#they are PROBABLY a metaphor for problems I have but lets not unpack that now

[a-crowcats-nonsense]

VESTA!!!!

A mix of various anthro species (lizard, owl, lynx, and goat... a variant on the classic chimera), sewn together and brought to life by an unknown entity. They've devoted their life to cataloging information about quite literally anything they can find, and write it down in various journals using their own venom as an ink. Due to, you know, being various pieces of a corpse sewn together and brought back to life with magic, their nerve endings are kind of not functional so they just. don't feel pain. or like any physical sensation lets be honest.

Can you tell they were an edgy roleplay oc from when I was younger? Anyways I still love them so so much augh I'm actually using them for a current roleplay!

pixel render is slightly more correct as for the limbs but it lacks the cape so we post both.

[sevensoulmates]

7x05 Buddie Meta "You Don't Know Me" Part 1 (of 4)

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Welp. I'm back at it again with the four-part metas. I was hoping this one wouldn't take too long but alas there was even more to unpack in this episode than last episode.

Fair warning my meta does contain speculation, and is very much my opinion/interpretation. I will be diving into my personal opinions about Eddie's sexuality and marriage to Shannon here. My headcanon is that Eddie is a repressed gay man, not bisexual, and I believe that while he did love Shannon, he was not in love with her and their marriage was something they were pressured into and was not healthy for either of them. I do my best to look at these topics in a nuanced light, but if you are sensitive to reading opinions that differ from yours I'm warning you of mine now. Let's begin!

Taylor Wong is nothing if not an amazing comedy writer. This call didn't end up being as psychological as I may have hoped but it still acts as an interesting parallel and metaphor. "I'm the Boss of Me!" is the tagline for a self-control conference and Buck and Eddie being the ones hurt here. How they got hurt is interesting too and reflects their exact conflicts in this episode.

Buck is being choked, stopping his ability to breathe but also his ability to talk. In the context of this episode, his inability to bring himself to tell Eddie the truth weighs on him--chokes him with guilt-- until he finally does come clean near the end, and only then is he able to exhale again. For Eddie, his being grabbed by the crotch is funny, but it's also an indicator of his storyline in this episode too. He deals with sexual dysfunction because learning about Marisol being a nun makes him feel so deeply uncomfortable that the idea of being with her sexually disgusts him and stops him from having a functioning sex life. For both of them, the pain and discomfort still linger even after the claw arm guy lets him go, but my hope is that this is indicative that one day both of them will get clarity and be set free too.

"Keeping our options open" is a call back to the last episode where Buck says he's "keeping his options fluid". Whereas the last episode it seemed to be more about sexuality, options open with men and women, this time it seems to be about something else. Maybe it's an indicator of Buck keeping his options open with different people? Which is interesting considering who pops up a second later.

This is part of why I think it's a good idea they're having Buck get used to queerness with another man other than Eddie. I feel like if Buck had discovered his queerness with Eddie, these kinds of issues might've been blown out of proportion on both of their ends and probably caused much MUCH bigger problems. Allowing Buck the chance to work through this with someone safer was a good bet.

Additionally, I find it interesting here that both Buck and Eddie are dealing with external and internal conflicts that mirror each other in this episode. In this instance, it's the fear of being Perceived. For Eddie, being perceived by God. For Buck, being perceived by Heteronormative Society at large.

This would be an adjustment for anyone, so I don't necessarily think Buck is dealing with internalized homophobia that's too detrimental. I think it's more so he needs an adjustment period and needs to figure out why he's uncomfortable. Is it the idea of being perceived as queer by others? Is it the idea of being perceived as queer by Eddie? Is it the fact that you are on a date with a man? Or is it because you're not sure if you're on a date with the right man? More on this when we get to his scene with Maddie.

Now I had a strong feeling that Tommy was going to be someone who only figured out who he was later in life too. And it seems a lot of that was due to his past, possibly how he grew up, and being in the 118 under Gerard who was every "ist" in the book. It goes to show how far Tommy has come and also proves to be interesting if we keep thinking of Tommy as a parallel to Eddie. I also had a feeling that Tommy was going to lean slightly more toward the gay side (though he's purposefully unlabeled which is fair).

To me, the phrase "lying about who I was" seems to align more with someone who is into men and not into women, but that's just my interpretation. Especially because in the next moment, Buck says that he's not lying about how he is, which is more in line with the bisexual experience.

Because Buck isn't lying. He was always/still currently is attracted to women, and is only just now discovering a new aspect of himself with his attraction to men. Whereas Tommy seems to be implying that when he was with women he was lying to himself about his attraction to them. Sound like anyone else we know?

Additionally, we have another call back to 7x04 (plus a myriad of other episodes) where Buck "makes it about him" when Tommy was really just trying to tell Buck more about himself, not imply that Buck was also lying. I'm going to give Buck some grace here because this is all new for him, so I understand his hyper-sensitivity. But it is once again showing another instance of Buck failing to really connect with Tommy about something related just to Tommy. Last episode, every conversation they had always found its way back to Eddie or was about Buck's feelings regarding what was happening. This time, when Tommy tries to be vulnerable and connect with Buck, Buck makes it about him and it feels like a misconnection (like how I predicted with the missed hand grab in 7x03 with Tommy and Buck trying to connect, but something always not quite hitting the intended target).

If down the road we see Tommy's (abridged) story about "lying to himself" come to fruition in a similar light with Eddie's storyline I'm going to be delighted. Here Buck is out on a date with a man who the last episode spent the entire time telling us was extremely similar to Eddie, only to have Tommy align perfectly with a lot of our headcanons about Eddie's sexuality too. I think this is something to stick a pin in to come back to later for sure.

Oh, Buck. OH, baby bi Buck. My heart aches for you and my body cringes. He's obviously on edge, but Eddie showing up just makes it worse. Buck immediately tries to no homo not just himself, but Tommy as well, stating that they're going to go find some "hot chicks" to pick up. Eddie makes a face, obviously picking up on the weirdness of Buck's statement (because "picking up chicks" is wildly out of character for current Buck and has been for years) but he's too distracted with Marisol to dig any deeper into it. He believes it very easily instead of stopping to question why else these two men might be on what looks like an intimate date. Tommy looks hurt, and I feel bad for him, but this was obviously his breaking point, and I can understand why.

I want to briefly touch on Eddie and the way he was speaking about Marisol throughout the entire episode separately from the whole nun thing. I found this piece of dialogue so odd here, because in general this isn't really how Eddie talks, it doesn't feel natural for him, but at the same time, it also harkens back to some of his horrendous dialogue with Ana back in season 5. "This hot chick already found her firefighter" "Spank me with a ruler" "kinda naughty" "Grade me on a curve" "Maybe you need to keep me after class", etc.

I've always wondered why Eddie starts talking like this about or with his girlfriends. I was discussing it with my roommate and she said to her it sounded like an "8th grade boy sitting with his guy friends trying to talk up how he banged some chick when really it's just a ploy to make himself look good to the boys and like he's more sexually active than he actually is for social clout". And you know what? I think that's exactly what it is. Eddie speaking like this feels like overcompensation on so many levels (not to mention Marisol looks lowkey uncomfortable here, that smile is fake af). Trying to make himself seem way more into sex or kinky things (like roleplaying with a teacher or nun) than he actually is. The dialogue is cringey and Ryan overacts it because the audience isn't supposed to feel comfortable with it. It's not supposed to feel natural. It's not supposed to endear us to the couple, it's meant to feel out of place and wrong because Eddie being with Ana and Marisol was and is out of place and wrong. It feels like a performance to us because IT IS A PERFORMANCE.

This is only enhanced by the new jarring information that Eddie has apparently asked Marisol to move in with him (offscreen). Keep in mind that they've been together for (I'm assuming) less than six months, he obviously didn't discuss it with anyone since both Tommy, Buck, and Bobby later are surprised. Christopher is also noticeably absent from this episode which leads me to believe he likely didn't really discuss it with him beforehand. This choice feels simultaneously like an OOC choice AND so very in character.

It's OOC because Eddie has stated that he doesn't like performing, he doesn't want a "ready-made family" and one would think that he would sit and contemplate this seriously given that if something goes wrong, he's providing another example of a failed relationship to his son. Not to mention that living with your parent's girlfriend is a huge thing. I've been through that process before in my own life with my mom and it's really only something you do if you're really committing to a person for the long haul because that's the message that sends to your kids.

But at the same time, this is also so severely in character for Eddie. As is pointed out later, he got married to Shannon because he was guilted into it, he dated Ana because he was pressured into it, and then overcommitted to her far too fast. And now he's doing the same thing with Marisol. This is very much a PATTERN for Eddie. Maybe, as this episode suggests, it's a facet of Catholic guilt that pushes Eddie to move way too fast in his relationships. Or maybe, Eddie finds the idea of being settled with a woman comforting, and he'd be okay sacrificing his happiness and settling with any woman as long as he got to have that comforting facade. All of this points to very obvious compulsory heterosexuality for me. More on this later.

I'm going to talk more about the way the show is choosing to use physical objects, Marisol's things, as a metaphor for who Marisol is, and Eddie's willingness to receive/learn about them as a literary device later. For now, I wanna talk about the exchange of Eddie being the one to bring up "closet space", Tommy being the one to say "Aint't that the truth" and point it towards Buck, who hammers it home with his "bro" line. I find it interesting that they had Eddie say this line, when it very easily could've been Marisol (after all it is her armoire) with Tommy in the middle. Tommy (IMO) is in the center of these two men's queer realization arc. The more subtle one in the earliest stages (Eddie) and the more present one (Buck). The way all of them volleyed this dialogue felt like I was watching a choreographed play, and the lines landed perfectly.

This is also the third line in five episodes specifically poking at Eddie possibly being queer alongside Tommy and Buck. "I've never seen a man turn off a woman with such skill. it's a gift" "you both like to watch half-naked men pummel each other" and now this. "You can never have enough closet space" suggesting that not only was there Tommy in the closet in the past, Buck in the closet recently (and somewhat presently given that Buck just shoved himself and Tommy back into it), and Eddie right now still deep in that closet. Hopefully, there's enough space for all y'all!

I very much liked how this went down. Tommy has a right to break things off if the person he's with clearly exhibits weirdness around being out with you. I don't blame him for his choice here. I like that he's also not making it about the fact that's he inexperienced. Additionally, I think this is another instance of Tommy witnessing something weird between Buck and Eddie, and I'm not sure how much of that he's picking up on, or if he thinks it's generally about being perceived as queer, or just needing to slow things down and process before he actually starts a relationship with a man. All are valid, but I think it's just interesting that a lot of it had to do with Eddie yet again, and I wonder how much of that Tommy is aware of.

From the start of this conversation with Maddie, Buck makes it seem like the thing that's making him uncomfortable most is the fact that he lied to Eddie about the truth of his date with Tommy. Obviously, he's not going to immediately jump into telling Maddie the truth, and he's gotta start the conversation somewhere, but I do find it interesting that rather than seeking her advice on "how to get his date back" he instead is seeking advice on why he lied to Eddie and can't bring himself to tell him the truth.

This could be deflecting because he's not yet ready to tell Maddie. Or it could be the truth that all of this angst may stem from him still trying to get comfortable in his queerness. But the main issue that isn't sitting right with his soul is that he lied to Eddie, that he's hiding a fundamental piece of the truth of who he is from Eddie. Because to Buck it is unthinkable that Eddie doesn't always know the whole truth, all of who Buck is, at all times. At this point in their relationship, they're supposed to know everything about each other, and yet something about sharing this part of himself with Eddie in particular scares him. Could it possibly be that he's aware that sometimes "straight" men get weird around their queer male friends? Could it be that he thinks his relationship with Eddie would be negatively effected if he told Eddie this truth? I will touch more on this later. But for now, Buck makes it clear that his interest isn't wholly in getting Tommy back right now. It's making sure that all is right in his relationship with Eddie.

Once again, this choice by the writers to center Eddie in every step of the way of Buck's queer realization journey is telling. Especially given that he's able to tell Maddie without ~too~ much struggle.

I understand where Buck is coming from. It's again distancing himself from Tommy, trying to get her advice about Eddie. But also, it's an attempt by him to normalize him going on a date with a man, which should be normal, but it's not in Buck's personal historical normal.

Buck wants to believe that because he was an "ally" that that means he'd just be automatically okay with dating a man right away. But I think he's trying to push himself at a speed faster than he's comfortable with (which he again does at the end by inviting Tommy to Madney's wedding) and needs to realize that he can slow down, which is a parallel with Eddie the whole episode. Which is why I think Tommy was right to step back and give him some time. The other part that is interesting is that Buck once again appears confused about the truth of his feelings, similar to the last episode and I just find it interesting in this scene where Buck and Maddie are once again talking about Eddie at her house, it's once again ambiguous if the subject Buck's really hung up on is Tommy....or Eddie. Both are true at the same time.

Go to part 2!

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

[rotationalsymmetry]

My immediate thoughts on the ending of the golden enclaves (spoilers):

I'm happy that El finally figured out how to not only accept her allies sticking with her in a crisis, but actually ask them to. Personal growth!

I do not understand the thing with Orion, but whatever, it's a fantasy story, I'll roll with it. In terms of understanding the plot at least. I'm not sure how I feel about "Orion really did have a monster inside of him that could have destroyed everything, but then it got killed and now he's fine." Wut. It helps that he seems to basically be the same person after. If he'd gone through some sort of personality makeover I would have lost it.

I find it hilarious that El was trying to get Orion to face his supposed trauma as a way of avoiding dealing with her own and her mom absolutely caught on to it. Very human.

I think there's something probably deeply symbolic about El combining the three spells there, I'm not up for unpacking it all but including the Scholomance "shelter all the wise-gifted children of the world" thing but making it real very much reminds me of this poem by Langston Hughes. The whole, it wasn't true but it was a good idea so let's make it true. On that note I imagine Orion is thrilled that he gets to stay in his favorite place and do his favorite activity forever. (Or as long as he lives? I'm not sure whether he's going to end up with a normal human lifespan or not.) And he'll get to see his favorite human at least some of the time.

I don't think I mentioned this earlier, but Orion being afraid he'd drain El's mana is more poignant in retrospect. Apparently there was actually a real risk there.

In terms of real world analogs, I think replacing the enclaves with golden stone enclaves works well as a metaphor for "the capitalist system is fucked up, but if you just tear it all down without a replacement, people will die." I know I was cheering for the burn it all down approach earlier, but the book did in fact do a solid job of showing the problems with that. Little 13 or 14 year old coming home from walking her grandmother's dog and everyone's just gone. Ay.

I'm very happy they found a way to cast the spells that do not rely on El having once in a millennium powers. Ideally they'd also find a way to get rid of maw-mouths that doesn't rely on her once a Millenium powers, but whatever.

I probably would have rolled with it if they'd broken the how enclaves are made news to the world and there was some massive outcry, but I do find it satisfyingly realistic that it's not that simple.

I am still confused about the Orion thing. That one kid from Argentina was OK because his shield was still mostly up. Lu was OK (ish) because the spell had been interrupted. But if someone really did have that done to them, before they were even born, that shouldn't actually be survivable, should it? But if Orion didn't survive, he shouldn't have been a person and he was a person. I don't get it. Gah.

Complaints aside, the ending does work for me. I'm buying it. I'm enjoying El eating edamame with Orion and having birds and butterflies in place of falling snake-things and finally admitting something is nice (personal growth). And it does feel like she's not entirely happy yet, she's not entirely content yet, but she wants to be and she's moving in that direction. I think she's getting there.

And I'm glad El got to reunite with her father's family. I wouldn't blame her if she never forgave Deepthi. But I think it's cool she did, and it really does sound like there weren't better options.

Speaking of lack of better options, it's aggravating that Ophelia made Domina, but...it's consistent with the book's themes that that happened and it doesn't prevent the happy ending. It's not about taking down a specific bad guy, or bad woman as the case may be. It's dealing with systemic bullshit, and actually El can do that without taking Ophelia out. Nice parallel to Liesel letting go of her revenge quest too.

I figure there's a much longer thing to be written about pacifism and themes in the scholomance, but for now: sometimes people get this weird idea that anyone committed to non-violence or anything similar, like not seeking revenge, must have had an incredibly sheltered life with no real problems. Anyways. El is definitely not that. She did have an especially kind mother, but that mother also didn't have a particularly sheltered life and she chose that path anyways. I approve of that narrative choice. (And it doesn't feel like it's floating out in nowhere either. It's grounded, like Avatar the Last Airbender is grounded, in showing all the characters as people. In ATLA, people in the Fire Nation are people, farmers and criminals and guerrilla fighters and soldiers are people, Ozai is a massive dick with an appalling absence of checks on his power but he's still a person. And every time El doesn't like someone, because of their privilege or because they're a jerk, she ends up seeing a different side of them, a way that they're vulnerable or have been hurt, a generous and giving or heroic side to them. Everyone gets to be a person. We don't see enough behind Ophelia's mask I think to really see what kind of person she is (we see more of what's his name, Shanghai Guy's) but we can reasonably assume that she is a person whose motives at least make sense to her.

[yalkini]

II2 EP 15 Thoughts and Observations

Because I really need to get this down and thought it'd be fun to get other opinions. So yeah its been 5 days but just in case. Spoilers duh.

0:02 - Taco seems to have lol idk how to say this but authorized herself onto Mepad like idk system restart i don’t know how electronics work but clearly this resets when she dies

0:16 - i didn’t really pick this up the other times i’ve watched but why does Mepad want to meet Taco in the first place? everyone knows about what she did last season and really it is in his best interest to not interact with her as an assistant. Plus his want to help comes during the events of the episode (he gets really attached) So i’m intrigued Mepad. why?

0:23 - hehehe this callback to to funny to just gloss over it. plus Taco’s reaction is golden

0:48 - Taco gets lonely. okay but like it makes sense since she was outcasted by everyone she knows but she also chooses people (Mic and Mepad) for her own gain, but they are also people who don’t know much about her. but also since she messed up with mic she feels like she cant go back insert tacos tirade

1:24 - when this is the most united the grand slams have been and they aren’t even in teams anymoreeeee

1:54 - gotta love lightbulb here cause compared to the grand slams the bright lights know how to talk, confront, solve problems and they grow from it. ill talk more about it when lightbulb gets eliminated and the hotel scene

1:58 - ahahaahah that look they gave to each other is so good cause lets face it the situation was not the same - as suitcase elaborates during the challenge but a fun little nod to it

2:02- when lightbulb reacts to ‘team’s gone’ - especially cause that’s where her insecurities lie - but gotta love that baseball’s trying to cheer her up

2:14 - oof the guilt on baseball’s face after ‘close with your allies’ but also again more contrast bt the grand slams and the bright lights - lightbulb never uses the word allies. she calls them her friends. while the grand slams really focused on the alliance they had though it really was only baseball nickel and suitcase. which is probably why suitcase focuses on what allies are supposed to be for far too long that and well it takes her 4 episodes to really answer knife. even with balloon when he gets eliminated, she characterizes his actions as something an ally would do even though they were also friends. basically suitcase has like no friends. that’s what i got out of this apparently.

2:46 - lol knife you can answer one of those questions

2:59 - realizing we see a lot of knife’s guilty face this ep

3:11 - ik suitcase is hyperventilating here but the green outline for invisibility is cool

3:22 - its literally paintbrush coloreddddd sobbing

4:28 - hahaha lightbulb you have no idea. so much foreshadowing peeps. so much

4:48 - ljhaujdivjkaouhdfjkan tacos tirade oh boy there’s too much here to unpack i had to look up so many words thank you cakebrunch for storyboarding this

5:07 - pfffftttt lightbulb i love you girl

5:31 - ‘i wont live in the past….. uh huh taco. yeah right

5:53 - “and we lose more than we gain. taco losing the two people who she cared about - also mic doesn’t have the gain on her back which is funny. but yeah basically taco saying that this games costs friendships which she reiterates during the challenge

6:14 - she has given up on the prize now after what was desperation of last episode

6:35 - lowkey mepad doesn’t really answer tacos question here. but he is indeed right. i feel like the things mepad says could have a bunch of different meanings, not sure how right they are but observations none the less. “incapable of starting over” could be a metaphor for revival based on the previous lines. but also since he’s just really observing taco just stating the truth and she can just start over, which he elaborates during his part of the duet. however the fact he says ‘i don’t know who you lost’ feels more like “oh taco lost someone who couldn’t get revived, which feeds into his “of course not” beforehand but also his whole thing with marshmallow. and lowkey it doesn’t have to go down the permadead route either, despite bow being dead she still exists and marshmallow found a way back to her and honestly, ‘is it not possible to get them back’ most likely means to mepad at least, ‘can you not just talk to them again’. But with taco, no matter what she does and she knows this, she can never go back to the way it was with pickle or with mic which segue back to the song—

6:55 - hahahahaha mepads partttttt its actually really interesting bc the more he trys to console her the more info he gets about taco. ‘the whole slate has fallen apart-taco that is not true there are other ways to’ (i presume fix it)’ its too late-its not to late- for me to restart’ (its here where mepad probably learns the severity of what taco has done so instead he) ‘lettuce taco bout it…’ sorry bad joke. basically mepad really wants to help taco and she’s why too riled up right now especially considering she’s just singing about how terrible the game is, so mepad is like’ lets talk after you’ve calmed down.’ can’t tell if ‘you’re no menace’ is supposed to be comforting or truthful but its probably both since mepad’s saying it. and well ‘how did they hurt you’ feels like a response to taco after she’s like’ but its not i its they….. spiel.’ ‘please think this through’- why does it sound like ‘please think about taking one therapy session with me. it’ll do you good’

7:20 - hahahaha foreshadowing to our finalists ey - and insert a free session of mepad’s therapy ‘healing is a process’ as we see the cracks form in tacos shell hahaah. well i guess dying and getting revived was a process but yeah not the kind mepad’s thinking of. anyways taco is lowkey ranting at the contestants which is hilarious as mepad’s there trying to help her. and again she continues this sentiment during the challenge

7:41 - ‘all the beans that get spilled wont be mine’ - again the challenge but also i would like to add that this episode made me realize that taco has what i assume is meat inside her and i thought all this time she was just lettuce and tomatoes. i even had to look at the plushie and low and behold there is meat. but then i was talking to a friend about how it would be funny if it were beans bc… well of this line and bc she’s british… so yeah haha

7:48 - ‘no i’m fine’ mepad’s little lean over to say something is everything to me but i really think he would have just said ‘but you aren’t fine. clearly your crack is affecting you but taco just shushes him hahahaha

8:22 - so like i wonder what questions mephone would have asked. because i don’t think he would’ve went down the whole twisted therapy session. but i also cant bring myself to see him ask stupid questions either…

8:37 - i really like how we get to see knifes reaction bc from his perspective, mic left bc of taco so he thought he was done with that drama as he so says, so when taco appears he’s just like ‘ what the heck why are you here i thought this was over with’

9:12 - ‘what are you doing’ i kinda forgot that mephone doesn’t know that taco basically kidnapped mepad so to him its like mepad left him to help her which at least by mepad’s answer makes it plausible

its challenge timeeeeee

10:04 - look how defensive knife is about all this bc taco will expose everything and everyone well… mostly him and he realizes quickly that she is targeting him

11:49 - i love this especially with the fact it comes right after lightbulb’s, well her first question anyways. bc baseball’s advice for lightbulb really hit for her like immediately but nickel’s reassurance for baseball has never felt true bc of what happens in his team. baseball even says that he missed everything that was going on in his team and that’s because baseball, i think anyways is pretty selfish. i’ll touch more about this during his elimination but he doesn’t want to admit that he’s a bad team leader, which is why he gets this outburst when the platform lowers and while bad team leader doesn’t necessarily have to equate to putting the team ahead of himself, except it does bc it mattered to nickel and it matters to suitcase. baseball needs validation. its easiest to see this through nickel and suitcase where nickel just gives it to him and baseball seeks it out from suitcase but most of all he doesn’t want to get his feelings hurt and we see what happens when it does so he needs someone to blame which was suitcase and then mephone but never himself

12:04 - there’s a good comment about how everyone answers i thought it was pretty high up but it might’ve dropped or its just me being blind but knife twists tacos words bc he doesn’t want to give anything up. but also this is just him retaliating against taco, him trying to find the loopholes of her questions to keep him save in the game and to the others

12:47 - pftttttttttttt tacos too proud of herself

12:53 - ill talk about suitcase eventually i swear but here’s just more of baseball being in denial ‘suitcase doesn’t care about’ what? who? testtube? who knows but also baseball speaking for suitcase like he knows her. he doesn’t. and he’s trying to justify himself through suitcase which is like huh. so yeah baseball here just cant admit his wrongdoings at the moment. ‘victim of circumstance’ here we have baseball pushing the blame onto maphone hurray even though was was partly at fault yayyyy

13:50 - hehe lightbulb raises her hand and foot okay but yeah. while knife lightbulb and suitcase’s choices make ‘sense i don’t really understand baseball’s? is it just so he can try to justify himself more? bc that’s what i’m getting from him

16:03 - its funny because they both describe the other like that but don’t really see themselves like that also love that we actually don’t see the answer suitcase gives but we know what it is. but it also shows how knife cares for suitcase to an extent that not even baseball gives (bc he really mostly cares about his feelings) and why suitcase eventually chooses knife for the final 2

16:38 - suitcase its time. so clearly suitcase is not ready to talk about it but she’s not going to back down either. ‘i see weird things like that all the time’ i like to think that she still has her back turned towards taco and is talking to the fire and turns around when she says hallucinations. i feel like that hits harder bc not only is she putting herself out there in front of everyone, this is the first time she actually says it and accepts it herself. and then she becomes so done with everything. such a mood. oh boy here we go with baseball againnnn just mentioning it bc this ties to his elimination

17:23 - tacos tirade pt 2

17:49 - gotta love how mephone is literally just sitting on the floor like a kid observing all this therapy session when he’s the one who needs it the most

18:05 - oh you knowwww just makes a whole new season and gets even more traumatized

18:51 - when it looks like knife and suitcase are giving each other another look okay this one is probably more incidental bc here tacos speaking from experience go figure. but it really only feels like knife got bridges burnt here after tacos questions. since well suitcases were burnt long before that…

19:05 - haha gonna learn something from season 3 buddy or what. i would love to talk about tacos speech but dang it feels like there is no explanation needed

19:42 - hello i wont live in the past taco so here’s i wont face my past taco instead. taco cracks bc she cant face her truths. she hides away from them. the real question is who taco thinks is coming but honestly it really could only be pickle. mic is the one who left her and i feel like she could explain herself, probably not in front of a crowd but this is an extreme reaction and well, knife knows more about taco than most

20:17 - mephoneeeeeeee noooooooooo

20:28 - THE PAINTBRUSH SIGNAL EVERYONEEEEE. so lightbulb talks about saving taco twice here and in the hotel but like are they actually going to do that that would be insane. anyways the bright lightssss ahhhhhh you guys are toooooo wholesomeeeee so back to lightbulbs insecurities about herself and her team. i love you bright lights the healing environment is too real. anyways the way lightbulb has to ask painty ‘like actually’ just to make sure its true and obviously it is. and when paintbrush tries to leave ‘there is nothing i want more than to win this game’ bc all lightbulb wants is to reunite with her friends again and it to adorable and shows how close the bright lights are and i’m going to talk even more about them

21:47 - mephone you are not fooling anyone

22:22 - ‘allies give you strength’ and while lightbulb doesn’t really categorize the lights as allies they are her friends and oh boi here it comes… to clarify i’ll be talking about the team composition from like kick the bucket or something. so anyways this line lightbulb says really rings true for all of the eliminations of the bright lights and there’s also the fact that, with the exception of fan, but that gets fixed later on cause his arc wasn’t done yet, none of them left alone. so let’s start with marsh. so obviously marsh left the show for bow. bow gave her the strength to do that and brought apple along. then with paintbrush, they left with baxter. fan well officially goes with testtube and lightbulb with paintbrush. arent they all cuteeeee we love their consistency. butt also each bright light elimination arc ends really nicely and its too wholesome

22:39 - mepad can teleport by himself bc taco died ? also i like how he teleports them up on a truth platform also i wonder how the melifetm app organizes the players cause its not alphabetical or by deaths. the way he has to clarify my show, he does it again later

24:03 - ‘for your approval’ where have we heard that before hmmmmm. yeah the wording here really brings back memories doesn’t it

24:13 - ‘i hate you’ mephone just drowning it out this guy

24:22 - baseball again with pushing the blame

25:12 - the way baseball smiles after the platform rises like his truth is going to fix something.

25:19 - so these close ups. baseball knows she’s not going to choose him. and then there knife who’s nervous for like the first time in his life and is surprised when she chooses him hahaha but hey after a couple episodes suitcase finally answers knife “what is an alliance to you”

25:39 - this has the same feeling as walking on ice around someone that has anger issues except its her anxiety. and while its a nice sentiment for her to not explain herself bc she doesn’t have to, baseball seems to say this for himself not for suitcase. baseball doesn’t want to hear the truth from her mouth. he doesn‘t want to face it bc he knows he was in the wrong and wants to preserve his feelings. he does get better though he finally confronts it in front of lightbulb bc she knows nothing about the grand slams so honestly just being away from the game can really help him learn to grow from his mistakes

26:18 - mepad giving taco strength to finish things though.

26:55 - they’re allianemies

27:10 - oh mephone. next episode you’ll get the closure and therapy you deserve. i hope.

final thoughts/ tldr

i bash on baseball too much for no reason, suitcase and knife become friends, lightbulb finally reunites with her team, taco and mepad are going to finish things, and mephone needs therapy.

the grand slams were always about the playing the game while the bright lights were about the experience and the connections and the friends along the way

and finally based on 4 episodes of Inanimate Battle… Knife be winning

I dont think any of this made sense but hey lets discuss. I spent 3 days on this... brain be fried

[renaerys]

PPG One-Shot: Spelling Bee (Brick/Blossom)

Happy birthday to @genovah​! She is always inspiring me to come up with more PPG content, a true hero. I’m back with another entry in the ongoing Shooketh, Not Stirred high school AU Reds series for your entertainment. As always, this can be read alone, but it happens in the same universe as part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5. This is also posted on my AO3.

Summary: Brick and Blossom hunker down in the library to study for the upcoming regional spelling bee.

***Reblogs are extremely appreciated, since this probably won’t show up in the tags due to cursing. Thank you! <3

xxx

In fairness, Brick had come to the library during his free period with the pure intention to learn. And he was certainly learning something. But somewhere between sliding into his seat opposite Blossom and watching her lips move around insouciant as if it were a strawberry slathered in ganache, his purity was torn from his weak, teenage boy fingers and there was absolutely no going back. 

“Brick, are you listening to me?” She touched his hand across the table. 

“Yup.”

“Did you need me to repeat the word?”

“Yup.”

“In-SOO-see-uhnt.” She sounded it out slowly, and hand to god, that dominating SOO went straight to his cock.

This, of course, was fine. 

“Origin?” he asked. 

She twirled her hair around her finger and puckered her lips. “French.”

Fuck.

“I…”

Blossom mistook his increasingly horny stupor for plain old stupor and sighed. “Are you even trying? Because if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were completely fine with Darla Dimpleton going to regionals instead of one of us.”

“I am not fine with that.”

Darla Dimpleton was an unassuming, unthreatening nobody with the personality of plain oatmeal. Brick would never have even bothered to learn her name had she not committed the cardinal sin of scoring so much extra credit while everyone else was busy having lives that she stole the number one GPA right from under him. Which meant she stole it from under Blossom too. Which meant Brick was no longer a respectable silver medal to Blossom’s gold, but currently ranked third and therefor merely happy to be on the podium at all (and for the record, no one has ever been happy merely to be on the podium, just like no one has ever been happy winning Most Improved: you sucked, and now you suck a little less. Except this time, you actually suck more because Darla fucking Dimpleton decided to Quaker Oats her way to the top of this rat race that doesn’t actually matter, but it’s the principle of the thing, i.e., the only thing that matters.). 

All of this to say, Darla Dimpleton was the Worst™ and she was one hundred percent going down. 

“Are you sure? Because you’re being awfully cavalier about this. Some might even call you insouciant.”

It was a testament to Brick’s powerful fondness for winning and being seen doing it that he spelled insouciant in one Darla Dimpleton-shaped cock blocking breath.

Blossom smiled like she knew something. “Much better.”  

Yeah, she knows a lot of things.

The problem with dating, Brick was convinced, was that suddenly the mundane became extraordinary. Everyday experiences that he had previously taken for granted—flying around Townsville, enjoying a cup of coffee, thwarting his sometimes murderous demonic overlord from distributing incriminating polaroids, that sort of thing—were suddenly exciting, thrilling even. Because now he got to do those things with Blossom, and Blossom was cool in a smarmy, elitist sort of way that both softened his heart and hardened his dick all at the same time, and that was kind of A Lot to deal with at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday.

“All right, do me,” Blossom said, and Brick coughed so badly his aforementioned weak, teenage boy fingers shook to stifle himself. 

Mercy, he thought, probably. But all his blood was rushing south and it was going to take a supernatural willpower to get through these words so that one of them could beat the upstart porridge peasant to this year’s regional spelling bee. 

“You’re the boss,” he said, because it was true, and also because he liked the way she looked at him when he said it. Like he was now the ganache-coated strawberry in this overextended metaphor that he was too laden with Homeric concupiscence being in her general proximity to unpack. 

Concupiscence, there’s a ten dollar word for you, you horny genius. 

He made a mental note to brag to Blossom about this later. 

“Okay, let’s see…” Brick made a show of organizing the flashcards so that she wouldn’t see him discreetly re-situate his pants under the table. “Your word is cymotrichous.”

Blossom tapped her lips, and Brick found himself sympathizing with the Puritans in their absolute befuddlement over the libidinous effect of women having lips. Witchcraft, surely. “Could you use it in a sentence for me?”

Compelled entirely by black magic and therefor not responsible for his imminently questionable choices, Brick obliged her with: “Thinking about how I’d rather run my fingers through your cymotrichous hair for the rest of free period instead of sit here spelling words no one’s ever heard of.”

Blossom, who he was dead certain was extremely thirsty for him and had been for years long before they ever reconciled their rivalry, leaned over the desk separating them. Her hair, long and loose and indeed quite wavy today, was tempting. “Brick, are you flirting with me?”

It was a well-known fact of being a Weak-Fingered, Teenage Boy that one must never reveal such weakness, especially not in front of one’s girlfriend. On the other hand, co-opting said weakness and rebranding it as the suave truth was galaxy brain levels of flirting. And Brick, as has already been established, was a horny genius. “Yup.” He leaned in to meet her, and he twirled her hair between his fingers because they were weak for her, indeed. “How am I doing?”

Blossom, too determined to let her thirst deter her from her goal of sweet, academic retribution and bragging rights, tapped a finger to his lips. “Great. But we have so many words to spell, and only thirty minutes left to do them all. So get shuffling, stud.”

Well, he could work with that. One thing that made his relationship with Blossom work very well was their insatiable competitiveness. Whether they were whaling on each other over an empty parking lot, debating the efficacy of post-its as a note-taking device, or combining their powers to Captain Planet a cornmeal know-it-all back down the leaderboard where she belonged, they were relentless glory chasers. And the greater the challenge, the more they enjoyed the experience and each other. 

Blossom spelled her word perfectly, by the way. She stretched out the o-u-s at the end in a bewitching little whisper as she pulled away and her hair slipped through his fingers. That moment when the light changes and the temperature shifts and you’re weightless in a state of existential anticipation of something monumental about to happen, but not quite? That happened. Thirty minutes to explore the shape of that anticipation was enough time to taste it but not enough to savor it. Which, Brick supposed, was about to make this the best thirty minutes he was likely going to get all week. 

“Are you ready?” Blossom watched him from behind the card she’d drawn. She had a glint in her eyes that told him she was smiling behind that card. 

“Anytime.”

“Your word is eudaemonic.”

That fucking gorgeous ooh again.

“Define it.”

Blossom flushed as though he had just ordered her to bend over. She bit her lip (it must have been a ten Hail Mary’s kind of day when the Witch-Finder General caught a flesh and blood woman doing that with her improbably sorcerous lips) and grinned. “It means producing happiness. Based on the idea of happiness as the proper end of conduct.”

Producing happiness, which is proper, much like how Blossom came off as proper and even prim around adults, when really she was the most fun, most confident, most person he’d ever met, especially when she was spelling in that chiffon top (son of a bitch, that was a great top on her), and the only conduct he was interested in was of the happiest kind.

“Oh.” His throat clenched, and then his stomach twisted, and then his pants grew little too tight again in a full-body chain reaction that began and ended with a fierce determination not to give in first even though it would mean release because release would be meaningless without this etymological tête-à-tête. 

Don’t think about tête-à-têtes. 

Seventeenth century, noun, borrowed from the French meaning literally “head to head” (please, please stop hurting yourself like this).

“Brick?”

Brick cleared his throat. “Yup. Got it. E-u-d…”

Crisis averted, Brick picked the next card and promptly choked on his own tongue. Blossom made a show like she was concerned and are you all right? and please drink some water. Brick drank her water, which of course she had had her anatomically heretical lips on earlier, which was just fantastic for him. Tuesday fucking morning. 

Milieu was her word. 

“Milieu, hmm.” Blossom’s smile was spellbinding, which was a pun because he punned when he panicked. “Origin?”

You bitch, he thought, and be cool, and also, witchcraft.

Brick leaned back in his chair, slipped his trembling hands in his pockets, and squeezed every ounce of anything you can do I can do better into a winsome grin. “French.”

Blossom’s adult-facing façade cracked like an egg, and he got a glimpse of the raw delight she felt for this game, for the words, and for him for making it happen. For cultivating the electric milieu, if you will, currently driving them both into a state of impassioned, competitive euphoria at 9:42 a.m. in the library. 

“Right, um…” She stumbled over her words, and Brick had to restrain himself from crowing for joy and risk the rheumy-eyed librarian coming to scold them. 

By the time they got through another set of words, they were each visibly frustrated and doubly turned on by the other’s masochistic resolve not to throw in the towel. 

“Okay, ready for another round?” 

She wasn’t even trying to hide her intentions now, and that was just fine with Brick. “Of course.”

One more.

If it was another French word, he was fucking done. 

“Really?” Blossom truly had ice in her veins for the way she was able to school her face then. He couldn’t read her, and that was very bad. 

If it’s another fucking French word…

He could be over the desk and on her faster than you could say concupiscence. 

“Okay.” Blossom set down the flashcard she’d drawn and folded her hands on the table. She looked him dead in the eye licked her lips. “Succedaneum.”

The bookshelf shook but Brick’s fingers didn’t as they pinned Blossom’s over a Dewey Decimal-stamped spine and he kissed her with all the horny passion of a teenage genius who would make a note to thank the devil for giving women lips. One of his better ideas. 

xxx

“Hey, has anyone seen Blossom? I’ve sent her, like, four texts!” Bubbles shoved her phone, open to the ignored texts in question, in her sister’s face. “She was supposed to help me with Chem homework.”

Buttercup ducked. “No, and watch where you’re swinging that thing.”

“I saw her earlier,” Boomer said. “She was with Brick coming out of first period.”

“Oh, yeah.” Mike slung his arm around Boomer’s shoulders. “Don’t they both have a free period right now?”

Buttercup rolled her eyes. “What a scam. Whoever decided to give the A-students free periods while the rest of us mere mortals gotta slave away is a straight-up Supervillain.”

Boomer snapped his fingers. “Hey, I just remembered! They both decided to compete for the spot at the regional spelling bee this year. I bet that’s what they’re doing.”

“God, that’s the saddest thing I have ever heard in my life. That’s a new low even for Blossom.”

“I heard there’s a cash prize for the regional winner,” Bubbles said. “It’s like twenty thousand bucks! Remember, everyone in school signed up and we had to have that assembly to narrow it down?”

“Twenty thou— How the tits did I miss that?!”

“I mean, it was all over the school,” Mike said. “We signed up too.”

“What? And no one thought to tell me I could’ve won the lottery?”

Boomer chuckled. “Dude, come on. You wouldn’t have stood a chance in hell against Darla Dimpleton.”

“Who?”

Bubbles cast Boomer a not worth it look, and he just sighed. “So, if they’re studying for the spelling bee, do you think they’re in the library?”

At that moment, Butch came bursting down the hall a little too fast to be human. Open lockers rattled on their hinges as he passed, and a Sophomore girl’s binder went flying, scattering looseleaf papers everywhere. Buttercup looked ready to punch him in the dick for breaking the no powers in school rule. “Guys, you’re gonna shit!” 

“Calm down before you blow a load, Jesus Christ.” Buttercup yanked him back down to the floor so he wouldn’t spontaneously float. 

Sensibly, Boomer asked, “Why?”

“‘Cause Brick and Blossom are making out in the library right now!”

Mike cringed. “Oh, come on.”

“The hell they are,” Buttercup said. 

Bubbles smiled. “Good for them.”

“I’m serious! There were books everywhere, and the noise—”

“Oh look, there goes my dignity. Better catch it before it gets away. C’mon, moron.” Buttercup dragged Butch down the hall over his protests. “What were you even doing in the library? I didn’t think you knew where it was…”

“Like that could ever happen,” Mike said. “Those two wouldn’t waste a minute of study time if it means beating out the competition.”

Boomer did not look so convinced. “I don’t know. I mean, they’re officially, for real dating now,”—“Finally!” Mike interjected—“so it’s not that unbelievable.”

The bell for the next period rang. Bubbles groaned thinking of stewing for an hour of Chem. At least she shared that class with Boomer and would not have to suffer alone. They parted from Mike and walked together through the throng of students rushing to get to their next period.

“Hey, do you think…” 

“I mean…” Boomer shrugged. 

They rounded the corner and nearly ran into Blossom dashing to her next class with a rushed “Got your texts talk later bye!” before she disappeared into the crowd. 

Bubbles whirled on Boomer. “Did you see her buttons—”

“Completely uneven—”

The late bell rang and made them jump. Among the last stragglers, they both dashed a bit too fast to get to class and made it to their seats just as Mr. Micelli finished writing a problem on the board. 

Boomer winked when she caught his eye a couple desks away from hers, and it took everything she had not to laugh.

“Good for her,” Bubbles said to herself. 

“You are late,” Mr. Micelli said. 

Everyone turned to watch Brick sink into his seat, his short hair totally askew and looking healthily flushed for a Tuesday morning. 

Boomer burst out laughing and needed a whole minute to calm down. 

He’d tell her later that the detention was worth it.

xxx

Witchcraft! 👁️👄👁️✨

[teeforhee]

I’ll never forgive uprising for just... forgetting that Newt existed mid-way through. Like if they were gonna take the possession route then they could have at least fleshed it out more. I think one of the main problems uprising has is that the themes of the movie are so incomplete, there’s no constructive plot. If you’d ask me what happened in the movie I wouln’t be able to describe anything lmao. It’s a shame because Pacific rim could have had such an interesting sequel (continuing the theme of climate change etc). I was wondering what would you have liked to see in a sequel?

so sorry for answering this so late, I started writing this, got distracted, put it in my drafts and then completely forgot.

ohhhhhhh boy oh boy oh boy I have like. so many thoughts about what I wish we'd gotten from a pacrim sequel. mostly the thing that bothered me about uprising (other than it just being a Bad Movie Made Badly) was the way it disregarded pacrim's themes and yeah the way it mistreated the characters. they did not explore the possession route nearly as well as they should've and in general it seemed like it needed another couple of drafts. but here's a disorganised list of thoughts:

consistency in the characters and themes and worldbuilding. give me Raleigh and Mako and Herc and Newt and Hermann and make them consistent characters across the films. keep the themes as being about hope and cooperation in the face of immense grief.

no more slur jaegers please

okay either explore the allegory of Newt's possession by precursors or don't do it at all. either explore the trauma and the implications of the intimacy of a drift bond with the fact of a drift bond being abused by the precursors or don't have him be possesed. you cannot film a drift scene between a man who cannot consent and the aliens who have taken away his ability to consent like a sex scene and then not unpack that. either unpack it or don't do it but honestly I would've loved it they did it because it would've meant a lot to me personally to see a metaphorical abuse/s*xual *ssault survivor save the world by defeating his abusers and forever kicking them off of the planet with support and help from his loved ones.

explore herc's life after the film! that man lost his son and closest friend! have him and Mako and Raleigh interact! gd just more character interactions between everyone would've been so good. I wanna see what happens to them after! they're been through so much! Pacific Rim is about hope and love despite grief!! show me what happens to these characters after all they've lost!!

more female characters please. just. I know mako was the heart of the first film and I'm not bashing it just if you're going to bring in new characters can we have some more women please.

also like. just explore the fallout of the war. make it hopeful and continue the "this was a big enough shock to make the world band together" thing and continue the climate change metaphor by having like explicitly environmentally friendly and still technologically advanced cities and stuff.

oh my gd don't make it military or police propaganda what the fuck????? what the fuck!?!??!?!!? uprising what the fuck. anyway yeah don't have police jaegers. either decommission them entirely or like. bro bro bro. we're humans we're dumb as fuck make it like a sport. Jaeger sports that are like car racing now. maybe the plot is about how that's really shitty for the environment and we need to stop people doing it and find alternatives and u know. continue the climate change metaphor that way

okay these are specific little gripes but can we make either Hermann or newt (OR BOTH) explicitly neurodivergent. like this is just what I want from everything everywhere, no more coding, I want canon neurodivergent people. also don't demonise newt for being bipolar I'm pretty sure that's his canon diagnosis and I know this is what I WANT but also idk I just feel the need to specify. I don't want a sequel to demonise him please. let him exist.

Oh MY GD also teach burn gorman how to walk with a cane my boy you're going to hurt yourself like that.

explore the lasting effects of the drift with the precursors. just. explore that. let Hermann and Newt support eachother and let them hurt but give them a happy ending. I'd like for them to be explicitly together especially since all of the interview stuff Charlie Day has said, it'd be nice.

please keep the "minimum civilian casualties" thing. if we're going to have big monster Jaeger battles then please keep the civilians safe and in shelters. I'm so tired of millions of dead civilians in movies because they decided city fights were cool

I honestly don't know how to keep the optimism of the first movie while bringing the kaiju back but also I want the kaiju back and the Jaeger kaiju battles are just so important to Pacific Rim as a thing. so hmmmmmmm idk what to do about that.

I would also be super happy if we got an exploration of the possibility of Good Kaiju! like once they get separated from the hivemind they can think for themselves and do things, like How To Train Your Dragon style. also Newt and Hermann having a kaiju who they adopt as their child would make me very happy so long as it was done right.

Frankenstein And The Newt style plot/worldbuilding would be hella cool. k-virus and freeing the kaiju from the hivemind and befriending them would be cool.

aaaa this was just a dump of miscellaneous sequel thoughts. I'm more than a little bit sleep deprived rn so I'm probably not explaining things well. head full many incommunicable thoughts.

[shyantheswiftfan]

“evermore” song analysis part 1 (tracks 1-5)

Hello! I’ve decided to write some short analyses for the songs of “evermore”. The way I’m choosing to write these is by listing main themes of each song, giving a short paragraph about how I interpret the story and feeling of each song, then listing other Taylor songs that I think have similar themes. I might do a more in-depth lyrical analysis of some songs later on. Let me know what you think.

- Read Part 2 Here - - Read Part 3 Here -

So, let’s get into it! This is part 1 of 3. 

Track 1: willow

Main themes: (Taylor herself did this one during the live Q&A, so I’ll quote her)  “willow is about intrigue, desire and the complexity that goes into wanting someone”

My thoughts: “willow” is the natural choice for the first track. Taylor tends to favor songs that talk about new beginnings, whether with a relationship or a new stage in life, and this is no exception. This is a song filled with her signature metaphors; most of which hint at her sadness before this person came along, but them coming into her life unexpectedly and becoming the one thing she can’t stop thinking about.(This is exactly what the first two lines of the song are saying.) There’s a lot to unpack with the lyrics, so I’ll probably go more in depth with them later. 

Sister songs: Jump Then Fall, Enchanted, Gorgeous

Track 2: champagne problems

Main themes: heartbreak, guilt, mental health

My thoughts: The first time I heard this song, it made me so deeply emotional, and I’m sure that’s true for a lot of us. It’s clearly telling the story from the perspective of someone struggling with their mental health who recently rejected a proposal from a long time love. I feel that the other person may have wanted to propose in hopes of saving the relationship that was clearly not going anywhere, but deep down knew they would be rejected (the latter hinted at by the lyric “You booked the night train for a reason”) There’s also signs that their partner didn’t understand the narrator’s struggles, and they thought they could fix them themselves (”Your Midas touch on the Chevy door. November flush and your flannel cure”) The narrator is looking back, clearly feeling guilty, but knowing it was the right thing to do. Accepting that the other person will move on to someone else, who maybe won’t come with the same “champagne problems”.

Sister songs: Back To December, Sad Beautiful Tragic, this is me trying

Track 3: gold rush

Main Themes: daydreaming, jealousy, longing

My thoughts: Taylor said during the live Q&A that the song “takes place inside a single daydream where you get lost in thought for a minute and then snap out of it.” That’s the perfect explanation. It’s simple and relatable. It’s like me with all of my celebrity crushes, knowing I have no chance. Sometimes it’s easier to desire something that not everyone else is after. Otherwise, you’ll lose yourself to the daydream.

Sister songs: Stay Beautiful, Untouchable, august

Track 4: ‘tis the damn season

Main themes: nostalgia, regret, lost love

My thoughts: This is slowly becoming one of my favorites from the album. This is believed to be the song Taylor hinted at that was about “what happens when [Dorothea] comes back [from Hollywood] for the holidays and rediscovers an old flame.” The narrator is reminiscing on their younger years, and thinking about the one that got away. Revisiting them and their past love, allowing for a short lived intimacy (”you can call me ‘babe’ for the weekend”) before leaving again for life back in LA. Nostalgia is a dangerous thing, thinking about what could’ve been. Choices were made, maybe choices that the narrator now regrets, but they are choosing to live with that. There’s also a literary reference to the Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken”, which shares a similar theme of choices.

Sister songs: Holy Ground, This Love, Death By A Thousand Cuts

Track 5: tolerate it

Main themes: insecurity, resentment, anxiety

My thoughts: As someone who has a lot of anxieties when it comes to relationships, this is one song that hit me hard. This is about someone doing everything they can in a relationship, trying to be perfect, doing their best, but ultimately being ignored and overlooked by their partner. Their time is spent just trying to be seen and to feel important, like they’re a part of this relationship. Begging their partner to tell them they’re wrong. They start to wonder what would happen if they left, seeing all the pain and hurt being caused by this relationship. They’re seeing that their love is worth so much more than this. (”my love should be celebrated, but you tolerate it.”) This song is truly heartbreaking.

Sister songs: Dear John, The Archer, hoax

Thanks for reading! See you with the next part tomorrow!

[allet-space]

Steven’s Ramblings (Prickly Pair)

(A compilation of everything concerning that Steven says in the entire episode, SPOILERS, plus potential meanings, analysis)

1. “[Cheerfully] These Perenials ALWAYS come back. That one’s Sadie...”

2. “[Cheerfully] I named this one Lars. [Motheringly] You’re stuck in the ground aren’t you? Not gonna zip right into space and leave everyone behind, isn’t that right?“

These two are pretty obvious: Steven doesn’t want them to move on and leave him behind. He wants them all to stay right here, by his side, quiet and rooted to the ground with nowhere to move, like a plant.

Kiiindof a disturbing metaphor if you ask me. Kindof like the diamonds used to treat gems: The Empire never changes, and only responds to their wants and changes and needs.

3. “Sighs. What am I doing? Is this really my thing now? [voice slightly sad and cracked] Plants!? Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl aren’t even impressed. Guess plants aren’t as cool as liberating the galaxy...“

He’s been breaking at the seams the whole time. He wanted to impress the gems, and despite very positive feedback from them (Pearl says its great, amethyst says its cool, they generally support him) he doesnt feel like it’s enough compared to saving the galaxy. He seems to compare everything to what he did to save everyone, and everything pales in comparison.

4. “[Nostalgic] This beach... it never changes. I mean, a lot HAS changed. I’m trying to be cool about it but it feels so weird. [Ranting, worried] Everyone is moving on and, I should be too! I gave up running the school, but now I don’t know what comes next! ...Y’know? It’s probably better I’m not running the school anymore. Who am I to decide what’s best for all those gem students? They’re better off learning from Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl. [Getting more worried, cracking voice] I used to be helpful, but the gems don’t need me anymore. [Frustrated] URGH! Why do I need to be needed! ...Stevennn, pull it together!!! [Calmer]....I’m so sorry to dump all of this on you.“

Again, he doesn’t want anything to change, anyone to run off. He exhibits low self-esteem in not seeing himself fit despite spending so much time on it (Snow Day). He still very moch looks up to his gem family.

After having to be their braincell for most of his life, after making them dependant on him in an unhealthy way, now that the dependancy is gone, he feels empty. He’s used to spending all his energy to carving himself out for them, and now he doesn’t know what to do now that they don’t need that anymore.

He gets frustrated at not being their unhealthy neccessity anymore, and then he gets frustrated at himself for being frustrated. In addition to that, he apologizes for venting, regrets it, feels like he never should have let these feelings surface in such a way.

5. “[Cheerfully] Good morning Ronaldo! Good morning Nanafua! And a special good morning t- ugh!”

He’s pretending it’s all fine. Pretending he’s 14 again, running through town greeting everyone he passes. Except these plants will never leave. They wiill grow, but never outside of their designated pots. He can control them, they obey him. Feels a lot like he’s talking to himself, like he would be in his room.

6. “[In response to Cactus Steven, but now alone] What was that? Why’d you say that stuff, huh? (Why’d you say that stuff, huh?) Because I thought I could talk to you! I can’t tell Pearl how I feel, cause she’ll blame herself and spiral out of control and I’ll have to pick up the pieces! And I don’t want any more high and mightly advice from Garnet. [Getting angrier] I just... want to know better for once. [Mockingly] And I’m so sick of Amethyst acting like she’s sooo mature now! (She’s sooo mature now!) Pft, I know, it’s like, get over yourself. Gasps Please don’t repeat any of that. [Places box over Cactus Steven] (Why’d you say all that stuff? Whyyy’d?!) Oh you know why’d!“

LOT to unpack here. One, he doesn’t want to open up to the gems at any cost. ANY cost. He then goes into why he doesn’t want to open up: He feels Pearl is still too dependant on him needing to fix her, and seems to be quite annoyed by the fact that Garnet and Amethyst both have their lives together. Which one is it? Do you want someone dependant, or someone better off?

He wants to know better. Im just going to say, I CALLED IT HE’S QUOTING WHITE DIAMOND ON HER HAVING TO “KNOW BETTER” aaAAAAA

7. “[After closing the door to the diamond base] I can’t let anybody find out about this. (Amethyst: Find out about what?) [Nervous, panicking] D-d, n-nothing! (Are you okay, Steven?) Y-y-yeah! Uhh, um, bep, Whhhy do you ask? (Ummm, well, it just seems you’ve been having a hard time...) [Steven continues to insist he’s fine and says he knows they can help.]“

The gems are there for him, but he has his own, logical reasons on why he can’t talk to them. It’s not just botteling up, it’s because these feelings involve THEM. He doesnt want to talk to them because they’re a part of the “problem”. He has strong, new opinions on them while angry, but is far too afraid to be mean to them. Which is why he chose CS in the first place: A third party unconnected to anything else happening.

8. “[Sitting in the dark, worried] Sighs, now the gems are all worried about me. [Cactus steven yells, kicks his box off] Oh no, Cactus Steven! You’re all messed up! What’s wrong with you? (What’s wrong with you?) [Yelling, Angry] What’s WRONG is that you’re making me look like a FOOL! (Fool!) I wish you wouldn’t talk! (I wish you wouldn’t talk!) [Turns Pink] Urrrrrghh, STOP IT!“

He needs anger management, did I mention that yet? Also that panel of him turning pink with a pitch black background looks... oddly eerie. Very eerie. Don’t like it one bit. Fear. One Fear. Many Fears.

He doesn’t want them to worry while he feedback-spirals his own anger out of control...

9. “[Steven tries to get the gems to leave before they can even say anything. They proceed to see him get beaten by Cactus Steven through the large glass windows.]“

Other than being hilarious, this really, really drives home his dynamic. As well as his later way of “dealing” with his Cactus Clone, the episode is left open. He says he’s said enough, only half a minute after the gems even just got the memo that Cactus Steven was repeating thoughts that Steven had told him. This boy needs to talk.

Things are looking bad, the corruption theory is looking truer by the day, and these episodes are shifing from light-hearted and resolved in Little Homeschool to eerily unresolved and upsetting (in a good way.)

[macklives]

alright, im actually kind of in the mood to unpack some stuff regarding karkat's character and the way alternia works actually, so i dont mind giving this a go. and while act 5 isnt completely finished yet (so this is an analysis post for act 5 up until page 2305), there is still more to explore, and im pretty sure i have a lot more to read regarding both karkat AND alternia. until then, i will give a general layout as to what i know so far and how i can expand this in a psychological way (especially considering i did my psych exam so my mind is FRESH from studying)

alright, starting with what seems to be the deal with the hemospectrum, theres a total of 12 blood colors. HOWEVER, one of those blood colors is a "mutant" blood which is unwanted in troll culture as it is, well, "mutant", meaning whoever has this blood will get brutally slaughtered. hurrayyy. im guessing it is even lower than aradia's rust blood, as she is allowed to live but is the lowest on the hierarchy triangle. meaning karkats blood is not even ON the hierarchy triangle and simply buried underground where they hope he stays. so its not exactly pleasant to be living in a society where everyone is trying to KILL you or at least keep you away from everything.

from what i remember, troll reproduction is a vital aspect in their culture, that everyone is forced to mate and drones will come by each house to collect the genetic material. this is mandatory apparently, and if someone were to object, they will be “culled" as quickly as they could say no. alternia seems to be really keen on the whole "blood and carnage" thing, which means their probable solution to anybody breaking the law, is to kill them on sight and just leave them there to rot - regardless of who they are and what families they comes from or have. trolls are free to kill whenever or whoever they please without any governmental repercussions. which means revenge upon revenge happens without any policy.

however this is very important when looking at karkat, because karkat may not be able to do the whole reproduction process (not that we necessarily want him to, im saying this in terms of how its mandatory for every troll and there will be a time when the drones WILL come for karkat). but as he is already a mutant and if they were to "collect" from him, they would find out his blood regardless of how he hides it. they will either cull him for saying no, or cull him for his blood. karkat, in this sense, is doomed regardless. which makes his character much more interesting.

and keep in mind alternia kind of sucks, because from the looks of it, trolls are constantly tested throughout their lives to prove themselves to society that they are allowed to live and survive. but ONLY if they are the strongest among them. alternia wants to become this fearful planet where the weak die off and only those proven worthy can stay to grow up and slaughter more of their kind until the world is nothing but blood thirsty strong murderers. im not too sure who is governing alternia but they can suck a dick if they think this is how good morals work. alternia only really has one way to solve things which is to kill those who question/fight back, OR to kill those who CANNOT fight back essentially. which puts all the trolls through a double edged sword where they cannot do anything but follow the guidelines given to them by troll's society and government, and try to survive as much as they can until then.

if i remember correctly, when it comes to the law side of things. if you look at it from terezi's introduction where she explains prosecutions with her plushies (lemonsnout ect ect i forgot the term for them lol), she said "you are guilty until proven innocent" which is the polar opposite of "innocent until proven guilty” used in OUR own society today (tho i guess we are by far the "good guys" in this situation, but we are far different than how trolls live their lives). anyways, what this means is that everyone dies regardless unless theres literal proof that they have not done the crime. even so i wouldnt put it past them to do nothing about their case even WITH proof. terezi even goes to say that technically there is no way to deal with the law on alternia, and most of crimes get solved through death. she even demonstrates this by how easily she hung the "suspect" and flipped a coin to determine his fate. however, even with the coin landing on the side of safety, where the suspect were to be released, she said "im blind remember i cannot see this coin" and essentially "killed" him. while terezi may have just been playing with her plushies, theres something we can take from this which dictates how their actual court cases are actually solved.

NOW, vriska (yes ik pls bare with me here, i will not make it about vriska but i do have a point here), from the last few pages i saw, can basically kill her friends in an instant, without any remorse. i can tell she sees this as the most "necessary" solution for her problems. i wouldnt say its for survival, but she does do it as a way to provide some sort of safety on alternia. she is a higher blood, and apparently the high bloods are known to kill whoever they please as long as its convenient. and since trolls have this whole fad of "killing the ones who cause you trouble so the problem is out of the way", she is wired to think its the only solution when threatened or when you dislike a person. 

god, she killed aradia because she wanted "revenge", because she wanted to get back at aradia for tormenting her with ghosts EVEN IF aradia did so because she threw tavros off a cliff in the first place. this may have worsened their friendship, KEEP IN MIND THEY WERE FRIENDS, but NEITHER, and i mean neither terezi/vriska/aradia, had any remorse if the other dies as long as there was a reason. in the story, vriska didnt care what happened to tavros because she disliked him, therefore becoming pretty bias over his fate. because of this attempt at killing, aradia didnt care what happened to vriska either, and neither did terezi. terezi sold her out to one of the most powerful beings on their planet, solely because of their revenge cycle. as long as the troll in question did something "malicious”, then that plays a factor in their morals. vriska gave no second thought to killing both of her friends (or at least attempt to with tavros), terezi also tormented john in act 4 which led to his “doomed timeline death” and sold vriska out after she realized vriska wouldnt change. so no fucking WONDER karkat tries to hide who he is, he's overly cautious to not let it slip out because even the people he calls friends could backstab him at any given time considering theres LITERAL EXAMPLES OF THESE TROLLS HAVING DONE SO.

to karkat, he sees this as dangerous, which is why he even CALLS vriska dangerous to begin with. she might not even hesitate to kill him herself or maybe sell him out to the drones, because 1. she may not want to be a witness to something society actively seeks to destroy and 2. she cares more for her survival than karkats. EVEN if they were friends (re: aradia and vriska and terezi). so it just shows. 

on that note, i find it funny how karkat indirectly distracted vriska after she baited him with the question of his blood in a past conversation, which prompted karkat to monologue about troll romance. he was, yes, VERY interested in this topic to start with, but it was a nice little bonus for karkat as to not be found out by the one person who would most likely kill him even if it wasnt on purpose. however, we do not know how this will play out IF she does find out, we just know karkat is in the right to be scared of the theory.

and, alright i do have to mention this, while karkat may have been an angry fucker to START with, who spites the world and throws out insults every chance he gets, i feel he does this as more of a survival instinct as well. he doesnt care what he says to people no matter what they rank on the hemospectrum. they dont know his blood color so he feels he has some sort of immunity, but he just needs to keep it hidden. it also may just be his personality, as he IS a character who was given specific traits and andrew went along with it without so much thinking about plot. yet if you look at this from more of the metaphorical route, think about it with uhhhh lets say the perspective of how dogs work. for example, when you put a chihuahua next to a doberman, a doberman is more of an excited, energetic dog whereas a chihuahua will rain hell down on anybody who so goes near them. sometimes this is to make up for their size, to seem as menacing as the larger doberman, as they have nothing else to fend themselves with. another way to look at it is, if you see a bear (i forget if its black/brown or grizzly) you make yourself seem like the bigger person by scaring it off with sounds and eventually it will leave you alone. these sort of tactics work in the sense of survival. this is sort of what karkat could be doing, he uses insults and a defensive shouting to not really "hide" himself, but to have some sort of way as to not be found out if people start to question. someone asks him "hey karkat whats your blood" he goes "FUCK YOU, FUCK OFF, END OF STORY" which could make a person go "yo sorry dude forget i ever asked". so this could be a factor as to why he is so crabby, however on the other hand, he is crabby because that is also his character. andrew probably thought yo cancer = crab = crabby. however i do like how he is perceived and the whole "mutant blood" really made me do a double take on how he views life himself. he has to always hide who he is or he will get physically killed. alternia would take joy in finding out he does not belong there because lets face it, alternia is a bitch of a planet.

this also brought me to ask the question, why does karkat want to be a leader if hes so scared of what would happen to him if he were to be found out? which then, at first i said lol this is just karkat, he wants to a leader because he just wants to be the leader, he likes when things go to plan and that he the most say in their sburb plans considering he thinks everyone else is a "dumbass". to which, i then thought about it more and went ouch what if hes a leader because he knows hes not valued enough in society, that he somehow wants to feel some sort of importance in the world, so he wants to become a leader. i imagine younger karkat, not knowing why his blood is so undermined, finding out he is not wanted and suddenly on the most wanted list without having even DONE anything. even TAVROS said he was on that list, but only because he was weak and had no back-bone, here karkat may have been strong but no matter what, he was to be culled BECAUSE of his blood. something he cannot change no matter what. imagine a little kid knowing he will die at any point because of who he is (rlly sounds familiar if you think about it). so of course, he hides himself from the world, but do you think for an instant, little angry karkat wants to simply be FORGOTTEN about? i doubt that, he wants to be heard, he doesnt necessarily want to be rejected as he knows he will be, so while he does hide his blood, he wants to have a voice no matter what. when being a leader, people dont reject you, they LISTEN. they all may not want to because karkat is just a fucking ticking time bomb, who can lash out at any second, but i feel theres now a reason why he has this superiority complex. he wants to sort of become the person he knows he never will become (if you put it into that perspective). so thats kind of why im giving him the benefit of the doubt here.

i would also like to point out a sort of.... comparison?? not with the dogs but with unwanted children in a family household. this doesnt necessarily apply to karkat, but sub in family household with society and it might as well. (on that note, a warning/viewer discretion, if you have any problem with this kind of discussion, i wouldnt read further into this paragraph and skip to the next one) alright, the unwanted child psychology basically deals with the process of a child which is neglected by their parents, and/or know that they were never wanted in the family. i read an article a while back when we were discussing this in a lecture, we were browsing multiple people's perspective on the matter, and one said "An affective relationship may be suffocating to [the unwanted/neglected child]: it’s a defense against intimacy of which they know nothing. Normally they fluctuate between egotism and deep feelings of inferiority. They don’t understand what a balanced and healthy self-esteem looks like." it explains how the child who grows up in an unwanted home admits great emotion deprivation, because the child's bonds of affection are extremely fragile, and this can lead to both egotism and feeling like they are inadequate. and it really strongly shows karkats personality. we havent gotten that much from him in general, but considering how he uses this egotism to cover up the fact that he may be doomed, really shows the similarity. i liked this short article so i want to give some points to take into consideration, specifically this part: "It will be very difficult for unwanted children to build healthy relationships of affection in their adult life. Love is a foreign language to them. They don’t know how to decipher the codes and much less how to build them. It’s very hard for them to need and to be needed. That’s why, more often than not, they completely shirk their conflicts with peers and superiors, or do nothing but generate them. They speak incessantly about the broken relationship that marked their arrival in the world. A person with such a background will need help to get through those abysses of love that live in their heart. The most important step is that they recognize that their discomfort doesn’t depend on who they are, but the circumstances that led to their being." it may not be 100% tru for karkat but theres a small portion of it that can link back to karkats view on life and how being this mutant can really change who he is as a person. and i hope you can see the similarity between karkats character and this form of psychology. yet i also do not fully know the depth of karkat vantas. however i do hope it continues to build up in this way, as it would be both interesting and make us feel more for him as a person.

alright, i think if i write any more i will never stop aghjsk, which is a bit too much for a sunday afternoon, basically to sum up this post, trolls are violent and karkat will be killed if hes found out, even by his friends if it comes down to it. so karkat cannot really trust anybody, hes alone and imagine the thrill he had when he saw jack cut his hand to show the bright red blood? that he finally has someone LIKE HIM. imagine when he finds out about the kids. so i believe in his growth, while he needs to get a better vocabulary, i do get why hes so defensive all the time. because hes both scared and unwanted. and he wants to make up for it.

and i guess with all that being said, you can tell i now have a slight soft spot for the kid lmao

[pennylogue]

thoughts on some details in prickly pear. mostly steven’s arc, because that’s where we all are with this show right now, don’t deny:

-remember when people (including me) thought that steven gardening would be a healthy effort to reconnect with his humanity, only for it to be crashed by his cactus? 

steven: “me time? i’m hardly alone! look at all of these plants that i’ve sublimated my unceasing need to care for other people into! isn’t it great how they, unlike sapient beings, won’t leave me?” 

-like i’ve seen so many parallels drawn between his behavior and white diamond’s behavior in this episode, it would take forever to list them all.  but needless to say, it’s extremely unnerving. he wants a perfect, stagnant little world where he’s in control of everything and that is not by any means okay. 

but like, i’m so here for it. they are breaking steven down thoroughly and from six different directions, and it’s absolutely fantastic. hey, we got this with like...every other significant character. that’s why they’re such good characters. and it plays into steven’s identity issues, which is just...delicious. this is such a toxic whirlpool, and it’s really getting to him. 

-and another gem appearance goes by with me screaming at the gems as they exit to stage an intervention, to please don’t go, stay back and force him to accept the help he thinks he doesn’t want and doesn’t know how to ask for.

-steven is bothered by how the gems aren’t “impressed”. not only is this a massive misread of what’s going on, it’s kind of an interesting insight into steven. dude hasn’t felt like he had to impress the gems in literally seasons...probably because he was doing something important at the time, and felt like he was a part of the crystal gems. that he had a purpose. it all circles back, huh?

-and he wants approval, so of course he goes to the gems, and they give it to him. and it’s fucking cute, if a little worrying that he’s still so heavily depending on magical qualities to get approval from the gems.

-steven needs a fucking therapist. dude says how great the beach is because it never changes (which is also just...not true, beaches change constantly because that’s how nature works, HUH) and then starts venting to a sapient cactus. honey.

-steven, paraphrased: “who am i to decide what’s best for everyone? everyone’s better off learning from the rest of the crystal gems. i used to be helpful, but nobody needs me anymore. Hhhh, why, do I need to be needed!? Steven, pull it together!”

ho boy we got some shit to unpack there. @fanfoolishness has compared steven to a shark that needs to keep swimming or it’ll drown, so here we have the shark being told to stop swimming. as far as steven’s subconscious is concerned, despite him factually knowing he’s gotta chill, he can’t stop swimming. he’s gotta keep it together so he’ll be available when, not if, people need help. and if they won’t ask for help, he’ll project his own issues into them. he can’t stop. he knows that, he’s so sure of it.

if he does--he’ll drown.

-”hhh, i’m so sorry to dump this on you.” leave it to steven to apologize for venting to a cactus.

-”and he said my name.” god pearl i love you so much.

-steven’s thoughts manifesting as something that hurts to touch. HMMMM...

-steven has such skewed perceptions of how his moms are gonna react, it’s actually painful. pearl wouldn’t fall apart on him, because she’s grown past that. amethyst and garnet would want to help him, not give him haughty advice--and if he made it clear that’s how it was coming off, they would try to change their behavior. but steven can’t criticize them. he locks all his negative thoughts about others away and lets them eat at him. combine that with him being needed to therapist people to help them = they can’t grow without them, combine that with amethyst being so obviously happy and satisfied and mature to the point where she’s trying to help him when he used to help her...

ho boy.

-i’ve seen people draw parallels to pink’s behavior when he boxes off the cactus for trying to spill his secrets. tbh, this is how i see pink. flailing and following through on misguided instincts. it sucks to see steven going down this road...in that case, it’s good that he can notice how messed up they are and take a second look at them before it’s too late. boy’s messed up, but he’s not as messed up as rose quartz. HOORAY. 

*pathetic little burst of confetti*

-”why’d you stay all this stuff? why’d? 

“oh you know why’d.” 

it’s that kind of thing where you can admit your feelings to yourself...but you can’t look at them too closely, right? they’re too ugly. but he knows they’re there.

-and of course he doesn’t want help from amethyst. not when it comes with the possibility of pity. and he does not want pity, remember? he’s not pitiful! there’s nothing wrong with him!

-the gem’s being worried about steven...like, you gotta understand, his first priority is for the gems to not be worried about anything. so if they’re worried about him, that’s him screwing up as bad as he could screw up.

-steven springs from worry over cactus steven to anger in the time it takes for cactus steven to say “what’s wrong with you!” HONEY.

-“i wish you wouldn’t talk!” yeah it really sucks when your toxic feelings can’t be easily suppressed and shut down, despite the fact that boxing up feelings causes them to become warped and twisted and it’s only when you let them out into the open they can grow and blossom properly and then leave you.

oh wait.

-so steven maybe thought he had diamond mode on lockdown. or more likely, he’s just too angry to care. like, when you’re angry, you don’t care about lashing out. you don’t care about the terrible things you’re saying...until you’re not angry anymore. and then you care. if you’re steven, you care too much.

wonder if diamond mode was what gave cactus steven that extra jolt to grow so much?

-the slow, careful way steven sets cactus steven down as soon as pearl calls him is. just. so worrying.

-IT LITERALLY BREAKS OUT BECAUSE IT CAN’T STAY LOCKED UP ANYMORE, IT’S TOO BIG AND ANGRY. 

-steven slicing up cactus steven with that shield is...probably one of the most violent uses we’ve seen of his shield. 

-”why don’t you come back in, oh, let’s say, a couple of hours, for ne reason whatsoever?” su has no patience for sitcom rules XD

-amethyst, at cactus steven: “cool.” they aren’t going to attack his thoughts on sight, even if they seem strange. it’s only when cactus lashes out that they’re going to fight it.

-sweet, sweet catharsis. look how surprised the gems are when cactus repeats all the things steven has said. feels good to have some of this steam let out of the boiling teakettle that it steven universe right now.

-on one hand, steven has to embrace his dark thoughts and let himself get feel the pain of them so they can finally make peace with him, turn into something better, and leave.

on a less metaphorical perspective, though, this does feel a lot like old su in a worrying way. steven has to help someone else be okay, even if it means he takes collateral damage. sure, this time the negative feelings were on him, but to me, it feels like it’s not going to shake steven out of caretaker mode in the way that he obviously needs to.

like, he learned to be less aggressive towards people who don’t deserve it, but i don’t feel like he’s learned to...you know...not repress everything so that doesn’t happen. what, is he just going to try to contain his emotions even harder? 

-like,  you could take that closing line two ways. “I think i’ve said enough.” one way, he could be looking at all of this collateral damage and decided he’s gonna zip up even more. but also, i’ve seen @faelapis say that steven thinks enough of his inner thoughts have been put out into the world that there’s no going back, and this is him acknowledging it.

it could be either. it could be both. who the hell knows.

-god but seriously that depressed way he says “i think i’ve said enough.” a hand to zach calliston, who’s voice acting this season has been ludicrously good.

-but wow, this episode went heavy into steven. i feel like even after all this, i’ve not really managed to sum up the turmoil that’s rolling around inside of him. identity issues, self-loathing, controlling behavior, misplaced aggression and violence, inability to process change, not wanting to inconvenience those he cares about with his problems, it’s a wonderfully balanced cocktail where each issue brings out the worst in the other issues. 

he’s getting dragged downwards by it, and he needs an intervention. cause there’s no digging himself out of this on his own.

-like the entirety of steven universe, yeah, he was getting traumatized. season 4 and season 5 were especially brutal. we all knew it. we all joked about.

i just didn’t, you know, expect them to address it in canon.

[astudyinfreewill]

May 29: Home

[katara/zuko, pre-relationship, 1.8k]

when i see your light shine, i know i’m home

read on AO3

When Zuko goes out to the turtleduck pond for a brief respite between his meetings, he isn’t expecting to find Katara sitting there, her head resting on her folded knees. He knew that she, Sokka, and Aang were going to be travelling back from the South Pole for an upcoming diplomatic conference in Caldera, but he wasn’t sure when they would arrive, and he certainly wasn’t expecting to find Katara just hanging around in the garden. It’s a welcome surprise, though, and he likes that she feels at home here enough to do so.

She spots him and gives him a subdued little wave. Zuko is tired, stiff from spending all day sitting in an uncomfortable chair poring over documents, and in a bad mood – turns out, fixing a country is messy, arduous, endlessly frustrating work – but still, it’s immediately clear to him that something is wrong. The Katara he knows would run up to greet him with a hug.

He gives her a nod in response, and sits down next to her.

“Hey. I didn’t know when you’d be arriving. Did you have safe travels?”

Katara nods. “Everything was fine. We just got here an hour ago. Sokka and Aang are unpacking in their rooms, but they’re not exactly the quiet types, and after a whole day stuck on Appa together, I wanted some peace. Is that okay?”

“Be my guest,” he shrugs. “I mean, I guess you are. Uh. But I mean – metaphorically. I mean you can come here whenever you want. To the pond, that is. And, uh, in general.”

Okay, so social skills have never been his forte. Plus, there’s something about Katara that always has him feeling a little flustered.

“Smooth,” Katara comments dryly.

He shrugs again, pulling out the piece of day-old bread that he had hidden in his sleeve for the turtleducks. “Long day. Lot of talking,” he says, and it’s not even a lie.

Katara hmm’s sympathetically. She doesn’t ask him any questions about the meetings, which he’s honestly grateful for. They sit there in silence for a while as he tears the bread into small pieces. She quietly holds out a hand. He quietly drops some bread pieces onto her open palm. They quietly feed the turtleducks for a few minutes, until the silence becomes too awkward for even Zuko to bear.

“How was home?” he asks. It’s a neutral enough question, yet Katara seems to flinch minutely.

She lets her eyes drift over the water, a far-off look in them; the line of her mouth is worried. “Home,” she murmurs, as if sounding the word out.

After a moment, she seems to shake herself off with some difficulty. “Home was good. It was great,” she smiles. Zuko isn’t fooled. That’s her “caretaker Katara” smile, the one she plasters on when she’s hiding her troubles because she thinks she needs to worry about everyone else.

“Katara,” he says, firmly but not unkindly. “What’s wrong?”

It’s a testament to how bothered the waterbender is that she caves immediately, her face crumpling into a picture of unhappiness.

“It’s just… you know how the Northern Tribe was going to send people over to help us rebuild?”

Zuko nods. “Did they not keep their promise?”

Katara looks down, almost embarrassed. “No, they did. That’s kind of the problem. They’ve done a great job and spared no effort. They’ve built bigger homes and palaces and fortifications. Everything looks... different now.”

The way she says it, with no excitement at all, indicates she doesn’t see this as an improvement.

“And that’s... bad?” Zuko nudges.

She shrugs. “I suppose it’s not. Sokka was losing his mind over it. He was over the moon - no pun intended. He thinks it’s amazing, all the– the architecture and mechanics and progress.”

“But you feel differently?” Zuko ventures.

“No, no,” Katara hurries to say, with a guilty expression. Then, after biting her lip for a second, she admits. “Well… yes. It’s just… it looks nothing like the village I grew up in. All the igloos are gone. Gran-gran’s home. The otter-penguin cliff. The snow wall that Sokka built. And there are so many new faces – a lot of Northerners moved down South permanently. Which… is good, I know it’s good,” she sighs. “I don’t want our tribe to die out. I know this will help them. I just…”

She looks up at him, her expressive blue eyes filled with sadness. “I feel like I never really went back home. The place I remembered is just… gone.”

He doesn’t know what to say, but his heart hurts for her. He knows all too well what it’s like to long for a place you can never go back to. But he doesn’t want to dismiss her pain by sharing his own; sometimes, he has learned the best thing you can do is just listen.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It must have been hard to lose your childhood home.”

She takes a ragged breath in, hugging her knees to herself as if she’s cold (which she never is, not in the Fire Nation anyway). One of her hands trails over the water, drawing lazy circles in it – drawing comfort from her element, Zuko thinks.

“Aang doesn’t get it,” she says, a little sadly. “He’s a nomad. He thinks home can just be everywhere. He doesn’t believe in material attachments. But I just…” she shakes her head. “I don’t know why I can’t let it go. But I just can’t.”

“I understand,” Zuko rasps. Katara looks up at him, a little surprised – but of course he understands. When has he ever been able to let go of his home?

“It is not a bad thing,” he says, carefully, “to have strong roots. Some people are able to leave their history behind; others carry it with them wherever they go. You are a daughter of the Southern Water Tribe. It is forever carved within you.” He gestures at her necklace, and she touches the carved ivory almost subconsciously. “I am a son of the Fire Nation, and I always knew that. Even when my home had lost its way, I knew I couldn’t forget who I was. It doesn’t make you a bad person, Katara. It isn’t selfish to know who you are.”

Some of the sadness seems to lift off of her, but she still looks troubled. “Yeah, but where does that leave me then? My dad has settled back down and is so committed to our new home. And Sokka, well, he spends more time on Kyoshi Island now than back at the Pole anyway. But where does that leave me? Where do I go if I can never go back home?”

Here, part of him wants to say. You could stay here with me. He has missed Katara a lot – her strength, her kindness, her relentless optimism. Often he thinks that with her by his side, trying to steer his kingdom the right way wouldn’t be quite so hard. But he knows that’s not the answer she needs. He sits in silence for a few moments, tossing some breadcrumbs to the turtleducks. He wishes he was better at this. He wishes he could channel Uncle Iroh and know exactly what to say.

“If it helps,” he begins after a while, “Sometimes I feel like I never came back home either. I know it’s not the same as your village – the Palace was still pretty much the way I left it – well, perhaps a little bit more, uh, burnt down–” he fumbles, but it’s alright, because it draws a chuckle out of her. He wonders if she’s remembering it too, their fight against Azula.

“But what I mean is,” he tries again, “It was not the way I remembered it. I came back home, but it wasn’t the home I missed. Sure, it’s the same city, the same palace. But my mother wasn’t here. Most of my family is imprisoned. My uncle went back to Ba Sing Se.” And you guys left, he stops himself from saying. He knows he has no right to keep them here, but Agni, he misses his friends like a phantom limb. Who knew, he wonders, that there could be friendship like this out there?

“I guess what I’m saying is – maybe home doesn’t need to be the place you grew up in. Maybe home could be the people you grew into yourself with.”

He’s still not sure if that was the right thing to say, but then Katara smiles at him, a soft, bright smile, like the sun coming out from the clouds (and if his heart skips a beat in his chest, well, nobody needs to know).

“I think I like that idea,” she murmurs. “Thank you, Zuko.” Then her smile turns into a teasing grin: “Look at you, being all wise and stuff! Trying to steal Iroh’s shtick?”

“Ha ha,” Zuko says flatly, putting on an obligingly grumpy face, which makes Katara laugh again. He’s not sure if it’s with him or at him, but he doesn’t really mind as long as she’s not looking sad anymore.

“I mean it though,” she says, turning serious again. “Thank you. Maybe it’s okay that my home has changed, as long as I have Sokka and Dad and Gran-gran. And now I also have Aang, and Toph, and, well–” she flushes ever so slightly as she speaks “--you.”

He supposes it shouldn’t be so unexpected – they did save the world together after all – but it still takes him by surprise, flooding his heart with warmth. Katara considers him home. Suddenly, his day doesn’t feel so heavy and tedious anymore. He’s going to hold this thought with him through his last council, and well into the night.

He gets up, brushing breadcrumbs off his robes. “I should probably go. Will I see you at dinner?”

“Oh, I don’t know, am I invited to share the mighty Fire Lord’s repast?” she teases.

He rolls his eyes dramatically. “Not with that attitude, you’re not.” She sticks her tongue out at him, then laughs again, finally sounding back to her old self.

He’s about to turn to leave when she calls for him: “Hey, Zuko?”

“Yeah?”

“You know that the same goes for you, right?”

He frowns, feeling like he’s missed a step. “I don’t get dinner with my attitude?”

She rolls her eyes at him, but he can tell she’s amused. “No, you doofus. I mean that – you know – if you ever need a little piece of home… well, I’m here.” She smiles, her cheeks going slightly pink. “I just mean… well, I hope you know– I can be. Home, I mean. For you. If that’s what you want.” It’s fascinating to see her be the one fumbling for a change, but Zuko can’t even make fun of her for it, because suddenly his throat feels very tight.

“Yeah,” he chokes out, inadequate as always, but he hopes Katara knows what he means. He thinks she does. He swallows, willing the lump to go down, and clears his throat.

“I’ll see you at dinner, then.” He bows slightly.

She nods at him, a small, fond smile on her lips. “I’ll see you at home.”

[dailyaudiobible]

01/19/2021 DAB Transcript

Genesis 39:1-41:16, Matthew 12:46-13:23, Psalms 17:1-15, Proverbs 3:33-35

Today is the 19th day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is a joy as it is every day to be here with you as we come in out of whatever's going on and come around the warmth of the Global Campfire as a community to take the next step forward. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. And just as a reminder we’ve been working through Abraham, right, Isaac, and then Jacob. And then Jacobs children because those are the children of Israel. And now we are focused and on one of those children, the story of Joseph who has been sold into slavery by his own brothers and he's making his way to Egypt. That's where we left him and we’ll pick up with that story. Genesis chapter 39 verse 1 through 41 verse 16 today.

Commentary:

Okay. A couple of things for us to look at. First in the book of Genesis, we are working our way into and through the story of Joseph, like I’ve said we’ve zoomed in on this one son of Israel, this one child of Israel, Joseph. So, let’s just look at the turns the story has taken at this point. Joseph is 17 years old. He is the favorite child of his father. He has these dreams that one day his family, especially his brothers will bow down before him. His older brothers hate him, and they eventually decide to kill him but instead they traffic him. They sell him to some Ishmaelites who take him to Egypt and sell him. I mean we could just stop there and go, “that is a sudden dramatic turn for the worse in your life if you are like still high school age and your family traffics you and you are taken to another country.” Yeah, that's bad news. We hear of those kinds of stories in the world today. So, we have some context for what Joseph is going through. Can you imagine the fear, the uncertainty, the loneliness for your father for your family, but then the knowledge that you had been betrayed by your brothers, your family, and that's what landed you in Egypt up for sale? So, then Joseph is fortunately bought, if you want to call it fortunate, by Potiphar, the captain of the guard for the king of Egypt. So, that’s a high ranking official. And Joseph proves that he is resourceful, that he is able to manage things. And the Bible tells us that he's well-built and good-looking. So, maybe Joseph is in pretty decent position if he has to have been sold into slavery because eventually, he is in charge of the household. But we know how the story goes. Potter's wife sees all of the attributes of Joseph and wants those attributes to accompany her into the bedroom. And he will not do it. And he will not do it until the point…like she's pressing in on him like on…on a regular basis until he finally has to flee, leaving his cloak, leaving evidence. She lies about him. This is guy, a 17, 18-year-old guy that is good-looking and has all of the hormones of an 18-year-old guy and he does the right thing. And, in exchange for his loyalty and fealty to his master he ends up in a dungeon. He’s eventually in charge of the dungeon. Eventually there are other officials in the dungeon, and he interprets dreams. The dreams come true and Joseph is forgotten for another two years. The thing that's going on here that we should pay attention to is that Joseph has been trying to do everything right and only bad things are happening. He’s doing the right thing and only worse is happening. So, we could commiserate with Joseph on some level in…in at least affirming that he has a right to feel bitter. Like, he has a right to feel like he's been betrayed and that he's not loved or cared for and that even God is not looking down upon him favorably in any sort of way because every time he tries to be honorable something worse happens. So, you would almost believe the Joseph has a right to sit in that dungeon rotting away in bitterness and depression and loneliness. He could shake his fists up at the sky and say, “this is not fair.” That's probably how we would behave. It’s…it would be understandable. It's just not in the story. That's just not how Joseph conducted himself. Somehow despite it all, and he's been betrayed on so many levels, despite it all he doesn't think this is God's fault. He thinks God is his only hope. And we should remember that. We should remember that today and every day and we should remember that as we press forward tomorrow into the continuation of the story.

And then we get into the book of Matthew and Jesus is teaching in parables. And parables are like illustrations stories, stories that are told that have a deeper meaning. And if you can understand the parallel or the metaphors being used then you can unlock the deeper meaning and have greater understanding. And this is one of the reasons that Jesus was known as a wisdom teacher because parables are a staple of…of wisdom teaching. So, the parable that we read that Jesus taught today in the book of Matthew is a famous one. And, so, it’s likely that we've heard this story before about the seed being thrown on different kinds of ground and what happens to that seed. And then Jesus unpacking that the seed is the word of God that goes out and people hear it and then the ground is the metaphor for the people that receive that seed or that word and how it works out in their lives. And that's clear enough that we could go back and examine our own lives to find out what kind of soil is in our heart. Like, we may need to get some rocky stuff out of our lives so that we can become fully good soil. And that's the point of this teaching. But let's look behind this because understanding this is a distinctive of Jesus style of communicating is important. He's using these parables for a reason. When we watch Jesus walk into a room we don't see him just adapt and kind of fade in and fit in. We see Jesus walk into a room and call out what is really happening there, the story behind the story. Like, what's in any room…like if we go to a party…what's in any room? All kinds of people who are catching up on all kinds of things who are mostly probably friends in some way. But we walk into these things with sort of a mask on. We’re bringing in what we believe to be the best presentation of our personality and the best curated stories of how our life is going. And behind all of that is the truth about everything. Everybody in this room that we’re talking about, everybody at this gathering or party that we’re talking about has a story behind the story. And the story behind the story is the true story, not the presented curated story. So. when we watch Jesus operate in the world, He only addresses the story behind the story. He is only calling out the truth of the matter, whether that be to the religious Pharisees or whether that be to the villagers. He is calling out the truth. But people don't know how to see that way. We like our measure of darkness where we can hide plenty of stuff. And then when the light comes and shines into the darkness what's in the dark starts squirming. What Jesus is offering, although it's provocative and causes all kinds of problems, what Jesus is doing here and what we hear him say all the time is, “do you have eyes to see and ears to hear.” And what he’s saying is, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is here now. Can you not perceive it? Can't you see it? Can't you hear it?” And then He models how we would begin to see it. Because isn't this our prayer? Don't we pray this, “God, let me see Your kingdom. Let me participate, let me see where you're going, let me see what you're doing so that I can fall in alignment.” Do we not pray these prayers? Jesus is showing us through His ministry how it's done eyes to see, ears to hear. The story behind the story is the truth and if you can see the truth and if you can live true then you can see the kingdom and the kingdom comes crashing in and it is utter freedom because there is no reason to be false. There is no identity in curating our lives, our identity comes from our Father, we are children of the most-high God. There’s nothing to hide no matter what anybody might say. And yet we live hiding right? Back to Genesis 3 naked and ashamed and hiding all of our lives, when Jesus is simply saying, “that's not how humanity was designed, that this wasn't the way for you. You had and have perfect permission to be true. You can be true.” Which doesn't mean you just run around telling everybody the truth, the hard truth, the truth in love and you just add everybody. It's you inside yourself. You don't have to be false. You can be true. And when you begin to see that inside yourself you are cultivating eyes to see and ears to hear all around you. The kingdom of heaven is at hand all around us. We will find it in the story behind the story, the true one. And let's watch that. Like, let's take it on board we need it. This needs to sink in. This is how to live. But watch how many times Jesus talks about eyes to see and ears to hear as we continue through the Gospels. Watch how much of a theme this is. Watch how He's trying to open the eyes of humanity to show them there is a better way. You can lay down the darkness and walk away from what's false and just be, be who you are. You don't have to measure up. The culture is creating all of the demands on you but in the end, they don't mean anything. We are already children of the most-high God. There’s nothing else to achieve here other than to live true and show others that there is freedom in the light when we walk away from what is false and dark.

Prayer:

Jesus this is so fundamental to…to Your teachings and to this faith and yet it is so seldom brought forward. And yet this changes everything, a new way to see, a new way to hear that will lead us into truth, into all truth. And, so, what else can we ask for but eyes to see and ears to hear? And, so, we’re asking. Help us to begin to see what's going on behind what's presented. Help us to look for the truth and may begin in our own hearts because it's so easy to look into somebody else's life and make assumptions about what's going on in their world when that is like trying to get the speck out of our brother's eye while we have a log in our own. Help us to begin to see the story behind the story inside of ourselves. Help us to live true from within we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

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And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey everyone it’s Margo from Australia soon to be leaving to go back to Liberia. And this parts the hard part. It’s very hard whenever I have to leave Australia. So, I’m asking for prayer for this transition. We’ve been in Australia for an extended period this time because of Covid and it’s also gonna be quite complicated to get back to Liberia the way things are. We have to get a negative Covid test here then we have to stop over in London and get another negative Covid test. Then we go to Uganda and we’ve got to have a couple weeks there for some more training for my husband. And then we have to have another negative test, Covid test to go to Liberia. And like everyone I really wish the world wasn’t a like this. But at the moment we are leaving on Saturday and it’s such a wrenching every time I have to go. Once I get there, I know I’ll settle in and I’ll…I’ll get back into the swing of things, but the leaving is so hard. I don’t want to leave my three sons, my mom, my sisters, all the comforts of Australia go back to a culture that I don’t understand yet. And a lot of the time I can’t understand the people. And I know it’s my calling and I love what I do. I love it I truly do but sometimes I’m just very aware of how hard it can be, and I would love your prayers. I just want to be able to really feel the presence of Jesus with me as we set off again and I want to be constantly reminded of why am doing this and the fact that it is an honor to suffer for Jesus in any way. Okay guys. Love you all heeps. Thanks for praying.

Good morning this is little Carol 1960 calling from Lancaster County Pennsylvania and I just want to say this place is my oxygen. I just can’t even express…I cannot even express how this has been a blanket and also solid ground for me through very difficult times. And those of you who call in my heart both goes out to you and I have compassion and empathy for you. I pray for you. You also are such an encouragement to me. And I just want to share a little bit. My life has been like a novel. I won’t go into it now. I will perhaps later. But been…going…went…lived through some almost death experiences -violent home, runaway etc. And the Lord carried me through. He…He knew me before I was even born. And I just see signs of that all through my life but there’s something that happened recently that just knocked my feet out from under me and it was due to my own sin and my own choice. And now I am alone, my church has asked me to leave. I had an affair with someone within the church. I was in a lonely, lonely marriage for so long and I fell. My children have left me. I only have this one person in my life who loves me. And I just want to say shame is very real and conviction is very real and pain is very real, but I hope that this really helps us to __ ...

Hello this is Wonderfully Made in Albuquerque. I have a prayer request. But before I share the prayer request, I need to share something about myself. I haven’t explained why I’ve called myself Wonderfully Made. So, I’m going to. So, I have a distinct mark on my face, and it’s been there since I was about a month old because of a…a tumor that was removed from my face. It was a malignant tumor and the doctors had to remove it or else I would’ve died. So, it’s been there ever since and I’ve learned at a very very young age that…well…God looks at the inward appearance, at the heart, man looks at the outward appearance. And also, one of my life versus is from Psalm 139, I praise you. Your works are wonderful I know that full well. I praise you for I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. And I probably got that mixed up but it’s from Psalm 139. So, I thought when I started calling into DAB that that would be the name I’d give myself. And, so, that’s what I am wonderfully made. But there are times when I don’t feel wonderfully made and today is of those and I’m running out of time to go deeper into it. So, I’ll just ask for prayers that I will look to the Lord and trust that what He has made is wonderful. So, thank you. Goodbye.

Hello DAB family this is Sunset Cindy on January 15th and I just listened to Jeremy Neff from Southern Oregon and I was deeply moved that he’s invited us all into his journey. He’s talking about hospice is coming up for him and he can see the end of his timeline. He can see that his journey might be ending unless the Lord intervenes with a miracle which I pray for. And also, I pray for strength for him and his family. There is such a deep compassion I can hear in his voice for the word of the Lord and how deeply grateful he is that he got to read through the Bible. I too read through the Bible for the first time with you all last year and I'm deeply grateful. His love for the word and his love for the Lord are sustaining him and I want to tell him I'll be lifting him up in prayer as well. Whenever he comes to mind, I pray the Lord brings him to mind when he's needing some encouragement, I'll be offering that up to the Lord for him. Thank you, Jeremy for including us in your journey and Lord bless you and keep you and Lord bless and keep your family safe. Amen. God bless you all. I love you.

Hi this is Radiant Rachel I'd like to lift up Jeremy Neff and his family to you Lord today. I'm just praying that you will comfort them and that you will walk with them through…through the year and I pray healing over Jeremy. I pray that he does not have chemo or radiation backlash and I pray that his body begins to heal. And Lord I just pray that your will will be done and that you will bring healing and restoration to the family and…and peace and joy in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hello Daily Audio Bible this is Janelle living in China. I hope it's OK that I’m calling again in the same month. I am currently on December 19th. So, I'm a little less than a month behind at this point. Hoping to catch up soon. Still haven't been completely as consistently listening everyday as I would like but I had heard a prayer that I think played on December 16th or 17th. The caller was Quiet Confidence. And quiet confidence you were talking about how you wanted to go home. And, oh sister I can relate to that. About three years ago I was in a severely depressed state and I was never suicidal, but I had that same phrase running through my mind. And I know that my situation and your situation are not the same, but I've been through something similar and I've come through the other side and I hope that by this point on January 19th you are doing much better and if you're not I hope you can hang in there and that you can pray this prayer that I found helped me and I hope will help you as well. Holy Spirit give me peace. It's a prayer that I found actually eases tension in my muscles. Even if it's just for 30 seconds it's enough to get through that 30 seconds. And sometimes that's all you need. Just keep praying that. Thank you. Bye.

[fyeahjacquelinecarlyle]

The Trouble with Ian

Warning: a Jacqueline spoiler for an upcoming episode is mentioned.

Let’s start at the very beginning - as the legend goes, a very good place to start. We only saw Ian Carlyle in a handful of episodes in the first three seasons of The Bold Type, but everything we saw indicated he was a loving, supportive and understanding husband - so understanding, in fact, that, when Jacqueline couldn’t make it to their anniversary dinner due to a work emergency, he brought the anniversary dinner to her. There were never any signs of trouble in paradise, not until season 4 rolled around, that is.

This whole mess started in the premiere episode, Legends of the Fall Issue, with a perfectly innocent game of chess in the Carlyle residence. Ian and Jacqueline appeared to be having a nice and relaxing time together, reminiscing about the day they met when he encouraged his wife to “press pause” for a while on the heels of her losing her job at Scarlet. He then followed that apparently innocuous and selfless statement, which was not well received by Jacqueline (“I’m not really the press-pause type…”) with, “I wouldn’t mind going back to work.” Jacqueline’s surprised reaction told us that was definitely the first she was hearing of it. After the briefest of hesitations, she was encouraging, telling him that he should - go back to work, that is. She had barely gotten the words out when Ian said, “Ok, I’ll put out some feelers,” got up and left the room to do just that.

Looking back, that was a red flag - this wasn’t something that had recently occurred to him, or that he had been thinking about casually. It was something that he had been wanting for a long time, as he wasn’t even willing to properly discuss the subject with his wife before taking action - hell, he wasn’t even willing to continue their game of chess. He literally got up and left to try and get a job. Judging by Jacqueline’s expressions, she was quite taken aback, either by his wish to go back to work (again, it was clearly news to her) or the very eager way he was going about it. Possibly both.

Let’s also consider something else that’s important here. Jacqueline had just lost her job of a decade. A job that meant the world to her.  She might not have been crying in a corner but that’s because that’s not Jacqueline Carlyle’s way of dealing - and if anyone would know that other than the audience, it’d be her husband. She was upset enough she was day drinking with her then former employee (tbf, it’s Jane, who’s more than “an employee” to her, but I digress) earlier that day, not to mention upset enough to admit to said employee her first instinct after the news of her ousting had been to brandish a pitchfork and go burn down Safford. While that was an obvious exaggeration, and Jacqueline would never resort to such (literal or metaphorical) extreme measures, it was a clear indication that she was distressed by what had happened. And did we see Ian being there for his wife, comforting her, encouraging her? Nope. Just like we didn’t see him doing any of those things while she was struggling with Patrick’s arrival and the changes happening at Scarlet back in season 3. It took Jane (once again, Tiny Jane to the rescue!) to give Jacqueline the support and encouragement she needed to keep on keeping on at the time.

All of this to say… there’s a limit to how much credit Ian gets here. As much as their life has played out off-screen the majority of the time, we as an audience mostly respond to what we actually see, and Ian being a loving, caring, supporting husband is something that was basically left back in season 1. We acknowledge and accept he’s been home, taking care of the kids, having put his career ambitions in the back burner. He gets full credit for that. But let’s also not forget that was a decision he made in conjunction with his wife years ago, as it was probably the best thing for their family at the time. The current state of affairs wasn’t imposed on him - it was something he helped decide and required his active participation.

Ian feels differently now, as is his right. He wants to go back to work and that is fine. The problem comes when this wish is communicated, acted on and expected to come to fruition in the literal space of a few days, at most (as every fan knows, time goes by sloooowly in the Bold Type verse).  To review - Jacqueline working and Ian being a full time “househusband” has been the status quo for the past ten years (and something the audience suddenly learned about this season). Jacqueline loses her job for a day, at most, during which time he tells her he "wouldn't mind" going back to work, manages to get some leads…

… and then Jacqueline gets her job back! She is left scrambling - let’s not forget she’s just been informed Scarlet is going fully digital, something totally new to her and a completely new direction for the magazine. At first, she thinks Patrick will be able to help out and share the load… but then he jumps ship and she is left all alone to tackle this new professional challenge… not to mention a new, unexpected challenge in the home front--

Yes, because what we soon learn is that Jacqueline being back at Scarlet doesn’t make Ian reassess his plans, which go full steam ahead. Jacqueline continues to support her husband and commits her most egregious offense in episode 2, #scarlet, when she (gasp!) is unable to leave the office in the middle of the day to be home for their son’s tutor - which means Ian has to rearrange a meeting about a potential job (and is angry enough about it that he hangs up without saying goodbye). He’s clearly successful in his efforts to “make it work”, however, because, after a Scarlet event, he simply announces to his wife that he not only received but already accepted an offer for a job that will take him halfway across the world… to the Ukraine.

Does Jacqueline protest? Put up a fight? Put her foot down? Nope. We see her accepting his decision and finding ways to make their home and her work life work, as best as she can. We see her arranging her schedule to fit in a bon voyage luncheon to Ian and a Scarlet photo shoot, which happen on the same day.

Throughout this whole episode, we see Ian pulling faces and making snide remarks under his breath, out of earshot of his wife, who appears none the wiser about his feelings - the one exception being when Ian arrives with the boys at the Scarlet photo shoot (they’re to leave for his luncheon after). The next words out of his mouth after “Hi” are “So… ETD?”. Jacqueline, is once again, taken by surprise, this time by her husband being so anxious to leave after he’s just arrived. Everything indicates they attend the luncheon as planned, however, which means that, that day, at least, Jacqueline is able to reconcile her home and work lives, making both RJ and Ian happy…

…or does she?

That night, as Ian is packing for Europe, still sullen faced, an uncharacteristically timid Jacqueline makes a remark about a clearly favorite shirt he’s taking with him and asks if he has plans to “go out” while he’s away… to which Ian says yes, because he’d like to, and I quote, “have fun for a change.”

This is the final straw. Jacqueline, who appears to finally put two and two together, asks Ian, point-blank, how unhappy he is with their marriage. Instead of giving a direct answer, he turns the tables on her, and says, “I think about as unhappy as you… Jacqueline.” She is, once again, taken aback, and silent for a long time. All she manages, by way of reply, is a simple “Right”, and nothing else. He leaves the room.

There’s a lot to unpack here. He got a job, which is exactly what he wanted. Meanwhile, Jacqueline is willing to hold down the fort at home so he can go back to work. Why isn’t he happy? Is it because she wasn’t perfect right out the gate, unable to “share the load” the first time she had to, and he had to shift some things around to make his brand new career plans work with his long-established responsibilities at home? Is it because we were shown how much Jacqueline cares about Scarlet, at times excitedly talking to her husband about the new challenges she was facing and other times venting to him about the issues she was encountering? Is it because she didn’t appear to be sad or upset that he was leaving or ask him to stay…

…

Ding ding ding?

One of the times we saw Ian annoyed and sulking was when Jacqueline was having a good time at the aforementioned photo shoot, demonstrating her abilities at a game of flip cup to the shock and delight of Alex and Andrew. Maybe jealousy is a factor here - jealousy of how much time and energy Jacqueline devotes to the magazine and how she seems to thrive and come alive when she’s working. Maybe Ian feels he comes second to Scarlet and just can’t deal anymore.

In any event, Jacqueline and Ian’s issues appear to extend beyond his employment status. Perhaps the most worrisome part is that Jacqueline appeared, for the most part, oblivious to Ian’s misery. During these first few episodes, we’d see her being very animated and affectionate towards her husband, indicating she was not the one with the problem... he was. And the depth of his anger and frustration indicates he’s been nurturing negative feelings towards his wife for a long time now. Communication clearly is a major issue here, but as the discontent party, it was up to Ian to lay the cards out on the table and let Jacqueline know how he felt. Only then would we have been able to judge her own behavior when it comes to their issues - as it is, it’s hard to put her at fault here.

As far as Ian going back to work, the most glaring issue here is time, which is something he was not willing to give Jacqueline, who was expected to learn about his desire to resume his career, process the information and then adjust her life to make it happen, practically overnight. Such a drastic change in a family’s life should come with planning - not even short-term, but medium to long-term planning. Ian and Jacqueline are such hands-on parents that, years ago, they made the decision that one of them shouldn’t hold a job so they could be there for those kids full time, despite them having more than enough money to hire nannies and tutors to take them off their hands. Now, all of a sudden, he is more than ready to leave for Europe and not even give these children the chance to adapt to their dad suddenly being away. We know Ian was working for Rolling Stone Magazine in the US when he met Jacqueline back in the ’90s. Couldn’t he have gotten his feet wet with a local job first, that would allow him to be home for dinner most nights? It’s not as though he’s looked long and hard closer to home before accepting the Ukraine gig. Not to mention, it’d only be fair to give his wife a couple of months - hell, a couple of weeks - to adjust to her new reality at work before turning her entire life upside down. The man made it a full decade without a job - surely a few more weeks/months would not have killed him.

One can’t help but wonder what is the intended play here. One of the spoilers for season 4 of The Bold Type says Jacqueline will run into someone from her past who’ll “give her clarity about what she wants out of life”. My biggest fear is that these little moments where we witnessed Jacqueline absorbed in her work and Ian unhappy are supposed to make the audience feel bad for the “supportive” and “sacrificing” husband who put his career on hold so his wife could realize her own ambitions, and, as she is about to lose him, she finally comes to the realization that she needs to devote more of her time and attention to him and their family, or be more clear about how much they mean to her. In other words, she’s a thoughtless workaholic who needs to appreciate her hubby more and just… be better, because women can and should have it all, all at once, all of the time.

I swear to God...

Ok, ok, I’m perfectly aware I’m jumping the gun here. We’re only three episodes in, and a lot of water is about to go under that metaphorical bridge. What I described above is basically my worst, nightmare scenario. The dream scenario would be Ian having an open, frank conversation with his wife where he tells her exactly what his problem is. A conversation where he accepts fault for his passive-aggressive behavior and the way he went about going back to work, not including her in his decision making process. And I’m not saying Jacqueline’s perfect here, by any means - if anything she could’ve noticed Ian’s feelings sooner (seriously, how long has he been this pissy?). The reason I’m not nearly as hard on her is that Ian’s sins are so numerous and so egregious it’s very difficult to look past them.

I hope the show explores why Jacqueline has been so oblivious… or would indifferent be a better word? Is she content with the way things are between her and her husband? Does she care more about Scarlet than she does Ian, at the end of the day? If the answer to those questions is ‘yes’, then that’s bad news for their marriage, but all I ask is that the outcome of this storyline be consistent with the behavior of both characters we’ve seen (and continue to see..) on screen. As fans, we want - we crave - consistency. At the end of the day, a story that makes sense and does justice to the characters we know and love means more than one that has a happy ending.

[takerfoxx]

Right, okay, let’s talk about Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.

Oh boy, do I have a lot to unpack here. And, uh, content warning for discussion of rape and genocide.

Right, let’s start with my thoughts on the first one. Overall, I liked it a whole lot, but mostly I’m astounded that it got the go-ahead in the first place. I mean, a bizarre subversive take on Sleeping Beauty of all things that recasts Disney’s most iconic villain as a sort of anti-hero with a heavy feminist slant that had a blatantly unsubtle rape metaphor as its centerpiece? It should have been a trainwreck! Hell, it almost was a trainwreck, one that threatened to jump the tracks the entire runtime! It shouldn’t have worked, it almost didn’t work...but it still did.

Part of that was just how committed everyone involved was to its own mad premise. Say what you want about the idea, but it was ballsy as hell, and it totally went all in with...everything. I mean, you kind of have to just to make something like this work, as any kind of drawback or halfass would’ve caused the whole thing to come crashing down, so the only chance you’ve got is to point the whole endeavor straight at that brick wall and slam your foot down on the ignition. And it went in deep, recontextualizing King Steffen as a paranoid, manipulative, power-hungry madman; the three fairies as total dolts; Prince Philip, someone who might seem dull in comparison to later princes like Aladdin, Eric, or the Beast, but was still the most proactive prince Disney had at that point, as kind of a duffer whom Maleficent had to literally drag along on his own quest and who was understandably squeamish about kissing an unconscious girl against her will; Daival as a dashing sidekick; and completely flips the Maleficent/Aurora relationship on its head. That’s the sort of thing you see in those What If? fanfics that you tend to obsess over in highschool, and it comes packing all of the raw emotion of one of those fics, and because of that it pulls its own crazy premise off. Yes, it was flawed. Yes, there were things that didn’t work. But they almost don’t matter in light of just how impressive it was that they managed to pull something this audacious off.

And as for the rape metaphor...actually, scratch that. Let’s call a spade a spade, okay? It wasn’t a metaphor, that was straight up a rape. Maybe it wasn’t sexual, but what a lot of people forget is that rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power. It’s about dominating another person to take their power away so that the aggressor can feel powerful, and that’s how it was played, and they committed to showing it in all of its ugliness. I mean, holy shit that takes balls.

But the bulk of the reason why it worked was because of Angelina Jolie.

I mean, what an absolutely mesmerizing performance! The OG Maleficent was so memorable in part because everyone else in that movie kind of...wasn’t, but also because she was super cool and super badass and totally in love with being THAT BITCH! And Angelina Jolie absolutely owns that role.

I mean, she is Maleficent. She just took a DNA test, and I don’t need to tell you what the results are. She embodied all of that iconic character’s regal majesty, menace, cruelty, confidence, and knowing that she was the badass bitch to ever vamp about in a long black gown with a bitching pimp staff just ready to show up uninvited and wreak some unholy vengeance, and then some. There is no longer any need to wonder where your god is, because she is right there, and she is all out of mercy.

But then she goes and gives actual depth to a really awesome but still kind of one note character, from the young innocence before she was betrayed to genuinely bonding with young Aurora to her desperate heartbreak over being unable to break her own curse to actual fear when it seems that the mad king has finally got her to...well, the agony of betrayal when she wakes up and fully realizes what Steffen has done to her. That’s a wide range of emotions to have to portray in a character only known for being smirkingly evil or ragingly evil, but she goes in hard, and basically holds the whole haphazard production together through the sheer gravitational pull of her performance.

So when they announced a sequel, I was intrigued. In fact, I was hoping for another totally insane, probably a bad idea production that just goes HAM on whatever crazy topical stuff it wants to talk about with Angelina Jolie just owning everything she touches.

But what it turned out to be...

Sigh.

Okay.

Let’s do this.

All right, I won’t go into specific plot details until I reach the spoiler cut, because they’re not really important. What I want to get across is the first third of this movie, it really had me. It was good! It had everything I liked about the first one. Different situation, sure, but we had Maleficent being Maleficent and bouncing off other characters, both old and new, and it was good.

Then the second third rolled around, and things started to come apart. I mean, it didn’t totally lose me or anything, there was a lot of good stuff, we learn a lot of cool lore, there’s a kickass Zootopia-type place we visit with a whole bunch of biomes, and I was generally okay with how things were, assuming that they could stick the landing. But the big problem here was that there was a whole lot less of Maleficent. Oh, she was there, sure, but she wasn’t really...doing much, mostly just walking around while some other character explained exposition to her, to which she barely even reacts, so we’re left with Aurora and Philip and Michelle Pfieffer as the new evil queen to do all the heavy lifting. And they do an admirable job of it I suppose (though the lack of romantic chemistry between Aurora and Philip was really noticeable here), but this part was seriously missing Angelina Jolie’s overwhelming presence that the first movie had, so the seams started to show.

And then we get to the third act, and that’s where it all fell apart for me. So, I guess it’s spoiler time.

Long story short, the main plot is that Prince Philip’s mom is evil and is trying to arrange for the total genocide of all of Maleficent’s fairy subjects in the Moors so that the humans can take over. And she does this by first poisoning the king with the same curse Aurora was originally under and blaming it on Maleficent (okay, that works), have Maleficent sniped when she tries to flee with an iron bullet (makes sense), come up with a special iron/magic flower compound that is fatal to fairies (good so far), and luring the Moors inhabitants in with the promise of being wedding guests, locking them in the cathedral, and dousing them with this fairy killing dust. And just in case, she also has the entire castle barricaded and guarded with a whole bunch of fairy killing dust weapons and traps.

You know what? For an evil plot, she really worked out most of the contingencies, and it nearly succeeds, though the question must be asked of why the Moors inhabitants just stroll right in after their guardian just straight up disappears after doing the same thing. But anyway, she gets as far as actually locking up all the fairies and pelting them with the killer dust.

But then the castle is attacked. See, all through the second act, Maleficent is rescued by the rest of her people, the Dark Fae, and it turns out that they’ve slowly been forced by humans to retreat to a single sanctuary, but they’re ready to reclaim their homelands by force, and after seeing her people’s sacred burial grounds defiled and the Dark Fae that saved her assassinated by humans, Maleficent is feeling pretty okay with that. In fact, the warmonger Dark Fae that’s all for violence and who leads the attacks makes a point that Maleficent has powers that not even they possess and could be their secret weapon. I mean, just have her show up and be all Mistress of Evil. Makes sense, right?

Buuuuuuut, then they attack the humans and...just sort of leave her behind? Like, she just stays with the dying dude who sacrificed himself to save her and was the one espousing a peaceful solution, and no one bothers to try to get her to come along despite her having every reason to kick all sorts of ass? Like, they have the forest magic going for them, sure, but she’s packing that green fire of I WIN, YOU LOSE, and they just...don’t take her with them?

Huh?

And as predicted, the humans unleash all their killer dust bombs and killer dust missiles and just massacre the Dark Fae. We see several of them just get slaughtered on screen, and meanwhile we also watch the Moor fairies also getting massacred in what amounts to a fucking GAS CHAMBER, complete with several of them straight up dying on screen, including one of the three fairies! No, I’m being serious, they straight up kill the Blue Fairy!

But then Maleficent shows up fashionably late, green fires all the humans into submission, has her big faceoff with the queen, there’s a bunch of stuff with Aurora and Philip trying to get everyone to stop fighting, there’s a big fakeout GOTCHA with Maleficent dying to save Aurora but coming back because I guess she’s the Phoenix or something, then the queen gets captured and turned into a goat and everyone’s friends now so they all get together and let Aurora and Philip have their wedding because the power of love wins in the end!

...

wat.

Okay, so there is something to be said for the letting peace and understanding win out and refusing to continue the cycle of violence, but, um, wasn’t there, you know, A FUCKING GENOCIDE HAPPENING NOT TOO LONG AGO? And by not too long ago, I mean literally five minutes? We see Dark Fae and Moor fairies dying en mass! And they don’t come back! I mean, there’s a sly hint that the Blue Fairy lives on as a flower or something, but that’s not really elaborated on, and we literally see a whole bunch of people get massacred! But now we’re just going to have a wedding right over everyone’s conveniently bloodless corpses and everyone’s just fine with it? And the evil queen that arranged this whole slaughter gets humorously turned into a goat and everyone laughs at in, including the recovered king (because apparently to break the curse for good all you needed was to destroy the original spindle, so I guess so much for that touching retelling of True Love’s Kiss from the first movie! Totally unnecessary now!) who just says something like, “I’m sure Maleficent will turn her back...assuming we want her to.” And then he just makes a face as if the queen was just a nagging harpy that was hard to put up with and not a literally murderous despot who tried to assassinate you and bring your kingdom to total war by eradicating the neighbors you were trying so hard to work out a peace with!

No. Fuck that, no! That is bullshit! Choose a path and fucking commit! That’s what the first movie did! It decided it was going to sneak a fucking rape scene into a Disney movie that was to be seen by a lot of little girls, and it went all in, up to and including never blaming Maleficent for wanting to take vengeance and putting all of the blame on Steffen, so it worked! If you’re going to stick in a fucking genocide, then you better show the horrific aftereffects of that genocide, not a weaksauce power of love, everyone’s friends now ending! And make the despising of the queen actually mean something, not just a humorous slapstick humiliation!

Fucking hell, what were they thinking?

[janiedean]

hello dearest (not) anon, excuse me if I don’t reply to you directly but as I want to block each single one of you I’ll keep the original so I can lovingly delete it after I’m finished. :)

now, I was this tempted to just delete or troll you, but as y’all have honestly seemed to not realize that you’ve gone overboard and that I didn’t want to get further involved with this dumb shipwar but you’re basically making me go like

so fine, whatever, I’ll address this one because it has all the single dumbest arguments we could have and I kind of want it for safekeeping, so.

point one: starting an ask with you freaks and then complain we don’t complain about jaime calling brienne ugly makes me wonder if you actually re-read your asks before you send them or if you even bother to make sure they’re internally coherent, because sorry but you’re basically saying this entire fandom is made of **freaks** which last I know was not a compliment to anyone’s aesthetic, so you already don’t have ground to stand on;

point two: stupid is actually a universally degrading word when referred to a specific person and used to undermine their intelligence, especially if continuously repeated. now, in *itself* it’s not damning - an argument can be stupid, a discussion can be stupid (I mean I’ve seen people savagely arguing over who had to wash the dishes, that’s a stupid reason to argue with anyone), a law can be stupid (all of italian bureaucracy is definitely a challenge for anyone for one), of course it’s all about how it’s used. for one, if used ironically and not meaning it, as in ‘my stupid son charging against dragons’, it’s not damning either, because wow, wait a moment, every single person who says that also knows that jaime is doing that out of ptsd fight instinct and that there’s nothing funny about it, but as we are people outside the narrative who love the character, we don’t mean it in a demeaning way. obviously charging at a dragon is suicidal, and it’s exactly what he’d have done (probably also in book canon I’ll give them that), but we all know why he did it, and btw dork is nowhere near on the same level as the stupidest lannister, it can be meant positively as well and tbh it’s used way more positively than that - I mean, there’s dorks in love and idiots in love as ao3 tags, no one uses them to insult the people in the ship they’re writing about now, do they? however, the whole thing about ‘the stupidest lannister’ is completely different because it implies cersei, someone jaime trusts implicitly and who’s his sister and, to him, also his lover and his other half - going by your own/their own definition - continuously demeaning his intelligence. now, I don’t think you quite realize how emotional abuse works or how that works, but let me tell you: if people you are that close with or have a fundamental impact in your upbringing (your parents, your siblings, your first teachers etc.) tell you that all the time, you end up believing that. and what comes with it? if you think you’re more stupid then them, then it means that their decisions will be better than yours because you’re too dumb to take them properly and they’re not, and you won’t even start to wonder that maybe they’re wrong and you’re right, and it’s an exceedingly common thing that happens between abusers and their victims, ie convincing them that they’re not smart enough to know what’s good for themselves, and so coming from cersei who also doesn’t want jaime to put two and two together and realize he’s a different person from her and actually, worse, doesn’t even consider the possibility that he might actually not be a different person from her, it’s straight up emotional abuse of the ugliest kind and it has nothing to do with *fans of the character* calling him a dork over his utter lack of smoothness when hitting on people, because we know why he doesn’t know how to hit on people. other than that, in the show they made jaime canonically dyslexic. now, if you even don’t get that calling someone stupid for thirty years will do a great fucking lot of damage to them (I mean, I’ve been told I was snobbish for three years by a teacher I didn’t even particularly admire in my formative years and I still have to finish unpacking the consequence of that shit, I can’t imagine being constantly demeaned by your relatives or people you trust implicitly) I doubt you’ll realize the fucking wrongness depths of the implication that the only lannister with a canon in-show learning disability is *the stupidest lannister* especially when there’s still the stigma about dyslexic people being dumb because *they can’t read* when that’s not true at all and they just need different ways of approaching a text and then they’re good to go and it has nothing to do with how smart or no they aren’t, but I’m going to tell you: it’s ableist as hell, falls under harmful stereotypes about dyslexic people that tv shows should go against, not reinforce and it has really disgusting connotations, so excuse me if I am pressed about it and other people are pressed about it and your opinion belongs in the trash and I really hope you’re not a teacher not are planning to become one;

point three: now we go at how you don’t get at all how those two work and how brienne’s character is structured, but here, let me explain you: a) jaime calls her ugly when they meet and after he loses the hand he only calls her ugly in his head and/or to her face when he’s irritated or she has misunderstood his intentions or he feels hurt by the fact that she misunderstood his intentions (when he gives her oathkeeper in the books), and in the show he stopped mid S3. on the other side, she calls him an oathbreaker and all the worst things she can call him - if you missed it, they insult each other and they start their relationship thinking the worst of the other person, and even with that he spends the entire first chapter of his in asos checking her out but you didn’t notice that I suppose; b) jaime does not call her ugly at all after he punches ronnet connington and in the show again he hasn’t since mid s3, and given that they were supposed to start as enemies and she insulted him right back, I won’t be here being pressed about them trading insults when the entire point of the story is that they stop insulting each other after they get to know each other and get closer to each other, or have you missed that too? c) the fact that he calls her ugly is actually narratively important because let me explain you something that you don’t know because you obv. haven’t read brienne’s chapters: most of the time she remembers being hurt by other men when it comes to her feelings, it’s when she found out they lied to her about her looks. she got her first trauma related to her looks when her septa told her that people who called her pretty were lying, and she got hurt during the bet with hyle and so on because those people were courting her and telling her nice things and then they were all planning on screwing her literally and metaphorically, so if someone went to brienne and told her ‘oh hey you look hot as hell let’s bang!!’, she wouldn’t believe them. let me guarantee you, she wouldn’t. the fact that jaime did not compliment her at all if not going all the way around to do it about her fighting prowess and maskerading it as insults means that he never lied to her about her looks or about anything, and the fact that then he changes and genuinely respects her and trusts in her and gives her THE THING SHE’S WANTED MOST IN HER LIFE ie a sword and a knightly quest and someone actually believing she could be a knight and carry out her vows instead of thinking she was a joke weights a lot more than any insult he might have thrown at her in the past and actually, she can trust him to not make fun of her/she can know for sure he’s not joking exactly because he never had a problem with calling her ugly (which she knows she is according to westeros beauty standards in the beginning) nor to tell her mean things when he thought them, and so since he never lied to her before and she can see that he changed, she has no reason to think he could or would lie to her after, and considering that most of her trauma is tied to having been lied to in that sense... sorry but no, it doesn’t bother me at all because if it’s an enemies to lovers kind of trope I really don’t think I’d expect him to gift her flowers at their first meeting. I mean, *enemies* to *lovers* implies that at the beginning they don’t like each other, or did you forget that words have meanings? also, hairy is not an insult. I suppose that for people who insult other people about the peach fuzz mustache most women have it would be an insult, but let me tell you: it’s not. and given that I’ve seen posts over posts about how it’s an expression of feminism to not shave I really think you haven’t even checked that discourse lately - personally I don’t care for it but like, having body hair is not automatically a crime nor a reason why you’re unattractive. get lost. and like, excuse me if insults traded by people who didn’t know each other and that they both outgrew when they did know each other are nowhere near on the same level of making someone think they’re too fucking stupid to take their own decisions and always have to follow someone else’s lead, and excuse me if I’m way more than mildly worried that anyone in this fandom would look at that stupidest lannister bullshit and actually don’t feel horrified at it.

now, honestly, can y’all just stop with this grasping at straws which happens to also be ableist as hell while pretending to give a fuck about brienne as a character - because you don’t, it’s obvious from how you don’t understand her issues at all - and keep to your own lane or what? because honestly, it’s obvious no one has ever called you ugly in your life and that you never had to deal with anyone demeaning your intelligence because you were most likely too busy demeaning other people’s, but you’ve been at this bullshit since 2013.

didn’t you get bored?\

[thrift-shop-fiction]

Arriba | 1

Pairing: Taehyung x Fem!Reader

Genre: They both own Taco stores the hell kinda genre do I call this.

Warnings: Swearing, Implied Smut/ Future Smut

A/N: The read more IS THERE, but Tumblr sucks so it’s not showing up on mobile for some reason?? I also said this would be up like a billion years ago but guess what? It wasn’t. Sorry about that I guess? Sorry if this is awful, I hope it’ll get better. Hope you enjoy, have an ace day/night :) (feel free to request or ask anything about this or any of my other stuff)

The invigorating aroma of spices and herbs drifted through the sweltering rustic styled kitchen. You swiped a hand across your forehead before continuing to chop onion. “Yo Hoseok, can you open the windows real quick please?”.

“Sure thing, Chef.” The flaming orange haired man skidded towards the cyan and orange windows, and threw them open with a flourish. He sauntered back to his area, where he stirred a pot, arranging succulent chicken marinated in chilli and mint on platters and called over one of your two waiters, Jungkook, to take the plates.

Running a restaurant was stressful, but you got to cook everyday, and it sure as hell payed. Your staff, Jungkook, Namjoon and Hoseok were your best friends. But there was one little thing, or one person for that matter, that never ceased to get on your nerves, and that person was Kim Taehyung.

Taehyung owned the Mexican Korean fusion restaurant across the road from yours. Your restaurant, Quesa Mesa, also being a Mexican, rivalled with Taehyung’s every day, constantly butting heads for the top spot, but always drawing.

If it was just that, you wouldn’t have much of a problem with Taecos, but Taehyung was a condescending prick. He’d had the upper hand when you first started your restaurant, what with his mother, a first generation American-Korean starting the restaurant with his Mexican father thirty years ago, but that soon changed. And if all that wasn’t enough, he was probably the hottest guy you’d ever met.

You had bought the plot, with ideas for your restaurant already crystal clear in your mind, without knowing there was a Mexican directly across. You went along with your plan nonetheless, expecting a healthy rivalry with Taecos, nothing more, nothing less. What you hadn’t expected was all-out war.

At half twelve you locked the doors to Quesa Mesa and skipped down the steps into the almost empty street. And just as you stepped onto the black pavement, another restaurant across the street was being locked by it’s owner.

Taehyung locked eyes with you as soon as he turned around. A smirk settled upon his face as he jogged across the road towards you.

“Y/N, fancy seeing you here.” Taehyung drawled as he leaned on one leg leisurely, smirk still imprinted firmly on his face “ What’s a lady like you doing walking home alone at night?”

You sighed heavily, closing your eyes for a second “Taehyung, get out my way.”

“What’s the magic word, doll?” His eyes sparkled with mirth as they glinted in the artificial yellow light from the street lamps. Tired of his almost daily snarky comments, you shouldered past him. “Woah, woah, woah, a bit feisty today are we?” Taehyung snickered as you stormed down the street.

Turning the corner abruptly you balled your hands into fists as you made your way to your apartment a few blocks away. You should be used to it after two years, but it still annoyed you, and hurt slightly. Once the anger ebbed away, your pace slowed and your hands fell limp at your sides. You had never done anything to him, but all he did was belittle you.

Once inside your cosy apartment, you cracked open a cheap supermarket red wine, pouring it into a glass, you slumped into a seat for a well earned session of miserably contemplating your life choices.

You woke up to the upbeat blast of your phone’s alarm with a sore head, cradling a wine glass. Groaning, you placed a hand on your throbbing head and cracked your neck, looking around to see that you were still in your living room, sitting on your couch with a half empty bottle of wine at your feet.

The blinding blue light of your phone blared into your sleep filled eyes as you read the time, 12:00. Still half asleep, you showered and threw on a pair of jeans and a hoodie haphazardly. The sun shone happily down on the street as you walked. Sunny days usually never failed to put a big smile on your face and send you skipping down the street as you beamed manically, but today a scowl was jammed on your face, hood up and shoulders slumped as you slowly trekked towards your restaurant to pick up a supply delivery.

By the time you rounded the corner you had managed to wrangle your features into a somewhat not psychopathic expression, though a metaphorical thundercloud still hovered above your head. The truck was already there, but was on the other side of the street and you saw Taehyung signing off for his deliveries. Once you were in earshot, your patent scowl appeared again as you listened.

“Yes, you can just leave those here too, I’ll drop them off at Quesa Mesa when the owner arrives.” His face was a picture of innocence and good will, but you could tell in his eyes as he glanced at you for a second that he had ulterior motives.

The driver revved his engines and sped off before you could shout to tell him to stop. Taehyung was still stood outside eyeing you evilly. Crossing the road, you bounded over with a dark and menacing look on your face. You stood in front of him, staring him down as he looked you straight in the eyes with amusement.

“My dear Y/N, may I ask why you are standing outside my restaurant?” his pouty pink lips curved up on one side into a knowing smirk.

“You know full well why I’m here you snake.” you hissed.

“Hmm, I don’t think I do why don’t you elaborate, doll?” a deep chuckle rumbled out from his throat.

“Well you quite clearly have my groceries.” your eyes rolled towards the sky, exasperated.

“The only groceries I have are my own, I can’t believe that you would think that I would do something like that.” Taehyung turned away from you theatrically, placing one hand on his chest and the other he rested daintily on his head “I’ve never done anything to you. I’m hurt, Y/N, I’m hurt.”

“You’re one to talk, aren’t you? I heard you talking to him ‘Yes, you can leave those here too, I’ll drop them off at Quesa Mesa when the owner arrives’” You raised your voice an octave and flapped your hands as you spoke “Well, you know what? If you don’t give me my groceries, I’ll sue you.” Your voice turned icy cold as your eyes bore into him, roaring with flames.

Taehyung swallowed and shuffled backwards slightly “Well, um, I don’t know which ones are yours so you’ll have to find them yourself.” turning on his heel, he speed walked back inside to the dim depths of his unlit restaurant, saloon-style door decorated with intricate cranes and clouds swinging closed behind him.

“Typical.” Sighing, you turned to the jumbled up mountain of crates, each one labelled with a miniscule, almost illegible, sloppy scrawl of either ‘Taecos’ or ‘Quesa Mesa’.

Once you had lugged the last crate over to your brightly coloured restaurant painted in hues of red, orange and yellow, you slumped down on the steps. Sweat trickled down the back of your neck as you panted from exertion. The cloudless blue sky stretched as far as the eye could see, and the blinding sun sat firmly at two o'clock. Why on earth you had decided to wear a thick black hoodie and jeans on a sweltering hot day like this was beyond you.

Feeling like you were going to explode from the heat, you shrugged off your hoodie to reveal your sports bra as you got up to go take the groceries inside. Just when you got up, Taehyung walked out of his door to do the same.

“Fuck.” Taehyung breathed as he stared at your partly exposed back. When you walked inside, he snapped out of his haze, deciding that ogling your sworn enemy, no matter how good-looking they were, was not a good look.

By the time you walked out after putting away the crate’s contents and having a much needed drink of ice cold water, you clapped eyes on a shirtless Taehyung. Your eyes bulged out of their sockets as you stared at his lightly honeyed skin glistened in the heat and his toned back muscles rippled as he lifted a crate and turned around to face you, giving you a view of his golden abs.

Ripping your eyes away, you speedily walked towards your pile of crates to pick one up. Your face was burning red as you avoided Taehyung’s knowing smirk.

“Like what you see doll?” Taehyung spoke, deeper than he normally would, and just slightly louder so you could hear him across the admittedly small and empty street. His eyes were trained on your face, careful not to give in to his desires and let them slip down to your chest, to keep both his composure, and his dignity intact.

You walked inside without swiftly without comment, putting the crate down and slumping beside it, you let out a breath. “What the fuck. Why are the assholes always stacked? It’s bad enough that it’s always that prick that gets me all riled up.” You muttered as you ran a hand through your dampened hair. “God, not only the face of a supermodel, but the body of literal god, and that VOICE, I’m fucking screwed, or actually, I’m not unfortunately.”

“You damn right, he is fine.” You whipped your head around to see Hoseok exaggeratedly fanning himself.

“Did you hear all of that?” Your face reddened once more as you cringed at the thought.

“Mmm hmm, but I do NOT blame you, 11/10 would smash.” Hoseok plonked down his crate and sat beside you “Apart from the attitude, that’s a -1.”

“Thank you, king of the homosexuals, for your extremely valid opinion.” laughing, you both decided to unpack the crates before you went back out, in hopes that Taehyung would no longer be there, and in Hoseok’s words 'save me from looking like the thirstiest gay ever’.

When you did venture back outside however, the odds were not in your favour. Taehyung was still there, picking up his last box, still shirtless and had now donned a white bandana. A bead of sweat dripped down the curve of his sun-kissed bicep, that you hadn’t taken the time to notice before. The two of you rushed back inside as quick as you could with your crates, jumping around and quietly screaming in the pantry like a bunch of teenage girls.

“SWEET JESUS, PLEASE SEX GODS IF YOU DON’T GIVE ME A BONER I’LL SACRIFICE MY NEXT PAY CHEQUE.” Hoseok screamed as he hopped about the room.

“You might wanna sacrifice something else pal.” you chuckled as you walked over to stack items in the fridge.

Turning round, eyes narrowed, Hoseok pointed at you, jokingly “You better not hold me to that, you hoe. Besides, you’re one to talk, your lady boner is pretty damn obvious.”

“Oh fuck off.” Shaking your head with a guffaw you began your duties once more, and your light-hearted friend started to unpack a crate.

“I’m truly flattered that I’m that attractive to you.” You stopped stock still at the sound of a low, melodic voice, dripping with contempt. The two of you whipped around, faces redder than the garish plastic of the crates as your eyes found Taehyung’s triumphant face. His smirk grew even wider as his eyes landed on yours, dropping a snarky wink. He was still wearing what he had been previously, his self-assured stance letting you know he knew what it did to you.

“I was just coming by to ask if you needed any help with carrying your crates in. But it’s great to know your thoughts on my appearance.” A hand came to rest on his hip as his eyes bore into you. Your eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets from the sheer intensity of his gaze, and your face was hot and flushed, though you were unable to rip your eyes away.

“My offer’s still open, you know.” Taehyung’s eyes shone in the warm light as it streamed through the windows, his glittering pupils seemed almost genuine for a second, it was almost as if a halo had surrounded his head, an innocent, child like look was painted softly on his face. Lips falling from their teasing grin to form a soft smile. Just for a moment, he seemed truly happy to help you with your crates, happy to be there with you. But just as soon as it appeared it was gone. You could practically see devil horns sprouting from his skull, as he resumed his prior expression in a hurried manor.

“W-well I’ll take that as a no then. See you darling.” His slight stutter as he begun to speak was almost unnoticeable, quickly covered up by his signature drawl. With a wink he disappeared around the corner, a little to quickly, and bounded across the street.

Hoseok let out a dramatic sigh, and pressing the back of his hand to his forehead, promptly fell flat on the floor. You quickly followed in joining his starfish pity party, though the look on Taehyung’s face still lingered in your mind.

The night passed with more hiccups than usual, mainly on your part. Your thoughts had been preoccupied with Taehyung, you just hadn’t been able to shake his expression from your head. After burning onions for the third time, Hoseok suggested you take a break for a bit, which you gladly did, and stayed behind to wash up as an apology.

You were shaken from your thoughts by a low, dulcet, and somewhat familiar voice from across the street. There was a man handing a walking stick to a frail old woman, he looked to be in his early twenties, and had big, brown eyes brimming with affection and wonder, his mouth curved into a toothy box smile and his eyes crinkled up as the woman thanked him. His unruly walnut coloured hair bobbed up and down as he bowed slightly to her.

No matter how familiar everything about him seemed, you couldn’t quite put a finger on who it was. No. It couldn’t be. Skeptically, your eyes traced his features, growing mortified as you realised who the man, that was now staring right at you, was. Kim Taehyung jumped as he realised he had let his guard down, and quickly morphed his face into the oh so familiar smirk.

“Night babe.” He snickered before sauntering off down the street, turning the corner abruptly.

Who the hell was Taehyung?

And why was he only a prick to you?