#makes the unilateral decision to get the girl /out/

[yuesya]

Zenin Toji did not know how to take care of children.

… It’s not a skill that he’d ever thought he would need, yet here he was, holding a fragile kid in his arms. A little girl that he could snap in half like a twig, except there’s something about the thought that makes him recoil and reject it –even though it shouldn’t matter to him. Toji is capable of cruelty, of ruthlessness. He’s a hitman, an assassin, a lone wolf that will bare its fangs at any target for the right price–

–and he has a daughter.

He has a daughter, now. The thought is still so surreal to him, despite the all-too-real weight currently asleep in his arms.

I shouldn’t have gotten involved with that woman, he thinks. Kind eyes and a bright smile, hands that were smooth and soft and likely hadn’t seen a single callus in her entire lifetime… but in the end, Gojo Hina and Zenin Toji belonged to completely different worlds. That had been obvious from the start.

It had been a nice distraction while it lasted, though.

… But it would’ve been nicer if it hadn’t resulted in a child. Fuck. Why did he even take the girl with him, anyways?

Toji scowls.

Even now, he still doesn’t know what had possessed him at the time. It’s not in Toji’s nature to be charitable, and it’s not as if he’s attached to a faceless daughter whom he’s never seen before–

But she’s not faceless now, not anymore. Pale-skinned with delicate features, not unlike her mother… and white hair. He’s going to have to do something about that eye-catching white hair; while it was likely that the Gojo Clan could easily put together that it was Toji who had easily stolen the unwanted bastard child away, there was no need to broadcast things. A little deniability would go a long way in convincing others to overlook the girl, if Toji intended to keep her.

… Did he intend to keep her?

Toji doesn’t know. He hadn’t thought that far, when he’d picked the girl up and walked out of the Gojo estate with her. She was light. Too light, too thin. Bony in a way that kids shouldn’t be. And the injuries that he’d found on her body…

…

A gusty sigh blows out through his lips, and Toji runs a hand through his hair restlessly.

“What a fucking mess,” he grouses.

[amostimprobabledream]

Breathe you in like smoke (Dabi x Reader)

Also available on Ao3! https://archiveofourown.org/works/56406658/chapters/143325163

He's doing it again.

You don't look up from your phone as you hear it. A breathy, feminine giggle and footsteps. The smell of perfume hits your nose, and you scrunch it on reflex - it's sweet and tangy at first but fades into something acidic and cloying the longer it lingers. And she's put on way too much. Hastily, realising you're wearing your emotions clearly on your face, you smooth out your expression again even though nobody is looking at you and probably don't give a shit what you're thinking.

Dabi leads the girl, who is drunk and giddy, no doubt she either has no idea who he is and just thinks he's a dangerous-looking bad boy. If only she knew just how bad he actually is, she'd likely run out of the place screaming and speed-dialling the cops with a manicured finger. Her footsteps are clumsy as she totters after him, his own footsteps sure and slow on the rickety stairs that lead up to the loft, a room Dabi unilaterally claimed as his own and nobody had either the energy or balls to protest this decision.

Irritation stirs in the pit of your stomach, despite your best efforts to maintain your air of nonchalance on the outside, like you're doing nothing more noteworthy than catching a bus. Dabi does this from time to time, picks up some random who doesn't know or care to know his identity, luring them back to the base for a quickie before unceremoniously booting them out again. You're convinced he has some form of exhibition kink, because he doesn't care to keep the noise down and neither does whoever he's pounding into the mattress. Spinner has complained more than once, but Dabi’s response is simply that he’s jealous his ugly ass could never.

Well, nobody’s ever called Dabi the epitome of tact.

And here you are, steeped in unrequited lust and a considerable amount of frustration as you have to sit and listen to this rigmarole and wishing, just once, that it was you he was leading upstairs.

You’ve honestly no idea if Dabi had an inkling about how you feel about him. You’re not stupid and know that to wear your interest openly will get you nowhere - he held everyone at arm's length, even his own comrades, and his primary concerns are his own goals. The fact your ears always prick whenever you hear the heavy tread of his boots entering a room, or whenever he rasps out one of his sarcastic jabs in response to the group's antics, or the way your skin tingles if he ever accidentally touches you, shoulder skimming yours when you were hunkered down, waiting in alleyways to pounce on unsuspecting victims to rob or worse, a graze of his fingertips if you occasionally requested he light your cigarette for you. His azure eyes seem to see everything, and yet they look through you in a way that makes you want to weep on your weaker days. You can act as uncaring and indifferent as him outwardly, but on the inside? On the inside, it's like your chest is being squeezed by his apathy. Even the littlest approving glance or backhanded compliment can lift your mood like nothing else, whereas one of his cutting remarks will have you picking over the subject of it for days, wondering if you'd slipped even further down in value in his eyes.

You stand up abruptly, nearly knocking your chair over and catching it just in time.

"I'm going for a smoke." you announce to nobody in particular.

"Have fun!” Twice says, waving at you like you were about to board a train. "Take a flyin' leap!"

You disappear out the door, passing where Kurogiri and Compress are playing some card game. Strictly speaking, you don't need to go outside to smoke, it isn't like anybody in the League cares about breathing in your secondhand smoke, but you prefer the privacy of smoking outside, just you and your cigarette and your simmering thoughts. People (usually Himiko) bugging you to ask questions while you were trying to get your precious nicotine hit makes you quite homicidal.

Given who you were affiliated with, it’s best not to be seen just casually hanging around on the street corner. So, you round the building and climb up the rusty fire escape, taking care to compensate for the missing rungs of the ladder or patches of rust that will scrape your hands. The stink of rotting garbage is fortunately not as bad as it could be, the wind is blowing the smell in the other direction.

The base’s rooftop is nice and quiet, and you pop a cigarette in your mouth and cup your hand around the end of it to light it, the snick-snick of the wheel grazing your thumb sounding loud in the silence. A spark flares to life and you lean into it, pulling in a lungful of smoke with relief. It settles something in you, smooths over your frazzled nerves like a comforting hand stroking your hair.

As you take the cigarette between your index and middle finger, you hear a noise, and your head turns. It came from the window built into the brickwork.

Like someone driving past a car accident, repelled and fascinated at once, you slip closer. You can't stop yourself, it's as instinctive as breathing, and you suck hard on your cigarette as your eyes take in the tableau before you.

The girl Dabi brought in is on his futon on all fours. Her little strapless dress has been shoved up over her hips, the shiny black material reminding you of an oil spill. Her face is splotchy, and her makeup looks like it made its excuses and left some time ago - there isn't much glitter left on her eyelids and her lipstick is blotted on her lower jaw from sloppy kisses. Behind her is Dabi and you stifle a gasp at the sight. Normally you never see him out of that black duster he seems to have glued to his body, but now?

Now, you're treated to a very different sight indeed. He's shirtless and though his lower half is obscured by the girl, you can see enough. It's surprising how broad his shoulders are - a swimmer's built, broad shoulders, toned arms that taper into a small waist. He's more muscular than you were expecting too, you can see the tendons in his arms flex as he wraps a hand around the back of the girl's neck.

"Stay still,” he orders her in a husky voice that has you stiffening on your rooftop perch, crouched there like a gargoyle.

She’s panting with excitement already and you hear the jingle as he loosens his belt – not even bothering to slide his jeans off, just undoing the fly and unbuttoning them.

You lean closer to the glass, eyes glued to Dabi, watching him with the rapt attention of someone observing a tragedy on the news in real time. His torso is a map of scars, velvety under the moody lighting on his room, yet you’re enraptured by the sight of him, drinking in the sight greedily. After all, who knows when you’ll get a chance to see this again?

Envy tugs at you and you moodily inhale on your cigarette. What the fuck has this woman got that you haven’t, anyway? What makes her so special he’s willing to fuck her and not you? Your eyes narrow into an angry squint, though that’s partly to protect them from the veil of smoke.

“This what you want, huh?” he asks mockingly to the girl, giving her ass a sharp slap that makes her jolt, and ridiculously, you copy the action like her shadow.

“Yes, yes…” she pants, rocking her hips back, like she just can’t wait anymore, her body quivering in excitement. ���Please, please fuck me…”

He laughs, and fuck it’s hot, so rough and condescending. He grips her hips, his fingertips digging into the flesh where no doubt there’ll be finger-shaped marks by the time morning comes.

“You dirty slut.”

He doesn’t seem like he minds too much though, and after a moment’s adjustment he’s leaning forward and the girl’s body jerks as he sinks his cock into her – you don’t need to be able to see it from where you are, the look on her face tells you everything you need to know. Her glossy lips drop open, and she throws back her head.

“Oh-! Oh, god!”

“Yeah? That feel good?” he growls.

Yes. You mouth in answer, her response coming out garbled. You glance around – ridiculously, because you’re on the roof and it’s not like anybody can see you, not unless they were flying directly overhead and somehow you think a helicopter or a plane have more important matters to bother with – and slowly undo your own jeans.

Fuck, you really thought you had more dignity than this, touching yourself to the sight of Dabi fucking someone into the mattress, panting and needy and frustrated, but you can’t stop yourself. You don’t want to stop.

Your fingers slip past the flimsy cotton barrier of your panties as you shamelessly ogle the scene below – the woman doesn’t seem to be wearing any herself, so Dabi thrusts into her unimpeded, making a growling sound that tends a shiver through your body. If you close your eyes, you might even be able to trick yourself into thinking his raspy instructions are aimed at you;

“That’s it. Fuckin’ take it.” He demands, slapping her ass again. “S’what you’re here for, isn’t it? To be fucked.”

Oh god. You think to yourself – you’ve always had a bit of a thing for voices and Dabi’s, when he bothers to talk, is nice. Raspy with a hint of a growl, and you’ve seen him use it to shut up an entire room of bickering people before.

“My own little fucktoy.” he says, a bite in his words, but the woman doesn’t seem to care, only her own mounting pleasure is important, and you bite the inside of your cheek in an effort to stop yourself from responding verbally to things not aimed at you. If he heard you up here, you’d be utterly mortified.

Yet, the thrill of it, knowing that all he has to do is look up and he’d clearly see you through the skylight, is doing it for you in a way you’ve never experienced before. There’s a power in being an observer somehow, passing judgement while sitting up here, literally above it all. By now your fingers are soaked, and you’re going to have to sneak back to your own room and find some drier underwear to replace these, but right now it feels so good, such a release, that you don’t care. You don’t care about anything except chasing your own high, pulsing heat building in your core as you sink your fingers in deep, shamelessly using your own teammate as visual and audio aid. Your breathing falls in sync with their panting, fogging up the glass.

Hey, if he didn’t want you using his one-night stand to get yourself off, maybe he should keep his voice down and close the fucking blinds in future.

Dabi's really going at it now, grunting with the effort, plowing into her from behind. The dim lighting plays across his muscles and you're tracing each ridge with your eyes, like you're trying to make a mental map of them. The girl beneath him is moaning away like a pornstar, but Dabi seems disconnected from her, his teeth gritted, one hand gripping the back of her neck to hold her in place.

Your hands shake as you thrust your fingers deeper inside yourself, a whimper muffled behind your teeth that sinks into your bottom lip. Your knees are cramping from your crouched position and there’s a cold breeze whipping up between the alleyway below, creating an impromptu wind tunnel, yet all these unpleasant sensations around you, it only heightens the pleasure building in your cunt, heat sending you breathless.

“Oh god, yes, like that!” the woman wails, throwing her head back, and Dabi growls at her to shut up, even though there’s nothing about his tone or actions that imply he mean it.

She’s making such a racket that you can’t help it – when he pushes her head down so she’s practically kissing the mattress, grabbing her hip and lifting them up so he can plunge even deeper into her, you let out a gasp of your own.

“Oh, fuck yes-!”

And then he snaps his head up and locks eyes directly with you.

You can’t even squeak and pull away – his gaze pins you to the spot. Did he know you were there all along? Prickling shame races up and down your limbs, like you’re being jabbed with a cold needle all over.

Oh my god. You think helplessly, heat scorching your cheeks. He is NEVER going to let you live this down, is he?

But then he grins, wide and sharp, and he starts going even faster, hips snapping against the girl’s in a rough, mercilessly rhythm that rachets up her moaning louder and louder, the lewd smack of skin on skin audible beneath it. And all the while Dabi is watching your dumbstruck expression with a savage smile, knowing you’re unable to pull yourself away. Not until he’s done with the both of you.

She cries out in throes of ecstasy, but you can’t move, can’t bring yourself to keep going now you’ve been caught, even if your bottom half isn’t visible through the skylight – he knows what you were just doing and he’s certainly know if you started up again. Instead, you just sit there dumbly, mouth hanging open as you watch him fuck her to orgasm, her body jerking like a marionette with its strings cut. Dabi puts on a show of his own when he comes, clutching the woman’s hips like his own personal stress toy, throwing back his head and arching his back, all sinuous, writhing muscles.

And all the while he watches you from slitted blue eyes, revelling in the flustered, astonished expression on your face. It’s a good look for you, he decides.

When he’s spent, the woman collapses onto her side, panting, and Dabi tucks himself matter-of-factly back into his jeans without an ounce of self-consciousness to be seen.

“We’re done here. Get out.” He orders her in a toneless voice. Talk about wham, bam, but no thank-you ma'am to go with it.

She turns her head to look at him, astonishment and a smidge of indignation writ large on her face.

“What? Seriously? But how am I meant to- “

“I don’t give a shit. Go.”

He stares her down, all insolence, looking at her like she’s nothing, a bug under his shoe. Quite the contrast for someone who was bottoming out inside her but a few moments ago, and you wince slightly at his coldness, despite yourself. The woman backs down immediately, tugging her dress back down and scrambling awkwardly off the futon. Dabi doesn’t even deign to turn his head to watch her go, merely tracking her out of the corner of his eyes as she stuff her feet into her high heels (which she looks like she’s regretting now), and she’s gone in the blink of an eye, leaving only a lingering silence and tang of her sickeningly-sweet perfume.

Dabi tilts his head back lazily.

“Having fun up there?” he calls up to you, amusement lacing his words, like it’s all a private joke only he is in on, a smirk widening his scarred mouth. “Fuckin’ pervert.”

“I didn’t- didn’t mean to- “you begin, hearing how defensive and ridiculous you sound – you were literally caught right in the act, yet some remaining shreds of self-preservation insist in the falsehood anyway. And it is true that all you wanted to do was have a smoke in peace, at first.

Your words sputter and die an early death when Dabi cuts you off, a command that you have no choice but to obey, his finger curling in a beckon and his cerulean eyes gleaming with promise.

“You like to watch so much? Then come down here and I’ll give you a real show.”

[purpledogcreations]

The Emily's (Our Version)

Dog and Purple

All art commissioned from @/scarabeesoleil on Instagram.

Henry Emily, 35, was born on the outskirts of Hurricane, Utah, to a working-class family. The youngest of two, Henry became interested in mechanics while working at his father's shop. Henry eventually got into Brown University, majoring in mechanical engineering, and meeting his best friend William Afton. Eventually, he met Helena Emily, maiden name Helena Stillwater, and the two dated for several years before making the decision to get married. They gave birth to twins, Charlotte and Samuel Emily, in 1978. Although many people in Hurricane find Henry strange and difficult to get along with, as he is not religious, not at all concerned with traditional gender roles, and is quite socially awkward, Henry is a good person. He's a great father and a good husband; he's just a bit rough around the edges.

Henry has autism. Henry's father owned an antique shop and he gained an interest in mechanics while watching and helping his father fix up old clocks. His parents are dead. Eye color! (made by Purple)

Helena Emily, 35, was born to a working-class family in West Virginia. She didn't attend college, opting to work alongside her father and gain experience in construction work. Although Helena is consistently met with skepticism and misogyny in her field of work, she's stubborn as all hell. While doing construction work in Rhode Island she met Henry and the two began dating, although it took some time as Henry wasn't getting the obvious hints Helena was putting out. Helena and Cora became fast friends after meeting, although the two may not share much in common, they do enjoy one another's company. Helena is a protective mother and is known to have a temper. She isn't willing to hide her emotions for the sake of others' comfort.

William doesn't like Helena much. Good. I wanted Helena's hair to look like a lion's mane. Eye color! (made by Purple)

Samuel Emily (left), 4, is the youngest Emily child. He's not fierce or stubborn like his older sister and takes more after his dad. He gets picked on often, not only because he's timid and shy but also because he doesn't conform to his assigned gender at birth. But his family is there for him, at least, most of the time.

Charlotte Emily (right), 4, is the firstborn child of Helena and Henry Emily by about 10 or so minutes. Still, she easily fits into her role as the eldest sibling and seems to think it's her duty to protect her younger brother Sammy. She's a fierce little girl who has definitely inherited her mother's temper and stubborn nature (and her dads' autism).

Both Sammy and Charlie have unilateral cleft lips + palates. Charlie plays soccer. She kills at it. Eye colors! Charlie (left) and Sammy (right) (made by Purple)

Height Chart!

Previous Post: The Afton's (Our Version)

[scoobydoodean]

i think it’s kinda funny how you don’t have some sort of online handle except your urls, so i can only ever address you as like dftsam. anyway i saw a take that said cas “learned” to feel unloved from dean, from the way dean treated him basically - an example they gave was dean looking away when cas said I love you as he was dying in s12 - and it seemed there were a lot of people agreeing with it. i’m not one of them, but if you were interested (only if you’d wanna talk about it, I’d get it if you didn’t) I’d love to get you thoughts on this idea?

So I read this at like 1-2 AM lying in bed and I was like this:

I find it so fucking funny when people start in on this shit, because Dean girls and Cas girls can do this to each other all day long. “Dean made Cas feel unloved” “Cas made Dean feel unloved”. You can build a framework for either (BOTH) by cherrypicking scenes to suit a narrative. Like. I can easily say that Cas repeatedly sent a message, regardless of his intentions, that Dean’s feelings don’t mean jack shit to him. I prefer to take things with humor and just understand where Cas’s issues are coming from (just like Dean—who makes his best effort to understand Cas; just like Cas makes his best effort to understand Dean) rather than get mad and demonize him so I can be angsty about Dean always feeling "unloved"… but the guy… look—making no effort to explain why he is like this at this moment (because Cas apologism is absolutely not the point of this ask) Cas is known to do the following:

Control the means of communication. You will pretty much never see Dean ghost Cas. Even when Dean was forced to kick him out, he checked up on him to make sure he was okay. But Cas will knowingly and intentionally ghost Dean’s prayers and calls for days and weeks at a time on repeat through their ENTIRE RELATIONSHIP. Dean has expressed that this upsets him more than once, but Cas continues to do it. Every once in a while he’ll throw in a half-assed apology sure—but it doesn’t mean anything. He’s going to do the thing he’s apologizing for again as soon as he’s decided he doesn’t want to face Dean’s questions or doesn’t want him involved yet again. Which means 1) he isn't actually sorry 2) how it makes Dean feel is not important to him or else he'd stop doing it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Keep secrets about bad things going on CONSTANTLY. Over and over and over and over… then Dean is still the one who ends up apologizing for getting mad about it. Rinse, repeat.

(Often) Refuse to be a team player in an effort to keep Sam and Dean out of harms way over the things he has personally decided are too dangerous for them, without ever letting them have a say, because he has unilaterally decided they are too tiny and soft and he needs to fall on a sword when no one asked him to and no one WANTS HIM TO. A lot of people want to turn this into bemoaning Castiel's constant unappreciated sacrifices, but this is so unbelievably shortsighted of a take. He is attempting to relate to Dean, a person who believes he is poison and that loving him gets people killed, by attempting to fucking martyr himself over and over and OVER. Dean doesn't WANT it, and it isn't NECESSARY 99% of the time if Cas would just WORK AS A TEAM.

Urges Dean to co-parent children who he feels he has personal obligations to twice.

Who does that remind you of? Because I know who it reminds me of, but people don’t want to read that meta—or about how Cas traded out his car for a truck (who else did that?), or about how your last words before a sacrifice can haunt a person and rip them open in ways you never intended. Of course Cas isn’t that guy… but I bet my ass Dean sure as hell sees the shades of him.. I do think it is an intentional decision to frame Cas in the late seasons after another person who also made Dean feel very unloved and unwanted—not in the big things like big grand sacrifices—but in the small things—the day to day things that slowly strangle a relationship to death—like making unilateral decisions for everyone and not answering the goddamn phone. (Edit here: I do NOT mean that Cas is intentionally being framed as CRUEL and EVIL. I only mean that he is intentionally being paralleled with John. Dean and Sam are also paralleled with John in different ways at various points and it doesn't mean any of them are evil irredeemable villains. They just have some obvious hangups and the way this particular one for Cas ends up manifesting is probably pretty difficult for Dean and probably makes him think of John behaved and how it made him feel).

Dean didn’t react right when Cas said I love you in season 12? Well. That’s debatable. But going on the offensive first before the defensive: Cas only wants to say this on his deathbed when Dean has no chance to respond.

Dean, on the other hand, has expressed his care for Cas MULTIPLE TIMES. He didn't say the words, "I love you" (he doesn't even say that to SAM) but he said "We're family" "You're the closest thing I have to family—you're like a brother to me" and "I need you" and "I'm not leaving without you" and "Being with you today is the most I've laughed in years" and "I'd rather have you, cursed or not" and "It's a gift. You keep those. Let's work as a team. We're better together."

And what does Cas do after every single one of these expressions of Dean's love?

He L E A V E S!!!!

He fucking leaves, and Cas girls want to talk about Dean making a face? And cry that Dean makes Cas feel unloved? Forgive me if that makes me fucking CACKLE at the AUDACITY.

I think one thing people tend to do, is they frame everything as if Cas is oblivious to Dean loving him, but Dean has to know or SHOULD know how Cas feels about him. This is why we get rancid takes like "DeAn nEedS tO pUll hIS hEaD oUt of HiS asS". Oh shut up. Castiel canonically can SENSE DEAN'S LONGING. If Dean's head is up his ass, Castiel's is shoved so fucking far up his sphincter it's coming out of his mouth.

Yet still—Dean recognizes, in season 11, that Cas is struggling—that Cas feels down on himself and unloved (and I DO NOT think Cas BLAMES Dean for that at all—it takes a lot of willful ignorance about everything going on with his biological family to come to that conclusion) and Dean tries to FIX IT. He once again reiterates to Cas how much he cares about him—that he's family. He has NO IDEA that the words intended to make Cas feel better are going to send him down one of the most deranged spirals of unhinged decision-making ever (the Kelly shenanigans are WILD). I actually have a slightly different take on this, from the typical " it sent him off the deep end because he got 'brother-zoned'". I think it sent him off the deep end because it was the final *nail in the coffin in what Cas saw as a reversal of their relationship—where he isn't the guy who protects everyone anymore with his grace and his grand wings... that's Dean now, and Dean is saying that Cas, like Sam, is under his protection... and Castiel absolutely could not STAND that. He didn't need his romantic affections to be returned. What he wanted, more than anything—what he saw (in a rough draft of the script) when Jack showed him paradise, was Dean thanking him, and his powers returned to their former glory. Because Cas has unilaterally decided Dean's feelings, he chooses to love him like a saint, laying down his life, instead of being in a partnership, because he doesn't want to be someone Dean protects—not even in a partnership where they protect each other. He wants to be the sole protector.

All of that to say: Cas didn't learn how to feel unloved from Dean. TEXTUALLY. It is ON THE TIN. Saying that is literally the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Cas SAYS about Dean. He says he cared about the whole world because of DEAN. He cared because Dean's love was so captivatingly beautiful and inspiring and transcendent that it changed who Cas was inside to the core, and he fell fucking head over heels. "You changed me".

[krikeymate]

This is the tangent I mentioned here. Warning, this a very long post as I go through basically all the Sam & Tara scenes.

I don't think Tara was ever actually upset with Sam at all, she was upset with herself and lashing out in frustration. She was trying to ignore what happened and pretending to be normal, but Sam's worrying and hovering wouldn't let her forget, and she just doesn't know how to process what she’s dealing with so she shoves it down and down and down until it bursts open.

The leaving the party scene SCREAMS I'm mad at myself but you're a convenient target to redirect my anger at. Especially when combined with the conversation with Chad where she thanks him for not letting her go upstairs  and says "I guess I was more messed up than I realised" - which is a great use of a double entendre: messed up by the alcohol but also messed up by the trauma. Truth is that in that scene, she realised she had put herself in a shitty situation in her attempt to ignore her trauma, so when Sam calls her out on it, she gets defensive and snaps back at her.

Also, I just want to say that I called Tara being the subject of ‘A man attempts to coerce a clearly drunk woman to a bedroom to take advantage of her’ a week before the movie came out and I’m super smug about it.

ALSO: when Tara goes “If I wanna hook up with an asshole, that’s my decision. It’s my decision.” Sam, looks up and away and goes “oh-kay” and the expression on her face just makes me laugh on rewatches. I wonder if she’s having flashbacks to her own past behaviour, of if she’s had to deal with a drunk and upset Tara before. I definitely feel it’s an ‘oh boy here we go again’ kind of ok, especially given the twins reaction. 

THEN we get the “What are you doing here, Sam. In New York.” which is SO painful to watch. I don’t even know what I can say about that, it’s such a beautiful and emotional piece of dialogue and it HURTS. “I’m just trying to look out for you.” “I-... I know. I know you are. …But you can’t do it for the rest of my life though. You have to let me go.” – This part is Tara acknowledging that Sam has uprooted her life for Tara, and Tara telling her that she has to live her own life too. Ultimately, Tara’s journey in 6 is about deciding whether she wants her sister in her life, and in a meta sense, whether she wants to be ‘a final girl.’

Slight deviation here to talk about Chad/Tara – I’m sorry, I just don’t see it. It feels like Chad is the one with feelings for Tara, and in that bedroom conversation Tara is realising that. To be honest, I kinda feel like Tara wanted to use him in that scene, we’ve already seen that she was going to use a guy to ignore her problems; Chad is a safe option for her. I’m not saying she doesn’t have any feelings for Chad, I’m just saying I feel like… well, everyone wants to say they’re the new Gale & Dewey, except the thing is that Gale & Dewey weren’t some epic love story, they were two very different people who bonded through traumatic experiences but ultimately were never in compatible places and trying to be together made them miserable. I don’t have many feelings about Danny but I do think he’s hilarious in an accidental way and would love to keep him around. I get malewife vibes from him.

We get the scene where Sam wants to flee, this is just a classic Tara is in denial of everything happening all over again. We get the wonderful “before you make the unilateral decision to abandon my college education and flee the fucking state!” It’s there to build the does she want her sister in her life situation: this part is a reminder that Sam is the reason Tara got hurt in the first place.

Despite just being ‘mad’ at her and in denial, she still wants to go with Sam to the police station. Sam, knowing by now that her sister is so goddamn stubborn, doesn’t even try to argue. I wish this scene had actually been longer, and that we got to see them cross a few more streets, and for their chase into the bodega too. There’s a cute tiny moment where Tara bumps her face into Sam’s shoulder as she tries to listen to the phone call. The police station: the girls closing their eyes and looking tired while at the table lmao. This time when Sam says “we’re getting out of town.” Tara does not object in any way and goes “are you serious?” when Bailey reveals neither of them can leave town as they’re both suspect. This all just emphasises the fact that being around Sam puts Tara in danger.

I don’t really need to talk about the Gale scene, but I will say that on rewatches the Sidney comment actually feels really shoe-horned in for the audience. Campus meta scene. Sam’s cute “I had a feeling” as Mindy starts to ramble about rules. I didn’t care much for this scene at first, but rewatching it I actually love it, Mindy’s enthusiasm is so lovely. Her “it’s not looking too good for Gale and Kirby” makes me laugh so hard. Ethan and Quinn both saying why can’t it be a survivor 👀. We get Tara’s “don’t you fucking dare” when Ethan brings up the theories online about Sam. Baby shuts that down so quick.

Apartment scenes: Tara acknowledging that she’s been making life hard for Sam, and acknowledging Sam’s pain. “And I’m really really sorry that you have to do that alone.” OUCH. Sam blurting out that she’s been sleeping with Danny because she doesn’t want to hide things from them and then them being like I knew it had her SHOOK. Tara grabbing the phone and pretending to pick up with a “hey so what are your intentions” genuinely has me crying because it’s so cute. I’m seriously not over Tara’s first instinct being to run TOWARDS the Ghostface. I speak about the apartment scene here.

The shrine. So, first up, firm believer that the only reason Sam hallucinates Billy again is because she’s on day 3 of zero sleep and hasn’t taken her meds in that time either. We’re at just over the half way mark into the movie. I think they should have had Tara’s reflection appear over Billy’s before panning to her in the “what are you doing?” bit. I think it’s really interesting that BOTH Sam and Tara are shown to be overwhelmed by the situation – Sam squeezes her eyes shut, then we see Tara flee the room… to use her inhaler.

On Sam’s side of the story, it shows Tara pulling her out of her head and her fear of losing her to Gale; on Tara’s side of the story, we get the ‘does she want to be a final girl’ situation that I mentioned earlier. We get the fantastic Kirby conversation with Tara that my followers know I love.

Next, we move onto the park scene. Tara’s attitude has changed entirely. She took Kirby’s words to heart; she’s realised there’s a way to keep Sam in her life without being a victim: by getting mad and fighting back. “There’s no point in both of us putting ourselves at risk.” “I’m not, I’m your backup” and her little grin is cute but they do then continue walking together which completely negates that. Tara doesn’t want to stray away from Sam - not because she’s scared, but because she wants to be there for her.

Tara absolutely failing to be able to pull Sam back lives rent free in my brain, Sam is so big and strong and Tara cannot move her unless she wants to be moved. “You went back to Woodborough to protect me. Every single day you make the decision to protect me. None of us would even be alive if it weren’t for you. You have to let us protect you this time.” Tara volunteering the ‘us’ there is so fucking funny. There’s something so special to me about how Tara is the one who begins the plan to capture Ghostface and say “we execute him.” I would love to hear what people think of the pan to Mindy and then Sam when she says this, and what you all think is going through their minds.

Finally, we reach The Final Act. First up, Tara copying Sam in removing her jacket is adorable. Sam calling for Tara and then them running off without even waiting for Chad, amazing. Sam holding Tara back and shoving her through the door while Tara cries, love the manhandling. Them standing back-to-back, Tara crying for Sam, Ready/I’m ready, it’s all so so beautiful. I just love the simplicity of Tara being scared and calling for her big sister to help her.

Sam pushing Tara behind her when Ethan and Quinn split off to wrap around behind them. Tara’s “you stay the fuck away from her!” Tara moves her arm up to cover Sam when Quinn approaches with the knife. Ethan stabs Sam in the shoulder and Tara grabs Sam and pulls her away from them. Sam looks down and sees that Tara still has the brick, they make eye contact. Sam insults Richie and Tara bashes Quinn when she goes for Sam. Tara tries to get Sam to run with her, Kirby be damned I guess. Sam takes the knife out of Kirby (who tells her to “fuck him up”) and she stabs Ethan 5 times. Tara calls for her again, so she leaves it at that and runs after her. Bailey shoots at Tara, and a bullet grazes her arm, causing her to fall. Once again, Tara is the one with a plan, she and Sam continue their silent eye contact and we get the “you have to let me go” scene.

You all know that I think Tara is the one making the call. Given that Tara has shown a propensity for making plans already in the movie, I even dare suggest she says “he wanted you to put on the mask… maybe you should.” Then of course we get the moment where Tara comes up behind Sam, who stops from delivering a final blow. We get the head tilt, and a call back to Bailey’s “you fuck with my family, you die.”

We get the final part of Tara’s story, where she decides she does want Sam in her life, and accepts that she’s going to need therapy to deal with what happened to her, in order to let Sam in. Tara being the one to say “we’re gonna get through this, together” is SO important, because you would think that would be a line that Sam would say. This is Tara saying I can give back what you’re giving to me. Then of course the final scene is the final part of Sam’s story, where we see one again, Tara acts as an anchor and calls her away from the darkness.

[butmakeitgayblog]

I know it's a spoilery question but if you can answer it, I would really like to know about it: in MBFW, when they are /FINALLY/ together and married (so in the future, future) does Clarke ever feels insecure about Lexa? Let me explain.

Clarke knows her feelings, God she knows them very well, she knows that she is in love with Lexa since forever, but Lexa broke up with her because she thought it was better that way.

After their discussion (that I reckon it will come in the end of the ff - more or less - if I got it right) they talk about everything and anything and I'm sure they will put everything in the right place, but what about in the future? Is there a moment where Clarke thinks that maybe Lexa is still insecure? That doesn't mean that Lexa has too, but does Clarke still has a "under the skin" insecurity?

And does Lexa notice it if Clarke does have it?

Does it make sense? I walked for 10 km today up and down the mountains so my brain is cooked.

Yes babe that made perfect sense 💕

And as for the answer, I mean, does she have insecurities here and there regarding they relationship? Yeah sure. BUT, they're no more than any average married couple would have. Ya know they have bad days and certain times when they feel like they're just out of sync. Days when they're stressed with work or the kids or an unexpected bill. Some days they just don't communicate the right way and it jumbles things up between them for a tiny bit.

But the great thing, the best thing that comes out of nearly a decade of just friendship and then allowing themselves to experience the full breadth of their love is that fundamentally, on a soul depth level, they know each other.

They know the little tells in each other when the other is annoyed or mad with something or afraid or insecure, because when they were friends, they were the person who the other one would come to about it. They've grown up together and seen each other at their worst and come out the other side, so at the end of the day, even on their bad days, it's like "that's not just my wife, that's my best friend. That's my person. No one knows me like she does."

So if there were ever a time when Lexa felt distant or seemed withdrawn or whatever, this time around Clarke would handle the situation completely differently than 19 year old her did. Back then she was just a kid who was infatuated and recklessly in love with a girl she'd known less than a year. Back then she was a kid who lacked the right communication skills and maturity to figure out how to navigate Lexa's baggage and was so desperate to keep Lexa in her life that she couldn't see the forest for trees.

This Clarke, future married-Clarke, Mrs. Griffin-Woods-Clarke on the other hand, she's got a whole different set of tools available to her. Now she's mature and steady in knowing exactly who she is, and more importantly, she know exactly who her wife is as a person first, then as a partner, and ultimately as her best friend. So if she ever happened to get those feelings it'd be an immediate, "Ok Time Out. Shut it down. Phones off, tv off, kids at grandma's or Raven's for the night. We need some you&me time to figure this out. Cuz this is how I'm feeling, and I need to know exactly how you're feeling too so we can either fix this or at least be on the same page before this gets any bigger than it is."

So just a total night and day flip in how she'd handle it.

But also I mean??? Lexa's extremely attentive and loving and despite the breakup has always been devoted to Clarke (she really has). And she's also learned to communicate better too because she knows to be a good partner for Clarke, that is something that Clarke needs from her. The reasons for her initial breakup are no longer an issue, but if anything else ever came up, she'd actually,,,, sit and talk to Clarke about it rather than just making unilateral decisions for them both 🥴 Wild concept there Lex

[navree]

What do you think about Maegor and Visenya?

As separate characters, I don't necessarily have a lot of thoughts on Maegor. I'm generally not the biggest fan of assholes, and there's not a lot that we know about Maegor other than that he was an asshole, so I don't have much to say about him as a character. But Visenya on the other hand..........Listen there's a reason why I wanted HOTD to start with the Conquest, and Visenya was a part of that (beyond my desire to see a lesbian with a sword riding a dragon fucking shit up).

There's a lot about Visenya that fascinates me. She's the eldest sister out of all her siblings, and I like to think she felt very overprotective over both of them. Doing something like the Conquest just wasn't anything Targaryens had done before, and now her baby brother and baby sister are flying off to war and they could get hurt, they could be kileld (and one of them was aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh). And while I definitely think they all loved each other and were close as siblings, did she ever feel like the odd one out? Visenya was married out of duty, before Aegon then went outside the box to make sure he can marry the sister he actually loved too, Visenya had the smallest and least imposing dragon between the three of them, Aegon and Rhaenys are the ones who had a family when they had Aenys, and there's a wealth of drama in whether or not Visenya sometimes felt like a third wheel despite being the Older Sister. I also imagine that she too had a tendency to chafe at gender roles, since between her and Rhaenys she was the one who wanted most to be a warrior-woman, and I think she definitely enjoyed governance, but her's was more interested in how to make the realm run, while Rhaenys was focused on diplomacy and improving relations. And honestly don't get me started on her relationship with Rhaenys, the way she was just as willing to set Dorne on fire for her, the way that she was more eager to continue it when Nymor sued for peace, how it felt when Aenys presented Rhaena to court which made even Aegon weep, Hell how it felt to actively work to displace and threaten Rhaenys's grandchildren, the girl named after her beloved sister. I like to think Visenya didn't regret anything she did, but she might have had some moments of sadness about it, especially towards the end of her life when Maegor started getting more Maegor™ and she had more time to think about life when it was just her and her siblings on Dragonstone. But she was still welcome at Aenys's court, and still counseled him on decisions, because even with everything, even with her own son in exile, this was Aegon's son, this was Rhaenys's son. Because over everything, I think Visenya adored her siblings, missed them when they were gone from this world, and if she was asked who she loved the most, it would be Aegon and Rhaenys.

Visenya and Maegor's relationship I think is interesting. Neither of them seem to have been very affectionate or caring people, certainly to each other, Maegor because he's Maegor™ and Visenya because I think any softness she had in her likely dried up around the time Rhaenys died, given my personal headcanon that it was also when her relationship with Aegon fell apart due to the grief and Aegon's decisions around ending the war (if I'm right, then the hurt Visenya must have felt about being denied a chance to say goodbye to Rhaenys, to be made to capitulate and have peace without even having been given the full information cuz Aegon made a unilateral decision, God I wanna die). But it's clear that Visenya cared about her son, that she felt angered when he was disrespected and actively worked for his advancement, and also she was the one primarily responsible for raising him, since she was with him on Dragonstone while Aenys was in King's Landing with their father. I don't think Visenya had a Cersei towards Joffrey attitude about Maegor, she knew exactly what he was and the potential for monstrosity he had, but she saw it as a positive and a way for him to advance in life, given the fact that this was still a bit of a turbulent, with the Wars of Conquest and the First Dornish War not far behind. I certainly think Maegor felt close to his mother, and that if he ever loved anyone, if he was even capable, it was her, the only parent he really knew, the only member of his family he was close to, given the physical distance between his father and him, the age difference between him and Aenys, and just the emotional distance he had with everyone due to his issues. I think the relationship was both bound tightly by the fact that neither of them had other people they were intimate with save each other, but also sundered at the same time by their own coldness and lack of capability towards forging open relationships with others. And I think that, similar to that Henry VIII thing where it was clear that his ideal model for a wife was just Elizabeth of York, what Maegor was searching for in all his wives, above just being a fucking creep, was someone like Visenya, and it's probably why he held on to Tyana as long as he did.

I think it's an interesting relationship between interesting characters, and I think it's a shame that HOTD started so late in the game when we could have seen all of this unfold in real time if we'd started with the Conquest Era.

[simthorium]

Once they got home, Tafari and Sarah Jane decided to relax and watch tv while Luna played with blocks at her activity table. The house was relatively quiet, and Luna could tell something was wrong. Her parents weren’t usually this tight-lipped about stuff, and it made her feel awkward. She wanted to give them some time before trying to figure out what was going on.

Luna put on her best smile and bounced over the the living room, plopping on the couch beside her parents.

“I had a lot of fun at the park today,” Luna said.

“That’s great, sweetie,” said Sarah Jane rather absentmindedly as she flipped through channels on the tv. Luna shifted uncomfortably.

“Um. Thanks,” Luna muttered. “So. Did you have a good time at the park, mommy?”

“Anytime I spend with you is a good time, dear,” Sarah Jane said.

Luna threw her hands up in the air; she was done with tiptoeing around the issue.

“Then why do you and auntie Kamaria keep screaming at each other!?” she exclaimed, exasperated. “Every time we hang out together, you guys just get in a fight and yell. It makes everything so not fun, and then we have to leave early. Do you not want me to hang out with Shea anymore?”

“Honestly, sweetie?” Sarah Jane said with a sigh. “I don’t.”

“Sarah Jane—”

“No, Tafari,” she continues. “She deserves the truth. I don’t want you hanging out with Shea and her family. It’s not ok that Shea kisses girls, and it’s not ok that her family thinks that it’s ok. We don’t believe in homosexuality in this household, and that’s why we always get into arguments when we’re all together. So from no on, we won’t be seeing that part of the family any longer.

“What!?” Tafari and Luna said at the same time.

“SJ, you can’t make a unilateral decision like that,” Tafari said, clearly pissed. “Kamaria is my twin sister, that family is my family.”

“We can’t support that lifestyle, Taf,” Sarah Jane said. “I certainly won’t have my own daughter growing up beside it.”

“It’s not a lifestyle, and Shea is just a child,” he said. “You’re being ridiculous and way out of line.”

“Oh sure, go ahead and continue to defend your sister while you throw your own wife to the wolves!”

“That’s not what I’m doing!”

“The hell it is!”

Luna hopped up off the couch and walked into her room as her parents continued to argue behind her. She hated this; all the arguing and fighting and meanness and tension. It gave her a stomachache and she just wanted it to stop. She didn’t full understand want it all meant, but what she did know was the common denominator in all of this: Shea.

[sothischickshe]

Can't wait for rhea to find out or piece together some shit once rio's made some kind of uneasy peace with Beth and call them BOTH uncommunicative manipulative assholes

[quacka-quacka]

I mentioned Paul's strong resistance to being recognized as effeminate man or gay (here). Although he can hang out with gay guys, wear rainbow flag in public [yeah I definitely need to write that again in case someone didn't see it], being considered gay or "cute" is beyond endurance. I know someone love to interpret this as "don't want to his sexuality being mislabeled", which indeed looks sensible when it comes to the homosexuality, but this excuse can't be applied to the "cute" thing, right? You can't say being cute or feminine is the same thing as being gay, can you? Well, I can hear Paul's every single cell screaming O!M!G! Feminine! all the time. He doesn't want himself have anything to do with feminine, which, unfortunately can not be simply regarded as personal preference, it's indeed a despising of femininity, and femininity? Of course it's about female. Yes, "phallicism", the worship of masculine are still popular in today's society, but it doesn't mean it's right. I have to say Paul's thought is the product of this society, not to mention that he is an old man who grow up in a working-class family six decades ago, we can't demand him that much. His attitude towards women is the same thing.

PAUL: We were more amazed to see the [Japanese] women leaping up out of the seats for the promoter, because we'd never seen that in the West. The subservience of the women was amazing. They'd say, 'Oh God, I'm sorry - was I in your seat?' I remember us getting back to Britain and saying to our wives and girlfriends, 'I wouldn't want you to do that, but maybe it's a direction worth considering?' Promptly rejected.

— The Beatles Anthology

Although Paul seems to know that it's pretty cool for a woman to pursue her own career, like admitting Jane was famous before he was, allowing Linda to write a cookbook or have a photography exhibition, the androcentrism is too ingrained for him to forsake. He acknowledged Jane's achievements but still wanted her to give up work completely:

'I always wanted to beat Jane down,' says Paul. 'I wanted her to give up work completely.'

'I refused. I've been brought up to be always doing something. And I enjoy acting. I didn't want to give that up.'

— Hunter Davies, The Beatles

He allowed Linda to do her own thing, but they are not entirely hers - all those projects are belong to MPL, and do not forget Paul said this after Linda's death:

She never did anything on her own because we were together so much. 

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Chrissie Henderson for USA Week-end: Tears and laughter. (October 30, 1998)

That's so sweet to see Paul would support his wife any time, but on the other hand it also shows that Linda never get the chance to do something entirely on her own without Paul's interference after she got married. No wonder so many people from inner circle [including Linda, yeah] described Paul as "typical Northerner":

Linda confided that Paul was a ‘typical Northerner’ who believed women should stay at home while men worked.

— Bonnie Estridge, The Mail on Sunday. (March 20th, 2005)

Paul was raised the old-fashioned way. Men were the breadwinners; women stayed at home, had babies and tea on the table. He's still an old-fashioned guy, very careful with money.

— Ruth McCartney

Like the other Beatles, he [Paul] was essentially an old fashioned Liverpool man, who wanted his woman tucked away at home cooking the dinner and minding the kids.

— Cynthia Lennon, John

Jane was a serious actress and wanted to continue her career, but Paul had other ideas. That’s why Linda was so perfect for Paul; she was just what he wanted, an old-fashioned Liverpool wife who was completely devoted to her husband.

— Marianne Faithfull, Memories, Dreams and Reflections

I'd say Paul was not that old-fashioned, at least he allowed his wife to do other things besides being a full-time nanny, but everything she does must cater his needs. As Jane once mentioned, he always wants his girl to adore him like fans:

The trouble is, he wants the fans’ adulation and mine too. He’s so selfish; it’s his biggest fault. He can’t see that my feelings for him are real and that the fans’ are fantasy.

— Jane Asher, Love Me Do! The Beatles’ Progress by Michael Braun

I know some of the fans can't wait to jump up now and shout "Paul and Jane didn't have a mature relationship!" "He's much mature after he meet Linda!" "Paul and Linda had a very very very healthy relationship!" Ok, if you really did some research, you may know that he's never mature enough to know how to fully respect women, at least before the end of divorce with Heather Mills. I have seen the theory appears too many times that Paul and Linda's marriage is the result of careful consideration: Linda came along with a ready-made child and she's ready to marry again - well, I regret to tell you both Paul and Linda wouldn't agree with you.

I was a great disappointment to my family When I got married [to a geologist] and moved to Arizona, it was crazy. I had been pressured by men all my life. I rather liked being on my own, making my own decisions. I had actually sworn to myself that I would never get married again.

— Linda McCartney, interview for Playgirl: An intimate conversation with pop’s preeminent pair. (February, 1985)

As she says, she's quite enjoy her freedom and had absolutely no interest in marriage. What did Paul do? He "twisted her arm" to make her agree.

I persuaded Linda to come to London for a visit. Then I rang Heather in New York and said, ‘Heather, will you marry me?’ She was five. ‘No, don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘I’m too young.’ ‘Well, I can wait,’ I said. So we went to New York and brought her back to London to live with us, and I twisted Linda’s arm and finally she agreed to marry me.

— Paul McCartney, interview for Playgirl: An intimate conversation with pop’s preeminent pair. (February, 1985)

Linda also said neither of them knew what they were doing when they got married:

LINDA: 'So instead of getting an agent I met Paul instead and got married. Or I was going through a transition then and didn't know quite what I was doing and he obviously didn't know quite what he was doing so we ended up marrying instead.'

— Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now

Again, I'm not saying Paul and Linda never loved each other or their marriage was completely made up for media, but I don't think his marriage with Linda enabled him to prioritize other's feelings [his status as one of the four head monsters doesn't help]. Linda's overmuch unilateral compromises certainty don't make him look mature. Let alone his excessive dependence on her.

------------------

Reply to all these who think feminize Paul/men is a bad thing:

You love to say that Paul doesn't want the cute title because people used to mock him by that. I understand it. But do you ever think about why being feminine is not taking him seriously? Do you ever think about this is the discrimination about femininity from the whole society? Why does a man must be despised when he has anything to do with femininity? And Paul's approach is denying his femininity, which is the same with those who mock it, like - a man being feminine is a shame because it means he can't be "respected" like other men. It's the recognition of this concept, which is outdated if you think about it.

P.S. Someone who reblogged my post doesn't seem to like the sentence "there must be many sweet moments between Paul and Linda". Ok, I delete it then.

[supercantaloupe]

on Aelwyn Abernant, the Reformed Villain Squad, and redeeming teenage antagonists

an analysis on antagonist character development in Fantasy High. spoilers through sophomore year and (mildly so) the most recent roll20 oneshot. essay under the cut bc i am very long winded

the turnaround with Aelwyn in s2 is handled so well  i cant get over it. she was such a major antagonist in the first season and just. despicable. she had no pathos. we hated this bitchy older sister who tried to kill Adaine and her friends and raise an evil dragon, and when she gets knocked on her ass and thrown in jail, we cheer.

and then s2 fucking starts saying “hey she’s in jail still if you’d like to look into that” and pursuing that thread ends up being almost as comedic an idea as it is a reluctant one; it’s also quickly shunted to the background as soon as more pressing leads present themselves, to the point where we almost forget about her until Adaine is kidnapped and then the first time you see her it’s just. viscerally upsetting.

she’s bad. she did evil. she got what she deserved.

but she already got what she deserved. last season.

she got her ass handed to her by a bunch of 14 year olds including her little sister (how embarrassing!). her plans were thwarted. she got punched in the face and made fun of. she already got her punishment.

it just……immediately registers as over-the-top Wrong to be told “hey, remember that antagonist you beat last season? she’s still being punished for that, except it’s way worse than just going to mumple.”

and there’s that reminder that like…this is a teenager. a child. who has been manipulated and abused. which is a really fascinating look at this character we used to see pretty much unilaterally as a one dimensional bitchy villain.

i mean we got a more in depth look at Penelope’s and Biz’s motivations in s1 (Penelope being the popular rich girl sorceress obviously hungry for power and the alllure of the high school clout that is being prom queen, but also we know that her having to turn on her best friend Sam Nightingale as part of the scheme was something she was reluctant and not happy to do; and Biz being that predatory incel creeper type dude besides just a nerd with computers and a lack of social graces). and they were as much willingly active in the plot as Aelwyn was. yet in s1 they really never do bother to explore Aelwyn’s motivations. i remember after watching s1 but before s2 that was one of my biggest lingering questions: why tf was Aelwyn involved?

well. she was manipulated and abused. her terrible parents raised her in an awful environment that conditioned her to Listen and Obey and Behave and Be Perfect, and then Kalina helped cinch the noose around her neck with threats and coersion into the KVS Kaper and the NMK crown debacle. she doesn’t freely choose any of it; she’s coerced, manipulated, abused.

and she already got justifiably punished for her bad actions in s1. the torture is almost literal overkill. it’s just……there’s this immediate turnaround in sympathy and view of the character. on first watch, it’s viscerally upsetting to see her getting so brutally punished for actions she already faced consequences for, and on rewatch, it makes your skin crawl to know she’s being tortured for terrible things she had little choice in carrying out. and tortured by some of the very same people who coerced her to behave terribly in the first place, to add insult to injury.

and it’s still fucking frustrating when they rescue her and her memory gets reset and she goes back to her parents because it’s like “well shit, she’s evil again, and we just wasted all that effort for nothing” but it’s also sad cause we know she’s running back to her abusers and she isn’t happy about it but doesn’t feel like she has a choice. and it’s sadder still that what eventually inevitably gets her to turn to good for good (i.e. away from her parents) is just. a full dissociative mental breakdown.

(but then she survives and it’s gonna be good!!! until Adaine dies in her fucking arms. which is. almost funny. she’s been through so much shit and that isn’t something that Brennan would have just. preplanned. like a written in plot point. no, that was just an unpredictable consequence of the battle. what a juicy fucking moment. she’s been through All That Shit™️ and has finally turned to fight for good and her sister just fully dies in front of her. yeowch)

and she turns out okay in the end. she comes out the other side alive and whole and supported by her sister and her friends, with the hope of a future and recovery. there is an acknowledgement that A) she can and will grow from her mistakes and damage, B) it’s going to be really hard, and C) the post-s2 one shots both prove that she’s doing okay now. hell, she has a whole squad now of other former-teenage-villains-turned-good-guys. she has friends now, Ragh and Zayn, with common ground, and a secret handshake and everything. they’ve all grown from the mistakes of their past into better, happier, healthier people

and about Zayn and Ragh. we’ve seen a lot of characters, protagonist and antagonist, teenage and adult, PC and NPC do some really fucked up shit and get punished for it. but why do they get happy endings? why are Aelwyn, Ragh, and Zayn the only members of the RVS and not someone else like Biz or Penelope or Dayne? 

well, the latter two are dead by then; but then again, Biz and Ragh were also killed by the Bad Kids in s1, and subsequently resurrected. (Zayn died too, but was neither killed nor revived at the Bad Kids’ hands, so i’ll get to him in a sec.) and there are plenty of adult antagonists the Bad Kids face who are killed and left that way by the Bad Kids without second thought: Johnny Spells, Coach Daybreak, Captain Wicklaw, the Abernant parents (presuming Arianwen doesn’t survive in the forest for very long, which i doubt). why do some characters get second chances while others don’t?

in the case of Zayn, his death was pretty much out of the Bad Kids’ hands, and they later found out he was manipulated by Daybreak into being bad anyway because of his sad living situation. he was a pretty minor antagonist in the scheme of things, and when we re-meet him as a ghost in the s1 epilogue, he’s pretty obviously remorseful for his actions. and dying seems like a steep enough punishment to me for the shit he did to contribute to the KVX caper; returning as a ghost, free from the trappings of his unfortunate living life, he now has the room and freedom to grow into a better person.

in the cases of Daybreak, Spells, Wicklaw, and the Abernant parents: these are bad people who should know better. these are fully grown adults who actively choose to do evil. whether they think it’s the right thing to do or not (in Daybreak’s case), whether they think it will benefit them and don’t care about anyone else (in the Abernants’ case), or whether they don’t care much at all and are just doing shit because they feel like it (in the cases of Spells and Wicklaw), these are all adults who consciously make the decision to do terrible things and hurt other people. of course Johnny Spells, who is generally a punk thief and thug, is not on the same level of bad as Angwyn, who kidnaps and tortures his own daughters for political gain, but the point remains. these fuckers should know better. they’re grown ups. they had their chances to be good and they chose not to heed them. their minds are set on bad actions and they are a continued danger to other people as long as they are alive. when they die, the Bad Kids do their damndest to make sure it stays that way.

now, in the cases of Penelope and Dayne: these are teenagers who actively chose to participate in an evil plot. Penelope, Dayne, and Biz were all fully cognizant of what they were doing trying to raise KVX back to his former power. why? well, to some extent, we can only speculate. i suspect Penelope was just one of those Regina George bitches who is rich and popular and powerful and obsessed with power and popularity within high school as if that’s the end-all-be-all of existence (which, like, when you’re currently in high school, is a somewhat understandable worldview i think). Dayne being her boyfriend and a musclehead jock probably falls into a similar line of thinking. they are actively and willingly trying to cause harm, and teenager or not, must be stopped. they’re killed, anyway, during the Climactic Battle™️ anyhow; it’s not like the Bad Kids were going to gain anything at that point by keeping them alive.

now, Biz: Biz is the creepy Nice Guy incel type, sees woman as a prize he deserves to win, yadda yadda. he does, like Penelope and Dayne, actively choose to help KVX. there might be something to be said about his motivation the Bad Kids discover after the arcade battle by detecting his thoughts (that being to upload the captured maidens from the palimpsests to “call the shots” himself) is an altered memory; whether this was his original motivation from the start or not, i’m not sure. but the Bad Kids do kill him – and then resurrect him for important, time-sensitive information. and they beat it out of him – he gets two of his fucking fingers blown off. and Riz reattaches them once they have their info, and they realize his memory is altered. of course, the Bad Kids don’t know at this point that the altered memory was something he, Penelope, and Aelwyn had planned and agreed on and done to themselves, but this points to something important in my opinion: the Bad Kids, and the narrative/show as a whole by extension, acknowledge that external manipulation affects how guilty someone is in a crime.

which brings us to Ragh. Ragh, introduced from episode 1 as the meathead jock. Ragh the archetypical one-dimensional high school bully. Ragh who works with the harvestmen in effort to (ostensibly) end the world/provoke international war. Ragh, whose low intelligence but high loyalty and internalized homophobia led him to be fully swayed and blindly led by his coach and captain, who have actively chosen to do evil. Ragh who is killed in combat by the Bad Kids and resurrected for information, not Daybreak. Ragh, who the Bad Kids realize was probably not aware of exactly what he was being made to do and how bad it really was. Ragh, who by their kindness in sparing his life and directing him on a better path, becomes a well-rounded character and an active ally to the Bad Kids during and after prom, an invaluable companion during their quest in sophomore year, and overall a really good friend and person. 

(it might also be worth considering the case of Jawbone here, too, who started out a very minor antagonist in a fight but ended up becoming a major NPC because the Bad Kids talked to him, found out he came from an unfortunate situation and set of circumstances, and showed him kindness in offering the school guidance counselor position, a kindness that isn’t really owed but given anyway and ends up changing his entire life for good.)

and then, Aelwyn, whose case is already discussed above. so, why is the RVS what it is, why them but not others?

if you’re familiar with Avatar: the Last Airbender, you’re probably familiar with Zuko’s character arc, and how it’s often lauded as a masterful example of developing a villain into a hero over the course of a narrative. what makes Zuko’s arc so well done and exceptional is that he starts out as a kid in a bad situation under the influence of bad adults seeking to do bad deeds, but he later realizes the error of those ways, actively removes himself from that situation despite the difficulty and danger in doing so, goes through a lot of shit and reflects on his past mistakes and learns from them, and then actively chooses to fight for good in the end with the help of close, trusted friends, found family. 

this, i believe, is the same in the case of Fantasy High and its treatment of the RVS. its members, like Zuko, are all teenagers who came from shitty situations and were manipulated by evil adults to do bad. they are punished for their bad actions, and they learn from their errors and mistakes. with the kindness and help of good people, friends and chosen family, they are able to escape their abusers and bad situations and grow into their own people. and they actively choose to improve themselves with that help and fight for good.

Fantasy High, through the arcs of Jawbone, Zayn, Ragh, and especially Aelwyn, asserts that it is not your fault if you come from a bad situation and are forced to behave badly as a result. it does not pretend that you are absolved of any responsibility for those actions; quite the opposite, as even though they were externally manipulated into their evil actions, all of those mentioned characters face tangible consequences for their actions and later express remorse for their mistakes. but Fantasy High also asserts that even if you have made great mistakes in your past, even if you came from a bad situation beyond your control, even if you were manipulated and abused, with care and love and support and a hell of a lot of work and effort, you can improve your situation and find good, happiness, peace, you can thrive. evil adults who should know better don’t get redeemed. teenagers who aren’t coerced but actively choose evil don’t get redeemed. but abused kids deserve another shot at happiness. with enough work, and some love and help along the way, they can get there, even from the lowest imaginable point, from rock fucking buttom. it’s possible. 

[emmaspolaroid]

#nikki why did you leave these in the tags#also completely agree about the boys#I've complained about this before but all the GF kids unilaterally forgiving her feels so convenient#I get wanting to end the story in a tidy manner with only so many more chapters to go and thematically it ties in#but it doesn't feel fully earned‚ especially with the oldest five#especially especially with Norman and Ray#yes Emma opened Norman up to not being as stark in his morality way back in the escape arc#but just like with Ray's betrayal he reacted so strongly to Isabella's because he loved her so deeply#and god there's nowhere near enough tag space to get into Ray#just going to copy esthelle18's tags from another post to cap off bc they sum it up so succinctly →#conclusion did not address the messed-up human cesspool that is most of these character’s psyches#it didn’t need to be angsty. it needed to be honest.#it needed to let stuff be messy if it wasn’t going to address them#but it tried to make everything shiny and it didn’t work

#yes! yes!#Isabella trying to shape Emma after her#to give her a chance to live#(and also to keep at least one of her beloved children)#vs. Emma who surely would have loved to stay at her mothers side#if everything wasn't like it sadly was#and immidiatly deciding to never be like Isabella for good

(Very Good tags from @fullscoreshenanigans and @officersnickers!)

I feel like I’ve talked about this so much (specifically here and here) but forgot that I haven’t done so on Tumblr lol! The thoughts in those videos are really just the tip of the iceberg for me when it comes to the Mommy Issues in TPN. I personally really enjoyed the way that Isabella and Emma’s relationship is a different expression of trauma than either of the boys’, which manifested as lashing out and causing more harm either to themselves or others. Her betrayal broke their foundations.

Emma’s willingness to forgive is reckless and naive, but it’s her response to being hurt by others. Isabella intentionally harmed Emma over and over - breaking her leg, breaking her heart and reveling in the way she appeared beaten down - yet Emma still loves her. It was Isabella who Emma visualized pulling her out of the darkness at Goldy Pond because at the end of the day, she was afraid and needed her Mama.

The Mama who is charismatic, quick to weaponize emotions, and loves games. Who raised a girl just like her, who is also nothing like her. Ray is the physical proof of everything Isabella had to kill within herself to ascend the ranks, trauma made flesh and come back to haunt her. Norman is supposed to be proof of her superiority as a Mom, but he was only choosing to be a Good Kid. And Emma. Who was supposed to be proof that everything Isabella did was right in the end, that the cycle was unbreakable and the truth about the Grace Field was just part of growing up.

Personally, I don’t really think the kids all forgave her at the end. Rather, I think they all have enough faith in Emma’s decisions that they were willing to put everything they were feeling aside for just a moment. And once again, they’re all brave as hell but they’re also scared kids and Isabella is their only Mama. I’m not even sure that Emma completely forgave Isabella in that moment, but rather she understood that every single woman there had been just like her at one point.

I also really wish we could have gotten a little more from the kids during the final scenes with her, but I can see how it would have potentially messed with pacing. I did appreciate that we got Isabella’s internal monologue, especially the “You don’t have to call me Mama” parts. But yeah, it might have been done slightly differently to be more satisfying.

On the other hand, I love that every parental figure in this series dies full of regret, as well as hope.

I am so very normal about Emma’s eldest-daughter-who-rejected-her-mother’s-concept-of-her trauma

[kuromichad]

the main thing that bugs me about ao3 discourse is i just. i never see anyone lay out what they actually Want from ao3 besides 'delete everything i think is bad' like theres no. sense of practicality? what exactly do you want added to the tos. what is the exact expected process for reporting fics and evaluating those reports. disclaimer before anyones like 'Oh so youre unilaterally defending them' i do extremely think they should at the least not allow rpf of irl minors. but when it comes to enforcing policies that aren't related to like, laws, i just wonder how you expect it to work... should they just delete anything/anyone who gets reported a lot, like plenty of sites do? then people are gonna exploit that system and get people mass reported over petty shit, just like on twitter. should there be a moderation team instead? who picks that team? who's on that team? what if the team makes decisions you don't like?

especially when you're talking about creating some kind of policy for 'eliminating racist content,' like-- what counts? i'm guessing that like, troll works that are just a wall of slurs already get deleted (if they don't then they should be because that's pretty simple) but like. who decides what's 'bad enough' to merit outright deletion? if it's done by volume of reports, wouldn't that essentially be arbitrary moderation because it depends on a random group of people who potentially all have different problems with a fic and those problems can vary wildly in severity? like, what about when it comes down to nuances of how a character is treated? dramas like we had with finnpoe discourse, where either character topping might invoke different racist tropes, so how does one walk the line and how do you cope with how not everyone who attempts to walk it will be successful?

i saw one post giving the example of a fic that just like, rewrote the events of last year's protests to be set in the transformers universe, and yeah that's tasteless, there's been offensive 'current events' fic happening for a long time and it sucks. but should there be an explicit ban on that genre? how would that clause be worded? does Everyone agree that it's something that's impossible to do tastefully? if a black person does want to work through their feelings on current events through fanfiction, is that still banned because it's presumably impossible to do well, or should it be allowed because they have the right perspective? do they have to meet a certain standard of 'doing it right', and who evaluates that? and how are ao3 moderators supposed to know or believe they have that perspective? (we've already seen people racefaking to get 'permission' to write tacky racist fic just due to social pressures. imagine the lengths people will go to if their work or account is on the line.)

like-- sorry if this is a gauche comparison but since it's something i'm familiar with and able to speak on. what if the next wave of criticism is 'ao3 needs to crack down on transphobic content'? how will you define that, beyond 'delete fake fics that are just slurs'? would entire tags like omegaverse, or 'boypussy' and 'girl!penis', or even 'genderbend' get deleted? what about trans authors using those tags? do we become the only ones allowed because we can do it 'correctly'? how do we deal with the fact that not all trans people agree on what's 'correct'. like i don't think genderbending is inherently transphobic, it's down to individual choices and portrayals. same with omegaverse, same even with 'boypussy/girl!penis', since like. people might take issue with the entire premise of 'characters have this type of body and it just doesn't like, mean anything' as being fetishizing of trans bodies/erasure of trans experience and i sympathize with that. i'm not certain where i fall on the matter either, it's very much a case by case thing.

so then, how do you moderate that? do we get rid of those tags because someone decided nobody can use them responsibly or should like the premise at all? again, do we appoint moderators to decide when an idea is handled 'correctly' and again, who are the moderators? what happens when they make a decision you don't like? how do you distinguish between fic with a 'wrong' premise and fic with an 'okay' premise that is executed imperfectly and leads to interpretations or implications that upset people, especially when many fic writers are young and amateurs? should someone who made mistakes be punished with deletion just as much as someone who, like, intentionally wrote character-bashing/abuse fic for racist/transphobic/etc reasons?

like, none of what i'm asking here is supposed to be applied to general discussion of these subjects, it's not like i think offensive content should never be taken down, i'm not pulling some kind of 'everything Could be offensive so actually nothing is' or 'if they didn't mean to then it doesn't count' or anything like that. but we aren't talking about interpersonal discussions, or the handling of mass media, or anything like that. we're specifically talking about the concept of 'just delete everything that's offensive and exploitative' and how that would potentially be implemented. because ao3 is not a person who said something tasteless on twitch and can be reasoned with and led to make an apology. ao3 is a website hosting all sorts of ideas from millions of users, specifically in the form of fiction, and the way fiction conveys biases and shapes people's thinking is itself a really fucking complicated subject, and people are trying to demand that they try to tame that massive volume of content from different people in very specific ways, with no suggestion of how to actually go about doing that.

i know you think 'delete the stuff thats obviously bad' is a simple principle but it's literally not because no two people will ever 100% agree on what's 'obviously bad', particularly in this case because people don't consistently agree on whether depiction always equals endorsement AND it's so difficult to reliably tell whether depiction that seems to be endorsed was intended to be endorsed. so again, the primary, most practical options for 'delete things that are bad' are to either delete everything that anyone reports for any reason or to have moderators that make flawed human choices. i just want to feel like any of the people making 'ao3 bad' posts have actually like, considered that, and have some sort of opinion on which one it should be, if theyre gonna fight about this.

and, yknow, if they did have to hire a massive team of additional moderators to actually read every fic and take the time to make subjective decisions about whether it's offensive... they would need to pay those people... and they would still need donations. so lmao.

im not saying like 'youre not allowed to want things to change' like there's definitely room for improvement but. please god. start explaining what you want those changes to be because 'delete everything i personally think is bad' is not a moral imperative or a coherent category or a helpful suggestion in the least, if you think with your brain and not your gut instinct of disgust.

[twinkle-320]

Look What You Made Me Do

Book:  The Royal Romance 3 (somewhat AU) 

Pairing:  Drake Walker x MC, Liam x MC

Summary:  The unexpected happens while everyone is in Las Vegas for Riley and Liam’s stag and doe party.

Rating: Teen

Warnings:  mild language, hints to sexual activity

Word count:  2062

A/N: I wrote this little one-shot after seeing an AU Prompt list that sparked the idea.  I don’t know if this is something that’s been done before...I don’t recall reading anything like it but then again, my memory is horrible so I’m sorry if this has been done.

Tags: @ladyangel70 @gkittylove99 @lovingchoices14 (if you only want to be tagged in my series posts, please let me know) @choicesficwriterscreations​

Woken by a wave of nausea, Riley rolled onto her back with a groan, stretching the aches and pains from her body.  As the throbbing in her head got stronger, her eyes fluttered open and she was thankful that the curtains had been drawn tight.  One too many of Maxwell’s glittery cocktails the night before, in addition to the whiskeys she consumed at the after-party made her feel like death and there was no way she could tolerate the sun.

Feeling the familiar weight and warmth of her fiancé beside her, Riley sighed softly to herself.  Even with the wedding only a few days away, it still felt surreal and she still wasn’t quite used to sharing the bed.  “You’ll have to get used to it,” she told herself.  In a few days time, she’d have everything she never wanted…a powerful husband, a country to rule, and the weight and expectations of a crown on her head.

As she grappled with her reality in her foggy mind, images of Drake ran through her mind unbidden. Their first real moments of connection in Lythikos.  Finally admitting their feelings after he’d saved her from Tariq.  Forbidden kisses in the Beaumont study and in the courtyard before the Coronation.  It was the night of the Coronation that she had realized she was falling in love with him. Despite that love, she had been prepared to say yes to Liam’s proposal out of fondness for him and obligation to those that said she needed to become Queen.  Everything changed in the blink of an eye though when the scandal broke.

When she returned to court, obligation was no longer enough of a motivation.  She had returned with no intention of pursuing Liam; her only goal was to clear her name.  In the weeks that followed she fell even more for Drake and Liam kept drawing her into his orbit wanting to maintain a secret relationship causing even more confused emotions.

On their final stop of the engagement tour in New York they finally located Tariq and Riley’s name was cleared.  Despite their agreement to talk about them when her name was cleared, Drake had left New York ahead of the rest of the court, leaving only a note saying that they couldn’t be together and that she and Liam deserved each other.  On their final night in the city, Liam took her back to the Statue of Liberty, got down on one knee, and proposed.  Riley had tears in her eyes but they weren’t the tears of joy that Liam assumed them to be.  With her mind screaming “No,” Riley nodded and said “Yes, Liam…I will marry you.”

From there, everything became a whirlwind.  Attacks at the palace and orchards, a Unity Tour, an attempted coup at Lythikos.  Through it all she smiled at Liam’s side as they grew closer, but she still wasn’t in love.  Each day though she made herself promise to find happiness in her upcoming marriage. Even though the threat to their country had yet to be eliminated, Maxwell surprised them with a stag and doe party in Las Vegas.

While they partied the night before, Riley told herself with each drink that she was just celebrating her wedding.  Sitting at the bar with her chin in her palm, drinking her whiskey, and watching Kiara throw herself at Drake, she feigned a smile when Liam joined her.

“Has this evening been everything you hoped for, love?” she recalled him asking.  Afraid her voice would betray her, Riley simply nodded.  “Is there anything else I can do for you to make it perfect, my future queen?”  All she could recall from there was being touched by how loving and kind he was, everything else was a blur.

Standing slowly from the bed, Riley grabbed a blanket to wrap around her naked body and made her way to the mini-bar for some water and ibuprofen.  Groans filled the room and she heard the rustling of blankets coming from behind her.  Grabbing an extra bottle of water she returned to the bed, leaning against the headboard with her legs stretched out in front of her and holding out the extra bottle.

“Thought you could use some water. I know I can, my head is pounding.”

Suddenly the bed covers flew off. “Nevin?”

Riley turned, over come with panic, looking where she had expected to find Liam and instead found Drake staring back at her in shock.

“Drake?  What are you…?  How? Did we…?”

A quick glance to where the covers had been thrown off told Riley that Drake was as naked as she was.  “Oh my god,” she gasped, noticing the condom that had been opened but laid unused on the nightstand beside Drake.  Things must have gotten hot and heavy before they could put it on because the tingle in her body alone was enough to tell her what they had done.

Drake ran his hands through his hair, still not making any move to cover himself up.  “Holy shit!  What did we do?”

“From the looks of it I’d say…”

“Don’t!  Don’t say it.”  Drake stood from the bed and began to gather his clothes that were strewn all about the room.

Despite herself, Riley couldn’t help but admire his body.  “Well this is a nice view,” she said with a nervous laugh.

“Do you really think this is the time for jokes, Nevin.”

“Sorry,” Riley shrugged.  “Just trying to cut the tension.”

“Not even Olivia’s sharpest blade could cut this tension.  I can’t believe this…how did I let this happen?”

“Drake, calm down, you’re freaking out.”

“Uh-huh,” Drake said buttoning his jeans, “join me, won’t you?”

“No…I won’t.  We’ve both wanted this for a long time now.  It was bound to happen.”

“Not this way…not when neither of us even remember it and not when you’re marrying my best friend in three days.”

“I’m only marrying him because you want me to.”

“Don’t say that, Nevin.”

“Why?  It’s true,” she said, watching him pull a t-shirt over his head, “it should be…”

Riley stopped, a breath caught in her throat watching Drake tug his t-shirt down his waist.  “Ummm…Drake?” she stammered, nodding to the t-shirt.  “Where did you get that?

Drake looked down at what he had assumed was his standard plain white t-shirt and saw the word “Mr.” in bold black letter screen printed on the front.  “I don’t…I don’t know.”  

When he turned in search of his normal shirt, Riley gasped again.  “Oh.my.god.”  Across the back of the t-shirt were the words “Just Married – Cupid’s Wedding Chapel, Las Vegas.”

Drake ripped the shirt off again holding it to see the back.  “No, this can’t be true,” he stammered.

Riley rose from the bed and scooped up her own clothes.  Sifting through them quickly, she found what her gut knew would be there, a shirt matching Drake’s with the word “Mrs.” emblazoned on the front in black script lettering.  “Drake…” she said, holding it up for him to see.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit…” Drake began chanting, pacing nervously around the room.  It didn’t matter that it was 9AM, Drake needed whiskey, stat.  Pouring a finger for each of them with shaky hands, he carried Riley’s glass over to where she stood silently staring out the window, clutching her t-shirt.

“No, thank you,” she shook her head when he tried to hand it to her.  “Isn’t that what got us here in the first place?”

Drake nodded solemnly.  “Look what you made me do,” he whispered to the glass in his hand, not caring if it was crazy to be talking to the booze.

“How much do you remember?” Riley asked.

“Some…not a lot,” Drake replied.

“Tell me.”

“Uh, let’s see.  We were in the hotel bar for a few hours.  You were keeping your distance from almost everyone. If it, ahh…weren’t for how beautiful you looked, someone might have mistaken you for me sitting there alone brooding over whiskey.”

“You weren’t alone though, Kiara was with you,” Riley said with the jealousy apparent in her voice.

Drake rolled his eyes.  “I ignore Kiara, even when she’s right next to me.”

“Oh please, Drake.  She’s a beautiful woman who clearly wants you.”

“I told you before, Nevin. You’re the only girl for me.”

Riley finally turned to meet Drake’s gaze.  “Then why have you been pushing me into this marriage to Liam.  We never even talked after Tariq’s statement like we said we would. You disappeared and left a note.”

“There was nothing to talk about, Nevin.  I’ve told you all along, I can’t give you the life you deserve.  Only Liam can do that.  That’s why no matter how hard it is to watch, I want you to marry him.”

Riley angerly turned from the window, walking over to the table and slamming down the glass of whiskey she still held.  “Well what about what I want?  You make this unilateral decision and just expect me to be okay with it.”

“Damn it, Riley,” Drake yelled, “at least some part of you must have been okay with it because you said ‘Yes’.”

“What the hell was I supposed to do?” she shouted back.  “You left! I wanted to talk about us and then talk to Liam together, but you left!  I was going to talk to him on my own that night…tell him everything even though you clearly didn’t want to be with me.  I felt like he at least deserved to know, but before I could, he was down on one knee. God, Drake,” she exclaimed throwing her arms in the air, “when he asked, I thought of you and it made my heart ache so bad and I cried.  I’m sure Liam thought they were tears of joy, but they weren’t, they were for you.  But he looked so hopeful, and I…I just couldn’t hurt him.  Not like that.  I do care about him, he’s one of my best friends.  I wanted to say no, but I didn’t want him to feel the same heartbreak I felt when I got your note.”

“I did want to be with you, Nevin.  I do want to be with you, but I can’t.  My best friend loves you and can give you the world.”

“I don’t need the world, Drake,” Riley yelled.  “I just need love…and not the kind of love I can live with…I want the kind of love I can’t live without.”  Riley crossed the room to where he stood and placed her hands on his cheeks.  “That’s you, Drake…you’re the love I can’t live without.”

Drake shook his head and reached up taking her hands from his face.  “No, Nevin.  You may not feel that for Liam now, but you will in time.  I’ve seen you getting closer throughout the tour, Nevin.  If you let yourself fall, you can have that kind of love with him.”

Hot angry tears rolled down Riley’s cheeks.  “No…no. I believe that kind of love is a once in the lifetime thing, Drake.  And I know you love me like that too, Drake.  I know you do.”

Drake nodded and wiped a tear from her cheek.  “I do. And that’s why I can step aside for your happiness.”

“Why are you so thick skulled? Look at me?  Do I look happy?  A crown and a kingdom won’t give me the happiness you think I deserve; only you can do that.  But instead you want me to marry a man I don’t love while I have to see you and long for you every day.”

“I won’t put you through that, Nevin.  I’ll leave after the wedding.  Without me in Cordonia, you can move on.”

“No, don’t say that…I can’t…I can’t lose you, Drake,” Riley said as her body shook with sobs.

“I’m sorry, Riley.  But it’s for the best.  You need to stop thinking about me, about us…the wedding is in three days.”

Riley’s breath hitched and she looked down at the t-shirt still clutched in her hand.  “I can’t have a wedding if I’m already married,” she said softly.

Drake looked at her with wide eyes.  “What? What are you saying, Nevin?”

“I’m saying I want to stay married, Drake.  I’m already married to the love of my life, I can’t…I won’t marry someone else. There isn’t going to be a wedding.”

[chalkrevelations]

Street Dance of China S3, Ep 3. It sounds like maybe I should step up my pace on these, as they’ve announced the captains for S4 now? (Yibo back, Lay Zhang back, plus a couple of new guys I don’t actually recognize yet.) When is this going to air because it is just LAUGHABLE that I can keep up with 3+ hours of this a week. Particularly if I’m going to keep obsessively re-watching Word of Honor AND try to finally finish Killer & Healer in the miniscule free time I actually have for teevee. There’s certainly no way I can watch and dither on about 3+ hours/week worth of dance show in realtime before January, at least.

ANYWAY, this ep, we get a recap of everyone falling out after the captains’ cypher, and we learn who got the final extra towels and passed through to the next round: Lu Jiao Ni, who we barely see, on Team Jackson Wang; Yuan Ye (as promised) and A Li (who we barely see) on Team Lay Zhang (ETA: Wait, we find out later that A Li isn’t even on Lay’s team, she’s on Yibo’s - he wouldn’t move her on, and she gets one of Lay’s towels instead); Bullet (as promised) on Team Wang Yibo; and Xiao Ming (as promised? maybe? as we’ve barely seen this guy?) on Team Wallace Chung.

This week: Out of 400 people, we’re down to 105. Not all of these faces are familiar, and I suspect I don’t really need to learn 90 percent of the unfamiliar faces. I … am going to go out on a limb and make a guess that one of the dancers whose name has been bolded in one of the past two episode recaps is going to be the ultimate winner, because I have umpty SYTYCD episode reactions on my LJ, and I suspect I know how this works. I wouldn’t even put money on any of those five bolded names in the previous paragraph, quite honestly. Anyway, now it’s time to start culling down to 60. We bring out the team captains, and my first reaction is “MY EYES” because wth are some of you wearing? Wow. Yibo’s shoelaces are all over his jacket. Wallace looks like he rolled a flasher on the street for his trenchcoat. Lay Zhang is wearing a baggy pink jumpsuit, and I guess, OK, it’s easier to maneuver bathroom breaks in one of those when you have a dick, but that’s definitely a fashion trend that should have stayed back in the ‘80s. I guess questionable fashion is an international phenomenon.

There’s also an empty chair for the promised Mystery Guest, and there’s a game with clues, and a lot of guesses from our captains about who the Mystery Guest will be, and Jackson does A Bit through the whole thing. I don’t know whether to be entertained or annoyed by him. He’s the only one without some egregiously questionable fashion choices (so far) this episode, so maybe he gets a pass. Anyway, I don’t have the pop cultural context to understand the guesses, and I also don’t have either the pop cultural context or the knowledge of this area of dance to grok the Mystery Guest’s identity, but he’s Huang Bo, and apparently he had more than 1000 dance performances in the 1990s, so he must be at least as old as me and Wallace, if not older. Yibo takes the opportunity to make the – very NON-politic – remark that maybe HE wasn’t even born yet at the time? That … is not the way to win friends and influence people, Infant. Also, the Mystery Guest is NOT the person Jackson kept doing A Bit about. The reveal is all very dramatic, and he does a lil’ bit of choreography from of each of the four Extant Captains’ videos before he takes off his mask, and they act appropriately impressed, and there are some girls with short shorts among his backup dancers, so that all happened. The show obviously wants me to be very impressed by him. Show also tells us he’ll have a special skill that will be very important and at least leads us to believe that he’s going to be the “life-saver,” so the audience immediately curries favor, or at least plays at it.

Next up: Rules. Eliminations this week involve contestants self-selecting into groups of anywhere from one to five people and performing for a panel of all the captains. Teams pull a number out of a hat for performance order. Thumbs up from all four captains, you go to the next round. Abstentions from all captains, you go home. Thumbs up from some and abstentions from others, you face the possibility of a call-out from other contestants, whereupon you have to dance for your life battle to find out which of you stays and which of you goes. Oh, and we’re only going to keep going until the 60 available seats are filled, and then we’re done. If you’re number 35, you’d better be prepared to battle someone earlier and kick their ass, or you’re fucked, you don’t even get to dance. I’ve said it before: Audentes Fortuna adiuvat. Only wait, ETA: There will be some last minute BS rules fuckery, in a way that is clearly intended to save someone in particular, which I feel some kind of way about - and it is not really the way that almost everyone on the show seems to feel - but I guess we’ll get to that later.

And cue ridiculously long nattering, so we’re going to cut here.

First group is Lin Meng (Team Wallace), Teng Zai (Team Lay), Bing - of the infamous motorbike flirtation - and Dian Men (both Team Yibo), along with a dude we haven’t actually seen yet, Tang Qian (also Team Yibo). Your lack of even B-roll so far is concerning re: your chances in this competition, Tang Qian. I’m just sayin’. Anyway, this is a powerhouse group, and at least Lin Meng and Teng Zai are familiar with each other because they’re from the same crew, and Xiao Bao remarks from the audience of contestants that these guys are going to go through, no matter what. They’re going to do a totally popping routine. My sound drops out at the beginning which … yeah, makes them look even more like a boyband at the beginning, in their matching baseball uniform shirts. So, here’s the thing, they’re a little muddled, they don’t move smoothly around each other on stage - their dance moves are coordinated, but they’re not moving in space like a group that understands each other. (Somewhere in here, my sound comes back, and Yibo already can’t hold still to the music.) The other thing is, though - all of these guys are very good at what they do, they finally hit their stride a minute or so in, and when they do, they hit it hard. I’m frankly surprised they don’t get passed right through to the next round, but Jackson abstains on the vote, and when called upon to explain himself, it turns out he just wants to see them battle. I can understand the impulse, Jackson, but this is already super stressful on all the dancers, and it doesn’t escape my notice that you’re the only one of the four captains without a dog in this particular fight, so a little bit you look like you’re doing this just because you can. Remember this, because it will set a bad example for an 11th -hour vote. Anyway, there’s the chance for a callout, which no one takes because the entire audience is convinced this group is too good to beat. Five of 60 seats taken.

Group two is Shen Kai Xiang – the Jack Ma lookin’ dude. He’s flying solo. He gets to stand around uncomfortably for a while onstage while Special Guest Huang Bo does A Bit making fun of all of the captains’ speech patterns and accents and pronunciation, except Yibo’s, because Yibo apparently never talks. Ha ha. (I’m also wondering if there’s some socio-cultural stuff underlying some of this that I’m not cued in enough to fully understand.) Huang Bo then tells the contestant that Jackson has probably fucked him over by praising him too effusively (he came from Jackson’s team, and Jackson already is displaying a tendency to rhapsodize about how everything is “ART”), so all the captains now will have inflated expectations that Shen Kai Xiang is surely only going to fail to meet. I’m beginning to suspect that Huang Bo’s Special Guest Superpower is not “lifesaver” but “kind of annoying asshole.” Maybe it’s to take that particular spotlight off of Chick. ANYWAY, Shen Kai Xiang FINALLY gets to perform, and he gets a little bit of a slow start, but he packs in a lot of elements and gets a LOT of good air in his moves once he gets wound up. He’s lyrical and super emo about it. I’m kind of “eh” on him – technically, he’s good, but I’m not particularly connecting with him, which I’m willing to admit could be a me thing, as everyone else seems super-impressed. Three captains pass him through. Yibo does not and explains this decision as personal preference – he likes more “underground” styles, more battle styles. Huang Bo brings back the issue of too-high expectations to help explain why Shen Kai Xiang isn’t being passed directly to the next round, even though Yibo just explained his decision and that is literally not the reason he explicitly gave. Anyway, Shen Kai Xiang gets no call outs, which seems to surprise Yibo, and we’re at six of 60 seats taken.

In quick succession, we move through Liang Hua Jie – we don’t see much of him, but we learn that while Wallace likes his musicality, Yibo doesn’t like his face (OK, doesn’t like his facial expressions, which, what can I say? I get this. If I’d had the power to unilaterally send home Lacey Schwimmer on her season of SYTYCD, I’d have done it, that’s how fucking annoying I found the way she’d mug for the camera the entire time she danced. Like I couldn’t even watch her dancing, because I was too distracted by what she was doing with her FACE the whole time.); Jian De Chao (wait, is this Chao from the first episode?) & Chen Zui – who, from what we get to see of them have some good flow and move pretty well together, but can get a little bit mushy in their moves, and Yibo likes their skills, but Lay thinks they don’t feel like a group, which what? Incorrect; and a group that’s dubbed themselves Purple Storm Show, which includes Alex from Jackson’s team and four other people who I can’t even catch – we barely see their performance, and Lay likes them, but Jackson thinks they’re flat. I can’t tell if any or all of these guys were sent through to the next round or sent home, but if they didn’t make it, then  :(  because I liked Alex, and he got hit in the eye for this, he deserves better than to get sent home because his team can’t get it together. We still have no group that’s been passed through by all four captains.

And then, next up is another powerhouse team: Gongsu Wu Ming and Hei Zai (Team Lay), George and Xiao Ming (Team Wallace), and (Xiao) Bai (Team Jackson). Yibo is skeptical about an all B-boy group, and don’t make me fight you, Yibo, because an all B-boy group is like my dream come true (sorry, poppers; sorry, lockers; my heart truly belongs to the B-boys, they are my favorite). We learn they added a flip at the last minute – an assisted flip, with a couple of them flinging George into the air over the other two of them. Wu Ming thinks that George is the only one of all the competitors who could do it, but George – who has a little more skin in the game than anyone else, as the guy who could potentially land on his head wrong - is a bit concerned about whether they’re going to pull it off. They start, and they’re all good, a little bit muddled before they hit their stride, but the slo-mo cartwheel is great, and from there, they’re off and running. This is why I like the B-boys – I know it takes a lot out of you to do this, but there is nothing – nothing­ – like the magnetic energy they can generate when they’re in their performance headspace and everything is flowing. This is a performance, and Wu Ming has talked a little bit about wanting to step up breaking, and if this is the sort of thing he wants to do, I’m all for it – give him the platform now. I’m going to take just a minute to single out Bai and say that he’s better when he’s not doing A Bit like he did in his initial performance for Lay Zhang – he’s much more electric here, and someone else’s choreography may make the difference. Jackson, Yibo, Lay – they’re all out of their seats, none of them can hold still in the face of this. We get to the end, and unfortunately, everyone else is kind of cluttered and mushy moving into position for the flip – that is not a way to go out guys, DO NOT DO THAT at the last minute – but then George f’kn NAILS the flip, so that’s thankfully the last impression they leave. The captain’s faces are a picture. (Except Wallace, who’s suddenly too cool to give us anything, apparently.) FIRST ALL-PASS. George’s assessment: “Not bad.” :facepalm: OK, Mr. Cool Guy. They also cut in a post-interview bit with Bai about the performance, and he notes that they all know each other, they’ve been battling each other for like, a decade, now. Dance together more, guys.

Moving on, we fortunately have another very strong group to follow them: Gai Gai, Wang Tao and Huang Xiao, all from Jackson’s team, and you can tell he badly, badly wants to start in on the ART! bit but he (loudly) keeps his mouth shut about this group until after the performance. The only one of these three we’ve seen so far this season has been Gai Gai, but they all dance in the same group together, and they seem to be well-known by a lot of the other competitors, particularly Huang Xiao, both as a dancer and a choreographer. They say they’re doing jazz, although I’d be more likely to call this contemporary, if I was going to put them in a box. They are gorgeous – lyrical, fantastic dance vocabulary, amazing choreography, beautiful musicality, and the way they move together as a unit is … :chef’s kiss:  I think Huang Xiao may be the best of the three, technically, but there’s something ineffably charismatic about Gai Gai that’s pulling focus a bit – just a bit – more than the other two in this performance. If there’s a weak link, it’s Wang Tao, and really, that’s only by comparison with the other two, which is a really high bar. We get some shots of the audience of competitors worrying about Yibo’s reaction, given his preference for the old-school battle dancers and an apparent “strictness” with urban dancers and related genres, but these three also get an All-Pass to the next round, and Yibo talks to them a little bit about the choreography and his (complimentary) reactions to the performance before they leave the stage.

And then. Oh, dear. Then we get a group of three – Da Mao, A Li and Tall(? Maybe? It looked like he was going to get out of this anonymously – probably lucky for him – but then the subtitles threw up this name on him at the last minute) – who are the only krumpers who’ve made it this far. Lay Zhang is really promoting them, because he really wants to see a bigger krump presence, and he’s really nervous about their performance, and he really, really should not have pinned his hopes on these three, because I hate to say it but they are a hot fk’n mess. They are … not good. I can’t believe any of the three made it this far, and in fact, we learn after their performance, while everyone is sitting in a kind of stunned horror (and y’all, I am not exaggerating for effect there), that Yibo did not pass A Li on from his team, that she got one of Lay Zhang’s final extra battle towels. I mean, there’s an obvious gap in the quality of this performance compared to everyone else we’ve seen. There’s also a lot of pacing around and standing around instead of dancing. They’re trying for the attitude, but they’re not managing it. They do manage to get an embarrassed reaction from Chick, which says something all on its own, as I wasn’t aware that he had any shame. Other competitors also are doing the embarrassment-squick cringe in the audience. Lay Zhang is literally hiding behind his clipboard. This is the first All-Out we get, where they’re directly eliminated – not even Lay can bring himself to vote “yes” on them. Now, all the krumpers are gone, and Lay is visibly sad and frustrated, but as we appear to move to a little bit of a break, Yibo displays the most emotional intelligence of anyone there and asks Lay to teach him how to krump, to distract him and get him actually doing the dancing he enjoys for a little bit. It’s also a chance for Yibo to learn a new thing, and he talks about his chance to improve in a little interview bit from later on that’s cut in here. I mean, yes, that actually was kind of a sad attempt at krump during the cypher, my dude, so this can only help you, but you also are being an extremely good guy, giving your fellow captain some emotional support right now. Thumbs up.

Next up, we have AK Dong (Team Wallace), also flying solo, and they give us a little heart-tugging B-roll about how he doesn’t have a team with him there, so he’s going it alone. He’s fantastic right out of the gate - good musicality, clean and precise, and he’s got a nice texture to his performance, it feels … full even though it doesn’t feel as big and expansive as some of the other dancers. Unfortunately, Lay doesn’t agree with me (incorrect), says he wants a performance that’s more elegant and “balanced,” and is the single holdout vote, which opens my dude up to a call-out challenge. This is the guy who looks like comedian Hank Chen, which has overshadowed his dancing twice now, because he had to listen to it from Haung Bo when he came out to dance, and he CANNOT catch a break, because now he gets challenged by three teams, including Bouboo’s team, which also includes Klash, Bullet and Colin (all Team Yibo), plus Boris (Team Lay), who we’ve only seen B-roll of so far although he speaks good Chinese, despite being from … I’m not sure where, but not China? AK Dong complains about how Boris looks at him with innocent eyes and tells him that they have no option other than to challenge, which is true (ETA: insofar as we know at this point), because they’re #36, and the 60 slots would almost certainly fill up before they even get a chance to dance. This team wins the bottle spin against the other two challengers, and I mean. :hands: This is a slaughter. They’re five-on-one, and they’re all really good at what they do, they make it look effortless, and AK Dong’s face is going to kill me. Wallace actually does vote for him, but the other three vote for the team, and that’s five more seats filled, and AK Dong eliminated, and I’m annoyed (although not as much as I’m gonna be) because I liked him, and I would have liked for him to get a chance to dance without having to listen to the Hank Chen nonsense at least once.

Next, we have Li Yue & Sha Sha, who appear to dance together on the regular. They have a kind of sultry number put together as the Green Snake and the White Snake that is … hm. I don’t know if we’re classifying this as urban or jazz for the purposes of the show, but it’s another piece that fits more into my contemporary box, if we were classifying them for most of the Western dance spaces I’ve seen. They’re good, as befits this stage of the competition, but a little inconsistent, technically. Also, I don’t find them particularly exciting to watch – I feel like something’s missing, although I can’t quite put my finger on what. I’m not sure their flow is consistent, and they’re probably not helped by following Gai Gai, Huang Xiao and Wang Tao. They get three yes votes from Lay, Yibo and Jackson, although they are … enough to maybe make Yibo a slight bit uncomfortable, being the shy and fragile homosocial forest creature that he may be, or that he may be getting edited as, who knows. Huang Bo pokes at Lay Zhang about his reaction to and vote for them. He also basically says that Wallace didn’t vote for them because Wallace wasn’t turned on by them, because Wallace is still doing his imperturbable cool-as-a-cucumber routine. Wallace’s hold-out vote opens them up to a call-out, and several groups come down to challenge, including – bad luck for Li Yue and Sha Sha – TI, who win the bottle spin. This group includes choreographer Zheng Jian Peng, as well as Su Lianya, who I didn’t realize was a TI member, both Team Wallace, along with … oh my god, Wei Ming, who’s the “Sir, what are you doing?” guy from Episode 2 when Wallace was giving out towels to poppers like candy, and I’m kind of pleased he’s made it this far, just based on that moment, alone, never mind any dancing skills. Rounding out the group are Long Long and Wei Lin, both from Team Yibo, and I think we got B-roll of Wei Lin at some point during Yibo’s eliminations in the first couple of eps. I know nothing about Long Long at this point. At any rate, everybody in this group is so good, I can finally see how they got their rep – fantastic musicality, and a great job of working as a unit. They feel like a team, even when they don’t manage to be quiiiiite synchronized. I’m not really feeling their costumes. Su Lianya continues to be a standout, even in a group that sets the bar this high. Wallace’s composure finally breaks when the other team captains evince interest in poaching her, and oh my god, he still has the hair elastic that he held for her at her initial performance, that they said would be a token of their vow to go all the way in the competition together. OK, I give Wallace a lot of shit, but this is actually kind of adorable. He literally pulls it out of his pocket to tell the other captains they can’t have her and to plead with her to remember their promise to each other. TI gets three votes and moves on. (Lay, still apparently captivated by the snake ladies although not enough to bald-facedly vote for them in the wake of TI’s performance, abstains.)

Next up are Tao and CiCi, and OK. I’m going to be honest here. I think they’re leveraging the “couple” schtick for all it’s worth, and good for them, it looks like they can pull it off, because I think some of the amazed reaction we get from the captains and from the audience is influenced a lot by their coupleness, but at the same time, I think some of the amazed reaction we get from the captains and from the audience is actually influenced by their coupleness rather than their dancing. I mean, Su Lianya and Wei Lin are in the audience of competitors clutching each other’s hands and crying, and it seems to be just as much about Tao telling CiCi out loud that he loves her just before the music starts and the fact that they kiss as part of the piece, if not more than it’s about their actual dancing. The show is also really pushing me on this, because whereas, with everyone else, it tosses up closed captions that tell me what moves are happening (in addition to dialogue subs), now I’m getting things like “heaven-made match.” They’re good, but I think they actually also suffer a bit from following the Gai Gai/Huang Xiao/Wang Tao powerhouse, because I think we’re unlikely to get anything on the lyrical side of things that’s going to match up to that for the rest of the day. Tao and CiCi are better than Li Yue and Sha Sha were, and it is pretty badass the way she manages to make herself so small and compact she literally disappears behind him for that last little bit, and if they’d won the bottle spin on the last callout, they would have won the challenge, I have no doubt. But. :hands: I think the show has actually done that thing Huang Bo accused Jackson of earlier and set my expectations too high. I’m’a sound like Yibo – or like Yibo normally would, because he also seems to get suckered into the overwhelmed reaction for this – and say that I think Tao was better in the less lyrical style when he danced with Yibo and Bing in the Ep 2 towel battle. They get an All-Pass from the captains and talk about their inspiration for the piece, which apparently is a couple who confessed their love to each other the day before the girl had to go into COVID quarantine, and well, now I guess I feel like just a little bit of an asshole for not appreciating the COVID love story properly? Anyway, the captains then keep asking them intrusive questions about their relationship, and Huang Bo mocks Lay for apparently never being in love so he won’t understand what it’s like, and I’m cringing in my seat a little before Jackson gets us back on track and Tao and CiCi finally go sit down.

Then Huang Bo takes the chance to go over to the contestants who haven’t performed yet and stress them out about how few of the 60 available seats are left. I mean, I guess it’s part of competition, but come on, dude.

ANYWAY, next up, we have a group calling themselves Team Wake Up – it’s the waackers, and this group includes Xiao Bao and San Jin from Team Lay, along with a guy we haven’t seen yet, Tu Zi; Meng Di from Team Yibo; and Gao Shi Yu, who we also haven’t seen, from Team Wallace. They start working it, and I’m like, oh wait … and then they hit the Cat Walk, and I’m like, oh shit, and a light bulb finally goes off, because I’ve been super-fk’n slow, but now they’ve shown me what this genre is about, and I’m interested to see what they do here, because a lot of this performance could be straight off the floors of the ball scene. The entire group is pretty good, although I do think Gao Shi Yu is the weak link, she’s not quiiiiite up to the standard of the rest of them. They move well as a group, though, good coordination, sharp and clean, fantastic musicality, high energy all the way through, with EXCELLENT attitude, which is half the battle, because if you’re not confident for this kind of thing – or if you can’t at least fake it flawlessly – you might as well not even be out there. They all do lose a little bit of focus when they’re in the background as they break out for their individual moves, and they fall apart a tiny bit near the end. Also, Meng Di’s belt is off-center, and I know that sounds super picky, but it kept distracting me, so I wish that hadn’t been the case. Xiao Bao is definitely still the standout here – he takes the lead from the minute they come out, with the mic, and never really relinquishes it. We finally get to see San Jin perform, and his extension could be better. Tu Zi must be lacking in the charisma department to not have shown up before this, because he’s better than I expected. Before they started, the group that Xiao Jie and Yang Kai are in together – who still haven’t performed – were debating if they should challenge this group, but Xiao Jie advised waiting to see how good they were, and then after the performance is all, “nooo, we should not challenge,” and props to you for not just writing off the waackers, my man, because they get an All-Pass, and there’s not even a chance for a callout. Before we move on, Wallace clams he’s learned some waacking during the show, and the other captains (led by Jackson, who calls him gege) make him demonstrate, and the contestants, who know what side their bread is buttered on, applaud.

Available seat check. Yibo participates in further stressing out the contestants by saying “Like, a dozen?” All y’all need to be challenging whatever chance you get. Now I bet you’re sorry you didn’t challenge Shen Kai Xiang back at the beginning, aren’t you?

Next up is our group of X-Crew representatives, hop-hop, and Yibo is excited. I almost expect him to do a little dance in his seat. Yang Kai helpfully lets me know that this group is from the top hip-hop crew in China. Oh, hey, that’s Qin Yu, from Team Wallace, the guy who Gongsu Wu Ming immediately recognized as the weak link in one of the towel battles and got up on; the guy who subsequently got taken out by Teng Zai, My Beloved. Qin Yu, the guy we hadn’t even had B-roll on, and still don’t. I wonder if I’m reading too much into that. He’s joined by Flea (which I’m assuming is a direct translation, as it doesn’t sound like “flea” when he says his name?) and Ding, also from Team Wallace - neither of whom we’ve seen before, I think - along with Ting and Lei Xiao Yang from Team Jackson. This is also the first time we’ve seen Lei Xiao Yang. I … feel weirdly unconfident about the famed X-Crew, given we haven’t seen more of them before this. Then again, we’d only seen Gai Gai from her group, so maybe this is a BigSurprise!edit … Ting comes out hard and heavy, and I actually think this is the best performance we’ve seen from her so far. She spends a lot of time out in front on this one, and I don’t think I got from her initial appearance or from her towel battle performances just how good she actually is. Overall though … I am … not that impressed with this group. They start out strong, but then they get sloppy. They have trouble working as a unit, which is surprising from people who supposedly have experience dancing together. They’re all very good, but they’re not synchronized. A lot of their solo showcase bits lack complexity, and that is an understatement. Qin Yu still has some of that nice fluidity along with his pretty face, but he’s not balanced, and he absolutely does not have the finesse he needs to pull this off. They all do move into the end strong, together again, hard, power behind their moves - almost everything from the slo-mo move is good - but … it’s a little late, y’all. That took way too long to get back together. And then, they inexplicably descend into … it’s not even sloppiness, it’s an utter hot mess during, like, the last 15 seconds of the performance, which is absolutely not the final impression you want to leave. And … wow. Shit. There are captains who actually agree with me on this. Sometimes you see the expected top dancers allowed to slide some in these early rounds of competition shows, but not this time – Wallace and Yibo both vote yes, but Jackson and Lay both abstain, and Jackson … wow. Wow. Is disappointed in them and expected more. Despite the fact that he’s like, 12, and that he’s done this to past groups just because he wanted to see them battle, a little bit this actually has a vague feeling of your dad telling you how much you’ve let him down. The audience is shocked, but I’m glad to hear someone say it. It was a good - if spotty - performance but certainly not the best we’ve seen.

So, we have a callout, and the group with Xiao Jie and Yang Kai, which also includes some guys named Shen Zi Hao, Xiao Zhi Bin and Oscar, pounces. And that is a very deliberate word choice, because these guys are on X-Crew like a lion on the trailing gazelle. They’re in their Men In Black suits (ETA: Wait, no, I think maybe they’re Agent Smith suits), and the audience of other competitors is losing it. Xiao Bao is very excited about Xiao Jie. Both Yibo and Jackson look like they’re in actual physical pain, to be forced to make the choice that’s coming up. Ting looks like she’s getting ready to throw up – she’s accepting this with less equanimity than she did the possible results of her initial performance, at least on the surface. I … am dreading losing her, actually, because I suspect that’s what’s getting ready to happen, and I am so so sorry, baby, that you worked so hard to carry your crew like that and they couldn’t keep their shit together. On the one hand, I’m impressed they’re pitting this level of competition against each other so early. On the other, I feel Jackson’s and Yibo’s pain. God. God. The Xiao Jie-Yang Kai group is here to f’kn battle. This is shaping up to be a slaughter. They are fast, clean, precise, great musicality, complex moves, super performance. They’re synchronized, high energy, fantastic animation – which could be a little cheesy, but they’re confident and fearless enough to pull it off - fun and interesting. They are maybe a little bit too gimmicky to be perfect for my taste, but I’m not the one voting them through, and what they’ve come up with is perfect for the audience that matters – the captains, the majority of which are 20-something-year-old boys – and knowing your audience, and performing for them, is a skill, too. BIGGEST (and frankly, only) ISSUE: Somebody fucked up a move, right at the beginning … I think maybe Yang Kai? (ETA: Yah, it was Yang Kai, ugh, what a time for that to happen.) If you’re going to fuck up, best to do it at the very beginning, I guess, and then give this performance afterward, to mitigate it as much as possible, but that one misstep gives the captains enough excuse put off a decision they really don’t want to make, like it’s not just going to make it worse to kick the can down the road a few minutes. Split vote, 2-2 (I thiiink, Yibo and Jackson for X-Crew, Lay and Wallace for the challengers?), which throws it to a further battle. Ting and Xiao Jie, one-on-one, and both of them are feeling the pressure of competing for their entire team instead of just themselves. Two rounds, hiphop and locking. So, each of them is better in their specialty. Ting’s got some fantastic, precise moves for the hiphop round. Xiao Jie is not as good in this round; I do notice he’s got a more directly confrontational style when he’s battling. I feel like she’s doing more waacking than locking in the locking round. Overall, she’s cleaner, more precise, he’s got a little bit more energy. I wouldn’t want to make this decision, frankly. I think Ting was better technically, but Xiao Jie might be the better performer – better at all that other stuff that adds up to stage presence. I do wonder how much of the captains’ decision is influenced by the groups, and who the captains are or aren’t willing to lose, even though it’s supposed to be based on this 1x1 battle. Just looking at who the show has put emphasis on already, we’ve got Ting vs. Xiao Jie AND Yang Kai, and I don’t know that they’re going to want to let that one-two punch go. Wallace votes Ting and X-Crew. Yibo and Lay vote Xiao Jie and the challengers. Jackson, the coward, abstains. Looks like Ting and X-Crew are going home, and this is the first cut that I’m genuinely upset about seeing. Ting feels bad for letting her crew down, but they let you down first, baby, or you wouldn’t even have been in that position.

Available seat check: 12. Dancers left: 27. Well.

We’re coming up on two hours now, and there’s clearly some kind of drama we want to get to, because we whip through the next few performances – few names, limited time spent on them. The ones who do make it through are likely cannon fodder in the next couple of rounds. There’s a group of four in khakis that gets sent through to the next round; Yibo liked their moves. Guy named Zhan Ke in a suit goes through to the next round. We’ve turned into a clip show now, and the screen literally says “ … ” at one point as each group of competitors gets 3 seconds of airtime. Cut to three seats left out of the 60. There’s about seven people left, and … that includes Chick. I have a sinking feeling this guy is going to be the real focus, at this point. He’s paired up with some dude named Long, and they have lost the bottle spin on callout after callout after callout, so they’ve never had a chance to challenge, and now, look at these morose motherfuckers, still sitting in the bleachers. I almost feel bad for them.

So, three seats left, and the next group is three people: Yang Qi aka “Apple” from Team Jackson, Lin from Team Lay and Bobo from Team Wallace. Urban dancers. I lose sound on them right at the beginning, but they’ve got some nice sharp moves, good choreography, they work well as a unit. Solid performance, if not the best we’ve seen. Apple’s got the best technique, I think. Audience likes them a lot. We get a cut to Chick and the other competitors who haven’t danced yet as we count down for the vote, and they are all dying. Three votes yes. Yibo abstains. Huang Bo is so prepared for this group to be sent right through that he starts clapping and congratulating them, and Yibo has to be all, “Wait, no. Not yet.” The captains give their reasoning: Jackson says that he felt their power, emotion, speed all deserved full marks. Yibo agrees.

Yibo agrees.

…

...

…

Their faces in response, y’all. Their little WTF faces as he explains that he really just wants to see the other dancers, too. Oh my god, Yibo. You can’t just say that out loud. Are you serious with this, you can’t even make up a thing to fake critique them on? Cut to a later interview with Bobo, who’s been the least able to school his face journey in response to this: “Wang Yibo, I won’t forget.” Also, Bobo says, you’re not even hot. (lol) Joking aside, the group goes on to make all the correct noises about sure, it’s a competition, you face competitors, it’s what happens, because what are you gonna say? Meanwhile, to be completely honest, I’m probably the person who’s been least able to school their face journey in response to this, because come on, Yibo. It’d be one thing if you were making some kind of statement about the way they set this up from the beginning, with all competitors unable to participate, but I’m pretty sure you’re actually doing this to give Chick another chance, because you have been inexplicably all up on his jock since he showed up, what is it about this guy? I don’t get it. At all.

So, we get a callout, and everyone left challenges, of course, because this is probably the last chance. The audience is rooting for Chick. I still don’t get it. Bottle spin ends up on … Zhao Hai Jie, from Team Wallace, who we’ve never yet seen perform. Here’s the thing: If he can win this battle, then he only takes one seat, leaving another two seats available. However, he is NOT going to win this battle, not without ripping off any figleaf of fair competition that the show may have, because he’s just not that great. If he wins, there’s no way around the fact, right in your face, that it’s a strategic vote. He does not win. Four votes for Apple, Lin and Bobo. Sixty seats filled.

HOWEVER, just in case you were worried there may be any integrity here, director Lu Wei comes ambling out to say, hey, you know those rules we have in place? Well, fuck ‘em. Who cares. Let everybody left battle, and whoever wins that battle can have a seat along with the 60 other people. I’m going to translate this one, because despite the limitations of my Level 1 Duolingo Mandarin, I have umpty SYTYCD episode reactions on my LJ and I feel like I’m pretty fluent in Dance Show BS: “We really want to keep somebody who’s left, so there’s going to be some chicanery on our part.” They really do not want Chick to go home, y’all. I know it’s him. It’s super extra obvious they’re desperately trying to save him, at this point. And I am here to tell you that if Chick ends up on this show and Ting goes home, there will be nothing on this earth that could possibly resurrect Chick from the Pit of My Dislike.

Anyway, we get Dai Dai from Team Lay, who describes herself as a fusion dancer and is pretty good for the first 40 seconds or so of her music and then completely loses the thread and kind of falls apart. The captains do not seem impressed. Possibly they also know we’re just killing time until we get to Chick. Up next is Su, who is Very Dramatic. He doesn’t say what team he’s from, but given Wallace’s reactions, I suspect he’s from Team Wallace. I suspect Yibo’s not going to like his face. His performance goes increasingly off the rails as he goes on. He’s got a lot of goodwill from the audience of competitors, but no. This is not a winning performance. And then we get Chick & Long, literally the last to perform. Chick spends the entire time doing A Bit. Long, who anyone barely remembers is even there, does 2/3+ of the dancing. Everyone – everyone – is apparently vastly entertained by Chick, and I just … :hands: Fine. He’s a character, but I have yet to see anything in three episodes, across, like, 7 hours, that lets me see whether he can really dance or not. Yibo literally tells Jackson, “He doesn’t have many tricks, but he’s got a ton of ideas” and later says he’s a B-boy without a power move. Anyway, one vote for Su (Wallace), three votes for Chick and Long. We’re at 62 dancers, and I cannot believe I’m going to be subjected to Chick’s continued clownery when Ting has to go home.

Thank GOD we’re activating the Special Guest Host Powers, the first of which is “REVIVE,” i.e., bring someone back who was eliminated. Yibo is immediately like, omg, the hip-hop group. Then we do Yet Another Bit where the captains cater to Huang Bo so that he’ll take their advice on who to revive, and it goes on too long when we are, my god, two hours and fourteen minutes into this. Meanwhile, Yibo reiterates, the hip-hop group. Yeah, Yibo, this I approve of - if I gotta watch you fall all over yourself over Chick, you need to get Ting back for me. So, we’re finally getting the captains’ actual recommendations: Jackson says the hip-hop group, possibly feeling bad about the fact that he’s the one who spiked their chance the first time around? Yibo is all, me too! Yes! That one! It’s kind of adorable. Also, yes, Yibo, you need to get Ting back for me. Lay says Li Yue and Sha Sha, the white and green snakes. Wallace recommends a popping group that I don’t even know if we saw perform? At any point in the past 7+ hours of three episodes? Wallace, are you high? Anyway, THANK GOD, Huang Bo brings back the X-Crew group. We’re at 67 dancers.

Second Special Guest Host Power is … “battle?” So, we’re setting up Qiang Qi Da Zhan, aka Seven to Smoke, which they’ve apparently done in past seasons? Each captain picks two people – eight total – to participate. Twenty minutes total. Increments of 30 seconds each to battle. And I guess you have to accumulate seven points in various battles. We don’t get to hear the captains’ picks, but I can see that AK Dong is called back for this one. Also, I spot one of the krumpers. (:eyeroll: Really, Lay? Because I know that was you.) We see some clips of this. We see AK Dong get to six points. He … maybe gets his seventh point? Anyway, he says in the last interview clip that he’s here. I guess we officially find out the Seven to Smoke results next ep?

Also next episode: Divided into two groups and battling by genre for the next elimination. Five rounds. Also looks like captains might get a chance to poach from other teams. Also some wacky fuckery with the dancers’ heads that looks like it’s going to be stomping all over my embarrassment squick, argh.

Finally, we get a peek at hotpot, and it sounds like they ended up with 70 dancers, so three people managed to get seven points in Seven to Smoke? And somebody’s mom is apparently coming to hotpot, but I’d have to watch the actual hotpot show to find out whose mom, and we’re out.

[holyjareau]

imo, the show was often unilaterally focused on Piper, but only on what she could do for others (Piper the wife and Piper the mother) rather than who she was as a person. Piper's individual characterization was lost sometime around s5 as soon as she got pregnant, and being a mother and wife pretty much became her sole defining characteristic for the rest of the series. I would be very interested to hear what you define as Piper's mental issues/trauma, bc as you say it doesn't get said enough

this has been in my inbox forever and i’m just getting around to it so my apologies.

but okay. so. yes. i think a lot of tv shows fall into this weird place where like. all of their characters begin with these kinda vague personalities because you’re just getting to know them. and as the show goes on, you pick up more pieces and stuff . and that’s great. that’s interesting and entertaining and it takes you on a journey and all. but often what happens is many shows fall into this pit where writers either get lazy, they change, or whatever, and the actors are tired of playing the part or whatever . and like. the characters become like. caricatures of themselves. and it just gets exhausting to watch because they’re not like. real people anymore.

Piper's individual characterization

so now for the charmed thing. so from the beginning. i have loved piper. like she’s the middle sister, overlooked, quiet, reserved, pessimistic but also realistic, gentle, thoughtful, all that. we see right away that she loves to cook .. she’s so happy her family is back together. she kept in touch with phoebe behind prue’s back. but she’s loyal to the both of them. her first idea was to have a reunion dinner when phoebe came home. she’s literally so cute n she deserves a hug. but no like. as we go on, we see that she wants to be good, she wants a stable life with no more loss, she Loves Love !! like. she wants to just be happy , open her own restaurant n just cook. she’s also so shy .. definitely panicky and anxious. and she doesn’t trust herself. she’s skeptical of everything, and she’s very thoughtful when it comes to big situations. even in the early days with leo and into season 2, she mentioned a few things about like ��i’ve been thinking a lot about this...” and you can see she’s good at communicating with people. she’s also got these other dimensions to her like . she is interested in lots of cuisine types, she loves to read (and is a camus fan !!) , she drives a jeep (which i wanna know how she got bc i have questions), when she found out she was a witch her first thought was just . i need to go and see if i am still a good person . and she went to church. prue was surprised to learn that piper enjoys knitting. in the early seasons (especially mid-late season 3) we saw her with her plants and all. she’s just this natural peacekeeper. but like. we literally got a crying scene in the second episode because she was so conflicted about this. and she’s such a deep and complex character that i fell in love with so fast . and like . literally my favourite fictional character to exist . genuinely holly breathed so much life into piper . anyway . so. here’s the thing.

being a mother and wife pretty much became her sole defining characteristic for the rest of the series

like. piper was who i described above. and like . i kinda think . a bit. that like . the writers . especially in s4 . were like . hmm well  . she’s just lost prue, she’s gonna be grieving . and like we need more for her. so. she’s been married to leo for the better part of a year, been with him for like . 3 years. so. let’s maybe consider giving them a kid but not just yet . just Content kinda stuff. so anyway they drop little hints in here and there starting in like . 4x07 i think? which . brain drain really paid the rent . fully just. holly did so well. but like. that ep was just. a neat way of looking into her mind and seeing the horrors of manipulation and gaslighting and everything . and of course holly knocked it out of the park. but at that point, they were kinda like . hmm . kids ? and they started toying with the idea, having piper and leo consider it, talk about it, they had paige and phoebe ask about it , all of that good stuff. as you do. made for some funny tv at some points. and like . i really, really Get It . when piper’s like . ahh the baby wouldn’t be safe around here !!!! like. Girl, Valid . your sister just died and like . you went on forever about how she was The Most Powerful One . The Strongest One . and yet she still died . so she’s like ??? am i next ?? and like obv it doesn’t make sense for her to jump on this train of like . i’m gonna have a kid !!!! so she’s really valid in her thought process there. and like. after having wyatt . i think the writers really . idk. couldn’t do waaay too much with her character anymore because i feel like . to an extent, anything she does will be scrutinized bc i’m not just . saying this . i rlly feel like sometimes piper’s the easiest to hate. like idk why but i loved her. but anyway. if she stays at home with wyatt and doesn’t wanna fight demons n all . then she’s selfish towards her sisters n she’s awful n prue wouldn’t have let her do that !!!! etc . but if she fought demons it’s like . uh sweetie you have a child . really ??? why put yourself in a situation that might have you ending up like patty 2.0 ... bc i could do a Whole post on how patty’s situation messed piper up the most. but anyway.

it’s the way i’m fully rambling so if you’re reading this . i love you . anyway okay . so . i think in a tv show you’ve gotta kinda check boxes. the best tv shows have characters you see yourself in . you relate to them. you hear them and understand their decisions and actions and thoughts. the things they do just makes sense 2 you. so like. with prue, anyone married to their job could relate to her. any oldest sibling could see themselves in her, you know ? she was hard-working, committed, logical, protective. and with phoebe, anyone who couldn’t “settle down” in their early 20s related 2 her, anyone who felt like the outcast of the family, the “screw-up” .. right. makes sense. she was so kind, caring, had-your-back kinda girl. we all love those. paige was like . the new kid, trying to fit in, creative, curious, and definitely a lifelong learner. and then there’s piper who was shy, resistant, really just wanted to be normal. and loved. and i think everyone could kinda identify with at least one of the sisters regardless of where you stood in your own family. so as the show went on, it’s like . they still want you to keep watching and keep being able to identify with them because it’s not like they’re humans with normal lives so they’ve already kinda lowkey got that going against them . so their more “human” and normal lives... we’ve gotta be able to identify with them to be able to invest time. so they had prue always working, having trouble balancing love and work, looking out for her family. we had phoebe kinda living her life, getting her career going, then kinda wanting a family. we had paige learning magic and being super interested and involved and then getting married. and we had piper who had her career pretty early on, got married, and had kids. like. i think the big thing is the marriage and kids. and when you’re a mother . the only mother really in the show, the show lowkey centres around you . like. for starters, the show usually is in the manor, and if you’re a mother, you’re very likely at home, esp with young kids. so i think that alone kinda was like . huh yeah . won’t see piper out waaay too much anymore i guess !!! but no like . there’s That. that’s kinda. the thing that really can’t change with the show . like. piper’s got kids now and a husband and very, very likely . her life will be centred around her home. which. listen she’s wanted that i think - the stability . she’s wanted that forever. and this is the form it came in. but i should stop rambling here and cut to the point .

Piper's mental issues/trauma

disclaimer: i’m not diagnosing her, i’m just speculating based off of my own experiences with mental health

so. okay. very early on. we saw that anxiety. like. yes . she was nervous about like a whole new life experience . or whatever we’re gonna call it when you figure out you’re a witch . but like she was Anxious . like. crying in the attic over being a bad person . needing phoebe to talk her down by telling her she’s such a caring person, she’s always doing things for other people . and then there’s the whole anxiety that comes with. my family’s falling apart because my sisters are fighting so i use really awkward methods of getting out of things . like using humour as a coping mechanism !!! which. gave us some iconic one-liners. but that’s beside the point . anyway. point is. early on, that anxiety was there. there’s an ep in season 1 where she’s literally entering a panic attack in her kitchen and phoebe’s using a menu to cool her down. like. Yikes! and then she’s just. her awkward self around everyone but that’s endearing and is just part of her personality . and i think a lot of the anxiety stemmed from childhood. we heard a few times about how prue and phoebe had boyfriends growing up, were always pretty and popular and all. phoebe was popular, too, just, in the other crowd. but nonetheless, piper faded into the background, doing well in math - well enough to go off and be a banker . and like. she sacrificed a lot for grams. she stayed in san francisco ... we all know the girl had the marks for stanford or something . like. though . still, i think she liked the stability of home and prob would’ve stayed . but in 3x17 she’s all !!! grams !!! the doctor said no caffeine !!! and when grams was taking the pic of them outside and she had an episode , piper was all !!!! shallow breaths !!! like. it was clear piper was the one taking her to the appointments and footing the bill. like. she literally became a banker just bc it had benefits n stuff. like. poor girl really thought . anyway that’s a whole spiral. but no. like she really sacrificed The Most for her family and everyone still thought she was selfish for wanting to move out . when like back then grams was literally ... sick ... and prue was out here moving out and phoebe was nowhere to be found . so. that . definitely would have added to her anxiety about even wanting to do anything for herself because she’ll be perceived as selfish in a heartbeat. even if it’s not Mean . it’s just. she’d never risk it. but there’s the anxiety. there are a few lil things here n there about how she gets nervous n stuff, she represses things (3x07 i think was where phoebe said piper represses her anger n just sucks it up n does whatever) . she literally cancelled her doctor’s appointment Twice . anyway. it still angers me. then in season 7 . patty and victor were like . oh she had night terrors that were so bad we took her to the doctor ! and i just ... honey . baby. she thought she caused the divorce. at 4? 5? she watched victor leave on her 5th birthday, watched a demon attack her, grams, and victor. prue said she didn’t cry at patty’s funeral and i’ll make a safe bet that piper did. and i think growing up without patty was strange for sure. prue had more memories and phoebe had none. and piper had fragments of this person everyone loved . and she was stuck between knowing her and not knowing her. and when patty was sent to her for her wedding day, (as well as in 1x17) . both times when patty hugged them . prue and phoebe hugged her, eyes closed n all. while piper was on the outside, eyes open . looking numb as all hell . and you know. i rlly think she was Giving Them That because phoebe didn’t get her and prue kinda . in a way. lost more of her . if that makes sense ?? and i just. patty really was like . they sent me to You. and 5 seconds later . piper’s like . they sent mom to Us !!! and it’s that idea of sacrifice and never having anything for yourself because she was never just . given anything for herself . everything in her life has been a sacrifice and as a mother, that’s perpetuated. she can assume that role with more of a purpose . like. people won’t really feel sorry for her now as the “forgotten” sister, they won’t try and coddle her or anything. and another thing. control. piper craved stability and control. i think while cooking was something she loved, it also gave her a lot of control . she could control her whole kitchen . even in season 8 .. maybe vaya con leos actually . leo mentioned how much piper craves control. and the control motif makes sense with her powers too. like. piper craved control so much that her powers allowed her to control things down to the atom. so there’s the whole anxiety and needing to control things to ease her anxiety and all. there’s That whole thing.

and then we get to the infamous season 5 fearless spell . ms girl really sat in the attic just writing everything on the wall and it’s the way i screenshotted it and like . zoomed in and tried deciphering it . and like . there’s words like “stop” and i think “sister” is in there a few times, so is “loss” or “lost”. when i watch it next i’ll grab a cap because it’s . disturbing. girl was so scared . literally was writing a spell to get rid of her fears . she also writes Fear . as in. capital F . and like. yeah that’s deep but i do it too like i emphasize words with a capital letter . and like holly marie combs might just have quirky n fun writing but like ... capital F . for Fear. for real . that’s . trauma !!! and she also was having panic attacks at the beginning of season 5. let’s not forget those. which ... we should’ve gotten more of an explanation for . i hope that girl is getting help bc she was Going Through It . and in season 7 when zankou reads her diary . firstly. we Knew this girl kept a diary like . for Sure . she did. and just that little excerpt of when prue died . oops. i’d pay big money to see the rest because again i just think she’s got such a complex mind and like. i’d be so interested to read that. and i think everything re: prue is just Awful for her. like . idk if this is just something quirky i noticed but obv we know prue died in may 2001 . but at the end of 4x03, when piper goes 2 paige’s work 2 bring her muffins !! soft !!! the calendar on one of the desks reads july 2001 ... and i really just. ms girl. i Know they prob just filmed the ep in july but it honestly tracks that she’d be so awfully upset about everything and just . barely able to do anything but cook . for 2 months. like. honey. baby. i wanted 2 just cuddle her bc she was so sad. and like. she tells paige she’s having “good hours” and “not so good hours” . she’s going by the Hour . by the Hour . just. need i say more . i’m so . but no like. if anything like i could see her having like . depression where she’s high-functioning and like just . walking depression i guess ?? like . not even after prue. i think in general. like . she definitely has a melancholic temperament and a type 6 enneagram (the skeptic). that’s For Sure . but i think. just. she’s always just had time to think bc she’s always alone, reading, knitting, cooking, tending to her plants, all that. and i just . think. she has issues. and i think prue knew that. of all people. and i think her knowing that . and then dying. destroyed piper. she lost the last person that was truly a constant in her life . like they shared a roof over their heads forever. and then she was just . gone . and piper was suddenly left to pick up the pieces . and become the oldest sister . and i’m So glad she didn’t fully assume her personality. i’m glad she stayed as piper . just. she’s more cynical and snarky and defensive and cold and that’s okay. she’s hurting. she’s always gonna hurt . and i think it makes her human . she’s pessimistic and sad and has a short fuse at times . but just. again. i love her to bits and i think those issues make her more relatable for me. because while many like to say she became selfish and a negative person and just . awful to be around . i’d say the opposite . i won’t sit and apologize or justify things. also i don’t think piper’s done anything wrong . i just think she’s hurt. she’s been wronged so many times. and she’s .... scared. i think she’s scared . and in season 5 “sympathy for the demon” we learn her true biggest fear is her happiness being stolen away. and like . it’s not that she’s scared she won’t be happy. she’s scared all of the good she’s got will be taken from her . and that’s . terrifying . so . i see why she’s so snarky and bitter and tired and all . she’s terrified of things being taken from her like they have been her whole life. and as i watch the show i really like to just keep that in mind as i get further and further in because yes. she did become a mother and a wife and we saw her arguing with leo a lot and their marriage falling apart and That Whole Era . we saw how it kind of took over her life but i think it happens . i think she even said at one point . i’ve been so many things to so many people, i don’t know who i am anymore . and i think it sums her up perfectly. she doesn’t know who she is because she’s someone to everyone . she’s just. nobody to herself except this scared little girl who just wants Something . Anything . to make sense . some Stability . and her babies, her husband, and her sisters . are all she has for that idea of stability to make sense in her mind. and it was an easy hole to fall into - the Mother - but i think she jumped in. because at the Very Least . nobody could take that title away from her . regardless of how hard they tried .