#How to Get Away with Murder 3x13

[thisbuildinghasfeelings]

Redemption Week Tag Game

Thank you for tagging me @lemonlyman-dotcom @ladytessa74 and @lonestar-s5countdown!

(1) Which 911 Lone Star character redemption moment is your favorite? (Feel free to interpret “redemption” as loosely as you like. This can include moments of forgiveness, moments characters proved themselves, moments characters learned from their mistakes, etc.)

As I wrote about here, I particularly love Owen's moments of redemption as he works to be a better father.

I also adore any and every moment where TK and Carlos overcome issues and grow as a couple. My favorite examples of that are 3x13 when Carlos calls Cooper and 4x12 when Carlos brings TK their lizard son.

(2) Is there a character you think deserved more of an on screen redemption moment than we got in the show?

I would have really liked to see more of this for Gabriel and his relationship with Carlos. Of course, the fact that they didn't quite manage to fully repair their relationship makes his death all the more tragic. I'm holding out hope that we'll still manage to dig into their relationship even a tiny bit more in season 5 as Carlos solves the murder.

(3) Is there a recurring (or even one-time guest) “villain” that you would like to see return with a redemption arc? Or if not, is there a “villain” you absolutely would not want to see get a redemption?

@ladytessa74 said Lorraine, and that's a great one, even though it wouldn't technically be a return. Really I just want more information about her!

I also wouldn't mind seeing Pearce again. It could be interesting to see how things could progress after the brief alliance that formed when he and Tommy had a common enemy in Paragon. I don't think Pearce will ever see eye to eye with the 126, so I think it could be really interesting to see an extension of that alliance. Maybe a situation where they were forced to work together towards a common goal.

(4) Are there any unresolved conflicts from the first four seasons that you wish were reconciled on screen?

My least favorite episode is 4x03 mostly because Carlos acts towards TK in a way that I think deserved an apology but we didn't get one. Just one little apology would have made the whole thing so much better for me! I have ultimately made my peace with it and imagined the necessary apologies myself, but seeing one on screen would have made things a lot easier.

(5) Which main character would you like to have a more developed backstory?

The character with the least backstory is definitely Nancy. I would love to see her get more developed! With a seemingly packed 12 episode season 5, I'm not sure how much hope I'm holding out for that, but I hope we'll at least get something.

However, I also want so much more Carlos. I know he's gotten a fair amount the last couple seasons, but there's a lot more I'd like to see. I particularly want to delve deeper into his relationship with his father. With Carlos solving his father's murder, I think it would be the perfect time to give us more of that!

I haven't kept close track of who's already done this, so I will leave an open tag and--apologies and just ignore it if you've already done this and I'm tagging you--

@pimento-playing-hopscotch @paperstorm @reyesstrand @reasonandfaithinharmony @the-126-family

@alrightbuckaroo @carlos-in-glasses @carlos-tk @chicgeekgirl89 @strandnreyes

@herefortarlos @nancys-braids @goodways @firstprince-history-huh

@she-walked-away @mrs-corrections-78 @happilylovingchaos @sapphic--kiwi

[twilight-deviant]

Hello dear! About your last DD post, YES GOD SOMEONE HAD TO SAY IT, I fucking hate that take so much. And I saw one attached to the thought that Dex is looking at Matt to be his new “north star”. What?? The “north star” method was used by his psychiatrist to control him, it could never lead to him finding a path to redemption because Matt would definitely not hesitate to use it against him for his own purposes again, because as you said, he hates his guts, and wants nothing more than his downfall (pun not intended, oops). Matt can be ruthless to get what he wants, as per what happened to Julie, and in Fisk's case, he kept threatening to get to Vanessa too, which hey, it's pretty illegal according to law (and he has been doing it since season 2, in that prison scene! Where Vanessa still had no prior involvement in Fisk's criminal organization!).

So backing up what you said about counterarguments against this, I love my man Matt, he can be even more of an asshole to the ones he loves/cares about and I will still love him, and yet there's lots of stuff he shouldn't be defended about lol. It's perfect for what the og show wanted to accomplish.

I get that Wilson Bethel shines in the role and brings sympathy to a character who partly deserves it, every good villain needs that. Still, if Fisk won't be redeemed neither should he (never would want them to, they did all that shit and I love them for it). And Dex/Matt relationship in Born Again makes less sense to me if it's Dex mirroring himself in Matt and wants Matt to see that, to catch that glimpse of empathy. “In another life you might’ve defended me” it doesn't feel like Dex is hopeful Matt might “save him”, but rather he's speaking to Matt like he sees the Fisks in him.

In a perfect world, Born Again would acknowledge that, the fact Bullseye still feels like Matt is not sorry for his methods, about using Julie, instead of straight up jumping to him being a temporary ally. But oh well.

Damn, I'm so sorry for the long ramble! Feel free to ignore this lolo. Hope you have a nice day!

Hey rambling is nice sometimes, and my inbox is open for a reason. lol. ♥

Referencing [this post].

Matt is such an amazing main character (who sucks) because he breaks away from the formula of so many two-dimensional heroes to make some legitimately unhinged choices. Not only does he have extreme anger issues, but he does enjoy hurting people. He'll also get such tunnel vision, he sometimes makes cruel choices to serve the "just" conclusion. He's awful, just awful, to friends and loved ones. No one's doing it like him. If he killed, he'd be a bona fide antihero, and he pushes the envelope as much as he can without taking that final plunge. So yes, I love calling him out on the bad he does. Because it makes him interesting, and characters have to be interesting. It's their whole purpose.

The idea of Matt being Dex's north star... I mean, full disclaimer, I do believe people can/should do whatever fanon or fics they want. But there's that, yeah, and then there's canon. And I like a healthy understanding of which is which. Like how canonically there's no chance Matt purposefully helped Dex knock a tooth loose so he could kill people and escape, but if someone wants to write that fic, godspeed. I like evil Matt sometimes. (There's at least some justification for Matt winding him up in 3x13 because it helped get at Fisk. But Matt setting him loose in BA 1x08 and accepting the potential murders just because he felt sorry for him? The best friend murderer?) I don't think it was any more intentional than the comic with the same gimmick. Matt just likes hitting him. lol.

[Daredevil (2023) #4]

Anyway, north star. I don't know if you've watched Jessica Jones, but I'm reminded of the episode in S1 where Jessica makes Kilgrave do a good deed. Then he decides he'd like to do more of it, so long as Jessica is always by his side telling him what to do because he lacks all empathetic instincts to do it himself. She genuinely considers going through with it but decides she can't/won't and that he's too dangerous. That's what I imagine for Matt and Dex in such a scenario. Even if Matt could get Dex to do as he says and follow his examples, it puts an undue burden on Matt to constantly monitor his actions. (Like how in a fight together, Matt tries to ensure Frank doesn't kill anyone bad, but with Dex there's even more to fret over because he'll kill the bad and the good with little/no compunction.) Not to mention that Matt would be a horrible example to follow. Because he goes too far a lot of the time. It's only his own unique moral code that stops him from taking the final step. And Dex doesn't have that, so realistically, Matt would run himself ragged constantly keeping Dex from crossing the line. (If someone wants to imagine it anyway, that's great. Variety is the spice of life. But I can't see it working well, if at all, or longterm.) There also remains the real potential in such a scenario, as you say, for Matt manipulating Dex and using him to his own advantage. Because he already has.

What's more, it would undo the character development path Dex was on following DD S3. He was really coming into his own as Bullseye in the finale. It was good. Everyone was happy. Even BA 1x01 held up this trajectory. And then scenes from the last two eps of BA come along like they wanna reset him. 👎

I can't begin to know what bull-hockey BA has planned for S2, but I'd say sometimes a spade really is a spade. Matt isn't pretending to hate Dex. He genuinely hates Dex so so much. He has a mountain of reasons why and none for why not. Like even if Vanessa ordered Foggy's death, Dex still pulled the trigger. (And killed ten other people that night. Plus the mayhem of S3 and killing of Lantom.) I do ship DexMatt. I've shipped it since S3, mostly amidst the sound of crickets. But it's a hateful, spiteful, toxic thing. And I do believe if BA writes any sort of semi-redemption "enemy of my enemy" arc where Matt teams up with him for S2 (versus them attacking Fisk independently/simultaneously), they've lost the plot. They truly don't understand or care about Matt's character. They just want something that subverts expectation and looks cool.

And I will retreat to the sweet, sweet existing logic of Matt willing to work with Fisk (who even now in BA has given Matt less reasons to hate him than Dex) before he utterly draws the line at Bullseye. Because he hates him so much.

[Daredevil (1998) #86]

I'm aware these are different realities with different versions of the characters, but Earth-199999 gives zero evidence for and no reason why its Matt would feel warmer towards Dex than 616 Matt does towards Bullseye. What because of his documented mental health issues? Matt didn't care about that in S3 before Dex killed his friend. Why would he care now?

The above comic reaction is because Bullseye killed Karen on a job (unintentionally). Don't tell me he wouldn't feel just as strong when Dex killed Foggy on a job (intentionally). To say Matt can overlook it now is like saying he cares less about Foggy. (Also, if BA brings Foggy back just to ease Matt's conscience so he can work with Dex, I vote we chuck the whole reboot in the nearest bin. That would be such bad writing. You can't give yourself such a sloppy convenience. This is yet another reason they should have brought Foggy back in S1 if they were going to. That way they can demonstrate it's unrelated.)

If BA S2 wants to have Matt use Dex like a wrecking ball, just as he did in S3, maybe. If it's done well. But actually treating him like an ally would be so bad. Just bad. Rinse the taste out of my mouth bad. But it does seem like they want to siphon any humanity from Fisk's character (make a one-tone villain) and pump it into Dex (overly sympathized), so I also wouldn't put it past them. They seem to want a narrative of elevating Fisk's villainy past reason (there's that MCU too-much gene) to have a really united front against him (still trying to recreate Avengers 2012). Neither Fisk nor Dex deserve redemption, like you say. You know that one post that's like, "Free my man. He did all of it but I don't care," or whatever. I'm over here like, "Lock him up! Lock his a** up!" 📣 (On a personal level, I don't care. For fic or AU reasons, I'll break him out, but by all means, canon, hold my man accountable. 👏) All I want for Fisk is a little more of the pre-existing humanity BA stripped from him.

Anyway, yeah! Dex is who he is. Matt is who he is. I'm not gonna look away when I don't like it. Baby girl, I'll put a spotlight on it. Complex, human characters are the last stronghold against flat slop.

Thanks for the ask. (◕‿◕✿) Have a good one. ♥

[augustheart]

fuck it stargirl episode ranking. yes! all thirty-nine of them!

3x03 "the blackmail": i don't have a cool justification i'm sorry i just love the crocks and i think the fight scene is fantastic. i don't even care that we can see the stuntpeople's faces it's absolutely delightful to me.

1x08 "shiv part two": ultimate comfort episode for me. what if two autistic people had to go undercover? what if a woman tried to fuck a man under a sink? just a few of the many questions asked by this episode

2x04 "summer school chapter four": crusher and paula should be allowed to do whatever they want. also the scene where dickie gets in an argument with a child in a bookstore is pretty good

1x11 "shining knight": this is the best episode of the show. like full stop. this is the best one. it isn't the highest rated on imdb. it isn't my favorite. but it is 100% the best episode of the series.

3x12 "the last will and testament of sylvester pemberton": i have probably Never gone crazier at an episode of television in my life. getting to the ending is excruciating because the first chunk is a "pat experiences ableism" simulator but oh baby. when the musical sting hits it hits

1x02 "s.t.r.i.p.e.": this episode is nearly perfect. why is there a two minute long one-take sequence in the middle of it? don't ask questions

1x01 "stargirl"/"pilot": this is one of the best cape show pilots of all time. i think doom patrol's is better but it's easily on the flash pilot level, probably higher. tells you everything you need to know: courtney rules. pat has autism. if you celebrate christmas you WILL die of supervillains attacking you. what more can you ask for

2x03 "summer school chapter three": mike should be allowed to do whatever he wants whenever. you can tell how much fun everyone had shooting this so even if luke wilson is Not looking at his mark in the slightest it's still good.

1x10 "brainwave jr": i get why this is the highest ranked episode on imdb but it is funny that it set the tone for james robinson writing episodes where he kills people in a tunnel. the scene at the beginning with barb where she's struggling not to break down is an under-appreciated bit that is so fucking good.

1x03 "icicle": the tonal shift is great. i wish hootie had come back.

1x05 "hourman and doctor mid-nite": ending scene alone puts this here. thank you cameron gellman

1x06 "the justice society": i really like it when crusher throws paula as a weapon at a group of children

2x06 "summer school chapter six": the fight choreography is off the charts. i wish that isaac's actor knew how to act and eclipso didn't run away like that.

2x08 "summer school chapter eight": oh my g-d. oh my g-d. jesus christ. oh my fucking g-d

2x02 "summer school chapter two": dickie's entrance to the show means that despite how unmoved i am by much of this episode i will forever adore it. he is so deeply weird from second one.

3x02 "the suspects": i could watch dickie make fun of anybody for hours at a time

3x07 "infinity inc part one": i could watch dickie make fun of anybody for hours at a time

3x08 "infinity inc part two": i could watch dickie make fun of anybody for hours at a time. also CARCHARO MENTIONED

2x11 "summer school chapter eleven": courtney clapping at cindy and going "AND HOW DID THAT GO FOR YOU?" about controlling eclipso after they both get stuck in the monster dimension is one of the funniest scenes in the show

3x13 "the reckoning": way better finale than other cape shows, which is fortunate for me and unfortunate for those other shows. just a really nice sendoff. i like that they bring it full circle by having kids murder someone in this one, too.

1x07 "shiv part one": the fight choreography in the courtney/cindy fight is so good. i think it's overlooked because it's a 1v1 fight but that spinning long take is really fantastic imo and i love the setting of the school gym outfitted for the dance.

1x04 "wildcat": yolanda baby :(

2x09 "summer school chapter nine": yet another episode that's a "pat experiences ableism" simulator and it is upsetting to watch but also john wesley shipp is there and it's quite well done all around. points detracted because whatever his name is that plays cameron can't act to save his life and his scene partner (an actual teenager) is absolutely killing it

3x01 "the murder": extremely good episode i love my friends i genuinely smile so big thinking about it

1x12 "stars and s.t.r.i.p.e. part one": i want to fuck crusher so bad for that garage scene and that's why it ranks higher than the s1 finale

1x13 "stars and s.t.r.i.p.e. part two": what if there was a liberalification beam.

3x11 "the haunting": obviously the setup of this episode makes me want to punch walls but artemis' screaming and breakdown at the end puts this a cut above other episodes

2x07 "summer school chapter seven": YOLANDA BABY :(

2x01 "summer school chapter one": i can't stop thinking about that person on reddit who accidentally watched this episode first and was like "why is the show so bad at exposition" not realizing it's because they didn't see season one

1x09 "brainwave": good episode ranked this low because of the evil dinner scene being one of the worst things put to film

2x10 "summer school chapter ten": dickie is really good in this but i'm not a huge fan of this conflict for pat and courtney. however i do enjoy pat getting heated for once

2x12 "summer school chapter twelve": pat torturing matt rules and i like when beth and charles metaphorically type on the same keyboard to hack something faster

3x10 "the killer": fine episode. ranked this low because the last four minutes of it never aired and definitely don't make me listen to classic decemberists song "we both go down together" on repeat

2x13 "summer school chapter thirteen": jakeem rules mike rules rick calling in a buddy to fight for him rules but i don't care about eclipso

3x04 "the evidence": we're getting into episodes i don't really care for. i do like charles though

3x09 "the monsters": i don't care about dctv cameron

3x06 "the betrayal": i don't care about dctv cameron. however pat enjoying lutefisk is good

3x05 "the thief": i don't care about dctv cameron

2x05 "summer school chapter five": It's Just Not A Very Good Episode Guys i don't know what more you want from me

if you read through all of this thanks. several of these are actually tied with each other to be honest so if parts of this seem interchangeable, that's why.

[televisionpromos]

How to Get Away with Murder 3x13 "It's War" Season 3 Episode 13 Sneak Peek #2 - Annalise calls everyone over to discuss everything that's happened. She admits that she failed to protect everyone and says she expects the DA to offer them immunity next. Laurel interrupts Annalise to turn their focus on finding Wes' killer.

[beautifulhigh]

On the significance of Tarlos and sleep: an essay

@kiras-sunshine made the "mistake" of putting in the tags of a Carlos sleeping gif set something which made me go, "I wanna". So I did.

#i could write a whole essay about this

#because in 3x13 he wakes up simply because tk isn't in the bed with him

#but in 3x18 he sleeps through all of this because tk is there with him

#something about safety and love

To understand the significance of Carlos and sleep in 3x18 we need to establish the significance and importance of sleep in a literary term, define the parameters of the analysis, and establish precedent within the show before looking at the opening beat of the proposal scene.

Or: how Nea set me a challenge to write an essay on Carlos sleeping and I (hopefully) rose to it with almost 5,000 words of an essay. Which you can also read on AO3 if you want. And go leave me a comment and some kudos because I live for validation.

Sleep as a Biological and Social Function

We all need sleep. It’s the part of the day where our bodies basically do inventory, file away memories via our dreams, engage in biological downtime, and do what repair jobs they are able to do. Like night closure of roads so repairs can happen without massive disruption. Our bodies slow down, we go through different cycles throughout the course of the night, and without any input from us our bodies do what they need to do.

We don’t need to be taught to sleep, same as we don’t need to be taught to blink or breathe or swallow. It’s hardwired into us as Stuff We Have To Do To Survive. What is also hardwired into us is the knowledge that when we sleep we are vulnerable. Research shows that when we were tribal and nomadic we kept shifts so that there was always someone awake throughout the whole day and night. If you’re a night owl then congrats, you get to sit by the fire and watch the stars come out. The larks will take over when the sun comes up. Sleeping in the presence of someone (or someones) shows that you trust them: you trust them not to hurt you while you are vulnerable but also you trust them to protect you.

I love the bunk scenes with the firefam for this reason because this is a group of people who trust each other completely and so them sleeping in the same room is an extension of that trust.

But sleeping with a partner? As in sleep-sleep rather than Adult Fun Time sleep? That’s another level.

There is safety in numbers: if one of the group decides to not protect you then others will. They’ll also step in if they decide to smother you or bash your head in with a rock. When it’s you and your partner? Well, no one is going to stop them if they decide they can’t put up with your snoring any longer or you hogged the covers one too many times.

When we share our bed with someone, platonic or romantic, we are telling them “I trust you”. You are at your most vulnerable and you let them stay anyway. And the best part is that they are making the same declaration to you.

We also use the term ‘sleep with’ to mean Adult Fun Times because it often involves a bed (1x02 excepted) but it also involves a level of vulnerability. Even if you’re just hooking up with someone you’re removing barriers (and clothes) and putting yourself in a position where you could be hurt should they choose to do so – and I’m not just talking about feelings. What you choose to do with your body is pretty much the only thing in our control and power and to give that over to someone else shows maybe a higher level of trust than simply going to sleep next to them.

 Sleep As A Metaphor

Sleep is perhaps one of the biggest metaphors there is in literature. It is a symbol of peace, of contentment, of trust, and of death.

“To sleep, perchance to dream.”

Hamlet III:i

When Macbeth murders Duncan he finds he can no longer sleep, such is his guilt for what he has done to his king and country in the pursuit of his own ambition. In the Buffy finale (“Chosen”), any character seen sleeping prior to the final battle ends up losing their lives before the final credits roll.

For a show about first responders death is at the forefront of so much of the episodes. The characters work hard to preserve life, to save and protect. It doesn’t always work: the pilot episode opened with the deaths of almost everyone at the 126, and when the action moved to New York we meet Captain Strand, whose whole arc is tied into the tragedy of 9/11 and the deaths that came on that day – and since with it being the cause of his cancer diagnosis.

In episode 3x18 we are faced with death once more: the building has collapsed and Judd is inside. Owen’s cancer may be back. We also have a very adult discussion about death and preparing for it: the 126’s own NDE MVP not having a will tying into a very blasé attitude towards death, contrasted with literally everyone else’s opinion and behaviour lets us know that for (most of) them, death is a constant. It walks beside them and they hope to not have it take them by the hand for as long as possible.

Fandom (and Rafa) are clamouring for some Carlos NDE because of all of the characters he’s one of a few who have not had death brush up against his hand only to not take it at the last moment more than once. The only time Carlos has come close to death in the show was the fire in 2x12 and that happened while he and TK were in bed – the other use of the word “sleep” when it comes to someone. But whilst he was in danger he was not exactly getting up close and personal with death, not like so many of the 126 have.

Still, as the long-suffering partner who seems to collect near death experiences like they’re Pokémon, it is no surprise to anyone (except TK) that Carlos not only has a will but that he keeps it updated. This man is practical and logical and he knows that death is inevitable. The comments the 126 firefam make about being prepared is exactly why you make a will: it gives you peace of mind knowing that those you love will be looked after and that things will be taken care of when you’re not there to do it yourself.

Sleep as a form of peace comes from the idea that we have let go of our daily worries and thoughts and entered a neutral state where we are our most ‘natural’. We aren’t actively trying to convey anything or hide anything from those around us. We’re not in conscious control and so there is a concept of sleep being our true selves.

There’s a scene in the TV show Babylon 5 in which an inter-species couple, Delenn (Minbari) and John (human) are beginning a relationship. The Minbari have a ritual for when a couple start to get close: the woman spends three nights at the man’s place watching him sleep. They believed that in sleep your true self comes to the fore and so she would watch for this true self. If she liked what she saw on the first night she would stay two more and observe further.

When we sleep we have no guards up, no barriers, no walls or protection. We are exactly who we are and it’s why we love watching babies sleep – because we see them exactly as they are. (Fucking adorable.)

 Sleep and Death

Ever wondered why Ye Olde Beds were so short? It’s not because we’re so much taller now than we were (although average height today is more than it used to be), it’s because such was the relationship between sleep and death that people honestly believed that if you were lying flat then Death, as it walked past your window, could think you were dead or dying and come and claim your soul. So beds were deliberately made shorter so you couldn’t lie fully flat and Death would carry on its way and leave you to wake the next morning.

Dying in your sleep is generally seen as the “best” way to go. You fall asleep as normal and then… that’s it. This gave rise to a lot of the sayings we have about sleep, most notably the advice to never go to bed angry. If someone doesn’t wake up then the argument will never be resolved. (It’s more likely about not letting things fester, and you don’t really get good and restful sleep when a part of you wants to smother the person lying next to you. But a good essay looks at all possible avenues.)

Before I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

Four corners on my bed

Four angels there a-spread

Two to foot, two to head

Four to carry me when I’m dead

[a wonderful prayer I was taught to say when I was little because nothing help sleep like the thought of dying during it]

Ultimately, we develop a sense that just as death is the end of something, so is sleep. We finish our day, we make peace with our actions, and we hope to wake in the morning and have the chance to do it all again.

 The Language of Death

We have come up with so many ways to describe death. We use the phrase “passed away” to make it sound gentler, but the relevant phrase here is “the big sleep”. The concept of closing your eyes and not being on this plain of consciousness or existence. It marries the concept of death being peaceful but also means that we are not present in whatever moment we are missing – be that temporary while we nap or permanent while we are mourned.

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there, I do not sleep

Poem “Immortality”, Clare Harner

We comfort ourselves with faith and a belief that there is something after this because that makes death less terrifying for us. Just as sleep ends with the morning and a new day, death “ends” with a new life or existence or something.

Death isn’t the end for our characters either. Up until 3x18 Owen kept a physical reminder on his desk of all those who died. The memorial to the fallen members of the 126 has been in places of prominence. Tim’s name is painted on the side of the rig so he will always be riding with TNT.

We’ve also seen hints of this with Tommy and her desire for a message from Charles. It doesn’t matter why or how the lights flashed in a 1-4-3 pattern, to her it was a message from beyond and a sign that even though her husband is dead he is also still here. She went to his grave in 3x17 and talked to him.

When Gwyn died TK wanted to honour her through Chinese food (3x08) and remember her through the photo albums (3x13), something tangible that they shared together over multiple occasions and memories sparking the full spectrum of emotions.

Every single one of the characters who has experienced death finds a way to keep their lost loved one’s memory with them because to them, death is not the end of that relationship. They, and their influence, continue on with the living.

I half-remember something about a person having three deaths: the first is brain death, the moment you cease to be alive; the second is when your physical body no longer exists; and the third is when your name is spoken for the last time. We all hope that each of these come as late as possible but they will come for almost all of us. A lucky few will have their names remembered for much longer than normal and so they will continue to live on.

It is a very human trait to try and find positives in the negatives, especially when the concept is as terrifyingly unknown as death.

 The Presentation of Death

As different cultures approach death in different ways, it is possible to take every extreme and apply it to the concept.

Death is darkness but we also have the concept of light. Black is often seen as a funeral colour (shoutout to Queen Victoria for never moving out of her mourning phase) but in certain religions white is the outfit of choice. Death is the end of life, the beginning of life. It can be a comfort; it can be a tragedy. It can be noble; it can be senseless. Funerals can be solemn and serious or a joyous celebration.

However you see death, whatever your approach to it, it is the only certainty we all have in this world. Owen’s speech in 3x18 was on the money with this.

Death is also used as a concept: the 126 died in 1x01 and was reborn by the end of the same episode. Paul’s health scare pushed him to reject treatment until he realised he can be who he is and stay alive; TK’s journey to rehab as seen in 3x08 and his drive to stay clean; Judd’s fear at losing Grace in 2x09 which is contrasted with the promise of new life by the end of the same episode. Ultimately, death has come to mean the end of one thing before something else begins and that is both terrifying and uplifting.

  So what do metaphors, language, presentation, and even death have to do with the sleeping scenes we have in the Tarloft?

Everything and nothing, such is the joy of an analytical meta. But bear with me as I link in the previous 2200 plus words to the scenes that Nea challenged me to write an essay on.

  Tarlos and Sleep in 3x05

The first time we see them ‘sleeping together’ (last night I slept in my stilettos, Holiday Inn) is when Carlos is combing through the footage and TK has fallen asleep next to him, on him, whatever. It’s adorable. TK woke to an empty bed and sought out his partner at three in the morning. The fact TK says “come back to bed” means that they started off there together and Carlos either woke up or couldn’t sleep.

Sleep is when your brain slows down and allows your body to relax and prepare for unconsciousness and so if your brain does not slow down then sleep will be hard to come by.

TK joins Carlos, even taking up a position on his “side” on the couch. Ultimately he falls asleep and Carlos continues to work through the night. There is a level of comfort for them both with this: TK is able to fall back to sleep and Carlos is able to continue working. He had already declared the footage as unsettling and is then able to continue working without having the same reaction that he did when TK startled him.

It's the first clear indication that we have that these boys are fully committed to each other, that the situation and drama of the breakup and ice storm is being put – if you’ll pardon the pun – to bed. They are comfortable and intimate with each other in a way that doesn’t involve Adult Fun Times, or even their bed. But it does involve sleep – and coming off the back of an arc where TK wasn’t just holding hands with Death they were halfway out the door – it will also provide reassurance to them both.

TK’s line to coma!Gwyn, “what if he doesn’t want to take me back?” showed his fear when it comes to their relationship. Does Carlos love TK enough to forgive him? (Yes. A thousand times yes.) Are they fixable? TK had to nearly die for him to confront what he did and the part that he played in their breakup. During his coma Carlos held vigil, and when Andrea joined them she encouraged Carlos to speak to TK and tell him what was in his heart. Even though TK was close to death Carlos engaged with TK and we know thanks to the coma dream that TK could hear him.

Our senses are still processing information even when we’re asleep and it’s deviations from the norm which cause us to wake up: a loud noise, the sun being up suggesting it’s daytime and not four in the fucking morning, the absence of a physical presence which should be there (or one that should not be).

TK is hovering in this state between life and death and it is treated as a dream, a product of sleep. (Oh, so that’s why you talked about death so much, Jen? Yes, yes it is.) Because TK’s coma dream is full of light and love and bits of the real-world bleed in with the pain and the noise and Carlos’ final speech (release the tapes, Tim. We need to hear the whole thing). TK is happy enough in his coma dream, inching towards death. He wants to stay and so Gwyn adds to the timer. The real world is hard and cold and full of uncertainty but it’s a choice he makes to wake up, to come back to Carlos.

And so now that he’s back and he’s home and he’s building this new life with Carlos he wants to wake up and come back to Carlos, over and over again. And once again Carlos is there by his side as he sleeps because he’s done enough sleeping without TK.

 Tarlos and Sleep in 3x13

In 3x13 Carlos wakes up alone to an empty bed. We immediately hear TK talking in the next room so we know nothing bad has happened – well not that bad anyway – but his absence is unsettling given the hour. Conversations held in the small hours of the morning rarely tend to be good ones.

When we see Carlos at the start of that scene he’s wrapped up in their bed. The sheets are white, his shirt is white, there is a strong visual sense of light and joy and life there. He’s also the one who’s asleep, so let’s throw peace into that imagery. The room is dark but the bed, and its sole occupant, is light. The contrast between the two echo the different natures of and approaches to death. The contrast of light and dark, of joy and pain foreshadow the scene that is about to unfold.

Carlos turns over and reaches out to the other side of the bed and it’s only when his arm goes all the way over that he realises that TK is not there and he stirs. Carlos is pulled from his peace and rest by the absence of his partner and so that loss is registered in his unconscious mind and wakes him fully. It could be that TK’s gone to get a glass of water, or gone to the bathroom, or unable to sleep he’s sitting on the couch reading a book so as not to wake Carlos by putting a light on. Whatever the reason, TK is not there and this jars with Carlos.

He gravitates towards TK’s voice, overhearing the conversation with Cooper, and he (mis)interprets this as TK not needing or wanting his support through his recovery. The concept of Carlos as the be all and end all for TK died in that moment (and over the episode he comes to realise that’s not a bad thing) and he returned to their empty bed alone. The shot of him in the small gap in the door, slipping into the darkness reflects on how the light and joy that Carlos represented is being lost – but it will only be temporary. The night passes and the sun rises again.

On the other side of the bedroom door, even though Carlos has been framed as the light in the dark in the bedroom, TK is the one bathed in light in the main area of the loft. He has the white throw blanket over his legs and the only darkness there is the one that TK is dealing with on the inside. Contrasted to that, Carlos is light and yet surrounded by dark. The gulf between them in this moment later could ‘kill’ their relationship but they talk it through – Carlos saying he wants every part of TK (no, baby, no) and TK telling Carlos that he needs things that Carlos cannot give him.

This revelation for both of them is them making preparations and being practical when it comes to their relationship: Carlos understanding he can’t be everything for TK, and TK understanding that just because Carlos can’t support him with this specific thing it doesn’t mean he doesn’t get it. Bit like making a will.

They both reach a new level of intimacy in this episode, one that goes beyond them sleeping in the same bed and having Adult Fun Time together (both of which we also get in this episode). We get them both laying out their vulnerabilities on the table while they are literally sitting at it. They trust each other with their bodies and their hearts and their futures and so now they lay out their final pieces for the other knowing that these ones cannot be picked up and looked after by the other.

Trust also comes by telling someone “hey so this is a thing you cannot fix and you cannot make better” and knowing that it won’t be an issue. Showing someone your whole self, every part of your truth, just for the sake of them knowing it.

When Carlos woke in 3x13 it was to a sense of loss and exclusion and by the end of the episode, when he comes into the room and rouses TK from their bed, the whole loft is filled with light (both of them are dressed in darker tones: TK in blue, Carlos in grey showing that things aren’t 100% back to light and bright and happy) and there’s a balance, understanding, and acceptance of where they are going from this point on. It’s been said that this was the moment for TK where he was “I could marry this man right now” and with that the sense of loss and exclusion are gone.

 Tarlos and Sleep in 3x18

Carlos is asleep, TK is awake, but this time he is with Carlos. Whatever thoughts are going around in TK’s head he’s not retreating with them to the next room. He’s sitting in their shared darkness, watching Carlos sleep. His brain is now racing with thoughts as we suppose Carlos’ brain was in 3x05.

The contrast between them is different again: this time TK is the one in the white shirt (headcanon of shared clothes is very real), Carlos is in a grey vest. There’s a light and dark theme going on but even the ‘darkness’ of Carlos’ sleepwear isn’t all that dark. The room is dark as it was in 3x13 (round of applause for the gif makers who had to deal with that in this episode) but this time it’s a darkness shared.

Carlos’ sleep is so different here to 3x13 because it takes TK a few beats to get him to wake up. Carlos reacts to TK’s touch by rolling over and so his unconscious body is already aware that his is not alone in their bed. See commentary on 3x05 about our senses when we’re asleep. So Carlos’ mind has no reason to worry because it’s quiet and it’s dark and there’s someone in his bed.

The hand through the hair and TK’s voice is not what is expected and so Carlos snaps awake, immediately on alert. When we are pulled from sleep in the middle of a cycle disorientation is very real. If I were to find a line to describe what your brain is going through when it goes from sleep to is the lizard back? then I would go with something like “I’m not looking for… this”. Ah, 1x02. Such a delightful mess for them.

Once the panic has died down Carlos is immediately attuned to TK and realises that he has been woken up for a reason. And what a reason it is – but TK’s speech is another essay and we will focus instead on sleep.

Firstly, Rafa is fucking adorable with his line delivery so jot that down.

“You’re not just saying yes so you can go back to sleep are you?”

“I mean maybe, maybe but…”

Secondly, he still needs his sleep. He wants his sleep. Being woken up in the middle of the night to be asked “hey, wanna spend the rest of your life with me and make a serious commitment in front of our loved ones together?” isn’t exactly the kind of danger the larks relied on the night owls to protect them from.

Finally, I will be a language nerd on Carlos’ line because he’s being playful and half-serious but… it’s the but. A contrasting connective which basically means “ignore everything I just said”. Maybe he was saying it to go back to sleep. BUT. This is what he wants, what he’s wanted since 1x01 if we believe Rafa, and certainly since buying them the loft.

And so they fall back onto the bed for the other kind of sleeping together, before falling asleep together.

 The Significance of Sleep For Tarlos

For a show that runs parallel to death so much, the instances of sleep show moments which walk the line between sleep and one of its metaphors or representations. From TK’s coma dream through to the sharing of the moment in the darkness, each instance highlights a new aspect of their relationship, develops it further, and shows us how much these boys have come to love and trust each other over the three seasons.

Prior to them officially moving in together in 2x10 we know that TK has been spending a lot of time at Carlos’ house – enough to have left things lying around the place and be given a key (2x04), spending extensive time together (couch cuddle scene in 2x07) – and so they have moved beyond the point where TK stayed over on nights where they had Adult Fun Time. Now he’s staying because he’s staying and they are at the point where they are sleeping together without sleeping together.

When TK declared in 1x10 that they made a “pretty good team” he was setting out his stall for where he saw this relationship going. Since then they have been a team: in life and in Catan. They have learned how to trust each other, let the other in, show the other parts of themselves for nothing more than information’s sake. They have made decisions together and built a life together, all of which culminated in their bed in 3x18, with TK rousing Carlos from sleep to ask Carlos for everything “until death parts them”.

(Also the line about it being “the kind of love you can’t get away from” is just everything, especially if like me you grew up with Ghost being the big romance movie of your childhood. Sam’s line “the love inside, you take it with you” adds weight to the concept of death being a part of a story rather than the end of it, and so sleep and dreams are but one part of the Tarlos story.)

[jugandbettsdetectiveagency]

take what I got and give it

a 3x13 post-ep fic

or read on ao3

This isn’t the first time Nancy has looked right through him.

Ace remembers a little girl in braids and a black beanie surrounded by reporters, coming into the station to give her full statement to the detectives that couldn’t solve the case she could. She was all shoulders back and head held high, a practiced yet genuine smile on her face as she navigated the throng easily. She passed him, camped out with his Game Boy on an uncomfortable plastic chair outside his dad’s office, with not so much as a glance in his direction, and slipped into the interview room like she’d done it a thousand times before.

Interesting, Ace had labelled her in his mind. That’s what Nancy Drew was, even then. Interesting.

He’d added a whole host of descriptors to that one since then. Stubborn. Frustrating. Bull-headed.

Caring. Empathetic. Good.

Important.

He swallows.

This is the first time that Nancy looking right through him has hurt so much.

There’s a prickle of something hot at the base of his throat as Nancy looks around, the soft but firm click of the door shutting in his face feeling like a physical blow. It fades to a sharp sting of recognition he’d been ignoring for weeks.

“I told you,” Hannah says, every inch of her radiating defeat, from the gentle lines around her eyes to the slump of her shoulders. “No one can see us.”

“Nancy will,” Ace replies without hesitation. “If there’s anyone who can help, it’s Nancy.”

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Ace tries to pretend he doesn’t feel it, throbbing away like an infected wound, when Nancy doesn’t immediately question his disappearance.

As he sits at the counter, watching her reach up to open the cabinet, pull out a glass, hold it under the running water, before mounting the stairs for bed, all he can sense is her disappointment in him.

A faint thought tried to fan a tiny flame telling him that if she’s upset then maybe, just maybe, she might feel the same way. And if only he’d gotten to tell her…

But he didn’t, couldn’t leave well enough alone, wanted to have something to show her, prove to her, and went and got himself shunted into a parallel universe. Nice going, idiot.

He lets her go to where he shouldn’t follow, staring at the mess of unruly stacked dishes by the sink when the last glimpse of her shoes have disappeared up the stairs.

He wonders if she’s text him. He’d left his phone on the desk at the Historical Society. If he could just know whether she had texted him, been angry at him, demanded for him to call and tell her what he wanted to talk about even if he can’t. Just knowing would be enough.

Hannah had told him not to go inside when Ryan had arrived home and opened the front door. He knew he’d be stuck in here until someone else came or went. But he didn’t really care.

The closer he was to Nancy, the more chances he had to try and make her understand, to get her to feel him, willing her to just listen.

Ace taps his fingers in a dot-dash rhythm against the counter, moonlight slanting through him from the window above the sink, passing the time.

H. E. R. E.

He’s here.

He’s still here.

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When Nancy had started at The Claw, he understood, after some time, that they weren’t people to her. They were side characters in her game of Clue, 2D faces for her to cover in descriptors and fit into her script.

It wasn’t malicious. Sometimes heavy footed, but never meant to be cruel. She was just searching for a way back to a life where everything made sense and everything was how it should be, in its place.

Ace could sense something unsettled in her like he’d felt in himself back when his dad had first come home after the accident. A stumbling, angry, blindsided thing, clawing its way out from the pit in her chest.

Nancy hadn't liked to talk much back in those days before Tiffany’s murder. So he’d talk at her, like he wished someone had done for him when he was sullen and lonely, and squished into a forgotten corner of the library learning how to hack just for the thrill.

A sarcastic reply was good. A smile was a win. And a laugh? A laugh was everything.

He tries it again now, willing anything to slip through the veil.

“So you’re a spearmint kinda girl,” Ace says to the reflectionless mirror, just over Nancy’s left shoulder while she brushes. “That’s cool, I get it, it’s a classic. When I was a kid I had bubblegum flavoured toothpaste and it was the bomb. What age does one think it’s a good idea to stop asking for bubblegum toothpaste? I think I might get some next time I’m at the drugstore. And I’m out of aspirin. And conditioner. Doesn’t stay this soft by itself,” he says, pointing to his hair.

Ace rests his pointer finger against the bathroom faucet, channeling all his energy until it shifts an inch and hot water pours into the basin.

Nancy starts, toothbrush stilling. Her eyes shift, just slightly, over her shoulder to where Ace is standing.

“C’mon, Nancy,” he murmurs, close enough that his breath would rustle the flyaways by her ear if they were in the same realm. “I’m here.”

The steam from the water fogs up the mirror just enough that he can reach out and start writing in the condensation.

Hannah was right, though. He’s barely made it through the first letter of his name before his vision doubles, a pounding behind his left temple unsettling the nausea swirling in his stomach.

“Could really use that aspirin,” he huffs, bent double. He turns, hopeful, but Nancy is shutting off the faucet and turning her back on the room. His shaky name on the mirror drips and clouds over, disappearing before she has the chance to see.

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“Love?” he asks Hannah, the word sticking in his throat.

“Yes, it’s obvious.”

Ace hadn’t thought so. He looks down at himself, looks at his hands like they’re covered in something he hadn’t noticed. Had he turned into a beacon, insides on his outsides, broadcasting a feeling so ingrained in his being he hadn’t noticed anything had changed?

If he’s being as loud as Hannah—and Bess—seem to think he’s being, the one person who needs to hear him the most isn’t listening.

His attempts have been repeatedly thwarted throughout the day, and everywhere Ace is not—there’s Agent Park, stepping where he can’t.

Park, with his sophisticated edge and sure-footed direction. Park, who knows how to elicit small, full-bodied smiles from Nancy with the right placement of a few simple words. Unlike Ace, who babbles at her with an urgency bordering on desperation. Ace, who tries so hard only to miss the mark at even the closest range.

The prospect of revealing his feelings to Nancy had been daunting, but that kind of daunted you feel as a kid standing on the edge of a swimming pool—filled with anticipation and excitement, and just enough nervous bubbling in your stomach to make you a little bit sick. The act of jumping, toes inching closer to the edge, was the worst part. But the falling? What came after? Made it all worth it.

It hadn’t felt hopeless until Ace watched Nancy disappear into a coat closet, going where he couldn’t follow, wouldn’t want to follow, Park’s hand twined with hers.

Love.

It echoed around his skull as he waited, blood buzzing, for Nancy to emerge, the moon climbing closer to its peak with every passing moment.

These feelings for Nancy had crept so slowly into his chest that he barely realised, like settling a soft blanket over a sleeping child. So cautious and so light; it was like none of his other relationships. They used to swallow him all at once, douse him in water and then ring him dry. But Nancy…

What else could it be if not love? New, and terrifying, and wonderful, and— Love.

His hand is shaking when Ace reaches up to touch her shoulder, but he already knows it’ll work. The ground beneath his boots ceases to move, her body beneath his fingers bolting him to the earth, their point of contact making the veil seem thinner, nothing but gossamer against wind.

“Ace,” Nancy whispers, and he feels the catch of her breath beneath his hand.

Nancy’s gasp melts into his relieved sigh. She gathers him close, and what he wouldn’t give to slip this moment beyond the veil. Fall into a parallel universe and have the time to look into Nancy’s eyes and see what he knows, what he hopes he caught there. Before it was gone.

Of course she figured it out, he can’t believe his faith wavered. It was never really Nancy he doubted, Ace thinks, as he catches them in a kiss. It was always himself.

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It’s an exercise in futility.

Researching Park and all the ways he was a better man than himself—it wasn’t really going to change anything.

Some part of Ace knows that no matter what he finds out about the guy, no matter what shoves him further down the totem pole, he has to tell Nancy how he feels about her.

It won’t stay inside him anymore. Even if it’s not returned, he decides as they listen to Lev talk in his assiduous way about the privilege of feeling the weight of someone else’s love. Nancy deserves to know just how much she means to them. To him. And that will have to be enough.

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Ace had never experienced a weight being lifted from his shoulders in such a literal sense, but there it goes with a few simple words:

“I have feelings for you.”

He doesn’t go any further than that for now. That’s enough, if the frozen look of—something on her face is anything to go by.

“I don’t know what to say.”

The moment sits with them, like they’re in the air, jumping into the pool.

Ace feels oddly calm.

Several times over they’ve read about, even triggered, the splitting of someone’s soul. Ace used to think it was a destructive thing, tearing the fabric of someone’s being, the very essence of themselves—frayed and cracked and painful.

But that’s not it, he realises as he stares back at Nancy, trying to keep his expression as bare as possible. Souls aren’t little pieces of jagged rock, resting heavily in the core of a person, guarded, waiting to be smashed.

Souls are the way Nancy fights for justice. Souls are the way Nick would do anything to help someone in trouble. It’s the way George is fiercely protective, and Bess has empathy bleeding from her pores.

Souls are giving tiny pieces of yourself away everyday because it doesn’t make you any less to do so. Souls are constant, and growing, and full of so much power they can crack open a portal to another dimension. And Ace would happily give away a piece of his soul to Nancy every day for the rest of his life if it meant she knew she was loved.

The front door bursts open and Ryan is saying something he doesn’t hear because every drop of blood in Ace’s body is pounding in his ears. He turns to leave without looking back; he doesn’t want a hasty answer in an interrupted moment. He’s left a piece of his soul in Nancy’s gentle hands and she needs time to decide if she wants to hold onto it.

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He isn’t sure he noticed it before, but there’s something in the way that Nancy moves that makes it feel like she’s drifting towards him at all times.

Ace had thought that it was just him, pulled peaceably into Nancy’s orbit as was completely unavoidable. It’s become more of a dance though, as the day of Temperance’s ritual draws closer—both of them turning around each other in a carefully synchronised series of steps, neither one of them wanting to break the hold just yet.

Crush, crush, crush. A throw away line—it thuds along his veins like a living, beating thing. There’s an adrenaline to each interaction he and Nancy have. A spark behind her hand on his arm, his at her elbow.

How could he not have hope now? After all this, how could it not end the way he wants it to—

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Sometimes Ace has these dreams.

They’re vivid, with an edge of solidity that makes them feel almost like memories.

Early morning sunlight slants through the window and warms his skin, mixes with the liquid warmth that exists where his bones used to be as he lies in bed, sleepy and content and blissfully happy.

There are other things, too. A smell, like shampoo, that’s light and fresh, just a hint of something that might be cinnamon.

There’s the feeling of fingers, bitten cold by the winter chill, seeking his, shy but not tentative.

There’s a hand in his hair, lips on his lips, pieces of his soul pouring out of him with uncharted abandon until he’s giddy with it.

Sometimes, in his dreams, Ace understands what it finally feels like to want for nothing.

When he wakes up from these dreams (frequently he dreams) Ace feels bereft. It takes him a moment to come back to himself, to see the look on Nancy’s face, in her eyes, shattered and brimming with ice, as she turned away from him that day.

He dresses quickly. He slips his badge for the morgue around his neck and tucks his thermos of averagely brewed coffee into his bag. He takes the stairs to the street with heavy footsteps. He shifts Florence into gear and drives to work. He carries out his duties and eats a mediocre lunch. He finishes mopping the floors and gathers his things as the clock ticks over to five. He pulls on his coat and takes his phone out of his pocket on his way out of the door and texts Bess.

Anything?

It’s a text Ace has sent many other times, on many other days. The answer buzzes in soon after.

Not yet. Still looking x

Ace knows Bess is still looking, but he appreciates that she always reminds him anyway. Because one day the reply will be different. And they’ll finally figure out what Nancy is too afraid to tell them.

When she’d stormed out of his apartment it wasn’t loathing or indifference or anger staring back at him—just pure, unadulterated fear.

Ace remembers that look from a time before. Nancy wore it as they covered George’s lifeless body in white in a desperate attempt to save her.

Nancy is trying to save him, of that much he’s always been sure.

And soon he’ll know from what.

[momentofmemory]

Of Monsters and Malia: Scott’s Darkness Arc in 3b

for @teenwolf-meta​ week, day one: character study

At the opening of 3b, Scott is in his bedroom getting ready for school. The room is bathed in a warm yellow light, shining in through the open window with Scott’s body silhouetted against it (3x13). It’s a fitting introduction: Scott’s body is backlit, making it shadowed.

When Scott turns around, however, we’re confronted with the first of Scott’s hallucinations: a fist full of claws, made up of Scott’s literal shadow. The shadowed form refuses to leave until Scott balls his hand into a fist, burying his claws away.

The hallucinations only escalate from here. 

When he sees his eyes glowing red in the reflection of his helmet, he’s no longer in the safety of his own home—he’s in the middle of a public parking lot, where anyone might see. Additionally, while he could reassure himself earlier that nothing was really happening simply by looking down at his hands, here he has no way of telling if his eyes are truly glowing. They appear to go away when he blinks his eyes, but does that mean they’ve stopped, or that they were never glowing at all? And if he can hallucinate them starting, could he also have hallucinated them stopping?

Puzzled and unnerved, Scott starts making his way to class and faces his largest, most terrifying hallucination yet: the shadow of a twisted alpha werewolf, bearing down on him and seemingly coming out of him. Scott attempts to run from it, but it’s a shadow; as the Nogitsune will later tell Stiles, “no one can lose it” (3x18).

These three hallucinations tie Scott’s haunting directly to his physical body. Fear of self and the betrayal of one’s own body are central themes in traditional werewolf stories, and have been a facet of Scott’s fears since the beginning of the series. Considering Scott’s recent rise to Alpha (3x12), Scott has even more of a reason to not trust his body, and the line blurs not just between how much of this is real, but how much of this is him.

This all comes to a head near the end of the first act of the episode, when Scott’s hallucinations begin to manifest physically. Scott’s eyes begin to glow uncontrollably in the middle of a crowded hallway—something Scott doesn’t even realize, as Stiles has to point out—and suddenly, everything is horribly real. Scott’s body is betraying him, actively working against his wants and desires and cannibalizing his sense of control. Ultimately, he winds up taking the same path as he did before—he buries his own claws into his fists, but this time, the sharp edges are agonizingly real.

It’s only at this point, when it’s clear that Scott’s loss of control over his shift isn’t just a trick of the light, or even a strictly mental state, that Malia enters the story.

The Sheriff introduces Scott and Stiles to an old case involving a missing girl and her murdered family from some years ago, which he believes might have had some kind of supernatural influence. Sure enough, in the Preserve the boys discover that not only was a shifter involved but that the missing girl was the shifter—and still is the shifter, but locked permanently in her animal form. This a notably detailed backstory for someone who was originally intended to guest star in only two episodes, and the introduction of the concept of being stuck in animal form might even be jarring—except for what Malia means for Scott. While Scott has already shown fear for what an uncontrolled shift might do in a general sense, Malia’s story is a warning for just how long term the repercussions might be if he can’t get a hold of it.

This fear is represented visually when Scott has his first out of body hallucination. As Stiles recounts what happened to the Sheriff—“[she] eventually… becomes trapped inside the body of a coyote”—Scott has a hallucination of himself, out of control and rabid in werewolf form, tearing into eight year old Malia. Malia’s backstory is Scott’s worst nightmare made manifest—locked forever in the form of a monster, with all humanity lost and the blood of his family on his hands.

We see this progression, and Scott’s realization of what it means, through the language he uses to describe his shift. In the school, Scott simply says he “didn’t know what was going to happen” (3x13). On three separate occasions after that, he says he “doesn’t have control.” And then, after the realization of what Malia is, Scott tells Stiles he’s “worried that if I do it, I won’t be able to turn back” (3x13, emphasis added). This is a new, far worse fear—it’s no longer a possibility of briefly losing control and wreaking havoc. It’s losing control forever.

It’s no surprise, then, that at this point in the narrative Scott’s primary struggle shifts from being unable to stop his shift to refusing to shift.

In 3a, even before Scott’s full rise to Alpha, one of the clients at the clinic tells Scott his dog “knows who the Alpha is” in regards to Scott’s easy handling—Scott doesn’t have to consciously use any power, as his mere presence is enough to calm the dog (3x04). But in 3b, despite actually being an Alpha, when Scott and Stiles are cornered by the Tate’s dog Scott is unable to even “glow [his] eyes at it.” As he tells Stiles, he can’t “be the Alpha” because he doesn’t have control (3x13). Additionally, after he has the idea to turn Malia back using an Alpha roar, he says “I could try it on my own, but right now, I’m too scared to even change into just a werewolf” (3x14). Scott has locked his shift down entirely because he’s terrified of what he’ll lose if he doesn’t.

The twins, unfortunately, have missed this memo.

Instead of focusing on Scott’s actual fear, which is losing himself to the shift, the twins only encourage it—literally trying to beat him into giving into his base urges to hurt someone, as if a shift is only maintained through violence or anger. Aiden explicitly tells him he has to “be the monster” and “give in.” The language and methods here suggest that the twins (or at least Aiden) are leaning in to the uncontrolled shift—though not too far, as Ethan cautions that if Scott can’t control it, he’ll “get further and further away from being human,” like Malia, or as Aiden ends, “Peter” (3x14).

Scott does not find this helpful.

Going into the third act of 3x14, all of Scott’s choices seem terrible.  If he lets loose, he might turn into the creature—the shadow—that’s been haunting him, losing all his humanity and potentially murdering his pack. If he keeps his control, Malia will die and he won’t be able to help his pack from any future dangers, not to mention the self harm required to force the shift away. Either way, he seems to be forced to cut off part of himself: the wolf, or the human.

Up until this point, Malia has largely been viewed as an average animal, in terms of her mental capacities—someone lost to her baser instincts, with nothing human left to her at all. Fortunately, just like Malia represents the worst case scenario, Malia also demonstrates that humanity is not easily stripped away.

When the pack goes out to rescue Malia, Scott is separated from his pack and still unable to shift—until Stiles realizes where Malia is going. Malia’s acts, which had seemed recklessly brash for an animal, were actually all about being able to return Kylie’s doll to the car wreck—”it’s like bringing flowers to a grave” (3x14). This is a distinctly human act—one of grief and love, not violence. Even as a girl locked as a coyote for eight years, Malia has still maintained some part of her humanity, instead of becoming a monster.

It’s at this realization that Scott finally allows his shift. It’s easy, natural, not uncontrolled so much as it is instinctive. He shifts into a wolf because it’s part of him, just like he then shifts Malia back into a human because it’s part of her. Scott is an alpha, and a leader, and so his shift is not built on uncontrolled violence any more than Malia’s coyote form is without love. The shapes Scott’s roar urges people to take reflects the kind of person they are. It’s a roar that says I know who I am, and I know who you are, too.

This is also why Scott doesn’t shift back to his human form at the end of the scene—it’s no longer about proving he’s not trapped in the shift, but showing that the shift itself isn’t a trap. He’s just as comfortable in his werewolf form as he is in his human form, because they’re both him.

This realization is reflected in Malia’s final scene of the season.

It takes place in Scott’s bedroom.

Like before, the scene is brightly lit—sunlight streaming in through the open window, warm tones all around. Once again, Scott’s claws take center stage. But this time, instead of his claws representing a threat he can’t control, Scott’s claws represent his own ease with his shift, and his ability to teach Malia to shift. As he tells her after a failed attempt, “don’t think about it too much. Just… try to let it happen” (3x24). While this is similar to the twins’ advice of “giving up,” the tone is entirely different. It’s not about letting something else take control of you, but allowing the body to do what comes naturally.

And it does come naturally! With the renewed sense of confidence and ease from Scott, Malia is able to flick out her claws. Her laugh about it is gleeful, Scott’s and Stiles’ grins delighted.

Claws, in this final scene, are no longer an image of the body’s betrayal of desires, but the fulfillment.

[handonhaven]

1. Tired of people specifically from that fandom saying Landon as never down anything for hope that he always leave's her and treat's her badly, when, where and how tf??🙄🙄... JOSIE!!!!!or even the stupid squad can never and I mean ever hold a candle to what Landon as ever done for hope and I mean literally. Landon that was always ready to scarfice his self for hope? Who died two times for hope??? One being to kill the cupid cause he stabed hope, the other to finally kill malivore ( and at first was willing to let them kill his body so hope didn't have to become the tribrid). and also died to give wade a little motivation in 2x10??? Landon that whenever hope was feeling too pressured Landon as been there to reassured her and let her know that everything will be okay . so wah them mean by "never done anything for hope or treats hope badly" ???.

2. Landon as walked away from hope 3 times so where tf these people getting " million's/100 times Landon walked away from hope"???? 1x14 Landon walked away because hope lied to him about his mom ( and ended up being kidnapped 😂) after hope almost murder Landon because he lied to her about the knife, 2x06 Landon walked away because of the whole situation about him not remembering her and she didn't even wanna tell him who she was she rather let him be with Josie and had to let Josie do it for her and I don't even know what that argument was about in 3x02 and you can't even count 3x13 either cause that was malivore, and in those 3 times he walked away from the argument (not relationship 🙄) I understand why he walked away Landon had a right to be upset in all 3 situation and I understand his point of view he as feelings too, it takes two to build a argument and it's hope fault why the argument started in all 3 situations if you really think about it but no they only wanna see what they wanna see and hate on Landon for no damn reason 🙄🙄🥱....

The antis saying " Landon treats hope badly and that he always leave hope and he knows hope as a fair of abundonment " is a weak ass argument cause Landon as never abundant hope in every realtionship there's gonna be arguments anit no relationship perfect what they want Landon to do stand up and agrue with hope all day?? Somebody as to walk away 🙄🙄 but at the end of the day Landon always comes back and work shit out he don't let things get in the way of how much he loves hope....

Sorry this is Soo long just needed to get it out to somebody tired of them, me hate them🥱...

Ikr!! The dumbest arguments I’ve ever seen. But YES to everything you said! 👏 Them saying Landon has never done anything for Hope is just... there’s no way they’ve actually watched the show. Landon has been there for Hope since the beginning, was the one who helped her open up and love again, has made her more happy than anyone ever has. Has supported her and helped her, he lifts her up and brings out the best in her. And exactly! He literally had his heart ripped out for her and did it willingly! Was also willing to spend eternity in darkness so that she wouldn’t have to become the tribrid. You’re absolutely right, there’s not one person on the show who has done anything remotely close to what Landon has done for Hope.

And their argument that Landon “leaves Hope all the time” is so old. They’ve been repeating that one like a broken record for how long now... Idk where they’re getting all these times that Landon has walked away from Hope either. The main times were, like you said, 1x14, 2x06, and 3x02. And all were for perfectly valid reasons, and all tied to trauma as well. Not that anyone will ever consider that when it comes to Landon, he’s not allowed to feel or be affected by anything or react at all. 1x14 was about his mom, who he’d wanted to meet his whole life. And he’d also wanted answers from her since her leaving him is the reason his life has been so horrible. Plus, like you said, after Hope attacked him and planned to kill him after he lied about the knife, and he knew how important honesty was between them, only for him to learn he lied to her? His reaction was completely understandable. And in 2x06, again with the honesty and what you said about Hope not telling him all that time and letting him be with Josie. Plus the fact that he had struggled so much when she was gone, was killing himself over and over again because of it. But he’s not allowed to be upset when he finds out about everything? And 3x02 was just unnecessary and obviously used for drama. But it was because Landon had just found out he lost his powers, felt like his whole future had changed and worried he wouldn’t belong with Hope or at the school anymore (and not belonging is something he’s struggled with his whole life). He felt like Hope thought they wouldn’t be okay, he was scared of losing what they had. And he’d also just lost his brother. So again, totally valid reasons for him to be upset and leave to have some alone time. (Hope also wasn’t really responding at the end as well, it kinda felt like neither of them were gonna be saying more at that point anyway, so he left.) And yeah, you can’t count 3x13 because that wasn’t even him. There was the end of 2x07 when he left town with Raf, but that was after Raf convinced him to and he was doing it to keep Hope, and everyone else, safe. Hope would’ve done the same thing if she’d been in his position. Plus he came back the next day anyway and apologized and fixed everything. I’ve seen some people count 1x04, but that was after Hope had been rude to him all day. He was sitting by himself at the dock and when she came, he let her know how he felt and understandably didn’t want to sit around and talk to her after she’d hurt him, so he left. Landon was the one who had been hurt, not Hope, he had a perfectly good reason to leave, yet people wanna make him look like he was the one hurting her? Oh and also, I’ve even seen people trying to count him leaving the school in 1x01 and 1x05 as him “leaving” Hope too when he was literally sent away! He had wanted to stay but had no choice, he was sent away and voted out. But that’s the kind of logic these people use to hate on Landon. And so true, Hope had a part in those situations too, especially like in 1x14 and 2x06, her actions caused that. And Landon had a right to react to what happened, especially when they were very shocking things for him to find out as well. And everyone copes differently too, and Landon had to take time for himself to process things. But like you said, people only see what they want to see. And clearly only care about Hope’s side of things and never consider Landon’s perspective, or his feelings or experiences. They also never take into consideration how Landon grew up either, he learned to avoid fighting or causing problems as a way to survive and protect himself. As he said, “if I caused trouble, I was out.” So that’s also why it makes sense that Landon leaves before things escalate or get worse. He wants to avoid fighting because, again, there’s a connection to his trauma. And he obviously just doesn’t want to fight with Hope either, also notice how he never yells at her. But no, he’s horrible to Hope because he “abandons” her. 🙄 And sorry for going off on a rant about this and writing an essay, it just pisses me off when people say this stuff. But anyways...

Yeah, for sure, it’s such a weak argument. Exactly, Landon has always been so good to Hope, he doesn’t abandon her. The longest he was away from her, voluntarily, was probably less than 24 hours (from the end of 2x07 to the end of 2x08). Yet the antis’ fave abandoned Hope when she most needed support, and for how many weeks, without doing anything to help Hope. But it’s okay because it was for her mental health, but Landon can’t even have a few hours to himself for his mental health without being attacked. And so true, every relationship is gonna have arguments and it’s not as if Hope has never “walked away” from Landon either. And yeah, at least Landon doesn’t just stay and argue. He calms down and always comes back and resolves things later. So there’s just no logic when it comes to the antis hating on him.

And you’re good, I totally get it. My response is super long, I’m sorry. 😭😂 I get real tired of it too, watch those people continue to repeat themselves even after the show ends.

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Merlin & Arthur’s friendship: clichés versus reality (Part II)

Following on from Merlin & Arthur’s friendship: clichés versus reality Part I, here is part II. 

CLAIM #3: Arthur *constantly* denied that Merlin was his friend

This claim assumes that Arthur was 1)- serious when he did deny being friends with Merlin and 2)- unwilling to change that viewpoint.

Arthur had no need to either deny or admit to being friends with Merlin. Even when he said in episode 2x13 that, “I know I’m a Prince, so we can’t be friends,” the implication is that he does want to be friends. After all, he was insisting that Merlin confide in him. This pattern would repeat in many episodes to come. 

Bear in mind that Arthur has described other people as friends, too. This includes people we never saw onscreen. A clear example comes from episode 5x05, when Arthur was so moved with grief by Sir Ranulf’s death that he personally led a collection of knights to bring the sorcerer Osgar to justice. He explained to Gwen that “...he was a friend. We knew each other as boys.”

So why would Arthur have trouble admitting that Merlin was his friend? The viewpoint that being more arrogant and prejudiced in the earlier seasons, Arthur would not admit to friendship with a servant, does not hold as much water as some think. As early as episode 2x05, Arthur called Merlin a “true friend”, because he (mistakenly) thought that Merlin was criticising Lady Catrina on his behalf. 

Admittedly, the best examples of Arthur accepting Merlin as a friend come from Seasons 4 and 5. 

In episode 4x01, Merlin said, “I always thought that if things hadn’t been different, we’d have been good friends.” Arthur’s response? “Yeah.” During the crucial episode 4x03, Merlin sat outside the throne room all right, facing a crossroads between the end of his dreams and remaining loyal to the king. Of course, Arthur had no idea about this, but he appreciated the gesture. “You are a loyal friend, Merlin.” In episode 4x05, Arthur called Merlin “old friend”, which is self-explanatory. 

It’s also worth noting that even after claiming in episode 4x05 that he didn’t need friends, when Merlin later said, “I’m your friend!”, Arthur did not disagree. 

Now, I could cite the example of episode 4x07, where Arthur said to Merlin, “I’ve had my heart broken once today. I don’t want to lose another friend.” Self-explanatory. But was this proof of their friendship? No. Arthur was essentially threatening to end his friendship with Merlin if the latter continued criticising Agravaine. Later, in episode 4x11, Arthur again threatened to banish Merlin for the second time (thus ending their friendship) if he accused Agravaine of treason again. This once again shows how Arthur associated loyalty with family first. 

One of the best examples comes from episode 4x13: “I came back because you’re the only friend I have, and I couldn’t bear to lose you.” Is Merlin Arthur’s only friend? No. However, out of all Arthur’s friends, Merlin was his best friend, and losing almost everyone and everything else made him realise that yet again. 

Then we have all the actions which prove Arthur considered Merlin as a friend. 

For example relied on Merlin’s opinion, as Princess Mithian rightly observed in episode 4x11. “One thing I’ve learned since being here is that Arthur values your opinion above almost all others.” 

He complained about Merlin’s periods of silence and broodiness, like in episode 3x05: “Come on: I’m missing your usual prattle!” In episode 3x09, after noting that Merlin was upset, he said, “For goodness’ sake, what is your problem?”

Another example comes from episode 5x01, where Arthur noted Merlin sitting outside the camp and took the time to find out why he was “so upset”. 

The example from episode 5x05 is self-explanatory: “Seriously, I haven’t seen you smile these past three days.” Arthur relies on Merlin’s cheerfulness to remain optimistic, because he faces the constant threat of death. Notice that shortly after Merlin’s sombre mood, Arthur stopped dismissing Osgar’s warnings about The Disir.

As if this were not enough, look at Arthur spending downtime with Merlin. A great example comes from episode 3x04, where Arthur decides on “a nice, cold tankard of mead” after hunting. In episode 3x13, both were sitting on the courtyard steps discussing the future of the kingdom. Even despite his strenuous denials and ingratitude in episode 4x05, you can see Arthur gesture for Merlin to sit down the morning after they captured Caerleon.

What about all the hunting trips? Arthur knows that Merlin hates hunting (in fact, he takes pleasure in this fact), yet still brought him along, as episodes 1x13, 3x04, 4x11, 5x03, and 5x11 show. 

By far my favourite example comes from episode 5x12, when Arthur and Merlin were playing dice at the tavern. (I don’t know iwhat this game was called.) In my view, this happened regularly. Why else would the common people watch and laugh while Merlin poked fun at their king? (Percival’s face was classic.) And why was Arthur playing against Merlin? When did Merlin learn how to play dice? Who taught him? When? 

Obviously, I do not know, but it’s worth asking. 

Despite being speechless after Merlin “won” the game, Arthur let Merlin “win” all of his money. (Clearly, Arthur was the better player: “Feel free to retire at any time.” The king only used theatrics to get the right dice roll, while Merlin cheated with magic each time. If Merlin hadn’t “coughed”, then Arthur would have rolled correctly a second time. Hence why Arthur said beforehand, “Enjoy this moment, Merlin… while it lasts.”) 

Look at Arthur, who was dressed in a plain shirt, rather than his armour and cloak. When we put this scene in conjunction with episode 3x04, where Arthur again wore plain clothes, we can see that he enjoyed these moments of normality. “There’s no better place to measure the mood of your people than the local tavern… I’m just a simple peasant like everybody else.”

So where is this strenuous denial? Nowhere. Arthur never constantly denied that Merlin was his friend. Nor did he only admit this in secret, otherwise the great dice scene in episode 5x12 would never have happened. Sure, the people might have been astonished to see their great king playing against a servant, but they must also have known that if Arthur allowed himself to be “beaten” at a game by his servant, the latter must be his friend. 

CLAIM #4: Merlin was usually/always (in the) right

Wrong. Being right most of the time does not mean being right all of the time. Merlin failed to realise this, and consequently made grievous errors throughout the series. The most grievous errors came when he tried to fight against death. Episode 3x05 shows this; all of the grief and pain suffered by Arthur, Gwen, and Uther stemmed from Merlin mortally injuring Morgana in a bid to prevent her from killing the king. 

He effectively ignored the warning to “use what you see for good.” 

Then we have the example to end all examples; Merlin’s recklessness, presumptuousness, bold-faced hypocrisy, coldness, prejudice, and most of all, jealousy towards Sir Mordred. 

Even as early as episode 1x08, Merlin almost let the boy Mordred die on account of a prophecy. At least back then he questioned it before hiding in bed like a coward. Mordred also blamed Merlin for Uther’s carnage in episode 2x11, though in the case of that episode and episode 2x03, I think Merlin’s actions were no worse than presumptuous. 

It gets far worse in episode 5x02, when Merlin yelled, “You should have killed him!”, to which Arthur rightly said, “What is wrong with you?” Mordred saw that he could not jump across the gorge, so he surrendered and walked away. (He probably knew that Arthur would arrive in Ismere soon, as his later conversation with Morgana demonstrates.) 

Later on, Arthur gave Merlin another strange look after Merlin said, “I told you, you should have killed him when you had the chance.” How could someone usually so compassionate insist on executing a man who stopped threatening them?

Remember how Merlin reacted to Arthur killing Caerleon in episode 4x05, despite having plenty of evidence that Caerleon was a threat to Arthur’s life?

By the way, episodes 5x01 and 5x02 are my favourite examples of Merlin being horrendously wrong. Other episodes include 5x05, and the crucial errors he made in episode 5x11. (I watched most of episode 5x11 last Sunday, and I was floored. It shook me more than 5x12 and 5x13, which I had also been avoiding for years.) 

Going back to episodes 5x01 and 5x02 (because episode 5x11 is too depressing): if Arthur had listened to Merlin’s “advice”, he would have abandoned his knights to a slow death in slavery. He would also have committed murder, simply on Merlin’s say-so. If you kill someone who is defenceless and has surrendered, that is murder-- regardless of whether, like Merlin, you are desperately scared of a prophecy and speaking without thinking. 

Also, if Arthur had rushed back to Camelot on Merlin’s say-so, he might well have been assassinated by Ruadan. 

Most of all, almost everything that Merlin “advised” violated Arthur’s core beliefs-- the very beliefs that made Merlin respect Arthur in the first place. It’s astonishing that Arthur had to explain no less than five times that he would never abandon any of his men, otherwise he would be abandoning his own values and the values that built Camelot. 

So desperate is Merlin to fight against death that he either quietly ignores this advice, or claims he agrees, only to try dissuading Arthur later on. 

Just to be clear: I perfectly understand that beneath all Merlin’s horrible advice and prevarication, he does not want to lose his friend. 

However, just watch Merlin’s marvellous inconsistency throughout episode 5x01. First, he plays Devil’s Advocate by asking Arthur, “Do you really think Gwaine and Percival could still be alive?” Arthur says he has to find out, because they are knights of Camelot. Merlin says, “I understand.” Of course he did. 

Bear in mind that this happened before Merlin learned of the prophecy. Some have therefore asked what made Merlin unwilling to look for the missing knights, who were his friends. 

In Annis’ castle, Merlin said, “I’m not sure we should go to Ismere.” On the other hand, Arthur, acting on reliable information that Morgana had rounded up slaves, took this as a sign that his mission was right. Merlin tried arguing, then gave up. One might assume that after two rational explanations, Merlin would see reason, particularly since even Kilgharrah could not confirm that the fated battle would take place. 

But no. After the knights left Annis’ lands, Merlin complained again that Morgana was “powerful… dangerous.” So, Arthur explained yet again that “no matter what lies ahead of me, I won’t abandon them.” Merlin respected this answer, because he said, “I understand. I wish I didn’t-- but I do.” (Why does he wish he did not understand why Arthur would risk his life for all of his soldiers?) 

But the very next day, after the ambush, Merlin turned to rage: “The two of us against Morgana, are you mad?” He tried stopping Arthur from going any further. So Arthur explained himself again. Consequently, Merlin continued following Arthur. 

The very same night, he once again insisted that, “We have to turn back.” Arthur explained himself yet again, and Merlin promised to “protect you or die at your side.”

Which one is it? Not to mention that in episode 5x02, instead of apologising for his carelessness, Merlin said, “And I told you to go back to Camelot.” This is silly, given that Arthur had already refused to return on numerous occasions until he had rescued his men, assuming they were still alive. 

The most hilarious example comes later, when Merlin says, “We can’t let them hand us over to Morgana: we need to get out of here, we need a plan.” But when Arthur comes up with that plan, what does Merlin say? “You’ve got to be joking!”, “You should have killed him!”, “Next time, we might not be so lucky.”, “We’ll never make it in there.”, and “How did you talk me into this?” 

Again, which one is it?

I know why Merlin behaved this way, of course. However, there’s a difference between the noble goal of protecting your friend, and ignoring everything and everyone else in order to reach that goal-- particularly through controlling means. Throughout the series, Merlin’s biggest fault comes from his controlling tendencies, which always backfire. And he never learns.  

In this way, Merlin shackled Arthur with unrealistic expectations about a Golden Age based on prophecies that he could not verify. Somehow, this Golden Age had now become evading Arthur’s death. He wanted Arthur to share that belief. Worse, even while his motives came from a noble goal, he treated other people as expendable. 

Another example of Merlin’s absurd reasoning comes from the fateful episode 5x05. Putting aside the fact that Merlin tried claming that sentencing Mordred to die was an acceptable price to pay “for Camelot”, he also previously claimed that, “I do care. About who you are, Arthur. Who you are destined to become.” 

This makes zero sense, given that Arthur had already taken the throne and “brought peace to the kingdom” (episode 5x03). What more did he have to achieve? It depends on who you ask: bringing back magic, uniting the five kingdoms, eternal peace, avoiding the prophecy about Mordred, bowing to the Triple Goddess, being the greatest king this land has ever known… 

Can you see how unrealistic this is? Moreover, can you see how Merlin used Arthur as a vehicle of his own unrealistic ambitions? This is why the Golden Age never happened: it was a myth. It allowed the Druids, Gaius, Kilgharrah, etc. to live vicariously through the new king. 

Bringing back magic was impossible while Morgana continued using it for great evil. (And the Triple Goddess, who complained about Arthur persecuting sorcery, allowed Morgana to continue that evil conduct.)

Arthur did take considerable steps to uniting the kingdoms, particularly when he signed a treaty with King Odin in episode 5x04. But eternal peace? Impossible, otherwise episodes 5x01 and 5x02 would not have happened. 

The unbiquitous prophecy about Mordred was never backed by evidence, leaving Merlin in a state of constant paranoia, and causing him to make horrible errors. This despite the fact that, by his own admission, “I like him [Mordred] myself.” [1]

Bowing to the Triple Goddess was nothing but blackmail using Mordred’s life as a bargaining chip. This once again shows how many sorcerers had caused chaos and misery. Remember, this same Triple Goddess used torture techniques such as controlling people’s minds using the Fomorroh, as Morgana explained in episode 4x06. 

While I believe that the persecution of peaceful sorcerers was wrong, Arthur had no quarrel with the Druids (episode 5x11), and he still had good reason for banning sorcery (also explained in episode 5x11). Nobody, not even Merlin, gave him a reason to change his mind. Kara definitely did not, for she wasn’t executed for being a Druid: she was executed for murder and attempted murder. 

As for being the greatest king this land had ever known… Well, Arthur appreciated that statement in episode 4x12. However, when Merlin spoke of the greatest kingdom in the world in episode 4x13, Arthur said, “You’re making this up.”

In episode 5x01, Merlin claimed that, “Arthur, without you, Camelot is nothing.” Arthur disagreed, saying that abandoning his men was worse than surviving Morgana. Even in episode 5x04, Arthur accepted his death. “So be it. But understand this, Odin: you kill me, and you’ll have all of Camelot to answer to.” Odin was astonished that a king could have such confidence in the face of death. 

The most important example comes from episode 5x13. Merlin said the same thing about Camelot being nothing without Arthur, to which the dying king said, “There was a time when that was true. Not now. There are many who can fill the crown.” And of course, he gave the royal seal to Gwen. Can anyone argue with this? 

I guess you could say that Arthur didn’t believe his own hype.

Indeed, Arthur felt satisfied about what he had achieved in his life. “Everything you’ve done, I know now. For me, for Camelot. For the kingdom you helped me build.” (Episode 5x13). That was it. Arthur knew that he had changed Camelot for the better, that Merlin killing his half-sister had brought “peace at last”, and that he owed Merlin an unpayable debt for helping him to achieve all of these goals. 

Why did Arthur accept the certainty of his death for so long? Because he believed his cause was right, and his death would help save the lives of thousands in Camelot. Dying in service to Camelot was his real destiny. It was inevitable, and to him, it was the most honourable act he would ever undertake. 

You cannot know how great you will be until you die. “That’s the way things work, I’m afraid. You get the glory when you’re not around to appreciate it.” (Episode 4x06). At that point, you will never see your legacy. Merlin either did not know that, or he did not want to know it. 

Arthur’s death ultimately serves as the greatest evidence that Merlin was wrong the whole time.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART III

FOOTNOTES

[1]  I don’t doubt that Merlin liked Mordred. In fact, the scene in episode 5x05, where Merlin buried Osgar, shows how difficult it was for him to maintain his mistrust when the druid was so polite and perceptive. So why the contradiction? Why claim you like someone, yet insist that they would commit regicide? The answer is that Merlin used the prophecy as an excuse. In fact, his prejudice against Mordred had more to do with jealousy than the prophecy. After being involved in an attempt to trade Arthur and Merlin as slaves to Morgana, Arthur knighted the druid for one noble act. Did Merlin aspire to be a knight? I don’t know. He definitely wanted that same level of trust and respect given to Mordred, though, and knighthood created a bond that a servant could not have.

[itsclownhours]

okay so i don’t know if i ever mentioned it but while watching merlin i’ve used a google doc of weird title ideas to rename all of the episodes and now that i’ve finished the series i would like to share with the four people who always like my posts the absolute nightmare that is the contents of this google doc (spoilers ahead, technically, i think)

merlin Things Historians Pretend Aren’t Gay: The Unlikely Adventures of Bitchface and Go Fuck Yourself

1x01 the dragon’s call Neither Boss Nor Employee Paid Enough to Deal With Each Other

1x02 valiant Everyone Should Learn First Aid (This Has Been a PSA)

1x03 the mark of nimueh Let’s NOT Wipe Out Humankind

1x04 the poisoned chalice I Fell Into a Deep Hole

1x05 lancelot You’re Valid, I Support You

1x06 a remedy to cure all ills This Is Absolutely the Right Decision

1x07 the gates of avalon I Go For an Unwanted and Unexpected Swim

1x08 the beginning of the end The Small Child Is Annoying

1x09 excalibur Ya Dun Goofed

1x10 the moment of truth The Regular Fuckface Returns to the Town of Fuckface

1x11 the labyrinth of gedref Guys, It’s Been Three Weeks Since I’ve Eaten a Vegetable: My Destiny as a Bad Cook

1x12 to kill the king Ultimate Showdown: Murder Father versus Murder Daughter

1x13 le morte d’arthur Dreams Do Come True (And That’s Not a Good Thing)

2x01 the curse of cornelius sigan The Good, the Bad, and the Okay I Guess

2x02 the once and future queen The Broken Ribs Poked Our Lungs

2x03 the nightmare begins I Need an Explanation, What Is Going On

2x04 lancelot and guinevere I Approve (This Time)

2x05 beauty and the beast part 1 This Wasn’t the Family Meeting That I Was Expecting Tonight

2x06 beauty and the beast part 2 I Am Saved From Certain Death By Being Killed

2x07 the witchfinder Those Stories Aren’t Real

2x08 the sins of the father How to Traumatize Your Children: 7 Proven Methods to Help You Screw Up Your Kids Deliberately and With Skill

2x09 the lady of the lake Can’t Wait to Tell This Story to My Grandchildren

2x10 sweet dreams Getting Distracted by a Hot Girl Only Leads to Bad Things

2x11 the witch’s quickening The King Can Go Fuck Himself

2x12 the fires of idirsholas Everything is a Goddamn Ordeal in This Family: Top 10 Anime Betrayals

2x13 the last dragonlord I Turned Out Liking You a Lot More Than I Originally Planned

3x01 the tears of uther pendragon part 1 Ask and You Shall Receive...Sometime Next Year

3x02 the tears of uther pendragon part 2 In Which Everything Goes Wonderfully Wrong

3x03 goblin’s gold Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly-True Memoir)

3x04 gwaine This Is Why I Don’t Socialize

3x05 the crystal cave Man Miscast in Role of Father

3x06 the changeling Successfully Evading Responsibility

3x07 the castle of fyrien The Dumbasses Take a Road Trip

3x08 the eye of the phoenix Tone It Down a Bit, Geez

3x09 love in the time of dragons Hey, Look, Old People

3x10 queen of hearts Running From Your Dad: I Know Exactly What I’m Doing (No, I Don’t)

3x11 the sorcerer’s shadow You’re a Special Kind of Stupid, Aren’t You?: Merlin Makes a Rash Decision

3x12 the coming of arthur part 1 Orphan Does Her Best to Fit in After Horrible Childhood

3x13 the coming of arthur part 2 There Is Absolutely No Way It Can Get Worse (It Got Worse)

4x01 the darkest hour part 1 Oh, Look, a Ghost

4x02 the darkest hour part 2 Unfortunately, I Am Alive

4x03 the wicked day Didn’t See That One Coming

4x04 aithusa I Wasn’t Prepared For Parenthood

4x05 his father’s son I Stab a Bitch: Aggressive Negotiations Make Everyone Hate You

4x06 a servant of two masters And God Said, “Let’s Not Give This Bitch a Break”

4x07 the secret sharer Apparently, Agravaine Does Have Some ’Splainin’ to Do

4x08 lamia The Boys Are Here

4x09 lancelot du lac I Call Shotgun (Said the Dead Man)

4x10 a herald of the new age Possession or Obsession?

4x11 the hunter’s heart I’m Bitter and I Won’t Stop Whining (Solitude Was the Only Logical Ending)

4x12 the sword in the stone part 1 I’m Packing Up My Crayons and Leaving

4x13 the sword in the stone part 2 A Guide to Giving Up

5x01 arthur’s bane part 1 My Boy!

5x02 arthur’s bane part 2 My Boy! Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

5x03 the death song of uther pendragon Way to Go, Dumbass

5x04 another’s sorrow Live Every Crisis Like It’s Your Midlife Crisis

5x05 the disir Why Am I Like This?: Merlin Is a Fucking Bitch

5x06 the dark tower What the Hell? I'm in Hell (I Have a Heated Make-Out Session With My Lifelong Enemy. Who Would’ve Thought?)

5x07 a lesson in vengeance You Know That There Is Nothing That I Love More Than Just Chilling and Drinking Poison. Seriously. I’s Great

5x08 the hollow queen An Unexpected Visit Leads to a Change in Career Paths

5x09 with all my heart A Trip to Memoryville (I Hate It)

5x10 the kindness of strangers Don’t Accept Rides From Strange Relatives

5x11 the drawing of the dark Why Didn’t I Just Walk Away? Oh, Right. Because I’m an Idiot: In Which Merlin Fucks Up

5x12 the diamond of the day part 1 We’ve Been Tricked, We’ve Been Backstabbed, and We’ve Been, Quite Possibly, Bamboozled

5x13 the diamond of the day part 2 How to Mistakenly Assume You Have Everything Under Control

[princeescaluswords]

Hey @princeescaluswords remember when you said that Scott hit and abused Isaac because “the Nemeton and lycanthropy made him do it!” and that Scott violating Derek was “poetic justice” and “a well deserved comeuppance”?

I do remember saying those things (though not those precise words), and I will most definitely say them again!  

Scott didn’t hit Isaac in just any episode of Teen Wolf.  The scene you are talking about happened in Anchors (3x13), the season opener of 3B.  In this episode, Scott, Stiles and Allison were dealing with the debilitating aftereffects of the Nemeton sacrifice.  This is not arguable.  It is the entire point of the episode.

Scott’s specific consequence took the form of hallucinations where his shadow transformed without his control and uncontrollable transformations into a werewolf, a creature that from the beginning of the series came with increased aggression.  The term Stiles used was bloodlust.  There was also a scene -- in the same episode where Scott started transforming in the middle of school, Stiles and Scott went into a classroom and Scott warned Stiles away because he didn’t know what would happen.   Scott was in an unstable mental state due to the influence of the sacrifice and it took the form of violence and aggression because that’s an established trait of lycanthropy.  

See how context is important?

Trying to pretend that Scott wasn’t influenced by the Nemeton ritual in that episode is like trying to pretend that Allison really meant to shoot Lydia in the face with an arrow or that Stiles was actually not paying attention in Coach’s class.  It’s absurd, and I think 99 people out of 100 who actually watched the episode would agree, that we were meant to understand that they were suffering from psychological horror that caused them to act differently than they normally would.  

And yes, what happened to Derek Hale, one of the villains of Season Two, in Master Plan (2x12) was poetic justice and a well-deserved comeuppance. 

Yes, Scott deceived Derek on joining his pack, didn’t tell him about his plan to replace Gerard’s cancer medication with mountain ash to stop Gerard’s plan to force Derek to give him the Bite, and rejected his position as alpha.  This was well deserved.  Derek had been lying to Scott and concealing information since the first time they met back in Season 1.  Derek concealed the existence of the alpha from Scott for three episodes while trying to use a sixteen-year-old boy as bait to find his sister’s killer and in return Scott concealed Gerard’s cancer from Derek.  Derek manipulated Scott by promising to help him try for the cure by killing the alpha who bit him and then again by promising to get the cure for Jackson, and in return Scott manipulated Derek by pretending to join his pack. Derek betrayed Scott to Peter in Co-Captain by accepting Peter as his alpha, and in return Scott rejected Derek as his alpha.  This is a well-deserved comeuppance.

Derek’s humiliation by Gerard and Gerard forcing the Bite on him was directly caused by Derek’s abuse of the Bite.   Derek Bit Jackson -- a person he knew was a dangerously unstable narcissist and then abandoned him, and Jackson became the weapon by which Gerard brought Derek to his knees.  Derek transformed “teenagers into killers,” tried to murder Allison’s friends, and Bit Victoria, and that helped drive Allison into being the instrument that gave Gerard the upper hand.  Derek had been using the Bite to get what he wanted, and in the end he was forced to Bite Gerard by Gerard so the old hunter could get what he wanted.   He abused the Bite and was abused by it.  This is poetic justice.

See how that works?

[ricamora-falahee]

Okay, I’m being naive. Yet here I am going through her phone records because you wanted me to.

[htgawmsource]

[televisionpromos]

How to Get Away with Murder 3x13 "It's War" Season 3 Episode 13 Sneak Peek - Connor asks Oliver to take a look at the backup copy of Annalise's phone. He wants to know what Annalise is trying to hide from the police. Oliver doesn't want to look at the file because he's afraid of what they may find.

[springmagpies]

Welcome Back to my Uncle Reacts to AoS--Season 3

It has taken my Uncle months to watch season 3 as his schedule is super busy and what not. But we have finally watched it all and are on to Season 4. Anyway, here are some of his reactions to the third season of Agents of Shield

3x1

*Fitz comes to the lab after his excursion in Morocco* Coulson is like a father waiting in the dark kitchen. Where’ve ya been, Fitz?

*After the Do something scene* Ouch.

Is she on another planet? She’s on another planet. Guys, she’s on another planet!

3x2

He got her back! Oh my god, he got her back. Fitz is the man.

Hunter is the best.

Bobbi is the best.

Fitz is the best.

Oh, Coulson.

*About Jemma* What the hell happened there? What did she eat? She was there months right? Holy shit.

*Fitz sitting by her bed* Oh, Fitz.

3x03

My aunt: you two seem sad. What happened. Steve: Lincoln, Kate. Lincoln killed his friend and he didn’t mean to. And Jemma has ptsd. It was a lot of emotion. My aunt: ...

3x04

Yess May. Great timing. That’s all you needed.

3x05

Dammit, Will is hot.

She’s talking to Fitz? Cute!

3x06

Pauses the show uhh, Andrew turned into lash and kicked some ass. Calling it.

*Later* Called it.

3x07

“He does have a hog face.”  Bwhahahaha. That’s amazing.

Well that episode was emotional. The Fitzsimmons thing was so heart warming. And poor May.

3x09

Ward, you asshole. Why can’t they let Phil be happy.

3x10

Shit that’s not Will.

*At Ward’s death* Finally!

*Wards back* Freaking knew it. God dammit

3x11

What is Fitz 3d printing back there? Cool inhuman conversation but what’s he making?

*Anytime the subtitles are wrong on Netflix* That’s not what she said. That’s not what he said. That’s not what they’re saying.

*Steve understanding the Spanish and knowing what they’re saying without subtitles.* That is not what she said, subtitles.

*About Elena* she’s a badass.

3x12

Thank god for Hunter.

Ward is just creepy as hell. I know that’s not Ward, but it’s his stupid face.

3x13

Amadeus Ravenclaw Hunter. That’s fantastic. Is that really his name? Wait, no. Forget I said that. Ravenclaw is not his name.

Wait, so Bobbi and Hunter are just gone? But they can’t do that. They come back right? They’re the best, they can’t leave.

Mack’s crying the hardest.

That guy that’s supposed to be tailing them is very bad at his job.

Now I’m sad.

3x14

*Mack mentions friends being transferred” Aww, Bobbi and Hunter.

Repeats “It’s a building.” In Scottish accent. *laughs* that’s great.

Uh oh Fitz does not like Daisy’s methods of interrogation. He looks so uncomfortable.

A shotgun ax. Holy shit that’s amazing.

That dudes a hologram! Coulson knew. He’s a genius.

3x15

Holy shit we’re seeing the future.

*Hive melts the business men* Eeww, ugh that’s horrific. Aaah!

*Andrew becomes lash permanently* Oh no! Poor May. That’s so sad.

Wait, I bet you it’s not snow. Bet you it’s ash. *Snow is actually ash* Called it.

*Quinjet vision* That vision is familiar. Where have we seen that? Wait, that was at the beginning! Oh shit, that’s the future! Shit!

3x16

*Young Malick and Nathaniel appear on screen.* Maggie tries not to freak the frick out at Nathaniel so as not to spoil season 7.

Steve: oooh, does his brother get volunteered as tribute or something?

*Daisy explodes the mines in front of James house.* Badass.

*Reveal that Malick betrayed his brother* That’s why Ward had the stone! He knew! He remembers the betrayal! Oof, not looking great for Malick.

I hate Ward. Whatever he is.

Shit! Is he killing Malick daughter! That’s way more brutal than killing Malick! Ooooh, evil.

*Lincoln’s past is explained* See, I’m glad he’s sharing, but how do you bring something like that up in conversation normally. Glad their talking, but I get it.

*Giyera escaping from the containment pod* Fitz, please get away from the guy trying to escape. Please. Oh crap he’s got a seatbelt.

*Mack gets knocked out* Oof, Mack. Poor dude.

*Secret Warriors Assemble* Yes! I’ve got to put the baby to bed but then next episode!

3x17

Sorry Joey, I don’t think you’re going to finish that date. You’ve got to go fight people.

Whoa! Lincoln’s powers got even cooler.

That felt a bit too easy.

*Fitzsimmons flirting* They’re cute.

*Mackelena flirting* He’s speaking Spanish. Kay, that’s sweet.

I don’t think Joey is okay. He did kill that Medusa dude.

*reveal that one of the inhumans are swayed* That’s what he meant by someone on the inside! That’s not good. Now they’re all looking suspicious.

*Fitzsimmons find Malick’s body* Is he dead? Holy shit, was there a bomb! Shit!

“Aren’t you a spy, learn Spanish” Hahahahaha! Yes! That line is genius!

Okay, they are pushing for it to be Lincoln waaaay too hard.

*Fitzsimmons soft kiss in the bunk* *Steve Fist pumps* Yessss!

Uhhh, why is Daisy out of her cell. It’s her! Oh no.

Way to go Lincoln on the character growth. Staying for SHIELD!

Is Daisy going to fly? Oh no, she’s destroying the base. And she ruined Fitzsimmons make out session. And she’s bringing the base down. Also that.

Noooo! That’s it? That cliffhanger! *upset that we have to wait to watch the next episode*

3x18

“It’s risky, and irresponsible” Hahaha, May smiles.

Nice flying May!

*FS talking about sex* “I’ll see you in the quinjet” Hahahahahahahaha. That’s amazing.

*Hive talks* That’s not creepy. You know what happened to the last girl Hive kissed. Daisy run.

“Because all you are is big and strong.” Hahaha, Fitz is all pissy about it. Amazing.

Oof, Lincoln just can’t get Coulson’s approval.

Maggie: Fitz is so handsome Steve: He really is

*FS ending scene* Yessss!!!! Finally!!!

3x19

Inhuman backstory!!

Why are they all such jerks to Lincoln? Like, he just cannot win with Coulson and May. No one is nice to him. Except Fitzsimmons, they’re nice to him. Okay, and Mack.

*Piper is introduced* Red shirts aren’t red shirts! That’s awesome!

Oh, Mack, what are you doing? Please don’t get hurt. Daisy please don’t hurt him. Mack noooo!

Wow, Shield is just struggling on all fronts. Daisy’s missing, Mack’s injured, Lincoln’s sick—Wait no after credit scene?! Dammit!

3x20

Okay, they seriously need to lay off Lincoln. Like, he is not a bad dude!

Now I see why they can’t get help from the avengers.

Yo yo is awesome.

Fitz having to play whack-a-mole with security. Gosh, they’re going through it.

Lincoln, nooo! You’re smarter than this! Your character growth! Oh, thank god it was part of the plan.

Yes! Lash! Badass!

Oh my god he’s saving Daisy! Yeah!!!

No!!! Lash!!!!

He couldn’t just have killed Hive? I guess we need a finale.

Andrew saved Daisy!

Shit, he’s got a warhead. Ward’s trying to destroy the world again.

What’s Elena giving Mack? No! Mack put that down! Put the cross down!

3x21

That’s right, Shield is good at what they do.

They done pissed off an alien.

Fitz is amazing.

Fitzsimmons should go on that vacation. Take a break.

Oh no the cross! The jacket! Fitz put it down!

Wait, she wants to go back?! Daisy, nooooo!

3x22

Ooh Yo Yo no!!! She took a bullet for Mack. Yeah, she is not okay.

Shit, they’re going to use the torch to cauterize the wound. That’s majorly going to scar.

Why do I kind of like Radcliffe?

Oh, May was about to be super nice to Daisy and she gets hit over the head.

“You were a murderous wank before all this” Okay, that line’s amazing

Did Fitz cloak a gun?! That’s amazing!

Aaaah, the jacket! Can they stop freaking me out with the jacket?!

I like how they pan from the window so they don’t have to break it for real.

Don’t get rid of Daisy!

“Help me Obi Wan Kenobi” Oh my god, that’s incredible.

Badass shield team is badass.

You know the person who plays Daisy is a great actress.

Wait. wait. Wait. Lincoln. Lincoln? Noooooo! They can’t kill Lincoln. They’re not going to—they can’t. But I loved Lincoln! Nooo!

*Steve is quiet for a long moment* I loved Lincoln.

*Flash forward* Is Daisy on the run?

Director? What? Phil’s not the director??

“No Aida that’s not what we’re celebrating” It’s your birthday. “Today’s your birthday.” CALLED IT! Wait, are we going to have robots?

Shit, we lost a lot of people that season.

Crap, I want to watch the next episode!!

[im-brokenforyou]