#oh and it's the Sandra episode so

[bourbon-ontherocks]

(Previously, on the HPI rewatch...)

Cet épisode m'a détruite la première fois que je l'ai vu et toutes les suivantes. Accessoirement c'est aussi un des épisodes qui m'a causé le plus de fous rires. Allez comprendre, et surtout priez pour moi 😭

Céline qui dort en T-shirt Che Guevara ça restera à jamais l’un des plus grandes énigmes de ce show. I have SO MANY questions.

Deux mois.

........................

Attendez, je la refais pour que tout le monde se représente bien ce que ça fait. DEUX MOIS. Morgane a cessé de venir pendant deux mois, sans que Adam (ni personne en fait ?) ne prenne de ses nouvelles ? 😱 Je veux bien que Céline leur ait fait des updates réguliers, mais genre, personne ne lui a envoyé un petit texto, on n’a pris la peine de venir la voir en sortant du boulot ? Personne s’est dit “tiens, on devrait lui organiser une soirée tous ensemble, ça lui changerait les idées”, non ? Personne 😭 Aled

On notera que Morgane bade sur le canapé de Céline, mais avec des faux-cils. Tout espoir n'est donc pas perdu 🤗

"Bonjour Morgane, content de vous voir." Mec, c'est CA que tu trouves à lui dire ??? Encore une fois, ça fait DEUX MOIS qu'elle est pas venue au boulot, et c'est tout ? Mais au secours... 😩

Deux mois putain...

Par contre Céline est juste trop mignonne a essayer de remotiver Morgane, je l'aime 🥰

"Elle aurait préféré mourir plutôt que renoncer à son intégrité" "Oui bah du coup c'est un peu ce qui s'est passé" 😅 Cet enchaînement me fait toujours autant mourir de rire

Sandra Weber my beloved!!!!! 🥰

La façon dont Morgane revendique un droit de regard sur la vie sexuelle d'Adam me fume complètement, elle est déjà teeeeeellement possessive c'est dingue 🥹 Parce que "Vous comptiez me le dire quand, que vous vous tapiez Miss IGPN ?", Morgane ma chérie, en vrai il était même pas obligé de t'en parler, hein, ça le regarde, SAUF ! QUE ! Adam lui-même ne remet pas cette affirmation en question et confirme implicitement qu'il doit des explications à Morgane, Mr. "La vie perso ça reste perso" de l'épisode d'avant est tout penaud "bah, heu, oui, je comptais vous en parler à votre retour..." mais putain il s'écrase c'est comme s'il se sentait coupable, ça me détruit 😱

Parce que oui il se sent coupable au fond

Coupable d'avoir renoncé à Morgane

.....................Je crois que je fais un AVC

Et puis oh bordel "A quel moment elle vous a séduit exactement ? Quand elle a essayé de vous virer, ou quand elle a demandé ma tête ?", la violence du truc, là on rentre dans le dur, mais que j’aime cette franchise de Morgane, PLUS de quatre vérités comme ça pour la saison 3 siouplait 🤩

Et puis pardon de revenir là-dessus, mais je rappelle à tout hasard que Morgane a appris pour Roxane il y a DEUX MOIS. Oui parce que nous on voit ça entre la fin d'un épisode et le début d'un autre, mais la meuf ça fait DEUX MOIS qu'elle rumine que Adam sort avec Roxane quand elle lui demande des comptes. Girl, your obsession is showing! 🫠

Pardon, mais si la mère de la victime et la juge recevaient des menaces depuis des semaines, c'était pas un truc à mentionner pendant le procès ? Fin je sais pas, hein, mais là comme ça, je me dis que ça aurait pu jouer dans le verdict, non ? Qui reçoit des menaces pendant un procès sans le dire à personne ? C'est complètement con.

"Moi en maternelle je faisais beaucoup d'asthme" Gilles je t'aime, ne change rien 😂❤️

Morgane vs. le philodendron c'est un des grands moments de cette saison. Je pourrais disserter pendant des heures de la symbolique de cette plante à la place de Morgane, de savoir si c'était une manœuvre volontaire de la part de Roxane ou pas, du philodendron comme victime expiatoire de la jalousie de Morgane, de... Nan mais je vais pas le faire, sinon on y est encore la semaine prochaine 🥺 

Vous remarquerez qu’entre le philodendron et le ficus, on a quand-même une obsession botanique dans cette série 🪴

C'est marrant parce que TOUT dans le personnage de Roxane crie not girly, et pourtant la meuf a redécoré le bureau avec des petits cœurs roses quand-même... #characterizationwho?

Je suis désolée mais je dois souligner une nouvelle fois l'absurdité du shipname Karaxane, genre même sa meuf l'appelle par son nom de famille ? Alors que Roxadam était RIGHT HERE ??? 🤦

Vous réalisez que c'est littéralement la première fois que quelqu'un se rappelle que Karadec a un prénom (au bout de 13 épisodes il était temps). Et que c'est dit par Roxane ? tuez-moi

LA. JALOUSIE. DE. MORGANE. DANS. CET. ÉPISODE. 🙊🙊🙊 Elle est tellement jalouse et elle s'en rend même pas compte, oh bordel

Au passage c'est aussi l'épisode où Morgane est alcoolique 🙃

Le fait que Morgane a utilisé un des post-it en forme de petit cœur rose de Roxane pour dessiner une teub dessus et le mettre sur la photo du mec à poil, ça restera à jamais l'un de ses plus grands petty moves 🤣

Et puis rien que pour la scène où Morgane crie "LE SEXE !" aux oreilles de Karadec, ça valait le coup

Si quelqu'un sait ce que Adam articule silencieusement à Morgane au moment où il quitte le bureau avec Roxane, venez me le dire, je vous en supplie. Ça fait un an que j'essaye de savoir 😱

"Prends ça dans ta gueule, toi" aka mon fou rire numéro 1 de l'épisode 🤣

Eliott qui passe tout l'épisode à lire un bouquin de criminologie tout en conspuant sa mère, mhhh, something something Freud reviens 🤔😅

N’empêche, c'est trop mignon que même bourrée, Morgane respecte à la lettre les consignes de Karadec sur le fait de pas parler de l'enquête à Sandra 🥹💕

"Morgane, c'est Karadec" putain mais le mec lui-même a oublié qu'il avait un prénom, en fait....

"Le mec écrivait ses messages de la main gauche parce que sa main droite était occupée à autre chose..." aka mon deuxième fou rire 😅

Alors là je voudrais quand-même qu'on m'explique, parce que chez la juge on a des cartons de pizza et des cornets de frites sur la table, et on nous dit qu'en plus Morgane a cuit un kilo de coquillettes ? Je veux bien que ça mange, les enfants, mais là ça fait un peu beaucoup, non ?

Le gros plan sur le visage d'Adam et son petit sourire amer genre j’aurais dû m’en douter quand il comprend que c'est Morgane qui a squatté chez la juge... 🥹

TOUTES LES RÉACTIONS DE GILLES CHEZ LA JUGE

Les couches

Les coquillettes

LA PAT PATROUILLE 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Que quelqu’un donne une récompense à Bruno Sanches, n’importe laquelle, parce qu’il est juste extraordinaire 😍

Cette scène c'est mon plus gros fou rire de TOUTE la série, la première fois que je l'ai vue j'ai littéralement hurlé de rire pendant dix minutes sans pouvoir m'arrêter

"J'ai pas fini de vous engueuler !" c'est un peu l'histoire de sa vie, à Karadec, ça... 😏

"Une touche de violence policière rendrait encore cette histoire plus croustillante" je laisse ceux qui savent™ apprécier...

L'article de Sandra, si ça vous intéresse (si, si, en zoomant un peu on arrive à lire) :

Karadec qui se marre quand Morgane se fait défoncer par l'équipe au sujet de l'article, c'est drôle, et en même temps, en sachant que la prochaine fois qu'il la revoit c'est en train de chialer à 4 grammes, ça me fend un peu le cœur... 😰

Et là on arrive à LA scène qui mérite un Emmy à elle tout seule

.................................

😱😰💔

Parce que phewww, déjà qu'elle est tragique en soi, mais en plus en SACHANT que Romain est un connard ? Et que Morgane ? Picole toute seule devant sa tombe ? Gnnnnnnnn, laissez-moi sortir...

J'ai tellement à dire sur cette scène, je pourrais disserter sur chaque réplique, mais vraiment juste wow, on peut dire ce qu’on veut sur HPI mais l’écriture de cette scène = perfection

"TU PENSES QUE T'AURAIS FINI PAR TE BARRER TOI AUSSI ?" .................................Appelez le SAMU

Le jeu d'Audrey putain, le jeu d'Audrey me met les larmes aux yeux à chaque fois, la justesse !! La retenue !! La façon dont l'émotion monte subtilement sans en faire des caisses, je -- les personnes qui ont écrit, joué, et dirigé cette scène savent ce que c'est que le deuil, c'est tout ce que j'ai à dire

Évidemment que NON c'est pas tout ce que j'ai à dire !! Vous y avez cru ?

"Avec toi c'était simple" vs. "Avec Kristin, c'est simple", uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, laissez-moi CREVER 😭😭😭

"Mais là j'y arrive plus" 😰 

.......................................................

Elle est TELLEMENT en dépression ça me tabasse... que quelqu'un donne de l'amour à Morgane, là, c'est urgent ! 💔

On est d'accord que vu ce qu'elle picolait trois scènes plus tôt, c'est pas avec une bouteille de crémant qu'elle va tomber dans les pommes, hein ? Hein. Voilà, je voulais juste établir ce point.

Bon alors question importante : qu'est-ce qu'elle fout dans son lit ? Non parce qu'on sait grâce à l'épisode d'après qu'il y a un canapé chez Karadec (et même si Sofiane s'est fait aspirer dans un trou du scénario, en théorie il a aussi une chambre). Vous le voyez, vous, le Karadec de deux heures du matin, déjà bien saoulé d'être allé chercher Morgane et d’avoir dû nettoyer son vomi, lui prêter son lit en plus ? Non, hein, faudrait pas déconner. Donc, je repose la question, qu'est qu'elle fout dans son lit ? 👀

(et à quel moment elle a changé de boucles d'oreilles aussi)

Morgane : *tombe sur Karadec à poil* Morgane : *darde sa langue* (si si, je vous assure, c'est dans le dernier plan de l'épisode. Je dois aller me javelliser les yeux, j’en a trop vu je crois, tu m’étonnes qu’elle fasse une fixette sur les brosses à dents, après, ce show fait clairement une fixation orale)

(encore une fois Freud reviens)

Nan mais vraiment un jour j’écrirai un analyse sur tous les trucs que Morgane fait avec sa langue dans la série et ça sera pas du tout PG13, je vous préviens

Bon allez je vous laisse je dois aller me préparer psychologiquement pour revoir une certaine scène de brossage de langue, justement...

😘

[john-taylor-daily]

Carpool Karaoke Simon John and Sandra Oh DD

[louiswilliamtomlinsons]

what’s the worst twdg season in your opinion season 2 or season 3 👁️

season 3!!! i remember reading about the original plan to make it darker and high stakes and the plot was so much interesting and engaging than what we got in the end. at least season 2 had its good moments, but i did not enjoy season 3 AT ALL, and i hate it because i actually like javi and i was excited about latino character as a main protagonist, but then i got so disappointed. rip season 3 you could’ve been good if telltale hadn’t prioritized quantity vs quality

[chaoticbiguysblog]

So, about the rumors of S8 being the last season of Eddie/Ryan, that are being spread lately,

I'm sorry but you don't have to have a cousin working on the show to realise that if that were the case, they wouldn't put him front and center for the BTS and promotional interviews, they wouldn't invest money into him as much as they are doing rn.

I'll give an example of abc's biggest show, Grey's Anatomy. TR Knight played George O'Malley, one of the main characters, S5 was his last, and his screentime for 24 episodes of S5 was less than that of Sandra Oh's screentime in the first 9 episodes. Katherine Heigl left the show in S6, her screentime and BTS presence was also severely reduced. Chyler Leigh left in S8 and Patrick Dempsey left in S11, and their screentime and BTS presence in their last seasons was minimal. This is network tv, not the fucking MCU, actors don't usually get grand goodbyes, they're faded out. At most their characters get a episode or two as a farewell, but the show and network most certainly don't put them front and center in the BTS and promotions. What's the point of pulling viewers in by using a character that's about to leave, it'll anger the fans and that'll only hurt the show, instead they put the character in the background, so that it softens the blow for the fans who care about the character, and the general audiences wouldn't care much for their departure bc they already had minimal presence in the current season.

Also, don't even get me started on the whole Oliver and Ryan distancing themselves from each other and the writers pulling Buddie apart, bc of the "crazy Buddie stans". Like, just a few months ago, Tim Minear was being harassed by some Buddie fans for cutting the karaoke scene, and he was mad about it and despite that, he defended the pairing and sane fans of the ship. Not to mention, in a season of 10 episodes, out of which, Buck and Eddie only appeared in 9 and their screentime was ~50 minutes, that's almost as much as S2 and 3. Like, they love the ship, and if Oliver was distancing himself from Ryan, trust me, we'd know, bc he's such a drama queen (affectionate).

TL;DR- Stop listening to baseless rumors from cousins of crew members, there's obviously a decent chance that Buddie might never happen but we'll cross that bridge once we have watched the 18 episodes of S8.

[niko-sasaki-dbd]

Queue Interview with the Dead Boy Detectives Cast 👻🔎

This is going to be a long post! (These are my favourite parts from the interview!)

George Rexstrew as Edwin Payne

Acting Inspiration

Oh, gosh. Well there are so many. Meryl Streep, obviously. Viola Davis, obviously. More recently, I was blown away by Enzo Vogrincic in Society of the Snow. And Eden Dambrine in Close.

Cast Camaraderie

I loved working with all my co-stars. I’m practically related to Jayden [Revri] and Kassius [Nelson] at this point. Yuyu [Kitamura] is a dream. Jenn [Lyon] is mother hen. Bri[ana Cuoco] is the cool older sister. Josh[ua Colley] is the cheeky cousin. Ruth [Connell] is the godmother who gives you a card and £20 for your birthday. It really is one big happy dysfunctional family. I’m grateful for all of them, on and off camera.

Jayden Revri as Charles Rowland

Dressing The Part

These heads of departments, and Monique and Kelli, [they’re] unbelievable. They were so collaborative. We went through different hairstyles and different things we could do with the makeup. We added a bit of eyeliner for [Charles] just to make it feel more 80s. And then Kelli, I mean, it was like she did her research on me. She added badges to the jacket which kind of represented me as Jayden, before I even got there. It wasn’t until I got the haircut, put the makeup on, put the costume on, and I was like, Okay, this is Charles.

Cast Camaraderie.

The vibe was just incredible. Me and George, we really wanted to set the tone for the series and make sure that everyone’s having fun and it’s an environment where we could all talk about how we’re feeling. We were just such a big support blanket for each other. If there was ever a time that somebody needed space, or they wanted to prep themselves for a certain scene they were going to film, we all respected that and we were each other’s cheerleaders the whole entire time. And it’s still the same to this day now. I think it really shows when you watch the series that we all knew what we were making and we wanted to make something that we would want to watch, which we’ve all done. I cannot shout out my castmates enough. Forever grateful.

Kassius Nelson as Crystal Palace

Acting Inspiration

I watched a lot of animation. I used to watch the Addams Family, the black-and-white one, because I didn’t have Disney Channel or anything. Monk, Murder She Wrote, I was watching those things, so maybe I was actually destined to play a detective, now that I’m thinking about it. I watched a lot of cartoons and animations. I just liked the idea that I could be engrossed in another world. And I always wanted to know what happened next, or when the film finished, I would be like, “Okay, but then what? What happens after that?” And now I get to be part of that question or that answer (...).

Dressing the Part

We have a fantastic costume designer, Kelli Dunsmore. I always say that she literally wove the story into the fabric of the clothes, because there are things that she foreshadowed in the clothing that happened episodes later. Or, if characters start to get in some sort of relationship with each other, that will be reflected in the clothes that they wear or the colors that they have. Or, if they’re feeling any type of emotion, (...)l. Crystal wears these massive platform boots that must be about four or five inches. They’re huge, very heavy, but it’s funny because they change the way that you walk. (...) She’s not very light, which makes sense with the things that she’s going through and the experiences that she’s having. Practically, it helped, because Jayden and George are like six-foot-something. So, if I film a scene and I’m at the bottom of the lens and they’re up there, that helped. I’ve got a good couple inches on my feet.

Yuyu Kitamura as Niko Sasaki

Acting Inspiration

Sandra Oh is a woman that I will forever be indebted to because who she was on Grey’s Anatomy was so formative for me. The most interesting thing about her character was not that she was Asian, but that she was such a fully fleshed person with flaws and amazing qualities. And her work ever since I think has been iconic, so she’s a woman that I deeply look up to.

Landing the role in Dead Boy Detectives

I auditioned from Hong Kong and my dad was my reader because all of my acting friends were in New York. My dad was able to carve out time and be an amazing reader. And in that audition side, it’s the scene where Niko gets to see the “Dead Boys” for the first time, and there’s a line in there that was something along the lines of me talking to Edwin and asking, “Do you two make out with each other?” And my dad stopped the tape and he was like, “What are you reading for?” And I was like, “Don’t give me notes, it’s fine!” And so that was the audition process! I think within a month I found out I got the part and it’s been an absolute dream ever since.

Dressing the Part

(...) I think on paper Niko can seem like a certain type of character, but even in the choice of every costume we did, every color that she wears, every meticulous little piece about everything from her nails to her room, it’s so well curated and thought out. Through her journey, we also find that she’s a woman that wears what she feels. On the surface, she might seem like the most joyful, young, optimistic girl, but it’s the inner confidence and bravery where we find that she’s layered, and she is very much a young woman coming of age.

SOURCE: MEET THE REAL DEAD BOY DETECTIVES (AND FRIENDS)

[flownwrong]

chaotic ckr c6d squee propaganda (?) post

This, started half a year ago for @ds30below, was initially a general c6d short reviews post but kinda skewed majorly towards CKR's repertoire and wasn't too review-y. So I gave up on making sense and on including the non-CKR works. I don't know who the audience for this is, because I never give basic details for people who don't know about this stuff but say too much for those who do. I giffed what I could and tried to avoid what I know a lot about but haven't actually seen. Here goes.

Frank's Cock (1993)

Not much to say. It's only 8 minutes, it's beautiful and you should see it if you haven't. I won't spoil the subject, but you can likely guess. Watch it, cry a little. Then go watch some more of Mike Hoolboom's stuff, the vimeo link above is from his channel.

Two X-Files episodes (1994 – 1995)

Well, I haven't actually seen X-files since I was about fifteen and watched the like two seasons, and I remember none of it. I rewatched the two early episodes CKR appears in and they were fun. I did not watch the, the movie or whatever where he's doing the evil gay thing. But really, this one is on the list so I can show you this self-indulgent gif of him being Very Long:

Double Happiness (1994)

You shouldn't watch this one for CKR. I mean, you absolutely should see him here, looking like he's barely out of his teens and playing up the insecure act and having devastating chemistry with devastatingly beautiful Sandra Oh, but this is not why it's great. And it's really, really great. It's touching and funny and sincere. If you wanna have some feels about complicated family relationships and identity and growing up (at any point in life), you'll find them here.

Curtis's Charm (1995)

Don't regret watching it, can't recommend. Not gonna lie, I was emotionally affected. But I usually am by things as in-your-face bleak as this. Mostly, it's trying very hard to be smarter than it is, I think.

However: CKR's One Wild Curl is everything to me (see above, on the right. It was, like, actually curly. I was rendered speechless). And like two seconds of Hugh Dillon made me do a double-take, lol. Incredibly weird knowing this was shot like half a year before HCL began shooting. Feels like it must've been a decade earlier.

Hard Core Logo (1996)

I could make three separate posts about this one, so of course I have no idea what to say.

This one, you should watch for CKR, actually, he's something, but so is every single other aspect of this film. I wouldn't change a thing about it. It hits you like a 16 wheeler. Perfectly cast, unimaginably beautiful, hysterical and melancholy and disgusting and compelling.

Related recs:

A wonderfully fun article/retrospective/interview for its 20th anniversary a while back.

You should also absolutely read Hard Core Roadshow if you enjoyed the film. It's a book documenting the whole thing from conception to release. It touched me for its own sake, not just a backstage glance, full of love for the craft and the people and carrying this tangible bittersweetness about the heightened and fleeting nature of this kind of work.

(here, I feel compelled to include a quote from another c6d-related interview on Slings & Arrows, which I read after the book and went like man, it's really a universal experience isn't it.

Coyne: <...> But I also think, and this is my experience, what we were all experiencing, because we were all talking about our lives, our life in the arts — there’s something very melancholy about doing something you love, because it will never be good enough, it will always break your heart.

McKinney: Or it will be fleeting.

Coyne: It’ll be fleeting. You come together with people you feel passionately connected to and two weeks later they’re tearing down the sets.)

Quotes from the article and the book respectively include:

McDonald: So there was a kind of mutual dependency society with Hugh telling Callum, “Don’t worry, man, I got your back, I’ll tell you how high or low to wear your guitar, I’ll tell you how you should dress, I’ll tell you what you should drink…” and Callum was like, “I’ll tell you what hitting your mark is, I’ll tell you why they pull out fucking tape measures, I’ll tell you why you have to do it again, I’ll tell you about not overlapping dialogue..” and you know they clung to each other, like the other one was gonna fucking save them.

And:

A final gathering at the back of the tour bus with Bruce, Callum, Hugh, Bernie. We listen to the tape of HCL songs, all the way through, one last time. And we belt the words out. Bernie sings loudest, performing for Salerno's camera. Hugh and Callum sit back, looks of sadness. I get the sense that if they could do it, they'd chuck their lives and be Joe Dick and Billy Tallent forever. Callum leans to Bruce and says exactly what everyone else is thinking: "I don't want it to end."

There's much more to both texts than *gestures* the whatever those two had, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

And Xeriscape is the best HCL fic I've read. Granted, I read very few because it's not a source that creates in me a craving for fic. But this one perfectly matches the film's fucked up beauty with its language while also adding a quieter, more fraught layer of humanity that we only get glimpses of in canon and that perfectly fits John. 10/10, would recommend.

Anyway. Watch it. Read it. If you haven't. Otherwise, come scream with meeee! And go reblog my gifs or something. Idk.

Letters From Home (1996)

Mike Hoolboom strikes again, with another short. This goes into the "don't watch it for CKR, watch it because it's great" box. Yes, you will cry.

For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down (1996)

Another bleak one! It sucked to watch, I mean, on purpose. There were a couple of very effective scenes. I really enjoyed the opening. They say the book is decent too, I haven't checked that out.

Actually, let's just switch back from coherent thought to undignified staring at his mouth with this one. What the fuck is that cigarette thing. I couldn't help myself.

Last Night (1998)

These gifs are not representative of the whole movie. There is more happening than CKR kissing or hugging people. He's also doing more than just kissing and hugging. It's all very... impressive.

Guess who's also here again? Sandra Oh! And say hi to Don McKellar, who is an absolute champion for writing/directing/starring. You'll be seeing more of him.

Another one for the "watch it for its own sake" box. Seriously, that late 90s indie stuff is banger after banger. It's so beautiful! Look at those colours! Look at those shots! It's very uneasy and charming and melanchioly and itself in the best way.

Twitch City (1998 – 2000)

Don McKellar is back to murder you with discomfort! Bruce McDonald lends a hand. Molly Parker is also here. And Daniel McIvor, who'd go on to direct, for example, Wilby Wonderful. It's a party. If you watched some stuff from above (or below) on this list, most faces and names will be familiar to you, tbh (another Hugh Dillon double-take happens).

If you liked Spaced, you'll love this. You might also love it because it commits to its weirdness with an admirable resolve and is genuinely hilarious. (Honestly, CKR's outfits alone warrant a watch.) The idiosyncrasy is definitely Don McKellar's doing 200%. It couldn't be more different from Last Night, but if you've seen one, you'll recognise the other.

Battlestar Galactica (2003 – 2009)

I don't think a person should be allowed to look this pretty in the sweaty-and-dying makeup in that light (this sentence probably looks very weird to those not under the CKR magic spell).

I don't know what to say about BSG because I really, really enjoyed early it initially, but by the middle of S2 it got... well, whatever that was. If you know you know, if you don't, still give it a go. You might get invested enough to suffer through it all, as I have been, slowly.

The unfortunate thing is that CKR got to be there mostly in the "what the fuck" years and not the "wow that's so cool" years. That, as you might be aware, is a pattern with him. But! When he was here, he was so genuinely, wonderfully creepy not in the typecast-baddy way, but in this slow, half-absent way, which really worked. You can also see him tortured a little, as a treat!! <3

Also, a wild John Pyper-Ferguson appears! If you're looking at him thinking you know him from somewhere but not immediately remembering, you'll figure it out, I believe in you. I was very happy to see him.

Wilby Wonderful (2004)

Another win for the put CKR in more good shit team!!! Guess who's here again? Sandra Oh! Also, Paul Gross. Don't watch it for him either though haha.

Another one for whoever wants to look at pushing against the weight of others' (or your own) expectations and growing into who you are or reconsidering who you are or finding meaningful connections with others even when you're kind of a mess and they are too.

Not nearly the first time CKR's gotten to play a queer character, but man, this one really is the heart of the in-universe community, and, through that, of the film. A rare chance to see him so far out of the prickly persona! He's just so solid and calm and there for others in this one and, and soft, ough. It's awesome.

By the way, if any of you have the commentary track or know someone who has, please drop me a line here or on discord (emotionalrisotto), I really wanna hear that.

Supernatural (2005)

I love Supernatural a lot. It was a formative experiences (albeit a very late one) and I owe a lot of my favourite stuff about fandom-ing to the buddies I met through it. I can't believe I'm telling you this (because who hasn't seen it, not because I'm reccing it), but you should really try it if you haven't. It's pretty rad.

I had no idea who this guy was when I saw that episode (the second ever one!), though. I simply cannot fathom what @nigeltde-fic felt when she first saw it. I think I personally got very lucky she didn't combust on the spot. It would've been unfortunate.

On a sillier note, CKR's character has weird tension with both Sam and Dean in this episode, which is par for the course. I personally think they should've... no, I shan't say it. You can probably imagine.

Californication (2008 – 2013)

I haven't actually seen it, lol (and I suspect I won't enjoy it, but I'm very curious and also CKR looks really really good).

The real reason for this one on the list is to share a fic rec. Really, it's a due South F/K fic featuring Lew Ashby. It's ridiculously hot and very satisfying in its romantic resolution, too (but then, I'm kind of big on selfcest. And consensual voyeurism. And pretend relationships when done like this. And sublimated yearning. Erm.)

Shattered (2010 – 2011)

I wish this never happened. I badly, badly wish this never happened. I can't turn back time, but I can warn those luckier than me: do not go there. Yes, even for this dude. You'll sleep better not knowing just what it is he was the EP on. And the only important part — the mascara — can be seen above (yes, the show does look that bad, it's not just the gifs).

Just kidding — I watched it, didn't I? You'll have fun hating it! Just prepare for industrial grade cringe, lower your expectations (No, lower. No, still lower than that. And just a bit more.) and you'll have a great time!

Star trek: Discovery (2024)

Or, as I call it, Star Trek: The Mediocre Show. Discovery S5 was... what it was, but it was a wonderful viewing experience — mostly thanks to the gang (@kittkatk and @feroxargentea especially!)

What a joy it is, to follow a show week by week, yelling and laughing and discussing the whole time. And giffing, too. I was very happy to contribute to the Disco fandom from my own little obsessive corner, and I was glad to see people adoring Rayner, haha.

He's a pretty neat character — very much a stereotype, yes, but with CKR's usual twist of odd vulnerability and weirdness. Also, I loved the ears. I miss the ears. The ears were great.

I even wrote a fic! Although it's not within my usual range to write for canons and universes I don't know well — and back then, I'd only seen S5 of Disco. It was a lot of suffering, and a lot of fun.

Closing thoughts

I'd really love the dude to get a better agent. And possibly better taste, but I realise that's a tougher ask. Seriously, it's been too long since he was in something majorly cool. I'm grateful to him, at least, for not making terrible music on the side. And I still have a lot of his back catalogue to get through, some of it even good, so there will be more insanity. Until then!

[sweetbillwriting]

The Key To His Heart - IV

Characters: AU Bill Skarsgård where his life changes in 2013 and later 2019.

Setting: L.A, 2024 but in an alternative universe with Bill having a completely different life.

Warnings: 18+, NSFW, heavy themes.

Bill's Guests:

Maria: Writer, 38.

Violet: Entrepreneur, 22.

Camila: Engineer, 31.

Sandra: Fashion designer, 36.

Esmeralda: Model, 27.

Rose: Personal trainer, 22.

Tiffany: Actress, 30.

Sienna: Painter, 28.

Brigitte: Chef, 29.

Julie: Model, 25. (Left in episode 2)

Odette: Pediatrician, 33. (Left in episode 3)

Victoria: Shop assistant, 34.(Left in episode 3)

×

The sun shone through the blinds at Bill, who sat on the edge of his broad bed, and it made his skin appear striped. He sat in just a pair of black boxers and held his head with his hands with his elbows on his knees. He had a bit of a headache after drinking a few too many glasses of whiskey the night before, and he looked at the empty bottle on the nightstand with a sigh. He had had some anxiety after having sent home Odette, not because he regretted his decision but just because he felt mean. It was the second woman who was upset at him, and he knew it would get worse and worse to send them home. He fooled them into believing he had felt interested, then he ditched them in front of the cameras. It was brutal. Just when he stood up with a sigh, there was a knock on his door. It could be someone from the film team, but it could also be one of the girls.

“Yeah?” He said, while he looked for a robe or something but couldn't find anything.

“Can you open? It's just me,” said Herman, a bit irritated, like he had waited for ages. Bill rolled his eyes to himself before opening the door.

“How the fuck should I know it's you?”

“Why do you lock the door? You really think someone will dare to visit you in the night? You're bigger than all of us.”

Bill shrugged his shoulders and sat down on the bed again.

“How are you? You look tired,” said Herman who sat down next to him.

“Yeah… It's harder than I thought…” said Bill, looking down at his bare feet.

“What is?” Herman looked at him confused.

“This! They get hurt for real.” Bill dragged his hands through his hair.

“Yeah? You should be happy. I worked on a similar show, and the women didn't feel a fuck for the guy, so we needed to tell them to act, and few of them knew how.”

Bill grimaced and shrugged his shoulders.

The men sat in silence a while before Herman cleared his throat.

“Today is two single dates, then you all have the weekend for yourself. I heard that one of the girls' dads had been in an accident.”

Bill looked at Herman with furrowed brows.

“Sandra’s. He's a bit older and fell down the stairs.”

“Oh shit. How, how is he? What will she do? Is she going home?”

“No, no. Just today and the weekend, so you can't pick her for a date. That was our plan, but now that can't happen.”

Bill scoffed and leaned back in bed with his hands pushed against his forehead. He had some pain over his eyebrows.

“So you decide everything?” He asked, irritated.

“It's so it will be good TV. So you will pick-”

“‘I will pick’...” Muttered Bill, and Herman gave him an annoyed look.

“Your dates will be with Brigitte and Sienna.”

Bill was quiet for a while because Brigitte he would have probably picked for himself, but…

“Sienna? Really? We have nothing to talk about.”

“That's just it. Your awkwardness with each other is quite fun to look at, and sometimes she looks straight into the camera when you don't notice and makes a face.”

Bill looked at Herman, who laughed, but Bill didn't look as amused.

“She makes fun of me?”

“A bit.”

Bill looked offended and sat up again.

“What the fuck? You get that I will send her home now?”

“Yeah, but first we just want to have that awkward date where she imitates your 'sexy stare’, she's quite good at it.”

Bill still looked offended. He might have thought it was funny if he knew about it, but it had been done behind his back. A girl who said she wanted to date him made fun of him like that; it wasn't okay.

“See it as your chance to act again. I know you can do it, and you can have a nice date with Brigitte as a contrast.”

Bill sighed and stood up, but let his brows relax.

“Yeah, yeah. Who cares? You will make me anyway.”

Herman smirked and didn't say anything. Bill had finally understood the rules.

×××

The irritation had once again awakened among the girls, this time it was Violet who spilled her feelings over Rose. They had just met Bill over breakfast, and he had shared what girls he would go on dates with. Violet didn't get picked this time either.

“Sienna was at the group date, and Brigitte got so much time with him yesterday. Why doesn't he see us all?”

Rose, who had been on a single date with him, didn't know what to say. She hadn't even thought about if Bill picked the same girls, she thought it was even. She instead thought about how close she had been to going home. She didn't understand why he didn't say her name earlier. Their date had been great.

“I don't know…” she said, distracted by her own thoughts, and opened the fridge in her search for a water bottle.

“Has he already found his favorites? He just plays with the rest of us?” Violet looked at Rose with big eyes like she had the answer, but Rose just looked at the water bottle in her hand like she didn't know what she was looking at.

“In that case, who am I? I'm the only one he has been on a real date with, but I got called last in this ceremony. I will probably leave the next ceremony, even if our date was great.”

Violet listened to her but didn't seem to be so interested in talking about her problems and instead started to talk about other things.

“Do you think he has kissed Esmeralda? They seem really comfortable with each other.”

Rose put the bottle in the fridge again and closed it. She didn't answer Violet; instead, she walked up to her room on the second floor. She looked to the right, in the corner, was the door to Bill's bedroom. It was closed as always, and she thought for a moment about what he did in there. He probably made himself ready for his date. His date with Brigitte. They hadn't gotten to know what they would do on the date, so all of them were curious in their jealousy. She walked into her room and laid down on the bed. It felt like she was in love with Bill, and the thought of him with the others made her throat dry. Their date had been so good, and still he didn't seem interested in her, it was heartbreaking.

Violet looked after Rose but realized she also probably had many feelings about the situation, and they were not friends; they were competitors for the same man.

×××

Bill stood leaned against the car of the day. It wasn't his; it was a car that the production had arranged, but Bill dragged his hand over the door and wished it was his. It was a Ford Mustang Cab; he guessed it was from the late sixties but looked like it was new.

He waited for Brigitte to come, then they would go for a ride, then to the secret destination. Bill had just gotten the address. It was a little exciting, and it maybe affected him more than he thought because when Brigitte walked towards him in a short black floral dress, he felt butterflies in his stomach. He smiled brightly at her, and she smiled just as brightly at him.

“Hey,” he said softly and pulled her in for a hug.

“Hey,” she said with a giggle and sniffed his perfume. “What's the plan for the day?”

She dragged an admiring hand over the car, and Bill smirked proudly like it was his own.

“I don't know; I just have an address.”

Brigitte looked up at him with eyes as blue as the California sky.

“That sounds mysterious.”

“Mhm,” he said with a smirk before opening the car door for her.

They speculated about the day and talked about the car until Bill drove onto the highway and could speed up. Brigitte laughed next to him and let her hair free from the tight braid she always had her long hair in and let the wind play with it. Bill smiled at her behind his sunglasses. The wind played with his hair too, even if he had slicked it back, but it just made him look more attractive behind the Mustang's steering wheel. Both their hearts beated heavily in their chests with a rush of adrenaline, but it was easy to mix it up with romantic feelings, so Bill took her hand in his and kissed the back of her hand several times. Brigitte blushed and looked at him with even bigger eyes. Bill could see how she licked her lips over and over.

After a while, they were forced to drive towards their destination, but their hearts were still beating against their ribs and made their blood rush through their bodies. They jumped between subjects like music (she was a country girl, he was a moody folk rocker), movies (who the fuck doesn't cry to Titanic?) and food (meat, Asian fusion, and Swedish cod). They talked like two puzzle pieces had clicked together, and they enjoyed looking at each other just as much.

Their destination was a house by the sea but with a full outside kitchen where they could cook together. They had the best products you could buy in L.A. to make the best lunch. They also had an expensive bottle of champagne, and Brigitte didn't say no to alcohol like Rose had done so they could cheer together.

Bill looked at her cook easily. She was better than him, but he liked it. She taught him tricks and told him anecdotes from the restaurant world. He looked at her with big eyes and tingling lips, so when they had eaten, he leaned over the table and kissed her soft lips. She looked at him with glittering eyes while his eyes had darkened. It had been a great date, and a great date needed a kiss.

“Thank you for today…” said Brigitte when they stood on the porch. Both of them knew some of the other girls were probably watching them, but Brigitte still took a hold of the hem of Bill's white t-shirt and pulled him into an intimate hug. Both of them thought about the kiss, but they couldn't do anything now; they had an audience.

“Thank you… You're a great cook,” said Bill while playing with her hands in his.

“So are you. You're good at many things,” she said cheekily and made Bill laugh and even get a bit pink in the cheeks.

“I'll see you tomorrow.”

Brigitte gave him a final smile before walking away to the guest house. Bill stayed on the porch for a while with a small smile on his lips. It had been an amazing date, and he got a bit embarrassed over himself and how he just stood there and smiled. He walked in after a minute or so; he had another date to get ready for. The date with Sienna.

One of the girls who had watched him with Brigitte was Sienna, who had seen them from her room. She had looked at Bill's big smile and how he held Brigitte's hands in his. He looked like a man in love. Sienna breathed out and made her decision then and there. She looked at her phone, the screensaver of her and her son on a carousel horse together, and then pulled out her suitcase from the wardrobe.

×××

Bill had dressed down to boxers and laid down in bed to rest. Just in two hours, he would need to be ready for another date. He didn't feel ready for it, mostly because he was still living on the high from the date with Brigitte and didn't have time to think about another woman, and especially not for a date he knew would be bad. He thought about sneaking down to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, so he pulled on a pair of sweats; it was then there was a knock on his door. He sighed to himself.

“What is it now, Herman?” He said, unlocking the door and opening it a bit aggressively. Instead of meeting Herman's blue gaze, it was Sienna's hazel eyes that looked back at him. He looked at her confused and then right and left to see if there were any cameras, but there were none.

“Hey?”

Sienna dropped her gaze to his naked torso by reflex but caught herself and looked up at his face again.

“Can we talk?” She said it carefully. Bill looked at her with big eyes. He wondered if it was about the date, but in reality he could just come up with one reason why she would want to talk with him like that, a reason that matched her serious face. He nodded a little and moved away from the door opening so she could walk into his bedroom, even if he otherwise wouldn't let someone in like that, but he forgot that with Sienna.

She looked around in his bedroom. It wasn't meant for any of the girls to be there. She had thought about how it would look inside if there were still signs of a woman there, but the room was decorated sleek and masculine in black and emerald tones. There was just one picture on the walls, a still from a black-and-white movie she couldn't place. Opposite the wall was a big screen and shelves full of DVDs. Someone liked to watch movies in bed.

Bill looked at her a bit awkwardly while she looked at his bedroom with big eyes. He pulled on the t-shirt he had worn earlier that day and sat down on the bed, waiting for Sienna to say something, he didn't have much to say.

“Ehm…” To his surprise, she sat down on the Persian rug and put her dark hair behind her ears. She was dressed in a big gray hoodie and leggings and didn't at all look ready for a date with him.

“I've decided to leave the show… I wanted to say it to you, the production wanted me to just disappear and leave you waiting for me on the porch, and then I didn't show up… I'm not that kind of girl.”

She looked at him sincerely, and Bill swallowed hard and looked down on his hands that he flexed. Fuck, he was tired of this shit. They wanted to make a fool of him. They wanted him to stand dumped and alone in a suit on his own porch. Herman wanted that to happen.

“Okay… Thank you…” He said it distractedly but then looked at her with worried eyes. “Why do you want to leave? Has something happened? Have I done something?”

“No, no. I… I feel like I don't have reasons to be here. It's not a secret you and I don't have the chemistry you have with some of the other girls.” Sienna laughed a bit uncomfortable while dragging her finger through the rug's pattern. Bill sat quietly because, for some reason, he got a bad conscience. Did other girls feel the same? While he sat in deep thought, Sienna stood up and looked through his shelves with movies.

“To Kill a Mockingbird... I love that movie. I did a project inspired by that movie,” she said with a dreamy voice, mostly for herself. Bill looked at her from behind. He didn't really like having people in his bedroom, it was his safe place, but for some reason it felt completely normal having her there. He didn't think much about it, just let her comment on the movies, and slowly realized her movie interest was bigger than he had expected.

She turned to him with red cheeks when she realized she had stayed too long by his shelves.

“Sorry… I should go. I have my man waiting for me at home.”

Bill looked at her with furrowed brows.

“My son.” Sienna smiled a little, said goodbye with just a wave with her hand, and then she sneaked out from the door so no one in the production would see her. Bill walked slowly after her, his head full of questions, and locked the door after her.

×××

The hot water hit his broad back and made his skin burn. The plan was just to take a shower before calling Herman and saying he knew about their plan, but instead he had stayed there with his forehead pressed against the wall. He didn't want to be a part of the circus anymore. It wasn't about him founding love; this was all about making TV. He had been naive, just because Herman was his friend, but there was also something else that bothered him, but he couldn't say why. He felt anxious and like he had forgotten something. He thought about the day with Brigitte, but looking back at it, it didn't make a big impression anymore; instead, it was other small things that had gotten stuck in his brain.

“To Kill a Mockingbird… I love that movie…”

“Sometimes they feel a bit try-hard…”

He became annoyed at himself that he would now start to romanticize Sienna just because she chose to leave. It was typical of him, so instead he tried to think back on how beautiful Brigitte had been in her floral dress, but pictures of how Sienna pulled down the hoodie sleeves over her hands were the only thing his brain wanted him to obsess about. The smallest details, about Sienna.

He dried himself with a black towel when he came out of the shower but didn't do it for long before he felt it was too hot in the bathroom, and he walked out to his bedroom again with the towel around his slim hips.

His bedroom was not a place he let anyone into, especially not when he had a film team there. To his surprise, he had let Sienna in without a thought and had let her walk around, looking at his stuff. The whole thing had confused him, so now when he saw Camila in his bed, he just looked at her and scratched his neck in disbelief.

“Hey…” she said and stood up in bed so she became taller than him. She had just a lacy nightgown on, and he could see her nipples through the fabric. He looked at her up and down and felt a tingle feeling spread down from his stomach down to his sex.

“Hey,” he said with a small smile. He thought about the dirty thoughts that he had had about her and felt his heart beating hard. She was in his bed now. He moved closer to her so she could lay her arms around his neck and he could lay his hands around her waist. He looked at her with dark eyes, and she smirked, like she knew what an effect she had on him. She dragged her fingers through his wet hair and then pressed her red painted lips against his. Bill could feel his blood rush to his groin, and he moaned into the next kiss she gave him. Camila dragged her hands down his naked chest, and Bill took a harder grip around her waist, so they were even closer. It was amazing having her that close, but his head hadn't settled down from the earlier chaos, and it showed him pictures and scenes from the day. Sienna's smile, her hazel eyes, her back when she left his bedroom, him locking the door…

“Why do you lock the door? You really think someone will dare to visit you in the night? You're bigger than all of us.”

Softly, he pushed Camila away and looked at her with big, confused eyes.

“How did you get in? The door was locked?”

Camila looked at him for just a few seconds before smiling teasingly and shrugging her shoulders. She tried to kiss him again, but now the question pounded anxiously in Bill's chest. He took a step away from her.

“How did you get in?”

It wasn't like he was afraid of her, it was just a really creepy feeling knowing she had been able to get into his private room, his locked, private room.

“How did you get in?” He said, much more forcefully when she didn't answer. Camila stayed standing in bed but leaned down to be able to lightly pull in the towel around his hips.

“I felt that you grew-”

Bill pushed away her hands and took a hold of the towel. It was then he saw a key laying on one of the DVD shelves. A key to his room.

“Where did you find this?” He said it and took it in his hand.

Camila sighed, jumped down from bed, and pulled on her black kimono that was lying on an armchair in the corner of the room.

“Is that so important? I thought you would like having a guest like me?”

Bill shook his head in disbelief while playing with the key in his hand. Camila stood and looked at him, but when she didn't get an answer, she left the room, closing the door with a loud bang. The sound made Bill jump but also made the pain in his chest worsen. It had been an awful day, and all he wanted was to have his normal life back and get all the women out of his house.

×××

His stomach growled like a hungry bear. It hurt every time it moved around in there. He needed to eat something, but he really didn't feel like walking out of his room. Herman and others in the production had knocked on his door, and the girls were spread out all over his house, as was Camila. He just wanted to be alone, but his stomach pains worsened.

Bill stood up from bed and dressed again. He took a look at himself in the mirror but didn't feel a need to do anything with his messy hair. The clock was 10 PM, so he hoped most of them had gone to bed or gone home from their work. He needed to eat, and he knew they had delivered meatloaf to the girls today. 

Just as carefully as Sienna had moved out of his room, he walked out and looked around in the hallway. He looked down the banister to see if someone was near the stairs, but he couldn't see anyone. In relief, he started to walk but became distracted when he saw one of the bedroom doors standing open. He knew it was Sienna's room because he had seen her leave the room a couple of times. When he walked by it, he stopped to just look inside. It was a guest room otherwise too, and the room looked like it had been done before the girls had moved in, just that she had pulled off the covers from the bed. It looked nice and clean, but for some reason it left an empty feeling in his chest. He hadn't talked with Sienna much, but now it started to feel like a real loss to not have her there.

“Bill?” Said someone behind him, and he looked back at the person. He had moved into the room, and in the door opening stood Tiffany in a light blue lounge set. 

“Ehm… Hey,” he said awkwardly and scratched his elbow. 

“Has Sienna left?” She asked, entering the room and looked around. 

“Yeah…” 

Tiffany nodded. 

“I think she missed her son. They seemed to have a close bond.” 

Bill nodded too, even if he didn't have a clue. It felt weird she had left before he even got to know her. Or even knew anything about her. 

“I must make something to eat. Do you want anything?” He asked Tiffany, who smiled brightly. 

“Yeah, I could eat again. The meatloaf was really nice.” 

××× 

Tiffany looked at Bill making potato wedges. He thought the mashed potatoes looked sad and clumpy, so he decided to fix new potatoes for them. His black sweatpants sat low on his hips, and the t-shirt was a bit too short, so in every movement, she could see the black Armani elastic of his boxers. She smiled to herself; she felt lucky she was the one running into Bill like that. He rarely showed himself that late and was never dressed this relaxed. She could smell the scent of amber and oak from his skin. He looked like the boyfriend she always wanted. Tall, fit, beautiful, but cozy and relaxed. 

Bill put the potatoes in the oven and turned to Tiffany. His brain felt as messy as scrambled eggs, but still he tried to smile charmingly at her, but probably mostly looked tired.

“A long day?” She asked when he sat down by the kitchen island with her. 

“Too long. It has been a lot,” he said and massaged his own shoulders. He was tense after it all. 

“Should I give you a massage?” Asked Tiffany and stood up. Bill looked at her unsurely. He had kissed two women that day; it felt wrong being so close to one more, but Tiffany smiled and walked around him and started to massage his shoulders and neck skillfully, and Bill made an uncontrolled moan. The moan spread like a warm liquid in Tiffany, and she could feel it drip down between her legs. Bill moaned again and leaned forward on the island so she could reach better. Tiffany took the moment to touch his back, and when her hands crept under his t-shirt, he didn't protest; the massage was too good. 

When the alarm rang from the oven to tell them the potatoes were done, both of them sighed a little, but Bill was too hungry to not take them out. 

They ate in silence but smiled at each other a bit. Bill could feel a strong attraction to her, but when they had said goodnight, he once again heard Sienna's voice in his head. 

××× 

There was a knock on his door the next morning. Bill started to feel like there were a bit too many people visiting his bedroom, and he pulled the covers over his head. 

“Bill? Come on, open! You know you break the contract if you don't do what I say!” shouted Herman through the door. Bill kicked off the cover aggressively, threw the door open, and looked down at Herman with a menacing stare. Herman swallowed hard. 

“Hey?”

Bill laughed unamused and shook his head when he walked into the room again. 

“Herman, I thought we were friends, but fuck man, I don't even know who you fucking are.” 

“Hm?” Herman clearly expressed he was worried. It was obvious he thought he would be able to be a good drama starter and a friend to Bill at the same time. 

“Sienna told me about your plan. You know, make a fool out of me.” 

Bill pulled on the sweatpants he had the day before but left his upper body bare. Herman stood and looked at him in regret. They were friends, but maybe he had forgotten about Bill's feelings. 

“I just… It was just a good story, you know the female viewers would feel so sorry for you and hate Sienna and-” 

“But that's not fair to her either! She just wants to go home to her son!” 

"Yeah, but she also knows this is a TV show; we need to create a good storyline.” 

Bill scoffed and shook his head. 

“But now that didn't happen, Sienna has left, and we can inform the viewers and girls nicely that she has left, okay?” 

Bill was quiet; he just sat down in bed, stretching out his long legs with his fingers entwined on his head. 

“Okay?” Said Herman again with worry. He didn't want to hurt his friend, even if it maybe seemed that way. Bill didn't even think about what Herman had done anymore because he couldn't get rid of the anxious feeling—the feeling that he had lost something. 

“Okay,” he said lowly and then sighed. He wasn't amused by the thought of continuing this journey. 

“Camila broke in here yesterday,” he continued, mostly to think about something else. 

“What?” Said Herman with a little laugh. Bill smirked and shook his head in disbelief. “She wanted me badly,” he joked, but then looked at Herman more seriously. “She had a key; I don't know where she got it from, but she broke in here.” 

“That's fucking crazy!” exclaimed Herman as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “But… Did you do anything with her?” 

Bill side-eyed him. 

“Of course not! She broke into my bedroom; who knows what other crazy shit she can do?” 

Herman nodded with big eyes. 

“She has broken the rules, you know. Do you want us to send her home?” 

Bill sat and looked up at the ceiling. He hesitated; he had already lost a girl he hadn't given a fair chance to, but this was different, so he nodded. 

“Yeah, she's fucking crazy.” 

Herman nodded.

“I guess this breakfast will be really strange. Two women leaving, one missing.” He then smirked at Bill. 

“You make some great TV, man.” 

××× 

Around the big table in Bill's dining room sat just six women; they all looked confused at each other. Three women were missing, and the table wasn't even set for them. Bill walked into the room awkwardly, dressed in a cream cuban shirt and dark jeans. He smiled a little, even if the girls mostly looked confused. Some of them wondered if the three women already were at a secret location for a group date, but Bill's awkward, bothered look told them something else. 

On his plate lay a white envelope with a red heart, screaming to be opened, but he didn't feel like reading it. He sat down and took the envelope in his hands, opened it, and then read it silently to himself. He could feel all six pairs of eyes on him. There wasn't anything secret in the letter, and he really didn't want to read out loud what it said, so instead he gave it to Tiffany, who sat closest to him. She gave him a confused look. 

“Should I read it? Out loud?”

Bill just nodded a little and leaned back in his chair. 

Tiffany looked down on the letter but started to read it without doing it for herself first. 

“Good morning! As you all notice, we’re missing three women around the table. 

Sandra will be back for the next ceremony. She was forced to go home because of a crisis in her family.

Sienna chose by herself to leave the program because of private reasons. 

We sent Camila home early this morning because of rule-breaking. We want to remind you all that this production demands respect for everyone involved, especially towards Bill who is our host. Any rule breaking will lead to elimination.” 

×

[perfectfangirl]

notes after rewatching fallout s1 ep7

• the beginning of this episode shows two characters dressed in gear that's very ncr [new california republic] and to me, it's a very fallout: new vegas scene and fallout: new vegas thing • a father and son of lead farmers. depicted as honest, humble folk. oh cooper's here sitting at their table in their house eating their dinner 💀 • the man, adam, calls for his daughter, sandra. cooper continues to eat the delicious, nutritious meal. adam has a horrified expression on his face • sandra, a young girl, walks over and gives cooper something to drink. she... appears unafraid of cooper. she appears to treat him as one would a guest. cooper says "thank you, darling"--- i almost forgot about this but this was the nicest thing he has said post war to anybody in this show

• lmao the wasteland thinks so little of ghouls, this guy thought this man had cooked and eaten his daughter 😭 • "oh, wait... you thought...? come on now." cooper responds as he laughs at the thought, the wasteland and ghoul perception is that bad omg help • adam tells sandra to go outside. tbh i am starting to believe the theory cooper is much more nicer to women and girls than he is males but i digress anyways • cooper seemed to genuinely laugh and say a nice thing for once to someone here, the lucy juice must be working • "lead farming, huh? why, hell, i probably still got some of your lead in me somewhere." i cannot understand what cooper is talking about here. i was trying to figure if they knew each other like that but i wasn't connecting enough and feel like i am missing information again. • cooper and adam may seem to know one another but cooper came to ask adam about moldaver • "i'll tell you anything, as long as you leave us in peace." sigh

• adam looks like he has a scar on his face, wonder where he got it from • cooper inquires about how many kids adam has. adam reveals the oldest ran off to be a part of moldaver's movement and calls moldaver "that madwoman in the hills" • cooper asks adam if his oldest is named roofus. adam mentions he never said his oldest's name and cooper deduces the young male beside adam is tommy • tommy looks afraid and looks like he gulps as adam asks him "what did you do?" • cooper saying "well, you see, daddyo…" has got to be like the fifth time he says "daddy" in this show 😭💀, like what is his obsession with referring to people's fathers this way [time to hurt? probably because he's been searching two hundred years for the person who use to call him that so that word is always on his mind anyway 😞]

• cooper unfolds the letter and is it revealed to have a blood stained hole in it, adam's older son roofus got adam's youngest son tommy mixed in with moldaver's dealings, roofus was the one who sent tommy caps to pay a courier to transport siggi safely to moldaver • "but my problem is, by the time i got this letter off your brother, it was a little bit hard to read." cooper says holding up the bloody letter hole as he uses an eye to peer through it--- cooper you scary mf 😭 • "now, you give me the location, and i'll be on my way." cooper states. tommy tells his father sorry. tommy is so young. adam begins to plead with tommy to tell cooper the location. tommy replies "i didn't want to spend my life digging through dirt. i want to build something and we have the chance…" before tommy can say anymore, adam implores tommy "tell him what he wants to know! he's gonna kill us all! including your sister." [don't think i believe that last part but] • my question is… i wonder why the letter wasn't written in code… • "she's at the observatory" tommy says in the calmest sounding voice. moldaver's location is revealed just like that • how did cooper know that tommy would want to come after him? has he seen this movie before? • i suppose revenge is an obvious motivator for tommy on cooper for killing roofus but it not also being something adam or even sandra would pursue is interesting as well [they're not mixed in with moldaver and she's a young child he has to care for] • adam saying he won't ☹️ • before tommy can grab the rifle, cooper shoots him. cooper slowly gets up, reholsters his gun, gathers his things, puts on his hat, and departs without another word • weirdly not convinced tommy is dead, it looks like a shot to the shoulder. he just doesn't seem like it but i digress • adam is left crying with his sons' choices, being left only with sandra

• cooper continues his journey in the desert, his expression is a little enigmatic to me but. he inhales a chem under the baking sun • found it so curious cooper had the thought to take his hat off when entering someone's house? this was the first time. it got knocked off at sorrel's outpost and stayed on for all other indoor scenes. parallel this with him pre war going to moldaver's meeting at hollywood forever cemetery with a hot on and taking it off by the time the meeting starts [such a gentleman! 💀] • as cooper treks across the wasteland, moldaver speaking in the meeting in pre war is overlaid. almost as if he was remembering it • "what's it about california that we all came to this place?" i don't know but that place fucking rocks • cooper goes into moldaver's meeting with preconceived notions to begin with, he's already squirming in his seat when she begins her speech • "when you think of the promise of the american dream, you think of california. but it is just that, a dream. it's not real. we were told the atom bomb meant the end of war. that didn't work out, did it? we were told america's always getting better. it's always moving toward a better future. but the future is getting closer, and we can see it. their "better future" is a cliff's edge. and it's coming up fast, isn't it?" moldaver talked for a few minutes and told not a single lie. not a single one. • moldaver's quote in particular "their "better future" is a cliff's edge" is one of the most realest meta statements in the show, it's too good--- • "these soldiers that we're fighting abroad, their families, we have more in common with them than we do with the people here in power, the real enemy" is the final straw for cooper. he decides it's time for him to leave. but not before quipping "that's about all the horseshit i can take." • moldaver pauses her insightful and real ass speech to ask cooper what he said. so he repeats himself. moldaver hits him with a "i didn't realize america's favourite gunslinger was so sensitive". this draws a laugh or two from the attendants. it's poking fun at that manufactured hollywood persona of him being this manly man i guess. what i do take notice is that yes, cooper is sensitive. we know that. he is both sensitive about his principles and sensitive about the principles of others and the critique of such [i.e. the next conversation after this meeting ending up being about him figuring about him spying on his wife because moldaver asks him to interrogate his morality and barb's] • cooper then says "i have my principles, miss williams, that's all." isn't it crazy that cooper use to be someone that even when he disagreed with someone fundamentally, he was still respectful and decent? he had a whole argument with barb and she raised her voice more. compare when cooper got mad at lucy when his vials got crushed in the bait scene. he yelled then pulled his gun on her. lucy literally had to explain how absurd he was being in doing that because her not wanting to be bait and her using his bag to defend herself was not unreasonable. the gap is almost astonishing. that's the same guy. use to be. • [moldaver use to go by the last name williams, i see]

• cooper keeps responding but attempting to leave while he does but again moldaver pokes and prods. "uh huh. and those principles of yours, how much did vault tec pay to take them off your hands?" oh he's getting flamed now • lmao they show the meeting attendants playing tennis watching cooper and moldaver go back and forth • "well, this is america. everyone has a sponsor and, uh, i'm not ashamed to earn a living." "vault tec is the largest company in america. there's a lot of money in selling the end of the world." "well, i'm sure there's a lot of money in selling a political ideology that ends in breadlines." "fascist" is this not my college sociology class, good god--- • subtitles coming in clutch again! because the camera pans so i can't see who says it but i full well assume it was moldaver who called cooper a fascist, didn't even hear it the first watch • no wonder charlie intervened. it got a little heated forreal. didn't even know they made a near direct wwii? reference like that idk • charlie is so embarrassed, he says "this was a mistake. we'll be leaving" 😢

• if not for the "fascist" statement, i would've thought this was another tuesday afternoon for moldaver. but she thanks charlie for bringing cooper. then drops the plot twist that she knows barb like that • i do not! know! why they made cooper smile in this scene, but thank you director • cooper and moldaver take a walk and we discover that barb's division at vault tec acquired moldaver's research company. and before all this, they were developing technology that was hard to monetize. the cold fusion. the infinite energy. the reason for the entirety of season one after the bombs drop. still. • "that's what i was on the verge of achieving when vault tec swept in and bought up every company i'd ever worked for" [spooky af, fellas!] "every one of them? so what are you, a millionaire communist?" cooper sarcastically replies with. • moldaver then says "hypocrisy is like violence in your movies. if you only let the bad guys use it, the bad guys win." cooper then goes on "yeah? i, uh i got a little showbiz secret for you. a good bad guy doesn't see themselves as the bad guy." this show is sick because this could go for cooper, barb, bud, hank, lucy, maximus, the brotherhood of steel, vault tec, china, i could keep going, help

• moldaver says something else i find unsettling "america has been locked in a resource war for over a decade. vault tec bought the means to end that war, the same war you fought in. so they could put it on the shelf. all because it didn't fit into their business model." the revelation is nutty • moldaver basically asks for cooper's help in getting the resource back [by spying on barb] • actually super crazy how easy it was to get cooper to spy on barb but at the same time... he's been questioning and doubting. we all already know she keeps stuff from him. plus the "no dogs allowed in the vaults" was the tipping point • the way cooper looked at the listening device and his bewildered? smile slowly fades from his face once he realizes the implications • him responding with "good luck with the revolution" was funny gldldl • moldaver reveals the real reason people are being called communists "i'm not a communist, mr. howard. that's just a dirty word they use to describe people who aren't insane." • this whole scene still got me wanting answers for so much. i still want to know how moldaver made it to the wasteland and how is it that destiny placed cooper to help her get her resource back pre war but now in the post war wasteland, cooper is bounty hunting her. wouldn't be surprised if there's more moldaver flashbacks in future seasons

• lucy is unknowingly fucking up the rotation in vault 4. overseer benjamin [in a move that maybe should've happened to begin with 😭] shows lucy the tape of vault 4's experiment • "we let you into our home. tended to your wounds, gave you food and water." birdie informs lucy. second viewing makes me feel so bad for all that havoc they caused these already traumatized and victimized people like • "but you had to go to level 12" please somebody write them a review and change how y'all handle this for newcomers 😭 • lucy thinks the residents of vault 4 are taking people and experimenting on them. but she is wrong. she got it all wrong • overseer benjamin and birdie had to kinda retraumatize themselves and be vulnerable for lucy to get it • as the tape plays, lucy asks "what is this?" "your history" birdie says--- oof • lucy getting another disillusionment dose this time as a video of vault tec's fucked up experiments

• lmao the tape is so fucked up but funny--- doctor lloyd and doctor cassandra hawthorne are clinically insane scientists with no moral compass and a villain complex. ironically they starred in the vault tec vault ads with cooper, their vault being the one where they run a sort of scientocratic technocracy in the wake of nuclear warfare. their experiment did not succeed. or... maybe it did but not because of them but because of vault 4's victims and shady sands survivors • doctor lloyd begins the tape with "ok. overseer hawthorne. final log entry. at this point, it would be irrational of me not to acknowledge that these may be my last words" he looks scared but also frantic, like something is coming after them [and it so is] "but despite our results here, i want to reiterate that a society governed by scientists..." he is interrupted by doctor cassandra trying to barricade the door. she calls him "honey" hehehe "really is the ideal social structure.." it is not. 💀

• doctor lloyd, what he's saying, is like farce. how is this, a society governed by scientists an ideal social structure? when they are being revolted by the very people they experimented on • "what happened here should not be used as a case study for what happens when scientists are given unregulated control." lmao we know it is though • some of doctor lloyd's final statements being vault tec corporate managerial evil "and hybridizing humans with radioactive resistant species still has potential. our test subjects were less compliant than we expected" they could've used an ethics oversight committee but anyways 💀 overseen benjamin's great uncle peter ate doctor lloyd and doctor cassandra tf up • almost wonder if great uncle peter was the same gulper that swallowed siggi's head lol

• overseer benjamin is saddened by rewatching the footage as lucy expresses confusion between the tape and the scene she saw herself on level 12. "i don't understand, in the lab, i saw your doctors..." lucy trails before birdie finishes "trying to ease the pain of the poor souls your people lured into this place." now the operative word in this statement is "your". does birdie know what vault lucy is from and what it means and what they've done there? or as a shady sands surviving wastelander is she talking about people born in the vaults who got there because of vault tec? • birdies goes on "his ancestors were used as lab rats. by the original residents of vault 4. until the lab rats rebelled." • lucy feeling really stupid and bad apologizes immediately. lucy tells them her vault is simply not like this. overseer benjamin asks lucy what their vault experiment was. lucy states there is no experiment. again i say, vault 31, 32, 33 experiment is a success--- overseer benjamin and birdie exchange glances. every vault has an experiment.

• "your ignorance cannot excuse your cruelty. you have infected our home with violence." is such a banger coming from birdie, it's so therapized • birdie tells lucy she'll pay the price for all this, guards come and seize lucy, put a black bag over her head, and take her away. as lucy is hauled off from storage, she pleads with her captors "please, please, i'm a good person" look how slippery this slope has gotten • lucy wants to do the right thing. and yet. has found herself being the offender in this situation. • maximus is in the lap of post apocalyptic luxury as he sees lucy being lead down the hallway in front of his unit. he wordlessly vows to do something about it 🥲 [ok knight in shining armour] • the way maximus is eating the popcorn in this scene lgdgldlf

• meanwhile! a secondary character is in possession of siggi's head 😭 • dogmeat is pulling on the squire equipment thaddeus is dragging because siggi's head is in it 😞 • thaddeus has been hobbling across the wasteland with dogmeat and this squire pack, he stops to sit inside the trunk of a rusted car. the full extent of thaddeus' injuries are shown as he carefully exposes his mangled as shit foot • "oh shit. i'm gonna fucking die" thaddeus says realizing his foot looks so goddamn bad lmao 😭 • dogmeat being a dog starts licking thaddeus' eviscerated ass foot, to his disdain • thaddeus starts? berating? dogmeat? 😭 "you know what? if you were a person, you wouldn't have any friends, you realize that?" not a bully talking like thisss • thaddeus pulling out siggi's head "this stupid fucking thing. oh, you want this too, huh?" everybody wants this. guess what? it's mine." and not for long • "you think everything's for you. it's pretty selfish, actually, you know that? bite what you want to bite, go where you want to go. it's always something." why is thaddeus talking to this dog like this, like how lucy was talking to that mr. handy 😭

• i do not like that thaddeus stuffed dogmeat in the nuka cola dispenser leaving her to die--- this show had somebody eating another person's uncooked flesh but this move upset me because dogmeat ain't got opposable thumbs 😭 • sure thaddeus made sure dogmeat could breathe but he was annoyed with her, he so wasn't coming back 😭 like that's a baby • thaddeus' plan is to contact the brotherhood of steel about the head and gain glory from it • you know what's wild about thaddeus putting dogmeat in the nuka cola dispenser is that dogmeat could have easily attacked thaddeus and killed him before all this. so it's really so much she got stuffed in that thing, she was whimpering and everything, please--- • it's so curious that in this scene, it looks like it's both snowing and raining

• lmao so lucy thinks she's about to get executed for her crimes against vault 4 • also can you blame her? they're all chanting in a room with her restrained in the center across from a mf scimitar 😭 • while the audience is chanting eating popcorn, lucy is pulling at and gnawing at her rope restraints lgdgldfl • birdie begins during this time "we are all survivors here. lucky enough to have found this sanctum of peace. of tolerance. it doesn't matter where you come from or what you believe. you deserve safety. unless... you threaten that peace." looking back, birdie told not a single lie and again • overseen benjamin picks up the huge scimitar, raising it "for causing harm to a fellow survivor, you are hereby sentenced to death... by banishment." lucy flinches but then realises as overseer benjamin slams the apparently dull scimitar on lucy's restraints. this was all ritualistic and ceremonial gdldlldg • noticed the doctor lucy burned earlier is also shown in the crowd cheering, he has a patch on his face, he seems ok 💀 • lucy expressed surprise at them letting her go, them not exactly realizing where she's been and maybe assuming she's only just been mostly in her vault. "you'll be killed almost immediately on the surface by lord knows what." lmaooo "that's why we're giving you two weeks of supplies to take with you" 😭 • lucy is being banished and given supplies, it's so crazy like • [overseer benjamin thanks the vault dweller for handing him the supplies, so less of a jerk here lol] • they want lucy gone immediately tho 💀 • lucy realising by association for maximus so she says "my friend really likes it here. and he's a good person. he deserves to be somewhere nice and safe, like this. i know i'm not really in the position to be asking for favours but... can he stay?" lucy is really thoughtful and selfless here. but y'all knew that 🥲 • ironic that lucy is banished and attempts to vouch for maximus' character, meanwhile, maximus steals that whole vault's fusion core to rescue lucy--- guess who else getting banished 😭 • why is the room to the fusion core not guarded though fsgkdkg • lucy tries to warn maximus but he goes on a mini rampage in vault 4, causing chaos, throwing people around, wasting food, having residents cowering in fear. all this because he thought lucy was in a pickle 😭 • all maximus has to say for himself is "oops" and "sorry" and "maybe somebody check on him" and the guy is not moving lmao • out on the surface lucy and maximus argue about maximus taking vault 4's fusion core. backup power would only last a few days and lucy demands he return it. maximus' explanation is he needs the fusion core to power the power suit. lucy tells him giving it back is the right thing to do. maximus explains he can't be a knight without the fusion core. lucy pointedly tells him he's not really a knight if he steals anyways. • maximus wants to use the armour to help lucy and in relinquishing the fusion core back to vault 4, it may mean not finding hank. without a single moment's hesitation, lucy says "if my dad found out that i destroyed an entire community to save him, that'd break his heart."--- how cruel the irony and parallel and reverse • it makes her reaction at the observatory that so much more soul crushing knowing hank didn't think twice bombing shady sands. that he wrecked a whole community in regards to her. that she never even considered it meanwhile he's done it at least twice • lucy talks maximus into doing the right thing ™

• back in the hawthorne institute building, maximus drops the fusion core back to vault 4. lucy asks maximus "thinking 'bout those oysters?" "mhm". it feels like lucy wants to make it up to maximus, this whole thing. lucy's vault doesn't have oysters but they have canned tuna and she thinks maximus might still enjoy it. maximus isn't really thinking about what she's saying in the same way she is until • "i was supposed to marry a stranger from another vault. it didn't turn out so good." ☹️ • lucy continues to tell maximus "i don't have the best luck when it comes to strangers... i can honestly say you are the best stranger that i've ever met. you're a good person, titus. and if you wanted to, when all this is over, you could come and live with us in vault 33. with me." this scene is painful because, before the finale, it's all well and good. but maximus' web of lies and then the brotherhood of steel having cold fusion and on top of norm uncovering the crime of the century in vault 31, 32, 33 means this all was a pipe dream. it was so sweet. but vault tec is evil ☹️ • maximus finally breaks down and tells lucy the full and honest truth. "my name isn't titus. it's maximus. titus is the name of the knight who owned this suit before me. he was threatening me, so instead of helping him i watched him die. and i took his armour and i lied to you." the way before maximus did this, lucy told him to "just say yes" to her asking him to come stay at her vault 😞 • maximus doesn't think he's a good person. then lucy reveals she splashed acid in an innocent man's face. nothing stays clean up here • even after all this, lucy still asks maximus to come live with her in her vault 😢 • lucy been in this mf for two weeks lmao

• ok so i get why thaddeus was at the post apocalyptic radio station, because dj carl had a signal [and some pre war music] • thaddeus is listening in and i only noticed now that dj carl said he does not receive visitors to the station and this explains why it was booby trapped 😭 • the next shot is the snake oil salesman putting a gun to his mouth ready to put himself on a shirt. wild. he sees thaddeus and immediately runs after him to sell one of his disturbing little drugs to him • "don't kill me! i'm a doctor. i can help you." 😭 insane • the snake oil salesman called thaddeus' fucked up foot a "tattered tootsy" gfldgldgd • as the snake oil salesman explains his repertoire, thaddeus pulls out and cocks his gun, the snake oil salesman can see thaddeus do this in the reflection of the mirror on the mantelpiece. oof. "what's stopping me from just killing you and taking your whole thing of drugs?" thaddeus blurts out. somebody come get this mannn. snake oil salesman really has to tell thaddeus that only he knows which elixir will cure or kill him, thaddeus is crazy for pulling the blicky out like this

• thaddeus trading a fusion core for idk eternal life is somethin'. what is the snake oil salesman gone do with that? hmmm • i think the snake oil salesman gave him the real deal because a fusion core is like high payment • the concoction is like regeneration but tastes bad. almost thought thaddeus got poisoned he was coughing so hard, thaddeus' foot heals very well [but still appears broken] • the snake oil salesman tells thaddeus the radios station is near shady sands but thaddeus is like? it's radioactive there and the snake oil salesman is like "well, you don't have to worry about that anymore, do you, buddy boy?" ayyy lmao what did he give him? did he give him something to turn him into a super mutant? ghoulification? thing? why did he say this??

• back in vault 33, norm is feeding the imprisoned raiders everyday. then i notice they reprise "what a diff'rence a day makes" by dinah washington, same song used in episode 5 when vault 33 enters vault 32 where it's all been cleaned away, it's the coverup song • veronica is blamed for the raider prisoners being poisoned but i didn't understand why she was implicated, she didn't make or serve the food [sounds like a coverup] • but. rat poison is often slow acting. so this is why i think the raider prisoners were poisoned over time • "what did i tell you, norman? words have meaning" overseer betty tells him. i don't particularly think she had anything to do with this. steph on the other hand... • but isn't it wild overseer betty starts the "resettlement initiative" before hardly leaving the mass casualty event • [this is forced resettlement btw] • this show is real for realistically showing recovering from a baby by having steph icing her private area lol

• norm goes to visit chet and registers that chet has been moved to vault 32 [norm is losing a cousin and friend 😭] • i say steph was strategic with getting with chet because of the conversation norm and chet go on to have • norm asks chet "so you're gonna forget about everything we've seen?" then chet "i feel like this is a good moment for a fresh start." "you think so?" "someone obviously does." and i wonder who that someone is • norm is obviously, naturally, and rightfully upset at this. "you're a coward. you know know that, chet?" chet returns norm a smile laced with fear and astutely surmises "we all are, norm. that's why we live in a vault." chet closes the unit door ending the conversation with norm. • chet giving a succinct response to the state of affairs for vault dwellers that even norm himself can't escape still has me

• cooper is a bloodhound. he comes upon the dilapidated red rocket gas station thaddeus was at, sees some blood on the ground and tastes it. what for, your guess is as good as mine 😭 • cooper hears whimpering from the nuka cola dispenser 😭 he lets dogmeat out and says something unhinged "alright, let's go find your daddy" i can't tell if he's already dropping the accent here but 🥲 • in the past, not only are we greeted with another radiation king but also a scene directly related to cooper and his dog, roosevelt • cooper is taking hits off his old fashioned smoking pipe, reading a magazine, roosevelt laying in his lap. king starts eying barb's unattended pip boy on the counter • cooper bugs that bad boy while barb is none the wiser

• colour analysis time again! because they're wearing the same [and maybe the exact] colours and outfits from episode 5, barb is in all blue [no reds or pinks] and cooper is in his signature blue and yellow. janey appears to be in blue and yellow in this scene too! with mostly yellow like cooper. interesting. • cooper has full blown started spying on his wife but gets cold feet after gazing at roosevelt. "you're right, roosevelt. what are you thinking." cooper says, a mix between talking to his dog and himself 😢 he throws the listening device in the trash. cooper loves and trusts barb so much. too much. • the scene transitions to a dichotomy, barb restfully sleeping in bed, again none the wiser, not a care, it seems. then there is cooper--- nursing a cigarette, watching the vault tec vault 4 ad he filmed for the ill fated doctor lloyd and doctor cassandra. cooper cannot sleep. this is a metaphor for their individual consciences.

• cooper is outside now in the witching hour with roosevelt sifting through trash looking for the listening device. "no dogs in the vault, huh?" cooper says after finally finding it. cooper loved roosevelt so much, he was willing to upend his marriage and discover a corporate conspiracy over him, i could cry 😭 • cooper lovingly kisses roosevelt on the head and no sooner does the scene cut to post war cooper refusing attention from dogmeat telling her "i'm sorry, dogmeat, but you ain't him." cooper has all but dropped his accent when speaking this to dogmeat, his sad and hurt mask slipping • i guess dj carl was only booby trapping for angry critics because he let thaddeus use the radio to hit up the brotherhood of steel lol • thaddeus asking about the critics of dj carl's music with dj carl responding "oh, people get fully mad." 😂 now that thaddeus is healed, he's much nicer, even acting a bit cute lol • refinement and taste for the arts still being in the wasteland tho gdldflgdl • "great job on these bobby traps, by the way" 😭 and it's still got bodies in them, help 😭 • thaddeus points and says "that one's crazy", tears in my eyes. really is some shit out of the fallout games • dj carl goes "critics." shaking his head with thaddeus ironically saying "yeah. people just, uh, can't be nice" 😭 same guy almost shot the snake oil salesman before he cured him

• dj carl sees lucy and maximus walking up and asks thaddeus if they're his ride. thaddeus takes out his gun and dj carl is like "guess not. ok." and closes the window to his radio station quick lmao • the signs around the radio station say "no visitors", "no requests", "keep out", and "no trespassing violators will be executed" 💀 • lmao idk if he was panicking or what but thaddeus starts shooting and unloads his entire clip--- lucy and maximus are so fucking confused, checking to see if they've been hit, "god, i suck without a scope" thaddeus shot like fifteen times 😭 • lucy and maximus raise their hands after all that, lucy informs thaddeus she was the one who cut siggi's head off • thaddeus forgets where he is because he walks backwards into a booby trap and a whole. arrow. goes through his neck 😫 lucy is mortified and so am i ❤️ • when thaddeus tries to talk, it sounds gurgly, he doesn't get why he's not dead but takes the arrow out, lucy and maximus look like they want to vomit gldgldfld • idk how they can see from that distance but everyone notices thaddeus' wound heals up. maximus thinks thaddeus is a ghoul now [maybe a super mutant instead?] • "aw, i'm so stupid" i should've never trusted a doctor that smelled like that." please?? • dj carl opens the hatch to see the brotherhood of steel approaching then promptly closes it • lucy asks "the brotherhood is the good guys?" tell me why thaddeus and maximus was like "uh, it's a complicated organization" not them knowing this faction is 💀 • i realized thaddeus did a 180° on wanting to give the brotherhood of steel siggi's head because maximus convinced him he was some type of altered person [whether ghoul or super mutant] and the brotherhood of steel discriminates against both • maximus lets thaddeus flee, by taking the head--- thaddeus is so? because why did he tell lucy and maximus "uh, i'm sorry about... a lot of things and i didn't mean for... ok, nice meeting you. bye!" i cannot even explain how funny it is to see maximus pull a pacifist speech check by getting everyone out of that alive fldgdlfld • maximus buys lucy time to take siggi's head to moldaver while he uh lies to the brotherhood of steel to give her time to get hank, he gets a head from the radio station fdlgdlf • "find your dad. go home. that's what i want for you" ☹️ • "they're never gonna stop looking for the artifact" the brotherhood of steel always find out • lucy and maximus kiss like they'll never see each other again. the two heads in their respective arms also lock lips 💀 lucy and maximus kiss twice [this one's for you vaultknight] • dj carl opens his porthole and smiles. i am howling. • maximus is given something he's probably not had since childhood but anyways 🥲 • kind of a diss for overseer betty to say the people selected for vault 32 from vault 33 have "been chosen for agreeability, stick-to-itiveness, and all of the other qualities that make for a successful pioneer" what about the ones not chosen from vault 33? sheesh • woody gets cold feet, he doesn't want to go live in vault 32. but it is not up to woody--- he is stopped by vault guards. there is no choice [this is a dictatorship i guess] • they treat woody's desire to not be forcefully moved as an outburst by him. they wait for his dissent to turn back into compliance. it is crazy.

• who would have guessed steph would become overseer of vault 32 • norm has had enough and leaves the ceremony, the last glimpse of chet's face not unlike woody's had been • not sure how norm gets to slip by but he decides to play detective again at a terminal • under the guise of being overseer betty, norm pretends there's a problem as an excuse to talk to overseer 31 • this is fallout's version of the internet lol • noticing norm is talking to a brain in a jar, bud askins, is crazyyy--- idk how often overseer betty and him talk but bud fell for the bait quickly • norm posing as overseer betty goes to vault 31, watching it open as he once again is able to open a door with a lock he didn't even have to pick

• one thing about this episode i want to talk more about is the fact that yes, the wasteland is cruel and unforgiving and even still it can also be warm and loving and as evidenced by the survivors of vault 4, they were weird but nice. just like maximus said about lucy. they went out of their way to help lucy and maximus and those two could've spent the rest of their life there, probably. thank goodness the test subject victims revolted. they turned a hellhole into a home. • any other place, lucy would've been harmed for hurting an innocent person and the fact is that they banished her to the surface, let her live, gave her supplies 😭 vault 4 were the nicest, most compassionate people in the show. i really loved seeing a flower in the desert like that • vault 4 prospers not because but in spite of doctor lloyd's and doctor cassandra's experiments • i hope to see more of vault 4 • another thing i wanted to touch on was something i noticed for a few episodes now and i addressed last episode. and it's that poc in this show are the canary in the coal mine, the alarm system, for the going's on with vault tec and the larger societal conspiracy of greed and power grabbing through war. charlie, moldaver, birdie. to name a few. i could make more cases. but anyways, poc being on the ground trying to tell the world about self cannibalizing systems we live under falling on deaf and delusional ears are not lost on me

[lacependragon]

One of my favourite Debbie moments in season two is when she goes to text Mark in episode three, after his first day at college. She's texted him several times and he hasn't answered (we have context, she doesn't).

She actively types out her passive aggressive message. She types out the vindictive little message that her bad mental health is encouraging her to send. We see her debate it. We see her rephrase it. We see her think about it.

And then she deletes it entirely and writes something nice. She doesn't send it, but she types out the nice thing.

It's. So important to me that Debbie gets that moment. She's in a stressful situation where she doesn't know who she can tell the truth to, she's struggling with isolation and depression, and she has no idea how to handle this pain and loss she's feeling.

So for a moment. Just a moment. She wants to be mean. She wants to be passive aggressive. She wants Mark to feel guilty because she hurts and she misses him and she feels like she's losing her son right after she lost her husband. She's struggling with so many feelings toward Mark and herself and she loves him so much-

And so she's allowed to be flawed. To get frustrated. To get upset. But she's also allowed to realize she's being unreasonable and course correct. Because she's a good person and a good mother and she's going through a lot. And so much of that is conveyed in just that short moment.

The fucking depth to this woman. The writing. The animation. The thought that goes into every part of her character. And Sandra Oh seriously nails every tiny inflection in her voice. Just a perfect character and an amazing mother, truly.

[lucyfrostblade]

Hi! Just saw your reblog and I'm so interested in your thoughts on Fig and Kipperlilly being similar, and was wondering if you'd share?

Yes! i am always down to talk about my two favorite fantasy high characters but before we get into it, some assumptions I have made about FHJY that aren't explicit in the text but I won't necessarily be justifying here:

(under the cut)

Kipperlilly was in some form or another manipulated by porter

Kipperlilly truly cared about Lucy, and to a lesser extent the rest of her party

The biggest and most obvious similarity between the two is the anger they feel. When we first see Fig she's a deeply angry kid. She hates her mom for hiding the truth of her parentage and for wrecking their family the way she did. And while she forgives Gilear much faster than Sandra Lynn, she also starts off incredibly angry at him.

Her anger is very justified, and it's centered around the ways the adults in her life mistreated her. Sandra Lynn by hiding the fundamental truth of who she is from her for so long, and Gilear by, before the start of the series, saying that she isn't a Faeth anymore.

Our introduction to Fig is her taking that anger out on both Sandra Lynn and Gilear, and she does almost immediately see the error of her treating at least Gilear the way she does.

Brennan: You see a little tear forms in his eye and you see he says, Gilear: I know that I said some hurtful things when I first found out. Fig: Yeah, you said, “You're no longer a Faeth,” and guess what, I'm not. I'm just Fig now. Gilear: Fig, I'm sitting here with beans on my shirt. Fig: I know, I saw you ate one on the ride here. Gilear: I was hungry, all right? I've put on some weight. You ever heard of a fat elf? You ever heard of it? I've never seen a fat elf in my life and I'm here with a bad comb over and beans on my shirt. Fig: Okay, fine. Gilear: And I'm reaching out to you. Fig: I'm sorry, Gilear, I'm sorry that I got angry at you. You're just some random man, I shouldn't be mean to you.

But for almost the entire season, Fig does not forgive Sandra Lynn. She's still so angry with her that she struggles to see Sandra Lynn as a complex person right up until episode 15 "Family Fires", is unsure as to whether or not Sandra Lynn is a good person worthy of saving:

Emily: Because I am undecided on my mom. Because at first, I felt like I, oh maybe she's a good person, but now I maybe feel like she's part of this ruby plot. Brennan: Go ahead and give me an insight check. Emily: (rolls) 14. (emotional acoustic guitar music) Brennan: (sighs) Your mom has never lived up to the standard you put on her of making your life good and perfect. She never was able to protect you from all harm and suffering in the world. And maybe that's not fair. And she's probably just a person, and those photos make it look like-- Emily: She's a complex person. She's allowed to be. Brennan: Yup.

So anger, and in particular the ways it can make someone lash out, is something that Fig is intimately aware of, something that she has had to fight to control herself. The difference is that the adults in her life helped her, they supported her. Gilear, Sandra Lynn, and Gorthalax all gave her the space she needed to be angry but also helped her move past that.

Kipperlilly didn't have that. To our knowledge she only had Jawbone, someone who only knew her through Aguefort and evidently did not know how to help her in the ways she needed.

There's also the matter of Porter who, in the third episode "After the Afterlife" singles Fig out when she audits barbarian class:

Porter: Let's see what everyone else in the class, [players laugh] what do other people, what do other people kind of think? Like young lady, what do you think about rage? Fig: What do I think about rage? Porter: What do you think about it? Fig: [sighs] Well, I kind of think it's inevitable, 'cause, I mean, like, people really let you down left and right. Porter: Yeah! Fig: So you're always gonna feel rage. It's just a matter of whether or not you use it productively or just whether or not you control it or it controls you. Brennan: A small tear forms in the corner of his eye. Porter: That's exactly right. That is exactly right. That is amazing.

He sees something in her. Porter sees the rage within her, and he encourages it. But more than that, Fig's perspective that "you control [rage] or it controls you" highlights another contrast between Fig and Kipperlilly. Fig learns to control her rage, while Kipperlilly literally gives control up to the shatterstar. But they still have that same rage, just on the opposite ends of expressing it.

We also know that Fig cares deeply about her friends, and that prior to the start of the series, her former friends abandoned her when she started to grow horns. She was alone when she came to Aguefort. She was isolated from her peers and from her family. She found the Bad Kids, and she is utterly devoted to her friends. She'll do anything for them.

But Kipperlilly? Brennan said in an interview with Caitlin Tyrrell that the Rat Grinders didn't know each other before forming the party. We don't know how the party formed really, but we know that she picked out the name the High 5 Heroes.

I think the High-Five Heroes part of it is sweet, but there's actually something even a little bit sinister to it to me, of being like, "We're the High-Five Heroes." And you're like, "You've pitched a name; we all just met. We don't have anything going yet." ( source )

He calls it sinister that she insisted on the name, but I can't see it as anything other than said. It speaks to me of a kid so desperate for friendship that she's willing to force inside jokes for just a hint of that. She doesn't want to be alone, and Fig might've put up a better act, but she didn't want to be alone at the start of Freshman Year either.

The difference is who they found. Fig got the Bad Kids, people who love and care about her. She had support from her friends and from her family. Kipperlilly was emotionally in a very similar state as Fig but with none of that support, and even had people who either couldn't support her (Jawbone) or wanted to encourage this isolation and rage (Porter).

Kipperlilly is Fig if the first day of school went different, if she ended up with people who didn't understand her like the Bad Kids did and if she couldn't get the support she needed from the adults in her life.

[earthmoonz]

WIFEY. | EPISODE SEVEN (7.5)

start / previous / next

a/n: amazing tea poses made especially by the lovely @madebycoffee thank you so much! I love them!

(transcript below)

(MAX): …Hi.

(SANDRA): Max, come in.

*

(MAX): Thank you for letting my friend come with me, I’m a bit nervous and-

(SANDRA): Don’t worry about it. Dais mentioned you might not come alone. 

(MAX): Cool. Um-

(SANDRA): D’ya want a cuppa? Me mum’s got all sorts in her cupboard.

(MAX):  Oh! English breakfast would be great if you’ve got it. 

(SANDRA): Alright, [to Lena] Same for you?

(LENA): I’m okay thanks, is it cool if I sit out in the living room? Just to give you two some privacy.

(SANDRA): Go for it. Let me know if you need anything.

**

(SANDRA): So how do you want to do this? Do you have questions or do you want me to just start talking?

(MAX): Um, I guess I have questions? Like, Daisy said you were cellmates so was that for a long time or?

(SANDRA): I met your mum around seven years ago. Typically, when new inmates are inducted, we’re paired up with someone to show us the ropes. Your mum was that for me. I think when I got there she was a few years into her time.

(MAX): Right…and how was she? Was it…hard for her? I mean I know it’s hard for everyone but she asked me to stop visiting quite early on. She told my stepmum it was too much for her and I never got to- Sorry I’m rambling.

(SANDRA): Don’t apologise. Look, your mum and I rarely got into the deeper stuff. We looked out for each other and we tried to keep each other in good spirits. I do know that she loved you very much. She kept a picture of you by her bed, and I know that when she spoke to your stepmum, she asked after you. I don’t have kids myself, but having family visit you inside can be as painful as it is necessary. Not everyone can hack it.

[bellysoupset]

Okay, so, two things:

One, does Leo ever get jealous or upset when he sees kids with loving and caring parents?

Two, maybe a fic where Leo hasn’t been feeling well all day and on his way home he sees a super sweet family with a dad and a cute giggly son, and for some reason his feverish brain combined with the sweetness sends him into a depression episode. And then he goes home and takes Benadryl for his fever and his anti depressants as well, and basically over-sedates himself, and Jon gets home later to find Leo almost completely out of it and he freaks out.

I know you’re doing the mini saga rn, but I was thinking maybe you could do this after?

Sorry if this request is too long!!!😭😭!!😭

I'm sorry it took forever to write this!! This poor fic has been in my drafts for too long, I'm so sorry!

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

Leo knew he was not supposed to covet things that weren't his. That had been a maxim of his father and during most days Leo still agreed to it, all trauma aside.

Except during the holidays. He wasn't sure what was it about the end of the year that brought up the ugliest parts of him. Maybe it was all the fake glee or the longer nights and shorter days or the fact he wasn't practicing nearly as much sports or the fact that consumerism was off the charts and even though he could afford things now, he didn't think he'd ever get rid of that feeling in the pit of his stomach when standing in a cashier line. Maybe it was all that put together.

Or maybe it was the drilling about Holiday Spirit. In his house that had meant discounted alcoholic eggnog and much screaming, his father calling him a "little elf", school being out for recess so him being stuck in a house with no heat and an incredibly pissed off man, who was drunk off his ass.

For everyone else, though, holiday spirit meant being more kind or loving or charitable. Right. Leo rolled his eyes as he watched his coworker boast about the charity he was helping at the end of the year.

There was also the fact that the "philanthropy works" that his colleagues liked to gloated about were more often than not directed at people who were just Leo, except seven years ago.

He pressed on his keyboard with a little more force, rubbing at his temples. He had a headache from all the smells permeating the office — Sandras' peppermint candle, Chuck's cinnamon rolls he had brought for everyone else, Dean's fucking overpowering cologne his girlfriend had gifted him — and the loud noise wasn't making his life any better.

Leo sighed, squinting at his screen. Normally he could do his job in his sleep. Research had always been his forte, even back in high school, and he knew he aced it, because his boss always planted him as the paralegal for the big clients, where the lawyer would need a lot of research help in a short period of time.

Today he was struggling to put two and two together, let alone figure out if there were any similar cases that could serve as their defense. His stomach grumbled and Leo decided he needed a break from Sandra and Dean's incessant bickering, getting up and going to the coffee machine.

"Hey Wagner," Chuck opened a little smile, "what's with the sour face?"

"Headache," Leo answered truthfully, grabbing the biggest paper cup and starting the coffee machine. Damn, he really needed one of these back at home, "it's fine, there's just forty minutes more."

"That sucks man, feel better," Chuck said, but didn't move, "do you have any plans for the holiday break?"

"That's only next month," Leo wrinkled his nose in distaste. Could people stop pre-gaming for December in the middle of fucking November? Halloween had just happened-

"Well, there's thanksgiving," Chuck shrugged, "in less than two weeks."

"Oh," Leo sighed, having completely forgotten thanksgiving. He didn't think he had ever celebrated that.

"Are you going back home?"

Ha!

Leo nearly snorted in his coffee cup, instead changing it halfway so it looked like he was just blowing off the steam, "no, there's n- No. It's just me and Jon, so I'll probably do whatever his plans are."

Which Leo didn't think he had any... Jonah's plans lately were solely eat, sleep, study, hand in his final works for graduation, work. Rinse repeat.

"Hope you guys have fun," Chuck smiled brightly, before side stepping him and walking back to his desk, "get a turkey or something."

"Or something," Leo grumbled, squeezing his eyes and shuddering violently. He was also freezing. He blamed that on Sandra, who just had to wear the fancy coat she got in the designer sale at Nordstrom, so the a/c was at stupidly low levels, for sure.

Even though he had said it was just forty minutes more, they dragged. By the time Leo managed to get out of the office, his headache had escalated significantly and his stomach was hurting, since all he had eaten all day was a pastry at lunch and copious amounts of coffee. He was freezing to the point of his teeth chattering and he it was only when he stepped out of the elevator, buttoning up his coat, that he realized most people didn't seem to be feeling that chilly.

Sandra poked his side, "Wagner, you mind?"

He had stopped right at the ID scan, so he quickly apologized, jumping to the side as she scanned her card and then looked over her shoulder at him, "are you alright?"

"What?" Leo squinted at her, the lights reflecting off her blonde hair.

"Are you feeling alright?" Sandra repeated, "you're quieter than usual, that's all."

"Yeah, uhm..." He shrugged, running his own ID over the scan and joining her as they walked to the parking lot, "I'm fine, I'm just freez-" he shut up, stunned into silence when his co-worker lightly touched his forehead, getting on her tiptoes to reach him.

"You're running a fever there, Wagner," she rolled her eyes, clicking her car keys, "are you alright to drive?"

"Yeah, of course!" His voice came out squeaky at the sudden display of care and Sandra shrugged, smiling at him.

"Alright, take care," she waved, moving away to her designated spot and Leo was left a little stunned into silence, before collecting himself and getting in his own car. He really needed to stop being stubborn and let Bella fix his radio like she had offered, because there was just a terrible silence the entire drive home.

Leo stopped at a red light, just a street away from home and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. Now that Sandra had pointed it out, he couldn't deny the fever. Everything hurt, the sound of the wind howling outside hurt, his head was pounding, the kid's squealing as they walked ahead of their parents on the street...

He watched as a little boy ran back to his father, in a ridiculously large coat. The kid barely reached his dad's hip, he couldn't be over four years old. He was blabbing, cheeks all red and Leo watched the dad let out a chuckle and grab the lapels of his son's coat, covering his face in kisses.

Someone honked behind him and Leo jumped, startled. He had missed the green light.

The remaining 5 minutes to his house, were dark five minutes. Not only because the clouds clumped together to start spilling snow, but because his thoughts started to run down a dangerous road.

This was what he hated the most about the holidays. How his dark thoughts creeped up on him with such ease, how much emphasis was there on family and love and how it highlighted that he was painfully alone in this world. There was no place to go for thanksgiving and there was no father to smooch his face and comfort him and none of the garbage that every single TV ad was showing now.

He avoided the first floor, not in the mood to force a smile for Matthew, and once he got home, Leo went straight to the bedroom, stripping out of his tux jacket and kicking off the shoes.

JD meowed, pushing the door ajar as she entered the room, climbing the bed and forcing herself on his lap even when he paid her no mind. He was too busy trying to undo his tie with one hand, the other one running through the mess of meds they kept in the bedside table drawer.

Vaguely Leo was aware that Jonah kept more meds in the first aid kit, but he couldn't remember where it was and his head was throbbing too much and he felt like fucking crying, so he decided not to go looking. They were out of paracetamol, but still had benadryl and Leo swallowed the little pink pill dry, before opening the drawer right under that one, where he kept his own stuff.

He always took his meds in the morning and then two before bed, but even thought it was only six PM, Leo decided to just taken them already. He wanted to sleep for fifty years, maybe sleep and just... Just stop existing all together.

Leo rubbed his face at the thought, letting out a groan, and his cat let out a meow, forcing her head in the space between his arms.

"Hey," he sighed, scratching her behind the ears, "hey, sweetheart, it's okay. I'm fine. I'm not doing that..." he reassured JD, pulling on the blankets so he could crawl under them. Jonah had left the heater on, but the apartment was still freezing.

JD meowed, chewing on his now undone tie and Leo wrapped an arm around her, thinking that maybe he should get out of the office clothes.... Then fell asleep.

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

Jonah wasn't a festivities type of man. He had never been, not even back when he was a teenager and he definitely wasn't the type now, when he was so stressed about graduation.

Yet, he knew Leo was acting pouty for the past ten days and his bet was that it was related to the holiday season. It was very unlike Leo to not openly complain about what was upsetting him, unless it was something close to his heart, when he closed off like a clam.

So if Leo wanted Holidays, Jonah was going to give him Holidays. Hopefully with a better outcome than Halloween, Jon cringed at the thought.

"What is this?" Jon asked, as Wendy reached inside her car and pushed a big tupperware in his hand.

"Torrone," she said, fishing one of the little white squares, "it's an Italian candy, traditional around Christmas. Vin's mom sells them, but she made a huge first batch and sent him. Here's some for you and Leo."

"But Ma made them for Vince..."

"Vince has half my fridge filled with these," Wendy rolled her eyes, getting in the driver's seat of her car, "just remember to get a picture of Leo eating it so we can send it to ma."

"Alright Dee, bye," Jon sniffed one the little white bars, before turning around to get in his own car. That had been the start of his Christmas mini spree and the reason why he was going up to their apartment now carrying not just the tupperware, but a bunch of little boxes of fairy lights, a wreath and a bag of groceries to make a black forest cake.

Jon wasn't daft, he knew Leo was being terribly considerate with the fact he had all but put their whole relationship in the backburner so he could focus in the school work. He needed to woo the guy a little bit.

"Leo?" Jonah pushed the door open, before crouching down to grab all the items again, "Leo, I got a bunch of shit I think you'll like..." he thought nothing of it when there wasn't an answer, instead starting to put things away. He found a good jar for Ma's little torrones and checked on JD's food bowl, frowning as he realized Leo hadn't fed her yet.

"Leo, did you feed JD? Her bowl is empty..." he said, but still got no answer. Jonah didn't wait for one, shaking the little empty dish until he heard their cat trotting back to the kitchen, then filling it up. She snaked between his legs, purring as Jon scratched her behind the ear and watched her eat for a little bit.

Only then did he frown at Leo's full absence, walking back to their room. Jonah wasn't sure what he expected, but it certainly wasn't his boyfriend buried under all their blankets, heavily asleep. He checked his watch. Eight o'clock.

"That's early," Jonah whispered, moving closer to get a good look at his face, "Leo?"

There was no answer, not a snore, nothing. Leo's blonde hair was peaking out and so was the top half of his face, but that was it.

Jon sighed, a little bummed he was already asleep, but deciding against waking him, tiptoeing back out of the room. JD was still in the kitchen, happily munching on her treat and Jonah crouched down next to her again, "why did Leo go to bed so early, do you know?" he asked, causing the cat to stop eating for a second, before she went back in.

He put away all the groceries, then went through the fridge. They meal prepped and Jonah frowned as he realized there were exactly as many frozen dishes as there had been when he left the house earlier that day.

Happy that he had found an excuse to wake Leo up, Jonah got two containers out and put them to defrost, while walking back to the room. Leo hadn't moved a muscle and he didn't stir even when Jon sat on his side of the bed, brushing his bangs.

"Leo..." he whispered, shaking him lightly, "baby wak-" Jonah interrupted himself, noticing Leo was still wearing his office clothes. That was very unusual... So was the low heat rolling off of him.

"Goddammit Leo," Jon sighed, touching his face and feeling the low grade fever. He shook him a little harder, "Leo, wake up. You gotta eat something..."

Still nothing. By now, normally, the blonde would be blinking awake.

Jonah frowned, pushing the blankets down and shaking him a little more, "Leo, wake up..." his voice raised at the end as alarm bells started to go through his mind, so he all but rattled the other man, finally causing Leo to open his eyes.

Jon was about to let out a relieved sigh, but he didn't have the chance, as Leo slurred something unintelligible and then passed right back asleep.

Jonah rattled him again, harshly, and this time he got no reaction, not even a whine.

"Leo!" he called, leaning in so he could feel his boyfriend's breathing, planting two fingers to his jugular in search of a pulse. His own heart was drumming in his ears, so it took Jonah a second before he could differentiate what was his, what was Leo's.

The blonde's heartbeat were slow...Too slow. His breathing was weirdly timed.

Jonah felt vaguely dizzy as he looked around the room, in search of his coat. He had left his cellphone inside the pocket... He almost got sick as he saw the three different medications sitting on Leo's bedside table.

His usual Zoloft and Ambien and... Benadryl?

Jon frowned at the label, before shaking the antidepressant case and ambien. Both were still full, Leo hadn't taken more than he should... Or at least, it didn't look like he had, not on purpose.

"Baby," Jonah patted his cheeks, with more force than he'd normally use, "baby, open your eyes for me. Wake up-" he bit the inside of his cheek, before deciding that fuck that and splashing a little bit of water on his boyfriend's face.

Leo blinked, confused and drowsy, "why am I wet..." he groaned, attempting to go back to sleep, but Jonah stopped him, patting his cheek again.

"Leo, hey, look at me- How many pills did you take?"

"Uhm?" he yawned, his eyes starting to roll back again.

"LEO!" Jonah shook him vehemently, forcing the blonde to wake up, "how. many. pills?"

Leo groaned, rubbing his eyes, "Jon...?"

"Yes, baby, it's me," Jonah shook him again, holding the pill bottles in front of his face, "how many pills?"

"One," Leo slumped back against the pillow, "just one."

"Each?"

The blonde nodded, yawning again, "I don't feel so good..."

"I know, baby," Jon grabbed his shoulders again, forcing him to sit up once more, "c'mon, we're going to the ER."

"What...?" Leo groaned, slumping forward so his forehead met Jon's shoulder, "no, I'm not sick, I'm just... I'm just off..."

"Yeah, because you took two sedatives and your antidepressants," Jonah scoffed, looking one of Leo's arms around his neck, "c'mon, baby, get up."

"Jon, no, stop-" Leo weakly tried to shove off his chest, but his legs were almost jelly under him and the only thing keeping him up was Jonah holding him tightly, "I wanna sleep..."

"Nope," Jon dragged him out of the room, "no sleep for you until a psychiatrist checks you out."

"No!" Leo shoved at his arm and then stumbled back, falling sit on the edge of the bed. Jonah glared at him, feeling his own temper flare up, fueled by the sheer stress.

The stress of the situation, the panic of finding Leo like that, but also the overall stress that had been Halloween, followed by Leo's appendicitis, followed his quickly approaching deadlines...

"You're getting in the car even if I have to fucking carry you, Leo," Jonah glared at him, "get up."

If he expected to get a rise out of the blonde, he didn't. Instead Leo planted a hand on his chest and fell back on the bed, facing the ceiling as he groaned, "Jon, I feel really weird..."

"Yes, get up-"

"No, there's... There's someone standing in our hallway," Leo said and Jonah glanced at the open door and saw nothing, not even JD.

"There isn't, baby, its in your head..." he grabbed his boyfriend's arm, pulling him up again, "c'mon-"

"No, they're gonna get me."

"Ah fuck's sake," Jonah sighed, although while this was scary, he much rather have Leo fighting him and responsive than dead to the world, "no one is going to get you, Leo..."

All he got as an answer was a whimper.

"Fuck," Jon whispered, leaving the room in two steps to grab the coat he had hung behind the door and his phone, already dialing 911.

They asked him how many pills Leo had taken and upon Jonah's answer, a lady said "It doesn't sound like a suicide attempt, we're going to transfer you to poison control. Please stay on the line and stay calm."

A suicide attempt. Jonah's mouth dried as he sat right next to Leo on the bed, wrapping a hand around his wrist and feeling his pulse, barely listening as the poison control responder said that at this dosage going to the ER wasn't necessary. To keep checking on him and get loads of liquids on Leo, take him to emergency if he started throwing up or struggling to breathe.

Jon's ears were still ringing as he crouched down next to Leo again, now holding a glass of cold water, with a straw sticking out.

"C'mon, baby, just one sip, it's gonna help..."

Leo groaned again, but after a little more prodding, he did open his mouth and took the drink. Apparently he had been thirsty, because he drained the entire cup without much of Jonah's prodding.

He pulled back, looking slightly more awake, "Jon..." Leo clumsily grabbed his face, "something's wrong."

"I know, Leo," Jonah pulled back from the clumsy face squeeze, planting a kiss on the blonde's brow, "you'll feel better in the morning... Well, probably hungover as fuck, but you'll feel better in the morning..." his voice caught at the end and Leo pulled back, frowning.

"Are you sad...?"

"No, I'm fine, I'm fine," Jonah cleared his throat, "why did you take the benadryl?"

"What?" Leo blinked, struggling to keep his eyes open, "get into bed..."

"The third medication, Leo," Jonah raised the little box in front of his eyes, "why did you take it?"

"My head hurt..." Leo yawned, "had a fever... Couldn't find the right-" he yawned again, tugging on Jon's shirt to pull him closer, "the right one."

Jonah let out a little sigh of relief, allowing himself to get pulled into a clumsy, weird hug, the best that Leo's half sedated brain could do.

"I love you," he whispered, voice muffled by Leo's shirt and the blonde let out a hum, sounding like he was falling right back asleep. Still, Jonah did hear a faint, "love you too" said in return.

[batboyblog]

Oh this isn’t an anti Biden thing more so I’m just pointing out that I think in this case some people are definitely more culpable then others, I feel like otherwise we fall into that idea that humans are the problem inherently which reeks of “original sin”

Like, the fact we don’t have more public transport is due to lobbying from the automotive industry, we aren’t often given options outside of fossil fuel because those who house real power rarely want to change things, which is why things like democracy exist but once you’re in power it becomes a lot easier to feed propaganda, it’s admittedly still more complex then some people treat it but it’s still not a “everyone is equally responsible” thing,

I kind of see it like being Sandra Bullock in Speed, should the terrorist who strapped a bomb onto the bus go to jail? yeah of course, but maybe we focus on getting off the bus alive first?

so like that the conversation of who's most responsible just doesn't interest me as much as "okay but how do we fix it?" and I think the conversation of responsibility often times distracts or demotivates from the conversation of fixing it, I think its very very easy to go from "I didn't cause this" to "I can't effect this" and from "Its not my fault" to "why should I do anything about it?"

and like if the CEO of Exxon goes to jail for this or that I'll raise a glass and be happy for a day because yeah they are bad people and yes in many cases they knowingly did things to make climate change worse because it would help stock prices in the next quarter or whatever. But its like not the conversation I want to be having most of the time, I'm less interested in who's fault it is and more on what do we do to fix it and I feel like there are a lot of people for whom the reverse is true their focus is much more on "who's fault" and much less on "how do we fix it"

I remember there's an episode of Queer Eye, where the person they're making over is a young climate activist with Sunrise Movement. And normally the 5 drive in a huge SUV but for this they all hopped on bikes and biked to her house and they explained this all pleased and she was like "oh you didn't need to do that, what normal people do doesn't really matter because climate change is just 10 companies" I'm not going back to get her word for word but that was the thrust, and that's really stuck with me that this girl had a chance to talk to millions of people and ask them to change their day to day behaviors and she dismissed the idea that even collectively any one could do anything.

[returnsandreturns]

hey, so I saw your post saying that if someone could prompt you the framework for the fic, then you’d write it so—

I think it could probably start like, at the hospital but instead of Shawn asking Juliet to put a baby in him, he asks Gus instead, and without thinking he just responds “not now Shawn,” but then he thinks about it later on and was like “hm. Now that I think about it—“ you know what I mean?? Sorry about this, have a great day 🙏

THIS WAS SUCH A CLEAR WAY TO DO IT AND HERE IS LIKE 600 WORDS I WROTE AT WORK SET IN THE EXISTING DADDY KINK VERSE

“Hey, do you remember anything you said while you were high out of your mind on morphine?” Gus asks, after the dust has generally settled and he’s gone through his customary therapeutic brief meltdown about all the ways that he could have died in the last 24 to 48 hours. He just goes and sits in the dark and breathes heavily for an hour or two before Shawn coaxes him out to make him breathe heavily for different reasons and they move on with their lives, older and probably not as wise as they should be.

“Don’t tell me,” Shawn says, leaning into him more where they’re watching old episodes of Cop Rock in Gus’ apartment. “Let me assume it was all charming and dignified.”

“Dignified isn’t a word I associate with you,” Gus says, snorting when Shawn sits up enough to glare at him for approximately three seconds before immediately cuddling up against his side again.

“I’ve got so much dignity,” he mutters, yawning. “Full of it. I’m Sandra freaking Dee.”

“. . .teeming with dignity,” Gus says, after a second, catching up to his thought process. After all these years, he’s practiced at it. The only person in his life who he doesn’t at least lightly baffle. “The syllables are off.”

“Dig. . .in. . .ity,” Shawn says. “What did I say?”

“Hmm?”

“When I was high,” Shawn says. “What did I say?”

“Ah,” Gus says. “You, uh—you asked me to put a baby in you.”

Shawn feels himself die and float above his body for a few seconds before crashing back down to Earth.

“Weird,” he says, laughing unconvincingly. “Why would I say that? Probably not worth investigating. I mean, the brain on drugs, right, man? With the. . .egg and Rachel Leigh Cook in the sexy tanktop and—you know, the egg still looked good, eggs look arguably better fried so I’m not sure the imagery really tracked but—okay, you’re not buying this at all.”

Gus slides an arm around his waist and pulls him even closer.

“Nope,” he says, in a voice that Shawn has not been able to pin down as either a sex voice or a love voice.

He doesn’t have a lot of experience with those things existing simultaneously but they have a lot of sex and Gus finally said that he loved him after Shawn said it, like, five seconds following the first time they fucked. It’s all very real. And unprecedented, not even slightly like him. And he hasn’t tried to run away even once.

He kind of wants to propose but he’s pretty sure Gus would say no strictly because he figured out how much credit card debt Shawn is in at some point and just walked out of the building and didn’t come back for a couple of days.

“. . .you want me to put a baby in you, Shawn?” Gus asks, kissing the side of his head.

Shawn makes a strangled noise before sitting up enough to look Gus right in his eyes.

“You don’t think this is white people nonsense?” he asks, accusingly. “This feels like white people nonsense.”

“Oh, this is definitely white people nonsense,” Gus says, running his fingers through Shawn’s hair, smiling, “but that’s the burden I’ve taken on here.”

“. . .please, daddy,” Shawn says, not meaning his voice to be quite so tiny and pathetic.

There used to be the tiniest hint of irony in the daddy thing. A little dash of self-awareness.

That went out of the window pretty quick.

[awgeezitsthetoiletnator]

your mind !!!!!!!! literally it's that its the desperate plea of them both being like this meant something to us both??? it didn't just irrevocably change my world view alone right? and now i've got to pretend to be normal about it because we are forever linked in the same circle like!?!?!?!

this is why i feel so unnormal about them both- Tracker being a crutch for Kristen when they were dating because her whole life has been her living a lie. She's moving in because she can't be with her parents but I'm sure she wonders if it's just because they are girlfriends. I wonder how Kristen feels about living in Mordred and Jawbone being one of her guardians (not even mentioning how she struggles playing like a child role- being that shield for her brothers and how we often see her square up to Sandra Lynn) now they aren't together, like does she feels out of place there? I also think that feeling of being out of place was echoed in the recent episode of oh Kristen's address hasn't been changed either- like none of the parental figures in Mordred did that for her- especially Jawbone who works at the school and would have know that was kinda important.

Similarly I think Kristen provided that role on Sophmore year (even being in a messy arc) to Tracker of being that support and the one who does listen to her. Like I wonder how Tracker felt when Adaine & then Fig joined the household- because she's no longer getting priority attention from Jawbone since he's so busy. Yes she's very independent but that's because she's had to be. Even looking after Jawbone before he got better- like they did live together she's probably seen the ins and outs of all his business. The way I see her definitely has a heavy influence from you recommending scream by beach bunny for Tracker because wow- just incredible no notes. Her just moving on to looking after Kristen- like to make herself feel useful and needed- like when she gets brought along for spring break she's like oh I thought you were going to abandon me. Like. Head in hands. My poor girl. (Tracker being an npc is so hard i need all her lore now brennan)

I think it's also why it's so like explosive with the withholding stuff about Jawbone because her and Kristen have become this codependent team because there is so much going on its like oh your my person right now and you still did this, you know all these things and yet my feelings weren't considered & were pushed aside.

Like even after this happens- Kristen then starts unravelling Tracker's religion through finding Cassandra. Which tears them apart. They are both so influential in each other's lives its so crazy.

Apologies for the ramble as this might all be so incoherent but i just have so many thoughts on them and their dynamics- but I think it's like the tragedy aspect of it all that is so aligned with this music. Like the greater the risk the higher the reward and all that- they are built up to be so life changing that the fall consistently follows them. Like we haven't spoke in months but I'm still happy that your religious uprising is going well- even in my commune with my own Goddess you still linger there too. (Not even getting into the Goddess being sisters it's just so much)

Like the Bang the Doldrums line of better off as lovers and not the other way around vs Kristen trying to be normal about calling them friends to her cleric teacher. Just rattling them in my brain for real. I also like Bros by Wolf Alice for them because it's such energy of like If i did come back would you still be there? I know it's selfish of me to ask but would you do it anyway. And definitely less emo but Renegade by Big Red Machine gives them so much. like specifically the post chorus and second verse. again sorry for the ramble but these new episodes are just making me think so intensely about them :P

please never ever apologize for sending such thoughtful asks to my inbox!! i’m sorry it took me so long to reply, but you gave me so much for think about…

- you’re so right about how layered and complicated kristen’s feelings on living at mordred must be now. they were probably a lot easier to overlook when she and tracker were together. the current status shift of “i’m living with my partner” to “i’m crashing with my friends” is wild to me. while i think sandra lynn and jawbone do their best to be good parents for the teens living in their house, there’s just so many of them that it’s probably be easier to parent the ones that usually lean on them for help (adaine) or show clear red flags (fig). (i know this is most likely because beardsley was the one who started the tremors bit during the last episode, but the way jawbone leapt up to protect adaine and fig but not kristen gave me pause. not because jawbone (or brennan for that matter) did anything wrong, but it made me wonder how many little things like that must happen every day in front of kristen and how she might feel about it). given kristen’s reluctance to their parenting and tracker’s personal, recent experience with leaving the church of sol, tracker probably seemed like the best person equipped to support kristen, even if it put her in a weird, uncomfortable corner where she is constantly caring for the person who is supposed to be her main carer as well - although it’s never as reciprocal as it should be. tracker leans heavily on her own experience to try and help kristen, which is why she works so hard to support kristen in establishing her church. she wants kristen to experience the deep, primal connection to YES!? that she experiences with galicaea, but it’s not the necessarily the same situation as kristen is the sole cleric responsible for her gods. due to how much is resting only on her shoulders, kristen’s issues always seem to eclipse tracker’s, but that doesn’t make it fair. tracker tries to help in the way she knows how and it’s still not enough. i’m so excited to learn more about why tracker wants to talk to kristen in the present day. in part, it’s probably because at some point they will be living in the same house again and they should be on good terms. but i also wonder if tracker sees the same pattern with kristen’s gods that cassandra does, and wants to offer kristen an out of her current situation by asking her to join the wolfsong revival. i don’t think there’s any universe out there where kristen would have ever chosen galicaea over cassandra when that path was first offered to her in sophomore year, but tracker could argue that lots of things have changed since that initial offer. in joining her, kristen would be one of many clerics and share the burden of responsibility for keeping a god alive. and maybe that’s a way they can actually be together again. 👀

- kristen’s aversion to being parented is so fascinating to me that it needs to be its own list item. it feels so relatable as an experience of an eldest daughter who’s been parentified for longer than she can remember. because i don’t even think it’s an aversion to being parented really - i think she’s expecting to be treated as a child in a way that’s familiar to her. when you combine kristen’s eldest daughter position with her status as the golden child due to her connection to helio, it’s not a far reach to say that the applebees treated kristen closer to another adult in the family than a child when she lived at home. i’m guessing she was privy to way more information and it was her job to shield and distract her brothers from it or filter it in a way that her parents approved. this is one of the reasons why i think she struggled so much while questioning her faith - her parents had always communicated with her in a straight and simple fashion and this suddenly shifted to unsatisfactory, emotional answers to her questions. (granted, i don’t think any answers the applebees would have given would be satisfactory based on how stuck they are in their worldview, but they jumped really quickly into just shutting kristen down instead of actually hearing her out) i think she’s seeking out that kind of straightforward parent-child relationship she used to have with her parents when she approaches sandra lynn after the tryst with garthy, like “tell me what’s going on and we’ll find the best way to share this with the rest of the kids.” i know that moment is followed by a “classic ally chaos moment” of kristen asking for whiskey, but i wonder if there’s a way to recontextualize it here. maybe she sees herself falling into an old pattern. maybe she can’t resist the temptation of actually being treated like a child instead of a pseudo-adult. maybe she’s worried that whatever answer sandra lynn could give her isn’t worth her positioning herself like this. no one wants sandra lynn and kristen to bond this season more than me i’m awake at night wishing as hard as i can believe me when i say this but i do think that she’s still trying to be a shield to the best of her ability from afar. i think the underlying question behind kristen’s decisions now when it comes to her brothers is “how do i turn the selfish action of leaving them behind into the best decision for everyone in the end without compromising my own autonomy or putting them in a situation where they get hurt?” she stays away from the applebees house so that her brothers don’t have to deal with the tension she would inevitably bring with her. she leaves them gold but without a note so her parents can’t interrogate them about their contact with her. and even in the last episode - choosing to simply confuse her parents and keep her cool instead of actively arguing with them is interestingly as calculated as it is chaotic because she probably comes off as less of a threat to bucky’s devotion to helio and more as a neutral eccentric. for now, it’s easier on everyone in that house if she is cast as someone whose head isn’t screwed on straight rather than a complete villain.

- i too would love to know more about tracker. all of your questions about how she might have felt when jawbone’s attention shifted from her to adaine and fig are right on the money. add all the codependency with kristen to the mix, it makes me wonder if tracker feels like she missed out on having deeper, possibly sisterly friendships with adaine and fig. i think trackerbees being so joined at the hip resulted in her holding fig and adaine at arm’s length as “kristen’s friends” as opposed to new family members. it’s telling that she only chose to leave mordred once she was certain that she could trust that jawbone would be safe with the people surrounding him AND that they were taking care of him as much as he was taking care of them. i don’t think she was waiting for something to go wrong per say, but the fact is that something DID go wrong and her instinct to hang around was justified. she watches sandra lynn and jawbone reconcile and that point in time happens to coincide with her decision to start the wolfsong revival and then she’s finally ready to leave with ragh at her side - the only other teen she allowed herself to get close to probably by accident bc they spent a good deal of time together when the PCs were off on bad kids only mini-missions during spring break. (also how are they going to share ragh. i’m hoping it’s all cordial in the end but how do you share a person who was a bodyguard / confidant for one of you but also was the cofounder of the lgbtq+ student union / honorary party member for the other for much longer than that. how do you do that) i’m so curious about her place in the birth order, but given that we’ve never heard about any siblings, i’m inclined to believe she’s an only child and it seems to fit. i’m an eldest daughter with a couple of only children as best friends and the dynamic of how straightforward tracker is in her actions while kristen is constantly playing 4D chess in her head to figure out the best solution for everyone rings very true for me. we know that her parents kicked her out after she was bitten, but she didn’t stray super far - not even outside the same pantheon of gods. granted, I think the lycanthropy made galicaea a natural fit for her, but i don’t think the journey to get there took as long as kristen’s journey to YES!? two sides of the same coin and all that

- ANYWAYS. the music of it all. i completely agree with your assessment of the tragedy and risk that emo music usually lends itself to, but i also like your other recs here! i was racking my brain trying to think of where i’d heard bros before - it was featured in the life is strange prequel (that also happens to center around another tragic sapphic couple). i absolutely love renegade for them and it made me think of “the 1” - another swift / dessner collab that feels very of the moment for them. i think about them a lot when i’m listening to adult mom. most songs i feel apply directly to one or the other, but i feel like “checking up” from their most recent album feels very attuned to their relationship right before they broke up when tracker was first on the road.

for anyone who has made it this far down, thank you for coming for my ted talk! i guess i have a lot more thoughts about these two than i knew. thank you again @sabrirene for sending this in!

[lamialamia]

Mota ep 6 rewatch thoughts

You know, when I watch sth for the first time, I'm willing to give it the benefit of doubt; the story-telling choices it make would eventually come together.

And Mota, oh boi, this show both impress and let me down in this regard. At first I was a bit annoyed by the repetition of missions and then the sequence of the interrogation room, then they do it all again next episode. Yet that pays off in episode 5 where only one plane came back from Munster and now, the interrogation room is decimated. Everyone we know is gone.

It hit me like a truck in the feels.

Then we have other storylinea that never go anywhere. Quinn and Bailey and the resistance force barely reach an emotional climax. Now, in this episode, I'm watching Crosby and Sandra starting sth that eventually lead to their extra-marital affair and whatever the fuck Sandra's storyline supposed to be. Upon this rewatch, as I know how things will play out, I can not reserve my judgement. No baby. I'm full on judging.

But let have a list, again:

I don't understand why this show hate and shit on the British so much. Oh americans are so great, we respect women, we are fun, we are a democracy while all the british are homophobic, sexist, monarchy-loving, pompous assholes, and their night bombing ruined the german civilians lives but it's the all-heroic americans who have to bear the brunt of the germans' anger.

????? i don't get it??? this show is strangely vicious re:the british

I want to repeat myself again: all Crosby and Sandra's scenes are excruciating bad to watch.

Let me talk about this here.

Well at least Rosie is as pretty as ever and I'm glad he slowly embracing therapy as well as any dudes in the 40s would be. On the other side of the world, the other Robert is also not going through a good time in therapy, and he didn't get to listen to jazz! /j

Every time Rosie is surrounded by rose pattern I love it. Gosh. Such a great look on him, so aesthetically pleasing 😍

The pause at the end before he gets back up the plane is a great moment! Let Nate Mann be pensive and then overcomes it because he's good at his job: acting!

And the crowning storyline: Bucky and his continuous suffering. He just can't get a break, physically or mentally. The interrogation scene? Still good. And Bucky's fighting spirit isn't diminished if he is in an active role: helping people, running around, facing dangers. It contrasts to his later predicament, where direct danger is no longer there (he even has Buck by his side again, and the other guys) yet it's the inaction, the helplessness, inability to fight back, the cage of being a POW that slowly destroy Bucky.

Love me a man going through it.