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what does this mean

#ncis la incoming #possibly a jag cameo but like… bud or aj lol

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Here’s the full Video of Cote

#omg it’s real #I didn’t think I’d live to see the day lol #ncis europe

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anyway the actual point of fandom is to inspire each other. reading each other's fics and admiring each other's art and saying wow i love this and i feel something and i want to invoke this in other people, i want to write a sentence that feels like a meteor shower, i want to paint a kiss with such tenderness it makes you ache, i want to create something that someone else somewhere will see it and think oh, i need to do that too, right now. i am embracing being a corny cunt on main to say inspiring each other is one of the things humanity is best at and one of the things fandom is built for and i think that's beautiful

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When Borin told Tony to bend over to wipe a residue on his butt and Ziva was in utter shock

#ziva said i am the only one allowed to sexually harass tony in this workplace thank you very much

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What the fuck is the “I’m tired of pretending” conversation anyway????

It’s like there’s a whole scene missing and we’re filling in the blanks.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE IT.

But I wish they had followed through on it.

(Oh Jesse Stern, we didn’t deserve you.)

There are so many layers to the conversation, and it’s like Tony and Ziva are in a whole other episode here. 

Tony’s angry at Vance, which goes back to his anger at Jenny over the Jeanne thing. He hates being used.

Ziva’s angry because they got played and she’s running on emotion, because she may be all about “chain of command,” but then she admits to Tony that she reacted completely on instinct – he was hurt, and she was gonna fuck the shit up of anyone who hurt him. 

So this is, like, one of the rare moments of complete honesty between them. Where they actually get close to admitting what is going on between them. Tony is daring her with the taunt about her flaunting the chain of command, as in, “what do you really feel, Ziva?” And Ziva punches right back, admitting that all she could see was him. She did what she did for him. 

“I’m tired of pretending.” “So am I.”

Sure, you could pretend he’s talking about the war game, which plays on his insecurity related to having to pretend for the year he dated Jeanne. 

But that’s not what this is about.

You know all that shitposting I do about how Ziva and Tony occasionally act like they’re hooking up on the sly? So I pretend they’re hooking up on the sly?

This is one of those moments that plays perfectly into that.

Because they’ve told themselves for years now that they’re just partners, maybe even friends, and then sometimes friends with benefits. That it doesn’t mean anything. 

But then we have Ziva in season 4 who gets called out, by Ducky no less, about being in love with Tony. (Or at the very least, having feelings for him, which is why she is jealous.) That plays out all through season 5, when she tries to be a good friend and stand by his side while he works through the aftermath of Jeanne/La Grenouille. 

Now we have Tony in season 6, sort of over the Jeanne thing, and now experiencing his own feelings of jealous and something else bubbling to the surface re: Ziva and her mystery man. He’s the one acting like a man with a wayward lover, to borrow from Ducky’s vernacular. 

Of course, they’re too stunted/afraid to admit there’s anything between them, so they continue their dance, with or without the hook-ups, but here, emotions are running high. They thought, for a very brief moment, that their lives were threatened, and the only thing they thought of wasn’t their mission, it was each other. 

Tony’s sick of being used, because it’s a sore spot for him. He was never really allowed to deal with how Jenny manipulated him, and how he then manipulated Jeanne, and now Vance is pushing all those same buttons. 

But, you can also insinuate that it goes deeper than that too; that by pursuing Jeanne, he also had to set aside whatever was going on with Ziva (whether it was what you know I think it is, or whether it was genuinely just friendship), and that has had long-lasting ramifications, too. 

We so seldom see Tony and Ziva so raw and vulnerable like this in front of each other, and I love it. The way Tony is unhinged because he’s so fucking sick of it all, like he can’t ever be himself whether it’s personal or professional. The way Ziva is nearing a breakdown because everything is too much and Tony will always be her Achilles’ heel, the one thing that’s going to blind her and let her emotions get in the way. 

So, if you’re me, and you do subscribe to the theory that they’ve had a fling going on on and off over the previous three seasons, then it makes even more sense. That in a moment of panic, their real feelings bubbled to the surface, ones they’ve tried to ignore or dismiss over the years, but the heart does want what it wants, as they’ve said before. 

Maybe they were sleeping together. Maybe they had a send-off before Ziva went back to Israel. Maybe Tony is jealous of Ziva’s possible boyfriend and he’s mad that she won’t tell him one way or another and he doesn’t know where he stands. Maybe Ziva is mad that Tony isn’t stating his intentions and saying one way or another if he wants to be with her and the wishy-washiness of it all is driving her crazy. Maybe they’ve hid behind “we’re just partners” for so long that when they suddenly fear for their lives, the facade crumbles. 

There is so much more subtext to the scene beyond “Tony is mad that they didn’t know about the war games” that I have to think it’s deliberate. 

Arguably, this has been building since “Judgment Day”.

I already mentioned the other night that I “blame” Jesse Stern for saying he wrote them as “are they/aren’t they” instead of “will they/won’t they”, and I think this is a perfect example of why.

#another thing I have zero recollection of writing #thank you gabby lol

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LOSING MY MIND

#does not compute #my brain does not accept that this is real #between this and ttpd my brain is going to be fried at the end of this month

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Early Early

#them

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tony’s protectiveness and being worry over ziva in shalom and everyone on the team sees it

tony telling mcgee he’s worried about ziva

“tony’s freaking out”

tony working with the team to get ziva out of trouble behind the jenny’s back

“what makes you think she was there”

“why wasn’t i with ziva”

ducky encouraging tony to go after the person who went after ziva

“don’t call her she won’t wait for us” HE KNOWS HER SO WELL ALREADY AHH

“my guess she’s going without us” y’all mind i cry

#gabby single-handedly keeping this fandom alive

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So the whole point of season 4 is that everyone has a secret.

Tony keeping Jeanne a secret from the team, and keeping his identity secret from Jeanne.

Palmer and Lee keeping their relationship a secret from everyone and sneaking around in plain sight.

Jenny keeping her true motivations behind chasing La Grenouille from the team.

La Grenouille keeping his real work a secret from his daughter.

McGee keeping the nature of his books a secret from the team, and even keeping his real identity from his fans by using a nom de plume.

The season even started on the heels of a huge secret, Gibbs’ first wife and daughter and how they were murdered.

BUT!! There is also this undercurrent of the Tony-Ziva relationship, right? With the publication of McGee’s book and the implication that Tommy and Lisa are thinly veiled stand-ins for Tony and Ziva.

The very first episode of the season has that somewhat iconic scene in the embassy office, where Ziva’s handler accuses her of sleeping with Tony, and it’s left hanging in the air, never directly addressed.

But if the theme of the season is Secrets, and it starts with this revelation, or at least accusation… does it not stand to reason that Tony and Ziva’s little secret is the one that kicks off the grander arc of the season? We get this tease, this hint that there is something happening in the dark that no one else is privy to but the two of them, as an appetizer to the bigger secrets of the season that will unfold.

It was the secret that was dangled right under our noses.

Of course, when some secrets stay secret, it ends up swallowing people whole.

Ziva gets her feelings hurt. Tony gets his head screwed around. Jeanne’s entire world shatters.

Gibbs loses Hollis because he can’t open up to her about his life, including Shannon and Kelly.

Lee and Palmer end up flaming out (though that is also due to the terrible treason plot the next year).

Jenny lets her hunt consume her and ends up ruining innocent people’s lives in the process.

Etc.

Anyway.

They played us all to the beat and we fell hook line and sinker.

THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK.

#i have zero recollection of writing this #it sounded smart though 😂

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going absolutely insane

#gabby stop

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Love you babe ❤️

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heartbreaking. you have to write the fic youre writing in order for it to be written

#Hmm perhaps I should have thought of that first

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you're too sweet for me

summary: Tony and Ziva talk about the Secret Summer of Sex rules.

I take my whiskey neat My coffee black and my bed at three You're too sweet for me

read it on ao3

#Sofia ily so much

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GOD love is fucking embarrassing just watch as i crucify myself

lmao embarrassing when you get caught on camera by your father’s henchman answering a bootycall from your situationship 🥴

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but i am my fathers daughter so maybe i can fix him

asdfghjkl except I think that applies more to the Michael arc tbh 🥴

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hi hi

https://open.spotify.com/track/4L9l5x0WuzNtyEBeqzvgPE?si=T6QHBkEPSxG-qJXmTqlm4w&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A5AHWNPo3gllDmixgAoFru4 ziva david song

Heard It In A Past Life my beloved ❤️ the way that album was album was so intrinsically tied to that year for me for so many reasons and specifically to the ziva return arc

#Gabby I’m not going to be able to answer these all tonight lmao