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lover-of-mine · 1 month ago

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If you liked my recap of 8b, stay tuned for a recap of the switch to abc.

It all started on May 1st 2023 when deadline released an article that made every 911 fan's heart stop for a second with the headline "9-1-1 canceled by Fox, will move to ABC for season 7" (the article was later retitled "9-1-1’ Moving From Fox To ABC For Season 7"). No one knew what to expect, the season 6 finale aired with packaged happy endings that were not all that satisfying but made sense when considering the cancelation threat breathing down their necks.

Not a lot happened after that because the writers and actors strike was happening, obviously halting any possible development or real information to be delivered to us. Until the strike end was announced on November 8th (11/8 if you use month/day) to be officially done on November 9 (9/11 if you use day/month). Not a lot was specified until the day season 7 would be airing on ABC was announced with 118 days' notice.

Filming only formally began in January 2024 but the opening disaster involving Bobby and Athena's cruise was being speculated since season 6 ended with them boarding said cruise, and was confirmed shortly after Christmas.

Once promotion started, it was all overwhelming since Fox only did the basics when it came to promoting the show. Premiere parties, multiple interviews, the 100th episode party mid filming episode 102 for some reason. Angela Bassett is teasing a spinoff. Ryan Guzman is doing interviews about the show for the first time since Eddie Begins. Script about an accident at a basketball accident is posted by Jennifer. Fandom is in a crazy state.

Premiere week comes. Everyone is convinced Buck is about to come out as bisexual but everyone is hesitant to believe it. Ryan ranks buddie moments and says the will reveal was Eddie's way of saying "this goes beyond friendship and I love you to the core". He also giggly says the show is gonna give the fans what they want when it comes to Buck and Eddie and teases they will be closer than ever.

Season airs. Cruise disaster somehow involves pirates, an explosion, and a hurricane. We're being reintroduced to everything. The episode that reintroduces the couples has Buck and Eddie co-parenting. The show is renewed for season 8. Leaks start to fly around that Buck will in fact be coming out on episode 100. Which happens. For the euphoria of everyone in the fandom. Harry is recast but no one remembers his part of the 100th episode. Oliver and Ryan post the same picture of buddie even though Buck just kissed another guy. Oliver promptly disappears from the internet, doesn't really interact with anything about the new ship.

Eddie crashes Buck's first date with a guy. 911 proves they need sensitivity readers by making a very unfortunate comparison of a black kid with a dog dying on a call. Eddie has erectile dysfunction because his girlfriend used to be a nun. After asking said girlfriend to move in with him. Buck says he wishes he could help with that, not relevant I just like mentioning it. Buck comes out to Eddie. Beautiful things are happening in the buddie world.

A small hiatus happens. Promo of the episode includes only Buck and Eddie doing karaoke together even thought it's the madney wedding episode. There's an alarming number of phallic things on and around Buck and Eddie. Most of it doesn't make it to the episode. Cast members go on Family Feud. Funny enough it's all actors who play queer characters plus Ryan. That doesn't air until right before season 8 is about to air. Oliver says he wishes Tommy and Buck can stay friends after they break up. Lou says it was supposed to be Eddie and that Tommy is only there so that Buck can work out the kinks about dating a man. In the meantime, he also opens his cameo and starts selling headcanons a fraction of the fandom starts taking as canon even though Tommy is barely in the season after helping Buck come out to everyone. Oliver blushes to previously unknown shades of red talking about buddie getting married in a possible season 10. He also says he was approached about Buck being bi during season 4 but Fox executives blocked the idea. Buddie fans all around feel vindicated thinking the shooting really was supposed to trigger something. A ship war starts with the help of Lou's cameoverse.

Everything about the episode mentions buddie doing karaoke together. The scene was recorded with actual tequila on set because of how nervous Oliver Stark was. The day before the episode airs Tim Minear goes on record about how they had to cut the scene. The episode is actually about Chimney getting viral encephalitis and forgetting he was supposed to get married. They do get married in the end. He was perfectly fine. Buddie fans are mad at the karaoke being cut, Tim Minear says he wrote something he thought was fun and releases the script saying he didn't cut much, he just didn't want to license the song for a really short clip. Someone jumps into the opportunity to shit on buddie since the ship war is at full steam now, Tim Minear says he ultimately writes buddie for himself. Hen and Karen are trying to adopt.

Devin is seen on set and people are hoping for a fun arc with Eddie facing Shannon's ghost. Tim actually had watched Vertigo in his downtime and decided to make Eddie meet his dead wife's doppelganger. The show frames Eddie as cheating on Buck even though he has a whole girlfriend. Bobby gets another begins episode that makes him a child alcoholic while saving the life of Amir, the husband of someone who died in the fire in Minnesota, fully forgetting he was an addict because of a back injury.

Oliver Stark, who up to this point had stopped posting, posts a full scene of Buck, Eddie, and Christopher to his Instagram story. He later also posted behind the scenes of the karaoke scene, a video that showed that Buck was one of the people who ripped Eddie's shirt and that Eddie was the one pouring alcohol down Buck's throat. The song they were singing is also confirmed as What I Like About You by The Romantics.

Big event is being shot at the firehouse, everyone is half convinced that it's a funeral until Lou sends another cameo with a medal of valor around his neck letting everyone know it's a celebration. Bobby wants to retire and is fully suicidal. Chris walks in on Eddie and Shannon's ghost. Eddie's girlfriend doesn't get a proper breakup. Or lines in her last episode. Bobby and Athena's house is set on fire. Bobby saves her, but his heart stops. The show posts enough still from the episode that we know the full plot before it starts. Bobby's heart stops for 14 minutes with no consequences. Athena decides Amir set her house on fire but it was actually a drug cartel. Chris is allowed to run to Texas on a tantrum, Eddie's parents look a little too happy to do it. Gerrard is back and the last shot of the season kinda feels like a reminder that Gerrard hates minorities but it's never brought up again. Bobby forgets he quit. Henren loses their license to foster because the mother of a drunk driver is on a power trip.

No one likes the way the season ends. There are discussions about daddy kinks. Oliver logs in again to like an Instagram post with a picture of buddie captioned "thumb thumb thumb" referencing the way Buck is rubbing his thumb on Eddie's shoulder. He then leaves for a road trip and it's not seen again in weeks. Lou shuts down the cameoverse. People accuse buddie fans of hacking him after some old posts resurface. There's a Disney-wide data leak and people accuse buddie fans of trying to hack ABC to see the karaoke scene after a scene with Tommy is posted to Instagram. Then a deleted scene with Eddie and Chris is posted.

Filming for season 8 starts. The emergency is a beenado. Ryan has a mustache. Oliver makes fun of it with an Instagram filter and someone does a 4 hour long Twitter space called "Oliver lashing" saying Oliver needs to defend his canon love interest and calling him all sorts of stuff. The emergency stuff start to include planes. Every single article written includes the same buddie still from 710. Where's Waldo game is happening but it's just people trying to figure out if Tommy would be back or not. The first official video of the season is just Oliver and Ryan. Everyone wants to know if the mustache is gay and Tim says it is a "manifestation of something inside of Eddie".

The emergency is actually a mid-air collision. The bees are never mentioned again beyond flying higher. Bobby is working on a tv show. The arc actually fucking slaps, with 3 episodes that make everyone hopeful the season will be good. A child and Athena land the plane on a freeway. Tommy is not there. The thing with Gerrard becomes general "he sucks" not the racism from the begins episodes. Hen proves she's being target, gains Mara's custody back, Gerrard was somehow the key. Eddie looked hot as fuck helping a kid with a bad relationship with his father. Bobby comes back.

Halloween episode happens. Buck gets an actual corpse as decoration. There's a dislocated shoulder and boils and he thinks he's cursed. Denny dies because why let Henren be happy. They start his heart back up though. Throughout the whole season Oliver was posting pictures related to the episode. None of them included Lou even though Lou was the person he worked with the most in that episode. There's a picture of him with Ryan tomdaya style though. A still of Buck in green puts the fandom in a frenzy because it's the color Buck was wearing during his breakups. Tommy turns out to be Abby's ex. Maddie wants more kids. Eddie talks to a gay priest. Maddie is pregnant. Buck and Tommy break up. Eddie does the risky business dance after he shaves. He sits drinking beer with Buck with no pants on.

Mandatory copaganda episode happens and brings up the possibility of Athena getting a rookie that goes nowhere. Bobby ends up having to babysit the star of the show he was working on. Brad gets a whole arc at the station. Eddie decides to go to Texas. They frame the scene where Buck finds out as if he is watching porn. The first half of the season ends. The promo for the rest says Maddie will be kidnapped.

Frenzy starts wondering if Ryan is leaving the show. They post a picture of Oliver and Ryan at midnight on New Year's Day. Filming gets fucked due to fires in LA. A buddie goodbye hug leaks. Oliver plays in the NBA celebrity all-star game. He gets an assist, not relevant, I just like that he's good at basketball.

Second half of the season opens with buddie being a romcom intertwined with a criminal minds episode where Maddie and Athena try to catch a serial killer and Maddie tells them to kill themselves then gets kidnapped by them. She gets her throat slashed trying to escape, because Chimney shows up where she's being held, he doesn't know and almost gets killed himself, don't worry though, she survives and saves Chimney's life with a hammer, did I mention she's pregnant? She's pregnant, doesn't miscarry. It's a boy. In the meantime, Buck tries to sabotage Eddie trying to sublet his house. He tries to make Eddie jealous with a dog. It actually works. They solve their differences, Eddie moves to Texas. Buddie goodbye in the rain sponsored by U-Haul. Buck doesn't have a Jeep anymore.

Bobby's mother shows up, she runs a cult being a faith healer. She's dying of cancer though, Bobby then forgives her for leaving him alone with his alcoholic father and leaving him to become a child alcoholic himself. She's never brought up again. While we are figuring that out, Eddie isn't on the episode but Buck says his name 15 times, he hooks up with Tommy, then Tommy tries to get back together but he calls Eddie the competition, Buck snaps and says he doesn't want to fuck everyone he has feelings for and doesn't have feelings for everyone he fucks, then he escalates to somehow saying Tommy was accusing him of being hopelessly pining for Eddie. All this happens while Buck moves to Eddie's house. Yes, Tommy hooks up with Buck at Eddie's house, fully aware it's Eddie's house then wakes up in the morning, buys champagne and about 100 dollars worth of groceries, because the competition is gone. It didn't go the way he was hoping.

Then we finally see Eddie in Texas, no one cares about what sent Chris to Texas anymore even though that's the first chance to discuss the situation they had in 13 episodes, there isn't an opening at the firehouse, Eddie doesn't have a job, so he sells the truck, becomes an Uber in an 8 minutes long montage of random people in his car, patches things up with Chris after Chris and one of his friends get him as their driver. The episode has product placement for Uber, Prius, Amazon, Playstation, M&MS and GMC. In the meantime Maddie loses her voice in some fear reaction to getting back to the job, she's fine though.

Four buddie facetime calls later, Eddie's parents are being demons, Chris throws up at his chess tournament, Eddie "dad's up" and takes Chris back. We find out he did ballroom dancing. Not relevant, just putting it out there. He didn't yell at his mother but he did leave his father in a city 6 hours away, you win some, you lose some. While this was happening in LA everyone but Athena forgets Hen's birthday and they keep running into the same guy. The guy hijacks a bus, accidentally stabs someone, Hen ends up hostage, the guy is actually quite nice, he gets Hen a gift. This episode is actually added at the last minute, allegedly finished about 7 days before it was set to air. Stills from the episode are deleted because there are lines of white powder next to Kenny, the actual scene might've been edited to cut that out too. Screeners for the episodes start getting delayed. Promotion for the next episode is all over the place even though it even has a cool event name, the actual promo video has a cameraman as a focal shot, Oliver says those episodes have some of his favorite scenes then later says he was lying.

Maddie gets a failed gender reveal party. They answer to a pileup, Ravi doesn't check the backseat, there's a kid trapped, Bobby goes to get the kid, the car explodes, Bobby's survives, Ravi wants to quit, Buck doesn't let him. They answer to a fire at a lab that researches infectious diseases. Crazy scientist creates a super virus to sell the cure for the pandemic she will start because she really really really wants a Nobel Prize. There's a second explosion, Buck is locked out of the lab. Chim is infected, Hen has a collapsed lung, Bobby does surgery. Ravi runs out of oxygen, but Bobby figures out a way to connect them to the room's supply. Their PPE is their normal gear and duct tape. They're diy'ing treatments as Chimney is dying on the phone with Maddie. They find out the cure is in the lab after the military decides they all can die, Ravi, they call him Rav now for some reason, goes to get it, they all get threatened with terrorism charges. The cure isn't there. Everything is lit in the bluest light ever created by men. Athena and Buck go after the cure themselves, they find it, the cure was in a bedazzled Stanley cup she stole from another researcher, this is not relevant, I just like saying it. But then the army and the FBI find them, because every law enforcement agency is in the case now. They distract them with a helicopter chase, which sounds cool but it was really boring, Tim wanted it to be 4 minutes long and had to be stopped, Athena gets the cure to the lab. Chimney is cured. We find out Bobby is infected. He got infected saving Ravi. There's no more cure. Bobby is dead. All charges get dropped because they won't risk people finding out that there was almost an outbreak in LA. We don't see a body though. Hosier is playing. Eddie is not there.

A bunch of stuff about this episode leaks beforehand, including Bobby's funeral procession, a script that shows his burial and resurrection in the form of a 911 call where he says he's being buried alive, and a video of Peter on set in uniform with everyone at the station post filming everything for his death. Everything about this decision is confusing. The episode is rated 3.7 on IMDb. Kenny is crying in interviews, Peter says he doesn't want to leave, Angela says there's no Athena without Bobby. Oliver is being cryptic on Instagram posting and deleting pictures of Brad who would've died in his show but didn't, and referencing the Wrath of Khan in his goodbye post, Ryan is sharing edits of Bobby with a pink bow, Aisha shares a goodbye post with an emotional caption, deletes it and reuploads with a more vague one. A Disney executive goes on record about how they didn't want or approve of this death, but somehow they had to approve Ryan's mustache. Tim said Bobby died for realism with a super virus. While they were filming the procession there was an alleged fight about tomatoes between Ryan and Lou. There were also goofy pictures taken with Bobby's casket that were never posted.

Anyway, there's a 2-week hiatus, nothing makes sense. Everyone is wondering if Bobby is dead for real. No promotion for the episode, journalists get screeners the day of, no interviews. 816 airs. It's actually about Athena helping a mother who thinks her dead son was kidnapped and his death was a coverup. Athena goes full Athena, exhumes the body, there is no body, all signs point to the mother was right. Plot twist, the mother was wrong. Lesson to accept loss or something. Lowkey feels like the show is mocking us. Especially because the case was based on a real-life event where the mother was right and her kid had been kidnapped. And because earlier in the season they use the promise of the captain not dying on a show to talk someone off a ledge. Athena didn't want to choose where to bury Bobby, the military was holding up his body, Gerrard is back, Chim is firmly in the anger stage. Eddie is serving after having 50 seconds of screentime total in the past 3 episodes. Buck is somehow the stable one. No eulogies. The funeral is actually the last 5 minutes of the episode. Athena sends Bobby to Minnesota to be buried with his first wife and kids. No one but her and the kids are there. The scene is somehow the same as the leaked script. We brace ourselves for Bobby to rise from the dead. He doesn't. The episode ends. The water is on fire in the promo for 817. The episode starts rated 2.2 on IMDb, currently sitting at 3.3. No one is happy. Even the Facebook wine moms are pissed and saying they'll never watch the show again.

The cast cancel their appearance at a convention in Paris because production will take longer than expected to wrap. Ryan is finally back on set consistently. There's a small earthquake. More callbacks to previous episodes that a showrunner should be allowed to add. Athena wants to go back to work. Buck and Eddie are fighting like a married couple. Karen is trying to help Athena. Hen doesn't want to be captain. Chim is stress building furniture for the baby. Eddie brings Chris to LA to cheer Buck up. Evancito and cariño are now canon ways a member of the Diaz family has referred to Buck. A bunch of stills of a plotline with Buck are posted but the scenes never make it to the show. A building explodes with Athena right outside.

Production wraps. They have a 20s-themed party at a bowling alley, the drinks make fun of how they get the scripts super late, Oliver doesn't dress up. Oliver and Ryan are sent out to do promo in a way they have never before. Everyone is wondering if buddie is going canon. They don't, but ryliver is definitely up in the air. Oliver calls the you wanna go for the title "super gay" and Ryan calls Oliver his love interest. Oliver seems a bit too happy talking about Ryan's body and Ryan can't make himself read a tweet about being topped by Oliver. Angela talks about 911 at the Met Gala red carpet.

The finale has the weirdest pace ever. Eddie gets a going away party even though he's been living in Texas for months and Buck put in for a transfer out of the 118 with no lead-up. Buck drags a guy out of a closet. Athena and Chimney are teaming up to save a couple of people trapped. The building starts to collapse again. Eddie is getting ready to leave but sees the news and rushes to the scene. He saves Buck and Ravi. There are 4 Eddie dramatic reveals in 3 minutes and 47 seconds of runtime. Complete with superhero music. They save the guy they were trying to save. The kid who was helping them had actually been even more seriously injured. He's dying. But teamwork makes the dream work or something like that and they manage to save the kid in a very blatant parallel to Bobby's death, making it seem that Bobby wouldn't have died if the team was all together. Eddie is still leaving until Chim tells him not to. Captain Han is set up. Eddie's arc is solved without a single conversation on screen after 21 episodes across 2 seasons. Maddie has the baby off-screen. Eddie gets another dramatic reveal, there are 8 Eddie reveals in the last 3 episodes of the season. Athena sells the dream house Bobby and her were building. The kid is named Robert Nash Han. Buck might've moved out of Eddie's house but it's unclear. Hen and Karen finally adopt Mara. It feels like a rushed series finale.

The show is being accused of queerbaiting after successfully dodging that for years, people are wondering if Bobby could still be alive. Angela is giggling at questions, saying she doesn't know the future of the characters, mentioning the funeral had a closed casket. No one is happy. The finale is rated 4. The season somehow has 2 of the 10 top-rated episodes of the show and the bottom 3 episodes and 4 of the bottom 5-tied. Season 9 is confirmed and ABC representatives say there is no end in sight. Somehow Deuxmoi posts about wanting the tea on why Peter got written off. No one knows what to expect from season 9.

And that's not even everything you missed in the last 2 years in 911.

#911 #911 spoilers #thoughts thoughts thoughts #ooooof #i had to do this to stop thinking about it #this is long oaksaoskas #this has 4k words #i could be writing fic but im doing this soaksasoaksas

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honourablejester · 6 months ago

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I was watching a video on top battlefield moments from science fiction, and I was delighted to see included the moment from the Babylon 5 episode ‘Severed Dreams’ where Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari shows up to the Battle of Babylon 5 to invite the enemy Earth Alliance ships to run the fuck away. Because yes. That moment is always a correct choice.

“This is Ambassador Delenn, of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw, or be destroyed.”

“Negative! We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ships!”

“Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else.”

Followed by the EA ships proving that they did, indeed, value their lives. Heh.

With no context whatsoever, this moment is still boss as hell. One lady shows up with three cruisers and a dinky little White Star warship, and she makes the opposing side, which two seconds ago had the station and all its exhausted defenders dead to rights, literally run away. She says go and they do. Immediately, no questions asked. And she implies why, she implies that Minbari are people humans just don’t want to fight, but if you don’t have context, it might not be clear to you the scale of what she’s talking about.

Which is that, fifteen years ago, Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari, in her fury and grief over what she saw as the murder of her mentor, cast the deciding vote that lead to the Earth-Minbari war, which is a nice thing to call what was essentially a genocidal religious crusade on behalf of the Minbari to completely annihilate the human race. And they damn near succeeded. She regretted her decision almost immediately, but by the time she managed to halt what she’d started, it was during the Battle of the Line. The final annihilation of Earth itself. Earth, humanity, fought them for every inch of space in between, but they lost every single fight. All the way to Earth. No one, except Sheridan, the man behind her, survived battle with the Minbari. And Sheridan, it has to be said, basically cheated, to almost war crime levels, by using a distress call to lure a Minbari ship into a nuclear minefield. That was the only victory humanity eked out. The Minbari just steamrolled them, an implacable tide of annihilation that literally nothing they had could stop. The Earth-Minbari War was not stopped by anything humanity did, it was stopped by Delenn herself showing the Council of Nine that humans had Minbari souls (aka that humans and Minbari could reincarnate as each other, making them in religious terms the same species), granting the Council a religious ground to halt the war. Humanity was, essentially, annihilated by Delenn’s fury, and saved by her compassion, and there was nothing they could do to influence either of them.

That, in this moment, is what just appeared on this battlefield. Embodied in this woman. A fifteen year shadow of the end of their race. The Battle of the Line is etched in every human memory in this setting, the moment when they evacuated their homeworld, evacuated Earth, while every fighting ship they possessed died in orbit trying to delay, not stop, just delay, the implacable tide of the Minbari onslaught.

When Delenn shows up and, in cold, quiet fury, says ‘withdraw or be destroyed’, she fucking means it, and there is not a single human being in this galaxy (or, to be fair, anyone else either) who doesn’t believe her. The Minbari have proved it. You can piss off anyone else in the galaxy you like, you can fight gods, but you do not, ever, piss off the Minbari. Especially not this Minbari.

Because she’s learned since then. She has seen the horrors of war, she has felt the almost incomprehensible stain of blood on her hands, she has fought to stop what she started and realised how infinitely more difficult it is, and she has learned. So if she goes to war now, it is with full knowledge of the cost and the consequence. If you tip her over that line, woe betide you. Because it means she’s decided that your death is worth whatever she can’t stop in the aftermath, and if your death is worth that much, then there’s nothing in this galaxy that will prevent it.

God, but Delenn was such an absolute tour de force of a character. This quiet, gentle, soft-spoken woman whose fury had destroyed races and whose compassion had saved the galaxy. She’s not even warrior caste, she’s religious caste. She’s not, technically speaking, a fighter. But hers is the voice that starts and ends wars, and she has never once flinched from personally standing in the face of annihilation to do so.

If she told you to stop being silly and go home before something bad happened, I promise you, you would listen too. Heh.

(Also yes, I’m aware I’ve posted pretty much exactly this several times before, but literally every time I rewatch that scene it brings this wave of giddy awe and wild ferociousness back. Literally. It’s a scene that makes you want to fist-fight god, and a scene that makes you think you could maybe win too. If Delenn is behind you, then even if you don’t win, you will mess them the fuck up in the process. She’s inspiring that way. Heh).

#babylon 5 #nostalgia #ambassador delenn of the minbari #sorry i'm posting this again #i know #but THAT SCENE #it does that to you #you know?

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scrapyardboyfriends · 4 days ago

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for those of us casuals who abandoned ship when robert left, how would you describe the changes in aaron’s character since we last saw him?

he seems in some ways more emotionally open in his relationship, at least as far as saying i love you more frequently and easily, and getting married to someone he’s known 9 months. but i read he came back a chas-anti and that losing liv (and robert) made him harder.

hes in a marriage which is clearly not long for this world so not sure how much of his vibe rn is his new vibe or is john specific?

Aaron has had a lot of misery and trauma to deal with in these last six years and I think he's been really beaten down and exhausted and I feel like the idea of John represented a little bit of hope for him but I feel like a lot of his "emotional openness" that you've been seeing in these last couple weeks is more to do with the fact that A) he's trying to convince himself he loves John and B) it's easier to say to John because he doesn't feel it as deeply.

His post Robert spiral was rough. He was just doing anything and everything to try and feel something. He was so broken and it was very sad. There were lots of reckless hook ups, drinking, lots of crime with Cain. Then he also lost access to Seb, which just broke him more. Seb was like this last shred of hope and that life he lost that he could hold onto and that was taken from him too.

I think the lockdown episode where he got that letter from Robert settled something in him for a bit. It let him know that Robert really did love him and it allowed him, for plot purposes to say that he would always love Robert but if the chance to move on came around, he felt like he could take it now.

Then he meets Ben. I don't think he had nearly the same emotional openness with Ben as he appears to have right now with John. I don't even think they did their cringe in unison "I love you" until just before Ben was about to be paddled to death. Also Covid meant they blessedly had very little physical affection. Plus the most emotion Aaron showed during that whole relationship was when the idea of Robert appealing came up and he "chose" Ben over the potential heartbreak of Robert not winning said appeal.

During the Ben era, they also did the Liv alcoholism story, which really exhausted Aaron even more. He was trying so hard to help her and she just was not in a place to accept that and their relationship got even more toxic than it had ever been before to the point where they actually finally acknowledged it when he was going to move away with Ben. And he left on very bad terms with her because he thought she'd killed Ben.

So then he's all "this place hasn't been the same since Robert went to prison" and he goes off to hang with Adam on the run, which apparently landed him in Italy where he met off screen Marco. Now we know nothing about Marco, except that Aaron was apparently happy cause you know...he was off screen and the angst plots couldn't get him there. But I would imagine that getting out of the village and all of the memories was probably really helpful for him at the time.

Then he came back for the 50th anniversary. He reconciled with Liv but then she died and that was horrible for him. He also discovered Chas's ongoing affair with Al, which is why she forced Aaron out of the village on the day of Liv's funeral because she wanted to keep her secret.

Then Italy wasn't so great for him anymore. He was grieving and spiraling and off screen Marco was not a good support system and broke up with him. He was apparently being reckless enough to steal 30 grand from the Italian mafia and worried Adam enough to call Cain.

So Cain and Caleb drag him back and hold him hostage basically in a barn. This Aaron was a mess. He was very much a Chas Anti because he blamed her for Liv's death. Her meeting with Al during the storm got her injured and Paddy wanted to go see her in hospital and sent Liv out into the storm to check on Eve, which got her crushed by the caravan. And then he also blamed her for taking away his support system when grieving her death. And brought up a lot of stuff from the past if I recall. But he was mostly blaming her for Liv's death so all of the other very valid complaints kind of got swept under the rug.

Anyway, he was pretty awful to everyone. He was mean to Sam, to Paddy, to Vinny. He had a whole thing with Cain that resulted in them trying to beat each other up and landed Cain in hospital with some brief, curable for the plot, brain damage. Everyone hated him and wished he'd never come back even though they had dragged him back.

Then Chas got cancer and he was like "great I'm going to lose someone else maybe" and he tried to run away and leave again. Mack tracked him down and they had a long chat about how Aaron couldn't stand to lose another person, go to another funeral etc and how he was putting on this act of not caring because it was easier than getting close to people and then losing them. That last part feels pretty poignant to now.

So after that chat, he came back and reconciled with Chas and then stepped up to help her with her treatment and recovery and everyone else eventually stopped hating him completely. He settled down a bit again. But he was still pretty empty and didn't have a lot going on. (I'm still working my way through some of his 2024 stuff). I just got to the part about him telling Chas he is positive for the cancer gene and talking about how he doesn't want to die.

And then just before the John stuff started, he had apparently decided to get back on the apps so he was starting to open himself up to the possibility of meeting someone and moving on.

And then he met John. And he hated him at first. Didn't want to even go there because of all the Robert stuff his presence brought up. But then the Plot must Plot so he did go there. But he wasn't very emotionally open with him either at first. And John basically had to manipulate a half hearted "I think I might love you" confession out of him by lying about his Aiden trauma some more.

He didn't really start being more open about telling John he loved him until after John had helped out with the Anthony stuff and disposed of the body when Aaron thought he'd killed him. And I think that A) led him to be very grateful and B) led to John manipulating him more and being like "this is what people in love do" etc. And I think that led to Aaron saying "I love you" a lot more.

And now, like I said at the top of this very long response, I feel like he's saying "I love you" a lot more because he's trying to placate him and also convince himself and because it's easier to say to John because he doesn't love him the same way as Robert. He tells Robert "it's just words" when he tells him he still loves him but that's what I would call it when he tells John he loves him.

I do think he wants to love John. I think he thinks it would be easier if he could just be with John and spare himself the risk of utter destruction if he let's Robert back in and loses him again.

So I guess, all this to say, I don't think Aaron is suddenly better with expressing his feelings or that he'll be telling Robert he loves him all the time or whatever when they get back together. I feel like Aaron regressed in a lot of ways post Robert, partially because they didn't know what else to do with his character. So I think him learning to trust Robert again, to trust love again, would actually be good growth for him.

#ed asks #robron #aaron dingle #emmerdale #sorry this got soooooo long #haha #aaron has had lots of trauma

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daffodils-and-viscera · 7 months ago

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i've seen a lot of posts comparing mastermind to truth seekers but hear me out: ozzie's

SO this may be long buckle in. these episodes kinda have the same plot?

blitzø has found himself in a bit of a sitch, as it were...

our beloved dramatic gay owl is at home watching gabriela pine over alejandro, when suddenly... blitzy is in trouble! omg let's get cunty and go save the day!!

however, despite showing up and saving lives (he may have literally saved blitzø's life in mastermind but that outfit from ozzie's changed all our lives forever soo...) blitzø isn't necessarily ((outwardly)) happy to see stolas (((we all know he does not mind stolas' ass in his face but stay with me here)))

stolas' privilege allows him to be immediately heard and not punished by the people who would never listen to blitzø's side of things, and stolas gets to be his dramatic lil bitch self and we love to see it

in ozzie's, blitzø has his past come back to haunt him in so many ways, he is put in the spotlight and he is decidedly not comfortable there, being called out for all the shit he's done to fizz and verosika and even m&m - HOWEVER! as we all now know, all of those people actually care about blitzø and he was just being his lil destructive self. he is given the chance to defend himself but it's overwhelming and he kinda freezes up

in mastermind, blitzø is being outright blamed for things he didn't do but like.. he actually didn't do any of that ! and yet he can't defend himself because nobody would listen to him even if he wasn't gagged.

the difference between these 2 episodes is in stolas' behaviour when HE is put in the spotlight- at ozzie's he is freshly separated from stella and probably hasn’t done anything social for a long ass time and he’s not used to being in public. and here’s this thing that he thinks is gonna be fun and will help blitzø but he is not able to express himself so he hides and the result of that is blitzø pushing him away, literally doesn’t want to touch him

in MASTERMIND our birdy babe is singing his lil heart out with no regard for what anyone else thinks of him or what might happen to him, which is so beautiful (but also stolas pls try not to inhale the water).... when he doesn't hide his feelings from blitzø we see how perfect it could be when their inner worlds merge and they are finally on the same page, and blitzø does the furthest thing possible from pushing stolas away !!!

(he did however still neglect to consider octavia's feelings when he decided to drop everything for blitzø... with devastating implications in mastermind) sorry to bring the mood down but this needs to be pointed out

in ozzie's, stolas tries to invite blitzø to his place (and we all remember how well that went)........ blitzø goes home alone and loona is not there, he is all alone and sad curled up on the couch on his phone looking at all the people he believes he's let down and it's heartbreaking

when stolas goes to blitzø's place in mastermind, stolas gets all the love and support blitzø has to offer and loona is there too and blitzø curls up on the couch on his phone looking at all these people who love and support him!!! and then he makes the couch all comfy for stolas and he’s not alone?? like they’re both so not alone that it hurts my heart to think about. these 2 have so much love for each other and yeah there's gonna be tough times ahead but they are not alone! !!!!

basically both eps end the same? but also everything is better now? because blitz was loved before he just couldn’t see it through all his nonsense

and stolas is still in a messed up situation and he's still kinda problematic and he couldn’t see it before through all his nonsense but now he’s more self aware?

the real difference is they have each other now! they are so not alone it makes them look stupid!!

anyway this is the longest post i've ever made sorry if it's rambly i have adhd and a lot of feelings about these two

#i love having thoughts #helluva boss #stolitz #stolas #blitzø #stolas x blitz #helluva boss blitz #stolas goetia #helluva boss mastermind #helluva boss ozzie's

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bella-studio · 1 month ago

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My observations in SnP's movements (Part 1)

◾️This is a post that I've been wanting to make ever since I made this reblog, and I finally did YAY.

◾️What I showed in the reblog is a very small part of what can be found. So I watched the episodes a couple more times for that. There is a possibility that I missed something, but still there is a HUGE part of the examples for this topic.

◾️What am I going to show here? Basically, I will show what Skid and Pump do differently, also mentioning what they do the same way. Also I will show something that is exclusive to each of them.

◾️Skid and Pump are the main characters, and it makes sense that they are the most fleshed out, right down to how they move. And it was a joy for me to put it all together.

◾️This is a very big post, so most of it will be under "Read more".

◾️And since there is a limit on the number of pictures (30), the post will be divided into 2 parts + a bonus (one part per day, so 3 days).

◾️I hope you'll find it interesting to read my ramblings about my favorite characters XD (and maybe useful).

◾️Let's start!

NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCES.

◾️If you describe the differences in SnP's movements in a basic way, then it sounds like this: both Skid and Pump are very active children, but Skid is more active. So much so that smear frames are used more often on him. Skid moves his arms and legs a lot, while Pump usually keeps them close to him and moves a little more carefully.

1. Waving.

◾️Sometimes they wave the same way.

◾️But more often Skid does it faster.

2. Running/walking.

◾️Most of the time they run and walk the same way, but I want to highlight a couple of moments when this is not the case.

◾️In such cases, Skid waves his arms, and Pump holds them behind or to the sides.

3. Jumping.

◾️When they jump in place, Skid moves his legs faster.

4. Sharp turn.

◾️Pump always enters a sharp turn with small jumps on one leg.

◾️Skid almost always does this by sliding in.

5. Sneaking.

◾️There are 4 examples, and in two of them they do it like this: Skid spreads his arms wide and takes big steps, while Pump presses his arms to himself and takes small steps.

◾️In other cases, they did it the other way around or the same way.

6. Startle/sudden stop.

◾️Skid waves his arms to regain his balance, while Pump presses his hands to himself, trying to stop himself.

7. Sitting on the floor.

◾️Skid crosses his legs, and Pump stretches them forward.

8. Random moments.

◾️A few of funny moments that fit the basic description of their movements, where Skid uses his limbs more actively when moving, and Pump doesn't.

◾️Stairs: Skid goes down the stairs with a "creature" walk. Pump just rolls down.

◾️Window: Skid dives out of the window, Pump does a flip.

◾️Van: Skid immediately steps into the van since he is taller, and Pump helps himself with his hands to get into it.

◾️Other parts:

◾️Part 2

◾️Bonus

#spooky month #spooky month skid #spooky month pump #spooky month susie #spooky month michelle #spooky month father gregor #spooky month gregor #spooky month dexter #spooky month lila #my thoughts

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sgiandubh · 14 days ago

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In other news...

Remember this tiny business charade, back in January 2024?

[Source: the UK's Companies House website - https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15374750]

At the time of its sudden appearance on the fandom's radars, it was discussed to death. Two things mainly intrigued: the company's unusual name and the fact it was registered in England, not Scotland. For further details, kindly see this post, especially if you are new and have no idea this ever happened: https://sgiandubh.tumblr.com/post/740086132385218560/so-sam-is-no-longer-scottish-he-now-appears-as - posted on January 21st 2024, which is to say an eternity ago.

At the time, my own speculation was that he might have blocked a slot for further business projects, since changing the company's name is usually very easy. Same goes for the address, provided it would also be in England, only.

In the light of not so recent, but totally ignored events, it would seem things were a bit different, though:

Quietly dissolved by Companies House UK on 17 December 2024, after its address was automatically changed to the UK's Companies House default, somewhere in Wales.

What happened?

In a nutshell, the accounting office provided at registration as the new company's address more than probably disputed it, for false or fraudulent use. I immediately remind you and all the other 'experts' out there (ahem...), that Companies House never checks the provided address at the moment of the company's registration. Given the activity rhythm, that would be materially impossible, not to mention the operative/maintenance costs. Thus, UK legislation simply provides for sanctions, hoping it would be enough to discourage or warn cheap thrills amateurs about the consequences of any fraudulent use.

[Source: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/companies-house-faqs-address-fraud-and-correcting-the-register/]

Companies House then changed the registered address to their own default one, on 1 August 2024, allowing 28 days for the company to make the necessary corrections.

This did not happen and so, the UK Companies House went all the way and gave a first notice for compulsory strike-off, on 24 September 2024...

... followed by the final strike off notice, on 17 December 2024, since the company clearly failed to do so:

This happened for a very clear reason, that nobody - including myself - was able to identify or substantiate at the time the news of its apparition hit our screens. Reason being this was likely a hoax, by bored fans who went all the way to registering a company, just for shits and giggles.

How was this even possible?

Easy: under the current UK legal provisions, literally anyone with a keyboard can register a company on behalf of literally anyone else. Provided they know some simple, basic facts about the person involved:

[Source: https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/register-your-company?step-by-step-nav=37e4c035-b25c-4289-b85c-c6d36d11a763]

For example:

Town of birth: Balmaclellan, Scotland

Mother's maiden name: Leat

Father's first name: David

All these informations are readily available to a keen (obsessed?) reader of S's Waypoints memoir. Which does mention his maternal uncle, a widely appreciated wicker sculptor (and author of the Fire Cross episode bonfire in the series, by the way):

[Source: screenshot from my own ebook]

Sidenote: S also mentions Owen Scott, his mother's partner, as a 'dear family friend'. Oh, how Victorian and ultimately how revealing. Made me think of this very recent statement, actually:

[Source: https://deadline.com/2025/06/sam-heughan-macbeth-royal-shakespeare-company-debut-1236421062/]

Circling back to the unpronounceable company, it goes to show how far some unknown idiots are ready to go, in their quest for an ultimately delusional relevance, for I also remind you where we are: on the fringes of a dwindling fandom, akin to a supernova, which is to say a dying star. Yes, as far as spending £50 (which is, by the way, a ridiculous amount) to register a fake company on S's behalf. I also happen to doubt S knows about all this, but if he doesn't - well: he should, because this can also be construed as whoever dunnit's intention to harm his and his businesses reputation.

I have an idea, but I choose to remain silent, because it is simply a hunch I am perfectly unable to substantiate.

PS: Thank you, dearie, always 😘😘😘😘. Your tips are superb and your affection - real and deeply mutual. But you obviously know all this.

#fandom #shitshow #business

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mrcrawly · 2 months ago

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Dr. House is still some of the best autistic representation I've ever seen

I made my initial post a while ago, but I'm finally starting season 4 and I feel just as strongly about this. I did get a little bit of pushback on my initial post so let me be clear: I don't care if you disagree with me! I don't care if you don't think Dr. House is autistic! Do not get into my comments and be condescending about it! I'm autistic and this is my opinion! Make your own post about why you think Dr. House is neurotypical and leave me alone!

Disregard for social cues or normalities. I'm really driving this one home because every time I watch this show it shocks me how much he's like me. Not necessarily even because he's an asshole, but because he's just weird. This is old news, but he has an entire conversation with Wilson about how he's not good with first dates and conversations because either the topic of conversation is boring, or there's subtext, and to understand the subtext you need "a decoder ring." Hm yes very neurotypical thing to say. He doesn't have much sense of boundaries or privacy, and regularly embarrasses Wilson or will discuss something gross with Cuddy while someone else is around. He also says pretty gross things in public and in inappropriate situations, even if just to be funny. Some of this is just generally him being an asshole, but I think some of this is genuinely a lack of understanding in how to interact with people. Sometimes he just plainly doesn't respond when asked a question or spoken to when he doesn't know what to say or doesn't want to speak.

Strong sense of justice and morality. I mention this a little in my initial post, but I don't remember if it was its own point. House gets angry when people endanger his patients, and will get angry at anyone, no matter who, if their decision hurts his patient. When Wilson was too afraid to put his foot down and insist that the family accept House's treatment in "Family," he gets pissed off at Wilson and tells him he's a "coward." He apologizes for this after because it was uncalled for, and Wilson's intentions were good, but nevertheless he was right. This is not me saying that House is a particularly moral individual. If you took a shot every time he violated very basic ethical principles you would die of alcohol poisoning before you reached the second season of the show. But House's concern is his patient's life. In his mind, if his actions save his patient's life, it is ultimately moral. When his team fucks up and risks their patient, he gets pissed off and will humiliate them so they understand the gravity of their mistake.

Specific and niche interests. I mention in my initial post that he has very few interests (mostly General Hospital and his job), but since the first couple seasons I've gotten more a feel for his love of music. He owns live recordings of Elvis on vinyl. He owns more than one guitar (from what I saw of his apartment). Music is kind of his thing. To take that a little further, it seems like he collects things. This is by no means necessarily an autistic trait, but collecting is very common with autistic people who have special interests. I collect Spiderman merchandise, for example.

Resistant to change. I don't think I'd seen the episode yet, but after he's shot at the end of season 2, he insists that the carpet that's been stained with his blood is kept. He goes as far as to annoy everyone incessantly in order to get his carpet back. House is also just generally the kind of person who wants things exactly how he wants them. He doesn't like people messing with his things or for his environment to change, even when the inconvenience is simple and ultimately unimportant. In the last episode of season 3, Wilson says this pretty plainly. House has played the same guitar since eighth grade, driven the same car for ten years, and been living in the same place for fifteen. Change just isn't his thing. It's often hard for autistic people to adapt to significant changes because of the way they process information. Change is overwhelming.

Observant and analytical. When Wilson starts yawning, he doesn't just write this off or explain it, he immediately starts considering every possible reason and deducing why he's yawning. House likes puzzles, and symptomology is his thing. He also definitely violated Wilson's trust by spiking his coffee with amphetamines, but he did so based on a line of logic and reason. This isn't necessarily an autistic characteristic, but it is fairly common among some autistic people to view a course of action or event through the lense of logic rather than considering the emotional consequences. I do this a lot. House is also especially blunt and almost excessively honest. He does lie (obviously), but when it really matters to be honest he will be, and he won't mince his words for people's comfort. This is going back to differences in how he experiences empathy.

This post is honestly probably boring, because I'm really just driving my initial points home. Again, I don't really think that House MD discusses autism in the most meaningful or accurate way, but House feels more authentic to me than actual, intentional autistic representation. Also, some of these things can be attributed to depression or House's problems with attachment; this is just my perspective on some things.

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heavenlee773 · 11 months ago

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Fairly Odd Parents; A New Wish finale spoilers!!

Okay so am I the only one who didn’t like the fact that Hazel’s friends now know about the fairies?

Because like, how do you go on from that? Maybe it’s because I never really got attached to her friends the same way I did with Dev, but it’s just racking my mind over how the episodes in season two will go.

It kind of feels like them knowing about the fairies will only cause troublesome situations like “oh it’s fine! Hazel can just wish us out of this mess” or “Hazel can you wish this for us please?” Which will probably cause a lot of problems, and there’s no going back from that.

It could be because on every site I watched FOPANW for free, it’s missing “The Wellsington Hotellsington” episode which I’m pretty sure is the episode where Winn gets formally introduced, and the trio’s friendship cements. I’ll probably have to buy that episode since websites don’t want to add it for some reason…

But now Season 2 most likely will be focused more on the trio and their shenanigans, so I don’t knowww… I’m really biased though, I love Dev as a character and I love his and Hazel’s dynamic (before the whole taking over fairy world thing)☹️

I like Jasmine and Winn but I just don’t care for them, you know?

And onto Hazel’s brother Antony, he’s cool and all but why does he need to know about the fairies?

Like I know this makes it SO much easier for Hazel, and it’s basically a huge weight lifted off of her, but story wise?? Eughhh I don’t know😖

I mean, if they explore his and Deja’s relationshipppp hmmm okayyyy😋😋 But I just know how they’d segue way into that, and thinking about it makes me uncomfortableeee!!

Basically what I’m saying is, I CAN’T WAIT FOR SEASON TWO AND I HOPE THERE IS MORE DEV CONTENT!!!

PLEASEE don’t have Dev just be a one off antagonist☹️☹️

The theory that Dev keeps his memories because of his shades (and also his similarities to some other rich kid that was in the original series of whom I forgot his name) is cool, but also awkwarddd— because what does he do with that information?? Like okay buddy, you remember. Now what? He never had the best relationship with Peri in the first place!! I’d prefer if maybe season one went on WITHOUT Irep interfering or at least appearing but not appearing again until the next season, because THEN Dev and Peri could’ve connected at least a little, and Dev could have more realizations about “maybe I don’t need my father’s approval” or something— then in season two when Dev goes on a spiral or something, let’s say his dad ticks him off;

Dev tries to have a heart to heart with his dad after Hazel and Peri push him to,

“I feel like you don’t care about me, and all I want is for you to be proud of me—“

And his dad is like,

“Come back to me when you do something I can be proud of.”

SO THEN he becomes bitter at Hazel and Peri for “making” him go do that, and turns to Irep to take over Fairy World.

Eughhhh but this is a kid’s show after all, and they want to cater to their attention spans so a show that takes a while to fully flesh out their characters would probably go right over some kid’s heads (or not, they could probably become smarter.)

I still love the show, and fanfiction exists for this exact reason—

I guess that’s enough of my Ramb-Lee’s for now, if anyone wants to talk about FOPANW, I’m here😝.

(Dev looks so CUTE in this scene🥺)

Peace!!

-🤍

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hanaybuns · 3 months ago

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lawyer kara

so i was listening to doramatsu volume 4 (the iromatsu lawyer one) and kept thinking about karamatsu's characterization in the tracks

for the most part, ichimatsu stays consistent to his neet character in both tracks. he's generally lethargic, negative, rude, antagonistic, and plays the straight man while he's a lawyer and the defendant. But i feel like they take karamatsu's character in a really funny direction

like, he's definitely karamatsu in both tracks. he has all of the karamatsu character beats: narcissistic, pathetic, romantic, painful/cringey, generally kind ... but man they dial it up to 100000000. like seriously, every other sentence is filled to the brim with flowery prose and dumb english phrases.

like, look at this, these are some of lawyer karamatsu's lines

and of course... how could i not mention:

and defendant kara isn't any better

i think lawyer kara is much more ooc, but even then defendant kara also goes on a million monologues about love every 0.05 seconds. he's also extra dumb in the defendant track. now one could make the claim that karamatsu is playing a character in the lawyer track, but for the most part if you listen to the other volumes, everyone else is basically the same. kara is really the only character that's like... deeply ooc. i have a couple theories as to why they did this.

so first, these are audio alone, there are no visuals to accompany the dialogue. so the character acting has to be a bit more exaggerated to keep the listener engaged. if you have no visual gags, you have to compensate for that with funny dialogue and sound effects. basically, the quality of the drama track is heavily dependent the dialogue and the line delivery.

and lemme tell you, yuichi nakamura is hysterical in both of these tracks. like genuinely his line delivery is so funny, i highly recommend listening to these tracks again. so a part of the fact that kara is ooc is because they probably wanted to utilize his more poetic, emotional, and passionate sides to make the most out of the medium.

Secondly, these tracks were released in 2016, before seasons 1 and 2. so they honestly didn't actually know much about karamatsu's character, he wasn't as fleshed out as he is now. at this point, the only point of reference they had for when karamatsu was angry was either during gags or in episode 24 (very serious). so they had to experiment a little with what an angry or aggressive kara would look like and i think they came to a really interesting conclusion.

as we know, kara has a tendency to mask his true intentions under the guise of kindness and love.

this is one of the rarer moments from season 1 where he was annoyed that they wanted him to fill the kerosene. but see what he did there? he took his annoyance and wrapped it in a ball of "i'm so cool and kind and loving, i'm doing this out of love''

lawyer kara is that concept, but dialed up to 1000000000. he starts slapping the crap out of ichimatsu under the guise of wanting to help him prove that he's not servile, when in reality, he's probably just being sadistic.

third, shu matsubara (the head writer of ososan) didn't write these tracks. he actually didn't write any of them! the person who wrote these 2 tracks is kazuyuki fudeyasu. he's a very prolific screen writer, here are some of the shows he's worked on:

and many many more! (these are all from his imdb page)

and from what i know, he actually never worked on the show. he's only worked on other audio tracks for doramatsu. so this karamatsu was written by someone who is a very talented writer... but has never written for karamatsu before.

finally, i'll cap this off with the most plausible and important theory of all:

it's fan service.

#ososan #osomatsu san #osmt #おそ松さん #karamatsu #lawyer karamatsu #but no he truly is insane in this track on every level #its so fun

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bisclavret · 8 months ago

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what SICKO wrote the last scenes between gwaine and merlin is what i want to know. because even lancelot's last episode with merlin - which had to have been intentionally gay-coded since it's obvious the man is grappling with his feelings for merlin morphing from platonic to explicitly romantic - is still subtext because he doesn't have the tools to healthily express his feelings so he goes for the biggest romantic gesture he can think of: sacrificing his life to save a loved one. the writers also make sure to root this gesture back to gwen by adding a scene where she's inadvertently asking him to make that sacrifice first, so although it's very obvious that it's more for merlin than for gwen that lancelot dies for, she is there to add some plausible deniability, thus keeping his sexuality within the realms of subtext.

i don't want to delve too deeply into arthur's last scenes with merlin as there is both so much to unpack about what they mean to each other and there is also somehow nothing left to say that hasn't been said before. my point is just that there's so much at stake that if the viewer doesn't want to deal with the romantic subtext between them they can hang onto the 38 other dynamics merlin and arthur have represented to each other that the writers spent 5 years plastering on top of the gay subtext. basically, while the romance feels textual emotionally-speaking, it isn't "canon".

i don't mean to say that any relationship is better than another (even though i obviously have a preference) but that in gwaine's final scenes with merlin there's just no subtext anymore. his becomes the most explicit expression of romantic love towards merlin, and therefore the most explicit acknowledgment of homosexual love and the existence of queer people on the show:

it starts out with merlin suggesting that gwaine saved a girl from the saxons and then looked after her because he has a more than platonic interest in her, and they show us that merlin is right - gwaine and the girl eira slept together - even as gwaine half-heartedly denies any interest (which, why even deny it? merlin saw them holding hands! unless the lie is part of the point). then in that very same scene and directly after this exchange, merlin needs rescuing from the saxons, calls after gwaine, and gwaine performs the exact same role for him that he performed for eira: he saves him from the saxons and looks after him (for as long as merlin lets him).

the parallel between merlin and eira with such quick cause and effect (it literally all happens within the same minute) is where the shift from subtext to text becomes undeniable. yes, there have been other moments on the show where a character's affections towards two different genders are beat-for-beat the same, but, again, there has always been plausible deniability. in this case the parallel is meant to be taken at face value: the core point of it is to show us how gwaine expresses his attraction.

then, the dialogue they chose to bookend this scene with takes it a few steps further by functioning as a textual love confession to merlin himself: the scene opens with gwaine thanking merlin for everything he did for eira, and merlin saying that there is no need to thank him as it was the least he could do. a minute later, after merlin thanks gwaine for protecting him from the saxons as both merlin and the show just concluded gwaine did for eira for romantic reasons (even as he denied it by outright lying), gwaine parrots what merlin said when gwaine thanked him: no need to thank me, merlin, it's the least i could do.

but this comes off as the opposite of dismissive: in fact, this echoing of merlin's words is meant to jolt both merlin and the audience. by saying this right after saving merlin from the saxons, gwaine has now intentionally pointed merlin's attention towards the explicitly romantic parallel between himself and eira. gwaine is directly implying he just did for merlin what merlin correctly deduced he did for a woman because he desired her sexually and romantically, and he is using merlin's own words to challenge him into seeing past the initial flimsy lie that there is nothing between them. and what's behind the lie, of course, is that gwaine has done all of this and more because he desires merlin sexually and romantically. the camera even lingers on merlin, allowing him and the viewer to absorb what just happened. that for as long as we have known gwaine, his motivations have always boiled down to "i want to be there for merlin". and now both the audience and merlin finally know for sure what was motivating him the entire time.

what's more, by using merlin's own dismissive words, gwaine also implicates merlin's penchant for repression and denial and never allowing himself to be given credit where it's due. this unfortunately never properly gets dismantled on the show, but this moment shows that gwaine knows merlin well enough to know that he goes above and beyond for people, and that merlin's reasons for this ring as false to gwaine's ears as gwaine's reasons for saving damsels do to merlin. it also bittersweetly implies that gwaine has accepted that these are the platonic, repressed terms on which he can have a relationship with merlin. but i think the way in which he explicitly points all of this out to merlin is meant to imply that he isn't entirely happy about having to accept that. or, to circle back to eira, that merlin seems to be cheering for him to enter a heterosexual relationship when gwaine would clearly rather be with him.

what's additionally interesting to me about this is that this is one of the only scenes on this show that touch on same gender attraction that isn't using magic as a metaphor - because merlin doesn't have magic at the moment, yes, but also because gwaine is the more active character in this sequence, and he's an adventure hero, so he simply fights the bad guy to protect the person he loves. there is no metaphor to wrap this in, so he just gets to explicitly state his bisexuality. in the next scene, the very last one he and merlin share, it all becomes about magic again, which is both representative of merlin's sexuality and the show's "plausible deniability" approach to gay-coding, and so neither gwaine or merlin are permitted to acknowledge it. also, and this is for another post altogether, but all things point to "gwaine knew". not least because he gets to come out as queer without the complications of the magic-as-gay-metaphor which in turn emboldens him to ask merlin for the truth as directly as the metaphor-suffocated narrative will allow it.

tldr gwaine textually and canonically expresses and then confesses his feelings to merlin in a shockingly well-written and layered scene which makes gwaine the most explicitly queer character on bbc merlin and it's entirely because he exists outside the magic-as-gay-metaphor plot while loving someone who embodies that entire metaphor and it's crazy to me that we don't talk about this more. once again i ask what SICKO wrote this and where were they for the entire rest of this fucking show

tldrtldr at least gwaine is bi. its like i always say. at least gwaine is bi. at the end of the day. gwaine is bi. dont cry ok? gwaine is bi. at the end of the day. gwaine is bi. when all else fails. gwaine is bi. we'll always have. gwaine is bi

#[normalgirl voice] i care a normal amount. about canonically bi gwaine. come closer i promise i am normal about canonically bi gwaine #i should make like that bi lancelot guy and submit this as a paper. the people need to know bbc gwaine is bi (REAL NOT CLICKBAIT)#gwaine #bbc merlin #gwaine x merlin #merwaine #bbcm #ALL OF THAT packed into a 2 minute scene. after having gwaine sleepwalk through almost two entire seasons #they even managed to make giving gwaine a last-minute female love interest feel less like a cop-out the way these things usually do #& more like a quick way to make him explicitly bisexual. and then they made it even funnier by making her fuck off and betray him for money #eira with the bleach blonde hair you will always be famous. to me #this show would be so good if it was good. the “gwaine” show on the other hand IS good. it just unfortunately . doesnt exist

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myechoecho · 1 month ago

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The Prisoner of Beauty, ep 20

Only one episode today. :(

I adore how he used her tactic star gazing as a pretext for a date. And how she pretended to take him literally and requested that he get the canal engineer to come. He refuses, but it also shows that Wei Shao may have finally realized that Xiao Qiao just wanted to spend time with him.

He really is trying - he noticed that her hairpin is different but looks a bit deflated when she points out she only turned it around

HIS CONFESSION THOUGH. He fears losing her, and equates it to losing his grandfather, father and brother. He has started to fall for her, but worries that he may fall deeper and he could lose her. Which makes sense, given what happened with his family.

Credit to Wei Shao because while he may be a bit dense, once he has worked things out in his own mind he's very honest. He is not afraid to admit that he is scared of what he feels or losing her.

Xiao Qiao also figures out that he fears they will one day be on opposing sides.

She takes his hand to reassure him! His face when she does!

Then she pledges her loyalty to him and basically says a marriage vow to him. It means so much to him, yet he briefly hesitates before he puts his hand over hers to seal in the pledge. And the unspoken words that he would do the same for her.

Honestly, this whole scene was fantastic. They are so honest with one another and their feelings, even if is sort of indirect.

Wei Shao is still dense though since he tries to deflect what Wei Yan is saying by saying Xiao Qiao is a "little" clever so he listens to her sometimes. When he realizes that she heard him, he has a look of a man who knows he's going to be in trouble when they get home.

He can't even hide it from his mom. Because when she says he needs to keep the upper hand, his mind goes back to earlier and the trouble he's trying to avoid and he mom sees through him.

It is nice to see that his relationship with his mom improve.

I love how he called her out for deliberately giving his mom the sour fruit. He's not actually angry at her but listens to why she did it. Plus she not truly angry at what she overheard earlier. PROGRESS

Wei Shao is thoroughly analyzing what he feels for Xiao Qiao, and the ability to let go of hatred. His grandfather, father and brother are at the core of his internal conflict.

Going to Wei Yan for advice on if he should allow himself to love his wife might not be the best idea. Wei Yan obviously says no. Wei Shao defends Xiao Qiao at every turn. Wei Yan is right about one thing. He already loves her but what holds him back is his piety to his family.

It's pretty clear that Wei Shao will remain conflicted for a while. I love that Xiao Qiao actually understands why and is willing to give him some space. For now.

uh, Wei Yan. Is that supposed to be Xiao Qiao partially undressed? because Wei Shao will kill you.

#the prisoner of beauty #cdrama

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herefortarlos · 6 months ago

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There are sadly only three episodes left of 9-1-1: Lone Star, which returns on Monday, January 20, 2025 (the finale is set for February 3).

And sure, there’s a massive emergency—an asteroid heading for Austin—but there’s also quite a bit left to wrap up about the characters as well. In addition to whether or not Owen (Rob Lowe) might take that job offer and what’s next for Judd (Jim Parrack) with his drinking, there’s the matter of T.K. (Ronen Rubinstein) and Carlos (Rafael Silva) adopting T.K.’s half-brother Jonah as well as what’s ahead for the rest of the first responders. TV Insider turned to co-showrunner Rashad Raisani for the scoop.

How much are we going to see T.K. and Carlos trying to balance being parents and balancing work? They have family, but at the same time, they are the primary caretakers now of this kid.

Rashad Raisani: You’re putting your finger right on the end of the series is all I’ll tell you about that. That becomes a major issue, let’s put it that way.

Do they have time for themselves as a couple?

They will, I’ll put it that way, but I won’t tell you how.

As much as I love seeing Nancy (Brianna Baker) as captain and she’s already doing great, will we see Tommy (Gina Torres) back at the 126 before the show ends?

I can’t answer that. It would be too big. I can’t answer it. Let’s just say Gina Torres is a Ferrari. You don’t leave a Ferrari in the garage forever.

But will we see her physically at the 126? She could just be visiting.

[Laughs] If I answered it. I would be spoiling so much.

What else can you tease about the final three episodes for the characters and their relationships?

The thing that I can say is that everyone in the last two episodes gets pushed to their extreme limit—and some past it, to be honest. We have some of our most insane apocalyptic emergencies in 11 and 12. It’s basically a combination of The Last of Us and Chernobyl. It mirrors where all of the characters are, and most of them are in an apocalyptic space for one reason or another.

Mateo [Julian Works] is going to have an existential crisis going back to his status as a DACA, as a dreamer. T.K. and Carlos, they are not done with—yeah, they want to adopt Jonah, but it’s not that easy, and there’s going to be a major fundamental hurdle for them that they’re going to have to make a significant life decision to decide how they want to deal with it. Tommy is at the end of her life. Owen will be at the end of his life. Judd will have a new future that I think will both be very shocking but also feel hopefully very appropriate that will change the game of where he goes. Marjan is going to have a massive episode in Episode 10, which I think people will get a lot of joy from—I know I did, and I think it’s her best episode of the series. I think everybody’s going to have some big game-changing moments in the final three episodes.

What about for Paul (Brian Michael Smith)?

There’s a great—I have to say Brian pitched me an idea. He said there was this moment in the pilot where Owen tells Paul basically, there’s somewhere out there in Austin as a kid like you that doesn’t think they belong. And I want you here for when we run across that kid, you know what I mean? Whether it be non-binary, trans, gay, whatever. And Brian said, we said that in the pilot, but wouldn’t it be great if we did a story that showed that? And I thought, well, that is a great idea. And so the last two episodes we’re going to do that and we’re going to introduce a new major character, I should say, who Paul will be their kind of role model.

Are there any significant steps for any of the relationships in these last episodes beyond the adoption for Tarlos?

There may be new babies. I won’t tell you who. There may be deaths. I won’t tell you who. So there will be, there sure will be.

9-1-1: Lone Star, Returns, Monday, January 20, 2025, 8/7c, Fox

#More Tarlos to come and more story lines for everyone!#We are not surviving these last 3 episodes 😭#So happy to have story lines we don't already know about!#911 lone star #911 lone star spoilers #tarlos

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actual-changeling · 1 month ago

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y'know i'd be a lot more forgiving of mulder's shortcomings and the way he tends to treat scully if he actually changed at some point, but he doesn't. no apology, no moment of understanding, no "thank you for always saving my ass, i appreciate it so much scully", nothing. she fishes his stupid ass out of the atlantic and doesn't even get a simple thank you.

it's the same behaviour all the way through, and despite that, she still stays by his side, still supports him without question—she remains his partner even when he stops being hers, and we should really talk about that more.

mulder goes behind her back, pressures and manipulates her into doing what he wants her to do, and she still does it. she knows what he's doing, she hates it, she asks him not to—repeatedly—but in the end she'd never just give up.

the episode that especially sticks with me in that regard is folie à deux. there's a lot of moments, but there's one towards the end where she's talking to skinner, and he tells her about the examination she is scheduled to do. you know, the one she told mulder she was not going to do? the one she said "no" to? yeah.

he went behind her back, violated her consent and trust in him as a partner, and what did scully do? she did it anyway. she swallowed her tears, kept her mouth shut when skinner asked if there's something she wants to "tell him", and went to go do the examination.

but this face? when the realization of what he did fully hits her? scully is adamant about keeping her composure no matter what, especially at work, and here she almost breaks down in the middle of skinner's office.

then she pulls herself together, swallows hard, and says "i'll get right on it, sir." almost without missing a beat. skinner notices, though, and it's no surprise that he's always trying to look out for her specifically.

for me, it's the final breaking point before diana shows up, and mulder does not attempt to fix it either because HE doesn't realize how badly he fucked up. he doesn't want to.

telling her that she's the only one he trusts (which he then promptly invalidates next episode, btw) does not fix this. this is not about his trust in her, it's about her trust in him, and that trust is broken.

scully is tired and done and yet. there she goes. doing what he asks.

for that entire case, he leaves her behind just to use her to do the work he has no interest in doing. she offered to go with him because they're partners; of course she will work the case with him, it's what they do. except that mulder ditches her. verbally and physically, and then pretends like that never happened so she can play secretary for him.

it's always "i" and "me" for him, while she uses "we" and "us", and once you start noticing the verbal differences you can't stop.

mulder loves her, yes, but love is no substitute for treating someone with basic respect and kindness. it's no excuse for repeatedly doing something that person asked you not to do—without any attempt to change.

words and big declarations mean nothing if you are not backing it up with matching actions.

all it does is make you a liar.

#alex watches x files #txf #the x files #msr #dana scully #fox mulder #fox mulder x dana scully #txf meta #txf folie a deux #txf season 5 #scully meta #oh look i am at it again with my s5 takes #why you might ask no reason #i just think about that woman all day every day

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bawfulio · 2 months ago

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The worldbuilding of svtfoe is a very interesting hot mess to think about. It's like a defective puzzle: the pieces don't fit together quite right.

Especially in regards to magic/the issue of destroying it in the finale. You basically have to forget everything that was established about magic before Cleaved for it to actually feel like a sensible writing decision.

How do I know this? Because, for mad reasons, I decided to go through the series and catalog as many instances of magic being implied subtly or explicitly that it was a thing beyond Mewni. All examples are below the read more and sourced by their respective episodes

Dimensional scissors being owned by multiple beings from different dimensions, vast majority of them appear non-human/non-mewman (Shown since beginning of series)

Ponyhead uses magic to blast crystal stalactites on the ceiling of the Amethyst Arcade, making them crash into the guards from St. Olga's (S1E2: Party with a Pony)*

Star explaining how her wand needs to be regularly charged is worded in such a way that there are more like it in the multiverse (S1E8: Quest Buy You have to recharge wands with magical energy. If it goes to skull, it'll be dead forever!")

Quest Buy, an interdimensional retail store, sells wand chargers. If no other dimension has a wand like "Mewni", then there would be no reason for them to be sold (S1E8: Quest Buy)

The shard mines of Pixtopia are stated by the mine's taskmaster that they block magic. Considering that this dimension is the source of the magic mirror compacts/magic smart phones that are enable calls to anyone from any dimension, the wording implying magic period instead of a specific "butterfly magic" is interesting (S1E12: Pixtopia)

Tom's abilities in this episode (floating, fire control) seem to be a demonic variant of magic. While Daron Nefcy did say in the post-finale AMA that Tom could still create portals even after the destruction of magic (despite that same ability also being effected by Hekapoo shutting down the portal network), this fact was never stated in the show itself nor the spin-off books (S1E15: Blood Moon Ball)

Father Time, a plausibly magical being (this was never elaborated on in show nor in either spin-off books and the only answer came from Adam McArthur not Nefcy nor any of the show's writers) states that magic won't work on the wheel of time. Again, it is worded as magic period not "butterfly magic" or "royal magic" (S1E17: Freeze Day)

One of the "foolproof security measures" St. Olgas' is "no magic", with one of popups mentioning "magic sensors placed every 25 feet to ensure magic-free environment". If the school has such measures, then magic-using students must be a regular enough occurence to jutify it (S1E19: St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses)

Glossaryck's analogy on 'dipping down" is worded as follows: " Imagine the universe as this big old cauldron, and magic is the bubbly stew inside, and your wand is the spoon---Now the wand can only skim the surface of the hobo gravy, watery and brown. But if you want to get to the chunks, you've got to dip down. " Again, a singular magic, no differention for "butterfly magic" or "royal magic" (S2E1: My New Wand!)

Willoughby knows enough about magic to try and steal Star's wand to give herself a break (S2E6: Fetch)

Ponyhead uses magic to destroy Roy's shirt cannon. Roy also draws a magic circle on the ground that teleports Star, Marco, Ponyhead and Kelly to a temple where he then gives them the goblin dogs (S2E13: Goblin Dogs)

Etheria Butterfly, Moon's Aunt/Star's Great Aunt, pulls two Johansons underground via vines sprouted from magic seeds (S2E15: Games of Flags)

Rasticore is the sole person in the series to use a magical item that is not a pair of dimensional scissors to travel**. The Quest Buy gift card takes on a humanoid electric form to complete its expiration mode (S2E18: Gift of the Card)

Locked chains magically appear on the carriage door to keep Marco from leaving. Tom also uses his powers to resurrect Mackie Hand. (S2E19 Friendenemies)

Ponyhead uses magic to press the gas pedal on the car she's driving and later to repair the car (S2E24: Pizza Thing)

Magic (again, worded as magic period) is prohibited in the Bureaucracy of Magic building, complete with magic detector to find any "articles of magic, sorcery or occult objects of a mystical nature". The fritz is stated to be the result of "something somewhere sapping the power of magic from the universe". Once more, worded as a singular magic (S2E25: Page Turner)

The Naysaya is described as a demon curse. Whether curses are a separate thing from spells is never elaborated on in show or in the spinoff books (S2E26: Naysaya)

Preston Change-O, a being that sucked the joy out of Sensei's party guests. (S2E29: Trickstar)

Zedlord and Astrobell, who were crystallized by Rhombulus for destroying a planet and creating a black hole respectively. Considering that Rhombulus referred to his prisondres as "these guys" and the general design scheme of the non Earth/Mewni background characters, they are plausible inhabitants from other dimensions, not 'monsters" (S2E34: Crystal Clear)

The fritz is again stated to cause all magic (again no differention between types of magic) to weaken and fade (S3E1: Return to Mewni)

The Demoncism, with even features what Tom calls "magic manacles" (S3E12: Demoncism)

Marco suggests stopping Star's night portaling with magic glue. (S3E18: Sweet Dreams)

One of the supplies Janna brings to keep track of Star while she's night portaling is a "magic wave scope" (S3E23: Deep Dive)

Tom uses demonic magic to attempt to encase Mina in a coffin covered in sigils and golden magic chains (S3E24: Monster Bash)

Ponyhead once uses magic, in this case charging up a magic blast in preparation for facing Meteora, Gemini and Rasticore (S3E33: Skooled!)

The pillars/reverse waterfalls of magic found throughout the Realm of Magic are revealed to lead to other dimensions in the multiverse. Given the multiple pillars seen, it's likely that at least a good number of the connected dimensions use magic (S3E38: Conquer)

Marco's sword is revealed to be what kept a fire demon that once terrorized the Neverzonians sealed within a statue (S4E05: Ransomgram)

Wrathmelior has a emotional weather system that can cause severe storms if her emotions are in turmoil, possibly another form of demonic magic (S4E06: Lake House Fever)

The Quest Buy stock room is, as explained by the sloth employee, "a magical room that turns all your needless desires into pointless realities" (S4E11: Out of Business)

The Severing Stone is explicitly reffered to as an "enchanted rock" that posseses an edge so sharp that it can sever anything. The Blood Moon bal (S4E13: Curse of the Blood Moon)

In the beginning of the episode, we see Ludo attempt to steal Princess Quasar's magic bell, a possible counterpart to Star and her wand, complete with a counterpart to Glossryack (S4E14: Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell)

At Glossaryck and Meteora's first stop in the past, it is shown that a sea of magic was already present long before the Magic Sanctuary was built (S4E17: Meteora's Lesson)

Grobb/Neverzone Meteora explains that the old women of the mountain that found her and Bork/Neverzone Mariposa as babies taught her all of their spells. There is also Wyscan the Granter, a being that will grant requests in exchange for magic he can eat (S4E28: Gone Baby Gone)

According to Hekapoo, most of the patrons of the Tavern at the End of the Multiverse left their dimensions to "get away from magical issues or power-hungry rulers". Given the lack of elaboration on what exactly those magical issues were and how Star's rant focuses squarely on her family's misuse of it, this one might have been a last minute justification by the show to have Star destroying magic feel more natural. Whether or not it worked is up to debate (S4E36: The Tavern at the End of the Multiverse)

*I am aware of the whole "Ponyheads' powers are 'natural abilities' not magic" thing but A: the statement came from a tweet by a voice actor for the show (Adam McArthur), not Nefcy nor any of the show's writers so its canoncity is pretty weak and B: something as important as this should have been discussed in either hte show or one of the spin-off books. And, considering how Here to Help (which was 4 episodes before Cleaved) had Star somehow be able to gather a group of people from different parts of Mewni (Rick Pigeon, Ponyhead and Seahorse) and different dimensions (Kelly and Jorby, Talon and Quirky Guy) despite Hekapoo having shut down the mirror and portal network, it's possible that Ponyhead being magic was just forgotten

**It is mentioned in Star and Marco's Guide to Mastering Every Dimension that Rasticore is wanted for "unlawful alteration of regiestered, protected magic items (dimensional scissors)". This implies that his chainsaw was created from a pair of dimensional scissors but this is one of a multiple tidbits from the book that never comes up in the show itself

#svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #this is why it's important to keep track of what you establish in your stories #If you don't you could accidentally break your own show's rules and destroy any suspension of disbelief the viewers' may have #other stuff

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