#definitely one of my favourite scenes

[mostlylurkinbarelypostin]

A shot by shot breakdown of the final S3 Goodbye Scene 🎥 aka, the scene that always kinda rips my heart out and stomps on it a bit

A lot of the general audience views Mike and El’s behaviour in the final goodbye scene as proof of their undying love, but when you pay close attention you'll see that that is very much not the case. Instead you'll notice how their interactions seem stiff and disconnected, while Mike chooses instead to gravitate towards Will, staying as close to him as possible at all times. Mike and Will are in almost every shot of the final group goodbye scene together and are positioned in close proximity for every one of them. In the few that they aren’t in, the previous shot tells us that they're standing together off screen. 

Like so much of S3, the story of Mike and Will is intentionally hidden in the background and concealed by short shots, jump cuts, and busy scenes with other characters that compete for your attention. If you breakdown the scene though, it becomes so incredibly telling of where Mike's head is at in light of his "Not Possible" moment with Will and El's surprise love confession. It's so quick, but this scene does a beautiful, but also incredibly subtle, job of showing that Will is very much still Mike's main concern. 

The scene feels emotional and chaotic but when slowed down, you'll see one continuous story being told. There's so much hidden within this beautiful scene, so with that being said, please come along while I go through it shot by shot. 

Right in the first shot we see Mike pull Will into a hug. It happens in the background while the hug between Nancy and Joyce draws your attention away from them. 

It's a quick shot that is then immediately followed by a second shot where we still see them hugging. They remain in the background while El and Max's hug replace Nancy and Joyce in demanding your attention in the center of the frame. 

The scene cuts from the first shot to the second halfway through Hopper saying the words “So long”. We hear “So” at the end of the first hug and “Long” during the beginning of the second hug. This could be a stretch but it's so on the nose that it feels like they're literally telling us that it has been "so long" since the last shot. A lot of people believe that these two shots are showing the same hug from two different angles, but there’s a few continuity differences that suggest that time has passed. Nancy goes from hugging Joyce to leaning against the car, El has moved into the frame to hug Max, Dustin moves slightly, Mike and Will move more to the right of the car and their arms change position. Mike and Will also swap positions so that Mike’s back is towards the camera instead of Will’s. 

The fact that everyone else has already moved on around them while they have yet to separate serves to emphasize just how much time they're spending together in comparison to others. I almost view it as them having broken apart just to realize they weren’t ready to let go yet. 

After he separates from Will, Mike stays close but goes to lean against the car. This leads to the first shot of El trying to initiate contact with Mike. 

El walks up to Mike and tries to reach for him, but before we can see what happens, the scene cuts abruptly to the next shot. 

Mike is shown standing back beside Will with his back turned towards El. Dustin and El's hug draws your focus away from Mike and Will, who are slowly pushed out of the frame. 

As Mike goes to stand on Will’s right, the shot tracks with Lucas as he walks over to them and places a hand on Will’s shoulder. Mike and Will are hidden from us as they remain offscreen together. 

Lucas then switches sides to stand on Mike's right and we get a shot of Lucas, Mike and Dustin with their arms around each other. 

It’s almost a mirror version of their group hug at Starcourt Mall but this time Will isn't a part of it. El is separating him from Mike and we're shown his heartbreaking expression as he looks over at them. We also see El once again trying to initiate contact with Mike. He gives her a quick one-armed hug before he pulls away from her again. He very noticeably avoids eye contact with her. 

We then get another short clip of El once again reaching for Mike, this time with Joyce looking on. Mike is almost completely out of the frame, keeping his facial expressions and line of sight hidden from our view.

Joyce’s facial expressions are so interesting here. It’s implied that Joyce agreed with Hopper that something was wrong with Mike and El’s relationship, hence why she encouraged him to have a heart-to-heart with them. I often wonder if Joyce's facial expressions here, which look a lot like understanding and pity, have something to do with that. Can she see how much El wants Mike to love her and how much he's struggling to give her what she wants?

Our next shot pans from Will and Dustin hugging to Mike and El hugging. 

Notice how even when they’re with different people, Will and Mike remain close to one another. After the shot pans from Will and Dustin, we get shown this moment between Mike and El.

Lots of people have talked about how forced this whole interaction feels. Mike still has his eyes closed and El appears to force his head against hers. Lucas and Joyce compete for your attention in the background and the U-haul truck provides and unsightly backdrop. It is not an intimate shot by any means. Mike's face remains completely shadowed throughout and they are directly paralleled to a platonic relationship as the camera pans directly from Will and Dustin hugging to Mike and El doing the same. 

It's an uncomfortable shot and we get a direct comparison to it right afterwards that serves to highlight just how unnatural their actions are. 

In the next shot, Nancy and Jonathan have a very similar interaction to Mike and El's, however it feels completely different. 

Unlike with Mike and El, Jonathan and Nancy both reach for each other and voluntarily place their foreheads together. Their actions feel natural, and unlike Mike, they both don't hesitate to make eye contact. 

It's obvious that they want to be close to one another and you can feel the love between them. The moment is also beautifully shot with nothing else on screen to distract you. They're the only ones. It feels intimate. 

Moving on from Nancy and Jonathan, we finally get the very last shot: 

This entire scene ends with Mike walking away from El, who is left standing alone, crying.

It is... definitely a choice. 

Given that Mike is on screen for only half a second, it is easy to miss the implication of the shot, but it is there, nonetheless. 

Final thoughts: This entire scene is only 35 seconds long and there is so much going on in every shot. When you watch closely though, you can see just how much Mike and Will are struggling with leaving each other. You can also see how Mike is not able to give El what she wants as she continually reaches for Mike only for him to pull away soon after. It's clear that his mind is elsewhere and that Will is still his main concern even in light of El's love confession. This is further enforced by the next scene in which we get the famous shots of Mike watching the Byer's pull out of the driveway, as well as him looking back at the house as Dustin, Lucas, and Max bike away without him, foreshadowing his inability to move on as easily as the others. Mike's heartbreaking expressions are emphasized and we're even given access to his thoughts via Hopper's voice over. 

Mike is completely crushed when he leaves the Byer's. We know this because he goes to his mom for comfort. 

We've only seen him do this twice before. Once when he thought Will was dead and had just watched his fake body being pulled from the quarry, and again when he watched El sacrifice herself for him and his friends. Both incredibly traumatic experiences. After Will's "death" in season 1, Karen tells Ted that Mike will come to them when he's ready. The thing is though, Mike is only ever ready when he's completely falling apart. 

This ending is a set up for how we find Mike at the start of S4, where it's clear from the first scene we see him in that his mental health has deteriorated significantly over the time skip. Mike isn't as oblivious as people think. He knows that Will has been pulling away from him ever since their fight, and despite their moment in the kitchen, he knows that their relationship hasn't fully recovered yet. He's still scared that he's lost Will completely. We’re told this through Hopper’s voiceover. That fear is then confirmed in Mike's head when Will doesn’t reach out to him once he’s in California. In S2, Nancy reveals that she waited for Jonathan before getting back together with Steve and I've often wondered if something similar happened with Mike. Did he wait for Will to reach out, but when met with silence, went back to the safety of El? Just an idea. 

Other small details from the final scenes: 

1. Mike and El's only private moment between the two of them is framed in front of the U-haul that has "ONE-WAY AND LOCAL RENTALS" written on the side. It's the only goodbye hug framed in front of it. Of course, we've seen the word "Rentals" pop-up two other times in the series. Once when Nancy confronts Steve in S1, and again when Mike, Will, and El go to the Rink-O-Mania in S4. It implies something temporary. Meanwhile, one way could be a reference to the relationship only being one-sided (and maybe could also be related to Mike's one way sign, lol). 

2. Once El finishes reading Hopper’s letter, we jump back in time to just before the final goodbye scene, when they are finishing packing the U-haul. El tucks the letter into her pocket and then we get this shot. 

Will walk out of the house first with Mike right behind him. There’s then a noticeable gap before El follows. The shot implies that while El was reading Hopper’s letter, Mike had gone back to Will and is continuing to stick close by him. It’s an easy shot to overlook but it says so much. Everything happens for a reason and there’s a reason they want us to see Mike staying close to Will and not El after her love confession. There’s a reason that it’s Mike that’s helping him pack and load boxes and not Dustin, Lucas, or Max. There’s a reason that Mike and Will’s feet are in the same frame together but have almost completely exited the frame by the time El enters it. It serves to make us view Mike and Will as a pair and emphasize El's loneliness. Mike and Will act incredibly similar to Nancy and Jonathan in these last few scenes, as both couples gravitate towards each other in an effort to spend as much time together as possible before they’re forced to separate. 

This was a very long post but there's just so much in this scene that I wanted to talk about and it's like there's an entire story being told in the background that you can completely miss if you're not looking for it. I know some feel that we are making the entire show about Will and Mike but their relationship and its development is an incredibly fundamental part of the it. It's been emphasized from the start for a reason. Every shot exists for a reason. All these details exist for a reason. Describing how a scene depicts or develops a certain relationship does not take away from other characters. At times, the writers make the show about Mike and Will because the show is partly about Mike and Will. I hope more people come to understand that next season :) 

#byler #byler analysis #stranger things #will byers #mike wheeler #Definitely one of my favourite scenes #This post has been living in my drafts for months but it’s as coherent as it’ll get so I’m freeing it from the dungeon

[ocean--grey]

Thinking about how terrified Lister must’ve been during Demons and Angels. He’s trapped with the warped, evil versions of his crewmates. He’s forced to not only interact with a spider, but to also eat it. The guy he’s had a fraught rivalry with, the guy he’s brushed off as being unable to hurt him due to his incoporeal state, is now able to hurt him and WANTS to hurt him. He’s forced to confront the darker side of himself, the side that “thinks terrible things”. The method of torture they use against him is extremely personal. This is a guy who’s not afraid to go against authority, forced into submission without any way to escape. Then, they use this power over him to attack the High side of himself, and then to turn on his own crew. He attacks the guys he cares about, unable to stop himself, his Low side piloting his every action. This is a guy who hates being controlled , and he is constantly manipulated by his Low self throughout the second half of the episode. I wonder how long it took him to reconcile with the fact that there was in fact a version of himself that would not hesitate to do that to someone. I wonder how long it took him to wash the taste of spider from his mouth.

#yeah going back to demons and angels I have to say it’s definitely one of my favourite episodes #It’s very hard-hitting and has terrifying implications. #also the spider scene is difficult for me to watch so I usually skip it. I can barely stomach the idea of being forced to eat a spider. #red dwarf #dave lister #demons and angels #also yeah spiders + manipulation… this episode is the Web to me (magnuspod reference)

[sysig]

It started with a whisper ♥ (Patreon)

#Doodles #SCII #Helix #ZEX #Crackship #Xigbar #Of all the crackships that I didn't expect I probably wouldn't have expected these two the most lol #I super wasn't expecting to feel So strongly about them this is like multi-tier Big Feelings in varying directions #One - ZEX - obvious (lol) | Two - Xigbar (hehe II hehehe) - I think I mentioned it like maaaybe once over here but I was Huge into KH #Specifically Org XIII specifically-specifically 358/2 it is the only game in the Kingdom Hearts line that I've beaten and probably ever will #Oh no wait that's not true I did play through all of the DS release of Re:Coded but like......does that count lol I think no #I played the intro of Kingdom Hearts II and shut it off after the bit with Roxas and Sora like - the egg scene how do I non-spoilers this #I own it and I will never beat it I am too sad I want only my Nobodies lol <3 #Kingdom Hearts had a big influence on me - that and Magic Knight Rayearth are a big explanation as to Why I'm Like This lol #Cough cough casting away the dark parts of your heart only for it to come back and bite you later and also The Gay™ lol #But AnyWay lol - Xigbar! #He wasn't my favourite-favourite - aside from Main Characters that'd probably go to Marluxia - but I still hold him very fondly!! #Definitely doodled him a good bit he's very handsome ♪ #And just - ah ♥ An old fave and a new(er) fave interacting and making each other happy and feel nice and play well I just fsalkfdf #As well as that being Max's body! There's something heightening about all these different aspects that was just overwhelming to me haha <3 #If it's not already obvious - yes this was the happy cries lol this is the only explanation I have haha #I feel very strongly about Them and Interactions and Feeling Nice and fjdslafsdf #Anyway! This isn't Just them! Just a lot haha ♪ #I have started a playlist lol - so far it's just this song - Everybody Talks - but some of the others from SCII playlist fit well too :) #The rest is just ZEX being cute hehe <3 ZEX not understanding what crying is is very interesting to me :3c No VUX equivalent? #Seems like they don't have the same kinds of chemicals like adrenaline et al so I guess a flushing system isn't as necessary! Interesting :D #ZEX fumbliness leading to him being a bit on the back foot is so cute hehe <3 He wants so loudly and openly but actually accomplishing it- #I also really like how he holds himself - all the tension through him to fight against new muscles and bone everything too alien! #I imagine his hands as being very rigid and all the fingers pulled together straight but that could just be how he describes bones hehe #Alien in there <3 Plenty to read into :3c

[felicia-jollygoodfellow]

Why are these all stuck together?

🤣

#I definitely want to see this scene in live action #one of my favourite scenes #the last of us hbo #the last of us #tlou #playstation #ps5 #game screenshots #joel miller #ellie williams #joel and ellie #pedro pascal #bella ramsey

[maggiecheungs]

“Is it possible for us to live without a past?”

FAVOURITE THAI FILM(S) PER YEAR • 2009 ↳ MUNDANE HISTORY | เจ้านกกระจอก (2009) dir. Anocha Suwichakornpong

#mundane history #anocha Suwichakornpong #worldcinemaedit #filmauteur #filmgifs #women directors #southeast asian cinema #thai movie #thaimovieedit #favouritethaifilms #เจ้านกกระจอก #fofm #myfilmgallery #ellisgifs #one of the few directors who actually deserves the weerasethakul comparisons #but also i think those comparisons do her a disservice because she very much has her own style and themes #anyway the final scene of this film literally takes my breath away #confused tf out of me the first time i saw it 😭 but it’s definitely one of my favourite final scenes of all time #would have giffed it but uhhhh idk about the medical ethics of doing that #queue

[panncakes]

this show has me flip-flopping so much between theories; was it do hyun soo's sister who actually killed the man he took the blame for or was it to protect her? is she more involved with their father's killings? was their father not the killer at all??

#flower of evil #also any scene with do hyun soo and cha ji won is so gooood #the tension is incredible #episode 6 now and this is definitely one of my favourite shows i've watched this year already

[jinx-you-owe-me]

PART 29

of the dfk audiobook translation

@cnka

this is the final part!!

Jo: „Hey! How did it go?“ Martina: (breathes out slowly) „No idea.“ Martina: „I don’t know if I made it.“ Jo: „Ach, I'm sure.“ Jo: „When will you get the information?“ Martina: „Soon.“ Martina: „…“ Martina: „That was it.“ Jo: „What?“ Martina: „My only chance for the scholarship.“

Narrator (audiobook): Jo takes Martina in her arms.

Music fades in and continues into the following scene.

Martina: „Will we still be friends? Even if I have to leave?“ Jo: „'Course.“

SCENE CHANGE

Narrator (audiobook): In the evening, Robert sits at the bar of the town pub. Justus comes in and sits down next to him.

Bökh, to the barkeeper: „Will you make me a beer?“ Barkeeper: „With pleasure.“

Justus sighs. He shoots a few looks at Robert from the side.

The barkeeper sets the beer down in front of Justus.

Bökh, to the barkeeper: „Thank you.“

Silence and music again….. But it’s comfortable this time. Not like in the wagon.

Robert looks at Justus for a moment. He turns away to take another drag from his cigarette.

Nichtraucher: „I didn’t think you’d come.“

Silence and music

Bökh: „Of course I did.“

Justus takes a drink from his beer.

Music

Robert raises his glass to his lips, still turned away from Justus.

Nichtraucher: „On the youth.“

Justus sets down his beer and looks at Robert in silence for a few seconds.

Bökh: „On us.“

This time, Robert looks at him. He studies Justus' face for a few seconds before turning away with a smile.

Narrator (audiobook): Almost simultaneously the two turn around to a small stage with a few instruments standing on it.

Justus looks at Robert and raises his eyebrows.

Nichtraucher: „Are you ready?“

Justus shrugs and nods.

Narrator (audiobook): A few moments later, Justus has strapped on the guitar and is standing in front of the microphone. Robert sits at the piano and takes a last drag from his cigarette.

Narrator (Nichtraucher): And I promise you one thing; tomorrow, I’m a nonsmoker.

Narrator (audiobook): Justus addresses the few guests in the bar, but they are only of secondary importance tonight. Because here and now is about so much more.

Bökh: „We’re the Bandits.“

Robert chuckles.

Justus starts singing.

Different scenes are shown while the song plays. It switches back to Justus and Robert singing together inbetween.

[This music video is mostly that but with lyrics over top, but it also includes scenes from previously in the movie. Song lyrics + translations can be found here.]

Narrator (audiobook): And so everything finds a happy ending. The Internals stranded at the boarding school in the holidays spend idyllic days at the lake and in the mountains. With their new friends, the Externs, also.

Narrator (audiobook): And finally Herr Bökh receives the releasing letter, which he immediately delivers to Martina.

Narrator (audiobook): She has passed the test. She will see the boarding school and her new friends again after the holidays.

Narrator (audiobook): But for now it’s off to Berlin to Martina’s brother and mom. She has a lot to tell after all - especially about the flying classroom and how it came to be.

The song fades out with this scene. The "Bandits" finish their song. Justus grins at Robert. Robert breathes out and smiles back, nodding. The audience inside the bar cheers.

Narrator (Nichtraucher): Most people take off their childhood like clothing that fell out of fashion and is then forgotten in a basement. Don’t let your childhood be driven out of you. Only those who grow up and stay children are human. The simple things are sometimes complicated. If you didn’t understand something, ask your parents. And - dear parents. If you happened to not understand something, ask your children.

#das fliegende klassenzimmer #dfk 2023 audiobook translation #dfk #das fliegende klassenzimmer 2023 #mine #this one might be a high contender for favourite parts as well #it has everything; #lesbians and the nichtraucher and ungodly amounts of staring once again #i said im putting my hopes into lesbians and the nichtraucher and at least this part delivers imo #also remember what floenz said about the symbolism in what justus and robert are wearing? #when they met at the train wagon justus was wearing a suit and wanted to reconcile while robert who was wearing just a t-shirt didnt #and in the hospital robert wore a suit and wanted to reconcile while justus in just a t-shirt didnt #and in this scene they’re both wearing a dress shirt #like the middle in between. they’re meeting on equal grounds #there is something about the music as well but i can’t put my finger on it #like. it implies something that the song jo and robert played is so prevalent in the scene where justus and robert meet in the bar #it implies something but i don’t know what it is #and with this we finish! i hope you enjoyed it #i definitely gained a new appreciation for this movie through spending countless hours engaging with it

[phoenix-onfire]

#this is definitely not just a ploy to hear all the wonderful pet names you came up with👀 #i chose my own because i felt like Nate deserves something special #i wanted it to be as meaningful as his pet name for MC is #Arya is calling him “szívem” #it means “my heart” #because Nate and Arya complement each other so well #they are definitely soulmates #my heart & my soul #they are each other's lobsters🦞 #I'm a sucker for affection and cute relationship moments #one of my favourite things of book 3 was the reveal of the mutual pet names #i absolutely adored N's reaction when MC first called them by the pet name #i wish we could have had more of an in-game reaction when Nate first called MC ya rouhi #detectives with no knowledge of foreign languages don't even find out what it means🥺 #but luckily my detective is fluent in many #it's such a tender moment when Nate tucks MC in bed #i also loved the alternative first reveal but still prefer the bath scene #n sewell #nate sewell #unit bravo #wayhaven #the wayhaven chronicles #twc book 3 spoilers #twc book 3 #twc #nathaniel sewell #pet names

[thirddoctor]

was expecting more cool gifsets and less Michael Corleone x reader fanfic in the Godfather tag but in hindsight that was probably my mistake

#anyway just finished watching the movies #I don't have anything to say about them that hasn't already been said but yeah they're good #the third one is definitely the weakest overall but it did have some of my favourite scenes in the trilogy so #Ranger shut up

[franeridan]

okay look I know I've talked about this at length already but I've seen a ton of people talk about how they don't like whiskey peak and how they think it wasn't necessary for zoro and luffy to fight like that or straight up think it was ooc of them, but then the same people will turn around and go "isn't it fascinating how zoro's the only one who can say no to luffy or nearly order him around or that luffy waits for the opinion of before acting for no apparent reason it must be because they are soulmates" and honestly for real I'm the first to subscribe to the zoro and luffy soulmates thought but the reason why zoro can do all that is whiskey peak. that is the moment zoro took a decision that benefited the whole crew without asking luffy first for the first time, and that is the moment luffy unjustly doubted him without implicitly trusting his judgement, and that is the moment luffy learned that actually sometimes zoro sees what's best for the crew before he does and that trusting him to always act with the crew's best interests in mind is something he should do. zoro had never opposed luffy or acted without his consent in any way before whiskey peak and luffy never doubts him and always turns to him ever since, there is direct correlation between the two zoro and luffy didn't learn to trust each other and respect each other through a magical soulbond connection their relationship is actually pretty damn well developed

#like i know in most manga it's useless to analyze every scene this deeply since the mangaka doesn't actually think about it that much #it's not that deep usually and i get it #but op is Definitely not one of those manga imho you can and you should stop and read into every single thing that happens #everything has deeper implications in it it's one of my favourite things in the manga #you're allowed to not like the thought of zoro and luffy fighting or how they just moved on and laughed it off #(even if i do believe given their characters that's the only way a fight between them could have ended but that's just me) #but even without liking it just writing it off as unimportant or non influential is just wrong #that's part of their history it should be counted as such whether you like it or not #i know i always talk about the same thingssss but there's a lot of new readers starting the anime going in from opla #and wonderfully a lot of them are zo lu shippers which is fantastic but it does put a lens on the way they watch it #like same me too everything is zl for me too but #yeah whatever point it I'm seeing the argument brought up again ex novo all over #and I'm probably the n1 whiskey peak defender so im not unbiased lbr #i love that they fought there who am i kidding #........... I lost my point #anyway *waves hands at post* that's my thoughts on that

[kermitsex]

Главное...

...верить

#man this film #definitely one of my favourite scenes from it #i wouldve translated glavnoe as 'most importantly' but thats nbd #i only used the subs for this screencap #stalker 1979 #tarkovsky

[bamboozled-distress]

omg omg omg you've read count your lucky stars?? thoughts?? (I just started!!!)

oh my god sorry for responding so late 😭 I LOVE THAT BOOK!!!!!!!!! I read it during june like two years ago and it is AWESOME

its a fun little romcomish thing and idk if you’ve read the other books in the series but it’s a nice little refreshing thing from the little bits of fakeness with the other books and honestly the sex scenes are top tier

#definitely not my favourite book but it’s a good light read!!!!! #ashamed to say this but i got off in the middle of class to one of the sex scenes #not my best moment per say #count your lucky stars #wlw #lazim answers things

[eriksdotter]

Can we just talk about how heartbreaking it was to hear Reva start explaining her past with “We thought he was there to help us.” and how small and pained she sounded while speaking—probably for the first time openly—about the worst moment of her life. How it was Anakin Skywalker she saw, not Darth Vader, not a Sith Lord but Anakin Skywalker, one of the most respected and trusted Jedi Knights and thought she was safe during an attack on the Jedi. How relieved her and other younglings must of been to see help arrive, only for them to be slaughtered in the act of Order 66. Reva, a surviving youngling having to remember how defenseless she was to fight against them, to stop the slaughter of her family against a man she thought she could trust and how she hid amongst their cold dead corpses to survive.

#the depth of how she delivered that scene was amazing and i hope we see more of reva #she’s definitely one of my favourites please it was so sad 😭😭 #reva sevander #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #darth vader #order 66 #star wars #kenobi series #obi wan kenobi series

[lapis-lazuliie]

even though i'm not on my sherlock bullshit anymore, i still maintain that the very first scene between mycroft and john is brilliantly written

#it's definitely one of my favourite scenes in the entire show lol #she speaks #bbc sherlock

[mossflower]

agony of a witch remains one of the only episodes of toh where i just have sit and stare into space for a while to process everything

#it’s sooooo good. it’s not my favourite anymore but definitely in the top 3-5 #the belos introduction!! the subtle lore drops!! the curse reveal!! the ending scene with luz!! fucking hell it SLAPS #and eda and lilith’s fight scene is my favourite in the show hands down #and ofc becuase it’s me: banger soundtrack. a lot of the s1 soundtrack is super underrated #ESPECIALLY that little eerie piece they play for big reveals/plot moments. i love it so much #does that one appear after s1? i can’t remember but i don’t think it does #the owl house #toh

[lovethistoomuch]

just finished the third book in the Aubreyad and I am so incredibly happy that Jack is finally going to get married! nothing bad's gonna happen on his way back home, right? right?

also, curse Diana! I like her a lot but how could she do this to Stephen? when are they finally going to get married???

it took me a bit to get through this book due to personal reasons but as soon as I continued reading I couldn't stop!

of course two of the highlights include the fact that Stephen does not get injured once but twice during the course of the story and the focus is never really on what happened to him (it is never directly explained how he was tortured) but exclusively on how much of a bitch he is being during his recovery. it is a true testament to how much the crew and Jack love him that they put up with it <3

(the operation scene is incredible and so much more dramatic than in the movie if that is even possible. it also had a slightly different vibe, being a 20 minute affair)

Stephen is responsible for so much death in this book and I cannot help myself but feel sorry for him, especially when it's the result of him being a giant idiot. (who gives pure silver bracelets to a girl living on the street? what did you think was gonna happen???)

the whole sloth situation is hilarious but as a biologist I cannot stop myself from feeling a little sorry for all these animals being removed from their natural habitats.

the battles in this were absolutely incredible! not that they hadn't been before but this time the stakes were so high when they were defending the indian ships and it was really nice to see what a great strategist Jack truly is.

everyone on board just grows on you so much! and I cannot wait for the next adventure! also, if I had a nickel for every time Jack and Stephen look at each other fondly, I'd be rich by now. just the way their friendship is described is so lovely and gentle and it really, really warms my heart.

every time Pullings shows up, I smile. hopefully, he'll get the first mate position soon. he absolutely deserves it.

and while it was funny for a while how Jack has bad luck with money, I am glad that he can finally stop worrying in that departement.

great to finally be on the surprise! Jack loves her so very much and I cannot help but feel the same <3

#aubreyad #aubrey maturin series #hms surprise #this again got way longer than I intended #and there is still so much i didn't talk about #one of my favourite scenes was stephen absolutely trash talking jack in front of him #and jack just going yeah you're probably right I do eat a lot and am not very pretty #i mean i am not for demeaning a friend #the thing that makes this work is that we know jack definitely has no issue with self worth #and that stephen loves him a lot #it's just so funny to me that stephen absolutely has no filter when it comes to things like this #and jack is so good natured that he isn't even offended #or maybe it's just that their friendhip is so strong that he knows stephen is saying this with good intentions #I also love how stephen goes from: i will absolutely murder them #to: no worries #as soon as the crewmen show remorse after eating stephen's rats #he continues to be my favourite #in case it wasn't obvious #long post