#some of us make painful gifsets to cope

[nalle]

Thoughts for the members who have spent 35 years together (from BUCK-TICK 35th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL INTERVIEW vol.2)

[bellamyblakru]

little did merlin does that mean you're gonna give me a day off? emrys know he would be permanently be fired that same day for centuries

[matan4il]

Buddie 512 meta

I have to admit that I feel kind of funny writing Buddie meta after a Madney ep (since I love them so much and am rolling in my Madney feels right now), but this is the meta series about Buddie and Buck and Eddie... Plus, just like with Grudd’s ep on LS, there are scenes that make it clear how the 911 verse understands romantic love vs deep, loving platonic friendship, which is relevant to Buddie and needs to be pointed out, so here we go! ~~~

First, I wanna point out this: I love that Maddie saved her own life by choosing to walk out of the ocean. And I’m glad she got to tell Chim thinking about him and what her actions would do to him helped her do that when they met again. But it mattered to me that in her flashbacks, we also saw Buck telling her about his own pain over her leaving him in the past, and I really hope that at some point, he gets to hear from her that she also walked out of the ocean for him. I do think that Buck has begun to heal from his abandonment issues, but they started at such an early age, they’ll never be completely gone. And if 512 did one thing spectacularly, it was to remind us that mental health recovery isn’t built like a story, with a clear progression and an ending after which everything is good, it is a road of constantly working on healing. So Buck will always carry his fear and pain and sadness, just like Maddie will always have to deal with hers. That doesn’t invalidate that they ARE healing. But anything that can help them along their path matters. So I think it would be really important for Buck to know that he IS someone that Maddie can’t easily leave behind, just like she promised him in 316. ~~~

I made this gifset which showed on the on hand Chim and Eli having a deep, healthy, loving and platonic friendship between two men, including a comfort touch, and on the other hand... whatever Buddie were up to in 303. But it’s not just the difference between the way touch itself (Eli pats Chim on the shoulder while passing him by with a bit of physical distance between their torsos, clearly leaving Chim on his own, while Eddie puts his thumb in an incredibly intimate spot on Buck’s PULSE POINT and then HOLDS HIS GAZE while their bodies are so close THEY COULD BE SLOW DANCING), it’s also in the interaction itself. In the words that are exchanged. Eli’s pep talk in this scene is all about the practical help Chim needs. He offers it and then assures Chim it’s okay to do his thing, where very clearly it IS Chim’s thing, Eli’s not a part of it. In 303, Eddie figures out what’s mentally bothering Buck and won’t let him sink into those dark thoughts, drowning in them on his own. And it’s clear that Eddie is very much a part of what’s going on with Buck, as well as a part of how he can cope. In Boston, Eli does Chim a huge favor, letting him stay over for an unknown amount of time, rent free... and Chim’s grateful, so his first reaction is to promise he and Jee Yun will be out of Eli and his family’s hair as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Eddie essentially gives Buck nothing short of the role of co-parent to Eddie’s only child, which is insane enough as it is, but then Buck in reaction doesn’t protest or question it, he just stands there in awe, absorbing it. Which is also reflected in the way the scene was shot! Chim and Eli’s friendly support is framed by a dark apartment, whie Buck takes in Eddie words in the same manner he’s soaking the sunlight flooding the frame. Lastly, Eli and Chim’s talk is just one part of a montage (with its own background music). But Eddie and Chris at Buck’s apartment at the end of the tsunami? They arrive there after a montage has ended. They take up the whole scene, they’re not just a part of a sequence of events, and the music stops for Buddie’s conversation at the end of 303, it is THE highlight, THE scene that concludes Buddifer’s intertwined arc over no less than three eps. If we all pointed to Buddie as a friendship which is abnormally charged and intense and intimate, it’s because that’s how the show portrays it. ~~~

The entire episode felt like it was endlessly offering us parallels between Madney’s family unit with Jee Yun, and Buddifer’s. It hit me right off the bat, as the ep kicked off with Maddie’s voice over.We can hear her saying she believes Jee Yun will be better off without her as she walks into the ocean. This of course made me think of Buck telling Eddie in 414 that Chris would have been better off if had been Buck to get shot. Both Buckley siblings express a fear to their partner for the child that they’re co-parenting, while they both show signs of suicidal tendencies. It’s heartbreaking (and not surprising) that they both have this condition of depression that leads them to this idea (which we now know might also have a genetic factor), it’s also that they both express it within the same notion of caring and fearing for their kid. If this doesn’t cement that Chris is to Buck nothing short of what Jee Yun is to Maddie, IDK what will.

Another example of these parallels between their family units is how Chim sending footage of Jee Yun to Maddie when she can’t be there is reminiscent of how Buck is taking and sending pictures of himself with Chris when they’re spending a day together and Eddie can’t be with them. These are parents with their kids and their life partners, you can’t change my mind!

Which means they also have very similar moments of dread for the members of their core family unit. Just like we are shown the moment when Chim admits to another person he will have to go looking for Maddie in the morgue (and we understand the awful emotional impact of that because they are each other’s core family unit), so too we were shown that realization when it hit Buck, that he needed to go looking for Chris among those who didn’t make it in the tsunami. This moment doesn’t pack as much of a punch unless we understand how much Christopher has come to mean to Buck.

But the thing about how much you love your core family unit is you simply can’t give up on them, not as long as there’s a sliver of hope, maybe not even when there’s none at all. That’s why we see that Chim kept looking for Maddie. Even when he knew the morgue was an option, he was still going around, talking to Athena, printing and hanging up ‘missing’ posters, and then waiting for her outside the women’s mental health clinic, without any indication that she’s there and with Eli telling him that he’s crazy. Similarly, in 511 even after Buck realized Eddie might not be coming back to the 118, Buck still texted him to come along with the team to the pub, waiting for Eddie, like Buck had been waiting for months prior to that dinner they had together, showing that on some level he continued to wait even after Eddie himself told Buck not to. NGL, I think Jane Austen would approve.

Of course, as Jane Austen would tell you, or Eli (since he’s apparently a great amateur of films and their structure, he seriously rocks and is welcome to co-write my meta weekly post any day), it’s always darkest before the dawn, so before it can get better, we need to really feel the full weight of what it would mean if the protagonist for some reason won’t be able to come back to their partner after all. That’s why we have that moment when Chim sees that the ‘missing’ poster is gone, we get the expression on his face, of being completely stunned and unable to process his loss, and I think it’s SO similar to that lingering shot we got of Buck in 511, after he heard Eddie saying that he’s moved on.

That’s when the reunion can kick off, and it starts with Madney gravitating together around saving a life (something they’ve done together before in 313). It reminded me of how the first hint of a reunion we get for Buddie is the Speed call in 511, where thanks to Eddie watching Buck on the highway, the two of them could work together (Eddie on the phone, Buck in the field) to save people’s lives, just like they used to. Battlefield boyfriends forever.

Another parallel between Madney and Buddie in this ep is how the 911 verse tells us that when one of each pair is around others, they naturally shift to talking about their partner and kid. We learn this is true for Chim from Eli, and we also saw that the same applied to Eddie, because during the crossover ep, when he was on his own with Marjan, his social media naturally directed the conversation to Chris as well as to Buck...

If the thematic parallels aren’t enough, we also get the visual shot of Chim and Maddie sitting on opposite ends of the bench when things are emotionally loaded between them after their reunion, which brought back the image of Buck and Eddie sitting on opposite ends of Eddie’s hospital bed when things were about to turn so raw between them during the guardianship reveal in 414.

Lastly, the resolution of Madney’s struggle is tied to their understanding that they can’t pretend with each other. The challenge of that is obviously that sometimes we pretend with ourselves as much as we do with others. That’s what Madney realize in this ep that they had been doing and can’t continue to. And just as discussed in the 511 meta, this is what both Eddie and Buck have been doing as well. Buck even admitted he’s too apt at hiding his own feelings back in 403, right before we learned so much more about the Buckley siblings and their upbringing, which constituted the first instance of Buck acknowledging both he and Maddie carry a certain sadness with them. I just have to give the show kudos for bringing things full circle for Madney. Buddie is not there yet, but we know that they must walk the same path, and one of the strongest indications for this is that the same resolution Madney arrive at, not to pretend with each other anymore, is what Buck was hoping for in 511. They’ll get there, and when they do, it will still be something they’ll have to work at constantly (much like Madney realize in this ep), but just like the Madney reunion, I believe Buddie’s will also feel earned and satisfying.

~~~ Thank you so much for reading! Biggest thank you goes out to @whosoldherout and @judsonryder​, who made these stellar gifs for the meta. It takes a lot of time and work, and I hope that they get all the love and appreciation for what they do! And thank you to anyone who support these posts, especially with reblogs. It’s a labor of love, and a reblog is a wonderful way to spread that love around. xoxox

[27emailsicantsend]

Season 3 Episode 4 Thoughts

BI ASHLYN BI ASHLYN BI ASHLYN… (possibly lesbian?? We’ll see)

All of you who called Maddox being gay… you were so, so right

Oh honey, Carlos, your straight dar is so, so very broken. Not only were you wrong about Maddox, but like the stuff about her dating her brother 😭😭 that was painful to listen to

I am by no means, a p*rtwell, but I will give credit where credits is due: I actually really liked the LIAOD duet. Their voices sounded nice together and I enjoyed the beginning with the stripped down piano part. I don’t know that we’ve heard Gina do more of a single instrumental song yet, so hearing her raw voice was beautiful!

My poor baby Kourtney. That hurts my heart seeing her so anxious. Her mom actually gave some pretty sound advice. Removing the “shoulds”… feeling how you should feel? We’ve got removing cognitive distortions and validating emotions. Made my heart happy 🥲

Jet was so angsty and for what 😭😂

Gina was so so cute this episode. She was literally glowing?? Like you could just tell how happy she was and the scene when she helped Kourtney made my heart soft 🥲 I just love seeing her in her happy era compared to last season. It’s a fresh, much needed thing

Along those lines… Ricky is in his happy era?? Well… for the most part. He did walk out a couple times when he was jealous 😬 but like the last few episodes and stuff he just seemed so content with himself and life for the first time in forever? (Pun intended… maybe that’s his and Gina’s song because they have both been THROUGH IT lol). He got his Corbin hug 🥹 and he just seemed like he was just trying his best to make the most of his situation at camp… I think EJ started to get in his head a lot

But also the 80’s villain line from Corbin? 🤣😭😭 comedy GOLD. Who wouldn’t laugh at that?? Lmaooo

Ok again, not a p*rtwell, but I want to make something clear about this next point: I’m not saying this because I’m a rina. I genuinely ship EJ and Val. Or at least am starting too. Val called him out that he’s been having deep, girlfriend talks with her. It’s so easy for him to open up with her. When he is with Gina everything is stiff? Tense? Lack of chemistry? But with Val it seems so easy between them. Like they’ve known each other forever. And she’s in college which is just a bonus on top

It’s interesting we’re addressing Kourt’s anxiety so much but EJ’s feels really brushed over? Like he has no one giving him those pep talks. Instead his dad is putting undue pressure on him. Why is his dad so keen on pushing him? It makes me sad. I think it would be cool to see Kourt use the advice from her mom and give EJ similar advice. They both could use it

I’m not a huge fan of the song “fabulous”. It’s my least favorite from the movies but it was fun watching Carlos and Kourt sing it. Very Ryan and Sharpay of them which they’ve been giving a lot this season 😂

AND NOW: RINA

PINING RICKY PINING RICKY PINING RICKY

I am not sure I even counted this correctly but there were at LEAST 6 or 7 stolen glances, for sure 1 per scene between Ricky and Gina

I can’t even tell you how many times I rewound this episode to see every stolen glance. Someone make a gifset pleaseeeee

I also didn’t expect EJ to say out of pocket things right out the gate like that. Like I knew there would be some contention between the two (predicted it last episode thought rambles) but wowww he was VERY quick to jump on Ricky

And I don’t say that as EJ slander. I think he is under a LOT of stress and doesn’t know how to cope. With his relationship kind of falling under it makes sense he might be lashing. He’s not being nice, but it’s also understandable.

But also, I don’t ~love~ that he was mad at Ricky and Gina being gone because he had every opportunity to go and blew up at them last episode. He did take some accountability for this thought which was good

Also Ricky jumping at the chance to sing LIAOD and the show intentionally said, “NO THIS SONG IS FOR EJ AND GINA TO SING”. It’s literally leaving us no hints at this point that they are not the couple of this show. Like it is very intentional they’re showing EJ as hans in this situation and that he had to be the one to sing it with Gina. But also very cute mr bowen that you wanted to sing about love with her 🥹

Speaking of… isn’t there a rickyxgina duet coming this season possibly? Just saying. We might want to compare the two 😉

I have said it 1000x and I will say it 1000 more: STAGING IS EVERYTHING. They take and retake these scenes so they have to make sure ever prop, placement… everything is exactly where it should be. Notice who seems to be in the middle in multiple ways in the staging? Mr Bowen himself. The movie night was the biggest one screaming it. Like he could have sat anywhere and he sat right in the middle 😭😭😭

Also all of Ricky’s compliments to Gina and him defending her to Jet 😭😭 he is such a protective almost boyfriend I love it sm

AND OMG JET CALLING HIM OUT???? Yeah jet was me and every other rina in that scene 😂 but also, I feel like the “you don’t know the whole story” was set up for more 👀 so then what is the whole story Ricky? Anything to do with another flashback?? With chocolates? Hmmmmmmm???? 🧐🤨📸

(This also fits my Ricky is Hans and Jet is Sven for their “off stage” symbolic characters because Sven called out Kristoff in the movie with sus looks and stuff. He really understood Kristoff in a way no one else- but Anna- did. They’re just this cute friend duo that I love)

Also can I just point out Gina’s laugh in the wishlist part? That was the most GENUINE laugh I heard from any season from her. She just sounded so happy 🥲

RINA HELD HANDS…. AGAIN??? Their parallels do be unmatched to any other couple in the show

I have no idea what kind of drama EJ is going to stir up but I’m SURE it has to do with this triangle for the show. He said it took courage to make something big happen? It just feels like a very Hans thing to say. Oh P*W you are so bones I’m sorry 😭 because Gina said she can’t deal with liars and she was VERY clear. Soooo EJ’s washed

But ALSO SHE CANT DEAL WITH LIARS AND RICKY WALKS OUT??? What is he lying about?? Feelings???? Chocolates????? I mean it makes sense if he did because of Nini a little but I still feel like he would have no reason to lie unless there was more feelings behind why he delivered those to Gina. If he was doing it as a friendly gesture he might have even asked Nini to help? So yeahhhh boy you gonna get caught. But this lie feels… different somehow? Like maybe Gina might get upset but they weren’t dating and things were weird so it kind of makes sense why Ricky didn’t say anything. But he did make her feel stupid so she has every right to be mad? Idk the chocolates conversation could go a LOT of ways if (when) it happens

So yeah… I know that one tik toker who saw the episodes prior said that this episode would have rinas on a “rollercoaster” but I actually don’t feel shaken at ALL. In fact, rina endgame just feels even more solidified. Have I told you guys I love this season yet? Because I LOVE this season

[panharmonium]

THAT is the importance of an adult who Understands.

one of the things that i always come back to when i think about sasuke is that sasuke has virtually everybody in the village fooled.  you couldn’t find a more messed up kid in all the hidden leaf if you tried, but you wouldn’t know it to look at him, because he can’t afford to acknowledge or display weakness - firstly, because weakness means he isn’t strong enough to take on itachi, and secondly, because signs of struggle on sasuke’s part might mean that an authority figure tries to involve themself in his life, and sasuke doesn’t want anyone interfering in something he sees as a personal quest.  he doesn’t see himself as a child who needs to be looked after by adults; he sees himself as an adult in a frustratingly small body, and he wants all the other adults to leave him alone and let him do what he needs to do.  he doesn’t want meddling.  he wants everyone who has the power to potentially keep him from getting what he most desires to remain oblivious to his true state of mind, to not look too closely, to never see a child in distress, because if he ever lets on that he doesn’t have his shit together, it’s possible that one of the leaf’s less negligent grown-ups will swoop down on him and start trying to intervene/“parent” him, which to sasuke’s mind just means “get in the way.”  

sasuke, who has long felt like he’s already an adult dealing with adult problems, won’t tolerate that.  so he masks his issues, to the point where he has virtually everyone around him completely deceived.  his regular schoolteachers don’t worry about him - he’s a high achiever, he gets perfect grades, he’s top of his class in everything, he doesn’t make trouble.  his classmates don’t worry about him - they buy the ‘i’m so cool, nothing fazes me’ act and worship at his feet, even as he demonstrates that he wants nothing to do with them.  the rest of the leaf village doesn’t worry about him, either - they see him as a source of village pride (and a source of entertainment/drama, like when they’re all so excited to watch The Last Uchiha fight for their nation during the chunin exams).  even though sasuke is so messed up on the inside, the exterior facade he presents to people is specifically designed to prevent any wondering about how he’s doing.  as far as the world can see, he’s doing Just Fine (and while everyone is busy not wondering about his health, he can get down to the business of getting his revenge).

sasuke’s strategy for relating to other people is, essentially, the opposite of naruto’s approach.  naruto, in his early childhood, draws as much attention to himself as possible, causing all sorts of mayhem, in the hope that someone, somewhere will see him.  he makes trouble and causes problems precisely because he desperately wants someone to acknowledge his pain, and that’s how he ends up landing iruka as an adult support figure, because iruka notices what’s happening and decides to get involved.  sasuke, in contrast to naruto, doesn’t want anyone to acknowledge or even notice his pain, because if they do notice it, they might try to stop him from pursuing what he thinks is the only way to alleviate it.  that’s not an acceptable outcome for him, so instead of making a scene and calling attention to himself, he hides in plain sight. 

sasuke doesn’t want people to get involved in his life.  he wants to be left to his own devices.  he doesn’t think he needs (read: deserves) anybody’s help, and some tiny part of him knows that a Responsible Adult might raise their eyebrows at what he’s doing to himself, so he uses his “high-achiever, too cool for school” persona to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.  and he almost succeeds - until kakashi enters the picture.  kakashi, who can’t be fooled.  kakashi, who has known from Day One, Minute One exactly what goal is driving all of sasuke’s high achievement, and who knows that sasuke is NOT okay, in either the head or the heart.  kakashi, who in the above gifset can tell that sasuke is having a crisis without even turning around.  kakashi doesn’t need to be shown evidence before he gets concerned.  he’s known from the very start that sasuke is struggling, because he lived through similar pains and tried to cope with them in similarly unhealthy ways (remember: “useless things like emotions only get in the way”/“having too many ties in this world will only lead you astray” + “everyone you’re talking about has already been killed”/“they’re all dead...because i wasn’t strong enough to save them”).

sasuke still tries to put up the front.  a few scenes prior to the above gifset, sasuke is the one who is making fun of naruto for freezing up - you’re not hurt, are you...scaredy-cat.  and he completely fools his peers with his attitude - sakura’s got stars in her eyes, naruto’s super jealous; both of them think sasuke’s So Cool and Super Powerful and Not Afraid of Anything!

but when sasuke himself is confronted with a serious, imminent threat to his life (one against which his supposedly “advanced” skills are useless, one from which he can’t protect himself; aka, one where he’s suddenly reminded that he’s actually a twelve year-old genin and his safety is out of his control, just like it was the night his family was murdered), he’s the one who panics.  the other kids are scared, too - but sasuke completely loses it.  he almost kills himself to get away from the intensity of his fear.  *cough* it’s the ptsd *cough* but anyway -

kakashi is able to sense this without even turning around.  he’s preparing to fight an aggressor under the least ideal circumstances possible - they were supposed to be on a mission where it was four people protecting one man, but because tazuna lied to them, they’re now in a situation where it’s one man protecting four people, including three children - and even with all of that competing for his attention, kakashi is still focusing closely enough on each individual kid to sense that sasuke is going off the rails.  without even turning around, he knows.

we all remember this, right?

it doesn’t matter how much of an act sasuke puts on.  kakashi has been there.  he knows better.  he can’t be fooled.  he calls for sasuke by name and pulls him back from the brink.

kakashi interrupts this crisis so effectively.  not only is he able to snap sasuke out of his panic, but he’s also careful to then extend his reassurance to everyone present, accomplishing the dual purposes of calming everyone else down and also redirecting attention away from sasuke’s more extreme reaction, which the others haven’t noticed yet.  it’s deftly done.  it addresses sasuke’s crisis on an individual level without putting him in the spotlight.  it works.  the way sasuke relaxes in that last gif...man.

calm down.  i’ll protect you with my life.

i’ve already talked a little bit about how much it would mean for somebody with sasuke’s particular history to hear that (especially when those words are spoken by an adult who follows through on the promise every single time), but here i just want to focus on the fact that the only reason sasuke is lucky enough to receive this reassurance in the first place is because kakashi isn’t fooled by sasuke pretending he doesn’t need to hear it.  kakashi and the kids are very new to each other at this point, but even so, kakashi still understands sasuke better than any other adult in the hidden leaf.  he’s the first authority figure who sasuke hasn’t been able to trick into obliviousness - sasuke can’t pretend away his problems in front of someone who used to have all those same problems himself!  kakashi is too savvy to be waved away with the whole ‘i’m super advanced for my age i don’t need any help don’t look behind my mask’ charade.  kakashi invented that game.  he knows it’s one you don’t want to win.  he won it himself, when he played it, and winning just meant that everybody took him at his word when he acted like he was fine and nobody ever gave him the kind of help he needed.  he’s not going to let another kid get away with the same self-destructive shenanigans, not when he’s around to call their bluffs and be the kind of support structure he himself could’ve benefited from when he was younger.   

[nincompoopydoo]

DEBRIS AND MISERY

DOUBT MAKES THE STRONG WEAK ; PART 8 / ?

PAIRING: Loki Laufeyson x Female!Reader WORD COUNT: 3.5k SUMMARY: From concussions to destruction, you find yourself developing an odd trust in the last two people you would even begin to have faith in and when the apocalypse seems unavoidable, you discover that there may be more to the mystery of the universe. A/N: Well, this chapter is long. And mainly pertains around the theme of 'doubt'. A lot more of Sylvie stuff and Loki just having heart eyes the whole time. I love this chapter and I can’t wait to write more as the story ends. Please tell me what you love, hate, anything (maybe theories lol). Thank you for showing so much love. gif from this gifset by @kamalaskhans WARNINGS: Swearing. Apocalypse. Injuries. Blood. support my writing through ko-fi💖 MASTERPOST ; MASTERLIST

You were once a fighter.

Hunter E-87 was the name you once knew, hollered through different fields and dimensions in time and space. You fought for what you thought was right, pledging allegiance to a cosmic establishment that held all power to a single timeline and never questioned the works of the Time-Keepers. The Sacred Timeline is indeed sacrosanct, too important, too valuable to interfere. You fight in the name of the single thread of time, the bark of a tree, forbidden to bare branches of a potential multiverse. You fight because the thought of alternate timelines used to scare you. Yet, if alternate universes were meant to be, the lives you took and destroyed are now in the grasp of your bloody hands. You hold the responsibility of the death of the innocent, taking part in mass genocide.

But promises must be kept.

The thought constantly haunts you in your sleep. You have dreams of death, war, destruction, and famine from across the universe. People seem to glide like specters in the world built by your imagination and mind. You have seen a lot, more than any being in the universe should, but no one talks about the aftermath of witnessing the tragedy of the universe as time goes on and on. No one talks about what it does to the mind. Music from cassettes and the wonder of human space exploration were distractions to cope with the grinding hole in you and the fact you might be turning truly crazy.

Sometimes, you would like to be human—Fewer problems and less time to live.

You blame the sickening and bizarre vivid images that come and go whenever you close your eyes as a symptom of being a hunter. The others are stronger than you. Well, they act like they are. Becoming an analyst made you sleep better but there was always doubt. Sakaar made you doubt.

Doubt makes the strong weak. Doubt makes you weak.

“You startin’ to have doubts?”

Green eyes. They watch you with curiosity with a hint of amusement. You hear yourself hum. “Would it be bad if I said yes?”

He laughs. It’s mighty. “Yeah. Definitely bad.”

A beat of silence. You feel your eyes start to sting. “I couldn’t even tell my mom.” A laugh escapes your lips despite the hurt you feel in your chest. “Did you tell anyone? Your wife?”

You see him now, blonde hair slicked back and deep-set eyes. He shakes his head. “Nope. Not even my wife.”

“She’ll be proud, you know.”

“I know...So will your mom. Jesus, you’re gonna be the first woman on—”

Wake up.

“—Is she dead?”

The voice is familiar. It pulls you back to reality but right now, your eyes are too heavy. Doubt is the first emotion that waves through your brain before the process of pain can even occur—uncertain if you are dead or alive.

You can’t feel your limbs, they are too weak.

Doubt makes the strong weak. Doubt makes you weak.

Maybe, you are dead.

“This is your fault! You’re the one who swung that sword of yours to her head! You’re careless—”

Sword...Sword...Careless? You remember a train, a fight.

“Oh, I’m the one who’s careless? You’re the one who’s drunk!”

Drunk...Who was drunk?

Then, your voice echoes in your head, images of a certain brunette with a deep frown. He called you a mewling quim. You quoted Hávamál. You then left him and wandered through the other cabins of the train. He blew his cover. He got you into a fight.

Loki. Loki Laufeyson.

Son of a bitch.

Your eyes are wide open now. All you see are the faces of Loki and Sylvie, looming over you. Just two floating heads. Then, the pain arrives, coursing through the entire back of your head. You wince in immediate reaction and the floating heads turn to you in an instant.

What a way to wake up from a concussion.

You remember everything now, but you certainly don’t recall being on the outside of the train. Must have gotten thrown out. The thought angers you, irritation practically boiling to the brim. Yet, it’s your fault. You hadn't thought to babysit the very person you wish were dead. As your palm grips onto the dirt beneath, muscling all strength left to lift yourself. Your head feels light and heavy all at once. Not good.

“Are you alright?” is the question that flies from Loki’s lips, tinged with an emotion you never knew he had for another but himself—worry. Whether selfless or selfish, you wish to ignore the complexity of Loki’s reactions and possible change in character, especially towards you. Ever since you stepped foot on Lamentis, all you felt was pain. You have never been injured so much within the last few hours than in your entire life and weirdly, you feel fine.

Sylvie is quick to stand, watching the two of you work in tandem. His grip finds the curve of your shoulders as you stick your hand out to grip him by the bicep. At your touch, you notice how his arm stiffens ever so slightly. You don’t say anything.

Some things about Loki are best left unknown and unanswered.

Today is filled with a lot of getting off the ground in the most unceremonious way possible.

A deep exhale leaves your lips, wisps of your hair drifting with the brutal breeze from your nostrils. Beads of sweat trail along the curve of your forehead and the back of your neck. Some entangled with the strands of your hair. Your hands feel clammy and dirty but you run them to push your hair back and away from your face anyway.

“I’m fine,” you mumble, pulling yourself away from his touch.

You finally get a good look at the two. Loki looks like complete shit but Sylvie manages to maintain the regalness to the locks of her hair despite her opposing overall behavior. It’s the Asgardian blood coursing through her veins. You cannot hide your ancestors' blood. It’s hard to believe the two are the same—one being. Yet, it's believable when you’re angry at the two of them.

The two messed up your career, that’s why.

Unbothered and uncivilized. It’s a miracle you’re still alive.

As your eyes shift along the train tracks that meander along a gorge with steep rocky walls that leer above it, you catch sight of a spark by your feet, glinting under the iridescent sky.

It’s the TemPad, shattered into pieces; you recognize the color gold of its border.

Your eyes grow wide, mouth agape. You don’t even feel angry anymore, it’s more than that. You stick out your hand to gesture towards the destroyed device, “Is that—Is that the TemPad?” you ask as your other hand lifts to hold the side of your head. “Or am I just seeing things from the concussion?”

Sylvie is the one to speak. “It’s not the concussion.”

You suddenly feel like you’re burning.

If it were possible, you could have instantly killed him with a look.

“You. You killed us!” you step closer to him and for a moment, Loki doesn’t exactly know what to do. “So, it’s my fault then? You were the one who left me alone in the lounge.” are the words that leave his lips. Completely useless. Trying to diffuse the tension is the exact opposite of what he does.

His silver tongue isn’t so shiny and silver anymore.

You don’t pull your blow this time. Your palm strikes his cheek, rocking his head to the side. Your hand is oddly soft. Loki winces and you stand your ground. “You’re a jerk and an asshole. You’ve probably been called that for all your life and yet, here you are. Still, the most insensitive and pathetic man I’ve ever met,” you articulate your words with frustration and rage. You don’t raise your voice like before, it’s low and frightfully intimidating. “And I’m not your babysitter.”

—

Battles, ruination, and fracas gave a sense of familiarity to Sylvie in a time of an impending apocalypse. When worlds end, benevolence is resolute. The tragedy of the end of lost souls—afraid to die. But as daunting as the apocalypse is, the beauty of their souls finally returning to the universe protrudes amongst the debris and misery.

She sees herself in the two of you, as much as she doesn’t identify as a Loki anymore, and her hatred towards the TVA. You have a temper and he doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.

You’re mysterious in an almost enchanting way and possibly significant as you seemed to be at first glance. Sylvie is highly curious about you.

You don’t stray too far from the group, only to find rest by the edge of a pit made by a crashing meteor. You sit with your back turned against the very two beings you distrust as you watch the border where the bustling city of Shuroo is based. Your guard is down and you don’t care at this point. Everyone is about to die anyway.

Sylvie’s gaze finds Loki who seems to be only watching the back of your still figure, eyes glinting with an emotion unknown to her. Possibly regret? Sylvie doesn’t know what regret looks like. But fear and anger, she feels it radiating from you. She knows it. Something tells her you’re not solely angry at her and Loki.

She finds herself drifting closer to you. You don’t move. She cautiously settles beside you. “You’re not hiding a knife somewhere, aren’t you?”

You merely scoff, caressing your head, “You’re the one to say.”

Sylvie blinks. Fair enough.

Silence. Sylvie’s eyes shift to the handkerchief tied around your arm, stained with blood. “How’s the arm?”

You hum. “Surprisingly, fine.”

Oh, Sylvie knows it’s fine. She knows what Loki did. She decides not to mention the scratch she made across your cheek.

“Did the slap make you feel better?”

The question is hinted at near sarcasm, but genuinely, she wants to know.

“Yes, it did. You should try it sometime.”

She simply hums. “I would have but you beat me to it.”

A turn of your lips as they curve into a small smile. Sylvie watches with an odd sense of satisfaction. “You know, I’m still mad at you. For what you did to me.” Your words are slow. You find yourself swallowing. “But it’s nothing compared to what the TVA did to you.”

Empathy. Is this what empathy feels like? The moment when someone finally understands what it’s like to be alone for so long. Your lives are different but they reflect in certain ways. You have had your fair share of living in constant fear and constantly running. Sylvie finds herself wanting to tell you that she hadn’t simply pushed you into Sakaar. When it’s a mission, things are never accidental. She always has a plan.

Yet, she chooses not to say anything.

You speak again but merely whisper, fidgeting with your fingers, “Before Sakaar—did you enchant me?”

It's as if you're reading her mind.

“Are you seeing things?”

After a pause, the fidgeting stops.

“I’ve seen things all my life, images. Brief and insignificant. But ever since I was in Sakaar, it’s gotten a lot harder to differentiate a dream and a memory.”

“That’s because they aren’t dreams.”

Your hardened gaze finds hers for a brief moment, nearly growing wide at her words but in an instant, your guard is up once you hear the shuffling of feet behind you where Loki lingers. The subject is dropped immediately. He meets Sylvie’s gaze, the two share a knowing look.

Your anger is provoked and well deserved and yet, the last thing he wants is to be your enemy. Loki doesn’t know why. He has lived a life full of them.

You’re different.

He stills, wondering if you’re going to lash out at him again but when he notices your slow breaths, he decides to sit next to you anyway, awkward glances to you in his periphery. A deep sigh escapes his lips, fiddling with his fingers. “What now?”

Sylvie is the one to answer. “I don’t know. You broke the TemPad.”

“Well—”

“And that planet is about to crash into us.”

Loki looks up at the nearing planet of Lamentis. He blinks. “Well, yes, but—”

“Yes, but what?”

“Well, the entire moon is destroyed, right?”

Sylvie is trying to suppress your growing annoyance. “Yep. And everyone on it is killed.”

But Loki pesters on. “Including us.”

She raises her voice. “Yes, including us.” Loki glances at you momentarily. A pause. He furrows his brows in thought.

“What about the ark?”

“The ark never leaves because it's destroyed.”

Suddenly, an epiphany, his eyes light up. He turns to you and Sylvie, “Never had us on it.”

You suddenly scoff at his words. “Are you suggesting we hijack the ark and make sure it gets off this moon?” You turn to him to only spot a vague smile playing upon his lips. He nods in return. “Sounds like a good idea to me, Agent.”

You merely blink, watching the way his eyes shift across your face. First, you’re struck with uncertainty. It’s a risk, a huge one but you know, risks are meant to be uncertain. Risks are also vital in success. Hesitation, doubt—they make you weak. This time, you want to be strong. Strong enough for one last push to save your life.

“Okay.” is what you say, your expression reflecting his.

For the first time, since he took your hand in Sakaar, you’re starting to trust him.

—

The walk to Shuroo seemed endless. You trail behind the two, feeling like you’re about to suffocate.

“—To preserve the connection, I have to create a fantasy from their memories.”

Loki and Sylvie had been conversing about the science and functions of enchantment in a rather surprisingly calm manner. Loki hums, amused by her elucidation. “And you call me a magician.”

Her expression is unchanged as she continues to trudge alongside Loki, ignoring his previous statement. “That young soldier from the TVA, her mind was messed up. Everything clouded. I had to pull a memory from hundreds of years prior...before she even fought for them.”

Loki halts abruptly in his step, hand flying to grab Sylvie’s arm. “What? What'd you say? Before she joined the TVA?”

Sylvie blinks. “Yeah. She was just a regular person on Earth.”

His mind starts to reel, face muddled with confusion. “I was told that everyone who works for the TVA was created by the Time-Keepers.”

“That's ridiculous. They're all variants, just like us. Including her.” Sylvie gestures discreetly to you who has stopped to take a breather, hands on your hips as you blink up to the sky.

You, Mobius, all of them. All variants.

“They don't know that. She doesn’t know that.” he breathes a terrified expression.

Sylvie looks at you from afar. You’re now looking at them with a bewildered expression. “What?” you call out, voice echoing through the wide area, in a somewhat defensive tone.

She turns to Loki once more, voice nearly faltering. “I have a feeling she already knows it.”

—

Loki doesn’t realize the unfamiliarity of hopelessness. Throughout his life, he was constantly surrounded by those with unfaltering determination—His brother, family, friends who were warriors, The Avengers.

Never was it known that he would see it burning in your eyes as they reflect the growing fire of the Ark, crumbling down, tongues of fire engulfing it whole before you. His heart burns with it as Shuroo falls quiet—only the sounds of the metallic crashing of the disintegrating parts of the ship falling from above and the screams of the rich and deemed worthy to live. Every Lamentian still alive held their breath, a moment's silence for their lives must end. Everything must end.

So close yet so far.

Sylvie is gone by the minute as the city starts to descend in terror and panic. He stands behind your still form, just watching your only chance of making it out, swallowed by its own billowing smoke. He reaches out for you, tugging you by the sleeve. “We should leave,” he says with a sudden sense to protect you. There isn’t much to do at this point. It doesn't matter if you are hit by the falling pieces of the Ark because you are all going to die anyway.

But he considers it a gesture, as insignificant and small it is. The least he could do is to distract you from the end, whether for a mere second or minutes.

“I know things haven’t been the best between us and I concede I bring out the worst in you, but I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

You turn to Loki with his sudden words. He watches the way your expression softens so gracefully, face adorned with gashes and wounds. Your mouth twitches as you respond with a gentle voice. “I forgive you.”

Three words. Very powerful words.

His heart skips a beat.

You find Sylvie at the brink of the city, sitting on a stretched slab of rock amongst the dirt, watching the horizon where the planet starts to meet the moon. Loki still has his hand around your arm, but you don’t complain. It’s your only source of support at the moment. It’s an unconscious move, but everything about it feels right when the two of you settle beside her, shoulders brushing against each other. It only makes sense to want to feel the nearness, the closeness of another as the light at the end of the tunnel begins to dim.

It’s impending. It’s scary.

“I remember Asgard.”

Sylvie’s voice trembles, her eyes are somber.

“Not much, but I remember. My home, my people, my life. Then, the TVA showed up, erased my reality, and took me, prisoner. I was just a child.”

You turn to her, guilt bubbling in your chest, but you don’t say anything. You let her speak. It’s only right.

“I escaped.” she breathes, blinking the brimming tears in her eyes away. ”Stole a TemPad and I ran for a long, long time, which really sucked. Everywhere and every-when I went, it caused a Nexus event.”

Sylvie turns to you with a melancholic gaze. “The universe wants to break free, so it manifests chaos. Like me being born the Goddess of Mischief. But to you and the TVA, I’m not supposed to exist.”

For so long, you hadn’t realized the consequences of your work at the TVA. You believed you were right. That erasing, resetting realities were meant to be. You cannot comprehend how it only occurred to you to question the authority of the Time-Keepers over time itself after Sakaar. All those years of being ignorant and selfish. You hadn’t realized. You never did.

But now you know.

Sylvie continues, gaze shifting away from you. “I figured out where to hide. And so that's where I grew up, the ends of a thousand worlds. Now...that's where I'll die.”

Then, silence. It sits heavily between the three of you.

“The universe—isn’t she beautiful?” Your voice is soft, eyes trained on the horizon—a fleet of asteroids, they reflect the end. But they seem to dance to the silence of the apocalypse, drifting across the stratosphere, lining the firmament. Loki’s gaze shifts to you, training on every curve of your face and the tears slipping down your cheeks. He agrees, the universe is beautiful.

You’re beautiful.

“She brings turmoil, agony, and destruction but in all her flaws, there’s beauty in her very existence.”

Your hands find Sylvie and Loki’s hands, holding on to them tightly as you fight the wavering of your voice.

“You...Both of you might be the epitome of chaos but you must know that you have such beautiful souls. All of us, we're her children...and if she is beautiful, so are we. And the Universe is always right. If she created you then we are wrong.”

Sylvie’s face is soft. Loki squeezes your hand.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I should have known from the start...that the TVA was lying to all of us. I should have questioned. I should have doubted—”

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” she says, smiling with saddened eyes.

You laugh. You don’t know why, but you do. Maybe, it’s because you know you are a part of the problem anyway, even if you were just doing your job.

You find Loki’s gaze that’s already on you. You sigh and speak through a whisper. “I’m sorry for slapping you.”

His lips curve into a grin, eyes crinkling like your own. “It was well deserved, but I forgive you.”

Fingers entangled with the hands of two unlikely people, you finally realize what it truly feels like to not be alone. To be in the company of someone you want to be with.

“Now long now.” Those three words leave the very lips of Sylvie and your chest feels like it’s about to collapse.

You never knew you were afraid of death, yet here you are—terrified.

The ground shakes beneath you. It’s dark and there’s fire everywhere. A meteor collides to the ground just across the way, it sends smoke billowing to its surroundings faster than you can blink.

Even in the last seconds of your life, you have doubts remaining. What if the universe isn’t always right?

Then, through the growing dust, you see a spark, like lightning. A glint of a figure, standing before you. White, pure, and serene. You’re standing now, staring ahead. Sylvie and Loki cease to exist in your mind as they gaze at you with bewilderment. They anxiously call you by your name but you don’t hear it. There’s only silence now, you don’t hear anything but the ringing in your ears.

A voice, she speaks with dignity. A voice so familiar.

“Doubt makes the strong weak, my child.”

Then, you hear it. A soft hum—a Time Door glows warmth amid your impending death.

Suddenly, she’s gone.

TAGLIST:

@lareinedususpense

@poubxlle

@mystoragehatesme

@the-maroon-panda

@kashasenpai

@nyxrae

@johnmurphys-sass

[amwritingmeta]

I am just thinking about how it was such an asshole move to have Lucifer call as Cas and see Dean rush to the door and then not bring Cas back to life. That was something I forgot about until right now when I saw a gif of that scene

Hey, love!

Yeah, listen, I hear you, but I also reblogged a gifset the other day that so perfectly outlaid how Lucifer’s ruse is actually an underlining for what Cas means to Dean, because every other time Luci has used the “let me in” line it’s been in conjunction with showing up as the romantic counterpart of the person he’s trying to manipulate. Not that person’s best friend: their girlfriend or wife. Aka their the love of my life person.

Dean loves Cas back and this fact is shining so brightly in the subtext. It makes me all shades of thrilled and excited and joyous to even think about it!!

Is the omission of Cas from the narrative for the rest of that episode a little bit weird? Yes, it is. It would’ve been so easy for Dean to have one line to Jack our New God asking “What about Cas?” and Jack telling him “He’s at peace.” It’s very strange given how the episode started, with Dean demanding of Chuck to bring Cas back. It seems the perfect bookend moment for Dean to not demand of Jack, but simply ask. 

However, no matter how at peace Cas is, Jack knows not to leave him in the Empty, because Cas doesn’t belong there, so having Dean ask about Cas and for Jack to dismiss the question (and Dean’s inherit longing to have Cas back that always accompanies Dean’s focus on Cas) with some airy statement, only for Jack to go get Cas the hell out of the Empty, but without sending Cas straight back to Dean, would’ve seemed even more OOC for Jack when we get the reveal that, actually, Cas is alive and with Jack and their off on a father/son remodelling of Heaven adventure tralala. Selfish, Jack. Right? :P

That scenario would’ve required proper refrigerator logic, yeah? Like... what was Jack’s actual motivation for keeping those two apart then? Since the subtext is telling us so strongly that they belong together! Wouldn’t Jack know? And after everything Dean’s been through, wouldn’t the best reward be to have Cas back in his life? What sort of God does that make Jack exactly?

:P

What we get is Dean being shown to mourn Cas in 15x19 and omg do we have Dean wanting Cas back - there’s zero rejection due to the declaration of love, there’s as ever that focus on saving Cas, getting Cas back, nothing’s changed - and Dean all with the hope that Cas will show up, indicated by how he reacts to that call, and based in how Cas has always come back to him, only when it turns out that the caller is actually effing Lucifer, Dean’s immediate hope dwindles, and then, Dean’s facing Jack our New God and... well, why doesn’t Dean ask?

I think it was the only way to not have Cas back immediately, because Dean asking would’ve meant that Jack either would’ve had to give Dean actual hope that their separation wasn’t permanent, giving a less airy response than “He’s at peace” (because Jack knew that he was going to bust his dad the fuck out of eternal sleep in nothingness), or Jack would’ve had to grant Dean the reward of having Cas returned to him.

And neither option really worked with where Dean needed to be in his arc.

Well, to my mind, anyway.

Which was in acceptance of Cas’ absence. Acceptance and letting go and all the adulting that comes with moving into self-worth and a real sense of identity and letting go of the past to make way for the future, which was done very much in preparation for the letting go of Sam.

Letting go of the past and making way for the future was most clearly expressed in how Dean states that the pain of losing Cas and Jack will never go away, but not living would mean their sacrifices were meaningless, and so on with living he goes.

And the reward for this, for having integrated, for his self-actualisation, for being ready and open for whatever happiness comes his way, isn’t his sudden death - because that moment is given to him by the narrative as the final piece of the puzzle on his journey towards shaking off all that eternal sense of responsibility, and knowing peace - instead, the reward is finding Heaven remodelled by the love of his life, who has learned as many lessons on their joint journey as Dean has, and has been hard at work to make the afterlife what Dean truly deserves.

It’s a gift, Dean. 

Making the moment of reunion linked to this, rather than Dean asking for Cas back from Jack, makes more sense, because Dean needed to properly let go of his need of Cas, and make way for his want of Cas, for his love, that doesn’t need Cas’ presence to validate it, but that just is, because it’s not in the having, it’s in just being, and I would say Jack is the type of God that knows that, and that knows that the reunion shouldn’t take place on Earth, but in Heaven. Especially in the Heaven that he’s about to create together with Cas.

And yes, it’s a bit sad that we weren’t given the brothers having a somewhat longer conversation about Cas, about him professing his love etc. but it goes with the tone of the finale, and I know we can look at it as though the love story was scrubbed clean of the narrative and yes, it does suck that it was consigned back to the subtext, but it’s still very much as present as it always has been. 

Especially thanks to what’s come before: 15x18 being completely structured around couples in love losing one half and then this gentle callback to Lucifer’s pattern of behaviour when manipulating people by posing as the love of their life to gain their confidence. 

There are little holes, I know there are, within the surface of the text of 15x19 and 15x20, but the logical way of filling them in is, to me, right there. Right in the narrative itself. You don’t have to go far to find them. Does that mend the holes of the textual impression of these final two episodes? No, not entirely.

I still wish Charlie and Stevie had been brought back as a statement, because I do understand the feeling that every queer character just up and died and it’s ridiculously careless, to my mind, to leave it to the subtext to ensure us they were of course brought back with everyone else by Jack.

And I’ll never understand why we didn’t get it stated that Eileen is Sam’s blurry wife. I mean... that wouldn’t have taken any effort whatsoever and would’ve meant a whole lot, so idk. Did it just not mean a whole lot to the writers? Just seems so weird. 

Look it, we have Dean mourning Cas (via drinking and coping mechanisms), and wanting Cas back to the point of being ready to just up and die himself AGAIN (and being FURIOUS still, even though he admitted his anger got him and Cas into that room to begin with) but even if Dean kills Sam or Sam kills Dean or they kill each other, well, God had better fucking bring Cas back!! Which is like okay, calm down, Dean, this is exactly where you shouldn’t be in order to get Cas back, so, yeah, no wonder Chuck didn’t even respond to that demand.

Was it cruel and unusual to have Lucifer call Dean on the phone like that?

Yeah, it was, but it was also, in a way, if you want to look at the narrative we have and it is, end of the day, the narrative we have, a wake up call for Dean. After that he moves into teamwork mode with Sam and Jack and together they hatch the plan, the con, to defeat Chuck, and they succeed.

To me there’s threading there that emotionally resonates and makes a whole lot of sense for Dean’s arc. This final leg. The letting go of it all. The acceptance. 

And so that’s what we get in 15x20. No more coping mechanisms. Just living life to the best of his ability, honouring Cas’ sacrifice, recognising he’s going to have to live with the pain of the loss, but he’s willing to do that, because he no longer feels he doesn’t matter, or that what he does doesn’t matter, because it mattered to Cas, and that has just finally brought his sense of worth into actual stark relay and he trusts it now. He trusts there’s more to him than being the weapon. 

Cas took away Dean’s reason for his self-hatred and held up a mirror and said See yourself the way I see you. And so Dean does.

It’s beautiful. (literally) :)

Anyway, I just ramble on, but I hope that it explains why I see the good in the heartbreak, and how that heartbreak has left us with an ending that is wide open to a happily ever after that is setup by 15x18 and underlined by 15x20, and by that slow half-smile from Dean at hearing Cas is in Heaven too. That Cas is out of the Empty and free. That he’s the architect of Dean’s happiness. Because of course he is. 

Of course he is.

:)

xx

[callioope]

Finally finished Community! Thoughts below. I can’t say they’re coherent or insightful, but thoughts below. I’m still sorta processing everything so I’m not even sure I’ll settle on these thoughts, but they are my immediate impressions after binging this thing in 2.5 weeks. (Whew!)

First, a preface: Prior to this binge session, I had seen one episode many years ago, but whatever episode that was I have no idea because none of them felt familiar to me. More importantly, though, I used to see a lot of Jeff/Annie stuff in my dash back when the show was still airing. So, that informs my preconceptions of the show before I started.

Overall impressions: 

The first three seasons are pretty solid, and honestly I didn’t really feel like season 4 missed a beat from them. At some point towards the end of season 4, or maybe early season 5, I stumbled on the season 4 controversy and was pretty surprised because I still enjoyed it. Season 5 actually felt like the beginning of a decline and season 6, whew. That was almost painful to watch. It felt pretty dry, lacking in the show’s original magic, and definitely forced, which was even addressed in the season finale. And speaking of the finale, despite some brief entertaining meta moments, it didn’t really feel like a good ending for the whole thing. But I suppose we’re still due that movie, right?

What I loved about the show was how much fun it had and the relationships between the characters. It seemed to do a good job of shaking up interactions so we got to see different sets of characters interacting. Troy and Abed’s dynamic was the most interesting to me (I think I’m going to have “Troy and Abed in the mooorning!” stuck in my head lol). The blanket fort episodes were pretty great.

Couldn’t stand Britta/Jeff moments. Didn’t like the idea of the woman Jeff just wanted to bang finally giving in. Would have been terrible if that had ended up (man did I hate the set up at the end of season 5! fortunately that seemed to be a ruse to make a point, like Jeff and Britta getting together “just because it was how the show started” wasn’t really a realistic ending. I’m looking at you How I Met Your Mother. I bet that was intentional. It probably was? When did HIMYM end? I have no idea because time stopped making sense after I graduated college. 

Troy/Britta was interesting, and I was into it, but when it fizzled out that also made sense. Troy/Abed, hmm? Idk. Maybe. Haven’t settled on that. I sorta feel like they’re missing a person, like they should be Troy/Abed/??? I just feel like they have that dynamic where they need a third person. But who? Britta? Eh. Idk. 

Speaking of Troy, I really wished he could have made it back for the finale, at least! That was sad. 

And now for no reasonable transition but just because I just binged 6 seasons in 2.5 weeks and am trying to remember all my thoughts throughout: Chang. Chang was pretty annoying. Honestly it was a miracle I made it through season 1, I made it through in spite of him. He was better when he wasn’t a teacher anymore but still kind of grating. Not my brand of humor, sorry.

Let’s see, what else? Oh, Pierce was also awful. In a different way from Chang but still pretty unbearable. Does it make a difference that I’m watching this post #metoo? Or did everyone agree he was unlikeable from the start? I rarely found anything redeeming about his character and he always felt like he just didn’t fit. (Side note that I had no idea Chevy Chase was in Community until I watched the pilot! It’s funny how much tumblr manages to spoil with gifsets and also not spoil.)

Jumping around again -- so I obviously knew Donald Glover was in Community but I feel like. The next time I watch Solo. That it’s going to be very weird seeing Troy there. Mostly because I know if it was Troy playing Lando it would be mindblowing to him. I hope whenever they make the movie there can be some throwaway reference to this.)

(also oh shit but i did not realize until I looked it up on imdb during like season 3 but Annie!!! was Trudy!!! in Mad Men!!! I did learn this fact before the Don Draper reference)

The Dean’s weird obvious crush on Jeff sort of made me uncomfortable. i mean the parts where he clearly fantasizes about jeff (the puppet thing for example). outside of that I thought the dean had some good moments, and I enjoyed the plot with the study group rescuing him from chang, but whenever he weirdly hit on Jeffrey it felt like negative representation. sort of like “look at this sex-crazed deviant harassing jeff” and that was bad. i mean it felt like harassment. is this supposed to be some sort of comeuppance for Jeff’s womanizing ways? If so it still feels off to me. Is there something I was missing there? I don’t want to upset anyone or be out of touch since I’m the noob here so please if I’m off let me know. 

What else??? I’m probably forgetting so much because I watched it so quickly. Everything’s sort of merging together.

Oh! Britta!! I did see in a negative review that Britta’s character kind of got screwed with and I do agree with that. I wasn’t a big fan of Britta but it did seem like her character development (what development) really stalled. And the jokes about her being terrible at psychology were overdone. I get that she’s supposed to be the screw up but let her have something she’s good at? I guess. I mean I guess she did end up helping people so it sorta worked out but idk, didn’t feel like they put her character to good use after season 4. 

I’m saving Jeff/Annie for last. As I stated above I was predisposed to thinking this was gonna be like THE ship of the show. I didn’t hate it, but it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting, namely because I didn’t realize the age thing was going to be such a prominent part of it. (Didn’t realize the age gap from the gifsets! ...or at least didn’t remember it) I do get the chemistry there, but there were some scenes that felt really awkward to me. I was waiting for it to get better and it sort of had its ups and downs. Loved the “teamwork” dynamic to their scenes, but sorta hated the paternal vibe. Jeff’s “I do this as a coping mechanism so I don’t have to address my feelings for you” sorta made sense, buuuut I also thought that scene Got Weird. Also didn’t feel like we got sufficient closure. Maybe we weren’t supposed to. But I felt like for as much weight as they tried to lend it at the end, there could have been more obvious development and build up towards it. Like, for as much time as Annie clearly spent pining over Jeff throughout the whole show, she really didn’t play a large role herself in the final episode. In one scene, I think it was one of the pitches, someone tells Jeff he’s not really thinking about what Annie wants, and I would have liked Annie to have a chance to speak to that, but even when Jeff finally admits he “let her go,” she barely says anything. So, idk. 

I worry that the movie would reset the status quo. I don’t really like that kind of thing, when season after season there’s no real progress made. It was a staple of sitcoms, sorta the point, but I like a show that an be funny and have character growth. (I’m looking at you, The Good Place! not every show can be the Good Place...) It did feel like we got character growth here. I think what I’m actually worried about is the Gilmore Girls Effect, where it’s allegedly ten years later and nothing has changed. That was a disaster. If they do a movie, I hope they think realistically about where the characters would have gone during the time that elapsed. Like reasonably. 

Anyways. Those are some very loose thoughts I basically just word-vomited immediately after finishing the last episode. It’s definitely possible I missed some things, as I was sewing masks during most of season 6 and some of season 5. And I watched them really fast in general. So who knows what I’m forgetting. It’s all a blur. I’m gonna stop myself before I embarrass myself even further. And probably go read some fic. Yeah. 

[smallblueandloud]

thoughts on episode ii

subtitled let’s fix attack of the clones!!: anakin edition

i came out of this movie really not shipping anakin and padme. he is selfish, awkward, and distracting - and she should too busy to consider a romance.

the prequels are trying to tell two stories (anakin’s fall and the fall of the republic) and it barely tries to link them, instead just spending time on the boring, clunky one (anakin) at the expense of the more interesting one (the republic/the clones, represented in this movie by obi-wan), which seems like it’s missing vital conversations.

but this post is about anakin and anakin/padme. so let’s get started.

this movie, at least in terms of anakin’s development, suffers from middle-of-trilogy syndrome. nothing really happens. his mother dies (oh my GOD) and he angsts about it for a while, commits mass murder, and then jumps right back to pursuing his terrible “romance” with padme.

i mean, there are NO lasting effects of his mother’s death. he learns no coping techniques, feels no real emotions about it...

shmi was done dirty in general though. the idea of her marrying the guy that bought her is pretty icky. i’m becoming more and more fond of fialleril’s headcanon that shmi meets beru and adopts her as her daughter. cliegg is nothing but owen’s offscreen father.

i mean, that would’ve been SO MUCH BETTER, even if you keep the whole shmi-dying-solely-to-cause-her-idiot-son-pain. WHICH YOU SHOULD NOT. why spend all of episode i talking about freeing the slaves and then do absolutely nothing about it??

picture shmi, her adoptive daughter beru, and her adoptive daughter’s boyfriend owen (who really isn’t sure how he got involved in this but isn’t complaining) running an underground slave-freeing operation.

not sure how this would tie into the movie, plot-wise or anakin-development-wise, because yeah, you do need to start getting nervous around this kid. (I MEAN, IN MY PLAN FOR THE PHANTOM MENACE, YOU WOULD’VE STARTED THIS IN THE VERY BEGINNING BY USING A SLIGHTLY WORRYINGLY COMPETENT AND BRUTAL 14-YEAR-OLD, NOT THE PREPUBESCENT NONSENSE WE GOT. but regardless.)

i guess you’d need anakin and padme to be hanging at on naboo, in her lake house (god padme’s so freaking bougie), and padme asks how anakin’s mom is.

queue the obligatory “oh, haha, i don’t actually,,,, know??”

padme proposes that since they have no duties and she’s actually bored out of her mind, they should go visit shmi. anakin protests for about two seconds before realizing a) there’s no stopping her, and b) he’d actually kinda like to see his mom.

(padme has some ulterior motives besides wanting anakin to see his goddamn mom again. she wants to buy her freedom, since she’s actually prepared with real funds this time, and she wants to ask her advice on helping out with abolition, since she and sabe had failed miserably when they tried on their own. [this is canon, go read queen’s shadow if you haven’t already because it’s an excellent book.] we love women acknowledging other women’s expertise!! padme has grown a lot and wants to stop being so core world-y.)

so anyways, they go there, meet shmi (who’s already freed herself, thanks so much), and beru and owen. anakin, because he has had no emotional support network since he was nine goddamn years old, is jealous, but does his best to keep it under wraps.

at some point, while anakin and padme are helping out with the freedom trail, and someone (not sure who) gets a little violent with shmi.

anakin... goes ballistic, we’ll say. it gets violent. he gets harsh. it’s an overreaction, but shmi manages to calm him down.

(padme, on the other hand, is frightened. she takes a step back the next time anakin turns to her. but she manages to hold it down until later.)

the flighty escapee that beru is operating on goes into hysterics. shmi pulls anakin outside and tells him, quietly, that she’s so overjoyed to see him but that she thinks he needs to be getting on his way.

padme, meanwhile, gets pinged on her communication device. obi-wan has contacted them, just like he did in canon.

also, there’s some kind of beru&anakin moment, or maybe a beru&padme moment. just a conversation of some kind, for uber talented gifset-makers to gif and put alongside beru talking to luke so i can be destroyed emotionally.

this serves several purposes.

the movie feels more emotionally coherent. anakin doesn’t jump from awkward flirting to mass murder to making out with his girlfriend.

shmi gets some closure.

we’re introduced to beru, who clearly meets anakin and padme.

we get to see the little people making a difference, which is a huge theme in star wars. this can act as a foil to the hugely ineffective senate.

padme gets the opportunity for some character growth (she’s my wife and all but she’s so bougie).

we get to see anakin be dark, over something.... sorta understandable?? and it doesn’t quite make us think he should be locked up (unlike murder) (except the movie says it’s okay because they’re just sand people and i really don’t like the implications of that). also, we can see the inherent tragedy of someone who needs so much community support being “”chosen”” by the force to go into an order of emotionally private individuals (not that that isn’t a bad thing for someone like obi-wan, but it really isn’t good for anakin).

AND I HAVEN’T EVEN REALLY MENTIONED PADME. i have a wishlist for padme, and it boils down to: at least mention her relationship with sabe, show her being good at politics, let her have character development, don’t make her have to mother anakin, and oh by the way make her two-dimensional enough that her abandoning her ideals to get together with a jedi actually makes sense.

because like! i can believe she likes anakin! he’s an old friend, from a time that seems simpler in hindsight, and he’s in love with her and flirts awkwardly and makes jokes. i mean, the dialogue makes it impossible for anakin to seem remotely attractive, but we’ll leave it at the fact that padme desperately wants something simple and a relationship with anakin, paradoxically, looks like a winner.

but i want to see her like anakin. show, not tell, georgie boy!! all we see in the movie is her giggling at him and her rejecting him, and then her kissing him, and there’s really no falling in love.

because okay. they’re a fundamentally doomed relationship, total opposites who are both startlingly naive wrt their personal lives. so i accept that they’re not really in love - they’re just clinging to ideals of each other. well. at least padme is. she’s smart enough to recognize what she’s doing, but she pushes it down because she is forced to hold too much on her shoulders (BECAUSE THE SENATE DOESN’T WORK) and she needs something that is just for her.

look, i really need sabe in these movies, okay. this is unrelated to my humongous crush on keira knightley. i need padme to have a friend, someone she can express this to, who can look at her doubtfully when she says she’s in love with anakin, because we really need to drive in the idea of this being a tragedy and we can’t see it unless we see how goddamn foolish even padme “good choices” amidala is being.

also like. padme needs friends. and i firmly believe that the “mother” that leia remembers was sabe, who is actively involved in the rebellion during the OT. because like. i have emotions, and most of them come back to luke&leia.

i’m not sure i’d have them get married, but that’s just a matter of taste. and you have to admit the set of final shots - the victory with the clones, baby boba pressing his forehead to his dad’s helmet, the marriage - with the overlaid music is really something. i mean, there you have the myth stuff that george wanted. i vibe with it.

anyways. thank you for coming to my ted talk, part the second.

[finefeatheredfriend]

7,14, 2 for end of year asks :)

7 favourite actor of the year? easy - Paul McGann. this year has been twelve months of going ‘voice man hot’ whenever I saw a picture or gifset of him and relistening to particular audios or even just passages of audios an uncountable amount of times. he brought so much joy to my life this year when I was going through really really rough times, and I met some incredible friends bonding over how much we love his voice, doing listening parties that mainly consisted of us screaming about his voice and the pain noises, having groupwatches staring at small flesh coloured pixels to see if we can see anything and yelling about how tiny he is or how his EF game is very strong in the Victorian sensations episode or just filling the chat box with format variations of words like tongue, WET, B A B Y, or the same transcript of particular scenes/lines filling up the screen cause all of us wanted to draw the others’ attention to what he just said in that beautiful voice of his....... anyway. this is the year I discovered the world of big finish audios and that has made me completely obsessed with Paul McGann and that’s brought so much positivity into my life and that’s why he’s my favourite actor of this year (honourable mentions: @gingerteaonthetardis @lotsofthinkythoughts and @jefflion )

14 favourite book you read this year? hm. I got into the EDAs this year and I loved Vampire Science by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum! as for non fanfiction books (however canon/official they might be, it’s still fanfiction) I think maybe Cinder & Ella by Kelly Oram (look. fandom books are my guilty pleasure okay), Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston or Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. I didn’t read much that wasn’t dw books this year so these are just the 3 books I remember enjoying the most out of the 6/7 non dw books I read

2 album of the year? this is difficult. probably Lover by Taylor Swift - I enjoyed every single song on the album and after her last album made me completely abandon the artist that has probably shaped my personality the most (I practically worshiped her every word for the better part of ten years all throughout my teenage years) I was very happy to find out that she is a person I am not embarrassed to say that I look up to again. cause reputation was a mess. so I’m glad she’s back to normal!

other albums I really loved that came out this year: The Sun Will Come Up etc (what? I’m lazy) by Nina Nesbitt (I got to be at the release party (or listening party I guess since this was before the release) in London and meet her which was amazing) and Bad Ideas by Tessa Violet (got to meet her as well, and her calm and understanding personality is just so... comfortable to be around..? if that makes sense. and the way she sings about depression and anxiety (and I suspect adhd) helped me cope with a lot of issues this year cause she’s so relatable)

okay now that I’ve written a whole novel I think I should finish this up lol

thank you for the asks, April!!

[harlskeener]

okay so i just saw a gifset of the scene where harley calms tony out of the anxiety attack and tells him to build something which ??? i'm still so emo about ? one of the BEST things about the iron man trilogy is the *consistency* it's literally all about tony going through a hard time and becoming better in simple terms, yes, but it's also wildly beautiful in its central theme of tony going through something painful and then taking control back through BUILDING. so for tony to be going through an anxiety attack over the trauma from new york. we *know* that tony was building suits rapidly out of fear of what was out there. and absolutely no one understood him!!! even in aou, we know the avengers didn't understand tony's fear . they didnt understand how terrified tony was from what was out there.

tony building things is one of the way he copes. we know this, because it's how he fixes things. it's how he gets himself free of bad situations. so now, comes this small kid. he's a bit too honest, a bit too blunt, and he doesn't say the right things some times, but he's a good kid. a good kid, a little too trusting, but good. and this kid, he knows nothing of what tony's seen either. he knows something happened in that wormhole, but he doesn't know what tony's seen. but here's the thing. this small kid *doesn't* dismiss him. this kid doesn't dismiss his concerns about what's out there. in both times when tony goes through an anxiety attack, we see the way this small, normal kid just adapts and asks for solutions. this is why harley is such a pivotal part of the mcu -- he's one of the ONLY people to have ever believed tony about what was out there. without question.

this is why the "we're connected" thing is so pivotal for me. it's why harley's character and personality mirrors tony. tony likes fixing things, it's how he takes back control. tony's been an inventor all of his life, of course that's how he handles things, he uses it as solutions and he uses it to cope. for harley to respond to tony's anxiety attack with, "you're a mechanic, right?" ... "why don't you just build something?" that shows so much of how similar they are.

harley is a kid who was bullied and had his dad leave him. we can *infer* he uses inventing too as a coping mechanism through the fact of him making the potato gun because he was bullied. so of course, as a fellow inventor, when faced with hard times: it's easy to fall back on something real, something you can control. and that's why harley and tony's connection is by far one of the best parallels of the mcu.

[elizabethrobertajones]

I haven't been keeping up with the season, but obvi I've seen gifsets galore & I wanted to know your take on how human Cas is behaving. I know he's had a soul since Metatron (& I assume he didn't lose it just bc he got his grace back), but I feel like since returning from the empty he's been wearing his emotions & thoughts on his face & in his movements more clearly. Do you think this was a conscious choice after facing the empty or a less tangible change that occurred within him as a result?

I think something less tangible that’s been happening for a long time, because back in season 10, even, we were talking about this. And I know in season 9 there was also at least some commentary on the way Cas was operating, when he had some grace again. Though I missed most of those conversations… My first Cas episode with fandom was 9x21 and I remember people talking about him leaning on the desk in his office and how it was a human mannerism. And that was all before we discovered he’d sewn his coat in 9x18 and we only got it in deleted scenes. 10x09 as well, I remember commentary on his mannerisms, as I think there were some especially noteworthy moments where he was behaving much less stiff than usual. 

All of early season 10 for Cas was pointing out how he’d rather be on earth, rather be with the Winchesters, and in general suggesting that he might one day be better suited for a human endgame than even he realises, especially played off against Hannah, who copes so poorly with being on Earth compared to how Cas has grown so comfortable there. 

And I don’t think Cas has ever really got more stiff and formal after any of this, just that the writing moved away from directly challenging Cas about who and what he was for a while and started asking him different questions and framing him in other lights. He picks up a lot of trauma towards the end of season 10, once he gets his own grace back, and he’s out of the zone where he would die without it and therefore challenged in the story to think about this himself. The writers don’t really wanna spend all their time telling the same thing over and over and if it’s a few season renewals before this can be relevant again, all I know is that Cas never answered the major questions he was posed, and this was never satisfactory resolved in any way when it comes to the themes of that time, just that we moved onto his depression arc. 

But I think in that time we saw a lot of stuff where Cas supposedly, at least with his original grace and often times without any magic effects on him, was still in a really terrible place, being depressed and traumatised, saying yes to Lucifer, and all the punishment season 12 put him through, including some very emotional moments like in 12x09 where he kills Billie on their behalf. 

This season his return from the Empty has made him seem more confident in some ways, but at the same time he’s still lost about his purpose, still struggling with being sure he’s completely accepted by Dean and dealing with low key self worth issues which of course affect him, because he can’t come out squeaky clean. But he had at least to fight off some of the worst things he believed about himself in order to defeat the Empty and on the other side of that he’s been standing taller and more confidently, which is great. But I think his mannerisms have been slowly creeping in and evolving for a long time, especially since being human, and while playing Cas since then always as a lower powered version of Cas, I think the change has been a long, slow process, but at this point we’re getting to where it’s extremely obvious how he’s so different from how he used to be.

My favourite example this season is in 13x19 where he’s bored waiting in Heaven, and he isn’t waiting like Cas would do in the old days, where if he was impatient he’d still stand still and radiate annoyance, or maybe pace back and forth if he was REALLY agitated. But we get a whole montage where he flops all over the furniture, pokes and prods things, and moves around the room bored and curious and very very much in a human way where it’s not even being disrespectful or whatever, it’s that he genuinely is bored and is distracting himself from a long wait in a really human way. I don’t think it’s really surprising with where is NOW or particularly weird for him. It’s not a red flag that anything is short term weird with him. Based on how the last like 4 years at least have gone for him, it’s not super strange for him to be behaving like this in season 13. But if he was doing it 5 or 6 years ago and longer it would have been much stranger, maybe even a red flag that something was wrong with him, and would have had way more purpose than just being to make us laugh at how bored Cas is, but to make some really profound point about him which would be new and revealing instead of expected and just a way of reminding us how different Cas is these days. I don’t think it’s revealing now in the sort of way of saying “wow! how human Cas is!” except maybe for people who REALLY weren’t paying attention, compared to if stiff and proper Cas had been revealed to act like this away from the Winchesters’ eyes in like… season 4 :P 

But, yeah, idk, Cas goes through so much and he’s been gradually changing for a long time, and in season 9 and 10 especially there was so much focus on who and what Cas was, and things like Claire calling out how much he changed and stuff, that it was a time of a lot of growth and shaping of Cas while season 8 had very deliberately been a sort of soft reset where it turned out Naomi was responsible, but it’s a last hurrah for Cas being remotely like he was in his most angelly times. They really rebuilt who and what Cas was in that time and since then we’ve been exploring deeper the new version of Cas.

I suppose no one really reads my episode notes but if you see me joking about party!Cas a lot, it’s because of this from 13x19: 

elizabethrobertajonesListen, at some point Cas transitioned from the stoic Cas we once all knew to a new and better Caswe’ve been talking about this a long timesince season 10 at leastbut I think finally I can say for certainthe season 10 - present Cas is…party!Cas

mittensmorgulPARTY CAS

elizabethrobertajonesand will refer to him as such meaning this period of his life indefinitely until it changes again :Pwe can keep it to season 13 if that makes more senselike his newfound purpose since the Emptybut I was harping on Riverboat Gambling!Cas earlierso I think this is actually something that’s been going on a whileand Party!Cas is just a more dominant trait this season than ever beforebut the arc to  becoming party!Cas has long been in motion

mittensmorgulthat reminds me of some of the early s12 meta talking about ‘growing up’ and how the characters were getting to experience adolescence for the first time… and Cas is kinda going through growing pains too. guess this is late adolescence for him now :P

elizabethrobertajonesawwwwwteenage party CasI love himso much

(I ended up typing this all to Mittens while first watching Cas messing around in 13x19 in the heaven waiting room. Though at the start of that episode, Rowena complains they don’t go to enough parties, and when she hangs up on them, Cas is like, “she’s right, you never go to parties.” I figure he’s waiting for someone to throw him a birthday party while Sam and Dean are too awkward to ask when it is after all this time.) 

But yeah, the traits I identify with party!Cas are all the ones where he seems less angelly and more human, more a truer version of himself and especially when it’s because he’s confident and owning being more than anything he ever thought he was “only”.

[sometimesrosy]

Hm? Bellamy unsure of himself in S5... what do you think this means?

Wait. Just realized Richard was talking about murphy and not bellamy. lol. But still, murphy has never really been unsure of himself. I wonder what’s gonna go down

I don’t know. I had to go back and check that gifset. It’s so hard to tell when you don’t have the full context, both in the interview and on the show.

Was Murphy ever unsure of himself? I think he might have been, actually. He’s always clung to someone else to define himself, Bellamy, Jaha, Emori. But he has a strong enough sense of wrong and right that he will break from them if he needs to. That may be because he’s been rejected by them so frequently. 

He’s a loner because he’s been forced out. I don’t think that is his natural state. He keeps coming back, and keeps being drawn to some people. Bellamy, Clarke, Raven, Emori. He became violent and angry when he was rejected at first. But then, like with Jaha, he drew a line in the sand and wouldn’t follow him, even if life would have been easier, which seems so opposite of the cockroach character from before. He grew. He developed. I think being around the delinquents made him want to do the right thing, even though he was never guaranteed that they’d accept him. Maybe it’s because he was loved when he was a child. IDK. His father risked his life for him, and that had to have left some positive effect.

Now, in spacekru, he will be undoubtedly accepted and part of the family, I think. I wonder if that causes instability in him, because of his history with being rejected. They can’t reject you if you reject them first, right? But he comes back to earth with his family, right? And it starts all over again, with new factions and power moves and wars. What if his insecurity comes back? What if someone from the other side tries to win him over using his doubt about being accepted.

Oh. Well. Actually. I could see that happening. It would be playing on season 1 Murphy. Which is… uh oh. But makes sense. We have to remember that our past always affects who we are, and it doesn’t go away. We have to process what it means to us or it has a tendency to crop up again. Murphy hasn’t really gotten away from season 1 Murphy, he’s just consistently chosen to make better choices. Which is great, but, not necessarily a cure for the original pain.

THIS show does not let people rest on their heroic laurels. Their bad place WILL come back to them. I could imagine the cockroach people on The Eligius appealing to his cockroach nature. I’m thinking McCreary in specific. The mob enforcer. It’s kind of reminiscent of Bellamy’s gang in season 1. Of which Murphy enjoyed being a part. 

If he has to choose between his nature, his trauma (being rejected by his mother because his father loved him enough to sacrifice himself–ah see, love and rejection tied up together. that’s going to cause fear and insecurity,) and his family, then he’s going to be replaying his childhood. Because that is what we do. We regress to our default settings in times of stress, unless we are aware and have coping strategies in place. 

To tell the truth. Richard saying Murphy was unsure of himself surprised me, too, because he seems so cocky. But “cocky” usually covers up lack of self esteem. It’s over compensation. So if you dig a little deeper into his character, you can see the insecurity. 

Everybody has defense mechanism they use to hide their insecurities.

Murphy is afraid of rejection, so he rejects people first with snark or anger or rejecting them first.

Bellamy is afraid of losing what he loves, so he is over protective, aggressive, controlling– although there is a flip side and that’s when he goes passive and lets someone else tell him what to do, like Pike or Kane or Clarke, or even Finn.

Clarke is afraid of failure, so she runs away from everything, withdraws, or takes over, or both–running away and taking over from a distance.

Raven is afraid of not being good enough, so she dominates with her brain, blows things up, is a little mean and ruthless as if she doesn’t care. also cockiness and snark. I never really bought her “i’m the best” act.

Octavia is afraid of being trapped and powerless, so she learns to fight, rejects authority (including Bellamy,) refuses responsibility for her own actions.

Huh. Actually, that’s a really interesting exercise, going through the characters and identifying their fears/weaknesses and figuring out what they do to compensate. That can also make for some interesting, complex characters when you are writing. And also lead to interesting storylines where the characters are forced to confront their fears.

Because look at that. The girl under the floor is now 600 feet under the floor trapped with warring factions and RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING. That’s either going to break her or she’s going to finally conquer her own demons. Still 50/50. And spacekru is going to depend on Raven’s brain being JUST. THAT. SMART. in order to keep them alive and get them home. And Murphy is now stuck with a family and no matter how they get angry at each other, they are all they have and there’s no running away.  And Bellamy saved his people but LOST Clarke. And Clarke SUCCEEDED at everything, saving Bellamy, saving the grounders, finding a bunker, getting her beloved people safe, getting the rocket up, turning on the Ark… and then she was sentenced to 6 years of near solitary confinement for it. wow. Confrontation all over the place. 

THAT, my friends, is how you tell a story.

[kittykatknits]

What are some positive commonalities b/w Sansa and Ned? (I am kind of sick of seeing only negative traits of Sansa in character parallels meta/gifsets) Thanks!

Hmm…dunno that I’ve ever seen gifsets comparing the two now that I think about it. Went looking but couldn’t find them. My tumblr skills are awful so this isn’t a surprise tho…

I wrote this post about the two of them in GoT which helps set up why their similarities are so often missed. The two have the same story and make many of the same decisions, but Sansa is introduced into the narrative in a much more negative way. I mean, Ned is set up as the One True Hero in the first book. The result is that Sansa kinda ends up being Ned’s “fall guy” for lack of a better term. Sometimes, I think this conditions the reader to not notice their similarities. 

I’d also add that some of what is perceived as “negative” by the fandom, isn’t. At least not always, it depends on context and framing. 

So, here is a partial, but by no means exhaustive or complete list of similarities between the two of them.

They both share the same philosophy about lying:

A lie is not so bad if it is kindly meant.  

-Sansa I, aFfC.

That’s Sansa thinking of what LF is feeding her but she later employs this same thought with SR. They share the same belief that a lie is OK if it brings comfort to others. It’s something they both do and it comes from their shared empathy for other people. It’s why Ned tells his sister that Robert would be a good man and true. He’s trying to comfort her. He does the same with Robert at the end, he gives a lie of omission about his “children” and then gives another variant of a lie:

For a moment he was at a loss. He could not bring himself to lie. Then he remembered the bastards: little Barra at her mother’s breast, Mya in the Vale, Gendry at his forge, and all the others. “I shall … guard your children as if they were my own,” he said slowly

-Edward XIII, GoT

Both are trying to comfort and help someone else. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. 

They employ the same coping mechanisms when it comes to trauma. Both of them avoid dealing with it and the accompanying painful memories. They will both also rewrite their memories. Most famously, we have the unkiss, followed by Sansa’s transfer of responsibility for the Trident onto Arya/Mycah. However, this is one of those characteristics that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

First, it’s very clear that Ned is still dealing with a lot of pain and is still heavily traumatized by RR and surrounding events. He lost his brother, father, and sister in a short period of time with Benjen going off to the wall. He saw the bodies of dead children placed by the throne, had his life threatened, and would have seen the aftermath of the sack of KL. It’s very clear all of it still haunts him, even so many years later. The way Lyanna creeps into his thoughts is very similar to the way Sansa’s family does in hers. It’s there but it is so painful, Ned actively tries not to think on it. 

It’s a coping mechanism and it’s one Sansa desperately needs at several points in the story. Her chapters, especially in aCoK and SoS, have a very “in the moment” feel to them. She’s very centered in the present and devotes large amounts of mental energy to planning what to say, how to respond, anticipating the words/actions of others, and so on. It means she doesn’t let her thoughts linger on anything too painful. 

They both rewrote the Trident incident as well. Ned transferred all of the responsibility for it it on to Cersei, even though it was Robert that ultimately gave the order for Lady to be killed. 

The thing is, Sansa’s ability to do this is what helped her to survive. Long term, she will need to confront much of what she saw/witnessed. While a captive, not necessarily so and not always and not right away. The context on when she employs it matters. Ned never confronted any of this while Sansa still has the opportunity to do so. She did it with Joffrey but we are still waiting on LF.

Sansa’s courtesy armor is really only a different flavor of Ned’s lords face. The lords face is the persona Ned wears in his professional capacity. It’s the public version of Ned but inside his head we see the real him. He’s a very kind and emphatic man who feels deeply. Outside, he can come off as cold and reserved. Sansa explicitly tells us courtesy is a lady’s armor. She hides behind it and uses this armor in public, to protect herself and navigate the world around her. We get in her head and, like Ned, it’s very different than what she shows everyone else.

Their wants and desires are the same. Ned is a LP and Sansa is expecting she will be a queen. However, Ned was the second son and never expected to have any of it. Sansa’s desire to be queen isn’t about power, it’s about family and a husband who loves her. Ned really leaves us with the sense he would be perfectly content to spend the rest of his life inside the walls of WF, with his children around him, and Cat in his arms every night. That’s Sansa’s dream too. Compare that to Bran who wants to be a knight and a member of the KG or Arya.

Both are deeply emphatic. Let’s look at Sansa’s behavior and understanding of the Hound. After he tells her about his burns, she responds that his brother was no true knight. He’s pretty awful to her at multiple points but she continuously looks for the best in him and understands what drives much of his actions. Compare her relationship to Sandor with Arya’s, for example. It’s the same with Ned and Cersei. Ned isn’t angry with her, rather he puts himself in her place and tries to understand. 

Both are internal and can refuse to act until absolutely needed. Compare Ned after Robert’s death. LF and Renly both came to him and said to act but he waited until Cersei summoned him. Sansa tends to do the same thing. 

They are both idealistic and look for the good in people. Sometimes, I see them called naive which is kinda an incomplete way of looking at things. Yes, Sansa starts out as naive in the first book, but considering her life experiences at that point, it is to be expected. Ned does place his trust in the wrong people (LF and Cersei) but he also makes a point to know his people and looks for the good in them. It’s part of what inspires the loyalty in people back north. Also, remember Davos’ visit to the Sisters? I love this story:

That was when Stark said, ‘In this world only winter is certain. We may lose our heads, it’s true … but what if we prevail?’ My father sent him on his way with his head still on his shoulders. 'If you lose,’ he told Lord Eddard, 'you were never here.’ “

- Davos I, aDwD.

Here, Ned put his trust in Lord Godric’s father and chose to see the best. It payed off for him. Sansa does the same, she sees the best in people, she sees the world as it should be (to borrow from Cinderella). So, in Westeros, with years of war and the ice apocalypse coming, it seems to me that a person who sees the best and who sees what is possible is ideally suited to be in a leadership position afterwards. Sansa is not only the type of person who can rebuild, she can make it better.

Lastly, we have one of Sansa’s best lines in the entire series:

"I will remember, Your Grace,” said Sansa, though she had always heard that love was a surer route to the people’s loyalty than fear. If I am ever a queen, I’ll make them love me.

- Sansa IV, aCoK

Where do we think that came from? That’s Ned and his approach to ruling right there. Ned, who inspired love and loyalty from his people because he gave it back. He invited someone different to sit with him at supper every night. He took the time to visit the mountain clans. He dispensed his own justice. He made his people fight for “The Ned’s little girl.” Sansa adopts that same approach during the Blackwater with the ladies she tries to comfort. It’s the same approach to ruling we see her starting to use in the Vale. Look at the servants in the Eyrie. 

And here is one thing that really stands out with this style of governance. Robb and Jon both think on Ned’s teaching and try to adopt them. Sansa never does, it’s all unconscious.

Hopefully this answered your question some anon!! Thank you for the ask!!!

[kimcheolwoon]

i think a very real fear a lot of us have is that he will slowly fade away, or get diluted in public memory. of course we'll continue to love him just as much, and maybe learn to love others too, but eventually, there won't be anything new. his mentions will drown under all the new unlimited things that are yet to come. so i believe that if we want to openly stan others then maybe the best action is to make new blogs or outlets for them, so atleast j's space remains his and is not ever overtaken

(cont.) like.. i know that it is okay to find other avenues to cope, to feel happy again. our mental healths are also priority. but i have been seeing some people expressing those other interests in the space that used to be purely jonghyun’s, and it is.. a little hurtful. because we know that eventually there will be nothing for him. he’ll get lost under it all. so i personally feel like we owe it to his memory to retain his name openly. everyone will forget but us. so we need to keep him alive

I tend to think of my blog as my own space though yknow? It was only ever for me. And if others came and found a sort of joy or happiness or content in following then that was always nice too. A place for me to share my happiness with others. My blog was never made for one specific reason. If you look back into my archive you will see that when i began I wasn’t even a kpop blog, and that I first transitioned to exo and then i was overwhelmingly multifandom and Jongin was in fact my ultimate. It all shows in my history and that’s what I love about my blog so much is that it was a place for me to experience all these things and all these changes. And there are people who came along for the very long ride and who have stayed till now, and there were people who got off on earlier stops.

But this space was always my own. And the atmosphere that Jonghyun occupied will always always remain. But I think for anyone to hold me to a standard that I must always reblog him and him only, one that i did not create myself, is ridiculous. Because even before it wasn’t like that. Jonghyun is my ult but him and SHINee were not the only ones to put a smile on my face. They made me the happiest��but they were not the only ones I had the joy of sharing in this space. 

Yes this blog is MAINLY SHINee but I am deeply sorry for anyone who came to my blog thinking it was somewhere you would ONLY find jjong or ONLY SHINee. My blog is a Shawol space that I want to open up a bit more if i am allowed.

I get the idea of side blogs as well, but it doesn’t allow for me to interact the same way that I can on here, my main. My followers know me here. I cannot voluntarily isolate myself to a domain where no one will see. That’s generally what a sideblog is initially..It is an invisible space. I don’t want my love for VIXX to be pushed into an invisible space.

And the best thing I have been able to experience so far is people messaging me and thanking me for posting about VIXX, for introducing them to a group they hadn’t known about before, or for bringing back their excitement for a group that they had let simmer out. That brings me even more joy. So I am sorry, but I cannot limit my space any more than I already am, because I AM. For you guys. Because I know who and what I was in the fandom. I know because you guys tell me and I know that what I am doing is being seen as contrary to a lot of you. 

Jjong is Jonghyun is Kim Jonghyun and he will forever be to me, and on this blog and to Shawols. His presence won’t diminish to me and on this blog and to Shawols. You just have to understand that when I go through my dash or my archive or anything and am forced to reblog for the millionth time a pic or gifset or video of him i have already seen a billion times because there won’t be anything else and this is all we have left…you have to understand that it is SAD and it HURTS because i used to be a Jjong content maker. because i used to wait wait wait for anything new to be released. because i was always always so excited and impatient. But I don’t have that anymore and there is such a big void in me. It’s so huge that I can’t even possibly think of filling it, but if I can find something that will ease the pain around the edges am I not allowed to indulge? So that I do not hurt so unbearably? 

[septembersghost]

i wish i could give you a huge hug right now, words will never fully express the depth of rage and sorrow i feel that so many people went through this. there's a melancholy comfort in not having experienced it alone, but i wish none of us had been hurt. it makes me want to duel the writers in the street.

i am so sorry you went through that, and so sorry that it made you feel you had to delete your blog entirely to recover. there are countless posts on my blog here (which initially i created solely to be a part of the end of spn lol) grappling with the grief of it, but i don't think i had full awareness of the immensity of the breakdown i had until it was finally over? and that process took a long time. at first, my coping mechanism was intense love, anger, and defense - i held on as tightly as i could, no matter how much that might have been hurting me, in a form of defiance. i poured my heart out, i wrote about the story's folklore and its soul, i kept saying over and over again that it couldn't be taken from us, that we make the meaning. and i still do believe that on some level. i do still think that's important. i don't regret that i did that, and i'm blessed to have found friends in the midst of it. for me, a massive part of having to step away happened due to harassment from the fandom and its general atmosphere - and i know that in itself is probably overly sensitive and fragile, because my mutuals/followers from the fandom are wonderful, but that bullying built a real wall between me and what i felt was my ability to participate. that's where my sense of safety as far as sharing writing or edits shattered, because that creative expression is such a vulnerable part of my being, and not feeling safe to share anymore was another level of devastation. as hard as i tried, as much as i fought, ultimately what was done to the show is such a ruinous and injurious thing for me that it's changed the way i see it, and trying to force myself to hold on and get past it didn't make it better, it made it worse, because i was constantly mired in that sadness. "painful and mentally draining" is accurate. when you say you had a full-blown nervous breakdown, please know i empathize and understand that because i did too. i didn't sleep, i relapsed into patterns of not eating, i cried without notice for months as though i'd lost a real loved one. i know this sounds...unbalanced, and maybe it is! that doesn't change the fact that it happened. spn was a huge chunk of my life too, since 2005 and through many hardships and many losses in my real life, it was a constant, and having that stripped away, having it feel like the show was telling me that there is no answer to struggle and depression other than death, was triggering to say the least. i've been through a number of terrible/upsetting endings in other things, but nothing that had the detriment of spn. i still happily reblog gifsets and edits, the fandom is so talented with its creations, i still lightly interact, especially with my friends here, but i HAD to take a breath and get space and safety away from it, and that sense of crushing anxiety has yet to fade. it shouldn't have that poisoned aspect. there should be an antidote. maybe it will heal someday. but sometimes no matter how dearly we love something - perhaps even when we do love something with such depth - you eventually have to put yourself first and protect yourself.

i'm really glad you found brba/bcs after going through that. i've watched/been a fan of the shows for a long time, but never participated closely in the fandom before like i'm doing now, and i'm extraordinarily grateful that i can! it has been so reassuring and healing. cathartic is the best word for it, there's a sense of release and compassion in it. it is quite interesting since, like you said, these are dark stories, they deal quite closely with pain and grief and trauma, but because it's done in such a humanistic sense, it gives us a way to explore the resonance of that, its impacts, how it shapes and changes us, in a worthwhile way. i find bcs particularly poignant and beautiful in its exploration of those themes.

from the point of pure storytelling, writing, directing, narrative, cinematography it's such a masterpiece, it's put together so well and with so much care and thought in mind, that it feels good talking about it. There's also some sense of safety and trust here too. I trust these writers, I trust their narrative and the story they're building. <- this! you said it perfectly and i completely agree, and having such faith and admiration and TRUST in this team of creators is an amazing feeling. i haven't had that with anything else tbh, no matter how much i've loved a show (and i love many!).

you made me tear up at the end of this! thank you for reading my posts and for being so thoughtful and kind in response, it is incredibly touching and meaningful to me. bcs fandom here is remarkably insightful and constantly revealing new aspects to think about in these stories, and they're so rich and layered that they allow for that depth, alongside us enjoying the ride and loving the characters. i'm so happy you're here, i love being a part of this and sharing it with all of you. 💗

your commentary on BCS is very smart and full of love 🥺

thank you so much 💙💙💙