#more like jeremy recaps things but

[ginger-canary]

Hey D20 fans here's a heads up about what's happened with Gabe Hicks (message from Jeremy Cobb, Three Black Halflings)

[thoughtfulchaos773]

3x09 Apologies Part 3

This episode calls back to 2x09 and the blue period as Carmy made love to Claire- that familiar isolation is there, and it's bleeding in his relationship with his Bear family. He's colder now. He feels nothing. This episode also calls back to 2x09 when it plays a Nine Inch Nails song during the cinematic sleight-of-hand montage.

The next scene Sydney and Carmy and it's nothing like 2x09 where the two are sharing their fears and undying loyalty to each other like under the table. Instead it's Sydney tired, carmy noticing but not saying much, Sydney wanting to tell Carmy about the offer. They're not present.

The magic is gone.

Carmy wants to crack the magic trick to the perfect dish. But where's the collaboration we want as viewers? Where's the love music that plays with them? Where's the collaboration? The passion that Jeremy and Ayo mentioned that would be prevalent this season?

Carmy: Tonight was off

Sydney: Been off

Carmy: I'm Sorry

Sydney: It's hard to keep up with you sometimes.

Another fourth wall breaking. As the audience it's hard keeping up with Carmy mentally even and The magic of the partnership is off, he's in his head and isolated. Are we speaking to the audience or just artistic coincidence? Where's the Carmy that faces what Sydney wants to face, that would prompt Sydney with a simple say more?

The Carmy we know would never just say you sure? He'd talk to Sydney.

But it's another situation that's left unresolved. Carmy steps out of himself for a minute and out of that plate to invite Sydney to the funeral of Ever, he's outside of himself and his head to get her to enjoy an experience he never brings himself to enjoy. The thing with this season is there are endless great cinematic moments of Carmy's career but there's no meat, no connection, no substance just fancy techniques. Where's the connection that's the heart of the restaurant and shows itself?

When Sydney decides to go, he recognizes a good thing of Sydney going there with him and seeing it, feeling the moment gets Carmy to attempt to open up and communicate with Sydney.

Sydney waits for him to communicate, to speak- and this long quiet moment is an attempt from Carmy at unspoken communication- recap to this-

How unfortunate. There's no screaming back and forth, no attempt at communication that we usually see with Sydney and Carmy, the passion is gone for the viewers. I'm left wondering if the cold- noticeable lack of passion, that something is off is done on purpose?

I want to lean towards yes, because the next moment, once sydney leaves goes back to the audience- stay tuned!

[keyorden]

Echo Parents (5. Chase)

So. A quick recap; TJ has reasonable, loving parents, with no indication that there is any problems beyond what any kid might have with their parents, potentially marred only by over-protectiveness (reasonable) Leo and Carl have overall positive relationship's with parents, with significant issues that aren't easily overcome, and contribute to their kids issues, which lead them to identify more with friends overall. Jenna, Syd, and Flynn have abusive parents, and much of the stories they have are about dealing with that, and how friends can share the burdens. Clint, Jeremy, Heather, Micha and Keith are all examples of when the support network Can't bridge the gap (In this case, their Flynn example, Keith, was taken too soon, and they had literally no positive examples to otherwise help) So, given all of that overall. What is up with Chase's parents. Going over everything, it's....strange. In all the other examples, the parents reflect the kids beliefs and values. In Chase's case, the greatest part's of his story are about his avoidance to conflict, his lack of desires, his own communication issues, and his inability to make meaningful decisions. But it really honestly doesnt seem like Chases parent's reflect this? Like, in Route 65, Chase mentions that his mom locked herself in a room, and the dad could only "Laugh awkwardly" at the impromptu outing. Then, there is the implication that they accepted the relationship, but nothing else. It is mentioned that they punished Chase for some of his behavior as a child (Which, in his own words, was dickish), like leaving TJ to clean Duke's yard alone, and there are other minor instances of mention, but nothing that leads to a really clear or obvious picture like anyone else. They held some barbiques, did some things that annoyed younger chase, and that is that. At best, given whats in Cannon (even more with the beginning phone call and Chase's remincing in Flynn's route), you could determine them as just being....normal parents. But that doesn't feel right. Its strange, for normal parents to have that much of an opposition to filmography, of all things. Carl's not wanting an art degree is a classic complaint, but Flim? Even more, it just seems...odd. Like, Chase isn't really defined by being normal. His parents seemingly not having a large impact, positively or negatively, on anything, without note, seems off. Wrong. I have ideas, of course, on things they could've been presented as. If his parents were awkward, never commuting to condemning or helping him after he came out, or even before not approving of anything he did, yet not outright rejecting him like with Sydney, that could fit Or, if Chase Felt like he had a normal childhood, and then realized he hadn't spoken to his parents in YEARS, that would also be a fitting commentary. Or if his parent's notably had a rocky relationship, more if they wanted different things out of Chase. Or even if they didn't want to have Chase at all! if they were somewhat openly resentful of being stuck together and having a child, yet not separating, and just not talking about it, that could also fit for him. Not like that is an exhaustive list, but what we do know of the Hunters is just so lacking and limp. Overall I guess I just feel like Chases parents are one of the few kind of dropped parts of Echo. Or, at least, something that wasn't handled with the kind of detail I think they really could've. Just, an untapped goldmine for things to do or talk about.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 1 thoughts

ah, the first ep of a new season. it has such a fresh feeling to it each time! and according to that poll i reblogged, s4 is a fan-favorite (along with s3). well, i really liked s3, so i hope i’m in for more of that! 

overall, this was a wild episode. things just! kept! happening! so fast! in fact, i think it will take me a while to gather my thoughts on the stuff that was happening, because it was occurring so rapidly! but luckily, i am familiar enough with the monster of the week format by now to know that i have some time to process all these events, because most episodes will be entirely unrelated to the plot action that went down today. so good episode, but separated scully and mulder + so much plot so fast = not a GOAT ep for me. and with this being said, back to my liveblogging!

it feels that it has been so long!!! maybe even a full WEEK! or more!! since i watched the last episode! i recall, however, not being very impressed due to lack of scully. so let’s see if this episode can change my opinion.

so, reading the description, it seems this alien fellow is referred to as “Bounty Hunter”. i’ve been calling him "alien hit man" for 2 seasons now, so this will be an adjustment. the seriousness with which i take using his proper name is yet to be determined. and we get some alleged samantha lore here?!?! will it actually be true?!? i assume everything about samantha will be a lie forever

i want to know how jeremiah smith gets out of this sticky situation, so let us continue together and see what happens to our agents.

“last season on the x files…” yes yes, this was probably a vital refresher for those who had to wait a year in between seasons. and also for me who had to wait a week, which as i am sure you can imagine was JUST as excruciating!

in my absence, i seem to have forgotten how terribly beautiful this mulder fellow is. rest assured that i am now remembering as we get a little recap.

but oh! we do not begin in the fight scene where we ended last time. we begin in… a van? of a fellow who is fixing a power line? is this some more TV mind control stuff…..? (no, thankfully, it was not)

there is a bug by his ear and he slaps it. and then we see the bee on the ground struggling while a bunch of kids gather around. they all look the same and seem to be multiplying. which is very weird but i feel bad for the bee.

5 creepy blond identical children watch this man DIE after being stung??? he’s writhing up on the cable pole and then he FALLS and all the kids surround him like jackals... omg… very much gives the impression they are gonna eat him. but they just walk away after staring at this body for a bit which is maybe even creepier. hard to say. 

what do the children know…….?

(intro time) (<3)

HEY WHAT THE HELL? i interrupt making a heart emoji by hand to inform you that the words on the screen do NOT read “the truth is out there”, but today they say “everything dies”. this is NOT a good sign for mrs. mulder or jeremy smith omg… 

i know our agents aren’t kicking the bucket yet though because we have a few more seasons!!!

okay, NOW back to mulder and scully and jeremy and the bounty hunter. mulder tells scully to not get in the bounty hunter's way, and she immediately does and gets knocked over, which is a little comical- but you can’t blame a girl for trying!!!

mulder is now chasing jeremy and in turn being chased by the bounty hunter through some weird warehouse-y building, with scully not too far behind. the screen is very dark and it is hard to see things. mulder comes face-to-face with the bounty hunter but they just look at each other and then run after their real target, which is probably a good thing, because we have seen the bounty hunter kick mulder’s ass before, and i’m not really feeling a rematch at this point in time.

no, jeremy! the bounty hunter approaches, and to escape him, he jumps off of the roof. mulder is taking jeremy down to the car where scully shall be the getaway driver. i'm in the getaway car, i left you in the hotel bar, etc.

until the bounty hunter DROPS on their window like a spider!!!!! so she honks the horn for a very long time, which was deserved. 

okay, so back into the maze of the building. mulder and jeremy are running on foot. mulder hides in some bushes!!! then LEAPS out and STABS THE BOUNTY HUNTER in the base of his neck!! omg!! the one spot where these beings can be killed!!! i knew sneaky mulder was gonna set some sort of trap, i just didn’t think he would have such good luck with his aim! 

yes, he did it!!! the poison goop is coming from the base of the bounty hunter’s neck. but jeremiah is motoring away on a little boat, saying more killers will be after him. mulder yells after him that he needs help; his mother is dying. and i think it is fair to save a life after mulder saved his, so maybe, just maybe, they can buzz to the hospital reallllly quick before they let him go… back to space, or whatever. 

scully has found the dead bounty hunter, and is looking for mulder, who has gotten on the boat with jeremy and sailed away, i guess. rude as hell to leave her stranded there!!

she keeps going back to the body and i’m yelling NO GIRL, THE BLOOD GAS but NO! that is not even the biggest problem, for the bounty hunter is ALIVE! he grabs her throat and chokes her, which had to absolutely SUCK to film. 

he keeps asking where they’re going while he’s choking her, and that seems to be a bad way to get answers. she says she doesn’t know, but in my head i’m yelling, just say they’re going to the mall!! lie!! lie!!! they’re going to the mall. a dude in the food court claims to be an alien expert who knows information on samantha’s whereabouts. they want to see the guy at quizno’s knew about jeremy’s existence. send him on a side quest!!! but she just says she doesn’t know, which is fine, too.

anyway, back to mulder and jeremy disembarking from the boat. jeremy says that the government men will be waiting for them at the hospital in mrs. mulder’s room, but mulder tries to counter by saying that if the government men do anything there, they will be exposed. well! i think this is faulty reasoning because they might just kill all of you, but i see that he wants this to be true for the sake of his mother.

jeremy explains that they are working on colonization, and if they kill him, he sure can’t help his mother, which makes sense to me even if it is deeply unfortunate. or, he says... mulder can stop it! mulder, stopping colonization?! that is a large task for one guy...

OH! jeremy claims that he can take mulder to a place where there is a “work in progress” and SEE HIS SISTER??? how do we know that isn’t another TRICK!!!! i always suspect deception when it comes to his sister, because they know that claiming to have information on her can get him to do anything they please.

cutscene to the hospital, where CANCER MAN is holding mrs. scully’s hand (LET GO, FREAK!) and some lackey says that “he isn’t coming”

GASP! this lackey pulls out the pictures of cancer man at mrs. mulder’s house and suggests… a SECURITY LEAK! he proposes planting information to see where it flows… information that mrs. mulder’s life is in “unnatural danger”… oh no… will X see through the trickery?

back to scully cam. her phone is ringing. mulder wants to know where she is: “i’m right where you left me, mulder” OHHH! get him again for me. and when he asks why she is still there, she says it’s because he wouldn’t answer his phone and she didn’t know what to do :( which is so sad

but what about the bounty hunter……

NO!!!! he’s right behind her in the car, holding the needle up to her neck through the phone!! she’s trying to get him to stfu, but he keeps yapping about stealing a car in alberta, and revealing all his plans to the bounty hunter!!!!

so he just lets her go after hearing where mulder is, which is lowkey crazy, but she tells him that the bounty hunter is coming after him. and that he is in fact NOT dead. so now what do mulder and jeremy do about these plans they have made and just revealed to their enemy????

anyway, mulder and jeremy are in the hills of alberta where we earlier saw the dude who got stung by a bee drop dead. and mulder's face is all beat up and it’s kinda endearing... like aww, let me put a bandage on you.

scully is going to skinner’s office, who has summoned her. she lies that her and mulder are okay, and it’s a pretty visible lie in terms of body language, so i imagine skinner catches onto that. but he’s like, why tf are there 5 dudes at the social security administration all called jeremy smith and with the same face? and what do you know about them?

well she’s honest in this regard at least, and says idk. but the nerd down at the labs can see that each of the 5 jeremys had very weird data on their computers. 

“enough to fill seven ten-gigabyte hard drives” hold on. okay so that is, in modern terms, not a whole lot of stuff. like a 68 GB flash drive at target rn is $6, and it's even a nice blue color. so i’m wondering how much stuff you can stick on there but honestly i do need to get back to the plot at hand and stop looking up the differences between flash and hard drives. he says it’s “a billion entries” which is a lot!

scully thinks it might be a code!!! and she thinks she might be able to crack it!!!! wahoooo!!! code time! code time!! i love when she is in her sleuthing era!! and the lab nerd (revealed to be named "agent pendrell") says "seriously?" when she says she thinks she can crack it, but i wouldn't have said that, because i trust in her skills.

she says there is someone she wants to run it by… is it the lone gunmen? the navajo representative? her dad’s old friend? who could it be?

back to mulder and jeremy running through the hills of canada, arguably even frolicking. where they come across the dead guy!!! he is bubbling and covered in bugs…… so the death was yesterday. and jeremy knows what killed him!!! he’s being VERY WEIRD!!! 

gag… the body looks soooooo nasty... but as always, to cope with this, i give a shoutout to the props department. but i WILL gag. 

so they’re at their destination, which is… a “flowering shrub”? being grown for pollen? and worked by a bunch of kids like the creepy ones from before. what the hell do aliens want with some pollen...

MULDER THINKS ONE OF THE KIDS IS HIS SISTER??? but she’s still a child!!!!! how could this be?

i’m suspecting trickery here. either way, he goes right in after her, calling her name. NOOOOO- he gets on his knees, grabs her arms, and says “it’s me, fox, your brother” and she has no readable expression whatsoever NOOOOO omg WHAT SORT OF TORTURES HAVE THEY CONCOCTED TO PUT THIS MAN THROUGH???

(i’m operating under the assumption that it is Not Actually Her)

she just looks at him…. and jeremy says “she has no language”, and is a drone…. he says he has more to show him so that he might understand. YOU MADE A CHILD A DRONE? and you're supposed to be THE GOOD ONE, JEREMY?

(if this actually is samantha and they hurt her like that i’m going to choke slam this jeremy fellow into the core of the earth)

mulder naturally wants to know what tf is going on, and jeremy says the drones are stationed here as part of an agrarian workforce, where they take care of themselves, and “parenting is unnecessary”. oh i just KNOW that at this point if i were mulder and someone told me parenting his long lost sister "wasn't necessary”, i would have started throwing hands. what an insult to injury, taking her away and saying that she doesn't even deserve someone to look after her, when all he has wanted for so long was to do just that...

and a bunch of other kids come out ALL WITH HER FACE and the boys have the fact of that CREEPY BLOND KID FROM BEFORE!!! CLONING??? did they CLONE HER???? yes they did. so they’re clones but... where is the OG samantha??????

this is soooooo fucked up like WHERE is his REAL and ACTUAL sister and what can we do to free these identical children!!!!!

scully is going to mulder’s place to put an x tape on the window. oh no! but what if X HAS really been fed lies??? (she also bites the tape again which i still think is funny)

i am observing mulder’s apartment as she tries to crack the code whilst waiting for his arrival. sadly, i cannot work out the names of the books on his shelves.

someone knocks and she grabs her gun… but it is, in fact, X, our man of the hour. AND OH NO!!! he does say he has information concerning mulder’s mother!!! NOOOOOOO, i was hoping he would be more discerning than this and not fall for such a trap!!

scully doesn’t seem to be buying it… X refuses to talk to her, and says to get in contact with mulder, but she is insisting he gives her information on the code.

he knows what the various entries are… they’re about the smallpox eradication program. but X is telling her not to open doors she isn’t ready for. so what does THAT mean???? he leaves by saying “protect the mother” ummmm okay...

WAIT! if she goes there then they’ll think SHE is the spy, right??? or no… because they know she wouldn’t have access to information at that level, so someone would have to give it to her. lie and say krychek gave it to her. idk just lie!!!

back to this weird little town. mulder is trying to take the little girl with them, which pisses jeremy off (STOP… HE WANTED TO TAKE HER WITH THEM I’ll SOB 😭)

he’s all “she’s not your sister” and “you have a chance to understand something so much greater” but he won’t do any actual explaining. condescending fuck. and when explanation is requested, who rolls up but the bounty hunter!!!

now they’re sprinting off to a place… where the girl is taking them. a place filled with the bees who killed that guy earlier!! mulder learns that while jeremy and samantha clone have immunity to the killer bees, he does not.

so now he’s covered in killer bees and to protect himself he DOUSES HIS BODY IN GASOLINE and therefore cannot see a single thing and needs to be led along by this small child who looks like his sister but isn’t. they are in a building filled with evil evil evil looking bees and their evil honey... but they realize they have been trapped by the bounty hunter when they look up and see a hole in the sky. 

the bounty hunter is entering into this cavernous honey town, and sees only the gasoline can and many bees, but no people. until they break a wall of honeycomb they were hiding behind down directly on top of him, and the bounty hunter is swarmed by them!!!! he seems to be busy being hurt by them. so i guess they will hurt him, but not kill him? noted. need to keep track of the alien species rules.

okay, so back to the lab nerd, agent pendrell, who frantically adjusts his tie as scully walks in with a break on the data. yeah don't think i missed that. that actor wanted to make his 5 minutes of screen time count. i see you!

“you say a twenty letter code to any scientist, and they immediately think ‘protein amino acid sequence code’, which is what this turned out to be” <- i love her so terribly i can’t even form a decent sentence to describe it. it's actually embarrassing but whatever.

and it’s a code for cowpox virus, which was used to vaccinate people against smallpox! so why were they keeping vaccine records… besides for the obvious reason of making sure that smallpox is defeated?

well, that doesn’t matter right now, because the big question is: what is with this second alpha numeric string? each with an infinite number of variations?

she says it’s an inventory… of us… and pulls off her jacket to reveal a bandage on her arm. which i’m sure had that nerd sweating. 

(did she like get a shot in the time whilst mulder was MIA... i’m confused) (<- lmao sometimes i just do not understand wtf is going on and it is really funny reading these notes back)

she’s presenting her theory and an image created by “a confocal microscope” to some people in skinner’s office. and i’m not sure i’ve ever been more in love before, but whatever. she’s explaining it’s a protein’s location, a cowpox protein, number 6 to be exact, thank you!

OH! it came from her! she got a biopsy taken from her vaccination scar. which makes a lot more sense than getting your flu shot while doing important FBI work. although getting your flu shot IS important it’s just. you know. bigger fish to fry n all that.

she got this image “through a process called immunohisto chemical staining and through the addition of an antibody” <- unfortunately her saying all this is incredibly attractive to me

but there’s important business at hand. she thinks anybody who has been vaccinated over the past 50 years might have a marker in them!!

oh, low blow from the guy who said this sounds like something that would come from mulder….

but she performed the same procedure on agent pendrell i’m CRYING he is SOOOOOOO down bad for herrrrrr 😭😭😭😭

and his protein is different even though it should be the same as hers!! DEEPLY suspicious!

“so what you’re saying, agent scully, is we’re being catalogued, tagged, and inventoried?” well yes skinner, i do believe that is what she is saying!

by who and for what purpose? she doesn’t know. but jeremiah smith probably does!

skinner wants to talk to scully ALONE! he looks MAD and asks “do you realize what you are promoting” and she cuts him off with “i am a SCIENTIST, sir” OHHHHHH YES!!! shut him up!!!!!!!!!!! and isn’t that why she was assigned to the x files in the first place?!?!?! YES EXACTLY!!!!! TELL HIM!!!!!!!

pained skinner expression as her phone goes off. it’s mulder, and she needs to meet him. she says “just tell me where” (ohhh my god the way they’d do anything for each other…)

he explains that he and jeremiah smith and “someone else” need to be at mrs. mulder’s hospital room, where she has to wait and keep her safe. 

she says a lot of people want to talk to jeremiah smith and will be there, but who comes barreling down the road to get mulder and the squad as she says this, but the damn bounty hunter!!!! omg!!! can this dude just die already!! damn!!! 

the bounty hunter runs his van STRAIGHT into the car with jeremy and “samantha”!!! and when the bounty hunter picks mulder up by his throat, he begs for jeremy and his sister’s life, while bounty hunter says “he shows you pieces, but tells you nothing of the whole” which i do feel is deeply true. but jeremy being a “traitor to the project” isn’t really feeling as damning as having a crop of brainwashed clone children harvest killer honey to me personally.

so mulder says “kill me, and let them go”, and that he would TRADE HIS LIFE FOR HIS MOTHER’S!!!!!! the bounty hunter says that “everything dies” while jeremy tries to make an escape.

(omg is he really willing to sacrifice his life… or is he just saying anything to buy jeremy more time???)

bounty hunter TOSSES mulder into a truck, picks up the needle to go after him, while samantha clone starts screaming... NOOOO that poor girl😭

back at the hospital, scully, skinner, and the guys have been waiting for five hours, with nothing to show for it. it’s starting to compromise the treatment of patients, says a random nurse. but in walks mulder!!!

“oh my god, mulder!” scully says, running to him, while he mumbles “i can’t, there’s nothing”, and other nonsensical phrases, which begs the question: WHAT HAPPENED IN THOSE FIVE HOURS????

she’s feeling him, saying he’s freezing and in shock, and he can’t even stumble to the right hospital room door to find his mother without scully’s help. but he gets there and looks at his mother while scully wraps a blanket around him, and he mumbles that "she’ll never know". 

and he’s CRYING, and he LEANS DOWN so scully can hold him while he sobs into her shoulder (height difference height difference oh my GOD its so painful and terribly tender)

WHAT WILL SHE NEVER KNOW?? WHAT DID HE SEE?????

just when i expect an emotional climax, we change scenes to mulder’s place, where footsteps are approaching. X lets himself into the apartment, but seems to realize that something is… afoot. 

he goes for the elevator to escape, when a man FIRES TWO SHOTS INTO HIM!!! NOOOO X!!!

we had a rocky relationship but i never wanted it to end in this fashion……….

(is it inappropriate to wait until he’s dead to say that i’ve always thought he was handsome….)

well. um. we don’t get a lot of time to linger on that.

back to mrs. mulder. mulder has his head in his hands, saying they could have saved her, that he had once chance. and he tells scully that he saw his sister. and she was just a little girl. 

it’s not clear if scully can tell he’s speaking the truth or if she thinks he is still saying random stuff in shock, but he says that he’s seen too much to not believe. she counters that she believes they have a place to begin in looking for answers.

“you put such faith in your science, scully, but… the things i’ve seen, science provides no place to start” 

“nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it- and that’s a place to start”

OOOOOH BANGER LINE!!!!! such hope there is in understanding the world that seems impossible to comprehend, if only we seek out the knowledge to grasp it!!!! if we admit what we don’t know and start where we do until we reach the Truth!!!

this line coaxes a smile out of him, and she adds “that’s where the hope is”, and i think i understand scully on a molecular level. 

but he is still in agony over there. he feels he came close, and she feels it too.

and as she says she was warned by X about his mother being in danger, and that he is who can lead them to a place to start, we see him dragging himself down mulder’s hallway, gasping for breath, before finally collapsing, having written “SRSG” in his OWN BLOOD???????? HOLY HELL??? that was very metal in a fashion i was not expecting…….. rip X :(

as much as i feel like we need some time to linger on that we really aren't given any in terms of the episode’s pacing. but like. damn. its MY writeup and i can give us a moment of silence for X as i choose.

...

okay, jump to a month later, at the UN building in NYC. we see someone open a door to the special representative to the secretary general- OMG... the SRSG!!! and mulder is there to visit!! he must have pieced together the horrific clue… the special representative won’t see him. but his secretary, marita covarrubias, will.

he’s trying to get answers on the farmland in canada, but only getting dead ends. however, maria says the farm was abandoned, but the crops were identified as ginseng. 

GINSENG? making killer bees? press F to doubt. and she says there no evidence of bees. YEAH RIGHT,,, I SAW THEM!

she asks why this is so important to him, and he starts to say that he’s suffered some very personal losses recently, but he can’t seem to get it out (oh my gosh, it is so sad) but he opens the file she hands him and sees A PHOTO of the CLONES OF HIS SISTER doing farm work!!!

and this assistant says “not everything dies, mr. mulder” (which at this point i had to rewind and get her name because i realized she might KNOW THINGS and be a RECURRING character with INFORMATION…. OMG….)

SO WHAT DO WE DO WITH ALL OF THAT?!?!?

back to the hospital, where THE BOUNTY HUNTER is visiting????? is he gonna hurt mrs. mulder OMFG???? stay away from her?!!!!!

but he goes in there and looks at her. “i need to know the reasons why this should be”, he asks CANCER MAN??? who seems to have SET UP OFFICE IN THERE??? he says it’s so that the project may continue, and this will remove an obstacle. and that obstacle is AGENT MULDER???

HELLO??? so DID cancer man do this to her??? “if his mother were to die….” NO NO, KEEP ON TALKING CANCER MAN, SHARE WITH THE CLASS WHAT YOU NEED TO SAY

“the fiercest enemy is the man who has nothing left to lose, and you know how important agent mulder is to the equation” <- SO THIS WHOLE COLONIZATION PLAN WAS DRAFTED WITH HIM IN MIND???? how would that even be possible... how far back does this plan even go?

bounty hunter closes the door and locks it behind him, then proceeds to lay his hand on mrs. mulder- so ALL of these aliens can do the healing thingy? and she opens her eyes!!!! and sees cancer man!!

imagine that being the first thing you see when you wake up omg….

and thus concludes the episode.

okay, so i have a lot to say, but yesterday i saw a video that said “think of the character you hate the most in the world” and i thought of cancer man. then the video said “now imagine all your negative self thoughts in that character’s voice and you won’t listen to them ever again” and damn, if cancer man TRIED me i would find new and exciting ways to cause him suffering. in ways that i shan’t describe, for i haven’t even thought of them yet. i imagine an entirely empty room with nothing but that one “i’m good and i’m feeling alright” song on loop for years, with his ears in protective gear that make them impossible to self-deafen when he’s lost it.

BUT. we got a lot in this episode. and i’m not sure how i’m feeling. 

well, first, we lost X. this is a major L for our heroes. even though he could be a bit insufferable in his vague hints, he seemed to have some sort of positive feeling toward mulder, at least part of the time. but how much of what he was doing was furthering cancer man’s agenda? it might be impossible to ever tell.

second, jeremy. he was a great dude in episode 1, saving all those lives, and then it turns out he knew about the clone children slavery which makes me think much less of him and i find it hard to mourn his death. because seriously WTF kind of evil creature uses cloned kidnapped kids to harvest evil killer bees. and no parents because they are “unnecessary”. and poor mulder was tortured by seeing her again but it not actually being Her. and despite it not actually being Her, he wanted to save this clone samantha, who had been deprived of any language. what the hell. jeremy is supposed to be RESISTING to the alien’s plan for colonization but he knew about this so like???? which side is he on?????

i mean, i guess knowing about atrocities committed by your people doesn’t mean you endorse them, but he was SO condescending about the whole matter, all “oh you don’t understand” in a way that makes me think he WAS endorsing it. so if he’s down with their evil plans, why the hell is he resisting them bad enough to be hunted by this bounty hunter for???

i am puzzled on that front, but it feels that it was designed to be this way. either way, jeremy is dead now too, so no answers on that front, either.

so, we know that there is this plan at colonization of earth by this alien species, and that jeremy claimed mulder had some way of stopping it. and the colonization plan involves evil bees and pollen and cloned children and inventorying every person who ever received a smallpox vaccine. and also kidnapping people and performing tests on them that will slowly kill them. and this is a plan set in place by a certain group at the UN to which cancer man belongs, but somehow this plan stretches back to mr. mulder, and was drafted with the younger mulder in mind. and we also know that they took samantha as "insurance" so that mr. mulder didn't betray the plan, because he was not in agreement with the ethics involved.

other things that we know but are not clear how exactly they fit in: the whole oil alien that turns people into flashbangs found in the sunken submarine deal, krychek's escape arc, exactly who the little grey dudes that look like stereotypical aliens are, and if the bodies found in the train car back in anasazi were actual aliens, or alien-human hybrids- because they had smallpox vaccine scars. also, we still do not know to whom X pledged his loyalty, and the exact purpose of the disease center in west virginia where that one dude claimed the government was testing on vulnerable populations.

so somehow we have some known aliens in here, people being catalogued and experimented upon, possibly in an attempt to create alien-human hybrids to accelerate the plan of alien colonization. but also some mystery aliens of uncertain relevance to the plot.

okay, i think... i have it all in order.

there was a lot that went down here, so i will need some time to process it all. but, we did get more scully, which is ALWAYS a good thing, especially when she is cracking codes and being a scientist. and poor mulder... they are just torturing him for fun at this point...

there was a lot of plot, but not a ton of time to process it. so this episode was good, but i don’t think it would make my top 10 ranking. this is also a consequence of our agents being separated for most of the ep.

so, where do we go from here? i have no idea! i am just glad to begin a new journey with these characters, even if things are still very murky in terms of plot! in fact, there was so much plot crammed into a short space of time, i'm almost looking forward to a few monster of the week episodes to try and give my brain a break from unraveling all that.

now... i know that the next episode has a reputation for being quite spooky. and i shall face this challenge with bravery and honor. wish me luck…

[onceuponapuffin]

Fanatic Intervention Part 17!!!

Okay, it's been a bit so quick recap: We just spent the evening at a dive bar singing karaoke and learning that 1) Jesus is a 13-year-old rich white kid with rich parents living in L.A. and 2) Muriel is missing. The Angel of Sardis gave us a lovely fishbowl (alcoholic drink since no one in this world has bothered to ask Reader's age because I have more room to play that way) as a reward for singing Taylor Swift (Shake it Off). We pick up our story The Morning After.

Also, since the poll about Sardis tied, I'm taking it to mean that everyone needs/wants more time with him to figure him out. Fortunately people also voted to bring him along, so we get to have LOTS OF THAT!! :D

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major for anyone who's curious.

What music do you think Anathema likes??

Let's do this!!

Beginning || Previous || Next

**********************************

The next morning you sit at the table in the dining room of the massive Ritz hotel suite, staring into your coffee. You have a headache, and no one else seems to be faring too much better. If only it was just a hangover. A miracle from either Aziraphale or Crowley could fix a hangover, but there was no way that a miracle of any size could make your situation any less bleak.

Aziraphale, angel that he literally is, had thought to order in breakfast from the kitchens. You look from your coffee to the waiting plate of pancakes, eggs, and bacon, heaving a sigh. Jesus, if and when you find him, is an entitled teen. Muriel, friend and precious, is missing. Things are...well, it’s hard to feel happy or optimistic right now. Your companions aren’t faring much better as far as you can tell. Crowley is staring at his phone with a frown, the sound effects of Candy Crush drifting across the otherwise silent table. He’s playing at non-chalance, but you know Distraction As A Coping Mechanism when you see it. Aziraphale has barely touched his food, focusing more on alternating between stirring his tea, and sipping it only to add more sugar. The drink must be nearly syrup by now. Anathema keeps dangling her pendulum, pausing, then setting it down to re-cast her rune stones. You’ve noticed that they keep landing up the same way. Well, you need fuel in your system if you’re going to deal with all of this, so you reluctantly cut a slice of pancake with your fork and bring it to your mouth.

The silence stretches. Well, except for the ambiance; Candy Crush, spoon stir, runes cast, pancake slice. Candy Crush, spoon stir, runes cast, pancake slice. Candy Crush, spoon stir, runes cast, bacon – mixing it up a little. Candy Crush, spoon stir, runes cast

BAM!!!!

The door of the suite slams open, and there stands Sardis with his foot in the air.

He kicked the door down. What...on….earth…

“I FOUND HIM!” Sardis stomps into the suite toward the table, waving his phone in the air, “I FOUND HIM! I knew I’d seen his face somewhere, and I found him!!”

Crowley sits up straight for once in his life. “Who THE FUCK gave him a key?!”

You avert your gaze. The fishbowl was delicious, and he patted your head afterward and told you everything would be okay! Not your fault….entirely.

There isn’t much time for you to contemplate your guilt because Sardis has turned up the volume on his phone, and pressed play on a Tik Tok video. He turns his phone so that you all can see the screen. A boy with dirty-blonde hair is smiling out of it. His hair is longer in the middle and pouffed up with what is probably a standard-teenager’s worth of hair gel, and the sides are very short with...dollar signs shaved into them. It’s just a Tik Tok video, but you can smell the Axe body spray from here.

“Hey guys!” The smiling teen calls, waving at the camera. “It’s me, ya boy Jeremy. I’m bringing back my most popular series. That’s right! You asked, and I’m answering your prayers! Time to bring back Let’s See What I Can Get Away With Because I’m RICH.”

Your face twists in disgust, and you hear Anathema groan.

“I think we’ve seen quite enough,” Aziraphale says, speaking for you all.

“Are...are you sure that’s Jesus?” You ask. Honestly you’re hoping it’s a joke. You’re hoping beyond hope that this...this...caricature of a person is not the same person who you need to convince to help you save the world.

“Oh yeah,” Sardis replies, “That’s him. Right name and everything.”

“Wot? Jeremy?” asks Crowley with an edge of salty sarcasm.

“No,” Sardis says, “His true name. I know everyone’s, remember? It’s the right kid, you have my word on that.”

Truth be told, you’re still not exactly sure what his word is worth, but for now it’s a lead. You glance at Anathema, who shrugs.

“Fits the bill,” she admits, “All my readings have been...unsettlingly clear about the kind of kid we’re looking for, and I mean...” She gestures helplessly at the phone and the video that Sardis has, thankfully, paused. You blink, dumbstruck. Aziraphale said something last night about Heaven cutting corners. Apparently they had cut the corners so thoroughly they’d made a circle.

Great.

******************

Breakfast suddenly became easier after that. Maybe it was because Sardis was the only one who wasn’t completely despairing over everything, and maybe it was because he was suddenly helping himself to the plates of excess pancakes, bacon, and eggs. Suddenly, you noticed Aziraphale wave a finger and the food was hot again – trying to impress company, or be a good host, or both no doubt. You found that your appetite had suddenly returned, along with your need for caffeine. Even Crowley had grabbed some bacon now that, perhaps, there seemed a less likely chance of him having the choice if he waited any longer. Sardis did most of the talking, explaining that the shortest driving route would take 28 hours. Best to get started asap then.

“I am not listening to anymore of your….Us songs!” Crowley growls at you as soon as you get in the car.

“Not all of them are love songs!” You protest.

“No! No breakup songs either!”

“Fine, fair, but what about -”

“And especially no End-of-the-World songs!” He snarls. You’re pretty sure he’s halfway to hissing at you now. “We have enough of that to deal with assss is!” Ah, there it is.

Ever-so-gently, Aziraphale takes the phone out of your hand.

“Perhaps it’s about time someone else had a turn,” he says. Ah, so he’s finally gotten tired of humouring you and your taste in music. Well, it had to happen eventually.

Unfortunately, this means that you all end up listening to Brandenburg Concerto No 3 in G Major. Well, it could be worse, you figure. At least this song has movement to it, even if it does feel endless based on your musical standards. Crowley is driving and silent, Aziraphale is waving your phone around in the passenger’s seat like a conductor’s baton. The backseat is as follows – You, Sardis, and Anathema.

Yes, Sardis is there. Considering the way he found Jesus – or, Jeremy – so quickly, and the way he seems to be single-handedly keeping everyone’s morale afloat, it seemed a waste to leave him behind. Besides, both Crowley and Aziraphale had tried to make him leave, but he just….stayed. In the end, you pouted, they gave up, and now he’s sitting in the middle of the backseat, because you and Anathema have seniority.

Speaking of Anathema, you notice her very pointedly staring out the window. She looks...stiff. Maybe classical music isn’t her thing? Your suspicions are confirmed approximately nine minutes later when she practically jumps up from her seat and grabs the phone out of Aziraphale’s hand and presses stop. The music comes to a halt and silence fills the SUV. Aziraphale looks shocked and appalled.

“Anathema!” The angel exclaims after a moment. You can practically hear him clutching at his non-existent pearls. You can see him resisting the urge to clutch at his bowtie. “We weren’t even finished the Allegro!”

Anathema takes a deep breath. You’re able to count out a solid beat of ten before she speaks.

“I...am not...listening to classical concertos for 28 hours. I don’t care what key it’s in or how many allegros it’s got!”

Crowley snickers and snorts. “Concertos don’t work like that.” He says. You see Aziraphale gently pat the demon’s knee as if to say ‘that’s my man.’

“Well what would you rather?” Is what Aziraphale actually says, “More bebop?”

“Try me, and I’ll play death metal, I swear I will.”

“Um,” Sardis ventures cautiously, “Can I see that for a minute-- thank you.” He plucks the phone out of Anathema’s hand. After a minute or two of swiping, he taps the screen, and the car fills with songs from well-known musicals. Now, although this isn’t exactly to everyone’s taste, no one can find a good reason to outright hate it. No one can manage to find a good reason not to put up with it, and so by the time Music of the Night has melted into Seasons of Love, everyone has settled down and accepted that things aren’t actually all that bad.

“Impressive,” You mutter, basking in the semi-content vibe. Everyone is still a little on edge, but it feels less intense now.

Sardis smirks. “Six siblings,” he says to you with a small nudge.

“What happened to the others?” Anathema asks, tuning in to the conversation.

“Well,” Sardis sighs, “Of the seven of us - myself, Smyrna, Pergamum, Ephesus, Philadelphia, Thyatira, and Laodicea - Smyrna and Philly were the only ones who didn’t get hate mail. Smyrna was always super into the doctrine. She drank the kool-aid, as the humans here would say, and felt it her calling to ‘return home,’ as she put it. Bullshit, honestly. We weren’t born angels, we were made alongside the churches of Christ. ‘S one of the reasons why they don’t actually give a shit about us.”

“And why you worried that your miracles might get taken away,” You add, putting some of the pieces together. Sardis nods. “Wait, a minute,” You say, “You were made??”

Sardis laughs. “Alright Little Moth, you need to pick a lane here. Do you want to hear about my siblings or how I was born human?”

“You were BORN HUMAN?!” You are practically bouncing right now. What...how… “But you said that you can’t change your species!”

“I said your Miracle Enabler can’t change your species,” He replies with a twinkle in his eyes, “Not that it can’t be done. The seven of us were all born human. We made the first seven churches, so we were made guardians, lower angels. Like...lower than whatever the lowest type of angel you know of is. But we weren’t created as angels like your friends in the front seat.” Movement catches your peripheral vision, and you notice Crowley shifting a little in his seat. No doubt that’s a touchy subject that only Aziraphale is allowed to go anywhere near, but he says nothing. “So they all pretend we don’t exist, and look down on us whenever they need to deal with us. Sort of like we’re --”

“Oh, don’t worry,” You interject, “I read enough fantasy to understand the way magical societies view human-born magic users.” You can imagine that being An Angel of God would probably get old real fast if everyone who was supposed to welcome you actually hated you and made sure you knew it. Goodness knows it got to Aziraphale eventually, makes sense that a human-born angel (a huboan? You’ll work on it) would get sick of it a lot sooner.

“And that’s why I like you Little Moth,” Sardis says with a chuckle and a wink. “Anyway, so I know Smyrna went to Heaven. Philly stayed here. The two of us have always been really close, she stuck with me and we messaged and called and visited all the time until recently. I got some messages from her when the world went nuts during the first apocalypse, but I haven’t heard from her since. She stopped replying to my messages.”

Now it’s your turn to shift uncomfortably in your seat. Your eyes drop to your feet and start to fill with tears, so you change your view to the one outside your window.

“I can relate,” You say after a moment, holding back a sniffle and a sob. Deep breath. “Well, I’m glad you’re sticking with us.” You plaster a smile on your face and turn back to him. “Maybe we can find her.”

He smiles. “That’s what I’m hoping.” For a while, everyone is silent. After a few minutes, Anathema offers to put together a playlist with everyone’s favourite songs. The mood shifts considerably as the five of you spend the next few hours excitedly making musical suggestions.

It’s the best collection of music you’ve ever heard.

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 🖤

Beginning || Previous || Next

[mac-lilly]

Mega Con London BTS Recap

Since this is a more personal recap of MegaCon London (and a bit of a comparison with Back to the Musical World con by Dream It), I didn't include it in the JATP info dump from yesterday.

BTTMW backstory

Let's do some backstory first. As you may know, the official JATP cancellation was announced at the first Back to the Musical World con back in 2021. I wasn't there for multiple reasons including Covid but also I just got into the fandom and it felt weird. I'm socially awkward - I cannot look into people's eyes, I stutter - especially when talking English - or ramble and I struggle to just touch strangers which is not helpful for photo ops.

So what I was supposed to do there? These people are actors - strangers I have nothing to do with. They aren't the characters I've fallen in love with. Yeah, not my thing, I thought.

However, when the BTTMW2 got announced, I was like 'You know, let's go to just show the cast how much you loved the show'. It was supposed to give me some closure. So I went.

And while the con was a fucked-up disaster in terms of organization and schedule - on Sunday, Charlie signed autographs until 10 pm, and Owen would have done the same if his mom hadn't cut off his line. (On that note: Never mess with a German mom protecting her kid. You'll lose.) But meeting the cast was an entirely different experience. I'd never interacted with them before, so I was anxious as fuck. However, they were so nice and considerate - and seeing them goof around was just adorable.

(And this pic is still one of my fav pics ever.)

And not just the cast. I met so many amazing people there who are now my friends. Big shoutout to them!

So, despite my hatred for Dream It, I went to BTTMW4 (and thankfully it was less chaotic than BTTMW2). But I was also determined to go to MegaCon bc I knew Jeremy wouldn't come back to Paris. (Unlike the other JATP cast members, he's done plenty of other cons before and knows that you shouldn't be so drained that require alcohol to make it through the day.)

BTTMW vs MegaCon London

So, just in general: MegaCon was clearly the better experience.

Firstly, it was cheaper than DI. Much cheaper.

(Note 1: The * prices are from 2022 since Jeremy wasn't at BTTMW4. In 2023, the photo with Madi, Owen & Charlie was already €180. All four would have been over €200 for sure.

Note 2: The prices for MegaCon were originally in £. The price in € is what I paid according to my credit card.

Note 3: Even though not 100% accurate: € = $)

Obviously, Charlie canceled later. But I automatically got a refund. So bonus for MegaCon.

Unlike with Dream It, you were allowed to film and take pictures everywhere, which was cool. And since the panels were exclusively in English, you actually got way more content. The panels were also much longer, and it seemed like the cast was more at ease. For example, Owen started to play body drums on stage, and he initiated the boomshakalaka without being drunk. This is such an incredibly sad thing to say, but I've never seen him that relaxed during a panel.

Also, shoutout to the many fans that were at the Saturday panel. According to the hist, it was the largest crowd they had on Saturday. (If MegaCon had been smarter and had announced the Sunday panel before the people got their passes, it would have had a huge audience, too.)

The autographs ran smoothly, and there was always a queue, which was good bc Own confirmed that it was Jeremy who convinced MegaCon to invite him and Charlie. (Madi got invited later - I assume after people haunted them on IG about her.) MegaCon was wary about it bc they had no idea if the cast was worth the money. I hope the audience on Saturday, the lines for the autographs, and the massive delays at the photo studio caused by the JATP fans (and technical issues) convinced them.

Side note: After Charlie canceled, I got an email from MegaCon. And obviously, I know they just used some phrases to placate us. But I still hope they meant it when they wrote,

MegaCon, you won't read this. But if you get them again, I'll be there!

(And again shoutout to the amazing people I met in London. To my fellow German tumblr friends: I loved meeting you guys and hanging out with you!)

So the only thing that wasn't great were the photo ops. Yeah, most of the Saturday photos are terrible bc of the fucked-up lighting, and due to technical issues, there were so many delays. (Though to be fair, BTTMW also had issues with photo ops.)

So overall, I genuinely enjoyed MegaCon, and I'm very excited to head off to Dublin on Saturday to give Jeremy the birthday card. To all the people who signed it: THANK YOU!

Some other random things that don't fit anywhere

Not Owen assuming that Deutsche Bahn must always be on time bc Germans are always on time. Bro, I know it's been a while since you visited Germany ... but please, that was mean.

When I gave him ghostie!Willie, Owen told me how much his family loves the little ghosties 🥹🥹🥹 (which explains why his dad was in my IG stories after he posted the pic of the ghosties.)

It's random, but this con was so much more balanced in terms of fans. I remember fans being kinda uninterested in Jeremy at the BTTMW - some fans even got angry at him bc he refused certain poses. At MegaCon, the interest was equally split between those three, and it made me happy.

Here's the lovely ghost merch I bought at MegaCon. Obviously, the pride ghost and the skateboard ghost are Willex, the couple is Juke, and the ghosts with the kitty and the one with the pumpkin are both Reggie! (I talked to the guys running the stalls, and they were so baffled about all the JATP fans - a few Fantoms came over from the US and Canada just for this con.)

[just-a-normal-regretter]

I'm really interested in hearing more about 'New Kid' and 'Odd is Alone' AUs from your Odd-shots.

The concepts sounds really fun

Thanks for the ask! o7

Recapping the AUs I'll talk about below:

New Kid - "William falls for Odd in S2" AU

Odd is Alone - "Canon!Odd gets thrown into the William/Odd roleswap world" AU

Let's talk about New Kid first:

New Order gets turned on its head just a bit. William is the new kid and he's going through the motions of learning just about everything that Kadic has to offer.

He's not gonna figure out everything from day 1, though Yumi is pretty chill with him from the get-go. She's the one who tries to show him around before classes get going. Then there's Odd butting his nose in, curious about the new student in town.

William gets a brief time to spend with both Odd and Yumi. Then things shift when it's time for the class trip for Mrs Hertz project.

Odd pities Ulrich floundering in his "will they won't they" relationship with Yumi. That and he pretty much knows that Ulrich will likely brood if he catches William and Yumi together.

So he nips that right in the bud and pairs up with William, Kiwi secret be damned. This leaves Yumi and Ulrich to pair up, while Aelita and Jeremie are set to pair as well.

At first Odd is just a neat friend. William is awed in how much Odd goes against the rules too given he's instantly exposed to Kiwi. Kiwi's pretty much an open secret to the student body, so Odd's not too worried showing him to William.

Odd's chatter makes the assignment go by pretty quickly. William didn't mind hearing more about the school at all, nor did he mind the constant topic shifts. Honestly, it was nice just to relax for once after all this change.

At one point, it isn't just Odd's chatter filling the air. William joins in as well, talking about his previous expulsion, how Delmas was pretty forgiving in letting him attend a new school, etc.

Things have a way of diverging from here. In one timeline, Odd has to take off to help find Aelita. Ulrich and Yumi get trapped and nearly boiled alive. William's interest flounders given Odd up and leaves without warning while he was talking.

Another timeline plays out given a return to the past. William's heart soars at the time spent with Odd. He wants to get to know him more. He thinks he's in love all over again.

Meanwhile Odd's just trying to settle back into this rewind. It doesn't really register how much he's bonded with William given the RTTP shot him back mid-conversation.

Thus post-New Order the hijinks will begin to ensue. William's case is interesting because I treat this affection towards Odd initially as puppy love. Throughout S2 he'll get to know Odd better than just from the first day and will constantly insist that it has to be love.

I imagine that A Bad Turn is where Odd's part of the crush starts to kick in. Although William getting out of "puppy love" stage -> actual potential relationship type of love would likely be around Ultimatum given the whole conflict in that episode.

In the meantime, it's mainly William being a dork trying to profess his love. Odd's oblivious here and just thinks William is being a good friend. It doesn't really register that the time spent together allowed the boy to crush on him so fast haha

Ulrich and Yumi are reading the room differently. Yumi understands that William is crushing on Odd, but given she's also heard about why William got expelled from his last school she worries that him getting involved with Odd would lead to a ton of issues (especially when it comes to XANA).

Meanwhile Ulrich isn't getting the memo much either, he accidentally comes to the conclusion that the boy is crushing on Yumi. It takes til Marabounta to clear this up by William having to flat out spell it out for Ulrich. After that Ulrich is still incredibly snarky but doesn't get on William's case. In fact, he teases the other about Odd's obliviousness.

Aelita and Jeremie are the only sane people here lmao, at first Jeremie was in a similar boat with Yumi re: William (i.e. nothing but trouble, could be bad for the group) but Aelita convinces him to give it a chance and see if it even works out compared to flat out disagreeing with it.

"New Kid" probably wraps up in Revelation rather than The Key.

Alright as for the "Odd is Alone" AU:

This guy I have planned out wayyy too much compared to some of the other Odd-shots. I think Cherrybird and Trio are AI AUs are the only ones that have a ton to them that can compare to this one besides like Drain/Adaptation which are akin to true one-shots.

This story takes the concept of "Triple Trouble" and just fucking books it into the complete other direction haha

Also headcanon's galore re: Odd's family. This fic in particular (and technically Cherrybird too) consider Odd's family as rich folk. They're happy with their jobs given they can provide for their kids, but sometimes their too in love with it. Practically to the point where they neglect their kids.

Hence Odd getting raised mostly by his sisters rather than parents, etc etc

So "Odd is Alone" runs with the idea that Odd is peeved for more reasons than just feeling useless on Lyoko. His parents forget his birthday, sending their well wishes way too late.

This rubs off on his Lyoko performance and well, this just makes him feel worse. The kill counts are joked about and Odd doesn't want to bring up why he felt terrible heading into Lyoko, so he instead blames his lack of power.

Next day things still aren't going his way and then Jeremie obviously comes in with the solution of a new power.

Off to their last sector, the Mountain Sector, Odd and Aelita await the all clear by Jeremie. Once it's explained a bit more to Odd he cheerfully tells Aelita he'll see her around. Then he activates Teleportation and it all falls apart from here.

Odd opens his eyes and he can instantly tell something's wrong. The place he envisioned himself landing at has completely shifted. It was supposed to be a rocky mesa with a simple tree.

It should not have been a large plateau instead decorated in specks of sand and snow. The tree that he saw before his teleport had grown tremendously, its roots ripping through the ground enough to truly highlight just how much the ground had changed.

...and yeah, if I keep going I'd just flat out try to drabble this haha

Just imagine a sector that is all four in one. That's only one of the major shifts in this AU because reasons I don't want to reveal yet if I ever do write about this properly.

"Odd is Alone" kicks off from there. There's some instant conflict that he gets exposed to between his copycat self, the crazy ability his other self exhibits to create and control new monsters at whim, and of course his friends are not exactly his friends right now. Although some things seem to stay the same, given he does save Aelita from the Scyphozoa as per usual. Then Ulrich devirtualizes him and it sinks in that this is very much not the world he lived in.

Odd integrates himself in this new world given he can't help his curiosity one bit. He looks at a life where he arrived way later at Kadic than what he did in his world.

He gets to interact with a William who joined the group from the get-go, a more closed off Ulrich (him and William don't hit off their friendship compared to canon Odd and Ulrich... plus, the love triangle did its damage), a very paranoid Jim, dealing with this version's Sam, etc.

Yumi is also interesting here given Cruel Dilemma didn't happen. Although with what occurs in this version's Just in Time... well... there's certainly some shifts.

I mentioned this the first time I chatted about this AU but the other Odd got to keep Kiwi on Kadic grounds without him being illegal. His parents are much more involved in his life after Louise sold out just what he planned to do earlier (hence why he didn't go to Kadic that day). William's parents didn't really accept his rebellious nature and sent him off to Kadic from the get-go on the day Odd should've attended.

Oh and don't get me started on how the polymorphic Odd clone is. Triple Trouble forma de three Odds existing at the same time in one world haha

It's funny at first but then it gets a bit depressing when the world is very much against that given the conflict to send Odd back to his world is a) his body is disappearing and b) getting devirtualized rewrote his programs to try to match his other self. He uh, lost Teleportation for Future Flash all over again. Whoops!

Rest goes from there if I keep going I'll just spill the entire plot at this point lmao

Thanks for the ask and uh sorry for the very long post (it was even longer than this before I trimmed down how much I talked about Odd is Alone ;-;)

Also thanks for reading everyone o7

[clunelover]

Time to complain about Jeremy’s mom. To recap - she is eerily similar to my mom, ie seems to have a personality disorder and views anything other than agreement to be totally enmeshed as a cruel rejection. And once Jeremy finally made it clear that enmeshment time was over, their relationship was kind of wrecked and they’re still trying to settle in an okay place (after a while of just not talking at all cause she was so mad about him discovering boundaries).

She lives in NY and we’re in WI so between the distance and their rocky relationship and her poor health and weirdness about money (her parents were early investors with Madoff, ie their "interest" earned came from other people’s investments so they were "net winners," and his mom is still reeling from all this coming out and the clawback amount owed being determined during the end of her parents lives when they needed in home care that, previously, had been assumed to be easily paid for with tons of $ left over, which turned out to be very much not the case!) she very rarely sees the kids (oh yeah and throw in Covid and travel restrictions - she went a long time without seeing them).

She is also very weird about gifts (in much the same way as my mom, hooray!) - goes for quantity over quality, and wants to spend tons of time on collecting info on what the kids want, picking the gifts, telling Jeremy what she picked, sending the gifts in a million little packages, and then sending many messages over various mediums stressing that she is waiting on thank-yous from the kids. Most of this I don’t see/hear, like a lot of it is messages she sends Jeremy, but I’ll be exposed to it sometimes - like, she just finished sending E’s bday presents in a slow trickle comprised of many packages (yes, I’m triggered) and then sent them a card that E read aloud at the table, that included "I hope you got the presents I sent [list of presents]. Can you let me know if you got them, and whether you liked them? Send me a letter or a picture or something that you’ve made - show yourself to me! Pleeeaaaasee" (🤮🤮🤮)

So, of course I hated hearing this (but didn’t visibly react- let the kids come to the conclusion that she’s weird and unpleasant on their own! You know, or maybe not! Bleh). I think it’s very weird, both her expectations and the way she goes about trying to get them met, but also…I feel bad for her. I really dislike her, and she knows this, but she does not have the capacity to understand why that is or do anything about it (if she did, she’d be a different kind of person and I wouldn’t dislike her so much). From her perspective, nobody wants much to do with her, even though all she’s done is try to love them. That’s hard! And she just had a lobectomy - removing a messed up part of her lung, very traumatic procedure with a hard recovery and lots of pain. So, I said to Jeremy later, "look, I hate this and it makes me crazy, but also I kind of get where she’s coming from and I feel bad for her. How else can she connect with the kids given the distance and her limited emotional capacity? And she just had that surgery and is still recovering - so, can you please think about whether you want the kids to send her anything, like maybe a get well card, and if you do, arrange a time to do that with them? But if you’re too annoyed by the whole thing and don’t want to, I get that too, and that’s all I’m going to say about it"

Now, I guess that was me getting a little too involved, but I also want to help support him, and right now he does want the kids to have some kind of limited relationship with her, and at this time I think that could still be worthwhile/there’s no risk of her doing more than making them kind of annoyed, but possibly not even that at this age…and I think his kneejerk reaction when she sends shit like this is to be like "you’re being insufferable, fuck you, no the kids aren’t going to send you anything" even though that’s more a reaction to her overall icky vibe rather than what he’d want to do, had she not communicated in such an offputting way. So sometimes I feel like it’s worth me trying to help him get past that reaction.

And he did end up doing this - had them make get well cards for her, on Saturday while I was out having brunch with BFF. And I was feeling good about all that, both that I gave him the nudge and that I was able to otherwise not be involved.

And then I was picking up the kitchen last night and I found the envelope the card had came in, and noticed for the first time that there was writing on the back of the envelope, which said "PS - Grandpa had nothing to do with this card other than taking it to the post office." I showed it to Jeremy and he said "yeah I saw that, weird but I don’t even really know what it means" which is annoying but ah…I speak passive aggressive BPD/NPD mom because I didn’t go through life trying to absorb as little as possible of what mine was saying - which I am not saying as a knock on him - we both did what we needed to survive in our households. My mom was more overtly toxic/abusive/rageful, plus had substance abuse issues that his mom thankfully does not (hence why I’m estranged from mine but he is not yet from his). Anyway, it was worth my time to pay very close attention to my mom’s moods and read between the lines of her loaded comments.

What is going on with this message is: Jeremy’s mom does have a husband, although if you met her and asked her about herself, he might not even come up. He was a longtime friend of hers who carried a torch for her for a super long time (ew, why?) and they finally got together when Jeremy was in high school and married when he was in college. Which is to say, she raised him mostly as a single mom but still kind of speaks about herself as if she is single?? And this guy is very nice and funny and I like him, but he is also incredibly passive (you’d have to be!) and has had most of the life drained out of him at this point, so it’s a complicated situation, but if you spend time with them at all, you will naturally be drawn more to him because he’s a lot more pleasant. And this drives her absolutely nuts! She visibly (to me at least) hates it when she’s having a video chat with the kids and they ask to also speak to grandpa. When she sends gifts, she wants it known that they are from HER and not both of them. So that note on the card meant: This is coming from me only, so when you send this long awaited thank you note that I am demanding, it is to be sent to ME and not "grandma and grandpa."

So anyway - yeah, I’m back to being done. She’s a rancid bitch*, and if Jeremy wants to just ignore her, there will be no more nudges from me to do anything else. It’s not our problem that she has no friends and doesn’t get much from her husband because she’s isolated and infantilized him so much that he did effectively become a man-child who is now falling short of her expectations for partnership. Sucks to be her! (I mean, really, it does suck to be her! And I can still empathize about that but it shall now be internal empathy only).

*you might reasonably ask "why would you let your kids have any contact with someone you deem a rancid bitch?" And I guess at this point I think - because I do still believe that even bad parents can be decent grandparents, and I think at this point she is sort of a benign, minor presence to them. If I ever feel like this is changing, I’ll tell Jeremy I don’t think they should have any more contact with her…idk I’m just kind of playing it by ear for now, and am prepared to say "hm yeah that card made me feel kind of icky too" whenever the kids do notice more. But also, she’ll never trigger them in the same way she triggers me, because she’s not a significant presence in their lives and they have normal parents who allow and even encourage assertive communication. Idk, it’s complicated…I’ll definitely share this with my wonderful therapist and hopefully Jeremy with his although I’m of course not dictating to him what his therapy should be used for!!

[loveabledirtbag]

1.08 - Braciole

Uffda, we’ve gotten to the end of season one of the bear! and it’s only now that i realize all the things i wanted to say, and still haven’t as we’ve gotten to the end of the season!

i might have to do a whole season recap and final thoughts post too! AND THEN we get into season two! uffda…i might finish this before season three comes

but anyway, let’s get into it…

i love the surrealist intro we get. it’s just a little different than most of what we’ve seen up to this point. there is a sort of lucid, dreamlike air over the whole season, but getting this really intense, disturbing cooking show nightmare scenario followed by bears in the background is just….it hits different.

but the slow descent into horror, and bleeding into his panic attack as carmy has flashbacks to his behavior in the previous episode. it’s just so well done.

the fact that he’s wearing a different color shirt when not at the restaurant, or having come from the restaurant or going to the restaurant. i like that touch. it gives the idea that carmy’s white t-shirts truly are his uniform. and his life is just so engrossed in the beef that he’s almost always on his way to, currently at, or coming home from being there. but we now have confirmation he has a shirt that’s just for him. an at home piece. plus the fact that it is black when compared to his usual white is probably significant too. we’re coming off the fact that carmy just had a major blowup at work, descending into every learned character trait from his traumatic family upbringing and working experience. he’s at his darkest moment: no longer the good knight trying to save a restaurant that means something to a community and help bring the people who work there to their fullest potential. he’s now the villain that yells and is abusive and harms those around him.

the fact that he looks at his cook books to come down is also so telling. thinking of the dishes inside of them, potentially dishes he’s made from reading them. it’s just continuing to show how broken and single minded he’s been his whole life and how harmful being so one-track can be.

hearing mikey, and (maybe? maybe not) carmy speaking as carmy is spiraling and trying to come down from his anxiety attack: hearing “let it rip” which is clearly mikey but also, “i’m gonna burn this fucking place down” which i think might be mikey but could also be carmy? honestly? not sure if anyone has confirmation on it. but with carmy’s themes of fire this season, it might be him. but of course, we also know mikey had his own fire story (which we’ll talk about in season two when we the audience learn mikey also has stories about starting fires…)

it is good, and showing on carmy’s part of how he wants to grow and change for the better, that when he woke up after his bad day and his ongoing panic attack he went to an all family meeting for al-anon. i still think it’s so weird that so many people shit on carmy for being so abusive and toxic (which he is!) but don’t talk about how he’s trying so hard to try and get better.

listen. carmy’s 8 minute long, one-take speech is absolutely, unequivocally one of the greatest things put to film. i don’t even know how to properly talk about it. but it is absolutely at least 50% of the reason why jeremy allan white deserved best actor, and why the bear deserved every award it won (and maybe a few more). it’s stunning. go watch it. now. go. this will still be here when you get back.

i think it’s interesting that carmy talks about mikey’s charisma and how everyone liked him. because we get that sense in the quick flashback we see of mikey. BUT we don’t really see that when we spend more time with mikey in season two for the “Fishes” episode. i’m curious if we’ll see a sort of marrying of the two mikey’s as the show goes on. how did the charismatic “everybody’s best friend” mikey turn into the depressive, animalistic, explosive mikey, before finally dying by suicide before season one begins. (it’s one of my notes, that maybe i’ll talk about in a later post)

but we get another little tidbit in carmy’s psychology that shows how he likes torturing himself. there’s been a few examples throughout the season that carmy actually likes all the shit he goes through. i know i mentioned them in the concurring episodes, but the one that comes to mind is when he’s talking to nat on the phone and she asks him about working at the restaurant in new york and he talks about throwing up before work every day, and when she sympathizes with him he says “i kinda dug it”, and then when he notices her reaction to him saying that he says “oh, no, no it was horrible.”. but in his monologue he talks about having oily and dry skin, having greasy hair, and getting knife cuts and garlic and onions in the cuts, and callouses and his stomach was fucked and it was….everything. like there’s something that carmy feels when he’s going through shit; a twisted love for going through pain. i think it’s a really nuanced, balanced, and deep character trait that they thread throughout the show. where you hear him say something once and you might not pay close attention to it, or maybe you’re like “oh, yeah. i kind of get that feeling. like when you work really hard and accomplish a goal.” but when you stack all of the times he makes a comment like that together you go, “ohhhhh….thats not good.”

which, i think that’s what happened with mikey. mikey was charming and charismatic and fun! but the people who were closest to him knew that he had a drug problem, and had moments of dark depressive episodes. and maybe they were far and few enough between that no one thought anything of it. and then one day mikey was dead. i think that’s one of the hardest things to realize and understand and then see with the people around you. sometimes you gotta stack up comments on top of each other with context and go, “oh. hey. everything okay?”

what follows after the 8 minute monologue masterpiece (that i will forever be jealous i can’t use in my high school theater class, but whatever i’m over it. i’m 30. i’m not THAT mad about it) is honestly an almost unsettling chill episode. and that might sound wrong or stupid to those who’ve seen it, knowing what is coming. but the way it’s filmed, the way it’s presented on screen, the way the rest of the episode plays out is this really calm, muted, sorta quiet, oppressive episode.

it sorta feels like when you have a manic episode and then what follows immediately after is a depressive episode. the anxiety hangover. we had this loud, fast, angry, explosive previous episode and what follows is the exhaustion that comes afterwards.

“she just missed the asshole. like, what happens if you get stabbed in the asshole? you can’t sew an asshole.” “i’ve seen assholes.” GOD. ebra is a comedic genius of a character and there’s never enough of him in each episode.

telling everyone that dinner service is canceled because you’re hosting a bachelor party THE MORNING of the event is a douche move. and i FULLY understand that this is TV logic of moving plot succinctly, but in real life that’s about as big a dick move as anything carmy does the whole season. which might sound severe, but private events are the FUCKING WORST. because the tips for the FOH (front of house) go out the door, and you don’t get to go in a groove of people come in and out, which means your BOH (back of house) becomes bouncers and waiters and caretakers to the guests. which they all hate doing. plus, the large amount of money you get upfront when the group rents out the place is immediately stretched thinner as the night wares on and the people stop ordering more food, but you’re also missing out on potential rushes and money. PLUS, they’re not even making money from the event, because they’re paying off a debt to cicero, so they’re losing out on all that money, AND they’re not making anything from a down payment. i wish they had thrown a line into the show of like carmy saying he just found out the news that morning too, just so the hate i feel doesn’t burn towards carmy. but i know -i know- that this is just TV stuff to make everything move along faster so we can move past it to the main plot of the show.

i do enjoy the dinner that syd and marcus have. it’s very pleasant. i also get romantic vibes here (which we’ll keep talking about in season two), and it makes things complicated because i don’t think i’m reading too deeply into things? there are ways that editors and directors craft scenes so that when you’re watching at home you pick up a vibe and like….i pick that vibe up….? is it just me? (i mean, it’s clearly not just me, because of season two. but again….more on that later)

for the entire essay i wrote on the last episode, syd and marcus complaining about carmy really rubs me the wrong way. because a lot of the stress that came about that day was their fault, and then made worse by their walking out. NOW, if i were syd or marcus would i be doing the EXACT SAME THING with my coworker? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY! and yes, carmy does deserve some hate for how he reacted when it all went shit. but like…i still think they’re conversation shows they feel absolutely no guilt or shame for their own actions and failings that caused a lot of problems last episode, and that has always rubbed me the wrong way. like…shit on carmy. he was an asshole, he deserves to be shit on. BUT LIKE…not even a line of like “i wish i had double checked the to-go orders and made sure it was turned off for preorders.” “i wish i didn’t become obsessed with donuts so much that i stopped doing my job for weeks straight. and then when shit hit the fan, i continued to make donuts as if nothing else was going on.”

“my moms like that…” i think this is the first reference to sydney’s mom. with everything we learn in season two, i wonder if this is sydney lying, or sydney remembering and using the present tense to pretend her is still alive? (sorry for spoilers for season two).

ok. so, the dish sydney makes. LOOKS INCREDIBLE. but we get a shot of the dish, and it’s just sitting in oil. just like a puddle or a small soup of oil. not the end of the world, not wrong or bad in and of itself. BUT THEN SHE DRIZZLES MORE ON? like, syd! that’s so much fucking oil! now, once again, i know that they have a real life, talented, hardcore chef who made sure everything was as perfect and realistic as possible. which means that this HAS TO be some sort of TV thing. like, they want to keep sydney moving as she talks to keep the scene dynamic, so they have her drizzle something before she serves and because of the specific dish she’s making the only thing she could drizzle without ruining the dish is more oil. but like….idk, maybe choose a different dish then? it has bugged me since the first time i watched this show and it’ll never not bug me. because it’s not only wasteful, and gonna make this dish just so incredibly oily, but like….you don’t garnish a dish with something you already added as the base of the dish. you don’t make an ice cream sundae and then on top drizzle MORE vanilla ice cream! it’s just weird.

tina checking in with carmy is so sweet. it’s speaks so much to how good the show is that my LEAST favorite character could become one of my favorites in like the course of two episodes. love mama bear tina.

the calm, familial love between richie and carmy that has slowly but surely been prodding itself out more and more each episode is just so beautifully done.

listen, you might say to yourself that violence is never the answer, but tiny pipsqueak carmy jumping into every fight possible to stop people from fighting is the most noble thing ever. like…what hope does he ever have of stopping these tall midwesterners from fighting? he just continually gets the shit kicked out of him for trying to stop people fighting and i kinda love that about him. and richie coming in to the rescue both times is also a vibe. love that about richie, stepping in as a protective older brother.

…of course this time richie almost kills a a guy and gets arrested so. not the best.

if you had put “richie gets arrested for assault, with possible charge of manslaughter depending on if the customer he punched to break up a fight” on your bingo card, good for you! i didn’t see that coming.

that richie “bad news” uses his one phone call to call his ex wife, and then realizing that he always calls with bad news decides instead to NOT tell her that he’s in prison, but instead apologizes for the argument he got in with her dad at some point in their relationship…wow. it breaks your heart all over again. richie is just such a broken, sad guy.

that carmy is waiting for richie, asleep in the foyer is just…precious. it’s family. that’s family. that carmy used the shop’s two week parachute money to bail richie out, meaning that financially the beef has gone right back to where it started in episode one is…well, again. it’s family. a shop, when doing it right, ACTUALLY cares about its employees. because carmy feels like the person who would have done that for anyone in the beef, not just richie. i know owners and managers saying “we’re family here” has turned into a red flag that is code for “we don’t pay you enough, we take advantage of you, and we emotionally manipulate you”. but what family ACTUALLY DOES is when battling the evils of capitalism, and struggling to get by, you use what little you had saved up to help those who make it possible to do what you do. i wish more places actually did things like this. paid for bail, or medical procedures. but the only businesses i’ve heard that have done this are small ma and pa, independently owned restaurants. and it’s probably because you work so close to these people all day every day that they really do become your family.

the fact that we then symbolically and visually go back to the beginning of the show: they’re getting ball breaker ready for a tournament, they have no money, carmy’s on the floor hand scrubbing stains again, lu fucks up their meat order. the same song from the first episode plays. we zoom in on the ever present and oppressive clock.

ok. so marcus returns, and carmy literally goes out of his way to say he’s so sorry and he’s glad he’s back. carmy proves that once again, he is trying to be better, he’s trying to rise above his family, above his old bosses and be the bigger and better person and apologize for his mistakes and show that he does care about marcus….but marcus doesn’t say anything back. AGAIN, i know that carmy’s blowup is visually, and thematically way bigger and more prominent. but marcus couldn’t have said like, “sorry that i took advantage of your trust and your belief in me. that while you were working 24/7 to try and make sure this place didn’t go under you still allowed me to purchase and explore and do whatever i wanted with my workday, and all i had to do in return was make the cakes that were my idea in the first places, which i then repeatedly didn’t do. i’m sorry about that.” like…it blows my mind that the writing team, director, producer, and everyone else didn’t have a moment where they were like “should marcus apologize for what he did at all? like, he hurt the store which was already hurting? he put the shop at more risk of closing because of his actions. should he apologize for that?”

the beautiful conclusion to the braised short rib dish. in an earlier post i talked about how there’s an ongoing subtle storyline with it that is deeper than carmy just being an asshole and saying it wasn’t ready without giving pointers to make it better. and we see as he covers sydney’s shift he finds her little black notebook with the recipe and that’s when he learns what’s wrong with the dish: that it needs acid. he didn’t know before. when sydney had him try it, he knew it was missing something but he wasn’t sure what. it might have been his own pride: he didn’t want to admit syd that he didn’t know what was missing. and he didn’t want to ask for her recipe to find out, because he’s supposed to be the best. he should know every ingredient that’s in the dish, and he should know what’s missing and what needs to be added. and he didn’t. so he couldn’t ask syd for her recipe, he couldn’t tell her he didn’t know what it needed. and maybe, there was a part of him that didn’t want her dish to succeed, because he saw her as the competition, like he admitted in his monologue earlier in this episode. but it comes from such a place of trauma, and pain, and self-hatred. it’s so well done and so sad.

what i think is truly fascinating is that we get this scene where we see the staff deep cleaning everything. soap and water. the whole kitchen looks amazing. we cut to the lowboys, we cut to the floor, we cut to the shelves with all the plates. spotless. and then in just a few scenes carmy is looking around and it’s wrecked. it’s filthy. and i wonder….is it actually wrecked, or is it in carmy’s own perception of the place. because one interpretation could be that; well, you’re a restaurant. you’re gonna clean, it’s gonna get dirty, you’re gonna clean, it’s gonna get dirty. and carmy is just sick of the repetition. that he’s getting worn out from it all. the other is that he’s in such a hole in his own head that he thinks the place looks like a wreck when in actuality it’s still cleaner and nicer than it was when he started working there.

i personally like the second option. for one, it mirrors the truth of the shop. we get a lot of repeated themes and moments from the first episode. carmy is probably feeling like he’s right back to where he started. he just spent 7 episodes “cleaning up the place”, and now it’s “dirty again”. but in actuality, he has a staff that has fully embraced his system over mikey’s, he has an updated menu that is making strides in the community. i mean, in seven episodes he was able to get ahead of the tidal wave of debt and bills to create a two week parachute while trying to fight for everyone’s respect and loyalty in the shop. now he has their respect, so he should make that parachute back up even faster. but he’s so emotionally and mentally drained and damaged that he can’t see that progress, he can’t see how much “cleaner” the shop is. he just sees the filth.

this is backed up, in my mind, that while carmy is having his anxiety and depressive episode, stuck in this cycle of dread, we get clips of everyone else crushing their jobs. they’re refilling condiment cups, they’re prepping eggs for cake, they’re dicing and cooking onions, chopping into a chicken. they look like a well-oiled machine. and then we cut to looking at carmy from the side, and the kitchen behind him looks clean. white. crisp. it makes me think that all the grime and disgusting stuff we saw was only in his head

HOWEVER; we also see an olive oil squeeze bottle on its side over the stove dripping into it, and then in the next scene when carmy turns the stove on it instantly bursts into flames. so. maybe it’s not fully in his head? idk, i go back and forth on this one.

i wish they could make a realistic cgi fire. i’m not sure if it’s because fire already kinda looks fake, so to then make fake fire becomes impossible to make look real? or if they simply didn’t have the budget to make it look real. but the two times there’s been fire in this show it has looked so fake.

i think the theme of fire that we see from carmy is interesting. carmy talked about how the day after he won a james beard award he started a fire and watched it burn for a moment. we get that quick snippet in the very beginning of this episode “shoulda let it fucking burn down” which i dont know if it was mikey or carmy saying that. carmy almost set his own apartment on fire while cooking. there’s a lot about fire in this season. (and a lot about trying to put the fire out next season…but more on that later…)

but i love that when everyone comes to put out the fire (which….thats symbolic, right? for community? carmy needed help, he started a fire, and they came around him and put his fire out), richie comes up to carmy and instead of being angry, or sarcastic, or mean, just wants to know if carmy is ok. because he understands now; richie has been going through a lot because of mikey, so obviously so is carmy. he’s thinking about others now for the first time.

and that’s when richie gives carmy the letter from mikey that he found in episode two. because richie finally realized that he’s not okay. and that because richie knows that he’s not okay, he realizes carmy is not okay. and that instead of the two of them not addressing why they’re not okay, it’s time to heal and move forward. so he gives carmy the letter. and i love that there’s a moment where carmy is a little mad; richie knew about a letter that mikey made out to carmy. but richie admits the truth: he didn’t want to give it to carmy because it meant that mikey was really gone. and carmy’s not mad anymore, because he understands. it’s a shared moment of intimacy that i just love how subtle and slow and quiet and understated it is. the care between carmy and richie in this moment, and sorta in the episode overall is just kinda beautiful. this episode does such a good job of not being in your face like the rest of the season is, even while arguably more intense stuff happens this episode than in any of the previous ones.

call it friendship, call it a budding romance, call it emotional dependency that is unhealthy (i’ve seen cases for all three), but i think it means something that carmy has this letter from mikey, and instead of reading it first he instead texts syd. this sort of thing will happen again in season two, and we’ll talk about it. but, i think it means something that before he can address and face mikey’s last words to him, he needs to make sure he doesn’t follow in mikey’s footsteps, he needs to make sure that he doesn’t leave anyone hanging with unneeded or unwanted anger without resolution. and top of his list is syd.

also, not important. but the outfit that syd is wearing this scene, while COOKING and making sauces that is splatterig, IS SO COOL. i don’t often notice outfits, unless there’s something deeper in the outfits that speaks to characters (carmy’s white shirt uniform, richie’s sweat pants and beef t-shirts), but syd’s shirt is fucking fire

“i love you dude. let it rip” is so….so. like it speaks volumes and it’s so mikey and its just a hit to the heart. but at the same time, that’s all he said. no long heartfelt goodbye. just i love you. let it rip. and family spaghetti recipe on the back. the same one carmy axed from the menu in episode one. it’s really nice touch that carmy decides to honor his brother, finally coming to terms with his death, by making the dish for family dinner. plus we learn why there’s so many smaller cans of tomato’s when bigger ones are cheaper per ounce! mikey thought they tasted better…

also. we get a quick cut of marcus making the cake again. and the first time we see him drizzle the chocolate on it looks SO DRY, but this time it actually looks moist and tasty!

i love that once again there’s like a…undercurrent of charge between fak and richie. fak is talking all low and quiet about how cool it was that richie got stabbed and walked it off, and i can’t help but think….do these two secretly love each other?! wouldn’t be surprised.

there’s $300,000 hidden in these cans of tomatoes! which, when i learned that, my very first thought was “didn’t carmy toss a can in episode one??? how much money was in that can! is there like 100 cans? that’s like $3,000! FUCK! even if there’s like 300 cans, that’s still $1,000? not great!

i think it’s pretty fair and fitting to say that in a capitalist society, all of the problems we just went through over the course of 8 episodes magically disappears because of money. like, these working class people are suddenly without a problem because $300,000 fell into their lap.

but that also brings me to one of my only guilts for this season. the deus ex machina of: we go through 8 episodes of problems and trying to climb out of this hole by the skin of our teeth, and ope! instead of accomplishing it ourselves we just found $300k. and everything is (sorta) wrapped up nicely. and yes, the way it all sorta gets revealed is done about as well as could be. the threat of making the spaghetti, carmy wondering about why they get the smaller cans, going over the books and seeing this weird amount of payments to KBL electric for the amount cicero gave to mikey. it all was leading here: finding the money. and it’s not superb genius twist, i assumed something was up and then was like “oh! the money!” before the money was revealed. but it also doesn’t need to be a super plot twisty thing. the bear isn’t going for that. so they do a great job with the plot point, it’s just not my favorite plot point.

but i do love that sydney comes back; for what, we’re not fully sure. to ask for her old job back? maybe. to pick up her last check and be done? possibly. but she stumbles upon this group of rough around the edges lovable dirtbags surrounded by tomato sauce and money and richie (and it’s perfect that it’s richie) is like, “hey! you’re part of this family! get a can opener and let’s boogie!”

i also loved that carmy and syd just look at each other and they without even questioning it start designing the new restaurant. but i have to believe that i wasn’t the only one that when syd asks, “okay, what do we call it?” and the camera holds for just a second too long on carmy’s face, i immediately yelled “OH SHIT! THE BEAR!”

and then it ends perfectly. the whole family eating pasta and laughing because they’re finally gonna be ok. the beef is gonna close, the bear is gonna open, and it’s gonna be amazing.

i also love the meaningful shot of carmy walking out of the kitchen and for the first time we see him pull the towels off his apron, and take his apron off. he’s not cooking. and everyone is smiling, and everyone is happy.

and then we get this shot, and it means something. because carmy is wearing a black shirt again, and he looks up just past the camera and smiles. and then we cut to mikey, who turns to look just past the camera and we realize that mikey and carmy are looking at each other smiling.

and then it ends. *chefs kiss*

i do……..think it’s a little glossed over that mikey knew about carmy’s dream of opening a shop together, loved that idea and would talk to him about it. and then realized that the beef was poison, so he hurt his relationship with carmy to keep carmy away, which sent carmy onto a path of fine dining. mikey saw that, knew that carmy could fix things, so he borrowed $300k from cicero, then took his own life and gave carmy the restaurant so that carmy would then uncover his plot and be able to start the restaurant of his dreams. i understand mental health plays a lot into this, but uffda. mikey. there are other ways to do this…other ways that are also just a smidge less convoluted.

but that’s the episode! and not just the episode, but the season! uffda. i honestly think it’s just about as perfect as perfect could be! yes, there are a few gripes, but man those gripes aren’t enough to even come close to stopping this from being my favorite show ever and one of the best shows ever made. i love it. i love it so much.

season two awaits! someday…

SEASON ONE: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven

SEASON TWO: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten

[bloody-wonder]

omg im the tsc anon, i literally sent it cause i knew from the past aftg opinions you shared - you'd likely feel similarly to the way i did about tsc

neil outshines jean to such a shocking degree when he only has a handful of scenes... neil is a fantastic protagonist so ofc it's hard to live up to, but come on 😭 jean has such a weaker personality imo? he does/says less interesting things, but also has a less interesting perspective on things. his lack of standing up for himself when the trojans badgered him constantly and talked behind his back bothered me to. can u imagine neils reaction if the foxes had been sharing his secrets over a group chat?

but just in general. tsc felt like a sanitised version of aftg, if that makes sense? scrubbed clean of the controversial and unconventional aspects. and it's those aspects that, in my opinion, played a huge part in what made aftg so good. noras a very talented writer, but i can not comprehend the decision to make tsc... all that it was, yknow? it feels almost like it was written for the 'andreil say ily' part of the fandom...

neil really saved this book for me icl. outsider pov of him is fascinating. and while andrew barely said/did anything even when he was there, i actually kinda liked that? it puts into perspective how ig off-putting andrew can appear to those who don't put in the effort with him. 'creepy little goalkeeper' is so funny and so accurate, he IS a creepy little goalkeeper and i love that for him.

idk, some things i had anticipated - the trojans being who they are were never going to match the foxes. jeremy x jean was never going to match andreil (and ive seen ppl comparing them already... the blasphemy.) but there were things i was surprised weren't there. i had expected kevin and jeans relationship to be a lot more tense ig? i had thought jean would harbor a MUCH deeper resentment towards kevin, but i suppose its just not his character? but when i was reading, i couldn't help asking what would the fan reaction had been if that had been the case? if kevin and jeans past relationship, and places in a cult hierarchy, had shown through in a much uglier and uncomfortable way? i can see why she didn't do that, i don't even necessarily want that, i think i was just desperate for this book to have some sort of deep conflict between the characters.

on the subject, kevin felt quite different from how he was in aftg. but i can't quite put my finger on why.

anyway, it is nice to see someone else have mixed feelings towards the book. i enjoyed it, but i was shocked how many people seemed to really love it. not because it was bad. but because, to me, it was so fundamentally different from aftg.

thank you for sharing your thoughts! i suspected you might have written me bc i used to be the resident notorious contrarian of the fandom lol

yeah neil is a textbook example of a protag who drives the plot forward, he has that main character energy which jean totally lacks which makes sense since jean was originally a minor side character. at the same time the differences in their characterization make complete sense in universe due to the different ways they were brought up and the different trauma they faced. so it all comes down to each reader's personal preference: for me, neil's arc is a self-indulgent power fantasy. i think i have a strong sense of self and when i can't achieve something it's due to circumstances so far out of my control it's impossible to overcome them. it's therefore very satisfying to read about neil facing impossible odds and winning thanks to the sheer force of his personality, whereas jean's way of dealing with trauma feels less fun by comparison. but other readers can relate to him more and all the power to them. i do however think tsc does a disservice to its new characters by opening with a rather lengthy recap of how cool the foxes were in the last act of tkm and closing on a chapter where neil comes along and reminds us who the real hero of this story is🤷‍♀️

i don't think tsc has been entirely scrubbed clean of controversial aspects - i saw plenty of reviews complaining about the amount of dark content (in book 4 of a series known for its dark content, le gasp) - but i do think the handling of certain things was less nuanced than in aftg. for instance, both stories have a plot bit about someone unknowingly exposing a character to their abuser which leads to them being retraumatized (jean himself comments on the similarities between drake and grayson). in aftg that someone is nicky - a person andrew knows and trusts, a person the readers grew to care about (lol not me but certainly some other readers) - so his role in the tragic sequence of events is that much more upsetting. rape and abuse is terrible but the fact that a person who means well can exacerbate the issues bc they don't have the framework to understand the other person - that hits so much harder for me personally. so in the end drake is just an evil rapist but nicky is a much more nuanced character bc through him nora questions whether being nice and having good intentions is enough, whose feelings should be centered on in such a complex situation, whose emotional needs should be prioritized etc. by contrast, in tsc that person is lucas - someone we basically just met, who is nothing more than an antagonistic stranger to jean and who we therefore don't care about. which is why when he leads grayson to jean it's like, first of all, duhh. but secondly, bc it happens against the backdrop of the other ("good") trojans' cheerfully patronizing attitude it doesn't come so much as a shocking twist that puts the ways how we deal with complex trauma into an unconventional perspective than as a culmination of everyone disrespecting jean's boundaries all the time - which is likely what nora intended but the overall constellation feels much less interesting to me.

ig this ties into your point about the book lacking the kind of deep conflict aftg had - but maybe that was intentional too, maybe it's supposed to be aftg light in that sense, sort of a post canon character study fic. which i am not opposed to, not everything has to be high plot and tension and grey morality, but unfortunately the emotional core the story relies on in the absence of the plot just didn't work for me. i can accept jean's "weaker" personality, i can understand him not being able to stand up for himself even tho i can't admire it, but i draw the line at how forced his friendship with jeremy and the girls ended up feeling. like, i still can't get over cat's sex toy joke right on the heels of jean being badgered into admitting he had been sexually abused - the info which jeremy promptly spilled to the girls. if something like that happened to me i would never be able to trust these people again, much less call them friends so soon. it's such a bizarre contrast between how neil joining the monsters in tfc despite their problematic initiation rituals feels valid bc the narrative earned it both plot-wise (we're now facing a bigger enemy together) and character-wise (neil pushing back, talking about why they did it, nicky apologizing) on the one hand - and how jean accepting jeremy, cat and laila as his new friends feels rushed and artificial despite them being so very nice and domestic and wholesome on the other hand. idk maybe it's bc i'm inherently skeptical about disingenuous cozy/hopepunk subgenres in modern lit bc they usually have a darker underbelly people are loath to confront but ngl the words sanitized and conventional did come to mind while reading and so did the idea that tsc will especially appeal to a certain subset of fans which found the (at times uncomfortable) complexity of the original trilogy too much to handle. well, i hope they're enjoying their fantasy of healing a survivor of cptsd by cooking and shopping and hugs - i certainly got to enjoy mine in aftg, there's plenty to go around lol

besides, tsc being so different/separate from aftg makes it really easy to just not engage with the fan content and discussions if it starts feeling like they veer into the annoying territory too much. tbh my primary concern when tsc was announced was that it could contain some retcons about andreil and aftg which i wouldn't agree with - and that didn't happen, my boys are still very much in character, so i can just retreat to my enclosure and leave tsc to jean stans who are its main target audience in any case.

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Sunday, June 3rd - Monday, June 4th

Joyce: (trying to make sense of it) It's because you didn't have a strong father figure, isn't it? Buffy: It's just fate, Mom. I'm the Slayer. Accept it.

~~Becoming~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Love's Cost by Jackdaw816 (Buffy/Spike, past Spike/Drusilla, T)

Lessons In Self Love by zombiesam (Buffy/Giles, Explicit)

The Powers that Were Not by eevol76vamp (AtS ensemble, Desdemona, Whistler, Betta George, not rated, violence warning)

Five Things that Never Happened to Betta George by eevol76vamp (Torchwood crossover, Betta George, not rated, warnings for violence and death)

Snow Day by Nicholas_Oliver (Andrew/Jonathan, G)

empty rooms in an empty house by belledamn (Giles/Jenny, Giles & Buffy, not rated)

Fix Me Right by MadeInGold_AfterDark (Buffy/Maggie Walsh, Explicit, non-con warning)

Un trou noir dans le coeur by Nelja (Willow/Tara, T, in French)

Ascent by ClowniestLivEver, Maxine Eden (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Hearts In The Fog by Spikelover4ever (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

That One Time by Maxine Eden (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Like the Sands of Time by VeroNyxK84 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Memorial Day by myrabeth (Buffy/Spike, PG)

Aglow by Dusty (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

[Chaptered Fiction]

Release (Pt. 1 of The Experiment series) by madeingold (Angel/Maggie Walsh, NC-17)

Followup Tests (Pt. 2 of The Experiment series) by madeingold (Angel/Maggie Walsh, NC-17)

Masters & Minions 4: Dies Irae - Chapter 1-8 (COMPLETE!) by MedeaBtVS (Angelus/Willow/Spike, Explicit with multiple warnings)

Party At Mosaic - Chapter 1-2 (COMPLETE!) by eevol76vamp (Spike, Beck, Betta George, Jeremy, not rated, graphic violence warning)

Apocalypse, Again? Chapter 1-34 (COMPLETE!) by RevelloDrive1630 (Buffy/Spike, Angel, Wesley, T)

Green Eyed Monster, Ch. 10 (COMPLETE!) by Melme1325 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

A Ripple In Time, Ch. 43-44 (COMPLETE!) by CheekyKitten (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Love Bites But So Do I, Ch. 8 (COMPLETE!) by CheekyKitten (Buffy/Spike, )

[Images, Audio & Video]

Sketches: observational studies by artsying-ifer (Gunn, Drusilla, Cordelia, Wesley, Harmony, Lilah, Lindsey, Anya, Fred, Buffy, Faith, worksafe)

More of the shoulder angel/demon thing by aa-arttss (Faith, Kendra, worksafe)

Fanvid: I Want U by ladyofthelakes (Willow/Tara)

A sketch of Giles and Willow by mistyintherivers (worksafe)

Screenshots captioned with text posts by ofteaandsparrows (Buffy Summers, worksafe)

Screenshots captioned with text posts by ofteaandsparrows (Anya, Spike, worksafe)

Screenshots captioned with text posts by ofteaandsparrows (Spike, Buffy/Spike, mild nudity)

spike + textposts: 🌈 edition by spikespeaches (probably worksafe)

Drawing: A surfer's dream by JSBirsa (Spike, G, some nudity)

Manip: Pillow Talk by all choseny (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Happy Pride month to those who celebrate by sophie_4187 (Lorne, worksafe)

A BtVS wallpaper by Sammaelus (worksafe)

Podfic: ChokolatteJedi's story Remember the Name read by pieces0fstars (Dawn & Buffy, G, character death warning)

[Reviews & Recaps]

Examples of oddly-structured exposition? by Tuxedo_Mark

Finale Anya vs. Wesley by Elphaba_92

Podcast: Investigating Angel’s episode of “Forgiving” (3.17 of AtS)

[Recs & In Search Of]

mermaiidbitch seeks fanvid recs: any fan edits of Buffy and Angel ending up together?

[Community Announcements]

Seasonal Spuffy Spring 2024 Index Post

Reduced Summer of Giles 2024 will run from 17th July 2024 until 1st August at summer_of_giles

[Fandom Discussions]

How does Sunnydale do Pride parades? by aphony-cree, lunacornfan2k24

[Reasons why Angel only appears for one scene in Season 2’s Ted] by coraniaid

Rewatching “Something Blue” and remembered how fucking much I love this exchange by ravelqueen

I so so wish the Ben/Glory connection had been explored more... by reality-schmality

Once again… poor Dawn. In Conversations with Dead People... by reality-schmality

I wish the slayer before Buffy haunted the narrative the same way that... [comparisons to other shows] by hersterical

Riley lights up Season 4 (cont'd) by xxstaindrosesxx and others

Dawn, Faith and Tara looked more like sisters than Buffy and Dawn do by jdpm1991

If you had the chance to change one major plot point from Buffy, what would you choose? by Asherware

If Buffy lasted more than 7 seasons? by matt-89

Party like it's 1999. What character are you grabbing and what are you guys doing? by sushibananawater

How would you change season 3 if it was the final season? hosted by Waarm

What scene or storyline did you find sad or moving, even though it probably wasn't intended to be that upsetting? by foreseethefuture

Philosophy of Buffy help (a question about forgiveness) by threefeetoffun and others

Oz calling Angel too Pale is ironic. by MDJokerQueen

S7 Alteration(s) by johnnyorac

Adam’s Minion in Superstar by Enough-Pen644

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

I attended San Francisco's Sunnydale Prom event! by hotpinkroadbike

James Marsters to Attend Comic Con Holland 12-13 October 2024 - via jamie_marsters

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

Join the editor team :)

[veliseraptor]

April Reading Recap

so apparently I read a fuckton in April. I put that on the week off for Passover and also a number of very fast reads last month. here goes

The Spite House by Johnny Compton. Might be the best horror book I'd read in a while, and I did not see the twist coming for a long while. Good and very spooky on the whole, but the "creepy kids as ghosts" thing took some of the luster off it. Still, some good and original ideas here and I'll be watching for more books by this author.

The Nine Eyes of Lucien by Madeleine Roux. Not very good writing and a good third of the book was rehashing the events of the end of Campaign 2, which I just watched. It was fine, I guess? But I didn't find it added much.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. I've had this one on my list for literal years - it's a retelling of the Biblical story of Dinah, Jacob's one daughter. I kind of wish I'd read it sooner, when (a) I was less burned out on retellings/reinterpretations of familiar stories, and (b) when I would've been less bothered by the flavor of gender essentialism of the text and could have appreciated other things about it without getting stuck in feeling iffy about that. I am trying to work out why it bothers me so much that Diamant chose to change the reading of the text from (an implied) rape to a consensual love affair, and I'm not quite sure I can explain that.

It's an interesting book and I'm glad I read it but I don't think I'd recommend it without disclaimers; I think in some ways it's more interesting as an artifact of the cultural movement it comes out of than anything else. Would analyze in a class about Jewish feminist responses to stories in Tanakh (or Talmud, tbh).

Six Myths of Our Time: Little Angels, Little Monsters, Beautiful Beasts and More by Marina Warner. Fascinating collection of short essays originally given as lectures on the BBC, apparently - the one essay about the way the West conceptualizes the simultaneous purity/monstrosity of children was particularly interesting to me. Interesting piece of work I picked up totally by happenstance because it was short and looked interesting and it lived up to both qualities.

Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates. Good spooky horror recommended by @cigaretteburnslikefairylights and actually legit scared me in places, which doesn't happen all that often to me anymore when I'm reading horror. (I'm still a weenie watching it.) I actually...liked this one start to resolution and am going to be looking up more of Darcy Coates' writing, because if it's not, you know, doing something super ~innovative~ it is good spooky reading and that's really what I've been craving.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester. Reading this book was a weird experience. I went into it just thinking "ooh, book about an interesting natural disaster, I love volcanoes" and came out of it going "whoa, surprise Islamophobia," checked the publication date, and learned it was 2003, whereupon I was miserably unsurprised. I don't know why the author felt like he needed to make colonial apologetics and blame the post-eruption upheaval on Islamic fundamentalists manipulating the natives into uprising against their Dutch masters but apparently he did. (I'm exaggerating. But not that much.)

The geology stuff was interesting. Mr. Winchester should've stuck with that and the reportage of the eruption itself and left politics out of it.

Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation ed. by Kavita Bhanot & Jeremy Tiang. This might be my favorite book I read in April, honestly. It's a really good collection of essays about the concept of decolonizing translation, and what that means, and whether it's possible, and the uneasy and uncomfortable relationship between translation and imperialism. I didn't agree with all the essays in here, and they didn't necessarily all agree with each other, but all of them at least had something interesting to say. I would recommend this one to people who can find it - it's by a small press - who are interested in translation or who frequently read in translation. The writers have a lot to say that I think is worth thinking about.

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thahn Tran. I think I just need to give up reading YA books with the realization they're generally not for me, though this one almost had me. It's something about the...I know there's a range of styles, I can't generalize style across the genre, but there is a texture to YA writing that doesn't quite work for me.

I love the concept - diaspora horror, colonialist horror, some really fucked up body horror stuff that got surprisingly gruesome - and would love to read a slightly different book about it, but alas, that book wasn't this one.

American Midnight: Democracy's Forgotten Crisis, 1917-1921 by Adam Hochschild. Another contender for favorite book I read this month though I think this one loses out to Violent Phenomena and possibly Gallows Hill, though comparing horror fiction to historical nonfiction feels kind of unfair. Anyway, I knew some of what this book was digging into - the Sedition Act and the intensely violent repression that was going on in the United States during World War I - but I learned a lot more here.

The depressing thing about reading this, though, was watching (so to speak) the brutal crushing of a once fairly robust American Socialist Party such that it never recovered. Not to mention the grinding down of the labor movement, which I think was at its most powerful during this period of time and hasn't been as strong since.

Just looking at that and wondering what might've been if Woodrow Wilson wasn't such a fucking dick.

Elektra by Jennifer Saint. I feel so funny about this book. I read another mythology retelling even though I swore not to because a Tumblr user I respect mentioned it being good; my experience was that it wasn't bad and it didn't actively bother me like some other retellings I could name, but I don't know that I'd actually call it good. Mostly I'd say I wasn't annoyed, just uninspired.

Of the three narrators, Elektra was definitely the best, and I really did like the construction of her relationship with Clytemnestra, which really felt like the meat of the book. (Perhaps, considering the House of Atreus, that's a bad turn of phrase to use.) The Cassandra sections felt like a distraction, mostly a way to keep the reader up with what was going on across the sea and provide some action in between the familial drama. Ultimately I just felt like those sections took away from the Elektra/Clytemnestra dynamic, leaving insufficient meat.

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. I went through a period of time where I was reading all of Mary Roach's books, and was kind of obsessed with them, so this was sort of returning to an old and familiar friend. I found I wasn't quite as enamored with this one as I remembered being of some of her others (I think I remember Stiff being my favorite), but it was an interesting look at the intersections between human and animal - which is really more what this is about than law, per se. It's about what we do when animals cause problems for humans, from monkeys to bears, and the questions that are raised about the best way to handle those issues.

Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome by Anthony Everitt & Roddy Ashworth. I'm so confused by this book. From the insistence on referring to Nero as "princeps" throughout the book, to the random dropping of French in places it really didn't need to be, to the frankly credulous approach to the sources, particularly when it comes to sex, even when the author mentioned how sex is often a proxy for politics in Roman historical writing, the weird sideways digression into "did Rome have gay marriage?", the weird "maybe she got what she deserved" aside about Messalina's death...

I learned a fair amount, I can say that, I'm not as knowledgeable about this period's Julio-Claudians. Frankly I think Agrippina (the Younger) was the real star of this book, despite Anthony Everitt's heroic efforts to make Nero the protagonist. Buddy, I see your point, but you're pushing a little too hard here.

Anyway. Weird reading experience, I'm tempted to recommend it just so someone else can either validate it or go "what are you talking about, this was a perfectly normal history book."

---

woof long post, but hey it was a lot of books. currently reading A Fever in the Heartland for more American racism in the early 20th century. I have a stack of library books that are waiting for me and I think the next one is probably going to be The Social Lives of Animals, which will either be really enjoyable or annoy the hell out of me, possibly both.

[little-miss-buffy]

Closed starter for @reformed-serial-killer

That is NOT Angel, Buffy inwardly reminded herself for the millionth time as she zoned out oon the conversation between Bonnie and Stefan, Elena's new boyfriend.  Buffy had already met him once. He was nice, but the resemblance between him and Buffy's old boyfriend, Angel, was uncanny.

In fact, the more Buffy thought about it, this was the third thing in her cousin's (second cousin technically) life that paralleled hers back in Sunnydale. The first was that she lived in a town full of vampires (which was why Giles encouraged Buffy to stay in Mystic Falls) and the second was that her best friend might be a witch. Buffy shrugged it off at first, but when Not Angel walked through the door and she heard about an “animal attack” at a party where Elena and Jeremy were, she started to worry.

Buffy did her best to keep this part of her life from Jenna, Elena, and Jeremy.  If they knew, they would automatically be dragged into this part of her life and she didn’t want that for them. Especially not for Elena and Jeremy. They were still in high school. She didn't want then to be worrying about vampires crashing Parent-Teacher night, swim team monsters,  or devil dogs attacking their prom. So far, they had no clue.

"What do you think, Buffy?" Stefan interrupted her thoughts. "I'm sorry, what?" Buffy was a bit embarrassed. "Witches, cool or not cool?" Elena prompted her. Buffy smiled. "My best friend is a witch," she said.  "And she's pretty cool." Her smile faltered for a second after mentioning Willow. She missed her. She missed all of the Scoobies. "I think that settles it," Elena turned her attention back to Bonnie. "Witches are awesome."

The doorbell rang making the blonde jump a bit. “Were you expecting anyone else?” she asked Elena. “No?” Elena got up and answered the door. "Surprise!" Buffy heard the voice of Caroline, another one of Elena's friends. "Bonnie said you were doing dinner, so we brought dessert." When a male voice spoke, Stefan immediately stood up and walked to the door, growling in frustration. "Who's the man voice making Stefan all growly?" Buffy asked Bonnie. "Stefan's brother, Damon," Bonnie answered. "We're  just finishing up," Stefan was saying, barely hiding the distain in his voice. Buffy could feel the tension from the kitchen.

"Is that the Avon Lady?" Buffy called out jokingly as she stood up and walked into the front hallway. "Maybe we should buy something. I think Jeremy's almost-" She cut herself off when her eyes immediately locked with ice-blue irises belonging to a tall (well, taller than her), dark-haired guy who she assumed was Stefan’s aforementioned brother. "-out of guyliner," she finished lamely.

Buffy gave the brother a once-over. Objectively he was gorgeous, but there was something about him that made Buffy feel uneasy. He had Dexter eyebrows or resting angry eyebrows, which creeped her out. Settle down, Summers, she silently scolded herself. You don't know this guy. He's probably not as bad as you think.

"Buffy, hi!" Caroline pushed past the elder brother and hugged the other blonde and then turned her attention back to him. "Damon, this is Buffy," she said.  "She's Elena's cousin from California." The other blonde said "California" like it was the coolest thing ever, making the urge for Buffy to roll her eyes REALLY hard to resist. Buffy managed a small smile in Damon's direction. "Hi," she said, holding her hand out. "Quick recap: I'm Buffy and I'm REALLY sorry to had to hear that lameness that came out of my mouth just now."

[boysplanetrecaps]

Build Up, Ep 5 Recap: The Neglected Performances

Welcome back to the one of the top twenty best Build Up recaps out there! In the previous one, we saw an adoring junior take on his senior. In this one, we’ll talk about the four performances that MNET saw fit to skip almost completely. 

So yeah, MNET saw fit to just unceremoniously fly through a total of four performances in less time than they spent on most of the other single performances. I’m so mad I feel like I could spontaneously combust. Where is Junyheok and Yeo One’s fire extinguisher? 

MNET spent about a minute per round (ie, less than 30 seconds on each performance) but I’ll go through a little more carefully. 

First up is Hyukjin and Jeong Inseong versus Lee Minwook and Jang Intae.

I’ll remind you who everyone is as we go along, since MNET hates all eight of these guys for no reason.

Hyukjin is from an unfortunately VERY nugu group called Fave1. He was in the Power group, V22, the one who sang that heavy metal sounding song. I mean, he frickin’ went for it, I’ll give him that. He wore that red suit on the first day. He performed in the Kajima Kajima (Don’t Go) group, and was made Low Tier just because everyone else did a bit better, not because he did badly. He seems to have lightened his hair a little bit since the Pre-4 round.  

Jeong Inseong is from a group called KNK. He was a V6, in the Allround section, and I remember really liking that first performance (my notes just read, “ooh, I like!”). He was in Breath, and along with Hwanhee, was sort of a go-to backstage reaction king during the whole Pre-4 mission. We didn’t hear what the judges thought of his performance one where or the other, but I thought he had a smooth, rich voice. 

They’ve decided to sing a song called Still Love You, originally performed by Lee Hongki and Yoo Hweseung. If you watched either You’re Beautiful (the Hong sisters k-drama) or Produce48, you’re familiar with Lee Hongki; he was Jeremy in You’re Beautiful and he was the cool, Japanese-speaking vocal coach in Produce48. But of course, you might know him as a member of FT Island. Hweseung was on PD101 Season 2. Now he is the main vocalist of N Flying, and I think he has a glorious voice. So yeah, I like both these guys.

The song itself isn’t my thing, but that’s fine, it doesn’t have to be. The lyrics are just typical K-ballad material -- “I love you and I’ll miss you and I will never forget you but I nobly hope you’ll be happy” blah blah. You know the drill. 

Full version here.

My thoughts:

Overall, I actually like their version better than the original. I’m not a huge fan of the song itself, but I like the way they sing it. 

Hyukjin is the weaker of the two vocalists, which is a bummer because I root for anyone who gets less than 10,000 views on his MVs. He still has a very nice voice. He just has a bit of sharp nasality occasionally that kind of spoils his tone. He also could slightly improve his agility. His straining high notes at the end were not… great. On the positive side, he has a really nice natural vocal color when he’s not straining, and he has excellent pitch and breath control, allowing him to hold -- and control -- long powerful notes, as long as he doesn’t push the high pitch too hard. I wish he’d sing more in his lower register, because that’s what I think sounds best. 

I really like Inseong’s voice. It doesn’t quite give me the tingles like Jay’s voice, or Neon’s, or Euibin’s, but it’s so nice. It’s just so rich and nice to listen to. He varies his dynamics, singing softly and cleanly sometimes, and loud and powerfully other times. He uses just the right amount of vibrato for my taste. I just think he’s a great singer. 

Their harmonies sounded really pretty; you can hear both of them, so they’re blending just right. 

Ok, so let’s see what we see on the show. 

The editors made sure to include Hyukjin’s not-too-great high notes. Sigh. They get an 87 from Wendy and a 65 from Jaehwan! Way harsh, Tai!

VCG says, “You should have made the best use of your weapons, but since you used it too often, it didn’t seem like a special move.” I assume he’s addressing Hyukjin, and I think I get what he means. Hyukjin kept the emotional level at 11 the whole time, and didn’t really vary up his dynamics. I think that’s kind of how the original version of the song goes, as well, but maybe they could have adapted it a little more. 

Poor Inseong. He sang so beautifully. Even if that one high note of Hyukjin’s wasn’t great, poor Inseong got dragged down with him. 

Next up is Minwook and Intae. 

Lee Minwook is from a group called Newkidd. He was in the Soul group, V9, and you guys, that little performance has been living in my playlist ever since. He wore a bunch of vests, including that bright blue vest that sort of gave gym-class jersey vibes. I really like his voice, but I guess the other guys didn’t because he was tied for 33rd in the vocal check in. He ended up in Something Like That, where the judges praised him effusively and he was chosen as Top Tier. 

Jang Intae is from the Allround group, V31, and is one of the mysteries of the show. I don’t even know his age. He actually came in last in the initial vote after the vocal check in, with only 5 votes. He was in the Every Moment group, along with Bain and Seunghun from CIX. Unfortunately, I haven’t exactly loved his singing on the show so far. In my opinion, his voice is quite nasal, and he lacks both agility and breath control. Solar disagrees with me, though; she voted for him as Top Tier (everyone else voted for Seunghun). 

The song they’ve chosen is Universe by EXO. This may shock and amaze you, but I really like this song. What? ME? LIKE A SONG BY EXO? WHAT NEXT? 

Anyway yeah, it’s a great song. Sure, the lyrics are basically the same as those of most k-ballads -- I lost you but I’ll look for you forever, blah blah -- but the chords are complicated and interesting and there’s a drive and power to it that make it feel authentic. Plus they look like this:

Was there ever a more delightful concept than just “they’re dressed for fall and holding steamy mugs”? Sigh.

Anyway, I’d be scared to sing this song because the original was sung by some of the best vocalists in the world, but I really like Minwook, so let’s see what he can do!

Full version

Mostly, very nice, and since my ears can’t help but compare them to D.O. and Chen and Baekhyun and Suho and Xiumin and Chanyeol, for me to say they did well is a big compliment. I do think they were both a bit nervous. This is still really nice, but their soft notes were shaky for both of them. 

Intae did better than he did the other times I’ve heard him, and Minwook didn’t do quite as well as other times, so they ended up a balanced pair.

Intae, left, and Minwook, right.

Minwook starts off a bit shaky. His tone is very pretty, but he actually hits the wrong note at about the :27 mark in the Youtube version. If you haven’t listened to the song 1000 times like I have, you may not notice, but I noticed, and I feel like the judges might have noticed too. (I thought about it -- was that a purposeful change on his part? And all I can say is that if it was meant to be purposeful, it doesn’t SOUND it, so the effect is the same.) His belts on the chorus also seemed a little harsh and out of control. But his natural vocal color is really nice, and he has a nice way to him, where he’s not overacting or straining all the time. 

Intae was still a bit nasal for my taste, but less so than other times I’ve heard him. He also uses more vibrato than I prefer, but not all the time. He has a lot of power to his belts and 

Their harmonies sounded really great, even the ones I think they worked out on their own that weren’t in the original song. I think they were smart to drop the octave right after that one long note. 

In the brief glimpse we see of them in the actual show, they look great. We only get a tiny bit of commentary, and it’s from Solar, who gave them their high score of 96. It’s not clear who Solar is addressing, but she tells someone -- maybe both of them -- “you have a great voice, and your manner and style of singing is also good. I think it was even better because you created it together.” Again, Solar is the same one who voted for Jang Intae in a previous round. She just really likes him for some reason. Seungkwan gave them their low score of 78, but we don’t hear from him.

We get the final score, and it’s 543 to 589 in favor of Minwook and Intae. If you do the math and subtract out the high and low scores, the average score of the other five judges was 83 for Minwook and Intae, and it was 78.2 for Hyukjin and Inseong. 

Round ten! Ding Ding!

Next up is fan favorite and Boy’s Planet survivor, Lee Hwanhee of Up10tion, paired with soldier and Pixar character Jo Hwanji. Hwanji isn’t dressed as a soldier today; he and Hwanhee are both wearing leather jackets instead, and Hwanhee has decided to a 90s scene girl looking choker. They’re going up against Lim Sanghyun and Taewoo.  

Team Hwan-hee-ji has decided to sing Four Seasons, originally by Taeyeon of SNSD.  Here’s the Full version on Youtube.

My thoughts:

Ok, I’m not the biggest fan of jazzy singing, but this seems really nice. They seem to be enjoying what they're doing and it comes across kind of classy and cool. 

I think Hwanhee uses a tiny bit too much vibrato for my taste here, and he gets a tiny bit shrieky, but it feels like a stylistic choice. Hwanji’s voice is so clean and lovely except for his kind of painful shrieky high note at about 2:57 in to the Youtube version. Neither of them are nasal and both have good breath control and sense of pitch. They also brought bounce and interest into it with their facial expressions and dynamics.

They did a thing where they sang one line back and forth to each other, and it kind of makes sense when you know the lyrics are “We longed for each other / We got sick of each other.”  And their cute punchy harmony section right after that sounded great. 

The MNET edit is downright cruel. It makes it seem like they did that “trade lines back and forth” the whole time, but that was just one little part. The on screen captions say things like “the two voices do not sound in harmony.” Who writes these captions? What are you talking about? 

We find out that their high and low scores were 79 and 69 respectively. I don’t get what the judges are annoyed about. It just feels like they were tired and cranky here in tenth round, really. Because 79 high and 69 low feel punitive. Are you really saying that they were worse than Woong and Seokhwa?  Yeah, Hwanji had that one bad note, but come on. 

Wendy gave the high score of 79, but we don't get to hear from her. VCG, who gave the low score, says “I couldn’t hear the lyrics. ‘I’m good at this’, ‘this is how good I am,’ ‘This is how high I can go and I can sing a little jazzy,’” he says in a mocking tone. “I think it was a performance that only showed your skills.” 

Genuine question: Were they not supposed to show their skills? What were they supposed to show? I’m confused. If they hadn’t shown their skills, you would have said “I wanted to see your skills.” What was bad about showing their skills? What is bad about showing that they’re good at this? 

Also, I am far from fluent in Korean, but I could compare what they were singing to the lyrics I found online and I didn’t get lost along the way, so they were pronouncing it well enough for *me* to understand them. 

Hwanhee and Hwanji take their bad scores with grace. Hwanhee has been on dozens of these shows by now and is just like, sure, whatever. 

Next up is Lim Sanghyun and Taewoo. They both performed in the Beautiful group. I enjoyed Sanghyun’s soft, gruff tone, but couldn’t quite get behind Taewoo’s “YG” style with its sharp, nasal tone and swaggy affectations. 

They’re singing Downpour, the song I.O.I. used as its sort of “goodbye” before it disbanded. The lyrics mark it as a fairly standard k-ballad about a breakup, comparing the sadness of a breakup to a temporary downpour, but it has a lovely melody. Fun fact: It was co-written by Woozi of Seventeen!

Full version without reactions

My thoughts:

I still am not really on board with Taewoo’s style of singing, though I think it would have a time and place. It’s not that he’s a bad singer; it’s just that I don’t much like the manner of his singing. He does this little sigh thing at the end of each line that is very YG feeling and not something I like, and he is unpleasantly pitchy on his falsetto and shrill when he employs his mixed register. Note to note his voice can sound really different, and some of the ways it can sound is nice, but he’s affected and stylistic when I think his natural color might be his nicest voice.

Also, why don’t people open their eyes? What is this singing with your eyes closed thing so many of them do? And I’m aware, they probably don’t have completely closed eyes, but if that’s how it looks on camera, then… they should be aware of how it looks, right?

Sanghyun is still more my style. His voice is just so soft and pretty in a smoky kind of way. He does kind of drop off at the end of lines sometimes, but not all the time, so I won’t hold it against him or anything. Sometimes his voice reminds me a little of Baekhyun’s, so that’s a compliment, right? I really don’t have a lot to say just because it’s such a nice voice -- not nasal at all, not pitchy, good breath control. None of the bad things, all the good things.

I do actually think their voices sound nice next to each other, but I wish Sanghyun had a different partner. 

In the MNET edit, we see a few moments with the caption, “A stage with very different voices but good harmony.” They get a high of 100 and a low of 85, so it’s pretty clear that they’ve won. 

We can’t see which judge gave them which score, but I assume that Solar may have given out the 100. We get to see her saying, “When different people come together like this, a truly unique team will emerge. That’s what I felt watching the performance.”

The final score is 641 to 515, which is just… ouch. That means that Hwanhee and Hwanji got the second lowest score of the whole round. It was just unnecessarily harsh for no raisin.

If you take out the highest and lowest scores and find the average of the remaining scores, the other five judges gave Team Hwan-hee-ji an average score of 73.4, and gave Sanghyun and Taewoo an average score of 91.2.

Well, I’m so glad we spent so much time watching Geonu and Soomin make up a handshake, and watching Inhyuk and Joohee smack talk, and had instant replays and reactions drag things out the whole time, and wasted time with people wondering what the score would be just seconds before the score is actually shown, etc. 

Imagine if we’d used that time to watch the SINGING on a SINGING SHOW that would have been TOO MUCH SINGING FOR A SINGING SHOW PLEASE I only want to watch people MAKE UP HANDSHAKES AND SMACK TALK ON MY SINGING SHOW The word “SING” stands for “SMACKTALKING IS NOW GOOD” and “MUSIC” stands for “MAKING UP SHAKES IS CRUCIAL” I guess

Why do I watch these MNET shows?

Oh yeah, that’s why. 

Ok, I’m going to cut it off here for now, and my next post will be an Elimination Special! See you then!

XOXO

BRP Unnie/Noona

[cosmicpines]

Happy Code Secret Santa, @votederpycausemufins ! You asked for some slice of life friend group but also mentioned you liked Sissi, so I wrote you this piece :) hope you enjoy it! Sorry if the formatting is bad — I’m finishing this from my phone. I will fix it later when I post it to Ao3.

There was no way this could fail, Sissi muses with a satisfied smile as she, Nicholas, and Herve walk down the snow-laden streets in their knitted hats and thick coats, shivering as they made their way into town. Her new boots crunch with every step over the first snowfall of the season, and the frost in the air is doing a number on her lips, she realizes as she runs her tongue over them. With trembling fingers encased in her bright pink mittens, she pulls out a tube of chapstick and, after failing to open it with her slippery mittens three times in a row, holds it out to Herve. He pauses mid-sentence in his conversation with Nicholas, (Something about math homework? She didn’t even realize they had math homework. Whatever.) takes it from her, pulls the cap off, and hands it back, wordlessly and thanklessly, before turning back to Nicholas. Sissi applies a thin layer, recaps it, and shoves it back in her pocket.

“I sure hope we’re going the right way,” she says, cutting Herve off again, who dutifully shuts his mouth. “The last thing I want is to wander around in the cold looking for a bowling alley that doesn’t exist.”

“I looked it up before we left,” Herve sighs, “Don’t you trust me?”

“No, I don’t.” Sissi says, bluntly, “Not after the Burger Barn incident.”

Nicholas starts snickering, and Herve’s cheeks, already tinged pink from the cold, darken even more, and he tightens his scarf. “We got there in the end.”

“I don’t need to dignify that with a response,” Sissi huffs, “All I know is if I’m late to impress Ulrich, I’ll never forgive you!”

He mutters something under his breath that Sissi misses, and Nicholas snickers again. Sissi purses her lips, but decides to ignore them, opting instead to daydream about her plan. Yesterday, at dinner, Sissi was at her usual table, one over from Ulrich and his gang, and doing her daily half-talking to her dweebs,  half-eavesdropping on the other dweebs routine. It was easy enough to overhear that Odd blabbing about how they just “needed to take a day off” and “why don’t they go somewhere together over the weekend.” Jeremie said something about… something… computer-y… but his sweet little Mrs. Einstein  had managed to convince him.

Really, if they didn’t want her to follow them, they shouldn’t talk so loudly.

It was obvious what her course of action should be: meet them at the bowling alley, wearing her new skirt and festive sweater, bowl in the alley right next to them, do a better job than anyone, have a better time than anyone, and totally humiliate them all. Ulrich will be impressed, he’ll come talk to her, and one thing will lead to another and they’ll be in love and everything would be better!

Okay, maybe the plan wasn’t foolproof, but it was an opportunity. And if there was one thing Sissi Delmas never let pass her by, it was an opportunity.

After trudging through the snow for nearly an hour, the blast of cheap heating that hits the trio’s face as they enter the bowling alley could be heaven. Sissi pulls off her hat with a sigh as feeling returns to her face, and she peels off her mittens and shoves them in her pockets. The building is dingy sort of place. The air smells like sweat and pizza. Music that was popular 5 years ago is blaring through the speakers, interrupted by the crashing sound of bowling balls and the screaming of children and, of course, the yelling of one Odd Della Robbia.

“Oh, look out, trouble is here!”

Sissi turns in the direction of his shrill, annoying little voice, and she sees the whole group sitting a few lanes away — two benches facing each other, with Aelita and Jeremie facing her on the far bench, Ulrich glancing over his shoulder and scowling on the close bench, Yumi looking over her shoulder as she stands to take her turn, and Odd leaning against the ball return, waving at her. Ulrich let’s out a loud groan that is audible from across the room as he turns back to their game, but Sissi knows he’s just playing hard to get, as per usual. Ulrich just doesn’t seem to understand that there should be a “get” part of “hard to get.”

Her rehearsed lines from the walk over are pouring out of her mouth in a second as she walks towards them, “Oh, what a coincidence!” Sissi says, meandering over as she pulls off her coat, showing off her white sweater with a smile, Nicholas and Herve following in her wake, “I never expected that you five would know a good way to spend your weekend. Is this where you’re always hiding when you’re not on campus?”

“If it was, it wouldn’t be anymore,” Ulrich mutters, pointedly not looking at her.

Yumi tosses the bowling ball and hits a reasonable chunk of the pins, leaving three on the left side. She walks back towards them, scowling, “Sissi, I’m warning you, if you’re just here to ruin our day, you can get lost.”

“Yumi, dear, I cannot believe you would say that!” Sissi turns to look at Nicholas and Herve, feigning shock, “When have I ever tried to ruin your day?”

All of the others start talking at the same time, listing off different occasions, and Sissi interjects with a, “Okay, okay, okay! Point taken.”

She continues smirking, her plan to make a scene and sow discord working perfectly. Of course, she had expected the resistance from them; they weren’t wrong that she was usually around them to cause friction. It was just that they all misunderstood why she was doing these things! Aelita and Jeremie go back to chatting with each other, Yumi goes back to bowling her second shot, Odd’s glinting eyes fall off of her, and Ulrich continues sitting there, watching Yumi.

“Well, we’re going to bowl here, if you all don’t mind.”

They ignore her. She speaks louder.

“I don’t care if you mind, actually. We’re going to do it anyway.”

Aelita rolls her eyes.

Sissi’s blood boils at this more than them jeering. She’s just preparing to walk over and give them a more clear, direct insult when —

 “Ay, over there. You renting shoes or what?”

Sissi blinks and turns to see a man as grubby as the bowling alley leaning on a counter next to the register. Behind him are rows of bowling shoes of varying states of repair. He’s leaning on a half-shaven face with drooping, baggy eyes, giving her a disappointed glare that would put Ms. Hertz’s to shame. She walks over the carpet to the counter, pulling her wallet out of her pocket.

“The three of us,” she says, gesturing to Nicholas, who has already started taking his shoes off, and Herve, who nods, “Would like a lane for two games.”

The man furrows his brow, looking over her shoulder at Ulrich’s gang, “You not with them?”

“No, we’re not,” Sissi scowls, “Not that we’d want to be.”

“Well, we’re outta lanes, so you’re outta luck.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re outta lanes,” the man repeats, gesturing at the bowling alley with his free hand, “It’s a freezing cold Saturday, this place books up fast. You shoulda called ahead. Don’t know when anyone will be done. You can either rent shoes and bowl with your friends over there, or you can come back later, probably in a few hours.”

“This – I – ,” Sissi sputters, feeling her face turning pink and her grip on her wallet tightening. How had she not thought of this beforehand? Her plan was –

Was –

Well, even she has to admit, her expression deadset on fury to mask the embarrassment, this wasn’t one of her better plans. But she had been so fixated on getting herself to the bowling alley that she had to admit that she hadn’t thought of what she’d actually do when she got here. She hadn’t even stopped to come up with a list of insults to throw back in Odd and Aelita’s faces when they insulted her. And she’s wearing chapstick, for crying out loud! Not even the flavored kind! If she really wanted to impress Ulrich, she’d be wearing her new glittery lilac lipgloss! That tube cost $8!!!

“Well, it looks like you just struck out, Sissi!” Odd sneers, laughing at his own mediocre joke, the others joining in. Their laughter rings in Sissi’s ears louder than the crashing of bowling pins, and she turns, mouth opening to say an insult she knows isn’t there, before Aelita cuts her off.

“Yeah,” Aelita adds, “A few p –,”

And she abruptly stops.

All of them do, actually – each of them has a momentary confused look in their eyes, looking around the bowling alley, before they go back to ambling about. Jeremie mutters something Sissi can’t hear from across the room, and Aelita squeezes his shoulder; whatever roast she was about to serve, apparently completely forgotten.

“What was that, Mrs Einstein?” Sissi snaps, trying to break them out of whatever stupor they were in, a shot of… something… coursing through her heart, and Aelita cringes, looking up, “What were you about to say to me?”

“Look, girl,” the man behind the counter interjects, and Sissi spins back around, “You need to leave, alright? There’s no lane for you, so write your name down and back in a few hours and –,”

“Actually,” Ulrich interrupts him, clearly and pointedly, before he turns around slowly, facing her properly for the first time. He looks tired – far more tired than Sissi had assumed he was, carrying some weight behind his eyes she couldn’t identify – but the half-formed smile he gives is sincere, “Those three can join us.”

“…What?” She mouthes, dumbly.

 “Yeah,” Yumi says, shooting a quick smile at Ulrich, a sight that would normally infuriate Sissi if she wasn’t so perplexed, “I’m all bowled out, actually. Sissi can take over my spot.”   

“Yeah, and Herve can take mine!” Odd says with a hand raised, “Jeremie said he was tired earlier, so I’m sure he wouldn’t mind –,”

“Yes,” Jeremie blurts out, relief heavier than getting out of a social obligation on his face, “Yes. I’m happy to watch.”

“What are you playing at?” Herve asks, snapping Sissi back into the realm of logic. Yes, this must be a trick or a prank from them of some kind – some prank they all just thought off at once and –

And –

Aelita’s smile is so sweet, like the one she offers to her friends at dinner that Sissi always stares at with a twitching pounding in her chest.

“Hello? Hello? Are you renting shoes or not?”

The man behind the counter’s glare is back, anr, throwing caution to the wind, Sissi pulls her wallet back out of her pocket. “Yes. I’m a 6 and a half, he’s a 9, and he’s a 10.”

Sissi is awkwardly poised on the very end of the bench where Ulrich is sitting, left heel tap-tap-tapping the floor in slightly-too-small bowling shoes, as she watches Nicholas spend far too long angling his shot. Her first turn is coming up next and, for some reason, she has knots in her stomach like she’s waiting for her execution. She sneaks a glance over at Ulrich, who she’s startled to see is staring right back at her. His expression is slightly puzzled, like he’s trying to figure something out about her. Sissi keeps his gaze as he raises an eyebrow and she’s about to say something – accusatory, maybe? Ask him what he’s staring at her for that, maybe, something like – when there’s the crash of bowling pins and a gasp from the others.

“WHAT?” Odd exclaims amid – and Sissi can’t believe this either – cheers from the others, as she turns and sees that Nicholas, the little silent mystery that he is, has bowled a strike, “I should have let Nicholas take over my game! This isn’t fair!”

“Sorry, Odd,” Jeremie says, who has been slumped in his seat since the three of them were invited over, leaning on Aelita with her arm slung protectively around him, the image of public PDA that she can’t believe Jeremie is accepting, “Not everyone can have a champion as their partner.”

Nicholas, grinning ear to ear, comes back and sits on the floor next to Jeremie. Jeremie grins that stupid grin of his back at him, as if they were – were –

“Sissi, it’s your turn.” Yumi suddenly says from right behind her, and Sissi jumps out of her seat instinctively.

“I know that,” she spits back, and Yumi shrugs, easing into the seat she was just in, leaning over to whisper something to Ulrich.

Sissi stalks over to the ball return and glares at it. She can’t balance left from right anymore and she doesn’t know how or why she’s so stressed about all this. She hefts up the green ball Nicholas had been using, a sticky, heavy thing that she can barely get her hands into.

“You want a lighter one,” Ulrich says from his seat.

Her face burns. “I know that!”

“Here.”

And – what is happening – Ulrich walks up to her and takes the ball out of her hands, his fingers brushing against hers for a heart-stopping second. He picks up a blue one instead, holding it out. He has that infuriating little smirk on his face, “Come on, don’t tell me you’ve never bowled before.”

“Of course I have,” Sissi takes the ball from him. It’s still hefty, but it’s much more manageable, and her fingers fit into the holes with just a little wiggle room.

“Show us what you’ve got, then,” He inclines his head towards the lane, and Sissi walks away, the tapping of her shoes louder barely louder than the beating of her heart. She had bowled before, obviously, just not for a while. It wasn’t that hard. It couldn’t be that hard, she thought, her grip on the ball tightening as she ambles over to the center of the lane. No weakness, she thinks to herself, just do it. Winding up, throwing, watching – it’s all one swift motion that she trusts herself to pull off, and watches with bated breath as it – no – curves too far right, barely avoiding hitting nothing as it plinks the rightmost pin in the side, falling and knocking over – please please please – three other pins.

A quiet breath of relief escapes her throat, and, spinning around on her heels with a casual shrug, she gloats, “Not that hard, really. Knocking out the back row is a very important strategy.”

“Follow it up, then,” Aelita says, raising an eyebrow, and Sissi, practically prancing back to the ball return, picks up her ball, raising her nose at her.

With a wink, she says, “Gladly,” and walks over to do her second toss. She screw up her face, focuses, and throws.

She watched it roll, and roll, and veer right again, and…

“Yikes,” she hears Herve’s sniveling little voice say as it clunks into the gutter, and she doesn’t dare look at what the others are doing.

“Shut up,” she snaps back, talking faster than she can process, “I was just warming up. You’ll see; next shot will be good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m getting a soda.”

With a huff, she walks away from the lane.

Her hands are trembling and her eyes are warm as she orders a Diet Coke, and she furiously pulls out her chapstick for something to do to calm them down. Idiot, moron – why is she even here? What even was her plan? Why were they so willing and able to make a fool of her and why – why –

“Hey Sissi!”

Blinking, she rubs her eyes furiously at the voice of that Odd. She absolutely could not let him see that she was – not that she was – it was just something in her eye that was bothering her, was all. She, thankfully, has pulled off her deception of nothing well, as no jeering came from Odd as he sidles next to her, leaning over the counter, “I’ll have a slice of pepperoni pizza and a Dr. Pepper.”

“It was fine, Sissi,” he says, and she knows he’s taunting her as the cashier hands her her drink, “You should have seen Ulrich’s first round. All gutters! You at least got a few.”

She doesn’t reply, opening the can and taking a jerky sip. He’s an insufferable, cruel, horrible person who is just going to make more fun of her as he takes that disgusting pizza from the disgusting cashier in this disgusting bowling alley.

“You know,” Odd says, finally, turning back to her with his plate, “If you want to hang out with us, you can just ask.”

“What?” Her bowling shoes squeak under her as she leans back, aghast, “Why would I want to hang out with you? We’re just bowling together because there are no lanes left.”  

 “Sure,” Odd shrugs, walking over and pressing the ketchup dispenser to dump a disgusting amount over his pizza slice. Sissi wrinkles her nose and Odd snickers, before continuing to talk, “I’m just saying! Sometimes it feels like it would take, oh, I don’t know, a life-threatening situation for you to admit how you feel.”

“What? That’s stupid. I can say how I feel whenever I want.”

“Sure, sure,” Odd is still smiling at her. That pesky, knowing smile that she has no idea what he’s going on about for. He picks the abhorrent little pizza slice up and shoves it into his gaping mouth, still smiling, and says, through disgusting chews, “So how do you feel?”   

 “How do I – huh?”

 She sputters, staring at him and his ease and his smile and his friends behind him, cheering for Herve and she — she —

“You’re all acting so weird!” Sissi cries, “Freaks!”

 Odd laughs at her, nudging her with his elbow as he heads back. Her hand closes around her soda can and it’s crushed between her fingers, the cold sticky liquid falling over her hand and onto the floor as she stands there, alone.

[just-a-normal-regretter]

Can. Can I ask to hear more of the it was only Tuesday AU? It sounds really neat (plus powers in the real world is my JAM).

Thanks for the ask anon! o7

And yeah, I'd be happy to talk about one of my many crossover fics (seriously I have a ton lmfaooo).

Recapping "For Me, It Was Only Today": CL/MLB AU with combining lores, Lyoko powers sprouting irl, and some Odd/Adrien rarepair shipping

Okay I'll admit straight off that I didn't realize how much content I made in the trio AUs for a CL/MLB crossover. I thought it was just Cherrybird with all the stuff I wrote up but I'm looking at this one and Strays and it's hitting me my notes are so deep haha

They were so thought out that I got stuck for a moment thinking about how I'd explain this but here I'll try my best:

I mentioned this above but this fic of the trio I do plan to mix the lores together without going uh, too crazy. I don't want to reveal my hand given it's supposed to be a big plot point properly unveiled in this version's take on the episode Franz Hopper (I had to specify episode but it's also fun adjusting Hopper the character in this lore shift).

If this got posted this would likely be a fusion type of crossover I think.

This fic in particular is limited to Ulrich's POV given I want to have the story be about the Warriors seeing Odd's shifting relationship with Chat Noir. The wacky lore is just stuff that goes on in day-to-day. Also sorta open ended to leave room for additional content given the lore of this particular fic is pretty big + the cast leaves ample other stories to tell from their perspectives.

But I digress, we're talking about the Ulrich POV for this fic in particular.

I'll first start off by focusing on the format of this fic in particular. There should be about 12 chapter to match up with the Subdigitals album because I'm a bit corny and wanted to pair that up haha

Each chapter takes the premise of a episode (whether it be CL or MLB) and meshes it together with the crossover/lore shift.

An example I can throw out is the first chapter, which would just be Ulrich and Odd chatting while watching some of the events of Prime Queen happen from their phones (given Nadia did host her segment etc etc).

The CL powers though I agree I'm also a big "powers in the real world" enjoyer haha. Sometimes I just think about this AU in a bubble without the crossover and ponder the shenanigans that can crop up if you just play the power exposure as comedy instead of the angsty potential it is.

Love this AU because the kids are not alright. They have to adjust to shifting into things very much not human, despite having some of the basic human traits.

Odd gets the worst of it given he's a literal cat-boy in Lyoko. The Digitization process is subtle at first but then it becomes extremely difficult to hide that he's growing purple fur, he's nursing intense migraines whenever a Future Flash decides to crop up, his vision nearly landed him some glasses, etc.

Yumi and Ulrich don't have it as bad, but the pains that settle in once Telekinesis and Super Sprint respectively show up for each of them is exhausting. Their clothing tends to get shifted by their exposure, so there's a bit of a running gag of swapping shoes out so they don't constantly lose them (at one point Ulrich has more sandals than shoes lmao)

I also toss in some new abilities because as they grow older aka as the chapters progress in the fic. Odd deals with camouflage that glitches whenever his emotions get out of control (it changes the color of his purple fur like it's a mood ring), Ulrich has to keep a certain mask on him (the one on the back of his S1-S3 outfit) just to make sure he's not phasing through the earth every few minutes, and Yumi has to be very cautious when it comes to stepping in shadows in fear of getting stuck in them.

Digitization (i.e. the term Jeremie coins to explain the shifts the four are going through) is not completely defined all at once. It takes time and as they grow older, their forms will only grow stronger and more defined.

The process isn't immediate for anyone. It shows up with frequent scanner usage, though it isn't until the events of Frontier that it truly settles in that Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi are not exactly humans anymore.

Will also mention that I abuse the concept of TransWatches that Evolution introduced and rehash them to be a temporary solution to let the kids blend in as proper humans. It doesn't prevent some of their glitches from leaking out though, just hides away their outfit changes or their cosmetic changes (i.e. Odd's fur or Yumi's makeup).

Aelita does not immediately experience Digitization given she only used the scanners once then stayed on Lyoko for a long time. Throughout S2 she'll deal with her own changes and will catch up in time with her creativity ability being very uh, destructive when it comes to her nightmares making the power flare. This fic in particular glosses over it given it's not her perspective focus but I feel like I should mention Aelita since I don't give her a lot of love in these recaps ;-;

I also feel extremely bad for Jeremie since he always has the weight of the world on his shoulders all because of his decision. He's the leader of the group and sometimes his plans don't pan out which result in him being extremely cautious to give them another shot unless he's forced to.

One of these plans was trying to enlist Ladybug and Chat Noir for help at the very beginning of this mess. A RTTP stopped the duo from trying to get rid of the machine to prevent XANA from ever harming the real world again. So it's obvious why he wouldn't be the biggest fan of Odd turning around and trying to court Chat Noir.

I'll talk about the Chat Noir in the room. Why him? Why not Ladybug? Well besides my own shipping agenda, I do have a bit of a fic logic haha

The fic in particular starts in the midst of MLB S2. Ladybug and Chat Noir have been established in Paris enough. The whole reason Adrien gets involved is due to Fluff.

She's the one able to sense all this time phenomenons and wants to know more. Fu is already busy with training Marinette to be the Guardian atp, so he decides to give this investigation mission to Chat Noir to satisfy Fluff's curiosity.

Hence Adrien gets his own time companion and has to keep this secret from Ladybug (Fu doesn't want it to leak out to anyone that Chat currently possesses another Miraculous, that and he worries Ladybug would become distracted if she found out that Chat is working on other things not involving her).

MLB S2 is working around the same time as CL S1. So thanks to Fluff's Miraculous, Adrien can feel the time shifts too. He just can't completely remember things.

This is how Adrien gets to remember some of his interactions with the Warriors, and how he and Odd start to bond a bit. A Great Day is when Fluff can finally fulfill her satisfaction and Burrows herself, Adrien, and Plagg into these Time Phenomenons.

After that the shenanigans can properly ensue where Adrien can remember everything after a RTTP has been done. He also has to give Fluff back as she's perfectly fine with these phenomenons now that she can properly access them in her Burrow.

Adrien couldn't leave well enough alone though, way too curious about why these things were happening in the first place. It's why he continues his investigation to the other plot points that happen generally in the fic.

I'm sorry if this one seems pretty jumbled haha. I have been having some issues with sleep so my brain was just all over the place trying to convey this recap without like giving up everything plotted out.

Once again thank you for the ask anon, and thanks to anyone who reads this o7