#(love exploring how genuinely fucked up my version of him actually is. something's terribly wrong with him)

[nottakingresponsibility]

"...It's always want, want, want. That's all you do. We all love whining for things we can never have, don't we?"

Jimmy was being petty. He knew that. But he had no better to talk to, why not talk to someone who can't talk back for once. "Don't look at me like that. They want to hate you. Anya wants to hate you. But she can't, can she? For every... single thing you've done wrong. It's alright, Captain. I'll keep them all safe. I don't hate you. Pressure does a lot to a guy, I get it." He felt kind of bad, in his own fucked up way. He never meant for this to happen to Curly specifically. ... But at least now he had someone to shift the blame to. If they did somehow get out of here, he couldn't have what little life left of his own ruined. Since nobody else really wanted to be near Curly, rather it be disgust with his actions or his appearance, Jimmy didn't really care. What matters is he was able to talk to him all on his own for once, without other people trying to change Curly's opinions. He dissociates often in here. Part of him can't bear to look at Curly either, so his vision tries to blur him out. However, apparently eye contact is a good thing for socialization. Maybe that's what Curly was trying to communicate. "... What? Are you ungrateful for my company? Be glad someone's even talking to you at all. ...Hope these painkillers make it fucking worth it." At least he settled down after a while. Maybe people could actually get an ounce of sleep on this ship. He's done his work here. Well, what quickly became his work anyways. Damn under qualified nurse refusing to do her job all because of a little noise. "Goodnight, Curly. Try to rest, it's all you can do anymore." He didn't spare a second glance back when the door shut behind him. He needed to get his own rest anyways, best to get out of there quickly.

[wallflowerimagines]

Hi! if your not busy or backed up could you do the four lords( and possibly the dimitrescu daughters totally cool if you dont) helping a s/o who's stressed about starting college

I'm cracking my knuckles right now. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!

Warning: Some unhealthy behaviors? You call these dorks out on it though.

Alcina Dimitrescu

Initially, you're stoked! College is a big deal for anyone at any age, and you're thrilled to check off this box on your list of accomplishments. It's a big deal!

A...really, really big deal...

Your internal monologue becomes a mess of "Oh god, oh fuck, oh no", on loop, ad infinitum. There's a lot to consider here, and with every new thought you just get even more stressed.

The minute Alcina sees you in this state, she pulls you in for a hug, plays with your hair, and talks you through your feelings. Do you really want to go to college, or do you feel forced into it? Are you worried about the distance? The amount of work? Do you want her to hire tutors instead?

She very much takes a logical, structured approach to addressing your worries. If it's a problem with paperwork, she can have someone handle it for you. If it's general stress she very efficiently talks you through your feelings. If there's someone in particular that's making you feel this stressed, they'll just disappear. No muss, no fuss.

Alcina dissects any possible reasoning you might have to be pressured until it's such a non-issue you feel almost silly for being panicked at all.

Still, she promises to call you every day, if you need her. Honestly, she expects you to call as often as possible, because she's going to miss you like crazy. But she will always be there for you, Darling. Don't you ever worry about that.

Donna Beneviento

College? You're leaving? 🥺

Donna's not trying to guilt you, but the thought of being away from you for an extended period of time is extremely stressful. It's not quite separation anxiety, but it's close.

Something might happen to you if you're away from the Manor for too long! What if you need help and she can't get to you? What if someone tries to hurt you? Donna might be sheltered, but she's heard things about what happens at Colleges, and not all of it is good.

Considering the fact you're also stressed about this situation, it's not a great combination. Both of you are very emotional at the moment, so there's a likelihood that this might cause one or both of you to have a little breakdown.

Instead of your normal fun, relaxing nights together, the lead up to your departure gives your nights a different atmosphere. You're on the floor of the sitting room, sifting through paperwork with a devastated look on your face, while Donna is nearby and trying hard to pretend this isn't happening.

One of you is going to break first, and the confrontation is not going to be pretty or easy. It's a build up of a bunch of emotion, and both of you just sob while holding each other tightly. You vent your worries to Donna, and she explains her concerns to you, and while you guys might not solve all of those dilemmas in one night, both of you do feel better after having explained your anxieties to each other. Communication is key for this to work out, and both of you need comforting.

Donna winds up building you a brand new doll with a piece of her Cadou in it. It's a new member of the family, specifically crafted to keep an eye on you and help you two communicate over long distances. If something goes wrong, or you two miss each other so badly you can't stand it anymore, you two talk through this new friend and immediately feel connected. The distance doesn't feel so great anymore <3

Salvatore Moreau

HYPED! (Devastated)

Moreau adores you, and he is so, so happy you're going to go pursue your dreams. He can't wait to hear about all the things you've experienced, all the people you meet...

You're going to make tons of new friends, he just knows it!

(You're going to meet someone else, someone better, and you're going to leave him. He just knows it. )

Moreau will never tell you how he really feels about you leaving. You could have a full blown panic attack, and he will hold you close, comfort you, reassure you, and do his absolute best to make you feel better. Meanwhile he is absolutely trying to bury the fact that he thinks you're going to meet your perfect partner at college, abandon him, and live your own version of happily ever after.

It might sound silly to you, but it's a genuine concern for him. He's a monster, and you're about to leave to spend time with a bunch of normal people. As he holds you close and convinces you that the things you're stressed about are easily solvable and are tasks that he could help you with, internally he's absolutely convinced that once you leave, you're going to find your soulmate on campus.

The last thing he wants to do is add to your stress, so unless you can read him well, it's likely you'll never know how worried he is. He's so focused on comforting you and making sure you feel confident enough to handle your next adventure that his own worries take a backseat.

He'll be less concerned if you call him and tell him about your day. It reassures him that you love him, even from afar, and his own stress dissolves when you start to ramble about how much you miss him. 💕

Karl Heisenberg

It's cute that you think you're leaving him behind.

You two are a team, did you seriously expect that he'd be alright with you leaving? With you trying to go to a campus where he can't get to you if something goes wrong?

Heisenberg reacts like an upset pet or a clingy child when it comes to the idea of you leaving for college. He knows it's not forever, and he knows you're coming back--that's not his problem.

His problem is the fact that you're leaving at all.

You two are partners-- a perfect match. He's had this idea in his head ever since you both became a couple that the two of you would hardly ever be apart. Now that you're going to be out of his sight for longer than a week? It's preemptively triggering separation anxiety. He's not happy.

He genuinely tries to get you to take exclusively online courses if you aren't already, just so that you stay with him.

He's so consumed by the concept that you'll be away from him that it takes a while for it to click that, uh, this attitude of his? Not helpful.

You're twice as stressed as you were before, and now you're also angry at Heisenberg for pulling all of this childish nonsense. You love him, but he's being an incredibly insensitive dumbass, and you've got to call him on it.

Phones exist. Skype exists. Hell, the two of you can write letters to each other if you want. It's not like he won't ever get to talk to you! All he's doing is adding to your stress and making you feel worse about a big decision that you've already made, and that's not okay! If he's supposed to be your "perfect match", why isn't he being more supportive?

That snaps him right out of it. While Karl still sulks a bit, he puts on his big boy pants and gives you a proper apology.

Once he's got his head on straight, he's very good at helping you through your worries. Heisenberg will massage your shoulders, talk you through any paperwork you might be having trouble with, and helps you triple check your to-do list. He loves you, and always wants to help, but sometimes he gets carried away.

Just...promise to visit often, alright? He's gonna miss you. 💕

Bela Dimitrescu

Jealous. As. Hell.

She doesn't openly make it obvious, but you know her. You know Bela's little mannerisms and tells, and it's obvious to you that the eldest daughter of the Dimitrescu clan wants to go to college along with you. Unfortunately, due to the fact that she can't easily travel, she can't come along.

It's... not a great situation, considering you're so stressed. You're worried about admissions, being accepted into the classes you need, your curriculum, but Bela doesn't try to comfort you. Instead, she sulks in the background.

Eventually, this blows up between the both of you. You're upset and angry that Bela isn't being more supportive, and Bela is angry that you're the one who gets such an incredible opportunity to leave and explore the world while she's stuck in Dimitrescu Castle.

Why are you stressed? It's an amazing opportunity, it doesn't make sense that you're so worried!

...She's so harsh about it that you might start crying, at which point Bela realizes that she might have fucked up. The last thing she wants to do is hurt your feelings, so she'll pull you into a hug and immediately babble apologies until she's blue in the face.

Once you calm down, you're going to have to explain that just because it looks and sounds fun, College does have challenges of its own. The idea that you get to go learn all sorts of things isn't sunshine and roses--there's a lot of pressure to do well.

Bela is a little quiet after that, but you notice she's much more supportive. She starts to treat your worries more seriously, and even will go to Alcina to try to get some advice on how to help you.

She's still a little envious, but she hides it better now. The last thing that Bela wants to do is stress you out right before you leave. She loves you, and wants your last memories before you go to be positive and something happy that you can look back on when you're away.

Cassandra Dimitrescu

Thrilled for you!

College sounds so exciting! She honestly desperately wants to go with you, but due to the composition of her body, she can't exactly leave the Castle.

She winds up asking you all sorts of questions, following you through the hallways, wondering how you feel about leaving to a brand new place, with brand new people, all of the classes you're going to take....

...It really doesn't help with the anxiety. Cassandra won't leave you alone, and is so fixated on asking you all these questions that it actually makes you worry about things that you hadn't even considered before. What if you hate your Major? What if your professors turn out to be terrible?

Instead of your cheerful responses from before, you start to shut down at all of the questions. Cassandra quickly cues into the fact that something is wrong, and when she asks, all of your worries come pouring out.

Immediately, she pulls you into a hug and apologizes. She didn't mean to stress you out at all, she just wanted to share the experience with you!

Once the two of you clear the air, though? She cracks her knuckles and goes full bookworm.

Cassandra's...not great at staying focused, but she does have a few tips and tricks that she shares with you if it helps.

She also is really great at finding resources that might help you out. Despite her issues focusing on anything other than non-fiction, she does know her way around a library, and will pull any and all reference texts about what you might be studying while you're away.

By the time you're ready to leave Castle Dimitrescu, you've got two years worth of knowledge packed into your head, an optimally organized suitcase, and a lingering kiss from your girlfriend that makes it hard to worry about anything else 💕💕💕

Daniela Dimitrescu

...doesn't handle it well at all.

Daniela doesn't want you to leave. It doesn't matter the situation, it doesn't matter what the context is, you're her partner in crime and she refuses to let you go.

In fact, she tries to sabotage your efforts to leave.

It starts small. Your suitcases mysteriously unpack themselves in the middle of the night. Important papers keep going missing, and you have to reprint a lot of documentation. Your phone disappears for hours at a time.

When all you do is grumble and fix what she's messed with, she gets angrier and escalates. Your laptop goes missing. Your textbooks disappear. You start to question where you left your keys, because they seem to move around the room without your input.

Meanwhile, Daniela is being passive aggressive any time you bring up college. She refuses to talk about it at all with you, and acts like you're not even leaving.

It all comes to a head one day when you burst into tears from all the added stress. This is so, so important to you, and not only are you not getting any help or comfort from your partner, but all of your stuff is going missing!

Daniela immediately feels terrible. As much as she didn't want you to go, the last thing she ever wanted to do was make you cry.

She's not super emotionally mature, so while she comforts you, she has a group of flies separate from the rest and bring back all of your things. You figure it out an call her on it, but she actually looks on the verge of tears herself as she explains to you why she did it. She's so, so sorry, but she doesn't want you to go! She loves you!

You two have a long talk about why this isn't cute, funny or acceptable, no matter her feelings. You might even bring Alcina in on it, just in case. Still, the two of you do work through it, and while Daniela isn't the best with helping with general prep, puts 100% into keeping your mood high.

With time, she finds herself... well not okay with it, but she can now tolerate the idea. As long as you talk to her every day!

(And yes, she calls you multiple times a day when you're gone. Alcina eventually caves and gets her a phone, just so she isn't constantly using the line that Mother Miranda uses to check up on the Castle. The two of you talk so often you barely even have time to miss her💕)

[milkpuddjng]

sex education s3 thoughts!

oh my god. so many thoughts. i’ve never been too into sexed just cause. but i have SO many opinions about this season and they NEed to be heard. i think i’ll also be making a post about young royals later on so. yes.

i think i’ll just. start off by saying. what the fuck was that? the only enjoyable characters to watch this season were Adam, Ruby, Aimee and the adults. the rest of the cast (that I had originally really enjoyed watching the first two seasons) were absolutely butchered and made to serve extremely boring, there-for-the-sake-of-it ideas. like?? huh?

for one, Otis felt like. an absolute loser this season. not just because he is the archetypical “loser”, but also because he was just so. bland and had such little zest. i understand that the whole point of the season was that he had no more clinic and couldn’t help people and therefore felt like a dampened version of himself, but wtf? his excuse was terrible. that in no ways would make you as different from your original self as you are in this season! the way he went about his relationship with his mum was good though - that was quite nice to watch. but his friendship with Eric this season just felt.. forced. it didn’t feel like it really did anything with the narrative, they were kind of just there for each other as fodder. and and GOD the character just flip-flopped between being spineless and an asshole, and it really didn’t read well with me. I thought the delicate kind of balance and characterisation of Otis they had in the first two seasons really fell through and it’s honestly a shame they let him ‘develop’ into this in this season.

and don’t get me started at ALL on Eric. to me this was the worst and most cruel character DECIMATION this entire season. my reading of Eric was as someone who had only recently developed into his gayness. he had only recently reclaimed his own identity and found pride in his gayness and flamboyance. this being a way-too-overdone gay trope aside, I had originally rooted for him lots in the first two seasons because it felt like he was doing it at his own pace and slowly getting comfortable with that. in s3 though, it feels like he is condescending BECAUSE of this confidence, and frankly that really just did not sit right with me. they made Eric out to be cruel, tone-deaf and insensitive. throughout the entire s3, even in his scenes with Adam, he’s uninterested, and really doesn’t show much interest in Adam apart from wanting a relationship and all its physical and social perks. he’s so preoccupied with having a Perfect gay relationship and takes no interest in actually knowing more about Adam, and that honestly really rubbed me off the wrong way, especially with the way their relationship was portrayed as being more emotional and something vulnerable in the last seasons. Eric this season felt like he was making use of Adam the whole way, and what was originally something I was looking forward to a lot in this season ended up being the thing that disappointed me the most. and i’m not sure if it’s the writing or not, and the lack of material for them to work with, but the chemistry between them this season was so lacklustre. really really disappointing.

fk i hate tumblr. i wrote a whole thing about adam and how much i love that his line was written in a delicate and sweet way, but it got deleted. rip. anyway i liked his relationship with Rahim, Ruby and interactions with Ola far more than his relationship with Eric, and I enjoyed how he became sweeter and more delicate towards Ms Sands and his own mother! to me this season was about him unlearning and trying better to relate to the people around him, and connect with himself on a deeper level and it was really very sweet to watch as that panned out. would have loved to see more interactions of him and Ola and them confiding in each other, but I swear if he and Rahim’s friendship develops into a romantic relationship I would lose it. ok but i love stoic boy learns emotions for people around him trope and the scene of him crying on the bridge really fucked me up :”) OH and i also enjoyed how the entire Groff family had their own individual developmental arcs this season, and i really hope that means something for them as a family unit later on and their reunion as a healthier, albeit un perfect still family.

on the topic of people who deserved more! i think viv for sure. i frankly don’t understand the point of giving her a hot boyfriend and of not exploring her friendship with Jackson more. not TO mention the own blandness of Jackson’s character,,, god. they had so much to work with and truly just abandoned it all. it made sense to me that she would engage in such ‘treasonous’ behavior with Hope and all, but I didn’t understand what the sexy boyfriend and sexting did for her character. i would have much preferred deep emotional talks between Jackson and her, and of the three of them solidifying as a solid friend group. would also have appreciated her becoming better friends with Cal but. wtv. very disappointed with her character this season, especially because her and Jackson’s friendship last season was done so well.

and on Jackson and Cal, i like Cal lots. really. but i really didn’t see the narrative function of their character in the show this season. while I really respect and enjoy the show’s decision to have more diversity of representation etc., i thought Cal as a character was quite unnecessary, especially because this season proved that the writers were struggling a lot to develop everyone’s characters and their backstories etc. Cal, while fun, just distracted from existing relationships and characters the show would have benefitted from exploring more. and i just didn’t see the chemistry between them and Jackson, idk at first I felt it but after a while it didn’t seem very genuine or legit to me and it felt even a bit forced. idk if this is unpopular but i honestly really enjoyed Jackson with Maeve a lot more. this was in my opinion, quite a disappointing match-up. also i missed Jackson’s mums - thought it would have been nice to spend more time thinking about that and showing that relationship as well. also didn’t think Jackson doing drugs was like. necessary. it was nice but like. ? i didn’t see the character development with that.

Maeve and Isaac. i really started off season 3 hating Isaac’s guts, but i thought that as the season went on, I really saw the chemistry between them which I truly thoroughly enjoyed. I also don’t know. why and how Maeve is still attracted to Otis - frankly, Isaac understands her way more, and allows her that much independence that I felt was necessary for her growth. Oh but I did like Maeve’s growing into accepting help and setting down her pride - especially in her relationship with Anna. i felt Maeve was more or less stuck in the same place as last season save for her letting down of her pride though. although her and Aimee as usual! were very enjoyable to watch.

ok i think this is all i have to say for sexed for now, when and if I do find more to talk about i will uPdate this!

[mutalune]

Hey! I hope November is treating you better than October! (Other than the first tuesday. It lasted like a whole week! Crazy!) Do you have any branching stories of your AU? Like would Izuku’s birthday phone call have happened in the original universe? What if Aizawa had a password from Nedzu so he could approach him early? That the time travel aspect of your fic was so ... ill-prepared? is absolutely fascinating. Finally, yours is so good that I’m even recounting it to Datemate! Ihopethismakesit!

first off plz tell your datemate that i said hi because that’s so fucking cute and i hope they’re enjoying the recounting

second off november is going MILES better than october thank you so much for the well-wishes <3

third off thank you??? for your kind words???? seriously appreciate it so much <3

okay onto the fun stuff - i don’t have anything written that’s branching off from the AU, but i have Ideas if you’re interested in hearing them!! (i’m gonna try not to spoil future things in my fic and not give too much away but i’m also Dumb so read at your own risk lmao)

izuku and his dad - AU vs OU

in general, the way i view a lot of the stuff with izuku’s dad is that if izuku had been even a teensy-bit more genuine with his dad in the Original Universe, his relationship with his dad would be way different than the Original Universe. i see the OU relationship between them as unmatured - Hisashi cared about izuku in the OU as well, but he never looked deeper into izuku’s life other than a cursory “oh he’s doing well, his grades are good, he’s healthy, he made it into the high school he wanted.”

and that’s because in the OU, izuku only had all might and his mom as role models. Inko gave him kindness and strength and determination. all might gave him hope and something to aspire towards.

all of that makes the wonderful being that is Canon Deku and i do adore that boy, but Hisashi does Not Like All Might and he wouldn’t be able to handle a tiny deku’s gushing over the hero that destroyed his quality of life. and deku hadn’t been socialized enough to talk about anything EXCEPT all might or heroes - a consequence of having no friends except your busy working mom.

so even if izuku had been open in the OU to a relationship with hisashi (which i don’t think he was, because i think without aizawa there to help him be confident, he would default to protecting himself and hiding and he wouldn’t have the safety of aizawa’s love/support to shield him from if hisashi had rejected him in any way - better to stay away than risk getting hurt and rejected by the only other adult that was semi-obligated to give a damn about him) - i don’t think hisashi would’ve been open to it himself

(i think i said this in an A/N somewhere but i have literally no idea of when AFO and all might had their Big Blowout Fight in canon, so for my purposes, it happened pre-fic when izuku was 6 lmao)

Hisashi has some amount of trauma from that fight - who wouldn’t after losing their sight and most of their face? - the same that all might does, even if we don’t see all might explore that very much. and as someone who has her own trauma, i know i go into “AVOID!!!! AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!” mode when i come across any kind of trigger.

multiply that by 100x because it’s Your Son who You Adore More Than Anything Even If You Don’t Know Him That Well Because You Also Have Family Trauma - yeah, i can’t imagine hisashi being comfortable with more than the bare minimum kind of relationship with his all might fanboy son.

SO THAT WAS A REALLY LONG WAY OF SAYING: yes, the phone call would’ve happened, but it would have been:

“hey happy birthday”

“thanks”

“how’s school”

“it’s fine. how’s america”

“it’s fine. americans, ya know.”

*awkward silence*

“okay talk to you next year.”

regarding nedzu and aizawa

honestly that’s one of those things i hadn’t even considered when writing this fic if i’m being honest. like the whole reason i started thinking about writing this fic was “how can i give aizawa a tiny izuku to protect and care for without killing inko or making her a Terrible Mother” because that was most of the fics i was seeing (which are all still fun to read don’t get me wrong but i like inko and i like writing women and i am a lesbian who Loves Women!!!!) and i just started writing and THEN made the plot and actual details fit with the first 5 chapters i wrote lmao

i think, though, that nedzu is such a wildcard. like i haven’t read the manga so maybe he’s more understandable in that, but it seems to me like his motivations aren’t very clear. he’s not really a dumbledore-type figure in my eyes - he’s not the general of the battle against the LOV, even if he has authority and has a position and has the intelligence, ya know?

he’s very inscrutable to me, and he has his own bias and own motivations that are intriguing to consider - but i can’t imagine aizawa trusting a past-version of nedzu to work towards the same goals he’s working towards.

like, aizawa thinks he’s logical. but at the end of the day, i write him as a “loved ones comes first, the world comes second” character. and whether he can admit it to himself or not, he knows that nedzu would put the world first.

and it would scare him that nedzu might see izuku (or any of his students, or hizashi, or nemuri) as expendable if that means avoiding the future aizawa came from. with nedzu being as smart as he is and as inscrutable as he is, aizawa could end up as his pawn towards whatever *nedzu* thinks is the best course of action, even if he was completely honest with nedzu.

this is something that i don’t think has come up yet, but aizawa *knows* he’s not the smartest guy. like he knows he’s not an idiot, but he knows that hizashi is WAY smarter than him, and he knows that he wouldn’t be able to beat nedzu in a game of checkers, let alone a life-size game of war.

i could see a version where aizawa gets all might’s help and has some sort of “i know this thing that you never told anyone else, i’m from the future, help” type of password, or i could see him doing it with just about any other pro-hero or any of his students, but i really can’t see a version where he would enlist nedzu first. i think he would want to set some of his plans in motion that even with all of his intelligence, nedzu wouldn’t be able to stop.

(does aizawa even have plans? no he doesn’t, which means he would wait to involve nedzu until he came up with a plan, but he can’t come up with a plan b/c he is Not a Strategic Thinker, so he keeps fixing small problems and saying that when he comes up with a plan he’ll call nedzu, and then he’s fighting the LOV singlehandedly because he’s a moron.)

aizawa isn’t a big picture guy, to me. he’s the best and worst person to send back in time because of it lmao - he’s the best because he is smart and sneaky and (if he had all of the right information) he would find the easiest, quickest solution. he’s the worst because he would be the guy who, given the chance to go back in time and stop someone from destroying the world, he would go “okay i’ll just kill that guy before he becomes a Big Huge Villain” and then not realize “oh wait that just means someone else will step in a fill the void and now i don’t know who that guy is so that’ll be harder and all of my future knowledge is For Nothing” (cough CHISAKI cough)

WOW THIS IS SO LONG i hope if you read it all the way to the end you enjoyed my babbling or at least didn’t hate it enough that you won’t ever open my fic ever again~

in all seriousness, thank you for your ask and thank you for giving me a chance to babble about some of this stuff because i have BIG OPINIONS and a lot of thought has gone into this AU and what the OU of my AU (that is in and of itself a canon divergence/AU of canon lmao) would look like. it was really fun to dive into this onto a medium that isn’t just another document on my google drive~

i hope you’re having a lovely november and if you do anything for the holiday season, you have fun with it~! (also plz feel free to stop in and chat more/ask more if you want to!!! i’m trying to be better about being on tumblr more often lol)

[intothestarkerverse]

I loved Paper Hearts. Can I request a Starker version of The Good Place?

Ohhh! I hadn’t thought of his particular Starkerization, but this was loads of fun and I hope that I did it justice!

I hope you like it Nonnie and if anyone else has any requests, feel free to toss them my way!

The Good Place 

(https://archiveofourown.org/works/23048128)

When Peter Parker dies, he doesn’t expect to go to Heaven. Oh, sure, he’s tried very hard to live his life in the best way he’s known how, but he is also totally responsible for his uncle’s death and that alone had to get him a one way ticket down south. So, the last thing he expects after his untimely demise is to wake up sitting on a nondescript couch in front of a very handsome man who calls himself ‘Tony’, the ‘architect’ in charge of Peter’s ‘neighborhood’ in ‘The Good Place’. 

 While Peter thinks Friday the heavenly computer is amazing, he’s a little trepidatious about spending eternity with his ‘soul mate’. He’d been so unlucky in love on earth, he couldn’t imagine that his track record would improve just because he is now dead.

Quentin Beck is handsome, and at first he seems pretty cool...until he doesn’t. In fact, he’s a little bit of a jerk. Peter is completely unimpressed by his soulmate and tries to spend every moment he can away from home. Really, he doesn’t understand how anyone in charge of the Good Place could think that he was into egomaniacal, self-serving, not-as-smart-as-they-think-they-are jackasses. Cause he’s not. So not.

His neighbor is worse. So much worse. Peter begins to question the nature of the Good Place based entirely off of Flash’s presence there and continued insistence in referring to Peter as Penis Parker. Surely in Heaven you are spared from your High School bully...and why when the word sh*t is censored is Penis still a totally okay thing to bellow at the top of your lungs during a fancy ‘Welcome to the Afterlife’ party, anyway? Perhaps Peter’s first inclination that something is not right comes when he catches sight of Flash in the crowd at said party and his attempts to dodge him are thwarted with a shout of, “Yo! Hey, Penis is here! Penis Parker! Penis, it’s me! Ya boi! I can’t believe you made it here, dude, you were such a loser....”

Then there’s the case of Bucky and Steve. They aren’t soulmates. At least...not according to Tony and Friday, but Peter has to be blind not to notice the looks they give each other across the room and behind the backs of their respective mates. While he tries not to be superficial, Peter cannot even begin to imagine what it’s like to go to bed with Arnim Zola every night. Brock Rumlow is a lot hotter, but also a lot scarier...

No, something is definitely wrong.

To discover exactly what it is, Peter decides to get close to the only one who seems to have any clue about what’s going on. Tony. It helps that Tony is super hot and while also egomaniacal and self-serving, he is every bit as smart as he thinks he is...and Peter digs it.

~ ~ ~

This is his last chance.

As far as last chances go, it could be worse, really.

Tony knew going in that he was probably going to fail, but this was the Bad Place and things never go quite the way you want them to here. Still, the idea of eternal torment or ceasing to exist are not things he really wants to look forward to, so he is determined to do his damnedest to make this thing work....even if he knows it’s doomed to fail.

Peter Parker is a problem.

He becomes a problem on the first night when that Flash kid makes such a spectacle. Really? How is Tony supposed to sell this Good Place Schtick with some annoying Gen-Z’er publicly humiliating the most innocent, Bambi-looking soul in the bunch? Also, it made him look bad because he hadn’t done that on purpose...though if anyone asked...

He doesn’t know how he ends up with the kid tagging along with him like some intern from hell. (Ha!) In the beginning, it seems like Tony despises having Peter around. He tries to ditch him, tries to distract him, tries any number of methods of ridding himself of Peter...but Peter is like the gum in his hair that won’t leave until it’s cut out...and unbeknownst to Peter, Tony isn’t able to cut Peter free no matter how badly he wants to. So, he begrudgingly begins to accept Peter as an assistant of sorts. He tries to assign him meaningless, boring tasks, but Peter seems to thrive under the attention.

He keeps coming back form more.

Every embarrassment Tony imagines to demean him, Peter shrugs off and pushes through. Every injustice he faces, Peter shoulders and works his way around. Every torture Tony can dream up, Peter endures with grace and humility and begs for more. He’s amazing. He’s fucking good, and Tony has never met a good one before.

Not a really good one.

Not.

Ever.

He doesn’t know when he begins looking forward to the kid being around; when he finds himself spending a little too long admiring the boy’s chestnut curls and warm brown eyes; when his eyes begin a downward adventure, enjoying every chiseled edge and soft curve on the boy’s form.

Oh lust isn’t a problem. It is one of the Big Seven. They are encouraged to feed on it, trouble is...Tony isn’t dreaming of Peter screaming in pain or begging for mercy from the dark and twisted sexual acts encouraged by those in the Bad Place. No. No, if he was, well, everything would be fine, wouldn’t it? No. Tony is thinking about the whimpers of mercy from the gentle caresses and tender worshipping a boy like that deserves. He wants to take him apart in the best possible way. Not to torture him, but to revere him. Peter Parker is everything about humanity that Tony thought could never really exist and he wants him...wants to taste him, to have him, to know what it’s like to become so close to something that isn’t festering and rotting and putrid like everything else in the Bad Place.

So clearly it’s all his fault when Peter Parker shows up at his office one day with a look of determination and declares.

“I know this is the Bad Place, Tony.”

Well, that’s it. The jig is up. If he’s going to cease to exist or spend eternity in a fiery pit of excruciating agony, he might as well have one moment of joy. So, he silences the boy with a kiss. Peter seems surprised, until he isn’t. One moment he is frozen in shock, and the next moment he has his arms around Tony, fingers caught in his thick dark hair and the boy is kissing back with everything he has.

It’s is everything Tony ever thought it could be. It is warm and tender and gentle and soft and good and passionate and fills him with something he cannot even begin to describe but really, genuinely fears might be love. He never wants the moment to end and every time Peter tries to pull away, Tony pulls him back, pawing at his clothing and throwing everything on his desk into disarray in his harried attempt to make room for everything he wants, everything he needs. If a demon can die happy, than he will die happy, just give him a night of this, a night of Peter.

Tony commits every moment to memory, tracing his hands over the soft ivory skin, exploring every edge and curve, ever ridge and furrow. He tastes everything, spends what could be hours (time is such a Jeremy Bearimy) turning every sordid sexual torture from the Bad Place into the most worshipful offering he can. Peter screams his name a dozen times, sometimes muted against the desk and others freely into the room. Tony relishes every sensation, pauses in certain moments to remember what it feels like to have his body so close to something so good. He isn’t worthy, he never will be, but Peter is giving it all willingly and enjoying every minute of it. That does have to stand for something doesn’t it?

It has to end, everything does, and in the morning even though they’re both spent, Peter is still determined to have his answers. So, Tony tells him everything. Who he is. What he is. That this is the Bad Place and they’re all being tortured for eternity. Peter begs him to show mercy to people like Steve and Bucky and even, surprisingly, Flash, but Tony isn’t really in charge of anything. He’s just as doomed as the rest of them.

“So, that’s it, we’re all just...we’re all just going to be here forever like this?”

Tony looks away, scrubbing a hand over his carefully groomed facial hair and cocking his head slightly as he winces. “Not really, Baby. You know. My bosses are going to call this a failure. I’m dead, or good as...and, uh, you and the others are going to go to the Bad Place for real this time. It’s....pretty terrible. Lot worse than this. Eternal torment. Worst fears. You know the deal, I’m sure.”

“You can’t let that happen.”

“What part of I’m not in charge did you not get? Do I look like I run the place? Cloven hooves, pitchfork, horns? Huh? I can’t save any of them. I can’t even save you, and if I was going to save anyone...for the record, it would be you.”

Peter is reaching for his hands with an indistinguishable look in his eyes that Tony soon learns must be what humans call ‘hope’ because what he is suggesting is insane. “Maybe, they don’t have to know. That I know, I mean. I could pretend that I don’t. We could go back to things, the way they were. We could pretend and we could all just stay here because if here is better than there...than here is all we’ve got.”

Tony knows its a ridiculous plan, but he can’t look into those eyes and say no. He hears himself agreeing before he even realizes that he has, and the next thing he knows...he and Peter have returned to their normal lives...only with a lot more sex. A lot of sex. And sharing, Peter is big on the sharing. Tony pretends to mind, but really...he’s never actually been to earth and it’s interesting to learn about what it’s like to live there, to be human. He can even find himself fantasizing about what that might have been like. To be one of them. To be free to live a real life with Peter instead of...whatever this is.

~ ~ ~

Peter isn’t giving up.

It’s not in his nature.

There has to be a way out of this, not just for himself but for everyone and for Tony. He refuses to believe that any of them belong in this place, not really, and he’s determined to find a way to get them all out.

Tony is so gentle, so starved for affection, so eager to drink up every drop of the human condition. He’s no demon. In bed maybe, sure, but not....not in the torture people and take pleasure in their pain kind of way. And Steve and Bucky, they haven’t done anything worthy of being in the Bad Place. Even Flash wasn’t that terrible.

Something is wrong and Peter is going to figure it out. He has to, but also has to do it without Tony knowing because that would ruin everything, wouldn’t it?

It happens in small doses, when Peter is alone with Friday he asks her all kinds of innocent questions about how The Good Place operates. How do people end up there? What do they do to earn the way there? What happens if they’re bad? A thousand questions that he asks and records carefully and innocently in such a way as to avoid alerting anyone to his true intentions.

Slowly things begin to make sense and his also carefully considered questions to Tony about how the Afterlife works and the hierarchy of upper management is laid out provides Peter with the solution.

“I can’t call the Judge for you, Peter.”

Peter purses his lips in an almost petulant frown as he looks the human-like computer over unhappily. “Why not?”

“I am almost certain that Boss wouldn’t like it very much.”

“Almost isn’t certain. C’mon, Fri, did Tony tell you that I’m not allowed to speak to the Judge?”

The computer pauses, considering this for a moment before she gives a curt shake of her head. “No, he hasn’t.”

“Has he told you that he would be angry if I did?”

“No.”

“Than you can’t be certain at all that he’ll be made if you call them now. So. The Judge. I need to talk to them and I need you to call them for me because I know you know how.”

“Peter...”

It is a round about argument that goes on for an indeterminate amount of time before Peter finds himself standing in front of an imposing dark man with an eye patch and a penchant for leather who is looking at him like a bug he would like to crush beneath his steel-toed boot.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Peter clears his throat and plunges into his carefully pre-written speech. He can tell that this man is not the sort to be swayed by emotion, so he skips some of his more eloquently penned descriptions of the situations to stick with cold hard facts.

Something is wrong in the Bad Place.

There are souls there that shouldn’t be and he can prove it.

To his credit, the Judge listens with only a few derisive snorts and muttered curses, but it is a mention of Tony that finally draws an interruption.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. Slow you’re roll there, kid. Go back to this Tony guy. He’s a demon right? Bad guy? Tortured and all that. So why did your voice get soft when you talked about him? Don’t lie to me. I’ll know and we’ll end this little chat of ours in ten seconds flat.”

Peter didn’t know what to do besides simply tell the Judge the truth. So, he did. Everything that had occurred between himself and the ‘architect’ and everything that he felt for the man.

“You love him? A demon.” Another snort. “I mean, I know humans can have some pretty self destructive tendencies but...”

“He loves me, too.”

“Yeah, no he doesn’t. Demons can’t fall in love. Can’t feel it. Don’t even know what it is.”

“Tony can.”

“If that’s true, there’s more wrong in the Bad Place than even you realize.”

Peter crosses his arms and stares the bigger man down victoriously. “I told you.”

The Judge lets out a long sigh, “I’ll have my best people look into it and if you’re correct...I’ll make it right, because that’s my job.”

Peter is returned to his every day existence and does his best to hide his deceit from Tony. Though, he does not seemingly have long to wait to learn to the fate of himself or his friends.

Just as the upper management arrive to take them all to eternal torment, the Judge returns with his findings.

Something is indeed wrong in the Afterlife. There are souls in the Bad Place that were never meant to be there. Clerical errors that may be (but probably are not) a mistake resulted in the damnation of an undisclosed number of human souls. These souls would be immediately relocated to their correct resting place. Peter included.

“What about Tony?” Peter cannot just let that go.

The Judge rolls his one good eye as he looks down at the kid again. “You won, Kid, enjoy your victory.”

“I can’t. Not if Tony is going to stay here. He doesn’t deserve to be here....”

“Look, you were right. He can feel love. He does, in fact, feel love. But he’s a demon and there’s not a damn thing I can do about where he is. If he were human maybe...”

“Than make him human. Let him live. If he sucks he can suffer here like he’s going to anyway and if he doesn’t than he can be with me there...in the Good Place.”

The Judge narrows his one good eye at Peter. “It’s a reasonable compromise, but I’ll only consider it on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You go back with him. Tony can be human but he’ll have no memory of any of this. Not until he dies and comes back here. I will erase the moment of your death, return you to your life as if you have always been there. If you really want, you can retain some memory of all of this as a near death experience because I have a soft spot for wise ass kids. I’ll even make sure you cross paths with Tony while you’re there. But you live your life and you take whatever Afterlife you earn. If Tony leads you down a dark path, you’re back here. If you manage to reform a demon, you can both shine your halos into perpetuity. Sound fair?”

Peter is sure this is a trap, but he cannot see how he can refuse. Despite the protestations he can hear coming from Tony where is he is being restrained by demons several yards away, Peter nods his agreement and the world goes dark.

~ ~ ~

It isn’t nearly as hard to get used to being alive again as Peter thought it would be. Details are a bit fuzzy when it comes to the Bad Place. He remembers some things better than others and wonders about the Jeremy Bearimy of it all because Flash is still very much alive when Peter is given his newfound lease on life. He’s literally never going to get away from that guy.

Peter has no idea when or where he will encounter Tony again, but he waits eagerly for the chance. He is still daydreaming about the demon when he’s being led into the office of his new boss on the first day of his internship exactly a month after his resurrection.

“Peter, this is Tony Stark...”

Anything else Ms. Potts has to say to Peter is completely lost to him as he takes in the roguish form of his devilish lover. Peter cannot hide the smile from forming on his lips as Tony holds out a hand to shake.

“Wish I could say it was nice to meet you, Kid, but being my intern is probably going to be Hell.”

“I don’t doubt it, Mr. Stark, but I can’t think of any place I’d rather be.”

[saezutte]

yuletide letter 2020

Dear Yuletide Writer, 

Oh, hello again. I didn’t see you there.

This year, I have transcended earthly desires and struggled to find any fandoms to request. I want nothing. I wish my cat was nominated as a Yuletide fandom so we could all write stories about her life. 

Nonetheless, I have some small requests!!!! I believe you can make me happy in ways I’ve never been happy before. I trust you. Happy end of 2020, the cursed year, I hope you are blessed with rest. 

My AO3: saezutte

My public twitter: juncassis

My tumblr: here but I do not use tumblr much anymore, sorry.

Do Not Wants

[note: I have no actual triggers, nothing you can write for me will make me any more depressed or anxious than I already am]

Death (of major/important/beloved characters)

Suicide attempts, self-harm

Rape (outright; OK with dub con, manipulation, noncon short of violent-rape-for-violence-only)

Eating disorders, body shaming

Angst without a happy ending, really too much angst at all

Established relationship

Cheating

Actual Unrequited Feelings

Pregnancy (the actual process; breeding kink is fine)

Scat or watersports

Hard BDSM or any kink complicated enough that the characters would have to discuss it ahead of time

Homophobia as a plot device

Excessive attention to identity or politics, sometimes known as “issue fic”

Note on AUs: I am ok with the usual popular AU tropes but I do not want them combined, e.g. A/B/O is fine and coffeeshop is fine, but I don’t want an omega barista getting his scent all over the lattes he makes for some alpha lawyer who comes in every morning. (Ridiculous example, but you get the point.) For AU/modern settings of fandoms with magic, I often like it when the magic is still there in the AU setting. I also like AUs which maintain the general outlines of the character’s relationships, like if the characters are childhood friends in canon, I like to keep that intact.

General preferences:

I am a pretty basic bitch when it comes to fanfic: I like it when two clueless boys pine for each other through some shenanigans and then lock eyes/lips/dicks.

If you fed a neural net every fanfic written in Stargate Atlantis fandom between 2005 and 2010, the result would probably be some nonsense I’d enjoy.

I love many tropes. Tropes! Bed-sharing. Sharing an umbrella. WASHING EACH OTHER’S HAIR? Confessions where they are having an argument and then one of them yells “Because I love you!”

I love situations where characters are forced to spend time in close proximity and find themselves with feelings.

I love fakeness: fake dating, fake marriage, arranged marriage, marriage of convenience, fake lust induced by sex pollen or heats, aliens make them have sex, whatever.

I love porn, if you want to just write me some quick porn, that’s great. I do prefer (per the established relationship DNW above) that it be first time or get together porn. I know that can make it hard to just write porn, but I don’t need much to be convinced of sex.

Nirvana in Fire (TV)

Requested characters: Mei Changsu, Xiao Jingyan

Note: I also love Lin Chen so if you want to write some MCS/LC or LC/Fei Liu or LC/MCS/JINGYAN OT3??? go for it. I am also a Nihuang/Xia Dong shipper so if you want to put that in… somehow… my gay little heart would be happy. I also like Nihuang/MCS/XJY or MNH/MCS + MCS/XJY but I’d like the focus on the men in that case!

I watched this show because someone recommended this show to me as, like, Chinese Game of Thrones but good. I think it’s genuinely one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen. I love plots and revenge and good people doing bad things for justice. Even the ending is good for me though obviously it left me unsatisfied on several points.

I am deeply into sickly doomed genius MCS and every time he got even more deeply ill, I fell deeper in love. Every time he coughs up blood, my heart would race. I love his terrible schemes and stupid self-sacrificing choices. I find watching this show very soothing because I knew he would always come out on top in his schemes. I trust him. I love handsome clueless Jingyan and how he’s just so good (it’s terrible.) I love his mom and how much he cares for her. I love him but he is useless, he needs his Xiao Shu and I need fanfic to restore him to him.

Note: So my limited research on this says that male/male sex practices were accepted and well-known in this time period in history, so I really don’t want them thinking “oh no what are these weird gay feelings.” There are other barriers to them being together, like a ruler or official being overly attached to one person was considered very bad. I am also a big supporter of the socially-approved polygamy of this time period, so I don’t need Jingyan to refuse to sleep with his wife or something out of loyalty to MCS—he has to do it! Or all their plans are ruined! And he can enjoy spending time with her or the concubines without affecting his feelings for MCS—you could explore that complexity in fic if you like.Prompts:

Mei Changsu isn’t dead, he’s hiding again, Jingyan searches for him

They start having sex during the series, the ending is averted [somehow]

Post-canon, MCS is alive and Jingyan hides him in the palace with his consort/concubines to keep him on as an advisor without anyone objecting

omega verse where MCS was an alpha before he “died" but an omega after he came back.

AU where male/male marriage is customary (maybe aristocratic men are expected to have one male and one female consort?) and so MCS decides the best way to influence and help Jingyan in the capital is by becoming his wife or one of his concubines

anything just get them together and happy.

Tokyo Babylon 

Characters: Subaru, Seishiro

I read Tokyo Babylon as a child and I imprinted on it deeply, now I love politics, ghosts, stalking, age differences, magic. Within the CLAMP canon, I love TB for its episodic focus on smaller stories, the commentary on contemporary society, and Seishiro being an outright creep. I love onmyojutsu and exorcism and Subaru’s innocence getting ruined. I love the city of Tokyo (where I currently live! but do not be intimidated, I don’t know the city well because we’ve been in quarantine most of the time I’ve been here and won’t judge you for details.) I’m open to fics that comply with X canon or not.

With Seishiro/Subaru: It’s bad but I love that predator/prey dynamic where the predator ends up being hopelessly entranced/obsessed/in love with the prey. My read was always that Seishiro lost the bet and couldn’t admit it—he’s just, you know, killing twins to avoid dealing with his feelings! Relatable! (?!?!) Subaru, I love particularly in his evolution from innocent to adult in love to betrayed. I’d prefer post-TB fic to during-TB fic (so Subaru knows Seishiro’s deal and loves him anyway.) I am also a fan of Hokuto and you should feel free to bring her back to life to troll if you desire.

Prompts:

AU or reincarnation plot where they are Heian period rival onmyoji

Because this is such a heavily place-based series, if you are a writer who likes to play with details of real life locations, I’d be interested in versions of different “Babylons” if you have an idea for it.

Tragic first times post-TB lol

Seishiro is a virgin the first time they have sex

I’d probably love some fucked up dub con for this, however you want to play it

Honestly, do whatever you want as long as you don’t fuck me over like CLAMP did.  

プリティーリズム | Pretty Rhythm

Characters: Hiro, Koji

Pretty Rhythm came to me at a weird time in my life. I lived in a house of spiders in Yokohama and did nothing for eight weeks. King of Prism cheer screening transformed my life and I didn’t even know what it was. Then I got weirdly deep into Rainbow Live and the Pretty Rhythm franchise overall. I am a scientist of prism theory. Idk why I like it, it’s just wholesome and crazy and there are penguins and DJ Koo. I love every TRF song because I’m a 90s gay at heart. It’s truly the end point of all media development. The prism world represents the fearsome power of virtual/digital+real hybrid life. Yes, I know I’ve lost my mind. I went to one of the real Prism Stone stores, the one in Harajuku.

Hiro Hayami: one time a fujoshi asked me to describe what types of anime boys I like and the first type I listed was “prince but bad” and my example was Hiro. Hiro is the crazy gay stalker disaster of my heart. He overcomes great hardship to achieve his dreams and foolishly falls in love along the way and he does everything wrong and Koji keeps leaving him. The moment when Hiro is crowned King of Prism in Pride the Hero was one of the top ten moments of my life. I made friends who don’t even know Japanese watch the movie unsubtitled with me on my birthday.

With Koji, I’m a bit guilty of “I want to give the character I love the most the character he loves the most” so I do like him less (it would be impossible to like him equal to how much I love Hiro). But he has many good points that make him perfect, like how he also sucks underneath his chill exterior. I love to see him go apeshit.

I also love everyone else in Rainbow Live, no exceptions. I love all the girls. If you do write the girls, I would prefer they not be paired with the OTR boys. I would prefer they be paired with each other, any combo is good.

Prompts:

this is the sort of pairing where I love fic where they split up and then 15 years later meet again as washed up has-beens but there’s still time for them to find each other

Canon-compliant companion piece showing the “background” of them getting together romantically over the course of the series.

AU where Koji is a prism world fairy sent to inspire Hiro but Hiro is kind of a mess

dirty, dirty porn… let Hiro get fucked

I have a lot of doujinshi with multiple copies of Hiro (a la the Mugen Hug jump) but I’d like something where Hiro gets overwhelmed by many Kojis

They start fake dating as a publicity stunt and have to keep doing it… especially good if it starts when Koji is at max hating Hiro level

Ring Fit Adventure 

Characters: Dragaux, Ring

Keeping this one simple: I like to be encouraged to exercise by a storyline and a trainer that never mentions weight loss, lol. The world is fun and pretty and I love that buff dragon.

AND THEN THE PAIRING. I’m sure Nintendo has some market research that told them a certain subset of users are very motivated by enemies who seemed to once be lovers or best friends. I am that user.

What is up with these two? They were so in love! Now Dragaux is a horrible swole bro (not in a good bro way) and Ring is training me instead? I can’t compete with their love. It’s the only time the game makes me feel inadequate.

You can keep Dragaux and Ring as dragon/ring-like as you like. Obviously I’m down with dragon fucking but you can also make him a human fucker too. I play with Ring on the masculine voice setting for maximum BL vibes as I exercise, but, you know, it’s a ring, I don’t think it has gender. Feel free to incorporate the player or other random characters too.

Prompts:

AU where Dragaux and Ring owned a gym together and Dragaux sold out to a big chain of gyms

What happened between them when Dragaux was still captured, pre-game? Bondage… literally??

Ring is always bossing me to train, but I’m really doing all the work. Why doesn’t he fight Dragaux on his own for once?? (because the sexual tension is too powerful.)

Tragic flashback to their dramatic break-up ending with their present day reconciliation.

Player/Dragaux/Ring threesome??? I’ve unlocked the sexercises???

With all fandoms, you are free to disregard the prompts and do your own thing. If you’re not sure about me, you can probably dm seriesera on twitter, she knows what I’m into. 

Well, I suppose that’s all for now. Please stalk me online to get more details on my bullshit. I hope you have a nice time.

Best,

Caitlin 

[fialleril]

Do you have difficulty reconciling the Original Trilogy with the Prequel Trilogy? I come at the series from a prequels first perspective and I have a hard time connecting Hayden's Anakin with Shaw's or Ewan's Obi-Wan with Guinness', particularly because of the age difference compared to how much time has passed. I even have trouble seeing Luke and Leia as siblings even though I saw them born together. Do you ever feel the same? Or did you have different expectations for the prequels before?

Hmmm…kinda?

I mean, I think those of us who were around before the prequels all had expectations that ended up being very different from what the prequels gave us, but that’s kind of inevitable, and honestly I’m mostly happy with the prequels we got, at least in terms of how they tie in with the original trilogy. (I mean, I still do and always will think that ROTS is a narrative mess, but that’s largely not because of conflicts with the OT, so…)

I actually don’t have much trouble connecting the PT and OT actors for Anakin and Obi-Wan. For me, watching the special edition of the ghost scene in ROTJ is much more jarring, because Hayden!ghost!Anakin looks way too young. (I don’t necessarily object to replacing Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen in the ghost scene, but if they were gonna do it, they needed to age Hayden up. Having him look like he’s still in his 20s completely fucks up the symbolism and the entire damn point of the movie, which is that Luke was right. Anakin didn’t die at 23 - that was Obi-Wan’s bullshit “certain point of view.” Anakin died at 46 and he should damn well look 46 as a ghost. Yes, Sebastian Shaw actually looks too old, but given only those two options, I’ll take too old over too young any day.)

Where the disconnect comes in for me is actually much more with the fandom rather than the films themselves.

Because as much as I love the PT and the younger versions of those characters, it’s still true that if someone says “Anakin,” I’m picturing the man Luke reveals behind the mask in ROTJ. (Well, actually I’m picturing James Earl Jones, but I digress…) And if someone says “Obi-Wan,” my first thought is Alec Guinness. Not just appearance wise, either, but the personalities and traits of the characters in the OT time period.

So there’s a lot of really common fandom portrayals of Anakin and Obi-Wan, in particular, that are just…weird to me.

Like, fandom often portrays Anakin as simple, in both positive and negative ways. It seems to be generally accepted wisdom in the PT fandom that Anakin is shit at keeping secrets and a terrible actor and, of course, everyone knew about his “secret” marriage. Which is just…really weird to me, because a lot of the PT’s plot actually falls apart if you seriously think that Anakin’s marriage wasn’t a secret, but even more because OT Anakin is, actually, really good at strategy and subterfuge and presenting very different masks to different groups of people. I mean, in ESB he successfully fooled Palpatine into thinking he didn’t know that he had a son. The man is actually really good at keeping secrets, especially when it comes to the people he cares about.

Or again, consider Obi-Wan. The Obi-Wan of the OT is a snarky old guy, sure, but more than that he comes across as someone who’s broken and tired and more than a little cynical in spite of his attempts to remain hopeful. And he’s also not at all above emotional manipulation. In fact he’s quite good at it. He knowingly manipulates Luke because he genuinely believes it’s the only way to save the galaxy, and even after death he never actually seems to regret that or believe he was wrong.

Yet the Obi-Wan I see in the vast majority of PT-based fics would never even be capable of doing something like that, and most fans are appalled when I point out that he canonically did. That, in fact, his willingness to do so is one of the first things we learned about his character, long before any of the PT existed.

And to me that makes Obi-Wan a very interesting character indeed. Yet I’ve basically never seen a PT era fic that explores that side of him. And I’ve seen an awful lot of OT era fic that goes out of its way to leave that side of him out.

The one character the PT really did change my view of is Yoda. I had a much more positive view of Yoda when all we had was ESB and ROTJ, because the strong implication of the OT was that Yoda had always lived on Dagobah, where he was a kind of wise teacher waiting for students to come to him. The PT made him, instead, the Grand Master of an entire order of warrior monks, and the flaws of the Jedi Order are the flaws of Yoda writ large. Which really casts his role in the OT in a very different light.

[pass-the-bechdel]

Continuum season one full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

80% (eight of ten)

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

30.6%  

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

One, episode 1.05, “A Test of Time” (41.18%)

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-two. Seven who appear in more than one episode, five who appear in at least half the episodes, and one who appears in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Forty-four. Fifteen who appear in more than one episode, eleven who appear in at least half the episodes, and three who appear in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Perfectly average, with nothing terrible, but nothing of note, either.  (average rating of 3.0)

General Season Quality:

Solid. It attempts to merge police procedural element with a more serialized narrative, and generally succeeds at both.  It is also clearly a series that realizes the potential of its premise and is interested in exploring it in depth.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Let’s talk about heroes.

Heroism, in stories set in versions of Earth that are meant to resemble ours—see: the MCU, Supergirl, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, earthbound Doctor Who stories not set in the future—tends to be associated with maintaining the status quo. As disruptive as heroes often are by nature and necessity, they generally don’t work to change things for the better in a general way, but rather, to ensure things don’t get worse. Society, by implication, becomes “good enough”—something worth keeping around as is. This tendency is occasionally questioned—not surprising, given all the ways the status quo isn’t actually good for many people—but the story’s internal rules mean that the conclusion is often a half-hearted “eh, what other option is there?” with the occasional “but that way lies tyranny!” While this stance isn’t entirely without reason, it’s also often frustrating. Inaction and tyranny aren’t the only choices, so why pretend that they are?  

This right here is one of the main reasons why I really appreciate Continuum, and why I would probably do so even if the show weren’t as consistently solid as it is.  It is a show entirely built around the idea that the status quo is untenable, and that trying to keep things as they are can only bring about the destruction of the human race at the hands of the 1%.  While it’s far from the only series with a social conscience, it is one of the very few to declare that what is needed is massive, widespread and disruptive social change. That it does so while also being a police procedural, a genre that tends to be almost inextricably tied to conservative politics and an affinity for the status quo, is all the more impressive.  

I’m fascinated by stories about people vs. the future—it’s the absolute impossibility of the struggle that gets me. I mean, how do you fight change? Sarah Connors’ battle wasn’t just about deadly people-killing robots; it was a fight against progress, a refusal to acknowledge that humans will continue to advance technologically no matter what you do, and  “winning,” in those terms, meant undoing the previous fifty years of existence. Team Machine’s battle against Samaritan hit the same points: in the end, if didn’t matter whether one particular artificial super-intelligence was atomized, because another would take its place—maybe not soon but eventually.  

While Liber8’s struggle has some similarities to these fights, it is, in the end, fundamentally different. The Corporate Congress and the mass demotion of actual people to second-class citizens isn’t inevitable the way the advent of artificial super-intelligences is. There’s no reason why humanity can’t continue progressing technologically AND choose not to bring back indentured servitude. If the terrible future happens, it’s not because the arc of humanity inevitably bends towards corporate dystopia, but because the people in positions to change things…didn’t. Also, while artificial super-intelligences are still years away, Continuum’s apocalyptic future isn’t really the future at all.  Corporations aren’t going to wait fifty years before they choose to actively reduce people’s freedoms in order to obtain ever greater profits; it’s what they’re doing at this very moment.  Liber8’s battle is much more urgent and immediate, and that ups the difficulty level of the storytelling immeasurably—it would have been very easy for the series to fuck it all up.  

Fortunately, Continuum, for the most part, hasn’t.  It’s not perfect—its theory of oppression largely ignores the role of marginalized identities, and how these shape the way oppression is performed and perceived (and no, making most of Liber8’s members people of color isn’t enough to address this)—but the series’ heart and storytelling instincts appear to be where they need to be. They actually care about the issues at play, and that’s mostly evidenced in the fact that it treats Liber8’s fight as legitimate.  It could have been the easiest thing in the world for Continuum to be the story of cop vs. terrorists FROM THE FUTURE!, and for Liber8’s motives to be nothing more than the motivation to get the story going, or a cover for more traditional nefariousness. Instead, it is the whole point. Continuum is a series about getting from point A to point B, and about just how complicated things can get.

Speaking of complicated: Kiera Cameron.

While Kiera is very much a genre show protagonist—Continuum is very much a genre show—she actually reminds me more of a character from an entirely different sort of story—The Good Wife’s Alicia Florrick.   This is a good thing, since Alicia is one of the best protagonists on television and I love her for many of the reasons I love Kiera. I love that she’s an introvert who doesn’t make friends easily. I like that she likes systems, and feels most comfortable inside them. I like that she is fundamentally selfish. I like that neither she nor the series is exactly concerned about her being approachable or cool. Perhaps most importantly, I like that while the series is never short of sympathy for her, it is also very clear that her goal is completely incompatible with the good future.  

Unfortunately, none of the show’s other female characters manage to equal Kiera, or even come close. While there’s no glaring missteps I can identify in the show’s female representation—aside from the usual ones—there’s no real revelations, either: Sonya, Garza, and Betty, are, for the moment, just alright. Somewhat ironically, the one-shot female characters do better than the more promising ones, in part because they’re more numerous and varied, and in part because the series can’t afford to punt their development to a future date. While this feels like the result of circumstance rather than intention—with so much to cover and so little time to do so, something had to give—that’s really just an excuse. There’s no reason why the characters who got prioritized this season had to mostly be men.  

If there is something noteworthy in the way Continuum approaches gender, it is in Kiera’s relationship with Carlos, which is my favorite dynamic in the show. While I tend to look askance at calls for more purely platonic relationships between sexually compatible characters—I’m not often confident they’re made in good faith—I do like the idea in theory, and this relationship is an excellent proof of concept. Kiera and Carlos could get together. There’s tons of evidence that they’re compatible, and he’s a better person than Kellogg or—ugh!—Alec.  Heck, there’s absolutely no evidence here that they aren’t going to get together in the future. But it’s not happening now, and neither the characters or the show think there’s anything wrong with that or that it makes their relationship somehow lesser.  It isn’t that romance isn’t important or it’s incompatible with depth or great storytelling and character development; the elements of the relationship that I like— push and pull, between people who disagree on a lot but respect each other and are more than willing to meet each other halfway—could easily still be there if they were together. It’s just that sometimes, it doesn’t need to be there.

(I’m team Kiera / no one, myself.)

Kiera’s relationship with Alec, meanwhile, is not nearly as compelling, in large part because Alec is the element of the show that least works.  I understand his place in the narrative, and I can totally see how a character like him would end up eventually helping create the corporate dystopia, but this doesn’t make the present-day version of the character and his immaturity any easier to take (his future self is fine). He’s not intolerable, and I like the family drama that surrounds him—the best episode of the season is all about the Saddlers and Randols—but he’s also not great, and given just how many characters and concepts are fighting for attention, that’s something the series can’t afford.  

To mix metaphors, Continuum is a high-wire act, juggling so many balls that it is in constant danger of collapse. There’s a let’s-prevent-the-terrible-future time travel narrative, with all the usual complications of time travel stories. There’s a good half-dozen fish-out-of-water narratives.  There’s a traditional police procedural, except that it also involves future technology. There’s an exploration of class warfare and capitalism, and the evolving roles of activism and terrorism within it. There’s family drama. Taken together, it’s arguably more than can be properly explored in ten episodes, and that the series did as well as it did is genuinely surprising. While I’m not sure it can keep up the balancing act indefinitely as it continues, I’m interested in seeing how long it lasts.  

[gusticeleague]

Morty’s Mind Blowers review

Oh thank god, it’s an easy one.

I was surprised that this turned out to the the answer to Interdimensional Cable this season. I thought Tales from the Citadel was going to be it, since it basically had the same anthology structure but more focused and less based on vignettes.  

Actually if anything, the episode Morty’s Mind Blowers most reminds me of is the parasite episode, given that it focuses on the unpleasant memories you have about your mistakes or your family that you wish you could erase but have to live with because that’s a part of your shared history, for better or worse.

I can totally buy from a character perspective that Morty would want to erase the terrible things he does and Rick would allow him because when Morty gets emotional, it interferes with Rick’s work. I especially love the idea that Rick erases any evidence that he isn’t a hyper-capable genius in Morty’s mind (and that beating him at checkers is one such slight deserving of memory erasure to him). My one gripe though is when they hit the amnesia angle halfway through. It works for what the episode is trying to do because it means we get to see more Mind Blowers, but I’ve never been a fan of amnesia plots because they don’t really tend to use that opportunity to teach us anything new about the characters and just expect the audience to laugh at the characters rediscovering who they are, which is never as funny to me as putting characters in new environments or familiar but slightly off versions of them, which is where Tales from the Citadel really succeeded.

As good as all those Mind-Blowers were (I don’t think there’s a bad one in the lot), I kind of felt the framing story could have leaned into similar thematic territory. If you’ve read my rankings of Rick and Morty episodes from the first two seasons, you’ll see a pretty big disparity between the two Interdimensional Cable episodes. To my mind, Rixty Minutes works better over Interdimensional Cable II: Tempting Fate because while they both lean into the escapist power of television to distract you from getting involved with complicated family drama, Rixty Minutes uses that conceit for one of the most life-affirming character moments ever put to television and a thesis statement for the entire show, while Interdimensional Cable II takes what could have been an interesting reason to have all the characters watching television (to distract from worrying about a mortally diseased Jerry) and proceeded to do nothing interesting with it. I can’t really blame them though. From what I’ve gleaned about that episode’s production, Interdimensional Cable ran out of steam as a concept pretty quickly, as they initially thought was going to be their answer to Treehouse of Horror but then decided against it when they realised that they couldn’t make that lightning strike twice. And so instead we have Morty’s Mind Blowers, which gives the writing team time to really hash out a solid joke rather than rely on any random thing that Justin and company want to riff on in the booth.

There’s not really a whole lot to comment on here, so I’m probably just going to bullet point the rest of this one out. A freeform anthology review, if you will.

I’ve been trying to think of what regular episodes could count as mind-blowers, but then I realised that all of them take place after Jerry left, because he isn’t in any of them other than one brief one at Morty’s 13th birthday. Which is also an interesting continuity note, because Morty is 14 by the time the show starts and Rick had already been with the family for about a year prior to that point, since the anniversary of his coming back was in the first Council of Ricks episode. I’m guessing the 13th birthday one is either due to Rick’s shitty filing system and/or Rick deciding to remove that memory from Morty’s mind sometime after Jerry left, maybe because Morty reminded him about it and then removed it out of spite.

Hey look, it’s Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. This show is full of Endless possibilities. Also, the Truth Tortoise said “I’m a Beatle, Paul is dead” backwards, because of course it did.

I love how Jerry has a crappier version of the Mind Blower helmet with VHS tapes instead of vials of memory goo. One of them’s labelled “Sleepy Gary”.

They were pretty spot on with those Men in Black II jokes. “Save it for Youtube” made me chuckle, and also a little ashamed at the fact that I do spend a good chunk of my time online watching video essays.  

Anyway, it seems like that The Ricklantis Mixup took up the majority of the time and budget and was an emotional gut-punch to boot, so Morty’s Mind Blowers is meant to serve as a breather for the fans and the writers before we get to what I assume is going to be a gut-punch Beth and Rick episode and a climax to either Rick-Shank Redemption or The Ricklantis Mixup. And structural nit-picking aside, while The Ricklantis Mixup was a better anthology this season, this one had enough good clips in it that it passes the bar. Not Rixty Minutes good, but not Interdimensional Cable II bad. Probably somewhere in the ballpark of Lawnmower Dog.

Episode MVP: Summer, for not getting paid enough for this shit.

Favourite bit character: Poor Beebo. If only it were Venzenulon Nine, then he wouldn’t have died in vain.

And instead of best joke, here’s my:

Top 5 Mind Blowers

5) Beth’s Choice

Only including this one because it got such a reaction out of me. I’ve mentioned before how I find Beth one of the more interesting characters on the show because of how the writers base her psychological profile out of Rick leaving her as a child and how that affected her ability to relate to people, including Jerry and her own children. Choosing Summer over Morty feels in line with that. It kind of the inverse of that bit in Malcolm in the Middle where Lois says if she was to choose between saving Reese or Malcolm, she’d choose Reese, because he needs all the help he can get while Malcolm is smart enough to look after himself since he’s smart and Reese is an idiot. Whereas Beth would choose Summer since she’s more capable and less of a hassle to look after than Morty, who I think she sees as a smaller Jerry and she probably made that Sophie’s Choice a long time ago in her mind.

4) Talking to Animals

RIP Erica Henderson and Ryan North’s mentions. I’m really only including this on the list for the hummingbird’s thoughts, since it reminded me of The Far Side. I find the idea of animals secretly plotting against us kind of rote because it is almost always something cute and innocuous like a squirrel or a rabbit or a dolphin, and never something more genuinely benign and out-of-left-field like...I dunno, anteaters. Also turns out Rick and Morty have hopped realities again, which at this point they could only really do as a throwaway joke, cause there’s no way in hell they’re going to be able to top the end of Rick Potion #9.

3) The Whole Enchilada

Speaking of hell, the bait-and-switch of the alien having has an actual objective afterlife was excellent, and something I’ve always wondered why that hasn’t been explored more. Especially if a species were to have a soul and what their notion of “life” would be if they know it continues to exist for them after their tangible existence. That’s been done, right? Trek’s probably done it, surely.

2) Wrong Light Switch

Great set-up, excellent punch-line. The less you explain it, the funnier it is.

1 ) “True Level”

My favourite kind of joke is to take an ordinary activity or thing and ramp it up to a ridiculous science fiction version of that thing. My favourite kind of Rick and Morty joke is to have Rick be the one to introduce the sci-fi version of a thing to Morty, only for Rick to get frustrated at Morty’s inability to wrap his head around it. My second favourite kind of Rick and Morty joke is to have a character gain a sudden cosmic revelation and having it crush their spirit so completely as to be permanently emotionally crippled, usually while woefully lamenting their own insignificance. So this is basically the perfect joke to me. My true level of jokes.

It does feel a little familiar though, mostly because I think I can tell that Dan Harmon wrote this segment. Rick’s rant about judging level with “your naked caveman eye and a bubble of fucking air” could have been taken from any first five minutes of a Harmontown episode, and the whole premise seems incredibly similar to that Community joke about the room where they get room temperature from. Be that as it may, there’s no sin in being familiar, and “REALITY IS POISON!” made me laugh my ass off, so it’s a very easy hit to my funny bone regardless.

Final Rating: 3 out of 5 grapples

[cbk1000]

I thought I was going to wait a couple more days to write this, but, well, I'm sick, I'm home alone, I'm bored, and as people have been trickling in to comment on this series, it feels right to add something characteristically long and meandering.

Much of this will be an overly long commentary on some of my all-time favorite characters, why I chose to tell their stories the way I told them, how I feel about Caroline in particular, and her journey in this series vs. what the show did to her. Also included: answers to several of your most burning questions, including What the Actual Fuck Is Wrong With You*, Are You a Robot, and my personal favorite, Are You Some Kind of Sick Person?

*I'm not actually going to answer this; sorry. I'm still sorting it out for myself. It's a long and murky journey that involves rummaging about in my subconscious, which is a dark place, full of an alarming parade of bizarre historical facts, serial killer case files, and helicopter/dinosaur porn.

As this will contain spoilers, I'll put the rest under a cut so those of you who have not yet finished the series don't accidentally stumble across something you're not ready to see.

So, first we'll address the elephant in the room. I know this series didn't go the way some of you expected it to; frankly, it didn't go the way I expected it to, either. First and foremost because it was supposed to be a goddamn trilogy (whoooooooops), and secondly because Christ on a goddamned pogo stick was TO so much worse than I ever could have imagined. I know for some of you there was too much history, not enough KC, that I gave too much time to Caroline's other relationships, that Klaus was too terrible, the Originals too fucked-up, Tim unsympathetic/boring, etc. etc. etc. (Let's all pause for a moment to appreciate the fact that not one negative comment ever said this series has gone on too fucking long. I can ramble for 600,000+ words and no one has an issue with that, but thousand-year-old vampires being terrible people is unendurable.) I won't talk about this for too long, mostly because I've addressed it before, and basically my response to all of this is that I wrote the series exactly how I needed to write it to deal with what happened to some of my favorite characters. I cut out characters and plotlines I originally intended to address, sometimes rather abruptly, because I could no longer look at them, even my own version of them (Stefan, buddy, I'm talking about you) without feeling enraged. It was a constant struggle to divorce myself from canon to such an extent that I could write freely, so that my muse wouldn't be cockblocked by Klaus' magical testicles and the reduction of Caroline to Stefan's penis pleaser. Mostly I was successful; sometimes I was not. So I did turn to the things that pleased me: I turned to lengthy flashbacks, I turned to Caroline as an individual character with her own plot and developments outside of Klaus, I turned to an original character who didn't force me to tiptoe around shitty canon.

Tl; dr: The series was long and rambling and there are child murders and an original character, and I'm genuinely sorry some people who enjoyed it in the beginning were eventually disappointed by it, but I'm not sorry I wrote it that way.

This series, as I have already said, was the longest, most complex writing project I have ever attempted. Previously, I've always written about humans: soft, breakable humans who can and often do die, whose stories are small, narrow things in the grand scheme of the world. Because that's who I am: a small, breakable human with a finite number of years and stories. And that's exactly what drew me to Klaus, who really was the catalyst for my TVD work--how do you write so far beyond a human's limited scope? How do you explore a perspective like that? How do you write about a thousand-year-old savant and somehow convince your readers that they actually are following the perspective of a man who has lived and evolved for ten centuries, who speaks hundreds of languages, who is an expert in most subjects, who is not only smarter than any reader can really comprehend, but smarter indeed than the writer herself? We're supposed to challenge ourselves as writers: we're supposed to confront the things that frighten us most, and that's what Klaus was for me. He was a character I could never be smart or skilled enough to fully capture. So, being a masochistic bitch, I waded right in.

I was never really opposed to a redemption storyline for Klaus. This may seem contrary to my many varied and colorful comments on the moist tampon that has usurped the rightful face and place of one of my favorite characters, but it's true: I just never wanted that redemption. Klaus is not a character who can be saved. He's not a character who should be saved. He's not human: that's what TO's writers have forgotten (along with the most basic tenets of good storytelling). He can never be 'good' by our standards. He's from a long-vanished world; he was never one of us even when he was human. He was from a time and culture we will never experience or fully understand. He was born into a society some of us would now consider barbaric, and then he was stabbed to death by his own father, turned into a monster he could not possibly comprehend, and sent off into the world with the only father figure he'd ever known hot on his heels. He killed his own mother. These are his origins: and from this we expect a man we can understand, a man who falls prey to dipshit psychology students and the miracle of childbirth. Klaus has seen plenty of births and plenty of dipshit humans: that's the whole fucking point. He's seen it all. He's seen just about every iteration of human bullshit there is, over and over again. We're cyclical, predictable creatures, and, what's more, we're a food source to him. Why should we be anything else? The depressing truth of it is, humans don't even give a shit about humans, as evidenced by our multiple wars and genocides. If humanity can't even treat itself with the proper respect and reverence for life, why would an immortal monster care about anything other than its most outstanding members (and, no, TO, Cami is not even remotely close to an example of a noteable human)?

Klaus' redemption, then, should have been a tiny, incremental thing. It should have been him slowly letting go of his father's shadow. It should have been him realizing that he does not deserve the loyalty he so desperately craves, and he never will if he continues in the same vein. It should have been him slowly learning to treat his family with more respect, to stop using even those closest to him as pawns, to step back and take a breath and sometimes just let things fucking go instead of lashing out. It should have been a long and difficult process that he had to fail at over and over again. And there shouldn't have been a goddamn baby in sight. This series was what I wanted for him. And ultimately, though I love him and I want him to be happy, I also want him to have to face permanent consequences. It's the only way he can grow. Letting go of Kol was his redemption. Having the dagger on him, knowing he could have repeated the cycle, knowing he could have stuck Kol in a box for three centuries to cool off, knowing he still had control, knowing that he could still puff his chest and exert his power and instead choosing not to do that was the best ending I can think of for him, bittersweet though it may be.

As this series continued, it became very important to me that I tell a story about breaking away when you need to, when a situation is not healthy anymore, when the people who are supposed to love and protect you treat you in a way that is detrimental to your emotional if not physical health. One of the things that most bothers me about TO and TVD is the persistent message that you must stick by your family, no matter what; I see this message perpetuated throughout media in general and real life itself, and I can tell you this: it's bullshit. It doesn't matter how long you've put up with it, you still have an obligation to yourself to get the fuck out. Because someone shares your blood does not mean they own your soul. None of the Originals' relationships are healthy: they're a bunch of thousand-year-old serial killers. I didn't write this series so people could enjoy, guilt-free, the white picket fences and 2.5 kids of your high school sweetheart neighbors who have been married for twenty happy years. But Kol felt so marginalized, so trapped, so lonely, and though I set up Klaus' narrative arc so that the natural conclusion can be drawn that he does improve, he does mellow out a bit, he will treat the people he loves better--that's not good enough. It's not enough for Kol to think that in future he'll feel more included, his siblings will love him in a way that, if not exactly healthy, at least will not destroy him. He didn't need to wait any longer for that: he says so himself. He acknowledges Klaus may well become less of a tit: it doesn't matter.

Though Kol may have left with Tim, it wasn't about giving a ship a happy ending. It was actually my original intention to kill off Tim (I'll go into that later, but for now, shout out to my sister for reminding me that LGBT romances never get a happy ending in media), but Kol's story was always going to have the same ending: he was always going to leave. I think he is, right now at least, the only family member capable of breaking away. Rebekah can't do it; she'll see it through to the bloody end. But I always approached Kol with the idea that, disturbing murder shenanigans aside, of them all he actually had the healthiest grasp of what it means to love someone.  He is, ironically, perhaps the most well-adjusted of them all. He isn't immune to the effects of time and the examples of his siblings, he isn't without his slips and fuck-ups, but ultimately the relationship between Kol and Tim, despite the fact that they are both bloodthirsty murderers who were mentored by Klaus, is one of mutual respect and gay murder. This too I have TO/TVD to thank for, because I could not fucking stand one more girl-gives-up-everything-she-is-for-a-boy-who-treats-her-like-shit relationship, nor was I down with the concept that all these ancient creatures with uber durable privates and raging hormones never strayed so much as a little toe outside the careful, heteronormative confines of the writers' extraordinarily limited notions of immortality. This graphic gay murder sex brought to you by my annoyance.

I'm going to leave off here, because this, like everything I write, is annoyingly long, and I've still got quite a bit I'd like to say. In my defense, this series is over 600,000 words and has consumed over three years of my life. Bit hard to summarize my thoughts and feelings in a few paragraphs.

Also, I have fucking nothing else to do anyway.

[javodvarka]

Yet another episode of The 100 where things go swimmingly, 100% according to plan, with no hiccups and DEFINITELY no wars being declared.

C’MON. Of course things went sideways. Actually, saying things went sideways is an understatement. Things went sideways, fell off a cliff, hit every sharp outcropping on the way down, exploded at the bottom of the cliff, then released a lake of liquid fire that engulfed half the earth.

So, business as usual.

Looking around the review sites yields a consensus opinion that season 5 is on fire, giving us perhaps the best first four episodes of any season. If anything, things seem more crystallized this season, more in-focus than ever before. That six year time jump has re-invigorated a show whose moral lessons started to grow a bit rote. With this episode, the table is set for the rest of the season: we at war, kids. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy…………..?

Written by Charmaine DeGraté and directed by Dean White, “Pandora’s Box” has loosed all sorts of anarchy upon the world and the fallout is going to be delicious. This episode probably overtakes “Fallen” as my favorite of DeGraté’s work. Like last week, this episode is PACKED with a lot of information and character moments, but unlike last week, it lit the fuse for a showdown between a bunch of prisoners and a death cult.

Strap in, folks. Season 5 is LIT. Let’s get into it.

You’re In a Cult, Call Your Dad. No, Seriously, Call Your Dad!

“Red Queen” showed us a little bit of what became of life in the bunker, but this episode pretty much reveals the ugly crazy in all it’s … uh … glory? The chanting, the single-mindedness, the blind devotion to a leader…it’s a freakin’ cult.

This is a joke within a joke. JOKECEPTION.

Octavia. Girl. What in the FUCK have you created?

We knew things had gone to shit in the bunker, but this is a full on brand of cray-cray that most people, at first blush, seem to have completely bought into. Octavia is almost unrecognizable from the girl we saw in season 1 and she’s frightening as fuck. But who frightens me more?

Gaia. SHE SCARES ME Y’ALL.

You guys…I want to like her, but I don’t trust her. She’s a religious zealot who has transferred her faith in the Flame onto Blodreina. While Octavia is the “leader,” Gaia is the one moving the gears, enforcing Wonkru’s laws, and ensuring that Wonkru is as dedicated to Octavia as Gaia is…or at least the IDEA of Octavia. At this point, I think anyone could be Blodreina as long as Gaia is there to protect the position of what is essentially the Commander for a new, very dark age. After all, the Flame went in and out of a long line of Commanders, all of which seemed interchangeable, with only Becca and Lexa as notable exceptions.

People filling that seat come and go…the person isn’t important, the position is. I honestly think if Octavia were to fall, Gaia would just find another Red Queen or King to take over as figurehead, as long as Gaia herself was always by his/her side. Octavia dies? Oh well, Wonkru finds a new Blodreina, the cult goes on. I’m tellin’ y’all, Gaia shady.

I find it ironic that a place built by one cult is now home to another. In my season 5 predictions, I thought we’d learn more about Second Dawn and Cadogan. And while we still might, Wonkru certainly gives them a run for their money, and seem far more deadly and dedicated to Blodreina.

What we have yet to see are the cracks in the Wonkru armor, save for Indra, who seems to be loyal to Octavia to a point. Indra always looks like she’s unhappy with someone or something, but I truly believe she’s not a big proponent of the fighting pit, but things have gone too far for her to speak up now. Only through her actions of trying to protect Kane do we see a small act of rebellion on her part. Her story and how she interacts with both Gaia and Octavia will be very interesting this season. I don’t think she’s above betraying Octavia, but it will take A LOT to get her there.

Take note of the bunker’s lighting. Much of it has a red tinge to it…a nice stylistic choice to further reinforce the idea of the Red Queen. It’s also, obviously, the color of blood. The bunker is completely in Octavia’s control. Everyone looks to her to for permission. Now that Wonkru is out of this confined space, will they continue to look to her for all their orders, do they trust she can continue to protect them, or will she – or Wonkru – start cracking under pressure now that they’ve escaped their petri dish of horror?

And what if Octavia thinks she has to be even more brutal in the face of an enemy? Guys…we in for some shit.

GODDAMN, Kane and Abby Need a Hot Shower, Some Soup, and a Nap

Y’all, Kane and Abby look rode hard and put up wet. Both look to be mentally and emotionally spent. The past six years have not been kind.

It’s clear Kane and Abby have had a hard road in the bunker. Kane looks worn down to the bone, and Abby doesn’t look much better, addicted to pills for what looks like the past six years.

When Kane makes his last appeal to Octavia, I think it’s waaaaaaaaaay too late to propose that they try to do better. That ship has sailed. Even Kane acknowledges that Octavia has made Wonkru strong, got them through whatever the “dark year” was. And that’s his mistake…allowing things to go on too long without speaking up, without appealing to Octavia’s better angels before she totally became Blodreina. Because truth be told, there’s little of Octavia left. She’s now this new entity that she thought she needed to be to keep the bunker as clear of chaos as possible. Keeping the chaos contained to the fighting pit. In the process, Octavia has become hardened in a way that yields only to a black/white view of the world: Wonkru or enemy of Wonkru. It’s a mantra that she repeats six years later. While that type of solidarity might have served to get control of the bunker, maintaining control has taken something else entirely. 400 people dead…what exactly happened in those six years? And that dark year? WTF is that???!!!

Kane has always tried to fight for a better world since he saw the error of his ways in season 2, but here he’s just defeated. He pleads with Octavia, but it’s such a last ditch effort, an argument made too many times to carry much weight anymore. Especially with someone as far down a dark path as Octavia. I understand the feeling. I live in the US during a sham presidency full of lies and corruption. No matter what you do, think, or feel, things just seem out of control and the world is upside down.

Abby’s addiction is going to be a tough story line to maneuver her through. We still don’t quite know why Abby needs the drugs she’s on, and we don’t know what kind of drugs they are. I think we have to assume she’s suffering from the same side effects of jacking out of ALIE that Raven was. And seeing as she’s seemingly referred to as the only doctor (hello? what about Jackson?), the pressure to be that for 800+ people while your brain is frizting out is probably overwhelming. She strugs to func something fierce.

Kane and Abby repeat some lines we’ve heard in the past, that they’ve done terrible things to survive, but it’s so half-hearted on her part that it’s just rote now. Kane knows this and says it’s just something they tell themselves to justify the horrors they’ve inflicted on others and each other. There’s no more fight left in these two. Even when Kane is going to knowingly sacrifice himself, it’s not out of some noble desire to be better or rise above the chaos…I genuinely think he’s completely spent. There’s no more energy left to appeal to anyone’s better selves or to try and fight for a better world or better versions of themselves…it’s all too much.

I would usually joke about Beardy Sexy Kane and full-size body pillows of said individual, but watching him…watching everything in the bunker…is just painful. I didn’t like watching the bunker scenes at all because they were filled with so much culty cray cray and hurt thrust upon Kabby that it made me uncomfortable. Good…I should not watch Wonkru’s death pit and feel good about it. I should feel creepy crawlies about what’s transpired down there.

Speaking of creepy crawlies…

WHAT. THE. FUCK. HAPPENED. IN. THE. DARK. YEAR. QUESTION. MARK. EXCLAMATION. POINT.

Reunions, Reunions Everywhere! Come Get Your Hot, Fresh Reunions!

Goddamn, this episode wasn’t pulling any emotional punches and thank god it didn’t. We finally see Clarke and Bellamy back together after six years. Bellamy was certain he’d never see Clarke again because she was presumed dead, and Clarke had to have been worried that something went wrong on the Ark after they didn’t return to earth after five years. So it’s no wonder that these two clasp ahold of each other as if they can’t believe the other is corporeal.

While I love this reunion, the one that really got me in the feels was Clarke and Raven. Not even in the same room together, I got hit straight in the heart stings by Raven’s reaction. The look on her face, and thanking Clarke for saving them…Princess Mechanic has been a dynamic I’ve loved over the years, even when I’ve felt this friendship has been underserved a bit in previous seasons. I hope we get more of Raven and Clarke and Clarke and Murphy, who uttered the line I head cannoned almost immediately after the season 4 finale. OF COURSE there was going to be a “and they say I’M the cockroach” joke. I love it.

I always long for more interaction between Clarke and Murphy and Clarke and Raven. I know not all of these relationships can get screen time, but there’s still a lot of emotional depths to plumb, especially after six years of evolution and change. Tearing characters apart and putting them through the ringer then bringing them back together again affords the opportunity to explore new aspects of character interactions, and I hope we just get more of those great character moments.

Speaking of reunions…

Welcome to My Death Bunker Horror Show Beautiful Home!

Bellamy makes a deal with Diyoza to use their mining equipment to open up the bunker. The first person to rappel down is, of course, big brother Bellamy, who is greeted by his sister, who is so totally not a murderous cult leader now.

We get to see Octavia reemerge for all of two seconds as she embraces Bellamy. Blink and you’ll miss her. That might be the last we see of Octavia because she’s Blodreina now…even Miller, her OG friend from the dropship, calls her by this title. It’s JARRING. These old friends from the bunker are a welcome sight, but also a bit off. It’s like re-connecting with old friends on Facebook and they eventually want to get together with you to talk about a great work-from-home opportunity. They look the same, but they’re Stepfordy now and it’s awkward.

I’m tellin’ y’all…if Miller starts evangelizing about a skin care line, BEWARE.

When Clarke rappels down moments after Bellamy, she’s much quicker on the uptake when she realizes she’s literally in a pit covered in blood and weapons, with spectators on all sides.

It’s only after Octavia goes to awkwardly greet Clarke…

…that Bellamy starts taking a look around and begins to understand what’s been going on in the rotunda for six years.

Something’s definitely fucked up about this place.

Diyoza and McCreary both come down as well and while Diyoza seems unfazed, I get the feeling that McCreary might be a little into what Octavia has done with the place.

I really enjoyed all the reunions that we got after opening up the bunker, especially between Bellamy and Octavia and Clarke and Octavia. Clarke and Abby left me feeling a bit cold because Abby isn’t really Abby…she’s a junkie right now and I wonder how much the drugs are affecting her decisions. Especially the decision to go with the Eligius crew at the end of the episode. Yes, it was a chance to save Kane, but why was she so willing to part from Clarke that quickly?

The somewhat lukewarm reunion between Clarke and Octavia is very interesting to me. No, I didn’t expect warm hugs all around, given the history between these two (remember, Clarke’s last notable action towards Octavia was stealing the bunker out from under her). There is so much tension and unspoken conflict in this relationship that I hope gets to play out this season. These two have never really had it out and Madi might be the chess piece that Octavia uses to further her own agenda (whatever that may be outside of war) while screwing over Clarke. I am here for this conflict and for them finally having it out. Throw down, ladies!

So let’s talk a little about the episode’s title, “Pandora’s Box.” It’s obvious that cracking open the bunker is a metaphor for opening up Pandora’s Box. The story is that once opened, a whole bunch of bad stuff escapes into the world – death, sickness, evil. Pandora hastily closes the box once she realizes what’s being unleashed onto the world, only to prevent the last thing from escaping – hope.

It’s kinda interesting to note that the box was originally a jar, turned into a box through a mistranslation. The Eligius crew break into the bunker in the high ceiling directly above the fighting pit. The pit itself is at the bottom of a large, round room. Sorta shaped like a jar, if one had to describe it in such terms.

What I find interesting is that the bunker is the symbol of Pandora’s Box, meaning that all the bad shit loosed upon the world is coming from this bunker. From Wonkru. From Octavia. That’s quite the statement to make regarding what the Bunker people have become, because it’s not like the Eligius crew is a bunch of choirboys and girls. If Wonkru is the evil coming from Pandora’s Box…what does the Eligius crew represent? A sleeping giant is vaguely threatening. You don’t want to wake a sleeping giant…but this group seems to have a lot less glue holding it together than Wonkru, and we’ve seen some rumblings of a coup. Diyoza has a huge goat rodeo to try and control. Good luck, girl!

Another bit of an aside, I really love the use of light and darkness when Bellamy descends into the bunker. He’s bathed in light and cannot see into the darkness, where Octavia and everyone else is just out of sight…I don’t think this is a mere visual trick. It’s symbolic. When Octavia is pulled up, she rises up in the light, towards freedom, towards the heavens. It’s almost Christ-like. Which again, I don’t think is simply a cool visual. Consider her S5 poster:

When I saw it, I immediately thought “goddamn if that isn’t a post-resurrection Christ pose.” Bathed in light, palms out to display his Crucifixion wounds…it’s a very familiar visual from my Catholic school days.

Now am I saying that Octavia is Christ? Hell no…but displaying her as a religious figure makes sense, especially given how devoted her people are to her. She’s the object of a belief system that resembles religion, especially if Gaia had a hand in its formation. And like any dogmatic system, it could prove to be dangerous in the hands of zealots and fanatics. She is also, in a sense, resurrected as she emerges from the bunker…or her tomb, if you will. All of Wonkru is freed from their underground crypt…from the ashes they did indeed rise.

Octavia presented as a mythological figure fits her character arc, especially considering her past. Octavia was brought up on a steady diet of mythology literature…she knows the power of larger than life figures and of choices that can bring down gods.

Stupid Sexy Dangerous Eligius

I liked the Eligius crew last week. I like the Eligius crew this week. And though they got double-crossy and murdery and I STILL LIKE THEM.

I’m a garbage person, I accept this, but I know you, dear reader, love them too. Join me in my abode.

BYOB.

Okay y’all, we had several mysteries last week from this group, but now we find out they need a doctor to find a cure for something…cure for what? Is it something to do with cryosleep? Did they find something out in space that they need to deal with? Where is home? I’m assuming Diyoza is talking about the valley they’ve claimed as their own, but it’s still on odd term to use for some place they’ve been for all of a hot minute.

And what’s the deal with Diyoza and McCreary? I kinda get a vibe that they might have hooked up. Is it just me?

I know…how heteronormative of me.

There are times when he’s almost…not completely McMurdery around her. Not often, and certainly not enough data to really say it’s a thing, but I think there’s more to this adversarial relationship than meets the eye. When Szybunka approaches McCreary to suggest overthrowing Diyoza, McCreary seems to be planning something…or is he merely trying to appease him?

McCreary later shoots Szybunka in the head after Szybunka disobeys orders and vaporizes one of Octavia’s people. Is this a punishment for disobeying orders? Is he getting rid of a weak link in planning a coup? Or is he preventing Szybunka’s eventual betrayal of Diyoza? Hard to know right now what McCreary’s motivation is here without knowing anything about his and Diyoza’s backstory.

We also see more of Zeke this episode…just a moment, we’re interrupting our regularly scheduled review to bring you this update…

Zeke is not his first name anymore. Apparently it’s Miles. I’M SHOOK.

I guess according to JRoth there were legal reasons for changing his name from Zeke Shaw to Miles Shaw. I know this is hard for the fandom to accept as we’ve taken him into our bosom as Zeke. For a while it created some confusion for me because there’s a Deke Shaw on Agents of SHIELD. I’m getting old, I can’t even keep my dogs’ names straight, so maybe this is a good thing.

ANYHOO, Shaw and Raven get into a little cyber flirt when they both try to circumvent the other. Shaw is clearly impressed with our girl Raven, who, with style and panache, throws up her Raven symbol from season 3 to let us know she’s not messing around. MY GIRL GOT SHAW ON LOCK DOWN. This is Raven Reyes we’re talkin’ about. Child, please.

It’s apparent that Shaw isn’t exactly on Team Diyoza and has some sort of moral code. He doesn’t think outrightly killing folks is the best thing to do. I 100% believe he faked not being able to launch those missiles. Oh sweetie…do you know what show you’re on? Go check it out on Netflix and report back once you’ve realized that until you’ve racked up a body count into the hundreds, you ain’t shit.

One of the things we find out this episode is that there have been four Eligius ships. First one was unmanned, and exploratory ship. Second was a mining expedition, but undermanned for the job. Forth one, well we know it’s a mining vessel full of prisoners for all the hard labor. But Eligius III? All data is about that mission is encrypted. THERE’S A MYSTERY AFOOT!

We know this ship had nightbloods on it…that was mentioned when Diyoza and Shaw saw Clarke’s blood. We can also assume it had cryosleep technology since both were created by Becca. But what happened to that ship? Why is all information protected? I love these little clues that keep getting dropped for us to mull over. I can tell you what most people think: ALIENS. Because at this point, why not?

I Can’t Stop Loving Diyoza. Sorry Not Sorry.

Am I still in love with Charmaine Diyoza? You bet your sweet ass I am. Last episode I thought that while dangerous and not to be fucked with, she was pragmatic and reasonable to an extent.

This episode she went back on her word to Bellamy, after working behind the scenes to circumvent his leverage. Not cool, Diyoza.

(that’s okay i still love you shhhhh don’t tell)

While 283 sleeping prisoners is a lot of people, what exactly do they mean to her? Why care about this group of people? She’s protective of them even before it’s apparent that there’s a big threat she needs to contend with in Wonkru. We don’t know if she’s aware at this point that they and Wonkru make up the last remaining contingent of humankind. Clarke never got through her whole story, so Diyoza’s concern over the 283 prisoners may have nothing to do with ensuring the continued existence of the human race and genetic diversity. What is it then?

You know, perhaps Diyoza just doesn’t have an off switch. She was a Navy SEAL, y’all. That’s INTENSE. Then she was a domestic terrorist…like DOUBLE INTENSE. Now she’s ostensibly the leader of this rag tag prisoner army, upon which she seems to impose some sort of rank and file to since Shaw takes orders from her and McCreary sometimes is a good boy and listens to her.

I still wanna know how she became the leader of all these murdery bad asses. I suspect she had a stare-down with the biggest dog in the yard and that big dog withered under her glare. Y’all…you see how she looks at people? You want her to look at YOU like that? She is S.E.R.I.O.U.S.

(omg i luv her)

While I was disappointed in her decision to renege on her deal with Bellamy, it didn’t surprise me one bit. I know what show I’m watching. Nobody calls splitsies on the one last patch of green on earth and sees that plan through!

I loved her interaction with both Blakes, but her squaring up against Octavia was riveting. Diyoza sizing Octavia up was awesome. She’s so fucking cool under pressure and is assured that she’s the baddest bitch in the room. Octavia has a nice death pit and all, but she doesn’t have devastating sonic weapons that can break up rocks, destroy buildings, or turn humans into pink mist.

Let’s just say I am all about this Octavia/Diyoza face off. I think it’s positively delicious. Give me all the drama and conflict and tension (may some of it be sexual!) you can!

IT ME. It so very me. I AM A MESSY BENCH.

The Raven and the Cockroach

I love this dynamic so, so much. In my last review, I said that these two probably know each other the best at their core. There’s no pretense between these two because their bullshit detectors are set so high and each other knows it. They’re able to be honest and raw in a way I would never have thought possible after early seasons.

Murphy has this brilliant way of putting his foot in his mouth with people, but I love when he does it this episode with Raven and immediately recognizes he fucked up. It leads to some great dialog between these two, with Murphy willing to be the one that kills the prisoners, understanding that it’s something Raven is unable to do. And I love that about him. Not only did he stay behind because he wondered why Raven should be the one to sacrifice herself again, but he’s willing to bear the burden of actively killing 283 people.

When Murphy says he’ll pull the lever, we hear a distant roar from earth. It’s Clarke..

NO ONE TOUCHES THE LEVER. LEVERS BELONG TO CLARKE.

God, it’s like Murphy doesn’t even watch The 100.

When Raven and Murphy have to face death or self-preservation, they choose the later, but that means awakening all the sleeping giants. And those sleeping giants look like meanies! It’s going to get worse up on the Eligius before it gets better.

The Dark Year

Okay, but what if it’s just the year Octavia got REALLY into jam bands due to Kara’s awful influence and Kane was able to pull her out of it but now Octavia’s all like “don’t EVER mention Dave Matthews AGAIN!”?

Because, honestly, what’s darker than being into jam bands?

**I suddenly remember prog rock exists** nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…….

Being Bellamy Blake

Guys, did y’all think that Diyoza was really going to share half of Eden with Bellamy and co.?

I don’t know what Bellamy thought would happen either, but you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want. Do I think that Bellamy was naive enough to think things would go according to plan? No…he even says as much to Octavia when he says he doesn’t trust Diyoza. But leverage. He has it. Until he doesn’t.

Bellamy and Spacekru were never in much of a superior position to begin with, only banking on Diyoza caring about the prisoners still aboard the Eligius. But he knew he had Raven’s smarts and could bank on that to get him enough time to bargain with Prisonkru. There’s a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants quality to Bellamy’s plan that works where it can. Again, until it doesn’t.

I daresay I can’t think of a better improvisational plan to bargain for their lives with Diyoza than what he comes up with, and remember he has the counsel of Raven, Murphy, Echo, and the others to listen to. He does the best with what he has.

That Octavia immediately blames Bellamy for things going south is pretty much Octavia’s brand. To which I say:

What other plan could have gotten Octavia and Wonkru out of that bunker? Was Bellamy to pull mining equipment out of his ass? I understand Octavia’s anger and frustration, but taking it out on Bellamy felt immature of her, a reminder that perhaps Blodreina is still very much an emotionally stunted girl who grew up under the floor and didn’t get the socialization she needed to properly and rationally address her situation with the appropriate reactions. She needed peer interaction, not Ovid and isolation.

I have a feeling this is going to be me to Octavia for much of the season:

She’ll need to take responsibility not only for how she reacts to things, but for what she’s become and while her metamorphosis into this Red Queen might have saved lives, what did it turn those lives, including her own, into?

Put on a Pot of Coffee, We Goin’ to War!

We kinda knew from previews and whatnot that season 5 would be about a war for Eden. One garden…two serpents (we assume Octavia and Diyoza, but that seems almost too simplistic for now).

What’s interesting is two big forces are at play here, and neither of them are being directed or led by Clarke or Bellamy. Instead we have Octavia leading Wonkru and Diyoza leading Team Eligius. It’s strange to see Clarke on the sidelines of a conflict.

At the same time, it’s kinda nice to see Clarke in a position where she has to react instead of proactively make some sweeping decision that affects a great many people. With Madi to protect, her decisions are likely to be very personal and she may even back off from trying to assert herself as a leader.

Bellamy has been a leader, but seems he’ll get swept up in whatever Octavia is doing, trying his best to dissuade her from making mistakes along the way. What I don’t see happening is Bellamy getting through to Blodreina. I suspect there will be political in-fighting between those close to Blodreina and Bellamy. He might only have his sister’s well-being at the forefront of his mind now, especially if he sees she’s losing her soul to this Red Queen role she’s carved out for herself.

How Bell and Clarke figure into this war and what side(s) they come down on will likely lead to more juicy conflict. I’m here for it. You know I love this shit. I may scream obscenities at my TV while watching some of this shit play out, but that’s PASSION, folks.

No, For Reals Though, What In the Ever-Lovin’ Fuck Happened in the “Dark Year”?!

[indistinct screaming]

[more indistinct screaming]

Deathwatch 2018

From week to week, I’m ranking characters by likelihood two die in two buckets: gonna die and long shots. Dead characters of note are in the “May We Meet Again” category.

Not a lot of movement on my Deathwatch lists, but just a bit of solidifying of my gut instincts. Kane almost moved up, but I’d say he and Abby and neck and neck. They’re both hot messes, let’s be honest. I love Kabby, but they’ve seen better days.

Sure Bets, One of These Peeps Is Dyin’

Abby

Kane

Kara

Echo

McCreary

Loooooooooooooong Shots, Place Yer Bets!

Raven

Murphy

Ethan

Monty

Bellamy

May We Meet Again

Jaha – he was number 1 on my Sure Bet to die board, though I take no pleasure in being right…it was a sorta easy read based on social media. Jaha was an interesting, complex, often infuriating figure in this universe, so RIP.

Raven Reyes Nookie Watch 2018

Welcome back to Raven Reyes Nookie Watch 2018! Along with Deathwatch 2018, this is a recurring feature of upmost importance. It’s all about the nookie!

No nookie was acquired this episode, but we had a long-distance meet cute with Shaw. Hackers trying to hack and counter-hack one another may not be your cup of flirt tea, but it’s as close as Raven’s got to foreplay in six years. WE’LL TAKE IT.

RAVEN REYES NOOKIE ALERT LEVEL: There’s a wee thin crack in the ice

Private Jennifer, reporting for duty. Let’s do this!

Parting Thoughts

Slarke is my ride or die ship – that’s Clarke + soap. I’m concerned because she’s starting to look a bit grungy.

Where the rest of Spacekru and Madi at? I guess still over in Eden, which worries me now that Prisonkru has claimed it as theirs.

“No no no no no…you just opened Pantera’s Box!” – Nick Miller. I’ll miss you, New Girl.

I’m fuckin’ in love with Murphy’s hair.

Can someone help Raven with her ponytail? Those two long strands of stray hair make her look like an anime character.

WHERE IS NIYLAH?! I hope Wonkru didn’t eat her.

I already miss McCreary’s beanie.

Like, Miller calling Octavia “Blodreina” was weird, right? It’s not just me?

Do you think the Eligius III is still out there somewhere?

You’re goddamn right I used a Teddy Perkins GIF in this review. If I can’t sleep after seeing that Atlanta episode, you’re not either.

The dark year, tho…WHAT IS IT?!

TWEET/RETWEET: If you enjoyed this review, please share, retweet, or like it on twitter.

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST OF THE 100 MUSIC!: Hey people who like sounds entering your ear holes! I have a Spotify playlist, which is music from and inspired by The 100. You can find it right here and marvel at my musical tastes. I keep it up to date with anything featured on the show or in promos.

FINAL VERDICT!

“Pandora’s Box”: 9.0 out of 10 people bursting into pink mist…ewwww!

There are some The 100 reviewers/recaps/writers you should absolutely be reading, and I offer them up for your enjoyment; I have no affiliation with any of them, save for being a fan:

Selina Wilken – a mix of passionate fandom and truly professional journalism.

Erin Brown – unfairly beautiful writing. Like seriously, stop being so good.

McKenzie Morrell – recapping her damn face off and great interviews with the cast!

Toni_watches – piss your goddamn pants hilarious photo recaps.

Jo Garfein – great fandom charity auctions.

Disclosure: this is my own indie site. This is on my time, my dime. Becho is endgame.

Several months later…

You are Wonkru or you are the enemy of Wonkru. Choose.

The 100 – “Pandora’s Box” Review and Analysis Yet another episode of The 100 where things go swimmingly, 100% according to plan, with no hiccups and DEFINITELY no wars being declared.