#it's so disjointed i never know what to expect from any episode and it's pissing me off

[gremlinbehaviour]

Call me old fashioned but I think the baby yoda and his dad show should focus on baby yoda and his dad not random new republic officials and bo katan

[demonicheadcanons]

Scenario: The (G/N) MC is playing a game where the brothers have to try to figure out the word they’re mouthing. They are mouthing the word ‘elephant’, which tends to look quite similar to ‘I love you’.

A/N: I haven’t been writing properly for years, too preoccupied with other responsibilities, so if things seem disjointed it’s because I’m rusty. Please give me time to warm up to this all again <3 Thank you. Also, I completely randomly had this idea last night and decided to write it as my first post because it was fresh in my mind. Sorry if it seems a little strange ^^”

The MC reactions are based on my MC’s whom I have paired up with the brothers. If you find them inaccurate just replace them with whatever you want ^^

Lucifer

Doesn’t understand the point of this game but he decides to humour them.

Internally wonders if he can fluster the MC. Decides against it. He has work to get back to after this distraction is out of his way.

It doesn’t take him long to guess “I love you,” with one eyebrow raised, staring at the MC.

If they respond with something like “I know, but I’m mouthing ‘elephant’,” he’s going to clench his jaw and turn back to his work.

He’s a little pissed off, because he feels like they were trying to make a fool of him. If they tell him they love him too he’ll sigh as if fed up, but will relax.

If you explain it, he’ll hum and say “If you want me to tell you that I love you so badly, you need only ask.”

Mammon

Gets flustered by the premise of the game. Oh, he just has to sit there and watch their mouth as they speak? That’s a bit weird, MC. Don’t leave though, he’ll play. He knows how much they want to spend time with The Great Mammon.

Catches on quickly enough to what they’re mouthing, mirroring the movements - he looks a bit daft, please don’t laugh, he’s trying his best.

Triumphantly, but somewhat nervously, declares “I love you!” He’s blushing slightly. Ignore it.

If they say “I love you too, but you haven’t guessed yet,” and pretend to be sad or pout at him, he’s going to look like a tomato.

Can’t play after that. Suddenly thinks the game is really stupid and a waste of time. His brain isn’t functioning once he hears ‘I love you too.’

They have to explain the point of the game to get him to calm down. Will try to get them back in the same way at a later date. He’s not incredibly successful but his only goal is to hear those 3 words again, so he doesn’t really care that much, but it would be best to play along.

Leviathan

He has one hand covering his mouth as per usual when he’s flustered. Watches intently to try to figure out what they’re mouthing so he can get it over and done with - he doesn’t have time for this ‘normie’ game, he was about to watch a new episode of some show or other.

Gets it pretty quickly - it’s obvious by the way his face starts to turn red as he asks them to repeat it once more so he can confirm it.

Stutters as he guesses ‘I love you?’ He has to fight the urge to look away, and instead watches them to see their reaction.

MC: “I love you too, but its ‘elephant’. Sorry Levi!”

He’ll pout and whine about how it’s not fair, and then invite them to watch whatever show with them - they owe him now. The corners of his mouth twitch up when they’re sitting beside him, because MC said they love him!!!

Probably posts about it on his social media, caught somewhere between being excited and embarrassed.

Satan

Assumes that MC has proposed the game because they need a break from studying. Sits up and stretches - he’d been laying on the floor, reading and occasionally answering their questions - and then focuses intently on what they’re telling him.

Both amused and confused by the game. However, they only have to mouth it once before he guesses “I love you.”

MC: “Mm. I hope so. Try again.”

Watches for maybe a minute before giving in - he can’t see anything else. Asks them to explain, and when they do he just laughs it off.

Vaguely entertained by the entire ordeal. Asks if there are any other similar human games. Will calmly listen to anything they want to tell him; it satiates his curiosity, and provides a nice, calm activity after a lot of studying.

Asmodeus

Watches the MC mouth it once before whining about how this is all just a tease. I mean, really, do they expect him to just sit there and watch their mouth?

Asks for kisses to indicate if his guess is close, and then guesses literally everything.

Gets fed up with the game quickly and pouts until the MC gives in and explains it.

He thinks the idea is funny, and a bit cute, but there are too many other activities that they could be doing that would be far more enjoyable. Willing to try the game again if MC agrees to try to do it with a face mask on whilst he does their nails, or something similar.

The only one who makes it a common pass-time when the two are doing self care together. He’s not great at it, but its relaxing and gives him an excuse to stare at them.

Beelzebub

Confused. What’s the point of this? You could be eating or cuddling instead.

Guesses “I love you” quickly enough. If the MC responds that they love him too, but that he should keep guessing, he seems a bit upset - he’d been sure that he was right.

Might end up dropping the game because he actually really likes having them tell him they love him. Repeats that he loves them over and over until he’s too hungry and takes them to go eat something.

Never really understands the game. He might ask the MC to explain whilst preparing food, or might just drop it altogether.

Belphegor

He’s... trying his best. It doesn’t help that he just woke up, but it really does take him A While before he even starts making guesses, and they’re really far off at first.

He gets frustrated and insists that MC lay down beside him to continue playing. Don’t agree to this - he will absolutely doze off again and forget all about it.

After like 5-10 minutes he guesses “I love you?” He doesn’t sound sure of himself at all, and yawns right after.

MC: “I love you too. I was mouthing ‘elephant’.”

Too tired to react much. Pulls them in for a hug and buries his face in their shoulder/neck. If he has to feel mildly flustered then he’ll be damned if they don’t too.

Like Lucifer, ends up teasing them over it. “If you want me to say I love you, just ask. Or say it first, coward.”

 A/N: Thanks for reading!!

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

Supernatural 15x16, Drag Me Away (From You) -- Overall Thoughts

I can’t believe we’re this late in the game and I’m still doing overall thoughts posts on this show instead of full-fledged reviews. I should be full swing reviewing and analyzing every detail, making predictions on what the endgame is going to entail...but I just can’t. This show just has not been giving me anything to really latch onto, it’s not giving me material I want to review and write meta about. The Final Episodes are really just episodes that are just kind of there. A couple of nice things sprinkled throughout but ultimately, not really anything that leaves much of a lasting impression on me. Like, why is this show that is so important to me, why are my SPN posts starting to sound more and more like my Shadowhunters posts (a show I did not enjoy and was very happy was cancelled)? Why am I getting so apathetic towards this show? And why is it that with every episode I’m just getting more and more pissed off at Dean? We’re in The Final Episodes; he should be getting better, not worse. 

But lets get on with this shall we? As always, I’m never too sure how spoilery I’m going to get when I write these posts so just a word of caution. Probably going to be spoilers. If you have plans to watch the episode yet and don’t want to be spoiled, probably skip this. 

Now, this episode was nice on the appreciation aspect that we get to see young Sam and Dean again possibly for the last time so I was happy we at least got that (although the moment was nearly ruined with young Dean’s whole “you’re not going to college because you’re too dumb” thing, Dean’s emotional manipulation and abuse started real early). It was still nice to see them regardless of how uninspired the writing might have been for this episode. Sorry Meghan, for me, this episode was not your best work. This episode was just a typical MotW episode and when the overall arching plot mythos is bad or boring as it kinda has been this season, I normally enjoy MotW episodes. But the material in this episode just lacked charm and I really didn’t care about anything that was happening. And then we had this real kind of cringey line at the end where the damsel tells Dean it’s not good to lie but the episode really wasn’t doing a whole lot to hammer that theme in. There were conversations with Young Dean not admitting that he was scared but honestly if I was a kid and looking at this self-proclaimed monster hunter, I don’t think I’d feel all that great if he revealed to me he was scared. And there was the part about Dean lying about the nest of dead children and again, I understand that kind of lie. He was a kid himself, with other kids and his kid brother. Of course he wouldn’t want to tell these kids about a nest of dead children. So the whole theme this episode was attempting to hammer in about lying really kind of misses its mark. If the damsel hadn’t had that super cringey line at the end, I would’ve thought the theme was telling white lies is okay to protect the ones you care about which would then propel Dean to continue to not tell Sam the truth about Jack Da Bomb. But instead, we get this real half-hearted attempt to tell us that lying is bad and just causes problems later which I mean really, this show has already hammered to death for the past 15 seasons. We really didn’t need to hit it again, Dean should really know better at this point.

But moving on, lets talk about another thing, lets talk about why is it that Cas continuously tells Dean he’s leaving and then leaves without a word to Sam? I’m sure the Destiel shippers out there will proclaim this is because in Cas’s eyes, Dean is the most important and Sam is just an afterthought and doesn’t really matter. But as a multi shipper, and someone who’s pretty big into Sastiel these days, my thought is that Cas doesn’t tell Sam when he’s leaving because he knows Sam will try to stop him. Now why did he trust Dean to tell Sam about Jack? Honestly, I just don’t think Cas realizes that Dean is not to be trusted when it comes to things like this. I think Cas told Dean this in a hope that just like with him, it stirred feelings of guilt within him about not being there for Jack but of course had the opposite affect Dean because Dean as a mentioned in previous posts is very much still a child and right now only sees his need for revenge. It’s not necessarily so much revenge against Jack, Dean has more re-directed his revenge to what he believes is the real cause of his pain which is Chuck and to a certain extent Amara. But he can’t be concerned about Jack because again, he has a child’s approach to things. He has tunnel vision when it comes to things he wants. He sees this thing he wants, he sees the most direct path to get it, so that’s the direction he’s going to walk in. He doesn’t care to look both ways before he crosses the street, he doesn’t care that the cars swerving to avoid him are instead about to hit telephone pulls and catch fire. All he sees is what he wants and if he can get to that point before he gets hurt, then that’s what he’s going to do. (Huh, maybe I am in the mood to meta after all, that was quite the metaphor I used). But the point is because Cas is an adjusted adult being he hears that Jack is going to die and he thinks, we need a plan C and expects Dean to feel the same way and tell Sam for him. Cas knows Sam upon hearing that with Plan B, Jack is going to die and Cas is now searching for a Plan C that could involve sacrificing himself instead, Sam would not be okay with either option. But because Cas unfortunately still has his Dean blinders on, he can’t see that even if Dean feels a smidge of potential guilt towards what’s going to happen to Jack, Dean is willing to sacrifice Jack in order to get what he wants. Unfortunate but a lovely Sastiel moment nonetheless. 

And then of course, we have the fight in the car with Sam and Dean. Sam understandably is very upset with Dean for keeping this from him. And Dean is yelliing at Sam that Sam would have hated it, he wasn’t on board with using Jack, he wasn’t on board with Amara and I just think that its funny. Because I remember a lot of meta writers within the Destiel fandom kind of talking about how Sam supposedly sympathizes while Dean empathizes and I’m just looking at this scene and thinking, “ok, how on earth does this correlate to that sentiment.” We’re not getting a whole lot of empathy from Dean here and instead Sam, as always, is being the moral compass here. But anyway, Dean is shouting how they don’t have a choice, this is their only option, blah, blah.blah. And I’m just like, “Dean, you do have a choice, but you’re just a child mentally and refuse to look at alternatives because killing Chuck and Amara ala Jack Da Bomb is the most direct path to what you want. And I’m just really happy the that Sam got to the point where he raised his voice at Dean. He didn’t simper down, he wanted Dean to hear that he was not okay with this and the scene just ended with Sam just telling Dean to not speak, not try to make Sam feel better or make any half-assed apologies to Sam, Sam tells Dean to “just drive”. And this is kind of nice character growth for Sam. Because with how Sam was in this scene, I half expected him to tell Dean to stop the car and let him out and he was going to leave. But, I also think unlike what Sam did in season 1, he’s now mature enough to understand that even if he leaves, it’s not going to change anything. He’s not good with what’s planned for Jack’s future but he knows that if he stays, he can maybe find a way to stop it from happening, which he might not be able to do if he had simply left. So character growth there. 

But anyway, thanks for listening to me ramble. I apparently had a lot more to say than I thought I did. But like I said, another episode in the books that I really don’t feel inclined to watch again. It’s another episode that’s there, it fills up space but really doesn’t mean a whole lot to me in the grand scheme of things and really feels kind of disjointed. This whole season has kind of been feeling that way. It’s like they only had a couple of ideas for the overall plot arch of this season and now they’re just stuck with filling up the empty space. Although, it was nice that Billy called the boys and essentially the writers out on them doing a MotW episode this late in the game when they should be focusing on other things. 

[watchmakermori]

TLOK: why the resurgence of airbenders works

hey guys. it’s time for another Avatar Essay™

the other day, someone said to me that they don’t like the return of airbending in season 3 of TLOK because it ‘undermines’ the destruction of the air nomads in ATLA. I’ve been thinking a lot about why they’re wrong why I disagree with that - and about why, against all my expectations, that part of the narrative actually works so well.

so let’s dive in, bitches

to start, I do understand why the premise of season 3...does not endear itself to viewers. when I read about the season before watching it, I definitely had my doubts, because there are so many things that can go wrong with a storyline like this. the plot development is also poorly contextualised and feels completely out of the left field (because it is). the in-story explanation of it begins and ends with ‘uhh...harmonic convergence...I guess?’ 

so I fully get why people would think it was a weird, unplanned development which didn’t feel wholly natural. that’s a given. season 2 was meant to be the end of the series, so the progression into season 3 is undoubtedly disjointed.

however, this doesn’t mean that the entire plotline should be written off. at a surface interpretation, it does change a core part of the avatar universe, undoing what has been taken as a given since the franchise’s first episode. nevertheless, this does not equate to undermining ATLA’s narrative, for a number of reasons:

the resurgence of airbending does not change what happened to the air nomads. it occurs almost 200 years after the culture was (nearly) wiped out, and it is a groundbreaking event precisely because the world has been without airbenders for so long. had TLOK unveiled a hidden society of airbenders that escaped sozin’s ambush and continued to thrive in secret, then people would have good reason to be pissed off. not only would it be retconning; it would undermine the cultural loneliness that was such a focal point of aang’s drive and arc. however, the resurgence of airbending in TLOK is a completely new narrative that is almost wholly divorced from aang’s story. it could not have impacted his narrative in any way, because it could never have happened while he was alive. 

the airbender genocide weighs heavily on the characters, shaping the narrative in multiple ways. the writers don’t simply disregard the genocide as unimportant - it is essential to the actions of tenzin, korra and zaheer. tenzin is so desperately driven to revive airbender culture because it was nearly destroyed in the past, and because he knows that it was aang’s greatest, most impossible dream. this is also true for korra, though it goes deeper than that for her - it’s about resolving a catastrophic imbalance in the world, doing her duty as the avatar where her previous incarnations were unable to. as for zaheer, the reason his threat to destroy the new air nation resonates with such horror is because it has happened before. the characters know how it is to live in a world without the air nation, and they would do anything to avoid going back to that.

the resurgence of airbending is a source of conflict, not a solution to it. had ATLA resolved aang’s trauma and loneliness with an airbending revival, it would’ve been god-awful, because it would’ve been a cheap and easy way to bring him closure. however, in TLOK, the airbender resurgence does not directly resolve anything, nor bring easy closure to any of the characters. It occurs as an inciting event, and it drives all of the major conflicts of the series. It is why Korra leaves Republic City; it is why she challenges the Earth Queen; it is why Zaheer is able to escape from prison; it is the reason he is able to manipulate Korra into handing herself over to him near the end. The revival of airbending does not make anything easy for anybody; it is something that the characters have to fight tooth and nail to protect.  

the resurgence fosters a new air nation, not a xerox replacement for aang’s. a large part of the season is devoted to the fact that airbending powers ≠ air nomad. tenzin in particular has to accept that the new airbenders will never have the same relationship to the culture that he does. many people with airbending abilities do not want to be part of the air nation at all, and even those who do still struggle to assimilate into it. the season does show the new airbenders gradually becoming more comfortable in the traditions and practices, but it isn’t a straightforward process. moreover, the end of the season sees the new air nation take a different direction from aang’s, reclaiming their nomadic routes to roam the globe and protect individuals from all nations. this is not aang’s culture - it is an evolution of it, a descendent of it.

tl;dr the premise of TLOK season 3 sounds janky out of context, but when you immerse yourself in it, it is handled with an astonishing deftness. the season never forgets the history of the air nation and the weight of the genocide, yet still manages to build on airbender culture in new ways 

[itonlyhappenstome]

Coronavirus Lockdown UK Homeschooling Day 3.

Just FYI…. It would be in order of weight — Flash, Captain America, Roadman and then Janet (who is a boy but identifies with a girl and looks a bit like Boris Johnson).

Alex did cry a bit when he thought we were serious as Flash is his Guinea pig, but we explained and made him feel better — so I think actually we can add life skills and bereavement counselling to the list of todays lessons!

Well we are now on Day 3, and am I the only person who wakes up every morning and hears the Big Brother Geordie voice over “Its Day 3 in the Hindle Lockdown household!”. Further lockdowns imposed so we are only allowed to leave the house for shopping and pharmacy and for our daily walk. It is getting slightly more familiar, so the initial anxiety is changing to a standard brand of predictable panic. It would be better I think if we knew how long it will go on. The stretching uncertainty is draining in itself, I do not whether to use reserves now or not.

What is not changing though is my discomfort with being completely accessible to all members of the family 100% of the time. Whatever I am doing, want to do, need to do, in the middle of doing…. is secondary to the needs, wants, desires, requirements and demands of any member of the family at any given moment on demand. And if I act annoyed and frustrated because I am in the middle of doing my own work and do not want to watch a trick on the trampoline, or have a chat about the latest news update, or peel a fucking apple/get a glass of water or anything else that my family members are capable of doing themselves or can wait until I am free to do— or even politely enquiring if it is a convenient time rather than EXPECTING it, then I am the grumpy arsehole.

Every day seems to bring different emotions, and it is a roller coaster, not always bad, not always good, not always familiar, but it is fascinating how it is evolving and changing, and seeing how we are coping. I have reduced my expectations and accepted I am not super mum, or a teacher, and that no-one is finding this easy — and that has helped a lot. Also continuing to be selective with whats app groups and reading has helped. And Gin continues to be a constant support….

So last night, as we have more time on our hands we started finally watching Black Mirror….. No idea what series we started on, but it was the episode where the Prime Minister was made to shag an actual Pig live on air in order to save the equivalent of Kate Middleton.

My husband and I had a very highbrow debate as to whether we would be ok with this depending on the person (Boris and Trump would get no sympathy from Team Hindle — but we would organise something nice for the Pig afterwards as compensation…), and we felt really sorry for the pig in Black Mirror — why did no-one care about the pig?!? And then realised we had no idea if 10 Downing Street had a back garden and had a moment of awe and appreciation for Google maps and technology, as how had our minds never been expanded before to ponder these subjects and then to have the ability to see the garden online! Amazing! We didn’t look though as we were pissed and forgot.

Obviously feeling like we had connected on a new spiritual level (and I am fairly sure the cosmic mood enhancers Brew Dog, Red Wine and Gin helped open my husbands 3rd eye also…) when we went to bed, my husband laid his head on mine, and after a moments silence and bewilderment I asked what the actual F he was doing and could he move as it was hurting. And he answered that he was trying to connect us in our dreams, and that maybe as we were more in tune emotionally now we could do that (?), and he was trying to transfer an Eagle through his brain channels to mine.

You know sometimes you are a bit “Are you joking and I am going to look a twat taking this seriously…? Or “are you being serious and I am going to be making you feel like an arse if I think you are joking?” well I went for the latter and my husband rolled over in a huff muttering that my dream tribe were not going to be safely guided by the imaginary dream Eagle and the disjointed feeling of this tribe was on my conscience, he had at least tried and could sleep soundly.

He didn’t remember the Eagle last night. I am surprised actually I did, as was clearly a bit drunk by the way I tried to brush my teeth with Germolene this morning…

So, homeschool Day 3, we are lowering expectations and trying to find creative ways to pass the time, as we are all just a bit bored and “meh” with it all. Just living to Easter Holidays on Friday — which will mean no change to captivity for us, but at least we can drop the pretence of trying to fill the day with meaningful and educational shit and go be demotivated alone in our electronic device worlds without judgment or guilt.

Started well at the crack of 10.30am with locking the kids outside in the trampoline, even put the older one in her school sports kit (weirdly felt I should get extra parenting credit for that!). Parenting win before lunchtime I feel!

The younger ones needed to expend some energy and frustration so I had them stabbing bits of concrete with child friendly IKEA knives (ok vaguely child friendly, I am sure any metal object when used as a stabby thing is not that child friendly actually in hindsight) to free up “stuff” inside. And one of them looks like a bell end with infected foreskin — so that was amusement for the kids and also adults alike!

DIE METAPHORICAL COVID 19 CONCRETE!

Laughing childishly at what looks like a Bell End with infected foreskin (actually a pirates face…) We then combined Biology, Politics, Science, Maths and potentially Home economics with time with the Guinea pigs! Firstly we had a life lesson/Biology by explaining why Janet was dancing on the face of Captain America and that it was not dancing, or bullying (ok well it is probably classed as bullying unless you are in Prison and then it is “love”).The Guinea Pigs helped us with Politics as we showed the children the information about the lockdown, what it meant, and there may be a food shortage so we must not waste food. So they weighed the Guinea Pigs to see in which order we should eat them in the event of a food shortage — which enabled them to have Maths, Science and potentially Home Economics! Epic!

Just FYI…. It would be in order of weight — Flash, Captain America, Roadman and then Janet (who is a boy but identifies with a girl and looks a bit like Boris Johnson).

Alex did cry a bit when he thought we were serious as Flash is his Guinea pig, but we explained and made him feel better — so I think actually we can add life skills and bereavement counselling to the list of todays lessons!

I did send my husband out with the children on a walk with a picnic, and stated that for everyones sanity, health and well being I was imposing myself on an hours complete self isolation. The. Walls. Are. Closing. In. I actually shrieked earlier when my husband shut the door of the room I was in — the walls started moving in on me!

He has gone out for essential shopping now, Tonic Water. Maybe I should have asked him to look for fruit and vegetables, but my brain has started to turn to mush.

Stay safe everyone….!

[forthisone]

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 3

Season 3 thoughts so far. Spoilers up to 3.09.

This got shouty and long.

June’s headspace

I didn’t hate Episode 9. It just seems like the reason for Episodes 7-9 was ….. to….. get June pissed off enough with Gilead to act?

Except, um, June ALREADY was pissed off with Gilead (understatement of the century), enough to act. Wasn’t she?!

Remember the Season 2 finale, her giving her child to Emily and then lifting her hood back with this “I’m so done.” look on her face? And the opening “Sorry, baby girl, Mom’s got work” scene in Episode 1? WAS THAT NOT MEANT TO BE HER RALLYING?! And here we are, nine episodes later……………………… yeah.

I just don’t need episode after episode of June staring angrily in to space and then coming to the realisation of “Fuck Gilead”… cause, yeah. Obviously. It feels like this is all there is at the moment. I know I’m far from the first to say this but seriously. She doesn’t seem human anymore.

It’s hard for me to compare what it must have been like to watch Seasons 1 & 2 with new episodes releasing weekly, with this season, because I binge watched Seasons 1 & 2 in like three days. But I’m sure it can’t have felt this drawn out?!

Disjointedness

I’ve realised that one of the main reasons I don’t like this season is because everything feels so disjointed from previous episodes. We have clusters of episodes about one particular thing and then it feels like the focus completely shifts to something else.

Episode 1 was setup.

Episodes 2 and 3 were mainly focused around Lawrence. We’ve seen hardly any Lawrence in recent episodes.

Episode 4 was about Fred and Serena’s relationship. Firstly, I DON’T CARE. Secondly, I don’t see the point now as I don’t think the dynamic has changed that much now in Episodes 6&7 (the last time we saw them together) from what it ever has been.

Episode 5 was mainly around Nichole/Holly and Luke. We haven’t seen either since Episode 5. We don’t know how Luke feels about the cassette tape still; we’re not seeing him trying to keep Nichole in Canada.

Episode 6 was about Washington, the televised campaigns. Among other things, Nick’s motivation/allegiance was raised into question, which to me at the time seemed like it was the start of a storyline for his character. But, again, no Nick (not even a mention of June’s thoughts around this question) since Episode 6.

Episode 7 we move June’s focus from Nichole to Hannah. Also, ARGENTINE TANGO and Real Housewives of Gilead cause why not.**

Episodes 8 and 9…. June loses it. Aunt Lydia has a shit reason for becoming Aunt Lydia. But by the end, oh, June’s ok again, and seems to be back in a similar headspace as she was at the beginning of Episode 1. So, great? ………

Why did any of these things happen?! We could be back at the end of Episode 1 and most of the characters would be in the same place. The only changes are that the Waterfords have reconciled and moved(?) to Washington, Hannah has been moved away, Serena wants Nichole back instead of out, tensions/discussions with Canada have increased. None of this really feels that game-changing. Have I missed anything else that may have bearing on future storylines?! Apart from Nick going to the front? And some people know he’s Holly’s father?

Lack of characters we love

And please GOD pay more attention to the characters we have cared about for the last two seasons. This season is missing SO MUCH compassion and humanity. That’s what makes the show. The defiance of these characters in the face of brutal adversity. The only consistently shown characters this season have been Serena, Fred and Lydia. Great actors, but these three are not characters that get us through the darkness of the show. We need some light. Thank God for Janine.

Like, at this point I’m even pining over Luke. (I don’t hate Luke, far from it, I have just never ‘missed’ him before and I never expected to).

Don’t even get me started on the lack of Rita. Amanda Brugel, I am sorry and I miss you.

Thoughts on Nick

I’m sorry, I know he’s not the focus (apparently) but I love him, so:

So on the one hand I’m glad I only got in to The Handmaid’s Tale and Nick & June two months ago because I can’t imagine having to wait a whole year after Season 2 and then to only be given THIS MUCH. Prior to Season 3 he’s only been absent from TWO(2) episodes (1.07 and 2.11).

Nine episodes and only three appearances? Arreeee you kidding me, show. He’d better be in it next week or I’m just going to explode.

(sidenote: Please, no spoilers, don’t tell me if he is or isn’t, I don’t want to know.)

On the other hand, I’m pissed because I feel like I have ONLY JUST got into this ship (relatively speaking) but am now having to watch it slowly die from lack of love. I wish I’d had months to enjoy rewatching Seasons 1 and 2 and bask in the glory before going through this drought.

Also, June’s not the same. I feel like their relationship can’t be the same as it was before. It’s never going to be the same. Uuuuuuugh everything is awful. I’m ok with their relationship changing but only if it feels like their last two seasons aren’t just being disregarded. I don’t think I’m going to get another scene with them together this season and I can’t cope with that! It’s not enough.

I just hope they have a reason for depriving the show of Nick for this long. I hope there’s some serious payoff, because I SWEAR TO GOD...

If they bring him back only to kill him *~*dRaMatiCally*~* for shock value two or three episodes later I WILL BE. OUTRAGED.

Random other thoughts

Is it just me or did there seem to be SO MANY children pouring in to the hospital in this episode (apparently of a similar age… hitting puberty). Pretty sure there are not meant to be so many children, even in Gilead?

Regarding Episode 8, I was so disappointed in Aunt Lydia’s backstory. I really thought something truly horrific must have happened to her in her past life to make her act this way. It’s not even like the man rejected her. He just wasn’t ready to have sex with her after one date, and she felt embarrassed. And maybe some repressed feelings about women were alluded to too, but, wow, it just wasn’t enough to explain how she is now.

**This is embarrassing to admit, but, you know, I remember seeing a clip of the cast flashdancing while filming that Ball scene in 3.07. And being so excited about it thinking “Hmm, maybe if it’s a Commander’s Ball, Nick will be there too! And if they can shoehorn June in too, maybe they can dance together somehow in secret”. I see now how deluded I was. Like that was clearly purely my shipper brain talking and it would have been so contrived, I’m kind of glad they didn’t, but still OH HOW WRONG I WAS. Vomit. I just assumed … dance = romantic = Nick and June. Not FRED AND SERENA. Fml.

Again, no spoilers please and thank you.

[ebiizaleth]

so season 8 was a shitstorm

DON’T READ IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS. HUGE RANT AHEAD.

First, we need to talk about Allurance. So few were rooting for it, and so few were actually expecting it, which made it even more disappointing than it was in the pure essence of the show. It was poorly developed and made practically no sense at all. Lance was after Allura since season 1 and every time he made any romantic advance on her, she shut him down, damaging his self esteem and fueling his insecurities.

The first time she ever showed any kind of romantic interest in him (s7 ‘blush’ scene) was out of the blue, had no development, and most of all, made no sense whatsoever. So, now Allura’s agreeing to go on a date with him as the first notable event in the season, which, again, made no sense and seemingly came out of some kind of Senseless Abyss. Originally, she didn’t even seem enthusiastic about going with him until Romelle encouraged her. And then the dinner, which felt forced and gave no extra insight to the characters except that Lance felt uncomfortable with his childhood stories being revealed to Allura (again, she fuels his insecurity). Even worse, Lance dropping the big “I love you” on their first date was from nowhere and completely abandoned any sense of his character the season hadn’t already stripped from him.

Worse, Allura wasn’t what Lance needed. The show is made for children, if I’m not mistaken, meaning it should give at least some lessons to kids about how life is. In that, you don’t always get the girl, and definitely not by pining after her for years. Allura didn’t do anything for (much less ‘develop’) Lance’s character. Lance needed someone who could empower him, aid him in overcoming his insecurities and helping him to develop as a person and bring out his positive qualities. Instead, she stripped him down to a tiny part of his character and made him solely for the purpose of being a love interest. If Allurance had actually been developed and made Allura a character who checked the boxes in that she is what Lance needs, I’d be far less infuriated and more just disappointed that it wasn’t a ship I prefer. Honestly, I could go on more about how annoyed I am by the Allurance clusterfuck but I’m going to show some mercy.

Second point. The characters. I mean, the characters are what make Voltron what it is, right? The characters are what the audience fell in love with at the start. But season 8 completely ruined any idea of that. Threw it all out the window. All logic seemed to depart the writers when actually writing the characters. Keith’s character and style was just... not. He was a lot softer than he was in previous seasons, which was nice to see, but there was pretty much nothing that led to him acting that way. A random change of heart isn’t exactly Keith’s (or anyone’s???) style.

Pidge was decent this season but had no development yet did get some good ‘look-at-me-I’m-smart’ moments (which, let’s be honest, we have seen too much of before). Hunk, again, was reduced to a fat joke and ‘likes cooking’. Shiro was practically nonexistent this season, which was one of the things I was really afraid of in the build-up to the season. Shiro’s irrelevance was so obvious that it made him relevant. And just for the brownie points, they throw in a wedding scene with some random background character and a good old mlm kiss to spice things up. Then there’s Allura. Who, to be honest, hasn’t changed much as a person through the course of the show. The only real change we saw in Allura was that she suddenly started to have feelings for Lance.

The person everybody’s talking about (and who am I to break a trend?), however, is Lance. This season, in my eyes, didn’t even include Lance.  The ‘boy from Cuba’ on the screen was not any Lance I’ve ever seen. By halfway through the first episode, there was practically none of Lance left, and no clear reason for his abandonment of character other than Allura. His inner insecurity vanishes, any cockiness or arrogance disappeared, and he had little to no ‘funny’ and/or ‘dumb one’ lines. He was kind, calm, emotional and mostly collected throughout. Which is definitely a part of Lance’s character, but only a small segment.  

And the plot? Didn’t understand about nine-tenths of it. In fairness, it may have been because I was pretty much bored out of my mind and stopped focusing, but either way, it was boring as fuck. It was frustrating, confusing and made almost no sense. From the random fight scenes to the overabundance of mechas and robots, I was done from around the fourth episode. I was confused for the entire thing.

We all already knew that Altean Lance was quite a popular concept, but not like this. Never like this. First of all, for about the billionth time I’ve said in this post, it makes zero sense. Is Lance part Altean now? Does he have any special powers or just the markings, an imprint on Allura’s unfortunate permanence on his character? So he can be sad about her for the rest of his life, and never move on? And for him to go on to be a fucking farmer and his whole life to revolve around Allura? That is not the Lance that we knew for seven seasons. I call bullshit. I’m genuinely really pissed off about this because Lance was such a fan favourite and they did him so dirty, just like they did us all dirty.  

Finally, the whole thing felt so odd and disjointed. It didn’t feel like a season of Voltron, it felt like one huge mess. The characters’ interactions, of the few that actually mattered outside of Allurance were weird and felt forced. Even the Klance-y moments felt slightly wrong in that Lance went to seek out the one person on the team he’s always struggled to get along with to have a heart-to-heart. The episodes all seemed to blur into one mix of bullshit and there were a shit ton of loose ends/unexplained bits of plot from both this season and previous ones that leave us all clueless as to what became of certain characters, why some events went the way they did, etc. The rest of Voltron, for the most part, managed to lead on well and keep the characters’ personalities consistent (even if they weren’t being developed). This was a shitshow.

By the end, with all the shit it had thrown at us, like going in Honerva’s mind, the fucking Altean markings, everyone being a shitty character and Allura dying having no lasting repercussions except turning Lance into some ridiculous stagnant idiot, I pretty much lost all sense of caring. To be honest, they could’ve ended it at the end of season 7 (minus the “It’s an Altean!!11!!” thing) and everyone would’ve been happier.

While I hated a lot about the season, there were a few things I did enjoy:

- Pidge with bunchies and she looked great this season

- Keith being soft (irritatingly without reason)

- Bae Bae

- Getting to know the MFEs (and Kinkade’s vlog/passion being shown)

- Colleen Holt (and her liking ‘Plance’)

- Veronica/Axca interactions

- Matt Holt

- The animation improved a bit??

- Ponytail Keith

- Shiro did get a happy ending, no matter how shittily done

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 3x19 Choices

aka everyone’s just dying to give each other a piece of their mind

Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and rant about it in 10-3k words. What you can expect: long run-on sentences and disjointed observations, often focused on one tiny detail about the episode. What you shouldn’t be expecting: actual reviews that make sense.

And I’ve been waiting forever for today’s episode to finally discuss some quality Willow and Faith feelings... And it turns out that it was just a 2-minute-scene all along? Still, we’ll be making the best out of those 2 minutes, folks.

There’s actually a lot going on in Choices, but I want to get the main rant out first, before I get lost in all the small details of it.

So... Willow and Faith.

Fun fact, did you know that that is actually the 5th most popular BtVS F/F pairing tag on Ao3? Right after the popular canon, the popular “it’s basically canon and you can fucking sue me” ship, the pairing of the two main female characters (shout out to the Wuffys, I got you) and the less popular canon ship.

Which... wasn’t really what I was expecting? I mean, I also wasn’t expecting #6 being Faith/Dawn (having a 2 fic-lead on the ultimate OTP because you’re all heathens), so I guess I know nothing.

Some of those switch though if you filter for the F/F category, look, I have charts:

(Meanwhile Buffy/Kendra has like 12 fics, you really are all heathens.)

Anywho, thanks for coming to my Ted talk about the math of Buffy femslash. Now, back to Willow and Faith specifically.

Once I thought about it, it did make sense that this is actually a popular fandom pairing I guess? On one hand, it’s a common denominator situation, as in note which characters pop up consistently on that chart... On the other hand, in this episode alone Willow taunts Faith to which she responds by punching her and threatening her with a knife... And that’s pretty much how foreplay works as far as Faith’s concerned.

Faith just likes it rough, okay? Remember the screencap I used for Consequences after Buffy punches her?

I rest my case.

But I’m already way off topic here. Because what I was actually planning on talking about initially was how Willow felt about Faith, and the source of those feelings.

I already pointed this out, but I feel it’s worth repeating - Willow’s dislike of Faith goes back to two episodes in particular: Bad Girls and Consequences. As far as I was able to discern this time during my rewatch, there were no previous signs of animosity between the two preceding that two-parter.

In Bad Girls, Buffy blows Willow off for their study session to go out with Faith, and starts rambling about how Willow and Xander wouldn’t understand anyway what she and Faith do.

Willow is deeply hurt and jealous... She actually blows Buffy off too in return when she tries talking to her at school in the next episode, and only listens once Buffy shows up crying at her doorstep not knowing what to do about the whole Faith killed a guy situation.

In the same episode, Xander lets it slip that he and Faith had sex... And Willow is once again obviously hurt and jealous. She even has a good cry about it in the bathroom.

And I guess that that seems like a stronger emotional response than how she reacts to Faith stealing away Buffy from her, but it’s still coming from the same place. Note her line in that episode when she acknowledges her biases:

I'm not the most objective, I know. I kind of have an issue with Faith sharing my people.

“Sharing my people” - she’s pointedly talking about both Xander and Buffy here.

And there is a specific kind of betrayal that she feels from Xander, and that’s going to translate to pretty much all of Xander’s relationship... But at this point, it’s not really about her wanting that relationship with Xander. She had the option and she rejected it.

Still, if Xander has that with someone else, that makes their shared experiences feel less special. It makes her feel like less special in his life. (Which unfortunately tracks with a lot of Xander’s behavior about how he’s always chasing the new, shiny and unattainable thing in his life.)

Meanwhile with Buffy, Willow is mostly supportive of her relationships... up until to the point that she feels like they’re taking up the space that she occupies in Buffy’s life. And that very much happens with Faith in those moments, as Buffy suddenly feels like she can’t share with Willow what she and Faith has. (I swear, I’m not even trying, these sentences just turn out this way.)

So... yeah. Willow is super pissed at Faith for having the audacity to try and take away her people from her, and then hurting the both of them.

And I guess we can see some of that same kind of jealousy with Faith (I can and I will read parallels into Willow and Faith’s characters, just you wait) and her whole thing with Buffy and Angel in Choices... Except it’s weirdly misdirected? Like is the Mayor and the show seriously trying to tell us that Faith is jealous about Angel not wanting to make out with her, when that whole thing was all about Buffy in the first place?

Really, Mayor Wilkins? Really?

Well, I guess he is evil.

Back to Willow though, we have this scene where she gets taken hostage, and after she murders her vampire guard with a pencil (amazing), she decides to get comfortable in the Mayor’s office and read through all 5 tomes of the Books of Ascension??? It’s such a delightful nonsense.

Of course, I’m definitely with her on the whole “knowledge is power” notion. Even if they were to prevent the Mayor from having this Box of MacGuffin, there’s no way to tell if that would actually stop the Ascension. But knowing what’s to come and what they could do about it? That’s a definite win.

The issue is that as Faith puts it, being caught red-handed while gaining that knowledge makes Willow some very strong murder material for the bad guys. She could’ve just put the books in a bag, and tried escaping with them, or get the hell out there the moment she discovered those sensitive pages.

But do you know what I think? I think Willow just wanted to have the chance to confront Faith. She was ready to die just to give her a piece of her mind.

Willow: It's way too late. You know, it didn't have to be this way. But you made your choice. I know you had a tough life. I know that some people think you had a lot of bad breaks. Well, boo hoo! Poor you. You know, you had a lot more in your life than some people. I mean, you had friends in your life like Buffy. Now you have no one. You were a Slayer and now you're nothing. You're just a big selfish, worthless waste.

That’s commitment.

Notice also how she highlights Faith having Buffy in her life and not appreciating it enough to keep fighting. I do feel like Willow is deeply offended by that. I talk about her jealousy a lot, but her commitment to the people she loves is usually her more dominant character trait. Feeling like Faith stole her friends from her hurt her; but her anger mostly comes from the fact that Faith hurt Buffy and Xander in unimaginable ways.

I guess this episode did give me a lot of Willow feelings.

Someone else who shared Willow’s need to impart some wisdom in the most inconvenient times was the Mayor. And honestly? I didn’t care a whole lot about it. Angel and Buffy has a million other conflicts that come before him being immortal.

Like, I get that it’s supposed to shake them out of their own little bubble a bit, and face the fact that they don’t really see a future together. I believe the phrasing I previously used was that being together prevents them from becoming the people they want to be.

Their initial exchange at the graveyard is kinda hilarious though. “You never take me to any place new” - I’m still laughing, ngl.

At the same time, Xander and Cordelia still appear to be having their bitter verbal conflicts. Which is weird, especially after Earshot, an episode that I praised for including Cordelia in the group once again. (I guess maybe Earshot was written with a different place in the season in mind for it initially? I know that it didn’t air when it was supposed to too, because of the school shooting aspect...)

Here, the two of them are once again out to get each other. Even Buffy ends up in the crossfires, as Cordelia aims one of her pointedly cruel jabs at her. Yikes.

But we also find out here that Cordelia is working in a dress shop now, so there’s that.

And this episode of course is also about everyone’s futures. Willow decides that despite being accepted into literally every school ever, she’s going to attend UC Sunnydale with Buffy. Not just to be with her, but because she enjoys saving the world and all that jazz.

Oh, Willow, if you only knew...

This of course also presents a welcome contrast for Buffy, who feels like she doesn’t have a choice but to stay in Sunnydale. It’s a really nice moment between them, as Buffy realizes herself that she too very much made that choice herself. Because that’s who Buffy is. Someone who could never turn her back on the people who need her.

Buffy:  I kinda love you.

We all do, Buffy. Just ask Oz, and his decisive ingredient smashing move that annihilated the whole argument about whether or not they should rescue Willow. (”That’s your future wife!” - me @ Alexis Denisof in that scene.)

Also, shout out at that whole Mission Impossible heist premise we got going on in this episode. I always appreciate a weird clash of genres.

[ontherockswithsalt]

How Did We Get Here: A Salty Ass Jamko Rant That I Won’t Let Die

The time is 4 months and 14 days later.

Surely I've Let Go of my rage/disappointment re: the season 8 finale of Blue Bloods. It's not that serious.

Surely I just let my expectations get too high, I've come to terms that it's not the Jamie and Eddie show, it's not a romantic series, it's a police procedural and romantic relationships are not the focus.

Surely, I've decided that on second thought, Jamie was super Torn Up about the possibility of losing Eddie. And hypothetically spending five million dollars on her is the equivalent of confessing what she means to him. That it's not In Character for him to spout some monologue about his Feelings so instead, we should accept that... moment. And so should Eddie.

And Surely, Jamie and Eddie were playing a Romance, in a sense, all along so this not-at-all-tacked-on-in-case-they-got-cancelled engagement should come as no surprise and totally reasonable.

WELL GUESS WHAT FUCKERS.

I'm still pissed about it. And before you @ me all "just let people enjoy it" I have to vent. Because I WANT to enjoy it too. Our ship finally became canon. A dream come true. Our day has come. This is what we griped about for five seasons.

But listen. I LIVED for the moment Jamie would finally break down and acknowledge: 

1) that he had legitimate romantic feelings for Eddie and 

2) what she meant to him. In a real way. In "you/me" language [1].

And we never got it.

Instead, here's a loose outline, from season 7 where this all started to really snowball:

Eddie confesses to Jamie that he's the Best Friend That She's Ever Had and gives him Best Person award

Jamie takes that in, and brushes it off by telling her he has "feelings too" but it's a Bad Idea™

Eddie sucks it up. They kiss. Decide to keep it professional.

Jamie, in a sense, makes it up to her by dancing with her in public. Alludes to what they'd be giving up if they called off their partnership to explore More.

Jamie, in an impulsive moment, sort of propositions her for sex because they might as well be doing it since everyone assumes they are [2]. 😒

Eddie gets dumped by her boyfriend and Jamie cheers her up by telling her she's awesome and brave and she kicks ass. Gets her a t-shirt [3].

Get split up as partners for whatever shenanigans and it does nothing to further their storyline.

Reunite as partners and hold hands on an undercover assignment.

Eddie is forced to confront an assault she endured in college. Handles Things Wrong professionally. Jamie has her back, sort of.

They have a seasonful of pointless episodes where Eddie is weirdly ooc with too many 😍 moments @ Jamie that he doesn't reciprocate (I could delve further into this, but I won’t).

Eddie starts seeing a new guy but confesses to Jamie that she talks too much about her partner which makes the guy jealous and he blows her off. Jamie gets smug and cute about this.

Eddie gets shot on the job. Jamie processes this in a way that we the audience don't really get to see which sucks. He talks to Erin and it's meh.

The guy who blew her off conveniently comes back into Eddie’s life. 

Jamie has weird moments post-shooting where he keeps wanting to Say Things to Eddie about How He Feels and then it doesn't happen for various reasons. However, he lacks any kind of real urgency about this. 

Eddie shines on the job about as much as the writers are willing to let her since season 5, when she saves a baby from a woman who snatched her at the hospital. Jamie thinks she did a-okay.

Eddie blows off her boyfriend to hang with Jamie one night because they had a Emotional Day. Unclear if anything came of this.

Jamie nearly gets shot. Eddie felt Jamie was in danger and rushed to him before it even happened. It was a whole thing. He acknowledges she saved his life and as a token of his appreciation, offers to spend five million dollars on her [4]. 

In summary, I’m pissed at the writers for not making Jamie expressive enough in his feelings for Eddie. I’m aware it’s not in his nature but that doesn’t mean it can’t be accomplished. Essentially, I don’t think he earned Eddie. And I love Jamie Reagan, dude! But we never got that moment of him truly acknowledging and verbalizing that he needs her. And some weird hypothetical five million dollar fantasy that’s kinda ultimately supposed to imply “Nothing matters except YOU!” didn’t cut it for me. Not after everything Eddie’s been through with him. After all the times Jamie made her doubt the possibilities of them. Sorry but no. It’s garbage writing.

From a storytelling perspective, it’s lazy. The payoff for a slow burn can’t be... that. Rushed and disjointed and uncomfortable and lame. It all felt very weird and poorly done.

I’m open to having a sidebar about how William Estes totally phoned it in in season 8, but I don’t want to upset the masses, I’m just saying. Did someone slip him a Benadryl before the dinner table scene in the finale? Possibly.

Okay, I’m sorry. I know everyone is excited for the new season and here I am, back on my nay-saying bullshit. So just leave me here. I am hopeful for good Jamko moments this season. Hey, at the end of the day, our ship is canon. But I’m super Invested, so I’ll always find ways to complain, y’all. Enjoy the premiere!

Notes:

[1] Jamie has conveyed to Eddie that who she is is Really Great™ and her tool boyfriends don’t deserve her. That her actions have been “brave, heroic, and awesome.” But he’s never expressed to her what she IS TO HIM. Why do you need her, Jamie Reagan? Why is Eddie someone you can’t live without? Acknowledge it, motherfucker.

[2] Don’t get me wrong, I loved this scene. Jamie was cheeky and Eddie had the ball in her court once again and it was all very fun and unexpected. 

[3] This scene was cute too. And appropriate for where they were in the arc of their relationship. 

[4] This ruined my life and I’ll never forgive the writers. 

[ranchonmysteak]

My issues with DITF: My first thoughts

The anime community has been sort of amping this anime up and I’d heard it was like super deep and interesting but it dropped off in quality in the last few episodes. Due to raving nature of the reaction surrounding until the last 2-3 episodes, I was naturally intrigued by this anime. What exactly caused the positive reaction and how had the last few episodes caused such a violent response? (by the way, this rant will be very disjointed and I might clean it up later... If you haven’t watched this anime, you will get very confused.)

I watched the first few minutes and right off the bat, I’m already disappointed. It starts off with a monologue by Hiro, the main character, about a species of bird (this is a plot point later but literally no one cares for now) that requires a male and female to be able to fly. If you couldn’t already tell, this is an analogy for the way the mecha are piloted in the anime and gives off the impression that this anime will be analysing how relationships work. 

Now, on to my disappointment: Why did this piss me off? 

First off, it’s an incredibly unhealthy expectation of a relationship. It doesn’t really work that way. It’s fine not to have things completely work out in the beginning but one should never have the expectation that a romantic relationship will save your life and if you don’t, you will literally die. Hiro’s words, not mine. He’s not wrong, either. After all, to pilot a mecha in this series, you should have sex! (wow, it’s not like you could just have sex outside a relationship) Shipping off teenagers to have sex to save the world and we don’t even really know if they’re into each other is not problematic at all!

Secondly, it’s heteronormative. You might say,”oh, but it’s Japan. No shit” and I’d like to say that’s racist. Anime and manga are 100% completely able to discuss queer issues. In fact, the studio also created Little Witch Academia and you’d be hard pressed to find someone deny that Diana Cavendish is, at least, a little gay for Akko. Furthermore, this is anime where relationships are discussed and to sort of hamfist a heteronormative moral isn’t great. 

I continued watching and found that it was completely boring. I am not kidding when I say I probably accidentally skipped half the episodes just because I was thinking of the better anime I could watch. Jesus Christ. One episode had the girls be really angry at the boys for ogling them which, if you watched anime in the early 2000s, have probably heard of this plot line. It’s about as boring as you could imagine and more!

Side note: how many times has a female character, who has not been established as a pervert, ogled men? It’s a very weird convention than women’s (weirdly enough, straight women get the brunt of this but I watch yuri more often so it might just be me) sexualities get brushed off. 

For an anime that is obsessed with sex, it seems really bad at sex ed. It literally only shows one position (missionary) and never quite talks about kink, safe sex and consent, which is wager is incredibly important to educate teenagers on.  Sadly, the creators are likely only interested in selling Zero Two figurines to a bunch of horny anime fans who will eat anything up so they don’t give a shit about that.

Which is another thing the anime community duped me on. 

They kept mentioning Freud and really interesting sex comparisons (really, it’s about as basic as a 7th grade biology lesson) so I thought that this anime would have something interesting to say about sex. It did not. It may have been more sex positive than other anime but given the characters are technically married (the first episode had allusions to marriage), it probably isn’t extremely sex positive and more creepy. Power to them, I guess.

However, that’s not my point.

My point is that I’m sick of people throwing out references and pretending that means they are very enlightened and they are very interesting! References should have a purpose and be a narrative device in the story. One example that does this well is Flip Flappers. It references ojou type women which were a staple in Class S yuri manga, which the show obviously carries some influence because it is also yuri. The women are perfect and prim and the world is equally perfect and prim. However, the catch is that the world resets at midnight and the day repeats itself ad infinitum. This is a clear parallel to old yuri conventions where lesbian relationships must adhere to traditional Japanese conventions of femininity and stop by graduation. By having the characters fight against this is a statement that this anime will not trivialise the characters’ sexualities and refuses to compromise to homphobia. Here, the reference has a use.

In DITF, there is no use apart from short hand that the robots rely on sex.

That’s it

Speaking of lesbians, there was a lesbian character, Ikuno, who is completely in love with Zero Two, the main love interest for Hiro (because of course). Of course, the robot doesn’t work when the two of them are together because of their incompatible sexualities. Which would be a statement if it weren’t for the fact this character could clearly work with men in the mecha even though she is explicitly lesbian so the point is sort of moot and the sentiment was lost.

She did get a girlfriend, which is cool, I guess.

There was also a bi male character but because his bisexuality is so vague, it almost doesn’t count as representation.

Also, the ending has Zero Two and Hiro die for each other which would be tragic if it weren’t for the fact that the two are unable to function without the other. Again, the anime glorifies an unhealthy and toxic relationship and the fact DITF doesn’t even acknowledge that is worrying given that it’s explicitly about relationships and there are hardly any media which discuss just how hurtful being in this type of relationship is.

[elixirsoflife]

across seasons and seas

@inekepp

HAPPY BIRTHDAY INEKE!! 

i’ve actually been planning this present for a while... i got the idea a few months ago, started it, stopped it when my muse flaked out on me and recently completed it (as of 23rd sept) just in time to spring it upon you. to my soulmate and the person who hyped dormitory 2.6a to a whole new level, here is a brand new novus one shot for you ^.^ <333

(i can’t guarantee it’s any good lmao)

(also bc you are a beast at validating on hpft, i had to upload it onto tumblr first)

"It can only be true love when you enable your other half to be better, to be the person they're destined to be." -  Michelle Yeoh

PRÓLOGOS 

It starts like this.

With a party in a cosy common room. The lights are dim, and the music is loud, and there are bodies everywhere, too many to count. There's a brief parting of the crowd, a glimpse of one tipsy girl's heartfelt laughter, and a momentary appreciation for the more beautiful things in life.

(Al stops. He stares.)

It starts with the party and then it stutters as the school year gives way to the summer holidays and Al forgets all about Nova Hale and her pretty little laugh.

(Elijah tackles him without warning. The trance he's in shatters as he hits the ground.)

♥

In sixth year, the engine groans to life again, hesitant at first - and then as the Scottish air rapidly chills, everything switches into fifth gear. Whatever is slowly blooming to life between the pair picks up speed, hurtles through the corridors of Hogwarts like drag racers along lamp-lit streets. One moment, Nova Hale is a mere classmate and the next, she's the star of his dreams.

(He's sixteen years old, months shy of his birthday, and he thinks he's in love.)

Loving Nova Hale is easy.

Granted, her friends are without a doubt her immediate concern at all times and she shies away when his hands are a little too familiar in public. But the smiles she offers are soft and sweet, like he's her entire world, and the way her cheeks darken makes his heart sing. Her laughter comes easily and her kindness quickly follows suit and her pinkie links delicately with his whenever they stroll through the courtyard.

They argue over each other's priorities and they're in love.

Exams drive them to the edges of their sanity and they're in love.

The wizarding world barges into their personal bubble the second they leave Hogwarts and they're still in love -

But sometimes love simply isn't enough. And the fact is that Nova has never been great with attention in the first place while Al's surname and dream career greedily sucks it all up like a black hole. Their regrets are countless and their tears are earnest, but in the end, they agree – 

It ends like this.

♥

(Months earlier, one hundred and sixty seventh years loitered on the grass near the Black Lake, reluctant to clamber into the boats that first brought them there. Al remembers looking at the girl beside him, the way she tugged on the tassles of her graduation cap, and thinking that, though things will inevitably change, he knows she will always be a constant in his life.

He thought wrong.)

EPISODE ONE

Life without Nova Hale isn't necessarily life without Nova Hale.

There are a couple of months that immediately succeed the break up and though it wasn't messy, it still hurts. He sees her in Diagon Alley, snowflakes melting on her cheeks, and he wants. It's intense and sharp, far more powerful than the puppy adoration from those early days in sixth year when he didn't know the sweetness of her mouth or the press of her arm against his. And quite frankly, it’s…

It hurts.

Strictly speaking, their lives do not intersect much. Without him, there's no reason for Elijah or Adam the Puff or even Scorpius to go out of their way to contact her so there's little risk of Nova tumbling into his life without warning. But Al’s also good friends with Alice and good… something or the other with Dahlia, who both carry with them a constant reminder of everything he's lost whenever he sees them. So life without Nova Hale isn't necessarily life without Nova Hale, even when she abruptly leaves England with a backpack choking with clothes and a pouchful of Galleons, off to travel the world.

(Even when she's somewhere in the middle of Asia, sun on her back and skin darkening to honey, she remains in the peripheries of his existence. Sometimes he thinks that'll never change.)

Life without Nova Hale is –

Gruelling practices where he's run into the ground, thighs sore from clamping around a broomstick for hours on end. Days begin with the sun rising over Montrose and a quick trip to The Harpy for a coffee to wake him up. They end with a hot shower, maybe a night out to the pub with the boys, or crashing at someone's place for the evening. Life is a crappy flat he shares with the reserve Keeper, Ahmad, and Al’s brother – who technically doesn't live with them but can never be found elsewhere. It’s downing chocolate quaffles straight from the cereal box in lieu of an actual breakfast and then having his dad pinch his waist and reprimand him for not eating more.

It’s waking up one day and realising that it's getting a lot easier to breathe again.

(He's pissed out of his head on Firewhiskey when he realises he is no longer in love with Nova Hale. Nothing will scrub away the fondness he regards her with or make her less beautiful in his eyes, but he can accept that. He's moved on. He's moved on.)

♥

Months fly by and his career takes off with them.

Sure, Al's young and inexperienced compared to the big stars of the league, but he's also somewhat of a prodigy when it comes to Quidditch. Passion meets a keen eye when he circles the pitch on his broom; enthusiasm collides with his natural Slytherin instinct to strategise down to every last possibility. He complements this by training furiously and it shows.

Quidditch magazines all over Britain and Western Europe note his performance, the way he elevates the Magpies to even higher ranks. In the meantime, gossip rags note his blossoming relationship with enemy Seeker of the Falcons, Briar James, when they’re seen together a handful of times over the duration of several weeks before they go finally public.

RIVALRY FOR THE SNITCH, ROMANCE OFF THE PITCH, screams Witch Weekly when the news breaks out.

("I will honestly murder you," screams Dahlia Darzi instead.

Alice helpfully points out that it's been nearly a year since the Incident and that Nova herself is in the midst of a whirlwind romance somewhere in the depths of St Petersburg. Dahlia tells her to fuck herself.)

So for a time, life without Nova Hale is a life with Briar James, with her tight afro and her big doe eyes. It's impromptu matches of football in a half-empty Muggle park and pancakes on Sunday mornings and being labelled Briabus by their adoring fans. It's beer on Friday evenings and sex on Saturday mornings and accented English venomously spitting his name over an intense game of Mario Kart.

It’s being moonstruck and happy again.

But then that too fades away and Al is left - well, not heartbroken, not really, but certainly rather upset because he really did like Briar. She was relaxed and easy-going, just as down to re-enact her favourite WWE wrestling moves as she was to tug Al’s jumpers over his head. Time with her was like a hall full of floating candles: bright and pretty. It's a shame they eventually snuffed out.

STASIMON

Nova Hale returns from Europe on a slow Sunday afternoon. They meet in The Harpy, Al walking out of the bathroom to find her on his seat at the counter, sipping on his white chocolate mocha. A million disjointed thoughts fly through his head when he sees her, but he settles for a quirk of his lips and clears his throat.

"Shouldn't you ask me out before you steal my coffee?"

She chokes on it, eyes blown wide as she turns sharply in his direction. There's an eased slant to her shoulders and a new air of confidence that clings to her, scavenged all the way from the far reaches of China, but her cheeks burn as red as always.

"I - I," she stammers, glancing between Al and the drink in her hands. Finally, her eyes settle on the smug smirk of her friend behind the counter. "You said this was for me!"

Dahlia shrugs without care. "Oops."

"Oh my god." Nova closes her eyes, mortified. "I honestly hate you."

"My life is complete."

"Good, now I won't feel bad about ending it," comes the retort before Nova turns to Al with a much gentler expression. Sheepish, she holds out the white chocolate mocha. "Sorry about that, I genuinely didn't realise. Here you go – or, never mind that, I'll buy you a new one if you'd like?"

He's already shaking his head. "No, I'm alright," he says not unkindly. Indulging in a small smile, he adds, "You probably need it more than me anyways. I hear travelling to half the countries in the world takes a lot out of you."

Nova returns the smile with one of her own. It's not nearly as lovestruck as it once was, but it's pretty all the same. "Not nearly as much as winning the Quidditch League," she replies and takes a fresh sip. The slant of her eyebrows is friendly and teasing over the lid.

"Ah. So you heard about that."

"Kind of hard not to," she confesses. "You're pretty big news, Albus Potter. The leagues love you."

On the surface, he preens under her compliments, pleased as ever to hear them. He's worked damn hard to get where he is, alright, and he deserves to accept some praise sometimes. But underneath that, beyond his teasingly arrogant response that of course he's big news and what else did you expect, Hale?, there's a moment of understanding between them.

Once they fell apart because of camera flashes and Quidditch robes. It was a struggle between wanting forever together and wanting their dreams - and now, over a year later, they can admit that they chose and chased the right option.

No matter how much it hurt at the time.

EPISODE TWO

Their story starts in a common room with Firewhiskey clouding their minds and the very edges of their worlds brushing. Then it hiccups, takes a quick detour over the summer, before hurtling down the motorway at ninety miles an hour. And then half a year after their childhood has drawn to an end, it stalls.

A season shy of two years later, it hums back to life again.

It happens like this.

♥

Italy's night sky is a dark blue overhead when Al sneaks out of his hotel. The past handful of days have been spent on Asinara as the wizarding world clamours around a glorious Quidditch stadium far from prying Muggle eyes. Country after country has played passionately, losing or rising to glory. And for the first time in a long time, England is storming ahead towards the World Cup.

The feeling is heady and exhilarating. Somewhere in the past, a twelve-year-old Albus Potter gazes at him in awe, trailing a wondrous finger over the number on the back of his robes. He's here; he's made it. He's finally reached the distant goal he set the second he made it onto the Slytherin Quidditch team.

There's a thrumming in his veins, faint and electric, a restlessness that begs to be dispelled. He apparates hundreds of miles away from the team’s accommodation to a fountain in the Eternal City and recalls a memory from years ago. Remembers the solidness of Nova Hale in his arms, the grandeur of the Trevi Fountain, the coin they tossed in for good measure.

He remembers being so wholeheartedly in love with this one girl.

It's been a little under two years since they went their separate ways. In that time, they've loved and known other partners, stitched together the hurts that lingered on their skin. They've avoided each other, ran away to different continents entirely, and then stood face to face and finally accepted that things have changed.

(The tricky thing about first loves, however, is that they never truly go away. As much as Al tries to kid himself, there's always a part of him that yearns to tuck himself into Nova's side and hide away.

As the months after her return draw on, that part of him grows.)

But here, here in front of this massive monument, the days of his youth burned into the back of his eyes, the acceptance of their situation seems to unravel. The night whispers of regression, of old things rising anew. He looks at the Trevi fountain and once more wants with a ferocity he hasn’t felt in a long while. Not since that winter they broke up.

He hears her footsteps before he sees her face. Hears her voice before she shifts out of the shadows and into view.

"Al?" Nova calls out softly across the courtyard. When their eyes meet, she breaks out into a hesitant smile, slowly drawing closer. "Fancy seeing you here."

Perhaps her presence there should be a little more jarring, a tad bit questionable. After all, as of a few weeks ago, Nova was still in England, scribbling away at the Quibbler. At most a month before that, she was in South America with his Aunt Luna, describing the sublime with words and painting a compelling picture with her articles. And now she's here in little old Italy by his side as they gaze up at the fountain once more.

It isn't.

Jarring, that is.

The last time he was here, it was with her. Back then, his arms were around her waist, fingers interlocking where they met - his chin on the top of her head, eyes drowsy as he absorbed the sight. Something in the quiet air whispered that there were far greater things than them at work here. Such intimacy can therefore only be shared with her; it makes sense for her to appear now.

"I couldn't sleep," he replies at last. His hands bury deep into his pockets. "Figured I should take a trip down memory lane."

Nova mimics his position and stuffs her hands into the silk depths of her coat with a sigh. It's not a particularly sad sigh, but Al struggles to place the emotions that lace it. Longing, maybe? Wistfulness? Or maybe that’s just him.

"Me too," she admits quietly. Her eyes are bright with soft gold lights and distant memories. "Luna brought me along to do a piece on Italy since the World Cup's here and I thought I might as well come here for old times' sake?" Her voice rises in a question at the end as if she's not sure whether it's okay for her to be there while he is. As if she’s an intruder on a private moment when the truth is, she’s the star of it all.

"I guess the coin worked then,” is what Al voices instead.

It takes her a moment to understand his words, but when she does, Nova lets out a surprised laugh. "I forgot about that!" She bats softly at his arm. "Maybe there really is magic going on here then, like all the rumours say. Sure feels like it, don’t you think?"

Al can't help but smile at her. No matter how many years it's been since their last visit, Nova's joy in the face of such grandeur has never diminished in its loveliness. A poet could write sonnets about it, he thinks. An artist could immortalise it in vivid sunsets. The sound of it, the sight - it makes him feel so, so warm.

"Since we're already here," he murmurs, "do you wanna see if anywhere's still open?"

When Nova looks at him, it's with very shrewd eyes. He can see puzzle pieces slot into place in her mind, conclusions being drawn in white chalk against midnight boards, decisions being made. But at last, she offers him her own smile - gentle and indulgent, a little nostalgic too - and cocks her head to one side.

"Lead the way."

♥

High school sweethearts rarely ever stay together. Did you know that? Hogwarts is not a microcosm of the wider world – and so, Al and Nova did not know how to function without the crutch of those castle walls. Life commanded them in different ways, tugged them to separate directions. Al flew up to Montrose, a stadium full of magpies calling his name, and Nova? Well, she travelled everywhere in the end.

Even when she officially returned to England, several countries under her belt and a year after they split ways, she was restless. A true child of wanderlust, she eventually signed up for a job that meant she was always on her feet, returning to town only to Portkey back out again. The Quibbler was more than happy to take her on as Luna’s travelling companion, her vivid descriptions of exotic locations partnered with the older woman’s magizoological finds. Both parties have never looked back since. 

Such busy schedules have meant that neither Al nor Nova have had the proper chance to rebuild a genuine relationship beyond standard niceties. Meant that their conversations have always hovered on the strange edge between polite warmth and flirty friendliness, enough attraction lingering between the exes to charge their interactions with an indefinable energy that is never addressed.

That night in Italy quickly unravels into much more.

A catch-up over Butterbeer dissolves into a conversation about old memories, happiness pouring from their tongues and shoulders shaking with its force. As they talk, their ankles are familiar underneath the table, brushing up against each other every so often. And the spark of tension that hovers between them, even years later, rapidly flickers into something much less tentative.

They're not drunk.

Not when Nova laughs so hard she collapses against his arm. Not when they stay in the bar long after their glasses are drained to the last drop. Not when they leave their seats and linger on the cobblestones outside, reluctant to leave for their beds. Not when Al's fingers trace along her wrist and then flutter against the curve of her waist inquiringly – and not when she steps into his embrace as the world blurs around them.

They're not drunk. At least, not on alcohol.

Maybe on this feeling though. This oblivion that wipes all comprehension from Al's mind save the sweetness of honeysuckle kisses from Nova's mouth. Maybe off the pressure of ten fingers on his shoulders and sweat sticking to his back and his heartbeat racing, racing, racing behind the safety of his ribs. Maybe on the way he breathes her name and she murmurs his and how the world seems to align perfectly once again.

♥

(The next morning, his coach’s thunderous knock on his hotel room door startles Al out of his sated slumber. He jerks awake to see Nova still there, face puffy and eyelashes clamped tight. She flips over, a pout pressed against the base of his throat.

"Do we have to get up?" she whines. "Because if so, I think we should stage a protest."

Butterflies swoop in his stomach when she says we instead of you. His fingers intertwine with hers. She holds his hands like she doesn't plan on letting go.)

STASIMON II.

This is a story, did you know?

In the beginning, it starts like this: at a party in a common room underground. A boy sees a girl laugh across the room and for a moment, he forgets how to breathe. That summer, he forgets that he forgot how to do that - until sixth year arrives and he falls in love with that laugh again in a way that'll never really leave him, even when he tries for years.

Of course, all great stories must have conflict. They must have the readers on their edges of their seats, teeth worrying away at the crescents of their nails, desperate to know if their protagonists will make it through their turmoil. And so our story has a hiccup and the hiccup is - tragic, bittersweet - tainted with dreams that are too big and a love that weeps for it. There are Quidditch practices that demand all of Al's attention and cameras that gobble up some more until there is very little left for Nova. 

So, she leaves.

Kisses him goodbye, sheds a few hundred tears and packs her bags for a town in France (and then Germany and Europe and then the rest of the world. It’s not running away if she meant to do it eventually, after all.)

They stay this way for years, seemingly for forever. For some tales, this would be where the story draws to a close, the final words stained with melancholy and regret. Others, however - the best ones some might say - have a happy ending. Here, the happy ending looks a lot like:

Italy in the late hours of the day with its silk skies and hidden stars, a sliver of a silver moon hanging low against the night.

Nova's skin when it's kissed by golden light, soft and lovely as a fountain spills magic mere metres away.

Al's pulse juddering under a hot, velvet coat.

Skin on skin and small hands tracing blazing trails along his freckles.

Lazy smiles on sunlit mornings and private meals in the evening

Aa promise made over neat hotel napkins.

(The promise agreed that things between them feel different. That they think they might have grown up since two winters ago. That perhaps this means they can grab the second chance they’ve been offered with both hands - and this time, they can hold on tight.)

EXODE

"Albus Potter, you've just won England the Quidditch World Cup final! How does it feel to bring the trophy home for the first time in half a century?" "It feels great, mate. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go kiss my girlfriend."

[one-of-us-blog]

Bang the Drum, Stanley (TGG, Season 4, Episode 5)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap Bang the Drum, Stanley, Episode 5 of the fourth season of The Golden Girls.  When Stan and Sophia collude on a caper, will the result be a surefire success, or one big sham?  Keep reading to find out…

As always, let me begin by telling Jon what I think of his latest Doctor Who recap, this time of The Rebel Flesh.  Your take was top notch as expected, and I’m not surprised that this one didn’t quite do it for you given your track record with two-parters thus far.  I hope that The Almost People provides a satisfying conclusion, but I can’t pretend that this is one of my favorite stories.  Oh well, I guess Neil Gaiman can’t write ‘em all.  That being said, you have a couple of very interesting (and revelatory) episodes on the horizon, and I’ll be looking forward to your hot take on the rest of the season!  But for now, I have to make haste to Miami!

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Robert Bruce and Martin Weiss, directed by Terry Hughes

The episode opens with Sophia looking at old photos of Dorothy, and Rose returning from an audition for a performance of Cats.  Dorothy has no chance to join the cast, Blanche declares, because it requires sensuality.  Rose, for her part, points out that Blanche is a cheap slut, so I suppose everything is even.  Suddenly, Stan arrives at the front door, and you know that trouble can’t be far behind.  He begins waxing nostalgic about baseball games that he and Dorothy used to attend at Ebbets Field, despite the fact that he never actually took her there.  Who can keep all these dames straight, amiright?  But now he sadly mentions that he has three tickets to a baseball game, and nobody to go with.  Dorothy isn’t interested, but Sophia gets on board for some reason, and Dorothy reluctantly agrees to tag along.

The trio of Dorothy, Sophia, and Stan arrives at the baseball field, and it looks like Stan got the cheapest, highest, furthest seats available.  Dorothy is uncomfortable, and the sweaty company sitting beside her doesn’t help.  She asks Stan to cut to the chase and admit what he really wants, and he finally confesses that he is bankrupt and needs some money.  We’re all shocked, Stan, honestly.  Before he strikes out with Dorothy entirely, however, the very first hit of the game is launched directly toward their section, and the baseball beans Sophia right on the head.  Dorothy goes into panic mode, and soon they are off to the hospital.

Sophia is lying in a hospital bed with Dorothy and Stan nearby, and Blanche and Rose both arrive in full Cats attire.  This all reminds Rose of a family-friendly bludgeoning game that they used to play back in St. Olaf.  Ah, memories.  A doctor inspects Sophia, and at first she seems to forget who or where she is, but she soon recovers and declares that she wants to go home.  She thinks her mind is perfectly intact, until she notices Blanche and Rose dressed as felines.

Once more back at home, Sophia chases Blanche and Rose out of the kitchen with a broom.  They have been pretending to be kitties as a part of a very respectable method acting process, and she can’t handle it anymore, especially since they have been playing with her yarn.  Stan shows up to see Sophia, and after getting her alone briefly, lets her know that the two of them could score some sweet cash with an insurance fraud scam.  If she could just pretend to be paralyzed as a result of being struck by the baseball, they could have a major payday in their near future.  Sophia has suggested insurance fraud herself on previous occasions, so when she hears talk of hundreds of thousands of dollars being thrown around, she gets with the program and collapses on the living room floor.

When we recover a bit from the medical drama, Dorothy wants to get Sophia back to the hospital, but Stan claims to have a doctor on the way.  Dorothy becomes suspicious when she notices that Stan and her mother are agreeing, but Sophia rattles off the tale of her near death experience to explain her sudden spirit of cooperation with her former son-in-law.  Finally, “Dr. Jerry” arrives, and after taking a quick look at Sophia’s throat declares that she is, in fact, paralyzed.  Dorothy chases him out, but Sophia still refuses to be seen by a real physician.

Jumping ahead, we catch Sophia sitting excitedly in front of the television, but when she hears Dorothy approaching she hurriedly climbs into a wheelchair and puts a brace on her neck.  Dorothy is convinced she’s faking it all, and goes to the kitchen to confide in her friends.  Rose claims that Dorothy is in denial, but she denies this.  Blanche attempts to tell a story from her past with a predictable theme, but it doesn’t do much to change Dorothy’s outlook.  She is determined to prove that her mother is faking her affliction, and to do so, she goes to the living room and (badly) fakes a heart attack.  Sophia doesn’t buy it, and Stan shows up.  Speaking to Sophia alone once more, he confides that they have a major problem; the insurance company won’t accept Dr. Jerry’s medical report, and wants her to see one of their physicians.  Sophia hasn’t met a physical she can’t fail yet, and tells Stan not to sweat it.

We cut to the waiting room of a doctor’s office where numerous wheelchair-bound and injured patients are waiting to be seen.  They share some of their stories with Sophia, and she begins to feel guilty for taking advantage of the system these people rely upon.  After an encounter with a small boy on crutches, Sophia gives up the game.  She emerges from her wheelchair and confesses to Dorothy, also apologizing to each of the patients in the waiting room.  To let her know that she is forgiven, they all leap to their feet and gather around.  That’s right, they are all fakers as well, actors from the community theater enlisted in this charade by Dorothy!  Sophia tells off the little boy for some of his poor prior work, and departs.

In the final scene, we see that Sophia is mildly pissed at Dorothy for her betrayal.  Rose takes off for a rehearsal, and decides to walk to the practice in her Cats wardrobe.  She steps outside, and seconds later we get another Empty Nest crossover as Dreyfuss the dog chases her back into the house, and through the living room.

The End.

Well, after praising so many consecutive episodes, we were bound to get to one I didn’t like.  For some reason, this episode just felt very disjointed to me, and never really worked.  The scene at the baseball game, for instance, seemed completely unnecessary.  Was this whole sequence just to give Sophia a head injury?  Was the best method of hurting Sophia for an insurance scheme really to make a brief trip to a game, and have the first baseball hit land exactly where she was sitting and bean her on the head?  Seems like there are easier and more convincing ways to get a bump on the noggin (or any other injury), and the jokes didn’t really make it all worth the effort.  Yokel Hero was wacky in a good way, but this one didn’t come off as well in my opinion.  I liked some of the moments with Blanche and Rose in costume, and that ongoing situation led to some genuinely amusing moments (and didn’t feel so random since they kept it up throughout the episode), but there honestly weren’t many high points for me here.  Stan didn’t really bring much to the table this time around either, as he basically reverted to his “I screwed up my life, boo hoo” modus operandi, and it felt like the same thing we’ve now seen plenty of times.  Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh after my last few positive reviews, or the late hour of the night is getting to me, but I am going to give Bang the Drum, Stanley a score of 2.5 poofy hairdos out of 5.

Check back in tomorrow when Jon will share his recap of The Almost People, the next episode of Doctor Who, and I’ll be back on Friday with my take on Sophia’s Wedding.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

[suudonym]

all right you know what I’m stuck on the scene I’m trying to write so I’m just gonna take a second to go over the details of the single dad karamatsu au I was so attached to a while back and now am not actually sure if I’ll actually write but I don’t actually have any notes written down anywhere so might as well put em here

(that is to say, complete and total spoilers for a story that I may or may not write under the cut. very very long because apparently I had a whole lot of this planned out mentally)

so karamatsu’s got this bar he likes to visit sometimes because it has a nice aesthetic and it’s not too expensive so he goes alone just to feel cool. he even has an acquaintance there and they chat and drink sometimes and it’s just all around a good time and a favorite way to splurge when he wins at pachinko or something

one day he’s there and a woman shows up with a baby a little over a year old, flanked by a couple of intimidating guys in suits. she starts making a scene about how they hooked up a long time ago when he was really drunk and she’s been taking care of their baby alone for all this time while looking for him and now that she’s finally found him she’s not letting him off the hook without paying all the child support he weaseled out of

karamatsu’s really blindsided. she’s threatening all kinds of scary legal action and all he can do is shake his head and insist that he’s broke, unemployed, unskilled, has absolutely nothing to offer right now (and she is demanding that it be RIGHT NOW). in a fit of frustration, the woman gives the ultimatum that he can either come up with the money in a week or he can take the child indefinitely and have a taste of what she’s gone through. in a fit of desperation, karamatsu agrees to take the child

“...what?”

yeah, he says as he tries to convince himself that it’ll work out, because he has a big family and his mother has always always wanted a grandchild so if it’ll get net him a little leeway in how much time he has to get together the money she’s demanding, he’s okay with looking after the baby

the woman’s scowling but she agrees, shoves the crying baby into karamatsu’s arms, and turns to go.

but wait! what’s the kid’s name?

she stops and turns and looks at him for a second and then she gives her answer: aoi. it’s a little boy named aoi.

(kara’s actually kind of touched because, you know, he’s the blue one)

so the woman and her intimidating company go and karamatsu takes a second to apologize for making a scene to all the people that are staring - but only a second because crying baby and oh god everything just got really real really fast. he makes his way home pretty much dizzied by the prospect of having to explain this to his family

said explanation is about as hectic as he imagined it. matsuyo is fucking DELIGHTED and his brothers are fucking NOT because what the hell, he slept with a woman over a year ago (probably closer to two years, someone points out, since babies doing just manifest into existence immediately after sex) and NEVER TOLD THEM?! karamatsu’s excuse that he really and honestly does not remember it at all just doesn’t hold up because the others are the way they are. but it’s getting late and the baby is getting increasingly noisy as his needs go unmet so they let it go

karamatsu’s banished from the bedroom on the reasoning that there’s not room for a baby in their futon (I mean there probably is, since godmatsu managed to squeeze in there that one time, but more importantly none of them want a baby in the futon so that’s that) and ends up using a guest futon downstairs. the baby is really just not having a good time and cries and cries and cries and kara talks to him, saying he must miss his mother and kara’s sorry about all this and he doesn’t know if he can be a good father or if he even wants to be a father and how is he supposed to do this, how is he supposed to raise a child??

matsuzo comes downstairs and karamatsu apologizes, sure that the baby’s crying woke him up/kept him awake, and that’s part of it but actually matsuzo is there for a chat. so they talk about what a father’s abilities are and how matsuzo took care of the sextuplets by himself a lot when they were babies, like when matsuyo was sick or exhausted or had something she needed to do, and he assures kara that the whole “maternal instinct” thing is bullshit and promises him that he can do it - especially since he’s not actually doing it alone, he has his whole family for support

(and there are probably also some parting words about considering employment because babies are even more expensive than adults)

A-NY-WAY. things are more disjointed and vague from here on but the presence of a baby in the house, and the fact that it’s KARAMATSU’S baby, causes a lot of friction between the brothers. matsuyo’s super doting on aoi but she’s also a lot stricter on the sextuplets because they’re uncles now and they need to be responsible around the baby. the others treat kara increasingly coldly because 1) he’s either always talking about aoi or always has him with him and babies are obnoxious, smelly, and gross and 2) kara’s suddenly the family heirloom and they’re resentful of that. even chibita, who’s really into babies (ala the -kun episode where he tries to adopt an abandoned one), kicks them out of the oden stand to go and see when they show up without kara one night and explain the baby situation

(at some point they start saying that karamatsu should try to find the kid’s mom because it’s not fair that she just hoisted him off on their family and split and on one hand kara was really expecting to hear from her again sometime soon since she left her son in the hands of basically a perfect stranger but on the other hand he’s really glad that he hasn’t heard from her because he’s gotten attached to the baby and to the dad role... not to mention he kind of has his doubts about her credentials as a parent since she did pretty much just abandon the kid, so he’d rather not give aoi back to her)

karamatsu’s still thinking about what matsuzo said though and he feels guilty about making his parents pay for stuff like food and diapers for his son so he lowers his standards from “career” to “literally anything that will pay money” and snags a parttime job. matsuzo works all day of course and matsuyo is often out of the house too so the brothers end up responsible for aoi in turns when karamatsu has to go out. this goes on for a while but eventually someone, probably osomatsu, isn’t really paying attention and aoi ends up getting hurt as a result. kara’s pretty pissed off when he finds out about this and it throws more fuel on the fire that’s the still-growing tension between the brothers

eventually, ultimately, karamatsu decides he’s just gonna move out - he’s tired of burdening his family and burning bridges with his brothers and he wants aoi to grow up in a better environment. he changes jobs and starts working construction at night, which is kind of dangerous and really exhausting but it pays well and allows him to be home during the day to watch his son. he gets an apartment somewhere that’s not really great but he can afford it and that’s what’s important, and thus begins karamatsu’s life of independence

it’s... not anywhere near as glamorous as he always imagined it would be. his diet is shit because he prioritizes aoi’s needs, so basically the only time he gets to eat well is on the odd day when his parents or chibita visit to refill their baby charge and let karamatsu catch a break because they always bring/make proper food. add to that, he’s EXHAUSTED. working all night and taking care of a toddler all day leaves pitifully little room for rest and it wears him down something fierce but he keeps giving it his best because he doesn’t really have a choice, he’s all aoi has

it catches up to him, of course. karamatsu’s feeling really terrible but there’s bills to pay and a tiny precious mouth to feed so he drags himself off to work and ends up slipping up and getting hurt. it’s a minor injury but the real problem is that the cause of that slip-up was the flu. so now he’s home with a twisted ankle or something and the flu and he can’t take care of himself and he can’t take care of aoi (the flu is especially dangerous to young kids after all) and he’s just completely at a loss. he calls chibita practically begging for help, and chibita’s not heartless so he comes over to do what he can but he’s got bills to pay too you know? so when kara’s asleep and aoi’s occupied, he calls matsuyo and explains what’s going on

and matsuyo sends osomatsu

osomatsu’s still sore about the whole falling out plus the feeling of being abandoned by one of his brothers but matsuyo plays the “you’re the oldest” card so he grudgingly goes over. chibita fills him in on what’s up (ex. when’s aoi’s naptime and snacktime, when kara last took medicine, etc.) and leaves, and oso’s alone with aoi for the first time in foooreeeverrrr. but aoi’s a toddler now and so he’s a bit less obnoxious and smelly and gross and also he’s super worried about karamatsu and it’s hard to treat a kid like that too coldly so osomatsu ends up actually getting along with him okay, much to kara’s surprise and great relief when he finally wakes up

it all goes pretty well, bridges are rebuilt, the others stop holding grudges towards kara and aoi, and karamatsu gets a better job that won’t exhaust him and ruin his health with his dad’s recommendation. yaayy happy ending clap clap clap

haha no.

at some point much later, the police show up at karamatsu’s place one day. they explain that they apprehended some criminals for some crime or another and while in custody they wound up confessing to kidnapping a baby for ransom a long time ago. they were pressed for the full story and eventually gave it: they kidnapped a baby intending to hold him for ransom but the family wouldn’t pay so they went far away to avoid police pursuit and devised another way to get money out of the kid: extort someone for child support. they said that they spent a while figuring out a target and picked karamatsu because the information they got about him (from that acquaintance of his at the bar, who was there specifically for the sake of finding a guy like him) made them think that they could scare him into paying by threatening to sidle him with single fatherhood. well, they were wrong, but at least they didn’t have a kidnapped baby in their possession anymore so hey good enough, cut their losses and move on

karamatsu is... reeeally stunned. just. utterly disbelieving. he asks what that all means and of course it means that aoi has to be returned to his family. he tries to prepare himself for it but he’s devastated. he meets the family - the child’s real name is yuuto, and he remembers the way the woman looked at him when he asked the baby’s name and realizes she just said “aoi” at random because he was wearing blue that day. he tells yuuto’s parents all about his favorite snacks and toys and games and stories and the best way to give him a bath or put him to bed when he doesn’t want to and just, absolutely everything. he’s been living with the kid for like 2-3 years now and for that time he was his whole world. the parents seem kind of dismissive of him though and he’s just a little bit worried by that but he supposes he can understand if they want to learn about their son on their own instead of from a stranger

(at some point osomatsu probably tries to lighten the mood by saying something about well hey, so it wasn’t your kid after all, just like we all guessed from the beginning! he ends up getting punched)

and then he’s gone, and karamatsu is alone in that apartment that’s suddenly so drab and run-down and cramped and cold and lonely and the only thing keeping him going is the need to eat and the fear of shaming his family by saying “fuck it” and giving up, even though that’s all he really wants to do

some time goes by and karamatsu’s just really lonely with aoi/yuuto  around and eventually someone suggests that he go and visit. and that’s kind an exciting idea so he hunts down the address and goes for it, even though it’s winter and it’s freezing. when he arrives at the house (which is kind of big because apparently the parents are involved in some important and/or lucrative work), he sees little yuuto standing outside cold and crying

kara’s shocked and kind of angry and calls out and yuuto is just so happy to see him, running over and calling “papa, papa” even though karamatsu tries to gently correct him and remind him that it’s just “onii-chan” now - although he’s really not one to talk because he can’t help but say “aoi” himself

aoi explains that he got in trouble for making a mess and got yelled at and shut out and kara’s just livid because where’s your coat? your scarf? your hat? your boots? and aoi says he’s doesn’t get to have them right now because he was bad which is just. the last straw. karamatsu asks if aoi wants to come home with him, and aoi enthusiastically says yes

so karamatsu becomes an actual kidnapper. he does properly tell his family about it though so child protective services get contacted and one thing leads to another and it comes to light to aoi’s parents are neglectful at best, abusive at worst. his parents fight it because it would be a huge scandal for their son to be taken away and they accuse karamatsu of trying to ruin their reputations and careers and lives but cps ain’t havin it. aoi’s grandmother is contacted and things are put into motion to get him into her custody but she approaches kara and invites him to adopt aoi - not because she doesn’t love her grandson but because she can tell that her grandson really really loves karamatsu and vice versa and she knows that they were together for all that time and that kara would take good care of him

and that is the long.... LONG story of how karamatsu becomes a single dad