#there might me clips of just the reunion out there on tumblr if you can find them tho!

[oddthesungod]

Hey this is a random comment but when does the reunion between Orym and Dorian happen? I'm not a crit role fan and I don't want to watch the whole thing but I really want to see the context of that photo

Oh hiya!

It just happened in yesterday’s episode, the VOD is not out on Youtube yet but it does come out there on Mondays! But the episode number you’re looking for is Campaign 3 Episode 93!

(Although it’ll probably be kinda confusing if you havent watched the previous two to three episodes shsjdhjd)

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

♡ Final Space Quinn x Gary ♡

♡♡ Quinn x Gary’s Journey Links & Commentary ♡♡

This is a long ass post. I believe that it may be the most comprehensive Quinnary post on the site. 

I combed through Final Space in order to chronicle this relationship. The most detailed portions might have taken place during a manic phase. The less detailed parts were probably done during a fairly normal (for me) state of mind. I didn’t work on it during any bouts with depression, despite having a few during the course of this project. For the most part, this oughtta all be accurate. 

FOR THE HOMIES @space-finally​ Happy Super Belated Birthday! @shslargue @andromidagalaxie @daintyurbanprincess @sleepyfangirl18 @simplyender​ ​

One note: Some of these links are clips on YouTube, some are gifsets created on Tumblr (most of which come from @chookity-dookity​ and @jlassijlali​), and some are to other miscellaneous posts. I didn’t think about notating which are which until I was pretty far into the record, so clicking each link will be different formats of the scenes. Most are either gifsets or clips. If I can’t find one, there is just me blabbing.

♡♡♡ SEASON 1 ♡♡♡

Boy Meets Girl: This initial meeting is super weird out of context. Gary seems like a complete and utter creep and nobody in their right mind would have been interested in this man if this was how he approached them. Of course, since then, we’ve learned that Gary has limited people skills from having only one decent parent who died when he was young, and also abandonment issues from having an indecent parent. He’s fortunately learned better since then.

I Don’t Want to Wake Up: This scene is one of the main reasons that Cookie Wife really didn’t make any goddamn sense in S2, but anyways, Gary really said that he didn’t mind not waking up if it meant him being with Quinn again, and this is before she’s ever trapped in Final Space or anything. Gary simply had her in his psyche as his greatest desire and she’s just there, missing him and wanting to be with him.

The Reunion 

I.G. Takeover Command:

Quinn: For some reason, they’re trying to shut down my investigation.

Gary: What a bunch of nerds.

Quinn: They’re after me.

Gary: You, why? You’re perfect.

Quinn: (Tells them what the problem is and everything bad that transpired after that)

Gary:... (Tries to fucking flirt with her)

The Fighting/Flirting Scene of YIKES!: Soooooooooo... I can’t seem to find a clip of this or a gifset, but it was that part where the ship is being taken over by the Infinity Guard, the Sames are turning on the crew, and Quinn is literally punching Gary in the face while he insists that they’re flirting. What can you do besides like... be turned completely off. That was terrible. Thank goodness he’s grown.

Arguing over who saves the day... SHE knows exactly what needs to be done, but Gary is trying to prove himself and OMG. Like... I don’t understand how people didn’t understand Quinn’s frustrations with this man in S1. Lol. 

“Alright. We wait for Gary.” I NEED y’all to understand the compromise that was made here. Quinn wants to leave Gary behind. Quinn explains WHY leaving Gary behind is the best thing to do for billions of lives. The rest of these fools talmbout they not leaving without Gary, and so she agreed... I INSIST that y’all acknowledge that Quinn has literally become an enemy of an intergalactic superpower to carry out this mission, standing up to not only her superiors, but all of the reinforcements that they’ve sent after her... but instead of fighting them on it (and we know that she doesn’t mind doing so, even when outnumbered and outgunned)... She AGREES. She states her case the one time, they say “No,” and she doesn’t push it. That’s actually a huge show of compromise for her. Would she have gotten her way if she pushed back? Probably not. But she wasn’t above pushback and she still chose not to in this situation.

Girl Remembers Boy: This man literally gets his finger snapped for not respecting boundaries.   Was it WORTH IT GARY?

♡

Painfully Short & Clear I actually LOVE this spot in their development because of a couple of things that happened here. 1. He asked her why she wouldn’t give him a chance. 2. She answered, very clearly and reasonably. 3. He “broke up with her,” but more than that - his FOCUS when interacting with her became the root issue that she named “That doesn’t inspire a lot of trust.” After this moment, Gary repeatedly focuses on getting Quinn to trust him (and not so much asking her out or asking for another chance), but WORKING ON himself, in a way that he has been clearly told what problem she has. 

Corruption Stew - So, okay... I like this little tidbit too, because it shows that Quinn, for all her genius and all her common sense, her faith in the Infinity Guard is so well constructed that she doesn’t even CONSIDER that they’re corrupt. But Gary, for all his bumbling and borderline inefficiency in a plethora of things... Can see it for what it is, and is outspoken. 

She Don’t Trust You Knuckas. 

Quinn Tries to Send Gary Away.

(This is Gary and Quinn’s first adventure together! )

Gotta go around...

Quinn confronts the Infinity Guard about the Lord Commander (Okay... I can’t tell if the clip is messed up or my computer is having issues, so... I mean... sorry if it’s janked up.) Her Face

Gary Begs Quinn Not to Join the Infinity Guard

Destroying the Laser

The Trust Save

“Healthy People Trust”

♡

Chapter 6 is one of my favorite episodes of this show. So many things take place, but for me, personally, I care the most about the development/revelations of Quinn and Gary in it.

Quinn VS Avocato:

Sidenote: As much as fandom pits Avocato and Quinn against each other, I certainly hardly ever see the two clips in the show where they had their big disagreements.

It just feels like such a crucial piece of lore. 

Like... this is so close after the whole, "Healthy people trust," and Quinn's first response to this disagreement (which is a huge and world threatening disagreement), is to pull a gun, then they're basically in a life threatening situation and her takeaway ultimately was, "I can't believe I trusted you." It made me laugh a little bit the first time, because I was like... "Dawg... you pulled a gun," but also like... it IS a situation worth pulling a gun over.

And Idk if I would ever trust somebody again after that, but definitely after tying me to a chair. Lol. A MESS. Gary was right when he said there was really no good rebound after that... but he was also wrong, because there actually was and it took place in this episode.

TRANSMISSION BINGE WITH MOONCAKE!!!:  Where I credit the origin of Quinn starting to fall for Gary. I love that you can tell that she’s changing her mind about him, even though she doesn’t SUDDENLY become into him or immediately loses her common damn sense over him, or anything like that.  

  “You can trust Gary.” - HUE 

  “That idiot” (affectionate) and the Incoming Transmission.

Quinn: H.U.E. Where’s Gary?

H.U.E.: Unclear. I have lost communications with him.

Quinn: Then, we’d better get down there and find him. We’re coming Gary.

(She doesn’t say that they’re going to go get “them” or name Avocato and his son. She specifically states that she’s looking for Gary and declares to Gary that she’s coming for him). Whenever she resumes communication with him, he says, ‘Oh Quinn, you really do love me,” and though she’s concerned about him, saving him and warming up to him, she quickly corrects that - even though the connection wasn’t great. Lol. Which is another reason that I hate whenever people suggest that Quinn just became a Gary prop when she “suddenly” caught feelings for him - because her feelings started developing as early as Chapter 6 (her feelings of trust, or at least trying to in the previous episode). IT DIDN’T JUST SUDDENLY HAPPEN WHEN THE WORLD WAS FALLING APART YOU HEFFAS.

Rescues Gary and the first exchange of warm smiles... you know... before Avocato ruined the moment by getting blown up! 

J/K... But he did really get his ass blown up shortly after. Seconds 30-about 1.00 tho? - Quinn being super happy to see Gary alive. Her focus is solely on him as he and the others board, and she watches him, smiling (one of her BRIGHTEST SMILES THUS FAR, MIND YOU), and after he greets Mooncake, he looks up at her and they just... smile at each other...

She isn’t mad at him anymore. She hasn’t left the ship to go on her mission alone. And, she is happy to see him alive (after she saved him). I’m reiterating this because a lot of folk try to act like Quinn only beat and bullied Gary up until the moment that they went on a date, and while those stupid people are probably not here, at this PRO-QUINN post in this QUINN LOVING environment, I really love punctuating that Quinn showed emotional acceptance of Gary AS EARLY AS this event.

It wasn’t because he lost his best friend. It wasn’t because she was stuck with him. She could have left. She chose to watch his transmissions, chose to save HIM, specifically, chose to stay and obviously was pleased with that decision after he made it back safely. 

♡

She was soft with him when we next saw them together in 7...

(Image: Quinn comforting Gary when Little Cato shuts him out) Gary’s Message to Avocato

Quinn sends Gary to talk to Little Cato. She doesn’t always have the emotional maturity it takes to ease the problems, but I love the fact that one of the aspects of Quinn’s personality is that she tries to get the best person to comfort others that she can find. (As she later does this when Gary is anguished over Fox’s death and she knows that he “needs” Avocato, instead of her. And to a certain degree, also Nightfall, who encourages Gary to step things up with Little Cato). 

Sidenote - I think its interesting that in this instance, when she looks around the room and there’s Mooncake, KVN and some Sames, SHE is the one to approach Gary and comfort him. I love the thought of her assessing the situation and knowing that this is the time when she IS the best person to do this, and that she’s willing to (because she cares). And it makes me wonder if she hadn’t already tried to be there for Little Cato too, because she was right behind him whenever he went through the vent and I believe that she’s been keeping an eye on him.

The Good Stuff: “H.U.E. What is he doing?” PLEASE NOTE how Quinn only EVER asks about Gary, specifically. You might say, that’s because he’s the only other human there, but she does this a lot, whether or not he is. She ONLY ever asks specifically about Gary when he’s involved in group shenanigans or danger. Quinn calls for Gary when they hear explosions from the ship. “What was that? Gary are you okay? Gary?!” 

Nightfall rescues them and reveals herself to Gary right as Quinn comes in to check on things. Quinn and Gary argue... well... Quinn fusses at Gary for doing some very ridiculous and immature shit. Though, between us, I think that Nightfall’s presence and Gary’s acknowledgment of her as Quinn was a sore sport that caused her to bounce back into her abrasiveness as a defense mechanism. Gary is being quite nonchalant, despite having just gone on a suicide mission with a young boy, in which, someone else had to rush in and save them and the kid wound up injured. 

Quinn seemed more hurt than angry, to me. She’s avoiding even looking at Gary as she lashes out at him, and when he suggests that he leaves, this is one of the few times that she agrees with him in this season. She’s not agreeing with his ass. She’s upset and doesn’t want to see him right now, and her tone is totally different than it was whenever she first entered the room, saying his name. Quinn didn’t show up to fuss at Gary. She showed up to check on things and Gary was goofing around with some flirtatious chick who had not only just saved him but was acting all cozy with him. She was probably actually upset with what had just happened, but you can’t convince me that she didn’t have jealous rage prompting some of her anger in this moment. To the point where she’s about to let Gary leave and sign on for raising Little Cato while she’s on this mission. “Quinn, Gary can’t leave.” - Nightfall

When Gary leaves the mission...

Quinn VS Nightfall.: Nightfall binds Gary, is caught and confronted by Quinn about what she’s up to, tells Quinn Gary’s typical fate in every timeline, and tries to kill Mooncake.

Quinn Needs Gary/Team: “Gary Rescues Little Cato” I would like to point out, as some like to forget A LOT of the time, that Little Cato meets Gary and Quinn on the same day. Gary signs on to take care of him, because he’s Avocato’s best friend and Avocato asked it of him, but Quinn is there, instructing Gary on a few parenting things, being EXTREMELY upset with him when Little Cato gets hurt in the process AND, was about to let Gary LEAVE Little Cato with her, since in her words of anger, he had allowed this to happen to Little Cato. And Little Cato heard their conversation (because as soon as they left he got up to use Nightfall’s time traveling ship), so he also knew that Gary was getting prepared to leave him there with Quinn and he accepted it.

In this scene, Little Cato clearly cares about her, too, and we know he was fond of Nightfall, and had her around for 60 years. So, listen... Long story short - Little Cato loves Quinn and sees her as a mom figure. She never actually officially signs on for that in adoption, so he doesn’t ever call her mom or anything like that. But, realistically - that’s his mom-head, and his parental ties to her are very much so real, despite her not being a formal mother to him on paper. 

♡

This Entire Episode, Really...

Gary having his ability crisis with Nightfall/Quinn

“We are not flying into a sun!”: Okay, okay, okay... I think about this a lot, because it highlights my thought process that Nightfall and Quinn were never the same Quinn. She’s an older Quinn, yeah - but not THIS Quinn as an older person. But... the way that Gary is talking to Sis in this episode... He don’t be talking to Quinn like that. Even in this episode, where he is highly distressed the entire time and full of anxiety, the snippiest he gets with her is sarcastically thanking him for not believing in him.

Fly Into the Sun: I love this scene because Quinn shows that even though (we know, as I pointed out in earlier moments, that she has feelings for Gary at this point), Quinn doesn’t suddenly become some passive prop that is just there to go along with Gary’s shenanigans. She tells him the truth - he’s not a good pilot, but she also gives him a chance to prove himself - please do not screw this up. Earlier Quinn would have fought Gary until he got out of the seat!

Bolo’s Mind Palace: Nightfall wishes him good luck. She’s always really cheerful and nice to Gary, despite him not really returning it and I have to wonder if some of Gary’s learning to pipe down a little with the over the top clinginess to Quinn wasn’t aided by seeing how uncomfortable it was for him whenever Nightfall seemed into him. 

Quinn asks, “What’s going on with Gary?” which winds up being how they’re allowed to see the interaction between Gary and his father.

The Talk with John: Quinn’s facial expressions whenever Gary is talking about her goes from being pleased that he said he loves her “to the max core,” to being saddened when he says that he doesn’t think that she likes him.

Gary Loses His Dad (Again) ☹: You can see the pain on her face when she has to see this happen to Gary.

They KNOW it's about to happen. Even if they didn't know before today, they knew from watching it unfold. Their reactions aren't reactions of shock and horror so much as hating to see Gary go through this tragedy. Because they care about him. She clutches her pearls and says, "No." This isn't the first death she's seen, in her career nor in the time we've seen her on the show. This hits different. This hurts her. She hates seeing this happen.

Whenever she consoles him with Little Cato, she chooses similar wording to the very thing that the person he loved most had just said to him. 

Gary and Quinn are on the same page 😊 I presume this because Nightfall goes away. I think that she realized that Quinn was finally where she and Gary were in tuned enough that she didn’t need to stick around.

♡

After John’s transmission and Quinn’s speech (I can’t find a clip or gifset), Gary tries to ask Quinn “something” during battle. (It’s to go on a date) 🥺🥺🥺

He’s persistent about it, but not in that way that he used to pester her. Instead, this is more like... He chose a bad time, but then again, they might not have had time in the future. So, persistence is endearing here, in my opinion. PLUS, he wasn’t so distracted that he couldn’t still save her from danger. (Gary saves Quinn during discussion)

KVN’s save & “Gary, give him a little something”

Quinn agrees to go on a date with Gary. Worth noting: Yes, they think that they’re about to die. That’s actually what makes this even more meaningful to me. Before she dies, Quinn wants to know why Gary even likes her, and whenever he answers, he includes his definition of love. Quinn, in what she believes are her last moments is ready to agree to go on a date with Gary. She knows that they can’t go on a date. They’re about to die. What she’s really agreeing to in this moment is to be willing to take a chance on Gary. She could have said that there is no love here or too bad it’s too late, or something. But, she tells him yes, for once, to one of his inquiries about them, after he speaks about love and before what they think is their certain death.

The fact that they live wasn’t something they expected. I’ve already said that I think that she had her feelings long before this, but several things happen this episode in which those feelings are brought out of her, into the light, into Gary’s awareness and into the rest of their relationship. I think this was the moment that their path together truly started. When she finally said “Yes” to him. 

Gary & Quinn’s “First Date” I really appreciate that even though everything is about to go to hell, they still get this moment in the place where they first met.

Honestly, this was simply funny to me. Y’all tryna save the world and Gary is tryna “bring it.” And Quinn looks like she’s into it. 😉 

First Hand Hold��💘💘💘

Quinn becomes playful with Gary and allows him to flirt with her. She ALSO seems to want to say more to him. Whenever they’re underwater, she seems like she is going to say something else, but decides on, “This is actually a pretty good first date...” immediately after which, she rescues Gary from getting harmed and takes the blow herself, which knocks her unconscious.

* It is very important for me to point out the fact that Quinn rescues Gary here, placing herself in danger in order to save him, because I never see this scene anywhere outside of watching the show and I hardly ever see it discussed, either. The narrative that Quinn doesn’t care about Gary or that he’s always saving her, or that their relationship is one sided now has another example against it. For reference, I can tell you that it happens in episode 9, at the 14:30 timestamp, but I couldn’t find a clip and I can’t remember if there’s a gifset that I ever saw for it. My friend made this for me specifically for this post.*

The World is Falling Apart... Now... I’m also gonna simply challenge the idea that Quinn suddenly became a totally different person in this episode and suddenly was interested in Gary without reservations... That shit ain’t happen. Quinn very much still had some reservations about Gary and their relationship, despite having already began feeling deeply for him, she still doesn’t bend to every whim he has. (Hard maybe) They once again think they’re about to die and while Gary does ask her to be in a relationship and she doesn’t say no, there’s not a huge proclamation of love or a big kiss or anything like the descriptors that people have claimed here. All they do in what they think are their last moments is hold each other.

Mooncake. “He stays with us” 🥺 Gary and Quinn are next to each other, ready to go to war together. GOD I LOVE THEM!

SEASON 1 FINALE: 

This episode is very important, because not only is it the last time that we see Quinn for a really long time, but it is the place where Quinn makes some hard decisions that I believe that she was contemplating before they got to this point. She always intended to be a hero. She always intended to save the world... She never intended to fall for Gary. But, that happens and now she has this journey. This journey with Gary, that she can tell is coming to an end.

When Gary gives his speech and he says that they’re “family,” Quinn nods her head and when he says, “We find each other,” she smiles.

A death sentence. The plan with the hawk. “Make us proud.” She puts some faith in Little Cato. 

“Why are you fighting me?” Gary has actually been following Quinn’s lead for a little bit, swooping in to save her when necessary, but listening to her plans and leading whenever he sees fit. He hadn’t straight up went against something she set out to do, and hadn’t even argued with her in a while. And here... there is SO much going on. Nobody says “I love you,” even though the conversation makes it clear. His struggle to both support her but also to save her. Her insistence to carry out this mission because she knows its her life work, but still knowing that most likely she won’t make it out of this. His vow to make sure that he helps her. And that kiss...

The kiss was like... Let’s just revisit it in the way that I have so many times.

She MIGHT have known that this was goodbye. We can only presume. Look at her sad look afterwards. She told Gary “Don’t die on me,” but whenever he tells her that he wants more when she gets back, she doesn’t say anything about coming back. She knows, scientifically, what she’s up against because of her equations and this, for real, for real, this time... for her... this is likely goodbye. She doesn’t know of any possible way that this ends up in some type of rescue for her. “It’s both of us. Always has been...” 

Losing Earth/Quinn’s Sacrifice Whenever she contacts him, her voice is so soft. Gary has just literally watched the Earth be taken. She has just watched the mission fail... She KNOWS what has happened in the past lives. She is already apologetic. She is apologizing to Gary. He expected her to come back. She knew better all along, and now she’s run out of time. Gary is more upset by her decision than what just happened to the Earth. It’s one of the most heartbreaking goodbyes...

“Which Way is Quinn?”: Gary sets us up for the ENTIRE MOOD of the next season with this line of questioning that he has. His body is ready to die, but he has this energy inside of him - call it thought processing, call it a soul, whatever - but Gary is determined not to die, because he has things worth living for, searching for, fighting for. His family. Which way is Little Cato? His son. Which way is Mooncake? His beloved... companion? I don’t like to think of Mooncake as a pet, but we know that technically he holds Avocato as his “best friend” so I can’t really call him that. Which way is Quinn? His soul mate... and with that... he comes back to and spends the rest of his time reuniting with them.

THIS WENT ON FOR SO LONG that I’ve decided to give it in parts. Seasons 2 and 3 will be separate from this post. After I’ve posted them, I will come back to include the link(s) to them here. 

Thank you for your time! I intended to have this posted for a friend’s birthday, but halted work on it for the months that I was without a laptop. Final Space is over, but Quinn and Gary are forever for me. 

[ambiguousdisorderken]

in your expert opinion what are some of the most destiel-heavy episodes of spn? i stopped watching around season 7 and have no interest in engaging w the plot of the show at all but i’m in the mood for some gay yearning ykwim

Hi anon! Thank you for reaching out to me about this, I’m, no-joke, very flattered. I’d seen a couple posts on this same question, very thorough and detailed lists on Destiel-centric episodes, but at the moment I cannot find any of them, that would’ve answered your request much faster. So, in advance, sorry, my reply is probably coming in extremely late, but I did write this from scratch, so yeah.

Even though storylines in SPN can be very shitty and hollow, I do feel that to get the full Destiel experience -that long-drawn yearning- one would have to watch the entirety of the show, even if Cas isn’t in the episode or if there’s no explicit mention of their relationship/bond because it gives you a better understanding of them as characters and of how their relationship affects the narrative.

Now, you mentioned you stopped around S7, which is completely understandable and justified given the Dick plot game was very weak and, in my opinion, annoying (so little Cas!). I’m going to start listing from S7 in case you want to refresh your SPN before jumping straight into unseen episodes. Also, since you mentioned no interest in the plot and are specifically craving those sweet crumbs of gay yearning, I’ll skip most one-sided / too subtle episodes and cut to the chase.

Lastly, I hate spoiling things, but you’ve probably seen it all on Tumblr. I tried to keep the episodes’ descriptions short, as it might come in useful. Stuck to key words, quotes and/or little comments.

 Season 7

7x01 – Meet the New Boss: Godstiel, sincere apology. Cas: “I'm gonna find some way to redeem myself to you.”

7x02 – Hello, Cruel World: Mourning. Trench coat melancholy. The heart-wrenching eulogy: “Dumb son of a bitch.”

7x17 – The Born-Again Identity: Emmanuel!Cas, reunion, longing, hurt.

7x21 – Reading is Fundamental: Honey!Cas, hug, hurt, reunion, that painful SORRY (board game) scene.

7x23 – Survival of the Fittest: Honey!Cas, forgiveness, adorable, wified Cas. Dean hits us with: “Nobody cares that you're broken, Cas!" but also “I'd rather have you, cursed or not.”

Season 8 (this season is so good and Destiel is the driving motor of it, I swear. If you can, watch it complete.)

8x01 – We Need to Talk About Kevin: Dean in Purgatory looking for the angel.  Cas is referred to as “your [Dean’s] angel.”

8x02 – What’s Up, Tiger Mommy?: HUG!!!, Purgatory reunion, face touch, very romantic. Monster: “ You'll find your angel there.” //  Dean: “Let me bottom-line it for you. I'm not leaving here without you.”

8x05 – Blood Brother: Cas vs. Benny cat fight lol. Dean: “Cas... we're gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.”

8x07 – A Little Slice of Kevin: Cas comes back from Purgatory, but before that Dean starts seeing him in places. Very tragic; hallucinating your dead significant other trope. Has That boner scene. Dean: “I did everything I could to get you out! EVERYTHING!” Cas helps Dean see what truly happened in Purgatory and not his self-altered memories. PACKED!

8x08 – Hunteri Heroici: Hilarious, romantic, intimate. Dean and Cas have an heart to heart. They actually communicate. Cas “I’ll watch over you.”

8x10 Torn and Frayed: They work a case together, and when I say heart eyes…

8x17 – Goodbye Stranger: THIS. EPISODE. Dean “I need you.”

8x19 – Taxi Driver: Separation. Naomi to Dean: "You're hoping Castiel will return to you. I admire your loyalty; I only wish he felt the same way."

8x22 – Clip Show: Lack of trust, hurt, tense interactions. Romantic too (basically, Cas gets Dean an apology basket).

8x23 – Sacrifice: Meaningful conversation and a gay couple hit by Cupid parallel. Dean “So this is it? E.T goes home?"

 Season 9

9x01 – I think I’m Gonna Like it Here: Dean prays to Cas IN.A.CHAPEL. Worry, longing, separation. Dean “Please, man, I need you here.”

9x03 – I’m No Angel: Human!Cas and jealous!Dean.

9x06 – Heaven Can’t Wait: Human!Cas TEXT-BOOK LONGING. GAY AS FUCK. Gazing, touching, they even TALK (for real).

9x09 – Holy Terror: Adorable Cas, flirty vibes, happyish, funny. Cas: “Cas is back in town!”

9x10 – Road Trip: Cas comforts Dean, Cas and Crowley bitching at each other, overall protective!Cas.

9x18 – Metafiction. Cas finds out about the Mark of Cain.

9x21 – King of the Damned: Hug, strong boyfriends vibes.

9x22 – Stairway to Heaven: Cas gives up an entire army, for Dean. Metatron about Cas “He's in love………………………. with humanity.”

9x23  – Do You Believe in Miracles?: At this point, it’s canon stated that Cas will do anything and lose everything if that means saving Dean. Metatron to Cas “You draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right?”

 Season 10

10x01 – Black: Demon!Dean and sick/brokenhearted Cas in a slutty robe missing his man.

10x03 – Soul Survivor: ICONIC. Angel on Demon action! Cas turns down Hannah because he’s too gay and in love. Intimate Deancas talk.

10x05 – Fan Fiction: No Cas, but Destiel references. 

10x09 – The Things We Left Behind: That.Lunch.Date. Deancas introduction to co-parenting.

10x14 – The Executioner’s Song: We get Daddy Murder aka Cain. This is a Pivotal episode to understand Dean’s character development. Plus, it has Deancas interactions.

10x16 – Paint It Black: No Cas, but Dean opens up in confessionary; repressed BISEXUAL AS FUCK.

10x18 – Book of the Damned: Charlie meets Cas. Gay energies everywhere. Cute domestic little scene.

10x20 – Angel Heart: PARENTING! Essential to understand Cas from this point forward.

10x22 – The Prisoner: Just… just watch it. One of THEE Destiel episodes.

10x23 – Brother’s Keeper: No Deancas interactions but it’s the finale, and I recommend watching it because next season takes off literally right from here. No time jumps.

 Season 11

11x02 – Form and Void: Could skip to the very end which is when Cas comes back.

11x03 – The Bad Seed: Cursed!Cas. Dean takes care of him, even wraps him in a blanket. He also cradles his face. Extreme Hurt/Comfort. Jacting joices rejoice.

11x10 – The Devil in the Details: Could skip but has Casifer in it. Interesting to see his dynamic with Dean.

11x18 – Hell’s Angel: Casifer. Dean "It? It's not an it, Sam, it's Cas!"

11x23 – Alpha and Omega: Huggg! Cas willing to go on a guaranteed suicide mission with Dean. Very tender and sad.

 Season 12

12x02 – Keep Calm and Carry On: ANOTHER HUG! Dean presents his boyfriend to his mom<3 Soft and romantic.

12x09 – First Blood: Reunion hug<3, Cas pining… as in he counts his every minute without Dean.

12x10 – Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets: Direct parallel with canon couple. Crystal-clear mutual affection. One of the best. Angel Ishim to Cas about Dean “I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna cure you of your human weakness same way I cured my own… by cutting it out.”

12x12 – Stuck in the Middle with You: A dying Cas confesses his love. “I love you. I love all of you.”

12x19 – The Future: We find out Dean gave Cas a MIXTAPE!!! Very romantic and full of yearning, also worry and what could be seen as a betrayal (ish…).

12x23 – All Along the Watch Tower: Hands down, one of the most distressing Destiel episodes. Cas dies.

 Season 13

13x01 – Lost and Found: This is the worst because you have Dean trying to assimilate Cas’ death. Core of Dean’s widow’s arc. Jack introduction, that’s their new kid.

13x02 – The Rising Son: Widow’s arc (you could skip it, but why would you?).

13x03 – Patience: Widow’s arc (you could skip it, but why would you?). Dean to Sam “He manipulated him, he made him promises, said, ‘paradise on earth’ and Cas bought it and you know what that got him? It got him dead! Now you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t!”

13x04 – The Big Empty: Continuation of widow’s arc and Cas wakes up in the Empty. The Empty to Cas: "I know who you love. There's nothing for you back there." // Dean to Sam “I need you to keep the faith, for both of us. ‘Cause right now, I… Right now, I don’t believe in a damn thing.”

13x05 – Advanced Thanatology: Suicidal and hopeless Dean gets his win. Cas comes back. Gives me the chills.

13x06 – Tombstone: COWBOY BOYFRIENDS!

13x14 – Good Intentions: Happy and fun Destiel scene. So Very Married.

13x23 – Let The Good Times Roll: Season finale, Dean talks about retiring (plans include Cas of course) and just very nice to see them interact.

Season 14

14x03 – The Scar: Reunion.

14x08 – Byzantium: Deanand Cas dealing with their child’s death, then bringing him back by Cas making a deal with the Empty. IMPORTANT EPISODE.

14x09 – The Spear: Cas uses the royal We – married behavior.

14x10 – Nihilism: Dean is stuck in his own mind, and Cas and Sam try to bring him back. Cas “Please, you have to -- you have to try to remember, because the people in your life -- in your real life, out there -- we need you to come back.”

14x12 – Prophet and Loss: Dean gets his very own Dr. Sexy, aka Dr. Cas.

14x14 – Ouroboros: Basically another date (their kid tags along) and They TALK. Very intimate and established marriage vibes.

14x18 – Absence: Shits starts to go south. [ Dean: “Who cares what Jack said? We don't know what happened! But I swear, if he did something to her, if she is -- (points to Castiel) Then you're dead to me. (Castiel looks crushed after Dean says that).]

14x20 – Moriah: Tense and very upsetting. Relationship very damaged.

 Season 15 (I would advise watching the entire season because it relies heavily on Destiel. They’re the heart and the emotional motor leading the plot onwards.)

15x01 – Back and To The Future: Deancas’ in the aftermath of their kid’s death. Tension gets worse.

15x02 – Raising Hell: Tension rises, this is very intense. Cas “Dean. You asked, "What about all of this is real?" We are.”

15x03 – The Rupture: Breaking point ends in divorce.

15x06 – Golden Time: Painful phone call which speaks volumes about the current state of their relationship at the time. Also, good to see where they’re standing and how they’re coping.

15x08 – Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven: Strained relationship so obvious they’re offered couples’ therapy.

15x09 – The Trap: MASTERPIECE. Back to Purgatory. Can (and is) taken as Dean’s love confession (because it is). 

15x12 – Galaxy Brain: So married. Little domestic date, you can see LOVE written in their faces.

15x13 – Destiny’s Child: AU!Dean and Sam. Not a yearning episode per se, but AU!Dean? SO GAY.

15x17 – Unity: God reveals that the only act of free will in any universe he ever created has been Cas choosing Dean.

15x18 – Despair: Cas confesses his love to Dean.

[snowbellewells]

Self-Promo Sunday: “A Cottage by the Sea”

Good news, shipmates!! There’s a reason I am promo-ing this fic this Sunday. I finally have a new (and rather lengthy) update for this long neglected fic ready to go tomorrow. It’s been such a while though that I felt like I should tease it a bit and put the story back in peoples’ memories - as well as post easy links to the previous chapters. To those who have been waiting, I am truly sorry. After this, there should only be one more part, more of an epilogue really, so you shouldn’t have too much more waiting in store...

(Also always, a HUGE thank you to @searchingwardrobes for the stunning fic cover art!  And to @kmomof4 and the @cssns20 for patience as this story stretched out so long, and for the reblogs and recognition.)

Summary: Princess Emma has always been drawn to the shores of Misthaven, where the sea meets the sand near her parents’ castle. When an unknown boy washes up on the beach, with eyes as fathomless and blue as the waters that brought him to her, he soon becomes Emma’s best friend, her partner in crime, and her other half.  But the tides give and the tides take away, and as her blue-eyed boy sails in her father’s navy and risks all in defense of those who made him family, unexpected danger and challenge will try to tear them apart, and might well show him just where he came from that day he first appeared to her from the sea…

Previous chapters here on Tumblr: Prologue  Part One  Part Two  Part Three  Part Four

Previous chapters on AO3: Prologue     Part One    Part Two    Part Three    Part Four

And, as promised, a bit of a teaser for the tomorrow’s update... ;)

���...No sooner had Emma been able to swallow hard in a throat suddenly parched with apprehension, her fingers clenched in the material of Killian’s sleeve, above all else determined she wouldn’t let him be taken from her again, when everything around them went horribly, unnaturally still. The waves, the wind, all their surroundings silently seeming to hold their breath before chaos broke loose. For one last moment, she and her lieutenant fixed their eyes on each other; wordlessly swearing to see each other on the other side, whether or not it was within their power to follow through on such a promise. Then he turned to face his sire - if one could truly be made to believe that the monstrous captain towering over them at the prow of the other ship could have had any connection to the true and honorable man Killian had become. Intending to remain at his back, to do whatever she could to help him fight and keep them afloat, Emma straightened her shoulders and stiffened her spine as they waited and watched.

Sound and fury returned to the world around them as the accursed captain reached the very helm of his ship, bringing him fully into view as his low, malevolent chuckle at their show of resolve seemed to set the waves crashing and churning once more. “Oh ho, Killian, you’ve brought your intended to our long-awaited reunion, have you? Not particularly well-advised, but she is a pretty wench. I supposed I can see why you’d be loath to leave her behind.”

Killian’s frown deepend, the muscle in his jaw working as he bit down on his anger. Those eyes that she usually likened to the brilliance of a summer sky or the blue of his beloved ocean were instead lit with the pale fire of the hottest of flames at Davy’s callous words. “Hardly,” he clipped in a low growl. “I had no intention of meeting you at all. And I’ll not have you getting anywhere near Emma.”

“Is that so?” Davy snarled, his own temper seeming to erupt at his offspring’s defiance. “We’ll just see about that!”

The waves their little boat floated upon suddenly seemed propelled forward, rising on a towering crest of water as if drawn to Davy’s hand. Skilled a sailor as Killian was, there was no steering them anywhere else when the very elements were turned against them. The air seemed to quiver just as Emma found herself doing, as they came face-to-face with the accursed being. The boards of the vessel beneath their feet groaned and creaked as the frothing sea bearing it seemed ready to dash it to kindling. The air whistled and howled, whipping her hair against her face until she was nearly blinded. And yet, she saw the horrifying shade who faced them, the dark cloud of obsession clouding eyes which might once have been clear and striking as the sons he claimed as his own. He stood taller than the average man, seeming even larger with the wild hair and wide-brimmed, ostentatiously old-fashioned hat atop his head. All his dress was from a more ornate and bygone age, and yet looked gone to ruin rather than impressive; almost mildewed, or perhaps it was a growth of some sort of moss or coral upon his apparel after so long within the sea. Beyond the visible appearance however, the aura of evil power practically radiated from his being, and Emma felt herself draw back before even realizing she had done so.

Pleased with the nightmare impression he never failed to make, Davy Jones chortled in maniacal glee. “Oh yes, I see you there, Princess. Try not to fret overmuch. No matter how brave, they always cower before me in the end.”

She wanted to contradict his words, to call back that Killian wasn’t afraid and that she believed in him, but Emma found her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth, speechless and unable to react other than to stare, frozen, until with one last murderous crow, Davy cackled, “You’re both in my clutches, and no hope to escape. Look your last on the world above...”

Tagging a few who might be interested... @cssns @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @searchingwardrobes @whimsicallyenchantedrose @laschatzi @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @optomisticgirl @tiganasummertree @linda8084 @lfh1226-linda @jrob64 @stahlop @elizabeethan @donteattheappleshook @winterbaby89 @resident-of-storybrooke @darkcolinodonorgasm @thislassishooked @xsajx @drowned-dreamer @thisonesatellite @shireness-says @aloha-4-ever​ @ultraluckycatnd​

[floraone]

So, September is coming up, and with it smutember, and we’re doing it again! (At least I hope you’re with me, lol).

Just like last year, it runs alongside to the official daily word prompts on the official smutember blog: Smutember is an event that runs all throughout September for all fandoms. The following is meant as an addition, not a replacement. If you want to do daily prompts, please use the official words prompts (linked above). However, since daily prompts can be a bit intimidating (especially for a fandom corner that’s 25+ years old like ours and people in it have busy lives), as the resident smut advocate in our fandom, I again customized an alternative that can still incorporate the official themes.

Just like last year, down below you have a list of TROPE AND THEME PROMPTS. They’re a remix of sorts of last year’s tropes, with some you’ve seen before and some new ones, meant to spark a variety of ideas. The idea is that with these you can post once (or twice) per week instead of daily.

Be it for fanart or fanfic or any other sort of fanwork, tropes can be combined, (and they can be combined with the daily themes too), whatever floats your boat. Also, specifically: This event isn’t Usamamo-centric only. I will reblog any Sailor Moon content of any pairing as long as it follows the rules! (See below)

The aim of this event is to create sex-positive content together that celebrates a healthy depiction of consentual sexuality. Erotic fanfiction is a beautiful art, especially in a fandom of ours so largely cultivated by women and for women, as well as a strong inclusive focus on queer and gender-queer content and their creators!

What’s new: I’m taking a page out of the mini-bang’s impressive book, and when smutember is over, I will compile all entries that followed the rules into an online-only e-zine! This also means that art that may be too explicit for tumblr can still be included in the e-zine!

Here are the weekly trope challenges:

Reinvent a trope!

WEEK 1 (September 1st - 7th): Pick 1 or 2

🍋 Reunion Sex 🍋 Sex Fails 🍋 Second Chance Sex 🍋 You Talk In Your Sleep 🍋 Unresolved Sexual Tension 🍋 New Old Flame 🍋 Go Seduce My Archnemesis 🍋 Bedsharing 🍋 Sex with the Ex/Break-Up Sex 🍋 In Public 

WEEK 2 (September 8th - 14th): Pick 1 or 2

🍋 Make-Up Sex 🍋 Battle Couple 🍋 Mission Sex 🍋 Work-Out Sex 🍋 Accidental Pervert 🍋 Bathing/Shower 🍋 Pool/Onsen 🍋 Sexual Fantasies 🍋 Blind Date 🍋 Aroused By Your____ (pick a feature) 

WEEK 3 (September 15th - 21st): Pick 1 or 2

🍋 Established Relationship 🍋 “Thank God We’re Alive” 🍋 Caught In The Act 🍋 First Times 🍋 Introduction By Hook-Up 🍋 Pining 🍋 Locked In Together In A Small Space/ Trapped Together 🍋 Huddling For Warmth 🍋 Socially Distanced Sex 🍋 Stupid Sexy Friend 🍋 Caught In The Rain 🍋 Living Food Platter/Eating Off You 🍋 Shunga

WEEK 4 (September 22nd - 30th): Pick 1 or 2

🍋 Mutual Masturbation 🍋 Awkward/Clumsy Sex 🍋 Oh Crap There’s Fanfic Of Us 🍋 Talking In Bed 🍋 Fidelity Test 🍋 Fake-NOT-Dating 🍋 Mindlink 🍋 Sex Games 🍋 Tinder 🍋 Blackout/Quarantine/Disaster Warning/Weathering The Storm

RULES

1. Rating: These fics don’t necessarily need to be M or, in the case of Ao3, E- rated. Obviously, they are very, very welcome to be explicit for this event, but you can also go T-rated and stay in lime or ‘blacked out’-territory if you’re uncomfortable with writing explicit scenes! Both is perfectly and absolutely welcome! This of course also goes for fanart - your fanart may depict sexy scenes, but does NOT have to be explicit! (It can, though! Be aware that for tumblr’s guidelines, when sharing your art first, you may have to clip your images as a sort of preview. The original can then be sent to me privately to include into the e-zine!) 2. Minimum Age of Characters: Since this is a community event, if you do go explicit M rated material: age them up where necessary! So that everyone can be comfortable writing and reading these, let them be 18 at the minimum if they’re going to openly and explicitly wohoo. (16-17 is the global average age of consent worldwide, and also the average age for first sex among girls in many western countries. However, since most fanfic readers are located in the US, where the age of consent is 18, we’re going with 18 so that everyone can be comfortable reading!) If you go for canon fics at a time they are below this age, where you do not want to age up (say you’re going for an episode fix!) please stay in T territory for this event. 3. Off limits: Depictions of sexual acts that contain harmful, violent and non-consenting behaviour with non-consenting individuals (or those that aren’t able to consent, for instance because of their age, or state of mind among else!). If it doesn’t fly by law or the ICD in real life, please refrain from depicting it in the context of this event. This means that dubcon and noncon will not be reblogged for the event, so that people can be safely consuming the content without being triggered. All content will be screened in this regard, and I may contact you regarding trigger warnings. This is not at all to censor content, or that this content is in any form less valid (as long as it is properly tagged and not including characters that aren’t of age), but simply to ensure a safe environment for everyone reading. 4. Tag your triggers. Except the aforementioned limitation of harmful content, nothing is off limits. Explore your kinks! But if you write something that might be offensive to your readers, please tag it. This is ALSO a good way for your readers to find exactly what they ARE looking for! On Ao3 this can be done directly on the fic tags, for FF fics and fic links you can do it here on Tumblr via the fic post tags or in ANs. This is in consideration of your readers. 5. You can obviously post art for this event too. All previous rules apply here, as well. Unfortunately, Tumblr is now against tasteful nudity. That doesn’t mean you can’t link to a deviant art or similar account though, should you want to. And, since this year will include an e-zine at the end of it, all art will still be included fully in it. Here too, please tag your triggers. If you still want to post art on Tumblr, choose a T rated image - clip them where needed, or keep them (semi-)clothed, show us a heated kiss, etc! (Obviously we would love ALL the art and the nude body is a beautiful, wonderful thing, but obviously Tumblr doesn’t agree with us anymore!) 6. Have fun! Celebrate sexuality in an open, sex-positive way with us, try to be unapologetic about your likes while you write this, and appreciate the beauty that comes in the form of content with a largely female-gazing creator-base and audience! Smut in fanfiction has been beautifully put as the subjectification of sexuality (as opposed to  objectification). So let’s celebrate this art form together! 7. Reviews: No one is forced to review. It can be uncomfortable to review a fic that contains sexual acts for any number of always valid reasons. Keep in mind, however, that much like a Burlesque dancer on stage, putting out sexual content can also be very intimidating to an author, and nothing is more discouraging than silence when baring yourself to an audience like this. That being said: Both Ao3 and FF have the option to review in anon mode. That means you have the option to remain anonymous while cheering the author on all the same. Just like the Burlesque dancer, your resident smut authors prefer to go on stage to loud cheering - it makes it all less awkward for them, and feels a little more like a big celebration!

If you’re unsure what sex positivity entails and want to read up, I wrote a post about it here.

This event is not supposed to cause harm. This means that I will screen all content before I reblog it here, and include it in the e-zine. So that everyone of age can feel safe reading the fanworks in the event, dubcon and noncon will not be reblogged and included in the e-zine, and accurate tagging and content warning will be watched. This does NOT MEAN that you cannot post this material: your own desire to write it and someone else’s desire to explicitly read this material are valid. I do not entitle myself to censor. It just means it will not be reblogged and shared through the event so that everyone may feel safe to read to the best of my ability. (But, of course, remember that I, too, might be biased, and not discover subtle forms of it, either. We’re all, in the end, a product of our upbringing and society, and I cannot be completely unbiased.)

During the event, I will be posting all Sailor Moon Smutember contributions in this format on my blog if you @ me to the post.

The official hashtag for the event is #smutember2020 hosted by the official smutember blog. Using it helps people find the content who search for it as well as those who wish to block it!

[ayellowcurtain]

Thanks for sharing! i think your opinions are quite popular tho, at least here on tumblr. There might be a bit of push back about nr. 1 OHN, but i think that would derive from people who misinterpret what you mean. The actual clip was great (imo), but it was too little too late. It should not have that moment given the intensity and high stakes they were playing with. That small change to the order of events, required a grand change for their prolonged reunion but they under delivered

Thank you for asking! I always like to talk about skam and the remakes.

Yeah, I’m not sure how unpopular my opinions are, but I guess some people might differ from the way I see those topics.

The clip was great! Don’t get me wrong, the clip was great, both boys delivered everything they needed, the dialogue was good too but I just think it was too late indeed.

And even if they wanted to keep the clip on Monday, we should have had more insight in what was happening inside Robbe’s head. Give me a screen with a bunch of messages from him to Sander, a bunch of missed calls right after the clip on Friday. Then after the conversation with Senne, maybe gives us some texts between Robbe and Noor wondering if she has seen Sander (even if she doesn’t reply too because they haven’t been talking). Give me Robbe reaching out to Britt, both of them worried, trying to cover as much ground as they can. Give me Robbe posting some stories that he knows Sander might understand (a little like we had with Lucas’ stories at Eliott’s door), him hearing the playlist Sander sent him or something.

If they needed the clip to happen on Monday, at least give us some depth and build up to it, you know?

[icouldntthinkofabetternamesook]

Lets Get Dangerous review

spoilers

St Canard looks cool

are the Ramrod accidents ever explained? Are the costly set backs, the disappearance of Dr Waddlemeyer? who else has been hurt?

on a rewatch, I think Bradford might be intentionally trying to keep Scrooge away from Bulba because he’s a F.O.W.L asset and he doesn’t want Scrooge to get wise

LP and Dewy are so bad at keeping secret identities

there’s my gremlin boy!! Drake tried to be cool and completely flopped. nice set up on the later swoop

Bulba is laying it on thick. man he is smarmy

oh god I love the hideouts up. it’s sleek and homey and high-tech while having those deconstructed cardboard boxes to look a bit rough in progress. It’s batman inspired but still unique. also Drake has a big record collection. also those windows look amazing

I personally head cannon that the fearsome four of the in universe show where all people who authentically had those powers and either where doing community service instead of jail time or decided to do acting instead of crime. explains how they used their abilities on screen while still being low budget with few special affects, and ties into how it keeps being stated that St Canard used to have actual super villains

Huey noticed the key immediately

drake gives me second hand embarrassment

there’s the baby Gos-those are some sharp arrows

oh Dewy has his phone in his mouth. also his legs are just wrapped around LP’s arm. that is some strong core muscles

I theorized after the reunion clip came out that Drake would try to do the intro twice and get interrupted before finishing, until the third time where he would give the whole speech we heard over the teaser. I was right

Bulba is awfully ready to shove Darkwing into the spotlight. Maybe trying to get up ahead incase those accident investigations get to noisy? As well as control the narrative over Goslyn? Owlson is also very eager to reward him. maybe she’s a closet DW fan. 

THE COOKBOOK!!! 

KEEN GEAR SHE SAID THE THING HELLS YEAH!!!

Drake is justified in asking for evidence. also where has Got been living since her grandfather disappeared? bets on foster home or homeless

Gos and Dewy have a cute dynamic

All four of them in the motorcycle is cute. LP has is hands around Drake’s waist Dewy and Got in the side car, Drake and Got sharing that little look. so cute!

Drake and slapstick

Gos climbing over everything

Accordion Drake and his yep, yep, yep, but also accordion Darkwing, he is really in the realm of toon physics

so....did the ramrod really accidentally backfire or did Bulba, maybe...push him?just saying it might not have been an accident. also he could be telling this story as a cover for straight murder, he is a bit homicidal and a very skilled liar

“Hold it right there young lady” is a strong display of parental behavior

Drake using detective skills to sus out Bulba wth zero hesitation

she lost her crossbow!

a wonderful use of misdirection, the right way to use a smock bomb

zero hesitation to just jump

Drake only being able to swoop with Gos’ help is great illustration of them being better together

Drake and LP playful banter

and enter the fearsome four

ok Drake has called Fenton to ask for help with the portal at some point off screen. I think there was a semi major time gap between the fight with Bulba and the news cast

Liqidator is right in his element with Bulbas weird sudo work place stratagem. he’s Vice President!

jamming out to the theme song

Launchpad picks up the child

Dear lord Bushroot is creepy and cool. he’s just sitting there in some random beam of light. also he screech

Drake has a Darkwing Duck arcade machine

ok it’s this hasn’t slept in days thing that keeps tripping me up about the timeline. all of this could very well be happening in one very busy night except for that one line. also how can be staying up all night with Fenton when we’ve been seeing him at night with LP and Gos? this bugs me. I added an extra day between there the episode would split as a two parter to justify his extreme tiredness but what LP is saying makes no sense

Darkwing face pancakes thats a great detail

while no Negaduck in this episode(which makes sense he totally needs his own debut to deal with the ramifications of Jim Starling and stealing the show in general) Bulba manages to step in nicely as the scary, team leader from another universe. a twist on the classic while still paying homage

Goslyns emphasis on this being reality is...kinda grating actually. she’s not a dw fan so she’s not comparing it to the in universe show. also we as the audience are watching it be a show. theres no in universe reason for her instance that its real and its annoying out of universe. maybe its supposed to mesh with the ramrods use of fictional realities, and Bulbas later assertion about making their own reality, but as is it’s kinda flimsy

Reggie snake tail thing is really cool. Honestly he was given such an intense and cool redesign it makes no sense for that amount of effort to have only gone into one episode. I really hope Reggie left like a clone making seed pod thing so we can get more of him without having to dimension hop again

oh hey she got the crossbow back

why did Bulba even turn on the ramrod when he did?

you know that BTAS post going around Tumblr about how making it so you can never show death, forced them to come up with things worse then death? that’s what happened with waddlemyer. They couldn’t show us him dieting or dead so they had to find a way to make it even more gut wrenchingly painful while technically not killing anyone. ouch

annoyed we don’t get the adoption, or at least something more familial then explicitly making it about crime fighting

appreciate Dewy giving LP permission to go to his family. that transition is going to be rough so I appreciate the indication that Dewy will be supportive

and they ride off into the night together!

God this episode is fun! I have some nitpicks mostly about Gos and the timeline, but those pale in comparison to just how enjoyable and emotional it is to watch.

[ellariasand]

i’m not gonna teach him how to dance with you

pairing: frank castle x karen page summary: frank's helping karen with a story. some slight miscalculations put them in serious trouble. rating: t warnings: references to sexual situations & canon-typical violence - no actual depictions of either; swearing word count: 8.2k (sweet jesus) a/n: i’m not particularly used to posting my writing on tumblr (you can find this same piece along with others over on my AO3), so this is new for me! big props to @peoniesforfrankcastle for pitching me the softball of “what do you think would happen if frank and karen ended up in their own version of the landlord threesome situation from new girl??”, because that’s a normal thing to discuss at 1:30 in the morning on a saturday. enjoy!

“You’re sure this is the place?” 

It’s pissing rain outside the pathetic blue Jetta Frank’s sitting in — because of course it is. It’s dark, it’s wet, and the only thing he can see properly is the profile of Karen Page’s face, highlighted by soft blue dashboard lights. It’s cold, he’s not dressed properly, and he’d be at home in bed if not for her. He’d be warm, comfortable, and not packing three different pistols on various parts of his body. He’d be, for as much as the Punisher can be, safe. 

But Karen, despite every warning and caution and threat to her life, never quite knew when to quit.

She’s packing quite a different arsenal as she sits in the passenger seat, hands still covered in glitter from the bachelorette party she’d been at an hour earlier. Marci had insisted, she claimed as she checked the clip on her own gun, just an hour to say hi — but Frank knew better. Just an hour, he thinks as she makes sure her tape recorder’s working, is an hour she doesn’t have to think about what she’s about to do. 

“Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

She sounds absolutely certain as she speaks, even though Frank can see her hand shake as she stuffs the gun and the tape into her coat pocket. Her research is sound, her head screwed on straight, her plan well-equipped. (Well, perhaps not so much her plan as the plan Madani and Frank helped her make, but it’s all the same to her.) She’s Darius and Daniel all at once, throwing herself into the lion’s den without even a backwards glance. 

She’s here for a story, and she’s going to get what she wants, no matter how it scares the shit out of her. 

Or Frank, for that matter. 

“You’re dead sure?”

His voice is as deadpan as it was the first time he asked - all bite, no bark. Someone once joked that he sounds like he gargles with rocks when he does that, pulls out the Marine voice. The voice meant for giving and receiving orders, not sitting in a Volkswagen with a Bulletin reporter helping her with a story. Apparently, it’s as intimidating as the bruises perennially darkening the orbitals of his eyes - not that he’d be able to tell, the way Karen responds to him.  

“Yes, Frank.” She sounds as impassive as he does, if not more. He can’t read her expression in the low light, but he’s sure it’s as stolid as his. “Why are you so concerned about it?” 

All he can think to do is scoff as she pats herself down in a quick double-check.

“Because I’d’ve appreciated it if you’d told me we were going to a Cooley gun club instead of having to hear about it from Lieberman.” 

If he couldn’t read her expression before, he can now. It drops like a sack of bricks, and for all that his voice suddenly sounds upset, Frank can practically feel the weight of it hit his chest as the frown envelops her entire face. It dents her eyebrows, creases her forehead like some imitation of a child’s origami project. It’s a frown of surprise, not dissimilar to the ones he used to see on Lisa when he caught her reading past her bedtime. She’s been caught with her hand in the metaphorical cookie jar. 

Even if Lieberman hadn’t tattled, Frank would’ve figured it out eventually. Anyone north of 119th this late was asking for trouble, if not pointing the gun at their forehead themselves. Even he didn’t stray this far if he didn’t have to. Not if he wasn’t on a job. Once Central Park was in their rear-view, he’d gripped the Weston under his jacket a little more tightly.  

Karen’s parked herself right in the middle of a warzone, and judging by the loss of confidence in her expression, she knows it.  

“I didn’t want to lose my chance at getting you to help,” she mutters. She sounds as much of a spitfire as she did before, but the way she’s gripping her coat sleeves betrays her real reaction. “David knew?”

“‘Course he did.” Frank scoffs. “Guy can hack the NS-fuckin’-A, you think your laptop’s any different?” 

Karen’s frown deepens, the delicate origami construction of her face crumpling. 

“So that’s why you agreed to come,” she says quietly. It’s almost enough to make Frank regret his choice of words. Almost, if not for the truth of what they’re about to do weighing down on his shoulders.

“You can’t just...throw yourself in with the Kitchen Irish, Karen,” he replies, firmly but carefully. 

“I did it with Grotto.” 

It’s like she doesn’t even think before the words are out of her mouth. She’s so sure of herself. It scares Frank. Just enough. 

“Yeah,” he says, “And look how that turned out.”

“With you in the driver’s seat of my car, wearing a tape wire and helping me with a story.” Karen’s still wearing the frown, but she’s repurposed it now. Outfitted it to her advantage. Crumpled the paper and refolded it - treasure out of trash. “Not too bad in the grand scheme of things.” 

She says it with a shrug and a nonchalant glance over at him, and Frank can’t muster much beyond an incredulous laugh in response. A small part of him knows he’d walk through all seven circles of hell with weights tied to his legs if it meant helping Karen with a story, but sometimes he wonders how she does it - looks danger in the face and laughs like it’s nothing more than a carnival clown, there for her amusement. Like the few inches of column space she’s afforded can be weaponized as much as the Ruger she keeps in her purse. 

Karen dances with devils and comes out in first place every time, and Frank should know. He’s one of them. 

“We get in, you talk to the guy, we get out, alright?” 

He says it with a deadpan that hardly hides how much he’d rather taken Karen right back home, but he doesn’t stop Karen from fixing her lipstick in the mirror, doesn’t stop himself from checking that all three of his pistols are loaded and ready to go. The faster they’re in, the faster they’re out, and the less he has to feel his heart pounding in his chest like an animal trying to escape its cage. 

“No funny business.” 

Karen’s nod in response is perfunctory - she’s thirty-two, not twelve. She knows how this works. Frank knows that too, but the words come out anyway, in some vain attempt to reassure himself that what they were about to do wasn’t completely and utterly batshit. They’re more of a mantra than a command, and Karen’s response comes quickly on their heels as she pops open the door to the Jetta.

“People say my sense of humor is surprisingly dry.” 

Frank Castle has, thus far, simply been too angry to die. No other way to phrase it. He’s been shot, tortured, run through, hit by cars, and electrocuted, amongst a handful of other, unmentionable things. He’s gone through more injuries than a child’s video game character, and yet he’s gotten back up, beaten and bruised, every time, without fail. Whether it’s stubbornness or just rage, no one can ever really tell. 

But, he thinks as she smirks and hops out of the car, Karen Page might just end up being the death of him.

___________

The club they end up loitering outside of is dark, barely more than a husk of a building on the outside. It’s creative, the amount of effort these scumbags put into disguising themselves in plain sight, despite their existence being as common knowledge as the Harlem bus schedule. Decrepit storefronts, butcher shop basements, even the occasional apartment over a nail salon. Real estate in New York is slim, and Frank’s seen just about all of it - and a disproportionate amount of it with Karen at his side. 

He doesn’t understand how he keeps getting dragged into these places, these undercover ops for information held so closely it might as well be fantasy. He doesn’t understand how Karen gets herself involved, much less convinces him on nothing more than a hunch and a prayer to follow at her heels, sneaking about like Zoey when she’s trying to dart out the apartment door before Karen can catch her. 

He is, as Lieberman not-so-lightly puts it, built like a brick shithouse — sneaking isn’t particularly his style. Pretending to be someone else is something he’s done enough of in his everyday life. The life belonging to Pete. The life that doesn’t quite fit right - a present from an overbearing grandparent that collects dust in the basement from disuse. An old shirt, run through the wash one too many times that ends up stretched and worn, too grimy and ugly for everyday use. 

The only parts of that life that seem to fit right are the ones with Karen in them. Even if they involve breaking the law. 

The both of them are soaked by the time they’ve made it down the street, out of sight of their little blue getaway vehicle but in too much of a hurry to have bothered with an umbrella. Mercifully, there’s an overhang, and in some stroke of luck, the Irish at least have the courtesy to answer quickly when Karen knocks at the peeling wooden door with bare knuckles. 

She’s good at that, sneaking right in the front door instead of prowling around out back. Good enough that Frank can only stare in silence as she barely blinks  at a burly, dark-haired man opening the door, drilling her with enough questions to unsettle a Marine. He watches intently as she tosses around names Frank’s never heard, places he’s never been like she’s at some kind of fucked up family reunion. She calls him Robert and herself Harriet, and all he can think as they’re invited to cross the threshold is that at least it isn’t Pete. 

The inside of the club looks more inviting than the outside, but Frank’s eyes are too busy scanning the interior for exits to notice the furnishings. He lets Karen do all the flattering as they’re dragged through room after room, past locked door after locked door, each one more and more concerning as Karen makes inane comments his ears barely hear. He’d been primed on all the exits - and that did mean all - but the anonymity of what lay behind those dark panels of wood doesn’t bode very well for them. 

He manages to count sixteen separate doors by the time one of them opens to invite them in. The creak of it grates on Frank’s nerves, but he pays no mind as his attention zeroes in on Karen, whose blonde hair is disappearing into a dimly lit room, leaving him to chase after her like fool’s fire. 

His eyes are practically evolved for low-lighting by now, but his pupils still blow wide as he ducks past a burly security detail and into the darkened room. He could swear he’s stepped into an old-fashioned parlor, one of those overly ornate ones from the PBS dramas Karen likes to watch. Velvety couch, paintings on the wall, the works - even that awful gold gilt that old New York money people thought was pretty, rather than like they’d plastered scrapyard salvage all over their walls. Frankly, his grandmother had had better taste in decor, but clearly the new Irish have money. And they want to prove it. 

They want to prove they can defend themselves, too, based on the three men Frank clocks the instant the door snaps shut behind them. Strapped to the gills with firepower, looking like they could take a hit from a train and not move and inch, and angry to boot. Not too dissimilar from himself, in a way, aside from the way they mold themselves around the presence of a much slimmer man, in much better clothing, looking significantly more smug. 

If Frank had to describe him, he’d say the man standing in front of he and Karen looks like one of those people mothers describe as “homely” when they’re young, but is really just the kind of person women cross the street to get away from on their commute home. Pasty, skinny, unsettling to a degree that Frank can visibly notice as Karen’s posture goes rigid. The suit he’s wearing is very obviously couture, as are his cufflinks and shoes, but it doesn’t offset the alarm bells that his general presence sets off in the both of them. Not enough to truly make either of them afraid, but enough to suck all the air out of the room in less than an instant. 

Why do all drug lords remind Frank of the rats in the 34th Street subway station?

Perhaps because of the way they sneer like this one does, overconfident and cocky when Frank knows he could crush him under the heel of his boot in one step. Perhaps because of the way they carry themselves like they own the world, own the people standing in front of them and all that they’ll ever say simply because they’re on home turf. They’re leeches of the worst kind - vacuums of airheadedness and egos so big they could stop a truck. 

Frank prays this isn’t the guy Karen’s come to see.

There’s a reason he stopped doing that. 

“Ah, Miss Smith.” 

His voice is as cocky as his face, dripping with something between venom and crude oil. His hand extends towards Karen, and Frank can only watch as she accepts it with a plastic smile. 

“What a treat to finally speak in person. And this is Mister…?”

“Martin,” Karen replies. “My partner, yes.” 

“Partner.” He says the word as if considering it, as if the answer is better than he’d been expecting...which is, ironically, the best reaction Frank’s gotten to his own presence in years. Clearly the beard he’d started growing in was doing its job as a mask. “Wonderful.” 

He’s like a cartoon villain, this guy - if cartoon villains trafficked women and had bodyguards wearing enough firepower to set a building alight. All he’s missing is a mustache to twirl. Too bad he looks too young and skinny to be able to grow one. 

“We weren’t expecting a third,” he jeers, “But in that case, would you prefer business or pleasure first?”

Karen shrugs, and Frank mirrors it. It doesn’t look as friendly coming from someone as broad-shouldered as him. 

“I suppose we could do both,” Karen says. “It’s a bit late for shooting, but I’m not opposed to firing a few rounds while we talk about the--”

The laughter that cuts Karen off is even more jeering than the Bad Bond Villain’s voice. It’s high-pitched, off-key - like the vocal equivalent of nails scratching on a chalkboard. It takes a significant amount of Frank’s restraint not to flinch as he grins at Karen, far too boldly to simply be friendly. 

“Oh no, my dear,” he replies as Karen’s mouth is left hanging open. “This isn’t that kind of club. Did Georgey not tell you?”

Karen’s mouth closes, then opens, then closes again as she blinks. Frank offers a quick “no sir” in place of a response from her, despite the fact that the closest thing he’d ever heard to the name Georgey was one of Karen’s silly pet names for her dog. Whether she’d crucify him for that, he couldn’t tell, but it was better than leaving the reject Lucky Charms man hanging. The expression on the man’s face tells him that’s a bad idea.

“His loss, my gain, then.” The man shrugs, sits up straighter in his seat. “You two are...swingers, no?”

Ah. So, not a gun club then.

Frank can feel Karen tense next to him. Not enough to alarm the asshole, but enough that he hears her breathing go shallow, notices the way she sits up that much straighter on the couch. She nods, refusing to break character, but he can see how far the comment has thrown her off course. He even goes a bit stiff himself - and not in the way the creep sitting in front of them would hope for - so he’s not sure he blames her. He can do guns, he can do knives...but this was new. 

“It’s all part of the deal.” The creep sounds far too satisfied with himself, far too pleased in reaction to Karen’s nod that wasn’t any more than perfunctory. “We give you what you need, you give us...a little something in return.”

The look he shoots at Karen is enough to make Frank’s trigger finger twitch. 

The locked doors suddenly make more sense, much the same as the furnishings that seemed slightly too impeccable for a mafia den. Everything is slightly too pristine, slightly too well-oiled for a bunch of amateurs fresh out of metaphorical diapers. No criminal gives this much of a shit about appearances unless they’re trying to impress - who that is, Frank doesn’t know, but he can only imagine the kinds of clients that run through here. A gun club in the middle of Harlem is bad enough, but this? Nothing wrong with a bit of fun if you aren’t psychotic, but...

“You traffic girls and you run a swinger’s club.” Frank’s voice sounds like he’s down an entire construction site’s worth of grave, disguising the sarcasm he can’t quite keep out of it. “Clever.”

The man nods, oblivious to Frank’s train of thought. 

“We pride ourselves on it.” Pride isn’t exactly the word Frank would use, but the emotion shows on his face anyway. “The guns are a temporary cover. While we get our hooks in, so to speak. Clearly a good cover though, eh?”

He’s teasing Karen now, clearly trying to get under the thick skin of the identity she’s created for herself. It won’t budge, Frank knows that much, but the remark still makes him shift in his seat, fighting off the urge to throttle the bastard before they’ve even gotten a word out of him. 

Frank’s never been good at holding his tongue, but he’ll do it for Karen. 

She nods at the remark, a sound coming out of her mouth that’s as far from her real laugh as Frank imagines she can possibly get. It’s a hollow tittering sound, like hearing birds chirping through the metal of a roof they’ve nested on, but it’s convincing enough for their host, whose grin borders just the slightest bit on insane. 

“We’ll give you two a moment,” he says. “Only reasonable to let you get...comfortable.”

There’s that teasing voice again, and Frank hardly has the chance to let it annoy him before one of the guards is swooping in on them, an ominous black-clad raven with an assault rifle strapped across his chest. He almost reaches out when he puts a hand at the small of Karen’s back, not quite pushing her but not letting her move of her own free will either. The cold stare Frank receives when his nerves jump is enough to tell him that he should follow, or suffer the consequences otherwise. He’s not particular to following the rules - not anymore - but he chooses to make an exception this time. 

The creep stands by as the two of them are herded away, towards a door at the far end of the parlor that hangs just ajar enough to remind Frank too much of The Shining. The darkness beyond doesn’t look promising, and the results aren’t much better as they’re herded into some kind of dimly-lit antechamber, presumably a dressing room of sorts. Broom closet would’ve been a better term for it, given the fact that Frank and Karen are nearly chest to chest once the gorilla takes his hands away and leaves the two of them in relative dark, lit only by mood lighting that does about as much for Frank’s eyesight as a flashlight with mostly-dead batteries. 

He can see about as much of Karen as he could in the Jetta, but he’s hesitant to say anything. Who knows how much of the club the Cooleys had bugged for posterity - he wouldn’t be surprised if there are cameras hidden in the tiny cracks of exposed brick he can see behind the swaths of fabric covering the walls. These types didn’t seem entirely beyond a bit of voyeurism at all. 

“You okay?” 

Frank Castle is not a man to whisper, but that’s how his voice comes out anyway; low enough that it would probably be unintelligible to cameras. It’s not as though he needs to shout in this broom closet anyway. 

Karen shakes her head, less as a response to his question and more as if she’s trying to shake cobwebs from her brain that she’d missed when she dusted last. 

“I swear to God I didn’t know this was going to happen.” She’s rambling, her sentences peeling off one after the other with no way of stopping them. “There was nothing in the notes about it. Not in the witness statements, not in the police reports...fuck, somebody should have told me or else I wouldn’t have brought you here into the middle of this—”

“Hey, hey, hey.”

Frank’s hands are on her shoulders before he can think to stop them, a grounding wire for his emotions and hers. He knows how it feels to have a plan go to shit, that feeling of the ground spinning underneath you without any recourse to stop it. He can see that feeling in Karen, the way her pupils are so blown with fear he can practically see himself in them. It’s not often that anyone can strike fear into Karen Page. 

“Shhh. It’s okay.” He’s rubbing her arms now, though perhaps a bit more for his own sake than for hers. “Even Lieberman missed it. It’s not your fault.”

It really isn’t. He’s not sure how a sex club got confused with a gun league - all euphemisms aside, even Lieberman isn’t that stupid - but the Irish must be smarter than he thinks. Or, at least, clever enough to deflect attention away from themselves. It makes sense, in the long run of things, he thinks... if you’re that kind of subway track scum that traffics human beings.

“I’ll handle it,” he mutters. “You go out the back, call Nelson or Walker or somebody, get the hell out of here. I’ve still got the tape so you’ll still get what you need, I promise. I can take care of—“

“What?”

Karen’s voice interrupts the speech that he has memorized all too well, and he short circuits. Feels his hands squeeze her shoulders in place of a question. Watches her shuffle in place, shift her weight to her hip. He’s not prepared for this. This doesn’t usually happen. 

She’s got her eyebrows raised, shoulders squared under his hands. His mouth opens, closes, then opens again. He can’t focus when she’s looking at him like that. Can barely focus when she’s looking at him at all. 

“Red door down the hall takes you out the back,” he sputters. Now was not the time for thought-out tactical plans. “I’ll get you what you need. You just get out.”

He’s not sure exactly how he’ll manage that, but he will. It’s the least he could do, in return for everything she’s--

“Frank, I’m not leaving.”

He can feel Karen’s enunciation down to his bones. It rattles her shoulders and moves the curtains that swirl around them, an energy not even Red could match if he tried. It’s an energy that speaks to the reason she’s good at her job, why and how she gets herself into situations like this, cramped in a tiny dressing room in a swingers’ club well past midnight when she could very well be at home, safe and secure without a second though otherwise. It’s an energy Frank knows all too well. 

Here she is, looking as much like a scared rabbit as Frank’s ever seen, and Karen chooses now to be stubborn. 

“You kiddin’ me?” 

His arms flop down at his sides, and the air stings his palms where they’d touched Karen’s shoulders. She’s looking straight at him now, and that’s all he can focus on - the stinging and her eyes. Both of which flare when she shrugs. 

“No, I don’t think I am,” she replies. “I don’t think “coercion via the Punisher” is a printable source.  It’s my responsibility to get this information, and if takes going a little out of my comfort zone, then I’m more than willing to—“

“The guy wants you to strip down and have sex with him, and you call that your responsibility?”

It seems like an applicable moment to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration, had he not broken it less than a week earlier. His definition of “responsibility” might be more muddled than the average New Yorker’s, but being propositioned for a threeway in exchange for information is certainly not in his dictionary. 

“He included you in the offer too,” Karen protests, “And I’m pretty sure I just heard you say ‘I’ll handle it’.” 

“Not by playing into whatever fucked up fantasy he’s got in mind!”

He might as well have pulled the pistol out of his waistband for all the good his words did. They ricochet off the walls like stray bullets, and he can see them lodge into Karen, though the way she rolls her shoulders and stands all that much straighter proves that she’s not in any mood to back down. She never is, and he knows it. Anyone who assumes otherwise is in for the shock of their life. 

Being around Karen is like sticking your finger in an electrical socket, and Frank is a curious kid who doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. 

“How badly do you need him to squeal?” 

He chooses the sentence carefully, measuring his words as though they can remedy the situation all on their own. He’s not good with that, figuring out what to say. Actions speak louder than words, he’d always believed that, but this is Karen’s show. Karen’s livelihood. A livelihood she’d built on words alone. 

Her expression doesn’t change. 

“Enough that I’m willing to stay,” she says. “Frank, this story could wipe out a whole new generation of Kitchen Irish before they even get started. If I get this guy to talk, they’d be busted wide open within the week. Maybe sooner.”

“Same thing could happen to your head if you say the wrong thing.”

“I’m a journalist, Frank.” Karen squirms under his gaze, but doesn’t falter. “Saying the right thing is what I get paid to do.” 

But you shouldn’t have to.

That’s what Frank wants to say. Wants to blurt it so loudly that the shit-for-brains in the next room can hear him loud and clear. Wants an excuse to bust them out of there, to avoid this situation entirely rather than subject himself to the burning gaze of this woman who doesn't know when to quit. He wants to shake some sense into Karen’s head, despite the fact that she’s about the only sensible person left in his life. 

“I emptied a clip on a man,” she says. Her words are measured, careful. “I think I can handle...that.” 

It suddenly feels like there’s not enough air in the room for both of them to breathe. 

“Fine.” 

Frank can’t tell if she’s being entirely serious, or if this is another facet to the facade she’s put on tonight - whether her bravery is manufactured entirely because she’s too persistent to walk away from a story unfinished. The room feels like it’s running circles around him, and he’s too dizzy to fight. 

“You want it?” His voice is harder now, sharper. “Let’s go in there and get it.” 

It’s not quite the Punisher persona she’s used to - it’s a little frayed around the edges, askew from being out of place - but Karen recognizes an irritated Frank when she sees one.

“I can do it by myself,” she sighs. Frank isn’t convinced - not when there’s half an army on the other side of the door and a creep who’ll undoubtedly take advantage of her the moment he turns his back. 

“Like you said,” he replies, “he said both of us.”

Karen frowns.

“You’re really going to go in there and do this just to get me to admit that I’m wrong?”

“Could do worse.”

His shoulders are too heavy with the weight of their predicament to really make his shrug convincing, but he does it anyway. Tries his hardest to look nonchalant, despite the fact that his dominant hand still burns - this time for something a bit more significant than the air it’s currently grasping at. 

“Too much longer in here and they’re going to get suspicious,” he offers. “Either we do this or we don’t. Your pick.”

He’s offering her an ultimatum. Karen fucking hates those. 

“I do the talking.” 

It’s the only thing she says while she’s shrugging off her jacket, loosening the top button on the starched, Wednesday Addams-looking blouse she’s got on. It’s the only confirmation Frank gets to shirk his own hoodie (how he’s going to finesse hiding the wire he’s wearing, he doesn’t know), before she slips out of the dressing room and back into the parlor, where Redhead Dr. No has shirked his own suit jacket, and the armed gorillas have all but disappeared. 

He can’t tell if the feeling in the pit of his stomach is regret, but it certainly makes him nauseous all the same. 

If it’s at all possible to have dimmed the already barely-lit lights of the parlor, that’s what they’d done in the time it’s taken he and Karen to argue their way into this mess. He can see the room for what it really is now that he’s removed the rose-colored glasses of playing along with Karen’s scheme: the way the room is laid out, with larger-than-usual couches, designed with open slats for things Frank didn’t even want to begin to think about. The fact that, despite being part of a much larger complex of rooms, there are no doors leading anywhere except the small antechamber, and no windows either. All that’s missing is some shitty Careless Whisper saxophone playing in the background, and even Frank wouldn’t do that song that much of a disservice. 

“Ah, the lovebirds return.”  

The phrase lovebirds makes the hair on Frank’s neck stand on end, but he beats the impulse to stir like a startled cat down just enough as their host approaches, clearly more keen than when they’d been whisked away. He’s rolled the sleeves of his shirt up, and Frank’s fairly certain he can see rope burns up and down the lengths of his arms - fresh enough that they might not even be a day old. 

That is what makes him startle. 

“It’s club policy for couples to...initiate proceedings,” their host says, with an eagerness that makes Frank want to beat it out of him. “To ensure all parties have a comfortable evening. Unless, of course, you’d like to…?”

“No, I think we’re fine.”

Karen’s face is red as she replies - not the kind of red it gets when she’s angry, but a brighter kind. It makes her look gaunt. 

“No sense breaking the rules our first time ‘round, huh?” 

The man smiles, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Very well,” he sneers. “I’ll be here. Whenever you’re ready.”

Whenever you’re ready. 

The dealer’s voice is laced with the chill of dry ice, and that fact doesn’t escape Frank. This isn’t some jaunty weekend experiment, where consent is key and anybody who isn’t comfortable can bounce when they want to. This is payment, and he expects his full share, whether they like they like it or not. 

That’s the thought that ruminates in Frank’s head as the dealer fiddles with the buttons on his perfectly-starched shirt, and Karen moves into his space enough that his vision is enveloped by her. That’s the thought as she steps in close, close enough that they can share the same breath, and that’s the thought as he considers the fact that nothing on Earth could possibly be more humiliating than this. The thought of touching and being touched in ways that don’t bear thinking about is worse than any embarrassment he’s ever suffered. Worse than any hazing his Marine buddies ever put him through, worse than any and every time he’s said something stupid and gotten himself landed in the wrong place at the wrong time. He feels stripped bare, down to the bone, and he hasn’t even taken off his clothing yet. 

But for a moment, he looks at Karen, and thinks of the way his hands burned when he touched her, and a part of him thinks, Maybe if we spin this, we can get out mostly unscathed. Maybe this won’t be so bad. Not with Karen. He thinks that, of all the people he could end up stuck here with, at least it’s her. Their foreheads are touching, and he can feel Karen skate her own hands down his arms until she’s gripping his. At this distance, he could reach out and--

But then another part of him remembers Maria, remembers that he can’t recall the last time he used those hands to do anything but cause hurt. He remembers everything he buries deep inside, under layers of Kevlar and firearms and a voice so gravelly no one could ever think that it had ever belonged to a father. He remembers all the reasons why Karen shouldn’t trust him anywhere near her, and the situation morphs, molds itself into something that could only be a disaster, could only end with both of them hurt in a way that no stitches or antiseptics or trauma nurses could ever fix. It’s inescapable, and it’s all his--

“It’s the red door, right?” 

Karen’s voice is a whisper, barely audible even when she leans in close (too close, too close, she’ll get hurt); it’s easily misconstrued as sexy, but really, it’s a well-practiced way of communicating in crisis, and Frank can hear the wobble in it even as she breathes.

He nods just enough that she can feel it, without looking like he’s doing anything but...well, setting the mood. Karen nods too, and he’s sure the both of them look fidgety - like nervous first-timers, not sure how to proceed. And it isn’t far from the truth - Frank’s got no idea how he’s going to proceed from here, but he’s nothing if not good at improvising. 

“I, ah...think you should take charge.”

This she says at full volume, loud enough that their partner can hear. Like she said - she knows when to say the right thing. 

And Frank knows enough about the fear on her face that his pistol’s out of his pocket before she can blink back tears. 

And when he blows them out of there, it isn’t a euphemism. 

_________

The sun is peeking out over the horizon line by the time the two of them stumble down the sidewalk to Karen’s walk-up. It plays peekaboo with them, reminding them that they've survived to see another day as Frank watches Karen digs for her keys in her purse. It’s stopped raining now, though the air is still muggy with its aftereffects, and they walk slowly as they approach the stairs to her building. She’s got cuts in three places on her face, and he’s got at least one broken rib, but they’re out. They’re safe. 

She’s safe. 

Her hands are still shaking though, vibrating ever so slightly as she attempts to find the right key to get them into the building. The ring jingles like an out-of-tune band, and Frank can see the frustrated, tired tears in her eyes as they slip out of her hand and onto the ground.  

“Let me.”

He stoops before she can and dutifully ignores every protest from his tired, overworked muscles as he picks the bundle of metal up from the ground. They chime their high-pitched tune as he does, muffled by the size of his hand compared to Karen’s, like wind chimes in a distant open window. She doesn’t look at him - won’t look at him, maybe - as he straightens his back, but she can’t hide her frenetic blinking from him as he does. He doesn’t blame her. This is the longest night either of them has had in years. 

He’s never sure how to fill long silences between them. He’s a man of few words, always has been, and the idea of saying anything when his entire body wants to shut down is beyond his area of comprehension right now. Is he supposed to hug her? Pat her on the back, tell her it’s alright after she watched him (not for the first time) eviscerate a handful of human beings like it’s nothing? Nothing he could possibly say can erase that. Erase everything else he’s ever done to her, every layer of hell she’s been dragged through and back out again. Silence feels like the only appropriate response, the only way to avoid dragging her through anything else. 

She’s the first to speak up, naturally. Her voice comes out soft, a quiet monotone Frank suspects she uses to disguise the fact that she’s choking back a night’s worth of emotions all at once. 

“Thanks.” She’s still not looking at him, but she doesn’t move to wipe away tears, doesn’t hide behind the high collar of her jacket to avoid him. “Do you want to…?” 

She hesitates, and Frank can nearly hear her backtracking in her head as her sentence drops off. The missing word hangs in the air, heavy and loud despite the fact that it never leaves Karen’s mouth. 

Stay. 

“I’ll be up working on this damn thing to make the deadline.” She shrugs, as though overnight shootouts and going thirty-six hours without sleep are a regular part of anyone’s workday. The laugh that comes with it is watery. “Might as well have some company.”

The scoff that escapes Frank’s mouth isn’t entirely intentional, but it isn’t accidental either. He can feel the bruised muscles in his face sting as he lets the sound ring, ducking his head to fiddle with the glittering skull trinket she keeps on her key ring. 

“Almost get your head blown off and you’re worried about a deadline,” he mutters. “Should be resting.” 

“So should you. And I know for a fact you won’t sleep a wink.” 

Karen shrugs, reaching a hand out for her keys. Frank obliges, and there’s something of a smile on his face when he does. The little skull glints in the light of the streetlamp, a sly reminder of just what kind of a mess she’d gotten herself involved with. 

“I started this story,” she asserts, “And now I'm obligated to finish it. Just like any job.”

“You think you’re gonna be able to get anything outta that wire?”

“I’ll have to,” she says. “If not, I’ll pester Turk, see what else he can get me. Maybe do a ridealong or something. I know what’s there. We saw it. I just need proof.”

Frank laughs then. Not maliciously - not really intentionally, either. It just spills out, a soft, short bark of a thing that sounds off coming from him. Frank Castle doesn’t laugh, much less like that. It’s like interference on a radio; a negative side effect of pushing the wrong button or adjusting the wrong lever. The AM channel no one ever wants to use. 

“Y’know,” he huffs, “I wonder if you don’t know when to let something die.”

It’s not that he doesn’t think before he speaks - Frank’s a smart man, he knows what happens when someone backs Karen Page into a corner. He’s seen it, from the moment she shoved that photo of his family in his face while he was chained helpless to a hospital bed, and he respects it. She’s a force to be reckoned with, a hurricane of immense proportions that doesn’t give a shit who you are or how much power you say you have if you’re in the way of the truth. Karen Page is not someone to be taken lightly. 

But she’s more than that. She’s also a human being, a woman with a life, friends, family that cares about her. She’s got more than blood on her hands and a legacy so stained she can’t even use the name her family thought to give her when she was born. She’s better than that, better than this ugly, misshapen world they’ve both found themselves in whether they like it or not. She’s the best goddamn thing to happen to New York - hell, the country, probably - since god knows what, and to lose her to the storm of her own determination is something that Frank thinks might snap a lot of people clean in two. 

Himself included. 

He knows he’s said the wrong thing, knows he’s pushed that button of hers that makes her cheeks flare red and her voice hike up a few notches. He can tell as soon as the words are out of his mouth, as soon as she bunches her keys up in her fist in a way that’s got to hurt as she finally looks him in the eyes. 

“Oh, you mean the hundreds of people that would die because I put myself over the truth?” She spits the words out like they’re shitty vodka from Josie’s, like if she kept them in she’d explode. “What am I supposed to do, just let this fall by the wayside? Tell Ellison I need him to switch me to the lifestyle section this week? I can’t just let it go. That’s not how this works.” 

A part of Frank knows she’s right - knows that this shit won’t stop until the world can see the man behind the curtain - but a bigger part of him, the stubborn, protective part of him that he can never quite seem to fight down, can’t live with the idea of danger knocking at Karen’s door. 

“You could’ve been killed before the truth ever got out!” He doesn’t mean to be as loud as he is, but that hidden part of him doesn’t like the quiet. “You really want to do that again? You want to put a gun to your own head like that?” 

“I was hardly in danger of anything except hurting my own pride and you know that. I just let myself get scared.” 

Frank can see her flex her hand where her keys are digging into her palm, but she doesn’t relent. She doesn’t look angry, but he can see the way her jaw clenches to fight back another round of frustrated tears threatening to spill over. He can see how tense she is, how close her shoulders are to touching her ears. She’s got every hallmark of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but she refuses to move an inch. 

“Don’t make this about my safety, Frank,” she says. “You can’t keep mothering me like this. I can handle myself.”

She stares at him like she bore a hole directly to his soul, and Frank’s skin burns when she looks at him like that. Not like fire, but like acid. Corrosive, stinging, sizzling. It’s a burning that seeps through his clothes, plasters them to his body so nothing he does can serve as escape. It’s the worst in his hands - pins and needles that suddenly makes that “reach out and touch faith” song make more sense. He feels the stinging down to his bones, and sometimes he wonders whether he’s just a skeletal ghost floating around anymore. Whether the rest of him matches the skull crudely painted on a vest in his closet. 

No, it’s not like fire. Fire would be too easy, too instant. One splash of water and it’s out, wiped from body and from memory. It burns brightly but shortly, in and out of someone’s life with almost no passing thought beyond treating the wounds left behind. Fire is an easy solution. Fire doesn’t come from people who matter. 

No, the burning Frank feels isn’t fire, because Karen Page never does things the easy way. 

“‘M sorry,” he says, conceding another in a long list of arguments that neither of them would ever be able to win. He doesn’t know what to say, what to do to stop the burning. Isn’t sure if he wants to stop it. “Just didn’t—I didn’t want it to be like that.”

“Didn’t want what to…” 

Her sentence drifts off before she can finish it, and he can’t be sure whether she understood what he was referring to. Her fists clench and unclench, and the burning worsens when she looks at him like she’s staring down the barrel of a gun. 

“Frank, come on.” Her voice is tired - the groan of someone who’s been through far too much, far too soon. “You’re bleeding. I’m tired. Let’s just go up, and you can crash on the couch and we’ll talk about this—“

In the morning. Later. After. That’s always how it goes. Let things settle. Let them rest. Let the blood flow out of things, let the venom run its course. Take the rose-colored glasses off and let reality settle back in before anyone does something dumb. Karen wants an after for him, she’s said as much. She wants him to be able to walk out, as unscathed as a man with blood on his hands can ever manage to be. 

What she doesn’t realize is that his after is already standing right in front of him. 

Which is his only explanation for why his hand shoots out and closes around her arm like he’s pulling her away from some invisible danger. It’s the only explanation for the way he spins her like a top, until they’re close enough that he can see her eyes dilate in surprise. It’s the only explanation for the way he can feel his heart pounding in his chest, a feral animal broken free and running down the streets of Brooklyn with wild abandon.

It’s the only explanation for the way that he kisses her on her front stoop for God, the early morning garbagemen, and the rest of the modern world to see. 

Karen Page, he realizes, is everything good left in the world. She is sun after a thunderstorm and a comfortable bed after a long day. She’s raucous laughter at a terrible joke, the kindness of a stranger when you need it most. She’s good friends and fond memories and the ridiculous way she dances to Lady Gaga whenever she finishes a piece that gives her trouble. She’s the beers they share on her fire escape after weeks away and the tight feeling he gets in his chest every time someone asks what the hell he’s still fighting so hard for. She’s everything he thought he’d given up the right to have a long time ago, and she’s everything he fights to keep. 

Pulling away from her is painful. More painful than any gunshot, any gut punch, any knife wound he’s ever received. Pulling away from Karen is like pulling the skin from his bones, the air from his lungs. It’s like the burning he feels, only a million times worse. A million hot pokers on his skin, burning away anything that makes him who he is and leaving nothing but a shell, cradling this stubborn, beautiful, terrifyingly intelligent woman in its arms. 

All that’s left is her. All that matters is her. 

Her eyes are closed when he finally moves far enough away to see her face in full. For a moment, he panics, terrified -- too close, too close, fuck, did I make her cry again? -- but then she’s opening them, something he thinks might be glee or absolute horror written on her face. He can’t tell which is which, so he improvises. 

“Didn’t want to do that in front of the Irish.”

Karen’s pupils are still dilated, and the glee-horror-something-else-maybe morphs. Becomes a little clearer. 

“Oh.”

It sounds less like surprise and more like a smug question. He shrugs. He’s still got a hand at the small of her back. 

“Didn’t want them to get a chance at it either.”

Now he sounds smug. The garbagemen can definitely see them now. He’s not sure he cares. 

“Mmm.” Karen doesn’t bother to move. Doesn’t bother to separate herself from him. “Kinda glad about that.” 

Frank quirks an eyebrow. 

“Is that so?” 

“Yeah.” She fiddles with her keyring. Glances at the tiny skull. Jams the whole thing in her pocket. “‘Cause you kinda just ruined it for me for the rest of my life.” 

“What, the saving your life or the kissing?”

“Both.” 

She taps his chest with her newly free hand, and the spaces that have been hollow there since the park feel just that much fuller. Just enough to ease the ache. 

“But mostly the latter.”

Frank can’t even remember what the latter is, but Karen’s kissing him again and that’s all that matters. This moment, on this grimy doorstep, with her hands bunched in his coat and his wrapped around her back. 

So this is what it means to finally have an after. 

[buckybarnesbingo]

BBB Week 36 Roundup!

Is everyone excited for our party this weekend?!  We sure are!  We’ll be having our traditional round robin, games, sprints, and there will be another drawing for tokens.  See you on the 19th!

And don’t forget, we have 15 more days until the end of the round.

Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 7: Frenemies Forever Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y1 - Frenemies Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, frenemies, volunteer work, supportive Sam Wilson Summary: The last person Bucky wants to talk to after a bad 24 hours is his frenemy Sam Wilson, but the universe has other ideas. Or Sam knows way too much about Bucky’s sex life. Word Count: 1288

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 8: Separation Anxiety Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y4 - Lending a Hand Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, frenemies, denial, travel for work, curating art Summary: Bucky takes the plunge, but Steve has other ideas. Or Bucky’s reminded Steve doesn’t owe him anything. Word Count: 1124

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Title: The Archive Collaborator: shakespeareanqueer Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B5 - Kink: Office Sex Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Sexual language and implied sexual activity Summary: You work in the office for the Avengers. Why does Bucky spend so much time in your office? What is he up to? Word Count: 1230

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Title: Fragile: Handle With Care Collaborator: starjargon Link: AO3 Square Filled: K2 - Handle with Care Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: Memory Loss, brief mentions of PTSD, mentions of past crimes Summary: The Winter Soldier doesn’t remember how to be a person anymore. All he knows is his head isn’t right, he doesn’t want to hurt people anymore, and he used to have a name. So he finds people who understand, and hopefully, learns to be more than just a weapon. Word Count: 1344

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Title: Art: How Do I Live Collaborator: LiquidLightz Link: AO3 Square Filled: B5 - Never Again Ship: Stucky Rating: Teen Major Tags: art Summary: My main artwork for the fabulous slow-burn romantic fix-it adventure that is powercrow's Planet Hulk / MCU Endgame crossover fic "lost in time, lost in space". Featuring Planet Hulk gladiator Steve, Devil Dinosaur, Wakanda Bucky, and all your canon MCU favourites, as well as other original fantastical creatures and Planet Hulk inhabitants. In this scene, PlanetHulk!Steve is mourning his presumed-dead beloved husband Bucky. Word Count: 259

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Title: Hanukkah Collaborator: BookDragon13 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C3 - Free Space Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: Jewish bucky, moodboard Summary: Bucky and the Maximoffs Do Hanukkah together Word Count:100

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 9: The Envelope Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U2 - Newspaper Clippings Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, loneliness, long-distance friendship, friendship Summary: Bucky’s not handling Steve’s absence very well, but a well-timed phone call makes things better. Or Bucky and Alpine cuddle, and it’s adorable. Word Count: 1039

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Title: his body is his journal Collaborator: abitnotgoodiebag Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B5 - tattoos Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: art Summary: Character design for nopowers!au I’ve been throwing around in my head

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Title: The Heart of My Own (burn it down low) - Chapter 3: The Sky Collaborator: Minka Link: AO3 Square Filled: C5 – Shapeshifter Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: None, but adult themes Summary: In a deep, dark forest, a city-weary deliveryman finds more than he bargained for. Word Count: 16,151

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Title: Magical Secrets Collaborator: fanbinbun Link: AO3 Square Filled: C5 - Innocent Until Proven Guilty Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Teen Major Tags: fantasy AU Summary: Wrongly accused, Bucky Barnes is left for dead by the village he called home. Word Count: 2233

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 10: Every Rose, Lots of Thorns Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B3 - Poison Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, reunion, best friends, music and food Summary: Steve’s home from LA. A reunion’s in order. Or Bucky has no chill. Word Count: 978

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Title: Somebody that I used to know Collaborator: kalee60 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B2 - Kink: Shower Sex Ship: Stucky Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Bets & Wagers, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Smut, Mutual Pining Summary: Bucky Barnes, if asked, would say he led an ordinary life. He owned a successful business, worked long hours, had a pain in the butt best friend and dated good looking men on the odd occasion - though if pressed, he might admit he was craving a bit more in the romance department. But then he literally barrels into a stranger’s life, a stranger that might not be so strange after all, a stranger who actually seems to know him very well - but for the life of him, Bucky can’t remember ever being friends with such a gorgeous beefcake, who is funny, nice and genuinely seems to like Bucky for who he is. Suddenly a ridiculous wager is cast, and Bucky finds himself with five guesses to remember how he knows this mystery man. With nothing to lose, Bucky embarks on an odd but exhilarating adventure, and soon realises that maybe, just maybe, life doesn’t have to be so ordinary after all. Word Count: 3054

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Title: Come One, Come All Collaborator: plutosrose Link: AO3 Square Filled: C2 - AU: Circus Ship: Stucky Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Idiots in Love, Thigh Riding Summary: Bucky's new trapeze partner is a jerk he once met in Vegas. Word Count: 2296

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Title: Date Night In (Moodboard) Collaborator: ABrighterDarkness Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C3 - Free Ship: Stucky Rating: Gen Major Tags: moodboard  Summary: Quiet nights for dates can be hard to come by.  Sometimes, they just have to make the time fit.  Going out is great.  Staying in though?  There’s very nearly nothing better.  Except for maybe the morning after.

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Title: Art: lost in time, lost in space - Chapter 4: Falling Collaborator: LiquidLightz Link: AO3 Square Filled: U4 - Fix-It Ship: Stucky Rating: Teen Major Tags: Fanart, Planet Hulk crossover, Multiverse, Canon Divergence, Endgame Fix-it of sorts Summary: This is my banner artwork for the fabulous slow-burn romantic fix-it action adventure that is this Planet Hulk / Endgame crossover fic "lost in time, lost in space". Featuring Planet Hulk gladiator Steve, Devil Dinosaur, and Wakanda Bucky.

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Title: Soulmates? - Chapter 1 Collaborator: BookDragon13 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: K3 - soulmates Ship: Buck/Darcy Rating: Gen Major Tags: Light angst, mentions of character death, bit of a slow burn   Summary: Bucky had left his soulmate behind in the war. He doesn’t think he’ll have another one, until he meets one Darcy Lewis, the grandniece of the soulmate he left behind Word Count: 3207

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Title: Obviously Oblivious Collaborator: alwaysabrighterdarkness Link: AO3 Square Filled: C4 - Jealousy Ship: Stucky Rating: Teen Major Tags: Mutual Pining, Jealousy, Avengers Merchandise, Oblivious to Lovers Summary: Steve supposed it didn’t help matters that Bucky started favoring the Avengers themed clothing that had started being sold almost immediately following the battle against the Chitauri.  Iron Man and Black Widow hoodies.  Hulk and Hawkeye sweatpants.  Thor t-shirts.  Plural on every one of them, and Bucky wore them all the time. No Cap gear.  Not a one. Word Count: 4217

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Title: Loki and the Silvertongues Collaborator: abitnotgoodiebag Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B2 - Band Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: art  Summary: The other heroes find that if they just let these three have this outlet, everybody wins

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Title: Art: Home is with You Collaborator: LiquidLightz Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y3 - Bucky/Steve Ship: Stucky Rating: Teen Major Tags: art Summary: My final artwork for the fabulous slow-burn romantic fix-it adventure that is powercrow's Planet Hulk / MCU Endgame crossover fic "lost in time, lost in space". Featuring Planet Hulk gladiator Steve, Devil Dinosaur, Wakanda Bucky, and all your canon MCU favourites, as well as other original fantastical creatures and Planet Hulk inhabitants. In this scene, PlanetHulk!Steve and Endgame Bucky get their hard-earned Happy Ending 💞

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Title: Hot, Sticky, Sweet - Stuckony Fancraft Photoshoot Collaborator: Politzania Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y3 - Bucky/Steve Ship: Stuckony Rating: Mature Major Tags: photoshoot, cracky as hell, gingersmut Summary: Gingerbread Tony and Steve welcome Bucky back after he’s been re-baked.

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 11: Ruin Me Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C1 - Kink: Messy/Dirty Ship: Stucky Rating: Explicit Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, reunion sex, 69 (sex position), snowballing Summary: Steve doesn’t want to talk. Bucky doesn’t either. Instead, they decide to use their mouths for other things. Or Bucky doesn’t mind a mess. Word Count: 1682

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Title: Drabbles, Assemble! - Chapter 17: Armed and Ready (Winter Soldier braid) Collaborator: lbibliophile Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C3 - free space Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: drabble, fancraft, tablet weaving, Bucky Barnes’ metal arm, A:IW Summary: He looks at the open case; at the dark limb with its bright tracery. He should have known this was coming. He had known.

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Title:  …God, I hate you Collaborator: abitnotgoodiebag Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y5 - yoga Ship: BuckySam Rating: Teen Major Tags: art, explicit language Summary: Bucky would really just like 20 minutes. Is 20 minutes too much to ask? (In Sam Wilson’s house it is definitely too much to ask)

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 12: Plenty of Nothing Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U5 - “I’ve Got Nothin’” Ship: Stucky Rating: Explicit Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, argument, blowup, misunderstanding Summary: The morning after. Hangovers suck. Or Steve’s had enough. Word Count: 1135

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Title: K1 - Undercover as Tourists Collaborator: pherryt Link: Tumblr Square Filled: K1 - Undercover as Tourists Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Gen Major Tags: art  Summary: Sooooooo I initially drew this on green scrap paper with a #2 pencil with intent to transfer it to nicer paper after and then… just liked the pencil sketch so much I kept going. And then just adjusted the color quality after Based this picture off an old photo I took of my daughter in front of the St Patricks Cathedral in Manhattan (inspired by the fact that i take pictures of everything everywhere and my bestie is always begging me to put away the damn camera, you look like a goddamn tourist!) Lastly - how do you know they’re undercover? Well, duh, if you *knew* they wouldn’t be very good at their jobs, right? eh, eh? Okay, I’ll see myself out… Also, foreshortening is still a PITA

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Title: Somebody that I used to know Collaborator: kalee60 Link: AO3 Square Filled: B2 - kink: shower sex Ship: Stucky Rating: Explicit Major Tags: childhood friends AU, explicit sexual content Summary: Bucky Barnes, if asked, would say he led an ordinary life. He owned a successful business, worked long hours, had a pain in the butt best friend and dated good looking men on the odd occasion - though if pressed, he might admit he was craving a bit more in the romance department. But then he literally barrels into a stranger's life, a stranger that might not be so strange after all, a stranger who actually seems to know him very well - but for the life of him, Bucky can't remember ever being friends with such a gorgeous beefcake, who is funny, nice and genuinely seems to like Bucky for who he is. Suddenly a ridiculous wager is cast, and Bucky finds himself with five guesses to remember how he knows this mystery man. With nothing to lose, Bucky embarks on an odd but exhilarating adventure, and soon realises that maybe, just maybe, life doesn't have to be so ordinary after all. Word Count: 6447

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Title: Ask For Much - Chapter 13: Moral Support Collaborator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Link: Tumblr Square Filled: K2 - Upgrade Ship: Stucky Rating: Explicit Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, friendship, moral support, dating Summary: Bucky can’t deal with Steve’s rejection, so he agrees to meet Natasha for Brunch. She and Sam have a plan to get things back on track. Or Bucky gets strong-armed. (Pun intended.) Word Count: 826

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Title: afternoon delight Collaborator: abitnotgoodiebag Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y1 - kink: gentle sex Ship: BuckySam Rating: Mature Major Tags: NSFW/nudity, art Summary: There’s a Sam, there’s a Bucky, there’s a bed.

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Title: Fairy Soldier Collaborator: marvelcollabcupid Link: Tumblr Square Filled: K3 - glitter Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: art  Summary: Fairy Bucky with glitter

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Title: Bandages and Soot Collaborator: fanbinbun Link: AO3 Square Filled: C3 - Free Space Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Teen Major Tags: fluff, injuries Summary: “Oh, you’re new. Hi! I’m Clint. I come here often.” “I have been warned.” Bucky said with amusement curling his lips. “Got a name, or should I just give in and start calling you ‘hot nurse’?” Word Count: 2365

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Title: Holiday Recipe Video Collaborator: BookDragon13 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: K1 - YouTuber Bucky Ship: Stucky Rating: Gen Major Tags: slight swearing, sex pun   Summary: Bucky and Steve make a YouTube video showing how to make their favorite Christmas recipe from their childhood Word Count: 622

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Title: The Midnight Fox - Chapter 1: Prologue Collaborator: Minka Link: AO3 Square Filled: K2 – “I Had a Plan” Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: royalty, bodyguard AU Summary: Amid the flashing lights, high fashion, and crystalline champagne flutes of the royal court of Estia, a deadly intrigue is brewing. There are whispers in the night; talk of a plot to assassinate the king and an uprising forged in blood and funded by stolen art. With the bars of his gilded cage closing in, Crown Prince James Barnes faces his own struggles. Dealing with a city more enamoured with a masked vigilante than him is starting to get old fast, and his stuffy new bodyguard is as infuriating as he is potentially dangerous. As chaos threatens to rip the country apart and the list of royal allies begins to run thin, the prince is forced to face the demons lurking in his past. After all, no party can last indefinitely, and no secrets remain buried forever.----Aka, the modern royalty and bodyguard AU that, like all my other fics, no one asked for but you’re bloody well going to get anyway. Word Count: 3845

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Title: Santa Overload Collaborator: BookDragon13 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: K2 - Sensory Overload Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: dad Bucky Summary: Bucky attempts to take his daughter to see Santa Word Count: 262Title:

[zitrolena]

What Skam España taught me

So here is my final essay on my thoughts on Skam España. The list could go on and on but these are the things that helped me grow the most.

That it's okay to fall in love with a girl. 

This is a pretty obvious one but you could call me a baby-bi even though I'm already out for more than 1 year and was already okay with the idea of being bi the year before. But watching this TV show showed me how not fully okay I was with being me. Since I came out I watched so many movies & TV shows and there were only 2 things that gave me hope that I'm gonna have that kind of love some day and one of them was Skam España. Because you know what the thing is? The focus was on what love is like! Not how love between a same sex couple is different from “normal” ones. And there’s a huge difference between those portrayals!  And I'm not trying to trash on the OG or the remakes but I love how little this tv show was about the conflict of their sexuality itself -  neither in Cris herself nor from the outside. The story was just about 2 people falling in love.  AND THAT'S HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE. It's good to show how dramatic and horrible it can be to come out and I think that representation is really important but this is so hopeful. They give me so much hope that one day it's really gonna be "Love is love" no matter what.

There's one big thing it taught me which I realized after their reunion in episode 10: Life doesn't need drama - it needs courage. I feel like, especially, Teenagers always search for the thrill of life or completely give up their hope of growing as if it's an on & off switch. A that or that decision. And all the TV shows always have this big dramatic moment that changes everything. But this clip made me realise how unhealthy it is to think that there needs to be drama to grow. I always told myself that I wished that I had to go through more because it would have made me the person I wanted to be. But growing is a decision! It's the decision to be brave. It's the decision to change even though you might not know what's gonna happen afterwards. Joana showed this courage when she told Cris about her MI. And Cris showed this courage the second she said "I love you" even though she wasn't sure that she would ever get an I love you back. This is the definition of courage and I've never ever seen someone grow that much in a TV show which often have many more seasons.

At the same time it also showed me that you're not a bad person for being scared. I have to admit that I was one of those people that was annoyed that Cris moped around a lot. But now in the end, due to seeing that she didn’t need another push after realizing that she should say what she feels -  I’m just proud. Because this growth showed me this very important Thing: That It’s okay to be scared but most of the time you’ll feel better if you do it anyways.

Let people tell their own story. That they let their characters talk for themselves was also something really big for me and it also has something to do with the „unnecessary“ drama that other shows often portray. Just going through the archive on tumblr shows how scared everyone was of for example the ambulance theory or that they were gonna get outed or that someone is going to tell Cris about Joanas MI or that it’d need Joana to be suicidal for Cris to understand that she loves her. I feel like I’m repeating myself but this is fucking important because this just underlines the meaning of courage. Drama will come – no matter if you want it or not, but it is on you how you handle it.

Now to something I didn’t fully realise at first but it for sure changed me. Before the 10th episode happened I was annoyed that Cris always needed the validation of her friends and put the opinion of others over her own.. Or actually it seemed as if she didn’t even think about her own opinion. And then I got why it bothered me so much.. It’s because I do exactly the same. But then the second clip of episode 10 happened and I’m just so thankful for that specific clip: Eva telling Cris “I told you about my experience, but now it’s you who has to think about how you feel. And whetever you want to get back with Joana or not. The only person that can make that decision for you is you” Because yes; it’s easy to lean onto the opinion of the people that know you the best, but in the end the only person that fully knows you is you.

People show love in different ways and that’s okay. Some show it physically; some show it with what they give you and some hold onto verbal confession. And that was one of the conflicts between Cris & Joana. Joana held onto the mindset that loving someone is saying it verbally. She felt unloved when Cris didn’t say I love you back or didn’t take the necklace. Overall she always showed how much she cared with compliments, looks and loving touches. While for Cris loving someone was opening up and showing the other person your own world. She showed Joana her special place. She wanted Joana to meet her friends. She wanted to kiss her publicly. But it took some time for her to say it verbally. And the reunion is episode 9 (we really had 3 reunions in 10 episodes haha) showed them actually acknowledging this conflict. Talk about growth!

Now to something that I was already kind of sure but I think it’s also really important and that is that fighting is okay. Ofcourse people are different and there are some that really don’t want to fight like ever and that’s okay too. But to the others.. Fighting doesn’t make you a toxic couple. Fighting show that you have differences but that’s okay!

You shouldn’t ghost people. This was one of the really bad sides of Cris because she did it with both Ruben and Joana when she didn’t know what to say. But it’s important to understand that you don’t need to know what to say 24/

Some people may be assholes but not everybody is like that. Do I even have to add something to this?

That it’s not gonna feel right when you force it and that you’re not obligated to do anything you don’t want to do. Making out with a guy doesn’t mean you have to have sex with him. Being okay with your sexuality doesn’t mean you have to tell your parents right away. It’s okay to take your time.

Glasses can look hellaaaaaaa good. That I can’t decide if I find Cris hotter with or without glassesis just everything I needed to aknowleged the fact that I really need to get glasses because I can barely read anything in the distance. So thanks, Skam Espana for that haha

The Spanish language is really really sexy. Wow. It’s so hot.. I can’t. I tried to learn it a bit on Duolingo and everytime the app said something my smile just grew bigger and bigger. I want every person to speak Spanish including myself. (I especially love when Cris’ voice is lower like in episode 6 when they are still in bed and Cris says that Joana looks like someone from Dangerous Laisons. I could just listen to that sentence on repeat)

Eye contact needs to be mastered. I really want to know how to look at someone like they do because yes.. Something like the eye contact in episode 1 in class happened to me about 1 month ago and I’m still not over it.

You can only grow if you’re willing to listen.  I love how the girlsquad actually wanted to learn about Amiras religion. And I love that Cris wanted to learn more about Joanas MI. So often we’re scared of being judged or saying the wrong thing but we’ll never understand more about it if we’re not willing to learn about it. And who could teach you more about it than the people that live with it?

They make me want to live my life. And I know this is weird since Skam España basically took my life away from me or better said made me choose it over my own life but now I just want to life my life. And I'm not focusing here on the love story, because yes of course I want to fall in love and Crisana sure as hell didn't make me not want it more, but it's also that it showed me that there is no bigger present than to be alive. You get the opportunity to grow, to love, to learn, to make your life mean something TO YOURSELF. Because guess what? The only opinion that matters about your life is your own. I just want to hug all my friends & family and tell them that I love them. I wanna make mistakes and grow. And we can do that!

This fandom was everything. Everyone listend. Everyone was kind. I never felt more understood by people I don’t know. It’s been a special journey and I’m more than thankful that I got to be a part of it when it aired, because it’s sure gonna be different to watch it afterwards. I love you Skam Espana. I really really love you! And I’m more than thankful that I found this tv show. And I’m so thankful for all the work that was put into it and the acting, the storytelling.. just EVERYTHING. I’ve never seen a wlw story that captured me that much and made me fall in love with every aspect of it.  And the portrayal of  Joanas MI was the best. Revolutionary. This was high quality education! This is the kind of story people need to see!! This is my favourite remake, my favourite tv show, my favoruite ficiton. Because it doesn’t feel like fiction but more like seeing friends grow.  

[purplesurveys]

649

Are you attracted to the last person that kissed you? Yeah, of course. What did you do yesterday? I spent the morning hungover because I drank the night before, but I had to be in class by 10 AM so I had no choice but to drive to school. My classes were thankfully pretty chill, and the most random thing that happened was my prof making us take a speed typing test in the middle of our class lol. Otherwise, it was a normal school day. Something you really want right now? More moneyyyy. I blew most of it last Wednesday when me and my girlfriend had drinks up in Marco Polo. Hotels obviously jack up their prices on everything, and alcohol is no exception so what I’d pay for a cocktail in my school’s area got quadrupled in Marco Polo. But I had a loooot of fun that night, so I can’t say I regret it even though I lost most of my allowance. If you could seek revenge on someone would you? [continued from yesterday because I just had suuuch a hectic week] Like I’ve said, the idea of revenge is something I daydream about just to feel internally satisfied, but I never feel the need to act on it. How long have you liked the person you like? Six, maybe even seven years.

Are you happy with the way things are going? For the most part. I could go with less worry/anxiety, but I mean I can’t say I’m miserable. Would you ever get a tattoo? Only if I feel like the time is right, which is a FAR cry from “get tattoos of all the things you love”-era Robyn lmao. Do you think you will be in a relationship 3 months from now? Yes. April is my birth month, and I’d hate to be single by then lol. What plans do you have for tomorrow? I finally have my rest day tomorrow, which I’m fuuuucking stoked about. It’s been such a busy busy week and I’m just so relieved that all I have to do tomorrow is sit and lounge around. Has a friendship ended recently that you wish had not? Not really. I kinda cut off friendships with two guys because they annoyed me over some issue, but the thing is they’re part of our high school group so I can’t avoid them forever – I see them when we have reunions, but I don’t mingle with them. What are you listening to right now? I can hear the electric fan whirring in front of me but in my head Simmer by Hayley Williams is playing as loud as ever. Do you and your last ex hate each other? No. What are you afraid of? I hate uncertainty the most, but some other things I’m afraid of are failing in general, videos that make me stressed like footage of collapsing/fainting people or racist people making tirades on public transport, flying cockroaches, sharp objects, and fire. When was the last time you were sick? Some time last year, I got a fever for like two hours but I was totally fine after. But the last time I was SICK sick was sometime in 2017 – but even that was only an overnight thing. I don’t remember the last time I was sick for over a day. Do you tend to waste a lot of money? LMAOOO don’t even remind me. I literally have a single P50 bill left in my wallet – that’s less than a dollar to ya. Do you have trust issues? No, not at all. Do you think this year will be better than last? I’m genuinely unsure, and I’d rather not guess or mull over it. 2020 is going to be a year of so much change – graduating college, getting my first job, maybe moving out for the first time?, not knowing if my girlfriend is going to pursue a master’s abroad, what that means for us, etc. Big things are waiting, and I HATE the uncertainty of it all. I take surveys to forget, so please don’t remind me of things I go here to forget, haha. Have you ever regretted kissing someone? No. Are you a jealous person? I can be, but like I’m not obsessed with being jealous. When was the last time you got a haircut? 2018. I desperately need a dramatic haircut. Do you know anyone that smokes weed? Yeah I know people who’ve told me about it, but I’m sure there are more people I know that haven’t told me they do weed. Who is the last person you rode in a car with? I was with Luisa and Hannah and for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t the one driving! Do you look more like your mom or your dad? I ask people this and they always tell me I’m a perfect mix. Apparently the top half of my face looks like my dad, and the bottom half is all my mom. Are there any stressful situations in your life? Yep a little bit yep yep yep. If you were caught cheating would you fess up? If I was already caught, I’d be incredibly stupid to still deny it so yeah, I’d confess. The last time you honestly felt broken? Maybe Monday? Idk, I cried pretty hard that day, harder than I normally would. What do you really want right now? I want this stupid internet speed to be faster because I need to send emails ASAP, and I need some good fucking food. I am not the happiest camper right now lmao. Best thing about the last person you chatted on facebook? He’s literally the most reliable dude ever. I can always depend on him to help me out no matter how last-minute it is. Best thing about the last person you talked to in person? She’s generous. When was the last time you shaved your legs? Yesterday. Is there someone you wish you were closer to? At this point, not really. I’m happy with my circle and there haven’t been new people who entered my life recently. Have any addictions? Nope. Are you anything like your siblings? We’re all reserved, but then again out of all the three of us I’m still the biggest extrovert and I’m also probably the one who finds it easy to blend in with most groups. But yeah, we all definitely have a layer of extreme shyness in us. We’re also never upfront about our feelings, so when we cry we do it in the privacy of our own rooms, or if we’re upset we rant about it to our own friends. Have you ever had a stalker? I don’t think so. Have you ever received an injury from a hook up? LOL what? No I haven’t. That sounds wild though. What did you last eat? A brownie and a sip of coffee. What was the best concert you have been to? PARAMORE. UGH. THEY HAVE THE BEST CONCERTS. I’ve seen them twice and I plan to see them three, four, and the next bajillion times. Paramore forever <3 Who is the last person you hugged? I’m not 100% sure. Maybe Laurice. Do you have any good friends of the opposite sex? I have a couple, yeah. Are you keeping anything from your best friend(s) now? This survey is a big secret for one, lmao. Where do you get your clothes? It depends. I shop everywhere so I get my clothes from a variety of places. They’re mostly from independent shops/stalls that pop up once in a while at malls, though. Do you have a secret you've never told anyone? [continued YET AGAIN from last night because I am just one big exhausted bean] Again, this Tumblr is a pretty big secret. Is there one person in your life that can always make you smile? There are several people who meet this category. Would you rather sleep alone or with someone? I like sleeping with someone only if they’re my significant other. Otherwise, I like my own space when I sleep. Have you ever lived with a girlfriend/boyfriend? No, I haven’t. When was the last time something bothered you? I am bothered at this moment, hence the survey-taking haha. Who was the first male you talked to today? My dog. But if he doesn’t count, it was Andrew. Are you completely over your past relationships? I’ve only been with one person. Do you get attached to people easily? No, it only ever happens with select people. But when I get attached, it happens hard. Are you currently looking forward to anything? Uhhhh sure. I’m dreading most of this week but my high school’s annual school fair is happening this Friday and Saturday and that’s the only thing I’m excited for. Do you believe in love? Yes. Let's be honest, have you ever been played by someone? Can’t say I have. Have you ever played someone? Yes, this I’ve done. I still feel bad about it occasionally but I’m sure the person has long gotten past it. What is currently on your mind? How sad I am and that I have to focus on this survey so I can be distracted. Would it hurt seeing the last person you kissed, kissing someone else? Of course. How many piercings have you had in your life? Just two. Who else is in the room with you? I’m the only one in the dining room but my brother is also here downstairs. Have you ever been beside someone while they were throwing up? [It’s 12 hours later. This is the absolute slowest I’ve ever worked on a survey lmao] No, it was always the other way around HAHAHA Did you eat breakfast today? I haven’t yet but I’m not feeling hungry so I might just settle for a cup of coffee. When was the last time you cried? A few minutes ago watching a clip from an NBA game having a moment of silence for Kobe Bryant. I was never into basketball but we DID have a copy of NBA Live 2003, and whenever I played it I always used the Lakers team so that I got to play as either Shaq or Kobe, so I’m sad and shocked, to say the least. Do you like tea? Just sugary iced tea. None of that herbal stuff. When was the last time you took a nap? Yesterday afternoon. What song is stuck in your head? Simmer, by Hayley Williams. As has been the case in the last four days. Do you have a TV in your room? I used to, but my brother would always be the one using it to play his video games so I eventually just gave it to him. Have you ever broken a bone? Nope. And I’m always extra careful so that I never have to go through such an injury. Have you ever had stitches? ^ Same answer. Are you wearing a sweatshirt? No...it’s starting to get warmer for sweatshirts now :( Have you taken a shower in the last 24 hours? Yes. Are there things in your life that you'll never be able to get over? Of course. There’s been a fair share of deaths, betrayals, abusive family shit that I’ve had to go through and that aren’t easy to forget. Can you remember who you liked this time last year? Yes. What's one physical flaw you'd like to fix about yourself? Straightening my teeth. What do you do when you're feeling extremely nervous? Uh it depends on whatever helps me at that time. I’d pace around, fiddle with my eyebrows, breathe deeply, shake my hands rapidly, bite my nails, etc. Do you have a hard time letting go? Yes. Do you think someone is thinking about you right now? I doubt it. What do you plan on doing now? Making my cup of coffee and taking another survey to make up for the embarassment that is taking three days of finishing this one lmao.

[lightsandlostbells]

Druck season 3, episode 1 reaction

WE DID IT, KIDS. When Druck’s first season aired, I knew shortly after Matteo’s introduction that I could not wait for his season. But with that came a lot of apprehension that we would ever get Matteo’s season - Druck S1 got less attention than some of the other remakes, and for a long time, the fandom didn’t know if the show would get a S2, let alone S3. Months went by with no official news of when the show would return. Many people thought the show had been quietly cancelled. 

And then, finally, Mia’s season was announced. Ratings and subscribers grew substantially. Druck trended frequently on YouTube and Tumblr. Then finally, we got confirmation that S3 was in the works. So here we are, and to put it politely, my ass is on fire. 

Episode 1

Clip 1 - Matteo’s miserable night

Party time! This opening is pointedly sexual, with the music (”You’re turning me on”) and the dancing, with the closeups of boobs and butts and writhing bodies. Sara gets freaky with a banana. The presence of sex makes sense to highlight Matteo’s alienation, as we see him sitting on the couch, not participating. He’s disengaged from the flirtation and seduction, this isn’t something he wants to be a part of.

Is the guy dancing with Hans the turtleneck dude, or is that someone else? PLOT TWIST: he was never Matteo’s love interest, despite fan theories. He was Hans’ love interest all along!

Matteo gets up, trying to escape this scene that makes him uncomfortable. But Sara pulls him into a dance (much like she’s going to be playing the role of Emma this season, pulling Matteo back into an attempt at a straight relationship). They kiss, and he’s soooo not into it, hugging her and staring over her shoulder into space like she’s his great-aunt who smells like mothballs and he can’t wait to get the fuck out of this family reunion.

He escapes into the bathroom where the boy squad is smoking weed. Carlos showing the boys a sex position on his phone. I’m sure Matteo loves hearing about that. He’s getting high as the boys debate the mechanics of this man-woman sex position. The proper response, honestly.

Oh my God, Carlos just called Kiki a catheter. He meant cathetus. I don’t think you’re ready to integrate catheters into your sex life, dude. 

Matteo looks dead. I know he’s getting high, but this kid looks fucking deceased. Someone revive him already.

When he realizes he has three calls from Kiki, Carlos pulls up Jonas and Abdi, saying they’re going to go hook up with girls. An activity that I’m sure Matteo wants to participate in. Matteo lingers behind. He just seems so wiped. He looks at himself in the mirror and it’s as if he’s disappointed in what he sees.  (The way it’s shot makes his mirror image divided down the middle, like he’s a fractured person.) I’ve seen some later episodes by this point and Matteo seems like he’s really struggling with anxiety, like he just needs to escape sometimes, it all gets overwhelming.

The girl Jonas is dancing with kinda reminds me of Sonja (similar-ish haircut).

HOLY FUCK DID MATTEO JUST PUT THE WEED IN AMIRA’S BACKPACK???? Matteo, that is TOTALLY the worst an Isak has been about this, planting weed on on a person rather than a vase. I guess he assumes a Muslim girl in hijab seems like an unlikely candidate to have drugs, but ... dude. Asshole move. And I wouldn’t trust the authorities not to search the Muslim girl’s belongings for discriminatory reasons, anyway, which would have made it even worse.

Photoshop Markus is at this party and Matteo tells the cops Markus is the renter, LMAO GOD. Matteo is just snaking all over the place tonight. The cops tell everyone to turn the music down, which is pretty reasonable and not nearly as bad as them telling people to break up the party. Or maybe I’m just old. Carlos salutes as the cops leave, heh.

Amira just walks out with her backpack … and the weed. Lol, she might’ve just left because the cops showed up and she figured better to bail now, not wanting to get in trouble, or because she had a curfew or something, but part of me wants to believe she knew Matteo stuck weed in her backpack and she’s walking out to make him suffer. In that case: he deserves it, make him suffer.

Mia wasn’t at the party. I guess she and Alexander were making their own fun, but her presence is missed.

Clip 2 - Survival camp

Matteo’s new room is already a little messy, with beer bottles and remnants of the party. He wakes up and checks his phone, he’s got a Bible verse from mom. One that sounds normal and non-threatening enough, not like it’s about sin and hellfire, but you know. All religious texts are probably loaded coming from Matteo’s mom.

Matteo rolls over and Jonas is conked out in bed next to him. Oh nooooo, my heart. Matteo watches him and then reaches out and slooooowly lowers his hand to lightly touch Jonas’ curls, closing his eyes a little. GODDAMMIT.

If he doesn’t do this to Gereven at some point, touch his hair without having to be secretive about it, then I’m suing Druck.

You can tell Matteo is indulging in this fantasy that Jonas is his boyfriend and he’s waking up next to him, and the fantasy is broken when he looks down and sees that Jonas has a phone number with a little heart written on his arm. A girl. Jonas will never be his boyfriend.

Although I almost don’t think this is specifically about Matteo pining over Jonas - I think there’s definitely some lingering feelings, enough to be disappointed that Jonas might have a girl, but I also think it’s just the wish that Matteo can have this experience with a guy at all, he can wake up next to a boy who’s not just a friend, who he can touch and show affection to. 

The fantasy is further interrupted when Hans walks in (the dreamy music cuts off) and Matteo rolls on his back like he’s totally not staring wistfully at Jonas. Hans throws himself on the bed between them in a perfect face plant, lmao. 

Hans asks Matteo to buy rolls, saying Mia would’ve done that. Hans, if you are expecting Matteo to be a Mia substitute, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. I don’t think Matteo will lovingly wipe your vomit off the tub. (I mean. Maybe when he falls in love and is in just that good of a mood.)

Jonas asks why Hans is in Matteo’s bed, and Hans says he could ask Jonas the same question (DAMN) but Jonas is like … I’ve waited for you. He and Hans stare into each other’s eyes. Lmao, the way their gaze holds without comment or them breaking it off. I’m sure Matteo just loves seeing them “flirt.” But I don’t think the fantasy of Jonas in his bed involves Hans, sorry Hans. Matteo gets up to buy rolls, just to get away from the JoHans lovefest, I guess.

Linn comes in and says she wants to make pancakes but doesn’t know where the pans are, and she doesn’t know how to make pancakes either. Everyone in this flat is screwed without Mia. But Jonas offers to make pancakes, so all is saved! Matteo grumpily leaves Jonas, Hans, and Linn to take a selfie of their “survival camp” to send to Mia, showing they’re totally making it on their own. They look so perky, heh. They won’t be so perky when Jonas leaves and takes his pancake-making skills with him.

Matteo steps outside and gets a text from Sara about whether he slept well. I feel bad for Sara. She’s not just the Emma equivalent, she’s a character we’ve seen in the past who has been entertaining and likable. I don’t want to see her either make Emma’s mistakes like outing Matteo OR get her heart broken by him.

 Hans throws Matteo’s wallet out of the window, beaning him in the head, which is truly the perfect gif.

Clip 3 - Will you surrender?

Matteo goes into school on a rainy Monday morning. We start with some passionate straight kissing in the foreground, coupled with a pic and text from Sara, just to show the kind of shit Matteo is dealing with. A heterosexual assault from all angles. 

He meets up with the boy squad. Jonas is looking to get with Linn’s friend, who is “Emma Watson but blonde.” Sucks for Matteo to hear yet more girl talk, and girl talk from Jonas specifically. The heterosexuality strikes from another corner.

Adding another unwanted conversation topic, Abdi asks about the weed. Matteo seems like he wants to get the hell out of there, so he bails and goes up to Hanna and Sam, asking where Amira is. She’s out sick, so solving the weed dilemma will have to wait another day.

Hanna glances over at Jonas, who finally seems to have snapped out of his S2 funk as he talks about his new girl … does Hanna know yet Jonas has a new flame? Or is she just suspicious?

Man, I keep saying it, but Matteo seems like he’s sleepwalking through life, like this kid is just. Legit depressed. He has no energy for anything. Not even to fake being OK.

Continuity snarl: Matteo puts up his hood as he rounds the corner after leaving the girls, but it’s down a moment later.

The music is kicking in and there’s still almost a minute of clip left, is Matteo going to like … literally run into Beanie Boy/Gereven?

YEP

Well, they didn’t do a rom-com Meet Cute collide into each other or anything, but they passed each other in the hallway! In slow motion!

The big moment: Matteo and Gereven are coming at each other from different sides (like different ~walks of life? ooooo). They lock eyes and then look back at each other once after they’ve passed.

The scene goes into slow motion as soon as Matteo lifts his head and sees Beanie Boy. Matteo is just ambling his way to class and meandering through life, but when he sees that guy, that’s when he starts to feel present in the world, like it’s not just around him but including him. And then Gereven comes into focus as they pass each other.

I adore the music choice for this moment. It’s beautiful, and the lyrics are so lovely. “Will you surrender?” when we see Gereven and Matteo looking at each other, because Matteo’s seeing the boy who will make him give in and stop hiding who he truly is, who will make him surrender to love. And I suspect the same is true for Gereven, that Matteo will make him surrender as will, let go of his fears. 

So I reaaaaally don’t think Beanie Boy was trying to get Matteo’s attention like Even was. There’s nothing about it that suggests so. My prediction is that Beanie Boy, like Matteo was trying to keep his head down and get through life, and they just happened to walk by each other. I mean, Matteo’s just walking down a school hallway, it’s not like Beanie Boy parked his ass deliberately somewhere so Matteo could see him, he couldn’t predict Matteo was going to walk down that hallway at that particular time. I feel like Beanie Boy is very much like Matteo in that he’s lonely and an outsider. He’s not trying to attract attention, he’s not seen smiling or laughing at someone at the beginning. Our first glance at Even was his brightness. Our first glimpse of Gereven (from Matteo’s POV, not the brief moment of him last season which is more of an Easter egg, really) has him in dark clothes, headphones on. I feel like he and Matteo are just checked out of life. And I think that’ll be an interesting take on Even, not so much that Beanie Boy has Even’s confidence and swagger in drawing Matteo to him, but that Matteo and Gereven are both outsiders and recognize their loneliness in each other.

That’s what really makes me love this scene. It’s just a mundane occurrence. Two boys walking by each other. Something that happens all the time. Something that Matteo no doubt does every day, walk by other boys whose faces don’t register. But this time, there’s ... something. Physical attraction? Sure, that’s part of it. But even more I think it’s a sense of connection, something inexplicable that draws them to look back at each other even when the moment should have ended. A gut feeling that this person is also lost, that he would understand. 

Clip 4 - Everyone’s favorite reluctant friendship begins

It’s the first remake to focus on the teacher’s nipples! Matteo is staring at them instead of listening to her talk about their exams. 

Amira comes in and Matteo just gets up from where he was sitting and sits next to her while the teacher is talking. Lol, is that allowed? Is this a study session or something?

Amira coolly ignores Matteo even when he tries to get her attention. Eventually she says she found his weed and how fucked up it was for him to do that, she could have gotten in trouble. A bit of a change because Sana was upset that Isak almost fucked over Eva, causing a demonstration of Sana’s loyalty to her friends. With Amira, it was personal, a risk to herself. Matteo acts shitty too, he’s just like come on, it wasn’t personal, it wasn’t a big deal. Dude! If you want your weed back, that’s not the best course of action. You need to grovel.

The teacher calls on Matteo and Jonas shoots him an entertained look, like ha ha, you got in trouble. Or probably, more ha ha, check out our teacher’s nips. Nice display of Jonas going for that hetero bro bonding that Matteo would love to avoid.

LMAO, when Matteo asks for the week back and Amira says, “What will I get for it?” Matteo is like “IDK, blowjob?” THIS KID. His mind went to that, huh. Remember Even was all “yeah, we had to suck dicks” without two minutes of meeting Isak? And then later Eskild told Isak that talking about sucking dick when you meet someone is a sign someone’s gay? Yeah. 

Amira says she’ll give the weed back if Matteo and his boys join the abi-prank committee. Didn’t they do that last season? The copies of the boobs and butts and Jonas’ dick, didn’t that count as the prank?

The teacher makes them study partners. So far, she’s not a racist, at least? Anyway, Amira and Matteo look positively thrilled to be paired together; meanwhile Jonas is flirting with his seat partner. Oh, maybe that’s what the Look was about. Matteo continues to be pelted with heterosexuality like rotten fruits and vegetables.

Clip 5 - Matteo gets a prom date

Matteo and Sara sit on opposite sides of the bed, texting their friends, on their phones. LMAO, sounds about right, tbh. Truly scorching chemistry. Nah, it’s very Isak and Eskild.

The boys’ group chat has Jonas saying he’s getting laid on Friday. That rotten hetero produce comes in the form of eggplant emojis. Matteo sure loves hearing about Jonas banging chicks!  He’s like, yeah, I’m totally having sex with a girl as well.

Sara asks his opinion about a dress. Subtle (“subtle”) hint about the prom? Yes, as it turns out. But she suddenly leans over and kisses him after he’s like yeah, that looks nice. He looks as excited as you’d expect. He was actually staring into space before she did that.

Sara gets a text, Matteo wants to know what they’re talking about, and there’s some “flirting” until Sara caves and tells him that Leonie likes the new guy from their PE class. GEE I WONDER WHO THAT COULD BE. Matteo offers to investigate for her. Yeah, I’ll bet he’s gonna enjoy that more than he knows. He’s going to become one of the Hardy Boys.

Sara somewhat nervously asks if they should go to prom together, and when Matteo is agrees, she asks whether they’re a thing. It makes me sad how clearly vulnerable she is right now, like she really likes him and is hoping to say yes, but she isn’t sure. Matteo says they’re a thing. Not conveying how utterly miserable this must make him, but not exactly jumping for joy, either. Like Isak tried hard to impress Emma, he could turn on the charm, but Matteo is just sleepy about it.

Sara kisses Matteo again, but before they go further, he asks if she wants to watch a movie with him. Smart move.

I’m sure Matteo will end up going to prom with Gereven. Sara and Leonie can go together? Realizing their love for each other at last. Or just as friends. (But preferably girlfriends.)

Clip 6 - Make a wish

Matteo goes to the abi-prank meeting, looking like he gives nary a fuck. Amira shoots him a nod and he gives her a “what more do you want from me” look. The girls are at the meeting, the rest of the boy squad is not, obviously. I see Photoshop Markus but not Beanie Boy.

All the girls are looking beautiful by the way. Look at Amira, she’s radiant!

Kiki literally goes Fight Club on this meeting. I have to say, if you asked me which Druck character would be a member of Fight Club, it would be Kiki. Her clumsy nervousness is a total front for bloodlust.

Matteo is being rude as hell just taking out his phone while Kiki is talking. The boys text why they aren’t there: Jonas has a date, Kiki is still mad at Carlos (dude, that’s why you need to come, it’s a way to get back on her good side) and Abdi just forgot.

They suggest a flash mob. Lmao, good luck getting Matteo to dance. Or they suggest just randomly hugging teachers. That could get all kinds of awkward, judging by the last teacher we saw with the power nipples. I’m just imagining some short kid going for a hug and getting their face mashed into the teacher’s areola.

Photosohp Markus has a suggestion. I love this dude, sorry. He loves hugging! He wants to practice with Kiki. Kiki realizes in an instant why the hugging prank might not be the best idea. But she’s like, we can group bond instead. Kiki wants everyone to hold hands and Matteo just peaces the fuck out. This prank meeting is pretty depressing, honestly. Way more so than kosegruppa. Kosegruppa might have been uncool or whatever but I got the sense the people involved enjoyed it. This meeting was just excruciating, and barely anyone is there. Look at that tiny circle.

Oh shit! As Matteo exits the room, Beanie Boy is going into it, and Matteo stops him. No, don’t go in there, it’s dangerous! Or actually it just sucks and they’re doing a trust circle where they hold hands. Beanie Boy obviously does not want to hold hands in that room, since Matteo is out here and not in there.

Aww, I love that Matteo has a slight smile? Just the tiniest when he talks to Beanie. Beanie is kinda doing the talking with his eyes, he’s definitely considering Matteo.

Shit, it’s Matteo who offers weed! Matteo is the one being the initiator! The bolder one. I love the idea of maybe having a shyer Even, like it does drastically change their dynamic, but I’m fine with that as long as the show does a thorough job of adapting their interactions, not just a cut and paste. Beanie Boy is the new kid and probably didn’t expect someone to make overtures of friendship (or more…).

And I love Matteo doing this when we’ve seen him sleepwalking through his interactions with Sara and … everyone else, kinda. He’s actually found some courage. Like he could have just let Beanie Boy go off and do his own thing, there was no real reason to offer a joint once he’d warned him off the meeting. But he somehow just felt the need to keep talking to this dude.

Holy fuck, MATTEO putting the joint behind his ear. This role reversal is so much fun already. And it’s even more amusing if you think that this is how some of Evak played out from Even’s POV? We thought Even was this charming, suave, mysterious dude when he stuck that joint behind his ear, because we were in Isak’s POV and Even was some handsome stranger. Later we realize what a huge dork Even is and that he was super desperate to get Isak’s attention and had been pining since the first day of school. So this is like how Even actually was - we know Matteo is a big dork and not a suave dude, but maybe that’s how he comes across in Beanie Boy’s eyes. 

HIS NAME IS DAVID. A perfectly excellent name, tbh. I was worried they were going to call him something like Daniel or Noah, names that already exist in the Skam universe, which would be confusing as hell when those Noorhelm seasons are concurrently airing. “I can’t believe that thing Noah just did in this clip.” Uhhhh which Noah are you talking about, untagged post? Or God forbid, another Lucas, although David’s actor is named Lukas so I figured we would dodge that bullet.

Although it does occur to me that we have do have a David, the Skam France director, soooo … fuck.

I want to make a disclaimer: as fandom knows, David is played by a trans actor. There’s no guarantee that this character will be trans yet, but I think it’s unlikely that they won’t bring it up. The nature of this show seems like they’ll incorporate it into the story rather than let the opportunity pass to talk about trans issues, and I know that trans Druck fans campaigning for a trans Even had a ton to do with this decision, so I believe their input would weigh on the story itself beyond the casting. So I’m going to make speculation and comments with the assumption that David is trans and how that will affect the plot. There are things in this conversation that are potentially relevant to that, for instance. I don’t want to overstep, but I also don’t want to ignore moments of possible foreshadowing or pieces that might be relevant to his characterization.

So for instance, I don’t know if they have replaced Even being bipolar with David being trans. To be clear, NOT because being trans is a mental illness but more as an area of societal marginalization that the character has to deal with, that might be hidden from the other characters and the audience. We don’t know when we will learn that David is trans; while I write this we’re several episodes in, but I don’t know if we’ll learn three clips from now or three episodes from now. I don’t know if David will be trans and bipolar, or just one of the two. I don’t know if the reveal will end up being casual and non-dramatic, or if it will be a big thing like the end of episode 8. I have some guesses about where the story might go, but I’m keeping in mind that there’s a new element that none of the Evak seasons have tackled before, and that may cause big changes to the story. 

Matteo asks David about being new so close to Abi, and David says he killed someone and had to go into hiding. That could be a reference to his dead name. I don’t know if that term is the same in German, but seems like a possible hint. He does say he killed his parents, but that’s after Matteo asks if he had stress with them, so he’s just riffing off what Matteo said. Or just the fact that when Matteo asks about him being new, David wants to know why - maybe he’s wondering if Matteo knows something or heard a rumor. 

Isak asking about Even transferring in his final year got cut off because Emma showed up. Here Matteo just kinda accepts David’s joke and doesn’t question him further.

Matteo is super into him, of course. Look at that body language, he’s all angled toward David. David, too. Tarjei and Henrik had masterful body language so this is very promising.

David points out an eyelash on Matteo’s face and you fucking KNOW later in the season he probably won’t ask, he’ll just brush it off himself. Matteo is like, can I make a wish now? JFC, Matteo is flirting so much, he is intensely looking at David when he says that. Honestly, it’s really exciting to see this dynamic kinda flipped, mixing and matching Isak and Even elements between Matteo and David. David says it was just an eyelash. Maybe he’ll be more of the realist rather than the romantic? God, if Matteo is the more romantic one, I will lose my mind (in a good way).

David does ask what Matteo’s wish would have been, and Matteo is like, IDK, go on holiday or something. David says he knows the feeling and Matteo asks where he would go. Matteo would get in a car and just drive away. David says to go directly to Detroit. David, I’m fond of you already but unless your car turns into a submarine that is not gonna work.

David has been pretty chill so far, but he perks up and smiles when mentioning Detroit at the very end, so Matteo gets hit with the ray of charm. That’s when the music kicks in, too, because Matteo has seen David smile. No turning back now. I presume we are going to be hearing music from Detroit artists this season?

LMAO, I was like oh, Sara’s not there at the meeting so she can’t interrupt their moment, and yet SOMEHOW she managed to anyway. And she kisses Matteo so David knows Matteo has a girlfriend right off the bat. David takes this as his cue to exit.

Why was Sara there, anyway? Did she show up late for the Abi prank meeting? Didn’t she just do a big prank where she photocopied her boobs for the school to see? Or did she just know that’s where Matteo was headed tonight and she waited around for him?

For Matteo, Sara’s arrival cuts into this charged moment with David. With David, it’s a little less intense than Isak finding out about Sonja? Because he’s only shared a few minutes now with Matteo instead of stalking him for a week and then spending hours at his house, although obviously he could be crushing on him for a while already. Though personally I think they might eliminate that part of the story. Anyway, this is like … a spark of hope getting extinguished REALLY early and it makes me wonder how the rest of this story is gonna go. Matteo is the one with the girlfriend, the “obstacle.” Is he going to run hot and cold, go back to Sara after getting with David? 

Matteo looks sad as David goes, obviously. Making it worse is that of course that’s the dude Leonie likes. Matteo takes a drag of the joint before replying that he thinks it’s somebody else. Well, David was someone somebody else liked (ahem), so I guess that does make him somebody else. But clearly David is going to be so much more to Matteo than just “dude Leonie likes.”

Anyway, I love how quiet and down to earth that scene was, how it wasn’t instant smiles and conversational bliss but a little rough, testing each other out. And I think it’s good that Matteo seems to be more proactive around David, because they both seem kinda like chill stoner/emo kids, and two sleepy guys is not going to be that exciting of a dynamic, honestly. Matteo being the instigator gives the story a fresh take, and the contrast between Matteo with David and Matteo with everyone else is really, really important. We can already see that David is the person, the one who makes Matteo slip into a different mode of his being, one that’s happier and more comfortable. The one who makes him wake up.

Social Media/General Comments:

Jonas says he’s better about the Hanna situation than he was before. We’ll see how long that lasts. I hope his S2 attitude leaves a trace this season, like it was such a big deal and had an affect on Matteo feeling adrift from his best friend, so it should play a role in their relationship.

Abdi refuses to get on Instagram, which is convenient for the show’s social media content creators, lol.

As explained in the texts, a pipe broke in the apartment, so Mia, Hans, and Linn had to move out, and Linn found them a new apartment but one with an extra room, so they needed another roommate fast. Mia suggested Matteo as she heard through the grapevine that he wanted to move out. It’s pretty sad because he was looking to leave, so we can assume things are very bad at home. At least it didn’t escalate to him sleeping in a basement.

I’m glad they found a way to move Matteo into the apartment neatly and quickly with the small gap between S2 and S3. I think Matteo living on his own is a pretty big contributor to his feelings of isolation and instability, and assuming Hans plays a similar role as Eskild with his “guru” advice, it helps a lot if they’re living under the same roof. However, it does create a different setup for the two, though, because Hans didn’t “rescue” Matteo like Eskild did with Isak. Living with Hans will give them more opportunities to bond than living apart would, but Hans didn’t nurture and shelter Matteo to the degree that Eskild did for Isak. Hans is like a new acquaintance, and it will take more effort to build them to a point where Matteo feels like he can trust Hans and go to him for advice. Unless it’s solely like “well, he’s the only other gay guy I know” which would be understandable but a bit underwhelming. Hans has a depressing family life, as shown in S2, with relatives who don’t accept his personality, to the point where he adopts a “straighter” persona to interact with them, and it would be amazing to bring in his background to the Pride clip.

LET’S GET SOME MIA/MATTEO CONVERSATIONS ABOUT SEXUALITY GOING, TOO. They made Mia bi but many people think they could’ve done a better job of addressing it, so this is their chance! Don’t just sleep on it by following the OG story structure - make use of those changes.

The only non-confirmed LGBT person in the flat is Linn and you know, they could remedy that this season.

Linn apparently took care of a lot of the move, so that’s progress for her, she got something done for once, lol. 

With the other girls, Hanna and Mia are furtive about why they don’t think it’s serious between Matteo and Sara. I love them for keep their mouths shut about his sexuality.

Seeing Matteo flirt with Sara and make plans to go to the movies with her has me yelling like I’m in the movie theater for a horror film. DON’T GO UPSTAIRS! GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!

There are pictures of Matteo and Amira looking smiley and happy because The Incident happens, heh. Matteo looks like he was having a decent time earlier in the evening and then descended into sadness and fatigue. And, you know, getting drunk and high.

Sara posts a pic with Leonie being like #theonewhounderstandsme and if that isn’t screaming for a Sara/Leonie endgame...

Linn super loves flamingos. 

Kiki and Carlos fight because he was in the bathtub getting high and ignoring her texts.

Mia is absent a lot because she’s hanging with Alex, that’s why she missed the housewarming party. The girls miss her. Come back soon, Mia! Don’t just disappear because Noora went to London!

We got a sappy chat between Mia and Alex to remind us that they’re around, at least. Alex misses Mia even though she’s sitting across from him. I guess they’re in their little couple bubble now.

Matteo checks in with Amira and asks if she’s feeling better or still sick, and Amira’s answers make me suspect she knows exactly what bullshit Matteo pulled on Saturday.

When Matteo invited Sara to study at his place on Thursday, I found myself wishing that maybe Hans could save the day and just be so intrusive and annoying that he drove Sara away without Matteo having to make out with Sara or blow her off rudely or whatever. Alas.

I’m laughing how Markus is “Photoshop Markus” even in the group chat. No one else appears to have a nickname, just him.

Leonie and Sara chat; Leonie has her eye on Gereven and Sara is trying to figure out where she and Matteo stand as a couple. I’m really fond of them and I hope they don’t become Emma and Sonja, honestly. Again, just ... nip those relationships in the bud. Let them go to prom with each other, not the boys. Even if they aren’t together romantically, they seem to be the most important people in each other’s lives.

Matteo zips his lips when Jonas asks if he banged Sara, which conveniently doesn’t mean he has to say no. A very Isak technique.

Mia wasn’t in this episode at all, which is strange when she, you know, lives with Matteo and goes to school with him and we saw all the other girls. In-universe the explanation is that she’s with Alexander, but I wonder if they were filming parts of S2 at the same time, maybe? Reshoots? And that’s why we haven’t seen either Mia or Alexander, because the actors were busy. The other explanation is just that Mia is not here because Noora was not there, and Druck felt the need to follow that story. I’d find that really disappointing. 

This is a really promising start to the season, and I already love the tone. It has a very down-to-earth, painfully vulnerable feel. Matteo’s misery is palpable in basically every scene, except the ones with David, where we get glimpses of his better self. I can sense this kid’s internal struggle all the time. There’s also pining and longing in the simplest moments, from Matteo brushing Jonas’ hair while he’s sleeping, to that one look in the hallway with David causing a spark, to the way they look at each other while smoking, David pointing out the eyelash on Matteo’s cheek. It’s quiet, raw, and real. And that is exactly the atmosphere I want from a S3 remake.

I’m not German so feel free to correct me on translations or cultural notes.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

[howlandreads]

I Really Hate This Show, Which I Love More Than Life Itself

Hey guys!! I know I haven’t posted any metas in months, (I’ve been super busy between work and school) but Game of Thrones is back and I’m really going to try and make Tumblr a priority for at least the next six weeks!  As you can probably tell from my previous posts I’m pretty anti D&D and have significant issues with their adaptation of ASOIAF, but I’m also pretty excited that one of the biggest events in fandom history is taking place every Sunday for the next month and a half, so I’m pretty conflicted about my feelings for the show right now -- That being said, here’s my general thoughts on Season 8 Episode 1 – “Winterfell”:

I don’t have too much to say about the “previously on” section of the episode, but I did find two things particularly interesting.  The first is something @theusurpersdog mentioned to me; Cersei says “The monsters are real,” and then we get a smash cut to D*ny riding Drogon. Most people have assumed the audience is meant to see the dragons as monsters, but it could also be foreshadowing some oncoming Dark!Dany content.  The second thing I found interesting was how the clip of Bran’s Warg eyes is shown right before we see Viserion’s Wight eyes, which might be some foreshadowing for the popular theory that Bran’s going to Warg a dragon this season.

Next is the opening scene where we see Jon and D*ny arriving to the North, which is the first of this episode’s 1,000 callbacks to the first episode. It’s a scene that’s clearly meant to mirror Robert’s arrival to Winterfell from “Winter Is Coming”, which mostly works except for the fact that the Baratheon theme is playing in the background despite the fact that there’s not a Baratheon in sight, except for Gendry, who’s not even a true Baratheon.  

I adore Maisie Williams in this scene.  Last season’s Arya was such a mess, and though I still feel show Arya is nothing compared to the complexity of ASOIAF’s Arya, she seems to be much more herself this episode.  The look on her face when she sees Jon is perfect, as is her subtle heartbreak when he doesn’t notice her.  I continue to be tired of the amount of The Hound content D&D continue to subject us to, but I do like that we see Arya’s joy at seeing that Gendry is alive.

Though I love Arya in this scene, the most important part is D*enarys.  In a crowd of dark fur coats, she stands out clothed in pure white, and the Northerners take notice. This scene also sets her up as a liability to Jon, both with the North and his own family.  When he’s with D*ny he misses Arya in the crowd, setting up the recurring theme of the episode that the more he’s with her the less he’s a Stark. I also appreciate that her first appearance of the season shows that the fear of the subjugated is what she’s after, not their love or respect.  Her delight at the terror her dragons instill seems to bode well for Dark!Dany theories. Overall, I enjoyed how the dragons were portrayed.  I love that Arya is awestruck, and that Sansa is in wonder for a moment, but immediately sees the danger in their presence in the North.  Sophie plays this brilliantly, and the look of resolve Sansa has shows that she won’t be intimidated by grand displays of superiority from D*ny.

I have a lot of thoughts on the courtyard reunion scene, but I’ll only mention the really important things since I don’t want this post to be too long.  The reunion of Jon and Bran was good, but not nearly as good as their relationship deserved. Jon and Sansa’s reunion left a lot to be desired.  Why is Sansa only glad to see him for less than a second before she’s side-eying D*ny? So many of my issues with D&D come from their inability to write women who aren’t reduced to pure pettiness, and this episode was a classic example of their failure to provide complex female characters.  Sansa is so justified in her concerns about D*ny and I wish the writing portrayed her as a an incredibly intelligent Lady of Winterfell, who has every right to bitterness towards the woman who’s demanded the fealty of her people, instead of just another small-minded and petty female character who’s more concerned with glaring at D*ny than she is with fighting the fast approaching White Walkers. D*ny stans also have a right to be offended by this episode as D*ny is fairly one dimensional as well.  

Sexist writing aside, my biggest issue with this scene is that somehow nobody cares that a freaking undead dragon is coming their way.  Not even D*ny, the Mother of Dragons, is given more than a two second reaction shot.  This should be devastating for her, and her plotline for the episode should have been her processing her grief.

There’s a lot of issues with this scene, but I will say that Bran is amazing throughout this scene and the whole episode.  Is he the ASOIAF Bran that I love? No, but he is spectacularly dramatic and I’m here for it.

Next is the Great Hall scene.  Again, the Northerners are treated as small-minded and petty over their concern for titles and independence, and I fail to see why.  Westeros is a feudal society, which means of course titles mean everything.  And beyond titles, of course Northerners are justified in their want for independence.  Each Kingdom has its own argument for independence, but the North’s is by far the strongest. They’re larger than the other kingdoms combined, and have a completely different climate and a completely different set of needs than the southern kingdoms.  Not to mention the fact they’ve been the most consistently victimized by the tyrants of King’s Landing.  

This scene is much better about treating Sansa as an intelligent leader who’s aware of the North’s situation.  Again, there’s a lot more I have to say but this post is already getting pretty long, so I’ll move on to Sansa and Tyrion’s reunion.

I’m so torn on how to feel about this particular reunion.  It’s deeply upsetting because it’s a wretched reminder of so many of D&D’s past sins, in particular the whitewashing of Tyrion’s character, and how Sansa’s development was completely undercut in the process.  This scene also shows a stark contrast between show Sansa and book Sansa.  It’s impossible to imagine book Sansa fondly remembering Joffrey clawing at his own throat, unable to breathe – it’s actually essential to her character that she wouldn’t. What leaves me torn is that I still really love show Sansa.  Though D&D’s adaptation will never compare to the beautiful and brilliant character GRRM created in Sansa, I can still root for a badass Sophie Turner fondly remembering the day her serial abuser died.

Now onto my favorite scene of the whole episode, Jon and Arya’s reunion. Both Kit and Maisie were so good in this scene.  I love their genuine happiness and comfort at seeing each other again after all these years apart.  I love the silent mourning of their youth when Arya confesses to Jon that she’s used Needle once or twice.  It was also really nice to see Arya defending Sansa after the absolute tragedy that was Arya and Sansa’s plotline last season.  It was also good to see how clearly hurt Jon is by what he perceives as Sansa’s lack of faith in him.

I don’t have all that much to say when it comes to the section of this episode that takes place outside Winterfell, since there’s not a whole lot of substance in it.  All I really need to say is that I continue to adore Lena Heady, I love the reference to elephants, I’m continually upset by the writers seeming lack of understanding when it comes to consent, and the Theon and Yara plotline is mostly a waste of time, which is incredibly disappointing because it has so much potential.

The next scene is by far the worst of the episode.  I still can’t get over how unbelievably disrespectful to the source material it is to have Jon’s first time riding a dragon be written as comedy.  The only thing worth noting from this sequence is the ominous way Jon keeps his eyes open while making out with Dany, and how foreboding his eye contact with Drogon was.

Though I loved every second of Arya and Gendry’s reunion, it was a mostly superficial scene so I’ll skip passed it.  

Jon and Sansa’s candlelit and tense conversion was content™, but I’m hoping to make a Jonsa focused post about this week’s episode in the next couple of days so all I’ll say is that I loved this scene.

Next, we have Sam’s discovery that his family has been executed, the reveal of R+L=J, and the beginning of the emotional and political fallout these revelations will cause.  I’m so unbelievably disappointed by this sequence.  Jon discovering the truth of his parentage should have easily been the most important scene in the series to date, and the whole thing just fell flat. The main problem with this scene is that it focuses on the political ramifications instead Jon’s emotional response.

In the second to last scene Tormund discovers the dead body of the child Lord Umber surrounded by some pretty horrific centipede arms.  The White Walkers haven’t really been all that threatening since Hardhome, but damn was that shriek unsettling.

The episode closes with Jaime’s arrival at Winterfell, and I couldn’t be happier. Hopefully confronting the man who crippled him will be enough for Bran to not be a robot, at least for one episode.  That combined with the fact that Sansa and Jaime will finally be meeting is more than I can handle.  As much as I was excited for this week’s episode, I can’t begin to express how ready I am for next week.

Overall, I had some issues with D&D’s execution, but I’m mostly excited for where it seems this season is going.

[turtle-burgler]

If you’re interested in animation, you’ve probably seen Disney-Pixar’s latest hit, Coco. The beautifully-portrayed story of a young musician named Miguel and his journey to the Land of the Dead took the world by storm since its original debut in Mexico on Día de los Muertos, eventually making over 700 million dollars worldwide. If you’re watching this, you’ve probably heard some of the hidden-Pixar-characters trivia, but there’s so much more to the movie than that! The movie’s emotional connection, memorable music, and rich depiction of the land of the dead are full of details you missed the first time you watched, and there’s tons of behind-the-scenes info you ought to know!

As I’ve been preparing this video, I’ve been involved with the Coco fandom on Tumblr. Lots of other smart people on there have noticed things I didn’t or given insight I couldn’t! I’ll share these with you too and credit the fan who noticed it.  

Without further ado, here’s 122 things you missed in Coco. This is a given, but SPOILERS AHEAD!

The directors had the mariachi Disney intro made just for fun, but loved it so much that they kept it in the film.

You can hear bells like the one that killed Ernesto throughout Coco: The opening and closing 

The first line in the movie (“sometimes I think I’m cursed”) is already foreshadowing the plot.

The beginning sequence where we learn Imelda’s backstory through cut-paper, or papel picado, was originally a musical number set in the middle of the film.

Some of the papel picado is stylized and couldn’t exist if you tried to recreate them without the paper falling out!

“And never returned” Notice these skulls? A hint that Héctor didn’t just abandon his family, but was murdered.

Why did Imelda choose shoe-making out of all her possible professions? According to the papel picado, Coco’s shoes were falling apart. Imelda had to fix them herself. And it turns out she had a knack for it!

Miguel went through a few different redesigns, originally being named “Sam,” then “Marco.”

That big fat guitar isn’t off-model; it’s a guitarrón mexicano, a staple of mariachi music. 

We see various Pixar characters as piñatas, which was inspired by real handmade merchandise that the animators saw on research trips to Mexico.

In this collection of alebrijes, you can see a few more Pixar characters, true--but it’s also the audience’s first look at Imelda’s alebrije, Pepita!

(Via prismasandtoonpies) Dante popping up next to the alebrijes foreshadows his future role as a spirit guide.

Coco’s background characters have their own stories and amusing reactions. As Miguel messes around, see the weird look this character gives him!

Pixar fans usually know that the movies often hide references to an animation classroom from Calarts, “A113”--even though the department was rearranged by the time some Coco artists attended. Other fans have spotted A113 on the door of the department of family grievances. But did you see A113 on De la Cruz’s album covers as well?

The set that De la Cruz performs on looks similar to the graveyard entrance to Santa Cecilia.

Speaking of Santa Cecilia, Miguel’s hometown: Santa Cecilia is the name of a real town near Mexico City, but the name was chosen because Santa Cecilia is the Catholic patron saint of musicians. 

De la cruz hands off the guitar to make a fancy gesture while performing. It’s lucky he did, saving the guitar, or we wouldn’t have had a movie!

Those drunk guys were singing “La Llorona!”

The mariachi in the plaza also plays a couple chords of “la llorona”

The mariachi and Gustavo were both played by the same voice actor, Lombardo Boyar. The co-director has joked that Gustavo is the mariachi’s great-great-grandfather and it’s “all in the family” 

Although Coco’s director, Lee Unkrich, has confirmed multiple times that the movie takes place in present day, here’s some in-movie proof: The 2016 calendar in the background of the Riveras’ zapateria, though it’s outdated--as seen in the up-to-date 2017 calendar in this (anything to declare) scene. https://twitter.com/leeunkrich/status/941382162355453952

You see multiple posters for “bolero expres” in the background of the land of the living throughout the movie--although “bolero” is a kind of dance, a “bolero” in Mexico is a shoeshine boy!

Lee Unkrich slipped in several references to his favourite movie, the Shining. (truck leather scene) You can see an ax in a stump here beside a red barrel, or a “red drum.” A third shining reference is hidden later in the film, where you can see the creepy twins from the movie in De la Cruz’s rehearsal hall.

Miguel’s guitar isn’t just beat up, it’s homemade with supplies Miguel took from the zapateria. It’s held together by shoe leather, and it has nails for frets.

Here’s a partial list of De la Cruz merch on Miguel’s ofrenda: 

Album covers

News article clippings

Papel picado

Signs, both professional and homemade

An academic book

Photos

A handdrawn picture 

Posters

Figurines (wooden, ceramic, bobblehead)

Coffee mug

Buttons

Collectible cards

Soda bottles

The video tape

According to the directors’ commentary, the De la Cruz poster was placed in this shot to make it feel like “De la Cruz was looking over him like a guardian angel,” at least from Miguel’s point of view.

“If it kills me” More foreshadowing about Miguel’s future curse!

Dante eating mole off the ofrenda was inspired by a real basset hound the directors met in Oaxaca.

The ofrenda already has a frame on the floor before dante starts inhaling mole. Sucks to be that person!

When Miguel says he’s gonna be a musician, he throws off his leather apron to symbolize his rejection of being a shoemaker.

Elena didn’t just destroy miguel’s guitar. She made the sign of the cross. She sent its spirit to the afterlife! 

Even more foreshadowing as to where Miguel’s going when he runs away: he’s following the cempasuchil path that’s supposed to guide his ancestors from the land of the dead.

Similarly, the land of the living is (excepting this scene) portrayed in the daytime while it’s always night in the land of the dead for the duration of the film. It’s fitting that as Miguel runs to the cemetery and enters the land of the dead, it’s dusk. 

Whenever Miguel tries to ignore Dante, his spirit guide, it’s automatically a bad decision, even if he doesn’t realize until later.

Conversely, any time Miguel follows De la Cruz’s advice to “seize his moment,” he winds up making a mistake.

The man saying “The guitar! It’s gone!” is co-director Adrian Molina.

When in the land of the living, the skeletons are glowing through their clothes. You can see faint outlines of their bones.

See the other cempasuchil bridges? They lead to the land of the dead from other cemeteries.

The architecture of the land of the dead was meticulously laid out so that old, mesoamerican buildings can be seen at the bottom with newer, modern architecture being built on top. There’s not much concern for safety regulations either, since the inhabitants are all already dead.

The reception areas for the returning dead are all shaped like Aztec style pyramids like those in Teotihuacan.

Via ashleyketchumall on tumblr: The land of the dead is partially based on the colorful architecture in the Mexican city of Guanajuato.

A costuming detail: The dead Rivera family members wear leather aprons to remind us if their role as shoemakers. 

“Caquitas” If you don’t speak spanish, you might have missed the film’s one poop joke.

This guy’s grumpy because all he got for an offering was a single lousy muffin.

Meanwhile, look at these two guys who seem to be making a trade for something illicit in a bottle.

The original plot had Miguel bringing the guitar with him to the land of the dead, needing to return it to its rightful owner, and have that person strum it in order to break the curse.

The guitar isn’t where miguel left it--why? Because the cemetery worker put it back!

Because some people prefer to call the holiday “Dia de los muertos” while others know it as “dia de muertos,” the movie included both versions depending on the speaker. Miguel, his abuela, and the clerk use “Dia de los muertos.” A couple background characters and Hector use “Dia de muertos.”

There are no living plants in the land of the dead. Just metal ones. 

Alebrijes are partially a reflection of the characters who own them, which is why Imelda’s spirit guide, Pepita, is strong and intimidating, while De la Cruz’s alebrijes are more for display than anything practical.

In the original script, the Riveras weren’t able to talk regularly. They had to sing. And they hated it.

Unibrow faking may be illegal because it’s so rare for skeletons to have eyebrows at all in this world, making it a privilege for certain cultural heroes like Frida Kahlo.

The inspiration for the department of family reunions was the post office building in Mexico City, the Palacio de Correos de Mexico.

There’s a physical comedy moment in the background when the twins accidentally switch heads and don’t realize right away.

Another background character moment: Dante sniffing at this background skeleton, who gets a little surprised to feel it!

Ceci was listening to “Remember Me.”

This scene was evidently inspired by a real monkey riding a dog at a rodeo that the creators attended.

“Bunch of self important jerks!” This line is probably hinting at Ernesto's villainy, but it's also evidence of hector’s self hatred.

“Pronated” means “slightly bow legged.”

You can tell that they’re going down the towers because the architecture is looking more and more ancient

Chicharron was a musician, though it may only have been a hobby. He has multiple instruments in his shack: the guitar, but also a drum and trumpet.

It makes sense that Chicharron, who collects odds and ends, wouldn’t have a matching set of shot glasses. But interestingly, the one Hector drinks from is the same design as the shot glass he was originally poisoned with.

Chicharron’s guitar has writing inside it, probably the brand name: “El Leon.”

Hector’s reaction makes more sense when we find out the true history of “Remember Me.”

Dante’s job is to bring miguel and hector together. Any time they’re together, Dante’s happy and content. If they split up, Dante gets anxious.

People have noticed this character’s shirt resembles Sid's from Toy Story. Is Sid in the land of the dead? No, director Lee Unkrich says this guy resembles Sid but isn't really him. https://twitter.com/leeunkrich/status/941386078585589760

Chicharron’s line “You gotta earn it” might be influencing Miguel to try so hard to earn De la Cruz’s blessing.

Dante has a hilariously concerned reaction to Miguel's grito.

The “Chachalacos” are named after a bird called the “chachalaca,” which is also a word for a chatty person.

Hector looks not just happy but surprised when it turns out Miguel can actually perform.

Hector’s percussive dancing is inspired by the tarima “stomp box,” a wooden platform with holes cut out of the sides so that a dancer can stomp on it to create a rhythm.  

Real bones were used to record parts of Poco Loco!

Via prismasandtoonpies: Un Poco Loco mentions counting your blessings, the same phrase earlier in the movie when describing Hector and Imelda’s marriage!

Hector calls Miguel Gordito, or “chubby,” since unlike skeletons, Miguel has flesh on his bones.

Is this choreographed? No, Hector guides Miguel in his little spin onstage.

The statue in De la Cruz plaza is similar to the one in the land of the living, including the “Seize Your Moment” quote, but it’s the skeletal version of De la Cruz.

It's implied that Miguel and Hector would have won the battle of the bands if Miguel hadn't run off before the encore.

The ad here is for “cerveza de raiz,” or root beer.

You can see the famous La Catrina, the day of the dead political cartoon earlier referenced in the cemetery, after Miguel meets Pepita for the first time.

The directors confirmed that the stripe on Miguel’s hoodie was added to give viewers a sense of Miguel’s arm bones, even when his gradual skeletonization was covered by clothing.

Miguel’s calavera face paint has four streaks at the top, though it’s hard to see in most shots.

At De la Cruz’s party, you can see some characters in what might be Aztec regalia--Montezuma specifically is mentioned in a deleted scene as someone who will “live on forever” in the land of the dead due to his fame. 

Ernesto’s tower has a marigold-orange carpet instead of a red carpet to mimic the color of the cempasuchiles.

Though Dante's name is of course a reference to Dante's divine comedy, a literary classic in which the main character journeys through the afterlife, Dante is in-universe named after the horse in a De la Cruz movie.

The dj is wearing a “give cumbia a chance” t-shirt, advertising the mexican electronica project “mexican institute of sound.”

There are many celebrity cameos in the land of the dead, including: musicians Pedro Infante and Jorge Negrete, wrestler El Santo, actors Cantinflas and Maria Felix, and revolutionary Emiliano Zapata beside a soldadera.  http://radiobuap.com/2017/11/10-curiosidades-sobre-coco/

Cantinflas is only wearing chaps on his lower half!

Ernesto’s skull is designed with f-holes, emphasizing his legacy as a musician.

Ernesto never gets to finish his blessing, which is why the petal didn’t start glowing. It’s possible he may have been considered “family” enough to bless Miguel after all. https://twitter.com/leeunkrich/status/941362375596429312

The murder being committed wasn’t shown on screen, just implied--we never see a bottle of poison. It’s ambiguous because Miguel is put in a position of choosing who to trust more: his idol or Hector.

Lee Unkrich has said that the guitar was a gift to Hector from Imelda. https://twitter.com/leeunkrich/status/935724236668272641

Hector’s songbook has both “Remember Me” and “The World is Mi Familia” in it.

Hector and ernesto’s charro suits aren’t the same--Ernesto has a Greek-fret style design, which he also has on his belt and in his pool in the land of the dead. His suit is a darker colour while Hector’s is lighter, and has some of the same flourishes his mandible markings do

As Hector falls, he grabs his stomach! Like he did when he died! 

Via karlofflugosi: In the flashback, Ernesto slyly moves Hector’s guitar away under the guise of helping him as he chokes. He steals the guitar AS HECTOR’S DYING! 

Real cenotes are natural sinkholes with spiritual significance. This one is manmade, though still used to make a metaphorical sacrifice to send someone to the land of the dead: Miguel. You can see sculptures in the background that is meant to portray the king and queen of the land of the dead, Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl. 

The voice actor for Hector, Gael García Bernal, had his young daughter Libertad sing this part of Remember Me. 

Emilio Fuentes, the original voice actor for Miguel, had to be replaced after his voice dropped, but he has a single line in the movie: “Places senor, you’re on in 30 seconds!”

“La Lllorona” is a recurring theme when Imelda is part of a scene.

Many viewers may not be aware that La Llorona is a traditional song and wasn’t composed for this movie. In fact, the movie has a shortened version of the original lyrics. “La Llorona” also famously featured in the 2002 film Frida, about--you guessed it!--Frida Kahlo.

Miguel’s gesture encouraging Imelda to “sing” is the same one that Hector gave him at the battle of the bands.

The guitar player and the conductor look at each other here, wondering who’s playing, before joining in.

The conductor is a cameo of the movie’s score composer Michael Giacchino (said ja-keen-oh). 

Via miquelrivera: Another funny background character reaction as Ernesto’s revealed as the villain.

A quote from co-director Adrian Molina about this scene: “People give me grief about why all of these people would have fruit at a concert. And it’s because they’re coming back from Dia de Muertos, and their families leave them all these offerings!”

This character (what did i miss) was voiced by Lee Unkrich.

At this point (“it’s ok mijo/ we’re both out of time mijo”), Hector switches from calling Miguel “chamaco,” meaning “kid,” to “mijo,” meaning “my son.” 

...Just like Miguel has switched to calling him “Papa Hector,” emphasizing their newfound bond as family. 

Miguel did get a musician’s blessing after all!

The family members sleeping outside on the bench were probably out all night looking for Miguel.

This is an accurate portrayal of how music affects memory in patients with dementia.

Coco describes Hector’s songs as ‘poems he wrote for me.’ She may not have known that some of the lyrics were for songs!

The frames on the wall contain lyrics for three songs: Remember Me, Un Poco Loco, and The World is Mi Familia.

Besides lyrics, there are letters from Hector to Coco saying things like “Sorry I can’t be there” and “Dear Coco, I love you with all my heart.” They’re always signed “Papa Hector.”

Most of the letters have drawings on them--hearts, a picture of Coco, a star, a dog, and a little church with some cacti. Hector was a doodler!

As many have noticed, in the ending scene, Hector is more put-together and well-remembered. His bones are whiter and less loose, his clothes are nicer, and he even has a new pair of shoes!

He gives coco the B I G  G E S T  H U G

Pepita’s shadow at the end is similar to when she was seen in this previous scene.

Twins realistically run in the family

Miguel gets lifted up at the end like in poco loco :)

According to the songwriters, there were at least 17 different genres of music that Remember Me was performed in throughout the movie..

The original message of the film when it was pitched was about letting go of dead loved ones, getting closure, and moving on. But after doing research on the meaning of Dia de los Muertos, the message was reworked into a more culturally aware idea that dead people will always be a part of their loved ones’ lives.

And that’s 122 things you missed in Coco! Did I forget any good ones? Tell me in the comments below! Hasta luego!

[familyofpaladins]

This post contains season 3 and season 4 spoilers.

@mateushonrado  That’s okay, not everyone agrees with the clone theory. I might very well be wrong, and this is the real Shiro. However, for me personally, I feel like there are too many clues pointing to this not being the real Shiro. Some people like the idea of Shiro being a clone because it adds drama to the story, and a lot of others like the theory because they too feel like there is a lot of evidence pointing at Shiro not being quite himself. And some people just like to bandwagon onto theories or headcanons that may or may not be close to what is actually happening. 

I’ve talked about my reasons why in many different posts, or reblogged posts that I agreed with (I think the best meta posts in favor of clone Shiro are done by @ptw30 and @smolsarcasticraspberry )(Some other good blogs who, I don’t think forgive me if i’m wrong, are NOT in favor of the clone theory are @radioactivesupersonic and @i-love-voltron-stuff) . I’ll try to sum up my reasons why I don’t think he’s Shiro here though. 

First off, the entire time I was watching The Journey, I felt like it was off. I honestly kept expecting Shiro to wake up still in galra captivity, because there was all those little clips of his more recent time with the Galra, and they’re all talking about operation Kuron. I thought he was going to wake up and operation Kuron was some kind of test in Shiro’s mind to see how if they could brainwash him or something. But then Keith and the Black lion found him at the end of the episode. 

After I had watched the season, I went on tumblr and saw that people had the similar thoughts and pointed out some things that I had initially missed. Such as the fact that when “Shiro’s” eyes were responding to stimuli, they made a carmera zoom/focusing sound. And then there’s the fact that in The Journey he was refered to as a “subject” with a long number after it, whereas back in season 1 he was referred to as a prisoner. People also pointed out the fact that Kuron means clone in Japanese. (I actually don’t think that he’s an actual clone. I think he is some kind of very realistic android, programmed with Shiro’s memories/to think like Shiro given the mechanical eyes. The “clone” for the name is a tiny red herring/just a hint that this isn’t really Shiro.)

Also, the circumstances of Shiro’s escape are pretty suspicious. He wakes up on a table, completely unrestrained and alone. He’s pretty out of it walking through the halls too, and yet he doesn’t really meet any opposition. You’d think that if you had the Black Paladin of Voltron, or the very least an already escaped once  prisoner, there would be more guards in the area. But no, he gets quite a ways before he runs into the sentries. And then all by himself he’s able to get in a pod and make it to the planet. When he escaped the Galra the first time around, he was restrained and in a room full of people, and the only reason he was really able to escape was because Ulaz helped get him out of there. Ulaz had helped take out some of the other people and used a bomb as a distraction for Shiro to get away. But now apparently he’s able to just escape easily all by himself with no other help. I just found his escape to be too easy, honestly. 

The next episode is really where I thought to myself that this wasn’t Shiro. The first scene we get of Shiro back with the paladins, is really kinda gloomy. It’s dark in the room, and it’s just Keith and Shiro having a gloomy conversation. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk about this part because if this is the real Shiro, it’s pretty understandable for them to be like this. Shiro did just go through a pretty harrowing experience being back with the galra and trying to get off the planet back to Voltron, and then being alone for 7 days with no food or water (more evidence for Not Shiro, a human being can’t survive 7 days without water, if I remember correctly, you can go that time without food but you can only go like maybe a couple days without water. Shiro should be dead at this point honestly. ANDROID) can put a damper on a reunion. But still, a lot of people (including me) were expecting a very happy reunion when Shiro returned and we didn’t get that. (Granted there were a lot of things throughout the seasons that the fandom wanted and didn’t get. See: The team’s reaction to Galra Keith) So maybe that scene isn’t evidence for Not Shiro, but it also doesn’t really make me feel like it IS Shiro.

The next thing is the Haircut. (Also granted I might be a bit biased against this because I just don’t like it, but anyway) Shiro’s hair got really long, and so he cut it. But he didn’t cut it back to what it was before. He made the white bangs shorter and didn’t give himself the undercut. He also put on an outfit that is similar but still different than the one before. It’s a new look. Most of the time in shows that are animated, and the characters have a default outfits, the only time they get new outfits is either when something dramatic happens in their story arc or pretty much everyone in the show gets a new look or update. We can even look back to the very first episode for this. When Shiro was on the Kerberos Mission he had no scar or white hair. But after the his year as a Galra captive, which is a HUGE part of his story arc, he comes back with a scar on his face and part of his hair is white. (Some people would also point out that he also got the undercut after the year with the Galra, because when they were on Kerberos he didn’t have the undercut. But if you see the photo of Shiro that the Garrison puts out after their disappearance, you see that he did already have the under cut. The undercut probably just grew out on the way to Kerberos. Because I bet you don’t want to be shaving tiny hairs off your head when you’re in no gravity. So he did have the undercut before.) But this becomes his character design at the same time we establish the rest of the characters designs. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge all change out of their garrison uniforms to their current outfits, which they stick with as the arc of them going off into space begins with them sneaking out of the garrison. Then they all get the paladin armor once they reach the castle and are told they are going to be the paladins of voltron, which is another big part of all their arcs obviously. It even happens with Allura. When we first meet her she is established as a princess and the daughter of a great leader, and she has an outfit that meets that description. But then after she talks with her father's AI she comes to terms with her own new leadership role and enters the room with her own fight suit(i Don't know what to call it, forgive me). Even later once she becomes a pilot of the blue lion, she gets her own armor, again it's a turning point in her arc as she moves from being in charge of the castle to fighting as a part of voltron. So far everything for the characters designs and changes have been outfit changes, which isn't a huge change, but can be for a big change for an animated show where the characters wear the same clothes all the time. Now with Shiro, he comes back and not only gets a new outfit(which is similar to his old one but still very different.) But also a new haircut. Now he did just end up back witb the garla and escaped again to return, but there doesn't really seem to be a point (that I can find anyway) for his arc here that merits a new look. Because he's been captured before and this new captivity doesn't really seem to have added anything to his own arc. UNLESS this isn't really Shiro and is actually a clone/android. The new look would also help to distinguish the real Shiro from the fake Shiro once the real Shiro comes back. (The other reason characters might change there looks are because the shows creators felt the need to add some new elements, but usually everyone, or at least the main characters, get new looks at the same time. But only Shiro got a new look at this time, which also makes it strange.)

Then there's the fact that Shiro can't pilot black. I don't see a good reason why Black wouldn't let Shiro pilot them if he was the real Shiro. They had just spent both season 1 and a lot of season 2 building the bond between, and Shiro was able to unlock Black’s wings, WHICH IS A PRETTY BIG DEAL. And for that bond to just be dismissed for no apparent reason is weird. I suppose it could be the writers just wanting Keith to pilot Black a little bit longer, but even that's a bad reason, because it's only that episode(S3E6) and part of S4E1 that Keith still pilots Black. And by the end of S4E1 Shiro is back piloting Black. So if this is the real Shiro why the three episodes of him not being able to do it (really only two episodes as S3E7 was just a flashback story)?? It just doesn't make sense to me if he were the real Shiro. However I feel like it does make sense if he's not the real Shiro. Because Black doesn't want someone who isn't Shiro, even if they look and act like him. But then why did black go to him at the end of The Journey you ask? Well lots of people have said it before, but I'll say it too. I think that when "Shiro was thinking about the other paladins and Black, he was accessing the real memories that they put into this fake Shiro, and Black recognized that and, probably really hoping that their paladin had returned, rushed to him. Then later upon closer inspection was able to sense that this was indeed not the real Shiro, and decided to stick with Keith until the real Shiro returned. So why did Black accept him in season 4 you ask? Well, as I mentioned in the post you commented on, when Black accepted him, the rest of the team was getting their butts kicked by bad guys and very close to losing, and Keith wasn't there to pilot Black. And "Shiro” went in and asked Black to trust him, and Black did decide to trust him, as he does think that he IS the real Shiro, he acts like Shiro and still wants to protect the team for the most part. And if Black hadn't accepted him, the rest of the team might very well have died or been captured, and I don't think Black would just sit there and let that happen. So Black accepts this Shiro, but pretty reluctantly. And again why wait so long to accept him if he really was the real Shiro? 

The next thing is the way that Shiro acts towards Keith. He tells Keith several times that Keith is meant to lead, but all throughout he's contradicting everything Keith says they should do. Now, granted, some of those contradictions might be stuff the real Shiro would say, like that Keith shouldn't go off by himself to find Lotor. But he tells Keith he's wrong almost every time Keith says something. Keith: We should go after Lotor to stop him now. Shiro: No we need to stop get that (comet) ship, it's too important. Later.... Keith*is going after the comet ship* Shiro: Stop going after the comet ship, you need to stop them from getting the teleduv! Keith: I thought you said the ship was the most important thing right now!?

 AND THEN, AND THEN Shiro says the thing that I KNOW the real Shiro would NEVER say. He tells the team to put down their defenses, making themselves vulnerable to the ship's weapons that took out Chunks of the Castle's Shields, and tells them to DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES. NO. I'm sorry, the real Shiro would not say that. He would never tell his team to put their lives on the line like that. If someone disagrees with me on that, I don't know what to tell you. (And really it's only thanks to Keith not really following those orders, that they were able to survive that and stop them from getting the teleduv.) Then after that Shiro and Keith are talking and Keith apologizes for not being a good leader, and Shiro apologizes for "having to step in." I'm sorry but, Shiros "stepping in" almost got them killed, while Keiths actions saved them. (Sorry that got a bit off topic, but main point was that the real Shiro wouldn't tell the team to almost kill themselves, and then acting like it was his orders that mad the mission work, when that's just not true)

 Even in the first episode of season 4, Shiro keeps pushing the leadership role on Keith, even though Keith doesn't want it, and then tells him he's not being a good leader. The rest of Season 4 didn't give a whole lot of evidence for the clone theory, other than what I've said before. But it also hasn't proved to me that it is indeed the real Shiro.

So yeah those are the main things of why I don't think Shiro is the real Shiro.

And maybe that’s all wrong and this is the real Shiro, but why would the creators go to all that effort of having those little flash scenes talking about operation Kuron and never explaining exactly what happened after that battle and still having that big mystery, to have Shiro really return? And again, why have the delay in Shiro returning to the black lion? Why not put him in his paladin armor for the coalition posters? Why make his poster say fight WITH voltron(which could be read as fighting against or fighting along side) when they could have said "Fight along side Voltron"? There just too many clues that are there for the revelation of this Shiro being a fake, for it to be the real Shiro.

And honestly the most random piece of evidence, that doesn’t really look like it’s real evidence, is what actually convinces me the most that Shiro doesn’t act the same. And it’s that after “Shiro” returned, he doesn’t make dorky faces in the background. Like if you really watch his face throughout season 3 and 4, he will smile and stuff at people and even scowl and get angry, but he has a fairly neutral or serious face the rest of the time. Where as in seasons 1 and 2 he really did make a bit more dorky faces in scenes. Now when ever there’s a scene where I think Shiro would make a dorky face of confusion or surprise, he only gives a small eyebrow raise that just looks like mild confusion instead of dorky confusion or surprise. And I think that it’s probably a very clever little thing that the animators included to set us slightly off without making it super noticeable. It’s the little things like body language and facial expressions that tune people in to what the person is like and their intentions. 

So there are the reasons why I think that the Shiro who returned in season 3 isn't the real Shiro.

[firehawk12]

A Silent Voice (Koe no Katachi) (2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7utbHbxDAM

Cross posting from Medium.  (I keep forgetting to update Tumblr...)

Koe no Katachi is a bit of dream project for me. I enjoyed the source material written and drawn Yoshitoki Oima, so I was confident in the actual story being told, and the film adaptation would be produced by Kyoto Animation, reuniting the Naoko Yamada (director)/Reiko Yoshida (writer) team that elevated K-On! beyond its simple 4-koma origins.

Perhaps I was a bit naive in thinking that Yamada/Yoshida team make lightning strike twice, particularly given the uneven nature of Tamako Market, but I assumed that being constrained by an adaptation would provide them with more focus. What I didn’t take into account was that it would be near impossible to take a long running manga and turn it into a 2 hour film. It’s a problem that I saw before in the Kids on the Slope adaptation, which suffered greatly by trying to fit a long running story into a short 12 episode run, but I just assumed that the Yamada/Yoshida team would have been able to make it work.

While I was quite disappointed in the film as adaptation when I first saw it back in June, I’ve softened my stance since then. I do think the film is still problematic — many, if not all, of the secondary characters should have been cut — but knowing that I could safely ignore all of the side plots the second time around allowed me to enjoy the “heart” of the story that much more.

That heart of the film, of course, is the relationship between Shoko Nishimiya and Shoya Ishida (they’re both Sho-chan, as the film points out). The first act of the film takes place in grade school, where we are introduced to the cast of characters as young children. Nishimiya is a girl who is deaf and is unable to properly communicate with any of the students around her. She makes up for this shortcoming by being overly selfless, trying her best to be helpful and not be a burden to the class (we see how much of the work she did when she leaves the school and the teacher wonders why none of the classroom chores have been done). Eventually all the students begin to resent her, culminating with Ishida actively bullying her by stealing and destroying her hearing aids. When Ishida points out that the rest of the class was just as complicit in bullying Nishimiya, the class ostracizes him as quickly as they ostracized Nishimiya, and he’s begins to see his isolation as a form of penance for his previous behavior.

As a teenager, Ishida comes to hate himself and decides to take his own life — but only after he finds Nishimiya and properly apologizes to her. After he meets her, he realizes that suicide is not the way out and he decides to try his best to live his life. It’s from that moment that the film takes off, and we see the awkward attempts that Ishida makes to try to connect with Nishimiya and the other people who come into his life.

The second act is where the film flourishes, with a lot of visual sequences to depict the social isolation that Ishida experiences in his life.

The Xs over the faces of the people around him is perhaps the most obvious visual indicator of Ishida’s psychology, as he externalizes his social isolation from everyone else by trying not to make any human connections. It’s an indicator that pays off at the end of the film when he learns that he shouldn’t isolate himself and the Xs fall off everyone’s faces.

What I found the most enjoyable about the film was how Yamada used framing to show isolation, both from the point of view of the external audience and also from the point of view of the characters.

For example, the film often frames the characters off-center, creating sequences with a lot negative space:

Even without context, the fact that Ishida is in the corner of the frame instead of in the center of the frame is enough to show how he feels in this scene.

Several sequences showing Nishimiya and Ishida interacting with each other are framed in a similar manner.

When the characters reunite and connect with each other, we can literally see the characters bridging the gap between them (and on a bridge, no less) by how the framing pushes them together. They are still somewhat separated from each other, because there is a tentativeness in their interactions, but we subconsciously see that the characters are having a shared moment.

The film uses this type of framing at the end of the film:

You would expect the characters to be really close to each other at this point, but the framing suggests otherwise. Unlike the scene above, the negative space literally pushes the characters apart from each other and we understand why — Nishimiya has resolved to commit suicide, and Ishida has no idea that Nishimiya hates her own life as much as he hates his life. In fact, this moment probably represents the biggest gulf between them in their entire relationship.

The film also borrows the visual language of objectification through framing to help illustrate how the characters see the world around them:

Here, Ishida is unable and unwilling to meet Ueno’s gaze. It’s an effective use of objectification to illustrate the way that these characters look at the others around them. In the Mulvey sense, scopophilic objectification is meant to produce and reproduce sexual desire, but here Yamada turns this objectification into a revelation about the characters — that they think so little of themselves and of the others around them that they can only see people as a generic mass of body parts and not as individuals with unique motivations and desires.

It’s also not just Ishida, since the idea of the story is that everyone has their own personal issues to deal with. Here’s how Sahara sees the people around her when she reunites with the main group after their big fight:

Yamada also uses objectification when the camera isn’t necessarily depicting a specific point of view. In the big confrontation where Ishida calls out everyone’s personal issues, we don’t see any of the characters as people:

Even Nagatsuka on the left, who is too short to be cut off by the frame, has his head obscured by the tree to make the point that the characters are being reduced and essentialized to their particular character flaws in this scene. Again, even without context, you can get an impression of what Yamada is trying to convey in this scene. It’s a technique that she uses fairly often in the film as a way to show how Ishida sees the world. It’s both a sad outlook, because is isolated from society, but it’s also an enlightening one because he’s the only one who can see these people for who they truly are.

Incidentally, the film has a scene where the characters watch a video clip that reproduces the male gaze:

There’s something clever about having the audience experience the objectified gaze mediated by the characters watching a video, considering the fact that the entire experience is mediated. The interesting part is that this scene is an important moment of character development between Ueno and Nishimiya, when Ueno confronts Nishimiya over her passive personality. It’s a dramatic moment where all you can really see are the two characters’ legs, which makes the confrontation somehow more personal and cutting than if we were non-diegetic observers able to see the characters’ faces.

There are also visually striking sequences that made the film pop. In this sequence of shots, we get a clear understanding of how Ishida sees his relationship with Nishimiya:

We can see that Nishimiya casts a shadow over Ishida — of course, it’s a literal shadow in this scene, but we know that she has loomed over him since the very beginning of the film. The fact that she is bathed in light and is almost ethereal and angelic when he looks up at her only reinforces how highly he sees her. But soon after we see that her view of her has been all wrong, that in his own self-pity and martyrdom, he hasn’t been able to see her for who she is — a person with her own flaws and insecurities. It’s a mistake that is nearly fatal, because, as discussed earlier, he isn’t able to see that she has her own suicidal thoughts.

There are many more visual moments in the film that I could talk about. Yuzuru, Nishimiya’s younger sister, is a photographer and we see the world mediated both through her camera lens and through the morbid photographs of dead animals that she collects. Nearly every interaction uses framing and editing in some way to show isolation and internal psychology, which gives the film as a whole a much more “novelistic” feel than one might find in a typical movie. Of course, the fact that KyoAni produced the film is also a guarantee that the animation will be top notch, and on that level the film certainly does not disappoint.

But as I mentioned near the beginning of this review, my biggest issue with the film is how it adapted the source material. The heart of the story still works — Ishida and Nishimiya’s relationship, and the relationship between their families — and is enough to carry the film to its inevitable conclusion where Ishida and Nishimiya find in each other a partner that will help them cope with the realities of life.

The film opens and closes with a shot of two figures creating light in the darkness, and we understand that they may have a long way to go to heal, but that they’ll be able to cope with whatever happens to them as long as they have each other.

The problem is that the adaptation lets down all the other characters in the film by virtue of not having the time to properly develop them. Ishida’s childhood friends and grade school teacher, for example, play a much bigger part in the manga and become important parts in Ishida’s journey of healing and self-discovery. In the film, all of that is boiled down to a quick reunion with Shimada at the theme park and a brief note at the end that Shimada and Hirose were the ones who saved Ishida after he fell into the river near the end of the film.

Sahara, Kawai, and Mashiba are also underdeveloped as well and Mashiba’s role in the group is so marginalized one wonders why he was even part of the friend group in the first place. The fact that Ishida calls him an outsider somewhat “lampshades” his inclusion in the friend group, but it highlights the problem as well. In the manga, Mashiba has his own issues that he needs to deal with, like everyone else in the story. But the film doesn’t have any time to bring that story up, and so we’re left with a character who is there only because he was in the manga and not because he’s integral to the film’s version of the story.

Ueno is perhaps the biggest victim in the process of adapting the manga to film, because her motivations are completely unclear. While I’m fine with her story being softened, and she still has time to explain why she hates Nishimiya, it’s not clear why she cares about Ishida — particularly years after they presumably drifted apart after elementary school. When Ishida is hospitalized, we see Ueno visit and stay in his room every single day that he is in a coma, but we’re never told why she cares so much about him or why his mother would even let her be with him when she is essentially a stranger. The manga version of Ueno is caught in a love triangle with Nishimiya and sees her as a rival, and while one might argue that it’s better that the film version of the character isn’t trapped by that cliche, one can’t avoid the fact that in the film she has no motivation whatsoever to want to be involved in Ishida’s life. If she’s around only because she hates Nishimiya, it just makes her even more petty.

Perhaps the biggest problem I have with the film is that it shouldn’t have been a film. This story should have been told in a 12–13 episode season, if not a 24–26 episode season like K-On!! or Hyouka. If they were able to fully adapt the manga and it’s various story arcs, we’d have a more complete picture of all the supporting cast and be able to understand one of the bigger themes of the film — that everyone, whether the bullied or the bullies, has their own issues that they need to overcome and that shutting one’s self from the world is not the solution. Alternatively, Yamada and Yoshida might have considered condensing the film even further by removing characters like Shimada and Mashiba entirely and just focusing on the more “important” characters like Ueno and Sahara. Instead we’re left with an adaptation that is compromised, neither fulfilling the narrative arc of the source material nor fully succeeding as a film on its own.

Don’t get me wrong. I still like the film for what it is, but I can’t help but see the flaws in the story. Considering how well the K-On!! and Tamako Marketfilms turned out, I can’t help but be disappointed that this film isn’t as well written as those ones.

Before I end this review, I wanted to at least bring up the fact that mental health issues — at least as depicted in anime — are always problematic for me because children are essentially left to deal with their own traumas on their own. The parents do the best they can, but the children are essentially left to process their own negative feelings and discover by themselves that suicide should not be considered an option.

The fact that there are no authority figures to speak of — the teachers don’t intervene in the bullying, for example — is something that I also find unusual as well. This year in a school district in Nova Scotia, three teenagers committed suicide due to bullying, so this isn’t something that I think is strictly confined to Japan, the Japanese school system, or how the Japanese treat mental health problems. But it’s a bit sad that the lesson of A Silent Voice is that you have to learn to overcome your own problems — that you have to reach out to others for help, when maybe, others should be looking for people who are vulnerable and helping them out as well.

Now maybe it would be silly of me to expect all teachers to be like Onizuka from Great Teacher Onizuka, but there has to be a balance between asking kids to stop crying and get over their mental health issues and having teachers smash down walls in order to save their students from bullying/family issues/gang members/etc.

I also wanted to acknowledge that localization is a hard business, and while I don’t blame the dub producers for ignoring the homophone joke that comes in the middle of the film when Ishida mistakes “suki” (love) for “tsuki” (moon), they could have at least tried to do something with that scene to make the misunderstanding make sense in English. This is an issue in Your Name as well, with the gendered first person pronouns that simply have no equivalent in English. It’s a relatively minor quibble, because again I understand how difficult it can be, but if you’re watching a dub of the film the joke falls completely flat because of the localization.

As a final note, this film closes out the “trilogy” of prestige Japanese anime films released in 2016. While I think all three have their merits, In This Corner of the World is my favorite of the three, with Your Name being second and A Silent Voice coming in a close third. Of course, the Kantai Collection film gets an honorable mention because it’s Star Wars mixed with Apocalypse Now (and no, I’m not joking!).