#there's way too much to unpack but he and i might be parallel in the way we experience what we constitute as love

[percivaljacksons]

those little town blues (pt 1)

the modern percabeth ghost whisperer au. girl, at this point you have to trust me. first 5k or so as i edit the big mama doc for ao3. sorry not sorry to tease! i'd give this section a t rating

“For someone who just moved here, you really know your way around,” Piper says. “I absolutely thought you were taking us to the wrong platform.” 

Two descending notes play through the speaker above their heads. The Q train’s doors slide closed. The breaks release in a puffy exhale and the car lurches as they begin to move out of the Canal St station. 

Annabeth shrugs. “I like research,” she says. “Figured if I was going to do the whole ‘move to New York as a broke twenty-something,’ I might as well be prepared for it.”

“What a load of baloney,” Percy says from somewhere behind her. “You were walking right for the Downtown platform, too. You could say ‘thank you,’ by the way.”

Piper doesn’t react—of course she doesn’t. She just tells Annabeth with a sheepish smile, “more than I did. God, this is so embarrassing, but I really did Uber everywhere for my first few weeks.”

“Asshole,” Percy cuts in again. “I can’t stand people who do that.”

Annabeth kicks one foot back as subtly as possible. She doesn’t feel it connect with his shin, but he does quiet down.

“You’re getting the hang of it,” Annabeth reassures her. “Silena said you moved here—what, two months before me?”

“Something like that.”

“Plus, I did a lot of exploring in the past few weeks and got turned around a lot of times. You’re seeing a well made facade.”

“Is that how you found that Wo Hop?” Piper asks. “God, I can’t get over that tofu. And it was in some random basement!”

While Piper waxes poetic about their lunch, Annabeth’s eyes slide to the left. It’s not an overly crowded subway car. There’s a couple pouring over the map on the wall, a short man reading a book in the seat parallel to the window, and around a dozen solo commuters buried in phones or listening to music. 

But to Annabeth’s left, leaning against the door, is a man with short cropped hair and an angular jaw. His button up shirt is untucked, wrinkled, and saturated with blood. She has to breathe through her mouth because she can smell it wafting off of him. From the corner of her eye, she can spot the elderly woman trying to read over the shoulder of the man by the window, ranting a rant he can’t hear. And, of course, right behind her is Percy, dripping wet. 

“I really hope you’re not about to take credit for finding Wo Hop on your own,” he says. 

“...in an article, right?” Piper asks, forcing Annabeth to tune back in again.

“Yeah, about the James Beard Foundation Awards,” Annabeth says. “It’s officially an American Classic.”

“Fucking typical,” Percy says. “I’m not telling you where that halal cart is now.”

“So cool,” Piper enthuses. “I didn’t even realize how much food there was out there that I’ve never even tried, you know? This city is crazy.”

“Best city in the world,” Percy and Annabeth say in perfect unison. 

Of course, only Annabeth and Percy know that. 

//

It started on her third day in New York, because Annabeth has, in general, always had completely shit luck. With a week until her new job began and her boxes (almost) unpacked, she woke up to a sliver of perfect blue sky visible between the brick walls outside her window and decided to spend the day exploring. 

While she waited for the shower to heat up, she drank a glass of water—straight from the tap—and looked around her joke of a studio apartment. Despite the near negative space she now called her own for the next twelve months, her singular closet was pitifully half empty. 

Annabeth frowned into her water. Half full? She’d never had many clothes, was the point. The t-shirts and jeans she’d favored in high school had stopped fitting once she started doing track and field more seriously, and her college dorm room hadn’t offered an abundance of space, either. 

She wandered back to the bathroom and stuck a hand under the tap. Only lukewarm. The previous two days' experience told her she had another minute before it would get hot, so she took out her phone and googled thrift stores nyc. 

The results were almost too many to believe. She shook her head. 

“Best city in the world,” she said to herself, and finally stripped down to step into the shower. 

In the end, she chose a thrift store in lower Manhattan, a little to the east so it was on the yellow line and she wouldn’t have to transfer trains. It was close to Washington Square Park, too, so she could check that off her architecture bucket list. Just like that, she had a plan for the day—and Annabeth loved having a plan.

She flew down the four flights of stairs, keeping her eyes on her feet so she wouldn’t get drawn into whatever was going on with the man who always lingered on the second floor landing. He left something in his jacket pocket, but Annabeth had never stuck around long enough to hear what it was or who he needed to tell. She’d get around to it eventually. Probably.

After riding the N train two stops in the wrong direction, she managed to get on a Manhattan and Brooklyn bound W. It was all part of the learning curve. The car was near empty, so close to the origin in Astoria, so she found a seat by the window and watched as the lower buildings of northwest Queens morphed into the skyscrapers of Long Island City before the train finally went underground. She pulled a book out of her tote bag before long and focused her gaze on the paper, even though the letters were swirling around the page so aggressively that she couldn’t read a word. 

Her dyslexia always got worse when she was stressed. She turned a page in her book, a perfect pantomime of reading, so that the three ghosts standing within fifteen feet of her don’t realize that she can both see and hear them. 

Spirits, earthbound souls, whatever. They were all ghosts, really, haunting people or places or things. She thought maybe they were haunting this specific subway car, except a man in a navy suit got off at 59th street and one of them—the woman in bright red lipstick and a mink coat—followed him off. 

Annabeth kept looking at her book, flipping forward a page every minute or so. She had long ago perfected the half-glazed over expression that tricked most ghosts into thinking she was just like everyone else—unable to see them. It was a small part of the reason she’d decided to move to New York: everyone here had that expression on. Everyone here avoided eye contact on the sidewalk and went about their business, so maybe—just maybe—Annabeth wouldn’t acquire her usual ‘rude and standoffish’ reputation. 

One of the ghosts sat down next to her. He was mumbling in a language she didn't recognize. Hungarian, maybe—a relief. She wouldn’t have to try so hard to not react if he said something appalling. 

Annabeth turned to the next page in her book. She didn’t even remember what it was about. The stops got more frequent in Manhattan, crawling at times only five blocks between stations after Times Square, before the W finally pulled into 8th Street-NYU. 

Annabeth put her book back into her tote and stood, edging around the ghost’s legs with a mumbled, “excuse me.”

She realized her mistake two steps later, when the voice got panicked and excited, rapid-fire consonant heavy speech trying to get her attention again. Annabeth kept her head down and walked towards the closest exit like she knew it would take her where she wanted. It worked, either because he thought it was a fluke or he was tied enough to that train car to stay put, and when she walked up into the autumn sunlight she was once again alone. 

Not unhaunted. She was never really unhaunted, but she could be—however briefly—alone. 

Maps told her that the Buffalo Exchange was close, only a few blocks south. She made her way there, realized she was on the wrong side of the street, and blatantly jaywalked to get to her destination. One thing she certainly would not miss about California was driving and cars and mechanics. She hoped Clarisse would love the hunk of bolts Annabeth couldn’t have more joyously parted with.

The thrift store wasn’t too crowded inside, because it was around 11 on a Tuesday, so Annabeth took her time. She started in the back, sifting through women’s cut jeans and giving up quickly, moving to the men’s section in the front where the inseams were longer. She found a few potential successes, all dark wash enough that she could probably dress them up for work, and made her way towards one of the circular clothing racks in the middle of the shop. 

Annabeth hadn’t lived on the east coast since she was twelve, but she remembered the cold bite of the winters. She didn’t have nearly enough sweaters to get her through January and February, only a few short months away. A few hoodies with stains and holes got flipped past, but eventually she came across a maroon crewneck with a faded lettering that said MONTAUK. She threw it on over her shirt and managed to catch her reflection in a nearby mirror—exactly the kind of baggy she’s always preferred. Perfect. 

“That’s mine,” someone said.

Annabeth looked over and gasped. Standing next to her, soaked from head to foot, was a guy about her age. He was a bit taller, with dark hair plastered to his head and green eyes so bright they forced the air out of Annabeth’s lungs. Every inch of him was dripping water in the middle of the perfectly dry Buffalo Exchange.

“You can see me,” he realized, eyes getting wider. “You can actually—holy fuck.” 

She bought the sweater, in the end, because she stopped letting ghosts decide what she was and wasn’t going to do a long time ago. Percy—I’m Percy, by the way, can you still see me?— didn’t seem to mind, even as she ignored him and checked out with her new pants and sweater. 

“I know you can hear me,” Percy said, following her out the door. “You’re not a very good actor, you know.”

Annabeth pulled out her headphones and slipped them on. She fiddled with her phone, miming a call, and finally turned to face the very wet ghost beside her. 

“Percy, you said?” She asked. 

He grinned. “Yes! Yeah, I’m Percy. I can’t believe you can hear me. It’s, like, so great to talk to someone.”

“I’m Annabeth.” She didn’t reach out to shake his hand, because they wouldn’t be able to anyway. “I’m going to the park. Want to come?”

They walked the two blocks to the north side of the park, until Annabeth stood directly under Stanford White’s famous arch. She knew it already, of course—the Tuckahoe marble used to construct it, the fact that it commemorated the centennial of George Washington’s presidential address in 1789—but Annabeth’s favorite thing about architecture isn’t facts or materials. It’s the way she feels looking at it; it’s something about the innate nature of human beings and the way they just can’t help their desire to create.

She could see Percy out of the corner of her eye, watching her. As she stood there, her gaze still fixed upward, someone in a purple t-shirt walked right through him.

“Okay,” she finally said. “What’s your deal? Normally I’ve gotten a whole life story by now.”

“Normally,” he repeated. “This happen to you a lot?”

“Look, do you see a white light?” Annabeth asked, already losing her patience. 

“A what?”

“God, I can really pick ‘em,” Annabeth muttered to herself. “A white light. Bright, blinding even. Maybe a loved one standing there waiting for you? Walk into it.”

“I—what?” 

“Unless there’s something you’ve left unfinished?” Annabeth prompted. It usually went smoother if the ghost came to terms on their own, but this whole conversation was messing with Annabeth’s plan for the day. She wanted it over and done with.

“What are you talking about?” Percy asked, his accent hitting harder than it had before. His ah vowel was like an A and U and W smushed together. “Why are you the only one who can see me?”

Annabeth closed her eyes. “Fuck,” she said. “Seriously? This is just my luck.” She turned back to Percy, kind of vaguely relishing how no one around them seemed to care that she was talking to thin air. “You’re dead.”

Percy blinked at her. A drop of water made its way down the arch of his nose. “What?”

“I can see ghosts. Spirits. People who haven’t yet moved on.” She let that sink in for a moment, then added, “like you.”

“Moved on to what?” He asked, his voice getting louder with pure panic. 

“Your guess is as good as mine,” she said. “I’m not dead. I just have the pleasure of seeing all of you on your journey in between.”

“Fuck. What the fuck?” Percy started to pace, his hands on his head. “I can’t be dead! That’s such bullshit. I’ve never even left the tri-state area! And I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, lady—”

“Annabeth.”

“—Annabeth, because there ain’t no fuckin’ light, alright? There’s just this stupid park and a bunch of asshole NYU students walking right through me, and apparently, the only person who can see me is a goddamn Yankees fan, which is fucking rich. And!” He turned back to her, an almost triumphant expression on his face. “And I bet you you’re not from here, am I right? No shot.”

“I’m from…” Annabeth trailed off. She could’ve said Virginia, or the Bay Area, or something else. In the end, she just confirmed his suspicion. “I’m not from here, you’re right. This is my third day in New York.”

That made him laugh uproariously, too dramatic to be earnest, his hands flung out to the sides. “Of course! A fucking transplant in a Yankees hat. I can hardly believe my luck.”

With him standing facing her once more, Annabeth finally saw the logo made dark by his wet t-shirt. A baseball with dark blue skyline and orange piping, Mets written out across the front. 

“Are you done?” Annabeth asked. “I want to go see the narrowest house in the city next.”

“I’m not a tour guide,” he seethed.

“Which way is Bedford Street?”

He pointed behind him. “Like, six blocks that way.”

And so Annabeth’s first friend in the big city was a chronically damp, kind of asshole ghost named Percy.

//

“Silena said Piper liked you,” Clarisse says. They’re playing Battleship online as they FaceTime, both unwilling to admit that they want to talk for the sake of talking, and certainly unwilling to admit they might miss each other. 

It’s one thing to move across the country to an apartment you’ve never actually seen for the sake of a life you think you might like, and another to do it knowing you’ll leave behind the two best friends you’ve made in your entire twenty-two years on Earth. 

That are still alive, at least.

“She was cool,” Annabeth says. “So different from Silena, though. We got greasy Chinese food.”

Clarisse snorts. “Uh, yeah. Duh. Get sunk, by the way.” Her missile lands in open water. “Seriously? What the hell.”

“Be better,” Annabeth replies, confidently clicking on G3. Sure enough, a tiny explosion graphic goes off on G3. 

“What the—is there someone behind me giving you clues? I know that’s how you kept winning poker night in junior year—”

“I can’t see ghosts through FaceTime, that would be ridiculous,” Annabeth scoffs. 

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” Clarisse scowls. “Sure.” One of her shots finally connects, but Annabeth’s still smiling, two ships in the lead. 

“Did I tell you I’ve got a new one?” Annabeth asks, pulling her fidget cube out from its drawer and flicking one side of it. 

“A Casper? No.”

“His name’s Percy. He’s wet.”

“Is that some kind of horrible New York slang?”

“What?” Annabeth laughs. “No, he’s actually wet. Like, dripping water.”

“That’s new.”

“Plus, he had no idea he was dead. Bizarre.”

Clarisse frowns. Clarisse always looks like she’s frowning, so it’s really hard to tell when she actually is, but at this point Annabeth’s had years of practice. “That’s happened before,” she says.

Annabeth gets a flash of sun-bleached blond hair and that awful scar in her mind’s eye before she manages to shove it back into the box in the corner of her mind. “S’not common, though,” she says. “Usually means the death was traumatic.” 

“Not to play Silena,” Clarisse says slowly, finally managing to figure out which way Annabeth’s submarine is pointing, “but should you be doing this?”

“Talking to you?” Annabeth snarks. Her next shot misses. 

“Getting wrapped up in helping a ghost your first few weeks in New York. Isn’t that why you left California? Oh, get fucked, I knew that was your battleship.” 

Annabeth shuts that right down. “I left because I got a job. I knew New York would have a lot of earthbound spirits; that was kind of a given, it’s huge. And yeah, I did say I was going to try and focus on me a little more, but…I don’t know, there’s something about him.”

Clarisse looks like she doesn’t know what to do with that. “He’s…nice?” She asks.

Annabeth laughs. “Uh, no. I’m not sure I would be if I just found out I was dead, so.” She shrugs. “I won’t be able to help him cross over until he starts to remember more, anyway. Googling ‘Percy NYC’ got me a dollar pizza place in the West Village and some place called Percy’s Tavern that isn’t even open anymore.”

“Silena’s going to be so pissed that all we talked about on our call is your new familiar.”

Annabeth sinks Clarisse’s final ship. “No, she’s not.”

Clarisse raises her eyebrows. “Oh, yeah?”

“Mhm.” Annabeth smirks. “Because you get to tell her that the new ghost is, like, seriously hot.”

Clarisse just shakes her head, grinning. “She is going to love that. Damn. Well, good luck. I’ll call whenever my ego can handle a rematch.”

“Okay,” Annabeth says softly. “Bye.”

“Love you. No homo.” 

Before Annabeth can reply, she gets hung up on.

“Typical,” she says to her empty studio apartment. No one, alive or dead, replies.

//

“Alright,” Annabeth says as she steps out of her office building, her headphones on. “Where am I getting lunch?”

“I’m not telling you,” Percy sulks. “You just abuse my knowledge. I spent a lifetime accumulating this stuff, only to give it away to some yuppie. Barf.”

Annabeth picks a direction and starts walking. “I read that Ess-a-Bagel is good,” she says, already knowing what will happen next with only a week and a half of experience.

“Overrated,” Percy says. He can’t seem to help himself. “Like, it’s good, but they only put the seeds n’ shit on one side. Shmear options are okay,” he adds a little begrudgingly.

“Like, cream cheese?”

“Like, cream cheese?” Percy mocks, his voice high-pitched and whiny. “If you ask for them to scoop out your bagel, I’m actually going to start haunting you.”

“As opposed to what this is,” Annabeth murmurs to herself, well aware that he can hear her. 

“Hey! I’m, like, super chill. I haven’t even tried to get your lights to flicker.”

“You’ve never even appeared in my apartment,” Annabeth acquiesces. “Or at work.”

He shrugs, falling into step beside her. “Seems rude.” 

Annabeth almost stops in the middle of the sidewalk, she’s so surprised. “Okay, that’s a first.”

“Are the people you see always rude?”

She wrinkles her nose. “It’s more like…it’s all on their terms. No one’s ever been that concerned about appearing in the middle of my calc final, for example.”

“Yikes.”

“Exactly.” Despite having the light, she looks both ways before joining the crowd in crossing 6th. One of the idling cars honks at her.

Percy flips the car off. It doesn’t make a difference to anyone but her, but she appreciates it. “If you want to spend too much money on a bagel, I’m not going to stop you,” he tells her. 

Annabeth walks into Herald Square; she’d rather go through a tiny park than down the crowded sidewalk. “Where would you go for a bagel?”

“Absolute Bagels. 108 and Broadway.”

She snorts out a laugh. “You knew that answer way too quickly.”

“I’m tired of these bougie, overpriced bagels! Absolute is good enough I drag my ass to the west side—that’s how you know it’s legit.”

“So you’re from the east side,” Annabeth follows, nodding. “Okay, that’s something. Remember anything more specific?”

“Yeah.” Percy grins proudly, pushing his wet bangs out of his face. “El Barrio, baby! Proud of it. Just off 2nd and…” His grin fades. “Shit. Goddamn it.”

“It’s okay,” Annabeth soothes. “That’s something. I’m assuming that’s…a Hispanic neighborhood?”

“Spanish Harlem,” he says. “East side, north of, like, 96.” He wrinkles his nose in distaste. “These days, north of 110.”

They’re already on the other side of Herald Square; Percy picks up into a jog. Annabeth follows suit, only realizing that he’s trying to catch the light before it changes a few seconds later. They make it to the other side and slow back to a walk. 

“If you want,” Annabeth offers, “I could go there. With you, I mean. We could walk around, maybe spark a memory.”

“You’d do that?” Percy asks, his voice almost severe in its sudden quiet volume. 

Annabeth shrugs. She pauses on the corner, barely a moment of hesitation, but Percy points diagonally to the side of the street she wants to be on. With a wince of thanks, she says, “I want to see more of the city. Might as well check off a good deed while I’m at it.” 

“Well, I can make it worth your while,” he says with a confident nod. “D’you like Italian food?” 

“Am I human?”

“Okay, so we’ll swing by Patsy’s, then. Oh, or Sam’s! And that bakery with the killer conchas—”

“I have no idea what that is, but I’m sold,” Annabeth says. “Why does Spanish Harlem have Italian food?”

He shrugs, sending tiny flicks of water flying. “Dunno. Better Italian food than Little Italy, though.”

“Haven’t seen it yet,” Annabeth says, pushing her way into the surprisingly large bagel shop and immediately struggling to focus. 

“It’s mostly gone, honestly. Hey, you good?”

“Hm?” Annabeth blinks away from the menu behind the counter. “Oh, yeah, it’s just loud in here. You weren’t kidding about the cream cheese.”

Percy doesn’t say much as they wait in line, or as she orders—toasted sesame bagel with olive cream cheese—but he sort of squints his eyes, like he’s sizing her up. 

“What?” She hisses out of the corner of her mouth as the cashier rings up her order. 

Percy shrugs, the movement of his shoulders just barely visible out of the corner of her eye. “Nothing.”

She raises as much of an eyebrow as she dares, smiling quickly at the cashier, tapping her credit card, and hoping to get back outside as quickly as possible.

“It’s clearly not nothing,” Annabeth says once they’re on their way again. The bagel is hot even through the paper bag it’d been stuffed in. 

Percy moves like he wants to grab the door for her, then awkwardly follows her as she jerks it open herself. “I just think you’re a sociopath for getting olive cream cheese.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “You’re so dramatic. Ever heard of not yucking someone else’s yum?”

“Nope. Where we headed?”

“I thought we’d sit in the park?” 

“The squirrels are going to maul you.”

“Well, you’ve never seen me fight before.” 

Privately, even as Percy laughs, she casts a few suspicious glances at lingering squirrels as they make their way into the park. Most are high in the trees or lingering around the trash cans. She picks a free table that’s far away from both, sits down, and kicks out the empty chair so that Percy can sit down, too.

“I feel like a food critic,” she says, unwrapping her lunch. She opens the bagel using two hands to get the visual, her stomach rumbling at the sight of cream cheese going a little runny from being sandwiched between two warm halves of bagel. “Except kind of like I’m cheating, you know? I haven’t had to look up any new things to try in two weeks.”

“You’re welcome,” Percy says. He rubs at one eye and flicks the water off his hand after. “But I feel like you should know that I’m not telling you everything.”

Annabeth gasps in mock offence. “But you’re so endeared by me.”

“Lie. I’m living vicariously through you.”

“By not telling me everything?” Annabeth asks cheekily, taking her first, relatively heavenly bite.

“You know what?” Percy says, clearly trying to sound pissed off but failing by laughing halfway through his sentence. He flicks some water at her, and Annabeth swears she can feel it land on her arm. 

“What’re these big secrets you’ve been keeping?” She asks. “It’s not like I’ve gotten food poisoning or anything.”

Percy sighs, still kind of smiling. “Well, then they wouldn’t be secrets, would they? Gotta keep some stuff for the locals.”

Annabeth pouts. Percy rolls his eyes.

“Fine, whatever.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing back across the street. “You didn’t have to wait on line in there.”

Annabeth chews slowly, trying to figure out what’s been lost in translation. “I…ordered in person?” She says. “I didn’t use, like, an app or something.” 

Percy looks just as confused. “Yeah, I was there. I’m saying you could’ve skipped the line.”

“No, you said I didn’t need to be online.”

“Yeah,” he repeats a little slower. “You didn’t have to wait on the line. Have you, like, stopped being able to hear me?”

“Who says wait on the line?” Annabeth asks incredulously. “You wait in a line, Percy.”

“Everybody says that! There’s an invisible line on the ground, and we all stand on it.”

Annabeth takes a bite without looking away from him, wondering how she ended up here. “I’ve literally never heard that before in my life,” she says through her mouthful. “Online is the internet. You wait in a line. I live in a city. I ride in a car.”

“You get on a bus. I ride on the subway. And I wait,” Percy says, leaning in, “on line.” 

“Maybe you’re not dead,” Annabeth theorizes. “Maybe you’re a demon raised from hell, come to torment me. Maybe you’re from an alternate universe!”

“This is what I get for revealing the schmear only express line at Ess-a-Bagel.” Percy shakes his head. “I should’a known.”

“What?” Annabeth asks. “I didn’t have to wait in that stupid fucking line?”

Percy throws his hands up. “That’s what I’ve been saying!”

“Tell me that before next time. You had to wait in the line, too.”

He shrugs. “Not so bad. I’ve got nowhere to be.”

It sends her into a little bit of a tailspin. Sure, he’s actively dripping water on an otherwise dry and sunny day, but he’s around her age and died relatively recently, if the in-style cut of his jeans is anything to go by. He’s easy to talk to. It’s easy to forget he’s dead.

Annabeth takes another bite of her bagel. It’s a little strange that the sesame seeds are only on one side, but it’s just the right amount of chewy and pretty big for what she paid. The olive cream cheese is more of a disappointment, but she’s not going to tell Percy that.

“This is really good,” she says. “Your place is better? Or are you going to gatekeep that now?”

“Oh, shut up. It’s not like Absolute is a big secret, they’ve got a crazy line all weekend.”

“Good to know.”

“I don’t fuck around when it comes to bagels, Annabeth. Honestly, have any of my food recommendations let you down?”

“No,” she agrees. “Why do you think you remember all of that so well?”

He shrugs, his eyes sliding to the side. Annabeth doesn’t think he’s particularly interested in the squirrel eating a cigarette butt, so he probably just wants to avoid looking at her. It strikes her somewhere beneath her ribs, how sad it is, to wander around your home with only the innocuous pieces left.

Not for the first time, she wonders what will happen when she dies. Will someone see her? Will she even know that she’s dead? Will she be here, or in San Francisco, or on Berkeley’s campus, or back in Richmond? Has she ever known a place her soul would cling to?

“What’s your favorite thing about New York?” Annabeth asks, deciding suddenly to change tactics. “Since you keep insisting us transplants don’t know—”

“—know shit about shit,” Percy finishes. He looks back at her. “Uh, it’s the best city in the world.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “I know that. That’s why I moved here. You could argue that means I love it more than you.”

“Shut up,” Percy says, his face screwed up with indignation. “No, it doesn’t!”

“Great comeback,” she drawls. 

“Okay, I love the people,” Percy answers. “I love New Yorkers, and the way we treat each other.”

“Like?” Annabeth prompts him.

“We leave each other alone, but if I’m short a dollar on groceries there’s almost always someone who’ll cover me. And I just…I love walking places, and the subway, and I love it when I hop the turnstyle so smooth you can’t even tell I jumped it. I love the old guys who play chess in the park. The graffiti. I love riding the bus at night and Biggie, and shitting on Jersey and the goddamn Mets. I love not giving a fuck, I guess.” 

“Well, that’s things you love, but what’s your favorite?” Annabeth pushes. “Mine is easy, it’s the—”

“—the architecture, I know,” Percy finishes again. “I like that, too. I…well, maybe it’s the food. The food here is the best.”

Percy has admitted to never going anywhere else, so Annabeth doesn’t really know how he knows it’s the best, but she doesn’t call him on it. 

“But my favorite…” Percy goes a little still, like he’s remembered something. “My favorite thing when I was a kid is gone now,” he says. 

“Yeah?” Annabeth prompts

“Yeah. It was on the west side, if you can believe it. When you got off an uptown 1 at 79th, if you went up the staircase that took you to the northwest corner—there used to be a Circuit City there, next to the DSW.”

“There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while,” Annabeth mutters.

“Yeah, it closed ages ago, but it was in this little, two story building. And it meant, when you were going up the stairs, if you looked up all you could see was the sky. Like the sky was the ocean and you got to go down the ladder and jump into it.” He goes quiet for a moment. Then, “now there’s an ugly fucking apartment building.”

Annabeth resists the urge to scoff. “You think any new building is ugly.”

“That’s not true! I like the Jenga building downtown.”

“The Jenga…” Annabeth thinks. “You mean 56 Leonard?”

“Is 56 Leonard the building that looks like a wonky Jenga tower?”

“I—” She sighs. “Yes. But it’s a Herzog & de Meuron.”

“You’re a hotdog and demure one.”

“You’re not that funny.”

He shrugs. “I dunno, you’re smiling.”

You’re flirting, Annabeth realizes. You’re flirting with a ghost, and he’s flirting back. 

“I can show you the ugly building some time,” he offers, blinking some water out of his eyelashes. “It’s right by the Natural History Museum. You like museums, right?”

“My second favorite thing about New York,” Annabeth confirms, and just manages to stop herself from saying it’s a date. 

//

Her dad texts her on a Saturday morning, the first time he’s reached out since she moved to the east coast, and his message reads [ Hi, Annabeth. I hope you’re settling in well at your new job. How is New York? Let me know when you might be free to talk.]

She doesn’t respond for three days. What’s there to say? She wishes she could explain to him that you can walk south on the east side of Broadway, from Grand to Howard, and you can look up and see the top of One World Trade peak through the buildings. You can look down so you won’t trip over the subway grate, and when you look back up again 56 Leonard has taken its place. 

She could tell him that if you walk past the entrance to the NQWR to the corner of Canal, you can see all of Herzog & de Meuron’s creativity, bottom to top, and you can decide that from then on out you’ll be calling it the Jenga Tower. She could type it out, or even try and call and inevitably tell him in a voicemail, but he wouldn’t get it. He’d probably say something ridiculous, like ask what Jenga was, or tell her about an exhibit that has something to do with planes that’s soon to arrive in the tri-state area, and Annabeth would remember why she hadn’t reached out either.

Instead, she tells him about work, and doesn’t talk about buildings or bagel shops or the bitter and charming conundrum of a ghost that’s taken to appearing at her shoulder as she makes a city her father hates her home. 

[goldengodcannibal]

my dad made a sappy love post on Facebook and that's when i realized i might be him

[ireneaesthetic]

Pointing out little moments and details of scenes that need to be remembered.

"i can show you" scene • episode 1

the first wille’s smile of the season and simon is the one and only reason for it to happen *act surprised*.

he has no rush but takes his time to enjoy simon’s presence, looking from afar first and then approaching him. just having him there is enough to make him This happy.

the casual gestures of fixing the jacket or bumping into the shoulder make me melt - just typical boyfriends things and we absolutely praise them in this house!

wille's flirtatious mood in this whole sequence is the best thing that could've happened to me - to simon too! the "i can show you", the whispering, the head's nod. he's still my fav loser but oh how much he has learned and stepped up the game.

also, i genuinely think not showing them holding hands here with a wider shot is a crime.

such a perfect parallel of the fish scene and they're probably reminded of that too: this time it's wilhelm's bedroom and a foreign place for simon, so he's the curious one - looking around and taking the space in - while wille simply waits for him.

simon's "mysigt" to describe the room, just like wilhelm did. it is another special moment for both of them.

this. this. this!!! claim a s3 moment as your own - this is mine.

to me it is the most seductive and romantic one they've ever shared hands down. it comes straight out of a fanfic.

the tension, the longing, the chemistry, the flirting. there's so much to unpack here: wille's breath is literally vibrating and simon's presence is so intense, he builds up the tension and keeps wilhelm waiting for his next move in the most endearing way - wille is also leaning into his hand at the end. there's no talking, they're barely touching but still filling the room with all the passion and attraction they feel for one another - this is actually insanely scripted and portrayed.

no thoughts head empty just simon's tongue and his hands through wille's hair (he's obsessed, excuse him!).

and it kinda seems like simon is getting pulled closer by the waist or he's pushing himself closer - either way it's hot soo

simon's little leg lift and him pinning wille down on the bed by the wrist right before the cut - they're comfortable and open and so playful with each other. wilhelm's hand that caresses simon's back is very much important too.

simon caressing wille's cheek (he has to return the favor ig) and wilhelm leaning up again when they interrupt the kiss.

these brief moments are the cutest. i love how they stay so close and can't stop tracing each other's features.

the nose rub. the mirrored smiles. they've missed and wanted this for so long and they're taking the most of it.

this whole scene is so passionate and they're both so touchy bc they were clearly waiting for this to happen - during a meeting at the palace might not be the greatest scenario, but the thrill that comes with it is definitely something.

i like the role play throughout the scene sm: wille initiates the first kiss, simon is the one taking the lead next and then it all comes back to wille rolling them over and taking initiative. the neck action is a serious thing for him and idk where his hand would've ended up if they hadn't been interrupted - and we do! love! all of it!

they're laughing over the fact that they were not caring about anything at all but spending quality time with each other. and they deserve it so freaking much.

look at them!!! this is not a subtle look bc they simply do not care anymore. i adore them your honor.

[jacketpotatoo]

Initial Thoughts on Arcane S2 (spoilers)

I think season 1 was far stronger because it told a much more focused story and centred its themes on the relationships of the characters. What I love about s1 is that you could pick two characters from anywhere in the show, and they'd be foils of some kind, or parallel each other, etc. We don't get enough time with characters talking to each other for that in s2. In s1, so much of the insight we gain from characters is through their conversations with each other - this is effective because they're there and reacting to each other, so you get the deeping of their relationships alongside development of the plot. I think this is why people resonate so strongly with Ep7 - it's so contained. The expanded cast of characters and expanded plotlines mean that at times, it feels like they're checking off plot beats rather than letting the story develop as its characters do. But this is also why I find the jayvik storyline to be the most compelling part of s2 - it's this beautiful medley of greater themes and personal ambition wrapped around inextricably in the other. I found the show's thesis on healing and destruction and the cycles of human violence compelling, and I liked that magic was a sort of tech/industrialisation stand in. Viktor had some GREAT lines that I need to spend some more time unpacking. Cosmic yaoi soulmatism is beautiful. Also speaking of episode 7, I also thought Ekko's arc was incredible and the best and he's the best and I love him.

That being said, I definitely think the ball was dropped on the class commentary. The writers simply took on too much - just trying to explore the class tensions between Zaun and Piltover is enough to take up the entire season. And it's so deeply integral to the politics of the season, and to the balance of the relationships of various characters, that it's just a bit. sigh. Especially when nearly all the new characters introduced get killed off. And we don't get much focus at all on Sevika, who's one of the only main characters involved in revolution. I love Isha, but she felt so much to me like a plot device to me that i find it hard to reconcile. And the lack of class-commentary sours their portrayal of Caitvi alot for me. I personally think Cait's revenge to reconciliation arc was handled fine, and that a verbal apology wouldn't mean as much to vi as the action of freeing her sister did, but the last line of the show is hard for me. "I'm the dirt under your nails." I get that it can be interpreted multiple ways (see: non-problematically), but that had to have crossed the writers' minds. Is it intentional then? A reminder of Vi's insecurities, simply glossed over by Caitlyn? Does it just draw attention to the inequality of their relationship, indicate that there's further work to be done between them and individually? Honestly I feel the same way about where Zaun/Piltover is left off politically. This sort of ambivalent state that isn't endorsed (the sneers the council throws at Sevika are intentional), but is unfortunately realistic. I don't think the ending is a happy one at all. Ambivalent really is the word I'd use to describe it.

I also figure that I need to rewatch the show in full, including season 1. Thoughts might change! I'm still working things out in the brain. I do still think Arcane is a fucking beast and a triumph, and I will forever be inspired by it. I love these characters. every shipper won something and I think that's beautiful. Fortiche's animation is revolutionary.

[drama-glob]

SPOILERS FOR "SINSMAS!"

Man, this episode was a roller coaster. O_O

Poor Stolas on adjusting to life not being a prince anymore, but my heart melted from how much care and patience Blitz showed to try and comfort him even though he was mainly worried about his daughter over the course of the month. Poor Octavia too on being stuck with Stella and Andrealphus, who definitely kept up with controlling her by taking away her phone and clearly not actually caring about her. :(

I liked that we learned what "Sinsmas" is and makes me wonder how the Sins celebrate because no way they would miss out on this, even though the holiday may not actually be celebrated by the other royals given that Stolas doesn't seem to even know what it it; of course, it could just come from being raised by Paimon, who may not have it in the palace because he either did not care about his kids enough to celebrate with them or considered it a holiday just for the lower class. :/

It's crazy (and sad) that Octavia's song was indeed a parallel to "You Will Be Okay," but it further shows the divide and lack of forgiveness she has for her father all while holding Blitz as the enemy who's to blame. :( Her finding Stolas's pills was so sad too since she seemed to feel betrayed and confused, but I'm glad she was taking the pills to her dad because I was worried for a moment she might have thought to take them. O_O

My heart though when Blitz saw that family and envisioned it being him, Stolas, Octavia, and Loona as one big, happy family; that's basically every Stolitz shipper's dream! I hope we see it come true one day.<3<3<3

I literally cheered when Stolas punched Andrealphus in the face because that peacock deserves it and the fact that Stolas is typically a pacifist just proves how much he wants to see his daughter. I also laughed my ass off to Blitz calling Andrealphus "Elsa" because we've all thought it at one point or another and I even made a meme about it. XD It was amazing getting to see Loona use more magic and I heard we'll learn more about her in season 3, so we'll likely see her use more of her magical arsenal. ;) I lost it though when Blitz saved Stolas and they kissed in midair! Just yes to all of it! ^_^<3<3<3

I'm glad Octavia managed to save the day, but sadly, we all knew what likely was going to occur for Stolas and Octavia's interaction thanks to the trailer; it was still such a gut-punch though as they're both crying and Octavia is refusing to listen to Stolas, which only further highlights where Stolas trying to shelter Octavia has exacerbated the issue. ;_; ;_; ;_;

OMG though on Millie being pregnant!!! We were given the signs and even I was like "Oh, she's pregnant, isn't she?" Sure enough, we got the confirmation, so now we'll have to unpack that drama bomb in Season 3 since she still hasn't told Moxxie yet and we don't know what her decision will be. O_O Also, it was great getting to see Loona hang out with her friends from "Queen Bee." ^_^<3<3<3

Even though things aren't the best for Stolas right now, I was so happy for the Stolitz content we got with Blitz actually being romantic and affectionate, so at least Stolas further knows that Blitz does care and want to be with him. Aww to that hug at the end!!! ^_^<3<3<3

(Although I wish we had seen some Sins actually in it like Ozzie or Bee, I understand why they didn't since it would have messed with the flow and focus of the story. :/ Now we'll have to wait until Season 3 to see them or be blessed to have some shorts focused on them).

[beyonddarknessintolight]

My Skeleton Crew finale SPOILER thoughts!

...I am so fascinated by Jod. I was kinda right that he doesn't get a full blown redemption, but I was also proven wrong about my reaction to him from last week: he's not a completely evil bastard.

I will say, that I still think he's not a good person, but I won't call him 'evil.' He doubled down on his choices and his philosophy right up to the end, and he still kept using gaslighting language on the kids: blaming them for things getting this bad, claiming if they just obeyed him then things would be fine, etc. That's all abusive language.

But yes, now that we know his backstory, his actions all make sense as a trauma response. He was deeply messed up by watching that Jedi die in front of him, and it made him cynical.

It's very interesting though, that in his rant he still acknowledged that there is good in the universe, and it makes me think he sees himself as a monster. If he is at least aware of what is good and bad, and he still chooses to be bad... that makes him someone who, by default, probably hates himself and doesn't think he deserves to join the side of good.

It's psychologically so fascinating, and I see parallels with Darth Vader and Kylo Ren too. They too on some level knew that they were doing evil things, but had no hope for themselves. So much to unpack. I love characters like this!

So, while I think he still counts as a 'bad guy' in this, the way it ends does leave open the door for, someday, after a lot of work, he could redeem himself. But right now, he's still too much of a scoundrel. Also important to note how self destructive he is: his choices are very impulsive and poorly thought out, and he honestly could have just stayed with the kids until the very end and been able to get away with a giant reward, and be a lot better off.

But he chose to betray them for no good reason other than his own pride, and not wanting to be indebted to these kids that he finds annoying. He caused his own downfall by giving them a villain to overcome their own differences to defeat.

God this is such good writing!

It is interesting that they don't let us see what happened to him, they left that very open-ended. I know his final expression is being hotly debated, and I personally saw it as him accepting his defeat with dignity, but also.... there might be a tiny bit of him that's proud of the kids for defeating him and proving him wrong, that there are good guys who sometimes win. But it's very up for interpretation.

I also love how Wim's dad got to be a hero too! He's such a giant nerd lol. 'Son, you're looking at a Level 7 Analyst,' or whatever, and he says it like its the most badass thing in the world.

In general, this finale lets the adults learn to trust their children and defy the strict rules of that society, which is a good message.

And I LOVE that bit where Fern tells her mom about how, no matter where they went, even in the really bad places, they still met people that were kind and helped them. It's mirroring what Jod was saying, about pinpricks of light. The difference is that Jod lost faith in those pinpricks, while Fern found it (faith).

Yeah, I would have preferred we got a brief epilogue, to just show how the planet adjusts to now being part of the galaxy again, but it's honestly a minor nitpick. And part of me is ok with it not answering every single question, it allows our imagination to blossom. And also gives the writers wiggle room for Season 2...

Oh! Also: I love that, even after everything, Wim wanted Jod to come with them. He didn't want to abandon him. That feels so much like Luke. And I love that Jod just gives him this small smile, like he's saying, 'nah, kid, you earned this, get going.'

I loved this show so so so so much, it's just classic Star Wars fun, but it still felt fresh and different. Bravo!

[itsclydebitches]

I know there's a lot to unpack in James' new interview but I am feral, FERAL I SAY, over this fucking line right here:

"His need was to be loved, and his tragic flaw was the belief that he was unlovable."

Back before Season 3 hit and Tedependent became ~trendy~ (not actually lol) I was heacanoning and writing Trent as a pretty anxious individual, someone with a ton of internalized self-loathing whose "whole vibe" was more of a mask than legitimate self-confidence. At the time I worried about him coming across as too OOC because really, what did we have to support this? Ted Lasso's prevailing theme of men discovering love and support when they previously had none? The lovely parallel of Trent struggling with many of Ted's own flaws, but presenting in opposite ways (cutting cynicism vs. endless optimism)? The then—far less developed—comments from James that Trent might have a rough relationship with his father? It felt unsubstantiated, unpersuasive, built more on my own interest in those kinds of characters and the occasional awkward moment from Trent than actual canon. Even into Season 3 I questioned whether my reading of him as struggling, significantly, with the care Ted offers wasn't just a result of my own, imagined inner life for him.

But NOW.

I'm sorry, hold up, can I just re-confirm that TRENT'S TRAGIC FLAW IS HIS BELIEF THAT HE'S UNLOVABLE? Unlovable??? Thank you, James Lance, for validating every reading I've had of this character since he first appeared on screen. Do people realize the depth this adds to every interaction Trent has? Particularly with Ted? Unlovable Trent Crimm starts off this relationship with a sincere compliment on his style ("I like your glasses"), something that Season 3 will present as a core part of his personality, something he's largely hidden away. Unlovable Trent Crimm grappling with the fact that yes, Ted enjoyed spending time with him. Him. WHILE he was playing the part of the asshole journalist. Unlovable Trent not being rejected when he admits, in moments of vulnerability, that he "Loves [their] chats." Unlovable Trent having his father's (likely snide) "Independent" comment reframed as a fun pun + advice to follow his "bliss": you have support, Trent, no matter what you choose to do. I don't care if you're successful covering a masculine-coded sport, I care if you're happy. Unlovable Trent committing the ultimate betrayal and being forgiven for it, immediately. Unlovable Trent being forcibly integrated into the Richmond family; actively accepted rather than passively tolerated: yes you should work here, yes you're a Diamond Dog, sit your butt down, Trenthouse Magazine, you will never be excluded again.

I'm sorry for the rambling post but I'm just so!! Insane about this!!! So much of Trent's hesitance could have been written off as a result of his career. That is, it might have been merely a learned reaction after decades of deliberately pissing people off. Of course they dislike him, but take him out of that environment and everything's fixed. Yet James has confirmed that he played Trent as intrinsically believing this. The career was a result of that unfounded fear—Might as well keep people at a distance before they hurt me first—as well as, simultaneously, a desire to somehow achieve the love that should have been unconditional from the start—Maybe my father will like me if I can be that "alpha male man's man" in print. Because this isn't just a flaw, it's a tragic flaw, a literary term that denotes a deficiency that leads to the character's downfall. This belief is so entrenched that it has led to Trent actively self-sabotaging his chances of being loved in the first place; a horrible self-fulfilling prophecy. He NEEDED someone like Ted—a fucking love sledgehammer that forces people to accept his care in the least subtle ways possible, even when they're acting as their own worst enemy—and by god, he got him!

Aside from Nate, Trent has always felt like the most isolated character to me at the start of the series (and even Nate has a good relationship with his mother and sister). What we've learned in Season 3 and James' interviews has only reinforced that reading for me: he was closeted in his marriage, unintentionally hurting his daughter, he's suffering under his father's expectations, he hates the press persona he's created to survive, he's bored at his job, footballers and other potential interviewees despise him—and not without reason (Roy). He has no friends that we see pre-Richmond and he's reached a point where the simple act of someone saying that they liked spending the day with him—again, while he's actively TRYING to piss them off and keep his distance—has him in such a state of shock he runs for the door, pens an uncharacteristically hopeful write-up, and is well on his way to upending his entire life for that man.

Because of course he is!!! From Trent's perspective Ted is a fucking impossibility shaped into human form. This is a man in his 40s whose greatest lifelong fear—now all but a certainty at his age—has been dismantled in a matter of hours. I'd write a book-length love letter to him too! And RIP to finale!Trent, but I would have run fucking Rom-Com style after the man who not only changed my life, but my entire sense of self-worth. (Ah fuck, but there's that tragic flaw again, keeping Trent hesitant. I now stand by my reading of the "I'll leave you be" scene as an unrequited goodbye.)

But finale aside, the man who'd convinced himself he was unlovable fell for the man who was love incarnate.

If that's not the most romantic shit you've ever heard idk what is!!!

[mores0]

Okay, I have a lot to say about Yang 3 in 2D, and it’s mostly just ramblings, but stick with me because there’s so much to unpack from this episode, and I feel like the fandom’s really overlooked it honestly. And I also need to get this out of my brain, haha.

So, I’m going to start with the photo because I feel like I’ve been losing my mind over it since I first watched the episode. Because Shawn does not remember taking that photo at all, no recognition, nothing- to the point that he even thought that it might’ve been photoshopped. So- for whatever reason his brain just refuses to remember that part of his life. Then there’s the actual story behind the photo- and there’s so much to unpack there. So, according to Shawn’s mom, Shawn was late to dinner, so she went out to look for him when she found him and ended up meeting Yang, and she took the photo because Yang told her that Shawn was the “luckiest, most handsome boy that she’s ever seen” and she looked sad. Which, what the fuck honestly, lmao?? Who takes a photo of their like, 13 year old son with some random grown woman who he’s with for whatever reason, after she tells you that he’s handsome and she’s sad. ??? I’m on Henry with this one, and that’s really saying something. And I always thought it was crazy how everyone just sort of moved on from that. (Sort of like Shawn getting shot).

And- okay, this might seem meaningless at first, but stick with me. In the episode, Allison and kid/flashback Shawn were wearing similar outfits- grayish jacket, blue shirt, jeans, converse looking shoe- but the thing is, the episode made a point to emphasize Shawn’s shirt with Henry talking about how he remembers all of Shawn’s shirts except for that one, and even in looking at all the other photos, he didn’t see it pop up again. Parallels I guess, I don’t know, that just stuck out to me.

Anyways, what I’m trying to get to is that I think that something happened to make Shawn’s brain repress meeting Yang, (and maybe afterwards he got rid of, or stopped wearing the shirt to help block out whatever happened, idk).

And, I’m ending this post here because it’s already super long and I’m just thinking way too much into it . (Also, when Yin said that Yang was obsessed with Shawn and “took notice of the pre-pubescent you (Shawn) and developed an unhealthy crush” which is a real line by the way, that was a huge ‘what the fuck’ moment for me, I don’t know why they felt the need to say that).

[possiblylando]

I kinda wanna write about sexuality in chainsaw man and how it plays into the stories and characters without ever being "explicit" about any given characters sexuality but it would also probably mean rereading all of csm which I do not want to do right now ! Instead heres a tierlist and brief thoughts and we can see how much of this changes by the time I get around to the full thing.

-Anyone showing interest in Makima (outside of denji) won't be counted towards their sexuality because pretty much all of them were being controlled by her to find her sexually attractive. -Bi Aki is totally fair, however he never seems to show interest in women outside of Makima. Despite Himeno's active romantic advances he never take her up on it. Angel is his only somewhat romantic relationship. -Pochita is the one who conjured up that image of Angel in lingerie. no further comment. -I've seen pretty decent arguments for Denji's misandry being used to cover up homoerotic feelings + the fact beam touching him makes him very uncomfortable most of the time. It might be explored, It might not be. Who knows. -I could probably write an entire fucking essay on whatever the fuck is wrong with Makima because there is way too much to unpack there. Does her manipulation of others into them feeling love for her stem from lust or just lack of emotional closeness? It's probably the latter but with the way she has them act it could be the former aswell. It could be that she can't even comprehend true platonic love due to having been raised without it and so her only way to see love is sexual (would be a near possible parallel to denji). It's a fucking lot I'm not touching with a ten foot poll cause this is supposed to be short. -Power and the Doll Devil are definitively have sexualities but I'm not sure what they are. lmk if you have thoughts (supporting evidence would be nice but vibes are fine tbh)

[le-trash-prince]

OF Episode 6 Thoughts: Top/Mew

I finally got to watch this week’s ep and there is SO MUCH TO UNPACK. I have too many thoughts so I’m splitting them between posts.

First of all: What a fucking episode. I was either laughing or screaming the entire time. I love this shit so much. Everyone in this group sucks!

Mew's bi momma! 🙌

When Mew said “I want you to meet my parents at the end of the year” and then “But don’t count on us still being together” I was like “What the fuck Mew?” LOL. Like Mew, I know you will probably never understand this, but just because you are not seeing anyone else doesn't mean that you are emotionally committed to this relationship. You keep pulling back and giving mixed signals!

“I think the reason I was fine without a relationship was because I got enough love from family and friends” Mew how about you recognize that you’re demi instead of psychoanalyzing your slutty friends!

Tbh tho, I know it's really hard to come to terms with your own sexuality, especially when it's so different from everyone around you. We try to come up with reasons as to why people are different, rather than being able to accept that these differences can be inherent to who we are as people.

I think this episode showed more than any other just how genuine Top’s feelings for Mew really are. And of course this had to be the episode it all came crashing down.

Like the notebook of drawings he gave him? That was super sweet and thoughtful as a gift—ppl prob expect someone like Top to just throw money at his lovers but instead he put time and effort into his gift. You can’t draw someone like that without really looking at them. There wasn’t anything in that gift that said "fuckboy" or “I’m doing this just so you will sleep with me.”

Felt like there was an intentional parallel between Top kissing Mew’s forehead while he was asleep and Ray kissing Mew on the mouth.

I feel like I need to rewatch to process “Mew and Ray get in a fight” and “Ray gave Mew the audio file and Mew believed him”

When Mew and Top got home, I loved how the change and tension felt tangible. Like something about Mew going into the bedroom by himself and leaving Top in the living room spoke to a barrier between them

Mew pinning Top to the bed did a lot of things for me thanks 👍

“I love the way you sound in bed” honestly some cinematic poetry, I was hollering.

As much as I feel like Top was coerced into sleeping with Boston, what can he even say to defend himself with? “I didn’t want to sleep with him?” Well it sure sounded like you did. “I did it because I thought you lied to me?” Yeah that’s not gonna make Mew understand. Lol. Again, I don't know if Top even knows if he's allowed to not want to have sex with someone.

It’s a hard situation with a lot of grey area! And even tho we kind of knew this was how Mew was gonna find out, it's the worst way for him to find out.

Of course Mew is going to be hurt. This is like the worst outcome for him, and it revealed a lot of his insecurities around his lack of sexual experience. Especially after talking big at the beginning "My senses are always correct and I know everything there is to know about love."

I wonder if he even blamed himself for being bad at sex as to why he didn’t enjoy his first time with Top all that much, rather than it simply being that he might not really get much out of sex at all. It's okay if you don't want sex, Mew, or if you don't enjoy it, or even if it takes time for you to enjoy it!

“I’m not worth enough for you to love only me.” Mew. Mew. *shakes him* First of all, Top thinks Boston is a pile of burnable trash. He does not love that man! Second of all, please don’t tie self worth to romantic love or to ideals of monogamy. It is never going to end well.

Again, "I think the reason I was fine without a relationship is because I got so much love from family and friends." Mew are you being honest with yourself? You even said yourself that the reason you slept with Top was because you were worried about him getting bored with you.

I may have mentioned this before, but I think the reason that "mastermind Mew" was so popular with the fandom at the beginning of the series is because people wanted it to be true, because if Mew had seen this coming, he wouldn't have gotten hurt. I don't think it came from "we think Mew is evil or manipulative or whatever," I think we just didn't want to watch a person as naive as Mew get hurt. Because that's what happens the majority of the time in real life. People get hurt.

Sad lonely himbo Top in the bathtub 👍

Overall, I really enjoy watching their relationship. It's very complicated; it's nowhere near as straightforward as a "fuckboy cheats on his virgin boyfriend" plotline could easily be. I don't think they had a solid foundation for their relationship. They enjoy their dates, but there hasn't been a lot of great communication between them, which as I mentioned on a previous post, is very normal, especially for a first or second relationship. And for both of them, I think this is their first real attempt at a relationship, and neither of them know what they're doing.

In the preview, we see a clip of Mew in the bathtub where his expression changes, and it really looks like a symbolic transformation to me. Whether we get revenge era Mew or "let's try this again with more emotional transparency" Mew, I'm here for it.

[charlidos]

I feel you linger in the air episode 9

There's so much to unpack in this episode! I've been home sick all week, so I've had time to obsess a little more than usual and have far too much to say. So here's a very long review. Forgive me.

First, Yai takes care of Jom in the most loving way. He can't stand to be away from Jom for even a second at this point, I think. Up until they became intimate, it was always Jom taking care of Yai, and Yai didn't really stop expecting to be served. I like that they haven't tried to make Yai more modern than a man of that time could possibly be. He's young, upper-class and doesn't know any other time or system (he's not been to France, after all) and while he might want change, his perspective is very limited. But I think Yai is gradually changing his mindset, because of Jom. And taking care of him like this is part of that.

I'm also struck, again, by how natural, warm and intimate the interaction between these two seem. Obviously two actors who are an acting match made in heaven.

I also believe that is why Yai doesn't protest more against the engagement. He was obviously already sad and frustrated over his current life (before Jom turned up) and lack of choices. But he also seemed to have resigned to this fate, and doing what he was told. I always think it's presumptious of us modern day people to expect people in this time to rebel. Because I don't think we really understand the cost. He risks losing everything he has; family, money, job, security, position etc. What would he do? What choice does he actually have? So how could he protest against his dad's decision when it comes to Jom? Jom made him dream again, but it's still just a dream.

I think the saddest scene in this context was with Yai's mom. He felt so betrayed by her, getting no comfort, no understanding. My heart broke for Yai right here. She also has little power over events, but surely she could have given him something.

Yai talks about how he's loved Jom since before he even met him. And we already knew this, since we've seen another version of Yai already, in the very first ep (will they have time to get back to him in this series?). So I gather that Yai is reincarnated through the times, and always loves Jom, his fated lover. But how about Jom? So far, we only know he's travelling in time, and we don't know if there's any reincarnation going on with him. Does Jom have to jump through time in order to meet Yai in all of his lifetimes?

However, I do feel like the creators are a bit more interested in telling the story of what it was like living in Thailand in 1927 (or 1928?) for women, queers, servants etc, than the time travel and reincarnation bit. Because there's only three eps left, and so much to explain! I really have no idea how Jom's time travel works here; it seems like some kind of loop, or parallell timelines, since he meets himself both in the present day and in 1927. So does these events happen continously, over and over? And where is Jom right now in 2023? Is he in a coma, or is he missing? Is his physical body in 1927 or in 2023? So many questions, so little time.

It does bother me that Jom is still keeping his biggest secret from Yai. I understand why but still, it such a big thing. Yai knows he's hiding something, but he doesn't know that it's potentially the most heartbreaking thing of all: that Jom doesn't belong here, and might soon be gone forever. Jom at this point probably doesn't think he's ever going back to his own time, so maybe he doesn't feel the need to tell Yai. Particularly considering how strange it would sound. Still, when you hear Yai talking about his dream of just being able to spend his life with the one he loves, it's so epically sad that he doesn't even know that being forcibly engaged isn't even the worst thing.

This whole scene was so full of sadness to me; all those crushed dreams of his. His longing for more, freedom, love, the world. So many people now and in history who have had to live like this. It's always worse when you know there's more, when you get a taste of it, but can't keep it, than not knowing it existed at all.

Jom's first reaction to this engagement was devastating. How he immediately resigned to his fate of having bad relationships which end with him being alone. It's like his previous break-up forged a path in his head which he immediately went back on, interpreting it as betrayal. It surprised me at first, because I thought he would understand how Yai was pressured. But somehow, in this moment, he just saw the pattern in his life instead. And since he's started to accept his life being in this time for the rest of his time, he had already built it up around being with Yai. Even though he, with reason, must know it was a pipe-dream. But I suppose he needed something to hold on to. He only has Yai, after all.

At first, I was confused by why Jom then was being so cold to Yai, and maybe I don't fully get it even now, but I think Jom wanted Yai to be able to let go. And therefore had to give him a stronger push away by being the one making the decision. But what does he mean "I can wait"? Wait until Yai's dad is dead? Until Yai has his own money and can decide his own life? I suppose his previous experience of being betrayed steeled him. But I think he also realised that Yai is not like Ohm, that this is the real thing, that Yai is worth the wait. It's just that for the moment, they have to wait. (Oh, but it's so sad that they don't even know that Jom will be gone soon! Yai will have to wait for his next life... )

Finally, this whole engagement event was surely the cringiest event ever seen. You'd really have to be completely blind, psychopathic or ignorant to be happy seeing Yai being so miserable. He wasn't even trying to pretend, he just went through the motions, all lifelessly. The only ones smiling at this event were the three men who've done nothing but cause misery to their families. And then there's the fiancé herself. What is up with her? If she likes Yai, surely she must at least notice something is bothering him? But she seems completely oblivious. Like she and Yai are attending completely different engagement parties. Maybe she trying to keep a brave face, but ugh, it looked cold and weird.

All the while Yai was looking too handsome for words. And so, so sad. There's really nothing sadder to me than resignation. When you've given up, when there's no hope left.

But Jom to the rescue! Gosh, this ending took me completely by surprise! I didn't see that coming at all. (Despite it giving some comfort, I think it was a mistake airing the trailer for ep 10 directly after the end, this time. Because it really spoiled a little too much.) What is Jom going to do? I had a fleeting thought that he was actually going to do a performance, like sing or rap or whatever. That would have been so weird! But I guess it's something to do with revealing something incriminating against the jolly men responsible for this charade.

This series really deserves a lot of love, it's so beautiful and full of heart and history. I think they may be trying to take on a few too many issues at once to fit in these 12 eps, but we'll see how they manage to tie it all together in the last three eps. (Pleeeeaaase let there be a season 2!) But I also feel they take their characters' plight very seriously. And Bright and Nonkul take their characters love for each other very seriously too. It's been so long since I've been so convinced that two people love each other in a drama. It sucks you right in. Can't help but being obsessed.

[kamiversee]

KAMMMIIIIII that last chapter was AMAZING (also yes the theories on sukuna blackmailing gojo were RIGHT RAAAAAHH)!!!! ok ok ok so here’s the parallels/new info we’ve got so far:

- this is why gojo HATES when the reader calls herself a whore (esp thinking about after she hooks up w sukuna and gojo is driving her and he gets MAD about it)

- this is also why gojo insists on making her hate him bc he knows that’s the whole point, he knows he’s not completely clear of his obsession but he finally understands that what he did was wrong and he can’t let her love him in the way he wants

- YES the stuff abt choso being on there bc sukuna knew she would have feelings for him!!! im still a firm believer that it’s bc sukuna feels bad about what happened w choso and wants to make it up to him in some way but idk if we’ll get to see that through

- ALSO a few sukuna thoughts: sooooo was he being stalked by his ex, the one he ended up hitting? bc he talks about being afraid, and the whole “never let a woman take away what makes you a man” thing could be because he was scared by the situation? idk that just felt too personal

- i also don’t think we ever found out who actually hurt sukuna the night of his party and gave him that bruise (i thought you said at one point that it wasn’t gojo but tbh my brain is a little mushy so that might be wrong), i don’t have many theories on that one just yet but we will be cooking hmmm

- i’ve been SAYIN it but like yes what gojo did was bad. full stop. but! he also really did seem to grow throughout TFL and the idea of him being blackmailed by sukuna makes him much much more sympathetic!!! like he knows you don’t have a job so he comes up w the idea to pay you, he keeps pushing you away bc he knows you shouldn’t love him, ugh just makes my heart hurt for this poor man

- also ….hot take incoming…..but idk that sukuna is as bad as we thought. like rn he’s just trying to protect the reader from what he sees as creepy ass behavior from gojo, presumably he’s had something similar happen, and like yes bro thrives on chaos and wants to hurt us but not just for the purpose of causing pain to a stranger but specifically to punish gojo; idk i’m not here to debate intentions vs actions vs consequences but it’s not like he just did this for laughs he really is trying to make gojo hurt and clearly he has some emotions tied up in this too

- ok rereading that last paragraph idk lmao like bro still (presumably) hits yuji bc gojo also mentions bruises idk idk idk don’t come for me

- something else that stuck out to me that i haven’t been able to stop thinking abt is that in the TFL extra on reader’s wedding night w choso, it’s mentioned that sukuna gives up custody of yuji the same night gojo reveals everything (i think tbh it’s been a min since i read it), but like….why? (i think) that extra was canon and it almost feels like too much of a coincidence but maybe it just is ????? someone else who has better thoughts than i do please share hahahahaha

PHEW this got long but i just had to type it out after all our theories have been coming for so long it’s so exciting to see everything start falling into place!!!! i can’t wait to get back to the run in w sukuna at the gas station AHH i have a feeling bro is about to blow shit up and i cannot wait!!!!

- 🩷

WOOHOOO YAP SESSION

Glad you enjoyed it my love!!! I shall disagree/agree paragraph by paragraph so lets get to unpacking :P

1. Yes! Sukuna was the first and only person Gojo’s ever heard call her such a thing so when the term is later used by the reader herself, it triggers him all over again :)

2. Yes yes yes yes!! This is exactly why Gojo kept telling her that love between them is “forbidden” and why he’d compare it to being a “crime”. You can also see how as tfl goes on, his obsession returns due to him being so close with the reader and finally experiencing her just as he’d always longed to.

3. Mhm! Sukuna is quite the mastermind :3

4. This Sukuna thought is on the right track to say the very least & avoid further spoilers! ^.^

5. Gojo was not the person to hit Sukuna that time!

6. YES I CANT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. I know he’s bad terrible etc BUT, Gojo does do exactly as he always said he would & changes for the reader to become deserving of her whilst also telling her she cannot be with him… I’d also like to point out how a lot of Gojo girlies said they would’ve picked him right then and there after his confessions but I wonder how they feel now knowing that Gojo would’ve almost never told them about his past actions 🤔

7. Sukuna is… Well, let me say this, there are no true villains nor hero’s in tfl or ftl. No one is completely good & no one is completely bad, both stories are just messy tales of humans figuring life out.

8. Well, Gojo did mention bruises but that is before tfl takes place so we don’t know when exactly Sukuna’s domestic violence stops…

9. Think about two things here— One, Sukuna mentions that the reader deserves some form of happiness out of her, a feeling that could’ve doubled after he experienced her for himself. Two, it’s theorized that Sukuna still wants to make things up to Choso. Similar to Gojo, Sukuna cannot undo what he’s done in the past but he can try to make amends. I hope that makes sense & helps your thoughts ^.^

Im happy to see u excited about this!!! I was excited planning this & writing this >< When we circle back to the gas station & enter the sequel… things will indeed be insane. 🙂‍↕️

[oddlittlestories]

So I just saw a Dexter gifset about him “not having a next level” and the reminder of how his empathy was handled vs. empathy & ethics in Woe.Begone slingshotted me into ✨Meta Brain Space✨ come into my Meta Danger Circle ⭕️

Disclaimer that I haven’t watched Dexter in a WHILE and I don’t remember a lot of specifics. Also I get a bit critical of Dexter here, so if it’s your fave ever, you might just skip this meta post and go listen to Woe.Begone instead bc I think you’ll like it.

Spoilers ahead.

I’ve tagged it too so you can go blacklist it if you don’t want Woe.Begone spoilers from s1e1-4.

Okay okay so Woe.Begone handles empathy in such such such a cool way. The main character, Mike Walters, tells everything in retrospect in a detached manner, describing how he was terrified / sobbing / etc. *at the moment*. It’s actually impossible for me to tell whether this character has low empathy or atypical expression of empathy.

Like when the challenge is to kill a pig:

goddamnit! I don’t wanna kill a pig! I mean, I know, I eat meat, specifically pork, and so I’ve just been outsourcing this exact labor for my whole life. I’m a hypocrite if I’m willing to let suffering happen as long as it’s just outside my eyeline, but f-fuck it! I can be a hypocrite. I’m worse shit than that all the time. I’m a liar, I’m a bad friend, I’m a shitty podcaster. Just throw “hypocrite” on the heap, it’ll fit right in.

This isn’t a perfect example but you can see how he has a detached approach to his own flaws that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen in a character.

In episode 2, he talks about himself. How he is with people.

[Mike:] I’m not always the best guy. I remember on my freshman floor in college, a new friend was on the phone with her parents, and she was talking about everyone she had just met. When she got to me she said,

MIKE [electronic voice effect]: “There’s the dude, Mike. He’s pretty cool. He’s not nice, but…”

MIKE [normal voice]: Woof. I’d like to think that I’ve done some self-reflection since then but have I really? I tend to bulldoze over other people and their needs and problems more than I should. And more than I would like, I would add. I don’t always like myself and I definitely don’t like when I figure out that I’ve done this. So, this could just be my reputation finally catching up with me… Or it could be WOE.BEGONE.

This feels so incredibly ND to me, especially paired with the flat tone he uses in the show (it’s not monotone, in fact it’s quite engaging, but it IS flat, you should listen to it if you haven’t)

And the show REFERENCES DEXTER. When Mike cuts off his own arm, he puts up plastic sheeting, because his main real reference for the brutal gory IS Dexter.

He decides to do horrible things for the sake of the game bc he decides he wants to win. He reminds himself that a person’s life is more important than feeling embarrassed.

And he goes on a (gentle) rant about how Dexter is a ridiculous show and the only reason he doesn’t get caught is because the PD in the show is ridiculously incompetent.

But having a show make deliberate parallels between Dexter and the MC by making the MC reference the show (even if not referring to the character). And it’s a show ABOUT a clearly ND person, possibly low empathy, deliberately making both ethical and unethical decisions (by his own framework). HOLY MOLY IT’S GIVING ME THE BRAINROT

Mike unpacks the ethics around half the things he chooses to do. He cares about other people but sometimes verbally logics himself into empathy (in a way that’s often unclear to me—is he speaking that way because he doesn’t know how else to express what he feels? Or because he doesn’t feel it and has to logic himself to the moral decision?)

In some ways you could almost read Woe.Begone as a counter to Dexter. Because Dexter, too, does terrible things with (usually) an ethical framework. He explicitly lacks empathy. He’s handed the moral framework and the narrative pretty much uncritically says “he was always going to be a serial killer. so what was he going to do with that?”

And in Woe.Begone, Mike’s motives are complex. Messy. A little bit of empathy here. Curiosity there. Desire for power in the corner. Fear of consequences looming over him. He wasn’t always going to do Woe.Begone. He makes a deliberate decision. Both for every challenge he completes (as far as I know, I only just finished episode 4). And for the game as a whole. And it’s not about being good, and he claims he’s actually a kind of shitty person. And yet to me he feels like a better person than Dexter so far. Or, at least, less hollow. Filled to the brim with his own internal world.

I’d have to rewatch some Dexter to do a full cross-comparison meta, and I might. But I’m absolutely fascinated by what feels like deliberate narrative comparisons here as Dylan Griggs writes more or less a death game about what I read as a low/atypical empathy character.

[seeking-elsewhither]

those silly analyses I was talking about @margindoodles2407

most of these are from way back when I first began watching tbb

(okay I went through all of this - there is more - and most of it is commentary and notes and reactions, but here you are all the same)

Gotta love how sensitive they made Hunter as a leader. He’s very careful with everyone and their emotions. Might be because he just lost Crosshair and wants to do better. Might be a parallel to his enhancements. He’s just…very sensitive. They could’ve made him a cold, war-hardened leader. But noooo they made him dad material.

Something something Hunter and Crosshair having tattoos on the opposite sides of their faces, having the best eyesight of the batch, being the best at close quarters and long range combat, being each other's mirrors and the two sides of the same coin.

Omega is just…this girl I swear. First episode of S3 and she’s so focused on getting the morale up, on spreading hope, joy, love, kindness. She’s so Christ-like honestly, I love her so.

Ohhh so the hound is tamed and now you think she can’t protect herself?? (uhh actually that sounds about right realistically) But what about the Fox and the Little Prince. Being tame meant loving, meant being vulnerable. You are objectively leaving a crack in your armour. And that was Hemlock’s first loss, when a little girl full of love stepped into a loveless prison.

(Gosh, Love really is the answer, huh?)

Watching the deleted scenes from the bad batch arc in tcw s7, and there’s soooo much lore to unpack:

“Not the most luxurious ride in the galaxy, but it doesn’t exactly scream ‘Republic’, like the rest of these.” — Hunter to Anakin and Rex. About the Havoc Marauder, obvio. That goes to show just how much they’ve modified it (I mean, when they get it impounded in tbb cut and run, the regs notice right off the bat how different it is). Is it possible all the hardship they were raised under made them quite cynical and filled with hatred to the Republic to the point where they are unwilling to associate it? This is a theory I’ve been turning over and over in my head because all their choices point to it. The Marauder, their looks (at least in Hunter’s case), their armor, the ‘And for what? The Republic?’ ‘We’re loyal to each other, not some Empire.’, their tight-lipped behavior concerning J-19 and the Lawquanes, Tech’s smile when he says ‘We’re all deserters now’. It was only Echo — a reg — who showed any qualms about no longer serving the Republic. Hunter and co never once claim this allegiance. Crosshair claims it to the Empire (I am a soldier of the Empire), but when he says it, it sounds too idealistic for one as cynical as him to say it, so you know something’s wrong. TLDR: the og batch had no love for the Republic and only fought because they had no other choice (the threat of desertion and being labelled a deserter was too high; they had already been ostracized so far, they can only take so much) and this life is all they knew. They’d learned to survive in this hostile environment, they had each other and it was enough (not really, but they made do). So when they got the first morally legit reason to up and leave this place, they grabbed it eagerly with both hands.

“Umm, I’m gonna be on the ship with the team if you need me.” — Hunter to Anakin, Rex and Obi-Wan. Giggling, because this man just straight up walked out of the situation without a care if he was dismissed or not. He was just as avoidant then. Plus, walking away from a Captain?? Much less two Jedi Generals?? Without being dismissed?

THE PADME NOSE DECAL IS SOMETHING I REFUSE TO ACCEPT AS CANON IT IS DISGURSTANG MY BOYS WOULD NEVER

“Trouble just seems to find us.” — Hunter (asdfghjkl please he sounds so tired and resigned). “Unless we find it first.” — Crosshair (the kark??? why does he sound so determined about it??? or am I reading him wrong and does he sound just as tired??). I have been searching for

“Or, maybe they sent the signal to lure us into a trap, and they’re just using Echo as bait. Well, I can’t be the only one thinking that.” — Hunter to Rex (and Anakin offscreen?). Hunter being the grounding voice of reason and playing devil's advocate per usual, uh huh, uh huh. And he looks to Crosshair when he says that last line.

“We don’t even know if this ‘Echo’ is still alive. And if he is, he might be a traitor.” (“Echo’s not a traitor, you hear me?!”) “If I was left for dead, I would not be so loyal.” — Crosshair (and Rex). Okay, but one way to read this is as Crosshair’s version of coming to support Hunter, his brother and Sergeant. There’s also the annoying capability of his to start osik with regs. Not sure why though. But Cross is a complex lil sniper, so there’s bound to be layers of reasons and excuses as to why he spat those words. Maybe it was to garner and gauge Rex’s reaction, see how much he cared. Maybe it was to hurt Rex because he heard what happened, and he was empathetic about it (putting himself in Echo’s shoes and he could probably feel his blood boil because Crosshair would never just up and leave his brothers for dead or tolerate being left behind. This is a man who can and will hold a grudge for decades. He just won’t be severely vocal about it unless he wants to and depending on the circumstance). Maybe it was foreshadowing. Maybe it was Cross just being a little osik. Maybe it was defending and supporting Hunter.

(“How’s it going, Tech?” — Anakin while Tech is hacking) Cue long pause, so long Anakin exchanges a glance with Hunter on his left, then Rex on his right. Then: “What was the question?” — Tech to Hunter (mainly, I think, y’know the way you ask a classmate or friend instead of the teacher who asked you?), Anakin, Rex and Crosshair. “Ha ha! Tech, you gotta love him.” — Hunter to Anakin. Sorry but I am utterly convinced Hunter and Tech are the closest after the eldest-youngest bonding fashion. The Sergeant literally tells Cody, Rex and co, how Tech can ‘fill you with useless info for hours’ and Tech legit smiles when he says that. Like, that’s his equivalent of beaming. And here we see Hunter quickly diffusing the situation between a higher authority and his baby brother with a short proud laugh and a claim that one can’t help but love him like !!!! THIS MAN LOVES HIS BABY BROTHER AND CAN AND WILL SAY IT. gives boromir-faramir vibes, honestly.

Cross snorting in his sleep my beloved <333

Fav thing about the bad batch is how they're collectively trash at stealth missions. Bracca, Serenno, every time Hunter thinks he's stealthy, they get caught.

This show is so relatable sometimes. Omega’s anguish and sorrow she forces down and away when Echo leaves, the nervous looks on her face when she watches Wrecker and Tech argue. Crosshair’s silence as he goes about his day in the Empire and tamps down his emotions when he hears about Cody going AWOL, his suicidal ideation to end his life trying to save Omega instead of taking it himself, believing he deserves death. Hunter not asking questions despite not understanding something, waiting for someone else to ask them instead, his quiet yet desperate attempts at muscling through the galaxy and earning credits while looking after his brothers and daughter. Tech catching sight of Phee and immediately glancing away as she approaches because he doesn’t know what to do in such a social situation.

Honestly? Hunter does have a greater potential of turning on his squad than Crosshair does. A. He’s the most like a reg. B. He’s the Sergeant, therefore closer to command than the rest. I mean, imagine if he’d been the one to turn on them, they would’ve collapsed and got caught the exact next time they cross paths (which is, what? Ryloth? Bracca? It’s Bracca). It also would’ve hit them much harder, their leader turning on them in the flash of an eye. Also, feral Hunter?? Hello???

Hunter’s the Sergeant, the leader of Clone Force 99 and the ori’vod, bar Echo, who’s a relatively recent addition. There are many ideas about the 99s childhood, none of them impressive, some with them growing up together since decanting, others with them meeting up later as cadets. Whatever the case, he’s still the firstborn (firstdecant?) and eldest brother, making him the responsible one. He’s supposed to look out for his squad, he’s supposed to keep them safe, protect them and lead them right. With the Empire popping up, and him quickly discovering they can’t work under it without crossing the moral line, they’ve run away and now have to fend for themselves. I honestly see it as a kid suddenly being thrust out of his parent’s home and having to survive in the real world, and in a way? That’s exactly what it is. Only this time, the kid’s got all his little brothers and a baby sister to support and take care of. So Hunter’s under some severe pressure, if I were him, I’d have just had a minor panic in the refresher and a good cry, then popped out and melted down. His situation is hard, like really very hard. These soldiers have had everything provided to them just like that. They’ve never had to earn credits or figure out the world and its ways, because home was Kamino, home from the stars. Even if it was a kriffed up hole of eugenics, murder and abuse. CF99 especially couldn’t have lived a happy child—uhh, cadet-hood, but it was still their base to fall back to.

Speaking of Kamino, when they turn to watch Tipoca City fall, only Omega and Echo seem actually heartbroken. Omega’s face looks kinda conflicted, though it leans more towards sorrow and grief and pain, it does have a hint of confusion as to how she should feel. Echo’s face actually morphs from stubborn resilience to a sorrow that you can see even from far away. But the Batch? There is no remorse in their faces, if anything it borders a ‘good riddance’. They do show some slight concern when Omega comments, but that’s reserved for her alone.

No, but it’s the way Crosshair closes his eyes and leans into the hug with Omega and Hunter in the finale that has me convinced the Batch are all equally tactile.

No, because the first time the Bad Batch are seen on screen, Hunter steps out doing his bad boy pose and cracking his joints all cool like, but then he’s the only one to turn his head to check for the rest of his squad. Like, he’s so proud of them, you can see it in his eyes and smile, even his insults are just pride twisted to seem like teasing.

Watching the Batch in tcw, and wow man.

Hunter nods at Crosshair (you have to really pay attention to see it) after his fight with Rex.

Tech is so much more mouthy and sarcastic and such a little osik-head. He's also a lot more flamboyant, not to mention outright distrustful.

Forget all the stuff people say about Crosshair and Echo. Wrecker was the first one to actually warm up to him, right after they unplugged him on Skako Minor. Bet he planted all those bombs for revenge.

Love Echo’s strength and perseverance, despite all obstacles, be it from an enemy or an ally.

Hunter and Tech side-eyeing each other.

Tech actively mouthing off to Echo, who snarks right back. Bet that was the moment Tech actually decided they were gonna be bffs.

Hunter decided that was the moment he was adopting Echo.

Until destroying the Admiral whatever, the Batch are mostly suspicious of Echo, having once belonged to the seppies.

I didn't like the way it ended. “Your path is different.” Sorry, if I'd just been rescued and I’d just recaptured a planet while severely traumatized, and somebody said that to my face, telling me to leave everyone familiar for them because they know I won't fit in, I would've decked then. Because there's still a chance, Hunter, there's still a chance for things to go back. Or maybe Echo's a lot more emotionally and mentally mature than I am and realized the truth behind the statement.

But there's such a lot of Tech in tcw. And he’s a lot more carefree and charismatic, not to mention arrogant and confident. He’s very certain in the split-second decisions he makes on his own. Also, his colloquialism is adorable, ‘clankers’ ‘yup’ ‘cap’ ‘sarge’.

Hunter’s abilities are seen often here. He stares in the direction of lightning before it flashes. When Echo’s signal reappears, he heads straight for that direction and points at the doorway (though his helmet is off. I wonder if his helmet helps to filter the frequencies and such so that he can’t detect it, because only he had his helmet off in that scene).

Also, Crosshair and Anakin totally became bffs or something on the way to Skako Minor, because he heads off in Anakin’s direction and saves him.

Hunter’s such a goofball, though. He sends Crosshair to check it out, and he snarks, ‘Yeah. It’s a lift.’ ‘Well I already knew that.’ And then Wrecker says something about the lift and he goes, ‘Don’t worry Wrecker, I’ll hold your hand.’ ‘Hey cut it out, Sarge.’

The ‘I want that thing of my ship!’ Hunter sounds genuinely pissed off here. Tech sounds pissed in nearly all his scenes on Anaxes, especially in relation to Echo.

Crosshair shaking his head when Anakin hands Wrecker the detonator. Hunter shaking his head when Tech butts in with a technically.

Hunter telling Rex he hopes he finds what he’s searching for before he follows after Tech to Echo.

Love that moment where Crosshair’s rescued by Howzer and Hunter’s immediately at his other side, one hand at his back and the other supporting his elbow.

I bet Echo saw so much of himself in Emerie. Her eagerness to do the right thing after discovering she’s been used against her brothers this entire time. The fact that she’s willing to spill everything now that she knows the truth.

Looking at a pin of the scene where Rampart mentions Crosshair following orders in the past, and Crosshair reply it depending on who gives the orders. Staring at the comment that says it’s funny how he didn’t say it depends on the orders. Everything that felt strange about the moment makes sense now. I realize why exactly I wanted to see Hunter’s face in this scene.

Because Crosshair is so fiercely loyal so long as that loyalty is returned. So long as there’s a chance for the loyalty to be returned. And something tells me Hunter’s much the same. It’s why Hunter was so brash and abrasive and why he lashed out on Crosshair the moment he got the excuse to: He feels just as betrayed by Crosshair.

They’re so much like each other, such mirrors of each other, it’s what makes the betrayal that each feels the other to blame so much more painful.

And it’s just like them, isn’t it? To point the finger outwards, shoving the blame towards the other if only in word, even when deep down they’re wallowing in their own guilt.

No, no, but it’s the way Crosshair always bows his head when he’s arguing with Hunter. It’s the way he hunches his shoulders and bares his teeth just as Hunter does the same. It’s the way he holds his gaze by lowering his head.

Hunter listens so much. He takes advice, practically gulps it down like a parched man in a desert, when it’s given out to him. He listens so much to Cut especially, watches him so closely to imitate the reg as well as he can (he’s just like me fr). Values and respects the man more than anyone I’ve seen him interact with.

And he’s so earnest with Cut, so ready to offer his services. Same thing with Rex. When Hunter decides he loves you, he will go all out.

Maybe that’s why Crosshair was so put off and affected by the squad ‘leaving him behind’.

Also, saw this pin of Wrecker under the chip glowering up at Tech, the words “It is not something you can control.” over the picture (Rex’s words). And if that just doesn’t tear me up? Because the scene in the mess hall? “Ha! Nothing controls me!” The yelling at Tech? Whom he strangles under the chip’s influence? Wrecker being something you can’t control? The inhibitor chip being something you can’t control? I’m going crazy feral.

Tech and Hunter, the more passive members of the Batch, did not have their chips activate. Yet Crosshair and Wrecker, the ones more likely to throw the first punch/insult, did.

Wrecker and Tech try a decent amount to actually get along with the regs. I’m pretty sure they had more friends amongst the regs than Hunter and Crosshair. They’re just pretty blunt about it, don’t realize or get social cues very well. But they are endearing in their efforts at being themselves and showing off their abilities. It all just gets translated wrongly along the way.

Hunter and Crosshair are openly wary and hostile towards the regs. They seem to be trying far harder to keep their squad closed off and unapproachable than the younger two. Hyper-focused and hyper-aware to body language, posture, tells, all sorts of analyzing, they keep a close eye on anyone who is everyone, because everyone could be a threat. They don’t trust too easily.

Makes me wanna know more about Cody.

No no, it’s the way Cross turns to Hunter when he emphasizes the ‘now’ in “We need to leave. Now.” when he meets the clone assassin. Hunter’s probably the only one in the room he trusts to take him seriously, based off past experience. And it’s all raised eyebrows and wide insistent eyes.

Also this being after Hunter tells Howzer to back down — pretty sure whatever respect he had for the reg went down the drain (or got shoved in a box at least) the moment Howzer kept coming back to jab at Cross. Probably reminded Hunter of their cadet-hood where they were always targeted, so Hunter’s just falling back on his instincts when his temper flares to irritation and anger at Cross’ accusations (only he gets to pick on Cross).

Hunter and Crosshair worry too much about their appearances — the former wants to give an accurate portrayal of himself while the latter wants to give himself away as little as possible. Wrecker and Tech couldn’t care any less about whether they’re bald or not.

We don’t talk enough about that scene on Onderon where Hunter just whips out his blaster and downs the probe droid, aiming right beside Crosshair’s head, and neither of them seem phased by it. Like the amount of trust? The lack of blinking eyes or flinching muscles? Crosshair’s face only slackening and eyes widening as if in slow and lazy surprise and confusion? Beautiful you guys.

Watching these edits and wHAT THE KRIFF ECHO HAD A KNIFE LODGED IN THE BACK OF HIS ARM WHILE HE WAS FIGHTING IN THE TANTISS TRAINING ROOM?!

Fives’ foil being Fox and Hunter’s foil being Crosshair

Ohhhh you wanna know why Cross gave Jesse osik? Because a. He was the one reg in his line of sight (presumably) and b. The Lieutenant’s got a massive karking cog tattooed on his bald head. Y’know, the emblem of the Republic? And what does Crosshair hate the most? That’s right, the kriffing Republic that made their lives shit (in his eyes at least).

Haha Hunter’s main skill being tracking but he still can’t track hIS OWN KRIFFING DAUGHTER I’M GOING INSANE—

Wow does Hunter fight horrifically well :/ like, how did Crosshair ever expect to top that mate?

I bet Hunter was holding back when he and Crosshair were pummeling each other in the training room

[outeremissary]

throwing spaghetti at the wall with this one. Balthazar and Kanerah for the long haul?

Took a moment to sit down and write this out, but finally did!! I'm soooo glad to be asked this because it's a lot of fun to unpack. Uhhh. 1.2k+ words fun, oops

[alternate love interest]

This is one of those things that makes so much sense that I sometimes think it’s only the fact that she’s a DLC character and thus I didn’t have her around until late that meant she didn't actually land as The Love Interest. Kanerah and Balthazar have a lot of really clear things in common- they’re both previously successful social climbers ousted from past grifts by an extraordinary stroke of misfortune that brought everything tumbling down around them, they both have the same sense of superiority and cruel humor, they're urbanites nostalgic for Inner Sea cultures that have some distinct overlap with one another but Not the River Kingdoms, and they’ve both had lives that were defined by negotiating this ugly line between what they wanted and what other people’s expectations meant they could have. There are also clear parallels between the way that they’ve both used being an aasimar to climb in the world: Kanerah with her infiltration of Qadiran high society using an aasimar’s privilege and Balthazar by playing on the idealized and exoticized image that other people had of him as a point of trust and intrigue. Like, here are two people who are incredibly well set up to understand one another. They also did get along really well right away after properly meeting in game- at the very least it’s impossible to imagine them not being friends. They click too well not to be.

At the same time, I think there’s also something kind of thorny about how their experiences echo one another. Balthazar is someone who has a lot of sympathy for tieflings despite not having a lot of close relationships with any in the past; he sees the experiences tieflings have as clear mirrors of his own. Whatever ontological unease her past aasimar hustle might evoke, in the end it makes sense to him and he can easily imagine himself making the same choices. But I think it’s a lot harder to feel that kind of sympathy or mirror-sense when your side of that binary is having been mistreated and marginalized in opposition to uplifted and held as exceptional. It’s a very comfortable cage compared to what she and Kalikke experienced. I think she’s right to see Balthazar as not even fully appreciating what the privilege of being born the way he is has done for him, and perhaps as being too willing to draw uncritical parallels between their experiences that can be shallow and context blind. Like. I see there being a lot of deep rooted cynicism and distrust that would be difficult to overcome to form a deeper emotional bond, and also I Do Not think that is unjustified.

Speaking of barriers to deeper emotional bonds. I think that this is something that’s also actually incredibly strongly influenced by the ruler/vassal power dynamic in a way that a lot of hypothetical relationships would not be!! They’re both pragmatic social climbers with a history of playing roles, but they’re not meeting on equal ground here: Kanerah is looking to secure a position of safety and influence with Balthazar, an inexperienced ruler, through the same methods she’s always used. And I think at a point it’s not really hard to recognize that for him. As much as it’s a first time being subjected to his own playbook, I don’t think that he’s inclined to stop her, just to recognize that she’s playing a role and to know what role she expects him to play opposite that. It’s easy to slip into a script and it’s comfortable to know that he’s finally the one with power in that dynamic. If she wants to be his mistress, she can be his mistress. She’s a fun one, and he gets a lot from her intelligence, her experience, and her more measured approach to things. An advisor and a fling. He can provide her security as long as she wants for that. It’s an arrangement everyone can be happy with.

Another thing that Balthazar and Kanerah share is issues around intimacy and vulnerability. I cannot see Balthazar coming on his own to decide that he needs to really connect with her emotionally or to establish a more open and sincere bond. Even Kalikke’s intervention doesn’t feel like it’s actually going to get him all the way there, because the information that comes out of that is that Kanerah is insecure, and that reassuring her is a good way to cultivate her loyalty. It’s hard to imagine this as a moment of true love triumphing so much as securing a position. It may not do much harm practically speaking, but it’s absolutely manipulative. And I don’t think her finding the ability to be vulnerable would inspire the same in him at all. As long as their dynamic is hierarchical and nothing upsets that, nothing is going to change on that front.

With that said, I could potentially see this eventually developing into a marriage of pragmatic convenience after a point (even if she doesn’t have much reputable background, there’s still social capital to a ruler finding a spouse) that could develop over, y’know, many, many years into a kind of intimacy and fondness. It’s not even close to being an epic romance though.

I’m not sure if it’s ever been said, but on some level I do think that Balthazar would have a lot of difficulty finding love with someone who was really similar to him, and I think that Kanerah illustrates that in really interesting ways. She needs emotional maturity and sincerity that he’s not in a place to offer because he’s too cagey himself, and recognizing himself in her works against forming a deep relationship because it pulls him back towards familiar, predictable dynamics. They have enough differences to allow for some dynamism, and I think that both of them having some understanding of the other’s position and inclinations puts them in a good position to enjoy one another’s company without too much additional baggage or having schisms that they can’t (or won’t) work through. It works, it would be perfectly enjoyable, and also there’s a reason besides arriving later that Kanerah’s friends with benefits situation didn’t survive Tristian. Tristian is less easy to read, less easy to maneuver around, less simple to fit into a pattern. Tristian has always challenged Balthazar, even well before there were feelings between them, and the dramatics inevitably involved in being entangled with Tristian drag things out of Balthazar that couldn’t have come out on their own. And while I do see Tristian and Balthazar as sharing some rather important traits, I think that they’re not like what Balthazar shares with Kanerah where Balthazar already knows and is comfortable with that part of himself. Understanding and connecting with Tristian forces Balthazar to face parts of himself that he’s afraid to acknowledge. It’s really kind of interesting the ways that Kanerah is the less intense romance that ultimately leads to less legendary places because a relationship with her would genuinely work too well.

Anyway. Strong 8/10, I think it would be fun, I think it easily has the potential to last, and I think it could bring some interesting growth to both of them, it’s just missing a little extra spark of “you two are making each other crazy in ways that should be actually fucking illegal” to bring it to the next level.

[dotthings]

The premiere of Gotham Knights was highly enjoyable as a tv show, plus being a batfamily fan I've got some tasty layers to unpack. This show clearly was crafted by people who have thought a lot about the batfamily characters and there are some really intriguing analogues, parallels, and echoes in the mix.

The gravitas centerpiece here really is Misha's portrayal of Harvey and he's showing what spn fans have known for years, how good Misha is at putting humanity on screen, opening himself up raw to it, and this time a character far more facile and fluid in his expressing of emotions (and knowing where this goes, far more volatile too). There's a genuine goodness and gentleness and sense of justice in Harvey that's going to make what's coming all that much more painful. Misha's showing both the compassion and the "hard charging" sense of command. I'm all tingly.

Another thought on Harvey and his roles: There's no Alfred in GK and there being no Jim Gordon either and the loss of both makes it a much darker AU to me. (And Cressida is not filling the hole no Alfred leaves). Who is bringing the notes that I would expect from Jim Gordon or from Alfred Pennyworth is Harvey Dent. Harvey, like Jim, one of the few decent people in a corrupt Gotham system, and a corrupted GCPD, who loves Bruce, and they worked together in their hopes for a better Gotham. Harvey's giving Turner emotional support, filling the Alfred role, Harvey's similar to Jim Gordon, a decent person trying to hold back the flood, and logistically Harvey might also wind up fulfilling the Jim Gordon role for the new batkids, a contact inside who can help them.

Carrie Kelley knows how to make an entrance. "He called me his little robin." She saved Batman, literally, Robins also save Bruce emotionally, so he's not doing this alone, and Carrie acted in that role too. They clearly were close, she is another adopted kid. I'm hoping we'll get to learn more about that relationship. How she became his eyes and ears. I LOVE HER. She is my favorite of the kids so far, although I think all the batkids are appealing. And like some other Robins, she vigilantes without becoming what Bruce became, without living in shadows. She doesn't seem eaten by the darkness. By whatever drives her to do this. Which may be why Bruce let her in and trained her. He needed the light by his side.

That line where Carrie tells Turner that Bruce said Turner was his hero caught at my heart. Bruce didn't want Turner to go down his path into the shadows. It seems this Bruce was scared of the darkness in himself. And maybe was scared of it taking over Turner because his parents were murdered, like Bruce's were. Turner has a little bit of echo for Dick Grayson--Dick uses the shadows, he doesn't live there like his adopted father does. Bruce shielded Turner to try to protect that light, similarly to how Bruce admired and was drawn to that aspect of Dick. There's a sad irony but also a hopeful note in the fact that despite Bruce's efforts, Turner won't be able to escape the bat legacy after all, however Turner is imo going to follow Dick's path. So even as he takes on the role of the vigilante, he's not going to let the darkness swallow him up the way Bruce feared it would if he brought Turner into the batcave. Why was Bruce so afraid of Turner letting the darkness eat him, maybe because Turner's background is so similar to his own. He projected onto Turner and feared Turner becoming exactly like him.

The pace and fight scenes moved along at a very good clip and I'm loving the gothic feel of it and the set decoration. The belfry is every bit as beautiful as I hoped.

Harper doing anything to protect her brother, and Cullen being very capable of taking care of himself and everyone else. I'm loving the Row siblings.

Duela is really really FUN. I expected to like her and I do. Also Harley Quinn exists in this world, presumably she's not dead like the Joker. No idea if Harley would ever get released to appear in GK but I am immensely intrigued by Duela's resentment of Harley while she's a bit like her. More hard-bitten, less idealistic. Even after she ditches Joker and chooses to be, well, more good than she was, if not exactly no longer villainous, Harley still has an idealism. Duela's outlook on the world is darker than Harley's.