#i could watch a whole season of just that era it apparently did so much in bringing them together

[brinnybee]

Your eyes that promise sweet nights Bring to my soul a longing A thirst for love divine ((Green Eyes -- Jimmy Dorsey))

A 1941 playlist for the ineffable husbands (and their candlelit dinner-date, ah).

[doubleodonut]

i really did want to like this season going in but ugh. like hearing oh it's written by burnie directed by matt, the seasons i don't like got entirely retconned (petty. i know. no shade to people who like the shisno trilogy i was just eh on it), clearly meant to be a return to reconstruction-era format in some way. all sounds fantastic. unfortunately

basically everything from sarge's death onward felt entirely un-earned and un-genuine. this is probably my biggest sticking point with it all. rvb has been extremely good at making these incredibly silly characters do emotional moments well in a way that feels true to the characters- the finale to season 13, for example, is one of the best bits in the show, imo. and that's a really delicate balance! because fundamentally, these characters are built on comedy, and often being mean to each other, and making genuine interpersonal moments between them can be a really tricky business. the emotional moments in restoration, for me, leaned way too far into the sappy side and as such felt entirely un-genuine, starting with sarge's speech and continuing for the .. most of the rest of it.

now, some other bits would have felt really good if it weren't for their surrounding stuff, if that makes sense? like. after sarge's death, simmons becoming first-in-command and immediately discharging grif. that's really good. that's REALLY GOOD it feels true to their characters and earnest in a way they would be. but the surrounding problems that i mentioned already made it land a looot softer than it should have.

the whole retcon thing was...really unclear, frankly. like, it was sort-of-stated in the trailer, but when the season opened with dylan, as well as the reveal of wash in the hospital, carolina doc and donut being gone, i'd figured that oh, the retcon implied in the trailer HADN'T actually happened, church's simulations just included the stuff that happened. (and also, you should be able to tell what's going on in a piece of media without having watched the trailers..) but no, the retcon was apparently real, this season took place directly after the chorus trilogy. just not communicated well.

where were carolina and donut. like, we know doc'd died but, like. where are those two. donut just ISN'T there (only just mentioned by dr. grey at one point and simmons at another), and carolina is. missing, for some reason, until she's needed for the final fight. given carolina's absence for most of the thing, her moments with tex also felt very underbaked.

the "doc's been dead the whole time!" twist was stupid i'm sorry. i feel like it could have been done well if the rest of the season was better but as it is it just feels cliche. i think i get what they were going for- we never saw the final climactic fight of season 13 because church never saw it, now coming back after however-many-months, we as the audience weren't filled in on how that battle happened, making a surprise "actually, x died!" thing narratively interesting. it just wasn't done well, imo

the meta as a villain was .. just strange as it was played out. the idea of meta!tucker? tucker stuck in his own body while being puppeted by the epsilon-fragments-as-meta? or even, like what epsilon thought was going on, tucker straight up heel-turn? that fucking rules. i am SO into that idea. but i really didn't like how it was done. epsilon-meta was just..goofy. their lines all sounded like a cartoon villain. so much threatening and so much..talking? like, compare to alpha-meta- silent save for the interconnected whispers of the ai, focused, driven, not having long protracted villain speeches. not that villain monologues are BAD, they just don't feel right for the fucking meta! it made them as a villain feel weird and, again, pretty cliche. also, like, the bit where they held the sword to simmons' face and started monologuing threateningly at him? just didn't fit with what we know about the meta at all. the meta would have fucking stabbed him without hesitation that was some felix-type shit

(now, maybe this was the influence of the "host" between either version of the meta. like, maine is silent, so maine-meta is silent. tucker is super chatty, therefore so is tucker-meta. that would have worked if a) tucker was actually the meta rather than just A Meat Puppet and b) the dialogue actually had any resemblance to how tucker talks rather than Stock Villain)

jumping off the topic of epsilon/tucker!meta. tucker was so stiffed this season. the meta could have been piloting a robot body and it would have made 0 difference. the torture scene didn't land and had basically no actual purpose. as others have pointed out, an ACTUAL villain!tucker could have been pretty fucking cool if done right, and would have been a really interesting twist on the meta. i think meat-puppet-tucker could also have been done interestingly, if we saw more of tucker and his conflicts with the ai, or, like, even what happened leading up to the meta Happening after the end of s13. but tucker, one of the imo most interesting and best characters in the entire show, just had almost no influence, purpose, no character development, nothing.

perhaps most damningly of all, it just. wasn't funny. there were a couple little jokes here and there that got a laugh out of me, but there was no sustained comedic energy throughout the thing, and a lot of the bits (church's youtube exposition, the zoom bit) dragged on for WAY too long. i cant believe they did the "ehh.......it's right behind me isn't it" bit entirely straight.

overall, i felt this season is overall underbaked. there were some very cool concepts, bits, and ideas, but all together just did not work.

[morethansky]

***THE ACOLYTE SPOILERS***

• Me, seconds before I could hear millions of thirsty voices crying out: Oh my god is a nymph-bathing thing about to happen, is he legitimately about to strip

• Sadly, unlike Osha, I am immune to the Stranger's practically full frontal, but the reveal of his little tied-back hair bits at the same time had me screaming into a pillow, so we all win.

• So the island was definitely meant to evoke Ahch-To, right? This was a very The Last Jedi episode (it even had the same mismatched pacing for the three storylines lmao), and the Kylo Ren theme was the most prominent it's been in the end credits. I think the theories about Qimir being a progenitor of the Ren are spot on. I like this quite a bit; it would be smart to build off of High Republic stuff while cementing Resistance-era lore. This would line up with the Bad Batch building off of the Clone Wars stuff while cementing Resistance-era lore. I also personally find it a bit boring that Bane's lineage is laid out all neatly and am particularly interested in darksiders being outside of it. And it would mean the show is drawing even more from the books and comics, which I'm always in favor of. And fun fact, my second-ever SW fic was based on the Rise of Kylo Ren comics!

• But ALSO, given that they clearly showed the cortosis vein, it also evokes Bal'demnic, the planet where Plagueis kills Tenebrous omg??? Not to be an annoying fanboy, but I adore the Darth Plagueis novel and we're apparently supposed to see two additional Sith Lords before the season ends somehow??? And in the novel, Tenebrous secretly trains multiple apprentices. I could totally see the season ending with Qimir suffering a vague fate and an extremely brief Tenebrous appearance that leaves the door open for a season 2 big bad. That David Harewood casting rumor is too delicious to be fake!

• On that note, since episode 2, I haven't been able to stop thinking about how when we're introduced to Qimir, he's sleeping, and he's awoken by Mae, who is now confirmed to have been his apprentice. Which is notably how Palpatine kills Plagueis. It just feels so much like a neat little allusion to me.

• Did this episode not have such Mend This Old Wound vibes?? Waking up in your enemy's lair, finding out your wounds were tended to by him, realizing he really wants to convert you, discovering he doesn't find you a threat, being surprised by his vulnerability, being surprised by what of his past and his inner self he's willing to divulge. Tbh I hadn't even realized how tropey those elements were until I watched this lmao.

• Sadly, despite my lifelong love for enemies-to-lovers stories, I don't vibe with a lot of M/F ships, bad boy/good girl ones especially. I'm happy for the Oshmir shippers, though, and at least it's happening in a story created by a queer woman, so hopefully it'll be done tastefully. Hmm... Perhaps if I genderbent Qimir I could get behind writing something, and then the seduction to the dark side would be strengthened by the queer metaphor...

• BUT ALSO YOOO OSHA/JECKI CONFIRMED???? And after Dafne Keen confirmed that she played Jecki as having a crush on Osha?? Y'all, Osha was TOTALLY floating the idea of asking Jecki out on a date with that whole "the next time I'm on Coruscant" thing, oh my goddd. The gays continue to be buried, but at least they exist, and I guess at least everyone else is buried, too?

• I love that we got a quiet moment of Sol grieving because finally there was nobody watching and he couldn't hold it together any longer. This is what I was begging for the entire run of the Bad Batch. Wonderfully acted, too. Lee Jung-Jae's expression work is so good, and I love the long, lingering shot and how you see the tears well up gradually.

• I love when actors have to act as characters acting, and Amandla Stenberg was already acting as two different characters that they had to keep distinct from each other, but in this episode, they had to act as one of their characters acting as the other character lmao. Incredible.

• Halfway through this episode I was like, why does it feel like we're getting blueballed for information omfg. We're definitely getting the second Brendok flashback episode next week, and obviously they had to keep it at the forefront of the viewers' minds without giving it away, but I feel like structurally they could've lined this up in a different way that didn't just reveal nothing in order to kick the can down the road lol. I guess this is a pretty classic issue in mysteries.

• I've been deeply confused as to why there's been so much Jedi-good/Jedi-bad discourse lately, but I don't see them as firmly in either court and that to me feels like the entire point of the part they play in the story?? Which is why I always love seeing the tension in the Jedi-Senate relationship and the way the political machinations play out, especially when Palpatine's not involved (at least overtly).

So I really liked Vernestra's conversation with the senator and the line about the Jedi always being transparent so an audit shouldn't be an issue and how the show clearly illustrates that that's not remotely true. Which is also really interesting because we have Sol doing a cover-up, possibly him and the other three Jedi who were Brendok doing a different cover-up, and also Vernestra, who doesn't know about what happened on Brendok or what Sol is hiding, clearly looking uncomfortable at the suggestion that the Jedi are transparent, pointing to other things they (or she specifically) haven't been disclosing.

I'm a sucker for political corruption in stories and when well-meaning people's hands are tied, so I'm eating it up. And of course I love how they're setting up the Jedi's fall from grace and building out context for why and how they would walk into Palpatine's trap.

• Qimir talking about being a Jedi a very long time ago is very intriguing. Upon seeing his scar, my first thought was Force lightning and that he was talking about being abandoned by a Sith master. But with Vernestra's whip making an appearance that doesn't add anything to the story otherwise, the show is clearly presenting it as the cause of the scar?? Which is VERY interesting.

• Mog's suggestion that Sol killed all the Jedi made my jaw drop because why would they even speak this outrageous idea into existence if it doesn't have truth to it in some way??? Like oh shit, that's REALLY fun. Has Sol killed Jedi before? Would he? Are the other Jedi wary of him? Do they feel the same way about the other three Jedi who were on Brendok? Mog specifically notes that Sol is very powerful. We already saw this with him going up against Qimir and surviving, so why this line?

• Sol was already my favorite character from the start just with how warm he was and how full of regret and how much he clearly loved Osha even though he wasn't supposed to, and every episode has drawn the darkness simmering within him closer to the surface, which brings him even closer to the kind of character I'm particularly fond of, so I'm very, very interested in where the show takes him. I don’t know if they could really swing Sith Master Sol, but Lee Jung-Jae sure as hell could act it.

• Can I just say, the writing for this show is definitely wobbly, but I at least appreciate that showrunner Leslye Headland has a refreshing understanding of story mechanics, even if she might love foils a little too much (and this is coming from a total foil whore). What she said about a good plot twist being built up so that the viewer realizes what's about to happen just before it's fulfilled instead of coming out of nowhere and being a total shock literally made me pump my fist because I've been complaining about the internet's poor understanding of this concept for literal years!! And the way she talked about how when you watch Jecki die, you want her to move out of the way so you can see the Stranger's face, and how in thinking that you've betrayed her and in a way become complicit in her death, is SO good.

• It's too bad all live-action Star Wars ever is doomed to have mediocre dialogue. But at least these things make me feel fairly confident in having high hopes for the Brendok reveal. And regardless of what happens, I am so excited to see goddess Mother Aniseya again next episode, omg omg!!!

[maliciousalice]

Hii Do you have a fave Janeway out-of-uniform look?

Ohh this is such a hard choice! There are so many reasons I like her out of uniform-- A lot of the time it's because we get to see who she is behind the veil. That couldn't be more apparent than in Resolutions, she flirts, explores and relaxes while she struggles to maintain her identity. She has like, 5 costume changes in that episode, albeit modest in design, they are quite revealing in a sub-textual way. Funnily enough, I actually would like to catalogue each time she is out of uniform and break down how it relates to the narrative etc. I sometimes ponder about the choices that have been made with hair and costume. We don't actually know much besides a few articles and scattered pieces of media--Most behind the scene information is about set design, which in it's own right is cool, but sometimes feels like it’s highlighted due to the male audience and as a result the other artists aren't valued enough. In theory, I'd like to uplift them because their efforts transform the lack frontal, narrative-body of some characters- we consequently learn things such as the fashion of the era, character’s states of mind, setting, etc, simply through what they are wearing– Do I dislike that? No. Because I understand the format of Star Trek is limited by the nature of being a 24 episode per season show. Sometimes things appear rushed or incomplete but if you look in the right direction, the work that was produced is just as rich as most shows, if not more. For the most part don’t think audiences appreciate the conditions that this show was made under.

The whole show has certainly been more impactful on the cultural zeitgeist than others and I think the reason for that success goes beyond the surface level- It’s not just a simple miracle that it works as well as it does, talented teams of actors, writers and people in costume all combined their skills together to forge it. They did the best they could with what they were given, and I appreciate the costume designers and writers for attempting to provide some semblance of substance in the background. (On another note I wish Paramount had archived their costumes better. Evil that we only get high resolution photography when they're selling them to someone's private collection)

However, to answer your actual question, my favourite out of uniform stint is when Captain Janeway is modified to look like a Klingon in the Killing Game! The disguise worked so well for me that I didn't recognise her on my first watch through.

Interestingly in the brief scene with brainwashed Janeway, we see an acting side of Kate's that is pretty rare. She delivered a unique and entertaining performance. While she has had to get physical on a few occasions as Janeway, and even other roles, she has never had to go full feral mode and I love seeing her in a way that is untethered from all of herself, she yells, bares her teeth, barrels into others, and does somersaults without hesitation. It's delightful choreography, and It immediately makes us question what is going on. Who is this? Can’t possibly be our well-adjusted hero, because whoever this is, is brazenly-fierce and in Klingon attire! But yes we find out it is indeed her, arguably a repressed version of her mind but regardless Janeway is completely transformed both physically and mentally, and that’s shockingly fun. 

Lending to that idea of fun, is the juxtaposingly detailed presentation of the Klingon costume versus the Starfleet uniform. I love the overall shapes, matte qualities contrasting with the metal details, the decorative line-work that leads the eye around, and materials such as swinging chains and fur, that make it look good in motion. From what I’ve seen there is a difference in the female and male armour, with the breast plating and bodice design. The armour’s bulky top half with its shoulder pads deliver a signature look, and it looks great against the simplified bottom. Considering Klingon’s do a lot of close combat, my guess is that it’s design is more about manoeuvrability, and boasting intimidation, rather than heavy defence. Ironically after all that ducking and dodging, ho ho Janeway gets stabbed for leaving her guard down. If I looked, I am sure I could find something to back that up, since Klingons have extremely dedicated lore. 

The makeup on Janeway is really neat too, the orange tones they used on her face make her crystalline eye colour dramatically pop. There is also a delicious parallel to her styling and B'Elanna's mother from Barge of the Dead in the episode that I quietly indulge in BUT I DIGRESS.

Despite the unusual circumstances, I wish we had more photography done of Kate in the unique costumes she wore beyond a few on set pictures, because I want to ogle at a more editorial/detailed press presentation of each one and I believe that everyone should treasure all versions of Janeway.

Blah Blah Blahhhh haha

I feel a little vulnerable spreading my thoughts around but I really appreciate you asking me about them and getting me out of my shell <333.

[zalrb]

As someone who watched season 1 and 2 the boy was in love with marina like when this "he's been in love with her forever" happened I do not know

And penelope was pathetically pining after him, which is still the same in this season. Season 3 was marketed as penelope's bad bitch era and her being desired era and in the end what we got was her begging colin for a kiss and her only other suitor being a guy who could care less ab loving her. So idk when we're supposed to be seeing all that about a fat woman being loved out loud on television.

Also penelope seemed effectively over colon since the kiss like she seemed to barely be interested in him till he started fucking things up for her but I mean I guess I can believe she loves him since she's wanted him for 3 seasons now but smt that was teased for so long should not have been as big of a let down as it was like they really gave nothing.

As someone who watched season 1 and 2 the boy was in love with marina like when this "he's been in love with her forever" happened I do not know

So, I was actually just talking to initiumseries about this at lunch, I think friends-to-lovers is one of the hardest romantic tropes to pull off organically, particularly if one person has been pining for years/seasons and the other has been completely oblivious to that fact because the realization of "I've always been in love with her" or "I have feelings for her" has to be realistic and Bridgerton didn't give them enough to do, enough time together in season for Colin to catch up in a way that doesn't seem rushed and out of the blue. It just looks like he touched her hand one time and suddenly he's obsessed.

And it doesn't even have to be original, it just has to be well-executed and well-crafted.

Like Penelope refusing to accept Colin's apology and he feels her loss and misses talking to her while also seeing her have easy conversations, the way that they used to apparently, with someone else and feeling a type of way about it. He apologizes again, says something passive aggressive about her suitor, she can shoot back that at least he's interested in her and wants to get to know her, wants to know her interests (since I saw something about how Colin and Penelope only ever talked about Colin) and then he can list off things like, "Well does he know that you xyz? Was he there for the time you xyz? How about when xyz?" *charged moment*

She can spend all of her money to buy her dresses, change her hair, do the French aesthetic or whatever and then they can have the "this isn't you" conversation, maybe she says something self-deprecating and self-loathing and Colin can round off all of the wonderful things about her *charged moment*

and her only other suitor being a guy who could care less ab loving her.

And this part seemed so odd to me because it seemed like he DID like her and there was affection there and suddenly it was like, love? idk about that. And I was like ??

Also penelope seemed effectively over colon since the kiss like she seemed to barely be interested in him till he started fucking things up for her but I mean I guess I can believe she loves him since she's wanted him for 3 seasons now

And even this whole thing could've been done so much better. If she begs him to kiss her and she's super embarrassed by it because she's at a low, vulnerable point but that emotionally manipulative kiss that didn't need to happen that way awakened something in Colin, then actually have him fuck up her shit with more than just one dance in the final episode of the first part, like actually have him chase her throughout and she does everything she can to avoid him and he insist on talking about what happened and her being like I don't want to think about the most humiliating night of my life, have him shocked and offended and hurt that she sees it that way, have the "Was it really that bad?" *intense staring* *charged moment* interrupted and she runs away or something.

Give a Bridgerton-esque version of FFMW where maybe a suitor embarrasses her and Colin gets incredibly angry on her behalf and is saying things and she gets angry because it messes with her head and that's a confession instead of begging him to kiss her

So idk when we're supposed to be seeing all that about a fat woman being loved out loud on television.

I would have to assume they mean what happens in part 2 when they'll be having more sex/romantic scenes because if it's going to be more of what we saw in this part then that's entirely dishonest promo

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I enjoyed that latest Taskmaster episode a lot. I don’t know why I’ve hardly written any posts about this season since it started, as it’s been really good. Here’s a brief summary of my updates opinions four episodes in:

- The main thing I wanted for Nick was a chance to show off his magician-related skills. He got that chance in the tension task… it did not go as I’d predicted. However, he has made up for breaking my predictions by turning out to be the sweetest person in the world. It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper cinnamon roll on Taskmaster. I think his gentle banter with Greg continues to be the funniest thing he brings, it’s delightful every time.

- Steve Pemberton won me over in the first couple of episodes, but then lost me pretty hard by admitting he broke that egg on purpose, I must admit I am now pretty focused on hoping he loses specifically as punishment for that. I got mad at him then for sacrificing the task in order to play to the TV edit/try too hard to be funny – he’s done similar things several times since, like imposing extra rules in the Mr. Blobby task and writing puns in the hand task. It is not in the spirit of Taskmaster! He’s probably basically fine but I want him to lose so that future Taskmaster contestants understand you do not come here to perform, you come here to play. I don’t even just hold that belief because of how competitive I am, I also think it’s much funnier if you let you and throw yourself right into the game, which he’s not quite doing, and it disproportionately annoys me.

- I find Sophie Willan’s unpredictability entertaining. Usually she’s shit at the tasks, and every once in a while she’ll be great. She has no idea what’s going on almost ever but apparently has a good eye for art. She talks to horses. She nearly drowns in a river that only goes up to her waist. She demonstrates sexy dances that literally no one asked her to do? She has never seen this show before. You never know what she’s going to bring to the table next.

- All right, Joanne McNally’s won me around. She went in with a significant deficit in my opinion of her because I say some quite shitty things on a different TV show once, but four episodes in, she’s been entertaining enough for me to forgive it (I mean… I don’t actually forgive the sentiment expressed, but I can decide I like her enough to choose to assume it was just a misguided attempt to be funny). She’s breathing life into tense situations and tension into situations where the task explicitly requests it. She’s also never seen the show before but she’s throwing herself all the way into it. She’s consistently funny. She’s sharp and knows what’s going on, task-wise, almost all the time, while making it look fairly effortless. She didn’t do the prep work but I respect that she still showed up to play.

- Well, we haven’t had the full-on meltdowns from Robins, but I kind of knew that would happen, as they caught him just as he was moving into his “sober and more enlightened” era. It will always be a loss that Taskmaster never cast Farthinggate-era Robins when they had the chance, but I’m actually surprised at how much I’m enjoying “on his best behaviour Robins”. Mainly because it is visibly incredibly difficult for him to not have competitive meltdowns and to play it as chill as he is (which still isn’t very chill, it’s just chill compared to what he used to be), and the tension of that difficulty can be very funny. Maybe it’s like how people trying to avoid swearing on the radio is funnier than just hearing them swear. I’ve heard John Robins have plenty of proper competitive meltdowns – it is a new and uniquely entertaining thing to watch him sit there and try to physically force every nerve in his body to not do that. A whole new level of the pointless intensity. Those team tasks especially have potential for it. Also, they’ve used the same joke several times now, but I don’t mind at all. They could keep implying that John’s fucked up a task and giving him time to panic before saying it’s fine – that might get old after 100 or so episodes, but 10 episodes wouldn’t be nearly enough for that to stop being funny. I’d be fine if they keep it up all season. I desperately hope he wins but I also hope they torture him.

I have to admit I may have got too into the competition too early in this season, because normally it isn’t until the last few episodes, if the scores are tight, when I start to get really concerned about whether it’ll end up going my way. But yesterday, while watching episode four, I found myself genuinely stressed during every task because of how much I want John Robins to beat Steve Pemberton. I mean, I want him to win, but I specifically want him to beat Steve Pemberton, because I do not want someone to get away with being smugly too good to throw himself entirely into Taskmaster. I’m too invested. I knew John had gone in one point ahead of both Steve and Joanne, and I was keeping score in my head throughout the episode, of how far each score led him to extend his lead over both of them. I don’t usually count points as the episode goes along until episodes 9 or 10.

Most tasks I’m less interested in John’s total score and more interested in his score relative to Steve. I realize Joanne is also competitive and a threat to win and I want him to beat her too, but I don’t think she’s as likely to win overall, she’s not as competitive in general and the only reason she’s so close to the top right now is she got a lucky 5-0 that’s not likely to repeat itself. Also, if she wins I’ll be disappointed, but not nearly as disappointed as I’ll be if Steve does.

Anyway, I thought episode 4 was great fun. It does feel a bit more “simmering” than some other Taskmaster seasons – I almost wrote “gentle” but I don’t think that’s quite true, because there seems to be a lot going on. It’s just not all being shouted the way it is in some seasons. I like it, I enjoy the unpredictable mystery of Sophie Willan and the incomprehensible charm of Nick Mohammed and the understated arrogance of Steve Pemberton (in a “fuck this guy but he makes a good villain” way) and the simmering anger of John Robins. Also Joanne McNally is there, cheerfully shouting whatever thoughts occur to her, and they’re almost always funny.

One note I do have to mention in writing a post about Taskmaster s17e04 – if you have a good friend who’s recently quit drinking due to quite a severe and life-ruining alcohol addiction, with rum as his drink of choice for a number of years, you should maybe not trick him into drinking rum on national television even if it’s non-alcoholic? Ed Gamble said on the podcast that he thinks the rest of them got regular rum and only John got special non-alcoholic rum, and I think/hope Ed was wrong about that, because you really shouldn’t trick people into drinking hard liquor at work even if they’re not alcoholics in recovery. Especially since any of those people could have gone all in and drank the whole glove for a laugh. Going out of their way to procure special non-alcoholic rum is a pretty weird thing to do when Ribena has been used on the show before and has to be cheaper/easier to find/avoids the thorny issue of alcohol altogether. I found it funny that they threw pickled onions in there, because anyone who’s listened to John Robins on the radio will know he’s obsessed with pickled onions; I figured Alex added that as a sort of in-joke with his friend, to the point where it’s almost unfair that by being friends with Alex, John gets an item on the task tailored to things he’s most likely to recognize. But Alex will also know that rum was John Robins’ drink of choice for a long time (I mean, I know it, so I'm pretty sure his real-life drinking buddy Alex Horne does), which sort of makes putting rum in the task look like an incredibly twisted and fucked up version of that joke. I'm sure it was just an oversight, but still, pretty big oversight. Even if they didn’t have an alcoholic in the cast, why bring alcohol into it at all when you could just use some other drink that starts with R?

Having said that, does anyone know if non-alcoholic whiskey can replicate the burning sensation of the real thing, or does it just try for the taste? Asking for a friend who's trying to give up whiskey but really misses it and specifically misses its burning qualities and that friend is me. I actually hadn't thought about non-alcoholic hard liquor until Alex mentioned it on the show, I just knew about non-alcoholic beer and wine. I might look into that. But anyway, they probably shouldn't feed it to people who are at work without warning.

[waitformethistime]

The Church on Ruby Road review

Well that was fun, for the most part. Weird pacing issues and it's mostly used as set-up for the oncoming season. But also a fresh new jumping on point for those who are interested in starting the show.

So let's dive in.

To start, I think Ncuti is a very charismatic actor. But, and this is an RTD problem more than a him problem, he plays the Doctor like a superhero. I was fine with the rope gloves the first time around, but by the end of the episode with him dramatically pulling down a ship like he's in a comic book movie, I was ready to see the back of them.

Then we get Ruby, our other lead, who is...Fine. She's just like every other NuWho companion we've gotten. This isn't a knock on her, but there's only so many times you can do plucky modern girl who also happens to be uber special in some way without it becoming stale and unfortunately NuWho has done it too many times at this point. So I'm a bit jaded now I guess, but she hasn't sold me yet.

Interestingly enough though, she, and by extension, what looks to be this season's main plot, very much reminds me of Moffat's era. So if this is RTD's attempt at doing a Moffat plot, I'm interested to see how he pulls it off because his writing is quite a bit blunter than Moffat's is. Say what you will about Moffat, but I love a good mystery, and I'm very interested to know who dropped baby Ruby off (bootstrap paradox maybe?) I thought at first it would just end up being 15, but apparently RTD has something else in mind.

This whole episode kinda played like a Moffat plot, but with none of the build-up or emotional pay-off (Doctor going back to meet his companion as a child, crack in the ceiling, timey-wimey nonsense) except I barely know these characters so it was really hard for me to care. And with how reckless 15 was with baby Ruby, I'm left wondering what the point was. Why would he destroy a ship that she was still on?! Get her off first, you idiot! Not to mention with how far she fell, the impact of falling in his arms would've probably broken her neck. Newborn babies are very fragile. Not to mention, just leaving her outside in the snow. Damn, atleast open the door and put inside or something where her cries will echo. What if they hadn't heard her? I remember a similar scene from Meet the Robinsons. But that was a cartoon so I can let it slide more.

The direction of the warm tones turning cool once adult Ruby disappeared was really good and immediately clued me in that something was wrong. Though I thought the dialogue afterwards with Carla was very heavy-handed and unnatural. Why was it specifically taking care of baby Ruby that made Carla a better person? The fact that Ruby is white also has some unfortunate implications since Carla and Cherry are a black family, but that could just be me being cynical with how RTD has done his previous black characters a disservice..And why was she telling a whole stranger her whole life story with this dead look on her face? I would've been asking why tf he was in my house...

Then we get the Goblins. First of all, they're massively underutilized with a total of 5 minutes of screentime, and most of that is used on an overproduced pop song that made me think I was watching a Disney Channel movie. 15 getting in on it certainly didn't help that impression. I'm a big fan of musicals, but this just felt out of place. I could forgive 15 singing if it was obvious he was just BS-ing his way through an escape and it was acapella. But the excessive autotune just really took me out of it.

Also don't like that 15 just automatically knew what goblins were and how they worked. When did he encounter them? This isn't the first time Doctor Who has used fantasy creatures, but I like when the Doctor's scientific mind is a bit more skeptical. And again, the carelessness with the baby was annoying. A baby's about to be eaten and all 15 is focusing on is "ooh cool singing!" And then after that, him and Ruby leave Lulubelle alone again. Are you guys stupid?

I did like how we incorporated Timeless Child here. It's clear that despite the rehab, his heritage is still very much a sore spot for him, so it's nice that he was able to find that common ground with Ruby. She's not the first adopted child (Bill, anyone?), but she is the first to come after his own shocking news, so it's significant. And even though she's happily adopted, there's still this curiosity about where she comes from, and I appreciate that she isn't shamed for that.

Another thing I appreciated was the casual trans rep. The singer for Ruby's band is a transwoman and RTD opted for subtlety this time instead of whacking me over the head with a lecture about it. I appreciate that. Sometimes the best rep you can have is where they're just casually existing and not you checking off diversity points.

Cherry Sunday (and what a name) was a delight. All she wanted was a cuppa tea.

Who is Mrs. Flood? If this were Moffat, I would say she's meant to be older Ruby, but this isn't Moffat, so I feel like she could be anyone. She could also just be no one.

I get this was meant to be a jumping on point, but I am a little sad we missed out on all these firsts for Ncuti (picking out his outfit, getting his sonic, etc.) and that it all happened off-screen. And coming right after the specials it just feels a bit jarring to not get it. How long has he been an established Doctor? Why hasn't he decorated the TARDIS yet? (Seriously, it's so huge and empty. Get a couch or something. This is why Capaldi's console is >>>). The night rave scene just felt a bit pointless and didn't really add anything to the episode, same with the taxi scene. There were quite a few scenes that just felt like pointless filler honestly, while the plot was resolved in 5 minutes. It was kinda frustrating.

Overall, kind of mid, but a solid start for 15. I'm looking forward to seeing more of him atleast and seeing what RTD has in mind for the mystery of Ruby's origins.

[thedorkdionysia]

alright. I gotta rant about something.

so I'm sure you all probably know by now that David Tennant has made a return as the Doctor in Doctor Who after like 12 years since the end of his run and almost 10 years since the last time he was in the show at all. even if you don't watch the show, you probably know by now on account of how many people are losing their minds over it.

and apparently people are somehow thinking it's racist that this is happening. because Ncuti Gatwa, a black actor, was announced as the casting choice for the next major incarnation of the Doctor a few months before the centenary special Power of the Doctor aired, only for Tennant to show up at the end of POTD after 13 regenerated, leaving many people wondering where the new Doctor was, before we were only treated to a short teaser of the upcoming special that included the briefest glimpse of Ncuti at the end... aaaand then the announcement that the show would be on hiatus again for another 13 months until the 60th anniversary special in November 2023.

now, I understand that it's definitely a bad look for them to sort of bait and switch people like that, I was watching with friends and we were all expecting to see Ncuti after the special and then we were all losing it when we saw David instead. but there are people who are claiming that not just RTD, but also David Tennant himself, are doing this out of intentional, malicious racism against Ncuti and are basically just making things even worse than they were in the chibnall era (somehow).

but that honestly just... makes no fucking sense. literally what would be the reason for RTD and the BBC to cast a black man as the doctor, make a big deal out of it on social media, and then not put him in the show at all just because he's being maliciously racist? I think it would have pretty much the same effect for RTD to cast another white man to play the newest incarnation of the doctor, intentionally turning Ncuti down in the process, and then just rolling with him instead.

so even though I get why it could definitely be taken kind of racist, I don't think that it was intentionally done that way. but then you might be wondering, "well if it wasn't malicious, then why cast DT and announce HIM as the 14th doctor when it should have been Ncuti??" well, it's more complicated than any of how the people angrily ranting about it are explaining it, but I think this video explains it well:

basically the way this video explains it is this: RTD came back to the show at kind of a weird time. the last episode they had written, filmed, and planned to air was POTD, which wrapped production not long after RTD was announced to take the reins again in October 2021. also, coming up on the horizon not long after POTD was supposed to air was the 60th anniversary, which would obviously be a big deal for the show-- as the longest running sci-fi TV series in the world, every major anniversary is a huge milestone.

the only problem is that this kinda left RTD with a logistical nightmare. he didn't have a new doctor yet, and even if he were able to get one the day after taking over the show, there just wasn't enough time to write, film, edit, and air a whole season of the show before the 60th. and RTD wouldn't really want to introduce the new doctor during the anniversary either: the anniversary has brought back older doctors since the show's 10th anniversary, and no matter who he cast, they would most likely get overshadowed by the nostalgic figureheads alongside them even if their performance was absolutely top notch.

and there was also another problem: when RTD DID finally cast Ncuti as the new doctor, he was busy filming the new season of sex education as well as the Barbie movie with Margot Robbie. which left him with another conundrum: should he wait for the actor who really, REALLY won him over in his audition to be available for the show, or should he tell him that he did amazing but they need someone more readily available?

ultimately, RTD chose the former, and I think it was the right decision. but that still left a gap in the anniversary special that RTD had to fill before Ncuti would be able to commit to the show full time. so, in the interest of the nostalgia that comes with anniversary specials and the part of the doctor still needing someone to bridge the gap between Jodie and Ncuti, he turned to a fan favorite: David Tennant. and that's pretty much where we are today. Tennant isn't REPLACING Ncuti, and he's really not replacing Jodie either. he's a placeholder, a way to get things from point A to point B.

and people are saying that DT is overshadowing Ncuti just by... existing and being part of the show again, but the thing is, they are actively trying to give Ncuti the spotlight. RTD and the show's official social media accounts both announced Ncuti's casting a week BEFORE even mentioning the fact that David Tennant and Catherine Tate would be coming back for the 60th. RTD has made numerous posts about Ncuti and how absolutely thrilled they both are for this new upcoming era, and he's barely even mentioned DT since his original announcement. (not because of some kind of estrangement between the two, if that wasn't obvious: he's just acknowledging that this isn't David's era that we're about to see.) even David Tennant himself has spoken in interviews about how legitimately AMAZING Ncuti is as the doctor and now excited he is for him as well. at this point the only ones who are actually focusing more on David and less on Ncuti ARE THE ONES COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW RTD AND DAVID ARE TRYING TO OVERSHADOW NCUTI. (and also all the media outlets trying to bank on David's return to make money selling stories, which is a whole new post.)

by trying to make such a big moral dilemma out of David Tennant being back for no more than three episodes a year from now, people on the internet are basically becoming the exact type of person they're trying to be mad at: they're focusing more on the guy who's coming back temporarily to help things transition forward, and less on the fact that things are going to have such a bright future ahead with the new guy, we just have to actually get there first.

and like I said: I don't know if it was the best choice either, and from what I've seen, POTD was originally supposed to end by cutting off before we actually saw the end result of 13's regeneration, which I would have been okay with, but the point is that RTD was in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation and ultimately tried to do his best to give Ncuti the chance to shine without getting overpowered by the major event of the 60th anniversary in his first ever appearance on the show, and I think he's doing his best with that. and as far as the numbering issue, I'm not thrilled about tenthree/tenteen/retro-ten or whatever you want to call him being referred to as the "fourteenth doctor" either, but since the numbering system was pretty much meaningless after Moffat's whole "well actually eleven is actually thirteen because something something war doctor something something tentoo something something vanity" thing, and is now even more meaningless thanks to chibnall and the timeless child, I honestly wouldn't split too many hairs over it. most of the official announcements from the show's social media didn't even give Ncuti a number to begin with anyway, and the only primary source I found that actually called him "the fourteenth doctor" right after the announcement was a BBC news article that wasn't even written by someone affiliated with the show anyway, so the whole thing is probably a misunderstanding that's spiralled out of control anyway. either way, it's just a number, it's not like the doctor even refers to themselves by their number in the show anyway.

TL;DR: David Tennant is only playing the Doctor again temporarily to help transition the show into Ncuti's run to help relieve him from the onus of trying to carry the 60th anniversary as the main Doctor in his first appearance as the Doctor, and we should all be focusing less on him and more on what we have to look forward to from Ncuti.

[5and3nevermind]

I just rewatched it so I have to yell about in the soop season 1 yoonmin they are sooo sweet. Especially after their little midweek break where they went back home and ym did the radio vlive…jimin said I want u to long for me more actively and they get back to the soop and yoongi is asking him to play their team fighter tactic game or whatever nonstop and just paying him so much attention 🫠like the whole time they were woodcarving… I swear yoongi could have watched jimin chop wood with that axe all day 😭😭 and this is barely scratching the surface of their ITS antics 😞😞😞😞

How fun! Maybe I should rewatch it too.

Some things that still stand out to me:

- You are right about the woodcarving and Jimin using the ax! Yoongi was so focused on what Jimin was doing. Plus, Yoongi gave Jimin that little safety reminder about wearing gloves. So cute.

- The gaming! There were multiple times that Yoongi asked Jimin to play. At least three that I can think of off the top of my head.

- We can’t forget Yoongi offering to blow out all of the candles in the upper house when Jimin said he doesn’t like scented candles. What a sweet gesture!

- Yoongi said he wanted to work on a song with Jimin (and snuggle in the privacy of the camper?) and apparently over the course of that trip he let Jimin listen to three different songs (Telepathy, Life Goes On, and Amygdala), according to what we’ve seen and what was said later in various interviews. I think that says a lot about Yoongi’s trust in Jimin and his respect for his opinion. Yes, Jimin was the Music PM for BE, but that doesn’t apply to Amygdala, nor does it explain why Yoongi didn’t merely submit his songs to Jimin once they were complete. I think Jimin hearing Amygdala in the camper was a significant moment. That is such a personal song for Yoongi.

- I thought it was interesting how often they sat together for meals. One time, Joon was seated next to Jimin, and Yoongi walked over and gestured for him to scoot over so that he could squeeze between the two of them.

- This doesn’t apply to the second half, but I thought the rooming arrangements were interesting, with Jimin saying he wanted to game with Yoongi all night in the upper house and Yoongi choosing the nearby camper, somewhat isolated from the main house and the rest of the guys.

This is a whole other topic, but I do think yoonmin went through a little rough patch at the beginning of 2020. They were so busy preparing MOTS7 and other projects, thinking they would be going on tour soon, then the chaos and disappointment of the pandemic, etc. But it’s funny because starting in May 2020, all of the sudden things seem so much better. In fact, they seem more solid than ever: everything that happened in ITS, Yoongi suggesting Jimin as Music PM for BE, the radio live and then not too long after that surgery era and we know how that went.

I really see those events in May—ITS, BE album planning and Yoongi’s encouragement, and the radio live—as the start of a trajectory that we continued to see all the way into 2023. 💛

[mlobsters]

supernatural s9e4 slumber party (w. robbie thompson)

were they plugging in some vacuum tubes in this old timey flashback. also thanks for the update on kevin, show, i had lost track of him

DEAN You know, after everything that happened, I figured we could use a little break ourselves, so I picked you up season one of Game of Thrones.

funny that the game of thrones thing is canon, read a handful of things that mentioned them watching it and it was such an unexpected detail i thought it was just (not terribly in character) fanon LOL

i see you, microsoft surface product placement lol

okay i also see you, pr0n folder. very cute

laughing at the idea that this ~30s-40s era computer has files. but it is magical so *hand wave*

gettin a talk from the dads. but her sneaky distraction worked

SAM You really can't delete those from the Internet? CHARLIE Not even I can do that. Come on! DEAN Where do you even find them? CHARLIE A top-secret place I call Amazon. And someone uploaded all the unpublished works. I thought it was fanfic at first, but it was clearly Edlund's work.

i like that gentle poking fun at the show

CHARLIE So, takeout, sleepover, braid each other's hair?

CHARLIE Man, this bed is about as comfortable as a brick. Any plans on moving in anytime soon? SAM I am moved in. This is just my style.

again i shouldn't be surprised these details (sam's uncomfortable bed) are canon but yet i continue to be!

DEAN Yeah, this is his, uh, style. SAM Well, I'm sorry I haven't hung up the, uh, "Hang in there, kitty" poster yet, Dean. Feel free to redecorate. DEAN So, what, our home's not good enough for the "Hang in there, kitty" poster? SAM This isn't our home. This is where we work. DEAN What's the difference?

ouch, sam.

ps if i didn't mention it, isn't it gonna be a problem if the boop-boop magical computer detects angels and is gonna detect the one sam doesn't know is inside him right now

there's too much going on right now. the jar of goo they spilled and don't know about, the goofy flashback witch lady who's obviously related, bickering spouses, charlie hacking the gibson, angel boop-boop

and i thought i recognized this kid's face and voice, yet another person that was on the killing! those vancouver shows, lots of commingling

the killing s3e1 the jungle - andrew jenkins as cody

dorothy, wicked witch, crowley. this is just a lot.

CROWLEY Write it down so daddy can help.

--

DEAN Damn it, I just cleaned in here. SAM Really?

home? what's that?

excuse ME keep those eyeballs away from the fourth wall, mister. i know these episodes are the fannish variety but :p forced me to open premiere AND photoshop

DOROTHY I can't believe I've lived here for 75 years. How long have you called this place home? SAM My brother calls it home. Me, I, uh -- I haven't had that much luck with homes. DOROTHY Me neither. Overrated, you ask me. Yellow bricks or not, give me the open road any day.

LOL okay. thanks for clarifying this point about sam

hey now charlie gets to up her death counter. exciting. the plot machinations around ezekial are so tiresome

does Wicked break the fourth wall? why is this happening?

y'all are creepin me out

SAM Look, I never had what you had with mom and dad, okay? DEAN What are you talking about? SAM I don't have any memories of home. And whenever I've tried to make a home of my own, it really hasn't ended well. DEAN Yeah, but a lifetime of abandoned buildings and crappy motel rooms. I mean, this is about as close to home as we're gonna get, and it's ours.

this is such a mishmash of shit happening

this whole plot of the oz thing being real, her dad sanitizing it... this is very much like, a main plot of the magicians. (fantasy books kept main character man alive during depths of depression, turns out the dude who wrote them did live next door to the kids and they did actually go to the magical place but it's all very dark and disturbing)

CHARLIE Me? What about you crazy kids? You gonna be all right without me?

apparently not. dean getting attached

the very special episode where sam learns home can be Good, Actually

how big is the hole gonna get that dean's digging himself into with the angel possession situation. but i don't even really care to think about it because then i get irritated at how the show set up the situation

[livcosmos]

2022 Wrap Up Stories

How is this year almost over? How did this happen? I absolutely can’t believe it, it’s crazy! So much happened, so many life-changing things…and not just this year also since the last time I wrote to you my life has been turned upside down, and not just because "Midnights" by the queen herself came out, but more about that in a minute. I almost finished my first semester at uni, how crazy is that?! I never ever would have believed anyone who would have told me back in July/August that I was going to make it this far, that it was going to go well, and that I was going to enjoy it but here we are! I’m studying English and History but I’m also taking a seminar in Film so I have so much to talk about, let’s get started!

All right first things first, before we get into the books and movies we have to start with music because WOW! So I teased it already in the opening but Midnights?!!! OMG it’s just absolute perfection, it is pretty much the only thing I have been listening to since it came out. It is probably my favorite Taylor album, the vibes, the music, the lyrics it just sooo good!!! I loved Taylor before and I never thought I could love her even more but it turns out I can! Ahhh I love this album so so much!!! I can’t even say which song I love most because they are all so good in their own way and I love them each for so many different reasons but I’m going to name a few of, the ones that really really got to me. The order in which I will name them is random because I can’t rank them, it would hurt too much! Ok so, definitely "Maroon" and "Lavender Haze", and of course "Vigilante Shit" omg I love "Vigilante Shit"! "Sweet Nothing" of course and "You’re on your Own, Kid" and from the 3am version "The Great War", "Paris", "Bigger than the Whole Sky", "Wouldhav’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve" and lately I have been really really loving "Glitch". Oh and of course "Bejewled' and "Anti-Hero", it's obvious that those are on my list too. Yeah so I pretty much named half the album, I’m sorry but it’s so so good!!! I love how it is a mix of everything, I feel like there is a song in there out of each era and I love that!!! Excellent Taylor has outdone herself again and I’m all here for it!

And because everyone has been talking about it, we of course have to talk about the Spotify wrap-up, and I’m going to share mine even though it won’t be a surprise to anyone, I’m basic through and through but I’m proud of it so there you go:

You know what else won’t come as a surprise to anyone? Exactly… the fact that I miss summer! I miss the sun and the warm weather and watching "The summer I turned pretty", by the way, I bet that "Snow on the Beach" will be in season two it has to be and if it truly does, please remember that I said it here first!

I think we are going to move to the books because there are only three, sad I know! First, we have "Hamlet", please don’t come for me but I didn't really enjoy it, I mean yeah it was good but "Macbeth" is sooo much better it has so much more action. I don’t know there was something about "Hamlet" that I didn’t quite like but I can’t say what it is for sure.

Next, we have the "Underground Railroad", I had a huge problem with the writing style in this book it freaked me out, there were so many characters that came out of nowhere all of the sudden with no explanation and all those time jumps and no… but for some reason even though I wouldn’t say it was a book that swapped me of my feet, I keep thinking about it from time to time. I don’t know why but apparently, I can’t let it go just yet. It’s interesting because I didn’t enjoy reading it but somehow it made an impact on me nevertheless.

Now let’s end the book section with something very hyped, something I’m sure you all have heard of and probably also read. I’m delighted to announce to you that I finally read "It ends with us", now I finally know what you all were talking about! My oh my this book was literally a rollercoaster, I have to admit that I got spoilered so I knew that Ryle was going to be a brick but before he misstepped the first time I was so rooting for him, I really really liked him and I thought that for sure he will be good in the end but ohhhhhh the first time he hit her in the kitchen…that was it for me... from that moment on I was disgusted…from that moment on he was dead to me! My God, I felt so sorry for Lily!!!! And Atlas ahhhh I love him obviously, he is her soulmate! I don’t know what to say about the sequel though, I know I always say, that I won’t read the sequels because I’m afraid it will ruin things and then I read them anyway but…I mean the story kind of had a good ending and I don’t want all to get messed up again so…I don’t know what to do! I'm curious of course but …we will see I will defiantly keep you updated! Oh and also did this book fire up my already high trust issues? Yes, it most certainly did!

Ok, now we can get to the most fun part, the movies! I will start with my favourite out of all the ones I will discuss with you today and that is "The School for Good and Evil”, I went in there knowing nothing and I had the absolute best time watching it! I really really loved the story it’s exactly the kind of story I love, with fantasy elements and all ahhh I loved it! You already know I love Sofia Wylie but oh my I also loved her costar, the girl who played Sophie, ahhhh speaking of Sophie she was my favourite character, and the "you should see me in a crown" scene is perfection, I watched it so many times it’s soooo good!!! I won't read the books but I would love them to make sequels to the movie, I would love to see how the story goes on!

I also finally watched (I know shame on me for watching it so late in my life) "Pride and Prejudice", I liked it of course but can you please tell me where Mr. Darcy wasn't the pure evil he is always portrayed to be? I get that in the book he is way worse (again shame on me for watching the movie before reading the book) and I’m not saying that he was a saint in the movie but I imagined him to be way worse!

And because we are already speaking of it, I also watched "Persuasion" the new one with Dakota Johnson, I love Dakota she is amazing! And I liked "Persuasion" more than "Pride and Prejudice" but this might probably be because of the modern turn they took on it, so I don’t know… you are all probably screaming at be because I also haven't read "Persuasion" and you think that the movie is a joke but that's just my opinion, I will get back to you about this when I read both books and I'm more qualified to judge!

Ok moving on to "Enola Holmes 2", the only three things I have to say about this movie are 1. I liked the first movie better, 2. there was too little Twekesbury in it, 3. I can’t say it enough how much I love that time period and maybe a bonus nr.4 and 5 I loved that it was inspired by true events and I missed Sam Claflin.

All right "Do revenge” I love Camila Mendes, I love Maya from Stranger Things and I love Sophie Turner. It was a funny movie and I always love a funny movie, I also loved the soundtrack especially that they put Tate and Rosalia in it!

I wouldn't be me if I wouldn’t have watched the 10 years Violetta reunion, Violetta was such a huge part of my childhood and it’s so crazy that it has been 10 years since it came out! I cried the whole time while I was watching it. It was so emotional and I still know every word of every song! The only negative thing I have to say about it is that it was way too short!

Oh and I watched "Witches" on Halloween and it was ok, my favourite Halloween movie still is and will always be "Hocus Pocus"!

As I mentioned in the beginning, I’m taking a seminar on Film, every week we watch a movie and then we discuss it. It is so much fun to be able to talk to people who share the same interests as you! And I have to be honest it made me look at movies in a whole other way, I always watch them mindlessly just for the experience and the plot but there is a whole other level. to them I have been neglecting, the technical one. It always you to analyze the movie in so much more detail and it’s so interesting! Oh and I love that the seminar make me watch movies that I wouldn’t normally watch, for example, we watched a Western "High Noon”, yes it was boring but it was a whole experience to watch it and I never watched a Western before! And that song is still stuck in my head! I love that my knowledge of movies is expanding and that I’m learning so many new things! The first movie we watched was "500 days of summer" and it was again the typical case of: I wasn’t blown away by it but I kept thinking about it for so long that it grew on me!  The next movie we watched was "Her", again very wired and not my cup of tea but the discussion we had about it was very interesting! Oh and we watched the first Spiderman, the one with Tobi and I can’t believe I’m saying this but I realized that I had never watched that movie from start to end before so that was nice! After that, we watched "Spiderman into the Spiderverse" and before watching it I thought I was going to have a problem with the animation but in the end, I ended up liking it! Then we watched "Juno", again a movie I have never watched from start to finish which I really liked, I especially liked that we watched it to contrast it to "The Florida Project", a very disturbing but interesting movie! I really love this seminar because I love learning all those new things about something that is so important to me!

And just like that, we have come to the end, thank you so much for reading, and I wish you all a happy Christmas and a happy New Year! I hope to see you in the new year with even more movies, books, and music discussions!

[foreverindreamlandd]

Um, hi, if you’re still taking requests do you mind breaking my heart and then putting it back together with Bucky?! 🤣

Snoopy and the Cadillac

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (formerly Steve Rogers x Reader)

WC: 5.6k

Summary: It's your first Christmas after Steve decided to leave you to spend his life with Peggy, and all you wanted to do was stay as far away from holiday cheer as possible. But then a familiar face shows up at your door and changes everything.

A/n: Hope I got the job done and broke your heart, buddy ;) [divider by @chrissquares]

The first Christmas without him.

You had been dreading it for months, wishing and willing for all holidays to just go by without you having to notice their existence. This was becoming your philosophy for pretty much every aspect of your life. That you could continue to live through it coated with numbness, refusing to acknowledge the pain that had begun to fester deep within you ever since he left, only allowing it to create a persistent, dull sting. A constant companion and reminder of what you had lost.

The universe did not allow that to happen, though.

Had you not been in a neverending state of devastation, you might have found it hilarious how impossible it was to ignore the existence of the holiday season. You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing festive decorations, Hallmark Christmas movie ads on every TV commercial and streaming service. And even when you stayed in the seemingly safe confines of your house, the faint glow of twinkle lights cascaded down each apartment building along your block.

It was everywhere. A constant reminder of everyone’s happiness, everyone’s merriment and cheer. And you knew that you should share those bright and happy feelings, it was the first Christmas after The Blip, the first one in five years that those who weren’t snapped got to celebrate with the loved ones they thought to be dead.

The whole situation put you in such mental turmoil, torn in two directions of how you felt about it. One part of you was grateful that you were snapped away for five years, not having to experience the unimaginable pain of seeing an exorbitant number of your loved ones being turned to dust.

The other part would forever wonder if had you stayed around for those five years, he might still be here.

“I’m sorry, lov- Y/n. I never expected this to happen. It’s just, now that I know I can go back, I know it’s what I need to do. You’ll be better off, you deserve someone better.”

Just like he did. He deserved to be with the woman he truly loved.

Which, apparently, was not you after all.

Though the admission ripped your heart to pieces, the worst part was that somewhere deep in your brain, you always knew. Knew that you were never good enough for Steve. He was America’s golden boy, and you were…well, you.

It had never made sense why he wanted you, especially after you saw photos of the drop-dead gorgeous Peggy Carter. Why would he want someone like you when he’d had that?

You had spent years working toward being worthy of that love, being there for him every step of the way. It hadn’t been that hard, because as soon as you met him once he woke up after 70 years submerged in ice and you looked into those bright blue eyes and saw that glowing smile, you were a goner.

You would do anything for that man, did anything for that man. Cooked him meals that reminded him of the ones his mom would make, helped him acclimate to this new era and tried to go back in time by watching movies and listening to music from the ‘40s, loving how much he would light up from these small efforts.

You were there by his side when Peggy passed away, holding his hand at her funeral.

Then one day, it clicked, and Steve looked at you differently. The shock was almost overwhelming, having the thing you had dreamt of for so long finally happen.

Christmases with Steve were pure magic, and you couldn’t wait to spend the lifetime of them with him. Your person.

That life had been cut short, left broken and bleeding at a house by the lake.

Now it was just you, walking up the stairs to your apartment, eyes glued to the icy concrete to prevent a very likely slip and fall.

“Hey.”

Your face shot up to the door in front of you, a familiar figure with short brown hair and a small, tentative smile standing at the top of the stairs.

“Bucky?” Your foot slipped on the step and you waved your arms around frantically, trying to grasp onto something as you fell backwards, bracing for what was definitely going to be a painful and unpleasant impact with the harsh surface.

Until your arm was grabbed and your body was no longer falling, suspended for a few seconds as you looked into the wide blue eyes of your savior.

“Are you okay?” he asked, suddenly breathless from the adrenaline rush.

You nodded, also breathing heavily. Bucky gently pulled you to stand straight. “Thank you.”

He kept his hand on your arm, eyes locked on yours. His hair was shorter, his beard shaved down to a thin layer of scruff, but his eyes remained the same as the last time you saw them.

A perfect reflection of what lay behind yours. Pain, loss, grief.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, finally.

You watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed. “I, uh, I just moved a few blocks down. Sam told me you were close by, and I wanted to check in. See how you were.” He looked behind his shoulder to the paper bag on the ground. “Brought some muffins from a bakery down the road.”

“Which bakery?” Your brows furrowed while his shot up.

“Lee’s?”

For the first time in what felt like a long time, the corners of your mouth lifted to a small smile.

“Good choice. I love Lee’s.”

The smile of relief Bucky gave you caused you to feel as if you were free falling once more, but you pushed that away almost immediately. Instead, you willed your focus on getting up the treacherous stairs, begrudgingly clinging to Bucky’s arm as an anchor until you reach the top.

Bucky leaned down to grab the muffins and handed them to you, and the two of you stood there in a painfully awkward silence for a few moments until he could no longer take it. “Well, I hope you’re doing well. If you need anything, let me know. You have my number, right?”

You nodded. “I do. Um…do you want to come in?”

His mouth dropped for a millisecond before he caught himself. Then, he gave you another small smile. “Sure, that sounds great. Thanks.”

Your apartment wasn’t anything nice. It used to be filled with life, photos of loved ones, different trinkets and special decor. All of that reminded you of Steve, though, and over the past few months you had removed almost all trace of him, leaving the space as hollow as you felt on the inside.

“How long have you lived here?” Bucky asked, taking off his boots. He kept his leather jacket on, though, as well as his black leather gloves. Not that he needed to, you knew what was underneath, but you weren’t going to force him to remove his armor if he needed it to feel comfortable.

“Couple of years. Well, not including the five that I was…gone.”

He nodded. “It’s nice. Lot more stuff in it than mine.”

You pictured a barren wasteland. “Do you like your place?”

“It’s fine. An adjustment, but fine.”

Silence.

More silence.

“Do you want water? Tea? Wine?”

“Water is fine. Alcohol doesn’t do anything anymore anyways.”

“Right.” You grabbed two glasses of water and sat at the small dining room table.

The silence continued. You had no idea what to say to the man before you. The last things you had said to him were….unkind.

“How can you just let him leave? Are you that much of a coward that you won’t say something?”

Bucky noticed your wince at the memory and shuffled uncomfortably in his chair. “Was this a bad idea? Should I not have come?”

You sat straight, hands waving so manically that you nearly knocked over your glass. “No! No. It’s good to see you, Bucky. I just- I feel bad how I left things. What I said to you was awful.”

He shook his head, jaw tense. “You were upset. We both were.” He muttered his next few words into his glass, “Most of what you said was true anyways.”

“It wasn’t. I was lashing out at you even though you were probably grieving just as much as I was. That wasn’t fair, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for-” don’t say it, “I’m just sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.” He lifted his glass toward you with a sheepish smile. “To being sorry for not knowing how to emote in healthy ways.”

You chuckled, clinking your glass to his. “A-fucking-men to that.”

Once the tension was broken, the two of you spent the rest of the night chatting somewhat comfortably. You each had your own impenetrable walls up, careful with each word spoken in a way that still brought an edge to the atmosphere. Still, it was nice to talk to someone who didn’t expect you to be happy or express any type of emotion.

You could just…be. Be sad, be tired, be guarded, and for Bucky that was okay.

Until the topic of Christmas came up.

“What are you doing to celebrate? Getting the tree and lights and all that shit?” he asked, pulling a scoff from you.

“Fuck no. I’m canceling Christmas.”

His brows furrowed. “Not in the holiday spirit or something?”

“Not in any type of spirit to do anything so cheerful, I guess. What about you?”

Bucky cleared his throat, something you noticed he did whenever he was about to say something that made him uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I haven’t really had a Christmas in, well, 90 years or so. Not that it would mean anything because everyone I love is gone.”

Your stomach sank to the floor, heart filled with a new type of ache that overpowered the dull one you had felt for months now.

But before you could say anything else, Bucky glanced at his watch. “Oh shit.” He stood up from his chair. “Didn’t realize how long I had been here. I should get going. You probably want to actually get some sleep or something. It was nice catching up, Y/n.”

You stood up too, walking with him to the door. Bucky gave you his address while he put his shoes on, in case you needed anything.

“Thanks for the muffins,” you said with a small smile. The two of you stared at each other for one last round of awkward silence before Bucky tipped his head at you and walked out the door.

Hours later and you were in bed staring at the ceiling unable to sleep, thinking about your conversation with Bucky.

“Haven’t had a Christmas in 90 years.”

“Everyone I love is gone.”

You groaned.

Damn you, empathy.

The next day, you were outside his door, phone against your ear.

“Uh, hello?” Bucky’s confused old man voice would have made you laugh were you not a puddle of nerves.

“Hey, I’m uh, outside your place. Can you come out?”

The door opened in less than ten seconds, Bucky in his usual black leather jacket and gloves. The furrowed brows and side smile combined together to make an adorable look of confusion on his face.

No, not adorable. Just confused.

“Afternoon, doll. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

You shifted your focus to the ground for a moment before looking back at him. “I changed my mind.” The words came out so fast that they sounded more like a jumbled mess than a coherent sentence. “I want to celebrate Christmas this year.”

His eyes narrowed, but his smile remained. “I thought you didn’t want to feel any holiday cheer?”

Shifting your weight from side to side, you shrugged. “Who knows, maybe some cheer will do me some good. And if it doesn’t, I’ll use it as an excuse to spend the rest of my life with holiday doom and gloom.”

A low, gravelly chuckle rumbled out of Bucky that made your face heat up. “Good for you, Y/n. Let me know how it goes, and if you need tips on doom and gloom, let me know. I’ve got that shit covered.”

Your eyes were back on the ground, fists clenching and unclenching in your coat pockets. “Actually, I wanted to see if you wanted to celebrate with me? We could do Christmas together or something?”

When Bucky didn’t respond, you looked up to meet an expression you had never seen on the man before. Face soft, brows raised slightly, mouth parted open the tiniest bit, as if even the grumpy demeanor that seemed to be his baseline vanished completely and was replaced by the young man Bucky might have been before being shipped off to war a hundred years ago.

Your heart swelled, desperately wishing that look could be the default for him, that he didn’t have to be so sad all the time. That flash of a feeling brought bile to your throat, terror coursing through you at the familiarity of it. You hadn’t experienced that type of longing since…him.

Instead of dwelling in it, you continued your pitch, uncomfortable by the lack of response from Bucky.

“We don’t have to do anything big, obviously. It can just be small stuff. A tree, some decorations, we can make cookies, watch old movies - no Hallmark ones, though. That way we’re not alone, ya know?”

“Sure.”

The swelling of your heart returned, and a smile crept up your lips. “Really?”

He nodded, his own smile growing. “I mean, part of me is wondering if you asked so I could help with the tree,” you both laughed, “But even if that’s the case, I’d really like to.”

Your lips pressed together to prevent your smile from growing too wide. For the first time in a long time, you felt lighter, and the constant state of pain quelled for just a moment.

“Great,” you said softly. “So…how stereotypical do you want to get with this? We could grab hot chocolate and maybe do some tree shopping?”

His grin turned sly. “We gotta stop by the liquor store first for Peppermint Schnapps.”

Your eyes narrowed. “I thought alcohol doesn’t do anything to your system?”

Bucky stepped forward, closing the door to his apartment building behind him. Hands moving to his pockets, he extended his elbow out for you to grab his arm as you both descended down the stairs.

“It’s more for the memory. Stev- uh, we used to drink hot chocolate with Peppermint Schnapps all the time during the holidays.”

The bile returned, and the chill dwelling within your body was no longer caused by the weather. Still, you shook it off and forced a smile. “Peppermint Schnapps it is, then.”

And that was how you and Bucky decided to celebrate Christmas together. It started with the spiked hot chocolates while finding a small, 4ft Fraser fir to take to your home, you arguing with Bucky to let you ‘carry’ the front of it (knowing full well that he was holding it all on his own, you just wanted to contribute). Luckily, you hadn’t yet thrown away all of your decorations, so you were able to get the lights up that evening. The way the dim, colorful glow reflected off Bucky’s face as his eyes stared at them in wonder brought the ache in your heart back in full force.

You didn’t seem to mind it as much, allowing it to linger a little longer before shifting your focus back on the task at hand.

“I don’t have any ornaments,” you lied. There was a box buried deep in the back of your closet, but those carried too many memories. The mental image particular one of a star with a photo of you and Steve immediately brought a film of tears to your eyes.

“No worries, we can go buy some if you’d like?”

That resulted in a Target run where you bought more lights, some pretty ornaments, as well as two silly ones you and Bucky chose for yourselves. You bought one of Snoopy laying on the roof of his decked-out holiday dog house, gaping in horror when Bucky told you he had never seen A Charlie Brown Christmas (something you would rectify that evening), and Bucky found one of a vintage fire engine red Cadillac that looked like the ones back in the ‘40s.

Over the next few weeks, you did it all. Baked holiday cookies, watched all the classic movies, drank more spiked hot chocolate, and continued to decorate your home.

“Don’t you want us to decorate your place, Bucky?” you asked one evening as he stood on a chair to hang the star atop the Christmas tree that you had both decided to name Linus (Bucky had obviously loved the movie). “I’m sure we could find you a tree and everything. I feel bad that we’re only doing this stuff here.”

He shook his head with a small smile, one you had begun to see regularly on that previously grumpy face. “Nah, I barely even have furniture in my apartment so it makes no sense to decorate it when I’ve hardly furnished it. Besides, this place feels more homey to me, so it’s nice to come here as a place to escape to.” He blushed, suddenly realizing the weight of his admission. “Sorry,” he mumbled, “Is that weird?”

No, you thought. “No,” you said, butterflies swarming your stomach. “I don’t think it’s weird at all.”

The smile he gave you then almost split his face in two, and you knew that your own smile mirrored it. It was true. Having Bucky here with you to celebrate Christmas made your place feel like home for the first time in a long time. It was nice to finally have some new memories to replace the ones that brought so much pain.

More than that, it was nice to spend time with Bucky, to get to know the man you had heard so many stories about, who had been masked behind the wall formed from decades of fear and pain. The more time you spent together, the walls you both had up guarding your hearts started to chip away, inviting in new feelings of warmth and happiness.

So no, you didn’t mind that Bucky felt at home with you.

“Alright,” he said on the couch, scrolling through Christmas movies, “I think we’ve watched all of these ones.”

You pointed at the screen when a particular icon appeared. “Let’s watch this one. It’s good.”

He looked at you, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “The Christmas Prince? I thought we weren’t doing corny holiday rom-coms?”

You shrugged. “Maybe I changed my mind.”

The two of you stared at each other for a moment, gazing into each other's eyes and the butterflies danced throughout your entire body.

Finally, he gave you a slow nod, looking down at the remote and hitting the select button. “Let’s do it, then.”

At the start of the film, you and Bucky sat side by side on the couch, a few inches of space separating you. But by the time the main character fell off her horse and was stranded by a pack of wolves, the distance had vanished, your right side pressed against Bucky’s, right hand close to touching his metal one.

So close, that when he shifted, the cool vibranium brushed against yours. It sent a shiver down your spine, not from the temperature of the metal, but from the feeling of his hand touching yours. Something pushed you to move your hand closer, silently telling him that you didn’t mind the contact, and next thing you knew, his hand crept over yours until your fingers were interlaced.

Suddenly the movie was white noise in the background, all of your focus turning to your hand. You turned your head to the side and found Bucky’s eyes looking into yours, his cheeks flush as he licked his bottom lip.

Surely he could hear your heart pounding inside your chest. If he did, he made no mention of it. Instead he just moved his face closer to yours-

A phone buzzed - Bucky’s - pulling you both out of the moment. He sat back and pulled it out of his pocket to turn it off.

But then the screen came into view, and all of the blood that had rushed to your cheeks was gone in a second.

Incoming Call: Stevie

Bucky looked at the phone and then at you, his eyes wide with panic, but it was too late. Your wall was back, and you moved to the edge of the couch, eyes peeled to the screen.

“You should get that,” you forced out through the fog forming in your brain. Your breathing became short, the numbness that had been your companion for months slamming back into you.

He shifted. “I can call him back-”

“Just answer, Bucky.”

You could see him staring at you from your peripherals, but then he sighed, standing up and moving to your bedroom, muffled whispers echoing through the space.

“Hey, Steve. Now’s not a good time.”

Memories you had forced away returned in full force.

“I loved you, Y/n. I swear I did. I just loved her more.”

“I’m good. I’ll visit Sunday, I promise.”

“It’s not you. It’s me.”

“Sam’s fine. He’s in Louisiana with his sister and the kids.”

“Thank you for everything you did. I’ll never forget you.”

“She’s….busy.” Bucky’s voice was almost inaudible now but you still heard the words. Your head shot toward the hall where Bucky was, feeling every agonizing moment of your heart ripping in two. “No, I’m not going to tell her that. She’s…you have to let her go, Steve. She deserved better than this, deserves better than this. Let her move on in peace. I gotta go. Yeah. See you later. Bye.”

He shuffled back down the hall, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes barely meeting yours. Not that he would find any sense of life behind them.

“I didn’t know you still talked to him.” Your voice was a hollow shell compared to just a few moments ago.

Bucky swallowed. “Yeah. He calls every once in a while, and I visit him upstate.”

“Gotcha.”

He stayed glued to his spot. “Do you want to talk about it?”

You shook your head, even though that wasn’t the case. “Does he ask about me a lot?” You hated the flicker of hope that carried in your tone.

He nodded. “All the time.” The truth hurt more than you wanted it to.

There was still one question that you didn’t want to ask, willing your mouth to stay shut, but you needed to ask it. Needed to know the answer. “Was he asking about me before you showed up on my doorstep weeks ago?”

The silence you were met with spoke volumes, and completely tore your heart in two.

“So you were just coming by to check in on me.” You stood up, unable to sit still any longer and you paced along your living room. Tears freely fell down your face. “Steve was too much of a coward to face me, and you came to see that I was doing okay because he felt bad? That’s how it is?”

Bucky took a step forward, hand outstretched but you stepped back. His eyes were glassy with tears he tried to hold back.

“No. Doll, listen, that’s not it at all-” His voice broke and you interrupted him before he could continue.

“It makes sense,” you laughed bitterly. “More sense than you willingly coming to see me because you wanted to. I’m nothing but a burden for him and now for you, forcing you to spend Christmas with me because I’m nothing but a pathetic trainwreck now that he left behind to be with the gorgeous, perfect love of his life.” You collapsed back on the couch, elbows on your knees and hands over your face. “Who would willingly want to spend time with someone so fucking broken? Why would you want to be with the person who wasn’t good enough to make Steve stay?”

Your body was shaking, all of the anguish you had bottled up since Steve had left erupting throughout your body, ready to consume you whole until there was nothing left.

But before you could crumble, strong arms encased you, gripping the sides of your arms to hold you together. You peaked up from behind your hands to find Bucky kneeling on the ground in front of you. Tears streamed down his face, but those stunning blue eyes pierced yours with force that both made you want to look away and keep your gaze locked on them forever.

“Sweetheart, listen to me.” The low, gruff voice was strong. Determined. Grounding. “I didn’t come here for Steve. When he asked, I told him no. I wasn’t going to do his dirty work to clean up the pieces after he left you.” He gently squeezed your arms. “I came here, because I couldn’t get our last conversation out of my head. I couldn’t stop picturing the look on your face when you found out what was happening, before you left. I knew that you were the only one who understood how much it sucked, how much it fucking sucked that he left. That even though he’s still alive, he’s gone, and I lost a part of myself because after he had left I had officially lost everyone I loved from before. It was scary and lonely and it fucking broke my heart. And I wanted to just be with someone who understood that hurt, someone who I could exist in that sadness with and not feel any pressure to feel happy or try to fix myself or anything, I could just be fucking sad and miss my friend.

“But now, without realizing it, that broken part of me has started to heal, and that’s thanks to you. Being with you, whether it’s drinking gross Peppermint Schnapps or watching lame Christmas movies, all of it, all of it has made me feel lighter than I have in decades. Like I could be more than the broken man I’ve been for so long. I’ve felt more like the kid I was in the ‘40s than I ever have. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t gotten to know the amazing, kind, funny, fucking fantastic person you are. And you know what?” He moved to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “Steve’s a fucking idiot for not seeing that, and I don’t know if I’ll ever fully forgive him for hurting you the way he did.”

At that point, your heavy, swollen eyelids were barely open, body exhausted from the emotional whiplash you just experienced. Your brain was still foggy, but you held onto every word Bucky said, letting it play in a constant loop in your mind.

Without thinking - without allowing yourself to fight back the urge - you leaned forward and wrapped your arms around Bucky’s neck. He stilled for a moment in shock before melting into your embrace, hands rubbing circles around your back.

The two of you stayed there for an unknown number of minutes, holding one another, clinging to one another in silence.

Finally, you whispered into his ear, “Thank you.”

He chuckled, squeezing you a little more tightly. “Thank you, doll. I can’t begin to express how much all of this has meant to me. How much you mean to me.”

Whenever Steve had told you he loved you, that you meant the world to him, it would bring both butterflies in your stomach and a pit for them to flutter out of. They were words you longed to hear, but couldn’t quite believe that they were true, like you hadn’t done enough to deserve them.

Now, in this moment, hearing them from Bucky, you realized that it wasn’t about whether or not you deserved them. It was about being with someone you felt completely, utterly, wholeheartedly comfortable with. Someone you trusted, someone you felt safe giving your heart to.

So when he said that you meant something to him, you believed it to be true, and that left only the feeling of butterflies.

A knock on your door had you barreling through your apartment to throw it open, a huge grin on your face to match the one on the figure before you.

“Merry Christmas, Bucky,” you said, jumping forward to hug him.

He sighed as his arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you tightly to him. “Merry Christmas, Y/n.”

You quickly pulled away and stepped back to inspect his outfit. As promised, Bucky had worn his set of red flannel pajamas, identical to the ones you had on.

He couldn’t even pretend to be grump about it when he saw your smile widen.

“Alright, doll, what’s on the docket for today?”

You already had the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas blasting through the apartment, and a pot of coffee brewed, so you poured him a cup and let him stash the presents he bought under the tree. The two of you made breakfast, which consisted of a ridiculous amount of food and Bucky kept whining that the bacon wasn’t crisp enough and you threatened to pour pancake batter down his shirt, which then led to an impromptu tickle fight in your tiny kitchen. You eventually called a truce when Bucky cheated and used his super soldier strength to pin your arms down with one handle to tickle your waist with the other.

After breakfast, where Bucky finally admitted that the bacon was delicious, you sat by Linus the Fraser fir to open gifts. You got him a new pair of leather gloves, a few books, and a mug that said “World’s Best Grandpa.” He got you books (duh), the comfiest pair of fuzzy socks you had ever worn in your life, and candles that ‘had a smell that reminded him of you.’

You had also gotten him a thick, blue wool blanket.

“I know you don’t get cold,” you started, expression a bit more sheepish now, “But blankets do so much more than that. They’re soft, comforting. I thought it might help you feel more relaxed at home.”

Bucky’s jaw worked and he gave you a small smile as he wrapped the blanket around him, looking snug as a bug and absolutely adorable.

“This is awesome, thanks sweetheart.” He leaned over to the side to grab two more presents and extended them out to you. “Wanted to save the best for last. At least, I hope they’re the best.” He chuckled.

Oh, they were the best alright. A photo of the two of you from the other night, the beautiful lights of Linus creating a perfect backdrop behind your smiling faces, your Snoopy and red Cadillac ornaments hung next to each other in the background. It was placed in a chestnut wood frame that had “Our First Christmas” etched at the bottom. It was so perfect, so lovely that you felt tears welling in your eyes.

The next gift was wrapped in a small box, and you gasped when you opened it, your tear filled eyes looking down at a thin silver bracelet that had a small charm of the letter “B” hanging from it.

“I hope it’s not too much,” Bucky said nervously, scratching the back of his head. “I saw it at one of the shops and it made me think of you-”

“I love it,” you cut him off, pulling the bracelet out of the box. “I love all of it. These are perfect, Bucky. Thank you.”

You swore the smile on that man’s face could have put the damn sun to shame. You extended your hand out to him along with the bracelet, and he delicately clasped it around your wrist. His fingers lingered there a few seconds after, stroking your soft skin and sending shivers down your body.

You cleared your throat. “I have one more thing,” you said, suddenly sheepish as you stood up from your spot on the ground, making your way to your room.

Bucky called out to you when he heard some loud shuffling, “Do you need help in there?”

“No,” you said with a strained voice, “I got it.”

This present wasn’t wrapped, just donned with a large gold bow at the top.

Bucky stared at you in shock as you shuffled the small black bookcase into the living room. You stood next to it with your hands on your hips, slightly out of breath.

“I wasn’t sure what the color palette was - if there is any - at your place, but figured that with you black would be the safest option. I put it together myself with those shitty IKEA instructions, but I’ve built a Billy the Bookshelf Boyfriend before, so hopefully I didn’t totally screw it up. If I did, feel free to take it apart and put it back together correctly. It’s not much, but you said you barely had any furniture so at least this is a start, and we can definitely go on a field trip to work on getting your apartment properly furnished-”

He was so quick, so smooth, that your brain couldn’t even process that he was moving until his hands were around your face and his lips were pressed against yours. Once your brain finally had a moment to catch up, your arms were wrapped around his waist, pulling him close to you as you kissed him back, drinking in as much of him as possible.

It would be the first of a lifetime of kisses you shared with Bucky.

Just as this would be the first of a lifetime of Christmases you shared with him.

Thank you for reading! Feel free to check out my other stuff here. :)

Tags: @maladaptivexxdaydreaming @eclipses-and-moondust @itsdawnashlie @peaches1958 @blackwidownat2814 @barnesafterglow

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[ilooklikeaburntchickenugget]

Baby You’re (not) a Haunted House

A/N: Okay I know I’m publishing this in the middle of July and this takes place in October and is Halloween-esc themed but we all need a good caring, angsty, good ending story sometimes. Also, I hate horror so this was kind of a self-indulgent story. And despite the title this probably takes place Black Parade era but y’all know I had to throw a good pun in there. Pairing: Gerard Way x F!Reader Word count: 4,101 words Warning: Swearing, angst, description of panic attack and anxiety, alcohol consumption, fighting.

You had always found it a bit ironic that out of every person with any possible interest in the world you wounded yourself up with a boyfriend who loved horror.

It wasn’t your aesthetic that was so contradictory to this, or your personality for that matter, but for as long as you could remember you hated horror. No, despised it.

You could barely watch horror movies, always snuggled up next to him and looking away when you sensed a gore scene or jump scare coming. Sometimes, if you were too overwhelmed, you would even cover your ears to not hear the grueling screams of the actors and to help take you away more from the movie.

Gerard had never pushed this much, after seeing the one and only reaction he had ever genuinely seen to you getting jump-scared, which is when he jokingly snuck up on you during one of the movies and you flipped the fuck out. As in screaming and crying and having a breakdown in front of him.

He genuinely felt bad after, of course, but never quite understood your strong distaste. I mean, horror was so blatantly not real and the parts that seemed somewhat realistic were fun. There was an adrenaline rush behind those scares, an entertaining way to pass the time.

So now both of you stood questioning the same thing: how the hell did you end up here? Apparently, the band and some of their friends had a whole yearly “let’s got to an amusement park during October when all the scary attractions are open and do them as a group” thing, and you were invited. You were hesitant at first until you remembered that amusement parks were more than just haunted houses and scare actors this time of season, you had an array of other fun rides and overpriced alcohol everywhere, so maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

And so here you stood, one of those weird, clingy couples in the line for a haunted house as your back was against Gerard’s chest, his arms wrapped over your shoulders and hands clasped above your chest as you leaned into him and he placed a kiss on the top of your head. Of course, he was more than excited to be here, but he could sense your anxiety and could feel how tense you were all over. “You sure you wanna do this?” He asked and you nodded.

“Yeah, I think I’ll be okay. As long as you go first.” You replied and he smiled, giving you another kiss on the cheek.

“I’ll go first, I promise.”

You had to admit this was freaking you the fuck out in many ways. You were beyond nervous about everything here, the lights and costumes and noises and aesthetic- you already hated it and you weren’t even in yet.

However, as soon as Jamia came running back with some beer for you and her you took a sigh of relief. “Thank God.” You let out a baited breath and practically chugged the cup, everyone looking at you a bit strange. “What? I told you all I hate these things. I need the confidence.” They all shrugged it off understandingly.

You had tried so hard not to overthink this, and as you finally approached the entry door you began to regret not rethinking this over and over to a point where you chickened out. But you were way too deep in this now to just back out, you had to do it.

You clutched onto Gerard’s hands that were still wrapped around you a bit tighter, which of course he noticed, as he adjusted himself to wrap an around around you but be besides you instead, “It’s gonna be okay,” He whispered to you with a smile, “Remember hon, this is all fake.”

It was kind of hard to remember that as you entered the dimly lit attraction with some haunting music. Thankfully, multiple people were in front and behind you, so hopefully the scares directly on you were limited, but as soon as the first person jumped out you jumped back a bit and towards Gerard, clutching on his hand again as your breath sped up. You could feel him smile and chuckle off the scare, meanwhile you felt like you were fighting for your life internally, but you knew this was stuff he had been through before and handled flawlessly.

The second scare came soon after, and the flashing lights and loud noise caught you off guard as you nuzzled your face into Gerard’s hoodie as if trying to get it to stop. Gerard didn’t think much of this, too distracted by the fun he was having getting scared left and right, and simply moved his hand to run his fingers through your hair assuming it would help to alleviate the problem.

And jump scare after jump scare you could feel a panic attack rising. Your breathing became short and limited, your head spinning as you began actually shaking and practically frozen, only your feet guiding you. There was one last scare before the end, and finally tears pricked at the bottom of your eyes, emotion running high and your brain on full speed.

You stayed silent as everyone else walked out, laughing a bit and talking about how fun it was. Meanwhile, you were still trying to just breathe and not pass out, your lungs feeling like they were squeezing together. Gerard was smiling, but as soon as he looked down to check on you he realized how much he had fucked up. “Honey?” He asked, and when you didn’t respond in any way and he noticed how dramatic your breathing was he immediately realized you were having a panic attack.

“Mikey,” He quickly turned to his brother, “Y/N and I are gonna run to the bathroom, just text me with where you guys end up.” The younger brother nodded as Gerard quickly grabbed your hand and swooped you through some of the areas around the edge of the paths where he hoped the scare actors around would not scare you more, and more importantly, him, because at this point he would sucker punch one of them.

Once he found a secluded area next to one of the bathrooms and away from everything he grabbed your face, cupping your cheeks with his hands, “Honey, I need you to take deep breaths, okay? Count to three with me and starting breathing in, then out.” He began the count from one up to three, each time showing you how to deep breath in and out until your breathing felt more controlled and not staggered. And that’s when the tears silently rolled down your cheeks. “I knew this was a shitty idea. Fuck, I’m an awful boyfriend.” He muttered, rolling his sleeves over his hands to rub the slow trailing water off your cheeks. “I’m so sorry baby.”

You nodded a bit letting out a little sob as he held you as closed as he could, making sure to wrap his arms tight around you and letting you cry a bit into his chest before you calmed down a bit more. “I- I’m s-sorry.” You muttered out, wiping your own tears with the sleeve of your hoodie now. He gave you a completely confused look. “I- I shouldn’t h-have come and r-ruined all the fun.” You tried to explain, catching your breath, “This i-is not my thing a-and it was stupid.” “No baby.” He tried to explain, “Just because you don’t like scary things doesn’t mean you shouldn’t come. There are so many other things and I should’ve taken those into consideration and suggested the group split up. Besides, Jamia and a few other people don’t even like the scary stuff as much.”

“Y-yeah but still.” You sobbed a bit more and he continued to hold you, “I-I’m ruining your fun.”

“You’re not ruining a single thing for me.” He tried to explain as sincerely as possible, “I would be more than happy to just ride roller coasters with you for the rest of the night.” “N-no,” You began, “You love all this scary stuff, and- and you get it one time a year. It’s unfair I’m here making it worse.”

“Honey-” He tried again to explain despite feeling partially defeated in this battle, “I have horror movies year round, and there are haunted places everywhere all the time. Trust me, this is not just about me. You’re supposed to have fun too, and I should’ve known better than to have let you pressure yourself and go in there.” “But I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone else.” “Sweetie, in this situation I need you to think about yourself, m’kay?” He softly smiled, “I crossed a boundary and I’m sorry I made you feel this way.” “But I did it to myself.” “And I should’ve stopped it and suggested we do something else.” He rubbed your back a bit as you finally cooled down. “So now, let’s make it through this one last section of jump scares, meet up with the group, and we should split up.” You nodded this time in agreement, giving in.

Gerard kept you closer to him than ever as you made your way through the final scare zone and found your group near the entrance to one of the other haunted houses. “Hey guys,” Gerard beamed, putting on a good face again as everyone smiled back and you tried to smile too, “I was just thinking it might be a good idea to split up. Ya know, maybe the people who like scary stay here and the people who don’t do the actual rides.” “Finally.” Jamia sighed, “I don’t wanna do this again, I’ll lead the second group and we’ll go somewhere else.” She proclaimed and Gerard nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll go with the other group.” One of the other girls spoke up.

“Me three.” So did another guy.

“Y/N?” Jamia asked you and you nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll go with you guys.” “Okay, great.” She smiled, walking over to you, “Now you weirdos have fun getting scared and we’re going to go and ride actual, fun rides.”

Gerard gave you a quick kiss on the cheek, “If you need anything, call me or text me, alright?” You nodded as Jamia quickly dragged you away and down towards the entrance. As soon as you crossed the line, you took a deep sigh of relief. “I hope none of us made you feel pressured to go into that haunted house. I know you hate horror.” “No, none of you did.” You admitted with a shy smile, “i just pressured myself and ya know, ended up embarrassing myself.” She rolled her eyes.

“A panic attack is not embarrassing,” She insisted, “Listen, you tried something and didn’t like it. Doesn’t mean you have to do it again.”

“Yeah, true.” You replied, “I just feel a bit bad that I dragged Gee away, ya know he really loves this stuff.” “Yeah, he’s kinda a weirdo like that.” She said and you lightly laughed, “But then again, they all are. Let them have their fun. Besides, roller coasters are way more fun anyways.” “True.” You happily smiled for the first time that night.

Gerard wasn’t worried about you now, being safe in the presence of Jamia and normal amusement park things and not the shit show he had dragged you into. While he doubted the guys would ever do such a thing, he was incredibly grateful to hear them actually be more sympathetic for you over judgmental. Gerard kept his mouth shut for the most part, partially because there wasn’t much to say, and partially because he did miss you.

He almost regretted staying here and doing his usual thing, considering you were way more fun anyways. You always had stupid little games to play in the lines, and despite him not drinking, and in general not condoning anyones drunken state, he did find it amusing when you were a bit tipsy and let loose. You were always funny, charming, and sweet, but when you were drunk it just amplified.

“You doin’ alright, Gee?” He heard Frank ask in the line and he nodded.

“Yeah, fine.” He replied.

“Ya know you can go with the others if you want, it’s really no biggie-” “Nah, it’s alright.” He smiled a bit, “Besides, I think Y/N needs her space.” “You don’t seriously blame yourself for what happened, do you?” Frank asked and Gerard shrugged a bit.

“I mean, kind of. She took the blame fully, and I know it was her decision, but I really should’ve stuck up for the logic more and, ya know, been a bit more guarded. Especially in there. I was too lost in the stupid scares and shit to notice my girlfriend entering a fucking panic attack.”

“Well, still, it was her decision.” Frank responded, “I mean, I applaud her for trying, ya know, but regardless, her decision.” “But it’s not that simple Frank.” He sighed. “Like, if Jamia were to put herself in danger, and she wanted to, but you knew better, would you not try to stop her and help?” “I mean, depends on how persistent she was.” Frank admitted, “If she was sure about it, I wouldn’t. I would respect her decision. If she was less sure, I might try to talk her out of it. But Gee, you have a really stubborn woman on your hands. She’s not gonna give up without a fight. Good in most situations, but maybe not here.” Gerard couldn’t argue with that. Maybe stubborn wasn’t the right word, that implied that you just wanted your way, but persistent definitely matched your personality. You were logical and reasonable, most of the time, but he still felt a ting of guilt.

“Hey man, it’s okay, really.” Mikey consoled Gerard as he stood next to him, “Y/N’s fine now, she’s through the worst of it off having fun with everyone else and doing what she wants to do. She came here because she wanted to with you, went out of her comfort zone, tried, and it didn’t go well. This is her time, don’t think about it. She’s probably on a roller coaster screaming her head off and having the time of her life.”

“Shit, that was so much fun!” You squealed and threw your arms up in the air as you exited the gates to another coaster.

“I know right?” Jamia laughed, grabbing your hand in hers, “This is way more fun than haunted houses and stupid jump scares.” “You’re absolutely right.” You smiled, “I could go for another drink.” Jamia sighed.

“I mean, I could too. Should I? Logically, no. Will I? Yes, I will.”

You had probably spent a solid 40 bucks by now on drinks, now on your fourth as you happily sipping the edge of the plastic cup, skipping around with your newfound group of friends who had partaken in the much more fun version of this trip with you.

Did you miss Gerard? Sure, a little bit. But you were having the time of your life and had never felt better. He was probably having a good time too, so what did it matter? Distance was good. Having friends together you could hang out with separately was also good.

“The best part about this entire thing is that there are like, no lines.” One of the others in the group, John, maybe? Or Jason or- something spoke up and you smiled.

“Yeah, those losers are probably waiting sooooooo long and for what? Someone to scare them?” You scoffed, “This is all way more fun.” The three of them nodded along with you.

“The park closes in 20, we should probably try to meet up with ‘em guys. Ray spoke up as they all exited the last haunted maze for the night.

“Yeah, I’ll text Mia and see where they’re at.” Frank spoke up, pulling out his phone.

Gerard pulled out a cigarette and his lighter, quickly making sure to light it properly before taking a deep whiff in and out. You hated when he smoked (although he knew you secretly loved the look of it, he wasn’t dumb and could easily see you starring with big doe eyes). He let the cigarette dangle a bit, leaning against a railing and letting the smoke out of the corner of his mouth, the dopamine hitting him just a bit after already coming off of an adrenaline high from inside the maze.

He was worried about you, which in the grand scheme of things, was ridiculous, but he was still worried.

“Okay, they’re towards the front of the park, they just got off a ride so this is the perfect time to meet them.” They all nodded their heads in unison heading that way.

Gerard was more than relieved to see you from afar with a huge smile on your face and laughing. He took a deep breath realizing that you were okay again, and clearly doing pretty well. As soon as the group saw them, you guys all waved and Gerard smiled when your eyes met his.

“Hey Gee!” You happily beamed as he came over and hugged you.

“Hey, hon.” He replied, still smiling, and wrapping his arm tightly around your back. “How were all the rides!” “Soooo fun!” You lightly laughed, leaning onto him pretty heavily, a tell tale sign to him that you clearly didn’t just go on rides. “Jamia’s, like, the best ride buddy ever! And there were no lines, ugh, it was great.” You contently sighed as Gerard held onto you a little more for balance.

“I’m glad,” He replied, “How many drinks did you have?” You grumbled.

“Don’t parent me.” You replied.

“I’m not, I’m just asking how many drinks you had.” He innocently smiled.

“Four, I think.” You replied, “I’m just tipsy, that’s all.” “Just tipsy.” He repeated with a shake of his head and chuckle under his breath, mentally preparing for the grump you would be in the morning with a hangover.

You all said your goodbyes, and headed to your own cars. Gerard happily plopped in the driver’s seat, you taking passenger as he swiftly backed out and managed to beat traffic out of the park. “So, did you have fun?” He asked.

“So much,” You smiled happily, leaning your head against the headrest, “I wanna go again. Just, without the haunted stuff.” He nodded, still feeling that ting of guilt brewing within him. He probably shouldn’t have even asked you to come in the first place, despite wanting to take you and how it all ended up fine, but he probably should’ve stopped thinking about you going with your typical reactions to horror movies and such.

“Yeah,” He nodded to himself, “Ya know, maybe we could go again in the summer. I’m not sure if fall is the best time with all that.” You shrugged.

“Eh, fall’s kinda nicer. It’s chillier and prettier than summer. I’ll just stay away from the haunted things again.”

“But what if you can’t.” He began, the self judgment and punishment for his lack of prevention of you making a dumb decision that in the end hurt you all hurdling at him at once. “And what if all this happens again and then you enter a panic attack because I let you go and do something you shouldn’t have done.” “Gee,” You fought back a bit, “I- it was my decision and we both know that! I decided to come, I decided to go in there, and I faced the consequences of my actions.”

“Yeah, and do you know how fucking easy of a move it would’ve been for me to have just thought this was a terrible idea like it was and stopped you in the first place?” He raised his voice just a bit out of frustration. You took a second to consider what he was saying, but it all clearly rubbed the wrong way.

“If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then you shouldn’t even tell me about your stupid events with your friends and just go by yourself.” You turned away from him, crossing your arms and looking out of the window at the highway which was relatively deserted from cars at this ungodly hour. “Huh?” He now asked, his eyebrows and voice both knitted in confusion.

“If you’re embarrassed to bring me to these things just say it!” You spat out, simple and hard. He gave an even more confused look.

“When did I ever say that?” “You didn’t have to say shit to me, all your fucking context clues helped me solve the stupid puzzle.” You responded, “Being distant, fucking pushing me away- listen, I know I’m not good with scary things and I tried this once because I know they make you happy. And I didn’t say a single thing about you coming to ride a single fucking ride with me because at the end of the day you only get your scary paradise once a year so who am I to ruin that. So I’m sorry I end up being so embarrassing to bring to these things, I just wanted to make you happy. But if you would be happier with me at home or doing something else I’m fine with that too.” “Honey, that’s not what I meant at all I-” He collected himself to a calm and soothing manner, letting his voice become more genuinely himself over fueled by anger. “I want you to come to these things, of course I do! Everyone likes you, you’re funny and friendly but- listen, most of what I said is just me blaming myself for making you feel that way.” “Why would you ever think that?” You asked next.

“Because- just like you said, I know all you were trying to do was make me happy and you pushed yourself way outside of your comfort zone to try and do that to a point where you entered a panic attack all to try and make me happy. Honey, you have to promise me to never put my happiness over your own.”

“Gee, sometimes you have to do that in relationships.” “Well yeah, sometimes when one of us gives in to going to the other’s choice of breakfast spot but that doesn’t lead to a full blown panic attack.” He argued, “I never meant to put you in an uncomfortable mental state.” “You didn’t!” You said back, “Gerard, how many times do I have to repeat it, I put myself in that situation. And listen, you should be feeling absolutely no guilt right now for anything. You didn’t make a single decision for me, and while sure, making you happy might have influenced my decision making, I still made that decision. Not you. And it’s my decision to live with. Not yours.” He took a deep sigh and rubbed his temple a bit, still keeping his eyes on the road as you reached for his hand that now sat on his thigh, holding it. You had always loved how your hands were so small in his, how he could just squeeze around yours and it seemed like it would disappear.

“It’s not your fault. At all.” You repeated one last time for good measure and he nodded a bit. “Besides, it all worked out anyways. What’s the point in worrying about something that happened in the past when we can’t go back and change it and it all ended up okay?” “You always make real good fucking points.” He grumbled and you laughed lightly.

“Thanks,” You smiled.

“Ya know I’m not embarrassed of you, at all, right?” He asked next. “I still don’t know how to be with someone so perfect, if we’re being honest.”

“I’m not sure if I’m that perfect.” You said, biting your lip a bit and trying to hide a growing blush, “I mean, I did just have a panic attack in front of your entire friend group, which is kinda very embarrassing, by the way.”

“Maybe that’s just a reminder to everyone around you that you’re human, not the literal fucking goddess you look like.” “Stop,” You grumbled with a smirk, “Handling compliments like that takes a lot of emotional energy. And I don’t know if I have much left after tonight.”

“Alright, hon.” He softly smiled squeezing your hand again, “So, are we doin’ this again next year?” “Absolutely.” You nodded with a smile of your own, “Just maybe minus the haunted houses and me. That’s not a good combination.”

[maxwell-grant]

So, thoughts on Better Call Saul last season ?

....................................................................................

..............Okay, so

I'm still not having an easy time dealing with the fact that this show is over. I started watching Breaking Bad with my mom circa 2013, right as the 5th season was ending, and soon afterwards we'd started watching Better Call Saul together when it first began airing in 2014. I quite literally grew up with this show from adolescence to adulthood, it just always being there, something me and her would look up to every year or so. There's really nothing else out there that's comparable to this, in terms of my experience with it.

My first school assignment with video (pretty much the first time I ever filmed a project of any kind) was me doing a parody of that "That's why I fight for you Albuquerque!" commercial, and that was way before Better Call Saul began airing. This character's just been a part of my life for so long, I moved through homes 4 times and even then, there was always looking forward to watching Better Call Saul on the couch with her with every year or so. It was just always there, and it never felt like it was gonna leave.

I know I'm being dramatic but, man, it really feels like the end of an era to me, because it is. Just, 9, almost 10 years, coming to an end.

I guess I don't have as much to say now as I did last post considering I've been reblogging BCS posts and dropping thoughts in the notes but, here goes:

Oh man was I scared when Lalo Salamanca crashed through the laundromat's rooftop, killed Gus and proceeded to take over Los Pollos Hermanos as well as the franchise with his own vlogging spin-off. I was a little unsure that Lalo could carry his own show but, Tony Dalton really made it work, and Cocina de Lalo really sweeped the Emmies this year so, can't argue with results, y'know. I know the fanbase was kinda mixed on the Hamlin & Salamanca Graveyard Smash episode but it definitely felt like a major step-up as far as LGBT representation in this universe.

Anyway, rest in piece king. Besides getting a ghost boyfriend, you ended up ruining like 4 relationships and causing your lawyer to go off the deep end so badly he ended up creating the world's most pathetic monster that would eventually bring down Gus for good so, congrats Lalo Salamanca for winning the cartel war purely by dicking around.

I'm glad that Giancarlo won that TV Icon award apparently based almost entirely on his performance in that wine bar scene because, Jesus, talk about an all-timer way for us to say goodbye to Gus. I'm glad that they never showed Gus again, that was the perfect note for the character to leave us forever on. Again, victory has to be bittersweet, and he has to get the choice to walk away from this, only he doesn't really get a choice.

Giancarlo's ability to wordlessly convey volumes of inner turmoil was so good, I love so much about Gus' presentation and how non-verbal it is in the moments where it matters most. Also love that they somehow worked in a way for Gus and Lalo to Villain Monologue at each other prior, 10/10.

I kinda missed Jonathan Banks this season, but Mike was such a fixture in the early seasons of the show (and back then, the only part that interested me, I was a little too young and restless to stay awake for much of the lawyer business in Seasons 1-3) that, I get why he had to take a backseat. Dearly loved all of the Mike scenes in this season as well. Also, still miss Michael Mando, and if anything is gonna get me to rewatch this show (and it's far from just one thing), it's gonna be getting to see Michael Mando as Nacho again and really appreciate the character and all he brought to it.

I wasn't actually looking forward that much to seeing Walt and Jesse again because I was kinda afraid that, with BCS already kind of being seen as living in Breaking Bad's shadow, that it was gonna be this whole thing and, honestly I was fine with them not showing up at all. I thought the RV scene was neat and didn't think much besides that.

But then that Kim &Jesse scene happened and suddenly I remembered that, oh yeah, I fucking love Jesse Pinkman and he's one of my favorite characters ever, and here he is interacting with another of my favorite characters ever, and oh God Aaron Paul's doing such an amazing job at playing S1 goofball Jesse, this can't be easy, and oh this scene is so incredibly meaningful and of course they're gonna have Jesse Pinkman deliver bullshit monologues about Baby Jesus and his idiot friends while completely unaware of the massive weight of the narrative ready to pounce on him from behind, and of course it's Kim who has to pass the torch to him.

I was of the opinion that El Camino wasn't really something that had to exist but, nobody in their right minds would complain about getting another hour plus of Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman, completely on his own, getting to claw for a set-in-stone freedom one last time. That said, I deeply love this being the last we ever get to see of Jesse Pinkman. This kind of fleeting glimpse into what he was, what we first knew him as, his innocence and humor here heavy with the weight of everything that's going to happen to him.

Crushing but strangely liberating at once, to see Jesse like this and to know for sure that, at the very end, away from his parents and Saul Goodman and Walter White and those fucking nazis, he will finally find his freedom and walk away with the closest this universe can give you in regards to a happy ending, just as Kim did.

(By Breaking Bad Irony)

And on the OTHER hand, I deeply loved that Walter White's final scene was a microcosm not just of the fly episode (which in itself was a deeply significant microcosm of the show), but also of his entire character and role in Saul Goodman's life. He shows up, makes mountains out of molehills, desperately tries to fix problems while making them infinitely worse, acts like a pedantic arrogant jackass the entire time, complains about his chronic inability to make decent life choices, and then just casually devastates the only person around him he can still bully, before leaving others to deal with the noise.

I love that, compared to his guns-blazing semi-redemption at the end of Breaking Bad and the bittersweet flashback at El Camino, to Better Call Saul, there is nothing redeemable about Walter and his lifetime of regrets, there is only the fallout of all he destroyed. In the end, Saul Goodman's big shot was just Worse Chuck, and nobody has anything but contempt for his name here. Rest in shit Heisenberg, nobody even dignifies you with your cool made-up name anymore.

We absolutely had to get a Chuck flashback and, in an episode heavy with the idea of regrets and time machines, of course this was gonna be Jimmy's. Maybe the one chance he ever had, to turn things around with Chuck, the one time Chuck ever reached out to him for a change, maybe the one time Chuck could have changed if only a little, and so could Jimmy.

Chuck is rightfully remembered as such a pain in the ass and even one of the reasons people disliked the show, and the current response to him always seemed to be 50/50 between "Chuck was a monster that ruined every chance his brother had at being good" and "Chuck was right about literally everything that Jimmy was and would be" but, I liked that his final scene just punctuates what an awful, awful tragedy it was for the both of them to turn out like this, that they both could and should have done so many things differently, that they both deserved better than to destroy each other like they did. That, more so than Walter or Howard, Chuck is Jimmy's biggest regret and the one he'd been dying to confess the most to.

If the running idea across most posts I've written or reblogged about this show is that Better Call Saul is a ghost story, there was really no other way this show could have possibly ended without the exorcism of it's greatest, most pervasive and dangerous ghost: Saul Goodman. And maybe Saul Goodman's never really gonna be banished for good, the prison mates will surely never let their hero die (and isn't that what Jimmy wanted Saul to be? A hero, the guy with the slingshot?), but we know better, and more importantly, Kim knows better. There's only one person who still knows Jimmy McGill, and it's the only person that matters, because this was a love story.

There was really no other way this could have possibly ended for Jimmy and Kim and, I love that in the end, the poster boy for dodging the law and it's consequences, the character who made a living out of slipping away scott-free, the King of Getting Away With It, was the ONLY major character in this world who ended up facing legal consequences for what he did.

Just, fucking Saul Goodman being the only major character in this universe who goes to jail and stays there, and of his own volition no less. They couldn't kill him, and they couldn't let him go free, he had to get a unique fate and that was it. They let him "win" and get 7 years, show that he very much could have just gotten away with it, but he didn't, because he changed, because he had to prove he'd changed, because it had to mean something.

Man am I glad that I just happened to download a couple of songs off the BCS soundtrack a few days prior to watching this, because when that final smoking scene started playing the track "Shared Smoke" that also played in the smoking scene in the first episode, I was SO glad to be able to recognize it.

I hope they don't do more spin-offs but, I would absolutely watch anything these people did. They made so much of what seemed like such an unworkable premise it's nothing short of magic.

It was a love story, first and foremost. It was also a ghost story. It was a crime drama. It was a lawyer show. It was a comedy. It was a horror show. It was a story about people becoming the worst versions of themselves. It was about the best versions of ourselves coming through at the last minute. It was a downfall and a redemption. It was the beginning of a legend and the end of an era. It was everything that could have possibly been expected of it and it was a million other things it had no right to be. It was a FUCKING SPIN-OFF and it held a grip on our souls and it's gonna be greatly missed.

Would have still liked to see Huell one last time though. Hope he's doing fine in Louisiana.

[scoobydoofenshmirtz]

The Horny Cinematography of Seasons 4 and 5 of Supernatural

So I made this kinda silly post about how horny the late Kripke era of Supernatural was and it was mostly meant as a joke, but then it got me thinking. So I did a little bit of digging, went through some memorable scenes, and noticed some actual patterns in the way Dean and Castiel are shot versus other characters. Disclaimer: this is not exactly a scientific analysis. I didn’t rewatch the entire two seasons for this and there are probably shots with other characters that I missed that go against it, but this is just the general trend that I noticed. 

Click on the images for higher resolution. Analysis is under the cut.

So the general premise of this analysis is that Cas and Dean are shot noticeably close-up, typically staring intensely into each other’s eyes. I think we all know about the whole staring thing, but the actual close-ups were way more intense then I think some people might realize, especially when compared to other interactions between different characters. Cas in particular is shot very close-up frequently whether he’s talking to someone else or by himself (there are so many gorgeous close-ups of Misha in season 4), but the intense eye contact is pretty much only with Dean. 

It starts off almost immediately in 4x01 Lazarus Rising where in Dean and Castiel’s very first interaction, they stand very close and the camera focuses on their faces. First we have two close-ups, then in what is maybe my favorite shot in all of Supernatural, Castiel steps in closer to Dean and the close-ups get even tighter. He tilts his head and stares thoughtfully at Dean with those big blue eyes. Cut to Dean’s look of discomfort after being told (very accurately) “you don’t think you deserve to be saved.”

Things amp up in literally Castiel’s second appearance in 4x02 Are You There God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester with one of the horniest Destiel scenes in the show (again this is only their second interaction!) We have Castiel unexpectedly showing up at Bobby’s house, Dean sassing him, and Castiel stepping very close to Dean and saying “You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of Hell. I can throw you back in.” This is a very tense interaction with some beautiful low key lighting that pretty much went extinct after season 5. Notice how tight the frame is, even compared to 4x01. These are extreme close-ups where both Dean and Castiel’s chins and foreheads are cut out of the frame. 

Castiel’s third appearance in 4x03 In the Beginning is a lot more prominent as he has many scenes throughout the episode instead of just one. I’m not gonna include pictures of all of them because there’s lot, but there are plenty of close-ups and intense gazes between the two (e.g. sitting on the bed, “Hello Dean. What were you dreaming about?” which according to Misha, Kim manners said was “too gay” but they did it like that anyway) and contains the first time they touch and the first time they are shot in more high key lighting. Go rewatch the episode if you want to see more lovely close-ups between Dean and Cas. 

Next I would like to draw your attention to episode 4x07 It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester. This is Castiel’s fourth appearance and the first time we see him interact with a character who’s not Dean. This is where the differences between how they’re shot start to become apparent. First we have Sam’s first interaction with Castiel (greetings blood freak) that is shot with standard close-ups. Eventually, Dean comes in, conversation happens blah blah blah and we get to the more intense discussion about how the angels want to destroy the town. The discussion is between Dean, Cas, Sam, and Uriel, but Dean and Cas get most of the focus. The camera tells us that they are the main subjects in this scene. Dean and Cas are shot more close-up and tighter and they are standing closer and looking in each others eyes unlike Sam who is looking back and forth between them and standing a few steps back. 

Of course this doesn’t stop in season 4. Here is a similar example from 5x02 Good God, Ya’ll! but the difference between Dean and Cas and Sam is even more obvious. This is the “I'm hunted, I rebelled, and I did it, all of it, for you,” exchange which I find interesting. Some people could say here that Cas means “you” plural as in Sam and Dean but the Camera is so focused on just Dean and Cas while Sam just sorta hangs there in the background. 

One thing that I think is interesting is that these types of shots-extreme close-ups with two characters looking into each other’s eyes and standing no feet apart-are not necessarily exclusive to Dean and Cas, but they are usually in a different context. Pretty much all (at least that I could remember) the other examples of this type of shot are between one character and a villain. Below we have three fairly intense confrontations between characters, Sam and Uriel in 4x07 It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester, Dean and Alastair in 4x16 On the Head of a Pin, and Dean and Cas in 4x22 Lucifer Rising. The composition is almost exactly the same with similar lighting as well, but one of these things is not like the other. Very obviously Cas is not a villain and this scene in particular is a huge moment for his character that cements his decision to fully rebel against Heaven for Dean. 

Also characters that tend to be that close together looking into each other’s eyes in two shots are usually villains except for Dean and Cas. Below we have a shot of Ruby and Sam very close together right before he drinks her blood and a very close-up shot of Dean and Alastair both in 4x16 On the Head of a Pin. Compare that to the two shot from 4x02 Are You There God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester above for example. There is a certain sexual nature in these two villain scenes (and a lot of villain interactions on Supernatural in general). Obviously, Sam and Ruby are literally having sex, but Alastair is also portrayed as a villain who sexually objectifies his victims (the torture scene with Ruby, calling Dean “Daddy’s little girl, etc.) but Cas is not a villain and yet the framing is very similar. 

Now I want to compare two fight scenes, one in season 4 and one in season 5. Here we have the fight scene between Ruby and Sam in 4x09 I Know What You Did Last Summer. Ruby is of course a sexy lady who Sam sleeps with in a sexy fight scene where she “proves” that she wants to help Sam by killing the other demon instead of Sam. But of course, the fight scene in 5x18 Point of No Return is shot way more close-up and Dean and Cas are inches away from each other. While I wouldn’t described this scene as “sexy” (Cas is literally beating Dean to a pulp) it is way more charged...intimate isn’t exactly the right word but there’s a similar but more intense erotic energy than in the fight scene with Ruby. 

Unrelated side note: there is a great use of breaking the 180 degree rule in this scene that I think works way better in this instance at disorienting the viewer than the shaky cam does. 

Next I have some random examples I noticed that show some of the different shots between characters. We have Anna in 4x10 Heaven and Hell right before she has sex with Dean. It’s fairly close-up, but still pretty loose framing compared to a lot of scenes between Dean and Cas. Anna’s entire face is still in the frame. Then we have a scene between Sam and Ruby in 4x09 I Know What You Did Last Summer that is also not as close-up as a lot of Dean and Cas scenes. On the bottom is a shot from 5x17 99 Problems which is I think the closest Sam and Cas physically get in these seasons before they ever hug. It’s more of a medium close-up than most of the scenes between Dean and Cas where they get that close. Lastly I have probably the tightest close-ups between Dean and Cas from 4x16 On the Head of a Pin. It’s similar to the shots from 4x02 but the context is pretty different with Cas trying to reassure Dean about the apocalypse. I know these don’t really have a theme but I thought they were good examples of the general pattern.

Finally I would like to point out a scene that is sort of the opposite which is the infamous staring scene in 4x21 When the Levee Breaks that goes on for like an hour. I don’t really know what to say about this scene only that I can’t believe it’s real. They literally just stand and stare at each other.

So what’s the point of all this? I honestly don’t really know. None of these observations are hard and fast rules and I’m sure there are times when other characters are shot like this. However, Dean and Cas seem to be the only ones consistently framed this way-tight close-ups, staring into each other’s eyes standing zero feet apart. What does it all mean? To me it shows that their bond is unique and special (profound you might say). It’s not even like they’re shot in a similar manner to love interests, it’s that their framing is unique, it stands out. Was it on purpose? Maybe. How shots end up looking is interesting because it really is the work of a lot of different people including the director, the cinematographer, the editors and more. I don’t think they were thinking “we should film Dean and Cas in this very intense way because they’re in love” or anything, but they obviously recognized there was something special between these two characters. And truly, the intentions don’t matter all that much to me. What’s there is there, and watching it the first time around I noticed how close Dean and Cas always were and watching it back post 15x18 all those shots stand out even more to me. There’s really no conclusion here, but I think it’s interesting to look a bit more closely at the cinematography in TV shows that we don’t always think of as having the highest quality production. There’s a lot of layers to be discovered outside of scripts and acting and things we tend to focus on more as viewers. 

[soundsfaebutokay]

So I've recc'd this video before, but it deserves its own post because it's one of my favorite things on youtube. It's a Tedx Talk by comics writer, editor, and journalist Jay Edidin, and I really think that it will connect with a lot of people here.

If you live and breathe stories of all kinds, you might like this.

If you care about media representation, you might like this.

If you're neurodivergent, you might like this.

If you're interested in a gender transition story that veers from the norm, you might like this.

If you love the original Leverage and especially Parker, and understand how important it is that a character like her exists, you will definitely like this.

Transcript below the cut:

You Are Here: The Cartography of Stories

by Jay Edidin

I am autistic. And what this means in practice is that there are some things that are easier for me than they are for most people, and a great many things that are somewhat harder, and these affect my life in more or less overt ways. As it goes, I'm pretty lucky. I've been able to build a career around special interests and granular obsession. My main gig at the moment is explaining superhero comics continuity and publishing history for which work I am somehow paid in actual legal currency—which is both a triumph of the frivolous in an era of the frantically pragmatic, and a job that's really singularly suited to my strengths and also to my idiosyncrasies.

I like comics. I like stories in general, because they make sense to me in ways that the rest of the world and my own mind often don't. Self-knowledge is not an intuitive thing for me. What sense of self I have, I've built gradually and laboriously and mostly through long-term pattern recognition. For decades, I didn't even really have a self-image. If you'd asked me to draw myself, I would eventually have given you a pair of glasses and maybe a very messy scribble of hair, and that would've been about it. But what I do know—backwards, forwards, and in pretty much every way that matters—are stories. I know how they work. I understand their language, their complex inner clockwork, and I can use those things to extrapolate a sort of external compass that picks up where my internal one falls short. Stories—their forms, their structure, the sense of order inherent to them—give me the means to navigate what otherwise, at least for me, would be an impassable storm of unparsable data. Or stories are a periscope, angled to access the parts of myself I can't intuitively see. Or stories are a series of mirrors by which I can assemble a composite sketch of an identity I rarely recognize whole...which is how I worked out that I was transgender, in my early thirties, by way of a television show.

This is my story. And it's about narrative cartography, and representation, and why those things matter. It's about autism and it's about gender and it's about how they intersect. And it's about the kinds of people we know how to see, and the kinds of people we don't. It's not the kind of story that gets told a lot, you might hear a lot, because the narrative around gender transition and dysphoria in our culture is really, really prescriptive. It's basically the story of the kid who has known for their whole life that they're this and not that, and that story demands the kind of intuitive self-knowledge that I can't really do, and a kind of relationship to gender that I don't really have—which is part of why it took me so long to figure my own stuff out.

So, to what extent this story, my story has a beginning, it begins early in 2014 when I published an essay titled, "I See Your Value Now: Asperger's and the Art of Allegory." And it explored, among other things, the ways that I use narrative and narrative structures to navigate real life. And it got picked up in a number of fairly prominent places that got linked, and I casually followed the ensuing discussion. And I was surprised to discover that readers were fairly consistently assuming I was a man. Now, that in itself wasn't a new experience for me, even though at the time I was writing under a very unambiguously female byline. It had happened in the letter columns of comics I'd edited. It had happened when a parody Twitter account I'd created went viral. When I was on staff at Wired, I budgeted for fancy scotch by putting a dollar in a box every time a reader responded in a way that made it clear they were assuming I was a man in response to an article where my name was clearly visible, and then I had to stop doing that because it happened so often I couldn't afford to keep it up. But in all of those cases, the context, you know, the reasons were pretty obvious. The fields I'd worked in, the beats I covered, they were places where women had had to fight disproportionally hard for visibility and recognition. We live in a culture that assumes a male default, so given a neutral voice and a character limit, most readers will assume a male author.

But this was different, because this wasn't just a book I'd edited, it wasn't a story I'd reported—it was me, it was my story. And it made me uncomfortable, got under my skin in ways that the other stuff really hadn't. And so I did what I do when that happens, and I tried to sort of reverse-engineer it to look at the conclusions and peel them back to see the narratives behind them and the stories that made them tick. And I started this, I started this by going back to the text of the essay, and you know, examining it every way I could think of: looking at craft, looking at content. And in doing so, I was surprised to realize that while I had written about a number of characters with whom I identified closely, that every single one of those characters I'd written about was male. And that surprised me even more than the responses to the essay had, because I've spent my career writing and talking and thinking about gender and representation in popular media. In 2014, I'd been the feminist gadfly of an editorial department and multiple mastheads. I'd been a founding board member of an organization that existed to advocate for more and better representation of women and girls in comics characters and creators. And most of my favorite characters, the ones I'd actively seek out and follow, were women. Just not, apparently, the characters I saw myself in.

Now I still didn't realize it was me at this point. Remember: self-knowledge, not very intuitive for me. And while I had spent a lot of time thinking about gender, I'd never really bothered to think much about my own. I knew academically that the way other people read and interpreted my gender affected and had influenced a lifetime of social and professional interactions, and that those in turn had informed the person I'd grown up into during that time. But I really believed, like I just sort of had in the back of my head, that if you peeled away all of that social conditioning, you'd basically end up with what I got when I tried to draw a self-portrait. So: a pair of glasses, messy scribble of hair, and in this case, maybe also some very strong opinions about the X-Men. I mean, I knew something was off. I'd always known something was off, that my relationship to gender was messy and uncomfortable, but gender itself struck me as messy and uncomfortable, and it had never been a large enough part of how I defined myself to really feel like something that merited further study, and I had deadlines, and...so it was always on the back burner. So, I looked, I looked at what I had, at this improbable group of exclusively male characters. And I looked and I figured that if this wasn't me, then it had to be a result of the stories I had access to, to choose from, and the entertainment landscape I was looking at. And the funny thing is, I wasn't wrong, exactly. I just wasn't right either.

See, the characters I'd written about had one other significant trait in common aside from their gender, which is that they were all more or less explicitly, more or less heavily coded as autistic. And I thought, "Ah, yes. This explains it. This is under representation in fiction echoing under representation in life and vice versa." Because the characteristics that I'd honed in on, that I particularly identified with in these guys, were things like emotional unavailability and social awkwardness and granular obsession, and all of those are characteristics that are seen as unsympathetic and therefore unmarketable in female characters. Which is also why readers were assuming that I was a man.

Because, you see, here's the thing. I'm not the only one who uses stories to navigate the world. I'm just a little more deliberate about it. For humans, stories formed the bridge between data and understanding. They're where we look when we need to contextualize something new, or to recognize something we're pretty sure we've seen before. They're how we identify ourselves; they're how we locate ourselves and each other in the larger world. There were no fictional women like me; there weren't representations of women like me in media, and so readers were primed not to recognize women like me in real life either.

Now by this point, I had started writing a follow-up essay, and this one was also about autism and narratives, but specifically focused on how they intersected with gender and representation in media. And in context of this essay, I went about looking to see if I could find even one female character who had that cluster of traits I'd been looking for, and I was asking around in autistic communities. And I got a few more or less useful one-off suggestions, and some really, really splendid arguments about semantics and standards, and um...then I got one answer over and over and over in community after community after community. "Leverage," people told me. "You have to watch Leverage."

So I watched Leverage. Leverage is five seasons of ensemble heist drama. It's about a team of very skilled con artists who take down corrupt and powerful plutocrats and the like, and it's a lot of fun, and it's very clever, and it's clever enough that it doesn't really matter that it's pretty formulaic, and I enjoyed it a lot. But what's most important, what Leverage has is Parker.

Parker is a master thief, and she is the best of the best of the best in ways that all of Leverage's characters are the best of the best. And superficially, she looks like the kind of woman you see on TV. So she's young, and she's slender, and she's blonde, and she's attractive but in a sort of approachable way. And all of that familiarity is brilliant misdirection, because the thing is, there are no other women like Parker on TV. Because Parker—even if it's never explicitly stated in the show—Parker is coded incredibly clearly as autistic. Parker is socially awkward. Her speech tends to have limited inflection; what inflection it does have is repetitive and sounds rehearsed a lot of the time. She's not emotionally literate; she struggles with it, and the social skills she develops over the series, she learns by rote, like they're just another grift. When she's not scaling skyscrapers or cartwheeling through laser grids, she wears her body like an ill-fitting suit. Parker moves like me. And Parker, Parker was a revelation—she was a revolution unto herself. In a media landscape where unempathetic women usually exist to either be punished or "loved whole," Parker got to play the crabby savant. And she wasn't emotionally intuitive but it was never ever played as the product of abuse or trauma even though she had survived both of those—it was just part of her, as much as were her hands or her eyes. And she had a genuine character arc. My god, she had a genuine romantic arc, even. And none of that required her to turn into anything other than what she was. And in Parker I recognized a thousand tics and details of my life and my personality...but. I didn't recognize myself.

Why? What difference was there in Parker, you know, between Parker and the other characters I'd written about? Those characters, they'd spanned ethnicities and backgrounds and different media and appearances and the only other characteristic they all had in common was their gender. So that was where I started to look next, and I thought, "Well, okay, maybe, maybe it's masculinity. Maybe if Parker were less feminine, she'd click with me the way those other characters had." So then I tried to imagine a Parker with short hair, who's explicitly butch, and...nothing. So okay, I extended it in what seems like the only logical direction to extend it. I said, "Well, if it's not masculinity, what if it's actual maleness? What if Parker were a man?" Ah. Yeah.

In the end, everything changed, and nothing changed, which is often the way that it goes for me. Add a landmark, no matter how slight, and the map is irrevocably altered. Add a landmark, and paths that were invisible before open wide. Add a landmark, and you may not have moved, but suddenly you know where you are and where you can go.

I wasn't going to tell this story when I started planning this talk. I was gonna tell a similar story, it was about stories, like this is, about narratives and the ways that they influence our culture and vice versa. And it centered around a group of women at NASA who had basically rewritten the narrative around space exploration, and it was a lot more fun, and I still think it was more interesting. But it's also a story you can probably work out for yourselves. In fact it's a story some of you probably have, if you follow that kind of thing, which you probably do given that you're here. And this is a story, my story is not a story that I like to tell. It's not a fun story to talk about because it's very personal and I am a very private person. And it's not universal. And it's not always relatable, and it's definitely not aspirational. And it's not the kind of story that you tend to encounter unless you're already part of it...which is why I'm telling it now. Because the thing is, I'm not the only person who uses stories to parse the world and navigate it. I'm just a little more deliberate. Because I'm tired of having to rely on composite sketches.

Open your maps. Add a landmark. Reroute accordingly.