#this episode is an experience. i really tried to make the gifs representative but they really dont do the episode justice

[crabtreee]

TOP TEN MURDOCH MYSTERIES EPISODES 7.  25/82 votes → 13x08 “The Final Curtain”

❝ What happened? They're all bloody dead. What kind of an ending is that?

[blitzbuckzowild]

On Stolitz, Kink and Power Dynamics, and Role Reversal - Stolas Centric

So, I have been thinking a lot about the kink dynamics between Stolas and Blitzø, especially how they are portrayed in the show vs. what is popular (or more popular than you’d think) among fan works. A lot of this has probably been said, but I am unsure what has and has not, and I have only recently begun to interact with the community.

For some background, I have about 10 years of experience within the kink/BDSM lifestyle including several long-term dynamics as both Dom and sub, attendance to events, extensive engagement in online forums, etc. I’ve been in many types of dynamics and have a good understanding of the culture.

We have very little knowledge on the intricacies of the dynamic between Stolas and Blitzø but from what I can gather its a pretty standard one without very much structure. This makes sense seeing as before recent canon events, their scenes are primarily limited to once a month. There is no evidence of switching that I can find in the show, most likely they stay firm in their roles of Blitzø as Dom and Stolas as sub. There is the comment during the Loo Loo Land episode, where Blitzø say “wait till her dad tries diddling your holes”, but the keyword being “tries.” Now obviously he could be receiving penetration, but I find it hard to believe that there is any actual control given to Stolas.

This structure obviously allows for some entertaining role reversal, and (on the surface level at least) mitigates some of the issues with the power at the same time. I find myself often wondering how people would regard the dynamic between them if Blitzø was portrayed as the sub. It obviously doesn’t really fit his character as he is now, but it is a thought.

Anyway, the point is actually to explore the idea of a role reversal between the two and what this can represent. Obviously, a lot of this has been touched on in fan-works, and probably other posts, but primarily in the framework of Blitzø’s experience subbing. I think that is well-established that a lot of the draw for Blitzø to submit is the idea of him being vulnerable and letting go of control. There are many works that focus on this.

But what about Stolas? That’s something I haven’t seen a lot of.

Stolas is passive. Even if he snarks back at Blitzø and does set some boundaries a bit at the beginning of Apology Tour, and he does tease and push, it’s really not substantial. Even with Full Moon, even with the crystal, he is still so submissive to everything that happens around him. He makes his grand gesture and throws the ball in Blitzø’s court until he can’t handle what that looks like. He let’s things just happen to him for the most part. So a lot of his character growth in the show focuses on him gaining confidence and taking initiative.

Even in Apology Tour, at the Blitzø Hate party, he makes it clear where he stands on what he wants his role in a relationship to be. He wants to be pursued, like a woman in a rom-com who stereotypically and historically takes a passive role to whatever confident or goofy hunk wants her. Sure, she wants him (usually), but typically she is not doing the pursuing. Instead she rolls her eyes and things happen to her.

Stolas taking on a dominant role, taking control, even in the context of kink, can be symbolic for him learning ambition and initiative. Everything has been decided for him and he’s letting Blitzø’s actions and responses make the decision for him. Even with Octavia, he acts as if he is collateral to her behavior and emotions. It’s fair for him to want Blitzø pursue him and to take accountability. However, at some point he needs to pursue as well. You could say that the crystal was an instance in which he did? But was it really when at the first sign of resistance from Blitzø, he folds and pull back.

All this to say, there can be some really great story telling using their BDSM dynamics. I don’t really expect the show to address this, because I think there are some intricacies here that can only be appreciated by those really involved in the BDSM lifestyle, and honestly I am not sure how knowledgeable the writers are about it outside of the mainstream knowledge (Well mainstream compared to someone like me.)

With the deal ended, and the power dynamics somewhat balancing out, the door is really opened for this type of thing. There isn’t as much baggage in Blitzø being portrayed in a sub role. The class divide is still there, but Stolas no longer holds all of the cards

There is waaaay more I can say on this in regard to the roles of sub and Dom and how they relate to Stolas and Blitzø but this is already so long. Some things to consider would be the the actual emotional needs that are filled by each role, the ways relationships in dynamics develop, different BDSM subcultures and theories on the nature of their dynamic, and more of my thoughts on how their current dynamic with Stolas subbing and Blitzø Domming impacting perceptions of their previous arrangement by viewers, how Blitzø is already submissive to Stolas in ways, the general emotional state of people when engaging in kink, etc. I could also provide my own thoughts on Blitzø subbing but I feel it’s already well addressed in the fandom.

Maybe I’ll do a part 2 if it’s wanted or I get the will. I would love to engage in any discussion (agreeing or otherwise) on this, I probably missed some things, or interpreted stuff differently than others.

And here is a Poll to wrap this up

[myloveismineallmine]

Sydcarmy & Beauty and The Beast

So, The Bear is a story with many themes and messages in it. The process of creating a story a lot times is just frankenstein-ing other stories and elements you like plus your owned lived experience.

I don't really remember how I started thinking about it, I do remember it was like 3am so that definitely has something to do with it, but I started thinking about Beauty and The Beast. And then I started comparing certain elements of it with The Bear. And then I started reading the Wikipedia page for Beauty and The Beast. And then I looked at the clock and it was like 4am so I was like okay, I should sleep now actually.

I did notice a lot of interesting similarities between the two, so I wanted to compare some of them in this post here. I think it's a really interesting lens to look at the story of The Bear from.

Chapter 1: The Beast

So, while it would be cool to do some kind of role reversal with the two romantic leads, this story does not do that, and the obvious parallel for Carmy is The Beast.

Rundown of The Beast's character traits, via wikipedia:

"In the original tale, the Beast is seen to be kind-hearted for the most part, and gentleman-like, with only an occasional tendency to be hot-tempered. Disney's interpretation of the Beast made him more constantly angry and depressed, due to the shame from his unkind actions which led to his transformation, and particularly his struggle of reconciling his hideous appearance with his inner humanity which made him feel hopeless about breaking the curse. Supervising animator Glen Keane describes The Beast as "a twenty-one-year-old guy who's insecure, wants to be loved, wants to love, but has this ugly exterior and has to overcome this." Upon his reform under his love interest Belle, his personality changes to refined and more even-tempered, while naive about the world at the same time."

Obviously this isn't to shame JAW's appearance, he's a pretty attractive dude, I'm looking more at the personality traits here.

The Disney version of him is way more unhinged and animal-like, which I'm not sure perfectly fits Carmy, but I feel like the insecurity, anger and depression is pretty accurate.

I don't think the "beast" element is entirely irrelevant, however. Let's think about what the namesake of the show is: The Bear. In reference, or course, to the main family having the last name Berzatto. They do also refer to each other as "Bear."

It's Cousin Michelle who makes the connection between the Berzattos and literal bears:

When she mentions this quote someone had said to her.

Stevie likens the Berzattos to bears later on in this episode:

It's pretty clear that the Berzattos = bears. Aggressive, but also kind and emphatic.

I also want to talk about the very first scene of The Bear:

Carmy is letting the bear out of it's cage, walking slowly towards it. He says "I know" to the bear, trying to calm it, or maybe trying to empathize with it. The bear growls and attacks him, and he wakes up from the nightmare.

It's clear that the caged bear represents something in Carmy. His rage, his stress, his grief. And he can't control it, it escapes and it consumes him.

Backstory of The Beast, extremely paraphrased:

Disney version: A prince is spoiled, cold-hearted and extremely selfish. He's transformed into a hideous beast as punishment, and told he won't transform back unless he earns the love a beautiful young woman.

Fairytale version: The prince's father died before he was born, and his bio mother leaves him in the care of an evil fairy godmother. Things get weird and incesty, this was the 1700s ig, the godmother tries to seduce the prince when he's an adult. He rejects her and she curses him to become a beast and says the curse won't be broken until he receives a maiden's act of true love. There's then a lot of really irrelevant fairy-lore and other stuff that I don't really want or need to get into.

I feel like evil mother figure one might be more accurate? Especially because Donna's one of the people who gave him so much trauma that he still carries with him? Generational trauma and addiction is "a curse" in a way.

Chapter 2: The Beauty

So it's very clearly Sydney.

Beauty in the OG fairytale doesn't have a super interesting personality outside of "pretty, caring and kind." so I think we'll look more at the Disney version here:

"While the studio wanted Beauty and the Beast to resemble an old-fashioned film, the writers envisioned Belle as "a woman that was ahead of her time"."

"...  the screenwriter conceived Belle as a headstrong feminist to avoid creating another "insipid" Disney princess."

"Beauty and the Beast's story department was predominantly male. Woolverton often argued with the more traditional story artists over Belle's role and personality, but continued to be supported by Katzenberg and lyricist Howard Ashman, the latter of whom also lobbied for "a thinker and a reader" who "wasn't a victim"."

So, Belle was basically a strong and independent woman for Disney at the time. I wanna hone in more on these character traits they mention specifically.

Sydney is very intelligent, even an overthinker at times. She literally shows up to, like, week 2 of work with a full book written on how the business can be improved.

We know she's a reader. Not only from the coach K book, she also mentions lending Marcus books at some point.

I also think Sydney fits the "not a victim" criteria. Sydney is shown pretty consistently to stand up for herself and fight back in situations.

On Beauty's backstory:

In every version of The Beauty and The Beast, Beauty's a daughter to a widower (much like Sydney is.) Beauty has many siblings, most notably her evil older sisters. They are omitted from the Disney version, and Belle is an only child.

In the Disney version, Belle is well known for her beauty, but looked down upon for not conforming to more traditional feminine roles.

Being a headstrong woman of color in the very white and male dominated world of fine dining, I can see how she fits this.

Her father has doubts about her career as a chef, she has had bad experience with chefs in leadership positions before, and the crew of The Beef really looks down on her at the beginning of the series.

Chapter 3: Beauty and The Beast

So now let's talk about the actual relationship of the Beauty and The Beast.

Belle/Beauty is lured into The Beast's castle because her father is being held captive inside. And interestingly....

Sydney references her father as the reason for why she applies for The Beef.

In the fairytale, The Beast is immediately smitten with Beauty and asks her to marry him every day. That would be a very obvious HR violation in The Bear, so I think it might be better to look at the Disney version of this story.

So in the Disney version, The Beast is more annoyed that Belle and her father showed up at all, but he does know she's a pretty woman and allows the release of her father so she will be his prisoner instead.

Their relationship is pretty bad at first, like you'd expect a captor and prisoner relationship to be, but he does allow her a nice lavish room. He orders her to have dinner with him, and she refuses to leave her room to protest against him.

Carmy and Sydney were friendly at first meeting, but after The Stock Incident, their cracks really start to show. It's when Sydney really stands her ground and argues back at him. This is not the end of the arguments and tension between them.

Belle and the Beast end up getting in a fight when Belle snoops around his room. He yells at her more loudly this time, and Belle flees the castle on horseback. She gets attacked by a pack of wolves and The Beast saves her. She takes him back to the castle and nurses his wounds.

This to me matches with the final fight Sydney and Carmy have in season 1. Carmy displays the worst of his anger, and it causes Sydney to want to wipe her hands with him completely. She grabs her stuff and leaves, telling him she's quitting.

She comes back when he apologizes to her, and they have a real bonding moment when they decide to open a restaurant together.

The Beast and Belle start to have a better relationship after The Beast heals. They become more friendly, The Beast more docile, and they're both really happy for the first time in the film. There's a scene where The Beast shows Belle the castle library and tells her it's hers.

I think the equivalent would be seeing Carmy and Sydney plan the menu together. In those scenes they seem less like co-workers and more like friends. You can also tell it's one of the few things they get actual real enjoyment doing.

I think the main parallel I see for this relationship is how Carmy and Sydney improve each other. Like with Belle and The Beast, you can actually see Carmy learn how to better handle conflict and communicate more efficiently when he's placed with Sydney.

He's more vulnerable. He apologizes more. He's able to better control his temper.

There's two very concrete examples of Sydney being able to help stabilize his emotions, actually.

Sydney is quite literally "taming the beast" in Carmy. Cognitive behavioral therapy would also achieve that, but Carmy is too much of a workaholic to attend a session, so Sydney will have to do for now. They didn't have CBT in 1700s France, either, unfortunately.

I will also say that this isn't a 90 minute Disney movie, so the slow-burn will be slow-buring for awhile until we get to the actual conclusion of the fairytale.

Chapter 4: Gaston

so I have two characters in mind for this role: Richie and Marcus. But def more heavy on Richie than Marcus.

Gaston is a villain made exclusively for the Disney movie. Here's some description for him:

"In direct contrast to his adversary the Beast, Gaston is depicted as physically handsome with an unattractive personality, both physically and emotionally embodying hypermasculinity. "

"Gaston has been generally positively received by film critics, as his lack of "magic power or political influence" means that his villainy tends to resonate with audiences who often identify someone similar to him in real life, although critics regard him as a less memorable villain than some of the studio's previous efforts."

"The Huffington Post described early drafts of Gaston as "a weaselly, sort of wimpy character." In fact, Gaston was originally intended to resemble more of an annoying than antagonistic character,"

So I think Richie kind of fits the "hypermasculinity" thing, in terms of some of his mindset and sexist behaviors.

Richie, for at least the first season, really looks down on fine dining as a concept. He makes fun of Carmy and Syd for their background in it and makes snide comments about it whenever possible.

Gaston also looks down on Belle for liking books, and encourages her to live a more "simple" life with him instead.

Here's a really interesting parallel I found with these two:

Making fun of the main character's book and then throwing it away? In the intro of the story? Very interesting.....

As far as the similarity with Marcus: it begins and ends with Marcus and Gaston both having unrequited feelings for the main female protagonist.

Other than that, Richie is way more Gaston coded in the grand scheme of things. Just not as evil. I feel like he gives first-draft Gaston with being "More annoying than antagonistic."

Chapter 5: What about Claire?

I see Claire fitting into this as almost like a faux-Belle. The love interest that's supposed to "fix" the main protagonist, but something doesn't work.

Again, there's two scenes I wanna look at specifically to showcase this:

This reaction shot of Carmy. This is the last shot of the sex scene, and there are some other previous shots of the sex scene overlaying this at times. But I've been wanting to do a deep dive into it for awhile-- why have this shot? What's the purpose of it?

I think that this shot clearly tells us that Carmy is either pensive and/or dissatisfied with what has happened. Laying with his eyes open and just staring at the wall, deep in thought, possibly regretful. This isn't the expression a man who's just had sex with a pretty woman usually has. This is one of many clues that this relationship isn't something that he really wants or enjoys.

Aaaand, the panic attack scene again. If Claire was his "true love", she would be able to quell his anxiety and panic, if this whole "beauty and the beast" story arc I'm putting together is to be believed.

Claire is the perfect girl. She's pretty, smart, talented. His family loves her. She loves him. But she does nothing to fix his problems. Because it's not true love.

Carmy not being happy at the thought of Claire vs Carmy cracking a smile because he looks at containers of radichio + fennel, ingredients Sydney cooked him once.

It is ABUNDANTLY clear that his feelings for Syd help his mental state in ways his feelings for Claire do not. Because what he feels for Sydney is closer to true love.

Conclusion:

Am I saying Christopher Storer took the plot beats and characters 1 for 1 from Beauty and The Beast? No, obviously not. Am I saying that maybe he sat down one day and this movie was on and he was like "hey maybe i can do something with this"? Possibly!

This is just speculation at the end of the day, but I really loved looking at all the possible connections between these two things. Tell me your thoughts on all of this: cool interpretation or am I just talking out of my ass?

[canmom]

Animation Night 145: Brid Bard

...Bard Brid? Sorry, the line’s not very clear here. Say again...

Oh, Brad Bird?

OK, so. Imagine there’s a really dad-like guy who directs movies. Someone for a lot of nostalgia for his childhood during which, Cold War not withstanding, he was impassioned by witnessing The Jungle Book (not unlike a certain Richard Williams) and encouraged by supportive parents to pursue animation. And it went well. Really well. Our boy Brad got an ‘unprecedented’ internship at Disney with Milt Kahl(!) off the back of his film The Tortoise and the Hare, had a chill time at high school, then went to CalArts on scholarship where he studied alongside John Lasseter (keep an eye on him. not just because he might sexually assault somebody but also because he’ll be in this story later), Tim Burton and Henry Selick.

In short, about the most direct and uncomplicated route into animation you can imagine.

Brad Bird joined Disney (their investment paying off) in 1978, working on films like The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron, but soon clashed with the studio heads who he judged not to be upholding principles he believed Disney represented. (He would be vindicated in a way by Don Bluth throwing down the gauntlet a few years later and kicking off the ‘Disney Renaissance’.) One of his last contributions must have been to The Brave Little Toaster, where he worked alongside the future founders of Pixar.

There followed a few years in which he moved to the SF Bay Area (perhaps not so gentrified back then(?) but Bird definitely had money), pitching projects left and right. One of his big passions was to adapt the comic book The Spirit. Mostly he tried experiments that didn’t pan out, like making a CG film at Lucasfilm with Ed Catmull, later founder of Pixar. He worked on The Plague Dogs (AN 86) until he got fired again.

Nevertheless, his reel of hypothetical films did catch the eye of Steven Spielberg, who absorbed Bird into his company Amblin Entertainment in order to expand his short film The Family Dog, co-created with Tim Burton, into an episode of the anthology series Amazing Stories. (Family Dog would later spawn a disastrous spin-off series in 1993, but by this point Bird had moved on). I think it’s worth noting this one because it gives a sense of what sort of original ideas Bird is working with: a dysfunctional suburban family as seen through the eyes of their dog. ‘Dysfunctional suburban family’ would be the centre of... almost every single one of Bird’s works since.

Bird continued to work under Spielberg’s wing, still clashing with execs; he got straight-married in this time to film editor Elizabeth Canney. Things seemed to be going well enough, despite his frustrations - until his sister Susan was killed in a murder-suicide by her estranged husband. This understandably fucked with him pretty hard. After a few years of depression he recovered, enough to take an invitation to work on The Simpsons in 1989 after Matt Groening was impressed by the cinematography in Family Dog. (Seriously he’s connected to just about everyone in the animation industry!) He continued on the Simpsons throughout the early 90s, working part-time to ‘oversee the script-to-animation pipeline’ and introduce this same filmic sensibility, as well as contributing to other animated sitcoms like The Critic and King of the Hill.

Let’s fast forward to the end of the 90s. As we’ve discussed... many times on this webbed site, this is when the steam of the ‘Disney Renaissance’ was about to run out, and the new CG era was about to begin. Our boy Brad, meanwhile, is struggling trying to juggle being a Dad(TM) with spending all his time making animated films. Which leads to Brad writing... a story about a suburban family strained by one of them being a superhero, yeah.

But Brad wouldn’t get to make this film just yet. Instead, his successful pitch was something called Ray Gunn, a scifi story about a detect in an Art-Deco retrofuturistic world. This movie also did not get made... but it’s because Warner bought up the studio Turner that was making it, and shut down Ray Gunn. Instead, they offered Bird a different animated film with a nostalgic bent, adapting childrens’ book The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, which was in its turn written to help his children cope with the death of his wife Sylvia Plath (yeah that Sylvia Plath!). Bird liked the pacifist themes of the novel, but while the children’s book has the feeling of a parable, he gave it a concrete setting in the 50s, and centered the story on the paranoia of the Cold War, seen from the point of view of an innocent boy.

So with this first movie we see start to see the major preoccupations of Brad Bird come into play (though he did not write the screenplay in this case). The Iron Giant comes in the middle of a brief handful of traditionally animated films made by Warner to ride on the coattails of Disney; the others include Space Jam and Osmosis Jones. They were by and large not very successful; The Iron Giant was the one critical success but failed for blah blah marketing y’know reasons. Like most of Bird’s films, the core relationship is a father [figure]-son one, in this case beatnik artist Dean who lives in a junkyard and ends up becoming surrogate father to nine-year-old protagonist Hogarth.

The themes of the film are pretty on the nose: in an idyllic American small town (Bird explicitly referred to Norman Rockwell and sitcom character Ward Cleaver) masking severe paranoia falls a harmless alien robot. It’s viewed as a threat by everyone but the social outcast and the child. The military get called in, gung-ho to throw around their toys; by the time the townspeople figure out that they’ve been huge cunts, a missile is in the air. What saves everyone is the fact that our nine-year-old protagonist has gone to the effort of teaching the Giant good old American values, so it goes and intercepts the missile in a heroic sacrifice... undercut with a final hint that it can regenerate. In fact Bird originally planned an ending where full scale war breaks out between the US and USSR, but ultimately this was softened.

What sells it is charming character animation. The production seems to be the opposite of most animated film stories: meticulously planned, prevised and storyboarded, while making effective use of cel-shaded CG for vehicles and mecha scenes, putting it among the first works to experiment in that direction. In another anime-like touch, the animation of the film was divided up by scene rather than by character.

And, within the American full animation tradition, it’s probably one of the only films to address the Cold War at all. Of course there are others from other countries! When The Wind Blows is probably the most direct; anime is rarely directly about the Cold War (the Future War 198X controversy excepted) but it’s implicit in most works that deal with sci-fi and military themes such as Akira. And in modern times, now that it’s History and serious animated dramas are more accepted, you get films like Funan about the Cambodian genocide. In the USSR... it’s complicated.

But in America... while animation studios were recruited en masse to produce WWII propaganda, for the most part animated films from the 50s through to the 80s don’t really touch on the war. They adopt mythological past settings, or tell stories closer to home. Perhaps by the time of The Iron Giant, with the war over, and the specific setting now 50 years in the past, it was considered safe enough.

The characters of Bird’s film are very much archetypal. It’s kind of a fable about the Cold War, and in the final edit of the script, a reassuring one. The ‘illusion of life’ animation techniques are used to imbue each character with enough charm and specificity but they are largely defined by their roles. I’m not saying this to criticise; this is precisely the model of film that American animation specialises in and it uses it to very good effect. Ultimately though because it’s a fable, you can only take so much from it.

Despite the commercial failure of The Iron Giant, it did finally give Brad some clout as a director. A certain John Lasseter to a new studio that was making serious waves in animation... yeah, you know them, it’s Pixar. I wrote about early Pixar back on Animation Night 75, so go check that out if you like.

At Pixar, Bird ended up directing the studio’s sixth film, finally getting a chance to follow up on his pitch for The Incredibles which features... that’s right... a suburban family with a beleaguered father in a setting designed to nostalgically reference a mid-20th-century American aesthetic. Mmm.

By this time, Pixar movies had started to establish a formula. The characters would be some kind of high concept centering on characters like toys, bugs, monsters or fish that wouldn’t face the limits of rendering humans. Usually they would center on a duo of male characters who would start off at odds and but gradually build a bond over the course of the film. They’d be suitable for kids but have enough comedy to amuse adults. There would be a villain to overcome, and a wider sphere of quirky buddies to support the main duo. Women would be almost nonexistent. At this time, it seemed that Pixar could do absolutely no wrong; their films were basically always hits.

But even so, I remember when The Incredibles came out. It hit the nerd sphere like a bomb. I remember all the memes about Edna Mode (voiced Brad Bird) shouting ‘no capes!’; I also remember the articles that argued that the film was in fact Objectivist propaganda.

Looking back, it’s hard to entirely disagree with them! The thrust of The Incredibles is that an ungrateful public rejects the special superheroes, leading to an end to their romantic days of vanquishing evil and staging dramatic fights on top of trains; now they’re all caught up in the banality of the capitalism. Bob, aka ‘Mr Incredible’, works in a miserable cubicle as an insurance salesman; Helen aka ‘Elastigirl’ is an exhausted suburban housewife trying to rein in somewhat estranged superpowered teenagers. The pencil-necked bureaucrats of Society, you see, have denied them the chance to exercise their special abilities as they did in the romantic past.

But lo! There is a new supervillain after all; it is Syndrome, once a starry-eyed young superhero, who after a rejection by Mr Incredible, came up with a plan to create a high-tech scheme to sell gadgets that would make just about anyone be able to use superpowers - even if, the arc words declare, ‘if everyone is special, no-one is’, a sentiment that basically goes unexamined further. However, his plan to stage a superhero battle to sell these gadgets backfires resulting in an out of control robot. Luckily, the Incredible family have been united over the course of their adventures and can defeat the robot, society reevaluates the superhero issue, and the captains of industry heroes can assume their proper roles of being naturally better than everyone.

It is, looking back with adult eyes, a very strange narrative to be pushing; it’s possible to see the feelings that Bird must have put into it but damn lmao dude’s got some shit to examine. But as a film it’s technically pretty much impeccable, with memorable sequences that got memed about as much as any animated film from the 2000s. It opened ‘families amirite fellas’ as an avenue for Pixar to tell stories about, which they’d dig into much further later with films like Inside Out.

But I won’t spare too any more words on The Incredibles, since I’m not actually planning to show it tonight. No, the other film of Bird’s I’m planning on showing is...

Ratatouille! A film whose influence lasted so long that you’ll get an extended parody even in 2022′s Everything Everywhere All At Once. As far as Pixar high concepts go it’s pretty up there, centering on a food-loving rat Remy who befriends a chef and hatches a scheme where he will give instructions by tugging on his hair while hiding under a chef’s hat. This concept was not due to Bird but to Jan Pinkava, director of Geri’s Game, who had developed the film for years; Bird was pulled in to attempt to salvage what Pixar saw as a hopelessly mired production. Bird, with some reticence, took the established design work, but rewrote the script into something that better fit his tastes in filmmaking. Pinkava for his part refused to comment, but left Pixar not much later.

So the Brad Bird angle enters in the secondary plot, with Remy’s relationship with his dad who doesn’t understand his artistic passion for food. The story is probably what you’d expect given these elements! ‘Probably’ because... I actually haven’t seen this movie, it’s like the one major gap in my knowledge of ‘classic’ Pixar films.

Since Ratatouillie, Bird departed animation and started directing live-action films, including an episode of Mission Impossible that breaks the formula (unless it’s got some kind of dad arc I don’t know about), and Tomorrowland which gets back on the 50s nostalgia train. I haven’t seen any of them so I can’t really comment too much except to say that it sounds like Tomorrowland doubles down harder on the vague Objectivism angle lmao.

But rather than an explicit philosophical conviction, which Brad Bird the self-described ‘centrist’ doesn’t particularly seem to have, it seems more that it’s just a channeling of not entirely examined frustrations about his difficult time getting established as a filmmaker. Bird, it seems, grew up basically being told he was a one of a kind animation genius, and entered the animation industry with a lot of romantic expectations which were frustrated by its reality. It’s easy to read his films as mostly being about how people didn’t understand clever Brad Bird.

Bird is a bit of an odd case in another way. Like basically all animators he rails against the ‘animation is for children’ stereotype of the medium that just doesn’t seem to break, yet his films are very much about archetypal characters with very clearly defined, abstracted arcs. Perhaps that’s just what he’s able to make. But he doesn’t seem to be interested in pushing the envelope anywhere particularly weird or discomforting. Beyond his ambition to bring live action cinematography in to animation, his ‘superpower’, once he got to exercise it, seems to be that he’s very good at planning. His scripts are tightly focused, his productions are on schedule, and he’s the guy you call in when old Jan isn’t finishing his movie on time.

Still, all these criticisms aside, he’s one of the major influences on the subsequent decades of CG films, and his films are consistently very solid. So if you’d like to join me - with apologies for the late start - we’ll be watching The Iron Giant and Ratatouille over at twitch.tv/canmom. Hope to see ya there, films start in about 15 minutes!

[naash-24]

Neon Genesis Evangelion Part 2

This is a continuation of the previous post on Neon Genesis Evangelion, further exploring the themes of Shinji's masculinity and psychological themes in episodes 8, 16, 24, 26 (so mainly the later/ending episodes).

We are introduced to a new character later in the series named Asuka, and she is essentially a contrast to Shinji. Despite being a girl, she is strong and has no issue with committing violent acts. She is very good at piloting her Eva and in some ways represents the type of masculinity that Shinji fails to be in the eyes of everyone. Asuka also breaks typical gender norms in this way, as she portrays more of how young boys are typically expected to act and the interests they are supposed to have when they "come of age". She serves as a reminder to Shinji that no matter how much he is trying to learn and fit into his role as a violent fighter, he is still below her.

There is a shift in his behavior during one of the fights, where he displays an unusual amount of confidence. Asuka continues to make fun of him as usual, yet Shinji responds in a haughty, superiority complex-esque manner, saying he will show her how fighting is really done. I guess this was sort of his breaking point in the series. He tries to be confident but things don't go according to plan; he reverts to his meek state after some traumatizing experiences within the Eva during the fight. So that didn't last too long. The experience and realization that he will never be able to display this masculinity and project violence launch him into a sort of depression, as he associates his masculinity with his Eva's performance and whether or not society sees him as valuable. This half of the show is better in my opinion so I will give it an 8/10.

[respectthepetty]

I scream. You scream. We all scream

TLDR: Maybe You're The Problem

Thua’s stepdad is verbally and emotionally abusive, which is why Thua is an obedient son

Kan and Thua serve as a parallel to Akk and Ayan’s dilemma in this episode

Papa Don't Preach

In the previous episode, Kan mentioned Thua’s dad while threatening him. Kan mentioned that Thua’s dad is an alum of the school, which is mentioned again in this episode when Ayan offers Thua a ride home after overhearing that Thua’s mom can’t come pick him up.

Your dad who’s an alumnus here as those guys said? He wanted me to go here, like him. Are you okay?

Thua’s stepdad has placed expectations on Thua to attend the same school he did knowing about the curse. Perhaps he simply wanted Thua to continue on his legacy or attend a prestigious school, but, most likely, he wanted to scare Thua straight.

Ayan is aware that Thua’s dad is abusive, which is why he asks if Thua is okay with him picking Thua up. Ayan knows this because he witnessed Thua’s intense reaction to The World Remembers getting verbally ridiculed and publicly humiliated

Ayan observes that even though Thua is extremely upset about it, the way Thua handles these situations is by keeping quiet because Thua believes that riding it out is safer than fighting back (a common response to abuse).

Ayan encourages Thua to find his voice instead of keeping quiet about the injustices.

Ayan also sets up a meeting with Thua and his mom to discuss the abuse.

Ayan arranges the meeting in a safe space, a place that is openly queer and is knowingly being followed by Kan and Akk. The mom states that the place is comfortable and seems aware of what the space represents. Her coded language also acknowledges that she is aware that Thua is gay. Feelings are often associated with feminine qualities and several times Ayan and the mother refer to Thua as repressing his feelings.

Thuaphu is always a helper. He really is a great man, but he likes to keep what he feels inside just to make other people comfortable. Thua, whatever you think or feel, you can talk to your mom. Ever since I got remarried, I've never seen you express any feelings.

During this discussion, Thua looks panicked and tries to stop the conversation several times. Ayan and the mother are wearing red (the color of passion) while Thua wears blue. The color could mean various things, but in the context of the show, blue is the school which is order and control.

Dad is…nice to me

While Ayan and his mother want Thua to speak freely, he is conflicted and remains restrained. He hesitates to speak ill of his stepfather, instead opting for a neutral “nice”

He is so different from your real dad, isn’t he?

The implication that the stepdad’s method is abusive is reinforced by Kan’s facial expressions upon hearing the subject of the conversation

I know my son is patient and strong, but you have the right to express your feelings.

Once again, his mother’s use of coded language saying that Thua should be able to express “feelings” underscores that Thua should be able to express his gayness. However, in the preview for the next episode, we hear a male voice, which is most likely Thua’s stepdad, state:

Men won’t think too much, Thuaphu. You’re girlish. That’s why you’re always bullied.

The Feels

Kan doesn’t want to be in that café, but he stays for Thua.

Kan tries to protect Thua by fighting the 11th graders in the bathroom for calling Thua the f-word. However, he still demeans Thua by calling him a nerd, bossy, and rude, and is hostile towards the openly gay students.

Kan tries to atone for his actions by providing treats (pink = feminine) but always resorts to distancing himself from Thua immediately after and aggressively responds to accusations that he cares for Thua.

Kan isn’t abusive towards Thua, BUT his behavior of dismissing and belittling Thua only to claim he is protecting Thua is…the norm for a character in a BL drama? No. It is consistent with what Thua probably experiences from his stepdad. From the quote in the upcoming episode, Thua’s stepdad believes, much like Kan in the first episode with The World Remembers, that Thua is to blame for his treatment.

Even if Kan isn’t aware of how bad Thua’s stepdad is, on some level, he is aware of the control Thua’s stepdad has over Thua’s life, which is why he mentioned him in their fight in the library. Based on Kan's reaction to Akk stating Kan’s parents spoil him, he might be more aware of Thua’s treatment than he would like to acknowledge.

Either way, Kan knows he is partially to blame for Thua’s repression, which is why he looks so guilty.

It’s also why Ayan has willingly allowed Kan and Akk to follow him – they must see the consequences of their actions. Akk didn’t want to admit that he was part of the reason Ayan was being punished, so he seeks out Ayan. Even when questioned, Akk acted as if he knew nothing. Due to his guilt, he allows Ayan to grab his wrist and rest his head on his shoulder. He also gives him a treat – the drink, yet all Ayan wanted was kindness.

Kan does the same here. He seeks out Thua on the beach but acts as if they just stumbled upon each other. As before, Kan tries to mend the friendship with the promise of sweet treats – ice cream. He grabs Thua’s wrist and even allows Thua to reciprocate the touch when cleaning up the ice cream.

Kan knows Thua is gay and Thua knows Kan is gay. It is unspoken truth between them. Thua realizes that Kan doesn’t want to be seen as gay, so he keeps his distance from Kan. Each time, Kan refutes the distance, but as mentioned above, his actions reinforce the separation.

In the safety of the lifeguard tower, Thua launches the truth – they are gay - at Kan once again preparing for Kan to deflect. In the silence after his confession, while waiting for Kan to produce his usual responses that skirt around Thua’s admission of gayness, Thua exhales as if relived to stand in his truth…

However, this time, instead of Kan threatening, dismissing, or stating Thua needs his protection, he offers Thua something he wants – his voice. 

Instead of defending, Kan gives Thua the opportunity to talk about his father, his fears, and his feelings. They share a *look*, but it is broken by Kan realizing his ice cream is melting down his hand, which is symbolic of his demeanor melting and his feelings pouring out for Thua.

The shift in Kan’s openness with his emotions is reinforced by the next scene being the eclipse, which we’ve seen during other moments of awareness.

And also by Kan’s pajamas. Previously, we’ve seen him in white and blue pajamas, but following his beach walk with Thua, he is wearing red, the color of passion.

Similar to the ice cream, Thua’s feelings are going to cause a mess now that they are out, but with Thua by his side, both boys will find the courage to use their voices and love themselves.

*The fact that I haven’t made one comment about iced coffee should be applauded.

[unionshiporville]

Topa's story is an intersex allegory just as much as it is a trans one but I don't really see this talked about as much. Having the fact that you were surgically altered at birth hidden from you by everyone you know is a huge common thread of intersex culture

I will preface this response by saying I am not intersex, I don’t know anyone personally who is intersex, and I am not well-versed in intersex issues. I’m only qualified to speak superficially at best to the topic, and it’s not my intention to make anyone feel invalidated in their life experiences.

This is only my own observation, but I think part of the reason people are hesitant to discuss the intersex aspects of the story is because since 1x03 people have tried to mislabel Moclans as intersex and it creates confusion in the conversation. The few times I’ve seen it come up, it has quickly derailed into a defensive ownership discussion. I suspect people shy away from it to avoid creating confusion and conflict over who gets to apply what labels and who gets to have what representation.

Moclans are not intersex as a species, they are fully one gender or the other, and the heart of this storyline has been from the beginning about Topa being forced to conform to a particular gender in order to fit cultural expectations. The main grievance in 3x05 is not that Topa’s gender was changed without her consent, but that she feels she’s physically the wrong gender. That is a transgender issue, and the story focus is primarily transgenderism.

That said, there are absolutely issues that also represent intersex individuals in this storyline. Two groups with similar struggles can see themselves similarly represented in the same content. As you said, being surgically altered at birth without your knowledge and having it hidden from you is a common thread in intersex culture. I imagine experiencing that revelation is highly personal and potentially unsettling for many individuals. I think everyone would agree there’s little to no representation of the intersex discussion in media and that it’s understandable to feel strongly when you do finally get some.

I think there’s nothing wrong with discussing the elements of the story that ring true to the intersex experience, and I think you should feel free to post about it if you wish. Use the episode to lead that discussion. I also think it’s important to acknowledge the focus of the story, to avoid creating tension related to “ownership” (which tumblr unfortunately likes to do so often), and to avoid shutting people out of the conversations and representation they need.

And of course, whether you are transgender or intersex or anything else...

(**Y’all, for real, I do not feel qualified to speak on this topic. I did my best for the Ask because it felt wrong to just reject it, but please don’t have your TikTok followers flame my ‘gram for this if I have misstepped in any of my wording.)

[purposelynana]

WHAT DID I WATCH: #26

I watched Love In The Air, made commentary post out of it, and at the last minute decided to delete it because I don't think it deserved to get out there. I consider myself as a rude person but that kind of post will solidify me as the evilest person on earth.

All I can say is that wow I've got so many rants about this. I mean this is downright bad. Not in any campy way, but morally bad way. I want to defend this because there were some parts that just good (ahem, Sky, ahem). But, how could I defend something which challenged me to confront certain stuff. Especially, of how we define rape and consent.

I've been in abusive, gaslighting, victim-blaming kind of relationship. Watching Love in The Air has been an exhausting experience. Not only because it reminded me of some of the bad times that I've had, but also how ridiculous this kind of relationship got resolved in the series.

But then again who the hell am I? I don't even know Mame and why she kept writing this kind of story. I do feel a little bit pity towards her. Is something going on with her personal life and resulting in this form of entertainment?

And the sound mixing is just downright bad. Like I can't comprehend what the hell is going on in the post-production. Probably Mame and her team threw whatever they could salvage from the shoot. I tried so hard to shut my brain off but then nah, it still felt dumb.

In order for me to enjoy this series, I had to throw all of the moral guides I've been taught on. But, we as human, if we lost our principal that means we already cost our humanity and I don't want that. I don't want to be a not-human.

The only thing that I could appreciate from Mame.

Meanwhile, been spending time to watch Big Dragon which is nice surprise in the sea of toxic relationship that get represented on TV. It was nice to see just a jerk meeting jerk. And that's Mame wouldn't understand. I'm not trying to justify rape but at least if you want to include rape into your scene, do it to the equally bad people. God, I think I'm not going to forget Mame's mistakes, am I?

Perhaps one of the strengths of this little pulpy series that rarely got mentioned is how beautiful sometimes dialogues flow between characters. It's so true to the characters and it felt real, not some made-up wattpad-y type of dialogue. Because the very reason why some of adaptations from Y-novel felt flat to me, is they just copied whatever on the paper and not trying to make it believable in today's world.

One of the best dialogue is happened on this very scene. Kinda wish it took a little bit effort from the actors but yeah...

Then, I've been trying to get through episode 6 of Ghost Host Ghost House. (weird choice of title, by the way). Strangely, after the talked about episode 4, it kinda bummed out a bit. I mean, I don't really like watching it for no particular reason. In other language, yes it is boring. For me, it was too fast in pacing. But yeah whatever happened on episode 4, was convinced me to continuing this.

AND LASTLY, THE ONE THAT HAS BEEN INVESTED INTO MY BRAIN LATELY IS...

what the hell, season 2, what the hell.

to me personally, this way better than S1 because its pacing and the acting. oh my god, edvinnnnn!!!!!! my sonnnnnn!!!!!

maybe because i'm so biased to exes-to-lovers kind of trope, that's why i'm so glad. knowing on fiction your gloomy love story could end up having a different outcome if everyone willingly to just fight. not just yourself. story of my life.

it takes losing one another to find each other.

bismillah mantan hayuk.

[pla-teau]

WANDAVISION EPISODE 6 THOUGHTS

SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!

GOOD GOD I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS

GIF NOT MINE

pietro maximoff as ‘himself’ | in the opening credits, pietro is introduced as playing himself? this just made me more suspicious about him and who he really is. it’s like wanda (since she’s the one broadcasting her show) trying to convince us, and herself, that this is her dead brother.

billy talking to us | i know tommy talks to the camera at the beginning for a brief minute but it’s mainly billy talking. i think this was a hint at his incoming powers. plus, in promo trailers for the ‘modern family’ episode, wanda’s the one talking to the camera. i bet we’ll see the kids talk to the camera in that episode but i just find it interesting that billy’s the one leading us through the beginning of the episode. plus, in rewatching the episode, pietro seems to be aware of billy talking to us and reacts to when billy talks about vision and wanda’s relationship going through a rough patch.

haydick hayward’s an ass | there’s no denying that hayward has something up his suspicious ass. first with showing the footage of wanda stealing vision’s body. then, putting in a missile and planning on killing wanda. yea, the five years were hard for everyone - no one’s denying it but there’s just something that isn’t right. we clearly see that he’s hiding something when darcy finds a file of sorts that only hayward can see and that he’s been able to track vision without telling the team. either he’s got a personal vendetta or he’s covering for something more sinister. personally, i think he’s just pissed that wanda, one of the most powerful beings in the universe, took away vision’s body when he needed it to create more weapons and whatever else he was planning. i wanted monica to punch him in the throat when he told her it was better that she wasn’t around when her mom died. bless monica for keeping her cool.

wanda’s interaction with herb | their brief interaction makes me believe that herb is just as aware as agnes (if she happens to be a victim in all this and not agatha harkness) about what’s happening. we got a hint about it in episode 3 when he tried to tell vision what geraldine’s purpose in westview was. we see him mimic agnes from the previous episode when he asks wanda if there’s anything she wants changed. he looks to her the same way agnes did when she was thrown off script. both these times involve vision throwing everything off. vision’s the one that’s been off script from the beginning of the episode this time around instead of after a weird event.

residents being in a loop or immobile | as vision gets farther from wanda and explores westview, it’s evident that there’s something off about the people. we get that shot of the woman and presumably her husband stuck in a time loop of hanging decorations and putting a pumpkin on the front steps. the woman not only sheds a tear but her hands look purplish presumably because of the cold or being stuck doing the same task for god knows how long. clearly, the woman’s in pain and is aware that she can’t break free. as vision gets closer to the loop, residents are completely immobile and stuck wherever they stand. it’s eerie and further proves that this may be wanda’s doing and wherever she is, it’s easy for the residents to be active or for her to control those near her. it could also mean that the closer you are to the hex’s border, that you become immobile as you’re farther removed from the fantasy life wanda has created.

yo-magic commercial | by far the creepiest and most disturbing commercial in the series. i’ve seen people theorize that this commercial is referring to wanda’s detainment on the raft in civil war. it would make sense since the yogurt could represent wanda’s powers and opening the lid should be simple and easy, just like using your powers. on the raft, wanda was detained with a straitjacket and a collar on her neck so she couldn’t use her magic. the island could represent the raft since it was in the ocean. ‘yo-magic, the snack for survivors’ could represent wanda being a survivor in many instances: strücker’s experiments, the battle of sokovia and the lagos incident.

pietro’s ‘part’ | when wanda questions pietro, he gets defensive about how he’s just trying to do his part: come unexpectedly, create tension with vision, stir up trouble with the twins, and ultimately give wanda grief. grief holding a double meaning. obviously, pietro did bring wanda grief when he died in 2015 but it also means to cause trouble which he has done since his arrival to westview. whenever wanda questions him about their childhood or tries to trip him up, pietro retorts with a question or makes rather meta remarks about westview.

the details are fuzzy | the comment pietro makes after a moment of silence between them. he claims he got shot in the middle of the street and next thing he knew wanda was calling her. i think when ‘pietro’ was brought into the westview reality, his memories mixed with those of wanda’s pietro or skewed them at least - it’s probably why things seem hazy to him and can see that wanda doesn’t believe him to be the pietro she remembers. pietro knows he looks different to wanda and it’s like a comment to us because even though pietro only appeared in one movie with wanda - we the audience know he’s not the same actor. this could also be mephisto really mind tripping wanda because she would remember what her brother looked like but the memories are remembered differently. enough to keep her on edge with him and make her suspect but not want to because he also says “i knew you needed me” no stranger would say that right? of course, siblings and family can tell when another member needs them. this episode really makes you laugh at pietro’s antics but go down a rabbit hole with every line he says.

the hex’s effects on people | when darcy explains to monica that her cells have been greatly affected by her entrance and departure from the hex, it doesn’t seem like monica is surprised. maybe this is hinting that monica already has her powers or simply mean that she’s putting on a poker face to hide her fear (or astonishment) at wanda’s level of power. it’s interesting to see if wanda’s gonna be responsible for birthing some mutants or at least awakening the x gene if it hasn’t already. does it mean that anyone can simply leave or that if you leave, you’ll come out with serious side effects that are possibly life threatening? monica states at the end that she’s seen cells in remission which makes me believe that this is hinting at the x gene. we’ve seen what the hex does once you go in, but what happens if an ordinary westview resident leaves?

agnes and vision | we see agnes in her car supposedly leaving town or as she claims, she got ‘lost’. when vision takes her out of her trance, agnes seems shaken and even questions if she’s dead. she also seems to confirm that wanda is the one controlling everyone because she doesn’t even let them think about leaving westview. we see more of where vision’s memory stands because he doesn’t remember (or know) that he was an avenger and that he died (twice). when she says that all is lost, she quickly starts laughing maniacally like a witch. this again makes me think that agnes knows more than anyone what’s going on. assessing what she got from vision, she’s probably laughing because it’s amazing to her that wanda’s gotten so powerful and maybe everything is going according to plan - she just possibly couldn’t overcome wanda’s control and only has a heightened awareness of the situation. there’s no mention of ralph this episode and you would think she’d bring along her husband to leave and go to her desired destination in town. i don’t know, i still think she’s got an ulterior motive and plays a bigger part in all of this.

the twins’ conversation | after sharing a sweet moment, pietro quickly calls out the obvious - the kids. only in episode 3 did children finally come into the show through billy and tommy. now, for halloween, all the kids are out and enjoying halloween. pietro, like rapid fire, remarks that wanda probably kept them peacefully asleep in their beds and didn’t wake them until now for the “occasional holiday episode cameo” so as not to traumatize them even more since she’s always been the “empathetic twin”. he seems to know that this is all in a television reality which gives him even more awareness than any other supporting character we’ve met so far. he even goes into assessing (and somewhat praising?) wanda’s handling of this whole westview reality as ethically possible. he knows that wanda wouldn’t rewrite everything: couples and families stay together and personalities aren’t far off from what they are. with this, it heavily hints that this isn’t the pietro we’ve known in the mcu or the peter from the x-men universe. to me, this furthers the point that this ‘pietro’ is just a puppet for whoever is behind all this (or just a multiverse version of piet) since he seems more impressed than anything by wanda’s powers. also, he’s been the only one to ask what we’ve all been thinking since the first episode: how the hell did wanda do this? once again, wanda doesn’t remember how all of it started which still makes me thinks she was probably taken advantage of by someone and earlier in the episode when recounting a childhood memory, pietro comments that she’s probably suppressed the trauma hence why she doesn’t remember it the same way. at the end, this could all be wanda’s doing due to her feeling so alone and grieving that she may have suppressed that memory of how this all started.

pietro’s corpse | again, us the audience and wanda are reminded that this universe’s pietro is dead. it’s another person closest to wanda that isn’t alive - harking back to her comment about feeling so alone and endless nothingness. this may just be that when wanda lets her guard down and is possibly at peace with a situation, this one being of her accepting that this is the pietro that’s going to be her brother that sticks with her moving forward, she’s reminded of the truth - none of it is real and she can’t bring them back.

vision’s breakout from the hex | as we’ve seen in promos, vision is able to break through the hex. what we were hit with was vision nearly getting killed...again. it seems that he can’t live beyond the hex either due to him just being parts when wanda recovered him or because wanda won’t let him go. either way, vision can’t live outside of westview. it physically seems like wanda can’t let him go because as he steps out of the hex and is being torn apart, the hex looks like it’s trying to pull him back into it. i know the hex was wanda’s doing but this physically makes it seem as if wanda can’t let him go and is holding him back. it’s kind of true because since vision became more aware, he’s been breaking away from wanda and she’s been trying to keep him in place and on script so that they can be happy together. in their fight in the previous episode, she says that all of this is for them as to say that everything she’s doing is for their happiness. it’s a twisted way of showing how vision can’t live without wanda since it seems that she’s the one keeping him alive.

wanda expanding the hex | wanda’s clearly gotten more powerful over the years and this episode really shows us how fucking powerful she is on her own. it’s hysterical that the base and the most of the agents are turned into circus acts such as clowns. i’ll admit i’m upset darcy got sucked in and not hayward. i’m very interested to see who monica’s guy on the outside is. with wanda expanding the hex, it’s becoming more evident that wanda may be the ‘villain’ of the show or if there is someone else behind all of this, we may not see them until multiverse of madness. still, i believe wanda is victim in some capacity - even if it means she’s fallen victim to her trauma and grief.

[low-budget-korra]

Lets talk about Korra (again)

i already made this analysis, and it was well received but i dont know, i wanna do it again. Why not right? My english is better now than was when i made that analysis so i think  this one will be better written

What a way to introduce a protagonist. This line and this scene tell us everything we need to know about Korra at that time and everything she knew about herself.

In book one Korra is a 17′s old teenager who have no idea how the world, how life is outside the training center she grew up in and had been locked up since ever. So she is not only naive but have lack of social skills

Oh, and not everyone who lack’s social skills will act like Zuko and Azula okay? Korra can be confident, expressive and outgoing and still have problems when it comes to social skills.One thing dont exclude the other.

“I’m the Avatar and you gotta deal with it” did you guys notice that only for that line we can see the entire opposite on how she treat her role as avatar in comparisson with Aang? And im not here to judge because is two very different contexts.

As far as we know, Korra grew up without friends or romantic partners. Of course, she had her training partners but i believe that they are just that. 

So her entarely perception of herself was around her duty as Avatar, she didnt have personal life, she barely was Korra...She was The avatar and thats that.

So she came to Republic City, it was a mess. 

Its funny to see that she have no touch when it comes to simply talk to people, i guess when you grew up away from society, this happens. And yes, she is cocky and had to learn that people arent there to somewhat please her, and she learned that quicky. 

Thats why the Pro Bending was important for her character, not only for training but also as means of socilization.

Now lets talk about the villains: Amon and Tarrlok

The two of them represents two differents threats to Korra. Amon represents a threat to her duty as Avatar while Tarrlok represents a threat to Korra as a person.

In episode 4 we have what i still thinks is the darker episode from TLOK. In this episode Amon ambushes Korra in the final moments... Even knowing that they did their best to make Amon’s power and control be non-sexualized as possible still...He have her down on her knews, totally helpless and he even invades Korra’s personal space by touching in her face forcing her to look at him. He didn't have to sexually touch her to violate her.

And right after, the fear in Tenzin voice when asking what happened after seeing her laying in the ground like that, and how Korra is sobing in his arms teeling him how powerless and helpless she felt. I mean...Oh, and she keeps terryfied by him until he takes her bending.

Tarrlok in the  other hand doesnt do much different from his brother and started to harass Korra because he cant take ‘no’ as a answer when Korra didnt wanted to join his task force.

Whats interesting is that if it wasnt for Tarrlok harassement and maniputation, Korra wouldnt have joined his task force and wouldnt have confronted Amon and wouldn't have gone through that terrible encounter.

The thing is that Korra is caught right in the middle of a politcal power dispute over the city, something that she for sure wasnt prepare for it. And both Amon and Tarrlok woud hurt or kill her without think twice about it if that means gain  power. And that was exacly what happened

Tarrlok tried to manipulate her and keep her on leash where he could, and when his tatics didnt worked anymore he alreay had a plan B. Yes that whole metal box in that cabin in the middle of nowhere was made especifically for her and maybe Tenzin if he also get in his way.

In the end Korra lost the physical battle against both but won the ethical battle also against both. She was the responsable for expose both of them as corrupted and hypocrites. But at what price? Amon was able to remove the bends of the Avatar. And without them, how could she be the Avatar?

Remember that her entirely conception of herself was built around her duty as Avatar, be the avatar. After all, everything she was, everything she'd trained so hard for, had been destroyed in minutes. Thats why i still strongly believe that she was thinking about killing herself at the end, nobodys goes all sad and crying to in front of a clifft without thinking about jumping from it. 

But she, i think given up the idea and just sit and started to crying when Aang appeared and help her, giving her bendings back in one of the best scenes of the show. So after have everything solve and still managed to get the boy she was in love with, things where great and she “move on”

In that first half, Korra is unbearable. Everything she learned in Book 1 how to be more mature, less spoiled and all, was thrown in the trash and she was the same "child" of the book one only worse.

Until I stopped and realized that I was also unbearable and childish like this when I had my bad phases of anxiety and depression, as defense mechanism and keep people away. Returning to Korra, and if this way of acting of her was nothing more than this defense mechanism?

Because guess what, i dont think she “move on” from all that happened in Book One that fast, and for add more drama she discovered that was her father idea of keeping her locked up training in that training center we saw in book one and not traveling like avatars before her. No wonder she felt betrayed. And for adding even more drama, people still keep treating her like child, so she was despered for some validation. Something that she found in her uncles arms but she was betrayed by him after.

In the end, Korra again goes through a traumatic experience when she has her connection with past lives destroyed. We see how it affected her when she apologizes to Tenzin, through tears. And Tenzin, as the excellent master he is, tries to motivate her to face Vaatu again (now merged with Unalaq, her uncle) and again she saves the day even after go throught a traumatic event

In the final moments, we see the innocent decision to reconnect the world of spirits and the world of men. And we also see Korra and Mako permanently end their turbulent relationship.

Book 3 begins in a more mature, we see all the characters being presented in a more mature way and it seems that Korra now has overcome everything that has passed. We have the relationship between Korra and Asami deepening as well

In Book 3, called "Change" we have a great sacrifice from Korra. Her life goes down a notch when she decides to save the new airbenders from Zaheer and the Red Lotus, the only villain until now that really threat her life since their sole goal was to kill the avatar.

Korra won again but this time victory costed way too much. Yes she save the day again but now she was  physically and psychologically defeated. It was too much, she broke.

Book 4 begins and we only saw Korra in the final minutes and she is unrecognizable. We see that, once proud and courageous avatar, in someone depressed and cowerd. We never have saw Korra like that, even when she was afraid of Amon she wasnt like that.

Korra is afraid of being the Avatar again and her fight against PTSD is still one of the most sensitive, responsable and honest representation of Mentall Issues that i saw, and it was before this subject gain more space on media. It was before people started to give attention to this

I also think that she was having flashs from her other fights and not only the one against Zaheer.

Another thing I think is worth mention is that Korra took 3 years to feel safer and re-embrace her duties as Avatar. It was not 3 weeks or 3 months, it was 3 years. And anyone who suffers from some mental illness knows very well the stigma that is, the fight that is, because everyone wants you to be well faster as possible  when the truth is that many times you spend years fighting against this.  And this is a pressure that falls on you.Imagine, seeing all your friends moving forward while you continue "stock in the same place"?

Only after Korra confronts Zaheer, I think that was a way to show her coping with the trauma, she improves to the point of returning to be the great Avatar we know. I personally still struggles with this scene because put the victim in front of her agressor may not be the best idea but i understand that she needed to see that he was just a man and not the invencible monster her mind was telling her

One of the lines that stuck with me the most was in the TLOK version of the ember island players, the one that made a recap of the show before the finale. When Korra said “I was so naive” just before we watch her narration of her journey, we can feel pain, sadness and strenght. Janet was amazing in the way the delivered this line.

And this fucking quote i saw here on tumblr still is the goat: “The Last Airbender is a story of a boy who becomes a god. The Legend of Korra is the story of a goddess who becomes a girl "

And I still get really pissed when someone comes to talk shit about  Korra because she is such an incredible heroine and her journey is also so incredible.

The story of how life can be hard and unfair, how it can hurt and paralyze, but there is always a reason to move on. We should always move on.

Korra is definitely not weak, quite the opposite, she is one of the if not the strongest heroine I have ever seen. Korra inspires overcoming 

[benka79]

After Dark (We see the light)

Buddie Meta 911 503

Hello friends. Okay I told you this is gonna be a short meta bc we had just a little from Buddie at the end but it was very, very rich in visuals and body language.

Whispers: I just dissected the lockers buddie scene... 😏🔥

Just a few words about the kidnapping

I know we don't wanna talk about this ¡I don't wanna talk about this) but it was the main topic in this episode so I need to say a few words...

First of all, it was a very ugly and boring and weird way to show us this "storyline" as they described in the promo.

But let's rescue some interesting points:

-Another good neighbor helping by recording with her cellphone what was happening with Harry and his raptor. Again, neighbors saving lives just like they did in episode 502.

- Another hint to the idea that "no one is safe".

- Harry's kidnapping as a Foreshadow of Eddie being hostage in 507.

- The whole episode and the whole kidnapping process happened in the darkness. (Visual symbolism as I pointed in my previous meta here.)

- When Athena confronts Jeffrey she also makes a reference to darkness and light, and the firefam appeared illuminating the place. This is a reference about how the family they choose, the people they love, it's always there to support you and help you in bad moments too.

- When the woman asks Michael if Athena was his wife, he answers "Ex-wife", as a premonition of Eddiana break up at the end of the episode.

- The 118 unity assists a 911 call in which a man said his friend had been shot. This was a blatant reference to 413 and 414. The difference was the brachial artery.

- When the firefam goes to find Harry, we had a brief Buddie moment, again working together.

- Harry doesn't want to talk about his traumatic experience. (I talked about this in the previous metas with two characters with talking difficulties, as a Foreshadow for Harry.

- Maddie and her depression is taking relevance now that she thinks she is dangerous for her daughter. Imagine the pain she is handling thinking about this? I can't even...

The Light is Here

Time for some Buddie meta now.

First scene: the Lockers.

Buck sees Eddie coming out and smiles. This smile could mean a lot of things. But because this is a buddie meta, that smile is from someone that didn't expect find his crush still there. A nice surprise to see him again. Even when they were so many days together, you always celebrate the fact that you can have a little more of your crush, right?

Buck says he thought Eddie would be the first leaving because he had a little person waiting for him: Christopher.

The important thing here was the way Buck is talking to Eddie.

Look at him. He is smiling the whole time, eyes focused on Eddie. It reminded me that time in the kitchen. The fondness and the devotion towards Eddie are loud here. The longing, even when Buck implies "Hey Christopher is waiting for you, someone is waiting for you, that's awesome" it felt as is he wished he had that too.

But the smile, the soft gaze and even the voice he uses, is screaming Buck's yearn for Eddie.

Then we had Eddie avoiding Buck's gaze again.

Eddie had been thinking the way to break up with Ana. The seriousness in his face told us he had been thinking about it a lot. But even when he tried to find the word, he couldn't. He only stares at Buck to deliver a strong message.

When he mentions the name of Ana, sending Buck the idea of him breaking up right now, once he gets home.

The hidden message to Buck here is "Look, I'm following your advice, okay? I'm breaking up with her. I don't love her. And is happening now."

Then Eddie leaves and Buck's reaction is... priceless...

Buck is speechless. He can't believe it. First of all, because Eddie is following his advice. Eddie is not like Abby. Eddie is breaking up with her to release her. Eddie is honest. But then, he blinks nervously. Eddie breaking up with Ana means Eddie will be single again.

Remember season 4 opens with Buck saying "I don't tell people how I feel", who was these people? Well, his parents and Eddie. He even bought a book "5 languages of love" to learn how to express his feelings for Eddie. But Eddie started to date Ana, and every hint of being with him vanished. And that's why the sarcastic "What's Ana love language?" Full of Jealousy.

Now, Eddie is gonna be single again. And you can't tell me that reaction from Buck watching Eddie leave is not expressing exactly this: HOPE.

Even Athen mentions HOPE IN THE DARK in this episode.

Second scene: Honey, I'm Home

Suddenly, when the black out ends, we witnesses a continuum of parallels with people coming back home and family waiting for them. The first one is Hen, in video-call with her son. The kid is waiting for her after 5 days.

Then Athena's kids. Then Eddie having breakfast with Christopher and Ana...

And then we have Buck. And the contrast is HUGE. The writers made it blatant to show us BUCK IS ALONE. Even when he's dating Taylor, he is alone. Because Taylor is married with her job, and again, Buck is put to a side.

The irony in Buck's quote: "Honey, I'm home." Is representing his loneliness. His girlfriend is not what Buck wants for him. Buck wants to be seen (just like Norman) he wants to have what that old married gay couple had THAT'S LOVE. Buck wants his own beautiful love story. He wants a person who waits for him at home. That's why the yearn in his voice while he was talking with Eddie in the lockers. Maybe because he was imagining what wonderful would be to come back home together with Eddie and Christopher waiting for them.

This is the preamble to Buck/Taylor future break up. As I wrote in this spec post here.

So, Eddie already has the family he wants with Buck, but he doesn't know it yet, and Buck wants to have a lover who sees him for real. That person is Eddie, but he's not his lover, but his best friend. Well, not his lover yet.

Third scene: "I guess is your mess now."

Okay, we finally are in the Eddiana break up. I really felt sorry for her. Really. She was nervous at first, we can say it because her body language and the verbiage. Her body moved from side to side, trying to clean up the mess in the kitchen.

She knew what was going on. So she was the one saying it first. Eddie just added some few words about Christopher loving her, but the girl knew everything. That's why the talk was quick. There were no more words to say. She chose Spanish to say goodbye to him, because it was one of the things that they had in common, like a mechanism of defense. Then she says he is a great father. This is very important, because she knows Eddie was trying hard to fall in love with her because of Christopher.

But what caught my attention was Ana saying: "I guess it's your mess now" talking about the kitchen, but symbolizing the huge mess that will be Eddie from now on. And the mess is in the kitchen. The place in which Eddie and Buck flirted. The place in which Eddie looked at Buck so fondly as he interacted with Christopher.

That kitchen yells buddie. And it's a mess now. Because what is about to come my friends, is Eddie slowly realizing he is in love with Buck. Let's wait an see.

To Conclude:

Several storylines on the horizon, as the producers said. So we had Harry handling his post kidnapping trauma, maybe not talking about it.

Maddie and Chim story, with Maddie's depression and the seek of Maddie.

Buck's inner desire of being seen vs his relationship with a absent girlfriend.

Eddie rediscovering his sexuality through the realization of his own romantic feelings for Eddie, maybe will be expressed by a lot of Jealousy towards Taylor and some little fights over there. And Buck completely oblivious about Eddie's feelings.

Buenos Aires, October 6th 2021 9:21 AM

[newsies-of-corona]

Varian & Affirmation

Analysis:

And we’ve got another one, folks! This one hit hard for me for sure. Just the way that the show set it up...it’s incredible. So without any further adieu...

“Well, shall we get started?”

Motives

So I’m just going to come right out and say it: Varian is selfish in Season 1. The whole way through. (Now don’t leave yet! If you know me you know how much of a fan I am of this complex alchemist and this is not a hate post by all means!)

But yes. Throughout the whole of Season 1, Varian has a very self-centered mindset that’s hard to pick up on at first, but it’s there. Here’s some dialogue examples:

“I am sure that I, Varian, can unlock the mystery of your hair with the power of science!”

“Hey Flynn Rider? Wanna come with?”

“It doesn’t matter. The truth is all I really wanted to do was impress you, I thought that if I showed you what I was capable of you might see something in me.”

“Actually he’d probably be impressed. At least I hope he’d be impressed.”

Most of these quotes sound perfectly innocent, and they are! But it’s the motives behind them that make them more self-centered. Varian’s main goal, his life blood practically, is affirmation. He yearns to be adored and recognized for his achievements. It’s a perfectly normal and human want. I myself struggle with this all the time. But when it’s the only thing that you strive for? The only thing that makes you happy? It effects everything that you say and do. If you dig deep into these quotes, you can see what he’s really craving.

By discovering the mystery of Rapunzel’s hair, Varian gets credit and especially admiration. By showing his idol his inventions, he’s expecting Eugene to tell him what a genius he is or how amazed he is that this fourteen year old kid could build all this. The third one is just wanting Cassandra to recognize him since he looks up to her, and went to great lengths to impress her. Even when he helped her, it was still because he wanted to impress her and get her to help him in return. Throughout that episode he’s trying so hard to get her to compliment his work. In three of these examples, he gets the adoration he asked for. But that’s the problem: he asked for it. Eugene and Cass essentially tell him the same thing, “you’re a great, smart kid with good intentions.” And both times he responds more...despondently. For Cass it’s “thanks for saying that.” For Eugene it’s just looking at him sadly because this wasn’t what he wanted to hear. In essence: it isn’t enough.

And the last quote obviously represents the affirmation he craves the most, his father’s, and the one that he doesn’t get.

Even slight comments like “I build it myself,” “of my own design,” and “wanna see my new invention?” all have the underlying motive of craving affirmation from his peers. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but since Varian often has tunnel-vision and can’t see the consequences of his actions, it quickly becomes an issue. Especially in the case of, of course, the black rocks.

Taking it Too Far

We find out that Varian discovered the rocks in Great Expotations. Rapunzel inadvertently tasked him with figuring out how to get rid of them, and in his mind he needed to. To impress her and possibly all of Corona. So he ran tests and got reprimanded by his dad probably more than once. But this is the biggest thing he could ever do: rescue his village and the kingdom and make his dad proud in the process. That’s why he wanted to come with him and hopefully talk to the king. Yes, in this case he actually wants to help his village, he’s not heartless and he cares a lot, but he’s predominantly focusing on the rewards that will come after he figured it out.

Of course we know his plans go awry again, but he never stops focusing on his goal of making his dad proud of him. Seriously...NEVER.

Taking it WAY Too Far

Enter: Villain Arc. Suddenly his need to be adored and affirmed flips upside down. He doesn’t want compliments anymore, he wants people to fear him, respect him, and listen to him.

Examples:

“I have asked for help and have been ignored, I will not be ignored any longer!”

“I tried asking for help in a civil manner but was denied by everyone in Corona. So, unfortunately, this is my only remaining recourse.”

“I’ll make them hear me...”

I touched on this in my Confidence analysis, but Varian never loses his drive. And his want to be revered, consumes him. Even when he goes to prison, he joins Andrew and takes over Corona to be feared. But he soon realizes, it’s still not enough. His want for revenge doesn’t satisfy him or make him happy, it just makes him feel worse as the weight of what he’s done gradually crashes down on him.

By the time Rapunzel comes back, it’s all an act. He’s not craving adoration anymore. He just wants a way out of this cycle of disappointment that isn’t getting him anywhere. You can tell from the lines, too.

“Me? No, not really.”

“So that no one will forget they turned their back on my father!”

“I took their queen prisoner! I threatened their princess! I helped these guys take over their kingdom!”

Now the first one is small, but it actually shows a lot of development (even if he says it in a rather dorky way) because he’s not taking credit for something or taking the “fear” that he wanted so badly. The second one just sounds like a threat but it’s not “they turned their backs on me,” like it was in season 1. It’s back to his father, and it’s, in a way, humbling Varian by taking himself out of the picture. And of course the last one is the most evident: he’s listing his faults and realizing he doesn’t deserve the adoration he used to crave so much.

Making it Right

During Varian’s redemption...we see these thoughts really come to light.

“All I ever wanted was for my father to be proud. But if he were free from the amber now, and saw everything I’ve done, well he’d be ashamed.”

This is his turning point. This is where he owns up to how warped and twisted his mindset was and makes an effort to fix it with Rapunzel. Not for himself; not for the glory, but because it’s the right thing to do. He knows he messed up with the Quirineon, and he’s literally willing to die to make up for his mistakes. This is a direct contrast to his previous statement: “I will make you proud of me, dad. If it’s the last thing I ever do.”

Because if he dies fixing his mistakes, he doesn’t expect any kind of praise. He’d leave a legacy of horrible deeds that would never make his dad proud; but he’d be saving Corona and that’s all that matters. Of course he doesn’t actually die, thank goodness, and Rapunzel saves Corona instead, but he’s learned something from this whole experience. And one thing he especially didn’t expect was for Rapunzel to keep her promise after everything. And even when his dad finally says those words...they were supposed to mean everything, but they don’t. It still isn’t enough. Especially not after everything that’s happened. I touched on this in another analysis as well, but he feels like he doesn’t deserve those words.

From this point, Varian has a whole new outlook on life, not dependent on gaining recognition. He’s still the cocky, confident alchemist we know and love, but he shows off his inventions because he’s proud of them, and that’s enough. He saves Corona from the red rocks because he genuinely wants to help his kingdom, he doesn’t have any underlying motives whatsoever. He helps with the Demanitus Scroll because he wants to help Rapunzel figure everything out. And at the end he helps defeat Zhan Tiri because he knows he can help, and he genuinely wants to. (And here’s where I get emotional.)

Varian doesn’t once ask for compliments or a “thank you” throughout season 3, yet that’s exactly what he gets. After all of those years of seeking and yearning for adoration, he finally gets it when he doesn’t need it anymore.

In every selfless thing he does for Corona, he gets a reward in some way. When he rescues the kingdom from black rocks, he didn’t ask for anything in return, yet his reputation was restored. When he agreed to help with the scroll, he actually got to work in Demanitus’ Lab, someone he’s admired forever. And when he helps with the portal, he gets to go see Demanitus’ tomb and I mean...

that’s the happiest we’ve ever seen him. And it isn’t just the big things either, it’s the little ones. The way that Rapunzel calls him “a genius,” when he doesn’t ask for it or allude to it in any way. The “good job, buddy,” that Eugene tells him after he fixes up the balloon. And every time he’s complimented, he stays humble. He even responds one time with “just doing my part.”

And at the very end of his arc, after all of that selfless work he did for Corona out of the goodness of his own heart, he’s given his very own title of “Royal Engineer.” An official position in the kingdom that people truly look up to and respect.

Conclusion

This is honestly one the most well-done character arcs I’ve ever seen, because it’s absolute poetic justice. At the beginning, Varian is so focused on his own need of affirmation that he forgets everything else, and jeopardizes himself on multiple occasions. Especially when his motives become warped. But when he finally sets his pride and his own ambitions aside and realizes he’s already enough, that’s when he gets the respect and adoration that he had always wanted. And that my friends...is CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.

[tinyboxxtink]

“Sharky” *Part 11*

Oh yeah, this series is going to be THE longest series to date. I’ve still got a decent amount of plot I want to get through. 

Note: Yes, this is “Undiscovered Country” territory. But let me assure you, the ONLY things that this story will have in common with that episode is what Barba actually did, and the verdict. How we get there, that’s gonna be a very different and VERY bumpy ride.

And away we go!

Chapter List  Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10 

Part 12

Tag List:

@wanniiieeee​

@dumauier​

@word-scribbless​

@gibbs274​

@objection-argumentative​

@aprildecker-blog​

@chasingeverybreakingwave​

======

You walked into the small courtroom made for hearings/pleas, your head held high. It wasn’t very full, some of the yahoo’s from the SVU, the kid’s parents you assumed, some reporters who had heard about the “Fallen ADA”. Vultures.

“Your honor my client would like to change his plea,” You walked right up to the judge’s stand without so much as looking over at the State’s side.

“Excuse me?” The judge asked, looking at Rafael who was standing behind you at the desk. “Is this true, Mr. Barba?”

“Yes your honor, I’d also like to change counsel to Miss Y/L/N here,” Barba nodded.

“Objection your honor,” Stone argued, walking up to the judge’s stand. 

“Oh what grounds?” The judge raised an eyebrow.

“Miss Y/L/N and Mr. Barba have been in a relationship, it’s a conflict of interest,” He snarked.

“Your honor, I can assure you 100% that Mr. Barba and I have NEVER been in a ‘relationship’ of any kind, even Detective Benson can attest to that, can’t you?” You glanced back to her.

“It’s true your honor, they’ve never been in a relationship,” Olivia agreed while ignoring Stone’s glare.

“We had ONE very unfortunate sexual experience, if anything we hate each other your honor,” You added with a smirk. You could just feel the glare coming from Rafael into the back of your neck.

“Well, if that’s true then why are you choosing to represent him?” The judge asked suspiciously.

“Because it’s the right thing to do, your honor,” You said earnestly. “I may be an aggressive bitch, but I’m not a monster. Mr. Barba didn’t do anything wrong and--”

“HE KILLED MY SON!!!!”

“Oh shut up, you Pro Life Piss Ant!” You spun around and yelled at the father.

“Mr. Barba, control your counsel,” The judge warned.

“Right,” Barba came up next to you and pulled your arm leading you to the desk.

“As I was saying,” You huffed, throwing daggers with your eyes at the disrupter.  “Mr. Barba did nothing wrong and--” 

“Actually Miss Y/L/N,” The judge interrupted you.

“Can I not finish a sentence?!” You muttered to yourself, Barba nudged you to shut up.

“As far as whether or not he did anything ‘wrong’ is for a jury to decide,”

“Exactly, your honor,” You nodded. “With a TRIAL, which my client would like,”

“He can’t do that! He already admitted to killing my son. He can't take it back!!!” The man was yelling again.

“Sir, I have zero qualms of sitting overnight in a jail cell for beating the absolute SHIT out of you,” You snapped, causing several people to gasp and chatter, the judge banged his gavel. 

“MISS Y/L/N, I will hold you in contempt!”

“He started it!!!”

“Yeah and it looks like I finished it,” You heard him chuckle. You started to make a break for it over to him to make good on your promise,  but Barba grabbed you by the waist.

“Alright I’m ending this madness before it gets out of hand,” The judge sighed. “Court will convene next Friday at 9 am,” He slammed his gavel and the man’s wife quickly hurried the man out of the room before you could duke it out. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Barba hissed at you.

“Me? That prick called you a murderer, Raf--Barba,” You tried to keep it business, no emotion, Keep calm. That was going to be hard with Olivia stomping up to the two of you.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” She barked.

“I’m sorry, did you not HEAR that bastard--?” You started a quip but were cut off by the detective.

“He’s the VICTIM!!!” It took a few seconds for it to register, but Olivia quickly realized what she said, looking at a shock and hurt Rafael. “I mean, he’s--” 

“...And then the sky opened up and God said ‘Blessed be, Y/N,” You grinned, causing both of them to look at you in confusion.

“Now what are you on about?” Olivia asked, afraid of the answer. 

“Well Olivia, for the VERY first time, I can say-- you’re not just my enemy anymore, you’re Rafael’s enemy too,” You smirked, using his first name to really rub it in. 

“What? No, I’m not--”

“Really?” You scoffed with a laugh. “Would you like to repeat what you just said? Because I’m sure he is right now, over and over,” You nodded to Rafael who was still standing there with a hurt expression.

“Rafa you know I didn’t mean it like--” She went to put a hand on his shoulder but he moved back from her.

“Yeah, Liv,” He chuckled snidely. “I think you did,”

“And,” You added as you stepped in between  them, protecting Rafael from her. “Regardless of your ‘feelings’,” You used air quotes with a sarcastic tone. “Your department is handling this case, is it not?

“....Maybe…” Olivia mumbled, looking over at Stone who was clearly waiting on her.

“Right,” You nodded. “So please, believe me when I say this” You got up in her face. “If you so much as even explain pleasantries with my client, I’ll have you arrested for trying to tamper with my case,” 

“I...You...Rafa…?”  Oliva stammered.

“Just...go, Olivia. Please,” Barba muttered sadly.

“Okay...I’m so sorry,” Olivia whispered with tears in her eyes as she walked away. You held back the urge to vomit in your mouth right there. You turned to give Barba a triumphant smile, but his pained expression almost looked worse than it had.

“Oh what now, droopy dog?” You crossed your arms.

“Thanks a lot,” He scoffed.

“You know you’re saying the right thing but not in the right tone,”  You raised an eyebrow. “You should be thanking me for sticking up for you!”

“Sticking up for me?” He chuckled dryly. “By making an ass out of yourself? How do you think that makes me look?!”

“Oh come on Barba there were no jurors there--”

“But there were reporters! And what’s it gonna look like when the headline reads ‘Baby Killer’s Lawyer Calls Grieving Father a ‘ProLife PissAnt,’?”

“It doesn’t matter what I say, people don't have to like me, they have to like you!” You argued.

“Bullshit!” He scoffed with a sarcastic laugh. “Bullshit and you KNOW that!”

“Look I am the ONLY one here who knows you did nothing wrong--”

“Maybe I did!” He blurted rather loudly, then hushed his tone. “Maybe I did do something wrong,”

“Oh, uh uh, nope,” You wagged a finger and took him by the arm, into a corner of the courthouse. 

“Look, Ba--Rafael,” You put both of your hands on his face and used his first name in a softer tone. “It doesn’t matter what Liv thinks, or what her labradoodle Stone thinks, it CERTAINLY doesn’t matter what that dad thinks,” You looked into his green eyes. “They can all think you’re the devil, and it wouldn’t matter. But the SECOND you start questioning your own innocence, this whole thing is going to fall apart,” 

“Which is why I just wanted to take a punishment,” He looked down at the floor.

“Punish--for WHAT?!” You exclaimed with a confused look. “For unplugging a machine? Barba if that was illegal we’d ALL be in prison right now,” 

“Look I know you may not care about human life but--” Rafael started but you cut him off. 

“Uh uh. Nope. We’re not getting into this, but that ‘thing’?” You rolled your eyes. “That ‘thing’ was not a human being. And I’m gonna prove it,” 

“How are you--”

“Spoilers, darling,” You smirked.

“Look...whatever ‘technicality’ you’re planning on using in court doesn’t make me feel any less guilty, okay? And you just took away the very LITTLE comforting support I have, so just--”

“Comforting support?!” You laughed sarcastically. “Oh right, because Olivia Benson calling you a murderer must have been SO comforting,”

“Look, Y/N. She’s still my friend. She would hold me and hug me and tell me it was okay, even if she did have a momentary lapse,”

“Oh that is SUCH--” You scoffed angrily. You grabbed his hand and stormed off towards the other end of the courthouse with him lagging behind you.

“What the hell?” He muttered, trying to keep up with you. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Well I am not about to do this with all those reporters just waiting for a juicy story,” You rolled your eyes as you spotted your destination. A sign read RESTROOMS-- It was a long dark corridor to the actual restrooms, and first up was a huge “room” labelled “FAMILY BATHROOM.”

“Get in,” You instructed him as you gave him a shove. You looked around to make sure no one had followed you and no one had seen you as you locked the door and turned to see a very confused Rafael.

Finally, when you were absolutely sure that you were safe from any sort of prying eyes, you dropped your act. Tears stung your eyes as you practically jumped into Rafael’s arms and kissed him, HARD. Caught off guard he stumbled for a moment, but then wrapped his arms around you so tight you could barely breathe; but you didn’t care. This was the first time you had kissed him, or any guy really, with actual feelings behind it. Real, true, deep feelings for each other. And it was blissful, just for that brief moment.

After several moments of you just standing there in his arms and crying into his shoulders, you pulled back and hit him on the chest. 

“How could you be so STUPID?!”

“I’m sorry, what is happening here Mrs. Hyde?” Rafael asked.

“How could you let that bitch manipulate you to do her dirty work?” 

“Wha--” Rafael’s eyes darted from you to the door to the distance, trying to figure out what was going on. “I’m sorry, were you trying to comfort me or punish me?”

“I don’t want you to go to prison for something someone ELSE should have done!” You started crying again. Rafael’s eyes softened as he realized your rage was masking your fear and sadness. 

“Carino, I…” He put a hand to your face. “I’m sorry,”

“You don’t have to be sorry about it, that’s my point,” You rolled your eyes with a sniffle.

“I mean, I’m sorry for everything else,” He looked into your eyes with sincerity. “I mean, I can’t believe after everything I’ve done to you, or that we’ve done to each other, that you still came down here and want to fight for me!” 

“Yeah well….” You looked at the floor with a small smile. “I guess I do have a heart,”

“And it’s mine,” He took your face by the chin to look back up at him.

“Excuse me?” You half laughed.

“Say it,” He smiled.

“Ok fine I lo---no, you know what? No,” You shook your head.

“No?”

“No, I think I have told you how I felt MORE than enough since we’ve known each other, you haven’t said anything!” You threw your hands up.

“Wha-- I saved you from suffocating in that alleyway!” He argued. “I broke up with Liv for you, I-I-I BEGGED you to stay with me! On my KNEES,” He scoffed with a laugh. “You ever hear the phrase ‘actions speak louder than words?” 

“Yeah no that saying is bullshit,” you shook your head.. “Words are louder than words. And if I’m going to hear those words for the first time I want to hear them from you,”

“Wait…” he blinked. “For the first time? EVER?” 

“Oh God...here we go,” You scoffed, breaking from his embrace.

“Here we go, what?” 

“I can just see the look in your eyes,”

“And what look is that?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Like you’ve just solved a riddle,” You shook your head with a small sad smile. “Like now you’re thinking ‘oh THAT’S why she is the way she is! Because nobody loved her as a kid!’,”

“No that’s not--”

“It totally is! You’re probably so relieved that’s there an actual reason that I’m so broken inside, that I wasn’t just BORN evil,”

“Hey,” This time he took your head in his hands. “You are not evil and you are NOT broken,” 

“Yeah, I am,” You muttered softly as you looked at the floor again.

“Well then I will make it my mission to put you back together, Sharky,” He moved your face back up and kissed you gently. Your soul lit up at the sound of your previously resentful nickname. Now it sounded like the highest compliment coming out of his mouth so playfully.

“Yeah well first I have to fix this,”  You gestured back towards the courthouse. 

“Well, I’m sorry about that too,” He apologized sadly.

“You don’t have to be sorry, Rafael! You didn’t--”

“Look, baby I get that you don’t think so, and maybe technically it’s true, but I still feel guilty,” He shrugged.

“I just…” You sighed and pulled him back into your body. “I don’t want to watch you hurt like this,” 

Rafael had no idea what to say to that kind expression, so he just pulled back into him and kissed your forehead. You let him hold you for just a moment, and then started to unlock the door. But something inside made you pause, and you let go of the door handle to face Rafael.

“...What is it, Sharky?”

“Look, Rafa,” You told him seriously. “We need to establish boundaries, right here and now,” 

“Boundaries?” He asked.

“Distinction,” you clarified. “This girl,” You gestured to yourself. “This girl right here in this bathroom, is ‘Sharky’,” 

“Which is why I just said that,” He joked.

“Yeah but,” You put a hand on his chest. “When we walk out of here, I’ll be just the shark defending you,”

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning,” You took a deep breath. “You’re not going to like what I do in court, I already know that,”

“Y/N come on don’t lie for me--”

“I’m not going to lie,” You assured him. “But I am going to be aggressive with facts, and probably mock all emotion involved in it,”

“...I already don’t like this,” He had a worried look on his face.

“Yeah, baby I know but…” You took his hands in yours. “Do you want to be NICE, or do you want to go HOME, and not to prison?”

“Home, I suppose,” He mumbled sadly.

“Exactly,” you kissed his cheek. “Look the parents brought this on themselves, if they can’t deal with the shame that’s not on me, or you,” 

“What? Y/N you’re not going to go after the--” He tried to argue with you, but you put a finger to his lips. 

“No, I’M not going to do anything,” You reminded him. “But the shark will do anything to keep you from going to prison,” You pulled him into one last passionate kiss, knowing it would have to last you for a bit. You unlocked the door and turned to him one last time and added:

“By any means necessary,” Before sauntering out the door.

This trial should be fun….  

[lordbelacqua]

show your process

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES - When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag up to 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you'd like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours.

I have been tagged by @zavens​ (thank you, I know you know how much I love ranting) to chat a little about this gifset <3

you know the drill - everything is under the cut because I talk too much!

planning: my gif-making process is overall a pain, mostly because I never really “plan” it out, I just mess around until I make something I like. sometimes I do have a vision in my head but when I take it to PS and it doesn’t look as good, I get frustrated and close PS for like a week (lol I’m kidding, I actually spend five more hours until it’s turned into something I like).

this gifset wasn’t really planned but when zahraa sent a request for favorite season, I knew I didn’t want to do my typical rainbow set, so I wanted to experiment.

giffing: I won’t go much into detail about the gif-making and sharpening steps (if you are curious about that let me know, and i’ll discuss it individually) so i’ll only talk about the coloring and blending. the idea behind the blending is simple - gifs are supposed to represent the episode title, so I tried to take care of that as much as possible. I won’t analyze gifs individually because then we would be here all day.

the coloring insp behind the first draft of this gifset is this gifset here. in my head, I wanted to do a black and gold gradient over it. but, because I’m so unorganized and chaotic and because I almost never plan things out as I should, I realized, only at my last gif, that this gifset would look 10 times better if it was properly colored. so I re-did it.

if you are curious, this is the comparison of the first and last draft (you are free to tell me if you think I made a mistake re-coloring this):

one thing I love so much about this gifset is that I so deliberately worked on it. I have never before combined so many fonts in any of my gifsets, and I have never before used my own custom made shapes (like in 1x02 and 1x04). I really just sat down and said I’m going to make the messiest gifset this fandom has ever seen and i’ll have no regrets! lol.

arranging: something I absolutely hate about myself is that I’m so indecisive sometimes. I didn’t know whether I wanted this gifset to be an all 540x540 because I feared it would have been too long but again, I wanted everyone to see the gifs in full size and quality because I really liked it. I ended up taking the size insp from this gifset, and I don’t regret it. I also liked the idea of having b&w-only gifs to break up the monotony of the gifset and overall I like the look of it.

posting: honestly I was close to posting this 5 times before actually posting it because as you now know, I had 5 different versions of this gifset. the first draft of it was supposed to be posted weeks before the final draft and I only decided to color the gifset a few hours before finally posting it (I’m such a mess). This was posted at 9:01pm (central european time) because that’s when I usually post. I feel like this gifset resonated well with people; @zavens​ gave me such a detailed rant in the tags that remains one of my favorite comments on my content ever and other tags are just so lovely, it overall makes me like the gifset even more!

I’m tagging a few people but don’t feel pressured to do this, it’s all for fun (sorry if you have been tagged or already discussed the process behind these)!!! <3

@lmillers for this gifset | @mxrisacoulter for this gifset | @burningblake for this gifset | @lanternslides for this fic |

[verobatto]

Destiel Chronicles

Vol. XCIX

It was a love story from the very beginning.

Dean is in love.

(13x11/13x12)

Hello my friends!!! We almost arriving to the half of the season!

I will talk mostly about episode 14x12, the episode Dean confesses he's in love, okay. Kind of. 🤣

Let's start this mess ...

Family Love

Episode 13x11 talks about family love to point us the difference with romantic love (Dean in the firsts 5 episodes).

We have Sam depressed, because he thinks they won't be able to find Mary. Now, the one that had lost his faith and hopes is Sam. And Dean will be the one keeping the hopes up, because he just got back his angel back.

The brother go to help Donna. Donna is desperate trying to find her lost niece. Her despair and her seek is a foreshadow how Sam and Mary searching for Dean in the first episode from season 14.

The vamps wear mask, (as symbolic representation of future Dean's possesion).

Another important point here is Doug breaking up with Donna once he discovers Donna hunts monsters.

This fact could be seen as a parallel to Cassie and Dean, but also, as a premonition of Dean and Cas break up.

The parallel of depression between Dean and Sam rests on the fact that Sam wasn't suicidal.

Sam had put all his hopes in Jack and now Jack is gone, so, all the words that come out from his mouth, are examples of how he feels. His speech to Donna after Doug left, it's a recalling of Dean's speech to Patience.

SAM: Let him go. Donna, when you choose this life, anyone who gets too close, eventually they get hurt. Or worse. So let him go. He’ll be safer that way.

And then, when he's alone with Dean...

DEAN: I mean, we save people, Sam.

SAM: Yeah, we also get people killed, Dean. Kaia, for instance. She helped us and she died for it.

DEAN: Hey, look, I know you’re in some sort of a—

SAM: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, don’t – don’t… You keep saying I’m in a dark place, but I’m not, Dean. Everything I’m saying is the truth. It’s our lives. And I tried to pretend it didn’t have to be. I tried to pretend we could have Mom back and Cas and – and help Jack. But we can’t. This ends one way for us, Dean. It ends bloody. It ends bad.

Sam is now where Dean had been, but not even bringing Castiel back gives Sam faith and hopes. He had a plan, and the plan failed. So he lost hopes. It points perfectly the difference with Dean. Dean recognized he was in bad shape, he recognized to Billy he wanted to die. Because the pain of loosing the love of his life was unbearable.

"I'm in love"

Episode 13x12 starts with two sister, witches, dressed in red and yellow, (Dean and Sam colors) Jennie and Jamie. Both girls want to bring their mother back from dead just like Sam and Dean want to bring their mother back from the AU.

They use a hammer to kill the first man in the episode. The hammer represents JUSTICE, and it will be seen a lot in the next season related to Dean, trying to make justice for what he lived possesed by Michael. The one killing the man is Jamie, Dean's mirror.

Let's jump now to Sam and Dean scene. And because this is a Yockey episode, we have some books to pay attention to. Don't worry, my friend @emblue-sparks did an excellent work analyzing the books that Yockey put in this episode. You can find that meta here.

All those books played their role as a premonition of AU!Michael possessing Dean experience.

Now, keeping the Family Love vs Romantic Love mirror, we switch places again in this dialogue...

SAM: I’m just saying, Dean, Jack was our way over there, obviously, so with him gone…

DEAN: Okay, well, Jack’s been gone before. We found him once. We can find him again.

Remember when Sam said this to Dean the so many times Cas was gone?

Now, just a piece in what Dean says... Shows us how much he misses his angel...

DEAN: We should probably loop Cas in at some point.

The scene with Cas and Lucifer locked in prison, and trying to escape, is another foreshadow for Dean's inner prison. But, it's interesting how we cut this scene to pass to Dean and witches sisters, with Jennie saying...

JENNIE: Doesn’t a kiss, like, usually wake up your true love?

So Dean kisses Dean's mirror... How symbolic is this? Very much...

Remember when in season 14 I was screaming all my way DEAN NEEDS TO LOVE HIMSELF BEFORE LOVE OTHERS? To ourselves is PIVOTAL for our mental health. Talking about Dean, it's fundamental to release himself from his emotional prison. Dean needs to know HE IS WORTHY. He needs to really love himself, that's the symbolism of this scene.

Now... The scene in which Dean days "I'm in love" has a tiny prelude... We need to see what Sam is doing or thinking before his brother enters joyfully confesses it...

SAM: Hey, uh… I think you might be right. I think maybe it’s time we go ahead and call Cas, because, I mean, if…if…

Why is Cas here again? Preluding Dean's quote? Simply because DEAN IS IN LOVE WITH CAS

SAM: You all right?

DEAN: Am I all right? I’m in love.

SAM: You...Oh, are you?

DEAN: I mean, I am, like, full-on twitterpated here. Seriously, I can’t wait for you to meet her, either (...)

(Gif set credit @inacatastrophicmind )

(Gif set credit @bennylafitte )

And the big SAMMY KNOWS SCENE, poor soul he thought Dean will confess his feeling for the angel to his brother, that's why he wheels enthusiastically to hear him. That's why he asks as if he didn't know. But then Dean goes 'her' and Sam shakes his head puzzled... Why? Because he's sure his brother lives Castiel, and Castiel's is a 'him'. Wrong pronoun.

That's when our insightful moose starts to suspect something is fishy.

Rowena and the fifth base

Another important scene was Rowena talking about the fifth base, which, everybody knows what it means...

ROWENA: (...) Tell me, did they get to fifth base?

DEAN: There’s no such thing as fifth base.

ROWENA: Oh, you poor, sheltered boy. [Dean gives Sam a confused look] Anyway. What’s by is by.

(Gif set credit @whoeveryoulovethemost )

Analyzing Dean's reaction to Rowena's wording in second meaning, we can Conclude he knew what was she exactly talking about. He swallows at the WHAT'S BY IS BY, and blinks flustered. Someone knows his secret hahaahahaha

Also, Rowena deceiving the boys, is Asmodeus playing Cas...

DEAN: Oh, I’m gonna say it. She played you.

SAM: [defensively] She played us.

This is a foreshadow of Dean recognizing in front of Cas that Asmodeus played him and his brother, they should see that coming. Dean will feel guilty and will confess it to his angel.

Another little but interesting scene was Jamie and Jennie killing each other, just the ending Chuck will reveal he wants for Sam and Dean in season 15.

At the end of the episode, we'll see Rowena releasing herself from her chains. As a representation of Dean releasing himself from his inner prison.

To Conclude:

These two episode keep playing with symbolism and foreshadows of season 14.

The scene of Dean kissing Dean's mirror shows us the idea of Healing!Dean in season 14.

Sammy definitely knows Dean is in love with Cas, fight me.

Hope you like this meta, see you in the next one!

Tagging @magnificent-winged-beast @emblue-sparks @weird-dorky-little-d @michyribeiro @whyjm @legendary-destiel @a-bit-of-influence @thatwitchydestielfan @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @lykanyouko @evvvissticante @savannadarkbaby @dea-stiel @poorreputation @bre95611 @thewolfathedoor @charlottemanchmal @neii3n @deathswaywardson @followyourenergy @dean-is-bi-till-i-die @hekatelilith-blog @avidbkwrm @anarchiana @dickpuncher365 @vampyrosa @authorsararayne @mybonsai1976 @love-neve-dies @dustythewind @wayward-winchester67 @angelwithashotgunandtrenchcoat @trashblackrainbow @deeutdutdutdoh @destiel-shipper-11 @larrem88 @charmedbycastiel @ran-savant @little-crazy-misha-minion @samoosetheshipper

@shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @mishtho @dancingtuesdaymorning @nerditoutwithbooks @mikennacac73 @justmeand-myinsight @idontwantpeopletoknowmyname @teddybeardoctor @pepevons @helevetica @isthisdestiel @dizzypinwheel @jawnlockwinchester @horsez2 @qanelyytha

@destielle @spnsmile @shippsblog @robot-feels @superlock-in-the-tardis @superduckbatrebel @2musiclover2 @madronasky @anon-non2 @cea1996 @lisafu02 @asphodelesauvage @destiels-canonahhhhhhhhhh

If you wanna be added or removed from this list just let me know.

If you wanna read the previous metas from this season, here you have the links:

Vol. XCIII, XCIV, XCV, XCVI, XCVII, XCVIII.

Buenos Aires, February 7 2021 1:58 PM

[jaskierskisses]

I Know Each Corner From You (Part 1)

Geraskier Bath Scene Meta

Geraskier Meta. 1x04 meta. The Witcher (Netflix)

Hello my friends! I'm here again with another meta from this series of analysis about the show.

This time we are going to talk about episode 1x04 in two pieces, because is a large one...

Jaskier Knows Geralt Very Well

At the beginning of the episode 1x04, we have Jaskier asking a man about Geralt's last work. And is very interesting how he explains his excitement to the poor guy that's talking about his horrible experience...

Gif credit @vsnom

This is actually talking us about how much Jaskier knows Geralt. He already had written a lot of songs about his adventures, women knows about Geralt's scars thanks to Jaskier's songs. The Witcher is very popular thanks to him. He also knows even with the fateful end of the story, his friend is just fine.

Jaskier pays a lot of attention to each word coming from Geralt

Let's jump to the bath scene, I'm aware I came late into this fandom and there's a lot of bath scene good meta, I will just point some details I found in this delightful and very well maintained scene.

First of all, we have Jaskier throwing water over Geralt's head. Is like a kind of baptism or purification, if we think Geralt's lack of self love, or self image of a monster, as I said in my first meta. And Jaskier making this kind of .. purification, and immediately after that calling himself as the best friend the white will could have, is an attempt to reach Geralt's soul, and clean it: 'You deserve to be loved, you deserve to have friends, to have me.'

But Geralt reject that terminology, mostly he is rejecting to have friend, to have Jaskier as a friend, why? For the same reason he can't allow himself this kind of weakness. So Jaskier is not his friend.

But the bard knows him well, he knows why he is saying these things, playing the rock role.

And he dissemble his speech.

Gif credit @beautiful-paradise

So Jaskier strikes here, snapping at him the intimacy that requires such action. He is showing Geralt they're in that level of intimacy, friends or maybe more than that, Geralt's face is priceless, the gay panic.

Another intimate gesture that, coming from anyone else would ended with a punch in the face, maybe, is Jaskier taking off the beer from Geralt's hands... And not just that, but the pat in the shoulder, Geralt hora rigid and bows his head, clenching his fist, holding back his uncomfortable feelings. He is not use to this kind of approaches with such fresh and nonchalantly air. But Jaskier has that effect on him. Jaskier is showing him, again, the level of intimacy they share. Even is Geralt denies it. Is there. All over the bath scene.

Let the bard heal you Geralt!

After this, Geralt shows his discomfort, by rejecting Jaskier free way to love people, he mentions Jaskier's sausage, as a disrespectful way to show him he repels that kind of life... And Jaskier reaction is this...

Gif credit @amethysthollis

Jaskier is like... "Mmmh... Interesting... Is he jealous?"

Because why to mention something like that? Is not Geralt's problem is Jaskier runs into every person he finds attractive and falls in love easily. In fact... Is just Jaskier's problem...

And this reminds me that book scene in the Sword of Destiny in which they share a bed and Jaskier asks Geralt Why he was mad at him about courting ladies, then he let a "At last...?"

Like a suggestive and unanswered question... At last... You are jealous...

Is because Jaskier has another intentions with Geralt, not just being his friend, but maybe something else, that he is so attentive to each word coming out from the Witcher. Trying to read the hidden intentions. So... Every little hint of possible feeling towards him, the bard will evaluate carefully.

Because Geralt is so stingy with the details... (The words) Jaskier needs to read the subtext of the few he says.

From now on, Jaskier seducing attitude goes more blatant. His movements and dialogues will try to decipher if Geralt has maybe some jealousy, or of there's something more than friendship there.

He will say something that demonstrates he knows Geralt very well...

"You never get involve, except that you do that all the time..."

When Jaskier throws this, Geralt swings his head to see him, surprised by the accurate diagnosis. And that observation would explain why the white wolf doesn't want to call Jaskier his friend.

Then... And again trying to get some hint of jealousy... He starts talking about the persons he had courted and why he got in trouble because of that...

The whole scene Jaskier moves around like a graceful gazelle. At some point when he mentions why he needs Geralt's help, the bard is hanging clothes by the bathtub side, and he turns his body and head to watch the Witcher in such a suggestive and seductively way, showing us his seductive intentions, and paying attention to Geralt reaction to that, because the first time he was giving him the back, but now he can see the white wolf face, and check if he gets jealous or not. And what he sees, is absolutely priceless. Geralt is mad at him.

"Oh yes! That face!" The bard shouts kind of amused, playing around... That's the face he was expecting. Maybe he concluded that his seduction adventures with other people... Gets Geralt really mad... And that's a very delicious discover for the bard.

And yet, here we are

The climax of the intimate scene is reached when Jaskier, after testing waters with Geralt, tries to decipher what he really desire, what pleases the Witcher. So he starts with a empathic dialogue, talking about Geralt's different condition as a Witcher. His almost eternal existence and old age. He knows each man desires something in his heart. The white wolf isn't different. And Jaskier is curious because maybe, he could offer that to him.

The sincerity of his intentions maybe could be pass as unnoticed, but to Geralt, Is purely try to answer to one question he had never made to himself. What do you want for yourself?

Gifset credit @randomlyrj

Jaskier will always be the light at the end of the dark tunnel , he represents the hopes, so he is aiming maybe for Geralt's retirement, and maybe, he could join him? We know his intentions were honest, because in episode 1x06 he will propose the Witcher to ran away with him to the coast.

Even if Geralt never had to answer that, he closes again, he shows that wall he put surrounding him. The tough witcher wants nothing. Is a lie he keeps saying to himself, for the same reason he feels.inside a monster, he thinks he doesn't deserve a good ending.

Jaskier crushes against that wall, he really wanted another different answer from Geralt. Disappointment, watching at his nails... (Okay please @mrsaquaman187 you have to help here too with the body language of this scene, please) but I see disappointment at first, and then, "Oh hell, I will go to the point anyway!" Face... And he shoots this now classic quote...

Look how he walks forward, pouting, seductively again, laying down, his eyes fixed on Geralt. Focused on him. Because this scene was all about Geralt's words, and Geralt's reactions, and Geralt needs, and Geralt's desires.

This makes those words flirty, Jaskier is flirting with Geralt here, because his whole body is focused with seduction on Geralt. Because the bard wants to be clear here. He wants Geralt.

Even if Geralt doesn't want himself, he wants him.

Geralt avoids Jaskier gaze when he says I NEED NO ONE. Because that's something sad... But then he locks his eyes with the bard's, to make it clear that THE LAST THING HE WANTS

IS SOMEONE NEEDING HIM. Like... Breaking every little hopes in Jaskier. Saying to him, don't get close to me. Don't need me. I don't want to need you. Back off Bard! (As he yelled at him at the beginning of the episode).

But Jaskier insist... And goes wild...

This quote is an asseveration to the observation Jaskier made before... You don't get involve except you do it all the time.

And yet... Here we are.

Geralt says things that he doesn't really feel. Is the opposite.

And Geralt gets uncomfortable again, he detects Jaskier intentions, he feels awkward, and he wants to ran away from there. Some gay panic, trying to change subject asking for his clothes.

To Conclude

The bath scene was full of intimacy. Focused entirely in Geralt, Jaskier tried to get inside the Witcher's head and true desires.

Jaskier is very insightful, so he knows Geralt, Each corner of him, and he investigate with clinical eye each word the white wolf says.

Showing a couple of foreshadows, will open the door to Ciri and Yennefer, two characters that will be part of Geralt's intimate circle.

Hope you like this meta, see you in the next one!

Tagging @agusvedder @mrsaquaman187 @mylastwish @spnsmile @jawnlockwinchester

If you want to be added to this list, just let me know.

If you want to read my previous metas From the Witcher, here you have the links:

1x01

1x02 (1)

1x02 (2)

1x03

Buenos Aires, April 15th 2020 9:15 PM