#this evolved to me explaining her the plot of gravity falls

[hypotemuse]

Or is it because you’re too close to this matter?

I have been slowly going insane ever since I started noticing the parallels between Bill and @electricalhuzzah's Axolotl in The Heinz Dilemma, so. This is what I ended up with. Haha. What if you looked at your narrative mirror in the eye and said "I believe in you". What if he smirked at you and told you that was a bad fucking choice. Propaganda under the cut 🫡

Sources: The Heinz Dilemma by @electricalhuzzah on ao3 / Gravity Falls wiki page on The Axolotl / tumblr posts by credited users (x3) / The Heinz Dilemma on ao3 / poem meant for The Book Of Bill as shared by Alex Hirsch on his charity stream / my own personal breakdown in the author's inbox

[cjstalkingstarwarsagain]

hi! i’ve recently decided to rewatch all the star wars movies and take notes on them and then,,, share them with you. so if you’re even mildly interested in my star wars opinions, here you go :)

i’ll divide it into a couple categories so,,,

well start with rogue one!!

shit that made me giggle

"oh look, here’s lyra back from the dead. it’s a miracle."

everything K2 says and does. i love him and he’s perfect.

i love the continuous attempts by K2 to appear imperial and how he fails every time. not a single storm trooper or officer ever believes him when he starts running his mouth.

so sorry but bohdi getting his cable caught and trying to shake it loose is such an adorably human moment. makes me giggle every time.

i honestly thought this section would be longer, this movie made me laugh a bunch. 

stuff i don’t like or doesn’t make sense

why does jyn start believing in the rebellion? there’s no indication that she cared before they found her. there’s no real turning point that we can see. she just,,, suddenly is really into this shit. which is strange because the only reason she ever joined was because she was given a non-choice (either help or get put back in prison). i guess i can kinda see how her father dying could have changed her, but we see none of that on the ship after his death. we just get to the rebel council and all of a sudden she’s the poster girl for rebellion.

saw seems really stable at the beginning of the film, so why did he go seemingly crazy and paranoid? it’s probably explained in the novelization but that’s no excuse to just have a character go crazy with really no explanation or backstory.

that being said, a lot of the character development is pretty lacking. i don’t think i’d care about these characters nearly as much if i wasn’t already a star wars fan.

video game cut scene style general tarkin

bor gullet is supposed to make you lose your mind but bohdi was pretty much fine after like,,, a day

how does the death star,,,, move?? like i know it can but has that ever been explained? is it like little thrusters? like the ones you can see in real life to stabilize things in space? there’s nothing i can visually see. i’m not mad about it i just wanna know.

why does saw insist on staying behind? why doesn’t he come and help?? it would have been so easy to just leave but he insists on staying behind and just watching as death inches closer. i think it doesn’t make sense because we know *so little* about his character. give me more on him, make me understand.

since james earl jones is getting older, vader sounds older. was there??? nothing the audio or editing department could have done about that??? not super mad about this one just because darth vader is really cool and i’ll never really complain too much about darth vader screen time.

when the fuck did jyn become a motivational speaker??

my one gripe about pretty much every star wars movie is the sheer number of times people climb through huge shafts and jump around and shit and they’re always *fine*. no way they wouldn’t fall to their deaths in any normal situations.

can someone?? check the science of the hammerhead corvette?? because there’s no gravity or weight in space right?? theoretically all you gotta do is give that star destroyer a bump and it’s spinning out, right?? i know absolutely nothing about space physics but i gotta be right. maybe i’m wrong. i dunno. i’m dumb as rocks. hear that baby girl?? it’s the spare change rattling around in my skull. i got pennies where my brain is.

absolutely no fucking shot cassian survived a blaster hit AND that fall AND climbed out. my belief simply cannot be suspended that much.

DUDE I FORGOT THAT THE DEATH STAR CAN TRAVEL THROUGH HYPERSPACE HOW DOES WORK SOMEONE TELL ME!!!!!

why doesn’t vader just,,, force grab the plans. i know he sees them. why not just force stop the guy running away with them??

final note now that the movie is over. yes, it’s got a lot of issues. the plot is ehhh at times. the trailers don’t match up with the movie shots AT ALL (i wanna know what happened behind the scenes with that). the character development is lacking in many major ways (that has not stopped me from loving these characters though, but that’s the autism talking). but like i’ll say in the "stuff i liked" section, this is such a damn cool movie. i was once talking about it with an older friend of mine and he said seeing rogue one in theaters felt like watching the original trilogy in theaters back in the 70s and 80s and honestly that’s such a compliment. i love this movie, i really do.

just cool shit,,, you know the vibe

DEATH TROOPERS

krennic is probably one of my favorite imperial officers. for some reason he just really sells it for me, the evil and manipulation that borderlines in try hard. and (i mention it more later because you see it more in the "choke on your aspirations" scene) beyond that just the fact that he’s?? a guy. just a dude. at any given moment he could be described as just hanging out. but he’s trying so hard (for whatever reason, we don’t know his evil motivations) to be this big bad evil dude. and it’s just interesting to see someone *trying* to be imperial and *trying* to be evil, as opposed to a tarkin-type character who’s just naturally an asshole.

i love the rogue one main theme. don’t even talk to me. it’s so cool.

it’s cool to see more about the birth of the death star, seeing other people learn about it. sort of realizing the fear and terror that everyone must have been experiencing. especially after being a star wars fan for so long and being like, yeah it’s the death star it’s just a staple of this universe. it reminds me that "oh god this was a planet killer and this was the first time something like that had ever even been heard of".

there’s gorgeous visuals in this movie.

i like the "i’m wanted in 12 systems" guy cameo (did you know his name is cornelius? i googled it)

when the storm trooper asks for papers?? like fuck yeah show me what life is like under imperial rule. give me that shit.

chirrut is so badass i’ll never get over it

"i’m one with the force and the force is with me" i’m eating that shit UP! salivating over the meal in front of me. i really want more exploration of the guardians and jedi worship in general. like gimme that weird funky space religion.

seeing an at-st just walk around a town. i dunno i like that shit.

K2 saying sorry for hitting cassian. i’m so soft on this robot.

"clear of hostiles,,,, ONE HOSTILE"

jyn stepping in front of K2 to protect him after she (not ten minutes ago) made the comment “i’m just afraid they’ll miss you and hit me”. jyn,,, your soft side is showing,,,,

i like the cool machine blaster that baze has. it’s awesome seeing different blaster styles when originally the only variation we really saw was chewie’s cross bow style blaster.

i really wanna see more of baze and cirruit. i wanna know what happened that made baze stop believing. i wanna know how they met. i wanna see them evolve and grow together.

i like that jyn argues that 16 is too young to be a solider (she’s 21 in the movie). i like that she’s mad that she’s young and has been put in a position to protect herself and then later save the galaxy. (for context: luke and leia were 19 in a new hope. anakin is 19 in attack of the clones, ~22 when he became darth vader, and rey is 19 in force awakens. stop putting the fate of the galaxy in the hands of people who are *barely* adults)

the testing of the death star is awesome. love seeing wicked cool space weapons. when it blocks out the sun? ominous as hell fuck yeah.

it’s interesting that baze says cassian doesn’t look like a killer, that "he has the face of a friend", when one of the first things we saw him do was kill a man. i think about that a lot. does that say more about baze’s ability to read people or does it say more about who cassian is deep down, beyond what he’s done to serve the rebellion?

cassian’s relationship with death and killing is very interesting. you could argue that cassian is just as brainwashed and deep in the rebellion as anyone imperial. i really hope it’s something that gets explored in his stand alone show. he mentions he’s lost everything and has been a rebel since he was 6. gimme cassian andor backstory.

"careful not to choke on your aspirations director" is probably some of the most dramatic-anakin-skywalker shit i’ve ever seen vader do

i like seeing rebel infighting. so often it seems there’s always general consensus about what the rebellion wants, but it’s good to see that they don’t always agree on how to rebel.

i love the consistent "found family" rebel alliance shit in these movies. it makes my dick so hard.

ARTOO AND THREEPIO CAMEO FUCK ME UP THOSE ARE MY BOYS

okay i totally get that the empire is evil, i really do, but rogue one (and lots of moments in the sequels) really reminds me how fucking cool some of their shit is. like death troopers? imperial droids like K2? the base on scarif? vader’s castle on mustafar and his bacta tank?? fuck me UP.

i loved hearing the troopers doing their dumb small talk about the T-15s on the beach.

i think ben mendelssohn is perfect for the role of krennic, no notes there. he’s just like?? a guy and he’s doing everything he can to fit into this evil role and he just wants to be like this big bad imperial boy on campus. i don’t know. i don’t have the words right now to express how fuckin awesome he is. i’ll write an essay about it later.

THE AT-AT COMING OUT OF THE MIST?? CHRIST ON A BIKE. LAY ME TO REST. LOVE IT.

fucking love me some female fighter pilots. the women of star wars are so badass. doing justice to my return of the jedi ladies.

i think a whole lot about jyn giving K2 a blaster. the way he takes it and looks at it and holds it so gently. i think that’s the first time a human has trusted him with a blaster since his reprogramming. he seems so appreciative of that trust.

i love seeing the faces of baze and the other rebels when a few of the x-wings show up and take down an at-at. i’m so very soft for the relationship between these rebels. not to be cliche, but the *hope* that they have. it’s so moving. this movie is just so full of that quintessential rebel feeling.

hey so i’m super emotional about the death of K2 okay? because in the novelizations you learn that in the last second k2 had before a full shut down, he ran a simulation where cassian lived and even though he knew it was impossible, it made him happy. FURTHERMORE K2 is very well known and his name is often listed along side jyn’s in terms of talking about the history of the rebellion.

chirrut and baze’s deaths are so important to me. we know they’re best friends, and even though we don’t know how long they’ve been together, they love each other so deeply. chirrut being the path for baze to return to the force? touching. i so wish these dumb force husbands could have had more screen time. baze calling chirrut back?? chirrut telling him to find him in the force?? baze looking to see the man he loves one more time before he dies??reminds me of the silken quote about dying in your best friends arms because it’s all you know. anywho,,, if star wars canon has any mercy then these two lovers are force ghosts together rn. don’t care how you feel or whether you "ship" them or not. love comes in so many forms and they encompass all that love.

terribly sorry but i think about those two star destroyers colliding with the rogue one main theme playing over it every day. it’s,,,,, so,,,, ( ´∀｀)

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again BEN MENDELSSOHN??? UH YEAH

krennic watching his weapon (his beautiful, successful weapon) power up and kill him,,, the poetic justice of it all,,,,

any time anyone says "may the force be with you" i dunno maybe it’s my religious trauma but i’m head over heels for that good shit

the star destroyer coming out of hyper space as the rebels are escaping and some of the ships hit the destroyer?? one of my favorite things in the new star wars movies is directors and writers saying "oh this can totally happen" and they DO IT

jyn mentioning earlier in the film that she isn’t used to people sticking around when shit hits the fan and then dying in the arms of cassian?? because he stayed?? and for the first time she has someone??

in that same vein: cassian also says earlier in the film that he lost everything too. his connection with jyn is also important to him, just as important as it is to jyn. they need each other. i can’t remember who on this hellsite said it, but someone mentioned that they hope the stand alone cassian stuff coming out doesn’t make him this swindling playboy who fucks around a bunch. i think having him as more of like?? a mandolorian type character would be really cool. like he’s a rebel assassin: make him one. make him independent and badass and cool and DONT give him a bunch of romantic or sexual interests because then that downplays the clear love he had developing for jyn. again LOVE COMES IN FORMS BEYOND BASIC SHIPS. and there’s a lot of love in star wars.

i’ve said it a million times but vader is so cool and over and over again this movie reminded me that he’s actually so scary. i saw star wars for the first time when i was 6 and i can’t remember my initial reaction to him, but i’ve definitely (like with the death star) been desensitized to the fact that if i was in star wars, darth vader would scare the shit out of me. he’s *scary* and that’s cool. i liked seeing vader effortlessly go fucking mad on these rebels. then you understand why they were so scared in that first scene of a new hope.

no i absolutely will not get over the vader scene. i won’t. his saber turning on. his force abilities. his effortless lightsaber work. the choral music over the scene with the hectic orchestra. don’t touch me i’m emotional.

i loved seeing leia. it touches me so deeply every time.

fuck i love this movie despite all its faults.

if you’ve made it this far, thank you!! i hope you enjoyed. please remember that this is totally a safe space for all star wars opinions and you can feel free to disagree with me! i’d love to hear what some of you thought :))

[gregorygrim]

Dragon Prince Hot Takes

!!! Full Spoiler For “The Dragon Prince” Seasons 1-3!!!

So I finally got around to watching The Dragon Prince. Timely, I know, but better late than never i guess. I’m not completely caught up yet as I only got as far as S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” in this first sitting. Considering I haven’t binged any series in almost two years, I think that’s pretty respectable. This means I won’t discuss the last few episodes here, except for a couple of things I was unfortunately spoiled for already, hence full spoilers.

These are basically my first thoughts and opinions after the binge and a good night’s sleep. It’s gonna be a lot so if you don’t care or don’t want spoilers…

TL;DR: 7½/10. Generally enjoyable, there are some aspects I’m not exactly fan of, but no dealbreakers

Firstly to everyone who told me that this was the new ATLA: you all need to rewatch Avatar stat! Like seriously. There are definitely parallels and given the cast and crew I think that’s what they were going for too (which is why I think it’s fair to compare the two), but still, no.

Secondly I love most of the worldbuilding and love that the series at least tries to give it to us in a bit of a non-linear fashion, even if it is kind of clumsy at times. I know some people are put off by expository dialogue and flashbacks, but I’m an epic fantasy nerd, I need that sweet, sweet lore to live as much as you mortals need food.

I like that there was clearly an effort made to integrate the worldbuilding in more subtle ways. For example you may initially find it kind of weird that all these different human ethnicities are existing perfectly integrated in what looks like a medieval society, until you remember from the opening monologue that the Human Kingdoms are the result of a massive diaspora following the human exodus from Xadia, so obviously people got all mixed up everywhere. It’s representation with an excellent in-world reason and that just brings me joy.

I also love the magic system(s) even though we haven’t really gone into that just yet. it really feels like there was a genuine effort made to create underlying mechanics for the magic rather than just making each spell a vaguely elemental themed ability. I really hope we’ll dive deeper into that in coming seasons.

I also like the little nods to other works of fantasy: Ezran’s ability to talk with animals is a reference to Tolkien’s world where some royal bloodlines had the ability to speak with animals, specifically birds; Primal Magic and its spells being cast with Ancient Draconic runes and words might be reminiscent of the Ancient Language from the Inheritance Cycle etc.

Thirdly the main cast is great. Callum, Ezran and Rayla are all interesting and relatable characters in their own right and as a group. I’m not going into each of them individually here, but while I think the series as a whole falls short of ATLA, as protagonist parties go I dare say this one is nearly on nearly on par with the gAang.¹

And yes, I love Bait, which I really did not expect following the first few episodes. I love his weird pug-toad-chameleon design, I love that he works like a flashbang whenever somebody says a quote from Scarface (I wish they hadn’t dropped that later on) and I love how done he is with everything and everyone at all times. I’ve only had him for 25 episodes, but if anything happened to him I would kill all of my followers and then myself.

On top of that, and speaking as someone who god knows is really not into shipping, I love Rayla and Callum’s relationship. It’s believable, it’s refreshing and it brings out the best in both characters without changing basically anything about them. Just two good friends who fell in love. A++, maybe even S tier.

Unfortunately though I can’t sing the same kind of praises about the villains. None of them are terrible (as in terribly written, most of them are pretty awful people), but with one exception they just don’t stand up to the protagonists in quality.

I could simply not take Viren seriously. Even now that is probably the single most powerful magic user in the world, he just has such strong Karen energy, every time he finishes a speech I am overcome with the urge to say “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” and it does not help the mood. I’m not even sure why. It might’ve been the voice because the guy who did Viren (Jason Simpson) also does a lot of kinda slimy characters in various anime dubs, it might be that over-the-top walking stick, idk.

What I’m saying is that as a primary antagonist he simply did not work for me. Which is doubly a shame because this kind of tarnishes the real “Big Bad” of this story by proxy. Aaravos, even as an invisible ghost, with his voice coming out of a caterpillar and next to no info on his backstory, has more style and gravity than all the human antagonists combined. It helps that he is by far the best designed character and Erik Dellums has the voice of a young god, but I’d argue even without that unfair advantage he has the potential to be a top tier villain. While he is stuck as Viren’s “little bug-pal” though he is just being dragged down.

(I’m aware that as of the final episode the caterpillar familiar is undergoing metamorphosis, probably to create a new body for Aaravos’ spirit to inhabit outside of the magic mirror, so I’m definitely hyped for more of him in the coming seasons.)

As for Soren and Claudia, I’ve got mixed feelings. This was one more aspect of the show that a lot of people compared to Avatar and while I see the parallels to Zuko & Azula, they are still very different, at least where Claudia is concerned. I’d also just like to mention that a lot of people told me that they thought the direction in which their storylines went were really surprising and I can’t disagree more. I predicted that Soren would defect to the protagonists on episode 5 right after Viren told him to kill the princes and I knew Claudia was going to stick with her father from episode 12 onward. My point is, it didn’t feel like some kind of plot twist, the way some people made it out to be, and which I don’t think was the intent.

I definitely got the sense that Soren was at least a Zuko-type character, though still not a Zuko clone, and as with Zuko I was consistently able to empathise and sympathise with him and his predicaments. I also appreciated that his dilemma is the result of his convictions and not him being kind of dense, which would’ve been all to easy and probably would’ve ruined his character for me. As it stands he is extremely milktoast, but perfectly functional for his purpose in the story and I can definitely see him evolving further and getting more interesting as we go on.

Claudia is where it gets complicated. Again, I can see the Azula parallels. But unlike that character, who is her father’s animal 110%, Claudia doesn’t strike me as a victim of Viren’s manipulation the way Soren undoubtably is. The way she talks about and uses Dark Magic, how she talks down to Soren and how even Viren finds it difficult to communicate with her, tells me as an audience member that she is an independent person. Which tells me that the cruelty and enthusiasm for causing harm she regularly displays is her own will. And that was before she straight up leads Callum on to manipulate him.

On the other hand I can absolutely relate to her devotion to her family, her big sister role (even though she is younger than Soren) and the way both the separation of her parents before the story and Soren’s injury in episode 16 must’ve affected her because of this. I know that, if my brother had become paralysed from the neck down and I knew a way to heal him, I would not have hesitated to kill that fawn either. Then again her relationship with her father is very different from parental relationships I am familiar with, so I can’t really say I see why she is so devoted to him, other than she promised her mother to stay with him years ago? ¯\(o_Ō)/¯

So basically Claudia falls into an emotional grey space for me. I can’t really tell how to feel about her either way and I’ll just have to see where she goes from here, which, while fine, isn’t necessarily great for an end of season cliffhanger imo.

Seeing as I’ve already talked about some of the show’s shortcomings, I think it’s time to dive into some of the what I would consider flaws.

Firstly this show needed at least 12 episode seasons. I have never made a secret out of my dislike for the modern short seasons and while I recognise that in the current climate in the industry giving everything full 25 episode seasons isn’t really doable, the pacing of this show, especially for the first season is just outright bad at times. It works as of the second season, but the first season alternately feels like it’s either rushing through or crawling along the whole way through.

The believability of Rayla’s and the princes’ relationship really suffers from this the most. It comes a bit out of nowhere on the boat ride and is then taken for granted way to quickly. Like Callum, seriously, this girl tried to kill you and your brother not even a day ago and you are currently cut off from all allies you have ever had until now. A little skepticism isn’t misplaced here. I also wold’ve liked if we’d just gotten a bit more of a sense of movement with the characters. I get that this is not the kind of show where we can just make an entire episode about the characters travelling and camping, intercut with plots centred around a more expansive supporting cast, but still I really would’ve preferred if Xadia didn’t feel quite so around the corner.

Another issue is with setup and payoff, which I think is partially a consequence of the pacing as well. A lot of smaller plot points are set up within the same episode as the payoff just wreak havoc on the narrative structure. A good example is the episode where they ride down the river in a boat and Bait tires to go into the water, but is saved by Ezran, who then explains the story behind Glowtoads and how they are pefect bait for large water predators. Then Bait falls into the water and is attacked by a massive water monster. This happens within five minutes of one episode and never comes up again. To me that looks like sign of rushed editing, which is probably not entirely the crew’s fault, given that they are on a schedule from Netflix, but it’s still a point of critique.

It unfortunately also manifests in the occasional line of horribly forced dialogue, often for things we can literally see happening on screen. Again, this is mostly the case in the earlier episodes, but it never completely goes away.

Finally, and this is where i get into serious issues that made me want to write this, we gotta talk about representation in this show.

First: disabled representation, meaning Amaya. Why is Amaya deaf? Because it’s good to have disabled representation.

Why is Amaya deaf and a high-ranking military officer? Because they didn’t think it through.

I know this may be a contentious opinion, but it is my belief that the purpose of representation, particularly of disabilities characters may suffer from, in fiction is to, y’know, represent people as they are in life. That includes especially the struggles they face and have to overcome, sometimes their whole life. This is not just me talking out of my ass either. A couple years ago I discussed this with several people that are disabled, specifically blind or otherwise severely visually impaired, in a different context obviously, and the general consensus was that it’s better to have representation that shows their life and their abilities as they are, rather than how they might wish they could be.

A mute or deaf person cannot be a medieval fantasy army general, no matter how good they might be in melee combat or who’s sister they are, because at the end of the day, they’re not able to give commands while they are holding a sword and shield. That such a massive logical oversight, especially in comparison to the extremely well done example of representation I mentioned above, and has so little impact on the plot that it leads me to believe, this aspect of Amaya’s character was tacked on in the last minute without being given any thought for the sole reason of the story having a disabled person in it. All this does is necessitate the existence of two otherwise entirely unnecessary characters, Gren and Kazi, both of which achieve nothing, aside from sometimes being literal set dressing.

That is where representation ends and tokenism begins.

And unfortunately this generally lacklustre attitude also extends to the LGBT+ representation on the show.

As of S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” we have had two onscreen gay couples on the show (onscreen in the sense that both partners were onscreen and they were somehow confirmed to be in a relationship on the show). One of these, the queens of Duren, literally die in the same flashback they are introduced in, which incidentally also features them invading a foreign nation to poach a rare animal and subsequently starting the conflict at the series’ core. Not a great look.

Aside from serving as a tragic backstory for their daughter, the most impact they had on my viewing experience was that they made wonder how the fuck royal succession works in Duren. (People who know me are rolling their eyes right now because I’m bringing anarchism into this Dragon Prince review, but I’m telling you, this why fantasy monarchies aren’t compatible with LGBT+ politics in the same setting. Dynastic governments are inherently bigoted, you can’t have it both ways.)

The other couple are Runaan and Ethari, Rayla’s caretakers, although if I’m being honest you wouldn’t be able tell based on Runaan’s treatment of Rayla in the first episode. By the time we actually meet Ethari and find out about their relationship with Rayla, Runaan is suffering “a fate worse than death” (direct quote from the show) trapped in a gold coin.

I mean come on. That’s about as “technically not ‘bury your gays’” as it gets.

I think I need to reiterate here that my point is not that this show or its creators are somehow malicious. As i stated in the TL;DR: I don’t think this is a dealbreaker for liking this show. But it does demonstrate that they are prone to slipping to some potentially harmful tropes and this needs to be criticised and pointed out to them.

In conclusion, I really love this show. It’s not ATLA, it never will be, nothing else will ever be ATLA no matter how badly (and terribly) Netflix tries. But it does and should not have to be.

What it has to do though is improve. A lot of the building blocks are already there, such as Aaravos or Claudia’s development, Callum’s father, the origin of Ezran’s ability, the purpose of the “Key of Aaravos”, the true fate of King Harrow (we all know his soul is in the bird, right?) etc. Some things like the treatment of Amaya’s disability unfortunately won’t be fixable as far as I can tell, but if they at least manage to fix the gay representation I can make my peace with that.

¹ I know I said I wouldn’t go into each of the characters individually, but a) you should never trust a stranger on the internet and b) I really want to talk a bit about Callum. Specifically the “mystery” of why the hell he is connected to the Sky Primal. I write “mystery” because I think it’s fairly obvious from whence this talent came: there is only one humanoid species we know of with innate access to the Sky Arcanum and one of Callum’s parent’s is unidentified, presumed dead. 2+2=4. Callum’s father was a Skywing Elf. That’s why he recognised Nyx’s boomerang weapon. He remembered one like it either from his very early childhood (remember that he has photographic memory) or Sarai kept one and he found it at some point.

On top of that the name “Callum” or at least the pronunciation is clearly derived from Latin “caelum” meaning “sky” or “weather” and I already mentioned that Ancient Draconic is just bad Latin. It’s not very subtle. Unless they pull a complete 180 concerning the lore about Primal Magic he’s definitely going to be a half-elf, which would also just so happen to make him the perfect mediator between the Human Kingdoms and Xadia. Hmm, it’s almost as if they are planning ahead.

My question: How the fuck did that happen? Or rather: how did that fuck happen? I don’t think even Harrow knew or he probably would’ve a) paid more attention when Sarai advised against poaching the Magma Titan, because obviously she’s gotten around Xadia more than him, if y’know what i’m sayin’ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) or at least b) put it in his final letter to Callum. Unfortunately we know basically nothing about Sarai except that she was a soldier alongside Amaya and already had Callum before marrying Harrow. So does Amaya know? This is probably the most interesting plot thread in the whole story and as far as my friends told me it’s not going to be touched on anymore in the last two episodes than it already has thus far, which is basically not at all.

[mst3kproject]

The Ship of Monsters

Check me out, I’m being topical!  I had another review almost finished for today, but when I saw the news I knew I had to set that aside and find a movie about life on Venus.  This one is a ridiculous Mexican film starring Lorena Velazquez from Samson vs the Vampire Women (looking only slightly less like Cher) and one of those amazing cardboard robots you only get in the very worst of late 50’s and early 60’s sci-fi.

An atomic war on the planet Venus has killed off all the males, so an expedition is sent out in search of replacements, consisting of a native Venusian named Gamma, her Uranian navigator Beta, and their robot Tor.  After promising the Empress that they will bring back only the most manly of men, they wander the solar system a while collecting creatures with penises before an engine problem forces them to land on Earth.  The first human they meet there is Laureano Gomez, a singing cowboy with a well-earned reputation for telling tall tales.  One might assume one could predict the rest of the movie from there… but then Beta turns on Gamma and reveals that her true mission all along was to conquer a planet to feed the vampires of Uranus!

I gotta say… I did not see that coming.

The Ship of Monsters is supposed to be a comedy.  It’s seldom funny when it’s trying to be, although it mercifully avoids being the kind of desperately unfunny a lot of bad comedies are… possibly this is because it’s in Spanish, and by the time I’ve realized something is stupid there’s another subtitle to distract me. The jokes, such as they are, are pretty standard.  Tor the robot was created by an alien race, who were aware of Earth but never bothered exploring it because they thought the inhabitants weren’t very intelligent.  Laureano is in the habit of telling ridiculous stories to his drinking buddies, so of course when he claims the Earth is being invaded by space monsters they don’t believe him.  That sort of thing.  The movie is much funnier when it’s just showing us absurd situations, but to nobody’s surprise, The Ship of Monsters is at its funniest when it’s trying to be serious.

This hilarity comes in many forms, covering just about all the possible bases for a dirt-cheap 1960 sci-fi film.  We have spaceship sets made of cardboard, covered with buttons that don’t actually press and levers conveniently placed so people can bump into them during fight scenes.  We have Tor, with his tin can body that’s always a little dinged up but never in the same places, giving us clues as to what order the scenes might have been shot in.  He also has wiggly spring antennae and makes a little whirring noise every time he moves. We have space babes in silver bathing suits and glittery high heels.  Vampire-Beta, sporting plastic fangs that look like they came from the bottom of a cereal box, could be the female counterpart to the guy from Dracula vs Frankenstein, and the puppet used to represent her in flight is nearly as bad as the one from The Devil Bat.

The ‘monsters’ of the title are a bulging-brained Martian prince, a scaly cyclops, a spidery creature with venomous fangs, and the mobile skeleton of what appears to be a *damn worwelf (he tells us that his race has Evolved Beyond Flesh... apparently not Beyond Bones, though).  The costumes are all terrible, particularly the warwulf puppet, whose backbone extends into his mouth and who has to be carried around with his feet dangling in any shot that’s not a close-up.  It’s nice, though, that a little imagination went into them, and somebody gave a bit of thought to the idea that a monstrous appearance is relative.  The Martian tells Beta that he admires her ambition and might even marry her if she weren’t so ugly by his planet’s standards.

At the end, naturally, this alien invasion is defeated by Laureano, his twelve-year-old brother, and a cardboard robot, while Gamma just stands around and screams.  With a movie like this I expect nothing less.  The denouement contains my favourite intentional joke in the whole thing, in which Gamma stays on Earth with her True Love, and Tor the robot takes his, the Jukebox, back to Venus with him!  Tom Servo would have given a speech to congratulate the happy couple, and I can just see him breaking down into happy tears before he got five lines in.

(The wirwalf skeleton is not present at the climactic fight, by the way… no explanation is offered, and I strongly suspect that they broke the puppet trying.  I rather enjoy this omission, because it lets me imagine him getting lost or maybe buried by an enterprising dog, and finally finding his way back to the landing site only to learn that they’ve left without him.)

I called Laureano a cowboy but he only has one cow.  Her name is Lolobrijida and she is the very first time I have ever seen a movie spur a hero into action by killing his cow.  She gets a proper Teenagers from Outer Space death, with her skeleton left behind propped up by metal struts like a dinosaur in a museum!

I also called him a singing cowboy, which he is – there are several songs, including one in which he tries to explain to Gamma and Beta what ‘love’ means.  The songs have pleasant but forgettable Mexican pop melodies, and none of the lyrics make a whole lot of sense.  Being translated over-literally from Spanish probably didn’t do them any favours (my own Spanish tops out at yo no tengo dinero), but I still can’t imagine that the What Is Love song clarified anything.

Laureano himself comes across as kind of a fool, but he’s not actually a full-on idiot, which is quite important.  If he were the kind of one-dimensional ‘comedic nitwit’ embodied in characters like Dropo, or the janitor from Reptilicus, he’d be insufferable.  Laureano is no genius, but he’s got personality traits besides being stupid – he cares deeply for his little brother Chuy and for his animals, and he doesn’t treat Gamma and Beta’s appearance as two women for the price of one.  Very quickly he decides that Gamma is the one he loves, and he sticks to that, doing his best to let Beta down gently even when she offers to make him a king.  He’s also smart enough to trick Beta into dancing with him so he can steal the device she uses to control the rocket and Tor, and to listen to Gamma when she tells him about the various monsters’ weaknesses.

Gamma and Beta, on the other hand, don’t have a lot to them besides the basic fact that Gamma is the Nice One and Beta is Evil. Gamma starts out in the story with a strong sense of duty, and it’s a bit disappointing to see her abandon that because of Tru Luv.  I would have liked the ending better if she’d taken Laureano home with her so that the two of them could be the Adam and Eve of the new Venusian race.  Meanwhile, Beta shows no sign of any loyalty except to herself and her own ambition.  Her original mission, to secure Earth as a blood supply for the Uranians, falls by the wayside as she decides she’s going to conquer and rule the planet herself.

So The Ship of Monsters isn’t exactly a feminist manifesto, but neither is it complete misogynistic garbage like Project Moon Base.  The whole premise, after all, rests on a planet of women being able to develop space travel all on their own!  This is a fairly surprising plot point, because in many ‘planet of women’ movies like Fire Maidens of Outer Space or Cat Women of the Moon, the ladies need the virile Earth Men to come to them.

There’s also a little bit of actual science peeking out of the cracks.  The moment for launch of the rocket from Venus is determined by when ‘the elliptical orbits coincide’.  Launch timing is, indeed, a delicate art depending very much on what’s orbiting where. There’s also the moment when, trying to land on Earth, Gamma and Beta worry that the friction, combined with our oxygen-rich atmosphere, will set their ship on fire.  This stuff is pretty impressive coming from a time when the moon landing was still nearly a decade away.  There are even a couple of scenes in zero gravity that honestly aren’t totally terrible.  I mean, I’ve seen better, but I’ve also seen much, much worse.

There’s also one weirdly prescient moment when Laureano, telling one of his silly stories in the pub, describes being surrounded by dinosaurs – only to get a laugh a moment later when he mentions that they had beautiful plumage.  I’m not sure whether this is meant to be a joke in that Laureano is exaggerating an actual encounter with an angry bird into something more fearsome (I think we’re to assume that the whole story is totally made up), or whether it’s just supposed to be funny that Laureano thinks dinosaurs had feathers instead of scales.  Either way, it’s the equivalent of the moon Fornax in Menace from Outer Space being so reminiscent of Io.  There’s no way the writers could have known that, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

The Ship of Monsters is very cheap and very dumb, but it’s good fun for those of us who like crummy old alien invasion movies, and I recommend it to anybody in that demographic.  As for actual life on Venus… I feel like a lot of the people getting excited are too young to remember when Bill Clinton told the world that we had totally found life on Mars.  Humans have been discovering life on other planets for about two hundred years and every single one of those ‘discoveries’ has turned out to be either a mistake or an outright lie.  We have plenty enough to panic about this year without a Venusian invasion.

[toooldforfandom-liveblogs]

Gravity Falls S02E07 - Society of the Blind Eye

That title sounds very interesting! Is the "Blind Eye" Bill? Maybe the government agents will make another appearance since it sounds like something they'd investigate? I have no idea so let's do this!

Wait, is the paranormal finally interacting more directly with the town? I feel that's a bad omen considering Bill's words about the abnormal becoming the norm.

...so there's a secret society _keeping_ everything weird that happens under wraps? But if that's the case, why have they not tried to silence the twins already?

I feel blessed, a plot episode and it's not even the finale yet.

Me, every single time a season of any show starts.

Politics!? In my Gravity Falls!?

Oh Mabel, never change.

27 episodes and they still haven't learned that they can't say anything like that because chances are they'll suffer a tragic fate to teach them a valuable life lesson.

Is Dipper thinking McGucket lost a finger? Because that feels extreme.

No way. Although the author did seem a bit lost to paranoia by the end considering his notes which _could_ have evolved into McGucket's weird mental situation... but nah, no way. Right?

Oooh, what if the Blind Eye Society erased his memory after he saw something he shouldn't have seen? He obviously knew the author (since he made the laptop) so maybe he saw what happened 30 years ago and it was too much?

But in that case, how did Stan escape from suffering the same fate?

30 YEAAAAAAARS

After this I'm really leaning towards the erased memory theory. But did whatever they did to him fail for some reason? Maybe he was the first and the technology and/or ritual wasn't ready?

On the other hand trusting McGucket always end up being a bad idea so maybe it's all something he came up with.

What did they input to make McGucket forget _everything_?

Actually, now I wonder if McGucket created the gun, shot himself with it after seeing whatever happened 30 years ago and the society found him (and traumatized)? Or maybe he was part of the society?

I'm mostly thinking about what else could have happened because it feels weird to have that mystery "solved" one third of the episode in (since chances are that gun is a memory eraser).

Awesome, a memory eraser _and_ an indoctrination tool.

Aw, I love their camaraderie.

WAIT, THEY SAVE THE MEMORIES!?

I saw that Rick and Morty episode and it doesn't lead to anything good!

Also, isn't this more people than the entirety of Gravity Falls? I wonder if there's anyone previously seen among them.

I wondered before about how it was weird that they hadn't captured the twins but what if they have and have erased their memories and they just don't know?

Although when they steal memories it seems to be more general than specific so it'd have to be things unique enough to avoid overlapping with everything else we have seen in the show.

Wait, didn't Mabel learn this lesson a couple of episodes ago?

oh no

Who cares about Robbie, there's a tube that says Pacifica back there! Did they erase her night with the lilliputtians? Because that would probably be bad for her character development!

So they _have_ been erasing the memories of everyone affected by the twins' adventures... but then, the society has to know it's all because of them.

Is that the guy from the newspaper in the back? Is his bad journalism just an excuse to keep everything hidden?

McGucket has to be the founder.

Everyone having brain damage does explain a lot.

oh you monster

same

...that's pretty dark

I... didn't expect this. I mean, he did erase his memories but I didn't expect his mental situation to be caused by _repeated_ self-memory erasing .

AKA "THE PLOT WILL CONTINUE IN THREE EPISODES"

hmmmmm that image Was that what happened? Did the author go into the portal and never came back? That feels a lot less catastrophic than what I've been theorizing before.

GIDEON'S TANTRUMS, MISSPELLED TATTOOS,

A FEAR OF WITCHES, A LIFE OF REGRET,

SHANDRA'S REJECTIONS, SOCIETY'S VIEWS,

THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT THEY TRY TO FORGET

---

What a great episode, just the right mix between comedy and mystery, with a pretty dark undercurrent considering what really happened to McGucket.

I wonder if the society not existing anymore means that since people won't forget the paranormal, it'll slowly become the new "normal" for the town. Making it a prophesied step in whatever awfulness is coming, and the twins partly responsible for it.

These plot episodes make me want to marathon the whole show, I want answers! Oh well, until next time!

[jbuffyangel]

Bigger Than The Friggin Universe: Arrow 7x22 Review (You Have Saved This City)

This one was hard to write. 

Goodbyes are always difficult, but when it’s goodbye to someone or something you love it’s particularly hard. I love Felicity Smoak. I love Olicity. I know you do as well. They are the reason we watch. Arrow delivered a spectacular season finale that felt like a series finale and it will be for some of you. 

Most importantly, they paid tribute to the character and love story that changed the show forever. Buckle up my friends and bring the tissues. This will be a long one. Felicity Smoak and Emily Bett Rickards deserve no less.

Let’s dig in…

Olicity, Original Team Arrow, Flash Forwards, and the Glorious Felicity Smoak

Changing up the format because this is going be a big smorgasbord of feels. I can’t think in sections because the writers just dropped kicked my heart into oblivion.

It’s all about the last twenty minutes right? Right. So let’s get to it. Honestly, I revved myself up for this episode. I was ready to go.

As if pure commitment to power through could protect me from the painful onslaught of emotions Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards were about to bestow upon my soul. 

I was a fool. Nothing could prepare me for the last twenty minutes.

But then “You Have Saved This City” started moving fast. Like really fast. I blinked and we had blown through 35 minutes. I barely knew what happened! Oliver saved the city... I guess? 

It’s amusing we focused on this single goal for so long and once achieved it felt kind of... perfunctory. 

Saving the Star City was a plot point we were just waiting for the writers to pull the friggin trigger on and we knew they never would until the end. 

Arrow is a lot of things, but there’s never a lack of action in the series finale. It’s often incredibly frustrating because hugely important Olicity scenes are regulated to less than five minutes because ACTION.

“You Have Saved This City” was different. It felt like the writers were rushing through the episode to get to the Olicity scenes. They breezed past Oliver beating Emiko and The Ninth Circle. Those ungrateful twats known as the Star City Police Department and their equally annoying cohorts the citizens of Star City finally figured out Oliver is a good guy. The scene they pieced it all together though took less than three minutes. 

The writers wanted to focus on the emotional beats of the story because this was really their last chance to do so. Go big or go home. Fine with me.

It was great, but I started to panic. REALLY PANIC. The episode was moving waaaaaay too fast. This meant I had to say goodbye soon to a character I adore and a love story I have spent obscene amounts of time writing about. I wasn’t ready, but I was never going to be.

Oliver and Felicity tell the team they are going to leave Star City for a little while. The fact the city is safe and under the team’s protection is the reason they feel like they can leave. 

Source:  littlegirlinvisible

True, but also some nutcase from the Ninth Circle named Beatrice is still gunning for them. Who the fuck is Beatrice? Eh. Forget it. I don’t care.

The team ends the way it began with Oliver, Felicity and Diggle.  

Source: @plotbunnyshipper

Even though Original Team Arrow doesn’t get the focus and screen time we crave, they are and will always be the show. The chemistry between Stephen Amell, Emily Bett Rickards, and David Ramsey was discovered as Season 1 evolved. 

Arrow struggled to find its footing in the first season and it took many episodes for the writers to hit their groove with OTA, but ultimately they found the right path. 

Source: Paige

Original Team Arrow is the gravity which kept the show centered. Diggle talks about the legacy of heroes Oliver launched, but in truth it is the legacy THEY launched.

Source: Paige 

This is the moment I started to lose it because it didn’t feel like Diggle, Oliver and Felicity talking. It felt like David, Stephen and Emily. The lines between real and fiction began to blur as these actors said goodbye to Emily/Felicity and to the team they formed both on and off the camera. 

Source: Paige 

Stephen is wrecked. He giving it his all to hold it together and failing miserably. You aren’t the one leaving man! You still have another ten episodes to do with David! Honestly, though is anyone surprised? No. Stephen is the fuzzy marshmallow of this group. Don’t let the abs fool you. He is powerless against the power of Felicity Smoak and Emily Bett Rickards.

Oliver/Stephen, Diggle/David, Emily/Felicity also say goodbye the way they began. Original Team Arrow officially formed in Season 1 Episode 14 “The Odyssey.” Oliver Queen’s story, particularly in Season 1, was shaped from Homer’s Odyssey and this is the not remotely subtle nod. Moira shoots “The Hood” and Oliver turns to Felicity for help. She brings him home to The Foundry, to Diggle, and they work desperately to save Oliver’s life.

Felicity is overwhelmed by the blood and is deeply concerned she and John are Oliver’s only option for medical assistance. Diggle has seen a lot of war and trauma. He’s trained for this. Well mostly. There’s a moment when he reaches out to grab Felicity’s hand to reassure her. John’s other hand is keeping pressure on Oliver’s wound flat against his chest and close to the heart. I’ve often called Original Team Arrow the heartbeat of the show and this is the moment their perfect circuit formed.

Source: arrowdaily

David Ramsey honors that iconic moment by reaching for Emily’s hand across Stephen’s shoulders and placing his other hand on Stephen’s chest, right against his heart. This is the bond that brought the show together and held it together for the last seven years. Original Team Arrow is front and center in the home and legacy they built. Losing Emily and Felicity’s character means saying goodbye to the entity this trio formed through their wit, love, chemistry and loyalty. Stephen and Emily pretty much lost it then and there and I was right there with them.

I wrote this way back in Season 3:

Each member and relationship is a beat of this heart. Diggle is a beat. Oliver is a beat. Felicity is a beat. Their relationships with one another: Diggle and Oliver, Oliver and Felicity, Felicity and Diggle, and of course the trio, are beats as well. When we remove one of these characters or relationships the rhythm of the show is changed.

It’s unfathomable to imagine the show without all three and yet this is where we’re headed. All I know for certain is next season Arrow’s heartbeat will be irregular. It will be an echo.

Source: arrowdaily 

Felicity/Emily tries to comfort Oliver/Stephen by holding his arm tight and gently nuzzling his shoulder. 

Source: arrowdaily

(Because it’s bad y’all. Number One on the call sheet is going down by the head! MAYDAY MAY DAY!)  Felicity has an entire relationship with Oliver’s shoulder. 

This is incredibly well documented. Whenever she grabs on to his arm and kisses his shoulder it feels like she’s an anchor trying to hold a ship steady. Oliver is home and Felicity will sail with him anywhere. And he will sail steady with her by his side. It always reminds me of a line from Message in a Bottle, “A harbor where I am forever home.”

Source: arrowdaily

Felicity and Diggle disperse and Oliver is left alone in the bunker 

Source: arrowdaily 

just like he began, but worlds away from the person he used to be.  

He came back from Lian Yu broken and completely shut down emotionally, but it was through the unconditional love of these two people that Oliver’s soul was saved and he found his way truly home. The city is finally at peace because Oliver is at peace. Their journeys were always one in the same.

Source: arrowdaily 

I’ve always said Oliver Queen is like the sun Star City revolves around. His light ultimately saved the city. 

But now Oliver is leaving, and unbeknownst to him, it will be for 20 years. Star City will fall again in that time. When Oliver leaves he takes the light with him. The bunker going dark is an ominous foreshadow for the future.

Source: arrowdaily 

Diggle brings Mr. and Mrs. Smoak to the love cabin where they will bring their child into this world. 

Source: legends-of-today

The Ninth Circle is still gunning for them. We receive no other explanation other than Emiko made sure Oliver’s family will die. Oooookay then. Hiding it is! The truly bizarre piece of Season 7 is we knew exactly where Olicity was headed for a long time, but seeing it all play out is no less painful… or wonderful.

John brings them to the safest neighborhood in the world – it’s filled with ex CIA, ex ARGUS and ex. Listen, this ain’t nothin’. I grew up next door to a cop. It was fantastic. 

The Olicity love nest is one big safe house hand chosen by the man who loves and ships them the best. Oliver keeps insisting it’s only temporary despite the Ivy Town like bliss and complete military protection surrounding them. Ugh, my sweet summer child. The more you say “temporary” the more it becomes anything but. Can someone please explain the rules of television to my son? Thanks.

Source: Paige 

Oliver lets it slip they are having a baby girl and Felicity follows up with the name. Olicity bursting with excitement to tell John Diggle about The Princess That Was Promised is so on brand. He practically willed this kid into existence and no one understands that better than Oliver and Felicity. Diggle is appropriately jazzed. Representing the fandom to the bitter end!

But can we talk about this gender reveal though? This means at some point during all the crazy Oliver and Felicity had an ultrasound AND THEY DIDN’T SHOW US.

I accepted no triplets. I think I’m handling it pretty damn well don’t you think? But I draw the line at missing the ultrasound. We had time to listen Dinah bitch about her job 34,234 times this season, but there was no time to show the ultrasound???!!!! 

My head canon is Oliver was late and had to show up to the appointment in the Green Arrow suit.

This also means Felicity is around the 18 – 20 week mark. I don’t know if this actually tracks because I don’t want to do math. I am simply accepting it as fact. I might be dating myself though. It’s been 12 years since I popped out a kid and maybe you can find out gender sooner than 20 weeks. 

Source: Paige 

Felicity isn’t showing too much yet, but every woman is different. That’s probably just lunch. Also have you seen her abs? ANYWAYS IT DOESN’T MATTER BECAUSE THEY ARE HAVING A GIRL, HER NAME IS MIA AND JOHN DIGGLE KNOWS.

The city is saved so John tells these two crazy kids to focus on their family. Can I just say no one has actually qualified why the city is suddenly saved other than for the team declaring it so, but whatever they are giving me an Olicity love cabin. 

I am perfectly content with it because it’s what Oliver and Felicity deserve. Star City can go screw themselves.

We get our Delicity moment. It feels like Marc, Beth and the writers came up with an “Emily Bett Rickards Is Leaving the Show” To Do list to make sure I didn’t riot outside their houses. This was a wise plan. I commend them for it.

The truth is we never get enough Delicity. It’s one of Arrow’s great failings. Hell, we can summarize the whole problem as not enough John Diggle. The ONLY positive I see out of Season 8 is maybe this man will finally get a storyline, but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Source: Paige 

Anywho, Felicity is preggo, emotional and hiding away with her husband in a love cabin for at least the next four months, so she gushes to John about how much she loves him and how he will always be family. Then Delicity gets their hug on. 

Source: Paige 

STAHP. I JUST REGAINED COMPOSER.

Oliver and Diggle’s brotherhood and friendship has always been more of a focus than John’s relationship with Felicity, but that doesn’t mean he is any less her brother too. He has protected Felicity and offered her wise Yoda advice particularly when it came to Oliver and she needed it most. 

And Felicity has given John the same love and friendship in return. Diggle and Felicity are their own precious beat in this show.

The hardest part of Season 7 was seeing the strain in their friendship. Diggle refusing to help Felicity free Oliver still enrages me and I don’t think the writers gave the characters an adequate amount of screen time to repair that damage. But it doesn’t erase the last seven years between these two. Families disagree, fight and disappoint each other all the time. It doesn’t mean you stop being family. John had Felicity’s back in the end and if she can forgive him then so can I.

This cracked me up. 

Source: Paige 

These dudes still have ten more episodes together. Nobody is getting teary yet.

Olicity is finally alone after John leaves and Oliver is looking at his wife like a snack.

Damn. This blows @callistawolf​’s holiday in Aruba, and my personal head canon, to smithereens. However, we rebound nicely because Oliver Queen aka The Sex God has exactly one thing on his mind. Never change your priorities dude because they are on point.

Source: olicitygifs 

I remember in the early days of Arrow when sex scenes made me want to claw my eyes out because he slept with every female other than Felicity the first two seasons. 

But then the glorious Season 3 happened, we met Celibate Oliver and then THIS HAPPENED:

Oliver channeling all his sexual energy into one woman the last four years is character evolution I am here for. I’m also here for pregnant belated honeymoon sex. HAVE AT IT KIDS. 

Oh man! I don’t get to watch? Arrow continually stomping on my voyeuristic needs is really not cool. What the hell do they think television is for anyways?

They fade out from the kiss and I swear to God I yelled, “DO A MONTAGE!” and y’all THEY DID. Most of the time when I yell things at this show I am ignored, but every once in awhile they do the thing I ask. 

I had very few expectations going into 7x22. I write the occasional fic, but I’m really bad at coming up with things I want Olicity to do (other than sex) or words to say. The best moments on the show for me and the lines I love the most are the ones I can’t come up with. I didn’t have any expectations for a montage and it was everything I could have hoped for and more.

It felt like a truncated Ivy Town only better. 

Oliver and Felicity’s time in Ivy Town was idyllic because they left the insanity of Star City behind and lost themselves in each other. But there were cracks in the relationship even then. Their time in Bloomfield is much different. Oliver and Felicity have been through the good and the bad in their relationship. They’ve seen the worst and the best in each other. They found a way to be heroes and build a family together. Oliver and Felicity choose each other.

If their choice is the tree then this montage is the fruit it bears. My father said in his toast on my wedding day that a marriage is built in the quiet and simple moments. These are Oliver and Felicity’s quiet and simple moments. 

Source:  olicitygifs

They share a peaceful night enjoying being in each other’s company, rocking in chairs on the porch, under the stars, discussing anything and everything.

They take a stroll in the backyard with sweet baby Mia. 

Oliver lifts his baby girl high in the sky and is the picture of perfect happiness. 

Source:  olicitygifs 

This is the life Oliver never thought he’d have. It was the quiet dream he kept to himself alone in that bunker, night after night, resigned to his fate.

Arrow is a story about a man learning how to live again and this is Oliver Queen truly living. 

Source:  olicitygifs 

He falls asleep peacefully with his daughter safely tucked in his arms, happily cooing as he slumbers. (This is a factual representation of parenthood btw). 

When Oliver returned from Lian Yu his home was a stranger to him and the horrors of the five years away followed him into his dreams. Sleep was as evasive as peace.

Bloomfield isn’t the city Oliver grew up in and the Queen mansion dwarfs this cabin, but it doesn’t matter because Felicity is home. She is the reason Oliver faced his nightmares, forgave himself, and stopped merely surviving while he waited for death. Felicity Smoak gave Oliver a reason to live. She pushed her way through all the darkness, so his light could shine through. And their love created more reasons to live.

Source:  olicitygifs 

Oliver returned from Lian Yu to fight a war not just in the city, but within him.  He fought, clawed, bled and sacrificed his way to heroism while losing nearly everyone he ever loved along the way. Oliver has no superpowers. He became a weapon by sheer force of will.  Lian Yu burned everything he was to the ground and from the ashes he rose. Oliver’s pain molded him into someone else… something else.

But being a vigilante wasn’t enough. Two separate personas weren’t enough. Cutting himself off from his humanity wasn’t enough. Oliver needed to be more… so much more. He had to merge the darkness and the light, the man and mask. Sometimes the only way out is through. Oliver fought his battles and won not just by surviving, but by embracing life. And life to Oliver Queen is Felicity Smoak.

Oliver’s catalytic moment is his father’s death, but he was so short sighted about what his father was asking of him. 

This was always about more than Oliver righting Robert’s wrongs. This was always about more than a list or villains or even the city. Before he took his own life to save his son, Robert asked Oliver to be a better man. But the person Robert imagined wasn’t the Green Arrow. The man Robert imagined was this:

Source:  olicitygifs 

This man doesn’t happen without Felicity Smoak. Oliver saved the city, built a legacy, and became everything his father asked of him because of her. Felicity’s love gave Oliver the courage to open up his heart again after everything he suffered. Her compassion helped Oliver forgive himself. Her belief made Oliver believe he could someone he never imagined.

Sometimes even superheroes need to be saved. Felicity is Oliver’s hero. She saw the best in him. She harnessed his light.  Felicity was his path from purgatory to peace.  Love was the way through. And now he’s here. Oliver Queen is every bit the man Robert asked him to be and every bit the man Felicity Smoak deserves.

The road was long, painful, filled with loss and mistakes, but the man I glimpsed when he smiled at beautiful computer tech is here. 

I couldn’t connect with Oliver until he met Felicity Smoak. When he smiled I remember thinking, “Oh there you are Oliver.” And this is the man I saw in that smile. This is who he was meant to become. We’ve waited seven long years, but Oliver Queen is finally home. The dream foreshadowed all those years ago came true.

Source: feilcityqueen

And he’s about to be torn from it again. Even though I know this separation is coming nothing can prepare me for the pain. That said, Arrow isn’t known for their subtle and before they rip my heart out the writers give us hope. The montage began with Oliver and Felicity sitting on the porch with two candles flickering between them 

Source:  olicitygifs 

and it ends with two candles as Oliver and Felicity prepare to sit down to dinner.

Source: Paige 

Twin Flames.

We can have more than one soul mate, but we can only have one twin flame. A twin flame is one soul in two bodies. We are fated to meet this person and when it happens it is like coming home. There’s a ying and yang balance and even though twin flames seem like opposites they are really the same deep down.

Twin flames come in and out of each other’s lives and the relationship can often be tumultuous. However, separation is an illusion because their shared soul will keep them linked forever.  Twin flame energy inevitably leads to reunion and the souls will join together in perfect unconditional love.

SOUND FAMILIAR?!!!!

This isn’t the first time two candles have been used to represent twin flames. Oliver and Felicity declared their love and slept together for the first time just before being separated forever. 

We know Olicity is about to be torn apart again and for a much longer period of time. However, the flicker of the twin flames is light in the dark. It is hope in despair. Oliver and Felicity are one soul in two bodies. There is no separation for any length of time or distance which will ever distinguish their love. Their reunion is inevitable. They are meant to be together. It’s fate.

But first they have to separate. 

Oliver hears a noise, grabs a knife and brandishes it against The Monitor’s throat in a stellar parallel to Mia doing the same to Felicity in “Star City 2040.” 

Source: ebett

The Monitor doesn’t have to say a word. Oliver knows immediately why he’s there. It’s heartbreaking because he thought he had more time.

I think Oliver saw the newspaper heading of The Flash’s disappearance at some point and figured he had at least until 2024. Due to some shenanigans on The Flash which I won’t get into other than IT’S ALL BARRY’S FAULT (well his daughter too, but mostly Barry), “Crisis” is happening sooner. 

It’s bad enough Oliver is sacrificing his happiness to save Barry and Kara, but now that speeding disaster zone of a human being stole an additional five years from him. Five precious years.

Oliver didn’t know the exact terms of the bargain he made with The Monitor at the time, but he’s informed he has to go save the multiverse. Or whatever. Yes, Felicity knew about the deal. He told her. That’s not something I even worried about while watching.

Source: Paige 

The Monitor also tells Oliver he’s going to die while trying to stop the inevitable. Nice. This guy is a real charmer.  The least he could have done is offer another bottle of wine before he obliterates Oliver and Felicity’s entire life.

Now, before anyone freaks, the rules of television explicitly state that when the writers say a character is going to die they are NOT going to die. The more this show talks about Oliver dying the better you should feel. IT AIN’T HAPPENING FAM.

Felicity ain’t having any of this. 

Source: Paige 

She protectively steps in front of her husband and tells The Monitor to go screw himself. THATTA GIRL BABY GIVE HIM HELL! Felicity giving zero fucks about saving Barry, Kara or the universe is such a big mood.

The Monitor assures Felicity he’s not going to harm either her or their daughter. MIA IS TOO IMPORTANT. Hahaha raise that neon spin off sign a little higher executive producers. Mars can’t see it yet.

Source: Paige 

It’s cool and all that The Monitor isn’t going to kill Felicity and Mia (thanks?) but it doesn’t really solve her Oliver problem. Felicity doesn’t give a crap about the spin off because she won’t be in it. The spin off can go screw itself just like Barry, Kara and the universe. NOBODY IS TAKING HER HUSBAND. 

Source: Paige 

He’s Felicity’s twin-flame-superhero-sex-god-father-of-her-children-chef-extraordinaire. Do you know how hard it is to find a man who cooks like Oliver who also looks like Oliver? I guarantee there isn’t another man like him in the multiverse. This poor man’s version of Thanos can fuck off.

Oliver, because he’s superhero Jesus now, gently tries to convince Felicity to back off. 

Source: Paige 

Hahaha, that’s cute. It’s never gonna happen big boy. Your woman is fierce. Remember when she slipped you a Mickey post coital to smuggle you out of Nanda Parbat? I do. It was awesome.  Speaking of, thirsty Oliver?

Source: blakelivey 

OMG YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO MUCH TRUTH!!!!

B*rry causes 99.9999999% of the problems in the DC Universe and suffers about 0. 0000001% of the consequences. In fact, Oliver suffers more from things B*rry does than B*rry ever has. A little death would be good for the kid. Consider it a growing experience. The world will be just FINE. Better even because we won’t have B*rry All*n jerking the timeline around. Diggle might get to keep all the kids he and Lyla have. The Flush deserves every bit of this comeuppance Oliver Queen. STAND ASIDE AND LET IT HAPPEN.

What about Kara?

She’s a lovely person, but I don’t watch her show anymore and my kid likes Hermione better now anyway. I am completely comfortable hanging her out to dry as long as Olicity gets to live their life in peace and happiness- even if it’s for a short period of time.

What about the universe?

Eh. Let the world hang Oliver. It’s cool man.  I’m about 51% sure I’ll go to heaven. Purgatory is for sure, so let’s roll the dice. Go sit down on the porch with your wife, raise your baby for the few months left, and we’ll all go out together in a blaze of glory. If you are taking requests because the world is ending then I would appreciate one more sex scene. Thanks buddy.

Source: blakelivey 

Honestly, the little headshake Oliver does when Felicity asks why it always has to be him says it all. Oliver has no answer for why the world is constantly screwing him over. So he slept with someone’s sister. Yeah, I know that was bad, but the man watched his father blow his brains out, was tortured multiple times, has been nearly killed every day for the last ten years, watched countless people he loves die, suffered a romantic horror show with L*urel, and put up with the Newbies & their bullshit for the last three years. Oliver has suffered enough.

Unfortunately, the Monitor tells Oliver he can save not only the lives of millions, but Felicity, William and Mia’s lives too. Damn it. Of course, he’s gonna go now. Even if he was comfortable letting the world go up in smoke (which I know he’s not) Oliver is not about to let his wife and children die.

Ruelle is playing and Oliver is walking into Mia’s nursery. Shiiiiiiiit.  This is going to rip out my heart. WHY CAN’T I EVER GET OBSESSED WITH A COMEDY?

I don't want to know Who we are without each other It's just too hard I don't want to leave here without you I don't want to lose part of me

Oliver is already crying, which means I am already crying. DID YOU HEAR THAT LYRIC? I think the only thing worse than Ruelle would be Sarah McLachlan at this point. These writers watched Buffy and it shows.

Source: olivergifs

Oliver looks into the crib at his perfect baby girl who is kicking, gurgling and not sleeping (factual representation of babies). He whispers “hey” the same way he’d whisper it to her mother whenever she was scared. 

This voice was how Oliver reassured Felicity. 

For so long it was the way he would tell Felicity he loved her without saying the actual words. Oliver whispers “hey” to tell Mia she’s safe. It’s his “I love you.” He can’t say the words or he’ll never leave. Oliver whispers “hey” because he can’t say goodbye.

Felicity is understandably disillusioned with being able to have a normal life. How can they if a caped alien agathokakological being is going to snatch their happiness away at a moment’s notice? This is a fair and accurate statement given the current state of events.

But what’s normal? It’s a relative term. Nobody is really normal. Sure, on the surface people look like they are living normal, everyday existences and to some extent that is true. But everyone has something they are dealing with. The something I deal with might be on a very different scale than the something you deal with, but nobody escapes this life without suffering. Nobody. And suffering always  obliterates our normal, everyday existence.

Oliver and Felicity want to sit on the porch, drink a glass of wine and be home to put their babies to bed every night. That’s a completely reasonable desire. It should be achievable even though their night gig is masked vigilantes. For a very long time it was achievable.

And yet it’s not because they are masked vigilantes. The needs of the many will always outweigh the needs of the few. This life Oliver and Felicity have chosen comes with a lot of benefits. They have found their true purpose. They help people. Oliver and Felicity even saved a damn city full of ungrateful twats.

But no choice is free of consequence. Life as a hero requires sacrifice.  Heroes put the needs of others before themselves. It’s what makes them heroes. You don’t hear me volunteering to save the universe do you? Hell no. Let it burn man! Make your peace with God everyone! I’m ready to go! I am not Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak.  

Bloomfield was never the permanent plan. Oliver and Felicity always planned to go back to Star City and the bunker to fight another day. Felicity continued her life as Overwatch as she raised Mia. Oliver and Felicity are their best selves as Green Arrow and Overwatch, but it comes with significant downsides like danger anger, pain, loss and sacrifice. Their selflessness is what makes them heroes, but it costs them the very happiness they desire and deserve. Heroism is a bitch.

Of course, Oliver and Felicity have suffered enough. Of course, they deserve a happily ever after without any additional pain. Of course, they deserve to raise their family together for the next twenty years. But that’s not really the story Arrow is telling.

I mean… name one horrible thing that happened to Oliver that he truly deserved? He cheated on his girlfriend with her sister. So he deserved to watch his father commit suicide? Oliver was a drunken, whoring, layabout in his twenties. So he deserved to spend five years in hell tortured, beaten, fighting for survival and separated from everyone he loves? A lunatic forces him to pick between Sara and Shado and as punishment for that choice another lunatic murders his mother and lays waste to his city? Uh sure that’s balanced. These punishments don’t fit the crime. There’s nothing about Oliver’s story that is fair. It was never about fair.

Oliver Queen is an imperfect person. He tries and fails so many times, again and again. He is the perfect example of the disaster zone human beings can be while also representing the best of who we can be. He’s a murderer and a hero. Oliver is a sinner and a saint. He is light and dark like all of us.

But what I love most about him is his resiliency. He keeps fighting no matter what life throws at him. As does Felicity.  The truth is my friends; suffering is rarely “deserved.” There seldom seems to be a balance in the cosmic scale. I’ve witnessed terrible things happen to extremely good people. The fact they are good did not serve as a protective bubble from pain, although I naively at times thought it would.

If we’re all just doomed to suffer then what’s the point of being good? Why do bad things happen to good people? I believe we have to ask the right questions first and it’s never why. If the Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven and explained to me in detail why the twins I miscarried had to be with him and not here on Earth with me, I’d still believe his decision was crap. There is no explanation God can give me which will make me understand why I had to lose two precious children. They belong here with me. Full stop. The Lord and I will just have to agree to disagree.

Why seldom leads to any answers. The question we should ask in the face of suffering is how. How do we survive this? How do I mold my body around this pain, become someone different, but not lose my soul in the process? More often than not suffering’s intent is to bring us to our knees. We aren’t supposed to be Pollyanna, although all the power to those who can. I believe we suffer so we understand we cannot survive alone. We need love. We need to reach out and for others to reach back. We need God. That’s how we survive.

I suppose that’s why I love hero stories. They are heightened and exaggerated reflections of suffering and survival. 

We watch these characters rise above loss, pain and darkness again and again. 

Not only do they survive, 

but they become a defining example of what selflessness, sacrifice 

and compassion look like.  

It doesn’t take a psychology major to understand why a girl, who has been in and out of hospitals her whole life, loves a character who has super strength, never gets sick and slays vampires. But Buffy’s story was not without pain. It was more often than not a story about pain.

I wish I could love selfish characters. I wish I could love stories where the biggest problem is solved in twenty minutes or less. I wish I could love relationships that are smooth sailing from start to finish and live happily ever after. I wish I could love stories like that, but I can’t. 

Those stories don’t resonate with me the way stories like Oliver and Felicity Smoak do because they aren’t a reflection of life. Pain and loss are as much a part of it as joy. I want to escape from life inside a story, but I also want it to give me hope. If these characters can survive their pain then maybe I can to. But that’s just me.

All I have wanted for Oliver and Felicity is for them to be happy, but that’s a fairly broad spectrum. I truly didn’t expect the suffering to stop until the final moments of this show and we aren’t there yet. Just look back on the ebb and flow of their relationship:

Oliver tells Felicity he loves her for the first time, but she’s kidnapped by Slade as a result of the confession. 

Oliver and Felicity go out on a date and the restaurant explodes.

They have sex for the first time and are separated forever (seemingly).

Oliver and Felicity get engaged and she is shot.

They get married after nearly being killed by Nazis.

Oliver is betrayed by his team 10 minutes after their wedding reception.

William is part of their lives, but his mother is dead and he’s kidnapped on a regular basis.

Felicity is pregnant, but Oliver’s psycho sister is trying to kill them with her wacko cult.

It’s a constant carrot, stick, carrot, stick, carrot, stick process. This is Arrow and it always will be. Oliver has finally saved the city. He’s more than earned a happy life with Felicity, their daughter and son. And now he has to sacrifice it all. This is the last thing Oliver and Felicity deserve, but this is why they are heroes. This wheel will keep turning until the final minutes of the show and only then it will stop. And we aren’t at the end yet.  

All Oliver has ever wanted is to keep the people he loves safe. It’s why he wore the mask to begin with. The idea of leaving Felicity alone with their infant daughter, knowing the Ninth Circle is out there and a hundred other dangers known and unknown to them, is crushing to Oliver. Their separation while Oliver was in Slabside did serve as a trial for what was to come. They had to discover who they were without each other. Oliver didn’t lose himself in the darkness once separated from Felicity. And she did whatever was necessary to keep her and William safe.

Source: feilcityqueen 

This is why Oliver is asking Felicity to make him this promise. There is nothing more precious to him than their children. The only way he can fight for the world is because he knows Felicity will fight for William and Mia every day. She will keep them safe. Oliver questioned the decisions Felicity made while he was in prison, but now he has her back completely. He knows she is strong enough to keep this promise. 

The promise is for Felicity too. If the worst happens and Oliver dies then their children, and the promise she made him, will give Felicity the strength to keep going… to keep fighting… to keep living.

Felicity makes Oliver a promise too. 

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

There is no amount of time or distance which will ever separate her love for him. They are one soul in two bodies. 

In the movie of The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmund is unable to buy his love Mercedes an engagement ring, so she wraps a string around her finger and promises to never take it off. When they come face to face again twenty years later, and even though she is married to the man who sent him to prison, the string is still on her finger. Felicity is making the same declaration. No matter where Oliver goes she will always be his wife and her devotion will never end.

Source: @olicitygifs​

I love that Felicity tells Oliver they are the best parts of each other. We’ve focused a lot on the impact Felicity had in Oliver’s life, and it was monumental, but he changed her too. Oliver opened up Felicity’s world. She found a strength she never knew existed, a purpose worth fighting for and a love worth living for.

Love wasn’t the finish line for Oliver and Felicity. Their relationship wasn’t the reward after all the struggle and hardship. Their love was the evolution. Oliver and Felicity inspired, challenged, changed and supported each other. They became heroes together. They are unique and interesting characters separately, but together they are magic.  Olicity brings out the very best in each other, which means they are living life to the fullest. This love makes life worth living… just as Diggle promised Oliver not so long ago.

And then the mic drop.

Source: @olicitygifs​

OLICITY IS BIGGER THAN THE FRIGGIN’ UNIVERSE. 

Oliver and Felicity are the OTPs of OTPs, the ship of ships and the story of stories. Olicity set the standard at infinity. No other love story will ever come close. At least not for me.

All the sorrow, sacrifice, joy and triumphs make Oliver and Felicity’s love story EPIC. In the immortal words of Logan Echol, “Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined and bloodshed. Epic.” Maybe their life isn’t normal, but it is extraordinary. This love will conquer all no matter how long it takes.

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

Whoa. I can do twelve pages just on this statement alone. WOW. These writers love shining a beautiful bright light on Olicity while simultaneously taking a crap on L*uriver. It’s truly a gift.

I am going to take some time to discuss this because this line is incredibly important. The writers are drawing a comparison to Felicity and Oliver’s past relationships for a reason. This is a deeply profound statement as Oliver reflects on the person he used to be and the person he is today.

Oliver shut down his emotions and became The Machine to survive those five years in hell. 

He told Felicity on their first date how he wasn’t able to see the humanity in other people when he returned home. 

He had shut off everything that made him human. 

Until he walked into Felicity’s cube and she sparked the light inside him. Then everything began to change.

But it was a very slow process. When we look back at Season 1 and Oliver’s behavior, his fear of being unable to love is quite prevalent. His inability to connect is crippling to his relationships with Thea, Moira and Tommy.

It’s even worse with the women he “dated.” Oliver was going through the motions in his relationships before Felicity. It was like he was playing a part. He mimicked what a relationship was supposed to look like without ever risking real vulnerability. There’s a wall inside Oliver and nobody knows that better than him. He had sex with these women, but Oliver wasn’t truly connecting with them and he knew it. No wonder Oliver believe he’d lost the ability to love.

Yes, even with Sara. The Original Canary will always be Oliver’s “perfect on paper” love interest. She was missing everything Oliver feared about a relationship with Felicity. I’m not just talking about the danger, even though Oliver’s fear for Felicity’s safety was high on his list of concerns. 

However, Oliver’s love for Felicity was like a raw nerve. It exposed all the vulnerabilities he worked so hard to protect. It took Oliver a long time to be ready for Felicity and he fought it nearly every step of the way. Loving Felicity reopened Oliver’s humanity, but that humanity came with the flood of pain he’d been trying to keep out.

Sara was a perfect path of avoidance because she was even more screwed up than Oliver, which says A LOT. The entire focus of their relationship was Oliver saving Sara. It was all about fixing her sins and brokenness. Saving Sara meant saving himself without having to bother with all the messy, uncomfortable and painful parts of his trauma. It was like putting a Sara shaped band aid over the gushing wound of his past. Not gonna work Handsome! Oliver also believed Sara was broken because of him. She was a manifestation of all his sins.

Oliver used these relationships like a mirror to reflect all the awful things he believed about himself. He failed Helena.  He wasn’t good enough for McKenna. He destroyed Sara. And L*urel was self hatred.

Din*h L*urel L*nce. Holy hell where do we begin? Every time Oliver talks about feeling undeserving of love he is referencing his relationship with L&urel. 

Hell, he told her that in the alien dream world. Real and sustaining love brings out our best selves, so it is impossible to feel undeserving of it. If anything it feels like the love you were always meant to find.

L*urel was the person Oliver believed he should love. He felt like something was wrong with him because he didn’t. Oliver decided to blow up his life rather than have an honest conversation with L*urel about it. This was a mistake he paid for and then some, but it didn’t mean Oliver’s feelings were wrong.

When he returned from the island his pursuit of L*urel was pursuit of self hatred. It was a continual cycle of chasing after her, trying to be worthy and failing. 

L*urel never missed an opportunity to tell Oliver he is a complete waste of a human being. And then the next week she’d be batting her eyes, panting and mauling him. 

I think Oliver became addicted to the cycle. When L*urel unleashed her vitriol and rage it confirmed every awful thing Oliver believed about himself. But redemption felt possible when L*urel showered him with affection and it was almost euphoric. He was stuck in this toxic cycle with her for a very long time.

Oliver’s pursuit of L*urel in Season 1 is much like his pursuit of his mission. He is chasing an illusion of love just like crossing off names on a list gave Oliver the illusion he’s saving a city. 

The reason he always talks about feeling undeserving of love when it comes to L*urel is because Oliver knew, deep down, she was chasing an illusion too. 

He knew the man L*urel loved didn’t exist. She loved who Oliver should be and not who he was. Oliver is L*urel’s “perfect on paper” love interest, but she never looked beyond the page.

L*urel: We decided to look for apartments together. I know it’s a big step but we’re ready. I think we’ll live together for a year, engaged for another and then –

Sara: Mrs. L*urel Queen.

L*urel: Maybe one day.

When love is unconditional we feel it. When love is conditional we feel it too. The illusion L*urel loved made Oliver feel like crap. He knew he’d never measure up.

If he let L*urel see who he really was then she would see him as less than. Which is worse – someone loving you for who you’re not or someone not loving you because of who you are?  It’s a tough call. No wonder Oliver got on the boat.

Not only was Oliver feeling undeserving of love, but he also felt incapable of love. This tells you everything you need to know about L*uriver. It was never about love. 

He was going through the motions with L*urel just like every other love interest. Oliver mimicked love, but he didn’t feel it. Not the way he should and, even back then, I think he knew that on some level. He was addicted to the toxic cycle with L*urel and what he wanted, more than anything, was to fix things with her. If he fixed everything with L*urel, if she forgave him and took him back, then it was like Lian Yu never happened. Oliver earns his redemption without having to look deep inside the pain. 

And none of that has anything to do with really being in love with L*urel L*nce. Furthermore, he’d be with a person who doesn’t really love who he truly is, which is exactly the kind of love Oliver Queen believed he deserved.

Felicity Megan Smoak is the antithesis of all of this. She is the first mirror to reflect all the good things in Oliver and slowly, bit by bit, he began to believe that reflection was true. The sheer force of her goodness was like a battering ram against the wall Oliver built inside himself. She cracked him wide open and all his light began spilling out. 

All the pain came with all that humanity and it hurt a lot, but Oliver was never alone. Felicity was always by his side. Her compassion made the pain bearable. It gave Oliver the courage to show Felicity who he truly was, the good, bad and awful, and he received unconditional love in return.

She was the first person to tell Oliver he deserved more. There was one inescapable truth Oliver couldn’t ignore. Oliver believes in Felicity Smoak. She is beyond reproach. Felicity is the best of humanity in Oliver’s eyes (and he’s right).  If that is true, and Felicity loves him, then maybe Oliver isn’t as bad as he thought. Even more importantly, she loves Oliver for who he is and not in spite of who he is. This is the difference between feeling deserving and undeserving of love.

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

This is what Oliver means when he says Felicity opened up his heart in ways he never thought possible. He repeats the words Felicity said the night she told Oliver she loved him for the first time. 

Felicity didn’t tell Oliver she loved him because it was her last chance. I mean… yeah it was, but that ignores the massive shift in Oliver’s behavior in 3x20.

Thea was near death and the pain brings Oliver to his knees. Thea was all he had left of his family. She was everything Oliver worked so hard to protect and he failed. 

Instead of pushing Felicity away like he has for most of Season 3, Oliver reaches out to her. He allows Felicity to take care of him. Oliver lets Felicity love him, truly love him, in all the ways he deserves and yet so adamantly refused to accept. And of course, Felicity reaches back. She tells Oliver not only how much she loves him but the profound impact he had on her life.

And that’s the point. Somehow amidst all the pain and suffering in life there is love. We must reach for it, particularly when our world seems darkest and the pain is too much to bear. If we can have a profound impact on one person, inspire his/her best self and make his/her life better by simply being part of it then our life will resonate long after we are gone.  We all deserve unconditional love. If we have to fall to our knees to find it then so be it because it makes life survivable. It’s why life is worth living.

This is gift of Olicity. This is the lesson their story teaches us. Unconditional love seems like such a simple idea, but it isn’t. It gets lost in all the noise of anger, blame, retribution, self hatred, selfishness and indifference. This is why we need hero stories. They serve as a reminder of who we should try to be. Maybe we can’t shoot a bow and arrow like Oliver Queen or hack computers like Felicity Smoak, but we all are capable of loving like they do. Arrow may be a little television show on an almost network, but Olicity’s love is a powerful example to us all.

It’s important to note Stephen is really starting to lose it here. We’re almost at Sarah Michelle Gellar “It’s not enough time!” level hysterics. 

For the love of God someone convince Emily to stay for another 10 episodes. Amell isn’t going to make it! Me neither fam. I honestly missed 95% of this speech the first time because I was sobbing so hard. 

And then he delivers the humdinger. 

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

There are three levels to an Oliver Queen line:

1. Swoon

2. Panty Dropper

3. Cardiac Arrest

This is a hardcore Level 3. It’s been nice knowing everyone! Cause of death: My Only Regret Is Not Telling You I loved You Sooner. Damn Oliver.

Felicity Smoak may be leaving, but lines like this can keep a fandom going for twenty years. Hell we could go fifty on this one. Think of the fics, gifs, artwork, metas and fan vids we can create from this line alone!

SO WHEN WAS SOONER OLIVER? Quite frankly, we could make a strong case for 1x03. Hell, I’m willing to argue for the 3x14 flashback too. One of the first metas I ever wrote was “When Did Oliver Fall in Love with Felicity?” and to this day it’s probably the most popular article I’ve written. It is my firm belief Oliver’s journey towards realization was slow and then it happened all at once. 

This line perfectly dovetails with all those moments because the truth is there is no right answer. Felicity Smoak evolved as Oliver’s true love as the show evolved and yet it was also destiny. Talent and chemistry met opportunity. The unexpected became the plan. That’s the magic of television.

This line reminds me of one from How I Met Your Mother.

“Hi. I'm Ted Mosby. In exactly 45 days from now you and I are going to meet and we're going to fall in love and we're going to get married and we're going to have 2 kids and we're going to love them and each other so much. ... I'm always gonna love you, til the end of my days and beyond. You’ll see.”

Oliver wants those extra 45 days or six months or two years or INSERT PERSONAL TIME FRAME HEAD CANON HERE. All he wants is more time with Felicity.

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

This is tooooo muuuuuuuch! 

Stephen and Emily are shattering my soul. By the way, Oliver finally said Felicity was beautiful! This has been in the fandom’s craw for a loooooong time and IT HAPPENED. (Marc and Beth check off #232).

As much as I love this line it is extremely painful because Oliver is acknowledging he won’t be around to watch Mia grow up. He’s accepted he’s going to die. 

But Felicity hasn’t. She makes her husband another promise and instills some hope in Oliver.  

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

Felicity Smoak is never wrong. If she refuses to accept Oliver’s fate then so should we.

One last I love you.

One last kiss. 

One last hug.

One last look. Memorizing every detail. This memory will have to last 20 years.

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

And then he’s gone. 

Felicity holds on for as long as she can until the distance breaks their hands apart.

And she is alone.

Life will always bring us to our knees my friends. 

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

It’s why our moments of joy are so precious. If you can glean one lesson from this love story I hope it is that.

Arrow did their very best to convince us Oliver is dead. Look guys! A grave!  

Source: olivergifs

Nothing short of a body, autopsy report and dental records will convince me of it. A headstone ain’t gonna cut it!

Felicity says goodbye to her children at his gravesite. 

Source: felicitysmoakgifs 

They’ve saved Star City in the future, but now Felicity & Co. is going on the run. She is putting the city in Mia, William, Connor and Zoe’s hands because they are ready. It’s time for the old guard to fade away and the new guard to step up.  

I don’t believe for one second Oliver Queen is dead, but I realized in this scene why Felicity has not gone out in search of him even though it’s been 20 years. Felicity couldn’t keep her promise to find Oliver until she kept the other promise she made him – to keep William and Mia safe.

All season we’ve watched Felicity struggle with letting go of her children and allowing them to be the heroes they are meant to be. 

Source: feilcityqueen

She knew it would be goodbye once William and Mia could protect themselves. Felicity has devoted her entire life to these children and sacrificed nearly everything – including finding their father. Felicity has been living the last twenty years torn in half as she faithfully kept all the promises she made to Oliver.

This is an impossible choice. If she stays with the children then she’ll never find Oliver. If she leaves to find Oliver then she can’t be with the children. And yet, Felicity made those decisions the last twenty years with grace and love.

I’ve always identified with Felicity in some way, but I probably feel the most connected to her in this scene than I ever have before. We’re supposed to raise our kids to be independent and contributing members of society, but they leave home when they become everything we’ve asked them to be. We spend our children’s entire childhood preparing them to leave us. It’s unbelievably difficult because all we want is to keep them close and hold on even tighter. The hardest part of being a parent is letting go.

And that’s what Felicity has done all season in the flash forwards. She’s held on as tightly as she could to William and Mia, trying to keep them out of the action and safe, but that’s not who they are. It’s not in their blood to stand on the sidelines. William and Mia are the children of heroes and now it’s their turn to carry on their parent’s legacy.  It’s time for Felicity to let go.

William and Mia are ready and the goodbye she’s been dreading the last twenty years is here. 

Source: smoakmonster 

As Felicity says goodbye she brushes the hair from Mia’s face just like Oliver brushed the hair from hers the last time they spoke. Oliver’s dream of Mia growing up to be as smart and as beautiful as her mom came true. She is everything Oliver could ever hope for and more just like William.  These children are his legacy.

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

Mia is heartbroken she never knew their father, which means she will get the chance in Season 8.  THESE ARE THE RULES OF TELEVISION OKAY?!

Source: felicitysmoakgifs 

Felicity solidifies Mia and William’s Season 8 arc by asking them to take care of each other (that neon spin off sign is flashing again too).

Source: felicitysmoakgifs 

 And now is the time we must say goodbye to Felicity Smoak and Emily Bett Rickards. 

Source: blakelivey

She was telling the truth when she told William and Mia she was going on a journey of her own, but it’s not as a fugitive on the run. 

Felicity waits in the middle of the road, the light of the moon streaming behind her like a flashlight guiding her on her journey, and The Monitor arrives. He is taking Felicity to Oliver.

Where she is going there is no return, which is why saying goodbye to Mia and William was so difficult. However, Felicity promised she would watch over them, so I’m thinking wherever she’s going isn’t completely cut off. The minute they “point of no return” then it automatically means the characters will return. Rules of television.

Felicity’s favorite story is The Wizard of Oz and this journey with The Monitor is like Dorothy leaving home for Oz. However, I prefer to think of it as Felicity leaving Oz for home because home is wherever Oliver is. There’s been sadness in Felicity’s eyes in the flash forwards because a piece of her is missing, but now her eyes are shining with light and joy. 

Source: felicitysmoakgifs 

The reunion she’s waited twenty years for is finally here. They are soul in two bodies and these twin flames will finally be together again.

I WAS SCREAMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn’t believe what just happened. I never expected Beth and Marc to give us Oliver and Felicity’s happy ending NOW. Yes, I know it happened off screen, but they are together. 

Hopefully, this multidimensional zone Oliver has been chilling in for the last twenty years looks a lot like Aruba and are having hot-we-waited-20-years-for-each-other sex.

Most of the time when an actor leaves a televisions show there are tons of loose ends and it’s vitally important he or she comes back for the series finale if there’s any chance of resolving the storyline happily. It is incredibly stressful as a viewer. 

But we don’t have to worry about Emily Bett Rickards coming back for the final season. I fully expect her to in the series final at least, but if it doesn’t happen for some reason then it’s okay. The writers planned for the worst case scenario and protected Olicity’s happy ending. 

This is a spectacular gift particularly for those who are saying goodbye to the series now.

I don't want to know what it's like to live without you

Don't want to know the other side of a world without you

Felicity twists her wedding ring, the symbol of her unending love and devotion to Oliver, and steps into the other side of the world to find her husband and fulfill her promise. 

She’s lived the last twenty years without him and she doesn’t want to spend another day without him. Felicity is going home to Oliver.

It’s the home we all found when Oliver brought a bullet ridden computer to the hacker with a ponytail and glasses chewing on a red pen. 

Source: felicitysmoakgifs 

Felicity Smoak and Emily Bett Rickards drifts out of our world with the same light and hope she drifted in with. Oliver may be my favorite character, but Felicity Smoak is the most important. 

There is no other actor or character who had more impact on the story and the trajectory of the show. Emily Bett Rickards came in as a day player, turned the show on its head, became the female lead and anchored the love story Arrow revolved around. THIS IS UNHEARD OF. IT DOESN’T HAPPEN. 

THAT IS PURE TALENT.

Even more importantly, the writers and Emily crafted a strong female character by embracing her humanity. Felicity Smoak is intelligent, witty, compassionate, brave, resilient, optimistic and honest. She makes mistakes (occasionally), but she always learns from them and it makes her a stronger person. 

This was never just Oliver’s story. It was Felicity’s too. She helped Oliver become a hero by being a hero in her own right.  She is a fictional character my daughter can look up to. She made me laugh, cry and ponder life as she wow’d me with her genius, heroism and open heart. That’s more than I could ever ask for.

Emily and Felicity Smoak brought the light to Arrow. 

She saved the show by becoming the show. It gave me a character and love story I will love for the rest of my life and for that I will always be grateful.

As for the future, Felicity essentially disappears inside a black star. The path home to Oliver is a black star. 

Source:  ebett 

No universe can disconnect the souls of this family. They will find each other again. We just have to wait and hope. 

Stray Thoughts

I care very little about anything else going on in the other 30 minutes, so I’ll just catalog my other rando thoughts here rather than create additional sections. Cool? Cool.

It really boils down to Emiko being ticked she didn’t get Queen Consolidated. Wow. My buddy Chris King really nailed it.

“He's trying to save you dumbass.” BEN TURNER GETS TO STAY. I’d exchange Ben Turner for Curtis Holt, Dinah and Rene in a heartbeat. IN. A. HEARTBEAT

Speaking of  Curtis. Keep it. Completely unnecessary having him in Emily’s last episode. 

Nobody really buys that Rene and Dinah should be part of the Mark of Four right? Good. Just checking. 

“Been there before." Never change Roy Harper. I love you just the way you are

“I wanted to be a Queen.” I didn’t really care about Emiko, but that line got me.

“Overwatch?” Annnnd Curtis answers. This is why he had to go. I HATE HIM.

Oliver saved the city and stopped Emiko by using over a decade of loss, pain and PTSD to therapy his sister out of her crazy. That’s kind of awesome.

The parallel of Mia and Oliver fighting was flawless. Probably one of the coolest stunts the show has ever done.

I’m here for Father/Daughter selfless crime fighting duo. I’m going to keep saying I need a spin off until I get it.  Source:  ghxstfoxgoddxs

Mia gets her Daddy’s bow, so the bird fans really need to stop with all the Canary nonsense. How they don’t understand she’s the Oliver in the future/new show is beyond me.

QUEEN SIBLINGS FOREVER! Source:  blackstargifs

The “let’s talk custody with William’s grandparents” line was weird. William’s whole storyline present and future was weird. Keeping William with his grandparents was meant to solely facilitate the Mia shocker and it will always be the piece of this storyline that does not work for me.

I seriously thought the fade out from Oliver’s grave would be the last of the flash forwards and I was going to be ticked because I didn’t want to do yet another season of “Is Oliver Dead?” Or “Is Felicity dead?” for that matter. SO OVER IT. I was completely overjoyed it was not the end of the flash forwards.

Can we all just finally agree the writers would rather chew their hands off than kill Felicity Smoak? Because it’s true.

L*urel isn't part of the Mark of Four. She gets a handshake because that's the same. This show is so savage with any version of her character. YIKES.

Rene lived! Shocker.

Felicity instructing John how to take care of the bunker is my level of OCD.

“I have to find a way to atone for that.” Sooo… you park it on a deserted island?

William asks how Roy ended up on the island and he pretty much says it’s a great story, but then doesn’t tell him. HILARIOUS.

Stephen dropped the bag on the stairs and looked like he was trying not to laugh as David finished his lines. The fact this is the best shot they had is further evidence of all the shots Stephen probably blew with all his feelings. Source:  legends-of-today

No Diggle in the flash forwards, so that’s something to look forward to for Season 8.

I have absolutely no idea how Season 8 is going to work. Is it going to be like the prison storyline and Oliver is just off on his own universe show while Diggle holds down the fort in Star City? Oooookay.

So much Outlander it ain’t even funny.

Are you alive? You just read a term paper on Olicity and Felicity Smoak. 

Thank you for your patience as I finished this review and thank you for reading it! 

To all those who are moving on thank you for visiting this blog, reading what I write, and helping me create a space for us all to enjoy a television show we love. I appreciate all the support and can never thank you enough. Feel free to visit any time because I’m not going anywhere! I have some fun things planned for this summer and of course there’s still 10 more episodes of Arrow in the fall. 

To those sticking around thanks for hanging with me until the bitter end.

Disclaimer: Any gifs on the blog are not mine. If you would like a gif removed from my reviews, please message me. 7x22 gifs credited.

If you’d like to support the blog, please buy me a cup of tea!

[welllpthisishappening]

Contact Light (1/2)

Emma Swan has never been one for big, overwhelming...anything. And as far as she’s concerned space is both big and overwhelming and just a bit terrifying because she’s fairly certain her connection to gravity is slightly tenuous when he glances in her direction. But that’s neither here nor there because she watches all his stupid space documentaries anyway and keeps letting him glance in her direction and, at some point, she learns the first words uttered by a human being on the moon. Contact light. It’s not common knowledge. That seems, almost, oddly appropriate now.

Rating: Mature for swearing and a copious amount of making out and more swearing and eventually some angst.  AN: @onceuponaprincessworld sent the prompt: “Ok, so Killian is new in town and David is inviting him on his house for Thanksgiving where he meets Emma, David's sister, who also happens to be the one for who he moved into town in the first place, with a lot of kisses maybe secret dating or maybe it in start of their dating or whatever you feel like writing! Thanks.” This is...not entirely that and also absurdly long and I have no excuse except that’s how I live my life. They make out a lot.  Also living it up on Ao3 if that’s your jam. And if you want to read the rest of the CS prompt-a-thon.

She was going to murder him.

Or strangle him.

Which was kind of on the way to murdering him.

Semantics or whatever.

She hadn’t felt that way in a long time, actual years, and she wasn’t sure if her current murder-like tendencies were because of the smirk on his face or the way his eyes seemed to follow her around the apartment or because she just wanted to make out with him for the rest of the day.

Probably the last one. Definitely the last one.

It still caught her off guard sometimes.  

And really at the beginning she would have punched him square in the jaw if he’d even suggested it, but he also probably would have laughed at the idea of it and that probably should have a been a sign.

Something about inevitable or some other word that Emma absolutely did not believe in because this was the real world and not...a Lifetime movie. Although maybe it was if she murdered Killian. There always seemed to be a lot of murder-type plotting in Lifetime movies.  

And baby stealing.

She absolutely wasn’t stealing anyone’s baby. Except maybe Ruth Jones who was so goddamn adorable it sometimes hurt to look at her. No. Emma wasn’t stealing a baby.

And she wasn’t going to murder Killian. This was not a Lifetime movie. This was...probably a Hallmark movie or a made-for-Netflix special with lots of sentiment and feelings and lessons learned. Emma absolutely refused to learn any lessons.

“It’s going to be fine, Swan,” Killian promised, the sentiment falling out of his mouth seemingly every other minute and she kept pacing in the middle of her living room.

He caught her around the wrist, pulling her up short and eyeing her with the kind of meaning that didn’t belong in thisbecause there was no name to this, it just was and now it was going to exist in the same city for the first time ever and, maybe, exist in front of her brother.

“We have to follow the rules,” Emma said again. She’d written them down. She made Killian put them in his wallet. “To the letter. For real.” “I’ve understood the other twenty times you’ve told me already, love. Trust me, I’ve got it.” She wasn’t sure she believed him. Or, rather, she wasn’t sure she believed herself because he’d come to Portland for her, but no one else knew that and no one else could know that because David might have an actual aneurysm if he found out his little sister and his best friend had been doing...whatever –  everything – right under his nose for the better part of the last two years.

“Yeah?” Emma asked, hating how nervous her voice sounded and how Killian blinked twice before he answered.

“Yeah,” he nodded. She sighed, sagging forward slightly, but she didn’t argue when he tugged her back towards the couch, tucking her against his side and kissing the top of her hair. “Nothing’s going to go wrong, Swan. We just need to...stand at least six feet away from each other at all times. And then we tell your brother and we let the chips fall where they may.” Emma laughed, but there was a nervous edge to it, pressing her face against the button up he had on and it was a fancy eventor so David explained when he sent out the group-wide e-mail invitations a week before and Killian had spent the majority of the night making of fun of that.

“You need to be less attractive,” she accused. “It’s frustrating.” “I’ll work on it. In the meantime. Six feet and no trying to make out in that one corner of the apartment that’s almost invisible from the rest of the living room if you’re standing the right way.”

“You’re making this difficult already.” “I’m just saying.”

“I know you are. And I’m just saying that there are rules and expectations and we can’t make out in that corner you can barely see because of the weird layout in their apartment and…” He cut her off. With his mouth.

And really that was how this had all started and how it continued and, eventually, evolved into something that Emma hoped, one day, to tell the whole goddamn world about.

She was the most stubborn person in the entire history of the entire universe though and then several others because Killian, naturally, refused to accept the possibility of singular universes and one reality and she’d watched Cosmos something, like, eight-hundred times.

It freaked her out.

“Space is just so...big,” Emma said, what felt like a million and two years ago sitting on a couch in an apartment that wasn’t hers just off campus of a college she didn’t go to and wasn’t, technically, supposed to be visiting. Her brother wasn’t there.

Her brother was visiting Mary Margaret in Williamstown. For the entire weekend. And Emma was in upstate New York, with her feet draped over Killian’s legs and she wasn’t sure who suggested she drive up, but she did and he kept making her watch shows about space.

Killian quirked an eyebrow at her, glancing up over the top of the bottle in his hand and it was stupid and absolutely playing unfair because she was totally freaked out by even the concept of space and he knew it. “I think that’s kind of the general idea, yes, Swan,” he drawled, a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth.

She wanted to smack it off. Or kiss it off. It was an oddly similar feeling.

“Who came up with that idea?” she challenged and the smile was a full-blown grin or smirk and for someone who was vaguely terrified of space she certainly had a lot of questions about it. “Like...who just decided space was big? And we’re just bouncing around in it?” “We’re not bouncing anywhere, love. That’s how gravity works.” “Well, that’s stupid.” “Take it up with Sir Isaac Newton, not me.”

Emma grumbled under her breath, twisting her lips into something that was almost a scowl, but might have just been the visual representation of how much she fucking hated space. “You didn’t answer my question, though.” “To be perfectly honest, Swan, I’m a bit a loss as to what the question really is. You’re just mumbling insults about Sir Isaac Newton.” “Well, what did he ever do anyway?” “Gravity, we just did this. And an object in motion stays in motion. And proved that we weren’t at the center of the universe after all, it was the Sun. I’m sure Galileo was very excited to hear the news.” Emma rolled her eyes and he was teasing her and that might have been Killian Jones’ favorite activity. Second only to forcing her to watch documentaries about space.

She had no idea there were so many space documentaries until she started letting Killian force space documentaries at her.

And maybe, well, maybe it wasn’t nearly as much of a battle as Emma liked to pretend it was.

He’d always kind of been there, not quite in the middle of her life, but far from the edge of it – friends with David and always teasing her even when she threatened to punch him in the face.

He’d laugh and do that stupid tongue thing that Emma absolutely, positively never thought about and the blue in his eyes would get bluer somehow and he’d lean towards her and mumble take your best shot, Swan in her ear.

She’d swat at his arm.

He’d laugh some more.

And he was always there. Killian was David’s best man when he, finally, married Mary Margaret and he looked unfairly good in a tux and with a glass of champagne in his hand, waxing poetic about friendship and romance and life together and Emma didn’t think about either.

Of course not.

Killian was her brother’s best friend.

She’d known him since he was sixteen and had just moved to Storybrooke with his mother and Liam was already gone – enlisted just after college, but he sent checks home and postcards from ports with palm trees and different words for different stars in different hemispheres and when all of those things stop coming and a uniformed officer showed up on the steps of the Jones house, Emma was the one who held onto Killian until he stopped crying.

“Your shirt’s a disaster,” he mumbled into her shoulder and she couldn't really laugh, throat too scratchy and eyes too red and her left arm had gone numb from Killian’s weight resting on her side. She didn’t say that.

“That’s alright,” Emma promised and it was.

It was alright.

It was easy.

Emma stopped hating him at some point and started texting him and he answered and then started texting her and she responded in, like, point five seconds.

Easy. Totally.

He was there and she was there and he’d tease and she’d threaten and everyone kept telling them it was only a matter of timelike that was something that was even remotely normal.

It wasn’t.

A matter of time was not easy and they were...easy. They were acquaintances who were forced to dance together at David and Mary Margaret’s wedding and pose together and both of those things were a lie because there were photos of Emma wearing Killian’s tuxedo jacket just outside the reception hall with another glass of champagne in her hand and maybe she kept it on her phone.

She was smiling in the picture, calm and easy and he was leaning towards her with his hand halfway to her hip like he wanted, but couldn’t quite rationalize it and she’d clearly spent far too much time listening to Mary Margaret and even more time listening to Ruby because Emma kind of wanted too, but she absolutely did not say that out loud because they were not a movie.

Hallmark or Lifetime or whatever.

Whatever.

“Nothing happened?” Ruby asked for what felt like the eight-hundredth time and Emma resisted the urge to slide down the booth in the coffee shop they’d been going to for actual years. “Like...really, nothing?” Emma shook her head and Ruby let out a sigh that was far too distraught for how absolutely not involved she was in the situation. “I don’t know how many more times I can tell you the same thing, Rubes,” she muttered.

Ruby sighed again. Belle tried to smile. It didn’t really work.

“But, like...really, nothing?” Belle asked. Emma might have actually growled. “I’m just saying, you know, it’d make sense. And something happening at a wedding where you both look absurdly good in black tie type clothing and were, you know, maybe a little not quite sober...You guys have known each other forever and it’s…” “No.” “But...” “No,” Emma repeated and the word felt heavy on her tongue. It felt like a lie. “We...I mean we danced that one time, but that was…

“True love,” Ruby shouted, drawing a handful of stares from people just trying to enjoy lattes and overpriced scones. She glared at a table full of college kids, heads practically flying off their shoulders at the sudden noise. “Well, it was,” she muttered. “They’re...you don’t get it. They’re in love. You’ll understand some day.”

Belle held up her hands in mock-surrender, shaking her head quickly, like that would slow down the attack and Emma nearly knocked over her coffee.

Or threw it at Ruby, who, at some point, transitioned from dramatic sighs to disappointed laughter and both of them were equally annoying to an Emma who was doing her best to ignore the inevitable.

“We’re not suggesting that,” Belle said. “No one is suggesting that. We’re just saying we would understand if something did happen and maybe, eventually led to something of the true-type variety. At some point. In the distant future.”

Emma kept looking at that picture.

She looked really happy in that picture. She wondered what Killian’s hand would feel like on her waist. And...stop it.

That wasn’t easy.

Her phone buzzed on the table, like it was trying to prove a point and Ruby nearly cackled, head thrown back and Emma was going to bite her lip in half.  

“Shut up, Emma grumbled. “I’m not...you all need to find a hobby or something.” Ruby stopped laughing long enough to shrug and glance in Belle’s direction, something very specific passing between them. They’d talked about this. They’d planned. They’d plotted. God damn. Emma tried to remember all the reasons she couldn’t throw coffee at her friends.

“Give us, like, six months and we’ll start asking when Mary Margaret and David are going to move out of that tiny, little loft and buy a great, big gorgeous house with an enormous backyard,” Ruby said. “Then we won’t be concerned about why you haven't started making out with Jones at every conceivable moment.”

“Not every conceivable moment,” Belle corrected, waving her hands again and Emma’s lip was bleeding. “That’s just unreasonable.” “Oh, yeah, that’s the only thing that’s unreasonable,” Emma hissed. Her phone buzzed again. And Ruby’s eyes were going to fall out of her head.

I’ve run out of wedding leftovers.

Swan, are you ignoring me?

I have a life. I am not at your text message beck and call.

Is this your not so subtle way of telling me that I’m bothering you, love?

Stop it.

What? You know what.

I promise, love, I absolutely do not. What’s got you so busy with life things, then? You can’t be with David and Mary Margaret. They’re far too busy standing in the ocean.

Yeah...I don’t think that’s what they’re doing on their honeymoon.

He sent her back a string of emojis that didn’t really make sense, but still managed to get his point across and Emma was far too busy being vaguely charmed by the whole thing to notice whatever Ruby and Belle’s faces were doing.

That’s disgusting, Swan. I don’t want to think about that.

You brought it up.

I don’t care. Where are you?

Ruby coughed pointedly and Emma’s phone crashed back on the table, drawing a hiss of air out of Belle because only Belle would be worried about the state of Emma’s phone when her heart was threatening to hammer its way out of her chest.

“What?” Emma snapped and Ruby’s smile looked almost predatory. “God what could you possibly be grinning about?”

“Nothing,” Ruby said, shaking her head slowly as she slung an arm over Belle’s shoulders. “I have no thoughts about this whatsoever. C’mon, babe, let’s go find a hobby.”

They were gone a moment later, leaving Emma alone at a booth with just the stares of some very confused co-eds to keep her company. She sighed, grabbing her half-finished cup of coffee and downing the lukewarm liquid before she could think too much about how she hated lukewarm coffee and she texted back as soon as she stepped onto the sidewalk outside.

She called when she got home four hours later to find that her internet had just…”stopped working,” Emma sighed, staring at the phone screen in her hand and Killian widened his eyes.

It was not the first time she’d said that.

“So you’ve told me, Swan,” Killian grinned, running a hand through his hair and she didn’t even try to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “You’ve got to restart your router.” “I did that.” “We’ve been sitting here for nearly forty-five minutes love, I promise, you have not restarted your router yet.”

She ignored the endearment and whatever it did to her stomach and whatever Ruby would say about that, huffing out an exhale instead. Killian laughed at her. “Then what have we been doing?” Emma demanded, trying without much luck to slide across her floor back to whatever he promised was a router.

“Mostly just you yelling at me. Loudly.”

“That’s because you’re not helping. At all. I call in my time of need and you just sit there doing that stupid eyebrow thing and don’t help at all and…” She ran out of air. “What am I supposed to be doing with the router?” Killian tilted his head, the ends of his mouth ticking up and he was hours away, but David and Mary Margaret were somewhere doing something that absolutely was not standing in the ocean and Emma didn’t know who else to call.

She didn’t really think about calling anyone else.

“Stupid eyebrow thing,” Killian echoed, pausing between every word for dramatic effect. “Tell me something, Swan, what exactly is a stupid eyebrow thing?” “That’s not the point of this phone call! You’re an engineer! Engineer this!”

He did the eyebrow thing again. Emma fell back on the ground, holding her phone above her head and it couldn’t have been a very good angle, hair splayed out under her and bags under her eyes because she’d spent the last four nights trailing some skip and trying not to fall asleep in her car and Killian knew all about that too.

He made her text him when she got home.

“A civil engineer, Swan,” he corrected and she made a noise in the back of her throat that wasn’t particularly adult. She wanted her internet to work. She wanted to stream...something...anything, maybe even that one space show that made her fall asleep like some kind of Pavlovian experiment because she really, really wanted to sleep. Just, like, for days. “I’m not programming anything, love.” “Just building ships,” Emma muttered, closing her eyes lightly. She heard him laugh. And could picture exactly what his face looked like – eyes probably just a bit too bright and smile just a bit too enthusiastic and she wished he wasn’t several hours away.

She’d watch whatever space thing he wanted.

She’d fall asleep, but she’d watch, at least, five minutes.

“That’s not really true either, love,” Killian said softly. Her eyes snapped back open.

It wasn’t.

He’d gone to school on as many scholarships as he could apply for – Liam was gone and his mom was...not great, sick and getting sicker and the only option was government funding and a ridiculous amount of loans he was only just starting to pay off and every scholarship application he could find.

Emma knew. She helped him fill them out.

It was exhausting. She still complained about tendonitis in her wrist and Killian promised that’s not a thing, love and then, usually, twisted his own wrist as if to prove his point.

It worked, though, he got into school and graduated manga cum laude because, of course, he did and David sat next to him and Emma cheered from the back row reserved for friends or family and she was pretty certain she was both for both graduates. Mary Margaret cried.

It worked and Killian got a job because, of course he got a job, he was smart and talented and a slew of other adjectives that would probably just serve to further Ruby and Belle’s cause.

Structural analysis.

On ships. To make sure nothing went wrong. The way it had with Liam. No one talked about that. Emma knew.

Killian left Portland and he went to Boston and he fixed things and Emma missed him. More than she was ever willing to admit out loud. Or...to herself.

“Yeah, I know,” she said and his eyes lost some of that distant look that always seemed to sound like warning bells in the back of her mind. “But I feel like you should be able to will this to work anyway. Just mind meld it or something.” Killian scoffed and they were back to normal, whatever normal was for them and it might have just been this. “That doesn’t even make sense, Swan,” he sighed, rolling his eyes for good measure. She shrugged. “Did you find the paperclip? You can’t hit the button with anything thicker than a paper clip.” They went on like that for another forty-five minutes and there were more dramatic sighs, on both sides of the FaceTime call that was probably destroying her data because she still couldn’t connect to her wifi and the whole thing dissolved into muttered insults under their breath and faces that grown adults who, just a few days ago had danced in black-tie outfits, shouldn’t have made and Emma threw her phone across the room when her battery died.

“Ah, shit,” Emma sighed, pushing herself off the ground to grab her phone and the screen still wasn’t cracked. It started buzzing as soon as she connected it to the USB cord hanging off the side of her laptop.

Did you just hang up on me?

My phone died. Because this is taking several lifetimes to fix.

Yeah, I don’t think you can just restart your router anymore. There’s something wrong with your wiring or something.

And you’ve only just now figured that out? I’m not actually there, Swan. I’m trying to hypothesize based solely off your descriptions, which leave quite a bit to be desired, and an admittedly shitty FaceTime connection.

That’s rude.

She swiped her thumb across the screen, hitting the first name on her recently called list and ignoring the tiny, little seven in parenthesis next to it and she really called him all the time. He answered before the first ring had even finished ringing.

“Go to sleep,” Emma said, but it sounded more like a command and it was late and they were never going to fix this. God, she’d have to read a book or something. And call the internet people the next morning.

Killian laughed. “Swan, you called me. And you’re the one who’s gotten something like four hours of sleep in the last week.” “It’s more than that and you know it. Plus with my crappy internet, I’ll probably get to REM way before I normally do because of some scientific study I’m not willing to acknowledge in any other situation except this very specific one.” “See, you’re saying words, but I don’t think you’re realizing that they’re not making sense in that specific order. Also it is nine o’clock at night. I don’t know what kind of sleep schedule you think I have, but it’s definitely incorrect.” Emma’s shoulders sagged and she was back on the floor, leaning against the front of her couch with one leg awkwardly thrown out in front of her. “Something about the brain being active while it can still hear noise,” she mumbled. “The millennials or whatever.” “Or whatever,” Killian grinned. She assumed he grinned. She knew he did. “And maybe it’ll fix itself overnight somehow.” “You know that won’t work.” “Yeah, I do."

"You really should go to sleep,” Emma said. “It’s late and you’ve got that huge presentation thing in two days and you’ve got to do experiments.” “Analytical methods,” he corrected softly and her eyes were already starting to close again. She climbed onto the couch, propping her neck up on the arm and she’d probably regret that in the morning, but it was almost comfortable then and she didn’t want to move.

She didn’t want to hang up the phone.

God, she was going to kill Ruby.

“Evaluating logistical operations,” she mumbled, voice starting to slur. It was a good thing she caught the guy already. She’d never have lasted another day in the field.

It sounded like Killian smiled again. “I knew you were listening, love,” he said softly.

“Sometimes.” “That’s enough.”

Emma must have fallen asleep at some point because she nearly fell off the couch when she woke up, a knock on her door and her phone was dead again and maybe being thrown around most of downtown Portland that afternoon had actually done more damage than she originally thought.

There was another knock and Emma stared at the door like it was a portal to another dimension or a wormhole – which absolutely freaked her out more than space when she learned about them while being forced into a multi-city viewing party of some new hour-long special on Netflix two weeks before.

“It’s just me, Swan,” Killian called, a soft thud on the other side of the door when he, presumably, fell against it. Emma wasn’t sure she was awake. “Did your phone die again?”

She blinked twice, licking her lips and wrapping a blanket she’d kicked off at some point around her shoulders as she padded across her living room.

Killian was standing on the other side of the doorway, a knowing smile on his face and jeans that were just absolutely unfair. He held his phone up, waving it in her face and he laughed when Emma swatted at his wrist. “Is it dead?” he asked.

“Why are you asking questions you already know the answer to?” Emma countered, falling back into banter easily. He was wearing sandals.

She’d never seen him wear sandals in his entire life.

“It’s polite,” Killian reasoned. He did the eyebrow thing again, taking a step forward until Emma didn’t have any option except to move and she gasped when she nearly tripped over her own blanket.

His hand fell on her hip.

“Try not to die on me, love,” he muttered, flashing her a grin and her mind was racing, trying to sprint to Boston and back to Portland and she’d never resented the shitty battery tendencies of iPhones more in her life. “Where’s your router?”

Emma blinked. He hadn’t moved his hand. “What?”

“The router. Or just...all of your internet connectivity.” “I thought we decided it was broken. You said my descriptions left a lot to be desired. I’m going to call the internet person tomorrow.” “The fact that you’re referring to them as internet person gives me pause.” Killian squeezed his hand and grinned, moving around Emma when her legs, just, decided to stop working. She was frozen in the middle of her own living room with mascara smudged under her eyes and a blanket hanging off only one shoulder. “What…” she stammered. “What are you doing here? How did you know where to go?” He didn’t answer, already crouching on the side of her TV stand and clearly focused – the way he got when he was trying to figure something out and Emma barely gave herself a moment to consider how she knew that before her legs decided to, suddenly, work again.

She felt like she was sprinting towards him.

And he’d never been in her apartment before.

He stayed in hotels or with David and Mary Margaret when he came to Portland and he came to Portland less and less recently, building some sort of name for himself in Boston. Literally.

“Killian,” Emma said, resting her hand on his shoulder. He flinched. “How did you know where to go? Why did you even try to go?” “We really need to work on your sentence structure, Swan.” “You are avoiding my question.” He glanced over his shoulder, four different colored wires clutched in one hand. “I’m trying to save face,” he admitted, shaking a piece of hair away from his forehead. It didn’t work. Emma sat down next to him. On the floor. “And I asked Belle. Who was then sworn to secrecy because I don’t want to hear anything from Lucas about any of this.” “This?”

“You caught the guy yesterday, right?” Emma nodded slowly, still not entirely sure she understood where all of this was going or if she was even awake. “So you’ve got two days left on your mandatory recovery period and I can’t imagine what you’re going to do without internet over those forty-eight hours.”

“You’ve got a presentation in two days. There are powerpoint slides and charts to print out and laminate. You don’t have time to be fixing my internet.” “No one is laminated anything, Swan. It’s not 1995. And I have an assistant for all of those things. This is, well, I can fix this. I just needed to do it in person because your 4G is more like 2G and at some point in the next two hours we should figure out if you can upgrade your phone too because that can’t be safe.”

She was absolutely dreaming. “I don’t....you don’t have to play internet white knight for me.” Killian’s eyes flashed up towards hers and then, maybe, away from hers and, possibly, towards her lips and it was jarring. It was...like the Earth stopped rotating on its axis for a few moments and then started turning the wrong way.

She knew all about the Earth’s rotation.

“I’m not,” he promised. “I just...it wasn’t that late.” “You live two hours away.” “Eh, an hour and forty-five without traffic.” “That seems like pulling at straws,” Emma argued and that’s exactly what it was, an argument and a lifetime’s worth of everyone promising eventually and inevitable and she probably moved first. She’d argue that point as well though.

He made some kind of absurd sound when she all but launched herself towards him, throwing his hand back to make sure they didn’t crash onto the floor and his other hand found its way underneath her shirt and they both groaned when one of them moved their hips.

Emma twisted, trying to get some kind of leverage and it just ended with her straddling him in the middle of her living room, knees on either side of Killian’s hips with her fingers anchored in his hair. She pulled back, not entirely sure what she was doing or what he was doing, but he didn’t look nervous. He looked absolutely certain.

And that was enough.

She definitely kissed him first that time, ducking her head and slanting her lips across his and that thing with his tongue should be absolutely illegal when he was using it on other human beings.

Or just her.

She just wanted him to use it on her.

She didn’t say that out loud.

She kept kissing him.

“This is not fixing the internet, Swan,” Killian mumbled, but she could hear the laugh just on the edge of his voice. She was half a second away from arguing the distinct lack of kissing until the kissing moved to her neck and behind her ear and over her collarbone and she’d lost all control of her body when her hips practically bucked against him.

It worked another groan out of him that she’d probably think about twenty-six times a day.

“I’m sorry, were those actually words?” Emma asked, grinning against his jaw and her shirt was a lost cause, twisted up between them and halfway up her stomach.

They were still on the floor.

“Are you actually making fun of me right now?” Killian countered. He pulled back to gape at her, but Emma couldn't quite focus on that when his pupils were blown wide and his shoulders were moving a bit than usual. “Currently, Swan?”

“Seems pretty par for the course, doesn’t it?” “Not when I’m actively trying to undress you.” “Is that what you were trying to do? You’re being awfully subtle then, don’t you think?”

She appreciated his wide eyes more than she should have, but she didn’t have long to linger on that particular look or how it looked on Killian when his hand was still under the hem of her shirt, before his mouth crashed against hers and she was dimly aware of him trying to stand up.

“What are you doing?” Emma laughed, yelping when he finally managed to get a bit of momentum under them and her legs wrapped around his waist on instinct. “God, calm down with your feats of strength.”

Killian grunted slightly and she was fairly certain it was because of her knee and its placement in what might have actually been his spleen. “Was this part not obvious?” he asked and she pushed her face into his shoulder when she started to laugh. “Fucking hell, Swan, you can’t do that. That is...distracting.” “Distracting from what? Are we not talking about the same thing here?”

“Swan.” “I”m serious.”

“I know you are, love,” Killian said, kissing across her cheek and back towards her mouth. He pulled away before she could kiss back. She nearly punched him.

They were moving, though, stumbling slightly down the tiny hallway in her tiny apartment towards her tiny bedroom and Emma made some kind of absurd noise when she fell back on the mattress. “Did you just dump me on the bed?” she asked, but she wasn’t sure Killian heard her when his eyes traced down her body and landed on the bit of skin where her shirt had ridden up again.

Emma pushed up on her elbows, lifting her eyebrows and trying to fight off the feeling in the pit of her stomach. She saw the muscles in Killian’s throat move when he swallowed. “Still with me?” she asked and it felt like a very big question.

“Yeah,” he breathed. He took a step towards her, kicking his sandals off and he hadn’t even taken his goddamn sandals off. Fuck. “I’m...good.”

“Ok, good.” It was, easily, the lamest thing she’d ever said. Killian didn’t seem to mind. “You need to take this off,” she muttered, tugging on the bottom of his shirt. “And if you scuffed up my baseboards I’m going to kill you.” “We really need to work on this whole swooning thing, Swan. First you’re not sure if I’m trying to undress you and now you’re talking about baseboards. It’s almost insulting.” “Yeah, that seems like a you problem.”

He flashed her look – amusement lingering on the edge of his gaze, but with something else that made her whole body feel as if it were melting into the mattress and she didn’t say another word when his fingers found their way underneath the shorts she had on.

Their clothes ended up in some kind of pile on either side of her bed, kicking at blankets and knocking off pillows and trying to avoid the lamp on the night stand next to Emma’s head. “You’ve got to…” she started. “That drawer.”

He stared at her for half a moment – which she’d eventually come to consider one hell of a confidence boost – and Emma rolled her head on the one pillow that hadn’t landed on the floor. “The drawer,” she repeated and he understood that time.

“Right, right, right,” Killian stammered, trying not to fall on top of her when he tried to move as quick as light or some kind of meteor and she needed to stop making space jokes in her head. “Good, yeah, that’s...responsible.” “Yeah, that’s definitely good for the mood.” He rolled his eyes at her, pausing quick enough to kiss the edge of her mouth and she smacked at his arm when he chuckled as soon as she tried to chase after him. “I’m not going anywhere, Swan.”

And it was like something settled or maybe she just caught her breath, but Emma didn’t care about the specifics of it because he was there and he’d always kind of been there and she’d watched so many goddamn space documentaries.

It wasn’t exactly good at first, a weird rhythm they were both trying to dictate or find and there was far too much sighing for it to be anything except frustrating for the first few minutes.

Until it was suddenly...the opposite of that.

It was good and great and a slew of other words and adjectives Emma would come up with if she weren’t too busy chasing friction and that tongue thing and trying to take a deep breath. He was everywhere all at once, hands moving and hips moving and she shifted against him, trailing her fingers down his spine until he hissed softly in her ear, mumbling her name over and over again as if he couldn’t remember anything else.

Emma kissed him as soon as she felt tension coiling at the base of her spine, fingers back in his hair and she couldn’t seem to stop touching his hair. She squeezed her eyes closed at some point, fairly certain several different stars exploded just on the edge of her vision and it was another goddamn space pun.

Killian didn’t leave.

Emma didn’t ask him to leave or tell him to stay. He just didn’t move. And neither did she, curled against his side with her head on his shoulder and her arm flung over his waist.

He texted her a photo of the charts two days later.

It went from there.

She visited and he visited and there wasn’t much of a schedule, just phone calls and FaceTime and one hour and forty-five minutes, without traffic, and they didn’t spend much time worrying about definitions when they were so busy kissing the goddamn daylights out of each other.

Killian was impossibly good at kissing.

And, Emma liked to imagine, he felt the same way because he’d barely stepped into her apartment, six months after that first step, before his mouth landed on hers and his fingers danced along her spine and it was absolutely a confidence boost.

“We don’t have time for this,” Emma mumbled, but the words seemed to get stuck halfway out of her mouth and maybe they could make time.

So they were celebrating Ruby and Belle and an engagement and Killian had taken Friday off so he could get there before five o’clock, but all of those things seemed to fall by the metaphorical wayside when Emma’s arms found their way over his shoulders, like she was trying to make sure he was actually there.

And maybe she missed him when he wasn’t there or she wasn’t there, but that wasn’t part of the plan and no one had actually ever used the phrase just sex, but that was definitely what it was. Right? Sure.

No, of course it was.

They were….getting it out of their systems. For six months. With alternating weekends and dinners that sometimes felt a hell of a lot like dates and nothing had really changed, there was just a lot more kissing and a lot less clothing.

Killian hadn’t really ever stopped kissing her, just pulled away from her lips and moved towards her jaw and that one spot on her neck that made her whole body break out in goosebumps and he always seemed very pleased with himself whenever it happened.

It happened every single time.

That didn’t mean anything. At all.

“We can be a little late,” Killian argued and for half a second Emma was ready to agree, to just tug him back into her apartment and, possibly, bolt the door, but then her phone started to ring and there was a schedule and he wasn’t supposed to be there.

He was supposed to be staying in a hotel – had told David he just wanted a little more space when he had to explain why he didn’t want to stay in the guest room of the house they’d actually bought two months ago – and showing up twenty minutes late, together, would probably send Ruby into some sort of crazed I knew it fit.

She felt like she’d run into a brick wall, slamming into something she wasn’t entirely aware was there until it reached out and hit in the face and it was painful and jarring and Emma suddenly realized she wanted to be late to this stupid, forced friendship interaction because she wanted Killian to stay in her apartment without a story or an explanation and it was the single most terrifying thing she’d ever thought.

She didn’t...well, he knew about Neal and she knew about Milah and that was part of the reason she’d argued againstinevitable for so long. Emma didn’t do relationships. It didn’t work, wasn’t in the cards or the stars, jeez, but she couldn't seem to stop kissing her brother’s best friend and there wasn’t enough oxygen in the world for the deep breath she was trying to take.

Emma shook her head, pulling back slightly and it was as if she could see the understanding settle on Killian’s face, the way his eyes dimmed just a bit and she swore something landed in the pit of her stomach.

It felt a hell of a lot like regret.

She wasn’t sure what there was to regret. And that was a great, big enormous lie.

“I just…” Emma started, but words were, suddenly, rather difficult to come by. Killian didn’t say anything, just lifted his eyebrows and waited and he was always doing that. He waited on her. “Maybe we should just, you know, take a deep breath.” His eyebrows didn’t move, but he blinked twice and his hand sounded like an anvil when it pulled away from her, crashing against his thigh and Emma tried to keep staring straight ahead.

She couldn’t.

God fucking damnit.

“A deep breath,” Killian echoed and it sounded a bit like a question and a lot like disbelief and they should have done this at any other time. “And what does that mean exactly, love?” She shook her head again, mostly because she couldn’t come up with anything else to do and she’d lost control of the situation and all of her body parts. “I mean...we’ve been….it’s not…” “It’s not.” “God, stop repeating me!” “I”m trying to make sense of what you're saying, Swan,” Killian sighed, taking a step back into her space and his hand moved again, thumb brushing across the curve of her cheek like he couldn’t stop himself. “This isn’t…” He cut himself off, pressing his lips together tightly and Emma tried not to punch him. They were both horrible at finishing sentences. “Is that about what your brother will think?” “No,” Emma yelled. Killian scoffed. “Well, no, not entirely! You can't tell me that you haven’t thought about it.” “I’ve thought about several different things, love and strangely enough none of the things I think about you have anything to do with David.” “That’s insane.” “It’s insane that I haven’t considered your brother’s opinion when I think about us? How is that insane? I couldn’t care less about what David thinks. Or anyone for that matter. It wouldn’t make a difference.”

She was positive the people on the sidewalk twenty-seven blocks away could hear her heart hammering against her rib cage and Emma still didn’t know much about gravity, but she was fairly positive it had just altered when Killian’s words seemed to land at her feet. “There is no us,” Emma muttered, staring at her feet and she’d never put socks on because he’d shown up early at her apartment to make out with her.

And make proclamations.

That she was absolutely going to ignore.

God, she was an idiot.

Emma tried to pull the air in through her nose, memories of some kind of breathing exercise Mary Margaret taught her when she was freaking out about finals sophomore year, but it didn’t work and Killian took a step back. She hadn’t noticed the bag sitting in her doorway still.

“What?” he asked softly. “Emma, I….” She was positive her head had never moved so quickly in her entire life because she couldn't remember a single time in the history of the entire fucking universe that he’d called her by her actual name.

And if she were being honest with herself, she probably would have realized he’d been calling her love more than anything else.

She was not being honest with herself.

“C’mon, let’s be honest, this is, I mean this was….” Emma stumbled over the words, still not able to finish a goddamn sentence and Killian’s mouth was hanging open slightly, shoulders moving like he’d run to her apartment from Boston.

“This was what, Swan?” “A matter of time, right? That’s what they all said and we’d just eventually stumble into each other and then it’d be over. I mean this isn’t…” Killian’s mouth twisted, something that almost looked like a sneer settling on his face and Emma felt like she’d just fallen into the pile of snow outside her window. She lived on the fourth floor. “Right,” he said, crossing his arms tightly and she didn’t consider all the reasons he did that until far later. “Right. This isn’t, well, it isn’t, is it?”

“Those were a lot of words in an order I didn’t entirely understand.” He laughed, a sardonic edge to the sound that sent a chill down her spine. “Ok, well, it’s good I got here early then, huh? I’ll see you in a little while, Swan.”

Emma stood in her living room for what felt like several sunlit days after Killian closed the door behind him and she was ninety-nine percent positive she’d missed the entire engagement celebration by the time her feet managed to move, tugging on boots that felt far too tight and a scar that she was fairly positive was going to strangle her at some point and she was the last one to get to the bar.

“Hey,” Ruby cried as soon as Emma shook the snow out of her hair. She was wearing some kind of light-up headband and bright red lipstick and a smile that seemed to melt some of the ice in Emma’s heart.

She wasn’t just an idiot, she was a melodramatic idiot.

“You’re late,” Ruby continued, seemingly unaware of whatever Emma was trying to deal with. “Jones is already like three shots in and I think he and David are doing some sort of unspoken challenge thing, but it’s probably going to be pretty entertaining and…”

She blinked when Emma didn’t immediately announce she was going to join in on shots and she barely had time to think about how well her friends knew her before Ruby was tugging her towards a corner and staring at her intently. “What’s going on with you?” she asked, tapping Emma’s shoulders the saw way she had when they first met at a cramped college bookstore, each trying to buy the same overpriced textbook.

They split it and shared it for the same class and it wasn’t the most conventional friendship, but Emma really believed Ruby could read her mind.

“Nothing,” Emma lied and Ruby didn’t even bother sighing. She laughed. “Honestly. I’m just...you know it’s been a long week.” “Yuh huh.” “It has.” “Sure it has. When’s the last time you haven’t had a long week?” “Should I be offended by that?” Emma asked, trying to slink further back into the corner when she could feel the rest of the group shooting furtive, almost painfully obvious glances in their direction. Killian hadn’t moved.

Ruby shrugged. “You can do whatever you want. You’re an adult, in theory, but I’m just saying that, at some points in the last few months, you’ve been almost...good.” “Almost good.” “Ok, now you’re being rude,” Ruby muttered. “And it’s real obvious you’ve got a thing going on. So don’t bother lying. You just happen to have out-of-city stakeouts for weekends at a time? That’s not even clever, Emma.” “I have to work!” “Yuh huh. So how come during those weekends you’re less likely to answer your phone than you are during stakeouts downtown? Something doesn’t add up.” “You are not a detective,” Emma argued, defenses rising automatically and she wanted to get drunk and make out with Killian and she didn’t want him to stay in a hotel. Fucking hell.

Ruby made a noise in the affirmative and that wasn’t what Emma expected. “True,” she said. “But you know who is? Your great big, overprotective idiot of a brother, who is also very interested in what you’ve been doing on those weekends abroad.” “I’m not going overseas.” “A turn of phrase,” Ruby hissed. “God, keep up with my interesting banter. Did you screw it up? Is that what happened?” Emma made a face, holding her hands up and shaking her head, but Ruby didn’t look deterred. She just widened her stance and Emma didn’t have anywhere to run. “That was definitely rude,” she grumbled. “And, yeah, maybe.” “Maybe...definitely?” “Absolutely.” “That’s dumb.” “That’s a pointed opinion from someone who just told me they thought I’ve been going abroad for weekends.” “Fucking a, Emma, that was a joke and you are doing a piss poor job of deflecting,” Ruby growled, an intensity in her voice that left Emma reeling. She was glad there was a wall to lean against. “Are you all in on this? Is that what’s going on? You freaking out?” “You’re not a journalist either,” Emma mumbled, but the questions were almost too on point and she kept thinking about the way Killian’s voice shifted when he said her name.

God, he called her Emma.

Ruby rolled her eyes. “Another deflection. I’m going to assume that was a blanket yes, then.” Emma sighed, forcing the air out of her lungs like it had personally offended her and Ruby almost smiled when her whole body fell forward. “Ok, tell me one thing,” Ruby continued. “In this great, big secret of a whatever you’re doing, this guy, I’m assuming it’s a guy?” “It’s a guy,” Emma confirmed.

“You happy?” She considered that for a moment – memories flitting through her brain like she was watching them through a Viewfinder and it wasn’t just about the making out or the sex or inevitable and she was so goddamn happy when she was with Killian.

It was easy.

“Yeah,” Emma whispered. She really needed a drink. “Really happy.” “Then stop being stupid about it and go tell Jones he’s real good at making out.” Emma nearly fell down the wall. Ruby cackled. “Please,” she laughed. “You think I don’t know things? I know things, Em. I’ve got sixty-two senses of knowing things. And I know he showed up at your apartment six months ago and you’ve only been going on these little excursions for the last couple of moths and he’s running through PTO like that’s his actual job.” “How could you possibly know that last part?” “Ariel told Belle who told me, obviously. Because we don’t have secrets.” “That was heavy-handed,” Emma sighed. “And I...I don’t know, Rubes, I...he’s David’s best friend. We weren’t really planning on this, it just kind of happened and, like, two hours ago I told him I didn’t think there was an us.”

Ruby made a noise that sounded a bit like a gag. “Oh my God, that’s so you it’s almost scripted. No wonder he’s been trying to drown himself.” “I didn’t….”

“Think,” Ruby finished. “Yeah, I get that. If there was an Olympic sport for shooting yourself in your own foot, you would win gold at the summer and winter games.” “How long have you been waiting to use that insult?” “Actual years. Listen, I know we’ve always been about how you guys should just, you know, whatever and get it over with, but this is, well, it’s obvious this is different. And Jones came in here looking like some kind of ghost person whose sole job in the afterlife was to test as much rum as possible. Even David realized something wrong and he’s the single most obtuse person on the planet.” Emma sighed. “I really fucked up.” “Oh, I know you did, but if science is sixty-two percent reactionary, then you’ve still got time to engineer a fix here.” “You’re on a roll.” Ruby’s eyes practically lit up. They nearly matched her headband. “I know, right! Even I’m impressed. It’s because I’m all in love and love will do that to you. And don’t bother saying heavy-handed, that wasn’t my best work. But what I’m saying, Em, is that he clearly cares and he has since forever ago. Although, you know, maybe don’t start making out here because I’m not entirely sure David won’t kill him.”

“You’re a beacon of support,” Emma said, but some of the ice in her spine had thawed and maybe that was what hope felt like.

Ruby clicked her tongue, shrugging slightly and possibly winking before announcing they were all going to do shots and no one could argue with someone wearing a light-up headband.

And, really, Emma tried. She tried to talk or approach or whatever someone who, just a few hours ago, had promised her maybe-boyfriend that they were operating under labels, should do, but nothing worked and by the time six o’clock turned into one o’clock, she’d done a questionable number of shots and Killian had already left.

“Here,” Belle said, the words slurring just a bit and they’d probably put that bar in the black for the entire year just on their group’s alcohol consumption that night. She pushed a sheet of paper towards Emma and the letters weren’t quite perfect, but it was an address. To a hotel. A few blocks away. “It’s by the water,” Belle added, like Killian would stay anywhere that wasn’t by the water, and everyone knew.

Except David.

God, Emma hoped David didn’t know.

“Thanks,” Emma mumbled, squeezing her fingers around the paper and waving towards a slightly wobbly David and a vaguely entertained Mary Margaret. “I’ll uh...I’ll see you guys later.”

“Text us when you get home,” David shouted, but she barely heard him, waving a dismissive hand over her shoulder and she sprinted to the hotel. She nearly killed herself six times.

There was ice everywhere.

She was out of breath by the time she skidded to a stop in the hotel lobby, drawing a curious stare from the guy behind the desk. “Can I help you?” he asked cautiously, like she was going to rob the place.

“No, no, no,” Emma said, shaking her head and already moving towards the closest staircase. The piece of paper in her hand claimed he was staying on the ninth floor. “I, um...I’m fine, thanks.”

The guy didn’t look convinced and she didn’t blame him – she was far from fine and maybe just a little drunk and her legs were already protesting the idea of nine flights of stairs. She didn’t give herself a moment to consider that before she was climbing and trying to breathe and the romance of it all seemed to wane just a bit when she realized she was actually sweating.

“God fucking, shit, hell,” Emma breathed, trying not to pass out in an abandoned hotel hallway. The ink on the paper still clutched in her hands was starting to smear a bit, but she’d memorized the numbers on her sprint through downtown Portland and she could see the door just a few feet away like it was taunting her.

She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to knock.

She could hear footsteps behind the door, like he was pacing and her stomach clenched at the thought. She knocked. And the pacing stopped.

He didn’t say anything and that felt decidedly unfair, like the ball was in her court or something. She licked her lips before she knocked again. Still no answer. “God dammit,” she grumbled, resisting the urge to kick at the door too. “Killian, I...it’s me. Can you just open the door? For two seconds. And then I’ll…” Emma didn’t finish, nearly leaping back when the door swung open and he didn’t look drunk. He looked pissed off. “Hi,” she said softly and lamely and she didn’t know what else to say. She was having trouble breathing again. Killian crossed his arms again, narrowing his eyes slightly and Emma tried to swallow back the wad of actual emotion she could swear was lingering in the back of her throat. “I, um...Belle told me you were here.” One of his eyebrows moved. “Did you ask?” “No, I…” Emma shook her head and Killian sighed, uncrossing his arms to run one of his hands through his hair and this was not going according to plan. There was no plan. “I mean, I would have. I wanted to know where you went. I wanted to….apologize.” Killian stared at her, like he was taking stock of the words, or maybe just Emma, and she wasn’t sure which one made her more nervous. And she realized rather quickly, he wasn’t going to say anything. He was going to let her talk.

Of fucking course he was. “I’m sorry,” Emma continued. “For, well, you know, being me and pushing with both hands and that’s just how I react when I want something too much. I’m so certain it’s all going to blow up in my face, some kind of fight or flight syndrome that should probably be studied at some point. And, really, it’s all stupid because I’m really happy and this is...it’s been good, right?” Killian nodded slowly, leaning against the open doorframe with his feet crossed at the ankles and Emma tried not to growl when he didn’t use actual words. “So I guess I’m just, well, I know I fucked it up, but I’d like to fix it or we could just...go back to before and you can send all the text messages you want and I’ll let you know I don’t die on stakeouts, but I can’t…” She huffed out a breath of air, blinking quickly when she realized she was on the edge of crying and this was absurd. He was distractingly good looking.

“You can’t what, love?” Killian asked, reaching out to rest his hand on her hip and Emma’s entire body felt like it exploded into flames.

“I can’t lose you.” His eyes widened slightly, but it didn’t take long for him to react, pulling her flush against him and they fit together so goddamn well and he was always so ridiculously warm and that tongue thing was absurd.

Emma sighed against him, pressing up on her toes to reach him better and they may have stood there for days or years or the rest of theirs lives. It didn’t matter.

She was all in. In some kind of decidedly overwhelming way that made her stomach flip and her pulse pick up and Killian laughed when he kissed that spot.

“I’m not going anywhere, Emma,” he whispered and it was exactly what he’d told her the first time, with one very important distinction.

“Good,” Emma smiled, arms wrapped around his waist and face burrowed into his shoulder and she didn’t argue when he started walking them backwards into the room. “But, uh...maybe we don’t tell David just yet. I really think he’d kill you.” Killian barked out a laugh, pressing a kiss to the top of her hair. “Oh, no, he absolutely would. We’re good as is for now, right love?”

“Yeah. We are.”

[turtle4235-blog]

Do I love Gravity Falls? Yes. Definitely. Absolutely!!

Hot Belgian waffles do I love this show! A few years ago, I found out that the Doug Walker (aka the Nostalgia Critic) had started reviewing it, and I tend to enjoy his cartoon vlogs, so I decided to check out the first one, and see if it sounded like a show I wanted to watch. And then I proceeded to watch all 20 episodes of the first season in 1 night. And then it was 18 months of continuously waiting in vain for more episodes to come out. This show deserves every award and all the praise it has received. It is a glorious example of the golden age of cartoons and TV in general that we are currently living in. And below, I’ve listed the top 10 reasons everyone should definitely absolutely try it out.

This show had some of the best humour and timing I’ve ever seen in a cartoon. Even the guest stars got to say some wonderfully absurd lines and it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen an episode, it’s always funny. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve shouted “You are my possession! OBEY ME!!” at my laptop.

All the 80s/90s nostalgia and satire. Satire and parody are some of the hardest things to do well, as it’s so easy to fall into the trap of just mocking the source material. But here, you could just feel the love that the creator, Alex Hirsch, and the other writers have for everything they portray, from the terrible anime dubbing, to arcade games of yore, to boy band fandom.

You never knew what was coming next. It was so much fun thinking about all the mythological creatures the twins might meet and in what fashion. Each species is so distinct, not only from each other, but also from previous depictions. I also love that the creatures aren’t necessarily evil, sometimes their culture just clashes with ours. Oh, and screw Friendship is Magic, these are the BEST. UNICORNS. EVER!

The amazing theme song. It’s incredible the amount of detail and easter eggs they managed to fit into roughly 40 seconds of animation. It’s one of the smoothest, most fluid openings and it never fails to hype me up for another adventure or put a smile on my face. It also gave a quick summary of each of the main characters’ tropes: Dipper is inquisitive, but easily scared; Wendy is a cool teenager, bored with her life; Mabel is wacky and loves everything; Soos is a happy-go-lucky man child; and Stan is a money hungry con artist.

To be honest, the animation of the entire show was incredible. It had such a unique look to it, like this mix between the cuteness of Disney, and the clean lines of the Simpsons. Added to that, every frame was so expressive, and detailed, and colourful, and there was always something fun or useful going on in the background (my favourite example is Blendin Blenjamin Blandin). I especially love all the little things details they remembered to keep for continuity, as it just adds to the rewatchability value of this show.

They knew when to just show things instead of saying it. Ever since The Matrix came out, it feels like everyone forgot how to take advantage of TV and films being visual mediums. You can just show the event or the emotional impact something has on someone! It’s totally allowed! For example, they didn’t need to explain the bell in Northwest Mansion Mystery (S02E10), you immediately understood that it was bad news. They also use this nifty little trick to help establish character traits. For example, Mabel almost never wears the same outfit again, and it just helps to emphasise that she is such a free spirit, doing things her own way.

The story. I’ve always loved a good mystery and this show has plenty of great ones. Clues and red herrings for the main story are sprinkled throughout the episodes all culminating in a huge reveal at the midpoint of season 2 and I have to admit, that cliffhanger was one of the most agonising waits I’ve ever had to sit through. But the smaller mysteries are all fun and intriguing in their own ways, and it was always great to see how the show would take a generic plotline and play with it.

Speaking of the story, it ended! Like, really actually ended. It has a clearly defined ending, and all the major plot points are resolved. As someone who enjoys anime, words cannot express the joy I feel when there is closure on a show I love, rather than just cutting off, or running for too long. (Although, I will admit that I love this show so much, I almost wish that there was more still coming out)

But as important as the story is, fictitious works live and die on it’s characters. It doesn’t matter if you have the most intricate, well thought out, ingenious story if your audience has no investment in your characters. My test for a well developed character is to imagine a scenario, and work out what their reaction would be. In just 41 episodes, this show managed to create a whole pantheon of characters that I can do this for, in particular Dipper, Mabel and Stan. Also, they managed to make a triangle legitimately creepy and threatening. That takes skill.

I love the relationships the characters built throughout the show. At the heart of it all lies the relationship between Dipper and Mabel. They have to have one of the strongest, most realistic sibling relationships I have ever seen. They might be complete opposites, but you know they love each other unconditionally and would be willing to do anything for each other, and their differences help to make up for each other’s weaknesses. Their respective relationships with Pacifica are also fascinating, as they evolve from enemies to frenemies (and maybe something more?? Dear god, I wanted Dipcifica to become a thing!). Even side relationships are fleshed out: Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland have one of the most caring, supportive, loving, understanding relationships I have ever seen.

What else can I say? I just love and respect this show so much. Of the big four shows that have come out in the last decade or so (Avatar The Last Airbender, Adventure Time, and Steven Universe being the other 3), this one is by far my favourite. Props to you, Mr Hirsch, and I am so so excited to see what you do next at Fox!