#i’m disgusted and livid at the ending of episode 3

[aylinaliens]

why is every female character on oxygen the literal WORST

[goblinconceivable]

i should not have watched that

I’m at that phase where I SQUEE’d through all the awesome that is Betty and Daniel and my heart blew up so I then spun around to look behind me and now hate it all.  Which is actually good, because the hating is a great place to write from.  Fix-It-Fic is a lifestyle.

In short, I’d previously skipped the Molly-Arc, and now I’ve peeked.  In shorter, Daniel sucks.

FFS.  FFS the abbreviation fails to convey what I would like to convey, which is FOR FUCK’S SAKE.  When Ignacio had a heart attack did Daniel literally send a shit ton of flowers, and not show up at the hospital?  Or even, apparently, do much calling and texting, during those 2 weeks?  And then when Betty comes back to a crap-ton of actual work, have her take his VACATION PHOTOS TO THE LAB.  And later has her abandoning her family to run around protecting Molly.

I am livid.  Capslock pissed.  To delve into the deepest recesses of disgust, wherein cold fury reigns through voice of stone: I Am Not Pleased.

I am almost, but not quite, without words.  Because this trend continues forcefully in Season 4, and some of that is pretty interesting regarding the fact that Betty has a wider support network while Daniel pretty much has her (Amanda as replacement was odd and did eventually fail.)

Look.  Daniel wastes about 2 hours of Betty’s time to rush over and tell him what damn SHIRT to wear on Thanksgiving Day.  She runs to the hospital when HIS dad has a heart attack, even though he’s hating her at the time, and she and her family literally are racing around to help Claire and then reunite his family.  Including, may I point out, Ignacio.  Betty is IN THE ROOM with his father when he died.  She watched the man DIE.   Granted unknowingly, he had her BEAR WITNESS TO DEATH.  And you know what, having someone stay with the precariously living inherently holds that possibility.  That’s why you ask them to stay.

Her father has a heart attack and Daniel... sends flowers.  Did he even immediately phone the hospital and have the best put on the case?  No.  I’m bummed Claire didn’t either, but she wasn’t privvy to the whole situation, probably heard second hand, and at least she brought it up and took care of it when she got back and spoke to Betty.

What should he have done?  Literally anything more than he did.  Even change one damn line: “How’s your dad?” to “Your dad came home (at time X) is that going okay?” would indicate he actually cared enough to know anything.

It’s not breaking news that he’s self-absorbed, but even in episode 1 he set aside his shit for a moment and gave her consideration.  This is mid season 3.  He managed to order a Christmas Tree while hideously hung over, ordering flowers takes the same amount of thought and effort.

What do I actually think he should have done, to be worthy of me not spitting on him?  Immediately hop on a plane and go be there for her, and her family, who have also done stuff for him.  The took care of him and welcomed him into their Christmas Tree decorating while Betty was off salvaging the situation that was his responsibility.

Molly could come back with him or stay in Florida, I don’t really care, my intense dislike of her character is plot based but from what I remember she’s a nice person so I presume she’d go back with him and they’d just vacation at home when he wasn’t with Betty.  And considering when she’s sick again Daniel flaked to spend time and energy on her...  I mean, I honestly believe she’d completely understand the whole situation and support his decision.  And, frankly, like him better for it, just as she was impressed when he threw himself under the bus for Betty.  Even though Betty was there because he’d thrown her under the bus for him so this was him not being a complete dick, but she didn’t know that part so whatever.

He’s kinda an honorary member of the Suarez clan and by this point he and Betty are best friends.  He should have been there.  Even if Betty told him to stay, he should have been there by phone and text and a bit of actual effort.

Which is where my horror of mid to late season 4 comes in.  Early on he’s overprotective of Betty, which is a reaction to Molly’s death but does also come from a place of loving Betty.  Then he ditches her for Natalie and the Order (um... your first Friend Lunch should not involve bringing a “date”...) and she’s still running around saving him.  And then we get a series of episodes where they have their one scene checking in with each other before diverging.  Which can be analyzed to conclude that:

They’re being less codependent and learning to stand on their own feet so they could come back together and have a healthier relationship/friendship and appreciate what they have.  But really it’s a drag because their closeness IS a foundation of the show.

When Matt leaves, is Daniel there for her?  Not so much.  But then, does Betty immediately call him?  No, she even goes to the Super to take care of herself.  Betty’s awesome because she's grown more independent, and has her family and even a friend family.  But there’s such a gulf of inequality where Daniel takes, and she gives, and when he’s there for her it’s often work based or insecurity based and smaller stuff and is this Daniel being emotionally stunted?  Still?  What?  Halp I do not compute.

I mean, my takeaway here is that in the first blush of romance Daniel abandons Betty in a moment of tragedy, and Betty remains hugely supportive of him, and when Molly dies he wants her to do what he knows she’ll do: run over to be his emotional support.  Which she does despite being in a dark place herself, because Betty is Betty.  But Betty cannot be some sort of Tardis ATM, if you keep withdrawing much more than you’re putting in, it should fail.

At least by the end of S4 it’s not that the ATM runs out, exactly.  But Betty has stopped putting him first.  They’re friends, but her family comes first, and then her and her career.  Daniel quitting Mode and planning to find himself wherever she is is quite impressive, especially since the promise of romance is not involved.  But for real, he wasn’t there when Ignacio had a heart attack so he’s still in the Black.

In conclusion, Daniel is not worthy of Betty, but I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water, not just yet.  There’s a lot of good in their relationship.  A lot of honest love and support on his side.  There’s just a lot of bad, as well.

Also I can’t believe I  had that much to say based off one scene.  I haven’t even watched the rest of their scenes this episode.  I hope it doesn’t get worse than what I suppose.  (I did read a summary, so I was going off that for the rest of it.)

ETA: In fairness, I feel I need to mention 2x01, where he knows she’s upset, knows where she’d be, finds her, is extremely supportive, and spends the evening with her chucking her memories of Henry in a hole.  He shows empathy, initiative, creativity: basically, he’s her Betty.  And later in the show bigger stuff happens to her and suddenly he’s MIA.  It’s peculiar and offputting.

[thebullmonkey]

This post contains spoilers for the whole of season 1 of Sanditon. READ NO FURTHER, LEST YE BE SPOILED.

Ok, wtf.

I loved Sanditon and I don’t take all of the issues with it that the Austen purists have, but I must say I am still quite devastated by the finale.

My hot take: EVERTHING IS TOM’S FAULT.

If his dumbass wasn’t such a megalomaniac with piss poor charm, my baby girl Charlotte wouldn’t have had her heart broken. I firmly believe Sidney is madly in love with her, but as they’ve only known each other for a few weeks, his blood relations still take precedence. It sucks, but that’s the way about 99.9% of the world works.

For the people who are absolutely LIVID at the lack of happy ending for our heroes – here’s the thing, this is definitely meant to be an episodic series, so if everything ended happily for them in season 1, where the fuck do they go from there? I personally am depressed for my babies, but it breeds good drama and I desperately hope some American company will keep this thing alive as the Brits have abandoned it. Ugh.

Yes, this is a very spicy adaptation of an Austen work. You know what, yeah, it’s jarring at first. I’m used to complete propriety and only scandalous actions being relayed via hearsay, but you’re an absolute fool if you think I’m going to be OFFENDED if we ever get a legit Charlotte + Sidney LOVE SCENE. The looks they give each other alone are pure fire, but that kiss….so romantically feverish…imagine them TOUCHING EACH OTHER WITH CLOTHES OFF. Undressing each other????? I CANNOT. MY BODY IS NOT READY (it’s so ready, tho!)!

If we do get a season 2, what I really need to understand is WHAT THE FUCK IS SIDNEY’S END GAME? Does he expect to just fall back into rhythm with Eliza’s hateful ass? He means to devolve? He’d made so many baby steps with Charlotte in the right direction. I feel like Eliza’s snobbery and obvious insecurity will embitter him more than before.  I definitely will not stand for him trying to coax Baby Char-Char into being his mistress. Frankly, she wouldn’t stand for it. You know we’re not lucky enough for Eliza to die. Baby Char-Char and Sid are just never going to consummate their hot, hot, spicy luvst? They can’t do that to me.

And Young Stringer is a doll, but he is far too sweet for Charlotte. She needs someone spicy like Sidney to keep her on her toes. Just being honest. And Sidney needs someone sweet like Charlotte to remind him that he doesn’t always have to be so stoic with strangers or always “playing the game” to secure financing for another Tom Parker Scheme!

I really needed Sidney to kiss Charlotte good-bye – propriety be damned! But perhaps he did not kiss her because that would mean he was truly saying good-bye forever and he doesn’t intend for that to be the case. Maybe somehow he’ll find a way for Eliza to have a “terrible fall” or maybe she’ll contract a fever. I just need that bitch to get out of the way so my lovers can win, ok?

As for Babers and Esther, I’m happy Esther finally let her guard down and let that good man love her. I still think he’s too good for her, but I do realize she was victimized a skosh by that disgusting excuse for a step-brother, Edward. I really hope that’s the last we see of Edward and Clara – but if so, what new nonsense will Lady Denham get up to if she’s not dangling her money in their faces and telling them how much they suck?

It’s been so refreshing to see a black woman as a major character in a Jane Austen piece. SO REFRESHING. It does sadden me that Otis’s gambling has ruined Georgiana’s chances at happiness. Still really unsure if he actually loved her. She for damn sure does. I just really wanted her to get her win and get away from Sidney since his mere existence makes her so miserable. But I do really love the quick friendship she and Char developed. Can’t have too many girl buds! Was not a fan of the misdirect of pairing her with Arthur. He’s a sweet buffoon and Georgi can do better.

Also, can we fucking talk about how Arthur & Diana’s relationship freaks me the fuck out? It literally took me until maybe episode 2 or 3 before I really grasped that they were NOT MARRIED. Honestly, I feel like I’m still traumatized by 10 years of Jaime & Cersei nonsense, so I just don’t like any super close bro-sis relationships. And it was very depressing to know that she was more than happy to guilt him into not pursuing a romantic pairing EVER for her benefit. If she were smart, she’d encourage him to find a rich old lady that would let her live with them. Then they could spend all her money when she croaked. Duh, Di.

Overall, I’ve really been impressed with Sanditon. I think all the casting is wonderful and the cast has great chemistry. Some of the dialogue leans a little too modern, but I would rather that than some boring, trudging piece that elicits nothing more than a “oh, that was nice” reaction. I’ve become obsessed with Sanditon. I cannot stop thinking about the possibilities for these characters and how absolutely SCORCHING the chemistry between Char & Sid is. It’s honestly my new favorite thing and I need MORE, IMMEDIATELY.

Alas, I must be content with simply re-watching on the PBS app until they rip it from my clutches March 1st. Seriously love it so much, I would buy the Blu-ray at PBS’s “WE REALLY NEED YOUR MONEY” prices.

Don’t mind me, I’ll just be over here looking for Char and Sid fanfics like a madwoman and just replaying everything in my mind, and imagining the love scene that has yet to be.

[ts-2020-olympics]

EPISODE 2 - “Landen’s Going Home” - Emma

Billy's back! If we lose I am screwed heavily, though I do think there's a chance. Slide puzzles aren't my thing, so hoping for the best out of this.

Kathy, I'm voting for you. Bailey had a good excuse for not doing the challenge, and I haven't heard anything from you, whatsoever. Hate to say it, but your ass is grass, pal. 

i'm gonna be a lazy bitch and do a written confessional this round bc i look too ugly for a video. so, basically after the events that transpired last round, jordan came begging at my feet for my forgiveness after lying to me about the vote. he doesn't realize that i knew what he was doing before the fact thanks to sammy, so i just played along and acted like i didn't know and told him that i understood his perspective and understand him lying to me. but believe me, a bitch never forgets being lied to. like, if he can so easily lie to me this early in the game, how am i supposed to trust him going forward? i guess it doesn't really matter because he's he easy boot if we happen to lose again before a swap. but i think i did a good job of making him feel like i wasn't mad so that he will trust me in the event of a swap or if we lose again he won't vote me. also, i'm pretty confident that both sammy and caeleb consider me their closest ally. they both tell me about their findings in the village so i'm getting two people per round telling me where not to go, so that's super helpful. i could see the three of us going far but i'm sure that the two of them will go for each other eventually, especially if they are both competing to have me be their number one. i'm fine with it tbh. sammy also got a vote block from the village. so now he has an idol that lasts for two more tribals, and a vote block lasting for one more tribal. so definitely think sammy is of more use to me at the moment especially since he has all of these advantages. my tribe won immunity this round which is nice. i'm glad i can just relax and not worry about a tribal. i hope we can keep winning until a swap bc i think all 3 people left on my tribe could be of use to me. also fuck connor, he told everyone at the arena that me and caeleb have a premade, as if we even knew each other before this game. someone is bitter that he couldn't make relationships and was first boot. so im sure that information is spreading around and i should probably worry about that. but oh well, i'm just gonna focus on winning for now! woo go me.

Alright, so here we are, the first loss of the 2020 Tumblr Olympics.   Sure, we may have had the Silver medal bonus for that challenge, but the tribe just isn't suited I guess towards slide puzzles, and plus Bailey was busy so wasn't able to compete like we had hoped.  It's all good though, as I always say that life comes before an online game, so nothing but respect.  Anyways, I formed a three person alliance with Beck & Ben, basically as far as I am aware, us three are the most active on the tribe, and really only ones that talk much on the tribe, so basically they are the only two I really connected with enough to be able to put my trust in, just hopefully this alliance all works out for now.   Then in terms of this vote, I feel it will be Kathy going, as she just doesn't seem all too dedicated towards the game/is a little inactive, and not talking really to anybody, so even though I do like Kathy, just inside this game, at least at this stage of the game, we need tribe strength, and she just isn't going to be putting that through whilst not being as active as others.   Anything can happen though, and there is still the arena yet so who knows, the person voted out of this tribe could end up coming back with a gold medal.

i'm pretty sad that my tribe is going to tribal but at the same time i'm confident i won't be leaving, mostly because 2/5 of our tribe members aren't very active. i also have this alliance with ben and darcy now which seems like a strong trio, so even though we lost immunity it could be a LOT worse. unfortunately the downside is that if we're voting out kathy (which is most likely) she's probably too inactive to do the arena challenge, so we're not gonna get any medals in the arena... but that's alright i suppose, we just have to work hard for the next one. if ben can't participate in the next immunity challenge i feel like our tribe is gonna be in a really tough spot. but i'm praying for the best anyway.

Not gonna lie, slide puzzles are awful for immunity challenges, especially if the RNG is manipulated just right. There's a way to solve them correctly every time, but to do it in the minimal number of moves requires that everything go your way in terms of luck. I'll take the L, but I am not happy. 

i’m honestly so frustrated that emma didn’t even submit but! she’s such a sweetheart that i felt really awful voting to get her out, but that was just a lil. hm. also apparently i’m close to her now? so that was inch resting to hear. thank u billy

Landons going home 

my truth is that i keep forgetting check my skype and i want my teammates to glock me and vote me out 

Even with the gold medal I won, we still somehow end up going to tribal. Tell me, HOW THE FUCK DO WE MANAGE TO DO SOMETHING LITERALLY SO ASTRONOMICAL?! It drives me mad how we had such a big advantage...christ. Anyway, a few things I'm thinking about heading into tribal. A) Everyone voted me last time, so I'm playing this one a little more no holds barred. B) I'm thinking about what's the biggest advantage to me whether the person I vote out comes back or fucks off into 24th place. C) I couldn't care less about how we're doing in challenges at the moment. I want people who'll be loyal to me, and in return people that I can put my faith in. Right now, that's Emma and Emma only. However, she didn't participate in the challenge, so it's a little bit of an awkward situation. I know that Landen, can be an extremely good player UTR heading later into the game, and to be honest I feel like he's a bit shady. So, adios to him. I get Emma and Juls vote, and Jacob if he cares enough, easy done. I'm 99% sure tribal will go my way tonight, here's to hoping the odds are in my favour!

I am now apparently a swing vote somehow someway. Landen or Emma goes. I would prefer to vote out neither of them, but hey, I could end up going to. Were you expecting something better? nah. Five player tribes SUCK. Billy and Landen are battling for control of the tribe. I kindof like that battle to continue. Plus I trust Landen, kindof. If Juls is voting Landen, I vote Landen because there's no point. If Juls votes Em, then I vote Em. If Juls doesn't respond before the vote, uh, we'll see. I think she'd be more likely to vote out Landen, but like idk. EIther way, none of these people are me, and I am a number to anyone involved. Mission success? I just need to challenge beast a little bit more.

Ughhh I don't want to be making this confessional right now. Hardly anything has changed since the last time I went to tribal, in terms of my annoyance with the team. We were SO close to winning, we almost had it, and we could've gotten it if Emma had just SUBMITTED. I actually really like her too so it's really frustrating that she does this but I can't justify keeping her when she just.... didn't submit. Not only that but she never apologized, commented on it, or anything. Like that's just plain disrespectful. So I'm wanting to vote her out. Unfortunately I feel like Juls is way too close with her, their bond is dangerous and Juls probably feels like she has to work with Em because they are some of the only girls in the gay-infested ORG community so they just feel a natural connection from that, and they are similar in other ways as well. I definitely feel like those two being as close as they are will be dangerous to me tonight and I know for a fact my name was going around, too. I heard about that from Jacob and it's not surprising at all they would throw my name out. The danger is they could abuse Billy, and they know it. They're definitely trying to get me voted out, and they're definitely trying to use Billy as a number to do it. Which is absolutely ridiculous since they were the first ones to throw his name out and push for it, but oh well. A snake's a snake, and I'm going to try and chop this one's tail off. Notice I said the tail because Emma is literally useless and does absolutely nothing and she's lucky Juls is tryna carry her through this. I'm pressedt. I definitely know I'm in danger and it's like, whatever. If I go in, I'm fine, I can presumably make my way out of the arena and back to the game where I can wreak havoc and be righteously emotional because taking me, the person who got the best score and has been making the most effort to actually talk to people on this deadbeat fucking tribe, out, in Round 2, is kinda just psychotic. I'm absolutely livid and I just... Ugh, it has not been the best week and this game is just starting off so slow and I hate my tribe SO much like it's literally disgusting. I used to hate the One World Twist and I still do as a concept, but thank GOD for it being in this one because I can only tolerate my tribe thanks to being able to talk to people from the other tribes like Jacob, Sammy, Caeleb, etc. I just want this round to be over with and to stop losing for just a few rounds. whew that's all i have to say fuck emma for throwing this 

So I survived tribal! That's great! I was really hoping it wasn't going to be like a permanent red mark against my record. I obviously had a plan for if I did go into the arena, and I figured I would survive, but I'm really glad I don't have to have that permanent scratch on my Tumblr Survivor Record now, and hopefully that makes the endgame easier to navigate. You have to consider things like the FTC early in seasons like these because of the one World Twist and the Arena twist. Both totally impact whether the jury will vote for you, and so it's important to be thinking far more ahead than one usually thinks in Survivor. I'm honestly SHOCKED that I survived tribal tonight, I was 100% Juls and Billy were voting for me, but I'm really glad it happened. I think this confirmed my loyalty with Billy, but in tribal I did come off passive aggressive and honestly, they can deal with it. I wanted to be slightly entertaining but still try to sound rational and sane in where I was coming from, hopefully I accomplished like that? Like I was just so frustrated that my name was in genuine consideration, from what *I* had heard. Like... why the fuck? I got the highest score in the challenge, offered to do flag and did chant for the other team, Emma did nothing both times, it was obvious she should've been the vote. And I'm really happy all the tribe came around with that. I'm really happy I can appreciate loyalty from the people I've grown to like on this tribe. I think I can count on Jacob as a number, and as far as Juls and Billy go, I love those two man. They are great people and I love talking to them. The only issue I have with this tribe is everyone is quiet and shaky and on such a small tribe, everyone gives indefinite answers and it makes things fucking awkward and paranoia runs rampant as you saw tonight. I'm just happy to be safe, have numbers, and be out of the damn Arena. That being said, this tribe is still too tiny and with a possibly furious Emma coming back to exact revenge (and I know she has a lovely heart and personality so I'm definitely expecting her to win over an army) I want to swap out of here as fast as possible so I can begin building my own path to a glimmering throne. 

He’s not as good at challenges as billy, and I’m close with juls and Jacob so I’m not voting them, and billy is immune And everyone is voting with me in theory except landen Next round I’m hoping we don’t go to tribal lol 

This tribe kindof hates each other. Landen and Billy are distrustful of each other. Emma and Landen are also distrustful. Juls and Landen and Emma and Billy are pairs if we want to go that far. I am good with Emma and Landen, Emma slightly less so now, but I did help her out quite a bit. I'm playing both sides pretty well, let's see how far that'll get me, cause I need to be incredibly careful. Juls is also viewed as a greater swing vote, so if both sides-ing does come back to bite us, it should bite Juls before me. Hopefully Emma comes back.

so round two has been a bit better, i think ive repaired all my relationships on my tribe and even managed to stand out in the challenge so maybe they think theyll need me and keep me around. Long story short i think I have longevity for now, but to be completely honest the longer this twist is in the game where once im voted out i just have to beat somoene in a challenge to get back like, im not overly concerned

Just wanted to ask HOW WERE WE ABLE TO WIN IMMUNITY WHEN WE DIDN'T EVEN GET A MEDAL?!?!?!?!?!? *cackling* Also Connor getting voted out is what he gets for saying in the main chat to vote me out. <3 u Connor <3 

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

going off the back of that post that i reblogged last night about being a virgin/not dating/not having had a relationship by your 20s should be normalised and not shamed.... i thought I’d make a separate post bc meh anyway.

but yeah going off that post, I hate how when I was 17/18 and 18/19 when I had guys approach me on facebook for sex/a relationship/to date etc the question i had the most from all of those men (who at the time were in their early-to-mid 20s) was “are you like waiting for marriage or some stupid fucking bullshit for losing your virginity? like why the fuck haven’t you slept with someone yet? you’re 17-19! you’re obvs broken and let me/us (the us part was when it was 2 dudes, one trying to set me up with his friend) fucking fix you! what the fuck?” and then obviously that rant devolved into my typical point of “you should’ve fucked someone by the time you were 15!” bullshit rant that all of these men rattled off after the marriage/virginity question.

but no. i’m not waiting for marriage to have sex/lose my very non-existent purely social construct virginity. no. i’m not waiting for it to be “special” bc I know a lot of losing your virginity is MEANT to be awkward and funny and uncomfortable, unlike all the media around it making it seem seamless and perfect half the time.

but you know what I’m waiting for? a person that fucking respects that, in a sense. a person who doesn’t fucking think their stupid fucking mostly good-for-nothing genitals (ok in these cases it obvs a dick) will magically control me and “make you (me) into a real woman who loves real dick, real men, and real sex” which is something that “I’ll give you sex lessons in my car” guy literally said to me in 2014 when he was angry at me for not having lost my virginity by 18/19. im waiting for just like the bare minimum respect level that SO MANY MEN fucking refuse to fucking meet that it makes me fucking sick.

warning: this next part mentions suicide/self-harm.

like y’all I went through a lot with my stalker constantly harassing me with his “will you fucking hurry up and fucking consider that wonderful weekend of sex down the coast, so that I can be the first to have your virginity???!!! (and also so that I don’t try and kill myself, you selfish bitch!)” act. like why in all honest fuck would I give it to a guy that consistently threatened me with his suicide/generally threatened self-harm each time I refused to touch him? why would i give it to the guy who made me terrified that he’d punch me in the face if i ever called that bullshit out or generally criticised his behaviour in any way, shape, or form???? why would i give it to the boy who DEMANDED in first two days of knowing me, that i “hurry up and get on the pill so that I can fuck you!” and then followed that up with refusing to use condoms and then the “we’ll get married & have kids one day bc you’re girlfriend material” line, as if he was going to trap me at 16 with a kid to be his baby mama, and then never let me go to uni etc bc i obviously had to be stuck with the kid while he fucked off and fucked around with other girls.

like y’all 16 year old me mentally read my stalker for fucking FILTH each time he pulled his bullshit acts. she knew that he was abusive/manipulative/controlling etc. why the FUCK would she give him the satisfaction of “being the first to fuck you (her)” like she was some gatekept special unicorn or other fucked up shit???? virginity is used to control women by these creepy manipulative men. and the men mentioned in the first half of this post all were like “like yeah he sounds fucking yikes, but you should’ve just fucked him anyway; to be normal and to not be a fucking stuck up, frigid virgin bitch like you are now! you should of just given the guy a chance!!!! 🤬🤬🤬🤬 maybe he would’ve treated you right if you fucked him and gave him what he wanted!!!! lower your fucking standards!!!!😡” like no????????? and y’all are really going to excuse suicide threats/self-harm threats and other violence towards women, over a woman not having lost her virginity yet???? what THE ACTUAL FUCK IS FUCKING WRONG WITH YOU?????? you are MOTHERFUCKING TRASH and you need to FUCKING LEAVE.

then yes there was the less yikes clear braces guy at catholic school. but all the same. 14/15 year old me DID NOT LIKE HIM in that way at all. I didn’t want to fucking touch him, because everything about him disgusted me (which was super fucking rude I’ll admit, but yeah).

but why the fuck was she expected to give up her virginity/have a relationship at all etc with a boy that she NEVER had feelings for???? why was she ALWAYS dismissed (typically more often by male students, but also by some female students and then eventually teachers) when she said she didn’t like him???? and even after she fucking dumped him???? WHY THE FUCK IS IT SO FUCKING HARD TO BELIEVE GIRLS/WOMEN when they say that they DON’T LIKE and NEVER LIKED someone?????

but other than that, why was I expected to give myself to him??? I had boys who always said to me “I bet you’d love licking the shit out of his braces. yeah get that nasty shit out of there for him with your tounge... I bet you dream about it” and other vile shit about this guy’s psoriasis etc, and other shit like that for 3 straight fucking years..... and then those boys fucking wondered why i’d fucking slap them and storm out of fucking class.... and then they always pretended to act all nice after it. why the FUCK was i expected to endure that?????

this is the relationship where the WHOLE year group pressured me into it (or at least I felt super pressured by my entire year) bc even the other half of the year started to harass me about it. whenever i told anyone to fuck off about it, they’d just push it harder. it was a fucking mortifyingly awkward and awful relationship where i never answered his texts.... where he would spell my name wrong although I was his “best friend” (although yes autocorrect but you wouldn’t over sight that in a text to your girlfriend, right?) and where I constantly faked sick or totally ignored his advances for dates...... by actually going over my friends houses, instead of going to the movies with him.... and then when he moved schools at the end of 2010 I felt like it was my fault bc I’d dumped him???? so he’d lost a good friend after that??? idek man teenagers suck lmao

but in the whole story about clear braces guy, I think you can see the underlying thing there was that i OBVIOUSLY wasn’t ready for a relationship, and honestly I don’t think this guy was either..... considering that when he asked me out over the phone he seemed awkward about it I suppose.... like we’d been pressured into FOR 3 YEARS of constant harassment from our year group..... so he felt like he HAD to ask me out finally. and then when he made it “facebook official” i gagged... and then snapped and then yelled at him. i was fucking livid. i cringed at the couple selfie he took of us at the end of one PE lesson after the “fb official” disaster. it was a fucking nightmare lmao.

can y’all see that this SHOULD NOT HAVE FUCKING HAPPENED AT ALL if we’d just left been left fucking alone to be friends that talked every day???? like yes he had his story of having a crush on me since the start of 2008/year 7, but I always felt nothing like that for him. EVER. we were just two metalhead friends bonding over parkway drive and marilyn manson and emo kids bonding over adtr and other bands which everyone else was into anyway.

like I did feel sorry for him in my class bc no one would sit with him, bc he was a bit weird (the braces thing didn’t help him either). he talked to me too bc most of my class was scared of me and my very dramatic screaming matches with teachers/emotional outbursts that would get me sent out of so many classes for most of year 7. but i always, ALWAYS saw us as just friends. basically it was just my group that believed that I didn’t like him (well eventually) bc they always got up and moved away whenever braces dude came to sit with me at at lunch/recess. like my group was embarrassed for me or something???? idek man.

but yeah. my point with braces guy is that why fuck should I have been pressured into that??? and ESPECIALLY why the actual fuck did it have to be a fucking whole year group level of sustained harassment for 3 straight years, where on every fucking level I WAS FUCKING IGNORED by everyone????.... and where that sustained harassment made me feel as though if I’d said no, i would’ve been called a selfish bitch/whore/slut bc teenagers are dumb as fuck. like even teachers started pushing it from time to time by 2010. i fucking hated it. why should a teenager be harassed ON THAT LEVEL FOR THAT LONG while still being invalidated..... and then still be expected to have a good view of relationships and sex exploration after that???? like it warped my views so much.... and then gave me a big part of a horrible fucking year long depressive episode in 2011..... and also gave me a weirdly obsessive and deathly obvious crush on one of the very popular pretty boys who had pushed me into that relationship anyway.... especially when that said boy gave me a flirtatious comment when I was “going out” with braces boy. like how the fuck is any of that healthy???? why was I expected to lose my virginity to someone I never had feelings for in the first place????

so yeah. this is my view on why people never having had a relationship/never had sex/not lot their virginity by their 20s should be a more normalised thing not to be shamed for...... and why teenagers should NEVER be harassed to have relationship that they don’t want, fucking period. just relationships in high school are fucking awful.

[lazy-safetastic-13]

Breathe

Giftfic to @silverryu25  XD Man, I’m on it with these gifts. Can’t help the urge. UwU

Pairing: Kustard

Summary: Coming home late from a shitty job, worked to the bone ...There was only so much Red could take. So he breathes.

Unlocking the door, Red breathed out a sigh of relief. It was already so late. It was morning—3 am to be exact. And quietly, he got his shoes off and placed his bag and jacket onto the coat rack.

His movements impressively slow that a snail might even win. Maybe it was to keep quiet, or maybe it was the fatigue wearing down on him, or maybe both. Red didn’t really care.

He simply plopped himself on the couch, and closed his eyes when he leaned back; his weight sinking into the leather.

Red didn’t want to think about anything, but left with silence—left with his ever-so helpful chatterbox companion called his thoughts, it was pointless to think that he’d really catch a break.

It has been … a couple years since monster were able to integrate themselves with the humans in the Surface. But there was still unavoidable discrimination that couldn’t be quelled nor forgotten over time. And there wasn’t really anything they could do about it, because humans were the majority.

It didn’t help that the more … or should he say ‘used to be’ violent monsters like himself, received a negative reception. Having to actually require going through a mandatory rehabilitation to be … ‘civil’.

Red scoffed when he first heard while his brother had been livid with the stupidity of the idea. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t be civil. It wasn’t as if they chose to live such a lifestyle. It was simply just how their world worked. It was their ‘normality’. Just how the animals of the wild followed a code of survival of the fittest, with their circumstances, so did they.

There wasn’t anything wrong with them, but the humans made it seem like there was. That they needed help.

And Red was stopped from lashing out from the overwhelming piteous, and at the same time hateful gazes.

Because of this, he didn’t even know if the Surface was any better than living in the Underground.

The discrimination towards his kind was evident; low-paying jobs, unfair time schedules, unnegotiable vacation, and you’re not even getting paid overtime in most establishments. This was not to say that humans don’t understand this kind of treatment too. This was to say that this accounted for all monsters; whether you have talent or skill, whether you were born for the job—a monster will still have a hard time getting promoted regardless of their achievements. He should know, his brother had worked his ass tiredly just to finally get the job as a mall cop.

Well, at the very least his brother was more than well-off. Unlike him, who got stuck as a school janitor.

Just the reminder made him even more tired than before. He wasn’t allowed to use magic, and no matter the mess, he was called for all of it to be cleaned up. He swore that there was supposed to be two more janitors other than him, but they seemed to be ghosts because he ain’t seen them after the first week of working there.

And he had tried to apply elsewhere.

But even if … even if he had the qualifications, no one bothered to give it a second thought. Always eyeing him with disdain, fear, disgust. Maybe it was his sharp teeth? Maybe the fact that he could use magic? Maybe the fact that he was skeleton? Red never knew the exact reason, but he never got a call back for even an interview with any of them.

The only … The only reason Red even had a job was because …

The short skeleton inhaled and exhaled. No, he shouldn’t bother remembering the how’s.

… He hadn’t even told his partner about it, let alone his brother. Always changing the subject when it came to him.

But god, he was so tired of it all. What was the point of working when you’re barely even getting paid? Red can’t remember the last time he was the one to pitch in to pay for the shit around the house. And god forbid that Sans would nag him about it.

The only reason he still bothered to keep trying was because of Sans and his brother. He didn’t want to let them down. He didn’t want to give up because of them. He just—

Red didn’t realize he had been crying until his eyes began to hurt and his cheeks felt cold; quietly sobbing from the stress—from everything.

Red clutched his chest, and took deep breaths to calm his frayed nerves.

He could do this.

He could still keep going.

But when he remembered what happened today, Red felt all his strength leave—deflating like a balloon.

That’s right. Today, he was even fired.

Stars. Red wanted to laugh at the shitload after shitload of bullshit. Working for four years as a janitor, tolerating the cruel jeers, the sneers, the reprimanding—continuing to work even after the humiliating names, how no matter what he did, it would only be acknowledge as ‘decent’, and that is the most praise he’s ever received. For four fucking years.

And now, they fired him for a mistake he didn’t even do.

Red just—

He teleported straight to Sans’ and his shared room, right by Sans’ side by the bed.

Red didn’t bother to wipe the hot tears that continued to stream down his cheeks as his hand hesitantly hovered in the air, as if wanting—helplessly needing to reach out.

They talked about this. Red knew and understood, but it was much harder to act on it. He wanted to talk about it to Sans, he wanted to tell him what’s been happening with him … but he also couldn’t suppress the worthless monster deeply-rooted in his soul that he didn’t want to be a bother—a burden.  

Sans had already done so much, and it wasn’t as if he, too, wasn’t dealing with the bullshit thrusted upon their kind. Sans paid for most of their bills, and not once did he complain about the overload of the responsibility he had to manage. His partner even had three jobs, and was managing them along with spending time with family and friends, and Red felt all the more unworthy for having such a partner.

Ah, fuck. Red can’t go on like this.

Suddenly, both hands clutched onto his chest, the loud pounding of his soul seemed loud in the quiet room. His cries became choked, and he was suddenly finding harder and harder to breathe.

Red’s mouth hang open as if it will all be better if he could just get one gulp of air to soothe his aching chest. But it didn’t become easy, only adding to the growing emptiness he was feeling. He faintly hears the sounds of his own gasps and wheezes, and now felt as if he were subjected to some sick game. His soul pounded hard, thrashing about, wanting to be freed from its cage—to breathe.

His breath whistled past as he greedily sucked in all the air he could attain, and was only met with another wave of pain.

“S … Sa …” The name couldn’t make it pass his mouth. The tears continued to slide absentmindedly down his cheeks.

“Just give up.”

The voice rang in his head.

“No more pain. No more suffering.”

No. Stop. I—

“It would be easier if you just killed yourself.”

Red lunged for Sans desperately, startling the other awake and possibly just as stressed from the suddenness of it.

“H-Huh?! What? R-Red?” Sans, though a bit muddle-headed, instinctively embraced his lover. “Wha—” He was interrupted when he heard the loud gasp from his partner and his mind became all too clear at what happened.

“S-Sa-hic-ans.” Red sniffled and hiccupped in his choked sobs, continuing to breathe fast; his nerves were too frazzled.

“Hey, hey. Shhh. It’s okay. I’m right here. It’s okay.” Sans gingerly pulled Red onto the bed, positioning them so that Red was on top of him, maintaining their embrace. He rubbed his lover’s back, whispering words of comfort.

It might’ve been only a couple of minutes, it might’ve been hours. Sans didn’t really care. He just kept at it until Red calmed to quiet sniffles. His soul twisted at the sight, he himself feeling distressed, possibly even more so than Red was, now.

“Do you … want to talk about it now?” Sans had to ask. It wasn’t that they were never going to talk about it, but if only Red was currently feeling up to discussing it.

Red, on the other hand, became drowsy, and even more exhausted than he ever thought possible after his panic episode. His hoarse and raspy voice came out as mere whispers. “I … should.”

“Okay.” Sans simply stayed quiet and waited.  

“… Got fired. Today. Wasn’t even m’ fault.”

Sans tightened his hold on Red, but didn’t say anything. Opting to listen to hear the whole story.

“‘M just … tired. Of everything Sans.”

Sans hummed in question, his heart breaking at the sight of his lover crying once more.

“J-Just hic everyt-thing. ‘ts so hard. C-Can’t even hic h-help you. Even though y-you hic work so much. P-Pay for eve­-hic-vrything. A-And I just…” Red couldn’t continue when he ended up becoming a blubbering mess.

It pained Sans to see this, but he knew that Red needed to let it all out. So he didn’t stop him, even if his soul pricked with each tear that fell.

Red took a breath. “I … When I got the … idea … to kill myself—”the skeleton felt and heard Sans’ gasp. “I woke y-you up.” Though his vision was partially blurred, he met the other’s gaze. “‘cuz I know i-it’s really bad w-when it got to that point.” Hands tightly gripped at his lover’s shirt. “Needed to t-tell you. T-Talking is key, right?” Red let out a watery smile. “N-Not alone … A-And I love you so… You n-need to know.”

Sans didn’t stop his own tears from falling. “Stars. Y-Yeah. You’re right. T-Thank you. Thank you for t-telling me. I love you. I l-love you Red.” Sans pushed them both upright, keeping Red in his lap against his chest. He began kissing him all over the face; from the mouth, cheeks, nose, eyes, and head—over and over. And all the while, he whispering how much he loved him, how thankful he was, and how he was proud of Red’s courage to talk about it.

They were both a mess that Red couldn’t help but let out a small laugh, albeit tiredly, when the pressure inside him just slowly began to evaporate. He felt lighter as if he were on clouds, and feeling that made him bury his head against Sans’ shoulder.

He glanced at the side, and saw the time on their alarm clock. “… It’s 6.”

Sans turned to look. “… It’s 6.”

“… Your wor—”

“Day off. Sleeping in. The whole shebang.”

Red chuckled, and didn’t question it. “Okay.”

Sans laid them both down on the bed, and tucked them in. And even though both of them were probably really tired, Red couldn’t help but ask, “Sans?”

“Hmm?”

“Sing me a lullaby?”

It was childish. And something he’d never really ask. But he really enjoyed hearing Sans hum and sing. It calmed him.

“Sure thing sweetheart.”

“And …”

“Hmm?”

“I’ll sing one for you too next time.”

Sans blinked, before smiling warmly. “Okay.”

“And Sans?”

“Yeah?”

Red said it softly, but the underlying firmness of his words remained strong and clear. “I got you too.”

If he ever needed to cry.

If everything becomes too much.

If he ever wanted to just say fuck it all.

Red would be there for him.

“I know you do.”

It’s short, but hope you like it~! :D

Considering supporting and pressuring me to get some work done and not be lazy?

[Pour me a glass of milk]

[silkygoldmilkweed]

SanSan Is Everything and Everything Is SanSan, 3/?

Previous installments: THE BEAR AND THE MAIDEN FAIR (Season 3) | THE RED WOMAN (Season 6)

Basically any episode that has even the slightest connection to a SanSan moment or a big Sansa or Sandor character shift is littered with other scenes and scenarios that relate to love, marriage, warrior of light, hearts of fire and their arcs through the series. Episode four of season two, “Garden of Bones,” is no exception.

"Garden of Bones” is known among SanSan fans as the episode where the Hound cloaks Sansa in the Red Keep. 

But that’s later. Let’s start with House Stark on the battlefield.

Our story begins with a couple of unremarkable Lannister soldiers on watch at night in the rain doing what ASOIAF/GOT fans do online all day everyday: Debate who is the best fighter in the story.

Lannister #1: Well it’s got to be the Mountain. He’s the biggest, the strongest. Lannister #2: Bulls are bigger than lions. Doesn’t mean I’d pick a bull in a fight. Lannister #1: Well if the bull had claws and fangs I would. All right. The Mountain. Our man Jaime.

[Editorial interruption: The Hound is basically a bull with claws and fangs. He’s that big and aggressive and he’s got sharp weapons.]

Lannister #2: If he ever gets out. Loras Tyrell? Lannister #1: Loras Tyrell! He’s prettier than the queen. Lannister #2: I don’t care about pretty. He’s better with a sword than any of them. Lannister #1: How good could he be? He’s been stabbing Renly Baratheon for years, and Renly ain’t dead.

Just another reminder that the sword is the cock and the cock is the sword. George and Shakespeare looooove their sex jokes. But don’t we all?

Enter the wolves.

Grey Wind and Robb Stark were the best and I miss them. (ROBB STARK DID NOTHING WRONG!)

We aren’t shown the battle but we are shown that nice jokey Lannister soldier with his intestines hanging out. The wolves disemboweled him.

What happens two episodes later when someone attacks Sansa? The Hound makes a point to disembowel her primary attacker in the course of killing him. It’s not just a death, the method of the death a statement. He will tear you apart. (Insert quotes from the Ramsay storyline about what hounds do to a body.)

And then in the aftermath of the battle, Robb and Talisa meet for the first time. And what does Robb, the Young Wolf, find attractive about this strange girl from Volantis? The woman is covered in blood and ichor and fierce enough to take off someone’s leg without flinching. The blood is sexually enticing for the Young Wolf.

This is not a mistake. This is a setup for, again, two episodes later, the Hound uses his teeth and his claws, and it’s a turn-on for Sansa, although she hardly knows bloodlust yet herself. But the fact that he’s covered in blood constantly when they are alone together is a big deal. Her still-repressed wolf self sniffs the air and likes the scent of blood.

(Their first meeting at the Inn at the Crossroads was basically him smelling her, as dogs do when they meet on the road. And later he tells the Brotherhood that he “never smelled” the Targaryen babes. And Ser Alliser once said to Jon, “Blood will always tell.” We’re merely mammals, after all.)

Anyway, this whole season is about Sansa and the Hound imprinting on each other, both sexually and emotionally. And then the feelings not only endure all the years through, but grow.

Back in King’s Landing, Joffrey is being a cunt. Lancel delivers a battle report: “Using some vile sorcery, your brother fell on Stafford Lannister with an army of wolves. Thousands of good men were butchered. After the slaughter, the Northmen feasted on the flesh of the slain.”

The language here is really important because Lancel is spreading propaganda, but it’s also correct. The Starks are wolves. The warging is real. There is sorcery afoot, but not the way the Lannisters think or most people understand.

I’m not even going to address the cloaking scene, because if you’re reading the SanSan tag, you got it already.

I’ll just point out that Sansa looks like a queen and/or a bride in that filthy cloak.

Next is the famous “there’s no cure for being a cunt” exchange and Tyrion decides to send some prostitutes to Joffrey. This is a disaster, of course.

Who escorts the prostitutes to Joffrey’s room? The Hound.

Here’s Joffrey pointing that crossbow at more defenseless girls.

And then when the abuse begins and Ros tries to de-escalate by saying Tyrion won’t like it if he hears, Joffrey says, “Oh, I want him to find out. You will bring her to his chambers when you’re finished, and show him what you’ve done, or the same thing will happen to you. Begin.”

The scene ends there, but let’s presume that the king’s commands are carried out. Ros savages the other prostitute with that antler-head baton. She’s bruised and bloodied. Joffrey gets off or doesn’t or whatever. Then Joffrey throws them out.

We don’t know if the Hound is still outside, but I personally got the impression that he was charged with chaperoning the whores to and from Joffrey’s chambers. I think it is at least somewhat likely that Joffrey flings open the door, says, “Dog, take these two women to my uncle and show him what I think of his meddling.”

I think this scene is structured as it is to establish that the Hound is being made aware of Joffrey’s sexuality expressing itself as abuse. He enjoys pain. It’s Joff’s kink. There will be no mercy for Sansa is she marries him. She will be destroyed, slowly and painfully.

If I’m Sandor Clegane, I realize that Tyrion has gravely miscalculated. Whereas Joffrey previously got off shooting birds and cats, he’s not found a new quarry: women. Sansa Stark is marginally under the Queen and Tyrion’s protection until Jaime Lannister is recovered. But if that falls apart or something changes or she is actually married off to Joffrey, she will be eaten alive by the lions. There is nothing anyone can do to protect the King’s own bride, cf Aerys and Rhaella.

Except the Hound is starting to realize that maybe, just maybe, he is Sansa’s best chance. If he doesn’t do something, who else will?

Sidebar: In season three, much is made of the Brotherhood stealing the Hound’s gold. They give him an IOU. He’s enraged but there’s nothing he can do about it. My question is this: If the Hound fled King’s Landing almost on a whim the night of Stannis’ attack, whhhhhhyyyy was he carrying gold? We do not know how much it was, but it’s enough that he’s livid about losing it. So...maybe more than pocket change? So...maybe as early as this point in the story, he’s starting to formulate a plan to free Sansa Stark? Like maybe he has money and supplies packed, and he is ready to go at a moment’s notice? But then he gets so fucked up and scared and angry and drunk and consumed with lust and rage and jealousy the night of the battle that he completely fucks it up and she rejects him and then he’s off to drink for weeks straight to drown out the little bird’s voice in his head?

IDK IDK, just spitballing here.

Cut to the Stormlands. Renly tells Littlefinger that true knight Brienne’s loyalty “comes without charge,” unlike Littlefinger only thinks about money and is a whore monger and a money lender, etc.

There’s some business in re the War of the Five Kings, but then Littlefinger starts prowling and catches up to Margery Tyrell, and he’s nasty about the Marge-Renly-Loras threesome.

“Your marriage is quite interesting, not only to me, but to the realm. The marriage of a wealthy girl always breeds interest--if nothing else.”

OK, this is one of those amazing lines they bury in weird camera angles and low tones. The marriage of a wealthy girl always breeds interest--if nothing else. First of all, the double entendre about money/interest, and then the use of the word “breeds” and the implication that Marge’s marriage to Renly is unlikely to produce heirs. Clever indeed, Littlefinger.

Long story short, the marriage of a wealthy girl named Sansa Stark is a plot for the next five seasons. Joffrey, Tyrion, Loras Tyrell, Ramsay, Littlefinger, the list goes on and on. They only want her for her claim and her name and the Northern tax base.

Anyway, Marge has no trouble handing the likes of Littlefinger.

Marge: You’ve never married, have you? Littlefinger: I’ve been unlucky in my affections.

No one loves you, asshole, and you’ll never get anywhere near the highborn ladies you want, and you’re disgusting. (I hate him sooo much guys.)

Marge: That is sad. Although perhaps it’s for the best. The whole notion of marriage seems to confuse you. So allow me to explain. My husband is my king, and my king is my husband.

[screams] [screams again] This, in the episode where the Hound cloaks Sansa in front of the gods and the crown, is a hell of a line.

Because the reverse is true.

“My wife is my queen, and my queen is my wife.” Sansa may never be the queen, as Marge says at another point, but if she is a wife, a good man’s wife, she is a queen. Robb says something similar to Talisa in season three. Also, man’s home is his castle. (“Do you want to go home?”)

And then Littlefinger finds Catelyn Stark and goes to work on her. Note: Every word Lord Baelish speaks in this scene is a manipulative lie or totally delusional. After you read this, watch the scene where Sansa and Arya execute him years later. It’s the only correct palate cleanser after this filth.

Catelyn: How dare you? Littlefinger: You may have heard false reports. Catelyn: You betrayed Ned. Littlefinger: Betrayed? I wanted him to serve as Protector of the Realm. I begged him to seize the moment. Catelyn: I trusted you. My husband trusted you. And you repaid our faith with treachery. Get out! [faith is such a religious word and there’s a lot of talk of priestesses hereabouts.] Littlefinger: I’ve loved you since I was a boy. It seems to me that...fate has given us this chance. Catelyn: Have you lost your mind? Get out! Littlefinger: Do you want to see your girls again? Sansa, more beautiful than ever. And Arya, just as wild as ever? Catelyn: You have Arya too? Littlefinger: Both girls are healthy and safe, for now. But you know the Queen, and you know Joffrey. I fear for their longevity if they remain in the capital. Catelyn: What do you want? Littlefinger: The Lannisters will trade your daughters for the Kingslayer. Catelyn: Of course they will. Jaime Lannister for two girls. Robb will never agree to those terms. [Girls are worthless in this market exchange?] Littlefinger: I’m not bringing them to him. I’m bringing them to you. Catelyn: You think I keep secrets from my son. Littlefinger: Robb has surprised them all with his skills in battle. But he’s not a mother. Consider it, Cat? You may not get another chance. I’ve brought you a gift. Catelyn: I don’t want your gifts. [It’s not hunting if you pay for it; loyalty and love cannot be bought for any amount of gold.] Littlefinger: A token of Tyrion Lannister’s goodwill. He wants you to understand that this exchange of prisoners is offered in good faith. Catelyn: Good faith? Littlefinger: Your husband was an honorable man. He should rest beside his family in the crypts at Winterfell. You may not believe-- Catelyn: Get out.

Catelyn says “Get out” to Littlefinger not once, not twice, but three times in one scene. She pulls a knife on him and he sees very clearly that she is a wolf’s bride and she will use it on him. That’s when he plays on her position as a mother and brings up Arya and Sansa. This is a SanSan-oriented post so if we look at this in light of the notion that Littlefinger is the anti-Sandor (as explored in depth in my post Petyr Baelish vs Sandor Clegane: A Tale of Two Suitors), this is even more interesting. Littlefinger claims “fate has offered us a second chance” but (1) Catelyn has never expressed the slightest reciprocal interest in him over decades, (2) it wasn’t fate, you intentionally killed her husband and the father of her children and started a war or two so you could try to fuck her. Like, what?

Littlefinger reruns this entire script with Sansa over the next several seasons, but she, too, is not having it. Littlefinger isn’t in their league. He’s dirt.

Finally, I’ll note that this scene, with Cat and her red hair, is shot so that it has a very red, fire-lit look. Mumble *red woman* *kissed by fire* mumble.

“Joffrey...Cersei...Ilyn Payne...the Hound.” Baby Arya is out here at Harrenhal suffering atrocities. It’s a concentration camp. 

And then we move on to more War of the Five Kings business. 

Renly: Why is your stag on fire? Melisandre: The King has taken for his sigil the fiery heart of the Lord of Light.

Hearts of fire. Hearts on fire. Kissed by fire.

Then Renly calls Mel a “fire priestess,” and I realize it’s interesting that if I’m right about ice and fire, she really should be an ice priestess, because it’s the Hero with the heart of fire, not his wife.

“You never wanted any friends, brother, but a man without friends is a man without power.”

Interesting to contrast this with “You’ve got friends, Clegane?” “Not anymore.” Is this still the case circa season eight? Sandor Clegane doesn’t want to be king. He doesn’t want power. And Jon has many allies and friends. This where George was very clever to conflate the hero and king plots to confuse us. He can illustrate the king through the hero business and visa versa. I do think that by season eight Sandor will have friends, but again, it’s less of an issue because this dialogue is about being a king, not about being the savior.

I’ll also just note here, since the topic is allies, that in addition to Jon Snow having a stronger claim than Dany, just by patrilineal primogeniture, he also has Sansa and Arya, who are blood-kin to the Lords Paramount of the Riverlands and the Vale. The “good” Lannisters are even tied to Sansa by marriage (Tyrion) and fealty (Brienne brings Jaime to the party), and Baratheon bastard Gendry has a distant tie to the Stormlands and is connected to Arya. Pondering, pondering.

“I’ll even name you my heir, until a son is born to me.” I quote this just because it reiterates the obsession with sons and legacy. It’s also foreshadowing that Stannis’ shadow son kills Renly; typical kinslaying over moneys and titles, with a blood-magic twist.

But it’s also important that not one of the Baratheons were able to produce a true-born son to carry on the family legacy. That’s crucial in this world.

Look at this gorgeous image of Dany in the Red Waste, under the Red Comet, IIRC. This is Dany at one of her lowest points, begging for shelter, begging food and water for her people. The Beggar Queen is a survivor, because she always believed in Daenerys Targaryen. Love her.

And then back to the Red Keep.

Lancel: Your own father, Lord Tywin, when I was named the King’s squire, he told me to obey her in everything! Tyrion: Did he tell you to fuck her, too? Lancel: I only meant, I did as I was bid. Tyrion: Hated every moment of it, is that what you’ll have me believe? A high place in court, a knighthood, my sister’s legs spreading open for you at night. Oh yes, it must have been terrible.

Tyrion gets Lancel to inform on Cersei for him. But what bothers me about this exchange is “I did as I was bid,” which is too close for my liking to “It’s not my place to question princes.” Anyone in similar circumstances might have been similarly rewarded with “a high place in court” (like on the Kingsguard?!?) and Cersei’s spread legs. Then Tyrion says, “My sister is a beautiful woman. And it’s all for the good of the realm.”

Most men might tell themselves the same thing. Sure she’s an evil bitch, but she’s a beautiful woman and you are serving the crown.

Ugh. I! Have! Concerns! (I truly hope that I’m wrong that Cersei x Sandor is a thing, but I do suspect that was the second forging of the “sword” Lightbringer. He was trying to find his place/home/family/cause but of course the lions were wrong in every way so the sword/his heart broke.)

And last but not least, noted crazy person Melisandre is up to no good.

“I’m a knight of sorts, myself; a champion of light and life.” Mmmmkay.

As I look at this, an odd line echoes in my head. It’s something Lysa says to Sansa later, when she’s at the Vale. Lysa tells Sansa, “I am telling you all this so you will understand how much we love each other, how long we have suffered and dreamed of one another. We made a baby together, a precious little baby.”

I think that given Sansa’s character arc, dropping the word dreams is not a mistake. I think George is doing his usual thing of hiding his positive, unironic assertions about what’s good in the speeches of bad characters.

Also, being able to make baby boys is a big deal on the show. Carice later tells Stannis they can’t make another one because it would kill him. “The seed is strong.” “...always he found the gold yielding before the coal.” There’s more to come on this front in the story, but anytime fecundity and virility come up so explicitly, we best pay attention.

Anyway, kudos to Carice for making her labor noises sound supersexual. I’m sure it was on purpose and it’s right on target for all the themes of the series.

So, in conclusion, this is the episode where Sansa and Sandor get married but neither of them know it yet, although the fate of the whole realm depends on their love and the eventual consummation of the marriage, which at this point is a marriage in the eyes of the gods but not yet a marriage under the law of the land.

Plus without the fucking, there can be no new life. Here’s to a dream of spring. Cheers gang.

[theabominableblogger]

My Reaction to “Gotham” S4E3

*slamming my hands on my laptop repeatedly while trying to comfort a sulky dog*  LOOOOOOAAAADDDDD!!

AN:  I managed to record my reactions to this episode and hopefully I can transcribe what I said into this post. 

So Jim’s gonna go see Falcone?  That’s gonna go well.

Wait, we’re gonna see Lee again?  When are we gonna see Lee again?

“I am Ra’s al Ghul.”  Good to know!

We’re gonna see Bruce leap around in this Proto-Batsuit?

The jacket still needs a little work... but it looks nice

Whoa...

What is this battlefield?

What is going on?

[Arabia 125 AD]  *gasps*  OK, this is definitely gonna be a Ra’s al Ghul episode

Whoa!

*claps with each word*  Seriously, what is going on?

Is that Ra’s?

What....

*slips into horrible Cockney accent*....is going oooooon....

Whoa, OK, so the Lazarus Pit was around before Ra’s came around?

...Kaaaaayyyy...

“I [Ra’s] was no more.”  “And now you live.”  Great!  Good to know!

Even Ra’s looks like he has no clue what’s freaking going on...

“[Ra’s] You must find your heir, as I found you.”  The heir to what?

Oh that’s a cool shot [of Ra’s hand grabbing the knife]

Wait, isn’t that the same knife that Bruce and Barbara kill him with in the S4 finale?

AN:  Yes

What’s going on, guys?

GUUUUYYYYSSSSS....

*scats the opening theme*

[Shot of the moon over Gotham City]  *sing songs*  Hello moon!

Not sure how I feel about the mask... you gotta put ears on it!

I really want Bruce to try this dramatic Batman entrance and he just ends up pratfalling in. 

Think like Bruce in “Thor Ragnarok.”  It’s just *makes splat noise with mouth and slaps hand*

Yeah, how did Alfred make Bruce’s mask?  That’s my question.

Whoa...

Mysterious hooded figure in Gotham...

*slaps hand on desk with each word*  That’s not weird at all!  This is Gotham.

Alfred:  Bruce, walk away.

Bruce:  Naaahh!

“Now walk away.”  *starts singing "Walk Away” from High School Musical 3*

Alfred’s like “God dammit, Masta Bruce!”

Oh it’s Selina!

What’s Selina doing at the docks?

*Bruce fights his way through a barrage of machine gun fire*  Whooooooooo.... oooohhh!!!

Yeah, that’s Selina.  Honey, what are you doing?!?

Oooohhh, I don’t know what that city is but it looks nice.

*ends up singing “Despacito” for no god damn reason*

AN:  It’s Miami.  They just did some crazy coloring to make everything look warmer.

Oh that shot of the horse’s eye though!

This show has some really nice cinematography.

Oh hello Sofia!

I thought Sofia in the comics was- well, when I first saw in in “The Long Halloween”- like really tall and broad.  Well that was the way Tim Sale here so...

Hello, Falcone!  How are you enjoying retirement?

“Carmine.”  Bitch!

I cannot believe Jim has the freaking balls to go visit Falcone when he murdered his son last season!

Oh my God, I would want to steal Falcone’s retirement home right now!  It looks so nice!

Wait, doesn’t Sofia get freaking shot in the head later this season?  And she somehow survives?  Like, what’s going on with that?

AN:  Yes.

“Who’s this?”  Oh yeah, this is James Gordon.  He killed your [Sofia’s] brother.

How is this whole scene not seeping in awkward?

She [Sofia] should be livid with rage!  The dude killed her brother!

“I’m [Falcone] dying.  Doctors don’t know why.  Maybe old age.  Karma.  They seem to think the air is better down here for me, give me more time.”  So is Sofia gonna in his place or what?  How does Sofia end up in Gotham?

“I [Bruce] let my guard down, Alfred.  It wouldn’t happen again.”  *coughs in hilarity*  Five minutes later.

“Oh, no, where do you [Bruce] think you’re going?”  “To the docks.”  Oh my freaking God, Bruce.

*Barbara shows off one of her guns to a potential buyer*  Whoa...

Yeah, Barbara, get rid of the haircut.  Now!

Oh my gosh, Oswald, what’s with your hair?  Is that a hair extension?  If so, you’re going a little bit too far, buddy.

Who... is this...

Whaat...

*cracks up when Oswald finds the Ed-sicle missing and starts screaming*

“THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!!!!!”  “I [Victor] don’t know.  Kinda opens up the room.”  HAHAHAhahaha

“I [Oswald] want Ed back here today!”  Attachment issues, much?

Who is that [Ed’s kidnapper/rescuer]?

*Ed finds a bunch of fan clippings on the wall next to him*  Oh oh OOOOHHH...

“I [Myrtle] could say I’m your number one fan.”  That’s just creepy.

Ed just looks so done with Myrtle, oh my God.

“How long was I [Ed] on ice?”  “Five months.”  Whoa!

“With me [Myrtle] as your sidekick, of course.  Doesn’t that sound wonderful, my love?”  That does not sound wonderful.  Stop calling him love!

*Bruce goes in disguise as a street kid on the docks*  Oh my gosh, Bruce...

How does no one recognize that that is Bruce Wayne?!?

Bruce, what are you doing...

Yeah, Bruce needs to voice on the voices a little bit.  He’s getting there!

“It’s clear that this isn’t about profit, but about your [Barbara’s] mysterious benefactor.  He is your client, is he not?”  Yeah, it has to be Ra’s.  She’s working for Ra’s.

Why does Oswald want the knife?  What interest does he have in the knife?

*imitates Bruce’s pronounciation of “Ra’s”*

Here’s my question:  if that is the only weapon that can kill Ra’s, then how did he let it get out of his possession, after all this time?  Seriously.

Likin’ the totally non-conspicous sunglasses Jim has...

Oh my gosh, she’s [Sofia] tall.

“To my dad.”  And to my brother, whom you [Jim] murdered.

*laughing*  How is no one bringing up the fact that Jim killed Mario?

“He [Mario] was infected with the virus.  [Jim] You did what you had to do.”  Oh, so it’s just like that then?  OK.

Here’s my question:  how did Myrtle get access to the lounge?

*Myrtle shows off her homage dress*  Oh it’s a cute dress!

Dude, you [Ed] were stuck in ice for five months.  Yeah, you definitely need time to recover.

What is that?

“What’s black and white and red all over?”  Newspaper.

*gets confused when Ed gets the answer wrong*

“I have a face and two hands, but no arms or legs.”  Clock.

Oh that sky looks awesome!

They’re [Jim and Sofia] walking barefoot on the beach together... and I don’t know how to feel about them as a couple!

Oh... oh...oh...

*Sofia kisses Jim*   Ooooooooooooohhhhh maann...

Oh my gosh, he’s [Bruce] wearing a black bow tie!

“Play the role that you [Bruce] were born to play.”  “You mean behave like a spoiled brat?”  Yes.

“Bruce Wayne, billionaire brat.”  *claps hands*  Let’s go.

This version of Bruce Wayne is awesome.  I’d definitely rank him up there with Kevin Conroy and Ben Affleck.  I think it’s mainly because we see Bruce Wayne in this show become Batman rather than in most stuff, where that transition has already happened.  Here, they focus on him as a kid, and it seems way more natural.

*absolutely loses it when Brat!Bruce tries high fiving Alfred, who almost considers it*

“I’m gonna put it in my... my bathroom!”  HAHAHAHAHAHA

“Technically, you [Bruce] are the richest man in the room, but let's not try and buy absolutely everything, shall we?”  “True, but if I only bid on the knife everyone's been trying to steal from Penguin, it might draw his suspicion. If I go on a spending spree, recklessly throwing my money around, he won't think twice.”  ...Yeah... I mean...

Bruce look so smug that he’s figured out this billionaire brat persona.  Four for you, buddy!

“Barbara Kean.  I [Bruce] thought she died.”  “Unfortunately, nobody stays dead in this town.”  True!

Whoa...

*smiles when Bruce tries outbidding Barbara by one dollar for the knife*

“300 thousand dollars... and one cent!”  OH HO HO HOOOO!!! 

Oh my God!

*cracks up when Bruce smugly thanks Barbara*

You notice that when Oswald started warning him about Barbara, Bruce’s persona just dropped.  He’s like “OK.  Game time.”

“What’s red and green and goes round and round.”  Frog in a blender.

“The answer, obviously, isn’t ‘newspaper.’”  *gives Ed a confused look*

*gasps when Ed knocks out Myrtle with the riddle book*

“Frog in a blender!”  What the heck kind of riddle is that?  Why is that in a kids’ book?

Here’s my question:  why doesn’t Bruce tell Selina about this whole shindig with Ra’s al Ghul?  Seriously.

Wait a minute, doesn’t Ra’s die for this like first time early this season?

Yeah, ‘cause they bring him back in episode 19 but then he dies again in the season finale, so it’s like “Umm.... what?”

Jiiiiiiimmm!

Harper!

Sofia!

Wait, so how old is Sofia?  She said she moved down when she was 13, so she has to be 23 or something right?  Like five years or so younger than Gordon, at least?

“We [Sofia and Jim] can do great things together, you and I.  I’ll be in touch.” That sounds... very bad!

*snorts in hilarity when Victor answers the frog in a blender riddle correctly*

Oh my gosh, I like Oswald’s blue gloves

Where the heck did Ed go?

Eeeeeeeeeeddd, where are you goingggggggg....

[Welcome to the Iceberg Lounge]  *imitating Penguin*  I froze my crush because he did not like me!

Nice.

Whoa...

OK, that has to be Ra’s, right?

He’s gonna be like “Yeah, uh, hey Barbara?  Where’s the knife?“

Barbara:  Ummm, let see, there’s a funny story about that... I didn’t get it...

Awkward...

“That knife is the key to everything.”  It’s the key to killing him!

*makes extremely loud disgusted noise when Barbara proceeds to make out with Ra’s* 

NO!

Ohhh, no, I did not like that at all!  Noo!

[moosebehaving]

It’s Raining Men

Don’t worry, Lydia’s dad, whose greatest wish is to marry us off to the gentlemen of his choosing. You still may get your day in the sun.

We’re both still single. Painfully single. Like we spent last weekend sitting in our home office eating pizza, collecting beverage glasses on our desks, and watching ten episodes of a Korean drama online. That’s how single we are.

#noregrets

However, we can’t seem to keep the men at bay.

This all started about a year ago, after Naomi had gotten married and settled into life with her new roommate (who seemed like a downgrade from living with us awesome people, honestly) and it had been a long while since she’d come back to our once shared house. So Lydia and I invited her to come over for supper after work one evening and stay for a movie.

We had a delicious meal and went downstairs to start the movie right away. It was like 7pm. Kids are still up at 7pm. It was summer, and the sun was still out.

We got about twenty minutes into the movie, and we heard a knock on the door in the garage, which is right at the top of the stairs. Then the door opened, and a man’s voice came down the stairs “Hello!”

All three of us had the same assumption - it had to be Lydia’s brother stopping over for some reason or Naomi’s new husband looking for her. Lydia went to the steps and started with “We’re downstairs” and ended with “...can I help you?”

Naomi and I, still sitting on the couch, looked at each other in utter confusion.

“Uhh... um... is Lisa here?” was the man’s response.

Lydia set him straight and he quickly backed off and left. We spent the rest of our movie trying to track him down on Facebook by looking for Lisas (this was successful, just FYI) and over-analyzing what kind of idiot just walks into unknown houses under the assumption someone they know is inside. We decided Lisa was his wife, judging from the profile pictures Lydia could see on Facebook, that he had to be looking for her in our neighborhood for some reason (LuLaRoe or Thirty-One, if I had to guess) and he assumed with the two cars in our driveway and the open garage door that there was a party happening at our house.

Crisis averted. We haven’t seen him again. All’s well that ends well.

Scenario two:

It was nine p.m., later that same summer.

I, like most sane people in their own homes after the sun sets, was wearing pajamas and minding my own business.

In fact, I was being a responsible family member and Skyping with my sister. She was telling me about her dress for homecoming and I was giving her a hard time about a writing project of hers. We were paused, inbetween conversations, when my doorbell rang.

Amberly and I stared at each other, via webcams, in utter confusion. I quickly calculated through the (very) short list of people who could possibly be ringing the doorbell after nine p.m. on a Saturday night.

The doorbell rang again. I sprang into action, which was basically running around the house in the dark trying to figure out how to keep from giving up my location in the house while trying to find jeans because there was no possible way I was opening the front door wearing my moose pajama pants.

Exhibit A:

(Painfully single, remember? #noregrets )

I was trying to be quiet, because it was a nice night so every single window in the house was wide open. I caught a glimpse of a pickup truck parked on the street, confirming that whoever was ringing the doorbell was indeed a complete stranger, as I know only two of the pickup truck drivers in town, and they each have exactly zero reason to go to my house. Amberly was super helpful in my attempts at covertness, as she basically screamed through my phone speakers “WHO’S AT YOUR DOOR? ARE YOU ALONE?”

I ducked into the furthest room from the front door and hissed a quick “I’llcallyoubackbye” at Amberly and hung up the Skype call.

I ducked across the hall into my bedroom in an attempt to find real pants in the dark. The doorbell was on its third ring by now, and as I located a pair of jeans and debated whether or not I needed to change my shirt as well, Lydia stepped out of the bathroom. She was also decked out in pajamas, but they were a touch classier than mine so I guess she thought it was suitable to answer the door in them.

She turned on the lights and opened the door despite my intense whispers. “It’s someone in a TRUCK. DO YOU KNOW ANYONE WITH A TRUCK?”

Creeper With Truck at Door After 9 P.M: “Hi, I’ve got your pizza.” Lydia: “…we didn’t order a pizza.” Pizza Delivery Man With Truck: “…. West Spring Street?” Lydia, gently, with great concern for his navigating abilities: “…this is Edgewood.” Pizza Man: “Oh, crap! I’m sorry!”

Incident 3:

I’m home on Fridays. It’s nice. Today I had a couple cups of coffee and read for a while. Then I psyched myself up to work on a huge writing project. A few minutes in, I realized it was a beautiful 73 degrees and I needed to have the windows open.

Sitting at my computer in the office, I have a straight view out onto the street in front of the house. My car was parked there.

It was nearly noon when this green Taurus pulled up across from my car. It was right there in my line of vision, plain as day, literally in broad daylight. A skinny punk in a snapback got out and headed for my car.

I watched with something between

and

But I was not about to wait around and let him just climb in my car and do whatever it was he wanted to do, be it drive around the block or steal my highly-coveted 18-pack of paper towels in the back seat. So I bellowed out the window the first semi-threatening expletive sentence I came up with in the most disgusted I-could-come-out-there-and-beat-that-stupid-hat-right-into-your-skull tone I could muster.

The kid slowly backed off and got back into his car and made a phone call as he left.

I was livid. I stormed outside and immediately put my car in the garage for safe keeping. I wanted to drive the block and find this punk and sit him down in front of his mother and make him explain to both of us just what he was doing.

Lydia told me to call the police department, which was obviously my next step. After hiding the goods and trying to track down the offender, my next knee-jerk reaction would have been to alert the authorities. Obviously.

So I called the police department, which up until that moment I had successfully avoided in my adulthood. The lady took down all my information and I explained what had happened. That was really all there was to be done. I had nothing to give her that would help find this kid, he hadn’t actually done anything, and he was gone. 

However, her parting words to me were “I’ll send someone over right away.”

This was the scariest part of the situation for me, honestly. I had no makeup on, hadn’t brushed my teeth after my pot of coffee and sausage and egg breakfast, and had zero comprehension of how much time “right away” gave me to change these things.

I scrambled with my eyeliner and brushed my teeth like a madwoman. The doorbell rang before I was finished but I still high fived myself for my skills. Also, high five to the Waupun Police Department for being so responsive to a nothing phone call. 

The officer had me relay everything I had already told the dispatch person to him. He asked to see my car, which I had oh-so-helpfully moved into the garage. Which of course kicked my anxiety into overdrive and I immediately assumed probably made me look guilty and could potentially be as stupid as moving the dead body after you find it in the woods. I was probably going to jail.

So I led this officer through my house and let him see my sad little rusted out car that was no help to him. While he was looking it over, two. more. officers? showed up at the front door. I heard them but I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to abandon a police officer when he was asking me questions, and they let themselves in. Through my house and into my garage they came, and suddenly three Waupun PD officers were in my garage inspecting my car.

I was a model citizen, doing my part for society. 

WPD: “What was he wearing?” A: “Um. A snapback.” WPD: “Shorts? Pants?” A: “Uhh... shorts? Maybe?” WPD” “How old was the car?” A: “It was green.”

Look out, snapback kid, we’re coming for you.

The three officers paraded back out through my house and parted ways with mentions of some Beaver Dam hooligan they’d crossed paths with before, how to canvas the immediate area, and that they’d be in touch with me if they came up with anything.

But really, there was nothing to come up with. The kid was either stupidly mistaking my car for a friend’s, or stupidly trying to steal things in the middle of the day with landscapers working outside right up the street. And my intense yell out the window put the fear of God into his heart, and he was long gone. 

So in conclusion, The Ladypad, as we affectionately named our house before we moved in, is far from a boring residence. The list of uninvited guests on this property has grown considerably more than I ever expected or desired. 

I will say, however, that the three officers who came to my aid at the drop of a hat were the most welcomed uninvited guests on the list. 

[serenagaywaterford]

(1/2) 83-page fic? Hell to the yeah! Under HER eye. Can't wait. (That's not me trying to pressure you.) By the way, did you the see the S3 promo? Who do you think set the fire: Serena, Rita or Nick? Or is it maybe a dream sequence? Honestly, I agree with you about the S2 inconsistent writing. In S1, I knew where I stood with both Serena and Fred. Then, S2 came along and I was so conflicted with the latter. If they were trying to turn the viewers' empathy in action, they kind of failed imo.

(2/2) One moment Serena goes against her husband and Gilead (and gains a beating and a mutilated finger in the process) and the other she BRUTALLY rapes June, because she's desperate for "her" baby (which is a bullshit excuse, she does it as a last power "look who's still in charge here" move) and then gives up said baby, bc Gilead is shitty. I wish they made her join the Resistance and write anti-Gilead msgs, but alas. She'll probably rejoin the "I hate June for not going with Nicole" club.

----

Tbh, I can’t wait to finish it either, lmao. (I already have other ideas but I refuse to write them until I finish this or else I’ll never finish it... I know me.)Yep, I sure did. I really do wonder who set the fire. I would absolutely LOVE it if it was Serena. I would love for her to be the one to set fire to that horrible bed. And her just standing there watching it would be great. But, it’s THT, so I’m going to guess it wasn’t her. Although, depending on when in the season it happens, it could be. I mean, if it’s right after she gives up Nicole, I can see some justification for her. Why not? She has nothing left anyway; her husband literally had her mutilated and then she just gave away her entire purpose (for living basically, and certainly for all her disgusting sacrifices/reasoning). Then again, it being Rita seems just as likely since it’s a huge Pyro Martha Rebellion.

I hadn’t even considered Nick... but now you mention it... He also has no reason to stick around. June and Nicole are gone forever, as far as he knows, and Fred is deffo gonna be onto his disloyalty.

Part of me wonders if they’ll go the easy way and like, “omg the fire is out of control!!” and it just engulfs the Waterfords, where nobody actually sets it. It’s so difficult for me to guess with this show cos sometimes they do exactly what I suspect, and sometimes it’s totally random and something I’d never even thought of (also like a dream, never thought of that either!). And like, I honestly don’t know how they’re going to tie all these characters together again. It’s either gonna be really clever, or it’s gonna be really clunky and deus ex machina. Count me curious af, especially how June dressed as a Martha factors in. 

Re: Serena. Yeah, exactly. S1 made more sense that way. I mean, she was still a little weird (1x03 specifically showed a lot of Serena’s “other side” than many other episodes until S2), but it was a decent trajectory where sure, she had moments where she’d switch it up, but you could understand why and how she was going to snap again. Then Serena in S2 seemed to be going in a general direction, a little wonky but life is rarely nicely linear. 

I honestly... I hate 2x10 so much, not just because it was disgusting to watch (I really sincerely wanted to vomit on first viewing. That’s not even hyperbole.) but because it literally to me makes very little sense in context of the previous... 3? 4? episodes? Yes, Serena snaps and does awful shit to June when she doesn’t get her way/is humiliated, but... to me personally, it felt very (to use the phrase again) deus ex machina. Basically a really fucking horrible way to set up 2x11 cos they couldn’t think of any other way. Lazy writing. I mean, it was totally in character with the way Fred was heading. But Serena was literally all over the place in S2. (And I staunchly believe cutting Serena’s marital rape out of 2x09 was a massive mistake, narrative-wise. Tho I can see why people would disagree with that). I also really do understand the reasoning behind the writers choosing to have Fred/Serena rape June in 2x10 (I can’t find the article now but yeah, I get it but I do think it went over almost 90% of viewers heads if what they said was their legit aim with it.). And I mean, you do see Serena have some sort of realisation for sure during it and I 100% believe she will never participate in another Ceremony as long as she lives (but hey, maybe that’s just my rose-coloured glasses.) I just... Ugh. It was a shitty episode, imo. Just poorly written and I dunno. And it’s not just cos I want to like Serena and that action is just so reprehensible that I have a hard time ever thinking about. It’s just... you build something all season and then blow it up, just to have to then build it up again? All because you wanted some crazy interlude? Like...?? I dunno. I can’t even. I thought it was amazing how good 2x09 was then it was followed by two very weak episodes imo. 

I think 2x10 was a really shitty idea if they wanted viewers to start to accept Serena. So many people were like, “Okay, I don’t totally hate her anymore.” and then 2x10 happened and that was it for almost everyone. So if they attempt to give her a redemption arc, a lot of people will be livid, lol. Even I’m not sure how they can really do it in a way that acknowledges how fucking monstrous she’s been, and I give Serena a bit more leeway than most. I read a lot of what Bruce Miller & Co. say about the characters, esp the rationalisations behind Serena, and I sometimes think they are writing a different show because what they want people to get from the episodes/characters are not exactly what is actually coming across onscreen. I WISH their visions were what I was seeing (and I try!) but there seems to be a sort of disconnect between what Miller wants/thinks the show is doing, and what the majority of the outspoken fans/critics/viewers are seeing.

If spoilers are to be believed, Serena is meant to have something to do with the resistance in S3 but... who knows what that even means anymore. And I totally agree, I also think she’ll snap back again cos of June not going with Nicole. Again, I get it and I understand why she’d freak out about that and rejoin the I Hate Offred Club, but it’s just... getting to be a tiring, repetitive narrative. Sure, it’s very human and happens ALL the time IRL, but it’s really annoying af on TV. 

I am all here for her joining the Resistance but it’ll have to be done really well for most viewers to buy it after the shitshow of the tail end of S2.

Yikes. Didn’t mean to ramble... but I can’t help it. Heh.

[metawitches]

Everything comes full circle in the season 1 finale of In the Flesh. Episode 1 ends with Bill Macy pointing his gun at Maggie Burton, a harmless old woman and PDS sufferer, and pulling the trigger. Appeals to his humanity don’t sway him, but he does have Maggie take out her contacts so that he can see that she’s partially deceased while he shoots her.

Episode 2 ends with Bill’s son Rick Macy pointing a gun at 2 feral PDS sufferers, and then at Kieren, when Kieren steps in front of the gun to stop the unjust killing. Rick refuses to admit that he’s a PDS sufferer, but he does respond to appeals to his humanity. He gives up when Kieren takes out one contact to remind Rick that the feral zombies are the same as Kieren.

Episode 3 ends with a third person looking down the barrel of a gun, but this one knows he’s on the side of justice, and doesn’t hesitate to fire.

There are several moments of truth in episode 3. Bill decides that Rick must redeem himself by killing Kieren, who he says is a disgusting, evil rotter. Rick decides to prove to his father that PDS sufferers aren’t evil by forcing Bill to face that his son is one. Bill draws the opposite conclusion from this.

When Kieren and Janet discover that Rick is gone, they force Bill to face what he’s done to his son. He finally understands the blood he has on his hands.

The entire Walker family also finally manage to communicate honestly with each other, and especially with Kieren. Kieren finds out how much his death hurt the people he left behind.

Amy and Philip spend the night together, but then Philip gets embarrassed in the morning and insults Amy before he leaves her house. After Philip leaves, Gary forces his way in and creepily sexually harasses Amy into wearing her mousse and contacts again. Since Amy lives alone, she decides to go live in one of the Undead Prophet’s communes.

The human boys get angry and blame the zombie when they find themselves attracted to a partially deceased girl (or boy). It’s akin to trying to beat the gay out of themselves by beating up someone else. Bill wants to kill the gay and the dead in Rick by making him kill Kieran.

But who wouldn’t find Amy and Kieran attractive? They’re gorgeous, interesting people, and there’s no one else like them in Roarton.

Bill is a hateful, violent old man, but Gary is poised to take his father figure’s hate and murder one step further. His violation of Amy was distinctly rapey, after he’d made sexually humiliating jokes about her and Kieran at the pub the night before. He likes to attack and humiliate the person and their body, not just get rid of the rotter. Bill’s attacks all come out of hate. Gary’s come from enjoying watching people suffer pain and humiliation.

The beginning of Episode 3 finds Sue and Steve on the couch, after they’ve waited up all night for Kieren to come home. Steve is worried out of his mind and wants to call Shirley, but Sue talks him out of it. If they call Shirley, the treatment center will get involved, and they’ll take Kieren away again. Steve says that he can’t bear to lose him again.

Kieren is walking home from the cave after the capture of the feral zombies. The HVF trucks drive past him without acknowledging him. Rick is with his father. When Bill and Rick get home, Bill jumps out of his truck and is livid. He furiously yells at Rick that Rick embarrassed him and was insubordinate. Kieren can’t be allowed to win. He’s got to be gotten rid of, and Rick has to be the one to do it.

Bill refers to Amy as Kieren’s girlfriend, but he also sets up the murder of Kieren as the ultimate test of Rick’s loyalty. He knows what Rick and Kieren actually are to each other, somewhere inside.

Amy and Philip get dressed after spending the night together. Amy looks vulnerable, but remains polite and cheery. She offers Philip some aspirin for his hangover. Philip has to leave for a council meeting, and with that thought, the regrets set in and the insults start flying. He realizes that he could lose his job for sleeping with a rotter, and threateningly tells Amy not to tell anyone about what happened.

As Philip’s leaving, he runs into his mom, Shirley, coming up the front walk. They both lie about why they’re at Amy’s house, but neither is fooled. Philips says he’s doing outreach. “Partially deceased face-to-face relations.” Then he zips up his fly. Shirley says, with a totally straight face, “We’re having pork tonight. You like pork, don’t you, love?” Philip says he does, also with a straight face, as he’s running away from his mother.

I want a Shirley and Philip spin-off show.

There’s a large outdoor holding pen/cage next door to Bill’s house that must have been used when they started rounding up zombies instead of shooting them. Or rounding them up to shoot them. Gary brings Dean there, then tricks him into the cage. They’re quarantining Dean because he got bit the night before, just to make sure he doesn’t turn. Dean points out that Kieren said he wouldn’t turn, but Gary figures that’s all part of a plot by rotters to stick together.

It’s 4 YEARS after The Rising and they still haven’t bothered to learn the actual rules of the game. If PDS has been studied extensively enough to develop a cure and resettle survivors in the community, this kind of information has to be readily available. But it might require enough reading skills to find a Youtube video. I’m not sure either of these two are that smart.

I’m not going to feel sorry for Dean, though. He stood there and watched Bill shoot Maggie, then only wanted to save the ferals because they were worth money.

Kieren walks by the grocery store that has been haunting his nightmares and flashbacks. He decides to go in and confront his memories in the place where he killed Lisa. His mousse has almost all worn off and he only has one contact in. The scene flashes between the new memories that he finds from being in the place where it happened, and the present day.

Being in the place where it happened stimulates Kieren to remember more. He discovers that Jem was at the store with Lisa that day. She shot all of the other zombies, but when she found him and Amy eating Lisa, she couldn’t bring herself to pull the trigger.

Kieren finally goes home, where his parents have fallen asleep on the couch. He goes into Jem’s room and startles her awake. She wakes up and sits up, drawing and pointing her gun at him in one motion as smooth as any cowboy or action hero.

Kieren tells her that he has flashbacks from the time when he was feral. He remembers Jem being at the store when he killed Lisa. He says that he won’t make excuses for killing her.

Jem asks if he remembers what she did. He does. She asks how it feels to remember to remember his feral state and what he did.

Kieren: “It feels awful. I’m not one of those people who thinks what we did was alright because it was necessary for our survival, or that we were somehow an advanced species, so killing the living doesn’t count. It does count. I did kill her. And all I can say is that I would have done anything to have stopped it.”

Jem: “So you think I’m a coward.”

Kieren: “No.”

Jem has been wracked with guilt for years because she couldn’t shoot her brother, “rabid rotter or not.” Instead, she lied and told everyone that she’d run out of bullets. She feels like a fake and a liar.

Kieren says that he’s glad she didn’t kill him. She asks if he really is, and he says yes, he really is.

That’s a major turnaround for him. How much is because Rick is back, and how much is because of Amy and Jem? At first I thought that the dual-natured eyes symbolized the way he was being torn in two, like Rick. At this point, it seems like he’s come to terms with both sides of himself, the person he was before he died and the person he is now. One eye color for each perspective that Kieren automatically sees.

Kieren says that he’s going to talk to Lisa’s parents. He going to try to bring them some peace. Jem says to wait for her, so she can go with him.

Bill is teaching Rick how to murder his boyfriend. Rick is going along with the lessons. Janet is disturbed, but silently does the dishes and makes lunch. That’s her role in the family.

Bill moves on to creating justifications for Rick to give for the murder, and shoring up his motivation. When Rick isn’t as enthusiastic as Bill would like, Bill mocks him as a weakling and unmanly, then threatens him with God’s disapproval.

When Bill can’t find his cigarettes, Rick jumps at the chance to escape his father for a minute. He stops to borrow some change from his mom. Janet silently understands that it’s so he can call Kieren from outside the house to warn him that they’re coming for him, and gives Rick the money. They’ve been a team, surviving Bill’s abuse together, for a long time.

But neither of them ever says a word in protest to him. Did he beat the disagreement out of them early on?

Rick stops at the phone booth next to the grocery store. The handset for the Walker’s phone is missing, so his call goes to voicemail.

“Hey, Ren, it’s me. You’re in danger… So please, please, if you see me or my dad coming, just run. Please, Ren, stay away. Ren, about last night… I really-“

He runs out of time and coins, and can’t finish the message.

Sue tries to stop Kieren and Jem from going out again, because it’s so dangerous. Between the distraction of the phone ringing and Jem saying she has her gun, they manage to get out. As they walk past the garage, we can see that “PDS” has been painted on the door in 6 foot letters.

Bill calls the vicar and asks him to give a barnstormer of a sermon this morning, about doing your duty, no matter what, to convince Rick to complete his mission. Janet interrupts the phone call to tell him that Philip is “painting something” on the garage door. Bill actually takes his loaded rifle outside with him to talk to Philip.

Philip is painting PDS on the door. The council met secretly that morning, and decided that all houses with PDS sufferers inside must be identified. He shows Bill the official decision. Bill takes the letter and fires his gun in the air. Philip runs. Rick comes back, and Bill tells him to get ready for church.

Bill didn’t deny there was a PDS sufferer in the house.

Jem asks Duncan and Patty to skip church. They show Kieren and Jem their latest missing posters. Kieren tries to explain that he killed Lisa, but her parents believe the mythology that they’ve seen in the movies. They thank him for saving the ferals from the patrol, because now if the patrol find Lisa in her feral state, she’ll be safe, too.

Kieren tries again to explain that his bite isn’t contagious, and only the people who died in 2009 came back, but Duncan and Patty believe that Lisa was bitten, came back, and is wandering the woods, because that’s what they’ve seen in all of the films. That’s what gives them the most hope. Jem convinces Kieren to let them believe what they want, rather than taking their hope away.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Dean is a diabetic and starts calling to passersby, asking them to bring him something to eat. They’ve all heard the story that he’s been bitten, and refuse to help. Or maybe they hate him for their own reasons.

Vicar Oddie spews the usual hate from the pulpit. When he talks to Bill afterward, he sows some seeds of doubt.

Vicar: “For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised, incorruptible.’ There will be a second rising coming, Bill. When the first risen have been judged, a second resurrection will be upon us. But this time, the Lord will bring back the proper, the righteous, the true souls, that we miss so dearly.”

Bill: “It’s the same old Rick, I can promise you that.”

So, here we get another explanation for all of the hate toward the Risen. Everyone whose relatively recently dead loved ones didn’t return, is envious, and confused as to why their loved ones weren’t among the chosen. Now the rumors are starting that this is just a first, imperfect round, a test case. God will send the real, perfect souls back soon, in perfect bodies, instead of the partially deceased bodies the returned have now.

Like Bill, the Vicar is fine with zombies, as long as they’re his zombies. He’s put the idea in Bill’s head that this isn’t the real Rick, it’s a demon wearing Rick’s form. The real Rick will come back with the second, better, rising.

Amy is still in her robe and watching Undead Prophet videos when Gary pounds on the door. He says he has to mark her door. She tells him to go ahead, and shuts her front door. After a minute, Gary appears in her bedroom door.

He won’t tolerate her going without her mousse and contacts. He grabs her, wrestles with her on her bed, holds her by the hair, smears lipstick and mousse all over her face, and pushes her away. He tells her, “In this village, you cover up your rotten face, got it?”

He’s seething with anger the entire time. He tells her that she’s an affront to war heroes, like him. Invading her home and bedroom, intimidating, humiliating and assaulting her are hardly heroic.

Jem offers to share her drink with Kieren as they walk home. He reminds her that he can’t have fluids, and she accepts it easily. Finally, someone who can handle the truth.

She thanks him for leaving Lisa’s parents with some hope and says he was brave for going in there. He says that he’s taken enough from them, and he didn’t feel brave. Jem says that he’s always been brave. She says that people think she’s tough. Kieren doesn’t think of her that way, because she’ll always be his little sister. She says that he’s the younger one now, because he’s technically still 18, and she’s almost 19.

They see Amy at the train stop, waiting with a suitcase. Jem leaves Kieren to go talk to her. She’s wearing her mousse and contacts again, and headed off to live in a commune with the Undead Prophet. She doesn’t think normal society will ever accept them, so they should make their own places where they can be safe together. The Undead Prophet is helping to answer the big questions about their existence.

Amy tries to convince him to come with her, but Kieren has too many connections to leave Roarton. Yet. She asks if this is about Rick, who she didn’t like much. Kieren says that most of that is an act Rick puts on for his dad. He thinks Rick will eventually change.

Amy: “You’re such a soppy optimist.”

Kiren: “Optimist? Amy, I killed myself.”

Amy: “Okay, so you’re an optimist with depressive tendencies.”

She explains that, while Kieren has a family, she has no one, no back up. She needs something like that, which a commune can give her. Kieren worries about how she’ll get her shots, but Amy says that the Prophet has a large stockpile of the medication.

They hug for a long time. She promises to be back, especially for their wedding, 😏 then gets on the train.

Shirley, the queen of the undead caregivers, has gathered the mothers, and possibly wives, of Roarton’s PDS sufferers in a group therapy session. I count 6 caregivers in attendance, so that would have been a minimum of 8 partially deceased residents of Roarton, before Maggie was murdered and Amy was driven out. Both Sue and Janet are there.

The first person to speak is the mother of a teenage PDS sufferer named Henry, who’s disturbed about the, ahem, fan mail, her son’s been getting. Philip and Gary aren’t the only ones to find PDS sufferers strangely attractive. Some people have turned the fetish into an obsession.

Shirley has barely finished announcing that the group is a safe place and what’s said in group, stays in group, before Henry’s mother is reading one of the letters:

Dear undead love God,

I want to feel your cold dead hands all over my warm, silky bodice. I want you to bite me deep, you horny corpse. 

Barbara, Stoke-On-Trent

That was quite an icebreaker. At least the mums know their kids won’t have trouble finding dates or be alone forever. 😚 Barbara needs to take up writing PDS/living romance novels.

Shirley says that Barbara is very misinformed. Henry’s mother says that’s not the point, but I’d really like to know what Shirl’s referring to. Sexual interest? Sexual function, particularly for males? Body temperature? Maybe she just means that they’re room temperature, instead of just-out-of-the-grave cold. I need Shirley to give a class on the new physiology of PDS patients, stat.

Shirley moves the group on, asking Sue how she feels. Sue says, “How do I feel? How am I feeling? Well, one minute, I’m just so happy he’s back. And the next, I’m filled with anger. And a minute later, I’m in the bathroom, bawling my eyes out, so quite honestly, I can’t keep up.” Shirley notes that Sue’s reaction is common.

Shirley asks about Sue’s anger with Kieren.

Sue: “When Kieren… left, my family… um, my family went into free fall. Jemima became this white hot ball of rage that I couldn’t reason with. And Steve… You know there’s that joke that the best husband is a mute husband? But the reality of watching someone who you’ve known and loved for so long just, um, just shutting down in front of you, is awful. And at its worst point with both of them, I blamed Kieren. I was just so bloody mad with him. And that is a horrible way to feel about someone, especially your only son.”

Janet: “I felt exactly the same way, Sue. But more fear than anger. I’m ashamed to admit it, but when Rick came back, I was scared of him. Scared of my own flesh and blood.”

Janet finally speaks. Turns out, she’s bought into a lot of the same outdated ideas that are consuming Bill.

Back at the Macy house, Bill is training Rick to quickly subdue Kieren, then put a knife in the base of his skull. Once he’s convinced Rick is fast enough, he’s ready to go kill Rick’s lifelong best friend and love of his life. Rick goes into the bathroom to think. He covers the injured part of his face, so that he looks alive again for a moment. Then he begins to remove his mousse.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Janet: “The way Vicar Oddie put it, they’re all supposed to be possessed by the devil himself. Demons in disguise. I haven’t found that at all. My handsome man’s back. He’s different. He’s a bit different looking, but he’s still the same, deep down. You know how I know that? My Ricky, he’s a good boy.”

Rick returns to the living room and his father, and for the first time there’s nothing hiding what he really is. He tells Bill that he doesn’t want to kill Kieren, his best mate. “If Ren’s evil, Dad, then so am I.”

Bill says that he understands. “You’re trapped, aren’t you? You know something’s not right, and you want out.” Rick is crying and shaking his head “yes”, thinking his father finally sees, and maybe accepts, the real him.

Bill pulls Rick into a hug. It’s perilously close to the hold he taught Rick to use when he wanted to stab a rotter in the base of the skull. Bill tells Rick that it will be alright.

  Jem takes down her trophy hunting/rotter hunting photos, takes off her HVF uniform, and returns to life as a normal person. Bill paints over the PDS mark on his garage door, throws some stuff away, and pulls back out the box of memorials to Rick. Jem puts her gun away in the shed.

The lost phone handset is in there. Jem listens to Rick’s last message. She races out, searching for Kieren. Kieren is out wandering around. Bill Macy drives by, headed toward the Walkers’ house.

When Janet gets home, Bill is drinking a beer and watching the game, as if nothing has happened. She pretends to have been at a church committee meeting. When she asks where Rick is, Bill totally gaslights her, pretending that he hasn’t seen Rick since he shipped off to Afghanistan 5 years ago.

Kieren comes home to find Rick’s body, with the knife still in it, leaned up against the garage. He closes Rick’s eyes, whispers something inaudible in Rick’s ear, and pulls the hunting knife out of Rick’s neck. Then he sets off on a hunt of his own. Jem comes back just as he’s leaving the driveway, but he ignores her. She sees Rick, and runs inside to Sue. Ken watches the whole thing from his living room chair.

Bill is watching the game, while Janet is watching Bill in confusion, when Kieren storms in. Bill tells Kieren that he’s barred from the house because he’s an animal. Kieren replies that he was barred from the house 8 years ago for making Rick a mix CD.

Music being too girly for Bill.

Bill tells Kieren to get out, because when Rick comes back, he’ll still be banned. Kieren asks what Bill is talking about. Bill says, “The next resurrection. But this time, only the good dead are gonna come up. The right dead, not imposters like you and that thing.”

Kieren tells Bill that his real son came back, showed Bill his real self, and Bill killed him for it. Bill says he got rid of an imposter. The real Rick would never have stuck up for Kieren like that. Rick wasn’t like Kieren, the way the imposter was.

Kieren yells that yes, Rick was like him, and he was only coming back once. It was a gift, and Bill ruined it. He murdered his own son.

Janet has been slowly taking this all in, and it finally sinks in that Rick is really dead again. She starts screaming, “No, no, no!” Bill grabs her and yells at Kieren for upsetting her. Kieren says she should be upset, her son was just murdered. Bill tries to explain to Janet that Vicar Oddie says Rick will come back during the second Rising, after Bill judges the rest of the current lot, and gets rid of them.

Janet grabs the knife from the arm of the chair, where Kieren buried it when he entered the room, and slashes at Bill. She chants, “You killed Rick,” as she cuts. Bill’s hands are sliced as he reaches them out to stop her,

Something about seeing the literal blood on his hands and his quiet, undemanding wife trying to kill him while finally speaking the truth, gets through to Bill. He understands that he’s killed the real, one and only, Rick. Kieren holds Janet as she collapses, both of them crying together.

  This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Bill stumbles outside, into the driveway, babbling about what he’s done to Rick. Suddenly, he’s shot in the chest, and falls down, dead. Ken Burton looks at Bill’s body for a moment, then walks away. Dean is still in the cage. He tells Ken he won’t say anything. I don’t think Ken cares. He just put down a guy who was on a murder rampage. He considers shooting Dean, but decides not to waste the ammo.

Janet and Kieren rush outside. Janet kneels down next to her husband, softly saying that someone should get him help. She’s having a really bad day. Kieren just leaves…

Now that all of the shouting is done, he’s in the same place as he was when Rick died the first time. He walks until he comes to the cave where they spent time together. There’s graffiti next to the door: “Beware Rotters”. Kieren slowly walks in.

Steve and Jem wait at home for Kieren. Steve is silent and looks gutted. Jem tells him not to worry, Kieren wouldn’t leave them again. Steve puts his head in his hands.

Kieren sits in the cave, in candlelight, facing the spot where he and Rick wrote on the wall: REN+RICK 4-EVER. Someone enters the cave, but he can’t tell who. He thinks it’s the ghost of Lisa again, but it’s Sue. They fuss that they’ve each almost given the other one a heart attack.

Sue asks what the H–l he’s doing there? He says that he didn’t know what to do, and he just started running. He needed to be in the cave, where he and Rick used to meet. He wasn’t gonna… He bursts into tears.

Sue: “I’m so sorry about what happened to him, Love.”

Kieren: “I think I got him killed.”

Sue: “No, you didn’t.”

Kieren: “He stuck up for me, and Bill…”

Sue: “Yeah, Bill. That’s right, Bill. Bill killed him. Not you. Bill.”

Kieren: “Christ, Mom, it’s becoming just like it was before, and I don’t know how to change it.”

Sue: “I’ll tell you how to change it. This time, you live. You don’t leave. You stay. ”

Kieren: “You want me to stay? When I’m like this?”

Sue: “Yes. My God, Kieren. I’d love you with all my heart if you came back as a goldfish! I know how it feels, to lose someone.”

Sue tells Kieren the story of how she met Steve. She’d had a different boyfriend, who she’d thought she would marry, but he left her for her best friend. She quit college, came home, and decided to end it all.

She went to the late night chemist, but the cashier could tell what she had planned and  refused to serve her. She burst into tears, right there in the store. This kind fellow took her in the back, made her a cup of tea, and listened to her while she talked for hours. He made her laugh, too.

Sometimes she wishes Steve would talk more, especially about real stuff instead of films and weather, but he’s there when you need him. He’d love to talk to Kieren about the real stuff, too. Kieren asks where Steve is. Sue says he’s at home having a nervous breakdown. He can’t bring himself to come to the cave.

When Sue and Kieren get home, Jem and Steve are still on the couch, worried sick. Steve tries to put a good face on it, but Kieren wants him to express his real feelings, not pretend everything is okay. He pushes Steve through his mask of polite discomfort with Kieren’s most recent disappearance, into his memories of searching for and finding Kieren 4 years ago. He wants Steve to make him understand how much he hurt the family when he left them so suddenly.

Steve (very emotionally): “Because I was worried sick. You just go out, don’t tell anyone where you’re going. No contact for days. Jem thinks she knows where you might be and she tells me. So I put on me jacket, I grab a torch, and I go up in the woods. And I get there. Get to the cave. And there you are. You’re sitting down. You’re leaning on a rock. And I think, ‘Thank God, he’s okay. He’s okay.’ Then I get close. I see that Swiss Army knife I got you for your birthday. You’re covered in blood. There’s so much blood. I take you in me arms. I run with you in my arms. And I run and I run and I run. But it’s… I can’t, because you’re… It’s too late. Oh Jesus, son.”

  😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Steve ends his story openly weeping, with his arms held out in front of him, as if he’s still carrying Kieren back from the cave. But his arms are empty, and he thought they’d be empty forever. Kieren has been gutted by this story, too. He moves forward and fills up his dad’s arms, finally. They hold each other as closely and tightly as they possibly can.

Kieren walks to Rick’s funeral. He and Steve are pallbearers. After the funeral, Kieren watches as Rick’s grave is filled. Bill will be buried nearby. Rick is allowed to be buried in the cemetery, rather than disposed of as a rotter.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

  Let’s applaud Shirley for her group therapy session. It was too late for Janet to be a better mother for Rick, but it allowed her to have a moment to share her happiness with her community before it fell apart. Then it gave her the confidence to attack Bill, which is what got through to him that he’d murdered his actual son, not an imposter. He died knowing he’d murdered all of those people who could have been saved.

And group therapy opened up the floodgates of emotion and good sense that Sue had been bottling up for fear of rocking the boat and making things worse again. Shirley and the others helped her finally understand that Kieren was still just him, and she could talk to him like her son.

With her added experience of getting Steve and Jem through the crises of Kieren’s death and The Rising, she’s actually much more effective at helping him now. We’ve seen her do that with Jem, but she hasn’t known how to get started with Kieren, since his death felt like a huge rejection. Talking in therapy about how bad it was right after Kieren died made her determined that they weren’t going back to that place. It motivated her to go find Kieren and help him work through Rick’s death this time.

Then Kieren pushes Steve to tell his story and express his feelings. Finally, the air is clear between all of them. Kieren knows how much they love him and that they don’t judge him. Now they understand what happened to him. The tiptoeing around that Sue and Steve have done since Kieren came home has really been because they don’t want anything to rock the boat and upset any part of the family. They’ve had a delicate balance going, between Jem’s anger, Steve’s depression, Sue’s fear, and Kieren as an unknown quantity that could possibly turn out to be a land mine.

In the funeral scene, we see one father-son pair who were brought back together by a strong mother, while the other is buried after the father killed the son. Sue wouldn’t let Kieren and Steve continue to circle each other without saying how they really felt about what happened and each other. She knew Kieren needed to hear it, and Steve needed to say it. They not only live, they become truly close again.

On the other hand, in the Macy home, only one person is allowed to express opinions or make decisions. When the power that Bill has gathered during the war is threatened, he becomes more violent in an attempt to maintain his power, aided by the vicar, who is also trying to hold on to his increased influence. Everyone in town is in danger, if they get in Bill’s way.

He doesn’t ever turn his wrath on Janet, but she is possibly the worst enabler I’ve ever scene. She rarely speaks and she does what she’s told, when she’s told to do it. She seems “nice” on the surface, but she doesn’t even warn Bill’s target’s that he’s coming. She sits in group therapy with Sue and doesn’t tell her that Bill is planning to kill Kieren. Even when she’s just found out that Bill murdered Rick, she still gets up and gets him a beer.

Rick isn’t the enabler that his mother is, but he’s been raised with the brand of toxic masculinity that believes anger and hatred are the only acceptable emotions. Lip service is given to protection, but it’s really an excuse to harm others. Homophobia and misogyny are the rule. And he’s been raised to believe the patriarchy, especially respecting your father, is everything. He’s been taught by both parents that his father’s word is law. That was probably violently physically enforced when Rick was small.

So he has no support at home to disagree with his father on the smallest matters or to be the bearer of bad news. Before he died, Rick probably couldn’t even begin to figure out how to bring up being gay. Bill knew, of course, because parents know their kids, but he tried to “train the gay away” by forcing Rick to be more and more macho.

Then Kieren and Rick came back marked, so Bill couldn’t ignore what they were. Yet, Rick still listens to his father most of the time. He still allows his father to treat Kieren badly most of the time. He didn’t even dare stay away from home for more than a few minutes, when he went to the phone booth to try to warn Kieren. Why not grab Kieren and some Neurotriptyline and go on a road trip for a few days, until Bill cools off? Or move into Kieren’s house, or Amy’s? Or at least drive through the village until he found Kieren and made sure he got the warning? Because his parents taught him that Bill will always win.

Eventually, Bill goes too far, and Rick finally stands up to his father. But he made the mistake of trying to talk to his father like a human being, when all Bill understood was violence and force.

We have our second father-son “heart-to-heart”, followed by a big hug. But this one ends in tragedy. Everything Bill said and did was a trap to lure Rick in so that he could kill him easily. Bill was an abusive tyrant at home, and I suspect an alcoholic. He was a violent tyrant in the village. But no one would stop him. The PDS sufferers were left to defend themselves, even when he pulled people out of their beds and shot them in the street.

So, eventually, Ken, the husband of one of Bill’s victims, notices that the casualties are continuing to add up, and puts a stop to the murder himself. It’s too bad he didn’t do it before Rick was dead, but he may not have seen it coming. And he may have felt like Janet didn’t deserve to keep her son, when his wife was dead.

Either way, Sue and Steve opened their hearts, and the Walker family is healing. The Macys kept their hearts closed until it was too late, and they are destroyed.

The literal writing on the wall that says REN + RICK 4-EVER should take away any doubts anyone might have had, as to whether they were openly romantic with each other. Then there’s the discussion in the car about whether they were still going or broken up. You just don’t talk about a friendship, even a romantic friendship, the same way.

Rick likely still had freakouts and doubts, and he let himself be pushed into the military by Bill, but he and Kieren were a thing. I suspect Rick was capable of doing the same thing that we saw Bill do. One minute he’s honest and speaks truth, the next he’s in a complete fantasy world and doesn’t seem to know what’s real and what isn’t. So their relationship was probably always volatile.

Kieren also said that they “messed around” with each other in the cave the night before Rick left for basic training. “Messing around” has a few meanings, but in this context, it generally refers to sexual activity, especially when we’re talking about a drunk teenage couple, alone together in their secret meeting spot, which is filled with candles, who are engaged in a forbidden romance.

What did Kieren whisper in Rick’s ear? I think it was basically, “I love you and I will avenge your death.” Kieren is too good to say, “I told you to stop listening to your psychotic father.” He might have said, “We’ll be together again someday.” Maybe he asked Rick’s ghost to stay near him this time.

For whatever reasons of his own, in interviews toward the end of season 2, Dominic Mitchell bizarrely tried to retcon Rick and Ren into being friends who never got to the point of being a couple. He was playing up the importance of the events of season 2 at the time, but there was no reason to negate some of the most important facts of season 1 to do it.

To say that Rick and Ren weren’t a thing makes season 1 nonsensical. Why would they write Rick+Ren 4-Ever on the cave wall, where anyone could see it, if they didn’t have strong, declared, romantic feelings? Why would Kieren kill himself over a friend and unrequited love? Why include Sue’s story of the first boyfriend she thought she’d marry, which then led her to meet her actual husband?

Why imply so strongly that Rick was running away from the combination of his relationship with Kieren and his relationship with Bill? The story loses some power if Rick is totally closeted and so guilty that he’s not physically open to Kieren at all, because then Bill has no evidence that he’s gay. What gives the story power is having Bill see his big, strong son show signs of being just like the artsy gay boy, who Bill can’t stand, and have Rick want to spend his time with that boy. Bill needs to see signs, like the mix CD, that the relationship is more than it “should” be.

It’s not made 100% certain in season 1 that Kieren and Rick are a couple with physical experience, since many of the details of their relationship are left for us to guess. But they were exchanging music, meeting in a secluded place, by the light of about a hundred candles, where, on the wall, they’d written that they were forever. When the parents of one told him he couldn’t see the other, he joined the military and got himself killed. The other promptly joined him in death. If this were a boy and a girl, there would be no question about what they were doing in the cave.

I’m not even a big Rick and Ren shipper. I just hate that kind of inaccuracy and retconning.

Rick was a good first love, because they were all each other had, living in a small village. It made their relationship intense and the most important thing in their lives. They felt like no one else could understand them the way they understood each other.

But they didn’t actually have much in common and Rick actually treated Kieren badly. Really badly. The show went out of its way to make sure we realized how much Rick was like his father. Kieren can do much better now that he’s able to get out in the world.

Rick is a tragic figure, not just because of his deaths, but also because of his two lives. He eventually found courage in each life, but both times, it was too late to save himself. He’s a conformist who usually takes the easiest of the choices set in front of him, and only thinks about alternatives or the effects on other people when Kieren makes him. Kieren doesn’t need to spend his life being someone else’s conscience.

Janet raised Rick to do what Bill says, without complaint, and then sneak away quietly later to do whatever he really wants to do. That strategy works okay for a housewife who just wants to go to group therapy occasionally, but not for the gay son of a homophobe. Apparently Janet just stood by while Bill abused their son and harassed Kieren.

The more Bill suspected that his son might be gay, the harder he pushed him to uphold unrealistic macho standards. He was still using that strategy after Rick came home again, very pointedly jumping in and stearing the conversation toward girls or guns at the right time. He also extended its use to proving that Rick was really alive instead of partially deceased.

There’s always an implicit threat in these conversations, because he has both Rick and Janet conditioned to know what could happen if they do something he doesn’t like. Keep Daddy happy, or everyone will suffer.

Which leaves Rick torn in two, because part of him does want to live more openly and stand up to Bill, like Kieren does. But with Rick’s father, it would be suicidal. It eventually was.

The Vicar turns out to be the Biggest Bad of the town, the Lady MacBeth who whispers in Bill’s ear and keeps him fired up to kill. Bill was horrible and deserved to die. He might have even eventually killed Rick on his own without the vicar’s encouragement. But Bill might have come around to living with some sort of double standard, or Rick and Kieren might have gotten away, if the Vicar hadn’t given Bill the idea that this Rick was disposable. And Vicar Oddie was cunning enough to do it where no one else could hear, so no one knows the full part he played in the tragedy.

Just like they don’t know that he was the one who sent Bill out to kill Maggie. Would Ken kill the Vicar, too, if he knew Oddie’s role as puppetmaster in both deaths? Or would Oddie’s status as a Man of the Cloth protect him? Until this episode, Oddie and Macy seemed like equal partners, the head and the hands. This episode made it clear that, while both were fanatics who left sanity behind long ago, the head was manipulating the hands into outright evil actions.

Lisa was Kieren’s last kill, that’s been explicitly stated multiple times. So Jem leaving him alive didn’t allow him to go kill others. She just didn’t execute him, vigilante-style, for the kills he’d already made. But at that the time, she didn’t know that’s how it would turn out. He could have killed another dozen of her friends and neighbors, while she watched.

This is why the small towns were so angry that the professional military ignored them. It’s very difficult for people to kill their own, especially lost loved ones who’ve returned, and who are in many ways helpless when they aren’t killing. This is why they were eventually rounded up and quarantined instead of exterminated.

As we’ve seen, once the first wave of The Rising was over, they were left with a finite number of slow-moving, non-contagious zombies who had virtually no ability to strategize. It was only people’s tendency toward fear, panic and ignoring emergency instructions that made them difficult to catch. A partner, thick clothing, any kind of sports helmet, and some netting are enough protection and weaponry to catch them.

If you have Amazon Prime, episode one of the series Lore, They Made a Tonic, does an excellent job of showing how the 19th century fear of those accidentally buried alive evolved into a fear of and belief in vampires by the END of the century. We all say we don’t believe in zombies, but a state that’s eerily similar to zombism can be brought on by chemicals, mental illness, torture or societal conditioning.

From there, it’s easy for any cult leader to direct their unthinking followers, whether they have one follower or millions, into doing whatever the leader wants, slowly grooming them into doing the unthinkable, if they won’t do it immediately. Zombies aren’t really all that fictional, which is of course why they’re so popular.

  Images courtesy of BBCAmerica.

In the Flesh Season 1 Episode 3: Finale Recap Everything comes full circle in the season 1 finale of In the Flesh. Episode 1 ends with Bill Macy pointing his gun at Maggie Burton, a harmless old woman and PDS sufferer, and pulling the trigger.