#thinky post

[shigarosie]

"We shouldn't be doing this," Aizawa says, the pads of his fingers pressing into the squishy skin of your cheek as he grips it with one hand, prying your lips off of his. "This is- it's inappropriate, you're my-"

You kiss him again, and despite his objections he reciprocates. His beard tickles you, not quite as scratchy and unkempt as when he first hired you. He has time to take care of himself now. The bags under his eyes- well, they're still there, but much less deep and purple. You know that taking you on as Eri's nanny is the best decision he's made in a while. And with the way you can feel him beginning to grow against your thigh, perhaps the worst as well.

"That's what makes it fun," you say, trying to convince him as your hands snake into his hair. "That's what makes it sexy. Fucking the hot, young babysitter- it's a cliche for a reason, Shota."

"Fuck," he grumbles, nipping at your lip. "Fuck. I'm not that guy. That's not me, I don't fuck younger women who- who I pay to care for my child, I-"

"You're a man," you moan, gripping his hair and pulling it taut. "A man who's been lonely for too long. Wouldn't it be nice to have a wet, hot cunt to sink your cock in?"

"Was this your plan all along?" He growls, walking you back against the living room wall. "Put on your sweet little dresses and take care of my daughter just to seduce me?"

"No," you giggle, arching into him as your back meets the wall. "I'm too good at my job to just do it for a fuck. Getting you to bend me over the sofa and rail me is just... An added perk."

"You're a minx," he says, defeated. "I shouldn't do this."

"But you will... Won't you?"

In a movent so quick and smooth you'd think he was getting laid nightly if you didn't know better, he hooks his hands under your thighs and hoists you up, his erection pressing against your cotton panties. You whimper at the contact, trying to buck against him for an ounce of friction.

"And burn in hell for it."

[tarysande]

The best part about coming back to the source material after a looooong time is you sorta get a fresh look at canon in comparison to whatever the dominant strains of fanon have become. Or, in fact, whatever your own dominant strains of headcanon have become.

I mean, yes, Garrus “I’m not a good turian” Vakarian gets infinitely cooler (and more competent!) by pretty much every metric as the storyline progresses. He does. But fresh out of ME1 and into ME2 through his recruitment, I find myself genuinely amused by how thin the veneer of badass is over a pretty dominant core of straight-up nerd sprinkled with idealism mixed with self-doubt.

When you have Garrus in the squad all the time (and thus get all his ambient dialogue and remarks), you really pick up on the number of times he calls out bad behavior, unethical actions, cruelty, and rule-breaking, especially in ME1.

He’s not actually a hothead who can’t abide rules of any kind. In fact, most of the time he’s pretty pro-law-and-order, and he gets amusingly hall-monitorish when people are breaking rules he considers important and worth following.

Fundamentally, Garrus chafes when his sense of what is just is at odds with what the authorities do about that injustice (or what they stop him from doing). And I would hazard a guess that the reason his actions seem so intense or harsh or "of course we should have shot down that ship in the middle of the Citadel" is indicative not of his impatience but of the degree to which he thinks the authorities have failed to uphold that justice. We know he can be patient. He's a sniper. His whole modus operandi on Omega is precision kills without civilian casualty. But when that long fuse finally burns down, he goes from zero to shooting down ships in the middle of the Citadel in what looks (from the outside) like a heartbeat.

And yes, injured pride hastens the burning of that fuse; he doesn’t like losing. Or admitting defeat. Or failing.

Having just replayed his recruitment mission, a few things really stood out to me this time.

The merc bands really hate him--and they also reluctantly admire him (he's described as smart, resourceful, dangerous, idealistic, brave, slippery; they all agree they only way they managed to get this far is by isolating him and employing dirty tactics). I mean, there's literally a station-wide announcement that Omega can return to "business as usual" once Archangel is out of the picture because he was disrupting things so completely.

The way Garrus blames himself for the deaths of his squad is so freaking turian. Failure reflects on the leader who places his people in danger they can't handle, not the individual who fails. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Yes, Sidonis betrayed him, but the person Garrus blames the most? Is himself. For trusting Sidonis in the first place. For raising Sidonis to a position where he had the means and opportunity to harm others--and the weakness of character to turn coat, to save his own hide, instead of dying to protect the others.

Garrus mentions more than once that he was trying to emulate Shepard. And his tone always implies that he knows he failed because Shepard would never have let a Sidonis into the fold. Again, he's blaming himself. Like a good turian. Yes, he wanted to avoid the red tape and bureaucracy of C-Sec, but his code--Archangel's code--certainly aligns with Paragon Shepard's morality (with a Garrus Vakarian twist).

And since it wouldn't be meta without adding a Tara's Headcanon Twist ... I've always wondered why "Archangel" when it's such a ... human concept. But this time, when I noticed how he spoke about Shepard's influence, and how quickly he brushes aside the name when she asks him about it, I wondered if it wasn't actually his way of honoring the mythology of the dead woman whose example he was trying to follow. Not that Shepard is a God he's worshiping, but ... there is something about the way he talks about her. Garrus doesn't make himself over in the image of a God, though; he's the soldier, the right hand, the avenging angel responsible for carrying out divine punishments suited and proportional to the crimes committed, the rules broken, the selfishness or cruelty of the perpetrator.

[noecoded]

ok..view my yuri boy

[isagrimorie]

I've been rewatching Lauren -- it might be because the scene is uncomfortable and I glide through it but:

I can't believe I missed this.

Ian Doyle flat-out said Emily has killed innocents before I knew she did shady stuff, 'cause she was undercover and worked as a spy -- Spies are inherently shady.

But to have it confirmed, canonically, that to keep her undercover -- to convince Ian Doyle that she's one of them, an arms dealer, a criminal she had to. Someone who is as morally flexible as he was.

It goes back to Retaliation:

"Explains his behavior, too. A good guy doing bad things."

And then we see a hint of how she operated as Lauren Reynolds--

Doyle: What are you thinking?

Liam: Woman first, then the goateed fella. And then Fahey if he has a shot. If not, he'll shut up.

This was the moment Emily Prentiss made the cold calculation to sacrifice Fahey just to keep her team safe.

Judging from Doyle's reaction...

This is what Emily Prentiss, terrorist profiler, and Spook as 'Lauren Reynolds' is great at -- cold calculation and pragmatism.

This is why Prentiss wanted, desperately to be part of the BAU because their goals are clear.

[pinkysberg]

i think susan grimshaw is very emblematic of the exacerbated scrutiny that female characters face in comparison to their male counterparts. susan absolutely has missteps and flaws that are easy to point out and criticize. however, that isn't unique to susan. she's an outlaw in a gang, and of course the other members of said gang also have flaws and missteps. in many cases, they have many more overt flaws and missteps in comparison. however, the conversations surrounding susan come with significantly more disclaimers and caveats.

it's totally normal and okay to say "i really love dutch van der linde" and most of the time people aren't cosigning all of his worst deeds and that's something that doesn't require a disclaimer.

nobody thinks that your love for arthur morgan is a love for his brazen murder of innocents, the way he beats up and threatens poor and destitute folk for money or so on. just like when you say you love john marston nobody thinks you support his absent parenting and whatnot.

loving susan however? requires you to say you don't support the way she puts hands on people as a form of discipline. i am not in support of the way she tries to encourage abigail to get back into sex work just like im not in support of the way the gang members who slept with her when she first joined effectively exploited her as a minor.

it's frustrating that susan isn't offered the same level of nuance and understanding. she's a woman of middle age in the late 19th century who has likely faced violence and physical discipline. she is a product of a violently patriarchal society and in her own way she shows authentic care for the gang.

comparatively, susan has done significantly less in terms of disagreeable acts and i find im always having to include disclaimers and offering defences for things i don't think anyone would bother criticizing from the likes of dutch or hosea.

[shaylogic]

Is he doing the teenage girl thing of "sigh can't wait for that handsome guy to burst in and fight my mom for me and whisk me away!"

Do you think he daydreamed these things all day long perched on that stool?

[enquiringangel]

Thinking random thoughts about the filmmakers’ decision not to give any of the vampires explicit backstories in The Lost Boys and the show vs. tell element of storytelling:

- They wanted the viewer to be drawn in by the vampires but to ultimately not root for them. A futle endeavour of course, but that was the intent imho. Joel Schumacher went out of his way to add the beach massacre because he thought audiences would like the vampires too much - AND HE WAS CORRECT lol

- They also wanted to keep up the mystery. The way the film is shot during the attack scenes through vampire POV is intended to keep a distance and build suspense. The vampires are meant to be something Other, and knowing too much about them would go against this.

Marko and Paul have barely any dialogue. The only reason people know Dwayne’s name is because of the credits. Joel himself points out that David has the least amount of dialogue of the three main characters (which he considered as Michael, Star and David, despite the meagre size of Star’s role). This is again, done deliberately for the cool guy mystique

- We do get glimpses of backstory and characterisation through costuming, setpieces and (less so) through dialogue. David implying that he was familiar with the hotel before the 1906 earthquake is about as subtle as a brick to the face.

So yes, deliberate storytelling decisions there. I quite like it, it gives a lot of creative freedom. But I do understand the frustration too. As I always say:

This is why we have fanfic.

[moonmothbroth]

It haunts me how it was confirmed that logia users should, theoretically, be losing their clothes whenever they turn into their element but the clothes stay to avoid nudity censorship issues. Please,,,i beg,,,let me have Ace and Smoker with their clothes falling off

[deathbycoldopen]

I find it funny that so many people have pointed out the hypocrisy of the Doctor avoiding guns and killing people but then sending them into the Torment Nexus or w/e, but then talk about it like it’s a flaw in the storytelling rather than a crucial part of the Doctor’s character?? Like… the point is that the Doctor drew an arbitrary line around a purely ontological rather than moral point. They have spent such a long time running from the fact that they are prone to making violent judgements and inflicting that violence on others. Which, because the doctor views themself (or wants to view themself) as a pacifist just traveling through, causes a huge cognitive dissonance that’s at the core of the Doctor’s character! They have to believe in that peaceful ideal or they’ll break down!! So they pretend that guns and death are the purest of evils when subjecting their enemies to the worst fate they can conceive of: living forever and alone, just like them.

[classic-coquette8495]

Me waiting for him to reply -`♡´-

[sky-forest-inn]

having pseudo memories can be great… but watch out!!

(this is a post about pseudo trauma)

[tarysande]

There are a couple more Garrus-Vakarian-related hills I'm willing to die on.

Maybe this particular bit of fanon has faded over the years, but there used to be a lot of insistence that Garrus is young and somehow inexperienced when he meets Shepard. Canon doesn't really support this. Turians start their mandatory service at 15. Garrus has at least a decade of experience. Even if he's 2-4 of years younger than Shepard (according to Patrick Weekes), he's got at least as much field experience as she does by dint of the difference in turian and human "enlistment" ages.

Garrus is really damn good at his job at C-Sec. You don't give the Case of Investigating the Rogue Spectre to a greenhorn. You give it to your best, most tenacious agent. Pallin may not always approve of Garrus's actions, but that doesn't actually stop him from putting Garrus on the tough case. Also, we don't know much about how C-Sec works but we do know a bit about how the turian hierarchy works, and we know C-Sec was essentially a turian initiative. That means it's a meritocracy where failure reflects on the superior, not the one who failed. So, in roughly a decade (Shepard's 29 in ME1; I always think of Garrus as about 27), Garrus has not only done shipboard military service, but he's also risen to be one of C-Sec's top investigators; Pallin wouldn't risk having Garrus's "failure" reflect poorly on HIM otherwise. I'd say that actually makes Garrus as remarkable in civilian law enforcement terms as Shepard is considered to be within the ranks of the Alliance military.

Of course Garrus was scouted by the Spectre program. And honestly, if his dad hadn't stepped in, I think Garrus would have become a Spectre, no problem. Especially for a turian, he's cut from precisely the cloth the Spectres would be looking for: extremely skilled, extremely capable, and--most importantly--he's a turian not just able but willing to work outside the chains of command that turians are taught from birth to revere and be loyal to above all else. This is the reason Pallin is leery about Spectres: he's a good turian. Good turians follow straight lines; they don't carve out their own paths.

Garrus's dad's not dumb, and he's not cruel, and he, too, rose to the top of the C-Sec hierarchy. He took one look at his kid, I think, and said, "I love my child, but I'd say it's a 50-50 chance he ends up a shooting-first-asking-questions-later Spectre like Saren Arterius, and I don't want to see that happen." Yeah, he uses his parental influence to try and jam square-peg-Garrus into round-hole-C-Sec and Garrus resents him for it, but there's no way he did it just to stop his son from getting his way or because he doesn't like Spectres. I expect Vakarian Sr. had to clean up more post-Spectre-interference messes than we can possibly imagine. But we also know he and Alec Ryder were pals later.

So the importance of what Garrus learns from a Paragon Spectre Shepard is this: You can't just do what you want and claim the ends always justify the means. That's what Saren does. Over and over again. Garrus's code and his idealism and his sense of justice and his ability to work alone should make him a great Spectre, actually, but he needs Paragon Spectre Shepard's actions to show him the lesson he tells her he's learned during ME1: "If the people I'm sworn to protect can't trust me... well, then I don't deserve to be the one protecting them." (And the seed of Archangel was planted.) I think for the first time he realizes that even though he believes his sense of justice to be correct, it doesn't matter for shit if he can't show others why that's so. And that's where the trust comes in. (Also, ow, the extra level of importance this gives their exchange where she tells him she trusts him and he tells her she's about the only friend he has left is... a lot. Cool, cool. I'm totally fine. Nothing to see here.)

When Shepard asks him what happened on Omega, he replies, "My feelings got in the way of my better judgement." Something tells me that this never happens to "good" turians, which just makes the line so much more devastating. And although the lesson some might take away from this is "feelings bad; no feelings ever," the "grey" that Garrus has to learn to deal with is precisely the grey of recognizing feelings, validating them even, but not acting on them until they've been examined. (Which is why my Shepard stands between him and Sidonis; she doesn't give a shit about Sidonis. But Garrus has refused to process his own feelings of failure and self-loathing, so they have to take the therapy session to the Citadel and deal with it there.)

Ahh yes. The mountain range of character analysis.

[amuseoffyre]

@triflesandparsnips made a rather spiffy observation on my post about Ed and face-touching:

It may be worthwhile, considering how much face/mouth violence Ed is sensitive to -- and when we see or hear about it -- to do a review of how much of that face sensitivity is also associated with food and eating.

And hooboy, I ended up down a rabbithole thinking about Ed and food and it got so long, it earned itself its own little post.

These are all the food/eating related moments that tie in directly to Ed having strong emotional responses. I didn't limit it to just the face-touching because there's a lot of emotional mess going on as well.

When Stede wakes him for brekkie in 1x04, he recoils immediately as he wakes, until he realises who's beside him (especially pertinent since Ed wakes in 2x03 and asks if anything was done to him while he was unconscious - he even anticipates harm while sleeping).

in 1x05, when he's being taught the intricacies of dining and the French captain slaps on his big red trauma button while he's sitting at a dining table and already feeling out of his depth with all the tablewear.

Cut to the flashback in 1x05 which has him and his mum talking quietly in one part of the room, but his father is there, slumped and drunk on the family dining table, setting the domestic sphere as a place of constant present threat.

Later in 1x05, when he's alone at the party, he's freaking out over not knowing how to deal with this kind of fancy-folk dining and then someone touches his face - double-whammy of the emotional stuff and the physical.

1x06 gives us the main flashback to his childhood and his father's violent reaction to 'slop' and 1x07 has stressed, out-of-his-comfort-zone hangry Ed, trying desperately to keep up the Blackbeard appearance ("Blackbeard can't be seen treasure hunting!") and again, something touches his body/head unexpectedly and he lashes out defensively.

There is so much going on in the brekkie scene that I can't even get into it here. Ed trying to code-switch between the way he interacts with Stede and Jack respectively, but most significantly, when Jack talks over him and ignores him trying to change the subject about violence he's done in the past, Ed shrinks down in the chair, doing the small-and-quiet thing he does when he's unhappy (one day I will yell about Ed taking refuge surrounding himself with gold/yellow things - blankets, chairs, robes, pillowforts. His version of the battle jacket).

1x10 has several moments. First is the marmalade - there's something child-like about the blanket fort and eating sweet sticky things with his fingers, taking comfort in food and hiding.

The second is something that is viscerally explained in S2 - when he forcefeeds Izzy his own toe. The contrast of the brutality and the very paternal "now don't forget to chew" like an adult talking to a child gave me chills the first time I watched it.

The last thing in 1x10 isn't necessarily food, but hooooboy there is something in the way he sets himself up at what was Stede's brekkie table, putting on the worst of personas possible, that is very much reminding me of his dad at the table in a bare, empty home, lit by a single candle, in that first flashback.

And now, into S2, and our man starts things in a totally healthy and normal way - eating the cake with his weapon. And, more importantly, "did everybody get cake?" Again, we have the juxtaposition of implicitly care-taking language against the surrounding violence and brutality.

The gravy basket tells us so much as well - he wakes up to the horror of being vulnerable, trapped by his own body and force-fed by someone who we learn had a habit of forcefeeding live crabs to people and who had threatened to flay Ed's skin off and feed it to him. He's rightfully afraid that anything Hornigold feeds him might be poisoned.

Once again, we have the parental energy of "open up for the cargo ship" tangled up with the fear of threat and violence and horror - poisoning, flaying and force-feeding.

Ed's fear has the two utterly bound up together, inescapably so. His father shaped his childhood and Hornigold stepped into that role when Ed became an outlaw.

But even in this messy and horrifying confrontation with his own psyche and layered up with the horrors he's lived through as a boy, some part of Ed still desperately wants the comfort and security of food and home, especially when the food his subconscious is gathering for him are the ingredients for Māori boil-up, something his mother would very likely have made for them.

It speaks measures that the three things he wants to live for include good food and warmth and orgasms. No fame. No glory. No reputation. Just to be loved and safe and warm and fed.

Jump forward to 2x04 and dinner with Bonny and Read. Ed is unsurprised by the degree of violence happening throughout, but does hesitate when poison comes into the equation - "I got the present you left for me in my glass" - Ed immediately sets down his glass, staring at it warily. Again, calling back to the Gravy Basket and his fear that anything given to him might be poisoned.

He's already on edge and off-balance - "not sure what's real and what's the basket" and there may or may not be poison and knives and the person he trusted may or may not betray him again and he's already spinning out when Anne - who had already declared her intention to provoke Ed and Mary - cheerfully lands the bombshell of why Stede left him.

No small wonder he storms out of the room, but it does lead to them having a much-needed conversation and he and Stede are on a much steadier footing after.

And then, of course, we have the breakfast of 2x07. This one is especially significant because Ed makes the brekkie then disposes of his leathers. He's actively trying to step from one mode of life to another, from the Blackbeard-and-Piracy into the domestic, softer life he's been quietly craving his entire life.

Only, as he says himself, "I don't think I've ever made regular breakfast for anyone before". He's trying, but it's something new and unfamiliar to him and it's "my way of saying thank you".

And lastly, we have the scene with the fisherman and his son where Ed has shoe-horned himself into what he thinks is the solution to all his problems and also includes a father-son dynamic, because our man can't do anything without his daddy issues rearing their ugly head.

Once again, Ed is out of his depth, but at the opposite end of the scale from the party ship. This is a place he thinks he should fit but he doesn't. This is the domesticity he craved, but without understanding or appreciating the real work that is needed to get there.

And once again, over a meal, he has an angry father expressing violence. "Control your pop-pop!" he tells the boy who is around the same age as he was when he killed his father. But he doesn't fight back, he doesn't strike out at Pop-pop, and the son steps between them and pulls his dad back several times.

And it's this father-figure's words that ring in Ed's ears when he realises Stede may be in danger. "If you were ever good at anything, do that". And if there's one thing Ed Teach is good at, it's fighting for the people he loves.

In conclusion our Mr. Teach wants a safe and comfortable home-life, with food and warmth (and orgasms), but he has no real experience of what that is really like or how to get it. His entire life has been a succession of threats and danger and men who would do harm to people in their charge, especially when they were unarmed, defenceless and vulnerable.

He doesn't know how to be safe yet, because he's never experienced it. All he's known until this point is a life of violence and danger and while he tried to move away from that, the violence and danger was still there - as Stede put it, there's no escaping it in their line of work.

But now, at the end of S2, for the first time in his life, he is actually able to say "No, I need to be away from piracy" because his whole journey through both seasons has been him trying and trying to step away from the life that has him by the throat.

And now, he's finally been able to do it and he's not alone. He has someone he's safe with and who is willing to do the work with him to help him figure things out. And give him good food, warmth and, of course, orgasms.

[purplehairedwonder]

One thing I haven't seen much mention of so far is the dynamic between James and Cyprian throughout Dark Heir.

While, yes, there is a lot of sniping and distrust between them, more than once, James seeks Cyprian out, as if trying to connect with him. He finds Cyprian in the stable to say he understands how hard it is to adjust to the outside world, and later, after Cyprian kneels to Ettore, James seeks him out.

Of course, neither conversation goes well--James is James, and Cyprian has no interest in hearing anything he says after what happened with Marcus--but it's noteworthy that James is trying.

James also constantly calls him "little brother." And, on the surface, it's easy enough to read it as James mocking Cyprian, knowing Cyprian doesn't want to have any connection to him, a reminder of growing up in James's shadow after he fled the Hall.

But I think it's safe to say that James is lonely. His own father wanted to kill him when he was eleven years old for something he didn't understand and had no control over. (I keep thinking about the way James wonders if his father would be proud while he's holding the gate open, and my heart aches.) He ended up with Sinclair, who took him in not because he was a child with nowhere to go but because he would be useful.

Over and over, we see James held apart from everyone else because of who he is--and who his master is. People are either afraid of him, objectifying him, or trying to use him. Cyprian is the closest thing he has left to family.

(Does James feel like his father replaced him with Marcus and Cyprian? Does he resent them for having a relationship with his father? Was he cruel to Marcus out of that hurt? Is my heart breaking at the thought?)

Meanwhile, Cyprian doesn't like having to pretend to be James's servant, of course, but when a servant comes to summon them to breakfast in Sloane's tent, the man calls James "Anharion" and Cyprian "had a strange expression on his face" as he stares at James and says, "They really call you that?" That's not the only time we see him react to James's treatment, as though on the verge of realizing the ugliness of James's life.

The way he keeps pushing back on James, I think, is not just his anger at James's actions but also not wanting to feel empathy for him. Cyprian was raised in the black and white (light and dark) thinking of the Stewards, and he's only just now learning about the gray areas of life--where it's becoming increasingly clear the Light and Dark, Dark King and Sun King, Sarcean and Anharion and the Lady, Lion and Champion dynamics are all falling.

(Will he recognize that drinking from the Cup and taking on a shadow of his own puts him squarely in the gray alongside Will and James? I hope so.)

[pinkysberg]

"dutch shot micah for john" "no, dutch shot micah for arthur"

idk maybe im dumb but i have always been under the impression that dutch shot micah for himself. sure, avenging arthur or protecting john could have been a thought in the back of his mind. though, i imagine he loses everything, pushes everyone away, arthur dies at his feet and in that moment he realizes micah's lead him astray and he fell for it.

i don't think dutch has the self awareness to realize his fault in this situation, and if he does he burries if under the misconstrued idea that micah's entirely to blame. he's been shamed, embarrassed and abandoned and if there's anything we come to learn throughout rdr2 it's that he can't stand being embarrassed, he can't stand being duped, and he never takes responsibility for being naive. bronte leads dutch astray and instead of going, "i was naive to think he was trustworthy and i shouldn't have taken him up on that lead" he kills bronte and creates an even larger problem. instead of going, "i was wrong to not trust hosea when he tried to dissuade me from robbing cornwall." he simply continues to create further issues.

he's been made a fool by micah. he wants revenge. john wanted revenge and when dutch is asked what he's doing there, he says "same as you, i suppose."

yes, micah bringing up arthur seems to trigger dutch however i think it's likely more about dutch feeling as though his pride has been bruised by being forced to remember his failures where arthur's concerned and less about the disrespect being shown to arthur in that moment.

dutch at his core is shown to be selfish. he is self involved, prideful, vengeful, and entirely lacking in self-awareness.

[isagrimorie]

I wonder if I'm reading Agatha All Along wrong and it's really a tragedy.

Tragically, Alice breaks away from her generational curse only for her to die in the next trial. Sharon dying was sad but Alice? Alice dying just as she's coming into her own, and totally by accident?

Agatha really doesn't seem to have any measure of control but taking other people's power mechanically feels good to her -- like a drug. She can only stop when she's stopped or shaken out of it by an outside force.

Like, how awful it is to feel good at something that fuels so much death but fuels her power too.

She might even be addicted to the taking of power even though she hates that part of herself so bad.

And she's spent centuries proving her mother right.

It's so complicated too because it's so obvious that Agatha loves magick, loves witchcraft. But this love comes at the biggest cost.

No wonder Rio thought Agatha was the one keeping herself in the hex, Detective Agnes' life might be crap but at least it's not Agatha's life with her penchant for killing people with or without meaning too. A century of blood up and down the coast.

As Detective Agnes she can be the brooding hero she seems to wish she was. But she's not-- Agatha is like a Mikaelson -- she is so many other people's monster.

She wished she was Nicky's knight and shining armor but she couldn't even do the simple thing of protecting her own son.

No wonder Agatha hid from Rio for so long too.

Also, her inability to control her power siphoning must be killing Agatha who is all about taking control and owning her own agency.

Agatha is right back where she started, hated and alone with her powers taking and giving. And being thought off as the worst and so she does what she does best to protect herself. She becomes the monster they think she is.

That is grief on Agatha's face and regret.

She looks at her hand in recrimination but that doesn't last long because it's also tempered by the feeling of finally having some measure of power back.

But at what cost?

Teen confronts her about it-- and she tries to explain but three centuries in, she's never found the words or a way to explain that she DOESN'T HAVE CONTROL.

But before Agatha can explain Jen cuts her off -- a lifetime and three of doubt and suspicion? That's not easily erased overnight. And again you can see Agatha rebuild her armor but it's the Teen who helps Agatha shut the door.

It's the Teen's hypocrisy that gets to Agatha-- she gets lying but being so self-righteous?

No, Agatha's not willing to ride that train.

And this is where Agatha fully rebuilds her wall. She's not going to take this game anymore, especially not from Wanda's son.

(Who Agatha does care for but also, fuck you.)

Teen hurt her and now she's lashing back and being cruel and taunting.

Don't taunt the spirits.

Agatha taunted the spirits. And then Billy lashed out in return.

Also, Teen hates it when people call him Familiar and Pet. This is when he really lashed out.

Because...

You should see him in a crown...

(Witches in MCU remind me so much of French Quarter Witches in The Originals-- born with blood in their hands).