#this was literally the scene that made me go ahahaha what the fuck are we all doing here lol upon first watch

[juricore]

toxic yuri this toxic yuri that. and just when you think it couldnt get any crazier they break out the spinning piano

[dididi11]

I dont plan to get back into HH, but here are some things that have triggered me and that ik sure alot of people can agree on:

1. I feel like Charlie's idea of redemption can be seen through alot of perspectives. HOWEVER- what she specifically wants is to redeem EVERY soul. Now there's a reason to why hell exists, it's made for people who have done terrible things in their life, which is why they get banished to Hell in the first place. We may not know when a soul is actually pure enough to get redeemed- BUT we do know what you would have to be to end up in Hell. Murderers, RÆpists, Cannibals, Paedophiles- just all of those in the horrible category most definitely DON'T deserve a second chance. And even if they somehow did get redeemed, how would the victims in Heaven feel? Heaven is the place where they're supposed to feel safe- So how the hell do you expect to put them in the same place together without any conflicts? If you truly want to get the right people into Heaven, then you should background check every single Sinner throughly.

2. Adam- We all love love him and hate him, but there is one person to blame for when it comes to his Character: Vivziepop. I feel like she used the "Annoying Villain who doesn't care about anything that the protagonist has to say and is just downright badly written" trope way to often. He could've had so much potential to be a good written Character that would actually explain to Charlie why sinners just can't be redeemed. It just felt unnecessary to only let him be a douchebag, sing his song (which was banger don't get me wrong-) and shorten their time by 6 months for the next extermination to cause Charlie another COMPLETELY unnecessary problem. And all that for NO reason, "Yeah, but that's because he's a douch-" And that's exactly my point, why waste your time and effort on a basic ahh character if he's going to be a just an ordinary douche anyway? The first Season would've been so much more interesting if we actually had a logical explanation to why others are against of Charlie's idea. But no, instead all we get is "ahahaha, Sinners are stupid. They deserve Hell." Also why the Hell did Adam shorten the time for the extermination by 6 months?? It felt so unnecessary, They probably felt like the first Season would've been boring without any Action- and I'm pretty sure they could've made a different Scene that was also Epic without it not making sense.

2. ADAM AGAIN- I don't want this to be just about Adam, but since he is dead (BY FUCKING NIFFTY I HATE HER) and maybe wont come back- since we don't know if he'll get respawned..what kind of punishment will Lucifer specifically receive? To clarify things, Lucifer had disobeyed the rules of Heaven and Hell, he helped his daughter and her friends kill off half of the exorcists and even threatened them to retreat. And the worst part of all of this is that he would've killed Adam if Charlie hadn't stopped him. Even though Adam was killed by NIFFTY, I'm pretty sure the blame would be put on Lucifer instead of some Sinner. So what will happen if they try to communicate with Heaven again? They literally killed the first human of mankind created by God himself. Honestly at that point it would be a pretty huge deal and Charlie's redemption idea wouldn't even be looked into.

2. Emily and Charlie- I hate how none of the Characters genuinely understand the ACTUAL purpose of the extermination. It's to prevent Hell from gaining to much power, that's why they need to make sure to kill off half of the population. It was never about the redemption of Sinners, so Charlie shouldn't even think about canceling off the extermination. I also get why Emily is mad at Sera for lying to her, but the fact that she immediately joined Charlie's side without even thinking trough the entire thing is just downright dumb.

3. I feel like there's more to talk about, I just don't know what.

[azumasoroshi]

continuing from the last post, we're back to izaya with the bag over his head and earthworm

and it's really interesting because he's animated in a way that makes you really, REALLY doubt that it's izaya

ok it's hard to show in photo form but like. the way he tilts his head back and forth with earthworm moving the scissors makes him look wary and nervous? and you cant see his face but his body language is so far from relaxed that you're like oh they must have captured nakura or some other person. no way izaya's actually in there

and after she asks about his sisters (you still cant see well in photo form but i gave you the timestamp and the episode number so :3) he shakes his head back and forth quickly with some kind of wobbly sound effect and it's so unlike izaya!!!! izaya wouldn't react to any of this right??

and then we cut to here!! and it's like oh yeah that definitely isn't him. he's literally outside with mairu right now

side note but awww they're so cute. im sure they're 100% normal mentally sound siblings who definitely didn't decide their personalities via a fucking coin flip ahahaha

orihara family is so fucking weird. sometimes i wonder if izaya is good at dodging shizuo's attacks because he's used to his siblings attacking him all the time (which is really cute actually) or if his siblings saw him getting chased around by shizuo all the time and thought 'hey that looks fun' and decided to attack him too (decidedly less cute but a lot funnier)

im assuming it's the first one though since the twins have been doing martial arts probably before izaya was in high school?? probably

it's funny how he's actually caught off guard here. like his ultra instinct carries him but he only turns after mairu makes a noise

like he's the king of environmental awareness as opposed to shizuo who kinda blocks everything out so this is hmMMMMm

mayhaps he lets his guard down around his siblings :eyes: ohoho do i sense a weakness orihara-san??

there was this line in the izaya youtuber au where namie is like damn i'm this proud at catching izaya off-guard for like a second?? my life is fucking sad. that's how i feel right now

smug bitch

flexible characters get me going bro like vash the stampede. izaya. why do i keep grouping them together in my head like they're both human lovers (albeit for very different reasons) and they're both flexible and they're both voiced by johnny yong bosch. what's the deal here what is fate trying to tell me about my taste in fictional men

i will never get tired of his acrobatics ugh

bro has a fuckin rectangular prism for an ass what is going ON there

um. gayass

what was i talking about again OH YEAH the earthworm thing. well not like i can talk about that any more until we cut back there

im not taking screenshots of the entire "fight scene" (it's just izaya dodging and being a little shit like "oh woe is me why would you attack an innocent civilian in public??" (he's the one holding the knife, mikage's brother points out)

and we're back! still not sure how exactly that works considering the transition between phones - was earthworm showing him the footage or something?? or playing the audio, because she asks about mikage right after

in any case izaya continues to keep his head low, visibly reacting to what she's saying/pouring the water but never saying anything

we switch away again to him talking to celty and we're at a really weird place where half of it feels like izaya's going to be under there and earthworm is actually getting to him this time, and we'll see through the flashbacks a series of fuck ups or how he planned to be here and be unphased but he's a little bit shaken by the torture methods

and the other half of it feels like oh, through the flashbacks we'll find out how exactly izaya caught on to them trying to capture him and made a stunt double

the one post that's like "i dont see him complaining" continues to crack me up

we cut back to earthworm again but im running out room of this post lmAOOO

it's incredible how hard it is for me to stop talking like this is actually insane. see you guys in the continuation post i guess

[colourfulwatson]

Breeders ep 10 season 3 - My thoughts (spoilers)

Poor Ava :( I hope things turn out well for her

I don’t like Luke’s situation, also Paul’s comment ahahaha. I mean I do believe in Paul and that he doesn’t want anything more with Gabby than a friendship. It’s interesting contrasting this to when Ally kissed that guy in season 2.

“Are you two having an argument?” Ahahaha I love this scene actually.

“Fuck him!” “Oi!” “Oi!” 🤣

“Ava’s going to check on granddad” …��. Oh she’s not. I’m glad they’re talking now, Grace’s reaction was not the best when that happened, glad they made up now !!

Luke talking with both Ally and Paul and comparing that to the start of the season - 🥲❤️

Ally’s not being reasonable in my opinion. Darren are you going to save this by being with Gabby ? ?? “what you see in her” ajshajsha maybe he’s not gonna save it that fast lol

“Paul, got any intel on Gabby?” “no” I love their delivery on this, I want to see more of them I hope we get a forth season 😭✨

“I feel like it’s the optimal time to me Paul” Ally !!! Honestly if they just talked properly and Ally wasn’t making those sorts of comments I think they would not make such a big deal out of it. Like Paul saying sorry is great and then he just needs to spend more time with Ally. Cause also it’s not like he didn’t want to spend time with Ally when he was with Gabby, he literally couldn’t go to his own home or see her at all

oh Ava, what is gonna happen ????? I hope he’s not dead :((((

OH we’re back to Paul and Ally 👀 ALLY ?! Paul doesn’t deserve this actually.

Oh Darren is still there ajshajhsa that’s so funny actually

And back to Ava ………..

“of you not fully wanting to be at home” But he couldn’t ??!!! Ally I swear. Or they make up at the end of the episode (which I doubt) or I need another season asap thanks

Ally’s been doing a lot and she had a really bad time so I see why she’s saying that but she’s still being unreasonable :(

If they end the episode by breaking up i-

Also Darren 🤣 I’m very happy he was in this scene

……… I don’t think he’s gonna die right? Also no one in this family can catch a break lol poor them

I didn’t really like Darren is season one cause I found him a bit annoying, now I like him!

“I wouldn’t really want a computerized voice suddenly telling me Jim’s dead” and this scene shouldn’t be funny but it is

Luke and Jacob? wow I wasn’t expecting to see them both in a scene alone idk why. But also Jacob??? you have no business in imposing that to Luke :/ Glad they made up but still

Uh so they think it was confusion, like fair enough. I wonder if they will find out it was a bit more deliberate than that

Jim and Jackie :(

Oh he’s stable and talking! :D Does he really not remember tho? hmmm not sure not sure

OH THERE WAS A NOTE? And of course Ava was the first one to find out the truth, poor love

Where is she going …? Oh she’s gonna tell? Oh she did, well done

SO THAT IS WHAT WAS IN THE NOTE 😢

Ava well done 😭

Less than 10 mins left wtf is gonna happen

Luke and Ruby oh 👀 actually I think they are cute together, very sad Jacob has that attitude towards them and that Ruby dated him for a while cause otherwise Luke would have a possible girlfriend and a good friend

Oh Ava 😢 Really good advice that she gave her, I was thinking exactly that yes nice :D

Paul and Ally again and there’s 5 minutes left ………..

OH HES GOING????? Well actually no yeah, that’s very reasonable and it’s what he should do in this situation for his dad 100%. “It’s bad timing” fuck yeah it is 😭

“might be good timing” ALLY PLEASE. Also she said that “you’re going away again” as if he wanted to?? and the first time he also didn’t want to either, I swear she’s getting on my nerves. I understand her but STILL

Paul with Ava yes nice

The kiss and hug 🥲💔

Just thought about how I’ve hated and loved almost all of the characters from this show wow. That hasn’t happened at all with other shows

Oh so they all know ok yes I’m glad they all found out sooner rather than later

Oh they’re talking about that yes nice perfect. Yes Ava great. She has a point actually I’m glad they’ve sorted that out and everyone is ok about it yes 😭❤️

“Where am I?” “Heaven, dad” ajshajhsja

Yes Jim’s situation is very nicely fixed. Not with Jackie but I’m glad he’s gonna live with Paul now. I wonder what Jackie will do tho

Gabby’s so nice to send that message I do honestly believe they are just good friends 100% I hope Ally sees it soon as well cause I do like Gabby as ‘a friend Paul has’, she’s nice

Oh Jackie and Ally came?! Oh????!!!! Jackie I love you. And the look Jim gave her 🤧. It’s not solved at all but this is hopeful for them

So Paul goes back??????? YES

Fuck me, the text alert, Ally please. Oh so it’s Ava ajshajhsa. I stop the episode to write this down I thought it was gonna be Gabby for a full 20 seconds lol

And it ends like that ok…. I guess that’s good??? right???? It’s certainly not bad I’m happy with it

Anyways when are they going to announce season 4 BECAUSE THE SHOW CANT END LIKE THAT - I need to know if they truly make up 😭😭😭😭 And I’m sure in season 4 a ton of other stuff will happen to them but come on I need to know what happens with Paul and Ally’s relationship, they can’t end the show with an open ended ‘it’s up to the viewer’ thing - please 😢

[idkbrothatsprettygay]

No nuance November, persona addition, because my bois @uselesslesbiab and @thegayone23456 did it too

The Persona 5 Dancing opening song sucks and the lil inclusion of “Wake Up Get Up Get Out There” did not flow well

Namatame’s room was 110% Naoto’s fault and the fact people blame Yosuke for it proves y’all are just hunting for reasons to hate Yosuke

Please stop using the “age gap” between Joker and Futaba/Sumire as an excuse to hate those ships when the age gap between Joker and Akechi is larger.

While we’re on that topic, shipping Joker and Futaba is weird and gross. Like dawg that is your sister.

Morgana is not overly hated. He literally just sucks.

Hating Rise because she’s extroverted and is openly expressing her feelings towards Yu or hating Makoto for “being a Mary Sue” or whatever doesn’t make you quirky. In fact I’m honestly just detecting some internalized misogyny

Speaking of internalized misogyny, I cannot be the only one that finds it really weird that Atlus made all their P4 girls be terrible cooks. It felt very much like “Ahahaha look at use we made characters that don’t follow typical gender roles. Our girls can’t cook!” performative type shit

S*unao is such a bad ship. Literally any other member of the investigation team is a better/more healthy match for both Naoto and Yu.

We are done with the is Yosuke homophobic debate. It’s done. We’re done. You sound stupid. Go outside. Touch some grass. Go get a coffee. Talk to a friend.

I want to kiss Margaret. I do not care if she’s boring, I want to kiss her.

I mean it’s kinda a given that the epilogue outfits/hair kinda suck but Rise actually looks good.

Naoto and Kanji tho? Sweet baby children, what did they do to you?

Lala deserved a confidant.

Literally all of the phantom thieves were abused in some way. Idk how people don’t get this.

I wish I could say I’m sorry for this one, but I’m not. Shu*ke is not a healthy ship and if you ship them please god do not interact with me. What part of you sees a man kill another man for selfish reasons and think “they’re in love!” like what???

Bathhouse scenes in literally any piece of media are never funny and never necessary plz atlus stop doing this

Hi um I like Aigis but why was she the “mascot” for persona 3? Literally why? Koromaru is RIGHT THERE

Mama Tatsumi, Grandma Kujikawa, and Yakushiji ALL DESERVED SPRITES

Naoto sounds like they’re crying everytime they summon their persona and it’s so fucking funny

I shit on Naoto a lot but I truly believe they could take the entire Phantom thieves all at once in a fight by themselves.

How does Kanji sneak a folding chair into Junes every day? How does that work?

Akechi is a terrible person. Great character, terrible person. Why is that so hard to comprehend? I’ll never know.

That’s all I got right now. I’ll add on if I have more later.

[whomst-art-thou-whomst-whomst]

Texts from the Lost Tomb part 6.1

🎶 Back on the bullshit I never got off🎶

Is this another unnecessary story arc?? With three sections??

Yes.

Wushanju Crew Chat

Wang Meng: You know, I’m someone who appreciates consistency in my day. My life is pleasant, very few issues indeed if you ignore the big ones. And yet. Yet here we are. With unresolved messes at the end of a day.

Wang Pangzi: SOMETHIN YOU NEED TO SAY MARY POPPINS

Wang Meng: We need to talk about Huo Daofu and the glittery bead curtain.

Wang Pangzi: MY FAVE TEEN WIZARD SERIES

Wu Xie: did you turn on that suggested word thingy lol

What glittery bead curtain

Wang Meng: I closed the shop at 6:00pm this evening on the dot. I locked all of the doors in and out of the shop very carefully, especially in light of recent events. The hall leading to the back office was empty. I filed the day’s paperwork, updated and sent emails, and then spent an extra hour organizing receipts and dusting. When I came back out, there were glittery iridescent bead curtains over the front entrance to the shop.

What could this mean?

Wu Xie: uh that you need to spend less time at work?

Wang Pangzi: LOOKS LIKE WE GOT ONE FOR THE DETECTIVES. THE MYSTERY OF THE BEDAZZLED THRESHOLD COMMENCES

Wu Xie: I think we can be relatively secure in thinking a glittery bead curtain isn’t a hostile threat

Wang Pangzi: SAYS YOU

I REMEMBER YE OLDE EXPLORATION TIMES HOW FAST THINGS GOT FURIOUS

BEANBAG CHAIRS SET AFLAME AND LEFT ON DOORSTEPS AS A WARNING

GLITTERBOMBS FOR DAYS

PANIC AT THE DISCO

Wang Meng: Ugh, forget it. I should have just taken them down, regardless of who they belong to.

Zhang Qiling: They are not mine.

Wang Pangzi: A BOLD STATEMENT COMING FROM OUR PRIME SUSPECT

SOMEONE QUICK GO DRAW CHALK AROUND THE DOORWAY TO MARK THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

Wang Meng: Do we know anyone who *would* sneak in and put those up? For whatever reason, legal or not? Even as a joke?

Wang Pangzi: ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ASKING WHETHER WE KNOW ANYONE WHO IS CHAOTIC, AN OUTLAW, A PRANKSTER AND/OR SNEAKS INTO PLACES

BECAUSE THAT WOULD MEAN OUR SUSPECT LIST IS LITERALLY EVERYONE WE KNOW EXCEPT FOR YOU.

Wu Xie: okay let’s think about this; for starters, I didn’t break into my own shop

Wang Meng: You would be in danger of doing some work in the process, that’s true.

Wang Pangzi: LOL

Wu Xie: ANYWAY let’s keep going. For example, Xiao Ge would only break in somewhere for a good reason. Xiao Ge, did you do this?

Zhang Qiling: No.

Wu Xie: okay who’s next

Wang Pangzi: YOU REALLY MISSED YOUR CALLING IN INTERROGATION TIANZHEN

REALLY PUT THE SCREWS TO HIM

IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE;)

Zhang Qiling: How can we be certain *you* didn’t do it?

Wang Meng: Admittedly that was my guess, too.

Wang Pangzi: WOW I SEE HOW IT IS

BLAME PANGZI AS USUAL

ANYWAY HOW DOES HUO DAOFU FIT INTO THIS

Wu Xie: Oh yeah him! Oops I got distracted

Wang Pangzi: UR ENTIRE HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL

Wu Xie: Ugh fuck off

Wang Meng what abt Huo Daofu??

Zhang Qiling: ?

Wu Xie: oh sorry xiaoge I didn’t realize you wouldn’t have spent much time around him last year

He and I go way back

Zhang Qiling: Way back where?

Babysitters Club Chat

Wang Pangzi: I CANNOT BELIEVE HE IS BUYING YOUR INNOCENT ACT

IF YOU EVER TURN TO EVIL WE ARE FUCKED

Zhang Qiling: ?

Wang Pangzi: YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHO HUO DAOFU IS

YOU WERE EXTREMELY POLITE AND BORDERLINE FRIENDLY TOWARDS HIM

Zhang Qiling: I wanted him to feel welcome. I wanted to be sure he understands he has a place here. A specific place.

Wang Pangzi: FOR A SILENT GUY YOU ARE A MASTER AT SUBTLE POWER PLAYS IM ALL TINGLY

LMAO THE IDEA OF WU XIE LEAVING YOU FOR HUO DAOFU IS HILARIOUS AND ALSO NOPE

Zhang Qiling: Rationally, I understand that.

Main Chat

Wang Meng: Huo Daofu is coming for the weekend—didn’t Wu Xie tell you? Wu Xie asked me to check in a week ahead so we could start getting ready for his arrival

Wu Xie: oh yeah I did do that

Wang Meng: Fortunately I know you and so I already went ahead and took care of everything.

Re: the trip

He made a deal with Wu Xie’s doctor that he would do periodic checkups on him here at Wushanju

Bc Wu Xie hates being in the hospital

And frankly the hospital hates him too

Wang Pangzi: FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT LOL

I FORGOT HUO DAOFU WAS DOING THAT

A VERY CHIVALROUS GESTURE

WOULDNT YOU SAY

XIOAGE

Zhang Qiling: Is it safe for him to be here with a criminal loose on the premises?

Wu Xie: Right, back to the curtain! Let’s focus on the curtain, hmm?

Wang Pangzi: I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS WEEKEND.

ALSO WE CAN RULE OUT XIAO BAI FOR THE CURTAIN SHE JUST SENT A SELFIE FROM NORWAY COVERED IN GREEN SLIME WITH ZERO CONTEXT, UR PROTEGE INDEED

Wu Xie: okay but who else would do something so oddly charming yet illegal and—wait.

Snake Eyes Chat

Wu Xie: hey, Glasses hasn’t been in touch lately right?

Li Cu: uh nope

Unless u count the outdated memes

Why, is money or Xie Yuchen missing

Or is this curtain related, I saw Wang Meng’s tweet

Wu Xie: haha no nothing to worry about really

(I mean maybe? but who knows)

Wang Meng is probably just getting a little paranoid in his old age

Li Cu: better than getting reckless and stupid as hell in ur old age

Wu Xie: …hey:(

Unknown Number: Li Cu, we discussed this.

Wu Xie: ????????

Li Cu: *sigh* fine, reckless and stupid as heck

Unknown Number: …close enough.

Wu Xie: EXCUSE who is that

Madame, Sir, Non-Binary Tree Spirit, etc—whomst the fuck

Are you

Li Cu is underage FYI

So Im staying on this chat

Li Cu: okay first of all, it’s not like that

Second of all I’m literally not underage I s2g

u threw the embarrassing surprise bday party, okay so u should remember

And C, that’s my counselor and I invited her. She wanted to meet u and I knew u wouldn’t agree to a visit so I added her to our chat

we have been discussing u

Wu Xie: Oh wow!!!!!!!

What a surprise:)

hi so nice to meet you:)

Main Chat:

Wu Xie: RED FUCKING ALERT

FUCK THE CURTAIN FUCK THE VISIT

IVE BEEN TRICKED INTO FAMILY THERAPY BY A SMUG TEENAGER WHO TEXTS UNKNOWN NUMBERS

Wang Meng: I assume that means something to someone here?

Not my problem? Good.

Wang Pangzi: AHAHAHA GOD I LOVE LI CU

HES LIKE ADORABLE KARMA FOR ALL THE SHIT YOUVE PUT ME THROUGH

IM RAISING HIS ALLOWANCE

Wu Xie: wait i give him an allowance

has he been collecting on two allowances??

Zhang Qiling: Three. I knew about both of yours.

Snake Eyes Chat

Wu Xie: so uh may I ask your name?

Unknown Number: you can call me Ms. Lee.

Now, if you’re comfortable talking in this format, why don’t you tell me how things have been going?

Wu Xie: oh everything is normal and fine and safe as usual, why do you ask:)

Li Cu: I heard about ur necklace thing. nice of you to NOT mention it.

another dangerous adventure. again. prick.

Ur lucky your cool boyfriend cares about you so much or you’d have already died like ten years ago

Wu Xie: lol try twenty years ago

Li Cu: That isn’t funny.

Unknown Number: …What?

Wu Xie: shit ur right, okay that was a bit glib, my apologies.

…I use humor as a coping mechanism?

Unknown Number: and Li Cu, how do you feel about that?

Li Cu: he doesn’t even know what that phrase means

He doesn’t cope, like ever

In fact

It’s kind of why we met

Which is a funny story in retrospect tbh

Wu Xie: haha what are you talking about sweetie hahaha need I remind you of certain anecdotes that could idk send me to jail maybe lmao

Unknown Number: …You know, perhaps an in-person meeting might be more effective?

Wu Xie: haha such a nice idea but why

Main Chat

Wu Xie: If I go to jail, I’ll have to create alliances for protection, right, that’s how it works on tv

Who do we know who spends time in jail

Other than Hei Yangjing, he’s only ever there for like 12 hours and i suspect he just gets himself arrested bc he enjoys the breaking out process

Also how’s the curtain case coming along

Zhang Qiling: Has someone threatened you?

Wu Xie: well not yet but soon I’m sure

Wang Pangzi: WHERE WAS THIS PARANOIA WHEN WE GOT TAKEN TO THE TEA HOUSE HUH

Snake Eyes Minus Your Fucking Therapist Chat

Li Cu: okay how tf did u pull off spy and undercover shit

u are sus as hell

Wu Xie: damn son is it pick on Wu Xie night

I missed the flyers or I would’ve invited my uncles

Also re: the curtain it’s been mostly solved

Li Cu: I’m not your son, idiot.

Wu Xie: …oh. Sorry, sorry, you’re right, bad choice of words, haha

Forget i said anything

Delete this chat even

Li Cu: shit I meant

Legally, biologically, I meant—

shit

…I turn into an asshole as a coping mechanism?

Wu Xie: oh that’s all okay! I have to go do something else now let me know if you need anything okay kid thanks!

Li Cu: goddamn it calm down who’s the kid here

lemme organize my thoughts so I can articulate my emotions fuckin healthily or w/e

Ugh maybe for like one afternoon we could go to Ms. Lee together? She knows how to word stuff

Wu Xie: uh…okay.

Li Cu: Anyway you don’t need to worry abt jail

As if you would survive prison for one day you’d piss off half the place in like an hour or less

I gave Ms. Lee the heavily edited version of the desert highway to hell roadtrip and i discussed it more in terms of like “nightmarish but still wouldn’t take any of it back”

Well maybe the sand

that shit was everywhere

Wu Xie: oh kiddo. It’s fine, really…You don’t have to explain yourself to me.

Li Cu: no, no it’s just

I do technically have a dad

who is an asshole. Being a son doesn’t really mean shit to me bc it sucked.

So you need to stop backing down just cuz ur guilty abt stuff. I’m really really glad ur not my dad in a good way. Do u get what I mean there

Where’s the mafia widower I followed into hell, huh

Wu Xie: Ur a good kid, despite my influence. I’m really glad you have someone to talk to after everything I…after everything. Wow this talking through feelings thing is kind of weird but nice ur right

Jfc no wonder it took me and xiaoge so long to—you know what, we won’t get into that

Li Cu: ew tmi

Also re: this week’s recent necklace fuckery

I moved my stuff here, I live here now

So you can’t die anymore

Or else…Idk I don’t have a threat planned

anyways abt the curtain

Wu Xie: oh my god, kid…kid you have no idea

I am in tears.

Li Cu: see this is why I can’t be nice to you I can sense the hallmark channel from here

Ugh don’t be sad in ur room that’s dumb

Go hug Pangzi or something

Maybe delete this chat

Or the curtain thing

Focus on the curtain thing

Just stfu and go away

Wu Xie: <3 screenshotting this <3

Li Cu: I take back everything I said. This is why Xiao Ge sleeps on the roof. I hope the ghosts of the Wangs put up that curtain to strangle you somehow. Go die in a stupid way, it’ll suit you.

Wu Xie: lol don’t worry I’m not gonna embarrass you with it or anything

Main Chat

Wu Xie: omg guys look how cute my kid is *sending screenshot*

Wang Pangzi: I MEAN

HE IS WISHING YOU DEATH

BUT SURE

CUTE I GUESS

Wu Xie: no but read the whole thing:):):)

Zhang Qiling: It is indeed very hard to remain angry with you. And you are welcome to join me on the roof.

Wang Pangzi: UH NOPE

NOT WHENI HAD TO BLEACH THE COUNTER IN THE KITCHEN

DONT TRAUMATIZE THE EARLY BIRDS THEYRE ALREADY FREAKED OUT BY U YA HOODIE CRYPTID

Wu Xie: ok true but babe ur like a sexy cryptid

Wang Meng: so, are we just accepting that there is a glittery curtain of unknown origin, and Huo Daofu is going to have to see it while he’s waiting for you at Wushanju bc you’re going to family therapy?

Wu Xie: right

Wang Pangzi: SHOULDA TAKEN EARLY RETIREMENT HUH

Wang Meng: I’m going to go dust something.

Unnamed Chat:

Unknown number: so the curtain…

Unknown number 2: yep, not my best work but I kinda panicked last minute u know

Unknown number: what is in the water at Wushanju that makes everyone dumb and attractive

Unknown number 2: relax they’ll figure it out

[glitterandgoldrush]

someone asked for my live-blogging reaction to oouil tv, so i have put it under the cut with a more complete explanation of how i felt overall as well!

ep1:

okay so it’s definitely super different

sassy maeve, i love it

eggs instead of a car crash? i guess it’s bc they wrote out luis

addy finding jake on her own and cooper not helping 😭😭 why are we getting rid of all of cooper’s kind scenes

cooper and keely have a secret? and why does cooper seem so completely unaffected what

bronwyn and nate are so flirty right off the bat wow

bronwyn stole simon’s laptop?? what the fuck. this is so totally different

also no drinking scene with bron & nate :(

janae getting a Storyline and going after addy right away ?? why would she do that if she’s guilty her whole thing was wanting to stay away from them until addy basically forced herself into her life

totally weird side note: but not how i’ve been pronouncing nate’s last name this whole time

also just totally noticed that they skipped over everyone else also having fake phones?

OH and cooper is super new, moved here last year

COOPER’S SEALED RECORD IM SORRY WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHY WHY WHY WOULD COOPER HAVE A RECORD

ahh here’s the florence + the machine thing everyone was talking about

bronwyn’s a terrible liar oh my god 😭

“sucks for your dad” line literally made me lol

LUCAS AND NONNY YES THANK YOU

wait shut the fUCK UP LUCAS KNOWS THAT COOPER IS GAY I LOVE THIS 😭😭

SHUT UP KEELY KNOWS I LOVE THIS

“i won’t waste this arm on that shit” get em cooper lol

addy and tj ooooFT

addy taking anti anxiety medication is definitely something she should’ve been doing in the books lol i also love the fixation on her hair

maeve continuing to be Sassy as fuck and i love it

is nate’s aussie accent super obvious to anyone else ?

THATS HOW YOU PRONOUNCE SIMON’S LAST NAME??

janae’s speech lowkey iconic even though they’re both the worst

HER SINGING LILY ALLEN. I WONT LIE, I DID LAUGH 😭😭 so fucking weird

also “it’s not okay to be gay” but it is okay to our people :) man janae c’mon you’re not seeing any of the irony here?

this tribute is so much worse than the books like how disrespectful jesus. i know simon was the Worst but yiiiiikes this was hard to watch

OH MY GOD OHMYGOD OH MY GOD THE POST

kris 🥺🥺

the missing laptop? ruh roh shaggy

ep 2:

oh addy being insecure 🥺

lol what the fuck jake is so manipulative i hate that i find them cute in this scene 😭😭😭

run cooper run

KRIS 🥺🥺🥺 A SPEAKING ROLE

i had to stop this scene bc i was stressed that they’re gonna ruin their relationship

pls let me see one scene of him comforting coop. one scene and i will be content

ooft bronwyn is just as brutal in this as she is in the books

LMAO kris and cooper swapping briefs iconic

are these eps gonna be like specifically character based? this definitely feels like an addy episode

lmao cooper “wouldn’t be the first time police out evidence where they needed it to be” go off king

addy loves to make herself look guilty “saw it on the food network” love u baby

BRONWYN AND NATE HOLDING HANDS THANK U MAAM

bronwyn immediately throwing addy under the bus wHY

cooper “WhAt?” sir 😭 are we surprised

also the capsule idea is excellent to really heighten the tension of in the room right here right now

oh no not cooper and his dad being so good :(

addy’s mom is so invasive i hate her

simon being the mayor’s kid ooft

bronwyn stop accusing addy challenge

“and i’ll be a mom…but a good one” BREAKING MY HEART ADS

noooooooo cooper embarrassed as hell 😪

NOOOOO KRIS NOT KNOWING THAT COOPER IS IN HIGH SCHOOL WHAT WHAT WHAT

im actually so sad about this, in the books cooper never lies to kris he’s literally the only person that he’s honest with, and that’s kinda?? a huge point??? of his character???

simon’s mom being so disrespectful to his literal only friend AHAHAHA wtf

keep on lowkey forgetting that this is an adaption bc it’s so different like 100 plot twists that didn’t exist before

addy hiding under that bed gave me so much anxiety it made me feel sick omg

“his love of his friends” babe what friends

maeve and janae ooft interesting

“best food” LMAO MAEVE i love u

addy and cooper sniping at each other no pls my chaos twins 🥺🥺🥺

keely and cooper are so sweet 😭😭

OH NO KEELY KNOWS HE’S GAY BUT DOESNT KNOW HES HOOKING UP WITH KRIS THIS IS BAD

addy and jake are getting my heart POUNDING RN POUNDING I AM STRESSED I AM S T R E S S E D

jake’s cast perfectly. i am terrified of this man: absolutely flawless casting

cooper’s so sarcastic i love him

“…in the kitchen” iconic lmao

OOOFT addy admitting it 😭 this made me emotional

COOPER AND ADDY THANK YOU FINALLY 🥺🥺🥺🥺

coop and kris part two let’s goooooo

oh my god are they gonna make it look like it was maeve 😭

honestly,,, maeve is a really good suspect i never actually considered that before lol

ep3

“i’m gonna fix it” no ur not baby

they’re doing a very very good job at keeping the suspense of one of them doing it up, by this point in the book everyone kinda knew it wasn’t one of the four but here it’s much more ambiguous

the soda anecdote is my favourite 😭😭

tj is so sweet but i’m praying they don’t make them end up together pls let addy have her independence arc

OH SHIT THEM BEATING THE FUCK OUT OF EACH OTHER

him hurting coop wtf sir

oh no not this happening in front of everyone oh no oh NO

but also jake was way calmer in the books

vanessa SUUUUUUUCKS

OH MY GOD NATES SECRET IS SO MUCH MORE INTENSE

maeve lmaoooo i love u

“don’t u think nate could have done it” WHY WOULD NATE EXPOSE HIS OWN SECRET THIS PLOT HOLE ANNOYS ME SO MUCH as soon as their secret is exposed it basically excludes them from being the killer

LMAO NATE AND ADDY I LOVE IT

“i could literally kill” “another thing you should keep to yourself” PLEASE 😭😭

COOPER STOP YELLING PLEASE i don’t GET why they’ve made these choices

thank YOU ADDY EXACTLY my point about the secret

maeve’s nosebleed oh my god oh my god

lmao oh NO bronwyn knows about the laptop

bronwyn really turned on her sister like 0.2 seconds flat

COOPER YES THANK U

maeve was friends with simon?!! what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck

oh no coopers secret fuck

also cooper hurting his shoulder NO

ugh i knew they would make kris buy from nate that’s so out of his character

seems weird that they wouldn’t have had this conversation earlier??? uhh tell me why they don’t know each other at all

maeve being a Good Sister

ooooh the phones make their first appearance

why is cooper so aggressive that’s so out of character did they forget he’s literally supposed to be sunshine boy

why would jake defend addy lol he’s supposed to egg on the drama

ahhh addy and janae bathroom scene iconicccc

“you suck like 20% less” lmao janae do not make me like you

WHY would maeve be friends with simon i do not get the direction we have taken here

WHY WOULD MAEVE BE IN LOVE WITH SIMON I DO NOT GET THE DIRECTION WE HAVE TAKEN HERE

????????????????????????? IM GENUINELY BAFFLED I AM LOST I AM CONFUSED

okay so?? addy & bronwyn are the only characters that are staying true to the books let’s be honest

oooft maeve call her out let’s go

oh my god cooper and nate friends?? it’s sweet.

wait coopers mom is dead in this

cooper and nate FRIENDS 🥺🥺🥺

KRIS KRIS KRIS KRIS

FUCK i am stressed for cooper rn oh my good god

kris wearing glasses oh cute

oh no poor baby is so hurt and stressed i’m 😭

DAMN STRAIGHT COOPER HE IS A SAD PATHETIC BULLY WHEN YOURE RIGHT YOURE RIGHT

GET EM BABY LETS GO POP OFF K I N G 91 MPH LETS GO

“i did it” oh shit

“i would fail and that just wasn’t an option” relatable tbh

her parents suck lol

cooper is so happy i’m stressed to my core he’s gonna get caught with pain killers i can’t be having it

OH NO OH NO KEELY AND KRIS IS THERE AND OH SHIT OH NO

NOT KRIS CRYING HOLD ON IM i gasped

“and your dad knows too” CAN U PLS GIVE HIM A FUCKING BREAK KRIS ITS LITERALLY A PLOT POINT IN THE BOOKS THAT KRIS NEVER PRESSURES HIM TO COME OUT I AM M A D

detective is gonna out cooper i will fight to the death this bitch

nate and bronwyn here we GO

OVERALL

look, it’s enjoyable. i think the actors are great, and theyre certainly really talented. i think addy and bronwyn are the best adapted, though even then they have some moments that make me think “wtf” like bronwyn stealing the laptop, and jake not being half as aggressive as he’s supposed to be

i like cooper’s storyline with his family & keely, although it’s obviously completely different from the books & takes away from how totally closeted he was there. i’m really torn, i like his character, but i like him as like, someone completely different from book!cooper, because i feel like apart from baseball, they barely have anything in common? cooper doesn’t lie to kris, he wouldn’t approach nate for drugs, he wouldn’t get aggressive with him either, and the closest he ever gets to accusing anyone is saying that peanut oil is a “weird kind of coincidence”. i knew it would be different but it’s very, very different. i guess i just have to get used to it? also kris is just not even close to being the same i mean he’s not a model, he’s not german, he doesn’t know about keely?? cooper says in the book that kris would “never force him to come out” or make him feel bad about it, but it’s like the first thing we see kris do. which is understandable in his situation, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just not at all what he’s like in the books

maeve’s storyline is,, a decision and i don’t understand why she would be friends with simon when her whole entire thing in the book is being grossed out by him

OKAY so concludingly, let me be clear, i do LIKE it. i think it’s fun and it’s interesting and the actors are great. obviously i’m being hypercritical in this bc i’m comparing it to the books. thats not to say there isn’t things i liked bc there definitely definitely is! but i’m also now looking at it as something completely separate from oouil bc apart from the primary plot points, there’s basically nothing in common

[calciferstims]

izzy hands anon here. so i was gonna reply to you the day after you had replied to what it is because it was getting late and i needed to rehearse some words but then...i got maaaad sick, like i rarely get sick. it was strange bc i had felt weird since thursday and then i got fever and felt like a punched rice bag the entire day 😶. still had fever today but i feel a tad bit better now so ima take the opportunity in replying to it now!

huehue when i read this "you do NOT have to read all of this oh god please don’t force yourself to read it. I’m serious." i was thinking "hahaha you bet i am gonna do it anyways!!"

ngl i wasnt thinking he was from a show, much less from this one lmfao i thought he was some...idek, random dude or sommet baha.

wait what "one time he moaned ‘daddy’ on screen because he was???? trying to make fun of someone I guess??? but it traumatized many people." LMFAOO??? he moaned daddy and it traumatised a lot of people lmfaoooooo I CANT. THATS HILARIOUS WHAT EVEN?? 😂

"he has like, these insanity-inducing micro expressions going on in the background at all times." AHAHAHA WHATTT 😂

"you can just feel him VIBRATING with repressed gay thoughts" okay by now i gotta say, the way you explain things is fucking hilarious lmaoo. i was gonna say he doesnt look too angry, but then i thought if this gif was shown with no context then yea, i think he does look angry lol, or more like frustrated.

okay i read it all and i gotta say, this is definitely not what i had thought was gonna be said. idk what i thought but...this wasnt it lmfao. his names soooo fucking random. who tf names a character IZZY hands. and now all i see is that dino rb'ing the flaming izzy hands hahah

Ohhh nooo I hope you feel better soon!!! 🥺 that sucks, def get some rest and relax!

And yeah, he’s from the beloved gay pirate show that consumed tumblr 😂 I simply watched a show with the the most groundbreaking queer rep I’ve ever seen, the sweetest most tender gay pirate couple as the main center, only to shove aside everyone else and point at the worst guy ever and go ‘that one. that repressed homophobic bitch in the corner that one’s mine’.

DHSGH THE DADDY SCENE IS So Much™️ ITS SO BAD LMAO. Pretty sure he’s like. Trying to do this weird homophobic impression of stereotypical gay people but he just gets WAY too into it and completely exposes his whore gay ass SGHSGHSHS. Also fun fact apparently it was supposed to be even longer but they cut it for time…. The fucking mad lad just kept going… absolutely desperate to see that tbh. Give us the extended daddy cut NOW.

I would share a gif of the daddy scene but honestly I am not brave enough for that

God Con O’Neill and his expressions are SOO good… tbh I’m also probably just biased and overanalyzing a lot of shit!!! But he’s rlly rlly good and I have seen the creators of the show and his fellow actors praise him a lot for his work as Izzy lmao so I’m probably not just going insane. He rlly put everything into every second of his screentime and I thank him for it 🙏

Why thank you I try to be comedic 😌😌

His name IS weird lmao 😂 mf literally named Hands… people call him Mr. Hands with a straight face… to be fair it’s not like they made it up for the show like Israel Hands was a legit dude! He even appears in other pirate media! But apparently for ofmd they were like no…. His name isn’t stupid enough….. we must nickname him Izzy too… that old man looks like an Izzy…….

also I FOUND MORE DUMB IZZY PICS I COULDN’T FIND LAST TIME YAY

ty for indulging me anon lmao <33

[selfcareparker]

okay fghsgdj yes you can say girl ! my pronouns are she/her :) okay but fr pause, i read this like 3 minutes after you posted it (or at least my notif said 3mins lmao) bUT IM IN BED AND I USUALLY HAVE MY COMPUTER OPEN WITH YOUR RESPONSE SO I MAKE SURE I ADDRESS EVERYTHING AND THEN SEND IN THE ASK ON MY PHONE HDGSJSH anyway, time to get my ass up 😔 but wait i find you so funny like honestly, reading that cracked me all the way up. and i feel the “lol” thing so hard!!!! idk why i do it all the time (i’m tryna stop) but i’ll say something with lol at the beginning and lol at the end... it might be a defense mechanism at this point lol (😔) AND (i need to stop with the uppercase too it’s not funny anymore) I DONT KNOW WHY I LAUGHED SO HARD JDHSK WHEN YOU SAID ALSO AGAIN HAHAHAH LIKE UR HAHHAH also my sleep schedule is not pretty either lmao but i’m homeschooled so i never have to get up for anything? hhdhsis idk but i’m glad you slept!! you need sleep!!

also (pls no i cannot) why did i not know what ykwim meant until i reread this?? like it makes so much sense- anyway! i think it’s so cool that you’re excited for university! idk why but i do lol like you’re getting ready for the future (masters degree and all that) & you’re (maybe) going to england anyway so that’s cool haha (hopefully when you go you can see your relatives 🤞🏾)

the fact that you get happy seeing my asks i- 💓💓

you make me wanna go to London & England so bad urghhhh like i’ve only been out of the country once (to Canada for a family reunion) but it sounds so prettyyyyy & i’m so sorry that cov*d is messing everything up and i hope you can see your relatives soon :(

now to address the whole english speaking/writing: I FIND THAT SO WEIRD DUHSKSJ i don’t know how an english speaking person could say that if you don’t write it 100% grammatically correct.... that it’s wrong? when literally, over here at least, WE’RE SO GRAMMATICALLY INCORRECT HAHHAAH in both the way we talk and write!! and lol you’re welcome,, AND THE PARAGRAPH DID MAKE SENSE HDHSJSH & your rant is fine because... that is actually a bit ??? bc no one writes with 100% grammar lol

OH MY GOSH (see this uppercase thing is addictive) YOU STUDIED LATIN FOR 6 YEARS??? that’s really cool 🥺 the way that you know/speak 3+ languages i- NOT EVEN 3+ LIKE 6+ (german, english, latin, french, serbian, italian, and everything that comes with latin lmao) even if it’s just a tiny bit like wowee. it is really fascinating!!! i had the opportunity to take latin and i... didnt. i took art instead BUT ONLY CUZ MY FRIENDS WERE IN THAT CLASS AND ART LOOKED FUN IM SORRY

PLEASE WHY DO YOU KNOW EVERYONE?? that sounds so fricking cool tell your mom (mum or mama it’s really fine lol) that she sounds awesome. i think Jamaica would be fun either way!! i mean it looks pretty from pictures? i was a baby so i honestly have no recollection hahaha

LMAOO NOT U SAYING THIS IS LONGER THAN SOME OF MY FICS- PLEASE GIRL IM TELLING YOU I VERBALLY LAUGHED HAHAHAHAHAH but yea you really don’t need to apologize i like reading everything you say 🥺 HDKSHS AND UR FINE WE WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT ME BEFORE uhhh hmm uhh lemme think i, well, i saw chaos walking yesterday (big tom holland fan over here) and it was alright.. my mom acted a fool at all the jump scares LMAO but it was funny... since i’m talking about movies (this is hella random i know) but i like shark movies HDKJSSJ my favorite is the meg (it’s so good ohmigosh) and the 47 meters down movies aren’t bad either... i have two younger brothers... iiiii AM IN LOVE WITH MUSIC PHEW anddd i’m homeschooled (i think i mentioned that lol) i think that’s a good amount ahahaha AND IM HUNGRY RN JDHSJ

now. please. let me address the edit. i just want you to know that.. when i talk about your fics and i finish them and everything i’m not looking for more? like obviously if you’re writing i’m gonna read it but you don’t need to feel pressured or anything (idk if you do) to put more fics out lol like they’re great and i’m just sending the praise bc i love the ones that are there :’) but i’m so happy you’re working through your writers block!!! yay so so happy for you!!! and PUHLEASE anything you write is fantastic, i feel the exact same way when i write but girl. you’re fine. it’s gonna be great. (idk if this made any sense but... okay)

(and my cousin calls her mom mama so it’s really okay hahah i even call my mom mama sometimes) (and where you got the number “16 sentences” beats me but i still cracked up) (is this me pretending i had tags? maybe) HAHAHAHA OK BYE ❤️❤️ why did this take me so long to send i have no clue, AND WHY AM I OVERTHINKING EVERYTHING I SAID SHAJSHSJ ANYWAY BYE btw i love us too... like iconic // lovely anon 💓

me reading this:

also the dedication you put into sending me stuff— like with the laptop and phone and ahsksk 🥺🥺🥺

i’ll update you when i’ve started uni btw, i’m getting more and more excited every single day haha but i still have 3 weeks until it starts and even then I’ll obviously have to get used to it and everything, but you’re making me even more excited about it sksjshsg

yeah i wanna go to england too dkshsh let’s be sad together over the fact the we can’t travel eksjsh😔😭 but hopefully the wait will make it even better in the end <33 also i talk to loads of relatives over the phone at least once a week so it’s not too bad for me! but i miss their house 😭lmao

and i knowww snshsh so many native english speakers just make so many mistakes— and obviously i get that some things are slang but some things are simply wrong ajsh, the thing is no one has ever told me that my english is bad (i know it’s not bad anyway, but i’m still insecure) or no one has ever pointed out any mistakes, but yeah it’s mostly just insecurity dkshsg but yes thanks for saying what you said (previously as well as in this ask)😌🥰

Okay now for latin— girlll i don’t blame u for choosing art over latin esp. when all of your friends are doing art as well!! I’d choose art over latin as well lol skshsg but in year 6 we had to choose between latin and french, and at the time i didn’t like french? which was dumb of me and now i wanna learn french ekdhs but i don’t regret choosing latin at all bc if i properly learn french one day then i’ll already know understand loads of stuff (or at least some stuff lol) just thanks to latin 😌😌 but still, art>>>latin skskshshgs

I wanna watch chaos walking too!!! But i don’t get when/where/how it’s out lmao, cinemas are still closed here so i’ll either have to wait or find it somewhere online... il*egally 🥰 i don’t have high expectations at all btw but i like daisy and tom and the dog🥺 so i think i’ll enjoy it

GIRL SHARK FILMS SHARK FOLMS SKSJSHSHS okay so there are a few classics i haven’t watched yet, and also a few new ones that i haven’t seen yet BUT I LOVE SHARK FILMS SO MUCH SKSHSGSGSKK the first like proper shark film i ever watched was the shallows (which i like but my brain is still too small to comprehend what happened at the end (i mean i get it but i just can’t imagine it— idek if you’ve seen the film but skshhs)) and after watching it three times it does get a bit boring (but now whenever i see pictures or videos of big waves i’m just waiting for a shark to show up like come ON SKSJSG

^^^that pic/scene really traumatised me sksjsh but i still like the film

I only watched jaws like a few months ago, and i get that it’s a classic and also that it’s old and they just didn’t have the best.. equipment or special effects or whatever but i mean... look at meg and then look at jaws.... no disrespect to jaws at ALL but the meg is so much cooler. (That one scene on the boat where the shark just JUMPS OUT OF THE WATER AND SKSJSHHSUSJHA i get such a shock every time it’s so good (and the dog aww aksjshssli 🥺🥺🥰 and the boy with the ice cream lmao he’s iconic)

47 metres down, wow, i liked that film too. (i’ve only watched the original/first one i think) i mean that is such a fucking nightmare scenario like ALSJDHSNEMSKDJSHSJSKWBALSODUEWBSLDKHDJSNSKSKSHSGEBWKAISGSHEKEKSKLDJDJDHDHSHAGGA (that’s the best way i can express my feelings about that scenario lmao)

oh and i’ve recently been watching more horror films but i don’t know if they’re for me... I like the thrill and whatever but i just end up being scared for my life when i have to go to the bathroom at night or when i’m trying to sleep bc suddenly my mind is flooded with all the scary shit from the films 💀💀💀

and music i mean... you know those people who just don’t listen to music? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM???? i honestly like all genres especially in the last year, i am IN LOVE with Nicki Minaj + Megan andddd Stormzy and i like Harry Styles but i prefer his first solo album (and obviously one direction has bangers i have a throwback 1D session at least once a month), I also love MGK especially his new stuff and otherwise i mostly listen to german artists lmao. So who do you like?💖 (WHY DO I FEEL LIKE YOURE GONNA SAY SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SKAHAGUS IF YOU LISTEN TO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MUSIC DONT JUDGE ME AJSHDJS) (i know you’re not gonna judge me but)

++ @ the thing you said about writing, don’t worry, i don’t feel pressured at all!!! (not by you and not by anybody else.. except myself sometimes lol) and i’m just very happy that you liked my fics 🥰🥰🥰 and if i start telling people that i’m writing a fic then sometimes it puts a bit of (healthy) pressure on me. like yes sometimes it really is writer’s block, but sometimes i really am just lazy ddkshhd so now that i’ve told you i’m writing a fic i might get my ass up quicker than i would if i hadn’t told anyone 😌😌😌

[the-writing-mobster]

⭐ :3

Eeeee, thank you for the ask!

I had to think long and hard about what I wanted to discuss; Chapter 8! Uuuggghhh. Part one is pretty underrated and there isn't a lot of feedback for it but it has MOST of my favorite moments. Mostly because of the foreshadowing and EXTREME sexual tension.

Also, I should mention: spoilers under the cut!

Papyrus was nowhere to be seen, but she froze when she caught Sans in the kitchen. He hadn’t noticed her presence yet, so she ducked away and hid behind the wall. 

He was mumbling to himself as he made coffee, clearly tired as hell. She poked her head out and noticed there was a list sitting on the kitchen island. Most likely for her.

“Sans! Let’s go!” shouted Papyrus as the front door slammed open. She flinched and jerked back into hiding as Sans groaned and stomped out of the kitchen. Frisk’s breath hitched as he marched past her. He grinned when he saw her.

“Good luck…” he purred...

I liked this chapter a lot. Frisk's first day on the job, getting to know her more, and of course Sans being just... Awful. Sans being awful was actually my favorite thing to write.

I also just... Really wanted to write a super domestic chapter. So chapter 8 is filled to the brim with cleaning and shit like that. It was supposed to be a break from all the action.

I've kind of always wanted to be good at housework (not for traditional reasons or anything, just for like... I hate being in a dirty environment but I suuuuck at cleaning and cooking and baking) so writing this was like a little bit of escapism. Weird that I'd find escapism in chores... 🤷‍♀️

(it would've only been made better if she'd had an actual french maid outfit... 😏)

Flowey eventually joined her after she took the nicely folded clothes upstairs. By then it was eight a.m. They worked together to dust. It was the dusting that started to drag on time.

I actually had to look up how long it would take to clean an entire house. I read like two articles on Maids and the hours they worked. One was on house maids... That's not what they're called I just— whatever. And the other was hotel maids. What I learned was that it took around five hours??? Yeah. Around five hours. And of course, it took longer than that for her because of Calibri.

As she stared into Calibri's silver eyes, she began to tear up at the beauty. 

Overcome by the unicorn's majesty, she began to sob and she stumbled back. It cocked its head in curiosity and studied her. Frisk's soul began to burn and glow from within her chest and those silver eyes almost seemed to be piercing right through her and studying the contents of her soul. Judging her for all she was worth. 

In myth, unicorns were said to come to young virgin girls and were only calm in their presence. It was the best way to trap and tame said magical horses. Obviously, Frisk is not a young virgin girl, but! Virginity is a construct and Calibri obviously loves her. Frisk doesn't feel worthy of being in his presence, but he judges the contents of her soul and... Well... Obviously she's pure of heart despite everything.

And also, there's a line in the Last Unicorn about Lady Amalthea that describes Frisk and the effect she has the monsters to a Tee.

“The Lady Amalthea beckoned, and the cat wriggled all over, like a dog, but he would not come near... She was offering her open palm to the crook-eared cat, but he stayed where he was, shivering with the desire to go to her"...[later, Molly asked the cat] "Why were you afraid to let her touch you? I saw you. You were afraid of her."

"If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been hers and not my own...”

(I love this book) So obviously, Frisk is a unicorn to the monsters. Completely irresistible and once you go near her you belong to her forever. In the best way possible that is. I wanted to make this comparisons early on between her and a real unicorn.

"Merde!" She exclaimed as she shot out from the stable and sprinted to the shed to get the snow shovel. She slid on the ice of the driveway and almost fell onto her ass. She regained her balance and began to work at the pathway. 

Sans would've laughed his ass off at this. That is all.

As she looked through the catalogue of cookbooks that Papyrus owned, she noticed a common theme. Italian food. 

"Well isn't that ironic?" She murmured.

Frisk is so SICK of Italian food and she just can't seem to escape it!

"We arrested that Snowdrake Comedian today." The muffled voice of Papyrus alerted Frisk to his presence and she felt a spike of adrenaline enter her. Is this what cooking show contestants felt as the timer counted down?

"Why the fuck—what, Asgore can't handle some political satire?" She rushed about the kitchen to get the last remaining things she needed as she heard the crunch of footsteps in the snow.

Oh what's this? Foreshadowing??? The Angelicans aren't mentioned at all in Part One but their shadow is cast everywhere if you look close enough! Perhaps because everything was planned from the beginning. 😉

"Sans! Get your pathetic ass down here! Dinner is ready!" Barked Papyrus. Frisk heard a thump from upstairs and she flinched. Sans? I need to get out of here. 

Ahahaha! She hates him so much and I love it.

It was only until she was walking down the hall to her room when she heard a creak. She turned around and flinched when she saw Sans. He grinned at her, his plate of food in hand. His eyes rolled over her and she shrunk under his gaze. Never had she ever felt so uncomfortable around someone. The way his fanged grin leered at her, threatening to rip her to pieces. He was a shark and she was just a minnow. 

Now this part... This is my favorite part and the reason I chose chapter 8 to talk about.

He reached out to an in-table and knocked over a vase. She flinched as it thudded on the floor, and she slowly realized just what he was doing. She stared up at him with wide eyes as he leaned forward. 

"Pick it up," he demanded in a soft, menacing voice.

Ooooooof. Something about that is so awful but sooo... I don't know. I was literally grinning so hard when I wrote this. The spirit of Sans the Skeleton possessed me and I was just like "heh heh heh.... Get wrecked little girl."

Flowey glared up at Sans, but held his tongue for Frisk's sake. She looked down at the vase, and then back up at him with a scowl. She wanted to tell him no. Spit on him. Turn away. Slam her door. Flip him off. Stand up for herself… 

Alternative scene would be where she slaps him across the face and then he laughs at her and calls her interesting OR threatens her but that never happened so I never wrote it. 🤷‍♀️ Also she'd be actin strong but her hand would be STINGING because slapping hard bone would HURT.

 He was still grinning at her, and she swallowed her dignity. She didn't do any of those things. Slowly, she stooped down and grabbed the vase. She gathered the decorative feathers and stuffed them back inside as she replaced the vase on the table. That bastard. Does he really think he can just do this? … I guess he can. I'm basically their slave now. What a nightmare. Oh God… what am I going to do? 

Sans hummed in delight and gave her another lingering stare. Slowly, he nodded his head, a sort of smug satisfaction about himself as he turned away. She glared at him. 

I kinda laughed when I wrote this because I pictured him doing the most Smug McAsshole nod like he was so proud of himself for pulling that shit.

"Papyrus may act like he's in charge, but at the end of the day… I'm the guy that might just kill ya," he said as he got to his door. He winked at her before he slipped in and shut the door behind him. Left alone, she gasped for breath, as if there had been a pressure on her chest and the weight had finally been removed. She staggered and leaned against the wall for balance. 

The threat. The wink. The assholery. I love it. God. Writing this scene, I was so excited about it. I'd literally reread it over and over again. Also, this line he says comes back in a future chapter during a Part 3 torture scene. (Referencing past chapters is my favorite thing to do. It's like when a comedian references a joke in another joke in their set.)

Chapter 8 is definitely one of my favorites, but it's not the only one I want to talk about! Go ahead and send me stars (⭐) in my ask box if you want more "director" cuts for WDYW!

[yutaya]

Iron Fist Rewatch 1x05: Under Leaf Pluck Lotus

I like this shot. The way the women are shown reflected in the wall first. Also lol quintessential synchronized female power strut

Why wait until you’re IN the office to move your wedding ring?? Or to unbutton your shirt? Well, that one I can understand - let all the people who see you heading INTO the office see the shirt still buttoned up. The ring, though - unless the POINT is to be seen moving it? Imply that you’re open to cheating or something? Ugh.

This is so sketchy.

Danny’s employees be like: “Having? My voice heard? At work? Having? My opinion? Be valued? My? Contribution? Being? Acknowledged? Personally??? ??? ??? What is happening????? ??????” And then it’s the “the worthy leader’s people love and are completely loyal to them” trope (aka one of my greatest weaknesses) forever. <3

Lmao Joy you’re cold.

“Is that heroin? You bring drugs into my office?” *Laughing/sobbing*

Ward just staring blankly while Danny name drops a bunch of triad stuff like Ward is supposed to know what that is. Danny: “...It’s a criminal syndicate.” Ward: *heavy sigh*

Danny, continuing: “So I was talking to the criminals with the hatchets and asked them for intel. They sent me a box, which was clearly a message!” Ward: “You 👏 sound 👏 in 👏 sane. 👏” Danny: “No, look, the proof is that the symbol on this heroin looks like the undying dragon that made me a living weapon!”

Lol “Harold said so himself” no faster way to turn Ward off a plan, sorry Danny

Danny. How do you manage to make half your conversations sound sketchy as hell?

Joy: *brings up the Hatchet men and Red Hook right after Danny was telling Ward about it in relation to the Hand* Ward: *alarm bells ringing because HAS DANNY BEEN TELLING JOY ALL THE THINGS WE SPECIFICALLY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TELL JOY?* Joy: Anyway, about Dad’s cancer... Ward: Oh, ok then.

Siiiiiiigh this conversation where Ward reassures Joy that she’s a good person making the right decision when she feels bad about doing something but does it anyway - to protect their own company and personal interests - and adds on a load of “also you don’t really feel guilty because you think this is wrong, you just feel sad because you’re remembering Dad, don’t mix it up”

Colleen to Claire, Iron Fist 1x05: “Oh what was that? Come on, hit me.” Colleen to Misty, Luke Cage 2x03: *hitting directly on Misty’s stump while Misty yells at her to stop* “You came to me. I’m not easy. You don’t like that?”

Claire: “I guess I got tired of people doing things for me all the time.” Claire was a helpful nurse in Daredevil, and a friend with medical knowledge in Luke Cage - Iron Fist is where she says “I am tired of being reactionary”

LOL Danny’s cute little smile when he comes in to see Colleen doing her normal thing, training a student, just - it’s so loving and adorable even though they BARELY KNOW EACH OTHER YET

Claire just giving Colleen knowing looks ahahahaha

This scene is SO CUTE Jessica and Finn do such a great job playing all the body language and speech cadences like two teenagers with crushes on each other

DANNY ordering takeout for a talk with someone without even checking to see if they’re free first is SO PRESUMPTUOUS what if she wasn’t free (which she WASN’T) or didn’t want to talk or had already eaten/already had meal plans?

I’m literally laughing out loud hahahaha takeout hahahaha

Claire is laughing at them too. This fumbling “date?” conversation is too adorable I can’t

LMAO Claire knows EXACTLY how much she is third wheeling them right now but she doesn’t care because Damn that food looks good. Girl knows what she wants. (Also a little bit of female solidarity helping to buffer when your friend has literally said “no” to the guy - but in this particular case it’s SO OBVIOUS that Colleen likes him back that I read she’s leaning more towards the ‘it’s just to make sure but also that food looks REALLY good’ - then again, especially with all the things Claire has seen there really is no such thing as ‘too cautious’... let’s go with the way she hints is an opening and when Colleen leaps on the opportunity for Claire to stay it becomes ‘yep, I’m definitely doing this, Colleen doesn’t want to be alone with the dude: confirmed’)

Ward is looking at the problem as what it is: a set-up, and they don’t fall for traps. Joy goes “Remember that I am better at public perception than you - there are more factors here to consider than what everyone involved in this particular case knows. I’M thinking long term about potential future ramifications.”

“He’s in a completely different world, Joy.” “He lives in ours, now.”

That awkward moment when you’re already digging in and someone starts praying

The way Danny just goes shutters down mode when Claire starts probing about how harsh life in the monastery was

Colleen, brainwaving to Claire: ‘YOU BITCH DON’T LEAVE ME HERE’ Claire, brainwaving right back: ‘”Vow of chastity.” I’m good. You’re on your own, girl.’ She does do one last check in to make sure Colleen really isn’t worried though which I appreciate.

Danny. You lovable buffoon. You think Ward’s problem is that he doesn’t believe you? And that if he did believe this was happening he would of course immediately take action to shut it down? Colleen to Ward, sometime in the future: “Danny has Always had way more faith in you than you deserve.” ToT

Colleen: “Ok soooo I’m still not seeing the part where you had to come tell me this? Am I just your favorite sounding board or...?” Danny: “Well, I want you to come stakeout and possibly getting killed WITH me, of course.” Colleen: “Wait, is this a date?” Danny: “What? No! I mean. Unless you want it to be?” Colleen: “No!” Danny: “No. No, uh, definitely, uh, not a date. Heh.” Colleen: “Good.” Danny: “Good.” *both nod*

Of course the argument that gets to Colleen is how this will endanger her students.

DANNY trying to convince someone to do something and then when they hesitate dropping “by the way I’m your new landlord” on them is SKETCHY you foolish foolish boy. How do you manage to come across so sketchy all the time?!

Ward: *cheerfully throwing Danny under the bus* Joy: *warning Look* Ward: *sighhhhhh you ruin all my fun Joy*

Joy: *radiating ‘just wait til we’re alone’ vibes at Ward* “:) I will back up my brother wholeheartedly because we are a united front and I refuse to let the board see any cracks to even try and exploit :)” *’JUST YOU WAIT WARD YOUR ASS IS GRASS’*

Ahahaha “Ward has always led our company to greatness with his mad genius” when Ward knows most of those decisions were actually Harold I’m cry

Danny. That’s Colleen’s private property Danny. It’s very presumptuous to order takeout, buy her building, and start playing with her katana, Danny.

Martial art style teasing rivalry culture I love it

They’re too cute

AI YA

“suck on that, Dad” Ward be like “yeah i went against everything smart that Joy and board were arguing for me to do just to make your precious company look bad DAD whatchu gonna do, huh? gonna send me more vaguely threatening text messages about how not a single moment in my life is private from you, huh, DAD? fuck you”

Danny: “it’s just nice, having someone to count on.” Colleen: “You have the Meachums.” Danny: *remains silent* IT’S SO DAMNING ahahaha Colleen has so many reasons to hate the Meachums hahahaha

Danny: “I don’t even know what I’m doing or saying until it’s taken the wrong way,” Well, I’m glad you realize that, Danny. You’ve seen how many times in the last TWO EPISODES ALONE people have recoiled slightly and gone “woah, woah, what are you doing?” Oh buddy.

Danny: “Ok, look, this stakeout is dangerous, but it’s not ILLEGAL. Technically, I own that pier, so it’s not trespassing or anything.” Radovan: “No hospitals! I’m a wanted man in several countries.”

High Ward T_T and the two different conversations Ward and Joy are having right now T_T and the way Joy doesn’t have the information to even begin to know what Ward is talking about but how she can FEEL that it’s BAD and - T___T

High Ward with his walls down cuddling Joy’s arm and saying “you stood by me” and Joy scared as hell but not hesitating on “we’re family,” as her explanation T________T

“The Hand.” - Danny knew this was The Hand going in. Claire is freaking out because SHE LEFT HELL’S KITCHEN TO GET AWAY FROM THE HAND FUCK THAT HOW DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO HER? Colleen is freaking out for an entirely different reason. :(

“The Hand is everywhere.” Cut from Claire and Danny to a new shot of Colleen looking on in the background.

Claire: “This is not something a rich kid from the Upper West Side can just ‘handle’, ok? This is a job that requires someone with special.... skills.” Ahahahaa poor Claire how DOES this keep happening to her?

Danny, with utmost conviction: “I am the ONLY one who can defeat them.” Claire: *long, defeated sigh. How many freaking times has she heard this before and how many times will she hear it again?*

Colleen: “This is my choice.” Danny hears: “because it’s the right thing to do and I care about the people of this city especially my kids who are highly likely to be effected and also I maybe care about you too.” Colleen means: “because this is the Bad Hand that is sullying my family’s good name and I will not let that stand. I will work together with my family and we will defeat this.”

Gao: “’His hands’. Are you sure it wasn’t his fist?” Guard: “Ummmmm what’s the difference”

CULTS ARE SO SCARY HE REALLY JUST KNELT THERE AAAAAH

[splendidshinobi]

FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST 2003 LIVE REACT: EPISODES 21-25

almost halfway done lads how we feelin'

episode 21: the red glow

ah yes barry

"i'm alphonse elric!!!!!" yes u r baby!!!

who just popped over the wall

scar im assuming

"i kill therefore i am".....barry spouting descartes rn

it was scar haha

um

hi greed

thought i saw you earlier

WHY DID THEY DRAW HIS ARMS THAT LONG

ope he found the chimera crew...

jerry jewell's evil laugh gets me every time lmao he's so great

ed has deep philosophical talks bro

also ed is chaotic but his personal morals are unshakeable

who are these prison guards gonna release

oh hey kimblee

oh hey squad

ed take out ur pokeball

um wth is that

OH MY GOD TUCKER WHAT

EW

I THOUGHT IT WAS A GIANT YODA OR A SWAMP MONSTER

he looks FUCKKEDDDD

bro of all the things i was not expecting him

oof ishval flashbacks

young scar why is your hair brown

why is it white now

WHY IS HE NAKED

whos her

lust 1.0 im assuming

ew omg tucker is literally so fuckin nasty lookin idk

idk why but he's worse than rod reiss titan for me

wait a damn minute

wait a damn fucking minute

goddamnit

what is GOIN ON

i need tucker to stop whispering he sounds like fucking voldemort on the back of quirrells head

jesus

episode 22: created human

hughes' pajamas look like armin's futon from aot junior high

the bad place???? was that greed's prison gluttony was lookin at?

im still shook af over tucker and tbh its been like 24 hours since i watched episode 21

STOP WHISPERING TUCKER

driving me up a wall

my poor son looks so tired :(

those moral principles at it again

bradley.......

ewww the way tucker walks STOP

hi envy!!!!!

so all of those prisoner guys gonna get flattened by some alchemy

hey kimblee!!!

so did greed escape with the homies???? cause i feel like he would have made his presence known already....

i feel like im missing a lot because im a ding dong

musty prison kimblee is kinda...hot....physically speaking..oops..personality wise obviously there's MUCH to work on

so envy knows hohenheim

ED BABY

he won't do it

oh no alphonse

oh god memory implants

al's identity crisis CONTINUES

they wanna become humans??? huh....doesnt really make sense for their characters...(maybe envy but more on that at 11)

is ed gonna kill these guys for al

some1!!!!!! hold!!!!! me!!!! im so stressed

is he pretending to do it and he's got another plan up his sleeve!!!!????

honestly he's so depressed i cant even tell

those unshakable moral principles at work again i see

the red water can turn ed into a god???? wtf ed doesnt want to be a god he wants to punch god

oh theres the greed squad! i found them!!! is kimblee joining up with them

maria girly!!!!!!!

THE HOMUNCULI IN THEIR STUPID UNIFORMS I--

who's the lady. i need 2 know.

episode 23: fullmetal heart

alphonse is destroyed again

poor kid

"edward sir" brosh pls!!!

oh excuse me--- ***Bloch

The Ross Slap™

winry <3

pinako takes no prisoners

ed didnt you JUST tell brosh and ross they might be right that you needed to trust adults with more shit and now youre blowing off hughes

ed's DRAWINGS im-

hi sig hi izumi!!!

al is so sad over there in that corner

poor baby son

sometimes i feel like hughes and mustang are ed and al's divorced dads

the little arakawa avatar cows in the back im CRYING!!!!!!!

“bean”

snappy al

ooffffffff

omg hughes plz

elicia is precious though we love her

"dad's friend the bookworm" omg sheska

awwww gracia made edward a cake!!!!!!!

god catch me cryin in the club

CONGRATULATIONS

"whatever" al im crying he's so sad

AL MADE BROSH OR WHOEVER CARRY HIS DESTROYED ARMOR TO THE ROOF IM ACTUALLY YELLING

"you goof"

yes winry you are correct boy is a goof

sir you are being so dramatic

give that baby a hug

"so called brother"

so we all know that was a knife through the heart for ed

al just jumped off a FUCKING ROOF and ED TRIED TO FOLLOW

so im crying

i liked this better when they HAD A CONVERSATION ABOUT AL'S FEARS AND MADE THE FUCK UP

episode 24: bonding memories

guess we're gonna play w my emotions again

sometimes like....one bit characters talk...like villager b ya know? and im like who are you i know that voice

so the nasty military has come to ruin some lives again

and barry for some reason

aww poor al

youre real you are!!!!!!

i just feel like people would know people that wear sunglasses in the rain would be ishvalan

but what do i know

obviously they dont have the white hair thing in this version

poor ed is so sad

these boys need a hug 

let me just *pulls out adoption papers*

well if scar doesnt have queen mei to adopt in 03, he’s got this little toothless boy

dont lie al you do care

ew i dont like her

the drama of this boy

so the nasty military has come to ruin some lives again part 2

apparently they are *mercenaries??? excuse me

i have some questions regarding this kid’s mom

well you know i can see why this kid feels this way about his mom

it does look like she ran off...

al and scar dream team up

HEY ED!!! HEY WINRY!!!

bout time

yall gonna have this talk now????

barry STOPPPPPP

brotherhood barry is the true king there i said it

damn scar you baddie

barry like....you already knew him

anyway

WHAT THE HELL

NO RICKKK!!!!!!

someone save this boy!!!!

oh good his mom “saved” him

ah damn thats pretty tragic

she didnt know they were right in front of her

ow

well my questions were answered

so she attacks with grape fanta. thats one way to do it

ed looks like such an angry gremlin right now this is a heartwarming moment sir please

why are ed and scar being so civil right now this is so weird

bye scar

we’ll see him again

see you later scar

episode 25: words of farewell

maes who let you buy that awful pink suit 

gracia please it better not have been you

mustang ew please

dont open the door lookin like that

what the hell are you doing in here 

so hughes WASNT in ishval here?

i think that takes a lot away from his character but anyway

bradley hangs around like a creep at every possible instant

why would bradley care about ishvalan refugees like hughes cmon

“unspeakable crimes” BRADLEY YOU LITERALLY CANNOT TALK

juliet douglas is this lady’s name

only took me 1000 episodes to figure that out

ED AND AL??? NOT DEALING WITH DANGEROUS THINGS??????? dont make me laugh assholes theyre lying thru their teeth

izumi time lets go

wow we’re still going to rush valley? wasnt really expecting that tbh

elicia i LOVE you!!!!!

ew kimblee “hi”

how did he lightning himself like that

if i were ishvalan i would not go to the south....yet ANOTHER war torn region of amestris but ok

okay

an amestrian desert biker gang rolled up to wreak havoc

HUGHES AHAHAHA 

tbh i wouldnt want to tell roy anything either stupid bitch

anyway

um why do i feel like its hughes’ death episode

he would not be shown tucking elicia in to bed otherwise 

please im not ready to be hurt again

oh no

yeah he just learned something about our girl juliet

ive been waiting for this information 

he’s gonna die before we learn anything helpful

yupppppp

hey lust figured you’d show up sooner or later

i too wish i could look that sexy pulling a kunai out of my forehead

SLOTH????????

did girly just say SLOTH

i- nothing about her seems particularly slothy but ok

u know what!!!!!!!!!!!!

ENVY HEYYY

DUMBASS ROY JUST HAAAAAD TO LEAVE

haha famous last words

oof it hurts every time

not the FUNERAL scene no!

time for me to go 

peace out homies im dead inside

yes my brigadier general 

NOT THE RAIN

COME ONNNNNN

hughes is sneezing six feet under

was ed supposed to be looking at hughes’ ghost

um....right

[incorrecttwoset]

Lesson time with Dani:

The lesson here is that... there will always be someone better than you. (Cries in corner. LOL jokes)

But seriously thoooooo, they all sound so gooooood. Literally right after rewatching the vid (because wifi curfews a bitch) i felt like composing a piece! Even tho i didnt know how to! The inspire...

Also gOD that intro. So cute, so adorbs. Oh yeah, is it just me or does Bretts shirt a little loose? I swear, he looks like a block when he raised out his arms.

The first piece (the sacrilegious piece, if you can screw it slowly you can screw it quickly), after a couple rewatches because they all sounded fucking aMAZING, was actually inspired by the little jazz thingy the sacrilegious boi did. Like, damn. This guy even made that sound good. Also, our perfect pizz boi has rETURNED! We must rejoice. (And they really did show us that if you can screw it slowly, you can screw it quickly. Oh god that phrase sounds WRONG AHAHAHA)

The second piece (the one dedicated to Ling Ling, our Lord and Savior) I feel like, really represents the path and way to Ling Ling. Aka, a small series of screw ups leading up to a big screw up, and then learning from the screw ups to play perfectly. Also, the lil chants- aUGH MY HEART JUST GOT SHOT 40 TIMES. And the last part reminded me of like either pag or tchiak because of all the string crossings and that last note. Really nice!

The third piece... Alex, can I use your piece for my wedding someday because hOLY SHIT THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING A PROFESSIONAL COMPOSER WITH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE WOULD MAKE LIKE WHAT THE FUCK HOW. The first part made me think of like, of course, the country side and just frolicking through the mountains like in the first scene of the Sound Of Music but jollier. Little faeries and pixies weaving through the air, toadstools littering the forest floor. Yeah, those vibes.

The second part of Alex's country side piece... damn. That part made me think of walking down the aisle, and saying vows at the altar while a soft breeze flows in the wind, white and pink petals dancing through the air. Which then transitions into the couples first dance together as man and wife, while family and friends cheer and throw rice grains. (Please tell me this is a regular wedding thing) Man, twoset would be so proud of us.

This SONG (check your grammar there jake) is about memes, but I was a little too bAMBOOZLED by the fact that this guy is 15. And wrote this fucking masterpiece. I... I couldnt find the memes, it was too amazing. I only got two, which was the first part (b flat) and the last part (15 notes a second). Please tell me all the memes I missed. This SONG is too amazing.

The last piece had me sHOOKT. This was made when she was tHIRTEEN?! NANI THE FUCK (yes i say this unironcally shoosh) Like it might be a lil short bUT HOLY SHIT HOW. HOW DO I GET THIS TALENT.

Also, Twoset if youre reading this, (i lowkey hope not and i know that you wont since yall dont act like you have a tumblr) your "butchering" is insanely good. I dont really play an instrument but i do have a lot of reference (aka hilary hahn, these recordings can only capture a drop of your perfection. And ray chen, the emotion when you play? OH JESUS WOW) and let me tell you. That sounded like the best sight reading i have ever heard. You may have screwed up a little in some parts but they still sound amazing, even without practice. So keep believing in yourselves and gO PRACTICE.

Also alternate vid title: twoset proving that composers with unpronounceable last names are actual gods for 13 minutes and 53 seconds.

[thethirdwheel404]

Med Rewatch Series (#1)

Right, monkey brain said no sleep no rest, only suffering at the hands of med.

I am going to start with the first episode of S2: Soul Care. Reasoning? I need to check if Latham references Ava in his first interaction with Connor.

If my memory serves me right, when Connor is passed over to Latham for his fellowship, Latham says that he was not his first choice. In fact, his first choice was a brilliant surgeon from South Africa. In the first episode of S2, a season where Ava Bekker is only introduced with one line at the end of the last episode.

If I remember correctly and Latham does actually say that in the first ep of s2, it will be huge for the continuity (and my theory that I came up with today, if you’re interested in following this you should really read that really long post that came a little before this where the basis of the theory is laid out). 

Also in rewatching this I see more of Sarah which, again, I have not seen in two years, and she was the reason I became invested in the show, and the reason I stopped watching after she left.

And all of this even before I start the episode.

There are so many emotions and thoughts running through my brain it literally hurts. I think i’m getting a headache. I’m already really regretting this, this cannot be healthy for me.

(btw, this will basically be a train of thought type thing, I’ll do my best to keep it coherent)

- omg its starting

- i completely forgot how s1 ended but its not importnat in anyway

- just, why are they in a helicopter

- how fast does the episode move ive forgotten and i need to know

-JESUS CHRIST SO DRAMATIC

- THE BEGINNING WITH WILL WHY

- it is at this point where I apologize to all those who made it this far bc we’re literally not even 30 seconds in yet

- i just have a lot of med thoughts

- oh god save me

- i am laughing hysterically

- JESUS CHRIST THE APRIL TB STORYLINE AND TATE WTF

- god that feels like a lifetime ago it was relevant holyshit

-remember when she was pregnant?

- literally what have I missed

- side note, i really like the cup april drinks out of.

-THERE SHE IS

-SARAH

-SHE’S HERE

-and she’s a barista

-literally wtf is this show

-and the dramatic music is still going literally chill man god

-THE WAY SARAH SMILES HOLY SHITTTT come on man there was literally no way i’d survive this but fuck not even a minute in...

- okay but i never understood charles’ family scenario but this is already too fucking long for a minute in so i hope we can just skip past that

-hahahah sharon’s fucking divorce? holy shit, this is too dramatic for the first ep literally save me (at least she acts well)

-yeah the one thing I will say about med (thats a lie ive already said a hundred but yk) is that for the crap storylines and all, the actors take what they’re given and give it their all and i appreciate it so much

-the helicopter’s number is N365UCC and just... succ

-ethans bird (!)

-also the fact that’s so big for ethan to be chief resident is so weird to me. like the last medical drama I watched was greys and they are all like grizzled veterans and have been doing that stuff for actual decades and i tend to put med and greys on like the same level bc they are the only medical dramas ive watched but.. holy crap the people on med are so young?? half their main cast is med students and residents. when nearly every main character on greys is a department head. its wild.

-proud of ethan. proud of my boy (did you know that adam jacobs who played aladdin on broadway was in a s3 episode? fun facts) (fun fact: did you know that ava is the only main character on the show who’s status is now deceased? I’ll shut up now.)

-oh my god i say roland buck III’s name and GOD noah jesus

- i find noah incredibly annoying, especially bc he tries to overshadow reese (my fav) but also just bc hes spoiled [that thing that said that one of the biggest mistakes med made was not having sarah get the emergency med residency at the end of s1 comes to mine, and the fact that noah got his residency easy peasy] - but, i will say that the moment at the end of this season where noah and reese dance together at the party is very adorable. (pre reesker brain showing lmao I really did love sarah with my whole heart) (moreover my snapchat memories were filled with just recordings of reese scenes lmaooooo)

-okay at this point I need to stop once i get to the potential ava thing bc what is happening we’re not even two minutes in why is this so long. (so many thoughts)

- i find will annoying but,,, he is kind of nice to look at. and what i mean is like facial acting (i am a lesbian). like. just. don’t speak. and when he’s being a good character he’s fine. it’s very few and very far between ig

-natalie annoys me so much and shes only had one line, and it wasn’t even a character line, it was mainly exposition.

-EW

-FUCKING EW

-ITS CONNOR HE’S HERE. god i forgot what he looked like in red scrubs and his poofy hair. child compared to s3 and s4. hopefully we see latham soon so we all don’t have to suffer through this. and he looks so angsty. he definetly glowed up in the later seasons.

- i have no clue how to spell definetly. I am guessing literally everytime.

-latham please come and end this all.

-oh haha there’s downey hes dead.

-okay so i actually watched s1 after i watched s2 which is so weird to think about. like that means that i liked s2 so much that i BOUGHT THE DVD FOR S1. yeah. I liked it that much (it really only means I was that much of a simp for sarah). but it also means that technically i watched s1 after i met ava?? like i honestly had NO CLUE what was in my future. did young me ever think she was going to stay up late at night, avoiding history hw while analyzing a defunct character from this show on a whim? a character i was super annoyed with at the beginning? who has no become a huge part of my personality? honestly? no. no she did not.

-and the story with downey was so jarring. and the story with zanetti. like i think i first started watching with the first ep of s2 (the one im talking about rn) and i was a bit lost. so going back and watch s1 to like connect the dots. but i never expected the dots to look like that. its like each season of this show is a completely different show from all the other seasons. like i’ve said before, this show is a headache. but literally latham please come and end this for now.

-GOD CONNOR LOOKS SO YOUNG WHAT THE HELL thats so weird lmaooooo

- like i had absolutely no clue who downey was going into this. and they they started talking like ‘oh yeah he killed his attending’ and i was just like ‘damn bro ill cheers to that’

- that’s literally ava’s first line actually. “i heard your girlfriend went insane and you murdered your attending.” - which was why she was hated at first. that was literally her first line to connor which is like, so hilariously rude that it was instantly iconic.

-also HAHAHAHAH CUE FUCKING ANGST ABOUT CONNOR HURTING EVERYONE AROUND HIM WTF BRO THE EFFECT YOU HAVE ON PEOPLE

- but i’m also sad now. --- “I heard your girlfriend went insane.” Oh. Oh, sweetie. Ava... No. --- but why does s2 ava (all two lines) foreshadow s4 ava in so many ways. like literally what were the writers on.

-baghdad.

-ah yes. the return of baghdad. been a long time since i heard that one, but it is easily one of my favorite running things about med. its just a little detail but the nick name is like perfect. (when i read fanfic where the chars are actually doing doctor stuff in the hospital it makes me light up) the WORLD BUILDINGGGGG. but whatever

-this is the girl who has the fake baby right? that was a really good ep (bc sarah content. can you see my favorites? for the same reason the one where the girl has split personalities easily ranks high with me.) oh wait this is the one where the dad like dies but then comes back for a split second to see his grand child. there’s not really a lot I can say about that, but the fact that i remember it vividly is... weird.

-okay but I actually love the ED in this show. I love how the show is centered around the ED and not the OR like greys. its fast paced, you see a lot about the characters really quickly (one of the reason’s connor’s intro to the hospital in the pilot is certified iconic in my mind [his interactions with will are gold]). the team works well together (usually, when things are good. - which is another reason I hated the show more as time went on. The personal lives interfered more and more and more with their work as time went on. it got so annoying). but like right here will just calls maggies name and maggie is just On It. I love it. I love the fast pace. it’s why this show got me to come back. so many things happen, it overloads my brain, like the way a video game works y occupying all of your attention.

-when is the dad gonna pass out i’m just waiting

-AHAHAHAHAHA JEFF NOOOOO. what even was the deal with jeff that storyline annoyed me so much I never got it. he was friends with nat’s husband (who died) and they were both named Jeff? and she actually ended up getting with Jeff a few times?

- the more you watch med and see how the characters get with each other, the more jaded you become

-omg they’re transferring the girl to the bed i love it when they count

-maggie was great but from what i heard/read they ruined her character too??? just not the same

-lmao only real g’s remember the chicago fire backdoor med pilot (if you want an explanation ask me lmao it was a ride)

- i was a real med simp bc I bought that episode on apple video.

-ahahaha this is so stupid. Jeff tries to do things and Will (being a fucking asshole and jealous, doesnt’ let him). he’s a med student let him fucking learn. also i remember why i hated will

-okay but if you look at greys vs. med, greys literally gives their med students no rights. scratch that. they give they’re interns little to no rights. (i only watched the last three seasons bc lesbian, but in those seasons they introduce the bottom of the totem pole, the sub I’s, who are a step ahead of med students, yet they are jokes on the show.) its just a weird juxtaposition is all.

-”lungs are wet.” dramatic music intensifies.

-OKAY BUT I LITERALLY FORGOT NATALIE SPECIALIZED IN PEDS. LIKE I COMPLETELY 100% FORGOT. HOLY SHIT THATS SO FUNNY i can’t believe in my mass hyperfixation i forgot, just more proof that she doesn’t deserve anything.

-why did will make nat do that call? also idk why but is it weird to anyone else when the characters call each other but just.. their names.

-ahahahah i laugh literally everytime i remember that will is supposed to be in charge like he is threatened by anything that MOVES. (also more juxtapositon to greys bc here the attendings are treated as a joke!)

- hly shit i just remember monday mourning and god damn the angst literally never takes a day off but whatever.

- i dont usually get like this but the dad’s acting here is actually making me sad lol. Usually i get annoyed when family members get emotional (im weird uhhhh)

-why did we have to watch the tube being put in for so long - med is so dramatic this fucking show whyyyy

- i bet u the dad is gonna pass out

-oh ig not oops

-OKAY FUCK ME THAT LITERALLY ONLY TOOK US TO THE TITLES HOW DO I HAVE THESE MANY FUCKING THOUGHTS.

-wait latham introduction we may just be able to call it here.

-haha i fucking hate him (connor). he just... comes off so fake-charming its annoying. i cant get over it lmao

-okay but literally every gives connor shit and I am here for it. Latham: “did you kill him?”

- it is literally so funny but annoy how connor throws hands with literally everyone in his path (like dude just chill come onnn)

-okay. okay. okay. finally the part i was waiting for.

- Latham: I preferred a young woman from Groote Schuur, but I was outvoted.

That’s an actual quote, from Latham. For those who are wondering, Groote Schuur is a famous hospital in, you guessed it, South Africa. This is where I’m calling the episode. This is all I needed.

I just want to restate. This is the first episode of season 2. Ava Bekker is introduced to the show in the last episode of season 2. What does this mean, my friends? It means everything.

For those of you who stuck through to the end, I am very thankful. Here we have probably the first piece of evidence to my theory, at least chronologically.

I, personally, think it’s absurd I remembered this point, but I did. That point, that line, presently, watching this episode with no idea of what the future holds, is only there to tell us that Latham and Connor are not going to agree. But this is the single greatest piece of foreshadowing med has ever done.

Med has never planned anything. I feel confident when I say that. Look at their storylines. They are literally on fire, and every decision the characters make reads like the writers going ‘we have no idea how we made it this far, we thought we would get stopped like ten steps ago.’

When has med ever planned things more than a few episodes in advanced, honestly? Almost never, and going a full season sitting on a plot point, that’s major. This was the first time med has ever planned something miles in advance.

In all honestly, yes I am probably giving the med writers a lot more credit than they deserve. It’s quite possible that as the season progressed they just decided connor needed a new love interest or at least a new dynamic, so they could have just easily looked back and thought ‘oh, hey, here’s a fun little thing we said earlier in the season, wouldn’t it be fun if it paid off?’ That could be true.

Here’s why it probably isn’t. The med writers have no respect for their own continuity. you really think that, in order to come up with a whole new character, they went back to the first episode of the season and paid off a line that is said in less than 2 seconds? no way. Bull. Shit.

honestly, it is probably equally unlikely that either of these things happened. The med writers don’t look back at their story. It’s true, but they also don’t plan things in advance either.

here’s the thing, the more i write, the more absurd it starts to sound. Yeah. Sure. the med writers sat on a character for an entire season, that’s totally a thing that happened and not sarcasm. When pigs fly. everyone knows med is impulsive and messy. But what I am saying is that they planned one thing. One thing.

Ava has an accent. That was a commitment. A pretty uncommon one too. South Africa is such an out of the box choice that god its barely on the map. It asks a lot of someone to act hard while also doing an uncommon accent. If the med writers just decided they needed to give connor a new dynamic, they could have made it a n y o n e. Yeah, sure it would have been nice to have the latham dynamic with the new character, but it would have been so much easier to just create a new character that doesn’t have such a commitment. We all know people who play opposite of Connor Rhodes do not stay around that long.

There is absolutely no reason Connor’s s3 love interest had to be the girl from South Africa. It could have literally been anyone. They could have kept Robin on. They could have made the new character not have so many specific requirements.

At this point, I’m pushing this really hard. Yeah, obviously Ava was planned from the beginning of s2. She had to be. It’s way too specific to be anything else.

What I’m pointing out here is med has never done that before. (at least to my knowledge, if i’m wrong please tell me i don’t want to be a fool) They have never had such a concrete plan for a character, so much as to tease them a full season before they were introduced.

I’m saying, that Ava was special. She was the only character who was teased ahead of her arrival. The one who they knew they wanted, other than the originals, and honestly saying the ‘knew what they wanted to do with the originals’ is being generous. But Ava was different. They had big plans for Ava.

It’s undeniable. Ava was the only character who was planned and teased ahead of her arrival. Ava has such a different style and character than anyone else on the show. She was always planned to be, even when she was just being teased, a rival to connor, meaning she could stand her own against him (or without him).

Now of course, the med writers forgot this when writing s4 and s5. But for the purposes of the important things, all that really matters are the two mentions in s2, and what happens in s3. (for the theory at least).

In conclusion: think about how odd it is that Ava was the only character that was planned over the course of the show. Like sure the characters are planned, but never this far in advance. Med writers don’t really plan anything. I would be shocked if they did anything but through a dart at a spinning wheel. But they had plans for Ava, and they had plans for s3, when she was good.

Think about how odd it is that the med writers had a character planned from the start of s2, that they sat on for a whole season. They never, ever did something so slow and deliberate. Never. It goes against their formula. Like a fucking shark, they have to be moving or they die, at least in their heads. But Ava was always a change to the formula. They had a plan for s3.

that’s it for now. we will see what happens when i watch the last episode of s2.

read the next parts:

Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Extra

[renee-walker]

4, 5, 19 💗

Ahhh, thanks Molly!

4. Favorite tropes: LOL I honestly have so many? Friends to lovers is huge. Absolute sucker for the whole “person A is a hardass for literally everyone else but a total frosting-covered cupcake for person B” thing. I’m pathetically big on the ships where the couple has stayed in love despite years of separation (please see the part where I’m about to die at Diana’s face in the new WW 1984 trailer). I also love partner ships for sure, where the two halves work together on equal footing and proceed to fall in love. Is that a trope? I’m not even sure BUT I LOVE IT. And this is probably a subcategory of something I’ve already said, but wow I will never be over “Person A is only willing to be emotionally vulnerable with person B.” Like I eat that shit UP. Finally, I have a probably creepy love for the whole “I will literally kill you if you even think about touching this person” thing. Like I hate myself for how much I love Jack Bauer but here we fucking are, right?

5. Least favorite tropes: Miss me with literally anything that involves someone using a “tortured past” to excuse shitty behavior. I’m forever not here for any variation of the “I’m mean to you because I actually love you” thing, GROSS. I also loathe power imbalances in relationships. I’m also not especially fond of any variation on “My life was entirely unfulfilled until x person came into it and now I see the meaning of the world.” Like FINE there is an argument to be made that Eleanor and Chidi are exactly that, but I would argue that Eleanor being “the answer” relates of course to the fact that Chidi loves her but really more to the fact that in allowing his feelings for her to overcome his natural anxiety about well, everything, he learned how he wanted to relate to human beings as a whole, not just Eleanor. (That made sense in my head.) Finally, I hate jealousy as a motivator for anything. That’s an instant turnoff for me in a ship.

19. Do you prefer fluff, angst, or smut for your ships? WOW, this is a hard question. Tbh it kind of depends? The best answer is that I want what I define as a happy ending. My parameters for this are pretty wide though ahahaha, given that I still consider Roslin and Adama to be a happy ending by my standards. Basically I can never get enough of my ships supporting one another, having small, quiet moments, and being obnoxiously cute. However, I also love some serious angst and drama (particularly hurt/comfort) as long as it ultimately gets resolved (like “Pusher” will always be one of my top ten XF eps and that one is so angsty ghdsjkalgha). And lmao I am always here for some quality smut as long as there are feelings to go with the smut. That scene with Neo and Trinity in Reloaded owns my smutty ass, help. Also, BUBBLE BATHS. Honestly I just want all my ships to take bubble baths together until the end of time. What they do in there is up to them. Just take a goddamn bubble bath for the love of fuck.

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG148! X___X/*

- I still can’t believe that the “Extended” in the title was for (amongst other things) long-due [EXTENDED SOUNDS OF ELIAS GETTING BRUTALLY PUNCHED]. “George Icarus” would laugh in his grave from vindication if only his skin hadn’t been used during The Unknowing.

And it was so varied! Ben did a Great Work at it because it sounds like Basira got very creative in that scene? At first, sounded like a punch in the guts; got the feeling, right after, that it was her pinning her against a wall or the table, an arm twisted in his back, holding him by his hair? And with the:

(MAG148) BASIRA: Mm–hmm. ELIAS: [ASPHYXIATED NOISE] [STRANGLED] B–… But I… can see how maybe I… should have mentioned it…!

Sounded like Basira blocking his windpipe (ha.) with her forearm, pushing higher. Don’t know how other people are Hearing This Scene but I do appreciate that, anyway, it was moving and slightly different every time, we could hear it, and it was Various Shades Of Elias Having A Bad Time.

… well. I HOPE he was having a bad time. Because getting savagely thrashed around and then going:

(MAG148) BASIRA: [EXHALE] So. Why d’you agree to see me. ELIAS: I missed you. BASIRA: Right. That’s why you’ve been refusing my visits since we got back. ELIAS: I–I thought it might have… [EXHALING] been an idea to give you some space. BASIRA: Oh, and how’d that work out for you? ELIAS: Ah… Not–not ideally. […] Goodbye, Detective. I shall miss our little chats.

Is. Uh. With Jonathan “do I miss being chased?” Sims and now this, what is it with Beholding types and being-addicted-to-the-things/people-wrecking you. Was Elias fond of Gertrude in the same way.

(And what does it say about Elias that this scene was, like, a big moment of *BREATHES* in the last string of episodes, while it’s still about a prisoner getting beaten up by an ex-cop, who also threatened to make his overall situation worse, while prison guards should supposedly have stepped in to protect him? Not too surprised about the fact that the officers didn’t intervene spontaneously (they have had to deal with Elias for a year. Elias who has blackmail material and has such a Charming Personality.), and Basira had many reasons to lash out (used as coerced material for Elias to trap Daisy, basically a hostage; was recently sent all over the world on Elias’s bullshit leads), but. Still. Not great from Basira. Technically. (You did amazing sweetie, bastard had it coming.))

- I also wondered if Elias wasn’t actually a bit. High. During the whole altercation. Because he was reaaaaally… uh. Making things worse for himself here and there? While being absolutely aware that Basira was pissed and ready to kick him harder? And if really sounded like someone who was too out-of-his-mind to truly assess the situation.

On the one hand, some bits felt like they were feeding the Elias-is-actually-Jonah theory:

(MAG148) ELIAS: Uh! Look, look, look. I’ve… been doing this a long time now and, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about The Web, it’s that it plays its own game. […] ARCHIVIST: … I–I don’t know, I mean… We still don’t really know… what Elias actually is…? I thought… Maybe if he was more like me than we realised…

(And Jon miiiiight have thought about it too.)

… and on the other hand, the more shittiest he gets, the younger and younger he sounds to me, a sneaky opportunistic lazy little thing who just happened to get his hands on some power recently, and not a 200y-old person. Elias in s1? Can accept that yeah, 40-50y old. But he’s been losing ten years at a time to my ears ever since, and he’s currently at “early 20 stupid idiot”.

- Anyway, I have a special fondness for the line:

(MAG148) ELIAS: … And, hum… No more violence, Detective. Or I may have to call in the guards.

Because he sounded so Dramatic and Righteous, a bit reminiscent of… stereotypical thin old lady holding her bag, very blank face and solemn? I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but Ben’s delivery in that one cracks me up a lot.

- On the one hand, ahahaha, Elias is Being His Useless Self, Basira ranted about it, Jon&Basira acknowledged that he wouldn’t be helpful in anything but “useless gloating”, Elias himself looks… only Good At Bullshitting (like Jon described in MAG145). … On the other hand, it’s generally when Elias has been proven… less threatening than what we could fear, that he tends to prove that no, he can harm, and has ways to do it, and won’t hesitate.

Jon spitting at his face post-kidnapping in MAG102 and Tim telling him to fuck off in MAG104? Was followed with Melanie’s “performance review” in MAG106. The assistants scheming to take him down, ~fooling him~ with Martin acting as bait and Melanie finding proof to force Section 31 to arrest him? Was still followed by Elias designating Peter as the Head Director (and potentially having planned this… for a while… since he had sent Peter to meet Martin in MAG108, and Peter had already come in the Institute in MAG100), plus revealing that he knew about Jon’s dreams all along.

So, uh. If the current trend is to deride Elias… he might prove, soon-ish, that yeah, he’s not as big of a menace that he likes to make you think, but he’s still a Threat.

- SPECIAL WORRY OVER:

(MAG148) BASIRA: And when exactly were you planning to tell us he’s been feeding on innocents? [SILENCE] ELIAS: Ah… [HUM] I’ve… always thought that a man’s eating habits were… his own private business. BASIRA: Mm–hmm. ELIAS: [ASPHYXIATED NOISE] [STRANGLED] B–… But I… can see how maybe I… should have mentioned it…!

… because it puts to mind:

(MAG127) BASIRA: Can we cut the bullshit? ELIAS: What ��bullshit” might that be? BASIRA: The part where you pretend you don’t spend your whole time watching us. ELIAS: … Sometimes I’m eating.

And alright, at that point, Jon had already attacked two people, could have been a reference to that. But mostly, what is Elias eating, or whom? He’s been in prison for (almost?) a year by now – how does he himself Feed Beholding…? I understood their exchange as… Elias saying that his situation had actually gotten worse in prison while she was away (?):

(MAG148) BASIRA: Right. That’s why you’ve been refusing my visits since we got back. ELIAS: I–I thought it might have… [EXHALING] been an idea to give you some space. BASIRA: Oh, and how’d that work out for you? ELIAS: Ah… Not–not ideally.

But I’m not sure, since he also pointed out that his “special treatment” was guaranteed because he was giving the police useful information. So. I don’t know. But beginning to fear that he actually has the entire prison under his control, and that he’s just in the right place to cause damages and get the Archives team in the direction he wants, while being sure that Jon won’t try to compel him…?

- Amusingly, this episode made small references to fantheories! There was the what-the-heck-is-Elias bit with Elias saying that he had been in the game “a long time now” (which sounded very orientated towards the Jonah Magnus theory); the connection between Elias and The Web, with Elias claiming that uuuh… Spiders are best ignored:

(MAG148) ELIAS: Uh! Look, look, look. I’ve… been doing this a long time now and, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about The Web, it’s that it plays its own game. All you can really do is… hope it doesn’t get in the way of whatever your plan is. Because the Spider usually wins…! Assuming you have a plan. Do… you… have a plan? Detective?

(And on the one hand, Elias is almost explicitly saying that he has no connection with The Web (although as usual, you can also read his sentence while focusing on what’s missing: it would work perfectly if he was actually talking about himsel in third person); on the other hand… he’s also doing exactly what Annabelle described re:The Web, ie constantly making people under or overestimate you as fits your plans. So. Yeah. Could be that Elias indeed has no plan at all, or barely any, and is mostly waiting for Jon to keep digging his own grave and Create A Beholding Ritual from scratch because Jon is too impatient. Could also be that Elias does have plans, and is mostly trying to get Basira to not factor him in too much at the moment – if so, it worked.)

And there was the “Detective” bit:

(MAG148) ELIAS: [SNIFF] Good evening, Detecti– [PUNCH] OW! [EXTENDED SOUND OF BRUTAL PUNCHING.] BASIRA: Useless, scheming piece of shit! ELIAS: Detective, this is quite unnece– […] BASIRA: No. No, I’m done with your game! ELIAS: Bas… Basira, let’s– […] Assuming you have a plan. Do… you… have a plan? Detective? BASIRA: … Why do you do that? What is that? ELIAS: Uh… Do what? BASIRA: You always call me “Detective”. Is that supposed to mean something? ELIAS: Honestly? I just like the way it sounds! BASIRA: [DISGUSTED EXHALE] ELIAS: … And, hum… No more violence, Detective. Or I may have to call in the guards. […] I’m sorry to say, Detective, but you’re becoming predictable…! BASIRA: [EXASPERATED GRUNT] ELIAS: Goodbye, Detective. I shall miss our little chats.

On the one hand: Elias explicitly says that no, ahah, the “detective” bit is just a random thing (for added drama? I mean, someone had been hand-gesturing a looooot, if the shackle sounds are any indication); on the other hand, Agnes was the living proof that Believing And Faith Is The Key when it comes to Fears, and that you create things if you think hard enough that they’ll work out. So. Even if the “Detective” is a title he went for because it literally sounded cool, it could become… something.

On the third hand: gdi Elias, give credits where it’s due!!! Georgie had been the first one to call Basira a “detective”, in MAG122!!! (… and I was assuming, until then, that he had Watched the scene and adopted it because indeed, it sounded nice; and this episode is… leaning in that direction, snorts.)

(… but worried/suspicious about Georgie’s tendency to be spot-on with key words or key concepts. Besides the “detective”, she also nailed “anchor” and “avatar”, which had been used during Gertrude’s time, according to Gertrude’s tapes… But Georgie couldn’t know that yet, and Jon hadn’t heard those yet back when he was discussing the concepts with Georgie.)

Anyway, glad that Basira highlighted Elias’s insistence over “detective”, and absolutely Not Surprised But Still Facepalming that Elias just. Used it even more than usual afterwards. He’s so shitty, Elias PLEASE…

(+ Bonus to the list of Current Fantheories nudge: we got a Beholding statement about technology which included wiring everywhere. Was that a nod towards the Webholding speculation going on?)

(… and meanwhile, we still don’t have that kind of joke or winkwink between Martin and Peter over the fact that they could potentially be blood-related. Mmmmmmmmmm.)

- Okay, Elias was a total useless cracky bust this week but I can’t help but always be wary of him and what he is saying, and he said about The Dark:

(MAG148) BASIRA: Unless you’ve got another crisis for me? ELIAS: [PAINED GROAN] No, no! [PANTING] … No. I–it–it’s fine. I–I’m, I’m sorry. BASIRA: Oh yeah? For which part? ELIAS: [HIGH-PITCHED] … All of it…? BASIRA: You sent us to the North fucking Pole for no goddamn reason. ELIAS: A, a–hem… miscalculation.

… And the thing is. That.

1°) Manuela didn’t explain how Elias and Rayner knew each other and had been “friends”. It seems to be going to feed the “Elias is Jonah” theory, since we know Jonah and Rayner were acquaintances back in the days, but… Manuela has now been taken care of, and who, besides Rayner himself, could have willingly talked a bit more about it?

2°) We’re past July 20th 2018 (MAG147) and. There is still the fact that a partial solar eclipse is bound to happen on August 11th 2018 (from real life). On the one hand, yeah, The Dark seems to be Absolutely Done For by now; on the other hand, they just tend to. never be truly done for and actually, surprise!, still be around and kicking. (And Jon had seen members of the cult, at the beginning of the season, meaning… there are still some of them around, even after their “last” collective attempt with Rayner in February 2017…? How come there were still people that Jon managed to identify as cultists, if the cult doesn’t exist anymore and their leader is dead…?)

- ALRIGHT NO, ACTUAL SUPER SPECIAL DUPER WORRY IS THAT ELIAS DROPPED SOME “ADVICE” AGAIN

(MAG148) BASIRA: Or that we were being stalked by some freaky spider woman. Don’t tell me you didn’t know about that! ELIAS: Ah, uh, y–yes… W–well… To be honest, I’d… advise you to leave that one – well alone. BASIRA: Oh yeah? ELIAS: Uh! Look, look, look. I’ve… been doing this a long time now and, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about The Web, it’s that it plays its own game. All you can really do is… hope it doesn’t get in the way of whatever your plan is. Because the Spider usually wins…!

Because I Remember Too Well two big pieces of “advice” that Elias had given Jon, and:

(MAG037) MARTIN: Sorry… Look, Jon, I do think we should destroy the table, though. I mean, if it’s the one from Amy Patel’s statement. Just in case. ARCHIVIST: Elias told me the same thing. Luckily, he phrased it as advice rather than an instruction, so for now I’m more inclined to keep studying it. We’re not in the business of destroying knowledge.

(MAG116) ELIAS: Oh, and, Jon – technically, I can’t stop you, but I would heavily advise against bringing any… rogue… elements. MARTIN: You can just say Tim. ARCHIVIST: I will take it under advisement. ELIAS: Hm. Anyway, don’t worry about staying in contact, I’ll know when it starts.

AND GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO SASHA (WHEN SHE WAS ALONE WITH THE TABLE) AND TO TIM (WHOM JON ALLOWED TO COME TO THE UNKNOWING).

(+ Bonus, to Daisy:

(MAG082) ELIAS: I leave the matter of Jonathan Sims up to you, though I will not tell you where he is. I suggest you close the case and move on, but if you find yourself unable to do so, my advice is to kill him quickly. There’s no telling what he might be capable of.

… Like, yes, at the time, it was hilarious to imply that Jon could be a threat for anyone or anything, and it was mostly a “hEY” moment because Elias was… encouraging Daisy to go Hard on Jon, who was currently lost and sleep-deprived and spending his days researching on his computer, drinking tea, cleaning Georgie’s kitchen and catsitting The Admiral. But. Elias’s “advice” to Daisy didn’t age well / aged TOO well.)

………………… so additional current fear is that, yeah, Basira will end up not leaving The Web alone and. It. Will. Get straight back at her.

- Also SHIT, Basira:

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: Did he say anything about Annabelle? BASIRA: Not really. Sounds like he’s not too worried, though. Says to just ignore it. ARCHIVIST: [SNORTING] Yeah, good luck with that!

… this is NOT what Elias said. He basically said that you couldn’t do anything about it anyway. That’s. Not exactly the same thing. (And he sounded a bit scared of that one.)

- Gaaaasp, this season has been so vulgar so far, gaaaaaaaaaaasp

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: Oh, I… Melanie, I–I’m so sorry, I– MELANIE: Oooh, fuck off?! ARCHIVIST: I was trying to save your life. MELANIE: Yes…! Well, you did! […] It didn’t stay in my leg because of some Ghostly Masterplan; it stayed… because I wanted it. ARCHIVIST: … Shit. MELANIE: Yes.

(MAG132) BASIRA: Jon, you stupid idiot! What did you think?! DAISY: … Hi.

(MAG143) BASIRA: [SIGH] So, what, this was another waste of time? What, no Church, no Dark Sun? … I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch…!

(MAG148) BASIRA: Useless, scheming piece of shit! […] You sent us to the North fucking Pole for no goddamn reason.

(I’m amused because, is the use of “fuck” actually a sneaky way to get a higher rating for episodes with actually harder content? Here, we had a beating up taking place in a cell; MAG131 had Jon trying to self-harm. MAG080 had a murder live. … Well, MAG065 and MAG104 were their Own Things and it’s the True Power Of Tim: getting to say “fuck” even when the episode content is otherwise typical.)

- Statement tiiime and I’ll go very fast because I messed up my timing again:

* Obligatory Gratuitous Tim Tears because I’m conditioned to think about him with the simple mention:

(MAG148, Sunil Maraj) “But there’d been some… problem, and the whole place had to be closed up for months. Samson said they’d found asbestos, I heard it was a lease issue, but… doesn’t really matter.”

-> (I KNOW, IT’S ABSOLUTELY GRATUITOUS… … but I think the beginning of MAG090 is still one of my favourite exchanges of the entire series, I relistened to it so many times, shut up >>)

(MAG090) TIM: … You do know, right? I mean, you must know. ELIAS: Know what? TIM: About this place. About what it does to us. ELIAS: [SIGH] Tim, this place is very old. It has all sorts of… idiosyncrasies, and not all of them are good for the people who work here. TIM: I think I’d prefer asbestos.

(+ Melanie’s old haunted building in MAG028 has had its share.)

(Yes, I’m aware of the RQ crew’s Personal Experience With Asbestos.)

* Same hat, statement-givers:

(MAG148, Sunil Maraj) “Now, I’m not sure I can legally name the shopping centre I was working in to you guys, but let’s just say it wasn’t the Westfield. […] The security office was a mess. The company I worked for – again, dunno if I can legally say them, but you can look it up, you know […].”

(MAG051, Antonia Hayley) “You’ll forgive me if I don’t give their name; I still hold out hope that I might go back to work there someday, and I’d feel like an asshole dragging their name through the mud, even if it is just to you and your strict confidentiality procedures. If you’re desperate, they shouldn’t be hard to identify, but it’s not really relevant to what happened.”

Not Telling You But You Can Find Out Easily Anyway (except if you’re not even interested in doing the follow-up properly and/or to try to see if this place is still dangerous :[[[)

* I’M EXTRA-SAD FOR SAMSON SINCE HE HAD A SMALL CHILD gdi, I’m even more upset when you know it will mess up people from the victim’s surroundings…

* Old tech obviously reminded me of MAG065, but this time with less of a trapping theme – 100% Beholding at work? And is there something with the 80s tech specifically…? Sergei Ushanka, according to the story, had died in 1983; the old Tecton multi-camera recorder was said to be from the late 80s here; and we don’t know how long the tape recorders had been in the Archives, only that Gertrude was using them at least in the 90s (so they could be a bit older).

(* I did wonder, when the statement-giver mentioned how he tended to shop a Treat for himself from time to time, and with how aware he was of the cameras… if he wasn’t trying to avoiding saying that he was actually shoplifting from his workplace.)

* That’s the 4th Beholding statement this season, And This Is A Lot More Than Usual, And I’m Scared. Beholding is just… looming. There. More and more present.

* Laughtrack.wav because oH MY GODS, JON??? JON, DO YOU EVEN HEAR YOURSELF WHEN YOU READ A STATEMENT????

(MAG148, Sunil Maraj) “So I lost my job last week. I mean, I quit, they didn’t fire me or nothing, but you know like, sometimes you quit because you want to, and sometimes you quit because you’ve got to?”

With the fact that the place Sunil had gone to was described as a “mess” that they had to sort out; that Samson didn’t have a lot of emotional support and was not in a nice headspace when they arrived (“Samson took it harder than I did. […] being thrown from one post to another all the time was really kind of getting to him. He tried to talk to me about it a few times, but honestly we weren’t that close…!”); that Samson got obsessed with putting the place in order and only focused on that and then began to follow his friend through the camera lens (or his own lens.)… It sounded an awful lot like Jon’s situation in the Archives, and the first paragraph and the mention from Sunil that a bit of distance had helped??? Sounded VERY oddly on point??? Jon, what does it say, if even Beholding is giving you “hey, sometimes, you don’t want to, but you still have to” talk through a statement???? Jonathan???

(Jk aside, because indeed, I think Gertrude was right to point out that the Fears don’t really have a consciousness, and it would sound very counterproductive from Beholding to invite its local avatar to hold up on feeding from innocents, but. Still. The rhetoric question sounded waaaay too exactly fitting for Jon, holy Mew.)

- Jon’s spiel about “ignorance” was a bit of surprise, I didn’t expect him to obsess over it? Because it… has been very present in the past, in the Archives or with statement-givers precisely explaining how “ignorance” doesn’t protect you from anything (+ is… still, in a certain way, Beholding’s domain):

(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) “And now I stare at it and not a word of it is even enough to fully describe the fact that I itch. Because ‘itch’ is not the right word. There is no right word because for all your Institute and ignorance may laud the power of the word, it cannot even stretch to fully capture what I feel in my bones. What possible recourse could there be for me in your books and files and libraries except more useless ink and dying letters? I see now why The Hive hates you. You can see it and log it and note its every detail but you can never understand it. You rob it of its fear even though your weak words have no right to do so.”

(MAG036, Nicole Baxter) “when I asked the two of them who they were, they just shook their heads and told me to leave. I asked them what was going on, and the old man looked at his companion, as if asking permission, said something about knowledge being a good defence here. She shook her head and said that leaving quickly was a better one. I didn’t need to be told a third time.”

(MAG039) MARTIN: Then why do you– ARCHIVIST: Because I’m scared, Martin!. Because when I record these statements it feels… it feels like I’m being watched. I… I lose myself a bit. And then when I come back, it’s like… like if I admit there may be any truth to it, whatever’s watching will... know somehow. The scepticism, feigning ignorance. It just felt safer. MARTIN: Well… It wasn’t. ARCHIVIST: No. No, it wasn’t.

(MAG047) ARCHIVIST: Yes, well, thank you for that, I suppose. And you still hadn’t told me why you… “intervened” at all. MICHAEL: [CHUCKLE] I’m normally neutral, yes, but… the loss of this place would have unbalanced the struggle too early. I am keen to see how it progresses. ARCHIVIST: You make it sounds like there’s a… war. MICHAEL: Eh…! Then I will say nothing further. I wouldn’t… wish to tarnish your ignorance prematurely. … Goodbye, Archivist. ARCHIVIST: Wait! [SCRAPPING OF CHAIR] Ah… ah, ow… ah… M– Michael…? Michael!

(MAG089) JUDE: Oh please, your god is nothing! The Eye, Beholding, Ceaseless Watcher, whatever you call it, that’s all it does, it watches and knows, sitting bulbous and comfortable in the ignorance of infinite knowledge.

(MAG098) MARTIN: Yeah, we talked. Not long, he– Y’know, I think he thinks that the distance keeps us safe, you know? Like, like, if he just makes sure that we’re not involved, we’re somehow fine. TIM: He’s an idiot. Look, we didn’t know what that door was, and it still trapped us. Ignorance isn’t going to save anyone. MARTIN: No, I mean, you’re right, I guess. He was… Y’know, we know about Sasha now, and… he said he doesn’t want to lose anyone else. Like, y’know, it’s his fault. TIM: Isn’t it? MARTIN: No! No, it isn’t! I mean, you heard Elias… We never really stood a chance. TIM: Yeah. Maybe. But Elias wasn’t actually the one who offered me the job down here. MARTIN: No, I– Sure.

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “But I keep thinking back to an old professor of mine, back when I briefly studied neuroscience, talking about consciousness. About how we still don’t honestly know what it is – where it comes from, what aspect of the brain makes it possible. And I wonder if there might not be consciousnesses out there, so far beyond our comprehension that we could not properly recognize them as such. Minds so strange and colossal that we would never know that they were minds at all. Perhaps… out there, in the endless Vast, it would not notice or recognize us in return. And I wish that I could convince myself that ignorance was the same thing as safety. But then… how many weeds have you unthinkingly stepped on in your lifetime?”

(MAG117) TIM: I used to blame my brother for going off on one and poking around where he wasn’t wanted; I used to blame myself for not… helping him, but now? Now it doesn’t matter. I read through enough of these things to know that it doesn’t matter. The only thing you need to have your life destroyed by this stuff is just bad luck. Talk to the wrong person, take the wrong train, [SCOFF] open the wrong door – and that’s it!

(MAG137) GERTRUDE: Gerard may have a connection to The Eye, but I’m not convinced it will be enough. And I will admit I’ve grown… fond of the boy. I wonder, if I told him about Eric – whether he’d follow in his father’s footsteps. Still, that’s not like it kept Eric safe in The End.

(MAG146) ARCHIVIST: … I never thought I’d miss those days, when I could throw out some half-baked speculation about drug abuse or mental illness, and whoosh, away all the statements went. There is… nothing in the world more reassuring than ignorance which we can mistake for certainty. But no. Almost every one of those statements, those… people… that poor old man…

(MAG147, Annabelle Cane) “And in that vast, dark space of ignorance lies… free will! Isn’t that marvellous, Jon? Free will… is simply ignorance. It’s just the name we give to the fact that no one can ever really see everything that controls them…!”

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: I honestly don’t care, if Mr. Maraj was chased down and consumed by his voyeuristic former friend, or if he has forgotten the whole affair, living in… blissful ignorance.

I’m a bit ? at the fact that Jon is still holding on to the idea that (feigning) ignorance can help, although it’s been repeatedly demonstrated otherwise. Though with MAG146, it was akin to idealising the past: he was afraid already, back in season 1, and was just trying to not attract the attention of things out there by pretending he didn’t know anything, and it hadn’t worked. (I’m also a bit surprised that Jon is making the equation that knowledge/understanding/awareness fundamentally means Pain: both this and ignorance have been proven to not protect you, in this universe.)

- The… Martin mention…

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Basira… BASIRA: Yeah? ARCHIVIST: I’ve been meaning to ask. The… tape. The one of the, uh… my victim. You said Martin gave it to you. BASIRA: [EXHALE] Yeah. ARCHIVIST: How was he? H–how did he look, was he, uh… BASIRA: I don’t know. I didn’t… see him. He just left it on my desk with a note. ARCHIVIST: Oh… Right. BASIRA: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: … Can I ask what it said…? BASIRA: Hum… Yeah. It said to, uh… “Talk to him.” ARCHIVIST: [INCREDULOUS NASAL LAUGH] … [INHALE, EXHALE] I’m gonna get something to eat.

1°) Still not 100% sure that Martin indeed decided to pass the tape to the other assistants, or if… someone decided for him when he was hesitating.

2°) … not showing your face feels awfully Lonely, Martin D:

3°) Jon still gratuitously wondering about Martin for Unknown Reasons, uh.

4°) Ah. Ah. Ah. When Jon lost it at the “Talk to him”, I was reminded of many things:

(MAG039) ARCHIVIST: … Why are you here Martin? MARTIN: Well, well, Prentiss is out there and you can’t run so– ARCHIVIST: I mean at the Archive in general. Why haven’t you quit? MARTIN: Are you giving me my review now? ARCHIVIST: No… We’re clearly doing a whole heart-to-heart thing and, truth be told, the question’s been bothering me.

(MAG058) TIM: Look: I tried talking to Elias about it, but it doesn’t seem to do any good! MARTIN: He’s just under a lot of pressure. You know how messed up he’s been since Prentiss. TIM: How messed up he’s been?! MARTIN: Of course, I’m sorry – sorry, I didn’t mean that you weren’t, just– TIM: No! Because I didn’t start stalking my co-workers! MARTIN: Maybe try talking to him.

(MAG065) TIM: Shut. up. ARCHIVIST: … What? TIM: Shut up! Just stop talking. I’m sick of this, I’m sick of you! We didn’t kill Gertrude, and no one wants to kill you, you pompous idiot! […] After everything you’ve pulled, you should be gone. But no. Instead, we all get to talk about how you’re feeling, because we’re worried about our stalker boss!

(MAG069) MARTIN: Not like Tim. ARCHIVIST: Hm. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … Just talk to him, please. ARCHIVIST: I think we’ve said more than enough. I doubt there’s much more words can do for us. MARTIN: You can’t… work together like this. ARCHIVIST: Ironically, I think working is all Tim and I can do together. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … Look. Jon… when was the last time we all just… talked? Just talked, without all of this– ARCHIVIST: Thank you for the tea, Martin. MARTIN: … Oookay. Fine. [OPENS DOOR] He’s not wrong, you know. [CLOSES DOOR] ARCHIVIST: … [SIGH] [WEAK VOICE] I know.

(MAG099) GEORGIE: Look, when’s the last time you spoke to someone who wasn’t me? ARCHIVIST: That’s… I… I–I talked to Martin a, a… a… a few weeks ago…? GEORGIE: Did you talk to him? Or did he talk to you, while you tried to find a way to escape? ARCHIVIST: I… uh… GEORGIE: Look, you’re worried. I get it. But if you really think you’re turning into something… inhuman, you need people around you. You need anchors. ARCHIVIST: All my “anchors” are just as deep in this as me. GEORGIE: Well, you still need them. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Maybe you’re right. I… I’ll talk to the others. […]

(MAG102) ARCHIVIST: Oh, and… I suppose I… I did tell Georgie I’d try to talk to Martin. [DEEP SIGH] [...] ARCHIVIST: An–anyway, I–I–I should go. I–I’ve got a few leads to follow up. MARTIN: Right, right. ARCHIVIST: I’m, I’m sorry, Martin. We haven’t… I know we haven’t talked much since… Sasha and everything. MARTIN: Well, I mean it’s not too late, y’know. Unless the world ends. [MARTIN LAUGHS NERVOUSLY] ARCHIVIST: Yeah.

(MAG116) BASIRA: Do you think he bought it? MARTIN: We’ll talk about it later. ARCHIVIST: I doubt we’ll get time, we need to go. MARTIN: It’s fine. We’ve got this, okay. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Okay.

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: I wish I could talk it through with Martin. … Or Tim. [SHORT SAD CHUCKLE] Or Sasha. But we never really did that, did we…? … Everything’s changed.

(MAG129) ARCHIVIST: I, er… I heard about your mother. MARTIN: … Yeah. ARCHIVIST: I am… so sorry. [SILENCE] MARTIN: Thank you. [INHALE] It’s… [SHAKY EXHALE] It’s better, this way. ARCHIVIST: If–if you do need to talk, I– MARTIN: I can’t. ARCHIVIST: No. No, o–of course.

… Martin who, unless there was a Plan going on and they were in a rush, had always pushed for talking, and who is currently absent and “silent”.

- Update on That Little Soap Opera You Call An Archive and cat is out the bag about Elias being (having been?) Basira’s intel:

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: You should have let me come with. BASIRA: No. Besides, he wouldn’t have seen me if I had. ARCHIVIST: I can’t believe you’ve been seeing him all this time. BASIRA: Oh yeah! That’s the terrible secret sabotaging the trust between us. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Did he mention it at all? My, uh… BASIRA: Oh, your new diet? Nothing useful. Didn’t seem too fazed by it. ARCHIVIST: [LONG SIGH] Right.

… I do agree that Jon’s “secret” is not comparable to Basira’s but. She really shouldn’t minimise the fact that she hid her connection with Elias from them: Elias admitted that he had needed her to go away to get Jon to go inside the coffin and learn to harness his powers further, meaning that no, Basira’s been played, and they’ve been going in the direction Elias was nudging them towards through his sessions with Basira. That’s bad. And unless Elias was preparing Jon for The Dark with this (which he tried to imply, but I’m reaaaally not convinced given how… he only began to talk about that threat after Jon had expressed concerns about it), that means he had other plans.

Plus, Daisy picked up on the pattern of Jon’s attacks pretty quickly; Elias probably knew, already, that there would be a third victim after the coffin…? And. Ssssssssssssssssh. Melanie and Daisy won’t take the fact that Basira has been in contact with Elias kindly. At all. And they’ll be right to do so.

Confrontation probably incoming soon (since Daisy wasn’t aware of “Floyd” in MAG147, which means… Basira has been keeping a lot of information from them), it. Probably won’t be pretty. I would like to hope that Melanie&Daisy are a bit more suited to making things progress in a better direction (laying down unpleasant truths on the table but… in an actually helpful way) but… we’ve never got that in TMA so far. Usually, when there is resentment, it explodes and it shatters things and relationships beyond repair.

- In fact, the way Basira has acted so far in season 4… is really reminiscent of how Elias had described Daisy?

(MAG082) ELIAS: You haven’t even followed up on any of the other potential suspects or leads, and shown no interest at all in the fate of Sasha James. All you care about is where Jon is, because you’ve decided on a course of action, and you’re going to follow it through.

I wonder – after Basira basically lost her centre of gravity (she thought Daisy was dead for seven months), did she try to act like she thought Daisy would have…? She got the single-mindedness, the ruthlessness, the obsession with getting things done while not paying attention to her surroundings…

The fact that she savagely came at Elias, and how she treated Jon this episode, really highlighted for me… how indeed, she has been an internal mess this season, trying to be in control and failing absolutely everywhere. She… didn’t achieve anything, didn’t get a “win”? Elias explicitly told her that to get Daisy back, he needed for Basira to be away (like, RUDE.) because only Jon could pull that one off; he subsequently presented Jon has the only one able to “see through The Dark” which, once again… didn’t leave a lot of space for Basira to do anything significant at all, except to be there and take care of some logistic matters. Before that: she had lost Daisy, she had seen Martin drift away, she was only witnessing Melanie getting frantic and angry. Melanie had been the one to stab Jared while Basira & Martin were trying to flee, and Helen was the one to trap him. That’s a lot of… occasions to feel powerless and resentful – and that might be why she’s exceptionally snappy at Jon right now, and not really able to connect anymore with Melanie or Daisy? Because the situation has gone totally out of her control, and she had to be in the one in charge while being faced, again and again, with the fact that she wasn’t managing to achieve anything?

- I extra-hope that Daisy and Melanie step in soon-ish, because it… sounds… like Basira is being accidentally toxic for Jon at the moment: she’s still partially counting on him and his powers to fight off other spooks (although aware of what it means), and Jon was trying to avoid the food analogy until she hammered it in – he then… went with it, too, and sounded clearly resigned.

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Did he mention it at all? My, uh… BASIRA: Oh, your new diet? Nothing useful. Didn’t seem too fazed by it. ARCHIVIST: [LONG SIGH] Right. […] BASIRA: Yeah. Jon, we’ve been over this. The “key” is to not force people to feed you their trauma. You know, just don’t do it. […] Any luck finding her? ARCHIVIST: I haven’t really been trying. Doing that sort of thing consciously, it… makes me hungry. BASIRA: Oh well, then find a statement to your taste, and read it. ARCHIVIST: Yes, yes, I know, thank you. […] … [INHALE, EXHALE] I’m gonna get something to eat.

Melanie threw jokes around it in MAG147, and Jon had been using food analogies too before (+ both Mike and Jude presented it as “feeding what feeds you”) but here… it really sounded like a capitulation, and I really don’t think that… presenting what Jon is doing as “eating” is going to help them stop it. Making jokes about it has its limits (it’s still a sore spot for Jon at the moment), and presenting it as “feeding” isn’t really neutral, and only reinforced the idea that it would be an unavoidable necessity, when the point is to stop?

- And we got Jon, extremely… emotionally-stunned at the end of the episode:

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: Does reading a statement of The Ceaseless Watcher count as a sort of… auto-cannibalism, I wonder? Or some sort of… bird-like regurgitation of Fear, re-consuming second-hand terror. … Whatever the analogy, I’m finding it harder and harder to ignore the diminishing returns. How much less satisfaction each one gives me. My desire for “follow-up”, for “verification”, for… [HUFF] “proper digestion”… of the experience, it grows less and less. […] I just find my mind already wandering to the next statement, in the hopes that it won’t be… quite as stale.

1°) … I think this is the first time Jon has referred to The Eye as The Ceaseless Watcher, and WOOPS, because coming from him, it sounds a bit more… grandiose and my-patron than “Beholding” or “The Eye” in passing.

2°) Indeed obsessed with the “food” and its quality, and disregarding entirely the grand pattern or the people hurt in the process. No mention that the manual could have been a Leitner; nothing about the fact that technology-based statements tend to be rare (he had told Tess, in MAG065, that they didn’t have many resources but that a student was dedicating their research to this). Nothing, just the statement, consumed without any appreciation or questioning, and the fact that it happened to someone… wasn’t enough to want to learn about it.

(3°) oh gods, his melodrama is definitely too much for me, though.)

4°) … Current problem definitely sounds like he’d “need” a live-statement to properly heal after having watched The Dark Sun, back in MAG143? Jon did mention that he was not entirely back to shape. So. The problem, at the moment, really seems to be tied to him using his powers and the question is what will happen first: Jon having to use them again to neutralise something attacking the Archives or trying a ritual, or Jon attacking someone with A Story – whether it’s a civilian or an avatar?

- Lots to unpack here:

(MAG148) BASIRA: Yeah. Jon, we’ve been over this. The “key” is to not force people to feed you their trauma. You know, just don’t do it. ARCHIVIST: It’s not that simple…! BASIRA: No, it is. Or I put you down. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: … That’s… I mean, that’s hardly… BASIRA: Daisy has been managing. ARCHIVIST: Daisy is… [PAUSE] [SIGH] Yeah. She’s managing. Did he say anything about Annabelle?

1°) Not The Right Way To Go, but I still feel like Basira got a point: if Jon doesn’t want to stop, if he doesn’t have any solution to stop, if he only spends his time repeating that he is unable to stop… then there’s nothing differentiating him from the other monsters? Although it’s not helpful, it’s not worded in a way that is even remotely contributing, it’s absolutely savage, it’s a bit transparent that Basira might be pissed at herself because the victims happened right under her nose while she was at the Institute (and she specifically let Floyd happen).

2°) Aaaaaaaaaand I can see where Basira is coming from, too: since, unless he’s pretending right now, Jon… indeed didn’t know until this episode that Elias was Basira’s intel. And Basira had told him, sternly, to stop Knowing about her – which he… did, in the end? He didn’t know about her activities, in the same way that he kept away from Martin? And he was using the same rhetoric with his Insights at first: that he couldn’t control it, that the droplets would sneak around the door anyway. But telling him off / giving him a motivation to stop… more or less worked? (He had random knowledge with Basira in MAG140, but not about the Broad Picture of her plans…?)

3°) Jon is not helping his case at all in the way he keeps repeating that he can’t really stop it…? Okay, so, Daisy had pointed out how Jon was casually self-destructive/prone to go for things that could kill him. But he sounded almost… defensive, here? I heard the beginning of his sentence, after the silence, as a shock because he didn’t think that what he had done (and was at a risk of doing again) warranted death…? And what we really don’t need re:monster!Jon is for him to grow an active self-preservation instinct….? But, Jon, indeed, what are your options other than stopping entirely or going full monster and being taken care of in a definitive way? Going after other spooks to feed (HI, PETER LUKAS IS RIGHT THERE)? Being sealed in the coffin again (but he managed to come out once, and he “had regrets” about going inside – he probably wouldn’t go willingly)?

4°) ………………. I’m………………… worried about Daisy……………………….. I don’t know if Jon’s half-sentence meant that Daisy is Having A Hard Time And Not Exactly Managing (managing to not hurt people, but being deeply affected in the process), or that Daisy has Basira and is not alone so that their cases are not comparable, or that Daisy didn’t give herself to The Hunt like Jon did to The Eye in his coma (and that Daisy could be removed from her patron’s influence in the coffin; Jon was still using his powers inside, and found the way out thanks to them), or… that… Jon… knows something about Daisy… that we don’t know yet… which might be that Daisy has been Hunting again behind Basira’s back… (I’m especially worried because of the fact that Basira puts her as an example of actual success, Someone Managing To Step Away From A Fear… as if precisely, it’s meant to be an illusion, and she’ll have to face that things are less pretty and hopeful than she thought. Basira has always been biased for Everything about Daisy: she was already… allowing Daisy’s killings during her officer’s day although she did have a strong sense of justice for other matters, and she was still taking Daisy’s defence in MAG117.)

(But at the same time, it… would feel a bit pointless to me, if the overall conclusion was that there is no hope and nothing positive to achieve, that yes, Daisy should have killed Jon when she had an occasion; and Tim was right; and they all should have died in The Unknowing just like Tim did because you either become the hunter or the prey; and the things hurting and manipulating you are bound to successfully turn you into an uncaring predator, too…?)

- Okay, so remember how Tim was giving off the feeling that he had Given Up, between MAG092 and MAG104? Thaaaaaaaaaaaat’s Jon now.

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: … Whatever the analogy, I’m finding it harder and harder to ignore the diminishing returns. How much less satisfaction each one gives me. My desire for “follow-up”, for “verification”, for… [HUFF] “proper digestion”… of the experience, it grows less and less. I honestly don’t care, if Mr. Maraj was chased down and consumed by his voyeuristic former friend, or if he has forgotten the whole affair, living in… blissful ignorance. I just find my mind already wandering to the next statement, in the hopes that it won’t be… quite as stale.

1°) But at the same time, oh my gods, just cut out the melodrama Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way, seriously.

2°) Cutting the bird analogy because Jon. Don’t. Jon, gross, Jon.

3°) … Same Guy who was complaining about His Feelings in MAG139 (around two months ago in-universe), so what the heck happened/is happening for Jon to just. Collapse like this.

One Thing We Know About Jon since season 1 is that inaction tends to take a big toll on him; while Basira remedies to it by trying to do anything, Jon… tends to be unable to focus on anything else once he has a Current Threat or an objective in mind (yes, Aza, I know, it’s ADHD). He was extremely aware that they were waiting for Jane Prentiss to strike, and that they could only wait for her to make her move; he knew The Unknowing was coming and, even with their plan already laid out, he was restless waiting for the day; he repeatedly pointed out in season 4 how the fact that nothing was happening was becoming overwhelming:

(MAG031) ARCHIVIST: It’s… been two months now since Martin returned and we became the ones being… hunted. Are we being hunted? Martin’s still living here, and I’m leaving less and less. The worms keep turning up. We kill them, but there are more each week. What is she waiting for…?

(MAG115) ARCHIVIST: Whatever Elias has Daisy doing, it seems to be working. Nothing’s made a move on me or the Institute since I returned, and last time I saw her there was the distinct smell of burnt plastic. So I suppose I’m safe. But everything just feels like… killing time, running down the clock. I don’t think I like it. God, do I– do I miss being chased? That’s depressing. No, it’s… I just miss feeling like I’m moving, like I–

(MAG130) ARCHIVIST: … It’s been two weeks since I heard from Basira. I’m not waiting any longer. I’m getting Daisy back.

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: Can’t honestly say I blame them, none of this is easy. Everyone’s just trying to get through as best they can. Living one day at a time. [SIGH] But I can’t afford to be just living one day at a time, I need… a plan. But I don’t even know what I’m trying to achieve… And no one… no one wants to tell me.

(MAG137) ARCHIVIST: I feel like I’m on a deadline, like I’m running out of time somehow – and I don’t even know where to go! What to look for, o–or… [EXHALE] Just casting around blindly for more clues to just… drop into my lap. Everyone else is… running towards something, or running away, and I… [SIGH] I don’t know what I’m doing. [PAUSE] [SIGH] I’m just tired. Think I might go lie down for a while. Get a cup of tea [HUFF]

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] The more I listen and learn, the more it seems to me we’re all just… “groping about”. Trying desperately to find out what we’re actually meant to be doing. […] But I’m really starting to worry that there aren’t any answers. Not like I want there to be. There aren’t any answers in Ny-Ålesund; there aren’t any answers in the past; I’ve been inside The Buried, and there were no answers there. Elias always seemed to know what was going on, to have a plan, but… I sometimes wonder how orchestrated some of it really was. […] It’s just this nagging sense of unease that won’t leave me. … I was so sure I’d find something up there. But instead, it was just another broken person trying to come to terms with the wreckage of their life. And here? I reached out, I took another tape, eh!, hoping for a bit of guidance, but… [HUFF] To be honest, this hasn’t helped.

And a lot of things this season seem to have contributed to the aimlessness and the pointlessness. Jon managed to remove the Slaughter bullet from Melanie, and to get Daisy out of the coffin in the month following his awakening. Since then… Nothing tangible happened, and Jon has complained about his lack of goal; he’s been aware that Martin is in a bad place, but has been stuck with his promise to trust him. Trying to take a peek through The Lonely backfired; going to Norway to fight The Dark turned out to be a letdown (and even the Dark Sun didn’t kill him); going to Hill Top Road didn’t help, Annabelle denied any Big Involvement; and now, even Elias seems… absolutely useless and out-of-his-depth.

So cumulating that with Tim’s recent death, Georgie deciding to stop trying to help him, the fact that Martin is actively not interacting with him, the fear of Something happening in 2018 for the Institute’s 200th anniversary (… well. Assuming that Jon is fearing that one and not enthralled by it.), the knowledge that he’s Indeed Turning Into A Monster (which was… a gigantic concern of his, in season 3), and then the fact that nothing is leading anywhere, that there is no apocalypse to focus on and try to stop… there are enough elements for Jon to let himself sink and stop trying at all.

(Additional fear related to Jon’s wording in that moment:

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: How was he? H–how did he look, was he, uh… BASIRA: I don’t know. I didn’t… see him. He just left it on my desk with a note. ARCHIVIST: Oh… Right.

That was generic and all, but. Pointedly not “Did he look mad/disappointed/worried/tired” etc. There is still the nagging fear that at some point, Martin would begin to appear in Jon’s dreams because Beholding’s protection would fade away, and it’s not going into that direction, and Jon has been Thirsty For Anything Martin all through this season but… Let’s say that if, yeah, Martin was beginning to appear in his dreams: could be the final nail in the coffin (ha) to make him definitely unmotivated/depressed and make him give up on trying anything because there is no hope of anything feeling better ever again, uh.)

- While, at the same time, if there is no “catch” to it, we’ve had counterexamples of people who went through an awful place and… managed to fight back and (more or less) find their footing again. It took some efforts from Georgie! Melanie was hurt, manipulated into signing up with the Institute (we. still don’t know. what that static was, when Elias asked her if she wanted the job.), emotionally tortured (even if it was unrelated, it took 42 episodes for Elias To Get What He Deserved for that.), under influence… and acknowledged that it was her, was lost, and went to seek therapy – and if she’s not currently being preyed upon again, or at least if her therapist is genuinely using their sessions as actual therapy… it seems to be doing wonders with her (she’s less aggressive while still snappy, more aware of her surroundings, able to word her discomfort – it’s not fixing her life but it seems to… help! And that’s the point of therapy, to give you tools or insights to regain some control over your life!). Daisy, if she hasn’t secretly fallen back to The Hunt, has been more peaceful, is trying to communicate, is staying away from what could make her snap or hurt her (trying to find company to chase the loneliness and The Buried’s flashbacks), and has been trying to pull Jon back up when she could (sharing her Archers listening with him, taking him out for drinks).

Basira and Jon are currently sharing the title of In The Worst Headspace in the team right now, and it’s… probably an exceptionally bad idea to allow Basira to try to be the one monitoring him at the moment, although they don’t have many options. At the very least, she… doesn’t seem to be, at all, the one person he should be talking to if they want to avoid Jon sinking deeper. But Georgie, Melanie and Daisy…? Extra-hard for Georgie since:

(MAG094) GEORGIE: And I realised I was in my bed. According to my phone, I had been for several days. I numbly got myself some water, and ignored my weeping mother. She tried to hug me, but her arms just slid off my limp shoulders. And that was my life for several months. Eventually, the memory began to fade, and I started to feel again. I took the year out of university under the umbrella of “medical reasons”, and by the time I met you I was, well, I don’t think I’ll ever be the same person I was before, but I had started being able to actually live again. I never learned for sure what happened to the people in the Medical Science building, […] and I never saw Alex again. There was one thing that never returned to me afterwards, though. Since that day, I’ve never been able to feel afraid. My fear’s just… gone. I’m not foolhardy. I can still recognise danger, and I understand the likelihood of harm, but actual fear? Simply not something I experience anymore. And I’ve never been able to figure out if it was cauterised, or… if it was stolen.

She Doesn’t Have To Do Anything For Him, but seriously, if someone has to remind Jon that “hey, I lost someone I cared about so much, my life became a mess, I became emotionally stunted, I even lost one of my Feelings forever, but I pulled through, and I’m still impacted, but I also have My Life” is not a fatality, and is good at giving valuable advice (/kicking Jon’s butt in the right direction, whether he elects to ignore it or not)? There is Georgie Spooktacular Barker.

- So, overall, still! Findint! it! very! hard! to feel sad over Jon’s current state since MAG141? I mean, I wasn’t even feeling !!! over the Martin mentions once the episode finished, because… Yes, I was immensely fond of the Jon->Martin bits this season, but I don’t especially care over Jon who only cares about Martin and not about victims, and is more interested in the Fears mechanisms at work and the statements-as-food than in the-victims-as-people?

(Because, like, yes, Jon has been through a lot in the first three seasons, he lost people he cherished, witnessed abominations, suffered and suffered, and being depressed is a Thing and makes everything hard. But in Jon’s case, it now comes hand-in-hand with “having repeatedly hurt people, being aware that it was happening, liking it, trying to convince himself that he was mindcontrolled into doing it – and still having hidden it from people who could have monitored him to ensure there wouldn’t be any further victims”. Whatever Jon’s reasons (denial, fearing he would be abandoned or the disappointment or to have to acknowledge that He Had Turned Into A Monster Like The Others, etc.), I’m still “Mm-MMMMm.” at the whole ordeal because, with the added bit of “I don’t want to stop” and him insisting that he can’t stop at will? There is nothing differentiating him from a serial killer or assaulter trying to present himself as The Victim Who Only Do These Things Because Of Uncontrolled Instinct And Who Has Had A Hard Childhood, while he… isn’t… the main victim…, and doesn’t deserve anything right now except to be stopped – people need to be protected from him first, and I don’t feel like I can care much about his story or his Worry Over Martin when I know that he’s hurt people, and that they’re still being tortured (Jess…). Whether or not the Spooky Powers influence indeed pushed him to do it and it’s actually impossible to truly fight against it… Jon’s main fault, a fault that is his and his only, is truly that he hid what he had done from the others, and kept repeating to them that he could be trusted. That the first victim happened? He wasn’t prepared for that one, alright. The following four, nop, you tortured them, and the fact that it happened was absolutely your fault, Jon. And it doesn’t feel especially tragic or sad to me right now, just “shrugs, so that’s how it is? Yeah okay goodbye Jon, then, I guess”…?)

(It’s also Daisy’s case! But I’m biased because 1°) a bit more impermeable to this rhetoric from a man’s mouth, especially given how we learned it through a woman’s recalling (and how heavily MAG142 just felt coded like a regular physical assault), 2°) we haven’t heard from one of Daisy’s victims from their mouth, 3°) … presumably, Daisy was only going for the kill with spooks-or-spooks-influenced-people-who-had-hurt-people; it was bad and Not Okay, even more given that she was still a police officer back then, but on the scale of atrocities, it still feels a bit less nauseating than going after innocents like Jon did, 4°) Jon is still currently the MC, so obviously, his actions and their consequences will get scrutinised a bit more since… it’s “his” story, first, and why does his story deserve to be told? 5°) I’m really expecting Daisy to die soon-ish, since she has a redemption arc-vibe to her, and it would already lay out the groundwork for a Satisfying Death – whether she snaps again like she did in The Unknowing and has to be killed-killed for real, or sacrifices herself, or dies trying to achieve something Good but being prevented from it. … But yes, I’m fearing a bit that we’d get the testimony of someone explaining how Daisy had absolutely wrecked their life unwarrantedly a few years ago, at some point.)

(- I wonder if it’s not Team Archives’ cue to… try to research about Adelard Dekker, though, if they want to find a way to stabilise Jon / ensure that he stops attacking people.

Because Annabelle Cane, whether she’s lying or not, claims to barely have intervened, and outside of ensuring that Jon stays alive, has certainly not been presenting herself as an ally, and is aware of Jon traumatising innocents but sees it (officially) as a Jon problem. Elias is (officially) a bust, and doesn’t care about Jon’s rampages. They’ve never met Peter Lukas, so can’t know if he’s knowledgeable about other spooks (Martin knows but, also, Peter could be bullshitting as well as Elias – and please, don’t ever tell Peter that he might be the Most Knowledgeable Guy around, or his head won’t fit through that door). Whether we can trust that or not, the three of them claim to not be that much in control, and are certainly not Allies On The Side Of Not Hurting People.

Gertrude, Gerry and Leitner were the most knowledgeable people around, and they are already dead and definitely silenced (Jon has burned Gerry’s page). But there is still Adelard’s case: Jon knows that Adelard was collaborating with Gertrude in the business of stopping Spooks (binding the Not!Them to the table in MAG078’s statement, helping to move Gertrude’s things and to temporarily stop an avatar of The End in MAG114, contributing to stopping The Flesh’s ritual attempt in MAG130). If Team Archives was searching for someone’s help to deal with Jon’s current status, and their overall situation… he’s currently their last resort?

I’m still expecting Adelard to be dead, by now, or to have turned into an Extinction avatar or something; and even if he’s still around and mostly on the side of stopping the Fears… I doubt that he would be super receptive over the concept of “Jon might be salvageable”. But if they have to seek out someone for Spooks-related help… he sounds like the best candidate.)

Title for MAG149 is… I don’t know, feels so non-threatening (well, like a “casual” statement not having anything to do with the current Awful Situation) that my instinct is to think it may be a small respite, and my reasoning is to get Prepared to be slapped extra hard? I have… no clue about a potential “Archives life” meaning for this one (unless it takes place in a café or something??).

It would be a good title for an Extinction statement, and we’re indeed due for Martin’s meeting with Peter’s “friend” (and what does it say, that the episodes that potentially feel the less tense are about Martin and/or The Extinction?) – Adelard, Salesa, Simon Fairchild, surprise!stillalive!Rayner, Martin’s dad, another Lukas, Mr. Spider, Alfred Grifter…? If not, hum. Second half of the title has been used in the context of both Spiral and Hunt, and there is the potential musical angle (I’m not talking about “–ON THE COLD HARD GROUND – OH! (TROUBLE, TROUBLE, TROUBLE.)” but that one crossed my mind too.) which makes me think of Slaughter. I… really… hope… it’s not Hunt, because WorriedAboutDaisy and I see how it could fit, if it were to refer to her Hunting again ;;

(Still no love for Corruption in s4, but Anil has guaranteed that we haven’t Heard The Last Of It. I know that statistically, unless an episode contains multiple Fears, each one would be supposed to get less than 3 episodes per season for them to be Equally Represented but x’) Corruption got the short stick this season, uh.)