#also i am liveblogging my reaction to this episode because i feel like it.

[martin-enjoyer]

"Have you ever checked to see if the spoken cases have anything in common?" "Is there a way to look up specific files? ... Oh, I don't know. Every case about being buried alive or meat or whatever?"

CASES IN COMMON? BEING BURIED ALIVE? MEAT? YOU. YOU KNOW SOMETHING CELIA. YOU KNOW.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 5 thoughts

i’m back. i’m back and i’m intrigued. because i'm reading the episode description, and if we get more mulder ex lore here, which the episode description makes it sound like we will, i am… not sure how i will feel on the subject. the term “reincarnation” makes it sound like whoever it was… died. did an ex of his die? and that is a lot of mulder marked by pain and suffering. and maybe i’m getting ahead of myself. but the writers KNOW we want our agents to smooch, so focusing on an ex might make me, the viewer, feel weird. i just need to get all these thoughts out in writing before we begin.

how is he gonna tell if someone is a reincarnated lover? or am i misunderstanding this entirely. 

only one way to find out

author’s note: oh my gosh…… nothing could have prepared me for this. at all. here i was thinking it was ex lore time, but it was past life time, and there are TEARS in my eyes.

(serious author's note: i ask for some grace in this episode recap. there may be some things i word poorly. i am familiar with the terminology used to describe DID, and did my best, but acknowledge that i may have come up short. please understand that this is intended to capture my live reactions to what i was seeing for the very first time. at times here, there are no reactions, just a sort of a nebulous recapping of what i saw because i was feeling So Many Things. so this one might be messy, and i hope that is okay. i don't understand what i am feeling, but i am feeling a Lot of it, and humbly ask for your patience in my clumsy wording as well as some helpful discussion on what just went down)

let us begin, i type as i sniff up some tears

we open with mulder in a field… is he reciting poetry? and looking very sad. 

wait, is he not actually reciting poetry and he just talks like that? while holding two pictures of old timey people. i’d guess civil war era.

okay. so now we jump right to the intro. that was quick. i’m still processing what we just saw because we were really dropped into that one with no context whatsoever.

federal agents break into a temple in tennessee. they’re looking for illegal firearms! and a guy named ephesian.

but mulder sees a window… and he is staring at it… walking out the door as if led by some sort of spiritual quest while scully yells his name and wonders wtf he’s doing. he is not responding to her at all, but she’s chasing after him because she is a good friend.

so he’s hearing things while scully is pulling her gun out, and it does appear that he found a trapdoor!

he busts in, and slaps some poison out of the hand of a woman who was taking sips, and then grabs the dude who i assume is the cult leader. whew… that was close

now they’re at some sort of meeting, listening to tapes, and skinner is here!!! hiiii skinner. everybody say hi skinner!

so, someone on the tape seems to be whistleblowing on this cult- the seven stars or something- saying that the leader is hurting children and stockpiling weapons. mulder looks incredibly pensive during all of this.

oh! someone refers to mulder as “our man spooky”, which is kind of hilarious, while complaining that the reports were weak. scully leans in and asks yeah, how did he know that? while the men are fighting.

and skinner yells KNOCK IT OFF!!!! because the folks at the compound were somehow able to hide all the evidence before they got there, and now they’re forced to hold ephesian and “his wives” on “BS charges”. so now the agents MUST find evidence of firearms and who the informant was NOW because they will try to get an arraignment fast.

woah. no pressure.

skinner comes over talk to mulder and scully- they must look into this ephesian fellow's claims of supernatural abilities. scully says he can use the book of revelations to manipulate his followers, but seems to suspect no real powers. 

they to talk to this ephesian fellow, who says he knew for 9 centuries that scully was coming, and starts going on about the bible, quoting stuff. very scary behavior.

mulder comes in with the fact check. jesus said that at smyrna, not about some church in tennessee! (his knowledge…. it always impresses me)

this dude is being super creepy, telling them to put aside their investigation “for your own souls”, because soon all unfaithful shall “be destroyed by God’s mighty men”. so this is some pretty standard cult rhetoric here. if you've studied religions, you've heard this one many times. it seems that ephesian thinks he and his people shall be the ones doing this violence. a tight zoom in on mulder’s troubled face as he quotes more scripture.

they have 6 wives to question, and mulder says to start with one in particular. interesting… i wonder why that one. is it because she was the one they caught ephesian with in the hidden area... or something more?

her name is melissa, and she says she’s 25 as she smokes a cigarette and dodges their questions. she’s been at the compound and married to ephesian for a year. 

mulder asks if it troubles her that ephesian has so many other wives, and she just recites scripture instead of answering. so scully comes in with the “i’d have a tough time if my husband had so many children with other women”. this seems to begin to get her to crack, as she tears up.

wait... it’s so wrong to hear scully call someone else, who isn't her sister, melissa :(

melissa she doesn’t have any children with ephesian yet... because he has to wait for God to tell him that the right soul is ready to be reincarnated, which is why his children are the most sacred members of the temple. naturally, of course /s

things get quiet when they ask if he had been hurting the children until melissa starts talking with a very different voice and set of mannerisms, and she no longer replies to the name melissa. so scully scrawls “multiple personality” in her loopy handwriting and passes it over to mulder. oh! is this sydney?

(at this point, i shall begin to refer to sydney with he/him pronouns, as this is what mulder does. normally i would stick to my journalistic integrity and keep reporting the things i wrote down incorrectly while watching the episode, but i'm trying to be very respectful- i hope you understand)

but mulder writes back to scully no, this is not a multiple personality case, it's a past life case! his handwriting is very blocky. to prove his point, he asks sydney who the current president is, and he responds that it is harry truman. ah. so, he's a few years off.

mulder claims that “somehow he just knew” sydney was melissa's past life, which doesn’t reveal a lot, but his eyes are very soulful and i want to hold his hand.

skinner says they need to find something to get this case moving forward, and mulder is like dude, we found sydney, the voice matched! i would agree with his judgement that this in fact a sizeable discovery.

mulder is saying that what they have seen matches the criteria of DID in the DSM4 (woah, need to look up when we switched to 5), but scully is saying that some people don’t even think it exists as a condition, and skinner thinks it could be a trap to buy more time for ephesian. so no one is in agreement here.

but mulder is going into his psychology expert mode and is making a very compelling case that this is an example of DID, particularly in the fact that sydney emerged when the topic of child abuse came up, which fulfilled the protector role. scully wants to know more before giving any sort of diagnosis, but she doesn't seem opposed to the hypothesis.

(skinner seems to fumble over which pronouns to use for each personality here)

skinner says to go ahead and take her back to the compound and see if it gets any results in prompting memories that could be useful to the investigation, but scully is mad at mulder! he didn’t even have the courage to tell skinner he thinks they're dealing with past lives here! mulder, who is usually so brave!!

he mumbles that skinner wouldn’t believe him. which is true.

woah, i don’t know how to interpret this line here, so i’ll just write it down for further analysis:

“i don’t believe that you feel responsible for those 50 lives. or melissa reidel. you are only responsible to yourself, mulder”

(is she saying he doesn’t care about those 50 people?? is she saying he has an ulterior motive? is she calling him a liar, and that he is using this case to gain support for his supernatural ideas?? is she calling him selfish? or is she trying to tell him that he can only be responsible for himself and control his own actions, that he cannot place the burden of saving everyone upon his shoulders? is she berating or reassuring him or both? does she think he isn't serious about the lives in danger?)

i can’t figure it out, but he gets up and leaves. (after watching the episode, i still can't figure it out- what did you think?)

so they take melissa back to the temple, and scully asks her to recall the painful memories so they can keep herself and others safe. it is very tense as she walks into a bedroom and sees many photos on the wall of ephesian and his wives. she knocks some of them over and starts crying.

scully still looks furious with mulder. it's as if she thinks his desire for supernatural entities to be proven comes ahead of his desire to save actual lives, and it's recalling her comparison to ahab during the conversation on the rock. she must feel that there is no time for this, that they need to get concrete answers right away or horrible things will happen; perhaps she thinks he isn't focused, is being fanciful. and i understand the pressure of a ticking clock, but after so long, this rift between them, it doesn't feel right.

oh my goodness, we see some horrific artwork on the wall by the kids at the temple. woah. shoutout to the set design team.

melissa is in the playroom sobbing, but asks why she is being called melissa. scully asks what she should call her, and that is how we meet lily. but lily isn’t there for very long before sydney comes back, saying to “leave the kid alone”. mulder says they can all be safe if they just are told where the guns are. then melissa seems to come back, and she goes back out the window where mulder was staring earlier!!! what does this window know?!?

and the score here is really pretty as she walks outside, scully following behind her. mulder is clearly unwell, though, and scully asks what is wrong, which he ignores and walks past her. typical him.

a new alter of melissa's seems to front, now with a southern accent, saying the guns are in a bunker. but… it’s the civil war she’s talking about. she was a nurse, looking for someone who was staying in tennessee. and she found that someone here, dead. then she was hidden in a bunker while the battle raged above her. it is very horrific, what she is describing.

she clarifies that she was there in november 1863, then turns to mulder and says “as were you”. he doesn’t seem shocked by this, but scully is, as this new southern belle proclaims “this is the field where i watched you die” OH!

(mulder, a confederate in a past life… this is deeply unfortunate)

mulder is trying to make a phone call to a hypnotist while they drive melissa back to the police station, but scully figures out he’s trying to do past life regression on her and says not to. and that her life is in shreds, and that is too much for her to handle. i hate to say it, but i agree with her. melissa has been through so much, and with such a tight deadline, i don't know if they have time for such a journey.

OH! mulder is angry. his voice is all growly as he yells “YOU WERE THERE, SCULLY! you saw it, you heard it, why can’t you feel it?” oh my gosh… the way he slammed his hand on the wheel... why can't she see it, it seems so obvious to him... how infuriating it must be...

scully asks why ephesian is a paranoid sociopath for claiming to be in greece years ago, but he isn’t for claiming to have died in that field……. damn…….

(idk what’s going on here between them exactly but i’m stressed. they are stressing me out)

(at this point, we begin a sequence in which i am so enraptured with what is going on, i have no reactions to all of the things i am seeing, and just recount them to you, with occasional interjections of "oh my god"- but i think if you've seen the episode, you get why it had this effect on me)

so they do get a therapist, who is talking to melissa. she begins to answer the therapist's questions about seeing anything upsetting at the compound, talking about a woman named elizabeth and her son scott, who came to live in the temple. and ephesian took the son away. but ephesian caught his mother visiting her son, and “the mighty men” beat her, which brings melissa to tears as she recounts this. and he hit the boy, calling him garbage, beating him.

scully looks very stressed in the background to hear all of this, but sydney is now fronting at this point, saying to leave melissa alone, and that the guns are in the bunkers… somewhere. where they are is a mystery, though.

scully leans down to mulder and says that maybe there is a map somewhere, but mulder says she knows where to find them. and at this she says “mulder…” in a very breathy fashion and i still can’t quite articulate what is going on between them…. but he’s going in.

he says it’s me, melissa, and asks her to go back to the field. “your eyes may have changed shade, but it cannot color the soul behind them”, she says. that they are only to meet in passing in this life. and she misses him. he just stared and stares, before his head falls into his hands

scully is trying to explain to him that this is a product of melissa's illness, and she can’t give any specifics- no names or locations, and they don’t have time to do this, because ephesian’s arraignment is in two hours.

“wouldn’t you, scully? wouldn’t anybody?” <- oh my god…. is he compelled by a terrible sense of duty or by his own curiosity? is she scared to watch him go down this path he cannot return from?

okay, so now he is going back into his past lives. this sequence is almost entirely a close up of his face, for minutes on end, which adds to the intensity. he's really panting as he remembers. “ghetto streets. shattered glass. bodies of the dead. a jewish woman. poland.” oh my god…… 

he says that he is samantha’s mother in this life; “in this life, she is my son”

his father is dead, and… HIS FATHER IS SCULLY? WHAT? i didn’t see that coming. she’s troubled by this, all of this, not just learning he believes her soul to have been his father before.

but he says that his father is waiting now for their souls to come back together, different, but always together, again and again, to learn.

and he is crying. he can’t go to his father. a gestapo man is there, and he is cancer man; “evil returns as evil, but love… souls mate eternal”. and his wife is melissa, who is taken away to the camps. and he’s crying, and scully is watching with great concern.

now, he’s rising above the field, near the bunker. and his sergeant is also dead, and “he is scully”, and we cut to her face of increasing sadness. sarah holds him, who is melissa. she is sarah kavanaugh, and he is sullivan biddle. she doesn’t know that he’s waiting for her, that they will live again. 

scully tries to ask if he sees any bunkers, but he keeps saying his soul is tired, and he wants to rest.

and this is devastating. it was if i was the one undergoing the hypnosis here. i couldn't look away, i couldn't react, i was so entirely absorbed and confused and busy feeling things.

scully is consulting a map in the town records to try and find this bunker where the weapons are stored, and then she looks up the names he mentioned. sure enough, they are in the county records. then she reaches for some photos, where she finds one of sullivan and sarah. 

a lot of things are being processed in her brain, so we might need to give her a minute. i think we can see some long-held systems of belief being challenged in her mind.

but she brings him back the photos of their past lives, even as she is telling him that ephesian is going to be released soon. why would she do this? to comfort him? to validate him without using words?

oh my god, mulder just called her “dana”. wait. hold on. oh my god, hold on.

“dana, if, um… early in the four years we’ve been working together… an event occurred that suggested or somebody told you that… we’d been friends together in other lifetimes- always- wouldn’t it have changed some of the ways we looked at one another?”

“even if i knew for certain, i wouldn’t change a day”

WAUGHHHHHHHH (ripping my clothes off in grief) WAOUGHHHHHH wouavhhhghhhh……… she wouldn’t change a day….

(and what event was it that he is referring to? is there a certain one...? am i forgetting something from early s1...? damn you, my obsessive note-taking impulses, for not kicking into gear until s2...)

“well… maybe that flukeman thing, i could have lived without that just fine” HDHJSNSME he smiles as she leaves….

(i had to google what that even was because i was like ??? but the flukeman was the season 2 sewer baby!!! for those of you who are going into this whole thing blind and also don't know what the fandom calls stuff! i think to me he was "baby sewer mermaid" or something along those lines... but now we know)

so now he and melissa are in the room together, trying to recall. she says she wants to believe (!!!), and he’s rubbing her hand, but ephesian comes in, saying it’s time to leave. so she rips the photo in half and leaves crying. 

does he know he was supposed to love her? is he mourning that he hasn't? is he wondering if he has time to?

mulder gets up, and leans his head against the wall. scully comes in to say that they are still searching for more bunkers as the temple people return to their home. there is a deep sense of grief.

ephesian seems suspicious. 

mulder is talking to skinner, saying that those in the temple believe that the FBI are the devil’s army, prophesied to be defeated by the armies of god. but ephesian must not really believe that, because he hid the weapons. mulder emphasizes that he may “deny himself”.

back at the compound, all the members are being called to worship. the music is getting scary, and guns are being pulled out. 

scully looks up some bible verses and realizes that ephesian is calling his members to the end of times, which gives skinner the go ahead to launch a raid.

back at the compound, the poison is being distributed to the members of the temple. and a few are shooting at the agents outside, and mulder and scully pull up as the sipping of the poison begins inside. 

NO! mulder puts his hands up and begins to walk into the compound!!!!! WHAT IS HE DOING!!! scully shouts out that he is dead. as we see inside there are piles and piles of bodies, including melissa.

but wait! is she still alive???? she’s getting up!!! 

but no! ephesian is still there watching her. giving her poison to take. mulder is running in as fast as he can, trying to figure out what is going on. and he finds the room full of the bodies while gregorian chanting is in the background. 

he finds melissa, with no pulse, holding onto the photo she had torn. 

scully sees him touching her arm, raising his eyes and crying. 

we end where we began, with him in the field, holding the pictures of his and melissa’s past lives. 

end episode. 

what…..

first thoughts: i don’t quite know what to make of this, but i can tell it is going to tear me apart for the rest of my life.

second and third thoughts are also variations of my first thought.

i feel so sad? to know that mulder has (or thinks he has) lived these horrific past lives, and that he is reunited with the same people over and over again, to learn and lose them. and that scully was there with all of them- but so was melissa, and he said that soulmates are eternal, so if that is true he lost his for this life. and he said he was so tired, so tired... how can he escape the eternal cycle of samsara?

and scully, watching all of this- what did she mean when she said that he wasn't responsible for anything but himself? was it an insult? was she begging him? what was she feeling when she heard him talk about her being there in his past? was she trying to hurt him in their conversation in the car? will they ever actually be able to see eye to eye? does she believe him? can she? how does hearing all of this shake her own faith?

can you have many soulmates that come with you again and again, just in different forms? so would his soulmates be scully, and his mother and father and sister, and this melissa figure? and what are the implications of losing a soulmate in this world? is that a life of feeling that something is missing, until death? do they shuffle roles, but come again and again? is that comforting or horrific? are we to believe him?

and that terrible, terrible ending, him finding the bodies... how are we supposed to interpret that? just more grief on top of already endless grief? or are we supposed to see the poetry moment as an answer to a question that provides relief, even if it is bittersweet?

why did he want to know so badly? was he driven by duty to save? duty to find the Truth? duty to protect his loved ones and seek cosmic answers? are these separate things, or are they all intertwined in him?

i'm... really going to have to think this one over. i would really appreciate hearing your thoughts, as well. i wish i had a solid interpretation. it was very serious and sad, and it was bittersweet but filled with grief. i once again echo my earlier request for fluff. but how do you go back to the way things were once he says she was with him in every life? how does scully rationalize that? what are they to each other?

i'm pondering. it feels like something has shifted. and you can't go back now, even if i can't pinpoint what it is that changed.

i want to go back to daydreaming about apple cider dates. but it feels like you can't, you know? huh.

[tired-lamb]

final thoughts on battle for the pridelands

my liveblogging was… chaotic, to say the least, but I wanted to really gather my thoughts on this episode because its a big, big one. figuratively AND literally lol.

first things first the new designs straight up shook me in a /neu way, it’s not that I don’t like them but I just wasn’t ready to let go of the old designs yet, y’know? I kind of dislike how Fuli’s design feels like a completely different character, but otherwise it’s eh. I think seeing the guard grow up just made me emotional, haha. I wish Janja, Cheezi, Chungu and Jasiri got new designs tho, since I hc them to be roughly around the same age as the rest of the guard. I understand that making new designs for a whole bunch of characters (characters that wouldn’t be appearing much later, too) would be a lot of work but it just felt kind of odd to see Jasiri unchanged next to Teen Kion or whatever. Maybe at least change some tiny details, if not the entire design.

I like that they delved more into Kion worrying this time. it really puts into perspective that.. yea, these guys are child soldiers. thats. gonna come with a lot of emotional load. seeing Fuli and the others worry about Kion was a nice touch too, honestly. definitely opens up for thoughts about just HOW much these guys are affected by the whole child soldier thing. hearing all five of them sing again was wonderful <3 especially Ono, since he doesn’t get to sing a lot.

Scar’s betrayal of Janja was expected, lol. I actually REALLY like the way the show carried out Janja’s redemption, and WOW his song slaps. the guard + Janja’s clan getting stuck in the Lair while it was on fire was also really interesting to me, and I wish they hadn’t taken the route of them just.. escaping through Beshte’s pool. it was like.. what was the point of putting them there then? I’ll probably put more stakes in my maybe-going-to-exist rewrite, but lets see how I go with that.

*COUGH* why does Kiara basically look the same *COUGH* Kion looks older than her at this point *COUGH COUGH*

oookay, the stuff that went down at the volcano was WHEW. Scar’s song with this Strange Lion guy was like wow ok so . introducing new lore to explain why you’ll give Kion his scar and then completely forget abt it (or at least I think they do, I still haven’t watched the rest of the season), nice! buuut also creative, dare I say. song’s not bad!

ANGST. Scar singing the song Sisi Ni Sawa, the show’s most popular song, to Kion and LITERALLY MEANING IT. this is one of the few(?) times the show outright parallels Scar and Kion, and god I actually loved it. the fanfic writer side of me is leaning forward in my chair because there is no way Kion’s not going to forget that thought. Scar’s last words to Kion were literally “Sisi Ni Sawa”. Kion is the Direct Successor of Scar in terms of Lion Guard leader. THE POTENTIAL. THE ANGST. (cough) okay, but apart from that yahoo more delving into Kion’s character.

Bunga diving in to save Kion from Ushari and then promptly falling into the lava gave me a fricking heart attack. call me dramatic but started getting emotional on the spot. ONO FLYING INTO THE LAVA TO SAVE HIM did NOT help, and someone save my poor boy I feel so bad for him agh 😭

The outlanders reaction to Scar being gone felt kind of bland, but then again I’m not really sure what else it COULD have been. I’m sure some of you do, though, so feel free to share your thoughts:].

I am Absolutely Unwell over the fact that Ono has technically lost his vision and as a person who ships bunga x ono AND bunga x ono x beshte you better expect me to write something about it. Lion Guard writers I am coming for your kneecaps (or whatever the saying is now, idk).

there’s.. a lot of things I would have changed, but thats because I dislike how childish the show can get sometimes. call me out, I deserve it, the show is meant for kids, but it has potential!!! I’m not outright hating how kiddy it is, heck I’m like. mega fan of kid’s shows, but all I say is that it has the potential to turn into something less for kids, more maybe for pre-teens and above.

again, not sure if I’ll rewrite the episode since I’ll have to do a lot of thinking, but it is definitely something I’ll consider! shoutout to my mutuals for being with me till here, and for supporting me in my very much chaotic liveblogs. love you guys dearly /p /gen

*raises glass of fruit juice dramatically* to season three!!!!

[kerubimcrepin]

Episodes 27-29 - Ecaflip City (part 2)

Hiiii totally-not-one-of-Ecaflip's-avatars

This says "Pub."

This is so cute... She really cares about his opinion of her outfits.

We need more scenes of them shopping together. (I say, as if we won't get this in the next episode.)

I feel like if I was Keke, this would be my time to start running and fleeing.

While it's never explained what his lucky dice mean to him, they obviously mean a lot. He was ready to die for them, in the comic, after all.

While this did start out as something he did for Lou, it became very clear that really, this is about Kerubim's sense of being inadequate.

But what really feeds his sense of inadequacy is his love for Lou, and it's kind of not-the-best-manliest-coolest-adventurer thing, to say, "I think I'm not good enough for the woman who already agreed to marry me."

The baron, being a god's avatar, doesn't really have insecurities. He plays to put mortals in their place.

Kerubim, however, plays because he doesn't want to go to therapy.

As I've said in the previous liveblog, if Ecaflip is testing his willpower or morals... Then that's a very cruel test, rigged in a way that doesn't seem to expect Kerubim to win.

Especially with how conveniently Lou is made aware of the game, right before the moment Kerubim is about to make the biggest fucky-wucky of his entire life.

We can see, here, how much he downplays his love for Lou out of fear of being vulnerable, and appearing weak before other people. But all it does, is make him look like an asshole.

Really, I've seen so many theories on why they broke up, — from terminal illness, to "well what if she got pregnant, and thought that Kerubim, who can't shut up about how much he loves kids, (though mostly orphans,) wouldn't want to have one, so she left?" — and none of them consider the possibility that, perhaps, she would leave him after remembering what he did, as well as everything else that happened and how their relationship was in general.

(Or perhaps, and this is my personal "theory that doesn't have any proof behind it and is just me throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks", what if she Would Not Fucking Want to be with a demigod, who might just end up not ageing, amd will outlive her and their theoretical kids? Because I can totally see him hiding this from her until the last possible moment.)

(Hell, both of these possibilities can coexist! There are so many factors that probably led to their split, god.)

I think, if the reason why she left him is remembering this, the only reason she hadn't beaten him to death is also remembering that 1. she's been an asshole too, 2. him finding her is what helped her recover her memories to begin with.

Just... a fail relationship. They both failed in every single possible way. God.

You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes, Keke...

As sad as I am, I think it's good that in the end, she left him. They both deserved better than this relationship.

Perhaps Oropo did nothing wrong.

Maybe we should kill and dethrone the gods.

New reaction images for when Ecaflip is being an evil fucking cat.

[gillianthecat]

Kind of Like Liveblogging: Pit Babe

* Thank you for listening to me, Pit Babe, and giving at least a hint of Charlie and Babe conspiring. I still have no idea what their plot is, but I feel more confident we'll find out in a timely manner (and what little they say could arguably fit my revenge-on-Tony theory).

* Pete & Way!! I'm so excited.

* yes. This interaction was so good. So sexy. I love all of Way's smiles, including his melancholy ones. I love how they hardly even look at each other. I feel like good scenes of hitting on someone in bars are rare in BL. I like how grown up this one feels. (Subtitles were slightly confusing though, was Pete trying to imply that he was or that he wasn't hitting on Way?) I can't wait to see where these two go.

* Oh there's more of them!

* Oh, I am all in on PeteWay. That's it, cancel everything else, I just want to follow their story. I was excited about this pairing, but I didn't expect it to be this good. The way Pete just looks at him. They way he leaned his head on the sofa as Way clutched at his hand. The note! "If you need a drinking buddy..." This is melancholy and grownup in a way that is catnip for me. And the actors are adult enough to handle it.

* Kim! *happy little wiggle dance* So far this episode is tailer-made for me. He's so effortlessly powerful. Winner keeps getting brattier and brattier, hoping each time he can finally push Kim into holding him down and fucking him into submission.

* Plot tidbits revealed. I guess Tony is trying to kidnap or otherwise possess Babe so he can sell him to someone? I'm assuming for his special alpha senses? And it looks like he just fired Kim, although the subtitles were confusing.

* Someone in the tags mentioned a possible KimKenta pairing and god I hope we get it. When Tony mentioned punishing Kenta I had a beautiful vision of him whipping Kenta in front of Ken, setting off their omegaverse darkfic journey to love and healing through BDSM.

* Omg, it's the second coming of Kimlock Holmes! Bless.

* This show is starting to give me answers. It's like they read my wishlist. So Charlie is another of Tony's kids (as I guessed), Tony raises them to sell (not surprising), Charlie keeps secrets from Tony about Jeff (good, and could fit my theory). And that's all we learn cause Babe is too busy yelling and Charlie too busy gaping like a fish. Babe's reaction makes sense for the character, but since I already knew I want to move on and get some more information about the why of it all.

* But also Babe you are kinda dumb and have to get better at subterfuge. And uh oh, Tony sees them.

* And now a toothpaste commercial :-/ The product placement is often jarring. At least it's mainly a chance to stare at Way.

* Oh Babe, I'm so sorry. I think I find him the least interesting character, just because he's the most transparent and obvious about who he is and what he wants, but I sympathize with his heartbreak. You finally fell in love and it turns out (it seems like) it was all fake.

* Way used his special persuasive powers again, looking heartbroken and ambivalent about it all. It seems like he can't tolerate the man he loves hurting, and will resort to mind control to "fix" the feeling bad, instead of just holding his pain with him. Nut is really conveying that he believes he's helping Babe by manipulating his mind.

* When Babe grabbed Way's hand I was really expecting a rebound hookup that would simultaneously make Way's wildest dreams come true and ruin his life. And Babe's life too. At least for a few episodes. (But also it would be extremely hot.)

* I'm glad that now Charlie's secret is out we'll get to see more of his real self, whoever that is. Less creepy smiling for now (of which I approve).

* I'm not sure what I think of the use of the these distorting wide angle lenses. Part of it is I can't always tell if they're an artistic choice or just a practical solution to filming in close spaces. But they're also using lots of hand held camerawork and Dutch angles to create moods, so maybe it's intentional.

* The parallels to Pete and Way in the same exact positions on this sofa, with Way now in Pete's spot, looking at the beautiful, heartbroken boy!

* And now Charlie reveals what his plot had been! Apparently he found out that this unknown Alpha was in danger and decided to insinuate himself into his life in order to be a sort of bodyguard, and then genuinely falling in love with him. Which is fine, that's good, it fits all of Charlie's actions we've seen before, and makes their love story as easy as possible. It's minimum levels of betrayal. But it's kinda boring, no? It turns Charlie into a player in Babe's life, without his own goals. I would have preferred my theory of Charlie using Babe to somehow get revenge on Tony. It would make Charlie and his love much richer and more complicated.

* Unless of course Charlie is lying again about his intentions but I really don't think so. It's not that sort of show (I'm pretty sure), and I don't think think their relationship could survive that.

* Along with that reveal we also get more Tony's Alpha Farm lore. A breeding program! Details about enigmas that get confused by the subtitles. (I'm still unclear whether Babe or the enigma would be the one getting mpregnant. And since this is the mpreg racing car BL, that is the most crucial detail of all.) Alphas whose powers never develop, left abandoned in solitary confinement. And we finally learn Charlie's special skill, or rather that he doesn't have one. (Although I would not be at all surprised to find he develops a power just in time to save Babe from Tony in the big climactic showdown.)

* Who is the enigma Tony wants to breed with Babe? Is it someone we know (Winner perhaps? or Jeff? Jeff would make the most sense, for the emotionality and drama) or someone irrelevant offstage. I've decided my money is on Jeff.

* I'm not entirely clear why Tony didn't just kidnap Babe already. His airbnb mansion seems to have minimal security. I'm also unclear on what Charlie thought his presence was doing in terms of protection but either the answers will be revealed in time (I'm not holding my breath) or it's because It Makes the Plot Go (I'll accept it).

* Hmm, and Kenta is (almost definitely) lying to Tony about Charlie. That's good, I like Kenta (and still dream of KimKenta).

* So what's Way's deal? Is he also a runaway from Tony, or did he develop his powers on his own? I don't remember hearing anything either way. (I just had a horrible thought—what if he's Tony's mole and manipulating Babe because of that. But it doesn't fit the evidence so far so I'm hopeful this thought is wrong.)

* Ooohhhhhh. Charlie does have a secret special power after all, and it's Absorption, and he absorbed Babe's heightened senses through all that touching they did. (I appreciate the sex scene montage to remind us about all the touching they did.) AND the only way to transfer the power back is for Charlie to die! "I'm willing to die for you if you want, Babe," he claims! This is a complicated enough twist to satisfy me. Did Charlie do it on purpose? Did he know it was happening? He definitely never tried to stop touching Babe. Does he feel guilty? He doesn't look like he feels guilty. Is he really telling the complete truth? Is he evil after all, even if he's not working for Tony? Maybe he really is the Talented Mr. Ripley. I am Intrigued.

* I was worried when Charlie first arrived and was pleading for Babe's forgiveness, that his old submissive persona wasn't just a persona but who he actually was. Boring. But I should know by now to trust the show more about these sort of things. As soon as Babe accepted him, and settled enough to listen. Dominant Charlie came out, and submissive Babe fell right into line, without even realizing it. The casual authority in the way he told Babe to give him the whiskey glass, and Babe's instant compliance. Delicious. This is so obviously what their dynamic naturally is, and I'm glad the show isn't pretending otherwise.

* And the man who has staked his whole identity on being champion has lost the special powers that got him there. He says he doesn't need them, he can do without, but can he? Some beautiful angst is coming my way.

* The way Charlie slides his arms around Babe's waist is so... just slightly disturbing and I love it. I guess now that he's won he's rewarding(?) Babe by pretending to be all cute and submissive again, but you can't fool me, Charlie Dom.

* I do believe that Charlie genuinely loves Babe. Just that there are a lot of other things going on.

* Oh 😢 I got distracted and forgot about way, and now he's showing up to his dinner with Babe with red roses looking so hopeful. Oh sweetheart.

* Babe riding Charlie in his tiny convertible -> hot.

* But he forgot all about Way, who sat at that table with his roses for hours. The heartbreak on his face at Babe's text. You know what you need, Way? A drinking buddy.

* Of course Alan is the first one to say, we need to bring this evil man to justice and save all the kidnapped children. I love you Alan, you beautiful, kind hearted leader.

* Mostly the bad subtitles are annoying but inconsequential, but WHAT IS BABE SAYING ABOUT KIM?! Does he thing Kim is a danger to him and his crew, or does he think Kim is in danger from Tony? Because it makes a difference. I had assumed Babe realized Kim was on their side, but the translation is off and sometimes Babe's an idiot.

* Dumb and dumber are so oblivious. Who in their garage thinks Tony's a kindhearted guy? I thought they all hated him already. That was weird. (When are these two going to finally hook up? My bet is in the last half of the final episode, right before the coda with the main couples.)

* And as we all knew, it was Kim in danger from Tony. I had seen this screenshot in a post tagged Kim and Kenta, but I didn't look closely, and in my previous imaginings I was picturing Kenta as the one on his knees. But a captured Kim makes more sense plot wise. Kenta holds a knife to a kneeling Kim's throat, which is our second breadcrumb of the day, but this one has some weight to it. (And is delicious, though obviously in their actual dynamic Kim will be the dom. But this is a good starting point :-))

* And it ends! Noooo. I want to know what's next. Way needs to find his beautiful drinking buddy again!

* I'm not going to watch the previews because I like seeing each moment unfold as the happen. Although I'll probably end up spoiled by tumblr anyway. But I'm doing my best to minimize it.

* I like how this show devotes several scenes at a time to each relationship or event, rather than cutting back and forth between characters.

* Well that's it. I've officially fallen for this show. Especially now that all sorts of interesting things are getting revealed and complicated. I am actually a reader of omegaverse fanfic, because I love how the good ones explore gender roles and power dynamics in fascinating ways. And I think this show is doing at least a little of that.

* Oh no, we haven't seen Jeff since the opening scene! I'm worried about him. I think it's only been two and a half days in universe, but I feel like every other episode we got more of Jeff which is making me suspicious that something happened to him. He gave his ambiguous warning and then disappeared. Stay safe, Alan's nu.

[queerfables]

So I've been super busy these past few days and I managed to snatch a bit of time to watch 9-1-1 but I wasn't able to write up my reactions. But I'm back again and really catching up now. I just watched 7x04 Buck, Bothered and Bewildered and let me tell you, you couldn't have stopped me liveblogging this episode with a gun to my head.

Oh my GOD Buck is a completely smitten dork. I feel like he pulled this exact move on Taylor "hey let's hang out for reasons that are totally professional" the boy has one move and it's not slick. it is, however, CUTE

"I can give you lessons if you want" Oh Buck you are in TROUBLE this guy is smoooth

Sorry but I am OBSESSED with this love triangle shit. Two besties competing over the same person is a trope that infuriates me but make it queer and throw in some unresolved tension between the besties and I am SOLD

"You and Tommy have a lot of things in common" Oh shit they really are doing Buddie aren't they? Holy shit.

Harry! I'm so happy they brought the character back even if I'm sad it's a different actor

I love how this call is blatantly just a backdrop for Eddie and Buck's personal drama

"Both in the army... both like watching half naked men pummel each other..." am I being punked right now??

"That guy really knows his engine. You should hear that thing purr now." Did Eddie and Tommy fuck??? Buck's face says he's wondering.

The guy in the drain like "hello? I'm still down here?" This entire scene is a goldmine

Oh now Buck is jealous of Chris liking Tommy? Holy fuck you guys I cannot believe Buddie is going canon

Oh no she shot her son??? Oh God

Okay two things: One, Eddie being super giddy on the phone and Buck immediately assuming it's Tommy and not, like, Eddie's actual girlfriend? And two, the fact that it was obviously not Eddie's girlfriend

Showing up at basketball like "Wow, you guys? What are the odds???" Buck you transparent dumbass

"I'm your basketball beard" yeah that's a way to put it

Listen I'm just totally convinced it's not a coincidence that Buck develops this big time crush with misdirected jealousy on the guy Eddie is all of a sudden hanging out with all the time

Oh God, Buck's face when Tommy says he can take Eddie to get an X-ray. That tight nod and the way he just backs off, because he's not going to fight about this if he thinks it's what Eddie really wants or needs. No matter how he feels about letting someone else be that person for Eddie.

"Obviously I've been the cause of some bad blood between you and Eddie" ITS SO FUNNY WHY IS IT SO FUNNY

Ok no I know why it's so funny, it's because Eddie and Buck are caught up in this ridiculous 14 year old drama where they're both trying to get the cute new boy's attention while being conflicted about who they're actually jealous of and neither of them at any point actually realised they were queer

"That kid could not shut up about you" CUTE

"You don't have to tell me how great Eddie is" CUTE

But also Buck saying he only asked for the tour because he wanted to get to know Tommy which like first of all soft but second of all DUH

Oh holy fuck that kiss was AMAZING. I've got butterflies and I was just watching it. I'm not even a little surprised that it propelled Buck straight past a sexuality crisis and into catastrophic horniness. Didn't I tell you this guy was smooth?

The way Buck can't stop staring at his lips

Bonus reflections:

Wow good thing Tommy said "for god's sake, please call Eddie" because for a fraction of a second there, I swear, Buck and I both were like "Eddie who?"

Okay prediction though: if this relationship doesn't last, it's going to be because both of them were hoping it would solve their feelings of jealousy and being left out, and then it didn't

I keep thinking about Eddie repeatedly asking Buck to go to basketball with him, and Buck repeatedly turning him down, because as everyone knows, Buck doesn't like basketball. So Eddie lets it go and asks someone else to play basketball with him. And suddenly Buck cannot wait to play basketball with Eddie's new friend. Look I just feel like maybe there's some kind of symbolism there.

The 118's next emergency: Buck watches Eddie and Tommy spar and has a coronary

[booksandchainmail]

Pale Arc 10

So I gather that Pale has finished. In a way, this takes some timing pressure off of me: while I have not been liveblogging at a particularly speedy rate, I've been aware that more Pale kept being added faster than I was catching up. Now any time I read a chapter I'm actually catching up, as opposed to losing ground! I would love to say that I'll be picking up the pace from here on, but I said that last time and it was blatantly false, and also I think work will be busy for the next few weeks.

I've also been going back and archiving my liveblogs locally, just in case, which has reminded me how different my format was for the first arcs: I switched from end of chapter recaps to live reactions in early arc 4. No wonder I was going through chapters so quickly back then!

And I have a favor to ask if anyone wouldn't mind: I know there are stats floating around about Pale's length, but I'm worried about running into spoilers. Could someone let me know a) how many arcs there are b) what the total word count is and c) what the word count is as of where I am?

Housekeeping aside, thoughts on the arc:

Interesting structure, reminds me a bit of Worm's Sentinel arc

Really effective at building my knowledge of and engagement in the various new Kennet Others

Lots of reveals: Toadswallow's interlude blew my mind from a worldbuilding perspective, and Edith's unwrapped another layer of the mystery

Snowdrop and Avery! No thoughts, just feelings.

So now we know that Edith was for sure involved in the murder (which at this point was obvious, and has been pretty clear since the beginning). But then there's the immediate twist that she's not running it, or even seemingly part of the main group of this scheme. I do like this structure, where there's an obvious suspect from the beginning, it turns out to have been her, and it feels like a bit of a letdown, only for there to be another twist. I think a lot of mystery novels/tv shows do this probably? But on the scale of a single book/episode, not something as sprawling as Pale.

Actually, going back to those early arcs where I was doing a lot of theorizing, one of my guesses on how someone could arrange the Carmine Beast's death without having to reveal or lie about it was "There is an obvious killer, but they’re a fall guy acting on someone else’s behalf". Which it looks like it is! Edith is suspicious from the beginning, has no way around hiding her involvement while being honest and open, and the plan was probably for her to get caught from the start (I mean, maybe the real mastermind(s) didn't think the girls would get this far, but it does feel like Edith was expendable).

But now we're back to trying to figure out members of this conspiracy, knowing that Maricica is involved. There are three basic options for conspirators: 1) original Kennet Others 2) new Kennet Others (hid their involvement from the start and used recruitment to come in) and 3) people outside of Kennet.

I can't think of anyone outside of Kennet we've met who makes sense for that, so that idea might come down to "new character", which seems unsatisfying, so I'm going to skip theorizing about it.

Characters I don't think are involved: Tashlit, John, Alpeana, Toadswallow, Nibble and Chloe, Crooked Rook, Miss, Guilherme. We've seen inside almost all their heads, Edith and Maricica seem opposed to them in private conversation. Putting a caveat on Guilherme because Faerie.

Matthew could go either way, he's been involved with Edith's hostility but clearly doesn't know everything.

Charles is suspicious to me based on vibes and ability to lie, Bluntmunch seems to not be trusted by Toadswallow, Cig is working with Edith but it seems like a recent arrangement, Montague is very convenient to the conspirators but seems friendly, no idea about Lis, Ken, Jabber, or the new goblins.

[iguessitsjustme]

I Saw You In My Dream Ep 2 Thoughts

Okay I just finished episode 1 and I immediately had to jump into episode 2. Obviously. I got my donuts. I got my pringles. Let’s just dive right in. Liveblog under the cut:

Oh Ai and the sex dream. Love it. Okay Ai, now listen to me. Do not do what I did when I had a sex dream about a friend when I was in high school. Now listen. I had a sex dream about a same sex friend. And then I immediately told her and I was like “weird, right?” and she was like “sex dreams are completely natural! thanks for being comfortable enough with me to share that!” and I need you to understand that I did not have feelings for my friend. So cut me some slack. But it still took me another fucking decade before I realized I was attracted to women. All my personal gender shit aside, don’t do that Ai. Listen to your subconscious. For it knows. And that has been oversharing time with Rae. (btw she is still one of my best friends to this day.)

Ai. Please tell your friend about your dream. He can’t give you advice if he doesn’t know.

Ai, hate to break it to ya, but you can’t research away the gay thoughts. Them suckers here to stay.

See my guy? Gay thoughts. Once they take hold they are there forever. Worry not though. Gay thoughts are your friend. Gay thoughts love you. Gay thoughts just want you to be happy.

If I were to make a prediction, Yu has liked Ai for pretty much his entire life. Now Ai is catching feelings but Yu has no idea and just thinks his crush is one sided. And if that’s the case then I am HERE for it. If that’s not the case then I am also here for it. I’m here for whatever.

So Ing is just the cutest boy who ever lived with the cutest little crush on his friend. The way he was smiling at that towel? Unmatched cuteness. I feel like I need to pinch his cheeks or something.

Rae vs the internet that doesn’t want to load. What have I done to deserve such suffering?

It’s working again yay! Now I can see Ing’s reaction to Ai’s prophetic dreams! Woo!

Someone tell me what this title screen reminds me of? I feel like there was another show with similar fonts and color palettes but I cannot for the life of me figure it out.

LIL BOY SDIGHKSLHFGKDJFHKJH

Give the translators a raise I swear to god

I’m obsessed with this framing.

Well this music, despite sounding nothing like this song, got a song stuck in my head. Took me a minute to figure out why but the song stuck in my head is The Sky and The Dawn and The Sun by Celtic Woman and if you don’t know the song there’s this bit that goes “I am the sky and the dawn and the sun I am the sky and the new day begun” and up until the very last note in that verse, it is the same little melody playing in the show. Very completely and totally different vibes. If I had the spoons one day, I might use this as an example for how even the same notes can sound different in different hands with different interpretations and how music can change even if technically the melody is the same. Because if I played both bits for you, they sound extremely different. But the notes? The same. Or at least the melody is. Not sure of the exact key of each but they have to be relatively close in key if not the same (it’s been awhile since I listened to that song by Celtic Woman) (also also the music around that one specific section is completely different. nothing at all alike)

Oh now see this is fascinating because if Ai didn’t have the dream, he would not have gone to the park and this would not have happened. Right?

The music in this episode is getting me. It is so much better than last episode. So, so much better.

See, here’s the thing. I desperately want to watch episode 3. But I have to work tomorrow. And I’m getting over being sick. So I need rest. But I want to watch episode 3 so bad. Tomorrow. I can watch tomorrow. It will be fine. I can be patient. I can wait. Luckily, work will be busy so the day should pass by quickly.

[itsdappleagain]

BARK BARK ITS FINALLY TIME FOR THE STOCKHOLM SYNDROME CAPER

not giving up on my trademark of being late for csweekly even though i vowed i wouldn't be late on this one. i have an excuse. i was doing audition prep/submission for a musical

OKAY ANYWAY

i think if i ever actually visited the belltower i would take damage just from being in the space

notes under the cut as always!

OKAY starting thoughts. this is. literally my favorite episode in the entire show. my favorite. im so fucking stoked you don't even know i love watching my blorbos get beat up. me 🤝rueitae

anyways. biting this episode and shaking it violently

i like that the faculty tie actually makes sense and they have solid motivations. it isnt just a plot device for a tie

love this shiot/angle of bellum btw so behold her. she is so amazing

okay hi. immediately stopping to go on a rant about the atmosphere in this caper. its. fucking. incredible. the scenery is so perfect. the right balance of beautiful and desolate, and it changes as the mood does. i could do this later but i will do it now because idk i want to its my post

notice as the episode goes on how as the tone gets darker in carmen's plotline, the scenery and mood around her gets colder and literally darker as well.

ivy's backgrounds, meanwhile, stay pretty light throughout because she has somewhat of a more comedic and hopeful storyline while carmen dies in a ditch somewhere.

also, as soon as carmen calls chief, the snow/light of the hologram/shot composition away from the dark trees shows that there is hope now

just....hope that is tinted with cop fingerprints all over it. i just GOD i fucking LOVE how you can VISUALLY SEE HOW HER LIFE IS GOING its reflected by the very environment around her. compare any shot after she gets acme in to the very last one i put in that set of five.

no moment is darker for carmen than when she gives up, on the brink of death, and calls for help, submitting herself to prison and interrogation in the hopes that even if vile wins today, she can somehow survive to take them down again another day.

man, i am barely a minute into the actual episode and i have a lot to say. that trend will continue. sorry not sorry. back to the actual liveblogging.

fun fact the first time i watched this episode i did not notice the acme agents on top of the building watching "carmen"

i love the little hints dropped to audience members who arent entirely in the know yet (7 year olds) that its ivy, not carmen, and that something is up here. lack of gigantic poofy brown hair, different stature, ivys little smile as she goes past. of course, if you're obsessive like me, youve memorized every characters outline and can tell even with wigs on

OH hey my favorite acme agent hang on

its her. she is drop dead gorgeous and has a nose piercing. she also i think gets all of one line in the s4 opener telling crackle to do whatever (or maybe its her partner but anyway i love her)

I have already earned from her

have you been GAY for twenty years chief? julia has

julia slays so hard in this episode. wish devineaux stayed dead longer because she thrives when she's by herself

episode is literally so gorgeous

i love zari just being like oh my god this bitches gay. bad for them

that soft little "i should have known" smile julia does when carmen puts her hand on her shoulder guts me like an animal

live acme (ants to classify and monitor evildoers) reaction

hey!! next time ivy gets into a frozen adventure with carmen in germany she gets an earbud upgrade :D

zack too!!

that "but powerful" line is literally gay. happy pride month from ivy "muscles" "milady" "i feel powerful dressing in my girlfriend's clothing" lastname

obsessed with zack's little finger wiggles to emulate typing when he imitates player

i love just how. rrgh casual they are. yes carmen is super serious and focused this caper (for good reason. launch codes) but they get in a little. julia notices something small about carmen and that she's cold and the playful tone in the reply from carmen before everything kind of goes to shit. "had to loan my coat once I spotted your reinforcements!" its just a bit of information but its some that she trusts julia with. she asks julia if chief is listening but if she was. carmen would have already blown ivy's cover. i know she stole the pen for good measure but seriously she TRUSTS her

i love how julia pats her jacket and then does not react in the slightest she was just making sure that was HER pen not someone else's

ivy being horrible in snow gag is the best part of this episode

i love julia showing off. she doesnt get to infodump to anyone else but she knows carmen will appreciate it. and shes trying to be coy about knowing what carmen is there to do (sorry jules. you would have been right any other time)

i also like that as julia is infodumping shes absorbing MORE by walking backwards and gazing around the city hall

fun fact: i always wondered how the hell the acme agents got into/hid in the hall without anyone seeing them but there are doors in between all of those pillars!

also

this hallway does in fact exist! i mean considering the cs team probably went there to location scout in person (see below picture of duane and the team in san fran) it makes sense!!

anyway. should i made an "only vaguely related tangents" tally counter for these things at the end of the post lmao

i love how super serious carmen gets here. this episode is so much more mature in its theming than some other episodes. from the launch codes to the fakeout suicide to the continued death before capture thing carmen has going on. man. i cant tell if ivys comic relief section is good for lightheartedness or tonal whiplash lmao

she has for a split second the look of a mother who just heard her child say "i frew up"

ARGH and i also love how literally nothing julia can say in that time will help. she tries- oh, she tries- but "its not what you think" mistakenly sounds like she was still in on it. it looks, for the moment, like julia was trying to distract her or this acme agent missed her cue or something. of course later in the ep carmen has plennnty of time

interestingly cs does away with the doors in between the pillars for a more ethereal and sophisticated look but there are doors in my heart

i love how carmen turns to run sideways. girl even if there weren't acme agents there where were you going

i also just fucking love carmen's completely silent analysis once shit gets really serious. she calculates and recalculates what she needs to do to survive here. and she's RUTHLESS about it. i think this is kind of the one time we really see her vile training come out in comparison to someone other than vile itself. she takes those acme agents OUT

part of me wonders if carmen, in that little pause by the door, thought that maybe her chances were better backtracking but she didn't want to have to hurt jules to get out. maybe im just gay and wistful idk BUT okay here's my reasoning!! hang on! stay with me!! carmen equals BAD in tight spaces. saw it in rio, saw it in nz, saw it in poitiers. its everywhere- she does better with more space. however, she does like her high grounds, so honestly this is pure headcanon but like,,, not wanting to hurt julia. send post

also you can see in the background julia TAKING OFF after the other agents....no gun drawn of course

this fight scene with carmen is so fucking fantastic

she never. NEVER. EVER does full fight scenes where she does a lot of offensive but this situation is so different. she SPRINTS at that bitch she holds him HOSTAGE and while of course she's acting so that she doesn't get caught the fight almost portrays her a little villainously with the trail of bodies she leaves behind her as she goes

ALSO THAT FLIP OFF THE WALL MOVE IS SO DAMN COOL. she tricks the acme agent into gassing herself almost effortlessly and only takes a split second to coldly look behind her to make sure there's no one else coming before she takes off again

and then the other three who didnt get knocked out start going after her again which distracts her just enough to let zari catch her with the shot

the shaky "camera" and blurred vision pov as carmen fades in and out of consciousness while instinct alone keeps her going up the stairs is just ARGH chefs kiss

fun fact zari's "there after her" line gets reused in the series finale

btw carmen falling of the tower scared me so bad when i first watched this at like 13. suicide fakeout <3 scared me so bad

also how the camera keeps moving even when carmen doesnt even seem to be in the picture anymore before her glider catches up with it. top. tier

and then the stockholm music kicks in. hoo mama the music in this episode is fucking unparalleled. that incessant, chilling, repetitive string instrument motif as carmen's situation begins to get really dire. aurgh.

carmen's continued pov as player starts getting really concerned about her and she fades in and out. carmen weaving all over the sky and crashing into shit grggrgrgr its so good

ivy getting tazed. yeah.

ivy can pass as an....argentinian.. right boys

player and zack when two out of four of their active teammates just went mia in the span of a minute: 👁️👄👁️

man do you think they thought it was an ambush or something. like i mean it was but an organized effort by one team. do you think zack was scared he would be next and that player would be left in the dark. anyway

the way moose picks ivy up by the scruff like a cat kills me

the citizens of stockholm on this day watching a foreign police strike happen at city hall and then a tourist get tazed, mugged, and kidnapped by some locals: 👁️👄👁️

IN WITH THE HIGH NOTES ON THE PIANO IN THAT SAME REPETITIVE, INCESSANT, CHILLING STYLE OF MUSIC THIS EPISODE HAS AS CARMNE LIES MOTIONLESS IN THE SNOW ARGEHDHDHGDGSDGSDHD

i really enjoy that they show us this desolate, still shot of carmen, completely motionless, trapped in a ravine, miles and miles away from the city. she doesnt wake up. its just the cold, harsh reality. and its starting to snow a lot harder.

julia just snatching the pen gets me every time

i love the emotion dropping out of chiefs tone once she sees the 5'2" pissed off lesbian on the other end

YES julia GO OFF she should have gotten to do so much more. she should have gotten to kill someone.

julia glancing back at zari when she says "chase her away and squander her trust" and zari turning away and balling her first is such a juicy little character moment

the venom in "we had an agreement." fhrjhgfejsjjd step on me

you know how people want that throwback spinoff series for the owl house with the lost moments. that but cs. shadowsan's malaysia mission, how the team operated and the jobs while carmen was recovering, more of black sheep's time at vile/her holdover year, her and player learning together once she tours around after escaping, the shanghai job (not the tsonts one), the cairo job, the swiss bank job. how julia got into law, how chase chose his name, more on carlotta and dexter, the two years after vile's defeat and before their reappearance, more of evil carmen, player's backstory as told in silver lion. there is. so much i want to see. tangent tally.

god. player's decision here is such a hard one. he's like sixteen, and he's potentially juggling the lives of two of his best friends with that line. the decision seems obvious, but in this case it is completely, entirely wrong. player's choice to save ivy instead of carmen damn near kills her, and there's no way he could have known. player guilt angst, please!

once again the music. thank you.

carmen's cry of pure pain as she moves juuust tickles something in my brain. she has no one to put on a brave face for and that crash landing HURT.

also how hoarse her voice is

the more groans of pain as she forces herself off the ground they are so good.

i love this episode for its look into carmen's psyche. so much of her is playing off of others, but in this one she is utterly alone. we see her thought processes in the worst of times with no one to fight but the weather and herself. fantastic shit. never forgiving sarcastic chorus for skimming over this episode and saying nothing happens did you watch it

the puff of breath when carmen says "player"!!!

carmen's tone when she goes "oookay." just is so good. gina did not skimp out on this performance and part of me wonders if she could have done better if she wasnt always trying to play the emotionless, suave hero figure and she let carmen be more human, like in this episode. carmen is seeing that she is injured, acme is trying to reach her, her glider is broken, she has no protection from the cold, and that player and any other help is completely out of range and she is not happy about it

carmen crying out when she slips even more when she's trying to climb its so tangible and delicious

FUN ANECODTE because i havent gone on enough tangents for this post already but the first time i ever saw this episode my dad came to pick me up for his half of the week right here. i had to leave the episode right here, with ivy kidnapped and mia and carmen alone in the frozen ravine, the acme pen blinking. i didnt have access to netflix to finish the episode. for. four. days. let me tell you. um. this episode literally did not let me sleep. that first night i was lying in bed i stayed up until like 3am just staring at the ceiling replaying the scenes and making theories. i was dry in the mouth. when i fell asleep i dreamed about it and kept waking up in the middle of the night. i cornered my dad and recounted the entire episode to him and then reeled off my theories to him. i reeled off my theories to my friends. i was literally consumed by the ending of this episode that i could not see. it was Not Healthy and it impacted me VERY HEAVILY as you can see.

but anyway my one theory was that carmen was going to be forced to call acme for help and be arrested because they kept doing closeups on the pen. good job, thirteen year old me. the foreshadowing worked.

back to the episode

ivys literally so cute in this episode

look at her.

ottoman has chihuahua vibes

the ice lodge staff watching two guys drag some poor red haired white bitch into the hotel like a sack of potatos: im sure shes fine they probably told them she was drunk lmao

im goosebumping something wicked here is one of the phrases of all time

DUMSKALLE

that raw, desperate "no" and scream from carmen is so good. that fall hurt five thousand times more because it was a failure. and also she probably just broke all the ribs that weren't broken before

it took me a few watches originally to see that carmen hits her glider on the way down. first time around i was like where tf did she get that wack ass blanket

draw me like one of your moose boys

moose boy unironically seems like a nice guy who got dragged into this by otter

can you imagine if they showed up with ivy and were like HAHA. CARMEN SANDIEGO. what would the faculty do with this poor white girl who is definitely not carmen. probably wipe her memory and boot out otter and moose but can you imagine their reactions

MOOSE BOY IS VOICED BY SONIC THE HEDGEHOG?? SCREAMING

or maybe it was right here that i got cut off with the panning shot of the pen and carmen sitting away from it staring at it. whatever it was but anyway yeah

the sadness and defeat as carmen shivers and tells this imaginary chief that vile is winning today either way just kills me i love it so much. carmen's death before capture ideology (almost. capture wins but it almost doesnt)

LAUNCH CODES? AS IN NUCYULAH?

also team red. didnt know what was on the data crystal!! they didnt know what the handoff was!!! they just knew it was fucking serious and that makes this all the more scary. had ivy not gotten kidnapped they would have missed it. i mean carmen would have probably tried to drag her foot on deaths doorstep ass over to the ice lodge to try anyway but she would have gotten triple pulverized

someone swinging (insert wieldy object) at a gigantic villain and it doing nothing is my favorite battle trope

more ivy appreciation

she said NOPE

ivy is literally so cool in this episode. she's still herself but she's trying to channel carmen and fill her gigantic shoes by making her proud. but she isnt carmen, and thats okay. she ends up doing it with a mix of carmen's help and her own goofy, clumsy style

AND IVYS TWANGY LITTLE VERSION OF CARMENS THEME AS SHE SUITS UP. ITS AWESOME

again. ivy being terrible on ice gag is the best. winters in boston must have been torture

man it doesnt even show all of it but you can see the agonizing that went into carmen's decision to call acme. once she makes it she doesnt hesitate in grabbing and clicking it. she does it seamlessly and with resignation. shes already fought with herself enough in her own head.

carmen: literally in the middle of the woods, shaking like a travelling fair rollercoaster ride, and bleeding from a thousand cuts chief: oh hey! sorry about that

MAN CARMEN THREW THAT PEN A LONG WAY

i also like that carmen has to heave herself up from sitting, and that she's only standing as a last display of control when every other ounce of it has been ripped from her. she has to lean on the tree, still, even to manage it. as soon as she pushes off of that tree and starts walking towards chief she collapses.

chief those business negotiations. can you wait

i do appreciate that chief doesnt play dumb or think carmen is dumb. she's been calling that pen for as long as carmens been staring at it. she knows carmen knows what calling her means and doesnt try to hide that theyre coming for her.

haha. where in the world is carmen sandiego reference. get it

MAN AND THEN EVERYTHING GETS SOO BAD. you realize just how serious this is when carmen drops the tough act and just reaches out. she does a quip, but her face is just hopeless and she drops like a STONE. she was barely hanging on. already dumped this onto rueitae's post but i think that as soon as she knew she'd done everything she could do and had exhausted every single option except dying on the spot. well. she didnt have a reason to hang on anymore. she gave up every single ounce of control to chief when she clicked that pen and her body needed to shut down to save her. so so so good

i really really like chief running over and hesitating before she puts her "hand" on carmens shoulder. she knows she cant do anything, but she can pretend and she can hope

i really do think she was concerned about carmen here, not just about the intel she was potentially losing. this scene mirrors her past with wolfe nearly perfectly, and it NEVER gets talked about. once again a call chief made on a person who turned out to have innocent intentions (gun was really car keys, julia going off the grid was really just her and carmen talking it out) gets them killed- or, in carmen's case, almost. chief, this time, has the power to save her and fix this mistake. parallels are also fun because obviously carmen is wolfe's daughter so double angst.

ivy immediately switching to suspicious spy face after she slams into the bar is so funny

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW OFTEN I USED TO JUST RANDOMLY SAY "hello, im shady mcshade from some sleazy rogue nation, check out my briefcase full of untraceable cash!" to just RANDOM PEOPLE IN MY LIFE with NO CONTEXT

the bartender is not paid enough for this

I LOVE THE LADY WHO JUST GETS TF OUTTA THERE WHEN IVY CRASHES INTO HER CHAIR

the little trill of carmens triumph theme when ivy looks at the grappling hook is so good

girl. ivy. you missed that REALLY BADLY for someone who threw an anchor up three stories with pinpoint accuracy like a couple years ago

poor ivy she was doing so well with the quips and the competence until she announced it to the entire ice lodge

warrior cats girls on the playground

ivys unhinged scream as she barells towards otter is so fantastic

it would really have super sucked if zack had run ivy over

again. this episode is so beautiful

i love that otter and moose would normally have never even been glanced at for an episode because they suck so bad but because it was untrained baby ivy (who still kicked their asses) they could be there also who assigned them the nuclear fucking launch codes. who did that

oh man you can see the smile drop off ivys face when zack asks where they can find carmen. she doesnt even think that carmen is still missing. she probably thinks carmens back on track by now, not that it would be HOURS later and shes still missing.

zack getting to ivy on the other side of stockholm: 🐌🐌🐌 zack getting to carmen twice as far away in the middle of the woods: 🦔 (too lazy to find sonic meme. sonic meme.)

julia just giving zari the most disappointed look when zari kicks carmen when shes down

FUN FACT OF THE DAY! in the original storyboards, julia and zari were supposed to get a SHOOKETH reaction shot when chief offers carmen a way out with z and i. they cut it. rude.

the pen lowering down to reveal julia behind it has always felt like such an important shot and i dont know why. like theres some symbolism im majorly missing out on there

ahh, the heartbroken look between friends

AGAIN this episode punches you like an elephant on steroids with that quiet "is she going to make it?" CARMEN IS ON THE BRINK. OF DEATH. AND HER FRIENDS ARENT EVEN CERTAIN SHES GOING TO MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT. MAN. it raises the stakes up so high like obviously she wont die but in a tvy7 kids cartoon this is so fucking serious

carmen, delirious with the cold and pain, wondering if someone made a clone of her:

addressing all groups of people from now on as "student body most vile"

hey vile has a sick waterfall wall

it is really interesting that they do in fact shut down the academy. no one is allowed at the castle anymore once they move there. its also cool that in s4 because bellum doesnt have to be there teaching she can go to the himalayas and tinker full time!

wow. zuko and luz are in that crowd <3

okay. so. best episode ever. i love it so much and ive already gushed about it way too much so i wont keep you much longer.

tangent tally final count: like at least five it depends how specific you are

sorry about how long this is take it up with a brick wall it will be remorseful than me

[tangledbea]

hey! i just wanted to say i'm sorry you've been feeling isolated lately and i totally understand the decision to turn off anon. i've been into TTS since it first aired and was active in the fandom through a lot of it, though i mostly liveblogged my reactions to the episodes, reblogged a lot of stuff, and sometimes made gifs (honestly, i'd like to make more TTS gifs because i still love the show so much, but i haven't felt particularly inspired to in a long time--maybe someday when i inevitably rewatch it i will). i also had a different url back then and i don't think we've ever really talked! but the TTS fandom was such a blast to be in while the show was airing, and as someone who usually keeps to myself in fandom and doesn't openly share a lot of my opinions... something about the TTS fandom just felt different than most, to me, and didn't make me feel as nervous as i usually do to add onto posts and to discuss, for example, when i disliked a writing choice or wished something was a little different. sure, there were certain groups and people in the fandom that frustrated me, but all fandoms have people like that and you just have to curate your own experience... i guess what i'm saying is that i, too, often miss when the show was still airing, because it was so much fun back then!! and i love your blog and am so glad to see you still active and on my dash, since you were one of the first TTS blogs i ever remember encountering on here. 💖 i hope your vacation is enjoyable and that you feel better when you come back.

Thanks so much for all of this, Starlight! What was your URL back then? I might remember you!

[pochapal]

Zero offense meant but I feel like for the sake of the umineko liveblog's pacing, you'd be better off saving the analysis until after each individual Episode. Trying to figure it out mid-episode is kinda overkill.

no i get it! it's definitely something that i am conscious slows down the experience by a great deal and i can see how that wouldn't be for everyone. one thing to keep in mind is that initially the lengthy writeups/theoryposts were intended to happen only whenever i'd covered enough ground, but people then advised me to throw up thoughts as i went along, which eventually morphed into the liveread/theorypost structure of the liveblog since people wanted to see both my theories and reactions in equal measure lol. the only problem with this approach is that a) i am far too wordy for my own good and b) i am honor-bound to keep committing to the bit.

the lengthy writeup posts are simultaneously silly and serious because if i'm gonna be honest i could condense the half-dozen or so theories into a couple bulletpoints in shortform post straight after finishing the chapter, but at the same time i genuinely do have a lot to say about this story when i read it, and imo the sheer ridiculousness of throwing up dissertation-length discussion posts after every chapter is like 75% of the fun of this for me.

i also think it works to give both the liveblog and me as a liveblogger a distinct character, since bog standard off the cuff reaction is fun but i feel like there's only so many times someone will want to see a new umineko reader screaming at the same high stakes moment? idk i just like to put a more substantial part of myself into whatever i do and for me that reflects in a several thousand word sharing of my deductive process instead of just going "oh my god holy shit people are dying i'm shaking screaming throwing up", even though the latter is far quicker and easier content both in terms of production and consumption. i, however, am allergic to making Content on every level lol. plus i have a lot going on so taking my time to carefully ponder over what i've read and craft a writeup post lets me fit this liveblog around everything else i'm doing without feeling pressured to do weekly screenshot+react posting marathons and running the risk of burning myself out. i really am enjoying umineko, and reading it in the manner i am is the best way of ensuring it never starts feeling like a chore.

in any case i don't think i could ever hold off until the end of an episode before sharing my thoughts, because extensively thinking about the story as it's going on is the way i've always engaged with media. i'm always thinking and always developing theories and i am unfortunately one of those people who loves to figure things out as i go and this is something that will always be the case about me regardless of whether i am publicly sharing my thoughts or not. i really do understand that this style is not to everyone's tastes, and it's completely fair for you to make these points of criticism! this is just what works best for me personally as the person producing this liveblog.

[29daffodils]

KP Rewatch : Ep #3

alrighty! it's a saturday and i may have some time, so here i am. random liveblogging thoughts while watching ep#3.

get, set, go!!!!

fuck everything else this portrait of khun noo is everything to me. he is so gorgeous. tong is so gorgeous. no one can do it like him. truly.

tankhun's face represents exactly the feelings my asexual ass gets while watching het porn lmao

new reaction pic just dropped besties 😂

pete having an existential crisis, presumably after seeing vegas in that leather jacket in the previous episode?? ehehehe, we know he needs some time to recover.

yok bullshitting her way throughout khun's question is everything lmaoooo

tankhun enjoying himself freely after years is just!!!! ughhh, my heart.

this was the most outrageously tankhun outfit in the entire show and i am here for it

wow pol, such a multitude of talents lmao

wow pete looks lost in taking out his aggression woah

can we talk about apo's acting?? because we need to. this is one of my favourite scenes from the whole show just because we see so many expressions flit through his face.

every time i see the wound on porsche's arm i remember that it magically just disappeared by the next scene. not even a scar left 😂 at least they didn't do this with pete.

what an arrogant bastard lmaooooo (look i must add I'm not a big fan of kinn, okay??)

the lord did not need to make my guy big so pretty

OH MY GOD HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THIS DURING THE FIRST WATCH?!!! big being in love with kinn was quite obvious, but i completely missed this scene where kim basically just confirms it! also, he is such an asshole lmaooo, but don't worry, he'll be needing that heartbroken song later 😂

tay is seriously so done with his man 😮‍💨

can i just say ; i love yok so much. she's such a fun person. and the actress did such a good job with her.

pete is literally contemplating his life choices right now lmao

FOR FUCK'S SAKE TIME I AM GOING TO WHACK YOU YOU MOTHERFUCKER

this asshole has no shame, tay is right there!!!!!

aww look at my baby sleeping ahhhhh

this is such a good shot. just, kinn all perplexed, staring at porsche, wondering what this guy is even made of, who he is, what all he encompasses, and porsche just laying there laughing in his drunkenness. just. gorgeous shot. kinn really fell (head)first.

another great shot!!! the backdrop!!!! the lights!!! everything about this scene is gold!!!

alrighty, that is it for this episode. bigger thoughts will be in separate posts. see you in the next one! happy watching!! 💗

[whitleyschn33]

RWBY V9 E08 Liveblog

I’m early again and already spoiled by the thumbnail, thanks a lot Crunchyroll (using the free trial until my usual sites fix themselves.)

- Another vague content warning, content warning are only useful if they warn about the actual content, RT. (It’s suicide/sucidial actions AGAIN just say suicide for fuck’s sake)

- Little, when have you ever actually guided the girls anywhere?

- I like that Ruby is breaking, but I wish the tone wasn’t quite so... grumbly? Like, the tone of voice sounds more petulant than upset, if that makes sense.

- Well... I do hope Little does actually knows the way back to the village, otherwise Ruby just left them there to die acres away from their home.

- ...What is this transition? It’s so abrupt, Ruby just arrives at the house. No shots of her reaction to her surroundings, no real look at what this acre looks like, no reaction to the house “appearing” (I say that as if it wasn’t just there, like the camera didn’t just cut to it without any establishing shot). This moment just feels so rushed, why?

- Is that the Roman Holiday cover art? And I’m assuming the little girl is Neo, so is her hair and eyes not natural, or did she unlock her semblance incredibly young?

- Hi Roman, by the way

- And all that hesitation Ruby was showing about using her weapon before? Gone. Could just be instinct overriding the trauma, it’s different being spooked into a fight vs rushing into one, but whatever.

- Can Neo just make her illusions speak now? Why?

- Even dead, Roman steals the show. Man, I’ve missed him.

- Very generic “hey, maybe Ruby’s cracking under stress” talk

- She... apparently didn’t walk that far.

- Is this entire house made by Neo? The chandelier shattering seems to suggest that, but the house stays later in the episode implying that it’s not.

- And like... has Neo been around enough to know about all of this? About Pyrrha, Ozpin, Clover, Ironwood? This is an incredibly cathartic scene (and once again I wish we could have gotten to all of this earlier), I’m very much enjoy Penny’s and Ironwood’s lines, but I’m confused on just how Neo is doing it.

- ....Dead Oscar illusion is kinda sick, nice job animators, but this poor boy can’t catch a break even when not actually here.

- Hey, they remembered Qrow existed! 

- Good kitty with laser beams.

- ...Not good kitty. Darn it, Robbie Daymond. And “my maker”, is this how we’re going to tie this back to the main Remnant plot, because his maker can’t be Alyx or Lewis (I’m settling on this spelling because I finally got it through my dense skull that it’s a reference to Lewis Carroll, which makes me wonder if it was actually Lewis that made it out and Alyx that never came back, as the twist), so maybe it’s Ozma or the God of Light?

- Nice effort, Little - I do enjoy when they actually try to help in whatever ways they can, like with the doll at the auction.

-...So, will Little ascend, or because Neo killed them, are they dead dead?

-These reactions are so incredibly flat. If you’re going to do this, go all out with the team’s reactions, don’t just have them gasp and stare. They’d be doing so well with the facial expressions on Ruby, why cheap out here?

-Ew. Also, he’s alway gone in through the heart, why the mouth now?

-Oh yeah, wasn’t one of the theories of Neo’s fairy tale illusion the Cheshire Cat? Well, that’s confirmed now in horrific fashion.

Once again, I am asking why couldn’t we have cut out the fluff and gotten to this point sooner? It makes no sense that Neo is suddenly strong enough to do this, but at least it’s interesting and furthering Ruby’s character and arc along, and with only two episodes left and so much to deal with, this finale is going to feel rushed as all get out, I’m afraid.

[kerubimcrepin]

Liveblog 6: analsysising harder

I am having a finals' nightmare week in university, but finally found the time to sit down and relax, so here's to episode 3.

He's so supportive. For all his faults as a father, (like the fact that Joris might not be able to read yet in here, despite seemingly being pretty ready to be taught how to, as was pointed out to me by @dullard during our separate rewatch from this rewatch) the fact that Joris can sell things at the market all by himself at 7yo and knows what a commission is, is actually really cool. Good job, Keke! This once, I will not kill you with hammers.

Do start teaching your son to read/write soon. Please. Please.

ANALYSIS EVENT LEVEL 10 ALARM WEE WOO WEE WOO. CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS.

Joris is seven years old. Kerubim was, by his own words, "barely older than him," during his confirmation ceremony at the Orphan Temple. Can we actually ask what Kerubim Crepin was doing, at seven years old, in the orphan temple??

As we know from Dofus Heroes Kerubim comic, he was busy being an orphan, plotting to resurrect his parents, (either adoptive, or step-father and biological-mother. It doesn't really matter !) and being sad, to the point that, as an adult, even while amnesiac, he empathizes greatly with a stray kitten.

Having dreams of not wanting to be lonely, projecting his loneliness onto stray animals... It's the reason why he's afraid of showing people that he's weak and driving them away, and what makes him a compulsive liar, as I've pointed out in the last post. He can't bear being alone.

No wonder, then, that despite being old, and having a decrepit house, he didn't try to find Joris a better home. It would be a betrayal of his own ideals of protecting children from what he went through. It would mean that someone so similar to him would, too, be all alone. And, a bit more selfishly, he does need someone by his side.

I would point out, that Atcham was in the temple, implied to be mistreated, that they are both full brothers who grew up in the same family, and that him and Kerubim didn't have the best relationship even as kids, — with Bashi also disliking Atcham heavily, for unstated reasons, — and how it all might tie into Kerubim also adoptng Joris out of guilt, because he feels like he might end up like Atcham, but I don't have ten hours.

And also bc Atcham doesn't appear often, and I am mostly delusional about this.

Kerubim avoids mentioning Atcham or any of his adventures in Brakmar, so... man just give us anything to work with.

Despite Keke playing it off now, he really didn't have an easy childhood.

For all the times I say he's a bad dad, or that I want to beat him up, it is all in jest. I think he's a very tragic character who was just... never really given a chance to develop a healthy way of interacting with the world.

And for what it's worth, he grew up to be as decent of a person he could have, and did the best he could, at becoming a family with Joris and raising him, as flawed and uneven as it is.

He really just wants this kid to have a good childhood, or an approximation of one, with no violence, loneliness, or fear he went through — and it's all going to be ruined in the movie, isn't it?

It won't stop me from joking about beating him up in the future of this blog, but I wanted to make my stance clear. No non-joking slander of Kerubim in this household. Ever.

I think he was scared shitless of having a deadly quest here, but HAD to pretend he wasn't, for the public. He looks happier now than seconds ago in the queue line, lol.

Low self-esteem can result in seeking attention through being loud and obnoxious, as well as a fear of embarrassment, so, it checks out. Lying is a likely thing for Kerubim to do, and I love and respect him for it.

His immediate reaction to being embarrassed by getting a clothespin, and made fun of, as audience laughs? Double down, baby! Though, his angry facade doesn't last until the end of the line. He's just... looking sadly to the side.

By the way, considering he's only a bit older than seven, the "I've been training for years" is a bit haunting.

Do you know who DOES deserve to get beaten with hammers for real, non-ironically? The god Ecaflip. Can I get an amen?

No wonder, Kerubim coddled Joris and wanted his life to be better! His life sucked!

Of all the things not to lie about, he seemed not to lie about being trained. Doesn't stop him from being beaten up, though...

We have to beat God Ecaflip with hammers. There is no other way.

For all his cockiness, he's so stressed out. His facade is so, so ruined, the second he realizes his plan is not working.

Really, this whole scene puts their relationship together the best. He's a God, holding Kerubim, a 7-9yo orphan, on a tiny string.

His whole life, Ecaflip just belittles him over some random bullshit, makes him hate his brother for being bald, and then gives him a gambling addiction before putting him into a mental asylum to treat it. All of that because he loves him that much.

We have to kill him. There is no other way. I may be a wakfu season 3 hater, but Oropo was right.

Yay, trauma bonding, in its correct definition!

If my whole family died, and a god cared so much about me, he made me the protagonist of various sad cringe stories of overcoming personal adversities mostly caused BY him, I too, would develop some sort of complex to cope. So I get it.

But I feel like, even if Kerubim will never voice it out loud, considering what repercussions may follow, deep down he knows that Ecaflip himself is one of the reasons for his loneliness, and that most of all, he's scared of him.

[icebluecyanide]

Alex Rider S03E01 Reaction

So I've already watched all of s3, but I decided for some reason to keep a liveblog & take a moment after every episode to write down my thoughts/predictions/questions at the time. Some of it is very amusingly wrong, but I'm going to share it anyway because I do always enjoy reading liveblogs/reaction posts myself so maybe other people will want to read it too.

Note that while this contains no spoilers for later eps, I have read the book and reference it, so warning for book spoilers and me being unable to stop comparing the two.

Liveblog

Hey I’ve been there! (Malta)

I am petty but I don’t like Alex sharing what Yassen told him with people lol. But I guess they had to make it a group project for the show and it’s not the stuff with his dad which is what Alex in the books felt was too private to share so oh well

Tom and Jerry(/Jay??) ahsdlfhs

Alex thinking Yassen wasn’t lying to him 😭 and he does seem to have kept the part about his dad a secret!

oh damn he wants to destroy Scorpia!! and Kyra also wanting him to, that could cause interesting conflict when he joins them later

also i forgot that Scorpia actually killed Ian in this lol

Kyra is going to do machine learning lol

Love the Alex/Kyra ship fuel with the hurt/comfort scene

ahslfhs how did they even find that villa tho? LIke I thought that was just the piece of wall Mrs Rothman was photographed in front of, surely that gives them no clues about where she’s staying?

And not to be mean but Kyra did kinda bring the stabbing on herself ashdflhs. Going off on her own because she got bored and then expecting Alex to do the fighting and treating the fight weirdly casually

It’s interesting how they seem to have changed Scorpia’s structure/origin story what with Mrs Rothman being elected and there being no client for this operation.

Them referencing Alex getting in with Tom setting fireworks in the books... i mean it's a nice reference but also actually that was more fun than Kyra just being able to hack their way in ngl ahsdlfhs. Not really the show’s fault, but modern tech & computer tricks make spy stories more boring

Also Alex just walked into the party in his suit and honestly this is one of those plots that only works because Otto is not a teenager. If he actually looked like a teen, he would have stood out waaaay too much (which was actually a concern in the book)

Alex grabbing champagne and later putting it back down again haha good way to blend in, I suppose

Getting his phone out?? In the exhibition?? So rude

Love the trend of doctors/scientists in Alex Rider wanting to be paid more for their work. Honestly they deserve it because they won’t even get to publish their extraordinary findings

‘I can hear you breathe’ Love Nile

Nile please how are you surprised at Alex attacking you asdfs

Shame we didn’t get Nile overpowering him like in the books, the difference in their fighting skills was so much bigger there, but I think they made Alex more of a fighter in the show. In the books he mostly needs to rely on the element of surprise and usually when he’s in a fight he’s outmatched and needs to use some form of trickery/his environment to win while show!Alex actually has pretty good fighting skills

I love Nile’s actor but I wish he could have actually taken Alex down like in the book, the way he loses Alex and doesn’t even realise it & thinks he died makes him look a lot less competent tbh

How did Alex climb up there?? And more importantly, how is he getting down haha

I get the feeling Yassen isn't gonna show up until Alex is with Mrs Rothman lol but at least we got to hear his final words ot Alex like four times

Overall

Really exciting, love seeing Malta and I’m intrigued at the differences between the book and the show and where it will lead. 

Thoughts/predictions

I imagine the race Tom’s brother mentioned will play a role and I liked the little bit we got with Tom about his grades being bad and maybe wanting to drop out. I guess Tom’s parents aren’t going through their divorce in the show? Also really enjoyed Alex and Kyra being more invested in the investigation than Tom and how they are apparently planning to take down Scorpia for their families.

I liked how we got to see more from Julia Rothman and Scorpia already and I’m intrigued by what Invisible Sword will be. Love Max having his ‘I have grandkids now’ moment and trying to talk Julia Rothman down and her being like ‘no I want to kill’. Looooved Nile telling Mrs Rothman to shoot him if he ever lost the appetite for killing.

I also really liked Alex talking about his dad and how he had nothing to do with spying and how his world got turned upside down when he learned about his uncle being a spy and now it’s happening again.

Questions

What is Invisible Sword in this?

What’s the deal with Julia inheriting her place at the table? Not sure if I like the new origin story for Scorpia but I’m intrigued by the way they have a council now instead of an executive board and how it changes the vibes.

Are Alex and Tom and Kyra gonna fight?

[queerfables]

And another episode! This is a 7x05 You Don't Know Me liveblog.

Last one for the night because EXTREMELY APPROPRIATELY, my brother is getting married tomorrow!!!! And I really have to get some sleep.

Oh look it's the atomic habits guy (more or less)

Hen trying not to laugh at Eddie's, ahem, misfortune

FIRST DATE FIRST DATE FIRST DATE

I wonder if there will be any emergency tracheotomies involved

Oh my god I don't think I have ever laughed harder than this moment. As if I wasn't already head over heels in love with him!! Evan Buckley, on a date with another man: "I'm an ally!"

No God listen though because it's just so painfully earnest and real. This is SO new to him, it came out of nowhere and blindsided him, and he hasn't quite had the time to process what it all means. It's like, he met this person and they had a connection and then suddenly he has to re-evaluate everything he knows about himself because of that. He doesn't want to do complicated self reflection he just wants to have dinner with this person who is hot and funny and makes his heart race. Ugh God it's Feeling Soft About Evan Buckley hours again.

Also I love Tommy for not having my reaction to Buck calling himself an ally and being totally chill about where Buck is in his journey. I don't think I could possibly have resisted the urge to be like "Is ally really the word for it?" Fortunately Tommy is a far stronger man than I.

Okay I knew Eddie showed up during this date but I was completely unprepared for Buck's deer in the headlights expression, oh hon.

OH GOD THIS IS EXCRUCIATING

I don't even have anything to say I just had to pause the episode to take a beat and hide from Buck's bizarre macho heterosexual posturing which signals IMMEDIATELY that something is wrong

Oh Jesus "Guess you can never have enough closet space." It's a little on the nose. Poor Tommy. Poor Buck. I think he might be praying for that tracheotomy right now.

Okay "ain't that the truth" I totally understand but the "right, Evan?" was pushing it. Don't get mean.

"BRO" are you serious right now Buck

Oh hon, his little crestfallen face when Tommy leaves even though five minutes ago he wanted to evaporate off the face of the earth rather than be seen with him

"I think you're adorable" wow I feel some kind of way about Buck getting called adorable by a hot older man

Oh I love Denny so much, being so friendly and welcoming with this girl

And she took the bear I'm gonna cry

"I couldn't stop it, it was humiliating" Well at least Buck recognises it. I haven't had second hand embarrassment that bad in years.

I am obsessed with the way Buck tells this entire story to Maddie making it seem like it's only about how he lied to Eddie, like he's not freaking out about the fact that he's into this guy and freaking out about getting seen with this guy and also freaking out about the fact that he's freaking out about it because it shouldn't be a big deal right? He's an ally!!!

And then Maddie's face when he lets the pronoun slip

Thank God SHE gently pointed out the obvious when Buck called himself an ally though because SOMEBODY had to

"Sure I'll check out a hot guy's ass but that's normal" "Uh. It's not abnormal..." lmfao Maddie I love you

CRYING WITH LAUGHTER "IT'S THE SAME TOMMY?" Maddie has gossip for DAYS and she can't tell anyone. No one on earth has suffered more than her.

😭😭😭 "So, tell me more about the hot pilot" and Buck's nervous but pleased grin

:( oh Karen, it's a little sad/disconcerting that Mara destroyed the bear but don't overreact, it doesn't necessarily mean anything you didn't already know ie that she's a traumatised kid struggling with her feelings

Never mind this girl killed her family

(I'm kidding)

"Like sea monkeys!"

"...no"

Buck saying to Eddie, "Which is why you're so... pent up. Well, wish I could help" I'll just bet you do

"That's actually good advice Buck" sound more shocked Eddie

Oh Denny is so soft, being so understanding about getting hurt and not blaming Mara

Bobby wondering if Eddie is having second thoughts about Marisol is interesting. It sounds like moving in together was pretty abrupt, I wonder if something triggered it.

Bobby saying he would want to piss of her ex, ie God!! That's amazing I'm in love with him

This scene with Buck coming out to Eddie is really interesting. I love the way he finally brings himself to say "It was a date". Just, it's a really powerful moment to me. And Eddie being like "wait, Tommy's gay?" as if that is the only surprising part lol. When Eddie says "This doesn't change anything between us" I feel like maybe for a second Buck looked... disappointed? but I wouldn't swear to it

Oh no the hug T_T soft

Wow, "Call Tommy" Eddie says, on his way out the door. I'm having such flashbacks to last episode. The parallel feels intentional but I'm not sure exactly what it means

Eddie and Marisol agreeing to take a step back and get to know each other. The flirty "I can't wait to move out" is a bit cute

Oh no the really soft way Karen talks Mara through everything T_T and Mara saying "night night" at the end

Buck what the fuck

No listen I adore you but you have gone directly from "I don't know what I'm ready for" to "Come with me to my sister's wedding" You guys have been on one date this is UNHINGED

"There's gonna be free food and I need someone to dance with" Oh my god it's soft

Honestly this relationship has me on an entire roller-coaster

Holy shit what a great teaser for the next episode

Final thoughts:

The way Buck is with Tommy reminds me a lot of his soft smitten demeanour around Abby. I really liked that side she brought out in him and it's lovely to see it showing up again. It also makes me laugh that he has such a type, and that type is emotionally mature and highly competent people with a few years on him.

(Eddie may not have any years on him but he for sure fits the other criteria)

Currently the game I'm having fun playing with myself is "how could Buddie happen in the most drama maximising way possible". My current favourite is Eddie impulsively kissing Buck while they're both still with other people and then panicking and running away, leaving Buck to bluescreen about it, but I'm pretty sure I can do better. Maybe something that starts with Eddie and Tommy getting kidnapped by exotic animal smugglers. I'll workshop it.