#i bet the season ends with them finding out b is still alive

[epicbuddieficrecs]

Fic rec for my BFF, pt. 1

My best friend is currently watching 9-1-1. I've been trying to get her onboard the Buddie ship and she is graciously tolerating me. She's asked for some fic recs and so this is what I came up with! I did have to work with a few parameters to fit her taste, the most important one being nothing post season 3 cause that's where she's up to and she didn't want spoilers.

Hope you enjoy these bestie!

Canon to Canon Divergent

Things We're All Too Young to Know by Daisies_and_Briar / @cal-daisies-and-briars 

Canon S1-S6, S7 Spec | 123/? | 379K | Mature

This is a love story. Even if it doesn’t always look like it. Even if it doesn’t always feel like it. A look back on Eddie and Buck's lives up to now, and what led them to each other, interpreted from the current 9-1-1 canon.

THE canon fics to end all canon fics. I know it's still a WIP and it spans up to post-S6, but if you want a canon fic, that's the one to go for.

Leading with the Left by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels 

Canon Divergent, Different First Meeting, Stripper Buck | 84K | Explicit

When Buck said he was a "bartender" in "South America" what he actually meant was "stripper" in "Mexico." And when Eddie said, "What's your problem?" what he actually meant was, "Is this about the time you gave me a lap dance?" In other words, there's a few things the 118 doesn't know about Buck. Or Eddie. Or Buck and Eddie's relationship.

One of my most re-read fics. The smut is impeccable. The angst is so good. Absolutely love this fic!

Your Scars and Your Lonely Heart by Taste_is_Sweet

Sentinels AU, Canon Divergent - Tsunami | 82K | Teen

Clara Williams just wanted to visit Pacific Park during her layover in Los Angeles. She never expected to find a young, exceptional Sentinel dying for lack of a bond. Actually, what she really never expected was a tsunami, or the same Sentinel to save her life. But Clara's a Guide, so now she's on a mission to keep Evan "Buck" Buckley alive until she can get him to Eddie Diaz, the Guide who should have bonded with him, but didn't. Because Clara can't bond with Buck, no matter how much she wants to. There's just one problem: Buck's convinced Eddie doesn't want him, and he might not survive long enough to find out the truth.

Another one of my most re-read fics! I had never read a Sentinels AU before and I fell in love with the concept!

the distance to the stars by cloudydaisies 

Didn't Know They Were Dating, Post-S3 | 27K | General

“Didn’t know you were seeing someone.” Buck just laughs. Like, honest to god giggles. Eddie is stuck fighting off doubly massive waves of butterflies and confusion, all while Buck just gazes down at him. “That’s cute,” he hears Buck mumble, just before climbing into the truck, calling Eddie after him. - or, everyone knows eddie is dating buck except for eddie, literally.

Don't know if you knew this, Marie, but Buddie is the #1 most tagged ship in the "Didn't Know They Were Dating" tag cause they're such idiots <3 and this is one of my favorite ones!

the weekly bet (but the forever kind) by theleftboobgrabber/ @theleftboobgrabber 

Late S3, Getting Together | 49K | Explicit

“Thanks,” Eddie mumbles, hiding his face deep in his pillow, even if Buck can’t see him in the dark. “What for?” Leave it to Buck to be confused about something so obvious. “Being you, idiot.” “And again with the name calling,” he answers, content and sleepy. Nights like this, Eddie feels like asking for a miracle. But to the team, it wasn’t a matter of if Abby would take him back, but when. A matter of days. When the squad bets on how long it will take for Buck and Abby to get back together when she comes back to LA, Eddie is forced to reconsider keeping his feelings for Buck a secret.

Top tier pining + oblivious Eddie = 👌

Always, All Ways by ashavahishta/ @tevankinkley

A/B/O AU | 85K | Explicit

“Buck is very dear, Mr Diaz. Not only to me but to the pack. You’ll find that if you treat him with anything less than utmost respect you’ll have a lot of people to answer to.”   Eddie swallowed. It was clear that in the absence of a mate, this omega had found himself a very protective pack. “Understood, sir.” Or: Buck’s the only omega in the 118. He’s got secrets, and walls a mile high. Eddie’s the alpha determined to knock them down.

There's not a ton of A/B/O fics in this fandom, and I should really try to read more of them, but this is probably my favorite one so far!

I Hit the Accelerator (But the Car was in Reverse) by extasiswings/@extasiswings, letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/@letmetellyouaboutmyfeels

S3, Friends With Benefits, BDSM | 68K | Explicit

When Buck is forced to confront the truth about his breakup with Abby, having casual sex with his hot new coworker seems like the best rebound idea. Unfortunately, that hot new coworker turns into his best friend. But best friends can keep having sex with each other, right? There's no way this could possibly go wrong.

THE friends with benefits fic! (ok lbr there's a ton of great ones, but this one is S2 focused iirc)

AUs

My Blood on Your Skin (My Rose on Your Snow) by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels

Mythological AU, BDSM | 80K | Explicit

When Eddie needs cash and fast to take care of Christopher, his LAFD Academy buddy suggests a job as a bouncer at Elysium - an exclusive sex club in downtown Los Angeles. Eddie doesn't care what goes on there, so long as he's paid, but he finds he cares a lot bout the club's enigmatic owner, Evan Buckley, and it's not long before the two of them are violating every boss-employee rule in the book. But there's something different about Buck and the club, something not quite... human. If Eddie wants to keep Buck, he's going to have to delve into the world of immortals, and all the risks that implies.

You can expect amazing smut by this author as always, but also really interesting worldbuilding and characters!

All My Shattered Oaths by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels

Vampires AU | 107K | Explicit

Eddie wants to stay away from his family’s legacy and give his son a normal life. Buck’s desperate to find a way to get over the love he lost. Fate has other plans for both of them.

SO GOOD. The canon divergent reincarnation vampire AU you didn't know you needed!!!

a bleeding sun on a silver screen by rarakiplin (gmontys)/ @hoediaz 

Actors AU, Friends With Benefits | 130K | Mature

One day, Buck will tell an interviewer that he would be happy to make movies with Eddie Diaz until the day he dies. But first, years before that, he sees Eddie for the first time on the set of Chimney’s fifth movie.

An epic tale of movie making and enemies to friends to FWB to strangers to lovers!

The Truth of Love (Amas Veritas) by allyasavedtheday/ @littlespoonevan

Practical Magic AU | 20K | Teen

Bobby opens his mouth like he wants to argue but decides against it. “Walk me through the logic here then. How will this make sure you never fall in love?” “Because I’m making someone who doesn’t exist,” Buck explains, glancing from the half-full bowl to Bobby. He can’t work out what the look on Bobby’s face means so he pointedly elects to ignore it. “They’ll have brown hair,” he starts, clipping another petal from the rose bush. “And brown eyes-“ “Lotta people out there with brown hair and brown eyes, kid,” Bobby says lightly and Buck rolls his eyes. “But not many that can ride a horse backwards,” Buck counters. “And whose favourite shape is a star and who’s got…two scars,” he decides, plucking a basil leaf and dropping it in the bowl. “One on each shoulder.”

Because Practical Magic AUs always make me think of you <3

I'll Scrawl it on Every Wall I See by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels

Canon Divergent, You've Got Mail Fusion | 29K | Teen

When Eddie joins the 118, he and Buck don't exactly hit it off on the right foot. Or continue to walk on the right foot. In fact they kind of can't stand each other. Good thing they each have a beloved anonymous pen pal to share their daily woes with, someone completely unlike their insufferable coworker.

I do love some good romcom vibes!

#buddie #buddie fic rec #epic buddie fic rec #buddie fanfiction #buddie fanfic #buddie fic #favorites

[menacing-anon]

My Predictions Masterpost, Pre-2x04

This is an update on all my predictions after the first batch of episodes! Here's the compilation pre-2x01.

In new promotional material is this ad; I haven't gone through all the photos on the Warner Bros. website that I haven't seen, because at a glance, they seem to give too much away. And as last time, I'm sure there are some great theories out there that I have to miss because I'm running late! Hopefully for the last time this season :)

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR 2x01-2x03.

First, I'll sum up what I got right and wrong in my previous masterpost, though I also made a bunch of predictions between eps that are only documented in my (under construction) reaction vids.

Episode 1: Impossible Birds

What I got right: The cake the Revenge crew eats is wedding cake, and we find out by the end of the conversation about Izzy and Blackbeard's relationship that Ed has repeated his violent act from the finale. Fencing with Izzy is Stede's dream sequence, transportation is an issue for them, and this ep features Stede and Oluwande shopping, etc. and the rainy shots of Stede and his crew. Stede lies awake next to Roach thinking about Ed, which alternates or is consecutive with Ed playing with the cake toppers, but,

What I got wrong: It happens at the end of this episode, and Stede thinks about what he heard about Ed that day. The wedding raid is the first time Ed is shown, the conversation with Izzy happens right after they eat cake, and Ed plays with the cake toppers in the auxiliary closet.

Episode 2: Red Flags

What I got right: Ed just had a rough night, then behaves like he's moving on. The storm happens, and the crew mutinies. Ed is the person with the rock tied around them.

What I got wrong: The Fang and Izzy area starts the mutiny, though Izzy is not in favor of killing Ed. He is still thrown overboard by his crew, is seen falling into the water here, reunites with Mer!Stede and emerges from the sea at the end. The intended new captain is Jim — this we just never find out. Stede runs across the beach, lies awake under Buttons' hammock, and throws the bottle in this ep.

Episode 3: The Innkeeper

What I got right: Izzy's amputation is for medical reasons. The man Ed confronts is a hallucination of Hornigold.

What I got wrong: Izzy's amputation is in this episode and due to the injuries he sustained before the gunshot. The innkeeper is not a character seen anywhere else.

The Rest:

What I got right: The Chinese Outfit Era is before Green Shirt Era. The crew is dressed in Chinese outfits by the (eventual) capturers. The scene where Ed headbuts Stede is around the time of the escape, and they're not made up then or when Stede tells someone that he hurt Ed. This is their IRL reunion. Lucius is alive, he reappears before Stede and Ed make up (in fact, Stede never tries to reunite with Ed while thinking he might have killed Lucius), and this is a reaction to him:

I'm proud of myself for this last one 😅

What I got wrong: The Chinese Outfit Era in in episode 4. The crew wears the Chinese outfits to blend in with another group. The scene with Anne and Mary? is Stede and Ed's IRL reunion. This shot of Zheng is in episode 6, on the other side of this street chaos:

Now onto predictions! *rubs palms*

Episode 4: Fun and Games

Every time, the way I thought an ep would end was actually the way the next started, so I figure we start with a headbut! 😅 B****, you thought 🤭 Ed probably walks out of the sea in his dream sequence, I would say before that so the headbut causes a sudden tone shift that doesn't wear off.

In the in-between part, Stede tells his re-changed crew the headbut was an accident, but I bet much of what happens has not seen the light of day at all and is so much fun! 😃

...Later, Stede runs into the similarly rumpled, mark-on-his-lip Ed at this furniture... shop? "Former" means Ed intends to leave, so maybe he came to stay with his buddies?

We meet Anne and Mary?, Anne and Stede talk, and they have a double dinner date. It takes a turn 😅

Although the kiss looks like it's in the same room as the dinner — where Stede is already sitting and there would be someone else for Anne to look at — ngl, it's off. Look at the candles and paintings behind Stede 🤔

I'm saying it's this room, or at least the same room in a different scene:

And Anne's tone in this conversation could be interpreted as flirtatious, so idk, maybe she's for real and that look after the kiss is because someone interrupted. Still, the idea that Anne is making a point or trying to evoke some reaction feels more right to me, enough to outweigh the set details that I can't explain away, so I'm throwing it in as an alternative prediction.

By Ed's look and the setting — ooh, and Mary sitting next to him! — I believe this also happens at Anne and Mary's place. I guess they split into duos to talk, before the dinner. EDIT: Actually no, I think it's after Ed causes some havoc at dinner!

There's that clip where Stede demands Ed's respect as his captain. Someone predicted that Ed might step down as captain in recognition of the harm done to the crew, and I suppose it might also be because... they just wouldn't let him stay in a position of power if he sticks around. I believe this might play out towards the end.

Anne and Mary have a bunch of furniture and stuff, and Izzy's peg leg looks like it could be from another object, so I say he gets it from there. Through whom? All my guesses are equally unsupported, but maybe Stede feels responsible, or his anger towards Izzy has cooled off enough to think about what might help him.

What with their training, I think the rest of the Light Shirt Era is too much for one ep, so I'll say it happens in...

Episode 5: TBA

Ed is in his If I Was A Regular Dude Phase outfit, and Stede demands his respect as his captain. I have no idea how they still aren't made up, tbh. Stede isn't just immediately telling Ed why he didn't meet him at the dock, that he loves him, and that he's been looking for him for weeks? 🤨 The whole crew isn't groaning at them to just kiss already? Hyped to see what gives.

Anyway, Ed's disrespect prompts Stede to start training with Izzy. Stede may very well approach Izzy with the idea, 'cause I doubt he would go to Izzy just to be like, "what do I do if Ed doesn't respect me?" 😆 The way I see it, Izzy had two issues with Stede as a captain: his people-positive management style and lack of piracy skills. Stede was never gonna stop supporting his crew, but now that even Izzy is realizing Stede is onto something with that, he could probably respect Stede as a captain if he became a more capable pirate, so he's willing to help make that happen. Otherwise, Izzy sticks around because he feels like he owes it to the crew to improve their situation, which I'm basing on his 2x03 conversation with Stede where he takes responsibility for their pain and wants to prevent more of it.

Izzy instructs Stede on the deck and slices candles. We get a raid, maybe a small one for practice, where Stede picks up a gorgeous coat, fights a guy, and tells an observing Izzy that he's done a punch, as demonstrated on him earlier.

The Rest, Chronologically:

I'm still grouping events by OOTD, though now breaking it down further to include Ed. Below is a handy-dandy chart for your reference. Keep in mind as well that there's Before Earring and With Earring for Stede.

I'm more or less saying it's an episode per slice.

Episode 6: TBA

I am so confused about the order of events in Green Shirt Era 😭 If how much 2x01 changed my predictions for the next two eps is anything to go by, 2x05 or 2x06 will make a lot of this fall into place.

"Alls I know is," in Green Shirt Regular Dude, Izzy and Ed talk outside Jackie's, then Ed talks to Jackie while Stede is a seagull nearby, probably after becoming the object of enthusiasm of these folks outside:

So maybe this is later in the same ep:

Quite possibly around here, Zheng returns and draws her dagger, and Oluwande fights someone.

Green Shirt Era also comprises this:

I think it would happen sooner rather than later, to allow time for more overarching threats and introduce the fireworks, which I'm pretty sure are involved in a later, Banes-related explosion — check out the top right corner.

Also, it's Before Earring, and speaking of that, I know people thought Stede's screaming is post-battle, but I think it might be around here, because of the bullet wound or whatever is going on. Banes also talks to the "gentlemen" at least an episode before they do anything, probably at the end.

Episode 7: TBA

We enter Green Shirt With Earring Back-To-Black Back-To-Beard. Someone was like, "why are they avoiding showing Ed in the ad? what are they hiding?" The beard that he grows overnight! And that's what everyone's screaming about here, if you ask me 🤭

More likely, it's an intimidation tactic! 🙌 Which is why Ed equally quickly loses it in time for the larger-scale beach battle.

Stede talks to someone about being a failure, probably before the succeeding action. The soldiers raid? the bar, and Zheng, Stede and Ed prepare to fight. There's that protagonist-caused explosion, and I suppose that's when chaos ensues on the street. Right before it might also be when Ed says that something's wrong.

New threat introduced and assessed, all the mains gather to discuss the suicide mission: the beach battle. Right? Surely it's not at the bar. I don't know when Oluwande, Jim and Archie wear dumpling chains, but nobody was shown stealing them, so perhaps it's after they ally with Zheng against their common threat.

lizardywizardry points out in the replies to the ad that "it's only suicide" is clearly from a different conversation than "if we die," predicting that Stede gives Ed a last-night-on-Earth speech, and naranja-petrificada did raise the possibility of Gentlebeard having a bittersweet sex scene with that context in the finale.

On the first point, yes, and I'm not oblivious to the possibility that that's actually when Gentlebeard make up. Super late, but as naranja-petrificada suggests, penultimate episode para||el 🤷‍♀️ I won't commit to that prediction, though; I think they'll get there by the time they're planning all together.

Secondly, Gentlebeard's probable sex scene — Chekhov's orgasms — totally escaped my previous post, whoopsie daisies, but I'll say... end of episode 7. It suits for an ending, it almost para||els the timing of their first kiss, and it won't detract from the fuckery-heisty-ambitious-packed-twisty-cliffhanger finale. naranja-petrificada says that might mean a morning after scene, which I would also bet on, and they have some more interesting ideas from there!

Episode 8: TBA

Morning after scene, then suicide mission. During it is the other time I think Ed might say a storm is coming.

Frenchie, Lucius and Izzy infiltrate in army? attire. But as I wrote last time: Izzy is also the only character seen talking to the new antag, about piracy and in his regular outfit. No way he gets in cahoots with them, and he could be recognized during the fuckery if it were before, so I guess that's in the aftermath...? Much to think about.

Also Red Shirt Era manages to slip in after...? I am SO confused, I'm SAYING 😫

And that's it! I'll be back to reevaluate before the next drop! 😃

#predictions masterpost #our flag means death #ofmd #our flag means death season 2 #ofmd season 2 #our flag means death predictions #ofmd predictions #my post #tw murder mention #tw amputation mention #tw joint #tw smoking #tw substance use #tw violence mention #tw dagger #tw explosion #tw bullet mention #tw injury mention #tw suicide mention #tw sex mention

[berryunho]

adsfakerjg HELLO HELLO !!! mightychondria is back omg these past 2 weeks have been slaughtering me ALIVE and its not over yet like at the beginning i was like "hm what if i drop out" BUT NOW ITS NOT A JOKE ANYMORE

omg yes i need a masters degree too but you know i think ive had enough undergrad to last me a lifetime this is TOO much and its only oct???

wowow youre actually so talented i cant imagine learning/being able to speak all those languages. like. im already challenged in english and any other language is just a trainwreck

how did you do on your chem exam??? i bet you slayed it no doubt in my mind

u know i feel like as long as you can profit off of smth youve gotta charge like pls why am i paying for entry and extra on top of that to store my coat 😭

OMG I LOVE breaking bad. i watched it over the winter break when i was crocheting a sweater and it still hits such a good show. did you end up dyeing your hair? i might go to a party with my friend for halloween. maybe we'll twin?

i only have 1 day of classes this week bc thanksgiving was yesterday and thank god labs are CANCELLED like my sanity is going down the drain bc of them 😭

also this is so random but im seeing this guy and he is SO SWEET i thought chivalry was dead until i met him like ugh i feel so lucky esp bc my last relationship was so toxic its like dang i really got lucky meeting you huh 😭😭😭

BUT aside from that i hope youre having a good start to your week!

-mightychondria

OMG HIII

lol ive been wondering about you !! but KLJGFDLKFGJ i totally get it shit starts getting REAL this time of year and it is not funny ksljf;lasdjk

fr sometimes ill be sitting in lecture or doing homework or whatever and i remember i have to do this for 4.5 more years and i just. BRUH. and i chose this. LKJFDLKDJF:LK but also sometimes i get the realization that like im literally gonna be a scientist and this is my training and im like. oh shit. wait. LMAOJFKDJF

omg that first chem exam i got a B on which. honestly slayed. and ive had another one since then and i got an A on that one so slay pt 2. KLFJ:DLKSJF i consider anything above failing a win for me when it comes to ochem so that A had me Screaming LOL have you had any chem exams yet ??

breaking bad literally slaps so hard LKFJDLSDK i watched it for the first time in august and the last season....... like what was that ..... AKLDFLASKJ i tip my hats to the writers bc literally wtf has to be wrong w you to write that story. like i respect it heavily. but still. LMAOO im watching better call saul now and im on season 2 but ... idk its not as gripping to me lol but omg you can crochet ... ive wanted to learn for a long time but i dont wanna buy a bunch of yarn and then give up LOL

YAAAYY thanksgiving !! im glad you're getting a break !!! hehe and ... omg ... a romantic interest ... YAY! hehe i hope everything stays going good w him!! its literally so hard to find a good man aklakjfdl;k im happy for you :]] do keep me posted hehe

but ty!! my week went quite well !! i have a really bad cough (no covid though heh) and basically have no voice which was awkard af during my korean oral exam today LKFJS:LFDJKL: but i still got full points hehe AND idk if you like hockey but im obsessed lol and my team's season started yesterday and i went to the game !! which was super fun even though we lost lol i love my hockey boys sm ... LKFJDLSKJF

ANYWAYS i hope your week ended up well and you enjoyed your break!! :]] have a good weekend !!

#mightychondria anon #answered

[sharkfish]

love ‘em, can’t live without ‘em: early-career writers!

[masterpost of rec lists]

new content creators are the lifeblood of fandom, so here i present stories by folks who have five or less destiel fics published (...so far) as of december 2020!!! 

please give them some love!!! 

under the cut since it got long~ 

the burden of belonging by Newtondale @soft-klaus (8k)

Dean doesn't know where he's going, he just drives.

He meanders. Takes whatever road he wants without worrying about efficiency or speed. He watches the landscape change around him as he heads east, towards the sea. Sometimes he listens to music, and sometimes he doesn’t. Most of the time he just thinks, the way he has always thought best; with an open road ahead and horror close behind.

Cas always comes back to him. Cas has always come back. Whether it takes minutes, or weeks, or months - Cas comes back to him.

But Cas hasn’t come back. How much longer is supposed to wait? Minutes? Months? How long is he supposed to live like this, like there’s nothing else that matters except the space beside him where Cas should be?

So he just drives.

Dean Winchester’s 12-Step Guide to Inebriated Online Retail Therapy for Fallen Angels and Judgemental Brothers With Bad Hair (Suck It, Sammy) by justholdingstill @justholdingstill   (3k) 

Alternatively titled Dean Wayne: The Life & Legend

Dean gets drunk. Dean orders things online. Hilarity ensues.

Hang-Ups by anupalya @anupalya (2k)

A slip of the tongue while hanging up a zoom meeting with Castiel leaves Dean in a panic.

****

Jsksdjdjskal

I'm starting to think you're letting Blueberry walk over your keyboard again.

i'm moving to Thailand

?????

I have to

Dean

I have no choice

... so I take it the meeting went well?

dream root & fumbling through the darkness by visionsofyerface @omnishamblegreg (1.3k)

Dean takes dream root for some fun angsty wanderings into Cas’s head, and then actually goes to the Empty, but Cas doesn't believe it's really him.

How Long? by MinxyOne93 @substitutesalt93 (WIP - 37k)

Dean has been going on reckless hunts by himself. Cas confronts him and all those years of unresolved pining come to a boiling point.

_

"Dean. How long?" The angel said, still quiet but so raw with emotion, eyes still wide with shock.

Dean looked down at the floor and sighed. "Since... always. I knew it for sure in Purgatory. But always." He then added in a near whisper, tears threatening to spill from behind his now closed eyelids, "I'm sorry, Cas."

"Sorry? You're sorry?" Castiel felt dumbfounded. The constant loneliness and longing he had sensed from Dean that seemed to grow worse and worse with the passing of years made so much more sense now.

"Dean," was all Cas could say before releasing his grip on his collar and gently, slowly, deliberately, kissing the corner of his mouth. A shocked gasp left Dean’s mouth of its own accord and he melted into Castiel's tight embrace.

It's The Thought That Counts by oceaxe @oceaxe-ifdawn (3k)

It’s Dean’s birthday and while angels have no birthdays, Castiel has a) been around human cultures for long enough to be aware of the nearly universal customs of celebrating the anniversary of a loved one’s birth and b) has been living with humans for long enough that he’s been included in some of those celebrations. But the art of gift-giving continues to elude his comprehension.

Lucky Winner by natmoose @natmoose (32k)

Dean wins a trip to Paris. In and of itself, that’s an amazing thing, but the problem is: he isn’t in a relationship with Lisa anymore, and the trip requires a romantic partner. The obvious choice is Cas, his roommate and best friend of 3 years, but coming with that are some very very complicated feelings and things Dean absolutely doesn’t want to deal with.

But Dean isn’t selfish and also really wants to give his overworked best friend a well deserved holiday, so the only and best solution is to take Cas to Paris, romantic theme be damned. What Dean doesn’t know is that their whole trip will be documented by a photographer from the company - so to avoid their vacation being cut short, Dean and Cas will have to convincingly play a couple.

Once Upon a Falling Star by GrandestBlood @grumpy-mccat (WIP - 3k) 

Alternate outcome for season 5's Endverse where Castiel never lost his grace but he was tricked to retreat back to heaven with the other angels, leaving Dean behind in the refugee camp.

Prompt for this was: The world has ended 500 years ago. You finally went back to Earth and discovered a voice message. You learn a shocking secret about 500 years ago.

Sending A Message by ivebeenpossessedbysatan @ivebeenpossessedbysatan (WIP - 15k)

Castiel Novak didn't expect to be kidnapped. Sure, he'd seen it happen before, but that was all in movies. Just because his mother had married into money didn't mean that someone was actually going to kidnap him and try to ransom him for money.

Only apparently it did, because here he was, tied to a chair in the corner of the most cliché warehouse he'd ever seen.

Why was this is life?

so leave me // at the roadside by LinkInThePark @saminzat (3k)

”This was exactly what he had been trying to avoid. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone out on his own at all, but he was tired of sitting around in the bunker, where the walls seemed to close in on him and the halls were too empty at the same time. Where everything reminded him of what had happened, of the battles they had fought and the people they had lost.

Of the words left unsaid.”

Dean is taking the Impala on a ride, trying to escape everything that's happened... And, in the process, is finally forced to confront his grief. 15x19 coda.

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but Words Might Get Me Laid by Mrs King of Hell (Slytherkins) @slytherkins (3k)

When Dean's name calling goes too far, Castiel decides to teach him a lesson in manners.

"Take a Sad Song and Make it Better" by Shishquah_CustardTree @shishquahcustardtree (WIP - 27k) 

After being bought and abused by Alistair for many years, Dean Winchester finally gets another chance at life and love by the means of a car crash and a bullet.

The One (1) Time Dean Winchester Tried Something New by archangelgabe @3dg310rdsupreme (2k)

What fun is a relationship that doesn't start with the gross misunderstanding that your crush is hitting on your kid brother?

The one where they get heaven-married by mercurialkitty @mercurialkitty (1.3k)

First a quick chat with Sam in the Impala, then it's off to find Cas.

A finale fix-it where Dean and Cas get heaven-married

There'll Be Peace When You Are Done by diaryofageekgirl @diaryofageekgirl  (5k) 

Somehow, in the middle of severing vamp necks in the dead of night in a run-down barn in Ohio, Dean had a revelation.

Or: nothing stays dead on Supernatural.

This is heaven by madbrilliant84 @madbrilliant84 (800)

“Come on dude! Don’t tell me you don’t know what your legs look like! I bet you could crush melons with those.”

Cas seemed incredibly amused by this. “And that’s something that turns you on?”

Dean smiled while biting is bottom lip. He slowly nodded. His playful tone dropped to something more heated.

“Uh huh. First thing I noticed when I saw you sitting on that bar stool.”

You're Not Alone by Wordsintothevoid @deancas-stan (15k)

Dean has an imaginary friend. Sure, that's weird as hell but he doesn't care. Cas has been there to support him during every horrible thing in Dean's short miserable life and he is not giving up Cas. Sure, Dean may also sorta kinda be in love with him. Oops. And it hurts but Dean will keep it platonic. But then Cas leaves. And then Dean breaks.

We’ll All Arrive in Heaven Alive by invisibledrugs @reasonsweweresinging (1k)

The Winchesters are finally dying, and for good.

But that's okay, because Dean knows what - and who - is waiting for him.

last but definitely not least, @uncastiel doesn’t have any fics yet but is taking prompts! 

#sharklist #destiel #rec list

[itscomplicatedx]

Episode 5 Thoughts-

-Definitely an improvement over last week.

-Alligator Loki supremacy! Though I’m guessing we’re never going to get his backstory. No one questions the Alligator 🐊. Just let him run everything. He is an overly sensitive soul who likes wine and eating the hands of troublesome variants of himself. And he rolled his eyes! I almost fell over laughing.

-We haven’t seen “Glorious Loki” and/or “King Loki” yet. Unless they cut him from the show, I say he could be the one running the TVA. Loki and Sylvie triggered the nexus event that could destroy the TVA because they came to care for one another. If Glorious Loki is running things, it’s at least partially based on his hatred of other Lokis and wanting to keep them losing and unhappy. We see that unfortunately too often Lokis hate each other and try to betray each other (or eat each other’s hands).

-If GL is running things he needs to die. You can’t hold the whole universe hostage.

-Supposedly the end of time is still being written. GL or whoever is running it is probably trying out different timelines to find the perfect one. Or the shots of Loki as king could be from a timeline where he “wins” after the TVA is brought down.

-Gator Loki attacking people. 😆

-Classic Loki can communicate with Gator Loki. ❤️

-We got the Loki brawl! Well-a Loki brawl, though not with just Lokis. More Lokis, more brawling please!

-“This is a nightmare.” Our Loki is just so done with his variants. 😆

-The episodes are so short-even if they’re going to give us a season 2, I wish we’d get more of everything. This whole purgatory world with different versions of people and timelines is an intriguing idea that has a lot of potential; but we barely get to spend any time in it. Would’ve preferred 2 episodes like this instead of last week’s episode.

-Potentially zillions of versions of every character we’ve ever known!

-Mobius is a talented driver! Comes from a lifetime of driving Jetskis.

-Why was Sylvie arrested?!

-I loved all the bantering between the Lokis. “Why do you get to wear the horns!”

-Kid Loki gave Loki Lævateinn!

-Why did they have to get rid of Classic Loki so quickly?! He’s awesome!

-Finally, some magic!

-No I don’t think they’re ever actually going to do a Sylki kiss. I predicted from the beginning that they’re going to try to have their cake and eat it too. In other words, they’re going to flirt around with the concept of Sylki, talk about it in interviews, and show them being affectionate. But they will never quite get fully physical to try to moderate the backlash.

-Classic Loki’s costume sucks because he was alone on a planet and had to improvise.

-Why/how did Kid Loki kill Thor? Wish he’d killed Odin.

-”Every time we do better we get pruned”. Ugh.

-Poor Frog Thor! He should probably stay out of sight though or Gator Loki will eat him.

-Gator Loki ate the wrong neighbor’s cat 😁

-So how did old Loki manage to survive to old age-wouldn’t the TVA have gotten him as soon as he failed to be killed? Unless……Tom once said the show will answer two main questions- whether Loki is really dead, and where he went after Endgame. I am wondering if in the real prime timeline Loki is alive and just laying low. He had fulfilled his purpose and was supposed to die alone. The TVA didn’t get him until he started to want to find people again.

-I love how they poked fun at Loki’s death in Infinity War.

-Where are the other Loki variants? I get that it’s a big place because that’s where all the pruned timelines go, but still, it’s not like they can’t afford the special effects for Jotun Loki and Hulk Loki.

-I’m confused as to exactly what Boastful Loki was after? I mean it seems like there were only four of them living in that place. He really did all that for a chair that has an L on it to rule over three other Lokis? Because it seems like President Loki had never met any of the others besides Boastful Loki before. It’s very confusing.

-If Lokis are gender fluid why were they so surprised there was a female version of them?

-President Loki! Tom was having so much fun I bet you he enjoyed that

-So it seems like the Tom Hiddleston looking male presenting Loki is the default? Was Hammer Loki born black, or did he shape shift into that form and decide to stay like that? Seems like Loki can change his DNA at will.

-Glad to see Sylvie talk to Mobius about the shit the TVA did and him apologizing to her. Would’ve been nice to see him do that to Loki 1130 as well.

-Seems the TVA instilled an “End justifies the means” mentality in its workers. Excited to see them free themselves.

-Loki and Sylvie talking about how Mobius is a grey character just like them. Everyone in this series is a grey character. Except for Casey. He’s perfect.

-Free B-15!

-I want to know what happens to Casey.

-Burn it all down Mobius! Someone get the man a jetski. Loki was the spark.



#loki #Loki series #Loki series spoilers #loki show spoilers #tom hiddleston #mcu #Loki show #loki episode 5 #classic loki #richard e grant #kid loki #jack veal #gator loki #crocki #hammer Loki #deobia oparei #boastful loki #frog thor #sylvie laufeysdottir #lady loki #sophia di martino #loki laufeyson #loki odinson

[jamaiskookie]

bangtan headcanon: OT7 IN HIGH SCHOOL 📓✂️

☞ genre; fluff, crack

☞ warnings; excessively stupid

masterlist  u wanna talk to highschool!bangtan?

《KIM SEOKJIN》

class clown

always manages to sneak kimbap in class, and stuffs his face despite being in the front row. 

he’s alarmingly good at sneaking food into places. 

cafeteria ladies love jin so much. 

and every christmas he brings in his perfected sugar cookies and never shares them.

(he’s in the cooking club)

((he’s the only one in the cooking club))

will interrupt the teacher to make a bad joke. 

“yes so helium is the fo- oh yes seokjin?“

“i was reading an excellent book about helium, i couldn’t put it down!! ahHAHAHHYUKHYUKAHHAHAHHA“ 

nobody’s?? really sure?? if he’s dating namjoon or not?? it’s the schools biggest mystery, there’s currently a betting pool going on worth about $500

likes to annoy namjoon and yoongi about holding bake sales. 

is surprisingly good at planning parties?? but never hosts them?? hoseok always gets him to plan his parties and he even planned prom!!

he’s particularly proud with the theme he came up with. 

‘zombie meets elegance‘ 

it was actually pretty nicely pulled off (much to the shock of the entire student body) 

《MIN YOONGI》

student council president 

takes his job very!! seriously!! 

fights with the principal on funding daily. 

doesn’t come to school without coffee and resting bitch face.

even the teachers are afraid of this short little emo boy. 

is the only one who actually wears the school uniform properly with the little tie and jacket because that’s how you show school spirit. 

definitely that closeted gay in high school who thinks nobody knows about his homosexuality when in fact, everyone knows.

(nobody has the guts to bring it up to him though)

“hyung why are you staring at jimin’s as-“

 “-NO WHY GET BACK TO WORK” 

actually enjoys doing morning announcements. 

“make sure to check out jin’s dumb bake sale i think he’s selling brownies for some charitable reason anYWAYS time for min’s advice column!!“ 

min’s advice column is yoongi’s free therapy. namjoon suggested adding an advice column to the school paper so now yoongi just judges his classmates’s decisions gives subpar advice. 

“i personally think you have no chance with this girl, but you’re clearly hell bent on asking her out. it’s a dumb choice. good luck.“ 

《JUNG HOSEOK》

fuckboy

throws obnoxious parties at his parent’s huge ass mansion. 

somehow?? is?? the nicest? playboy??? evER??

will respect your girl’s boundaries but also would 300% hit on her when you’re not looking. 

aftercare king wILL cuddle with you and help you clean up or whatever until jimin eventually comes in screaming. 

his school id says “hobi 💦👅” ... noone knows how he managed to do it (taehyung thinks he seduced the secretary) 

surprisingly good at romance even though he deTests dating

“it’s a waste of time, money, and ass.“  “- what?”

gives everyone dating advice whether they want it or nOt- he lives his *shhh very secret* romantic fantasies through his best friends. 

once helped taehyung ask out his girlfriend... they’re still going strong!!

defo has daddy issues that he never talks about,, maybe if a girl finds it sexc™️ in that kind of messed-up-bad-boy-she-could-fix vibe he’ll bring it up

kinda failing science lmao he probably needs a tutor.. but will never admit he needs a tutor for sake of his pride. 

most definitely has had sex in the janitor’s closet a couple times, up until yoongi caught him once, reported him to the school board and got him suspended... for a month. 

(yoongi has no regrets, that was the best month of his life.)

《KIM NAMJOON》

student vice president

honestly would probably be the council president and is the most qualified for it but can’t be bothered.

plus he hates public speaking and the president has to speak at assemblies.  

genuinely enjoys learning!! bUT HATES GROUP PROJECTS

because every single fucking time taehyung and jimin pester him about teaming up and he ends up doing like 75% of the work.

not because anyone forces him to or anything.

it’s because jimin and tae are such dumbasses every time they finish their work namjoon has a sudden uRGE TO REDO ALL OF IT BC THEY GOT IT WRONG.

tries to take all AP subjects.

gives up and drops half of them by the second semester.

great student but also will “no yoongi i don’t want to fucking play basketball i've been awake for thirty hours trying to finish this goddamn essay that’s due tomorrow. wHAT DO YOU MEAN WHY DIDN’T I DO IT EARLIER I WAS BUSY TAKING CARE OF MY BONSAI TREES.“

started the school paper!! it’s called “persona post”

writes about actual relevant things like political events and global problems, but everyone else just writes about school gossip *sigh*

although that one column examining hobi’s sex and dating life was a pretty fun piece of writing to read through. 

he sits in the back of the classroom and never raises his hand even though he knows the answer like 95% of the time.

definitely has a crush on seokjin

《PARK JIMIN》

the one everyone has a crush on

and when i say everyone i mean everyone, even hoseok has had a crisis over park jimin. 

(jungkook is definitely president of his fan club) ((in case it wasn’t clear, he’s dating jungkook))

school’s golden boy, basically gets away with everything with a bat of an eye... and the most infuriating thing is he doesn’t even realise it. 

“omg jimin!! you’re so cute!! this shirt looks sO good on you, can i touCH?” “omg thank you i didn’t think it fit well because it’s my boyfriends but that’s so sweet!!” “boy... hm?”

mom friend: sweetest bitch alive and is always worrying about his friends but everyone knows he’s secretly really fucking kinky.

(again, jungkook has no comment)

the kind of person who celebrates christmas in june. 

literally- he starts putting decorations in his locker and around the school mid june. by november, he’s wearing reindeer ears to school.

*lowkey kind of a nerd* genuinely enjoys studying with namjoon.

“well, studying with anybody else is just too stressful!! plus, namjoon’s so chill. he doesn’t look like it but he actually is super sweet and nice!!!“

“... please take those reindeer ears off, it’s embarrassing.“ 

half of the school would probably cut off an arm to sleep with him. seriously, he gets offers like everYDAY it’s kinda getting tiRING

is considering starting a youtube channel where he just takes videos of all the dogs and babies he meets throughout the day. 

“idk i think vlogging would be fun“

《KIM TAEHYUNG》

art hoe

nEVER FUCKING STUDIES OR PAYS ATTENTION BUT GETS DECENT GRADES.

the definition of bisexual mess, WILL trip when he sees hot people.

exclusively wears wired gold glasses and soft neutral sweaters to school. if it’s a good day he’ll wear a beanie. on special occasions he’ll maybe throw in some fUN loafers.

dyes his hair to match ~the vibes~ of that season. the most recent wild hair colour is cool toned teal. 

jungkook said he looks like leprechaun shit, but tae really likes it. 

tried to go vegan countless times, failed each and every one when he passed by a mc donalds. 

carries his sketchbook wherever he goes. he has that thing around 24/7, 100% would not be surprised if he slept with it under his pillow.

really quiet until he has a point to make;; like that time where he launched into a three hour screaming lecture on how phineas and ferb is an animated masterpiece.

drinks tea purely for the aesthetic of it. 

goes to hipster coffee shops to pretend to study... ends up watching barbie movies and critiquing them on the writing blog that he thinks nobody knows about. 

watches anime in class (he recently rewatched all of ATLA for the third time,, failed his econ class but worth it!!1!!1)

《JEON JUNGKOOK》

preppy jock

once again, everyone is attracted to him, but he’s so whipped for jimin everyone’s crush fades away once they talk to him because-

“oh it’s so cool that you have a dog!! you know, i think jimin kind of looks like a pomeranian sometimes it’s sO CUTE- hm? oh jimin’s my boyfriend.“

... it’s disgustingly adorable. 

plays almost every sport and is somehow always the team captain. not out of obligation or with leadership skills or anything, everyone else just votes for him. 

mess with his friends and he’ll put a stink bomb in your locker. 

his nickname is “golden baby” because he’s good at everything, teachers love him so much. 

grades? sTELLAR. sports? he’s done them ALL. creativity? pAINTED THE SCHOOL MURAL. service? volunteers at a pet shelter whenever he can (the bunnies love him for some reason) 

everyone either is 

a) in love w him, wants to fuck

b) jealous of him but is also secretly gay for him

pretends to not know how talented and cool he is and plays it off super cool

proceeds to fail, the only thing he’s bad at is humble bragging. 

“wow omg lol i got a 100 on my bio test and yesterday i got a hole in one in golf, my first time playing it but it’s chill i guess hahhah day in my life amirite.“

**this headcanon is the start of the bangtan school series, stay tuned**

wanna be tagged in school series or my writing? here or send me an ask

#bts #kim namjoon #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok #park jimin #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook #bts au #bts x reader #bts fluff #bts crack #school! bts #bts headcanon #bts boyfriend #bts imagine #bts scenario #bts smut #bts x you #bts angst #bts drabble #v #rm #jhope #jin #bts reaction

[annakie]

Patchy

A little under two years ago I made this post, a chronicle of Patchy, the outside feral, turned inside kitty who took ten years to learn to love being petted.

Today we got some bad news.

TW for pet illness under the cut.

Patchy’s always been a bit of a puker, usually oh, say, once a month or so she’d have a good puke for no reason.  I’ve had other cats that are pukers so it’s not that surprising.

In the late winter/early spring I started to notice more frequent pukes.

I’d decided around that time that I needed to find healthier food for my cats, with Leela, the oldest turning 16, Fry turning 11, Pemily turning 7 and Patchy turning, I don’t know, 12 or 13.  No way to really know.  They already got decent food, but I did my research and had started looking at Blue Buffalo, American Journey and Dave’s canned food. 

Patchy had been on a mostly canned food diet since she went to the vet back in early 2020 and had a bunch of teeth pulled.  Also, as a note, Patchy’s brief flirtation with hanging out in the rest of the house ended after like a month.  She and Fry fought too much, and eventually he claimed the rest of the house is his.  He also still thinks the master bedroom should be his, but, Patchy defends that territory well if anyone else encroaches. (The door just stays closed most of the time.)  I really wish they could have all gotten along, I loved having Patchy out, but both Fry and Patchy agreed it wasn’t going to work.

The food she’d been on was pretty junk-food-ish though, which she did love and eat. But I wanted everyone on more or less the same diet and the highest quality food I could readily get them.  So I bought a lot of cans of different kinds of food, and kept a list of which ones seemed to be hits and misses. (I still have a dozen cans of the kind nobody liked -- Blue Buffalo Wilderness Salmon -- I’ve been meaning to take to the city shelter).

Around halfway into this experiment I noticed Patchy puking more, so I decided to try to stick with her favorite kinds, which, I thought was helping.

But once I was fully vaccinated this year, it was time to get all the pets to the vet.  I noticed Patchy had still lost some weight, I thought it was due to switching around her food too much earlier, and tried to stick with the things I felt she really liked.

Then, of course, Leela got sick, spent two and a half days in the pet ER and almost died back in April, and then it was like... yeah we’re done being afraid of COVID, we’re done waiting.  It’s time to get them all their checkups.

My regular vet was doing COVID restrictions so no pet owners inside the clinic back then, so they took Patchy (and the others) in without me.  I thought Patchy had lost some weight, but Dr. B. sounded alarmed when he called me with how much lost she’d lost in the last year, about five pounds.  He wanted to do some bloodwork for Patchy, and I said of course go for it.  

He called back, sounding much calmer and was like “her bloodwork couldn’t be more perfect.  Let’s try switching up her food, get her on some sensitive stomach food and let’s see how she’s doing in a couple weeks.”

So two weeks later it did seem like she was doing better, I called Dr. B back and he said to bring her back in a month.

It was my plan to take her back next week when I had some PTO coming.  I admit, later than planned... my last couple of months have been mucn more focused on Leela... who, thankfully, continues to thrive.  But feeling like my time with her is running out, she’s been my main area of concern.

The last few days though, Patchy has really not been eating well.  Sometimes she does OK, sometimes nothing at all.  And then puking every day.  I swapped her back even to a few cans of the Junk Food (Whiskas) I still had laying around.  She’d eat it... and then puke it up.  And also she... stopped sleeping with me.  I thought... well, it’s summer.  It’s probably too hot to cuddle.  But she stopped laying on the bed.  She stopped coming up for pets when I come to bed and hang out for awhile specifically to spend time with her and pet her.  She runs under the bed again when I come into the room.  It’s like we regressed to three or four years ago... just two weeks after our two year anniversary of getting to pet her.

So this afternoon we went to the vet.  Getting her into the carrier sucked.  I tried nice methods, then I had to scare her into the closet by running the vacuum, and then pretty roughly grab her.  I have scratches and a pretty deep bite on my thumb which either maybe hit a nerve or is infected, may have to go to the doctor for it tomorrow. (Yes, washed it thoroughly with soap as soon as I could.)  I also hated betraying her trust that badly, but it’s for her own good.  But it was rough.

Dr B. wasn’t working so I saw one of the other vets.  I liked him. Also COVID restrictions are gone so I got to go inside. But after talking to him for a few minutes, going over her history and what changes I’ve made, he spent a long time rubbing her intestines (Patchy was perfectly behaved, at least.)   Then he looked concerned.  Then he said let’s do an ultrasound.

A few minutes he came back in and showed me her scans. 

Lymphoma.

I was a bit stunned for a second so I missed a bit of the technical speak he said next, but it came down to the best thing we could do is give her some medicine that may buy her more time.  It doesn’t sound like Chemo or Operating is even really an option.  I’m going to call back tomorrow and see if Dr. B or the vet I talked to can talk me through it a little better now that I’ve had a chance to digest.

If I can get Patchy to take the medicine, and if she responds well to it... she may have 3 - 6 months left.

If she won’t take it, or if she doesn’t respond, it’s at this point, a matter of her comfort and quality of life.  So... weeks.  And I’m worried about getting her to take the medicine, especially since she won’t even come let me pet her and we just had a huge trust betrayal today. I don’t know if I could take her spending her last few weeks hating me, especially if the medicine doesn’t work.

The vet also told me that... I didn’t do anything wrong.  And we did the right thing six or so weeks ago by changing her food and seeing if a few other things worked. Especially with how good her blookwork looked.  He barely felt the cancer today, he said six weeks ago Dr. B wouldn’t have been able to feel it at all.  And for this particular type of lymphoma... there’s not a lot to be done, anyway.  That made me feel better, at least.

(As a really dumb side note, after I got her home, I sat down to eat dinner and watch an episode of Star Trek to take my mind off of all of this since I’d been crying since I found out, paid my bill, and drove home, stopping at a drive through so I didn’t have the mental load of cooking.  And I’m in the middle of my rewatch of Enterprise.  I bet any trekkies reading this can guess what episode was next in my rewatch because yep I’m in season two and A NIGHT IN SICKBAY started playing, of course, so obviously I NOPED THE FUCK OUT OF THAT EPISODE.  For the non-Trekkies.... the Captain has a dog on board, an adorable beagle, Porthos.  The dog gets sick and almost dies and spends his night in Sickbay.  He does pull through.  But the ONE episode centered around a beloved pet getting sick and almost dying... and that’s the episode that fate decreed I was supposed to watch tonight. I did not.  I don’t know if I can watch it anytime soon.)

So now for the next few weeks I will spend my time being grateful that Leela is alive and thriving and pray she keeps doing so -- I will continue to give her extra love and care and attention, and also I will need to do the same for Patchy.  I can’t even do it at the same time because Patchy will not come out here, and will not allow Leela in her room. 

I am low-key freaking out that there’s the possibility of the nightmare scenario happening to me again.  In winter 2016, after months of being sick, I woke up on Christmas morning and my 16-year-old cat Jim had died overnight.  It was terrible, and traumatic, and I had to deal with everything all alone because anyone who could support me was... well, it was Christmas morning and my family was all out of town, too.  Posting about it on Tumblr... actually really helped me, since it’s the only place I felt like I could talk about it.

That Christmas was on a Sunday.

Wednesday morning I woke up to hearing my dog, Cebu, moaning in pain.   I rushed him to the vet, but whatever happened overnight, it was too late, maybe there wasn’t anything we ever could have done even if I’d been awake when the puking started.  The vet said the kindest thing we could do was put him to sleep.  And we did.

Also I just, JUST now realized that the vet who helped put Cebu to sleep was the same vet who I saw today about Patchy.

But I lost two of my pets within 3 days of each other.  I was very lucky that my job let us have the week between Christmas and New Years off that year.  I had a few days to pull myself together, and I needed it.  It took months to recover totally, though.  Every once in awhile I think about that week and I still cry, though.  I miss them both so much and they both had deaths that were less than ideal.

I remember thinking then “I have like, five years of reprive.  Leela will be sixteen in five years, and that’s when I have to start to worry again, when I have to be ready to say goodbye again.”

I thought then that even after that I’d have two or three years until Patchy would leave me, and two or three years past that until Fry.  And then five more years with Pemily.

Right now I’m realizing that I will likely lose Patchy, very best case in six months, but possibly before July is over.

I need Leela to keep thriving.  I don’t know how I would handle losing another two so close together again.

Patchy is... she’s the one who chose me.  I chose my other cats.  Fry and Pemily I plucked from the backyard when they were tiny kittens and brought them inside.  They didn’t have a choice.  Leela I adopted from a rescue, she didn’t have a choice.  Patchy chose to stay.  She chose to stick around when she realized I’d feed her.  It took years but she learned to trust, she chose to come inside when it was cold, when it was hot, when it was storming, and when she was pregnant.  She chose me to help raise the last litter of kittens she’d ever had.  (My entire Rescue Kitties tag is full of adventures in finding, raising and usually adopting out strays. Lots and lots of posts about Patchy and her final litter.  Been awhile since I’ve done it, though.)

I used to joke that Patchy was my roommate, not a pet.  She ate, drank, did her business, and kept to herself for a long time.  Don’t get me wrong, she was a very good, quiet, considerate roommate and I loved her.  But it wasn’t until that wonderful day she let me pet her that I felt like she was my pet. 

I loved having her just hanging out living in the house since 2014, but the last two years especially have brought me such joy.  I’ve tried to never take Patchy’s trust in me for granted.  It was EARNED.  Every small step forward was a milestone to be celebrated. I worked for every bit of trust and love Patchy has given me, and have been rewarded.  And it was worth it.  Every minute.  Every long, patient year.

Even now I’m telling myself... without me, she would have died years ago.  Probably violently, or starved, maybe frozen to death.  Getting to die of cancer brought on by older age is not something that most feral cats ever get to do.  Getting to become an inside kitty where she’s loved, and comfortable for the second half of her life was something remarkable, brought on by her wiles and will to survive for so many years, bolstered by the food I left out for her.  She’s had this much time, this much life, this much comfort and love that she would have never had otherwise, and that’s something to be happy about.

I’ve watched dozens of ferals come and go through my neighborhood throughout the years.  I feed them, I work on seeing if I can get them to trust me enough to let me TNR them, but even those that I have, I don’t keep seeing for much longer.  There’s one right now, I jokingly call him Patchy’s Boyfriend.  He still won’t trust me and never has fallen for the trap when I’ve tried.  But he’s there most nights when I feed him around 11.  He’s getting terribly thin despite the quality food I leave out.  I’ll miss him.

But none of them were Patchy.  None of them became what she is to me. None of them survived long enough to adapt and decide to live another life.

Also?  I wouldn’t have Pemily without her.  Pemily is literally Patchy’s Granddaughter and that is one more thing I love Patchy for.

I feel guilty sometimes, both because I don’t spend nearly enough waking hours with her I feel, but I have three others who need me, as well. One who’s time is growing short, as well.  And they don’t get to sleep with me, she does.  What a joy it was all winter when I would wake up and she’d be sleeping on my chest.  I’d get a bit annoyed when she’d sleep with her backside to my face and her tail would tickle my face and wake me up.  I’m a side-sleeper half the night and she hated that it was harder to get comfortable on me that way.  She still doesn’t want to have my hand just stay on her, she wants pets and skirtches, no long-form touching.  That’s ok.  I sleep better with her weight on me.

I don’t know what the next few weeks or months will hold, but at least pet-wise, it’s going to be rough.  I’m going to wrap this up and give these three out here a good pet, then go hope Patchy comes and asks for love, too.  Tomorrow is one more day with all four of them, and for that, I’ll be grateful, for every remaining day.

#personal post tag thingy #my pets #pet illness tw #pet death tw

[moonlightreal]

Fate looks toward season 2

Where you reach the bad ending, where do you go from there?

In season 1 we got the bad ending.  The school had been taken over by Rosalind, Queen Luna, and Andreas, who are all extremely sus people!

Queen Luna believes in being in control, and you only get control by having power.  This is most obvious in the way she tries to crush her daughter’s spirit, thinking she can force Stella to be perfect. She’s also a believer in the Sith philosophy of using hate and anger to fuel magic.  Oh, and she covered up what happened at Aster Dell, which is super sketch.  We’re not totally sure what did happen, but if it was “heroes destroy town of blood witches and Burned ones!’ she probably wouldn’t have needed to cover it up.

Andreas is… he’s an odd one! Is anybody else getting crazy-eyes vibes from him?  His eyes are not actually crazy but there’s somethin’ off about the dude.  Badass Marco mentioned him as having “bloodlust” and said it was maybe good that Sky didn’t take after his dad. Andreas respects Rosalind to the point of drawing sword on his friend to follow Rosalind’s orders.  We hear from Silva that Rosalind had given Andreas a sense of purpose and he felt indebted to her.  For what, I wonder.  

He also seems to have hidden out of the public view for sixteen years on Rosalind’s command!  I wonder where he was hiding!  Was it just him and Beatrix in a cottage somewhere?  Also, why did Andreas neglect his son but agree to raise Beatrix?  Maybe he thought she was the chosen one, that’d be a good enough reason but B honestly seems to care for her foster father.

Also, and this is something I don’t think the show meant to imply… sometimes kids who are abused grow up to be overly sexual, since they learn the wrong kind of love from adults when they’re young.  That suggests a whole ‘nother level of grimdark and I do not think the writers meant to go there.  I think they just went “raised by Andreas” and “evil = slutty stereotype” and never put the two thoughts together to see the icky implications.  I sure as blazes hope not!  There’s dark and then there’s just ew.

And then there’s Rosalind.  What do we even know about her?  She was headmistress before Dowling, and mentor-slash-commanding-officer to the adults.  And she knows more about magic than the teachers at the school.  A lot more.  She knows about the nature of the Burned Ones and the Dragon Flame, and she taught Bloom how to transform in like an hour when no fairy has done that in ages!  Maybe it’s easier for Bloom, but still, Rosalind has loads and loads of lost knowledge. Where did she learn all this?

At any rate Rosalind is responsible for nuking Aster Dell, though how and why that went down is unclear.  She nuked a place.  And she manipulated her friends into helping without giving them the full story either.  They were so upset they locked her up in stasis for sixteen years until Bloom let her out.  Dowling calls Rosalind a manipulator several times, and from what we see in the show that’s spot on.  

Rosalind is also happy to murderize Dowling to take over the school so they can turn everyone to Sith philosophy.

With these three at the helm Alfea will become a scary place.  The baddie adults will be teaching magic fueled by anger and hate.  Also, we’ve just had the first fairy transformation in ages.  Will the rest of the students be pressured to transform also?

I worry the most about Stella in this situation, her heart’s already fragile after being battered by her mother for years.  Stella could just collapse, especially is her mom stays around at the school.  Or she could go full Stockholm and embrace the Sith ways.  After all, she just tried letting friendship in and THIS happened.

And I worry about Terra, the bravest of the girls and least likely to sit down and shut up for the sake of survival.  How much trouble will she get into surrounded by adults acting in bad faith?

Bloom will be Rosalind’s special student, probably under her mentor’s eye the whole time.  Wonder how long it’ll take Bloom to have the awful realization that Rosalind is not her friend.

And Musa and Aisha should get a chance to shine as spies.  Musa by reading minds to tell which students have accepted the Sith teachings and which have not, and Aisha I hope at least kept the magic thingy that eavesdrops on Dowling’s office.  Be nice if Aisha stayed the secretary, but I bet Rosalind puts Bloom in that place.

Beatrix will be official queen bee with her two-dude harem of Riven and Dane. But the three of them could turn out to be a problem, because they’ve all had moments of not-evil.  Riven is friends with Sky; what happens when the baddies threaten Sky?  Or when Dane gets squeamish?  Beatrix is a straight-up true believer in Rosalind and Andreas, but they’ve built that belief by making her desperate to find the truth.  What happens when the truth doesn’t match what her idols tell her?  Beatrix is everything she is, but she’s got a brain and there are moments when she seems to have a heart for her two fellas.  

Our nice adults are in trouble.  Ben Harvey is a good dude, but if he tries anything Rosalind can always threaten Sam and Terra, so he’s well and truly pinned.  

Silva has been hauled off to a dungeon somewhere!  I can guess that Sky and Bloom will launch a rescue mission as soon as Sky works out that his biological father is not a good dude and Silva really was on his side the whole time.

And poor Farah Dowling is dead and buried!  Of course that doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t see her again.  We don’t know the limits of Dowling’s powers, only that she is very badass indeed, so it seems totally possible that she could heal herself under the ground.  Or she could still be alive now, having sent a magical decoy to talk to Rosalind.  Dowling’s smart enough not to sit and chat with a magical baddie without taking precautions.  But I think it’ll be a tree, just because Faragonda got turned into a tree once.  A tree will grow on Dowling’s grave and she’ll step out of it alive.

Oh, and there are a “shit ton” more Burned Ones out there, and they’re ‘nothing compared to what’s coming”.  According to Rosalind who knows a lot but lies a lot.  

So our heros and heroines need to keep themselves from going to the dark side, protect Stella from her mum, rescue Silva, defeat the worse-than-Burned-Ones and rally their fellow students to kick the baddies out of their school!  They have a lot on their plates!

And there will be new characters, at least one.  There is no way that Netflix won’t bring a very latina Flora in after the backlash.  But is there really a place for her in the story?  Terra has a very different personality from Flora, so if they lean on Flora’s “gentle earth mother” side it could be ok.  But really the cast doesn’t need another earth fairy.  Or, might they kill off Terra?  Have her die awesome protecting her father? 

A black Tecna would be way more interesting, but I do not think that would appease the fandom since it’s such an obvious pander to the whitewashing accusations.  Also, there’s not much emphasis on technology in Fate so there’s really not much place for her either.

I’d rather like to see Ricki come back.  Stella’s bestie who Stel accidentally blinded.  Is she still blind?  Does she know it was an accident?  Does she hate Stella now, or did her horrified family forbid her to stay in touch?  Has Luna turned her against Stella, just in case the evil queen needs one more way to squeeze trauma-fueled magic out of her daughter?  What’s it like being a blind fairy?  We don’t know what element Ricki was, so maybe she could do the “see through the ground” thing like Toph, or as a mind fairy see through the eyes of the people around her.  Ricki would be interesting!  But I bet we never hear of her again.

Possibly I should write… no. Get thee behind me, plotbunnies!

But what do you think?  What do you think the baddie adults will do to the school?  How do you think the students will react?  Do you think Dowling is alive?  Who will Netflix add to the cast to try and calm the angry fandom, and who do you wish they would?  Are you glad we’re getting a season 2 or would you rather just let this part of Winx Club’s history vanish in the rearview mirror?

#fate the winx saga

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek The Next Generation Season 1 (3 of 6)

As we draw close to crossing the first month of 2021 off the calendar to make room for February, which in my view is only of use for Pancake Day and nothing more, I’m back with yet more reviews from the first season of Star Trek: TNG.  Will these episodes prove any better than those of the first two rounds, or are we looking at more lemons with warp engines?  Let’s find out…

Episode 10: Hide and Q

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is en route to Quadra Sigma to aid colonists caught in a methane explosion when Q re-appears and demands that they abandon their mission to compete in a game. He teleports Commander Riker and the bridge crew, with the exception of Captain Picard, to a barren landscape and appears in front of them wearing a uniform of a Napoleonic era French marshal. He explains the rule of the game is to stay alive, and after Lt. Yar refuses to compete, he transports her back to the bridge of the Enterprise in a "penalty box".

 Q returns to the bridge too, to talk Picard into setting a wager. He explains that the Q Continuum is testing Commander Riker to see if he is worthy of being granted their powers. Picard, having the utmost faith in his First Officer, takes the bet, as winning it would mean Q would get off their backs. Meanwhile, Riker and his team are attacked by what Lt. Worf reports as "vicious animal things" wearing French soldier uniforms from the Napoleonic era and armed with muskets that fire energy bolts instead of the classic projectiles. Q returns to Riker and tells him that he has granted him the powers of the Continuum, and Riker promptly returns his crew mates to the ship but remains behind with Q to ultimately reject the powers. Q brings the crew back to the landscape, this time without their phasers and with Picard. The crew are attacked once more by the aliens, and both Worf and Wesley Crusher are killed. Riker uses the powers of the Q to return the crew again and bring both Worf and Wesley back to life.

 Riker makes a promise to Picard never to use the powers again and the ship arrives at Quadra Sigma. A rescue team beams down and discovers a young girl who has died. Riker is tempted to save her, but in the end, he refuses to do so out of respect for his promise. However, he quickly shows signs of regret at this decision, which he expresses to the captain. Tension between Picard and his first officer grows as Riker now seems to be embracing his powers, and his behaviour toward the crew begins to change. At Q's suggestion, and with Picard's blessing, Riker uses his powers to give his friends what he believes they want, turning Wesley into an adult, giving La Forge normal sight in place of his visor, and creating a Klingon female companion for Worf. All the recipients reject their gifts, however, with Data even anticipating and declining Riker's attempt to make him human. Picard declares that Q has failed, and when Q attempts to go back on his word, he is forcibly recalled to the Continuum. Picard is pleased to see Q gone, and praises Riker for confirming his trust in his "Number One". 

Review:

There are two main reasons to enjoy this episode; Q and Picard.  This is the first time since the pilot that we’ve seen Q and Picard interact, and it’s much better this time because both the actors are a bit more at grips with their characters.  The scene in the Captain’s ready room between the pair where they both quote Shakespeare is one of the real highlights of the first season, a veritable miniature diamond in a season-long run of rough.  In some respects, it’s almost a pity Picard-Q meet-ups aren’t more frequent, but ultimately, I think that they have to be done as little as possible to retain some impact in the later seasons.

 Unfortunately, the episode lacks sufficient subtlety in trying to convey a story about power corrupting.  The key reason why the Dark Phoenix story in the X-Men comics is a classic that no adaptation has ever effectively captured is because it involves Jean Grey being corrupted by power slowly, inch by inch, until circumstances push her over the edge.  When the Primarch Horus is turned to Chaos in the Horus Heresy novels that form part of Warhammer 40,000 lore, it’s not an overnight transformation from the noble being he was to the power-mad tyrant laying waste to Terra years later.  It’s a slow, gradual seduction by power, and a single episode of any TV show doesn’t give that.

 As a result, the idea of Riker’s shift in character and attitude seems too rapid and falls flat.  The only thing that doesn’t fall flat is how the rest of the cast reacts when Riker tries to act with benevolence.  It’s a testament to each of them how they resist being granted their supposedly fondest wishes.  I especially applaud Geordi and the autistic-like Data for their choices.  I never like stories that try to push the idea that characters who are somehow differently abled, either blatantly or through the metaphor of a genre-specific concept, should always want to eliminate that difference.  Maybe Geordi can’t see like everyone else, but considering all the different things he can see with his visor, it’s not like the vision he has is any better or worse. It’s just a pity his reason for saying no was more about not liking a Q-style Riker than about accepting himself and all the goodness inherent in that. 

Add in Troi not being around at a time when her character could be very annoying without much effort, and you’ve got an episode that has many saving graces propping up a poor execution of a decent core concept.  End score for this one, probably 7 out of 10.

 Episode 11: Haven

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise arrives at the planet Haven, where the ship's half-Betazoid Counsellor Deanna Troi has been summoned by her mother Lwaxana. Deanna had previously been set into an arranged marriage to the young human doctor, Wyatt Miller, and his parents have since tracked down Lwaxana to enforce the marriage. After Lwaxana and the Millers are welcomed aboard the Enterprise, the parents argue over whose cultural traditions will be honoured at the ceremony. Deanna and Wyatt attempt to get to know each other but find it difficult, as Deanna is still in love with Commander William Riker. Wyatt has had numerous dreams of another woman with whom he has fallen in love, and had initially believed her to be Deanna communicating telepathically with him.

 The Enterprise then learns of an unmarked vessel approaching Haven. Captain Picard recognizes it as Tarellian, a race they thought to have been wiped out by a highly lethal and contagious virus. When they contact the ship, they find a handful of Tarellian refugees who have been travelling at sub-light speeds to Haven in hopes of finding an isolated location to live out the rest of their lives in peace. Picard insists that they cannot go to the planet for fear of spreading the virus, and has the Tarellian vessel placed in a tractor beam. Wyatt discovers that one of the Tarellians, Ariana, is the woman from his dreams, and she too recognizes Wyatt. Wyatt tells Dr Crusher that he will transport some medical supplies to them, but transports himself along with the supplies. When the crew discovers this, Wyatt's parents demand that Picard bring Wyatt back to the Enterprise, but Denna insists that he cannot return, as Wyatt would now carry the Tarellian virus. Wyatt promises his parents, Deanna, and the rest of the crew that he knew that this would be his destiny, and is happy to try to help cure the Tarellian virus. Wyatt convinces the Tarellians to leave Haven and search for help elsewhere. Picard orders the tractor beam to be dropped and allows the vessel to depart the system. 

Review:

When it comes to Majel Barrett in the era of the TNG-DS9-Voyager shows, her best work as a guest star is her voice work as the voice of any given Starfleet computer.  Her worst work is when she’s guest-starring as Deanna Troi’s mother. Her whole character is the very definition of nails on a chalk board, and it’s very rare if ever that an episode featuring her can be anything good.  That said, her presence does help to improve Deanna’s character just because it means Deanna’s suddenly no longer the most likely to irk you with her characterisation.  Basically, anytime Deanna’s on the screen at this early stage in the show, all I can think is “please don’t have her go all over-sensitive like she did in the pilot.”

 Leaving the Troi family aside, the episode isn’t much to get excited about.  Just a run-of-the-mill b-plot about a plague ship that interconnects with the main plot nicely to save us from the Trek equivalent of a shotgun wedding. Frankly, I’d have preferred it if they’d done a plot exploring the arranged marriage idea and casting it down as the terrible idea it is, but then I suppose it wouldn’t be politic to do that with a culture that is part-and-parcel of the Federation instead of being the guest-race-of-the-week.  I’d give this one about 3 out of 10.

 Episode 12: The Big Goodbye

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise heads to Torona IV to open negotiations with the Jarada, an insect-like race that are unusually strict in matters of protocol. After practicing the complex greeting the Jarada require to open negotiations, Captain Jean-Luc Picard decides to relax with a Dixon Hill story in the holodeck. Playing Detective Hill in the holo-program, Picard takes up the case of Jessica Bradley, who believes that Cyrus Redblock is trying to kill her. Picard decides to continue the program later and leaves the holodeck to affirm their estimated arrival at Torona IV. He invites Dr Beverly Crusher and historian crewmember Whalen to join him in the holodeck. While Crusher is still preparing, Picard and Whalen are ready to enter the holodeck when Lt. Commander Data arrives, having overheard Picard's invitation. Entering the holodeck, the three discover that Jessica has been murdered in Picard's absence. As Picard explains that he saw Jessica at his office the day before, Lt. Bell brings Picard into the police station for questioning as a suspect in her murder. Meanwhile, the Enterprise is scanned from a distance by the Jarada, causing a power surge in the holodeck external controls. Dr Crusher later enters the holodeck, first experiencing a momentary glitch with the holodeck doors, and joins her friends at the police station.

 The Jarada demand their greeting earlier than the agreed time and are insulted at having to talk to anyone other than the Captain. The crew tries to communicate with Picard in the holodeck but finds it impossible; the Jarada signal has affected the holodeck's functions, preventing the doors from opening or allowing communication with the crew inside. Lt. Geordi La Forge and Wesley Crusher attempt to repair the holodeck systems. While inside the holodeck, the group returns to Dixon's office. Mr. Leech appears, having waited for Picard, demanding he turn over an object he believes Jessica gave him. When Picard fails to understand, Leech shoots Dr. Whalen with a gun, and the crew discovers that the safety protocols have been disabled, as Whalen is severely wounded. As Dr Crusher cares for his wound, Picard and Data discover that the holodeck is malfunctioning, and they are unable to exit the program. Mr. Leech is joined by Redblock, who continues to demand the object. Lt. McNary arrives and becomes involved in the standoff. Picard tries to explain the nature of the holodeck, but Redblock refuses to believe him. 

Outside, Wesley finds the glitch; however, he cannot simply turn off the system for fear of losing everyone inside. Instead, Wesley resets the simulation, briefly placing Picard and the others in the middle of a snowstorm before finding themselves back in Dixon's office. With the reset successfully clearing the malfunction, the exit doors finally appear. Despite Picard's warnings, Redblock and Leech exit the holodeck, but dissipate as they move beyond the range of its holo-emitters. As they leave the holodeck, Picard thanks McNary, who now suspects that his world is artificial and asks whether Picard's departure is "the big goodbye", to which Picard replies that he simply doesn't know. Picard reaches the bridge in time to give the proper greeting to the Jarada. The Jarada accept the greeting, heralding the start of successful negotiations.

 Review:

The Big Goodbye has a special place in the era of holodeck era of Trek as the first example of a “holodeck-gone-wrong” episode.  Later episodes of this series and the spin-off shows Deep Space Nine and Voyager would return to the premise of holodeck malfunctions time and again as either minor or major plot points.  Unfortunately, the holodeck is already going wrong as a plot device in the show just from a technical realisation standpoint.

 The basic idea of the holodeck is that it creates 3D images that resemble whatever is programmed into the computer, with some kind of force-fields giving the images substance while other aspects of the technology fill in the proverbial blanks (e.g. special programming to create interactive characters, localised environmental controls, etc.)  However, everything that exists within the holodeck can only exist within the range of the room’s tech; if anything created by the holodeck moves beyond its walls, it should instantly cease to be.  However, in the Farpoint pilot, Wesley Crusher fell into water on the holodeck, and when he walked out into the corridor, he remained wet and dripping when all the holographic water should have disappeared the instance he walked through the exit. 

Likewise, in this episode Picard picks up a lipstick mark when he first tries the holodeck’s new upgrades, and that should have disappeared when he later briefs the crew in the observation lounge. Instead, Dr Crusher has to wipe the lipstick off for the captain, despite the fact it should have disappeared from Picard’s face long ago.  It’s an annoying issue, and one that could have been easily fixed even back in the 1980’s when this show was made; evidently, this was just another example of how bad the show was at this stage.  If TNG ever gets the kind of reboot the original series did, I sincerely hope any use of the holodecks pays attention to and rectifies this error in the application of the holodeck concept. 

Otherwise, this episode doesn’t do much more than give Brent Spiner a bit more to do with Data by having him impersonate a 40’s-style gangers and give Patrick Stewart someone else to be besides the captain of the latest version of the Enterprise.  It’s a fairly well-made episode for season 1 of this show, and it really sells the illusion of the holodeck program for the most part.  The people who made the show just needed to learn that anything that gets made in the holodeck stays in the holodeck.  I’d give it about 5 out of 10. 

Episode 13: Datalore

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

While on the way to Starbase Armus IX for computer maintenance, the Enterprise arrives at the planet Omicron Theta, the site of a vanished colony where the starship Tripoli originally found the android Data. An away team travels to the surface and finds that what had been farmland is now barren with no trace of life in the soil. The team also finds a lab which they discover is where Dr. Noonien Soong, a formerly prominent but now discredited robotics designer, built Data. The team also find a disassembled android nearly identical to Data and return with it to the ship. As the course to the Starbase is resumed, the crew reassemble and reactivate Data's "brother" in sickbay. He refers to himself as Lore, and explains that Data was built first and he himself is the more perfect model. He feigns naiveté to the crew, but shows signs of being more intelligent than he is letting on. Later, in private, he tells Data that they were actually created in the opposite order, as the colonists became envious of his own perfection. He also explains that a crystalline space entity capable of stripping away all life force from a world was responsible for the colony's demise.

 Lore then incapacitates Data, revealing that he plans to offer the ship's crew to the entity. When a signal transmission is detected from Data's quarters, Wesley Crusher arrives to investigate. He finds Lore, now impersonating Data, who explains that he had to incapacitate his brother after being attacked. Wesley is doubtful, but pretends to accept the explanation. Soon after, the same crystalline entity that had attacked the colony approaches the ship. Lore, still pretending to be Data, enters the bridge as the object hovers before the Enterprise and explains that he incapacitated his brother by turning him off, causing Doctor Beverly Crusher to be suspicious, since Data had previously treated the existence of such a feature as a closely guarded secret. Lore then explains that he can communicate with the crystalline entity and suggests to Captain Jean-Luc Picard that he should show a demonstration of force by beaming an object toward the entity and then destroying it with the ship's phasers.

 Lore's attempts to imitate Data are imperfect, though initially only Wesley is suspicious, and his efforts to voice these concerns only draw rude rebukes from Picard and his mother. However, Picard does ultimately become suspicious, especially when Lore does not recognize Picard's usual command to "make it so". Although Picard sends a security detachment to tail him, Lore overpowers Lt. Worf and evades pursuit. Meanwhile, the suspicious Dr Crusher and Wesley reactivate the unconscious Data, and the three of them race to the cargo hold to find Lore plotting with the entity to defeat the Enterprise. When Lore discovers them, he threatens Wesley with a phaser and orders Dr Crusher to leave. Data quickly rushes Lore and a brawl ensues. Data manages to knock Lore onto the transporter platform, and Wesley activates it, beaming Lore into space. With its conspirator no longer aboard, the crystalline entity departs, and the Enterprise resumes its journey to the starbase.

 Review:

This episode very heavily relies on answering the mystery of Data’s origin and giving him a villainous brother in a manner similar to the Thor-Loki dynamic of Marvel superhero lore (pardon the inadvertent pun) to make it worth watching, because goodness knows it falls down everywhere else.  Spiner is remarkable playing the treacherous Lore alongside his regular character of Data, and it’s fun to see him make the best of what ultimately becomes a poor episode on other fronts. 

I know some reviewers have stated they don’t understand Lore’s motives for allying with the Crystalline Entity, but as a Marvel fan, it’s actually fairly easy to deduce.  Much like Loki in Marvel’s Thor franchise, Lore is a bit of a trickster, an android Q but without the pseudo-godhood or ultimately benign motives of Q.  Also like Loki, Lore is the unfavoured son, one who was basically cast aside in favour of something supposedly better, so he’s turned against the humanity his brother admires and emulates out of jealousy and the pain of rejection.  It’s not a hard motive to grasp, but with Lore not explicitly saying it, you need that knowledge of another fictional reference to make the deduction.  Given that Marvel lore was largely overlooked by the adult world until superheroes were made into a legitimate cinematic genre at the turn of the century, it’s unlikely many original reviewers would have made the link. 

However, as I’ve noted, the episode falls apart in other respects.  The crew’s haste to reassemble Data’s brother mid-flight is very risky behaviour more akin to the cowboy antics of Kirk’s crew from the original series than Picard’s more measured approach, and they are remarkably stupid in failing to catch onto Lore’s threat.  Only Wesley shows the requisite insight and intelligence, but expresses it poorly because at this time no one on the show could write Wesley with any kind of competence. As a result, Picard ends up looking like a total git for his outburst at Wesley, Wesley’s mother comes off almost as bad, and when it turns out that, as ever, Wesley was right, there’s no apology from Picard at all.  On balance, this episode rates about 5 out of 10, which can be taken as the anti-Wesley acting having a severely detrimental impact on a great Spiner performance, or a great Spiner performance saving the episode by some horrid Wesley-bashing. 

Episode 14: Angel One

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise arrives at the planet Angel One, which is ruled by an oligarchy of women. The ship is looking for survivors from the shipwrecked freighter Odin, over seven years after having been evacuated. The freighter was missing three escape pods and the only planet in range was Angel One. An away team consisting of Commander William Riker, Lt. Commander Data, Lt. Tasha Yar, and Counsellor Deanna Troi beam down to the surface. They attempt to negotiate with Mistress Beata, the "Elected One" of the native inhabitants, to let them search for the survivors. Time is of the essence however, as the Enterprise must travel to a Federation outpost near the Romulan Neutral Zone (where a group of Romulan Battlecruisers has been detected) as soon as they resolve their investigation into the Odin survivors.

 Beata reveals that they are aware of four male survivors of the Odin who have caused disruption in their society, and are considered fugitives. Beata requests Riker stay with her (and later requests that he order Troi, Data, and Yar to track down the survivors' camp and their leader Ramsey, while staying and dining with her). After some back and forth, Data concludes Ramsey and the survivors of the Odin would have platinum with them, and Angel One is naturally devoid of platinum, allowing the Enterprise to easily detect them. Meanwhile, Riker dresses in the garb given to him for his dinner with Beata, Troi and Yar tease him for dressing in clothes that sexualize him and, in some ways, demean him. He responds by saying he is honouring the local customs, and acknowledges Beata's beauty, and that the garb is rather comfortable.

 The Enterprise searches while in orbit around Angel One. Doctor Beverly Crusher relieves Captain Jean-Luc Picard of duty after he and most of the crew have fallen ill to a random virus on board. The Captain leaves Lieutenant Geordi La Forge in command (Geordi's first time in acting command of a starship). Shortly after, they find Ramsey and transmit his location to the Away Team, who beam directly to there. 

When confronted by Data, Yar, and Troi, Ramsey and his men, having taken wives and started families during the seven years, refuse to leave. Data points out that as the Odin was not a star fleet vessel, its crew is not bound by the Prime Directive and the Enterprise cannot remove them against their will. Geordi informs Yar of the medical situation on board, and that more Romulan ships have been detected near the Neutral Zone. Riker gets close to Beata as they compare how gender roles differ between Angel One and the Federation. On the Enterprise, systems are becoming harder to maintain with more crew succumbing to the virus. Geordi (after a friendly reminder from a sniffling Worf) remembers that in command, he must delegate tasks so he can stay on the bridge. Dr Crusher finds that the virus is an airborne organism that produces a sweet smell, to encourage inhalation, after which it becomes viral inside the body. 

Riker gets up to date with the situation, and decides that while Ramsey and his group are at large and refusing to leave the planet, there is little they can do. Before leaving they find that one of Beata's fellow mitstresses, Ariel, has married Ramsey, and was followed by Beata's guards to their camp, where they arrested the survivors and their families. The Away Team attempt to explain to Beata the reason for Ramsey's refusal to leave. Beata and her council reject his reasoning, and threatens to execute them the following day. After failing to convince Ramsey and his group to leave with them, Riker contacts the Enterprise in hopes of transporting Ramsey and his group without their consent (despite it being a violation of the Prime Directive, and almost certainly an end to his career).  However, Dr Crusher (while treating an incapacitated Geordi in the Captain's chair) refuses to allow anyone to beam aboard for fear of them being infected, but allows Data, an android, to return. Riker orders Data to take command and get the Enterprise to the Neutral Zone before it's too late.

 The following morning the Away Team is invited to witness the execution of Ramsey and his followers. Moments after Riker rejects their invitation Data makes contact and informs them that there is a 48-minute window in which Dr Crusher has to find a cure, and Riker must defuse the situation on the planet before the ship must leave for the Neutral Zone. On the planet, Ramsey and his men are prepared to be executed by disintegration despite Ariel's pleas, while Dr Crusher discovers a cure for the virus. Riker is prepared to have the away team and the Odin survivors beamed to the Enterprise, but makes a plea that execution will do Angel One’s society little good. He contends that Ramsey and his men have simply become a symbol for pre-existing dissatisfaction with the current society on Angel One, an evolutionary change that execution may only accelerate by turning Ramsey’s group into martyrs.

After deliberating with her fellow mistresses, Beata announces that she will stay the execution and banish Ramsey, his men, their families, and any others that support them to the far side of the planet. She explains that their banishment will not stop the fall of the oligarchy, but will slow it down enough that Beata will not be around to see its end. The away team return to the ship and Picard, already recovering from the virus but hardly having a voice, orders the ship to the Neutral Zone at high warp. 

Review:

Apparently, the idea of this episode was look at South Africa’s apartheid system, but using a gender-based schism in a female-dominated society to explore the concept along gender lines rather than being more direct and using anything akin to a racial divide.  As a result, the intention is lost behind some very horrendously sexist rubbish that makes the show seem more like a bad parody of feminism.  The episode also has a lousy b-plot of a virus story that adds nothing to the episode, and again showcases how badly the holodeck concept was being handled at this time.  A snowball from a holodeck skiing program should not be able to go through the holodeck doors to hit Picard and Worf in the corridor.  2 out of 10 is all this episode deserves.

[badwolfwriter]

Finding Malcolm Bright

Ok, so no one knows where the dumbest man alive is. Chances are high that the FBI is going to think Malcolm is working with John instead of having been kidnapped, so the team is going to have to go completely off the books to find Malcolm. Here’re some things that I think are likely to happen, or that I would at least like to see.

1) Gil is going to ask Martin for help: let’s start with the obvious. There’s no one better to help them find John than the guy who mentored him, and Martin does love Malcolm, even if that love is entirely narcissistic. Not to mention I’ve seen mentions of interviews that state Gil and Martin are going to be in the same room soon. The team is going to run out of leads and be forced to ask Martin for help. He’ll give it, of course. He’s going to make them grovel though. Gil is going to have to resist the urge to punch him. I’m sure there’s going to be arguing between them over who is Malcolm’s father (his biological father, or the one who actually fathered him). It’s not going to be good, but Gil is enough of a professional and dedicated enough to finding Malcolm that he’s going to push his fury and disgust aside enough to get the job done.

2) Jessica is going to go bat shit: Jess isn’t perfect, as a person or as a parent, but she does very clearly love her children, and you can bet she’s going to tear the city apart trying to find Malcolm. PI’s, check. Nagging the cops till they block her number, you betcha. Eventually only Gil is going to take her calls, and potentially then only cos Jessica knows where he lives and will show up at his door demanding answers. (Not that Gil is going home till they find Malcolm.) She’s going to react very strongly, and it’s going to be mixed, I think, with tears, anger, desperation, etc. Jessica is a tornado, and good luck to the person who tries to hurt her kids.

3) I can definitely see Jessica going to Martin too. I don’t know if it’s going to be her or Gil who suggests going to him for help, but once the idea is out there for the police to go to him, Jessica is going to take it into her own hands. It may even be the level of groveling Martin wants to cooperate. (I can see him refusing Gil, knowing that Jessica is going to come after him, simply cos he wants to see her beg.) She knows Martin can help, and Martin knows she’s smart enough to figure it out. He’s also definitely upset by her insistence that she’s done with him. What better revenge can he have than making her beg him for help to find their son, by admitting his use, not in spite of his crimes, but because of them. He’s going to try to manipulate his way back into her life, and I can see her agreeing to anything to secure his help in getting Malcolm back. The show has had her insisting she’s done with Martin as he smirks that she’ll be back far too much to not do that. Poor Jessica. 

4) I really hope we get to see some good quality Ainsley angst. Not that I want her to suffer, but I think there are a few options for how she handles this. 1, she sits back and lets the police work. I don’t see this as likely, because, well, you’ve all seen her. 2, she uses this as a way to further her career. I don’t see how she can, at least at the moment, and I think she cares too much about Malcolm for that. 3 is the most likely- she tries to use her influence in the media to flush John out of hiding and get any information she can find. (Yes, it’ll probably help her career, and that may or may not be in the back of her mind, but I do believe her motivation will be to find her brother.) I would love to see her and Jessica working together on this. You know Gil won’t be happy, unless it pays off (and even then), because it puts them in danger. John won’t like them moving against him. So they’re going to go on air with a picture of John, and Gil is going to yell at them, and they will both be very unapologetic. (This is one I hope will happen, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t focus on Ainsley here enough to show what she’s doing. I think Jessica will get more screen time, but the main focus will still be on the team.) 

5) I think it’s obvious to state that we’re going to have some angsty scenes with the team. They’re going to be worried. Dani has already made it clear she’s rooting for Malcolm, but this may be a turning point towards her admitting feelings for him, if the show chooses to go in that direction. Edrisa is going to be generally panicked and trying to help. I don’t see her as being good at sneaking around, but she’s sure as hell gonna try cos she knows it’s what Malcolm needs. JT is going to be forced to admit he actually likes Malcolm. Bonus points if they find him close to death and all the angst comes out then. But this is the turning point to the team “tolerating him” to admitting that they all actually like him.

6) I think this is definitely going to be the turning point for Gil and Jessica getting together. I know I’m not alone in shipping them at this point. The show is very obviously pushing them together, and I’m there for it. What better way than to have them freaking out over the boy they both raised and love, working together despite Gil’s attempts to get Jessica to stay home, and trying to comfort each other. Not to mention when they do find Malcolm and he’s inevitably in the hospital for a few days, neither of them is going to leave his side.

7) We all know the FBI is going to start by suspecting Malcolm. I’m hoping by the end they can come to peace with Malcolm, specifically Swanson. Even if they don’t part on particularly friendly terms, I want them to acknowledge that Malcolm isn’t his father, to see him for the victim he is, and to put their support behind him. It’s a TV drama though, so that probably won’t happen. They’ll probably eventually accept that he’s a victim this time, having been kidnapped, but still be suspicious of Malcolm himself. I can see them coming back in a later season if they decide to go in the direction of Malcolm being framed for murder. But I’m hoping Malcolm makes at least a couple new friends in the FBI as people finally come to see that he’s A, not crazy, and B, not a psychopath.

8) Malcolm: we gotta throw some Malcolm angst in here. Boy’s got it rough right now. Even if the team gets to him within a day, which isn’t likely, he’s going to be very traumatized, cos you know the rest of his memories regarding the girl in the box are going to come back, plus the trauma of being kidnapped. He might get tortured, I’m not sure yet what exactly John wants with him. But he’s also going to be forced off his meds cold turkey, and that won’t be good. He’s going to be in rough shape emotionally, mentally, and probably physically. Cos we all know he’s going to fight tooth and nail to escape and stop John, and once hallucinations set in, there’s a chance he might hurt himself without even realizing it. This is going to have long term detrimental impacts on him, which can go a lot of different ways. There could be psychiatric hospitalization in his future, either forced or voluntary. Him having a psychotic break has been foreshadowed enough that we all know it’s going to happen eventually, and him trying to deal with the fallout of this might be the last straw. His going to be reactive, and his PTSD, anxiety, and depression are going to flare big time. There’s a strong chance that he’s going to lose it on a case and be fired as a consultant. He’s going to be dealing with a lot of shit from a lot of people, and unfortunately, a lot of them are only going to see the son and potential accomplice of the Surgeon and Junkyard Killer and not victim he is. You also know that once they find who the girl in the box is, Malcolm is going to want to be a part of the notification process. That’s not likely to go well. So yeah, things aren’t looking good there. However, I think this does have the potential to bring him, Jessica, and Ainsley closer as they’re going to freak out over him. He’s going to get closer with his team, and knowing he has their support is going to be huge for him. Any degree of closure he gets is going to be good too, though the cost it’ll have on his mental health may override that. But yeah. I’m seeing a lot of possibilities for his future, and basically, no matter what direction they take him in, it’s gonna hurt.

9) Back to Ainsley again: while I think this has the potential to bring her and Malcolm closer, it might backfire eventually. Malcolm is going to get massive amounts of attention once they rescue him, and that is something Ainsley is deeply jealous of. She’s going to rebel, and hurt her family, either intentionally or not. This could be the start of her own spiral. I don’t have a clear enough picture of where the writers are taking her character yet to say.

#prodigal son #prodigalson #malcolm bright #malcolm whitly #jessica whitly #ainsley whitly #gil arroyo #jt tarmel #dani powell #edrisa tanaka #colette swanson #martin whitly #angst

[hawkinslibrary]

i love hearing what you have to say about season 4!! i promise it’s not too long lol, anyway i have a question for you: what do you think the next season holds for mike & el? i’m a little worried tbh

ahhh thank you !! same rules apply: spoilers ahead, so please read no further and blacklist/filter out the ‘s4′, ‘st4′, ‘spoilers’ tags if you don’t want to see anything !! 

i’m going to talk about them both as individuals and as a pair but first, i have to say that i don’t personally feel like you have to worry about them breaking up or anything again this season. i think s4 is really going to establish romantic jopper and once that happens, i don’t see them, mileven, or jancy not being endgame unless someone actually dies. which -- i’m not going to think about the possibility of anyone dying until i’m forced to confront it, so. this is fiction and it’s already unrealistic and i’m gonna take my ‘everyone survives, happiness all around, time to relax’ endings and go. anyway, i would love to add lumax to this list but i honestly think it could go either way depending on what happens in s4. that’s a different essay, though.

i tend to think that the most important dynamic on the show is the one between the whole group and i just don’t really see them spending much more time trying to develop romantic relationships outside of the ones set up since s1/2. maybe steve, robin, and will get love interests, maybe they decide to develop dustin and suzie more, maybe suzie is never even mentioned again, idk. but these will probably all be secondary -- as in less screen time, not less important than the main romances, but probably still less developed. unless it happens to be a new person added to the main cast. which, as of now, the only new mains are brett and priah who has gone from recurring to regular. so.  

i think s3 showed how messy and complicated romantic relationships (or, really just relationships in general) can be. everyone was arguing, there was miscommunication all around, everyone thought they knew what was best, no one was seeing eye to eye. but when it comes down to it, they would do anything for each other. they understand each other better than anyone else ever could. i can’t see them spending another season on breakups and romance drama after the ending of s3.  

mike and el have already been separated once before. this time, mike knows for sure that she’s alive and that’s she’s with the byers. this time, el won’t be kept completely isolated away from everyone else. they’ve made plans to meet for the holidays. they can still call and talk to each other as much as they want. i’m hoping they handle being separated this time better than they did in s2. i don’t want mike to be moping and i don’t want el to spend a lot of the season thinking about how much she misses him. in fact, i think in their case that some distance could be good for them. the same for jancy and jopper, too, honestly. it’ll be nice to see them existing outside of these relationships while still acknowledging how important they are.   

as far as i know, the byers and el stuff has not started filming yet so all there is to speculate on are rumors, the audition tapes, and logical guesses about where the story goes after s3. el obviously moves away with the byers. we still don’t know where. she’ll still be mourning hopper and trying to figure out life without her powers. and, of course, she’ll be in a long distance relationship with mike. i think she’ll be having a hard time and she’ll wish that mike was around, but she’ll realize she’s got a pretty good support system around her now with the byers, too. i’m very, very excited for more joyce and el content particularly, but there’s gotta be some great scenes with her and will and jonathan as well. 

there’s only one audition tape that i can confidently tie into the byers + el plot(s?) and it’s the queen bee/mean girl character ‘angela’. if we’re running with the whole ‘there may be some truth to the audition vids’ thing, then this one teases that el will be going to school and that angela will be bullying her. this is something she would probably want to talk about with mike (b i g troy s1 vibes) but i don’t know if she actually would ? so this is probably more a thing that el and will could bond over or that she could talk about with joyce or maybe jonathan. i do think there will be at least a few calls between the two of them before the action really hits and the whole group is (hopefully...) reunited.

so, el -- at least in the beginning of s4 -- will be going to school where ‘angela’ bullies her, forming a bond with joyce + will + jonathan and becoming part of the family, mourning hopper (+ hopefully having conversations about him + his past with joyce), missing her friends back in hawkins, continuing to learn how to navigate life without her powers, and trying to maintain a long distance relationship with mike. 

mike... i’ve been seeing some wild theories about him today but they aren’t really that far-fetched i think. first, going back to the audition tapes, the ‘eddie’ audition i saw makes it seem like mike is going to be part of the hellfire club with dustin. i’ve recently learned that there’s another version of the scene where ‘eddie’ is only talking to dustin and mike might not be a part of the club after all. if he isn’t part of the club, then the basketball v. hellfire, jocks v. nerds thing turns into lucas v. dustin and mike’s probably there just caught in the middle while max is off distancing herself from everyone.

at this point, i really want mike and max to become good friends. i think the end of s3 gave them the perfect opportunity. s4 max has s2 mike vibes. it’s not the same situation at all, but he knows kinda what she’s feeling and they could connect through that + the fact that they’ll both be missing el. i also just really want... some wheeler siblings content. i’m hopeful that s4 gives us good nancy and mike scenes bc there’s no reason not to give us good nancy and mike scenes (+holly!). however...

while there’s proof that gaten and sadie and natalia and priah have all been filming since production restarted, and while i have reason to believe that caleb has been filming a lot inside/at the studio recently... there’s no evidence that finn has been on set. there’s none for maya and joe, either, but people have said that finn isn’t even in atlanta right now. maybe he is and maybe he just hasn’t been seen and maybe he’ll pop back up tomorrow. or, maybe he already filmed whatever he needed to film for hawkins before production stopped.  

the wild theory that’s popped up today is that everything gets to be too much for him in hawkins and he just... hops on a train to go visit el + the byers. i don’t know if i buy it, but it is interesting to note that he was sitting with them at the table read. and since we can guess that steve and robin will still be working at the video store, robin and nancy will be investigating pennhurst together, lucas and max may have some angst, joyce and murray are probably teaming up for the finding/saving hopper plot, and el is going to bond with will and jonathan, it seems like the order might mean a little something. i’d even bet that dustin and erica have scenes with them bonding over d&d.    

now this theory pretty much only exists because no one’s seen finn on set and one of the paps posted some pics of some trains. there’s also always theories about how there will be issues at home with the wheeler fam and if that’s going to happen, what better time than in s4 when all of his friends are pulling away and el’s gone again. so if he is missing el (and will) that much, and if he has any reason to worry about her and how she’s doing, or if the party becoming distant and issues at home are weighing on him and he feels like he needs to get away, he’s absolutely the type to venture off on a train by himself. i don’t know how it would work since he’s definitely supposed to still be in school and his friends/nancy at least would notice he’s gone, but.. it’s fun to think about and we’ve got zero actual content to go off of right now.  

another way i could see mike’s plot going is that he’s the one trying to keep the party together this season. playing mediator with lucas and dustin, becoming better friends with max, being the connection between the hawkins plot and the byers plot (along with nancy). 

there was also talk of him joining the track team bc the track has been set up with hawkins high colors for filming. but mike ‘this isn’t a stupid sports game’ wheeler? i don’t think so... basically, no one knows at the moment what’s happening with mike wheeler in s4 lol.

s4 mike is just like s4 byers fam -- a complete mystery to me currently. i don’t personally think that he’ll be leaving school and hopping on a train to visit el. i think he’ll be a part of the hellfire club with dustin, or that he won’t and instead will be attempting to keep the party from completely disbanding. i hope that we get wheeler siblings scenes and that max and mike have a breakthrough and become better friends. i also feel like he’ll be having some complicated feelings about hopper, the last interaction they had, etc. and, again, the whole long distance thing with el. 

so... mike and el broke up in s3. it was messy. but then they reconciled. and then hopper “died”. s3 ended with them at this weird place where she’s heard him say that he loves her and she’s told him that she loves him back. things are a little awkward in the scene bc everything has changed at this point, but a kiss, an ‘i love you’, planning to meet up on the holidays, and promising to call frequently all sounds like they’re back together and going to try making the long distance thing work to me. 

i think they’ll be together when s4 starts. i think that we’ll probably only see them talking on the phone or their radios for the first few eps. maybe we’ll see flashbacks or something to them being together on the holidays. the distance might be hard and they’re definitely going to be missing each other. like... el doesn’t have mike or hopper with her now and i’m thinking the party is going to be drifting apart, plus they’re both probably going to have other personal issues that have nothing to do with each other or the party. maybe they’ll be experiencing some emotional distancing of their own while dealing with the aftermath of hopper’s “death”, the move, and whatever’s going on with them at home and at school. i think that once they reunite (probably not until the last half of the season), they’re likely to be stronger than ever. 

now, onto personal theories that have zero basis. for some reason, i can’t get it out of my head that this season might dive into psychological horror a little bit ? like a greatest fears type of thing ?? and i keep thinking about brenner popping back up and using the people el loves to get to her or something and 👀👀 

#this took forever to write and it's so long and for WHAT #when i tell you i've been typing and deleting and typing and deleting and typing again all day #anyway.... a l l of this is speculation pretty much bc the byers/el haven't even started filming yet #and there's no info on mike as of now #these don't even really touch on what could happen at the end of the season #bc i just have... no idea what's really happening or how it could possibly end #there was that whole thing about s5 being the part 2 of s4 so like... #what if we don't even get the reunions this season lol #nah i have to believe that everyone will be back together by the end #answered #s4 #st4 #spoilers #thank you for the question 💖 !! #sorry it's basically nonsense on my part though #me @ me: how can you ramble so much but say so little #Anonymous #idk if this even makes any sense but it's 2 am now and i've been staring at it forever so

[dragons-bones]

The White Vault Season Three Roundup

Posting this as the tenth and final episode of the season is now in public release!

So I listened to the early release of the season finale on Saturday, screamed a lot, and immediately sat down and re-listened to the whole season. The following post is being put behind a read more for both length and season-wide (finale included) spoilers and includes discussion and theorizing for season four, which Travis confirmed is the penultimate season. (IS IT OCTOBER YET.) Please DO NOT READ until you listen to the finale!

First and foremost, I was originally a little concerned that season three would end up hitting all of the same story beats as the first two seasons without anything new, particularly on the matter of the mystery: lots of puzzle pieces that still don't quite fit together. Arguably we still don't have any clear answers...but we have a lot more pieces that I think we're seeing the overall shape. There is definitely some sort of centuries-and-continents-spanning conspiracy, one dedicated to keeping the shadow monster(s) and totem monsters fed, or appeased, or something, along with the people and civilization that revolves around these creatures. We don't know the why, we don't know the how, but I am personally surprisingly at ease with not having anything answered at this point--honestly I am having an incredible amount of fun speculating in my own mind and reading other fans' takes on tumblr and reddit. Travis and Katie confirming we have a fourth and fifth season to finish telling the story gives me a lot of confidence, particularly since season four is going to take a vastly different tack than the first three seasons.

The Documentarian confirms in the opening of episode one that she had come into possession of the information she presents to whom we knew as of episode five to be Graham "Fuck You I Have A Shotgun" Casner just a few days ago. Episode ten confirms that the events of season three literally occurred within the last few weeks and Dr. Zhou "Fuck You I Have A Frying Pan" Liu, Dr. Josepha Guerrero, and Simon "Fuck You I Am Getting Off This Mountain If I Have To Tobogan Down It" Hall may still be alive up in the caves. I am practically frothing at the mouth with excitement because this really raises the stakes for next season, and while I'm more than certain the entire cast isn't making it out alive...enough might. And in this situation: the dangers are known by both the rescue party and the scientists; and the scientists are the kind who might be able to begin putting our puzzle pieces together, along with whatever the Documentarian acquires elsewhere.

I want to give an especial shoutout to Peter Lewis as Graham Casner. I remember when I first listened to The White Vault, I was a bit uncertain about his voicework: he has a very deliberate, almost stilted-sounding delivery as Graham. His performance really clicked for me when we got the segue ways of him narrating Russian journal entries into an English translation: his Russian, to my ear, sounds very smooth with no hesitation. My thought is, English isn't Graham's first language, and his measured way of speaking is how he ensures he organizes his thoughts properly to be understood. And just--his performance this season was SO GOOD. Especially in the finale, he sounded so raw and angry and just a little bit broken over the discovery that the body Dr. Liu and Dr. Guerrero found truly wasn't Dr. Ureta (I thought, in episode nine, that they're comment of "that's not Dr. Ureta" was more a metaphoric "that's not her anymore" based on what they knew of Simon's experience so far), but Rosa. Like. Holy shit. 10/10 Peter Lewis, godDAMN.

(Aside: props to all the voice actors this season. We really heard them come into their stride as the season progressed, but special props to: Danilo Battistini as Lucas, who showcased Lucas’s descent into (religious fervor inspired?) madness; Eric Nelsen as Simon, who got saddled with a lot of the technical archaeological talk and made it sound natural (really evident when you listen to the bloopers); and Diane Casanova as Eva, who did a fantastic job showing her dealing with the stress of the situation while still remaining snarky and defiant.)

And now to Rosa--who was, unquestionably, my favorite member of the Fristed expedition, so I was, in fact, yelling like a mad thing while my heart went icy and broken when the body was identified as hers. So, I remember reading in a post-episode speculation thread on reddit earlier in the season that maybe the tunnels between Svalbard and Patagonia were connected and this was the same shadow monster as the Fristed team encountered. I thought this was particularly far-fetched bullshit, but, uh apparently not? Good job, fellow speculator! You called it! Perhaps they're not physically connected (that stretches my suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point, considering Svalbard and Patagonia are on literal opposite ends of the planet), but maybe it's a space-time distortion, and the deep caves between Svalbard and Patagonia (and Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China, and wherever else this strange civilization has pockets of activity) are linked via supernatural means. And a space-time distortion would explain why to Graham, it didn't seem too much time had passed for him in the tunnels before he found a way out, even though it was weeks if not months before he was located.

(Brief side note: definitely the Svalbard totem monster that got him, that strange walrus-like entity with the super-elongated phalanges. Also features in Artifact. That totem monster scares me and scares me deeply.)

So does this mean the shadow monster at Fristed and Piedra are the same, able to travel between locations depending on which ones have people near them? (SPOILER FOR ARTIFACT: it's implied there's more than one and they can "travel" via the totem animal artifacts END SPOILER) Does this mean we might see "Jonas" again? Oooooh, two shadow monsters, das bad, das really bad.

(Another brief side note, since I didn't do an episode nine roundup: the dark part of my mind that loves the creepy horror elements of this podcast was overjoyed at being slam-dunked right into the fucked-up-edness of the return of the still-beating heart and teeth in a stone box. Just. Good shit, lots of nightmares, jumping at shadows that night, S U P E R B.

...Wait, Rosa's is the first body actually found, even though we know the shadow monster killed her. Karina's, Walter's, and Carito's bodies never showed up, and we know their hearts and teeth ended up in the stone boxes. Does that mean Rosa's didn't? Is there specific significance to this?)

The sites do seem to be very different: China was a mountain village, most of the village open air with their private ritual rooms carved into the mountainside; Svalbard's might be under a glacier, and is an entire underground village, with its ritual sites buried beneath it; and Patagonia is less a proper village and more a winding system of living quarters and open public/ritual spaces. Svalbard is also currently the only one (that we know of, we have no information about the interior of the China site) using teeth to pave its stairs so, uh, take that as you will.

Teeth appear a lot. I have a thing about teeth, and yet The White Vault doesn't ping it? It's rather strange.

RAIMY. RAIMY YOU GO GET YOUR MAN. PROUD OF YOU, PLEASE DON'T DIE. (Honestly, though, I get the feeling if the shadow monster breathes anywhere in the general vicinity of Raimy, Simon will go batshit and beat the thing to death himself. He is injured but he is pissed.)

I continue to have low expectations about Eva's survival. That she got off the mountain is a surprise--stalked by the shadow monster, perhaps hoping she lures more people to the caves?--and that her 'infection' (excuse me as I continue to have flashbacks to Jane Prentiss in TMA Season One and cry uncontrollably because oh my gooooooooood) hasn't, y'know, gotten properly ugly yet. But goddamn I love her spirit, I love that she's so determined to get the rest of the team out. I WANT her to survive, but all the clues are pointing at REALLY BAD SHIT happening to her.

I remain deeply curious about whether or not Dr. Ureta’s previous trip to the Patagonia site is what primed her to be the first victim of the Piedra team. This might very well be something we don’t ever receive a proper answer to--sometimes some mysteries remain so, after all--but I do find it telling that we have very little of her personal thoughts, unlike the other members of the team (aside, of course, from Lucas).

Dr. Guerrero remains the loose end for me: Simon and Dr. Liu have both shown an utter lack of fucks to give about not letting this monster have them, but Dr. Guerrero was so tunnel-visioned on the science of the find that we notes and thoughts we have her don’t give us a conclusive enough picture about what to expect going forward. But we might end up surprised.

I’m very interested to see what Maheer and Dragana bring to the table: Maheer is obviously the Documentarian’s man because of a very nice paycheck, and Graham’s grumbling about Dragana’s prodding for details has me on alert mostly because Graham is my guy and he deserves a fucking nap and a vacation for all the shit he’s had to deal with.

The White Vault: Iluka is coming up this month on Patreon; I’m willing to bet this is what the Documentarian is preoccupied with while Graham and the rescue team head into the mountains. I’m really curious to see whether or not this might have anything to do with the events of the short Acquisition? I feel we’re due for that to come into play...

There is just. So much. So damn much.

IS IT OCTOBER YEEEEEEET.

#the white vault #spoilers #white vault spoilers #white vault episode 3.10

[historyofshipping]

“If they find out we killed Clarke, they will burn this world down. Just like their last one”

So it just occurred to me... and I’m probably reaching here but let me go with it. 

Everything Russell knows about earth & their past is from Jordan. Which means, all he knows is what Marper decided to tell Jordan. And then their stories could only come from what they saw first hand and from what Bell told them up on the ring. 

So. Let’s just assume Marper told Jordan everything they knew - and let’s assume Bellamy told them everything that happened on the ground that they didn’t know about. 

Does anyone think that Bellamy told anyone about the depth of his feelings for Clarke and what they were each willing to do to save the other’s life? I’m sure that everyone on the ring knew how Bellamy felt about Clarke even if he never said it. But I’m also pretty confident he played down his feelings and stupid/heroic deeds just like Clarke did with Madi. Because that’s how they are. 

What Marper (especially Monty) did see was proof enough that Bellamy would walk through hell for Clarke (Monty saw him take off after C early in season 3 despite everything - and was able to talk B down, they both saw how Bellamy reacted when he found out C was alive, etc). But I doubt B ever told them about the two Bellarke “if I don’t see you again...” talks, the intimate hugs, the reunions, the heart-to-heart talks they had, etc etc. Even if he did, I’d bet my last dollar he downplayed them because it hurt too much. (Just think of how strongly he still reacted to Clarke’s name before he realized she’s alive.)

Then obviously they don’t know about anything that took place after their reunion in s5 - the forgiveness talk at the end of S5, the talks in S6, etc. 

In conclusion: Russell may think he knows what’s coming when they (especially B) find out Clarke’s dead, but he has no freaking idea. 

#the 100 #bellarke #the 100 season 6 spec #thank you for coming to my ted talk #bellarke spec

[rahirah]

i was reading your “meta” posts and you said that spike using the amulet was a plot device to get him onto Angel. how do you think btvs would have ended if the writers hadn’t decided he would cross over? do you think he still would have died?

Joss always planned to kill Spike at the end of S7 and bring him back somehow -- James Marsters has said that Joss called him in and told him at the very beginning of S7 that he was going to kill Spike off, but not to worry, he’d bring him back.  Exactly how that happened would depend on a bunch of external factors.  

It was common knowledge that SMG was wanting out as soon as her contract was up.  Plan A was BtVS continuing without SMG, or with her in a reduced role, as a special guest star rather that a regular.  There were a couple of BtVS-Revamped ideas floated to the network during S7 -- one was a “Dawn the Vampire Slayer” idea, where Dawn would have been a Potential, and one was Willow teaching a Slayer school.  The network nixed those early on (which is why all Dawn’s friends from the first episode of season one just disappear, never to be mentioned again.)  It’s really impossible to tell how the season would have played out if the network had OK’d either of those ideas; it’s completely wide open.  But since Spike was one of the more popular characters, I am fairly certain that if BtVS had continued, he’d have been brought back on BtVS.  And if SMG wasn’t going to be around, I’m fairly sure that we would have ended up with a similar situation as we had in AtS S5 -- some not-terribly-convincing reason why Spike didn’t go off to find Buffy, and never confirming whether Buffy realized he was alive again.  

Plan B was the Faith and Spike spinoff, which WAS given a green light by the network, but got axed when Eliza Dushku decided to do Tru Calling instead.  (Damn you, Eliza!)  From the hints the writers dropped about that at the time, they were going to go with a similar idea of Spike coming back as a ghost.  Presumably he would have gotten de-ghosted at some point, but since the idea never never even made it to the pilot stage, there’s no telling if they would have used the amulet, or some other McGuffin to get Spike back.  And again, as long as SMG and JM weren’t on the same show, there’d be an unconvincing rationale for why Spike didn’t go hunt up Buffy, and after a season or two, I would bet dollars to donuts that there would have been a Spike/Faith romance, or at least a hookup, because let’s face it, they have smokin’ hot chemistry.

Spike showing up on AtS was Plan C, and originally, he was only supposed to be a guest star, and only be there for six episodes or so, after which he’d leave, either with Buffy or to go find her.  But James wanted a longer guest shot, because A) money, and B) bleaching his hair for such a short role would have compromised his ability to get other roles.  And then the network made James Marsters becoming a regular a condition of renewing AtS, so there Spike stayed.

The thing with network TV is that so often the direction that the story goes is determined not by what makes the most sense for the characters, or what is the most interesting emotional arc to explore, but by what the network will give you money for, and which actors are available, and like that.  So my extremely cynical take is that Spike would be put wherever they most needed a ratings boost.  If BOTH shows had gotten cancelled at the same time, and no spinoffs had been approved, I am pretty sure Spike would still have died, because it’s Joss, and he lives to kill off characters.  (See Not Fade Away.)   I don’t think there would ever have been a happily ever after scenario for Buffy and Spike (or Buffy and Angel, or Buffy and anyone) because Joss is one of these guys who is uninterested in romantic relationships in and of themselves.  He sees them as a vehicle for creating angst and drama, and that’s it.  Also, he’s a complete chickenshit who doesn’t want to alienate any of the main groups of shippers, so he’s always going to throw all sides crumbs.

#btvs #season 7 #meta #joss whedon #Anonymous

[agentofship]

My rewatch AoS 1x11 to 1X15

I am very late for the rewatch so I thought I’d keep doing my rewatch review in blocks of five episodes (or whatever seems relevant). So here we go. With TAHITI, we're starting to get a glimpse of what the rest show is going to be since from that moment on. Except for Yes Men (who still gives an important moment information about May at the end) who really should have been in the first part of the season, every episode will be connected in a more or less big way to the main plot of the season. Like Yes Men who's completely independent or Seeds whose main plot doesn't seem linked until the end when we learn that Iain Quinn was linked to it, this first part of 1B makes the transition between the happy Bus days and the darker tone of the last seven episodes that will continue on in season two. So here's a few thoughts about separate episode: The Magical Place I absolutely love that first scene with the team working together perfectly, each using their own talent, it was perfect. Still love it when people call Fitz "sir" in season one, it's just so funny since he's so tiny 😄 May is really smart in that episode. Everyone did exactly as she had planned without even having to tell them (because she knew FitzSimmons and Ward would help Skye escape) and thus also remaining in Hand's good graces. Agent Skye mini May is adorable! But she really is as smart and ressourceful as May, she just needs to be trained in combat and badassness now! I know it's a very unpopular opinion but Raina annoys the crap out of me with her too sweet smiles and exaggeratedly sexy voice. I mean she's obviously really at getting in men's heads, including Coulson but I just find her… annoying. She gets more interesting after she turns, too bad she didn't last longer after that. Love the Coulson rescue mission, again that was some very good team work. And love the reunion scene, although I know at least Skye wanted a group hug. Love May's side smile and "Nice Jacket". "Bet there's no flower dresses where she's going!" "Amen to that, sister." Love that :D "Disengage bracelet" Coulson's dorkiness really is one of his most endearing traits. Seeds First of all, a big thank you for giving us enough FitzSimmons content for hundreds of FitzSimmons Academy Era fics. Love that FitzSimmons scene where they present each other's work mirroring the scene in the Pilot when they introduce each other, it's adorable. Also love the way their speech is so well rehearsed, it's perfectly flawing between them and I bet even that joke Fitz does was written on paper. "Potential can sometimes be dangerous…" Oh Fitz, you're going to remember that one quite bitterly in a few years. FitzSimmons are so proud of their Academy and being such stars there. I love their competition with Ward and Simmons' "Did you have one of these in ops? Did not think so." Yep, cannot imagine Ops having something so fun! SciTech would have definitely been more my kind of place (except for the fact that I didn't study science at all :p) "My room was just like that." We know it's a lie but it's cute, it's Fitz's slightly awkward way of trying to connect. We know he has trouble making first contact and it looks like he's also kind of thrilled of being someone's hero or even a father figure of sorts. Coulson saying "You're talking, it's weird" is the best. That's some pretty dangerous info we're getting on Skye. They really took their time giving us bits of information all through the first season to focus on it in season two. Love the little robot on the bar at the boiler room, never noticed that before, need to include it in a future fic, it's adorable! Too bad Donnie ended up as he did, he really wasn't a bad person and deserved a redemption arc. Again, May is such a freaking badass. And all this without a single superpower! T.R.A.C.K.S Although there will be some criticizing, keep in mind that this episode still remains one of my favorite episodes of the season and the show as a whole. Love the plot, the humor, the action, the different POVs and that's also some top notch drama at the end. So, first of all, the accents. Even I, a person who only some distant italian relatives, can tell that Ward's one is awful. But at least, he's not supposed to be Italian so that's understandable. But that conductor sounds like a mix between Mario and Jen speaking pretend Italian in IT Crowd (hilarious episode by the way, you should look it up if you haven't :D) Then, that train. You should read @valentinaonthemoon‘s post here about it if you haven't because she points out all that is wrong with the train and its route. But seriously, it's so weird. It's all too big and pretty. I have never seen a restaurant carriage with actual cute little wooden tables and chairs and actual room to walk between the table. And what the hell about the actual bed? I've taken a night train to Venice once, even first class wasn't close to looking like that! Anyway, now moving on to all the good parts. May is the definition of badass in this episode. First casually walking on a moving train and then taking of all the bad guys with the knife they stabbed her in the shoulder with. And I also love the little Philinda moment where she lets him help her but didn't let Ward. Love Fitz summing up every cliche Europeans have about Americans "They have some good shows. Lots of nice teeth." and "Someplace affordable with big portions." His pretend relationship and real friendship with Skye is very very sweet in this. I love all the teasing but also the way he insists she takes the gun and tells her to be careful. Jemma is, once again, very heroic in this. Once more, she takes the conscious decision to sacrifice herself for his friends and Fitz in particular. Of course, that grenade wouldn't have killed them but she didn't know that. So really, during the pod scene, when Fitz is faced with the reality that only one can hope to make it to the surface, his decision is easy. And I think it's not only because he loves her and couldn't bear to live without her anyway, but also because she did twice already and he thinks that's it's his turn now. He's just less lucky about the consequences it has on him. (And ironically, Ward provoked it instead of being here to save the day… but I digress). I love Fitz's reaction after Jemma falls. He doesn't run to her because he's stunned and frozen at the idea that she might be dead. His sigh of relief when Skye tells him she's alive is everything. And also the line about her little face is adorable, especially since I only learned recently that it was ad libed by Iain! I didn't remember how heartbreaking Skye was when she tries to call for help and has no voice left at all. For a moment, she must have thought she was going to die all alone in that scary dark room. I mean, I never was really worried because they weren't going to kill her off but still, that's gut wrenching :s But Jemma for the win though! She's not even a medical doctor and so many people are alive thanks to her! And well, of course, THAT HUG! I mean all of FitzSimmons hugs are wonderful but this one is just… I love how it parallels the one from 4x21 where they don't talk and he just has to reach for her shoulder for her to finally let go and cry in his arms. At first, she doesn't fully hug him because she's afraid of putting blood on him (which is very Jemma-like of her) but then she lets go and he doesn't need to say a thing because it's his presence that comforts her the most. Also, FZZT was the moment he realized his feelings had changed for the first time but this feels important too. This is the first of many hugs and the moment their relationship becomes more physical (not in the sexual sense of the word, just physical). As much as I like to imagine they spent their Academy days falling asleep in the same bed every week, I feel like until now, their friendship was very intellectual with only quick very tame physical displays of affection like the touch of a hand or shoulder. Even that kiss on the cheek seemed something wild in the way he reacted and she hesitated before doing it. After that, we'll see more hugs and more daring touches, culminating into the pod scene. (and then regressing and slowly progressing again in season two B and and three) Because being on the field had taught them how hard things could be and they're like each other comfort blanket for a time, thus the need to be physically closer. T.A.H.I.T.I I love how FitzSimmons are sitting so close together on that couch. I think they both need the comfort of each other's presence because they are the only constant in their ever changing world. They really should have let Ward blame himself here. The way May beat the crap out of Iain Quinn was very satisfying. Love Coulson's progression about Tahiti. "Turned out not so magical" and in the next episode it'll be "It sucked". Well, at least he got to see the real, beautiful Tahiti 😞 Awww Trip. I didn't like him all that much the first time. I mean I found him okay and all but only on the second rewatch that I grew to like him. Other than the fact that he could actually get "Witches weekly's most charming award", he really is just a genuine nice, easy going, good guy. Too bad it made him the perfect candidate for shock value death 😞 Love, love, love that scene with FitzSimmons looking through the files. It's stunning and blue light definitely suits Fitz. I also love him during the mission. We know he's kind of scared and he still doesn't like being on the field but he's brave and funny and adorable. "Not afraid, not yet…" "To certain horrible death? Absolutely" Classical sassy Fitz! One thing that had always bothered me during this mission: Couldn't they use non lethal weaponry to "attack" the base. I mean they're protecting a shady secret but they're still (mostly) agents of SHIELD. And they'd been left to die and be buried under all that rock. I get that Coulson wanted the truth and to save Skye but still … I absolutely love the way they decided to handle the Kree reveal. Make Coulson look terrified and let us imagine all the most horrible things and then only in the end the horrible mutilated corpse. Feels a lot like what Hydra did to Skye's mother by the way and very, very evil :s Yes Men I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would despite it not being the strongest episode and it has a lot to do with Sif being a badass. So, first of all, with all the super advanced technology they have, would an Asgardian really be impressed by a bike?!! Skye saying: "I must look awful". Honestly, makeup department guys? They did a really good job when she was close to death but now she doesn't even look a little pale. She doesn't a little circle under eyes and doesn't even look tired at all. And look at her hair! That's not the hair of someone who had been forbidden to leave her bed for days! Fury is already missing, it's getting serious! Sif is so freaking badass and really aces the super hero landing! Also, she's so extra, like she casually throws a car to provide cover. I love her connection with May and I would totally watch a spin off of them kicking ass together. I like the phrase about people being dangerous when they are controlled and how it's another hint at May's backstory. Okay, so I love Sif throwing a car during the fight scene and I love Coulson calling Sif "your ladyship" but seriously, didn't SHIELD have enough women fighters? Honestly! Jemma is totally right about being mad at Coulson about wanting to know more about GH325. Coulson has a good reason for keeping it in house but he should just tell them for god's sake! At this point, we can see that he's still struggling between the whole following the rules and doing things his way because he no longer trusts SHIELD completely. "Ward is not the man you knew. He will not hesitate to kill you." "He might try but he wont." Yep, yep, yep, you don't know how right you were, May! "Because yes, I am that good!" Fitz was cocky and cute there but really not that wasn't a smart move telling Coulson about Lorelei without knowing if he'd been swayed as well. Libido does take a bit of his genius away :p "He's always getting knocked out, isn't he?" Mmmhhh … okay but how freakishly strong is Coulson if he can knock him out with only one punch? "You were saying?" Honestly, they should have copied that collar to use for all the villains and their long boring speeches. And finally dun, dun, dun! They really did a good job making us paranoid and making us think May could be the villain.

#aos rewatch #agentofshiprewatch #team earth aos #earth vs space #aos 1x11 #aos 1X12 #aos 1x13 #aos 1X14 #aos 1x15

[fortunatelylori]

This episode is more convoluted than the crypts of Winterfell

Disclaimer: Proceed with caution! There is snark ahead! I repeat: There is snark ahead! It had to be done, people. If I had to sit down and actually take this episode seriously, I would have lost my freaking mind!

So it happened. The first episode of season 8 aired. The leaks were true and I am now officially dead inside. Let’s get started. 

General Impressions

Trying to review this episode is an extremely challenging exercise. There is no cohesiveness to it, no narrative strand to tie it all together. In an ideal world, an episode should be linked by a common theme. It should have a structure that pushes you towards the end from the very first scene onward. 

Here the writers have completely given up on even pretending they care about structure and plot progression. They’re essentially jumping from scene to scene like a freaking gymnast on crack. 

Surprised that Euron managed to travel to Essos and back and Cersei still hasn’t grown her hair? Seems dubious to you that the Wall gang not only survived the Wall falling but managed to get to Last Hearth through zombie infested territory? How about Ned Umber traveling all the way to Winterfell and back to Last Hearth just in time to die a pointlessly shocking and gratuitous death? 

Well, I’m here to tell you to knock it off! GOT does not give a shit. This show has its priorities straight. And those priorities are: 

Pretty pictures of people being dismembered, burned alive or generally dying painful deaths. 

Porn ... we got to get that porn quota up, you guys! Just you ladies, of course! Who the hell wants to see naked men on this show?!?! Not the Ds certainly. That would be yikey. 

For the sake of my own sanity, I’m going to try and bring some order to the chaos by splitting the episode into 3 main story lines. I’m extremely generous here because 2 of those story lines are barely there at all, and the other one is not linked together by anything other than location: 

Story A 

Winterfell is turned into a Big Brother type house where everyone that ever hated each other is now forced to coexist. If I were to pick a main character in this story line it would probably be Jon. 

The problem is Jon is confused and confusing so watching him work his way through this meandering plot is painfully strange and frustrating. And that’s because his POV continues to be, at least, partly hidden, meaning that I never get any idea of what the hell he’s doing or what is actually driving him in this episode. 

Generally this would allow for some sort of character reveal at the end of the episode when all these loose ends would be brought together and we’d finally know what Jon is up to but these are the Ds. They’re going to milk the ambiguity for all its worth and in true Ds fashion run it into the ground from sheer exhaustion. 

If I were to summarize Jon’s story line in this episode it’s: Jon arrives at Winterfell and proceeds to be flabbergasted that the people he knew would be upset that he bent the knee, are actually upset that he bent the knee. He rides a dragon and gets down to some PDA in the middle of nowhere because he needs to amuse the royal bush. He reunites with his long lost family members and spends most of the episode sulking because Sansa is giving him the cold shoulder. 

I feel like I’ll be saying this a lot but this is not a story line. This is a character aimlessly drifting from scene to scene whose reactions don’t make much sense. 

Then there’s the parentage reveal: 

This goes just about as bad as you’d expect. The dialogue is slightly sophomoric with John Bradley being forced to deliver this line straight: 

Your mother was Lyanna Stark. And your father, your real father, was Rhaegar Targareyen. You’ve never been a bastard. You’re Aegon Targareyen, true heir to the Iron Throne. 

This little bit of exposition here just sounds off and strange, despite Bradley’s best efforts to soldier through it. Not to mention that the writers are ripping themselves off by having Sam parrot basically the same thing Bran said in season 7. 

But the real problem with this scene is ... and I’m very sorry to say it ... Kit Harrington. He just doesn’t deliver. He doesn’t find the right tone and reactions to the monumental reveal and the whole scene falls flat on its stupid, exposition face. 

It’s made even worse that this scene is following the Tarlys burning reveal in which John Bradley does, without a doubt, the best bit of acting in the whole episode. 

The Tarlys reveal is a strange and off kilter scene as well but Bradley sells you on Sam’s grief and horror so you’re instantly in his corner, which in turn helps ground the entire piece. 

Harington doesn’t manage to do that so the scene ends up not amounting to much of anything other than setting up the future plot point of Jon and D*ny as rivals to the Iron Throne. We’ve known the truth of Jon’s parentage since season 6. What’s interesting to us in this scene is how Jon reacts to the news and we want to be given the opportunity to commiserate with him. Alas, we never get the chance. 

Story B 

The King’s Landing plot. This is not really a plot. More like an amalgamation of scenes that are sporadically thrown at you in haphazard fashion, with the only goal of setting up plot points for future episodes.

 In quick succession we get Euron and Cersei having sex (off screen). Lena gets about 10 seconds to act some sort of emotion once the business is concluded and we’re off to the next plot point. 

Theon and Yara reunite and separate within the span of 5 minutes and Bronn is off to kill the Lannister brothers - one man sent into hostile territory, in the freezing winter, with a crossbow. What could go wrong here? ... WHO CARES?!?! PORRRRRN!

The funniest thing about this plot is that the White Walkers are treated as an after thought at best. 

Cersei is more upset she didn’t get her elephants. How much do you want to bet that the Ds blew their CGI elephant budget on the dragons? Speaking of which, should we start putting up flyers for Ghost? Lassie has been MIA for a while now, guys. I don’t think she’s coming back this time. 

Bronn is trying to get it on with the 3 prostitutes in what is easily one of the least sexy scenes I’ve ever seen in my life. The 3 ladies of the night, however, seem determined to kill his buzz with talks of dragons disfiguring people. I guess everyone in Westeros is a fan of D*ny’s children, right? You know what they say: no press is bad press and all that. 

Story C

The Wall gang meet up at Last Hearth and, in true redneck style, get down to some barbecue! 

Again this isn’t a story line. It’s just two scenes hobbled together for the purposes of: 

Exposition: we know that they’re going to ride to Winterfell and arrive in the next episode so we’ll have all of our main characters in place for the big battle in episode three. 

Gratuitous child murder: 

Complete with a strange parallel to this: 

I take no credit for this connection. It was pointed out to me by @and-holly-goes-lightly​. At this point they’re just hitting us over the head with the clues that once the Night King is dead, D*ny is the next, big bad. 

And putting the fear of God into the audience when they realize they’ll have at least 1 episode of night scenes: 

Do you see anything? Yeah ... hope you enjoy darkness for a full hour because that’s exactly what you’re going to get. 

Favorite scenes

The opening sequence: 

The writers swore up and down that the first episode of season 8 would be filled with callbacks to the pilot. The only one that lands, in my opinion, and makes a good counterpoint is this scene. Visually, it looks amazing. We have a little Bran stand in to act as the POV and we have Arya watching her beloved brother finally arrive home. 

It’s poignant and unsettling at the same time. When I watched it the first time, I wasn’t really sure why it felt so unsettling to me. I knew that D*ny wasn’t going to receive a warm welcome in Winterfell and I knew she’d be angry about it so that wasn’t the reason for my misgivings. 

Later on I realized, the most unsettling thing to me in this scene is Jon. He left Winterfell as the character that I most relate to and came back as a distant, off putting figure. Jon, who has never been elevated above those around him, is now marching into Winterfell in the midst of a foreign army and he’s so dead eyed and distant, that he doesn’t even notice his sister in the crowd: 

Who are they now? What are they to each other? There’s something deeply sad and mournful about these shots and seeing these two people that were so close at the end of a very long journey of being torn apart. And Maisie Williams does a fantastic job of conveying all of these emotions.

To me this scene was better than Jon and Arya’s reunion. The reunion is pretty by the numbers, with the two of them comparing swords and not truly ever communicating. It was heartwarming but it didn’t have the emotional punch this scene did. 

The Tarlys burning reveal: 

I’ve already talked about this scene in the Winterfell plot section but, while I felt the scene was awkward and choppy, John Bradley completely sold me on Sam’s tragedy and I can’t help but love the scene because of it. 

There is something else that caught my eye, though: 

From this scene, it seems pretty obvious to me that Jorah knew about the Tarlys’ execution. Which makes it all the more interesting that Jon, on the other hand, doesn’t know. I guess he’s not the only one keeping secrets. 

The Gendrya reunion: 

Initially, I really disliked this scene because it feels stilted and it doesn’t flow properly. I still think it’s poorly constructed. However when watching the behind the scenes video, Maisie gave me some much needed context. Her saying that Arya was in love with Gendry and would have followed him to the ends of the Earth finally made the Gendrya relationship click for me. 

While I’ve always liked the idea of them together, I never really understood how we were going to get there. But this is, actually, about a girl reuniting with her childhood crush and him being able to see her as a young woman, instead of a little girl. 

It also plays in really nicely with Arya’s standoffish-ness in the scene, since Gendry abandoning her to go off with the Red Woman gets a romantic connotation as well as explains Gendry’s awkwardness around her. She’s not a little girl anymore and, dare I say it? He likes her. 

It’s all very cute. 

And these lines? 

Gendry:  It’s Valyrian steel. I always knew you were just another rich girl. 

Arya: You don’t know any other rich girls. 

Legitimately adorable banter. 

The scene is also setting up something with the weapon Arya is commissioning. It looks like a spear or an arrow of some kind. It reminds me a bit of that flash back Bran has in the books of one of the Starks making an arrow from a weirwood branch. It’s been theorized that those arrows were meant to kill Aegon’s dragons. I wonder if they’ll tackle that plot point with Arya?

The opening credits: 

Yeah ... I’m really scraping the bottom of the barrel on this ... 

I assume everyone noticed that the title sequence has been changed. What I found really intriguing is that they focus a lot on the underground tunnels of both Winterfell and King’s Landing. 

The Winterfell sequence doesn’t feel like such a novelty since they’ve been pushing the crypts pretty hard in their promotion so far. The crypts represent the parentage reveal as well as possible danger for whoever hides down there once the dead attack the castle. 

But King’d Landing is intriguing because the thing that I most associate with the tunnels underneath the Red Keep is wild fire. I guess we should get ready to see King’s Landing go up in flames. 

Episode MVPs: 

Lord “I think you’ll find you’re wrong” Varys

Varys would have been on this list for this alone: 

Tyrion: You should consider yourself lucky. At least your balls won’t freeze off. 

Varys: You take great offence at dwarf jokes but love making eunuch jokes. Why is that? 

Thank you, Varys! Thank you! I’ve been saying that Tyrion is a mean spirited hypocrite since season 1. Glad I’m not the only one that noticed. 

But then, Varys goes on to shoot down the idea of a Jon/D*ny marriage alliance with this: 

Varys: Nothing lasts. 

Lolz ... you, my friend, are a STAR! Keep doing what you’re doing!

Sansa “No time for your bullshit” Stark

If looks could kill ... Sansa was so on point this episode that I relished every second of it. Not only did she look stunningly beautiful but she decided to give some much needed reality checks to everyone she came into contact with. 

Apparently everyone that arrives in Winterfell is delusional because Sansa’s actions of merely pointing out the obvious, like: 

Armies and dragons eat a lot. How are we going to feed them? 

or 

You really took your sister at her word?  Am I supposed to keep thinking you’re smart, Tyrion?

Is met with shock, horror and confusion. Everyone and their mother is wondering what Sansa is doing and what she’s up to. Jon is sulking because Sansa is not jumping at the bit to see him. D*ny is upset Sansa doesn’t like her. Tyrion is shocked that Sansa doesn’t think he’s as brilliant as he thinks he is. 

Meanwhile, Sansa is just standing there, not breaking a sweat while everyone around her is twisting themselves into pretezles trying to figure her out. Now that’s a Boss Bitch right there! (yeah, yeah, too much Good Girls. I know). 

Bran “King of the Clap back” Stark

Talking of Boss Bitches, here comes Bran to ruin D*ny’s day. He ain’t having whatever lame attempt at human emotion D*ny is trying to convey and decides to spread some reality checks of his own: 

Bran: The Night King has your dragon. He’s one of them now. The Wall has fallen. The dead march South. 

Also: 

Your hair looks stupid. That coat is lame and I don’t like you very much. 

(this was the subtext, right?)

But Boss Bran doesn’t stop there. He decides to out creep even himself by waiting in the freezing cold of night in order to spook Jaime Lannister upon arrival in Winterfell, like a ghost in a gothic novel: 

Since I apparently have a lot more to say, I’m going to make a little series out of this. In the next two installments I will tackle the J0nereys and Jonsa relationships. Stay tuned!

* none of the gifs or pictures are mine. Thank you to the content creators!

#got 8x01 #got meta #house stark #house lannister #sansa stark #jon snow #arya stark #gendry waters #arya x gendry #gendrya #episode review #anti-daenerys