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Intimacy

Someone that looks at you with adoration, love and wonder. Like there’s no one else but you.

Someone that with one touch can make you completely come undone

Someone that kisses your deepest secrets. That reaches your soul. A kiss that pulls you in so deep you don’t know how to swim back up.

A kiss that makes time stop, that makes you forget everything. A kiss that takes you to this magical place where you’re safe.

Someone that takes the time to map your body, to memorize every curve, every sound, every breath. That’s addicted to the way you feel, taste and smell.

Someone that takes you were you want to be taken. Someone you know you can give all of you freely. Someone that brings all of your walls down, that takes a piece of yourself and gives you a piece of theirs every single time.

It’s more than lust, more than sex, more than a physical connection. It’s what gets you hooked, what disarms you. What takes over each and everyone of your senses. It’s what leaves you blind but aware, deaf but knowing, mute but telling.

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"I love you so much. Save Hannah." —June Osborne, 1x07

This is Luke’s episode — his backstory, his survival, his pain. And honestly? Watching this after 6x04? It lands differently. Because you can see how this relationship has been unraveling — and maybe should’ve been let go a season earlier.

But back here in Season 1, it’s a different lens.

Luke’s Side of the Story

We find out what happened to him after June and Hannah were taken — a reveal that was teased at the end of 1x06. The episode tracks his journey: the chaos of being shot, waking up alone, running through the woods, and ultimately being smuggled into Canada.

It’s raw. It’s disorienting. It’s deeply human. And for the first time, we see Luke not as a memory or an idea — but as a man who didn’t give up. He waited. He hoped. He fought, in his own way, to get back to them.

Fighting vs. Surviving

Luke’s choice not to fight in Gilead is a tension point that comes back in full force later, especially in Season 5 — but in this episode, it’s clearer. He wants to stay. He wants to resist. But then he sees what happens to people who try — and realizes that his best chance to help his family is from the outside.

That doesn't make him weak. It makes him strategic. And it makes his survival meaningful.

Flashbacks + Letters

We get more insight into his relationship with June through flashbacks — getting caught, trying to flee, the quiet chaos of losing everything. And then, finally, in the present:

He gets her note.

“I love you so much. Save Hannah.” — June

It's a gut punch. Not just because she’s alive — but because even in her plea, June centers Hannah. And that tells you everything. This is a message from a mother, not just a wife. It’s family. Not romantic devotion.

Where June Stands Now

At this point in the story, June’s feelings are complicated. She’s not fully in love with Nick yet — but that emotional pivot is coming. You can feel it.

Because Nick represents survival with her. Luke represents survival without her.

And while there’s deep history and real gratitude with Luke… the love between them is shifting. Reframing. By Season 2, it becomes clear: she loves Nick. And she’s not in love with Luke anymore. (Something I wish she acknowledged in 6x04.)

This episode doesn’t invalidate Luke. It reminds us of his humanity. But it also plants the seed that romantic love and family love aren’t always the same — and June is already starting to separate the two.

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So I have some news...

We are making a feature film to conclude the Heartstopper screen adaptation, based on Heartstopper Volume 6 and the ‘Nick and Charlie’ novella. We are getting to tell the end of the story!!! I’m deeply relieved and so excited about this new creative venture. I’ve written the script and we’re hard at work already. I know you’ll have a lot of questions, and I’ll be able to talk about it more very soon, but for now let’s CELEBRATE! Heartstopper is getting its ending!!!!!! 🍂

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I think it's generally underestimated how much of a stressor it is for scully to continuously either see mulder hospitalized or hospitalize him herself.

she's a doctor, she knows all the ways he can die or get permanently fucked up, she knows what's being done to help him. she also knows that one day there's going to be too much blood on her hands for him to live through losing it.

(and sometimes, sometimes, she wonders whether or not it's going to be her fault. then she shoots him and it's suddenly a real option. she shoots him to save him, and the irony tastes oh so bitter.)

out of all the times it happens, the moment I come back to again and again is in beyond the sea after mulder got shot. gillian does such an amazing job at portraying scully, especially in this episode, and it makes it so deeply compelling to tear it apart.

you can see that she thinks he's going to die (and he almost does!) and she breaks. enough for someone to get into her head, enough for her to lose control. enough for her to lose herself.

enough for her to stand in the middle of the ER and pray to the god that just killed her father that he won't take mulder, too. she's almost resigned herself to the fact that he's bleeding out and dying underneath her hands. it's no longer in her power to help him.

from the very beginning, she knows that mulder won't stop at anything to get to his specific truth. she knows it will probably get him killed sooner rather than later, and that's part of why she stays.

all scully asks of him is that he lets her stay so she can save him from himself—and she does. every single time, she saves him, right up until HE walks away from her, and then she still comes after him. mulder saves her a select few times, big, memorable gestures we all appreciate, but she does it consistently to the point where it's not even a choice anymore. keeping him safe and sound is as natural as breathing.

she entered that basement office with a mission, and she can and WILL bring him back from the dead, everyone else can go to hell.

he is not dying on her watch, and if he does, it will not last, and that's a promise she could never break.

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GROWTH

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"I wish we met sooner" is such a gentle sentiment. I love you so much I not only want you in my future, but in my past too. I want to have known you when we were small stupid kids, have held hands together as we played outside. I want to have stressed out over exams together, nudging a mug of still steaming hot chocolate against your elbow to get you to focus. I want to have told you I love you before I did anyone else. I want to have held you in my arms when all those sad memories you describe to me were still fresh wounds. I want my past to have been full of you, and full of meaningful memories with you. I want my past lives to have been spent with you, whether as two lovers, or two housecats cuddling by the fireplace on a snowy day, or two flowers that just happened to bloom on the same day, next to each other. I want to have consumed your existence and intertwined it with my own since my birth, never to be separated from you for a moment. I want to have loved you throughout it all, for all time.

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Red or Green?

If you're a color, are you red or green?

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a character who isn't used to being cared for or treated kindly being gently and tenderly cared for for the first time in years or maybe ever. save me

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fox mulder nose appreciation sketch 🗣️🗣️🗣️

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i would recognize that season of television by haircut alone

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One day since yesterday, Erich Einhorn

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Love after war doesn’t look like a fairytale. It looks like survival.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the June/Nick relationship and how it will end vs. the Hunger Games Katniss/Peeta conclusion lately. Hear me out.

Both The Hunger Games and The Handmaid’s Tale strip their female protagonists of everything. Freedom. Family. Autonomy. Safety. And then they ask: what’s left when the war is over?

“You love me. Real or not real?” “Real.” — Mockingjay

“I’ve lost you over and over again.” “I’m here.” — The Handmaid’s Tale

And the answer, in both stories, is: A boy who never stopped standing beside them. Not in front of them. Not behind them. Beside.

🔥 Before vs. After

Katniss had Gale. June had Luke.

They loved her first — but they didn’t know how to love her after. Not after the fire. Not after the trauma. Not after she had changed into someone who had seen too much, lost too much, fought too hard.

Gale and Luke represent the before. The life that made sense. The life with rules. The life where love was structured and reciprocal and uncomplicated.

But trauma rewrites you.

And Gale — like Luke — wanted Katniss (and June) to be the version that made sense to him. A warrior. A wife. A woman who fits the story he’s trying to tell.

But Peeta and Nick? They didn’t want a version of her.

They just wanted her.

🌒 Softness in the fire

There’s a reason both Peeta and Nick feel like “quiet” love stories. Because their love wasn’t about declarations — it was about presence.

“I remember everything about you.” — Peeta “I had to see you.” — Nick, 6x03

They don’t ask for more than she can give. They don’t try to fix her. They stay. In the waiting. In the dark. In the hurt.

Nick and Peeta never tried to save June or Katniss. They simply believed in them when they didn’t believe in themselves.

That kind of love isn’t always dramatic. It’s quiet. But it’s deep. And it’s the only kind that survives in a world like theirs.

💔 Not chosen. Still standing.

Both Nick and Peeta were never the first choice.

And they know it.

“I’ve lost you over and over again.” — Nick “You love him.” — Peeta

They’ve watched the woman they love reach for someone else. Again. And again. And again.

And still? They stand beside her. Not because they’re weak. But because love, to them, was never conditional.

And eventually — when the noise dies, when the fire burns out —they’re the ones who remain.

✨ Light as love. Love as light.

Here’s where the symbolism sharpens.

In Mockingjay, Katniss ends with this:

“What I need is the dandelion in the spring… the promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.”

The dandelion is Peeta. He is light after dark. He is the reminder that she’s still alive — that she can still feel. Still hope.

Nick has always been that for June, too. In a house built to crush her, he was the one person she could smile with. The one man who let her choose. The only light in a place that erased women’s names.

When June walks into the room, the lighting shifts. When Nick holds her, it’s always bathed in soft, golden warmth. Not clinging. Just trusting.

Light in The Handmaid’s Tale has never been safety. It’s been about truth. It’s the rare glow of something real.

And Nick — like Peeta — is the one who always stood in it with her.

💥 An ending that feels real

Katniss and Peeta don’t get a fairytale. They get a quiet house. A scarred peace. A life that isn’t perfect — but is theirs.

“It took ten years for me to be able to tell him I loved him. But I do. He is the dandelion in the spring.”

If June and Nick are headed for anything like that… It won’t be rescue. It won’t be a proclamation. It’ll be the kind of ending where one person whispers: “I’m here.” And the other believes it.

Because that’s what love after trauma needs. Not noise. Not fantasy. Light. And space. And choice.

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they should have hugged🥺

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Nick Blaine, just over here quietly, deeply tormented, having to kill the same guy twice to save his girlfriend's husband. The angst.

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Old TV, being reclaimed by nature

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Season four is behind me, and I’ll save the longer thoughts for later — but right now, I need to get one thing off my chest.

I’m absolutely fascinated by the contrast between Nick and Luke. Nick is like, “Here you go, love… here’s the bastard who hurt you so deeply. Kill him. Set yourself free.” And then there’s Luke, with that horrified look on his face, like, “June, oh my god — what have you done? You killed someone…”

It’s such a powerful reminder that Luke will never — truly never — be able to understand June. Although of course his reaction is very natural, but we're not in a normal story here, are we?

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The picture that Angela made for commander Lawrence is an original piece of artwork made by Madi and Briar. Production took parts from pictures that both girls drew and digitally created the final picture. We got to keep the copy used on set (which we are framing for their bedroom ☺️). @wardentalent