#true anti also made me cry a little. poor kid just wanted a life. he deserves that so much

[siren--squid]

PLAYED ALL OF SOULSCAPE LAST NIGHT...... RAMBLING SPOILERS IN THE TAGS...... :D

[cruelfeline]

Anyone who hangs about Twitter potentially saw an unfortunate Hordak take cross their timelines today. 

As is custom on this blog, I’ll be taking it apart for my own personal amusement (and for the amusement of any of y’all who like to watch me do so). I doubt the poster will see this, as they’re on Twitter and not apparently on here, but in case they do: this is for my own enjoyment and the enjoyment of followers; it absolutely does not need to be responded to if that’s not your cup of tea. 

So, that little disclaimer in place, let’s see what we can make of this! Because this is on Medium, I’ll be using screenshots as quotes; just a heads-up.

So... this first bit isn’t really anything Hordak-related. It’s more... fandom drama, I suppose? Not really something I can pick apart. I can, however, give my own personal opinion on this sort of thing, for what it’s worth.

It’s true that people can and should be able to feel whichever way they wish about a character. And to talk about that character. 

However: it is also true that people who dislike Hordak can be very unpleasant in making that known to those of us who enjoy him. Including descending into personal insults for no discernible reason. Add to that the fact that his character means a great deal to some fans for intensely personal reasons, and it is not difficult to see why some fans aren’t keen to see anti-Hordak content on their timelines, in their mentions, etc.

Censoring character hate isn’t a requirement, but in some circumstances, it can simply be a polite thing to do. It doesn’t take great effort, and it prevents people from experiencing just another bit of unpleasantness on their social media. And if you don’t want to do it? Well, that’s your right; but don’t be shocked when people voice their displeasure by replying to your words. Because that is their right.

And that’s all I really have to say about that. 

Odd way to phrase things, really. These aren’t “reasons to forgive.” The first two scenes involve Catra’s asphyxiations and are things that would need to be forgiven, not things to forgive.

Though, y’know, I really only apply that to the first scene, where he assaults her without her necessarily doing anything wrong. Mind you, I believe he does it out of a combination of needing to maintain a hierarchy for safety purposes (this is a man who needs people to be afraid of him to maintain his own safety) and poor leadership skills mimicked from a narcissist, but it’s still a terrible thing.

However! The second time? After he asks her about Shadow Weaver? This isn’t torture-fun-times. This is Hordak neutralizing a threat to the entire Horde. Because that is what Catra is in this moment: a threat to the security and wellbeing of him and the entirety of the Fright Zone. She lies about a critical mistake. She proves herself to not only have poor judgment in serious matters, but to be very willing to lie about it in order to guard her own selfish motives. While I can’t condone the method Hordak uses, I do wish people would stop using this second instance of punishment as some sort of proof-of-torture. He does not do this for no reason. He does it because Catra released a dangerous prisoner into the wild and lied about it. And his concerns over it ultimately prove correct.

This entire qualification doesn’t have much to do with whether he deserves forgiveness or not, but it’s a point I want to make because it combats this idea that Hordak did this to an innocent girl “for no reason” or “just to be cruel.” That’s simply not the case; no matter how unpleasant the method, Hordak is a military leader punishing a subordinate for seriously endangering him and everyone else in the organization. Badly. I don’t know what the equivalent would be in modern military, but Catra’s error is massive. It doesn’t make what Hordak does right, but it does give a reason other than a simple “he’s a bad, bad man.” So.

Adding this scene is... actually kind of odd because he doesn’t really do anything to Adora here. And also: this scene is... what’s the word... meaningful-in-hindsight, so to speak. Essentially: in this scene, Adora is claiming that Hordak is responsible for stealing her, for robbing her of a peaceful life with her family. And Hordak is claiming that he neither knows nor cares who she is, and that she does not matter to him. 

The interesting aspect of this scene, and something that OP fails to acknowledge at all, is that both Adora and Hordak are wrong.

let’s see if I can talk about this without crying... nope, already starting to tear up

Hordak never stole Adora; Light Hope did. Hordak did not orchestrate this unfortunate life for her. Rather, Hordak, a lost clone dealing with his own insecurities and fears and problems, found an equally lost infant in a field and gave her the only home he really knew how to create (and one that, for its flaws, was still better than the absolute nightmare he was “raised” in). In all likelihood, given Light Hope’s lack of understanding of infants, he probably saved Adora’s life by doing this: without him, she may well have perished alone in that field.

Hordak likewise does remember her, eventually. And she is not inconsequential to him: by saving her, he ends up saving himself, and all of his brothers. By forging this near-unknown bond with her all those years ago, by choosing to take in an infant rather than letting her die, he plays a key role in deciding the fate of the universe. 

This scene that OP sarcastically claims is a reason Hordak shouldn’t be forgiven has a sibling:

The fact that OP apparently fails to recognize this and realize that these are the only two moments in the series during which Adora and Hordak directly interact, that they’re a pair, means that OP misses the connection between the two and the significance of how they misjudge one another initially. It indicates a lack of understanding of the themes of the show: themes centered around connections with other people, love, and forgiveness. Which, given the contents of this essay, is unsurprising.

Moving on!

Y’know, whether or not one believes, in terms of definition, that Hordak is a colonizer (I personally don’t for pedantic and clone-cult reasons, but that’s not really relevant to this post), it’s interesting that OP notes how Stevenson confirms that he is... but conveniently leaves out the part where she confirms that he did it because he was brainwashed.

That’s... an important piece of information to leave out when discussing whether Hordak should be forgiven or not. A very important piece.

And it doesn’t really matter whether he’s a colonizer or a conqueror; the reason it comes up is because people seem very stuck in the mindset of “if it’s a colonizer, it must die” without acknowledging any sort of nuance. There’s also the question of whether what Hordak did actually caused the same sort of upheaval and lasting damage we see resulting from legitimate colonization, and all of the implications of that, but this isn’t really the place to go into that. Honestly, I don’t really think SPoP as a whole is the place to go into that.

No. Hordak is not the person who taught her all of these things. 

Shadow Weaver is.

Hordak did not personally teach her that Princesses are evil. He did not teach her that wanton cruelty is fine in getting one’s own way. He did not feed her propaganda. 

Actually, as an aside: can we even confirm that Catra ever thought that Princesses where evil? I mean... she works with Scorpia, and she has no apparent morals to speak of. She does as she wishes for her own personal gain, not because she displays any sense of “fighting the evil Princesses.” And in terms of disposing of Entrapta because she was “manipulated” into viewing Princesses as evil: Catra disposes of everyone. She manipulates and uses everyone. That is one of the key aspects of her arc: she uses and abuses people for personal gain. She does this whether they are Princesses or not: just see Lonnie, Rogelio, and Kyle. Add to this the fact that Catra, from the first season, knows that she and Adora have been lied to, manipulated, and that the Horde is in fact evil, and... this entire line of reasoning falls apart. 

None of this is an attempt to “absolve Hordak of blame.” Hordak just... legitimately had no hand in raising any of the children. That was not his role (and while I know that this was confirmed by Stevenson at some point, I don’t have memory of where; potentially the last podcast?). And Catra did not operate on any sort of propaganda that she actually believed in: she simply used and disposed of people as she saw fit because she cared more about her own rise to power than she did about those around her. This was one of her major character flaws, and really? Trying to pin this on Hordak, or even fully pin it on Shadow Weaver? It absolves Catra of the blame, of the intentional bad choices she made (as emphasized by Adora) and thus weakens her entire arc.

All in all: Hordak may have created a poor environment for the raising of children, but of note is the fact that only Catra turns out this way. The other kids, whatever their problems, are not in the habit of manipulating friends, lying to them, using them, and then tossing them aside. That is a Catra Problem. Part of this can be attributed to Shadow Weaver (who only treated Catra in the poorest way), and part of it is just... Catra being not-the-best.

All right. Now we get to the really disingenuous portion of the essay.

First, as just stated: Hordak is not Catra’s abuser. Shadow Weaver is. Hordak had no hand in raising her. Hordak did not direct Shadow Weaver to abuse her. Hordak did not personally feed Catra anti-Princess propaganda, and even if he had, we know by the first season that Catra sees through whatever propaganda she was exposed to and has no actual moral objections to Princesses. But that’s not the main aspect of this portion that irks me. 

The main aspect that irks me is that this is not the scene Hordak stans mark as abusive. And I cannot imagine that OP does not know this.

But let’s talk about this scene, for a moment, before getting to the actual, legitimate abuse.

OP talks about his scene almost flippantly: “Hordak finds out Catra lied about Entrapta, he becomes angry and attacks her with a clear plan to kill her.”

Yes. Yes, he "becomes angry.” He becomes angry and attacks because as far as he knows, Catra killed Entrapta. This isn’t some annoyed “you lied to me!” moment. He legitimately thinks Entrapta is dead because Catra sent her to Beast Island. OP just blissfully glosses over the fact that Hordak is attacking Catra in rage and grief because Catra, as far as either of them know, killed his only friend and then lied about it for approximately a year. Like... how do you gloss over that in discussing this scene? How do you gloss over the enormity of what Catra did, and the unimaginable pain Hordak experiences when finding out?

So. The writeup of this scene is poor. It misses all of the emotion, all of the reality of what Catra did and what Hordak felt. But! That’s not even the unfortunate part of this portion. Let’s get to the real disingenuity.

This is the abusive scene. This is that stomach-turning moment when Catra removes a disabled man’s ability to move with dignity and without pain solely to force him to escalate a war for her own personal benefit.

Hordak is not a danger to her here. Hordak has not been a danger to her for a while because he has been holed up in his private quarters, trying to deal with the emotional fallout of Entrapta supposedly betraying him. He wants nothing to do with Catra. He wants to lick his wounds and gather himself and somehow heal from this deep personal pain that’s been inflicted upon him.

And that’s a problem for Catra because it stands in the way of her using the war as a way to best Adora.

So Catra identifies Hordak’s physical weakness and exploits it for the purpose of spiting her ex.

The fact that OP completely fails to acknowledge any of this is... well. Disingenuous. Absolutely so.

The next portion of the essay talks about people feeling that Catra was too easily forgiven and isn’t really Hordak-centric; I won’t really go into it here. Moving forward:

Ah, one of the most annoying questions I see asked. Let’s, again, acknowledge and move past the fact that Hordak was not actually Catra’s abuser...

When, pray tell, was Hordak supposed to show this remorse? When? While he was serving on Prime’s ship, trying to forget the pain of losing Entrapta, of failing to prove himself, of losing everything? Should he have done it while screaming in agony in the purification pool? Should he have done so while alone on Prime’s ship, trying to serve quietly while piecing together his memories?

Not only was Hordak simply not in a position, narratively, to go into a whole remorse bit, but he had other problems. Like, life-endangering problems. 

The appropriate time to go into his feelings on Etheria and the Princesses and All of That would have been after Prime’s defeat, upon Hordak’s re-introduction to Etheria... but then the show ended. So.

Agh, vulgar. Taking a brainwashed, conditioned slave and bastardizing his triumph at finally seeing himself as a real person, instead claiming that his intent was to glorify his own misdeeds. No. Just... no.

Again: this is not the time for guilt. And it is a demonstration of why guilt and remorse were not front-and-center in Hordak’s arc during season five: his arc was about finally realizing that he was his own person, a person worthy of identity and love and care and freedom. And this arc culminated in him separating himself from his abuser and declaring his personhood. 

That is what this scene is: not Hordak reveling in his makeshift empire, or in the terrible deeds he’d committed, but in declaring himself his own person. 

I should hope that he is proud of doing that. I’m proud of him for doing that daunting feat, of defeating his abuser and defying his god and recognizing that he is worthy of more than what Prime thought of him. And I recognize Entrapta’s role in it: not as the sole inspiration for his change, but as someone who showed him a foundation of love and acceptance, someone who introduced him to the idea that he was worthy of care and happiness and affection simply because he was a living being, no strings attached.

Trying to shoehorn in some sort of claim that this is about pride in his misdeeds, rather than joy at finally accepting his own sense of self is a massive misinterpretation of this scene, a misunderstanding of Entrapta’s role in Hordak’s arc, and... can I say it’s disingenuous again? Because I’m going to: it’s disingenuous.

All right; we’re at the end. And while the first sentence here is something I absolutely agree with - the decision to forgive Hordak is personal and subjective both for viewers and for in-show characters - the whole conclusion falls apart from there.

It highlights another glaring omission from OP’s arguments: the fact that Hordak is a brainwashed clone slave.

Hordak did not choose to “spend his life trying to prove his worth to Horde Prime.” He did not choose the method of said proving: that Prime would look kindly upon conquering rather than some other task. And he did not choose to have certain concepts and ideas (all beings must suffer to become pure; all creatures, no matter how small, have a place in service of Horde Prime; failure is when something ceases to serve a purpose) conditioned into him.

Hordak was manufactured as a cultist slave. He was “born” with hardware implanted into his body against his will to better control him. He was indoctrinated and brainwashed to the point that he believed that Horde Prime was his literal god - and in a way, Prime was, because he could mentally invade and possess and physically control the clones whenever he wished. 

Hordak was not allowed to have a sense of self. He was not allowed to have a name. He was not allowed to express emotions. He was not allowed to live without that life serving to glorify Horde Prime. Hordak was so absolutely sick with this mentality that he saw himself as a failure due to physical disability and assumed it was his responsibility to fix that. 

The idea that Hordak simply chose to do what he did, that he had the same foundational morality and mindset as any “normal” person might, shows a glaring lack of understanding even the basics of his narrative. 

Yes: Hordak did bad things. But he did them for legitimately tragic, nigh-horrifying reasons that this essay just ignores for the sake of... I don’t know? Trying to justify OP’s distaste for the character? I am uncertain. But it’s a mark of a poor essay, of a poor understanding of the character, and is honestly just disappointing to read when the show itself tries so hard to drive home its wonderful, hopeful themes through Hordak’s story.

Whether one forgives Hordak or not is one’s personal choice, but I certainly hope one makes said choice with better insight into his character than this essay provides.

[lizacstuff]

Merhaba friends - SCK episode 35 asks

(Fragman 36 ask at the end)

Apologies to those of you who sent asks for last week’s episode and I didn’t answer them. The week got away from me and then suddenly it was show day, the episode aired, and the asks were no longer relevant. Even if I didn’t answer I appreciate you reaching out!

Anonymous said: I’m dying to know what you thought.

While my ego would like to think that there are a variety of subjects that people might seek out my thoughts on, I’m going to guess you want to know what I thought of episode 35. 

I had a mixed reaction. I liked a lot of things, loved a lot of things, there were some things I found disappointing, and a few characters I wanted to strangle. So let’s explore from that perspective. 

Liked:

Romcom feel was back. It felt lighter and was easier to watch than a lot of eps in this arc.

Aydan, Ayfer and Seyfi working together to unite the kids. They were actually funny and trying to do the right thing, even if their methods were a bit morally gray. 

Serkan and Eda’s photo on outdoor advertising and on the cover of magazines. We’ll ignore how quick the turnaround was to get those photos up, it was just plain fun to watch Serkan see himself on his drive into work and be embarrassed and aggravated by the whole thing, while there was also a little spark of excitement from him in being linked to Eda like that. That was enjoyable.

Melo is always the best bestie and Ayfer didn’t suck as an aunt!

LOVED:

Most every individual Edser scene. 

Serkan out-of-his head with worry, planning to jump into the frigid sea, even though he wouldn’t have any shot of saving her that way. That’s my ride-or-die, protective romantic robot! 

Serkan making faces as Eda plans her wedding. Excellent work from Kerem here. 

Eda buttoning up Serkan’s shirt. That was hot. It was also hot that he just let her. 

Sekan buttoning up Eda’s dress (get a room kids and start going the other way... unbuttoning, UNBUTTON) This scene was emotional and the sexual tension! 

Serkan clutching his chest. The poor boy was about to have a panic attack right there. Follow through, writers, give him the full fledged panic attack!  

The hair caught in the button (There’s that button again!) sequence. it was funny and sexy and made Selin into a foolish, immature third wheel. I’m all for it. 

Serkan apologizing to Eda for Selin, that was big because up til now he hasn’t really recognized how awful Selin is in most situations. He has blinders when it comes to her, mostly because he doesn’t pay attention, so it was satisfying to see him acknowledge her bad behavior.

EVERY MOMENT AT THE BOLAT HOUSE. That was a great sequence, and IMO we mostly have Hande and Kerem to thank for it and not the writers. They brought it to life and obviously a lot of it was on them to just figure out what to do in the scene.  I loved that Serkan saw Eda amongst the flowers in that painting. Swoon!  their conversation about how they were both hungry was hilarious. Every moment with them fixing the sandwiches was gold and then it just got better from there. With him being willing to share food, to the throwback “mesala” conversation to her listening to his heart. All so... so... good. 

However, while we definitely deserved those nice, long, funny, heartwarming scenes, I must say the writers didn’t use them to their fullest potential. How did the night end? How did they part? Why was no progress made after spending the night that way?  If the writers were even half decent at their job they would have had Serkan confess some feelings while high, but not remember in the morning thus giving us the parallel with episode 11 when he was sick. Eda would have felt defeated when he didn’t remember, again, and it would have made more sense why she thought the fake wedding was her last shot at getting through to him. 

Characters I’m mad at:

Ceren knows the whole episode that Deniz loves Eda, she knows he’s being weird about it, she makes up with Eda, and stills says nothing? WTF?

Engin makes it to the wedding, he knows Serkan has his memories back and he doesn’t stop the wedding to let Eda know before she says yes? WTF?

Ferit allegedly has the photos and he thinks the wedding is real, but he doesn’t show Eda the photos so she has a better idea of what she’s getting into? WTF?      (though through that whole Ferit/Selin scene I wondered if Ferit was just playing along with Selin, trying to get info out of her and he’s not really the one who has the photos. Time will tell. )

Selin/Deniz- Obvious, psychos, I need them freaking gone. How Deniz can claim to love Eda, but sit there and watch her look devastated and cry her eyes out at the thought of fake marrying him, while knowing he’s about to pull a disgusting trick is unfathomable. He needs to be committed.

Disappointing:

To be clear, I no longer care, but I can’t believe how badly they flubbed this storyline. That? That was the payoff for the hell we’ve been put through for 7 weeks? Wow talk about not worth it and anti-climactic. I’m not going to go on about all the ways they failed, but I could. 

While I fully believe that Serkan fell back in love with Eda before he got his memories back (see this post) he should have confessed to Eda before he got them back. That was the whole point of this entire storyline and they carried that the entire time, but then fumbled the ball at the 1 yard line. Good grief, these writers are bad. 

Serkan gets his memories back, he knows time is of the essence, and he still is torn and has to think about it? WHAT? Just no. Ridiculous. I realize they did it for maximum suspense, but they shouldn’t have. They really shouldn’t have.

That was their reunion after all we’ve been through? Come on, writers, step it up. I realize we no longer have the writers that gave us his love declaration in 11 or Eda’s and Serkan’s proposals, or their make up scene in 28 or their goodbye scene in 28, but this was lackluster. 

So, in summation, there was a lot that I really enjoyed, I thought the episode flowed better than some of the others in this arc, and lots of great individual Edser moments, it’s just the way they flubbed the whole storyline. I’m just so glad the amnesia is over, that thankfully I don't really care.

Anonymous said: when pushed by engin and aydan multiple times in the episode he never denies he ISN'T in love with her and rather skirts around the issue and deflects with "she's marrying deniz!" which should be proof enough he fell in love with her especially considering in 29 he was telling eda that "there was no such thing as love" between them. it was almost reminiscent of eda in 10/11 where she doesn't tell him her feelings bc she believes he wants selin, this time in reverse bc he believes she's moved on.

This came in response to this ask, and yes I agree. I should have hit that point harder, that Engin and Aydan ask him and he never denies it. When this arc started he would have denied it in a flat second. 

He fell in love with her again, full stop. It’s just a shame that they didn’t make it the entire crux of his love confession, we deserved to see that. Just one of the many ways the writers dropped the ball with this storyline. 

Anonymous said: The whiplash we got going from 26-28 to the drag of 29-35 though. 🤦🏼‍♀️ and you really could cut out that entire storyline and you wouldn’t be missing anything because really nothing happened. They didn’t even have Serkan stopping Eda before he got his memories back to fulfill a basic assumed foreshadowing. Like....huh?

I don’t want to be negative, but it’s crazy to me that they sped through wedding prep at a lightning pace and then went through this painful amnesia storyline at a snail’s pace. They should have had at least 5 episodes of wedding prep, doing just one pre-wedding activity per episode, but kept Babaanne around to create the drama. I wanted at least one episode of them back together, but keeping it secret so they could work against her. We were robbed of that!

Anonymous said: I know we’ve been hating a lot on the new writers but the showrunner still has to sign off on these scenes right? And it’s been the same one this whole time. What has she been thinking? Maybe the writers didn’t do their homework but surely she can tell that scenes being very out of character wouldn’t make sense?

Bold of you to assume there’s a showrunner as we know them on a Hollywood show. I assume you’re talking about Asena, but I always think of her more of a cross between an EP and a network exec. A bit more removed than a showrunner.  I have no idea who the guiding light of this show is since Ayse left. The production timelines are so tight, I don’t think there’s time to review scripts and reject them. Sometime I think it’s a wonder anything makes sense at all. 

Anonymous said: I see you've giffed some of the edser "questionable positions" bookshelf scene. (Awesome gifs btw). Honestly, that entire scene was really funny, with the rest of the art life crew jumping in. Even Selin made me laugh when she came in there and said "how did her hair get stuck?!" and Serkan very sarcastically replied with something like "I wound it up in there, what do you think??" Not to mention all the very close face talking that was going on!

Great scene! Here’s the gif set you’re referring to.  I suppose the writers proved they could do fun, and romantically comedic scenes if they want to. More like this, please. 

Anonymous said:

With these past 5 (?) episodes with these last set of writers, I truly believe that they did not go back to watch SCK at all before writing. Any past references were probably given to them on a checklist or something. Like I don't know if they even watched episode 28 with how they ended up doing away with the memory loss. Its kind of astounding how much they dropped the ball. Hopefully the rumors of new writers are true and they get enough episodes to give us a good ending to this story!

This came in right after the episode, but unfortunately, we learned today that we are apparently not getting new writers, at least not for episode 36.I was fully convinced we were since Sefkat (the production company twitter admin) liked Yasin’s post when he said we’d be getting all new writers for 36. Normally I don’t believe anything Yasin says because he has lied so many times that any info he actually has just comes across as a clock being right twice a day.  However, when she liked it, I found that convincing.  Also the way they cancelled shooting on Saturday and H/K were in for a meeting on Friday. Seemed like it was all adding up. We’ll see, maybe there will be new ones for 37??

As for not watching what came before, it certainly feels like they only skimmed and watched certain scenes and didn’t do a deep dive on the series. Watching all the eps in full should be a requirement before they start the job. I always feel they are  just off with Serkan’s characterization, they don’t quite get him and they turn him a bit into a cardboard cutout of early Serkan. It’s like the character sketch outline of Serkan, but with no depth. 

Anonymous said: When I saw the character description of the new cast member added to the show I was like "great, another possible screen space filler in regards to Aydan" but after watching the episode, I was actually really intrigued by his character. I know there's a bunch of theories out there that Serkan is actually his son, which I don't really buy into right now, but nevertheless he was a real potential to be a father figure in Serkan's life... and maybe the only guest character to not be a villain lol.

I’ll tell you this, that casting makes it seem like they at least want us to think he’s Serkan’s father.  He’s way better looking that Alptekin and he just looks like he could genetically be responsible for the magnificence that is Serkan. 

We’ll see what they do. I think it could be interesting, just because until Serkan met Eda he was so invested in being “Serkan Bolat” that having his identity shaken like this would be seismic for him. It could create some really good drama for him in all his relationships without tearing apart Edser. Also, if Alptekin knew it would go along way in explaining that relationship. Alptekin always demanding perfection and the cold way he sent him away to boarding school. It would explain why he could never earn his father’s love or approval, and that knowledge might give him some peace. 

In addition, and a big plus, it would mean that his biological father was NOT responsible for the deaths of Eda’s parents. 

Anonymous said: 1/ everyone for weeks was waxing poetic and had super detailed headcannons of how serkan would remember in really specific ways when he realized he was in love, something that ayfer kinda poked fun of at the beginning of the ep talking about the fake wedding, but i was genuinely laughing out loud at serkan and engin accidently getting into a fight and him yelling throughout it that he remembers and engin pushing him in front going "can you give him one good hit?!" lmaoo

2/ getting a good hit to the end to unscramble your brain that is already giving you flashbacks is more actually more realistic than the usual fairytale way.. sure, less romantic, but definitely more realistic. the man was already in love with her, super confused on what to do since he genuinely thought she was marrying deniz, and was already having flashes, all he really needed was good hit in the head lol. maybe eda should've kept going when they were boxing 😂

I like your take on it.

Anonymous said: i think they saw the fandom complaining week after week that there was too much heaviness/drama in their romcom and said "so you guys want romcom? here i'll give you full on romcom" which is what i thought this episode was! and i really appreciated such a fun ep overall to watch to bring this otherwise really sad and emotion heavy memory loss plot to an end.

Yes, the episode was a lot more fun than most that had come before it. If only they could have tied it all together. 

Anonymous said: Something that just occurred to me that's so crazy in addition to wrapping an episode days before it airs, is that in Turkish television, a series has like 1 permanent director and a small writing team that writes ALL of the episodes. In US TV, that's pretty much unheard of - different writers rotate owning each episode and the same director will shoot maybe 2-3 episodes at most a season. The production turnaround time is so short that it's insane that we don't hear of more last-minute delays

I know, I think about this all the time. It’s crazy to me that there’s only one director. Which is why there’s not a lot of added layers to this show.  When a director just has one episode on their plate and they spend a couple of weeks prepping to direct, every shot, every angle, every bit of set dressing can be meaningful. This show doesn’t have that kind of visual depth.  On the other hand you do get a director that knows the actors and crew inside and out and they all have a short hand which allows them to get to what they want faster and easier. That can’t be replicated with directors who come in for one episode. 

Anonymous said: Over the past month or so, I’ve been seeing so many people cancel Serkan and wanting Eda to leave him forever and move away, but she really never gave up on him and she might finally get him back this week 😭 in fact, Eda and Melo are the only people we’ve seen who have tried to help get his memories back! Everyone who has been friendly to Selin can disinvite themselves to the Edser wedding

I’m glad I didn’t see a bunch of this nonsense myself.  But, honestly, anyone who wants Eda to leave and not end up with Serkan... why are they watching this show to begin with? Did they take a wrong turn somewhere? How did they last this long watching it? We’re 35 episode in and this entire show is their love story, beyond that story and it being a vehicle to showcase Hande and Kerem’s awesome chemistry, it really doesn’t offer many other reasons to watch. 

And yes to jettisoning anyone who was friendly with Selin. PIRIL I’M LOOKING AT YOU. I sure hope Piril finds out exactly how low Selin will sink. She needs to feel ashamed for welcoming her back without question. 

Anonymous said: That fragman for ep 36...part of me wants to hope that it will all be solved pretty soon, since we got edser separated for so long we deserved them together now. But part of me also knows these writers suck so I’m expecting the worst. I just wanted edser together again 😭

I know. When I saw the full fragman my initial reaction was to yell “WHY CAN’T WE HAVE NICE THINGS!!!!!!!”  But I’ve calmed down now. 

It seems to me that we have Serkan and Eda together and working together to figure this mess out, which is good. we have romantic walks on the pier, and Eda spending the night at his place and a sweet breakfast setting with Eda in jammies. All good.  

But then we also have Selin and Deniz refusing to quit.  Selin comes up with the plan that if Deniz doesn’t sign the papers in time, then they will have to get a divorce which means Eda can’t marry for 300 days. So then, what? Deniz steals Serkan’s car and goes on the run? 

What they hope to accomplish with this, I don’t know. Because even if they succeed and Serkan and Eda can’t get married right away, it’s not like they’ll just magically decide that they want to be with those two psychos instead.  I can see Selin doing it just for revenge so she can make them miserable, but what’s Deniz’ motivation? The further psycho he goes, the worse Eda will think of him. Bizarre. 

As for the pregnancy thing. It sounds like Eda must hear that from someone. My money is on Deniz. That’s his Hail Mary to try and drive a wedge between Serkan and Eda. Because seemingly when Eda brings it up, Selin asks where did you hear that. Also, phew, Eda says right away that if its true that Sekan deserves to know, which hopefully will clear things up (because the writers showed us over and over and over again that they weren’t sleeping in the same bed) and it will show Serkan just what kind of crazy he’s dealing with. 

Anonymous said: I was pretty excited after watching the fragman, but surprised when I went on twitter and saw that almost everyone was really upset by it. I’m sure most people know Selin isn’t actually pregnant, but they all still somehow hate the storyline (possibly bc they think it’ll drive edser apart?) idk am I crazy for thinking that we’ll still get good edser moments and them staying together and fighting together? I guess the show needs drama to continue but I’m not mad because I think good edser will outweigh bad/miscommunication edser.

I’m sure we’ll get good Edser moments, but I can’t really fault anyone for being extremely annoyed by this fragman. I think this little plot point will end up not being a big deal at all, however, I can see how it feels like a kick in the face after what we’ve been through the last 7 episodes. It’s like can we get one happy episode? Just one?

Also it’s just very uncomfortable. I’m in the camp that currently thinks it’s impossible for her to be pregnant because they haven’t slept together. He was too fragile and injured before they came back to Istanbul (sleeping on the couch with his PTSD) and after he was too confused and consumed by Eda and just uninterested in Selin. I have to believe they kept showing us them not spending the night in the same place for a reason. 

However, if they were to have had sex, it’s very unsettling because it’s a little too close to him not being able to give consent. It’s Rape by Deception. He had a brain injury, amnesia, was suffering a myriad of traumas and was not in his right mind. He did not have the full set of facts on where their relationship stood, but she did (she knew he wanted nothing to do with her and told her he never loved her and didn’t even want to be friends) and instead of being honest she abused him. She lied to him. She didn’t tell him the truth about what had happened. She isolated him from anyone who could tell him the truth and manipulated him into thinking that she was the only person in the world he could trust and the person he loved and trusted most was untrustworthy and an enemy. 

However, as the audience we know the things she’d done in the past to abuse his trust, and we know for certain if he remembered, he would never consent to sleep with her. Never. So even beyond the cheating and the romance it would rob us of if they did have sex, it’s ICKY and GROSS and none of us want to even think of it.  I don’t expect TV writers in Turkey to be on the forefront of thought when it comes to issues of consent, so I’d rather this door just not be opened at all. 

But here we are, they opened it. Now all we can do it hope that it is a device to hear Serkan say that it isn’t impossible and for Selin to be fully exposed as completely unbalanced and a lying, manipulator.

Anonymous said: the fandom by use of sheer will forced this selin plot line into existence LOL. i swear since the beginning of the memory plot in 29, the "selin will lie to eda she's pregnant" rumor has been constantly making rounds, and i guess it's time to cash in. i will say that i've seen ppl thinking know that somehow serkan and her were intimate even though she's clearly lying.. guys, if there was even a POSSIBILITY she would've used this way back before now and would have told everyone, including serkan.

I agree with this. If this was a card she could play with Serkan, she’d play it. She’s been getting more and more desperate. And in the fragman there she is coming up with ways for Deniz to run away so he can’t sign the papers. If there was something she could hold over Serkan, she would, She’s not because then the con would be up, we’ll just have to wait and see how big of a lie she’s willing to tell. 

Anonymous said: I wonder if Selin was a spy when she was younger! That woman is always watching everything from her car! Even in the new trailer.

Ha! Let’s hope that in the end she’s not a very good spy and they finally get one over on her. Oh please oh please oh please let the stable boy be the one who has the photos and let him have more on her. I want there to be tons of photos of her in her car spying on them. That would be so humiliating for her. 

Seriously, though, who knows what happened to Selin to make her the way she is. Frankly, I don’t think my assessment of her has really changed (most of my old posts on her are tagged with “anti Selin”) She’s just a spoiled, selfish, entitled brat who thinks she should get anything and everything she wants. If she wants Serkan, she should have him, doesn’t matter what he wants or who she hurts, she’ll do whatever she has to do to make that happen. She was probably never told no as a child. So when she’s thwarted she thinks she’s entitled to whatever reaction she wants to have, if that’s ruining other people’s lives, so be it.  No one can be happy if she’s not. 

[kitkatwinchester]

So...considering we’re on the home stretch of the greatest show of all time--a show that has been a huge part of my life for the last eight years--I figured now was probably a good time to start doing reactions and reviews. I’ve seen a lot of Tumblrs do this, and I want to join in on that.

So basically, I’m gonna start by just doing a bullet point list of reactions as I go. Fair warning, I get very excited and very into this show, so the list’ll probably be pretty long. But hopefully you enjoy it! And, even if you don’t, this gives me something to look back on years down the line. XD

Also, my mom is watching it with me, so I might include some of her reactions/our discussion in my list too!

And, because I can, at the end of all of it, I’ll give a much more concise review/reaction based on how I feel after the whole episode’s over. Because why not. XD

Enjoy my watching! XD <3

Oh we’re starting!

...did I miss the “then” title card?

Oh wait there it is.

Dude we’re going FAR back on this “then”. I wonder what that means?

My poor baby crying again. :(

DEAN’S APRON OH MY GOD I’M DEAD! XD XD <3 <3

“It was. In the 50s.” Point taken.

My poor baby. :( :( :( :(

Oh so killing Amara is officially a plan? Okay then.

“I’ve killed Hitler.” I can’t believe he’s still talking about that! XD

Actually I can believe he’s still talking about it, I take that back.

DEAN WITH THE MARIO BROTHERS OMG!!

Okay, I know this episode has something to do with them celebrating holidays because of a fairy or nymph or something like that, and this is already feeling like a light-hearted, fun, domestic Winchesters episode. I hope it stays that way. <3

Have you tried turning it back off and turning it on again? Hit reset.

HE READ MY MIND!

MEAT MAN!! XD XD

Ummm...okay then.

Also SCOOBY-DOO UNDIES!!! DEAN YOU DORK!! XD XD <3

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Jack is my favorite and Dean is my second-favorite.

“Language!” “That’s it I’m getting my gun.” XD XD

I can already tell that so many of my reactions are probably just gonna be me quoting and then laughing. XD

They don’t seem very concerned? Shouldn’t random people not be able to get in?

This lady is such a mom omg.

Mrs. Butters? XD

Wood nymph. Got it.

“Shouldn’t you be in the woods somewhere? Nymphing?” XD XD (P.S. That was my mom’s favorite line in this episode. XD)

You what now?

Necessities of life?

Hmmm….I like her, but she weirds me out. Something is off.

Dean’s “oof that’s awkward” face. XD

“2020.” Hearing that year said out loud just feels...oof. Just oof.

Poor nymph…

Wait, haven’t we seen those symbols before? Maybe I’m making that up.

HA! “It’s kind of been one apocalypse after the other.” He’s not kidding.

OOOOH!! HERE COME THE HOLIDAYS!!!

WAIT WHAT IS THAT TELESCOPE THING?

WAIT WAIT WAIT WHAT??!! A MONSTER radar??!! Dude WHAT?! Man, they’ve needed something like that for YEARS!

Wait wait wait...relatively nearby….it’s not gonna ping because of Jack is it?? SHE’S NOT GONNA HURT JACK IS SHE??!!

Oh okay nevermind. Just a vamp nest.

Say what now?

We can...that just...umm...okay then??

“Heck...heck yeah.” XD XD XD

Yeah I’m with Sam on this one. She seems innocent, but, like…

Dean does have a point though.

But also things like this never last. It’s too good to be true.

MY BABY!!!

“She’s probably harmless, but just in case, watch yourself”?? Dean that was a terrible way to do that but okay.

Snickerdoodles. XD

My poor baby looks so lost. :(

I mean...Dean makes a good point there. But also the son of Satan is adorable and she’s suspicious. But anyways.

“Ignoring your trauma doesn’t make you healthy.” SOMEONE FINALLY SAID IT OMG!!! XD XD XD <3 <3 <3 <3

...Jack is hiding something? IS JACK HIDING SOMETHING?!

...do we know what Jack is hiding??

The only thing I can think of is that he knows about Cas’s deal with the empty, but he had a soul when that happened, and it wasn’t really eating at him then. Is it eating at him more now for some reason??

IS JACK HIDING SOMETHING??!!

Jesus christ this is gonna bother me…

Okay but when has that ever actually worked, Dean?

Awww….

I’m guessing they didn’t tell her he’s a nephilim? If they don’t really trust her--which they don’t--they shouldn’t. Is there a chance she knows already? I feel like she wouldn’t be acting like that if she did.

Vamps watching a movie with vamps. Classy. XD

...ew…

At least they’re drinking from bags instead of from humans I guess?

Nice slicing at the same time, boys.

Huh. Well. That was easy. Too easy?

CHRISTMAS! XD <3

THE TRAIN OMG!! XD XD <3 <3

Their faces. XD

HER DANCE!

Okay she’s kind of adorable not gonna lie.

“We are so keeping her.” XD XD

DEAN’S LITTLE EXCITED HANDS ON THE RAILING OMG I’M DEAD!! XD XD <3 <3 <3

If I can’t get adorable Jack right now, I’m okay with adorable Dean. XD <3 <3

Sam is still suspicious, but Dean is totally into it.

“Enjoy the world you’re fighting for.” That was really quick and so subtle, but d*mn that’s a good line.

MY BABY!!!!

HIIIII JACK!!! I MIIIIISSSSSED YOOOOOUUU!!! <3 <3 <3

Uh-oh. I don’t like the way she said “what are you”. DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH MY BABY!!!

“He’s a millennial.” XD XD

DEAN IN THAT NIGHTGOWN OMG!!! I know it was in the promo photos, but seeing it in the context of the episode is even funnier. XD

Sam’s gagging at his bro’s “down there” bits lol.

Oof. She is VERY absentminded by Jack and whatever he is. No likey.

...hmm. I still don’t trust her with Jack.

“Poppycock”???

HA!! “I’m worried about your cholesterol.”

And Sam and Jack’s little smiles at that omg. <3 <3 <3

“We got one!” IS THAT A HILLYWOOD PARODY REFERENCE/GHOSTBUSTER REFERENCE??!! Because IT FEELS LIKE ONE!!!

The way they’re running to their rooms to get ready omg.

And that cut to them being dressed and going.

LUNCHES!! XD

Their faces! XD

The cinematography in this episode is AWESOME. Go Serge Ladouceur (and yes, I looked that name up. XD)

No crusts. Blessed knives. “I just waxed it.” She IS a mom!

Wait no. Take Jack with you. I don’t trust her with him.

“What shall we do with you.” LEAVE HIM ALONE IS WHAT!

Oh. They’re doing dishes.

WAIT DON’T TELL HER THAT JACK!

...I don’t like the way she’s talking to him.

Oof. Mary. *gags*

Jack you’re adorable and I love you but please stop being so gullible and stop sharing so much personal information.

WAIT NO! I know you feel guilty, but DON’T TELL HER YOU KILLED HER!

...dangat.

...oh. That was actually super sweet, and honestly the EXACT thing Jack needed to hear. ...maybe she’s not so bad?

...wait what? She just...pulls those out of thin air?

Ha! Another hunt

THEIR FACES WITH THE LUNCHES! ESPECIALLY DEAN’S!! XD

Aww! Thanksgiving! <3

Where is Cas during all this? Talking to his angel friends I guess?

That finger gun at Sam omg.

It’s so EASY for them wow.

Halloween! Fitting given our current season.

Their little smiles awww!!

THE BEERS TOGETHER HOLY FRICK!!! IT’S JUST LIKE WHAT TEAM FREE WILL 2.0 DID WHEN JACK CAME BACK! AND what the boys and Mary and John did in Lebanon! NEVER GETS OLD!! I LOVE THIS FAMILY!! <3 <3

...I still don’t necessarily trust Mrs. Butters. BUT I LOVE SAM AND DEAN AND JACK!

Those faces for the lunches just get better and better.

GRENADE LAUNCHER!!

MJOLNIR OMG NO WAY!!! I CAN’T BELIEVE HE STILL HAS IT!!! THIS EPISODE HAS SO MANY EASTER EGGS OMG!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Also that is an AWESOME shot.

BIRTHDAY!! Awww… <3 <3

OOF. Poor Dean. XD

Jack’s laugh and then immediately being like “oop” and bringing his head down but still chuckling when Dean glares at him I CAN’T. XD XD

I LOVE THIS FAMILY!! <3 <3 <3

AWW!! She made extra for him!

Okay, I like her. But I’m still cautious.

Oh. THERE it is.

What’s she doing??

Jack’s got you lady.

My mom is wondering why she has to walk away to make another smoothie when before she was just producing them. I’m wondering if maybe she has to near the ingredients to whip it into a smoothie magically, but that seems weird...continuity error?

Get her, Jack. My smart boi. <3 <3

My Mom: “You better hurry it up there, Jack.”

Oh it’s evil Men of Letters dude. NOW I get why we went that far back.

Oh! AND the Thule. NOW I get why Dean mentioned killing Hitler again. Wow. Nice connections on this episode all around. Go writers.

...she did what now?

WTF??!!

HOLY FRICK!!!

HOLY S*** HOLY S*** HOLY S***!!!

Do NOT ask about tea or cookies after you just pulled sh** like that.

On a more positive note, the way Jack just said “son of a bitch” out of nowhere like that is so adorable because he, like, NEVER swears, but also that’s Dean’s saying and it just proves that he’s taking after his dads and just already growing up and AHHHH I LOVE HIM!!! <3 <3 <3 <3

Also Jack please go tell your dads what you found.

Okay so during the commercial break, my mom and I looked up wood nymphs and had this big discussion and here’s kind of what we came up with:

So we were trying to figure out if wood nymphs are supposedly evil, and we didn’t find much, but they do have super strength (which explains her ability to rip off that dude’s head…), and the ability to control wood and nature, which might explain why she can pull smoothies out of thin air.

So then we saw on the SPN Wiki page for this episode that part of the description mentions that the wood nymph would do anything for her family, and that makes me wonder if she has, like, ulterior motives to protect her wood nymph family? But also, she said the Men of Letters were her family, so that translates to Sam and Dean now, right? So theoretically, she wouldn’t hurt them, she’d be trying to protect them. Which means they should be fine, because she only hurts threats. But then my mom pointed out that maybe she considers Jack a threat and that’s a really good point, so now I’m worried all over again. She’s still acting weird with him, and even though I did like that little advice she gave about second chances, maybe it’s all an act? My mom thinks she, like, poisoned his sandwich or something with anti-nephilim juice in order to try to hurt him, but that was before she knew he was a nephilim, right? I don’t know. I think my mom makes a really good point. I hope my baby winds up being okay. :(

Okay. Back to the episode now. 

Ahhhhhhhh noooooo. Where are the boys when we need them?

Wait, DATE?? EILEEN??!!

No. He isn’t. Go away.

Sam look at yoooooooouuuu. <3

But also please take a moment to notice how uncomfortable your son is and ask him what’s wrong please and thank you. (And yes, I will keep saying son thank you very much.)

Ha! She wants him to get a haircut just like Dean does. The joke’s about Sam’s (and, by extension, Jared’s) hair will never not be funny.

Ha! “Language.”

YES!! EILEEN!!!

YES SAM!! GO GET YOUR GIRL!!

DEAN! XD

Okay the Sam and Eileen thing is adorable, and Sam and Dean’s banter is hilarious, but guys...look at your son please and thank you. :(

I’m so torn between wanting Sam to just be happy and enjoy himself and wanting him to help Jack ahhhhhh.

Sam can go on his date. I’m sure Dean can handle it.

Roses! Nice touch.

Ha! Dean with the supportive big bro action.

Such. A. Mom.

“Boys.”

Wait nooooooo.

Okay but Alex’s acting right there...tip top. So subtle. Jack is trying so hard to be sneaky and warn Dean about what he saw, and the way Alex is conveying pure panic but also showing how sneaky he’s being is AWESOME.

Also that little “sh*t” or “da**it” or whatever it was that he mouthed? Somehow so cute and makes me so worried at the same time.

“The Dean Cave”?? XD XD

Dean I am BEGGING YOU, please take a cursory glance at your son.

...da**it...

The subtitles say “suspenseful music plays” XD XD

Wait Jack noooo. Don’t go after her alone! Chase Dean instead!!

NOOO!! NOT IN THERE!!!

She’s totally gonna trap him in there.

...what?

She’s being so condescending shut the fudge up.

What? No.

Does he still not have a soul? Is that what he’s hiding? That wouldn’t make sense.

Oh wait. I get it now.

HE IS NOT!!! SHUT THE FUDGE UP LADY!!

LADY STOOOOOP! HE DOESN’T NEED YOUR SH**!! HE ALREADY FEELS GUILTY WOULD YOU QUIT IT??!! :’( :’( :’( :’(

HEY! NOT COOL!

I HOPE SOMEONE RIPS YOUR HEAD OFF B***H!!

They’re not. They know he won’t now.

SHUT UP LADY!!

HEY!!! STOP IT!!! LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!

TAKE HER DOWN JACK!!!

He IS family!

...ummm...what??

GOD DA**IT!!

...my mom literally just said “told you so” about the poisoning. ...which also explains why she walked away to make another smoothie, because she WANTED him to find the video, says my mom. And yes, my mom was right, AND I HATE IT!! SCREW YOU LADY!! LEAVE MY BABY ALONE!!

It IS safe you B**CH!!

HE’S NOT A MONSTER!!! :’( :’( :’(

DA**IT!! DEAN PLEASE DO SOMETHING!!

Ha! He’s so excited about the sandwich and it’s adorable.

But also save your son!!

...wait what?

She’s...she’s really just gonna out herself like that?

Ha! YES!

Aww...Dean’s so disappointed. :(

BUT! He’s sticking up for his son! Because even if he’s mad at him for everything that happened to Mary (but also get over it, because she sucked anyways, Dean XD), of course he’ll still protect him.

Ha! The way he just takes it away…

Aww...poor baby. :(

He’s so disappointed. He deserves better. I feel bad for him. :(

HE IS NOT! SHUSH!

Aww...looking at the sandwich, but making the right call.

AWW! He’s trying. Best of both worlds.

Take the deal, lady.

DA**IT!!!

SERIOUSLY?!

SERIOUSLY???!!!

Screw you, lady.

HEY! NOT FAIR!

He is NOTHING like his father, thank you very much!

Well...now what??

Oh thank god, Sam’s home. He’s smart. He’ll find a way to get them out.

Her calling him Samuel is both hilarious and annoying, somehow. I think it’s only annoying now because I hate her with what she just did to my boys. XD

OOOOF.

She gonna out herself again?

Sam’s face when she said that about good news and bad news. XD

I suppose the benefit of having a bad guy who thinks they’re doing the right thing is that she’s not trying to hide it. So hopefully, if she outs herself again, Sam can deal with it a little better than Dean did, knowing Dean was not very successful lol. Dean let his love of her food get in the way. XD

She DID out herself!

Ha! “You were always the smart one.”

YES! Good job, Sam. Starting off strong. <3

YES! GOOD JOB SAM!! Nice manipulation.

Ha!

Can’t believe she’s asking about the date.

Actually yes I can. XD

Wait, why don’t WE get to hear about the date? I WANNA HEAR ABOUT THE DATE DA**IT!

Well, DUH, Sam, you think they don’t know that?

Dean OMG!! XD XD

SUPPORTIVE BIG BRO!! XD XD

In Dean’s defense, he knew she’d wait for Sam, so...it’s not like they were REALLY in danger.

Do NOT try shooting her. Are you kidding me right now?

...really Sam? REALLY?! You’re going to try to SHOOT her?? You’ve seen what she can do, and you’re going to try to SHOOT her? She got the jump on JACK. POWERED UP Jack. Really? Call me crazy, but I feel like that’s not gonna work.

Yes. Yes he is. ...so much for Sam being the smart one.

I want to be mad at them for getting distracted by the holidays, but also I can’t exactly blame them given their childhoods, so…

Ha! The way they both react to the Boxing Day breakfast. Such brothers. XD

There ya go. Good plan. MUCH better than shooting her. Thank you boys.

WAIT WAIT WAIT!! Is this where we’re gonna get the “you sure this is gonna work” “let’s say yes” scene from the promo?? I THINK IT IS!! (Okay, so I MAY have watched that particular five second scene a million and one times because it had my boys in it, but I love them okay?? Sue me.)

Hey. Chill, Dean. Don’t yell at him.

Aww baby. :( :( :(

He doesn’t think you’re a monster. He’s just upset. :( 

...uh oh. This convo is gonna be bad, isn’t it? :( :(

:’( :’( :’( :’( :’(

WAIT! “For a while” YES! THAT’S A GOOD THING!!

Oh wait. “Still am a little bit.”

“Evil Mary Poppins” XD XD

AWWW!! SEE JACK?! He DOES love you!! <3 <3 <3 <3

OKAY NEVER MIND THAT CONVO WAS ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD!!! I need to break that down for a second.

That convo was short and subtle and to the point, but it says SO much about Dean and Jack’s relationship.

First of all, the fact that Dean decided to be honest with Jack instead of continuing to pretend everything’s fine shows how much he really does care about Jack and how much he still trusts him and loves him. He doesn’t open up often, and I’m glad he finally did.

Second of all, he may have been blunt, but there was so much affection hidden in the way he addressed all of that. I mean, he tells Jack that he used to be really mad, and he still kind of is, but then he reminds him that just because they’re in a rough patch right now doesn’t mean he wants to lose him. Yes, Jack made a mistake, and yeah, Dean’s finding it hard to get over it, but Jack’s family through and through, and that means that, no matter what, Dean’s going to look out for him. It’s the same way he treats Cas and, more notably, the same way he treats Sam. He’s giving Jack the family treatment. And THAT is a BEAUTIFUL thing.

All of that said, between all of the OG Team Free Will, Dean’s relationship with Jack will always be my favorite (probably mostly because they’re my two favorite characters, but also because they’re amazing together), so this convo makes me so freaking happy. <3 <3 <3 <3

Sam you are being not very sneaky. 

SERIOUSLY SAM??!!

I take that back. Sam is not being smart about this. *eye roll*

UGGGGHHHHH.

WHERE IS CAS WHEN YOU NEED HIM?!

Actually quick side note, one that I’m adding now that I’ve finished the episode: not having Cas around TOTALLY makes sense. Explanation included in the review.

“Because you are my favorite.” XD XD XD 

She shouldn’t still be making me laugh, but dangat she’s too funny. XD

Wait noooo. No torture allowed.

I KNEW IT!! I TOLD YOU!! I CALLED IT!! SCENE FROM THE PROMO!! XD XD <3 <3 <3

I LOVE DEAN AND JACK SO MUCH!! <3 <3 <3

Ha! Fixing his hands.

YIKES!

...but did the cuffs break at least?

HA! She actually converted him to not swear.

I love how Dean makes a point of swearing extra loud after he realizes what he did. I love him. XD XD <3

Oh frick, that didn’t break the cuffs? Are you kidding me? Stupid powerful magic…

OOH! Dean’s got an idea!

THOSE LITTLE SMILES I LOVE THEM!! <3 <3 <3 <3

OH SHUT UP LADY! Are you still talking??

...okay so...trauma.

Please listen to Sam.

YES HE IS SHUSH!

Just because he has blood on his hands doesn’t mean he’s not a kid. Just saying.

Okay so I kind of feel bad for her knowing what she’s been through, but also that does not excuse her behavior. However, I will take back what I said about someone ripping her head off. I suppose that isn’t really necessary.

That said, someone please do something. :( :(

WOULD YOU QUIT IT WITH THE FINGERNAILS SUPERNATURAL??!! I STILL HAVEN’T GOTTEN OVER IT FROM THE CHRISTMAS EPISODE IN SEASON 3!!!

My mom and I are both turning away owwwwwww.

STOOOOOOOOOOP!!!

Jesus Christ lady!!

“Pain is just weakness leaving the body.” Dean what?! XD XD

HEY! Smart! Way to go you two!! <3 <3

And still helping his son up YES! <3 <3 <3

Okay that could not have been a more in character moment between Dean and Jack right there. Between the “not so bad” and the helping him up and the helping him walk down the hall and Jack just following him along and I just...I LOVE THEM OKAY!! <3 <3 <3

AHHH!! SHE TOOK OFF SO MANY FINGERNAILS JESUS!!

SHUT UP LADY!!

YES!

...Dean honey that was the reset button…

There’s no way that did the job. Too easy.

Problem not solved!! Problem DEFINITELY not solved!!

Creepy green eyes!!

Oh she looks maaaaad. That’s not good.

HEY!!! What happened to not hurting family??!!

LEAVE THEM ALONE!!

Which family??!! Cause YOU’RE the one destroying them!

No he won’t.

“You hurt him, you hurt us.” GREAT line!! YES SAM!! <3 <3 <3

Oooh!! He’s getting to her!! <3 <3

Oop. There’s our backstory. Mr. Cuthbert wouldn’t let her go back. Not that I’m surprised, given what he did to Dean all those years ago.

Yes. Yes he did.

YAY! Dean jumping in to save his son. <3

NICE! Good call, Dean! <3

THAT FACE!! Jack’s face!! <3 <3

YES!!!! YES!!! GOOD JOB BOYS!! <3 <3 <3

Awww….poor Mrs. Butters…

Okay now I feel really bad for her. And a little guilty that I called her a b***h. I’m still kind of mad at her, but...her motives make sense.

Hey yay! She healed him!

Wow, this nymph is POWERFUL. Now that she’s nice again, can we, like, actually keep her? Cause that’d be an awesome ally to have.

Aww...Jack being the one to voice their forgiveness. So pure, especially since she was after him all that time. <3

Awww….Dean wants her to stay. He’s so upset. XD

But he also gets it. :) <3

OMG!! That shot with all three of them looking at her and those sweet little smiles they give her as she’s talking about home. There was just so much...genuineness in that! I loved it! <3 <3

Jack being the voice again. <3

Okay, she looks hecka cute in that outfit.

Oof. That makes sense lol. It would be way too easy if it didn’t revert back.

...inter what now?

Oh shoot...that just proves Chuck destroyed all the worlds...lovely….

Awww!! <3 <3

Ha! Her little words of wisdom to them! To reiterate: SUCH. A. MOM. XD XD <3 <3

Sam and Dean’s smirks at each other when she tells them to do the same things they’ve been telling each other to do for years--eat your vegetables and cut your hair. XD

Awww….that little extra nose crinkle and smile at Jack when she tells him to save the world. <3

I also just realized that this breaks my theory that anyone who meets Jack instantly falls in love with him because of how adorable he is. Though, I guess she’s a little different given that extra little motivation to protect her family in the only way she knows how. Plus, trauma.

Oof. Bye bye extra magic.

Aww...this convo between Jack and Sam. <3 <3

Aww Jack… :( :(

You weren’t stupid, baby. You all fell for it. :(

Aww….he’s looking for faith from Sam.

And Sam just gave it to him. <3

I know the line seems desperate, and in a way, it is, but the way that Sam gave him a little smile shows that it’s more than that. They are desperate, and Jack is their only hope, but also, Sam knows Jack can handle it, because he does have faith in him. It’s a short convo, but it says so much.

That tin has a birthday cake for Jack, made by Dean. Calling it right now.

“He loves that apron.” XD <3 <3

I KNEW IT AND I LOVE IT OMG!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

THAT’S SO ADORABLE!!! And that is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT Dean’s way of telling Jack that he still loves him, and that he forgives him. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

THEIR LITTLE SMILES!! <3 <3 <3

I’M SCREAMING!!! ALL OF THEIR SMILES AT EACH OTHER I FREAKING LOVE THIS FAMILY!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

I SERIOUSLY LOST ALL FUNCTIONALITY JUST NOW TO THE POINT WHERE I’M ADDING THIS COMMENT LATER BECAUSE AHHHH!!! <3 <3 <3 <3

AWESOME ending shot. It’s a great way to end a much more light-hearted episode while also setting us up perfectly for knowing that things are about to get heavy and serious. I bet whatever Jack wished for, it has something to do with taking on God.

Okay, so...those reactions were a lot longer than I was anticipating, and I want to apologize, but also, I did warn you. XD That said, review time!

I loved this episode! It was absolutely hilarious, but also sweet and touching. It mixed some crazy and fun moments with some of the most subtly emotional ones, both negative and positive. I absolutely loved all the Easter Eggs, and I loved watching the boys have a chance to celebrate holidays in a way that they never have before, especially with Jack. The facial expressions in this episode killed me. Between all of the little smiles and dorky excitement, I was laughing and smiling right along with the characters. Some stand-out moments/things for me: 

That convo between Dean and Jack. I already broke it down above, but seriously, I love how they did that. As a huge fan of Dean and Jack and their relationship, the way that those two interacted this episode was beautiful and really sets up the fact that they’re going to need to lean on each other for support as a whole family in the coming fight, and I loved that. <3 

Sam going on a date with Eileen! <3 Initially, I had a theory that Sam and Eileen would end up together at the end of all of this, but when she left a few episodes ago, I threw that idea out the window and it made me sad. So the fact that they went on a date and got to see each other again--even if we didn’t get to see it--makes me so happy and brings back my hope that they’ll end up being together. <3 That said, I am 100% going to write a fanfiction of that date, since Supernatural chose to keep it from us. XD

The acting really stood out to me in this one. Maybe it’s just because it’s been so long since I’ve seen them doing something new, but I honestly feel like J2 and Alex nailed it even more than usual. I mean, their facial expressions were seriously so amazing in this episode. Between the really dorky moments and the subtle emotional moments, I felt like their faces were always saying so much and I loved it. <3

One thing I want to address is the lack of Cas. I know a lot of people were upset that he wasn’t in it, especially since the boys were celebrating so many holidays with Jack, and while I agree that it would’ve been beautiful to have him there, it makes perfect sense that he wasn’t there based on the trajectory of the episode and everything that happened. For starters, if Cas had been there, the wood nymph business would’ve been solved INSTANTLY. Cas is always extra suspicious of people, so if she didn’t trust him because he was an angel, the odds of her getting the jump on him would’ve been slim. And yes, she did poison Jack with the smoothies, but, as this episode continued to point out, Jack is still a kid, so he’s still much more naive and gullible. Plus, he’s upset and guilty and confused and just generally vulnerable now that his soul is back, so it was easy for him to trust and be manipulated. But if Mrs. Butters had tried to do the same thing to Cas, (and I’m picturing that one scene with the milkshake in Peace of Mind here) there’s no way he would’ve fallen for it. More importantly, with how worried he is about Jack, he would’ve been really vigilant about the way she was talking to him and everything, and he probably would’ve caught the poisoning long before it could really hurt him. And you can argue that Sam and Dean probably should’ve picked up on it, which is true, however, even they admit that they get distracted in the fun of it all. While it would’ve been great to see Cas in on the festivities, he wouldn’t have been quite as distracted by it as the boys were, and with his vigilance, there’s no way any of them would ever have gotten hurt. He’d be watching Mrs. Butters like a hawk, and the second she did something suspicious, she’d be gone. That said, I can understand if people want to say that’s dumb, because if they didn’t want Cas to defeat the villain so easily, they shouldn’t have had a villain that could be so easily defeated by Cas, and I’m sure some people feel like that’s a stupid excuse. To which I also offer this. After seeing those convos between Dean and Jack and Sam and Jack, and knowing that the episode ends with the three of them celebrating Jack’s birthday, Cas’s absence makes even more sense: this episode wasn’t about him. I love Cas, but it didn’t need him. See, Cas already has an undying love for Jack. While Cas definitely saw Mary as family, he never had the same emotional connection to her that Sam and Dean did--for obvious reasons. But he definitely had--and still has--a very strong emotional connection to Jack. He’s always been the most involved in being Jack’s father--again, for obvious reasons. But even after the Mary incident, it was Cas who went to find him, who tried to help him, and who wanted to protect him. Cas always loved him and always trusted him, and he always will. But Sam and Dean lost a lot of trust for Jack after what happened to Mary...and this episode fixed that. Because Cas wasn’t around, it gave Jack a chance to prove himself to Sam and Dean again. Sam had already pretty much forgiven him, but Dean was definitely on the fence. He even says it. But the fact that Dean had that conversation with him and said everything he did proves that Dean still loves him, and it gave Jack the reassurance he needed that, while Dean is still mad, he doesn’t hate him, and he doesn’t think he’s a monster. And while Sam and Jack were on pretty good terms, Jack was still worried that Sam couldn’t trust him--that Sam didn’t have faith in him anymore. But when Sam tells him that he knows he can defeat God, Jack gets confirmation that Sam does still have faith in him. And after all of that, after celebrating all of those holidays together, and having both of those conversations, to then end that with Sam and Dean celebrating Jack’s birthday? That’s what this episode was about. Sure, it was a silly monster of the week episode. Sure, we got some adorable and hilarious moments. And sure, we got to see them celebrate things that they never got to celebrate in a real way before. But underlying all of that, we got to see Jack become part of Sam and Dean’s family again. We got to see them bond. And knowing that this is right before they all prepare to take on God--Jack needed that. The boys needed that. They needed to all trust each other again. And the fact that they celebrated his birthday at the end proves that they do. They’re a family again. They have each other’s backs. They trust each other. And they love each other. And as much as I love Cas, and as much as I would’ve loved to have seen him be a part of their holidays, he didn’t need to be. But those three did. And that’s why Cas wasn’t in the episode. So, frankly, full points to the writers for making that happen. While they gave us a fun episode, and they may have left out a fan favorite character, it created an underlying theme that’s really going to matter as we get into the big stuff of Season 15. And that’s awesome.

All in all, I thought this was a great episode, and I’m so glad that this is how we get to jump back into the season. Not only was this episode hilarious and fun, but it was also a great set-up for the coming battle and for all the hard and serious things that are bound to come in the next several episodes.

Rumor has it that this was the last “silly” episode of the show, and while that’s a sad thought to think about, it totally makes sense with what they did with the episode, and frankly, I think it’s a beautiful silly one to have ended on and a great way to lead into everything that’s coming next.

My Rating: 10/10

[shy-magpie]

RQG 156

live blog under the cut

Heads up about half way through I realized I go a bit further into analysis on where Zolf & the Kobolds are mentally than some people might be comfortable with. Just as they trust us to back off if the episode gets to real, I am trusting you to close the tab if my little live blog is hitting you wrong. If it makes a difference I have years between me and the reason I relate to this stuff.

"In Memorium" they are trying to kill us Ah they lampshaded the speed intros Yes Alex it is rather Paris Right to Azu & Zolf. Oh he's jumping right in. And there's my first pause of the episode. No “better” isn't a magic finish line you pass then never find yourself in that place again. No, knowing that doesn't mean you don't wonder if your back at square one every time you realize You Are In A Bad Place and Not Handling it Well. Gosh Azu is good at this. Yeah learning to walk away is hard. Learning to ignore the part of yourself that says "and never come back for their sake" is harder. Symbolic much Alex (Zolf is too small for the room, Azu is too large) Yeah it would be easier to not blame Zolf for last episode if I related to him a bit less. Okay they are talking about Hamid and their concerns for him directly. Yeah Hamid's relationship with power & privilege is an arc; and without the Doylist level of trusting Bryn & Alex, I can see where even if you trust/like him you'd be worried about it. With the best of intentions people misuse power. Azu quoted Grizzop at Zolf. Didn't name him, wonder if Zolf is ever going ask directly about his replacement in canon or if its best left to fic. Its easy to dismiss one's own successes. Okay fair and OW, Zolf isn't up to talking about Sasha; which is the part of this I was most prepared for. Hell yeah! He is coming down but not going to be attempting to lead so as to relieve pressure on himself. Maybe if he can let Hamid step up without making a Kew Garden thing he'll see how much he's grown. Hopefully without that setting off a "Hamid does better without me" thing. Yeah intellectual knowledge and it feeling real on an emotional level are very different things. Alex, why does it matter what order they are in? ALEX? The necklace? The Heart of Aphrodite shaped necklace? Azu got a Sign from Aphrodite approving of her reaching out to Zolf as an act of love. Yes! Blue Black no take backs! Yeah those two (players) know exactly what they are doing: breaking my heart in the best ways and not skipping over the actual work those two (characters) need to put into their relationship with OOC "its all fine now"s. Ok that settles the timeline, Azu went up same night, the device isn't made yet. Yeah Zolf wouldn't, probably best to back off while things are tender while being present enough to assure he isn't planning on leaving. Seriously bless Azu, this has to be at least as hard on her as Helen but she is letting the boys have room to work it out for themselves instead of "trying to help". The last thing either of them need right now is pressure especially on this point. Aw the Kobolds teach Cel draconic. Oh smart kid, not only is it just logical for the Kobolds to work with Cel directly, it might help them get over the "looking to see if the boss approves of how you breathe" stage. Especially if he is clear about not being threatened by them having advantage over him in this area. Heck of a relief this isn't hitting my rank issues. Ooh all the Kobolds are amazing engineers, wonder if its a Kobold thing or if Skraak recruited people with similar interests. Nice rework of the "Kobolds build traps" thing from pathfinder. I genuinely love how instead of pitching the original description of Kobolds out the window, Alex has backwards engineered it. Reputation for traps isn't a dishonorable approach to fighting, its a sign of their skill. They aren't minions, their trauma is interacting with a cultural attitude about rank in weird ways. Oh Cel! Cel is amazing. Under Shoin's orders they: made Magic Steroids, did maintenance (more towards the end as Shoin wasn't taking care of things), built the place initially, sourced ingredients, other Kobolds built the Mechkraken. Damn Shoin, they can't even be proud of all they were able to do in adverse circumstances because he tainted it. If they weren't forced to do it and have it used for ill ends, building the kraken would be impressive. A lot of that sounds like difficult work. Hamid stuff: yeah it is from a place of fear; and they would be hypersensitive and need to try to "defend him" so he doesn't react. Terrified of his anger? Handle anything that even annoys him to cut it off at the pass. And being a good person who doesn't like scaring them, Hamid is going to over do the very "Mary Sunshine" routine that makes Zolf think he doesn't appreciate the gravity of the situation. You'd think Mr "do a grief later" would get that Hamid doesn't have to walk the halls wailing to be aware of the end of the world. Not that the kid can win, if he cried and threw up it would be proof he hasn't grown from season one. Hopefully by taking a back seat Zolf will have a chance to see Hamid's actions and realize being chipper & wholesome doesn't mean stupid. Oh Alex has thought this through, one of these days I'll quit being surprised he actually gets this stuff. Not being able to read the person whose emotions feel like life & death is a Bad Thing. Thank Alex for Skraak. Weird seeing this stuff from this side, of course learning to focus on my end instead of being preoccupied with what was going on in the heads of people who were on Hamid's end of it was rather the point. Perfect balance, Hamid gives them enough space to realize he isn’t going to explode, Skraak "translates" into something clear enough not to stress them out. Like when Zolf snapped at Skraak when he pledged to Hamid; might not be pretty but not knowing what The Powers That Be want? Very bad place. Rank and clear orders are very important when appeasing those who outrank you is everything. Cel has dealt with a lot of young and unsure apprentices!?! Yeah well Cel isn't in their chain of command and gears don't get offended if you have an opinion on the right way to configure them. Cel is great Azu & Hamid talking about Zolf! Helen is wonderful! I thought this was going to be drawn out and indirect, instead they are actually facing things head on and dealing with them. Aw these two are so good for each other. Azu would set aside her own emotions. Hot damn Azu, getting right to it! Hamid can be amazingly open about his self awareness and it surprises me every time. It fits him and is a very good thing, but going from answering "how are you?" with "the Kobolds are doing well" to "I never knew how to help him" without it being jarring made me do quite the double take. Guess I was expecting more deflection. Yeah well you two are redefining your boundaries, entire relationship, and rank in specific, while being the perhaps the only people with enough of the picture to figure out how to save the world. Working out the balance between conflicting views on that, when neither of you knows what the end will look like was never going to be smooth. Oh yes and none of you have directly addressed that half of Zolf's rank & dick measuring stuff is because he doesn't know if he even has a role if he isn't The Boss or The Healer.* Oh the grin in Alex's voice as he tells them there is something else before the brorb interview. Whisky tumblers for each? Quite a sigh there Ben News? Big news? While they were in the institute? They ought to sit down. Wilde get to it. Ah Azu & Hamid are holding hands. Poor kid with his prop. Letter? Ancient Rome? Sasha? Are all the fics coming true? Their founder "Askingus"!?! Oh Sasha, oh Zolf! Lydia! Oh the kids! She named the kids after the party. She even found her faith. A break? How the hell are we only half way through the episode. Also hell yeah Lydia deserves all the awards, that was an amazing letter. XD Ben! Oh Hamid, we reacted that way to the epilogue that way too. It really is okay, it was a good end. Yeah he could use a drink. Poor Zolf. Hamid gives Wilde a hug. "technically I think that makes Sasha my boss". XP be cryptic Alex, The RSB will have it figured out by Friday. Ok Zolf got to read the letter on his own. Azu lit 3 candles, because Helen wants me to cry. Hamid is at Zolf's door with a bottle and two glasses. Lydia this is a compliment to your skill. More direct than I expected from Hamid. Oh these two! Okay he is drunk enough to go there (angry at Zolf for leaving but he gets it). About time someone told Zolf directly he's grown. Aw Zolf puts him to bed. Thank you Alex! Ben! (okay fair, if any of Hamid was left he'd cuddle). Sorry Cel! Lydia wanted to break/heal our hearts more than she wanted the plot to move forward ;) Good plan: take the orb to the anti magic field, only those who have already talked to it can talk directly. Info control. Hive mind/telepathy directly addressed. Finally what Shoin eats is addressed. Ok Cel has some teeth on them. Hasn't fed it, is using the vibration to threaten to explode his brain, (no English doesn't have enough pronouns we are working on it)... Oh good point better feed it. Aw Zolf is possessive of the kitchen. Shoin is still Shoin. Cel is not happy about not being recognized. Nice to hear the boys working together. The Infection might block him from being directly aware of  being infected. Bullsh$% he backed himself up. Good point Zolf even if he does, they are separate lives, this instance can still fear death. Oh all the party have teeth, nice they don't have the "good guys have to be sweet & gentle with the baddies" thing Yeah Cel isn't stupid, the brorbs arm isn't a threat. Oh auto painting that will make the people theorizing on the bio side of how the Brorb works happy. A circulatory diagram, and am ocean of faces. Paints like a printer. A creepy charcoal sketch of London staring at the artist. *I swear on Rusty Tower if they let him hurt himself any worse because he thinks his new role is "a brick wall on wheels" I am joining the line to fight Ben in a Whetherspoons parking lot. Yes it would be in character but so would healing. There are other hills. Although seriously its been great having a character that shows so many of the aspects of depression that usually get left out. That Zolf is also a three dimensional character with a full personality beyond just "the one with mental health issues" while not making it look like those issues are tacked on or easy to handle? Stunning work.  

[lilytakeharryandgo]

STOP ROMANTICISING SEVERUS SNAPE - A MANIFESTO

“Albus Severus Potter, you were named after two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a great strategist, the other one was a racist, hateful, bitter, scary bastard. Voldemort must have damaged some brain cells when killing the Horcrux inside of me.”

Now that I have Snape fans raging and screaming for blood, here’s my show of evidence:

If the boring, same argument brought up by Marauders stans is Snape being a Death Eater, I know it’s basic, but it’s basic for a reason: it’s true. Supporting Voldemort doesn’t mean you support his ideas? I’m sorry, what did he support? The Dark Lord’s contouring skills? It is a truth universally acknowledged that joining a group of racists and following them in perpetrating crimes does make you a racist and a criminal.

JK Rowling herself said that Death Eaters are an analogy to Nazis, Marauders stans are not making this up. Are you questioning what JK ROWLING said? Because you know, she is JK ROWLING.

We know it was Snivellus that created the Levicorpus. He must have used it against the Marauders in order for them to learn it. And let’s just remember that “Snape’s worst memory” takes place after the Shrieking Shack’s incident, when dear, lovely Severus tried to unmask Remus so that he could be expelled for being a Werewolf. He went down to the Whomping Willow of his own free will, no one forced him, and he supposedly knew what was happening there: he risked his own life only to get Remus expelled. Yes, it was Sirius who thought it would have been funny to lure him to the Shrieking Shack where Lupin was due for his transformation, and that was wrong. However, why did he do that? Because Snape was constantly spying on them. Was it wrong? Definitely, no one is trying to get Sirius out of this one. Still, James saved Snape in time. Did James do that just because he wanted to protect Remus? Most likely: James gave them all a family and he loved his friends and would have done everything for them, and he did. But also, he wouldn’t have let an “innocent” (if we want to call him that) die. So James saved Snape’s life, which dear Half Blood Price seemed deeply ungrateful for later, and yet, Snape constantly tried to get the Marauders expelled from Hogwarts time and time again while using Dark Magic and creating his own dark spells (see the irony?). Stop saying that the Marauders’ actions pushed him to become a Death Eater. As if “Snape never missed an opportunity to curse James” was a lie. As if Snape wasn’t on his way to being a buddying Death Eater by his 5th year. As if Snape hadn’t came up with a curse that slices your body open by his 6th year. As if the Marauders had nothing to do but ruthlessly bully Snape all day and all night, when they actually are described as the brightest as some of the brightest students of their year despite being engaged in loads of other things like the creation of the Marauders Map, becoming Animagus, dealing with Remus’ monthly transformations (because those demonic guys didn’t leave him alone and didn’t report him to get him expelled as someone else was willing to do), James and Remus being responsible enough to be Head Boy and Prefect. Oh, and training for a war and joining the Order once they graduated. Minor things, right? Things they were busy doing in their personal lives such as surviving, living and being happy? Nah, that never happened, their entire life consisted of bullying innocent, poor service teenagers, that was their goal. Snape experienced one side of the Marauders (and we read that from his own pov, so it’s a little biased too): that is not a deciding factor of whether or not they (and especially James) are good people. He was so fascinated with the Dark Arts, even after Lily’s death and hence his presumed redemption, that Dumbledore did not appoint him as Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Snape’s apologetics make it sound like the Marauders made Snape’s life hell every minute of everyday and he was the poor victim who was not capable of standing up to himself against those horrible demonic creatures, but he was the one inventing the Sectumsempra and using it against James, against George. Only a truly tormented person could have invented such a bloody spell. 

So now let’s talk about Remus. Remus, a hero who fought against Voldemort and joined an anti-terrorist resistance organisation when he was just 18 years old, who fought alongside Frank and Alice Longbottom in the Order, is about to start his first class with the third years. Neville is there, of course, Remus knows his parents’ fate, how they were tortured into madness, and probably guessed that Neville’s biggest fear would be similar to what he guessed Harry’s would be. He’s probably planning on stepping in before Bellatrix Lestrange shows up, but then it’s not her, it’s Snape. Snape who insults him in front of his class, Snape who tries to shame him. Can you imagine how he must have felt? Yes, they bullied him, but his best friend James grew up, and what did he get in return? Death. Instead, Snape hasn’t gotten over himself a little and most importantly he does not realise that being a teacher also means being responsible for those children. Snape never changes: he is the same petty, angry, bitter child that he had been in school, except now he’s bullying children half his age instead of yelling racial slurs at his classmates. While Snape is one of his students’ greatest fear, Remus starts off the year by letting his pupils confront their biggest fears. Remus truly, deeply cared about his students, and wait… what did Snape do? He got him fired! But even most achingly than that, just imagine… it’s 1993, Remus is coming back after a rough full moon. He’s feeling down, he’s weak, both physically and emotionally, he’s one more time without his friends by his side, one more time alone as he was before the Marauders became Animaguses to be alongside him to support him during the roughest times (horrible people, isn’t it?). So Remus is coming back to his class of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and his best friend’s son is writing an essay on how to kill him. But Snape didn’t stop there, no, he told the whole Wizarding World that a man who had struggled to keep his condition secret all his life was a Werewolf. He had to withdraw from his position as a professor because of that, and straight after that the Ministry issued a law against Werewolves which made it impossible for Remus to have a job. So, to sum it up, not only he exposed him as a Werewolf, he also condemned him to live in poverty and be persecuted for that reason. Also, quoting, when Remus was trying to explain things in PoA he attacked him and said “I’ll drag the Werewolf, perhaps the Dementors will have a kiss for him too.” James and Sirius were the kind of persons, the kind of friends and brothers, who risked their own life every month for one of his best friends. Think about this: they found out about Remus’ situation when they were just boys in their first years of school, and they didn’t leave him, they decided to help him embarking in something much bigger than themselves. Whereas dear lovely 33 year old Necrophilus told everyone about Remus’ secret and basically had him fired. Sounds angelic, why haven’t I thought about doing something like that before? That would most certainly secure me a spot in heaven!

Do we want to talk about an abusive person? Well, Snape was not just abusive as a person, he abused and took advantage of his position as a teacher (and Head of House too, to reward extra points from the other Houses) to bully his own students (even after his presumed “redemption”). He told Neville he would have given his failed potion to his toad, Trevor, so that the fatal effects of the potion would teach him a lesson. He bullied Neville to the point that he was literally his greatest fear - Neville’s parents were tortured to the point of insanity by Bellatrix, yet Snape was his greatest fear. He also condoned and took part in bullying when Draco cursed Hermione’s teeth to grow. He said he didn’t see any difference, then watched as she ran off crying. From the very start he starts bullying Harry: he perfectly knew he was raised by muggles, he knew how Petunia was and still went on to ask questions that he wouldn’t be able to answer. And after calling Neville and idiot for a mistake that anyone could have made he took points from Gryffindor because Harry didn’t tell him how to do it right - great teaching strategy, let’s nominate him for Most Valuable Teacher. Harry had nothing to do with what went on during Snape’s school years, but he physically resembled James and he was his son, so let’s bully him from the very first second! And honestly, asking an 11 years old Muggle-raised kid the difference between monskshood and wolfsbane in front of everyone on the first day? There is no difference! They are colloquial terms for the same plant. He just wanted the intellectual upper hand over a goddamn little kid. But he didn’t stop there: that resentful git always tried to blame Harry for something even without proof (as most of the time), and he physically abused Harry because he was angry (“Snape threw Harry from him with all his might. Harry fell hard onto the dungeon floor.”). He knew how important it was for Harry to learn Occlumency and he stopped giving him classes and later ignored when Lupin asked him to start them again even when he knew how poorly Harry’s progressed. And he was cruel: he knew Harry was sad about Sirius’ death, and gave him a detention in which he was going to see his and his father’s names multiple times while copying out old detention records. Yes, Harry’s deeds should have called for expulsion, as McGonagall states, but Snape chose something more painful than that. Not only he punished Harry (don’t get me wrong, he almost killed Draco, he deserved detention if not expulsion), but he chose to inflict him more pain and at the same time tried to ruin the memory of Harry’s father figures. Ordinarily, copying out old detention records wouldn’t be worse than writing lines, but Snape vindictively tailored that detention to inflict pain.  In addition to this, he could have been an awesome teacher if he wasn’t a disgusting waste of a human being. He knew from his teen years that the instructions that the textbooks were giving were not as goos as they could be so he improved the potions and recorded his own methods at 16. Harry himself states what an amazing teacher “the Prince” is. If Snape were not such a horrible person, he could have either written the entire textbooks himself, or taught his students his own alternate methods. Instead he spent his time bullying children. He could have been great and become everything a Slytherin should have been

Snape also saw his friends perform Dark Magic on Mary Macdonald and when confronted by Lily, literally didn’t see any problem with it and compared it with the Marauders’ pranks.

He called Lily, his supposed best friend, a Mudblood. Then he tried to get away with it by saying he didn’t mean it and that she (and only she) was different from the other Muggleborns. And Lily tried, she tried to tell him he was not on the right path, she tried, and she got called a racial slur from the person she trusted the most at the time. And, for the extremist Snape apologetics in the back, who even hate Lily (how can they hate on Lily I don’t know, but apparently these people exist too): Lily Evans did not owe anyone anything. She had the right to cut ties with her friends for any reason she pleased, whatever that’s because she was sick of them or because they were hanging out with a group of terrorists wannabe. She did not owe anyone her love, loyalty or energy. She tried to be Snape’s friend despite his other group of friends (“but Mulciber’s and Avery’s idea of humor is just evil. Evil, Sev. I don’t understand how you can be friends with them”), but there’s canon evidence that Snape chose his Death Eaters friends over Lily’s friendship and safety. It was her choice to cut ties with him after what he and his friends had done (and the racial slur of course, truly a touch of class), and it’s not like he was a good friend to begin with: he called all other Muggleborns “Mudblood” and was canon friends with the people who wanted Lily and other Muggleborns killed, and he even still wanted to be a Death Eater while being her friend. Like, wait here while I go out and slaughter your people, Lils! And if Snape stans are still arguing that he was suffering because he got dumped, that’s another no: he did not get dumped, she just didn’t have romantic feelings for him but was trying so hard to be his friend and he was just a whiny baby about it. Is that a crime? No, it isn’t. Is not getting over it and taking it out on countless kids who weren’t even born instead a crime? Yes, it is.

Also, from the get-go we see him drop a tree branch on Petunia. That shows that he didn’t see a problem in hurting the people Lily loved (seen later in a larger proportion, that’s his tag line). Lily loved her sister, but Petunia was an obstacle between her and Snape, hence, Snape hurt her. And no, that was not accidental underage magic, just as Lily performs magic on the flower, Snape uses magic to cause a tree branch to fall on Petunia. Even as a child he had no qualms about hurting someone Lily loved, this really serves to underscore the idea that Snape, with his so called love for Lily, was not invested in her happiness or wellbeing because he didn’t care about the people she loved. As a child he didn’t care about hurting her sister and at 20 he didn’t care about the imminent deaths of her husband and son. If he truly loved and cared for her, he would have wanted to see her happy. Not even considering how crushed she would have been if her husband and only child were dead, and she was left alone and pregnant in the middle of a war.

Okay so now let’s talk about James. Yes, James was a spoiled brat, and Lily hated him for that, then guess what? He matured, he started protecting the weaker ones and joined the Order along with Sirius, Remus and Lily to fight for a better world. He didn’t hold it against her nor did he sulk for days, he grew up and matured because he was a well adjusted human, unlike some. James Potter was many things other than an “arrogant bullying toerag” (hey, also, well done for trying to destroy a 15-year-old orphan’s memory of his heroic father): he was a friend who risked his life every month for Remus’s safety and comfort. A brother who took Sirius in and was “the best friend he ever had.” An adored friend of half-giant Hagrid, in an age when all “half-breeds” were looked upon with suspicion during the war. An all time “favourite student” of Minerva McGonagall, so much that she waited all day at his son’s future home and wept at his death. A savior of his enemies even when they were trying to expose his friends’ secrets. An activist protecting the right of existence for Muggles, Muggleborns and hybrids right out of school. A soldier who faced Voldemort three times and lived to tell about it. A caring father who went into hiding to protect his son. A loving husband who sacrificed his life for his family. A faded trace of magic still trying to guide his son when the man that killed him returned to life. A young man that inspired so much loyalty in his friends that Remus Lupin, who so feared the idea of harming people because of his condition, was 100% willing to abandon those morals to avenge his death, and would have done so, had Harry not reminded him and Sirius that James would not have wanted them to murder anyone for him. A Patronus helping Harry through his darkest moments until the very end.  James had a friend facing bigotry and he became an illegal animagus to help make that friend’s life better. Snape had a friend facing bigotry and he joined up with the bigots. No one is trying to pretend that James was an angel, but he got better and better until his last breath. And again, that spoiled brat and the love of his life joined the resistance and were martyrs. James, Lily, Sirius and Remus all died for Harry. Are you trying to blame James and Lily for sacrificing their own lives to save their infant son? What terrible parents they were! Their sacrifice was an act of love and wait… actually ended up saving the Wizarding World. The only thing James and Snape had in common was that they would have both sacrificed James’s life in order to save Lily’s. James was the hero, he was the one who faced Voldemort without his wand (pretty dumb thing but he was a Gryffindor, hence no surprise) in order to give his wife and son more time to flee. When he opened that door on Halloween, he thought he was sacrificing his life so that they could live. He literally died wandless perfectly knowing he wouldn’t survive, but facing death for those he loved, hoping he would be able to stall enough time so they could escape. He was never more dedicated in anything in his short life than he was to the loves of his life: he died for Lily and Harry, and would have happily died for Sirius, Remus and Peter. And this is absolutely canon, of course it is: we might not have some explicit description of him but all we know comes from the lives he touched, how they talked / not talked about him, the pain they felt - the seven books are a testament of James and Lily’s love. James Potter was the kind of person that would have been happy to die for love, he would have taken pride in that. How do we know that? Are we making this up? No, we are not: all we have are the words of people who knew him, from his best friends to McGonagall, and who remembered him as a hero. This, albeit indirectly, speaks volume about the kind of person he was. He might have been obnoxious and arrogant as a teenager, but at 21 he died a hero - wandless, alone, betrayed, hopeless, but also bravely and out of love - and nothing can change either of those. Yes, he bullied Snape (let’s be clear here even though I highly doubt Snape did not retaliate) and that is a disgusting attitude. But how can you forgive a 31 year old man for bullying his kids and not a 15 year old boy who bullied one of his definitely not innocent classmates? Who matured and who later died, at the young age of 21, for his wife and son? How can you hate James Potter when as soon as he graduated, he was ready to fight a war against the most powerful wizard of his age? Yes, he had a big head and I am fairly certain he did actually strut - and let’s just take a moment to remember why Harry doesn’t know anything about him… oh, right, Snape went to Voldemort and told him about the prophecy - but he was a caring person, who stood up to what he thought and stood up for his friends and his family. The spoilt boy Snape’s apologetics hate, who grew up to be a great man, who died fighting and protecting, not some emo with a crush and an ego the size of the Great Lake!  Wait, I hear somebody trying to bring up the “we have no real evidence of him becoming a better person” thing. Let me get this straight: James was mentioned to have jinxed other students, not to have bullied them. He did not pick out targets, it was implied to be done at random as it is explicitly stated that he jinxed random people in the corridors. Fred and George pranked other students in the same way, and they would have often have more disastrous effects, but no one calls them bullies. We know that on one known occasion attacks Snape with Sirius at his side and almost pantsed him with a spell of Snape’s own invention. James and Snape had a rivalry, and it was two-sided. It wasn’t James relentlessly hexing poor, innocent Snape, so if you still want to call James Potter a bully, okay, do it, he was a bully bullying a bully. The evidence speaks for itself: he was Head Boy in 7th year (hence I don’t think Dumbledore despised him that much), he was unapologetically a blood traitor, he dated Lily Evans (who hated him for how he was and would have never fallen in love with such a brat, so it’s pretty evident he did actually change), he joined the Order of the Phoenix (an anti-terrorist organisation, at the peak of the war, as a teenager, whereas someone else joins a racist dark cult), he died protecting his wife and child! And if we really, really want to bring the ‘evidence’ thing up… well, we have no evidence he bullied Snape, except for one little incident - I’m fairly certain he did, but let’s play it literally now. And since we are there, we may not have been blessed with more about the Marauders, but Sirius and Remus both tell Harry Lily changed his mind about James because he became a better person, why don’t Snape stans consider that an evidence pro James but “Snape’s worst memory” is their pro Snape pamphlet? That chapter showed us an incident where both Sirius and James were assholes but everyone that was there supported it but Lily. All the other Students supported it because of what the fandom conveniently forgets that Snape loved Dark Arts, disparagingly called Lily a Muggle twice, tried to expose Remus and run around with a group of Death Eater wannabes tormenting Muggleborns all through his school years (he literally says that torturing Mary Macdonald was funny - “That was nothing, it was a laugh, that’s all”), to the point where Lily’s friends and herself questioned their friendship: “none of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. I’ve made excuses for you for years.” And eventually, when questioned by Lily if he wanted to join Voldemort, he couldn’t find any way to lie to her: “you and your precious little Death Eater friends— you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You Know Who can you?”. He literally didn’t find anything wrong with Voldemort’s political position (only the fact that he wanted to kill his obsession, he only had that so called change of heart when it personally affected him as his beloved Dark Lord wanted to kill the object of his lust). So yes, he did join the Death Eaters because he wanted to and was everything he’d always desired. Does this make him a bad person? HELL YES.  

And wait, can somebody remind me why the Potters were forced to hide? Wow, it must have been because Snivellus dearest spilled the tea to his master. So basically it went like this: “Hey Dark Lord! Our adorable group of racists kills Mudbloods for fun, but there’s this filthy Muggle born I fancy, can you please kill her husband and baby so that I can have her?” How the hell could he think Lily could have ever forgiven him? He was totally fine with Dumbledore saving Lily but not her husband and infant son (see how deeply he cared about Lily’s happiness?) and only cared for him being the rebound. James and Harry were totally expendable but hey, bravest man ever known!  

So yes, he protected Harry (in his very own and questionable way, he did), but I’m sorry, that’s not enough. However, before someone says “in the end he cared about Harry” let me say a big, important fact: NAH HE DIDN’T. And not only he didn’t, but he also openly states that: in the Deathly Hallows chapter with the Pensieve, Snape describes Harry as selfish, self-important and arrogant - does it matter than all the other teachers like him and see none of those things? Of course not. And he’s not talking about sassy 4th-6th year Harry (who I really thank for that “there's no need to call me "sir" Professor” gem): Snape is tasing about an 11 year old who was picked on his whole life, who never had a family of his own and who lived in a cupboard under the stairs. He’s a child, an orphan (now tell me what’s that heroic about tormenting an orphan). However, Snape had decided that Harry must be bad news from the start, so he reasonably spends six years making his life as difficult as possible. That’s a great way to honour Lily’s memory, right? Do Snape stans remember what their hero answered when Dumbledore asked if he had grown to care for the boy, after all? He literally shouted “for him?” before casting a Patronus (a little over obsessive too). He felt he owed it to Lily to make sure Harry survives, and for Merlin’s sake, he did! He went to Voldemort and basically condemned the Potters. I’m not saying he is THE reason why they died, that honour goes to the lurid latrine rat, but he is one of them. Protecting Harry was the least he could do. Switching allegiances doesn’t cancel the awful actions before Lily’s death, as much as taking advantage of his position can’t be justified by his loyalty to Dumbledore. And most importantly, he cannot be redeemed by his stalkerish obsession for Lily (or by the creepy ‘look at me I want to die looking into your mother’s eyes,’ ew). All he did was made out of selfishness, even in his quest to redeem himself. Snape had a chance to honour Lily's memory, and disregarded it every single day. He claimed to regret his past, yet his cruelty to Harry was persistent and immature. Plus, loving someone doesn’t redeem terrible deeds. He aligned himself with a terrorist organisation who murdered for sport entirely of his own volition, endorsed the torture of Muggleborns, but of course, what a hero! I will never understand how people continue to use Snape’s obsession with Lily and ‘protecting’ Harry thing as an excuse for all the pain and terror that he inflicted upon small children. Does that mean you’ll excuse a father who continuously hit and emotionally abused his child and made their life a living hell if his excuse was “well I was still protecting them they had their dead mother’s eyes”? This is SICK.

And if you can still argue that “he had a terrible childhood,” that is inarguable, however, it just cannot justify him. Remus was bitten when he was 4, he had no friends until he was 11, lived in constant fear that he was going to be outed as a Werewolf, was forced to turn into a monster every month, lost everyone he loved and lived in poverty for 14 years and still managed to be a decent person. Luna watched her mother die, was picked on by almost everyone, was treated as a freak and only had one friend until she was 14 and still managed to be a decent person. Ginny was literally possessed by Voldemort himself for almost a year, guess what? Decent person too. Neville was constantly told how worthless he was, lived knowing his parents were tortured to insanity and was bullied and belittled by everyone. Decent person? Yes, right again. And do we want to talk about THE lonely kid who was abused his entire life? Sirius was raised and abused by blood supremacists, was disowned by his family, framed for murder (of his best friends, for Merlin’s sake!) and literally lost almost everyone he loved and still managed to be a decent person. He couldn't help the way he was? The environment around him conditioned him to be that way? If I remember correctly, Harry was raised by neglectful relatives, wore ill-fitting clothes, felt inadequate among his peers… Harry is proof that a terrible childhood doesn’t excuse despicable behaviour.

So, Snape hated Neville because he could have been the Chosen One instead of Harry (but it’s definitely on him for going to Voldemort and condemning the Potters), he hated Harry because he was James’s copy and he hated Hermione because she was a Mudblood and brilliant as Lily was. Makes sense, again, and again, it stresses how much of a beautiful person and teacher he was, don’t you think so? Also, had Voldemort picked Neville to kill instead of Harry, Snape would still be a Death Eater. It’s not like he thought being part of a group of supremacists and terrorists was wrong. It wasn’t until something directly affected him that he turned his back to his master - so brave, right? Snape may have done some good for the Wizarding World when he joined the Order, but while he was alive, he was horrible. He wasn't fighting the good fight because he couldn't possibly imagine a world where Voldemort was in charge (honestly, he couldn't have cared less), he was doing it to spare Lily’s life and get her for himself. James and Lily fought for the light because they believed in the light. Snape fought against the dark because the dark had offended him. Had Voldemort gone after the Longbottoms instead, Snape would have lived and died as the most loyal Death Eater in history.

Wait, I hear a “there’s no evidence that Snape voluntarily murdered anyone in his entire life” over there! He joined a group whose aim was genocide and was actually one of the few members which were part of the inner circle of Death Eaters, he didn’t get there by throwing kisses and rose petals around. It is explicitly said that not all Death Eaters actually bore the mark. Only selected wizards can be part of Voldemort’s circle, and not only Snape was part of that circle during the First Wizarding War, but it is also heavily implied that he passed messages from Voldemort more than once. Plus, he was also able to speak directly to Voldemort and even ask him to spare Lily’s life. Voldemort actually told Lily to move over three times before killing her, and he didn’t do that because he had such a kind heart and wanted to spare a Muggleborn’s life, he did that because Snape begged him. And maybe we haven’t read the same books, but it’s not like Voldemort strolled along Diagon Alley offering favours to random people. In addition to this, Snape did most certainly kill someone since Dumbledore compares Draco’s soul to his, meaning he has done remorseless acts of great evil before, hence his soul was already damaged, unlike Draco’s. So please, stop saying Snape was somehow influenced into joining the Death Eaters and never committed any crime: he fully believed in what they pledged and actually longed about being one of them for years (according to Lily). No one manipulated him into joining said group nor into perpetrating crimes. And no one manipulated him into being a horrible person even after he “switched sides.” He’s the one who willingly decides to be a terrorist, he’s the one who willingly decides to abuse children half his age, and he’s the one having the nerve to be awful to Harry when he’s the reason why Harry doesn’t have any parents.

And he was so childish and cruel! He threw a tantrum after discovered he was getting an Order of Merlin and wasn’t going to see Remus and Sirius in jail (even though he knew they were innocent).

There we go: HE KNEW SIRIUS WAS INNOCENT (don’t try to deny it, he was part of the inner circle of Death Eaters, he perfectly knew Sirius was not the one selling the Potters to Voldemort)! Did this matter for him? Of course not! And was Snape cruel and abusive to Harry because he blamed himself for Lily’s death and Harry was a constant reminder of his guilt? Yes, he was. But you know who else blamed himself for the Potters’ deaths and also was constantly reminded of them by Harry, and yet, did not abuse him because of his guilt? That’s right, Sirius. Sirius whose death was indirectly caused by Snape who kept making fun of him for being locked in Grimmauld Place. Sirius who had no problems breaking out of Azkaban, all he had to do was turn into a dog and leave. He could have left anytime he wanted to over those twelve years but he didn’t. You know why? Because he thought he deserved to be there. It was his fault his friends were dead. Everyone could blame him all they wanted with false accusations and it didn’t matter, since to him, changing Peter to the Secret Keeper, he was guilty for his friends’ death and deserved to be in Azkaban. He only broke out when he knew Harry was in danger after seeing that filthy rat on the newspaper. And when he broke into Hogwarts? Do people remember those lines: Hermione said “It’s very lucky he picked tonight, you know,” to which Ron responded “I reckon he’s lost track of time, being on the run. Didn’t realise it was Halloween.” Please, of course he realised it was Halloween, he perfectly knew that. He went after Peter on the anniversary of James and Lily’s death to revenge them and to save his godson. Sirius might have strut as much as James during his teens but again, he turned out to be a decent person.

And think about Harry, a 17-year-old grown up in an abused “family” (and still managed to be a decent person too): he has no memories of his parents, the only thing remained is a photograph. A photograph of a happy little family, showing James and Lily in love with the fruit of their love. Snape found it and ripped off and stole the half with Lily smiling so he could pretend her happiness and love were directed at him and not at her husband and son (yes, people, that disgusting moment actually existed, and it was so creepy Yates couldn’t put it in the movies). He stole Lily’s picture and Lily’s last words from Sirius, a friend she loved, the Potters’ best man, James’ brother. How nasty. What can I say, at least he waited until after Sirius’ death to go to Grimmauld Place and raid his bedroom?

Lovely Snivellus, such a cupcake, also laughed and mocked Tonks when her Patronus changed when she fell in love with Remus (let’s also remember that Tonks’s one was not the same as Remus’s, as stated by Rowling, before Snape stans can accuse me of applying double standards: Remus’s Patronus was a regular wolf, and okay Harry is oblivious at times, but he would have recognised a regular wolf) despite the fact that his own changed to match Lily’s - let’s just remember that THIS is obsessive behaviour, whilst James and Lily’s Patroni represent them being soulmates. Snape’s Patronus does not honour Lily, stop considering this the greatest romantic moment of all times, it does not show virtue nor morality, it’s just the representation of his creepy fascination with necrophilia. It’s disgusting, not noble. His so called love for Lily is creepy. She found happiness with another man, yet Snape was possessive, manipulative, and inarguably obsessive. And let’s remember that J.K. Rowling said that “he thought Lily would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater”… was he really her best friend or was he just completely blinded by his attraction to the dark side? This is not a redemptive love, this is problematic, toxic, abusive, emotionally-stunted, obsessive.

This is because there was never a love triangle and that’s why there is simply NO Team Snape! Not winning at the genetic lottery doesn’t justify being such an awful person! Also, THIS is why the tag line should be changed from “always” to “Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! I'll hold him off!” or to “until the very end” because a father’s eternal love for his son is much more important than a racist’s obsession of a dead woman (dead because he contributed to her death, to be precise). His always and doe patrons can’t get him out of this one. Eventually, let’s remember J.K. Rowling’s dedication in Deathly Hallows: “[…] to you, if you have stuck with Harry until the very end.” Not “always” nor creepy moaning, just the pure words of a hero, of a loving father who died protecting the ones he loved most. 

Now, I don’t get why we should celebrate Snivellus as the hero of Slytherin and an example of the “not all Slytherins are evil” when Regulus Black died in a cave, drowned by reanimated corpses to bring about the downfall of Voldemort, and Narcissa Black straight up lied to Voldemort because she’s first and foremost a mother, ruthless in doing whatever it took to save her beloved son. Regulus and Narcissa were brave: despite their flaws they knew what mattered the most and they were two big key factor in Harry’s survival and Voldemort’s demise. Sure, Snape was among the three that deceived the Dark Lord, but whilst Regulus did it because he realised what was right and what wasn’t, and Narcissa did it because of love, putting her family first (plus, she wasn’t even a Death Eater, and this tells a lot about her, as her loyalties solely lie with her family), Snape did it because resentfulness. Sure, Regulus joined the Dark Eaters of his own free will and Narcissa did what she did only after having her family threatened, but since one of Snape stans’ major point in his defence is his family being abused, let’s take their family into consideration too. The Blacks were pureblood supremacist, they grew up within that establishment and yes, some members of the family rejected those arguable ‘values’ but not everyone has the courage to do that (also, every Black family member is indisputably a badass, don’t get me started on that). On the contrary, Snape was a half-blood, and still, ended up hating muggleborns - yes, don’t try to say he didn’t, he joined the Death Eaters because he believed in Voldemort’s cause. He disparages mud bloods, he joins in on their massacre as a Death Eater after having idolised them for years in school before actually joining them. Read this again: he idolised a group of pureblood supremacist, he actively helps orchestrate genocide against the muggleborns. And what is his Freudian excuse? He believed that, in so far as Halfblood, he had to ‘prove’ that he was magical and capable enough (does this remind you of somebody else who hated muggles albeit being a half-blood and eradicates his whole Muggle family?), you can see that in how he strived to highlight his maternal Prince lineage in his stupid nickname. And no, now don’t try to blame the Marauders’ behaviour for this: Severus Snape, the man you glorify, hated muggleborns and went out of his way to commit genocide against them. So, in the end, if you still deny that, despite it being clear in the books, you are being dishonest. If, on the contrary, you fully realise it and still glamorise Snape despite how horrible of a person he was, well Snape stans, you have sunk to a new low. I’m not trying to justify anyone who supported said supremacist beliefs, but at least Regulus and Narcissa were born and bred within one of the Sacred 28, those beliefs were instilled in them from the very beginning, Snape reached them all on his own (well done for embracing your nazi self Snivellus). Regulus turned his back on Voldemort as soon as he realised how wrong he had been: at age 18, he literally sacrificed himself to try and stop his master. Narcissa, on the other hand, never sworn loyalty to Voldemort: she was a pureblood elitist, yes, she was guided by pride, but she was also calm, rational and restrained where her sister was crazed and her husband was reckless. So… Regulus faced death in the hope that when when the time had come, Voldemort would have met his match and would have been mortal once more, and Cissy only wanted best for her family and did everything she could to protect her son. She perfectly knew that Voldemort could have easily killed her in a second, but she wanted to find Draco, kept a straight face as the strong woman she was and fooled the Dark Lord. And why did Snape deceive Voldemort? Oh, right, he told him the prophecy that eventually led to the killing of the woman he was obsessed with (and no, again, he did not care at all about her husband and baby), this, of course after asking him to spare her life so that he could have had her (so this is, once again, classic Snivellus holding grudges). Regulus and Narcissa are pretty much the epitome of Slytherin, and still, let’s celebrate Snape! As a Slytherin myself, I am utterly disgusted by Snape’s behaviour. He could have been an amazing teacher, he had the talent to be one of the greatest Potions masters ever, and he willingly chose to throw it away in favour of being awful for the sake of bullying his own pupils. If we have to pick characters who proved that not all Slytherins are evil, let’s look at Regulus, let’s look at Narcissa, let’s look at Slughorn and Andromeda. Slughorn fought against Voldemort during the Battle of Hogwarts and refused to become a Death Eater, Andromeda married a Muggleborn. And guess what? None of them bullied children for 15 years.

Then, for the “I sometimes think we Sort too soon” thing… no, just no. Before you can start yelling at me, I am not, I repeat, I am absolutely not saying this because I endorse the whole Gryffindor being saints thing. I am a Slytherin, and a proud one. I just don’t agree that Snape was brave. Is being a resentful, childish and abusive man being brave? Wow, I’ll have to refresh my vocabulary!  It is not brave to bully your pupils for years because you lost your loved one, it is not brave to refuse to accept a woman loves somebody else and moves on, it is not brave to keep a childhood grudge against that someone because they ‘stole’ the so called love of your life, it is not brave to try to destroy an orphan’s image of their heroic father. Snape was burned Lily had chosen James over him, so burned that, fuelled by jealousy and envy (and by his pretty questionable ideals too, because it’s too convenient to forget he is 100% a Death Eater and hence a supporter of Voldemort’s lovely view for the Wizarding World), he struck out and ended up getting Lily killed. I don’t consider playing the martyr by “teaching” (if we really want to call that teaching instead of child abuse) and being an occasional spy being brave. I call it feeling guilty, I call it ‘I deserve to suffer for hurting Lily but I still choose to bully her own son instead of honouring her,’ I call it ‘I keep on tormenting an orphan because I hated his father and he looks too much like him, plus, he has his mother’s eyes so I’m constantly remembered of 1) Lily choosing James over me and 2) Lily dying because of me telling my beloved Dark Lord the prophecy.’ Any protection Snape offered Harry, he did it because of his penance, not because protecting him (and hence stopping Voldemort) was the right choice. Wow, how brave of him. I don’t think Snape could have been a Gryffindor at all, and I hated how David Yates (again, very conveniently for his martyr business) placed the Gryffindor scarf hanging up in the background in Snape’s death scene as a nod to his supposed bravery. Like, really?! Even if you really want to call him brave, he’s still an awful person who shouldn’t have been allowed to teach because of how abusive he was, an awful person who was a member and supporter of a supremacist, racist and violent sect, an awful person who caused the death of innocent people - and I could go on and on. You can’t let a few good deeds outweigh all the bad! It’s not like some potion or Imperius Curse made him join the Death Eaters, spill the tea about the prophecy and terrorise those children. He willingly chooses to do that because he was an awful person until the very end. And still, Snape apologists be like “the conclusion of his arc is that abusing your position of power over children is forgivable if you stalked one of their parents when you were a teen.” Again, sick.

Snape’s portrayal in the movies is entirely fan-service throughout the whole series of films, but especially in DH part 2: they never showed Sirius arriving at the Potters the night Lily and James died, they never showed the moment his whole world collapsed when he saw the corpses of his best friends, the moment he blamed himself for what had happened. No, we got an entirely made-up (and creepy) scene of Snape getting there, holding Lily’s body and crying when that never happened! We also never got a scene with Sirius and Remus evidently struggling to hold it together while they tell Harry about James, how he changed and how Lily fell in love with him. Their pain would have shown how much James had an impact on their lives, for the better, but of course, we only got a partial rendition of Snape’s worst memory, with careful cuts of course, they couldn’t say he didn’t find anything wrong with the torture of Muggleborns, right?

You can like Snape, sure, he’s a flawed character with an interesting past, but he’s not a hero, stop portraying him as such instead of what he really was: an abusive, creepy, racist man. You are allowed to like villains (who doesn’t?) but stop praising him! You don’t have to justify his actions because you like him: he was awful, recognise it.

Do we (still) need to talk about double standards? Well, there we go: people hate Lavender Brown and Cho Chang. Fair enough, pretty annoying girls if you want to hear me, but why do they get hate? They get hate for how they handle their feelings: Lavender gets hate for how she handles her unrequited romantic feelings, and Cho gets hate for crying and grieving over the death of her boyfriend. Does this sound like a thread to you? With the sole difference that they get more hate than Snape and this is disturbing and honestly just sick. He is a terrorist, he literally moans the entire series and abuses and terrorises children because he couldn’t have Lily but hey, misunderstood hero!

Stop romanticising Snape: the only reason why people love him is Alan Rickman, and all of this hatred is just a pathetic way of trying to cover up that James grew up while Snape didn’t. How can people glorify and stand up for a man who canonically is a vindictive bully? To be honest, I’m genuinely concerned for people who over romanticise such a man. Correct me if I’m wrong: do you see anyone sticking up for the Dursley’s or Umbridge, when they do basically the same stuff to Harry as Snape? How is Necrophilus any different? I will never regard him as a hero for as long as I am alive, however, the movies conveniently cut those parts where Snivellus was the half princey of baddies, right? Also, I really wish Sirius could have found out about this lovely nickname Snape gave himself as a teenager, that alone would have cured his depression, post traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism, this is a real tragedy.

Severus Snape did not die for love. He died because Voldemort thought hew was the true Elder Wand owner. I repeat: he did not die for love. Period.

He raised a wand to McGonagall!

Avada

Kedavra

[bonesgadh]

My thoughts on the final season of Orange is the New Black:

Obviously, some heavy spoilers below:

If you ask me, Piper’s storyline outside Litchfield was, for the most part, a complete waste of time. Instead of having her getting stoned with her brother or going to that pointless retreat, why didn’t they have her doing something productive like helping other former inmates or writing her book?

Speaking of the book, I’m high-key disappointed they gave the memoir storyline to Judy fucking King. Call me cheesy but I was looking forward to the show ending with Piper writing her book just like she said she would in season 6. Such a missed opportunity.

I really, really wanted Taystee to be cleared of Piscatella’s murder. I don’t understand why they gave so much importance to Suzanne writting what really happened and Taystee showing the text to her lawyer if it wasn’t going to make a difference in the end. Chekhov’s gun, anyone?

I’m so relieved she didn’t kill herself. I guess as long as there’s life there’s hope fucking Cindy will confess the truth and justice will be served. In the meantime, I was happy Taystee found a new meaning to her life and decided to help other inmates have a better shot at rebuilding their lives after prison.

Daddy’s death caught me by surprise. That said, I didn’t notice her absence at all for the reminder of the season. I guess she was a one-hit wonder character.

I have the feeling they had no idea what to do with Frieda so they just had her do weird stuff like accumulating trash. 

Thank Christ they got rid of Badison so early in the season. Cringiest, most annoying character in the history of television.

Aleida is so stupid lmao. I get she wanted to protect her daughter from that pedophile but she fucked up. I was rooting for her to rebuild her life and I was disappointed at her.

I liked Suzanne coming to terms with her sentence and being more comfortable around people and making new friends. It’s what she deserves.

Why is Cesar out of jail? Didn’t Aleida say he was supposed to stay there until he was an old man?

So Yadriel isn’t Pepa’s biological father?

Shani, man. Her relationship with Nicky was so cute and you could tell she was different from Nicky’s other flings. She didn’t act like a stallion around her, she was sweet and considerate with her and her backstory was very sad. I’m pissed they weren’t endgame because they made such a good couple.

There was no need to kill off Lorna’s baby. That was unnecessary roughness.

What happened to Maritza left me devastated. That final sequence of her getting into the plane and all the other women who were deported as well slowly disappearing until there was no one left gave me fucking chills. It was tough to watch but it had to be done to make a point of how a good portion of the immigrants who get deported are young adults who have never lived anywhere else besides the US, but still they are not considered citizens.

I absolutely adore Fig. Her character development was one of the best in the show. Also I LOVE HER RELATIONSHIP WITH CAPUTO OMG.

Piper’s sister-in-law is annoying af. I bet she is one of those anti-vaccinations freaks.

Alex looked so damn hot in her flashback oh my god. 

Goodall is adorable! For real, what a gorgeous baby.

I was not expecting CO Fischer to make a comeback.

Healy is still a piece of shit.

I can understand why Piper developed feelings for Zelda. She represented the potential life she could lead now that she was a free woman, the opportunity to start over and leave prison behind (like Sophia advised her to). However, there wasn’t anything exciting about being with her, it was way too safe and that’s the exact opposite of what she had with Alex. 

Polly is even more annoying than she was before but Larry didn’t get on my nerves this time around, which surprised me. Maybe because his little prep talk is what pushed Piper to follow Alex to Ohio or maybe it was the nostalgia. Idk, but they brought him back in a nice way.

I felt really bad for Vinnie. He wasn’t only grieving for his son but he also had to see Lorna fall into that complete state of denial.

Sophia’s comeback was everything. She looked like a goddess and she seemed so happy and in control of her life. I thought we wouldn’t see her again after she got released from prison but I’m glad they managed to bring her back even for a couple of scenes.

Totally random statement but Piper looked very attractive at the benefit gala and the morning after. I don’t know if it was the hair or the way they did her eyes but she was smoking hot.

Danielle Brooks is the best actress in the show. Don’t @ me.

McCullough is the archetype of the psycho ex. I legit thought she was going to shoot Piper when she confronted her at her house.

Alex knows Piper so damn well. She is aware of the fact that Piper tends to run away from stuff when things get complicated and her choosing to have an affair with McCullough was her way to try to protect herself. Then again, I really thought they had moved on from that phase. 

Fig lying about being pregnant to help that woman get an abortion was such a strong moment. Also her calling out the double-standard of the guard who was opposed to the woman aborting but wanted her to get deported? Legends only.

Lorna is such a racist but I can’t bring myself to dislike her. If anything I’ve always felt a bit sorry for her.

Linda is such a bitch.

Tamika was the only warden who actually cared about making a difference. I’m sad she got fired because of something that wasn’t even her fault but her good deeds made a profound impact.

McCullough is so damn unstable but I can’t blame her for developing such strong feelings for Alex. She’s quite irresistible.

Alex acting all unattached and cold as she was breaking up with Piper was painful to watch. I knew it wasn’t real but for a hot second I thought that was it for them. 

The ICE storyline was out-of-this-world amazing. So powerful and brilliantly done, quintessential OITNB.

If you had told me six years ago I would cry like a baby with Pennsatucky’s death I would have laughed at you.

But for real, POOR PENNSATUCKY. I’m sorry she had to die for Taystee to stay alive.

Because of the ‘a fan-favorite character dies in the final episode to mark the end of the show’ trope I had the feeling they were going to kill either Red, Alex or Taystee. I was legit surprised when the final death was revealed to be Pennsatucky.

That Poussey flashback had me in tears.

Alex and Nicky’s goodbye scene was so sweet and I love they talked about eventually reuniting. They were my brotp.

What Larry told Piper when she visited him at his place was very interesting. When Piper told him she loved Alex he told her he believed her, but that he also thought she loved what Alex represented. I believe that was true at some point—well, for most of the series—and, unconsciously, Piper believed that as well. But, if anything, what they went through in season 7 helped Piper realize she did want to be with Alex. The extra limb analogy was amazing and I don’t think Jenji could have picked a better way to explain their relationship.

Hellman is the new warden? Gross.

My favorite part about the old inmates’ cameos was that they were shown doing the same stuff they did in Litchfield: Boo being tired of everyone’s bullshit, Yoga giving the mandala talk to new inmates, Gina feeling exasperated and Norma calming her down, Watson running and Alison checking her time, Angie and Leanne being stupid, Brook mooning over stuff.

I only missed two characters making a cameo: Sister Ingalls and Miss Claudette. I know most fans wanted to see Bennett again but fuck that coward.

Also wtf happened to Bayley? I kinda wanted to know.

Karla’s story broke my heart. I’m glad they included her character because her story is the story of millions of immigrants that are separated from their children, forced to return to their home countries and endure harsh conditions while trying to make their way back to the US.

Blanca really went out there and said “fuck it” to the american dream, didn’t she? In my opinion she had the best ending out of all the characters. I’m so happy she reunited with Diablo and is ready to live her life with him at last. My girl deserved it.

Maria’s storyline was so ‘meh’. It was way too similar to her season 6 storyline.

My mom Gloria had the second best ending. I was afraid they were going to punish her because of the phone thing but thankfully asshole Luschek finally did something right. I was rooting for her to have a happy ending and I’m glad she got it.

Also was that little girl living with Gloria and her kids her granddaughter? Because she was definitely younger than her sons but Gloria’s flashback stated her daughters are older, so I’m confused.

I really need to know if Aleida killed Daya. I hate it was left so open.

Flaca choosing to help immigrants was so sweet. I bet one of the reasons she did it was to stop them from suffering Maritza’s fate.

Fig and Caputo are adopting!

Cindy did not deserve a good ending after she ruined Taystee’s life. That made me so angry. I was really hoping she would confess the truth.

In the end, McCullough made Alex a favor by having her transferred to Ohio. She went back to minimum security, she was with friends and people she knew and far away from all the crap in max.

What happened to Red and Lorna was devastating. Red losing her identity and her memory was so tragic because of what a badass she was. Also I knew Lorna would lose it after her son’s death but it was heartbreaking. They deserved better.

It sucks balls Nicky lost every person who was important to her but despite that I liked her ending because, even though she suffered heartbreak after heartbreak, she found a way to keep herself sober and now she will help others the way Red helped her. It was the best way she could honor her.

Despite literally everyone around Piper advising her to leave Alex behind and forget about her (from her parole officer to her dad to Larry to Sophia) the fact that she chose to follow Alex to Ohio was a pleasant surprise to me. It showed her growth and how much she really wanted to be with Alex, and that she was not a mistake in her life but her life. I was never a Vauseman shipper but even I knew they had to be endgame, any other ending wouldn’t have made any sense. I feel bad for the shippers because it was a very tough season for them but love prevailed, so congrats.

I didn’t catch the Piper Kerman cameo until I saw someone mentioned it on twitter. That was so cool! Also I don’t know if this was intentional but I liked the visual parallel between Larry Smith & Piper and Piper Kerman & Alex. Larry waited for Piper for as long as she was in jail and never abandoned her, so I choose to believe Kenji and Co. are hinting at Piper doing the same thing for Alex.

It was a good decision to show us a glimpse of Piper’s new life. She has a stable job, a new home, she is studying about criminal law and using her time in a productive way, and also she looks happier than we ever saw her.

In conclusion, I liked the season very much. Orange is one of my favorite shows and I think they ended it in a very nice way. It was very well executed and, unlike other final seasons I have watched over the years, it never felt rushed to me. It was the best season in at least a couple of years and I’m in love with the series finale, I stand by my original statement that it is the best one I have ever seen.

I give it a solid B+, four-out-of-five stars, 8.5 out of 10.

Orange forever, indeed.

[ds-sparrow-manufacturing-co]

A Rebuttal

Ok so I really did not want to make this post. I would’ve loved to have left this whole thing behind because I’m aware I made some mistakes and would like to atone for them, but it seems I’m going to have to go over this one more time. For anyone seeing this post who somehow doesn’t know, I said some regrettable things about Aidan Gallagher here. I later made another post here summarising the entire situation that resulted, so I would suggest you read that first. 

I’m still getting people telling me what I said was fucked up, which is entirely justified. However, I have just now realised that the person who took it upon themselves to ‘correct’ me about my opinions of Aidan Gallagher (something that has not changed, I still strongly dislike him) later made several derogatory posts about me. I was not aware of this because after the first rude post they made about me, I blocked them to save myself the additional stress. 

I have done my best to deal with this whole thing as calmly and politely as possible. When this person was downright evil towards me, I didn’t bother to argue with them, I just made an admittedly-snarky post with a screenshot of what they said, and then blocked them because I had no desire to begin an argument. When I realised that what I had said about Aidan Gallagher had been fucked up, I apologised, accepted my mistake and did what I could to fix it. But I am out of patience. I don’t take kindly to being treated the way this person has treated me, I don’t think anyone does. So here I am, about to break down everything they said about me bit by bit to show you how much of a lying scumbag they have been towards me (as well as possibly others).

warning: this post is incredibly long

tw: su*c*de mentions

My first interaction with this person was when i got an anon ask who wanted to know what Aidan Gallagher had done to make me dislike him. I responded with a brief list, excluding most of my evidence because it was late at night and I didn’t have the energy to go down the rabbit hole of all this. The following day, the blog this post is about reblogged my post, attempting to disprove everything I said. I will not include screenshots here, because it was a long post, you can find it in my archive if you so wish. I read what they said, took everything into account, and responded with my proof for things I hadn’t previously included the proof for, as well as explanations for why certain things he’s said annoyed/upset me. I expected a polite response, as we had both been courteous so far. 

Instead,  I received the following:

Now, lets break down some of what they said.

‘stop saying things you can’t prove, because it’s fake’ - I provided my proof. I am not trying to lie to anyone, or perpetuate rumours. All I aimed to do was explain my point of view and why I personally dislike him.

‘some of your screenshots are fake’ - That’s just blatantly untrue, especially as they have at other points said things along the lines of ‘well yes but he apologised/he didn’t mean it like that’ for everything I have provided screenshots for. Make up your mind.

‘you’re so gullible’ - For... having an opinion? That I researched before forming? And which is based on something other than my blind faith in a 17 year old? Right.

This was when I blocked them.

I thought that was going to be the end of the situation. Then, I got some asks.

I saw this and, being a minor, was a little creeped out. I had assumed this person was a teenage fangirl because that’s who the majority of Aidan Gallgher’s fans are so this information was surprising.

This one scared me. I did what the anon suggested, created a backup (i won’t tag it here because I get the feeling some of the aforementioned ‘army’ are going to see this) and reported the other blog. Once again, I thought it was over.

It was at this point that people started telling me how fucked up what I said in my original post was, and I realised they were right. As mentioned at the start of this post, I apologised, and did everything I could to fix it. End of, right?

Until today, where I started thinking about what the above anons had said and decided to fact check, mainly out of curiosity. I unblocked the blog, only to discover they had made 3 posts about me that I hadn’t seen.

This was the first one, as you can see they began it with a screenshot of my original post. Let’s talk about this.

“but you wishing him dead is ok?” - I never wished him dead, to start with. Stabbing does not automatically equal death, but I know that’s nitpicky of me. I also did not wish he was stabbed. I said in that exact tag that I didn’t, because of TUA. However, I know that this ‘joke’ was really shitty of me, and I have already apologised multiple times.

“what kind of a low life do you have to be to have nothing better to do, but talk shit about a kid?” - Why don’t you tell me? As I’ve said multiple times, I am a minor. That doesn’t excuse what I said, but that does make it incredibly hypocritical of them to say that given everything.

This was the second post they made about me, beginning with the same screenshot as in the first post.

“they’re spreading false rumors” - I’ve already covered this one.

“they want a reason to be mean, even if it isn’t true” - I would never be mean to someone if they hadn’t done anything to deserve it. I’m a strong believer in the moral philosophy of respecting everyone until they give you a reason not to. Aidan Gallagher has given me more than enough reasons to lose respect for him. And, honestly? I still respect him as an actor, even if only that.

“you can’t say you’re a decent human being and wish someone dead. you can’t say you’re anti-bullying and want to prevent suicide and then bully someone” - That is some big talk from someone who claimed they were ok with what Aidan Gallagher said about mental health because they’ve had their own experiences with suicide, before immediately telling me to rot and burn in hell for disagreeing with them. And, wait a second, wasn’t Aidan Gallagher the one supporting women’s rights and feminism who then turned around and made gross comments towards a bunch of girls? Hmm. Also, wishing someone dead is too wide of a blanket statement to actually measure whether someone is a decent human being with. 

“i tried to be nice” - I didn’t know telling someone to rot in hell, calling them a stupid hoe, was being nice. I didn’t know lying, and telling people to report someone because they disagreed with you was being nice (notice how they never said anything about my stabbing comment until I disagreed with them.) I guess we have very different definitions of nice.

“if they really cared, they would kindly ask a fan if the rumors were true” - And that, ladies gentleman and variations thereupon, is a brilliant example of how not to perform unbiased research! I based my opinion on actual evidence, and neutral articles as well as arguments from both sides. Not on one fan who’s likely to deny everything.

“they said it themselves, they have no proof” - That is so incredibly cherrypicked. What I actually said was “supposedly used the f-slur although i can’t find proof“, one of the many points on my list of reasons I dislike Aidan Gallagher. You know why I said that? Because I found a screenshot of him supposedly having called someone that slur via Instagram but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided it was probably edited. I included the point on my list in the hopes of people doing their own research. And I certainly did not say I had no proof for anything, as you would know if you saw my original response to this blog, where I provided proof.

“threatening him and bullying him is wrong” - I am fully admitting of the fact my stabbing comment was in poor taste but it was very clearly not a threat and not even close to being bullying. Furthermore, I would say making four posts harassing and telling others to harass someone because they disagree with you is a lot closer to being bullying than anything I did was.

“defamation is a crime” - I live in the UK, so let’s use those defamation laws. A statement is not defamation unless it ‘ has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant.’ Less than a hundred people are even aware my blog exists. Nowhere near enough people have seen anything I’ve said to count as defamatory. Not to mention that a statement is not defamatory if it is a statement of opinion.

“you’ll get karma for lying and playing the victim” -  Ohhh the irony. I have not lied once. I have provided all the necessary proof for everything and I have owned up to my mistakes. And yet, they, who have repeatedly lied about me, twisted my words and oddly enough, avoided including proof outside that one screenshot of my original post, are the one accusing me of playing the victim. Classy.

“hi to your little follower that you cry to” - This one’s just hilarious to me. I’m happy to have people on here who will let me know when people are, you know, harassing and bullying me. And, what the hell do they mean by ‘cry to’? Do they mean ‘mentioned that this situation was stressful once’? Wow.

“I promise you misery for the rest of your sad little life” - Honestly just re-read the other screenshots after seeing they said this. Jesus Christ. And, as someone who already struggles with depression and other mental health issues I’m interested to know what they’re intending to do that’s gonna be any worse.

“you’ll pay! that’s not a threat it’s a promise” - Are they planning on tracking me down? Or are they just going to keep sitting on their throne of yes men and echo chambers acting as if they’re actually affecting me? 

I would say this is the last post I plan to make about this situation but I’ve said that over and over again throughout the last 12 days and it’s never the last post. This whole situation has honestly been very emotionally taxing, and combined with some real life things, it’s been a bad week or so. Hopefully this post is enough to end this whole thing. 

[spnreactions]

Alright! Let’s get started! 

This is actually copied and pasted from my main blog, where I posted this last night. From here on out, though, I’ll be posting them on here first and then re-blogging them on my main blog, because I can. 

And, fair warning, I get very excited and very into this show, so the reactions list will probably be pretty long. XD 

And now, without further ado, let’s watch 15x14: Last Holiday. <3 <3 

Oh we’re starting!

...did I miss the “then” title card?

Oh wait there it is.

Dude we’re going FAR back on this “then”. I wonder what that means?

My poor baby crying again. :(

DEAN’S APRON OH MY GOD I’M DEAD! XD XD <3 <3

“It was. In the 50s.” Point taken.

My poor baby. :( :( :( :(

Oh so killing Amara is officially a plan? Okay then.

“I’ve killed Hitler.” I can’t believe he’s still talking about that! XD

Actually I can believe he’s still talking about it, I take that back.

DEAN WITH THE MARIO BROTHERS OMG!!

Okay, I know this episode has something to do with them celebrating holidays because of a fairy or nymph or something like that, and this is already feeling like a light-hearted, fun, domestic Winchesters episode. I hope it stays that way. <3

Have you tried turning it back off and turning it on again? Hit reset.

HE READ MY MIND!

MEAT MAN!! XD XD

Ummm...okay then.

Also SCOOBY-DOO UNDIES!!! DEAN YOU DORK!! XD XD <3

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Jack is my favorite and Dean is my second-favorite.

“Language!” “That’s it I’m getting my gun.” XD XD

I can already tell that so many of my reactions are probably just gonna be me quoting and then laughing. XD

They don’t seem very concerned? Shouldn’t random people not be able to get in?

This lady is such a mom omg.

Mrs. Butters? XD

Wood nymph. Got it.

“Shouldn’t you be in the woods somewhere? Nymphing?” XD XD (P.S. That was my mom’s favorite line in this episode. XD)

You what now?

Necessities of life?

Hmmm….I like her, but she weirds me out. Something is off.

Dean’s “oof that’s awkward” face. XD

“2020.” Hearing that year said out loud just feels...oof. Just oof.

Poor nymph…

Wait, haven’t we seen those symbols before? Maybe I’m making that up.

HA! “It’s kind of been one apocalypse after the other.” He’s not kidding.

OOOOH!! HERE COME THE HOLIDAYS!!!

WAIT WHAT IS THAT TELESCOPE THING?

WAIT WAIT WAIT WHAT??!! A MONSTER radar??!! Dude WHAT?! Man, they’ve needed something like that for YEARS!

Wait wait wait...relatively nearby….it’s not gonna ping because of Jack is it?? SHE’S NOT GONNA HURT JACK IS SHE??!!

Oh okay nevermind. Just a vamp nest.

Say what now?

We can...that just...umm...okay then??

“Heck...heck yeah.” XD XD XD

Yeah I’m with Sam on this one. She seems innocent, but, like…

Dean does have a point though.

But also things like this never last. It’s too good to be true.

MY BABY!!!

“She’s probably harmless, but just in case, watch yourself”?? Dean that was a terrible way to do that but okay.

Snickerdoodles. XD

My poor baby looks so lost. :(

I mean...Dean makes a good point there. But also the son of Satan is adorable and she’s suspicious. But anyways.

“Ignoring your trauma doesn’t make you healthy.” SOMEONE FINALLY SAID IT OMG!!! XD XD XD <3 <3 <3 <3

...Jack is hiding something? IS JACK HIDING SOMETHING?!

...do we know what Jack is hiding??

The only thing I can think of is that he knows about Cas’s deal with the empty, but he had a soul when that happened, and it wasn’t really eating at him then. Is it eating at him more now for some reason??

IS JACK HIDING SOMETHING??!!

Jesus christ this is gonna bother me…

Okay but when has that ever actually worked, Dean?

Awww….

I’m guessing they didn’t tell her he’s a nephilim? If they don’t really trust her--which they don’t--they shouldn’t. Is there a chance she knows already? I feel like she wouldn’t be acting like that if she did.

Vamps watching a movie with vamps. Classy. XD

...ew…

At least they’re drinking from bags instead of from humans I guess?

Nice slicing at the same time, boys.

Huh. Well. That was easy. Too easy?

CHRISTMAS! XD <3

THE TRAIN OMG!! XD XD <3 <3

Their faces. XD

HER DANCE!

Okay she’s kind of adorable not gonna lie.

“We are so keeping her.” XD XD

DEAN’S LITTLE EXCITED HANDS ON THE RAILING OMG I’M DEAD!! XD XD <3 <3 <3

If I can’t get adorable Jack right now, I’m okay with adorable Dean. XD <3 <3

Sam is still suspicious, but Dean is totally into it.

“Enjoy the world you’re fighting for.” That was really quick and so subtle, but d*mn that’s a good line.

MY BABY!!!!

HIIIII JACK!!! I MIIIIISSSSSED YOOOOOUUU!!! <3 <3 <3

Uh-oh. I don’t like the way she said “what are you”. DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH MY BABY!!!

“He’s a millennial.” XD XD

DEAN IN THAT NIGHTGOWN OMG!!! I know it was in the promo photos, but seeing it in the context of the episode is even funnier. XD

Sam’s gagging at his bro’s “down there” bits lol.

Oof. She is VERY absentminded by Jack and whatever he is. No likey.

...hmm. I still don’t trust her with Jack.

“Poppycock”???

HA!! “I’m worried about your cholesterol.”

And Sam and Jack’s little smiles at that omg. <3 <3 <3

“We got one!” IS THAT A HILLYWOOD PARODY REFERENCE/GHOSTBUSTER REFERENCE??!! Because IT FEELS LIKE ONE!!!

The way they’re running to their rooms to get ready omg.

And that cut to them being dressed and going.

LUNCHES!! XD

Their faces! XD

The cinematography in this episode is AWESOME. Go Serge Ladouceur (and yes, I looked that name up. XD)

No crusts. Blessed knives. “I just waxed it.” She IS a mom!

Wait no. Take Jack with you. I don’t trust her with him.

“What shall we do with you.” LEAVE HIM ALONE IS WHAT!

Oh. They’re doing dishes.

WAIT DON’T TELL HER THAT JACK!

...I don’t like the way she’s talking to him.

Oof. Mary. *gags*

Jack you’re adorable and I love you but please stop being so gullible and stop sharing so much personal information.

WAIT NO! I know you feel guilty, but DON’T TELL HER YOU KILLED HER!

...dangat.

...oh. That was actually super sweet, and honestly the EXACT thing Jack needed to hear. ...maybe she’s not so bad?

...wait what? She just...pulls those out of thin air?

Ha! Another hunt

THEIR FACES WITH THE LUNCHES! ESPECIALLY DEAN’S!! XD

Aww! Thanksgiving! <3

Where is Cas during all this? Talking to his angel friends I guess?

That finger gun at Sam omg.

It’s so EASY for them wow.

Halloween! Fitting given our current season.

Their little smiles awww!!

THE BEERS TOGETHER HOLY FRICK!!! IT’S JUST LIKE WHAT TEAM FREE WILL 2.0 DID WHEN JACK CAME BACK! AND what the boys and Mary and John did in Lebanon! NEVER GETS OLD!! I LOVE THIS FAMILY!! <3 <3

...I still don’t necessarily trust Mrs. Butters. BUT I LOVE SAM AND DEAN AND JACK!

Those faces for the lunches just get better and better.

GRENADE LAUNCHER!!

MJOLNIR OMG NO WAY!!! I CAN’T BELIEVE HE STILL HAS IT!!! THIS EPISODE HAS SO MANY EASTER EGGS OMG!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Also that is an AWESOME shot.

BIRTHDAY!! Awww… <3 <3

OOF. Poor Dean. XD

Jack’s laugh and then immediately being like “oop” and bringing his head down but still chuckling when Dean glares at him I CAN’T. XD XD

I LOVE THIS FAMILY!! <3 <3 <3

AWW!! She made extra for him!

Okay, I like her. But I’m still cautious.

Oh. THERE it is.

What’s she doing??

Jack’s got you lady.

My mom is wondering why she has to walk away to make another smoothie when before she was just producing them. I’m wondering if maybe she has to near the ingredients to whip it into a smoothie magically, but that seems weird...continuity error?

Get her, Jack. My smart boi. <3 <3

My Mom: “You better hurry it up there, Jack.”

Oh it’s evil Men of Letters dude. NOW I get why we went that far back.

Oh! AND the Thule. NOW I get why Dean mentioned killing Hitler again. Wow. Nice connections on this episode all around. Go writers.

...she did what now?

WTF??!!

HOLY FRICK!!!

HOLY S*** HOLY S*** HOLY S***!!!

Do NOT ask about tea or cookies after you just pulled sh** like that.

On a more positive note, the way Jack just said “son of a bitch” out of nowhere like that is so adorable because he, like, NEVER swears, but also that’s Dean’s saying and it just proves that he’s taking after his dads and just already growing up and AHHHH I LOVE HIM!!! <3 <3 <3 <3

Also Jack please go tell your dads what you found.

Okay so during the commercial break, my mom and I looked up wood nymphs and had this big discussion and here’s kind of what we came up with:

So we were trying to figure out if wood nymphs are supposedly evil, and we didn’t find much, but they do have super strength (which explains her ability to rip off that dude’s head…), and the ability to control wood and nature, which might explain why she can pull smoothies out of thin air.

So then we saw on the SPN Wiki page for this episode that part of the description mentions that the wood nymph would do anything for her family, and that makes me wonder if she has, like, ulterior motives to protect her wood nymph family? But also, she said the Men of Letters were her family, so that translates to Sam and Dean now, right? So theoretically, she wouldn’t hurt them, she’d be trying to protect them. Which means they should be fine, because she only hurts threats. But then my mom pointed out that maybe she considers Jack a threat and that’s a really good point, so now I’m worried all over again. She’s still acting weird with him, and even though I did like that little advice she gave about second chances, maybe it’s all an act? My mom thinks she, like, poisoned his sandwich or something with anti-nephilim juice in order to try to hurt him, but that was before she knew he was a nephilim, right? I don’t know. I think my mom makes a really good point. I hope my baby winds up being okay. :(

Okay. Back to the episode now.

Ahhhhhhhh noooooo. Where are the boys when we need them?

Wait, DATE?? EILEEN??!!

No. He isn’t. Go away.

Sam look at yoooooooouuuu. <3

But also please take a moment to notice how uncomfortable your son is and ask him what’s wrong please and thank you. (And yes, I will keep saying son thank you very much.)

Ha! She wants him to get a haircut just like Dean does. The joke’s about Sam’s (and, by extension, Jared’s) hair will never not be funny.

Ha! “Language.”

YES!! EILEEN!!!

YES SAM!! GO GET YOUR GIRL!!

DEAN! XD

Okay the Sam and Eileen thing is adorable, and Sam and Dean’s banter is hilarious, but guys...look at your son please and thank you. :(

I’m so torn between wanting Sam to just be happy and enjoy himself and wanting him to help Jack ahhhhhh.

Sam can go on his date. I’m sure Dean can handle it.

Roses! Nice touch.

Ha! Dean with the supportive big bro action.

Such. A. Mom.

“Boys.”

Wait nooooooo.

Okay but Alex’s acting right there...tip top. So subtle. Jack is trying so hard to be sneaky and warn Dean about what he saw, and the way Alex is conveying pure panic but also showing how sneaky he’s being is AWESOME.

Also that little “sh*t” or “da**it” or whatever it was that he mouthed? Somehow so cute and makes me so worried at the same time.

“The Dean Cave”?? XD XD

Dean I am BEGGING YOU, please take a cursory glance at your son.

...da**it...

The subtitles say “suspenseful music plays” XD XD

Wait Jack noooo. Don’t go after her alone! Chase Dean instead!!

NOOO!! NOT IN THERE!!!

She’s totally gonna trap him in there.

...what?

She’s being so condescending shut the fudge up.

What? No.

Does he still not have a soul? Is that what he’s hiding? That wouldn’t make sense.

Oh wait. I get it now.

HE IS NOT!!! SHUT THE FUDGE UP LADY!!

LADY STOOOOOP! HE DOESN’T NEED YOUR SH**!! HE ALREADY FEELS GUILTY WOULD YOU QUIT IT??!! :’( :’( :’( :’(

HEY! NOT COOL!

I HOPE SOMEONE RIPS YOUR HEAD OFF B***H!!

They’re not. They know he won’t now.

SHUT UP LADY!!

HEY!!! STOP IT!!! LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!

TAKE HER DOWN JACK!!!

He IS family!

...ummm...what??

GOD DA**IT!!

...my mom literally just said “told you so” about the poisoning. ...which also explains why she walked away to make another smoothie, because she WANTED him to find the video, says my mom. And yes, my mom was right, AND I HATE IT!! SCREW YOU LADY!! LEAVE MY BABY ALONE!!

It IS safe you B**CH!!

HE’S NOT A MONSTER!!! :’( :’( :’(

DA**IT!! DEAN PLEASE DO SOMETHING!!

Ha! He’s so excited about the sandwich and it’s adorable.

But also save your son!!

...wait what?

She’s...she’s really just gonna out herself like that?

Ha! YES!

Aww...Dean’s so disappointed. :(

BUT! He’s sticking up for his son! Because even if he’s mad at him for everything that happened to Mary (but also get over it, because she sucked anyways, Dean XD), of course he’ll still protect him.

Ha! The way he just takes it away…

Aww...poor baby. :(

He’s so disappointed. He deserves better. I feel bad for him. :(

HE IS NOT! SHUSH!

Aww...looking at the sandwich, but making the right call.

AWW! He’s trying. Best of both worlds.

Take the deal, lady.

DA**IT!!!

SERIOUSLY?!

SERIOUSLY???!!!

Screw you, lady.

HEY! NOT FAIR!

He is NOTHING like his father, thank you very much!

Well...now what??

Oh thank god, Sam’s home. He’s smart. He’ll find a way to get them out.

Her calling him Samuel is both hilarious and annoying, somehow. I think it’s only annoying now because I hate her with what she just did to my boys. XD

OOOOF.

She gonna out herself again?

Sam’s face when she said that about good news and bad news. XD

I suppose the benefit of having a bad guy who thinks they’re doing the right thing is that she’s not trying to hide it. So hopefully, if she outs herself again, Sam can deal with it a little better than Dean did, knowing Dean was not very successful lol. Dean let his love of her food get in the way. XD

She DID out herself!

Ha! “You were always the smart one.”

YES! Good job, Sam. Starting off strong. <3

YES! GOOD JOB SAM!! Nice manipulation.

Ha!

Can’t believe she’s asking about the date.

Actually yes I can. XD

Wait, why don’t WE get to hear about the date? I WANNA HEAR ABOUT THE DATE DA**IT!

Well, DUH, Sam, you think they don’t know that?

Dean OMG!! XD XD

SUPPORTIVE BIG BRO!! XD XD

In Dean’s defense, he knew she’d wait for Sam, so...it’s not like they were REALLY in danger.

Do NOT try shooting her. Are you kidding me right now?

...really Sam? REALLY?! You’re going to try to SHOOT her?? You’ve seen what she can do, and you’re going to try to SHOOT her? She got the jump on JACK. POWERED UP Jack. Really? Call me crazy, but I feel like that’s not gonna work.

Yes. Yes he is. ...so much for Sam being the smart one.

I want to be mad at them for getting distracted by the holidays, but also I can’t exactly blame them given their childhoods, so…

Ha! The way they both react to the Boxing Day breakfast. Such brothers. XD

There ya go. Good plan. MUCH better than shooting her. Thank you boys.

WAIT WAIT WAIT!! Is this where we’re gonna get the “you sure this is gonna work” “let’s say yes” scene from the promo?? I THINK IT IS!! (Okay, so I MAY have watched that particular five second scene a million and one times because it had my boys in it, but I love them okay?? Sue me.)

Hey. Chill, Dean. Don’t yell at him.

Aww baby. :( :( :(

He doesn’t think you’re a monster. He’s just upset. :(

...uh oh. This convo is gonna be bad, isn’t it? :( :(

:’( :’( :’( :’( :’(

WAIT! “For a while” YES! THAT’S A GOOD THING!!

Oh wait. “Still am a little bit.”

“Evil Mary Poppins” XD XD

AWWW!! SEE JACK?! He DOES love you!! <3 <3 <3 <3

OKAY NEVER MIND THAT CONVO WAS ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD!!! I need to break that down for a second.

That convo was short and subtle and to the point, but it says SO much about Dean and Jack’s relationship.

First of all, the fact that Dean decided to be honest with Jack instead of continuing to pretend everything’s fine shows how much he really does care about Jack and how much he still trusts him and loves him. He doesn’t open up often, and I’m glad he finally did.

Second of all, he may have been blunt, but there was so much affection hidden in the way he addressed all of that. I mean, he tells Jack that he used to be really mad, and he still kind of is, but then he reminds him that just because they’re in a rough patch right now doesn’t mean he wants to lose him. Yes, Jack made a mistake, and yeah, Dean’s finding it hard to get over it, but Jack’s family through and through, and that means that, no matter what, Dean’s going to look out for him. It’s the same way he treats Cas and, more notably, the same way he treats Sam. He’s giving Jack the family treatment. And THAT is a BEAUTIFUL thing.

All of that said, between all of the OG Team Free Will, Dean’s relationship with Jack will always be my favorite (probably mostly because they’re my two favorite characters, but also because they’re amazing together), so this convo makes me so freaking happy. <3 <3 <3 <3

Sam you are being not very sneaky.

SERIOUSLY SAM??!!

I take that back. Sam is not being smart about this. *eye roll*

UGGGGHHHHH.

WHERE IS CAS WHEN YOU NEED HIM?!

Actually quick side note, one that I’m adding now that I’ve finished the episode: not having Cas around TOTALLY makes sense. Explanation included in the review.

“Because you are my favorite.” XD XD XD

She shouldn’t still be making me laugh, but dangat she’s too funny. XD

Wait noooo. No torture allowed.

I KNEW IT!! I TOLD YOU!! I CALLED IT!! SCENE FROM THE PROMO!! XD XD <3 <3 <3

I LOVE DEAN AND JACK SO MUCH!! <3 <3 <3

Ha! Fixing his hands.

YIKES!

...but did the cuffs break at least?

HA! She actually converted him to not swear.

I love how Dean makes a point of swearing extra loud after he realizes what he did. I love him. XD XD <3

Oh frick, that didn’t break the cuffs? Are you kidding me? Stupid powerful magic…

OOH! Dean’s got an idea!

THOSE LITTLE SMILES I LOVE THEM!! <3 <3 <3 <3

OH SHUT UP LADY! Are you still talking??

...okay so...trauma.

Please listen to Sam.

YES HE IS SHUSH!

Just because he has blood on his hands doesn’t mean he’s not a kid. Just saying.

Okay so I kind of feel bad for her knowing what she’s been through, but also that does not excuse her behavior. However, I will take back what I said about someone ripping her head off. I suppose that isn’t really necessary.

That said, someone please do something. :( :(

WOULD YOU QUIT IT WITH THE FINGERNAILS SUPERNATURAL??!! I STILL HAVEN’T GOTTEN OVER IT FROM THE CHRISTMAS EPISODE IN SEASON 3!!!

My mom and I are both turning away owwwwwww.

STOOOOOOOOOOP!!!

Jesus Christ lady!!

“Pain is just weakness leaving the body.” Dean what?! XD XD

HEY! Smart! Way to go you two!! <3 <3

And still helping his son up YES! <3 <3 <3

Okay that could not have been a more in character moment between Dean and Jack right there. Between the “not so bad” and the helping him up and the helping him walk down the hall and Jack just following him along and I just...I LOVE THEM OKAY!! <3 <3 <3

AHHH!! SHE TOOK OFF SO MANY FINGERNAILS JESUS!!

SHUT UP LADY!!

YES!

...Dean honey that was the reset button…

There’s no way that did the job. Too easy.

Problem not solved!! Problem DEFINITELY not solved!!

Creepy green eyes!!

Oh she looks maaaaad. That’s not good.

HEY!!! What happened to not hurting family??!!

LEAVE THEM ALONE!!

Which family??!! Cause YOU’RE the one destroying them!

No he won’t.

“You hurt him, you hurt us.” GREAT line!! YES SAM!! <3 <3 <3

Oooh!! He’s getting to her!! <3 <3

Oop. There’s our backstory. Mr. Cuthbert wouldn’t let her go back. Not that I’m surprised, given what he did to Dean all those years ago.

Yes. Yes he did.

YAY! Dean jumping in to save his son. <3

NICE! Good call, Dean! <3

THAT FACE!! Jack’s face!! <3 <3

YES!!!! YES!!! GOOD JOB BOYS!! <3 <3 <3

Awww….poor Mrs. Butters…

Okay now I feel really bad for her. And a little guilty that I called her a b***h. I’m still kind of mad at her, but...her motives make sense.

Hey yay! She healed him!

Wow, this nymph is POWERFUL. Now that she’s nice again, can we, like, actually keep her? Cause that’d be an awesome ally to have.

Aww...Jack being the one to voice their forgiveness. So pure, especially since she was after him all that time. <3

Awww….Dean wants her to stay. He’s so upset. XD

But he also gets it. :) <3

OMG!! That shot with all three of them looking at her and those sweet little smiles they give her as she’s talking about home. There was just so much...genuineness in that! I loved it! <3 <3

Jack being the voice again. <3

Okay, she looks hecka cute in that outfit.

Oof. That makes sense lol. It would be way too easy if it didn’t revert back.

...inter what now?

Oh shoot...that just proves Chuck destroyed all the worlds...lovely….

Awww!! <3 <3

Ha! Her little words of wisdom to them! To reiterate: SUCH. A. MOM. XD XD <3 <3

Sam and Dean’s smirks at each other when she tells them to do the same things they’ve been telling each other to do for years--eat your vegetables and cut your hair. XD

Awww….that little extra nose crinkle and smile at Jack when she tells him to save the world. <3

I also just realized that this breaks my theory that anyone who meets Jack instantly falls in love with him because of how adorable he is. Though, I guess she’s a little different given that extra little motivation to protect her family in the only way she knows how. Plus, trauma.

Oof. Bye bye extra magic.

Aww...this convo between Jack and Sam. <3 <3

Aww Jack… :( :(

You weren’t stupid, baby. You all fell for it. :(

Aww….he’s looking for faith from Sam.

And Sam just gave it to him. <3

I know the line seems desperate, and in a way, it is, but the way that Sam gave him a little smile shows that it’s more than that. They are desperate, and Jack is their only hope, but also, Sam knows Jack can handle it, because he does have faith in him. It’s a short convo, but it says so much.

That tin has a birthday cake for Jack, made by Dean. Calling it right now.

“He loves that apron.” XD <3 <3

I KNEW IT AND I LOVE IT OMG!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

THAT’S SO ADORABLE!!! And that is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT Dean’s way of telling Jack that he still loves him, and that he forgives him. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

THEIR LITTLE SMILES!! <3 <3 <3

I’M SCREAMING!!! ALL OF THEIR SMILES AT EACH OTHER I FREAKING LOVE THIS FAMILY!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

I SERIOUSLY LOST ALL FUNCTIONALITY JUST NOW TO THE POINT WHERE I’M ADDING THIS COMMENT LATER BECAUSE AHHHH!!! <3 <3 <3 <3

AWESOME ending shot. It’s a great way to end a much more light-hearted episode while also setting us up perfectly for knowing that things are about to get heavy and serious. I bet whatever Jack wished for, it has something to do with taking on God.

Okay, so...those reactions were a lot longer than I was anticipating, and I want to apologize, but also, I did warn you. XD That said, review time!

I loved this episode! It was absolutely hilarious, but also sweet and touching. It mixed some crazy and fun moments with some of the most subtly emotional ones, both negative and positive. I absolutely loved all the Easter Eggs, and I loved watching the boys have a chance to celebrate holidays in a way that they never have before, especially with Jack. The facial expressions in this episode killed me. Between all of the little smiles and dorky excitement, I was laughing and smiling right along with the characters. Some stand-out moments/things for me:

That convo between Dean and Jack. I already broke it down above, but seriously, I love how they did that. As a huge fan of Dean and Jack and their relationship, the way that those two interacted this episode was beautiful and really sets up the fact that they’re going to need to lean on each other for support as a whole family in the coming fight, and I loved that. <3

Sam going on a date with Eileen! <3 Initially, I had a theory that Sam and Eileen would end up together at the end of all of this, but when she left a few episodes ago, I threw that idea out the window and it made me sad. So the fact that they went on a date and got to see each other again--even if we didn’t get to see it--makes me so happy and brings back my hope that they’ll end up being together. <3 That said, I am 100% going to write a fanfiction of that date, since Supernatural chose to keep it from us. XD

The acting really stood out to me in this one. Maybe it’s just because it’s been so long since I’ve seen them doing something new, but I honestly feel like J2 and Alex nailed it even more than usual. I mean, their facial expressions were seriously so amazing in this episode. Between the really dorky moments and the subtle emotional moments, I felt like their faces were always saying so much and I loved it. <3

One thing I want to address is the lack of Cas. I know a lot of people were upset that he wasn’t in it, especially since the boys were celebrating so many holidays with Jack, and while I agree that it would’ve been beautiful to have him there, it makes perfect sense that he wasn’t there based on the trajectory of the episode and everything that happened. For starters, if Cas had been there, the wood nymph business would’ve been solved INSTANTLY. Cas is always extra suspicious of people, so if she didn’t trust him because he was an angel, the odds of her getting the jump on him would’ve been slim. And yes, she did poison Jack with the smoothies, but, as this episode continued to point out, Jack is still a kid, so he’s still much more naive and gullible. Plus, he’s upset and guilty and confused and just generally vulnerable now that his soul is back, so it was easy for him to trust and be manipulated. But if Mrs. Butters had tried to do the same thing to Cas, (and I’m picturing that one scene with the milkshake in Peace of Mind here) there’s no way he would’ve fallen for it. More importantly, with how worried he is about Jack, he would’ve been really vigilant about the way she was talking to him and everything, and he probably would’ve caught the poisoning long before it could really hurt him. And you can argue that Sam and Dean probably should’ve picked up on it, which is true, however, even they admit that they get distracted in the fun of it all. While it would’ve been great to see Cas in on the festivities, he wouldn’t have been quite as distracted by it as the boys were, and with his vigilance, there’s no way any of them would ever have gotten hurt. He’d be watching Mrs. Butters like a hawk, and the second she did something suspicious, she’d be gone. That said, I can understand if people want to say that’s dumb, because if they didn’t want Cas to defeat the villain so easily, they shouldn’t have had a villain that could be so easily defeated by Cas, and I’m sure some people feel like that’s a stupid excuse. To which I also offer this.  After seeing those convos between Dean and Jack and Sam and Jack, and knowing that the episode ends with the three of them celebrating Jack’s birthday, Cas’s absence makes even more sense: this episode wasn’t about him. I love Cas, but it didn’t need him. See, Cas already has an undying love for Jack. While Cas definitely saw Mary as family, he never had the same emotional connection to her that Sam and Dean did--for obvious reasons. But he definitely had--and still has--a very strong emotional connection to Jack. He’s always been the most involved in being Jack’s father--again, for obvious reasons. But even after the Mary incident, it was Cas who went to find him, who tried to help him, and who wanted to protect him. Cas always loved him and always trusted him, and he always will. But Sam and Dean lost a lot of trust for Jack after what happened to Mary...and this episode fixed that. Because Cas wasn’t around, it gave Jack a chance to prove himself to Sam and Dean again. Sam had already pretty much forgiven him, but Dean was definitely on the fence. He even says it. But the fact that Dean had that conversation with him and said everything he did proves that Dean still loves him, and it gave Jack the reassurance he needed that, while Dean is still mad, he doesn’t hate him, and he doesn’t think he’s a monster. And while Sam and Jack were on pretty good terms, Jack was still worried that Sam couldn’t trust him--that Sam didn’t have faith in him anymore. But when Sam tells him that he knows he can defeat God, Jack gets confirmation that Sam does still have faith in him. And after all of that, after celebrating all of those holidays together, and having both of those conversations, to then end that with Sam and Dean celebrating Jack’s birthday? That’s what this episode was about. Sure, it was a silly monster of the week episode. Sure, we got some adorable and hilarious moments. And sure, we got to see them celebrate things that they never got to celebrate in a real way before. But underlying all of that, we got to see Jack become part of Sam and Dean’s family again. We got to see them bond. And knowing that this is right before they all prepare to take on God--Jack needed that. The boys needed that. They needed to all trust each other again. And the fact that they celebrated his birthday at the end proves that they do. They’re a family again. They have each other’s backs. They trust each other. And they love each other. And as much as I love Cas, and as much as I would’ve loved to have seen him be a part of their holidays, he didn’t need to be. But those three did. And that’s why Cas wasn’t in the episode. So, frankly, full points to the writers for making that happen. While they gave us a fun episode, and they may have left out a fan favorite character, it created an underlying theme that’s really going to matter as we get into the big stuff of Season 15. And that’s awesome.

All in all, I thought this was a great episode, and I’m so glad that this is how we get to jump back into the season. Not only was this episode hilarious and fun, but it was also a great set-up for the coming battle and for all the hard and serious things that are bound to come in the next several episodes.

Rumor has it that this was the last “silly” episode of the show, and while that’s a sad thought to think about, it totally makes sense with what they did with the episode, and frankly, I think it’s a beautiful silly one to have ended on and a great way to lead into everything that’s coming next.

My Rating: 10/10

[bookdragonlibrary]

Sixth Tuesday YJ appreciation

1-3 ; 4-6 ; 7-9 ; 10-13 ; 14-16 ; 17 ; 18 ; 19 ; 20 ; 21 ; 22 ; 23 ; 24-26

—————————— Unkown Factors

- The Babylonian theater in Hollywood. The Great Khan. Babylonian was the city where Vandal used to live and Gengis Khan was actually him. So Goode Studio promotes Savage’s life. 

- “Playtime after the mission.” Jeff’s thought: “Is he flirting with me now?”

- This robot doesn’t seem to be good news... 

- “Dreamer hasn’t come back for it yet.” Duh, how could she without her Motherbox, dummy? With the Motherbox of another Forever People, my bad. 

- So the robot is Apokoliptan tech.

- Granny’s house is pretty big! No surprise.

- “This is too easy.” You think? :( 

- That was a trap, indeed...

- Shayeris, where Kaldur and his family live.

- Wait... Dolphin’s name seems to be dolphin in Atlantean, which is more logical than in English. I didn’t hear the word “dolphin”. So how do you say dolphin in Atlantean? Delfis?

- They are in Granny’s house since 24h? And Oracle wasn’t worried or tried something before? 

- Kal, why do you speak to Barbara in Atlantean? The lenses translate but still. 

- Why Batman and Robin are in Africa? Tim’s team is also there? What is Miss Martian’s team’s mission? What about the Outsiders? No, too risky for them. 

- “I could not help but overhear;” Of course you did, since your boyfriend was speaking in Atlantean... 

- Great someone want to watch his back :) And Kaldur wants to protect him. 

- Wyynde did military school and sorcery school! 

- “I can beat your ass any day of the week.” Did he just say that chilly to the League’s leader? xD

- Ivy Town. Mal and Karen! Is it still/near Mount Justice localisation?

- So I guess metagene’s test is pretty common now? And what happen to those who are positive? How could they activate it without endangering their lives for the ones who want it?

- I love that Karen’s first answer is no: she doesn’t care if Mal is positive or not :) 

- “Just a regular guy.” Mal, have more self esteem! You fighted against a strong alien last season and had pretty good ideas!

- They only saw the “cool” part of the metagene, meaning powers, as they trained young heroes. But I think they retired before people went with human trafficking so they never saw the bad part of it.

- “He doesn’t have to be meta to be cool.” “Of course not.” Really good point to remind us that. 

- “Your brain’s beautiful too.” Guardianbee are really relationship goals! 

- When Mal says “genetically evolves so rapidly” I think he refers to the human DNA in general as they are more and more meta people (I mean with an activated gene). So humankind goes from Homo Sapiens Sapiens to Homo Meta and metapeople are the next step in human DNA evolution?

- “Genomes can be alter.” I don’t like the route this conversation takes... It’s one thing to activate a gene which is already there, another thing to alter complete a genome...

- “She can keep up.” to the human DNA evolution, right? Not because metagene is here that the other humans would disappear, right?

- “I think my water just broke.” she said so casually xD

- Ketchup, barbecue sauce, hoisin sauce xD

- Brion’s jokes xD

- The Condiment King. We saw one of his tweet earlier in the season.

- So M’gann is still going on mission only with Tara and Fred, so Violet is still benched from the Team. And where is Traci??

- Brion and Violet are still awkward to each other :/ 

- Vic has settle fine between the Team :)

- So Jace still doesn’t want Violet to tell the Team and the Team didn’t ask Jace questions about Violet since they all know she knows things? 

- Granny is reading the same book than Dick!

- Wyynde finds the airbreathing pretty weird xD Wait, was that a gay joke? (edit: now I know blow has another meaning in English. RIP my innocence xD )

- Wyynde must be the only one outside the Anti-Light who knows that Oracle is helping them as back up. 

- “That would not be necessary.” Did Kaldur see another distraction? *ring bells* Did Granny order pizzas or something? *Kadur and Wyynde are behind the door* WHAT? WTF? Why? And why are you telling her your name and your BF’s name? What happen to secret ID this season? (I love that partner are two diffferent meaning)

- How Granny could see a drone that small?!

- Is Overlord the name of this big robot?

- “You did not just ask me to hurry!” Mal, what were you thinking? xD

- The last scream was intense. And you can see Mal’s eyes widening :) 

- “Stay calm, there’s a problem with your little girl.” Difficult to do so actually... I hope she will be okay!

- Some Gar and Vic moments! :D

- So now Vic starting to be ok with the tech now there’s no Fatherbox anymore :)

- “Beetle taught me that one.” Did we miss a bonding moment between Vic and Jaime? Guys, do you know I was waiting for this since Vic was introduced in January?? Writers, how could you be this dirty to me? :( 

- Gar’s smile is up to no good xD Teenagers messing around xD Which room was that?

- Brion waiting for Violet and it’s Jace xD 

- That was a good advice actually. I think? Weird but logical. 

- “This could be your ticket back.” And what about Tara?

- Poor little baby girl :(

- “You just gave birth!” How could she stand??

- “I take the baby outside of the mom and never put the mom into the baby.” xD 

- A hole in the heart?! :(

- Back to the X-pit. The painful X-pit. which is for... brainwashing?

- Granny, stop with the lesson. 

- Don’t step outside, it’s a trap!

- Magic helps against the X-pit. 

- Wyynde took the Motherbox too!

- Granny seems to communicate with the Overlord. Is she Apokoliptan tech too?

- “He must be disciplined.” As if Kaldur will let his BF get torture, you crazy bitch! è.é

- Why everyone knows Nightwing’s true ID now?

- Ouch, Kaldur & Wyynde VS Nightwing and Lightning :/ 

- Karen, what are you doing? Why are you crying? How could she reach the DNA size? 

- So her scientific project was enhance the human capacities? It’s not even eugenism, it’s transhumanism! and she did that to her girl? So she would become super without being meta. 

- I love we have the heartbeats in background.

- Sure Atlantean strenght and magic are stronger to the surfacers’ but we are lucky Black Lightning is against Kaldur who is immune to electricity. It would have been different if the sparring was reversed. 

- Granny seems even crazier is this panel... She has Apokoliptan weapons in her house?!

- Infinity Incorporated? 

- Violet and Vic can feel the Motherbox’ being attacked. 

- “Vic can boomtube?” Duh, he has the same technology than Violet, but maybe less stronger... And maybe kind of different since their powers are from Mother and Father boxes.

- “Don’t fear, sister. I will heal you now.” So this line come from this moment. 

- “The tongue of the old gods.” This is bad she knows right?

- Great move, Oracle!

- Granny is ever more frightening than usual in this episode... 

- What, Overlord is this tiny? Seriously? And it’s so weird to see Granny being... sweet to someone?

- Karen smaller than her baby, so cute! :3 

- Rhea Malia Beecher Duncan, what a beautiful name! Welcome to this world, baby girl :)

- “Weirdest birth ever.” I can feel you. 

- “I did the right thing.” Let’s hope you did :/ 

- Why Dick is so sick? :( 

- Kaldur is worried :( 

- Wyynde knows how to confort his BF :) They’re so a cute couple :3

- Brion apologizes for his reaction, Violet is crying. They finally made peace! 

- And Dr Jace isn’t happy about it? 

- “Complications. Need to get my kids out.” Is it because they faced Granny and she is now worried she come back for them? Doe she know something?

- Wait, her rmentor is Ultra Humanite? (In Western Mongolia) She is indeed a grey person :/ 

- Baby Rhea Malia! :3 So cute! 

- What! A post credit scene? :o

- “I found the Anti-Life Equation.” I’m sure this is Violet :/ 

[statusquoergo]

Credit where credit is due, Gabriel did a nice job directing this episode. He had more screen time that I’m used to from actors pulling double duty, and he seems to have handled the extra workload well.

That’s not to say the episode was flawless. Yeah, by Season 9 standards, it was pretty good overall, but I mean. Season 9 standards.

We start off at home with Louis and Sheila having a terse exchange over tea as I wonder, yet again, why they’re together at all if they’re always so goddamn pissy about everything. Louis bemoans his demotion as Sheila irritably directs him to drink his rooibos and asks him what the big deal is, being that he didn’t even want the job in the first place (true). Louis parries that he only said that because Donna offered it to him the same night he found out about Sheila’s pregnancy (true), but at any other time in his life, he would have taken it (false). On the contrary, you may remember this fairly unambiguous exchange from “Pecking Order” (s08e02) between Doctor Lipschitz and Louis: “As I recall, you accepted Harvey becoming managing partner after Jessica left.” “That’s when I realized I didn’t want to be managing partner.” I suppose I’ve never accused this show of internal consistency before, why bother starting now?

Louis then delightfully compares himself to a ball-less cat and laments that though “the job wasn’t sunshine and rainbows, [he] was getting really good at it,” and excuse me but what? Forget that disastrous hearing that summoned Faye to their doorstep, his most recent acts as managing partner include trying to bully Professor Gerard into letting him be the keynote speaker at Harvard’s Ethic Conference to talk up his failing firm, and going completely off the rails trying to fire the poor IT guy for failing to digitally break into the New York State Bar Association. Louis sucked at being managing partner.

Next up is a reminder that I need to be careful what I wish for as Donna and Harvey discuss his reflexive support of her impassioned but quite incorrect argument against Louis trying to fire Benjamin, and how much she didn’t appreciate it. Turns out it wasn’t so reflexive; he did it because she thought she would like it, which is its own magnificently flawed concept—thinking she’ll get mad at him for disagreeing with her doesn’t say much for his respect for her integrity—but then Donna realizes that he’s afraid she’s going to leave him if he doesn’t unconditionally support her, and you just know the writers thought they were being real clever with this. (Wait, isn’t one of Harvey’s defining character traits his ability to read people? “You read books, I read people” was actually one of the first things he said to Mike in the pilot… Gosh it’s been a long time.)

As I was saying about this show’s internal consistency, two things about this whole exchange: One, all through Season 7, Harvey had no trouble calling Paula out when she was being ridiculous and disagreeing with her about all kinds of shit. Two, as recently as “Everything Changes” (s09e01), Harvey cooed that “[he’s] finally where [he’s] supposed to be” when he’s with Donna, to which Donna replied “We both are,” and like, are they a match made in Heaven right out of the box or what? His trust in their relationship is wildly inconsistent. Unless he wants to forfeit his autonomy for some reason? I don’t know, it’s weird and I don’t like it.

I also take issue with Donna’s dismissive “Oh, my god. Of course. Harvey, I’m not gonna leave you.” This has been an issue for him since forever, as she well knows, but rather than ask him what’s wrong—is he really afraid she’ll leave him over something so small?—or point out that he needs to go to therapy (if she wants to be tactful, she could ask if he wants to “talk to someone” about this), she treats it as an endearing character quirk, and someone needs to save Harvey from all this shit yesterday.

The interruption to this…reconciliation isn’t quite as cringy as the can opener bit from the last episode, but I’ve gotta call it out for being just some truly lazy storytelling. Gretchen appears out of nowhere to tell them they “need to go see Louis,” on account of his demotion, and Donna’s deer-in-headlights response is “Oh, my god. We need to go to him right now.” Yeah, no shit, that’s what Gretchen just said, except this framing affords Harvey the opportunity to mount his noble high horse and declare: “No. You go to him. I need to go see Faye.” Which he does, dramatic music and all, declaring that “dammit, not everybody has to do everything by [her] book,” and I must point out that she demoted Louis for trying to fire the employee who he asked to perform an illegal activity that he failed to perform only because he was caught; in what book is that okay? He then asserts: “You want consequences, I’ll give you consequences,” which is delightfully reminiscent of that old classic, “I’ll give you something to cry about,” in that it makes absolutely no sense, and Harvey, you adorable impetuous dumbass, if your goal is to convince her to leave, I think you might be going about it in a little bit the wrong way.

Roll title crawl! (No seriously, that was all just the cold open.)

Anyway Donna does go to comfort Louis, already treating herself and Harvey as a unit when she assures him that “if [he] ever [needs her] or Harvey during any of this Faye bullshit,” they’re there for him, and dropping the much more interesting detail that she has a much older sister she doesn’t want to talk about who “turned every man she was ever with into an emotional doormat,” which I don’t have time to fic right now but I feel like might explain a lot. Then Alex and Samantha have an endearing little exchange wherein Samantha proposes doing something to help Louis and Alex clarifies that it has to be ethical, and it’s nice to know that at least a couple of people around here aren’t completely insane.

Speaking of things being insane, I won’t fault Gabriel for this because the direction itself is fine, but from a writing perspective, the narrative construct of this next scene is terrible. Harvey shows up at a meeting with Some Guy whose nondescript company is apparently, thanks to his board and the company’s lawyers, being taken over (by someone) against his wishes, and the only hint of context for any of this is that “the people” orchestrating this takeover are “related” to Faye. The obvious conclusion to this exchange is that Harvey is going to help this guy, who is apparently the CEO of this random organization, sue the company by acting as a shareholder rather than a C-level employee, and I still have no idea what the fuck is going on.

Back at the firm where I do kind of know what’s going on, Susan the Associate approaches Katrina with a problem she found in the VersaLife case Katrina’s working, and as soon as they gave her a name in the last episode, I know she was going to be important. More to the point, it looks like Katrina’s got herself an associate! (Remember when senior partners were required to hire their own associates? It was a whole big thing back in Season 1, I think.)

Next up, Louis is having lunch with an old friend, Saul the Judge, who informs him that some other judge is retiring or being fired or something, and offers him a judgeship, and there is so much wrong with this scene that I don’t even know where to begin.

Yes I do. Since when has Louis’s lifelong dream been to be a judge? This is literally the first time he’s ever expressed any interest in it, at all. And another thing, that is not how judicial selection works.

In New York State, judges, depending on the court, are either appointed by the governor and confirmed by the State Senate, nominated by a commission and approved by the governor, chosen at a partisan nominating convention and elected by the voting public, or appointed by the mayor. Qualified individuals can apply to be considered, such as by the Mayor’s Advisory Committee, but there’s no one-and-done offer/acceptance transaction between someone currently on the bench and his lawyer pal, so either this guy is offering Louis a job that doesn’t exist or, more likely, the writers don’t know shit about the New York City legal system.

Moving on. Harvey shoves a recusal form in Faye’s face as he informs her that he “got” a case against her old firm, and he’s “taking it,” as though he didn’t go way out of his way to hunt it down in the first place. He then throws a stupidly juvenile hissy fit, claiming he’ll use whatever he fucking has to to “win,” and prove his system his better than hers, but he won’t have to cross any lines because she de-balled (second reference, just as charming as the first) the guys at her old firm so much that “they’re shaking in their boots” at the mere threat of lawsuit. This whole exchange is basically a showcase of Harvey acting like a spoiled child, and I know he’s a passionate guy but I gotta say, I’m getting tired of this whole act.

Back to that clusterfucking disaster of a judgeship offer, Louis fesses up to Sheila but admits that he doesn’t want to accept the drop in salary with a kid on the way, or leave his friends in the lurch, and she in turn fesses up that she asked Saul to make the offer in the first place because “being a judge has always been [his] dream.” (SINCE WHEN?) Louis is incensed until she tells him that it was basically Saul’s idea, but that if he doesn’t take it now, he’ll never get the change again, which… Why? Well, I guess they haven’t pointlessly manufactured any tension in awhile. Anyway, Louis promises to sleep on it.

Elsewhere, Samantha proposes committing conspiracy to get Faye out of their lives and Alex shuts that shit right away, and I’m actually really enjoying their dynamic right now. Susan asks Katrina what she should do about a smart, funny paralegal she clicks with; Katrina, having “seen that before,” recommends finding a new paralegal, and I’ve never had this question before but is Katrina anti-Machel for some reason? Doesn’t matter. Susan proposes reaching out to opposing counsel, who just so happens to be an old family friend, and Katrina wisely tells her not to, but somewhat less wisely starts and ends her rationale with “Because I know,” which I’m sure won’t motivate Susan to act in any sort of way.

Now, I’m no dream theorist, but luckily this show has all the subtlety of a Liberace action figure, so it’s not too difficult to figure out what Louis’s subconscious mind is trying to say: He wants to humiliate Faye (for demoting him and taking over his firm), he wants to bang Donna (and maybe also Alex), he thinks of Harvey as his peer but also his inferior (who he wants desperately to impress and probably also to fuck), and his confidence is mainly derived from the approval and admiration of others. Also he wants to have sex with basically everyone. Maybe not Gretchen. But everyone else.

Dr. Lipschitz, to whom Louis was evidently relaying the events of this dream, finds the whole thing quite amusing, but points out that if Louis takes the judgeship, he won’t have his friends around him anymore. Double-edged sword and all that.

Part II

[chocolatecarstairs]

i just finished qoaad and i have a lot to say!

buckle up kids, this is gonna be a long and bumpy ride!

finished reading as of 4:37 am 12/6/2018

1. I AM SO PISSED AT JAIME! like beyond pissed. i get it dru technically lied to you. (a lie by omission. and not even a huge one at that.) but there was literally no need for you to essentially abandon her. especially after all that “she’s like a little sister to me” and “no matter what age she is we’re friends” bullshit. did you even mean any of that? or were you just saying it to get her brother off your back? honestly, she did so much for you. she hid you in london, brought cristina to you even though cristina could’ve told her brothers and gotten her in trouble, she risked quite a bit of her own personal safety and that of her family to sneak into the gard prison and bust not just you but also your brother and his friends out. but at the end of the day you can’t even be bothered to come and visit her every once in a while? drop in, say hi, ask her about how her life is going? obviously, she should’ve told you how old she was, but she seriously made up for it time and time again after you found out. you also seemed to want to be near her in idris when the battle was going on. you said goodbye to her before you went to fight, you protected her when she had to go out to the field, and you were going to go with her to save jules and emma before you saw that diego was hurt. what the hell changed in between that and the wedding? you’re being a fake friend and i don’t like it.

2. I AM SO PISSED AT KIT! admittedly less pissed than i am at jaime. but pissed nonetheless. i get that ty didn’t respond to you telling him you loved him. he probably didn’t realize you meant it the way you did. for god’s sake, he’s autistic, kit! and obviously, he should never have been trying to raise livvy from the dead, but you should have told him as much! you should have gone to jules or mark or helen or literally anyone instead of letting it go as far as it did. i mean did you really think trying to stop him in the middle of the spell was going to work? honestly, kit! not to mention you leaving! tessa and jem are amazing people. they’re going to love you and nurture you and you’ll get to be around their baby! i would be happy for you. IF YOU’D GONE WITH THEM BECAUSE YOU REALLY WANTED TO. all it would’ve taken was a conversation with ty. just one. you could’ve told him how you felt. if he didn’t feel the same way then, sure, you could’ve gone with tessa and jem. but it’s entirely possible that he would have. not to mention you at least owed him and dru and explanation or a goodbye. and, no, staring creepily at them from a distance at the wedding does not count as a goodbye! neither does making jem explain it for you. ty lost his twin. he was going through so much. he was obviously not himself. you were someone who was supposed to get him through that and instead you abandoned him without so much as a goodbye or a see you later. hmph. and poor drusilla. she wanted friends, kit, that was it. her oldest brothers were too busy trying to save the world and take care of her to have a true sibling relationship with her. her older sisters were either dead, or had literally just come back from five years in exile. her younger brother was too young and innocent to be any kind of true friend to her yet. and ty, the only sibling she has left that is close enough to her age to be her friend, wouldn’t let her in. she thought she’d found that in you! you taught her how to pick locks, you were teaching her how to con, you were beginning to think of her as a younger sister! and suddenly, when you can’t imagine having a relationship with ty anymore, all thoughts of the relationship you were forming with dru go out the window? god, kit. even if you were going to leave. even if you didn’t want to see ty. you could have seen dru. you could have told her you had to leave and said goodbye to her. told her that you were sorry. asked her to pass the message along to ty. making jem do it was weak, and you know it. i want to be happy for you, but you’re making it really freaking hard.

3. can we talk about the parabatai curse for a second? first things first, the heavenly fire! i’m honestly pretty surprised i was right about that one. i was so, so, so worried that the curse would actually turn them into angels. i did not want that to happen. i obviously had no clue that it would make them grow into giant, fiery, death machines, but alas. i think the whole true nephilim thing was kind of cool, actually. it’s also kind of crazy that the parabatai bond is so strong that when one of the parabatai turned into a true nephilim the other one followed. i honestly still can’t really believe it. i had a pretty hard time picturing emma and julian the size of skyscrapers crushing the cohort, but i found it kind of entertaining. i also almost cried when helen, ty, dru, and tavvy talked to them to bring them back. even cristina, kieran, and aline had things to say to them. it was a really touching scene. i’m also super proud of dru for being able to lead her family and convince them that they needed to help emma and julian. she’s grown so much since lady midnight (but more on that later). the fact that becoming true nephilim broke their parabatai bond is one of the easiest conclusions of any plot in shadowhunter history. especially one that was one of the main plots of a series. i’m so happy for jules and emma. i wish we could see more of them on their travel year. and i hope in twp they’ll be like jace and clary were in tda.

4. kieran kingson to kieran king of the unseelie court. honestly, i expected this one. i didn’t think cassie was going to give us a full-blown polyamorous relationship in all its day-to-day glory. kieran is going to make an amazing king. i’ve loved his character development over the course of the series. we watched him turn from a jealous member of the wild hunt, to a disgraced and begrudgingly helpful prince, to a remorseful and loving faerie, and finally, to a proud and kind king. i’m glad he can still be with cristina and mark in adaon’s cottage, but i almost wish it hadn’t ended this way. i feel bad that he can’t be happy in faerie and that mark and cristina will feel like something is missing whenever they are together without him in the mortal world. it’s bittersweet but more sweet than bitter.

5. i love julian blackthorn. i genuinely did not even know there were people out there who didn’t love him with their entire hearts and souls. i didn’t even know that there was so much controversy around him until i got into the tda tumblr fandom. i am almost never mad at him. almost. the whole ‘no feelings’ thing got old fast. i was pissed at magnus for performing the spell in the first place and i was mega-pissed at jules for requesting it and asking magnus to do it even once he’d heard of the consequences. i hated no feelings julian. it was so sad for me to see the julian i know and love, specifically because he cares so hard and so deeply, lose all his love and compassion. he literally turned into the julian antis like to picture him as. manipulating emma using sex and her desire/love for him was not cool. killing dane was not cool. not to mention, ty needed him. ty was totally broken after livvy’s death. he was holding himself together with some crazy plan to raise her from the dead. he needed julian to tell him he would be okay and to help piece his world back together. obviously, there were times julian literally couldn’t be there for him like when he was in faerie or thule. but when he got back he had a few opportunities to help his brother that he missed because of the stupid spell. this is the only time i’ve ever been genuinely mad at or disappointed in jules. it was painful.

6. let’s talk about thule. crazy to see sebastian’s vision for the world come to a reality. even crazier that he was in this series at all. thule proved that tessa is the strongest warlock of all time and that church is significant to the plot after all. cameron turns out to be a nice dude. diana is openly trans. raphael is alive and kind of funny and lovable (”vampires excel at ispy”). julian was temporarily free of the spell and the parabatai bond didn’t exist. i kind of loved thule. but there were sad and hard parts too. everyone is basically dead. people who haven’t sworn loyalty to sebastian are chased around and hunted by demons for fun. tessa gave her life to finally defeat sebastian. and poor thule!livvy. having to live in a world all by herself. helen is presumably and almost certainly dead. same with dru. julian and emma were endarkened and now they’re dead (nice to see that julian would literally kill himself, in this case thule!julian for his family, though). tavvy was taken and for sure killed by a demon. that same demon slit ty’s throat and thule!livvy held him as he died. she had to make the hard a terrible decision to let cameron, her boyfriend and probably one of the only people she had left, die trapped in the silent city forever. and she couldn’t go with jules and emma back to earth. as much as i knew it was going to happen, it was still terrible and heart-wrenching to see them seperated again. her letter to ty was one of the few moments in the book that made me cry. the fact that ty didn’t even bother much with it really bothered me. ”i love you. i love you. i love you.” it will forever break my heart and also be one of my favorite lines from the entire series. i really do hope that thule!livvy and ty somehow meet in twp. i need them both to get some closure more than i can say.

7. ty. my poor, beautiful ty. he had a really amazing facade throughout pretty much the entire book. i genuinely believed he was okay for a while. but when kit kept mentioning the bruises on his hands, i knew something was up. when dru went into his room and found it a complete mess, with books and clothes everywhere and furniture destroyed, my heart literally cracked in my chest. my baby ty did not deserve the pain he was feeling. i wish he’d gotten more help from kit, or dru, or helen. i wish julian hadn’t been such an idiot with that spell, so he could’ve been there for ty like he deserved. seeing him so distraught made me almost happy that he brought back livvy’s ghost.

8. i’m a little confused about the whole livvy’s ghost thing. the way i read it, ty ripped a hole in the fabric between the world of the living and the world of the dead. but i literally read the entire last 300 pages in like two hours, so i don’t think i totally absorbed everything. (i’ll go back through it all on the reread). basically, if that’s the case, wouldn’t livvy be able to come and go between the worlds as she pleased? what about other ghosts? this is almost definitely tying into the plot of twp. the same way the emma and jules deciding to become parabatai tied into tda. i wish that he hadn’t raised her ghost, because livvy really deserved to rest peacefully. i just hope he has some nice times with livvy’s ghost before he probably has to get rid of her. hopefully, dru can learn to see her too. (also can we talk about her ghost coming to jules during the livia’s watch meeting? broke my heart)

9. dru really grew up right before our eyes, didn’t she? she went from a sort of shy, timid little girl who wanted nothing more than to join the fight to a strong young woman who knew her worth and learned that fighting in battle isn’t always what makes you brave. she went on her own and broke the prisoners out of the gard. and when everyone was going to battle, she stayed behind with tavvy to keep him safe and comfort him.  when jaime was being an ass (still mad at him by the way) she didn’t make herself into someone she wasn’t to try to make him happy. i’m really proud of dru. i can’t wait for her to go to the new shadowhunter academy, make some new friends. kick jaime’s ass for being a dick, and more in the wicked powers.

10. diego becoming inquisitor was probably one of the things i least expected from queen, but i can’t say i’m mad about it. i honestly think its the perfect job for him. i’m happy to see he’s moved on from cristina and didn’t die like i thought he would. he’s really grown on me throughout the series. i went from not really liking him, to hating him, to pitying him, to loving and respecting him as a character. i can’t wait to see what he does as inquisitor and how he help’s move the new clave-in-exile forward. speaking of which, alec as consul. wow. i am so proud of my little baby. he really does deserve the world. he is going to do amazing things for the clave and bring them forward to be more a more caring, accepting, and diverse group of people. i’m so happy that he’s now in the position to make the changes he wants to see in the world. like downworlder-shadowhunter marriages. speaking of which, the malec wedding! i am so happy for the two of them! it is so incredibly cute that alec surpirsed magnus with a wedding ceremony. and that he was so nervous to propose (even though they were already basically married anyways). it was so beautiful. jace as alec’s suggenes. catarina as magnus’. the fireworks. ugh. goals right there. it was also so sweet that kieran came and the hot faerie threesome reunited. and that emma and julian got to be together for real, in public, happily. the whole thing about the blackthorn kids freaking out whenever they found them kissing in the institute hallways was the cutest thing. it made me all warm and fuzzy. i was kind of happy to see that livvy’s ghost was there with ty, but i just hope that she isn’t always there and that ty will eventually learn to live without her. kit staring at him from a distance was sad and creepy. and i’m lowkey pissed that jem and tessa weren’t at the wedding. wtf is that guys? so rude. otherwise super cute, super fun, super happy way to end the book. i approve. 10/10.

11. i can’t believe that alec offered mark and cristina positions on the downworlder-shadowhunter alliance. this is like a dream come true for cristina and i’m so happy for her. i also really hope it will help mark reconcile the differences he feels from other shadowhunters, including his own family, and hopefully, he will feel less torn between the worlds of faeries and mortals. i’m also glad mark and cristina will be staying together. when i heard cristina was going back to mexico, i was very disappointed. her travel year was nowhere near over and i’d hoped she would’ve stayed in los angeles or her and mark would’ve gone with emma and jules. i’m really glad that her and mark will at least be together and get to grow as a couple. it is bittersweet though because it means that the blackthorns are growing apart. jules and emma are going on a (well-deserved) travel year, mark is moving to new york, cristina is going with him. ty is heading to the sholomance, next time we see dru she’ll be at the academy in new york. they’re doing what a normal family does as it grows, and going their separate ways, but it's still so hard to watch it happen when part of what i love about them is that they’re such a tight-knit group. i’m just glad that they’ll all have the institute to return to whenever they want.

12. haline really tugged at my heartstrings this time around. i’ve gotta say, i was fully prepared to not totally like aline. she wasn’t much of an important or defining character to me in tmi and what i did see of her was just kind of eh to me. when cassie released that frittata snippet i was so ready not to like her. i have a major blind spot when it comes to my blackthorn babies, and if anyone even sort of messes with them i am 100% ready to rip their heads off. but i actually really loved aline. she was badass and sensitive and funny and independent and caring all at the same time. seeing her with helen was honestly so cute. their relationship was amazing. i’m so glad they had each other while they were on wrangel island and helped each other adjust to being back. ugh hope to see more of them in la soon. hope they have their baby and tavvy won’t be the baby of the family anymore. i hope they’re only happy for the rest of their lives.

13. i honestly wish the cohort had died. like i was lowkey cheering giant fiery jules and emma on as they slowly, brutally murdered them one by one. they’re awful, bigoted, terrible people and i can’t stand them. zara is one of the worst. i honestly wish emma had killed her. in front of the institute, in battle, i don’t care. i just wish she was dead. she actually deserved it. stabbing emma in the back was one of the lowest moves she ever could have pulled. and all because she was throwing a tantrum that the sword she stole from emma was taken back by emma. when cortana chose emma i was probably the happiest i could be reading the book. emma deserved it and cortana knew it. i do have to say i was in shock that the cohort threatened to kill themselves when alec was elected. and even more shocked that the entire clave left alicante and idris to the cohort. i am sad that the shadowhunters lost their beloved home country. i knew that the cohort was going to gain some kind of power and that they weren’t going anywhere, but this is something i did not expect at all. i have high hopes for the clave-in-exile. alec has already been so good and kind. he changed the laws to allow shadowhunters and downworlders to get married. he praised and accepted diana for being trans and strives to educate himself on transgender people and shadowhunters and what exactly being trans means. hopefully, this kind of open-mindedness and acceptance of others and their differences will stem into the whole of the neurodiverse shadowhunter community. people. like ty, who have autism, or adhd, or dyslexia, or depression and anxiety. the subtle mentions of these things without naming them throughout tda really showed how ignorant the clave is to these kinds of people. (speaking as someone who has add and was ignored for a long time) it isn’t an easy feat to know there is something wrong or different about you but not have anyone acknowledge it. hopefully, alec will learn about the mundane treatments and coping mechanisms for the many neurodivergent shadowhunters out there and allow them the tools thet need to suceed.

14. when annabel died i cheered. i know it seems awful, but the image of julian severing her spine and stabbing her through the heart made me warm and fuzzy inside. my baby avenged his baby livia. AND thule!livvy was there to watch. a truly beautiful moment. i do not feel bad for annabel in the slightest. at first, she was so tortured and sad that i felt for her. even, a little bit, after she killed livvy. i would think, well the cohort was what drove her over the edge or maybe she wouldn’t have done it if her mind wasn’t so destroyed from malcolm’s spells.  but no. she proved that she was lucid and sane enough to manipulate and lie and deceive time and time again. in the unseelie court and in thule. when jules finally got to take of the rag with livvy’s blood on it and throw it onto her dying body i did a little dance. annabel deserved the death she got. and livvy deserved someone to avenge her. but what happened to the black volume? at first, i thought it would stay in thule forever, but if thule!jace and ash could make it into the seelie courts, then it stands to reason that there is another portal open somewhere and that the black volume can be brought back to the seelie queen. i have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of the black volume and necromantic magic in twp. also, can we talk about the fact that the black volume is the dark artifices? it makes sense considering the fact that it has been a major part and plot point of the entire series, but i felt like it was a little underhyped. the seelie king was like oh the black volume aka the dark artifices and then we never talked about it again. i don’t know is that just me?

15. clary is alive! i, for one, genuinely thought she was going to die. the fact that her dreams of herself dying were visions of what was happening in thule seemed kind of cheap. like there was a ton of build up for absolutely no reason. then again, her dreams really were only mentioned, like, once in the series before qoaad and really not much in queen. we really just hyped it all up a lot as a fandom, so i guess we shouldn’t have expected more. but i am glad she is alive because that means her and jace are getting married! when jace said he wanted six or eight kids because of the blackthorns, i cried a little inside. so cute! cassie better give us the clace wedding and not just fast forward to twp where they will already be married and chasing around a while expecting another baby (i am speaking this into existence). speaking of weddings that we need to see in writing, sizzy! my babies are happy! i have shipped sizzy since day one, guys. day one. if i am robbed of a sizzy wedding i will riot and it will not be pretty. 

16. that epilogue though! i was not expecting it. i was confused for a littke while. in the back of my mind, i was wondering how ash would even tie into twp if he was in thule. now i know. thule!jace is crazy. i have a feeling there will be an epic showdown between him and normal jace which will be super interesting. i have a feeling thule!jace is a lot like what our jace was like when he was linked to sebastian. considering he basically has been for quite some time and apparently, there is no going back. hopefully someone kills the seelie queen in twp and someone better can take over the trone bc that bitch has been getting on my nerves since day one.

17. ty is going to the sholomance and i’m so happy for my little baby. the sholomance is going to have great teachers, like catarina and ragnor, and ty is going to learn so much. kit is with tessa and jem and, while i’m still super pissed at him and upset he isn;t with ty, i am so glad he’s going to have parents for once in his life. parents who are loving and kind and caring. and he’ll get to hang out with baby carstairs (hopefully a boy named will. i’m speaking that one into existence too.). dru is going to make new friends. tavvy is going to grow up. helen and aline are going to have a baby, so all our faves will be aunts/uncles. ugh, i cannot wait for the wicked powers you guys have no idea!

this is basically it! if you guys want to hear my opinions on anything else, or you have any questions for me about any part of the book my asks are always open! i seriously love when you guys send me asks, so please do!

[gutterballgt]

bamfcoyotetango replied to your post: Gutter, I've been stuck by the sick. :( Could you...

Thank u~ I love how you described making this back in the Chuck is Sick!AU

Heh, the process itself is kinda Zen, ya know? As time-consuming as it is, I love chopping vegetables and making noodles, etc. I’ve even started to like peeling garlic (which I do to roast and crockpot with my beef bones). For an ADHD nutbar like me, focusing on a simple physical task (especially with music playing in the background) actually lets me THINK about things, instead of my mind just running around like a monkey on crack.

Plus, at the end, delicious soup. Bonus!

And now for the rest of your ask, some floof continuation from the These Two Clownshoes universe:

“Chuck, this is ridiculous.”

“Hush, you. I’ve already said how this is gonna go. You don’t have a say.”

Grumbling and rubbing irritably at his nose with his sleeve, Raleigh slumped back against his pillows and gave up. He was too tired to argue, anyway. Plus, he’d discovered over the past months that Chuck, while sufficiently gone on him to compromise on pretty much everything in their relationship, could be a goddamn stubborn bastard when it came to Raleigh’s overall health.

So, after the big ginger jerk finished tinkering over at the kitchenette they’d gained when moving into the bigger couples berths in the shatterdome’s upper barracks, Raleigh didn’t protest when the kid crawled over him, scooted up behind him, and mercilessly snuggled him. Chuck insisted it was the cuddling as much as the soup or the anti-virals that had gotten him over that vicious bout of the flu, and no amount of reason would change his mind.

According to Chuck, Raleigh had healed him with sheer dedication to snuggles. Thus, he intended to cure Raleigh of this stupid cold with the same.

Though he’d also tried to make the soup, which was half of the tinkering over in the kitchenette. The rest was cups of tea for them both, though there was no way Raleigh could even reach the steaming cups with the Great Australian Octopus latched onto him from behind.

Sniffling and again applying his sleeve -- yes, tissues were close by, but the sleeve-wiping grossed Chuck out, so Raleigh did it in hopes of sparing himself the brat’s so-called ‘treatment’ -- he squirmed restlessly.

“I’m bored.”

“You’re too tired to be bored, love. You need to rest.”

“Put on a movie or something.”

“It’d keep you awake. You should sleep. It helps your body heal.”

Groaning, he tried to roll over, then grunted when Chuck just held him more securely. “Chuuuuuuuuuuck.”

“Oh, my God, you turn in to an infant when you’re ill. You know that?”

Silence for a moment. Of course, it couldn’t last. 

“It’s hot.”

“It’s cozy.”

“I want a drink.”

“You just had one.”

“Tea’s getting cold.”

“It’s still steaming. It’s fine.”

Huffing, he slumped again, this time against Chuck’s hard bulk instead of the pillows. Admittedly, the kid was comfortable to slump against. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to cuddle. He very much liked cuddling with Chuck, actually, and they did so every chance they got.

Just... he hated being sick. He hadn’t been sick in years, long enough that he’d forgotten how big a pain in the ass it really was. But where Chuck had been impossible while ill and had chased everyone away, Raleigh just... turned into a whiny kid. There. He admitted it.

And he didn’t want Chuck seeing that side of him and maybe deciding this whole “us together” thing wasn’t what he wanted, after all. That Raleigh was too high maintenance. Too much trouble.

Dammit, they’d just had full-on, penetrative sex for the first time last week. And it was fucking spectacular. And he should’ve known all of this was too good to be true. Like every other good thing in his life.

Sighing, he felt his eyes prickle and squeezed them closed. He was too tired for all this self-reflection. He’d reluctantly gotten used to crying occasionally in his sessions with Larry, but he tried to leave that in the therapy room.

And there was really no reason to cry right now. He just... felt like crap. And he knew he was being whiny and contrary.

And he didn’t want Chuck to see it, but he didn’t want him to go, either.

Strong fingers stroked through his hair. “It’s alright, love. You’re just tired, yeah?”

Jesus. Had he said any of that out loud? He didn’t think so, but...?

“You took care of me. Let me take care of you.”

Sniffling again, though he didn’t resort to his sleeve this time, he grumbled. “You’ve been taking care of me. I’m a fucking basket case every other time I get out of therapy, and you have to be getting tired of that shit.”

Of me being needy, he didn’t say. Of me being such a goddamn pain in the ass. Of me being useless and now being sick on top of that.

“Raleigh, mate....” Sighing heavily, Chuck snuggled closer still, which shouldn’t be possible. “I like that you tell me how your therapy sessions go, yeah? I want you to be okay with being upset in front of me. I want you to... y’know... trust me with that.” He nuzzled his nose against the nape of Raleigh’s neck. “Makes me feel like you actually need me for something, yeah? You’re so damn independent sometimes, I wonder why else you even keep me around.”

He blinked, sniffling but only half-noticing. Chuck worried about why Raleigh kept him around? Wanted to feel useful so he’d feel more secure in their relationship? So Raleigh wouldn’t leave?

Jesus. It’d take a goddamn world-ending catastrophe to make Raleigh leave at this point.

Maybe... maybe they were both in the same boat, too early in the game to know for sure where they stood but far enough in that they didn’t want it to be over yet.

Maybe... it would be okay if he was a little whiny and needy. Just this once. Just until this stupid cold was past.

Chuck had slipped an arm under him to hold him close. Sniffling again, Raleigh reached down and threaded their fingers together, pleased when Chuck clasped him back, still running the other hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry, Chuck.” Sniffle sniffle. “I just turn into a whiny bitch when I’m sick. Makes me wonder why you keep me around.”

He felt the kid smile against his nape and figured he might have said the right thing for once. Relieved, he smiled, too.

“You make one fuck of a good personal body heater, for one thing.”

He snickered, then immediately regretted it. Instead of resorting to his sleeve, though, he reached up for the box of tissues overhead and used one of those. No sense being a gross heathen when he didn’t actually want to chase Chuck away.

“And there’s that French toast you make.”

Yes, Raleigh had eventually lived up to the promise once they had an actual range and made the storied French toast. Chuck had been smitten. It was now a weekly treat. In fact, it was the one time Chuck refused to invite Mako and Herc for a little family time. He absolutely refused to share.

“And this, of course.” Another nuzzle at his nape. “The right sandalwood. I fucking love this smell.”

Warmth spread through him, and he cuddled back against that warm, solid body, letting the Great Australian Octopus wrap him up and hold him tight. Maybe Chuck wasn’t always standing with one foot on the threshold, after all. Maybe the big jerk really did want to stay around, no matter what.

“You won’t kick me out if the soup takes like shite, will you?”

The smile widened. “I’m really fucking comfortable right now, babe.”

“Is... that’s a no, right? Was that a no?”

God, he loved this giant dork. He really, really did. Squeezing the arms holding him tight, he chuckled. “That was a no. Even if the soup sucks.”

“Good.”

And since Chuck really did sound relieved, Raleigh just lay comfortably wrapped up, letting Chuck hold him as tight as he wanted, soaking up the warmth and the care and ignoring the nagging need to blow his nose. And maybe sneeze.

He didn’t even wake up when Chuck got up to check the soup. 

And when the poor kid, nervous and hesitant, brought him a steaming bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup, he didn’t mention that the noodles had cooked into gummy clumps from lack of stirring or that it was a little saltier than expected or that the veggies were unevenly chopped, so the little pieces were mushy while the big ones hadn’t cooked all the way through.

He merely sipped Chuck’s efforts with a smile that immediately brought the poor guy’s shoulders down and a look of infinite relief to his face. Besides, he really did feel better, so maybe Chuck had something with his theory, after all.

As far as he was concerned, Chuck really had snuggled him better.

It sure as hell wasn’t the soup.

[selenityshiroi]

Fairy Tail 545 Final Chapter

Unpopular opinion, I kind of love the open endedness.

I mean, there were some things I would have liked to have seen resolved or addressed. I would have liked to have seen Gray give Juvia her answer (although, since we already got confirmation of his feelings this doesn’t feel like too much of a bother), I would have liked to have seen Lucy confront Natsu about him leaving for a year, I would have liked to have seen what happened to Brandish, I would have liked to have heard about Lucy finding Aquarius’ key during the year...

But I think this is a fitting ending for the manga because, really, the adventure hasn’t ended for them. We always knew there would be a story beyond the ending (unless there was a ‘rocks fall, everyone dies’ ending which was NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN) so it’s nice to think of everyone living their lives beyond what we see.

Also, so much room for extra content! If Dragon Cry has been financially successful (and I guess we won’t know for certain until the DVD/Blu Ray release later in the year) then I can CERTAINLY see another movie being released based after the manga end. And it wouldn’t surprise me if Mashima released a couple of omake chapters at some point, even though I’m sure he’ll want to focus on his new project for a bit.

I don’t think the anime will expand too much on the manga but we have that to look forward to, as well. I can’t wait!

But, back to the chapter, there were a lot of things I really liked.

I’m not all that impressed with the scanlation (outside of several pieces of dialogue in the wrong bubbles, some of the translations are a bit awkward) so I may comment again after we get the official translation on Wednesday, but there were a lot of cute moments as well as a lot of teasing and trolling.

Gruvia, as I said, have already confirmed their feelings so seeing Gray acting like a protective (if shy!) boyfriend was cute if probably underwhelming to some people. But, for me, the background work was already done when it came to them, so they literally needed a panel to confirm that they were together.

The Gajevy babies are probably a dream come true for their shippers! (also lol at poor Wendy, what else has her poor sensitive ears overheard)

I laughed like hell at the Laxus ship trolling! I don’t particularly care about any Laxus ships but I hope the fans of his ships got a giggle out of it rather than it sparking any ship wars!

It was nice to see that Sherria managed a little magic to show her recovery is underway. I’m less thrilled about Mermaid Heel being exclusive models...but lol at the Sabertooth Eating Contest being their major event.

Also, Anna and Lucy meet up and Anna is a teacher (also I am laughing so fucking much at the whole scent thing because I remember some anti-Nalu fans saying that Nalu would be incestuous because Anna taught Natsu as a child (hahaha wtf so much bad logic) and then there is Gajeel going ‘haha you like Anna because she smells like Lucy’ and Natsu is just ‘yes, and???’ and I think we can say that it is canon that Natsu likes the way Lucy smells and also Lucy is the more significant relationship in his life and if anything his feelings for her would influence the way he felt about Anna and not the other way around)

I saw a lot on the tags about people feeling that Jerza got shafted, and I get that they didn’t share a panel. But, holy shit, Jellal got pardoned (thank you Queen Hisui!!!) and Lucy commenting on Erza carefully brushing her hair everyday...

I mean, everyone is aware that Japanese romantic tropes are completely different than Anglo-American ones, right? That Japanese romantic tropes are more about subtlety and quiet devotion?

Erza carefully tending to the hair that Jellal named her for is super fucking romantic. And Hisui once again pressed the importance of living onto Jellal (which had previously been thrust upon him by Ichiya in the context that he needed to live for ERZA). They may not have shared a panel, but it was made super, super clear that they are tied together.

(Also, Kinana mentioned that Erik is her boyfriend so obviously the Crime Sorciere peeps aren’t that far away)

And as for Nalu...oh boy. Again, JAPANESE ROMANTIC TROPES ARE NOT ANGLO-AMERICAN ROMANTIC TROPES.

Would I have liked to have seen Nalu kids or some sort of confirmation that they get together eventually? Sure. But, to be honest, mostly to throw it into the faces of salty salty haters.

One thing that I WASN’T expecting was some sort of love confession. A hug? Sure. And we got that. But not a love confession and not a kiss.

I would have always expected their affections to be expressed in some sort of devotion to being together. Hell, even my 13500 word Nalu fic (which is mostly jossed because of the year later thing) doesn’t feature a single moment of them confessing their feelings for each other but is instead focused around their desire to be together and to build a home together. So you can tell I didn’t believe it would go down like that.

And what did we get? We got Natsu telling Lucy that they would be together forever.

This is the Natsu who worked alone before Lucy. Who left her before Tenrou to train on his own. Who got scared and left on a training journey for a year.

But now? Now he wants them to be together from now on. And that, to me, says a lot more than a kiss would.

And, also, Mashima-sensei is a fucking tease!

(the 100 year mission being his ‘thing he wants to do’...lol...at least it’s clear that it was something he’s been planning on doing with Lucy!)

Final few things:

LUCY, WHY DID YOU CUT YOUR HAIR??? I’m crying, her long hair was so cute...and I hate her first default outfit. I’m guessing it’s for nostalgia purposes but, fuck you...I’m gonna headcanon that the outfit gets destroyed almost instantly (the only time I’m advocating for her clothes to get destroyed) and she gets Cancer to lengthen her hair again because she misses it.

The Zervis reincarnations...I think it is cute but at the same time...how did they get reincarnated into the past? But then...Zeref was rocking the power of time and space just before he died and Acnologia was playing around with Space Time, too. So maybe it was just a convenient time to die. Anyway, here is to them getting a second chance at happiness. I would have preferred getting their ghosts trolling the guild hall but what can you do!

And finally, I’m so sad that this is the end but at the same time I don’t feel like it is?

I have no idea what I’m going to look forward to week after week without my precious babies. There is so much fanfiction room and I’m content with where it has been left, but there is also so much more I would have liked to have seen. And it really does feel like we could drop in on them again whenever we want to, so it doesn’t feel like they are forever gone.

So I’m sad but I don’t feel like there is anything to mourn.

[akissatmidnight]

If you’re anything like me, you watched the Outlander season three premier expecting to ugly sob, scream at the TV, and frantically text your friends that you were miserable and excited at the same time. I mean, I read the series multiple times, but I still watched on the edge of my seat.

Well, I can’t just stop at harassing my BFFs to bring me whisky to drown my sorrows, I need to tell the world every single one of my feelings about the premier episode of Voyager. So, if you haven’t had the chance to watch, please run away and maybe check out our Outlander page HERE for some spoiler-free fun.

When I turned on the TV, it was showing the finale of season two. That’s right, I had to have my heart ripped out again as I prepared to ugly cry…

Oh, god. Now the finale. Please…not the finale of season two, I’m still not over it.

Please, Claire, stay in Scotland, for the love of all that is good and tartan!

Noooooo she went homeeeee!

I need some reinforcements to get me through the premier. I’m already a hot mess, minus the hot.

YASSSS I’m hearing that OG Outlander theme song. Chills all over.

NOOO I’m seeing chains and all shots of some of the misery Jamie is going to feel on the field and in prison.

Claire, get yourself over the sea to…those standing stones and get your man!

Ugh, I feel like I’m going to say this a lot, but f*ck those redcoats. I know they’re just doing their job and most would rather not kill a bunch of Scottish guys, but just from seeing them in the intro, I know we won’t be friends.

Well, show officially begins by tearing my soul out while the camera pans over the bodies of the dead and dying. Greattttt.

F*ck you, red coats!

Someone please help Jamie. He needs a doctor, a drink, and a hug like nobodies business.

And F*ck you in advance, Charlie. I know you’re useless.

Back to crying.

Someone bring me a drink.

As someone with a history degree, watching all the screw ups on the battlefield is really painful. I know that the British had the money and the manpower to win, but there were so many mistakes made that lead to the fall of Culloden. And as a person with strong Scottish heritage, it’s weird to be watching what basically forced my family to flee to France and later Ireland before America.

Back to sobbing…

YAS, Jamie, you tear that red coat apart with your bare hands. Bathe in the blood of the vanquishes!

OMG it’s MURTAGH here to save the day!

Oh, wait…this might be the last time we ever see him…

Great, now my wine glass is filled with tears of loss.

Also, f*ck that red coat right there.

And there’s Black Jack “murderous rapist” Randall, here to make things on a bloody battlefield even worse!

Ugh, I hate is stupid, blue-blood guts.

Omg Black Jack got a swipe in to poor Jamie’s leg!

I hope Jamie gets the satisfaction of killing him…like straight up gutting him.

Look, it’s Dream Claire! Save him with your time-traveling love!

I’m not crying, you’re crying!

Rupert to the rescue! God bless that beautiful, one-eyed man!

Wow…that’s where Claire and Frank are going to be living?

How much does he make as a professor?!

Like…I know people are really anti-Frank, but my man is really trying.

He’s literally doing anything he can to make her happy, but Claire is having none of it.

Maybe that’s why the stove doesn’t work. It’s feeding off Claire’s despair and overwhelming grief at losing the love of her life.

But the wood work in that house? AMAZING!

I think Mrs. Nelson from next door is nice. She’s probably all about having another young, fun lady around to swap laundry and casserole secrets with.

Where did Claire perfect her open fire cooking? From her hottie with a body of a second husband, that’s who!

And does Frank like surprises? I got seven pounds of baby brewing in Claire’s stomach that says otherwise.

Okay…so where the hell is Murtagh? Where is that crazy, quiet, sassy man we all love so much?

Also, Rupert, if you can get an exit, leave. I’ve read the books, but I still have hope you will LEAVE AND NOT GET KILLED.

Claire looks so sad…I mean, I had the worst pregnancy, so I can commiserate to a degree, but the added grief she can’t really express must be terrible.

And this smarmy, intellectual asshole in the glasses can suck my dick.

He’s all, “Ooooh, Frank, you wife can read the newspaper? Mine only reads recipes like a good wife. And women learning how to accomplish historically male-dominated jobs? I’m laughing so hard, I almost spilled my sherry!”

I kinda wish Claire straight up stabbed him. She learned from true Highlanders how to kill a man quickly and with minimal mess.

It’s crazy to think that two hundred years in the past, Claire had more respect from men.

I’m gonna be real…Jamie wouldn’t have let some guy talk to his wife like that. I’m sympathetic to Frank’s feelings, but he could have said something.

Oh…wait…Jamie’s asking for Murtagh. I can’t take it!

Ugh, here are more red coats and their leader looks like one steaming pile of spotted dick, if you catch my drift.

Kill all the survivors? Yeah, I hate him.

Lord Melton looks a little too pleased at having to slaughter a bunch of wounded Scots.

And there’s Rupert bringing the sass. I’m going to miss that so much!

Ooooh, Lord Melton is going to let them write letters before being executed. How amazing is he?

I think Claire wants to be that bird…free in the wild.

Also, I’m feeling for her. She’s in that stage of pregnancy where you’re huge and don’t really give a shit that tea comes in bags, not tins.

It’s really clear that Frank isn’t coming to terms with Claire’s pregnancy. I get that he’s not the bio-dad and all that, but he offered to play daddy.

How awkward is this whole exchange?

He’s projecting right now. He isn’t really talking about getting citizenship, he’s talking about how he feels Claire left him (England) and everything he fought for (their marriage) so easily and it hurts.

But that whole “fucking other people” jab was low, even if it was right and she’s basically punishing Frank for the sin of not being Jamie.

Looks like I can never wear red again without being reminded of this extremely upsetting premier.

Melton, let the two kids go. You know they were basically going with the flow. They can’t even grow beards yet!

Oh, look, Melton’s being a spotted dick again.

We all need a Rupert in the hard times. He’s like a sturdy standing stone.

Ugh, Jamie said he can’t write to Claire because she’s gone. I need an adult. Hold me…

Rupert was very underrated in this show.

God speed to heaven, you beautiful bastard! You were too good for this world.

Don’t cry, Jamie. If you cry, I cry and then we’re all sobbing messes with blotchy faces tomorrow!

“I’m sorry, Claire,” he says…I can’t take it.

That couch Frank is sleeping on looks really pretty but very uncomfortable.

Hold up. What’s he doing at that desk? A letter?

TO THE GOOD REVEREND?!

Ugh, what a time for Brianna to decide to be born. Just like Claire’s daughter to do something at an inopportune time.

Here’s Melton again, bringing those good vibes.

Look now noble. “No man shall be shot lying down on my watch!”

Now they’re chatting it up about John Grey while Jamie’s bleeding out in a pile of hay.

Now Melton says Grey’s his bro and he wants to pay the debt Grey owes Jamie.

What a stand up fella (sarcasm).

And look at this asshole trying to shoot Jamie under and alias.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Oh, look…another man acting like Claire is a coffee table or something.

Like, dude, she literally travels through time and parties with some of the biggest names in history.

Suck a haggis.

Oops. Claire really just dropped the miscarriage on Frank like that. Ouch.

Again, I know Franks not Jamie and all that, but he is trying!

And at least they can joke about that ashtray now. Good sign for the future.

There’s that historical “twilight birth”!

Side note, the show Call the Midwife is all about midwifery during that time period and it’s a great show!

Omg there’s Jenny! Beautiful Jenny!

Is that…LALLYBROCH!

We’re all finally home.

Give Claire that baby! I know you have her!!

Look at that healthy little redhead.

Frank, you’re killing me. You’re just trying to love your family!

Oh, no. Where did she get that red hair? Talk about salt in the wound.

Btw she got it from her da.

Ugh, you guys. That was a tough watch for so many reasons, but it’s also so nice that the Droughtlander is finally at an end. Now, I don’t know about you, but I need a stiff drink and a hug. Preferably by a tall, red haired, handsome Scot. And if you’re craving more Outlander fun, check out our Outlander page HERE!

And if you love my articles and quizzes, you’ll probably love my books! The Scottish Stone Series is a collection of romantic novels set in Victorian Scotland and England. All are available in paperback and ebook HERE!

Finally, to celebrate the end of Droughtlander, you should treat yourself to something fun. Fangirl Pixie Jar has amazing custom and ready to wear fandom jewelry, including some inspired by Outlander! You can shop HERE and get 15% off with the code MIDNIGHT15

Outlander Premier Feels If you're anything like me, you watched the Outlander season three premier expecting to ugly sob, scream at the TV, and frantically text your friends that you were miserable and excited at the same time.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #127: BRIDE AND DOOM!

September, 1974

I am in awe of that title. Its just... I think I’m crying a little.

Sometimes I love this horrible thing I’ve subjected myself to.

Apparently this is a crossover with Fantastic Four. In fact, spoilers but this story will continue into an issue of FF.

It feels as if there’s been a lot of crossovers lately. Although ‘lately’ is being used kind of loosely. Crossing over with Daredevil to see Hawkeye be a jerk and fight Magneto, the Avengers/Defenders War, a brief toe stuck into the Thanos War going on in the Captain Marvel book, and now crossing over with the Fantastic Four to attend a wedding.

That’s like... most of the major players in Marvel. They just need Spider-Man to pop in and I think that’s everyone.

Anyway. Lets get this started.

Jarvis has just spent five meticulous hours cooking a beautiful turkey for the Avengers. He sincerely seems to love his job. He loves being a butler to superheroes.

It then takes less than five seconds to fall to the floor when Gorgon and Lockjaw teleport into the mansion right in front of the dinner table, startling Jarvis.

To his credit, Gorgon thought they’d be expecting him. See, it’s time to head to the wedding.

The Avengers didn’t even know there was a wedding.

Because its Quicksilver’s wedding to Crystal of the Inhumans and Quicksilver is a little shitstain that decided he wouldn’t invite or so much as tell his sister Wanda that he was getting married because he disapproves of her dating the Vision, who is an android.

And learning that Quicksilver has cut her out of his life so much over her relationship to the Vision when that very relationship seems to be faltering due to her suspicion of Mantis is just too much for Wanda.

But because she’s still a person with normal emotions instead of a plot device, she just has a cry instead of altering reality to kill all of her friends or wipe out most of a people.

ಠ_ಠ 

*ahem*

Gorgon is no happier. Apparently Crystal asked Quicksilver to invite the Avengers and he just never did.

And when Gorgon is unhappy he stomps his feet. And when Gorgon stomps his feet the ground shakes. That’s his Inhuman power. Earthquake hooves. And a swell beard.

To stop Gorgon from knocking down their damn house, Iron Man ZOT!s him, leading Gorgon to briefly suspect that the Avengers are siding with Quicksilver.

Side note: Iron Man looks both weirdly creepy in profile and also kind of like Mr. Miracle.

Mantis tells Gorgon that they’re not taking anyone’s side but they don’t want him to vent his frustration on their house.

To which Wanda cuts in that it’s not Mantis’ house. She just lives there and eats their food and she’s just a guest of the Swordsman. But hell with it, they’ll go to the wedding anyway! Spite is the purest motivator!

Meanwhile, Maximus the Mad. Since last time we saw him, he has evolved beyond wearing pants or having a good haircut but damn his teeth are nice. Do the Inhumans have a dentist in their hidden city?

Does someone have the Inhuman power of dentistry?

Anyway, Maximus greets some off-screen person and proposes an alliance. But the off-screener just blasts him.

Maximus the Mad: “They say I’m insane, because Black Bolt, my cursed brother, rules the Great Refuge instead of me! But with you as my ally, all that will change! With you as my ally--”

*ZAM*

Off-screen jerk: “-- you require no enemies, fool!”

I’d say that was inhuman but well...

Sometime later, the Avengers arrive in a Quinjet.

What the hell! What’s the point in living in a superhero universe if you have to take your own jet to a wedding instead of a teleporting dog?

Anyway, the Avengers disembark and greet the various Inhuman royal family members and Fantastic Fours that are waiting for them.

Wanda is thrilled to meet Crystal. Maybe she can finally have that female friend! And if Crystal is going to be married, she totally won’t try to steal Vision!

Sadly, Crystal informs Wanda that when Quicksilver heard that Wanda was on her way, he busied himself with wedding preparations rather than come to greet her.

This will be a pattern for Quicksilver. Burying himself in work rather than deal with human connections. It later puts his marriage with Crystal in jeopardy when he insists on spending most of his time managing the Inhuman militia instead of spending time with Crystal or their daughter.

And this is around the time when the Inhumans live on the Moon and with Black Bolt being able to destroy a city by raising his voice. It’s mostly busywork.

Sorry to burst your bubble if you were hoping that a marriage in Marvel could remain happy forever.

Anyway. Mr. Fantastic introduces the Avengers to Agatha Harkness, an actual witch that babysits his kid. BECAUSE THAT’S JUST HOW THE FANTASTIC FOUR ROLLS.

I mention this because Agatha Harkness becomes very important to Wanda’s upcoming arc.

And Mantis, probably because her plot senses were tingling, asks someone to explain the giant garishly dressed sinister robot standing in the... hanger? Probably hanger.

Medusa recaps in brief the events of Fantastic Four #131-132. Once Maximus the Mad built a machine to harness the Inhuman’s secret guilt over the enslavement of the Alpha Primitives. And that machine became Omega, who led the Alphas in a revolt against the Inhumans.

Omega was only stopped when the Inhumans realized that slavery was bad and Black Bolt instituted reforms that made every Inhuman equal.

Of course, this didn’t solve every problem forever with how the rest of the Inhumans treated the Alpha Primitives but at least slavery isn’t a thing with the Inhumans anymore??

Also, Maximus can build a machine powered by white guilt? That’s incredible.

Meanwhile, twenty yards beneath their feet in some kind of cave type tunnel some Alpha Primitives meet with the off-screen person that blasted Maximus. Now he is only mostly off-screen and is wearing a concealing robe.

The Alpha Primitives report that the renegade Alphas wish to begin. The off-screen dude says that now that the Avengers have arrived, there’s no reason to delay and that he will strike within minutes.

Man, it would be so much easier if I could just say who this guy was but the reveal is so gloriously stupid I want to spring it on you that way. Which means I can’t even tag this issue properly. Alas.

So less than minutes later and above, the Avengers, Fantastic Four and Inhumans are putting on wedding entertainment.

Medusa you are a queen but you also know how to juggle. That is admirable.

Tragically, Quicksilver is still a jerk and still hasn’t shown up to his own pre-wedding party.

Suddenly, under some weird mental sway, Medusa and Iron Man decide to kill the attending Alpha Primitives and start attacking them.

The Thing and Thor hold back Iron Man and Invisible Woman puts Medusa into a time-out bubble.

But Iron Man and Medusa collapses unconscious.

Alpha Primitive RN-62 (the same one who was meeting with off-screeny downstairs) accuses Black Bolt of wanting the Alpha Primitives dead despite his reforms. RN-62 accuses Black Bolt of premeditated genocide!

And he has nothing to say to that. Like, the caption boxes say that even if he could speak without ripping RN-62 to shreds, he has nothing to say to that.

Also, protip: maybe let the Alpha Primitives have real names instead of giving them robot names?

Later in the evening, Black Bolt meets with Thor and Mr. Fantastic. Which I guess... means he just sits there and lets the two of them talk and occasionally nods or shakes his head? Learn sign language or get a tiny white board, Black Bolt.

Not even Reed “Can rip reality a new wormhole to an anti-matter universe” Richards can think of any explanation about what came over Iron Man and Medusa.

Elsewhere, Quicksilver finally makes a damn appearance. Crystal asks him to reconcile with his sister before their ceremony tomorrow. Quicksilver absolutely refuses because he is an asshole.

Quicksilver: “Wanda refused to obey me, her own brother!”

Scarlet Witch: -suddenly appearing out of nowhere- “Which is not the way things were done in our Balkan homeland, is it, Pietro!”

Quicksilver: “EH?”

Scarlet Witch: “Sisters never demanded that their brothers speak with them, either.”

Quicksilver: “Wanda, I -- oh, NEVER MIND! Crystal --”

Crystal: “Yes, Pietro. I’m going.” -totally questioning this marriage now-

Scarlet Witch: “Now, Pietro -- can we discuss my love life like two civilized adults, brother and sister together?”

Quicksilver: “NO!”

And then he storms off, saying that she’s no true sister of his so long as she consorts with a machine. Quicksilver is the worst.

Meanwhile, Crystal runs into Johnny Storm, aka the second Human Torch. He was also her first love but things didn’t work out between them. He would later date her sister which is probably violating some kind of unspoken social rule but that’s comics for ya.

Johnny just wants to wish her all the best. “Heck, I’ll never forget what we had -- but if you’re happy, that’s good by me!”

And as Johnny flies away, Crystal wonders if she is happy.

Yeah, see. That snide ‘-totally questioning this marriage now-’ thing? I wasn’t just joking.

Meanwhile, Swordsman tries to talk about their relationship with Mantis. He demands to know whether its him or Vision that Mantis loves and while perhaps insecure and clingy of Swordsman, her answer really doesn’t help.

With what she thought she knew about her past in question, she doesn’t even know who she is anymore. If Mantis knew her feelings, she might tell him but she doesn’t.

Not very reassuring.

Poor needy dude looks crushed by her answer too.

Mantis spots Crystal from the balcony and cuts the discussion short to avoid dragging Crystal into their baggage but somehow something even worse than relationship drama happens at Crystal.

By the awesome genes of Agon, Omega appears out of nowhere, scoops her up, and lumbers away.

Mantis and Swordsman spread the alarm and all the spandex set assemble to try to make sense of this.

Since the Alpha Primitives resent the Inhumans and probably the Fantastic Four to boot, Black Bolt asks the Avengers via Triton to question the Alpha Primitives.

Meanwhile, Black Bolt’s coterie and the Fantastic Four will go question Maximus. But as we established on page 5, he’s not behind this for reasons of being blasted. And that’s how they find him. Lying unconscious on his prison floor.

Meanwhile, the Avengers. The Alpha Primitives deny rousing Omega but say they’ve had enough of Black Bolt’s repression. Their bad vibes give Mantis a headache.

Quicksilver decides that if they’re going to chant slogans while his fiancee is missing, then he’ll beat the shit out of them. Because Quicksilver.

While he’s pinballing around, Mantis manages to kick him but Quicksilver is knocked way too unconscious. Mantis knows she didn’t hit him that hard. But while she’s protesting she suddenly passes out inexplicably.

Angered by Quicksilver beating them up the Alpha Primitives suddenly start attacking, forcing the Avengers to retreat, not wanting to beat up these people any more.

Meanwhile, Black Bolt’s party returns from the prison carrying Maximus on a stretcher but he suddenly rouses and talking in the same wavely weird mental sway speech bubbles, he grabs a ray gun from somewhere and starts blasting the Alpha Primitives.

Maximus: “If these huddled masses -- think only humans -- mutants -- and turncoats -- despise their antlike hordes -- let them know -- what their rulers think of them!”

Human Torch and Swordsman fly/run forward to stop Maximus.

Maximus blasts Johnny unconscious but Swordsman manages to ZOT! Maximus. And he feels a rare and heady feeling of managing to live up to the Avengers’ standards. The jubilation of a being the cool hero he always wanted to see himself as.

And then he inexplicably falls unconscious too, not even noticed in the confusion. Geez, Swordsman can’t have nice things.

And now its basically war. The Alpha Primitives are rising up and the Avengers/Fantastic Four/Inhumans are forced to defend themselves. Its bad times.

And then Omega shows up again. And its really bad times.

The fighting continues but the Inhumans Karnak and Triton also suddenly fall unconscious. At this point, geez, something is definitely going on.

And Vision is beginning to realize it. Something about this rings familiar. But again, he fears that his computer mind is malfunctioning. This deja vu has led him to fear that he is forgetting.

Then all the remaining heroes are struck by paralysis. Thor and Black Bolt, the remaining Fantastic Three, and finally Vision and Scarlet Witch.

And now with the heroes all incapacitated and more importantly with the power of hatred having reached sufficient heights and the Omega body surging with energy, the mastermind unmasks.

As in the mastermind unmasks Omega. Why was a giant robot with no secret identity built with a mask? The world may never know...

And having ripped off Omega’s face, ULTRON-7 IS REVEALED.

(I guess the insinuation is that Ultron needed all this hate energy to build an Ultron face under Omega’s face because Ultron will be damned if he doesn’t look like Ultron, except for the time he looked like a naked Janet Van Dyne. Because Ultron has more issues than a lifetime subscription to Marvel.)

What’s funny about this is that most of the heroes froze looking the other direction so they can’t see this dramatic unmasking.

And as I alluded earlier, this story is to be concluded in Fantastic Four #150.

But hey! Why not follow @essential-avengers? I’m cleaning up my older Avengers posts, adding better pictures and a read more. A new old post every weekday of the week. Now answering Avengers asks.