#edit: she just brought me into the convo by saying I’ve ‘always loved Jonah’

[theamazingannie]

It’s after midnight and my brother’s old friend’s mom just called my mom and they’re just chatting on the phone…is the end coming???

[multimetaverse]

Thoughts on the new texts?

It’s great to see Tyrus finally being brought from subtext to text. I always had high hopes for Something to Talk A-Boot simply because it was after the farm wedding which meant that the show could finally start openly talking about Tyrus. Basically everything we’ve seen of Tyrus up to now is nothing that Disney couldn’t back out from had they so chosen and nothing that would really clue in the casual audience that Tyrus is a thing and really if you just watch the episodes themselves there’s nothing there so far that makes Tyrus look like anything more than a crack ship or queerbaiting.We’ve come a long way from Disney editing a look back to make TJ seem straight and from Cyrus having to vaguely talk about how, ‘’crushes change’’ on the texts but now we’re finally getting the set up for them to canon and be real and textual and Disney is finally letting the audience know that.

Another reason to be optimistic is that the show will actually be allowed to follow up on these texts. It’s clear that the texts between Buffy and Andi after 3x11 talking about TJ’s crush on Cyrus was nothing more than a desperate attempt by the writers to try and get the audience to realize that TJ is gay because they weren’t going to be able to do that on the show itself. That convo looks wildly out of place now, especially since neither Buffy or Andi have talked about TJ’s feelings again nor have they informed Cyrus about what they think on the texts or on the show. 

 I’ve seen some people who were under the mistaken impression that Cyrus hasn’t realized his crush yet but that was never the case, it was just that he wasn’t allowed to say so because that would Tyrus real for the casual audience and would create an expectation that something would come of it, which obviously couldn’t come until after the original wedding. We’re looking at 3 or 4 days in universe of TJ scenes, most of them with Cyrus, and probably around 4ish minutes of screen time which may be the most TJ has left in a single ep given how crowded the finale will be. All this talk of relationships and feelings is definitely setting up for whatever happens at the gym between Cyrus and TJ whether it be a hand hold or hug or something else. It’s also heavily implied that Cyrus is ready to have a boyfriend and be out to a larger sphere of people, which needs to be the case since Tyrus canons at a house party and is also why all the Tyrus scenes in 3x18 are at the school and in particular their moment at the gym is in a very public area with lots of people around. 

Cyrus clearly doesn’t believe (or want to believe) TJ when he said he and Kira weren’t a couple which is likely partially because he doesn’t trust TJ as much after costume day and partially Cyrus’ low self esteem and lack of self confidence. He can’t hear of a breakup because there is no relationship to break up but it is set up for Cyrus to find out that TJ has gotten out from Kira’s manipulation which lets them spend time together and repair the damage she’s done which culminates in whatever moment they have at the gym. That must be what gives Cyrus hope that TJ might like him back which is shattered when he sees Kira at the party which leads him to feel like he was deluding myself and makes him retreat to the bench to be sad. I’d guess that TJ’s trial reminds him of how much he’s changed and he decides to help Kira be a nice person and then she ends her incredibly poorly written story line by apologizing to TJ and encouraging him to go talk to Cyrus. 

 I don’t think we’ll be seeing Andi involved at all in the Tyrus story line until they rejoin the party after the bench scene; they’ll stick with Buffy being Cyrus’ confidant on screen. Andi has always been kept conspicuously away from Cyrus’ sexuality arc and TJ in general except for key moments because getting her involved would bring too much attention to the gay story line. She’s the main character so any words coming from her have greater weight, that’s why the show had her go with Cyrus to report the gun and why she was the one to tell Cyrus that it was his choice who to come out to and when. 

It’s great that we see such a close Andi and Cyrus friendship in the texts but it’s not one we’ll see on screen and it wouldn’t shock me if that Andi and Cyrus scene at Andi Shack in 3x16 is the last solo scene we get for them. Yes Andi has a lot of other characters to interact with but they’ve always made time for her to have solo scenes with Buffy or Jonah or Amber or Walker and undoubtedly if Cyrus had been straight we would have seen more of their friendship. I also don’t think that the Jonah and TJ friendship they set up in 3x08 will amount to anything and Jonah won’t be involved in Tyrus until after the bench scene as well; looking back it’s clear that it was just contrived drama to justify having TJ in the ep but not doing anything with Tyrus. 

The texts also straight up pretend that Ciris never existed which is funny because Andi herself had a lovely convo on the texts with Cyrus after he broke up with Iris. It’s very wise of the writers to not bring up Ciris though, there’s no good way to explain why Ciris got so much more than Tyrus will and the less the audience remembers of Ciris the better for the show’s legacy. It will never stop being darkly funny that after all of Disney’s censorship and restrictions, the Tyrus story line is the only one not damaged by the re-shoots and the farm wedding being cut simply because TJ’s story line was written to keep him away from it and now we’re getting a much more equal Tyrus story line and we get them back a week earlier than we would have in otl. If I was a spiritual man I’d say it’s karma.

The texts also circle back to Andi and Jonah in a way they haven’t for a very long time. We get a reminder of Jonah ‘writing’ songs for Andi which when combined with Amber wondering if Jonah would write her a song seems like set up for You Girl. We also get Andi saying that if you still like a person than the relationship isn’t over just growing in a different way which suggests she still likes Jonah. And we get a reference to their no breakup breakup which was pretty poor writing on the shows part. We also get a run down of Jonah’s past relationships and Cyrus correctly points out to Andi that Jonah liked her best of all his girlfriends: Jamber 1.0 was toxic, Jonah could barely communicate with Libby, and Jamber 2.0 was a mess. Given that Jamber is broken up, Andi and Jonah have solo scenes in 3x18, and Jonah performs You Girl in 3x19, we’re setting up for some Jandi plot line. 

I don’t think we’ll end with canon Jandi like we will with Tyrus and Muffy. Rather I think we’re getting a wishy washy, we know we like each other and always will but now’s not the right time but the universe will guide us back together type thing. And since either Andi or Jonah are moving away in the finale it will be easier to pull that off and it parallels young Bexie in a way. They do need to give Andi some romantic plot line, she hasn’t had any since 3x04 and we really should get some hint that Jonah is capable of learning and growing from his relationship mistakes instead of repeating them over and over. Well can’t wait for 3x18, it should be a good one and hopefully all the remaining eps are.