#not always consistent with her thoughts and feelings across episodes

[demigodofhoolemere]

I haven’t felt this conflicted since the 60th specials, which means I’m gonna have to go in depth for this review. Bear with me. Obviously massive spoilers all over the place.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- Okay, first of all, getting this out of the way because it was my biggest expectation and it was absolutely shattered:

WHERE WAS SUSAN?! WHERE WAS SHE?!

For one, I cannot believe they had that much buildup this whole time — from the Doctor actually telling Ruby about her, to the psych-out with Susan Triad to mess with him, to ACTUALLY HAVING SUSAN ONSCREEN CALLING OUT TO HIM — and such a consistent through-line about family across the last two seasons only to NOT follow through on what this was obviously supposed to lead to. There were about a thousand moments in this episode where I thought that THIS must be the moment, she’s gonna show up HERE… and then nothing, again and again. Not so much as a mention of her anywhere.

Leaving me incredibly confused, because they have not filmed another season or special or whatever, but Carole was shown on set wearing a different costume:

Which is, of course, very obviously a costume, as Carole does not go around like that lol. And I have a hard time imagining that this was just an outfit they tested but instead opted for the white one, because this is far cooler and there’s almost no way they’d choose the other one over it.

So what the heck were they filming?! In my mind this costume was a guarantee that she’d be back for the finale. What else was I supposed to think?! And if they really haven’t filmed any kind of reunion scene, that’s one heck of a mistake, not only narratively but practically; while Carole seems to be in just as great health as I’ve always known her to be, she’s still about to turn 85 and absolutely anything can happen without warning. I will be very upset if she passes before they can fulfill the promises they’ve set up here (I mean, I’ll be inconsolable when that happens anyway, but there would be an extra bitterness in it). There had better be something they’ve filmed that they’re just hiding from us for the time being for some reason or other. I wish it were with Ncuti as that was the emotional setup that my expectations were built upon, but even if it’s not, she needs to reunite with the Doctor, ANY Doctor, before it’s too late. I don’t know how long it would take to forgive Russell if he fumbles that.

I’m just in disbelief that they did nothing. It was my ONE expectation for this episode and instead I’ve been left confused and feeling so completely robbed.

—————

Now going in chronological order of thoughts as I skim through the episode…

- I was very pleased to see Anita again. I didn’t expect that she’d ever come back but it was lovely to see her having a nice and fulfilling life now.

- The glimpses at previous Doctors!!! Seeing Eleven already made me soft but then they also pulled out Three which is always a treat for me. I was interested to see in the behind the scenes that they had an actual Dalek going across in front of the screen (sadly the only Dalek in Ncuti’s whole era, but we’ll get back to that). I was right there with Anita though when she got awkward about Rogue, because yeah, I hated that episode, too, girl. (To be clear, I’ve never liked one-off Doctor romances and I thought this one in particular was just horrendously done. I would’ve hated it the same way if it had been het.)

- Archie Panjabi is an absolutely flawless Rani. She was giving this everything she’s got and I’m so glad they cast her in the role. More on her later.

- I’m confused about this Underverse thing. I don’t see how breaking into it frees Omega, who was trapped in an anti-matter realm. The two don’t seem to be related. Why was he in the Underverse, or at least accessible via it somehow?

- Shirley’s rocket chair is awesome and I’m here for Mel on her moped again.

- The Doctor and Ruby’s reunion was very sweet.

- I am deeply confused by Mel saying that she’s been a housewife when they made a specific point last episode about her being a spinster which meant she’d be celebrating May 24th sitting by herself. Suddenly she’s a housewife?

- Love the brief reunion between Mel and the Rani. I would have been very disappointed if they didn’t see each other again so it was very cool to have that moment of acknowledgment.

- The Rani’s explanation for surviving the destruction of Gallifrey (and presumably the reason she was Mrs. Flood in the first place?) is this: “I had a split second, flipped my DNA, made a biological sidestep, survived the carnage.” So… I guess she changed enough about herself to no longer pass for Gallifreyan which would spare her from what the Master did to wipe out their people (even though this doesn’t line up with what he actually did to them)? Is there a reason that it made Mrs. Flood so different from the normal Rani? They really did not go into this.

- Since when did the legends about Omega change? I had just been rewatching clips from The Three Doctors and Three was talking about how every Gallifreyan child learns the story of Omega as the heroic founder of Time Lord society. Now Fifteen talks about the legend of him being cast away for being insane? And unless I’m forgetting something, he’d only gone insane BECAUSE he was trapped in the anti-matter realm, yes? Am I missing something here?

- “With his body, I can resurrect the Time Lords and construct a new Gallifrey.” Except Omega famously has no body…

- When they were talking about the Time Lords being sterile I was so worried they were going into looms 😫 Thank HEAVEN that’s not what they’re saying. I don’t care what anyone else in this fandom thinks about Gallifreyan lore, I will always think looms are ridiculous and they should stay where they are, never brought into the show. But I’m very confused by them saying that it was the “genetic explosion” that did this to them. Were we not talking about what the Master did? That wasn’t a genetic explosion that wiped the Time Lords out (source: I just rewatched The Timeless Children). And did it somehow make the Doctor and the Rani infertile from afar? 🤨 What are we even talking about here???

- “Sometimes I think that’s what bi-generation is. A life force trying anything it can to survive.” At least they bothered to give bi-generation something of an explanation, but I still think it’s stupid. This was such a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it answer as well.

- Zero Room! 🙌

- I want to be clear, I do appreciate that they care so much about their child and that the narrative places so much importance on just one little life. If I were the Doctor or Belinda and suddenly had this child, even if she shouldn’t have existed, I would want to do anything to protect my baby, too. That said, I feel like there’s almost an obsession with her going on here. The narrative suddenly pivots to laser-focus on her in a strange way. It also had the unintended effect of kinda sidelining Belinda; instead of any resolution around her actual story, suddenly this is all that matters. I’m not necessarily in agreement with the fans I’m seeing that are expressing disdain for the focus on motherhood here, because I think it’s actually rarer these days to show strong women onscreen who value it so much and I don’t believe that by default making a character become a mother somehow relegates them to being “just” a mother like that’s not indeed the most important thing in the world, but… in this specific case they really did kind of throw everything else about Belinda away to have the one and only focus of her character now be about Poppy. The whole plot suddenly shifted to center on Poppy. Again, I understand the position they’re in here and I’d want to save her, too. But narratively speaking it just felt odd, like they and the whole story were suddenly completely obsessed with her.

- I do like though that both the Doctor and Belinda were so on board with being platonic co-parents. The love doesn’t have to be romantic to be very real here.

- I’m seeing people unhappy about Ruby’s confrontation with Conrad because she called his sexist and ableist world nice, but the girl has a GUN aimed at her. Diplomacy is exactly what you want to be doing in this situation. Say whatever you have to say to appeal to him. She was also wise to go straight for his vulnerability surrounding family, and acknowledging that his world’s focus on families stemmed from his own bad family history, that that was something he wanted to make better (horribly misguided as the result was). This is basic talking-down-the-bad-guy stuff, trying to convince the person with a gun to you that you understand their perspective. She saw the horrors, she saw what happened to all the disabled and to Rose’s entire existence, she just said last episode that she thought he was evil. Even if she does truly see where he’s coming from and can honestly say that a part of his intention was nice, she doesn’t mean that the result was actually nice. Maybe the writing could have been clearer about that, but I don’t see the issue people are having.

- What on EARTH did they do to Omega. Why does he have a body and why does it look like THAT?! Why did the existence of a myth around him actually turn him into that idea? Why does he want to eat Time Lords now?

- Back to Archie Panjabi: I can’t believe they just had Omega randomly EAT her. What a ridiculous ending for such a fabulous character and actress. She had better come back in the future the same way that the Master always returns without explanation. It would be an absolutely horrendous waste of the perfect casting to do her like this. All this buildup just to throw her away. Halfway through the episode, too, like it wasn’t even important!!!

- Uh, was the Doctor trying to direct Omega’s attention to Mrs. Flood to get her, too? That’s all I could get out of this but that’s messed up.

- Also seeing people complain that Conrad didn’t get what he deserved and that Ruby shouldn’t have let him be happy. On that I have to disagree. I’m all for mercy and I love that Ruby found it in herself to be kind to the man who did what he did to her and the world. If his life changes to be happy, he doesn’t become the kind of person that did all this in the first place. I would always prefer the merciful way out where even the worst of people can have a different life rather than focusing on payback. It reminds me of Kazran Sardick; make him a better person with a better life and you’ve made things better for everyone. Conrad deserved a comeuppance, but I don’t think deserve is the point. I don’t believe revenge is the only way to set things right. I appreciate that she did that.

- Aaand they got rid of Omega halfway through the episode as well. ALL OF THIS, just for him to rock up for about five seconds as a weird bird-like corpse who wants to become a cannibal and then gets blasted back into where he came from. What a complete and utter WASTE of a character like Omega. I cannot believe how absurd this was. No true payoff whatsoever. I was so sure that the Rani would use Conrad to become Omega’s body and then we’d actually have to deal with him, but no. Nothing. Nothing that mattered. I can’t express my disappointment at how they used, or rather didn’t use, this character. Ditto for the Rani, just a little less awful because at least she actually got used at all.

- Very sweet for the orphaned baby to go to the Sundays.

- I’m glad they later have Belinda saying she can’t run around time and space anymore with a baby, because I was baffled by this bit where she and the Doctor are acting like they’re ALL gonna travel the universe and go an adventures with Poppy and baby proof the TARDIS, et cetera. Like I said, the narrative is making them so weirdly obsessed with this baby to the point of not thinking straight. They didn’t explain why they’re like this right now and then not later.

- Poor Ruby always being cursed to remember things that others don’t. It once again had me wondering if there was still something about her that was going to be explained, because everything’s felt so convenient. I thought maybe if she had the DNA of something in the Pantheon (like, say, the Trickster whose theme was playing in her soul but we’re still ignoring that) then that could explain why she’s immune to these things somehow. But no. I think it’s still because of 73 Yards but dang, is that gonna curse her for the rest of her life if stuff like this ever happens again? Whatever the case though, Millie has knocked it out of the park once again. I get the impression she steals the show in everything she touches. Such an impressive young actress.

- Shirley’s face watching Kate and Ibrahim is my face lol. I’m fascinated by whatever the heck has been going on here.

- Another ominous mention of “the Boss”. I can’t tell what I’m supposed to think about this person! I’m assuming it’s the same Boss that the Meep referred to, which had suggested it would be a bad character, but now sweet Anita knows them, too! There are still no answers here, and with Who not officially greenlit yet for the next season, let alone anywhere near production again, it looks like this is going to remain unanswered for the foreseeable. If it weren’t for the connection to the Meep I’d start wondering if this was Susan!

- Can one of the little changes in reality be that mavity is back to gravity? I still really don’t like this gag.

- In theory, since Ruby’s wish for Conrad survived when they fixed the wish world which seems to indicate that independent wishes can still last even after the rest of it is broken, could they not have wished for Poppy to survive the end of the wish world before they did that? I know they couldn’t have known to, but. I’m curious if that would be a possibility if they had.

- It’s very odd here how dismissive the Doctor and Belinda are to the idea that Ruby is remembering something that nobody else can. They have all the evidence they need that she’s been the odd man out with the correct memories before, and as Ruby said, that’s happened to the Doctor himself. There’s nothing here indicating that there’s something making them act this way. It’s one thing to be sure of your memories and have a hard time believing that you could be wrong, and another to be this weird and rude about it to someone who is freaking the heck out.

- If Poppy was created out of the Doctor’s wish to have a family again or whatever exactly this was, could there not have been potentially thousands more children created by people all over the world because of this wish that have also disappeared and will never get the treatment Poppy is getting here? Surely there are others who unconsciously wished for children, or for a spouse. It’s hard to imagine it’s ONLY Poppy.

- Enoooouuuuggghhh with the ‘last of the Time Lords’ thing!!! It had its day, but it’s silly to keep using that now when the Doctor knows full well there are others. He just saw TWO Ranis and at least one of them is still out there, which he is aware of. He just saw Omega, and while that’s not the company you want to keep, it still means there’s another. He knows the Master is inside that tooth (even if he believes the tooth is in the box with the Toymaker, he knows he’s alive in there). He’s just seen Susan calling out to him in his mind and on the screens. He has a whole other self out there sitting in Donna’s garden. I believe wholeheartedly that the Monk is out there somewhere because ain’t no way that guy didn’t run away from the Time War. Somehow or another, some other Time Lord ALWAYS comes back, and he KNOWS OF MULTIPLE at this very moment. Stop calling yourself that, dude! You’re one of four Time Lords in this episode alone!

- I do love a little montage of Doctor faces, I must admit. I think that’s the third one this season but I don’t even care. I’m an easy target, I always enjoy this.

—————

- AND NOW FOR MY FAVORITE SCENE OF THE EPISODE!!!

HER!!!

Oh my gosh. I was not REMOTELY expecting this. Absolutely the surprise of the century.

This WRECKED me. I was crying on the spot and had to keep myself quiet so I could actually hear her. Thirteen has been living in my brain nonstop for the past month because I’m writing a story for her to submit to Big Finish’s Short Trips opportunity, and I’ve been enjoying rewatching her era to ‘study’ and literally just finished. I mean, I actually watched The Power of the Doctor a mere TWO HOURS prior to watching The Reality War. Just as I’m having this month-long high of loving her and now very freshly feeling emotional over the loss of her again, they suddenly throw her back to me without warning. It’s as if it was written personally for me; it felt like I summoned her somehow.

If I couldn’t cry over getting Susan back this episode, I’m grateful they gave me Thirteen to cry over getting back instead. It felt like she came right out of her era and like I was suddenly back to where I’ve comfortably been living this month and only just said goodbye to again. I’m in disbelief that this happened with this kind of timing, and that they managed to keep it a secret for this long.

I’m still reeling like I must have dreamed this. But nope. Thirteen was right there. My sweet Thirteen that I’ve been so particularly attached to right now, whose era I appreciate more with each time I watch it. For all that people talk about how bad the Chibnall era was, and for all that I even used to say about it, more and more I find that the problems I thought existed really just aren’t problems to me anymore. I can think of only three big things that I wish had been different, and two of those are things that I can still appreciate in their own way. On average that actually makes her era the least riddled with things I don’t like, just after Eccleston (only speaking of New Who here). For all of RTD and Moffat’s very high highs, to me they also both have very low lows; I love their eras but I have problems with a larger number of individual episodes, events, and recurring themes (I’m looking at you, frequent oversexualization and innuendo). I now find myself in the position of more deeply appreciating her era (though I never had any trouble loving her) and becoming more defensive of it and her than ever, and right as I’m at the absolute peak of this, they gift her back to me.

I’m just stunned and so, so completely happy. Especially because I’ve been feeling like other than the acknowledgment of the Timeless Child (one of the things I’d change but which I can fully appreciate as a story even if I wish it hadn’t been in Doctor Who) and the cameo from the Fugitive Doctor, this era has gone completely forgotten immediately. RTD has written much of his second run as if Chibnall’s did not exist, and I’ve been especially baffled by the retroactive treatment of Yaz. The Doctor tells her she can’t settle with anyone because it will hurt, then Ten 2.0 immediately settles with the Nobles like this was never a concern and doesn’t seem to remember Yaz whatsoever despite having cared so much for her five minutes ago. The Doctor won’t tell Yaz anything ever after years together, then trauma dumps his entire life onto Ruby immediately after meeting her. The Doctor gently rejects Yaz who she genuinely cares about and has an emotional connection with, then randomly falls for a bounty hunter he’s known for all of an hour who has opposing morals to him, offering to travel together and BE together, for no reason whatsoever other than lust because they did not freaking fall in love in an hour, but no, not Yaz. This isn’t even all of it. That poor girl has been so repeatedly kicked in the face after the fact and it’s been making me all the more defensive of the Chibnall era and annoyed at its erasure and neglect (and I don’t even ship Thasmin, but dear goodness, Yaz doesn’t deserve any of this; she saved the Doctor’s entire existence from being permanently usurped by the Master, we only still have a Doctor because of her, and this is the thanks she gets?). So imagine my surprise when it turns out RTD actually CAN remember Jodie, and even Yaz! (That almost actually makes it worse for her that Fifteen actually can be bothered to remember her and yet still keeps doing all this stuff rofl. It’s a good thing no one remembers that Poppy was initially his child with Belinda because Yaz doesn’t need to hear about that at the group.)

And Doctor, stoooop with saying that so-and-so doesn’t need to hear the words ‘I love you’. It doesn’t matter if you think they know it. Rose deserved to hear it and so did Yaz.

Anyway. I’ve been a hardcore Thirteen fan right now so this came at the most perfect possible timing. I love and miss her and I can’t believe they gave her back to me for one shining minute. I could almost forgive all the other faults of the episode purely for how ecstatically happy this scene made me. When Fifteen stopped her to tell her he loved her, I felt that.

You’re welcome to come back any time. Love you forever, Doctor.

—————

- This end result is… very awkward. I wondered for a moment whether Belinda really did have Poppy all along and things had just been set right, but no, Belinda’s life seems to have been altered. Having her whole life changed without her knowledge is quite the way to end a character who didn’t like the Doctor so much as scanning her DNA without permission. I do believe that had she been given the opportunity to know that this is what would happen, she would have gladly accepted if it saved a child’s life, but… she wasn’t. Everything was changed for her (and presumably Poppy’s new father who has also had this reality thrust upon him unknowingly; who knows what that guy was up to before). Is it a nice life? Certainly! This could be a lovely departure if it had been real in the first place. But it’s not her life. Of course Poppy needs somewhere to go but there should have been a way that didn’t involve altering a person’s memories of their life in such a drastic manner. Just because she was Belinda’s in the wish world doesn’t mean she has to be with her now; she could have gone to the Sundays as well, or be adopted by someone else. It would have been just fine if Belinda herself had knowingly adopted her. But the way that this was done is kind of uncomfortable. And I feel like we don’t get to properly say goodbye to Belinda in a meaningful way, because the conclusion to her story gets swept up in time being different and the Doctor being relieved about Poppy. It’s hard to feel like this was a companion departure. There isn’t another goodbye for Ruby, either. They just end the stories of two companions without really making it feel like we were actually saying goodbye to either of them.

- Bit random to have the Doctor go be with Joy the star at the end but I guess that’s sweet. And at least the regeneration energy is a slightly different effect this time, even if it’s still the golden glow. I’ll address the actual regeneration in a moment.

- I… don’t know what to make of the sudden appearance of Billie Piper. I’d seen rumors about it, just as I’d seen rumors of Ncuti regenerating, but you can’t believe everything you hear; I’ll never forget the “leaks” from The Last Jedi involving Anakin’s Force Ghost living as a sea monster around Luke’s island rofl. So while I wasn’t surprised to see her, I have no clue what’s going on here. I have a very hard time believing she’s meant to be the next Doctor, as it’s one thing to cast Peter Capaldi and say he took the form of that guy from Pompeii to hold him to the mark and another thing to cast an entire companion! Billie and RTD seem to be alluding to things not being what they seem, so I’m assuming that this has something to do with the heart of the TARDIS from when Rose looked into it, but heck if I know. They need to get greenlit so they can continue whatever it is they’ve just dropped on us. And can I just say, much as I love Billie, I really am quite done with RTD revisiting his own greatest hits over and over again. Ten and Rose were my very first Doctor and companion, but I don’t like them both getting used for nostalgia bait like this. Ten did not need to return and I am never calling him Fourteen; he does not deserve a second number, no one Doctor is so much more special than any other that I’m acknowledging them twice. They may surprise me with something interesting but Billie does not need to be here either. All of this just feels like Russell is constantly patting himself on the back and I can’t help but wonder if the recent inclusions of Thirteen and Fugitive are just to give plausible deniability that he isn’t using only his own stuff. And I truly feel bad that Fifteen is bookended by David and Billie; the attention was taken from him in his entrance and it’s taken from him again in his exit.

- Okay, the regeneration. Knowing the rumor, I wasn’t totally surprised, but like… I was still also surprised that they actually did this without official warning. I’ve always wondered how it would be if they pulled off a regeneration without announcing it and I can now say unequivocally that IT SUCKS. It doesn’t feel real. I can’t grieve the loss of this Doctor properly because it feels so random. It took watching the goodbyes with Ncuti in the behind the scenes stuff for me to feel anything. I shouldn’t have to look outside of the actual episode of regeneration itself to feel it properly. This all just feels so wrong. More on this in my final overall thoughts.

—————

THOUGHTS

I have so many of them but I’m almost at a loss to communicate them. There’s good here, and I believe there’s good in even the worst Who episodes, but my word this was a mess.

First off, pure and simple: these characters deserved better.

Fifteen should have had longer. I felt he was just beginning to hit his stride better, and this season was pretty much hit after hit for me. Apparently they decided to only do 2 years from the get-go, which is not only bizarre, but is even worse when you look at how much was left unattended to despite them knowing exactly how much time they were working with. There are so many plot threads from across his two seasons that they’ve either done absolutely nothing with or didn’t delve into in full, leaving things feeling incomplete and choppy, and he has multiple episodes that he’s barely even in whatsoever. Why in the world would you keep doing Doctor-lite stories when you know you don’t have much time with this one? Fifteen was given such a raw deal imo. Overshadowed in his entry and exit, overshadowed in some of his own episodes, his emotional threads left hanging unresolved… this is just weird.

Belinda should have gotten an ending that related to her own, actual, REAL story. I wanted the resolution for her desire to get home, a very realistic and normal desire, and instead her own personal motivations are erased to serve whatever this story was with Poppy. Like I said, she could have knowingly adopted Poppy and that would be great, and it wouldn’t have changed her original life and motivation, she would just have a new factor in her life moving forward. Instead they take her memories and alter her reality. That may be a good thing for Poppy, who deserves to live, but am I supposed to be happy for Belinda? This is not a satisfying ending for her. (We also completely dropped anything regarding her being more wary of the Doctor than other companions and seeing that he’s dangerous. I thought this was going to be more of a challenge in their relationship but evidently not. I love their friendship but everything seems to end too perfectly.)

Ruby may have had her goodbye last season, but there’s no official one again now. We just don’t see her anymore at a certain point. After all she’s been through it doesn’t feel fair to just… walk away from her and not feel that her story has concluded. One can assume things go on like normal and that she’s probably working with UNIT to some degree or another, but it bothers me that we as an audience don’t get to see her off properly one last time.

The Rani deserved better. There ultimately wasn’t much point to the bi-generation, and after all this time of buildup for the Mrs. Flood mystery, they take the character(s) away just as soon as we get the answer. They get rid of her halfway through an episode that should have been her magnum opus, her most ambitious plan yet. One is eaten unceremoniously and the other teleports away. Whether we’ll see her again is completely up in the air. This should have been so much better for her (though her portrayal by Archie was absolute gold).

Omega deserved better. I’m just in shock that they brought back a character like that only to do whatever in the world that was. For such a significant cliffhanger last episode, Omega turns out to be such a weirdly-portrayed non-issue here and is disposed of halfway through as well. What a complete waste.

AND. SUSAN. SHOULD. HAVE. BEEN. HERE.

I feel like this episode, and really these past two seasons, tried to set up more than they could actually pull off and kept focusing on the wrong things. I went easier on series 14 than I saw a lot of people do, because the things that were left unanswered or felt too convenient were things that I gave the benefit of the doubt they’d be solved this season. No such luck, and now there are even more things left unsatisfyingly on the floor. Maybe part of that is that we as the fandom built up too high an expectation and we always come up with stuff that’s better than what we get, but I seriously think it’s mostly that RTD dropped the ball. Why set up things that don’t go anywhere? Will we ever actually see a reunion with Susan now? Is Rogue ever gonna get out of super hell? I don’t even want to revisit the Doctor/Rogue stuff whatsoever but he shouldn’t be left there either!

We should have had another season of Fifteen. Maybe he could have traveled with both Ruby and Belinda, if they’d be willing. There just should have been SOMETHING more than this. He needed more time to fully develop as a Doctor and to wrap up all of his loose ends in a satisfying way. I feel robbed. Robbed of more time with him and robbed of feeling like I actually just experienced his real ending. Not being officially warned was to this episode’s horrible detriment because I don’t feel I had the right experience with it.

This shorter amount of time also means Ncuti misses out on some staples of Doctor Who, like fighting Daleks or wearing the orange spacesuit. Fifteen is the first one since that suit arrived not to wear it, and he’s the first Doctor PERIOD to not have faced the Daleks. That’s insane. I’ve seen multiple Doctor actors, including Ncuti, say that it doesn’t quite feel like you’re really the Doctor until you’ve faced a Dalek. Does Ncuti seriously not get to have that?

It’s not even just about the time. It’s how you spend it. Even with only one season, it felt like Eccleston had a good run. With two seasons, it feels like Ncuti’s only barely begun to hit a really good streak. They spent too much of his time being confusing, and sometimes barely even having him there. Fifteen isn’t necessarily my favorite Doctor but I really think they did him a disservice.

It seems like just yesterday I was writing a review like this about Ncuti’s entrance. I shouldn’t have to do the same for his exit so quickly.

Thank goodness Thirteen showed up to distract me from all of the… *gestures broadly* everything.

(I feel like I may have forgotten something, so bear with me if this ends up with edits later.)

[otp-after-dark]

“It must be hell being a man like that.” —June Osborne, 3x03

This episode is a landmine. Everywhere June steps — boom. Power plays. Regret. Love hanging by a thread. Every decision cuts deeper. Every glance says the things they can't.

And it’s here — in this episode — that everything starts shifting. Nick. June. Lawrence. Everyone is burning beneath the surface.

The June/Lawrence dynamic kicks into full gear. And honestly? It's electric.

“Here’s what I don’t get. If women don’t want to be defined by their bodies, why are they always using them to get what they want?”

Touche, Lawrence. Because here's the thing about Joseph Lawrence: He isn’t Fred Waterford. He doesn’t dress up his cruelty in fake righteousness. He doesn’t even pretend to be consistent. He’s a man at war with himself — brilliant, dangerous, fascinating.

And when he throws June’s own rebellion in her face:

“You left the Waterfords in ashes. Do you think they got what they deserved?”

You can see it start to dawn on her: She can’t predict him. She can’t control him. She’s going to have to earn her power here — or die trying.

“It must be hell being a man like that.”

And it is.

Lawrence tests June hard in this episode.

“Are you capable of solving problems, making decisions?”

Not grand speeches. Not blind idealism. Real decisions. The ones that leave blood on your hands no matter what you choose.

He takes her for a drive. Gives her a choice: Save five Marthas from the colonies — or do nothing and save no one.

At first, June hesitates. Wants to save everyone or no one. Wants a perfect win.

But Lawrence cuts through that fantasy:

“Five is better than none.”

And June realizes — the hard way — that in this world, survival is compromise. Mercy is compromise. Victory is compromise.

(And it’s why this show is so much richer than easy "good guy vs bad guy" stories.)

Meanwhile, back on the other side of the emotional apocalypse: Nick is back. And oh god — he’s a Commander now.

WHAT.

You can feel June’s shock the second she sees him standing there — uniformed, stiff, trying not to even glance at her across a room full of men who would kill them both if they knew the truth.

And Lawrence — smart, ruthless Lawrence — notices immediately. One look at Nick, one look at June, one look at the baby, and he knows. (Not Fred's kid.) (Not a Waterford heir.) (A bomb waiting to go off.)

It’s a detail that will matter for seasons to come.

Elsewhere:

The Waterfords are fractured. For a brief moment, almost human. (Don’t worry, it doesn’t last.)

Serena tries to pick up her pieces at her mother’s house — and her mother? Charming as ever:

“You know there’s no place for you without Fred.”

It's the bitter truth Serena can’t escape — because every freedom she thought she had was bought with other women's suffering. And no matter how many times she burns it all down, she’s still trapped by the world she helped create.

(My issue with Serena has never been ambition — it's that her humanity only shows up when it's convenient.)

And then. The scene.

Nick comes to see June at night. Not a grand gesture. Not an escape plan. Just Nick. Standing there. Wanting to see her one last time.

Beth knows immediately he’s not there for her. He’s there for June.

“So you’re a Commander now. You can go get Hannah. You can get me out.”

June demands. June hopes. But Nick — god, Nick — just says:

“I’m sorry.”

And you can see the apology kill him. Because for once, he’s powerless too.

When June snaps:

“Can you do anything? What are you good for?”

Nick flinches. Visibly. Like she slapped him. And you feel every ounce of his shame, his heartbreak, his helplessness.

He tells her he’s getting deployed. He’s leaving. This is goodbye.

And June — caught between anger and grief — says goodbye like it’s nothing. Half a whisper. Half a lie.

But the second he turns to leave, she regrets it. Instantly.

Because love like this — messy, brutal, alive — doesn’t just disappear.

So she calls him back. Reaches for his hand. Pulls him into her room.

One last time. One last night. One last tether to a world that’s slipping away from both of them.

(To be a fly on that wall... honestly.)

[goatcheesecak3]

I hate you too Pt.3

Adam Faulkner-Stanheight x reader

Warnings: alcohol, brief mentions of nsfw

Fic type: angst, fluff

Summary: both trying to wrap your heads around the situation, you and Adam each reach out to your friends.

A/n: hello!! Probably the last part to this short series, I've had fun writing it though! Maybe I'll try a Lawrence fic next??? Who knows. Anyways, enjoy! :^)

Your heart sank. What the hell kind of sick game was Adam playing with you? Hooking up was one thing, but you'd both poured your hearts out to eachother, you though you had a real connection. You wiped tears from your eyes and gritted your teeth in anger. You needed a friend, a distraction. You called Mark.

"H- hey Mark" you spoke into the phone, sniffling a little and hoping it didn't sound like you'd been crying.

"What's up, y/n?" His voice sounded cheery.

"Look, I don't wanna put you on the spot or anything, man, but I uh... I'm having kinda a bad day, I was wondering if I could come over?"

"Hey, you know you're welcome anytime. Scott's coming over later to watch this lame slasher movie I picked up, it's gonna be a hoot. You should join us!"

His kindness was so jarring I'm contrast to the cold, unfeeling text you'd just recieved from Adam. It almost made you tear up again, but you held it together long enough to set a time, before hanging the phone up.

You made yourself a rather exquisite breakfast consisting of a cigarette, a beer, and several more cigarettes. Following this, you drifted in and out of sleep on the couch while watching episodes of beavis and butthead, and trying your hardest not to think about Adam.

When 6pm rolled around, you finally got yourself dressed and headed out to Mark's apartment.

...

After sending you that awful text, Adam had fallen asleep for a few hours. When he awoke, it was the evening. Despite a full day's rest, he didn't feel any better, in fact, he felt much worse. He knew he'd fucked up, he'd let himself step too far and now he was pretty sure your entire friendship was out the window, let alone any chance at a relationship. He knew deep down this was for the best, or at least he thought so? His head was swimming and he really couldn't make much sense of the whole situation. He had to bite the bullet, and call in for reinforcements in the form of his friend Scott. Adam knew full well that revealing the events that had transpired to Scott would come with a barrage of jokes and teasing, but at the end of it all, Scott was his friend and he'd help him make sense of it all.

...

"Yeah, I can meet you bro. I'm going to Mark's to watch this lame movie, I'll come pick you up and we can talk on the way. We're long overdue for a guy's night"

"Thanks, Man. Yeah, a guy's night sounds good"

Adam was beyond relieved that it would just be the three of them, he couldn't bear to face you right now.

At half six, Scott's beat up old Ford pulled up outside Adam's building, to find him already waiting on the curb, a cigarette hanging from his lips.

"You got one of them for me?" Scott grinned as Adam climbed in.

"Always" Adam obliged, handing Scott a cigarette.

"So," Scott pulled off with a screech, "What did you wanna talk about?"

"It's about y/n"

"What, you hittin that or something?" Scott teased.

Adam's unexpected silence answered that question, as he shifted awkwardly in his seat.

"No. Way. No fuckin WAY dude. Mark totally owes me 50 bucks" Scott gave Adam an affectionate punch in the arm, briefly averting his gaze from the road to see what he expected to be a smug grin plastered across Adam's face. Instead, however, Adam's face told a story of guilt and confliction.

"What? You didn't her pregnant did you?" He sounded genuinely concerned.

"Nah man, nothing like that. It's just... ugh, I don't know, I think I like her? But like, I'd just break her heart if I went there" Adam stared straight ahead as he spoke.

"You don't know that, man just tell her how you feel. At the very least you'll get to see her naked a couple more times before you completely fuck it up." It seemed that Scott possessed the incredible ability to never take anything seriously.

"Yeah... I don't think i can do that. Like, I think I've pretty much nailed that coffin shut"

"Well you certainly nailed something," Scott held out his fist to Adam and grinned to himself.

"Dude, I'm serious"

"So am I! Dude, emotional bullshit aside, y/n's a fuckin smokeshow, and I'm proud of my boy for his achievements"

Adam bit the insides of his cheeks, but couldn't help the smile from creeping across his face. He knew the whole macho bullshit thing was gross and childish, but admittedly, he was kinda proud of himself for sleeping with you. He bumped Scott's fist.

"There he is" Scott chuckled, "so, now that we've got all this acting like a pussy out the way, you're gonna pick up your phone, call y/n and tell her 'I'll be at your place later with condoms and viagra, chug a couple energy drinks 'cause we're gonna go all night'" he joked.

"You know, I think that approach might be a little full on" Adam laughed. "But you're right, I gotta stop being a little bitch about this and tell her how I feel"

"Awesome. Me and Mark can help you plan how you're gonna do it tonight, but you owe us another guy's night if we do"

"How come?"

"Because you're totally acting like a chick"

"Shut up, man. You're an asshole, you know that?"

...

You'd been at Mark's apartment for a little while already, drinking beer and waiting for Scott to arrive.

"Does he know I'm gonna be here?" You asked casually

"You know, totally slipped my mind to tell him. Hell be here any minute, so I guess he'll find out when he arrives" Mark smiled.

As if to punctuate that sentence, the unmistakable sound of Scott's loud footsteps approached the apartment door, followed by a hefty knock.

Mark opened the door, to see both Scott and Adam waiting.

"Oh hey! Guess the whole gang's here" Mark smiled.

The two men entered the apartment, Adam's expression slowly turning to one of dread when he saw you sat on the couch.

"What the hell is he doing here?!"

"What the hell is she doing here?!" The pair of you exclaimed at the same time.

"Oh come on, not this again. Guys, just sit down, relax, have a few beers. I'm too tired to watch you two fight all night" Mark rolled his eyes.

"Won't be necessary" you said coldly, rising to your feet and attempting to barge your way past the men and out of the apartment.

"Ohhhh I don't think so, little lady" Scott scoffed, blocking your exit.

"Scott, I'm warning you, you know I could kick your ass" you bit.

"Be that as it may, you and Adam got a lot to talk about. Now Mark and I are gonna leave for a while, give you two some privacy, and you're gonna solve this" Scott said. Seeing Scott be the voice of reason was like seeing a unicorn, you couldn't believe your eyes.

"Why should I leave? This is my apartment?" Mark argued as Scott ushered him out

"Because you're gonna head down to the ATM and withdraw that 50 bucks you owe me"

"What?" The realisation set in and he turned to face you and Adam, "you two? No WAY!"

"Have funnnnn" Scott mocked in a sing-song voice as he guided a gobsmacked Mark out of the apartment, closing the door behind them on their way out.

The apartment was silent now, you and Adam both stood, stunned, staring blankly at eachother. You would have kept this stand off going on forever, if you weren't so drained. You threw yourself down onto the couch and sighed exasperatedly.

"This is so fucking humiliating" you muttered under your breath.

Adam sat beside you. You held your head in your hands, eyes glued to the floor, but you could feel Adam's gaze burning into you.

"Y/n, I-"

"No, it's fine, like I get it. Last night was a mistake, it didn't mean anything. You don't have to tell me again." You snapped, not wanting to relive the heartbreak.

Adam exhaled

"I didn't mean that" he said quietly, his voice sounding shameful.

Suddenly, something inside you snapped. You were furious, he'd completely devasted you, and now he'd changed his mind?

"Then what the fuck do you mean?!" You blurted angrily, "you hate me one minute, you like me the next. What the actual fuck is your problem, Adam? What is it you want? Because in case you hadn't realised, you've given me some pretty mixed signals in the last 24 hours!"

"I want you!" He yelled "I mean.. I want to be able to want you" his voice was soft, gentle even.

Yours was not.

"Oh my fucking GOD. Do you only talk in riddles or something? What next, do I need to solve a fucking treasure hunt to find your missing brain?!"

"Y/n, no, please just listen.. okay? I just- man I thought I'd have time to plan this" he exclaimed to himself, throwing his arms up in the air.

"Look, if I don't get a straight answer in the next five minutes I'm walking out that door" you said, calmer now.

"Okay.. okay.." Adam breathed slowly, he seemed to be trying to find the words.

"Look," he began, "I'm in the weirdest place emotionally right now, I've always struggled with being vulnerable, but I mean, I'm so much worse these days. Ever since... well, you know..." he bit the inside of his lip and looked ahead, his eyes filled with sadness.

"I'm still trying to get myself back, and I don't know if the part of me that can let people in is ready.

If I let you in right now, I'm scared that I'll only hurt you further down the line, and I could never ask you to just wait around for me to get better."

He stared at the floor and sighed, feeling quite sorry for himself.

You considered what he had said for a moment, before finally speaking, much gentler this time.

"So get better now"

"What? Y/n, it's mot that simple"

"Yes, Adam, it is that simple" you said, your tone kind, but firm. "You say you're trying to get better at letting people in, and in the last 24 hours you've been more emotionally honest with your arch nemesis than you would ever imagine. Sure, it doesn't exactly scream stability, but that's part of the process. You're making progress" you took Adam's hand and brushed your thumb across his skin reassuringly.

"It's not gonna be easy, but if you don't take this chance and let me in then you're not moving forward".

Adam let out a half hearted chuckle, and wiped a few tears he hoped you hadn't seen from his eyes.

"I hate the fact that you're always right"

"Get used to it" you smiled warmly, giving him a playful nudge.

"Okay... so in the spirit of moving forward" he gulped, "would you uhh... be free for date sometime?"

He smiled sheepishly, nervously fidgeting with the sleeve of his jacket. You noticed that his eyes seemed to look extra sparkly, as if there was hope and excitement in them for the first time in a while.

"I'm free right now" you giggled, placing your hand on Adam's cheek and leaning in to kiss him.

Adam's hands held onto your waist as he leaned into the kiss, gradually pushing you back onto the sofa. He kissed you deeper now, more hungrily, his fingertips were just brimming the hem of your shirt, when...

"Aaaand the two of you can go continue that "date" literally anywhere but my sofa" Mark exclaimed, bursting into the apartment, Scott following giggling like a schoolboy.

"Were you assholes listening through the door?!" You squealed, jumping up and adjusting your shirt.

"Hey, I didn't wanna, but Mark needed proof that he lost the bet!" Scott laughed, barely able to contain himself.

"Dude! Come on, that was priv- wait.. what bet?" You asked, more curious than annoyed by this point.

"I bet Mark that you and Adam secretly liked eachother, and now I'm 50 bucks richer" Scott said proudly.

"Never would've imagined you guys together" Mark admitted, "but you know what, I like this little dynamic. It's sweet, or at least it is when you're not tryna bang on my couch" he teased.

"Sorry about that, man" Adam chuckled, his cheeks reddening.

"Now, come on you crazy kids," Scott said, in a slightly patronising, but good natured tone, "get your asses down to some restaurant or something where you can sit and make googly eyes at eachother before me and Mark throw up"

...

You and Adam walked down the street after leaving Mark's apartment. Your hands brushed against eachother, and without words they were interlinked. Just to think, a couple days ago you would have thrown up at the thought of holding Adam's hand, but now it was all you wanted to do.

"So... a restaurant, huh?" Adam said, swinging your arms slightly.

"Hm" you tilted your head, "orrrrr... we could head back to mine, crack open a bottle of wine on the balcony... maybe fool around a little?" You looked at Adam with a cheeky grin.

"God, you just get me" Adam laughed, placing his free hand on your waist and planting a soft kiss onto your lips.

And it was indeed, a perfect date.

[siampie]

Risk and Reward||Chapter 1: When I Met You

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 4.1k

Summary: You have a hard time settling into your new life but with new acquaintances and newfound friendships. You slowly find your footing.

Warnings/tags: 18+ contains smut (not sure, don’t know how to write it but I’ll try), angst, fluff, mutual pining, idiots in love, childhood trauma

A/N: So, this is a first for me. Please be indulgent. I am no stranger to writing fiction. I’ve done it before just not on this platform. Also, this is my first time writing in 2nd POV and for Matt Murdock. There isn’t much of him in this chapter but I hope the small bits I have is as close as it is to his character. I did what I always do before writing fiction, read other writers' work and see how they capture the character and watched videos or episodes to get a good feel of the character. So, I hope you will like it. Feedback is welcome. And just enjoy! Also English is not my first language.

Chapter List || Next Chapter

Masterlist || Join my tag list

Dividers by @cafekitsune

Song the title is referring to:

You gave me a reason for my being

And I love what I’m feelin’

You gave me a meaning to my life

Yes, I’ve gone beyond existing

And it all began when I met you

“Another day, another week.” You whispered to yourself as you stepped in the building where you work. You smiled quickly at the receptionist before making your way to the elevator. After you made the big move across the states, you were lucky to land a job as a proofreader in a publishing house. It wasn’t your dream job but it was the next best thing.

For as far as you can remember, you have always been taking care of your family. Many expectations and responsibilities were put on your shoulders from a very young age. So, when your brother stepped in and decided to move your father in with him, you felt some relief. A load was being taken off of your shoulders. You loved your family. But over the years, you had started to resent them slightly. You resented your father for being sick. You resented him for taking out his bad moods on you. You resented your siblings because they get to live their lives. You resented them for leaving you behind in the dust. You knew you loved them but you resented them. And you didn’t want to hate them. So, you left.

You made the move to Hell’s Kitchen, six months ago and you had big plans. First of which, was to properly kickstart your life. You didn’t think it would be easy. You knew it would have been a challenge but you didn’t think it would be that hard. After six months, you thought you would have made some friends or at least some acquaintances. But shy as you were, and as cautious as you were, making friends did not come easy for you.

You dropped your bag on the ground next to your chair. And dropped your coat on the back of it. Your desk was already stacked with manuscripts that needed to be proofread. You always started your day the same, first you read your emails and answered the most important ones. Then came coffee and then came reading with a red pen. You were to review any typos that may have somehow slipped past the author and the copy editor. You were also to review for issues like kerning and stacking and whether the running head is consistent. Proofreading was the last step before publication. You knew it was an important step, so you did it thoroughly. And you did it well. At least, you thought you did. Your boss had not complained about your work so far. And you took it as a good sign.

One of your coworkers stopped by your desk and softly called your name. You looked up at her. You knew her, you had barely interacted with her a few days before. She had long, red hair, that you loved, and legs for days. Her name was Amelia. A few nights ago, as you were leaving after workhours, she was standing outside of the building. A cigarette between her lips as she was looking for something.

“Excuse me?” She stopped you. You turned to her. “Do you have a lighter?”

“Yeah.” You nodded quickly. Your best friend from high school, had convinced you to buy a pack of lighter once. Telling you that it was the best way to meet people and to make friends. More precisely to meet your future boyfriend. “There you go.” You handed her the lighter.

“Thanks.” She lit her cigarette before giving it back to you. She took a long drag at it. The tension in her shoulders dropped. “I needed that.”

“You’re welcome.” You smiled at her and turned to leave.

“You’re that new proofreader, aren’t you?” She asked you.

“Yeah.” And you gave her your name.

“That’s a pretty name.” She remarked. “I’m Amelia.”

“Nice to meet you.” Amelia was not a proofreader. She was an acquisitions editor. The one, literary agents would come to, to sell a book. The book landed in her hands first, and if they made it past her, they landed in yours last.

You stayed with her long after she finished her cigarette. You walked with her because it was dark out. And Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t the safest place to be after dark. And there was strength in numbers. Coincidentally, your flat and hers weren’t that far apart. So, you walked her home before going to yours.

After that, you had not seen or heard much of Amelia. You thought that was it. But there she was, talking to you.

“So, some of us are going to grab a drink after work and I thought that maybe you would love to join us?” She sat on your desk.

“It’s barely 9 and you’re already thinking about the end of the day.” You scoffed lightly.

“Well, I need something to look forward to.” Amelia laughed. “So, wanna come?”

Your default answer was ready to come out of your mouth. You were already making up excuses to not go. And then you stopped yourself. Why shouldn’t you go tonight? There was no one waiting for you at home. You had no obligations. It could be a fun night out; you could even make a few new friends. Might even start a new friendship with Amelia. After all, she came to seek you out. She wanted to invite you.

“Why?” You had not meant to ask this out loud.

“What?”

“Why invite me? We barely talked to each other? Why ask me?”

“You said you just moved here in Hell’s Kitchen, remember?” Amelia gave you a tight smile. And you nodded at her words. “I figured I do the nice thing and invite you to come with us. Since, you don’t really know anyone here.”

Now, you felt stupid. You could feel your neck and cheeks heat up with your embarrassment. Not everyone was going to hurt you. There were good people in the world, you had to remind yourself of that.

“Sorry.” You apologized quickly. “I—I would love to come.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You nodded quickly.

“Good, I’ll come and get you when it’s time to go.”

You pressed your hands against your neck. If you could see yourself, you were sure there would be splotches of red all over it. Of course, you had to go and ask why? If “no” was your default answer most of the time, “why?” wasn’t too far behind. When your niece had first told you she loved you, your first answer wasn’t to say it back. It was to ask her why? And she had answered very sweetly: “Because you’re funny and you give the best hugs. And you always play with me.” And after that you never asked again. You only said it back. Because you did, you loved her very much.

You did not know why you did this. It was almost as though you did not believe that good things could happen to you. And if it did, it was not sincere. It was because someone wanted something from you and once, they got it. They’d leave you high and dry.

As the end of your day was nearing. Your anxiety was starting to get the better of you. You dreaded the moment Amelia would come and pick you up. You had agreed to it earlier because you genuinely wanted to. But now, all you wanted, was to go home. Not because you were drained or overstimulated. No, because you simply did not feel like going anymore. You were hoping she would forget about you. Or at least, it would have been cancelled.

It wasn’t cancelled. And you couldn’t just bail on them. It was the first time, since you arrived in Hell’s Kitchen, that you had been invited to hang out. If you bailed on them now, you might not be invited ever again. So, you went. And who knows, you might have some fun.

“Josie’s.” You read out as you stopped in front of the bar with Amelia.

“Yeah, it’s a dive bar, really.” Amelia told you quickly. “But the drinks good enough.”

“Okay.”

She pulled you in after her. You both stopped at the bar to order your drinks and she then took you to their table. It was a small gathering. You recognized a few people, there was the receptionist; Clara. Then, there was another proofreader, you had interacted with. Barely. His name was Sebastian and some other people. You sat next to Amelia.

As soon as you sat down, they resumed their conversations. You were a silent observer. You laughed at their jokes. You listened intently to what they were saying. And you were really brief when they asked you questions about yourself. And redirected the attention on someone else as quickly as possible. You did not want the spotlight to be on you.

While your coworkers were conversing with one another, you couldn’t help but glanced around you. Your eyes travelled over the numerous patrons in the bar. Bikers, blue collar workers and some white-collar workers. They were many. The bar seemed to be quite successful.

And then your eyes landed on him.

Dark haired, with red tinted glasses and a cane. His plump lips were begging to be kissed, his jawline was to die for. His hair looked soft to the touch and you were itching to run your fingers through them. His shirt was so tight that it left nothing to the imagination. You could tell that he was well built underneath it. And his smile—oh, his smile was the most beautiful, you’ve ever laid eyes on. It lit up his whole face. Made him look younger. He looked perfect in every way.

You quickly darted your eyes away. You did not want to be caught staring. However, it was too late. Unbeknownst to you, Amelia had caught you looking.

“So, you look like you’re enjoying yourself.” Amelia said as she pulled you to the bar, to grab another drink.

“I am.” You nodded. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“No problem.” Amelia nudged your shoulder. “Would you want to do it again sometimes?”

“Yes, but can we space them out?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” She snorted. “It’s only when the urge strikes.” And she turned away from you. She looked over her shoulder briefly. “So, someone caught your eye.”

“What? No.” You answered quickly.

“That’s not what I saw.” She smirked at you. Josie pushed your beers towards you. “You kept staring at glasses over there.” She waved her hand towards perfect man.

“No, I did not.” You protested while pulling her hand down.

“Oh, come on!” Amelia insisted. “It’s not a crime. He’s pretty and you have eyes. It’s okay to stare a little.”

“Stop.”

“But you know what would be even better?”

“I’m going to regret this.” You rolled your eyes in annoyance. “What?”

“If you spoke to the guy. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Rejection.” You simply answered.

“Well, rejection is part of the game.” She shrugged. You gave out a deep sigh, and put your chin in the palm of your hand. “You got nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

Nothing to lose? Easy for her to say. After all, she wasn’t the one who had her heart broken, so many times, that there was barely anything left of it. When it came to the matters of the heart, you did not think that the risks were worth it. Even if it was for a Pretty Boy.

Your eyes landed on him again, in spite of yourself. His eyes seemed to be on you and Amelia. Almost as though he was directly looking at you. But he was blind, right? That would be impossible.

“You’re staring again.” She teased you. And you turned back to the bar quickly.

“Drop it.” You told her sternly. “It’s not worth it.” Her eyebrows went into her hairline. “Plus, a guy like him would never go for a girl like me.”

“What? Beautiful and sweet?”

“I’m not beautiful. I’m not ugly but I’m not beautiful. I’m average at best.” You shook your head. “And I’m not sweet.”

Amelia looked at you baffled by your defensiveness over compliments. You acted as though she insulted you. She pushed your beer away from you.

“First, those were compliments and not insults. So, take them.” Amelia said. “And why would he go for someone else when he could go for you?”

“You’re being this nice to me over a lighter?”

“It’s not just about the lighter.” She told you. “You walked me home. You didn’t have to but you did. It was very kind and sweet. Thus, proving my point. You are sweet.”

“It was practical. My flat isn’t too far away from yours. And it was as much for your safety as it was for mine.” You shrugged. “It’s dangerous at night in Hell’s Kitchen.”

Amelia rolled her eyes and groaned in frustration. “You are going to take that compliment. I will beat it into you, if I have to.”

“That would be assault.”

“You thing you’re funny, uh?”

“I think I’m adorable.”

“Bitch, you’re testing my patience.” And that got a laugh out of you. She shook her head and laughed with you. “You really are annoying.”

“That’s more like it.” You grinned at her. “Want me to walk you home again?”

“Yeah,” She nodded and clinked her beer with yours. “We finish our drinks and then, we’re good to go.”

“Okay.”

She waved her finger at you. “But this conversation is not over.”

“What conversation?” You retorted, taking on a faux air of innocence.

Amelia glared at you which elicited a chuckle out of you. “Put a few drinks in you and you turn into a comedian. Who would have thought?”

“I could have mentioned it. Save you some time.”

“Do you need to have an answer to everything?”

“Should I answer that or--?”

“Oh, shut up.” And you snorted.

She raised her beer to her lips and toss it back. She gulped the rest of the bottle down and slammed it back onto the counter. Both of your empty bottles were left on the counter and you walked back to your small group of friends. On your way there, your eyes automatically found Pretty Boy, once again. Again, his gaze seemed to be on you and you dropped your eyes to the ground immediately. Feeling guilty that you were staring again, you let out a long sigh and muttered to yourself. “If he’s ever going for someone, it would be for Amelia.”

“There you go.” Amelia handed you your coat and bag. “What are you muttering to yourself again?”

“What do you mean again?” You asked stunned, blood rushing to your neck and cheeks. “You caught me doing that a lot?”

“You are not really trying to hide it.” Amelia shrugged. “So, what was it?”

“Nothing. It was nothing.” You pouted while you put on your coat.

“Was it about Pretty Boy?” She smirked at you.

“Oh, stop!” You said as sternly as possible with your lips jutted out in a pout. “It wasn’t about Pretty Boy.”

“Hmm,” She nodded smugly. “I’ll pretend I believe that.” She laced her arm with yours as you both exited the bar.

“He is really pretty.” You smiled shyly. Amelia’s shoulder nudged yours, as she giggled along with you.

“Next time, we see him. You’re talking to him.” You groaned at her words.

That night was the first time, you ever laid eyes on him. And you thought it would be the last time.

What were the chances for you to stumble upon him in this city ever again? He could be living outside of the city. Or it was only chance that brought him there tonight. And this was a once in a lifetime chance to meet the love of your life. And you blew it.

“Shut up!” You groaned as you slapped your forehead. “I did not blow my chance because there wasn’t one to begin with.”

“Voices in your head?” Amelia put down the lighter next to you.

“They’re really loud today.” You shook your head. “And you don’t have to bring it back all the time. You can keep it.”

“I won’t have an excuse to come and see you. anymore”

“You don’t really need one.” You sighed.

“True.” She smirked. “Wanna go to Josie’s tonight?”

“What are we celebrating?” You retorted.

“Nothing.” Amelia shrugged. “I thought maybe we could blow off some steam.” She shrugged and sat down on your desk. “Seeing as those last two months were kinda crazy.”

“Yeah, they were.” You agreed. “I mean we are nearing the end of the season.”

As it were in the publishing world, books are published in a three-season cycle: Winter, Summer and Fall. Winter season came to a close by the end of April and the datelines were getting closer. For the last two months, you and your team had been working nonstop. You and the author of the book you were proofreading, were going back and forth about editing issues he had. And his anxieties regarding the matter were also affecting you. Under pressure and anxious, you and your coworkers had no time to go back out.

“I could use the break.” You leaned back in your chair. “And a couple of beers.”

“It’s a date.” Amelia got back on her feet. “Meet you by the reception desk.”

“Yeah, see you.”

Amelia and you were on the sidewalk in front of Josie’s. She was smoking a cigarette before you both get in.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Amelia asked you.

“I like the smell of it.” You shrugged.

She took another puff before she elbowed your side. You glared at her.  Her pointy elbow dug into your side painfully. “What’s that for?”

“It seems you’re in luck tonight.” She looked down at you. And with a jerk of her head, she indicated at something behind you.

You turned around and there he was. Tapping his cane on the sidewalk, holding the arm of a beautiful blonde. There was a man, blonde also, walking on his other side. Pretty Boy’s tie was loose around his neck and slightly crooked. A giant smile was on his face as the beautiful lady on his side threw her head back in laughter. You kept your eyes on their little group as they disappeared into the bar.

“Alright, tonight’s the night.” Amelia took a last puff out of her cigarette.

“What?” You turned to her confused.

“We agreed that next time we see him here, you would talk to him.”

“I did not agree to anything. You agreed with yourself.” You told her as she started to drag you toward the bar. “Amelia, stop!” You pulled your arm away from her.

“What are you so afraid of?” Amelia huffed in annoyance.

“Rejection. Humiliation. Mortification. Embarrassment.” You started to list out.

Sure, he was handsome. He was painfully handsome. And although, you had thought of his lips on yours, of his hands running through your hair as he whispered sweet nothings in your ear. Your hands flew to your ears at the thought. They warmed up as your blood rushed to them. You couldn’t do it. You couldn’t talk to him.

“I’m perfectly fine with watching him from afar.” You said quietly, dropping your hands. “Can we go somewhere else, please?” You crossed your arms over your chest, making yourself as small as possible.

She dropped an arm around your shoulders and pulled you into her side. “We already here, so we might as well go in.” You started pulling away from her. “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. Relax.” She pulled you back in and turned you towards the doors.

“Promise?” You put your pinky out.

“Promise.” She hooked her pinky with yours.

In most situations, you weren’t afraid to go after what you wanted. Of course, you had to pass it through a few people first. Just to make sure you were making the right decision. Especially, when it came to your job. But when it came to relationships—romantic ones, you never took the first step. You were always afraid that the people you wanted—you desired—wouldn’t want you back. Which explains your lack of experiences when it came to dating. And the disappointing sexual experiences you had.

You sat at the bar and ordered your beer. Amelia sat beside you but kept looking over her shoulder. You turned briefly to where she was looking. And surely enough, she was looking directly towards Pretty Boy and his friends. You sighed and turned back around.

“You promised, remember?” You told her. “Pinky promised. Those are sacred.”

“Yeah, I know.” She pouted and turned back around. “You’re going to regret it later.”

“Don’t I know it?” You exhaled deeply.

How many times have you let someone go before you were too afraid to speak? How much longer will you stay up at night wondering about what ifs? How much longer will you stand in the way of your own happiness? How much longer will you live in fear?

There was comfort in fear. It kept you on your toes. It told you where the edge was. It helped you survive. There was nothing wrong with fear. There were no broken hearts, no hurt feelings. It was safe.

And yet—you wished you could take that step. You knew you could. You’ve done it before. You left the comfort of your home. Of everything you’ve known to come here in Hell’s Kitchen. What was the worse that could happen in talking to him? Nothing, right? It was just talking. A simple conversation between two people. Or maybe, you would just give him your number. He could call you if he wanted to. If not—well, you would keep wondering why he didn’t call you. The thought of it was torture enough.

You glanced back over your shoulder at Pretty Boy. He was no longer sitting with his friends. His coat was still there on the back of his chair, but he was gone. You turned back to your drink, and sorrowfully starting to play with the condensation on your beer.

“What can I get you, Murdock?”

“Just another beer, Josie, thanks.”

You turned your eyes towards the voice. And there he was. So, much more handsome up close. His voice was nice and deep. Music to your ears. You turned your eyes away from him. Your heartbeat was now racing in your ribcage. You looked up at the ceiling, searching for some sort of answers.

“Hey, I’m gonna go out for a smoke.” Amelia announced slamming her bottle on the counter.

“I’ll come with you.” You squeaked out.

“You should definitely stay and enjoy yourself.” Amelia pulled her hair out of the collar of her coat. “I’ll be back in a moment. You should—you know strike up a conversation or two.” And she pointedly looked at the man by your side.

You gasped as she left. “You promised!” You called after her. “Pinky promised.”

“What did she promise?” Pretty Boy asked you. A grin plastered on his face.

You took a few minutes to answer, your eyes following Amelia’s exit out of the bar. And let out a breath. “To not make me do something I didn’t want to do.”

“And what was it? The thing you didn’t want to do.”

You couldn’t help the small grin that came onto your face before you answered. “Striking up a conversation with someone.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Why not?”

“It’s kind of terrifying for me to—talk to people.” The blood was rushing to your chest, your heart was slamming against your ribcage.

“You’re talking to me now.” His voice seemed lower as he spoke.

You scoffed. “True. I am.”

“How does it feel?” His lips twitched up at the corners.

“Not as terrifying as I thought.”

He chuckled. And you smiled at the sound. “I’m Matt.” He extended his hand out to you.

You put your hand in his. Your breath hitched in your throat as your skin touched his. You cleared your throat before giving him your name.

“You have a pretty name.” He told you.

“You make it sound prettier.” You quipped back, feeling braver now. His eyebrows flew high on his forehead before he let out a laugh. You laughed along with him. “Nice to meet you, Matt.”

“Pleasure’s all mine.” He nodded, this boyish grin never leaving his face.

That was the night you officially met Matt Murdock. It wasn’t as daunting as you thought it would be. In fact, speaking with Matt came easy to you. His eyes were unseeing and yet, they were always on you. And for once in your life, you did not mind the attention.

You didn’t think anything life altering would come of it. If anything, you thought you were gaining another friend.

Little did you know…

Chapter List || Next Chapter

[x-birdsong-x]

could you please tell me more about Adams and her parents? is that headcanons or is there stuff in the show i missed? since she and the show are adamant (ha) that her parents were Good and Normal i never rly thought about it, but your reading is much more compelling

The show is adamant that Adams' parents are terrible. Runaways' existence tells us her parents are terrible. Parents' ending tells us her parents are terrible. In a more overanalyzing way, Risky Business' ending tells us her parents are terrible. Adams is convinced her parents were not the problem and the show is adamant that's not right.

Starting with the ending of Parents:

I don't care what way this is twisted, "the only evidence you have is proof of something else" / "it took my parents years to get over it" / this entire situation is so massively fucked up. She was sixteen. She was the child. I don't care if she HAD just been acting out (which Runaways confirms was not the case). Sixteen-year-old Adams running away and getting into a worse situation that is confusing and traumatic all on its own only to be driven to choosing the lesser of two evils and going back home is fucked up. Her parents spending the rest of her life telling her she did a bad thing and needs to make up for/earn forgiveness for this when they are the ones that made her finally snap is fucked up.

House's tone at "you envied their dysfunction?" is closer to "you're really going with that?" than it is "lol that's weird." That whole half of that explanation comes across as parents who didn't give a shit making more sense to a kid hearing about that from the outside than parents who switch from hot to cold/don't listen to a word she says and consistently claim to care and listen while constantly making her feel and doing the opposite.

When House starts off poking her with a stick about this before he eventually backs off, there's this at the start:

When House asks her to stay behind in his office before he brings up what he's found out, Adams braces herself to snap back at whatever he's going to say after a moment of "oh shit what did I do wrong" . I wish I could gif.

House backs off with Adams in a way he usually doesn't. He realizes his usual approach isn't working and stops and waits for her to come to him - after the one time she near-successfully lies to him or Chase is when she's lying about her family.

And she does go to him, at the end. Only when she has the chance to tell him He's Wrong, it was All Her Fault.

This always comes back around to the fact she was a child. She was sixteen. It doesn't matter HOW irrational it might've been, her parents treating her the way they did/do after is disgusting. Whether Adams would've said anything about where she went or not, you'd think if your daughter went missing for two months and suddenly returned, you'd just be happy that she's alive. Being the reason she throws herself into work as soon as she's back at school to keep you semi-happier when she left because of something you did and just spent two fucking months in a situation even worse and equally suddenly ran away from that to escape it is fucked up.

Words of @greghatecrimes -

OH and let's talk about the implication that her parents never even looked for her/reported her missing:

House looked into her for this. He finds out about her incompletes, but not that she- sixteen years old- went MISSING for two months. This was never reported, it never got out. Congratulations, your daughter could be dead - better keep it quiet.

And now rambling about the entirety of Runaways... my beloved mess. I'm gonna skip every bit of rabid whining I can do about the irrelevant subplots in Someone Else's Episode and the fucked day/night cycle and the seemingly cut/skipped over scenes being genuinely important and the OOC issues for everyone else and just talk about my girls.

Callie's one of the two most developed patients in the season. Adams and Callie are one of the most thoroughly fitting patient-protag matchups in the entire show. Each of our protags can to varying levels be held up to Callie like paint swatches.

Callie at sixteen reached a breaking point with her family and ran away, got into (for her personally) a better situation, and then runs away again to get out of the hospital when the chance of being sent back home comes with it. // Adams at sixteen reached a breaking point with her family and ran away, got into an even worse situation, and then ran away from that to get out of it when going back home became the clear better(safer) option.

Runaways opens with Callie in the clinic. House reads her like a book within minutes and he gathered this exact theory about her before he said it out loud (including immediately knowing that the older man she's here with is not her parent and getting rid of him, not a thing can convince me Callie didn't make House think of Adams):

VS his first interactions with Adams in ep 1, especially this one - He's had this info for months now, he knows he's right:

Callie is stubborn, avoidant, short-tempered. She hates feeling like she's not being listened to. Callie latches onto Adams as her safe person very quickly after that first scene. She tells Adams more than she's ever told anyone else, looks for Adams' opinion specifically regardless of who else is in the room, trusts Adams more than she trusts anyone else despite some of the things she says. //// Adams is stubborn, avoidant, as reactive as a cornered feral cat. She can't stand feeling like she's not being listened to. She gets attached to House in ep 1 within a couple barely three-minute interactions. She's 100x more confident around him than she is with anyone else, listens to him better than she listens to her actual boss. She gets a note smuggled in after she was fired to tell him he was right. She comes to PPTH in ep3 believing he just wanted to talk and get a coffee and she stays. Will ramble about ep 4 later.

Callie puts on a bit of a show in her second scene to get Adams (& Taub) to back off, but more importantly:

A) Adams goes to talk here before Callie cuts her off, using her own experience as a "this is why it's not a good idea," but she's sugarcoating it completely compared to what she says at the end of Parents despite that. Adams knows the situation she was in when she ran away was a bad one, she's just convinced she put herself in it.

B) They assume the same thing about each other:

When Callie leaves at the end, knowing Adams never stayed away when she left home and instead went back to her family, they both see the other as a doomed version of themself.

There's some guilt sinking into Callie as the ep goes on once Ellen shows up. The scene she snaps at her and Ellen says she needs to think and Callie is struggling not to start crying is the vibe of both feeling like your parent isn't listening to you, being angry/hurt over that, and the guilt that comes with upsetting your mom. Adams in Parents hears the things House says about her family and doesn't agree with him. Callie hears the things Adams says about her family and doesn't agree with her (rightfully so).

It's a running thing with Adams that dialogue is meant to be turned back onto her - mostly in Runaways, but it starts in ep 1:

// "That's when you started to excel. You were making it up to them." This is the one time she reads House even mostly correctly.

// Your mom knows she did something bad/your mom knows she hurt you and made you leave. She swears she's not going to do it again. (Mom will do that thing again when you "make it too hard for her")

// You could at least let her in your room because she's worried about you. For the first time she is actually acting like she cares about you. (It's too late, she doesn't deserve the chance)

// Your daughter SHOULD hate you. You always seem to be the worst thing for her.

// She sees everything through guilt-colored glasses. Everything that happened is her fault. This one's less direct, in-context Ellen absolutely should be the one feeling guilty, but this is the sharpest House ever gets when confronting Adams about anything personal. He stops after that line, she stops as well, and after a beat he walks away to tell Ellen that she should leave, Callie is right to hate her.

// Adams only listens and turns back to hear her out when Ellen directly says she was a bad mother. This is also similar (the scene is even shot a similar way) to Rowan's scene with Chase in Cursed. Ellen calls herself a bad parent, but this is still a very "loving her keeps being about you" moment. And when we find out about that trip they took, Callie asks if she'd been using when they were there, so they took that trip after Callie's dad had died - probably so Ellen could visit her family and have that support, which is reasonable. But we know Callie has never been close to Ellen anyway.

// Adams does not or did not get along with her mother. Her guilt is rooted in her mom. Ellen's "she's feeling much better" paired with "that's when you started to excel" / "i went through a rebellious phase" is also something.

Runaways spoonfeeds that Adams' parents did something to make her snap and run away. She was not just acting out. She shouldn't feel guilty the way she does, she doesn't owe them forgiveness for what they did, she should hate them. The show knows Adams telling Callie to forgive Ellen is fucked up, that's the entire point.

// This is more Chase's scene for obvious reasons, but Adams wonders aloud if this patient who is in a place/behaves in a way it is fully expected he doesn't, ("I went through a rebellious phase"), understands he is troubling his family and intentionally tried running away because he has "become a burden to the people who love him."

The end of Risky Business does more for her relationship with her family than it does surface-level.

Adams has not spoken to anyone about this for a year. She freezes completely when House asks her if she's still angry and stays frozen until she takes the bat from him and even then it's not until he sits down that we see her moving in the reflection. It's Odette's expressions that drive me crazy here, but Adams spends this whole scene waiting for House to turn around and drop that he's not serious. She doesn't trust that he's really telling her to show any unfiltered emotion ("I went through a rebellious phase"), and pairing that with the fact she's so reactive and gets destructive when she's angry enough and hasn't talked about this for a year, she doesn't speak to her family. She avoids her family because she's always been Too Much or Not Enough.

Oh, and Adams' guilt is rooted in her mother. It's semi-reaching to say she hates her dad's guts, but Runaways is centered on her mother and given Callie's dad is dead (though she's said to have been closer to him) it removes that from Runaways' picture, but in ep 4 there's the moment the patient tells Adams she sounds like his daughter, and Adams hates this man.

I do have an insane amount of hyperdetailed/hyper-projecting headcanons for Adams. She's my little fidget toy to project on. But her parents are canonically awful. She carries so much guilt and desperation for absolution and is so convinced she was the problem and a burden to her family that she spends the entirety of a case where she sees a version of herself going this is how it has to be, this is what you need to do next. The only thing Adams owes her family is a fucking saw trap.

[i-spy-a-star]

Stream of conciousness musings after seing TADC episode 4. Spoilers for everything so far I guess. Sorry for any typos.

I absolutely love how the show recontextualises, what in a less thought out and more mean spirited show would be nothing more than cartoony physical gags, into meaningful representations of the personal struggles the characters are going through.

Kingers seemingly random bout of lucidity when under the bucket in episode 2. And him glowing when holding his breath being unceramoniously listed as his variant of a digital quirk everyone has a version of. Zoobles body parts being swapped out every episode. Gangles comedy mask breaking resulting in her experiencing a completely different, and more saddened/stressed mood.

Kingers atributes allow for some beautiful imagery, with him both metaphorically and literally being Pomnis guiding light out of hell, with the bittersweet knowledge that him doing this (not thinking and giving off light) doom him to forget the time they shared together.

Zooble is trapped in a cruel irony of being able to literally swap parts of their body to address their gender/body disphoria, but still never being able to find what is right for them, despite the seeming abundance of options that Caine assumes they'll be satisfied with.

Gangle's physical masks are also literal emotional/psycological ones, which don't seem to hold up to Jaxs antics. But even with a stronger mask, position of authority, and a physically larger sillouette granted by the uniform, she still doesn't feel liked, respected, or truly happy. And the brief moment of unmasked joy gets cut short, bring her back to the unhappy unmasked frail form we are used to seeing her with.

All of this is quite obvious when looking at the episodes that focus on each character, but it would have taken a lot of planning, thought, and effort on the writers part to have all this be evident and consistant, and I love it. These characters have always been complex and it's so obvious in hindsight. (Or maybe everyone already figured it out beforehand and I'm just bad at reading them) And all this in so few episodes.

It makes me wonder what the rest of the characters are going through and how their designs and quirks represent it. Can we figure it all out before it is explicitly revealed? Like, Ragatha is a ragdoll. And across the episodes she experiences physical pain (being glitched by abstracted kaufmo, and being thrown in a deep fryer) and in both cases, no one actually tries to help her for prolonged periods of time. But being impaled/stabbed seems to not hurt her (or at least she doesn't obviously show it), and seems to be a reoccouring motif (It's in ep 2, 2-3 times though I think that also happens to kinger once and it did hurt him? in her merch and in the character intro video) Honestly I was hoping I'd figure something out while typing but I'm all out of ideas. I feel like theres a connection? Maybe? It seems to be a consistant theme at least? Ragdolling in videogame terms involves being physically thrown around? Someone theorise for me!

[misterspectacular]

Mr. Burns (and Smithers) in "Brush With Greatness", 2x18 - Part 1

Overview: Marge rekindles her old interest in art and joins a class at the community college. She wins the college art show, and is commissioned to paint a portrait of Mr. Burns, with the condition that he be portrayed as a "beautiful man." Meanwhile, Homer attempts to try and lose weight after getting stuck in a water slide pipe.

Mr. Burns is throughout the episode.

(I had to split the post into 2 parts because of the Tumblr 30 image limit. I either had to get rid of images, or make a Part 2. I don't want to skip over all the good stuff, so 2 parts it is.)

---

Mr. Burns: Garbage! What matchbook art school did you flunk out of?? You ham-fisted nearsighted house painter! Smithers, throw this on the dung heap!

Mr. Burns hates the work this painter did. Initially, it's played off like Mr. Burns doesn't think the portrait is accurate to his likeness, despite the fact that it looks exactly like him. One initially assumes that he thinks he's more attractive than they're painting him out to be! But later, we find that's not the case.

Painter: I'm sorry, this isn't working. I quit!

Mr. Burns: *Offended!* I guess this is what you call your artistic temperament!

Mr. Burns: You are a piece of shit!

Guy: Sorry, I can't take this anymore.

Mr. Burns: W O W angry much???

Mr. Burns projects a LOT in earlier Simpsons episodes, it's a consistent pattern.

"Projection is a defense mechanism that serves as a way to protect the ego from uncomfortable or (what the person considers) unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or impulses by disowning them and attributing them to someone else. For example, a person who is feeling insecure might project that insecurity onto others by accusing them of being weak or incompetent. A person struggling with anger might project their anger by accusing others of being angry or hostile."

Smithers: Sir, I must remind you that the dedication of the Burns Wing of the museum is only six days away.

I'll take these, since Burns doesn't want them. Haha, maybe Smithers took a few for himself.

Mr. Burns: Damnation, Smithers. This idea of yours to immortalize me in a portrait was as half-baked as your idea about me having children!

Immortalize him in portrait, have children -- Smithers wants to have things to remember Burns by! He doesn't know yet that he's going to be buried alive with Burns and won't HAVE to deal with the loss of him HAHA!

Smithers frowns BEFORE the paper hits his face. He then smiles, half-lidded. In love! 1. Daydreaming about Burns's kids. 2. "Mmmm, his HAND crumpled that piece of paper ~" 3. "Mmm, attention~"

Mr. Burns: Find me an artist. Smithers: Sir, I'm afraid you've systematically alienated Springfield's art community. The only one left is this Mrs. Homer Simpson. Mr. Burns: Who? Smithers: She won first prize in the Springfield Art Fair and is the wife of an employee. She'll be easily intimidated.

Mr. Burns: Excellent. Once again, the wheel has turned and dame fortune has hugged Montgomery Burns to her sweet, perfumed bosom.

He personifies FORTUNE, relates it to a good-smelling woman who hugs him against her breasts. One could say he's desperate for a woman's touch, a woman's love, and that desperation is coming out through the metaphor.

Also, I adore these shots, of Mr. Burns sitting so confidently in his chair, with the shadows from the paned window going across his face. He always seems so powerful in these moments -- when he's sitting in his chair, overlooking the town he owns. Powerful, but also very much alone, for he is unloved by all of these people he controls. (Save for Smithers. Obviously. OPEN YOUR EYES, MAN!)

Mr. Burns: Somebody up there likes me, Smithers. Smithers: Somebody down here likes you too, sir. Mr. Burns: Shut up!

Mr. Burns doesn't need to rely on colorful metaphors to feel wanted -- Smithers is RIGHT THERE! ACCEPT IT!

I'm quite sure Mr. Burns was designed to resemble a dinosaur, as an Age Joke. Part of why his design appeals to me is that he looks more like a creature than a person.

Later episodes having Mr. Burns punch holes into the wall, or have the strength to break an iPad is so wrong. He couldn't rip a piece of paper. He is a weakling. His lack of strength is a part of his character, and something I find both funny and endearing, and realistic to his decrepitude.

He looks good in this coat. Poodle, mayhaps? (They can be brown.)

Mr. Burns: Well, don't people answer the door, these days?!

Smithers: Allow me, sir. *Bang bang bang!* OPEN UP, OPEN UP! Mr. Burns: *clenches fists >:(*

I love their dynamic. Mr. Burns loves having Smithers do his bidding, and Smithers loves doing his bidding. It's a win-win situation.

Marge: Mr. Burns. Oh... would you like to come in? Smithers: *places napkin on chair* Mr. Burns would like to commission you to do a portrait of him.

I like how in early seasons, Smithers would often place a napkin down before Mr. Burns sat. I initially thought it was a sort of royalty thing -- "his rear is far cleaner than a poor man's chair!" I did some research, and wasn't able to find anything about that. So I got to thinking of other options, and realized maybe the napkin is put down to prevent Mr. Burns from soiling other people's furniture due to his incontinence. I researched THAT, and it IS a thing. (Side note, but I do find it interesting that Mr. Burns accepts his incontinence. He obviously doesn't ENJOY it, but he knows it's a thing, and doesn't deny it. He even kept a newspaper article as a keepsake with the title "Incontinent Old Man Wins Miss Teen America".)

Smithers: Have you ever painted the rich and powerful? Marge: Well, no. Just Ringo Starr. Mr. Burns: Ringo? Smithers: (Whispers) He was the drummer for a rock and roll combo called The Beatles.

Mr. Burns: Beatles, eh? Oh, yes. I seem to remember their off-key caterwauling on the ol' Sullivan show. What was Ed thinking?

Mr. Burns doesn't like The Beatles! I'm not surprised.

Mr. Burns: Mrs. Simpson, this commission and all of its glory can be yours! But first you must look me straight in the eye and answer one, simple question...

Mr. Burns: Can you make me beautiful? <:(

This is when we realize that Mr. Burns didn't reject the previous artwork because he thought they were inaccurate -- he rejected them because they were TOO accurate, and he doesn't find himself attractive. He wants the artist to BEAUTIFY him, not draw what they see. This shows that he's really quite sensitive and insecure. He's defensive because of how he feels about himself. And with that, he becomes a MUCH more interesting character!!! This side of Burns is the one later seasons would benefit by focusing more on.

Marge: I don't think that will be a problem. Mr. Burns: I'm no matinee idol, you know. Marge: Well, maybe not, but I have the gift of being able to see inner beauty. Mr. Burns: Mrs. Simpson... you may immortalize me.

I made a post about this before, but I'm going to talk about it again here -- a Matinee idol is a "handsome actor admired chiefly by women". Burns is again clearly stating that he doesn't feel he's attractive.

Smithers: Ah, sir, at last the world will see you as I always have. Mr. Burns: *Exasperated* Yes, yes, yes.

Smithers subtly saying he thinks Mr. Burns is beautiful. I love it. And Mr. Burns responds with irritation, as per usual. I think this irritation (as is implied in later episodes) is a result of feeling that Smithers is merely 'currying his favor'.

Mr. Burns: Don't be stingy with the blush, Smithers. Now, you -- paint! Marge: *grumbles*

Homer: Honey, I'm home! Mr. Burns: Now there's an original sentiment.

Mr. Burns can afford to be physically fragile when his sarcasm's got the strength of 20 men.

Thinking more about that, it would make sense to overcompensate with verbal abuse when you're as frail as he is. He could easily be overtaken in a physical battle, he has to rely more on what he's able to do, verbally. It reminds me of a video I saw, where a chihuahua scared off a bear. Like the bear could've killed the chihuahua in 2 seconds, but the bear was SCARED because the chihuahua was loud and aggressive. Mr. Burns is a grumpy old chihuahua (I actually drew him as chihuahua once, here you go).

Homer: Honey, he's nuts. He thinks he's handsome. Please, you've got to make him look handsome. Please, please, please, please.

I love how Homer assumes Mr. Burns thinks he's attractive. We were shown that Mr. Burns actually DOESN'T feel that way. The fact that Homer doesn't actually KNOW how Mr. Burns truly feels, and is assuming based on his own narrow perspective, is incredibly realistic. Excellent writing!

Marge: Homer, don't worry. All I need to do is find Mr. Burns' inner beauty. Homer: *nervously clutches his head* D'oh...! Okay....

Smithers sees it, at least.

Marge: What were you like as a boy, Mr. Burns? Did you have a dog that you loved? Mr. Burns: Well... dahh! There's something on my leg. Get it off! Marge: Mr. Burns, she's just a baby. Ugh!

I would have liked to hear what he was going to say. He was smiling and about ready to tell a story, I'm curious! Then Maggie came and GRABBED HIS LEG! Marge gets upset with him for saying 'get it off', but look at his face, he's terrified! And the way he worded it 'something on my leg' 'get it off' it was like he didn't even realize it was a baby, or a harmless thing. Not really evidence of how awful he is, in my opinion.

Smithers: *steals the funny pages from Homer's newspaper so he can read them to Mr. Burns* So Ziggy goes to the repair shop and there's a sign on the doorbell reading "Out of order." Mr. Burns: Ah, Ziggy, will you ever win?

Part 2: (coming soon)

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

What are your opinions on more „popular“ salt takes about Adrien and Mari, like the typical „Adrichat is an ass for for flirting with LB after she rejects him“ and „Maribug us a horrible stalker“?

Well, I'd be lying if I said that I have no idea where they're coming from. There are definitely times when I'll watch an episode and wonder what in the world the writers are trying to do, especially when it comes to Adrien's behavior as it's played a lot more straight than Marinette's. While I don't like her behavior at times, it's almost always treated as a joke, not a dramatic character beat whereas I cannot say the same for Adrien.

But these are characters in a TV show, not real people and we need to keep that in mind when judging them. It's why my go-to thought is "what is wrong with the writing staff" and not "Adrien is an incel." Because Adrien is very clearly not supposed to be an incel. Unless the writers are plotting something truly asinine, the Love Square is our end game couple. We are supposed to view Adrien as a charming and funny romantic lead. When he falls short of that role, it's not Adrien "showing his true colors." He's a fictional character. He has no true colors. If his actions and words are ever unbecoming for a romantic lead, it's because the writers are failing to write Adrien the way they want us to see him.

They consistently do this to all of the characters. Alya's supposed to be an awesome friend and a smart journalist (I think), but she can't see through Lila's BS. Marinette's parents are supposed to be loving and supportive, but they randomly believed that their daughter stole from their bakery to make a dress and didn't even try to let her explain herself. Nino is supposed to be the Chosen of Protection, but he didn't care to protect his best friend and just happily sent Gabriel on a rampage without a second thought.

Give me a character and I can point to a bunch of episodes that justify every salty take this fandom has because they're not pulling this stuff from thin air. They're picking and choosing the worst writing in the show and venting about it, which is frankly understandable. Like I get why there are so many Alya salt fics. Her writing in the Lila episodes is infuriating and I do find those fics a little cathartic at times. But it's really, really obvious that she's not supposed to be a terrible friend. She's a victim of the writers drawing the Lila plot line out for far too long and making Lila's lies far too obvious.

Similarly, a lot of the issues with Adrien and Marinette stem from the fact that you simply can't draw a romance plot out for five seasons without causing issues unless you make the romance a background plot. But they didn't do that. The love square is front and center for most episodes, but since it can't actually resolve, the writers keep adding drama that makes our leads feel horribly unhealthy.

On the Marinette side, her not being able to talk to Adrien was fine as an initial issue, but we are five seasons into this show. Over 100 episodes! You reach a point where it stops being cute and starts being concerning. It's also not helped by the fact that Marinette's crush is written like a celebrity crush and not a crush on someone she actually knows. Daily exposure to Adrien should mellow her out. Especially since he's supposed to be her friend! But if the writers let Marinette talk to Adrien, then they'd grow closer and might feel like they had to get together, so they couldn't let that. Thus Marinette being a disaster for four seasons and the terrible shoehorned plot to try and justify it in season five.

On the Adrien side, they let Chat Noir confess too soon. Prior to that, the Ladynoir relationship was a playful one where it was feasible that Ladybug just viewed her kitty as a massive flirt. This was especially true since he flirts with everyone. But once she knew that he was serious? The playfulness vanished and Chat Noir started coming across as entitled and pushy. It didn't help that they had him ignoring her preferences ("Don't call me Bugaboo") and getting them in trouble by not taking his job seriously (his flirting getting them hit in Oblivio).

In summary, the love square should have been resolved much sooner or been relegated to a b plot that got far less attention. I also would have reversed the square since it makes for a far more interesting story that you can organically draw out longer, but that's just me. I don't have any issue with people ignoring the canon problems and just writing Adrien and Marinette as the cute couple that they were obviously intended to be. I also enjoy fics that treat Adrien's pushiness as a character flaw that can be resolved because that's what canon should have done. His issues aren't the mark of a terrible person. They're the understandable flaws of a teenager who is in love for the first time and doesn't know how to express himself. If a show would actually address this kind of common tween/teen issue, then a lot of kids would get an incredibly valuable lesson that would help them when they grow up and fall in love. If you're ever watching Miraculous with a kid, I strongly encourage you to approach Adrien's character from that perspective. Talk about why his actions are understandable, but ultimately wrong and more likely to push someone away than win their heart just like we see with Ladybug.

[seventhdoctor]

A Trapezoid of Foils: Judai/Yubel and Amon/Echo

I'm back on my bullshit, and my bullshit is yelling about the trashfire that is Judai Yuki and Yubel. This post is a collection of thoughts on how Amon and Echo were clearly meant to reflect Judai and Yubel in some way or other, and how it feels like it should be neater than it is. The parallels are there, but it's not fully symmetrical and some of the angles are kind of weird...so yeah, kind of like a (non-isosceles) trapezoid!

(Geometry Tumblr do not @ me, I'm doing my best with this metaphor)

Spoilers for GX season 3, naturally. I haven't said it before, but for this post as well as previous ones I'm basing all information and characterization on the sub version of GX rather than the dub (which drastically changes Yubel's backstory and motives).

Yubel and Amon

This is the most obvious one, because Yubel spends two whole episodes and honestly some of their most iconic monologues trying to tear Amon down after building him up the whole season.

They're both antagonists willing to cause harm to the one they love for their goals. For Amon, that goal is the power to build a utopia. For Yubel, the harm is the goal - or at least, the metric by which they will have achieved their goal (showing their love for Judai).

Yubel, of course, claims that Amon is more selfish in his use of harm. Pain is love in their philosophy, but it's mutual pain - dishing out the pain without taking any back would only be mere cruelty. This of course misses the nuance that Echo wanted Amon to use her as a sacrifice, while Judai didn't welcome any of Yubel's twisted affections.

Still, from what I've seen most people agree that Yubel comes across as more "honest" one way or another. And to understand why things feel that way, it's important to look at their backstory and motivations, as well as how their motivations change.

Yubel dedicated themself to Judai's past life, tying themself to him through lifetimes, and in the present remained true to that devotion in unwanted ways. When Judai sent them to space and it ended up being Oops! All Torture, Yubel developed their sadomasochistic philosophy as a coping mechanism and an attempt to reconcile Judai's past promises and present actions.

Upon their return to Earth, they planned to return the "favor": by sending Yubel to the pain and isolation of outer space Judai made them stronger (i.e., infected by the Light of Destruction, with all that entails), so they'll give him his own painful experience (all of season 3) to make him stronger (awaken his power as Supreme King). Then they'll reunite, having both demonstrated their love for each other, and [this part is where the Light of Destruction really twists up their thinking]. Everything they do is in the name of this motive*, whether Judai really likes it or not.

Amon dedicated himself to the Garam conglomerate with Echo by his side before being replaced by his younger brother Sid, the sole blood Garam sibling. He nearly murdered Sid before changing his mind and dedicating himself wholly to his brother instead, a decision Echo and Yubel both describe as willingly chaining himself to their service. Even when given an opportunity to become the heir (all it'd take is watching his brother die to illness, not even murder) he rejects it, and begs for a way to save him.

And yet, when when given the opportunity he made a deal with the devil to break the chains he put on himself and abandon that same family. Then when he gets the chance to obtain power by sacrificing someone he loves, he does exactly that. Then he plans to become king of a utopia free of suffering, and always remember Echo.

So then, what are Amon's motives? Is he somebody who got tired of being abandoned or unappreciated? An ends-justify-the-means idealist? Just a power-hungry hypocrite? It's hard to tease out a consistent character and ideology from him. And in a show where people wear their hearts in their decks, I think this part of why people hate him - and so does Yubel.

Yubel hates Johan because he's terrifyingly like Yubel in some ways, focused and protective and dear to Judai.** Yubel hates Amon because he can't be like Yubel at all, resenting the brother he dedicated himself to and sacrificing the person he loved for power in an empty world forever devoid of that same person.

No way Yubel can be that kind of person, right? Otherwise, what was it all for?

* To be fair, you don't know all of Yubel's backstory by the time of their final duel with Amon. However, even removing the context of their past life that duel together with Yubel!Johan vs. Hell Kaiser establishes Yubel's central motivations more coherently than they do Amon's.

** Help, I know there's been other essay segments on this topic, text and video alike. But I saw a lot of them back in early 2023 when I was mindlessly going through GX material in a haze of hyperfixation and now I've forgotten all the other good sources.

Yubel and Echo

If Yubel's parallels with Amon are about their dedication, Yubel's parallels with Echo are about who they're dedicated to. Both believe in their loved one's destiny to become a king, and take actions to make them that king.

Yubel has historical basis in that Judai is quite literally the Supreme King, bearer of the gentle darkness. To help him achieve that role, Yubel enacts a plot to break Judai until he awakens his Supreme King side. It fits neatly into their schema of things: this is how they make the person they love stronger, so that they will thrive and survive. Make Judai stronger and awaken his old power, and all will be as it was meant to be.

Echo just believes that Amon is amazing enough that he would make a better king than anyone. When the chances arises to help break his chains and give him a world to rule, Echo takes it.

...And boy does she.

Both Yubel and Echo believe their loved ones are meant to be a king. Both give their lives in support of their loved one, and become weapons wielded in their service.

No wonder Yubel was shaken by Echo's devotion remaining within Exodia for just a moment - it's not all that far from their own.

Unfortunately Yubel's only direct interaction with Echo is goading her attack on field-Yubel during the final Amon duel. Otherwise they only speak of Echo as someone used and abandoned by Amon - which in itself has potential, given Yubel's own feelings about Judai sending them away.

I think GX could definitely have explored this connection a bit more. There's space to fill here.

Judai and Amon

As noted above, Judai and Amon both have roles as kings - at least, in the eyes of their single most loyal people. Judai holds the title of Supreme King as the wielder of gentle darkness, and while not confirmed his past life sure looked like a prince. Amon simply has ambition, talent, and an ideal world in his mind.

And in operating with the ambition of kings, they both do terrible things to achieve power. Judai lays this out explicitly in the Edo vs. Amon duel:

Amon lets his need for power get in the way of his other relationships and priorities, and sacrifices the ones he loves to obtain Exodia similarly to how Judai sacrificed his friends and eventually uncountable innocents for his own goals - finding Johan, and then ruling as Supreme King. Straightforward, right?

But I think there's another parallel between the two that's a lot more interesting. Or...most of a parallel. Namely, their relationship with their other halves and the responsibility of a loyal follower who would give up anything for you, be it their life or their humanity.

What do you do when the person you love most dedicates their existence to you - to the point of throwing everything else away, even their very life?

Of course, the Judai-Yubel and Amon-Echo situations aren't exactly the same even putting aside the issue of reincarnation. (For the purposes of this essay I'm not making huge distinctions between Judai and his past life, but if you want to get into the details I've written about that previously.)

Yubel went ahead and made their sacrifice without Judai's input, and all he could do was decide how to respond. He chose to dedicate himself back to them so hard it crossed lifetimes, so hard he chose to risk his own existence for them as well in his next life.

Amon, on the other hand, is the one who proposed Echo sacrifice herself for him. Echo agreed to it, and even by the end she stood by her decision. But Amon loaded the gun and pulled the trigger.

He tries to honor her sacrifice, of course. He's always mindful of Echo's sacrifice and what it means. But in the end, he did choose to sacrifice her, ultimately using her as a pawn. Their love never trumped his own objectives.

And I think the example of Amon and Echo leads to the question: if Judai had the choice of letting Yubel become a dragon or stopping them, what would he do? When it was explicitly their will?

This is another missed opportunity, one that could have solidified the parallels neatly. But GX never asks that question, so the answer is unclear. What could have been a parallel is just kind of...askew.

Judai and Echo

Okay, I admit there isn't a lot here off the top of my head. Probably the best parallels between them are in relation to their other halves, as the people "harmed" by their villainous partners, and how they respond to that harm.

Judai rejects Yubel's torments as unwanted attention, until he remembers the past and flips to understanding why Yubel did they did and makes moves to unite the two of them forever. Echo, meanwhile, understands Amon's motives from start to end and...lets herself be sacrificed, the end.

I don't know about this one. Really, ultimately Echo is supposed to be a willing participant in her own sacrifice but in the end I still don't feel like the narrative gave her a strong sense of agency in the matter and it really weakens my attempt to write this section.

In Conclusion

Some of these connections are stronger than others for sure, but I argue that they're all there in some way or another. They're very uneven and overall I'm not entirely sure what you're meant to take from the parallels, and I wish I could give something neat and concise for this section. Instead, it's a bit messy and misshapen - hence, the trapezoid metaphor.

Still, I think there's interesting room for thought in this awkward space. I was certainly thinking about these parallels while working on the latest chapter of Need (accidental last-minute plug?) and trying to figure out exactly what the prince felt while Yubel was in the middle of dragon surgery. What must it be like, to be in these relationships of sacrificial devotion?

[des2dream]

Love for Bee & Puppycat🐝🌌🐕🐱💕

Bee & Puppycat has always been on my radar, but I haven't watched it until years later. I thought the pilot was okay, but something didn't feel right. It wasn't until I saw all the episodes on YouTube that really hooked me in. Things got even more interesting when the show got remade into Bee & Puppycat: Lazy In Space airing on Netflix. For anyone who doesn't know, Bee & Puppycat is a show about a young woman named Bee who just got fired from her friend, Deckard's family-run cat cafe and comes across a cat....or puppy who falls from the sky. While Bee looks for a new job, Puppycat brings her to a magical temp bot who gives the two temp jobs all throughout Outer Space instead. Every time they complete a task, Temp Bot pays them enough money to pay rent.

There's a lot of mystery as to who Puppycat is and there's a lot of shock as to who Bee is. The two have become such good friends as well as roommates. The show also has lovable side characters. You have Deckard's family which consist of his many older brothers and no-nonsense (and former wrestler) twin sister, Cass. You have a young boy named, Cardamon who plays as acting landlord while his mother is currently in a deep sleep and gains a puppy companion named, Sticky. There's also a last place wrestler named, Toast who has beef with Cass as she always literally breaks into the house. She's also voiced by Terri Hawkes (Sailor Moon's DIC Dub voice).

I absolutely LOVE the aesthetic that this series is going for. Every scene, every frame, every piece of detail is so beautiful! The voice acting may not be all the best, but it feels so organic and natural. I love intergalactic settings so doing temp jobs in different planets instantly made me continue watching. There's a cat bathhouse planet, a video game planet, a cherry/dessert-like planet, and so much more! I also love how it's basically a Magical Girl series for adults as it focuses on issues that adults would normally have such as paying rent, going to college, and trying to figure out what to do in life. I can't really recommend this show to everyone, but for those (of age) who are interested, I hope you find it an enjoyable watch.

[hazbinned]

Vox Headcanons / Facts Masterlist:

Previous Posts: Leadership, His skin, Marriage, OCD.

I cannot find the post where I talked about his 'seizures', so I will do that here.

Vox's seizures/"glitches" are the result of the head trauma that killed him. He did not have them during life. Vox essentially has permanent low-scale internal bleeding which is why he has episodes / drools blood when he experiences strong emotions.

Sometimes this drool is the product of Val's pheromone, and can appear mixed with or separate from the blood. The man's been around him so long that Vox has built up something a tolerance to the pheromone, but it has become an intrinsic part of him— Vox is almost a conduit of secondhand smoke.

Vox is addicted to Val's pheromone but not in a way that is obvious to either of them. He is tolerant enough not to be reliant, but if he were to go an extremely long period of time without Val (like in my verse where Val dies), Vox would go through withdrawals.

In life, Vox had (relatively minor) knee problems; this allowed him to dodge being in the war. The problem with his knee was caused by a sport-related incident when he was in college. He does not retain this in Hell.

In highschool and college, Vox was on the baseball and (American) football team for his school. He was a popular rich jock type.

Vox went to private school. His parents were extremely rich and had high expectations for him. They were decent for their time period, but Vox wasn't especially close to either of them, and felt like he had to strive to be the best to impress his dad.

Vox has intense internalized homophobia, and a very overcompensating relationship to his own masculinity; Val has helped him overcome SOME of that, but he's still far from healed. Vox struggles with the idea of the person he thinks he "should" be and his actual desires and likes-- he is ashamed.

Vox can play back strong memories of his on his face at will. He also projects especially vivid dreams onto his face against his will.

Vox can eat, drink, smell, feel— everything a person can do. He has sensation in every part of his body, including his head. Vox is biomechanical, meaning he is a combination of biology and mechanics. Vox is between 75-80% biological.

His blood is a mix of blue electrical fluid and red blood. He has a mix of veins and normal organs and wires.

Removing and replacing his head is typically a very painful process that he does not trust others to witness, but opening the back of his head for small repairs typically does not hurt that much.

Living Vox wanted nothing more than to be seen as perfect, almost inhuman. Above anything that could make him come across as "weak" like emotions and all that-- in Hell, this has backfired on him; his TV head causes people to (knowingly or unknowingly) objectify him in the most literal sense, and his emotions are very much on display for all to see. He's been asked weird questions about his body, and some people don't even think he can feel pain like they can.

In life, Vox was a televangelist. He was popular within the niche, but he wasn't a nationwide celebrity. His cult was primarily monetary-based, a co-opted version of religion that he would preach so he could make it rich off of anyone naive enough to buy in. Vox's talk show consisted of interviews with special guests, him preaching to the camera, and musical numbers once in a blue moon, usually by local groups (Vox himself would not sing). His wife made some appearances on the show, but there was always something uncomfortable-seeming about her-- most people thought Vox was on the up and up, but there were weird undertones to his broadcasts that some people would pick up on.

Vox was 5'9" as a human, and had black hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. He died at the age of 55 due to an on-set accident. His wife was there.

Vox never had kids.

Vox is waterproof, and he can swim. He just has to be careful that he doesn't get into an emotional situation in which he might spark, because then he is at risk of electrocuting himself or others.

He owns multiple yachts; he likes vacationing, especially to tropical places. He likes fish and sharks. These things carried over from life; as a human, all of the above still applied. His parents had yachts, too.

He's a stalker, as we know; extremely paranoid and obsessive, but he tries to play it on the down-low. He doesn't want to make his partner feel smothered. Most of his spying comes from a voyeuristic place in his head, but some of it comes from his control issues and the fact that he feels like he needs to know everything or he'll start freaking out.

Vox suffers from an inflated sense of self and even BIGGER insecurities. He's the picture of "big ego, low self esteem." He thinks he's great... ish.

More will be added as I remember them.

[anastasia-queen]

Character Appreciation: Chloe Carmichael from Fairly Oddparents (Proper Character Analysis WIP)

(Note: The discussion you are currently reading is a WIP. As for the reason, I wanted to post something about the subject just in case I lost motivation for this personal project.) Anyways, let's begin this discussion about Chloe Carmichael.

Chloe Carmichael is a heavily misrepresented character across the general or FOP community. She does have a source of misery, which is she is a child who has a sheltered lifestyle and must live up to her parents and other expectations and morals enforced upon her.

As a result of her sheltered life, she has a strong personality that makes socializing with kids difficult. Her conflict is purely internal, not external because her conflict focuses on the psychological effects on her character. The beauty of Chloe's Character is that despite having to enforce a sheltered lifestyle, it's due to that lifestyle from her parents' skewed reality. Chloe can see the beauty of small things and believes there's always a positive direction of thinking or behavior for anyone. She's an optimistic person.

However, due to how her parents unintentionally put their mindset upon their daughter, whether something minor or major that breaks Chloe's perception of reality, she often breaks down or loses it.

Chloe Carmichael is essentially the antithesis of Timmy Turner, Timmy, a child who had a neglectful life as a result of his parents' personal work life, escapades, and oblivious behavior interfering with his need for attention and guidance in his life, which led to him taken advantage of hence characters like Vicky, and Timmy begrudgingly accepts it because he has no one else to go to for help.

As a result of this consistent behavior cycle, Timmy had a very pessimistic outlook on people and life, resulting in Timmy having a noticeable blunt, sarcastic, and partly arrogant behavior in the earlier seasons, especially for Season Zero.

While Timmy and Chloe are both opposites in lifestyles and mannerisms, they also have the same problem of acknowledging both of their feelings ignored by the general public.

While Timmy's situation and source of misery are more noticeable and direct than Chloe's, Chloe is still miserable because she represses her feelings and thoughts of wanting more, to be heard, to be an actual child, for only to follow the morals enforced by her parents. Chloe even admitted in the episode Booby Trapped that she holds her parents and extension their thoughts in high regard. The episode Summer Bummer also amplifies this notion by having the physical manifestation of the inner child in Chloe's mind, saying Chloe is prioritizing the need for education over the liberty of freedom of being a child.

Someone would ask the question. If Chloe has an internal conflict that affects her perception of life, wouldn't that mean Timmy also has an internal conflict? The answer is no. Timmy's conflict is external.

An external conflict is about having a force of nature, like society or a situation set against the main character. Whether natural or not, it must be outside the character's control, which the main character must learn to overcome. Hence, Timmy's reason to have Cosmo and Wanda. Timmy is a child who had a neglectful upbringing outside his control, which led to people mistreating and taking advantage of him, which caused him to have a pessimistic outlook to only have Cosmo and Wanda to help him combat this.

While it's true that the neglectful lifestyle had taken a toll on the perception of the mindset of Timmy and how he interacts and perceives others. The definition of an internal conflict is about the constant inner battles of prioritizing your wants and needs for a set principle. Timmy doesn't have this problem because he doesn't have major internal battles of his identity to qualify. After all, Timmy is a person who suppresses his feelings.

A person who suppresses their feelings is self-aware of their problem. However, they are deliberately making the conscious choice to avoid acknowledging it. As a result, the issue remains unresolved. The only reason why Timmy's problem is being addressed is because of Cosmo and Wanda. Otherwise, Timmy wouldn't have had the inherent ability to do so, thus setting aside his feelings.

In contrast, a person who represses their feelings is not subconsciously aware of their feelings. Hence, Chloe often has an epiphany when her problem is eventually acknowledged.

Someone would probably ask me a question. If Chloe is a child from a sheltered upbringing who deals with the constant repressed inner battles of her parents enforce morals over her needs and wants of being an actual child, which had an unintentional effect of giving Chloe a strong personality that overwhelms or annoys people to be long lasting meaningful friends with her outside the things she can offer as her character conflict. How come no one mentioned this component of Chloe's character?

Well, dear reader, that is because no one thoroughly watched the tenth season outside the first episode and the notorious horrendous episodes of the Flash era. (Specifically, the episodes The Kale Patch Caper, Knitwits, Tardy Sauce, and the most popular contender everyone loves to use to belittle this season and extension of the modern era Fairly Oddparents as a whole, the episode Certified Super Sitter.) If you don't believe me, then go to YouTube and Twitter.

However, not every episode from the Flash era is terrible. Summer Bummer and Fancy Schmancy are relatively decent for Season 10B standards.

(Season 10B is only thirteen episodes across seven episode blocks. Season 10A is 30 episodes across 13 episode blocks.) I mentioned this because there is a noticeable misconception that the Flash era was half of Season 10. (7 out of 37 episodes is approximately 19%.)

Poor episodes that plague the reputation of Season 10A are The Big Fairly Scare Share, Girly Squirrely, and Return of the Losers. (3 out of 30 episodes is approximately 10%. In total this is approximately 29%, a third of the season, which is legitimately poor.) Leaving 71% of Season 10 undiscussed. "Yeah, that is definitely fair".

[ipatrichor]

dead boy detectives episode seven thoughts

hey what if i cried. what if I lay down on the floor and curled up in a ball and wept and wailed my little heart out?? what then???

ohhh my god. oh my god. i've said like twice now that this show keeps giving me everything i've ever wanted but it just keeps being true!!! i'm going to sob how does every episode just keep getting better How do the writers know exactly what i want and then do it better than i thought of are they in my head??? oh my godddd this episode was devastating

hey i'm gonna cry. what do you mean edwin died scared and alone so he made sure charles didn't. that's devastating actually!!! he died in the dark and he was scared and he had no one, so he brings charles a lamp and answers his questions about ghosts and reads him a detective story with silly voices. what the hell that's so. i do not have words for this it hits so deeply!!! edwin is so deeply kind in a way that doesn't always come across because he's also a prickly bitch, and i love him so much holy shit

hell was genuinely so unsettling what the fuck. the spider MADE OF DOLL HEADS(??!!!?!?!?!?!) was bad enough, but it was such an incredibly good choice to have it appear empty on the way in and only be able to see all the suffering on the way out. it really upped the creep factor in the first part, and then really made the escape feel frenzied. very well done!! the imagery was insane, i really Believed that this was Actual Hell

actually on that point. there was one detail that meant so so much to me, in a way i'm not quite sure how to explain but will give my best effort. after edwin's conversation with simon, after they reach some kind of closure, the blue light implying that simon is able to move on in some way and maybe leave hell... if someone wasn't raised christian & subsequently deconverted idk if that stands out to anyone else, but. okay basically there's a conversation about how hell, by definition, cannot be just because it's infinite punishment for a finite crime. and that wasn't necessarily the point of the scene, but as someone who's been doing a lot of unpacking stuff around this recently it just. it hit hard man. in a good way! that scene actually means so much to me... god this whole episode is fantastic

crystal confronting daniel!!! my god i am so proud of our girl!!! yess take your agency back and regain control of your life!!!!! also jenny frequently being annoyed by crystal but still following her to a spooky abandoned area with a knife just so she won't have to face her abusive ex alone... god i love jenny. like yeah she's abrasive and kinda a dick but also she truly cannot stop herself from providing support to these two weird as hell teenagers living above her shop.

AND NIKO!!!! god niko was absolutely brilliant this episode... absolutely the mvp of the entire show goddamn, she really read the rules and made that the night nurse's problem <3 i love that for her so much. however i will say something has been worrying me. that magic 8 ball that's supposed to tell you when you're going to die has apparently been consistently saying 'outlook not good' and it's been mentioned twice now. and given that this show doesn't establish things like that and let them go to waste... i am Concerned. not to mention, the scene where it was her and the night nurse talking about zombies?? like idk it could be nothing!!! but also that is classic foreshadowing so i am simply concerned!!!

alright i got most of the immediate thoughts CONFESSION SCENE. HOLY SHIT. okay so i know i'm not super into confessions and i tend to nitpick when fictional characters behave certain ways pertaining to romance depending on whether the narrative promotes it or not (yes, i have a complicated relationship with romance, it came free with the demiromanticism. but also my partner is amazing so if written characters aren't that's just kinda a skill issue? lol). ANYWAY. this scene though was amazing. edwin tells charles how he feels, putting no pressure on charles to respond or feel the same. and charles clearly isn't sure how he feels- it doesn't seem like he's ever thought of edwin in that way before, and he's awkward about it but still assures edwin that even if he doesn't know if he can return those feelings, edwin is still incredibly important to him and nothing's gonna change that.

god it's just. such a good way to handle that scene!! literally everything i hoped for ^^ even if charles doesn't feel the same (which i didn't think he would given they've been hinting at romance with crystal and not building romantic feelings towards edwin the same way they've been building edwin's feelings for him but as always who knows) he still reaffirms how much he cares about edwin, because like i've been saying they're the most important person to each other and it truly does not matter if it's platonic or romantic!!!

i also love how well this lined up with established characterization haha. like, of course charles made a deal with the night nurse and leaped into hell headfirst and alone to rescue edwin, he's impulsive even when he isn't emotionally compromised and he'd never abandon his best mate. of course niko tries to connect with the people around her and ends up being incredibly helpful with a unique insight, that's what she's been doing this whole time! of course crystal runs off to find her own way to hell after being stopped from accompanying charles, she hates feeling useless and consistently endangers herself for the sake of her friends. of course edwin tries to convince simon to escape hell with him, he's heartbreakingly good and has spent the whole show trying to help people no one else can. it's all so... god, they are who they are and i love them so much

anyway i will leave u all with a funny thought i had. i haven't engaged with the fandom outside of my pal noble sorry if this is a joke everyone is already making

the cat king: i'll be here waiting when he escapes hell again, god i'm such a romantic meanwhile, charles breaking into hell:

[bingqiv]

Saw your post about the Doctor's outfits this series and yeah! It's fun to have him change every now and then but every episode is way too much. The Doctor always has An Outfit that's their signature look and it feels so odd not having that immediate recognisable signature. It's such a Thing that we've had scenes of quite a few Doctors picking their outfit post-regeneration.

Even if we look at someone like 12 who changed fits pretty frequently there were always core design elements that remained consistent across the board, so it felt like a cohesive look. His silhouette was basically always the same even when there was a change.

Besides, the Doctor's always been kind of out of place and larger than life so having one outfit sets them apart from everyone around them. As well as being a very good way of distinguishing between each incarnation and giving them a unique identity. Especially as the outfits themselves often give some indication of the kind of Doctor this particular regeneration will be.

Weirdly I think the outfit thing felt most glaring this most recent episode because the Doctor wasn't in it much. We got a whole wardrobe change just for that? I also feel like Ruby has carried over consistent design elements between costumes more than he has...

you’ve literally summed up my thoughts perfectly!

each doctor had a look that stayed somewhat consistent through their run. they had changes throughout their run but it still harked back to their initial fit.

they only introduced a second reoccurring costume for tennant’s doctor during season 3 and even that was just a colour change of the suit, tie and converse. it’s still identifiable as the tenth doctor. even during the 60th anniversary, tennant’s costuming was still very much in line with what ten wore.

with smith’s doctor, they only changed up his costume after the ponds left in season 7. but even then it still has the core elements that defined his costume (and era). they kept the bow tie, kept similar material for the jacket and kept similar boots. it is the same costume just spruced up a bit.

then you have capaldi. they kept a similar colour scheme amongst his different wardrobe changes and kept the silhouette of his jacket the same.

now if we take a look at the different costume changes that gatwa has had over SIX episodes. there’s been no real constancy (there was an attempt with church on ruby road and space babies that hasn’t followed through with the rest of the season). the costume change makes somewhat sense during devil’s chord (if you ignore the fact that the previous two outfits had sixties influences and would’ve made sense in that era). but i just don’t get why had to deviate with entirely different costuming for boom, 73 yards and dot&bubble. especially when the costume that his earlier promo photos had were so cool (the leather coat and striped shirt) and they could’ve had the blue shirt that was worn in space babies as an alternate costume.

i just don’t know why they’ve decided to go down this route since the doctor has always had a defining look that has followed through their seasons. whittaker’s doctor has such little variation in her costuming (which for all the complaining people had was very much a doctor outfit).

and you’re bang on with ruby having a more defining look than the doctor which is an interesting choice that rtd has made. especially as this season only has 8 episodes and we have at least one more outfit change ahead with the regency episode. i just hope they pin down a look for the doctor next season.

[catcherwrites]

TDP S7E2 Rewatch (feat. my commentary)

Callum being supportive of both Ezran and Rayla is tough! He loves them all so much

“We’ll get through this too…right?” he phrases it like a question, either because he isn’t sure of himself, or because he is and is just prompting Rayla to agree with the sentiment

I can’t help but notice that while Corvus doesn’t necessarily agree with Soren’s wacky ideas, he doesn’t shoot them down like Viren or Claudia would have

“The prisoner” “the elf” “a ranting madman” “the king” Opeli has a habit of reducing people to their defining role in her eyes

God Ezran, Rayla and Callum are so messy in this season I love and hate it at the same time

I could SEE Aaravos thinking “ohhh Viren totally murdered Kpp’Ar didn’t he”

Terry laying it on thick with the flirting, I see you buddy

Soren looked so disturbed by the hard-as-rock bread

Ezran looked to Callum to validate his anger, and I think it’s because in their last council meeting Callum was very “chop chop kill destroy” – if anyone could understand wanting to tackle a problem with force/violence, it’s Callum!

“Before THEY think about attacking us” again with the depersonalisation

Wild that our villains get the funhouse plot

The character acting between Rayla and Callum is great this scene! Little hand movements, expression changes, and strong VO work really elevate moments like these

“Jerk face” mention but not one jerk face dance this entire season. Lowkey disappointed

Runaan guard #1 was definitely Jack, right? Right??

Loved the consistency with Runaan being weak from the resurrection across these episodes

“I’m sworn to King Ezran” rewatching this exchange reminded me of Strangers and how vital Ezran is to Soren’s sense of self

I genuinely think that if Rayla had not freed Runaan, Ezran would’ve let him go this episode. Callum’s words looked like they reached Ezran, but when he realised that he’d been betrayed all the anger came rushing back

Runaan instructing Rayla mid-battle was great

Aaravos being confused about Kpp’Ar and his puzzles when he’s been playing 4D chess with every other character will never not be funny. You’re a million times more dramatic and indirect what do you mean “but why”????

Corvus coming to Soren’s rescue <3

Ezran’s genuine horror at his brother using magic against him ughh

Crazy that a kids show casually introduced magical cannibalism. Also, rewatching this, the diagram looks like there’s different effects depending on what parts are consumed? I wonder what the forearm does (since that’s what Kpp’Ar had bandaged up)

Terry subtly trying to push Claudia away from dark magic again

The scene outside the Banther Lodge makes me feel like I just watched a really messy family divorce in the worst way possible

Minor weird note, but I wonder if you can telepathically sigh? Like, can you exhale in your thoughts?

Overall thoughts:

It’s a good episode in theory and in practice! The animation was consistent and all the characters behaved exactly as I expected them to. Even the most out-of-character moments were still in-character (idk if I’m wording that well). The only reason I didn’t like rewatching this episode was the broyals angst. Look, I am a messy bitch and I love angst and conflict, but Callum and Ezran’s relationship always felt sacred to me. I hate seeing them fight like this, even if it’s necessary and makes the end of S7 more impactful.

[tragicvampireromanceisland]

id love to hear more of your dream prod thoughts! it was really funny reframing the fact that yeah, the emotions probably really do just have authority over everything and anger was Laser Focused on gettin rid of a director that put riley in danger

HIII yes i'd love to talk more about dream prod!! 😁 i'm gonna go ahead and put it all under the cut though, since 1) probably gonna be LONG and 2) i feel like it's too soon to talk about spoilers out in the open dhkjhkjgh. but!! yes anyways

YES god i really loved all of anger's bits in the show. loved how protective he got 🥺 one thing i always found interesting in the first movie was that the long-term workers did not really seem to...care that sadness and joy needed to find a way back to hq? might just be working in long-term that does that to you LMAO!! really fascinating that the guys working in dream productions do defer to the emotions to some extent. in a way emotions themselves are very integral to dreams! and i loved all the little things that showed this, like paula desperately looking for a happy memory to come up with a dream for, or how gigi's nightmares mostly consisted of green and purple orbs (sidenote SIGH i really wish we got to see disgust and fear interact more considering this. especially since even the sleepwalking memory was green and purple, iirc? buuut i digress. NOT just the disear brain talking i promise but maybe also a Little /lh).

also found it very interesting how the machine jean brought in to measure the. "excitement" of the dream is also a bit dependent on emotions i would say? i'm getting real technical here, but i'm wondering how riley could still react to the dream with other emotions who are not on dream duty (and even then, the ones on dream duty aren't using the console...) despite them being asleep...🤔 definitelyyy overthinking this LOLLL but it's very cool to look at the inner workings of dream prod overall! i love that they introduced daydreams in, too...and this sort of worldbuilding of how daydreams are constructed differently compared to dreams at night. really good contrast for the paula xeni rivalry!

SPEAKING of mannn i loved paula and xeni!! WHAT a fun duo. one thing i noticed was that paula's insistence on "fun" dreams and living in the past was an interesting mirror to joy's previous behavior before her character development across both movies...i thiiink this was intentional, and it's fun to see that riley growing up isn't something just the emotions have to adjust to, but everyone else in the mind word as well 🥲 i wasn't expecting to find the paula-xeni dynamic as funny as i did, either. the bit where he steals her boots made me laugh out loud LMAOO. ALSO going to mention mel here too GOD. THE PUPY. I LOVE HERRR...was talking with a friend the other day about how interacting with the personification of a hormone lets you be affected by that hormone...really cool annnd makes sense considering these guys are all brain cells LOL. makes me wonder if hypothetically this could affect emotions too...? hmm!

anywaysss i loved all the callbacks to things from the first movie...i kind of wish there could have been some acknowledgment of how joy and sadness literally broke into dream productions in the first movie since, well. that's a Pretty Significant Thing that happened. BUT it's fine HKJFHG i thought the callback to canadian boyfriend was real fun. i willll say, given both disney and pixar's....not so good reputation with this sorta stuff, i was concerned the romance! episode was gonna be. one of those "See we PROMISE riley isn't gay!!!" sorta things so i'm glad that's not the direction it went in, and that they kept the resolution for that vague. AND i love love that they really played into the romcom element with all the tropes like the love triangle. AND sadness and joy watching it together!!!! MAN. SO CUTE. 🥺 in general i adore how much joy and sadness are just. besties now. they hang out together!! they LIKE hanging out together!! AUGH. ANYWAYS. romance DID end up being my favorite episode of the bunch! joy and sadness appearances obviously. helped with this LMAO but i loooved how it really showcased paula and xeni's strengths as a team. AND I WILL NOT LIE. that sleepwalking scene did kinda stress me out and i am a grown-ass adult. i also always love when real-life phenomena get translated into the mechanics of the mind world. the camera suddenly moving on its own was sooo cool.

i ALSO found it interesting how the characters all seem to have different views of what's best for riley...jean is the antagonist obvs but! interesting that she had a rationale for the dream xeni wrote, kinda "shaming" riley into growing up...even more interesting when you think about how shame was eventually written out of the second movie drafts, AND how anxiety's original character was rewritten a couple of times because it seemed like both of them were "self-sabotaging" riley too much. interesting that jean could somehow fill this role...! i wonder if that concept was carried on into this show.

ALSO. THE LUCID DREAM STUFF!! very cool. i've always been curious about the reality distortion filters. also a cool way to have riley interact with the mind world! i wiiiish we could have seen more of how...the emotions viewed this dream, what they thought of it etc. since their reactions are present for all the other dreams...i'm honestly very curious about Dream Duty in general, especially since it's not mentioned at all in the second movie. i think it would've been cool to kinda explain the details of dream duty in parallel to the dream production process, sorta tie the whole relationship between the emotions and the mind workers at dream prod together a bit more...buuut overall it was fun to see more of dream productions! definitely my favorite place in the mind world out of all the ones we'd seen across both movies. had a fun time overall!! and honestly my favorite thing about worldbuilding in inside out is how many strange hypotheticals it makes you think about LOL. so while i still got criticisms i'm having a fun time with it 😁👍🏾