#and yes... the writing of those two remained good even in s3

[inflammatoryfandomblog]

okay so soren and claudia’s relationship is basically the best character writing the show has, in that it stays consistently good even when the show pulls out the biggest stinkers i have ever seen. i’ve written about this waaay back so won’t go into it again. one detail i really, really wished they had managed to put into the show proper and not only the novelizations is the fact that viren healed a sickly soren when he was very young with dark magic, which in addition to putting a physical toll on him, made his ex-wife spooked out and probably contributed to their divorce.

this actually shines a lot of light on soren’s dynamic with viren. claudia tells ezran that soren immediately clung to viren when told to choose between his parents, and if viren is the one responsible for curing soren, then yeah, that makes a lot of sense. it also makes a lot of sense in terms of viren thinking that he’s owed soren’s loyalty or even his life--viren’s entire Thing is that he frequently faces bad consequences for doing what may otherwise be traditionally heroic acts, and ofc, as in the show (and especially during the events of the show as viren realizes that “all he did was for nothing”), viren *would* resent him for it. it’s completely in-character.

so soren has the double-whammy of not being able to live up to expectations as much as claudia, and also feels like he owes his dad so much, since his dad was willing to do bad things for him. he has a really good reason to think viren loves him even though he’s the clear unfavorite.

and he’s much more loyal to viren as a result in a way that claudia wasn’t initially. he does actually try to kill the princes, even if he’s uncomfortable with it. i mean, surely his dad would do the same for him, right? now i know we like saying that claudia’s just inSaNe because of her s3 stuff, but pre season-3, soren was the more unscrupulous of the two. killing the princes is something claudia at that point in the story would not have done, and something that she refuses to believe viren would even order. the straw in the camel’s back for soren was being betrayed by viren in that little gaslighting scene, not necessarily just the fact that he ordered to have the princes killed. in that moment he learned that the sacrifices viren made didn’t mean he loves him.

this information also begs the question of how he may have felt about being cured by dark magic at the end of s2. if the context of viren healing him in a similar fashion were present while watching the show and the characters were allowed to have feelings about that, his getting-paralyzed-for-five-seconds thing would be more substantial than a “oooh look a claudia moment. look at that dear. isn’t it so cute. feel bad for the deer. focus on the deer. also guys soren’s dumb lol. look at how dumb he is. he barely has a functioning cerebrum lol. and also guys look he’s crushed by his dad’s expectations sadface. but look at claudia she’s all corrupted now!!! see it’s all good winkyface, this is a Big Moment for Claudia!!!” claudia is doing a very similar thing that viren did in his childhood. of course soren may have some mixed feelings about it--and maybe even slightly alluding to this might have, i dunno, meant something to the person who was actually paralyzed. if this scene were written with more of that in mind, this would actually completely transform the writing here while keeping the general event (a cured soren) intact.

this would also make “you’re heading down that path too” in season 3 also be more resonant than just soren being spooked out by dark magic and make his reasons for refusing the lux aurea dark orb that much stronger. it would imply that he’s aware that there’s some sort of “debt” to pay and maybe that he was somehow “responsible” for viren’s divorce (soren is as dumb as bricks but it’s implied many times that he’s more socially/emotionally intelligent than he looks) thanks to dark magic. he may not want to feel that he “owes” viren anything, and may perhaps see a pattern of self-sacrifice and subsequent resentment in claudia. how justified he would be in thinking this isn’t the point, my fellow claudia stans--the point is that he would think it and it would be a natural extension of his character. it also makes him letting claudia go even more meaningful--not only does he not want to “force her to choose” like he did when they were kids, he also doesn’t want her to feel tied down the way he might have been.

this letting her go thing is ironically enough counterproductive, and will likely lead to the same sort of resentment viren has for soren. soren has “broken up the family again.” after everything they’re done for him, he just turns his back on them, from claudia’s point of view. the series would be quite different if soren was more forceful about getting claudia to leave with him or made a stronger case for leaving viren, but there are real reasons why he wouldn’t do this and when it comes to his family he’s actually quite conflict-averse. and like it would make his speech about thinking that viren was a good man more impactful, and like it’s not like the speech isn’t cheesy as hell already.

[sunwarmed-ash]

Roy/Jamie fic idea: just Roy being secretly obsessed with Jamie’s nipples ever since he flashed them at Roy at the gala in S1. One day in S3 or beyond, Jamie’s being a little shit and Roy finally snaps, taking Jamie to bed and declaring that he’s gonna undo Jamie just by doing all manner of things to those nipples. Jamie couldn’t be happier.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! i love all the royjamie prompts I got, so I combined all three into one response!

Prompts:

Coach kink-Jamie calls Roy coach at practice to rial him up, a sequel to 4 AM

Jamie gets his nipples pierced. Roy goes insane

Nipple obsession/nipple worship

Hope you enjoy it!! I certainly had fun writing it!!

Insatiable Tartt

Ships: Roy x Jamie Fandom: Ted Lasso Rating: Explicit Tags: Nipple piercing, nipple worship, public sex kinda, bottom Jamie, Roy/Jamie's ever developing relationship, The Infamous Boot Room, hand jobs, fic under the cut and on ao3, Jamie has a praise kink, and a coach kink, PWP

‘Coach this,’ ‘Coach that,’ ‘Yes Coach,’ ‘please coach’

Coach. Coach. Coach.

In the almost 20 years Roy has been in sports he has never given the word a sexy, second thought. But then Jamie fucking Tartt, his previous business and romantic archrival-turned friends-with-benefits had to go and sob the damn title while he was posted up on Roy’s cock. Begged him, his coach, to make him cum, again and again. And now, after one night together, it’s had an almost instant, pavlovian response with his dick. 

Goddamn you Jamie Fucking Tartt.

-A month later-

They've only hooked up two other times since the first time. The next time was in Amsterdam, after the little shit spent the entire evening teaching him how to ride a bike to honor his grandads memory and then took him to see a windmill because Roy had never seen one before, and then  to add cherries to an already perfect night, Jamie leaned over and kissed him, taking his breath away with a simple press of lips that he hasn't felt since Keeley. 

Jamie didn't kiss him for long, he actually misinterpreted Roy’s freezing as denial and started to retreat almost instantly. Roy was quick to remedy that. His hand was catching the back of Jamie’s head and pulling his lips right back down against Roy’s own, where they belonged. 

Jamie and he then hauled ass back to the hostel the team was staying at and Roy fucked Jamie into the mattress. At least until Roy’s knee started acting up. But then Jamie took over, riding Roy hard into the bed for another good half hour.  

-

The third time was after Roy’s ‘misguided though comical’ attempt at ‘teammate awareness’ with the whole dick tying thing. It wasn't all bad. Jamie had admitted that it actually turned him on. After he blamed Roy for the new pain kink he developed around his dick because of it. 

That night, Roy had spent an hour tying Jamie up with the remaining red rope, binding his legs and arms away from his front so Roy had unlimited access to his body. He even tied up his cock, like a nice little present for Roy to admire and praise. Before slapping it hard with his hand while Jamie sobbed and pled for more. 

“Like that, do you slut?”

“Yes Coach…” Jamie pants without a fuss. 

-

After that last time, Roy thought he had finally gotten a one-up on the man. But evidently, he had underestimated the little shit, again. Because when Roy walked into the locker room after practice and the team was getting changed, his eyes caught a shining glint off something and someone he did not expect. 

And he wasn't the only one who noticed. 

“Oi boyo, when’d you get those?” Colin asked Jamie, referring to the matching piercing bars through the man’s nipples that were currently making Roy’s mouth fucking water. 

Jamie smirked and tossed his shirt over his shoulder instead of putting it on, letting Colin get a nice long look. 

“Long time ago mate,” Jamie shrugged. “16? 17 maybe?” Roy hates that that fact means he could have had those bars in his mouth already but Jamie specially chose not to disclose having them until today. 

“Only wear em when I’m tryin’ get lucky, ya know.” 

Roy looks at Jamie just in time to realize he was pointing that intention directly at him and his burning arousal and fear of public displays of affections has him shouting a familiar threat in the full locker room. 

“TARTT, BOOT ROOM! NOW!”

-

“I didn’t even do nothing wrong this time!” Jamie whines the second the boot room door closes and Roy’s mouth is on his to silence the bitchy noise. 

“Take off your shirt,” He says when he breaks apart and Jamie smiles, all the way up to his ears.

“Oh, oh, yeah, okay,” and then his shirt’s off and Roy’s hands replace it, running over every inch of skin he can reach before settling on what he really wanted to see. The silver and blue barbells through each of Jamie’s dusky brown nipples. 

“It's a good thing these aren't new,” Roy says, and before Jamie can ask why, Roy’s mouth is latching over one, biting into the pec hard before soothing the bite with a suck and several pointed licks around Jamie’s nipple. 

Jamie’s painful shout morphed into a pleased whine with the attention to the piercing with his tongue and Roy was happy this was making Jamie as crazy as its making Roy. He's admittadbily been obsessed with Jamie’s nipples since that little tart decided he was too good for a shirt at the charity auction. 

“Roy, please,” Jamie whines, breaking Roy out of his thoughts and back to the current moment. 

“No,” Roy growls against Jamie’s skin, and it makes Jamie’s cock twitch against their bodies. “Address me right if you want something,” 

“Coach,” Jamie whimpers, quickly entering the matter phase of melted goo in Roy’s specially crafted hands.

“There's a good boy,” Roy praises, and Jamie melts even farther with a pitiful whine. “Shouldn’t surprise me you have these pierced. Actually a little cross you didn't tell me sooner.”

Jamie’s eyes open and bore into Roy’s. There’s too much there to attempt to process it all.  

“Wanted to surprise you.”

“Suprise me? Why?”

Jamie flushed pink, now avoiding his eyes. 

“Don't know... Thought maybe you'd like them. Do you?”

Roy raised his eyebrow before grabbing Jamie's hand and holding it against his own cock. 

“Does this answer your question?”

Jamie hums and his eyes flutter and he nods. 

“Fuck me?”

Roy shakes his head. 

“Can’t here Sweetheart, as much as I want to. But I can keep this up, probably make you come apart without even touching your cock. Would you like that?”

Jamie’s whines don’t contain actual words. He just nods and reaches out for Roy, pulling him close so Roy can bite and lick across his chest any way he wants to.  

Roy does. He loves the way the metal feels against his tongue, how much it makes Jamie gasp and squirm when he just barely scrapes his teeth across the hardened flesh. Loves how loud he cries when Roy bites him so hard it’ll leave marks tomorrow. 

Jamie’s cries get pitchier when he sucks around Jamie’s nipple, licking the piercing balls on either side with his tongue, Jamie's hips thrust forward, bumping against Roy’s thigh and pulling another moan from the younger player's lips. 

“Coach, please,” Jamie begs and Roy moves up from the hickied and bruised chest to Jamie’s lips, biting roughly into his lower lip. 

Jamie whines and Roy chuckles, soothing his cries with another deep kiss.

“What do you want Jamie?”

“Make me cum, please, I’m close.”

“That all?”

“No,” Jamie huffed. 

Roy’s playful tug on Jamie’s piercing with his teeth had the younger man humping against Roy’s thigh now. 

“What else then?”

“Want you to fuck me, at home. You can tie me up again if you want.”

“You really liked that huh?”

“Your fault, you put the image in me head.”

“Something tells me you have the capacity to think devious thoughts up all on your own,” Roy laughed before slipping his hand down the front of Jamie’s track pants and gripping his hard cock tight. 

Jamie’s retort died on his tongue and his hand shot out for Roy, pulling his head forward and mouth back onto his chest. 

“Fuck, touch me, please,” Jamie pants and Roy goes to work. Jamie wasn’t kidding, he was getting close. Most of Roy’s hand was now slick with Jamie’s precum. 

The younger seemed to really like when he bit hickies into his chest Roy continued his pointed assault, squeezing the head of Jamie’s cock the next time his pumping hand reached it. 

“Fuck-” Jamie cries and it’s all over. His thighs tremble below Roy’s hand as his orgasm pulses through him. Roy’s hand gets slicker but he doesn't stop pumping. Not until Jamie’s pretty bite swollen lips beg him to. 

Roy pulls his hand out of Jamie’s pants and uses his clean hand to pull the man forward, kissing him back down after an intense, public, orgasm. 

Jamie hums under the kiss, slumping onto Roy’s chest and giving him all of Jamie’s body weight to support while he came back down to Earth. 

“Are you still hard?” Jamie asks after a couple of minutes, and Roy chuckles at the ridiculous question. 

“Course I am.”

“Still wanna tie me up? We can go, like right now. If you wanna.”

Roy chuckled before kissing Jamie again. 

“Insatiable tart.”

[makshu]

Ok so this is going to be another analyze about Osomatsu (because yes and because I have it in mind and I need to write it down before I forget)

I'll talk about Osomatsu's relationship with crying and sad moments in general, long post after cut

(Oh and- at some point I got lost so none of this probably makes sense- read at your own risk)

I think by this point everyone knows that Osomatsu is a somewhat a complicated person- and if you can please try to remember a time when you saw him crying... hard right? I know-

Off the top of my head I remember three times he cried (maybe I'll remember more later), two of those times were with a comedy proposal so they won't count here, and the last one was a time when he was really sad (was panicked better saying-)

So I have a vision of Osomatsu that I'd like to share (even though I'm not sure if it's 100% right) ok so- He never cries, it's hard to find a moment where he cries for whatever reason, and like- not like Jyushi, Jyushimatsu also has few crying moments, but that's because he is almost never shown being sad, but when these sad moments occur he allow himself to be sad and cry, and I know that there are people who are simply less cry than others and I strongly believe that Osomatsu and Jyushimatsu are two of those cases, but still, they remain human and still cry, but Osomatsu seems to refuse to do that sometimes-

I'll take as an example a situation where he appeared (or in this case really) to be sad which is ep 24 S1. We know that whole situation shook Oso, and as a gift they didn't show his face almost once, he has his back turned the whole time making it difficult to see his full face, only from the nose down was visible and since eyes are a very expressive part of our body we ended up missing a lot of his real emotions, but I'm sure he didn't cried there (he doesn't cry normally, in front of others so it's a complete no for him) but what about when he was off screen? I'm sure he shed a few tears at those times, or worse- had a panic attack (as he's shown himself to be prone to having them), the point is- he looks like he doesn't want to cry, he seems to have a little trouble expressing that kind of emotion and crying must be something he represses.

Osomatsu is the type of person who will laugh at a bad situation and make fun of his problems, but deep down he is agonizing over them. He doesn't want to cry. But why? Perhaps to be an example of a strong older brother? Or because it doesn't suit his character? Oso has already shown that he has problems with his identity, and if he tries so hard to remain in the comfort zone and with the personality he always had, crying is not something that suits the little troublemaker, the older brother, the leader. Not being ok is a horrible situation for him, he doesn't want to feel bad and doesn't know how to react to this type of situation, so he just "stops working" and stands there with its blank face, he won't cry even if sometimes he wants to.

Crying is good and it's a way to let out everything you've been holding back, and Osomatsu has been holding back a lot over these three seasons (+ the movie), after he had a panic attack at the beginning of S3 I think it's an indication that something is not right (I assume crying in a panic attack is normal, so yeah-) I don't think there's a confirmed reason why this happened to him but we can speculate on some things (which I won't do in this post), but anyway he needs help ASAP

I think that's it. I missed this post several times so it sucked to write it all down and at some point (at the beginning) I got lost so if you got something wow congrats (seriously- congrats because even I didn't get it) if anyone wants to add feel free to reblog this thing

[inawickedlittletown]

Queerbaiting and Buddie

(word count: 1,900)

I keep saying that I don’t want to spend any more time on 9-1-1 meta or fic, but the events of this weekend made me open up a document where I had some unfinished meta and in light of the S4 finale airing tonight, I thought I might at least write this: 

“Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation. They do so to attract a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion of relationships or characters that appeal to them, while at the same time attempting to avoid alienating other consumers.” 

That is how Wikipedia defines queerbaiting. And I really feel like everyone needs to read that and then read it again and realize that what is happening on 9-1-1 with Buddie is NOT queerbaiting. 

I don’t want to go into the long history of queerbaiting because we would be here all day and anyone that wants to do some research should go and do so. There are a lot of resources out there. Use them. 

But the short of it is this: queerbaiting has a lot more to do with the way a show is promoted, with the way that anyone involved in the show talks about a queer ship, and with the show deliberately scripting scenes that hint at a relationship without any intention of following through. Expectations and wanting a queer ship to go canon and those expectations not being met do not alone equate to it being queerbaiting. 

For any of us that have been around a long time there are a lot of perfect examples and if you compare Buddie to any of them, they are very different. I’ll name a few:

Merlin/Arthur

John Watson/Sherlock

Emma Swan/Regina

Derek/Stiles

Castiel/Dean Winchester (though they did go canon...barely)

Lena/Kara

Buck and Eddie do not fit into that list. Which isn’t to say that someday they could belong there, but I just do not believe that they will even if Buddie never becomes canon. And this all lies in how Buddie as a ship has been treated both on screen and off. I’ll break it down by season. 

S2: 

Eddie is very clearly introduced as a new character, a straight Army veteran with a disabled kid and family drama. He and Buck have immediate chemistry. We can’t deny that, or deny that from that first episode there are immediate sparks. Unintended sparks, but sparks nevertheless. And it is easy to tell that no one on the production team expected that and the story reflects that. 

Yes a foundation for their friendship is formed and yet the season long story focuses on Eddie’s relationship with his estranged wife and Buck is dealing with his own growth after being left by Abby. Their friendship shines and their scenes are great but none of them suggest romance and there are actually a lot of episodes where Buck and Eddie barely interact in S2 aside from in the background or for small work related moments (this mostly happens after Shannon returns). 

S2 does give us the first acknowledgement from the powers that be aka Tim Minear that they know what the fans have seen. This is why the elf scene exists, but it exists in a space where it’s a nod to the fans and not meant to do much more than that. The other moment is during the call with the livestreamer. But S2, places them completely and without question on a strong friendship. 

S3: 

We see a lot more conflict for Buck and Eddie in this season and we see how close and important they are to each other. Those are the two main things. That can be read as friendship easily and it’s a season where both Buck and Eddie deal with their pasts and in one way or another start to get closure while their friendship remains intact. 

Yes there are some scenes that make us squint and go huh, wtf? (I’m looking at you kitchen scene), but narratively we also know that neither of these boys is ready for a real relationship with anyone, let alone each other. But we can bask in how close they are as well as how Christopher fits in into all of it. 

But in S3 we are also introduced to Ana and we see the return of Abby. We also get to see that Buck and Eddie have become closer than ever and that the lawsuit only serves to highlight the importance that they both feel about having the other available to them. I’ll also quickly mention that Eddie Begins worked hard to highlight Buck’s devotion to Eddie. 

S4: 

Without considering the events of the finale (I am avoiding spoilers and know nothing about it or the speculation), we’ve seen Buck and Eddie both grow and get further closure on their past. This season has paralleled them well and their friendship has not faltered, they’re as close as ever. 

The beginning of the season was heavily focused on Buck and we saw him grow as a person and begin to work on himself in a healthy way and we’ve seen Eddie be supportive of that. 

We also have Ana to consider and her relationship with Eddie as well as the return of Taylor and yet the appearance of these women has not changed the Buck and Eddie dynamic. And I find it fascinating that Eddie beginning to date Ana, is the thing that prompted Buck to start dating. The parallels are all over the place but it is the strength of the friendship and the way they care so deeply about each other that remains whether that becomes romantic is still to be seen, but it could still go either way.  

Off-screen by the end of S2, Tim Minear had already addressed Buddie by throwing in that elf scene in a wink/nudge fashion that said “I see you” and in the scene with the girl with the livestream with the comments. During S3 he tweeted about being frustrated by the fans demanding and being hostile and thinking that that would make him more likely to do what they want (I’m paraphrasing what I remember seeing). Tim has never once said that Buddie will happen or shut the door on the ship entirely, but he did say he did not want to engage in conversation about it because he doesn’t want to get into arguments with fans. 

Oliver has always been enthusiastic about Buddie and has even said that he would be perfectly fine with it happening both a while ago and more recently in promo for S4. Conscious of queerbaiting and not wanting to give fans false hope, he has specifically said that he does not know if it will or won’t happen and that he wouldn’t speak on that as he’s not the one making that decision. His support for it happening does not mean he has any sway one way or the other. He’s said this a few times and even wrote a letter to the effect to make it clear to fans that the last thing he wants is to disappoint someone due to something he’s said. 

All in all, it just isn’t a constructive environment for anyone working on the show to interact with fans on this topic because any time that they do, they get attacked by overly enthusiastic buddie shippers that in many ways are making everything worse. 

In all of the interviews from Tim that I’ve seen, he has always been very quick to hint at what was coming up on the show in a way that at times has been misleading on purpose. The number one thing that comes to mind is early in S4 where Buck was said to get a new woman in his life. Tim absolutely made it out to seem like it was a girlfriend while knowing fully well that it was a therapist. This is an excellent example of what promoting and hinting is actually like. No one from this show has done that in regards to Buddie. 

No one has gone out of their way to hint that it may happen in a way that excites the fans. And this is one of my main reasons for knowing that Buddie is not a queerbait. At no point in the life of the show so far has anyone used Buddie in a promotional way to bring in viewers. Because THAT was the whole point of queerbaiting in the past. 

It was a way that some showrunners found to bring in a lot of viewers when they needed to up their numbers in order to show networks they were worth keeping around. Someone figured out that LGBTQ people wanted to see themselves represented so much so that they would tune in to anything that promised an LGBTQ character in some fashion. It was a tactic that worked well in the landscape of tv where there was so little LGBTQ content on mainstream media that anyone wanting it would latch onto anything. And then they just wouldn’t deliver on those relationships or characters. In 2021, that is not the world we live in any longer. 

In today’s tv landscape there is so much to watch and so much to pick from and diversity has grown, it is celebrated. Queer characters are well represented as are queer relationships and queer stories. The times are different. A while back I was listening to a podcast (Bait: a queerbaiting podcast) and something I found interesting was how the hosts both agreed that in today’s tv landscape there is no more real queerbait and that we won’t easily find anything like the ships I mentioned above. I think I agree more with this than I expected to, because I do think that it exists in some spaces, but it definitely isn’t what it used to be. This is a good thing. 

Specific to 9-1-1, this is a show that has that diversity and that isn’t afraid of tackling that diversity and giving us interesting and nuanced perspectives and stories embracing that. We have characters of color, women in positions of power, a F/F relationship, two multi-racial relationships, a disabled character, other queer characters including a M/M relationship. There is so much in this show that embraces diversity and that embraces the reality of what the world looks like. To call it queerbait is to disrespect everything else that this show is and has done and the hard storylines that have been tackled that we would not have seen on tv ten years ago. 

And I get that Buddie would be another breakthrough. It would be a novel way to tell a queer story, and it would be amazing if it were to happen. The set up is there, but it isn’t fully realized, and Buck and Eddie can still be read as just friends if we take off the shipping goggles. But it also isn’t queerbait or likely to become queerbait and people have to stop calling it that. 

What Buddie resembles is one of the many unintended slow burn ships that have frustrated viewers in many forms across fandoms and we just have to go along for the ride and maybe it will happen. Or maybe it won’t. But if we know anything about relationships on tv, it is that a lot of the fun comes from the journey, even if the destination is good too. 

[still-a-morosexual-help]

OBEY ME! LESSON 60 DETAILED SUMMARY + DISCUSSION/THEORIES

*I wrote this days after the lesson was first posted and never bothered to go back and edit it so meaning there will be me theorizing about the next lesson as well

*I write a small para for each chapter and I write it immediately after finishing that chapter so there’ll be theorizing about the next chapter too

*I swear more than usual here

*Some of the dialogue is heavily plagiarized and a few is lifted directly from the story, the game is to figure which is which.

*Summaries and Discussions/theories for all the other lessons can be found on this blog under #obey me spoilers or #my theories or #my headcanons

Welp this is it… DAMNNNNNN the last two seasons each had a lesson near the beginning of the season dedicated just to a date with Mammon and I’m praying S4 has one as well and though it sucks Mammon & MC’s hellos and goodbyes are always really sweet and ahhh how am I already missing them. I’m desperate for S4 and I haven’t even finished S3 yet… fuck okay. 

Post Lesson 60 edit: The last chapter goodbyes are gonna be direct quotes cause I’m an emotional mess. 

As MC is about to head outside Mammon calls out to them and tells them to bring him a cake on the way home, they ask him why he’s been so cold and distant with them lately and he frowns at them and says he doesn’t know what they’re talking about and tells them not to forget the cake and then he leaves. Asmo who had being eavesdropping laughs and says that even for Mammon that was oddly bossy and arrogant. He then asks if he can tag along with them partway cause he’s heading to the spa. As they walk past the lake Asmo tells MC not to hold Mammon’s recent attitude against him and that he’s so upset about having to leave MC again that he doesn’t know what to do with himself and since rn all he can think about is MC he’s not sure how to act around them. Asmo says Mammon’s spending too much time dwelling on this. He looks disappointed and shakes his head when he asks himself what he’s gonna do about Mammon and that he’s being a child. (IS2G Asmo is the number #1 Mammon x MC shipper???????? Relatable) MC asks him if he hasn’t been dwelling on leaving. He asks if they wish he was and says they’re always on his mind and that’s why he doesn’t seem any different now. He says the actual reason he’s still so himself and not outwardly upset is cause he has faith (HA!) that they’ll end back together again like all the previous times they had to separate. He says he’s still sad about having to say goodbye but all that makes him want to do is treasure the moments they have rn. They can hold his hand, kiss him or say that’s a really Asmo thing if him to say. He smiles and says positivity is one of his charms (Asmo ily but weren’t you the one who got drunk and cried and needed to have Satan carry you back home the first time MC left…) They eventually part ways. I’m guessing the order of the rest of the ‘goodbyes’ is gonna be Satan, Mammon and then Lucifer cause those two always end up last in that order…

EYYYYY! They run into satan and ask where he’s off to. He says he’s off to the bookstore to stock on some human books before they head home and asks MC if they want to tag along. He hands them a list and tells them to start looking from the top and that he’ll start from the bottom. He says thwy can use magic as long as no human sees them (ME: thinking back to that one human MC, Belphie and Diavolo scared the shit out of…Hmmmm). They agree and he says that knowing they studied under Solomon makes him feel safe to trust that they know what they’re doing. He says he always knows he can count on them when he needs them and that being in the Devildom without them will be troublesome (I said in the fairy dust/angel lesson that Satan & MC are incredibly similar and that their friendship is highly underrated and I still stand by that.) MC uses magic to lift a book from a high shelf and Satan warns them that someone’s coming making them loose their concentration and the book to come falling down, Satan shields them though and gets hit with it instead. They each ask if the other is alright and he says they need to be more careful that no one sees them (ME: INTENSELY THINKING BACK TO THAT TIME WITH DIAVOLO AND BELPHIE WHEN MC WAS WILLING TO BARBEQUE A MAN FOR FIRING A GUN AT BELPHIE) He blushes and tells them he’ll show what he means and he takes them behind a bookshelf where no one can see and wraps his arms around them and pulls them close (Satan what kinda romance novel pickup line was that??? Also all I can imagine is that SNL bookstore skit with John Cena & Aidy Bryant). MC can kiss him, wrap their arms around him or just thank him for shielding them earlier. He says there’s no need to thank him and that he’s just happy they’re not hurt, He then laughs softly and asks if they’ll be okay once he’s gone. They ask him in turn if he’ll be okay. He blushes and says he won’t and that just thinking about life without them was enough to drive him mad.

At dinner levi asks if everyone is there and Beel looks sad and says Mammon isn’t, Belphie sighs and says he always has to make things difficult. Levi says it’s okay and he gets it and that Mammon obviously thinks dinner’s gonna suck since Levi made it and holy shit can we pls take Levi to a therapist pls? Belphie says Levi’s beating himself up for no reason and Levi goes on a rant about how he’s an ultra-negative, depressing otaku and how no one likes being around him ajndsvddjsnk LEVI pls!!? (unrelated but Levi’s actually my third favourite) Belphie asks MC to go get Mammon and Beel tells them to hurry. They knock and enter his room. They ask him what he’s doing and he says he was just watching a shark movie Satan gave him. He asks if they’re here to tell him about dinner and that they should head back and eat and not to worry about him. He looks upset and says he’s not in the mood to eat. They say they’re really gonna miss him and he’s eyes widen for a sec before he looks away and asks if they’re some sorta kid. He then laughs though and says they’re not the only one who feels that way. He blushes and says of course he’s gonna miss them too and that they already knew that. He asks if there isn’t some other way for them to stay together forever. He says that being a sorcerer they have to make something happen. They can say a.) that despite being a sorcerer they’re still pretty green and he laughs and says the one time he needs them they’re no use at all. He blushes and tells them to hurry up and ‘ripen’ and that a green sorcerer won’t cut it. B.) being a demon he should make something happen. He says if there was something he could do he woulda done it a long time ago. Looking aside again he says hanging out with them and talking about dumb stuff is something he takes for granted and he just realized he won’t be able to do it again anytime soon, he says that once he’s back in the devildom life would be dull and that once he used to be happy as long as he had money but after they met that was ruined. And now during his free time he thinks about them and feels all worried and unsettled. He blushes and asks them to stay with him and keep him company since all this is their fault. Belphie texts them asking where the fuck they are they say they’ll have dinner with Mammon later, he then wishes them luck with Mammon.

In the music room Levi’s bemoaning how he understands that any coffee he makes won’t be good enough while a wide eyed Asmo asks him what he’s talking about cause as you can see Asmo is drinking his coffee, Levi says he never admitted it was good though. Asmo smiles and reassures him that it’s actually good and asks Belphie to back him up. Belphie says he wants no part of any of this which immediately crumbles all of Asmo’s hard work and makes Levi depressed. Lucifer pops his head in and once he spots MC asks them to come to his room. They ask what he wants to talk about, he says he’ll tell them when he gets there. To the room as a whole he says that Diavolo wants them all at the hotel the next day. This surprises both Mammon & Beel, and Satan asks if there’s another problem at the hotel, making everyone turn and eye Levi who turns red and protests. In his room Lucifer asks if MC knows why he called them and they say nope. He asks if they really don’t know or if they’re just playing dumb. When they don’t answer he says it’s about why Diavolo called them to the hotel. He says Diavolo hasn’t told him the reason behind it and asks if MC knows, saying that for Diavolo not to tell him it has to be either something that’ll supremely piss off Lucifer or something that Diavolo finds fun and exciting that Lucifer won’t like but will have to endure. They say they don’t know anything about it. He says, “what do you think you can lie to me? Have you forgotten who the fuck I am exactly!?” When they still remain silent he drops the blank faced glare and laughs saying he can take a guess at what’s going on considering they’re not willing to share. He says considering this is them they’re probably gonna do something nice for them and he tells them they’re really sweet, they tell him not to stop and to keep stroking their ego (or they can ask for a reward). He says he may considering how things go tomorrow. He then pauses and says he’s actually in the mood to indulge them today so he’ll sing their praises just for today. (They can ask if he’s sad about saying goodbye, he says yes and then blushes and says obviously that means they’re spending the night in his room – I noped out at this point. Is it weird that Lucifer’s the only brother I can’t see MC platonically sharing a bed with?) They then tease him saying this is very unlike him. He blushes and agrees, saying that when he’s with them he doesn’t have to be the avatar of pride but that’s okay because they love all the different sides of him (I thought this was really sweet, Lucifer needs to know that there’s someone who loves him as a whole even the parts of him that are massive jerks and I love that this interaction can be read as either romantic or platonic. He smiles and says he’s looking forward for tomorrow.  

The brothers are all surprised when from the hotel they are taken to the currently most popular club in the human world that has been reserved all for them, with Simeon making all the food and Luke making cakes. Luke tries his best to protect the food from Beel while Satan and Mammon say how surprise they were by Barbatos’s magic making them walk out into the club after walking into the hotel. MC asks if they like it and Lucifer says of course they do and thanks them for doing this. Solomon says he has a present for all of them too, Levi worries that he cooked for them (though he asks it with the sweetest smile cause all these demons are still hanging on to not letting Solomon know his food is toxic waste in case it hurts his feelings) and Lucifer whispers to MC that if so they might all die here. Solomon says he had offered to help cook but Simeon had insisted he had it all handled (he looks awfully disappointed when saying this). Mammon cheers on Simeon and Belphie says “…yeah I never thought I’d owe my life to Simeon but here we are” Their real present is Solomon lighting up the room with what, according to Belphie, looks like a fallen star. Asmo gushes about how beautiful it is.  Beel asks if he can eat it. Levi laughs and tells him he better not. Diavolo says they should officially start the party and everyone cheers. In a side lounge area Simeon says seeing the brothers enjoying the party so much makes all the effort feel worth it, Barbatos says he’s just happy seeing Diavolo having so much fun and he thanks MC. They say they could never have done it without their help in the first place. Simeon says it was MC to got them all working together to make this happen in the first place. Levi then arrives to come drag MC towards the karaoke (which Diavolo insisted they have – poor man’s still trying to sing a duet with Lucifer I see)

Satan and Asmo complain about Levi hogging the mic and singing anime songs, he yells at them for not understanding the raw passion and energy of anime songs (which isn’t that true? Anime songs have a unique kinda passion that makes you hyped that I’ve never being able to find in other songs..). Levi tells MC to forget about them and MC asks to sing a duet. Levi says he’ll queue up a bunch of duets and Mammon yells at Levi for hogging the mic and using this as an opportunity to hit on MC. Levi laughs and says that he’s not swooping in and doing anything the way Mammon said and that MC wants to sing with him. Mammon then blushes and demands to sing the next duet with them from MC. Asmo then calls the one after that and Mammon asks Beel & Belphie what they’re doing. They’re mixing drinks. MC says there new drink (demonous with scorpion powder and something else) sounds really good (cause they’re a freak like that) Belphie says the flavours do seem to go surprisingly well together and he asks Mammon to try some. He protests saying they just want to use him as a guinea pig. Lucifer’s drawn to the commotion and says they all seem to be fun, Levi asks if he wants to sing next and he says later, he then thanks MC for planning a fun surprise for them and that they were able to create some nice final memories in the human world before heading home. MC says they’ll share more great times together and Lucifer laughs and agrees saying this won’t be the last time they’re all together and this is just one of many happy memories they’ll share in the future. When they go back to the lounge area Solomon says they could hear them all talking, singing and laughing all the way from over here despite the music, emphasizing that they could hear Levi the most. Diavolo asks them to come sit and pours them another drink and says they were all talking about them and how they helped them enjoy their time in the human realm. He thanks them from the bottom of his heart. Solomon says last time they were all together in the Devildom and this time it was in the human realm and asks where they should be together next. Luke is surprised he’s already thinking about the next time. He laughs and says it’s cause he can barely wait for the next time they are all together. MC can suggest one of the three worlds. (personally I chose the Devildom cause the brothers aren’t allowed in the Celestial Realm and as much as I am completely in love with Mammon’s human world look I miss the aesthetic of the Devildom.) Diavolo laughs and says he’s happy they’ve taken such a liking to the Devildom and that he’d love for them to come back and that the brothers will be thrilled too. From the distance and getting closer they hear Lucifer telling his brothers to quit pushing him. Mammon tells him to just hurry up and go inside. Levi says Lucifer has to be with them or they won’t be taken seriously. Lucifer groans and asks if they’re actually planning on saying “this to him”. “Of course.” Says Satan. Belphie says it’s at least worth asking. Asmo agrees saying anything’s possible if you put your mind to it. They all tumble into the lounge area and Solomon asks what brings them all here. Lucifer looking tired says that his brothers have something to ask Diavolo. Mammon tells Lucifer not to act as if he isn’t part of this and as if it hasn’t been on his mind too. Diavolo chuckles and asks what they want to ask. Beel says they’ve all been thinking about something for a while now and they want to discuss it with him. The brothers all together yell: “We want MC to join the family!” GUUUUUYYYYSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!? Not me softly sobbing at the image this makes in my head ahhhhhhh!??????? AHHHHHH!?????????? MC’s shocked and speechless. Asjvfkjffvuiefhi pls don’t give me hope like this wtf and what do they mean by join the family cause I don’t mind Lucifer more or less adopting them, and like Beel said they already seem to be a part of the family but MC brought up proposals with A LOT of the brothers so is that what they mean? Like marriage??? But they’re all asking and other than Beel & Belphie wanting to share with each other and Asmo being open to threesomes none of them want to share MC so……. Also I do not see my OM! MC getting married at all but at the same time if it was to squirrel their way into a permanent position in the family then…

Diavolo’s wide-eyed and stunned silent, and then he asks “…huh!?” Solomon bursts out laughing. Luke is red faced and tells Solomon this is no time to laugh. Solomon still laughing chokes out that he’s never seen Diavolo so stunned. Luke pauses and then asks what exactly they mean by ‘join the family’ and then he turns red and demands if they mean marrying MC. The brothers obviously haven’t really thought about what ‘join the family’ means and only now realise it can imply marriage. Asmo immediately volunteers. Mammon red faced protests to MC marrying Asmo and then stuttering says that if they’re gonna marry anyone they should marry him (he screams the last part out after struggling through the first part). Levi gets pissed saying if MC marries a scumbag like Mammon they’d have a dark, terrible future (watch me put together a 200 slide presentation refuting this) Belphie tells Asmo and Mammon to back off before they mess things up. Lucifer, looking dead tired, says it’s already a mess. Diavolo goes, “Umm…Lucifer?” and asks him to explain what’s going on. He says the others want MC around on a permanent basis so they don’t have to say goodbye ever and they put their heads together and decided on this. “Marriage!?” goes Luke. Solomon says the demons hadn’t thought how they’d make them part of the family. Lucifer tells Satan that he can look at the others like they’re a band of idiots but to leave him outta it. Solomon asks MC what they think of all this and they say they want to be part of the family too (it’s implied through out the main storyline that generally MC’s someone who’s very calm and collected and who while being incredibly blunt doesn’t express their emotions outwardly much (at the beginning of S2 Lucifer even comments on them being more expressive than before they left) but I’d like to imagine at this moment they are wet eyed and beaming because of these loveable idiots who ARE their family even if it’s not official). Diavolo smiles and says he sees. Luke has problems with humans and demons mixing and being a family (LUKE I THOUGHT WE WERE OVER THIS!?) “Yes, Luke. I know…” says Diavolo. His face then becomes serious and he’s silent and contemplative. Diavolo looks at MC and says that though they aren’t aware of it there’s still bad blood amongst the three worlds and that no matter how much they all want to be a family and stay together it’s not within his power to let that happen. He looks upset and apologizes. Lucifer is silent. He says though that his goal is to one day remove these barriers between the worlds and that he’ll do everything in his power to make that happen, and as the future demon king he promises that one day he’ll make it so that they can marry anyone in this room (I’m screaming just MC – queer as hell and with they/them pronouns waiting in the human world for marriage to get legalized only to fall in love with someone from another world and having to wait AGAIN for marriage to be legalized… I’d have lost my entire shit.) “WELL, isn’t that good for you, you apprentice poaching motherfuckers but guess what I’m a human meaning WE can get married in the meantime… CHECKMATE, BITCHES~” says Solomon. Mammon actually snaps at Solomon and calls him a “son of a –“ before he remembers the child in the room and trails off and snaps at him not to say stuff like that. Belphie asks if Solomon can even be classified as a human given his age. (Can MC even be classified as fully human given the whole Lilith situation? I mean ik Lilith was reincarnated as a human but she still kept and passed on her supernatural magic. Plus there’s a Belphie devilgram that takes places pre S1 that implies MC’s not fully human plus that whole thing about fairy hallucination angel!Lucifer not taking MC’s word for it when they said they were human… it’s very likely though everyone here’s too dumb to realise it). Satan says at this point Solomon might as well be a demon. Asmo tells him not to pretend to be a human when it’s convenient. He laughs and says that even though he can’t grow old or die he still belongs to the human race. Beel says that maybe but Solomon isn’t playing fair, Levi agrees and says Solomon’s also making him jealous. Diavolo says MC sure is popular seeing as they are all fighting over them. Lucifer says he knew this would happen and that’s why he didn’t want them to have this discussion. Luke’s shocked that MC’s got demons and the world’s greatest sorcerer wrapped around their finger, MC asks him if he sees them in a new light now. Luke says he thinks it’s impressive but it also creeps him out.

Back near the dance floor, Satan laughs and says Beel’s eating too much, Beel says Satan’s drinking too much, Satan who actually seems tipsy says he’s nowhere near his limit and challenges Beel to a competition to see who reaches their drink/food limit first, Beel agrees. Given how much beel can eat I can only assume this is the last we see of Satan RIP. Barbatos, looking uncharacteristically extremely worried, tells them to slow down cause neither of them know to stop. Levi, finishing up his song, calls for Luke who booked next but Mammon says Simeon went to put the “little guy” to sleep and asks Levi to come play cards instead. Lucifer, who’s playing with Mammon, asks if he hasn’t lost enough at this point, Mammon turns red and says this time he’s gonna win it all back. Asmo laughs and says Mammon just jinxed himself. Belphie asks why MC’s looking around the room so restlessly and they can say A.) I don’t see Diavolo anywhere B.) where’s Solomon? Either way the answer is he has no idea where Solomon went but he did see Diavolo head out earlier. He says the two of them are probably together talking. MC finds Diavolo and asks what he’s up to. He says he wanted a break and to gaze at the city lights and sober up a little since he won’t be able to see them again for awhile. He asks them to sit next to him and then laughs and says he could barely believe his ears after he heard what the brothers asked. He says he’s known the seven of them for a long time and knows how close they are and that it’s unbelievable that they’d want to include someone new to the family (MY HEART!? ALSO FOUND FAMILY TROPE!) He says it almost makes him jealous. They say that they know for a fact that he’s very important to the brothers too. He’s like “thanks for saying that but rn you’re either playing dumb or you actually are this dumb which makes me question my taste but then again I’m also in love with Lucifer so…” and he says he’s jealous of the brothers not them (Sure, Jan. We know you’re jealous of them both don’t lie). He says he feels the same as them and blushes and says he keeps thinking about how it could be if they were together forever (Sir, pls Lucifer is right there. He’s available. Pls.) He says if their relationship was on that level and if their bond was deep and permanent like those of a family he can’t even imagine how amazing that’d be (he keeps repeating ‘family’ and the brothers weren’t even thinking marriage when they asked for MC to be part of their family and Diavolo was really shocked and he now said specifically it was them asking about being ‘family’ before Luke even first mentioned marriage that made Diavolo jealous. What I’m saying is that considering Diavolo’s lonely, strict childhood the one thing he wants more than anything is a family not marriage specifically). He smiles and says they beat him to the punch and that he asks them to give him time cause he’s gonna do everything he can to mend the bridges between the three worlds for MC and for the brothers…and a little bit for himself. He gives them his word.

Out on the balcony Solomon greets them and asks if they shouldn’t be down with the others, they say they needed a break and wanted to talk to him, he wonders if the others would be pissed if they knew Solomon had MC all to himself. He says he figured he’d stay out of the way today and let MC and the demons spend time together considering he’ll have enough time to hang out with them later. He says he can’t believe they asked MC to join the family and that he didn’t see that coming. He starts laughing again about how serious they looked and how shocked Diavolo looked, and how Lucifer looked like he had a migraine (Ik we all say Lucifer’s the sadist but have we considered…) MC asks if he really thinks it’s that funny (and I’m pretty sure they’re offended on the brothers’ behalf and hurt cause that’s what they want too.) Solomon says for him it’s funny. He says it’s common of a demon to ask for a business arrangement or a pact but he’s never heard of them asking humans to join their family. He smiles and says he’s beginning to think he chose a “truly incredible” human as his apprentice. MC asks what the demons in his life are to him, he gives it serious thought and said these days he sees them as close friends. MC asks if things were different earlier and he says they were but also asks that they not get into things rn cause the story is long and tedious, MC asks if he’s just trying to avoid their question and if he’s gonna tell them the truth or not. He laughs and says nope and that though you can’t tell it by looking at him he’s a little too tipsy. He reminds them that they’re barely a sorcerer rn and that they should leave questions like that for later until they can use “magic like this” without an incantation. He uses magic to teleport the others on to the balcony (what a snake. Imagine instead of going to a crowd to escape a conversation you use your magic to bring the crowd to you to avoid a conversation AND to set a line for MC to reach before they can start poking at his past.) Asmo says he’s being wondering where the two of them went and how naughty it was to sneak off together, Levi complains about being cut halfway through a song, Beel asks MC to judge his eating competition with Satan and Satan says it’s actually a drinking competition. Barbatos looking deeply concerned asks if the two of them intend to empty the hotel’s pantry AND its wine cellar. He asks MC to stop them. Lucifer’s goading Mammon and kicking his ass in a card game and Mammon refuses to give up (HC that Lucifer taught Mammon to play cards up in the Celestial Realm as a way to get him to sit still and NOT set the drapes on fire). Belphie comments on the card game and the party continues. (Pretty sure Solomon saw the demons as pawns or tools to get what he wants/ for more power and that he was much more ruthless with making pacts with them than he is now when he pesters Lucifer (aka getting Asmo drunk while he was upset and making a pact) the question is why? And why did Michael basically sponsor this? We know that the Celestial Realm and Devildom had just called a truce when Michael took an interest in Solomon so could it be that he wanted someone to keep an eye on the demons and the best way to do that was to have a powerful human sorcerer make as many pacts with demons as possible. I mean Solomon made a pact with Asmo mostly because he was Lucifer’s brother and Michael still has a heavy interest in the brothers so it could be possible that he wanted Solomon to make a pact with one of them so that he could see what they were doing?)

LAST ONE GUYS! :) I’m okay really :)))))))) Outside the manor in the morning, Barbatos tells Diavolo it’s time and Diavolo looking really sad agrees. (RIGHT OFF THE BAT HUH!?) Even Solomon seems upset when he realizes it’s time and then that damn song starts playing, that ending song that always chokes me up and this time it doesn’t feel as sad as last season because honestly the “Till we meet again” party really helped while last season all the brothers tried to run away with MC and that shit HURT but it still makes me choked up FUCK I want them back so badly. Diavolo comes up to MC and says they have to return and that though they weren’t here for a long time it was really fun. “So, till we meet again, MC” he ends with. Barbatos thanks them for all they did to make their stay in the human world more comfortable. He says next time they meet he’ll prepare a special tea for them that he’s sure they’ll like. From here we’re going to direct quotes because I am EMOTIONAL:

Mammon says, while not meeting their eyes: …Listen, why’re you sittin’ around twiddling your thumbs, huh? I saw how hard you worked to become a sorcerer, so I know you got it in ya. (He blushes, still not meeting their eyes) Hurry up and learn summoning magic ASAP! You big dummy… (he finally looks up at them and smiles) And once you learn it, you’d better summon ME first! All right? You promise, right? (MC can either hug or kiss him….AND YOU GUYS MUST KNOW ME BY NOW SO MC just kisses him in front of all the brothers just like that????????? – he blushes and looks away again) Dammit, now I wanna take you back to the Devildom with me… (He meets their eyes one more time, face still red)

Levi says, blushing and looking aside: …You know that game we were playing? Final Devil Kingdom… (He looks up at them, still blushing) Well, I’ve decided not to make any more progress in it until I see you next. (He smiles brightly then) So we need to get together and play it again as soon as possible, okay? I mean, I’m dying to move on to the next dungeon… (He looks up at them with a sad expression then and they can either hug or kiss him and look I love Levi but I’ve already made my choice so MC hugs him – he blushes and gets a determined expression on his face) I’m going to be messaging you a lot, okay? So… don’t ignore my texts, or I’ll cry. (He smiles at them one more time)

Satan says, looking confident and meeting their eyes: …There are several cats who come by the manor for food each day. Make sure to take care of them for me. If you’re on the job, I feel like I can rest easy knowing they’ll be okay. (He frowns, blushes and looks away then) But keep in touch. Let me know how the cats are doing every day. Got it? Every day. (They hug him and he laughs and then says with a smile) Knowledge is power. The more you have, the better off you’ll be. So study hard, and learn to stand on your own two feet as a sorcerer as soon as you can.

Asmo says, looking really upset but making eye contact: No matter how I dress myself up or how cute I make my nails and makeup, if I can’t show it to the one I love the most, it won’t be fun at all. (He smiles then) So, I’ve decided to think about it this way… I have to strive to make myself more and more beautiful with each passing day! 🤍 (He smiles even more brightly) So that one day you’ll fall for me completely and then you’ll be all mine! How does that sound? (MC hugs him and he giggles, and says smiling) I’m going to put a little something extra on my hug! 🤍 (he squeezes them closer)

Beel says with a soft smile looking in at them: …It was fun getting to eat together with you every day here human world, MC. (His smile brightens) You know, when you’re with the right person, good food has a way of tasting even better. I want to be able to eat with you all the time, every single day. I want that to be normal. And I’m going to do whatever I can to make it so that someday soon, it really will be like that. (MC hugs him and he blushes and smiles and says) Make sure you eat enough, okay? Take care of yourself.

Belphie says also with a soft smile, making eye contact: I’m glad I got this chance to live here in the human world. Spending each day together with you in your world has been incredibly fun. (He looks sad and looks to the side) …Having to go to sleep every night in a house without you in it from now on is going to be really sad, and really lonely. (MC hugs them and he blushes but his expression is still sad and he doesn’t make eye contact) Take care, MC…

Lucifer’s wearing that fond smile that makes his eyes squint shut and he says: …Never did I imagine that one day, I’d find it this hard to say goodbye to you. I’ve managed to shock even myself. (He looks up at them then) Once I’m back in the Devildom, where I can’t see you anymore, this feeling is probably going to grow even worse. I hope this is every bit as difficult for you as it is for me. (MC hugs him) …Let’s make sure we see each other again sooner rather than later. (He gives that soft fond smile again)

Barbatos opens the portal. Solomon tells them all to take care. There’s a flash of bright light and the opening song starts playing. “MC!” Yells Mammon with a bright smile before he jumps in. “Toodles!” Says a beaming, waving Asmo. “Till next time!” says Levi with a small smile. “Take care of yourself!” Says a brightly smiling Belphie. “Bye…” Says Beel with a smile. “See you around.” Says Satan with a smile. “See you next time.” Says Lucifer with a nod of his head and a smile. “Goodybe, MC.” Says Diavolo with a bright smile. There’s another flash and the portal’s closed and they’re all gone. The credits play thanking all the main and side character VAs over human world backgrounds and YOU! Back in front of the manor Solomon says it suddenly got so quiet that he feels lonely. MC’s silent and doesn’t answer him. “Hey,” he says after a bit, “didn’t they officially hire you as their “babysitter” because you came here looking for a job, you know that thing you need to be able to survive independent adult life in the human world… Did they ever pay you for that?” “…SON OF A B–” At the angel’s halo Simeon tells a sad, silent Luke that the others must have gone back home by now, Luke quietly agrees. Simeon laughs and asks if that bothers Luke. Luke blushes, stutters and denies it. Luke tries to change the topic by telling Simeon to hurry up and grind some coffee cause they’re about to open. Simeon says they still have enough time and Luke says he’s gonna take out the trash and runs out back to avoid his feelings and this conversation. Simeon laughs. The door opens and Simeon turns to tell them they’re not opened yet but trails off. ??? says, “I can see that, yes…” Simeon’s eyes widen and his mouth turns down, he’s too shocked to say anything. ??? says, “Well, look at you. I could almost believe you really are a human, brother…” Simeon’s entire face goes blank and settles on a cold emotionless expression though he still doesn’t reply before he slowly smiles, “…Welcome. So glad you could stop by, Raphael.” And the chapter, the lesson and the season is over. So…SO…you know I don’t even have words really. I’m not, we really are getting new characters aren’t we. I mean I said in some of the earlier summaries that at this point with the way they were hyping up the angels in this season that it only makes sense to bring them in BUT I never 100% believed they would and now I’m just???? They really are gonna do it holy fuck GUYS!? I need S4 badly like rn immediately but given that the break between S2 and S3 was really small AND that they maybe introducing at least 2 new characters the break between S3 and S4 might be longer AND I get it y’know but still I desperately need this now. Holy shit. And Simeon’s facial expressions! How he looked surprised and upset and then how his face just shut down (something we rarely or never? See from him) and then how it smoothed out into a smile ajsdvbkdwhskcjksk Raphael’s way of speaking fit exactly with what I imagined after what Asmo, Lucifer and Belphie said about him. This kinda formal, authoritative, cold, distant way. And the tension between him and Simeon!? “BROTHER!????” Does he mean brother in the same way as the Sins do or is it more brother in arms the way I see Lucifer and Simeon being in the Celestial Realm? It felt cold compared to them. Pls give me a heavily dysfunctional, distant and cold angel family to contrast with the dysfunctional but close and loving demon family I WILL SCREAM. I’ve screamed all my angel and celestial realm theories in the previous summaries (there are a lot) so I’m not gonna go into detail about them here but I will say I’m keeping my fingers crossed for morally dubious/grey angels who believe they are completely in the right at all times and I’m deeply scared of getting at least part of S4 without the brothers as we are introduced to the angels – I mean don’t get me wrong I’d love if they took time to introduce us to the angels without the brothers’ dynamics with them being involved and to give us a chance to hear their side of the story before they have the whole reunion between everyone BUT I’ll also feel the heavy withdrawal effects of being deprived of the brothers so yeah. Overall the goodbye to the brothers felt far more uplifting than last season’s one given that they ended with the upbeat opening song and not the melancholic sounding ending song. WOW okay. I’m gonna try and get through the hard lessons and unlock the chapters I couldn’t since S2. SEE YOU NEXT SEASON! LOVE AK 🤍

[missaudreystiara]

Prompt Bess × Audrey 10!

Anon I’m sorry it’s taken so long to reply!  This prompt for my faves seemed to sad too write (screw you anon - jk) and I had no idea where to start with it,  but then I remembered something Bess says in S2 episode 10 just after they’ve decided to use Audrey as a hostage and sort of ran with it!  I don’t usually write angsty fics and I’m not sure it’s where my skills lie (I generally only write fluffy feel good mush) but I actually like where this idea went and I’m thinking about using it as a starting point for a series exploring the gap between S2 and S3 and attempting to delve a bit more into Audrey’s motivations/thoughts at this time.  Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🖤❄️

10 - Things you said that made me feel like shit

How long are they going to leave me in here?  Audrey wondered, sitting on the floor of a cupboard, still bound in handcuffs, still covered in her own blood - still alone.  Was this what rock bottom felt like?

It seemed like hours had passed since she’d been locked back away in there after Layton and his merry band of pirates had stolen Snowpiercer from Joseph, and her along with it (not that he’d seemed as concerned about losing her as he had been about losing his precious engine).  Losing the engine meant he was losing power, control, but losing her?  That was a mere inconvenience by comparison.  Audrey knew better by now than to be surprised, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt or that she hadn’t wished that this might have finally been the time he did surprise her.  She hated herself for that. 

To say that the pair had a complicated history would be… an understatement.  They’d spent almost two decades together before the freeze, but they weren’t filled with the romance and laughter that Joseph liked to pretend they had been.  For Audrey, it had been years of knowing that she was only safe for as long as she was willing to be what Joseph needed her to be, for as long as he felt like he was in control of her, body and soul.  That was what the deal had been all those years ago when he’d spotted her working as an escort at a party on one of his trains.  He had offered her a way out - to show her the world… to help her to record her music and share her talent… a life with him.  A handsome stranger offering her everything she’d ever wanted, and all he’d asked for in return was loyalty.  At 18 years old it had sounded so easy.  She shuddered; the scar on her forearm was all the reminder she needed of what could happen if that loyalty was called in to question.  

What would happen to her now?  If Joseph had even the slightest reason to doubt whether her loyalty had remained strong while she was trapped here, what fate would await her when the two trains eventually reconnected?  Christ! Just look at how he’d responded to Kevin after only a day aboard Snowpiercer.  She’d alienated her friends and if she couldn’t rely on Joseph’s… affection… what was she going to do?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.  A knock?  She almost laughed Who on earth takes a hostage and locks them away, only to… knock before entering?

“It’s me, I’ve come to see if you’re okay” …Bess.  She was the last person Audrey wanted to see.  She remained silent.

After a pause, it must have dawned on the former brakemen that she wasn’t going to receive a reply.  Audrey heard the key turn in the lock.  She greeted the blonde with a raised eyebrow - as if she cared whether she was okay?

“I don’t know what to say okay, Audrey?” Bess shrugged and ran an anxious hand through her fringe.  She took a hesitant step forward, “Are you okay?”

Audrey scoffed.  “Like you care.”

Bess sighed “Please don’t make this harder, Audrey.”

“Seriously? You’re asking me not to make this harder?”  She retorted.

“This wasn’t my idea Audrey” the former brakeman snapped “I didn’t choose to bring you with us.”

“Yes” Audrey agreed, “You’ve made that abundantly clear Bess.  But whoever’s idea this was, you were the one who paraded me in front of Joseph like a puppet and then manhandled me in here - did this” she attempted to gesture to her nose, bloody and swollen, with her shoulder.  It wasn’t easy in handcuffs.

At this, the blonde winced.  “I am sorry about that.  I hope it isn’t broken.”

“Fortunately for you, I don’t think it is” Audrey replied.

“Good” Bess nodded.  

A beat passed.  Bess took another few awkward steps forward into the cupboard, closing the gap between the two of them.  “Look —” she began, her voice softer now “I’m supposed to be taking you straight to the library, but do you want me to take you somewhere to clean up first?  Ben’s using the shower up in the engine, but I think there’s a bath tub in one of the first class cabins you could use?”

Audrey froze. “No” she said more firmly than she’d intended, “not a bath tub.”

Bess eyed her with confusion.

Still somewhat rattled, Audrey continued “Just — can you just take me to a sink somewhere or bring me a basin of water or something.  Not a bath tub.  Please.”

Bess continued to stare at her at her, mystified, but Audrey offered no explanation.  “Why, does Wilford have a bath kink?”  The blonde asked, seemingly in an attempt at a joke to diffuse the mounting tension in the room.

“Something like that” she replied, her expression full of disgust, “I — I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay, okay — err — I’ll bring you some water, just — just bear with me a minute” Bess replied awkwardly, quickly ducking back out of the cupboard, leaving Audrey alone again.

She let out a sigh of relief when the door closed.  Too many old memories were resurfacing - old wounds re-opening - today, and she wasn’t in the mood to share them.  If truth be told, she hadn’t ever been in the mood to share them. 

The former brakeman returned quickly, knocking on the door once more.  “Come in” Audrey responded this time.  Bess had brought an assortment of goods back with her - a shallow bowl of water, a wash cloth, soap, antiseptic cream, and aspirin.  She set the items down and sat on the floor opposite Audrey, rolling her sleeves up to her elbows.

“May I?”  Bess gestured to the wash cloth and basin.  “Sorry, I’m not allowed to uncuff you” she grimaced apologetically. 

Audrey nodded, indicating for Bess to continue.  The blonde dipped the washcloth into the water and brought it gently up to Audrey’s face - the water was warm.  She worked in silence for a minute or so before Audrey broke it to ask softly “Why are you doing this Bess?”

“Doing what?” Bess shrugged, continuing to cleanse the blood from Audrey’s face.

“Pretending to care about me” she couldn’t meet the blonde’s eyes.

Bess stopped what she was doing and sighed “I’m not pretending, I do care about you Audrey.  I’m disappointed and I’m mad and I want to shake you until every last thought of Wilford falls out of your head, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about whether you’re hurt or not.”

“That’s funny, because it didn’t seem to matter to you earlier” Audrey responded, still refusing to meet Bess’s eyes.

Bess frowned.

“I heard what you said Bess, before you took me to the aquarium, ‘Oh great, Audrey’s the hostage.  Are we bringing anyone we actually want?’” Audrey elaborated, her voice rich with sarcasm.

Blood rushed to the former brakeman’s cheeks “Audrey, I —”

“I’m no fool” she interrupted, finally looking the other women directly in the eye.  “I saw the looks you all gave me at that disastrous dinner party, I’ve heard all the track talk…” she took a breath, to steady her voice “… but to hear you say that?  Well, it made me feel like shit, Bess.”  It really had.  She valued her relationship with the other woman more than she’d realised. 

Bess floundered “Audrey — you weren’t meant to … I didn’t realise you heard… that.” She grimaced.

“That doesn’t sound very much like an apology to me” Audrey countered, an eyebrow raised.

Bess sighed “I’m sorry you heard that, Audrey - I wish you hand’t.  But —” she shrugged, throwing her hands up in exasperation, “ But I’m not sorry I said it.  Christ what did you expect?” She continued, frustration growing in her voice  “We all trusted you — I trusted you, but you went back to him.  Actions have consequences Audrey.  Surely you can’t expect to choose Wilford over us with no repercussions?”

Actions have consequences… if only Bess knew just how painfully aware she was of this. 

“It’s not as simple as that, Bess” she replied, gazing intently into the former brakeman’s eyes, a sad smile forming at her lips.

Bess frowned, “What do you mean?”

“I —” Audrey began, but was interrupted when the door to the cupboard was thrown open.  Bess scrambled to her feet quickly, dropping the wash cloth as she stood.  Layton entered the room.  He looked from Bess to Audrey (and the various sundries on the floor) to Bess again, raising an eyebrow.  “Why is she not in the library yet?” He gestured at Audrey, his voice heavy with frustration.  “We need you in the engine Till - we’ve got plans to make”

Bess’s cheeks coloured pink once more.  “Sorry we were just — I was just”

Layton closed his eyes and let out a sigh “It doesn’t matter, just hurry it up - get her out of here and meet me in the engine as fast as you can”, leaving the room as suddenly as he’d arrived. 

Bess looked at Audrey as though about to pick up their conversation once more, but before she could Audrey spoke up: “A story for another day then, darling”, she forced her mouth in to a confident smile - her usual mask now firmly back in place as she allowed the former brakeman to lead her away.

... to be continued(?)

[tarysande]

It’s the Dose that Makes the Poison: Lucifer Thoughts and Speculation

I’m going to throw the entirety of this under a cut because spoilers. I’ve been rearranging the pieces on the table and I have some meta and a plausible(?) theory about how things might shake out.

...this is almost four thousand words long, and frankly? I feel I’ve barely grazed the surface.

Also, I put it on AO3 for ease of reading and/or in case anyone wants to have, idk, threaded conversations ;D

Okay. Here are a bunch of the pieces. (Or the piece is here, as it were.)

First: The show has always been about redemption; the showrunners throw that word around all the time. Second: I don’t think we’re going to see an endgame or a narrative where God is evil. So, how to make the concept of literal Hell work, then? How to explain or justify the idea of a father who a) kicked his kid out of the house and sent him to Hell for-literal-ever and b) created children for specific “of God” purposes.

Hell

In 5x01, Lee says, “Whose Hell is this, anyway?” and ... I think that’s the crux of the matter. In S3, Lucifer realizes he gave himself the face of a monster because he felt monstrous. But the truth is, he didn’t just give himself the face.

He gave himself the place, too. 5x01 is littered with clues that indicate this. Lucifer says “you to your torture and me to mine.” Lee’s entire speech—the one that pushes all Lucifer’s buttons because of course Lucifer’s projecting all over Lee’s “worst memory”—might as well be Lucifer talking to himself (not unlike Uriel in Lucifer’s hell loop). You know, the part of Lucifer that’s starting to understand all the psychological stuff Linda’s been yammering on about.

Lucifer created Hell. To torture himself for what he believes he did. He created the mechanism that you can walk out any time you like—but no one ever does. None of the doors are locked, right? 

On some level, Lucifer, who is all about fairness and justice, looked at what he did and decided the Hell as we’ve seen it was the appropriate punishment. And with Lee, Lucifer almost figures out that the goal of “Hell” isn’t to eternally loop through guilt-fueled self-torture but to forgive yourself and apologize or make amends or not repeat the mistakes. Most of all, learn that nothing changes if you stay in the loop and the only way to break the loop is to take risk that you might fuck up and do something that you feel guilty for again. 

Names/Family

Something that’s always jumped out at me is that no matter how many millennia have passed, Lucifer—to whom nicknames and names are canonically really goddamned important—always refers to his family by their familial connection to him “brother, sister, Mum, Dad.” When he banished himself from Heaven—and I’m starting to think he did—he didn’t stop feeling like he was a part of his family. Even when he wanted to eat Amenadiel’s heart someday, he still called him “brother.” Even when Uriel was threatening Chloe (and Mum), he was still “brother.”

For that matter, isn’t it interesting that all Lucifer’s estranged siblings refer to him by the name he chose for himself—not the one he was given? Except, of course, when they want to hurt him. We’ve known since what, S1? That Lucifer cannot abide the name Samael. Even Uriel calls him Lucifer. Or Luci. Mum calls him Lucifer. Lucifer was given Poison of God and he chose Bringer of Light. And everyone who loved (and loves) him said, “All right. Lucifer it is.” And though Lucifer is originally a little eye-rolly with nicknames—Luce, Luci—it’s fond, not the “I’m going to rip out your spine and beat you to death with it” response Samael elicits. Essentially, Samael is Lucifer’s deadname. And people who use intentionally are dismissing and rejecting the identity Lucifer chose, which is vile.

When I was researching/writing Taking the Fall and I knew I wanted to talk about the name thing, I came across this quotation ascribed to Paracelsus, and it really resonated: “All things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.” The dosage, in fact, is the difference between whether something is a poison or a cure. And if that doesn’t align with the themes of the show, I don’t know what does. 

Lucifer has spent all this time thinking he is a poison; he has never imagined that he might be a cure. (To angels embracing their free will; to ending the sharp black and white segregation between Heaven and Hell; to darkness, to fear. Yet the more Lucifer learns and the healthier he gets, the more we see cures in what he does: i.e., Brody and also, you know, solving crimes.)

Michael, on the other hand, means “Who is like God?” It’s meant to be a rhetorical question, but in the universe of the show, I think Michael’s twisted version is that he used the question “Who is like God?” to plant the seed of Lucifer’s rebellion ... and is now answering the question “Who is like God?” with the reply, “I am."

Maze

But just in case we head too far down the Lucifer is Great line of thinking, we’ve got a big old example of how he’s still a poison, too.

Contrast this discussion of family with the lesson Lucifer still needs to learn about Maze—he’s managed to absorb that she’s not his servant anymore, but he’s still clinging to that soulless demon/just a demon dismissiveness. And despite self-worth coming from within, bitches, Maze still hasn’t truly absorbed that. She still looks outside for validation—and resents or backslides when she doesn’t get it. Especially from Lucifer. Because Lucifer was the first being to treat her like she mattered. She admires him. Looks up to him. Loves him. In many ways, Maze is the shadow of Chloe—drawn to Lucifer but never, from his perspective, his equal or his partner.

And he, for all the strides he’s made, still default to “demon” as derogatory and dismissive. Something she can’t transcend, even though all the evidence suggests the contrary. As long as Lucifer sees Maze as just a demon, she can’t truly escape from that identity. 

Why does Maze keep “betraying” Lucifer? It’s tempting to think it’s because she’s a demon. Because she doesn’t have “a soul.” But that’s not true. She can learn; she learns from “betraying” Chloe and doesn’t do it a second time. She learns from “betraying” Linda and Trixie. Even she and Amenadiel seem to have reached a real (and much more healthy) understanding of who they are to each other.

She keeps betraying Lucifer because he keeps deserving it.  

Servants 

The thing is, I think there’s something important in Lucifer’s “You’re not my servant anymore” to Maze. Because I think angels believe they are God’s servants. And I suspect the reason God’s been so AFK is because he really wanted them to ... break free of that. On their own. Without him telling them to—because if he told them, it wouldn’t be choice anymore. It wouldn’t be free will. It would be Following The Will of DadGod. 

Here’s another relevant Paracelsus quotation: “No one who can stand alone by himself should be the servant of another.” 

Angels self-actualize. They have powers. Sometimes those powers change (as with Amenadiel). I don’t think angels ever lacked free will. 

What is self-actualization but literal free will? You become what you believe you are; you do what you think you’re supposed to. You literally change based on your choices and feelings about those choices. Angels basically have human free will on a kind of EXTREME SCALE that they’ve remained mostly ignorant of throughout time. But how do you get your kids to figure something out without telling them how to figure it out when they��ve all got this WILL OF DAD complex? He gave them the tool of self-actualization. When they didn’t ... do that, he created humanity. He tinkered with the model. Took away the names and the powers that were such a stumbling block for his angels and such a shining example of how he failed them. If someone hangs on your every word, if you are not just their father but their master, how can they ever know love? Trust? How can they ever be free? Be themselves? I think God wanted his angel children to learn from his human children and was disappointed when they pretty much decided to just be remote and Angelically Superior All The Time, instead. Of course, that's mostly on him, too.

Except Lucifer. Because Lucifer’s curiosity (yes, from the beginning of time) kept bringing him so close to figuring things out. (Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven, amirite, Paradise Lost?) And as close as he was to figuring things out, Lucifer was still prideful and selfish and superior. The result was what happened with (and in) Hell. Things got twisted down there; he was in a God role over the demons and he was not hands-off. Cue endless loops of pain and torture and despair and self-recrimination and poison. Lilith may have started their pain, but Lucifer, however unintentionally or ignorantly, continued it. 

At least Lucifer could escape it sometimes. Those poor demons. Those poor abandoned children. They had two rocks.

Pretty sure there’s going to be an echo of Dad abandonment with his angel kids and Lilith of her demon kids, by the by. Because abandonment is a theme. And good intentions or not, well, you know what they say about the road to Hell.

Humanity The more Lucifer interacted with humanity, the more he learned from humanity. And, of course, the entire journey of the series has been about Lucifer learning, growing, adapting, changing because of this. And not in a Superior Angelic Way, but in a person-to-person real way. Not just with Chloe. With everyone.  But yeah, Chloe is the catalyst—precisely because (as Amenadiel says) she’s the only mortal who sees Lucifer for who he really is, without her reflected desires getting in the way. No one, no one else can truly reflect back to him his worthiness or lack thereof.

Does Chloe have a power? It’s not laser-beam hands. But I’ve always thought Chloe has the power of seeing things and, in seeing, encouraging others to see, too. And this is most obvious with Lucifer, whose power has never let him be seen. Because of his power, he can never know if the reactions of others are about him or about their own desires. 

What agony for someone whose chosen path is bringing light: to be forever hidden in the shadow of the light others see.

Until Chloe.

Michael tells Lucifer his greatest fear is that of being unworthy. We know Lucifer has always feared he’s not worthy of Chloe. But now that she’s told him, shown him, his worthiness? You’d better believe that he will never, ever abandon her—will never, ever let her suffer from her worst fear. Gosh, and by suddenly being invulnerable again, it’s almost like he’s assured that, isn’t it? “You make me vulnerable” was about his walls. “My invulnerability ensures I will never, ever abandon you,” is all about hers.

So, back to learning from humanity. We’ve seen Lucifer and Amenadiel do it. It’s been hinted that Azrael has done it, at least a little. Then we have Michael’s frustrated tale of how the other angel siblings are taking note of Lucifer’s actions—with the implication being that maybe they’re learning, too. Maybe they’re starting to understand that they can be more than they think they have been made to be. More than just a “Something” of God.

Control 

Meanwhile, of course, Michael’s concocted some kind of Make Heaven Great Again plot—ironically, it appears, by doing exactly what he accused Lucifer of doing: believing he can run things better than Dad. And, I suspect, by trying to set himself as Master and his siblings (and other assorted peons) as his servants. Only, he’s not doing it in Lucifer’s ultimately forthright (and even honest) way of “This sucks and I’m rebelling” but in a conniving, secretive, Machiavellian way that probably sounds a lot like “Dad says” or “Dad’s not here” or “Who is closer to God than I?” ...

Who is like God, indeed. He even throws down the word archangel when he speaks to Dan: an angel above even other angels. I’m 99% sure that word’s never been used before on the show. Because that’s what Michael desires. To be more. To be everything. To control.

He’s what Lucifer was as the Lord of Hell. He’s everything Lucifer has made such progress toward overcoming.

Incidentally, and also essay-worthy: This is why the progression of the scene where Lucifer and Chloe make love is so incredibly (heh) important: Lucifer of the perfect appearance, perfect pocket square, perfect car, perfectly clean apartment; Lucifer of control control control control ... surrenders. He offers. She accepts. And in these first moments—“Incredible,” he breathes before they’ve done anything more than kiss—she is above him, in control ... and nothing bad happens. Nothing hurts him even though she makes him hurt-able. She doesn’t take advantage of him. She loves him; she treasures him; she protects him. It’s beautiful. It’s everything he’s been so afraid he could never have.

And for the first time (very possibly) ever, he sees himself as worthy. He sees himself as belonging. He believes he is not alone; he is not lonely.

Power

Amenadiel “lost” his power to stop time when he decided he didn’t want to stand apart from humanity anymore. Essentially, just as he lost his wings when he was so horrified and disgusted by what he’d done (to Lucifer, with Malcolm, etc.) he caused himself to Fall. He regained his wings when he made it his purpose to bring Charlotte to Heaven. He stopped time again in S5 when the question of humanity—of his own child being human, and thus ‘not like him’ or ... not that ‘special’—reared its head. With the nuns, he reflects their love of God, right? And in part, that’s because he’s in this father (or Father) role now. 

Angel powers, like all power really, are double-edged. In the wrong hands or twisted the wrong way, a good power can bring about evil. Look at the almost throwaway line with Brody in 5x02: Lucifer’s “desire” power—so often spun as about sin or hedonism—brought Brody peace and forgiveness. That Lucifer doesn’t lie or take without giving in return indicates that, on some level, the level that values true justice—and even a bit of mercy—he was never able to use that power against others (the way we see Michael do with his); he didn’t want to use as he felt he’d been used; he also didn’t want to feel used by those whose desires he provided (this is why the parade of one-night stands and “it was just sex—great sex, but just sex” partners upset him so much back in S2). Favors—and even the give and take of sex—were a way to balance that scale. Again, this could be a whole essay all its own.

This makes me suspect that the dark side of Lucifer’s powers played some part in his Rebellion. That he abused desire the way we’ve seen Michael abuse fear. 

So, about that power of fear, then. I mean, it just sounds negative. How can FEAR be positive, right? But if Michael were using his powers to draw out fears so they’re named and dealt with (LIKE PEOPLE DO IN THERAPY???) instead of manipulated for personal gain—it could be a very healing power (LIKE THERAPY???).

Greatest Strength/Greatest Weakness

The absolute thematic and narrative brilliance of twin brothers having the powers of fear and desire whilst also being held back BY the “power” of their twin is so amazing it really needs its own essay. But I do want to mention this relative to the overall arc heading forward. Much of Lucifer’s work with Linda has been about addressing his fears; he’s made a ton of progress with this. As I mentioned earlier, with Linda’s guidance, Lucifer has been drawing out his fears in a safe(r) space and learning to deal with them and heal. And, in doing so, his own power of reflecting desire has increasingly been less and less about artisanal honey and car batteries and more about drawing out desires that help others heal, grow, become their best selves, release their inner demons.

Michael is (both literally and figuratively) twisted by his desires (to be powerful, to be stronger/better/more admired than his brother). I’ll bet some cold hard cash that if Lucifer’s the source of the original injury to his shoulder/wing, Michael has self-actualized into keeping that injury—perhaps even magnifying it—to a) manipulate others into feeling sorry for him, b) to remind everyone who looks at him how awful Lucifer is, and c) to trick people into believing he’s weaker than he is. 

At the end of the day, fear and desire are two of the strongest motivating forces in the world (universe); the show is showing us all the messy ways those forces come into play. And it’s also showing how connection and love and trust are the forces that both fight the worse facets of these powers and that let these forces be useful in helpful and ultimately healing ways.

Because THERAPY.

Home

So, we know we’re rolling toward what was meant to be a series finale; it’s time to start tying loose ends together, right? Again and again, the question of home comes up. Lucifer only ever refers to Los Angeles as his home. Maze, on the other hand, still defaults to Hell as home. 

Hell as we know it is over. But Hell as a place where Maze tries to impart the lessons she’s learned on Earth to her abandoned, twisted-by-hate-and-loneliness-and-Lilith siblings? Perhaps even with Eve “mother of all humanity” at her side to help clean up some of the mess Lilith made when she decided to abandon connection in favor of more selfish desire? I think that’s plausible, while also managing a significant nod at where Mazikeen ends up in the comics and a heavy dash of “the things we learn from therapy and/or being best friends with a therapist.” 

Now, I know the question of how things will end for Chloe and Lucifer is contentious in fandom. So, you know, grain of salt. I don’t think Lucifer’s home is Los Angeles; the Los Angeles in Hell wasn’t enough because it didn’t have her in it. In a literal embodiment of “Home is where the heart is,” Lucifer’s home is with Chloe. And since Chloe’s worst fear is abandonment, Lucifer will do what it takes to stay with her—because that’s what’s most important to him. The utterly unselfish choice. I think there’s some pretty reasonable foreshadowing (Lilith’s choice—if that choice was even real, of course—for example) that Lucifer may choose to renounce his immortality. Or to give it to someone else. Or that immortality won’t matter at all anymore. 

From his reactions in 5x07/08, we know that Lucifer’s identity and ideas of usefulness/self-worth/worthiness of love are still connected to his identity as an immortal with powers; I think, though, he’s beginning to piece together the complications therein, especially regarding questions of partnership and vulnerability and equality. 

Personally, Human!Lucifer has never been my preferred outcome, but I can see how it might work/might be what they’re heading for. Even if I’d still prefer the “you can use me as a bullet shield” partnership with supernatural elements—because those have always been at the heart of their partnership. The strengths of one make up for the weaknesses in the other (and vice versa).

Hell (Redux)

Finally, I’m still pretty sure we’re going to see a complete overhaul of the Heaven/Hell dichotomy. One with a lot less THIS IS THE WAY IT IS BECAUSE CONTROL and a lot more CHOICES MATTER (maybe Linda can have a turn as a salamander after all). And a major catalyst, of course, is Lucifer and his love for the chosen family on earth (and through them, a renewed love for the estranged family he’s never actually stopped loving; 5x01 basically makes canon that it's not that Lucifer hates his family—it's that he's terrified of disappointing them again, of causing problems again). 

So why does Hell have to change?

Because right now, every human he loves is sure they’re going to Hell. And after all the time and all these friendships, can you really see Lucifer being okay with that? Okay with Ella or Linda or Dan or Trixie tormenting themselves for all eternity? When he wasn’t even okay with Mr. Said Out Bitch doing so? When he gave this guy who he barely knows every opportunity to change his fate in ways he’s never done for any other tortured soul? Because they had a tenuous connection on earth?

Can you see him being okay with Chloe choosing Hell to be with him?

When it boils right down to it, Lucifer has learned to love others. And I think, especially given his revelations about self-loathing last season, that love isn’t going to let him be okay with or encourage the self-loathing in others. Love—selfless love, real love—is, in fact, the cure to the very concept of Hell. 

And it’s also the cure to the very concept of Heaven, too.

How could Heaven ever be perfect if the people you love aren’t in it?

It can’t. It might be more silver and have fewer demons, but I don’t think it’s any less an eternal torture. Eve basically tells us as much.

So, on that note, I’ll leave you with another fine quotation from Paracelsus:

“When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him... For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth.”

And that, I think, is going to be the takeaway. We create what we are; we choose what we create. And in the act of that creation, we choose whether we are the poison or the remedy. And if we make mistakes, slip up, hurt people, hurt ourselves—it’s not a Hell-sentence. It’s the dose that makes the poison. We learn, we grow, we apologize, we strive to make things better, we love and love and love and love, and we never stop striving to be the cure.   

[inevitably-johnlocked]

The Video

Alrighty, so as promised, I listened-slash-watched-slash-backtracked the video over making and eating dinner, with a break in between to take a phone call from my sister, so I may have missed and misunderstood/misheard a few things and may need another rewatch to fix any presumptions I make in this mini (?)-review.

Two things I do need to correct from my last post:

One is that I actually was sent the video to pre-watch before it was posted; I found it in my emails two days later but because I was swamped with day job stuff (as in I was working until 11 PM both days, and I didn’t even sit down until 4 on Saturday), and my fandom email is NOT a primary address so it’s not hooked up to my main Mail server on my MacBook (limited space), I hadn’t checked my emails since Thursday afternoon. So yeah, technically I should’ve known it was out, so apologies: technically I knew it was coming out; my sorry arse just didn’t check my emails.

Second, is that meta I did send her did get referenced and used; some of it word for word (like the discussion about the difference between Johnlockers and TJLC) so meta was read, my bad on assuming it wasn’t before watching.

C’est ça on that front.

A few things that ruffled my feathers and maybe I misheard, but I’ll mention them as I remember it:

I did find it slightly bothersome that the assumption was that Johnlockers that we were a bunch of teenagers (we weren’t – most of the people I talked to were in their 20′s and 30′s and many were academics of varying sorts). SZ was younger than many of us in our little corner of the fandom, I think, and it was filled with amazing meta and university-level papers on queer history, ACD canon history, subtextual writing and literature.  EDIT: I did skim back over to a bit of the beginning since I missed it over making dinner, and I guess a lot of the people who contacted SZ were teens at the time of the airdate, so again, my little bubble and all that and apologies for assuming. :P

This is a totally biased view and probably indicative of how deep down the rabbit hole I was: A bit annoyed at the implication in our belief that Mofftiss weren’t trying to deliberately imply the Gay Sherlock / BiJohn thing especially paying special attention to it during Q&As and meet and greets and interviews; That the cues weren’t there. Though she did point out the queerbaiting aspect of it. I don’t know. Maybe I misunderstood since I was stuffing my gob with pasta and wishing I had a cheesecake.

I think SZ should’ve worded her Twitter callout post a LOT better, because the cons were only mentioned for about 10 minutes, and in only in relation to the drama. She did praise the cons as a positive experience for people, so I’ll give her that.

The Twitter stuff pre-vid-posting still rubs me the wrong way.

Still feel that selling the shirts is tasteless. Mug is cute, though.

Things I did find interesting / good / stuff I didn’t know:

I know I’m a minority in this regard, especially since I am a fence sitter, but I feel... relieved? sorry I can’t think of the word... that SZ essentially did accuse Mofftiss of queerbaiting by the end of it – that it’s not just us who see it. I’ve always said without an S5, it IS queerbaiting, and given that S5 probably won’t happen anytime soon... well. Like I’ve said in the past, I hold out a glimmer of hope. Not holding my breath though.

The mentions of some of the fandom theories and speculations were done tastefully, light jesting but not mocking them.

The discussion section about AA / Mary... Yikes. I forgot it got THAT bad.... I guess because I was always in the “Mary’s a kickass villain” camp so I was blissfully ignorant about that stuff until a few years later. 

The ace stuff, 100% true, and I’m glad it was brought up.

The term “Ragnalock” got a chuckle out of me, will admit that. First time I’ve heard of it.

I had no idea the ARG theory was anything more than thelostspecial website. Somehow I missed that whole thing about it being part of the series itself.

And, a lot of things, in hindsight: just an overall, “yeah. :|”

And some additional notes I can’t really classify one way or another:

Cringing at MYSELF because of some of the post-S4 theories that, looking back: oof. Apple Tree Yard specifically. 

AND cringing at myself because I know I perpetuated a lot of the “IT WILL HAPPEN” in my corner of the fandom pre-S4 because I wanted people to be excited for a new season. For that I am very sorry to everyone who were hurt by my belief. S4 was a brick wall and I hit it hard, thought I do enjoy theorizing about how fake it was. It’s the only way to cope for me, LOL.

Ooof the drama stuff, a lot of it I didn’t know the entire deets about, only about the PPG being involved. I tried to stay out of it when I could and focused mainly on meta writing, my own healing processes, and making people feel welcome. It’s what a few bigger bloggers did for me when I joined by interacting with my posts and offering their kindness, and I wanted to return the favour. Inevitable it had to be covered, but yeah, dark times.

LOOOOOOOL the critique about TFP. Literally stuff that we’ve talked about in our “something’s fucky” tag. 

And to address the elephant in the room: Yes, I DID give SZ meta, but it was the link to fandom meta that is essentially on the header of my blog on desktop, just as I do with anyone interested in the fandom.

Overall, it was a thought provoking vid, a bit of a nostalgia hit to be honest. I thought that it was a good video, interesting in that strange way where you relive strange moments of your past. I feel it was a fair analysis of the fandom, but please, please remember: I can’t speak for those directly involved in the events mentioned, because I WAS NOT THERE. Not my place to disregard their feelings if they have a different opinion than I. 

That said, I think it’s worth a watch if only to see what the fandom WAS. But it’s informative and respectful, I think. Though, I think she could’ve left out the bit at the end just before the credits.

And finally: to anyone who are coming here from the vid: I have been here since S3, joined because of LSiT, and later I wrote villain Mary meta and TAB meta. These days, I primarily have focussed my attentions on curating content, offering my advice on stuff, introducing newbies to the series, and trying to spread positivity, all peppered in with the random theory from time to time, and trying to atone for my... “enthusiasm”?... in the past. I like promoting community and open discussion from all viewpoints, as long as it remains respectful. So yeah, I do have some meta you can check out, just let me know what you’re looking for, and I do lots of fic recs, so if you’re looking for something, hit me up.

Cheers, all. I’m going to bed. 

[paramedictk-archive]

it’s hard to put into words how much skam france has disappointed me this year but s6 is finally over and i felt like i needed to kind of... say goodbye to this shitshow and get a few things off my chest.

s3 will always hold a special place in my heart, it came into my life when i really needed it and honestly, it was their only genuinely good season from start to finish. i will always be grateful for s3 and for eliott and lucas and for all those little moments we got to see with the grew in that season as well as in s4 and s5, when they actually acted like teenagers, when they were there for each other, when actions had consequences, when subplots weren’t abandoned just after 2 clips and when they used this show to educate teenagers and give them hope... those very few moments that actually made me feel like i was watching a skam remake.

it’s hard to make peace with the fact that this remake gave us so many good moments but also managed to completely ruin this entire experience for most of us this year. i think if skam france was genuinely, consistently trash from s1 to s6 i wouldn’t be half as angry as i am right now. but truth is, it wasn’t all bad. that’s the worst thing. we’ve seen they can do better, they just chose to be lazy and use the popularity s3 gave them to churn out mediocre and half assed plots time and time again because they knew they had devoted fans who would defend them no matter what.

when s3 was airing i actually felt like they listened to us sometimes and cared about us but something changed after s4. it no longer mattered what we wanted to see or what we thought about a scene, we were simply told what we should be feeling. and that’s a huge red flag. i don’t have to be a scriptwriter or a director to know that good storytelling isn’t about throwing excuses and explanations (and then damage control pictures) at your audience. it’s about them engaging with the content you put out and bringing their own perspective to it. otherwise, what’s the point?

and you know, this isn’t even about what’s ooc and what isn’t. it’s about the people who were supposed to finally get their representation but instead ended up being too triggered by the show to continue watching it. it’s about muslim, deaf/hoh people, people dealing with addictions or self harm or eating disorders speaking out only to be silenced by david and his fans just because their opinions weren’t always supportive and positive. it’s about us saying that they should have never used sexual or domestic abuse for shock value and then being told to shut up because a few pacifists in this fandom seem to think we’re ruining the show for them this way. it’s about david and niels flat out lying to us and promising so many things in order to get us to watch s6. it’s about being disrespected by the creators of your favourite tv show so badly that you end up having to distance yourself from it and the fandom. you obviously can’t please everyone, but the least you can do is listen to the people whose stories you’re trying to tell.

i obviously can’t tell any of this to david even though i wish i could. not because i want to rub it in or prove that i’m right, i just simply want him to know how much his childishness hurt the very people who once fought so hard to get his show renewed for him. i can’t tell him any of this because he would never read my messages since i’m not one of his certified bootlickers singing his praises all the time. because he blocked one of my insta accounts last week for a comment i posted under one of his pictures during s5. because that’s the kind of person he is. someone who would rather hide and ignore constructive criticism and let his little fans fight his battles for him. someone who stayed quiet for weeks while said fans kept sending death threats to people. and yes, you could say he’s not responsible for other people’s actions and that’s true in a way. but when you create such an unhealthy and hostile environment within your own fandom by playing favourites and silencing anyone who has a different opinion than what is considered acceptable, you do encourage that kind of behaviour.

despite all this, i still stayed and tried to put up with all the bad writing because i cared about the grew that much, maybe even more than niels himself, it seems. i don’t have a reason to stay now. the concept of having female showrunners sounds good, sure, but i know francestvslash and i know skam france. it’s the good old bait-and-switch. during the last two seasons, they kept baiting marginalized communities to earn woke points but a season that was supposed to be about arthur’s deafness entirely got turned into some cheating fest and lola’s season was pure misery porn with wlw rep thrown in there as bait. 

david and niels leaving won’t solve this problem. francetvslash needs a reality check too. they used us to renew the show and then turned around and called us obsessive. they blocked my comments under the live because i asked them why wasn’t the sexual assault plot mentioned again. they joked about addictions. they don’t care, okay? not about us, not about giving people representation. the only thing they care about is money. so them suddenly hiring female directors and writers after they saw us complaining about the way this show treats women? bait. the same kind of bait niels and david used when they tried to throw all kinds of rep in s6 because they knew lgbt people want to see themselves represented so badly that they would watch it no matter what. i would love to be proven wrong, obviously. i want to believe the new showrunners have nothing but good intentions but their hands will obviously be tied by francetvslash to some extent. and i’m done being used by them and then being forced to settle for the bare minimum.

all in all, both s5 and s6 fell flat and were extremely disappointing. skamfr under david and niels will always remain a one hit wonder, nothing else. it’s a good thing they are leaving now because at least characters like max or sekou have the chance to be treated with respect by the new writers and directors. and i’m happy for all of you who decided to stay... i wish you guys the best. i honestly hope you guys will get the stories and the representation you’re looking for. i really do. i want to be proven wrong about francetvslash and the showrunners... but i don’t have the energy to dedicate so much of my life to this show again, not after them breaking my heart so many times. 

and i guess i’m a petty person. the grew deserved great stories too, not just lamif. arthur deserved a great season, deaf/hoh people deserved to see themselves represented, instead they were forced to watch niels disrespect noée and camille and then act like they never existed in s6. and after everything wlw have done for this show, we deserved a great season too, not to be baited like this. maya was in 18 clips out of 83 (!!!!). if niels and david didn’t want to give the grew a chance to have a good send-off, then i’m not giving this show a chance again. why would i?

anyway. i’ll stick to rewatching s3 every now and again. and i will miss the way the grew made me feel. thanks for all the good memories and let’s hope we’ll forget the bad ones soon. this is what we’ve come to.

alt er love and all that crap i guess.

[dotsayers]

20 Questions: Writer’s Edition

tagged by the beloved @myrmidryad 

this is a LONG one so here’s a cut to avoid do you love the colour of the sky syndrome

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

101 after a recent purge... no one may know about my Past

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

329004! used to be about 350k but again... purge

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

on ao3 i’ve written for (chronologically) doctor who, skyfall, discworld, les mis, star trek, lord peter wimsey, marvel (various), in the flesh, red vs blue, roosterteeth rpf, check please, hockey rpf, star wars, daredevil, rivers of london, dishonored, emmerdale, dirk gently, holby city, hot fuzz, kj charles, guardian, the covert captain, taskmaster rpf, good omens, ghosts, roswell new mexico, leverage, schitt’s creek, the magicians, 9-1-1, it chapter two, the magnus archives, the old guard, the mandalorian, the ritual, the locked tomb

way back on the pit of voles i wrote for twilight, harry potter, hetalia and xmen first class. and on the newsround chatrooms i wrote exclusively harry potter fic about my oc neville and luna’s daughter

as you can tell i am not prone to staying in one fandom writing wise, i tend to end up with one complete fic and seven abandoned wips concealed deep in my google drive

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

finally see what it means to be living (captain marvel, carol/maria, i really hit the zeitgeist with this one i think i was something like the fifth fic in the ship tag)

do whatever you think (the magnus archives, this series is actually #2-7, then #8 #9 and #11 for me so i’m going to cheat a bit)

standing in a world of my own (daredevil, matt/foggy/karen, another zeitgeist hit! really miss writing for daredevil actually... it’s a perennial fave)

a winding road that stretches towards the truth (iron man, tony/rhodey, i STILL don’t know when this got so many kudos. i swear i looked away when it was at 100 and suddenly it ended up here)

where the long shadows grow (star trek aos, kirk prime/spock prime, thank god some people are checking the prime kirkspock tag is all i’m saying!)

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i don’t really Do angsty endings... possibly a blanket of stars just because i ended it on something of a cliffhanger and then completely zoned out of rnm for long enough that i forgot where i was going with it. there was definitely the intention of fixing things but then i just... did not do that. and now the show is on s3 and i’m over a season behind! life comes at you fast

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

where the long shadows grow, because it reunited kirk prime and spock prime and they DESERVE TO BE HAPPYYYY. i’m a complete sucker for presumed dead/back from the dead stories, actually, so on a similar theme i have two (TWO) daredevil fics which follow the trope, one about ray coming back post-s2 (might never be normal again) and one about foggy and matt reuniting post-endgame (in the corner, taking up space). this is the only time i will ever acknowledge endgame ever again

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

i do write crossovers! in fact i am often roundly mocked by my friends for the increasingly esoteric nature of my crossovers. way back in secondary i wrote a twilight/labyrinth crossover where angela was sarah and jareth’s daughter  because i had a massive crush on a girl who liked both twilight and labyrinth. however, since that has been comprehensively scrubbed from the internet, i think my craziest crossover is probably part three of ‘traced upon the skies’, already an esoteric crossover of rivers of london and hot fuzz, when i added in a crossover with the horror movie ‘the ritual’ just because i wanted rafe spall’s character to be happy 

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

EXTREMELY rarely and only with extreme embarrassment. i will not be any more specific than that

9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i used to really struggle with doing this, to the point that i had over 300 comments just. lingering in my inbox unanswered. so i decided to give those up and just commit to answering them from then on, which has been working fairly well for about a year and a half now. i love getting comments but i get overwhelmed really easily and struggle with replying in a way which feels meaningful without getting in my head about it! 

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

yes lmao it was for a harry potter fic on ff.net where harry got sorted into hufflepuff instead of gryffindor. it wasn’t a very good fic but i think the fact it was clearly written by an 11 year old should have scared off at least some of the less flattering comments.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don’t... think so? i don’t know how i’d find out to be honest, my vanity googling is rarely very effective

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! as bronze may be much beautified (skyfall, mallory/bond) got translated into chinese, i was extremely pleased. i think it’s mandarin but the ao3 page for the translation doesn’t say and my mandarin is.................. extremely poor

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

also yes! me and jess little-smartass have written a lot together, although only our star trek/les mis series has been published, more’s the pity. we spent a lot of les mis fandom time workshopping aus and we were always extremely correct about all of it, imo

14. What’s your all time favourite ship to write for?

oh god. i think probably kirk/spock, although there’s some recency bias to that since i reread space manhattans recently and was reminded of my love for them. i really like writing jon/martin but i’ve mostly done that from outsider pov which is a bit different to writing shipfic, i think. joe/nicky from tog was also something i really liked writing but i struggle with plotting longer fic with them

15. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

i recently went through my abandoned fic folder so i actually have a few options for this. the obvious choice would be ‘any of the hockey ones’ but i did delete most of those just for my sanity. more recently i started writing a vaguely smutty pre-the thing mac/fuchs fic for alex @milkdrinker5000 which i really WANT to finish but am struggling with. most obscure answer (even beyond the thing) and most likely to remain unfinished is the insanely in depth post-tog booker/copley fic i had planned out back in about october. i wrote a good 6-7k of that one and then i realised it was going to be, like, difficult, and decided if i was going to put that much work into something it may as well be the novel im meant to be writing

16. What are your writing strengths?

once a friend told me i had an excellent facility for dialogue and ive thought about it every time i write ever since. i love writing dialogue and i think i’m good at knowing what sounds ic and what is right out. 

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

one of the things i struggled with for a really long time, and honestly still have trouble with, is depicting action in words. once i wrote a hockey fic which featured multiple hockey games and i spent probably four times as much effort editing those to make sense and be interesting that i’ve ever done on a talkier scene.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i’ve done it but only when i knew more or less what i was talking about - i did italian at school so i felt confident using it for nicky in something particular and real. i try not to italicise when i drop in words from other languages, which is what i usually do when i’m using a language i haven’t studied in depth (for example, joe’s use of arabic in some of my fic), and to only use words which i’ve heard used by native speakers in that context. i think if you don’t feel confident using another language, generally speaking, you shouldn’t do it. and for god’s sake don’t use google translate for a full sentence

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

harry potter on the newsround chatboards. ariana lovegood-longbottom my sweet child

20. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

this used to be an easy question because hands down the fic i was proudest of on posting it was i’ll be seeing you. i spent a year and a half on research and writing! but these days i do cringe a little at my hockey fic, and i think i’m prouder of some of my shorter works. let’s do a curveball and say layer on layer, down on down, which is my favourite of my rnm fics and the one i like most from a narrative voice perspective. getting michael right was stressful and i’m still proud i got it down for a TIME LOOP FIC, my absolute favourite trope

tagging @little-smartass and @leescoresbies just in case they want to try this

[roccinan]

1/? simply because you have the most galaxy brain thoughts ever,,, what do you think would've happened if they waited until s5 to reveal sergio and andrés were (half)brothers?

i do know that when my fam started watching lcdp at first i was so put off. like i watched ep 1 and the prof creeped me out. ""berlin"" creeped me out. e v e r y o n e creeped me out. and i was cringing so hard becz of the short lived romance angle with alison parker. i literally did not watch s1 at all xcept for like sneak peeks. highlights being the scene where berlin discovers monica is alive and does his dramatic door by door thing? that was so SUSPENSEFUL even tho i had no idea what was going on. DOMINGO DE RESURECCION remains forever iconic.

2/? And OF COURSE the group bella ciao dance when they hit earth (hahah i thought the banda were actually like a "found family where they all love each other LOL") i am a SUCKER for found family. but anyhoo when i properly got intrigued was s2 when tokyo was kicked out (the music from that scene is still my favourite) it's just so dramatic..!! why am i telling u all this again? right, i haven't slept a wink and it's nearly 7 am pls forgive me if these rambles make no sense. i have a point with this.. i'm going somewhere

RIGHT. so when the fam actually rewound the ep cz i wanted to know WHY berlin did that (didn't fully realise how batsht crazy he can be), the russian roulette scene played. and pedro's acting. MAN. and like just that ep they made a point of showing us these flashbacks where sergio and andrés hug....

Hi anon! Thanks for stopping by- sorry took me a while to get back to you, will do my best to answer this string of messages (got all 4 parts)! Glad you like my thoughts XD

Firstly, I believe Andres/Sergio would be the biggest LCDP ship if the writers were evil enough to wait until s5 to reveal that they’re brothers asdfasdf. They’re already the two most popular male characters anyway. 

It’d be especially crazy because it’s not like they tell the actors these things beforehand either. So that means there’d probably be a Serdres vs Berlermo vs Serquel fight every 5 minutes. I mean, even if not everyone agrees on everything in the lcdp fandom, it’s the most “peaceful” one I’ve ever been in because no character really gets in the way of any other ship (like even with helermo and berlermo there’s no true conflict since Andres is dead). But with Serdres in the mix?? CATASTROPHE. Everyone out here writing essays about how much of a bastard/bitch/homewrecker/motherfucker that Andres or Sergio or Martin or Raquel is. Never a moment’s peace!! so basically, a regular fandom lmao.

Then when we find out they’re brothers, it goes from catastrophe to Apocalypse. Suddenly serquel and berlermo have the upper hand. Everyone would double down and harass the crew/cast into whatever’s going on.  Plot-wise, everything is the same though, just without Andres calling Sergio “hermanito.” Fandom however, would be a minefield! And I’m glad that’s not the case because I’d probably be an unfortunate serdres shippers XD No joke, my mother and I thought they were a couple in S1. So bullet dodged!

Secondly: haha, everyone creeped me out in S1 too, especially Berlin, I hated him, but thinking back, I think I mostly hated the fact that I didn’t hate him as much as I should have. I’ve made peace with it now but oh boy, was he a controversial figure in my head. I actually like the professor on sight though! IDK why, maybe because I thought his plans were cool or because of Alvaro’s delivery. I was afraid of an Alison Parker romance thing too- like, I do feel like she had a storyline that got dropped, but that part was quite cringey and overall unnecessary to the plot. Same with Ariadna, which was even cringier and even Less necessary to the plot. 

Domingo de resurrecion was iconic though yes! And even with all that said, I genuinely enjoyed parts 1 and 2 because it was so different from anything else I’d seen. Not content wise, but maybe tonally? IDK, they were just really bold with a lot of things, like being objectively unafraid of having the protagonists (plural because all of them did LMAO) do objectively shitty things. Really kept me in suspense from beginning to end! 

I’m usually a big fan of found families too! The funny thing is, then banda never struck me as a “family” until season 3. In 1 and 2, I was wondering what felt different about this show; then it hit me that these people remained colleagues to the end. Like, they backstabbed each other (repeatedly) and everyone was quite selfish, and only the bonds that were already there stuck. They were the opposite of a found family LOL But I think by S3, they went down the found family route and I didn’t mind because it makes quite a lot of sense for them to feel that bond after the Mint heist and almost dying/living together (and having witnessed 3 deaths together on the team). But I still doubt Berlin and Palermo were ever really part of this found family, with good reason XD

LOL the scene where Tokyo got kicked out is also among my favorites!! It was so funny and dramatic, and it was like, wow we can go anywhere with this now! Don’t worry- your rambles and thoughts are always welcome :D

I’m rolling over how you watched the Tokyo expulsion scene before the Russian Roulette scene haha. Also yes, PEDRO. Berlin may have been “controversial” to me at first, but I became Pedro’s fan from day one! Also the Hug is probably what made me like Berlin (despite my determination to hate him rip) in the first place. 

3/? ... and like now that i think about it... tokyo had real guts huh. like she KNEW berlin was close enough to el prof to know his name (fhshshs imagine if she'd heard andrés saying 'hermanito' it's unrealistic that she didn't TBH. i mean obviously they decided to make them brothers only towards the end but like in canon universe. how tf did andrés de 'i raised my bby brother since he was 12 and i'd actually die for him and his stupidly brilliant plans' fonollosa go 5 months without slipping up once and calling sergio hermanito. or like,,, i like to imagine sergio kinda gave him lots of leeway(?) sergio's a lil oblivious too but like i'm sure half of it is.. that's my dumbass older bro shut up i'm not being partial you all have city names .. andr-berlin, pass the salt. like OOF. + sergio also knew his big bro was dYiNG so like. i'm sure they were sneaking in some quality time (i hope they did 😭 gosh imagine if sergio really did not ever consider the possibility of andrés dying in the heist so he'd tell himself he needs to perfect the plan now & anyway he'll have enough time to spend w/ his brother post heist in philippines. and then ... that happened :/

Tokyo has guts in place of braincells you bet that she’d do something like this, consequences be damned XD I also think it’s unrealistic for Andres not to slip up, but I have a feeling nobody besides Tokyo really tried to spy on them in private. I headcanon that Andres instead slips up and does things like ruffle Sergio’s hair or adjust his tie when other people are around. I also think Tokyo was convinced that they were a gay couple when she saw them hug XD And if Sergio never went on to tell the banda that Berlin was his brother, everyone would be giving Palermo such awkward looks after Nairobi accused him of being in love with Berlin LMAO. 

I agree! I also imagine Sergio giving Andres leeway because he’s just so used to interacting with his brother that way haha. So either he’d go out of his way to ignore Berlin in front of everyone else or IDK, borderline telepathically communicate with him. Not even “pass the salt” has to leave his mouth- Berlin just puts salt into his food and cuts it up for him, in front of everyone who’s just staring like O.O

I actually do think Sergio never considered the possibility of Andres dying in the heist because he was just that confident in his own plan. Plus, Andres was probably the one person he expected to survive. And a lot of it has to do with Sergio’s attachment to him + Andres’ own habit of downplaying any illness/injury over the years, which I think is safe to believe canon. He was really in no condition to be in the heist, let alone lead it. Just the fact that he needs to take those injections is a big sign that he shouldn’t be there, but Sergio didn’t catch it because he’s human and blinded by faith :’) So yeah, I think Sergio was planning to spend proper time with Andres in Palawan and at Toledo, they just settled for those little moments by the fireplace. 

4/? what always also just GETS me in the feels is that el prof was shown to be this in control creepily calm dude who is miles ahead of everyone. + in the 1st Toledo class itself we see how detached,, like how impersonal he is, how professional - choosing frickin CITY NAMES?! no 'personal relationships' ? (after recruiting his older brother, a father son pair, and war cousins... oh sergio 😂 he's such a frickin nerd and i love him) but like the earlier seasons really emphasised how robotic and down right COLD he can be. it still sometimes bothers me that he put the button in the car. he lead the police to his own damn brother, his blood, who took care of him and adopted him and was terminally ill and like - UGH i try to rationalise that sergio is that cold and unbothered. or that he has strict morals. but it still bothers me becz that button really sort of tipped andres' already unstable sanity. like andrés tells denver someth like you've robbed my future and after that he just seems so much more suicidal and accepting that he can't get out of the mint alive - WHY SERGIO WHY. I KNOW THAT AT THAT POINT YOU BASICALLY DIDN'T KNOW ANDRÉS WAS GOING TO BE YOUR BROTHER YET BECZ IT WASN'T WRITTEN IN THE SCRIPT BUT WHYYYYY

That’s so funny to me too LMAO No personal relationships, then he recruits these guys. Sergio, hello?? Also can’t forget how he just recruited his own girfrleind in the second heist too. Buddy! Love this nerd.

I don’t think that cold aspect of Sergio went away in later seasons either; he just had more opportunity to show a more open side of himself + without Andres, he had to metaphorically leave his comfort zone without a safety net. But in earlier seasons, he really did seem heartless at times XD Then again, we can argue that the same goes for Andres.

To be fair, I didn’t feel sorry for Andres over the button thing lol, but once the brothers reveal happened and all of Alvaro/Pedro’s headcanons came out and we know everything Andres did for Sergio, it makes what Sergio did REALLY harsh. We really just have to explain it through Sergio’s strict morals and him believing this to be the best non-fatal punishment for Andres, who at that point had convinced him he killed a hostage. And because he knew the television interview was coming up, maybe Sergio assumed Andres would use it to “clear” his name anyway. And empathy isn’t one of Sergio’s strong suits either, so through that lens, I can rationalize it.

Also it was lowkey funny to me how Andres was there like DENVER MUST DIE until he found out Sergio put the button there, then he was like “oh hermanito, you and your practical jokes <3″

Still, like you said, Andres and Sergio weren’t brothers yet at this point. They were probably supposed to be lovers lmao and had a dysfunctional Hannibal Lecter x Will thing going on. But because they made #hermanos canon, that button moment just feels very out of place now, especially given how much the two genuinely love each other.

Guess we could also say that Sergio’s just generally kinda bratty with Andres XD Like, he knows no matter what, Andres would forgive him anything. That’s how I see it anyway! 

[lgcmanager]

LEGACY PROJECT: FUTURE DREAM S003 PART 3

SCHEDULE TYPE: TRIMESTER SCHEDULE RESTRICTIONS: Cannot be paired with another trimester schedule, unless stated otherwise

with the buzz created by the boys outing on DECEMBER 19, LGC has been capitalizing on the hype to announce that the show will begin airing on JANUARY 29. in the meanwhile, in JANUARY 18, the 24 boys have been called in studio for a formal evaluation. instead of Bae Siwoo, they realize that this season, there is no mc, just the people who hold their futures in their hands: Hyuncheol, head manager of the trainees; Park Jeongan, current CEO; Lee Iseul, head creative director; and Roe Kangdae, head manager of LGC Creatives.

rather than kim hyuncheol too, it’s park jeongan that stands up to talk to the trainees once all of them are seated, divided by team. “your first mission to prove to us that you could work cohesively as a team without our supervising. TEAM 1 and TEAM 2, you are the ones who impressed us the most. TEAM 1, your idea was the most original and attention grabbing. TEAM 2, while your idea had less impact than team 1′s, the way you’ve executed your idea was near perfect.” he pauses, eyes going from one team to another. “TEAM 2...” a long second passes before he continues “for this mission, you are the winners.” the four higher ups finally let their hard mask slip to clap for the team as the CEO makes the 8 boys come to him. to each of them, he places a necklace around their necks before telling them to sit down.

“as you can see, the whole team has received a necklace with a GREEN gem. this gem represents TEAM SPIRIT. under your chairs, you will find boxes. before opening them, listen carefully; your goal is to collect ALL 5 GEMS. The first one, green in color, represents your ability to work in a team. The second one, RED in color encompasses all the TALENT required of an idol; singing, rapping, dancing and performing. a person perfect in a talent and lacking in another could end up not receiving a red gem. the third one, BLUE in color, represents your STAR QUALITY. the fourth one, YELLOW in color, represents your PERSONALITY; a person with a good character is important to us. being passive will not make you get this gem de facto. and finally, the last one, PURPLE in color, represent your ability for GROWTH, both as an artist and individual; we refuse to debut someone who has already peaked and stop improving. debuting is the real starting line, not the end of the race.”

he pauses to give everybody the time to digest the information that’s been given. “to continue in this competition today, you all need a minimum of ONE necklace.” the CEO warns. “yes, there are two empty boxes.” he continues gravely. “HEO DAEHWAN, SEO JUNHWAN, you may open your box.” the tension rises as the boys do so, to reveal an empty box. “unfortunately, your adventure with future dreams ends here.” the older man gives time to the boys to share their feelings and say their goodbyes before continuing.”

“some boxes also do not contain any gem at all.” he announces, shocking the audience. “HWANG MINJUN, JI HANEUL, TSAI KING.” he says. “please step forward and open your boxes.” indeed, instead of the gems that the others have received before, a different type of pendant is revealed. “last season, Haneul and King were part of the winning team, while Minjun came to support them when a member of that team got injured. during half a year, the three of them have shown us their team spirit, their talents, their star quality, their personality and their growth. the public has been charmed by them and their unit. TYPE ZERO.” the eyes of the staff all turn towards the three boys. on hyuncheol’s face, a smile of pride blooms. “to reward your hard work, TYPE ZERO is now our first fixed unit and the new official group debuted under LEGACY ENTERTAINMENT.” the four higher ups to clap for the three boys. they are then each given the time to share their feelings on debuting.

once the calm is back, jeongan continue. “joining them are the following trainees; IM HYUNJIN, OKAMOTO AKIRA, BAE NATHAN, LEE BENJI.” after each name called, the boys are asked to open their boxes and reveal the same pendant as the other 3. “and finally... after much debate... KANG JUN.” after jun is done opening his box and speaking, the 8 members of TYPE ZERO are seated opposite to the now 15 remaining contestants.

“the 15 of you; your chance to debut hasn’t passed. if by the end of the show you manage to collect all 5 gems, you will be given a chance to debut in a brand new unit. you may now open your boxes.”

AHN DOHWAN: growth, star quality, talent, team spirit

AHN JAESUN: personality, star quality, talent, team spirit

CHOI JINYOUNG: growth, personality, team spirit

CHOI JONGSUK: growth, star quality, team spirit

CHOI MAX: growth, star quality, talent

CHWE HUNJI: growth, star quality

HWANG SUBIN: growth, star quality, talent, team spirit

JANG TAESUNG: growth, star quality, talent

JEON HARU: growth, star quality, talent

JUNG AHIN: growth, personality, talent, team spirit

KIM ALEX: growth,, talent, team spirit

LEE DAEYEOL: personality, talent, team spirit

LEE JIHO: personality, star quality, talent, team spirit

YOON SHINHA: personality, talent, team spirit

“you now all know areas in which you either need to improve or be more proactive at showing.” the ceo declares once each boy has checked the content of their boxes.

DORMS & TEAMS

due to the boys of type zero being removed from the competition, here are the teams and dorms updated:

DORM 1: ahn dohwan, ahn jaesun, chwe hunji, lee daeyeol, lee jiho

DORM 2: choi jinyoung, hwang subin, jung ahin, kim alex

DORM 3: choi jongsuk, choi max, jang taesung, jeon haru, yoon shinha

once again; the dorms have 4 bedrooms each, and roommate divisions are up to the trainees. there are cameras filming 24/7 in every room except bathrooms. no visits are allowed in the dorms except from other future dreams participants. trainees MUST sleep in their assigned dorm. the dorms are situated in the same area as lgc agency’s but not in the same building. managers will be in charge of transporting trainees everyday.

MISSION 1: NEW SONGS (15 contestants + Type Zero)

the 24 boys will be recording the intro and outro of the show. all of them will record the full song. while only part of the songs will be used during the show, they are told that both songs will be performed on the live finale !

INTRO: raise the roof (0:43 to 1:18)

OUTRO: victory song (1:30 to 1:50)

since the songs must be recorded by the end of the week of January 18, JUNIOR PRODUCERS will give a hand to the staff for the recording of the songs.

MISSION 2: TMI VIDEO (15 contestants + Type Zero)

for the future fans to know their favorites even better, legacy wants each boy to record a 30 seconds TMI video. they are to choose the locations and the information they wish to share themselves. ** you have until APRIL 17 to fulfill this requirement ** 

MISSION 2: CHALLENGING PERFORMANCE (15 contestants only)

on FEBRUARY 26, the three new teams will face off on stage. the theme is: CHALLENGING ONESELF. the staff knows that during those competitions, contestants are likely to showcase skills they are entirely confident in and rarely challenge themselves. LGC wants the contestants to try a position that will challenge them, to get out of their comfort zone. while this doesn’t mean that somebody who cannot rap should take the rap position, it means that somebody who’s used to, for instance, be main vocal should try their hand at being simply a vocalist and prove that they can handle a support role. the boys may choose any BOY GROUP SONG released BEFORE JANUARY 2015. the song must be validated by the staff once the choice is done and the line distribution provided in your solos.

REQUIREMENTS

NEW SONGS: write a 300+ words solo or 4 replies (minimum 8 lines) thread with a PRODUCER happening during the recording of the songs for +4 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE ANYWHERE and +8 NOTORIETY **producers can only write with 2 boys each, therefore some might have to write solos**

TMI VIDEO: write a 300+ words solo of your muse’s TMI video for +4 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE ANYWHERE and +4 NOTORIETY

CHALLENGING: write a 300+ words solo or a 4 replies (minimum 8 lines) thread with a member of your team that clearly demonstrate how your muse has challenged themselves through the performance for +4 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE ANYWHERE and +8 NOTORIETY

to validate your skill points and collect your notoriety points, please submit the following form on the points blog before MARCH 7, 11:59PM EST.

TITLE: MUSE NAME ∙ FUTURE DREAMS S3 PART 3

- NEW SONGS: +4 ( skill points distribution ) + 8 notoriety [ LINK ] - TMI VIDEO: +4 ( skill points distribution ) + 4 notoriety [ LINK ] ** can be sent with the next part ** - CHALLENGING: +4 ( skill points distribution ) + 8 notoriety [ LINK ] ** doesn’t apply to type zero **

[gascon-en-exil]

A Game of Thrones 10th Anniversary Season Ranking: Part 2

Link to Part 1

Time for the bottom half of the list. The four seasons here will surprise no one, but the order might.

#5 Season 6

You can tell what I most what to talk about here...but there's an order to these things.

S6 actually has a bunch of great ideas, but they drown beneath the most slapdash plotting and character work the show has seen yet in order to set the stage for the narrower conflicts of the last two seasons. It's notorious for bringing back characters who haven't been seen in a season or longer only to kill them off (Balon Greyjoy, Osha, Hodor, the Blackfish, Rickon, Walder Frey) or awkwardly graft them back into the main plot (Sandor Clegane, Bran). There are plot threads that ought to be compelling but are too rushed in execution, like the siege of Riverrun, Littlefinger's hand in the Battle of the Bastards, or Daenerys's time back among the Dothraki and then finally getting the hell out of Meereen. Arya hits on the only interesting part of her two-season sojourn in Braavos - a stage play, of all things - only for it to stumble at the end with a disappointing offscreen death and some incomprehensible philosophy ahead of the start of her murder tour of Westeros. There's also so much cutting off the branches, enough to be conspicuous; the final shot of Daenerys leading an armada of about half the remaining cast she assembled partially offscreen says that better than anything else. Well, not anything....

Highlight: Without exaggeration, the opening of S6E10 is easily my favorite sequence in all of GoT. The staging, the music, the mounting suspense even as it becomes increasingly obvious what's about to happen, the twisted religious references particularly in Cersei's mock confession to Unella, Tommen throwing himself out a window because he can't deal with the reality of how terrible his mother is, how Cersei gives absolutely no fucks whatsoever about murdering hundreds of people at once in a calculated act of vengeance largely prompted by her own poorly thought out actions - I love it all. It's the single most masterfully-executed act of villainy in the whole show - Daenerys torching King's Landing probably has a higher body count, but the presentation there is all muddled - and if I had any doubts about Cersei being my favorite multi-season major character they were silenced in this moment. The explosion of the Sept doesn't sit perfectly with me, because I liked the Tyrells and because of what I said about deaths like theirs and Renly's in the previous post under S2, but I think that unease only cements the strength of this sequence. It's an overused phrase in fandom these days, but GoT at its best is all about moral greyness that gives its audience room for multilayered reactions. Cersei nuking the Sept and making herself the sole power in King's Landing, which in a sense is just a more overt example of the kind of character/plot consolidation elsewhere represented by Daenerys's armada, is one of those events that's impossible to approach from a single angle if you care about any of the characters involved. And hey, it's not in the books (yet, presumably), so unlike Ned's death or the Red Wedding the GoT showrunners can take the credit for realizing this one.

Favorite death: Even leaving aside the Sept and related deaths there's a lot of good ones to choose from in S6. Ramsey is cathartic but too gory for me, Osha's was a clever callback but a little delayed, it's hard to pin down specific deaths when Daenerys incinerates the khals, and Arya only gets half credit for Walder Frey and his sons when she saves the rest of the house for the opening of S7. I'm thinking Hodor, not so much because I enjoy his character or the manner of his death but because it's a clever bit of playing with language (that must have been hell to render in other languages for dubbing) wrapped up in some entertainingly murky consent issues and some closed time loop weirdness. It's all very...extra? Is that the word for it?

Least favorite death: Offscreen deaths continue to be mostly letdowns, in this case Blackfish and the Waif. Way to botch the ending of Arya's already near-pointless Braavos arc, guys. Speaking of Arya, this spot goes to Lady Crane, whom the Waif somehow kills with a stool or something. It's a dumb way to send off an entertaining minor character.

#6 Season 8

I swear that I'm not putting S8 this high solely because of Jonmund kind of sort of happening. I've never been very interested in either of them and the sex would be far too bear-on-otter to suit my pornographic preferences, but even so the choice to close out the series with them is hilarious.

I really don't need to elaborate on why S8 is down here; everyone who's ever watched the show has done as much in the nearly two years since it wrapped up. I do however need to explain why I've ranked not one but two seasons below it. My biggest argument here is that I don't believe it's fair to critique S8 for problems it inherited from earlier seasons. A non-comprehensive list:

Mad Queen Daenerys: unevenly built up beginning from S1 and continuing in some form through every following season

The questionable racial optics of Dany's army: also seeded as early as S1 and solidified by S3 with the Slaver's Bay arc

Cersei only succeeding because she makes stupid decisions and then lucks out until she doesn't: apparent from S1, directly lampshaded by Tywin in S3, fully on display with the Faith Militant arc of S5-6

Jaime not getting a redemption arc or falling in love with Brienne: evident with his repeated returns to Cersei throughout the show as one of the most consistent elements of his character, particularly in S4 and during the siege of Riverrun in S6

Tyrion grabbing the idiot ball/becoming a flat audience surrogate mouthpiece: started in S5 around the time the showrunners ran out of book material for him and wanted to make him more of a PoV character and his arc less of a downward spiral, although I've seen arguments that changes from the books involving his Tysha story and Shae set him on this trajectory even earlier

The hardening of Sansa's character: began in earnest in S4 and never let up from there

The strange ordering of antagonists: set down by S7's equally strange plot structure - the Night King had to come first with that setup

CleganeBowl and the dumber twists: from what I've heard the whole thing of writing around fans on the internet guessing plot twists started pretty much when the book content ended, so S5-6 maybe?

Yes, there's plenty to criticize about S8 on its own merits...but just as much that was merely the writers doing what they could at that point with deeply flawed material.

Highlight: This may sound cheesy, but the better parts of S8 are almost all the cinematic ones, whether that's E2 being a bottle episode with tons of poignant character send-offs before the big battle, a handful of deaths with actual satisfying weight like Jorah's and Theon's, and an epilogue that incorporates both closure for individuals and the broader uncertainty of messy socio-political systems that GoT has always been known for before working its way back to the Starks at the very end for some tidy bookending. Even imperfect moments like the Lannister twins' death and the resolution of Sansa's character felt weighty and appropriate based on what had come before.

Favorite death: Forget about the audio commentary attempting to flatten Cersei's character; Cersei and Jaime Lannister have an excellent end. Cersei especially, as the scenes of her stumbling her way down into the catacombs as the Red Keep crashes down around her really show off how her world is abruptly falling apart and how she retreats into her own self-interest at the end in spite of her demise being at least partially of her own doing. There's some stupid moments associated with these scenes, like Jaime dueling Euron to the death and CleganeBowl, but I can excuse those when the twins end up dying exactly where you'd expect them to: in each other's arms, in a ruined monument to their family's grand ambitions that, like Casterly Rock itself, was taken from another family.

Least favorite death: Quite a few dumb ones in S8 have become forever infamous. Missandei sticks out, and for me Varys too just as much because of how the writing pushes him to do the dumbest thing he could possibly do purely for the sake of killing him off ten minutes into the penultimate episode. But no one belongs here more than Daenerys Targaryen, killed at the height of a rushed and uncertain villain reveal by a man who takes advantage of their romantic history (who is also her family, because Targaryens) to stab her in a moment of vulnerability - pretty much only because another man tells him that Daenerys is the final boss. Narratively speaking that might be the case, but even so this is the end result of multiple seasons of middling-to-bad buildup. Not even Drogon burning the symbolism can salvage that. Also Fire Emblem: Three Houses did this scene and did it better.

#7 Season 5

...Yeah, we're going to have to go there.

Sansa's rape is not a plot point that personally touches me much. It's terribly framed in the moment and the followup in later seasons is inconsistent at best, but it's not a kind of trauma I can relate to. On the other hand, in the very same episode Loras is tried and imprisoned for homosexuality, and Margery faces the same punishment for lying for her brother. That hits much closer to home, not just for the homophobia but also for the culture war undertones of the not!French Tyrells persecuted by a not!Anglo fanatic who later reveals himself to be the in-universe equivalent of a Protestant. The trial is just one part of Cersei's shortsighted scheming, just as Sansa being married off to Ramsey is part of Littlefinger's, and both of them get their comeuppance in the end...but it's unsettling all the same. I especially hate what the Faith Militant arc does to King's Landing in S5, swiftly converting it from my favorite setting in GoT to a tense theocratic nightmare that only remains interesting to me because Cersei is consistently awesome. What's more, pretty much everything about S5 that isn't viscerally uncomfortable is dragged out and dull instead: the Dorne arc, Daenerys's second season in Meereen, Arya in Braavos, Stannis and co. at Castle Black. The most any of these storylines can hope for is some kind of bombastic finale, and while several of them deliver it's not enough to make up for what comes before, or how disappointing everything here builds from S4. S4 has Oberyn, S5 has the Sand Snakes - I think that sums up the contrast well.

Highlight: S5 does get stronger near the end. As much as his character annoys me I did like the High Sparrow revealing his pseudo-Protestant bent to Cersei just before he imprisons her, and there's a cathartic rawness to Cersei's walk of atonement where you can both feel her pain and humiliation and understand that she's getting exactly what she deserves (and this is what leads into the climax of S6, so it deserves points just for that). The swiftness of Stannis's fall renders his death and that of his family a bit hollow, but it's brutal and final and fittingly ignominious for a character with such grand ambitions but so little relevance to the larger story. The fighting pits of Meereen sequence is cinematic if nothing else, and even the resolution to the Dorne arc salvages the whole thing a tiny bit by playing into the retributive cycles of vengeance idea (and Myrcella knows about the twincest and doesn't care, aww - no idea why that stuck with me, but it's cute all the same). Oh, and Hardhome...it's alright. Not great, not crap, but alright.

Favorite death: I don't know why, but Theon tossing Myranda to her death is always funny to me. Maybe because it's so unexpected?

Least favorite death: Arya's execution of Meryn Trant is meant to be another one of the season's big finale moments, but the scene is graphic and goes on forever and I can't help but be grossed out. This is different from, say, Shireen's death, which is supposed to be painful to witness.

#8 Season 7

I can't tell if S7's low ranking is as self-explanatory as S8's or not. At least one recent retrospective on GoT's ruined legacy I've come across outright asserts that S7 is judged less harshly in light of how bad S8 was. If it were not immediately obvious by where I've placed each of them, I don't share that opinion.

Because S7 is just a mess, and the drop-off in quality is so much more painful here than it is anywhere else in the series except maybe from S4 to S5 (and that's more about S4 being as good as it is). The pacing ramps up to uncomfortable levels to match the shortened seasons, the structure pivots awkwardly halfway through from Daenerys vs. Cersei to Jon/Dany caring about ice zombies, said pivot relies largely on characters (mostly Tyrion) making a series of catastrophically stupid tactical decisions, and very few of the smaller set pieces land with any real impact as the show's focus narrows to its endgame conflict. As with S6 there are still some good ideas, but they're botched in execution. The conflict between Sansa and Arya matches their characters, but the leadup to that conflict ending with Littlefinger's execution is missing some key steps. Daenerys's diverse armada pitted against Cersei weaponizing the xenophobia of the people of King's Landing could have been interesting, but there's little room to explore that when Cersei keeps winning only because Tyrion has such a firm grip on the idiot ball and when Euron gets so much screentime he barely warrants. Speaking of Tyrion's idiot ball, does anyone like the heist film-esque ice zombie retrieval plotline? Its stupidity is matched only by its utter futility, because Cersei isn't trustworthy and nobody seems to ever get that.

And how could I forget Sam's shit montage? Sums up S7 perfectly, really. To think that that is part of the only extended length of time the show ever spends in the Reach....

Highlight: A handful of character moments save this season from being irredeemable garbage. As you can guess from my screencap choice, Olenna's final scene is one of them, even if Highgarden itself is given insultingly short shrift. S7 also manages what I thought was previously impossible in that it makes me care somewhat about Ellaria Sand, courtesy of the awful death Cersei plans for her and her remaining daughter. The other Sand Snakes are killed with their own weapons, which shows off Euron's demented creativity if nothing else. I like the entertainingly twisted choice to cut the Jon/Dany sex scene with the reveal that they're related. And, uh...the Jonmund ship tease kind of makes the zombie retrieval team bearable? I'm really grasping at straws here.

Favorite death: It's more about her final dialogue with Jaime than her actual death, but again I'm going to have to highlight Olenna Tyrell here for lack of better options. She drops the bombshell about Joffrey that the audience figured out almost as soon as it happened but still, makes it plain what I've been saying about how Jaime's arc has never really been about redemption, and is just about the only person to ever call Cersei out for that whole mass murder thing. There's a reason "I want her to know it was me" became a meme format.

Least favorite death: There aren't any glaringly bad deaths in S7, just mediocre or unremarkable ones. I still think the decision to have Arya finish off House Frey in the season's opening rather than along with their father at the end of S6 was a strange one that doesn't add much of dramatic value.

[fancyemowolfbat]

Thoughts on Castlevania S3: Taka and Sumi’s abuse of Adrian

Season three spoilers below: and yes, this is plot heavy. So if you haven’t seen yet, read at your own risk.

But the TL;DR: I love Castlevania and this scene only made me love it more.

To start: This is entirely an opinion post. I don’t have enough energy to make it into a full analysis with resources and other things. So don’t take this as an essay with some deep meaning. This is entirely just an impressions post.

I love this scene. I love the writing and the visuals. And I love that it was handled in a very real manner. And I love that it represented abuse correctly, because make no mistake-- this scene was abuse--at the very least, and rape at worst. But I’m not saying that for the reasons others have given. But I’m going to get back to that in a moment.

I’m going to leave out the controversy that’s been spat about this scene, because honestly, I don’t feel like talking about it. Like I said, I’m tired. And I’m not gonna harass someone else over their opinions just because they’re different than mine. If you didn’t like this, that’s totally fine. Please don’t ask me to debate, I’m not interested in . I’m simply enjoying this show in my own little corner, and am sharing my own opinions and observations for those who might be curious.

1.) Adrian is confirmed canonically (as far as the Netflix series goes) Bisexual.

While the events that follow the scene absolutely make this scene abuse and manipulation, at the start, Adrian does consent to the sex initially (INITIALLY, I’m not forgetting what happens after). He willingly makes out with both Sumi and Taka, and he’s very obviously anally penetrated when Taka puts Adrian’s legs over his shoulders. It’s not subtle. This is probably the smallest thing to mention given what happens, but this did make me happy. Adrian is only the second character in my favorites list to be confirmed LGBTQIA+ (the other being Damien Bloodmarch from Dream Daddy: a Dad Dating Simulator). And I won’t lie, I cried for both instances.

This is a popular show, and Adrian is one of the main characters. This season had so many good examples of LGBT+ relationships-- including a very healthy partnership between two of the female villains which was openly discussed by them on screen. It’s treated as normal but not made the focus of the story, though it’s very obvious and not hidden. This was very impressive and respectful, showing a range of different orientations, and showing both healthy and unhealthy relationships.

I won’t address the games, because I haven’t finished playing them. I’ve heard some saying he’s always been bi, some saying it was never confirmed, and some saying he was confirmed straight. So I don’t know. I am of the opinion that a character’s sexuality does not affect the overall lore any more than their skin color or religion does. BUT, that is all I can say. I don’t know the games. And this scene certainly does include lore, as I will touch on in a bit...

2.) This scene was abuse, and the writing vilifies it as such.

As I said above, Adrian does seem to initially consent to the sex. He returns their kisses, he grips onto Sumi’s ass, and holds Taka’s shoulder as they make out. These are actions that imply he was enjoying this at the beginning. Although, it is possible he may have felt somewhat pressured to go further, as when they initially push him down, he does seem taken back, although that may have been mostly surprise.

However, as the scene goes on, it becomes clear that these two are attempting to make Adrian vulnerable. They continue with him until he is exhausted-- there are two of them and one of him. And given Adrian’s reactions, it’s very possible this may have been his first time. And I’m also not going to gloss over the fact that Adrian himself has said that he aged quickly. It is entirely possible that Adrian may still mentally be a child, in which case, this is also two young adults taking advantage of a younger teenager.

However, when this clearly becomes abuse and possibly rape is why they were having sex with him in the first place-- they wanted to make him vulnerable enough to kill him. They grew impatient with Adrian, wanting him to do things he could not do and teach them things he had not yet had the chance to. He gave them all he could, but their urge to return to Japan and free their people grew into a desire to kick out and replace the authority that abused them, to “make their own empire.” I also like that this makes this very real and tangible-- the abusers are not cartoonishly evil. They are real people with real motives who experienced abuse themselves. This hits a really sensitive topic many people aren’t willing to address-- that anyone is capable of abuse, villains aren’t alien, and people who may be otherwise trustworthy may commit grievous acts which can deeply hurt people.

What solidifies the idea in my mind is Adrian’s reaction after he kills them both and frees himself. We see him, having dragged himself to his childhood bedroom, laying on the floor in the spot where he killed his father, shaking and crying. He was violated. He was betrayed. The first time he’d been living a somewhat normal life in over a year, and the only two friends he had after Sypha and Trevor left stabbed him in the back. These humans, whom he killed his father to protect, took advantage of him and almost killed him, forcing him to kill them first.

I’m going to link to this post by @fandomwanderer​ and this post by @mega-ringsandthings-world​, because the sum up the idea better than I ever could. But this sets up Adrian’s character superbly. I will say, my wish for the next season is a bit different.

I hope that, eventually, Sypha and Trevor do come back, expecting Adrian to be waiting for them with open arms. And instead they find a very cold, very detached Adrian who is not acting like himself. I want tension between these three characters who used to be friends, until it builds up and eventually leads to a clash, possibly in the form of a physical fight. I want it to escalate until something happens and causes pause enough for Sypha and Trevor to talk Adrian down, at which point we finally see him start to crack, and eventually break down in his friends arms. I want them to ask about the scars, and prod and push until he snaps and attacks them, only to lead to him revealing everything that happened and clinging to them for comfort, while they wish they could’ve been the ones to kill the bastards. I truly do hope this happens. It’s been Three Seasons. Two of them have ended with Adrian sobbing. I want him to finally get some relief. But, even with this, I’m sure whatever the writers decide to do, it will be amazing. They’re in a very precarious place right now, but I’m excited to see where they go with it.

3.) Adrian’s reaction is perfectly justified.

This may just be an extension of point two, but Sumi and Taka’s abuse is not excused by the writing. All too often in fiction, rape and abuse are written off as not being that bad or even being desirable. What happens to Adrian is not painted as positive. It affects him extremely negatively, and it is not treated as his fault in any way. Even though he initially consented, these two betrayed his trust and hurt him. That is never treated as something he should be responsible for. Granted, with this being at the end of the series, there wasn’t much time for this to digest. I expect to see some characters see how he reacted by killing and spitting them, and initially assume that he did so because “he’s Dracula's son and of course.” But these characters will likely be doing so without context. The abuse also isn’t blamed on Adrian’s apparent orientation. Hector is abused in the same way by Lenore, in a heterosexual female-on-male abuse scene. And as stated above, there are healthy LGBT+ relationships in the show, as well.

Also, as the above linked post states, this also leads to us seeing Adrian slip slowly into the mindset his father once held-- perhaps not completely, but it is beginning. And all I’m left to think is, how much must this hurt? How much must Adrian hate seeing himself this way after everything he did for humans? But he’s so hurt by this betrayal that he can’t see things any other way right now. He is in pain, and he has had no real rest from that pain since his mother was killed.

“I gave you everything.” Adrian opened his home to Sumi and Taka, and he opened his heart to them, as well. He gave them his home, his weapons, his knowledge, his body. He is very young and very trusting, despite everything he’s been through. And that trust was taken and shoved right back in his face with insult and humiliation. He gave his all, not just for Sumi and Taka, but for humanity as a whole. He killed people, he killed his own kind, and he killed his own father-- his only remaining parent-- after his own mother was killed by the very people he was trying to protect. He gave everything, and humanity took it all and then shat on him in return. Adrian has every. right to feel betrayed. I don’t think he’ll be the new villain solely because I believe they will stick a bit closer to game lore, and may rather have him simply put himself to rest until the next major disaster hits humanity. But I do think this event caused his view of humanity to be less rose-tinted. He was forced to grow up fast, and much more painfully than he should’ve.

I truly hope, more than anything else, in future seasons Adrian does get some form of relief. Though, I doubt the world is done kinking him while he’s down. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, something truly good and unbastardized will come his way. Until then, I’ll be waiting with baited breath. I couldn’t be happier that this series is continuing.

P.S.: Please let me hug Adrian.

[royalcordelia]

Tell Me About Purple Sunrises (1/1)

Merry Christmas @ladytharen​! I was your Secret Santa this year! I played substitute santa for a few people, but you were the one I was actually assigned to from day 1. It’s been such a pleasure to get to know you a little better and to write this story for you. Here’s a lil snowed in + bedsharing for you, kindred spirit!♥ Sorry I’m posting this with 8 min left in christmas.  

Summary:  Anne can't make it back to Avonlea for Christmas Eve because of record breaking snow and temperatures, but to her delight, neither can Gilbert. (spoilers for awae s3!) 

~~*~~

It was evenings like this when Anne could turn her face toward the warm candlelight and pretend she was a princess locked up in a tower. The nightgown Aunt Jo had loaned her was soft like rose petals and trimmed with lace as intricate as snowflakes, exactly what Cordelia would have worn as she combed her hair by moonlight. Sitting so close to the bay window, Anne could feel a frosty chill emanate from the pane. She shut her eyes and she imagined that the blizzard raging outside was the icy breath of a winter dragon blowing over the entire kingdom. If she wasn’t afraid of her fingers turning to icicles, she would have gone out and bested the beast herself. 

Anne of the present was more than pleased to remain inside and warm. 

“I’ve sent all the attendants home a day early to be with their families before the storm grows too strong.” Aunt Jo announced, sweeping into the room with a wool blanket wrapped around her frail shoulders. “Anne, you did right by coming here. Christmas Eve is meant to be spent with those you love. If I heard you planned to wait out this storm entirely alone in that boarding house, I would’ve marched through the tundra myself to procure you!” 

“No marching through the tundra for you. Remember, it’s the coldest night on record!” Anne replied, meeting Aunt Jo to wrap the blanket more tightly around the older woman’s shoulders. “Still, I’m grateful for your hospitality. I really thought we’d be able to make it back to Avonlea before the storm got too bad.” She plucked a browning petal from the poinsettia flowers on the parlor table with a small smile. “You know, when I have a home of my own, I hope to have ever so many flowers upon every surface. Our gate latch will be forever open to you, of course.” 

“That won’t be for a while yet I hope,” Jo teased lightly, though Anne could hear the truth in the words. 

“Not for a long, long while. Everything with Gilbert is so new that we’ve barely even mentioned the future. All I can say of Gilbert’s plans for the future, aside from his medical aspirations, is that he’d like for me to be there. I can say the same of him in my own plans. Right now, I’m more than content with such hazy views into our crystal ball.” 

“That is quite the way it should be, I think,” Jo agreed. “If you plot out every point in life, how can it take you on a wild adventure? Simple - it cannot. Many people are subjected to a lifetime of miserable mundanity because of it.”

Outside, a gust of wind struck the house with a fury, rattling the old walls with creaks and moans. Anne peeled the curtain away from the window once more, finding a hint of lavender light igniting a break in the clouds somewhere in the distance. She wondered where that little speck of land was where there would be no snow, just a royal hint of dusk on the crystal ground.

“How blessed I am to be awake to all the colors of life,” she breathed. Then, drawing the curtains back closed, Anne spun on her heel. “Enough of my poetical indulgences. We have yet to decide how we want to spend our evening snowed in. Is there, perhaps, a trio of Bronte sisters in our future?”

Aunt Jo was halfway through a hearty assent when an odd sound came from the front hallway. Anne’s laughter froze in her throat as she listened again. Silence fell over the house for another moment before being shattered by an insistent knock at the door. 

Grabbing her robe from the edge of the couch, Anne covered herself and crept toward the door. When she pulled it open, a flurry of snow swept into the foyer like a broken snow globe. A young man stood shivering, half an inch of snow blanketing his person. A scarf wrapped around his face shielded his cheeks, but Anne would have recognized those warm eyes anywhere. 

“Gilbert ? What are you - oh my goodness, you’re freezing. Get in here!” 

Before he could say a word, Gilbert was being dragged into the manse and pulled into Anne’s frantic embrace. She immediately recoiled away from all the snow on coat, and began unwrapping the scarf from his face. He was smiling underneath so tenderly that Anne’s hand froze midair as she moved to grab his hat. The apples of his cheeks were rosy from the cold and some snowflakes still hung from his dark lashes. She sighed, suddenly more lovesick than she ever remembered being. 

“I really missed you,” she whispered truthfully. 

Gilbert, still gently shivering from the cold, shucked off his coat and wrapped Anne in a tight embrace. Anne’s arms were around him immediately, rubbing warmth into his back in gentle circles. Resting his cold cheek against her shoulder, Gilbert heaved a sigh of relief. Her touch felt like fire light, incandescently warm and soft around the edges.

“I missed you too,” he murmured, digging his face closer to her loose hair. Anne could feel him grinning against her shoulder. “You smell nice.” 

Anne hummed in response. She wondered if it would be alright to tell him that he smelled nice too. Even though the scent of winter air stuck on his clothes, he still carried his usual essence of honey sweetness and cologne. But she couldn’t tell him that. It probably wouldn’t be alright, either, to tell him that his shoulders still felt strong, and that she liked the way he’d grown his hair out. Instead, she settled on, “Are you feeling any warmer?” 

Gilbert nodded, pulling back when he caught sight of Aunt Jo standing in the doorway.

“Much, thank you,” he murmured shyly. He couldn’t help how one of his hands had stayed at her waist, nor did he notice. It felt so natural to stay connected to her, and in person, he didn’t have to hide his connection to her anymore.

“Not that I’m not effervescent with happiness to see you, but what are you doing here? I thought you were arriving to Avonlea tomorrow.” Anne’s hand came up to his cheek as she spoke, wiping away a drop of melted snow that had fallen from his hair. 

“I thought I’d surprise you a day early, but then the storm rolled in. Apparently the tracks are all ice, so the last train to Carmody has been cancelled. I, uh..” He glanced up at Aunt Jo. “I didn’t bring enough money to stay anywhere because I was planning on making it home. The only place I could think of was here.”

“Ah, you came seeking refuge,” Aunt Jo chimed in. Gilbert blushed. He wasn’t one to ask for help, but apparently had the capacity to do it when the threat of frostbite loomed. It was a smart move, Anne had to admit, and a brave one. He’d never even met Aunt Jo before.

“Yes, ma’am.” 

He straightened his shoulders under Aunt Jo’s appraising gaze. If Anne didn’t know any better, she’d say Aunt Jo delighted in making the poor boy squirm.

“You’ve come to the right place,” she said finally, and Gilbert inhaled a sharp sigh of relief. Then, remembering the manners his father taught him, he peeled off a glove and stuck his hand out. 

“Gilbert Blythe, ma’am. It’s an honor to meet you. I apologize for inviting myself on such short notice.” 

“Our paths were bound to cross at one point or another. You cannot thwart destiny where kindred spirits are involved, and my door is always open to kindred spirits.” Aunt Jo shook Gilbert’s hand with as much regality as he expected, then straightened the blanket on her shoulders. “Well, Anne-girl, I think the Bronte sisters will just have to wait for another night.”

“I don’t want to interfere with an evening with your beloved Charlotte,” Gilbert rushed to say, but Anne waved him away.

“I’ve read Jane Eyre dozens of times already, yet I’ve only spent a handful of minutes with you. And while I love both of those things, there’s just one I love much more than the other.” 

Gilbert had to bite back the grin that threatened to take over his lips. With a glint in his eye, he reached for his hat and scarf. 

“How presumptuous of me to assume I could compete with Charlotte Bronte. I’ll just be heading back into the blizzard, then. Fare thee well. Tell Jane Eyre I concede.” 

Before Gilbert could even think about reaching for the door, Anne interrupted his dramatic speech by grabbing his hand and pulling him to her side. Aunt Jo found the whole display rather amusing, much to Gilbert’s delight. At his side, Anne found herself nearly holding herself back when his face was so close and rosy, practically begging to be kissed. 

“I think I ought to let you two become acquainted while I reacquaint myself with Mr. Dickens and his ghost tales,” Aunt Jo said, darting a glance between them. “Gilbert, I’m sure you and I will have plenty of time to exchange stories on the train ride to Avonlea in the morning.”

It took a split second to realize exactly what Josephine was doing. She was leaving them alone in a house, unchaperoned, with only trust assuring her that nothing too immoral would occur. 

“Oh! Well, I look forward to it. I hear you’ve lived an adventurous life.”

“Funny, I hear the same of you. In fact, I hear a great many things about you on a daily basis,” she replied slyly, lifting a brow at Anne. 

“Goodnight, Aunt Jo,” Anne hissed between her teeth. “There’ll be plenty of time to tease me in the morning.” 

Aunt Jo gave one last appraising look at Gilbert, apparently approving of what she saw, before kissing the crown of Anne’s head. Her careful footsteps up the stairs left silence behind them, and suddenly Anne was entirely too aware of Gilbert’s presence beside her. His gentle fingers moved to hold hers, fitting together even better than she remembered. She peered down at their entwined hands in bewilderment. Was he truly here? 

The quiet was comfortable, giving Anne proper room to eat her heart out over her beloved with as many longing looks as she pleased. Through the thrumming of her heart and the haziness of her focus on him, she was only half aware of his arms wrapping around her waist.

“So, Anne-girl, huh?”

Anne bit her lip to force back a smile, watching his lips with keen interest. 

“I like it when you say it,” she admitted with a smile. 

For a moment, she wondered what exactly was appropriate for this moment. She knew what she wanted to do, but how could she know if it aligned with what she should do. Perhaps it wouldn’t be wise to wrap her arms around his neck and catch his next words with her lips. Perhaps he’d think her strange if she placed her hand above his heart to feel it beating, or if she kissed the line where his jaw met his throat. It was a good thing he was holding her because she was melting. In a few more seconds, she’d dissolve into a puddle right in the middle of the foyer. 

Then again, he only spurred her demise by leaning his cheek against hers. Anne shivered. His skin was still frigid to the touch, but she kissed the icy spot before pulling away.

“You’re still so cold. Come on,” she said, pulling him by his hand into the parlor. 

Heat hit them like a wall, blazing comfortably from the hearthfire. Gilbert’s gaze was just as warm as he watched Anne lay out a blanket and some pillows in front of the fire. She settled on one of the cushions, then reached her hand toward him. He as at her side in an instant, his hand finding her cheek. 

“It doesn’t seem real that you should be here,” Anne said dreamily. 

“Me? You’re the ethereal creature that saved me from a frozen death. I really had no idea you’d be here. I was certain you’d have made it back to Avonlea hours ago.” 

“I tried, but the trains started getting canceled nearly as soon as the storm began. We’re supposed to experience record breaking temperatures tonight, and I knew that if I tried to keep warm all by myself in the boarding house, I’d only make an icicle of myself. So I came here.”

Gilbert nodded in understanding, eyes wandering to the rest of the room. It seemed he was only just realizing how grand the manse was, especially when the lights were dimmed. It also seemed to occur to him that they were completely, utterly alone. 

“Cole has gone to bed for the night?” he asked carefully.

“Cole actually is spending Christmas with a friend of ours. They’re going to see some museums in Montreal. You actually might remember Roy from my letters.” 

Gilbert scowled. “That English major that thought he could convince you to court him instead of me? Yes, I remember.” 

“Fortunately, my convincing abilities are far better than his. Once I assured him that I would never leave you, he quit all of his advances. Besides, I have it on good authority that his affections lay heartily elsewhere.” 

His jaw caught shadows as he nodded. “So, we’re alone?” 

Anne smiled coyly, causing Gilbert to swallow. There was so much overwhelming him all at once - the possibility to have a conversation without any interruptions for hours and hours, the porcelain skin above the lace of her dress where freckles traced a trail up her throat, and the incessant need to kiss her for as long as she would allow him. He feared he would confess these incoherent longings, so he remained silent after she said, “Yes, love, we’re alone.” 

At his speechlessness, Anne situated herself closer before him, grabbing his hands that rested on his knees. Of course she could read his mind, he thought to himself. Either that, or she was feeling the exact same thing. Maybe both? 

“I’m not entirely sure how to go about this,” Anne admitted. “You know I haven’t courted anyone before.” 

Gilbert realized a shaky breath, kneeling before her to bring her as close as possible. 

“This sort of thing shouldn’t have rules or guidelines,” he whispered. Her cheeks took on a strawberry hue when he leaned closer to her. “I don’t want to worry about what hours people say I can see you or how other people think I should or shouldn’t touch you. I want you to tell me when you want to see me.” 

Anne grasped his hand tighter, grounding herself. 

“And how I want you to touch me?” The words almost knocked the air from his lungs. He nodded slowly. “Then can we just stop dancing around each other?” 

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

Instead of answering, Anne surged forward and captured her lips against his. He tasted like freshly fallen snow looks, sweet and smooth. Suddenly, they were transported back to a moment on the front lawn of her boarding house where kissing her seemed to make every mystery of the world fall into place. One of his hands held desperately to her waist, the other pressed against the floor to hold them up. All bets were off, though, when she buried her hands into the hair she loved so much and pressed him against her chest. The arm so steadily holding them upright went slack and they fell to the side, almost bumping foreheads. Laughter erupted out of them like champagne bubbles. 

“ Shhh! She’ll hear us!” Anne whispered with a smile, settling on her back to face him. Hovering over her, Gilbert smiled as he watched the firelight flicker over her freckles. He released a shuddering sigh over her lips before running a finger down her face. Would he ever grow accustomed to being with this woman? To holding her? To seeing her grey eyes turn into lightning storms at his touch?

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he stay in this moment, right here. Anne’s hands found his cheeks, pulling him down with reverence and kissing him with a tenderness he’d always known she possessed.  Lowering himself from his hands to his elbows, Gilbert shuddered into her touch. 

The only thing that could’ve broken the moment for them echoed down the foyer staircase. Thankfully Aunt Jo spared them the embarrassment of coming all the way downstairs.

“Anne! Make sure you feed that man of yours. I’m sure he’s hungry!”  

Breaking away from Gilbert with a jolt, Anne pressed a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing again. 

“Alright! Thank you!” she called back. Then, glancing up at the man above her, she ran her thumb over his lower lip. “Are you hungry?” 

Gilbert collapsed at her side with a sigh. 

“A bit. I haven’t eaten since I left Toronto.”

“Gilbert!” Anne admonished. “Why didn’t you say so sooner?”

He shrugged. “I guess I just...forgot I was hungry.” 

“Let me make you something to eat. You can tell me all about your trip.” 

Some time later, there was a warm plate in front of Gilbert that he demolished on like a man who’d never had a meal in his life. Anne rested her head on her palm and a little more color return to his face. They talked about everything they could think of - odd students in their classes, old memories from their school days, news from their friends. The one topic they hadn’t broached was that of the “follow up questions” they’d saved for when they reunited in person. That is, until a distracted expression came over Gilbert’s face as he rolled a potato around his plate. 

“Can I ask you something, Anne?” 

“Always,” was her immediate response. 

“You mentioned in your letter that you saw Winifred in town the day that I came and saw you, but you never told me what she said.” 

“She told me you’d decided not to propose,” Anne said easily.

“No, I mean, I knew that. But what did she say?” 

Anne shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She knew that no matter the answer she gave, it wouldn’t change anything that had happened. 

“At first she thought I was there to gloat. She must’ve assumed that you’d gotten right off the train and broken her trust right away. I’m surprised she didn’t know you well enough to know you’d never do that.” And expected you to marry her, was what Anne wanted to say, but bit back. 

Gilbert kept his eyes glued to the wood grain of the table.

“But I did break her trust,” he admitted. “That letter I wrote you revealed everything I promised I’d wait to say. But I couldn’t, and-”

“Hey,” Anne interrupted, reaching across the table for his hand. “I would’ve done the same thing. Besides, even if I had read the letter you wrote, I would have never judged her or told anyone else. I believe it all happened the way it was supposed to.” 

He still wouldn’t meet her eyes, but nodded. 

“What else did she say?” 

Anne took a deep breath. “Once she realized that I really didn’t know anything that happened, she said this to me:  ‘He couldn’t marry me because his unrequited love for you isn’t ever going away .’ I think she figured out right away though that you were mistaken when you told her your feelings were unrequited.” She paused. “Why do you want to know?” 

“Curiosity, mostly. But I also worried that because I’d left her heartbroken, she’d be cruel to you. I’m glad she wasn’t, but the thought of anyone behaving hateful to you because of me makes me feel sick.” 

“Gilbert, there is nothing hateful or cruel about you. No one could ever be anything but good on your behalf.” She smirked. “Besides, I have thick skin and a smart head on my shoulders.”  

A heavy sigh left Gilbert, releasing a heavy burden from his shoulders that he didn’t know he’d been carrying. Anne wiggled his fingers with a smile. 

“It all makes for a good story to tell the kids,” she teased, but they both knew what she was suggesting. 

Gilbert’s throat grew thick. With the burden of his guilt alleviated and the promise of the future resting in the air, his heart grew light with affection. 

“I want that too,” he managed to say sincerely. Anne returned his smile with so much love laced in it that Gilbert’s heart jumped in his chest. 

Later that night, Anne leaned against the doorframe of one of the guest rooms while Gilbert appraised the space with amazement. 

“I don’t know if you brought nightclothes, but Cole is only a little bit taller than you. I’m sure he has some in his room you could borrow. If you get hungry again, the kitchen is well stocked.” 

“You’re wonderful, Anne, but I promise I’m all set.” 

She nodded, not moving a muscle. 

“Alright, then. Goodnight,” she said evenly, a playful glint in flickering in her eyes. Gilbert knew a hint when he saw one. He crossed the length of the room and cupped her face the way he so loved to. Anne had already closed her own in blissful acceptance of the kiss, sighing when it came with tender sweetness. 

“Goodnight, my love,” he murmured, pressing one last kiss to her forehead.

When Anne closed her own door behind her, she pressed her back up against it and released a shaky breath. Marilla had told her being with the person you love was worth sacrifice, heartache, and all the tribulations of life, but Anne never shared the perspective until then. The trials of the world didn’t seem so insurmountable now, with the promise of  Gilbert at her side. 

Alone in her room, Anne became aware of all the things she’d been distracted from wrapped in Gilbert’s warm embrace. The first, of course, was that it was freezing. No matter how many blankets she threw on top of the bed or how many pairs of socks she borrowed from the guest dresser, she felt the chill from her fingers all through her body. She tried to focus on the hollowing of the wintry wind outside her window, but it seemed to keep her up even more. How had she been content and warm by the fire only a few hours ago? Certainly by now, the fire had gone out and there would be no warming up. 

Finally, Anne firmly made up her mind that enough was enough. Slipping out of bed, her cold toes met an even colder ground. She slipped one of the wool blankets from her bed and wrapped it around her shoulders to guard her from the hallway’s cold breezes. With astounding stealth, Anne crept down the hallway without creaking any old boards or startling any mice. When she made it to Gilbert’s guest room, she drew in a breath and knocked on the door. 

No answer. Anne sighed. The poor boy was probably exhausted from his traveling, fast asleep. Fortunately, he left the door unlocked, allowing Anne to sneak in before anyone was the wiser. Tightening the blanket around her shoulders, she called out in a strong whisper. 

“Gilbert?” 

Even though he seemed fast asleep, her voice was enough to stir him out of his dream. Hair wild and eyes groggy, he propped himself up on an arm. 

“Anne?” he croaked, voice rough from sleep. “Sweetheart, is everything okay?” 

Suddenly uncertain, she shifted her weight. 

“I’m so cold, I can’t sleep,” she admitted miserably. 

Without hesitating, Gilbert reached for her, opening his own covers up when she was close enough to slide in. He made room for her without complaint, smiling at the relief that washed over her. When she laid down completely, she was right in the warm spot he’d just been in. So comfortable and warm, Anne wondered how they were even in the same house. 

“Better?” he whispered, eyes heavy. 

“Almost.” She reached for him, pulling him so that he was close enough to bury her face into the soft fabric of his shirt. At Gilbert’s hesitation to overstep any boundaries, she pulled his arm to wrap on her waist. Still, it rested there too loosely, as if he was scared to tighten his grip. Moonlight bathed his cheeks when she met his eyes. “Gilbert, you said you wanted to know what I want. I’d like it if you held me. That is, if you’re comfortable.” 

He did not have to be told twice. Suddenly the arm on her waist snaked around even further, and the other one wrapped beneath her, pulling her close to his chest. Anne returned the favor as she ran her hand up and down his back. 

“How’s that?” 

“Perfect,” she breathed. Focusing on the sound of his breath, she leaned forward and kissed where his heart was slowing to a sleeping pace in his chest. The cold which seemed so unavoidable before was completely forgotten. In its place was a clear view of the future as crisp as the stars above the storm clouds. 

In the morning, Anne would take one glance at the sleeping boy in her arms and another out the window, and wonder why she’d thought winter sunrises were always purple. In his sleep, Gilbert would tighten his hold on her, and the dawn would turn into every color her eyes could see. And when he woke up, Gilbert would see them too.

[drunklander]

Drunj!Der Yells About Outlander

Thoughts on Ep. 508

I mean, shame on me for allowing myself to get my hopes up that the show might have turned a corner last week. I should know better by now.

At least Young Ian’s back. And Marsali had a nice moment. And that’s about all I have to say about this episode that’s positive. I swear to fuck, this show hates Claire as much as the author of the books does. Where the fuck is the lead protagonist, show? Can she come back? Can she get a story line of her own that’s more than just a random scene every few episodes, please? And can Bree please be given something to fucking do that doesn’t involve Roger, Jemmy or rape? Does Fergus still even live on the Ridge?

But yeah, I guess let’s just all watch the episode twice so our dumb lady!brains can understand that Matt’s stupid silent movie gimmick was actually ~ArT~ and not, you know, a stupidly bad creative choice. Seriously, fuck that guy.

I can’t tell you how much idgaf about watching Roger teach. Also, Bree’s like his students’ age since she was in college too. So really all this bit is doing is to make me skeeved out about their age difference.

“Can you tell me why anyone would go to the trouble of burying one?” he said, condescendingly, like the doucherocket he is. Do not disrespect Young Ian like that, asshat.

“People live and die by their words.” *gestures to the beautiful shitposts on this hellsite* sure jan dot gif.

I already want to fastforward.

Would 100% rather sit through a lecture on suspension bridges than watch silent movies, tbh.

Hate the title card. Hate this whole gimmick.

Hate.

HAAAAATE.

Roger got hanged. Roger was dumb, Buck was an abusive and toxic fuckwad. But still, Roger got hanged and this is how we find out he’s alive and how he was saved?

It should be this big emotional moment. It should make me feel a thing in spite of myself. But nope! Gotta do this fucking silent movie thing. Which is hilariously terrible. And I laughed at it the whole time. In a mean and judgey fashion. What a craptastic creative choice. Whoever’s idea that was is a fucking idiot. *stares at a certain pompous af showrunner*

Ok but for real though, does LJG just like live in North Carolina now? Why is he always around, besides, you know, so we don’t forget he’s a character who exists.

For real though, he lives in Virginia and gets more screen time than fucking Fergus and Marsali who live fucking next door.

At least writing this recap is gonnna be quick and easy since they waste so much time re-showing the stupid silent movie footage.

Yes, I know, they’re trying to show Roger’s PTSD. Which involves flashbacks. And gradually turn it to color once he’s like come to terms with what happened and starts to move forward. But the execution is so bad that the whole arc is wasted because it’s just so poorly done.

Oh hey! A Claire and Bree scene! I love those. Except oh wait, it aggressively fails the Bechdel Test.

I JUST WANT THE FUCKING WOMEN ON THIS SHOW TO HAVE SOMETHING TO DO THAT’S COMPLETELY FUCKING SEPARATE FROM THE MEN. ARGH.

Jocasta singing at Murtz’s cairn is a reminder that everyone should check out MDK’s music.

And her wearing the necklace Murtz gave her makes the existence of show!Duncan even dumber. Like oh hey, new husband, don’t mind me, just mourning my dead boyfriend and wearing his jewelry. But it’s totally normal since my niece-in-law still wears her abusive ex-husband’s ring.

Sorry, show!Duncan, but a more pointless character was never included. Show!Duncan wins the prize for most BeCaUsE tHe BoOk dumbassery.

Repeatedly showing what’s basically a snuff film is...a choice.

LJG has no sense of personal space when it comes to the Frasers. And it’s fucking creepy.

Oh look, another scene where all Claire gets to do is comfort someone about a man.

*BANGS FIST ON TABLE* GIVE CLAIRE BEAUCHAMP THE STORY LINES SHE DESERVES.

Jemmy aged like 3 years in the 3 month time jump.

Ok, I totally get why Roger hadn’t spoken yet. But once he did, the seal was broken. Not talking after he yelled to stop Jemmy, even a little bit, is just a dick move. Not that he’d be magically better. But he like refuses to even take baby steps.

CAN WE PLEASE GET THROUGH AN EPISODE WITHOUT A MUSICAL INTERLUDE. I FUCKING HATE THE CLEMENTINE SONG.

GRANNIE CLAIRE AND GRANDA JAMIE ARE MY FAVE.

OMFG AN ARROW. THAT CLEARLY MEANS...YOUNG IANNNNN!!!!!

So glad he’s back. So fucking glad. Yes, it means one more character to dilute how much time we can spend with any given person, but it’s a character that I like so hopefully he takes away from some of the time given to ones I don’t like?

Aaand Roger can’t even bring himself to try to talk to the guy who gave himself up in his place. Fuck Roger.

Claire does a better job at first than Jamie at picking up the vibes Young Ian is putting off, but like, for two people who are supposed to be emotionally intelligence, neither of them do a good job at first of really *seeing* Ian.

John Bell is really good in this episode.

Omfg Marsali has tarot cards. She’s like leaning full on into being the white witch’s apprentice and I fucking love her so much.

Also, the Hanged Man card is representative of self-sacrifice and martyrdom rather than like being actually hanged as a punishment. But whatevs.

Ok I think the reason Jenny yelling at Jamie to snap out of it in S3 bugged me where this scene with Bree yelling at Roger doesn’t is because sibling dynamic is completely different than spouses where both of them have gone through something unimaginable.

That he can’t even say anything here. Or give her any kind of sign that he’s still in there is a dick move. He *can* speak. He knows that now. So does everyone else. He’s actively choosing not to. Even to say that he just needs more time to work through his shit. No one’s asking him to be a chatterbox and totally back to normal.

Young Ian just sitting there while everyone else does grace is literally me at every family holiday.

Oh look, a wild Fergus appeared!

Ok, I never got the surveying thing. Wouldn’t the land already be registered? Since they were given the paperwork and shit for it from the governor? I know there was some bit about it in the book about keeping it after the Revolution but like, who the fuck else are they registering it with that would make a difference? The gov’t is still the English gov’t?

“But there are things you keep hidden from others. You and Claire both.” Ok, can he please be talking about time travel? I mean, I know he’s talking about his wife and their miscarriages, but I just want someone else to know about time travel already please and thank you.

HOW THE FUCK IS MARSALI STILL PREGNANT?! SHE’S BEEN PREGNANT FOR LIKE A FUCKTON OF TIME.

Fuck yeah not-Catholic-anymore-Ian. No grace, talking about the creator in a way that isn’t explicitly the christian god. Good job, kid.

My parents called me to say happy easter and I had to be like, uh, you remember that I don’t celebrate that, right?

Happy Zombie!Jeebus Appreciation Day to all the still christian people. And happy chance to have fun with burner zoom accounts named Elijiah to the jewish folks.

Jokes aside, the scene with Young Ian and Marsali was really nice and Marsali remains a fucking saint. It’s nice that Young Ian has someone who like actually gets what it’s like to find a home in a group of strangers.

Oh Claire, think more highly of your assistant. Also, what a clunky fucking way to be like oh hey, one of the emo!bros is gonna try to off themselves.

Ok but with the paper airplane now too, can we please show Young Ian finding out about time travel? Please?

Ok, but Claire automatically jumping to Roger wanting to off himself with her herbs... It’s making me judge both of them a little that neither picked up on just how clearly Young Ian was suffering. Like come the fuck on, y’all. It wasn’t subtle.

Also, can we please have more Adso?

SOMEONE GIVE YOUNG IAN A HUG! NO, NOT YOU, ROGER! SOMEONE GOOD!

Yada yada yes they both have been through something shitty and call me a biased asshole, but I can’t bring myself to feel anything about Roger and I feel all the things about Young Ian.

So Roger won’t talk when his wife begs, but he’ll talk when someone calls him on his bullshit. Cool. Cool cool cool. Nice dude.

NO ONE WAS ASKING FOR THE OLD ROGER, YOU TWATWAFFLE. THEY WERE ASKING FOR *A* ROGER. INSTEAD OF A ZOMBIE.

Again, there’s more to that tarot card than a literal hanged man, but whatever, show.

Oh thank fuck the episode is finally over. Expectations are back down in the gutter for the rest of the season. Please pleasantly surprise me, show, but I will not make the mistake again of thinking you’re actually gonna be consistently good again.