’s pale, brooding ex-boyfriend that very same night he personally paid her a visit at her doorstep.

“We can’t take you to the hospital, not right now,” Joyce fretted. “He might still be out there. Buffy, should we call the police and turn him in?”

“They can’t deal with him,” shrugged Buffy, taking a sip of milk from her glass. “We’ll take Ms. Calendar tomorrow morning. When the sun’s out.”

“What difference does it make?” Joyce inquired, raising her eyebrows. “What’s stopping him, from being on the lookout for us tomorrow?”

“Mrs. Summers, I think it would do a world of difference,” offered Jenny from the sofa. “Willow’s done her best with the first aid. I think I can hold out till tomorrow.”

Joyce nodded, in a not-exactly-convinced way. “Is there anyone you need me to call? Family?”

“You could try dropping a call to Mr. Giles. The school librarian. He’d be worried sick. And I don’t like the idea of him being out there. Angelus will use him to get to Buffy.”

“Angelus?” Joyce inquired, with a tilt of her head. “Honey,” she addressed her daughter, “is there something I’m missing here?”

“Uh, mom,” Buffy started, “I think we –”

“It’d be best if we could explain to you a little bit down the road,” Jenny cut in. “A lot has happened tonight.”

“Wait, so you need me to make a call to Mr. Giles?” Joyce reiterated.

“I’ve got his number memorised,” Jenny said, reaching for a pen. “I could write it down if you want-”

“He’s a good man. Comes around often. He’s very concerned for the children.” Joyce exclaimed. “Oh, and I also have it written somewhere around here.”

He comes around often? Does she even wonder why? Jenny pondered on whether Joyce even knew the truth about Buffy.

“That’s an interesting, art piece,” Jenny started, averting her thoughts. “the one’s that hanging on the wall. It complements the wallpaper.”

“Oh,” Joyce beamed. “Buffy’s always too busy to really stand there and appreciate it. She says it’s angry at the room. Oh, I said, she’s got the wrong idea.”

“It creates contrast,” Jenny observed the mask closely. “Where is this from?”

“Sub-Saharan Africa, I think,” Joyce recalled. “I’ve got so many of these around the house, I can’t remember the origins of them all.”

“That isn’t the only one you have?”

“I work for an art gallery. Sometimes I end up bringing my work home with me.”

“My grandfather did painting,” Jenny said, feeling a weak smile spread across her face. It was a long time ago, it took a lot of digging into the deepest recesses of her mind to find the particular memory. She was two years old, and her grandfather let her have one canvas, She splattered paint onto it with no regard at all, until he came around and took a look at her work. He took the canvas and skilfully worked around what was already on the canvas, transforming a series of random ink splotches into a lifelike image of a bird.

The memory warmed her, and she was so deep in thought she thought she could just forget whatever had happened that night, just for a second.

Glancing back at Joyce, Jenny wondered how it would be like to live on the Hellmouth without being aware of all the paranormal activity. Not knowing, in this case, would be much better than knowing the ugly truth about the sleepy little town.

–

IV.

Jenny wasn’t in school the week after the run in with Angelus.

Giles had heard that she was safe at Buffy’s, the night she was working late to finish the translation. He’d also heard about her trip to the hospital, but he’d only managed to pay her a brief visit the night after, and had to leave early due to late-night researching. Willow had managed to retrieve the disk containing the Ritual of Restoration from Jenny’s classroom, and he was working hard on it to decipher its meanings. He considered asking the Council for help, but they’d turn him away, saying that the matter was on a small enough scale for him to solve on his own. After all, it was only one vampire, not a whole army. Moreover, they would give the order to kill, which wasn’t what the team wanted to achieve, at least under these current circumstances. But why was he doing this? Perhaps it was much more for Buffy’s sake than his own. Either way, he had to work fast, Jenny’s run in with Angelus was simply too close for comfort this time.

He was intensely deep in thought when he realised he had almost missed the phone call that came in on the library phone. In a hurry, he snatched up the receiver. “Good evening, this is Mr. Giles, the Sunnydale High librarian. How may I help –”

“Rupert.”

“Jenny. I’m so sorry I haven’t been around, I –”

“Could you meet me at my apartment? There’s something I need your help with.”

Giles pulled up outside Jenny’s apartment block within ten minutes of her call. Pushing his glasses up, he began to climb the stairs leading to Jenny’s apartment on the third floor of the small, dark block. It was rather late at night, and he was tired - so tired that he nearly leaned on a wall against his satchel. That was close, he mused, thinking about the fragility of the object that lay tucked in a small drawstring bag within his satchel. He honestly didn’t know what he expected from Jenny at this point. Maybe she’d be excited to see him and things would go back to the way they were. Upon reaching her apartment, Giles was appalled to find her front door unlocked. Considering her run-in with Angelus, he thought she’d be more careful about her security. And if supernatural threats weren’t enough, there were also the day-to-day human threats such as a break-in.

He wasn’t expecting to see Jenny leaning on a crutch and attempting to cram a wall decoration into a cardboard box.

Her apartment wasn’t filled with them yet, giving him an indication that there would be still some time before she moved out, but it would happen soon. How soon is soon? He wondered, staring at the cluttered room.

Jenny looked up, brushing a lock of hair out of her face with her right hand, wobbling a bit. She turned, and Giles noticed that her left hand was in a sling. “Sorry,” She mentioned sheepishly. “Should’ve told you about-”

“No worries. You have your reasons, I suppose,” Giles assured. “But I feel, that I should perhaps know your reason for leaving before you do so.”

“You want to know?” Jenny said. “No problem, I can just tell you my reasons. No beating around the bush, no lying by omission, I’ll be very honest with you.”

Giles helped her into a chair, and pulled over another one for himself. “You shouldn’t be standing. If I remember correctly the doctor did say to-”

“Keep strain off my back, yeah,” Jenny cut in. “So. What do you want to know first?”

“You could begin wherever you feel like starting. It’s your story, after all.”

“I’ll be willing to restore Angel’s soul. Then I’ll leave,” Jenny put forward, watching for his reaction.

“And that’ll be…?”

“A couple of weeks, perhaps, after I recover,” Jenny shifted in her seat. “I feel I’ve done enough. To be very honest, I wasn’t sure how exactly to follow my family’s wishes and stay and monitor Angel, but it seems that I got caught in the crossfire. I got involved in some events around here that I think I wouldn’t want to be involved in again. Such as that night I was possessed, that was awful.”

“I want to take a break, Rupert,” Jenny said, making eye contact with him. Giles found Jenny’s hand slip into his, intertwining their fingers. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. I do, it’s just that I need some time away from all the monster activity here on the Hellmouth. I need a bit of time, to process what’s happened to me. To us, and I mean all of us. You, me, Buffy, Willow, Xander, and the others.”

“I don’t think I can keeping doing this. I haven’t slept for more than two hours consecutively in two weeks because of-” Jenny took a breath, her shoulders shuddering, “-the nightmares. I can still recall every detail in excruciating detail.” The way the wind moved around her as she scampered through the school like a rat. The venom in Angelus’ voice as he taunted her, waiting for her to walk to my death. The crisp, ugly smell of the leaves which she happened to tumble into, saving her life. “But now I can’t even look at the leaves on the trees around my apartment and not think of what happened that night,” She glanced at the window. “That’s why I drew the blinds.”

“I think I could never understand how you felt that night, and I can comprehend your reasons for wanting to leave Sunnydale.”

“Nobody needs to know,” Jenny insisted, her voice firm. “Nobody needs to know what Angelus’ did to me that night. What matters is that I know that once we find a way to restore his soul, we can forget what Angelus did.”

They sat in silence, glancing at each other by the soft light of the table lamp.

“H-how long will you be away?” Giles started. “No, that shouldn’t be a question I should be asking-”

“A few months, a year maybe. I don’t know,” Jenny sighed. “But I’m sure I can’t be away from here for long. I’m just packing all this stuff so that I won’t be returning to a messy apartment. I thought it’d be nice if I could start anew once I got back.”

Giles changed the subject. “I’ve managed to sort out the ritual, and we just need the respective materials. I believe I should be free tomorrow to pop down to the Magic Box and pick up some spices.”

Jenny turned to her dining table, where bowls of herbs and spices were placed around an empty stand. “All I’m missing is the Orb. Angelus broke it into smithereens when he paid me that little visit.”

“I thought I’d bring my Orb over. Well, prior to this, I was using it as a paperweight. I didn’t know it was intended for cursing the souls of vampires. I presumed that your purpose for inviting me over tonight was to attempt the re-ensoulment. Well, I don’t suppose I was absolutely sure, but I brought it along in case you wanted to-” Giles fished in his satchel and brought out the hemp drawstring bag. “-give it your best try.”

“I have the ritual on paper, if you require it.”

“That’s wonderful of you,” Jenny smiled, and rose from her seat. “But there’s no need for that. Cordelia came over one day and lent me her laptop. I’ve got most of it in my head now, or at least I think I do. And if I’m having a hard time remembering, don’t prompt me. It might break my concentration.”

Giles nodded, confirming that he understood her instruction. “And you didn’t tell me you were working on it?”

Jenny gave him a knowing smile. “I don’t have to report everything to you.”

“Then why invite me?” asked Giles.

She thought for a little while, staring into blank space. “Just in case something goes wrong,” she said, her voice softening towards the end.

“But I have absolute faith that you’re capable to conduct the ritual on your own.”

Jenny sighed. “Then take it as an excuse for me to see you again, then. I missed seeing you.”

She took her place across the dining table, glancing over the layout of the ritual. Tentatively, Giles placed the crystal sphere upon the stand. Jenny was silent for a moment, before closing her eyes and concentrated.

Then her lips were moving. A slow whisper, barely escaping her lips at first, and growing with rapidity and volume, rising in a crescendo with her conviction. At one point she seemed to be struggling to remember a verse or two, her speech slowing, and Giles almost wanted to prompt her when she regained her composure and resumed with the ritual. Her fingers tapped on the table, aiding her in her concentration as the ritual continued. The moment everyone had been anticipating came when the Orb started to flicker with a dim glow, which spread across the entire globe and resulted in a full glow. Jenny opened her eyes as the glow faded, keeping her eyes trained on the Orb at first, and then directing her gaze up to Giles.

“It’s done,” Jenny remarked, her voice a shaky tremolo. “Angel’s soul has been restored.”

“How would we know?” Giles asked. “I don’t intend to be skeptical, but I’m still rather concerned that something might’ve gone wrong and he might still be a physical threat.”

“I thought you said you had absolute confidence in me,” said Jenny, raising her eyebrows.

“I won’t lie, I was completely sure,” shrugged Giles, crossing his arms.

“If he has a conscience, I’m sure Angel would know what to do.”

“He would leave. To keep himself away from Buffy,” deduced Giles.

Jenny frowned. “I think we might have done the opposite from what we wanted to do, for Buffy to be able to find him again and-”

She dropped her hands. “-she’ll never forgive me for it.”

“I’m sorry,” Giles put an arm around her, and Jenny leaned into his shoulder.

“These are the choices we live with, I guess,” Jenny gave a weak, cynical smile. “And I guess the choice I’ll have to live with is leaving this place.”

“You’re not obligated to stay in one place if you find that circumstances become too much to simply bear,” Giles advised, running his thumb under the scar that marked Jenny’s cheekbone. “I don’t want to come across as overly sentimental, but–”

“Just say it.”

“I’ll always be in love with you.”

Jenny snorted, trying to cover it up in the next instant. “There’s no need to be overly sentimental, as you said.”

“I thought you told me to go ahead and–”

“Shut up and hold me,” urged Jenny, and she closed her eyes as she found herself completely reluctant to leave him.

–

V.

It was a year or so later, and Jenny didn’t know how she got herself into such a whirlwind. The nightmares continued, but work and exhausting nights dulled the vividity of the memories. LA was a frenzy of fast-moving, high-achieving workers, and it really was a dog-eat-dog world when it came to looking for a job. It took her months to score an IT job at the bank, and even so she wasn’t very welcome, as a lady looking to work in the IT department. Her co-workers weren’t exactly the most friendly people in the world either. It seemed all of the compassion and earthiness she’s seen in the people of Sunnydale was completely absent here, a grey cold mass replacing the warm, loving heart.

Jenny’s current girlfriend would probably mention, in a half-joking matter, that she was heartless in the first place, and there wasn’t anything to replace.

Was girlfriend the right word? Jenny wasn’t too sure that was really the case, for it was more of an agreement rather than a relationship. It was more like a friends-with-benefits situation, and even that probably couldn’t even cover it. Lilah Morgan worked in strange ways Jenny couldn’t fully understand, but she brought in much excitement and passion when needed.

Lilah was probably the most passionate lawyer Jenny had ever seen. They’d met at a bar two months ago, and had hit it off pretty well. After half a dozen drinks, Jenny woke up on her sofa half-dressed and with a hazy memory of what had happened, with Lilah sprawled across the sofa, out like a lamp.

We’ll keep in touch, Lilah had said. And keep in touch it did. What seemed to be a one night standoff turned into weekly visits, and weekly visits turned into nearly-daily visit. There was hardly a night where Lilah didn’t pull by Jenny’s place after work. Jenny deduced that Lilah was either one, enjoying her physical contact so much as to swing by for it on a daily basis, or two, invested in their relationship, which didn’t quite suit a woman like Lilah.

Jenny enjoyed Lilah just as much as Lilah enjoyed Jenny. She looked forward to nights of passion, those nights where she’d much rather prefer to lose all control of her inhibitions. It helped her forget, sometimes, about why she left her old life in Sunnydale. For a while she was nobody. Not a person with a heavy past, not a person with trauma from a near-death experience, not a person seeking anything but escape from her past. She was just Jenny, and Lilah was just Lilah. She melted under every single kiss and touch, and the sensations weren’t as complicated as when she kissed Rupert (ahem, Jenny. Live in in the now). Their relationship was nothing but the physical processes of passion, but Jenny found it a feasible albeit unhealthy distraction from her reality. Sometimes the nightmares disappeared, for a night, and Jenny felt more relieved than ever when she woke up. However, where Lilah would’ve slept the previous night, there would be ghostly imprints of her body, and Jenny sometimes stared at it until she had to smooth it over and pull over the duvet.

Jenny lay on her side and traced her gaze across the curves of Lilah’s body, veiled by the thin blanket she had pulled over herself. Better enjoy her when it lasts, Jenny thought. Lilah would be gone by four in the morning - how on earth did that woman run on two hours of sleep a night?

Then again, Lilah was probably the most assertive person Jenny had ever met. She could probably order her inhibition to sleep to stop meddling and being an inconvenience in her life and it would listen to her.

Lilah had that way with people. That kind of dominating charm that was almost irresistible. The way she picks up the phone and speaks orders into it, in a I know what I want and I will get it kind of tone. The way she’s able to sway juries to her discretion: a 93% acquit rate? Well, that came from the blazing red lips of Lilah Morgan herself, and Jenny could admit that certainly sent shivers down her spine as Lilah worked her way down through – never mind, but that was pretty damn impressive and intimidating.

Lilah was never a safe haven, and Jenny knew that.

Conflicted, Jenny wondered how much of Lilah’s sweet yet poisonous venom she had tasted.

–

VI.

“You’ve followed me around enough,” Jenny called to the dark figure in the alleyway.

A familiar face emerged from the alleyway.

Jenny froze, then relaxed.

Angel clasped his hands together. “What brings you here?”

“Oh, as if you have to know.”

“You’ve got Lilah Morgan’s scent all over you. By chance, have you-” Angel crossed his arms.

“Been sleeping with her? I remember how great your sense of smell is, and I can’t even deny that it happened because you know. How has it been, being a bloodhound?” Jenny exasperated.

“I know we aren’t on the best of terms but there’s no need to be sarcastic.”

“What have you been up to, then?” Jenny insisted. You’ve found out about the details of my love affairs, it should only be fair that I should know a bit about what you’ve been doing after you got your soul back.”

“Detective agency.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Jenny, there’s something about Lilah-”

“Who are you to judge her?” Jenny put her hands on her hips. The sky rumbled overhead with thunder. “Look, I’d like to keep out of the rain as much as possible, if you’d just-”

“That’s not thunder.” Angel said, peering over Jenny’s shoulder. “Now, don’t move.”

Jenny normally wouldn’t have listened to a man who had tried to kill her a year and a half ago, but Jenny didn’t seem to have a choice. Her legs were glued to the ground, like she was being pulled under.

“Okay, what’s going on.” Jenny muttered under her breath. “If you’re doing this to me I swear-”

“Umbra demon. Latin for shadow,” Angel noted. “I’ve got an associate who can get rid of that for you.”

“Where did it come from?” Jenny inquired, her limbs itching with energy. She wanted so badly, to move. The urge was tugging at her impulses, but at the same time she had the feeling that it wasn’t her own impulses.

“Plays you like a puppet. It’s submitting you to the caster’s will. If you move, the demon will consume you, and you become the demon.” Angel explained. “And the thunder - this demon tends to be a bit melodramatic. It sensed danger, probably me.”

Deep in thought, Angel took a few paces back and forth. “Angelus ran into one before he got his soul back, the first time. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.” He took out his cellphone, and audible clicks were heard in the silent alley as he punched in a string of numbers. “Umbra demon. Possessing a woman, also Sunnydaleian…hey, I can’t come up with my own terms now? Also, a protection spell. Pronto.” He hung up, meeting Jenny’s gaze. “It probably won’t be too long before he gets here.”

“Don’t you dare mention Angelus again.”

Angel nodded.

“There are quite a few of our acquaintances from Sunnydale residing in LA as well, isn’t that so? I remember seeing Cordelia on that toothpaste commercial. I was almost convinced, but-”

“It’s always those overly-optimistic ads that get you, isn’t it?”

There was a pause, before Jenny changed the subject. “So. Umbra demon. How did it get on me?”

“The ritual’s complicated. For one, it requires a scream from the person it’s cast on.” Angel raised an eyebrow. “I think your current relationship was convenient for Lilah.”

“But why her?”

“Lilah hasn’t told you everything, has she?” Angel questioned, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “You don’t know about her work?”

“She’s a defense lawyer, that’s all I know,” Jenny put forward, defensively. “What right would I have to pry into her legal affairs?”

“She represents demons, Jenny.”

“God,” Jenny gulped. “The very thing I’ve came here to escape from. There were simply too many in Sunnydale.”

“And I don’t mind explaining a bit more, in fact I’d prefer for you to know the whole truth, but I’m sure the Senior Partners are watching. For now, you’re going to have to stand very still until my associate arrives.”

Jenny took a deep breath. “Why are you doing this for me?”

“I help the helpless. It’s in my job scope.”

“No,” Jenny interrupted, “wouldn’t you have thought I’d harbour feelings of hatred for you after you tried to kill me that one time?”

Angel went quiet for a moment. “I’ve made it my mission to atone for all the things I’ve done as Angelus. Sure, I wish I could separate myself and Angelus and treat them as separate people, but that just isn’t how it works. We are one. Except I have a soul, and that monster doesn’t.”

“You know I haven’t forgiven you yet, right?”

“I don’t expect my victims to forgive me.” Angel’s tone was stoic, his face almost blank.

Jenny made a faint wheezing noise. “Angelus’ victims don’t have the chance to forgive you because they’re dead. I, however, am one of the ‘lucky’ few who have managed to escape Angelus’ clutches and emerge alive. But you won’t understand how I felt afterwards. I couldn’t sleep. I could hardly eat. I could hardly step out of the house and it felt like the possibly the most imprisoning thing that I’ve experienced and will probably experience for the rest of my life. You won’t understand, not ever, what I have to live with.”

“That’s why your people cursed me,” Angel brought up. “So I could feel.”

Jenny was speechless, as she softly wept.

–

VII.

Jenny clasped the charm in her hand, trying very hard to think of something other than the tears as she watched the scenery move by.

“The charm should obscure you from the view of the Senior Partners. The process to bind the spell to the charm was rather challenging, but it will eventually serve its purpose. Lilah won’t be able to track you, and I presume that she’ll be looking for you after you’ve up and left.” Wesley had said, while passing over the totem.

“And an angry Wolfram and Hart employee is definitely more that what you need on your hands.”

Honestly, Jenny was happier than ever to return to Sunnydale. LA was far too gritty for her. If she had stayed any longer, she would’ve probably turned into one of those cold-hearted work machines. Or maybe she’d be seduced to the dark side of the law and supernatural, courtesy of Lilah Morgan.

Jenny got off the bus and walked around, stretching her legs. After dropping her bags off at her old apartment, which she had chosen not to sell when she had left, she took the bus to the bus stop across from Giles’ apartment. She had planned to knock gently on the door, and offer a plain, awkward explanation when he opened it, and they’d end up embracing each other and –

Giles’ door was left open, eerily similar to the way her own door was left when he paid her that visit where he watched her re-ensoul Angel.

Jenny’s heart ached as soon as she stepped through the threshold.

Books were left open all over the table, and empty bottles littered the floor in a messy, irregular formation, very unlike Rupert’s neat and uptight attitude. The television was on, blaring old music from the 60s and 70s. Laid out on the floor were dozens of records - he’d been keeping himself busy. What scared her most was the bannister, which had been ripped in half. There had been other marks of damage being done to the building, but most of them had been repaired, save for the bannister. Perhaps it was taking longer than usual for the contractor to get back to him.

Jenny found him slumped over a glass of whiskey in the kitchen, silent and unmoving.

“You look awful,” Jenny started. Okay, maybe this wasn’t the best way to greet a lover after you’ve been away from them a year and half, but it was still a start nonetheless.

Lazily, Giles propped himself up with an elbow on the table. “Jenny?” He mumbled, in a hazy state of exhaustion. “You’re an angel.”

“Thanks, but we really need to get everything cleaned up. And you need sleep. You look like you haven’t slept in days. What happened?” Jenny wrestled the glass from his hand, and seeming like the looks of it this was probably his second or third glass, since he wasn’t as incoherent as Jenny had expected him to be. He wiped his face with the green wool of his sweater, pushing his glasses up. It honestly amused Jenny, how he looked so different when he was out of his tweed suits. He wasn’t Mr. Giles, the stuffy British Watcher guy. He was just Rupert, another fellow normal human being struggling with life, just as she was.

“Bloody Ethan, thinking he can just barge back into my life and ruin it all,” He swore strongly, and with conviction. “You think he might’ve heard about you?”

“Now, I’m not very sure what he thinks about me, but I think it’s time for you to get some rest,” Jenny hauled him out of his seat, dragging him to the sofa. “I still have questions about that bannister though.”

“Ripped it out,” Giles revealed, shielding his eyes with the back of his right hand. “Would you turn down the lights? I’m having such a sodding headache I-”

Jenny reached over and flicked off the light switch. “Ripped it out, huh. Must’ve been some hangover.”

“I’m not hungover. Just even more sleep-deprived than usual.”

“The bannister, I mean.”

“Spells,” Giles mumbled. “P-probably something he put in my drink or maybe when he came round afterwards. I woke up a Fyarl the next morning. Of course it would’ve been a fright, waking up to find myself with more horns that I usually do.”

“He was here?”

“I don’t even know how we got back. We were both sloshed out by the time they cleared up. I can’t even remember what spells we did, maybe some of the old ones. It was nice, probably. Well, I still can’t remember a bloody thing we did. He left before I woke up the next morning.”

Giles groaned, shifting to a lying position on the sofa. “Spike decimated my car. Should’ve never trusted him with that thing. My trusty Citroen, i-it’s been with me for years.”

“Spike, as in William the Bloody Spike?”

“He’s been bugging us. Says he’s been neutered, but he’s not much better off now than dead. Can’t even feed, the poor bugger.”

Jenny retrieved a glass of water from the kitchen, putting it by the sofa. She pulled a chair over, lifting it off the ground so it wouldn’t make screeching noises. She had enough experience with headaches – from quite lately, after nights of drinking with Lilah.

“So. I heard we’re both out of a job. Sunnydale High blowing up was kind of a big deal. Was in the newspapers in LA. People said it was school kids with homemade explosives. I’m not absolutely convinced.”

“I was out of a job even before that. The Watchers’ Council fired me.”

Jenny’s gaze softened as she took Giles’ left hand, tenderly grasping it with both of hers. “I don’t think you’ve been a bad Watcher. You’ve been a great mentor to Buffy, I can see it. You’ve really had a great bond, the two of you. You were there for her, weren’t you? You were always there to advise and guide her–”

“Maybe a bit too much. They replaced me with someone else because of my emotional attachment to the Slayer,” He paused, reaching up to press on the bridge of his nose, “but she doesn’t need a Watcher now. She’s doing well in college, and here I am, playing an increasingly redundant role in her life.”

“Replaced you?”

“Last year. They fired him too over a dispute with a rogue Slayer, and with Buffy herself,” Giles recalled, a tone of disdain in his voice. “Good riddance.”

“What, was he that bad?” Jenny exclaimed.

“Amazingly, spectacularly bad,” He cleared his throat. “He left Sunnydale in less than half a year after he arrived.”

“Speaking of leaving Sunnydale,” said Jenny, “something happened in LA.”

“We’re always being watched. Most of the apocalypses that go on here, they’re part of a bigger plan.” explained Jenny, trying to put it across in a way that wouldn’t stir his curiosity. No, Angel had told her not to tell, tell nobody at all, it was his business and his business only. The less people knew about the Senior Partners, the better, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

“They might be tracking me, which is why I was given a charm.”

“Who did?” He was suddenly more aware. “I don’t suppose I’d have anything against the person who made it, but I’m interested to know. Spellcasters are quite hard to come across, and many of them I’ve come across in recent years turned out to be more malevolent than anything else.”

“I ran into Angel again. He was working with a bunch of people. The one who came up with the charm, he was definitely English. Like you.” Jenny said. “Maybe he was a Watcher or something.”

“Jenny, you can’t just assume everyone who grew up in England is a Watcher.” He joked, eyes half closed.

“Wesley.”

“Come again?”

“The one who did the charm. I was thinking if you’d happen to know him.”

Giles sighed. “My awfully incompetent replacement.”

“Hey, he’s got a bit of an esteem problem when I met him, at least he hasn’t let me down yet. The cloaking spell’s probably still working because I’m still alive and not brainwashed into working for a interdimensional law firm,” Jenny caught herself. “I mean, that was just an example of  something that could happen to me.” She let go of his hand, grabbing a quilt from the far edge of the room and draping it over him. “Sleep well, you need some quality rest. You could ask me about how my time went later,” she doted, planting a light kiss on Giles’ weary forehead before closing the curtains.

“I’m glad you’ve returned, Jenny. Life wasn’t quite how it was without you,” yawned Giles, turning over to lie on his side.

She waited for a couple of minutes until he was asleep. She silently paced around his flat, aware of his muffled snoring that hung ambiently in the air. She watched him for a minute, taking in every line and contour that made up his face, determined to remember it forever, if they were to ever separate again.

She’d forgotten too much of him when they were away, as much as she hated to admit it.

Honestly, she didn’t want to reflect on her time in LA. She wasn’t sure how to explain her meeting with Angel. It still lingered on her mind, and the memory wasn’t likely to dissipate any time soon.

Jenny stepped out of the stuffy flat, listening to the sounds of the town as the sun set. Sunnydale had survived yet another day. Sitting on the tiles lining the small pond of water, she let go of her inhibitions and a decently good cry about the events that’d happened in the previous years.

She’d missed being able to show her sadness during her time away. It seemed that she was trying too hard to let go of her past immediately upon reaching, and now she decided to let things take their own natural course.

–

VII.

Life’s a melodrama, Jenny sings. But she doesn’t know the real reason she’s singing, the real reason why she’s draping herself over the Magic Box counter like some lovelorn shop girl in need of someone who will sweep her off her feet and carry her away to some sweet conclusion to a story she’s been running from – doesn’t she already have that sweet bliss, in the form of her dear fiancee?

I’m holding Buffy back, holding her back from life itself, returns Giles, in a duet he doesn’t realise how it even started in the first place. He’s singing his heart out, not like how he used to mumble verses in his flat back when he was serving as Buffy’s Watcher the first time, not like how he sang with limited freedom at the Espresso pump when she went off to college. This was a new level of freedom – he poured his whole mind and soul into the melody.

Jenny and Rupert sang against a backing orchestra nobody could see, or was really conscious of. Jenny thought she heard the scrape of a violin in her left ear, but reason told her that it was ridiculously impossible, but then again nothing really was a hundred percent impossible in Sunnydale.

You can’t leave, started Jenny, she’s not ready to stand on her own

She’ll learn, she’s competent, Giles continued the phrase, what she’s gone through hardens her

At least think of Dawn! Jenny’s raised her voice hoping to make a point. Tragedy after tragedy had hurt the young girl, and it changed her in more ways than one. It was hard enough for all of them to deal with Joyce’s death and Buffy’s death and her resurrection, but it must’ve been unbearable for young Dawn to struggle with the loss of those closest to her, those who vowed to always be her family. If you leave, she loses the only father she’s known

She’s leaning on me too often, she won’t learn to live her life again unless I go, Giles’ voice wavered towards the end of his phrase. Jenny made small, lilting, dance-like strides as she neared him, resting a hand on his shoulder. He took her in, completing the position, and the two swayed to an invisible waltz.

I’m sorry, I can’t leave when you do, Jenny sang, raising her gaze. His eyes were wavering as his voice was, but the pale green hues entranced Jenny nonetheless. She had loved the man behind those calculating, inquiring eyes more than anything else, but she wasn’t willing to drop anything and everything just for him. She didn’t always agree with his logical ways, but she still loved him all the same.

But she couldn’t stand being away from him again.

“I’m just as sorry as you are,” whispered Giles, leaning in to meet her lips. Jenny reacted tenderly, reaching up to pull him even closer. Her mind whirred; although his kisses were no longer electrifying, she enjoyed the intimacy that they brought – two entwined souls, the fate of their timelines. She couldn’t let him go, not ever again. He was her support; she was his. She was his happiness; he was hers. They depended on each other, giving and receiving as much as they could.

They remained in the silence, lost in the presence of each other.

“Giles, have you seen the –”

There was a bit of a scuffle as Jenny pushed away from him, turning to meet Willow. “The new stock of newt eyes are in,” Giles announced, grabbing the handkerchief from his breast pocket and discreetly brushing it over the corners of his mouth. “I’ll bring them out here, if you want.”

Jenny blushed, feeling the heat all the way from her cheeks to her toes. Her fingers found the engagement ring and fiddled with it, all the while avoiding Willow’s gaze.

The redhead was trying her best not to snigger. God knows what she would’ve been thinking. I totally called it when I was in high school, perhaps?

And to be absolutely honest, Jenny wanted to know, just to satisfy her curiosity.

–

IX.

Wedding bells rang (or rather they didn’t, as they were a figment of Jenny’s imagination) as Jenny and Rupert were married, at a nice location in the park. It was a quiet ceremony, at the white pavilion. (They previously joked about holding it in the graveyard, since that was where they ended up spending time together quite often, but obviously they couldn’t hold a wedding in the graveyard, that would be just disrespectful.)

The skies were a bright blue, dotted with wispy white cirrus clouds. A soft breeze stirred in the air, through Jenny’s veil and making it dance in soft shapes. Rupert looked happier than he had in a very long time. Even though he’d made the choice to leave Buffy and abscond to England, he didn’t remain there for long and Jenny was eager to have him back, albeit a bit annoyed with him. On the day Rupert returned to Sunnydale and the world didn’t end, they made a promise to each other to work out their differences, and that’s when he brought up marriage. They’d been engaged since the spring of ‘01, but due to traumatic events surrounding that year they decided to put it off for a while.

Finally, that moment had came to pass.

With the exchanging of vows, the couple kissed and the ceremony was complete. Standing before the small assembly, Jenny scanned across the faces of every single person that was present.

The Scoobies, every one of them. Over the years she’d become their surrogate mom, especially for Dawn following the deaths of Joyce and Buffy. Dawn hadn’t bothered to hide her tears of joy. She beamed, radiant as a sunflower.

Several members of Rupert’s family turned up, his father and two women who seemed to be his nieces, perhaps? While they hardly showed it on their faces, Jenny could read a sense of internal pride.

Angel stood under a maroon umbrella, with Wesley and two other people she didn’t recognise. After departing from LA, the Scoobies continued to collaborate with Angel Investigations on an occasional basis, usually maintaining a connection over the phone. The group of investigators looked considerably more worn out to Jenny as compared to the last time she’d seen them, which was nearly three years ago. Cordelia was not present, which surprised Jenny, as the Cordelia she knew would jump at any chance to be present at a social gathering.

Jenny and Rupert led the first dance, and it was the dance of their lives. If they were going to perish in the impending battle against the First Evil, they were going to live their lives to the fullest before heading off to the fight.

And live their lives to the fullest they did.

–

X.

The battle was over, and all that was left of Sunnydale was a smoking crater in the ground.

“Well, there goes Sunnydale,” remarked Jenny in a rather unremarkable way. She slipped her hand through Rupert’s, and they held on as they stood at the edge of the cliff, which seemed to lead down to nothing.

“There’s another Hellmouth in Cleveland, apparently.” Rupert said. “Oh, we don’t have to go running there immediately. We’ve got an army of Slayers now, there’s no need for us to be involved in everything.”

“We need a holiday.” Jenny suggested.

“I would completely agree with you on this. Where to?”

Jenny side-glanced at him. “You’re asking me?”

“We never got a honeymoon, since we were so wrapped up with work.” Rupert lamented, giving a small sigh.

“Home.”

“And where would that be?”

“You could take me back to your home in England. Willow says you’ve got a house with a pasture.” Jenny said. “Not to be totally intruding, of course.”

“We could make a home there. Finally settle down, base ourselves in England.”

Jenny shrugged. “Now that sounds like a plan.”

[keepyourpantsongohan]

Ayesha Liveblogs SAO S1

The real question is how no one has arrested this game creator yet 

There are only two types of game players those who create their avatars to look as much like them as possible and those who want to be a pretty princess 

“2,000 people have died so far” well that escalated quickly

Lmao @ Kirito’s group-work anxiety same my guy same

I don’t trust Blue Haired Knight he is hanging back at the rear while everyone else fights 

Well he’s dead now so I suppose it’s irrelevant

I like that Kirito was phased by the fact his partner was a pretty girl for about five seconds before he was calling out battle tactics

Jesus Kirito went from plucky young boy to Edgelord in ten seconds

“Are you talking about suicide?” “That’s not such a bad idea” I mean... u right

I can’t be the only one wondering what’s happening to their bodies while they’re spending literal months in this game unable to eat or defecate

How do u think Kirito’s mum would feel about him sleeping in bed with girls

Kirito made friends and they all died so quickly yikes 

All of Kirito’s decisions are made so abruptly he decided to adopt Silica out of nowhere

Nice to know romance isn’t dead in the virtual reality hellscape

Things are so happy right now I’m sure everything’s about to go terribly fucking awry

Apparently Kirito is a bounty hunter now these time lapses are wild

I can’t believe Asuna is taking Kirito on a date in exchange for letting her nap

Grimlock is a name that screams evil but I’m honestly more suspicious of Yoriko

It seems me being suspicious of someone means they’re immediately going to die lmao

Nope I was correct the first time whoops

“How many times you been married anyway?” Kirito pls 

“I had to kill her while she was still my wife” calm down Othello

Kirito, explaining marriage: “If you marry someone, that means you already like whatever you know about them, doesn’t it? And if you discovered something you didn’t know about them before and fell in love with that too, then that would be awesome?”

Dfghjkfhgkjdhgksd;hf

Lisbeth: Brr it’s cold

Kirito: Well damn Lisbeth I can’t control the weather

But if Asuna has a date and it’s not with Kirito who else are these teens romancing 

“Especially if that someone’s a girl like you, Lis” the biggest recurring trope in this anime is that Kirito is inadvertently romantic 

Lis is such a good friend she sees that Asuna likes Kirito and immediately backs down

“It’s been almost two years since this game of death began” yikes how decrepit must your real body be what about your family what if some of these players have children you are a child

These domestic virtual times are sweet but depressing because their lives are a lie

Sfdjhgdfhgkjh does Asuna’s bodyguard have a titty detector that senses when someone is touching her

“Hey, Klein, still alive huh?” Kirito’s social skill are so great

Lmao @ Kirito punching Klein for trying to hit on Asuna even he seemed surprised by it

I appreciate the plot twist of dual wielding because it’s cool but not like unreasonable within the context of the story

I really do not like that Asuna is basically the prize in this duel 

It’s really zero percent surprising that this event turned to murder so quickly

Literally every choice Kirito makes is so abrupt like I know he likes Asuna but he went from reluctantly joining her guild to kissing her and vowing to stay by her side forever in like a day calm down Romeo 

Gfkhgkjdfhgkfhgkjhfkgj Kirito just wanted to hang but Asuna thought he wanted to bang I’m crying

“And then... we’d get married” I know you’ve been in this game a long time but I feel like you are definitely still minors

This show is the definition of that escalated quickly they decided to get married one minute ago and now they have a house in the woods

“Is he younger than me?!” ASUNA I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU MARRIED HIM WITHOUT KNOWING HIS AGE WHAT IF HE’S 12 AND YOU’RE 17 AND ALSO IF YOU DON’T KNOW HIS AGE WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE BOY YOU JUST MARRIED

They’ve still got separate beds and haven’t seen each other naked but also I don’t know what I expected they’re like 15 

I can’t believe they’ve just adopted a child this is insane they are really embracing the ‘I do what I want’ philosophy

You can never escape the stranglehold of capitalism even in virtual reality

“Your mom’s crazy strong, isn’t she?” they’ve really embraced their roles as Yuhi’s parents huh

“I’d rather trust her and regret it than not trust her and regret it” what a lovely philosophy Kirito

It’s really cute that they’re like this little family and all but also really fucked up and sad because they’re not her parents and who knows if Yuhi’s even real

Oh my goodness their baby is a robot 

“Remember, you’re our child” this is going to be upsetting

Did they just promise to recreate their robot baby christ how do you plan on raising her

“Nice job, honey,” this is so funny he’s so proud of his wife the fish slayer

Finally addressing the reality of their decrepit comatose bodies

I knew we couldn’t trust Captain Cheekbones 

I’ve never heard “I promise I’m gonna end this world” said in such an optimistic tone

Whoa they’re both dead that is not where I thought this was going but I guess they went full Romeo and Juliet huh

Well this plot twist makes a lot more sense also how is no one in this hospital stopping Kazuto from escaping the hospital surely a nurse notice him flatline

Is this intro meant to imply that these guys continue to play MMO games after their extremely traumatic two year comas

How exactly did Kazuto explain his relationship with Asuna to her family

Is Asuna’s father going to marry off his comatose daughter?? Surely there are laws against this 

“If I proposed and she could speak, I’m pretty sure her answer would be no” WHAT THE FUCK 

Kazuto makes it sound like she’s just moving away instead of being married against her will while in a coma 

“In the end your heart belongs to her” Is Suguha in love with Kazuto because even if you’re not siblings you’re still cousins ew pls stop

Robot baby has returned

Kirito does not know the meaning of low profile

I am not okay with this cousin-fucking vibe that’s going on Leafa u need to stop

This dude is a fucking rapist I hate him 

How is Kazuto’s education going I wonder considering he just lost two years of his life 

“Do you feel the same way about him?” Obviously not bc she’s too busy wanting to fuck her cousin

Dickface accidentally giving Asuna hope by confirming that Kirito lives

“Did he.... set you that way?” Leafa is asking if Kirito has a daddy kink

This level of drama and dedication to not letting anyone die must not make sense to someone who does not know he was trapped in a life-or-death game coma

It’s funny to see how quickly Kirito has jumped on the killing train now that there’s no longer a danger of actually killing someone

Although with Asuna there it stands to reason that there is potential to hurt someone because there are still some people whose nervous systems are still tied to the game

I can’t believe that Kirito is delaying stopping his girlfriend’s real-life marriage to deal with in-game politics where are your priorities dude 

Kirito as a news anchor: Violence in video games is ruining this generation

Honestly this boy has never been anything less than 200% Extra a day in his life how does he expect to get Asuna if he is causing a ruckus everywhere he goes

Lmao @ everyone hitting on Kirito while he is lowkey thinking about how he’s married 

I can’t wait for Asuna to murder her forced fiance

“Do I want to be a good sister? Or...” do you want to fuck your cousin? It is the latter and it’s unsettling

“I’m in love with my brother, and that’s something I can’t tell anyone about ever” at least you’ve registered that it’s incest but doesn’t mean it doesn’t give me the heebie jeebies still

Without the context it might just seem like Kazuto and Asuna are a weird couple that calls each other mommy and daddy 

I guess Kirito brought a sword to an arrow fight 

“I can do this on my own,” he said immediately after dying

Leafa tried to give Kirito the Hug of Passionate Restraint but instead gave him the Shoulder Grab of “You’re Making a Poor Decision”

Suguha coming to the realization that her life has twice as much incest as she thought it did

I DON’T KNOW WHO IS MORE UNCOMFORTABLE RN ME OR KAZUTO

“I’m sorry” Don’t apologize Kazuto it’s not your fault your sister/cousin wants to bang you

“Right then and there, I swore to close the gap that had grown between us over the last couple of years” looks like that gap was closed a little too well my guy 

That’s a lot of love confessions in a very short time frame 

What are you apologizing for homie literally all you did was exist and be a good human being 

I fucking hate Sugo he is the worst person alive

I think this is the first time I’ve seen someone assaulted on screen in an anime I feel sick to my stomach

What kind of honourable ass shit is this Kirito just gave his enemy a sword

I guess honour only extends so far when you’re tossing someone’s bisected body into the air to impale them

What the fuck are you gonna kill a teenage boy Sugo 

Well if you’re gonna get stabbed a hospital is the best place for it to happen

THIS IS THE REAL WORLD KAZUTO YOU CAN’T JUST KILL PEOPLE YOU DON’T LIKE 

Kazuto should really get those stab wounds treated

Lmao @ these priorities “well you just woke up from a coma it’s time to meet and make out”

Pretending you have objection to PDA Ms. Let’s Get Married at 16

I like how they all come out of the VR world and they’re all still fuckin nerds

Kirito is such a good big brother to his creepy little sister

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S1 Ep 40 PART 2/2: Shadi’s Coming Out Of His Well

More plot is happening up in Pegasus’ journaling nook. Since, while Tea went straight for that journal, she missed the three things on this desk that they actually came up here for.

It’s a good thing Yugi remembers the only reason they came to this island in the first place. What follows is a bizarre set of events that just...they just happen.

There is no valid explanation for what the hell Yugi is doing at this desk. If I knew my Grandpa got revived I’d like...be first out of the room, but Yugi is staring blankly at a desk for a good minute and that is how he gets trapped in one of the most bizarre heel turns this show has taken me on so far.

Don’t worry, it’s just a space-time wormhole. Yeah. In Yugioh. The card-game TV show. It does this now.

(read more under the cut)

BOY Yugi has a somewhat more casual reaction to this than most people would have. Especially since Yugi just found himself framed for eyeball larceny. Thanks Bakura, what a good friend.

Yugi very slowly backs away from Shadi, but, despite the fact he’s wearing about 50 less lbs of fabric and Ankh, instead of running away, he just allows this to happen.

I know there’s gotta be a crossover half-finished fanfic somewhere where spiky hair bros blade wield while card wielding, but with the rate Disney is gobbling up properties, it could easily be canonical if you just give it enough time. Goofy could easily wear a Yugi hairpiece, just saying. Super easy.

Ahhh...we’re back in the brain zone. We’re back into the “Oh wow Yugi’s been hiding a lot of problems from us” zone. While this is hella random, this is actually pretty nice from a storytelling perspective, because it’s easy to assume that now that Yugi and Pharaoh get along, that Yugi has found a cure and can go on living life like this forever and be A-OK.

On the surface, everything is tied nicely into a bow: His friends understand and accept him, his Ghost Dad has decided to give him the reigns, Pegasus is conquered, and his Grandpa has woken up in the hospital (and man I can’t imagine the conversation he’s having with Yugi’s Mom right about now) But, finally getting a house tour of this brain place lets us see that while they do get along, Pharaoh wasn’t really the entire problem anyway. There’s still something super weird going on with this kid’s head and no one else knows about it.

This is where the recording gets a little wonky--you’ll see blur, it’s not on my end, that’s just how it is in Netflix. You don’t notice it as the image is moving, but when you pause it’s...it’s pretty noticeable.

Also, it was hard to catch before since Pharaoh was blocking it, but Pharaoh’s wall has veiny rainbow mold. Makes you think “oh gross, a virus--but at least it’s a real pretty one”

Shadi is immediately disturbed but instead of just...turning around, he’s decided to keep on snooping.

Ah, it’s Yugi’s sid of the brain. It’s...

...I know Yugi is super pure and I wouldn’t dare argue with that, but like, Yugi’s in High School, right? Like I’m guessing he hasn’t played with building blocks or whatever that strange bowling pin floaty is in about 10 years?

I figure it’s a representational thing of “this is his childhood” or whatever, but I’d like to think this is more like Pharaoh hastily threw this room together and just hasn’t gotten around to updating it in the past 10 years.

Either way, no one lives here anymore. I mean the floor was mustard yellow, no one can possibly stay here for very long.

So Shadi, very carefully, decides to walk in the other door that couldn’t be less unwelcoming. Like it has a giant eyeball on it and gross throbby veins. Why would you touch this door??

Pharaoh has a very odd hot/cold attitude towards Shadi, kinda vacillating between should I just kill him???? and also wanting to just hang out and talk shop about magic stuff.

Wh...why, Shadi? 

Why have you been randomly entering minds, Shadi?

You live in a crypt under the desert, what are you talking about?

Anyway, the best part of this whole exchange is Shadi trying to figure out why all this Pharaoh crap is here when he has literally studied only the Pharaoh and all his stuff for the past who knows how many years that Shadi has been alive.

OH

So my prediction that Yugi’s brain was a Dali Painting was just--the wrong artist. I was off by a couple degrees of abstraction, was all. Turns out its...a little worse than melting clocks...it’s a full on Escher.

Yugi Muto, your mind is an non-Euclidean painting and like one room with this weird green foam bowling pin with glasses. I would say Yugi needs to find balance in his life but he freakin needs to find gravity first, wow.

Well that explains where Yugi wanders off to when Pharaoh’s in charge. He’s just having the time of his life pretending he’s David Bowie and recreating that one scene from Labyrinth word for word.

I mean, that’s what I would do if I had incurable Labyrinth brain. When life gives you lemons covered in stairs...

Shadi decides he better start looking for evidence quickly, and so he runs up to the first door he sees and of course this happens.

This door and every door--all the doors are traps and Pharaoh’s just like “Are you still here, Shadi???”

Luckily for Shadi, Yugi pulls him out of this position. Not sure how since Yugi is 70 lbs when wet, but when he’s a brain apparition, I guess anything is possible.

Yugi blames Pharaoh’s behavior on the “secrets” that the puzzle is trying to keep secret. Honestly I haven’t really given much thought to whether the puzzle holds more than a ghost so...news to me, show. Nice you brought this up right before the end of the season but OK, let’s go for it.

And then a door just...starts glowing.

Behind the door is something that we are familiar with, but Yugi hasn’t seen before since Yugi didn’t wander into the ritual sacrifice chamber from the other night.

So uh...I haven’t really given it much thought but it just occured to me that if Pharaoh ever played the old version of this card game where people’s soul’s get devoured, then that’s kinda effed up.

I mean in Yugi’s defense we don’t know how big the blocks room is. Maybe he’s got a k’nex room next door? Either way, it definitely feels like the 60-40 Pharaoh-Yugi mix that I suspected is turning into way more of a 99-1 ratio. Really seems like Pharaoh just keeps Yugi around because he likes the kid a lot, not because Yugi has that much control over Pharaoh physically because uh...one has a room of this colossal electrical magic creature and the other has a room of with a scooter car in it and a toy rake.

Most shows you’d expect a doomed asshole like Shadi to dig too deep and never recover. To keep going past the point of no return. I mean, Yugi’s totally willing. Yugi’s like “hey, lets go deep as we can and find all the secrets!”

And then Shadi proves he’s one of the smartest millennium power players there is by just quitting while he’s ahead and getting the hell out of dodge.

PS THERE’S BEEN AN APOCALYPSE THIS WHOLE TIME.

There’s only like 8 episodes left this season what are you talking about, Shadi?

Remember when Bakura first turned evil and told Pharaoh “I’m going to take all the items and destroy the world” and Pharaoh was like “Oh. OK.”

There it is. There’s the name drop.

Literally the last thing he says is his freakin name.

Thanks for absolutely nothing, Shadi. You came down here to sentence the guy who stole the eye, the first thing your family’s had to do to save the planet in I’m guessing thousands of years, and before actually finding him you got Too Spooked and you bounced.

So Bakura roams free, because Shadi assums Yugi stole the eyeball but doesn’t want to bother to do anything about it because Yugi’s mind was too freakin complicated and self destructive.

TL;DR Yugi was SO EMO that it broke Shadi within ten minutes.

I mean, congrats, I guess?

Next week, on Yugioh:

Will anyone else realize that Yugi was gone or is he going to catch up to everyone and just not mention this happened because Yugi doesn’t Talk About Things? Is Mokuba just wandering around the castle being like “WHAT DAY IS IT!?” Is the rest of Pegasus’ staff taking the week off now that their only client is comatose?

Anyway, I brought up Labyrinth so I think it’s law that I have to post this as well, this actual footage of Yugi and Pharaoh on their time off. Yugi is the baby in this scene.