#season six is where rory is finally forced to choose who she wants to be out in the real world and build her own identity

[areyouwho-ithinkyouare]

gilmore girls season 6 is so infuriating bcus it’s simultaneously the least watchable block of episodes across the whole show but also i think it’s the most important narratively. it’s like. THIS is the story arc we’ve been building up to for years. THIS is what we’ve been laying the groundwork for. it’s honestly the climax of the show’s overarching plot, even though there’s a whole seventh season afterwards. When you rewatch gilmore girls THATS what you’re waiting for, that’s what it feels like it’s all leading towards. And it is. fucking unbearable.

[literatikoo]

Lane Kim deserved better

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I would only write Lane Kim meta when I am very very angry because I need to be powered by spite and petty energy to unravel exactly how much of a disservice this show was to Lane and by extension any Asian kid with a similar life. And, well, it's happening now, so buckle up kids, this is going to be a loooong ride because I have a lot to say.

Before we start on the negative aspects, the show got a lot of things about Lane right, which is why I care so much about her character. Yes, ASP obviously didn't know how to write a POC experience and it's seen in the way some very harmful stereotypes were propagated (the tiger mom trope, Mrs Kim's religious beliefs, the depiction of the Kim extended family etc) but at the same time Lane was beautifully written as a character, unlike her plot which left much to be desired. Lane Kim was an Asian girl with rock n roll dreams who had an extremely fraught relationship with her mother and had to fight for even a semblance of independence. And I hate to say it but a lot of daughters of Asian households are forced to hide a part of themselves from their families, so Lane's story was authentic.

Not only was Lane amazing as an individual, she was also a great friend. She was the only one who was really in Rory's corner; she never judged her and supported all of Rory's relationships (my favourite example of this is when she barely tolerated Jess in S2/3 and then did a complete 180 like 5 episodes later, all because Rory decided to finally accept she liked him). Lane never pointed out what Rory was doing wrong not because she was afraid of doing so but because the two of them had been friends for years and Lane believed that Rory would figure it out one day. Lane shows this unconditional kindness not only to Rory but to everyone. She takes in her Korean cousin and teaches her to have fun even when she's afraid that Mrs Kim has replaced her, she lets Gil be in the band because she empathises with him, she takes care of the band and prevents it from breaking up multiple times. And these are only a few examples of Lane being the kindest character on GG.

One of the best things in Gilmore Girls is that the most unproblematic, amazing guy is given to Lane. Dave Rygalski is the best love interest on the show hands down (Sorry to my boy Jess but Dave was LEAGUES ahead of him at 17) and Lane definitely deserved someone like that. Their story was adorable and I would have loved for them to be endgame. However, what grates me is that when I see people talking about Lane "deserving better," it's usually about Dave vs Zach. When Lane actually deserved better as a WHOLE and not only in terms of love interests. I always thought it made more sense for her to end up alone at the end of the og series. Because Lane was a person who craved independence and she was not going to get that while tied to some guy (even if that guy is boyfriend extraordinaire, Dave Rygalski). It's even worse when we see that Lane is the only female character on the show to be treated this way. Rory rejects marriage for her career while Lane ends up with marriage as her storyline. Lorelai and Luke get back together but their relationship is still left open ended, though arguably it would've made more sense if they got married when Lane and Zach did. Paris gets into Harvard Medical school and gets a great relationship, similarly Sookie gets the family she wanted and continues to be amazing at her job. But Lane... god Lane is the only one without an open ending, without any space for speculation of where her life might lead her. Not only did they marry her off, they also gave her a terrible first time and twins, effectively locking her to Stars Hollow. The show even cut down all hope of her being a rock n roll mom as one of her S7 storylines is choosing the kids over going on tour with Zach. She doesn't get to be her own person for more than ONE season; she's stuck with being a daughter and then a wife and then a mother.

Something else that angers me about Lane's storyline is that we never really get to see how badly her relationship with her mom affects her. Don't get me wrong, I adore Mrs Kim's redemption arc and I think it was beautifully juxtaposed to Lorelai and Rory's crumbling relationship, but having a mother like that is hard. Not only did Lane have to hide 90% of her personality from Mrs Kim but she also lived with the fact that one day she might have to choose between her dreams and her mother. In the end, Mrs Kim makes that choice for her and deals with it by kicking Lane out in S4, and yet we never really see how that negatively affects Lane. Hell, Jess acts like a broody teen for two seasons, Rory wastes six months of her life away at the DAR and they both come out of it successfully. Lane gets kicked out, figures out her own living conditions, gets a job, works insanely hard for her band and... ends up having to give her dreams up completely.

Lane and Paris shared a lot of similarities too, even if they both had different friendships with Rory. They both came from terrible families and looked to Lorelai as a mother figure, they both cared deeply for Rory, and they were both incredibly passionate about their careers. Paris made calendars and flashcards and went crazy studying for both pre med and pre law. Lane was a walking, talking music encyclopaedia, she bought CDs obsessively and organised them by genre under her floorboards, she taught herself to play the drums and then found a band to play for. And yet... only Paris becomes successful in the end, whereas Lane takes over Kim's antiques. Lane was still a musician in AYITL and she can be rock n roll even with kids but this is all hypothetical and we never see it on the show.

There is a lot of terrible, lazy writing on the show and a lot of characters get ruined because of it but with Lane, her character stays the same, they just ruin everything else for her. I think she'll be an amazing mom and will probably make her best out of doing music casually. But the writers also took something so special and destroyed it just because Lane stopped being as important to the plot as she was in seasons 1-3. Lane and Rory drifting a little after Rory leaves for Yale makes perfect sense, that's just how relationships are, always changing. And yet as Lane's importance to Rory decreased so did her importance to the writers.

Lane wasn't the kind of character that needed character development or a redeeming character arc- she was never a bad person and nothing about her had to be fixed, unlike Jess or even Paris. All she really needed was for her dreams to come true because for the first 4 seasons her dreams were the biggest fixture of her personality. Like how Jess needed to overcome his trauma and Rory needed to figure out where she fit in and Paris needed to become a girlboss, Lane needed to realise her dreams because that's where her arc was leading her. But it just didn't happen. Instead, Lane becomes 2-dimensional; a large part of her screentime is taken up by Zach problems, her dreams fall flat and she becomes tied to Stars Hollow for the rest of her life. Not to mention we see less of Lane in favour of Logan and the dickhead posse.

This is not me hating on all the other characters I've mentioned in this meta, I'm just pointing out the lack of respect the writers have for Lane in comparison to all these other people who fulfilled the role they were made for. Why would you write Lane to have all these dreams and make her struggle so hard for 4 seasons just to smash them to pieces? And why is it that one of the only POC characters on this show is treated like this?

And you can't tell me the writers didn't know what they were doing, not when this is a direct quote from Lane in S7:

"It was such a small window -- a peephole, really. For years, I was this repressed kid, and then there was the briefest of windows. And then -- slam. All of a sudden, I'm this overburdened mother. I barely got to do it, Zach. I barely got the chance to be a person."

[jodibodie]

I Have Some Feelings

To start let me just emphasize how much I love and adore this show and always will. This was my covid show. Both of my kids loved “Lucifer” and always said I should watch so at the start of covid I binged it and when I say binged, I mean all 4 seasons in a few days and have rewatched so many times I’ve lost count. I think it is timeless, engrossing, original and all around amazing. The writing and the cast were all excellent. The writing was smart and consistently strong and that is so rare.  Funny, sad, poignant, it hit all the notes with very few plot holes or missteps. There is not one episode in the entire series that was not engaging. Even if I didn’t like an episode, it was still well done. What a rarity.

The cast is scary good. Completely underrated. Just all phenomenally talented.  I don’t remember the last time a cast was this strong.  From the core group to both reoccurring and guest stars, the cast was just fantastic.  

Tom Ellis, no words.  The man deserves to choose whatever he wants to do acting wise. He should have people breaking down his door. He can truly do it all and do it all well. He took a character that if portrayed by a lesser actor could have come off as a complete asshole and made him one of the most sympathetic and loveable characters in recent history. Ellis made a crime solving devil, a promiscuous man-child that occasionally breaks into song and the evidence room into a beloved character that has become an icon.  

Lauren German, WOW.  She is just so damn good. She can break your heart one second and have you laughing the next. She makes Chloe real, and people don’t realize how hard that is. Chloe is smart, kind, tough and gorgeous but she’s also an insecure dork.  She’s us and German just brings it.  

DB Woodside I’ve loved since “Buffy”.  He is a phenomenal actor and who knew he could bring the laughs so well? His expressions were classic. Clueless angel indeed. Amenadiel could have been very one-dimensional but because of Woodside’s talent he became fully fleshed out and full bodied.  

I have no doubt Lesley-Ann Brandt has a huge career in front of her.  She took a character that very well could have been hated, a demon and made her into one of the most human characters on the show. Kudos to her for taking a tough role and making it her own.  

Kevin Alejandro is another actor I’ve loved for a long time.  He also took a character who if we’re going to be honest here did so many unlikeable things that he should have been truly despised but because of Kevin’s portrayal he was beloved. Great actor and a terrific director.

Rachael Harris IMO is the downlow MVP.  She was literally the rock and again, with a lesser actress the role could have been a throwaway. The normal human, the sounding board but Harris imbued her with so much more.  Her spit takes, sarcasm and her obvious compassion was what made Dr. Linda an unforgettable character. Once again just perfect casting.  

Aimee Garcia was a great addition. She made Ella a fan fav and put so much heart, joy and sincerity into Ella never once did you doubt that she would prevail no matter what was thrown at her.  Garcia was just fantastic, and I want her skin care regime.  

Scarlett Estevez pulled off the one thing I thought almost impossible.  She took the role of a young child and made it so I didn’t want to cringe. She portrayed Trixie so beautifully from day one that she was a true pleasure to watch.  Even though Trixie was super precocious Estevez never made her obnoxious. I loved Trixie and I have never said that about any child character in an adult show.  She was wonderful and has an amazing career in front of her.

That said, I’ve got some feelings now that I’ve seen the finale and have had some time to digest it all.  I love that Chloe and Lucifer had eternity and I agree that they had to be separated for Chloe’s lifetime. Didn’t like it but it’s the logical path. She’s human, he’s not. The ageing thing alone necessitated them not being together long term on earth and that’s just to start the list. They had to had to be apart for the short term to get their eternity but the duality of Lucifer's ending and Amenadiel's didn't sit right. Amenadiel as God got to have it all. His calling, his family etc. while Lucifer had to give up everything.  I also don’t buy the “If he came up from hell, he could never leave them again” defense.  I call bullshit.  Amenadiel managed, plus, missing out on the day to day is a huge sacrifice and by Lucifer missing out on the day-to-day Rory could still have had the hatred she needed to drive the story.  Popping in for birthdays, graduations, weddings, etc., the big stuff does not a father make.  Not being there for skinned knees, first heartbreaks, and all the little things a daughter needs her dad for can build up tons of resentment.  Boom, absentee father, just like his dad was. That provides all the millennial angel angst you could ask for. I have a daughter; it doesn’t take much.

The Trixie issue was huge for me. Can Chloe see her in Heaven? Will she be able to travel to Heaven and visit Trixie, Penelope, Dan, her father?  Chloe hesitated leaving Heaven in 5x16 because she couldn’t bear saying good-bye to her dad again. It seems as if Chloe sacrificed everything for Rory including Trixie. I want to preface this by saying. I liked Rory and loved the actress. I didn’t however like how it was as if she were their only child.  When Lucifer spoke of family Trixie was not mentioned. Their family day, the same thing. She didn’t need to be there, I get that the explanation regarding Rory would have been way too much to get into but just a mention of her, how awesome it would have been to share this day with her would have worked. It seemed as if Lucifer went from, “I would do anything to protect that little Urchin” to “Trixie who”. Trixie was a character that we watched grow up and she meant something to us. I hate to say this, but the writers did Trixie and the viewers dirty in this regard.

This show was built around a few premises.  Free will, honesty, redemption, sacrifice and family, both blood and made. The ending completely negated almost all of these.  Chloe and their entire family were made into the one thing Lucifer abhorred the most which are liars. Their daughter was brought up surrounded by lies. What did they tell Trixie?  The poor kid just lost her dad, and she was pissed at Lucifer when he went back to hell the first time. Did she grow up hating him because as far as she knew Lucifer left her mom again without saying good-bye and this time it was even worse because Chloe was pregnant.  I get that the actress who plays Trixie had limited availability but seriously. A quick good-bye.

“Hey Urchin, you won’t understand why for a long time, but I have to leave. You know I never lie so I can’t explain why but know that I love you and your mom and one day I hope you can forgive me.”  

A 30 second scene would have worked.

As all the characters learned throughout the series, omission of the truth is just a form of lying and there are always repercussions i.e., Chloe and Father Kinley, Dan shooting Lucifer, Maze finding out about Lilith and even Ella not being told. As far as free will, both Chloe and Lucifer had their free will taken from them in the end. By Rory forcing them to abide by her wishes, their free will was forfeited. It was a huge manipulation on Rory’s part and considering how much Lucifer hated manipulations it just didn’t sit right.

Parents making huge sacrifices I get. Chloe and Lucifer sacrificed everything for their child. Unfortunately for me this sacrifice, the way it was written seemed contrived to pull out maximum and IMO unjustified angst. I love angst.  Hell, this is my favorite show.  I thrive on the angst. But as I wrote earlier, all the anger, angst and hatred towards Lucifer could have been achieved without having Lucifer completely out of the picture. I have two kids and my husband, and I have made huge life altering sacrifices for them as many parents do but being there for the day-to-day little things was what made the difference in their lives and cemented the close relationships we have with them.

“Yeah, dad you were great. Showing up for the fun stuff, always swooping in for the big finish to play the hero then ditching us when things got tough. When Grandma was dying where were you?  Nice that you showed up for the funeral but the six months leading up to it…we needed you and once again you weren’t there. When T got sick, when Jen broke my heart, blah, blah, blah…”

Even the whole Chloe dying scenario. They could have written it that rage Rory traveled minutes before Lucifer got there. Have him pop in right after Rory comes back. There were so many ways to achieve the end game they wanted other than the way they went. It seemed contrived and as if they took the easy way out to get where they needed to go. The Rory rage that was the catalyst for her traveling back in time and Lucifer finding his calling could still have been accomplished without the whole Lucifer disappearing storyline.

Now that I’ve finished my diatribe there’s a couple of additional things I would like to say.  Lucifer is and always will be one of my favorite shows of all time. There are not enough words to describe the comfort and enjoyment this show has brought me. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the producers, cast and crew. You truly created something special.

To the fandom. Please do not let a polarizing conclusion rip apart the fandom. The only other fandom I was a part of tore itself apart so badly that the FBI got involved.  Hence why I waited for 15 years to dip my toe in again. Everyone invested in this show has the right to their feelings.  Debate is fine, baiting and bullying are not. The Lucifer fandom like the show is very special. Without the fandom we wouldn’t have gotten any conclusion so don’t let opposing viewpoints tarnish what has been a magical journey.  

[frazzledsoul]

Disclaimer: I am less than proud of this post. I was going to keep it in my drafts, but I figured I’ll just put most of it under a cut instead. It’s pretty ugly and angry and irrational and I can’t back up most of the claims I make, but it is what it is. As I said the other day on here, no one thinks less of Amy Sherman Palladino than me. I don’t like her or trust her and while I might begrudgingly respect her for the show she created in the first place, I will not touch anything new she does in the future ever again. I think she’s earned that in spades: most of what I talk about here can be applied not just to love triangle shenanigans that happened a decade ago but to Rory’s plot in general in the revival, which was in its way a much bigger betrayal of everything the show stood for. It’s definitely a pattern and it’s not a positive one.

I will also say that one of the major reasons that the events at the end of season six hit me so hard is because I lived a much uglier, messier, more devastating version of these events in my family twice over the past 15 years. I’m obfuscating the details to protect the guilty, but in real life the damage is so much worse than what we saw played out on screen. There are some things that will never, ever be okay with me, that there are just no excuses for, no matter what. I don’t think I ever really processed that part of it, nor did I ever really process what it felt like to be dealt the final blow in what seemed to be a long, contentious battle between the creator of this show and the fans who kept hoping that Amy wouldn’t do the one thing we always feared she would resort to in order to achieve her own ends. So much of the time it felt like we (and Luke, but he’s fictional, so he’ll get over it) were just bugs waiting to be squashed.

So maybe this is because I am in a melancholy mood lately, but I just had some things to get off my chest about why I’m still so angry about the end of season 6 eleven long years after the fact. I still take it personally, and I still feel betrayed by that whole wretched plot development, and I still will never, ever forgive ASP for what she did. The revival may have worked out to my satisfaction, but I still don’t want the woman to write new episodes of the series because I don’t trust her. There’s no reason to believe she wouldn’t take everything positive she last left us with and obliterate it just because she could. She’s got a long track record of doing exactly that.

The bottom line is that we talk about this damn showrunner too much. It’s not a good reflection on her work. If what she was writing was good enough to speak for itself, we wouldn’t spend so much time trying to justify her choices and going WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF over and over again. Honestly, it shouldn’t be this hard. This is coming from someone who does still make a lot of excuses for her, from Luke and Lorelai not having kids to their decision to delay marriage to Rory’s surprise pregnancy and dour, unimaginative fate. The idea that everything she does is inviolable because she’s the one controlling the puppet strings and nothing else matters is a really unhealthy mentality.

Sometimes it’s okay to just flat-out say that a lot of the stuff she forced on us was simply wrong.

Of course, part of this is my fault because I come at it from the other side, too. It’s not in the best interest of an invested fan to pay too much attention to what the writing team says. They don’t see it like we do. It’s mostly pieces to move around on a chessboard to them and they’ll never understand why we care so much. I think the fan culture is much more balanced these days, or maybe I just say that because the only other shows I keep up with are genre shows where being a fan is an experience that’s so much bigger than what happens in those 42 minutes we see onscreen. It’s not to say that problems don’t exist or that there isn’t fan discontent, but it’s not like it was ten years ago. We’re all part of the whole for so much of the experience.

Showrunners like ASP (and I would count the notoriously sadistic Shonda Rhimes in here, too) don’t play that game, of course. I can definitively say that if I had never read any of her interviews, this would have been a way more pleasant viewing experience for me. What if I hadn’t known that ASP kept come up with excuses to keep Luke and Lorelai apart because she didn’t think she could get it right? What if I didn’t know that she only hooked them up because the show got into trouble ratings-wise and she knew David Sutcliffe was available for Christopher to “cause problems” if she got bored? What if I didn’t read that interview where she essentially said that anyone who cared about Luke would have to accept him being relegated to the sidelines because it was time for Christopher to show how good he was at a relationship?

What if this entire fandom experience didn’t feel like a huge battle to keep ASP from bringing it all crashing down in the most disastrous way possible so that she could pursue the relationship outcome that she really wanted? What if it didn’t feel like a constant fight not to have one of my favorite characters be replaced? What if I didn’t feel that it was only a matter of time before Lorelai would betray Luke in the worst way possible, and do the one thing that he and the fans always feared the most, just so that ASP could have her favorite swoop in on his white horse to rescue her from the love interest who would always only be humble and ordinary?

Maybe it’s never a good idea to know what’s going on behind the curtain. Knowing all of this definitely made what was already a deeply upsetting plot twist that much worse. It’s impossible to have faith that any of this is ever going to be fixed when it seems the person in control is always fighting against you. There was no reason to think that it was going to get better, because she didn’t seem to want the same things that we did. We were just standing in the way of the happy ending that she preferred.

I didn’t have many expectations for what I wanted from this show. All I wanted (during the OS and the revival) was for Lorelai not to run off with Christopher and break Luke’s heart after they had been together. When Amy wrote that ending that so many of us feared would eventually come, it felt like a spit in the face, a final triumph on her part for this adversarial process. It was anyone who care about Luke and Lorelai as a couple or even Luke by himself against her and her Christopher fantasy, and she won. The worst part was that I had quit watching months earlier because I knew it would always come back to this. I tuned into the last half of Partings hoping that she wouldn’t do what I always dreaded, that she wouldn’t take it that far. But I had been right all along. 

Of course, maybe Christopher was just a diversion in the first place. It doesn’t change the fact that Amy twisted Luke into something he wasn’t in order to build up his rival simply because she was bored. None of this had to happen, but she wanted more time with her favorite and the rest of us had to suffer the consequences. I really, really want to say that what she planned was temporary and that the happy ending we got was in the cards all along, but in my heart of hearts I’m never be able to talk myself into completely believing that. She still can’t bring herself to talk of the happy ending she eventually gave us as anything other than what the fans forced on her.

Why shouldn’t I believe that she would choose the worst possible outcome if left to her own devices? She already did it once before.

You’ll notice I haven’t talked a lot about the actual plot twist in question. There’s nothing I can say about it that hasn’t been said before. The truth is that we can argue about whose fault it was until the cows come home, but it was a plot machination whipped up so that ASP could write the Christopher/Lorelai romance that she always seemed to really want. The Lorelai I knew and loved for six seasons (because despite some immature passive-aggressive behavior earlier in the season, she still remains very sympathetic to me right up until the end here) would not go as far she did. No matter how upset she was, no matter how betrayed she felt by Luke telling her no, she would not hurt him the way she did. She wouldn’t blatantly use Christopher like that. She wouldn’t put Rory in the position of having to sift through the ramifications of her fucked-up latethirtysomething love triangle and put her on shaky terms with both of her father figures.

The Lorelai Gilmore I knew wouldn’t have hurt the people she most cared about that way. She wasn’t that type of person. I’m intimately familiar with that type of person, and Lorelai was better than that. But if that’s what needed to happen for ASP to get what she wanted, that’s what was going to happen.

I know it was fixed eventually. Fate intervened before ASP could write that Christopher plot she wanted so badly, and we got not one but two happy endings for Luke and Lorelai. Believe me, I’m grateful for all of that. But it doesn’t change what happened, and it doesn’t make it any less of a betrayal as far as I am concerned. I really wish I had been less Internet savvy back when I was watching the show, that I didn’t view everything in terms of this fight I felt ASP was having with the fans through the media. In the end, I don’t know if it would have made any of it make any more sense to me, though.

I’m glad we got the ending we did, but the fact that we had to suffer through so much to get it was completely unnecessary. I no longer let myself get emotionally attached to ships or characters: I still fangirl, but in a more general way. It’s not worth it to fight another war with someone who’s at such cross purposes with what makes her enterprise work, or who seems to delight in making her fans as miserable as possible. I haven’t encountered a situation like this with anything else I’ve gotten interested in, but there are always things out there that end up slamming the door in your face at the last moment. The finale of HIMYM is probably what comes closest.

If we have to focus this much attention on the writer’s motivations in order to justify what she put forth, something clearly isn’t working right. If it can’t stand on its own, maybe the creator needs to take a step back and focus a little less on forcing her own agenda on something that isn’t right.

Or to put it much more simply, the shippers aren’t always wrong.

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

4 , 9 , 17 , 18 , 24 , 26 , 31 , 32 , 20 ,

4. What’s your current NOTP?D*lena and C.lace. 

9. Do you have many ships that never got together at all?I already answered this, so I’m just gonna copy and paste, cos obviously it’s the same answer. I have a fair few. Off the top of my head, Eleven/Amy, Daryl/Beth, Dexter/Debra, Harry/Hermione, Bella/Jacob. Then there’s Emma/Regina and Bonnie/Damon, but there’s still a chance they may get together (we can hope!).

17. Talk about a pairing you’ve stopped shipping romantically.I already talked about Emma and H00k, so this time I’ll talk about Sherlock and John. I’d always been unsure about whether I shipped them romantically tbh, but it was one of those situations whereby cos the Sherlock fandom is so dominated by Johnlock fans, I kinda got sucked into it too and started shipping them. But I just realised that I don’t ship them romantically at all. Don’t get me wrong, I can see the chemistry is there, but I just see Sherlock as being so bad for John. There’s a very unhealthy dynamic to their relationship and ultimately Sherlock is always the one pulling the strings and John is forced to follow. But honestly, it’s mostly because I just see them as being friends more so than anything else. 

18. Talk about a moment which made you question an entire ship.I’d definitely have to say the TVD season 4 finale where Elena chose D*mon. Like I had complete faith all the way through season 4 that by the end of the season Elena would find her way back to Stefan because he was the love of her life, so I was actually so shocked when that happened and it made me doubt everything. Because like, her choosing to be with D*mon and loving him more than Stefan is something she said would never ever happen, so the fact that it had definitely made me question everything. There were a lot of moments are that that made me question everything too, but that’s another story haha. 

20. Talk about a ship you feel alone in shipping.Dexter and Debra. I’m pretty sure when the show as still airing and the fandom was bigger and more active, there were probably some Debster shippers, but most of them are long gone. And I remember in season 6 when Deb finally admitted she was in love with Dexter so many people were disgusted at the writers for going down that path and complaining how it was wrong for them to be together because they’re brother and sister and blah blah blah. But they’re probably one of my OTP’s and at the darker end of the spectrum on my shipping scale. I loved them for - in Deb’s words - being so fucked up. I loved that they were complicated, messy and dangerous. It was such an intriguing dynamic to me and it sucked me in. 

24. Do you mostly ship canon pairings?Definitely. There was a time when I pretty much only shipped canon pairings, because I didn’t understand the concept of non-canon ships. Like a lot of the time non-canon ships are two characters that are portrayed as being solely friends or they barely interact and I’d be thinking, “So why/how do people ship them?”. But over the last year or so I’ve opened myself up more to non-canon pairings and they can actually be so much more fun than canon pairings. The reason for that is that there’s more creativity involved. The shippers can create endless headcanons and write stories of what could/should happen in the future with the ships or create endless AUs, they can make manips, write theories on how they think the ship could be canon or why they should be canon. With non-canon ships it’s an entirely different world that is completely open and free for the shippers to do what they want and I think sometimes canon ships don’t have that, because there is a limit on the creativity and freedom because the focus is the material/scenes they’re given by the show/movie, rather than creating their own, if that makes sense. 

26. Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping? Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to?I already answered this one, too, so here’s my answer from before: I don’t think I have a pattern to my shipping. In fact, I think if you look at a list of my ships it’s very random. I’m really the kind of person where if it’s there for me it’s there. Like, your ships just choose you and it’s a hard thing to explain why or how it happens. I think that the only thing that all of my ships have in common is that they changed each other’s life in some drastic way. I think I’m generally drawn to those domesticated, loving, supportive, soul mate, vanilla type relationships where the two people are good for each other. So I’m talking about ships such as Monica/Chandler, Snow/Charming, Jane/Michael, Glenn/Maggie, Michael/Sara. But at the same time, I have a fascination with ships that are the complete opposite, ships that have an interesting, messy, complicated and sometimes even a dangerous dynamic, such as, Regina/Emma, Dexter/Debra, Chuch/Blair, Cook/Effy, Henry VIII/Anne Boleyn, Phoebe/Cole and Jax/Tara. So yeah, for me it’s all about chemistry and whether the story of the couple intrigues me or not. Whether or not I like the characters involved as individuals also has a pretty big influence. Generally, most of my ships involve two of my favourite characters.

31. Talk about one of your favorite headcanons for a ship you love.The one that really sticks out in my mind, is one I have for Eleven and Amy. When the Doctor was gone for long periods of time, Amy missed him so much that there were nights where she’d lie awake at night. She just couldn’t sleep, because every time she closed her eyes she saw his face and she was constantly straining her ears to listen out for that familiar sound of the TARDIS. So, she’d wait until Rory fell asleep, then she’d sneak downstairs, go in the freezer, grab a box of fish fingers and then go to the cupboard and reach for a can of custard. Once they were done she’d take her bowl of fish fingers and custard outside into the the back garden and perch herself on the bench. It would be bitterly cold, so she’d have a woolly blanket wrapped about her shoulders, the bowl cupped in her hands and steam rising from it. She didn’t even notice the tears streaming down her face until she lifted the bowl up to her face, inhaled the smell and noticed them dropping one by one into the bowl. Once she saw them it made her cry harder until she was sobbing. She stayed out there in the cold for a long time simply bawling, until the fish fingers and custard were cold and then she looked up at the stars and prayed for her raggedy Doctor to appear from the dark night sky. She thought back to the night she spent lying back in the grass, hand in hand with the greatest painter that ever lived and her Doctor, she wished for more nights like those. She knew she should be moving forward, living her life with Rory, but she couldn’t let go of the Doctor or the life she had with him. Even after all those years, she was still the girl who was waiting and she’d realise in those moments that she didn’t know how to stop waiting. Eventually when the tears ran dry, she’d get up, take one last look up at the stars and whisper, “Goodnight, raggedy man” and then turn to head inside the house. She’d climb into bed next to Rory and feel so guilty that she still longed for the Doctor, that she still dreamed of running away with him all over again. Eventually she’d drift off to sleep, memories of the Doctor at the forefront of her mind. In the meantime, the Doctor would just be returning to the TARDIS after yet another adventure, he’d step in, a spring in his step and a jolly grin on his face, but once the door was firmly closed behind him, the mask would slip and the sadness would return. He’d lived for nearly a thousand years, spent a majority of his life without Amy, yet the TARDIS didn’t quite feel the same without her presence. It didn’t feel like a home to him anymore. There was a deep sadness in his eyes, that no matter how hard he tried he could never hide, yet none of the people or creatures he met seemed to notice. He’d get ready for bed, change into some hideous grandad pajamas and he’d warm up a bowl of fish fingers and custard - just like he did every night - then he’d sit on his bed, eat it and finally feel like he was closer to home. Unlike Amy, he wouldn’t cry, because he knew he’d see her again soon. Instead he’d place the empty bowl at the side of his bed, turn the lights off, lie back and whisper, “See you soon, Pond”, before falling to sleep with a smile on his face and Amy in his heart

32. Share five must-read fics.I have to admit, I haven’t read many fics, so I don’t know if I can share five, but here are the ones I recommend:1. Break Me Everytime (Dexter) - honestly, no fanfiction story could ever beat this in my eyes. @six-impossible-things is such a talented writer, I could read her stuff forever.2. In the Aftermath (Dexter) - this is an addition to Break Me Everytime (above)3. There Are Rules (Dexter) - a sequel to Break Me Everytime (basically, if you like Dexter, read all of the fics Solia has dedicated to Break Me Everytime, because they’re amazing). 4. Black and Blue (Once Upon a Time) - the first (and only) Swan Queen fic that’s managed to keep my attention so far. But there are so many Swan Queen fics out there and this is only the beginning, hopefully soon I will be able to recommend a lot more. I don’t have a fifth to share. Sorry, I suck. 

send me a number…