#rewatching season 1 and this is the consequence

[twobrothers]

azazel’s special children should’ve unionized

[nakianshuri]

What gets me about arguments that state Eloise is being a bad friend to Pen is that they both were engaging in secret activities that let them rebel against society's conventions and also put their families at risk. But Pen as Whistledown is celebrated and Eloise going to lectures and befriending Theo is somehow transgressive.

Marina trapping Colin into marriage was bad. Eloise meeting secretly with Theo is bad. Eloise seemingly friends with Cressida is unforgivable.

But Pen outing Marina's pregnancy (a woman who had the least amount of power than anyone in the Ton) is good, even if it leaves her open to public ridicule. Pen outing Eloise as a political radical is good because it "saves" Eloise, even if it leaves her open to public ridicule. Pen continuing to write as Whistledown is good, although she is now well aware of how much it can get her family in trouble with the Queen herself, because....why?

Other women can face the consequences of their actions because they supposedly deserve it, but Pen can continue to engage in even riskier behavior in secret, protect herself from facing no public ridicule for it, and Eloise is wrong to be angry and bitter about any of it. Her befriending Cressida is somehow worse than anything Pen has done. And if Colin finds out about Pen's secret, he's supposed to be fully supportive of her, too, or else he's wrong. That doesn't make a damn bit of sense.

[hexhomos]

Kiss on the check accepted! :3c

And your response reminded me of a detail I always pick up on rewatches but hadn't fully untangled yet—in the flashback of her childhood, Mel steps into that broken throne room with blood still drying on it. At Ambessa's prompting, Mel goes right into talking about how to renovate the place. "Paint the walls gold"...like gilding over the horrors of conquest that got that power in the first place.

And when she describes the regent they should have, she finishes with, "she should be pliant, so we can mold her." That IS what she was doing with Jayce, slowly, over a decade, and then quickly through Acts 2 and 3.

And then in the scene, after Mel finishes describing a "pliant" regent who can be molded, her mother suggests MEL could be that regent. Young Mel is excited at the idea, entirely missing the implication that she too would be an asset of her mother's reign.

That's why she takes off her Medarda ring right before casting her vote for Zaun's independence. She's finally realized she's just as subject to her mother's games as anyone else and Chooses to stop working in the interests of her family's power.

And augh, I wish her s2 plotline hadn't taken her out of Piltover so we could have seen more of the spycraft against Ambessa she was up to in Arc 1. I can't help but think of how much stronger her confrontation with Ambessa would have been if we had a full season of "daughter works against mother" instead of just a few scenes and a lot of getting kidnapped. More ambiguity with Leblanc would've been great too instead of her killing Elora to say hello.

[continued from here]

EXACTLY the way they shafted the politics in s2 (specifically so they wouldn't need to have hard conversations) genuinely had a negative impact in the ENTIRE story. The systematic horrors were downplayed and plotlines were dropped with very short acknowledgements - this is why we get people complaining about the jayce/mel breakup scene "coming out of nowhere" despite the fact that it made perfect sense for these characters!!!!!! It was just too short and they changed the subject too quickly, so we don't have TIME to think about the economic issues again.

It's so clear to me that jayce, viktor, ekko, mel (each representing a diff political facet. curious!) etc were carefully removed from the actual real world so we never have to analyze or push back against the notion that cait/ambessa are doing a hostile military coup and HAVE gotten people killed, imprisoned, and tortured en masse. So they can neatly resolve all of the plot with an avengers-style montage and never talk about the stuff with real world implications. There is no war in piltover and zaun. Just a cartoony last second villain. We just need to unite to protect... piltover...? And now viktor is randomly forgetting his proud zaunite commie stance and teaming up with the imperial invaders that were plaguing the earth moments ago........? We never talk about the class inequality ever again? Forget everything. Nothing ever matters.

The end result was that we spent far less time with these characters and they ended up being pretty underdeveloped. I know this happened for marketing reasons, its so incredibly clear aspects of the story were dumbed down so they could sell more ingame skins or pitch new champions, and that was seen as more valuable and desirable for the company than politicking - because at heart riot don't care about the political stuff anyway. But it still makes me throw my hands up in the air. such an asspull

In a reality where we had enough time and investment to touch on this, Mel could have actually gotten to push back against ambessa/cait and directly deal with the consequences of her actions. SEVIKA could have gotten a proper payoff for her underground character arc, instead of vanishing halfway through and then randomly accepting a diversity hire seat on the council (insanity. that was insanity) Ekko and the firelights would have obviously played a key role in rallying people against ambessa and helping Jinx recover from her displacement crisis (sorry isha, but even you could have been better used as part of the firelights dilemma) Jayce's mounting disillusionment with piltover and his loyalty to Viktor would be much better explored if they were still in conversation about the cities, the world they wanted to help, and the chaotic blurry lines of personhood/citizenship that decide who is an 'acceptable' target under the fist of the state. Vi could have built a self-reliant identity for herself, something better to fight for that isnt 'being a cop'. This show could've been awesome. I wish it existed

[uneducated-author]

Something that has been rotating in my head for a hot minute is how trapped Lu Guang is in Season 1.

From his nightmare sequence in Season 2, we know that Cheng Xiaoshi is murdered at some point after the case of the missing child, but before they help Xu Shanshan, right? And all I can think about is, their Earthquake case was one of their last cases together.

Lu Guang in the first timeline breathed out, because they were okay, they were friends again, he was forgiven and then-

Cheng Xiaoshi is dying in his arms and he's lost everything. And a part of him realises what it is to have your whole world crushing you, to feel the person you love most slip away, and he goes 'oh. Oh I wouldn't forgive myself either.'

And then, he's back.

The first time I watched Season 1 of Link Click I LOVED the way they handled the fallout of the Earthquake arc. Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi are a little older than typical protagonists and their maturity really shows. Cheng Xiaoshi has a clear anger, Lu Guang explains his reasoning, but Cheng Xiaoshi's aggression isn't met with Lu Guang justifying his choices or even retaliating to match his temperament. I also liked the fallout. Neither character is so caught up in their own feelings that they loose sight of how much they value their shared relationship, but they also do feel the hit, and give each other space to heal and recover privately. We don't get forced dramatic tension and an overemotional reconciliation, we get a careful healing and understanding that people have different values and contradictory priorities.

If you rewatch the scene where Cheng Xiaoshi punches him, Lu Guang's expression isn't sorrowful, or even surprised, it's so purely neutral. I think a lot of us thought it seemed apathetic, but now, it feels more resigned.

If anything, all throughout season 1 we hear the public opinion of Lu Guang being that he's very mature, calm and unlikely to panic. And with the season 2 revelation we know why, because he's replaying the levels. He's made these mistakes before, he's learned these lessons. He's borne Cheng Xiaoshi's anger before and he has to put him through that pain again because he can't keep Cheng Xiaoshi safe without the certainty of the timeline. So he gives Cheng Xiaoshi the trauma he knows that they'll heal from to protect him from the bullet that he won't.

That's why the next season is going to be so compelling. Lu Guang has run out of foresight. He doesn't have to keep to a path because he burnt it behind him. For the first time, his autonomy isn't determined and he'll have to face the consequences of his decisions, not his actions. New game, new rules.

Is that a blessing? Or a curse?

[doverstar]

I'd love to defend Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life for a minute (I don't usually make long posts and may delete this later for that reason) because I feel like writing something inconsequential.

Other people get lots of comfort watching the original show (especially in the fall). I feel cozier watching AYITL. The characters are much older; the dizzy, flighty, still-growing-up feelings for Lorelai and Rory have faded, and it's full of moments that make it clear that certain things in their lives are definitely always going to be there. Constants. Luke, Stars Hollow, family, Kirk, Taylor, the changing of the seasons. Now - for my defense. (I'm rambling.)

Okay, many, many people don't like the revival. I understand. It's different in a lot of ways from the original show, and lots of expectations were not met. When I first saw it, it threw me too. But I didn't dislike it. In fact, the more I rewatched it, the more I thought it was almost better than the first show. The leading ladies are not flashy young stars anymore - Rory is Lorelai's age when the OG show first began, and Lorelai is gracefully and fabulously careening toward grandma times with all her wit and charm, all her most comfy habits, and it makes me want to hang out with her more than Season 1 of the show ever did. And I think the fact that ASP came back to write for these characters again and end it on her terms, at last, was an absolute win, and I love how she did it because it fixed so many things I thought were wrong in the show.

Lorelai is self-centered, terrified of commitment, and has no idea how to put others before herself and not run away during the hard times - unless something involves Rory.

Rory is self-centered, thinks she is special, and has no idea how to deal with not getting what she wants. The consequences of her actions almost never directly affect her, and when they do, said consequences are quickly stamped on and snuffed out by her mother/friends/family.

Emily is self-centered, desperate to be in control, and finds her worth in what other people think, in how things look, and that includes what Richard thinks.

In the show, Lorelai has moments where she learns to stay and learns to put other people who are not Rory before herself. Those moments don't last. She definitely has good intentions, but they're all conditional. She only has good intentions up to a point - and that point is usually when someone or something threatens her happiness and feeling of safety, or Rory's happiness and feelings of safety (understandable; that's her child).

In the show, Rory is told she is the sweetest kid in the whole world. Rory is told she'd never do anything to hurt anybody. Rory is told she's special, she's smarter than her peers, she's not like other girls. Rory 100% believes that. She also probably has a bit of a problem with living up to that image - she wants to be all of those things, and thinks she is, and can't handle it when it seems like people think she's not. (That may or may not have something to do with Christopher, who always had somewhere more important to be, or with Lorelai, who was so cool and strong and sure of Rory.)

And the show has moments, too, where Lorelai has to face the music and see that she's screwed up or is hurting someone with her behavior (Max, Chris, Luke, Jason, Emily, Richard, Sookie), but very very often, Lorelai breezes her way through that music and keeps moving, and flits to the next thing or person that will make her happy, because she does not know how to stay and stand and fix what she's broken. Because it only matters if she is happy and if Rory is happy. (The same thing goes for Rory in the show - consequences come, but Rory rarely has to properly deal with them herself. She is coddled and propped up the whole way.)

Now, to my point!

I watched AYITL and noticed something was different right away. Lorelai is with Luke (she should be), who is the opposite of her - constant, loyal, selfless, determined to stay no matter how hard things get. But they're not married. Lorelai is scared to really commit, and marriage is one of the hardest things you can commit to - ever. And Lorelai is not happy. Rory, for her part, is not perfectly settled as a reporter or a journalist or any of the things she was always told she could be. And she's not happy. And Emily, bless her, has lost her husband and her false sense of control is spinning away, and of course, she is not happy.

And A Year In The Life takes the show's clumsy half-arc of these three Gilmore women and perfectly completes it.

Lorelai's fear of commitment and habit of bolting when things get hard drives her to push every new chef out of the Dragonfly, refuse to expand the inn to better accommodate Michel's needs, shun Rory's tell-all of her past mistakes, shame Richard at his funeral and break Emily's heart, and worst of all, nearly wreck the closest thing to a proper relationship she's ever had: the one she has with Luke. She can't face that she misses her father, loved her father, and that maybe her mother is right about her relationship status. She can't face that people might read Rory's writing and see all her flaws and all her mistakes growing up in printed ink, and she can't run from that. And when Rory insists, Lorelai cuts ties. Lorelai has spent years avoiding marriage with Luke. She has spent years hurting her mother in an effort to defend herself at all costs. And she has spent years ensuring the Dragonfly Inn is exactly what she wants it to be; because changing it would be uncomfortable, and as a result, she won't commit to a new chef, she won't expand, and she's about to lose Michel the way she lost Sookie.

Rory's bubble of self-centeredness and assurance that she's special is popped with the needle of reality at last: she is not special. She's a young woman who has to actually work hard to find a job and make some money, like everyone her age. She is talented and she is smart, but she's not God's gift to journalism, and people keep saying no, and people keep asking her to prove her skills and her merit, and she doesn't know how to deal with that because everyone has always told her she can do anything she wants and she's the best. She wants a distinguished career and can't find anyone who will take her on; she tries to write for a raging batty feminist (hello Alex Kingston I love your work) and that goes sideways; she wants Logan Huntzberger but she turned down his proposal and now he's engaged and it has to be a secret; she wants somewhere to live - just not Stars Hollow because she's better than the thirty-somethings stuck back home. She wants Lorelai to approve of her book and insists her mother give her this, as if Lorelai hasn't always given her whatever she could. And when Lorelai says no, Rory does what she wants anyway and almost fractures their relationship over it.

Emily's control is completely gone - she can't control her emotions, she can't control her tongue, she can't control her maid or her maid's handy family, she can't even control a stupid painting of her late husband. She's on a downward spiral and her anchor is dead. She tries to regain a sense of worth, because surely that will bring happiness back. She tries to gain it from how many possessions she has, that doesn't work. She tries to gain it from Jack, who is not well-suited to her but he makes a matching accessory to the life other people will see. That doesn’t work. She tries to gain it from therapy with Lorelai, control her daughter at last, that doesn't work. She tries to control Richard's headstone, that doesn't work. She even tries to find solace with her beloved D.A.R, and she finds that emptiest of all.

A Year In The Life has these women finally face their flaws head-on and grow. The way characters should.

Rory: Rory is confronted with the fact that she is not special and has to move home like everyone else her age and get a job she does not want, because that's life, and that's what everyone else has to do in the real world. And when she's at her lowest, pouting, she gets advice from someone who has faced his own flaws long ago and has grown and who knows her at her best, and encourages her to get up and work hard (Jess Mariano, ladies and gentlemen). And she does. Rory hits bottom and takes Jess's advice and works at understanding her mother, who is not perfect, and even goes to interview her father, who is also not perfect. She fights with Lorelai over the book and insists on her own way, and when Lorelai refuses, Rory can only blame herself. She has a rabble-rousing night with her LaDB boys and winds up sleeping with Logan in one more bubble of fantasy, one more umbrella-jump of escapism, like the old days, because Logan is her weakness. And when she wakes up the next morning, Rory turns and walks away from Logan and the affair and her insistence on having what she wants regardless of who she hurts (hello, Dean Forrester and her affinity for taking spoken-for men) for the final time. And the consequences of her desires? She’s pregnant. (Come on, we all know the baby is Logan’s; Rory’s life rhymes with Lorelai’s.) She goes to Christopher to interview him for the book and is subtly asking her father why he wasn’t in her life, because she needs to know what to do with her baby and her lover. She didn’t go to Lorelai to figure that out. She went to her dad, because the truth is, Rory didn’t have her father, and part of dealing with the consequences of her actions is to work out how to take care of this baby and whether or not that means involving the father. She’s owning up. She goes to Lorelai and offers to give up this book; she doesn’t make excuses or whine, she wrote the book anyway because she believes in it, but when she’s gotten three chapters in, she respectfully goes to her mother and asks her to read it and then, for the sake of Lorelai, not herself, Rory promises to quit and throw the book out if Lorelai does not approve. Because Lorelai is more important to her than herself. Rory has worked hard and made mistakes and gotten pregnant and she has stared the world in the eyes and seen she’s not special. And she has to deal with that. And she does, finally, deal with it. And she’s happy.

Emily: Emily is confronted with the fact that nothing is inside her control—except what she does. Worth does not come from what she owns or who she’s with or what she’s wearing, and it didn’t come from her marriage, either. That wasn’t why she married Richard anyway. She is miserable and alone, and part of that is her fault. She married Richard because she loved him, and she keeps coming back to Lorelai because she loves her, and she opens up her house to Rory when Rory needs a place to write because she loves her. Emily looks around at what she has and recognizes what has worth and what doesn’t, maybe for the first time, with clear vision. She recognizes that she can’t control everything. At first, that fact keeps her down. She forgets what day it is, the curtains are closed, and she doesn’t get up in the morning. No Richard, no Lorelai, no reason to move. And then Lorelai calls her, and tells her about who Richard was and what Richard did and how it mattered, and that inspires Emily. She can get up. She buys a place on Cape Cod, totally opposite of the sort of life everyone admires and expects to have worth, and she does what she’s really always been best at—she loves. She takes care. She took care of Richard, she took care of Lorelai and Rory when they needed it, and she takes care of Berta and her wonderful family, instead of having a maid take care of her needs. She packs up and moves out, she sends Jack away, she reveals the D.A.R. for what it is and quits them forever, and she takes a job at a whaling museum because she just likes it. It’s nothing fancy, and neither is her oceanic house or the music she plays in it or the clothing she wears, because none of that is worth anything anyway. Her family is. Her friends are. She gets the painting of Richard done right and brings it with her, and she gives up attempting control of everything and only takes control of how she behaves. She gives Lorelai what Lorelai needs for the Dragonfly, and her only stipulation is that she gets to spend more time with her daughter and Luke. She loves, she takes care of others, she helps. And she’s happy. And now, the best for last. The star.

Lorelai: Lorelai sits in that stupid Stars Hollow Musical and hears a song that perfectly describes her problem—it’s never or now. Make a commitment. Do something hard. Make your life about something other than your momentary present happiness and comfort, the way you do with just Rory, sometimes, but make it a permanent change. Make change permanent! Don’t run away! …And then she runs away. She’s been miserable, she’s hit bottom, like her mother before her and her daughter after her. She’s losing friends, she’s losing Luke, she’s losing Emily, she’s losing Rory over the manuscript, and it’s all her fault. Lorelai tries to breeze past it. She does Wild. She does what she’s never done before, she does something hard and uncomfortable, but she does it for herself, and therefore it doesn’t quite work. She tries to hike, Dipper Pines won’t let her hike, she meets other women her age who think this hike is gonna fix things, it doesn’t, and she gives up and goes to get coffee because that’s her go-to. (Coffee is speedy, bad for you, and only a temporary rush—kind of everything Lorelai clings to, actually.) But the coffee shop is closed, and when Lorelai is denied that allegorical Band Aid, she goes around back and sees a great view and finally finds clarity. She didn’t need the hike—she needed to think. She needed a moment of silence and introspection to gain the insane courage to finally stop moving, stick around, and face her fears. To put her eyes on herself and then take her eyes off herself and onto other people—namely the people she loves. Lorelai calls Emily and cries, because it’s hard to do this, it hurts, but with one story, she proves she loved her father, and she knows her father loved her, and the fact that she’s calling shows that she knows Emily loves her too, and she loves Emily, and has loved them both all along. It gives Emily the strength she needs to get out of bed. That was hard, but Lorelai did it. And now she’s going to do more hard things—she’s going to commit. It’s never or now, and Lorelai chooses now. She goes home and the first thing she does is propose to Luke and become Lorelai Danes overnight. Hard. Scary. Just right. She patches things up with her daughter, and chooses Rory over herself—for the hundredth time, yes, but when it’s at its hardest for her to do. “I’ll read it when it’s done.” Lorelai expands the Dragonfly. She goes to Emily for help, which is also super hard, but this time it’s not for Rory – it’s for her, and it’s for Michel, and it’s for the Dragonfly. And she accepts Emily’s affectionate terms. Lorelai chooses Rory, Luke, Emily, and Michel over herself, and commits, and she doesn’t run away. And she’s happy.

And all of it is earned. Finally earned.

I could talk more about the incredible writing, about ASP at her best, about the perfect themes and scenery and the very intentional end to Paris, Lane, Kirk, Taylor, Dean, Jess, Logan, Chris, and the general cast’s stories, but I’ve already rambled for too long.

Suffice it to say: A Year in the Life is my Gilmore Girls. It’s best version of the story. I think it was expertly done. Not perfect, but an ending that was earned.

[snowblack-charcoalwhite]

Something something the concept of granting meaning and importance to an object/phenomenon/person by giving them a name

It is especially relevant in the world like the one ASOIAF is set in, where the name serves as an extremely important defining factor for many characters (mostly a family name but also their given one). And boy, did HotD writers lean into this - in their own way.

I am not the first one to point out that Jaehaera's name hasn't been mentioned in the show at all - not once. But guess who got to have one?

Sure, everyone absolutely needs to remember a girl who was raped by the prince (who is now the king) and who, except for that fact - which serves the purpose of vilifying said prince (and, in some way, by association, the entire TG) - had zero relevance to the plot. And so we have Dyana - because this absolutely unbiased show can't have anyone forget that the Greens' candidate for the throne has some deplorable proclivities. She even got some extra screen time in season 2: once again, absolutely unnecessary except for reminding the audience of her existence - and of Aegon's sins.

But who cares about the only remaining child of the king; the girl who came within a hair's breadth from death and then lost her twin brother; the one true joy left to her mother? Why would she even need a name?

Jaehaera's fate in the show is uncertain (the writers didn't do away with her at the very least) - but for now she is not even a tool of the story but merely a dead weight that just had to be there for Blood and Cheese to have someone to choose from. And then she was simply conveniently (nearly) forgotten becoming just "Helaena's daughter" - no name, no face, no emotional attachment from the audience. I just wonder if the writers' unwilingness to actually involve Jaehaera in the story (or just let the viewers properly see her) comes from them being equally unwilling to make the audience remember her brother whose death and its consequences they are so eager to sweep under the rug in order to minimize the PR damage done to the Blacks.

P.S. Speaking about the importance of names - they need to be not only revealed but also remembered. Jaehaerys didn't end up nameless - but how many times was he actually called by his name in the show? Right off the bat I can remember only one such case: Aegon asking Helaena where he was in episode 1. And while I believe this was not the only time (I am terribly sorry but right now I can't make myself rewatch any part of season 2, not even for science - so feel free to point out the rest), I have a distinct feeling that he still was far more often referred to as "boy", "child", "son", "heir to the throne" and whatnot. Once again: no name, no memory - which IMO is exactly what the writers were going for.

[inkolnito]

Paddock Confidential - Chapter 10: Echoes of Jeddah

Pairing:

Oliver "Ollie" Bearman x Lira Räikkönen (Original Female Character )

Minor background pairings reflecting the real-life F1 grid (e.g., Charles Leclerc/Alexandra Saint Mleux)

Summary:

Rising F1 star Ollie Bearman navigates the intense pressure of his rookie season with Haas, juggling demanding team expectations and his close ties to Ferrari under the watchful eye of Fred Vasseur. His biggest challenge lies off-track: guarding his relationship with the enigmatic and fiercely private Lira, whose surprising motorsport knowledge and aversion to the spotlight hint at a complex past connected to one of the sport's icons. As Ollie fights for his future, their secret world threatens to unravel amidst paddock gossip, rivalries, and the ever-present Drive to Survive cameras. When exposure becomes inevitable, they must confront the consequences and find a way to navigate the relentless glare of the F1 world together.

Warnings and Notes:

Warnings: Depictions of anxiety, stress related to high-pressure environments (F1), mentions of past trauma (related to privacy/media intrusion), media scrutiny/harassment, potential minor F1-typical language.

Notes:

This is a work of fiction using real people (F1 drivers, personnel) as characters; their portrayals, actions, and relationships are fictionalized for the story.

The relentless sunshine and manufactured glamour of the Middle East felt a world away. Back in the familiar, damp grey embrace of the early English spring, Ollie Bearman finally felt like he could breathe again, albeit shallowly. The two weeks following the whirlwind of Jeddah had been a necessary, if slightly surreal, period of decompression. They’d retreated to a rented cottage tucked away in a quiet corner of the Cotswolds, a place deliberately chosen for its lack of phone signal and its distance from anything resembling a racetrack or a media scrum. Rolling green hills, ancient dry-stone walls, the bleating of sheep – it was the antithesis of the concrete canyons and screaming engines of Formula 1.

Here, amidst the comforting normalcy of muddy walks, pub lunches where nobody recognized him, and evenings spent by a crackling fire, the sheer magnitude of what had happened began to sink in. Seventh place. On his F1 debut. For Ferrari. It still felt like a dream, something that had happened to someone else. He’d rewatched the race highlights countless times on his laptop, analysing his overtakes, critiquing his minor errors, the driver’s instinct overriding the initial euphoria. He’d read the articles – glowing praise from pundits, comparisons to past debut heroes, rampant speculation about his future long before the Haas deal was even whispered about publicly.

The quiet retreat also gave them time to practice. They rehearsed their 'public' story until it felt almost natural. Lira was just 'Lira.' A private person, intensely private. Not involved in motorsport, not interested in the limelight. A friend. Someone he’d known for a while. Vague, simple, deflective. They role-played potential questions from reporters, from sponsors, even from other drivers. Lira was unnervingly good at anticipating the angles, crafting plausible but non-committal answers for Ollie to use.

"If they ask how we met?" Ollie prompted during one session.

"Through mutual friends, outside of racing," Lira replied instantly. "A long time ago. Keep it vague on timing."

"If they ask what you do?"

"She values her privacy. She works in research. Again, vague. Deflect. Turn the conversation back to racing, to the team."

It felt like preparing for an interrogation, not navigating a relationship. The need for constant vigilance, for carefully constructed half-truths, sat uneasily with Ollie, grating against his naturally open personality. But he knew it was necessary. The alternative – exposing Lira, revealing her connection to Kimi, unleashing the inevitable media firestorm – was unthinkable.

Their first real test came during a necessary trip back towards London for a brief meeting with his manager, Julian. They stopped for lunch at a gastropub in a slightly larger town, thinking they were still relatively anonymous. Ollie, forgetting himself for a moment, laughed loudly at something Lira said, the sound carrying across the quiet dining room.

Suddenly, a man at a nearby table looked up, his eyes widening in recognition. "Blimey! It's Ollie Bearman, isn't it? The Ferrari kid!"

Ollie froze, caught completely off guard. Several other heads turned. He felt a flush creep up his neck. He managed a polite, slightly awkward smile. "Uh, yeah. Hello."

The man beamed, grabbing his phone. "Incredible race in Jeddah, mate! Absolutely brilliant! Any chance of a quick photo?"

As Ollie reluctantly agreed, trying to remain polite while inwardly cringing at the attention, he felt Lira shift beside him. It was subtle, almost imperceptible. She didn't move away physically, but she seemed to retract into herself, angling her body slightly away from the man and his phone camera, her gaze dropping to the menu on the table, her expression becoming carefully neutral, almost blank. She faded into the background, becoming just another person at the table, unremarkable, easily overlooked. It was a masterclass in self-effacement, honed through years of practice, but seeing her have to do it, seeing her deliberately make herself invisible because of him, sent a sharp pang of guilt through Ollie.

The man, oblivious, snapped his photo, thanked Ollie effusively again, and returned to his table, already showing the picture to his companions. Several other diners were now looking over, whispering. The bubble of anonymity had burst.

"Maybe we should get this to go," Ollie murmured, keeping his voice low.

Lira nodded almost imperceptibly, her eyes still downcast. "Good idea."

They paid quickly and escaped the pub, the feeling of being watched prickling Ollie’s skin. Outside, walking briskly towards the car park, Ollie reached for Lira’s hand, needing the connection. Her fingers felt cold.

"Sorry about that," he said quietly. "I wasn't expecting…"

"It's okay," Lira replied, her voice carefully neutral. "It was bound to happen sooner or later. Good practice."

But Ollie saw the faint tension around her eyes, the slight stiffness in her posture. This was the reality now. Simple things like grabbing lunch would become strategic operations, fraught with potential risk. He hated that his dream was imposing this burden on her.

The pub incident served as a stark reminder of his new visibility. Back in the relative anonymity of the Cotswolds cottage that evening, the other side of the sudden fame – the intense, often intrusive, online public curiosity – reared its head.

His social media accounts had exploded, gaining hundreds of thousands of followers overnight. Every post was dissected, every old photo dredged up. More unsettling were the persistent whispers and online threads about the "mystery girlfriend." Blurry paparazzi shots from months ago were analysed alongside fan sightings near F2 paddocks.

Slumped on the cottage sofa while Lira was absorbed in her tablet by the fire, Ollie fell down the rabbit hole again, scrolling through tagged posts and mentions, a nervous habit he couldn't shake. He saw the usual mix – praise, memes, endless debates about his Haas prospects. Then he stumbled upon a fan-edited video compilation on TikTok, cleverly titled

"Bearman's B-Side: The Mystery Muse?"

It stitched together the blurry Zandvoort photo, a grainy screenshot from the Monza broadcast showing a dark-haired figure sketching near the timing screens (the brief glimpse he had caught and dismissed), and the fan-taken photo from outside the pub earlier that day, where Lira was visible but turned slightly away. Set to dramatic, speculative music, the video zoomed in, circled Lira's indistinct form, and ended with giant question marks. The comments section below the video was a frenzy of theories:

@/Liam_GridTalk: OMG who IS she?! 🔥

@/KMagFanDK_20: Wait, is that K-Mag's sister?? Looks kinda like her maybe?? 🤔

@/PaddockStyleWatch: Nah, definitely a model. Look at the way she dresses. V chic.

@/F1_Insider_7: Someone on Reddit said she's Finnish? Anyone confirm?? 🇫🇮

@/MonzaMemories: Pretty sure that's the girl I saw sketching near the Prema garage at Monza last year! Always kept to herself.

@/DutchGP_Vibes: Yeah, saw them near the beach! Looked like they didn't want to be photographed lol.

@/Oxford_Observer: That's the pub near Oxford! Saw them leaving today! She turned away when my mate asked for a pic with Ollie. V mysterious!

Ollie felt a cold knot of anxiety tighten in his stomach. They were piecing it together, connecting the dots, however blurry. The Zandvoort sighting, Monza, now the pub photo confirming a recent sighting – it formed a pattern. He quickly swiped away, his thumb hovering over the block button, feeling a surge of helpless anger and protectiveness. How long could they keep Lira hidden when the internet hive mind was actively hunting?

Lira, typically, seemed unfazed by the external noise when he eventually, reluctantly, showed her the video. While Ollie found himself compulsively scrolling through comments, she remained immersed in her tablet.

"They think I'm a Swedish supermodel heiress now," she murmured, glancing up from the tablet where she'd been looking at something else entirely, a flicker of amusement in her cool grey eyes. "Apparently, I was seen 'discreetly' boarding a private jet in Geneva."

Ollie snorted, tossing his phone onto the sofa cushions, frustrated by the sheer volume of speculation the TikTok had spawned. "If only they knew you prefer budget airlines and avoid private jets like the plague." He ran a hand through his hair. "It's just… relentless, Li. That video… people are connecting things. How are we going to manage this when the season actually starts? When I'm at Haas, travelling constantly?"

Lira put her tablet aside, turning to face him fully. Her expression was calm, steadying. "We manage it the same way we managed Jeddah," she said simply. "Carefully. Methodically. We stick to the plan. Ignore the noise."

That evening, the anxiety resurfaced, gnawing at him. He paced the living room restlessly while Lira sat sketching in a large notepad, her charcoal stick moving swiftly, confidently across the page. "I don't know if I can do this, Li," he burst out finally, stopping directly in front of her, the words tumbling out in a rush of fear and frustration. "The racing, the pressure, that's one thing. I can handle that. I think. But this… worrying constantly about someone seeing you, about saying the wrong thing, about that DTS camera catching something… Those videos, the comments… What if I mess up? What if I accidentally expose you?"

The fear felt raw, real, tightening his chest. "It's too much pressure. It's not fair to you."

Lira looked up from her sketchpad, her grey eyes calm and serious, holding a depth that seemed to absorb his panic. She placed the pad carefully beside her, the charcoal stick resting silently. "Ollie," she said, her voice low but firm, a quiet anchor in his storm. She reached out then, her cool hands gently cupping his face, forcing him to meet her gaze, to truly see her, holding him steady.

"Look at me."

He met her gaze, drawn into the steady strength he found there, the familiar calm that always seemed to settle the chaos within him. Her thumbs brushed softly against his cheekbones, a surprisingly tender gesture that made his breath catch, anchoring him in the present moment.

"We knew this was part of it," she continued, her eyes holding his, unwavering, her touch a constant reassurance. "We talked about this. The moment you stepped into that Ferrari, the moment you signed that Haas contract, the stakes got higher. The spotlight got brighter. We knew it would." Her hands remained on his face, a tangible connection, grounding him. "This isn't just your pressure to bear. It's ours. We handle it together. Like we always do."

Her unwavering certainty, her calm acceptance of the risks that felt so overwhelming to him, was both terrifying in its intensity and incredibly reassuring. She wasn't afraid, or if she was, she masked it beneath layers of pragmatic resolve he could only marvel at. She believed in them, in their ability to navigate this minefield together, and that belief felt like the most solid thing in his rapidly shifting world.

"But what if…" Ollie started, the anxieties still swirling, threatening to pull him under again.

"There are no 'what ifs' we can control right now," Lira interrupted gently but firmly, her thumbs still making slow, soothing circles against his skin, easing the tension from his jaw. "We control what we can. We stick to the plan. We trust each other." Her gaze softened almost imperceptibly, a hint of warmth entering her eyes. "And we focus on what matters – you driving that car to the best of your ability, and us…" she paused, the unspoken weight of their connection filling the small space between them, her hands sliding down from his face to rest lightly on his shoulders, "…us being us, even when no one else can see it."

He sank onto the sofa beside her, the tension easing from his shoulders like a physical weight being lifted. He leaned his head against her shoulder, the movement feeling utterly natural, necessary. Closing his eyes, he focused on the subtle scent of her – charcoal, old paper, uniquely Lira – drawing strength from her quiet solidity, the steady rhythm of her breathing beside him. "You make it sound so simple," he murmured against the soft fabric of her jumper.

"It isn't simple," she conceded, one hand coming up to gently smooth the worried frown lines from his forehead, her fingers cool against his skin, a gesture of quiet care. "But it's manageable. If we work together." She shifted slightly, picking up her sketchpad again from the cushion beside them, her other hand lingering reassuringly on his arm. "Now sit still for a minute," she murmured, her voice softening further, a hint of tenderness beneath the instruction. "You were finally relaxed."

He opened his eyes, turning his head slightly to watch her. She had already captured him moments before, slumped on the sofa, head in his hands, the anxiety etched clearly in the lines of his posture, stark on the page. But beneath the worry, she had also somehow found a flicker of underlying determination, a resilience he hadn't realised was visible until she showed it to him. Now, with swift, deft strokes of the charcoal, her focus absolute, she began sketching him again, this time capturing the way he leaned against her, his expression softening, the hard lines of tension easing around his eyes, finding a rare moment of repose amidst the internal storm. Watching her draw, feeling the light, steady pressure of her hand on his arm, seeing himself reflected not just on the page but in the quiet intensity of her gaze, felt profoundly intimate. It was a reminder of their private world, this sanctuary carved out against the relentless pressures, a space where he could simply be Ollie, seen and understood by her perceptive eyes.

A few days later, the quiet rhythm of their temporary seclusion was gently interrupted by another significant date:

Lira’s birthday.

It fell during their stay in the Cotswolds cottage, far from any possibility of a party or grand celebration, which suited Lira perfectly. Ollie, knowing her aversion to fuss, kept it deliberately low-key.

He spent the morning attempting to bake a cake – a slightly lopsided Victoria sponge that tasted better than it looked – while Lira went for a long, solitary walk through the damp fields, bundled up against the chill spring air. When she returned, cheeks flushed from the wind, Ollie presented the cake with a flourish, along with a single, carefully chosen gift: a beautiful, leather-bound sketchbook and a set of high-quality charcoal pencils he’d ordered online weeks ago.

Lira’s reaction was characteristically understated, but the genuine pleasure that lit up her eyes as she ran her fingers over the smooth leather cover was more meaningful to Ollie than any effusive thanks could have been. "It's perfect, Ollie," she said softly, her voice holding a rare warmth.

"Thank you."

They spent the rest of the day quietly. They shared the slightly uneven cake with mugs of strong tea by the fire, Lira occasionally making notes or quick sketches in her new book. They talked, not about racing or contracts or media strategies, but about art, about books, about ridiculous hypothetical scenarios, about everything and nothing. It felt normal, blessedly normal.

A fragile pocket of peace he desperately wanted to preserve.

Later that night, long after the fire had died down to embers in the Cotswolds cottage hearth, Ollie lay awake, staring at the shadowed ceiling. Sleep wouldn't come. His mind raced, replaying the Jeddah weekend, the Haas negotiations, the pub incident, the TikTok video, the constant, low-level hum of anxiety about their secret future. The F1 dream was real now, tangible, but its weight felt immense, heavier than he’d ever anticipated.

He turned his head carefully on the pillow, looking at Lira sleeping beside him. In the faint moonlight filtering through the gap in the curtains, her face was serene, unguarded in a way it rarely was when she was awake. The sharp intelligence, the watchful reserve, the subtle tension he sometimes saw around her eyes – all smoothed away, replaced by a profound peacefulness. Her dark hair fanned out across the pillow, framing her pale skin. One hand rested near her cheek, fingers slightly curled, vulnerable.

A wave of overwhelming tenderness washed over Ollie, so potent it ached in his chest. He loved her. Irrevocably. Terrifyingly. He loved her quiet strength, her sharp mind, her dry wit, the way she saw the world – and him – with such unnerving clarity. He loved the fragile trust she placed in him, the glimpses of the vulnerable girl hidden beneath the carefully constructed armour.

But seeing her like this, so peaceful, so unaware, intensified the guilt that gnawed at him constantly. His dream, his ambition, was forcing her back into the shadows, demanding she make herself invisible, exposing her to the very scrutiny she had spent her life avoiding. The near-misses – the paparazzi photo, the fan forum, the TikTok – were just the beginning. The F1 spotlight was relentless, unforgiving. How long could he ask her to live like this? Constantly vigilant, always looking over her shoulder, her identity a dangerous secret that could detonate at any moment?

He reached out, his fingers hovering just above her cheek, wanting desperately to touch her, to reassure himself she was real, but afraid of waking her, of shattering this fragile peace. He traced the line of her jaw in the air, his heart constricting. She deserved so much more than stolen moments in hidden cottages and clandestine meetings in utility closets. She deserved normalcy, safety, the freedom to simply be without fear.

And he, the person who loved her most, was the very reason she couldn't have it.

The unfairness of it felt like a physical blow. He wanted to rage against it, against the circumstances, against the fame, against the pressure that threatened to crush the quiet, precious thing they were building together. He wanted to promise her he could protect her completely, shield her from everything, but he knew, deep down, that was a promise he couldn't guarantee. The F1 world was a beast, hungry for stories, for secrets, for vulnerabilities.

He watched the slow, even rise and fall of her breathing, the soft flutter of her eyelashes against her cheek. In sleep, she looked younger, the weight of the world momentarily lifted. He felt a fierce, almost primal surge of protectiveness, a desperate need to keep her safe, hidden away here in this quiet bubble forever. But he knew, as she had reminded him earlier, that they couldn't stay hidden. The storm was coming.

He leaned closer, carefully, the warmth of her breath ghosting against his skin. The words were a raw ache in his chest, too big, too potent to hold back any longer, even if they were only for the silent, sleeping air.

"I love you, Li," he whispered, the admission barely audible, thick with emotion, convinced she couldn't possibly hear it in the depths of her sleep. "God, I love you. I'll keep you safe. I promise."

He pulled back slowly, the whispered vow hanging heavy in the quiet room. He closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling of her presence beside him, her warmth seeping into him even across the small space separating them. The fear was still there, a cold knot in his gut. The guilt remained, a heavy ache. But beneath it all, a quiet resolve began to harden. He couldn't control the storm, couldn't control the spotlight, couldn't erase her past or change the nature of his chosen career. But he could control how they faced it. He could be her anchor, her shield, her unwavering support. He could prioritise her safety, her peace, above all else, even if it meant making difficult choices down the line. He could love her fiercely, honestly, completely, in the quiet moments and in the face of the inevitable chaos.

"Together," he whispered again, so softly it was barely more than a breath in the silent room. It wasn't just a word anymore; it was a vow, etched deep into his heart. He would find a way. For her. For them. He finally felt a measure of peace settle over him, the turmoil quieting. He turned onto his side, facing her, and watched her sleep until the first pale light of dawn began to creep through the curtains, signaling the end of the calm and the beginning of everything else.

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[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

I was revisiting Charlie and Morfydd interviews, and she talks about three points that confused me: (1) how Galadriel felt pity for Sauron in Season 2 finale; (2) how Galadriel redeemed herself by refusing to join him; (3) Galadriel doesn’t know she’s not the only responsible for Sauron falling back into evil.

Because we didn’t see any of this?

At what point did Galadriel ever felt any sort of pity for Sauron? (After he revealed himself as Sauron, obviously) Having watched and rewatch Season 2 several times, I don’t see an ounce of “pity” from Galadriel’s part towards Sauron in any way, shape or form, and certainly not in the finale. “Pity” is a theme in Tolkien legendarium, so this is no small thing. Because it is pity (Bilbo, Frodo and Gollum) that will defeat Sauron at the end.

Galadriel spent the entire of Season 2 believing Sauron deceived her, and Halbrand was an illusion. When she sees the destruction of Eregion, this is confirmation for her. She goes into their fight with this mindset, and she says “the door is shut” (= I’m not joining you). It’s clear her view hasn’t changed, and nothing in that scene (until this point) suggests otherwise. So, I have to ask, where is the pity? How can Galadriel pity Sauron when she believes him to be wholly evil and that he has deceived her all along!?

In one of these interviews, she also mentions how Galadriel couldn’t believe Halbrand was capable of such cruelty as what he did at Eregion. And what is happening here? She knows Halbrand is Sauron… you know, Morgoth’s most loyal servant who killed her brother? Finrod had claw marks on his body, so wargs or werewolves were involved. She spent centuries hunting him down but she doesn’t believe Sauron was capable of doing what he did?

Why refusing to join Sauron is “redeeming” when she did it twice already? She refused him in S1 finale, too, it’s not like she joined him after he revealed himself to be Sauron. Where is the redemption? Sure she asks Celebrimbor for forgiveness for bringing Sauron into Eregion, and Adar forgives her, at the end, too. Still, she hasn’t dealt with the fact Halbrand was very much real, and she was the one who tempted him with power in Númenor. Which leads me to the next point.

Morfydd also mentions how Galadriel is not aware of the Diarmid incident and that she’s not the only responsible for bringing Sauron’s “evil” back (of couse she’s not, because it was Sauron’s choice to follow her). In Season 2, Galadriel thinks Sauron “played [her] like a harp to a melody not of [her] choosing”, she was deceived, and Halbrand was another one of Sauron’s illusions. I mean, it’s obvious Galadriel thinks he was “evil” all along with ulterior motives. As a consequence, she doesn’t see herself as responsible for him falling back into evil.

Where does all of this comes from??

[ilikekidsshows]

Hi again, lololol. This is ask number 3

Was rewatching the Paris Special, forgot that alt!Marinette straight-up tried to use the wish to take our Marinette's place. She didn't hesitate, stole Claw Noir's miraculous as soon as she read about the wish in Marinette's diary (note: she also learned there's always a price to pay). The only reason it didn't work was because the Supreme interfered.

Obviously she's a "villain" version of our protag, so I'm not trying to necessarily say this reflects 1:1 on what our Marinette would do, but I still find it...compelling evidence. She's still the same person, the main difference between her and our Marinette is that she doesn't have a support network (as per her words: no kind mother, no best friend, no girlfriends, no supportive partner). So...put Marinette in a crappy enough situation, and precedent shows she'll go for it, potential consequences be damned (remember: she knows about the balance required by the wish/price to pay).

As for alt!Adrien...he's definitely on board with the idea of making the wish once he learns about it (though whether he knows about the price at this point is unclear). However, he gives up pretty quickly once our Adrien tells him someone else would have to lose their mother instead. Sure, Claw Noir doesn't really seem the type to care about collateral damage, as cataclysm-happy as he is. But the fact that he changes his mind after learning this? Gives up "the only thing [he wants]"? I can only conclude that even a villain!Adrien ultimately stops when he realizes the wish would cause another person pain (even if it meant he could alleviate his own). Baring complete character assassination, you cannot convince me Adrien would ever go all Hawk Moth

As it stands, alt!Marinette attempted the wish despite being aware of the consequences and only was stopped by a greater power. She later changes her mind because Marinette tells her to love herself and the world. Alt!Adrien changes his mind when he is given full context and learns the wish would harm someone else (and was encouraged to go out and make friends).

Ultimately Adrien and Marinette are both heroes/narratively the good guys, so I believe neither would actually go through with the wish. But if I had to chose, based on their respective personalities and precedent, my money's on Marinette.

(Also wasn't sure where to put this, but to clarify why immortality came up in someone else's ask, I did mention it briefly in my original ask, as a new flavor of the "Adrien can't live without Marinette/he'd use the wish" rhetoric. I didn't go into it at the time, but I was reacting to a poll I came across that was asking who would handle immortality without the other better. More people voted for Marinette, so I was feeling salty lololol. The true answer IMO is a secret third option, that both would heal. Immortality is...a long time)

---

Oh, I must have tunnel visioned over the immortality part of the ask. Tends to happen sometimes. But yeah, it's pretty much expected that the fandom thinks Marinette is the more resilient one between herself and Adrien because the writers are trying to get you to think like that despite all evidence to the contrary. Marinette can't make it past a single season without going through multiple emotional crises, while Adrien can just deal with anything done to him outside of literal mind control. In addition, not viewing Marinette as unforgivable for the gaslighting requires you to at least somewhat buy into the idea that Marinette's “good intentions” are an acceptance excuse, that shielding Adrien's supposed fragile mental state is important.

And, yeah, while I do think Marinette would have a harder time coping, she also has a well-established ability to get new members into her support network with ease. Marinette would find new people to lean on as she lost the previous ones, easily. It's what happened with the transition from Socquoline to Alya. Over half the cast is catering to her comfort. She’d be fine eventually, she’d just have a harder time getting there than Adrien.

The thing about the wish is, the writers are once again inconsistent and make the wish’s morality unclear. It was wrong for Shadybug and Claw Noir to want to make it, but Gabriel making a wish led to a happy utopian ending for season 5, and, like, I don't think the writers mean to undo it because our protagonist in the protagonist-centered morality show is happy as a clam. And, because of Marinette's Keeping Secrets Arc, the characters aren't discussing why Gabriel gets a free pass ro make a wish. Is it because he ultimately made a selfless wish to sacrifice himself instead of anyone else? But neither the characters nor the audience know what he wished for, probably to use the wish to handwave future retcons and inconsistencies away, so we can't actually know it was selfless. So, if making the wish isn't inherently bad, it must have been that Shadybug’s specific wish was wrong, which was to steal main Marinette's happy life, or the nature of the sacrifice. I’m pretty sure the writers wouldn't go so far in their morally confused writing as to make Marinette sacrifice someone else to get Adrien back. If she could sidestep that cost, though, she’d be all for it, because apparently rebooting the world is an okay thing to do as long as you don't (seemingly) hurt anyone doing it.

I think that's also the reason it's seen as a valid thing to question which of our characters would go to such extreme extents for the other; the show completely trivialized the wish because the writers thought the Gabriel arc absolutely had to end with us seeing how it works (even as they then failed to actually show us how it works because they want to keep Gabriel's exact wish in their utility belt or for the sake of pointless mystique). I think the question people thinking about this were actually thinking was: “which of these two would do a dangerous thing and rewrite reality to get the other back?” and not “which of these two would sacrifice an actual person to get the other back?” In that scenario, Marinette wouldn't even hesitate. But, with an actual exchange involved, I think Marinette wouldn't ultimately go through with it, but would go further than Adrien before coming to her senses, like what happened with Shadybug and Claw Noir. Like, if we're not meant to see Marinette as someone who’d go to extreme extents to stop her unhappiness, they shouldn't have made two Marinette parallels almost do it.

[rotzaprachim]

I’m on the fic writing path of making every major rebel leader we’ve yet seen - saw, Luthen, mon, bail - a messy fucking person who had done fucked things for the rebellion. (No I haven’t seen andor season 2 in entirety yet) like, one thing that’s been haunting me since my rewatch of a new hope is that bail is canonically an imperial collaborator. Yes he is a rebel yes he is the FOUNDER of the rebel alliance but all of that is in secret. On the Official Level leia is trying to play at the start of ANH, she and Bail are still members of the Imperial Senate and Alderaan is a “peaceful” planet, meaning they’ve put up no official resistance to the empire - he’s been lying about being an imperial for 19 years, lying in a way that very very few people could know the truth of. What was the fucking cost of it? How many pieces of both himself and Alderaan did bail sell so that the hope of an alliance could survive? I want him to be essential to the rebellion. I want him to have given the empire the keys to Alderaan and let them start carving it bit by bit.

and then vice versa, one of the most irritating fandom readings that I somehow bought into age 16 is that mon and bail are just some kind of spineless centrist liberals who dislike saw Guerrera and his methods no real reason… they’re literally leading an armed secret guerilla rebellion at that moment, and one of the people on screen at the time, Draven, clearly orders loads of people to be killed. I don’t think that the things saw did that made Mon and bail want to separate themselves were trivial, I think he and the partisans killed plenty of civilians or else lower level imperials who *could* have turned to the rebellion, and I think these actions probably had a real cost to the rebellion because they made the partisans unpopular among the locals wherever they were hiding out - because even if the partisans weren’t *those* men with guns, they were still, to the locals, men with guns. You can’t throw Molotov cocktails in tanks without shrapnel. I want him to have both fundamentally delayed the Death Star from being made for years because of how effective he was at stopping Kyber shipments, and I want him to have also quelled the rebellion on three different planets because the locals whose children were blown to pieces from his Molotovs refused to ever join an organization so brutal with so little regard for the lives of workers and the peasantry.

and mon. I’ve mentioned before on my rewatch but I want there to be dark fucking consequences for her decision to get involved with davos skuldoon, who is heavily implied to be a hardcore organized criminal in season 1 (and must be, to be a guy who has the potential to move the money around like that). The ISB and the empire don’t give a fuck about organized crime because hey at least it isn’t rebels, right? You know who does? The judiciary she has fought and sold off so many pieces of chandrila for to keep at least somewhat independent. The people of chandrila. The students. The unions. They give a fuck. Skuldoon offers to let her become part of his particular Family, and in exchange, well, their accounts are all in one book. It would be a shame for them both if that book was called into court in an effort to crack down on his dealings, wouldn’t it be? Now they’re family? So it’s mon who has to destroy the Chandrilan judiciary. It’s Mon who has to crack down internally on the anti-organized crime movement, and Mon who has to keep skuldoons money flowing, because it’s her money, because it’s the boat the rebellion has hitched itself too. It’s mon who has to turn the eye to skuldoon forcing farms and businesses in chandrila to pay him the little extra and to his trafficking in human beings to work fields and in the fact that on a smaller scale - a city of one or two million people, an island, an archipelago - his men are the men with guns, the ones who can make dissenters, well, disappear. She has the way to move money and arms and people, now. The rebellion can finally have its first base.

I just want there to in some ways be the kind of honor for these people that what they did was in every case so unimaginably fucked but at the moment no other obvious ways presented themselves … I want their decisions to be essential to the rebellion and yet also inhuman and brutal and even self defeating to the rebellion itself.

[spaceorphan18]

Ranking Bridgerton Season 3 Episodes

After sitting with this season the past month, I kind of wanted to see how a ranking would go (and those of you who know me, know I love a good ranking). These are 100% subjective opinions, and I don't expect anyone else to agree. More so did it out of the fun of it. :)

8. Forces of Nature (Episode 3)

I don't actually think there is a bad episode of this season. Truly. After really sitting with this season, thinking it over, even agreeing that there isn't enough Polin and some of the subplots could have been stronger (or not existed at all), I think all of these episodes are pretty stellar. But one of them had to be placed last, and after combing through all of them, it's episode 3.

There is actually a lot I like in this episode - Colin spending the whole episode pining for Pen, the ridiculous and romantic dream fantasy, the awkwardly cute willow scene, the angsty cake scene, Colin asking his mother for advice and awkwardly trying to figure his shit out, loved it. I also really enjoyed Debling and the development of that story as an alternative option for Pen.

What really bogs this episode down, and consequently pushes it to the bottom, is that it's also the culprit for braiding in all of the seemingly many subplots. I don't necessarily think any of them are bad on their own, but it feels like so much that it's too much at times.

We get Lord Kilmartin's introduction (yes, great), Lord Anderson (yeah, okay), Lady Tilly (ooff, fine), The Mondrichs (why are they here again?), the stuff with the Queen (this was just weak in general), and development of Cressida (it works in conjunction with LW, but idk if it holds up on rewatches?). It's just a lot and the main characters (unfortunately, especially Colin) get pushed a little to the side.

7. Romancing Mister Bridgerton (Episode 6)

This is the episode that when I first watched it, I straight up thought it wasn't that good. I've honestly changed my opinion on it a lot, but I do understand why I originally felt that way.

I love LOVE the first half of this episode. We get to have Pen and Colin in a little bit of a honeymoon stage -- the engagement ring scene is brilliant, everything at the church is brilliant, even the stuff at the Mondrich ball... It's truly delicious. And I love Colin just being soft with his sister and at the Mondrich bar scene. And then I do love the Lady Whistledown aspect of it -- Pen dealing with whether or not she wants to continue. There's some great Eloise stuff in here, too. And even Cressida pretending to be Whistledown was handled decently.

But, like episode 3, this episode was saddled with a ton of side plots, where the scenes just go on and on and on because they're the meat of some of these side plots. I don't know if they needed to be balanced better or parceled out better, I don't know. But the long stretches without any Polin, or much Pen or Colin in general in the second half is why this episode ended up lower.

I think the only reason it's moved up a spot is that I do love the Polin we do get more than what's in episode 3. Also, the last few moments of Colin discovering Pen is Lady Whistledown is an excellent cliffhanger.

6. Out of the Shadows (Episode 1)

I do think the season opener is solidly good! I actually really love Pen getting her transformation and the ridiculous of Colin (attempting) swagger as he comes back into town. I love that we don't beat around the bush, and the two of them really get to the heart of their issues right off the bat and it sets up the entire season really nicely. Plus, their dynamic as never sparkled any better -- it's truly a treat to see the two of them back on screen.

The rest of the episode works pretty well, too. The tension between Pen and Eloise is great -- and kicks off one of my favorite arcs of the season. Francesca's (re-)introduction is wonderful. There's some truly brilliant Bridgerton sibling stuff, as well as Anthony and Kate being on the top of their game. It's also got some breathing room as we haven't established the nineteen other plot lines going on this season (though the Mondrich stuff feels a little sluggish).

The only reason this episode is as low as it is -- is because I just like everything else more.

5. Joining of Hands (Episode 7)

It pains me to have this episode as low as it is because I love so much of it. The Polin stuff in this episode is just delicious. I love the tension after Colin finds out that Pen is Lady Whistledown. I love the brutalness of the first argument and the angst, longing, and actually working through some of their shit (as well as the spiciness) of their argument outside the Modeste.

I love that they still get married despite having unresolved conflict, and that their love transcend set backs. And that wedding dance is absolutely gorgeous.

Plus - we get some great Bridgerton in general stuff -- Eloise and Pen are on their way to repairing their relationship, Colin and Eloise get some great moments, Benedict is adorable at the 'bachelor' party, and Anthony and Kate are amazing in everything that they do (I love LOVE the scene with Kate, Anthony, and Colin).

The episode does have some weaker aspects - I don't care all that much about Violet and Lord Anderson nor Benedict and Lady Tilly (even if I'm all here for Benedict's bisexual awakening). But the subplots don't really weigh everything down as much, and it's a solidly good Polin episode.

4. Into the Light (Episode 8)

The Season Finale! I honestly toggled between episodes 7 and 8 and where they went, and I think maybe on a different day I could be persuaded to switch them, but I think what really sells me is everything from the Butterfly Ball onward. The ending is gorgeous, Pen's story wraps up brilliantly, Colin's grand speech was beautiful, the epilogue was pitch perfect, and all of the storylines work out in a great way, setting up threads for future seasons (obviously, Benedict is next but Eloise and Francesca are getting some good stuff, too.)

My only issue with the end of Pen and Colin's story is that I wanted more resolution to their story. The twenty seconds of make-up sex felt like not enough, and I do hope that they rectify this in Season 4. (Which I have a feeling they will.)

There are some really great things leading up to the ending as well -- I love that Pen and her mother kind of come to terms with each other and finally that relationship is being restored, as well as the Featherington sisters blooming into decent people. I also LOVE the reconciliation of Pen and Eloise. And while the blackmail plot could have been a little stronger (Cressida's whimper out was a little weak) I honestly love Colin's scene with Cressida. (As well as the hilarity of Portia, Eloise, and Colin being the ones to try to help Pen deal with it all.)

It's not perfect episode -- there's the seemingly never ending threeway with Benedict (as well as the fact that Benedict desperately needs next season because his character feels aimless at this point), and Francesca's wedding, while sweet, felt like it pushed Pen and Colin a little out of the limelight for a little too long in the middle. But pacing might have been the biggest issue of the episode. It's otherwise a great episode and a solid ending.

3. Old Friends (Episode 4)

So here's the thing. Here is the thing I've been really thinking about while putting this together. It's a testament to the carriage scene and, honestly, everything from the last twenty-ish minutes of this episode because without it, I'm not sure this episode would be that high. Pen and Colin get ZERO screen time together until the end (and I suppose that's somewhat intentional) you really start to feel it as the episode goes on.

But the tension of this episode is fantastic. Pen bonding with Debling, beginning to accept that this is her best option with pressure from Portia... Colin dealing with his own feelings and downward spiraling (though I do wish we had gotten more of him). It's really, really well done. And then the last twenty minutes is just solidly amazing. All of it. Fantastic. It's just captivating.

And then, of course, the carriage scene -- one of the best (possibly the best??) scenes of the entire show. I could wax poetic about the carriage scene for days...

This is another episode that does feel like it's saddled with too many subplots, and pacing issues, because they're withholding the Polin stuff until the very end and it almost feels like a trudge to get there at points. But it's well worth the wait -- and enough of an amazing payoff that I have this episode so high.

2. How Bright the Moon (Episode 2)

I just fucking adore this episode. Like so much. It is a romantic comedy at its finest with one of the most beautiful first kiss sequences I've ever seen. I love everything this episode chooses to be.

First of all, there's just so MUCH content for Pen and Colin, and we really get to see their FREINDSHIP at play here. (As well as Nicola Coughlan's amazing comedic chops - she shines in every scene here.) Everything between the two of them is brilliant and hilarious and awkward and funny and really, I could have watched a whole season of just this ridiculous rom-com trope-y stuff. Because they're both so good at it. Because it's just so delicious and wonderful.

We also get some of the best comedy of the show in the scene with Portia explaining sex to the Featherington sisters. And some truly great moments with Eloise, too. The rest of the side plots don't feel as heavy as they don't over shadow what's going on with Pen and Colin.

And then that last scene, the beautiful, fairy tale, fantasty-esque, shot like an Old Hollywood film first kiss that is truly breathtaking. This episode just wins all the things.

1. Tick Tock (Episode 5)

Like it was going to be anything else ;)

But no, here's my thing. It's not just the awkwardly beautiful ten minute sex scene of this episode that has me placing it on top. No, really, even if I think the mirror scene is incredible and breathtaking in it's own right.

This episode is solidly for Pen and Colin. And in a season that sometimes struggles to find good balance, this episode (and episode 2 really) are the only ones that really feel like the fully feature Pen and Colin, so it's no coincidence they end up taking the top spots.

The first half of the episode is just a continuation of the amazingness that is the ending of episode 4. The engagement announcement, the hilariously wonderful ABC Bros scene, Colin telling off Portia, Pen and Colin being so soft and sweet with each other during sex, the aftercare cuddling on the satee, the carriage ride.... it's all so, so good, I love it so much.

There's also some great stuff going on around Polin -- Kate and Anthony are back, Eloise has some great stuff, the Cressida plot is hitting its stride, the Queen is adding tension, the Lady Whistledown plot is getting turned up to eleven...

The second half of the episode is also incredibly strong, as it mostly takes place during the engagement party and the tension during that whole sequence is fantastic. All the little plot threads are getting pulled at in a way that works well being woven in together. It's GREAT drama and it really pushes this episode to be the season's finest hour.

This episode just works all the way through. It's got such lush, romantic Pen and Colin that I keep coming back to, some crazy tension built in to ramp up the drama, the characters all just so much fun to watch. This episode is amazing, and truly deserves to be at the top of the list.

And that's my list!! Thanks for reading!! :)

[taran-wood-beast]

Starting on March 26, I've been rewatching Series 1 (2005), 20 years to the date from the original broadcast of each episode.

The buildup to "Rose has been gone 12 months" is legit upsetting. It's really the only time they've ever interrogated the terrestrial consequences of the companion's absence in quite this much depth.

On a related note, this is the one "mom slaps the Doctor in the face" beat that feels truly earned. It's become a bit of a synecdoche for the way RTD writes moms in general, but here you're genuinely on Jackie's side.

I love this scene so much:

It looks like dogshit. It looks like the roof scenes from The Room. This is the greatest show of all time.

This is also the first episode that dives really heavy into another prevalent Davies persepctive: that the world is something primarily mediated through television. The Doctor watches the plot unfold on TV, and not just the news, children's programming as well. He even does so from inside the TARDIS which "gets all the basic [cable] packages". This theme of course returns in the mid-season and the finale in a big way.

Many of the Doctor Who alien species that has really stuck around in the memory or the show have done so because they are anchored by a single representative character, embodied by an excellent character actor. The Sontarans stuck around because of Kevin Lindsay. The Zygons stuck around because of John Woodnutt. And the Slitheen are memorable primarily because of Anette Badland.

The scene where the Doctor instinctively starts shouting orders at the UNIT soldiers is indicative of two things: how recently he's come out of the time war, and the fact that (I believe) RTD is always writing the Doctor with Jon Pertwee in the back of his mind.

I really think the Slitheen were always a great concept and have aged incredibly well. A cackling gang of crude, puerile manchildren using the apparatus of the state to burn the Earth for money? It's more likely than you think!

Cliffhanger still sucks though.

[wayward-robin]

1x12 – Faith rewatch thoughts

This is another of my favourite season 1 eps.

This is where the cycle of refusing to let each other die is born for me.

Because Sam sure as hell wasn’t going to let Dean go. He was his usual stubborn and resourceful self and found a way. And when told of the consequence – that someone died in Dean’s place – he was “oh well, it wasn’t you so I’m happy”.

Layla was such a sweet character (once I put aside my immediate “it’s Darla!” reaction). I really liked her. I loved her and Dean’s final scene before they skipped town. I think Dean important for him to see she was OK with her own mortality.

Jensen played Dean’s vulnerability so well. His constant rebuke of Sam’s attempts to take care of him for once – either because he’s not used to it or because he doesn’t think he deserves it – was a little sad. He was just so blasé about his own death, like yeah Sam’s really gonna skip out while you’re on your literal deathbed Dean.

And their conflict emotions about faith itself had a good introduction. Sam can believe in a higher being while Dean prefers to place his faith in people – like Sam and his dad.

The concepts of a reaper trading one life for another was interesting.

I never actually put two and two together during earlier watches but Roy is blind so of course there had to be someone else reading the spell. Hindsight is great!

Roy’s wife couldn’t bear to lose him, so she summoned and controlled a reaper. Sam couldn’t bear to lose Dean, so sought a similar cure.

I feel like I should create a tally or something for the number of times Sam and Dean get paralleled to romantic couples, although I’m sure someone already has. 

I love this as a character ep for Sam and Dean.

[phantomoftheorpheum]

School Spirits Season 2 (episode 4) liveblog/thoughts

**Spoilers for School Spirits Seasons 1 and 2x01-2x04

I am so wary of Janet's motives. I get that she lost all the money so her options are limited, but this feels so icky. (I mean, also she stole Maddie's body, but this particular act of coming home to her mom seems worse, somehow. I guess because she's had time to think about it at this point).

So, am I reading this correctly and the current belief (because who knows how correct they ever are in their assumptions) is that it’s possible for the ghosts to access each other’s hellscapes, not just their own? Hm. Interesting.

"Togetherness Day" wtf.

Alright, so are they actually wrong about being able to access each other’s “scars,” or is it that they haven’t figured out how to use the keys like Janet and Mr. Martin? We know Janet and Mr. Martin can do things the others haven't figured out yet. Plus, the ghosts make a lot of wrong assumptions in the show, so I'm going to say it's pretty likely Mr. Martin just has more knowledge/skills.

I’m not sure what Mr. Andersons relevance is going to be to the season, but I am relieved to find that they have not entirely ignored the fact that he committed a felony, because I was very confused how he was just seemingly facing 0 consequences in the first 3 eps.

Simon and Xavier continue to be one of my favorite dynamics of the season! I’m still really surprised by this, but I love them!

“We lost her.” “Where’d she go?” Maddie, I think you’re ever so slightly missing the concept of “losing” someone here. But on another note, the energy difference between Simon and Maddie in this scene is fairly strange. It almost feels like they weren’t filmed together. It legitimately makes me wonder if there was a scheduling conflict here.

I don’t think they can force students to stay after hours at the school, like, legally speaking.

Wally noooo 😭 They shouldn’t have sent him to deal with that on his own, like they knew it was going to be traumatizing, someone should have been waiting for him to come out of the scar so he wasn’t alone.

I find it interesting that Wally’s scar features his coach yelling at him to get in the game, when we know that coach is the one who pulled him out and thought he needed a break. From the way the football was portrayed (and his mom), it’s clear the scars don’t reflect an exact reality, so does that mean they can change based on the ghost’s emotional relationship to what happened to them? Can they be different every time?

Rofl, that CLAY. I cannot.

Surely we're getting a Yuri/Charley romantic storyline.

Yuri has a point, they are already dead. This is the exact reason that I don’t really understand why Mr. Martin is running from them. What can they do to him that’s any worse than how things already are? That’s what makes me think there has to be something worse out there.

Why are Simon and Xavier my favorite part of this season???

I’m not sure where the Claire stuff is going, so I’m just kinda letting it play out for now.

Okay, again, why are we letting Charley face his scar without anyone waiting to be there for him when he gets out?? Ghost Squad you are letting me down on the emotional support scale today.

As expected, it seems like Mr. Martin can access their scars, even though they don't know how to get into each other's.

For the love of god, someone go with Wally! Don’t just stand there!

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers poster on Maddie’s wall took me out, rofl, omg has that always been there? I don’t remember seeing it before, but I didn’t rewatch season 1, either, so idk. It's entirely possible that I saw it and commented on it in season 1 and have just completely forgotten.

I still really don’t know how to feel about Janet. She definitely has a seemingly sympathetic backstory, and clearly her stealing Maddie’s life is not a morally pure move, but we understand why she took that opportunity. That being said, Mr. Martin being the biggest bad of the season seems anticlimactic and the show loves a twist, so I’m still very suspicious there’s going to be a big rug pull with her. I also still think she might have killed her father.

I am glad Maddie went after Wally, like about time! He needs support! Let's not let anyone go repeatedly face the trauma around their death without some support!

“They really fired him,” (Mr. Anderson). Okay, I am once more pointing out that the man committed a felony. He may have sympathetic motives, but let’s be realistic here. He stole thousands of dollars from work, falsified student grades, and destroyed evidence in a missing person’s investigation. Of course they fired him. (Also, I know she was blackmailing him, so he had a reason to be pissed at her, but does anyone else remember how sinister he was to Claire last season when he told her he couldn't remember what he said to the police?)

The way they’re playing the Mr. Anderson stuff, it’s really starting to make me think they’re gonna pull a twist villain thing with him. Because otherwise why is he getting so much screen time that makes him look so sympathetic? Since the blackmail/money situation doesn't seem to be related to the ghosts and what happened to Maddie, he doesn't feel particularly relevant as a character.

Wally talking sense! Thank you, Wally. But also, his comparison of Mr. Martin and Mr. Anderson and basically being like “Mr. Martin betraying me would be like Mr. Anderson betraying you,” feels like possible foreshadowing. Wow. It's amazing how suspicious I have become of Mr. Anderson again.

Has anybody been checking out the other movie posters on Maddie’s walls to see if they might be relevant? I haven't gone back and looked, but in this episode I noticed Pretty in Pink, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, and Janet/Maddie wears a Carrie t-shirt at the end.

Lol, that closet is in no way small enough that Xavier’s armpit needed to be in Nicole’s face.

I do love that Xavier was thinking clearly enough to determine that Simon has to maintain his access to the school or they will be cut off from Maddie, because common sense has not been particularly present from the characters this episode.

Who has been possessed? And what does that mean from the ghost standpoint? They said the only time it "felt" like this without a death was when Janet possessed Maddie, but that also meant that Maddie appeared as a ghost, so presumably they should be able to go find whoever has been displaced wandering around as a ghost and then immediately know who Mr. Martin (we're assuming this was Mr. Martin's doing) took over. Somehow, I don't think it will be that simple.

So the obvious choice for possession is Claire. She was very emotionally vulnerable throughout the episode and she feels the least relevant this season (with Simon & Xavier being a team up and Xavier & Nicole [unknowingly] talking online, and Claire being the most skeptical of the group, she just feels very outside of everything). However, I'm not sure how that would happen with Maddie and Simon sitting right there with her. I would have thought maybe it happened before Simon finds her in the stadium, but if so, then why did the lights/feeling not happen until later?

The next most obvious choice would be Chloe, but the episode practically puts a neon flashing arrow above her at the end there with her line about getting a lot out of the experience and she and the principal are the only two characters really focused on outside of the main group, but that feels so heavy handed and obvious, then.

I do wonder if Mr. Anderson was still there (we never saw him leave, did we?) and he's the one who has been possessed. It would make sense. He's also emotionally vulnerable in this episode, and with the comparison of him to Mr. Martin (and the fact that it would probably be a lot easier for Mr. Martin to pretend to be Mr. Anderson than Claire or Chloe), it feels like they're really setting something up there.

[ronanlysnch]

i’ve been rewatching season 4 of stranger things and today i was scrolling through my posts from around the time it dropped to compare my thoughts then and now, and i just had a realization

so we obviously know that in the first episode we see the kids playing through the last campaign of the hellfire club, and it concludes with the party fighting vecna, which is foreshadowing the conclusion of the show

in that scene we see dustin rolling the dice and it lands on 11 and it’s a miss

which is foreshadowing the end of season 4, where el quite literally misses: she loses her fight with vecna, causing max’s temporary death and, consequently, the gates to open

then, it’s erica’s turn to roll the dice and she lands a 20, and that’s where things get crazy

so since the dice was representing of el, i went to check how many kids had been experimented on by brenner

yesterday, i watched s4x5, and we have a line-up shot of all the kids, so i counted them

but then i checked on google and they say that we actually know of 18 kids, the absence of one kid in the picture is explained by henry in s4x6, he tells el that 008 is not with them anymore

which leads me to thinking that the other remaining 2 will be responsible for defeating vecna!

but who are they? well, i have a pretty good guess

i have a pretty strong theory that will has powers, given the context that vecna/mindflayer sought will out oposed to the others who were hunted by the demogorgon, meaning that the UD has a special interest in will

also because the UD is stuck in the day that will vanished, to me, this means that will somehow gave form to the UD — when henry first gets there the place is quite literally shapeless, it only changes after will ends up there!

that would make will number 19

we also know that there will be a chapter named the vanishing of holly wheeler, the only other person who vanished was will, so not only vecna has an special interest in will, but also holly

from leaks, we know that vecna is after holly, appearing to her and trying to lure her

this scene from season 1 has always caught my attention

to me, this reads as holly thinning out the barrier between the UD and the real world in a manifestation of her habilities, i don’t think it’s a coincidence that right when she’s in will’s room that something almost goes through the wall

holly always read as a kid who was different than others and given that she will become quite an important character this season, i feel like it’s solid to believe that she might be number 20!

lastly!

going back to this scene, we know that almost all the party is out of the play, yet we see two figurines standing in the board

from my scarce knowledge of D&D lore, 1) seems to be a wizard, and despite mike saying will is a cleric, i’ve seen discussions of people saying will is multi-class and in season 3 he quite literally dresses as a wizard!

and now i’m kinda reaching, but!!! the character above him 2) is wearing a cloak and, even though i don’t know what class this figurine refers to, we saw in the leaks that mike gifts holly with a figurine, and her figurine HAS A FREAKING CLOAK

so yeah, will and holly will join el and defeat vecna, thank you for coming to my ted talk

disclaimer: i have been offline for so long, i don’t know if anyone has already pointed this out, but this (the fact that there will be 2 people with powers that we don’t know of yet) felt like an eureka! moment for me and i really wanted to share it

[atlasshrugd]

In episode 1 of season 5, "Arthur's Bane," Arthur tells Merlin:

"No matter what adversity we face, we stand for what is right. To betray our beliefs, Merlin, that...is what will destroy everything we've strived for."

I just noticed on my rewatch that here Arthur is literally predicting 'Arthur's Bane.' The reason Arthur dies is because Merlin betrays his own beliefs. He stops standing for what is right and is driven by desperation and fear to keep Arthur alive, which is ultimately what kills him.

This is especially what happens in the 'Disir' episode. Merlin betrays himself by saying "Magic has no place in Camelot" to ensure Morded dies, but in a twist of fate Mordred miraculously survives and magic is still condemned. And when Merlin alerts Arthur when Mordred's girlfriend escapes from the cells, leading to her death, that is also when he betrays himself and 'what is right,' and that is exactly what leads Mordred to seek revenge on Arthur.

This is Merlin's problem. He has been burdened with too much knowledge about the future that he inadvertently brings about that future the more he tries to intervene. In comparison with Arthur, who makes decisions based on what is right, not about what will happen. He puts his values first and handles the consequences later because he has no knowledge of any prophecies.

The above quote by Arthur is exactly what makes Arthur a good king and is also why Merlin fails in the end.