#so much happened at the end of s7 and it was never talked about again and its infuriating

[mikhailoism]

the difference between bobby s7 vs s8 is crazy to me bc you can tell how much lighter he feels. and just the obvious why he's much more relaxed and joking around is such a big difference . to me it's implying maybe therapy or he's done something to deal with the events of s7 in that 3 month time skip and i want details so badly.... how did he go from spiraling and sorta passive suicidal ideation to more relaxed and comfortable and peaceful almost .... sorry i can't shut up about this i need more people talking about it

[mintedwitcher]

Tbh I think it would've been a good ending for bobby at the very end of the show. Like season 20, peter wants to leave, they've thought this through, buck is ready to be captain, full circle to s1. It still would be kinda off because it's not the kind of show to kill a formerly suicidal character right when he *wants* to live - where is that hope they were always proud of? - but narratively, it would've made sense.

I just don't think they have any idea what they did making peter krause leave, killing the lead, disappointing a huge part of their audience, while their show had great ratings and everyone was centered around him. It's not like anyone gained anything. Chim could've been captain another way, maybe with bobby as chief, opening a new dynamic.

Now Athena and buck basically got killed alongside bobby because their relationships to him made the show from s1. I'd even argue hen and chim's characters were more *done* than bobby's on a personal level. And while they have had their love stories and marriages and kids and crises etc other characters are still on that hamster wheel. At this rate we'll never get to see buck (or eddie, what are they doing with him?) experience a real relationship before the show gets canceled and it just seems like a total waste when it could've been so good

😭😭😭 sorry for the rant

nonnie, as nicely as possible, I need you to understand, Peter wanted this to happen now. Peter has BEEN talking, since season SIX, about how he feels like he's done all he can with the character of Bobby Nash and how he feels like it's time to step away. this is not a case of the showrunner making a call and then just booting Peter freaking Krause out of a job. Peter is one of the executive producers on the show. he knew this was coming, he agreed to this, he WANTED this.

like it or not, Bobby was always going to die. that's how his story goes. having it happen now just gives the rest of the cast some freedom to actually change up without us having to go "oh if only we got season 21 so we could see how they Adjust without him!"

I get being unhappy with it, but this is the smart choice. also, once again - I've said this a billion times already but I'll keep saying it - the point in killing Bobby was not to "kill off the suicidal guy who just learned to live again". the point was that Bobby got to save his family. that's it. Bobby's number one motivator for the ENTIRE SHOW is saving lives to atone for the lives he took in that apartment fire. he's done it, he can rest now.

yes its sad that he just started being happy, except... that's not entirely true. he's been content since season 4, and with the exception of his backslide in season seven (for GOOD REASON), he hasn't been suicidal in years. he's already happy, he's content with his life, he loves his life and his job and his family - both the one he married into and the one he made at the 118. it's not like he's just overcome it. he's been overcoming it for years, since season two, and we've watched him do it.

I really don't understand this hyperfocus on "oh but he was just starting to want to live again!" because like... no? that's not true. yes he had a backslide in s7, but recovery isn't linear, and backsliding doesn't erase the progress already made.

Bobby got to save his 118 family. he got to make amends with his mother and brother. he got to lay old ghosts to rest. and he got to go home to his first family. just like he's wanted since the beginning. his character motivation has been fulfilled, what else is there for him to do?

as a writer, I'm sorry, but this was the smart choice. you don't keep a narrative device hanging around once it's fulfilled it's purpose. Bobby becoming chief would've never happened because Bobby didn't want a paper pusher job. Bobby retiring never would've happened because he loved the job too much to leave it behind. if Bobby stayed on as the 118's captain, none of the 118 would've transferred or tried to rise above their current station because the show has entirely abandoned ambition for ALL of the characters.

you say you want 20 seasons of this show. you know how other procedurals manage to keep going for that long? they don't let their characters stagnate. they're a revolving door of mains and recurrings and guests. the stakes are always high because anyone can die, at any moment, which keeps the audience engaged and interested in watching, because they want to know who is going to make it to the end of the episode/season/series. 911 has failed on that front. TWO near cancellations in the last two years. we've only JUST gotten confirmation for season nine, and if they don't pick up the stakes, they're not going to get a tenth season, much less a twentieth. too much plot armour, the mains are practically invincible, no one is ever injured for longer than the episode wrap-up montage scenes, no one ever faces long lasting consequences, and no one leaves. that's a weakness in procedural television, not a strength.

tldr: killing Bobby was the right choice, 911 was floundering long before they did this, Peter was not "forced" to do this arc, and basically, this is what the show needed if it wants to continue to compete with longer running and more successful procedural dramas.

[m4rs-ex3]

Mars do you you have any rayllum wedding/propsal headcanons... share them or explode in this instant

you're probably dust by now but sure

they'd definitely talked about it before - and they had barely needed to, because they'd known it was happening since the (secondary) beginning - but only in a "we're definitely both ready but it'll happen when it happens" way, at least in part because they both secretly wanted a proper proposal.

of course, callum immediately decided he would be doing just that. although it took a while to a) get the perfect opportunity and b) work up the confidence to propose the idea (in a different way) to ethari.

after spitting it out awkwardly and getting a spine-breaking hug, they immediately get to work on designing. the one time rayla manages to catch ethari alone during the trip, however...

she's not quite as upfront about it, but she definitely implies she's thinking of doing the exact same thing.

ethari is caught very off guard, and has to desperately try to casually reject that. he tells callum who also freaks out, but he ends up spending the next month or so doing the same thing: subtly implying that now now is actually not the best time to keep her away from the idea. since rayla is always way more unsure of things, this works pretty well (maybe a little too well, as while he tried his absolute best to not hurt her, she ends up feeling a bit bummed out anyway because Mental Illness will do that.)

but she doesn't have to feel uneasy for long

i can't say i have a concrete vision as to how it happens, because there are just too many options!!! maybe it's that little ledge in the silvergrove where he told her he wanted a life with her for the first time. maybe he takes her to the base of that giant tree with a beautiful view at sunset where he gets to say that their whole relationship has been a bumpy ride. maybe it's the moon nexus, watching the moon fill the lake in the place where she left, where she now gets to promise she'll never leave again. i'm kind of OBSESSED with @raayllum's speculative s7 ficlet where he proposes on a boat by continuing Five Questions - which could still work!! he probably reunites his choir and all.

anyhow, he ends up taking her by the hands and going on a long, long spiel about how much he loves her (which doesn't really set off any alarms, because he does that every damn day [although he's oddly nervous about it...]), before he pulls out an ornate little box and looks up at her with the most lovesick eyes and she doesn't even let him get a word out before she pounces on him.

she's already crying uncontrollably, smiling ear-to-ear while she hugs him around the neck, but it then occurs to her she might have gotten a little ahead of herself. suddenly terrified, she pulls back to find him stunned and flushed and she's frantically asking y-you were asking me to marry you, right? when he starts laughing and confirming her assumption. after they both manage to break through the adrenaline-fueled fit of laughter, he properly pops the question and she tells him yes, callum. of course with a smile that hurts her face and her heart more full of love than she ever thought possible.

after a bit of making out he remembers oh yeah, the box! he presents to her a pair of the most gorgeous horn cuffs in all of xadia, embedded with two sky sapphires.

(at some point before the wedding, rayla asks ethari to make callum his own engagement jewelry - an earring with a coordinating moon opal. callum is admittedly surprised [it's an elf thing after all] but doesn't hesitate for a moment in happily accepting [he still makes rayla hold his hand when he gets it pierced, though.])

telling people doesn't really feel like that big of a thing because it's them but then again... it's THEM so it is a big deal

they don't have a formal announcement for anyone; they decide to start casually dropping it into conversation with their friends. they teasingly tell soren he can be the flower girl at their wedding, he just says aww thank you while corvus just stares, mouth agape, nudges soren, who does the math lady meme for like a minute before it clicks. callum asks harrow if they still have sarai's veil, harrow's eyes instantly go wide and teary. ez (the first one they tell, of course) asks what they did last night, they say oh, you know, got engaged. ez hugs them both, as excited as if it were his own wedding, so proud of his brother and so happy to have his sister.

they hold off on telling opeli until she figures it out herself. she only notices something's different when callum gets his earring, and is livid that they didn't tell her (she's very happy for them, of course). she immediately throws an engagement party.

full-blown wedding planning is a bit of a rude awakening; rayla gets stressed being the center of attention, not to mention how unnatural it feels to be anything close to a bride. callum doesn't mind, but hates seeing rayla so uncomfortable. but every time they get time alone they're reminded what this is all for, how worth it it is.

(thankfully they get plenty of extra help from the Royal Wedding Planner Council - ez, queens aanya, janai, and amaya, gren and kazi, opeli, ethari, and terry [he does the flowers])

like the engagement, there's far too many good options for the wedding for me to have a concrete vision of how or where. maybe a moonshadow forest wedding where the bioluminescence and string lights keep away the mist. a wedding just outside of evrkynd where the setting sun shimmers off the city's buildings. the banther lodge where they can watch the stars before retiring to their warm home-away-from-home. who's to say???

they break the no-see rule (rayla thought it was a stupid human tradition, anyway) several times throughout the day, sneaking away before they have to start getting ready so they can sit together and decompress. rayla has fun with a no-kissing rule, though

ez, soren, harrow, runaan, and ethari all pay a visit at some point to both their dressing rooms for heartfelt moments. rayla's makeup needs serious fixing by the time they're ready

they both get some special ceremonial henna tattoos and small braids. callum hand embroiders both of their clothing (he made SURE he was concealing as much of rayla's dress as possible apart from the sections he was doing) with some subtle little design motifs - the moon, wind and lightning, waves, lotus petals, feathers and wings, stars and constellations - for only them to see and appreciate

callum insists on having a first look, maintaining that the sight of her will make him incapable of participating in the ceremony. it was a good call; when he sees her, he nearly collapses. it's extra difficult to have to separate and resist the urge to go back to their suite immediately

lira is the flower girl, zym and stella are the ring bearers. i'm gonna let y'all fight in the notes about who officiates

between potential cultural differences and the already-kinda-weird practice of giving away, i like to imagine that callum comes to meet rayla at the end of the aisle and lead her the rest of the way. they're already quietly joking with each other by the time they make it to the altar.

it's a small reception and an even smaller ceremony. despite the fact that they never shy away from loving each other in public, something this special feels like it should be just for them and their loved ones. no one else will ever be able to understand how much they love each other, anyway

the vows are equally modest. if they said all they had to say then everyone would starve to death before they were done. they cover the important things, though; his truth, his guiding star, her heart, her sacred promise, their best friend, the loves of their lives.

in addition to the engagement jewelry, they get wedding bands. the real question is if rayla wears hers on her last finger and callum's ring, or if they both do the middle fingers for symmetry.

the reception is surprisingly serene; the final duty of the RWPC is to make sure they can entertain people long enough for callum and rayla to get plenty of time to themselves. there's a consistent supply of moonberry jelly tarts for everyone.

they sneak off maybe a little sooner then they should, initially with their friends so they can mess around with each other like they're all kids again. eventually they properly, finally, get one another to themselves. callum insists on bridal-carrying her.

they don't have a plan for their honeymoon. they simply set off on an adventure, one where they're not on a mission to save the world, and go wherever they want for however long they want

they immediately make it a habit to proudly refer to each other as my husband and my wife with great frequency.

but those are just some ideas idk

[chiisana-sukima]

nine people i want to get to know better

Thank you for the tag, @slutsons-blog! Starting a new post because I'm autistic and therefore mostly only care about the "Current Obsession" question, and want to ramble excessively as usual in that one.

Last song: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team: Pokemon Square because I'm currently playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon with my daughter. Otherwise I honestly couldn't tell you. Whatever was on in my car.

Fave color: Purple

Currently watching: Star Trek Discovery

Last movie: Knives Out

Sweet/spicy/savory: Sweet, tart, salty

Relationship: married x 27 years

Last thing I googled: the word "dependent", for spelling assistance. which is a good thing because I spelled it "dependant".

Current Obsession: it's been spn since 2016. Truly we are the Hotel California of media franchises. I did recently play Disco Elysium twice in a row in quick succession, and I follow the DE tag. I can't recommend the game highly enough.... but I can feel my Special Interest-level obsession with it fading already. Spn has never faded even a tiny bit and I wonder if it ever will.

@slutsons-blog I feel after reading that you're watching spn for the first time, that I did you a bit of a disservice with my Sam takes to you before in that I mostly talked about Sam's evolution as a character as the show goes on and very little about him from the first five seasons.

Gotta be honest and tell you that although I liked both brothers all along, I was a Dean girl until the end of s6/beginning of s7, when the balance of who gets whumped the most started shifting and my subconscious suddenly decided to switch allegiances. It's not that I liked Dean any less; my id just loves a sopping wet pathetic kitten of a man who has been sexually abused, and Sam got suddenly way more kitteny and pathetic after the Cage. So I don't actually have a ton of takes on "what to love about Sam in the early seasons". I do love early seasons Sam too--she is my beautiful baby princess--but my early seasons takes are a lot more inchoate.

I count myself lucky about my id's sudden defection though, because I think we have limited control of who our blorbos are, and having Dean as a blorbo is a tough row to hoe as the later seasons go along. You know how you noticed that in s6, Dean suddenly gets a lot more assholey without apparent reason? Unfortunately he never gets better again, and in fact keeps getting worse and worse as the years go by, until by the last seasons he is openly far more abusive to their joint child(-in-an-adult body) than John was to him and Sam. It's a realistic picture of what can happen when trauma keeps piling up on people, but it's also honestly pretty distressing, especially if he's your blorbo.

If one is in it for the ship, there's some good destiel content in the later seasons, but if you're in it for Dean, you're left either 1) dealing with the fact he's got extremely significant interpersonal problems that he never gets much of anywhere on solving and that negatively impact his chosen family in profound ways, or 2) pretending he's the same character he was in s1 and Sam is the same Sam from s1, only more boring, and Dean is just trying to put up with him because he was brainwashed by John (or ig 3- something in the middle between those two. But that seldom seems to happen in practice for whatever reason). These two versions of the show are poorly compatible, and that's how the Sam girls and the Dean girls end up in isolated silos. A few people manage to live in both, but not many.

Anyway, I feel like without the context of how Sam and Dean change in the mid to late seasons, the two fics I recc'd as Sam character studies are going to seem insanely Dean-critical, so if you haven't read them yet, you might want to wait until s10. In the meantime, the general recs are fun reads and hopefully do a good job of showcasing both characters earlier on.

Tagging (but I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn't specify there's no pressure to respond, since I almost always fail at responding to tag games myself): @adihildilid @aliusfrater @quietwingsinthesky @sammygender @ardentpoop

@peanutbutterandbananasandwichs @schizosamwincester @normalbrothershow @jellybracelet.

[portraitofadyke]

what's been bugging me is how some people, especially steddyhands shippers, seem to ignore Stede's complete blind spot that is Ed. I've been rereading some post s1 fix-its, and it's amazing how almost every one of their reunions had Stede blaming Ed for marooning the crew and attempting to kill Lucius (same with ppl's expectation that there would be some sort of physical fight). And then he just. Doesn't.

Stede obviously cares for the crew. A lot. But the moment Ed's well being is in the picture, he becomes hyperfocused on Ed and Ed only. Obviously the crew told him about being marooned, but we don't see him mention that once in his letters. They reunite with Lucius, and yet all Stede talks about is Ed (and his poor portrayal on his wanted posters)- Lucius confesses about Ed throwing him overboard, and all Stede does is question 'why?', because he knows Ed wouldn't just randomly attempt to murder Lucius. The moment Lucius tells him Stede broke Ed, Stede is back to blaming himself, never Ed. He clearly cares about Lucius, because later in the ep, he tries to reconcile with him by giving him 'dating advice' and trying to save him from what happened to him and Ed, but Ed comes first.

We actually see it in s1 too, if only briefly, in s7 when Stede desperately tries to keep Ed abroad and becomes oblivious to the crew's concerns and problems and we get the iconic line "Eat and apple, for God's sake!" Stede cares, but Ed is at the front of his mind and it's hard for him to understand what could be more important.

In s02e03, he gets his ship and the rest of his crew back, but Ed is nowhere. Izzy is literally missing a leg and Stede just tells him to piss off.

And I've seen people questioning why Stede never questioned that, why he never bothered to ask about Izzy's missing toe or back scars or why he didn't care about the leg more. Izzy clearly lies again and tells Stede Ed shot it off because he told Ed he loves him, and yet stede just. Doesn't care.

And i mean, that question is valid. Because people see Stede as someone who's much more caring, more hero-coded. But Stede is far more a romantic hero to Ed than he is your general hero to the rest of the characters. Stede is selfish. Stede is blind-sided. Stede is willing to abandon his morals when it comes to Ed.

I think there are two reasons Stede doesn't question Izzy's Ed-inflicted-injuries, or any other, for that matter. First one is, Stede's blind spot for Ed. Yeah, Izzy got his leg shot off by Ed (not entirely true, but I digress), but there must have been a reason why. Yeah, Izzy got his toes cut off and hand-fed, but Ed had a reason. Stede knows Ed is not violent by default, so he knows something must have prompted him to do that. Is it completely justified? That's a differenr convo about people trying to portray Izzy as a victim rather than someone who kept pushing Ed over the edge until they were both too far.

The second is... Yeah, Stede just doesn't care. Especially about Izzy. Lie it's been pointed out, Stede just thinks izzy is a dick. He misnames him. He's rightuflly mad at him for selling them out to the english. He literally dreams about killing Izzy for that. Stede blames himself for abandoning Ed and everything that happened after (and yes, Ed's actions are Ed's actions, but that's how Stede sees it), but he clearly also blames Izzy for setting them up.

So, Stede sees Izzy's missing leg? Probably deserved that. Back scars, missing toe? Eh, probably deserved that, too, Ed would look absolutely lovely in a braid. Is that morally correct? No, but Stede isn't written to be a moral character. That's what makes him so real, and that's why so many other actors than Rhys would struggle making Stede sympathetic and likeable to the audiences.

That's not to say Stede doesn't see Ed's wrongs. He absolutely does. He just. Doesn't care that much in the end, because his love for all of Ed is that bright, to the point of being absolutely, utterly selfish. DJenkins said it from the beginning; this show is about Ed and Stede's relationship. Stede doesn't question Izzy's injuries bc in the end, it just doesn't matter to him when Ed is in the picture

[saveahorserideaneddie]

I don't like Tommy. But I will say I kind of feel bad for Eddie. How he lost a friend when Buck and Tommy started dating. Even if it was short lived, he was a friend out of the 118. I wonder why they stopped being friends. It seemed to happen before the breakup. Maybe when Christopher left.

eddie deserves better friends outside of the 118 than him anyway

tbh im in the minority when i say that i dont care about them having outside friends bc it takes away from screentime focusing on leads and other important moments… like aside from karen as hen’s wife i dont really care about anyone outside of the lafd, dispatch or pd 😭😭

and tbh…. was tommy ever really eddie’s friend or did he just give up trying to get in eddie’s pants when buck made himself available? i feel like tommy not believing that eddie is straight is a pretty clear indication (to me) that he always had a feeling, wanted to tap that, and shot his shot- i don’t think tommy was ever genuinely friends with eddie at all, in the same vein that he’s not actually friends with chimney- he only claims to be when it makes him look good, but we as the audience know better than that (canonically chimney did not talk to him between s2 and s7, hen hadn’t spoken to him since bobby begins, and in the deleted scene in 709, we could see VERY clearly that hen and karen did not trust that man)

even if they’re not seen on-screen, it’s okay to headcanon that eddie has friends outside of the 118- but i think it’s asking a little too much to dedicate screentime to a friendship with a random side character who has nothing to do with the plot; it wastes time and messes up the flow of episodes. it’s why you don’t see characters in other procedurals having friends/social lives unless the narrative calls for it, and in this case, the only purpose tommy and eddie’s friendship had was to be a catalyst for buck’s jealousy over someone potentially taking eddie from him, which he then misinterpreted and severely over corrected by “dating” tommy (i say “dating” bc the show made it a point to not put any effort into their relationship at any point in time). the moment that narrative device was done, they tossed it to the side

because that’s all tommy ever was- a plot device that people became over-obsessed with for the mere fact that he kissed another white man on screen- and because tommy is only a plot device, then his connections with the other characters (his friendship with eddie, his racism towards hen and chim, his misogyny towards hen, his ambivalence towards bobby) are all plot devices within those specific narratives;

tim just spent way too much time keeping him around in this nebulous love-interest limbo that he slowly began to look less and less like a plot device, until 8a when tim suddenly remembered that he was there and broke them up. he only came back in 8x11 to be a plot device in starting the buddie feelings realization arc, but again when tim got his early renewal, he decided to completely discard that storyline so the plot device feels out of place.

all this to say- eddie’s friendship with tommy was never going to last; if they had gone the original route and had tommy kiss eddie, then their friendship would have been used to reach that point and ended shortly after, just like when the actual canonical events happened reached the point where eddie’s friendship with tommy was no longer necessary, it ended which is why we IMMEDIATELY in 706 see eddie being bitchy to tommy- because the friendship served its purpose within the arc abd the subtle battle for buck began subtextually in ep 6 before being dropped completely for the kim storyline. it was picked up again in 8x11 before being dropped again by the lab storyline.

the point was never supposed to be that eddie had an actual friend- that was never going to be the extent of tommy’s role. if he was truly just eddie’s friend, we wouldn’t have seen him ever again bc they wouldn’t have wasted screentime on him and would have just said “oh tommy’s my basketball buddy from 217” (if even that, bc again frienships outside of the core group are not important in tv shows like this)

sorry for the rant anon i kinda just hijacked your post to use it as a sounding board for my frustrations over the immense over inflation of tommy’s importance both as buck’s LI and eddie’s “friend”

[bucksboobs]

Re your “what was the point of bringing Gerarrd back” post: it’s so maddening that it honestly makes me wonder if there was a better plan in the S7 writers room that got pivoted due to studio notes like maybe the network didn’t want to touch anything that might be too “woke” (or just Tim getting distracted by Brad, who tf knows)

Like i know this show just doesn’t plan things, but it’s weird how very planned it seemed right up until that plan went nowhere fast and it would make the dropping of pretty much all the S7 plot lines (all connected to Gerarrd) make more sense if someone on high just demanded they kill it quickly and without fanfare

The interconnectedness of Tommy explicitly referencing how Gerrard is just like his father, the setup for the mystery of how Gerrard got put back at the 118 that was supposed to be answered with the reveal that Gerrard and Ortiz are somehow friends, that Buck has never worked under any captain BUT Bobby. The idea that Buck would be treated as the golden boy until Buck comes out to Gerrard, or the idea of Buck and Tommy having conflicting opinions on whether he should come out to Gerrard and that being Baby’s First Homophobia. The interplay with Gerrard being a military style man and Eddie’s history with the military. Up to and including 801, it looked like all of that was set up perfectly and then 802 was extended into two episodes and that was fine at the time but then 804 was very clearly written to be two episodes that got drastically shortened into one to make room for the stretching of 802 and 803 (which IMO wasn’t necessary. If you cut out one of the passenger emergencies and the drama with the copilot waking up and then having a heart attack and just land the plane at the airstrip instead of the freeway, and maybe even cut the final shootout over the black book, then you wouldn’t have had to do another episode.) and then so much of Hotshots and Wannabes is taken up by Brad’s stupid little storyline when they could have left him behind in 804 to focus on expanding Eddie’s storyline with Fr. Brian to help pave the way for Eddie’s decision to move

If I was planning out the 8 episode half season it would have gone

801-802: Plane disaster

803-804: Mara storyline Gerrard is actually still out of commission for more than a day and doesn’t come back until 804 at which point it’s revealed he was in cahoots with Ortiz. Hen is the one who records Ortiz instead and Gerrard goes down with Ortiz as an accomplice. The court drama lasts more than one single scene

805: Bobby’s back! still the cute little Halloween episode, instead of hurting Denny though, we focus on HenRen the drama over PTO. This is meant as a breather before the breakup and Eddie storylines

806: have the breakup be about Buck’s uneasiness being Queer In Public, using Picture Girl and Hot Waiter as a compare and contrast flashpoint instead of Abby. Keep the Glee speech but have the breakup be about how Buck keeps rushing headlong in but can’t say the word bisexual apparently. If Buck can’t acknowledge Tommy as his boyfriend to Picture Girl then how can he be ready to move in? Make it about Buck and Tommy as people, not a contrivance that Tim stole from a video he watched once.

807: this is where Eddie should have first started thinking about moving and he should have a conversation with Hen about losing Nia and nearly losing Mara as well and then one with Maddie (or about Maddie through Chim if you combine it with previous convo) about missing some of Jee’s milestones that convinces him he doesn’t want to miss any more of Chris’s life. Fr Brian should play some role in this decision too so he can discuss his thought process.

808: the moving reveal happens early in the episode, just as Buck has slowed down on baking and it immediately ramps up again. He takes the products to Maddie and they have a coded conversation about people leaving him (Maddie thinks they’re talking about Tommy until the end of the scene when Buck tells her it’s about Eddie) inadvertently foreshadowing Maddie’s kidnapping. We end on Buck basically begging Eddie not to leave in an Emotionally Charges Scene that is Up To Interpretation. Eddie at some point asks “is this really about what’s best for me and my family or is it about something else?” Because perpetual martyr Eddie can’t believe something is actually about him and then as Buck leaves he gets a text from Tommy “Can we talk?” It says. Cut to black before we see if he answers.

[sugdendingle]

I'm really happy that Buck and Tommy are finally over (thank god) but there was so much I didn't like about this episode. Not only does Tommy have a history of racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc but he was simply not a good boyfriend. And like not just not a good boyfriend to Buck (which he was that) but like not a good boyfriend in general. Like look at how he talked about Abby (and I'm no fan of hers).

I know some of the stuff with Tommy was probably due to Lou's terrible acting but some of it was definitely writing choices. I don't get the point of writing a character to be a lackluster love interest at best and dismissive patronizing jerk of a boyfriend at worst if it's not leading somewhere in the story. It just feels like bad writing. A lot of the stuff with Tommy does. It's why I'm still amazed at how much that fandom acts like they're the greatest romance of all time.

There's also all that stuff that happened in 7x04 that I fear is never going to get brought back up again. I mean it might when Buddie goes canon (which I still believe will happen) but it might not just because if Tommy's gone they might not feel the need to address it again. But it was clearly Eddie's attention that Buck wanted in that ep (I wrote a whole thing about it here). You also have the fact that Tommy was showering Eddie was all this attention and gifts and the only time we saw him do anything remotely like that for Buck was in tonight's ep on their anniversary and it was tickets for a game Buck didn't even like so clearly Tommy wasn't that invested.

It's just this show has a habit of Buck staying in these relationships where he's not happy. Not knowing his worth and not speaking up to people who hurt him all so he can feel like he's loved. And I know a lot of that goes back to the stuff he dealt with as a kid but I'm just really sad they did this to him again. I get that Tim probably wanted Buck's first relationship with a guy to end on a positive note but then like I said why write Tommy the way they did since s7? If you take Buck and Tommy's relationship just as it played out on screen then Buck definitely should have been the one to break up with Tommy.

They wouldn't have even needed it to turn into a fight or this bitter angry thing it could have been a matter of Buck realizing that him and Tommy were just too different. That Tommy didn't really get him as a person and that could have been further made clear by having a moment where Buck calls Tommy out on always calling him Evan. I also don't get why they decided to have Tommy call him Buck in the breakup scene but then never address it any other time. Like they never really explained why he only ever called Evan and then didn't explain why he switched it up.

Like I said I'm happy they broke up but I just feel like in some ways I can't enjoy it. In both this ep and 805 there was scenes like at the graveyard where Buck acts like Tommy is this amazing important person in his life and I get that some of that is Buck trying to make his relationship with Tommy into something more than that is. And really connecting his excitement and newness of coming out with Tommy. But it still hurt to see him asking Tommy about moving in when I know Buck deserves so much better. He deserves a partner who will love him and see him for exactly who he is.

Connected to all of this I didn't like the scene with Josh, Maddie, and Buck either. I know some of that was probably the shows way of trying to make us think about Eddie and his coming out in the future but they were also talking about Tommy. Tommy doesn't get a pass for being a misogynist or racist or a homophobe just because he was in the closet. Also whatever happened with him and Abby in the past he was still talking shitty about her when he was on the date with Buck (in present day) so clearly his attitudes towards women haven't changed.

I like a lot about Josh as a character and he doesn't even know Tommy or about his past so I feel like he was just trying to educate Buck on some queer history. I don't entirely blame him for that speech he gave. I do blame Tim and the writers though. If they wanted Tommy to be seen as a guy who made mistakes in the past and had grown they should have put the work in to show him as such. The couldn't be bothered to do that even in his relationship with Buck. Truly hoping this is the last we'll see of him and also that not much time is spent having Buck mourn that awful relationship.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s7 episode 2 "the sixth extinction: amor fati" thoughts

oh god. i just read the episode description. CSM takes him???! WHERE? good lord!!! can’t they have a break??? and scully has to find him!! fuck!! abduction arc parallels!!!

not even going to ponder what might happen or make any predictions… we need to jump into this. STAT.

(post-episode thoughts: bro... they said the lines.......

so much happened. i ended up having to walk around in silence for 10 minutes or so after the episode ended. to see that alternate dream reality... scully and albert and her heart... cupping each other's cheeks...

there were really, incredibly profound moments in this one, and then also alien mytharc moments that made me go "wtf" a bunch of times. i feel like i have way more questions than i started with and they will probably never be answered. so my overall feelings on this episode are complex and confused, and i will probably need time to sort them out. this confused nature may be visible in my notes- but you have to understand! y'all have had years, even decades, to wrap your heads around these episodes! i just got here, so lend me some grace, bahaha.

oh. i once again really want a post-episode fluff fic. i'm gonna have to just suck it up and write it myself, huh? SIGH.

okay, take it away, me from about 18 hours ago!)

(previously on the x-files)

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, recap time. scully begging him at his hospital bed to hold on. mmm. good stuff. so much is happening, though. i’m ready for a bit of a break. a chill episode would be cool.

mulder’s on a beach!!!! watching someone play with a child. and smiling. is that his child? or just some random baby? the lighting implies that this is some dreamland.

OH SHIT!!! his mom is here!!! and the doctor is explaining to him that he is dying!!

“enough! there’s only so much bluntness that a mother can take” <- oh, she is not having this…. she says they’re turning him into a zombie. 

ahhh!! he can hear her thoughts!!! and he’s thinking back!! but she can’t hear him!! and she’s walking away!!! noooo!!! he’s screaming for her in his head!!!!! but obviously she doesn't know :( 

WHY IS. CSM HERE. looking down at him. thinking about what it means to have a father. 

WAIT, THEY’RE TALKING??? psychically. “how does anything i do surprise you now?” <- okay, i feel called out with that line, but forgive me for not knowing that he could READ MINDS??? i thought his whole thing was being an ordinary guy who can do awful things through the power of knowing people and fear!

CSM loads up a syringe…. and pushes it into mulder's head. he gasps. and says he is giving him a choice. life or death. he says mulder’s suffered enough. he isn’t christ. 

and he tells him to arise. and he moves his hand??? and is controlling him??? what.

he says to take his hand. “you have to take the first step” (more visions of a baby)

“i am your father” HUH. 

well. uh. let’s just see what canon actually says. because that was implied before. but. didn’t go anywhere. also, why would someone being your father allow them to read your mind? sorry. i don’t think it works like that. 

mulder looks gagged to hear this. 

spender and mulder half brothers…. omfg. juicy. but AGAIN. let’s see what actually happens. i can’t analyze anything too soon. they love a red herring.

hey guys, what’s going on though. CSM psychic reveal??

OOOO, new words after the intro!!! “amor fati” <- see, if i look those words up, i’ll get spoiled, so i must sit tight and wonder what they mean, i guess

where’s scully. i need scully at this time. ah! here she is!!! she fell asleep at the desk!!! translating more words!! but kritschgau opens the door and wakes her up, saying they don’t have time for sleep!! wtf are you doing here???? 

he says she has to use her time with mulder wisely. “like you?” injecting him with mysterious medications? <- OHHHH get him!!! he insists that overdosing him was what mulder wanted. yeah. suuuuure.

he claims mulder was infected with an alien virus. and now he is proof of their existence. so i guess he has started believing since we last saw him.

“well, whatever it is, it’s killing him. and we have to get it out of him” “you destroy this, and i’ll destroy you” <- bro, she WILL shoot you. it’s not even a question. and frankly at this point in time, i want to see it happen.

the phone rings… and he walks away, having contributed nothing to the conversation.

nooo!! it’s skinner saying mulder disappeared!!! oh, she’s gonna kill someone.

there were GUARDS here. but the nurse claims his mother checked him out??

OHHHH, skinner does NOT want to be involved!!! she clocks that he is not saying something and he admits to being in a compromised position- the less he knows the better.

bro is still chilling on the beach in his head. oh shit, he wrote this episode with chris carter. well. i don’t know what to expect. i know that man can write an ep, but chris carter is hit or miss.

is that his child self walking up to him? his imagined future baby? who is this... AUGH. the baby talks in CSM’s voice... NOOO.

he wakes up in handcuffs while CSM drives him…. somewhere…. in the rain. CSM says his doctors worked on him. “at some point, i realized that if the syndicate didn’t kill you, the FBI would. if the FBI didn’t kill you, your own misguided heroism would. there’s really no way out for you” <- ohhh… my heart is racing. i’m lowkey forgetting to breath. cannot tell if this episode will be a masterpiece or a train wreck.

he says mulder needs to just disappear. become a man without a name, like him. but he’ll learn how to enjoy life’s simpler pleasures.

he’s gonna set him up with some fake life and diana, huh. i see what’s going on here. and i DON’T LIKE IT.

he wants to tell scully. but CSM says he cannot. because he is entering a witness protection program. and he offers him a cigarette. “i don’t smoke” “maybe now you do”

poor scully….. poor, poor scully…. at her apartment…. but someone approaches!

she gets her gun. i feel like she looks different, but i can’t explain why. like, her face. am i tripping? is her makeup different this season?

she finds someone and holds him at gunpoint. OMG!!! IT’S ALBERT!!!!!! the best guy to see in this situation, tbh!! he has bandages on his head. is there hope for mulder?? because albert had the same illness he did, right? did they find a cure?

he says she must find him before something happens. for the sake of us all.

hmm. the alien colonization plan must be close. they must be trying to take him away so he can't somehow stop it.

CSM gives mulder keys to a house. he says this is his new life. “you can drive away right now. drive back to scully and your x files and your imminent death. i wouldn’t be surprised if you did. but i think you should take a look around” <- ohhh…. my heart is RACING…. everything is so tense

and CSM walks away. 

it’s a nice little house. i'll give him that.

scully is looking at surveillance footage… the cameras from the hospital were covered up when he went missing!!! they can see his mom talking to someone!!! someone with a cigarette!!! WHICH ONLY MEANS ONE THING IN THIS SHOW!!! what does she know?!

mulder opens the door to the house. it seems empty. he calls out asking if anyone is home…. poor guy is still in his hospital gown. and the fridge is filled with sunflower seeds. this makes him laugh.

HUH??? is that DEEP THROAT??? he’s gagged. he can’t believe it. scully saw him get shot!!! but deep throat says he’s just very relaxed. 

so they faked his death??? for 6 seasons????????? 

or is mulder tripping? he can’t believe it. he felt responsible for his death. “yes, along with scully’s sister and the man you thought was your father and duane barry and even scully’s mysterious illness, and on and on and on. you can let go of all that guilt” <- oh yeah. this was very clearly a trick of some kind before, but now it is even more evidently a trick. but fuck, if the angst of it all isn’t tasty. the concept of that ancient guilt of his being washed away. MMMM!

deep throat explains that they’re puppets in a master plan. and that he’s suffered enough- he should enjoy his life. 

deep throat has a wife and daughters, and he hopes that mulder will visit them for dinner. which is a lot to unpack.

bro gets lots of sunflower seeds and passes out. and dreams of that child again. his sandcastle is knocked down, and he tells the boy it’s okay; he can build it again.

now he’s in bed. and the door opens. he’s still cuffed!!! AW FUCK, and it’s DIANA. in a sultry dress. she unlocks his handcuffs. and strokes his chest. and he kisses her. FADE TO BLACK. the FUCK is going on??????

scully calls his mother. and leaves a message. because she did not pick up. what is she doing...

she gets a package from someone at the FBI…. it’s a book of native american legends. and the writing she was trying to translate!! it matches what is on the book’s cover!!

AH! the anasazi!!! “an entire indian culture vanishes without a trace” <- LIKE CSM SAID!! 

she calls skinner…. and asks if he sent the book. “it explains everything that i saw in africa… using the same symbols that i found on the ship” but my queen! he can’t tell you about it even if he did send it!!!

but i don’t think he did… and she goes on about a mass extinction. they think mulder's illness is a gift. that protects them against a coming plague. skinner hangs tf up. which did kind of make me laugh.

she goes to figure out wtf is going down in skinner's office, and even though his secretary tries very bravely to stop him, she hears him moan and barges in…. WHAT DID THEY DO TO HIM??

AHHHHH!!! she sees hairy krycek leave with his weird medical device!! and he pulls the fire alarm to get everyone out before she can catch him!!!! the rat bastard!!

mulder is at his new house, getting the mail. diana comes out. he says everything is perfect- too perfect. what about his commitments, he asks? she says his commitments are CHILDISH. WTF???

WAIT, WHAT THE FUCK???? she says he needs to BECOME A FATHER??????????

what is going on. guys. i’m serious... WHAT is going on. i don’t like it. mom, i’m scared. please come pick me up.

he says that they only slept together one time, it's pretty sudden to decide they need to have kids…. and he’s obviously freaked tf out, because it’s CSM who is arranging all of this!! the devil himself!! but she says oh, we'll go visit him after breakfast :)

girl, i’m scared.

scully knocks on kritschgau’s door. she knows he told someone about mulder… but he promises he didn’t. she sees his computer… and he’s hacked into her files!!!! he was having the NIH analyze all of the genome data they found!!! 

he says it proves he’s become biologically alien. and she deletes them all. what is this guy doing!!!!!!!

diana and mulder go to visit CSM……. he says he has three grandkids and mulder's sister. who has been living here all along. 

they lock eyes. she runs up and hugs him. 

AH, FUCK!! it seems that he’s been imagining this the whole time!!! because now we see his naked body is laying on some sort of panel with probes attached to it!!! i guess that's a relief, though. i didn't want to have to deal with diana/mulder children in canon.

but CSM claims he had such high hopes for his son… he never imagined “the depth of his capacity for suffering”

hey. guys what the FUCK is going on? i almost don’t want to take notes. i just want to watch it all and see what happens. because i’m still not very pleased…..

and fucking diana is watching him on the table!!!!!! she wonders what he dreams of. and CSM says it must be of simpler things. “dreams are all he has now”

FUCKING DIANA, GET OUT OF THE FBI. “bum a cigarette, agent fowley?” <- GET HER ASS, SCULLY!!!! 

they’re gonna fight it out. “maybe before you go around blaming everyone you can find for what’s happened to mulder, you could think about what you could’ve done to prevent it” <- WOAH. JESUS CHRIST. what an absolutely horrible thing to say. scully, we need to kill her. 

scully doesn’t move. she says to think of mulder's promise back when they met at the academy. and think of how he would bust his ass to save you. and diana walks away.

the doctors with CSM are talking about how mulder has become immune to the viral apocalypse…. but he might not survive the procedure. then he will suffer a hero’s fate, says CSM.

FUCK! he dreams of getting married to diana. of going to the hospital for her delivery. of their kids and growing gray. of her death. crying at her coffin. CSM grabbing his shoulder.

but in reality, he's still laying on that table. diana is stroking his face, while CSM says she shouldn’t think of the man, but the sacrifice he will give to the world. CSM thinks he would have chosen to become alien. and she strokes his face again.

(fuuuuck.... CSM as god.... mulder as his son... the sacrifice to the world... your motifs... i'm picking up on them. chris carter saw a bible and he said "this needs to be in my show")

elderly dream mulder is talking to CSM. with the very silly makeup. he knows about the boy on the beach. “i’ve seen him thousands of times”- but he’s never figured out what the child wants him to see. 

the kid builds a UFO out of sand…… and he rips it up. saying it was mulder's. he was supposed to help him.

scully goes to her apartment, and albert is there again. he says she is running out of time. and he suggests looking for mulder in her heart.

“are you asking me to pray?” he kneels down with her. “there are more worlds than the one you can hold in your hand” <- GODDDD.

okay. scully and albert are praying together. it’s very touching. but somewhere else, they’re also stripping down CSM as he is to get infused with mulder’s alien DNA or something. it’s not a pretty sight. “i hope you see the poetry in this, diana” and she says he might kill his son!! so she truly believes his claim, huh?

aughhhhhh…… i can’t watch this……. 

mulder wakes up. he won’t stay under. he’s looking at diana. she walks away. where is she going……..

in his mind palace dreamscape thing, he’s old as hell with CSM sitting nearby. who hasn’t aged. he says samantha died five years ago. “what about deep throat?” “we’ve been over this. he’s dead” <-what a cruel thing, to remind him of everyone he has lost in his old age as he forgets...

CSM says that scully is dead, and he starts to cry. it is not lost on me that it is her being gone that makes him weep. “it’s time for you to let go. they’re waiting for you. if you let go” but he won’t close his eyes………. until he does. 

i’m so sad. wtf.

CSM opens the blinds to look into the outside world of this dreamscape, and the world is surrounded by an apocalypse. CGI war everywhere. it’s aged poorly and makes me laugh as it snaps me out of what is going on. the UFOs…… they fly over……. girl…..

maybe I need a smoke break. thought about that???

but in the real world, someone is burning files!!! so many files!!! they shot kritschgau!!!!! it’s krycek!!!!!

and an envelope is tossed under scully’s door- poor scully, who fell asleep on the floor, she must have been praying... and albert isn't with her

the card!!! is it diana’s card?!!! to get into that lab where they're testing on him? she runs out……

they’re taking all kinds of things from mulder in surgery, and i simply cannot look. but scully scans the card…… and he imagines her coming to his dreamscape bedside!!!! in his very old age!!! 

she’s mad at him!!! she calls him a traitor!! a coward!!! “you’re not supposed to die mulder- not here. not in a comfortable bed with the devil outside” 

he says there was no mission; no aliens. she tells him to get up and fight. he’s so confused. he’s crying. asking where scully is. calling out for her.

she finds him, in real life, laying on the table after the surgery….. she whispers to him. tells him to wake up. his eyes open up. he’s breaking through the years of lies!!!!! her tears fall on his face!!!

“you…. help me” 

OH. SHE HOLDS HIM CLOSE….

let's just sit with that for a minute.

one week later…… she goes to his apartment. oh! he was going to see her in the office!!!! she scolds him for this. "no work". his head is covered in bandages and he has a yankees cap on top.

he says he was coming to work to tell her that albert is dead. he’d been in a coma for 2 weeks. “there was…. no way he could have been in your apartment” “he was there. w-we prayed together.” (mulder purses his lips and nods) “mulder, i don’t believe that. it’s impossible” “is it any more impossible than what you saw in africa, or what you saw in me?” “i don’t know what to believe anymore. mulder, i was so determined to find a cure to save you that i could deny what it was that i saw, and now i don’t even know… i don’t know. i don’t know what the truth is, i don’t know who to listen to. i don’t know who to trust” (she’s crying) (and i might be crying, too, mind your business)

DIANA FOWLEY WAS FOUND MURDERED THIS MORNING??

“i never trusted her… but she helped save your life just as much as i did. she gave me that book. it was her key that led me to you. i’m sorry. i’m so sorry. i know she was your friend” (they hug)

god.... i'm torn between being so sad that scully thinks so little of herself that she actually claims diana helped save him as much as he did, and how kind she is to tell him she is deeply sorry even after how much suffering diana caused

“scully, i was like you once. i didn’t know who to trust. then i… i chose another path… another life, another fate, where i found my sister. the end of my world was unrecognizable and upside down. there was one thing that remained the same.”

so it's as if he considers the alternate dreamscape life to have actually happened. like he saw what would happen if he did make that choice. that's very interesting that he takes the responsibility, saying he chose another path when it never really happened.

OH. HE HAS HER FACE IN HIS HANDS…. 

“you… you were my friend, and you told me the truth. even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant… my touchstone”

OHHHHHH, HE SAID THE LINE THAT EVERYONE SAYS IN THEIR TAGS WHEN THEY REBLOG AN MSR GIF!!!!!!!!!!!

“and you are mine”

AND THEY KISS???

wait. not for real. she kisses his forehead. the angle made it look like a real kiss on the lips for a second, but she was kissing him on his forehead bandages…. for a solid ten seconds. and he smiles. she puts his baseball cap back on. and cups his face. runs her fingers over his lips. 

he closes his eyes. like he’s realizing something.

he sees that little boy…. and they’re building the spaceship together.

the end.

hey guys. i need to go scream for a minute to decompress.

wait. i need to set my phone down and go leave the room. 

i had to go walk around for ten minutes. i had to brush my teeth and do my skincare before bed in total silence. i had to drink straight from the sink and let the coolness of the water surprise me. and then the mouthwash burned a bit. i had to to rub the nice lotion on my hands and put myself back into my body after that.

fuck me.

okay. so, first thoughts: i’m not buying that he’s CSM’s kid. i think it’s too heavy-handed, plot wise. the bad guy is secretly the good guy’s father! it’s been done before. we've all seen star wars. it’s not super satisfying. it’s a fun thought to bounce around in your head and imagine what would happen if it WERE true, but i just… don’t think they’re telling the truth. maybe CSM and his mom had an affair, but i don’t think he’s the result of that. i think it’s a convenient lie to lull him into complacency. and even if he hold diana that it’s true, that doesn’t mean it is. this is CSM. lying is his career. and he went pro. to the major leagues. he also lied about being samantha's father before. i see no reason to believe him.

he's gotta hang on until 23andme is invented so they can discover the truth.... cause god knows CSM could manipulate a traditional paternity test.

okay. so. the alien stuff. he was infected with the virus two years ago (in the gulag, correct?) and he gained some sort of immunity to it as a result, which may or may not be because his brain was going sicko mode. i guess i have some questions on the logistics of that, but none that i think can actually be answered by canon. so the dormant virus went haywire when he saw the rubbings on the letters? that makes no sense, but okay. and then somehow he became alien and then CSM took the alien parts out of him and put them into himself. so now CSM has the immunity. then how did he read his mind at the start? was it a trick? i'm guessing that mulder is no longer psychic, though, since they took the alien part out of him, but maybe now CSM is- which would be very dangerous. or maybe he already was? because he already was doing the mind reading? didn't he undergo the DNA splicing procedure when they thought they were going to have the whole alien colonizing thing last season? so what is the sense in doing it again?

sighs. i just don’t know.

let’s talk about scully, i say, and this is something i could have said any day for the last ten months and it would be true. this was a major turning point for her. being so desperate that she abandoned her own ideals. but, at the same time she began to discard the strict notion of science because she felt so entirely lost, she did also turn into herself and what she knew- praying with albert. turning to the belief she’s had in her all along that has never ran contradictory in her mind. but albert might not have even been there. a messenger from the divine, perhaps? a hallucination from lack of sleep? an angel? i guess we’ll never really know. 

but… man. i need some time to sink my teeth into that. 

her faith in science has been tested before, and to have everything explained by an alien civilization isn’t necessary in contradiction with science, just something not understood by it yet. she’s mentioned that point before. but also… she’s had shades of belief in the past. shoving the doll in the microwave in chinga. gibson telling her he knows she believes, she just doesn’t want to. that same exchange happened like, 3 other times in s6. so no, she’s not a full convert to the extraterrestrial. but she’s seen things she can’t understand and doesn’t know if it came from her own desperation to believe or if that is the Truth, and what is the Truth, anyway, and how can it be known?

what makes me really sad is how she kept repeating she was a failure for being unable to save him, and then at the end, her saying that diana saved him as much as she did broke my heart. diana put him into that situation. deciding at the last minute that she’s too cowardly to go through with it or has some change of heart that could almost be seen as mercy can’t be called saving him. she put him on that table and helped carve him up. we can’t give her equal credit for saving his life when his life wouldn't have been in danger without her meddling.

and for scully to think that makes me feel so sad. it’s as if she thinks that all she has is her science, and if she can’t understand that, what does she have? but the answer is she has her instincts, her kindness, her talent, her brains, her courage… for her to say that diana saved him as much as she did- god, i just think she must feel so guilty, so terrible, and not see her own worth. i will choose to interpret this line as a momentary exhale, a brief showing of her wounds which she normally keeps so tightly wrapped up. a moment of weakness. an indication of her lack of direction and her sheer desperation. because something i love about this show is that scully knows her value. i love that she knows she deserves to take up space at the table and never questions that. but maybe, when you’re questioning god and the universe and what it means to be alive and other unshakable truths, your own self-worth can get caught in the mix. maybe that can get shaken up, too.

mulder…. being lulled into complacency with the idea of forgiveness, starting fresh. a baptismal cleanings of sins via the suburbs. to know that he wasn’t responsible for everything he blames himself for; a reality where his family was whole. his fantasy of a normal life. damn. if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about his character… what he wants, what motivates him. but what tells you even more is the fact that he isn't satisfied- not really. he feels like that little boy watching the sandcastle get destroyed. and he almost goes through with it and never wakes up. until dream scully calls him to action. he cannot look away when she calls. he knows that she is reasonable and truthful. and that no matter how lovely this fake life is, it isn’t real. he can’t turn away from his commitments. no matter what fantasies fill his head. 

also. i knew he wanted kids so bad. but to see it in the dreamscape........ man. (gazes into the distance)

FUCK. i’m so mad about the whole diana thing. that she went along with it all… claiming to love him, and that they could be together. and having to see him dream a domestic future with me obviously pissed me tf off. like. shaking like a chihuahua levels of rage. did he really trust her that whole time? is that why he dreamed about it? is that the future he really saw for them in real life- even though he said he loved scully- or was the dreamscape carved up by CSM somehow? but sometimes, dreams are not wish fulfillment. sometimes random stuff happens in your dreams. everything else seemed so purposeful as his ideal reality, though, i can't help but wonder if that is truly how he felt- that he saw a marriage and kids and growing old with her. and why would that be?

she was touching his face, saying she loved him as she worked to kill him. and how nasty she was to scully……… and i'm not off-base in the implication that she assaulted him in the last episode, right? taking off her shirt and going into his room while he was violently ill and could barely speak? the writing was pretty clear on the wall there. i have been known to miss undertones, but that was clear to me.

usually, i love the female characters that everyone hates. if other people are writing dissertations on how much a fictional woman sucks, i am usually picking up a pitchfork and defending her honor. but i can’t do this here. i don’t even find her worth writing a dissertation about because her character was so flat. i will say that they at least gave her some dimension this episode. so shoutout to the writing team for that, i guess.

hmm. and CSM. driving him away. saying he was proud of him as a son. it just…. mmm. i don’t know if it’s not believable or if it’s not personally satisfying to me. what was his mother doing with him in that waiting room? does CSM believe what he claims? does mulder? does his mother? was he really reading his mind at the start? is his character able to kill thanos or something? 

i am very worried about mrs. mulder, however. she might be in very serious danger. she didn't pick up scully's calls, and she was there with CSM when they kidnapped him... it is not looking good for her.

i don’t really care for the alien plot stuff, so CSM getting mulder’s alien DNA removed and put into him was just kinda weird to me. same with all of the other alien stuff. the writings, the biblical imagery, the apocalypse. the appropriation of anasazi and other Indigenous legends, which feels in poor taste in the modern light. it just doesn’t really interest me that much. in this show, i like the vague spookiness and the interpersonal relationships and the search for the Truth and the old, old guilt in these characters, but the aliens themselves do not appeal to me very much. so. yeah. i guess i just feel (shrugs shoulders) about it, you know?

it feels like there is still an untapped wellspring of things i need to say within me.

how about we discuss skinner? telling scully that he is compromised and that he cannot help her. but she still calls him and explains about the book, because it's him- and this is why kritschgau is killed- because someone hears what she says. and she bursts in to find him when she has been expressly told not to, and he is slumped over in pain, krycek having used his remote controller to hurt him. so he was just blaming himself for mulder’s accidental overdose at the hands of kritschgau, saying it was his responsibility. and then things get worse… but they get better.

i want to explore that space of the getting better. of him hearing that they made it out despite it all. does it fill him with hope? but also, is it tinged with dread? because he knows there is more ahead? but mulder knows about him and krycek and the illness now- can they somehow find a cure? is that the next big project to embark upon? will he forgive himself?

kritschgau… idk what his deal was. he hacked into scully’s files and sent them to the NIH because he claimed he wanted to crack into the human genome, but it seems all he really wanted was to backup his claims as whistleblower. why did mulder pick him to ask for help, beyond him knowing the drug that helped him out? why did he threaten scully and break into the FBI? it felt like a really weird unresolved plot point.

what about barnes? what about the dude that came back to life and killed him? what about amina? i liked her!!! a lot!!! what about the ship? is it still there? is any of it still there? can any of it be explained? was it all a fake somehow? or was it real, and the aliens just have really weird priorities?

gah! it makes my head hurt to think about for longer than 5 seconds. and i know that we will never really know, which is frustrating. we are slowly dripped these little plot points that never add up to a whole picture, and it drives me CRAZY. 

but how beautiful it is to know someone so fully that you can know them when you know nothing else. when your whole world is turned upside down, you can see them clearly. that sort of soul bond. to kiss someone’s bandages. to be a touchstone. to cradle their face in your hands and hold the whole world in them. 

fuck. fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK me. 

good angst here. incredible MSR. but i’m not sure what i would rank my overall satisfaction with this arc. it is an upheaval of everything we have known so far when it comes to our characters. scully, a believer? mulder, an alien (formerly?) and a bastard? skinner, someone who cannot be trusted? i will need some time to process all of these changes. there was a sense of finality and not going back, of every moment being incredibly important and life-altering moving forward. of no return. which happens in some episodes. and they always leave me with a strange feeling. sadness, perhaps? of the loss of what once was? of simplicity?

i think that the grand alien plot can take me out of the simple human connections that make the show so good. it can elevate them to a point that is hard to wrap your brain around and fathom. can make it so complicated for us mere mortals to understand. when dealing with the end of the world in a story, you must zero in on the mundane, the human, so we don’t get loss in an endless series of nearly avoided apocalypses without having a reason to feel a relief, as the audience, that the world didn’t blow up this time. and while there certainly are the essential human elements at play that ground such a fantastical story- when it veers away from focusing solely on that, it can make me aware of the fact that i am watching TV from a specific genre with a specific set of tropes rather than being immersed in the experience so wholly like i am when the plots are more character-driven and down to earth. i think that’s just how the nature of sci-fi/action stuff goes, at least for me. i’m not moved by the idea that aliens are god and left us messages. i’m moved by the humans who discovered that grappling with losing each other and comprehending their reunion. i’m moved by their tears and their blood and their lips touching foreheads, hands touching backs. you get what i’m saying?

fuuuuck. where do you go from here? there has to be some fic that takes place after this episode. 

i’m waxing poetic. because my heart yearns for a softness! and maybe i’m expecting something that the genre doesn’t deliver, but fuck. you need relief after endless punches to the gut and to the gut again and to the head and then to the gut once more. you drive these characters through horrible thing after horrible thing and i, the viewer, need to come up for air- which is why s4 was so tough for me. i felt like there was no air to breath. mytharc episodes will also plunge you underwater. and then, of course, the show is written pretty inconsistently, so whether or not you’ll get the relief in the form of lightheartedness and banter and teasing and fluffy stuff afterward is never guaranteed.

so. thus ought to conclude the diana saga- but who knows? it’s hard to say. maybe she didn’t actually die. like dream deep throat. and it was a shock to see deep throat again. a nice little treat for the viewers. with his wife and kids. 

hmm. despite typing all of that up, i still feel like i have so much more to say. but what is it? it’s a yearning for an epilogue i will never be provided. 

i will say, this episode made me lowkey want to proceed with my plan to not watch beyond s7. i know that i probably will end up going through with all of it… but. my heart was racing!! my feelings were feeling things!!! gaaaah! i need to be sedated. 

"my constant" fuck.

i just realize i wrote all of those words about an alien show. which is fine. i don’t ever half ass anything. 

need the fic where scully goes to his apartment after work and she makes blueberry pancakes in his kitchen and she catches him up on the office gossip since he went on leave and they catch each other's eyes for a liiiiiittle too long.

[violettathepiratequeen]

Okay so I don't make a lot of ranty posts, haha, I think it's exhausting to scream about something, so this is me getting on my soapbox to just say a word in defense of Xander, and if you're gonna be bothered by that, you don't have to read this.

But I just kind of don't understand all the hate surrounding him. Hating the Scoobies as a group I get, kinda, even though that must make rewatches of the show very unpleasant for those who do. But Xander specifically did nothing more egregious or irritating than any other Scooby member (DIFFERENT things, certainly, but they all had their faults) and he gets shit for being the worst just because he's the only male who sticks around long enough to rack up that kind of hate. I think in Spuffy circles it may be just because he hates Spike so much, and a. that is an overprotection of Spike's character that not even I can get behind, and b. I think you're misreading the show if you think Xander hated Spike without reason throughout.

Because he didn't hate Spike throughout. He (begrudgingly) allowed Spike to bunk with him twice, and gave him less than ideal conditions but DID pay for his blood, both times. He was the only one who didn't jump on board the "let's kill Spike" train in S7 and even suggested that Spike might have a trigger forcing him to kill people (he also correctly identified the tracer the Initiative shot him with in S4, stating that they didn't have much time before Riley and his gang found them). The only time he actively tried to kill Spike was when he saw him screwing his ex, and Buffy also was deeply wounded and offended by the Anya/Spike fling, and just reacted differently than Xander. Buffy also allowed Xander's hatred for Spike to go on, never correcting him or telling him that actually yes we ARE sleeping together so could you maybe not insult him so much, and I think he would have backed off, just like he eventually did with both Angel and Riley, if Buffy had been firm about her relationship with him.

And beyond the Spike thing, Xander followed Buffy into every single battle despite having no superpowers, and never once had an episode where he tried to make himself more special.

He went along with Anya's unconventional way of getting them to date, and fell in love with her despite all the forceful and less-than-ideal things about her. (You know what they tell you in those harrassment and safe environment work videos? That explicitly talking about your sexual life in public is a form of sexual abuse, and Xander is clearly uncomfortable every time Anya does, so what is he supposed to do? NOT correct her? He's seriously a saint for letting her say as much stuff as she does.)

He accepted Tara no problem, and Tara described him as a sweetie to Willow at the top of S5. He asked Buffy exactly once to go out with him, and when she said no he was hurt, and his feelings didn't disappear right away (nor should they have! Feelings don't quit just because it's never gonna happen!) but he never pursued her again, even when a love spell enticed her to come on to him.

He loved and cared for Dawn like a sister, he stayed loyal to Willow after her trying to end the world, he was the only Scooby that wasn't scattered to the winds at the start of S7, he rebuilt the Summers house again and again, he put in so much time in high school and after helping with research even though books and studying were like his least favorite hobbies, and he always, ALWAYS worked with whomever he needed to to accomplish the greater good, no matter who it was or why he was asked to do so.

Spike's "You're the one, Buffy" speech is my favorite moment in the whole show but I think it overshadows the fact that Xander had his own "here's why Buffy's amazing" speech to all the doubting Potentials just two episodes prior. His arcs were subtle and not as extreme as some of the others', but they were there all the same, and he started and ended a good person with a good heart and a fierce sense of love and loyalty.

I remember watching "Welcome to the Hellmouth" for the first time, and Jesse was actually more triggering to me than anything. He mocked his friends and got in Cordelia's face and was the kind of boy I'm used to seeing in these kinds of shows. Insensitive and rude and emotionless. And Xander, by comparison, was sweet to the new girl he had a crush on, was defensive of Willow, and jumped on board the supernatural train with very little freakout. He showed his love and bravery and sensitivity straight away, and of course as a sixteen year old boy he couldn't be a model child ALL the time, but I remember being blown away in those first few episodes by how Xander was not the typical self-involved one-track-mind teen that was so often portrayed in media. And Jesse was.

I get that some characters just get on your nerves for no reason, and I have plenty of hate characters of my own, as do we all! And as I said before I know Xander's got plenty of faults, plenty of annoying qualities and plenty of dumb lines, and I remember my first run of S6, he and I did not get along at ALL (but I was also on the outs with everyone who brought Buffy back and then expected her to be normal, so it wasn't just him).

But I think he gets so much universal, unjustified hate throughout all the seasons, and that's not a fair interpretation of his character. It hurts me every time I see it, so I just wanted to add a counterpoint to the opinions out there.

[dialecticaldimensions]

x files, s8 e1 & e2

Wow I knew it was gonna hurt, but the way I felt absolutely deVASTATED in these first two episodes. I need to wrap Scully in a blanket, give her some tea and hold her hand so tight because my girl is really out there going through the most 🥲

Ok anyway, let’s begin with some observations! 

New intro!!! Why did that make me so nostalgic; kinda love the bit where Mulder falls and it transitions to him falling into Scully’s eyes, v apt I think 

Dogette really did grow on up over the course of ep 1 & 2 … I think what sold me was the fact that he is an honourable man. And that is a key trait that Mulder, Scully and Skinner all have, they want to do the honourable thing in whatever way they reconcile with it. And it’s why they become targets in the FBI — it’s easy to be made into a scapegoat when you’re not playing by the rules of the hegemonic system. 

However, I was definitely annoyed during his first introduction scene and he was all “how well do you really know your partner?” and all the Mulder slander he was attempting. It was very vERY satisfying to watch Scully throw water on him. 

Speaking of Scully! My god, gillian anderson the actor that you are!!!! I was so moved by every scene she was in! Also loved the dynamic between her and Skinner, it was well done and you can tell how much they’ve grown to respect and care for each other in the years they’ve worked together. And also how much they care for Mulder, it was very sweet. 

I was also not expecting a gibson praise revisit this episode!! I think this is one of the mytharc episodes that made a bit more sense to me (but i reserve the right to retract this as I go along the season). While I knew beforehand there was some brain disease involved, I am a bit irked that Mulder kept it from Scully - again timelines were never an X files strong suit and they do leave a lot of things implicitly said. So trying to wrap my head around where Scully/Mulder’s relationship was at and how he managed to just spend consecutive weekends driving to NC (which I assume is far-ish from washington). But anyway, I will wait to see how they explain this (if they do). 

I don’t even know how to start talking about Scully’s grief and fear and untethering from not knowing where Mulder is or what’s happened to him. I found the scene of her explaining the aliens and bounty hunters to Dogette so interesting!! I think Scully definitely toned down her skepticism over the years (esp s7), but she was always going to hold on to her science and definitive proof because I think she felt safer that way, she had her bubble of science and rationalism to help her sort through her perspective and understanding of the world, precisely because Mulder was there to champion the unexplained. While she um-ed and ah-ed about how to possibly come to terms with the unexplainable, Mulder was at the other end ready to believe any phenomenon, recognising that sometimes the belief itself was needed to find the answers (which again, was what made their partnership so great!!!). And in the absence of Mulder, watching Scully trying to uphold these beliefs genuinely made me tear up. 

And on top of all this, she has a miracle child???!???? When she got thrown into the air by the bounty hunter I was ready to throw hands!!!!!!!! I am SO sad that Mulder is not here to experience finding out her pregnancy together! Also the scene where she falls asleep in his bed — that’s her and their baby in his bed!!!! (look I know paternity issues come up/are implied later on, but no matter what, that is their baby in all the ways that matter!! So I will exclusively be referring to william as their baby). 

Anyway my heart is a wreck, did not like seeing Mulder in pain (also the jesus/saviour of the world imagery is still going strong I see); did NOT like seeing Scully hurting in all ways, I want them back together ASAP!!! I will persist and see what else this season brings. 

[sevensoulmates]

I've never been more convinced then I ever have of Buddie canon and I think we're about to get Buddie canon confirmed in the bachelor party/wedding episode.

I think these 2 episodes, 4 and 5. One told through Buck's the other told through Eddie's are clearly telling a story of two separate queer journeys. One of acceptance(Buck) and the other of repression(Eddie).

I think this episode is going to end with Eddie doubling down on his relationship with Marisol because Buck being bisexual is going to draw feelings inside of Eddie that he is absolutely terrified to explore and he thinks that being with a woman is just going to make those feelings that are getting stronger and stronger for Buck go away, they won't.

Then in episode 6 which is the Bachelor Party/Wedding episode, as Ryan said Eddie is going to let go, have fun and see where it takes him. When Ryan said that I have never been more convinced that something is happening between Buck and Eddie after the bachelor party and it's going to be something very non platonic that will be the reveal that Buddie is canon.

I'm very much inclined to agree with you, especially about episode 4 being Buck's journey of accepting his queerness, and episode 5 being about Eddie's journey of repression. Buck and Eddie have always been narrative parallels on equal and opposite journeys, both heading for the same place but going about it through very different personal arcs.

Like I've said before, I think things are going to get worse for Eddie before they get better. And I think you're so right that episode 5 is going to be things "getting worse" because he's going to double down on Marisol. The more I've been hearing and sussing out with people, it seems like Marisol's sticking around past episode 5 (which sucks, I know! We were all hoping!) but I can see why that choice is being made because unfortunately if we want to explore Eddie's comp-het, then we need a woman around for him to be comp-het with! I think that's likely why they also switched up on Marisol's personal style this season and had her go from tomboyish in s6 to very femme in s7. They needed to represent her being a little bit more of the "perfect woman" for Eddie again a la Ana Flores. Especially in contrast with Buck and Tommy who are very masc-presenting men.

Most of the time when people talk about compulsory heterosexuality in an academic space they are always talking about women because comphet is inherently a byproduct of patriarchy and misogyny. But, as most of us are aware by now, patriarchy has deep-rooted harmful effects on men too. I can't claim to be anywhere near an expert but I would love to see it explored deeper with Eddie given that a lot of his story has also revolved around him deconstructing other aspects of toxic masculinity and hypermasculinity.

Like does Eddie really enjoy going out with Marisol? Or does he like the freeing feeling of being able to cuddle up with a woman in public and know that no one is judging?

There's a lot of academic theory that goes into compulsory heterosexuality but if you look at the "Am I a Lesbian? Masterdoc" and apply everything there to Eddie, it's almost point for point him.

Some examples:

[brackets] are me turning "men" to "women" from the original text for clarity

Deciding which [women] to be attracted to – not to date, but to be attracted to –based on how well they match a mental list of attractive qualities.

I like the idea of being with a [woman], but any time a [woman] makes a move on me I get incredibly uncomfortable.

I do not like the reality of being with [women], only the idea of being with [women].

I like the idea of marrying a [woman]/being in a relationship with a [woman], but I can always pick out a reason to not want to date any [woman] that is interested in me or any [woman] suggested to me

You view relationships with [women] as a chore, burden, or just something you must deal with.

Picking a [girl] at random to be attracted to

Choosing to be attracted to a [girl] at all, not just choosing to act on it but flipping your attraction on like a switch

the [girls] I like are always hyper [feminine] [girl's girls] who embody everything about [womanliness].

Only/mostly being attracted to unattainable, disinterested, or fictional [women] or [girls] you never or rarely interact with.

Reading your anxiety/discomfort/nervousness/combativeness around [women] as attraction to them. Confusing your anxiety around [women] for “butterflies” or being flustered.

Dreading what feels like an inevitable domestic future with a [woman]

You have every reason to be happy in your relationship with a [woman], but you just aren’t / everything is going really well, but something is missing and you can’t figure out what

Thinking you’re commitmentphobic because no relationship, no matter how great the [girl], feels quite right and you drag your feet when it comes time to escalate it

Going along with escalation because it seems like the ‘appropriate time’ or bc the [girl] wants it so bad, even if you personally aren’t quite ready to say I love you or have labels or move in together etc.

Or jumping ahead and trying to rush to the ‘comfortably settled’ part of relationships with [girls], trying to make a relationship a done deal without investing time into emotional closeness

Your relationships with [women] are devoid of passion.

Feeling like you have to have relationships with [women] and/or let them get serious in order to prove something, maybe something nebulous you can’t identify

Getting a [girl]friend mostly so other people know you have a [girl]friend and not really being interested in [her] romantically/sexually

Wishing your [girl]friend was more like your [male] friends

Worrying that you’re broken inside and unable to really love anyone

Having had people think you were gay when you had no suspicion you were gay

That got longer than I intended but I wanted it here anyway because it just proves (at least to me) that this is the story they're doing with Eddie. The only ones I didn't include were the parts about sex because other than Shannon we actually haven't seen how Eddie reacts in sexual moments with women.

As for the bachelor party/wedding, I do think a lot is going to happen there, and likely a lot of Buddie clues, big and small, but I still don't think anything physically intimate (kiss, hookup, etc) is going to happen. The only exception might be hand-holding, a hug or like a slow dance. Those I could see being plausible.

[amtrak12]

Okay, there's no timeline here because I refuse to write to a deadline for the rest of the year (this girl is burned outttt 😩). BUT since my debut Frasier fic is officially completed and out of the way, I thought it would be fun to list out my other Niles/Daphne fic ideas in the order I plan on writing them 😊

Definitely Being Written:

S8, medium-to-long one-shot: It still bothers Daphne that she can't pinpoint when she started falling for Niles. But when she tries to ask Niles questions about his feelings and past actions, it causes a minor fight. The point is the conclusion, though, which takes a deeper look into her motivations behind the Snow Ball that I basically already spoiled am very excited for.

S7 Something Borrowed, Something Blue Part 1 AU, long one-shot: After learning about Daphne's feelings, Frasier rushes to stop Niles from going on his trip with Mel by inventing a story about an RV chase that then becomes a real RV chase -- all so Daphne can talk to Niles. Many hijinks. Very sitcom.

S5 friends with benefits Ski Lodge AU, long multi-chapter, 50k words or more. I've outlined this fic before on Tumblr so that's where the link takes you. I'll be continually working on this fic in the background and hope to have it finished and posted by the end of the year. 🤞

S8, Dial M for Martin callback, one-shot: Martin traps Daphne and Niles in an interrogation about how they almost murdered him two years ago. Humorous and would be so quick for me to write if I could just get the interrogation vibes nailed down. 😩

S6 AU, medium-length multichapter, 20k-30k: Niles still confesses his feelings to Daphne even though she's started dating Donny. I'm solely holding onto this fic idea because there's this scene with a raccoon that makes me laugh too much to ignore. I know that makes no sense!! But the only thing I'll say is that the cabin ep still happens but without Donny or Roz and therefore has very different results 🤣

And then the two fics that I will likely never write but still have notes for because the ideas just would not stop coming:

6. S8 Pregnancy AU, multichapter epic: Daphne and Niles get knocked up right away because what's one more soap opera complication on top of all the other soap opera complications that was S7/early S8? :P -- Why I won't write it: because I have NO desire to write pregnancy fic and I fear I won't know how to keep this short 😭 On the other hand, I do love the ending and I give them a bb girl (LIKE THEY DESERVE) so the temptation is always there.

7. S8 AU, maliciously canon noncompliant first time smut, one-shot -- Why I won't write it: because I gave up writing smut years ago and I am unwilling to try my hand at it again. I'm so sorry 😞

[sailingfireshipz]

Ok, so i could be putting too much thought into this & completely reading into things that Andrea has no intentions of fulfilling, but this is where I'm at with the Stellaride baby slow burn. @chicagofires & @stella-kidd, this is for you 😆

It started clicking for me back in 13x08 when Stella was talking to Ritter when he was spinning out about moving in with Dwayne. She said, "You guys are good. You're just asking for more time. " I started wondering why they'd have Stella be the one to deliver that line versus a Violet or Novak, especially with the baby talk conversation not being addressed since 13x01.

It felt like they were acknowledging the elephant in the room with the audience even though Stellaride themselves haven't. To be fair between the mess with Damon, Stella almost losing her job, the Bishop two parter, Stella & Kelly missing their respective episodes there hasn't really been too many moments where it would have made sense for stellaride to address the elephant in the room. They just need more time.

Prior to last weeks episode getting pulled, we would have had the episodes in this order 13x10- "You got this" a saying very specific to Stella & Stellaride hanging randomly in a children's classroom. Let's face it the call itself was very minor in scale. They could have had that same call at a different location. Hell, it would have made sense for the police cadets that were training to be the ones impacted by the gases, yet they weren't they chose to have it at a community center for young kids. That sign placement being in a childrens classroom, imo was very intentional.

Also, Stella asking Hermann how Mouch did as acting LT. This is a valid question to ask for sure, but it also goes to the topic of her knowing that her rig would be in great hands pending she has to step away. It's finally stabilized after Gallo, Gibson & Damon. Carver seems to be back on track. Ritter is meshing well & clearly stepping up. Mouch jumped right on in as acting LT & didn't miss a beat. Her first baby (T81) is good. ✅️

Next would have been 13x11- Stella's cousin comes to town to reveal family history. At this point I don't think this cousin is coming with ill intent. Again, this is just my feelings. I have nothing to base it off of. Whatever this family history is would have sparked a conversation again with Stellaride. Do I think this conversation would have ended with Stella saying she's ready, no, not exactly. I think it would have ended still up in the air, but the topic at least brought back to the surface & acknowledged. I also think it would give Stella some resolution to some unsolved family trauma. Stella getting closure from her traumatic past ✅️

We say this all the time. STELLARIDE needs big life altering pushes to make decisions most times. Kelly & Stella had been in this weird holding pattern for the majority of early S6, even when Zach was in the picture. They both were dancing around the matter until 6x15, when Stella's trapped with bullets flying (big push). "Kelly for once can you just tell me what you're feeling" (BIG PUSH)

Other notable pushes: Stella breaks up with Kelly in S7, forcing him to choose to be a better man for her. Kelly is unsure if he should propose, 9x15 "I'm never going to leave you happens" he drops to one knee & asks her. Both scared of getting married until 10x21 happens then it's let's get married next week. Kelly kidnapped held at gunpoint. Don't you have a wife & kids? 12x11 prompted 12x13 confession of maybe we start our own... BIG PUSHES

So what's the BIG PUSH for S13? Oh idk maybe the first crossover in 5 years. In the last crossover, Kelly verbalized for the first time he saw himself & Stella growing old together with a family of their own. And don't get me wrong I'm not saying she's going to come out of this crossover like omg I want a baby right now but it would be hard for me not to assume that she doesn't come out of it ready to have a genuine CANDID conversation that leads to action.

Ultimately if after 13x12 they still aren't acknowledging the elephant in the room then I'll start to become annoyed again but currently I'm enjoying watching these subtle pieces fall into place & am interested on how they play out. The ONLY thing I'm curious about is how or if them switching the episode, order around will have any impact from a continuity standpoint.

I do not believe these crossover episodes will be standalone & that topics brought up in them won't spill over or show up in other episodes.

Again, I could be way off base here, but these are my thoughts. What are yours?

[lover-of-mine]

On the question of the new viewers. Let me preface with after getting burned bad I made a promise I would never ship Canon straight characters as queer ships ever again. It just comes into play to understand the readers digest version of this. Yes I was always aware of the Buddie ship and the actors but that was it

I accidentally started season 6. It just came on, and I just didnt look away. Here's how it went.

I actually saw the lasagna dinner scene and thought wait they went Canon? That's them right? Then quickly realized. Nope 2 straight besties. Bucks a cool uncle (didn't know about will scene forgive me). And proceeded to not get attached.

Actually easy because they separated them a bit. But then there was the lightening strike and poker date and I was like oh somethings happening. I was wrong they had the dopey ass ending and I was like bless me for not getting invested.

Then.... It was a year wait!!!!!! So it was a boredom tune back in. I was pleased to see Bucks bi story. I thought the first kiss was charming. Then he was just there. I left the season thinking Eddie was tragically in love with his dead wife and Buck was experimenting.

If I didn't go back to binge I would have gone into 8 with these expectations. Eddie either excepting he was a tragic single father forever. Buck, yes probably seeing Tommy, but no I was not a shipper. Firstly because of appearance. I have no problem with age difference but with them I just don't like it. Tommy seems older and rougher. On the flip side personality. That Tommy wasn't what I pictured Bucks end game as like at all. I wanted someone like Spencer Reid if it wasn't Eddie.

But... . I did go back and binge. S1 was a trip. Got to S2. Saw the opening. Went duh I get why they ship them, but you ain't getting me. Until the elf scene. I really was good. But right after the elf scene I remembered hearing how Tim wrote it as a nod and double checked.. Remember, it would be weird to see the scene and know Tim knows after knowing full well yes Buck would come out queer. So it really was a no brainer after that. No way Tim created this in S2 if they weren't end game if there was ever a chance.

Then came the well, tsunami, shooting, will reveal, break ups, co dependant idiots and finally caught back to the lasagna and lightening. Also seeing how much Eddie isn't a reliable narrator about his relationship with Shannon. The version I got at the end of 7 is not what was happening on my screen in 2. I would almost label it a red herring depending on how this plays out in 8. Also after watching the begin episodes I understood anyone's frustration that Tommy was just white washed.

Final conclusion. Not even trying to sound condescending but I don't know why the other side even thinks this is a "ship war". I was late and I never hated Tommy but I would have never shipped them as end game. I couldn't even tell if Tommy actually liked Buck. I was left with the ick of Buck was a consolation prize or second choice and Buck was trying way to hard. Taking scraps and being grateful. Maybe because I binged it was more fresh but it was more of how little self respect Buck had for himself in trying to be in a relationship.

And if anyone finished reading that you deserve an award.

This is an interesting view of things, I think if you only have the s7 context, you will see them differently because the whole Kim thing really messes with the perception of Eddie and love, thank you for coming and telling me this, really.

But this kinda made me talk about my experience with buddie, so I'm gonna do that, because I think it's funny. I didn't know much about the show, but I knew of buddie, I started watching during the hiatus between 5a and 5b and during that time there was some big talk about queerbaiting going around and I know of them next to ships like destiel and stucky and destiel, I had just read an article on queerbaiting that had a section talking about them, so I kinda assumed buddie would be the same as they had enough context to create a ship but not enough for it to have a real chance of going canon, so I was set on not shipping them. Like, I was legit ready to roll my eyes and see that Buck and Eddie with their respective female love interests and be like "okay they are never going anywhere" but then an elf pretty much calls them gay as Eddie justifies sleeping with his wife 10 episodes in and I was like "oh oh" because they have a compelling friendship and I'm a sucker for best friends to lovers, but I was fighting it, until the tsunami, because seriously, I watched Eddie go "there's nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you" after a situation where no one would blame Eddie if he needed time and I was done for. Then they just kept getting more insane about each other. I remember watching the will reveal and being like "wait, fuck me, are they gonna go there?" because they follow all the basic procedural slowburn tropes, and I started s5 being like 👀 about everything that was happening to them. Now that Buck is bi, I'm seriously 95% sure buddie is happening because all the elements are there. There is something very compelling about Buck and Eddie together when you look at the whole show and s7 really added to that. Settling for Buck in a relationship with someone who's clearly not that into him just because it's a queer relationship doesn't feel right when Eddie is right there.

[daniwib]

Season 8 speculation

Here’s my own speculation on what is going to happen in s8 based partly on wishful thinking but also because TM likes to do the unexpected while also calling back to earlier episodes:-

Chim and Hen both get transferred out to different stations. Chim possibly to the academy as a trainer instead of a regular station. Either way, they’re not at the 118 anymore under Gerrard. The fandom is so focused on what their lives are going to be like working under Gerrard again that I think TM is going to flip things on us and they’re not going to be working under him at all. They’ve both already done that before and they’re both much stronger, wiser and more mature now. They won’t take his shit and so we won’t see it. It’ll be more dramatic to take them out of the equation completely and split the 118 up.

Eddie is in a dark place because Chris is still living in Texas. He’s aware things are not great with Gerrard but he’s not focused on it, he’s just trying to keep his head above water in his personal life. Call back to Tommy saying he didn’t like who he was working under Gerrard – Eddie cannot handle anything else, so he falls into his old military mindset and toes the line at work. Does whatever Gerrard says, doesn’t talk back etc etc. Inadvertently becomes Gerrard’s golden boy because of it though he barely even notices. I’d love for that to cause issues between him and Buck but I think their relationship is too strong for that. But then TM has surprised us all before so who knows.

It takes a while before Gerrard realizes that Buck is dating Tommy but once he does, he starts making Buck’s life hell at work in the small ways he did back in the day with Hen and Chim. Who aren’t there to support Buck, and Eddie doesn’t seem to notice, and so Buck flounders. He’s never experienced constant, relentless homophobia like that before. How would he react? Does he try to hide who he is like Tommy did while working under Gerrard, or does he instead flaunt it? Does it wear him down and make him withdraw into himself? Or do we finally see some real growth for his character and see him standing up for himself without any support from his coworkers? (I’m assuming Tommy is supporting him bts but perhaps not against Gerrard personally. Tommy has his own past demons about the man to deal with).

Call back to 3x16 when Buck says “Yeah, like if Bobby retired. [sic] You know, or one of us got moved to another house, we would still all stay in touch” and Buck’s seeking reassurance that that won’t happen to them. Which they don’t actually give him, btw. Fast forward to the end of s7 and what’s Bobby done? Retired. Sure, he changed his mind and wants to come back but as of now in canon he is retired. So, I’m waiting to see some or all of them transferred to other houses and the 118 be completely separated either physically or in Eddie’s case mentally if he stays working in the same house as Buck.

They did it in Lonestar already and we know the shows have echoed themes before (whumpable chaos coma besties TK & Buck anyone?). The drama potential of it happening to the 118 is enticing. It would affect all of them in different ways and who knows we might even get that Buck breakdown we’ve been wanting for years. There are so many ways all of their storylines could go before we finally get that sweet sweet resolution and see Gerrard get the karmic slap he has to have coming – because that’s something else that 911 loves, dispensing karma to those who deserve it.

I haven’t even mentioned the whole Bathena being homeless or HenRen losing Mara storylines, but I know those will come into play again in s8 and I am excited to see where things go with them, too.

I also really hope that Gerrard was the arsonist and that we get more of the 118 losing their homes to arson (cough cough Buck’s loft) and perhaps even the station itself. Far fetched? Possibly. We’ve had more insane things happen on this show, though.

I’ve deliberately not speculated on the BuckTommy or Buddie of it all because quite frankly I’m tired of the shipwar. I’m content to wait and see where TM goes with that. What I’m excited for is to see how the dynamics of Gerrard and every member of the 118 play out during s8.