#And the rewrite I did my last rewatch that's more ambiguous on if it's even Romantic at all

[kakusu-shipping]

Ginko with 3, 4, 9, 14, 18, 20, and 22? If that’s too many, feel free to pick and choose instead!

@sabosweetheart

@sabosweetheart Gink ask!! Very cool!! Much Gink..

3. What about public displays of affection? Are you open about your relationship or do you prefer not to be? How many people know about it?

We're open about it, sure, but there's not a lot of people to be open about it to. Ginko has other partners, I think, but he doesn't talk about them much when he visits. They probably know as much about me as I know about them.

PDA is hard to achieve when your an artist living alone on a mountain and your maybe(?) boyfriend just kind of shows up about twice a year to check in and let you know he's still alive and kicking.

4. What is your love language? What is theirs?

Quality time, same as Ginko. Just being around him, knowing he finds my home to be a safe spot to stop and unwind for a few days is enough, and he seems to think so too.

9. Do you guys like to cuddle? Handhold? Hug? Kiss?

Uhm... No? I mean I do but Ginko.. Doesn't, I don't think. He hasn't made an advancements in any of these. I suppose I've held his hand once or twice, walking the snow mountain paths around my home. Hugging and snuggling... No no, nothing like that. Kissing? I.. Wouldn't mind, I suppose, if he wanted to..

14. Would you consider yourself a romantic person? Is your f/o one?

Yes! I can't imagine how someone could be an artist without being a little bit of a romantic. My short stories are full of love and romance and tragedy! Ginko on the other hand... I suppose he is, in his own ways.

18. How do you guys handle jealousy?

I've never felt jealous in that sense... I suppose I am jealous of Ginko, though, traveling all over the country, seeing all sorts of Mushi, helping all kinds of people.. his stories are amazing, and maybe I'm a little jealous but... He comes back to see me, despite all the amazing things he experiences, so there must be something rather amazing about me too.

20. How do you guys fluster each other? Are either of you prone to blushing?

I HAVE gotten Ginko to blush! Only a few times, and over silly things. He's rather easy to tease if you target some silly mistakes he'd made in his travels. His face flushes when he laughs. As for me, I'm sure my face is red from the moment he enters my home...

22. How was your first kiss with your f/o like?

First kiss... That would be rather nice... Perhaps I'll ask about it the next time he drops by...

[bedlamsbard]

1200 words written today.  Not Home, but a little break to do something else, if related (but probably won’t make it into the actual story) -- some in-universe non-fiction, which I like doing but haven’t done for a while (and the story I’ve done it for hasn’t been finished yet).  I am usually busy writing, you know, nonfictional nonfiction (my dissertation).  I think part of the problem with the current sequence on Home is that it was originally written off the previous version of Home 7 (since I did a major rewrite of one scene), and even though I knew when IW as writing it I was going to change that scene, I didn’t know how I was going to change it, so the emotions are all wrong.  So -- more rewrites.  Plus I still need to do voice check rewatches.

Snippet from...uh, whatever this is, it’s in my files as “Cap book excerpts” but it is set in the Home universe.

It is well-known today that both comics and radio show eventually produced highly-fictionalized versions of Rogers’s disappearance, both – like the event itself – in an airplane and over the ocean, leaving his ultimate fate ambiguous.  The Captain America Adventure Program broadcast its last episode in April 1946, a full year after Rogers’s disappearance; Timely Comics, however, produced a special issue purported to be “the last fight of Captain America” that was published in late March 1945, interrupting its usual schedule, which continued to produce Captain America comics until 1949.  All later-published adventures take place before the special issue; Timely’s Captain America never leaves the war.

In early April 1945, Timely published another special issue, the first of six titled The Return of Captain America.  Its circulation was low, interrupted by the death of President Roosevelt, and it was never widely known.  It remains unclear whether the other five issues were ever published, as no copies have ever come to light, but the plot was briefly summarized in a letter from writer Stan Lee to New York senator Evelyn Brandt, Rogers’s original political patron and sponsor of the first Captain America USO tour.

 The first issue of The Return of Captain America takes up immediately where the previous special issue left off, with the “secret Nazi death plane” (Hydra’s existence would not be declassified for another fifty years) crashing into the North Sea. A figure on a small fishing boat watches the crash, then sets off towards it.  Meanwhile, Captain America fights his way free of the wreckage and surfaces in the middle of the ocean, spotting the fishing boat and striking out towards it.  The captain of the boat pulls him aboard and is revealed to be a beautiful blonde woman in men’s clothing, whom Rogers is immediately smitten with.  Their first meeting is immediately interrupted by Nazi fighters searching for the crashed plane, however; the woman pulls out a machine gun and returns fire, causing the pilots of the attacking Messerschmitts to parachute out.  They land on the deck of the fishing boat and engage in hand to hand combat with Rogers and the woman, interspersed by Rogers’s musings about how beautiful and skilled she is. With the Nazis taken care of, Rogers finally asks who she is, and she reveals her identity: Natasha Romanoff, agent of the American intelligence organization known colloquially as “the Lodge” (Timely’s fictionalized version of the Office of Strategic Services).

[travllingbunny]

The 100: 7x09 The Flock

And finally, the end of my and @jeanie205‘s little rewatch, and the last review I still have to post before the show’s return. And for once, I can write a shorter review than usual, because this episode isn’t all that interesting. It’s my least favorite episode at least since mid-season 5.

I have liked season 7 more than most people seem to - even though I miss Bellamy and want to see more focus on Clarke, and I’ve mostly been patient about waiting for the story to really kick into gear. I understand that BTS issues have affected the season and caused a lot of rewrites, that the first half of the season was mostly setup or it focused on developing stories for other characters (and I have enjoyed many of them, especially for Octavia, Murphy, Emori, Diyoza and Indra).

But the pacing hasn’t been the greatest, and that particularly became obvious with this episode. There was no reason to stall the action and go back and waste this entire episode on flashbacks to the 3 months that Echo, Hope, Octavia and Diyoza spent training to become Disciples. Some of this could have been included in 7x07, and this episode could have featured maybe 5-10 minutes of flashbacks and then returned to the present day action, instead of leaving Clarke, Raven, Miller, Jordan and Niylah in that same Stone Room where they have been for 3 (soon to be 4) episodes, and completely leaving them out of this episode.

I’m not even speaking from the perspective of a Clarke fan here - I enjoyed the Skyring storyline in 7x02 and 7x04. But these extended flashbacks strike me as unnecessary and far more predictable than the writers seemed to think. It’s not like we needed to see why they agreed to join the Disciples - we know it, they had no choice and that was the best solution at the moment. Clarke may be wondering whose side they are on and if they have been brainwashed, but we know better. It was never a mystery for the viewers. And this episode’s Bardo scenes are no “1984″, we aren’t wondering “oh no, are they really brainwashed?” There is little ambiguity - except maybe for Echo, the only one we could maybe wonder about “is she really going to be loyal to the Disciples now?” - but even that isn’t because she seems to have drunk the Kool-Aid, but because she may just think there isn’t anything better to do and no one else to follow. And that is probably not what’s going on, though it would probably be more interesting than the more probable and predictable plot about Echo pretending to be loyal to the Disciples while planning revenge on them.

Maybe it would be different if this episode had the Disciples deliver some important new info that would convince both the characters and the viewers that the “last war” is really something worth fighting. But the show keeps withholding information about what these concepts are - who is the Last War to be fought against? What is transcendence? And no one seems to ask about it - or they do, but off-screen.

In the meantime, the Sanctum storyline reached its climax - Sheidheda revealing himself, killing a bunch of people and staking his claim to the throne, so to speak - but it’s a climax that pretty much everyone has been expecting since Sheidheda took over Russell’s body in the season premiere. What’s worse is that this was made to happen through an incredibly OOC action by Indra. And I don’t think many will miss the Faithful - an incredibly annoying bunch of minor characters. (They are, of course, some of the titular “flock”, together with the Disciples. We get it! It’s all about blind faith and worshiping false gods! The entire season has been hammering it home!)

The episode started well, with Anders taking HEDO to the surface of Bardo to show them the crystallized forms of the extinct Bardoans. I guess the giant aliens story was true after all. This made Octavia realize “Gabriel saved us” (so I guess they won’t be too angry at him when they see him again, which they haven’t so far), It was supposed to show what kind of threat the humans are facing in the last war. Except that was all the info we got on that subject. No one asked: Who is the enemy? Where are they? When will they attack? Why do you need the Key to fight that war? Or, if they did, it was off-screen. (Surely they would have asked some questions during those 3 months?)

Instead, we get to hear more details about the Bardo society. They grow babies artificially, like Primes did with the other people in Sanctum. Not a huge surprise. They don’t want any family relationships, just like they don’t want any friendships or romantic relationships, no individual ties, except the worship of the Shepherd. We already knew that. We get it, they are ultra-collectivist. They want to get rid of emotions, etc.

We don’t know for sure how they feel about sex (if it is fully forbidden, or if it’s allowed if it’s supervised and people get approved sex partners they exchange on a regular basis, as in some dystopias) - so I’m not sure how they (would) feel about Octavia and Levitt getting it on, which was one of the few new developments in this episode (also easily predictable, especially after their tender face touching scene in 7x06). Echo mentions at one point that the Disciples are always watching them - so does that mean Anders also watched Octavia and Levitt having sex? Surely Anders must be aware of their relationship, or at least that Levitt is really into Octavia? I’ve always been open about my lack of enthusiasm for this romance, but I generally support the idea of Octavia getting a chance to enjoy herself with a nice hot guy who’s helpful. 

But Anders even letting Levitt be involved in their training and testing, without controlling him, makes no sense, unless Anders is incredibly stupid. This has been my problem with this storyline all along. I’m never sure if Anders is really that stupid to trust Levitt, or if he has some kind of smart plan and has been using Levitt on purpose to get Octavia to join the Disciples. There has been speculation about whether Levitt himself is manipulating Octavia, and/or she is manipulating him - and a part of me would want some of that to be true: this relationship and this entire plot would be a lot more interesting if they were manipulating each other (while also liking each other), but I don’t think that’s the case. Levitt is probably exactly what he seems to be, and I don’t think the writing here is that smart. But I can at least hope that Anders is not a total idiot and that he’s figured out Levitt is helping Octavia, but decided to use him anyway. 

Now, I did have a tiny flicker of hope that Levitt may be intended to be seen as a more ambiguous figure - when he was rating HEDO for “participation, stamina, strength and speed” (he rated Hope 1 for participation) - and Diyoza was suspicious of him and asked him: "You always have so many jobs?"

Another “are the Disciples really that stupid?” moment was when Levitt randomly told HEDO that they keep samples of the same Gem 9 that killed the native Bardoans, and that could kill everyone on Bardo. Why the heck would they be keeping it, let alone telling people about it? Does Levitt want HEDO to kill everyone on Bardo? I hope this is fake info and another test - but I fear this is just bad writing and a clumsy exposition to set up the Chekov’s Gun that our protagonists will be tempted to use.

We also learn Anders was Orlando's mentor, It’s weird that Hope mentions him as a way to try to get Anders upset (you’d think she would also be upset, since she made him think she was his friend and betrayed him). But Anders remain calm and cold, and Hope only gets upset when he mentions Dev.  

If there is any ambiguity, it’s only with regard to Echo - she is probably just pretending, too, but there’s a tiny possibility that she really has decided to join them because she needs to be a soldier and have a war to fight and someone to follow. which has been established as her trait. And Echo does point out that the brainwashed Disciples children have it much better than she ever did with Azgeda. Hope throws that into her face here when she says “You just like someone to give you orders”. But that’s probably just a red herring.

The Disciples breed a limited number due to the limited resources, Why don’t they all instead just go to Sanctum, or Skyring?

The simulations were somewhat interesting, but it was pretty clear that Diyoza, Octavia and Echo were pretending to be able to kill Hope because they were threatened they would be sent to Skyring individually to die alone. Diyoza even straight up told Hope it’s what they need to do, and Echo noted “they are watching us all the time” before starting to talk about how the Disciples have convinced her to believe in their goal. Hope was acting like a child and was unable to pretend - because she is still inexperienced, she has spent most of her life on Skyring with just a few people. Now, I did gasp at first when I saw Echo killing Hope, and to be fair, I can see Echo killing Hope in real life, but Diyoza and Octavia killing Hope? Hell no. 

The only thing that made me think a little bit was - is every detail in the fear simulations planned by the Disciples (probably Levitt) - or do their own minds fill in the blanks? In Echo's simulation, Hope told her "they took Bellamy from you" and called her out “I thought Bellamy meant something to you". If that was a product of Echo’s own mind, it’s a bit like Clarke calling herself out through Blodreina in her mindspace in season 6 - “I thought you cared about Bellamy” - which was the embodiment of her guilt. That would support the idea that Echo is not planning revenge, because why would she be calling herself out in her subconsciousness? But that’s a moot point if it’s all designed by Levitt.

Speaking of which, has Levitt seen Echo’s, Diyoza’s and Hope’s memories, and has he seen anything past Octavia’s season 3 memories? That has never been clear - the Disciples don’t know Clarke doesn’t still have the Flame, but they knew what Gabriel looked like (in 7x01), which they could have only learned from Octavia... and Octavia here says “You’ve seen me at my worst”, which seems to imply he saw her as Blodreina.

But while Echo may have wanted to save Hope from a worse fate when she sentenced her to 5 years on Skyring, that’s cold comfort since 5 years all alone would be terrible and drive anyone insane. (It did with Orlando.) Somehow I doubt Hope will get to be sent there - something will happen and she will probably be saved from that.

The highlight of this episode for me ended up being the mention of Etherea- because it confirms some of my theories and it’s a new planet we will be seeing soon and where Bellamy probably is.

On Sanctum, Emori is put in danger again, as Nikki’s hostage - and Murphy is worried and trying to save her. Which has been a recurring theme - it’s the only way to make people care about this plot. I doubt that many people care about the Faithful, a bunch of stupid a-holes who have so recently planned to burn their own children out of their misguided faith. I did feel a little tinge of sympathy for Jeremiah, the guy who keeps thanking Murphy for saving his son - because the guy is so clueless that he doesn’t seem to understand that he himself had the agency to decide what happens to his son. But this is probably why Madi’s friend is shown here with Madi (his name is Rex, according to the credits - he is the Sanctum boy who clearly doesn’t follow in his parents’ footsteps and invited the null boy from CoG to play soccer with him) - we need to see someone who will be hurt by what happens when Sheidheda kills these people. (The trailer shows Rex grieving one of the victims in the next episode.)(Trey, the “adjustor” who brainwashed Jordan and acted as the leader of the Faithful in earlier episodes, was not in this episode, so I’m afraid that a-hole is still around.)

But Murphy and Emori did have good moments in this episode. Both were very brave - Emori did not allow Nikki to use her to blackmail Murphy, and Murphy, this time, wasn’t just desperately worried about Emori’s life - but he offered his own life for hers. (He claimed to be the one responsible for Hatch’s death by saying it was his idea to use the prisoners - which is true; the part he left out is that it was Raven’s idea to lie to them.) This is huge - he has been willing to do a lot to save Emori, but has never offered to sacrifice himself for someone before, not even for her. The closest he had come to it before was telling her and Monty to leave him to save themselves in 5x13. 

And Murphy's line to Jackson "I'm 150 pounds wet and you can’t fight to save your life” was one of the highlights of the episode. 

Another development is that Indra and the others finally know that Clarke, Raven, Gaia, Miller and others are missing - but they still don’t seem to have any idea where they may be.

Sheidheda quoting Casablanca is one of the weirder moments of this season. I suppose he may have know about it from Becca or some of the other early Grounders.

Apart from being kind of boring, this episode’s biggest problem is what Indra does at the end. Of course Indra wants Sheidheda dead, but it would be a lot more in character if she killed him herself. She could have pulled a gun and shot him in the head the moment they had resolved the situation. She should be aware of what a good fighter Shady is, and that everyone in Sanctum sucks at fighting (especially when they’re not high on red toxin).

On rewatch, I realized that, while Knight (the Sangedakru who stans Shady) and another Grounder knelt immediately, Penn (who is Trikru) and another Grounder just stood there - so we’ll see how divided or not the Grounders will be about him in 7x10.

Rating: 4/10