#point of no return spoilers

[fanfoolishness]

Dawn, After

Spoilers for 3x11, “Point of No Return.”

-

Hunter follows Batcher up the steps, ribs aching with every breath, his chest heavy. There’s no longer anything like hope within him; the gunships departing, the screams of the townspeople fading into weary grief, they’ve told him all he needs to know about the Empire and what it came for.

His boots drag against the stone, stumbling over uneven steps. His gloved hand scrapes against the side of the stairwell, trying to keep him steady. Batcher comes back to check on him. She whines softly, nudging his hand.

“It’s all right, girl,” he lies. His voice cracks.

He can tell she doesn’t believe him, but she turns and heads back up the stairs anyway. He keeps climbing.

The sky’s lightening. Sun’ll be up soon. Hard to tell through the choke of smoke.

Hunter rounds a corner. Batcher’s hunkered down on the path, her face hidden. Crosshair slumps against the wall, his back to the sea, helmet forgotten beside him.

For a moment, Hunter doesn’t know if he’s dead or alive.

He’s so tired. Hunter sinks down beside his brother. “Crosshair.”

There’s only silence, an awful, empty silence. Crosshair doesn’t move.

“Crosshair.” Hunter reaches out, shakes him by the shoulder, the breath catching in his throat when Crosshair turns and stares at him.

He doesn’t blink. He still looks dead. His eyes are —

“I failed the mission,” Crosshair whispers. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” says Hunter. “I know.”

The sun rises red over Pabu, dark smoke fouling the air, and neither of them feel anything at all.

[queenoftheimps]

Imagine you're Louis de Pointe du Lac, you've just divorced your second husband and reevaluated all of your life choices, you've spent a cool $10 million on what are essentially your therapy bills, you hop on a 12-hour flight across the world, you return to your hometown, you reunite with your first ex-husband, you process your grief over your daughter a little bit, you're stuck in a hurricane but it's all okay, it was all worth it because you're in a better place now emotionally and can start to move forward

And then, on the vampire-exclusive psychic channel, you hear the voice of your Definitely Still Human buddy Daniel going "hey Louis uh quick update for ya"

[ambrosiagourmet]

I think one of the biggest tragedies of Laios & Falin and their relationship is how much his actions impact her life. But like. Specifically how much they WOULDN’T impact her life as much if they weren’t both stuck in such a shitty abusive situation.

This part of the Falin-tries-makeup daydream hour comic is what got me thinking about it again because truly it just... it seems like such a like an offhand comment that I'm sure Laios didn't mean to be cruel or anything. That's just like. A little kid not thinking about what they are saying. ESPECIALLY when the kid in question is Laios.

But man they depended on each other SO much as kids. Too much. It really feels like they didn't have any other source of positive reinforcement, or anyone else to share themselves with. So of course an offhand comment like that has a huge impact on Falin.

Or this little bit from one of the flashbacks:

This tears me apart. Do you think it tears him apart to think about? I think it does. I think Laios holds every small failure to care for Falin against himself.

And then there's the Bigger stuff. The way that him coping with his own trauma ended up impacting her.

Like his interest in monsters. Like him going to find a ghost, and accidentally revealing Falin's magic to the whole village in the process.

Like him needing to leave. And leaving her behind.

He shaped her life so much, and he carries so much guilt for it. And again, there should have been other people there to help. The same things that made Laios need to leave home are the things that made his leaving so hard on Falin. She ate alone after that. She shouldn't have had to eat alone just because Laios wasn't there.

She was 9 when he left for school, and he was 11.

Nine. And Laios feels like he failed her because he didn't stand by her through this better. As an eleven year old.

Both of these kids deserved so much better from the world.

[lucabyte]

monologue

[mint-fixates]

There's this weird take I've seen floating around on TikTok that Bill doesn't actually care about his family/dimension or Stanford at all; that we're supposed to take everything in TBOB as non-canon basically because he's lying to garner sympathy from reader to make a deal with them. I'm all for having your own interpretations of media, but I just don't think this idea that Bill is a completely heartless unfeeling creature is supported by canon at all. In fact, it kind of feels like the opposite of the point of the book.

Like, yeah, most things Bill says should be taken with a grain of salt because he lies a lot, but he's not actually a very good liar? It's usually pretty easy to clock when he's full of it. But okay, even if we assume every word Bill says while trying to recruit the reader is a lie, there are three major things that this doesn't account for.

Bill is not the only source in the book. The lost Journal 3 pages were written by Stanford, we only know about the interdimensional Taco Bell incident because of an included police transcript, etc.

Even once he's lost any chance of making a deal with the reader to escape, Bill is having a complete breakdown and mentions all the people he so totally doesn't miss for real you guys. Why bother with reverse psychology double-lying for sympathy once his shot at getting the reader on his side is already gone?

Trying to garner the reader's sympathy makes sense to a certain extent, but why go out of his way to make himself look pathetic? Does revealing that he got drunk and cried over his ex in a fast-food drive-through really help his cause if that cause is to convince the reader he's still a powerful being capable of starting the apocalypse again so they can rule with him?

And that's all without even mentioning that, as previously stated, I think the entire point of the book is missed if we're interpreting Bill as having no genuine feelings or attachments. The book ends with Stanford healing from his past by being open about what he went through with his family and accepting their help, while Bill insists he doesn't need anyone and refuses to heal, actively making himself worse in the process. The clear theme imo is that accepting your past and accepting help from people who love you is essential to healing, while denying those things just makes everything worse. If Bill doesn't actually care about his family, his dimension, Stanford, or anything/anyone else, he has no trauma to heal from or regrets to learn from that he's refusing to accept and deal with, and the entire meaning of the book is made moot.

[buttercupshands]

can you even call it a warm up if I'm going to bed without drawing anything big

and a sketch I made while sitting in the park today

[mourn-and-watch]

you know what. i actually love that trying to talk to solas was the last thing varric did and it ended in complete failure. especially if you put it in the context of his feelings about anders. varric was so bitter every time he mentioned him because he could not stop him. he didn't even realize that anders was up to something and when it was too late he started to think of him as of someone who destroyed that fragile peace in kirkwall that actually never existed.

it adds layers to the way he felt about solas. he believed that time he could stop a friend who simply lost his way. because varric tethras can talk anyone out of anything, can't he? anders was just too dodgy and self-centred and cut everyone off just like solas did but this time varric is completely prepared. surely. absolutely.

he could have never talked anders out of it even if he had known what was coming. he could have never talked solas out of it either. anders was a desperate person standing against (as varric himself put it) forces he couldn't possibly defeat. solas was a god standing against a couple of mortals and his own conscience buried under his guilt and regrets. being a good friend would not stop meredith's oppression. being a good friend would not stop someone who fears so much that all of the atrocities he committed were for nothing and would mean nothing at the end. varric died because he didn't realize it. he died and left his second in command with an immense guilt because they believed he knew solas enough to pull that off and there's something tragic about it

[adh-d2]

Only Crosshair could have let her go in that moment. Crosshair, who's learned not only to trust Omega but to respect her autonomy. Who knows what it means to be the cause of your loved one's pain for reasons outside of your control. Who's willing to risk everything to honor her wishes.

And only Omega could have convinced him to do it. Omega, the one person who never gave up on him. Who taught him that people can change for the better, even himself. The person for whom his hand doesn't shake when the shot really matters.

-

I was devastated when he failed to hit them with the tracker. It's not often that Star Wars shocks me, but I needed to let the credits roll as it sank in that he really missed.

It would have been so easy for the writers to give them the win here. For this to be the culmination of all their character growth this season. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad about it. This is fantastic. I have no idea what's going to happen next. The writers are making some brave choices this season, and I am so here for it.

[humming-fly]

sadly Arthur can't make friends with every cute woodland creature he comes across in the medieval countryside I can't believe the setting for season 5 has been out for over a month and I haven't seen a single monty python reference yet I guess I'll do it myself

in the spirit of choose-your-own-adventures here's an alternative timeline

[evan-buck]

GOOD OMENS 2x06 Every Day

And I would like to spend-

[thelaurenshippen]

911 really is such a good reminder of the particularly kind of joy that is weekly, seasons-long shows with many episodes per season. every character gets a moment to shine even in a truncated season. the satisfaction of seeing characters grapple with stuff that happened YEARS ago. having multi-episode arcs and one-off arcs that are equally enjoyable. beach episodes (metaphorical). I know we're all saying this all the time but why can't more tv be like this

[roomba-mangga]

Curry pt. i // Curry pt. ii

yeah alright okay. fine. cool. alright. yeah

[mettywiththenotes]

Hori killed off the villain trio because he knew they would have screamed the stadium down in the second year sports festival cheering for their heroes

[smoothriverrocksrock]

I’m really invested in your con! Bee au because of the potential, I wonder how thinks work out in the future, because he is the "moral backbone” and what things could change because of that

And following your headcanon of Bee having Alchemist cog, and Shockwave thinking he is the legacy of the Prime, could you explore more on that? Because after seeing the movie, the cogs of the Prime should give them some powers but we only see it when D-16 takes megatronus cog, changing and becoming Megatron.

What are your thoughts on this?

So glad to hear it! 

About the T-cog thing, first I wanna establish that I headcanon that the Primes T-cogs’ cause physical changes in the group. Megatron’s was the most obvious by literally growing in height, but they all got changed. It mostly manifests as muscle memory so they know how to do combat moves that they never actually learned. It also gives them agility, strength, and stealth buffs. Imagine one day Optimus and Eita start sparring, and then they both take a moment to remember they were miners and have no idea how they actually learned all these attacks. And then if someone asks them to do the move again, they can’t because it was a pure in-the-moment response.

More specifically for Bee, he’s noticed that his hands have gotten a lot more steady after getting his cog. Doesn’t twitch *neary* as much as it used to. Later on when Shockwave tries to teach him science shit, Bee doesn’t really know what he’s doing but his hands *do*. Shockwave absolutely refuses to compliment Bee on anything (just on principle) but he will admit to himself that Bee’s physical techniques are a lot better than he was expecting.

Also like… Tf1 Bee is a tinkerer. They established that he can make stuff to some extent. He had nothing but mechanical garbage to entertain himself with for who knows how long, and he made himself friends OUT OF TRASH. Is he any good? Probably not. But it’s at least a starting point Shockwave can work with

[leavingkamino]

STAR WARS: THE BAD BATCH 3.11 "Point of No Return"

[zookie-art]

How about that finale huh? 😭💚