#she needs to be creepy she needs to be gross and weird and terrible

[kayforpay]

marava sees anyone who seems even somewhat competent and thinks they're just the bees knees

unfortunately she liked visper and cipher so much she realized how incompetent they are, and now she's obsessed with trying to alter their life course in whatever way is most entertaining

[what-gs-watching]

“Well…maybe I’ll save you.”

I’M NOT CRYING, YOU’RE CRYING.

Sorry.

I’m not crying, you’re crying.

That’s not much better, is it.

I just finished The Giggle and I’m sobbing over the fact that 10 finally gets everything he was chasing and I am clearly unwell. I knew this episode was going to break me but I didn’t realize how far they were going to push us over the cliff. Like. You don’t get this in Doctor Who, not ever. That’s almost the appeal of it, sometimes. 

But Russell T Davies just ripped out everyone’s heart in the best possible way.  I really can’t.

Blorp. Okay. 

The thing is….the thing is - I think everybody needed that. How satisfying must this be for David Tennant? And Catherine Tate? How are they not fit to bursting right now? That was so beautiful, gang. And they must be so proud.

But I’m gonna focus. Also, didn’t I say catharsis? Jesus christ, you can’t get more than that. I’m pretty sure they hit the fucking limit on catharsis. Wow. I’m a mess.

Focusing, though: wherein the Doctor and Donna have to say humanity from their own terrible base instincts because the Toymaker loves a good game. 

So we open on Soho in 1925 (which, is anyone else wondering where A.Z. Fell & Co is in relationship to the street they’re showing? No? Just me? Okay cool) and we’re taken into a creepy toy shop where we meet Neil Patrick Harris doing a super weird German accent and being a general creep. He sells a dummy to a man who says he needs it for his boss, who is around the corner working on inventing the concept of television broadcasting for the very first time.  

They pop the head off the dummy and leave it in a setup surrounded by a ton of lightbulbs and they go into another room to test it all out - and it works. But the heat from the bulbs is hot, too hot, which is why they needed an object, not an actual person. But of course, the creepy toyseller was obviously up to no good, and as the broadcast continues, the dummy head melts and lets out a terrible little giggle. Clearly, we’re in trouble.

Back in the present, the Doctor and Donna are in the streets of London trying to figure out what’s happening. Some guy argues with 14 who tries to stop him from attacking a car, saying that his taxes pay for the street but he doesn’t drive and he has the right to do whatever he wants with the roadway, thank you. Perfectly sound logic, and the guy is belligerent, saying two days ago everyone in the world decided they were right and wouldn’t listen to reason.  So that’s exciting.

Soon enough, UNIT finds them and they’re told to get Wilf somewhere safe while the Doctor and Donna follow them to headquarters. Where we finally get our eyes on Kate Lethbridge-Stewart who I absolutely love, she’s the “bitches get shit done” Tina Fey gif come to LIFE. Bitch will always be the new black, and that’s Kate, and exactly how she runs UNIT, loading it full of equally brilliant women, including Shirley who we’d met when dealing with The Meep, and Melanie, who was a companion to the 6th Doctor,

Who run the world? GIRLS.

Anyway, we get into explanation mode - two days ago there was a spike in aggression worldwide, the same spike across the board. It’s affecting everyone, even the people in government, but UNIT has a fun device that helps keep everyone wearing one sane. And Kate decides she’s going to demonstrate how fucked up the situation is - she asks them to take her device offline, so they do.

And she proceeds to spew a bunch of terrible things at the Doctor - how he’s an alien with two hearts that have infiltrated them and can’t be trusted, and then she takes shots at poor Shirley who’s in a goddamn wheelchair and it’s really gross to watch, it’s one of the worst parts of humanity and she tries to avoid having her device turned back on, but they finally subdue her. It’s some serious shit, gang.

They say that the spikes aren’t coming from outside, they’re in everyone’s head, except for Donna, and Melanie, who have spent significant time in the TARDIS. And for extra fun, two days ago a satellite went up that finally connected the entirety of the earth to the internet, and now, everyone has access to a screen. 

And of course, Donna is working something out about the spike they’ve found, saying that she spent six months teaching Rose how to play the recorder; she thinks it’s a tune. Melanie sings it out and it strikes with everyone, like they’ve known it for years. And then Shirley finds it, it’s not a tune, it’s the laugh from the dummy. The Doctor figures out that the image has been burnt into television itself, into all the screens everyone is attached to every minute of everyday.

As they’re getting the date of the exact transmission, 14 gives Kate permission to shoot the satellite down, even though it’ll start an international incident. He’s the president of the world, and I love that. Her relief is palpable.

He also has a little moment with Melanie, which is so sweet. I love that whenever he rolls up to someone he hasn’t seen in decades, he always mutters the kindest little “hello.” Just for them. His attention completely focused. It must feel like a sun shining directly on you. I literally have a collection of David Tennant saying “hello” in my mind, ugh it’s so something. 

During all of this, Kate is telling Donna she did well working out the spikes, and she offers her a job at UNIT once everything has settled. Pure Donna, she asks how much the salary is, and then counters with DOUBLE the amount and 5 weeks paid vacation which is immediately accepted. BAMF, BAMF, BAMF. Get what’s yours, baby girl.

So much going on. Okay, so they go back to 1925, and 14 is all about what they need to do but Donna wants to hear about Mel because he’s never once mentioned her. He never does, he never talks about them. Rose a bit, yes, but usually no. Not ever. And he reminds her he’s old as hell and he can’t just chat about everyone, but it’s more than that. She tells him he never stops moving, she says “You are staggering along. Maybe that's why your old face came back. You're wearing yourself out” and that’s the crux of the matter, friends. 14 is wonderful, we’re all in love with him, but he’s definitely bleeding out everything. All over the place. And it’s so sad to see him so run down. But, classic 10, he ignores her.

They find the toyshop of course, and the Doctor recognizes the Toymaker. Who immediately starts a game of catch with the Doctor, because he’s a fucking weirdo like that, and 14 looks incredibly determined and also freaked out but Donna puts a stop to it, and the Toymaker disappears. 

They follow him deeper into the shop and surprise! They find themselves in a never ending hallway full of doors, and each door just leads to another hallway. Which should be impossible, but we’re told that the Toymaker is only governed by the rules of play, so he can basically do whatever the eff he wants.

Donna gets the story out of him as they wander - the Doctor had once gone into another realm, where he played a game against the Toymaker and apparently won, but he said he made a terrible mistake. Poor kiddo is really raw all of a sudden, he says “I'm always so certain. I'm all sonic and TARDIS and Time Lord. Take that away... Take away the toys... what am I? What am I now?” and then he tells Donna, “I don’t know…if I can save your life this time.”

Scrawny little 14 all exposed and helpless and I told you, he’s bleeding all over the place, and she just tells him, “Well…maybe I’ll save you.”

THEY’RE BEST FRIENDS, and she’s definitely gonna save him, just not in the way he thinks. And it’s so good.

Speeding ahead, they keep wandering through the halls and then they get separated of course and Donna gets attacked by the dummy that was supposed to be the original dummy’s wife and his creepy babies but she beats them obviously, and the Doctor gets taunted by the Toymaker but they find each other eventually.

And then they’re pulled into a room with a little stage where the Toymaker puts on a puppet show about exactly what has happened to the Doctor’s companions since he traveled with Donna. And it’s so sad to listen to him try to justify everyone’s fate - Amy died of old age, but in a time and place she was never meant to. Clara was killed by a bird but technically saved in her last moments of life. Bill was turned into a cyberman, but her consciousness lived on. No happy endings, for the Doctor and his friends, not ever. 

 To stop the show, the Doctor challenges the Toymaker to a game. And Donna’s afraid the Toymaker will cheat, but it seems the rules of the game bind his entire existence: the Doctor will either win or lose. So they cut a deck, and the highest card wins. And it’s the Toymaker, with a king.

But the Doctor finds a loophole - he won the first game, the Toymaker one the second game, and that prompts another, the best of three. Which the Toymaker accepts, but he wants that game to be played back in the present. 

Meanwhile at UNIT headquarters they’re shooting down the new satellite, and the Doctor and Donna appear to try and figure out a way to force the Toymaker out of the universe they way he’d come, but it’s too late. 14 is explaining something and then “Spice Up Your Life” is playing, and I’m sorry but L O L at the entire dance scene with NPH that unfolds. It’s hilarious, and creepy, and it definitely goes on too long, but I’ll allow a little pageantry. He turns UNIT’s bullets into flower petals and it’s a little terrifying, how much power he possesses and that’s the point. And then as soon as he’s arrived, he disappears again. 

Just kidding though, the Toymaker is out on the platform where the beam they used to take down the satellite is still set up and ready to roll, and he’s got control of it. So everyone of course rushes out to try and stop him. 

The Doctor tries to talk him down, of course. He asks why he’s choosing to be so horrible when he can do so many good things, and the Toymaker reminds him he’s just a vastness that good and bad don’t apply to, only winning and losing. The Doctor tells him he’s a vastness that contains so much more, and then he suggests they take the game away from earth, that they can play across the cosmos. 

He says “we can be…celestial” - and I’m dying inside. Is anyone else wondering what Aziraphale’s reaction to that sentence would have been? So many little bits of Good Omens, it’s slightly painful. 

Also, I appreciate that the Doctor is always trying to turn enemies into his playmates. 10 did it with the Master, too. It makes sense, he’s always off with humans but why wouldn’t entities that are more in line with what he is, want to travel with him? They always say no. Because y’all are too obsessed with your own drama to recognize what a fucking opportunity that is. Idiots.

So yeah, that doesn’t work and the Toymaker declares that since he played the first two games with different doctors, he wants to play the final game with the next Doctor. AND HE SHOOTS 14 WITH THE GIANT FUCKING LASER. 

It’s agonizing. It’s terrible. And Donna and Mel rush to his side as he starts to regenerate, because they don’t want him to be alone. They tell him he’s not dying, and they don’t care who he is, because every version of him is fantastic. And that’s what he needed to hear the first time. Every time, really.

And then he says “It's time. Here we go again. Allons-y!” (squee!) but…nothing happens. So he asks them to pull, yank on his arms, and they’re like ‘um’ but they do and THEN:

Out pops 15. And I’m losing my fucking mind. 

Here’s the thing, gang. There is one sure fire way to make the new Doctor capture everyone’s heart, and that is apparently to let him interact with 14. Because everything that happens after this is incredible.

15 says “You're me. No, I'm me. I think I'm really, really me. Oh-ho-ho, I am completely me!” and he tells 14 to push, and they’re both like ‘will this work?’ and they’re laughing and they push against each other and they’re two separate entities and it’s amazing. 

14 obviously was all done up in his traditional suit (minus the coat) so now suddenly 15 is wearing the dress shirt, and the tie, and their charming little tightie whities, and the CONVERSES! And 14’s still got the pants, the undershirt, the vest, completely barefoot. I’m delighted and crying my eyes out. 

So apparently they’ve bi-generated, which is supposed to be a myth and 15 asks Mel what she thinks and she says “I think you’re beautiful” and 14 pipes up, “still beautiful?!” and it’s all so good but the Toymaker is exasperated and then both Doctor’s say “I challenge you to a game” but he doesn’t like that. He’d caused the bi-generation and he doesn’t want to play both of them but he can’t say no.

What follows is the highest stakes game of catch that has literally ever existed. 14 and 15 are ducking and bobbing and weaving and catching and it’s ridiculous but also so filled with tension; whoever drops the ball, loses. David Tennant is a 50-something year old spindly noodle and oh my god he’s just crushing the entire thing, I could watch this all day. 

But someone has to lose, and thank god, eventually it’s the Toymaker. They decide their prize is going to be banishing him from existence forever. He gets folded up into a little square of douchebag, shoved in a box, and left to rot in the deepest recesses of UNIT’s storage. 

And it’s wonderful! But 14 can’t help but think of all of the people that died. And here is where 15 worms into everyone’s heart for the rest of eternity: he reminds 14 that he can’t save everyone, and then he grabs him into a hug and he says “Come here. I've got you. Yeah? It's OK. I'm here” and he kisses 14’s forehead. 

It’s what the Doctor has always needed, but never got. A reminder from himself that what he does matters, that he’s good and he tries and it’s okay when things don’t go perfectly, but he does save people. He deserves acceptance from himself, and if he can’t give it in his own mind, he can get it from someone else who is literally him. It’s fucking beautiful.

They head back to the TARDIS and 14 shows 15 all the bells and whistles and 14 wonders how it’s going to work, the two of them? 15 makes him stop his anxious rambling, tells him “you're thin as a pin, love. You're running on fumes.” He keeps talking, about all of the things they’ve seen and done. The Pandorica, The Time War, losing River and Rose. The fact that Sarah Jane has died. 14 says, “I loved her” and 15 says “I loved her.” 

15 reminds him that they haven’t stopped, not for a second. But he’s fine, because 14 had fixed himself. He says “We’re doing rehab out of order.” And it’s true; 15 has taken in everything that Donna has been trying to get 14 to understand, he has the sweetness and the willingness to express his feelings that 14 finally learned, and now he’s putting his foot down, to himself. His old self. He’s telling 14 that he has to stop. 

But 14 doesn’t know how, and Donna tells him that he just has to exist, every single day, in and out. Over and over. And that’s the adventure. She says “I've worked out what happened. You changed your face... and then you found me. Do you know why?”

“To come home.”

If you didn’t lose it at that, you might need to examine your inner workings. It’s a punch to the gut. And it’s absolutely true. It’s the one thing the Doctor has never had, but now he can. And the way 14 asks “Do you mean…he flies off?” is so sad and small, and deflating, like he can’t imagine being pried away and made to stop and just be and exist. It’s terrifying for him. And he knows he can’t leave the TARDIS, it would hurt.

15 has an idea though, he thinks they might have a little bit of time, still being governed by a state of play, so he produces a sledge hammer and he hops out of the TARDIS, followed by 14 and Donna. 

He wields the hammer and he says “You get a prize, honey. And here is mine!” and he SWINGS against the TARDIS, and out pops another perfect little blue police box (and he runs a hand down the first one, saying “I’m sorry!”). Two TARDIS’s, two doctors. 

(I’m also swooning over 15’s use of endearments - love, honey - he’s gonna kill me.)

14 goes in to inspect the new TARDIS, he’s reverent almost, and it’s much the same, but it’s got a jukebox. He wanders back to his own TARDIS and 15 hops into the new one and powers her up and he’s definitely about to leave without a goodbye but 14 bounds back in with Donna to get what they’re owed. Which is hugs and a little sass. 15 says “off you pop, old man” and I love that, but they remind him he’s the older of the two now, so he says “Okay, kid. I love you. Get out!”

15 is full of the love the Doctor never gets to give freely, but he’s ready now, and I’m so excited to watch that unfold. It’s so perfect and beautiful that 14 is the one who gets to feel it first. Baby boy needs so much more, and he’s gonna get it.

And so, off they both go. 15 to his endless adventures, 14 to something even more scary.

The last scene is a dinner at Donna’s, wherein 14 is telling a ridiculous story about using his eyebrows to communicate (Crowley, Crowley, Crowley…) and it’s just banter and it’s so good. We find out that he’s taking Mel on little adventures in the TARDIS, even Rose a time or two. He says “Just can’t turn down my favorite niece” and oh, it’s so lovely. He says “That’s what you are. With my best friend, my brother-in-law, the evil stepmother, and mad auntie Mel.” 

The desperate wanderer, a man who has run for thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years in a multitude of faces, finally has a family. 

Donna tells him he doesn’t have to stay forever, and then she asks him if he misses it out there. And his face, oh y’all his face as he says “The funny thing is, I fought all those battles for all those years... and now I know what for. This. I've never been so happy in my life”, it’s EVERYTHING.

Never, not once, has the Doctor gotten this. Usually, things work out just enough that it barely soothes the pain of what was lost. Never has he won so fully, so completely. Donna restored, and the chance to finally relish what he’s been protecting for so long. And no one deserved it more than 10 and 14.

The Doctor doesn’t have to be all hard edges and fire and war and unrelenting motion. He can be soft and vulnerable and he can accept help and he can love. 

And I didn’t even realize I wanted to see that. Doctor Who is like letting yourself believe in a higher power, a little bit. Believing in a species that maybe isn’t beholden to all of the disgusting emotions we have to deal with, he’s strong when we can’t be. He’s strong all the time. But I don’t think I’ve ever connected as much to an arch as I did to this one. We can’t be strong all the time. No one can. 

Watching the Doctor stop, and be taken care of for once, I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. Catharsis, on all sides. For everyone. I needed all of that way more than I’m ever willing to admit.

No matter what’s going on in the real world, at least now, somewhere out there 14 is hanging out at Donna’s house, telling silly stories and helping cook dinner and teaching Rose a bunch of science she should never get her hands on, and that’s satisfying in a way I can’t explain.

Basically, I’m so thankful for Doctor Who. And I can’t wait to see what happens next…

[madam-o]

The Many Different Lydias in Media

Ngl, I found the Lydia from the BJ movie scripts to be fairly average and boring. She's a stereotypically edgy city teen in the first draft of the original Beetlejuice script, and seriously lacking in personality in "Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian". In the first movie she's got some style and dark interests, but still seems overall to be a normal everygirl. The only reason she works so well on screen is due to great costume/makeup design, plus Winona Ryder's natural charisma and gothy cheekiness. And as I recall from the cartoon, she was much more cheerful but still one-dimensional, a fun-loving and typically moral mc who just enjoys creepy things and hanging out with dead people. She IS more feisty than movie Lydia tends to be, though.

I think this is why I've latched so strongly onto Musical Lydia. She's angry, twisted, mouthy, and not afraid of a little violence. She's passionate and pretty messed up, a good opponent/companion for Musical BJ. She'd think Movie BJ is a typical creepy Boomer asshole and not gel with him at all. And I'll tell you one thing, she would NOT put up with any of the bullshit in "Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian".

God, the amount of shit that Lydia just puts up with silently in that script. For instance, her parents are even worse people than in the first film, but Lydia says absolutely nothing to them about how horrible they're being. She just plots behind their backs with some surf "beatniks" (which is that script's weird descriptive word for the wacky young people of "today"...in the first draft of Beetlejuice 1 it was "deathrockers".) BJ dances the lambada (the Forbidden Dance!) with her and is very handsy and gross about it and she doesn't even try to push him away. Man, did I not like that script.

In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Lydia is again, overall a fairly average, typical everyperson... it's just that she can see dead people and she's being tormented by a trickster demon (her words btw). She's not as entertainingly dramatic and morbid as she was as a teen, and I get it. She's a grown up now, and the allure of death and horror no longer does anything for her, especially since she's seen literally seen it every day for decades. She's been beaten down by life a bit. She's got a teen daughter who hates her for reasons she can't control. She's been through the wars romance-wise and is now in a bad relationship with a manipulative tool, and she's not doing anything about it because it's easier to just let him take care of everything. Many of us have been there.

Burton's Lydia has always represented himself, so she reflects his view of the world. He's just a kind of subdued guy who has a quirky view of people. It's the rest of the world that's truly weird, not him. He's just quietly hanging out and doing his thing while everyone else is running around being a bunch of colorful, self-centered clowns.

I dunno. I think she's going to be misjudged in this movie. We expect a lot of movie Lydia because so many of us grew up identifying with her, but she's never been a terribly dynamic character, we just want her to be. She's clever enough, but she's not a person who generally fights for control of her life. In fact, I think she feels that there are many things she can never control so she just has to roll with it. All she can do is try to be there for others and give her family the support that they need. Personally I definitely identify with that.

[sir-sillybunny]

i have never been so deeply disappointed in a story's ending as i was with this game

it was such an amazing beautiful game. there were so many very intriguing mysteries that had very satisfying answers. it was just so amazing and i was ready to consider it one of my favorite games of all time but then after the end of like chapter 5 i think it just all went downhill.

the story just went in a direction that felt really like boring? and just kind of forced. it started to feel less like i was reading a real story and more like i was a reading a fanfic of the story. like a fix it fix. it was nice to see the characters get a chance at getting fixed but just? idk. their motivations behind what they did were already obvious. we had already seen their personalities and what lives they led before in the first 3 doors. we did not need to it again. it was just the same story again except the characters were wearing costumes. and i slighlty disagree with the message it was trying to push. i understand that revenge is often not worth it and only serves to hurt you more if you seek it and i understand that everyone should get a chance at a new life to change for the better. but i dont believe that morgana was wrong for hating those men as deeply as she did. i agree that she shouldnt have cursed them, to that degree at least. but she had every right to hate them and to want terrible things to happen to them. idk. it was just so frustrating to have to sit through michel talk for hours with morganas murders and sympathize with them about what they did to her. all while knowing that morgana, the girl they were leting fucking die in a locked room, was upstairs from him slowly dying.

i get that the 3 men had the keys to free her but he didnt have to spend as much time with them as he did. the fact that he spent so much time talking with them made him too late to save her and she died anyway. which i guess it wasnt real anyway, he couldnt have actually saved her. but still. she deserved his attention and care more than any of them ever did. all she wanted was someone to save her. she didnt need to understand her murderers stories, she didnt need to feel any sympathy for them. i think if she was saved by someone before she died she wouldnt have turned into the witch after death.

and also????????? why is no one talking about how fucking creepy and literally pedophilic it was that the original jacopo was in love with morgana???????????? when she was 12 and he was 21?????????????????? that happened multiple times in the story. weird age gap relationships that are not at all presented as bad. the first times i noticed it i could chalk it up to trying to being historical accurate or something but that last one was just too much. jacopo literally said he had a crush on a 12 year old girl and that he would "wait for her." until she turned 18. which he didnt even do btw. he told her he was in love with her when she was 16, and attempted to do it before then. it was just gross and completely and utterly unnecessary to add to the game. also im remembering that earlier in the game the player gets asked which of a group of 3 girls he fancies and you had the option to say he fancied one of the girls who was 14 years old !! just so unnecessary to add and so creepy. this game came out in 2012, its not like it would have been normal to think that was okay.

another thing that weirded me out is that giselle in her normal character sprite had a normal sized chest and her dress wasnt all that revealing. but in every cg her tits were huge and basically completely out. in every single cg. theres nothing wrong with that if it was simply part of her style and looks. but it wasnt like that in her character sprite. it took away from the cgs and was just annoying.

it just sucks because up until that point it was such a good game. the music was beautiful, the story was so so good, it was all just so good. but i really wish the game ended when when saw morganas real body for the first time. it should have ended with a big long conversation or something. but instead it was another several hours of gameplay after that about forcing yourself into morganas memories and sympathizing with the men who killed her. it just sucked. even ignoring me disagreeing with the moral of it, it was just bad. we learned nothing in that chapter. every single major thing that got revealed about the mens motivations for what they did was already completely obvious. it just felt like they were trying to make the game longer. and after that the ending i honestly couldnt even pay attention to. i skipped through half of it. which maybe there was some super amazing dialouge in there that compeltely magically fixes all the stuff from before but i doubt it lol. either way the pedophila was still gross. so im deeply disapointed either way.

i spent 30 hours in that game and im never getting them back lmao

[5amanthus]

For the ask game :) 😈🎶🎯

Ask game

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

I don't know if I've ever been playfully mean to readers 😂 I'm either genuine, or just mean (i.e hurting blorbos, added angst, killing characters).

It's not really playful, but probably the closest example I have is this one person was obsessed with Purple/Xander, literally the biggest bigot/not-in-the-fun-way asshole™️/just downright awful character I had in the earlier part of my series and they shit all over my massively diverse/queer/disabled/neurodivergent cast of characters because I refused to give him a redemption arc, so later on I ended up taking some of their direct quotes and putting it in some of his dialogue while he was being an idiot and then I got rid of him a few chapters later.

        "Perhaps you can give me some valuable insight then. Tell me about the crew."

        He paused upon realizing the other man was actually trying to talk to him, "Where do I even start? Cyan is an absolute snake, don't trust that one. 'They' will backstab you. Lime is gross and has made 'gay' his whole personality. Black is creepy and a dad. Red is really fucking weird. I thought Pumpkin would be cool, but I hate her too. Yellow is okay, I guess. The Captain doesn't take anything seriously and he should have been fired ages ago. Pink is the nervous one. Uuh, honestly everyone is so forgettable. It's so hard to keep up with everyone, they might as well just be a bunch of colours with vague personality traits."

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

I'm always listening to music and I absolutely do while I write! I've got over 100 playlists and pretty well all of my characters have at least 1 song if not more.

These are two I've had on repeat a lot because this band is great for just a specific vibe I need for a current original WIP about a trans woman going into a cabin in the woods to discover herself and she ends up coming out with a trans monster girlfriend 😄

Also been listening to this one a bunch because it fits a possible WIP I have about two characters who love each other trying to find the other again and again even as their ripped apart while their realities constantly change around them, but I won't say more because it's going to be a big project that I'm still trying to figure out a format for. (Brain says show, but I don't really have access to those kinds of resources, so I might write it but I think it's going to be difficult to capture in a story.)

This one is always on repeat cause it's a major Fuchsia and Dijon song and I have so many feelings about them, but they're not showing up again for a while. I have a whole scene planned for this one though, and some art too.

And I've got a whole playlist for the Spot/Venom fanfic thing I'm working on, but these two songs I've been listening to a lot out of the whole playlist. I should probably slap the playlist down, maybe in the fic when its done.

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?

I don't really have readers that comment their guesses usually? Also I'm terrible for just blabbing about stuff instead of writing it, so people either know what's going to happen, or they comment that they were surprised by things! Like this comment, I love it a lot :D

"This has to be my fav fic in your Crews series yet. For context, I have binge read up to this chapter over the last two days.

Cyan having an altered imposter parasite was a fall-off-my-seat plot twist. Whoa! That explained what they were freaking out about when they had to get scanned and I thought they couldn't get their gloves off, but they weren't able to temporarily get the parasite to leave their body (because it was protecting them from the spawn of Chartreuse, but Cyan didn't know at the time). I want to go into more, but this paragraph alone is too long already."

Or I did have someone really accurately read a scene/the hints I left, which was great!

"When she flinched away from his hand the first time he went to touch her, I wonder whether he thought he'd partly reverted back to impostor form and that was what scared her? It must've been confusing for him to see her flinch away from a normal hand and realise it had nothing to do with his nature as an Impostor.

When Fuchsia comes during the night shift, it becomes clear Dijon is bad at hiding not only his strangeness, but even his ability to see in the dark; I wonder whether Orchid knows he's an Impostor. If so, mentioning she'd kill Pantone if she had a chance might've been an indirect approval for Dijon to get rid of him."

And the only other closest one would probably be people accurately calling Black and Red as impostors in V-Crew, but I wasn't really trying to hide that one 😂

[kinetic-elaboration]

December 6: Cabinet of Curiosities 1x04

Continuing on with Cabinet of Curiosities. Even though the whole series was released for Halloween, this was a vaguely Christmas themed ep, or at least, it took place during the Christmas season, so I guess it made sense to watch it now.

It was... fine. It wasn't as gross as I was afraid it was going to be, but it was also not terribly innovative or revolutionary for being over an hour long. Like, it did not need to be over an hour, please take an editing eye to things even if you are working for Netflix.

I mean, the concept of a woman of unconventional beauty, who is lonely, and weird, and finds it hard to connect with people, who does something drastic to make herself popular, leading to body horror and violence and the general loss of her soul, and the pyrrhic victory of being popular but monstrous at the end, is not super new and unheard of. I feel like I have seen this story before.

On the other hand, it also took a WILD left turn with the Lotion Creature. I respect the ep for trying. It was so weird and so random and so unexplained that it didn't really do anything for me but at least it was unpredictable. I wasn't scared, more like grossed out and confused and just uncertain what the story was trying to tell me, but again, points for doing something unusual with standard fare.

I did not get, at the beginning, that the sheriff/cop guy was Stacey's husband, and I thought the familiarity between them came from her constantly calling the station about weird noises. Knowing that she was married, and that her husband was apparently a pretty decent guy, who loved her and liked her and talked her up all the time, made her motivations harder for me to follow, tbh. I mean, yes, I know a husband is not the same as girlfriends, I know your partner can't be everything, and I know he was rather missing the point of what was really causing her distress. Also, sexism, commentary on womanhood or something, etc. But her life just didn't seem that bad to me: she had a comfortable home, a partner, an artistic hobby, and the women she wanted to befriend at work were shallow, annoying bitches. Like, life could be better, but come now, it could be worse.

I also didn't get why the extended sequence with the creepy noises in the house existed at all. I mean ultimately there was not, at that time, anything in the house. Was it thematic foreshadowing of the lotion creature? Was it about Stacey' character? And if so, what about it? That she's open to suggestion? that she's prone to hallucination? I would not call being worried about creaky noises that probably were real the same as being open to full on auditory and visual hallucinations but okay.

Also she really was transformed at the end, she really did have weird bathtub sex with personified lotion, and the results were really seen by the bitches at work. So I can only assume that the story was supernatural and not about insanity or psychosis or whatever.

The episode also really relied a lot on the vague grossness of squelching lotion. Like a lot.

I will say, I did not hate it, it was fine, and I did like Stacey and thought she carried the episode well. It's possible there was more to it than I am giving credit for--for example, I didn't pay much attention to what was on TV, but I suppose it was probably supposed to be thematically important, since there were so many shots of it. Similarly, all the ladies' gossip was about men and sex, when it wasn't about beauty etc., and given the sparse attempt at Gender Commentary ("you don't get it because you're a man") I think there might be something to unwrap or Problematize there.

And I did like the image of Stacey holding her hand up to the TV: the difference in her size versus the TV guy's size made it seem like he was putting his hand up for an oath but she was reaching out to him in an affectionate or loving way, and that was interesting. I also thought the image of the lotion squelching itself out of the container and onto the table was legitimately creepy--probably the only part I would really call scary in the whole thing.

Even with the eldritch horror, Lot 36 is still my favorite. But I did like this one more than Graveyard Rats and most of The Autopsy.

[thewritetofreespeech]

Because I woke up and chose violence, let’s have hc’s of the Brothers + Undatables react to an MC that can regenerate after death (no one knows this cuz I said so). Everyone’s vibing and talking until one of them wonder where MC is. Suddenly, her body falls from the roof and just splats in front of everyone. It’s so sudden and terrifying cuz what happened?! MC’s eyes suddenly snap open and she greets everyone like normal as her bones snap and shift into place as she heals. She just tells them that a lesser demon tried to throw her DDD off the roof but she jumped off to catch it, but then she says “Jokes on them! My DDD’s fine 😃” while her neck is snapping into place.

She’ll even talk about the worst ways she died in her childhood and is nice enough to explain unless her body is fully disintegrated, she can regenerate from anything

That’s disgusting.....I love it.

For the purposes of this prompt, lets just move past the initial terrified shock. Yes, they are all horrified. Yes, they are all concerned for you. Let’s move past those emotions so we can get somewhere.

Obey Me Brother + Supernatural MC (HCs)

Lucifer

Furious

How could you be so reckless?! It’s just a stupid phone!

How could you not tell him about this??

Would insist that you still get checked out and tell him everything from now on

Will be upset for a few days because he feels like he can’t trust you anymore

Mammon

Devastated

His whole life just flashed before his eyes

And you weren’t in it

Yells at you for being so dumb and doing something like that. He’d buy you a new phone!!

Hugs you tight and silently vows to never let you go. Or see you get hurt again

Levi

Straight up panic attack

We can all agree that Levi doesn’t handle stress well

Watching his beloved/best friend die, then reanimate, is something he can’t handle

Also super grossed out because I have the personal headcanon he can’t handle blood

Please don’t tell him stories

Satan

What’s a polite, non-creepy way to say that he’s fascinated?

Purely academic. He doesn’t want to ‘test it out more’

But is interested in how this came to pass and what has given you this ability

Would research to see if this has ever happened before

What’s also a polite, non-creepy way to say ‘let’s do some small experiments’?

Asmo

Insta faint

Also can’t handle blood

And the idea of you being....deformed is too much to bear

Happy but horrified when you turn back to normal

Please never do this again. Think of your clothes and his poor psyche

Beel

Nope. Nope, nope, nope

Immediately heartbroken

Don’t leave him like Lilith did

Would hug you tight the second you’re ok and also vow to never let you go

S/O that can heal themselves, but Beel is 4000% more protective now than he was before

Belphie

Call the cops. We got a jumper

Would immediately try to jump off the bridge/balcony/high place with you

He doesn’t want to live anymore without you in it

Mesmerized and elated that you’re ok. To the point he thinks it’s a dream

For someone that literally tried to kill you once, he’s not handling your second almost death well

Diavolo

Furious x2

How could you just throw your life away like that?? You need to be more careful!

Tries to laugh it off later, but it’s clear that he’s faking it

Really worried he’d almost lost you for a moment

It’s not good to scare the defacto-King of Hell like that

Simeon

Shocked and horrified

Had his prayers truly been answered?

Marveled at the beauty of the Lord and his power

But also terribly worried and scared for you, because he thought you were gone

Don’t ever scare him like that again. His heart couldn’t take it

Solomon

Straight up asks: “let’s do weird experiments.”

Very magical and old, so probably not a big shocker to him

I assume that Solomon has a similar skill to keep him young and healthy for eternity

Interested in how you got the skill though, and wants to test it

“I need a human heart for this spell. Can I take yours? It’ll grow back, right?”

Barbatos

Saw this coming, but still not pleased

Of course it was an option for the future. But he didn’t really think you’d jump.

Lecture time.

Already aware of all your ‘bad experiences’ because he’s seen them in his mind’s eye

Don’t get blood on the marble. That’s a bitch to get out.

[thewebcomicsreview]

Ummmm I feel like someone should...DO something about Sandra and Woo at this point. As of strip 1316, I'm sensing the content is beginning to get a bit...questionable?

So, in a vacuum, "teenagers look at porn and get embarrassed" isn't a particularly weird premise for a joke (and I suspect people would be less weirded out if it were boys looking at pictures of naked women), and S&W is a lot less weird about kids than basically any anime. And yet...

Ring ring

I think the reason Sandra and Woo comes off as uncomfortable so much is that they don't do "Character gets horny and does a stupid" so much as "Character sees something sexy or is told about something sexy hypothetically happening offscreen and gets uncomfortable". It's basically "Anime boy getting a nosebleed at seeing a boob", but made PG for the kids. It's not that Zoey finds a Playgirl somewhere and talks about how much she finds dicks gross while scooting closer and closer to it, it's that she's being made to look at sexual content, and teenagers being forced to view sexual content, even by other teenagers, is gross.

Ring Ring

It also doesn't help that the strip isn't funny at all. A "Penis-themed top trumps deck" is supposed to be comedically over the top, but it's just weird and fetishistic and "adult" in a way that even like a porn magazine isn't. It's much more of a bachelorette party thing than something you'd have seen when you were a horny teen yourself, and also I kept reading it a penis-themed top Trump's deck, like it was entirely Donald Trump erotica. What's the joke here even supposed to be? "Zoey says she thinks penises are gross but one of of 52 she kind of liked"? lmao? Without a solid punchline there's nothing to distract us from the creepiness of the premise.

Ring ring

And I think the writer even kind of knows all this because he has Zoey explicitly state that this is too wacky for her to feel sexually harassed. But if you need to interrupt your joke so that Zoey reassure the audience she's not being sexually harassed that bad by your protagonist, you might need to re-evaluate if your protagonists are irredeemably terrible, and it certainly detracts from the cutesy "Remember how cringe being a horny teenager was" vibe this comic is generally going f-

Ring ring

Excuse me a moment, that's my discord calling, it must be very important if they're calling me while I'm in the middle of a post.

Yes, Commissioner Discord? Zoey is a thespian? Well it's good for her to have a hobby I suppose but I don't know what acting has to do with this strip that's so- Yes? No? Oh, she's a-

Oh, she's a lesbian?

She's a lesbian and the premise of the strip is Larisa making fun of her for not being attracted to penises and forcing her to look at pictures of penises?

Good.....God! It's worse than I thought, Anon. This comic strip isn't just badly executed and a little uncomfortable, it's homophobic! And while you could devil's advocate that the creepiness is an unintentional side effect of a moderately edgy joke that's badly executed, it's a lot harder to call the homophobic element accidental. There's something problematic underfoot, anon!

[volperion-moved]

I agree with you, but I also really hate that Adrien is also very much creepy with his obsession over Ladybug at times and it never gets addressed (or made fun of) by the show and the writers despite it being much more common than Marinette's flanderized moments. The writers have acknowledged on multiple occasions that she can get "too crazy" over him and its fairly obvious they often use that as a reliable tool to humiliate her for comedy, punish her by creating grandiose repercussions, (legit can't believe what He said on Twitter during the NY special), and just making sure in the end she doesn't move on and let go even if she wants to because "status quo". But with Adrien they have never actually acknowledged his weird gross behavior with Ladybug/Mari, they take it far more seriously. The double standard is very obvious and it's a pattern in misogynistic writing.

see i never said adrien wasn't terribly written in this aspect either and I've talked abt adrien a ton at this point. i hate how it has to be this stupid contest. "yeah marinette's bad but look at adrien." "well adrien's only bad bc marinette steals his screentime and is mean to him."

see I don't like adrien his fans have really put me off i think a lot of his behaviour is toxic and manipulative whether he or the writers intend it to be or not. but I'm tired of talking about why i don't like adrien and seeing people make guilt trippy posts about how I'm a bad person bc i don't like adrien and seeing adrien stans whine about how marinette and luka get more love. it's so stupid and embarrassing to look at

and it's always been this way w lila. if you like lila you must hate marinette. you must have never been bullied before and think bullying is okay. why do my opinions on one character have to mean ANYTHING about another character. if i criticise marinette why does that mean I'm giving adrien a free pass on everything and need to be educated on how bad he is ackshully. im sure you didn't intend to be condescending or anything im just so tired.

i want to stop talking about specific characters and instead talk about how the entire show treats love and romance. adrien and marinette act the way they do and get treated the way they do because this show is heteronormative and misogynistic. marinette is the 'abhorrent admirer' trope while adrien is the 'dogged nice guy'. the show wants us to laugh at marinette when she humiliates herself but then pity adrien for his struggles. it's not really a matter of which character is better written or more interesting or more likable but how the narrative treats them.

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

Ya know, I truly hope Miss Renesmee Carlie Cullen fully dedicates herself to just....being as out there and iconic as possible

first things first- ANYTHING with the loch ness monster on it, she owns. Posters, shirts, jackets, shoes, folders, buttons, iron-ons, there is always at least 5 pieces of Nessie merch on her at all times

once she gets old enough to start high school, the cover story is her and Edward are siblings that Carlisle and Esme took in, and sometimes her classmates will ask her what her biological parents were like and she will flat out be like 'oh, they're vampires' and Edward and Bella are like. 5 feet away trying not to scream

every Halloween she'll show up to school in an elaborate Nosferatu costume

goes out of her way to photobomb people in increasingly ridiculous ways so there will Always be a photographic record of her and in like 100 years she can get a huge kick out of teens on the internet trying to make a conspiracy about her

joins as many school clubs as she can, even if she has no interest in them- she just Really wants a concrete record of herself to exist lmao

ICONIC at school theater though. One of those demon theater kids that come to rehearsal purely to cause chaos and nothing else, but her voice is incredible so she secures every lead. One time she somehow managed to star in a show while also playing in the school band for it- her classmates still have no idea how she pulled it off

Always brings blood out in public in a CLEAR THERMOS and it stresses her family out so much but everyone else thinks she's just like, weirdly into tomato juice so the Cullens can't stop her

to everyone's surprise...her biggest chaos enabler is Jasper lmao. everyone thought he'd be a logical, responsible uncle but they're just. A Problem together. He'll 100% assist her in any prank she wants to pull, he gets her fake id's when she wants to sneak into a club with friends, he bails her out of jail without telling her parents, they figured out if she gets high and he reads her feelings he'll get high too and it's. So fucking funny.

she's always carrying some random instrument around school- like for a while it's a guitar or a harmonica, fine, but then she'll start lugging a cello around, a tuba (she doesn't even play, she stole it off a guy who was annoying her) and it escalates until one day she's wheeling a piano around the building. no one's even sure how she got in in the doors of the school. She keeps running kids over in the hallway with it

You know the Catherine Tate Lauren Cooper skit with David Tennant? Where she's being a terrible student and then perfectly recites Shakespeare? 100% Nessie

when she starts getting dates Jacob keeps trying to wing man and be over supportive and give her a ton of girl advice and it's embarrassing as hell so one day when he was on a spiel about How To Woo A Lady she looks him in the eyes and goes 'oh really? did that work on my mom?' and the Cullens fucking LOSE IT. Jacob had to go live in the woods for a few days because he couldn't cope

Emmet and Jasper: arrive to school in their jeep. Rose and Alice: arrive in a convertible. Edward: arrives in his dumb volvo. Bella and Jake: arrive to school on motorcycles. Nessie: arrives to school on a unicycle while juggling

one year she ended up getting nominated for prom queen and Edward read the minds of the teachers tallying the votes so he knew she won and he and Bella were so excited!! they're like we're gonna take so many pictures of our baby looking like a princess! And then she emerges from her room, actually drenched in pigs blood. Like she just did it to herself and went to the dance and accepted her crown like that

she regularly commits crimes against fashion. If she comes out of her room and sees Alice contemplating turning herself over to the Volturi, she KNOWS she's picked a great look

somehow gets ahold of Aro's cell number and sends him selfies of her blatantly breaking vampire laws captioned 'whatcha gonna do'. he keeps blocking her but she keeps managing to get through to him somehow

she illegally sells soda out of her locker and does people's homework for cash, while also paying other people to do her homework for her. she organizes every single senior prank. she's never gotten a detention in her whole immortal life because every teacher just Adores her for some reason

had 100% used her powers for deserved evil before. Like, if someone's being a dick at school, she'll sneak into their room at night and give them nightmarea threatening them to be a better person lol

sometimes she'll show up at the hospital unannounced and ask Carlisle, in front of his coworkers, 'yo can I raid the blood bank?'

her bedroom looks like a library. every wall, floor to ceiling books.

she's been publishing trashy romance novels under a fake name for almost 40 years now and no one in her family knows

one birthday Jacob takes her on a trip to vegas and they get wasted, at some point they were laughing about how ridiculous their lives are and they're like 'wouldn't it be fucking hilarious if we had a baby'. they then black out, hangover style, and wake up like a week later with a payment on her card to a fertility clinic. Jacob's like 😱 and Ness is just like 'you get to be the one to explain this to my parents'

Their kid is absolutely hilarious, they were correct, and at some point they realized 'wait...drinks blood..doesn't sparkle...can shape shift...we've somehow created a classic pop culture vampire' lmao

Edward had to threaten them to get them to not name the kid Vladimir

Also to be clear: Nessie and Jacob have the EXACT same dynamic as Will and Grace. that's canon.

says its her goal to star in a live action all female production of mamma mia and Carlisle is like 'honey you know you can't do anything on broadway or in hollywood' and she's like, 'no, in real life. I'm gonna go to greece and attract a bunch of women with abba songs' and he's like,,,,,ah

she loves all music but she goes out of her way to Only play stuff she knows Edward hates lmao

one day she remembers she doesn't need to breathe and can see under water and just. books herself a ticket to scotland and Finds The Loch Ness Monster

she actually personally finds a lot of monsters and cryptids like her hybrid aura just attracts all kind of weird shit and she LOVES it. She stops writing trashy romance novels and starts writing autobiographies of her traveling and hanging out with paranormal beings and everyone just assumes its fiction so she becomes a best selling fantasy author lmao

100% she's very into witchy stuff and only like...half in a trendy way. She's like what if on top of everything I've got going on I can cast spells? Think I deserve that power

when she's a couple decades old she catches Edward looking grossed out one day and she asks him what's up and he's like 'I really dont need to hear what creepy teachers think about my daughter' and she's like. oh. Dad we are gonna get SO MANY pedophiles arrested shdndjdn she gets him to expose teachers and she baits them then calls the police. queen.

She finds out she can get tattoos but they fade completely out of her skin within 5 years so she's always getting crazy tats

posts selfies on social media of her just like. hanging out with mountain lions or chilling on top of the space needle. her classmates think they're all photoshopped obvi but it drives her family insane

imagine you're 15 and you're on a nice hike in the woods and you come across your one classmate half naked, sacrificing a bear in some ritual, blood dripping down her face, bigfoot chilling on the rocks behind her filming the ritual on her phone...like on one hand, what would you do, but on the other hand. you've known this girl for a bit and you aren't surprised at all

anyway. stan Nessie Cullen.

[maddie-grove]

Little Book Review: The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

Author: Grady Hendrix.

Publication Date: 2020.

Genre: Horror.

Premise: It's 1993 in Charleston, South Carolina, and Patricia Campbell is trying to raise her kids, keep up with the house, and take care of her doctor husband's senile mother-in-law. Her only real outlet is her book club, where she reads true crime and (usually gory) fiction with four other stay-at-home moms. Then James Harris, a strangely charismatic drifter with a sun allergy and mysterious wads of cash, comes into town. Patricia strikes up a friendship with him despite her reservations, but soon it becomes clear that something is extremely wrong. But what can a harried, none-too-confident housewife do in the face of unspeakable evil?

(Spoilers below!)

Thoughts: This book's sassy title and creepy-cute cover (a peach with vampire bite marks on it) don't really prepare the reader for an ambitious, deeply upsetting story about sexism, racism, domestic abuse, weird sex stuff, and vampire-as-counterculture-drifter, punctuated by Grand Guignol spectacles of gore and violence. I was prepared, of course. I only got really excited to read the book after I heard about one of its grimmer elements, plus I'd already read Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism, which is marketed in a similarly winking way but puts its heroine through the fucking wringer. Hendrix's all-out approach pays off, for the most part. Overall, it does what I think a horror novel should do: letting you plunge into the gross, scary thoughts that you avoid in everyday life so you can fully process them. What would happen if everyone turned on you? If you lost your sense of self? If a bunch of rats just tried to eat a woman? The lady who taught my confirmation class in eighth grade was wrong; such exercises are good for the soul.

As in My Best Friend's Exorcism, one of the strongest elements here is the social horror. Patricia starts out the story in an okay place; her family takes her for granted, especially her work-preoccupied husband Carter, and she feels like she needs some kind of worthy hobby, but she feels her problems are fixable and not that big. Her realization that James Harris is committing terrible, bizarre crimes causes her some inner turmoil, but she's able to take steps to try and stop him. Then she crosses a line, at least in the eyes of the men around her. Carter, always condescending and irritable, proves himself willing to humiliate, gaslight, and use their children against her. Her book club friends, previously willing to back her up, abandon her under varying degrees of pressure from their husbands. Her children, aware of Carter's contempt for her and frightened by her resulting depression, are alienated from her. Soon she's convinced that she went crazy and made the whole thing up, that all the problems in the family are her fault (and never the fault of Carter, who simultaneously undermines her authority and harshly criticizes her for failing to enforce his brainlessly authoritarian parenting edicts), that it's cool how James Harris took over the book club and made everyone read Tom Clancy. Vampires aren't real, but that shit sure is.

The weakest element is easily the attempt to tackle racism. It's basically an inferior version of the Atlanta Child Murders plot in the second season of Mindhunter. The most significant black character, home health aide Mrs. Ursula Greene, is way underwritten given her importance to the story. There’s potential for her to be a complex, dynamic character—she seems to be a popular, outgoing woman with tons of church friends and a rapport with the kids in her neighborhood, whose attempts to protect her own children and the neighbors’ from James Harris offer an interesting compare-and-contrast to Patricia’s efforts—but Hendrix doesn’t spend enough time in her head or her life. She’s mostly stuck with the thankless role of highlighting Patricia’s flaws as an ally, and the flattening of her character undercuts the intended message.

Hot Goodreads Take: "The gender non-specific name 'Grady,' paired with a female MC, led me to think the author was female," says one unhappy reviewer. No offense but that makes a lot less sense than assuming, that Wendy's is a woman-owned business.

[longitudinalwaveme]

Worst Flash Storylines and Plot Ideas of All Time

As you’ve probably ascertained from the general contents of this blog, the Flash is my favorite comic book series. I love the characters and most of the stories. However, just like any series that’s been around for eighty years (counting the Jay Garrick stuff), the Flash does, unfortunately, have some truly terrible stories and plot ideas. 

In terms of terrible plot ideas that didn’t completely ruin the surrounding stories: 

1. Barry Allen uses the Mirror Master’s mirrors to manipulate Iris into agreeing to start dating him again (Flash #109). Creepy, Barry. Just creepy. The story is great Silver Age fun otherwise. 

2. Iris West: meanest woman alive. Iris was, by and large, incredibly awful to Barry up until maybe about a year before their 1966 marriage. Almost every time she shows up in an early Silver Age issue, you will admire her daring and independence (this is good) and be bewildered as to why on Earth Barry would want to spend time with a woman who is constantly calling him slow, lazy, and ambition-less (this is not good). It doesn’t really affect any one issue too much, but when read in a conglomerate, she starts looking really awful. Although as bad as Early Silver Age Iris seems as a romantic interest, she’s got nothing on Silver Age Superman and Lois Lane, the most dysfunctional couple in the DCU. 

3. Wally West’s zero-effort code name and costume (Flash #110). It really could not be more obvious how little effort the writers were putting into creating this character. The duplicate origin is also pretty cheesy, but there are enough differences from Barry’s origin for it not to frustrate me. But the name “Kid Flash” and the fact that his first costume was literally identical to Barry’s just feel incredibly lazy. Barry and Wally do have an adorable dynamic in the issue, though, so it’s by no means all bad. 

4. Barry Allen waiting an entire year after his marriage to tell his wife that he’s really the Flash. Frustrating and unnecessary; especially since Joan Garrick had been in on her husband’s secret since the 1940s. 

5. Iris Allen is FROM THE FUTURE. I both love and hate this idea. It’s so perfectly comic-booky, but at the same time, it opened the floodgates for the Allen family being a confusing, time-displaced mess. 

6. The Trial of Barry Allen. This one’s weird. I like many of the individual issues in this arc, and I actually think the last two issues are really great as an ending for Barry Allen’s original run, but this storyline dragged on for waaaaaay too long. There’s a reason I call it the Arc that Never Ends. Also, the titular trial is actually the least interesting part of the entire storyline. His battles with the Rogues and Kadabra are far more interesting. 

7. Wally West’s borderline creepy, chauvinistic attitude towards women under Mike Baron (and, to a much lesser extent, William Messner-Loebs). There’s being a hormonal twenty-something, and then there’s going through girlfriends at the rate other people change their socks. Messner-Loebs mostly avoided this issue by making it clear that Wally was under intense psychological stress that was negatively impacting his behavior, but under Baron and in some of his JLE appearances, he comes across as a real creep around women. 

8. Kadabra overkill under Mark Waid: I like Kadabra, but when he’s the main villain in like four distinct arcs, it gets to be a bit much. It’s like modern Eobard. He is legitimately written well, though, so he doesn’t drag down any of the stories too much. 

9. Pointlessly Dead Rogues: Killing off the Rogues in Underworld Unleashed for no good reason (the rest of the story is great, especially the Trickster). 

10. Pointlessly Dead Rogues 2: Electric Boogaloo: The Golden Glider’s pointless death to build up a character who was himself killed two issues later. (The rest of the story is decent.) Also, the treatment of Lisa in general post-Crisis is frustrating, since she becomes considerably more unhinged than she was before. 

11. Any time Waid tried to write McCulloch, with the exception of Flash vol. 2 #105 (and even there, he seemed off). It’s like he forgot Evan wasn’t Sam. 

12. Apparently, the Top trying to blow up both Central City and half the world makes him a loser? Also, he suddenly hates Piper for no readily apparent reason. (At least the story had some good Piper and Wally bits.) 

13. BARRY ALLEN HAS A SECRET EVIL TWIN! DUN DUN DUN! (The rest of the story, where we get to meet a whole whack of interesting future Flashes, is actually pretty good, but whoo boy, the Malcolm reveal feels like it came straight out of a soap opera.) 

14. In order for Captain Cold to ANGST, the Golden Glider’s pointless death remained in place for over ten years. It did give us a really, really good Capt. Cold story, at least...but it’s still fridging. 

15. Rainbow Raider’s mean-spirited murder by Blacksmith. Poor Roy. 

16. Albert Desmond becomes Hannibal Lecter, only twenty times as rude, for a Gotham Central arc that would’ve been terrific without him as the main villain. 

17. Owen Mercer is an idiotic child murderer and gets killed by the Rogues. Why was this necessary? (The rest of Blackest Night: The Flash is pretty good.) 

18. Josh Jackam-Mardon’s murder. The murder of small children for shock value is pretty gross. Especially since nothing was ever really done with it. 

19. Barry’s PARENTS ARE DEEEEAAAAD! (Okay, it’s really just his mom, but still. This is a very frustrating retcon, since originally his parents were alive and well until after his own death.) 

20. Albert Desmond was Barry’s jerk coworker; which never impacted the plot or led to anything. As a result, it’s just another frustrating retcon. 

21. Sam Scudder murdered someone before becoming the Mirror Master. Yet another Johns retcon that never went anywhere and only serves to darken the Silver and Bronze Age stories after the fact. 

22. Flashpoint (a decent story) wiped out a whole bunch of characters I really liked from existence for several years. Evan McCulloch’s still not back. 

23. Giving the Rogues metahuman powers doesn’t suit them, on the whole. They work better without them. 

24. Roy’s second pointless, brutal death in (I think) Forever Evil. 

25. IT WAS MEEEEE, BARRY! After serving as the main villain for like six arcs in eight years, I’m glad that Eobard finally seems to be getting a rest. The level of bad things he was responsible for was getting ridiculous. 

26. Sam/Lisa. WHY? (The only time it even kind of worked was in Forever Evil.) 

In terms of entire storylines I didn’t like: 

1. The Flash: The Most Terribly Written Man Alive. Poor Bart is aged up with no adequate explanation, loses all the traits that made him a likeable character, fights some awful villains, and then is murdered by the badly OOC Rogues. Meanwhile, Inertia goes from an at least somewhat sympathetic villain to a complete psychopath with little explanation, a murder is retconned into one of Captain Cold’s reformed periods, the Pied Piper and the Trickster completely forget that they’re supposed to be reformed, Abra Kadabra inexplicably teams up with the Rogues despite generally being a solo operative, and all of the Rogues act like total morons, willingly following a teenage speedster for no adequately explained reason. UGH. 

2. Countdown to Infinite Crisis: Even though Piper and Trickster were probably the best part of Countdown, that isn’t saying much. Both of them are uncharacteristically stupid (especially James), and James is a grade-A jerk to Piper for no reason. Also, both of them continue to forget that they reformed, and then James gets brutally murdered and Piper almost loses his mind. Also, the other Rogues cameo, and continue to act like idiots. Countdown: it really does ruin everything it touches. 

Superboy Prime will kill you! He’ll kill you to DEATH! And after you read Countdown, you’ll wish he had killed you to death. 

3. The Identity Crisis Tie-In Retcon: So, you know all that awesome character development the Rogues have had over the years? Well, forget all that, because it was all just Roscoe brainwashing them! Which was something he could definitely do before this story! And why did he do this? Why, because Barry Allen, one of the most upstanding men in the DCU, brainwashed him! Also, apparently, the Top had a huge bodycount that we never heard about back in the Bronze Age, because we need even MORE grimdark retcons for our cheerful Silver/Bronze Age history! I like Geoff Johns’ work, I really do....but BOY HOWDY does he need to lay off on the retcons sometimes. 

4. Identity Crisis: With the exception of Owen’s introduction and the establishment of the relationship between him and Digger, this story was pretty awful all around. More specifically, as far as the Flash was concerned, it was responsible for Digger’s second pointless death. It also killed off poor Jack Drake and poor, mistreated Sue Dibney, who deserved MUCH better. And the Justice League, including Barry, are A-OK with brainwashing, apparently. Comics are fun! 

These last two stories are pretty recent, and they did have some parts I liked, but on the whole I felt they also belonged on the list. 

5. The Trickster finally returns! Hurrah! Except it turns out that he’s way more like the Joker now than he ever was before, and he mind-controls the city in a super-creepy way. A very disappointing return for the character, especially since it was set up really well. 

6. Forever Evil: Captain Cold becomes a murderous dictator with a stupid Santa Beard, all of the Rogues get horrible costumes, and Sam completes his mutation into Evan-in-all-but-name. There are some good characters bits in the story (even for Cold), but on the whole, I found the story to just be unlikeable and depressing and thought Cold was pretty out-of-character. Poor Commander Cold....

So, what are your least favorite Flash storylines and plot ideas? 

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

okay so...I don’t know if this is me consistently being out of step with everybody else, but I finally watched the episode and I’m...genuinely not sure why it was so divisive? I understood a lot of the criticism of previous episodes way better, is the thing--I mean I realize that this one was divisive for shipping reasons, sure, which I wouldn’t really get because that’s not something I care about that much in general, and I agree that the selfcest thing is a weird choice if they really do go that route after having Mobius talk so much about how gross it is and the showrunners pretty much saying there wouldn’t be a romance, so I will certainly be happier if it ends up not being a romantic connection at all, and I also agree it’s not great if the narcissism thing is the final word on that particular subject, but...

overall I actually thought it was great? everything kept ramping up, I thought the pacing was completely fine, it was totally batshit but in a way I actually love, there were a lot of subtly tense scenes, we had several more huge revelations about the TVA that are making me feel very good about my hopes that they actually will be the ultimate Big Bad (if nothing else, I cannot imagine someone watching this episode and still being convinced the TVA are the good guys), there were some extremely cool creepy set pieces and in general it was just really pretty, Mobius FINALLY ACTUALLY LISTENED TO LOKI AND ADMITTED HE WAS RIGHT (he still needs to actually apologize but hey, this was a good start), Hunter B-15 CAME THROUGH, Loki got to have some angsty/vulnerable moments and some whump and some badass moments, time loops!!!!, we might be finally getting some progress on Loki’s terrible self-image in a way that might get him to start believing he isn’t completely awful, there were maybe some more AoA parallels, baby Sylvie provided yet more evidence that the natural state of a Loki involves caring about people (I mean fuck, she’s a child and she’s scared out of her mind with no idea what’s going on and her first reaction on seeing a random prisoner in distress is to yell at the people who kidnapped her to help the guy??), I don’t think there was actually any hard evidence against Loki and Sylvie being genderfluid given that Sylvie didn’t know what her nexus event was and Renslayer supposedly didn’t remember, Loki and Sylvie fought back to back and also cared about each other, yeah Loki died but it wasn’t permanent so that’s a thing I kind of like actually, Loki being not actually dead hopefully means Mobius isn’t actually dead either and neither are all the other Loki variants, I mean there was just!! a lot!!! and the vast majority of it was great!! a lot of it was stuff I’ve specifically been wanting, even!

...please note that this is not an invitation for anyone to tell me why it sucked, I am currently very happy with my feelings on the episode and the show in general and where it seems to be going and I would like to keep hanging out here! anybody who hated it has my genuine sympathies, I just...don’t get it this time, that’s all really, and yes my queue is about to get REAL FULL again with reblogs of specific stuff I liked

[ooc-but-stylish]

freezedive:

I think I said it in one of your other beautiful posts, but I thought I’d mention it again. All of the ridiculous cutscenes did give us a golden nugget of information on Luna that most of us who are brutally critical of her (like you and me), suspected all along: Luna openly admits to Gentiana that she doesn’t think she has anything to offer Noctis outside of being an oracle. And Gentiana makes it worse by speaking in fancy words by saying some bullshit about her being the oracle is her being human or something and that she is fulfilling her true calling and that is what Noctis needs? Idk but it reeked of emotional manipulation. 

I hold little to no regard for Ravus because there’s evidence Luna was being brutally beaten right under his own nose while he was busy being the Emperor’s lapdog thinking it could maybe give him the power to save his sister? The man should have opened his eyes and defended her against the men that kept them jailed

I happened on this reply to roxainn’s post while trying to recapitulate all my other FFXV critical posts and reblogs on the way to making new ones. 

Crawling back to find anything about this point, I find that it was posted 3 years ago. But at least I reblogged the reply to it.... and missed that it was literally @ ME. Goddamn did I slack.

But here’s my reply, 3 years late, which should elaborate on where I stand on this.

Yes, the flashback that gets triggered by a random creepy little girl in Tenebrae is about Luna and Gentiana. Somehow the little girl knew about that conversation even though she wasn’t there to witness it first-hand? Or maybe Noctis was imagining what the conversation would be like between Gentiana and Luna off of the vague suggestion from the girl, and it’s just him telling on himself that his imagination of Luna says all that? Otherwise the not-altogether-tinfoil-hat theory says it’s Gentiana in the form of a little girl, telling Noctis something that IMO should piss him off but just makes him sad and guilty because Luna loved him so much, don’t you see. She loved him so much that after wrapping her entire life around him, she’d just want to keep that going for the rest of their lives!

Gentiana opens the conversation with, “At first, the father had mourned the fate of his chosen son. Yet in Tenebrae, the two found solace. It was not the Oracle who assuaged their fears. But the girl…she holds…the true power.”

Then Luna replies, “I have little to offer a king, other than the voice afforded the Oracle. Nevertheless…” She turns to look at the wedding dress. “And—I’m afraid he might find this foolish… But…to be together with Noctis again, even if only for a short while… It…would mean the world to me. I do not seek to guide him, merely to stand beside him.”

The exchange is all types of fucky.

First off, she was twelve. What comfort could she have offered Regis and Noctis? What comfort was she capable of when Sylva was right there, an adult with experience of an Oracle and a personality thanks to a presumable full life not hampered by grooming of the gods? 

Second, every other scene of Luna as a child is of her telling Noctis his duty, and that it was her duty to see it through. Did that assuage his fears-- the fears he didn’t have at the time since he never knew the entire meaning of his fate and was being told a saccharine, embellished version of it by Luna right there? Did that comfort Regis, knowing a little girl would also die to protect his son if the gods wanted it, but that she wouldn’t have the will to avert their fates whatsoever? 

Third, even she thinks Noctis would think her desire to be with him is foolish. So... was she expecting that Noctis himself didn’t have feelings for her or want to spend time with her of his own volition for reasons outside of her job? She was looking forward to a marriage with no emotional security, where her desires are one-sided and unreciprocated, and the man she cares for think she’s worthless outside of her powers? She would’ve been willing to put herself through that, given a choice?

We know what we know and think what we think, but the fact that this was placed right in the vanilla game and no one thought that was wrong, and instead they doubled down on it in patches, is pathetic on their part.

Moreover, what does The Girl have, that was separate from The Princess and The Oracle? Every facet of her being wrapped around Noctis since age 4. She was nothing but her duty by the time Noctis met her; they had no scenes where they acted as children would. Even supplemental/promotional art for other XV media and related locales cement that. Little Luna serves Little Noctis pastries, she’s not seen eating with him. Luna teaches Noctis how to play piano, she’s not playing with him. Dawn of the Future came out with its own art, and Noctis is afforded the liberty to sit in a chair, and his son(?) sits on his lap, while Luna and her spitting image child(?) are both on their knees, looking up at the dudes. 

In most of their art together, Luna and Noctis are either not meeting each other's gazes, she's bending or kneeling to him, or he's supposed to be holding her close but he hover-hands her, or there’s that one time where they took a selfie and the picture was of their Pocket Edition versions. They’re still not looking at each other in that one. And it’s not canon.

Anyway yeah, any conversation Gentiana has with Luna about Noctis is emotional manipulation on Gentiana’s part, but the writers manage just enough to make everyone involved seem creepy and reprehensible in their own way. 

In DOTF, Luna has a death soliloquy that confirms she sunk into the water at the end of the game’s Chapter 9, but the soliloquy is about how she was prepared to die even at the age of 12, and she put on a smile and resolved to be strong for Noctis’s sake, so that he wouldn’t remember her having a look of despair. There’s a line there about how she would cry herself to sleep but Gentiana would wipe her tears. Gentiana does nothing else except allow her to cry and wipe her tears afterward, and makes no effort to save her from her fate or at least take her out of terrible situations so that she would cry fewer tears. But there is cut dialogue from the game, and used in the novel, where Gentiana revealed herself as Shiva when Luna was <16 (probably still 12 at the time), when she thought she was being held back from forming the covenants, so there’s that. And Luna still somehow ignored that this meant Shiva allowed Sylva to die, and thanked this useless goddess for her nonexistent generosity. 

For whatever reason they had to add a passage where Luna superimposes the image of an eight-year-old Noctis onto the adult version-- quote, "the image of him as a child, burned into my eyelids, overlaps with his now-grown face"-- even though Noctis has canonically sent her photos of him as a teenager (15-16, around the time he met Prompto in high school, see: Brotherhood). Granted, that's a translation from Luna's voice actress reading an excerpt as if it were first person POV. The English version says she sees the child image first, then the adult version is superimposed. Then not much after that there's a passage where Noctis smiles as his child self and it was "that smile she loved that had been in her heart all these years, giving her strength, always and forever".

So she was groomed and turned into a shell since age 4, believes she has no value outside of her job and turned her grooming on a similarly vulnerable child, and her strongest image of him, the one she fell in love with and kept in her heart, is of the helpless boy that promised her the world without knowing the cost. The smile of the carefree boy that didn't know his journey would end with his soul annihilated. It couldn’t have been that hard to have her see an image of him as the 30 year old True King of Light that he would become. At least she'd sound a little less like a weirdo who continually places herself (and is placed by the narrative) as below him, unworthy of him, etc. but also has strong feelings and memories toward a goddamn child.

Re: Ravus: you already got a reply to that, but for real? Ravus was also shafted by the plot and beaten down by terrible, amateur writing. The narrative shits on him as if it’s written by a high schooler or otherwise emotionally arrested adult trying to push a Mary Sue Protagonist. The modus operandi for those stories is that everyone who disagrees with the protagonist in any way has to suffer tremendous humiliation including but not limited to death, because the Protagonist Is Just So Good And Perfect And Always Right. 

Nothing Ravus does justifies his treatment in-game or in-fandom like he’s a one-note out-and-out villain who wanted nothing but to kill Noctis and disrespect his sister, to the point where his corpse is defiled multiple times in Chapter 13 and he’s twisted into a perversion of himself that begs to die.

Chapter 13 has Noctis land next to Ravus’s corpse and all his letters to Luna, and Noctis has piss all to say about it, either out loud or to anyone. He looks at the Sword of the Father, glances at Ravus, and without a word takes the Royal Arm and lets the Magitek arm-- still dripping, still gross-- fall onto Ravus’s body and doesn’t even move it.  

He had no way of knowing beforehand that Ignis and Gladio knew of Ravus being killed. WE didn't even know they saw security footage until Ch13V2 was added in. Noctis happening on his late fiancée's dead bro sounds, I don’t fucking know, like something you’d want to tell everyone else about later. Along with the letters he wrote evidencing that he intended to return the Sword of the Father to Noctis!

An aside: The Letters from Ravus are just weird to behold; it isn't 100% clear whether Luna ever received all of those letters. She had to have received the first one, at least. But the idea that Ardyn intercepted even one other letter so that Luna never heard from her brother between Tenebrae and Altissia is farfetched. He shouldn’t be able to intercept those messages as if they were delivered conventionally. Luna has a pair of magic space-bending Shiba Inu that send letters instantly across continents. If she’s sparing their use to send Noctis one-liners and stickers but can’t afford that for Ravus to send her discrete updates on Noctis’s status, she’s a piece of shit. 

They do meet in Tenebrae as Ravus wanted her to, and they have the conversation where he gets on her case about her “throwing [her] life away” for Noctis. So chances are higher that Ardyn only got a hold of all three letters after Luna received them and no sooner, but then he shouldn’t be tossing letters from Ravus at the dude’s body when it makes more sense for him to toss down letters to Ravus, since the writers wanted to make a point of Ardyn having a vicious streak. It makes way more sense for Ardyn to deprive Ravus of Luna’s writing, then insult him with them post-mortem, unless Ravus’s notes were really all he could acquire, meaning Luna never once wrote back to her brother. 

The Doylist explanation is that the writing team sucks and couldn't be assed to think of anything for Luna to say because they didn't think of her at all. The Watsonian explanation is that Luna’s a piece of shit and that tracks with her in Kingsglaive watching her brother burn alive in response to the Ring, but ignoring him and running to Regis’s aid instead, but then the rest of the plot presents her as morally pure through her white clothing and “unconditional, self-abnegating love” for Noctis.

Back to the topic: I don’t know, maybe I’m being old fashioned, but Noctis should’ve given more of a shit that his dropping the Magitek Arm on Ravus’s body was probably what turned him into a mutated abomination begging to die, and he thought so little of Ravus that the dude isn’t even in the glimpse of "people who helped me get this far" in the Beyond. Ravus doesn’t even get a spot to wish Noctis and Luna well on their afterlife wedding, not that it makes any sense for any of them to have words to say since Noctis is already dead, no one was there with them, and none of the bros expressed any sign that they knew that Noctis was bound to get married after his sacrifice (he sure doesn’t mention it in the final campfire scene and that’d be a better place than any). But anyway, Regis is in the Beyond at Noctis’s side even though he never told Noctis a damn thing and still never spoke to him from within the Ring, but Ravus? Nah, he’s the real asshole somehow and doesn’t deserve any recognition whatsoever.

The only other characters I know of that have a remotely similar dynamic to Noctis, Luna, and Ravus (lovers, but the girl has a straight-edge protective brother working for the bad guys) is Nero, Kyrie, and Credo (see: Devil May Cry), but as much as I think the writing in that series is hokey as fuck, at least the writer(s) for DMCs 4 and 5 had enough sense to make the love story simple and based it from a line from Amagasaki City-- “I love you, so I love the city that you love.”-- and opted against portraying Credo as an outright villain because if Nero killed him, Kyrie would resent him for it even though she knew Credo was working for the same Order that threatened her life. 

Shouldn’t Noctis care about the shit Luna cares about even if he has no personal investment in it or it’s inconvenient to him? Shouldn’t he care about Tenebrae and its prosperity? or about Ravus? Nah, it’s okay, Noctis doesn’t have to respect Luna’s love for her brother or her kingdom because for all intents and purposes, she doesn’t care for Ravus or for Tenebrae as much as she loves Noctis. Her love for Noctis and her looking forward to the wedding is what matters here.

The yaaaas queen vicious clapback from Kingsglaive!Luna about how Ravus is the Empire’s dog is especially rich coming from her when she’s fellating the gods all through the game even though Eos’s equivalent of The Holy Bible says the Hexatheon’s Revelations destroy cities and that undoubtedly means people are killed by the gods, and their summoner is complicit, because there’s no such thing as a perfect evacuation. See: "Revelations left great devastation in their wake, with entire cities being laid to ruin," noted in the Cosmogony long before the True King even exists. 

Luna herself didn’t see a problem with this and helped in the effort, with no regard to the collateral damage she would cause with the summoning: bonus points for the part where Leviathan is hostile to humanity and threatens to eat every living being if Noctis fails! She had even less regard to the damage Niflheim would cause in their attempt to kill the gods even though she was first-hand witness to them sacking Insomnia. Waking and defeating Titan deprived Lestallum of the meteor they derived power from. Waking Leviathan destroyed Altissia. Luna’s refusal to leave Insomnia when told to by Regis led to her being used as bait and taking the whole of the Kingsglaive out of Insomnia in time for their Face Heel Turn and Insomnia being destroyed. Everything else leads to the eventual World of Ruin where people also die. 

All because she killed herself prematurely from the covenants and didn’t hold back the longer nights as she promised to the public’s face and on her honor as Oracle she would do. Her dying words in Chapter 9 were her being completely satisfied with her fate because “[her] prayers were answered, [her] calling fulfilled”, even though the calling requires that she dies and she should’ve known better than anyone that her death, even if it was for Noctis’s ascension, would endanger the rest of the world for 10 years and helped the Starscourge spread. But instead of fighting for her own life to stem the plague for as long as possible, she let herself die under the belief that "Noct can handle this" to give him the chance to be the revered King of Light. She also didn’t make a single appearance on the world of the living in her spirit form during those ten years until Noctis needed help with a piddly imitation of the Magic Wall, only then does she come down in her ghost form with seemingly all of her power intact, and summons five of The Six as if Noctis can’t easily do it himself.

But Ravus is the lapdog? Luna’s the one with her “ends justify the means” behavior and what looks like general neglect for actual human beings.

Anyway, Ravus stabs Caligo in the back and kills him, and that move only makes sense in light of the idea that Caligo was manhandling Luna as seen in the Dawn trailer. Ravus was 16 when Tenebrae was overrun, and there’s no reason to believe he was magically immune to institutional abuse, so there’s a high chance that he was abused by the Empire too, held resentment of that, and waited for the time he’d be able to retaliate with no repercussions. Gentiana as a goddess is 1000000% more on the hook about letting Luna be beaten than Ravus is, since he saw his mother die in front of him while Regis ran away. Regis had the power of the Ring and could have used elemancy to put out that fire, or void magic to banish Glauca and his MT army, didn’t do that, but he totally spares enough magic during the treaty signing to toss around Thunder spells straight from his hand, cast barriers, and summon some Royal Arms straight at Iedolas, and that’s bad enough. Gentiana who’s been the Fleuret family attendant since Luna was born and also is Shiva who can freeze people with her fingertip had even less excuse to let that fire rage, to let Sylva die protecting her son, and to stand by and allow her ward(s) to get thrown around by some random Imperial soldier.

[jess-rewatches-prodigalson]

Sun and Fun (S2, E12)

I can’t believe FOX has cancelled this absolute masterpiece of a show. I’m devastated. I’d like to think we’ll get picked up by another network for season 3 but I’m a pessimist and I don’t want to get my hopes up. I’ll be hanging around the fandom either way though. 

My time-stamped thoughts for this episode are below. As always I reference Malcolm’s mental health. A lot. So if that’s going to be a trigger for you, don’t keep reading.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

0:20 - Malcolm losing it in Martin’s cell? *chef’s kiss*. 1) excellent performance by Tom. 2) This is the Malcolm mental health content I subscribed for. This is Malcolm feeling overwhelmed, helpless, worthless, and frustrated all at the same time. This. Is. Wonderful. And. Realistic. This is what overwhelming anxiety (especially if you have an anxiety disorder) can feel like. It builds and builds until all of a sudden you’re consumed with all this nervous energy and frustration and it all turns to rage in an instant. But you’re not angry at other people. You don’t want to hurt anyone. That rage is just self hatred because you hate that you feel this broken and your stupid brain won’t function normally. 

0:33 - annnnd then when the excess nervous energy is spent but that feeling of self-hatred, despair, and fear still remains - you’re physically exhausted and 7/10. times you cry. Again, crying because of how stupid you feel for your little rage outburst, for how stupid you feel for feeling this terrible all the time. Malcolm is depicting a severe anxiety episode perfectly (in my experience) and THIS is why FOX is moronic for cancelling the show. The gorgeous and accurate depictions of mental health in Prodigal Son is unprecedented, truthful, and heartbreaking. It’s like nothing else on television. 

0:50 - This kind of hurts. Look at how cautiously Dani enters the room. Almost as if Malcolm is a wild animal she doesn’t want to scare. It makes sense given the state of the room she just entered and how completely openly and uncharacteristically vulnerable Malcolm is. I will say this though, despite how cautious she is, it’s obvious that she cares about Malcolm more than whatever happened before she walked into the room.

 1:03 - “So all eyes are on his head case son right?” This line is a direct quote from Malcolm’s anxiety disorder and depression. This is how you feel about yourself when in the middle of an anxiety episode when you’re also depressed. BUT OUR GIRL DANI!!! <3 This girl looks confused and concerned to hear Malcolm diss himself like that. The fact that she tries to comfort him when he’s in this state, makes her an absolutely A++ friend. 

1:11 - “No one cares about that.” “I CARE. I can’t live like this.” This scene resonates with me so so so much. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been 100% aware of how irrational my anxieties are and simultaneously 100% unable to do a damn thing about it because I’m too scared of who I’d be without the fear. Because I’ve defined myself by my anxieties for so long that it’s become the only definable element of my personality visible to me. I’m getting that vibe from Malcolm. I’m sure that’s exactly how he’s feeling right now.

1:30 - “That’s not what scares you. What scares you is living the rest of your life without your father in it.” Dani knows and I felt personally called out. THIS EMOTIONAL WHUMP IS GIVING ME LIFE. <3

1:39 - Look at our floppy haired, devastated boy. :( <3 I’m genuinely shook that he didn’t have a full mental breakdown this episode (but it’s coming....it’s inevitable at this point :) ). ALSO the look of absolute love and concern Dani is shooting towards Malcolm? Absolutely perfect. <3

1:51 - I genuinely find it so interesting that Malcolm keeps referring to “The Surgeon” as “Martin”. If you read my thoughts on 2x11 you know I think it’s because Malcolm has separated ‘Martin Whitly’ into three separate people in his head. “The Surgeon” = the serial killer who traumatized him and ruined his childhood. “Dad/Father” = the man who loved and cared for baby!Malcolm. But “Martin” = unknown. Malcolm doesn’t know who Martin is yet and it scares him. 

1:58 - “For once in your life slow down and acknowledge what this is doing to you.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love this line. So. So. SO. MUCH. <3 <3 This is the kind of comfort Malcolm needs. SOMEONE needs to tell him that he’s breaking, it’s not his fault, and he doesn’t deserve to suffer for Martin.

2:07 - annnnnnd Malcolm has gone full crazy-person string murder board. He’s right but he’s still acting like a manic crazy person. Like, a real one. Not his usual manic behaviour. This is straight up - this boy needs medication, a nap, therapy, and a doctor. Now.

2:34 - Ugh. This whole cop/Vivian scene made my skin crawl. So gross. So creepy. I hate Capshaw. So much. This woman is manipulative, evil, and so so creepy. The cop was also gross. But I 100% thought she was going to kill the cop because this felt like an opening scene to Criminal Minds. 

4:38 - “THEY WERE HAVING SEX.” hhahahahahahaha holy shit. This is both hilarious and really upsetting (not just because Martin/Capshaw is NASTY). Malcolm is manically, yelling about his theories in a room full of people who love him. He sounds crazy. He’s acting crazy and Dani, JT, and Gil are just staring at him with a mixture of disbelief, concern, and sympathy. <3 It’s heartbreaking. Malcolm is an inch away from a mental breakdown. I’m here for it. 

4:49 - “TMI bro.” <3

 5:05 - Ugh. This breaks my heart. The team doesn’t think Malcolm is crazy. They just know he’s at the end of his rope. The looks they’re exchanging aren’t based in anger, contempt, or a lack of trust. They’re based in concern and I LOVE IT. 

5:21 - LOOK AT OUR BABY. He’s breaking. He’s so close. :( Look at how desperate he is to find Martin. 

5:35 - “That’s exactly what it means.” “Gil, please. You know how much I need this.” THIS HURTS. Gil isn’t angry here - he’s frustrated and scared for Malcolm. And Malcolm? This boy is toeing the line of a full breakdown in front of 3 of his favourite people - that’s out of character for him. Despite the shaking hand and general mania - Malcolm usually refrains from raising his voice in front of Dani and JT. He tries to stay calm-ish so he doesn’t get labelled as ‘violent’ like his serial killer father. 

 5:39 - “StOp. I am scared.” Dani knew exactly how to diffuse the situation. Malcolm can be manipulative and dysfunctional but he never wants to scare people (at least, not unless they’re suspects or obstructing justice). 

5:46 - “I’m not ordering you this time. I’m begging you.” Papa!Gil’s seen Malcolm like this before. SO WHY IS NO ONE HUGGING MALCOLM?!?! The boy is clearly coming apart at the seams. 

5:48 - Malcolm’s reaction to Gil sending him home is gorgeous. He looks sad, betrayed, and resigned. It’s as though he’s convinced himself that the team doesn’t trust him or care about him anymore. He doesn’t walk out angry. He walks out sad and determined. Head held high but eyes full of grief. 

5:54 - I’d give anything to have heard the conversation between Dani, JT, and Gil after Malcolm left the room. ANYTHING.

6:02 - “He thinks I’m a liability.” No. Not exactly. He thinks Malcolm is in the throws of a mental health crisis and that he shouldn’t be responsible for catching his serial killer father. Again. 

6:15 - “I support Gil’s decision. That does not mean I want your father dead.” #coparenting but also, true. I honestly don’t think Jessica wants Martin dead. I think she wants Ainsley and Malcolm to be happy and free from Martin but not dead. She knows that Malcolm might never recover from Martin’s death with all of his unanswered questions and suppressed childhood trauma. She also knows that Ainsley would always resent being prevented from bonding with her father. I think Jessica still loves Martin - well, the man she thought she married. Jessica doesn’t care for Martin Whitly. But she loves the man he pretended to be and even though she knows he wasn’t real - she doesn’t want him to die. I think she wants him to disappear (maybe get transferred to a prison in a different state?) but she doesn’t want him dead. That would make her no better than the serial killer (in Jessica’s mind anyways).

6:25 - “You have become consumed by this Malcolm.” Check out the side eyed look Ainsley gives Malcolm. She’s jealous. Her brother is on the verge of a mental breakdown but she’s jealous of the attention he’s getting from Jessica. I get it - Jessica hasn’t been the best mom to Ainsley. BUT GIRL, gain some perspective. Don’t you care about your brother?!?! That should trump the jealousy for a few minutes at least. 

 6:35 - “I love you.” <3 <3 <3 I’m going to cry. This might be my favourite Jessica+Malcolm moment to date. So precious. 

6:43 - THIS. “I love you. Both of you. More than I hate him.” This is why Jessica doesn’t want Martin dead.....but she also doesn’t care if he lives. I know that sounds like a contradiction but it’s a real thing and if you’ve never felt that way about someone - I pray you never have to. 

7:06 - “Then she’s a victim.” .....I disagree. Capshaw had a (weird and manipulative) consensual relationship with Martin. She has as much of an agenda as Martin (although, Jessica didn’t know that here). Capshaw isn’t a victim. She’s not being compliant with Martin as a form of self-preservation or fear. She’s doing it because she’s a manipulative crazy person who is in love with a convicted serial killer. 

7:45 - I’ve never felt this unsettled while watching Prodigal Son. Capshaw showing her true colours is so so so disturbing. This woman is insane (with all the stigma). The dress. The martini (Jessica’s favourite drink?). The fact that she dressed Martin up in a suit. The music. The weirdly elegant wheelchair. The lovey way she’s talking. It all makes my skin crawl. 

8:33 - OMG. What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel bad for Martin Whitly?!?!?! 

9:55 - JESSICA AND MALCOLM doing a rich person ambush tag-team IS AMAZING. <3 

9:57- How sad is this? 23 years and Jessica still can’t walk into a room without people whispering and judging her behind her back. :( This woman keeps her head held high - despite the pain she must be in - she’s a superhero. Change my mind. 

10:30 - "Malcolm Whitly? You're.." I have this headcanon that the general public assumes Malcolm is dead. He changed his last name and fell off the grid. People treat Jessica like a social pariah so she wouldn't be able to tell them otherwise. And sure, Ainsley referred to Malcolm in the present tense during her Surgeon interview but how many people actually watched it actually paid attention to that little tidbit after Martin went full blown psychopath on camera? Plus, no one really cares about the Surgeon's son enough to look him up 23 years later. At least, no one who matters.

11:25 - Like mother, like son. You can't change my mind. They have the same manipulation style. It's justice based and determined. Ainsley and Martin's style? Vindictive and self-serving. 

11:30 - Oh look. ANOTHER CONTINUITY ERROR. WHO PROOFREADS THESE SCRIPTS?!? I CAN’T KEEP OVERLOOKING THESE. For God’s sake. Send copies of the script to fans who sign NDAs or something. At least we know what happened in previous episodes. 

12:33 - "Gross." I'm with Ainsley on this one.

12:45 - "My assistant." "Long suffering". hahahha omg. I love this for two reasons: 1) it's hilarious 2) it's true. Malcolm literally disposed of a body for Ainsley. He's her assistant and he's suffered for it.

13:05 - Yo. This dude is whack. Like this is some serious Stockholm's syndrome going on here. Vivian is his hero?!? .........I can't.

13:55 - Why do the gifts Vivian sends Zeiger look like human bones? Damn this is twisted. This is like some sort of twisted serial killer pseudo-trophy situation?

14:52 - "I don't think Vivian is the victim here. I think our father is." Yikes. This is not going to help Malcolm's mental stability. At all. He's been trying to fully accept that his father is a serial killing monster who was literally never capable of loving him for the past 23 years. BUT NOW our boy has taken the role of 'good son' (prodigal son is you will) and has returned to his 10 year old mentality "I love dad. Dad loves me." and 'dad' is in trouble. Malcolm is trying to save his serial killer father and the emotional and mental hoops he's jumping through are terrifying, complex, and hauntingly realistic. <3 It's gorgeous.

15:04 - "I'm not used to this type of confinement." I love this line because of how deeply it rings true. Martin isn't used to confinement. Sure, he's been chained to a wall for 23 years but he's been relatively happy about it. He's been able to manipulate Malcolm and the other inmates. He's been given TV time, phone time, consultations, books, music, free food, and a massive private cell (seriously that cell is as big as the bachelor's suite I rent for $900 CAD a month). The man has been living a life of luxury (given his crimes). His only 'punishment'? He's stuck inside his cell and he's not allowed to kill anymore. THIS is Martin truly suffering. I kind of feel bad for him (which I never thought I'd say).

15:20 - Damn. Michael Sheen is incredible. He's genuinely making me feel concerned and scared for Martin.

15:32 - Something tells me a man hurt Capshaw in some way throughout her life. This has to be deeper than the whole "I didn't fit into the 'boys club' of surgery". Her issues with men are aggressive and alarming. This woman is nuts. This woman is why I hesitate to call myself a feminist (I generally think we should drop the titles of feminist/misogynist/racist/homophobe... and just treat people with respect. I think the titles and groups just further divide people.)

15:50 - "You're finally free." Yep. Capshaw is a nutcase. She actually believes that she's committed a perfect crime. 

16:09 - This place has virtually no furniture but I’m expected to believe someone is paying the phone bill?!?! Nah. 

17:08 - That. Smile. This woman is a devil. Like, I think I hate her as much as I hate Umbridge. But unlike Umbridge, Capshaw is downright terrifying. 

17:12 - Was anyone else kind of surprised that Martin called Jessica? I mean, I guess she was a safer choice than the cops but still...

17:20 - As creepy and this whole ‘Martin is a victim’ thing is - it’s kind of nice? Like - I just keep thinking “How does it feel Martin?!?! This is how you made your victims feel. Do you like it?” and then I realize I’m a terrible person. 

17:55 - Ainsley’s in on this. I swear, she’s somehow involved with either Capshaw or Martin. 

18:18 - Oh look. Martin is shackled to the bed. Just like Malcolm shackles himself to bed so he can sleep every night. .....I keep oscillating between being vindictive toward Martin and feeling bad for him. That’s what makes this show incredible. The ‘villain’ is human and 3 dimensional. 

18:44 - Oh God. The psychopath is jealous. This woman is UNSTABLE. How has no one locked her up yet?!?

19:43 - She’s crying. She’s actually crying. Even the rewatch of this scene is painful. I just feel so uncomfortable (which was probably the intent) and I hate both characters. They’re both actively trying to manipulate each other and it’s so creepy. Damn. 

20:15 - Holy. Shit. This woman is by far the scariest villain Prodigal Son has given us. 

21:17 - ..............I have nothing to say. My brain has short circuited. I can’t get past how horrifying this scene is. She’s a maniac.

21:57 - No one will make eye contact with Malcolm. :( They all think he’s losing it but they’re not scared of him. They’re scared for him. 

22:10 - “A trusted member of my team has a theory I run it down.” THANK YOU GIL. SUBTLY TELL MALCOLM THAT YOU TRUST HIM. That’s what he needed to hear. He was doubting that anyone cared. :( 

22:45 - “Do you HeAr yourself?!?” Ouch. Gil’s right - Malcolm sounds nuts. Unfortunately, Malcolm’s also right (more or less). Look at how sad Malcolm is - he honestly looks like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. :( Malcolm thinks Gil doesn’t trust him anymore. Malcolm thinks Gil thinks he’s crazy. It’s heartbreaking. SOMEONE HUG THIS LITTLE CINNAMON ROLL.

22:54 - JT, buddy. Not the time. You’re making this worse. :( Malcolm is two breaths away from crying. 

23:40 - “Dani, you up for this? Cause he sure isn’t.” Gil is losing it. Look at him. Gil is watching the boy he considers as his son unravel and Gil can’t do anything about it. 

23:45 - “Either way, he’s going there. I’ll keep an eye on him.” I love Dani for this. Brightwell or not - the fact that she’s willing to chase smoke in an attempt to keep Malcolm from having a full mental breakdown makes her a hero. 

23:48 - JT, hug Gil! He needs a hug! 

24:16 - Martin is screaming while shackled to a bed.....where have I seen this before? 

25:39 - “I did this for you because you needed it.”....”Dani, I respect you.” Excuse me while I go sob in the corner. Malcolm just uttered the words “I respect you.” and my heart exploded. 

26:11 - “You don’t care. None of you care if my father lives or dies.” No, Malcolm, you’re wrong. They care. They all care so so much. Not about the life of the Martin Whitly though. They care about how Martin Whitly will continue to torment you if he’s caught alive. They care about how badly you’ll grieve if he ends up dying. They care about how this will affect YOU. because they love you. 

26:22 - “You would be free.” SAY IT LOUDER DANI! He’d be in enormous pain for a while, but Malcolm would heal. 

26:56 - “Let him go, Malcolm.” <3 <3 Malcolm is listening to Dani. He’s opening up about his fears. This is good (for Malcolm’s mental health). I am happy. 

27:04 - WOW BABY! That kiss was......passionate? I mean, we all knew they were going to kiss (thanks previews) but I honestly didn’t expect a kiss this long or passionate? They’ve both been clearly denying their feelings for each other for a while though so I guess it makes sense?

27:20 - We all know Dani was going to talk about how they could make a relationship work for them and/or how she loves Malcolm but thinks he should focus on his mental health before they start dating. BUT MALCOLM? That boy thinks he just ruined his friendship with Dani and I’m heartbroken. Look at his sad little face. :( 

28:31 - sooooo when exactly did Malcolm’s phone call drop? I feel like Ainsley had more access to the conversation that just what she shares with Dani in a couple of minutes.

29:08 - Look at this sad, scared little boy. He genuinely thinks that saving Martin will earn Martin’s love. I’m heartbroken. 

29:22 - THIS. Malcolm is so desperate for Martin’s love that he essentially consented to being kidnapped, tortured, and potentially murdered. :( This is bad. 

30:06 - Malcolm took unknown drugs from a crazy person. UGH. The stress of loving this unstable man-child is going to kill me. I’m so worried for him. ALSO WHO THE HELL CHEWS PILLS?!?! That’s disgusting. 

30:24 - Dani thinks Malcolm is being a typical guy - terrified of relationships/talking about his feelings. She’s hurt. The Brightwell ship has encountered another storm. 

30:35 - Anyone else get major flashbacks to 1x11 when Gil shows up to the townhouse to tell Jessica that Malcolm’s been kidnapped? You know, when he walks past all the reporters?!

30:50 - Ugh. :( Poor Jessica. That call from Capshaw gave her quite the emotional dilemma. As she said earlier, she loves her children more than she hates Martin. Soooo does she tell someone about the call, save Martin, and let Martin continue to torment her children? Or does she let Capshaw kill Martin, compromise her morals, let her children grieve for a while - but ultimately heal? It’s an impossible choice. 

31:13 - “I know why you’re anxious Jess.” UGH. Get yourself a man you looks at you the way Gil look at Jessica. So much love. So much concern. If Gil wasn’t fictional and I wasn’t asexual (and 24) I would marry that man. 

31:23 - “He has become convinced that his father is a victim in all of this.” Gil is so upset. He’s angry - at Martin for having this much power over Malcolm so many years later. He’s angry that Malcolm is still suffering so much because of his father. He’s upset because Martin is still hurting the people Gil loves 23 years after he was initially arrested. 

31:33 - “There’s no good outcome here Jess.” Thank you. Gil is a man with awareness into Malcolm’s psyche. He knows this is going to hurt Malcolm no matter what happens. He’s scared and he’s bracing himself for impact. I love him. I want more people in the world who love people this deeply. 

31:50 - “It’s okay to hope for that you know.” THANK YOU GIL. THANK YOU. Someone needed to tell Jessica that she’s not a monster for wanting the reason her children continue to suffer to disappear (even if tha means he dies). It’s not a malicious, evil thought toward Martin. It’s a hope for her children’s wellbeing. 

32:04 - “And in my weaker moments, I want him dead too.” <3 I’m imagining Gil praying that Martin is killed by an inmate after he comforts a teenage Malcolm from a nightmare. I’m imagining Gil praying Riker’s finally kills Martin as he watched Malcolm spiral into Martin’s grasp again last year. I’m imagining Gil crying himself to sleep because he’s so damn tired of watching Jessica and Malcolm suffer because of Martin. I love him for it. <3

32:15 - “Maybe things could be different.” .....I’m sorry. Does this mean Gillica is off again?! The flirting and dancing from 2x9 meant nothing?!? It was a hoax?!? I’m furious. 

32:35 - “It’s the actions that matter.” Damn. Gil is too good for the nonsense that is the Whitly family. Doesn’t he know that life isn’t always that simple?

32:46 - Annnnnd now Jessica will convince herself that she’s a bad person because she didn’t tell anyone about Capshaw’s call. She will also convince herself that she’s not good enought for Gil. AND I will cry myself to sleep.

32:55 - That hug <3 Sooooo Gillica is still on? I’m hella confused. 

33:05 - There it is. Dani is still upset with Malcolm. The Brightwell ship is taking in water my dudes. 

33:52 - Wow. He looks pretty in that makeshift hospital bed. Sleeves rolled up. Shirt half unbuttoned. Glazed, disoriented look about him as he wakes from a drugged sleep. <3 I’m in heaven.

34:30 - This is why Malcolm can never let Martin go. There are moments when Martin absolutely convinces Malcolm that he loves him. 

34:50 - “Because he also happens to be my father.” THIS. IS. THE. MOST. REALISTIC. PORTRAYAL. OF. ABUSIVE. DADDY. ISSUES. Take from someone who lived through an abusive Dad. You hate him. You know he’s messed up. You don’t like or respect him. But a part of you will always love him. Even though you hate that part of yourself. 

35:12 - “I want all of you.” .....I’m terrified. This woman is crazy. Crazier than the Surgeon. Is that possible?

36:05 - “You want him to love you. But he can’t.” Have you said that to yourself Malcolm? You know that logically but you don’t feel that in your heart. ....and the writers don’t know that because we’ve seen that Martin loves Malcolm? Sort of? Unless the writers are playing some sort of weird long con on us. 

36:50 - This is whump content I signed up for. This crazy bitch just killed Malcolm. We saw the terror in his eyes. BUT HE LIVES. So. I’m. Here. For. It.

36:58 - Martin’s devotion to Malcolm is so so interesting to me. Martin is a psychopath - he’s not supposed to be capable of love. But he clearly loves Malcolm. How? Why? It makes no sense but I love it?

37:47 - Malcolm’s little wheeze when Vivian starts mitigating the embolism. <3 So cute. 

37:53 - “I can do without the mansplaining.” I’m getting PTSD. There are too many real women who are this crazy about feminism and mansplaining (this is coming from a woman). Martin isn’t trying to ‘mansplain’ he’s scared and he’s trying to save his son. That’s not mansplaining. He’s not explaining something because he thinks Vivian doesn’t know it. He’s explaining something in a desperate attempt to remind her of the severity of the situation. 

38:16 - HOW THE HELL did Ainsley and Dani know where Martin, Capshaw, and Malcolm were? Either 1) Ainsley is somehow working with Capshaw, or 2) they were able to trace Malcolm’s cell (assuming Capshaw didn’t trash it), or 3) Ainsley knew her mom was lying about that phone call and they had it traced?, or 4) this is a convenient plot thing.

38:34 - This bitch is devious and I hate her. 

39:30 - Martin Whitly is the hero of the episode. What alternate reality are we living in?

41:15 - Malcolm struggling for breath. <3 The whumpers are being FED.

41:17 - “Run.” This is 23 years of guilt for turning his own father into the police surfacing. 

41:31 - “Where’s my family?” I honestly don’t know how I feel about this line. It bothers me but I can’t figure out why.

41:43 - This ending sequence is a work of ART. Malcolm is in physical and emotional pain. Dani (without backup) trying to save Malcolm from Martin. The epic music. The shot of Dani seeing the blood-filled syringe next to the makeshift hospital bed+restraints. Martin Whitly. Driving. A. Boat. And. Laughing - completely elated - with Malcolm passed out (and looking adorable) in the aft seating. The fact that the ONLY house you can see on the shoreline is the house the just escaped from. 

THIS EPISODE WAS EXCITING, STRESSFUL, AND WONDERFUL. I’m excited for the SEASON finale and I pray we get a season 3 from a network other than FOX.

[stxphxn-strange]

i found the one, he changed my life (what now?) [i’d love it if we made it, pt. 3]

a/n: holy SHIT i am so happy about the way this turned out, this continues the story of college AU!tony dealing with his ex and the pressure he puts on himself to be honest with his friends. (title from “what now” by rihanna) TW: discussion of abusive relationships, mention of surgery, unhealthy/stalking behaviors, and i think that’s it but pls lmk if there’s anything else i should tag

summary: “He’s obsessed with you [...] I think he loves me, I feel certain that he loves me. But he feels some kind of way about you, and it’s creepy,” Bucky elaborated, leaving Anthony at a loss for words.

“It’s a nice day, seasonal allergies aside,” Anthony remarked.

“I would put flowers in your hair and be all cute and shit but I’m trying not to make you sneeze,” Stephen replied. “That would be unfortunate.”

Anthony laughed lightly and rested his head on Stephen’s shoulder. “You can still pet my head though, that would be nice.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re terrible at subtlety?” Stephen asked, beginning to play with Anthony’s hair.

“I think you did this morning,” Anthony replied. “Because you’re obnoxious.”

“Isn’t that why you love me?” Stephen teased, batting his eyelashes.

“It’s one of many reasons,” Anthony said, a soft smile on his face. “It is really nice out though.”

“Listen I know I’m always on time, but can we make an exception today?” Christine sat across from the couple, her auburn hair made extra bright by the sunlight as she pulled it out of her face. “Sorry I’m late.”

“The way that you’re literally not sorry at all makes that apology for me,” Stephen said. “Don’t worry about it though, we’ve just been hanging out. Where’s Hope?”

“Inside, for some reason,” Christine replied with a shrug.

“Probably because it’s allergy season,” Anthony commented, rolling his eyes as he sneezed again.

“He complains, despite begging me to sit outside with him,” Stephen added.

“That doesn’t sound like me, but go off I guess,” Anthony replied, picking up his phone. “Hey Rhodey, what’s up?”

“Are you running errands by chance?” Rhodey asked.

“Nope, I’m sitting outside with Steph and Christine,” Anthony said. “Why, do you need something?”

“I was just going to ask if I could send you a short list of things I wanted. Not a big deal but I’m out of cereal,” Rhodey replied.

“Text it to me anyway, I don’t think I’m going out but if I do I’ll get whatever you want,” Anthony said with a shrug.

“You’re the best Tones. By the way are you feeling better?” Rhodey asked.

“A little bit. It’s nice just sitting outside,” Anthony replied. “I dunno. I’m not thinking about it.”

“Fair enough. Enjoy the fresh air, don’t worry about the cereal though! See you later.”

“Bye Rhodey, everyone say bye!”

Christine and Stephen shouted their goodbyes as Anthony ended the call.

“You good?” Christine asked kindly.

“Yeah, sorta.” Anthony shrugged again. “I just didn’t sleep a lot last night, so that wasn’t fun. I’ve been stressed out about… things. Turns out it actually is weird to have one of your friends dating your ex.”

Christine hummed. “Tea. I thought there was something bothering you, like more than just the awkwardness. I can read you well enough by now. So what’s wrong?”

“Honestly I don’t want to tell you this exact minute because I feel like the only person who should hear this privately is Bucky. I’ll have to see how I feel after I talk with him, and if I’m okay then I’ll probably tell everyone in the group all at once. I just don’t want to repeat the same story over and over again, that’s going to wear me down,” Anthony replied. “I hope that’s okay.”

“Oh my god dude that’s fine! No stress,” Christine rushed to assure him. “You just seem sad and I want to help but I also don’t want you to make yourself feel worse, that’s not fair to you.”

Anthony breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks Christine.”

“Don’t worry about it!” Christine said.

Anthony sneezed again, not seeing the need to reply beyond that. There was just nothing else to say.

“Let’s go inside,” Stephen suggested. “It’s getting kinda gross out anyway.”

“Oh sorry, that’s because I’m out here. I’ll leave.” Anthony jokingly moved to stand up, laughing raucously when Stephen pulled him into a hug before he even stood.

“Nooo, you’re good! You stay,” Stephen replied. “The sun is out because you’re here.”

Anthony blushed and buried his head against Stephen’s collarbone. “Oh hush.”

Christine stood up. “I may as well go inside while you two idiots keep flirting, now my allergies are acting up.”

“You’re not allergic to pollen,” Stephen remarked, standing up and offering Anthony his hand.

“I’m not allergic to most things, but I’m allergic to your bullshit,” Christine quipped. “I feel like I tell you that at least once a week.”

Anthony laughed and stood up, smiling as he wrapped his arms around Stephen’s waist.

“In all seriousness, you’re cute together,” Christine continued.

“Oh we know,” Anthony said. “How was your day Christine?”

The trio headed inside as Christine thought about how to answer.

“Honestly I don’t think anything even happened today.” she finally said. “Hope and I had breakfast together and I quite literally ran into Carol in the library. It was nice to catch up with her though because I feel like I haven’t seen her in years.”

“Now that I think about it, I also feel like I haven’t seen Carol in a long time,” Stephen said.

“We didn’t talk for too long since we were in the library, but she seems good,” Christine replied. “I think she and Val are still unpacking so they’ve been focused on that, y’know?”

“Makes sense. Props to them for moving in the middle of the year, that’s too much for me. That’s why I’m making everyone wait until the summer,” Anthony said.

“You’re not making anyone wait, you’re just making sense,” Stephen corrected him. “Moving is stressful enough, I don’t want to deal with it during exam season and neither does anyone else.”

“Can I plan your housewarming party?” Christine asked, opening the apartment door.

“Who said anything about a housewarming party?” Anthony replied.

“Wong said I could throw one once you’re all moved in,” Christine explained. “We don’t have a contract in writing yet, but that’s because—”

“Because I never said you could throw us a party!” Wong shouted from the living room. He was sitting in his usual armchair by the window, half paying attention to whatever show Bucky and an all too familiar blond were watching. “Also Bucky is here again, and he brought a friend.”

“Boyfriend,” Bucky chimed in. “We’re going to dinner soon, I just left my jacket here the other day and then I decided I’d introduce Steve to you guys. So yeah, this is my boyfriend Steve. Steve, this is Christine, Stephen, and I think you know Tony. I heard there’s a history there or something.”

Bucky was trying his best to prematurely make the best of an awkward situation, but Steve was the only one who found any humor in what he said.

The offending blond laughed and nodded, his expression unreadable in a way that made Anthony freeze. He was looking with condescension at their entwined hands, like he didn’t approve of Stephen and Anthony finally being together. With an arrogant sniff, he got off his high horse long enough to respond. “I know him and Stephen, actually. You both look good.”

“Thanks,” Stephen replied, his teeth bared in a forced, blatantly hostile grin.

Anthony rubbed at his eyes, tearing up from the situation and his allergies. “Yeah good to see you too, if you’ll excuse me I need to take some allergy medication.” He couldn’t run and hide in the bathroom fast enough, and he knew everyone in the room could see him trembling.

Stephen let his genuine emotion break through his façade for a moment, frowning as he watched Anthony retreat. His steely look of disapproval returned a minute later as he sat down in the kitchen, eavesdropping on the group’s conversation.

“Mind if I get some water? I didn’t get to hydrate as much today,” Steve asked.

Stephen, pretending to be busy, glared at his phone like he was reading a poorly worded email. He paid little attention to the blond as he bumbled around the kitchen, following Wong’s directions on where to find cups and the Brita and other shit.

“So you’ve finally come back to the city, hm? Tony used to tell me about how you both grew up here and how New York never left you,” Steve asked Stephen. He was making an extremely poor attempt to sound friendly, but all he did was make the med student extremely uncomfortable.

Stephen gave a forced laugh. “Yeah, they couldn’t keep me away.”

“Seems like you couldn’t keep yourself away from Tony either, not with the amount of times he cheated on me with you,” Steve remarked.

“Listen, we both know that’s not true and I barely want to give you the time of day. You know damn well he never cheated on you and I don’t have to justify myself to you. After all, you were the cheater. If you think I’m just going to roll over in my own apartment and let you run your mouth like that, especially knowing how badly you treated my Anthony, then you’ve got another thing coming,” Stephen snapped. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Clearly anyone who thinks I’m aggressive and controlling hasn’t met you,” Steve said, closing the fridge and leaving Stephen fuming in the kitchen.

After 15 minutes of ignoring some small talk, Stephen had had enough. Anthony was still hiding somewhere and Stephen was just over Steve being in his apartment. He was trying not to be too angry, because Bucky didn’t know about how Steve and Anthony’s breakup or relationship went. Stephen couldn’t, and didn’t, blame him.

But Steve was a coward and a jerk, and Stephen wouldn’t touch him with an 11 foot pole. Stephen wouldn’t even get close to him to shove him headfirst out the door, actually.

“I’m gonna be in my room studying if you guys need anything, enjoy your dinner Bucky!” He said, waving at his friends in the living room and pointedly ignoring Steve.

“Thanks man! If you want to hang out later, maybe on a double date or something—”

“Oh I’d love that!” Steve chimed in, unprovoked and uninvited.

“Depends on what Ant’s doing, I know I’m pretty busy tonight but if he wants to go out then we’ll let you know,” Stephen said firmly. He heard the bathroom door open behind him and Anthony’s light footsteps in the hall.

“I think I’ll just run to the bathroom before we leave, if that’s alright?” Steve asked.

“Are you asking me?” Stephen replied, ignoring him and heading in the direction of his bedroom. “Don’t you dare patronize me.”

Anthony was standing nervously outside Stephen’s room, staring at the floor. He looked horrified and meek, pressing his back against the wall and hoping he’d disappear out of Steve’s gaze.

But of course he wasn’t that lucky. Sometimes it felt like he’d never truly get away from the way Steve used to look at him and was apparently still looking at him.

Anthony looked up as Stephen gently tapped his shoulder. “Hey… you alright?”

He forced himself to nod, tears still pooling in his eyes from either anxiety or allergies. Maybe both. “Yeah, I guess. It’s just—”

“Oh there you are Tony! Bucky and I are leaving, so I thought I’d say goodbye,” Steve said, lingering in the doorway to the bathroom. “Maybe we could go for a double date later? If you’re allowed to, that is. I always said Strange was a controlling downgrade, didn’t I?”

“Good thing I never listened when you said that, because I’m much happier now,” Anthony muttered.

“Aww, don’t be a bad sport! It’ll be just like the glory days.” Steve appeared to be ignoring his current relationship to flirt with Anthony, stepping out of the doorway and leaning closer (read: too close for comfort) to him.

“I don’t know about that,” Anthony said, his voice taut. “I wouldn’t want to be around you for much longer. Seeing you is already making me think about our… could you call it a relationship?”

“You’re so funny Tony, just as funny as I remember.” Steve sounded like a content house cat as he quite literally purred at Tony. “I miss that humor. I just miss you.”

“I can’t say the feeling is mutual.”

++++

“Not to state the obvious, but I hate that guy,” Stephen muttered, storming into the kitchen a few hours later.

“Is Ant okay?” Wong hadn’t moved from his seat in the living room, except for the fact that he was laying across the armchair sideways and there were three more mystery novels next to him.

“He’s sleeping. Even before all of that shit went down,” Stephen began, gesturing to the air in front of him, “We were outside for long enough that even if he won’t admit it, his allergies are bothering him.”

“How long were you outside for before I came to sit with you guys?” Christine asked.

“Maybe 90 minutes? Long enough to be considered too long,” Stephen replied. “It doesn’t matter. Did you guys eat yet?”

“No, we were waiting on you and Pepper. She said she’d be back by 7,” Christine said.

“What do you want? I’m open to suggestions,” Stephen asked. “I kinda want to make pasta but I know I’m not good enough at it so it wouldn’t make Anthony happy.”

“Don’t be stupid, Stephen. It absolutely would, and you know that,” Christine scolded him. “Do whatever you feel like! And I think pasta sounds nice.”

Stephen nodded. “Fair enough. I’m making ravioli and none of you can stop me. We deserve it.”

“Oh no Stephen don’t do that, don’t make something that you like to cook and that we all like to eat,” Wong teased. “Christine, he’s too powerful, we have to stop him.”

Stephen humorously rolled his eyes. “Anthony is the one who gave me a good recipe, so technically we all have him to thank for enabling me. Except not right now. Let him sleep.”

++++

“Oh by the way, I told Bucky that I’d get coffee with him later and we’re going to talk about whatever the hell happened this weekend,” Anthony said. “Do you want me to bring you back anything while I’m out?”

“Hmm… I don’t think so.” Stephen drew a heart on the back of Anthony’s hand with his thumb, something he noticed himself doing a lot.

Anthony always rewarded him for the gesture with the smallest, shyest smile that Stephen thought was the most adorable thing ever. “Text me if you change your mind, yeah?”

“Okay, I will.” Stephen smiled back at him, lovingly brushing Anthony’s hair out of his face. “Also if I send you a list will you help me decide on a movie for tonight?”

“Not sure you’re asking the right person, but sure,” Anthony replied.

“That’s subjective. I think I’m asking the right person,” Stephen said. “You’ve never steered me wrong before.”

“I hope I never do.” Anthony pressed a soft, sweet kiss to Stephen’s lips. “But knowing you, you’ll definitely change your mind about wanting a tea or something.”

“If I do, I’ll tell you,” Stephen replied, smiling into the kiss. “Promise. Have a good day, and good luck later.”

“I think I’m going to need it,” Anthony said with a little nervous laugh.

“Would a kiss help your luck?” Stephen couldn’t keep a neutral face. “I never imagined myself saying that. Or getting to kiss you.”

“Stop it, don’t make me blush this early in the day,” Anthony replied. “In all seriousness, I love you. And your kisses are magical, who’s to say they aren’t lucky?”

++++

Anthony couldn’t say whether or not he felt lucky later that day, because the only thing he felt was nervous. Bucky looked just as nervous and sheepish as Anthony did, and his internal monologue had already switched to guilt. They exchanged small talk and pleasantries while they waited for their coffee, their mutual discomfort becoming more and more tangible by the minute.

Most people joked that Anthony talked to hear the sound of his own voice, but today he was so nervous he couldn’t hear himself think. He didn’t know what to say or even where to start. Thankfully, Bucky blurted out a question before Anthony thought about how to start the conversation.

“How long were you two together?”

“Two and a half years, give or take. And I didn’t cheat on him with Stephen.”

“I didn’t think so. I wasn’t even going to ask about that.” Bucky smiled, trying to somehow calm Anthony down with his expression. “Who broke it off?”

“Me. Sometimes I feel like I did it a lot later than I should have, honestly.” Anthony shrugged. “I wasn’t ever happy in that relationship. I wanted to be, and I did everything I could to make it work even at my own expense, but eventually I had to end it. I’m happier now, but sometimes I still… I shouldn’t say any of this to you, not if you’re happy.”

“You know what bothers me, though?”

Anthony wasn’t expecting that. “What’s up?”

“I don’t think he’s over you. And that doesn’t bother me in a jealous sense, I’m not like that, but I feel almost used. Especially after this weekend,” Bucky said.

“What do you mean?” That worried Anthony for a lot of reasons, and he couldn’t decide which one was the most important.

“Tony, he's obsessed with you. The entire time we were driving Sunday night he wouldn’t stop talking about you, to the point where it was weird. I started to feel like he used me to see you,” Bucky replied. “One time I showed him a group picture, this was like six months ago, from that time we went out ice skating and ever since then he’s been pestering me about you. I don’t even think it has anything to do with me, if that makes sense.”

“I’m not following,” Anthony admitted. “Not entirely, anyway.”

“I think he loves me, I feel certain that he loves me. But he feels some kind of way about you, and it’s creepy,” Bucky said. “Now as I said it’s not jealousy, I just think it’s a bit disturbing that he’s so hung up on you.”

Anthony nodded slowly. “Yeah, I don’t like that. He didn’t want me to dump him but I had to, there’s no two ways about it. What happened Sunday?”

“We had a disagreement. I told him I felt used and he wasn’t happy about that, but he didn’t deny it either,” Bucky replied. “I was hoping he’d drop the whole thing but I don’t think he’s going to. I don’t think he’s going to ever get over you, honestly.”

“Damn. I’m sorry you had to deal with all of that.” Anthony nervously ran a hand through his hair, fighting the urge to pull at it. “Um… yeah I don’t really know what to think or what to say.”

“Neither do I,” Bucky admitted. “I really want to try things out with him and see how they continue, but I also don’t think he’s going to change. Now that he’s actually seen you, I feel like it’s only going to be more awkward.”

“Oh about that, I’m sorry I didn’t want to go out the other day,” Anthony said. “I was going to try and make myself power through it, but… just being around him for however long you guys were in the apartment was way too much. I got really anxious and just hid in Stephen’s room. And then, on an unrelated note, I ended up sleeping for 14 hours or something.”

“I’m sorry if I was forceful. I didn’t know how to subtly ask if he was making you uncomfortable in the moment, but I could see it,” Bucky replied. “I don’t blame you.”

Anthony shrugged. “Dude I’m at a loss, generally speaking. I don’t know what to say about everything you just told me, but honestly I’m feeling a little sick.”

“Are you going to see Stephen? I’m meeting Christine, so if you want I’ll walk with you,” Bucky offered.

Anthony nodded. “Sure.”

“I really am sorry, Tony. For everything this weekend, and if something I said upset you after your wisdom tooth surgery,” Bucky said.

“It’s not your fault. I’ve been stressing about how to tell everyone about that relationship for too long and the way I felt when I woke up just reminded me of something I still don’t really want to talk about,” Anthony replied. “There’s a lot I’m holding back, even from you, but I’m just not ready to go into all of that yet.”

“I won’t be upset if you tell me,” Bucky tried to comfort him.

“It’s less about that and more the fact that I don’t want to even think about it. I don’t want to think about him,” Anthony said. “I don’t want to hear his voice, or see him, or even hear about him, if I’m being honest. And I feel bad, because I know you love him, but—”

“But you’re my friend, and I care about you. Plus you’re way too polite to be direct when something or someone upsets you and I think that does more harm than good. You just end up keeping everything to yourself, and you don’t have to,” Bucky interrupted. “You don’t have to be a closed book all the time.”

Anthony smiled at that. “Stephen’s said that to me before. I don’t know why, but I like that phrasing. I’m not one to open up in general, even though I trust everyone in our friend group, but this feels like it’s too much to get into the open right now. Someday I’ll be ready, but not today. It doesn’t help that this weekend was honestly too soon.”

“That’s fair man,” Bucky replied. “I don’t have to tell you that Stephen loves the shit out of you, and you deserve that.”

“I could go on and on about Steph probably endlessly,” Anthony said, hiding his face as he blushed.

“Everyone knows that, even people who have never met either of you know that!” Bucky teased. “But honestly, are you okay?”

Anthony shrugged. “Yes and no. I just need time.”

“I understand. And I am really, really sorry about this weekend,” Bucky replied. “Forgive me?”

Anthony shook his head. “Do I need to? It’s not your fault.”

“I know it’s not, but still… I’m sorry. I hope that means something, at least.”

tags: @stark-strange-love2 @taruyison @chocopiggy @majesticnerdynerd @spooky-n-spunky @merlynthedisasterchild @kitkatfat15 @maya-custodios-dionach @katninjagirl97