#them’s the brakes

[subaerial-dweller]

van palmer can do nothing wrong because here is this woman who has spent the past 25 years alone, has just found out she has stage 4 cancer (very very terminal) and was preparing, with all expectation, to die alone. she didn’t tell anyone, didn’t get in contact with old friends, she just watched her mom die and a little while later discovers that she’s going to meet a similar end very soon.

it’s like van’s survival is tied to the wilderness, in that it’s thrown all this shit at her and she’s nearly died a billion fucking times in the most traumatic ways, but she’s always lived. because, despite everything, van knew how to survive in the wilderness. and now she’s out, and she has cancer, and she can’t just survive this. there’s no getting out of it. so i reckon in episode 3, van hesitating to join in with tai’s spontaneous “we hear the wilderness and it hears us” chant is the most horrific mixture of grief, and hope, and stamping down that hope, and an understanding that this shit hurts people, but still wanting to survive anyway because that’s the thing van’s been good at for her whole life and fucking that up now is unfathomable to her. she was so uncomfortable with that waiter dying because she doesn’t know what her life is worth to anyone but tai and her own survival instinct, and when both of those are pushing her to embrace this new solution, this remission to the incurable disease she’s been given, she’ll hesitate but ultimately go along. she follows Tai but hasn’t yet fully embraced it.

and i don’t know if she will, to be honest. obviously this is all speculation because it’s literally been 3 episodes, but if I’m right van will have a really tricky moral dilemma on her hands here, in both timelines. is killing coach ben worth it to save her own ass, and taissa’s, because they might be involved in the cabin burning down? yes, she decides. but now van owes her life to ben. does this change anything? and then, in 2021, is van’s life worth sacrificing not only the waiter, but also natalie? is it worth potentially harming more people by worshipping the wilderness if that’s going to keep her cancer dialed back?

so i guess my initial statement of “van palmer can do no wrong” is entirely dependent on what she does next. i’ll still be defending her with my life.

[sarcasticsouthernbookworm]

I feel like the fandom talks shit about Mari a lot and I know her chances of survival are extremely slim, but I kinda love her

And I’m definitely gonna start singing, ‘I’m too sexy…’ for whatever awful harrowing scenarios I’m in

Plus I love her hair

[unseelie-kaye]

them’s the breaks 🤷🏻‍♀️

[melissaloveswriting]

Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish with a gummy in the system sends you to outer space in a way

DONT SAY GOODDBYYYEEEE TILL THE DAY I DDIIIOEEEEEE

[staghunters]

♥ MY QUEEN OF HEARTS ♥ ⩹ YOUR WHITE RABBIT ⩺

[frootlooppoptarts]

misty and nat's jacket

[randomness-is-my-order]

it’s the way jiang cheng could not accept yanli and wei wuxian’s sacrifices, the way he could not fathom their selflessness because each of their actions were viewed by him through a very self-centric lens–in that, how does wei wuxian taking a stand for the remaining wens affect him, affect jiang cheng? how does yanli giving up her life for wei wuxian affect him, affect jiang cheng? it’s always about him, his feelings, his anger, his grief, his sense of abandonment. the problem here is that yeah, he loved his sister and yes, he did care for wei wuxian but what are these words worth when he could not allow them to make their own choices and respect those choices? what does it mean that he’d rather try to slash wen ning’s corpse and throw the wens under the bus because he doesn’t want wei wuxian to remain in the burial mounds and see what comes after? what does it mean that jiang cheng could not digest yanli’s sacrifice and never bothered to tell jin ling about the truth of his mother’s death, letting her son continue to hate the man she gave up her life for, out of love at that?

jiang cheng never respected what was most important to wei wuxian and clung to his idea of what he thought would be best for wei wuxian. thing is, if wei wuxian had backed out, had left the wens, in some impossible hypothetical universe––he would never be able to live with himself again. saving and supporting the wens was extremely important to wei wuxian. similarly, if yanli ever got a do-over, she would still save wei wuxian and give up her life because that is what she believed in, that is what her love for him compelled her to do. and in both instances, jiang cheng could not let go of his own reactionary emotions to their decisions to respect what these decisions represented.

he spit on both their sacrifices: let the lies about yanli’s death breed hatred for wei wuxian and led the siege to the burial mounds to kill the very people wei wuxian risked his life to protect. and for both these instances, the fandom has spoken ad nauseam about how it’s understandable for jiang cheng to feel abandoned, that he is always “left behind”. but did he ever have the courage to truly stick by them? stick by them, even in memory, even in their ideals, even in their last living and dying wishes?

[cartbarnie]

Hey so why haven’t I seen absolutely NOBODY talking about this? I don’t exactly know where this is from but god is it good?? It sounds like something I’d hear in an old sonic game menu

Also—CB and Electra’s voices here? Genuinely so cool, I love how robotic Electra sounds

I think people should give this SO much more attention, it feels really underrated

[captainmvf]

I wanna explore the world with you! ✨🌎💫

[awkwardbakugou]

movie theater date!!

[archive--ooo]

grief that hurts is love that's too strong that can't go anywhere

@nataliesscatorccio | "them's the brakes" (s3 x 3), yellowjackets | "in a mental hospital sitting room", elizabeth jennings | collected poems, george seferis | the voice, anais nin | lifecycle of the mole-woman, kim fu | @nataliesscatorccio

[purse-moneychurch]

STARLIGHT EXPRESS CHARACTERS TIER LIST Including my personal opinions on each character.

I made it using THIS template. Make one too, it literally has characters from nearly EVERY production!!!

Ight, imma head out now👍

[sarcasticsouthernbookworm]

CANNOT BELIEVE!!!! Lottie put that dress in a teenagers bag, shame on you Lottie

The whole them being mentally stuck as teenagers is really coming through for me this episode

Ok in the 2nd season I noted the role reversal of Nat being one of the last converts to Lottie’s religion in the wilderness but the first in the modern day

And now we have Van and Tai where Tai basically only joined because of Van and now Tai is pressuring Van into rituals

Side note though: adult Tai and Van continue to be the hottest women on the planet

Side side note: WHERE ARE YOUR WIFE AND CHILD TAISSA!!?!!

Goddammit Mari that was so unnecessary, you and Ben are my favorite almost certainly doomed characters

Nat’s hair continues to be my favorite thing ever

She did look a little guilty about finding coach, did she set the fire? Like post her convo with coach where she’s was like, ‘I let Javi die for me, you don’t belong here,’ like in her guilt did she set the fire

Then again Shauna is very adamant that Ben set the fire which makes me wonder if she did it in her postpartum rage

Lottie trying so hard to recruit temple priestesses like wtf, is she gonna start drugging Callie next?

Shauna’s reaction to the necklace was exactly fucking right, I’ll say again, wtf Lottie

Van figuring out the pattern in the trees, Tai seeing signs in commercials

Tai is really taking the job of disgraced New Jersey senator seriously, really leaning into it

Or was the fire completely accidental

Ok they’ve done sacrificial cult do you think they’re going into paranoid witch trials next

[swingstep]

oh i have Got to stop putting so much effort into one-off bits

[burirammin]

Watching there can be only just to be hurt by the cota crash again…….

[grogumaximus]