and you know what the thing is, is i don't even think the biggest problem is going to be that buck's jealous. eddie knows buck. that's the love of his life, but more than that, he just knows him intrinsically. he knows how he is. he knows he gets insecure. he knows he has abandonment issues, like. he knows. he has never once hesitated to give buck assurance and he'll give it again (that scene in buck's loft in 7x05). the problem is going to rise when eddie's relationship with tommy is still a problem after their talk, and neither of them are going to know why. becuase from eddie's pov, it's going to be like, well now you're just being ridiculous. i already told you i love you (in so many words). i already told you we're solid, i already told you nothing's going to change and you're still being weird and i don't like it. and from buck's pov, it's going to be like. i realize we had this conversation, but i still don't like this relationship. i still want things to go back to the way they were. i'm still hungry for your attention and you're not giving it to me.
and so it's like. that's where the wires get crossed. because at some point, buck is going to have to examine his thoughts and feelings again, and he's going to be like, well this man and his relationship with eddie has been the only thing that's consumed my thoughts for weeks; therefore, i must want him desperately. and it's like. yes. solid thinking there, buck. definitely no other options it could possibly be. nuh uh. makes perfect sense. 1000/10 excellent problem solving, great job, buckaroo. dumbass.
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So we have all agreed that Ghost doesnt sleep, whether he's lying awake in bed staring at nothing till the wee hours of the morning, or roaming around base in the darkness drinking his tea, the man doesn't sleep until he physically passed out. What about Soap?
Show me Soap who grew up in a house full of siblings that he had to help raise and only got peace when they went to bed. Give me Soap who hates going to sleep more than anything because night time is his time, when everything is quiet and he can just be Johnny without anyone around. I want to see Soap turn off at night, put away the constant noise and the giant blinding smiles and just enjoy having a little quiet time, not because it's all not real or not him, but because this is also a part of him. A part of him that doesn't fit the Soap persona that he's curated, a part of him that has been weaponised against him more than once. "Why can't you be quiet like you were last night?" "How come you're an entirely different person at night?" "Go to fucking sleep you live alone you can have quiet time whenever". And maybe it's like pulling nails being around other people at night, just makes him want to scream and cry and just beg to be left alone. But not Ghost.
Maybe they run into each other at night and Ghost doesnt know what to say when Johnny just completely flips a 180, going from reading or quietly sketching to bouncing off the walls and flirting and just being Soap™. And maybe as time goes on and they spend more and more sleepless nights together, maybe Johnny allows Ghost to see him be quiet, and maybe just maybe, Ghost becomes Johnny's peace.
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i'm only at the beginning of li tongguang's descent into obsession (eps 17-18), but already it's both hurting and hitting. hurting, because we know li tongguang's capabilities, and his level headedness, and the potential he has, that he seems to throw out due to this obsession. hitting, because when you think about it, the obsession storyline and characterization does make perfect sense. obsession like that is a double edged blade, which can turn from love to hate, childish belief and joy to embittered rage in a second.
on one hand, it's painful to watch ltg's childlike desperation when faced with ruyi again. we want to grit our teeth and think of him as idiotic, unable to take a hint. but the reality is that it's a completely normal response to be expected from him. i mean, it's a dream come true, to see the person you 'love' the most in the world to be whole in front of you. it's probably what he could only dream about, especially being the one to apparently find her bones and bury them.
on a deeper level, ltg's initial reaction is very much a manifestation of his inner child, almost peter pan-like in the 'child that never became an adult/grew up' way. by that i mean to say the desperate urge to please, the constant worrying, and the oscillation between hot and cold moods are all so indicative of someone who grew up in an insecure/unstable environment, usually with volatile or simply unavailable authority figures. from what we can gather, he had no father, his mother wasn't in his life ("she doesn't want him around, nor can she bear for him to be away, so that's why he's like that" per empress zhaojie's words to ruyi). the one authority figure that entered his life to offer some semblance of guidance was ruyi, and even though it's clear that she held care for him, she was also a twenty year old assassin used to training subordinates, not children. her mentorship style is clearly so different when you hold ltg and yang ying side by side, and we know from ruyi's own mouth that she doesn't consider herself to have taught ltg well, and wants to remedy that through/with yang ying (i'll probably make a whole different post comparing this and the affects of this after watching some more episodes lol - there are bullet points in the drafts). so even though ruyi was his authority figure, she was still an emotionally unavailable one who couldn't meet ltg on the level he probably needed at that time in his life, and which no one probably ever did. hence his up and down reaction and actions.
it intrigues me, too, because i think, in a very subtle way, ltg is very much a character foil to ruyi in that he reflects some of her worst attributes, or more accurately represents the sort of person she was, or at least acted like (yuan lu's comment about how ltg has ruyi's gaze was meaningful outside of the jealousy arc - to me at least). i saw someone make a really interesting comment on how ltg's devotion to ruyi parallels ruyi's own devotion to empress zhaojie, which i'll also probably comment on more later.
obviously, ltg's obsession stems from an issue much larger than ruyi herself - she just happens to be the unfortunate target of it. and, clearly, i know his descent into it will be ugly, if understandable. i understand ruyi wanting to leave that part of her life behind, but also - to think that maybe many of the issues faced in future eps could have been avoidable if she'd been upfront with li tongguang about her identity early on.
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Yeah so I'm an Amber apologist until the day I die.
I do think there's potentially a minor writing hiccup but I'm gonna set things out as best I can from my understanding.
What a lot of people don't pick up on, and what the show tries to convey in episode 5, is that Mark has been a phenomenally shitty boyfriend to Amber. We only see a few brief snippets of him cancelling some dinner plans, but this has been a constant, unfaltering issue for 3 months. 'He's late, he doesn't show, and he always has some shitty excuse.' From Amber's point of view, it wouldn't be unreasonable for her to think she means nothing to him.
But she recognises that the situation is complex, and she cares about him, and she sees that he IS trying, if not enough. So she gives him second chance after second chance. Honestly far longer than she should have done.
But yeah, their relationship is on the ROCKS for a LONG time. But since we see Mark superheroing throughout most of that, we can't put ourselves in her shoes.
So then, flash forward to Upstate U and the reveal. My controversial theory, but the one I think most makes sense in terms of writing, is that Amber didn't know Mark was Invincible until he tells her.
Amber is visibly startled when she sees Mark flying in her room. Granted she would be even if she knew, but it leans more to her not knowing than the contrary.
Amber does not know who Invincible is at Upstate U, and she never refers to him by name in the confrontation: 'I know you're a superhero', 'fly away, flyboy'. If she had known 'weeks beforehand' a cursory google would have been likely. She would be more likely to refer to him by name.
Amber is very intelligent, she's quick-witted, she's an expert at putting up walls as a defence mechanism and she hates being lied to. She would be capable of concealing her surprise, and wouldn't want to lose control in the conversation, but honestly she doesn't have to. Because her reaction seems genuine, even if its less premeditated than she puts on.
Amber goes into that interaction thinking Mark is a liar, a coward, a flake and an asshole. That interaction recontextualises him as a liar, a flake and an asshole. In different ways sure, but the end result is the same. Amber's whole issue is that she doesn't feel valued by Mark, and she's just been told that he was hiding an entire secret life from her because he didn't trust her. Also, Mark is not 'trusting her now': he's using Invincible as a retroactive get out of jail free card for being an asshole for 3-4 months. He frames it in a way that, even if its unintentional on his part, makes her out to be small, and petty, and irrational: 'because im out saving lives or protecting the planet.' It sounds like he's blaming her for being mad at him, and he's SO SURE she'll forgive him everything in that moment. She doesn't want to let him off the hook for being shitty, and Mark's behaviour isn't helping. This is supposed to convey that the way he treated her isn't ok even if he was a superhero, and he shouldn't expect it to be.
And she isn't happy about being angry with him! The scene ends with her looking pensive, conflicted, because the walls she put up in that scene do not reflect her character! She goes back to Mark to make sure he's alright, because she sees his actions in a different light, and bear in mind, at this point, Mark is still viewed by the public as someone who played a pretty substantial role in killing around 50,000 people at a guess. She's not going back to him because he's a hero now. He's public enemy number 2. That is an INCREDIBLE amount of integrity and dedication, traits she's displayed repeatedly throughout the season through her grassroots support of local communities.
William literally says in his pep talk to Mark:
'But you were a shitty boyfriend to Amber and you got what you deserved'. This is Mark's number 1 fan. Laying it out in front of us.
And last, but of course, not least,
Guys she's fucking seventeen cut her some slack jesus christ she's not a calculator
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