#episode 5: sure he gets doc back but now this doc had a completely different upbringing and relationship with his dad.

[ursaspecter]

what i say: i'm fine

what i mean: in the back to the future telltale game in episode 1 doc was talking about how jules and verne were already getting ready to go to college. and its just not brought up again. what the fuck. at that point marty hadnt seen him since october 1985 and it's may 1986 now. and this was before the idw comics so there was nothing to fill that gap yet. marty's best friend has been gone for so long his own kids are around marty's age now. i love the game and it's my favorite extension to bttf but holy shit why did they do that. i know in the end the timeline gets so changed around that the browns have been living in hill valley since the end of part 3 but marty wasnt around for that. this is another whole new doc he has to get to know now. how many times must marty lose his best friend to time travel

[voidify333]

20 Questions for fic writers

I was tagged by @almarnatiaam- thanks!

1. How many works do you have on A03?

36

2. What's your total A03 word count?

133,211

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Ace Attorney these days.

I've also written for Les Mis and Good Omens; Les Mis makes up most of my works at 20 (though 4 of those aren't really fics, they're fanart pieces I posted to ao3 for sewerexchange).

And there's a couple random fics that aren't any of these: The Temptation Of Immediate Relief is a Pride & Prejudice missing scene fic that I wrote for high school english class and posted a polished version after graduation, and All Alone is a short War & Peace fic expanding the character of Anatole's wife who's entirely just a plot device with no character in canon (elephant in the room: the name I chose for her was retroactively made weird by my later fandom journeys by being cognate to the name of a completely different character, but like, whatever). I still think both of these are pretty good

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Wilson & Sons (Good Omens outsider POV fic about Aziraphale's barber, a family business that he's been going to since the 1700s), at 1861 kudos

You're Better Off Without Him (Good Omens outsider POV about the guy in episode 4 who says that line), at 763 kudos

perfectly statue-still (Ace Attorney 3+1 fic about elevators being a trigger for Miles, angst with a happy ending), at 433 kudos

driving back in style (in my saloon will do quite nicely) (Good Omens fic, silly cute little A/C getting together scenario), at 303 kudos

naughty list (Ace Attorney fic; angst with a happy ending; the premise is that Gregory didn't get to tell Miles that Santa wasn't real so when the von karma household didn't do santa Miles thought he was on the naughty list for a solid 4 years. If you haven't read it, ho ho ho 'tis the season to read it now), at 241 kudos

Yeah, my good omens stuff is never being unseated from the top of my leaderboard unless I end up getting into an even bigger fandom at some point in the future

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to, because comments absolutely give me life and I need a constant stream of them, but unfortunately I don't get around to it often enough

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Absolute angstiest out of my published works is probably my very first ao3 fic, not quite nowhere to turn. Valjean sees Javert die and is too late to do anything. The fic is very flawed in that I was 15 and had not learned how to do subtlety, I can't look at it now, but I was a hyperlexic kid with A's in English so I think it's still better than what most people were writing as teens

Second answer is merry christmas., my most recent fic (if you haven't read it yet, HO HO HO TIS THE SEASON), it's Miles' POV for the first bit of Turnabout Goodbyes, it ends on a note of hopelessness that he's doomed to be convicted, but it only debatably counts since anyone who's played the games knows that the turnabout is coming

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of my stuff has pretty happy endings, that's just my sensiility as a writer-- even "not quite nowhere to turn" has an afterlife reunion scene-- so I'm not sure what to say here.

There's some fics where the conflict was trivial in the first place (comedy and crack stuff), there's some fics where I feel in hindsight that the ending was a copout and that a rockier path to happiness would have been more interesting if I had mustered the strength to write it (When Tomorrow Comes is the primary example tbh), and there's some where it feels earned (the fics in this category include the ones I like the most)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've thankfully never gotten hate on AO3 that I can recall

9. Do you write smut?

Yes I do, but none of it is up on my ao3 account at this time. I have a ton in my google docs though...

10. Do you write crossovers?

I've written a couple. Both of them, funnily enough, of the format "javert meets one of my other blorbos and they recognise what they have in common"

In "and if you fall" (honestly the point of the title would have landed better if I did the full lyric "and if you fall (as lucifer fell)" but at the time that felt too corny), Crowley happens to be in the right place at the right time to talk Javert down from jumping (context: within GO book canon Crowley was asleep for the 19th century except for getting up in 1832 for a loo break)

In "The Choice Of Death" Miles Edgeworth meets Javert's ghost (AA ghost lore notwithstanding) one liminal night during his year away

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

On a tangent though, bc there's no question directly relevant to share this info, I HAVE gotten fanart for a fic before: this amazing fanart by @maym0rin for chapter 2 of "perfectly statue-still" (she gave me permission to crosspost it on tumblr bc she didn't have tumblr at the time but she later got tumblr when the twitter ship started sinking). There is nothing more flattering as an author than getting fanart, I hope this first time isn't the last time

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not yet!

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

Yes, I helped with @almarnatiaam's fic A King's Heart and got a co-writer credit.

And outside of cowriting on the level of be listed as cowriter on ao3, my friend who doesn't have tumblr (it's tsl for all the mtnr server friends reading this) and I have been collaborating and bouncing ideas on each other's fics for... wow, it's been over a year now!

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Honestly it would have to be Valvert because it got to me at a formative time and has shaped the kinds of ships I like for life

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

What do you mean "the" wip????

I have two dead fics and counting (one for les mis, one for good omens), and that's just the ones where I posted the initial content before realising it's too intimidating to finish. There's so many more in my docs; my friends know about some of them

16. What are your writing strengths?

Here are some that I have no problem bragging about, I reread my own fics often and smile at the moments where I did a banger line

Character voice (especially when the characters are my blorbos)

Using fancy vocabulary with precision in the prose to achieve effect (a skill born from trying to copy the vibes of victor hugo)

Witty prose humour (a skill born from trying to copy the vibes of pratchett & gaiman)

Prose from the POV of someone in a fucked up state- someone in a dark place emotionally, or someone whose motivations are fundamentally misguided or outright malicious. This is THE most fun shit to write for me

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Committing to long term character pain and tragic character conflict when it's not pulled/extrapolated directly from canon. I have many times read a fic where the author puts blorbo through the ringer and thought "damn if only I wasn't such a fucking coward and could write stuff like this". I've become less of a coward over the years and now enjoy

Writing anything long without a detailed plan for the entire thing

The need to use words with precision and write perfectly in character is as much a weakness as a strength. I am not a "write a whole first draft then edit" person I am a "dot points for the bits I don't have perfect words for" person and this sometimes causes issues where I assume I'll figure out how to get from A to B later but then it turns out to not make sense to get from A to B

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I have 4 years of Duolingo French and have used this occasionally for my Les Mis works. The way I think of my Les Mis works is that the characters are all speaking French behind the fourth wall but the fourth wall translates for us, so I avoid puns that only work in English except on a couple super cracky occasions.

For Inspector Javert Chooses Death (a fic with the premise "AU where instead of dying Javert fakes his death like Edgeworth and goes to england and unrepresses his homosexuality") I was originally planning to write the whole letter near the end of the fic in french and put the translation in footnote but my beta reader got confused so I scrapped that and had the prose paraphrase most of the letter and only included one French sentence

19. First fandom you wrote for?

First fandom I published fic on ao3 for was Les Mis. First fandom I published fic anywhere online for was Animorphs (when I was 12 I published a weird dark comedy fic to FFN which was a 5+1 or similar format of Visser Three executing people for slighting him by morphing into huge creatures and eating them. Then people on animorphsforum.com told me the fic was bad so I lost all confidence and didn't write fic again for years)

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Right now it's between my two most recent AA solo fics: merry christmas. (already explained; 1-4 fic) and the perfect weapon (Manfred POV throughout his revenge plot, SUPER fun to write all that villain pov, grew from the premise "he had to have known about the nightmare to plan all that")

My best Les Mis fic is but i have seen the same (i know the shame in your defeat); it explores my favourite parallel with a cool alternating scene format and I actually still like the writing and characterisation even all these years later which is a rare honour for one of my high school Les Mis fics

Tagging: @squadron-of-damned @kaleran @samioli @ashkazora @azalawa-scroggs

[deanstead]

That’s What We’re Here For

Pairing: Will Halstead x HalsteadSister!Reader x Jay Halstead

Request by anon: Hello! Could you maybe write halstead!sister imagine? She is always helping others including her brothers but refuses to get help herself and she just hides that something is wrong. And it got to the point when it's hard to hide it so Jay and Will get really worried about her.

Warnings: non-con touching, harassment, angst, mild cursing

A/N: First Halstead sister fic, which was also a request! I tried to balance out enough of each brother, so I hope it came out well and that you like it! Thanks for making this request! As usual, would love to hear thoughts or feedback! I’ll continue to take Halstead Sister requests, so if you have anything in mind, feel free to drop me an ask! ^^

Part 2

---

Jay got up as you pushed the door to your apartment open.

“Hey, I thought you said…” he stopped midsentence as you looked up at him. 

“Jay?” You asked, confusion lacing your voice as you wondered why your older brother was sitting in your apartment, before you remembered that you had actually agreed to meet him earlier. “Oh my god, I’m sorry Jay. I completely forgot.”

Jay furrowed his brow. “Y/N? Did something happen?”

You paused but shook your head. “No, I just… got caught up.”

You knew that Jay wasn’t buying your story but you pretended not to notice. “Jay, can we just get some food? Please?”

Jay sighed, eyeing you out of the corner of his eye before nodding. “Will’s buying.”

You broke into a smile. “Definitely in.”

---

You twirled your pen in your hand, nodding along as your colleague made her presentation, occasionally looking down at your notes. You looked back up at the presentation, and that’s when you felt it. Again. A hand on your knee.

You could feel your body freeze, and you could almost feel ice travelling up your veins. You swallowed.

It had started a few months ago. You still remembered the first time he had made a comment about the dress you were wearing and your figure. Then it had progressed to staring, a few brush ups against you that were just a little too close for comfort and once even a rubbing of your upper arms that sent the alarm bells ringing in your head.

You looked up at him, your team leader. He was looking away, as if he was totally invested in what your colleague was presenting, so much so that no one else could have guessed what was happening.

You shifted your knee uncomfortably, pulling your leg away and crossing them, angling your body away from him. Yet, at the same time, you knew it was futile. All these months, any form of rejection or attempt to avoid him just seemed to make him more determined to get what he wanted.

You hadn’t told anyone what was happening but you were strong and you weren’t about to let this asshole break you. That’s what your father had ingrained in you and that’s how your brothers were. You’d be damned if you broke to pieces.

So you kept on a brave front, avoided being alone with him as much as you could and never let on to anyone, including your brothers, that anything was amiss.

But if this kept up, you weren’t sure how long more you could go on.

You’d only admit this to yourself late at night in the darkness of your bedroom, huddled in the safety of your covers, but you were getting a little scared. He was getting bolder and he seemed to be trying his luck but stuck in a male-dominated environment, you weren’t sure about letting yourself become embroiled into a he said-she said situation.

As the meeting ended, you quickly stood up but not quickly enough apparently. “Y/N, can I see you in my office, please?”

You froze but you knew there was no way of getting out of this one so you simply nodded, moving out of the meeting room to put your notes on your desk before heading to his office.

Taking a deep breath, you knocked on his office door and let yourself in, leaving the door open.

“Close the door, please.” He said, while smiling, his smile only managing to send shivers down your spine.

You swallowed down the lump in your throat but followed his instructions, finding no way to argue. “I just wanted to talk to you about your progress reports.” He continued, motioning for you to sit down.

“Is there a problem?” You asked.

He smiled back at you. “Not at all, I think they’re very well done.” He got up. “More well done than I expected.” He continued, pacing the office, his fingers trailing across your shoulders as he walked behind you. You took another breath as you felt his fingers touch the fabric of your dress.

You moved, turning to look at him square in the eye and he smiled back at you. “Just wanted to tell you to keep up the good work.”

“If you keep it up and make the right choices, you’ll do very well here.” He continued.

You swallowed down the bile that you could feel at the back of your throat. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll get back to work.”

You stood up and made your way to his office door until you felt him grab your arm and push you slightly against the wall. You took a sharp intake of breath as he leaned in closer, his lips almost touching your ear. “Remember, the right choices.” He whispered before he stepped backwards, smirking.

You quickly left his office, making a beeline for the restroom. You barely made it in time to the toilet before you threw up.

---

“Hey.” Will called, jogging towards Jay.

Jay nodded, glancing back down at his watch. “I’m just stopping by. I have to get back to the district soon. Listen, about…”

Will didn’t need Jay to finish his sentence. “Y/N, right? Yeah, something’s definitely up.”

Jay nodded, “As long as we’re on the same page about this. You know her…”

Will shrugged, “The stubborn gene was passed on by Pops. She’ll never reach out first for help. Let’s wait and see before we you know... intervene.”

Jay glanced at his watch again. “I really got to go. I’ll see you tonight though?” Will nodded back as Jay got back into his truck.

Will sighed as he watched his younger brother drive off. Something was definitely up. Even when they had met for dinner a few nights ago, there had been something different, something off, something he or Jay couldn’t put their finger on, which worried him.

As he looked up to go back in, he noticed an all too familiar silhouette and took another glance.

“Y/N?” Will called out.

You were almost at the entrance and turned, giving your oldest brother a sheepish smile. “Hey Will.”

Will jogged towards you. “What are you doing here?” You could see that look on his face as he looked you over.

“I think it’s my IBS.” You grimaced as another cramp ripped through your abdomen. “Can you just…”

“Come on, let’s get you checked out.” Will muttered, pulling his arm around you gently as you sighed.

Thankfully, it was a slow day at Med and Will was able to get you into a treatment room before long. “Ethan, I need your help.” Will called.

“What do we have?” Ethan asked, jogging in.

Will glanced at you. “This is my sister, Y/N. She thinks her IBS is starting out again, can you just take a look?”

Ethan nodded at you. “Hi, I’m Dr Choi, let me take a look?”

You lay back as he pressed your abdomen gently and went through the necessary checks and questions before nodding. “Let’s just get a scan in case. If nothing is out of the ordinary, we’ll get you setup with some of your normal medications and you can go.”

“Thanks Doc.” You replied, giving Will a ‘I told you so’ look before sitting up again.

As Ethan left the room, Will continued to stare at you, leaning on the wall and folding his arms. “You haven’t had an episode in a while. Are you stressed?”

You shrugged. “Not really.”

Will continued to stare at you. “You’re going to stare a hole through me.” You commented.

“You threw up.” Will pointed out.

“It’s just a small episode, Will. I’ll be fine.” You stressed.

“Dr Halstead, we need you in Treatment 5.” Maggie popped her head in and Will nodded.

He looked back at you. “I’ll be fine. Go save lives.” You told your brother.

Will gave you another glance before nodding, reaching forward to give you a gentle pat on your head.

You watched as your older brother ran across the emergency department and into the opposite treatment room.

---

You pushed open the door to your apartment, heading straight for the kitchen to pour yourself a glass of water before swallowing the medication that you had gotten from your earlier trip to Med. You had barely convinced Will to let you take a cab home by yourself.

In the safety of your apartment, finally alone, you sank to the floor, resting the back of your head against the counter, feeling the cold from the tiles seep into the back of your head. You closed your eyes as it hit you, everything from the past few months, always looking over your shoulder, constantly being on the lookout, everything, and you dissolved into tears, bringing your hands up to your face as you sobbed.

You didn’t even hear the sound of keys and the main door opening until Jay’s voice pierced through your consciousness.

“Y/N? Y/N, what’s wrong?”

But you couldn’t stop now, you just kept shaking your head as the sobs left your body.

“Okay, okay, it’s okay, come here.” Jay soothed, wrapping his arms around you and cradling your head gently as you sobbed into his shoulder. “Okay, let it out. It’s okay, you’re okay.” Jay kept repeating.

You didn’t know Will had even entered the apartment until you felt a second pair of arms encircle your shaking form without saying anything.

You don’t know how long you were on the ground, your body tucked tightly between your two brothers, your favourite people in the world. When your sobs finally subsided, Jay was the first to move, pulling away gently to look at you.

Now you were embarrassed and you didn’t raise your head.

“Hey.” Jay called, forcing you to look up at him.

“Okay come on, let’s get you up first.” Will spoke, gently pulling you up, his eyes flicking to the medication on the counter.

You didn’t say anything but let them guide you to the couch. Jay plopped himself onto the floor, eyes still on you, while Will sat next to you, one hand on your back.

“What’s going on?” Will asked, his voice warm.

You remained silent. Jay put his hand on your knee and you jerked it away instinctively before you looked back at him. Jay froze before sitting up straighter. “Y/N, it’s us. Come on.” He urged, his green eyes holding a look of worry now.

“It’s nothing.” You mumbled.

Will sighed. “Okay, that’s enough. You don’t think we’ve noticed?”

You dragged your eyes back up to Will at the sound of his strained voice, expecting to see that look he had when he was pissed but instead you were met with his worried gaze. “Come on, let us in.” Will said.

Jay pushed himself further upright. “Hey.” You looked back at Jay now. “You remember, when I was having a tough time? Nightmares, PTSD, bad cases, all that crap? You barged in and wouldn’t let me reject your help.”

“Yeah, and when I catch a tough day at the hospital, or even when I was having a tough time with Natalie? You barely left my side.” Will chipped in.

Jay sighed, “For once in your life, it’s okay to get help. We’re your brothers, that’s what we’re here for.”

Your lower lip trembled as you looked down. “Pop was right. I’m useless.”

“Hey, Y/N Halstead, you look at me.” Jay snapped, and you raised your head again to look at him. “Pop had no idea what he was talking about. He used to go off on Will and me all the time too, remember?”

Your eyes flicked from Will to Jay. Will nodded, “Come on, he thought my medical degree was useless. Pop just… said things he didn’t mean, you know that.”

You remained silent.

“Now, spill.” Jay stressed as Will gave him a pointed look.

“Y/N, what’s going on?” Will asked, gentler this time.

At your hesitation, Jay pushed himself off the ground and sat next to you on the couch. “It’s not weak to ask for help. Isn’t that what you told me? For three days straight, mind.”

“It’s my boss.” You finally whispered, your voice cutting through the silence as you found yourself spilling everything out. If there was anyone you could trust in this world, it was Will and Jay – your rocks. They might be idiots and sometimes overprotective but they were as solid as they came and you wouldn’t trade them for anyone in the world.

You didn’t go into the details but you could feel Jay tense up next to you. “Jay.” You put your hand on his arm. “Don’t.”

“I will kill him. I swear to God…” Jay growled but you just shook your head.

“Jay. No scene, okay?” You whispered.

Will put his arm around your shoulder. “You should have come to us. You always take on the weight of the world. My problems, Jay’s problems, but you won’t let us share yours. That’s a little unfair, don’t you think, sis?”

You didn’t respond but scooted closer, laying your head against Will’s shoulder and closing your eyes.

Jay moved closer to you, squashing you in between them. “We’ll work this out, okay? I’ll kill him with my bare hands if I have to.”

You just smiled and reached out for Jay’s hand. “Hey, no murder, Detective.”

Jay finally cracked a smile before leaning forward and kissing you on your temple. “I’m your big brother, I can do whatever I want.”

You rolled your eyes.

“Thanks guys, seriously.” You whispered.

Jay flicked you on your head. “Hey!” You protested, sitting up now. “What was that for!”

“I told you. That’s what we’re here for. You’re our little sister, it’s our job to protect you.” Jay retorted.

Will let out a small laugh. “Look, let’s let Jay look into him alright? In the meantime, if he so much as glances your way you go right to HR, you hear me?”

You hesitated. “Whatever it is, he’s a dirtbag, and if there is fallout, we’ll deal with it. But no more running and no more hiding.” Will continued.

“Fine.” You breathed.

“And I’m taking you to your office tomorrow.” Jay said.

You raised an eyebrow, “Seriously?”

“Never been more serious in my life.” Jay looked back at you. “Look, I promise not to freak out on him, just let me walk you in to your desk so he knows your brother is a detective.”

You looked at Will for help but Will just shrugged. “Don’t look at me, I might break his hands off if I see him.”

You smiled. “Dorks.”

But you knew that now, even if the whole world came at you, everything would be alright. You finally felt like yourself for the first time in months.

---

Part 2 

[if-music-be-the-food-of-love]

Sander just hits different.. like I was rewatching S3 and ep 3 came on and I was like this is not Willem DS this is Sander. They are so different and Willem played him so well with a certain vibe that can only be Sander. I miss him :(

He truly did an amazing job with Sander (and I will always be sad that we didn’t get to see more of him in that role—I’m still shocked at how little we actually have after 3.5 seasons. Wtfockdown was an absolute gift to humanity, albeit an occasionally cringy gift, but it’s basically the best thing that happened in 2020, at least for me, and it was Sander centric!).

To address your ask (kind of?), I honestly struggle sometimes to even believe Sander is the same person between ep 3-5 and ep 8-10, let alone the lovesick marshmallow we saw in wtfockdown. I mean he is, obviously, but there’s this physical transformation he undergoes throughout the season that just amazes me. His cool, edgy vibe becomes so soft and the best word I can think of is cuddly by the last episode. He literally melts before our eyes—that cool, impenetrable exterior slipping away as he realizes he does have value, he is lovable, and he is enough, that he is worthy of the love he seeks.

His hair is symbolic of that transformation. I interpret his blond hair, much like the leather jacket and docs, to be an armor that he wears to protect himself from the world—to project a confident image and act as a barrier (I answered an ask about this not long ago, but as far as we know, he doesn’t have close friends—is this a conscious choice, like does he purposefully set himself apart bc he feels he doesn’t deserve friends/love? God that makes me sad). Back to the hair, I feel like they made a conscious choice to have his hair look more sharp, more strategically styled before he knew Robbe liked him, and then in the scenes where he’s sure of Robbe’s affection it’s much softer, fluffier. By wtfockdown, it’s a wild mess. Of course, that’s just his cut growing out, but I think it parallels Sander’s emotional journey as well. He’s trying so hard at first, trying to project this cool, edgy look, both to attract Robbe and to hide behind. But once he knows how Robbe feels, and gains a better understanding of himself, he relaxes and everything looks more natural, wavy, fluffy, like he’s dropping the armor. By wtfockdown he doesn’t give a shit bc he is confident in Robbe’s love and his place in their relationship. And that’s also why as much as I loved his blond look, I feel that brown haired Sander post season 3/wtfockdown makes so much sense. He doesn’t need it anymore. He’s comfortable in who he is. He’s happy. He can let go of that armor completely and be himself bc he knows he’s enough, that someone knows exactly who he is and loves him anyway. Ok, that’s the hair saga I’ve been sitting on for a year.

BUT, the real transformation is in how he carries himself, his expressions, and that’s all DS. How did he do that? Like the Sander from Dinsdag 16:19 (ep 5) and from Vrijdag 20:18/21:03 (ep 10) are so completely different in how they move, how they carry themselves, their facial expressions. In the first, he’s closed up and angry, standing rigid and so tall, almost leaning away from Robbe, trying to be aloof. In those last clips he’s so relaxed and loose, his posture and his face. The lovesick expression on his face when he smiles at Robbe across the room or the way he lets Robbe twirl him are such a stark contrast, and for me it’s his whole journey. Sander’s arc is so complex. And that’s just one of many contrasts. We meet him in full on flirt mode, but we also see seduction, scared, hurt, confused, excited, etc. Maandag 11:03 is still the pinnacle for me. He’s absolutely brilliant there and totally believable. The range he showed throughout season 3 was just stunning, and it was a whole body transformation (which is why I think you see Sander and not DS bc he IS Sander in that moment, just as he was Max and Tuur?). It’s funny bc I praise Herbots for the exact opposite skill—that he can express so much with so little movement. We always know what he’s thinking.

They did a great job designing Sander’s character, probably my favorite overall change from the og, but how he acted, his portrayal of Sander, was truly something special. I think that’s why it feels so real to us (bc they’re so good at what they do).

Sorry for writing another novel in response. Analysis is pretty much my favorite thing. I never had anyone to share these thoughts with during season 3/wtfockdown, and by now I’m sure everyone has already said all of this. I just missed it.

I miss him too, anon. Thanks for your ask!! Hopefully I answered you at least somewhat coherently. 💖💖

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights from David Gaider - PART 1

This information came from DG on a recent SummerfallStudios Twitch stream where he gave developer commentary while Liam Esler played DAO, specifically the mage Origin. I transcribed it in case there’s anyone who can’t watch the stream (for example due to connection/tech limitations, data, time constraints, or personal accessibility reasons). A lot of it is centered on DAO, but there’s also insights into DA2 and DAI. Some of it is info which is known having been out there already, some of it is new, and all of it imo was really interesting! It leaps from topic to topic as it’s a transcript of a conversational format. It’s under a cut due to length.

Note on how future streams in this series are going to work: The streams are going to be every Friday night. Most likely, every week, they’re going to play DAO. Every second week it will be Liam and DG and they’ll be doing more of this developer commentary style/way of doing things, talking about how the game was made as they play through, covering quirks and quibbles etc. Every other week, it will be Liam and a guest playing a different campaign in DAO, and Liam will be talking with them about how DA changed their lives or led them into game development, to get other peoples’ thoughts on the series (as it’s now been like 10 years). Some of these guests we may know, some we won’t. When other DA devs are brought on, it’ll be in the DG sessions. They hope to have PW and Karin Weekes on at some point. Sometime they hope to have an episode where they spend the whole time going through the lore.

(Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6)

[wording and opinions DG’s, occasionally LE’s; paraphrased]

DAO’s development actually finished up around April 2009. They then put it on ice for around six months before release. Human Noble is DG’s favorite Origin. It’s one of the ones he wrote. He also wrote the Dalish Origin as well (Tamlen is his doing ;__;). DAO’s temp name during development was Chronicles. DG has never played any of the DA games after they were released. He played them pre-release loads of times, when they were half-broken or incomplete etc. This stream is his first time seeing everything played after completion.

NWN: Hordes of the Underdark was the first game where DG was a/the lead writer, in charge of other writers, as opposed to a senior writer. It was pretty well-received. In the fall of 2003, BW were just finishing up HotU when James Ohlen came to DG to talk. BW had been having issues during the development of NWN with the IP holder for D&D Wizards of the Coast, so they were interested in starting their own IPs that they would have ownership over (and also for financial reasons). JO said to DG that one of these new IPs would be fantasy and one would be sci-fi. He knew that DG was more fantasy-oriented, and so asked DG if he wanted to take this on. DG was down, and the first thing to figure out was what that fantasy IP was going to be.

JO gave DG an atlas of European history, which he still has, and said that he wanted him to make a fantasy world that is reminiscent of medieval Europe and reminiscent of D&D - “make it like D&D but not, file off the serial numbers really well”. This worked for DG because he was pretty familiar with D&D and there were also lots of things that he didn’t like about it and wanted to change. So DG went off and for the next six months worked on creating a setting, beginning with documentation and the map. This was kinda strange because they had no idea at that time what their story would be. JO was very interested in having a “genetically evil” enemy in the setting (like an equivalent to orcs). DG wasn’t a big fan of this and his initial go at the setting omitted this (i.e. darkspawn were not a thing) and was a lot more realistic. JO insisted on adding them later on.

This period of development wasn’t actually a good process. There were other people who were working on the project who were designing the combat side. Looking back, DG feels that they should have put their heads together a lot sooner. The combat designers had various ideas for various prestige classes and subclasses, and DG would be like “these are nowhere in the setting [lore]”. He tried his best to add a few of them after the fact, which is why we see things like DA’s version of the bard archetype. The combat designers and artists originally had a vision in mind of a game that was much more along the lines of the type of fantasy you’d find in the Conan the Barbarian world - bare-chested barbarians, sorceresses that show a lot of skin, a grimdark world with barbarian hordes. They were just assuming that’s what it was going to be. At this point in time DG had never thought, “Oh, maybe I’m responsible for communicating my ideas to them” - he’d never done this role before and was just told to go create the world. He created world-building documentation and would send out emails saying “I’m making this documentation, please go ahead and take a look”, not learning until later on that nobody outside of the writing team really likes reading such documentation. He learned tricks later on like making the docs more accessible, less dense and wordy, and overall easier to peruse.

There was no real ‘vision holder’ for DA. Mass Effect did a much better job of that. Casey Hudson was the project director and the vision holder for ME, and he had the power to enforce a set vision of what was and was not ME. ME therefore ended up having a bit more of a coherent vision. DG was in essence the vision holder for DA, but he didn’t really have the authority to enforce it on the artists. The DA teams ended up spending a good 3.5 - 4 years of the ~6 years of DAO dev time going in circles, not exactly sure what they were going to make, the various people working on it having different ideas of what ‘kind’ of fantasy they were going to make. The writing team were leaning towards LoTR; the artists were leaning towards Conan; at one point one of the project directors was leaning towards a point-and-click Diablo-style action adventure; and nobody was overriding anybody else.

The fans who hang out on the forums and in similar places have a very different idea about what kind of game they like and want to play versus the telemetry BW get from the public in general. As an example, fans on the forums tend towards playing non-humans and feeling that playing as a human is boring. Forum-polls reflected that, but BW’s general public-telemetry shows that around 75-80% of the playerbase played a human in DAO. Elves were at 15% and dwarves 5%. In contrast, in the core/forum-based fanbase, the human figure dropped down to 30%.

DG originally wanted Zevran to be a gay romance (he has talked about this before). He asked JO if he could do that pretty early on, thinking of Jade Empire which had same-gender romance options which were really popular. BW were surprised about that, and DG had no idea that the JE team were going to do this. For DAO, he had an idea for an assassin character. He had been reading about how the CIA and KGB would often recruit gay men to be their assassins, as they didn’t tend to have family ties. DG thought this was really interesting. JO was cool with the idea on a conceptual level, but thought that the work that would end up going into it would be better served if those characters could be romanced by both male and female PCs. Zevran and Leliana weren’t intended to be bi, they were “bi out of convenience”, but at the time these sorts of things (representation and such) didn’t enter into the equation as much as it does today. DG wrote Zevran in his head as being romanceable by men.

DG would ask the hair artists, “Why all the mullets?”, because he never understood that, and he’d get “a sort of shrug response”, and an indication that “it’s easier to model, I guess?” Having hair which is loose, in the face, in locks, coming over the shoulders etc wasn’t really supported at this point by the tech or the engine. Hence, they ended up with like five different versions of mullets. On the subject of the engine, for the first half of development they were using an upgraded version of the Aurora engine from NWN, and it was not good. Several years in they decided to switch. Trent Oster was in charge at the time of making a new proprietary BW engine. At the time it wasn’t ready yet, but the DA team decided to grab it, use it and hammer it into the DA engine. That engine had “so many little weird quirks”, like lighting on skin not working properly and looking bad, and one of the issues was hair. It was supposed to be BW’s proprietary engine but it really wasn’t optimized for RPGs and didn’t include a dialogue system. They had to custom-build the conversation system. (At the time Trent didn’t think BW should be doing RPGs anymore, which is a whole other story of its own). DG recalls programmers complaining about things in the engine that weren’t ready for ‘prime-time’. Even compared to games released concurrently, DAO’s graphics were a bit dated.

For the worldbuilding, they had an internal wiki and they kept everything on there. They ended up with a lot of legacy documentation on there very quickly. Eventually they solved this by hiring an editor whose sole job it was to wrangle the documentation. DG started work on the setting in the same manner in which he’d embark on starting a homebrew - ‘so like, first, here’s a map, oh, I like this name, vague ideas, a paragraph on each major nation, a rough timeline of the history, expanding, and it just growing from there’. After about six months, they brought on other writers, and by then he had around 50 pages of documentation. This 50 pages was a minute amount compared to the amount they had generated at the time of release. Originally, they weren’t sure where in the world specifically the story would take place, so DG made sure to seed potential and brewing conflicts throughout Thedas. They settled quite quickly on the new Blight starting in Ferelden. Once they established that, the writers went to town on taking Ferelden specifically and blowing it up detail-wise. Jennifer Hepler was in charge of the dwarves and Orzammar. Mary Kirby was on Fereldan customs and traditions.

The first version of the setting was more grounded in realism, almost like a post-fantasy. The dragons and griffons were extinct and a lot of the things that were thought to be fantastical were thought to be over with. During development, they started clawing these things back. They brought back dragons because the game was named Dragon Age (lol). DG was approached like, “Hey, we named the game DA, can you bring back dragons and weave them into the story more powerfully?” Wynne’s writer Sheryl Chee had a bit of an obsession with griffons and was often like ‘omg, griffons :D’, and this is the origin of Wynne’s dialogue with the Warden about griffons.

KotOR was the first time BW had tried to do a game that was fully voiced-over. For KotOR, BW sent the work of casting, direction and so on down to another studio in California called Technicolor. BW had little say in the process then and when they got it back, “it was what it was”. By the time they got to DA and the first ME, BW had a good system down for recording and VO had become an important thing in games at the time. BW are really one of the premieres for this, a lot of actors really like acting on BW games as they get a lot of space to act where they wouldn’t normally be able to do so otherwise. DG has learned a lot from Caroline Livingstone on how to encourage the best performance out of an actor. For DAO, DG worked together with the various lead designers and Caroline to decide on the auditions, casting etc. This was one of DG’s favorite things to do.

Gideon Emery as Fenris, GDL as Solas and Eve Myles as Merrill were times where DG had written the character and then went to Caroline and said “I have an actor in mind for them, can you check it out?” These were specific times where he was able to secure the actor he wanted. This didn’t always work out, for example there are times when actors aren’t interested or have no time due to scheduling conflicts or were too expensive etc. Eve and GDL were DG’s roommate Cori’s idea. Cori was a big fan of Torchwood/the actors from Torchwood, and worked as an editor at BW for a long time. Gideon was DG’s idea after playing FF12. For DAO, DG didn’t have any specific ideas in terms of actors. Casting Morrigan was the longest, most drawn out process.

The Circle went through a whooole process during worldbuilding. Initially, mages in the game weren’t supposed to have any “fighting magic”. The restrictions were originally such that in the lore, they didn’t teach mages that. Mages weren’t taught any magic that could kill people, only ‘indirect’ forms of magic that could support others. However, [during what sounds like] playtesting it was asked “Why can’t I cast a fireball? I just want to cast a fireball”, so the writers had to go back and rework how magic in the lore worked completely.

Flemeth was originally going to be voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo, and she was totally on-board, but unfortunately because of DAO’s development delays, she was unable to attend the new recording time as she had a conflict in her schedule (she was filming House of Sand and Fog). Shoreh was quite disappointed about this and her family had been so excited that she was going to be in a video game. When the movie was finished, Shoreh came back to BW and let them know that she was still available, and this is how she ended up in ME2. For a while they were trying to find an actress with an accent that authentically mirrored Shoreh’s. Out of the blue around this time, Claudia Black’s agent sent BW an audition tape of her. At the time Claudia hadn’t done any games but wanted to get into it. The tape was of Claudia doing a beat poet rendition of Baby Got Back. DG still has this tape. DG was a big fan of Farscape and on listening to the tape, it clicked right away in his head that Claudia would be perfect for Morrigan.

The Fade ended up being a big irritation for the writers. They wanted the PC to be able to assume different forms and such while in there. A lot of this stuff proved too difficult for the combat designers to work out, and so it ended up getting changed a lot. They had a hard time coming up with gameplay that could work in the Fade. The mage Origin is DG’s least favorite of the Origin stories, as he’s really dubious about the Fade section in it. It didn’t work out like how they had pictured it in their heads. By the time they got to DAI, that’s when the Fade really looks like how the writers first described/envisioned it. By this point the artists were more keen to give it a more specific feel. DAO was made at a time when ‘brown is realistic’ was a prevailing thing in games dev.

The experience of a mage in the world isn’t represented or conveyed very well to the player when the player is a mage. The experience of the player when they’re playing a mage or have a mage in their party doesn’t really match up with how the world lore tells them how dangerous mages can be - for example, how they can lose control and so on, we never really have an example of a PC mage struggling with being taken over by a demon. This was originally supposed to be a subplot in DA2 for mage Hawkes, in one of the last cuts. In Act 2, mage Hawke was originally slowly being tricked by a demon in their head that they thought was real, only to realize at the last minute. Mouse the Pride demon in the mage Origin is the only time in the entire series that they really ever properly demonstrated how demons can fuck with [PC] mages. Also, PC templars were originally supposed to have a permanent lyrium addiction that they needed to ‘feed’, but this was scrapped as the system designers weren’t keen on it and felt that it was essentially handicapping the player. 

Mages were originally also not supposed to be able to deal with pure lyrium (it would ‘overload’ them). There is a plot where mage PCs run around touching lyrium nodes to refill their mana bars. On this DG was like “Wtf is this?” The designers said that it works, and DG said “but it flies in the face of the lore”. This instance is an example of how the DA team was working where the various departments (writers, artists, designers etc) all had their own ideas about how the game and its world would work and never overrode each other (see above). DG feels that DAO is a little contradictory in that way. It’s only after the game came out that a lot of the people on the team really “bought into” what they’d put forward. This got easier as they went on, with people involved buying then into the things that make Dragon Age, Dragon Age. At one point, not everyone on the team was even aware of those things.

DG relates that originally, they would ask the artists, “Ok, can we get a village?” and said village once created would be quite generic and non-specific to DA. The writers would try to relate how things are in the DA world and list things that would be found in a village like this specific to the DA world, and the artists either didn’t read it or had their own ideas (DG isn’t sure which), and nobody was around to tell them not to do that and that they should do it differently. Everyone having their own ideas like this is why we ended up getting something that is this sort of “cobbled together half-Conan half-LotR mish-mash”, and after a while this sort of became DA’s “thing”.

Initially, BW had concepts drawn up for a lot more different creatures. After they went in circles for those years and consequently ran out of time to do all the models, they had to cut these concepts down more and more. Demons were among the ones that were the first to go (this is why we have situations like a bereskarn as the Sloth Demon in the mage Origin). The original concepts for things like spirits of Valor and Sloth demons were really good. Early on, JO made a list of D&D creatures that he liked. He picked the ones that they were thinking of doing, sent them to DG and said to make a “DA version of this”. For example, D&D succubi essentially became Desire Demons. Desire Demons were originally patterned off Sandman, neither male nor female yet really alluring, acting more like a genie and trying to ferret out mortals’ inner desires (which are not necessarily sexual in nature), without being overtly sexual. The artists’ version came back and that was basically the model seen in-game. The writers were like “What is this, this is nothing like the description?” and the artists responded that on the list from JO, it was included, in that you had to click on “succubus” to get to the Desire Demon description, so they had just read “succubus” and done their version of a succubus. The artists did loads of great work, but this was one of the instances were DG was like “???” By then, it was too late to change it. The writers were able to encourage them to make Desire Demons a little more fearsome, so that made it in at least.

The mage Origin was one of the more contentious Origin stories. It had like 4 different versions written of it over time. It was often the case that BW would hire someone, and writing an Origin story was their first test. Three different writers came in and wrote a version of the mage Origin and those versions just didn’t work. Finally they passed it to Sheryl Chee and she wrote it. The Origins were the parts of the game in general that were written/rewritten the most often. There were several others that got written that they discarded. 

Duncan was slated for death from Day 1. When DG writes a story, the thing he does first is pick out the big emotional beats that he wants, such as deaths. He decides these ahead of time and the stuff in-between comes later and is more often changed. Oghren was also originally supposed to die, but this ended up getting cut. DG related a story of how Oghren came to be: At the time, there was a phase JO went through when he thought everything had a formula that it could be done by. One of these ‘creative forumulas’ was that all such IPs had a two-word name that they’re known by, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Dragonlance (being Dragon-Lance). This is how ‘DA’ and ‘ME’ came to be. One of the formulas he wanted to implement was how to distill the ‘comedy character’, like Minsc or HK-47. These characters were very popular with the fans and JO was certain that there was a way to figure this out to create one for DA. At the time, DG argued with him a lot about this. JO insisted it could be done. DG was originally supposed to write this character but ended up not doing so. JO came up with a list of comedic archetypes and had DG write a blurb about what kind of character each could be. These were then sent out to the team who voted on which was their favorite. This process eventually resulted in an archetype basically called ‘The Buffoon’ (think Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin, the kind of guy people laugh at because he’s such an oaf).

At this point ‘The Buffoon’ wasn’t named or made a dwarf yet. JO came to DG to write him, but DG said there was a problem which is that he hates this archetype. Homer and Peter are characters that he despises. DG is a professional writer, but this was comedy (outside of his areas of strength), and he felt the best he would be able to do is write a character who makes fun of this archetype and lampshade that. Comedy is something that has to come from within the writer. Oghren was given to someone else, and he ended up getting rewritten again anyway. By the time they were working on Awakening, DAO had not yet come out, and the assumption prior to the game going out was that Oghren was still going to be the most popular character from among the followers. The comedic character that ended up being the most popular along these lines was Alistair, which was interesting as he wasn’t intended as a comedic character, “so shows what we know”. DG was dubious that Oghren was going to be popular, because “he was kind of pathetic, honestly”, but that was the thinking at the time. Thinking he would be well-loved is why he was in Awakening.

On Alistair, any character DG writes is going to be sarcastic. At the time DG had made it a sort of personal challenge to recreate Joss Whedon’s dialogue patterns in his characters. Alistair was a sort of mish-mash of Xander from Buffy and maybe Mal from Firefly. DG wanted to see if he could do it, so Alistair was kind of quippy and self-deprecating. DG never really considered this to be Alistair’s main personality feature, but when other writers wrote him, they often had him doing this, as they liked the trait so much, and so this is how Alistair ended up as he did.

On dwarves, the dwarves being cut off from the Fade is very much baked into who the dwarves are as a race. There’s a specific reason why. This has been hinted at so far and it’s likely to come up in the future. DG had various ideas for some things that he wanted to include with the races or the way the world works etc. Some of them ended up never happening or some are mentioned only as part of the lore (templar lyrium addiction never coming up in gameplay is an example of this). Dwarven history and the nature of the dwarves is one of the things that survived pretty well though. DG calls Jennifer Hepler “mistress of the dwarves” and says that she did a really detailed, amazing breakdown of their history. After Jennifer left it was Mary Kirby, and DG feels that they did a good job of maintaining how dwarves were, in terms of both how they’re often presented in fantasy and yet also quite different in DA. Orzammar is one of DG’s favorite plots all together. You can really tell that Jennifer Hepler really enjoyed the dwarves and brought a lot of love to that plot.

DG draws a distinction between DA fans and the unpleasant people who harassed Jennifer Hepler.

They managed to keep the Tranquil in. There was a while there where they were going to be cut. At the same time, DG regrets that they couldn’t solve the making of the player more aware of how mages are dangerous, thing. Players could make a cogent argument like “they’re not that dangerous, look at me [mage PC]” and the writers were like “well... yeah, that is fair”. It was a case of showing one thing and the player experience of it being another. DG feels that this made the templars come off worse than they are. DG feels that they are being massively unfair and too extreme in their approach to the problem, but the problem itself is a real thing. He feels that there’s some merit/truth in the argument that mages are oppressed, but he looks at it more like an issue like gun control rather than as treatment of oppressed people, saying that we don’t have an example in real life of oppressed people who can explode into demons and cast fireballs and so on.

There are some funny pronunciations that worked their way into DA, and the reason for a lot of them is as follows: the writers had to create a pronunciation guide for VO, because otherwise you end up with a lot of inconsistencies. (Some did still slip through). The guide was online, and if you clicked on a word, an audio file for it would play. Jennifer Hepler was in charge of this and did a great job, but has a really strong NY accent, and in some cases the ‘NY-ness’ of her pronunciation endearingly worked itself into things (the way Arlathan is sometimes said is an example of where this happened sometimes).

Sometimes the writers trying to communicate the “hotness” of a character to the artists didn’t go smoothly. The writers would sometimes say things like, ok, this character is a romance, they need to be hot, and the designs would come back looking “like Burt Reynolds”, and the writers would be like “???” And then a character that wasn’t particularly intended to be hot, as in that wasn’t mentioned at all in the descriptions of them, would come back “accidentally hot”, and the writers would be like “Why couldn’t you have done this when we were asking for a character that was meant to be hot”, and the artists would be like “What?? He’s not hot”. And this became a thing (lmao - this discussion was prompted by DG being asked “Was Duncan meant to be that hot?”, for context). Some of the artists were so paranoid about their [in]ability to judge actually-hot characters that when it was time to pick an appearance, like for Alistair, they gathered up all the women at BioWare, and DG (“resident gay”) into a room to show them an array of faces and bodies like “Is this hot? Is this hot?” DG and co would sit there like, “How can you not tell? Is this a straight man thing?!” Anyways, this is why oftentimes we ended up with characters who are accidentally hot.

Over time, the writers realized that the way they communicated to artists needed to be managed better. The words they would use would have different connotations to them the writers, than what they did to the artists. For example, for Anders’ design in DA2, he was supposed to be “a little haggard”. When DG thinks of haggard, he thinks ‘a little tired, mussed hair, looking like you’ve been through some shit’. But the artists based on that produced concepts with super sunken cheeks, looking like he’d been terribly starved. The writers needed to develop a specific vocabulary for communicating with the artists, as artists think in terms of how something looks, but writers are thinking in terms of what the character “is”. Anders’ description talked about his history a lot, and the one visual-type word that jumped out was “haggard” due to its visual connotations. “A lot it came down to the writers being up their/our own asses.”

When they got to DAI, they had figured out that the way to get best results on this front was /not/ to have the writer go off and develop a long description and pre-conceived notion of what the character looked like in their head. In such scenarios artists don’t feel that they have much to contribute to the process or an ability to put their own stamp on who this character is and make them interesting to them (the best, most interesting characters are when people at all stages of the pipeline properly get to feed into it). They learned that the better solution was to bring the artists in earlier, and to give them little blurbs, and not name the character but give them an ‘archetype’-sort of ‘name’. For example, Dorian was “the rockstar mage”, “cool”, “Freddie Mercury”. The writers wouldn’t be sure that a particular concept would ‘hit’, so at this stage they would offer an array of options and sit the artist down and walk them through the concepts. The artists would then provide a bunch of sketches and it would go back and forth, with both taking part in the character creation process together. For the first two games, the writers were “really hogging” this process to themselves. They got better at not doing this and better at communicating with the artists by DAI.

There were a lot of arguments about how mages in DAO had a lot of specific lore words like “Harrowing”, “phylactery”, “Rite of Tranquility” etc. There was concern that this would be too confusing for players to understand and that it was too complicated. DG says that thankfully he put his foot down and pushed for this stuff to be kept. A lot of fans assume that as lead writer DG had all this influence, way more influence than he could possibly exert on a team. He wasn’t even a lead, he was a sub-lead, under a lead designer. He only had so much say. If the lead designer or lead artist wanted to do something differently, often there was not much he could do. Hence he had to pick his battles carefully, choose the important ones to fight. The mage vocabulary thing was one of these.

Templar Greagoir’s name is pronounced “Gregor” and it comes from a place in Alberta near where DG lived.

Codex entries are usually one of the last things that get done in a project like this, and so all of that kind of textual lore comes in super late and is super punchy as by then the writers have written so much and are exhausted. They had to find a way to make this process cute or interesting or fun for themselves, which is why a lot of entries are quite fun to read. Sometimes a writer would make a joke for banter [irl], and it would end up making it into an entry.

Only Morrigan and Duncan got unique body models in DAO. The companions all have custom-morphed heads but not custom-morphed bodies (Morrigan not included here). This is why every model has a necklace or a collar right at the point where they had to be attached to be a body. These sometimes used assets that couldn’t be used by the PC but were not unique to that character. Duncan probably got a unique model because he was in a lot of marketing/promotional material. Qunari were originally conceived as having horns.

Most people didn’t even finish DAO once (public telemetry again here), only approximately 20-25% actually did. The devs try not to read too much into this kind of thing, but the telemetry does tell them where a lot of people stop playing the game permanently (they call these “drop-off points”). One of these points in DAO is the Fade during Broken Circle. Sometimes when people interpret this data they involve self-serving biases, but it was generally accepted that the Fade there was too long, too complex, not interesting enough, etc. [source]

[Part 2]

[Part 3]

[Part 4]

[Part 5]

[Part 6]

[‘Insights into DA dev from the Gamers For Groceries stream’ transcript]

[thexfridax]

Wynonna Earp Boss Hopes Syfy Finale Made You Feel 'All the Things' — Plus, Scoop on One Happy Wedding Accident

By Matt Webb Mitovich, tvline.com / April 9 2021, 8:02 PM PDT

The following contains spoilers from the Syfy finale of Wynonna Earp.

After four years of protecting Purgatory with her Peacemaker, Wynonna Earp got to quite literally ride off into the sunset. And she did so while straddling a motorcycle, with Doc Holliday seated behind her.

Mind you, the two almost didn’t wind up together. Following the simply beautiful “WayHaught” wedding, Doc (played by Tim Rozon) was determined to put Purgatory in Charlene’s rear view mirror and get to living life as “just a man,” and Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) felt compelled to stay put as Purgatory’s protector. But with an empowering nudge from li’l sis Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley), Wynonna caught up to her man and professed her love, after which they decided to travel light, for the first time in a long time, and pay their daughter Alice a visit in MIracles, Montana.

TVLine spoke with series creator Emily Andras about crafting this very fine finale, at least one “happy accident” that wound up stirring many emotions, and more.

TVLINE | The finale has just aired…. What emotions do you hope the fans are feeling at this moment?

Just head-to-toe body warmth, and love, and affection, and wistfulness…. And a little bit of bittersweetness. I feel like joy has to be paired with nostalgia, so I hope they’re feeling all the things. But hopefully not hungover!

TVLINE | At what point over the years did you ever envision Wynonna and Doc riding off into the sunset?

Ahhh! I almost never even let myself envision it, you know? It’s so funny — when you start doing a show, you have all sorts of ideas about what pairings are going to rise to the top, who’s going to end up with whom, and one of the joys of Earp is that so many different things have happened. But those two characters have certainly earned the chance to try to be happy, whatever that means to them. I never knew that I would be allowed to end such a romantic pairing with the woman driving the motorcycle and the guy on the back.

TVLINE | I’m watching that final sequence and it almost feels alien, seeing the two of them head off into what I think of as “the real world.” But I also found that viscerally exciting, to see so much ahead for them.

That’s so lovely, thank you for saying that. I feel like having the world ahead of them and being such an unusual couple, I would love to see what happens next for them. I’m sure there will be lots of crazy sex and crazy arguments and crazy laughter. So, godspeed! Godspeed.

TVLINE | When throwing a season-ending wedding, what is Emily Andras’ marching order? “Above all else, this wedding has to be…”?

It has to honor to all of the characters — and by that, I mean it has to try to find a moment for every special pairing on the show, not just WayHaught. I think it’s important to pay due respect to how far Waverly and Doc have come; she never gave up on him, she always saw a better man in him — and now he gets to be the best man! Nedley (Greg Lawson) and Nicole’s (Kat Barrell) relationship, that paternal/daughter bond is so special, so honoring that was very important.

And at the end of the day, I still think the real love affair of the show is the Earp sisters, so I ended to make sure that that was honored. I really love the parallel with the pilot, where Wynonna came into town against her will and was so hungry to leave but was forced to stay. And now you have Waverly secure enough in how their relationship has evolved, that she knows Wynonna deserves to leave again — because she’ll come back.

More than anything, it was about giving every character a moment of happiness. Even Jeremy (Varun Saranga) becoming deputy chief of Black Badge and maybe finding a new date…. It was all about finding everyone a moment of potential joy, after they’ve gone through so much after four seasons.

TVLINE | Talk about the decision to have empty guest chairs laid out with the names of those who are no longer with us or didn’t make it to the wedding.

That was such a happy accident. We were on-set, it was very much in the middle of the pandemic, and we knew we were going to have a limited number of people for the wedding. But then we put out chairs so you could understand where the aisle was, and they looked really empty. So my incredible director, Paolo Barzman, who also did the pilot, and my art director Trevor Smith, pitched this idea to me. I had sort of joked about, “Wouldn’t it be cool if you had the ghosts of characters past?” In the moment, they said, “What if we hung names on the chairs?” and it was just one of those goosebump moments, like, “That’s brilliant.” So then we have people writing up these cards, rushing them out, and it’s honestly one of my favorite things. Whenever I see that Dolls chair, I just can’t help but feel things.

TVLINE | But Mercedes (Dani Kind), to be clear, is still with us.

She’s just out, like, being her best vampire self. She’s out being an amazing vampire, yeah. I still have that spinoff if you want to help me sell that!

TVLINE | If anything caught me a bit off-guard, it was us getting a song from Rachel (played by Martina Ortiz-Luis).

The thing about Martina is that she is a phenomenal singer. She is the anthem singer for the Toronto Maple Leafs — so she’s quite a star here! — and she was on Pilipinas Got Talent back in the day…. It seemed like a waste to not have someone with such an exceptional voice perform! And what better song to lay over the necessary wedding montage than a WayHaught classic (Fleurie’s “Wildwood”), the song that was playing the first time WayHaught kissed. It’s a bit of an Easter egg for those hardcore WayHaughters!

TVLINE | I don’t think anyone would have ever felt like a “Dark Angel Waverly” detour was missing, if you hadn’t spent time on it the episode prior. Why did you feel it was important to go there during one of the final hours?

The truth of it is that honestly we’ve been balancing the spectre of whether we were going to have a Season 5 or not. When we started breaking Season 4 two years ago, we were looking down the barrel of about 24 episodes, so [when you get half that] you’re like, “What are we going to keep, and what are we going to pitch overboard? What can we live without learning about?” I would argue that this idea of Waverly having a darkness inside of her did have to be highlighted after four seasons. I completely agree that in a perfect world I could have done eight episodes of Dark Angel Waverly, exploring that and seeing it come to pass. But if we ever get more story, I don’t know if Waverly has complete control over that part of herself. I dont think it’s “gone.” If Nicole puts mayo instead of mustard on her sandwich, who knows what’s going to sprout out!

TVLINE | I mean, if only to see what other outfits Dark Waverly has.

As long as she keeps her thigh holster, she’s ready to go.

TVLINE | Looking back at these last few episodes, what are you most proud of?

‘m so proud of this cast. It’s so boring, but God, just to see them grow and thrive and shine…. performing comedy and emotion, seeing their commitment to the show, and the feelings…. It’s just been such a joy to see such an amazing group of people get their due. They really are that wonderful, off-screen as well.

I’m also pretty happy — in this day and age, and despite all the fights the show has been through — that if this is the end, I feel like that’s a pretty nice finale, a pretty good topper on the cake. I feel like the fans will feel like they went on a journey, and they left the characters in an interesting, good place. And look, that’s really rare in TV, to end your story the way you want. How can I be anything but grateful, at the end of the day?

TVLINE | When I was writing my tweet the other morning, I wanted to call it a “very fine finale,” but I worried you’d think I was saying it was only “fine.” But it was a very fine finale!

No, you have to keep me hungry! You get to challenge me, Matt. Listen, I just didn’t want to risk…. I’m the queen of 75 cliffhangers, but I feel like the fans have worked so hard for us, for so many years, that it was more important that they got closure, just in case. But there’s always another demon, there’s always another thing to trigger Dark Angel Waverly. There’s always more story, but at least you have this, no matter what.

TVLINE | And if some network or streamer does ride to the rescue, would there be something that brings Wynonna and Doc back to Purgatory? Or might a Season 5 be without the two of them?

Look, the show is called Wynonna Earp, so you need Wynonna Earp. She’s still the champion, she’s still got the magic gun and the best hair on the show — sorry, everyone else!

There are a couple of unresolved issues. We still have Eve, who we kicked out the the Garden very early in the season, and who can kind of shapeshift; she could take on the appearance of any one of our characters! That would certainly throw a wrench in the works in Purgatory. There are a million different reasons to bring Wynonna back, to help out her sister.

TVLINE | And lastly, was there anything you had to cut or just didn’t have room for, or any returning cast you couldn’t fit in?

Oh, tons. But look, you kind of hit the nail on the head earlier. I’m always striving to be better, and some stuff at the end felt a little rushed, with Dark Angel Waverly. I think if it hadn’t been a pandemic, there would have been more people at that wedding. I would have loved four more episodes to round the bend there. But look, that’s Wynonna Earp, man — perfectly imperfect! So that’s what we did, and what a ride it’s been. The ride of a lifetime for me.

[wexhappyxfew]

i literally choked on my pizza when i saw your writing and analyzing questions post, I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!! first of all, what sort of process do you go through when creating characters? what kind of things do you take into consideration when creating them? i’m fascinated because creating characters is far from easy, especially when you’re creating someone like agent mortem! i’m always interested to know what the writer’s thought process was when creating a new character!

okay, so secondly, i wouldn’t say i’m having trouble with keeping all my planning organised and ‘precise’ in a way, but it’s really not easy 😅 i was wondering what kind of processes you go through when planning, whether you have like a specific structure or a set of steps to follow, or if you just kind of roll with it? at the moment when i plan it’s okay and it makes sense, but it’s literally just 4 or 5 pages of really chunky paragraphs which makes it really difficult to pick out the events again when i come to needing the plan to help me. i don’t really know if you do anything different, but if there is any way you know of that i could keep it more organised and easy to follow, that would be great :)

i’ll keep the last ones a little shorter because this ask is already looking veryyy long — what have you enjoyed writing about natia, what struggles have you faced and what have you learned? and basically the same with agent mortem if that’s possible :) i have asked a LOT of questions in this, so don’t feel like you have to answer them all because it will probably take quite a while 😅 anyway, thank you for putting up with my endless questions, and i hope you have a good day <33

ROSE AH HELLO MY FRIEND!!!! <333 sorry ive just gotten to this omg! it’s been sitting here for a little while but i’ve just had so much going on right now and wanted to make sure when i answered that my *full attention* was put on this! (because i’ve been very excited to answer this ESPECIALLY as i see agent mortem questions poking up on here and that just makes me even more hype!!! :D enjoy! <3

Ooooo this is a cool question! I’ve been asked it before but I feel with different characters and such, it always seems to fluctuate for me at least? In the sense, it’s almost never the same process for me in the developmental stages of a character haha! Sometimes I get characteristics first hand, or sometimes a certain scene pops up that just makes the character click and I can build from there, or sometimes, it’s just a last name or a first name that I work with and suddenly have an idea for!

For example, since we’re on the general topic of Landslide, I’ll talk about some things I did when creating specifically Natia. The “Natia” who is currently portrayed in the fic, was not always really like that. Natia initially was not a SOE Agent/Polish Resistance Fighter and instead a Dutch Resistance Member who would meet with Easy in Episode 4. I always sort of knew Natia, in whatever form she was, would meet Easy in Episode 4, but I wasn’t sure how, so the building in the first 17 chapters was the toughest part to come.

I did heavily feel the Polish were underrepresented in terms of the situation of the war along with everything that happened in the Warsaw Uprising and so I felt it was important to see if I could do something with that and that’s really where Natia came into play!

Natia means “hope” essentially and something I really like doing with her character is to parallel or juxtapose different ideas together, to continue on this sort of theme of her being a quite ominous and ambiguous character — you get the general sense of what her morals are, but in certain points it’s questionable. Morally-ambiguous characters have always been fascinating to me, especially female morally-ambiguous characters and so creating Natia in that respect I felt would be interesting to see what I could do!

Something major that I’ve slowly began to take into consideration with characters more and more, is the sort of general theme I want to be present with them — what’s that goal i that they are moving towards in the end and what’s the them surrounding it? For Natia it’s a multitude of things; family, revenge, being silenced, numb, grief, mentor vs protégé, lone wolf etc….the list could truly go on! And with these basic sort of ideas and themes, I can then move on from there and expand.

Why did she want REVENGE? Because the enemy killed her FAMILY, which is extremely important to her, and she wants to feel some sort of REDEMPTION for them.

Why was she BEING SILENCED? Because of the *past* conflict of the HARMFUL MENTOR VS SILENCED PROTÉGÉ situation that occurred between Agent Mortem and herself, where she allowed herself to be silenced by someone who abused the SUDDEN POWER he never had before in his life, ultimately leading to her continued issues of TRUST that she would meet throughout.

Why is she NUMB? Because at a fairly young age she experienced heavy and intense GRIEF that struck unforgivably at a time where it seemed things were safe. To rip something from a character, especially the main character, like FAMILY which is extremely important, you pull at the heart strings and it makes that character move forward on a quest for that in a way, ultimately by the end of the fic. (Basically you up they are least get a semblance of that lost thing, found again by the end)

Why is she a LONE WOLF? Because of the MENTOR VS PROTÉGÉ situation yet again, where she was taught to rely strictly on herself and no one else and so when TRUST and COMPANIONSHIP and TEAMWORK were introduced to her character, she didn’t know how to cope because she had been so desensitized to the ways of Agent Mortem that working back in the morals of family and friends was a challenge in its own respect.

It’s sort of a like a ripple effect if you think about it and that’s what helps me eventually move forward and develop the character arc I want to take place. She’s this way because of this — sort of like cause and effect. It’s really helped me out with major scenes or plot holes that have risen throughout the fic!

AGREED! Writing in general is not an easy feat and now including mind you ORIGINAL CHARACTERS, you’re literally, essentially, creating human beings from scratch and giving them characteristics, a backstory, trauma if you wish, friends and family, people they love, people they hate, morals, standards EVERYTHING! ITS INSANE! AH AND AGENT MORTEM! I’m so very glad that you brought him up, because his creation definitely stemmed directly from the want to experiment with the relationship of failed mentor vs protégé, entirely. I wanted a foil to Natia that was not directly with her all the time. Mortem plays such a MASSIVE role in her story and yet any interactions between the two are either from her mind or from memories and that’s just such a fun way to play around with their dynamic! (I just finished the creation of his backstory and character arc I want him to take and it’s only made me even more excited for what’s to ultimately come for him as well as Natia!)

A song that HEAVILY represents their dynamic is Ghost by Marvin Brooks (2WEI) and I’ll explain why. Even though Mortem is not always inherently *with* Natia, he still is a huge factor of her life, and still heavily controlling many aspects of her life such as recurring memories, reactions, and how she is also conditioned to react to certain things as well. He is essentially a “ghost” who is “haunting” Natia and I feel that’s an interesting take on their connection because they’re two people who clearly had a power struggle and a difference of opinions of multiple things and that just makes it so incredibly interesting to write!

song:

OOOOOO good question!!! So many people have such different ways of approaching story writing and planning and drafting and writing and editing and it’s honestly amazing!! I will say, I’m not an excessive planner or even a real great planner with writing, I never really have, and even as I’ve developed my writing and learned that “it’s okay to slow down”, or “it’s okay to take time for different portions to provide a deeper focus”, I still have not been someone to plan out every bit of my writing.

Reason being is I enjoy seeing where I can take the story in that time and place. Maybe if I’m doing a quick little writing segment and suddenly this idea just appears and hits me, I work it into the fic and it takes it a whole new direction and I end up not being super upset about it because it just…it works! And of course, this is not how other people operate and I have every respect for people who plan and have every detail laid out and figured out and just….completely and utterly planned to the dot. Lile kudos to people who genuinely get the planning all cleaned up before even writing, truly.

I just finalized Agent Mortem’s backstory and where I want his character arc to go and I’ve had him as a character since August of last year LOL! But ya know sometimes, I sit and I think back and go, maybe I wasn’t ready at that time to develop him completely yet because I, the writer, didn’t understand him enough to and I had to write more of him to be able to get a grasp of who he was and his character (and just about everything else!) and that’s okay!!! :)

Going with this idea I just stated above — the 4 or 5 pages of info — KEEP IT MY FRIEND!!! I swear, half the reason ideas even come to me is simply because I just write a big info dump that has all my little ideas somewhere inside and will ALWAYS be there. I recommend maybe taking a day though - away from focusing on writing or editing - and just picking that apart. (That’s what I did the other day and it helped me out MAJORLY! and it was worth it in the end!) Maybe keep the original 4-5 pages and then copy and paste the same thing in another doc so you always have the original!

And then just go through and split ideas apart! If you start reading and see it moving into another realm of headspace of ideas, just press enter and separate the two — you didn’t delete it, it’s still there and still intact! It’s just easier to look at now because instead of two, jumbled and completely different ideas, you now have two paragraphs and portions of text that relate to their own respective idea. It definitely makes it an easier pill to swallow when trying to get yourself organized!!

This really helped me when I was in my beginning stages of figuring out Landslide ESPECIALLY the first 17ish chapter where Natia was not in contact with Easy yet. I’ve explained it before but those chapters are there because we are seeing her final days with the resistance in Warsaw and how she ultimately ends up with Easy PLUS we see who she is as a character by herself and how she is not merely an extension off of Easy, but her own character, her own person. She has her own story and her own morals and ways of going about her life that don’t even relate to Easy. Their paths just happened to cross!! :)

By getting those first 17ish chapters planned, not extreme planning though I will admit, half the scenes were very much thought up on the spot for example like Natia driving to Munich in disguise or the introduction of Zdzich — two very important scenes that show us something about Natia. (1) She’s willing to go to extreme lengths for the people she loves to ensure that in the end they are safe, even if it means sacrificing herself and (2) she has trouble realizing that there are people out there that genuinely care for her, a connection to her ultimate, unruly and upsetting past. And the best part about it is THESE WEREN’T EVEN PLANNED! So sometimes, just let the story take the reigns and your mind and just guide you through it. Sometimes it is for the best :)

If you have your basic ideas and concepts and themes for how you want your fic to eventually go, the scenes for me most of the time just appear I guess when they should. Sometimes even in the times I'm not writing, I sit theorizing and questioning and thinking and developing ideas in my mind and it's a real good exercise, so when you get back to writing, you already know where you want the fic leading in the end!

MAN I LOVE THIS QUESTION. Anytime I can provide some meta or give some insight to Natia who is just one of the best characters I’ve gotten the pleasure of working with, I’ll gladly answer!

The thing I enjoy writing about Natia the most I feel, and I’ll probably always say this, is her complexity — as a writer, her character orders a healthy challenge for me that I gladly have accepted! You don’t know everything about her as a reader and as you read each chapter, that’s how you slowly uncover and discover what she hid about herself to protect herself. There’s so many different aspects of her that I could discuss truly!! (There has been so many parts that I’ve scrapped because I read through and just think “Man this doesn’t seem like Natia!”. She’s tricky sometimes to stake down exactly how she would react because of her past and her trauma and how long she’s been in war, but I just LOVE it!)

Many different aspects of her character though, come from her past and that’s what makes her interesting. I’ve really enjoyed working with the ideology of “Chekov’s Gun”, a writing device that can be used, with how I will mentioned something and it almost might seem out of the blue, yet later it all just makes sense?! When the flashback is revealed or a small portion of her past is finally allowing *light* in. It's a device I've used with Natia that has just really helped to develop her story at the pace I want it to be revealed! :D

For example, the OCEAN is mentioned many times. I make constant reference to the WAVES, the RECESSION of them from time to time, the comparison of the OCEAN both ABOVE and BELOW surface — all of that sorta stuff! For her character, it seems a bit out of place. She’s COLD. She’s NUMB. She’s BROKEN. What does an open body of water consuming at least 70% of the Earth have to do with an OC based in Warsaw, Poland?

This is where the importance of her PAST will play it’s role, as it has a major INFLUENCE on her and her CHARACTER and her MORALS. One of the main reasons the OCEAN is inherently connected to Natia is because of her PAST and one of those main reasons is AGENT MORTEM and her TRAINING, especially WATER training. I can’t comment further on this though as readers have only touched the tip of the iceberg for the use of the OCEAN and it’s IMPORTANCE so far in this fic! (Ask me again about it once this fic is finished up for the most part, unless….by Part 4 readers understand why!)

Natia just remains a character who constantly is developing and changing inside my head - where I want her path to ultimately end up leading by the end of the fic, where I want both her mental head space vs emotional head space should be and etc. So many portions of this fic are dealt specifically on her internal monologue and how she calculates and problem solves from that portion of her sort of *engagement* within the conflict. There never seems to be a dull moment when writing her!

Another thing I really have enjoyed about writing Natia is her clashing personality traits that make her interesting to write in both different scenarios and reactions. She's stubborn yet humble. She's numb and cold but internally extremely caring and giving and filled with these bottled up emotions. She's mentally strong yet she's been through so much and let the war take so much. She never complains about what she's doing, but she's lost nearly everyone she loves. She's a fighter in this war and refuses to back down from a battle she know she can wage, but the second she is pulled from the aspect of war, things crash and burn around her. Just even these few combating sort of things, really show her character and what, through writing, has slowly developed! They always lay around in the back of my mind and it's one of the main things I remind myself when I write Natia all the tme.

I think one of the most important things I've learned from both writing and creating a character like Natia is that (1) it's okay to ask for help, about anything, literally anything. You don't have to confine everything to yourself and build up this immense pressure to do what you must to continue moving forward. It's okay to have people there to help you and support you. (2) It's okay to be strong alone and even if you seem to be the only one on the current path you're are on, it does not mean you are wrong. it can still lead to the right destination in the end!

Oooo okay! AGENT MORTEM!! I am totally down to chat about some things I've loved to write with him with and some challenges I've discovered, but as far as what I've learned from him, I will be holding off and could answer that when the entire fic is both completed and then updated on platforms....just because ;) don't want to give away any spoilers haha! <3

Something I've enjoyed about writing and crafting Agent Mortem is letting him remain as mysterious and secretive as he is for so long. Initially, I can't even begin to recall what his character would be like even a year ago, but seeing where he has developed now, I'm really happy with where he is. He's mysterious, he's shadowed, he seems like a figure in the background, a past mentor who is half deranged and lost his mind with a background with so substance. It makes for such a fascinating way to begin to reveal his past! (something I've began to insert into part 4 of Landslide and man I'm just so HYPE!)

I feel I'm excited simply because he's finally getting the time and moment he deserves to finally explain and show himself as to what has occurred. There's so many fractured and disconnected parts of what is currently going on with Natia and her connection to both Agent Mortem and then Death is tossed in the mix and it seems this big complicated mess of 'how' Agent Mortem got to be this way, 'why' he does a thing such as this, just different and varying aspects such as that. it makes for those big final reveals to all be even more worth it!

He has been quite the challenge though I will admit. There's so many perspectives he could quite possibly be viewed from and his *character* + morals/values could be pulled in a various amount of ways as well. Making sure he accurately comes across the way I want him to both appear and come across to the reader and to myself has definitely been tricky. He's not as easy as suspected, you know, not just a 'dude who had a bad day and went insane in the end', there's a whole multitude of levels and reasons and a deep, heavy and traumatizing background starting from his birth really (which is a whole other story). Managing and balancing that all in one has definitely been something I've had to keep on top of and monitor but I feel has really been worth the challenge in the end. Because at the end of the day, I'm someone looking to constantly challenge myself.

And a good challenge, whether it be writing or academics or a workout, is healthy and GOOD! That's what Landslide in a whole has really shown me, to challenge yourself daily to see where you can push yourself and your imagination and creativity, just to see where you can even go!! it's exciting and refreshing!

Thank you so much for this wonderful ask Rose! I appreciate it more than ANYTHING as you well know, and I know it's taken me *quite* some time to answer, but I've been working on it for weeks now and finally got it out because it was ready! I really wanted to take my time with it and develop it to its full potential in the end and I feel I have (without giving away any spoilers haha!) As always, please know if you have any further questions regarding Natia Filipska, Agent Mortem, Death (along with other characters of Landslide), writing, the process (my own included), tips for writing/planning, or just anything else in general, I will always be happy to help in anyway I can! You're always welcome, anyone always is!!! <3333 Thank you again, I had so much fun doing this more than anything! :D

[thatsgay-writes]

Waverly Earp x Reader

Summary: You’re part of a werewolf community in Purgatory and your mate is Waverly.

Warnings: Light cursing?

(Your wolf form and jacket that everyone in your pack wears. I made Waverly and Champ break up earlier, like before episode 1, because I've only watched 5 episodes so far and don't know when they break up.)

Being mated to a human wasn't an impossible thing, uncommon at most, but being a wolf with the alpha gene being mated to a human was never heard of. When your a pup, for the first 5 years of your life you go to the pack hospital to look at the newborns in hope of imprinting. You never imprinted on any of the wolfs and that scared your parents into thinking you were mate less. Which was not a good thing considering that you were next in line to lead the pack and needed to continue the bloodline, alpha's never birth the heirs no matter the gender. It wasn't til you went out into town the first time that you imprinted, on Waverly Earp. Your parents had no idea what to do, you had a mate now but they were human and wolves weren't supposed to reveal themselves unless absolutely needed. Of course, there were whispers all through Purgatory about your pack and how they all thought you were a cult or something, some even thought you were wolfs. The leather jackets and walking into town to get food and beer in groups of three probably didn't help. The only people who knew about werewolves were Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. Against your parents wishes, you did befriend Waverly in high school and had been acquaintances since you graduated. Giving each other the occasional nod or quick hi in passing or when you went to Shorty's with your friends to get a drink.

You had just heard that Waverly's Uncle died, of course only three days after Champ breaks up with her, and that Wynonna might be coming back to town. So after alpha training, you snuck out. You went to Shorty's when you knew Waverly had a break and went up to the room that was now just hers. You knock on the door, quietly but firmly. "Waverly?" You say, hoping she hears you or maybe she's asleep. You knock again before putting your hand on the door knob, which is unlocked. Your eyes widen in surprise that the door is unlocked and against your better judgement slowly turn the handle to open the door. You frown at the sight of Waverly curled up in her bed, tear stains covering her face. You knew that you should probably leave, so she didn't wake up to see you in her room staring at her but your wolf would kick you if you did that. You walked towards the small bathroom in the room and wet a face cloth. You walk back over to Waverly and softly start wiping the tear stains away. Waverly does end up waking up, slowly, but you focus on your work instead of freaking out. "Y/n?" You give her a small smile before finishing up wiping her face and laying the face cloth out to dry. You go back to where you were before and crouch down again. "Yeah?" "Why are you here?" You let out a sigh at her question. "Well I heard about Champ, an absolute idiot by the way, and your Uncle, and that Wynonna might be coming back to town. I thought you could use a friend right now." Waverly gives you a smile and grabs your hand, causing your wolf to go crazy. "Come on, I know crouching like that isn't comfy." Waverly says motioning to her bed. You raise your eyebrow in surprise and confusion. Waverly rolls her eyes, "What your here and I haven't had anyone to cuddle with in a while and I'm grieving." You roll your eyes but get into the bed with her, making sure there was a obvious amount of space between the two of you. Waverly, of course, completely ignores the space you tried to leave and rolls over onto you and lays her head on your chest. You feel like your heart is beating out of your chest and your wolf is yelling at you to mark her. When you wake up the next day, still in bed with Waverly, you know your screwed. You swiftly but quietly get out of bed and put pillows down to take your place. You try to sneak back into camp but get caught by one of the guards on duty. "Y/n? Where have you been? I have to take you to your parents." You groan, knowing your about to be in a whole ton of trouble.

You did get in trouble, it would have been better if you had spent the night with a random person but spending it with Waverly made it worse. You weren't allowed out the house for the whole day. To say you were bored was an understatement. The next day, when your finally free, you immediately go to find Waverly to apologize for just disappearing. But when you get to the room, it looks ransacked and Waverly was no where to be seen. You run out of the room and run to Gus's house and see blood on the floor. "Shit." You mumble, trying to think of where the Earps could be. The Homestead, you thought before running out the house again. You have no idea why they would go there but it was the only place you could think of. You make sure no one is around before changing into your wolf form. You take off in a sprint and almost trip when you see whats going on. Wynonna is sitting in front of Waverly in a protective manner, Peacemaker no where to be see, and a revenant aiming a gun at them. You also see a black van coming but it's going to take too long. You decide that this is one of those life or death moments when your allowed to reveal yourself and you figure it's okay since the Earp's know about revenants anyways, so they should be able to handle the idea of werewolves.

So you dart forwards towards the revenant and right before he can fire a shot, you tackle him. You and the revenant roll around some in the dirt fighting and by that time the black van had fully pulled up with Dolls getting out with his gun drawn. "Don't shoot!" Waverly yells at him, she doesn't know why but something about the wolf is familiar to her. You are finally able to get your mouth around the revenants throat and "kill" him. You step off of and away from the body once your completely sure the revenant is taken out. You look over at Waverly and Wynonna to see that Waverly got the rope off of her neck and that Wynonna had retrieved Peacemaker and was pointing it at you. You looked behind you to see a guy who was also pointing a gun at you. You walked away from the body slowly, making sure to stay in the middle of the three people, and nudge your head towards the revenant looking at Wynonna. She seems to get what your saying and moves forwards slowly, still not fully trusting you. You would have bowed your head to show that you meant no harm but it was not known of alpha's to bow to anyone except elders or the previous alpha. You also would have transformed back to human form too but your wolf was experiencing too much adrenaline from fighting after so long. You let out a howl of pure adrenaline and one that signified that there needed to be a meeting after Wynonna shot the revenant. Your howl caused the man behind you to tense, like he expected something to happen.

You finally felt your self calm down and didn't know if you should super reveal yourself or not. You decided that if you did, you would be in trouble but at the same time you could finally be completely honest to Waverly about what she was to you and how you had actually developed feelings for her over the years. You felt your bones start to shift and slowly felt yourself stand back up to normal height. "Y/n?" Waverly said in confusion. Wynonna and Dolls looked at Waverly confused, guns still drawn. "Umm, surprise?" You say chuckling nervously. "How? Who? What?" Waverly says walking up to you and doing a few laps around you before stopping and standing right in front of you. By now, Wynonna and Dolls had put their guns away and were watching the scene before them unfold. "You're a... wolf?" "Werewolf, technically." You correct her, rubbing the back of your neck. "And I thought revenants were the only thing different in Purgatory. Damn, was I wrong." "I know you have questions, which I can totally answer but I feel like there is one more thing I should tell you." Waverly looks up at you confused, causing you to feel even more nervous. "Well besides the fact that I am in love with you and have been since junior year..." You say causing everyone's mouths to drop in shock. "Your in...?" You interrupt Waverly, "Please let me finish. But yes, yes I am. You are also my mate." Waverly, having common knowledge about wolfs, mouth drops even more. "Mate!?"

[thisaliennerd]

can you please elaborate on why you think kurt is the toxic abusive one in the klaine relationship? maybe i’m biased but i don’t see it.

Yes, I absolutely can, thank you for asking! I’ll start with the basic points and then I’ll elaborate with examples under the cut in case y’all don’t feel like reading an actual essay today. (I’ve also put the link to the google doc in my linktree in my bio which might be a more accessible way to read this as it is a 25 page essay)

Kurt takes every opportunity to tear Blaine down and takes advantage of Blaine’s compulsive need to help/build up the people he loves, to ensure that he has as much power over Blaine as possible

He refuses to talk about problems in the relationship (of which there are many) when they arise, sometimes actively shutting Blaine down when he tries to talk about it, but gets angry when the problems worsen, accuses Blaine of pulling away, and puts the emotional burden on him

He refuses to acknowledge his own fault in ANYTHING, both in his relationship with Blaine and in his other relationships

When they aren’t together, Kurt drags Blaine along, sabotages and undermines Blaine’s relationships, and refuses to allow him to move on, all while actively pursuing other relationships himself, ensuring that Blaine is always there as a fallback plan

He is INCREDIBLY jealous, even before he had any reason to think that Blaine would cheat, despite Blaine repeatedly shutting down people’s (read: Sebastian’s) advances, and Kurt frequently flirting with and playing into people flirting him while dating Blaine

He says he loves Blaine, but he also implies that if anyone else came along that could make him feel the same way, he would leave

He is rarely supportive of Blaine in general, especially if he isn’t doing something that could potentially help Kurt, in contrast to Blaine being pretty relentlessly supportive of Kurt in everything he does

He holds the things that Blaine’s done wrong in their relationship over his head, even after claiming to forgive him

He’s just pretty selfish and narcissistic in general 

So, let’s go deeper into it, these are complicated and nuanced issues, and I’m sure you need more evidence than just some bullet points, especially for such a popular ship.

Power Dynamics

Let’s start by analyzing the power dynamics between Blaine and Kurt throughout the show and how it affects their relationship. When we meet Blaine in season 2 episode 6, Kurt is in an incredibly vulnerable place, dealing with intense bullying and homophobia at school. Blaine, despite only being (presumably) fifteen and a sophomore, is astoundingly poised and confident. This is where we see Blaine at his happiest. He seems very sure of himself, and this stands in stark contrast to Kurt. Upon seeing this in Kurt, Blaine quickly opens up, sharing that he had a similar experience not too long ago. He gives Kurt advice, encouraging him not to give up and to have courage, building Kurt up. He even comes to McKinley, seemingly during school hours, to confront Karofsky with Kurt. Throughout this, he is calm, comforting, and continues to build Kurt up as best he can. This behavior continues from Blaine as the season continues. Once Kurt transfers to Dalton, Blaine is in a minor position of power as the lead singer of the Warblers, however, he routinely uses this power to keep building Kurt up. He laughs at Kurt’s jokes (s2e9), gives him advice on how to integrate into the new environment (s2e9), and even gets him a lead in a song for Regionals (s2e16). However, when Kurt transfers to Dalton, we begin to see a different side of him. He becomes exceptionally bitter and jealous of Blaine. We see him getting upset over Blaine getting solos in multiple episodes (s2e9, s2e16), despite how kind and accommodating Blaine has been. He openly criticizes Blaine’s performances, saying that they’re all the same (s2e16), and this marks the first example of Kurt tearing Blaine down. Blaine gives up the opportunity for another solo and risks his position by standing up to the Warblers and telling them he wants to sing a duet with Kurt (s2e16). Kurt is also very dismissive of Blaine’s identity struggles. The first and most notable example of this being in season 2 episode 14. Blaine questions whether he might be bisexual and Kurt is not only biphobic but also dismisses Blaine’s crisis. He tries to dictate Blaine’s identity and is passive-aggressive and bitter for the rest of the episode. We get several more examples of this early in season 3. 

In season 3 episode 1, Kurt pressures Blaine to transfer to McKinley, even saying that he was being passive-aggressive, something we’ll see Kurt do often in arguments going forward. Although he maintains a playful tone of voice, it’s very clear that he isn’t joking. Blaine expresses concerns about leaving his friends, and Kurt implies that he isn’t sure that their new relationship can survive if he doesn’t come to WMHS, stopping just shy of actually putting the ultimatum out there, but certainly implying it. Blaine decides to transfer, a move that not only screams codependency but also further brings Blaine down. Kurt is back in his element, he’s a senior, this is his school, whereas Blaine is now a newbie as a junior, abandoning his role as lead of the Warblers for Kurt. And although Blaine initially claims that he came for him, it’s obvious that that isn’t the case, and Blaine confirms that he did it for Kurt later (s4e3, s4e7). In episode 2, Kurt works to further limit Blaine by convincing him not to audition for Tony. Here we see an example of Kurt’s manipulation. He never explicitly tells Blaine not to audition, but just makes passive-aggressive comments until Blaine decides not to audition, asserting his power over him. Again, Blaine is giving up opportunities in order to maintain his relationship with Kurt. Blaine even hesitates to read for Tony when directly asked, because he’s worried about how Kurt will react. And sure enough, Kurt is visibly upset when Blaine’s asked, and while it’s reasonable that he would be disappointed, he shouldn’t have put that on Blaine at all. We see the culmination of this little storyline at the beginning of episode 3, and on first watch, this seems like a sweet scene. Kurt congratulates Blaine for getting Tony, gives him flowers, and says he’s proud of him. However, it’s in Blaine’s reaction that we see the problem. He says, “You always zig when I think you’re about to zag, and I love that about you,” and again, this almost seems sweet, but the undertones of that comment are that Blaine didn’t think that Kurt would be supportive. He was genuinely worried that his boyfriend wouldn’t support him getting the lead in the musical. We see that throughout season 3, Blaine struggles in the New Directions. He tries to fit in, but the group is immediately antagonistic towards him, refusing to listen to his ideas. Kurt says nothing about this, even when it comes from Finn. He doesn’t call them out, he doesn’t even comfort Blaine about it. They spend most of this season pretty equal, but this isn’t enough for Kurt, as he gets his NYADA audition and begins to rise in status, he also continues to tear down Blaine. Flashing forward to episode 17, we see a lot of issues come to the surface here, which will come back later, but we also see more of Kurt tearing down Blaine. Kurt says that it’s hard being Blaine’s boyfriend because he’s “an Alpha gay”. He complains that he doesn’t get solos, implying that it’s Blaine’s fault, even blatantly lying by saying that he used to get solos every week. He manipulates Blaine, putting the fault on him, refusing to apologize for his actions, only apologizing for how it made Blaine feel. Eventually, Blaine is the one forced to apologize. This conversation is especially interesting in comparison to their conversation in season 5 episode 16, but we’ll come back to that. First, let’s talk about season 4. 

In season 4 episode 1, their power dynamic has shifted yet again, Kurt got rejected from NYADA and Blaine was a senior and lead singer again. Kurt is clearly uncomfortable with this, but Blaine just continues to lift up Kurt. He tells him to New York and gives Kurt the confidence he needs to follow his dreams. Here’s where their relationship begins to fall apart. Now that Kurt is in New York, he immediately encounters success at Vogue, and as soon as he does, he pulls away from Blaine. He is now way above Blaine, and Kurt doesn’t need him anymore. He feels like Blaine is only limiting him. He prioritizes his success and career over Blaine, which is of course, fine when he does it, but not fine when Blaine does it. He actively ignores Blaine, not just to do his work, but also just to gossip and chat with his coworkers (s4e3), even when he knew that it was an important night for Blaine. He minimizes Blaine’s concerns and successes, talking over him and constantly pivoting the conversation back to himself (s4e3). Then, of course, comes the breakup in episode 4. Blaine explains that he did what he did because he felt that Kurt was moving on. Now of course this doesn’t justify what Blaine did, but throughout all the conversations about this incident, Kurt never acknowledges that he had any part in what happened, again putting one hundred percent of the burden on Blaine (s4e4). This continues throughout the season. Blaine constantly has to apologize, but Kurt never has to, because everything wrong with the relationship prior to Blaine cheating gets ignored. The breakup destroys Blaine’s self-esteem, and it becomes very evident that Blaine doesn't know who he is without Kurt. Kurt has successfully taken a very confident young man, made him dependent on him, and then not only left him but ghosted him (s4e8), completely wrecking him. He purposely didn’t forgive Blaine to hurt him (s4e8). It's Blaine’s senior year, he's finally made it back to where he was in season 2, and now he's not even able to play the lead in the musical. Blaine has hit rock bottom, and just as he starts to recover, getting a crush on Sam, becoming closer with Tina, gaining some self-respect and confidence back, Kurt reenters Blaine’s life. We’ll talk about this more later, but Kurt decides to lead Blaine on, keeping him dependent on Kurt, not allowing him to move on (s4e8, s4e14). For example, he calls Blaine right before he’s about to perform at sectionals only to remind him that he still hasn’t forgiven him, and tells him that they can see each other at Christmas, even though he decides not to go back for Christmas not two episodes later (s4e8, s4e10). Then he hooks up with Blaine at Will’s wedding, even though he doesn’t want to get back together and he knows how Blaine feels about him (s4e14). This continues for the rest of the season. At this point, Kurt holds all the power over Blaine. He is not only successful in the outside world, working at Vogue and going to NYADA, but he has also destroyed Blaine’s self-confidence and ensured that Blaine is dependent on Kurt. On to season 5. 

In season 5 episode 1, we get the reunion. This scene is another scene like the Lima Bean scene in season 3. It seems cute and romantic, Kurt plays it in a playful way, but in a closer analysis, it becomes more insidious. Blaine begs Kurt to get back with him, and he talks about how they’ve effectively been dating for weeks. At the end of the scene, Kurt reveals that he intended to say yes the whole time, as he had prepared a song, but before he says yes, he puts Blaine through some more manipulative games. Kurt keeps his voice light, but Blaine is very earnest, clearly taking it to heart. Blaine asks Kurt to be his boyfriend again, and Kurt says he doesn’t think it’ll work, because last time, Blaine cheated. Blaine gets very upset, saying that they’ve been over this and that he’ll “never ever cheat on [Kurt] again”. Kurt says that he wants Blaine to sign a contract, and Blaine says that he’ll sign anything as long as Kurt will get back together with him. These lines are interesting because Kurt sounds like he’s joking, but Blaine absolutely doesn’t. He is so desperate to get Kurt back, and Kurt, who again, has already decided to get back with Blaine, is dragging this out and holding the cheating over Blaine’s head. But Kurt still doesn’t let it go. He says that he’s not even sure if relationships work, requiring Blaine to keep begging. Finally, he agrees to get back together, but it’s clear in this scene that Kurt enjoys having this power over Blaine, and he likes making Blaine beg for forgiveness. He made him do so for the entirety of season 4. I’ll talk more about the proposal later, but here I would like to point out that the use of All You Need is Love is interesting, because there is much more to a functional relationship, but generally, these two seem to ignore this because they love each other. They spend the first half of season 5 separate and don’t interact often, however, when they do talk, it is still clear that Kurt, as an adult out in the world, holds supremacy over Blaine, and when they do talk, Kurt often belittles Blaine’s high school problems in favor of talking about his own, insulting Blaine and then pivoting the conversation to him as soon as he can (s5e7). In fact, Kurt is so unsupportive that Blaine has to make a puppet version of him just to get validation and forgiveness (s5e7). We even see Kurt controlling what Blaine wears multiple times (s5e6, s5e14). Blaine has been built up more from season 4, but this is only because he’s back with Kurt, again reinforcing his dependence on Kurt. The next major conflict in their relationship comes in episode 14. Blaine has just moved to New York and in with Kurt. Their new power dynamic is solidifying. Blaine is adjusting to a big change, and he's struggling with it. He's trying his best to be with Kurt in this new environment, but he’s not sure how to handle it. He’s intimidated by how sure of himself Kurt is and just wants to find a place for himself in Kurt’s life. His solution is to try and do things for Kurt. It worked in high school, but here, it only pushes Kurt away further. Kurt feels suffocated by Blaine, but he openly lies to Blaine about it, refusing to address it until it reaches a boiling point (which he does often). Desperate, Blaine tries to carve out a place in the apartment for himself, but Kurt hates this. He becomes aggressive, claiming that the apartment is his, and not theirs and that Blaine shouldn’t be making changes. At the end of the episode, Blaine is the one who suggests the solution of him moving out, pointing out that they never had a conversation about him moving in in the first place. During this conversation, Blaine is very earnest again, constantly reassuring Kurt that he doesn’t want to break up, and is physically very intense, trying to make eye contact, moving to connect with Kurt, and initiating a hug, while Kurt feels completely detached, avoiding eye contact, keeping his voice monotone, and looking pretty disinterested. Sidenote: In this episode, Kurt also demands that Blaine ask Sam to move out even though he’s the one who wants him gone in the first place.

But the most compelling evidence comes in episode 16. Blaine has been in the city for a little while now but is still struggling to find himself. He’s started gaining some weight from comfort eating and he’s insecure about it. In this episode, the textual focus is actually on the change in their power dynamic, so here is where it’s most obvious. Blaine feels uncomfortable with Kurt being hit on by other men, but it’s shown that Kurt isn’t shutting these advances down at all. Blaine feels distinctly inferior to Kurt, and it’s fueling his insecurities. Kurt notices that Blaine’s insecure, but decides not to talk to him about it. Instead, he repeatedly comments on the food that Blaine’s eating, reinforcing Blaine’s insecurities about his weight, and tearing Blaine down further. There’s also an interesting scene in this episode where Kurt, Blaine, Artie, and Sam are all out getting dinner together, and Sam asks about a free clinic to get tested for STDs. Kurt answers and then throws in a comment about the time Blaine cheated. This visibly upsets Blaine, but he also seems annoyed by the comment. It’s wholly unnecessary and doesn’t add anything to the conversation, all it does is make Blaine feel bad. This is the second time this season we’ve seen Kurt bring this up for no reason and the casualness of the comment coupled with Blaine’s reaction implies that this may be something he brings up frequently. At this point, Blaine has again been brought low, the confidence he had temporarily built backup is gone because it was all based on Kurt. Kurt is at least somewhat aware of this but still doesn’t talk to Blaine about it. He halfheartedly reassures Blaine about his body (a surface symptom of the deeper problem) in between comments about his food, even convincing Blaine not to eat the (perfectly reasonable) food he made in favor of a salad. Then, he discovers a porn website on Blaine’s computer. He becomes very upset and angry about this, while Blaine is visibly uncomfortable. Kurt verbally says that Blaine can do whatever he wants on his own computer but gets increasingly angry. He yells at Blaine about how they haven’t had sex in a week but doesn’t question why, he just storms out. In the next scene they have together, Blaine enters their stage combat class, where Kurt already is, late. This already puts Kurt in higher standing within his environment. Blaine is angry and asks Kurt why he didn’t tell him that he didn’t want to walk to class together. Kurt is dismissive and says he just forgot, but his tone and body language doesn’t support this. Blaine asks if Kurt is still upset about the website, and Kurt says no, but his tone is still angry and dismissive. Blaine then suggests that they should talk about the fight, but Kurt shuts it down, saying, “You know, Blaine, sometimes I think we talk too much”. They start fencing, and Kurt, who knows that Blaine’s been struggling in this class, both with the content and with making friends, publicly embarrasses him in front of the whole class. Later, they finally have a conversation, but again, this is only happening after their problems reach a boiling point. Kurt comes home and asks Blaine what happened in combat class, saying “you were really coming at me,” not acknowledging that he too, was aggressive in his fighting, and being very confrontational (including closed-off body language). Blaine reveals that he feels like he has to prove himself. He feels like he’s falling behind Kurt and is unable to support and protect him, which had previously been an important aspect of their relationship all the way until Blaine moved to New York. Kurt is immediately unreceptive and angry. He says that Blaine shouldn’t want to be superior to Kurt and that they should want to be equals. Blaine quickly apologizes, feeling even worse about himself, but Blaine never says that he wants to be superior, just that he feels so far behind Kurt, and as we’ve established, Kurt has been systematically tearing Blaine down for years. Blaine tells Kurt that he feels terrible about himself and his body and feels like Kurt is going to judge him. Kurt claims that he would never judge Blaine, but again, had been making comments about the amount and type of food Blaine was eating. Blaine then says that he’s afraid that if he can’t do things for Kurt, Kurt will outgrow him, and once he no longer needs him, will stop loving him. This isn’t an unreasonable fear, as this is similar to what had happened when Kurt first moved to New York, but this also expresses a deeper fear of Blaine’s that can be traced back to his childhood. As shown in season 3 episode 15, Blaine had a very bad relationship with his older brother, Cooper. Cooper is shown as very selfish, always needing Blaine to be doing things for him and making every conversation about him. This not only mirrors a lot of Kurt’s behavior but also explains why Blaine feels he will be abandoned if he can’t do things for people. It’s already happened to him. Kurt says that he would never leave Blaine, which also proves to be false in season 6, but he also says that Blaine needs to tell him when he feels this way. However, Blaine tried twice, in the porn fight scene and in the stage combat scene, to talk about it, and Kurt shut it down both times. Again, Kurt is putting all the emotional burden on Blaine, deflecting his own fault, and gaslighting Blaine about previous events. Finally, they make up, but in the final scene, Blaine seems to have developed an eating disorder, and Kurt says that they have decided to eat out less often and work out more, but Kurt was already doing those things. Another example of Kurt trying to control what Blaine eats. 

Moving on to the rest of season 5, in episode 18, Kurt invites Blaine to perform with him for June Dolloway. Blaine kills his performance and June asks only him to be her project. Suddenly, their dynamic has shifted again. This is a major success for Blaine, and Kurt’s been stalling recently. Blaine now has a lot more power and we see a glimpse of the old Blaine return when he performs for and with June. However, Kurt doesn’t react well to this throughout Blaine’s time with June. Immediately once Blaine gets picked, Blaine feels guilty about it, almost turning it down. Kurts assures him that it’s fine, but qualifies it by saying that it’ll be good for both of them, even saying it’s “[their] careers” instead of Blaine’s career. Later in the episode, Blaine and Kurt are finally having time together after Blaine has been spending a lot of time with June, Kurt says, “I’m upset with you,” and Blaine immediately looks terrified. He freezes, tenses, and panics. He’s walking on eggshells around Kurt, and no one should ever be scared of their partner. As with the flowers scene in season 3, Blaine is genuinely worried that Kurt will be upset about him taking an opportunity because Kurt wanted it for himself. Kurt is generally only supportive when it’s potentially beneficial to him. Blaine is so worried about upsetting Kurt that he decides to lie to him and tell him that he’s in the showcase June is organizing for Blaine. In episode 19, Blaine gives up a big opportunity with June to go to Kurt’s show, and then the storyline finishes in episode 20. Blaine fails to convince June to let Kurt into the showcase and is forced to confess to Kurt. Blaine attempts to explain the situation, but Kurt says he can’t trust Blaine or anything he says, and then reacts physically, throwing a bag of food onto the floor. Blaine jumps to his feet, apologizing and explaining that he didn’t know what else to do because he was scared of hurting Kurt’s feelings, but Kurt just storms out. Now, of course, Blaine shouldn’t have lied, but only a few episodes earlier in episode 14, Kurt lied about Blaine not crowding him so as not to hurt his feelings. Kurt does similar things all the time, but Blaine has to suffer for it. Later in episode 20, Kurt and Blaine talk again. Blaine, visibly upset, says that he doesn’t want to do the showcase because Kurt is more important to him, implying that he thinks he has to give up a major opportunity for his career for Kurt. Kurt responds by coming up with a confusing metaphor, waxing poetic at Blaine (sarcasm and figures of speech are something that Blaine already struggles to understand throughout the show), dragging it out, and making it sound very bad, so Blaine keeps apologizing. Then Kurt finally stops him. He says he understands what happened, and even, for the first time, takes some responsibility. He acknowledges that the way he was acting would have led Blaine to believe that lying was the only option. This is Kurt’s best reaction to a fight across the show, but it shouldn’t have gotten here. And because, yet again, Kurt pushed Blaine until he snapped and messed up, Kurt is the one with the power. He’s the one to forgive, and Blaine is the one who has to relentlessly apologize and then thank Kurt when he forgives him. And sure enough, because Blaine is so dependent on Kurt, he is incredibly relieved when Kurt forgives him, and thanks him repeatedly. He’s very physical here too, hugging Kurt, but Kurt is, again, very closed off, not very receptive. Blaine, again suggests that he won’t do the showcase without Kurt, and although Kurt does tell him to do it, it’s insane that this is even a question in Blaine’s mind. Plus the whole “I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” “Yeah pretty much,” interaction just rubs me the wrong way. In the end, Blaine risks his partnership with June to sing with Kurt anyway, which again, he shouldn’t have had to do. Every time Blaine is more successful, he tries to lift Kurt up to his level, even when it’s risky for him, but Kurt constantly tears Blaine down, even when he’s in a better position. Finally (for this point), let’s talk about the trainwreck that is season 6.

Season 6 is a lot more complex when it comes to power dynamics specifically. At the beginning of episode 1, they've broken up, and it’s had a profound effect on Blaine. He got very depressed, which makes sense, because he’s become so reliant on Kurt, got cut from NYADA, had to move back to Lima, and he wasn’t even able to play music for a while. He still seems to be struggling emotionally, while Kurt is in New York at NYADA, and initially, in the episode, it seems like Kurt is doing well. However, when Kurt comes back to Lima this shifts again. Kurt wants to get back together with Blaine, but Blaine is dating someone else, Dave Karofsky, and seems fairly happy in this new relationship. And because the focus of their arc this season is their journey to get back together, at this point, Blaine holds more power. It doesn’t matter that Kurt is in a better place in his life and career, because not only is that not the focus, but Kurt is now also in Lima. Blaine has begun the process to move on from Kurt, and this has happened once previously in their relationship, back in season 4, and just like in season 4, right as Blaine begins to move on, Kurt decides to reenter his life. Of course, the difference here is that Kurt hasn’t attempted to move on like he did in season 4. His sole purpose is to get Blaine back, and this actually gives Blaine more power because Kurt is openly pursuing him, instead of subtly leading him on. But before we continue with season 6, let’s do a closer analysis of the breakup scene, because I think, like season 5 episode 16, it illustrates a lot of the problems in the relationship very clearly. 

This scene is shown via flashback, and Kurt is the one having the flashback. This is interesting because it’s been established, at this point in the episode, that Blaine and Kurt have been broken up for months, and based on Kurt’s reaction to this memory, this is the first time Kurt has dealt with the breakup. We see he remembers this scene, starts crying, and then the next time we see him, he’s back in Lima to get Blaine back. So, the flashback begins with Blaine arriving at the restaurant, it’s raining heavily. Kurt is already there, waiting for him. Blaine is very happy. He apologizes for being slightly late, explaining that it’s because of the rain and because he had stopped to check on a venue for their wedding. He seems very excited about this venue. The camera pans over and we see Kurt’s face for the first time. He looks annoyed, and he asks why he’s always the first to arrive. Blaine’s face falls a little but he explains again, repeating that he found a venue that’s available for their wedding, still excited about it. Kurt, again, doesn’t respond to this and just changes the subject to ordering food, annoyed. Blaine’s face changes, and he seems to register that Kurt isn’t going to respond positively to this step in the wedding planning. He says that he doesn’t want to fight, but he feels like he’s the one who’s been doing all the wedding planning. Kurt says nothing, just passive-aggressively puts down his menu, and stares at Blaine in an accusatory way. Blaine, very genuinely and earnestly, asks Kurt what’s wrong, actually begging Kurt to just talk to him, and asks him if he’s having second thoughts about the wedding. Kurt doesn’t flat out answer the question, instead, he says, “Have you noticed how exhausting it’s been ever since you moved back in?” The way the question is phrased puts the fault on Blaine in two ways. First, it asks him if he’s noticed that living together has been exhausting, instead of Kurt saying that he, personally, has been struggling. It frames it as an objective truth that Blaine has failed to notice. Secondly, Kurt says, “since you moved back in” putting the struggle to live together on Blaine. He doesn’t say, since we started living together again, or since we moved back in, he says, since you moved back in. This also has undertones that Blaine is an outsider in Kurt’s home. An invading force, rather than a partnership, and it implies that Kurt has made no progress in the weeks or months since season 5 episode 14 and that allowing Blaine to put in the office space was just a surface level change (s5e20). Kurt angrily brings up a fight that they had over him wiping his mouth off with a towel while there was toothpaste on his face. His tone indicates that he thinks that this is a stupid fight over nothing, but Blaine responds, “Well, how is someone else supposed to use it when you leave it like that”. This suggests that this genuinely matters to him, and not that he was picking a fight over nothing, as Kurt seems to think. Moreover, the way Blaine says it is a bit angry, which is a little unusual for him, and could indicate that Kurt often brushes off these things that bother Blaine. Kurt, getting increasingly angry, says that he thinks that they’re failing at living together. Blaine, also getting angry, says “Thank you for finally saying something truthful. Where's that guy been...you’ve been completely aloof and...totally remote and distant. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore”. These lines give a lot of insight into their relationship. As we’ve discussed, when they fight, Kurt tends to get very closed off and withdrawn, something we also see in this scene. Even as Blaine is saying these things, Kurt is withdrawn, not making eye contact, and passive-aggressively nodding. But this line suggests that this is something Kurt does whenever there are any problems. This is also supported by previous fights, see season 5 episode 16, and season 3 episode 20. Kurt doesn’t like talking about relationship problems (or even potential problems like in s3e20), and instead just avoids them, often meaning that Blaine ends up needing to handle it. Blaine continues by saying, “I feel like you’re just silently judging me”. This is the second time Blaine has expressed concerns about Kurt judging him during a fight (the first time was in s5e16), which could speak to his own insecurities, however, the Blaine we see in season 2, was not like this. He had some normal teenage doubts, but this kind of deep-seated insecurity wasn’t present. This has slowly been introduced to Blaine’s character throughout his relationship with Kurt, and although Kurt says he wouldn’t judge Blaine (s5e16), as we discussed, he does. Blaine constantly feeling judged by Kurt even after season 5 episode 16 suggests that Kurt hasn’t actually changed any of his behaviors and is still making comments that make Blaine uncomfortable. Blaine asks if Kurt even wants to marry him, and Kurt blurts out, “Maybe I don’t!” He then withdraws back into himself again, looking away and refusing to answer when Blaine asks him what changed. Since Kurt refuses to speak, Blaine starts to cry and asks Kurt if he did something to cause this. Kurt still doesn’t respond. Blaine says that he loves Kurt and that he knows that they can make it work. Kurt says that he loves Blaine too, but that they’re too young and that they should give up before they hate each other. This exchange, too, shows the differences in how they approach this relationship. Blaine is willing to work on the relationship. He wants to be with Kurt, and he would go to the end of the earth to keep them together. Kurt isn’t willing to do this. He just wants the relationship to function without working for it. And because Blaine is very dependent on the relationship for his confidence and self-esteem, he is generally willing to do much more work to maintain it than Kurt. But because Kurt isn’t willing to discuss problems until after a blow-up, that’s still not enough. Kurt has kept his voice and face empty and cold for most of the fight, and even as Blaine breaks down, he maintains this. Blaine tells Kurt that he’ll never forgive him, and then the flashback ends.

The season 6 break up fight is distinct from the others in that both the show and Kurt himself acknowledge that it was Kurt’s fault. He’s the one who needs to apologize, and this changes the power dynamic too. In all the other fights, in the end, Blaine is the one who apologizes, so Kurt has the power to accept or reject said apology. The texting fight in season 3 is the most similar, but Blaine is framed as unreasonable for being upset during that fight and in the end, he’s the one who ends up apologizing and resolving the issues. But this fight also doesn’t resolve itself immediately. Kurt’s apology doesn’t fix their relationship, and they stay broken up for most of the season. However, their power dynamic doesn’t stay the same for the rest of the season. The first real shift comes in episode 4. Up until this point, Blaine has seemed pretty comfortable in his relationship and Kurt has been chasing Blaine and not seeing anyone else. This changes in episode 4 though, Kurt starts talking to a guy online, Walter, and when he tells Blaine about it, it becomes incredibly clear that Blaine hasn’t gotten over Kurt. His relationship is being sabotaged, so that tether to moving forward is weakened. While Blaine obviously isn’t over Kurt, he is very supportive of Kurt trying to move on and doesn’t say anything bad to Kurt about it. And while his body language and tone indicate that he is sad about Kurt moving on, it’s much more bittersweet than anything. This contrasts with Kurt’s reaction to finding out about Karofsky. He’s been bitter, angry, and up until this episode was undermining their relationship with snide comments. At this point, they’ve leveled out, Kurt is entering a new relationship, and Blaine’s relationship is on shaky ground. Episodes 5 and 6 continue this pattern, as Blaine and Karofsky get rockier and Kurt and Walter get stronger. Kurt now is back above Blaine. He’s moving on, but he’s still available, but Blaine is getting pulled back into Kurt and is in a relationship. Episode 7 is where we see another major change in their relationship. Kurt manipulates the random duet wheel to get Blaine chosen as his duet partner even though he’s kind of dating Walter. Blaine mentions that Dave still thinks that there’s something between Kurt and Blaine. Then, after they sing their duet, they start talking about their relationship, specifically their early relationship in season 2, and Blaine kisses Kurt. Before the kiss, they’re talking about their first duet, way back before they even started dating, which was when Blaine was his happiest and most confident. This brings back false nostalgia for a time when Blaine was both confident and happy with Kurt, a time that never really existed since Kurt started tearing Blaine down right as they start dating. However, memories like this are what is being conjured for Blaine, and in an effort to recapture this, he kisses Kurt. Of course, he has a boyfriend, so immediately afterward he rushes off. Now the power is wholly on Kurt. Blaine has betrayed his new relationship and his feelings. He’s revealed that he’s still in love with Kurt, and now Kurt, just like season 4, has two vying love interests. Kurt has the power to choose, whereas Blaine’s relationship with Karofsky is doomed. More than that, Kurt has actively been pursuing Blaine even through this episode, and he's done the thing he always does where he pushes right up to something without explicitly crossing boundaries until Blaine snaps and acts. In this particular situation, this has flipped the power dynamic so now instead of Kurt having to try and get Blaine to come back to him, Blaine is the one who’s going to try and go back to Kurt. Sure enough, Blaine and Dave break up and Blaine goes to try and get back together with Kurt, but Kurt is going out with Walter. Blaine says nothing, he doesn’t criticize Walter or say anything snarky, he just lets Kurt go, reinforcing that Kurt has the power. In episode 8 we get the reunion. Kurt cuts it off with Walter, but the way he does so is interesting. He says, “I’m going to the wedding with Blaine,” but he hadn’t asked Blaine to get back together with him or go to the wedding with him. He seems so sure that it’ll work out with Blaine, even though he doesn’t seem to know that Blaine and Dave broke up. He shows up at Blaine’s apartment, confesses his love, and asks Blaine to go to the wedding with him. And initially, it may seem like Blaine has the power here, but on deeper inspection, there isn’t any risk here for Kurt, and he knows this. The second Blaine kissed Kurt, it becomes clear that Blaine would go back to him as soon as Kurt would take him. Their interaction here shows this, Kurt does say, “Unless there’s someone else,” but it’s tacked on, a formality (I also think this line shows that he didn’t know about Karofsky), and Blaine immediately responds, “There’s no one else”. He doesn’t even hesitate. When it comes down to it, Kurt is the only person for Blaine. 

But let’s briefly sidebar and talk about how that isn’t true for Kurt, and how that gives him power over Blaine. Kurt doesn’t really care about who Blaine is, he cares how Blaine is making him feel, and if someone else came along that could make him feel that way, he would probably leave. This is a bold claim to make, so let’s look at some evidence. In season 5 episode 1, Kurt talks to Burt about whether he should say yes to Blaine’s proposal. On this car ride, he looks nauseous and wildly uncomfortable. He tells Burt that he isn’t sure if he wants to marry Blaine, and says “[Blaine] makes me feel so connected and so safe and loved, and I don’t think I’m ever going to find someone else who’s going to make me feel like that”. He says he loves Blaine, but that statement also implies that if someone else came along that could do those things, Blaine would lose the thing that makes him valuable to Kurt. Blaine’s proposal speaks to how well he knows Kurt, it’s grand, romantic, and nostalgic. It’s everything that Kurt enjoys, but Kurt seems uncomfortable through most of it. Blaine is relentlessly supportive of Kurt, but Kurt rarely supports Blaine, because what he values in Blaine is what he can do for him. In his wedding vows he talks about how Blaine pushes the shadows away from Kurt so he can shine (s6e8). That’s what’s most important to him. Kurt tries to date Adam, and initially, he seems to really click with him. Adam compliments Kurt a lot (s4e11), and as shown in season 3 episode 17, this is something that Kurt responds to. However, once he realizes that this doesn’t fulfill him in the same way (s4e15), he drops Adam very quickly (s5e1). Every time Blaine looks at Kurt, it’s so clear how in love with Kurt he is, but very rarely do we see this in Kurt. This gives Kurt the ability to mess around and play with Blaine’s feelings, knowing that if he ever wants to come back to Blaine, he’ll be there. Because there’s no one else.

Finishing season 6, Blaine and Kurt decide to get married (well, Blaine makes the call because Kurt refuses to give straight answers to anyone), and we’ve looked at Kurt’s vows, but let’s look at Blaine’s. Blaine says that he didn’t think that he would ever find love (s6e8). This is pretty worrying. Blaine was fifteen when he met Kurt, and he’s only nineteen or twenty now, so this speaks to how deep Blaine’s insecurities run at this point in his life. After the wedding, Blaine and Kurt seem to be in a good place. Their relationship isn’t the focus of the rest of the season, so we don’t see much of them until episode 13, but they seem to be on equal ground. Then in episode 13, we get a powerful insight into the direction their relationship is headed, but it’s actually not the flashforward. Early in the episode, Blaine and Sam have a conversation about Sam coming back to New York. Sam says no, and one of the reasons he cites is that there are too many sports teams and he doesn’t know who to root for. Blaine responds, “We just root for whichever one’s winning,” and Sam says, “Ok, that’s something Kurt would say”. This is already concerning on its own, but Blaine just says, “That’s what happens when you get married”. Football is something that Blaine has always liked. In season 2 episode 7, Blaine mentions that he’s a college football fan, and in that scene, Kurt changes the subject almost immediately. Then, in season 4 episode 10, we see Blaine and Burt bonding over sports. It’s something that he’s always liked, and him starting to have this sucked out of him is concerning. Kurt is slowly taking away Blaine’s interests, controlling him more. Sam even looks worried when Blaine says this. In that same scene, Blaine almost sounds like he’s trying to convince himself that he’s happy, or at least convince Sam that there’s nothing wrong. Finally, we see Blaine and Kurt five years later. They seem happy, but they’re having a baby, and while there’s nothing strictly wrong with that, having a baby as performers in their mid-twenties (24-26) seems like an odd choice. Both of them can’t work 8 shows a week and have a child, so what’s their plan going forward. They’re so young, in New York, there’s no reason for it. To wrap up this section of the analysis, Blaine is introduced as a very confident young man, but Kurt systematically tears Blaine down in order to not only feel superior to Blaine but also to control him. He frequently talks about how important trust is in a relationship, and he weaponizes this against Blaine, constantly telling him how he doesn’t trust him (s4e7, s5e17, s5e20). He lies to Blaine, demeans his feelings and accomplishments, and manipulates him.

Support: Blaine vs. Kurt

Earlier, I presented the claim that Kurt isn’t very supportive of Blaine, especially in comparison to how supportive Blaine is, and how this coupled with the amount Kurt tears Blaine down creates an environment where Kurt has a lot of power and control over Blaine, so here are some examples of this. The first example of Kurt being supportive of Blaine comes in season 2 episode 12. Kurt convinces the Warblers to do the Gap Attack, but when he realizes that he isn’t the guy Blaine has a crush on and it no longer benefits him, he has to be talked into even going by Mercedes and Rachel. As discussed, in season 3 episode 3, Kurt congratulates Blaine on getting Tony, but this is only after discouraging Blaine to audition and being visibly upset when he was asked to read for Tony. In season 3 episode 11, Kurt is pretty good about Blaine’s surgery, however, he doesn’t even consult Blaine or his family when he gets direct evidence of Sebastian committing a felony, just hands the evidence over to Sebastian. In season 3 episode 15, Kurt gives Blaine advice on talking to Cooper, but this is after he spent the entire episode fawning over him when it clearly made Blaine uncomfortable. In season 3 episode 19, Kurt tells Blaine not to put hair gel back in after Brittney forces him to take it out at prom. However, this comes after Kurt mocked Blaine’s insecurities and laughed at him when he showed up to prom with his hair out. We see little to no examples of Kurt being supportive after he leaves for New York. The next time we see Kurt being supportive of Blaine comes in season 5 episode 6. Blaine is freaking out about auditioning for NYADA, and Kurt is very gentle and calming. However, this isn’t wholly unselfish. Kurt wants Blaine to come to New York, to go to the same school as him, it’s season 3 episode 1 all over again. He even pressured Blaine to sing at the diner when he looked visibly uncomfortable with it in the name of support. We also see him celebrating Blaine getting into NYADA in episode 12, but this is the bare minimum of support. He is cautiously supportive of Blaine getting picked up by June, but this is also selfish. He talks multiple times about how this will benefit his career (s5e18), and him eventually telling Blaine to do the showcase even without him is, again, the absolute bare minimum (s5e20). However, there are a few times where Kurt was genuinely supportive of Blaine without an ulterior motive. The first example of this is in season 2 episode 20. Kurt asks Blaine to prom, but Blaine tells Kurt that he was bullied at a Sadie Hawking’s dance before he transferred to Dalton. Kurt is immediately sympathetic and encourages him to stand up to the bullies while saying that if Blaine is uncomfortable with going, they won’t. And in season 6 episode 10 when Dalton burns down, he’s very good about handling it, but it’s saying something that those two are the only strong examples of Kurt being genuinely supportive, speaks volumes. (There are also three times in the show where Blaine tells Kurt that he loves him and Kurt either doesn’t say it back or hangs up before he even hears Blaine, once in season 4 episode 4 (5:25), once in season 5 episode 9 (12:50), and again in season 5 episode 19 (33:20), and it just bothers me a little.)

Let’s compare this to Blaine. In season 2, Blaine helps Kurt around Dalton (s2e6), helps Kurt with Karofsky (s2e6), laughs at Kurt’s jokes when no one else does (s2e9), helps Kurt adjust to the Warblers (s2e9), helps him with Pavarotti (s2e9), convinces Burt to give Kurt the sex talk (s2e15), gets Kurt a duet for Regionals and making it something that’s in Kurt’s wheelhouse (s2e16), giving Kurt a pep talk before he goes on stage (s2e16), goes to prom with Kurt despite his past trauma (s2e20), helps Kurt calm down after he’s elected prom queen (s2e20), and dances with Kurt after Karofsky runs out (s2e20). In season 3, Blaine transfers to WMHS for Kurt (s3e1), is very supportive of Kurt when he loses the student council election and tells him not to give up on NYADA (s3e7), pushes Kurt out of the way, and takes Sebastian’s Slushee (s3e11), congratulates Kurt on his NYADA audition even when he’s about to get surgery (s3e11), and is very supportive of Kurt through his panic about his audition (s3e18). In season 4, Blaine tells Kurt that New York is where he belongs and encourages him to leave (s4e1), supports Kurt’s music video even though Kurt is being wildly unsupportive of him throughout it (s4e4), and assures Kurt that he’ll always be there for him even if they aren’t together (s4e10). In season 5, Blaine agrees to fly out to NYC in the middle of the school week with only a few days notice (s5e7), gives Kurt advice on Elliot when Kurt is being paranoid (s5e9), stays with Kurt in the hospital when he gets attacked (s5e15), is very happy for Kurt when he reveals he got picked for June’s show even before Kurt offered him a part (s5e18), chooses to go to Kurt’s nursing home performance over a big opportunity with June (s5e19), and inviting Kurt to perform with him at June’s show even though it could cost him the partnership (s5e20). In season 6, Blaine does all the wedding planning (s6e1), never says a bad word about Kurt dating other people when Kurt was antagonistic and cruel about him dating Karofsky (s6e4, s6e7), and pushes the glitter bomb box out of Kurt’s hands, physically protecting him again (s6e11). This is just the shortlist, and very few of them are selfishly motivated at all. In fact, many of them actively go against his own interests and involve giving up opportunities. This dichotomy is a prime example of what reinforces Kurt’s power over Blaine. Blaine is willing to give up everything for Kurt and gives him everything he has, but Kurt not only won’t do the same in return but exploits Blaine’s generosity. 

Cheating and Double Standards

So, let’s talk about cheating, romantic jealousy, and the double standard of their relationship. Kurt is immediately possessive of Blaine, even before they start dating. He puts a picture of Blaine in his locker within a week of meeting him (s2e6). In season 2 episode 12, Blaine reveals that he has a crush on another guy, and Kurt, who had constructed a relationship with Blaine in his head, gets very upset. Despite being all too willing to help Blaine when he thought it was about him, he needs to be talked into even going by Mercedes and Rachel. Then, in season 2 episode 14, Kurt gets extremely jealous about Rachel and Blaine kissing and going on a date even though they’re not dating yet. In season 3 episode 5, Blaine meets Sebastian Smythe for the first time. Immediately, Sebastian hits on Blaine very aggressively, but it clearly makes Blaine extremely uncomfortable. Blaine agrees to go to The Lima Bean with Sebastian, and Sebastian continues to hit on Blaine, even more overtly this time. Blaine looks even more uncomfortable and quickly and forcefully shuts Sebastian down multiple times, talking about his boyfriend and how much he loves him. Despite Blaine being in the middle of shutting Sebastian down as Kurt shows up, Kurt is immediately very jealous and possessive. Sebastian suggests that they all go out to the local gay bar, and while Blaine seems interested, he turns it down because he knows Kurt isn’t. Kurt agrees to go but to rival Sebastian, not because Blaine wants to go. Then when they do go out, Kurt decides to spend the night moping at the bar instead of dancing with Blaine. However, Blaine keeps looking over at him, clearly wanting him to come dance with them. He’s not dancing inappropriately with Sebastian, he’s just trying to have fun, and Kurt’s being weird for no reason. He’s really happy when Kurt comes to dance with them, and there’s obviously nothing insidious going on. However, when Kurt and Blaine are fighting and Kurt is bringing up mostly good points, he also throws in that Blaine spent half the night dancing with another guy, which again, was not Blaine’s fault. Then, Blaine has to swear to Kurt that Sebastian doesn’t mean anything to him when he’s been shutting down his advances the whole episode and is clearly not interested. It seems like Kurt believes that Blaine doesn’t have feelings for Sebastian, but he acts exceptionally jealous every time Sebastian shows up, and Kurt talks about him so often that Blaine yells at Kurt to stop bringing him up in season 3 episode 14. 

In season 3 episode 17, we have the first cheating scandal. Kurt needs music for his NYADA audition, and he tells Blaine this and asks him to go to the music store, Between the Sheets with him. Blaine seems upset and says he can’t. Kurt doesn’t ask him why he can’t go or why he’s upset, just decides to go on his own. At Between the Sheets, Kurt meets a guy, Chandler. Chandler is very complimentary towards Kurt immediately, which Kurt responds very positively to. Then, as he’s leaving, Chandler’s comments turn flirtatious and he asks for Kurt’s phone number. Despite it being very clear that Chandler is hitting on him, Kurt gives him his number and doesn’t mention that he has a boyfriend. Kurt starts texting regularly with Chandler. The texts are very flirty, and although Kurt initially doesn’t seem to see anything wrong with it, once Rachel calls him out, he does seem to realize that it isn’t innocent. He says that Blaine hasn’t been complimenting him or trying to have sex with him recently, but he hasn’t spoken to Blaine about it. He texts with Chandler while ignoring Blaine, who is visibly upset, during Rachel and Santana’s duet. Later in the episode, Blaine ends up reading the text messages between Chandler and Kurt. He’s very upset and says that it’s cheating. Kurt denies that it’s cheating and compares it to Blaine talking to Sebastian. Blaine denies this, saying that he didn’t have feelings for Sebastian, and Kurt has feelings for this guy. I agree with Blaine in this situation. He didn’t have feelings for Sebastian and made it clear that it made him uncomfortable when Sebastian hit on him. Kurt does have feelings for Chandler, he was reciprocating the flirting, it’s a different situation, and Kurt is in the wrong. Moreover, considering that Kurt has been ignoring Blaine in favor of Chandler, I do think it’s reasonable to consider this cheating. It’s also notable that sex is not, and never has been, the most important thing to Kurt in a relationship. It’s important in the same way it would be to most teenage boys, but it isn’t how he primarily displays intimacy, so Kurt not having sex with this guy doesn’t mean that he’s not pursuing him. However, Kurt continues to deny that he did anything wrong. He justifies it by saying that Blaine never compliments him. He then says that it’s hard to be Blaine’s boyfriend because everyone wants to be with him. Blaine says that Kurt should have talked to him about it, but Kurt ignores this and continues to dismiss Blaine’s concerns. He doesn’t apologize, he only says that he’s sorry if it made Blaine feel uncomfortable. He tries to dismiss Blaine’s feelings again by saying “it’s ok”, and Blaine storms out. They sing some dramatic songs at each other, Kurt denies that what he did was cheating yet again. Kurt brings Blaine to talk to Emma. Blaine is very upset and vents about a lot of issues he has with Kurt being rude and not respecting boundaries, and then he reveals that he actually is more upset about Kurt preparing to leave for New York than anything else. He’s upset that Kurt keeps talking about it in every conversation because he feels like Kurt’s running away from him and is going to abandon him (which will prove very prescient). Kurt promises that he’ll never do that and Blaine shouldn’t worry. Kurt never admits that what he did was wrong, but at the end of the episode, he says that he told Chandler to stop texting him. Unlike Kurt with Sebastian, Blaine never mentions Chandler again (unless you count that one line from Tina’s body-swapping dream thing, but that’s not real, so I choose to believe that Tina is just outraged in Blaine’s honor), and seems to not only have moved on but forgiven him as well. 

Let’s move on to the next significant cheating incident, season 4 episode 4. Kurt has been ignoring Blaine since he got to New York. In the previous episode, he ignored a call from Blaine on a night he knew was important to him, the night of the senior class president election,  to chat with his coworkers about nonwork-related things (s4e3). and early in the episode, Blaine and Brittney have a conversation about how hard it is for them now that it seems like Kurt and Santana are too busy for them. Kurt calls Blaine (in the middle of the school day), but he immediately has to go. He says that the phones won’t stop ringing at work, Blaine is understanding and tells Kurt he can call him back later. Kurt says he can’t because he’s working until midnight. Kurt says that he understands that it’s frustrating, but this could be a career for him. Blaine says that he understands and then attempts to communicate about the issues he’s having and what he’s feeling. He says that he really misses Kurt, and says “I miss talking to you, and I miss hugging you, and I miss messing around with you,” confirming that they’ve barely interacted in a while. Kurt says, “But you’re coming in two weeks, right?” as if it’s ok for them not to talk for weeks. Two weeks is a long time, especially because when they were first discussing this in season 3, Kurt assured Blaine that he would Skype him every day and that they would see each other every weekend (although even then, he says that Blaine will come and visit him, and never offers to visit Blaine in Lima) (s3e17) and then Kurt had put off practical conversations about doing long distance in favor of flowery language and empty promises even when Blaine actively tried to initiate conversations about it (s3e22). Kurt has broken his word to Blaine and isn’t being a good partner. Blaine expresses that he doesn’t know how he’s going to handle waiting two weeks, seeming genuinely worried and upset, but Kurt doesn’t even acknowledge this. He says that someone is calling with good gossip and that he has to go. He says he’ll call or text Blaine on a break and hangs up without another word, not even waiting long enough to hear Blaine say “I love you” to him. This deeply hurts Blaine, and throughout Barely Breathing we see him calling Kurt, feeling lonely, and then talking to another guy on Facebook. Blaine shows up at Kurt’s apartment on Friday night, which means he would have had to leave straight from school, and since he seems to only decided to go the night before at the earliest, it would have been wildly expensive. Throughout his time in New York, Blaine is clearly upset, and to his credit, Kurt does ask him about it several times, and Blaine eventually admits that he cheated on Kurt. Kurt’s first reaction is to say, “It was Sebastian, wasn’t it?” really nailing home that he still hasn’t forgotten about that, and that he already didn’t really trust Blaine. Blaine says it wasn’t and tries to explain to Kurt that it didn’t mean anything. Kurt asks who it was again. This upsets Blaine further, and he says “It doesn’t matter who it was with, Kurt, what matters is that I was by myself. I needed you. I needed you around, and you weren’t there.” That is the crux of the issue. Kurt has been ignoring Blaine, and both of the times we see him do this are explicitly for gossip, not essential work reasons. It’s implied, though, that he’s been doing this a lot, and if the only two times the audience is shown this are both inessential reasons, it can be extrapolated that these aren’t isolated (s4e3, s4e4). Blaine has tried to raise his concerns, but at every step of the way, Kurt shut him down, brushed him off, and refused to talk about it (s3e17, s3e22, s4e3, s4e4). Kurt has been a bad boyfriend, and unlike season 3 episode 17, Blaine actually tried to reach out to talk about it before he cheated, whereas Kurt didn’t. Blaine says that he was lonely and made a mistake, but that he’s really sorry. Kurt says he’s been feeling the same way, but he didn’t act on it because he knew how awful it was. While this is totally fair, it’s important to note that Kurt has a whole exciting new life and career in New York. He has a lot to look forward to and to keep him busy and distracted, and Blaine’s been supporting him in this (s4e3). However, Blaine is in Lima, there’s very little going on, and even being at McKinley is a constant reminder of Kurt and his absence. The few things in his life that were exciting for him were belittled, demeaned, and overshadowed by Kurt (s4e3). Blaine felt Kurt pulling away because of his new life, something he had been terrified of might happen (s3e17). Kurt knew that this was an insecurity of Blaine’s, and yet he doesn’t put any effort into assuaging his fears. Blaine shouldn’t have cheated, I’m certainly not saying it was justified, but Kurt contributed significantly to the problems in the relationship that led to this action, and that shouldn’t be overlooked. Blaine apologizes again, but Kurt rushes off. On what presumably is the next Monday, since the breakup happened on a Friday so there wouldn’t have been school the next day, Finn is back in Lima and he talks to Blaine. Blaine says that he doesn’t know why he cheated on Kurt, but now Kurt won’t talk to him and he doesn’t even know if they’re broken up, despite, again, three days passing. We see Kurt at work. He seems upset, but also says that he’ll be ok. 

We see Blaine continue to beat himself up for a large amount of season 4, all the way through episode 11, where he starts to move on. In episode 7, Blaine is torturing himself about cheating. He almost leaves WMHS, but Sam talks to him about it. He affirms that it was a one night stand, that he felt nothing, and that he immediately regretted it. Kurt is upset for a while, but he refuses to take any responsibility. He also talks about how he doesn’t want to forgive Blaine because he wants him to feel bad, and only decides to accept Blaine’s apology for himself (s4e8). He calls Blaine right before Blaine is about to perform after ghosting him for weeks, but only to remind Blaine that he doesn’t forgive him and to lie to him about coming back to Lima for Christmas (s4e8). Kurt isn’t required to forgive Blaine, but he keeps holding it over Blaine’s head, reminding him of what he’s lost while he’s struggling, and given that he previously said that he wanted Blaine to suffer, it colors it slightly. On Christmas, Kurt decides not to go back to Lima for Christmas despite promising Blaine, and when Blaine comes to New York, he feels the need to ask, “You are happy to see me, right?” despite Kurt having said previously that he wanted to see Blaine for Christmas. Both Kurt and Blaine start to move on in season 4 episode 11, and although Blaine’s crush on Sam is real, he’s still very clearly in love with Kurt. Kurt is trying much harder to move on, and his relationship with Adam seems to have the potential to become more serious. He’s already pretty close with Adam in season 4 episode 13, and it seems like Adam is very interested in Kurt. 

The next major turn of events comes in season 4 episode 14. At Will and Emma’s wedding, Blaine and Kurt are making out, and Kurt mentions that he shouldn’t be doing this because he’s kind of dating someone in New York. Blaine, somewhat desperately, assures him that it’s ok because he’s not in New York and it’s not exclusive. Kurt agrees but clarifies that this doesn’t mean that they’re back together. Blaine agrees, saying it’s just “bros helping bros”, but clearly he doesn’t actually feel that way. He’s still in love with Kurt, while Kurt is starting to move on. Kurt spends the entire reception flirting with Blaine while saying that he doesn’t want to get back together, and that would be fine if Blaine was in the same place as Kurt. But he isn’t. Blaine is just trying to claw his way out of the darkest place he’s ever been in, and he’s using Kurt to do this, but this isn’t healthy. He’s been conditioned to feel like he needs Kurt to feel worthy, and this is only reinforcing this. Kurt is also weirdly jealous when he finds out about the Tina situation for someone who isn’t interested in Blaine. Also, Tina makes fantastic points in that argument. Kurt and Blaine hook up, and Kurt, again, reiterates that they’re not getting back together, but Blaine isn’t in a place to see them having sex as casual and insignificant. He is viewing it as more, and Kurt is the older, more mature one, and he knows how Blaine feels. He is leading Blaine on by playing into it. Having sex, going on dates, he’s not letting Blaine move on like he is. 

Speaking of Kurt moving on, let’s talk about Adam. Adam deserved better, even after that horrendous Baby Got Back performance. Adam genuinely likes Kurt. Immediately, he seems to care very deeply for Kurt and is very supportive and complimentary of him (s4e11, s4e13). However, this isn’t enough for Kurt. He still feels the need to have Blaine there for him too, so he sleeps with him despite kind of dating Adam (s4e14). Then in season 4 episode 15, Santana asks Kurt about him sleeping with Blaine at the wedding in front of Adam, and Kurt shushes her, trying to hide it from Adam as if he’s aware that he probably shouldn’t have done it. It probably wasn’t cheating in the strictest sense, but Adam does seem upset, although whether it’s by Kurt sleeping with Blaine or Kurt trying to hide it is unclear. They watch Moulin Rouge, and Kurt imagines himself singing Come What May with Blaine. He starts crying and Adam asks him about it. He lies to Adam’s face, lies to him about wearing contacts, tries to convince Rachel to go along with it, and would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for Santana. Santana calls him out, asking him if he’s crying because he used to say that he wanted to sing that duet with Blaine at their wedding. Kurt tries to shut it down, but Santana is unbothered and continues, saying she once heard Kurt say that singing that song was “a more intimate act than sex”. Adam looks a little confused and upset but doesn’t say anything. Kurt tries to leave, and Santana changes the subject. This comment from Santana confirms that Kurt is first and foremost a romantic, and that sex is not the most important thing to him. Later, after the storm is over, Adam talks to Kurt about Santana’s comment. He asks Kurt if he used to sing that song with Blaine, and Kurt says yes, but tries to minimize it. Adam asks if Kurt still loves Blaine. He doesn’t respond. Then Adam asks if he was Kurt’s rebound, saying that he can’t compete with a fantasy. Kurt says no and that he “desperately” wants to be over Blaine. Adam says that they’re going to go watch a sappy romantic movie to be their movie and to try and help Kurt move on. In season 5 episode 1, Blaine asks Kurt what the deal is with Adam, and Kurt claims that it never got serious, but the last time we saw Adam, it seemed like they were headed in that direction. Kurt mentions that he’s still seeing Adam in season 4 episode 17, and Sam mentions that Blaine didn’t know where Kurt and Adam stood in season 4 episode 22. We never see any indication that their relationship stopped, but Kurt agrees to start dating Blaine again, and then he’s dating Kurt for days before Blaine proposes, but as we find out in season 5 episode 4, Adam kicked Kurt out of the Adam’s Apples when he found out Kurt was engaged, which implies that Kurt didn’t officially break things off with Adam until after he got engaged. This only reinforces that Kurt hates committing to breakups. He always wants to keep his options open in case he needs a backup plan. Adam is a little weird, but he’s so sweet. He’s trying so hard to help Kurt even when Kurt is lying to him and lowkey playing him. There are a lot of reflections of how Kurt treats Blaine in how he treats Adam too. None of Kurt’s toxic behaviors are isolated, and none of the people in his life deserve to be treated the way he treats them. 

I’ve already heavily analyzed the scene in season 5 episode 1 when Kurt and Blaine get back together, but I do want to briefly reiterate something before moving on. Kurt, despite knowing that he’s going to forgive Blaine, holds the cheating over Blaine, but he eventually does say he forgives Blaine, and that they can put it behind them. However, he doesn’t do this. In season 5 episode 7, Blaine has a complete mental breakdown. The New Directions weren’t listening to Blaine’s ideas, and he called Kurt looking for support, instead, Kurt calls Blaine a puppet master and then asks Blaine for support and to come to New York, which, of course, Blaine agrees to. However, Kurt insulting Blaine along with a gas leak in the choir room leads to Blaine’s downward spiral. He starts hallucinating puppets and then decides to make a puppet version of Kurt. Here’s where we get evidence that Blaine is very aware that Kurt hasn’t actually forgiven Blaine for cheating. He has his puppet say that he’s forgiven Blaine. Personally, I think this is quite sad, and we see Blaine’s insecurities and struggles with control highlighted in this episode. Then, in season 5 episode 16, there’s confirmation that Kurt is still holding it over Blaine’s head and hasn’t forgiven him. Kurt could have easily talked about getting tested, or even the last time he got tested, without bringing up Eli. It was unnecessary, and as I stated earlier, the way Blaine reacts implies that Kurt brings this up frequently. It’s controlling and cruel, and he’s not even criticized for it, by his friends or by the tone of the show itself. And this is something that only Kurt does. Rarely do the other characters in the show bring up cheating out of nowhere, and as mentioned, Blaine has never brought up Chandler since season 3 episode 17. In this episode, Kurt also gets incredibly jealous and controlling of Blaine watching porn, even though that’s none of his business, and if he was worried about their sex lives should have talked to Blaine about it. 

Let’s talk about Karofsky because the way Kurt reacts to him is fascinating. In season 6 episode 1, Kurt had broken up with Blaine out of nowhere months ago, but he comes back to Lima with the express purpose to get back together with Blaine. However, upon meeting with Blaine, he reveals that he’s actually seeing someone, and Kurt’s first thought is that it’s Sebastian, which drives home that Kurt never got over the Sebastian thing, even though nothing happened between them, and he had no reason to think that anything ever would. Karofsky shows up and Kurt does not react well to this. He manages to not say anything against him explicitly, but his tone is mocking and sarcastic, and he leaves quickly to go cry in the bathroom. Initially, Blaine and Dave seem very happy, honestly, and this seems to upset Kurt (s6e1, s6e2, s6e3). Kurt is very passive-aggressive and jealous whenever he sees Dave and Blaine together, to the point where Blaine has to ask whether they need to come up with alternating sheet music schedules (s6e3). Kurt also refuses to admit that Blaine has moved on, pretending that they’re on a break until Britt calls him out about it and tells him that Blaine and Dave are moving in together (s6e3). He gets very bitter every time Blaine tries to talk about his boyfriend (s6e5). Then, Kurt begins to move on, but he still decides to cheat in order to get Blaine chosen to sing a duet with, undermining Blaine and Dave’s relationship. And when Blaine implies that Dave might not be fully comfortable with Blaine and Kurt singing together, Kurt implies that Dave’s paranoid and crazy, because nothing is going on, even though he is trying to undermine them and something is going on (s6e7). Kurt then manipulates Blaine’s feelings, pivoting the conversation away from Karofsky and to the past and pretending that he forgot their first duet, and then acts all surprised when Blaine kisses him like he hasn’t been trying to undermine Blaine’s relationship for weeks (s6e7). Then, knowing that Blaine still had feelings for him, he suddenly decides to stop pursuing Blaine right as Blaine breaks up with Dave (s6e7). And then Kurt does decide to go back to Blaine without knowing that he broke up with Dave, and just assumes it’ll work out (s6e8). Kurt does do everything in his power to get Blaine to break up with Dave without actually saying so. He’s highly manipulative, and he prevented Blaine from continuing a relationship that was really good for him. And for the record, no, I don’t think that Blaine and Dave would have made it long term, and their relationship is a little weird. Mostly, I don’t think it would have worked out because Dave would have reminded Blaine too much of Kurt, but they seemed to have a fairly healthy relationship, and I do think that if Kurt had let Blaine be, he could have moved on on his own time. I think Kurt interrupting this journey impacted Blaine in a very significant way and made him even more dependent on Kurt than he already was. However, Kurt is one of the main characters, so the show frames him pursuing Blaine as an epic love story, convincing the audience to root for Kurt. 

Now that we’ve unpacked Kurt’s jealousy, let’s analyze Blaine’s jealousy, and how it’s framed vs. Kurt’s jealousy. Blaine does struggle with jealousy as well, but it is not the same as Kurt’s, and the show treats it in a very different way. Blaine is jealous of Chandler, but he has a right to be. Kurt is interested in him, and they were actively flirting. However, he’s framed as being unreasonable. The show and Kurt say that he’s overreacting, and in the end, it turns out that he’s not actually upset about Chandler, even though he had a right to be, and he forgives Kurt. But Blaine isn’t generally very jealous, so the next major event is in season 5 episodes 9 and 14. Kurt takes a picture with Elliott, and Elliott kisses him on the cheek in the picture. Blaine seems a little worried by the photo but doesn’t say anything until episode 14. Kurt is lashing out at Blaine because he feels smothered in their relationship and he mentions Elliott. Blaine snaps at Kurt jealously, and Kurt calls him a psycho. This is another example of the double standard when it comes to jealousy. Kurt is justified in being jealous of Sebastian for years when nothing happened, but Blaine gets a little jealous of Elliott after Kurt starts pulling away again, and he’s crazy and unreasonable. This is not only on Kurt as a character but also on the show. They both present Kurt as someone who can do no wrong, and Blaine as a terrible person the second he makes a minor mistake. Blaine leaves and goes to Elliott’s apartment. He yells at Elliott, but Elliott calms Blaine down and handles the situation very well. Blaine goes back to the loft and apologizes for his jealousy, something Kurt never does about any of the people he gets jealous of. Then, in season 5 episode 16, Kurt is getting ogled and hit on by several guys in his stage combat class, and Blaine feels uncomfortable with this. He doesn’t feel comfortable with Kurt being viewed as a sexual object. Both Kurt and the show frame Blaine as being unreasonable for this, however, in season 3 episode 17, Kurt expresses a similar discomfort. He calls Blaine an “alpha gay” and says that “even Rachel wanted to make out with [Blaine]”. Moreover, Blaine’s jealousy is not unfounded. The guy who is primarily hitting on Kurt is complimenting him heavily, something that Blaine knows from experience is something that Kurt responds to in the early stages of a relationship (s3e17, s4e11), and has caused Kurt to cheat in the past (s3e17). Kurt is also doing nothing to shut this guy down, despite him obviously flirting, which contrasts with how vigorously Blaine shut down Sebastian (s3e5). This continues throughout the episode, and Kurt never makes any moves to shut him down or assuage Blaine’s fears. In the end, as always, Blaine is the one forced to apologize. Finally, in season 6 we are introduced to Walter. When Kurt first mentions that he’s going on a date with Walter in episode 4, Blaine is clearly a little upset by it, but he is very supportive, and he’s dating Dave anyway, so he’s very good about it. Then in episode 7, Blaine comes to McKinley after breaking up with Dave to confess his feelings to Kurt, and Kurt is going out with Walter. Despite Walter being older than time, Blaine doesn’t say a single bad word against him and lets Kurt go. These two interactions contrast boldly with all of Kurt’s reactions to Karofsky. He is jealous, but he doesn’t take it out on Kurt’s budding relationship. The double standard of how cheating and jealousy are treated between them is completely unfair. Blaine has transgressed before, but so has Kurt, and that being brushed under the rug isn’t fair. In addition, the way Blaine is blamed for Sebastian flirting with him vs. the guy in Blaine’s combat class flirting with Kurt being forgotten almost immediately is the clearest example of this double standard that pervades their relationship and how it’s portrayed. 

Blaine’s Relationship Missteps

Now, of course, Blaine isn’t perfect, and in the spirit of fairness, let’s look at all the times Blaine exhibited similar behaviors to the ones I’ve listed for Kurt. In season 2 episode 20, Blaine is initially nervous about Kurt’s prom outfit. He agrees with Burt that it’s provocative, and he’s worried about Kurt getting attacked or harassed at prom, which makes sense given his past experiences and what he’d seen Kurt go through that year. Of course, he should have been more supportive, but he comes around regardless. Throughout season 3, Blaine maintains an interesting relationship with Sebastian, and as we’ve discussed, I don’t think this was strictly wrong, but it did make Kurt uncomfortable, and potentially he could have been more responsive to this. But I’m not convinced by this one. In season 3 episode 5, Blaine pressures Kurt to have sex before he’s ready, reneging on a conversation they had had but a few days ago. The pressures of the musical and Sebastian are bearing down on him, and he definitely acts inappropriately. I’m not going to try and defend this one, that scene makes me very uncomfortable. Although I do think that Kurt’s jealousy was unfounded. In season 4 episode 4, Blaine cheats on Kurt, as discussed, this is wrong. He shouldn’t have done it, however, he did attempt to talk to Kurt about it, and Kurt shouldn’t have ignored and overshadowed Blaine. It doesn’t justify what he did, but it does contextualize it. In season 5 episode 14, Blaine gets very jealous of Elliott. This is unfounded and irrational, and he’s taking out his lack of control and confusion on Elliott. It’s a lot like the Sebastian situation, he has no reason to think anything is going on. This is different from season 5 episode 16, where Blaine is uncomfortable with other men hitting on Kurt. While I still think that this isn’t right, Kurt has given Blaine reason to think that this might be a problem in the past. The last time a guy complimented Kurt, he started a whole thing with him. It’s understandable why Blaine would be a little insecure. In season 6 episode 2, Blaine accuses Kurt of stealing Jane because he’s upset about Blaine and Dave dating, and while this is definitely paranoid, Kurt was upset about Dave, and Rachel and Kurt are not above poaching to get ahead. Finally, in season 6 episode 7, Blaine kisses Kurt while still dating Dave. This is also bad, but as discussed earlier, Kurt fostered the environment that led to this incident. I don’t think that any of these things should be dismissed, but I also don’t think that this is convincing evidence that Blaine is particularly toxic. Most of these seem like mistakes that could happen in a tumultuous relationship, and the fact that there are so few items on this list comparatively is significant. 

Warped Ideas of Romance

Blaine also develops a very warped sense of romance and healthy relationship milestones over the course of the show, and I blame Kurt. Kurt has always been a romantic, and he instills into Blaine very early on in their relationship. He likes big grand gestures, and we see Blaine do that for Kurt many times, mostly through big songs. It became the primary way he communicated with Kurt. Blaine admits early on that not only has he never had a boyfriend before but that he feels like he doesn’t know what he’s doing at all when it comes to romance (s2e12). To be fair, Kurt is in a similar situation, but Kurt is older, and their relationship is dominated by Kurt all too often. This doesn’t become a problem until later on, though. It first rears its head in season 4 episode 21, when Blaine tells Burt that he wants to propose to Kurt and asks for his permission to do so, despite them not being together. Blaine mentions in that conversation that he knows that if he wants to get Kurt back, he has to do something big. In fact, Blaine almost proposes in that very episode. Then, in episode 22, he buys an engagement ring despite all of his friends protesting with very logical arguments and almost proposes again. In season 5 episode 1, they get back together, and Blaine tells everyone that he needs to make the proposal even bigger and more dramatic now that he’s back together with Kurt. They have only been together for a few days, but at least this is a little better than proposing when you’ve been broken up for months. And Kurt says yes anyway. This idea pervades their whole relationship, but it doesn’t come back in a big way until season 6 episode 8 (although he does seem to move in with Dave pretty early in their relationship (s6e3). They couldn’t have been together for more than a few months, because the end of season 5 is the summer, and the beginning of season 6 is right at the beginning of the school year). Tina asks Blaine, Artie, and Puck whether she should propose to Mike at Santana and Brittany’s wedding, even though they aren’t together and haven’t even seen each other in person for a long time. Blaine’s first response is that he thinks it’s romantic when it’s clearly insane. Then when Brittany and Sue ask him and Kurt to get married, Blaine says yes. He is the one who decides it because Kurt refuses to give a straight answer to anyone ever. But to be fair, I wouldn’t want to get married in that suit either, it’s bad. They also have a baby super young for performers in New York (s6e13). Blaine doesn’t know what a healthy relationship looks like, and it’s very worrying. 

Communication

Next, let’s discuss how bad they are at communication, especially Kurt. Not only is Kurt bad at communication, but he actively shuts it down so often. As mentioned, Blaine is new to relationships, and he is actively taught that the best way to communicate with Kurt is by singing. Kurt doesn’t respond to conversation, he always shuts it down and only responds to Blaine’s concerns when he sings. For example, in season 5 episode 20, Blaine sings All of Me to tell Kurt that he lied about Kurt being in June’s show. When Kurt gets angry about it, Blaine explains that he had no idea how to tell Kurt about the show without lying, and then he didn’t know how to tell Kurt about the lie, because he was scared of hurting Kurt. This is also not the first time that Blaine has been so afraid of Kurt that he’s felt the need to lie to him. In season 5 episode 7, Blaine gets detention and is unable to attend Kurt’s first Pamela Landsbury gig or risk suspension. He doesn’t know to break the news to Kurt for fear of hurting Kurt’s feelings and doesn’t call Kurt to let him know that he can’t make it, and waits until Kurt calls him right before the performance to tell him. Now, this is obviously bad, but it shows how Blaine doesn’t know how to talk to Kurt and how he’s always walking on eggshells around him. There are too many examples of Kurt shutting down Blaine when he tries to communicate openly, so let’s look at them. With graduation coming up, Blaine tries to talk to Kurt about doing long distance, and Kurt says that he wants to be in denial for a few more days. Blaine tries again to talk about it, but Kurt shuts him down again with flowery words and empty promises (s3e22). When Kurt is in New York, he starts ignoring Blaine, and when Blaine reaches out, Kurt shuts it down and does nothing to change (s4e4). In season 5 episode 14, Blaine openly asks Kurt if he’s crowding him, and even though he is, Kurt lies to Blaine about it. Then, in season 5 episode 16, Blaine tries to clear the air about the fight over the porn, and Kurt shuts it down, saying that they talk too much, when really they don’t talk at all. This is a pattern of behavior for Kurt, and it shouldn’t be. Kurt never asks Blaine when something is wrong, even if he can tell he’s upset (s3e17, s5e14, s5e16), and their relationship has to be pushed to the breaking point before Kurt puts any work in (s3e17, s5e14, s5e16, s6e1). Except when Blaine sings. In season 4 episode 4 and season 5 episode 20, Kurt asks Blaine what is wrong, but only because Blaine sang about it. Even though he is aware when Blaine is insecure or having issues, he only directly talks to Blaine about it when he sings it. This is not healthy. It encourages Blaine to withdraw and not try to keep communication open, which is already something Blaine struggles with (s3e17, s5e16). Kurt doesn’t want to communicate, and Blaine doesn’t know how to reach him. It’s dangerous and worrying. 

Kurt’s Toxicity Outside His Relationship with Blaine

Now, the reason I think that the toxicity is mostly Kurt’s fault and not just a bad relationship that brings out the worst in both of them is that he acts in similar ways in his relationships with other people as well. For example, in season 1, Kurt is very predatory towards Finn. He spends much of the season hitting on him (s1e10), trying to get their parents together so they can live together (s1e16), and trying to sabotage Finn’s relationships (s1e10, s1e11). Like in his relationship with Blaine, he pushes Finn, not taking no for an answer, until Finn snaps and uses the f-slur (s1e20). Obviously, Finn shouldn’t have said that, but the actions Kurt took to drive him to that point can’t be dismissed out of hand. However, as in his arguments with Blaine, Kurt refuses to take any responsibility, playing the victim card even when Finn and Burt call him out for not understanding that no means no (s2e4, s2e14). He also exhibits jealous and possessive behaviors around Burt. When Burt starts getting closer to Finn, Kurt is unreasonably upset by it. Despite Burt being completely supportive of him, he thinks that his sexuality is the reason Burt is inviting Finn to go to sports games and not that Kurt notoriously hates sports (s1e16). In season 2, Kurt accuses Mr. Shue and Burt of being homophobic when they don’t let him do things he wants (s2e6, s2e14). He implies that Will is homophobic when he won’t let Kurt sing on the girls’ team during the season 2 girls vs. boys mash-up competition (s2e6). Then, in episode 14, Burt tells Kurt that he doesn’t want Kurt having boys sleep over in his bed, Kurt accuses Burt of being homophobic. Burt says that it’s not about that because he wouldn’t let Finn have girls sleep over in his room, but Kurt persists, asking him if that would make him uncomfortable, even though Burt had been nothing but supportive of Kurt since he came out (s2e14). When Burt has cancer and Kurt comes back to Lima in season 4 episode 22, he starts lashing out at people. First, he lashes out at Mike for bringing up the Tina Vaporape situation, and then he yells at Burt at his own doctor’s appointment for wearing a navy shirt. In season 6, Kurt gets very controlling about the glee club even though Rachel was the one who brought the club back. He fights Rachel on how to organize the sheet music (even though Rachel’s method makes more sense and his is wildly subjective) (s6e2) and what the lessons are/how to present them (s6e3). He also interrupted Santana’s proposal and was unnecessarily harsh when critiquing Mason and Jane’s performance because he’s upset about Blaine (s6e3). To list some smaller instances, Kurt also blackmails Karofsky with outing him (s2e18), snaps his fingers at waitstaff (s3e10), encourages Rachel to cheat on Finn (s4e2), and is incredibly jealous of Elliot (s4e15, s5e7). The way we see Kurt act around Blaine isn’t isolated and it’s deeply concerning.

Bow Ties and Hair Gel Symbolism

Blaine’s ties and hair gel are symbolic of his relationship with Kurt and his insecurities respectively (I know the hair gel wasn’t intentional but I noticed it, it works, so I’m using it, whereas I’m pretty sure the bow tie symbolism was intentional). First, let’s talk about bow ties. The first time we see Blaine in street clothes is in season 2 episode 14. It’s before Kurt and Blaine start dating, and Blaine doesn’t wear a bow tie. The first time we see Blaine in a bow tie is in season 3 episode 1. Blaine has just transferred to McKinley for Kurt, and their relationship is very strong. However, their relationship is still new, and thus the bow tie is not yet Blaine’s signature. But he wears one here to signify his commitment to Kurt and their relationship. He continues to wear bow ties frequently through season 3, but not religiously. However, he does wear them more and more as the season progresses. There are a few notable exceptions to this. The first is in episode 5. When Blaine meets Sebastian (and every time he interacts with him), he is wearing one. When they go to Scandals, Blaine is still wearing a bow tie, but when he’s dancing with Sebastian and then when they’re fighting afterward Blaine’s tie is undone, but still around his neck. Sebastian and the musical are managing to get in between Kurt and Blaine, but Blaine still loves and cares about Kurt. They just need to get back on the same page. The second is in episode 17. Blaine does not wear a single bow tie in this episode. He does, however, wear a necktie in the scene where Kurt is texting Chandler in the choir room. In fact, when he sings It’s Not Right but It’s Ok and when Kurt sings I Have Nothing, he’s wearing a collared shirt buttoned all the way up, outfits that would normally have a bowtie, emphasizing the lack of one. 

In season 4, Blaine actually stops wearing bowties almost entirely. In episodes 1 and 2, Blaine wears a bow tie with several outfits, in keeping with how frequently he wore them in season 3, not with every outfit, but with one or two outfits per episode. However, in episode 3, we get the most overt use of the bow tie as a metaphor. Early in the episode, Blaine’s wearing bow ties with all of his outfits (the most he’s worn bow ties this season), even with his weird club costumes. He brings up how he and Kurt aren’t really in sync right now, but his bow ties indicate that he’s still very committed to that relationship. Then, Kurt and Blaine are talking, and Blaine is being very supportive of Kurt and his New York adventures. Blaine mentions that he’s running for student body president, and Kurt says that he forgot about that. Blaine then asks Kurt which bow tie he should wear for the debate, and Kurt brushes it off and pivots the conversation back to him. Blaine is clearly upset, but he goes along with Kurt. This scene uses bow ties to directly illustrate how Kurt is moving on, and how it’s hurting Blaine. He’s not supporting Blaine or hearing his concerns about the relationship, and it’s driving Blaine away. This is emphasized when at the debate, Sam tells Blaine he shouldn’t wear a bow tie, saying it makes him look uptight and telling him to take it off. Blaine even agrees that he looks better without it. This symbolizes the downfall of Blaine and Kurt’s relationship. Kurt’s ignoring Blaine, and it’s given Blaine doubts about the relationship. Blaine doesn’t wear a bow tie for the rest of the episode, as Kurt continues to ignore Blaine, even though Blaine getting elected. Blaine continues this pattern in episode 4, not wearing a single bow tie for the whole episode, and after the breakup, he only wears 3 bow ties in the entire rest of the season. He wears one at the Sadie Hawking’s dance, right after confessing his crush on Sam to Tina (s4e11) and one in the final song of season 4 episode 20, after having a moment with a guy at Sue’s exercise class. Notably, he doesn’t wear a bow tie to Will and Emma’s wedding, where he starts to reconnect with Kurt, he wears a necktie, but interestingly, Kurt wears a bow tie. Blaine even comments on it, saying, “You in this fey boy-tie. Dude, it’s my kryptonite”. He does, however, wear one later in that episode, after several leading conversations with Kurt. They’re not back together though, so Blaine doesn’t wear another bow tie until season 5 episode 1 (he also wears one in Kurt’s fantasy of Come What May, but Blaine isn’t actually wearing it, Kurt’s fantasy version of him is, which makes sense). 

In season 5, he gets much more consistent with wearing bow ties. It’s now his signature, so when he doesn’t wear one, it’s usually significant, and if he doesn’t wear one at all in an episode it’s definitely significant. Even before he officially asks Kurt to get back together with him, Blaine is wearing bow ties with all of his outfits. After they get back together and get engaged, Blaine continues to wear bow ties with most of his outfits. Let’s briefly go through some important examples. In episode 7, Kurt and Blaine get into a fight because Blaine didn’t tell Kurt that he couldn’t come to his first Pamela Landsbury gig, and Blaine isn’t wearing a bow tie. In episode 14, Blaine doesn’t wear a single bow tie until after he and Kurt have the conversation about him moving out, and then he wears a bow tie with every outfit in the remainder of the episode. He also doesn’t wear any bow ties at all in episode 16. Even after Blaine and Kurt have their conversation about communication and trust, Blaine still doesn’t wear a bow tie, signaling that he still isn’t happy with the relationship or himself. In episode 18, Blaine wears a lot of bow ties early in the episode, including when June tells him to break up with Kurt, however, when he lies to Kurt about him being in June’s showcase, he isn’t wearing one. He continues not wearing bow ties in episode 19 and early episode 20, as June and his lie drive a wedge between them. However, in the reconciliation scene, Blaine is wearing a bow tie, as he offers to give up the showcase and Kurt forgives him. Blaine wears a bow tie at the showcase and when moving back in with Kurt, but not in the goodbye or the scene where Rachel confirms she’s leaving, perhaps foreshadowing the season 6 break up. Season 6 is when Blaine is actually most consistent in wearing bow ties, which is interesting because he isn’t even with Kurt for most of it. It shows how Blaine is still deeply in love with Kurt despite appearances of moving on. The only two really important scenes in season 6 are the breakup scene in episode 1 and the elevator scenes in episode 5. He isn’t wearing a bow tie in the breakup scene, which makes sense, but other than that, he’s seen wearing a bow tie with almost every outfit for the rest of the season (a mini exception is when he tries to completely switch it up in episode 2, which doesn’t really need analysis but is a good example of this symbolism in action), and every scene with Dave. The interesting part is the elevator scenes. Blaine starts out wearing a bow tie but undoes it while in the elevator. Previously, this had been used to represent an issue in their relationship, but I don’t think that’s what it represents here. Blaine has been carrying his love for Kurt with him into his new relationship, afraid to let go of the good, but also unable to let go of the pain he experienced during the relationship. It’s restricting him. Blaine undoing the tie but keeping it around his neck is him opening up to Kurt, allowing the restrictive aspect to go, without letting go of the love he still clearly feels.

Now, on to the speculative part, Blaine’s hair gel. Throughout the show, Blaine starts using more hair gel and suppressing his natural curl pattern even more. In season 2, Blaine's hair is gelled, but in a way that embraces his natural hair. You can still tell that he has curly hair underneath it all, and it reflects the relaxed, more confident, version of Blaine that we see at this point in the show (ex. s2e6). Kurt only reinforces Blaine’s insecurities, and this is demonstrated in season 3 episode 19. Blaine is worried about not being able to gel his hair for prom, and Kurt initially laughs at and dismisses Blaine’s concerns. Then, at prom, when Kurt first sees Blaine without hair gel, his first responses are, “Oh dear God,”  and then laughing. He does eventually say that he wants to see the real Blaine, however, all of his actions leading up to this point don't support that, despite his knowledge of how insecure Blaine is. Blaine’s hair is used as a metaphor for Blaine letting his walls down within the episode, but the whole interaction is a metaphor for the way Kurt acts around Blaine for the entire show. He reinforces Blaine’s concerns and insecurities while saying with his words that he supports and loves him. Clearly, Blaine doesn’t believe that Kurt likes seeing him with his natural hair because, over the course of Blaine's relationship with Kurt, he tightens his hair even more. Slowly, his hair gets tighter and tighter to his scalp. Compare season 2 episode 6, to season 3 episode 5, to season 4 episode 1. We even see Blaine with gelled hair going to sleep and waking up when he's around Kurt (s4e4,s5e14, s5e16). Waking up with perfectly gelled hair is especially interesting because it implies that either Blaine is using some crazy strong hair gel to avoid his hair moving in the middle of the night, or that he's getting up putting hair gel in, and then getting back into bed, so Kurt doesn't see him with his natural hair. The only time we see Blaine with his natural hair, or even with more relaxed hair, are in episodes during the break up where Kurt isn’t seeing Blaine (s4e13, s4e17). It's the tightest in season 5 episode 14, which is also one of the episodes where Blaine is at his worst. He's struggling with his insecurities in a major way, and when he goes over to Elliott's house, his hair is basically Shellacked to his head (s5e14). It loosens a little bit in the next few episodes, however, there is no significant difference until season 6. It's still not back to where it was in season 2, however now that he and Kurt aren’t together anymore, he seems to have let his hair relax a little (ex s6e2). He even briefly stops gelling his hair after breaking up with Kurt. However, his insecurities run too deep and he starts doing it again. In the end, Blaine does stop gelling his hair, but he’s still unable to be his true self around Kurt and starts straightening his hair instead (s6e13). Blaine is never able to let go of his insecurities and be himself around Kurt, and both the symbolic and literal implications of this illustrate perfectly how terrible his relationship with Kurt is for Blaine. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, Kurt and Blaine’s relationship isn’t healthy, and the responsibility is mostly on Kurt. Despite their chemistry and outward appearances, their relationship is toxic and potentially abusive. Kurt doesn’t care about Blaine, he cares about himself, and he’s willing to destroy Blaine’s life if it benefits him. Blaine, on the other hand, cares so deeply about Kurt that he doesn’t even care that their relationship is damaging to him. They struggle with even the basic communication and trust that a relationship needs, and seem to believe that love is the only thing they need to keep their relationship alive. Kurt is manipulative, cruel, and takes every opportunity to tear Blaine down so he can have power over him. He hates being vulnerable and needs to be able to exert control over Blaine. He uses Blaine’s insecurity and inexperience to assure that Blaine is as small and reliant on Kurt as possible. He holds Blaine’s every little mistake over Blaine’s head, refuses to take responsibility for any of their problems, and minimizes his own mistakes. Kurt is incredibly jealous, often unfoundedly, and yet calls Blaine unreasonable when he displays any signs of jealousy himself. Their relationship damages Blaine irreparably, to the point that comparing Blaine in season 2 to Blaine in season 6 shows two almost completely different people. But it doesn’t come out of nowhere, Kurt systematically and intentionally cuts Blaine down and turns him into the person he wants him to be. A person he can control. It is not random, it is not uncharacteristic for either of them and when their relationship is interpreted through this lens, explains a lot about how Blaine develops as a character. Even if their relationship isn’t abusive, it certainly isn���t good, and it shouldn’t be romanticized. 

[casstheultimatemess]

Alone Together Chapter 5

AO3 link

Taglist: @therubyjailcell, @theblankest123, @emologan, @billy-jeans23, @bunny222, @honeydenhaducken, @zaikadis, @peachy-pidge

The ‘someone’ Patton wanted Virgil to meet turned out to be… a weirdo. At least if you asked Virgil.

“Do you how do Virgil? I’m Emile Picani, they and them pronouns today please!”

“Was, was that a cartoon reference? SpongeBob?” Oh it was taking all of Virgil’s willpower to not run out of the office right away, but Patton trusted this person so Virgil supposed he would give them a chance.

The therapist laughed. “Sure was, pal. Now, shall we get started? I know that Patton sent you here because of some… less then fortunate experiences… but that is also all that he told me. Maybe we can first start with you telling a little bit about yourself,”

Virgil shrugged. Sure, easy enough. If you actually knew what to tell about yourself.

“Honestly, I don’t really know what there is to tell doc. Started in Florida, mom was upset with me, and now I am here. That is… basically it”

Emile nodded. “And your mom was upset with you in a ‘nightmare Rose Quartz and Steven’ kinda way? Or more like ‘Mom I am a girl not a robot’?”

Complete lunatic, Virgil thought. But at least they know some quality cartoons.

“The one from Life as a Teenage Robot, but then instead from robot to girl it went from girl to boy I guess,”

“Yeah, Patton told me that you are female to male transgender and that your mom doesn’t accept of you, although the professor did eventually accept Jenny as a girl. Do you think your mom will be able to do that for you to, but then as you being a boy I mean,”

Virgil lets out a small chuckle. “You know, I wish I could say yes. I wish I could say that she just needs time to accept it or something, but I know that’s not true. She will never accept me as long as I don’t fit into her picture of a perfect daughter. And that hurts. I am angry at her for being so… narrowminded, but I am also so sad because she is my mom, and she did so much for me and I want to do good things for her back. She loves me, I think, and that she is doing this to help me. At least that is what she said when she dropped me off at the airport,” The therapist plastered on a sad grin. “Virge, I hope you don’t mind me calling you Virge, this might be really brutal to hear, but that isn’t love. Love is accepting someone for who they are. Love is supporting another unconditionally. That is not what your mother is doing. Your mother, she loves the ‘picture perfect daughter’ idea of you, like you said it. And when you don’t fit in that picture, she will do anything to make you fit into it again, even hurting you like she is now,”

A heavy silence settled over the room. Emile looked quite sad, a big difference with how cheery he was just a few minutes ago, but Virgil didn’t notice any of that. It was, weird to hear that from someone else. And some part of his brain, the insecure part, screamed at him that these were all lies. He owed it to his mother to be perfect… to be normal, he was already enough of a burden with his anxiety and his depressive episodes.

“Virgil, you aren’t a burden,”

Great, Virgil thought, he said that out loud…

“I am” he responds. “I am a inconvenience to my mom for… being who I am I guess. I am burdening Patton by being dropped off to his doorstep all of the sudden. I… I am a burden to a lot of people…”

Tears are threatening to escape Virgil’s eyes. He hates being so vulnerable, and he usually never is in front of someone he barely even knows, but Emile… Virgil doesn’t really know what it is but they just radiates trust and kindness, and that combination somehow makes everything spill out what he had been holding on. It is scary, but also kind of relieving.

“Virgil, I know you won’t believe me right now but I hope you will in time, but you are not a burden. Patton loves having you here, I have a phone full of emoji’s to prove it. If you think you are burdening me, that’s not true because this is my job, and I want to help you. And your mom, she is just plain wrong, and I shouldn’t admit this as a therapist but I am ready to punch a bitch,”

The last words were so unexpected to Virgil that he suddenly started giggling, to shocked to do anything about it.

“Doc, I didn’t think that you’d be able to swear at all,” he said while laughing

Emile looked a bit sheepish

“I am afraid my husband has a bad influence on me, but I wouldn’t trade him for anything in the world. Even if he keeps up his habit of drinking coffee to stay awake until he collapses,” they smirked.

“That… can’t be healthy,” Virgil said

“It isn’t, but it is more dangerous to keep him from his caffeine. Trust me, I’ve tried,”

“How did that turn out?”

Emile laughs “Hey, we are here to talk about you, not my disaster of a husband!”

“I heard that babe!” a voice called out from the hallway, and Emile immediately turned a bright red

“Speak of the devil and he shall appear I guess” they whispered under their breath. “Remy, what are you doing here? I am in the middle of an appointment.”

“Sorry to break it to ya sugar cube, but you were supposed to finish fifteen minutes ago, and it is date night so I wanted to pick you up,” Remy answered, slightly shoving down his sunglasses to send a look at the therapist.

Emile looks at the clock, and immediately looked back at their husband with a smile.

“Guess I forgot the time there for a moment, Virgil and I were having quite a good conversation,” they say. Virgil hums in agreement, still taking in the doc’s apparent husband in. He seemed… nice. Weird, that is for sure, but nice.

“Ah,” Remy speaks up, “You must be Virgil, Patton’s nephew. Sorry for not introducing myself right away, but by hearing what you guys were saying I think you already know enough about me, don’t you?” he says with a wink. Virgil gave him a half smile back. Sue him, but speaking to people (who are apparently not Emile or Patton) is still not one of his strong suits.

“Welp, it was nice meeting you Virge!” Remy continues, seemingly not bothered by the lack of response. “Is it okay if I steal Emile from you now? I have a surprise for them planned that may or may not involve lots of Adventure time and bacon pancakes”

“Ehm, yeah, sure. Have fun!” Virgil answered. They all stood up to walk out of the exit, while Remy still talked on about the not-so surprise anymore. When he saw Patton’s car standing on the parking lot, he bid both Remy and Emile farewell and quickly opened the door to the passenger seat.

“So,” Patton starts after driving onto the road, “How was it?”

Virgil thought for a moment before answering,

“Good, It was good…”

[darkwingsnark]

FIC WRITER MEME

Tagged by @prince-luffy

AO3 name: DarkwingSnark

Fandoms: ...SEE, I’m in lots of fandoms. Or at least, I’ve written for them during hyper-fixation periods. Let’s see what AO3 says...

Batman: The Animated Series (20)

Batman - All Media Types (7)

Wander Over Yonder (Cartoon) (6)

DuckTales (Cartoon 1987) (5)

Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero (5)

Penguins of Madagascar (3)

James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl (3)

Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991) (3)

Disney - All Media Types (3)

Dan Vs. (2)

Milo Murphy's Law (2)

Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja (1)

The Batman (Cartoon) (1)

Lady and the Tramp (1955) (1)

Looney Tunes | Merrie Melodies (1)

Winnie-the-Pooh - All Media Types (1)

Alice in Wonderland (1951) (1)

Gummi Bears (TV) (1)

Winnie-the-Pooh (Disney) (1)

.... Honestly, I feel like there’s more that this list isn’t covering. Like Phineas and Ferb isn’t here and I wrote for that show too. And many of these can be simplified and condensed because they belong to similar fics.

Tropes: Depends on the fic. But as a whole, tend to write Romantic Comedies with a lot of slow burn. Mostly because... struggle is funny. People being dumdums and oblivious to the obvious is funny. Aaaaand also because it allows the episodic quality of shenanigans to occur.

Number of fics: Up and posted on AO3? 53. Does not include stuff on FF.net or that’s sitting in google docs begging to be finished.

Fic I spent the most time on: Not sure how to read this. Does it mean active man hours? Or does stuff like having a hiatus in-between count? Because TECHNICALLY ‘Real Value’ was started in high school, and I didn’t rewrite it and carry on the series (with Moonie) until many years later. There are also fics like ‘Growing Love’ or ‘Priorities’ that took a lot of time to do research. Like learning how to build a lawn mower so I could have a character believably break it apart for repairs.

....God I do a lot of research that doesn’t go into the actual fics. Because all I need, really, in the confidence of what I’m doing to be the character and describe an action here or there. 

Fic I spent the least time on: Probably something drabble related? Or maybe the fic I did that was just me venting out emotions because I was feeling guilty? ‘A Mother’s Intuition’ was written and posted within a couple of hours.

Longest fic: Complicated. The longest thing written is technically an RP, NOT a story. (Different, trust me.) ‘What Happens in Gotham’ has a word count of  207,413. But fic wise at 89,022 word would be ‘The Constant Gardener’ . 

Runner up being ‘Priorities’ at little over 87k.

Shortest fic: Drabbles? Uh, let’s see.. Probably from ‘Beauty and Your Worth’, as i think one was literally a paragraph long. ... Speaking of Gummi Bears, I wonder if I still have my notes on the GruffiGusto fic I wanted to write. Something to look into.

Most hits: Apparently ‘Fallen Hard’ at  5354

Most kudos: Also ‘Fallen Hard’ at 518. There... were more fans of Milo Murphy’s Law than I realised. 

Most comment threads: ‘Fallen Hard’, 193 comments. ‘What Happens in Gotham’ following at 185.

Most bookmarks: .... that’s something people care about? I hardly ever bookmark things, since I read it in one go. But... I can look?

Ah.... ‘Fallen Hard’. 63

Total word count: 971,833 Oh hey! Almost a million. That’s something to celebrate.

Favorite fic I wrote: 'Knights of Dobenshire’. Hands down. (With ‘Heart of the Cards’ being very close.) I like writing road trip styled stories. It allows many things to happen within the narrative. BUT, ‘Knights of Dobenshire’ wins because it was such a satisfying conclusion of this build up, you know? Scrooge is finally no longer just putting up with the relationship with Fenton, but fully embracing it. That surprise feeling that hits him when he realizes, dear lord, he IS attracted to Fenton beyond affection. 

It hits me more than a mutual pining because there I KNOW they will get together. But here? While writing with Moonie? I DIDN’T KNOW! I was worried in the end we’d have to write another fic to finally reach that step. Scrooge is stubborn and does what he wants, let me tell ya.

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: 'Fallen Hard’, ‘Season of Miracles’, ‘Going with the Flow’, pretty much anything that isn’t complete. BUT, not posted, I really want to get back to more of the stories planned in the McCrack series. It was a ship I kinda made from the ground up, with nobody caring about it in the beginning. So it feels very important to see that series through.

Share a bit of a WIP or a story idea you’re planning on:

... Actually, I can share something from 'Donald’s Party (Working Title)’. @swampy-tiefling and I started. Just the first scene to get you guys hooked.

Donald took a deep breath of air from the doorway of the house and sighed, once again pleased to find himself at his home away from home. Traveling the seas and exploring the world with the navy were its own rewards, he supposed, but there would never be anything quite like the countryside-- the middle aged mallard having practically been raised on Grandma Duck’s farm. Donald Duck was happy to be on shore-- his naval carrier being docked for the week in Duckburg as they replenished supplies and took care of whatever repairs that were needed. Whatever excuse his bosses wanted to use were fine by him, he was just happy to not be scrubbing decks for a change!

That didn’t, however, mean he was able to rest and relax-- as the duck was startled out of his thoughts as somebody bumped into him. That somebody was his grandmother as she came to, just having caught her plate of cookies before they fell.

“My land, Donald! What in the world are you doing hiding here when you should be meetin’ and greetin’ the guests?”

Donald ignored the woman’s soft glare as he waved her off, using his other hand to steal a cookie in the process. Stuffing it in his mouth, he murmured out a response.

“Phooey, they’re just relatives.”

“Even more of a reason to go out and talk to them.” Before the sailor could argue, Grandma Duck placed the plate of treats into his hands. “And put these out on the snack table while you’re at it. Poor Fethry is looking peckish.”

Donald rolled his eyes, but otherwise did as he was told. Wasn’t it just like life to make him work at his own welcome home party? Walking towards the open yard where the party was taking place, it didn’t take long to reach the table, where his cousins were already gathered around as they chat.

This instantly caught the attention of the lankier duck, his gaze zoning in as he smiled widely towards Donald in greeting.

“Well if it ain’t the guest of honor, with snacks to boot!” Fethry leaned closer, his red hat wobbling with him as he continued to inquire. “Say, cuz, ya wouldn’t happen to know if these are gluten free, would ya?”

Donald gave him an unimpressed look. 

“You’re not going on another crazy diet, are ya?” Though, in all honesty, he was more worried his looney cousin might try to drag him along-- and after months of eating nothing but mush, he would NOT miss out on his first chance to pig out on actual home cooked meals.

"Not crazy at all, actually!" Fethry grinned that goofy grin. "See, it's all right here; Gluten Free; It's the Way to Be' !" he shoved a rather lengthy-looking hard cover book in Donald's face. Donald had no choice but to stare at it, the words all blurring together from its close proximity to his eyes. The offending object remained there for only a second, however, before it was yanked back, the nutty mallard already busy flipping through it.

"Let's see, here, there's a fascinating chapter I think you should-- Don?"

Phew, that had been close. Donald was still in sneaking away mode, and jumped and yelped when he was tapped on the shoulder. Oh no. He'd been caught, after all. He slowly turned, with a forced, toothy grin, to face his fate.

A wave of relief washed over him when he saw his girlfriend, Daisy, smiling sweetly at him, instead.

“And where do you think you’re sneaking off to, Mister? You’ve been gone for so long, and here we are, with you haven’t even given me a kiss ‘hello’ yet.” 

Now there was something Donald didn’t mind doing, as his girlfriend leaned in her face for her reward. Wrapping his arms around her, he planted the biggest of smooches to her temple. 

“Gaww, I’m sorry Daisy. I really did miss you.”

This earned him a soft smile, as it was Daisy’s turn to kiss him on the forehead.

“And I missed you, hun. Now, tell me… why WERE you sneaking around?”

“Grandma put me on entertainment duty.”

“Well, “ his girlfriend began, “it IS your party, after all. They came to see you, seems fair to me.” This made the sailor groan as she looked at him unsympathetically. Rolling her eyes, the reporter sarcastically patted her boyfriend in comfort. “There there. Now don’t go sneaking off for real, the boys will be arriving soon. And Grandma tells me Uncle Scrooge will be bringing along a special guest.”

“Special guest?” Donald asked incredulously. “Like who?” This caused Daisy’s eyes to glimmer all the more in mischief, a look that told him that she knew something he didn’t know. And that something was big news, if he was reading her right.

“Oh, nobody TOO special, I suppose,” Daisy was stalling, and it was driving Donald up the wall. The duck woman continued her teasing. “Nobody except your uncle’s new date friend.”

"Date friend?" Donald practically exclaimed, prompting Daisy's grin to grow all the more smug.

"Yep! You've missed quite a bit since you've been away, you know."

"No kidding...well I'll be..." Donald was shaking his head, but he was smiling. Uncle Scrooge, dating, at his age... it was nothing short of a miracle. It was about time, too!

"Meanwhile, why don't you go say hi to the rest of the guests? I know it's hard..." she rolled her eyes. "but at least make an effort, okay? Thanks, hun!"

Donald's heart fluttered as she smooched his cheek, and left. He glanced out over the yard, and saw quite a few familiar faces; Gus, Ludwig, Gladstone... heck, even Gyro Gearloose had shown up!

He sighed, but this one wasn't a sigh of pure despair. It did feel nice to be home, surrounded by people who most likely cared, and his nephews were even going to show up soon. Not to mention, he'd get to tease his uncle for finally taking his advice on the whole dating thing. 

That alone gave Donald the pep in his step he needed as he threw himself back into the party-- where he knew his crazed family would be waiting for him. 

[alicedoessurveys]

Doctor Who Tag

yes im a nerd...

CHILDHOOD

1. Did you like DW as a child?

I was 10 when it came back on telly with Eccleston and the first episode with the autons scared me so much my mom wouldn't let me watch it again until a couple years later, but yeah my teens I was obsessed with DW... still am at age 25

2. Your age at the time of the revival?

10

3. First DW episode you ever saw?

‘Rose’

4. Did you have any of the toys?

I still have the eleventh doctor’s screwdriver... I used to have some of the figures but there in storage now somewhere

5. Which DW character did you play on the playground?

didn't play it on the playground

6. Monster(s) that scared you most as a child?

all of them! the ones that still scare me now are the Cybermen and the Autons... genuinely cant walk past a shop mannequin without being suspicious 

7. Joke/story you didn’t get as a kid?

as a kid, any of the innuendo type jokes

8. DW opinion that has changed since you were a kid?

idk I think I still have the same opinions

9. Who introduced you to DW?

parents

10. Did you like Sarah Jane Adventures as a child?

I LOVED SJA!! I miss that show, and Elizabeth Slade :(

DOCTOR

11. Who is your Doctor?

Ten was the doctor that made me fall in love with Doctor Who 

12. Your favourite Doctor?

omg why not just ask me who my favourite child is... (I don't have kids but you know what I mean) if I had to chose my top three are ten, eleven and thirteen

13. Least favourite Doctor?

purely just because he doesn't have enough episodes... nine...

14. Best regeneration?

none of them I hate regenerations :( they make me sad, im too emotionally invested in every single one

15. Do you like “Doctor-Lite” episodes?

they're not my faves

16. Who is the most human Doctor?

I think nine maybe? or twelve?

17. Best multi-Doctor story?

the 50th anniversary special 

18. Best Doctor monologue?

“Hello Stonehenge! who takes the pandorica, takes the universe. but bad news everyone, cause guess who? HA! You lot you're all whizzing about- its really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I AM TALKING. Question of the hour is, who's got the pandorica? Answer, I do. Next question, who's coming to take it from me? Come on, look at me! No plan. No backup. No weapons worth a damn. oh and something else, I don't have anything to lose. So, if you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship with all your silly little guns and you've got any plans on taking the pandorica tonight... just remember who's standing in your way. remember ever black day I ever stopped you and then- AND THEN- do the smart thing... let somebody else try first.”

not copied and pasted, remember that from the top of my head... its always there waiting in my mind incase I ever need an epic monologue :’)

19, What do you think TenToo/MetaCrisis Doctor is doing now?

hopefully living his best life with Rose

20. Best Doctor/companion pairing?

ten and donna 

COMPANIONS

21. Favourite companion?

Donna, Clara, Amy

22. Favourite secondary companion?

is Mickey classed as secondary? idk

23. Least favourite companion?

Ryan

24. Best TARDIS Team?

Doctor, Amy and Rory

25. Most underrated companion?

Graham, but that may just be cause I love Bradders

26. Most overrated companion?

Rose... I like her but idk, I think she gets more hype than she deserves.. don't @ me

27. Favourite companion’s family?

Rose’s mom

28. Who should have been a companion but wasn’t?

idk I cant think of anyone

29. Favourite (canon or non-canon) DW universe relationship?

Amy and Rory

30. Who did you not used to like, but really like now?

wasn't keen on Bill at first but by the end I really liked her, same with Rory

EPISODES

31. Favourite episode ever?

girl in the fireplace

32. Least favourite episode?

most of Chibnall’s episodes tbh sorry not sorry 

33. Which episodes do you skip?

the regeneration episodes

34. Best two-parter?

Human Nature - Family of Blood

35. Historical, present day or futuristic episodes?

I like them all in there own way but I think present is fave, then historical, then future

36. Episode that will always make you smile?

all of them

37. Episode that will always make you cry?

Rory and Amy’s last episode :’(

38. Best run of episodes?

ugh I cant answer this theres too many 

39. Best cliffhanger?

the end of Spyfall part one when the Master reveals who he is... I was SHOOK

40. Favourite Christmas special?

Voyage of the Damned

SERIES

41. Classic Who or New Who?

new who

42. Favourite series?

four or five

43. Least favourite series?

eleven, I just cant with the writing

44. Which series do you skip?

none

45. Favourite series opening?

eleventh hour

46. Favourite series finale?

Doomsday

47. Best series arc?

Bad Wolf

48. Thoughts on series 11/12?

I adore Jodie Whittaker and her doctor, and although I think 3 companions is too many I do love Yaz and Graham (Ryan is hit & miss). I just think theyve been massively let down by the stories/writing... they’ve tried to hard to tick certain boxes and completely missed what Doctor Who is about for a lot of people.. an escape from the real world into these outrageous unbelievable but lovable fun alien adventures 

49. How much of Classic Who have you seen?

not a lot

50. Who should have had another series?

NINE NINE NINE NINE NINE 

MONSTERS

51. Favourite monster/villain?

the master 

52. Most creative monster?

Weeping Angels, whoever came up with monsters that look like statues and only move when you're not looking at them is genius 

53. Monster(s) that scares you most?

Autons, Cybermen, the creepy dolls from Night Terrors, the ones from Waters of Mars, Weeping Angels

54. Monster you think is too easy to defeat?

idk

55. Least favourite monster/villain?

absorbaloff

56. Monster you want to return?

The Master, I really hope that isn't the last we see of Dhawan

57. In your opinion, what makes a monster good?

being genuinely scary, 

58. Daleks, Cybermen or Weeping Angels?

Weeping Angels

59. Best Dalek story?

Daleks in Manhatten

60. Best one time villain/monster?

my brain has gone blank I cant think of an answer right now 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

61. Torchwood or Sarah Jane Adventures?

SJA

62. Favourite Torchwood Team member?

I haven't watched it all so I couldn't say 

63. Which Torchwood death made you saddest?

again, not watched it all 

64. Do you rewatch COE or MD?

huh

65. Favourite SJA Team member?

Sarah Jane

66. Mr Smith or K-9?

K-9

67. Maria or Rani?

Rani

68. Do you read the comics/novels or listen to Big Finish?

Nope

69. If you do, your favourite additional stories?

n/a

70. Do you like DW analysis (video essays, fan theories, etc)?

yes

DESIGN/PRODUCTION

71. Favourite piece of alien tech?

the sonic, I love how it is so multipurpose except for when it comes to wood 

72. Favourite piece of Murray Gold music?

I am the Doctor - gets me pumped every time 

73. Favourite TARDIS design?

Ten’s Tardis 

74. Has the 2005 era CGI aged well?

actually yeah, I was rewatching the ‘are you my mummy’ episodes the other day and my God when the gas masks emerged from the faces... ooooooof I was like omg how 

75. Favourite Doctor outfit?

eleven or thirteen

76. Monster with the best design?

not really a design more of a costume.. I live Dhawan master’s costume. that shade of purple, oof he so stylish 

77. Best show runner?

idk

78. Best writer?

Gatiss

79. Best opening titles?

eleven’s titles where the Tardis is flying and being zapped is cool but thirteens music hits different 

80. Will DW age well/stay popular in the future?

I hope so, I feel like its lasted this long surely it can last forever.. if the writers don't fuck it up... 

IF YOU WERE IN THE SHOW

81. Time period you’d want to go with the Doctor?

whatever time means Id get to wear the most beautiful costumes

82. Planet/place you’d want to go with the Doctor?

Galifrey, pre-desctruction

83. Doctor you’d most like to travel with?

any of them, please and thank you

84. Companion you’d most like to travel with?

donna, sceso a good laugh but also I feel like she’d look after me 

85. Monster you’d like to defeat/fight?

The Master 

86. If you could go back on your own history (like Father’s Day), where would you go?

back to when I was a toddler, I wanna see what I was like 

87. If you could ask the Doctor anything, what would you ask?

theres too many to ask 

88. Historical figure you’d like to meet?

Shakespeare

89. How do you think you’d meet the Doctor?

id probably be rescued from doing something stupid and then the doc would be like you know what the bitch clearly needs supervision she's coming with me 

90. Would you travel forwards or backwards in time first?

backwards

IF YOU MADE THE SHOW

91. Historical event would you like to see in DW?

Hamilton

92. Issue you’d like to see addressed in DW?

idk 

93. Who would you completely erase from the DW universe?

Ruth

94. One unanswered DW question you’d love to know the answer to?

where is Clara now?

95. Actor/actress you’d like to see play the Doctor?

Phoebe Waller Bridge (or Lin Manuel Miranda)

96. Actor/actress you’d like to see play a companion?

Andrew Scott (yes I did just basically recast fleabag and hot priest)

97. Is DW “too political”?

series 11 got a bit like that 

98. Which characters fate would you changed?

Danny Pink

99. What about DW could be improved?

I think ive made my options about Chibnall pretty clear... 

100. If you could write an episode of DW, any ideas for what you’d do

bring back Jenny, the Doctor / Daughter adventures they would have. I’m actually writing a fic about it if you wanna read.... here

[wo-wann-was-wer]

EPISODE 5:

I'm so sad Regina got buried in the woods

these fucking comparison shots are amazing

someone just tried to text me and I low-key flipped out because I was like you need to leave me the fuck alone

What if he just took her jacket and was like this is mine bitch

Katharina looks so dope with glasses

I'm so into her being the rock of this family by the way which I was never surprised by because women have the strength of 6 million men but

we've literally never seen Charlotte and her dad interact (like for reals)

That's one of the problems of this show is that some relationships fell by the wayside and I'm not a fan of that

did Charlotte drop herself off on the stoop

That's Tannhaus baby is somewhere because they never found the body of that infant so that infant is somebody.

yeah I literally can't imagine finding something like this out I'd lose my fucking mind

"who am I?" "I don't know" wow that's a fuck of a thing

Wow Claudia from the other universe That's fucking me up

Also what if Claudia from the other universe is the fucking bitch who has been fucking with us this whole time AKA the white devil

Also when are we going to see Noah again because I need to see Elisabeth and Noah together falling in love because I stan

worried about her Please tell us what happened to her I'm concerned

This actress has to be at least partially deaf and or hard of hearing because number one her ASL is fluent and she even emotes some words right? Idk

I do not trust this other Claudia as far as I could fucking throw her

This show is like the debate between Democrats and Republicans every fucking party is trying to convince everybody else that they are the ones that's trying to save the world and both of them behind closed doors are like all right how do we fuck the people in the asshole

I can't help wondering if this wouldn't have happened if we understood the half-lives of radioactive materials

so is all of this coming back to 1986 Is that the the origin time

And then do what What are you going to do with fucking 250 radioactive barrels The fuck you talking about

The scratches on the other side of her face and I don't know why it's on the other side of her face but it's on the other side of her face and it's concerning me

does that mean something's going to go different like

Jonas is out here like why did the adults lie to me

Oh my God after three seasons he's finally realizing not to listen to other people good boy

Oh Peter and Charlotte bonded over having fucked up families

Peter's mom is dead and he didn't know who his father was

Also babies

Also the way that he embodies Peter is fucking insane

I'm so into Charlotte with this curly hair

Oh my God who is this

Elisabeth run baby girl. too late. we've gone this long without sexual assault if they touch this child I'm going to lose my damn mind

Peter is going to kill this man

Elizabeth kill him Peter kill him if Peter dies is the hands of this dude I'm going to lose my fucking mind get back from my baby get back from my fucking cinnamon roll I'm going to kill you Elizabeth stab him the back stab him the back Elizabeth your daddy has a knife at his neck NOOOO PETER NOOOOOOOOOO NOOOOO FUCK

I literally will never forgive them for killing Peter why are the dopplers the most important and most tragic family

he never did anything to anybody

Katharina please kill your abusive mother She deserves it

everybody on this show is super into bludgeoning nobody likes shoots anybody else everybody fucking bludgeons everybody

No can I watch this abusive fucking bitch is going to hit you No Don't let her kill you Don't let her kill you

Is Katharina dead why are they taking my favorite people

she doesn't even get justice for how her mom treats her it's not fair. and now Ulrich is still stuck inside the asylum

oh thank God Noah is here because I was so worried about my baby

Wait what is going on. Oh Jonas has never died before This is exciting

oh wait there's only one Jonas damnit

EPISODE 6:

Even though it's not working for everyone I do really love the 1888 look on Jonas

I did not expect that Aleksander was going to tell Bartosz about his real identity

This shit is so uncomfortable.

Ulrich needs a real stop telling the women that he's fucking to stop coming to his household

It's like the penny traveled through time GASPPPPPPP

Jonas What the fuck did you come from

all my fucking pussy friends are bothering me from finishing this show YALL GOT STUPID PROBLEMS STAND UP FOR YOURSELF AND THEN THIS WONT HAPPEN

I'm going to say this every single time he's on screen but this beard is too good

I think that bartosz may be the most scorned member of this entire group he never gets any pussy and it's so sad

I'm super over this really creepy really ugly fucking dude I want him to leave I also kind of don't believe that he's the child of Martha and Jonas

Oh I absolutely love love love them holding hands and then going back to a shot of them holding hands as kids

why are they such a good couple I really like them but I also always have

I'm not super sure I understand why they had to leave bartosz behind

I don't trust a single of these fucking adults I'm just any of them including themselves when they become adults

This is like a suicide squad. This is the weirdest collection of people What is this team. What are they doing. since when are these people are working together. omg

Oh shit a child born of both worlds takes both worlds energies to destroy it. But that's what causes the apocalypse

Well this is super fucked up

everything that's happening in this final montage sequence is bad news

all of it

why do I Stan Noah and Elisabeth so much

omg Hannah is giving birth is NOW the time

wow this is a lot

EPISODE 7:

our perspective is what makes definitive reality

I'm confused about the gravestone that says Charlotte on it

Also yes give me more Elizabeth and Noah please please please

This is absolutely crazier than any shit doc Brown ever did But he was also trying to build a time machine in the 1890s so that's fun

Oh is this how he gets all the fucking scars

My goodness what is happening What is going to happen I'm getting stressed.

There's only two episodes left I feel like they're not answering my questions I'm worried

What happened to wöller

What is silja doing here

This is bullshit she's like drawing him in

Oh that's a surprise so silja is a tiedemann

why is it always like I feel like I know what's happening and then around episode 6 or 7 I just completely lose the plot

oh wow Jonas almost straight up died but Noah saved him

‘you can't die’ points a gun at him

Oh my God you can't kill yourself because you've already grown

oop well after that birth happened I had to take about 5 minutes to pause my brain and factor that in

yo I knew Tannhaus was going to figure in fucking more than he did

Is he the one who builds the cage

does this seem like a good idea or does this seem like a bad idea

shooting yourself What do you think that feels like

everybody's on a different team there are too many teams It went from like a presidential race to a March madness bracket There's so many fucking people involved everybody's got their own goddamn plan

folks I just want to emphasize here that we have an episode and a half to tie all this up

Oh shit universe A Claudia infiltrated universe B Claudia

I love what they did with the place after the fire It looks really nice It's a different vibe but it's good

so Eve made the plans for the machine

Wait what She died. 

I can't believe that Elizabeth and Charlotte have to be the ones to drop off Charlotte as an orphan

Oh noooooooooooo Jonas didn't do it!!!!

Oh my God don't make me feel sympathy for Hannah

he looks so fucked up 

bye hannah we won't miss you

but also hate leaving a child without their parents

Tell us what's on the last page and tell us what happened to woller's eye

All right now we're seeing how everybody got to where they were like the first fucking time

I love this walk down memory lane it's literally just the stylized recap of the show right before the final episode which is 10/10

watch your face girl

too late

Omg what does this mean 

THE FINALE:

This show is just Claudia Tiedemann Lurking: the TV show

Also the bullshit that he had to live through all of this in order to get to the end makes me really sad

yeah wait who's the fucking father of Regina

been way too sucked in

also. WE LOVE TO SEE A TIME TRAVEL TACKLE

WAS THIS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL DAY IN STUTTGART

How many times are going to burn this place down

how many versions of this fucking machine do they have they're always like oh God we don't have a way here or there FUCKING LIARS

I can't believe that the thesis of this show is teenage hormones cause the apocalypse

Adam and Eve are such fucking children it's so stupid. 

reunion nnnnnnnnnnn

Oh shit he fucked up your plan huh

No I don't want it to end

I wish everybody didn't cry so much everybody so sad all the time

yup what in the actual fuck is happening

yo this is fucking wild

these baby Martha and Jonas are so cute

Not sure where we're going with this folks what's happening here wrap it up shit

I'm really obsessed with this golden snitch

It's just making me so sad

oh they're becoming stardust together

this is a weird cover but I'll take it

everything is going back to normal

but without Jonas and Martha and Claudia

if they don't tell us what happened to his eye I'm gonna flip out

I CAME HERE TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO WOLLER’S EYE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

Also what does this ending line mean its stressing me out

Well thats it. Three years of my life. Damn

[crimson-of-the-earth]

Can You Keep a Secret?

Hello, anon! Sorry for the delay on this one! I’ve been dealing with a bruised thumb for a few days so I’ve been waiting for that to go down! But anyway!

The reader here is part of the AEW roster so I hope that’s okay! I’m also planning to write a similar fic but with a male!reader soon!

Without further ado, I hope you enjoy!

You and Kenny have known each other even before his stint in NJPW, meeting him during your times in DDT before you both had to go your separate ways; Kenny had chosen to take a chance and work for NJPW while you stayed in the States to work in various independent companies.

Despite the distance and time difference, you two stayed in touch and would often plan to meet each other whenever he would have shows in America. It isn’t until AEW Dynamite where your paths would cross again. 

Cody had called you, asking if you wanted to sign with the company. A part of you knows that your talent and popularity in the indies had gotten you the opportunity.

But you can’t help but hope that it was Kenny who’d put in the good word about you. 

You happily accept the offer and after weeks of talking, planning and paperwork, it’s official:

You’re #AllElite

You were at the locker room when you watched it happen.

It was AEW Dynamite’s TV debut and everyone couldn’t be any more excited. It was the company’s time to make history. The backstage area is buzzing with energy, a few stagehands would talk into their headsets and make sure that everything is going smoothly. 

You’re still a few weeks away from making your main roster debut, but Kenny had insisted that being backstage would be a good way to hype yourself up, maybe take a few notes from the people who will be making appearances tonight.

Everything was going swimmingly; Cody and Sammy put on an amazing show until Chris Jericho had shown up and ruined Cody’s celebration after putting Sammy away. 

Pac and Adam Page had been building up so much animosity between them and it was both exciting and terrifying to to see it all come to a head. The women, including yourself, surrounded the TV to witness Riho and Nyla’s match, and the reaction upon Riho’s victory had been deafening.

Now it’s time for the main event. The Elite against Jericho and Santana and Ortiz.

The match was going great, Kenny psyching himself up possibly for the V Trigger, until Jon Moxley looms behind him. The locker room goes silent, some of your peers anxiously yelling at the TV for Kenny not to turn around.

You and the rest of the female roster watch with baited breath as Moxley goes after Kenny, dragging him out of the ring and into the crowd and wailing blow after blow on Kenny’s body. Kenny gets some offense in but it’s been Moxley with the advantage. 

They spill their fight out into what looks to be the VIP area, and you can already feel your heart beating rapidly in your chest. And that was before Mox hooks Kenny for the Deathrider DDT, Kenny landing head first straight into a glass table. 

A loud noise that sounds like something between terror and shock rings through the room, and it takes you a moment to realize that it had come from you.

The camera goes back to the action going on in the ring but you’re already out the door, the women still inside whispering “What’s her deal?”

You run all the way to the trainer’s room but Kenny isn’t there. Maybe medical personnel are still helping up so you just wait. You nervously pace in front of the trainer’s office, waiting for what feels like forever. 5, 10, 15 minutes pass. What’s happening? It shouldn’t take the medical team this long to take injured talent to get checked, and already dark thoughts cloud your mind. 

What if he’d suffered something serious that he had to be rushed to the nearest hospital? 

Before your thoughts could get darker, you hear someone shouting “Out of the way! Move!” and you feel the anxiety lessen. It hikes back up, however, when you turn to see the medical team and a few referees carrying Kenny on a stretcher, the blonde still unconscious from the impact he’d suffered.

You instinctively follow after him, tears welling up in your eyes, but Aubrey, one of the company’s refs, stop you from getting inside.

You look at her, pleading almost. “Aubrey, I have to get in there! I have to make sure he’s okay!”

She nods understandingly but her face remains stern. “And I understand your concern, Y/N. We all know that you and Kenny go way back and believe me, it would hurt me to see a friend like this too. But I just can’t let you in right now.”

‘He’s not just my friend’ is what you want to tell her but you know better than to actually say it. 

Neither you nor Kenny had set a rule about your relationship being secret. But Kenny’s not the kind of guy who’d just tout his personal life around like it’s part of his gimmick. Same goes for you. 

You don’t want people to think that you’re only in the company because you’re dating one of the EVPs. You’re here because you’ve earned it.

Despite being sick to your stomach with worry, you decide to listen to Aubrey and sit outside, unable to sit still as the minutes tick on. After an hour or so, a doctor exits the office and you quickly spring to your feet.

“Doc?” You ask nervously, wringing your hands. “How is he? Can I check on him yet?”

“He has a slight concussion. We’re giving him some painkillers and plenty of rest, Y/N. But other than that, you have nothing to worry about. But if you still want to check on him, you can go right ahead.”

The doctor walks away, patting your shoulder before she does so. As soon as her hand is off your shoulder, you bolt inside the trainer’s office and shutting the door behind you.

Kenny is still in his ring gear, holding a bag of ice to his head, as he sits on the medical bed. Once in a while, he would hiss and groan in pain, and you can’t help but whimper in pity.

He doesn’t look up but you know he knows you’re there.

“Please tell me you’re not gonna cry over this, princess.” He sounds so nonchalant about this, as if being driven into a glass coffee table is something that happens on a day to day basis. 

You try to act and sound tough, wiping at the tears in your eyes. “Pfft, of course not. I know you’ve been through worse.”

Kenny smiles as he finally looks at you, those blue eyes as bright as his smile. “And yet I just heard you arguing with Aubrey an hour ago about not being let in.’

You roll your eyes. “Well, gee, Kenneth. Sorry for being concerned over your well-being.”

You didn’t mean for it to sound mean but Kenny’s smile falters and he looks almost remorseful.

“C’mere, Y/N.”

You walk over and he embraces you with his free arm, the one that’s not holding the ice to his head. He places a kiss on your forehead, then on the corner of your mouth. You sigh, feeling your heart flutter in your chest.

He pulls back, his beautiful smile back. 

“Sorry I worried you,” He says, sounding genuinely sorry. “It’s just...This whole Mox thing has been getting to me lately.”

You purse your lips together, trying not to bring up his unusual behavior on recent Being The Elite episodes.

Instead, you blurt out something else entirely, and you immediately wish you’d just mentioned the BTE stuff.

“Do we have to keep us a secret?”

He looks taken aback, and you’d love nothing more than to have a black hole suck you up right now.

“Well,” He ponders. “I mean, we don’t have to keep...us secret but you know me, Y/N. You know what I’m like. I don’t like having my personal relationships out there, especially romantic ones.”

He cuts you off before you could say something.

“And don’t get me wrong, I’m not ashamed or embarrassed to be yours. In fact, I want everyone to know about us but you make me happy and that’s enough for me. I don’t need the internet’s approval because I already know in my heart and soul that I want to be with you.”

You’re completely speechless. You feel warmth spreading across your cheeks, and he looks at you with so much love and affection that it makes you a little light-headed.

“So do I wanna keep us a secret?” Kenny asks rhetorically, reaching his free hand out to stroke his thumb on your tanned cheek. “Of course not. But you know the rumors that’ll go around if we tell everyone. And I don’t wanna hear and see people accusing you of being here because you’re with me. You deserve to be here just as everyone else does.”

He gives you another kiss, this time capturing your lips in a chaste kiss. You melt into the kiss, cupping his face in your hands. You stay with him in the trainer’s room to keep him company, talking about video games and upcoming AEW shows, and he looks at you as if you’re his entire world.

And you think to yourself:

Maybe this is one secret you can keep

--

A/N: So yeeeeaaahhhh, is that good? Is that okay? I hope it’s okay! If not, feel free to tell me what to improve! If you enjoyed it, I’m glad you did! So yeah, I have a lot more requests to go through so expect more fanfics from me!

[bionicdragonguardian1]

Voltron Rewritten Defender (1/8)

Also known as My Almost Raging Bitch List for this Goddamn Disastrous Disappointment of a Show

I binged all 8 seasons in under a week, so believe me when I say almost nothing was forgotten between seasons/episodes and I do tend to note that.

If it’s not obvious by the title, I’m planning an entire show AU. I am extremely open to people’s opinions on what I’m currently thinking and when I finally post this I’ll be open to criticism there too. If you would like to avoid seeing anything in regards to this feel free to blacklist #voltron_rewritten_defender because that’s what I’ll be using for this whole thing.

Enjoy, I guess.

Fair warning I am a multishipper, but for this show I leaned towards Klance, so if that bothers you that’s okay, I’m not going to be bashing any other ships (mainly just Dreamworks’ forced Allurance). If you think I missed something for any other ship lemme know! If you wanna have a ship discussion that’s cool too. The only other thing I can think of is that Allura’s attitude in S8 really stuck with me to the point that she bothered me throughout the entire rewatch (I was admittedly one of the people who thought she could be very Mary Sue ish when I first watched this) so that’ll show up now and again.

If you want to look at the Google Doc for the whole show, click the link, if not you can expand this post to see Season 1. I’ll be doing these in chunks, but as some of you know I do a FicRecList on one of my other accounts here @sorcerusdragonbionics​ so I’m gonna be alternating between that and these for the next couple days.

If you do the Google Route it’ll have you ask me for permission, this is normal and if you request it I’ll give you commenting abilities.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t30IRJonrBFh0qvs8recf3ayGoQ0rx02y0Tg1e4NTaI/edit?usp=sharing

Key

Things I kinda wanna bitch about

Things I did genuinely enjoy and like 

Rewatch Thoughts (basically what I remember from further forward and how I feel like it reflects back on earlier seasons)

Ship Talk (behold my multishipping insanity)

Things I think I’ll do in the Rewrite

Writing Notes (mainly for me or as explanation for what I’m planning)

VA and Closed Captioning Things

Other Fic Thoughts

This ended up being music commentary in S8

Season One

Problems with the Season overall:

To be honest if I hated this season I wouldn’t’ve kept watching because by the time I started S3 had just dropped

Episode 1

Here’s the deal, WHY ARE YOU SO LONG BUT SO EMPTY?!?

Yeah, nope, that’s mostly it

Fix the problem of telling instead of showing about the other Lions and remove Allura’s explanation of the Lions if possible (thank you Kross for explaining why it felt so empty- this vid is actually where I started getting the idea to actually go through with a full series AU)

DON'T RUSH THE LION INTROS

Also let the 5 introduce themselves to Allura and Coran

Also Character Drive to Complete Mission Should Be A Thing

Flesh out Paladin Personalities so that the Aris Arrival is End of Part One (making it closer to the length of E1)

Flesh out Lion intros so part 2+3 are more like full Eps without Sendak

Episode 2

75 degrees… that’s definitely in Fahrenheit, which why?

How does no one have a watch with a date on them?

“A man can be driven to do anything if a beautiful woman is just really really mean to him”

More inbetween scenes bc I can

I will accept the transformation sequence here, I’m just not going to write it

Episode 3

Please watch the use of Earth Time Slices please, because it’s confusing

I love the portrayal of PTSD in this show and I would die before I change it

Bye bye transformation sequence

Pidge’s talk with Shiro can please change

Episode 4

“I say Vol, you say Tron” will come up again if it kills me

Lance, how do you know what hotdog water and feet taste like?

I love how Coran is completely nonchalant about the fact that he’s drinking a hair tonic

Shiro, don’t bring down the mood

Goddammit Sendak, you could stay for this arc, but god I want you GONE!

Keith, having an emotion? Really?

The Pidge plot DID NOT NEED TO HAPPEN LIKE THAT!

Fight me I will change it

Or minimally change the fact that their selfish motivations are revealed to BAD and should be changed

Oh yeah, let’s not give the ONE GUY with notable homesickness a character arc around that

That moment when you realize Allura is like ‘wtf is a peanut’

Allura, don’t push it, some people don’t want to talk about it

You will have something to talk about, BIOLOGY

Decryption happens here, and next attempt to find family occurs… when?

Poor Coran, if there is anyone who was more forgotten than Lance it was him

Keith isn’t wrong, but he also doesn’t know how to say it without getting mad, which mood

Just pointing out Lance is not only smart, but selfless, tell me how he’s not the main character

My inner Shance/Klance shipper is sobbing

“Bomb fuel” mentioned here, occurs… actually it’s ok

Timelines need to be a thing!

Can I make the fight scenes more intense? Yes, I write them for my YJ Scripts. Will I? Almost definitely.

Keith with that much fire your mask should be closed because smoke inhalation is bad

Can we explain Vrepit Sa before s6?

It feels like Coran forgets that 10k years have passed under an evil empire and part of me likes it, but it hurts me

Episode 5

The Katie flashback is hurts me

I want to add Gender Identity

Can we talk about how Shiro is a nickname for Takashi Shirogane?

That’s not how an EMP works

The Coran sitting on Hunk’s shoulders with a machine gun is everything

I know the back x-ray was a joke, but I still don’t like it

Rax is an idiot, just saying

Bonding Moment!!!

Episode 6

“Intergalactic time measuring competition.”

“We had a bonding moment!”

Where is Sendak’s arm?

Fight me, Pidge’s ‘gender speech’

It will be a gender speech if it kills me

Lance, why are you acting the way you are?

“I figured” and “We were supposed to think you were a boy” ARE NOT PROPER REACTIONS!

Rolo, sometimes I want to punch you in the teeth

Lance’s boner is going to get someone killed

Lance had 4sec of logic and then Nyma brings up Keith, which ofc does him in

Let’s expand on the Komar, yeah?

Quiznack means fuck and NO ONE can tell me otherwise

Keith’s ability to fly is impressive and it’s awesome

Friendly reminder that Lance acknowledged the bonding moment

Episode 7

I LOVE the laser gun sound effects!!!

I just realized that Allura has no clue what an Acronym is

We… literally just talked about this and YOU didn’t know that Shiro, I understand the point, but seriously?

LIONS are TELEPATHIC Shiro DID NOT need to say that aloud!

I do actually like the fact that Kieth gets excited before realizing what he did

FIRE and ICE PEOPLE come on! What the hell?! You barely had to try

“Yes sir?” Keith to Shiro, what?

I love them and their cute little arguments

Left vs Right, thank you Zamber

We be lovin’ Hunay bc it’s pure as hell

Thank you Shiro for validating Hunk’s concerns

You could check  a little faster, Allura

I LIVE for this scene

Was it actually Rolo?

Do they have teleporters?

Keith being weird is my favorite thing

I love good big bros who argue tradition to save their baby sis

Zarkon is a bit of a moron

THEIR LIVES ARE IN DANGER ALLURA!

They all came through different doors… how?

What if the answer was no?

I’m ok with Lance embarrassing himself when he’s cocky, some people seem to forget that

Bye transformation sequence, I explained you ONCE and that’s it

Prorock… why are you familiar?

Episode 8

I admittedly forgot that they didn’t know these things would be different

Flying fight scenes I can do, teleporting not so much

Poor Shiro he thought he had an idea and he was wrong

I love Coran’s reaction

Also NO SHIT Allura

UHHHH Pidge said that not and of the other three so how did He know?

Allura may piss me off, but I do love this speech

“Your Altean Energy”??? Coran, you’re an Altean, I’m confused.

The “Sacred Altean” thing I get, but you must be more specific cuz it makes Coran sound like he thinks he’s not a proper Altean.

Oof, angsty

Also, I  know we can’t kill Allura yet, but... 

I love that Hunk forgot they hadn’t formed Voltron

Bye bye transformation sequence

Ummm, they NEED to explain the Bayard Equip bc that’s… two very different things that occurred between Hunk and Keith’s Bayard Weapons

Why is this a scene? It’s not a dog. So, yeah, I’m with Keith here

Episode 9

THIS IS NOT HEALTHY ALLURA!

I just realized that this doesn’t come back until S..7? 8? Whatever, WAY too long

I can’t unhear “Training Dick”

Did they have homework on Altea?

Be still my Punk shipper heart

WHY is he SO pretty?!

Y’know, the glowing red eye is usually a bad sign

I could SO mean and hurt Keith here

That moment when you’re like 90% sure Shiro heard that somewhere

Not what haunted means Coran, but accurate

Why could Lance see Alfor for a second?

I too would like the answer to “where was the Red Lion?”

PTSD IS AMAZINGLY WRITTEN!

It’s a shame this is NEVER treated properly again

Thank you for NOT making the swimming thing a thing

You didn’t need to TRY Voltron, what the hell?!

Here’s the deal,  Altea not being Obliterated-obliterated is actually a really interesting idea

Lance still wins, for the record

If she was infected in any way this wouldn’t drive me crazier than a bot on Halloween

But she’s not so this is BULL

Shallura confuses me SO much…

Ok, admittedly the scene with Allura and Alfor is beautifully heartbreaking

Episode 10

The fact that Zarkon was a close friend to Alfor should be addressed

Also Shiro calling himself “an inexperienced Pilot” hurts

Allura’s a MORON!

YES! MASSIVE ISSUE WITH YOU COMING

Nice puppetry Hunk

What happened to THIS Allura?! She’s reckless but not INSANE (or so boring I might cry)!

Is this the same Druid from Season 8? Pretty sure it’s 8… I forget which, but the one Keith fought

“Don’t walk through that door!” / Keith does/ “I think I told him” // “You are a paragon of leadership, Lance”

Hehheh I love Hunk teasing Lance about Allura

I do actually the fact that I can’t tell what size the purple container is until Keith grabs it

Heheh the Allura interacting with the Galra soldier

The computer sounds like Lance

Also Shiro had that “holy shit” moment

I HATE WRITING TELELPORTING FIGHTS

I’m 99% sure that the ONLY reason I didn’t fall into the Galra Keith rabbit hole was the fact that I binge watched

This scene confuses me… so much now that I know Shallura was apparently never going to be a thing

So confused

Episode 11

That hair flip though...

Coran, I get it, but calm down

Okay, but Keith has a point. Seriously, he’s not wrong. 

For the record, Haggar scares me

So much makes so much more sense now that we know Zarkon is the Original Black Paladin

That… makes no sense… “enough essence to open a wormhole”

Why are you transforming? More pieces to shoot at is usually a smart idea…

Hey hey, THACE!

Why can’t you have two active at once? I’m honestly serious.

I mean too OP, got it, but you can maneuver around that for temporary stuff

Shiro, use your words, yeah?

“Thinking” uh huh you mean “telepathy” right?

I genuinely forgot that Shiro got booted from Black

Damn! Yes Shiro! Kick some ass!

Ok, here’s the deal, Keith’s not listening to Coran, but he doesn’t have all the info (LIKE THE FUCKING BAYARD), Zarkon’s the OG Paladin, and he’s in distress

I HATE TELEPORTERS!

“Could have been” … uh Kuron exists ?? 

Also, Shiro with yellow eyes is fucking terrifying

We ain’t ficking stupid VLD

Zarkon’s a fucking idiot

Written properly his power-hungry attitude works even with him destroying his own ship

But it wasn’t so it’s null

You aren’t even subtle about Galra Keith

How can Allura see through Illusions?

Nobody knows!

Shiro, you have no jetpack, how are you so fast?

“Who cares, wormhole!” mood

I… uh… I want to do SO many things with this idea

Preferably not what they actually do...

[mtvswatches]

Wynonna Earp 2x12 I Hope You Dance

Click here for previous recaps!

Stray thoughts

1) Waverly confronts Bobo and the widows, certain that Bobo won’t hurt her. He admits he might not, but he won’t help her either. In an uncharacteristically honest moment, he admits that caring about her has only brought him pain. Waverly quips that no one said parenthood was easy. And I’M FREAKING OUT? IS THIS HER WAY OF CONFIRMING BOBO IS HER FATHER?!

2) Thankfully, Wynonna arrives on time, but Peacemaker is completely useless now that the seal is broken and this MOFO is waking up…

Shit is about to go down and I’M NOT READY. I’m really curious to see what Clootie looks like, though, I feel he’ll look something like the Master.

3) The sisters take a breather before all hell breaks loose, and I appreciate it…

You know what else I appreciate? Wynonna’s top priority – making sure Doc is not dead.

4) Well, Dolls is not dead, which is good, but not the answer I was expecting.

5) I truly appreciate the brief moment of levity…

6) So, this is what she had figured out before she went poof…

7) Wynonna is terrified that Doc might be dead now that the ring is broken. I’m Jeremy, btw.

8) I’m sorry, but is there anything more badass than trying to save the world while you’re about to give FUCKING BIRTH?!

9) WTF! Clootie is going to have Wynonna’s baby for dessert???!!

10) Oooh, I kind of saw this coming but I didn’t want to get my hopes up!

MERCEDES: Actually, I want a separation.

MERCEDES: Chopped my way into the 21st century. The world has changed. Hell, look at Wynonna Earp. She is 10 times the gunslinger Wyatt ever was and he put Bulshar in the ground! I want that ring!

I’m really into this new form of empowerment? Evil ladies also need to break free from the misogynistic ties to their evil lords. You go, Glenn Coco! Or Elsa, I guess…

She just took off and buried Bobo, Clootie and her sister. Does this mean that the season’s Big Bad was Mercedes all along? And not Clootie! Damn, I really love that plot twist!

11) The Iron Witch says the plate only works as a shield, and these two badass motherfuckers are not having it…

Can they look any more badass?! And I really wish they had allowed Wynonna to say fucking!

12) Dolls finds Doc at his home…

He’s having an existential crisis over being mortal and he’s basically contemplating suicide. And I almost believed he couldn’t take not being ageless anymore, but it was the possibility of living a mortal life in a Wynonna-less world that was pushing him over the edge because the second he heard she was still alive…

It’s like his soul returned to his body… and now he’s willing to die but for an entirely different reason, and I swear to God, I choked up during this whole scene. Does that make sense? Am I an idiot?

13) I guess there’s no better time for confessions than when facing the possibility of absolute and total obliteration. In a few seconds, Waverly breaks the news to Wynonna that Nicole is married and that she’s not Wynonna’s sister. Wynonna’s reply is quick and certain…

A lot of emphasis is placed on the bloodline in this show, considering the whole hereditary curse. But nothing as volatile as blood would ever get in the way of Waverly and Wynonna. They are sisters if ever sisters there were.

I truly love how there was no hesitation. At the same time, I wonder if the lack of hesitation means Wynonna had considered this possibility before?

14) Okay, Wynonna literally has one shot to kill Clootie, get rid of the Widows, and break the curse. Cool. Cool cool cool cool.

15) Jeremy and Nicole are having this super sweet moment…

JEREMY: And, uh, I stay because I don't fit in here. But none of you ask me to. I'm allowed to be me. NICOLE: You're part of the family. And being part of the family means...

AND THEN THIS FUCKING ELSA FROM HELL BURST INTO THE ROOM AND NEARLY GAVE ME A HEART ATTACK…

And please don’t tell me that we’re using the “put Nicole in peril” schtick again! And we’re adding Jeremy into the mix! Just great!

16) THE BABY IS FUCKING COMING AMIDST ALL THIS DEBACLE!

17) I’M FUCKING DEAD.

She’s my queen, I love her, I’d sell my soul for Wynonna Earp, I’ve said it.

18) Oh, the other McBitch just arrived and is threatening Waverly while Elsa says Wynonna is the weapon she’s been looking for, and what the fuck is going on?

19) Wynonna’s sigh of relief and barely noticeable smile when she sees Doc is alive, though…

I leave for these moments.

20) NOT THESE FUCKING MOMENTS, THOUGH! WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING?!

21) UGH THESE TWO MOTHERFUCKERS ALMOST GOT ME!

Two birds, one stone. These two! They could convey their plan using a code they could only understand! Why aren’t they together?!

But there’s still Clootie and Bobo, right…

And the baby is coming…

22) Ugh the fire-assholes have shown up, they offed Wynonna’s doctor and they’re coming after the baby!

23) WHAT’S THE FUCKING PLAN? WHAT WILL THEY DO WITH THE BABY? IS NICOLE GOING TO TAKE THE BABY AWAY? They’re talking about crossing the triangle…

24) WTF ROSITA!!!!!!!

THIS FUCKING EPISODE DOESN’T LET UP!

25) Bobo has gone Spike…

So Clootie or Bulshar or whoever sucked something out of Bobo and Bobo offered up Waverly as the Big Bad’s new bride WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!

26) Great. JUST FUCKING GREAT.

27) Oh, thank god, something worked out!

Wynonna basically willed Peacemaker into accepting Waverly as an Earp!

28) Brendan Fehr is saying that Wynonna is going to corrupt the baby and screw it up and I’m like… Brendan Fehr, I was rooting for you!

29) Damn, Dolls!

At least they died in their element. Get it?

30) When you try to come up with a good comeback and you just…

31) I guess I’ll just have to get used to Bobo never being back for more than two episodes…

32) I’m not crying, you are…

I'm the Earp heir. They're always coming for me and everything I love. I don't want to. I didn't realise how much I wouldn't want to. You're the coolest thing I ever did. You're going to have it much better than me. I promise.

And Waverly is taking the baby away and Wynonna is asking her to make sure that Doc gets a moment with him and I’m here, dying.

33) Waverly and the baby just crossed over the border and neither of them burnt, which means that the baby is Doc’s and the revenants don’t have any claim over it. But what does this mean for Waverly? Whose daughter is she, then?

34) Wynonna just offed the whole gang of revenants, but it doesn’t really feel satisfying at all when her baby is being sent away minutes after being born…

35) Did Jeremy just used Waverly and Nicole’s ship name?! HE FUCKING DID!

36) Perry is taking the baby as a way to thank Wynonna for saving his life. Cool dude.

37) And now Doc is meeting the baby and I WON’T SURVIVE THIS SHIT!

I CAN’T BREATHE. EVERYTHING HURTS.

38) Bobo just got a holiday for one in the well, and he admits that he never said Waverly was his daughter, just kin. I repeat, what does this mean for Waverly? Who is her father? Doc confesses that when Dolls shot him, he was sent to hell. It remains to be seen how long he was there - if it was a few hours or a few centuries, and what impact this will have on him…

39) Wynonna named the baby after both of their mothers and I’m a mess…

This is not the happy ending I wanted for these two.

40) There’s so much I don’t understand…

The woman narrating is Wynonna’s mother? And she’s ALIVE? Has she been alive this whole time? What about the secretive look between Dolls and Nicole? Is she having second thoughts about her divorce? And what about the folder she was holding with info about Bulshar? Is she working with Dolls behind Waverly’s back? And how can Jeremy and Waverly be acting so carefree when everything is a mess?

If Wynonna’s mom is alive, there’d better be an explanation as to why this was never brought up before. It doesn’t make any sense!

I need Alice in Wynonna and Doc’s life, okay? This can’t be the end of that storyline, I just won’t accept it.

41) Amazing season finale, full of plot twists and emotional moments. I’ll admit I shed more than one tear. I truly can’t believe how the show continues to be so fast-paced and engaging. There never is one minute, one line, one scene wasted – everything has meaning and is relevant to the plot, and it never lets up and I’m so excited to see what they have to offer in season 3, and hopefully, I’ll catch up before season 4 premieres!

This show is quickly climbing up the ladder of my very short and exclusive list of favorite shows, I swear. I’m already looking forward to rewatching it and discovering things I’d missed the first time around.

42) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi.Thanks!