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bourbon-ontherocks · 4 years

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(Previously, on GG rewatch...)

Am I ready for the dubby? Probably not. But let’s dive in anyway.

Aaaaah, this early morning edit... The sexiest OTP of this show... Beth x sleep. Hey, I did not invent this! It's canon!!

Okay, Jane/Emma's recital must have been SUPER SHORT, like, Beth didn't leave the theatre for more than literally two minutes!

Man, Turner is SAVAGE in this ep!!

Oh my God, I can't believe the whole dubby thing started because Dean decided to throw a tantrum!! Once again, Dean is the captain of the Brio ship and I'm so down for it!!!

I can't understand, why does Beth have to get up so early if all the drops happen at night???

I'm not a parent so this is probably a stupid thing to point out, but isn't that a great opportunity for Beth to start teaching her daughter how to sleep without her dubby?

"The stupid thing is, I can't live without her" and here we go, the grand circus of Dean's redemption arc has started... Ugh, kill me

I really want to slap Ben in the face so hard this season...

Beth face timing Annie while she's lying on the kitchen floor is honestly an underrated comedy moment

I love Ruby's bullshit about the shady house's porch so much!

"nowadays that is really not cool." "I mean, was it ever?" MAE'S DELIVERY IS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also Beht's whole power speech is soooo fun to watch, she's so blatantly getting off on this, mini-Rio, I'm telling you...

THE!! LADY!! KNITTING!! A!! SCARF!! FOR!! HER!! CAT!!! She has to be my favourite ephemeral character from the show!!! Petition to bring her and Kevin back in Season 4! Also, I LOVE that Beth gets started on her angry spiral just when the store's employee drops a whole new batch of wool

Oh hi Noah!! I think it’s safe to say that we ALL saw coming that he was the new manager, Annie... Never spit on your workplace in front of new coworkers until you're sure you can trust them that's rule number one. Also. I love baby Tyler!!!

"Kids get lost, Beth" is either the wisest or dumbest thing I've ever heard coming out from Dean’s mouth. This show really pulled on an absurd vibe this season...

Is it me or is Beth going alone with no phone to the house of armed potential kidnappers literally the stupidest move she's ever made?? Even if she tries to convince Rio on her way?

Stan's face when Dean suggests they pull a little murder task force with a few cops speaks for the entire fandom.

In what universe has the police already arrived before anyone thinks about checking the closet??? Also, petition to allow Jane to cross the street next season!

Hahaha, clearly Noah has no fucking idea of what being a grocery store manager means!!

Ugh, Dean saying "Elizabeth" gives me chills. The wrong kind.

You know what, seeing Beth pouring herself a bourbon gives me THOUGHTS, now...

So I have a question: is the krav maga instructor a joke or is he messing around with Dean? Cause he HAS TO know that "his friend" is absolute bullshit right?

AWWWWWWWW HE YELLED AT HER AND MADE HER CRY BEFORE HE WENT BACK FOR THE DUBBY!!!!! THIS IS THE TEXTBOOK DEFINITION OF HURT/COMFORT!!!! GO GET HIM BETH, OUR BOI IS IN HIS FEELINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #agirlcandream

How did Beth's giant book club calendar fit in Ruby's tiny purse???? It doesn't look that folded, and I bet she didn't leave Beth's house with it tucked under her arm...

#gg rewatch #the dubby #aka THE SOFTEST THING WE'LL EVER SEE BETWEEN BETH AND RIO #aside from that I found that this episode lacked a bit of rythm???#like the drug house is a GREAT scene #and the dubby is unforgettable #and the knitting lady!!!! <3 <3 #but that's pretty much all I'll remember from that ep #I really hate this Annie/Ben dynamic #and I have no interest in kids shenanigans sooo #(seriously the knitting lady scene must have been so fun to shoot)

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pynkhues · 4 years

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What are your theories did the next few episodes? It sounds like Dave was asking Beth to get Rio for them which I'm guessing she may wear a wire?

I kinda would hate for her to cancel the hit only because the secret service wants him and thinks she can get rid of him that way

As much as she sees Rio as an issue, I don't think she realizes how dark crime can get and Rio gas kept her from that historically with some exceptions to it. I just don't know if she really has thought about the implications of putting him away or killing him.

I agree that Rio’s kept Beth from a lot of the crime world! I do think that’s sort of dually motivated though from what we’ve seen of it? I think he definitely wants to protect her (the dubby fight being the clearest example of that), but I also think he likes keeping her in her goldfish bowl because it gives him more control and power over her, and lets him use her in ways that he wants to, like inserting himself into the Boland Motors operation or taking over the Paper Porcupine one. I think in that sense, Rio’s complicated, and his motivation isn’t clear cut.

Which is a good thing! People are complicated, and I think the messy line between Rio’s self-interest and his genuine interest / desire to do right by Beth is always murky in a way I find really compelling. In a lot of ways, these are things frequently at war with each other after all – particularly as it’s been a while since Beth and Rio’s interests have aligned – and the ebb and flow of that teases out different aspects of their dynamic which can be good or bad or something in-between.

I also think the primary motivation for cancelling the hit is going to be because of the Secret Service investigation, yes, but I don’t know if that’ll be the entire motivation? We’re into narrative snowball territory right now where things are really building towards what would’ve been the s3 climax, and one thing that’s historically been true is that all the relationships on this show have a shift in the process of that.

Season 1, Beth and Rio broke up and then levelled up through the arrest + shooting, Beth found out about the cancer lie, Stan found out about what Ruby had done for Sara, and Annie and Greg reconciled.

Season 2, Rio kidnapped Beth and then Beth shot him, Beth and Dean decided to divorce and then hit a new stride, Ruby and Stan had a bittersweet end after a tumultuous season, and Stan asked Ruby to get out of crime, and Annie and Noah’s relationship ended.

These are really drastic shifts in relationship dynamics that are generally the culmination of what we’ve seen for a lot of the season, and most of the time they’re pretty satisfying or make sense narratively (one enormous, glaring exception amongst them, of course, haha).

Ultimately, I think we’re heading straight into that territory again – I think we’re about to see Ruby and Stan’s dynamic flip as he sinks into the Sweet P’s operation, I think Annie’s relationship with Ben is shifting into something that’s going to hurt a lot, and I think Beth and Dean are heading towards a separation if not a divorce, especially given Gayle’s about to make her reappearance.

And I think Beth and Rio’s relationship is going to have a dramatic shift too. What that looks like right now is anyone’s guess, but I think it’s going to be significant!

#beth x rio #speculation #gg season 4 #gg spoilers #ruby x stan #power plays #catching feelings #kind of #haha #beth boland #rio #dean boland #ruby hill #stan hill #annie marks #welcome to my ama #gg 4.04 #Anonymous

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mego42 · 4 years

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207 Discussion Q’s

shout out and thank you to @pynkhues for putting these together even though she wasn’t gonna be here this week

1. What was your favourite scene of the episode? Tell us why!

obvs the dubby but underrated fav is Ruby and Jane in the closet, idk exactly why but I am starved for the families interacting with each other content (screw the timeline, the most unrealistic aspect of this show is that they aren’t constantly in and out of each other’s houses with ben and sara continually being called on to babysit) so this little snippet makes me levitate

2. Was there any scene that missed the mark for you? And if so, how?

the annie and noah scenes for sure. I mostly feel betrayed bc I really liked them the first time I watched (i have a lot of built in affection for sam huntington let me live) and now I’m like BEGONE FOUL BETRAYER and feel pre-emptive fatigue over annie’s taste in men and how that’s not going to get better any time soon

3. I know time does not exist in the Good Girls universe (or in reality anymore), but let’s start with a timeline question! The implication of the opening montage is that a bit of time has past since Beth strongarmed the partnership with Rio at the end of 2.06. How long do you think it’s been? And more importantly, what do you think these early days of their partnership looked like?

I tend to lean towards at least 2 months, maybe more based on:

the number of shoeboxes and how many times Beth’s shown making a closet deposit

how lived in their annoyance over Beth’s dividing her time and Rio pushing back feels

the implication (at least how i read it) that Rio’s annoyance stems from having to track Beth down which presumably implies they’d grumbled their way into a semi-functional working relationship prior (supported by their ease with each other in 208) and if the montage has only been a month, that would be a maximum of 4 meetings and I don’t particularly think that’s enough time for them to get over being extremely prickly with each other

the fact that Beth goes to Rio for help when Jane’s missing (again, to me implies a longer period of time to get over some of their antagonism than a max of 4 meets)

I imagine their initial partnership went something like Beth being a smug brat about forcing her way in, Rio being deliberately unhelpful and trying to force her to admit she’s in over her head (while still keeping enough of an eye on things that his money isn’t jeopardized), Beth stubbornly refusing to and finding ways to rise to the occasion, Rio being grudgingly impressed, Beth being annoyed with herself for how pleased she is over that. Lather, rinse, repeat until they’ve worn a cantankerous but bizarrely comfortable groove into each other.

meanwhile, Mick, Annie and Ruby are absolutely disgusted by everything happening in front of their eyes.

4. The first scene between Ruby and Turner in this episode is a really dynamic one! It’s pretty clear that Ruby’s afraid of Turner, but what do you think Turner thinks of Ruby?

I think he sees a big cartoon canister labeled "Beth Boland Bait"

5. Taking the kids to the drop was a pretty big mistake! What do you think Beth should’ve done in this instance? Do you think saying no again to Rio was an option?

CALLED BEN OR SARA FOR A BABYSITTING ASSIST. For fucks’ sake.

And yeah, I think she could’ve said no to Rio but he would’ve kept her cut of that drop and, even worse, would’ve been able to hold the fact that she didn’t deliver that one time over her head forever more.

6. The krav maga teacher offers some sage advice telling Dean to not order the hit and instead just divorce his wife, haha. Do you think that he thought the baby hitmen would come through for Dean? Or do you think he was deliberately setting Dean up to get robbed?

I choose to believe the krav maga teacher knew exactly what kind of an idiot Dean was and set him up because the dude clearly had at least two brain cells to rub together and anyone with two brain cells to rub together would never get tangled up in a murder plot with Dean standing on the street corner telling random bystanders in detail how he wants to kill the guy that fucked his wife what do you mean established means and motive Boland.

7. During Ben and Annie’s tense conversation, Ben tells Annie that she’s hard to keep track of - she’s parent mom, cool mom, sketchy mom. In a lot of ways, this feels like a parallel to Ruby talking to Beth in the last episode and calling her ‘drug Beth, gun Beth, human trafficking Beth’. What do you make of this? And how do you think it relates to the show’s themes?

I defer to @foxmagpie’s answer because I like it a lot.

8. The scene with the girls in the house! Tell me all your thoughts please!!!

I love this scene a lot

Beth’s channeling Rio in general but also specifically in 201 you will never ever change my mind

Sometimes I lie awake at night wishing Rio had seen it

Prayer circle that he sees a version of it in s4

Can you imagine the nightmare level of boner he would get? The sheer narcissism!!

Ruby’s obvious wish for new friends is The Most Valid

I really love the main drug den guy, I love Blake Shields’s energy, it makes the scene crackle, and I wish they’d bring him back purely bc he’s gr9

9. Annie meets Noah in this episode! What do you think of their introduction to one another? And how would you rate Noah on the scale of ‘Garbage Annie Love Interests’?

at least he’s not her therapist I guess

10. Beth has two pivotal and emotionally revealing fights this episode - one with Dean and the other with Rio. How do these fights compare? And what do you think they tell us about her respective relationship with them?

UUUNNNNNFFFFFFFF

I L O V E how hard the show goes on Dean’s obsession with Beth and Rio as the primary source of his angst

the fact that he’s trying to rope Stan into murder while looking for Jane who isn’t even MISSING but Dean had NO IDEA bc instead of giving a shit he went straight to HOW CAN THIS BE THAT GUY’S FAULT

I love how clearly they delineate that it isn’t about Beth but specifically about someone else ~*~taking~*~ Beth from him and how emasculated that makes him feel (something something something the storyline opens with the krav maga guy choking him out and then telling him to divorce her and Dean being like I reject your rational and logical solution bc it doesn’t punish the man who touched my property, idk i have a half baked thought there but i can’t pull it out of my brain)

and then it’s all underscored how little Dean’s worried about Beth and her safety by him bringing her work up specifically as a gotcha (which, unless I’m forgetting something, is p much the only context Dean ever brings it up in besides maybe the sit down fight but that’s again, about Beth acting out vs genuine concern)

Meanwhile, this is contrasted with:

Beth flipping tf out at the mere suggestion Rio would ever hurt her children, showing how deeply and instinctively she trusts him in regards to her children aka what’s been established as her Most Important Priority over and over (in the same breath that she rips into Dean for losing Jane in the first place)

which is doubled down on her immediately going to Rio for help

and he is FURIOUS at her, but the thing he leans hard on isn’t how she could have jeopardized the business deal (aka his money, what’s been established as his Most Important Priority over and over) but how she jeopardized herself and how badly she can fuck up if she doesn’t take this seriously

putting himself in a vulnerable position (presumably burning a connect, letting on that Beth means something to him beyond business) to look out for Beth’s emotional well-being

And then, just to drive it home a little further, @sothischickshe pointed out the Beth and Rio fight over Beth’s self preservation is directly paralleled with Stan freaking out at Ruby over the IA stuff because he’s worried about her and I had to go and stare at a blank wall for a few minutes to calm down.

anyway, draw your own conclusions.

11. Ruby takes Jane being missing as an opportunity to try and find evidence on Beth for Turner and, in the process, finds Jane too. How do you think this scene captures Ruby’s moral dilemma? And do you think it’s a satisfying turning point in the Ruby-Turner arc?

I struggle a lot with the Turner and Ruby plot specifically because I HATE that Turner’s ruthlessly leaning on Ruby as the weak link but I’m also ferociously attracted to him so I’m less bothered by it than I feel like I should be so mostly I just try not to think about any of it.

Idk, I see it in some ways as a continuation of Ruby’s fight with Beth and Annie in s1 where Annie said she isn’t blood. They put Ruby on the outside but when push comes to shove, Ruby still puts the two of them above her own family. As far as I’m concerned, Annie still owes Ruby a massive apology for that. Beth I let off the hook a little because by the end of the season she’s ready to turn herself in to make it all go away for all of them (I think, unless I’m misremembering, which is entirely possible bc I don’t think I’ve ever rewatched all of 213)

12. RIO GETS BETH THE DUBBY!! That’s it, that’s the question. Please discuss.

I think a lot about how the gesture is so baldly honest neither one of them can face it either at all (Rio) or without taking a shot first (Beth) which, now that I’ve typed it out, is also an interesting flip of their general MO bc under normal circumstances I’d put Rio down as the one that, of the two of them, is more willing to face stuff whereas Beth’s the one that hides from it.

#gg rewatch #gg 2x07 #gg related #shut up meg

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misshazelevers20 · 4 years

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1x07 Discussion Questions

I know, I know, I’m super late, but this is the second time I answer the questions made by the lovely @pynkhues because the first time I wasn’t happy with my answers.

1. What was your favourite scene of the episode? Tell us why!

To be honest I love everything except the secret shopper scenes, no matter how many times I rewatch the episode I still hate those scenes and I have to force myself to watch.

2. Was there any scene that missed the mark for you? And if so, how?

Yeah, their plan to basically use innocent people ( all women, except from Tyler) really doesn’t sit well with me ( tho I can totally understand why they did it). I just really hate it when someone uses feminism as a way of luring innocent women and involving them in shady things.

3. Let’s talk about the secret shopper scheme! What do you think were the strengths of it? The flaws? Do you think it had longterm potential? Or was it always going to crash and burn?

Nope, nope, nope, I absolutely hated every second of it and I knew that it was going to blow up in their faces. I mean there were way too many people involved, and sooner or later someone would have started to suspect things, or would have tried to fool the system ( like Mary Pat did).

4. The girls spent their money in very different ways! Ruby on romancing Stan, Annie on clothes for her son, and Beth on jewellery for herself. What do you think this tells us about them and their arcs? Particularly coming off the back of Ruby’s conflict with Stan, Ben’s issues at school with clothes, and Beth leaving Rio her pearls?

I think that for the first time in her life Beth puts herself first and wants to have nice things ( she totally deserves it). Before that she always thought about her kids and her husband, and kinda ignored her own needs. It would be quite amazing if the pearls were a gift from Dean, because that would be like she left him behind and used the pearls to start a new life.

Annie usually buys gifts for Ben when she has money ( like that laptop for example), I think she often feels guilty because she can’t normally afford to give him nice things ( and since Nancy is quite rich she might feel like she has to compete with that).

It wasn’t at all surprising that Ruby spent the money on romancing Stan, I think she still feels guilty for not telling him the truth, before this all thing started I doubt that she ever hid something from him. Or lied to him.

5. Eddie’s arrest is arguably what sets us on a collision course with the finale! Do you think Eddie was loyal to Rio until the end? How much do you think he told Turner? And what sort of loyalty do you think Rio inspires in his boys? And why doesn’t it translate with the girls?

I would like to imagine that he tried to stay loyal to Rio, but then Turner might have mentioned his mother ( I think Eddie was very close to her and didn’t want to spend years without seeing her) and Eddie might have felt like he had no other choice. I guess he hoped that Rio won’t suspect anything, and he tried to share with Turner details that weren’t that important ( not that Eddie knew a lot, though, he didn’t seem to be part of the inner circle).

I think almost everyone in the fandom have the headcanon that Rio grew up with most of his employees, and I agree with that. I think that most of his boys knew him for years, so it’s not surprising that they are loyal to him. With the girls it’s quite different because they started off as enemies ( and they were terrified of him in the beginning), so he didn’t exactly win their loyalty.

6. This episode introduces us to Mary Pat, who’s probably one of this show’s most complicated antagonists! What do you think of her generally? And could you have predicted her arc with Boomer and Turner?

I never liked her, and while I do feel sorry for her ( for what would happen to her later), I still think that she is greedy. I could understand if she would have demanded money once, but every month??! And she never seemed to use the money for her children ( she could have easily hired a babysitter) so I have no idea what did she do with them ( maybe pay her debts? I don’t really remember ). And no, I never imagined that she would interact with Boomer and Turner.

7. This episode features a very pivotal scene in terms of the Beth, Ruby and Annie dynamic. What starts as tension between Annie and Beth quickly pivots when Ruby criticises Beth and Annie leaps to her sister’s defence. What do you think this tells us about the dynamic between the girls as pairs and as a trio?

I think that Annie took her sister’s side only because she still remembered the last fight they had, and probably still felt guilty about it. Usually Annie and Ruby are on the same side, and try to stop Beth from doing crazy things.

8. Greg is the one who kisses Annie! Who do you think left who in that relationship, and/or what were the biggest issues in that relationship?

It would only makes sense if Greg was the one, because Ruby mentioned that she comforted Annie when she signed the divorce papers. I doubt that Annie would have cried if she would have been the one who wanted the divorce ( plus that she had Ben to think of, I think for his sake she would have tried to work things out even if she would have been unhappy).

I think that the biggest issue is that they were both so young when they got together, so it’s not surprising that after a few years things got boring, or they both changed and Greg realized that he wanted something else.

9. What did you think of Ruby’s sauce story? And what do you think it meant as a turning point for her arc?

That was simply horrifying and I understand perfectly why she would never want to go back there.

10. Knowing that Beth, Ruby and Annie’s system of paying Mary Pat off doesn’t work, do you think there was a way they could’ve handled her on their own that would’ve worked? Or do you think Rio’s intimidation (and potential murder) tactic was the only way out?

No, I’m afraid that only Rio’s intimidation would have worked, I doubt that Mary Pat would have believed the girls if they would have tried to warn her about Rio.

#gg rewatch

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victorvictor00000 · 5 years

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FALCO/GABI AND EREN/MIKASA PARALLEL

Having recently reread the manga and after the last few chapters i have noticed a few key similarities between 2 relationships in the manga. These are the Eren-Mikasa and Gabi-Falco relationships. Going through the series, i noticed many parallels between them, which is why i decided to make this post. I am sorry if this has been done before, i didn't notice it. Also, it will be a bit long.

So, let's begin by examining who is who in these dynamics. Eren is obviously Gabi. I think i am not being really innovative suggesting that. These two have constantly been compared to each other, since chapter 91. They have similar hairstyles, they are impulsive to a fault (one could say suicidal), they are brave and the begin as two people full of hate. Gabi hates the Walldians, thinking that their existence hinders the quality of life of the "good" Eldians with her goal being to exterminate them all, just as Eren hated the titans and swore to kill them all. Here we can see them announcing their goals:

Both of them have their hometowns attacked and destroyed and they travel to their enemie's country and see how they think and live with their own eyes, eventually deciding that the enemies they hated were regular humans, just like them.

Moving on to Mikasa and Falco, they both play the protector, lovestruck-type of role in the relationships. First of all, they were born the same day, February 10. They are both in love with the person they want to protect and they do everything in their power to accomplish that, as seen in the following examples:

They try to stop their loved one's dream from coming true. Mikasa doesn't want Eren to join the Survey Corps, because she thinks that he will die, while Falco doesn't want Gabi to inherit the Armored Titan, because he knows that her lifespan will be greatly reduced. In that effort, they have the full support of another person. For Mikasa, that person is Carla, Eren's mom, while for Falco, it is Reiner:

Both Eren and Gabi are also completely oblivious to Mikasa's/Falco's feelings,

and

In Eren's case, his obliviousness is portrayed via Marlowe, who has also been compared to Eren and doesn't get why Hitch didn't want him to go and everyone gets angry at him. Well, besides Eren, who doesn't get what happens and Mikasa just looks at him disappointed. Falco just wants Gabi to marry him and live a happy life. Mikasa is quite like him in the sense that she joined the army and the survey corps later, because of Eren. What she really wanted was to live a simple life with him.

Of course, as we know, both Eren and Gabi are hard people to stop. So, since they can't stop them from following their dreams, they decide to follow them and protect them. Mikasa only resolved to go to the military, because she wanted to be close to Eren and the same thing happened in the survey corps,

Falco, followed Gabi when she climbed to the blimp, which was met with criticism by Gabi,

As of now, there have been quite a few scenes and situations between the 4 to simply be coincidences. For example, in chapter 112, we have Gabi trying to convince Armin and Mikasa to take Falco as a prisoner and kill her, since he did nothing wrong,

That scene reminded me of the part where Eren defends Mikasa in his trial,

Even earlier, there are also similarities between Gabi and Falco's actions during the battle at Fort Slava and Eren and Mikasa's during the day they first met. The way Eren and Gabi tricked and killed their respective enemies is very similar, along with their protector trying to come to the rescue immediately after:

and

The ''coincidences" and similarities continue, when in chapter 111, Nicolo tries to hit Gabi, only for Falco to put his body in her place, just as Mikasa did for Eren in chapter 50:

I also find it really funny that Mikasa saved Gabi and Falco was motivated by Eren. Seems the trend continues even when interacting with their loved one's counterparts. Even the fake names Falco chose, Mia and Ben, resemble Mikasa's and Eren's in the first and last 2 letters respectively. Interestingly, Falco's story, that they are siblings who lost their home is also very similar to Eren's and Mikasa's. Gabi's reaction to her playing the little sister, saying "Why am i your little sister", is close to Eren's outbursts when he says "I am not your kid" to Mikasa. Also, Kaya's made up excuse for Falco's and Gabi's argument in chapter 109 "Mia is jealous that her big brother's getting stolen away from her", is kinda similar to Mikasa's jealousy of Eren's relationship with Annie at the beginning and Historia in chapter 70.

Of course, there are similarities not just between the counterparts, but between Mikasa&Gabi and Falco&Eren. For the girls, both are at the top of their class, proven fighters with immense talent and accomplished. The Eren-Falco comparison though is way more interesting. Essentially, Gabi is a talented Eren, while Falco is a non-talented Mikasa. In this case, we have two boys, weaker than the closest female to them, unable to be the protectors, leaving them to try harder in order to surpass them. With Falco, i have already established that. But with Eren? How does Eren want to be a protector? Well, answer is in the beginning of chapter 50,

The reason Eren was able to motivate Falco, is because of his mom back then. That's why his words resonated to Falco. He knows how it is to feel powerless to protect people he cares about. The funny thing about the dynamic between Eren and Mikasa is that they are really similar as characters. They both get saddened and frustrated by the fact that they want to protect each other, but they always feel powerless. Of course, for Eren it's a little more complex than that. Besides wanting to protect, he also wants to advance. To fight until the end. He is similar to Gabi, in that she also wants to fight till the end, until her perceived enemies are defeated.

But, here lies the biggest difference between the two. Gabi's goal, is for all the good Eldians to be eventually free from their oppression. To do that, she wants to defeat the demons of Paradise. She is brainwashed. Her mind is fragile and her willpower, while great, pales in comparison to her male counterparts. Coming to Eren, it is impossible to brainwash him. No amount of propaganda would have had any effect on him. His willpower is off the charts. Which is why he is more dangerous than Gabi. He knows he walks down a path with no turning back, but he keeps going. Gabi can't do that. Notice how guilty she feels in the latest chapter, when she understands that the Walldians are people and how she trusts Nile to deliver Falco:

Now, notice Eren:

and

Eren and Gabi both understand. They know that there are good people in both sides, people who don't deserve death and who have led good, decent lives, without hurting anyone. Unlike Gabi, Eren keeps going. He accepts his role as the devil and he steels his resolve to kill them all. Throwing away his humanity, to protect the ones he cares about the most and achieve his dream of freedom. Just like Erwin. And, as we all know, Erwin eventually gave up.

Back to the dynamic of the two relationships. In one of the most recent chapter Falco confessed to Gabi how he feels about her, in a moment that had them both blushing and resembled a lot the moment where Eren spoke to the 104th about how much he cares about them:

and

We have seen by now that Mikasa and Falco only ever blush when it comes down to Eren and Gabi. Interestingly, both Mikasa and Gabi have been questioned about the nature of the relationship they have with Eren and Falco respectively:

It's also really funny, when you think about it that way. Falco, a kid, is more honest about his feelings than Mikasa who is an adult now.

Even back then, Mikasa was not honest with herself and how she felt. Notice how she pauses, before saying family.

Before the rereads, i thought i was seeing things. But after careful observation, i found way too many similarities for this to be random. Especially considering that this is Isayama we are talking about. It's no coincidence that the relationships that get the biggest focus in the last arc of the manga are these two. The whole thing about the scarf and armband tossing symbolism in the same chapter, the "why does he say he hates me?",

"i like you", again in the same chapter have not been put there by mistake. It’s important to note Mikasa pony tail in 108 when Eren says that he cares about them and Gabi ponytail 118 when Falco confessed. That was the only scene we saw Mikasa with ponytail and after that it was cut off for no reason.

I don't know how all those will come into play in the chapters to come, but they are sure to be important.

#SOURCE:#https://www.reddit.com/user/neithorn7/#EREMIKA #ERENXMIKASA #SNK #FALCO #GABI #FABI #I'm tired of people comparing Gabi/Falco to another pairing #AOT #SNK118 #Eren Yaegar #eren haters #mikasa ackerman

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bethsuglywigs · 4 years

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GG Rewatch Q&A - 1x02

1. What was your favourite scene of the episode? Tell us why!

There are a lot of gems for me in this episode. Top 3:

Sarah’s soccer game - I love the Hills and all of their scenes are so genuine. I love when Stan yells “We’re winning!” and Sarah yells back “No we’re not!” Its so cute (I love a good father/daughter interaction and Stan is the best father on the show).

The Dick Pic - “She going to cut off his PENIS!”

“What am I LOOKING AT!”

I guess what I’m saying is I love any scene Ruby is in.

P.S. I also love the math tutoring scene but Ruby isn’t in it so point have to be deducted.

2. Was there any scene that missed the mark for you? And if so, how?

It didn’t necessarily miss the mark because it’s a bad scene or doesn’t fit with the story BUT I hate when Dean starts talking about Beth as if she’s a car. I hate Dean and I hate any scene he’s in (except when he gets shot...thats a fave).

That being said the overall scene is actually very funny. They should have made that customer trying to buy a car a running gag because that actor was very funny.

3. This episode features Beth’s iconic! gamechanging! monologue! Do you think Rio was intending to kill the girls? And if so, at what point in Beth’s speech do you think he changed his mind?

He was definitely going to kill them.

I don’t think the actual content of the speech changed his mind, but rather Beth herself having the nerve to stand up to him with a gun (literally) to her head. I actually think Rio probably has other ~nondescript~ people on his pay role and that he really didn’t need the girls to do anything for him. But I think Beth intrigued him enough in that moment that he wanted to see what she would do.

4. This episode also introduces Marion to us! What do you think of her? And knowing how her story ends in 3.08, what do you think of her arc and her relationships with Boomer and Annie respectively?

Marion reminds me a lot of my own grandmother, who loved me and raised me, but also called black people colored. My biggest issue with Marion is not with Marion as a character, but rather Annie’s connection with Marion.

Like they made Marion an overt racist and had Ruby point it out multiple times, but for what? I think they should have actually had Annie struggle with the reality of loving/caring for someone who is racist. That’s something that many people deal with and have to come to terms with in real life. It could have been interesting to explore those complex feelings. But instead they just have Ruby call her a racist twice.

Dont care about her relationship with Boomer - no thoughts on that.

5. Ruby has her only (so far at least) direct interaction with Rio in this episode! What do you think of that dynamic in this episode, and where would you like to see it go in the future?

How different would the show have been if they had made Rio bring the gang to Ruby’s house...

I want the show to explore Ruby and Annie’s relationships with Rio/the gang more. It would be both funny and interesting because:

They are both still afraid of him BUT they also know he had sex with Beth which I feel like Annie wouldn’t be able to help but comment on and if Annie says something Ruby would probably also say something; and

Ruby and Annie say absolutely wild things and we deserve to see Rio’s reactions more (i.e. Im not putting anything up my butt).

6. How do you think Beth and Annie got Boomer into the treehouse?

They tied a jump rope around his waste and dragged him up the slide.

7. This episode seems ambiguous about Greg and Nancy’s roles in Ben’s life up to this point. How long do you think Greg and Nancy have been together, and how close do you think Ben is with them at this point?

I think Nancy and Greg have been together between 3-5 years, but are recently married. Ben and Greg seem fairly close and I think Greg as always been involved in raising Ben. I think Ben likes Nancy generally, but probably finds her a little annoying. Also I think Ben likes being at their places and having all the comforts that they can afford BUT he’d never say that because he’s a mama’s boy.

8. Do you think Beth ever went back (or thought about going back) for Dean’s grandmother’s ring?

No.

9. What do you think Stan was thinking when he woke up to Ruby making all those lasagnas? What do you think he was thinking when he, Sara and Harry ate so much of it?

He probably thought she was stress cooking. I don’t think they ate that much of it, but just left the note as a way of telling Ruby they love and appreciate her.

10. Has Beth ever seen a dick pic before?

No, but I think Dean would have sent her one if he had a camera phone in high school.

11. Is Greg still in love with Annie at this point in the series? Or does he fall in love with her again later in the season? Or not at all?

I think he loves her at this point, but he becomes infatuated with her later.

12. That! Hook! What do you think made Rio go back to Beth’s house? What do you think made him take a chance on her?

He wanted to fuck her.

#gg rewatch #nbc good girls #gg analysis

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hypermania · 5 years

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So I know there's a difference between Greg cheating on Nancy and Dean cheating on Beth but I can't put my finger on exactly what it is

i think it’s just easier for the audience to not hate gregg and what he was doing for a few reasons:

1. gregg and annie clearly have deep feelings for each other that are not just about sex*

dean was just screwing whoever because he wanted sex and believed he deserved it.

*i love that annie and gregg genuinely like each other. they have fun together. they know each other really well as evidenced by annie asking about his insomnia and gregg not even entertaining the idea that the drugs boomer planted might have been hers. they have such a solid foundation that i wish the show would explore more of just in terms of their dynamic/friendship and would LOVE to know how he would react to all of annie’s crime-ing. i also have a lot of thoughts about how they “decided all this when [they] were seventeen” and those decisions seemed to result in gregg having the space to grow up and become successful where annie did not but that’s a different post for a different day.

2. gregg seems to recognize for the most part that this is a (poor) choice he’s making and not something that’s happening to him

dean kind of always pushes the blame back on beth and the fact that they hadn’t had sex for however long (without ever acknowledging what she was going through, her depression, the fact that he is completely useless and she has been doing everything alone, etc). like HELLO DEAN you are still a human adult, completely in control of your actions. use your words, you prick.

3. gregg and annie are on pretty even footing, sexually speaking

dean slept with the (much younger) women that worked for him. gross.

4. gregg doesn’t really fall short in all the other ways we see dean fall short. he’s a good “provider” for his family (though i do love that nancy does not seem to be dependent on him in any way financially). he’s a good and present father who seems to genuinely want the best for his kid, no matter how difficult it makes his life (i.e. having to sue annie for custody, all the fighting they do over ben’s well-being, etc). he doesn’t use his kid as some sort of pawn.

dean can’t even seem to manage to pour cereal for his kids without fucking it up. he takes them away to punish beth for sleeping with someone else. he takes his very small daughter outside with him as a tiny human shield when he believes rio has a gun on beth, etc. (i do think dean actually cares about his kids but his number one priority is still himself and his ego)

5. gregg’s face is zach gilford’s face.

6. the first time gregg and annie sleep together is when nancy is still framed as highly unlikable (to the point that it’s hard not to wonder why nancy and gregg were ever together/trying for a baby in the first place) so of course we were all sort of low key rooting for him to leave her.

and i just want to make it clear that i don’t think that any of this excuses gregg’s cheating (or annie’s part in it) because it’s definitely still wrong. but it’s easier to empathize with the situation, and therefore gregg.

i do wish season three didn’t have him and nancy trying to work through it and stay together though. it sort of undercuts that he was just flat out unhappy, regardless of what happened with him and annie. plus, nancy deserves better. (what if this show was just like here, have the ot3 of your dreams and let annie/gregg/nancy be a thing?? wouldn’t that be neat???)

tldr; get rekt, dean. and greggory... you’re on thin ice, pal.

#nbc good girls #anniegregg #mp #anonymous #replies

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scullys · 4 years

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I am dying for more of your community opinions! Could you elaborate on your favorite characters, episodes, or dynamics? Or honestly whatever you want, I just love hearing people’s first time community takes

hell yeah i could. although not everything is completely processed in my mind so it might turn out confusing lmao

okay so favorite characters are jeff and annie obviously (and holy fuck my brain might be starting to develop an opinion about how sitcom couples are actually better than drama couples) i love jeff and his vulnerability underneath all the crap. he really is the one that feels the most huh that’s so adorable i can’t even begin- and annie oh my god i’m so attracted to her? she’s such a badass and such a cutie at the same time??? i’m scared of her but also aroused???? probably how jeff feels all the time too. again i really hate the age difference i do not feel comfortable with that at all, but it really really helps the fact that jeff was so aware of the creepy aspect and the power imbalance and just admired her from afar. also that it was acknowledged and so we know for a fact that he really is deeply in love with her as a person, despite her age, and that he respects her and is smart enough to know that a relationship at that stage of her life wouldn’t do them -especially her- any good. i’m actually quite satisfied with the way they handled most of it EXCEPT I REALLY WANT THE MOVIE WHERE THEY’RE FINALLY READY AND IN A RELATIONSHIP THANKS.

abed comes next because i relate to him a lot, from not understanding social cues to taking jokes too literally to oversharing to absorbing fictional characters’ personalities to make me feel more comfortable in my own body, to being a source of endless useless information but struggling to do simple math etc etc i might have issues and then troy because he’s just so fucking funny, his timing his delivery his loyalty his sensibility everything and troy and abed together make me emotional. i want a friendship like that so badly damn

hot take i really don’t like britta. i noticed her characterization changed A LOT in the second half of the show (jeff pointed it out twice “you seemed smarter than me when i met you” and “when did you become the group’s airhead?”) and though i don’t particularly love her ‘airhead’ part it did give her an adorableness that softened me towards her because before that i really found her deeply obnoxious. her fake wokeness got on my nerves sooo much. that episode where britta becomes friends with a girl just because she thinks she’s a lesbian and it would make her look cool and progressive? oh my god i wanted to slap her lmao. i like her personality as it was in the last season. she still has that “anarchist” attitude (visualize me rolling my eyes or clenching my teeth whichever you prefer) but she takes herself a little less seriously?? idk maybe it’s because her life’s such a mess at the moment and so she doesn’t feel as entitled and pretentious but i empathized with her a lot more.

i’m pretty indifferent to shirley as a character. i like her more in relation to the group as a whole. i love the thinly veiled rage she has and her changing from a sweet high-pitched voice to a deep threatening voice in a second gets me everytime. she is super religious and pretty homophobic sometimes so that’s annoying but it’s not shoved in my face every single episode so i got to like her a little bit.

pierce was hilarious and i kinda missed him when he left because of that tbh but he and chevy chase can go fuck themselves

i adore ben chang. that’s it. i enjoyed prof duncan whenever he popped up, didn’t know john oliver was in this show before

i couldn’t tell you my favorite episodes because i just finished binge-watching yesterday so it’s all a blur but as soon as i start rewatching i’m gonna be able to tell everything apart lmao off the top of my head: the timelines episode, the ass crack bandit episode and well the series finale. i remember laughing really hard at particular episodes but i don’t remember which ones they were so

overall this is one of the very few shows where i found myself saying “holy shit that’s good” out loud, be it for the dialogue, the writing in general or the concepts they came up with. it’s gonna be a comfort show for sure i love it so much. i’m downloading all the seasons right now so i can start giffing

#this is fucking long sorry #answered #community #Anonymous

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lookatbradsjunk · 4 years

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[4.25/5 ⭐]

It's hard for me to say right now whether I liked this book because it was very well-written, or because we are currently living through a pandemic, and having been released in January of 2019, this book seems bizarrely prescient. This is the story of a sleeping sickness spreading through the college town of Santa Lora, CA: people are just falling asleep and not waking up. The sickness spreads so rapidly that the U.S. government declares cordon sanitaire (a term I learned specifically from reading this book), trapping everyone in Santa Lora inside the town, as the disease spreads and supplies dwindle. We get the story from a multitude of different perspectives, so here's a rundown of the core cast: Mei: Lonely college freshman, having trouble making friends in her new environment. Her roommate is the first person to contract the sickness, leading the the quarantine of their dorm. Later, when things in town start to unravel, she and her classmate "Weird Matthew" (who turns out to be just... an absolutely appalling person) take it upon themselves to go around town searching for people who have fallen asleep unnoticed and getting them to medical facilities. Sara: Awkward tween, trying to deal with her doomsday prepper father, while still navigating the pitfalls of adolescence. When her dad catches the sickness, she and her sister Libby (only ten months younger than herself) are left to fend for themselves, all alone, during a plague, a military occupation, and a relative meltdown of societal norms. Ben: (and to some extent is wife Annie? Although, really we spend considerably more time in Ben's head, especially as the story progresses). Ben and Annie are adjunct professors, new to Santa Lora. They have a newborn baby, Grace, and their marriage has seen some trouble by the time things start getting weird. Nathaniel: Biology professor at the college who is seeing to the care of his longtime partner, Henry who seems to have an unnamed form of dementia even before the sickness is even an issue. Catherine: Neuropsychiatrist and single mother from Los Angeles, called in to Santa Lora to investigate the sickness, only to get trapped there when the cordon sanitaire goes into effect. While I love a story told through multiple perspectives, I will say that Walker does a better job of making us care about some of these characters than others. Catherine's arc, in particular, is basically pointless: practically nothing happens to her, she comes out unscathed, and encounters very little conflict throughout. Nathaniel, likewise, has a very thin storyline, but I will say there is at least a little emotional payoff to it in the end. On the other hand, Mei's arc has lots of action and emotional impact: she escapes from quarantine with her classmates during a brush fire, falls in love with a relative sociopath named Matthew (I just cannot stress how much I hate him as a character: he's the kind of guy who spouts off about philosophy in casual conversation, plays an acoustic guitar, unbidden, at a social function, and is constantly interrogating his peers about what they would do during hypothetical moral quandaries). Sara also has a really engaging arc. I would argue she's kind of the "main character", if the story has one: we seem to spend a lot of time with her compared to some of the other characters, and she's our only POV character who remains awake for the entirety of the story (besides Catherine, who, of course, is inconsequential). Because her sister Libby is only 10 months younger than her, they have a great dynamic together that is fun to read. And because she has no mom and her dad is kind of... "erratic", let's say... you really come to empathize with her situation. Ben and Annie's arc is perfectly fine. They're learning how to be parents just as the sickness begins to spread. Having a newborn during a plague definitely makes for some believable stakes that you care about. Annie succumbs to the sickness pretty easily, but it's a slower process for Ben, and through his lens we get a fascinating look at what the virus does to a person's brain. I think I might have cared about this arc a little more if I was a married, heteronormative type with kids, but it was still pretty good. There's a lot going on here that I like--multiple perspectives, magic realism, a societal breakdown--so I probably would have enjoyed this book anyway, but the fact that it's about an airborne virus, quickly spreading through a community, and it was released only a year before coronavirus hit makes me appreciate it all the more for its timeliness. That being said, having now lived through a quarantine, a government shutdown of non-essential businesses, and protests that arise in these situations, I feel like Walker played everything a bit too safe. In this universe, the cops are pushovers, the national guard is just a bunch of nervous kids, and only one person gets shot (and spoiler alert: he lives)... to say nothing of the lack of tear gas in this book. Likewise, looting is pretty minimal and polite within the confines of this story and everyone treats each other very amicably. Aside from the sleeping sickness itself, there's very little conflict in this story--which is okay because Karen Thompson Walker is a gifted writer who makes you care about the story she's weaving, it just doesn't ring very true to life.

#The Dreamers #Karen Thompson Walker #book review #books #magic realism #fiction #fabulism #dystopian fiction #plague fiction

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mego42 · 4 years

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1x07 Discussion Questions

My b! My b! I usually try to do these when the episode is fresh but instead I went to sleep, I am at peace with my priorities, tbh. As always, many thanks to @pynkhues for her time and energy putting these together and shout out to @foxmagpie for the assist.

1. What was your favourite scene of the episode? Tell us why!

Lot of contenders, tbh. I really love the scene with Mary Pat when she puts together the (extremely transparent) bullshit that is the whole secret shopper scheme (I mean come on y’all, did you even try????), I love Ruby and Stan’s date (high five to Stan for coming through with my parks & rec reference, it’s nice to know there is one (1) man I can count on). The Annie and Greg bit is REALLY SWEET LEAVE ME ALONE. The god tier brio content, specifically The Grab Heard Round The World My Living Room and the Give Me A Name bit. Some classic Rio nonsense (do you think if we asked him to point to an egg he’d point to an apple?) Tyler and his “reeeeeeally fill out the surveys?” was, obvs, the best moment on the entire show. Anyway, one of those for sure.

2. Was there any scene that missed the mark for you? And if so, how?

The Boomer setting up Annie stuff always falls flat to me and idk exactly why? Like, individual pieces of it are great, Mae does EXCELLENT work post police station and when getting arrested in the first place but ultimately I find it fairly forgettable in the grand scheme of things.

3. Let’s talk about the secret shopper scheme! What do you think were the strengths of it? The flaws? Do you think it had longterm potential? Or was it always going to crash and burn?

I said this during the rewatch but I straight up blocked out the fact that all of the shoppers are hitting the same store on the same day (waving around upwards of $5k in cash???? no less???????) because my brain cannot comprehend how three women we’re supposed to believe are reasonably intelligent didn’t realize this was the stupidest, most transparently obvious, most short-sighted scheme in the entire world.

I struggled with the sustainability of it a bit when I thought they were spreading their efforts around (they roped in A Lot of people, there are only so many Costcos in the Detroit metro area and waving around that much cash and then returning it all, again for cash, is uh, already p memorable) but I could deal with it when I thought they were spreading it around. Short-sighted, immediate solutions are a cornerstone of Beth’s brand, after all, but all of them at the same store at the same day???? Too much. I cannot.

Love these connects. The show’s got a pretty clearly defined and consistent visual/character motifs (this may or may not be the word I’m looking for, shut up) when it comes to depicting the girls priorities and motivations. You also see it reflected and reinforced with their repeated coping mechanisms throughout the show. Whenever bad stuff happens, Ruby goes home to Stan, Annie crawls into bed with Ben and we usually close with Beth either alone (ouch david) or connecting with Rio in some way (exhibit a: the aforementioned pearls).

In all of the instances it comes back to the heart of their priorities:

Stan is Ruby’s number one, (which isn’t to say her kids aren’t a part of that, I think Stan is both himself in this sense while also representing her whole Hill family unit—TV is all about visual shorthand kids—but also it serves to illustrate that Ruby has something Beth and Annie do not: a true partner).

Ben is at the root of everything Annie does, she makes choices based on not only his. well-being, but how he sees her and he has the most influence over how she sees herself and what actions she takes as a result of that.

Beth, on the other hand, is at a contrasting point. She’s done the devoted partner and mother thing (lowkey implied by the little bits and pieces we get of her and Annie’s childhoods to some degree more or less for her entire life) and is now putting herself first, her needs, her wants. Which isn’t to say she doesn’t give a fuck about her family, she waits until she’s got a fat stack of cash and they’re taken care of before splurging on a thing, but as a symbol I think the necklace pretty clearly illuminates that for whatever Beth tells herself, she’s building an empire for herself, bc she wants it, needing it is secondary.

OF COURSE EDDIE WAS LOYAL TO THE END HE HAS CLEARLY DEMONSTRATED HE HAS SOME KIND OF CODE OF HONOR HOW DARE YOU SLANDER MY BOY LIKE THAT.

Tbh idk how to answer the loyalty question without more information from canon because the gang and how they operate, how they all came together, etc is pretty well shrouded in not-central-narrative-focus, though I think it’s been implied somewhat heavily that what’s going on with the girls is not standard operating procedure.

My personal headcanon for Eddie is tied up in my personal backstory for Rio and Mick that I started for my (lmao first) Mick POV fic. I gave Rio and Mick a friends since we were kids backstory and decided Eddie was a kid in their neighborhood, slightly younger then them, and always looked up to them/followed them around/thought they were cool. He ultimately got involved in crime because they did and they looked out for him and brought him up with them (which, you know, makes how it all turns out that much more tragic). Obvs, this is all just me and my tendency to imprint on random side characters and give them backstories. Let me live.

I love her and I’m done lying to myself about it.

LISTEN, first off, Allison Tolman is great. Her line delivery is fantastic, she has a knack for subtly adding SO MUCH to every scene she’s in and uses her face and inflection and pauses exquisitely. Top notch comedic timing. Truly a gem.

Second, on a character level, the lady is in a bad spot and the girls basically gift-wrapped the circumstances and handed them to her like here is a present!!!!!!!!!!!! What was a struggling girl to do besides accept what was offered to her??????!!!!!!???

I am so!!!! curious!!!!!!! about the backstory that exists in the writers’ heads for Ruby and Annie (all three of them, really, but the bff and little sister having an independent friendship is of particular interest to me bc it isn’t something you, or I guess I, run into a lot) and how much of it was defined at this point vs how much it’s evolved/fluctuated as the show goes on. This fight pretty clearly illuminated that when it really comes down to it, it’s Beth and Annie vs Ruby which a) breaks my heart and b) isn’t totally a dynamic I think the show ultimately stuck with? Or maybe intentionally fluctuates? Idk this is a half-baked thought. Ask again later.

8. Greg is the one who kisses Annie! Who do you think left who in that relationship, and/or what were the biggest issues in that relationship?

I feel like there’s pretty much no way Annie wasn’t the one that called things off with Greg. Not just because of how it plays out this time but because he’s got a kind of persistent yet also go with the flow attitude that makes me think he would absorb a lot in the name of making it work whereas Annie seems to have a pretty established history of cutting her losses and bailing when she hits her limit. Based on how fond they are of each other and how much affection they clearly still hold, I tend to assume they just grew apart as they grew up which makes it almost more complicated and tragic because it leaves all of the good stuff and just mixes it with the knowledge that it wasn’t enough.

9. What did you think of Ruby’s sauce story? And what do you think it meant as a turning point for her arc?

I HATE THIS STORY SO MUCH USED BAND AIDS ARE GROSS ENOUGH ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT MIXING IN FOOD SERVICE AND MONTHS, MONTHS, OF MARINATION. I REFUSE TO TALK ABOUT IT. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE.

Idk maybe I’m just cynical, but I take trust no bitch to heart, they pretty well screwed themselves into a corner by being idiots.

#rewatching this ep taught me a lot about my feelings on the secret shopper scheme #gg rewatch #gg 1x07 #gg related #shut up meg

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beavesaintmarie · 5 years

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good girls

lowkey otp: lol rn im into Annie and Dr. Ezra from Imposters. idk if it’ll be A THING yet but im enjoying their scenes this season so far.

highkey notp: ANNIE AND GREG. KILL IT WITH FIRE. GREG IS THE WORST AND I HATE HIM THE SAME WAY MOST OF THIS FANDOM HATES DEAN. AT LEAST DEAN AMUSES ME SOMETIMES. THE ONLY GOOD THING GREG HAS EVER DONE IS HELP MAKE BEN. THAT’S IT.

[softly] don’t notp: i mean again, i don’t hate dean. i know most of the fandom wants him drawn and quartered cause REASONS......but i feel like Matthew Lillard plays his position really well and i’ve been watching him for years and he’s always had LE RANGE but lol i do not get why Beth and Dean are still trying to pretend their marriage is anything other than a business arrangement at this point and also like a co-parenting situation in which they still live in the same house but like that’s it?? i kinda want their dynamic to evolve into, ‘LOOK WE HAVE 50-LEVEN KIDS AND WE SPENT A LOT OF YEARS TOGETHER BUT WE’VE NEVER BEEN IN LOVE NOT TRULY BUT WE HAVE GENERAL LOVE FOR EACH OTHER LIKE GOOD FRIENDS AND THAT’S WHAT WE’RE GONNA AGREE TO BE FROM NOW ON’. i just think the grey area is kinda tired and played out.......it’s literally s3 and they’ve been stagnated in that state ever since s1.

highkey otp but i’m scared of saying it because it’s not a very popular choice: i ship Beth and Rio but not in the same way most of the fandom does. what i see from the fandom is like OMG WHY CAN’T THEY JUST BE THE KING AND QUEEN OF THE CRIME BOSS UNDERWORLD AND ALSO LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER and its like...........lol no??????? they can’t BE a ~normal~ couple when they both wanna be top dog. and im not even getting into the amount of times rio has pointed a gun in beth’s face or how she LITERALLY shot to kill him last season or like how they’ve literally never talked about anything REAL outside of doing crime and fucking lol. or the general psychological torture Rio puts Beth through and how Beth really just wants to unseat him and take over and ~rule~ on her own. (but with annie and ruby ofc). tbh i think Brio has always been from day one a sitch in which THE STUDENT SURPASSES THE MASTER but the master can't deal and they have to battle it out for top spot AND ALSO THEY FUCK. it’s a dark and twisted dynamic and i loooooooooove it for what it is.

highkey otp and anyone on my tumblr knows it: RUBY AND STAN. THE LEGIT ONLY ROMANTIC LOVE STORY ON THIS SHOW. BEST MARRIEDS. MOST DEVOTED HUSBAND AND WIFE. I LOVE THEM WITH MY WHOLE HEART.

#mai does a meme #loisfreakinglane

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crazy-little-cool-cat · 6 years

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Hand in Glove - Chapter 2 | Ben Hardy x OFC

A/N: I was so blown away by the love the first chapter got, wow! Thank you so much! You're all so lovely! Anyways, I decided to take advantage of the fact that there's a storm outside to write the next chapter and it just came pouring out. So, there you have it! Now I won't feel bad if I won't have the time to write during the week because adulting is hard, y'all. Anyways, this chapter's flashback's are from Annabelle's POV and are in italics, so don't get it twisted.

Word Count:~2.6K

Warnings: Swearing. Ridiculous amount of fluff. (Like, sickening. Utterly disgusting.) Also, a few more drunk shenanigans and mentions of sex (but none actually happening? Is that even a warning?)

Chapter 1

***

Ben and Annabelle had knowingly started something they couldn’t finish. The dimly lit room was filled with sounds of the soft rustle of clothes on sheets, muffled moans and grunts and the humdrum of the TV playing in the background.

“You’re killing me, woman,” Ben groaned before he bit his bottom lip as Annabelle dragged her fingernails over his t-shirt and down his back, “Jesus.”

“I could stop,” laying under him, Annabelle raised an eyebrow, challenging Ben with a cheeky smirk, “wouldn’t want you to die.”

“Don’t you dare,” he snaked one hand under her top and up her ribs and took her bottom lip in between his teeth, nibbling on it gently with a content hum, “I just can’t get enough of this.”

“Enough of what?” she feigned innocence, batting her eyelashes at him.

“Enough of you,” he could feel goosebumps forming on her skin under his lips and chuckled softly, “seems like the feeling is mutual.”

Annabelle tilted her head back and to the side with a sigh and closed eyes, as Ben covered every inch of her neck and face with kisses. When she opened her eyes, she let out an audible gasp.

“Is it really light out?” she wondered and caused Ben to stop his kissing attack and turn his head to look at the early morning sun illuminating through the window as well, “did we really make out like horny teenagers all fucking night?”

“M'fraid so,” he shrugged and smiled lazily, “haven’t pulled an all-nighter like this one in ages.”

“It’s a good thing neither of us has work tomorrow,” she furrowed her brows, “er… today.”

“True,” he said and snickered when Annabelle yawned loudly, “am I boring you, love?”

“That’s impossible,” she kissed his lips sweetly and reached up to brush the back of her hand against his cheek, “I think my brain just realised how long I’ve been awake.”

“We could sleep,” Ben rolled off of her and laid next to her, turning on his side to face her, “or at least try.”

“But I hate alcohol sleep, it’s the worst sleep,” she pouted and snuggled closer up to Ben, burying her face in his chest, “you smell so nice.”

He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her even closer, resting his chin on the top of her head. His heartbeat lulled her to sleep, but Ben was wide awake.

***

I was late. Gwil invited me over for dinner with his mates and I got caught up on set, and now I was rushing like a madwoman because being late makes me horribly anxious. I let myself into Gwil’s flat, assuming everyone else had already got there by now but was surprised to find Ben sitting on the couch, alone.

“It’s just you here?” I looked around, “where is everybody?”

“You sound disappointed,” Ben smirked. This is the first time I’ve ever actually been completely alone with him since we first met, and I found it oddly exciting.

Sometimes it felt like our friends will do anything to make sure it’s never just him and me, alone. Like they enjoyed cock-blocking us. Tossers.

“Oh, no,” I walked over and put my hands on the back of the sofa, leaning forward on my arms, “quite the opposite.”

Ben’s eyes slowly raked up my body, his tongue poking out to lick his lips. Just then, the door burst open and Gwil, Joe, Rami and Lucy rushed in like a hurricane, ruining the moment before it even started, as they always did.

***

Ben stared blankly at the Top Gear re-runs playing on the TV while Annabelle slept, listening to her breathing softly. He couldn’t feel the arm she was laying on anymore and he assumed his bladder is about to explode, but he dared not move. He pushed her long, straight, brown hair over her shoulder and let the palm of his hand travel from her cheek, down to her jawline, softly caressing down the side of her neck.

“Feels nice,” she mumbled against his chest and wiggled her toes, “how long was I out?”

“About two hours,” he spoke so softly, yet she could feel the low rumble of his voice echoing in his chest.

“Did you get any sleep?” Annabelle leaned back to look into his bright green eyes, her cheeks flushed from sleep, and pouted playfully when he shook his head, “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Ben grazed his thumb over Annabelle’s lips and smiled when she kissed it softly, “did you sleep well?”

“Strangely, yeah,” she ran her fingers through his hair and he closed his eyes as he smiled, “what time is it, anyway?”

“I'm guessing it’s around Nine,” he grunted as he stretched to reach for his phone on the bedside table, “I need to take Frankie out for a walk before she pees all over the floor.”

“Oh.”

“You can join us,” he sat up and whistled for Frankie, smiling warmly as he heard the patter of her paws on the hardwood floors as she scrambled to jump on the bed, “if you want.”

***

It wasn’t even my idea. Gwil insisted that I brought my friends over to the pub one night because he felt like he was stealing me away from them. I warned him not to. I told him how annoying we all are, but he wouldn’t listen. So now, he got to witness first hand the weird little ‘love-triangle’ we had and his competitive side kicked into gear. Ben, Gwil, Rami and Joe were determined to ‘out-friend’ us and they were losing, fast.

“Do you people ever get sick of each other?” Gwil asked, looking from me to my two cast-mates.

“No,” we choired.

“We’re just as bad as you are,” Clara, who plays my sister on our series, gestured with her hand across the table where Gwil’s cast-mates sat alongside him, “if not worse.”

“Disgusting,” Joe shook his head mockingly, eliciting very animated nods from Rami, “positively repulsive.”

“I know you are,” I tried not to slur but I was way past drunk by now, “but what am I?”

“Bloody adorable, is what you are!” Jamie, who plays King Henry VIII, pinched my cheek playfully.

I noticed Ben grit his teeth at that very moment, and shot him a puzzled look. In the blink of an eye, his face turned neutral again and he was calmly sipping his beer, avoiding my questioning gaze.

“Alright, you royal pains in the arse,” Clara clapped her hands to get our attention, “time to go. Long day tomorrow!"

“What’s happening tomorrow?” Joe looked like a confused puppy, making me giggle uncontrollably.

“Tomorrow,” Jamie drawled as he twirled a lock of my hair around his finger, “King Henry finally gets a taste of the one he can’t have. Yet.”

“Seriously?” Gwil was incredulous, “the one day we can finally come visit you on set and I have to watch my cousin’s sex scenes?”

“Woo!” Joe high-fived Ben as if they won something.

“It’s not a sex scene!” I felt my cheeks burn.

“Boo!” Joe and Ben chanted and frowned, causing Rami to bang his forehead against the table and Gwil make gagging noises.

***

Annabelle stared at the last text Ben had sent her after he and Frankie walked her home for what she felt like was hours, but was actually just a couple of minutes.

‘I could still smell you here when I got home. I can’t wait to get you alone again.’

She didn’t really know what it was she was doing with Ben, exactly. She never experienced anything like this before, an inexplicable chemistry and attraction with one person that just felt so incredibly right and natural. Annabelle was never one to commit very easily, but she doesn’t date or hook-up much, either. Most of her friends are guys, most girls hate her for being surrounded by men all the time, even if they were just her friends.

Frankly, she hated the dating “game”. It always ended up going to shit, and she could never seem to know how to pick the 'right' guy. Even Jamie, as much as she adores him and despite the attraction and chemistry, was all kinds of wrong for her and she constantly beat herself up for even going there in the first place. When shit hit the fan with Jamie, as it did with everyone else, she opted to waste her time with him in a non-comittal way and give up on dating altogether. They had such a horrible dynamic as a couple, brief as it was, that they went right back to being friends with benefits, no questions asked.

But with Ben, it was completely different. Since the very first time they had met, Ben had the ability to make her stomach flutter and her heart lurch, but still make her feel comfortable enough to be her true self. The way he had always looked at her made her feel oddly special, like he can’t see anyone else besides her whenever she’s around. She found that she always looked at him for his reaction when she told a story or spoke to him and his friends, and whenever the rare occasion happened that they were left alone for a couple of minutes, she couldn’t help but think about what his lips would feel like.

Then the other night happened, and she finally learnt what his kisses tasted and felt like and how her body and his body just fit. Now he knows what she looks like when she wakes up after getting completely sloshed, and she knows what it feels like when his body is pressed up to hers, covering every inch of her.

She completely forgot she made plans with Gwil for the rest of the day, and as she washed the dirty dishes in the sink and made herself tea still wearing last night’s clothes, she was totally lost in thought about the previous night’s events.

When Gwil entered Annie’s flat using the spare key she gave him after knocking on the door five times with no response, he could hear her singing in the kitchen while dishes clattered. He closed the door loud enough for it to be considered a slam and walked over to the kitchen, chuckling when he saw her wearing the same clothes she did the night before.

“I take it you had a good night, then?” Gwil cut her train of thought and she jumped, startled by his sudden appearance in the door to her kitchen, “whoops, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Jesus Christ almighty, Gwil!” she panted, her hand pressed to her chest, “stop sneaking around!”

“I called and texted you like, a hundred times!” He went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer, opening it with a hit on the cap against the edge of the counter top.

“Keep up with the cheek and I’ll take the key to my flat back,” she hopped on the counter and stuck her tongue out at him, “you Praying Mantis.”

"Oh, that’s a really good one, calling me a bloody insect,” he scoffed, “did Jamie at least drive you home this time?”

“Why would Jamie drive me home?” she stifled a yawn and rubbed her eyes.

“Didn’t you meet him at the pub?”

“Uh,” Annie fumbled with the lace trimming at the hem of her top, “no, actually.”

“Who did you meet, then?” Gwil raised an eyebrow.

“Ben," she felt like a deer in the headlights, knowing her confession will be followed by a thorough interrogation, threats to her life and a lot of wailing on Gwil's behalf. This isn't the first time she took a special interest in one of his mates and he never took the news too well.

“Come again?” he lowered his beer bottle and blinked in confusion.

“I was out with Ben.”

“My Ben?” he gasped, "please tell me there's another Ben..."

“Our Ben.”

***

Ben and I walked down the path in the nearby park, side by side, as Frankie trotted happily, ears flapping and tail wagging, on her late morning walk.

“C’mere for a second,” Ben wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me to him, leaning down to kiss me, “thanks, that would be all.”

“Glad to be of service,” I rolled my eyes and stumbled when Frankie pulled hard on the leash, desperate to run and play, “can we release the poor girl?”

“Sure,” Ben took out his pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his back put one in his mouth, letting it dangle from his lips as he spoke, “want one?”

“Not my thing,” I crouched down and unhooked Frankie’s leash from her collar, smiling when the pup bolted in a clumsy little stampede on the grass.

When I stood back up, Ben took my hand and led me to a nearby tree we could sit under. Leaning against the tree, Ben spread his legs and bent them for me to sit in between. I leaned back into him, using his knees as armrests.

“This is so weird,” I mused, “I don’t think I’ve ever been this comfortable around another person who doesn't share some part of my DNA, ever.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He kissed the top of my head before taking another drag from his cigarette.

“You’d better,” I smirked, “but really, isn’t this weird?”

“It’s unusual, yeah,” I felt him nod slightly, “but I like it.”

“Obviously,” I turned and tilted my head back to look at him. He glanced down at me and nuzzled his nose with mine, “aren’t the boys worried about you not answering their texts?”

“Let them worry,” he shrugged and inhaled deeply, finishing off his smoke, “I think they’ve probably guessed that I’m busy.”

“I bet they’re jealous of whoever stole you from them.”

“I know they are, for a fact.”

***

The boys sat in the catering tent for their lunch break, catching up on each other’s whereabouts during the weekend. Somehow, it turned into Gwil sharing lovely tales about Annabelle’s party-girl past and her conquests during that very self-destructive phase of her life. There was even one story of how Gwil walked in on Annabelle and Jamie in the loo at the wedding they had all attended just a couple of months earlier.

“Let me get this straight - you’re telling me that you went out with a girl you actually claimed was 'illegally hot', both got drunk, went back to your place and didn’t bang?” Joe raised an eyebrow.

“I call bullshit.” Rami announced.

“I don't care,” Ben scoffed.

“She told me the exact same story, actually,” Gwil chimed in as he reached for his can of soda, “and she’s not shy about admitting to her occasional slaggish tendencies.”

“Call her a slag one more time,” Ben pointed at Gwil with his fork, “I dare you.”

“Oh, relax, Romeo,” Gwil rolled his eyes, “but seriously, she swore all they did was dry hump like the cute little puppies in heat that they are.”

“Thanks for the mental image, man,” Joe pursed his lips to stifle a laugh, “I still find it hard to believe.”

“So, what,” Rami said after listening to the heated discussion, “are you her boyfriend now?”

“Nope.” Ben replied, his eyes fixated on his plate.

“They’re taking it slow,” Gwil made air-quotes with his fingers, eliciting sneers from Rami and Joe.

“Oh, fuck off,” Ben threw his utensils on the table and slammed his hand down, before he abruptly stood up, making his chair fall behind him, “knobheads.”

“Come on, mate! We’re just taking a piss!” Gwil called after Ben’s receding back, to no avail. The only response he got from Ben was his middle finger up in the air.

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cerealla · 5 years

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Twin Peaks!

Favorite character: It’s always either Cooper or Laura, and more often than not, I find myself leaning toward Laura.

Least Favorite character: John Justice Wheeler, easily. I was about to put Ben, Leo, Jacques, Hank, Jacoby, or Richard Horne, but even those guys can be enjoyable to watch (in Richard’s case, you hate him so much, watching him die more than makes up for it). Wheeler is just… nothing. If personality was a physical person, they’d avoid him at every cost. You could pluck him out of season 2 and Audrey would still end up where she is in season 3. He made zero difference. He was also a terrible waste of Billy Zane’s corny charm factor. Other contenders: Evelyn and her not-brother/lover, Thomas Eckhart, Lana, and I guess Randy (the concierge at the Great Northern) for being rude to Audrey over her genuine attempts to be helpful around the hotel.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Considering how often romance goes wrong in this universe (and my growing indifference toward romantic ships in general), I don’t have a whole lot to list. Andy x Lucy are obvious because they are sugary sweet cupcakes that deserve each other. Chet x Sam. Harry x Albert as well. I used to be pretty big into the OT3 with Cooper, but now I can’t really see Coop having any kind of romantic/sexual relationship. I’m kinda developing a fondness for the rarest of pairs James x Bobby, mostly because I love the “idiots-who-hate-each-other-actually-have-deeply-repressed-crush-on-one-another” dynamic.

Character I find most attractive: I can’t pick just one! Cooper, Bobby (especially as a silver fox), Laura, Maddy (just Sheryl Lee in general), and older, buzz cut James.

Character I would marry: In true Twin Peaks fashion, I’d chose any of the old rich men, either to kill them in a convoluted plot for their money, or get revenge on behalf of the mysterious person who hired me.

Character I would be best friends with: Annie probably. She’s cute and I want to take her on fun adventures.

A random thought: Nadine and Ed both like to build and fix stuff. Ed with cars and motorcycles, Nadine with her drape runners. I wish this was expanded on more, because that’s at least one thing they could have bonded over.

An unpopular opinion: I’ve mentioned some of these before: James isn’t all that cool, but he is a sweetheart that needs a hug. He never deserved all that hate. Same applies for Annie. Ed was not a good parent to James (a good friend, but not parent, which is what the kid needs). Major Briggs and Betty have communication problems. Hawk could be pretty clueless too.

My Canon OTP: Again, Andy and Lucy.

My Non-canon OTP: Chet x Sam (despite my denial). Audrey x happiness. Laura x some god damn peace and quiet.

Most Badass Character: Laura, for going through all that bullshit. Bobby for pulling himself together. Margaret Lanterman for existing.

Most Epic Villain: Leland is hard to top.

Pairings I am not a fan of: Cooper x Audrey (as if it needs to be said). Cooper x Laura (as if that also needs to be said). Cooper x Diane, Cooper x Janey-e, Cooper x Annie to some degree, Cooper x Windom… Are you seeing a pattern here?

Character(s) I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Please direct your attention to the second half of season 2. Annie and Windom had so much more potential in them, but Windom quickly became a cartoon and Annie was never fully utilized. Additionally, James and Donna were underwritten, and Maddy had so much more to offer, but it’s like the writers didn’t know how else to apply her connection to Laura besides making James horny all over again.

Favorite Friendship: I reeeaaallly want to say Cooper and Laura, but they technically have never had a normal interaction, so it’s not really canon (yet, or so help me god, David). James and Freddy are sweet, and the family dynamic between Harry, Andy, Hawk, and Lucy is precious. The tiny moments between Pete and Audrey are incredibly endearing and I wish we had more.

Character I most identify with: Donna. Struggling bisexuals that aspire to be cool and fail miserably at it.

Character I wish I could be: Wally. Boy’s got his head on straight.

#twin peaks

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department-shoe-stud · 5 years

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MC & Jacob asks 1-7 :33

Gladly!!!! (You have no idea how ready I am to talk about OC’s just all the time)

1) Do you have any face claims for your MC and Jacob?

My MC (Her name’s Anna Louise, so I’ll be calling her Annie) and Jacob look eerily similar, yet still look like their opposite parent. Annie has her dad’s bronze complexion and bright amber eyes. She spends a lot of time outside during the summers taking care of her pets and camping because she’s one of those people, so she comes back to Hogwarts every year with freckles and bug bites. From ages 15-17, Annie hits a growth spurt and shoots up from around 5’ 2” to just over 6’. My FC for Annie is Gina Rodriguez (A goddess, she’s so pretty, I love her).

My Jacob (Sorry Canon Jacob, you’re just really… ugly isn’t a nice way of putting it, but man, is it an accurate way) looks more like their mom, with really curly black hair and ice-blue eyes, which stick out against his olive skin tone. They look really intense and make Jay and his mom look really scary and intimidating, but that fades away once you learn their mom embroiders in her free time and Jay still needs someone else to kill the spiders he finds in the house (The one who takes care of them is their dad, he puts them outside). I don’t have a FC for my Jacob, sorry!

2) Does your MC/Jacob’s family have any relation to canon characters/families? Are these relations impactful to MC and their story?

Honestly? Who knows if they are! Their mom was a closed adoption case so they don’t really know much about her family, only that they think she’s from Ireland.

Their dad, on the other hand, knows exactly who he’s related to and can name it up to four generations back, the first to move to America (Oh yeah, their dad is from Pennsylvania, that’s why her parents were visiting relatives in the Christmas event. They’re direct relatives). He has a plethora of siblings who went on to have plethoras of children, so who knows who’s married who and knows who?

3) What was Jacob’s friendship with Duncan and Olivia like? What was their dynamic before and during working with R?

Okay, so Jacob and Duncan actually met in their first year, after Jay kept asking potions questions with increasing idiocy. It was obvious that he was just messing with the teacher, but he said it with such a straight face that you just had to give him props for not breaking character. It was pretty funny. After class, Duncan immediately asked him to grab lunch together, ‘even if you are a half-brained Gryffindor’. Jay punched him in the arm and they ate in the courtyard. They became pretty good friends, and Jay did mention it to his family (he really did love his family, honest) but he called him by a bunch of different nicknames, which is why Annie didn’t know who ‘Duncan’ was.

Olivia met Duncan and Jay sorta on the way? It was less of a ‘bonding over shared stupidity’ type thing that Jay and Duncan had, and more of a ‘well, someone has to babysit you two, and I guess I’ll do it’. They all got pretty close, sparking a few rumors of ‘fighting over Olivia love triangle’ among their classmates, which couldn’t be farther from the truth in Jay’s case (If ya catch my drift *wink wink nudge nudge*). When they started working for R, Olivia and Duncan expected to get caught up in it, being Ravenclaw and Slytherin, but it surprised them both to find out that Jay actually got really into it. Like, scarily obsessed. (That’s basically canon though, right? I think?)

4) Is Jacob physically and/or mentally different after he is released from the vaults? How does he change?

Whoo boi, this is a fun one. Yes, Jacob obviously looks a lot worse when he first gets out. Scraggly, deathly pale (well, as pale as he can be), and in desperate need of a shower. When they get him well fed and washed up, looking better, he needs a new prosthetic left leg, and has a few scars from the vaults’ dangers (Seriously, how has MC and their friends not gotten seriously harmed after all of this? It’s crazy!) He also has really deep bags under his eyes. When this is pointed out to him by Annie’s friends, he gets quiet and pouty, and Annie tells them he’s always had them, yes, he knows he looks like he needs a nap.

Also, anxiety up the wazoo! I mean, destroying cursed vaults, getting locked away, best friend literally dying, I’d be scared too! That’s gotta be some serious PTSD! It’s okay though (Well, sorta okay) because Annie got some anxiety along the way (Her brother went missing for how many years?? She’s had to do how much to save him?? No duh she’s messed up!) and Ben obviously has some, so at least Jay doesn’t have to suffer through it without any coping or support.

5) What career does/did Jacob want to pursue? Does it change after he was freed from the vaults?

Jacob, in case it wasn’t clear, loved finding curses and breaking them. He wouldn’t have done all this if it was begrudgingly, right? Also, I feel like he really did do it because he wanted to keep people safe from the vaults. At first, anyways, but obviously working with R messed with him. I feel like he wanted to be a curse breaker at first, with his amount of dedication and willingness to help others, but he probably was scarred after the vaults and finally getting out.

I think he had a few years to just get away from everything: the reporters, the school, the wizarding world, everything. He goes and lives with his maternal grandparents’ in Castlebar, Ireland (They’re muggles, so they keep him pretty well sheltered from everything magic). After a few years of peace and quiet, I think he would probably settle down with a much less stressful job. He always really loved creatures, magical or otherwise, so he’d probably take up a job at an adoption place, or a vets office maybe! Jay has other interests in life besides curses.

6) What’s Jacob’s opinions of prefects, especially the ones 4 years older than MC?

Okay, so my Jacob is six years older than Annie, so Annie’s prefects would have been there when he was going there. Jay, pre-missing, was nice to everyone (canon for the house elves, at least), he got good grades, he was funny, and he was really charming overall. People looked up to him, and he kept his vault studies under the radar. He was a model citizen on the surface, so the prefects probably looked up to him, or at the very least knew about him (How big is Hogwarts? It can’t be that big, plus word travels fast there, right? Everyone always seems to know everything about MC).

Jay himself, however, didn’t really care for prefects. He just thought of them as glorified hall monitors, and he couldn’t risk them stopping him from finding the vaults. Wasn’t it enough that they yelled at him for harmless pranks?

That being said, Jay thinks that the fact that Annie, his first partner in crime, the ‘rambunctious’ O’ Reilly child, the one who was breaking just about every rule and ignoring every caution just to find him, that Annie, his Annie, is a prefect? Are you serious? Really?

It took until the coughing attacks came for him to finally stop laughing.

7) What memory or thought does MC/Jacob use when conjuring a Patronus (if they can even conjure a corporeal one at all)? What form does it take?

Jacob’s Patronus is a lion. He likes his Patronus because lions are sick as hell. He also kinda hates it because, and he knows he can never tell anyone at school this, his middle name is Leon and he has always said he hated his middle name, and he feels like this is probably some kinda cosmic justice, isn’t it?

His memory was getting the family Crup. Jay was twelve and he got to name it. He named it Furry Mercury and Furry slept in his room until he was too big to fit in the bed without pushing Jacob out.

Annie’s Patronus is corporeal but it’s pretty weak. It’s a tabby-cat if she can conjure it. The first time it was corporeal enough to actually touch, it licked her hand and she almost cried (Annie is pretty emotional and I think it’s bull that JamCity won’t let MC cry!).

The memory Annie thinks of is when her parents took her and Jay to Disney World when she was seven. They bought Mickey Mouse ears for all of them, ate a bunch of cotton candy (Papa O’Reilly’s stomach did not care for that), went on the Haunted Mansion ride no less than three times, and ate dinner at Gaston’s Tavern. None of this was the part she thinks of though. Her memory is being on her dad’s shoulders, tired from the long day and half-asleep, when the fireworks came on. She sat in awe watching them and didn’t talk for the rest of the night as they went back to their hotel. Her mom asked if she had fun and she just nodded and quietly said, ‘Today was a good day.’ (Okay yes, that’s my own happy memory, but what’s a good character if it doesn’t have a little self-projection?)

Oh man! I really went off, didn’t I? But yeah! That’s just a bit about my MC and her idiot brother! Thanks for this, I never get to talk about my OC’s (In case you couldn’t tell.) If you’re the one who started the meme, I do have a playlist on Spotify. Message me if you want it, okay?

Questions from here!

#wow i can TALK huh #hphm #about me

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mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker · 6 years

Text

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows Vol 2 #6-7 Thoughts

Previous thoughts here.

Okay I’ve finally caught up to where I left off with RYV in 2017 so these are my thoughts on the X-Men arc.

I have very mixed feeling about this arc depending upon what POV I look at it from.

As a general story unto itself and an instalment in this series it was pretty great.

However in the context of an AU series with a limited shelf-life as is and in a context when Spider-Man had so often been sharing the spotlight (and the Spider-Marriage hadn’t been seen) making what amounted to a standard paint by numbers X-Men story just from the Parker’s POV was very questionable even if I like the X-Men.

Finally from the POV of a guy who likes the X-Men but isn’t hardcore but is very much in love with 90s X-Men (which this version is based upon) my feelings are very mixed.

And that boils down to what I love about the X-Men and that era of the X-Men vs. how Conway apparently feels about them.

But let’s get general perennial opinions out the way. I’ve grown to begrudgingly accept the conceit of this series as a Spider Family book and a book where we are just going to ignore the child endangerment issues at play. But i’ve spoken about that before in my older coverage of issues #1-5. Similarly in those issues and it still holds true for this arc, Stegman is the goddam man when it comes to the artwork.

Whilst there was one panel in which he tried to draw MJ shocked and upset and it came off just goofy, over all the artwork in this arc was stunning and I genuinely said ‘wow’ out loud when I got to the splash page of Spider-Man and Wolverine.

Keeping on the visuals for a moment, I goddam love the costumes chosen for the characters here. Yes even the reimagined looks for Toad, Crucible and Mist Mistress.

Obviously I don’t talk X-Men here much but I adore the 1990s X-Men costumes from the 1992 cartoon, which originated under Jim Lee. And honestly they genuinely are among the most iconic and visually dynamic looks for the characters so it’s not purely personal preference. This is especially resonant for me with Wolverine. Spider-Man is my favourite (American comic book) character and following him are various Spider-Verse characters like MJ, Norman Osborn, Ben Reilly, Mayday, etc.

But outside of those Spider-Verse characters, Wolverine is my absolute fav Marvel character and it’s always annoyed me that Marvel were like embarrassed to put him in his classic Giant-Sized X-Men uniform once Whedon began writing X-Men.

That is THE iconic Wolverine look and in this story Stegman brought it back baby!

Similarly I appreciated that the Magneto of this story both looked and acted like classic Magneto. Not the aweful black and silver shit he was wearing around this time in the comics and I’ve never been fond of him as a good guy member of the X-Men.

Honestly, whilst I get it was well executed character development, Magneto is inherently more interesting as a morally grey antagonist for the X-Men than among their ranks. So much of the core premise of X-Men is built around the fundamental philosophical conflict between Magneto’s beliefs and Xaviers that you lose a not insignificant chunk of the essence of X-Men when you put them on the same side. Not to mention in a superhero story you want strong characters as antagonists and Magneto is arguably the best X-Men villain, scratch that best comic book villain, ever.

Okay now let’s chat story.

I wasn’t pleased with the deaths in this. Banshee might be few people’s fav but Beast was and in both cases their quick shock deaths were unearned and unworthy. Kind of overly dark to be honest with you given the nature of the RYV book and it gave the impression that Conway isn’t fond of either character.

But that sentiment shines through far more poignantly with Jubilee and Cyclops. Whilst Cyclops gets screwed over slightly less badly than he did in the X-Men movies, the same problems occur. He gets undermined in favour of Wolverine and so Logan and Jean can be shipped together. Which is only a different flavour of frustrating if you LIKE the Cyclops/Jean relationship as I do, than when Jean got screwed over so Scott and Emma could hook up. I still despise that.*

But at least this was kind of believable, at least to me. No X-Men expert so maybe their break up was OOC, but the idea that Cyclops and Jean broke up because Jean didn’t have faith in controlling her Godlike powers whilst Cyclops did is an interesting piece of relationship drama. And at least the characters in RYV didn’t get fucked as hard as they did in the 2000s.

Still you can kind of tell Conway isn’t a big fan of Cyclops (understandable he has his haters, I hate 2000s-2010s Cyclops) but you can equally tell he really doesn’t like Jubilee.

Again, not an X-Men expert here but I’m pretty sure Jubilee being a traitor to the X-Men and being disillusioned by Xavier’s methods is immensely OOC for her character.

Now that isn’t that big of a deal because this is an AU at the end of the day. But if you like Jubilee or just know her character then it will probably annoy you. Unfortunately for one reason or another Jubilee in my observations seems to get a lot of hate that Kitty Pryde and X-23 don’t and I do not understand why.

In the cases of both characters I could tell instantly that Conway was setting one of them up to be the traitor and honestly if you are doing an AU book, Cyclops is kind of the more interesting choice although I grant you maybe not in the context of 2010s Cyclops who already murdered Xavier in AvX and has been a douchebag for a long time. But in the context of this story and 1990s X-Men which this story is trading off of, it’s the more interesting choice. I will give it to Conway though for at least bothering to give us 2 suspects. These days most writers wouldn’t even bother with that and just think they were being subtle when they have Jubilee say shit like “Maybe your human friend wouldn’t like you if she knew you were a mutant!”

On some final notes about the X-Men themselves I feel like there was maybe something more interesting you could’ve done with Jean and Wolverine’s child than what we got with Shine. In her personality and powers she could be any one of the army of Summers/Grey children or any given generic mutant. There is no Wolverine in her to be seen.

That’s not me inherently hating her. She’s just more of a missed opportunity. She was adorable unto herself and even moreso in her relationship with Annie and I hope that gets revisited in consequent issues.

My final little note regarding the X-Men themselves was that I didn’t care for Magneto being mind controlled at the end or his over all plan.

Okay, it’s more like I felt his plan was underdeveloped. Because it’s not that it didn’t make sense because it was literally the same plan from X2: X-Men United. But Conway basically expected you to have just known that because of the visuals and results of the plan. And for comic book and comic book movie fans like me, sure I know the shorthand but it’s not good storytelling. Similarly Emma Frost shows up at the end, barely talks but just kind of takes over as the main villain when Magneto had been the guy built up in the story and...he, he’s Magneto dude. That’s like having Puppet Master show up towards the end of a story where Doom’s been the main villain and take over.

Also doesn’t his helmet shield him from psychic control? I mean again it’s an AU and I feel like that wasn’t established until way later about Magneto but still.

I also wanna talk about how this arc more than anything else just blows up the continuity between RYV volume 1 and volume 2.

In RYV vol 1 #1 it was a big deal that the X-Men got wiped out by Regent and the implication was that the universe diverged in the early-mid 1990s.

In this arc though it’s made crystal clear that obviously the X-Men are fine and that in this universe (the dumpster fire clusterfuck that was) Civil War 2006 was avoided.

Which is again an example of Conway subtly saying screw you to stuff he doesn’t like but I don’t mind that because yeah screw Civil War it was hot trash. But it does make RYV volume 1 way more confusing in terms of continuity, especially since literally no other post-Secret Wars ongoing series (including X-Men ’92) seemed to radically alter their universe after the event like RYV did.

Honestly I think the only way to have it make sense is to just say RYV volume 2 is an alternate version of the RYV volume 1 characters and that prior to volume 2 a guy called the Regent showed up, stole some people’s powers then Spider-Man and his family stopped him. He didn’t kill anyone, he didn’t take over the world, he wasn’t trying to kill God Emperor Doom or whatever and the world didn’t know who Spider-Man was by the end of it.

This actually jives way better with what Houser would later establish in her run on RYV that Annie isn’t a daughter Peter and MJ had INSTEAD of Mayday, but in fact the daughter they would’ve had if OMD hadn’t fucked everything up. I guess in the RYV universe though Spider-Man never joined the Avengers and fashion was stuck in the 1990s even in the 2000s.

I’m not complaining I’m just trying to get all this stuff straight.

Okay let’s move onto the Parker family.

I loved the payoff to issue #2 with MJ planning a party and it turning out to be for Peter’s birthday. That was the best scene in the whole story. Normal life drama with supporting characters we know and love. This is the heart of Spider-Man! And it came with adorable scenes like Annie confronting the horror of gluten free desserts and acknowledgments of Aunt May and Aunt Anna’s deaths.

The heart of the story was the stuff related to whether Peter and MJ should make Annie stay at the Xavier school or not and the scenes exploring this were really good.

Spider-Man deal with relatively relatable everyday issues and failing that stuff that s clearly allegorical to said issues. In this case Annie’s powers are allegorical to a kid with a disability, special learning issues, or someone with a particular aptitude for learning that would make a normal school more challenging.

Special props goes to Peter relating to how he struggled in school and not wanting that for Annie. In MJ’s case though she wants to keep her daughter close. This makes sense retroactively when you consider she’s already lost one child and if you pretend RYV vol 1 happened then she spent years keeping Annie close out of fear that she died.

Putting those aside though it could be a commentary upon MJ’s own childhood growing up where she was constantly being uprooted and saw her family and her sister’s family fall apart. For MJ it’s likely very important that the family unit stay close together.

Conway’s writing shines because he organically (albeit not as subtly as he could) has them switch positions creating yet more potential conflict and makes sure Annie has her own view on the matter. She likes the school, she likes Shine but she doesn’t want things to change and justifies this in a childish way by making out a popular kid in her school is a bigger deal than she actually is.

My major point of condemnation though is that I feel way more could’ve been done with the premise (e.g. having MJ and Jean connect over super powered kids) than actually was because so much of the plot is dominated by villains invading the Xavier school for the umpteenth time.

Actually goes into two other problems with the arc. This is an incredibly generic X-Men storyline because obviously it’s from a Spider-Man perspective. Like if an X-Men story tried to present a window into the world of Spider-Man it’d be a typical thing about him making rent, working for Jameson and missing a date or whatever. It’s like default setting X-Men and whilst I like that because I miss those days before X-Men became a clusterfuck, it’s not the most compelling main plot in the world.

And honestly it wraps up too quickly and easily, MJ just decks Emma Frost and the story is done. Annie and Peter don’t get involved enough which is weird because isn’t this a team book? I mean as the story highlights it makes Mj look cool but I don’t like doing that at the expense of the other characters.

Now in fairness that might’ve been set up for the next arc, which I know is about MJ becoming Venom. The last page or two of the arc implies this because it features an overtly villainous Liz Allan.

At first I raised my eyebrow at this. Around that same time Liz had been presented as evil in the 616 books and I thought this might’ve been lame out of nowhere synergy.

But in thinking about it, if this really is a Liz Allan who is recently went through the stuff she dealt with in DeMatteis’ Harry Osborn arc from the 1990s (as is the implication) then Liz would be a darker person, would be more hard hearted to protect her son and she wasn’t the nicest person to the Parkers at that time.

Although issue #4 had MJ refer to Normie as creepy implying the Osborns and Parkers generally aren’t all that close in this universe.

Regardless Liz with the Venom symbiote targeting MJ and having the there be an explicit thematic connection between them via their shared motherhood was a darkly delicious moment.

As many mixed feelings as I have for this arc over all I give it a solid B.

*Hence I personally also loved Emma Frost just being a plain villain and getting decked by MJ because I goddam hate Emma Frost I really do.

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