#s6 recaps

[applestruda]

The buttercups and their son

[thevampirediariesdiary]

officially announcing the DAMON/ELENA BEST EVER MOMENT BRACKET (cooler title tbd)

how it’s going to work:

we’re gonna go season by season, starting with season 1!

I’ll start by posting a chronological list of the stand-out moments for the season (season 1 is here). at this point you can nominate other moments I forgot, petition for the separation of moments I lumped together into one, and/or send me propaganda for your favorites! this phase lasts a week.

then the polls begin! each round of polls will last a week. *insert pathetic begging to remind you that if you reblog the poll posts we will have way more fun*

when we’ve gotten a final winner for the bracket, the next season will start. we have four seasons to catch up on, and then we’ll do s5 once I finish my rewatch, and s6 when I’ve rewatched that.

someday (in the distant future) we can make the top 5 from each season go head to head and get an all-time best!!

[riverdale-retread]

Riverdale s7 e1

There is a lot of commentary about whether the show is bad or good, and among those who hold that it's bad, a debate about whether said badness is intentional (It's camp! It's satire! It's  commentary on culture and/or our times!) or brought about from a lack of talent or planning by the producers, writers and/or actors.

What I say is this - I love the care with which Riverdale is made.  Starting with the S7 opening sequence!!

Archie’s painted hot rod is shown, then as the song plays Archie spins into view, his face framed in a little circle. He's doing something with his eyebrows. His smile is just a little off. Not a LOT off. Just off.  Immediately after that we see him press a kiss to Mary Andrews' cheek. We know it's all wrong because Mary Andrews is wary of the violence of this son that she regrets mothering and can't wait to get rid of.  They are not this affectionate.

Next up is Betty Cooper, short hair in the cutest ringlets, smiling sweetly, looking wholesome.  Betty Cooper found the pressure to be sweetly wholesome unbearably suffocating all six seasons of this show.  Immediately after her is Veronica with the most spectacular bangs,  looking pretty and hard and insincere.  These are things that Veronica hates to be thought of as.  

Then comes Cheryl, severely annoyed to be there, giving an evil eyed false smile.  Assuming arguendo that this is Jughead as world-maker as well as narrator, the fact that Cheryl gets to have a do-over of her intro in the montage, a doubling-up if you will, is noteworthy.  Everyone else gets the one shot in the juke box, but Cheryl gets a twofer, wearing the Lolita-Grundy sunglasses and pouting over the door of a great looking convertible. Kevin, looking gormless is up next and it makes me feel worried. Toni Topaz is looking ultra heterosexual with her long ponytail up-do. She winks at the  audience.  This is not edgy Serpent Queen Toni at all. But she and Veronica both look spectacular with bangs.  Tabitha in white cats’ eye glasses and white gloves, blows a kiss to the audience, looking sheltered and innocent when we all know she's a weirdo and not above cosplaying a truck stop hooker to catch a killer.  

The only person who looks like "himself" is Jughead, who comes last.  Worried, frantic, concerned and unhappy - basically, fail-adult Jughead without Tabitha.  Poor Jughead.

The year, he says, is 1955 and apparently people didn't mind when couples executed complicated dances involving swirling skirts inside a diner where people are trying to eat.  Jughead is narrating as he clatters away on a huge typewriter at the Diner.  Apparently the patrons don't mind that either. Does he keep it there?  Did he commandeer the one in the office?? Does he haul it around??

As Jughead narrates, speculating about where he is - Not sure if he's in the past or the past of an alternate universe -  he speaks faster and more frantically, sounding more and more like Bunker Jughead of Rivervale.  He tries to sound unhappy about living in a railcar with Hot Dog (". . . which actually tracks" sighhhh) but we all know he's relieved he's not homeless and couch surfing. Having a dog and a residence of his own is more stability than he's had since graduating high school and before Jabitha began cohabitation.

They're all juniors in high school again!  Betty and Kevin holding hands down the hallway, Betty in excellent patterned pants with eyes only for Kevin who won't look at her.  Jughead looks at the two of them with an expression of suppressing in indigestion burp but neither notice him.  Jughead is worried for Betty, all the time, nonstop, in every universe.  Plus Bughead were the horniest little fuckers in any high school on American television ever, and so the fact of Betty dating a gay man worries Jughead.  He doesn’t want to have sex with her anymore, yet Jughead wants Betty to have good things.  And Jughead has never liked Kevin much, but he’s worried for Kevin too. Betty wasn’t and isn’t a girl who takes not getting her way with grace.

Cheryl still has a twin brother, but she is completely not at all in love with this one.  The face she makes is not of a girl dominating the halls of her high school with her soulmate.  Jughead feels very similar about this iteration of a Boy Blossom, noting first and foremost that this kiddo is Cheryl’s twin, then second that he is not Jason, before introducing us to his actual name: Julian.

Julian like the possessed doll, the chimera twin that got eaten by Cheryl in the womb, etc, that Julian. Who actually knew this Julian name, other than Toni?  

Jughead’s thoughts turn directly from Cheryl to Not-Jason to Reggie then on to Archie.  This is the first of several pings back to earlier seasons, which I am sure I’m not going to be able to catch in a perfect way.  But!  Reggie and Jason were constantly in each other’s company in Jughead’s hallucinatory reminiscences of Jason during S1, even though Reggie barely ever mentioned Jason, and Cheryl has never been shown actually discussing Jason with either Reggie 1.0 or 2.0.

The key thing that Jughead notices about Archie is his body, in the same way the key thing he notices about Julian is that he is not Jason.  Archie being wholesome enough to kiss his mom on the cheek goodbye every morning being into body building in 1955 is very progressive (and gay) of him, isn’t it?  That sort of muscular build was still sort of a niche thing, I thought.

Jughead has been frowning at all these people for quite a while, long enough to confirm that they have no recollection of their S6 selves.  He hasn’t seen Tabitha, who he helpfully explains is chronokinetic and the town’s literal guardian angel AND his girlfriend.

Just in time, Pop Tate announces that the bus from Mississippi has arrived.  Tabitha, looking very sad, is accompanied by Toni, equally sad, and a third person, who I assumed was Chuck even though the actor has changed because that wouldn’t be Munroe.  Sadness from having to witness an act of racial injustice and hatred makes people move in slow motion into the Diner.

Jughead watches Tabitha slowly walk past him before he calls her name.  The way he says “Tabitha” is so cautious, because she might reject any conversation with the guy wearing a bulky sweater with the S stamped on it AND a felt crown making very loud tappity tap noises at her grandfather’s diner, and hopeful, because maybe they’re friends, and maybe hearing Jughead will make this Tabitha remember season 6.  The guarded, questioning response he gets from her makes Jughead change tack fast, to discuss the Emmett Till hearing verdict as something he heard “on the radio.”   When Jughead says the verdict made him “sick to my stomach” Tabitha frowns slightly, wary of where he might go with this, perhaps.   Tabitha saying that she and her friends are trying to figure out what they should do next, Jughead isn’t even breathing.  He’s watching her so hard, so hopeful that Tabitha will give him some hint that she knows this is the wrong universe, and so worried she might not.

When she asks him to confirm that his name is Jughead in a way that indicates they aren’t even friends in this universe, Jughead is so hurt that his drops out of his careful, speak-in-full-sentences 1950s speech, and stutters.  His eyes get much, much sadder, right before he says it’s overwhelming and heartbreaking.  He looks like he might cry.   Poor Jughead.  

The cruelty of his fate is astounding.  He was a kid who was left behind and rejected by his mother, let to live homeless by his father, rejected by Fred Andrews, routinely forgotten by his girlfriend during what he thought of as their shared childhood memories, and now, the singularly stable adult friendship and relationship of his life is like it never existed.  Jughead Jones is someone who hasn’t ever been without a girlfriend, it seems since starting one with Betty Cooper, but now when he needs a relationship the most, Tabitha literally doesn’t know him.

Simply because Tabitha Tate doesn’t know him, Jughead hates everything about the 1950s. (Whoever said the 1950s was the greatest decade should have their head examined, he deadpans.)

Archie is trying to skip out of the house when Mary calls to him.  Archie grimaces so hard at his mother’s summons that I can see it through the back of his head.  This did give me a small twinge of hope that maybe he does remember S1-6, and that Archie is putting on this wholesome teenager act, same as Jughead, until he can figure out what’s going on.  He puts on an evidently false face of doe-eyed innocence when he gets it together to go talk to his mother. He’s literally never made that face before in the past six years.

Mary Andrews is very upset about the photos of James Dean’s car accident in the papers, so she confiscates the keys to Archie’s “hotrod” with “fire painted on its sides.” Archie tries to talk his way out of this but fails.  He longingly looks at his “barely above a jalopy” vehicle before turning to face the reality of having to take a very old looking bicycle to school.

Archie has never been this cute to me. His little face!   Then he’s peddling uphill, getting honked at, and so mad .  Just, adorable.  I wanna give him a cookie.   He gets to school just in time.

Meanwhile, Betty in her very excellent 1950s pants is sitting with Toni in the Blue and Gold room.  Her sweater says Betty on it in a curly font.  With her short blonde curls framing her sweet face Betty looks picture perfect. She and Toni both have such enormous eyes that I keep getting distracted from the serious topic they are discussing - how to get past the school censors to properly cover the Emmett Till travesty.  When Betty says she will throw her weight behind getting the story told, Toni smiles at her in a small cheek scrunching way that she’s never done before.  She looks amazing, by the way - the bangs, the big hoop earrings, the scarf /headband thing in her hair, the Southside Serpent Jeans jacket.

Cut to a class where a 1950s tv announcer voice is explaining what a mill is (a souped up hot rod or jalopy) in a film the class are watching  when the principal (Warden Norton repurposed as Principal Featherhead!) bursts in to make an announcement.  Archie is wearing an R sweater, with Jughead in the S sweater seated nearby.

What do these mean??

Veronica make an iconic entrance, complete with heralding blues horns.  Yellow heels, yellow belt, black dress with white polka dots, black purse,  sunglasses, big black sunhat trimmed with the same fabric as her dress, and red lips.  Lace gloves with little black polka dots.

OMG SHE LOOKS SO HOT.

I want this whole thing.  I make a vow to only wear yellow heels with black dresses.

Archie, getting his first look, drops his pencil.  (Kevin, right behind him, has no reaction whatsoever.)  Jughead, Tabitha-less, looks constipated as he notes:  “Damn.”

Girl, that’s what I said!

With everyone else in some sort of sweater or jacket, buttoned up to the neck, Veronica’s plunging neckline and sleeveless dress makes her look practically naked.   She’s a Hollywood scion - Hermione and Hiram have “Amercia’s number one rated television program,” and of course they’re going to call it, Oh Mija!

I LOVED this in-joke, because it functions as a tribute to Hiram.  Mija was the word he said the most, after, maybe, Archie.

For some reason, this whole situation - Veronica’s appearance, introduction, presence and existence- piss Cheryl off entirely.  She is huffing, rolling her eyes, and generally extremely antsy.

Seated right behind her, Archie is just in heaven. Veronica is being very alternative-universe here: her self introduction is very pompous.  Real Veronica Lodge actually hates pomposity.  Her vocabulary is still very Jughead-huge though (“opportune” and “raven haired.”)  Veronica says that she’s trying a method acting type of thing (de rigueur for the age perhaps - another thing she might actually say) of experiencing small town life so she can better portray the “innocent ingenue” in the upcoming production of “Our Town.”

Longtime viewers are meant to know that she is lying about staying with an aunt-and-uncle, mostly because these people have never been introduced in the past six seasons.  As far as we’ve ever been told about Hiram in the competing lores of his life, he doesn’t have siblings. We have almost no lore about Hermione, other than FP hit on her almost once in high school and she had the affair with Fred Andrews as an adult.

Both Cheryl and Betty do not like that Veronica called them “small town lifers” basically.   Archie is entirely entranced with her, laughing at every little joke that Veronica makes, and even Cheryl pointedly turning in her seat to glare at him can’t make his besotted grin falter even a little bit.  

Veronica purrs and preens when she calls herself “the scion of Tinseltown royalty.”  I’m surprised she doesn’t roll her Rs.  When she winsomely says Thank You, Archie, whose face has been lit up like a christmas tree this whole time, bursts into solitary applause.   Cheryl is still very mad, but Archie gets rewarded with an extremely sexy wink by Veronica for being such an immediate fan.  

Is that a blush I see on Archie’s face?

I love this Archie. He’s so cute.

The table that Veronica chooses to try to join is Cheryl, Betty,  Kevin, Julian and Archie.  This is a weird fricking cluster of people.  Cheryl and Betty? And what the heck would Kevin and Julian have in common?   When Veronica asks to sit, Cheryl wants to say no but she is betrayed by both of the other redheads, who clear the space immediately.  Veronica comes to perch gracefully between the two redhead boys.  

Veronica says she caught all their names in the class they were just in.  Of course, Betty having BETTY embroidered into her sweater probably helps with that too.   Remembering that the R wearing Archie is Archie might be more of a feat.   Veronica shows that she took Cheryl’s eye rolls to heart by pointedly asking Cheryl what her name was.  Cheryl is extremely displeased, yet again.   This seems to know exactly what just happened between Veronica and Cheryl- he is trying very hard not to laugh too much.

Cheryl tries to explain that that they’d been discussing James Dean’s death, very self-importantly adding that she is president of his fanclub, when she gets undermined by Julian, who interrupts with a very weak joke about the Oh Mija! show being “high-larious,” to Veronica.   He says that the Blossoms “tune in every week” which must be a lie, because Cheryl’s whole face sours.  Betty and Kevin seem like they’re on the same wavelength.  They project the same calm, almost bovine energy when they ask Veronica where she lived in LA (BelAir) and if she knew James Dean.

Cheryl sharply tells Kevin off for being “so provincial,” then goes off to sideways disparage Veronica by implying that she wasn’t important enough to be a friend of James Dean, a person who was friends with Elizabethe Taylor.   Turns out Veronica Lodge was ‘friendly’ with Jimmy, “friendly” enough to go skinny dipping together at the Chateau Marmaduke (standing in for Chateau Marmont).  

This makes Archie choke.  Literally.  He focuses on “skinny dipping” -Veronica! Naked! She does Naked things! - while Betty and Kevin (Bevin? Ketty??) are entranced about being that friendly with James Dean.  Julian is more in Archie’s camp - he wants to know if Veronica has done the naked thing once or more than once.  I so appreciate the asshole energy that Julian projects nonstop.  He reminds me a lot of Bret Weston Wallis that way. You know on sight that he’s a dickhead, which is 180 degrees different from the angelic way that Jughead used to hallucinate Jason.

When Cheryl plays with her hair to sarcastically ask if Veronica will claim that she had dated Jimmy Dean, Veronica says no, but then drops a bombshell.  James Dean “played both sides of the net.”  In case the small town rubes don’t get her meaning, Veronica clarifies that this means both girls and boys.  Kevin has a milder version of Archie’s choking reaction from seconds before at this thought.  He’s smiling, and Betty is frowning.  Oh?  Oh???

When Kevin wants Veronica to name what James Dean was, Archie interrupts. This made me wonder if there  was a 1950s term for bisexual, that everyone would’ve known, that you can say on a CW show in 2023?    I guess not because Kevin never gets to finish his question.

Archie has a confused reaction, which fits canon so far and why Jarchie hasn’t happened yet even though it should.  He finds the concept of regular guys who are almost cowboys (all American? Is that what he means to say?) being anything other than 100% proof heterosexual incomprehensible.  Cheryl reacts with homophobic anger - it’s besmirchment, it’s foul, to say Jimmy Dean was not straight.   When Veronica calls her provincial, Cheryl slut shames her.  Nobody cares that Cheryl has flounced off, so now Kevin wants to know about Sal Mineo.

Kevin is definitely not straight in this universe.  Veronica knows it, apparently immediately. Poor Betty.

In science class later that day we see ETHEL is Jughead’s lab desk partner. Jughead is miserable to be back in high school.  He has an Asian American science teacher, who wears nerdy round glasses and has a bit of a lisp.  The teacher says Bailey Comet is due to arrive in two years.   He sounds vaguely Singporean, his teacher.  

Cut to Cheryl screaming GUYS as she floats in the air, trying to ice the comet.

Cut to the end of school, where Archie winsomely offers Veronica an escort home.  He has no ride, however, and Veronica isn’t the type of girl to walk. (She also just can’t, not in those high heels.)  Julian has offered Veronica a ride, ditching his sister wholesale.  JASON WOULD NEVER. Archie and Cheryl can’t bear to look at each other in the face of this rejection they’ve suffered.

In the waning light, Betty and Veronica are trying to talk to two old white men.  Dupont from Stonewall is here in Riverdale now as Werther a ‘child psychiatrist’ who fully backs Warden, I mean Principal, Featherhead that the Emmett Till murder and trial are not suitable subject matter for the school paper.

Toni tries to advocate for publication by saying that people need to know what happened “so that it doesn’t happen again.”  That is so adorable and incorrect.  Knowing something terrible happened again does not in any way ensure that it doesn’t keep happening.  I think the better way to think about it is, We owe it to the wronged to mark their stories.  Featherhead shoots her down by saying that “these sorts of things don’t happen in Riverdale.”  He also says a wrong thing - that “change doesn’t happen overnight.” Actually all change happens overnight.  That’s where there’s always a backlash to any progress, because those who can’t keep up want to turn it back. A lot of the time, they succeed.  In any case, Featherstone patronizes Toni by telling her take satisfaction in how ‘well written’ in article is.

Later, at family dinner in which Polly and Charles don’t exist, Betty tries to push her parents into reading Toni’s article on the air at their nightly broadcast on RIVW.  15 minutes is what they get, of which Toni’s article would take a whole minute.   Hal’s 50s persona is very hilarious.  He looks extremely shifty and chipunky, reminding me quite a lot of Peter Pettigrew of all things.  Alice has absolutely killer eyebrows, sharp enough to slice your face open.   They both repeat Featherstone’s line about the article being ‘well written’ but have no intention of rocking the boat.   Betty is angry but she is overruled by the power of the Blossom money and her parents not wanting to upset their only sponsor.

1950s Archie is still the cutest.  He is working his car, underneath it, as he breathlessly narrates his ove for Veronica Lodge.  He actually says SHAZAM!  persuasively.  Hit with a thunderbolt indeed.  He’s so 1950s in fact that the things he says and the way he says them feel suspicious too perfect. “How’s a guy like me gonna get anywhere with a girl like Veronica Lodge” and so  forth.  Jughead is perched like a depressed crow in his S sweater that seems to get darker and darker as the day goes on, looking off to the side and not listening to this earnest puppy love talk.

Jughead’s narration takes over. He is just so anxious.  He’s talking so fast, thinking about Bailey’s Comet, trying to harness that to get back to the future. “But I needed [ pause ] help.”  He sounds increasingly like the wigged out Bunker Jug of Rivervale.  Archie asks for his dad’s hammer, which sets off Jughead’s memory - that Archie buried the hammer in the time capsule.

The capsule they buried in the year 2020 when they graduated from high school, not to be confused with the year 2020 when they were 6 years after graduating from high school, might still be in existence in 1955 even though they were sent ‘back’ to this time from the first but not the second 2020.

Jughead seems to think this is a logical leap and I am very tickled. I kind of find it annoying (sorry, anti-intellectualism incoming, mea culpa in advance) when time travel stories get too precious about theoretical physics, so this made me very pleased with the wild swings they take in narrative on Riverdale.

So! Jughead asks for a shovel to Archie, who gives him an odd look. Is it because Archie thinks “Can I borrow a shovel?” is a really weird response to “Have you seen my dad’s hammer?” or is it because Archie knows something?

Later that night, Jughead is digging something out of the ground again. Grave robbery is one of his leitmotifs, I suppose?   He hits something hard, and guess what! It’s the time capsule.  Jughead is out of breath as he says “Thank God” but he seems just as frantic and scared as before.  And dun dun!! Someone is watching him do all this from the shadows!  The hairline looks vaguely like Tabitha.

Veronica is going to school the next day, wearing  more modest neckline and weather appropriate warm clothes.   Archie has somehow gotten his car out of the garage, so now he’s able to offer her a ride home. She’s very pleased, but Jughead walks right in between the two of them, carrying the time capsule ice box. Summarily, he insists that the two of them come meet him in the music room. Veronica has no idea who he is.

In the music room, they’re all holding their 2020 self’s contribution to the time capsule.  Toni has never seen the Pretty Poisons jacket.  Veronica thinks the Pop’s menu is an only passable prop.  Betty finds the headlines to be “like Dr. Seuss” meaning amusing gibberish, perhaps?   And Kevin keeps asking unanswerable questions - he wants to know what the “inch” is in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.  Archie wants to know when Jughead buried Fred’s hammer in a cooler.

Jughead tackles that one first, saying “YOU did.”  Archie genuinely looks like he has no idea what Jughead’ is talking about, but I’ve sussed it out now - 1950s Archie’s response to confusion is to smile about it. So he smiles.  Jughead can see that his attempt to “shake something loose” in his friends’ minds isn’t working, so in his frustration, his presentation starts to get very garbled.  He tells them they buried all these things 67 years ago IN THE FUTURE which, given the tenses, doesn’t even amount to English.   He says they need to get back to ‘our present, our future’ before full on stuttering.  Betty is concerned, Cheryl is annoyed, Toni and Kevin look embarrassed for Jughead, Archie is smiling because he’s confused.  Veronica, however, is very entertained.  

Archie wants to know what Jughead buried.  Jughead knows it was his “yarn beanie” but then says it wasn’t in the time capsule.  For some reason, this takes the fun out of this exercise for Archie, the fact that Jughead didn’t include an item of his own in the ‘cooler.’

Veronica says she’ll play along, and asks if she or Elizabeth Taylor is more famous in the future.  Cheryl, not to be outdone, cuts in with a request to give a bird’s eye view of the future.  Jughead has not thought this far in advance, so his answer is (adorably) piss poor.  he just throw things out - smartphones,  text messages, spotify, the internet - in THAT order which is the most confusing thing of all time.  Betty tries to help him out since he’s getting frantic during this speech that makes no sense to her - she asks Jughead to describe everyone’s Season 6 selves.

Jughead’s summaries are as follows:  Archie was in the army, fought in a war. Betty was in FBI hunting serial killers.  The way Betty practically salivates at the word serial killer, which doesn’t exist as a word yet, is VERY interesting.  Veronica owns a casino, and before that a speakeasy.  Toni bought the speakeasy, turned it into a biker bar.  Both Veronica and Toni are charmed by this story.  

Jughead positively chokes when he tries to summarize Kevin’s life.  He can tell, by this time, that this is going very sideways, which won’t be helped by how out of sorts Kevin’s life became by the end of Season 6.  Kevin is summarized as directing some musicals, after which he joined an organ harvesting cult.  Not wrong, but not very fulsome.  Cheryl, Jughead says, was possessed by an ancestor and became a witch.  She is not a happy customer, at all.

Archie says a fascinating thing- that he wouldn’t want to go back to the future because “we” sound miserable. Well, given that he was just told he joined the army and went to war, this is true for him, but not all the futures are miserable.

Veronica wants to know how the whole ‘going back to the future’ thing will happen, to which Jughead’s entire presentation falls completely apart. When he says that one of the ways might be a comet, Toni (who has tried very hard to be polite so far) gives a What the fuck look to Betty, who answers it with a Oh he’s just like this smile.   Jughead is fully in frantic world-maintainer Bunker Jughead mode now, and starts shouting about having Archie and Betty make out on Archie’s bed and then “BLOW  UP A BOMB UNDERNEATH THEM.”

This is so funny. I love with Jughead gets all Bunker-Jug, with the shouting and the extreme hand gestures. Is he perhaps channeling Hiram??

Everyone thinks this is very funny, but Archie has had enough.  Archie tries to make Jughead ‘take five’ which puts Jughead fully into feral motormouth mode to ask “YOU’RENOTGONNABEATMEUPAREYOUCUZYOU’REREALLYVIOLENTINTHEFUTURE”

The whole sentence is spit out as one long word.

When the two of them are alone in the gym, Archie lets it rip.  “People are going to think you belong in the looney bin with the other nutjobs!” and “It’s hard enough without your crazy stories” etc.  Jughead is coming down from his frantic mania so being called a ‘nut job’ is not helping.  His eyes actually start to glisten with tears.  “You think I’m crazy?” he asks, in a more normal, much sadder cadence.   Jughead is so upset, and so lonely, and so despairing.

This is a big change from his mid teens, when he took on being not understood, being isolated, unique and alone, as a badge of honor.  This Jughead understands the horror of being trapped in a solitary reality.  He can’t even stand to look at Archie, because that would mean confronting how trapped and alone he actually is in this universe.  Archie tries to be kind, telling him to keep using his ‘overactive’ imagination by channeling that energy into creating fiction.  When Jughead gives up altogether, and agrees, Archie actually skips a couple steps (something he’s never done in any of the other universes) before leaving Jughead standing in the gym.

At the very red, very depressing Blossom mansion, Penelope, who has the most fascinating hairdo (it’s both ornate and simple, hideous and perfectly coiffed) while dressed like the nightmare camp version of the English queen wants to know why  her twins look so sullen.  The way the Blossom twins of this universe bicker seems much more realistic, and, accordingly, much more dull.   I think this is post facto validation for the way the Cheryl-Jason relationship is in the S1-6 canon. It’s so much more interesting than this mundanity between Julian and Cheryl.

Penelope delivers movie magazines to Cheryl, and on the cover is someone not Veronica Lodge being cast in Our Town!

Meanwhile, Veronica is on a date with Archie at Pop’s!  She loves the food. All her attempts to make lighthearted conversation with Archie fail.  He has no idea who Gloria Swanson is.  This literally breaks Veronica’s spirit.   So she changes her line of questioning - “Tell me everything there is to know about Archie Andrews.”

His life is so boring.  “Work on my car. I like sports. I come here to pops. And i hangout at sweet water river.  mostly to fish.”

Then Archie reveals that Fred didn’t make it back from the Korean War, making him one of the 33,000 American servicemen who died.  Thank you Fred Andrews for your service, I guess? I’m slightly peeved that they didn’t make up a different war like they did for Archie to go fight in during the 2020 that lasted for seven years, but then they used the real Emmett Till story so they might as well use the Korean War, I suppose.  Archie is very used to people being upset about having asked, as well as not knowing what to say, so he is very smooth in the way he assures Veronica that “It’s OK” when she tries to apologize for prying.   In this universe, Mary Andrews works part time at the dress shop (no lawyering for her, alas).   I’m shocked she doesn’t work at Pop’s.  Though I guess maybe this economy is better.

Archie has never had a serious girlfriend by his Junior year of HS, about which Veronica is shocked.  Two days after meeting Veronica and in the course of their first real date, Archie more or less says that he wants to be Veronica’s boyfriend. He looks so starry eyed at her, that Veronica is extremely charmed. (So am I.)

But Veronica can’t be let to have nice things, so in comes Cheryl, shouting “J’accuse!”  Cheryl hates Veronica SO MUCH.  Just the ad hominem insults - “lying liar of a spoiled brat” and “banished by your parents!”  - and she insists on shouting the fact that Veronica employed a bit of puffery when she was introducing herself to the class.  

At the Pembroke, Veronica is weeping while consoled by Archie.  Archie tries to say nobody takes Cheryl seriously  Veronica fesses up that she was in fact banished, and she was a problem for her parents.   Veronica says she was ignored and sidelined since the Lodges started Oh Mija!  This is fascinating actually because Veronica’s persistent problem during her high school years was that both her parents were completely obsessed with her- and when she acquired a hitherto unknown older sibling halfway through her years in high school, Hermosa exhibited the same Lodge trait - obsession with Veronica, wanting to love her, wanting and willing to shoot at people on her behalf, and hating her just the little bit.  Now, in this universe, she’s an inconvenient burden neither parents cares much about - which indicates that Veronica was so the object of her parents’ focus because the two of them didn’t have sufficient creative outlets.  “The show is their real baby, not me.”    

This happened in a slower way during S5-6.  When Hiram finally, FINALLY killed off Riverdale and began his SoDale giant real estate project, he stopped being as invested in Veronica per se.  And when Hermione found the semi-acting gig of being a “Real Housewife,” she disappeared entirely out of Veronica’s life.

It turns out Veronica’s deep dark secret, the thing that got her banished to Riverdale by her parents, was that she was in fact tangentially involved in James Dean’s death.  She was one of several good time girls who formed a sort of racing fandom for Dean, and were going to meet him to cheer him on during a race.  

After consoling Veronica, Archie gets home late, to be immediately yelled at by Mary.  Mary is traumatized by the loss of Fred Andrews - which she honestly wasn’t very much in S4-6. Maybe this is why, if he does remember, Archie prefers to stay in this universe.    He has a mom who cares deeply that his father died.  Mother and son bond over their shared loss.  The compromise is that Archie is allowed to drive as long as his car goes very, very slow.  I will also note that his question about how he took HIS car out in a drive is a very unteenager thing to say.  So the question remains - what does Archie know or sense about this alternate universe?

In a fit of masochism, Veronica watches her parents’ show.  The kid cast to play the Mija is Tillie Temple (aka Shirley Temple, perhaps??).  Veronica hates Tilie.  Of course, right now is when Hermione calls.   Turns out someone is keeping a strict eye on the guests that Veronica has over at the apartment.  Veronica wants to go home for Thanksgiving, but Hermione doesn’t say she can come.  She has Orson Welles visiting.  Veronica is so lonely.   This is also new for Veronica - Maternal rejection has never been her problem.  That was usually reserved for Jughead, Cheryl and to a lesser extent, Betty and Archie.

Betty reads the Emmett Till newsletter which show the pictures of what Till went through.  It radicalizes Betty  into wanting to publish the article Toni wrote.  But Toni wants to read a poem out during the morning announcements. There’s an echo of the larger theme in S1 through 6 here.  In previous seasons, Cheryl took it upon herself to make up for her ancestor’s sins. In this one, Toni wants Cheryl to make it up to - who? Toni? the world? - someone for her parents’ cowardice in not wanting to cover the Till murder.   Toni is planning an ambush.

Tabitha immediately approaches Jughead She asks for help.  NAACP is taking Emmett Till’s mother on tour, so Tabitha is going with them.  What Tabitha needs someone to help her ‘stay on top of’ school while she is on this tour.  It’s really not clear to me what that will be, but Jughead - though he is crushed that this Tabitha doesn’t even seem to know him at all - agrees immediately.  His eyes get all sad again, as he looks with wistful tenderness at this person who is exactly like his girlfriend but isn’t, at all.   He smiles and says “Awesome!” which he corrects to “Swell.”

Meanwhile Toni ambushes Cheryl in the bathroom with Betty.  Cheryl doesn’t mind letting Toni borrow her platform, but points out that Featherhead has pulled the plug before.  For what, I wonder? When??  She’s otherwise very easily persuaded.

Tabitha has fainted, Featherhead is tending to her, Miss Bell is off, and so now, Toni can take over the morning announcement!

As Toni was reading the Langston Hughes poem I realized with the Rs and Ss stand for on those sweaters. R is for Riverdale.  A bunch of other students have Rs emblazoned on their sweaters and sweatshirts.  So the S must be for Southside.  Jughead wears a Southside High sweater all the time to attend Riverdale High, and they just let him!

So anyway Toni exhorts everyone to ‘talk to each other’ about it, and this is the third weird lie propagated in American society.  The emphasis on dialogue as somehow a catalyst for systemic change, which it is not

The four girls get a telling off from Featherhead, who tries to call them liars -but Tabitha has an answer for that (she felt sick! but felt better!) and insubordinate - but Cheryl has an answer for that (there has not been a rule that poetry can’t be read during the morning announcement or that they have to pass censorship).  

In the classroom later, the teacher does open up the discussion to the topic, but see, this is the problem.  It puts the burden on the three people of color - Tabitha, Toni, and the unnamed guy I have assumed is Chuck Clayton- to explain reality to everyone else, who can be passive recipients of information and responsible only for articulating their emotional responses.

Later that school day, Veronica is offered a ride by both Julian and Archie, and rejects them both in favor of walking home!

Late at night, Jughead is freaking out by himself in the diner, no typewriter.  He is cracking up.  Maybe seasons 1-6 were the dream and he finally woke up!!  

Tabitha slides into the booth and Glory Hallelujah it’s HIS Tabitha!  “The Tabitha who remembers and loves you.”  He reaches out to grasp her with both hands.  He’s so happy to see her, he says, covering his eyes with one hand, trying not to burst into tears.  Tabitha says that the comet hit because Cheryl failed, so they had their extinction level event  after all.  This isn’t the Sweet Hereafter.  She instead used her life force to send everyone back to 1955 to try to change the future.  She has to be ALONE to untangle all the messed up timelines.  “You have to make a go of it here in the 50s.”

So she parked Jughead here in 1955 to be safe, but because he kept remembering the actual reality (and could drive himself insane or further corrupt the safe timeline) she had to come back to make him forget, so that he can “live in the present, in the moment.”   Oh, but Tabitha.  Jughead was already so bad at that!  And now that’s his part of the mission? To hold it together without her while she fixes the universe?

Jabitha may be the MOST EPIC relationship in scale which doesn’t quite make up for the tiny amount of screen time we’re likely to get if Tabitha has decided that she has to solve this universe sized problem ALONE.  Jughead was willing to die a LOT.  Tabitha went through every single scenario where Jughead died to see how to make that not happen.  And now, Jughead is going to endure having the happiest time of his life wiped from memory - the time when he was a stable adult, who knew who he was in the world, when he was in a relationship and family unit of people who accepted him and supported him, when he had a real home - because Tabitha says it’s “for the best.”  He decides to trust her with erasing the thing that any of us hold the dearest - his memories that constitute his sense of self.   And can we talk about Tabitha’s self sacrifice?  She’s going to do this very difficult work of setting the UNIVERSE RIGHT while voluntarily, entirely, completely forgotten (by her own hand!) by her significant other who adores her,  all her friends in the community she chose to become independent from her parents, all alone.  

Holy shit.

Jughead’s sprint home after their kiss, which rightly seems to freeze time to be everlasting before Tabitha steps away, is so desperate and frantic.  Jughead who was terrified of being forgotten is beginning to forget the most important person in his adult life. All he has are the words “bend. toward. justice.” and the sense that something terrible has just happened to him, without the ability to remember what it is.   This isn’t the Sweet Hereafter.  This has to be hell.

I am LOVING this.  It’s so BIG.  I wish they could SHOW it though.  But I think eventually, because the universe does in fact bend towards justice, someone will write me the fanfic that will have me lain flat on the floor from devastation.  Because omg the Jabitha relationship has SCOPE.

And the final kicker-  Jughead doesn’t recognize his stupid hat.  Ha!

P.S.  The title reference, “Don’t Worry Darling”  if it’s to that movie that came out this year, in 2023, then it’s very twisty and fun.  Because that movie is about a man manipulating a woman’s mind for his own aggrandizement, and this episode is the mirror of that - a woman manipulating a man’s mind, with his explicit agreement, to save the universe.

[sunnyfirefoxmc]

I've been spending the past bit of time kinda catching up on some of Grian's videos, so I rewatched a lot of Season 8 and actually finally finished it, and have managed to watch through all of Season 9 pretty quickly.

My thoughts below the read more v

And I don't really know what it is, whether it's the fact I'm finishing it so late at night after a long day (Solar Eclipse Baybeeee) or just how this season kinda went along, but I have maybe 50 minutes left of the last episode of season 9 and I'm crying.

The last minute interactions with some of the other hermits, the memories of earlier episodes (even as someone who was admittedly very far behind), or just how much life and appreciation went into this season for all of the hermits is just hitting something. Seeing Grian talk about the others bases and give them the love they truly deserve is really what makes hermitcraft /hermitcraft/ to me.

I've been doing this while waiting between Season 10 eps as something to keep me grounded in the space bc I tend to burn myself out of things I love pretty quickly, but this helps remind me why I keep coming back. I've been watching Grian since around Season 6 (mostly bc I don't remember if I found him when EVO was coming out or not) and while I do tend to stray away for some time, I always end up right back here. I guess this is just a really long-winded appreciation post from myself for Hermitcraft. I just love this community of creators and fans so much.

[castle-dominion]

Season premieres & finales, trying to remember what happened when

season 1: he met beckett

he said "I looked at your mom's murder"" & she kicked him out

Season 2: he came back for a photoshoot & the reporter said "ooh I want to see the two of you in action" but I think this one is the one where the body got stolen.

he left for the summer with Gina

Season 3: his artist was murdered when he got home from his book tour. he started investigating on his own so they arrested him for murder lol.

Monty got shot, beckett did too & was on disability for three months. Castle says he loves her.

season 4: Gates shows up. First homicide back is some gal who got shot in the chest ("good thing beckett sat this one out") & hastings had a line with a front shot on her. they are simultaneously investigating becketts shooting. also the guy's name is rod haelstead which is very similar to a famous Métis fiddler rod olstad.

Monty's place had a breakin & evelyn shot someone with his old gun. Files were stolen. the dead guy who stole files was in contact with an old friend from the military who got him into this crap. Smith calls again, as he does. Castle needs to stop becks from looking into this case. He fails, she's hanging off a roof, all she can think of is castle. Ryan saves them by telling gates their secret & especkett get suspended & they are mad at ryan. Beckett resigns & goes to sleep with castle. No time passes but she does get a suspension in 5x1 which was the hiatus.

Season 5: Smith got beat up by maddoox. Ryan shows up at beckett's apartment bc he is working without a team. Esposito gets his army friend to find maddox. Caskett find smith all beat up & go to his property where esposito also happens to show up. The file goes kablooey & the cops are like "caspeckett why r u here?" Ryan shows up at beckett;s apartment again & gets two guns pulled on him lmao. they do a puzzle & somehow the file got blown up into pieces but not blown up into ash... anyway they find out it's bracken. Smith "dies". Beckett is not an assassin. Beckett wants her job back & gates is like "smh" but she lets beckett back. Well. After her suspension which is why I consider 5x1 to be more like 4x23b.

She gets a job at the AG's office bc of some anti surveillance tech guy who I really appreciated. Castle is like "what about me" but then proposes.

Season 6: she is working at the AG's & engaged to castle. Castle is no longer working with the nypd. Alexis introduces Pi too.

He has resurrected Derek Storm. Beckett turns out to be married. Castle got into a car crash & disappeared. Beckett is back at the nypd btw. She is the new roy montgomery, always quitting her job & coming back.

Season 7: they pick up at the end of the last season but Castle is missing for 2 months after that. Then they find him. Yay. He has no memories. (He should keep it that way.)

castle also becomes a pi in this season.

Castle's childhood trauma comes back to haunt him. Beckett is trying to be Captain or Senator. Castle gets an award & all the people are there which is nice.

Season 8: Beckett has become captain but then gets a call from the AG's office from some poor nerdy kid. Bracken, who is in jail now, still has a plot going on. Sullivan does not return (he was beckett's replacement when she was in the AG's). Hayley Shipton is introduced. She takes a break from her relationship with Castle & he is no longer working at the precinct but he keeps coming back anyway.

Idk how it ends. Don't tell me.

[totalviridescence]

Review: Black Mirror’s ‘Joan is Awful’ is awful.

Episode Rating: 2.5/10

—

This episode heavily relys on meta gimmicks and celebrity cameos for its humor which fall flat and its attempt at a plot twist is laughably bad.

The scene where Salma Hayek is yelling and making poop jokes is especially grating. Topped off by the cringe, “I am Salma fucking Hayek” scene that we’re supposed to think is epic for some reason, despite this episode showcasing Salma Hayek’s bad acting. It lacks zero charm or appeal that Black Mirror originally had in its earlier incarnations. The excuse for how the “quantum computer” works which they provide very little explanation for (see TV Tropes) is basically that an actor can license their digital likeness to Streamberry (in-universe netflix) that will then generate an entire show using CGI. This explanation shows a clear lack of effort or research by the writers which would put CGI directors and artists to shame, as CGI renderings take wayyyy longer than this episode implies. This episode basically just rides off of the coattails of that age-old “nobody reads the terms & conditions” joke that old people on Facebook enjoy. It somehow manages to be even worse than Season 5’s ‘Rachel, Jack, and Ashley too’ episode, which i’m sure that both Black Mirror viewers and scientists alike both previously thought was impossible.

I would typically give this a 1 but Michael Cera being in it gives it an extra 1.5 even though i’m almost entirely sure that he was held at gunpoint to be in it.

[carnage-vrp]

session six; into the fire

Delving further into the warehouse, the coterie discover multiple holding cells, including Alistair Fitzroy's prison. Bruce and Kalypsia encounter some supernatural pull from a sinister door. Resisting the urge to stay behind, they rescue an unconscious Alistair and leave the basement. At the stairs they contend with their earlier combatant and her reinforcements, Jonathan among them.

Realising they are outnumbered and against dangerous weaponry, they flee the warehouse aided by Edwina's show of force and Kalypsia's manipulations. They are followed by Jonathan's ranks, but Bruce is able to damage the trailing vehicle.

Injured and hungry, the crew feed and accompany Bruce to collect a new bagged blood supply from Jacob. Sympathising with Bruce, he waives their usual transaction and gives him back the Kelly family's car. He recognises Genevieve as his ex-wife and assumes the worst. After a painful and wary discussion with Alistair still in the boot of Vanessa's car, they are able to part ways with Jacob on the condition he keeps Genevieve's phone and meets with them tomorrow evening.

Bruce announces to Gabriel that there is far more to the task originally assigned as a boon, citing the dangers of tonight's discovery. He inquires about the premonition drawing involving Kalypsia and Lachie, which Gabriel seems hesitant to answer properly. Gabe tells Genevieve that he believes his vision of the red mist spells doom for both the Anarchs and the Camarilla. He also admits to witnessing that they staked Freya recently.

Everyone returns to the theatre, where they discreetly tie Alistair up in Bruce's room. Joseph's radio broadcasts a final message which no one is awake to hear.

[beansprean]

WHAT WE CLUE IN THE SHADOWS: A FINALE CONSPIRACY BOARD

So. WWDITS may have the actual balls to do this to us. and I for one am INCREDIBLY excited for the possibility. If you're a WWDITS fan and haven't seen Clue (1985), I highly recommend taking 95 minutes to do so before the finale. Just in case.

Clue is my favorite movie, I have probably seen it upwards of 100 times for real, and I can recite it from memory with 90% accuracy. I also have the pleasure of owning and playing the WWDITS-themed Clue game, which is centered around finding out who stole the witch's skin hat and where in the house they hid it. I don't know if that will play into the finale at all, but it's something to think about.

The thing about Clue (the film), if you aren't aware, is that there are three different endings. On the vhs/dvd, you see all three in a row between 'that's how it could have happened, but what about this?' title cards. In theaters, there were three versions of the movie (labeled A, B, and C) that were dispersed to different theaters, so depending on where and when you went to see it you would see one of 3 endings. (It's kinda unclear which letter corresponded to which originally, so my labels will be assuming a 1:1 comparison between the order of the home version of Clue and the airing order of the WWDITS episodes.) The Clue endings are not all made equal, and on the home version, the final ending is announced as 'what really happened.'

So allow me to take a moment to talk about how the different endings work in context to each other and the film, and how that could translate to three different endings for WWDITS.

CLUE SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT (for real, go watch it)

(last chance to watch Clue go)

Ending#1: "Communism is just a red herring"

In this ending, the first one that plays in the home version, Miss Scarlet is revealed to be the murderer. She is a snarky, sarcastic madam who runs a "hotel and telephone service to provide men with the company of a young lady for a short while" and has policemen on her payroll. This is what I would consider the expected ending, the one that makes sense for most viewers. It's not shocking, but it's funny and well acted and it makes the most sense. Miss Scarlet has the right personality for murder, was in the most convenient area of the house to commit them, and had Yvette (the maid, formerly one of Miss Scarlet's call girls) committing some of the murders at her direction, so she had enough alibis to not make her too obvious. Many people watching this movie for the first time will have her high on their suspect list.

This ending also dismisses the idea of 'dangerous communism' that had been a thread throughout the film (as it is set in 1953 during the second Red Scare) as a misdirection. Miss Scarlet isn't stealing government secrets to betray the US; she's doing it to make money. The real danger all along was capitalism, something that s6 of WWDITS has said repeatedly.

So, to recap, this is the Standard Ending. The Second Best ending. Version B.

Ending #2: "Mrs. Peacock did it all."

This one, played second in the home version, is in my opinion the weakest ending. It reveals Mrs. Peacock, the neurotic, hysterical, and allegedly politically corrupt wife of a senator, as the murderer. She's hilarious and fantastic to watch throughout the whole film and I love her, but this charm drops after the reveal and she becomes cold and drab as she threatens her way to safety. She committed all the murders herself, which would be very difficult to achieve with the tight timing and her position in the basement during the search.

She ends up being caught outside the house by a police inspector, who had earlier shown up disguised as an evangelist telling her to "repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Interestingly, they originally filmed him immediately shooting her dead without provocation, but they thought that was too dark and edited it into an arrest instead (which is why there is such a quick cut after he pulls his gun, and we only hear her rather than see her after that). This is the 'repent for your sins' ending. You do bad things, bad things happen to you.

The obligatory "it's always who you least expect" ending. The Still-Good-But-Not-The-Best Ending. Version C.

Ending #3: "You're Mr. Boddy!"

This is "how it really happened" - the twist ending! The hero was the villain, the villain was just a pawn, and everyone committed a murder in the house to cover their own asses. Prof Plum killed the fake Mr. Boddy, Miss Scarlet killed the cop, Mrs. Peacock killed Mrs. Ho (the cook), Mrs. White killed Yvette, Colonel Mustard killed the motorist, and Wadsworth/Mr. Boddy killed the singing telegram girl.

Mr. Green, who reveals he works for the FBI, kills Wadsworth/Mr. Boddy and arrests the rest of the cast. Understandably the best and most exciting ending (though not without some plot holes) that everyone loves. We get a surprising reveal from two of our main characters that not only changes the context with how you view them, but informs aspects of their character that have been there throughout the film! Now we understand why Wadsworth retained control of the house and the timeline of events, why he was so familiar with the house, and why this entire thing was orchestrated in the first place. We also understand why the cowardly and clumsy Mr. Green was consistently the first to jump to help and defend the other characters, even when it meant putting himself if physical danger. Unfortunately this ending also suggests that he was only pretending to be gay (wouldn't that be a twist for Guillermo lol), but he could also just be in a lavender marriage which is what I choose to believe.

This ending also has the iconic 'flames on the side of my face' scene and repeats 'communism is a red herring', this time in the context of Mr. Boddy's intention to continue blackmailing them all now that they have taken care of anyone who could have pointed the finger at him.

This is the True Ending. The twist you didn't expect but are delighted to find. The 'nothing was as it seemed' endng. The ending that is the most intentional and complete, where everyone gets to shine. Version A.

So what will we be doing in those shadows?

We can assume that e11 will not revolve around finding a murderer, but it does, from what we've seen in the trailer, revolve around making a wife for the monster. Do we get three different wives? Three different actors to play her? Three different superhero identities for Nandor and Guillermo? Three different levels of nandermo: one with a handshake, one with a hug, one with a kiss? Three different explanations for the origin and/or purpose of the documentary? (this is my personal favorite) Or is each ending entirely divorced from the other? Only time will tell.

What I'm leaning toward is that each episode will come up to the same turning point - a decision, a reveal, etc. The first two versions will have reasonable possibilities, the first less surprising but more enjoyable than the second, and the third... The third will be what really happened, and pull a twist no one saw coming. Perhaps even a character will reveal a hidden identity. Maybe, just maybe...we get Simon the Devious.

I only hope the order of the episodes doesn't change between channels or time zones because that will make things very confusing when liveblogging it in the group chat lmao.

[epicbuddieficrecs]

Weekly Recap | March 18th-24th 2024

It's a long one today folks! I hope you enjoy! :) If you know anyone who's not tagged, don't hesitate to let me know!

idk 'bout you but I can't wait for the final part of the premiere on Thursday!!! 😃

Complete

anything that is beautiful, people want to break. by dylaesthetics (Post-Coma, Trans Buck | 3K | Teen): Buck has never meant to keep it a secret from the one-eighteen. Hell, he trusts them with much more gritty, uncomfortable stuff than that. It’s more like… It hasn’t come up. There’s been no reason for it to come up. But then he gets struck by lightning and the mix-up with his medical records happens. A nurse he hasn’t seen yet barges into Buck’s hospital room, with his entire family in it, blood and found alike, and stares at him for one dumbfounded moment before blurting out a name he hasn’t been addressed by in well over eight years. 

not flesh and blood but the heart by Jinko / @jinkohhh (Post-S6, Getting Together | 10K | Explicit): Five times people assumed Chris was Buck's son + one time Eddie confirmed it.

🔥 don’t wanna let you love somebody else but me by fleetinghearts/ @shitouttabuck (S7 Spec, Bachelor Party, Pretend Relationship | 14K | Teen): or, chris wants dating advice and it turns out taking your best friend on a pretend date to practice being as romantic as possible is not a good idea in theory or in practice, considering the pesky being-in-unrequited-love of it all

A Little Bit of the Bubbly by Jinko/ @jinkohhh (Post-S6, PWP, Getting Together | 7K | Explicit): Since turning 30, Buck's relationship with champagne has changed. It also manages to change his relationship with Eddie.

washed away (but not) by Jinko / @jinkohhh (S7 Spec | 3K | Teen): “Well, this is awkward.” Every part of Buck wanted to tell Chim to go fuck himself, but he couldn’t, so he didn’t. Nothing made a situation more awkward than pointing out the awkwardness of it. “So which one of you two made the deathbed love confession?” Ravi laughed, and frankly, Ravi could go fuck himself, too. The both of them could go fuck themselves because both Chimney and Ravi were correct.

i like the way you scratch my itch by oklahoma/ @sunshinediaz (BTHB: Hives | 3K | Teen): Buck’s big blue eyes sparkle. “You’re so cute, did you know that?” he asks, leaning close enough Eddie can count the small red-brown-orange freckles all across his nose. “Even when you’re red from poison ivy.” Red. Red from the poison ivy. Yeah, yep, that’s exactly what he’s so red for. Absolutely.

meet you in the middle. by dylaesthetics (Getting Together | 2K | Teen): OR buck and eddie get their shit together during a regular friday movie night at the diaz house.

🔥 Even in Winter There is Eranthis by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels / @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Hades/Persephone AU | 45K | Explicit): Buck is supposedly a god. Supposedly. But he's got no idea what his domain is or what role he plays in Olympus. When he meets Christopher, a young boy lost and trying to find his father, he helps Chris get home - and ends up accidentally binding himself to the Underworld. Now bound to Eddie, the god of the dead, Buck must spend half the year with him in the Underworld while winter reigns above. But even as something grows between them, there are still trials to endure. Just because the gods are not mortal... does not mean they cannot die.

🔥 My Blood on Your Skin (My Rose on Your Snow) by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Mythological AU, BDSM | 80K | Explicit): When Eddie needs cash and fast to take care of Christopher, his LAFD Academy buddy suggests a job as a bouncer at Elysium - an exclusive sex club in downtown Los Angeles. Eddie doesn't care what goes on there, so long as he's paid, but he finds he cares a lot bout the club's enigmatic owner, Evan Buckley, and it's not long before the two of them are violating every boss-employee rule in the book. But there's something different about Buck and the club, something not quite... human. If Eddie wants to keep Buck, he's going to have to delve into the world of immortals, and all the risks that implies.

and check out the amazing podfic!! 🔥 My Blood on Your Skin (My Rose on Your Snow) by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels [Podfic] by Rhea314 (Rhea)/ @rhea314

hold tight, you’re slowly coming back to life by bucksclipboard/ @excuseme-greentea (S7E01 Coda, Getting Together | 3K | Teen): Eddie runs into Natalia at the grocery store. He learns something about her and Buck’s breakup that gives him the final push to take care of his own complicated love life.

🔥 miracles under your sighs and moans by napricot (Sex Pollen, PWP | 21K | Explicit): When Eddie gets exposed to an experimental aphrodisiac on a call, he realizes there’s only one person he trusts to help him get through it: Buck.

Touch Me and I'll Scream by rogerzsteven/ @rogerzsteven (BTHB: Unhealthy Coping Mecanisms, Established Buddie | 5K | Mature): At his low, Buck uses rough sex as a way of self harm.

in another life by bellabrady (Coma AU | 2K | Not Rated): Or: Buck's in a coma and dreams of a life where Daniel never died and he never became a firefighter.

Locations by rogerzsteven/ @rogerzsteven (BTHB: Vomiting, Drowning | 4K | General): In which Buck drowns.

I was born to take care of you by Beulaugh/ @if-music-be-the-food-of-love (Getting Together | 3K | Mature): Buck has a revelation at work and then promptly falls on his face. Eddie Diaz's ass: 1, Evan Buckley: 0

hold the silence. by dylaesthetics (Post-S6 | 3K | Teen): OR while looking for clothes to donate, Buck stumbles upon the shirt he was wearing when Eddie got shot.

Tomorrow we can drive around this town by lamardeuse/ @lamardeuse (S7 Spec, Drunk Eddie | 4K | Mature): If Eddie had been sober, he would have realized it wasn't something to be happy about. But drunk as he was, it had the blood singing in his veins, because Buck was going home with him, not Tommy. Tommy could go fuck himself – or you know, anyone else who was willing, but not Evan Buckley. Because Eddie was a pathetic, sloppy drunk and his best friend had a responsibility to make sure he didn't choke on his own vomit or drown himself in the bathroom sink.

sang to the sea for feelings deep blue by Tizniz/ @tizniz (S7 Spec, Cruise Ship Emergency | 14K | General): God, he hopes Buck got out. That he isn’t trying to get to Eddie. That he gets to go home. And not just because Christopher needs him, although he does since Eddie is fairly certain he’s not making it home this time. He doesn’t let himself dwell too long on that thought. No, Eddie wants Buck to go home because he deserves it. Because Buck deserves to live. Because Eddie needs him to live.

you've got game by browney3dgirl6/ @hoodie-buck (S7E01 Coda, Established Buddie | 1K | General): a silly little late night conversation about chris being a 'ladies man'

take this life and make it yours (take this heart and let it love again) by Maira/ @carrierofthepaperclips (Canon Divergent, Post-Coma | 31K | Mature): Before he could second guess it, he’d dialled Eddie’s number and listened to it ring in his ear. As soon as he heard the click of the connection, he said, “Eddie, what the hell, man?” “I meant what I said. I don’t know who you think you are, but call this number again and I will contact the police.” . . . or, the one where Buck finally figures out he's in love with Eddie, only for things to not go as planned. At first.

if i bleed, you'll be the last to know by heartbeatdiaz/ @loserdiaz (S7, Hurt Buck | 6K | Teen): buck gets stabbed while out on a run and then... doesn't tell anyone about it. eddie loses his shit when he finds out, they have a moment in the kitchen and they kiss.... not necessarily in that order.

Baby, take me by 42hrb / @exhuastedpigeon (S7E01 Coda, Getting Together | 4K | Explicit): “Same thing,” Eddie nuzzled him, stubble scratching even more as he moved his face. When he stopped nuzzling, he pulled back far enough that he could see Buck’s face. “I said stop thinking.” “Kinda hard to turn my brain off.” “Pretty sure I turned it off just fine last night,” Eddie said with a smirk that went straight to Buck’s cock, already half hard just from the way Eddie’s stubble is dragging across his skin. “Is that how I get you to stop thinking?”

when you call me yours by browney3dgirl6/ @hoodie-buck (Established Buddie, Proposal | 5K | General): Buck starts calling Eddie his husband. Only problem...they're not engaged. aka the 5 times Buck refers to Eddie as his husband and the 1 time Eddie makes it true.

just lay back in my arms for one more night by diazbegins/ @evanbegins (Established Buddie, Fluff | 2K | Teen): Buck loves Eddie as he naps.

Brat Burrito by Tizniz/ @tizniz (Established Buddie | 1K | General): Just a cute Buddie moment about breakfast burritos.

it's a sliding into home kind of day by devirnis/ @devirnis (PWP | 3K | Explicit): Eddie’s eyes still don’t leave the television. Frowning to himself, Buck cranes his neck to get a look at what could possibly be more important than him coming home after covering a tragically Eddie-less shift. A baseball game evidently is the answer.

your love is a secret I'm hoping, dreaming, dying to keep by BekkaChaos/ @bekkachaos (New Years Eve, Getting Together | 8K | Teen): aka, Eddie's in love with Buck and he doesn't know how to tell him, until there's a miscommunication and fate (well, Hen) intervenes.

Loose Threads by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Secret Relationship | 3K | Explicit): New to dating and keeping it quiet, Buck and Eddie get a little carried away on a slower shift at the firehouse. But when the alarm eventually sounds, a spur of the moment mistake leaves them a little mixed up.

Married Life by buddiefication (pumpkincreamcoldbrew)/ @911onabc (S5, Getting Together | 2K | General): Taylor films Buck for a TikTok challenge, and Buck finds out he would much rather be his best friend’s husband than his girlfriend’s.

A Seal By Any Other Name (Would Still Be My Best Friend) by bigfootsmom (Seal!Buck, Post-Tsunami | 5K | General): Evan "Buck" Buckley is a collection of oddities. But they're just what makes Buck Buck and Eddie loves him for them. Eddie had thought that after their years of friendship (and maybe something more) that nothing Buck could do would surprise him anymore. But there is one oddity that Eddie never saw coming. “How about you start with why there was a seal in my bathtub and now there’s just you in my bathtub.” (Part 1 of Seal!Buck as in the aquatic mammal)

Just Add Water by bigfootsmom (Seal!Buck, Tsunami | 3K | General): There may be more to Buck than meets the eye. But he's still only human(ish) and getting stuck in a natural disaster with his best friend's son is still all sorts of terrifying. A small hysterical part of his brain thinks about how ironic it would be if this was how he died. Him, a mythical aquatic creature, drowning. The universe would surely laugh and the long line of Buckley ancestors would turn in their graves. (Part 2 of Seal!Buck as in the aquatic mammal)

you can be my daddy (come on, you know you like) by bigfootsmom (Getting Together, Daddy Kink | 4K | Mature): Buck has a teeny tiny problem. One, he's in love with his best friend. Two, he wants to call said best friend Daddy.

It's the softness that breaks you by bigfootsmom (BDSM, Hurt/Comfort | 6K | Explicit): Or the one where Buck has more issues with intimacy than he had originally thought.

lay your love on me by bigfootsmom (PWP, Getting Together | 3K Explicit): Buck never thought the words he said to Eddie in the kitchen would ever come back to haunt him like this. Honestly, he’s not complaining.

you made me feel (i've got nothing to hide) by bigfootsmom (Virgin!Buck, Established Buddie, PWP | 8K | Explicit): Buck has a secret: Contrary to popular belief, Evan "Buck" Buckley is actually a virgin.

WIP

🔥 Right Where You Left Me by hyacinthusbloom/ @thebloomingheather (Canon Divergent, Post-S4, Angst | 22/? | 162K | Explicit | ❗️Warning: Rape/Non-con): "Therapy?" Eddie suggests. Buck almost laughs, but instead says, "I'll go if you go." Because he had fully expected him to be chicken shit, to disagree, and instead Eddie, the bastard, replies, "Deal." Or Buck never tells anyone that he slept with his therapist and deals with the butterfly effect years later.

🔥 Any Other Way by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon Divergent, S2 | 6/18 | 37K | Mature): In a switcheroo alternate universe, Buck spends young adulthood in the military, while Eddie, who has no idea Christopher exists, spends his twenties messing around, finally enjoying freedom away from his family’s expectations. When they both end up in Los Angeles, at the 118, some things are different, and others will be the same in any universe.

🔥 Things We're All Too Young to Know by Daisies_and_Briar / @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon S1-S6, S7 Spec | 122/? | 374K | Mature): This is a love story. Even if it doesn’t always look like it. Even if it doesn’t always feel like it. A look back on Eddie and Buck's lives up to now, and what led them to each other, interpreted from the current 9-1-1 canon.

[coffeegnomee]

Ooooo you wanna tell me about PrinceZam and Lifesteal lore soo bad 👀👀 (I just started s6 and I'm super interested in it lolol)

Just started season 6. oh me oh my. welcome. I wrote a summary a while ago for s3-5, here it is below.

updated to add the eclipse arc too since i glossed over it last time. and added s6 up to october. 8.5k words.

I didn't hold back on any plot twist/spoilers but like, knowing what happened is very very different from watching it unfold so all videos and vods are well worth watching. but this can give a waypoint as many videos are published months (or years) after the events.

s3 zam made an empire to keep spawn from being grieffed, everyone opposed it because he called it the PrinceZam Empire, they killed him, and he agreed to be executed and banned by Red. He came back for the finale in which vitalasy wanted to revive everyone but then banned himself (or got banned i forget) and keeping everyone unbanned became Zam's job(TM) and he resolved to never give up. After 5 (or so) bases in one week that Spoke leaked every time bc he was secretly still teamed with clownpierce, spoke did a dramatic dialogue with Zam on a hill, "why are you trying to save a world people are actively trying to leave". There was a big war which ended in Zam having another dialogue with Spoke where Zam attacked spoke with a stone ax until spoke continually killed him until he was banned. Spoke got him to give up, spoke won. It was awesome. You can watch Zam's vid on it "i was banned for saving this smp" or the finale streams, both are great recap of s3. (both the spoke dialogues happened in the same vod, it's a really easy watch)

s3 was the best season for yt vids imo, i particularly love clown and branzy's videos on the funhouse, casino, cleansing, and finale vids and if you just watch that you get everything. Everyone had good videos if you start searching channels.

s4 ends with the wormhole, a game breaking glitch that Spoke Vi and Ash found (also Subz was there) and used to completely destroy the server. Before all that the server runs as normal, starting slow with the youtube arc where everyone is making their silly random youtube videos. Zam initially wants to go solo but the joins Team Awesome which is commonly just him Mapicc and Ro but also Spoke and Terrain (iirc). There are many fun shenanigans. a spawn prison, the medusa arc. Around the mid season Team Awesome finds a dupe glitch. They dupe endless gear, god apples, and hearts and get into fights where Mapicc and Zam fight together constantly. this is The Dupe War. There are videos on it, but no streams. It ends with them withering the entirety of spawn, completely annihilating it (there's more to the arc but that is important)

During dupe war Zam and Mapicc thought Spoke was betraying them by orchestrating it with Parrot, turns out it was just Spoke who was orchestrating Everything because part of the wormhole glitch required Spoke to socially engineer Parrot into clicking a sign that would give Ash creative mode. When Ash got creative he loaded his hotbar and the Wormhole Barrel(TM) was brought into the game.

That same day Ash started showing the server the exploits (changing the course of the season DRAMATICALLY). Everything that was going on between the dupe war and this moment got put on pause.

What is everything? Well after the Dupe war Mapicc and Ro were planning on keeping duped items in a stash so they would never have to worry about items. Zam realized he Hated That(TM) bc exploits are unfair. So he left the team dramatically, fought them on the nether roof, and perished fantastically. He then retreated to his sanctuary where he built a castle.

Mapicc finds him at that castle the next day and filled with rage at zam betraying him begins The Castle Arc, fantastic arc, well worth watching as vods on Zam's channel. it's the vod after "the end of team awesome" which is also a great vod. Mapicc torments Zam nearly daily while Zam was also repairing spawn with Subz. Subz, as the finale of his spawn cleanup fights Mapicc and Ro who have become the bbegs of the week, he gets exiled. Zam grows a backbone and ALSO fights them, also looses, and then proceeds to die to Ro 13 more times. This is the Stone Sword Incident.

Left on 2 hearts he does a stream with Clown and Branzy which gets him banned by Mapicc because he had paid Clown one heart to be his protection. So Mapicc thought he still had two. they revive zam and he is left on 3 hearts (or was it 1? I forget. mapicc might've taken two of them back after revival) he turns to his only ally on the server, the only person who came and defended him from mapicc during the castle arc: ItzSubz_.

Subz invited him to his team, the Eclipse Federation. What transpires after here is the most beloved arc in all of lifesteal history, from a fandom perspective. I wrote a whole writeup on why it works so well from a story telling perspective that's one of my first posts on my blog. you can use the #gnome rambles tag to find it easier.

What started as a team, protection, safety from Mapicc, two allies who would come on to fight Mapicc and anyone else whom he got to fight on his side (though subz was more active than vi) turned into a nightmare.

After Ash leaked the wormhole items vi and subz quickly dmed him to meet at the base. Vi (iirc) told him to stop stream and delete the vod, which zam did. Unbeknownst to him, subz accidentally hit go live instead of start recording and for the less than 10 minutes he was live, he and vi implicated themselves as the originators of the wormhole glitch. The secret was out.

By the time they made it to the base to meet with zam they decided to tell zam everything, letting him know that they wanted it to have been a good surprise, something exciting that they could all do together. Vi promised that there was a plan for the items, an arc that he wanted to make happen that he had been planning since the very start of the season. I forget exactly how much they told him, but it was not everything.

Faced with Vi's season long plan, and still not knowing What the plan was, only that it was good, zam agreed to go along with it, trusting subz and vi that they knew what they were doing.

Zam, beyond all reason, had found himself on the very team that was behind the new exploit after just having left Team Awesome over exploits.

He asked if chat could know the plan, and vi and subz both agreed they wanted to keep it secret but that zam could ask off stream. Zam being Zam, could never hide something that huge from chat, didn't want to hide something that huge from chat. So he decided to not know, placing all his trust that Vi would tell him what he needed to know and that everything would be okay.

The doom lifted, for a brief time everything was okay again. But soon enough Vi was ready to start phase 1: a bedrock prison at spawn for the tyrants of the server. Zam didn't like that their team would have the power to imprison people, and he didnt like it was bedrock. He tried to communicate that, and vi and subz both assured him they would only put people in that the server as a whole agreed needed to go in. That helped zam for a short time. i dont remember all the meetings super well, but there were many. one time vi told zam they had "amplified" the glitch. another he said they had a bedrock farm in the end. vi was desperate to keep zam on the team because he loved zam and enjoyed his presence and didnt want the team to fall apart. zam at one point committed fully to the plan and killed himself in a hole to show his commitment (vi also jumped down and also died). the next day they made the prison and the day after zam regretted building out of bedrock. he hated exploits. nothing could shake him from the deep-set hatred that this was unfair for the server. he didnt want to ruin vi's plan, but he didn't know if he could continue supporting it.

around and around he went. changing his thoughts based on what vi said, changing based on subz, changing based on chat, changing based on vi. Feeling trapped, seeing no hope in being understood he roamed the server in despair. filled with the weight that the exploits would get worse in phases 2-5 he shouldered the burden without being able to tell anyone.

Beyond anything else he felt completely indebted to subz and loved subz more than anyone. subz had fought for him and protected him from mapicc, he had taken him in and given him hearts and gear to get back on his feet, he was always there ready to log on and help zam fight or save him when jumped.

Around this time there were many conversations with bacon and planet. They had seen some of the exploits, spoke was leaking them slowly since the prison was built, spawning a warden and endermite that could one tap players, using potions that gave you all the effects in the game. pvp was a thing of the past.

Bacon and Planet were investigating, trying to figure out who was pulling the strings and where the plot might go. Pretty quickly they figured out zam knew a lot, but zam wouldn't tell.

When Vi made the prison, they interviewed him, and planet got so upset that all this plot looked to be was a prison that could be used, not even would be used that he immediately started talking to bacon about getting zam to leave eclipse. he had previously been a proponent of zam sticking it out because being in the thick of content is always good on this server even if you don't love the methods. Zam was ready to leave the team but he was wracked with guilt and the fear of being alone again just like he was after betraying team awesome. they invited him to their team if he left, but he was still hesitant. he cared about subz too much to leave.

A few days later zam one again invited Branzy on, knowing that the next day he would have to make a decision about being on eclipse. There was a meeting scheduled about the next phase tomorrow. Spoke turned branzy into a dolphin with a potion and after the shenanigans, zam asked branzy for advice about what he should do. it's one of my favorite stream moments from s4, branzy approaches the lore with great seriousness and helps zam work through his thoughts to figure out what he wants to do. zam doesn't quite make a decision but has many talking points for the meeting, equipped with new metaphors to explain how he's feeling and how he needs vi to promise change, not just do little things that don't mean anything in the big picture.

At the end of the conversation planet joins call and starts asking zam innocent questions. he finds out about the book that vi once showed zam that had the whole wormhole plan, zam says it's in one of the bases, but not which, and he ends stream soon after. But once stream ends he gets curious to reread what vi wrote so he journeys to the base. Upon arrival though he realizes planet and bacon are both in the area. He sees them through the wall and walks into a room he has never seen before filled with barrels. planet and bacon drag him into a call and show him that the room is filled with every exploit and more, things they hadn't seen yet.

Seeing the extent of where the wormhole would go, and supported (or influenced depending on how you look at it) by planet and bacon, zam finally commits to leaving eclipse. he can't be part of this. this is too much. these exploits are far far worse than anything team awesome did.

So the next day he makes his traitor's requiem. He confronts vi, bacon planet and jaron come through the end portal invis and they kill vi, marking zam's departure from the team. Vi is furious zam didn't come to them, that he would betray so callously and kill him so instantly. Subz resignedly accepts that zam never was going to be able to be a part of the team, he was too against exploits.

Wracked with the pain of betrayal and loosing the person he loved deeply even though he had lied to him, Vi started to embrace the wormhole powers. Through a different glitch he was able to fly in survival, and with the one tap potions he tormented planet in the prison, killing him over and over and giving the heart back. but he insisted that he was not going to use the powers to become evil.

over the next days vi would roam the server using exploits, a ghost on the wind debating what to do with his infinite power. bacon and planet and zam got him in a call to talk about how vi was being a villain and they wanted him to give up the exploits. vi refused to see what they were saying.

but then spoke, lead by parrot and mapicc and ro, took a power play and tried chunk banning vi to end the evil on the server. parrot leaked the plan to vi and vi got out, but once again vi was facing the ridicule of the server for something that he wasn't even wanting to be.

So vi gave up the exploits. summoned the whole server to himself and burned all the items in his echest. but the server didnt believe him for a second. they were convinced he had more exploits hidden in the world. they were convinced he was the villain and were angry he wasn't just doing things with it.

but vi was done. spoke (iirc) killed him and after leaving call vi found himself atop the prison, gazing down at the server he loved, the server that hated him. it was over. he threw himself from its height over and over until he was banned.

after the ban, zam was left listless. he had betrayed eclipse because he feared they would be evil, but vi just banned himself off, sealing into the story that he would not be the villain. he couldn't talk to subz, he was too ashamed. so he became a farmer and lived inside subz's floating islands at spawn.

but one day while he was on subz revived vitalasy. zam wasn't invited but he busied himself at his farm, hoping his old teammates might want to talk to him. But something far far worse was about to happen. a ban message rang through chat. subz was killed by vitalasy. subz left the game.

his world shattered. The one person he cared about was gone. gone and he couldn't even talk to him. couldn't tell him how much he regretted betraying them. he needed to revive subz. right. now. he got vi into a call, a bottle of sunshine, sure it was just a mistake, sure subz was not really gone.

But vi was crying. he didn't explain it all to zam, but subz had brought him back on the server to tour him around their bases. filled with grief vi dragged his feet from location to location. eventually subz brought him to his newest base, and in the corner he could see a room filled with signs spelling out depression. lost, alone, a failed team that he had brought together, now split apart. vi immediately realized what subz was about to do. subz brought him to the end and revealed his masterpiece base, and then told vi to kill him. he wasn't capable of reuniting the team while he was alive, maybe in death vi and zam could reconcile. He was determined to have vi kill him. vi refused for an hour until he finally got subz to promise to return when he needed him most. And he banned him.

vi had zam meet him in the end and faced with that innocent smiling idiot's face, vi had almost no words. subz had left him a book telling him his final wish was for them to reconcile and vi begrudgingly decided to let zam in. he showed zam the end base. zam apologized instantly, wanting nothing more than for everything to be all right. but his focus was completely on reviving subz, almost ignoring vi in his desperation to get subz back. two lost birds.

vi explained that subz wanted to be gone and even if they revived him he wouldn't come back. they agree to be teammed again, and i think it's this zam vod or the next time he talks to vi, but within 30 minutes he's regretting saying yes to everything and wondering if it was the wrong thing to reconcile and get back together with vi. so. still good old princezam.

but it was done. they were reconciled. as the wormhole approached zam reconciled with everyone he had wronged.

but he forgot about pangi. in the wake of vi banning himself zam no longer wanted to do a "trap the gods" idea with pangi since the exploits were over. time and again this season zam had preferred his own plan over pangi's and often fought against him even though the two were friends. even though pangi was always there to help zam with his plans. frustrated at being snubbed, pangi took zam through the course they had made together, ending with the void trap they were going to use to lock the exploiters under the bedrock.

zam jumped in willingly, having taken off all his gear so as to not loose it in the void, but pangi had repaired the bedrock with the bedrock they had stolen from ash. pangi gave a great villain speech and trapped zam in bedrock. zam accepted his fate. so full of regret for all his action this season, this was nothing compared to what he felt he deserved.

And zam broke. he entered his mind and confronted all his past selves. his eclipse self tells him he cant just give up and abandon vi again, not after everything. zam thinks he has hurt vi too much to ever be forgiven. his team awesome (i think) self tells him he should just give up and destroy the server instead of wallowing in self pity.

he kills himself with a water bucket (ooc pangi had dropped it to him so he could get out) and decides to talk to both vi and spoke to figure out what side of the wormhole he would be on. vi isn't available. so he speaks to spoke first.

he meets spoke on a hill just like in s3, and asks to join him in ending the server. spoke reveals that he has not just all the exploits, but op. he gives zam creative mode, shows him custom items he coded, transports a whole chunk of the overworld to the end, gets in a console battle with parrot's admin account and wins. spoke is in complete control of the server.

mapicc was already on spoke's side and so once again devotions are together, fighting side by side just like on team awesome.

zam talks to vi next and iirc doesn't tell him he's already joined spoke, he's aware he has a team secret to keep and either way vi says he doesn't have plans for the finale. i actually dont remember when vi finds out zam is on the wormhole side.

over the next week spoke does prep events for the wormhole, involving inactive server members, mapicc and zam corrupt the world (grass to netherack, wood to basalt) with boots spoke coded for them. devotions wonder if spoke will betray them, they dont like that they're just minions and not equals, spoke isnt giving them actual power, just toys and tricks. they promise to end the server together no matter what happens.

the night before the end zam wonders if he's making the wrong decision again, the chatters fan the flames and he works himself up into second guessing everything. spoke might betray him. planet has found out he's on spokes side and hates him. he's messing everything up again. he was so against exploits and now he put himself on the exploit team.

suddenly he realizes chat is the problem. he's trying to make everyone happy, even chat, and he needs to just decide to do what he thinks he should do. and he decides that he wants to end the server as fast as possible so that subz can return in s4. because it's always been about subz.

the day of the wormhole arrives and about 100 other mcyts join the server to kill parrot, planet, bacon, and jaron. earlier spoke had said if they can survive the wormhole he will give up the exploits and they can save the server before ending it. over the next 48 hours they play a protect the president event.

vi revives subz the first day and suddenly zam is faced with the object of his desires back on this server. they have a final terribly tragic conversation where subz is disappointed in zam for joining spoke, zam cant defend himself because he agrees with subz, vi joins and chews zam out for betraying and tells him if he didn't want to play he should have just logged off. vi and subz are on parrot's side and killing people with leftover exploits vi still had. they leave, and zam even more dejected than ever.

planet decides to live the whole event at 3 hearts despite parrot having gathered 100 over the season. right at the end spoke asks both sides for items to ban and eventually hearts get banned, so planet is stuck at 3. in the final moments he almost gets banned but minute (as a guest) has planet kill him to get a heart again (minute's video on the wormhole was actually really good btw), but mapicc catches up to planet and bans him in the last 10 seconds of the event.

spoke, because the players fought so hard, brings everyone to the control room telling them they can choose to save the server or end it. while the server discusses mapicc and zam message each other and decide to jump in both options at once so that the server has to end. there's a final conversation on the grass where vi says this was the ending he wanted.

the long and complicated season is over.

s5 starts slow, Zam is very much done with being the main character and not much happens for about like 5 months. zam takes a full 3 month break from streaming, but when he returns in january he joins Mapicc and Bacon and they invite Jumper and Pentar to make the Abyss. they start breaking bedrock at spawn and getting players to fall into the void. its a fun and long and shenanigan filled arc that takes a deep turn as themes of players leaving the server start setting in. This season rek left before it started and parrot, poafa, mid, subz, and vi all leave mid way through. lifesteal feels like it's crumbling.

After days of fighting, planet gets zam into a call and asks him why the abyss is doing all of this. zam mentions mulitple things but lands on player activity. planet walks to the void hole and says "if the goal is player activity then, in a way i guess you lost" and then jumps into the void. the ban sound pierces the air announcing planet having been on one heart that whole time.

The abyss is mortified. They did like their idea of player activity but planet was right, just killing memebers made them give up. so they concoct a new plan, a week long scavenger hunt for the rest of the server to complete: if they finish the Abyss will stop voiding all of spawn, if they dont spawn will be destroyed. Minute heads up the opposition in the Foundation.

for multiple 9-12 hour streams zam labors at building the freakinator to destroy 5 layers of bedrock. mapicc joins him most often, usually just sitting in call to keep him company but being there nonetheless. Jumper and Pentar start helping more once the scavenger hunt really starts while bacon joins call to work on the clues. many fun hours of banter and laughter fill the air.

jumper pentar and mapicc take valorant breaks much to zams embitterment. jumper accidentally gets pentar to fall into the void with multiple skulkers of pistons, enraging zam. zam and jumper both are filled with excitement at the future making all of spawn into parkour civilization.

the whole arc zam has to face the concept that he cares more about this project than anyone else on the team, even though the abyss wasn't originally his idea. he has to fight constantly to battle the bitter voices that tell him they don't care about him and are bad teammates. only mapicc stays in the positive light. everyone else drains resources and falls into the void with the pistons he spent hours crafting.

As the scavenger hunt continues (oh day one of the scavenger hunt wemmbu demands 50 hearts or he will orbital strike spawn. foundation and abyss join together to unite the server in stopping him. spoke leaks the orbital coords he got bc he is owner to ash and the foundation take the win at being the one to destroy the canon and spawn trap wemmbu to 2 hearts. though the shot still went off and a large portion of spawn got destroyed despite the server trying to waterlog everything)

the foundation runs through clues faster than the abyss thought they would, so bacon adds some extra steps at the end. minute gets frustrated and decides to log on before the final session starts to try and finish the hunt. zam is planning on breaking the first bedrock to void at 3pm and minute wants to beat him to it.

despite everything, in a mad rush right at the end, the foundation gets the final clue at 2:55pm. they are to give the abyss one task of their choosing. they are in control. they decide the abyss members should die to the void once and never break bedrock again. The players jumped into the void.

But what nobody saw coming, or none dared imagine even when there were signs, was Jumper was secretly on the Foundation's side and leaked the scavenger hunt answers whenever the Foundation got stuck.

All the work, all those pistons, stopped in an instant. The betrayal was one of the most insane things to happen on lifesteal ever. three months of deep cover. actively helping the team. dreaming of parkour civilization together. multiple trust tests and steadfast dedication promised. all lies.

Mapicc immediately tries to kill her, Zam helps but both give up as Minute defends Jumper and both fight them back. There is no resolution to the betrayal. (Clown's video of this arc covers the whole Foundation side and is great)

Mapicc vows to destroy her life, Bacon agrees, Zam is down with it. Leaving Pentar to have the difficult choice: stay on the team and destroy the only member he knew before joining the server, or leave. He leaves. Later he joins Jumper and Minute as a team

Mapicc and Zam try fighting Minute and Jumper over and over but fail again and again.

The Presidency Arc begins, the server elects one person to get legal exploits basically: changing three things about the server. 4C and Reddoons together win, disappointing Mapicc and Zam greatly as red and 4c were extremely inactive and only wanted CaptainSparklez on for one event, removed the heart recipe, and had a third thing so forgettable i dont remember it and it didnt happen.

Basically they stalled out the already stalled progression of the server. Nobody was doing any big arcs since the abyss weeks before, the last arc was soundly destroyed by betrayal and no revenge was possible bc Minute and Jumper were just slightly better pvpers than Mapicc and Zam.

With the captainsparklez event on the horizon, Zam being lower on hearts, and having just died to Minute and Jumper in a fight where he semi-illegally restocked, was called into the principle's office with Ash (owner of s5 with spoke). Ash told him off, and then was reminded that he didn't remove heart crafting recipe, so he did that and told Zam to just kill 4C and Mid if he wanted more hearts.

Once again Ash is changing the trajectory of the server. Zam goes into a moral quandary bc he's kind of evil this season but is he THAT evil to kill two non-pvpers? While they're building? In the middle of the debate Ash logs on again and /msg him why they're still alive. So Zam kills 4c. He feels awful and spirals and goes to his and Pangi's base to think, but upon seeing their bed, realizes he could just farm Pangi off the server. Or just take half his hearts. The idea is so horrible, the depths of darkness so great, that he just starts laughing. and laughing. and laughing. (vod: "an agent of chaos is born")

So begins Zam's Joker arc, incredibly relevant to s6. Throughout the Abyss, Minute had been calling himself batman, and thus became the fixation of the Joker arc.

The presidency had also passed to Minute who had run saying he would do pvp style events but then just added the aether, changed the kit, and added the Blaze and Caves achievement race (BAC). And he was already talking about ending the server in peace.

This upset Mapicc Bacon and Zam, who had become The Players by this time. After consulting with Spoke (bc he always ends the server), they came up with a plan to break up all the teams. Mapicc started reaching out to Clown and Leo to see if they would betray the PMC, their team with Minute. And they came up with the plan to try and steal the presidency from Minute after his term was up (3 weeks, 3 changes) and use it to make the server hardcore, thinking they would finally be able to kill Minute and Jumper.

Zam full on went onto his Joker arc, blowing up builds, having people choose to blow up builds, fight each other, and a host of other Joker inspired moral dilemmas. minute told zam that the reason he wanted to join lifesteal was because he looked up to him for his s3 heroism. (vod: "murder chicken machine") Jumper also had a great yap session with zam at this time ("your president doesn't care about you")

Zam's main tactic was taking all his armor off in front of minute and jumper, taunting them to kill him and break their peaceful ending. If they wanted him to stop destroying the server they could just kill him.

But they refused. over and over.

Then the Blaze and Caves event happened, Minute's final presidency event. whoever got the most achievements from the 900 or so new ones would get a heart cap of 30. Zam being Zam loves small tasks and went on a week of 12 hour streams to get them all, stopping all Joker activities.

In this week Mapicc made fun of Minute for not just killing Zam and over the course of the conversation Minute agreed to bet the presidency bc Mapicc implied that they were just opposing Minute bc Minute stole the presidency from Mapicc bc the vote was rigged after the CaptainSparlez event. If Mapicc could get the majority of the server to vote him out, he would step down.

Wemmbu approached Mapicc and I forget who suggested it first but what came out of it was Wemmbu would pay everyone who voted for him $500, Mapicc wanted Wemmbu to get the presidency bc he thought more people would vote for Wemmbu over him, and then proceeded to convince everyone on the server to vote against minute within like a 2 hour span. (you can watch the entire thing go down live on Zam's vod. it was incredible)

Minute was completely cooked. The presidency was ripped out from under him, Clown and Leo voted against him, everything was rigged from the start while he still believed the server would vote for what was right, not what was interesting, and definitely not for irl money.

Minute's vod "meet the yappers" is a vod of all time.

That Saturday the BAC achievement race was finished and Zam got 30 hearts, Pentar came in second and got 25.

The server got turned to hardcore, and the Players accidentally killed Bacon with an arrow cannon like 5 minutes into it that they were planning on using on the whole server.

With the presidency gone, Pentar, Minute (Brandon), Ash, and Jumper became officially PB(And)J and gave up being the nice guys. They were still self-proclaimed the good guys and they still wanted peace, they just had to kill a few people and then there would be peace on lifesteal.

So they, all four of them, jumped Zam and killed him in a couple minutes flat when zam had threatened to blow up the vitalasy hole, Vi's last place on the server before leaving. It was the classic Joker threat, but he went to actually do it bc Ash was being extra obnoxious in the call. And then got instantly murdered. and Zam was banned.

Then like a week later (iirc?) Jumper asked Mapicc on to talk, she told him she regretted betraying the Abyss, that pb&j wanted to kill people and she just wanted the server to end in peace, and that she wanted Mapicc to kill and ban her so she could end her season on her terms.

It was a trap. Minute shot Mapicc with an arrow cannon. Killing him instantly.

They then got Wemmbu on and used their presidency power that was left over to cancel out his presidency power of immortality (it was just as confusing as that sounds) and killed him instantly.

Wemmbu didn't like that(TM) so he changed the tnt damage to 100 and dropped a nuke on them instantly killing Jumper Ash and Pentar. But that was unfair(TM) (and he lagged the server illegally to do it) so it was undone.

As a result Zam borrowed Pangi's account and Mapic borrowed Spoke's and they were back on to oppose this peaceful ending. Clown and Ro also locked in and were super active in the finale.

Wemmbu's next presidency thing (this was before they killed him. whatever. time moved weirdly in the finale) was the blessings and curses, Zam was pretty much emotionally done with the server, so in a final act of GayJoker flare, blessed Minute with fire res (which was useless bc Minute had 64 notch apples).

Mapicc and Clown were Not Happy with this, Mapicc took it as a betrayal, which upset Zam a lot because his whole thing this season was not betraying his team bc that's all he did s4. So he locked in for the finale. Pangi's account accidentally got banned, so he borrowed Spepticle's account.

Minute and co were not logging on a lot, even though they had a whole meeting about them playing at least a couple of hours a day so The Players could actually try and ban them and it would be a real finale event. Mapicc pulled out Salty Mode and once again got Minute to cave and Jumper and Pentar logged on and they did a 4v3. Clown out general'ed Minute and Minute got banned and Pentar got banned. Speptical logged onto his account to kick Zam off mid fight which was a delightfully great bit of possession control.

Jumper had to survive two days and got Squiddo and Ash to help, the three of them tried chunk banning Clown and Ro and Mapicc (zam got banned by clown so they couldnt use Spep's account to get Mintue back on). Mapicc died bc Squiddo made a mod to tap into Wemmbu's mod from his presidency and she nuked him and he died from an elytra glitch.

Eventually the next day Jumper and co chunk banned everyone, but clown and Ro walked out of it bc you can join and move a bit before you get kicked. Jumper elected to stay canonically in the ban and give up, even though they let the ban despawn by accident and she could log on. She conceded the event.

Everyone went to Branzy's carnival which had been happening in parallel to all of this the past couple months. They celebrate his final moments on lifesteal, and bid adieu to one of lifesteal's most beloved members. He won't be joining season 6.

And then we have s6.

Zam starts the season deciding to never kill a player again. he will just build peacefully at spawn, swearing off violence in the wake of his violence in the joker arc and s5 in general.

within 9 days he is killed by pentar on bacon's suggestion, killed by mapicc 3 times in a row, killed by bacon and planet's trap which they pulled to stop leo from killing him, along with a host of other small moments that almost make zam break.

on the 9th day he tries building a shulker farm for hours and hours. pangi bothers him throughout the whole process and he shoots him with his bow to get him to go away over and over. in a bout of frustration over the farm not working he builds a closet to lock the spirit of the joker in. he tells bacon about the closet and how he has terrible nightmares and the demon in his closet tells him to kill people. eventually he gives up on the farm but later that night he logs on to mess with bacon more. bacon and planet manage to piss him off within a couple of minutes and he again starts using his bow to shoot at them in petty frustration.

but planet takes off all his armor and takes an arrow to the head, popping like a grape. zam got his first kill.

that night he stalks spepticle and is menacing in the distance. he tells spep he wont remember this when he wakes up but spep will.

the next day he's in agony over what he has done. pangi comforts him and tells him its not his fault. zam builds a tree and writes his first oath, swearing to never crit or bow at players ever again.

satisfied that he's learning to control his bloodlust he decides to try and get to 20 hearts from building because mapicc asks him to build him a castle. the next day flame asks him to build him a volcano for 3 hearts which makes him raise the price on mapicc's castle also up to 3 hearts (after two conversations)

at the same time squiddo, 4c, and cube run the peace trials to decide who they will give the mace to. eventually they choose clown because he put his all into it.

as time continues more and more people choose to follow zam in pacifism. woogie swears off violence after mane blows up their base and red kills kab. kab swears off violence after going in a box for a week to process red killing her. pangi swears off violence so people feel comfortable coming to his recording events. zam hates that people are copying him. it was never about making lifesteal peaceful, it was about his own bloodlust.

one day flame comes to spawn during session asking for a 10v1 fight. everyone thinks there has to be a trap, but he denies it. mapicc starts getting people involved for the fight and they get about 5-6 people because zam woogie and pangi all refuse bc pacifism and terrain never pvps and has no gear.

right at the end zam decides to let go of his oath for a day to participate in the fight so flame can do his idea. he wont kill flame but he will crit him. but flame decides there's not enough players and he hears that rek and others will just run if they get low and flame wants to kill them all, not end in running. so he cancels the fight to plan it another day.

everyone disperses and logs off but a bit later wemmbu calls zam back to spawn so he can watch them blow it up. flame is destroying builds to piss off the players so they will want to fight him. zam is horrified and gives himself up as a fight so flame will stop. flame and wemmbu kill him and keep blowing it up because it was never the point. they want a 10v1 not a princezam alone.

flame burns down zam's tree and as the fire consumes the tree zam can only helplessly look on while flame and wemmbu mock him in vc.

Zam almost breaks. But pangi logs on right after and he suddenly realizes he can rebuild spawn over and over from a schematic and nothing is bad at all. Skipping away he starts gaia's hand, a group of players who will help him rebuild spawn and fight flame. He's afraid of getting so involved and so close to fighting because it might make him slip up and break, but if flame burning his tree couldn't make him change he didn't think anything could.

pangi takes it upon himself to talk to flame, giving him lite therapy to get him to see that people take time to build and building is enjoyable by building a house with him. flame begrudgingly builds the house thinking it's dumb the whole time. but pangi gets him to agree to not blow up spawn anymore and pagni will organize flame's fight for him. but minutes later wemmbu logs on and starts blowing up mapicc's castle. pangi is helpless to stop him because of his pacifism and he's pissed that flame can't control his teammates. he leaves telling flame to stop wemmbu or the fight is off. minutes later again flame calls him back to the house they built and wemmbu has blown it up. flame is completely dejected and feels like he cant stop wemmbu and also that it isn't his problem to fix. pangi gives him one final chance, but he's at the end of his rope. but they leave agreeing to get flame the fight.

zam gets into mccr and leaves the server for this week to practice, during his absence the fight happens, but right as the 10 people stand together in a pre-fight pep talk mapicc and spoke tnt minecart the whole circle, killing everyone. the players are pissed and refuse to fight again. mapicc says its because wemmbu blew up his castle, and that flame needs to kill wemmbu and he can have his fight. mapicc and wemmbu end up fighting and bc mapicc was on his phone hotspot he starts to loose so he runs from the fight. in retaliation the server griefs his castle, enemies and friends together.

after the cart incident zam logs on to get updated, pangi and mapicc both hate how flame is bullying the server into getting his fight and they promise to stop flame.

in the ashes of his tree, zam no longer has an oath, so he writes a new one that focuses on refusing to kill and refusing to use violence to solve his problems. he's emboldened by his idea to rebuild spawn over and over whenever flame destroys it, convinced he will outlast him.

flame logs on and zam gets him to admit he can't control wemmbu and also cant betray wemmbu bc wemmbu has something over him that will ruin him. zam this time promises to get flame his fight if he can convince wemmbu to stop blowing up spawn. he logs off to win mccr the following weekend, and the day he returns flame has decided to do his fight during session and uses 1000 dogs to aid him.

also while he was gone kab killed planet twice, almost banning him but then gave back the hearts.

zam is left listless, there is nobody to fight. he builds a field of daisies to frolic in. he doesn't know what he will do. where his journey will take him. but for now he's content. he has completely become the pacifist.

days later mapicc calls him to his castle and reveals that he's been stalking him for months and trying to get him to break and start killing. it has obviously been unsuccessful. at one point about a month before he had taken off his armor and started attacking zam and zam still refused to hit him, only doing it accidentally before running away and getting out. mapicc offers him hearts if he kills him and zam easily refuses. they end the arc teammates rather than enemies.

with nothing going on in the server, bacon decides that while mapicc prefers having zam as a friend, he prefers having zam as an enemy and so he choses to join wemmbu to help guide him to do more interesting arcs. wemmbu takes him in and same day kab leaks spep's location and wemmbu kills spep with bacon in tow and the team starts to form.

that same day bacon starts training kab to learn to escape fights, during it kab sets her bed in front of him. a little later mane logs on and kills kab bc they have a feud going on since the start of the season, and then finds that bed and kills her again. kab immediately thinks bacon betrayed her and sends hannah after him to kill him, he dies in one hit because he's on 4 hearts and then dies again trying to get his stuff back and is overall rather pissed at kab and hannah because he didn't leak the bed. they get wemmbu on and update him and bacon refuses to team if kab doesn't give the heart back. it ends unresolved but a couple days later kab gives bacon the hearts and the california girls becomes a team (name will come later).

zam thinks bacon is being fishy so he investigates him but wemmbu leaks pretty quickly that they're a team. but then wemmbu gets hannah to kill poafa at spawn twice and zam can do nothing but watch and give poafa two of his own hearts. he's left with nothing to do and no ideas of how to fight wemmbu without fighting.

mapicc drops his stalking video and then dies to wemmbu in a 1v1 and zam logs on in time to see him die. bc of both things he's sent into a reflection turmoil over who he is on this server. mapicc has got him feeling like the team awesome days and it scares him. who do the players on the server view him as? he realizes independence was nice, but it's also isolating and he's all alone. he resolves to find teammates. but even so he doesn't have options he likes at all.

then one day bacon revives planet, and wemmbu kills planet twice and all the members of the server are too afraid of wemmbu to attack him and protect planet. zam is crushed but still doesn't know what to do. he gives planet hearts from his own hotbar, but he's running low and he vowed to not kill and he doesn't want to slip and go down a route that will make him evil again.

then while musing over ideas he flies to spawn and sees derap and mid, touching down he intends to chat, but derap kills mid, banning her instantly. horrified zam asks him why but derap just says it's because there were no repercussions to his actions. that word sticks in zam's brain and he realizes wemmbu has never had to face any sort of repercussions for his actions.

bacon and mapicc log on and zam shares his realization and him and mapicc decide to use zam as bait to get wemmbu into a fight where mapicc and spoke can kill wemmbu with zam as support (not using strength). they get the fight, flame joins in, but mapicc and spoke both die and zam gets out. zam, in post fight talking with chat admits that he's felt more happy while fighting than he has most of the season. he starts to very seriously consider changing his oath to allow fighting, but he doesn't want to do it by his own choice so he asks poafa and kab on.

the poafa conversation is very dear to me, zam admits that the whole reason he did pacifism was because of the "chicken murder machine" conversation with minute s5 where minute said he was inspired by zam s3. Zam has been wanting to reconnect with who he was in season 3 so he swore off fighting and vowed to protect the server at all costs. poafa gently helps him see he's not fighting on fair ground and it wouldn't be bad to fight. that he is capable of looking at the reasons he's fighting and choosing to not go too far.

he talks to kab, and feels good enough to choose a new title, pacifism never fit, but first derap comes back asking what the heck happened because he saw the mapicc and spoke death messages and zam and mapiccs banter with flame after the fight so he knows zam fought. zam admits what he said earlier changed everything and that he is going to fight from now on.

after derap leaves he writes a third oath, this one labeling him a protector of spawn, and collects a sword "galaxia, the protector sword" plus a bunch of strength pots from a barrel right by leo's void hole that he has stashed a couple of days ago as he thought over this arc change. (this is the vod PRIDE)

that brings it to 10/15/24

since then there's been small things that may or may not be relevant as the season continues to unfold. zam is still in his protector arc. mane has taken up the mantle of destroying spawn. a couple weekends ago there was a massive battle for spawn trying to kill mane once so he would stop. it all failed. minute became a legend for trying to 1v1 mane and lost but maybe won the ideological battle. mapicc's team built an orbital cannon to use against mane and involved zam. devotions have had incredible lore. kab is doing something with zam that who knows how will end. derap is doing lore with zam.

we are firmly in the mid season where all early things matter and we're establishing all the relationships that will matter for the end of season lore. and this mane spawn destruction may very well be the mid season economic miracle like the cleansing, dupe war, and abyss were in previous seasons. We'll see if anyone does anything bigger after him. Seasons usually end around may/june so there's still plenty of time to go unless they decide to go rogue.

[mazzystar24]

When I was recaping to her Buck’s s6 storyline and explaining the death doula thing I mentioned how part of that was that he had just died then she was like well he didn’t die and then I was like technically he did they just restarted his heart and then she was like well they restarted mine before, so I died too he’s not special🙄

Then later I mention about it being 3 minutes and she’s like ayeee mine was around that too and I was like wait how long (cos imagine if my mom was 3 mins 17) and she was like 2mins 57 so he has in fact got her beat😭😭

Also yes the Addie mom lore runs deep

[spnstillstudies]

(digitally) painting a shot from every episode of supernatural—call me crazy and you’d be correct but i’m doing it anyway<3 on no particular schedule or deadline, just going at whatever pace is fun for me!

spam likes/reblogs are welcome❣️

find me elsewhere @nostalgicbones (main), @artbean (other art), @spn-circa-2006 (spn sideblog)

also on bluesky, ao3 and cara

all screencaps used as references are from here or here.

navigation

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[destinedarts]

🎧 OST for the The Dragon Prince Season 6 Trailer "Standing Defiant" 🎙️

WHOEVER WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR PUTTING THIS TRAILER TOGETHER NEEDS TO PAY FOR ALL OUR THERAPY BILLS ASAP 💀💀💀💀

Trailer below for comparison. Okay, did they seriously just put Dark Mage Callum as a thumbnail— We're doomed, y'all. 💀

Check out the teasers' soundtracks, Aerial View and Gargantuan!

Lyrics

Head between your knees Can’t you hear the call Can’t you hear it screaming for relief

Waiting for the chance There’s a hidden strength To set free

When you feel it It’s surreal, it’s No surprise we rise

The earth shakes, the sky shivers The stars fall out of alignment We are the sinners The new stars standing defiant Oh-oh Oh-oh

Hanging off the edge Waiting for a sign Waiting for somebody to defend

Don’t you wait too long There’s a map inside of your head

When you feel it It’s surreal, it’s No surprise we rise

The earth shakes, the sky shivers The stars fall out of alignment We are the sinners The new stars standing defiant

They won’t bring us down They can’t shake us now They are running from this war We’re raging like the perfect storm

They won’t bring us down They can’t shake us now They are running from defeat We’ll see them all upon their knees

The earth shakes, the sky shivers The stars fall out of alignment We are the sinners The new stars standing defiant Oh-oh-oh Oh-oh Oh

Since it seems like it's harder to find the lyrics online. You can find them in the Lyric Info for the song on Extreme Music. 😅

Notes: Yes, got Extreme Music to make their updates. 😊 So lyrics are 100% correct now. There's also a bunch of extra Oh's they didn't write down and no echoes jotted down either.

Further Notes

The only other time they used a lyrical song was for Season 3's Recap video: Make This End. 3 seasons later, we're here. As someone said in the yt comments, you know the season's gonna be fire if they're using a song here too. 🔥

Like usual, the song is available on Extreme Music and other distributing platforms such as Spotify. "Standing Defiant" was composed by Devin Hoffman, Figero Scripp, and Lily Marly as the singer.

It was also released in February 5, 2024. 😳 Meaning the trailer finished sometime between then and June 3 when it was first uploaded on the S6 Trailer playlist. Not gonna go into that story of how we discovered that title leak. 😂

Keywords: Cool, Electronic, Epic, Heroic, Punchy, Struggle, Thrilling

👀 me looking at that word "Struggle" right there 😨

I'm comin' after Netflix if they purposely searched for this song with the word "struggle" 👿🗡️👿👿🗡️👿🗡️

Edit: I just texted Villads since I already knew he made the edits for many trailers. He also chose the music for this as well.

And error: looking at the subtitles for the Netflix-issued trailer. Netflix is incorrect for "The Sun shivers." It's clearly "Sky". I mean seriously, nobody's gonna have the money or time to get the singers to customize a song just to fit the scene. 😂 They just buy the song off the music producer's platform.

[riverdale-retread]

Riverdale S7 E5 Tales in a Jugular Vein

We open with the three unwise men of Riverdale who fancy themselves the key authorities of the “situation”  - Clifford Blossom, the high school principal, and Dupont from S4 that they keep giving more names to that won't stick in my memory:  His first name is apparently Friedrich.  It’s not even Freddy, it’s Friedrich like he’s some sort of kaiser. In any case, the Blossom patriarch as the source of all evil in this town asks if Ethel has been silenced. 

Yes, she has, quite literally - the nuns at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy have imposed a ‘vow of silence’ which seems like a euphemism for literal physical muzzle  (Poor Ethel).  The parents are all very concerned about the murder of the Muggs but the three wise men are not.  They are also confused about why it is that Sheriff Keller is continuing to chase down this ‘milkman’ that Ethel saw as well as the murder weapon.  The HS principal seems not to know that this is Sheriff Keller’s actual job, but Dupont (Werther? Whatever) says that the real problem is COMIC BOOKS.  

I don’t think these old farts understand how very incompetent Sheriff Keller is. He’s the man who forgot to check the time of death on the coroner’s report. Ain’t no way he’s finding the murder weapon. 

And he has a whole batch of them to toss on the table, the topmost of which is The Pit Of Tyranny.  Which is what these three men are, sitting together all close in dim lighting.  (Are they going to have a threesome after??)

Dupont/ Werther hates comic books, because they are the source of all violence and iniquity in the world, so he is going to make everyone in Riverdale focus on them.

Jughead meanwhile strolls into the offices at the publishing house looking for work. He is just so happy to be working as a writer, across all universes! So adorable.  His asshole publisher who always puts out the most terrible terms - a full issue, 21 pages worth of  stories, no errors, by tomorrow morning! - and Jug is just bright eyed and bushy tailed about it.  “Plenty More Where That Came From!!”  Super eager Jughead is so cute - “I wont let you down!” with the finger POINT.

The publisher hands him a stack of potential stories, advising Jughead to talk to Bernie about them.  The extremely paper wasting way of listing these little A03 tags, 3 at a time, in single index cards is very luxurious to me.

Boxer, Vigilante, Organ Harvesting

Man, Woman, Cult, Rocket

“Gosh Bernie, all these stories have been done to death!” Jughead says.  Aw Riverdale, you’re so silly when you get meta.  Is this actually the writers’ process at Riverdale, the Show?  Because this was actually a fan theory I saw go around - that they literally just throw darts at the wall and then weave the stories together from keywords.  Is Roberto trying to tell us something about his “process”? 

The idea that Jughead thinks is GENIUS is “stories about teenagers in high school.”  And his ideas grow to things like Witchy Lunch Lady, Creepy Janitor, “Homeroom of Horrors.”  Jughead is completely enamored by his own ideas. 

Just in time, his girlfriend (Because Veronica is his girlfriend now, right? She certainly enters the room like she’s the girlfriend) Veronica comes over, calling him her “Little Tortured Genius” as Jughead is typing away.  She wants to go see  Diabolique, but Jughead is being very intense about his deadline and says maybe they can go tomorrow. 

I really need to take on Jughead’s attitude about work, maybe.  The way he phrases it  - “Al has asked me to take on an entire issue!” makes it so sound like he is adored and beloved and trusted, rather than being exploited. 

On second thought, no.  

Jughead needs to be more like me.

In any case, Veronica takes what he says at face value.   She wants to help him, so Jughead tells her with enthusiasm about his first story, which is about gym class (“What’s scarier than gym class?”). The narrator in Jughead’s special edition is a very unhinged looking unkempt old man, a ‘creepy janitor’ with a bunch of keys.  Jughead even got one of the artists to draw a mockup for him.  He’s really good at this, worming his way into this publishing house!

The first story is called Keep Your Head in the Game. 

And this is when I got attacked for a second time by this, my favorite television show, because they came for my throat.  Poor bespectacled Asian Dilton is called “the runt, the klutz, the pipsqueak, half pint, short, near sighted and uncoordinated.”

STOP TALKING ABOUT ME!   

He is the last among a row of boys who are being forced to uselessly throw a projectile so it lands in a specific arbitrarily designated location. (I hate you, all sports. I hate you, all games that involve throwing things at me.)

Nobody can leave until everyone makes  a basket which Dilton can’t.  OMG.  My PE grade depended on making a certain minimum number of baskets in gym class in Germany, and I almost failed it, but I kept at it with such bloody minded Korean dweeb determination that even though I definitely failed it, my teacher wanted so to go home that she gave me a C. This is so personal. 

The Coach makes the other players run laps while Dilton desperately tries to make one lousy basket. Of course, the one most immediately pissed off about this is Julian.  He threatens Dilton as soon as the lap running starts, then slams him against the lockers at the first opportunity.   Actually though, I decided during the course of this confrontation that Dilton would deserve what he got, because Julian asks him a very important question: Why are you even here if you can’t make one stinking basket?  Dilton idiotically wants to be part of ‘the team.’  

Dude. 

Dilton.  

Dude.

Don’t be stupid.

Julian pushes Dilton into a locker, while all the other boys let it happen.  Including Archie.  Archie is like this in every universe - he doesn’t think this is correct, but other than voicing a sort of weak objection, he doesn’t actually do anything to solve the problem (Flashing back to the infamous birthday episode with Jughead.  Does Jughead the writer of this tale really not remember the OG universe?? HMM??).   Dilton is desperately screaming inside the locker after Julian threatens for a second time to kill him.

Dilton it turns out is morbidly claustrophobic, which somehow leads Dilton to suffering a psychotic break.  The day shift cleaner lets him out, but he steals the fire-rescue ax to hide in the same locker until he can pop out and get rid of them all.   Covered in blood, Dilton is next seen in the basketball space, easily making a basket.  The coach is all atta-boy until Julian’s head rolls to his feet.   The coach turns his head to see six decapitated bodies, all wearing Chuck Taylors, sitting impossibly upright in a row on the benches, their hands demurely in their laps.  

Hahaha! OK so this was funny. 

The heads are all neatly stacked in between basketballs in a roller container. The next head that he picks up is Archie. 

Veronica is all about murdering jocks.  She especially likes that Julian Blossom got his head chopped off.   Jughead wriggles a bit on his round butt which he does when he’s being excited and smug. He explains that Dupont/Werthers (et al) don’t understand that comics are actually very *moral* forms of entertainment.  Rule breakers get punished in these horror stories, as do people who are cruel to others, as well as people who have lustful sex.

Veronica calls him Juggiekins (SQUEE) when she asks him to elaborate on what he means by lustful sex. 

Jughead says that it starts on a ‘dark and stormy night’ exactly as the night outside in Riverdale starts to get stormy.   The next story is called “Love You to Pieces.”  The “young strapping man” Archie Andrews knocks on the Blossom mansion door to explain that he has a flat tire to Nana Rose.  He asks to stay the night, to which Nana Rose generously says he can keep himself warm by the fire.  

There’s a very wholesome looking portrait of Cheryl that Nana Rose and Archie share their tea front of.  Nana Rose gives Archie a warning - he must stay in his room with the door locked all night, because Cheryl is an aggressive compulsive boy-molester.  Archie is immensely excited about this.  He leaves his door not just unlocked  - he leaves it OPEN, then sluttily lies there with his shirt off.   What we have is a Rocky Horror Show type of sequence when Cheryl comes in to kiss him.  She won’t let him light a candle, then they flop down to the bed together. (This is apparently what Jughead thinks sex is).

What the heck is Jughead’s problem with  Cheryl?  The cruelty of this story about Cheryl (as the audience knows her) is a bit shocking.  She’s definitely trapped in the house.  Her family members definitely sexualize teenage Cheryl.  She is definitely cursed.   And he’s using all this against her?  JUGHEAD.

Next morning, Archie is very pleased with himself as he bounces out of the guest room.  He sees a very ominous looking veiled young woman looking out the window, but he doesn’t say anything to her.  As he scarfs down a generous looking breakfast with Nana Rose, he proves himself to be a real asshole.  Having been told not to fuck Cheryl and then having done it, he wants NOW to know what’s wrong with her.  Apparently it’s fine if he just took advantage of a crazy girl (“What exactly is wrong with her, a mental illness?” he says as he cheerfully chows down.)

It’s only when he is told that what Cheryl has is a physical illness which is contagious - LEPROSY - is when he is upset.  Nana Rose is immune because she was ‘exposed’ to it as a child but of course, Archie wasn’t!  Then Nana Rose gleefully tells him that it “was no accident that brought you here.”  The nail in the road was Nana Rose making sure that Cheryl would ‘relish’ her last days on earth (because she is soon to die).  “We’re going to be together forever and ever!” Cheryl says as she comes from behind to grasp the terrified Archie by the shoulder. 

Veronica does not like this story whatsoever.  Jughead says it might be a “curiosity killed the cat” story or maybe even a safe sex story (even though that phrase wouldn’t be coined for another three decades).  Ever the smartie, Veronica sniffs out the Jarchie angle to all this, directly pricking at Jughead with “I’m hearing that Archie and Cheryl broke up” and that they didn’t actually have sex.  Jughead pretends to not be shooketh by this news and the realization that his resentment of Cheryl getting to fuck Archie before him was what was motivating this story.   He says, “Well, who can keep up with all the horny teens at Riverdale High?”

Jughead Jones is pro-food and anti-sex but he’s also pro-making out with Veronica. 

Anyway Veronica tells him the point of high school is for straights to  chase each other.  Jughead is just too far up his own ass to catch the hint, so he moves directly to, “Girls will do anything to get boys’ attention” to which Veronica, now thoroughly bored because the lustful sex story turned out to be an anti-sex debacle, glumly retorts, “Including feigning an interest in comic books, apparently.”  Jughead is not listening to her, at all. 

Jughead the writer next turns his poison pen upon the blameless Betty Cooper.  Or is he?  Because honestly his descriptions of her are so  completely wrong as to be comical:  “Plain Jane with the ponytail mane.  Sweater set waiting for better yet.  Whom none of the boys seem to sic their sights on.”  I mean, in the real world of the 1950s AU, Betty was targeted by the lying asshole Kevin as the perfect unwitting beard because she’s the prettiest girl in school, and no guy who can ‘get’ and keep the prettiest girl in school can be gay, right?  

Anyway, in Jughead’s story, even though he calls her Betty, this girl is not Betty in the real world.  She goes to the hair salon in tears because nobody wants to take her out.  The drag queen (is it the same actor who is playing Janitor Key Keeper?) hairstylist suggests that Betty gets the beehive.  She suggests that ‘girls in Europe’ are doing it which is immensely enticing to Betty.  The thing is, according to the hairstylist you can’t ever wash your hair again once it’s in a beehive.  It can only ever be hairsprayed  (Aqua Set).  Betty objects on hygiene reasons - hair should be washed every other day or at least once a week!  - but decides to give all that up for the joy of being beautiful.

Jughead the writer has  a thing for Dad joke level puns - he describes the girls of Riverdale as being “gangrene with envy” at how fabulous Betty looks with her new hairdo.   Cheryl is upset, and so is Veronica, so when they run into her spraying the hell out of her beehive in the girls’ bathroom, Cheryl attacks first.  She calls Betty “ponytail princess” and the haircut “ridiculous” and Cheronica laugh meanly about it.   This turns out to be the very first time either girl had paid any attention to Betty, so Betty figures all attention is good attention.  She “started needing it, feeding off it.”   Veronica is in blue-white polka dots, Cheryl is in red check, but Betty is in the same blues-and-yellows of the bathroom!    

The hairspraying is out of control, but the heavier and more shellacked her hair becomes, the more boys are attracted to her. Julian wants to carry her books to class.  Archie wants to go out with her on Friday.  Two nameless extra boys just wanna stand close by and stare!  Betty doesn’t even accept Archie on his first pass either.

She does develop a bit of an obsession with the hairspray.  Sitting very Wes Anderson-like in her yellow-green living room, dead center frame, in her yellow-greenish outfit, she is spraying and spraying.   Betty never washes or undoes her hair, instead spraying it further before going to bed.  The narration says something VERY BAD HAPPENED as Betty’s window throws a huge spiderweb shaped shadow over her sleeping face.

A week later, she and Archie are finally on a date!  Pops says that Betty has always been a peach when Archie implies she’s suddenly become good enough with the hairdo change. Go Pop’s.   Can I just say I hate the word GINCHY. Is this an actual word from the 50s or did they make this up for Riverdale?  I refuse to look it up.  Archie insists on using it TWICE in one sentence - he calls Betty and her hair both Ginchy.  Ugh. 

The song called “I got Stung” comes on so they go out to the dance floor.  Archie is the dorkiest dancer of all time but Betty seems to be having a good time, until she suddenly isn’t.  She is coughing up foam! She’s having a fit!  Archie looks so horrified.  The narration comes in to say Betty is now DEAD.

Heyyy Doctor Curdle Jr. is the coroner!  He finds Betty very beautiful with a fascinating hairstyle.  He cuts the top of the hairdo off, which unleashes a torrent of spiders down Betty’s beautiful dead face.   Black widow spiders ate their way through Betty’s skull.  Well.. okay.  The Key Keeper bursts in to tell us that “beauty is only skin deep and  vanity kills.”

Veronica is super not amused by this conclusion, which I think Jughead put in there for her benefit because he just got done talking about how these stories in this horror comic are actually all morality tales.   She takes issue with it, in the beautifully spruced up space she created for Jughead to live in. “What’s wanting to look good?” asks Veronica, looking absolutely perfect beyond all reason.  She also says that men do the same thing, turning themselves into he-men.

The thing is, even though she doesn’t appear to like these stories, Veronica is still annoyed that she hasn’t had a starring role, unlike Dilton, Cheryl, Archie and Betty.  The fact that Dilton is included in this list is interesting, isn’t it, given the relationship, both shown and implied between the other universe Dilton and the Rivervale Dilton and Jughead?   She specifically asks a tale romantic in flavor, which is not at all the flavor of what Jughead has been writing all evening NOR who he writes for, but then because Veronica is actually gay her thoughts skip directly from romantic → focus on female friendship.   

Asking a man who has written about spiders eating into a girl’s brain because she got a fussy hairdo one time to write about “female friendship” is a recipe for disaster.  I will say, Jughead does sort of start off on the right foot - he suggests a story where the girls in a love triangle  do NOT go after each other’s throats. This brings Veronica’s hopes up too much though (“Now you’re singing my tune!”).

This last story is called, “My Better Half.”  

Jughead really dislikes Archie in this universe.  Like, a lot.  He sees Archie as a really dumb slut (both terms derogatory).  Are we absolutely sure that Tabitha did a complete mind wipe? Where does all this hostility come from?  The story starts out with the Key Keeper (who has a wicked case of sunburn or rosacea or whatever) coming in too close, way too close, to call Archie “a half wit when it comes to decision making.”

I object to this. This is unfair.  Highly suggestive is what Archie is and has always been.  When Julian tells him to ask Cheryl out, he does. When Cheryl tells him to write Betty a poem and start wooing her, he starts out to do exactly that.  And so on.  

The multiple choice question Archie is struggling with is the choice between A. the girl next door, or B. the rich starlet-socialite.  Betty in a pale blue headband and white neckerchief looks like Disney’s Cinderella, whereas Veronica looks like a Betty Page type seductress with her severe haircut and dark red lipstick.  Archie chooses C, both of the above.  

MWF are Betty, and TThrSat are Veronica days.

In a super modern innovation, Archie tells both girls that he’s dating the other one, and both girls allow this to happen.    Veronica thinks Betty is a smelly tomboy and Betty thinks Veronica is a vapid airhead.  This is exactly not at all what either of these girls are so this choice is interesting. (Is Jughead pulling his punches because Veronica is right there looking at him type?)   Archie just doesn’t have the brains to explain the concept of polyamory I suppose, so his way of coping with the objection from both ladies is to tell each that she is his favorite.

Julian wants to know how Archie gets away with it, and Archie calmly offers it up.  This is in matter of fact Archie’s actual philosophy of life a lot of the time:  You tell them what they wanna hear.

He even gives them  his best line - You’re my favorite. (Doiley gets yelled at because he tells Archie this is not three words, but four.)

The three girls at Riverdale are in the bathroom, fixing their make up. Veronica in black polka dots, close fitting, with a black handbag.  Cheryl in a flared skirt red-and-white dress.  Betty in pinkish dark check with a black belt.  Of course, Cheryl is the one to start shit, while standing between these two girls, by asking Veronica who will be her date for Valentine’s Day.  She calmly continues to do her make up while Veronica and Betty have at it. 

Veronica calls Betty “dumb for such a smart girl” and a “charity case.”  Betty calls Veronica “fragile,” “desperate” or “crazy.”   Veronica is furious at being called Fragile, so she fights back with “high strung” and then they're lobbing intimate things they’ve learned about the other from Archie.  Betty takes Alice’s sleeping pills because she can’t sleep.   Cheryl turns around to call both of them fools.  Betty carries a white handbag, by the way. 

Archie says that he ‘s taking his MOM to Valentine’s day because it’s her first Valentine’s day without her husband.  Both girls are completely moved, but also get their punches in.  Archie asks them what they’ll be up to, to which both say they will be at home.  They go on a girl’s night out on Valentine’s Day.  

And guess what?  Cheryl!!!  It’s Cheryl that’s Archie’s date for Valentine’s day!!   They see them in the Diner!   Veronica is immediately about to go do some confronting, but Betty stops her, saying she has a much better idea.  Immediately the next day, both girls approach him at once (I love Betty’s outfit with the contrast belt and the white hairpin) to offer a threesome.  This is something that Archie must have been working himself up to get them to do, because as soon as it’s offered he says he knows the perfect spot.  But they’re setting him up so they get to choose the location.   They invite him to the shop room because it’s soundproof. 

Because Jughead is the one writing this story, the girls set up the shop room with TONS of candles.  (Has there ever been a good fandom post about Jughead Jones’ candle fetish? Because it’s a really persistent theme. Please share).   They’ve even set up what looks like a bed on the floor of the shop room, as well as a record player.  Veronica and Betty are speaking in unison using identical dulcet tones. They give him a thermos of coffee which is apparently delicious, even though Archie says he doesn’t “need the boost.”  

I have been living a very sheltered life because I didn’t know that caffeine caused priapism but then Archie is an unusual bird.  Archie does feel strange immediately - there’s a funny Looney Toons type of doi-oi-oi-ing! sound effect as he tries to ‘shake off’ the effects of whatever they’ve drugged him with.    He collapses. 

When Archie regains consciousness he’s strapped to a table.  It turns out the sleeping pills were what knocked him out.  “A problem shared is a problem solved” the girl tell him, calling each other B and V.   They turn on a huge saw to “double their fun” as Archie screams and screams as they slice him in half.  The camera is completely doused with blood. 

Veronica wants Archie’s top half and Betty wants his bottom half.  I wonder why this choice?  Veronica is a breast girl, and Betty is a leg woman? 

Jughead wants to know what Veronica thought of the ‘tag team twist’ at the end.  Veronica is not pleased.  She says that the sexual politics of his stories are troubling.   She interrogates Jughead for demonizing women, to which Jughead says she is overthinking it. These stories are meant to be a gas etc.  She just doesn’t like these stories.

The thing is, I don’t think these stories are misogynist so much as anti-sex.  Jughead is very puritanical and judgmental at the same time - he finds all these people’s aspirations (retaining the desire to be part of a team even if that team isn’t nice to you and there’s no team that calls for your specific strengths, wanting to have easy sex that doesn’t mean anything, wanting threesomes, wanting approval and admiration for shallow things from others) all really dumb. He wants to punish people for being vulnerable.   He’s like a lot of solitary, self conscious overthinkers - he finds other people nakedly going after things they want painful to contemplate, and so he is mean spirited about them.

The main mistake Jughead made here though was that the story he wrote with Veronica as his lead wasn’t flattering to Veronica.  And Veronica’s mistake was hoping for something like that from a man writing in the horror genre.

I snorted when Jughead mentioned Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe as somehow aspirational because I know what happened with Miller after Monroe died (he wrote a whole play where he called his ex wife a great piece of ass, which, great. Super classy. Yup.)   Anyway they’re broken up now, over Veronica not liking Jughead’s writing.  He is sad about the break up between them.  Jughead is also worried about accusations about ‘corrupting the youth of America’ via comic books.

Friedrich Werther (Dupont!) has made good on what he said to the two other Unwise Men at the start of the episode.  He’s written a whole editorial on the front page of the Riverdale Register about the dangers of Comic Books: Slaughter of the Innocent!  It actually appears to be a fully written article that’s being used as a prop.  It ends with “I am asking for a call of arms.  We must attack our attackers. No one likes a fight, but the fate of our children hangs in the balance.”

Werther absolutely does not have children, so it’s the usual huge red flag when childless men go on about ‘our’ children.   The other major thing that has happened is that Four Horses Have Escaped From Farm (this is also a fully written article.  Apparently, nobody was injured, but the children did neigh at the horses , which confused the farm animals. What?)

We cut to the principal reading his boyfriend’s article out loud to their leader Clifford Blossom with great absorption.  “Our children are being seduced by sex, by violence, by depravity.”  Blah blah.  Clifford - who is mayor by the way - says this crusade against comic books is going to be a nice distraction from the still unsolved Muggs murders. 

Back at the comic book business, Jughead is told by the publisher that his work is “incredible stuff.”   When Jughead says he needed a win, Fieldstone guesses that it’s girl trouble.  Jughead tells him he had a “sweet thing going with this one gal” and she didn’t like what Jughead was saying.  The publisher does not care what that means, and instead offers a byline (not a bonus, not a cover) so Jughead’s name is going to be in print!   The publisher names him Jughead JUGULAR Jones.  Featherstone promises that girls come and go but one’s name in print makes people sit up and take notice.   Apparently this is going to set Jughead on a collision course with Dupont (Werther! Whatever!).

I am sad that Jeronica is over, though I do like the way it just sort of fizzled out because they ran into an incompatibility that they could not find a way to overcome rather than Archie or Betty causing them problems, which I appreciate. And you know what - the fact that Jughead just can not stop thinking about Archie fucking other people makes me think the Jarchies have it right after all.

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Saturday, November 9

WILLOW: By the way, are we hoping to find a body, or no body? XANDER: Call me an optimist, but I'm hoping to find a fortune in gold doubloons. GILES: Um, body would mean flesh-eating demon, no body would point towards the, uh, army of zombies thing. Take your pick, really.

~~BtVS 2x02 “Some Assembly Required”~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Red Moon (Darla & Drusilla, not rated) by SeleneBlue

speaks volumes (Buffy/Faith, M) by storiesfortravellers

Surprise (Buffy/Angel, E) by MeTheMermaid

Chemical X (Fred, Maggie Walsh, E) by Kittenwritings

[Untitled] (Giles/Reader, M) by romeactivelycries

[Chaptered Fiction]

Okay Dad, Chapter 1/6 (Ensemble, T) by Work

Tears of the Slayer, Chapter 1/? (Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Spike, E) by MadMaster

You're a Beautiful Person, Chapter 3/? (Willow/Tara, M) by firagasauce

The Comedown, Chapter 2/2 (Buffy/Angel, T) by Descended_from_Hufflepuffs

Maps, Chapter 4/6 (Buffy/Faith, E) by thisyearsgrrl

The Right Swipe, Chapter 15/? (Buffy/Giles, E) by DancingAngel0013

The Phoenix, Chapter 1/? (Buffy/Spike, ensemble, E) by OffYourBird

Firebell in the Night:, Chapter 50/150 (Willow/Tara, E) by TheLightdancer

With Sprinkles, Chapter 44/? (Xander, anime xover, M) by dogbertcarroll, Narsil

Little Light, Chapter 16 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Melme1325

Oh My Goddess, Chapter 11 (Buffy/Spike, R) by Maxine Eden

Incarnate, Chapter 21 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Sigyn

Oh My Goddess, Chapter 11 (Buffy/Spike, R) by Maxine Eden

[Images, Audio & Video]

Gifset: Cordelia Chase + Outfits (Season 2) (worksafe) by clarkgriffon

Artwork: “She’s cold, she’s dark, she’s cynical (Buffy/Spike, depiction of blood, mostly worksafe) by o-cm-draw-o

Artwork: Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S3 Ep8 “Lovers Walk” (worksafe) by nightheartcomics

Artwork: Collage #228 (Buffy/Spike, worksafe) by thedecadentraven

Artwork: Collage #230 (Spike, worksafe) by thedecadentraven

Video: Drusilla's Diary Entry 1 by Slayin It with Juliet Landau

Crafts: Fun little embroidery project I made for my friend’s birthday [Scenes from Gile’s slide show in ‘Hush’] (worksafe, depiction of show-typical violence/blood/death) by littlethingstitching

Crafts: I’m creating an art piece for every episode of Buffy and Angel: BTVS 601. Bargaining Pt. 1 (worksafe) by tmcarlee

Nail art: My friend did Buffy nails for Halloween and I finally get to show them to this sub! (worksafe) by Confident-Smoke-6595

[Reviews & Recaps]

Season 4 first time viewing! by Specialist-Orchid-80

I am SUFFERING through Angel season 4 by Anna3422

PODCAST: You Said Glice! (S5E4) by It Stakes Two

PODCAST: Big G and The Slaymaster General (S5E5) by It Stakes Two

[Fandom Discussions]

i just finished watching buffy s1-s7 for the first time and like. s6 is good. not perfect, but still by beets-are-not-green

Look I’m just saying if we got to see Spuffy have explicit sex multiple times we deserved to get to see when Spike and Angelus did by thequeenofsastiel

i do find it immensely boring when your interpretation of spike’s complexity involves dumbing him down to some variation on “human good, demon bad” the same way the show tried by slugessence

I don’t think we give Cordelia enough credit for driving a car through the school by aphony-cree

more on Faith and dog parallels! by juanabaloo

[anon ask] So, apart from how it happened, what’s your take on the Spike soul thing? answered by thornfield13713

Were the slayers a good idea? continued by multiple posters

Buffy Season 2 rewatch by Btvs fan, multiple posters

Lilah and Cordelia were Outstanding by Nostromo87

Very minor criticism that drives me crazy whenever it happens by Agvahl

The Beast is by far one of my favorite baddies/demon/monster of the Angel verse by moses616

S7 E6 "Him" by distortionisgod

The Inca Princess by opmdl6

Anyone else wish Buffy and Willow didn't become roommates so fast in season 4? by jdpm1991

Angel finale by anthonycaruana

When Groo left, after realizing that Cordy did not love him, what do we think happened to him? by jengafat

tell me you’re a BTVS fan without telling me you’re a BTVS fan by perfectmoonwalker

How do you feel about every season having its own unique feel to it? by precita

Demon Sports Team by No_Introduction_4136

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

PUBLICATION: The Best Fighters in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Franchise, Ranked by CBR.com

PUBLICATION: How an Iconic Episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Explores Queer Issues by Tell-Tale TV

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[tommyxgrace-always]

Tommy -Ada bond

He actually went to her for everything. They came a long way since s2, when she had said this…

Personal, Business or Politics. He relied on her on all aspects. I especially love how he spoke to Ada about Grace. As if he knew, she is the only one who could remotely understand why and what he feels. She lost the love of her life too, she and Grace got along well. She was the most natural choice.

Here’s a recap of how he gradually relied on her over the years.

🌿In s2, Ada is the one Tommy trusts to post his letter to NY incase if he dies on derby day.

🌿In s3, Ada stays with Tommy and Charlie at Arrow house after Grace’s death. Later Tommy asks her to handle his Boston company for him. She also helps set up the meeting with Russian communists that Tommy requests.

🌿 In s4, Ada is keeping the family together for him. She is his source and support when he is outcast from the family. He asks Ada to set up a meeting with Jessie Eden, she even calls out loud what Tommy refuses to admit “he is becoming hopeful”

🌿 In s5, she is his political advisor. He rants about his nightmares and fears to her. Not even Polly. He also talks to her about Grace, seeing her hallucinations. What he feels when he sees it etc. he is at his most vulnerable at that point.

🌿 In s6, he trusts her to handle the Mosleys, Gina and Uncle Jack in his absence while Ruby is sick. He even asks her to help with overseeing his businesses, she visits his office and the shop on his behalf. Interesting when Lizzie rants to Ada about wanting a normal man, we do not see Ada react or agree to her. Ada knows her brother and who he is, his pain and suffering. She doesn’t judge him as a bad husband in that moment or any moment. Because she knows, she must be feeling pity for Lizzie but she doesn’t blame Tommy for her woes.

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