#i was in the process of doing the entire scene but it would've been too long djsjdsf

[eightstarr]

i know — van palmer.

summary: you can't remember a life before van, but there was one. there must've been one. it feels ridiculous to think about. you'd rather think about her, rather think about this— two moments then, and two moments now (and so, so many to come).

notes: heyyy i know i said i would post this like a month ago, i fully forgot!! if there was like one person waiting i'm sorry and i love you sm <3 also this ignores the plot entirely and i wanna make that very clear just in case!! it's like a nothing happened and we're all okay au! anyway here's to my loser girl and to whoever also finds themselves staring at the wall in silence thinking about her :)

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THEN.

"You're hogging the blanket," Jackie mutters over a mouthful of popcorn, purple polished nails tugging at the soft fabric.

She's right— you are. "I'm not," you say, and bring your legs close to your chest partly so they can offer some kind of comfort, but mostly so they're not touching the unknown dangers of the floor anymore.

The TV flashes red and Jackie's living room is bathed in it, along with all your faces.

Shauna snorts at a man getting brutally and very unrealistically decapitated on the screen and pulls her own blanket closer to her best friend before she even has to ask. They do that a lot; talk without words. Any other time you would've noticed, thought that's cute and smiled to yourself, but right now you're too terrified.

The movie is bad. Or, that's what you have to keep reminding yourself of. It's lazy in a way that's bordering on comical and needlessly violent in a way that proves that it was written by a man with interesting fantasies. You shouldn't be scared, but you are.

Another death earns you a few minutes of quiet, though you know the build up to the next one will be worse. The characters cry and fret over the dead body of their friend but the killer is nowhere to be seen, disappearing conveniently into the night. You're granted a scene of daylight but the sun comes and goes, and then the screen turns to dark violets and blues again and you're tensing up in your seat.

It's fine, at first— the pretty blonde girl is yielding a kitchen knife and walking around while her muscled boyfriend boards up the windows of the big house. Lottie shifts where she's sitting on the floor next to Laura Lee's legs and whispers about why they would lock themselves in instead of taking their chances outside, which is 'obviously the smartest thing to do'. You don't have time to process what she's saying because suddenly an ax is clawing its way through one of the windows and the characters are screaming and, well, so are you.

"Fuck!" You curse, jumping and landing yourself halfway into Van's lap, the softness of her thighs under your own, your back against her chest.

Van blinks, more startled by your reaction than the scene itself, her hands coming up to steady you and then immediately dropping back down a second after they brush over the cotton of your shirt. She lets out a shaky breath and does not think about how good your weight feels on top of her, because that would be a bad thought, a questionable thought. And it should not have been the first one to pop into her mind. Definitely not. That would be embarrassing. That would be bad.

You cover your eyes with one hand as the sounds of screaming come to a crescendo and hold one of her hands tightly with the other, mumbling sorry, sorry, sorry as if you're doing something wrong. As if you don't know that, even if you were, Van is incapable of being mad at you. Famously so. Everybody knows.

She looks around the room to the rest of the girls. No one is staring, too busy chewing popcorn and wrinkling their noses at the more gruesome special effects. Van turns her head back to you. A million thoughts rush in, overwhelming and unforgiving. Something about the soft tint of chapstick on your lips, the curve of your nose, the shape of your fingers. Things she's noticed before -Van is often greedy of all your details-, but not in this way, never from this close. She can smell your shampoo from here. Somewhere in the back of her mind, over the scent of honey and strawberries, she wonders if she's going insane.

Your body noticeably relaxes as the violence dissipates, your grasp on her hand loosening slightly. When you uncover your eyes, the final girl is clawing her way through the woods. You're unsure of how she got out of the house, but too comforted by the thought of the movie finally coming to an end to care.

Van is scared to say anything, scared to move— if she does, you might push yourself off of her, ignore her for the rest of the night because you're embarrassed. The thought is ridiculous. You'd never ignore her, you're not that kind of person, but it's what she would do. Except she'd probably never be in this position in the first place, because she'd never be brave enough to throw herself on your lap, even if she was as scared as you were. And that's just it anyway, it's not like you chose to do this. You didn't pick her. You would've found the same comfort in anyone's arms. Right? Van feels you shift closer, just slightly, like you're unaware of it. Right?

Her forehead falls on your shoulder as she thinks herself sick.

"It's scary, right?" You whisper, confusing her crisis for fear. Your fingers wrap around her bicep, soft and absentminded when they brush up and down her skin, trying to make her feel better.

Van feels her stomach flip, her hands twitch. In another world, she would wrap her arms around your waist and press her lips to your ear, mumble something stupid like if you say so, baby just to annoy you. Here, though, all she does is nod her head. She whispers back, "Yeah, it is."

She looks up at the screen, tries to be scared, to be invested. You relax further into her, personal and comfortable as if there's no one in the room but the two of you. Van blinks. She can't give you the name of the girl on the screen. A minute passes and your back straightens suddenly, but you don't rush to slide off her lap. You do it carefully, not because you want to but because you're worried about making her uncomfortable. Van wants to pull you back but she's never faced anything as daunting. She comforts herself with the thought that one day she will, a hungry attempt at manifesting or breaking a mental wishbone or something. For now, she follows you with her eyes and feels her anxiety melt away when you notice her staring and give her a smile. The movie's not yet over. She looks back. Who's the bad guy again?

—

NOW.

Van likes to pretend that she's a better cook than she is. Someone else might find it funny, annoying even, but you can't find it anything but cute. You love telling her that you've run out of food and watch her scoff and puff up her chest.

"I'll make you something out of nothing," she'll say. Then she'll open the fridge and bend at the waist, stare at said nothing for a solid two minutes before resurfacing and declaring that she's craving pizza from the place down the street, anyway, so there's no point in cooking.

At the grocery store the next day, you make sure to buy the essentials for the one pasta recipe that she does actually know how to make. Van likes to feel useful. And you like to indulge her every need, maybe a little too much.

You pick the sweetest looking tomatoes for the sauce, no real expertise behind your method— you're not exactly an amazing chef, either, but the two of you do just fine. Someone calls your name in the middle of bagging the last tomato and you turn to meet a face you had almost forgotten about.

"Katie Lopez?" Van asks again, staring at the folded piece of paper with the almost-stranger's number that you'd gotten without asking (a friendly gesture, you're pretty sure) after a slightly lengthy conversation that carried on even after your multiple anyway, I should probably get going's.

You're telling Van about the encounter while washing the tomatoes in the sink, sleeves rolled up. Your cheeks are warm with kisses like they always are when you make it back to her, as if she wants to reward you for it. You've been hers for so long, and she's still amazed at the fact that you come home to her. "Yes," you repeat. "Why is that so shocking?"

"It's not," she says, flicking the paper where it sits on the counter, kinder than her original need to ball it up or light it on fire or something even more dramatic. She moves to open the cabinet and starts putting away the canned goods you've brought. "I just didn't know you guys were close."

"We're not. She was just being polite."

Van hums. For a moment you think she'll let it go, but of course she won't. She doesn't like the thought of someone flirting with you when she's not there and she especially doesn't like the thought of that someone being Katie fucking Lopez, who's most memorable for fingering girls in the bathroom for most of your shared high school experience.

Van clears her throat and the cabinet closes with a thud louder than she intended, definitely not because she was caught up picturing you under Katie's gaze. She means to sound casual, but she's not trying very hard when she asks, "She ever try to get with you?"

You spare her a single glance, as if to check that she's serious. Of course she is. "What, in high school?" You shake your head, chuckling like the idea is funny. "No. She was more into the cheerleader type."

Van knows that you're right. Still, she squints her eyes at you, ginger hair leaning to one side when she tilts her head. "Is that a hint of resentment that I'm hearing?"

You've gotten good at knowing how to handle her jealousy. It's only fair, considering that she's gotten good at handling yours. Neither are ever that serious. "I was making a neutral observation."

You know she's creeping closer before you feel it. You know her too well. "Yeah?" She mutters, her hands on your hips as she presses herself to your back. Her nose is familiarly cold where it brushes against your neck.

You dry your hands and lean back on instinct, and she doesn't flinch at the added feeling of your weight. Van can be a lot like a brick wall, but you don't usually tell her that, unless you're feeling extra sweet and want her to grin like a cocky little shit for the rest of the day. "You were into that type, too."

Van scoffs, a soft gust of air on your neck. "I was into you," she says.

You hum, purely fucking with her. "Maybe."

"May— what the fuck are you talking about?" She pulls away just enough to prove that she's actually offended. And she is, because the idea is ludicrous and yeah, she's taking it personally. You can question Van about anything you want, except for the fact that she's been in love with you for more than half of her life. "When did you ever see me looking at cheerleaders?" She asks.

You and Van work for a lot of reasons. You work because you're different where it matters, enough to balance each other out, and you work because you're the same in everything else. You might've been just teasing her at first, but now the thought does that stupid thing where it starts to linger and -just like she had thought about you and Katie- you can almost picture it in your head, a younger Van standing on the soccer field, her eyes trailing over a girl's short uniform skirt. You roll your eyes, annoyed mostly at yourself. "Oh, don't act like you wouldn't have loved for them to shout your stupid name."

Van chuckles. She can read your train of thought like a book. She knows you too well. "Stupid name, huh? You're cute when you're jealous." And a little mean, too, but in a way that makes her weak in the knees. She won't be telling you that part. You already know, anyway.

You pull the hands that are wrapped around your waist away from you. Van lets you— she wants to see where this is going. "Not jealous," you mutter.

"No?" She teases, half-heartedly disappointed when you don't turn around to let her kiss you.

You look at her over your shoulder and then make eye contact with the piece of paper on the counter, recalling the words of your old classmate. Call me whenever. We should totally hang out. You're too old to be telling people you should 'totally hang out', but Katie Lopez hasn't changed much from the last time you saw her. You hold back the urge to wrinkle your nose at the memory of that same teenager-trying-to-be-cool smirk that she gave you throughout the whole interaction and hum thoughtfully, like you've been tempted. "Maybe I will call her—" you take one step towards the counter in a half assed attempt to reach for the paper but Van is unusually quick as she strides forward and takes it in her hands, tongue poking into the inside of her cheek as she rips it in two. "Van!" You gasp.

"What? Don't tell me you were actually gonna use it," she pouts. "You're breaking my heart, baby."

You try to take the two pieces away from her and all you earn is her breaking it in four, holding it above your head. You're laughing as you slap her shoulder. "God, you're so stupid."

Van raises her eyebrows, mismatched numbers wrinkled in her hand. She drops them on the counter in favor of cupping your face, pressing a contained short peck to your lips. Don't feel bad, she won't hold back for long. "Stupid like my name?"

"I love your name," you shake your head, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "I love it. Just as long as it's mine to say."

It is yours, but you know that already.

—

THEN.

Van's room smells like the incense you got her. You wonder if she used it just to appease you because she knew you were coming, but it's a silly thought. Van likes you. You know this now. She takes everything you give her (your time, your smiles, your kisses) like it's a precious gift, so you can't imagine that she would neglect an actual gift.

Your grandmother said you should light the incense before a game, to bring you good luck and calm your nerves, and you're not ashamed to admit that you bought Van her own pack the very next day. Everything makes you think about her lately, especially this kind of thing. You're not even sure that the incense works, but why wouldn't you share it with her? She deserves all of it— good luck, a stomach free of nerves, at the very least a nice lingering scent if your grandma's beliefs turn out to be a myth. But you hope they don't.

Your girlfriend is anxious more often than you are, but never really about a game. Van knows that she's good at soccer. She's nervous about other things. Keeping her side of the house clean, being able to afford Sinéad O'Connor tickets, what her mom's mood will be like tomorrow, English assignments but only because she thinks the professor is the coolest guy alive and she wants to impress him even if she won't admit it. And lately, there's another thing. She worries about whether you'll look at her one day and realize that you're too good for her.

You know about some of her anxieties, but clearly not all of them. She can picture your reaction if she were to share the last one with you, how your face would scrunch up and you'd look at her with eyes so loving and so sad. She can almost hear you ask, soft and patient, why would you think that? And she wouldn't know what to say. There's comfort in the fact that the worry is there, but it's not constant. Van only worries about that when you're gone. When you're in front of her, or sitting next to her in class, or talking to her on the phone, it's hard to imagine that you'll ever stop liking her. She takes in your smile, your laughter, your sparkling eyes and she can't think about anything else. You make all of it go away. If you asked her, she would tell you that she thinks the incense works, but only because it came from you.

She can smell it faintly from where she is now, but there are a hundred other things overwhelming her more— the feeling of your legs on either side of her, the sound of your bracelets clinking together when you move your arms to rest them next to her head and cage her in, the sight of you leaning in to kiss her. It's easy to say, she's only been dating you for three months, but Van is sure that she will never get tired of this.

She hums against your lips, something too close to a moan. Her cheeks are red when you pull away, and you're not sure if it was the sound she made or the regretful, kind of embarrassing thing she has to tell you that gave her that reaction. "My mom will be home in, like, five minutes," she says, raspy and breathy.

Her voice distracts you. Your lips are tingling. "Okay," you say, nodding your head even though it takes you another three seconds to actually process what she said.

This is where you sit up, break apart. Neither of you move.

You smile and lean back down to kiss her again, stomach fluttering from the sound of her giggling as you tilt your head back. How are you supposed to stop when she's so fucking— so cute, so handsome, so in love with you. You've never felt so secure of another person's feelings for you before, but it's impossible to doubt Van. She makes you confident, makes sure that you know at all times. Might as well be saying I love you, I love you, I love you between each kiss that she pulls you back into.

It takes everything in you to break away from her, but you have to. "Fuck, okay. I gotta go," you mutter. You have to. You'll see her tomorrow. It should be embarrassing how greedy she makes you.

She watches as you sit up on her lap, your skirt bunched up over the crotch of her jeans. You must notice her looking, because you're laughing like you can read her mind when she huffs and covers her face with her arms, her lips pursed as she suppresses an even more embarrassing sound than the one she made before.

"I'll see you tomorrow," you insist, like saying it outloud will make leaving easier. You stand up and brush your hands over your hair, flattening the flyaways. Then you grab your backpack from the floor (don't think about the pretty pin she got you a few days ago, because it'll make you want to kiss her again) and walk over to her window.

You could take your chances with the front door, but you don't want to. Van was afraid that her neighbors would see you and innocently mention it to her mom, say something like oh, I saw that Vanessa's friend came by the other day. Van wishes it could be left at that, but her mom is rarely that simple. She looked so worried as she told you about it, so ashamed. You kissed her cheek and promised yourself you'd get good at climbing.

She comes closer as you climb to the other side, getting your footing on the familiar edge of the wall, and she hisses when you let go of the window railing to reach over and cup her face. You don't have to pull for her to bend down and let you kiss her, your thumbs brushing over her cheeks.

"Please don't fall," she's saying as you make your way down.

You look up at her and smile, and Van thinks you're so pretty that she misses the mischievousness behind it. "Have a little faith in me— oh, fuck!"

Van flinches, bumping her head on the window with how quick she moves to look down at you. The sound of your laughter makes her realize your hands never left their safe grip. Her shoulders relax. "Oh my God, fuck you," she scoffs, though she's too relieved for it to have any real bite.

"What were you even gonna do?" You ask, still giggling.

She shrugs, eyebrows furrowed. "I don't know, fucking— grab you or something."

"Your arms are too short to reach me from up there."

"I take offense to that."

"Well, I'm sorry," you sigh, tilting your head. "Doesn't make it any less true."

"I better not hear you asking for my short arms to carry you after practice tomorrow," Van huffs, said arms now crossed over her chest.

You look up at her in disbelief, raising your eyebrows. "I have literally never asked you for that, you always offer."

She shifts slightly where she stands, moves her weight from one leg to the other, caught. "Because I can do it," she mutters.

"Yes, I know. You're very strong, baby."

Van rolls her eyes, choosing to believe that you're teasing her because if she believes that you're being genuine she might die.

Your feet hit the ground with a thud. You do a silly curtsy, as if to say ta-da! and Van thinks you're so cute she's certain that she'll die. You give her one last grin and blow her a kiss before sneaking away from her house into the night.

Van goes to bed with her cheeks aching from smiling, her bed smelling of your perfume, and the faint sound of her brain screaming (terrified, celebrating) you are fucked!

—

NOW.

"I wish I'd asked you to prom," your voice is muffled by her sweatshirt, lips partly pressed against her shoulder.

Van snorts, looking down at you. "What?"

"You never went," you explain, and you have that look on your face, like you've been thinking about this for weeks. Like you could cry. Van presses pause on the (admittedly) shitty action film she'd chosen and lets you try to get your thoughts out. "I really wanted you there. You would've liked it."

She lets out a sigh through her nose, a hand coming to rest against your cheek. "I really don't know if that's true, honey," she says honestly.

You straighten your back a little, a tiny frown on your face like you get when you've been challenged. "You would've liked it. You love to dance and the DJ was, like, surprisingly good. And Ms. Dawson actually said yes to a dance with Peter K., even though that was highly inappropriate now that I think about it. But it was funny at the time— and Natalie snuck in a bottle of vodka."

"Yeah?" She asks, awfully endeared even when she's heard the story a million times before. You'd told her all about it the day after prom, your voice groggy and sleepy over the phone. She had felt lame about having missed it, but a thousand times better as soon as she picked up the phone, giggling in her bed like a fool at every detail you gave her.

You wrap your fingers around the hand on your cheek, press a kiss against her palm. "You would've loved it," you say, sounding somehow more convinced than before. "I should've asked you."

"It's okay."

"No, it's not. I was a dick," you insist. "I was a coward—"

"Hey, no. No," Van sits up from her lazy posture, two thin wrinkles between her eyebrows when she frowns. They look good on her. You remember when they weren't there, and it always makes you a little emotional. "Don't say that. You weren't."

"But I was," you try to reason, stubborn to a fault. "I'm not, like, condemning myself. I'm stating a fact."

Her frown deepens. "Well, I don't like it. And I don't think it's a fact."

You didn't mean for this to turn into an argument, but you're not exactly thinking about that at the moment. It happens— you've let the thought saturate in your brain for too long and now you're stuck thinking that you're right. "Why are you arguing with me right now?" You ask, not being petty but genuinely wanting to know.

Van huffs a frustrated breath. "Because I thought about asking you to prom for years, okay?" She says, crawling with embarrassment. "I told myself I would over and over again and then I fucking didn't. If you were a coward, what does that make me?"

You pause, guilt swirling in your stomach because you realize all at once that you've been poking on a tender bruise you didn't even know existed. "Van," you say softly, "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

She sighs, almost a chuckle. She can be so mean to herself, so condescending about her own feelings. You know she's not laughing at you, or disregarding you in any way— it's just what she does when she feels like she's humiliated herself. Especially when you're there to watch, looking at her so kindly when she's certain she deserves none of it. "Yeah, well. That was intentional," she mutters.

You let her look away from you for a moment before you push yourself onto your knees, placing one on each side of her hips. She welcomes you like she always does when you come to sit on her lap now, her hands on your waist and her face falling forward to press kisses over your collarbone. A thoughtless motion, automatic.

"Sweet girl," you hum, guiding her head up with a careful hand, smiling when you meet her eyes. "We should've gone out dancing alone. Would've been way more fun."

Van breathes out a laugh. She wonders if she'll cry, and feels like she could. "Yeah," she agrees.

"I would've said yes, you know. I'm not blaming you for not asking me, I get why you didn't. I really do. But it's important to me that you know that." You brush a strand of hair behind her ear. It's pretty, and getting long. In no time she'll be asking you to wash it over the sink and trim it with your fancy hair scissors, like you've been doing since you got back together when you were twenty five after a stupid argument that led to a two years long break. It wasn't a good time for either of you, but you don't regret it. You have the rest of your life to live with her. Still, there will always be things like this— arguments about deep buried shame, fears that might never go away, moments you missed that other high school sweethearts didn't because their worries weren't like yours. It's sad, but not inescapable all the time. You and Van don't blame each other for any of it. But sometimes you need to be reminded of that.

"I know," she nods, her voice in that soft, quiet tone that you love but rarely get with how passionate she is. It's not a hardship, you love that just as much. "I think maybe that's why— why I was so freaked out. Like, if you said yes, it would become real."

You nod and chuckle a little, sweet and airy. "And you'd have to actually start to date me? Yeah, I would be scared," you joke.

Van buries her face in your chest with a groan. "That's all I fucking wanted," she says, feeling too honest to play along like she usually would.

You let her stay there for a while, her nose brushing against the rise and fall of your chest. Wanna be here forever, she'd told you once, with cold fingers sneaking under your shirt, more than a little drunk. You have been making fun of her about it for ages, but it tugs at something different today. It makes you pull her softly with a hand on the back of her neck, just enough to press your lips against hers, not wanting to deny her any of your warmth that she might crave.

Van hums against your lips, moving where you want her when your hands guide her own from your waist down to your hips. You press your chest against hers like you know she likes and she moans into your mouth, a hand moving to press against your back and force you closer.

"I'm sorry I didn't ask you," you mumble when she lets you pull apart, speaking close to her ear as you kiss her cheek, lips soft over old acne scars and sunspots.

Van shakes her head. "I don't care," she promises, smiling like she does when she's about to say something corny. "Look at me now," she shrugs, fake humble. "I got the girl in the end."

You laugh against her smirk and kiss her until she's lifting your hips and pushing you down on the couch, your back against the worn pillows, a hand on the back of your head in case you bump it on the arm rest. You like when she moves you around just to show off, reminds you of when you were younger and she'd flex her muscles just because she knew you were looking. She might not be the same type of strong now, but she can still pull out some tricks when she wants to. And with you, Van often wants to.

She tilts her head back when you try to pull her in for another kiss, sighing as she gets comfortable on top of you. She almost gives up the act when you pout at her, blinking your pretty eyes, but instead she leans her weight on one hand next to your head and says, "That is, of course, if she doesn't leave me for Katie Lopez's magic fingers."

Van expects you to roll your eyes, slap her shoulder so she can say ouch! and dramatically rest her hand over the wounded spot. Instead, you slide your hand over hers where it's resting against your hip, intertwining your fingers together and smiling pretty, tilting your head. "Mmh, but I have the best fingers right here."

Van scoffs, playing amused rather than speechless because she's trying not to show you how much your words get to her. It's embarrassing how proud it makes her, how quickly she melts into the palm of your hand when you as much as imply that she's good at something, that you would pick her over everyone else, that you want her like she wants you. Praise from others makes her smile and say thank you, but praise from you reaches her core, makes her dizzy. Her lips feel dry and her tongue pokes out absentmindedly to lick them as you guide her hand up. Van barely registers the movement, too busy watching your face— how beautiful that she gets to see it all the time now, that she knows all the details like you know hers.

Her fingertips come to rest against your lips and her breath stutters as she tries desperately to maintain any sense of coolness or dignity or fucking something while you kiss each one, soft and attentive. She's thinking, is she insane for finding it as thrilling as she does, even after all these years? Do you know what you do to her? You can't possibly know, Van almost decides, but then you part your lips to slide two of her fingers into your mouth and she thinks that you do. You definitely know.

"F—fuck," she breathes out, and tries to remember her original plan to tease you but can't recall your old classmate's name. "You trying to butter me up?" She asks, her chuckle trembling but deep, from the back of her throat.

Her fingers slip from your mouth with a soft pop, and Van groans. You hum, "Is it working?"

You're mean, evil. You're the sweetest thing she's ever seen. Two things can be true at once. You're a dream, and you're not like this for anyone else. The thought echoes through her skull, warm and infectious. Van smirks. "Yeah."

#van palmer x reader #van palmer x female!reader #van x reader #van palmer x you #van palmer fic #yellowjackets fic #yellowjackets x reader

[imagitory]

Yes, I know, I'm shocked too -- but once again, it seems, I have to talk about Disney's Wish. Truthfully, this entire analysis was one I never set out to write, but I felt like I had to after having a really good conversation with my mum about this deleted scene featuring Asha's grandpa, Sabino; the sentiment expressed by some Disney fans that its inclusion would've helped fix the film; and even the purported perspective that the development team was deeply unhappy about the corporate decision to cut it.

So first off -- do I think this scene is that magical missing piece that would've fixed Wish? Not exactly. I do think that Sabino putting the idea of wishes being worth fighting for into words for Asha that she even could've reprised later while fighting Magnifico could've been very powerful. Just imagine how much stronger the story would've been if Asha had used Sabino's song to rally the town against Magnifico -- not only creating the payoff of Asha making her dear Saba's wish of inspiring people as well as her own wish to make things in Rosas better come true, but ALSO bringing Magnifico's worst fears of rebellion against his rule to life in an ironic twist! But even if including this scene could've improved the film, I don't think it would've fixed everything wrong with its story and characters. It did, however, inspire that really fun conversation with my mum, and we realized together what this scene at least partially provides that the finished film didn't --

A reason to care about the wishes Magnifico hoards away.

When I was in college, I took a screenwriting class, and one of the most important lessons the professor taught us was to give your main character(s) a strong desire and then give your audience three strong, disparate reasons to root for your character in reaching their goal. This way, if one of the reasons doesn't resonate with a member of your audience, maybe another one will. The more reasons you give your character to want to succeed, the more people in your audience are likely to feel for your character's position and support them in their actions.

Let's use Disney-Pixar's absolute masterpiece Finding Nemo as an example, just for kicks. Marlin wants to save his son, Nemo, after he gets captured and taken away by human scuba divers. The audience wants Marlin to succeed because his reasons include --

Love. Marlin loves his son very much and is very protective of him, partly because Nemo has a disability that Marlin worries puts him at particular risk being on his own.

Past trauma. As seen in the prologue of the film, Marlin lost the entire rest of his family to a horrific barracuda attack that also resulted in injuring Nemo while he was still an egg, so Nemo is the only family Marlin has left.

Guilt. Marlin feels responsible for what happened to Nemo, because they were in the midst of a fight about Marlin's helicopter parenting when Nemo put himself so close to the human boat and got captured.

The thought process behind this writing trick is that you want your audience to care about what your character is working toward. This is how you get an audience really emotionally invested in their struggles and story, and it also helps define who the character is as a person, understanding not just what they want, but seeing the lengths they'll go to in order to chase that desire. And this is what Wish seems to understand symbolically, but not enough to use this knowledge while shaping its screenplay or characters.

In the finale of the film, all of the people in Rosas whose wishes were taken can still gather enough "stardust" or "magic" or "dreaming whatever" to defeat Magnifico without them. The magic is inside of them, even without the contents of the bubbles Magnifico took from them -- because our wishes, dreams, and ambitions come from who we are, as people. They're a piece of us -- they're informed by who we are -- our happy memories, our past scars, our personalities and hobbies and values. What makes dreams coming true so beautiful is seeing someone become a more complete version of themselves through it!

And yet...what do we learn about any of these characters that tie into these wishes and why it's so important their wishes be returned and/or granted? What visually communicates that these wishes are so integral to these people's personalities and souls that they're a pale shadow of who they used to be without them? What emotional justification is there for anyone to care if Rosas's citizens achieve these flights of fancy? Are there any real stakes or grave consequences if those wishes aren't granted?

Why do we care if this one lady wishes she could fly, or this other one wants to make dresses? What do we care if this one person wants to sail a ship and travel the world? This one guy wants to climb a mountain or something, but...so what? We don't know any of them from Adam! The film tells us that these wishes are really important to these people, but we don't get any emotional reasons to be invested in whether or not these people's individual wishes come true.

Even characters we do meet like Simon -- what about him made him want to be a knight? Where did that wish come from, in his character? Was it fueled by misguided patriotism? A desire for glory? Being bullied as a child and wanting to prevent others from going through the same thing? We have no idea! Imagine how much more Simon's "betrayal" scene would've hurt if we'd gotten to know Simon as this dreamy, idealistic person who grew up reading fairy tales about knights bravely protecting their kingdom and being heralded for it, only for that wish to be twisted by Magnifico to make Simon serve his king blindly with no free will of his own. Imagine how much more interesting of a character Simon would've been if there had been real context behind that wish he'd made and given up, and how much more interesting his relationships with his friends could've been as a result.

What about Asha's mother? Her wish is treated as incredibly important in the film, since Asha tries to steal it from Magnifico like she did Sabino's and Asha and her family react with such upset when Magnifico crushes it, and yet we never once learn what the wish even was. Even when the wish is reformed and returned to Asha's mother, we STILL never learn what it was and by extension what it meant to her mom and why it was a bad thing that it got crushed. Why should we believe this wish of Asha's mum's is so important if we never even learn what it is? Because the film said it's important? In the immortal words of Will Turner,

(source)

Just look at Joe Gardner in Pixar's Soul. Would you care so much about him wanting to get back to the world of the living if you didn't learn through the film that he'd been dreaming of playing jazz since he was a child and had finally landed this big gig with a jazz band after years of rejection and his own mother never supporting his dream right before dying? Would Joe have connected with 22 the way he had over the course of the story if it weren't for not only his goal, but the character, passions, and world view that fueled his pursuit of that goal in the first place?

My mum, while we had this discussion of ours, put forward her own experience. When she was a young woman, she dreamed of having a family of her own: a husband, 2.5 kids, a house with a white picket fence where people could gather together. Over time, though, Mum kind of resigned herself to the reality that it probably wasn't going to happen -- she was pretty solidly focused on her career, she hadn't had much luck in her long-term relationships, and she'd gotten to an age that having her own children was incredibly unlikely. This doesn't mean my mum lost that desire for family -- it's still a part of her, and it informs who she is as a person. She's always taken care of the many cats she's had over the years as if they were her children. She made and has kept life-long friendships with people who've become like siblings to her. She even ended up becoming something like a mother figure for her ex-boyfriend's daughter from a previous marriage, while she and that boyfriend were together. And when I was conceived (pretty miraculously too!), my mum never hesitated for a moment about whether or not she wanted me. Even if my father had chosen not to stand by her and me, she would've pursued that dream of motherhood she'd thought was lost to her all the same.

THIS is what the deleted Sabino scene has that the finished film doesn't, though still in a bite-size amount. The reason the filmmakers give us for why we should care about Sabino's wish (and, one could argue, the town's wishes) is that when his wish is returned to him, it allows Sabino to connect more deeply with his granddaughter and his daughter-in-law through the music he's so passionate about.

The reason we the audience should care about Sabino's wish is the connection he makes with others.

We still don't know where that wish came from in Sabino's character or back-story, and the theme of connection through one's dreams is something that certainly could've been explored more if it had been kept...but for the first time, through this deleted scene, the filmmakers gave us a reason to care about that little magic bubble besides just telling us that they represent a heart's deepest desire and we should want everyone's wishes to come true because wishes are good. (Which honestly has a lot of problems -- the film never even bothers to explore any scenarios where wishes could truly be dangerous or morally wrong to grant, such as a wish to rule this particular kingdom or that this one person will marry you, regardless of their opinion on the matter.)

The song Sabino sings in this scene says that if a wish is powerful enough to fill your heart and make it "close to breaking," then it's one "worth making." But to tell a story worth telling and create characters worth rooting for, you need to show -- not just verbally explain -- why your audience should care.

#disney wish #disney #wish (2023) #wish #opinion #analysis #sabino #asha #oh boy here i go #for the record that will turner reference is my mum talking #we both find the 'why is the rum gone remix' absolutely hilarious and as we were talking about this she referenced it #and I just HAD to include it XDDD

[heartfullofleeches]

Oh my god cowboy and bandit yanderes made it here!

Imagine though, sheriff yandere after a bandit y/n. Cat and mouse chase with some close calls (y/n pinning yandere/yandere pinning y/n. Some have makeouts n y/n escapes after, some are just chatting about life) bandit y/n is able to just charm the sheriff n make an escape, something other sheriff's would call " soft "....... Until they notice y/n is the only one able to get away from yandere sheriff. All other bandits are unable to escape. Just y/n.

"Howdy, fellas." You tip the sheriff's hat at your fellow lawbreakers, waltzing past their cells with the keys too them twirling around your finger. They must've fallen into the pot whenever whoever prepared your meals passed the tray off to you. How careless of him.

You weren’t supposed to leave the station until after dark; according to a certain someone's instruction, but you wanted you get out bright and early to feel that fresk morning air. You peer into the main office from the window on its door, seeing nothing but empty space and those rays of sun you were dying to feel. Quietly, you open open the door; immediately realizing something is off as it eases to a close behind you.

In your hurry to get out, you forgot to unlock the office door - but it was already open

"Kept me waiting, Jailbird."

The sheriff raises his arm over your head and slams the door completely; grinning as surprise crosses your features. He grabs your right hand; hooking one of the cuffs of his pair to your wrist before doing the same to his.

"Now, what's stopping me from throwing you in some prison cross the country I know you'll never get out of?"

"The fact you'd miss the sound of my voice."

He chuckles. "You got me there."

For as long as you'd been a criminal, you had been playing this little song and dance with the county sheriff. You would steal or break the law some other way and he'd give chase. If you didn't magically manage to escape; you'd get locked up. He'd visit you the same day and the next you were free to repeat the process

You might think his colleagues would've picked up on the sheriff's little crush, but he was good at his job and they were nothing the wiser. Though some did have their suspensions.

"This is dangerous, Y/n." The sheriff warns. "If someone else came by, we'd both be in deep shit."

"I know, but I wanted to give myself a headstart."

"I oughta lock you in that cell for good." He rumbles, stroking the calloused pad of his fingers against your cheek as he places his forehead against yours. "Make sure you can never get away from me again."

"You wouldn't.. you like the chase.." You meet the sheriff's lips; his hand hand snaking up to the back of your neck to keep you from moving as he returns the kiss. Hungrily, he presses his mouth to yours as you make-out without a care in his own office; saving the taste of your skin since there was no telling when he'd get the chance again.

You were right again in your statement. He loved moments like this. That initial chase; the burst of firey passion along the way where he could pour all of the desire built inside him in. One day, when you begin to get older, he'll trap that foxy spirit of yours in his own abode, but while you both were still young and free he'd follow your tail till that time came.

You part from the kiss, checking the time from the corner of your eye. "It's getting late. Should let me head out before your pals show up."

The sheriff flashes one of his signature grins. "You've had the keys this entire time, darlin.... I'll give ya a twenty minute head start."

"See you soon, sheriff." You kiss his cheek and make a run for the doors, zooming past a deputy that just arrived on the scene.

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere oc #yandere scenarios #yandere imagines #male yandere #yandere x you #yandere story #yandere headcanons #yandere insert #yandere drabble #yandere fic #yandere writing #Yandere sheriff

[dipplinduo]

Have you ever scrapped ideas for Sweet & Sour?

Yep!

My process has luckily been more of "transform an idea that doesn't fit" situation for most things, but I'm happy to talk about some of the things that didn't make the cut. Whipping out the notes page...

Lacey was actually meant to be the spotlighted E4 member that gets close to Juliana, not Drayton (hence the focus on her in Chapter 1 & 2). She was actually my favorite at first, and I envisioned her as being a positive, grounding guide for Juliana, and also somewhat of a middle ground influence for Kieran. But then I wrote my spin on the cafeteria scene, and I was like "oh my god wait, Drayton's character is so enticing and flexible, and he's especially fun to insert as an influence in the Kieran/Juliana dynamic". SOOOOOO I quickly decided to pivot and make him the spotlighted one, and have him do more of this brotherly figurer role who was very cunning and comedic. Before I even realized I got overtaken by the iconicism, and now he's just part of my brand in general. Whoops. The "Drayton Being Iconic" tag existed on this blog before this happened so I honestly should've seen it coming LMAO. I do have very important plans for the rest of the E4 and what role they're playing, though :

Don't laugh at this one - it was also early development LOL. I was going to have a party scene where Drayton convinces Juliana to pretend she got drunk (I know) as part of a roundabout and wild way to find evidence that Kieran had a soft spot for her (I KNOW). Kieran was essentially gonna waltz in (to a social event he otherwise never would make an appearance in) and he'd get all flustered as Juliana latches onto him. He would've decided to sweep her away from the party and take him back to his dorm. I ended up scrapping this entirely because while teens do party and all that...yeah, and also we pretty much got the dynamic moments I wanted to portray much better through the chapters where Juliana got sick.

Kieran/Juliana dynamic was also gonna have a moment where Kieran gets it in his head to start flirting with Juliana because he thinks that she’s flirting to get him to put his guard down. And that's where they both kinda were gonna secretly realize their feelings LOL. In hindsight lowkey fire still, but yeah, kinda just didn't have the space for it. We do have flirty Kieran era though, and that's still based.

This one is kinda known already, but originally the Applins were the only stars of the show (hence the name of the fic). I added Ribombee in early on after enough people wanted it and gave it lore/a connection to Kieran and his mother. Before Ribombee was conceptualized, I had different plans for what happened to Kieran's parents (he would still be an orphan regardless).

Briar was originally going to make a "deal" with Clavell regarding getting Juliana to come to Blueberry early, although it wouldn't be revealed until Juliana discovers this later. I scrapped this in favor of something much better because I didn't like the implications it had on Clavell's character, and honestly, only Blueberry is supposed to have the sketchy admin/systematic stuff going on anyways lol.

Kieran was meant to show more obvious signs of sleep deprivation (e.g. falling suspect to illness more frequently, slowed reactions). This idea is still good and realistic, but yeah, ended up leaning more into other symptomology that went well with the toxic chain curse (e.g. irritability, obsessive fixations, self-criticism, overworking himself, fatigue, etc.)

Ribombee was going to sleep powder both Kieran & Juliana in the cave scene of Ch 5. I decided to make it a bit more organic by having Kieran up and reflecting on everything + having Ribombee appearance in a more mystical way. Plus, I thought it would mean more if Kieran & Juliana opted to cuddle up themselves rather than being knocked out. There was a part of me that was worried the dynamic was progressing too fast this way with this change, but it seemed to have landed well! :)

This doesn't really count as a scrapped idea, but related: I 1000% retconned something with the Drayton POV chapters (if ykyk, LOL). But YEP. It's CANON. And frankly it's a decision I personally love that has implications, but also won't screw up the storytelling for where we're at now, either.

There's actually a lot more, too, but like I said: most of my ideas tend to upgrade. And lolololol OMG this is especially true for some major lore stuff. I just don't want to reveal it because I don't want to give y'all hints on where we're going!! LOL.

And also...there are cuter moments I haven't used in S&S and probably won't be able to because I account for what makes sense with the given dynamic. BUT what I do end up doing is taking those unused ideas and putting them into What-Ifs or other stories. There's one I'm particularly thinking of that I was dying to put in S&S D, but I don't think it would trip up the current Kieran as much as it would've in earlier chapters, lol. SO. It's going in The Dichotomy in Our Hearts instead! xD

This was super fun to write, hope it was enough substance for the question! <3

#my fics #dipplinshipping #kieran pokemon #kieran x juliana pokemon #juliana pokemon #kieran x juliana #juliana x kieran pokemon #juliana x kieran #fave #asks

[gh0st-t0wn3]

If red son doesn't only ABSOLUTELY HATE wukong in season 1-3 I imagine him also being absolutely terrified of him, im a believer that red son witnessed his father get sealed at like 14-16 years old in demon age, so like witnessing wukong easily seal off his father, the so far only powerful being that has been part of his life, freezing in place when you witness a simian destroying your family in three minutes tops, eyes darting around the scene while your mother rushes to help her husband out, while you just stand there, with your breath all shaky. The image of that monkey and his staff in the cloud, and that image haunts you for a long time, twitching when you see him , or even just being uncomfortable when mk brings him up.

And being so guilty all you could do is stand there and witness it all, without being able to lift a finger, in front of the "uncle" you now despised and was scared off.

I may be too obsessed with those red son asks

Redson would ABSOLUTELY be terrified of Wukong, for his entire life the strongest person he's known is his father, the great Demon Bull King, the 'Great Sage who Pacifies Heaven' (DBK's self-proclaimed title in JTTW), and to see that person be overpowered so easily, by someone so much smaller in comparison no less, is horrifying to see, especially considering how young Redson would've been at the time it happened.

I feel as though DBK's and Wukong's healing relationship (as shown in the season 4 special) would certainly help Redson on the path to forgiving Wukong as well, but it will never be enough to help him forget it. And the same goes for DBK, yes he and Wukong are healing but he'll never be able to forgive the fact that Wukong tore him away from his wife and child, that he lost the chance to watch his son grow up, a once in a life time opportunity to raise his child just gone.

And it's not just DBK being sealed away that made Redson hate him; in JTTW Redson was tricked by Sun Wukong into sitting on Guanyin's throne which immediately transformed into a throne of swords, impaling his entire body, and was then subdued by Guanyin via five golden rings being placed around his neck, wrists, and ankles. When the spell was spoken to activate them they would come together, binding his limbs and essentially treating him like a wild animal caught in a snare, and causing him great pain (I've seen people say the pain it causes is not to the extent of Wukong's circlet, but Redson was said to be literally screaming and begging for mercy when the spell was recited).

Meanwhile Wukong was hiding behind Guanyin the entire time to avoid getting hit by Redson, and urging her to recite the spell again, despite Zhu Bajie doing the same thing when he influences Tripitaka to use the spell on Wukong and KNOWING how horrible it is to experience.

Redson would hold onto that resentment even after the healing process has begun, but I don't think anything Wukong could ever do will be enough for Redson to forgive that.

(If anything I said about what happened in JTTW is inaccurate, by all means, please let me know, I have yet been given the chance to read JTTW for myself so I'm going off by what I've read while researching,  though they might not be entirely true :) )

#lego monkie kid #lego monkie kid red son #monkie kid red son #hong hai'er #lego monkie kid dbk #lmk demon bull king #lmk sun wukong #sun wukong #gh0st ask

[balanceoflightanddark]

Heading Down the Wrong Path

One of the big themes of Zuko’s arc in ATLA is the struggle to not be his father. That ultimately while he has the capacity to do great good, by that same very token he has the capacity to do evil. It’s that duality and inner conflict that followed him right up to the very end of the series.

So naturally, said struggle should’ve continued in the comics. Zuko is now in the same position his father was in. And so would come new challenges and that same dilemma now that he is leading a nation.

At least…that’s how it should have gone.

To understand the failure of Zuko’s comic arc, we need to understand Ozai himself, his philosophy, and how he came to power. After all, the narrative makes it clear that Ozai may be what Zuko could become if he doesnt course correct. In many ways, Ozai embodied the absolute worst the nation had to offer, whether it be its colonial superiority, or unrepentant warmongering. Being an unrepentant warmongerer whose first and only response to any challenge, whether from within or without the Fire Nation, was violence. We saw that when he literally burned half of Zuko’s face off for disobedience, even claiming that “suffering will be his teacher”. Even when faced against the Avatar, he claims that he has all the power in the world and takes a bit too much pleasure in tearing down a literal child.

Ozai also has a very nasty sense of entitlement. He genuinely believed that he was destined bring a literal end to the world and reign over its ashes as the Phoenix King. He wouldn't share his glory with anyone (abandoning Azula to her fate at the day of the Comet) because he's the leader of the greatest nation on earth in his eyes, and so should be practically worshipped as some kind of god incarnate. And mind you, he was willing to step on anyone and everyone in order to secure his power. That's how important being the Fire Lord or the Phoenix King was to him.

His rise to power also involves screwing over his entire family. Stabbing Iroh in the back on the worst day of his life, exiling Ursa, and conditioning both Zuko and Azula into exactly what his vision entails, regardless of their own thoughts and wants. And when they don't measure up, he tosses them away without a second thought. Essentially, his needs come first. Everyone else is secondary or a means to an end.

Warmongering. Entitlement. Selfishness. Those are the pillars of what made Ozai into what he is. Regardless of how he was treated by Azulon, he turned out into a tyrant that almost destroyed the whole world in the process.

And it's a path that Comics!Zuko has been forced on by the writers.

Let's do a bit of a recap: Ozai believed in the superiority of the Fire Nation and all others were subservient. In The Promise, Comics!Zuko tries to make the asinine observation that the colonies in the Earth Kingdom actually improved things...when in reality the ones who are benefiting from the bolstered economy are the Fire Nation citizens in charge. Mind you he should've known better by now due to his experiences in the Earth Kingdom.

And when King Kuei objects to the Fire Nation refusing to let go of its colonies, Zuko literally dons a helmet that eerily looks similar to his father and almost restarts the whole damn war.

Now to Yang's credit, this is part of the point of The Promise. That Zuko is turning into Ozai is addressed and is supposed to have learned. I get that.

Problem is at the literal end of Yang's run, we get this scene.

Shows up in literal war balloons to address a conflict in the Southern Water Tribe...you know, the people who were raided and probably wouldn't appreciate him showing up in such an asinine fashion. Something he did at the very beginning of the series and was acknowledged as a bad thing.

And the guy who obviously doesn't want Zuko there since a scene like this would've been terrifying for his people?

Yep. They try to pull the racism card and claim that Zuko was somehow in the right this time. I'm sorry, but you can't exactly claim one thing then do a complete 180 the moment your aesop becomes inconvenient for you.

So Zuko has clearly forgotten the whole "warmongering is bad" lesson he learned in the series proper.

Neither has his entitlement to the crown gotten any better. Admittedly, he gets nowhere near the levels of the Phoenix King, but the egotism and belief that the throne is his by all rights are warning signs.

Mind you, he was still under the assumption that he was a bastard son of Ikem...and yet he still believes the throne is his destiny.

The same thing happens again when in what is supposed to be a badass moment, it flounders when he has this smug ass look on his face while declaring the throne is his.

While he did have this longing for the throne in the series, I don't recall it ever being this bad. And he certainly wasn't smug about the whole thing either.

Finally, there's how he treats his family and loved ones. The only ones who are regarded by him as "good" are those who shower him with utmost praise and respect like Ursa and Kiyi. Those who don't and push his buttons?

Either tries to pull rank and orders them to obey him, or literally physically assault them. And let's not forget the time Zuko literally locked Azula in with her abuser just to get information out of Ozai. AKA: the same thing Ozai did to her.

To make things perfectly clear...I am not saying Zuko is now Ozai 2.0. What I am saying is that he display multiple warning signs of going down that path, inadvertently, and the narrative never calls him out on it. He's supposed to be the good guy. The villain turned good. He's supposed to be on the path to righteousness. But time and again, he shows signs he's going back to his old ways. And nobody calls him out on it.

Am I saying Zuko can't relapse into his old ways when ascending to the throne? No. I'm not. He's a teen and admittedly wasn't the best prepared by series end. Not to mention his problems won't just go away now that he's Fire Lord. I can accept that. And to be fair, he does acknowledge his faults by the end of Smoke and Shadow and declares to do better.

But being this late in the game...he has not improved. As much as I harp on his arc from the series, I will admit he was trying and making progress. Here? He doesn't. He just says words but doesn't do anything to back them up. Especially when he continues to cause problems in North And South and the narrative continues to support him despite him not changing.

In short, Zuko should've backed up his words, like he did in the series. Here? He never did. Which is an utter betrayal of his entire story arc from the cartoon.

Zuko should've seen the man who gave him a scar on his face and say "No, I'll never be like him." He should never validate any of his teachings or beliefs. That is what he should've done and learned. That is what the comics did.

But they didn't. And now Zuko is on the path to becoming like his father.

#zuko #fire lord zuko #zuko meta #ozai #fire lord ozai #anti atla comics #atla comics critical #atla meta #bad writing #character regression #zuko deserved better #feel free to disagree

[zabiume]

Thinking about how Hachi & Orihime’s powers are similar (they are right unless I’m mistaken ?) I really like his & Soi Fon’s fight against barragan. It makes me think about all the possibilities kubo could do with Orihime’s powers. Do you think as she grew older she could’ve gone to him for more training ?

HACHI VS BARAGGAN IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE BLEACH FIGHTS EVER!!!! it's soooo good!!

i don't think the issue with orihime is a matter of training, really, and it's completely plausible she could have gone to him during the 17 month timeskip. i think the issue is that kubo probably had no idea what direction to take with her and chad's powers and ended up toying with them throughout the story, only to end that journey with, "...well, they're fullbringers!" (<- and the absolute kick of it is that we don't even get a mention of this in the actual fullbring arc for orihime, we just get a clumsy explanation in CFYOW)

i think, in the beginning, kubo didn't know much about what chad and orihime were going to be—he just knew he wanted them to have powers because he wanted them to accompany ichigo on his many adventures. the technical details were probably something he pushed to the back of his mind for later, which makes complete sense because when you're writing a serialized story, you don't need to have the ENTIRE thing figured out, and trying to have the entire thing figured out is probably exhausting when you're just trying to make it through writing the next 50 chapters. writing for manga involves a lot of logistics, not just creativity, so it's not surprising if some things were blank slates he was just waiting to fill in later. manga writing is such a touch-and-go, experimental process that sometimes you might tease or hint at a certain plotline, but then end up going in a different direction entirely, for a variety of reasons—editorial disagreements, pacing, lack of time, realizing a certain plotline doesn't fit the story at its current stage etc etc. one example i could give you for this is how orihime remarks that she wants to try and destroy the hogyoku, and then she.....never brings it up again. there isn't even a single panel with her reflecting about how she couldn't do it or how she didn't have the time. of course, people have taken this to mean orihime is a dumbass, but i think the more likely explanation is that kubo probably had 3-4 alternate plotlines, but ultimately he picked the one we got in canon because that's what worked best, logistically and creatively. another example is how there's a vague allusion to chad's powers being more demon-ish, more in tune in hueco mundo, but that never goes anywhere either, because again, i'm sure kubo had alternate plotlines/vague musings he was hoping to follow up on later, but ultimately decided to forego it for whatever reason.

this isn't even exclusive to bleach or even necessarily exclusive to orihime! serialized stories in general often end up writing themselves on the go, unlike in a published novel, where you get time to plan, to have a first, second, xth draft. i doubt mangakas have the luxury to prepare anything beyond a storyboard and a few handful of scenes that they really want in the story. it's just the way the industry works, and this is not even touching the impact that sales/popularity might have on the series' writing. i'm not sure what kubo's set-up was like and how much autonomy he did or didn't have to create bleach in a vacuum free of outside pressures, but no one is immune to these things and i don't doubt that they affected bleach too.

this is kind of why it feels like we get big build ups and teases regarding orihime's powers that don't conclude in ways we hoped they would. i don't know what other versions of bleach and what other versions of orihime kubo had planned, but it'd be interesting to hear about + speculate about whether or not that would've been an improvement compared to what we got.

i've said before that i didn't necessarily need to see orihime in a solo fight, and it was nice to see her using her powers more creatively (as a transport system, as drones, which was pretty cool, and even fixing ichigo's bankai), but orihime is not immune to the problems in storybuilding and she often falls victim to it compared to say, ichigo, but not as worse as, say, chad. it would have been nice to have more overt, creative, clever uses of her powers like we got in the hachi fight, but i guess i can live with the feeble attempts that were made in that direction!

#hachi and the kidou system in general are proof that fights can be way more than zanpakuto clashes #kubo really should have used that more! we got a lot of great non-zanpakuto fights in early bleach and they were interesting #in fleshing out characters who werent necessarily gifted in zanjutsu but had other strengths #ultimately the moral is that these industries are really toxic and exploitative and that any mangaka who works/worked in it #really did the best they could with what they had while desperately trying not to buckle under the pressure #it's a miracle they even managed to get a decent story out of it. i know i couldn't and that's admirable in itself #flawed stories are proof it was written by a person and there's merit there - esp in a climate where we're discussing the possibility #of stories being written by machines #that being said - i hope the conditions in the industry improve and that artists can one day see a better future #asks

[akiyamastar]

Okay, here we go. Lingering thoughts I had about the Hands of Time season, and a character analysis of Nya and Kai Smith that accidentally happened in the process.

I was excited to watch season 7, considering Kai and Nya's backstories could potentially be brought to light, and they're my top two favorites. I was speculating on what we'd see in the season. Perhaps we'd see how the two managed on their own. We'd learn the truth behind their parents' backstories, where they've been, and their potential stance in the war 40 years ago with the Time Twins.

Nonetheless, while the season does introduce these elements, it doesn't dive deep enough with them. In a previous post, I talked about how they could have made the war more nuanced in nature so the Time Twins would have a better motive, leading to others having a reason for helping the "bad side" (hence, their parents being "traitors" for a good reason). It would've been an intriguing concept.

The tension in the scene when Kai confronts Ray was really good and one of my favorite parts of the season: it could've continued a running idea of conflict between the weight of what one believes in versus carrying on the legacy of one's parents.

However, the "traitor" concept was immediately thrown out over the course of a few minutes, which I found disappointing due to the suspense and build-up throughout the course of the entire season.

It left me wondering what the point of setting up such a plot point was. However, I do understand them not wanting to add too much complexity and simply making it a misunderstanding.

What bothered me more about the season was not this, though, but the lack of exploration of the impact of their parents not being there on Nya and Kai.

If you think about it more. The fact that Kai had to raise Nya alone is fucked, for lack of better words. They confirm they're teenagers in season 8, so they were extremely young when having to take care of the blacksmith shop and live on their own, and the two Smiths are close in age. The idea of Kai easily letting all this go without any confrontation, even if he's now realized that his parents were forced into blacksmithing for the enemy, feels uncharacteristic of him: they were never there when their two children needed them most. I was wondering why that emotion wasn't explored more in Hands of Time. 

It is true that it's not their parents' fault that they could not support them -- they were threatened and forced to work for the Time Twins at the risk of their children being endangered. However, this doesn't negate the fact that they had to manage everything alone at an abnormally young age.

Additionally, while Nya is more cool-headed than her brother, she still has the same sense of frustration toward similar things, even if she tries to dial it back. The whole thing with Samurai X was bothering her during the season, leading to her being more distracted by that. Still, she does have a tendency to enjoy picking things apart, and I feel like she would normally have been invested in figuring out the logo on the helmet. She’s also someone who has strong beliefs, and I honestly thought she’d react more too, just like Kai did.

In general, I can’t imagine the two siblings not feeling inwardly torn about how they feel seeing their parents again after so long, even when confirming they’re not traitors, considering the psychological effects of being estranged from them for so long.

From how long they were on their own, it’s also no wonder the two siblings have developed the same tendency to be hard on themselves, wanting nothing more than to be strong and self-reliant. Consequently, they’ve developed an abnormal vigor toward self-improvement.

For Kai, this is expressed more outwardly with his anger towards not being "powerful" or "good enough". There's also his stubbornness in wanting to be the “chosen one”, although this is more present in earlier seasons when the green ninja was undecided. While he's gotten better, this internalized envy does come back to bite him. In current seasons, Kai’s main issue stems from his powers making him either feel too confident or not confident at all. When he doesn’t have his elemental powers, he falls into a slump and is worried about being weak.

For Nya, her need for strength is somewhat expressed more inwardly, with her wanting to build up her strength and not rely on anyone. This is shown by her reluctance to let Jay into her heart due to the fear of being undermined, the way she secretly builds up Samurai X’s persona and trains on her own, and generally her hesitance in being part of the ninja versus standing confidently alone, preferring to be independent. Especially considering she was once kidnapped by Garmadon, I bet that event was traumatizing for her and may have made her feel that she can’t afford to be a “liability” ever again. She does try to act more rational than Kai, but it's clear that she has the same impulsive, "I need to be strong" nature.

I was expecting more feelings of inner turmoil towards seeing their parents again, and maybe even anger, because where had they been all their lives? Why weren't they present as parental figures to the point that they didn't even know if they were alive or not? I did want to see the emotional clash drawn out better.

In the end, I also felt that we're still left with many unanswered questions that make the Nya and Kai focus season, which could've had a lot of potential, appear weaker when addressing the core elements of their backstory.

I love both of them a lot and I enjoyed the season regardless. Even then, the topic of their parents does make me speculate about the details of their childhood, and the lasting effects their separation had on the two siblings, only having each other as family.

#ninjago #character analysis #kai smith #nya smith #Me when I write a dissertation over a kids show #hands of time #kai ninjago #nya ninjago

[bbygirl-aemond]

Why do you think Daemon loves Viserys so much? I never understood why Daemon never acknowledges what a shitty brother Viserys was to him. Even seeming abusive in some scenes.

I personally don't buy the Daemon would ever hurt Rhaenyra bit because the dumb explanation that showrunners gave, "He wanted to attack Viserys" doesn't hold up when you see, in every scene, Daemon is always, always leaning away from Viserys.

The garden party scene, the Throne room confrontation scenes (both of them), the Driftmark scene etc.

Maybe I'm reading too much, but Daemon always seems to relent and just give up to Viserys. Never once he shows even hints of wanting to attack Viserys. It's always him being almost meek and very subdued in Viserys' hand.

Why would he then suddenly want to attack Viserys. Worst, mistake Rhaenyra for Viserys? I can imagine him being hurt but a good character development would've been Daemon finally realising he'd NEVER be enough for Viserys and just giving up on the ideal image he had of Viserys all his life.

Not get upset with another person (Rhaenyra) who has also felt abandoned and neglected by Viserys, she literally tells him that and I imagine she shared her feelings over the 6 years they were married, and lash out at them.

I think to understand Daemon's feelings towards Viserys, you need to understand Daemon's childhood. Daemon's mother, Alyssa, died from childbirth complications when Daemon was just a toddler, along with Daemon's baby brother, Aegon. The dual losses absolutely destroyed Daemon's father, Baelon, and turned him into a distant, angry man. Daemon never knew the love or security that came from having a happy, mentally healthy mother OR a father.

Enter Viserys, who while probably not great was still the only family member present throughout Daemon's life. To Daemon, Viserys became not just his older brother and protector, but his mother and father as well. Daemon's need for love, for attention, for protection, for stability, couldn't be directed towards his parents, and so he directed it towards Viserys instead.

For a long, LONG time, Viserys is quite literally the only person Daemon loves in the entire world. THIS is why Daemon clings to him so tightly and refuses to acknowledge how Viserys treats him. Because if the only family alive, the only one capable of understanding and loving him, doesn't care for him, what does it say about him? Daemon is afraid that he is fundamentally unlovable, and that fear underlies every single interaction with Viserys. So no matter what Viserys does, Daemon represses his sadness and his anger, because he is completely unable to face the truth that Viserys might not love him the way he loves Viserys.

But then Daemon's plausible deniability fails, for two reasons. The first is that Viserys dies, without ever having come around the way Daemon always hoped he would. I'm sure there are others who can relate to the devastation that you feel when a loved one dies before you can get closure with them. Daemon is reeling, realizing that the fantasy he'd had of Viserys loving him will now NEVER come true, because Viserys is dead. Second, Rhaenyra confronts him, while he's had no time at all to process his grief and regret over this, with PROOF that Viserys was capable of love and trust but chose to withhold it from Daemon specifically.

In this moment, Daemon doesn't feel solidarity with Rhaenyra as another family member discarded by Viserys. He feels jealousy and hurt because Rhaenyra HAS been trusted by Viserys. Daemon and Rhaenyra both spent years as Viserys's heir, but only Rhaenyra was entrusted with the Song of Ice and Fire. To Daemon, this proves his worst fear true: That Daemon, in and of himself, is fundamentally unlovable and untrustworthy.

And Viserys is dead. Daemon will never get a chance to express this rage and hurt and betrayal that he's feeling to the man who caused it. In that moment, he's nothing more than the scared and lonely little toddler he used to be, confronting the fact that despite how fiercely he loves his family (encompassed by his brother, who was also father and mother to him), his family has NEVER loved him back the same way. And standing before him is Rhaenyra, who he loves at least in part because he sees her as an extension of Viserys. Rhaenyra, who is apparently better and more lovable and more trustworthy than him in Viserys's eyes. Rhaenyra, who has just rubbed salt into his fresh wounds in the worst possible way, and who has (however unintentionally) just hurt him more than he has EVER allowed himself to be hurt in his entire life.

Of course he lashes out at her.

#ask #asks #answered #daemon targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #viserys targaryen #viserys i targaryen #daemon #rhaenyra #viserys #viserys i #alyssa targaryen #baelon targaryen #hotd #house of the dragon #fire and blood #hotd meta #meta #fire and blood meta

[ssahotchnerr]

I'm going to drop this to a lot of ppl blogs, because I need support. We all know that Hotch was a prosecutor attorney, right? I'm crying rn because we didn't get a whole episode of young Hotch (in his 20-30s?, WITH GREG MONTGOMERY VIBES), IN A COURT

LIKE, I NEED HIM?? HE'S ALREADY HOT BUT, HAVING HIM IN A COURT?? We all know the "charcoal grey" trial, BYT HAVING HIM AS A PROSECUTOR ATTORNEY FOR A WHOLE TRIAL?? I NEED HIM

NO YOU'RE SO SO RIGHT

we got so many flashbacks in regards to the other's pasts 😭😭😭 but not aaron?!?!!? but are we surprised we were just robbed of so soooo much as a whole when it comes to him <3

but ugh young aaron 😫🦋 - they could've thrown his relationship with haley in an episode like that - newly married, young and in love 😭😭😭 it could've given us more background to his childhood, teen years, college, current relationship with sean at the time. maybe some angst about his dad being a lawyer and maybe some pressure falls onto aaron in regards to that - he has to be the best lawyer he can be, to prove his dad wrong about him despite the fact he passed a while ago, and isn't able to witness it.

and MAYBE it could've been his last case too, before he decided to join the bau. it could've explored his decision-making, frustrations of being a lawyer, just the entire process of that <3333 UGH a heart to heart with haley stating how he can't do it anymore 😭 that he can't sit behind a desk and wait for the cases to come to him, he needs to stop it beforehand

and in relation to all that, watching him become that serious hotch that we all know and love <3333 like there could've been scenes of him being professional, but still light hearted - kinda like how he was in s1 but more. so watching the contrast slowly enter his personality 🤭 the subtle angst omg

AND it would've been SO COOL for aaron to revisit a case too in one of the later seasons. like some new evidence popped up, it called for a retrial, he was the lead prosecutor then, and has to go back to the courtroom to lock up the criminal again 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨 but this time he's SO much more aggressive and HOT thanks to his time in the bau 🤭

once again - we were ROBBED

#cm writers give me a job #let's talk aaron <333333 #aaron hotchner #criminal minds #aaron hotchner imagine

[on-a-lucky-tide]

I saw this post about taking Geralt's comment following Vesemir's death at Kaer Morhen at face value: "I can't cry. Don't know how." While it's very possible that CDPR put this in as a form of manly pain where there are no tears, there are numerous times in the game when Geralt's eyes glisten with tears. It never even occurred to me that Geralt meant he couldn't physically cry (this could also be influenced by the books where he most definitely cries).

Furthermore, the sheer amount of emotion in the scene is unbelievable. After the heart pounding action of the battle, the silence is deafening.

Geralt approaches and Yen stops him, because she knows he will need a moment to compose himself. Their daughter is kneeling by the dead body of his father.

He knows she has work still to do. He knows he needs to be strong because she needs to be strong. So, Geralt does what Geralt does best to survive the most traumatic moments of his life: he pushes that pain way, way down and walks over.

He returns Vesemir's sword after wiping the blood away on his palm, because Vesemir is incomplete without them. It's a pointless thing to do. Vesemir will never lift that sword again, but Geralt needs to do it. It's a mechanical thing, like when you tidy the house of a dead loved one. Why? Why are you doing that? Because it's easier than standing there and staring at the emptiness. Just for a moment. I don't know why, you just do it.

When Ciri says she should have never brought danger to Kaer Morhen's walls, Geralt looks away. Why doesn't he reassure her? - "no, you had no choice", "no, you did the right thing" - perhaps because he just... he just can't find the words. He looks away because he needs just a moment to gather his strength again. Looks at the walls that were meant to protect them. When, in the end, it was always going to be sacrifice.

And then, when she stands, "I nearly killed you... Killed everyone..." Geralt looks at her. You pick "there's no blame, only grief", and he tells her "he doesn't know how to cry". Is it because he can't process this? Is the shock and the pain too much? Is it still an abstract concept to him - Vesemir being gone? After all, he returned that sword to his back.

Whatever Geralt is trying to say to his daughter about the sheer magnitude of his grief, she hugs him. She understands. Ciri has been through so much. Lost so many. She is in such a unique place to understand what Geralt has just lost.

I think the reason it never really occurred to me that Geralt meant he couldn't cry is because this was what my grief looked like. I didn't cry until months and months later and certainly not where my family could see; I was the rock, the bastion. But the truth was the pain was so large, so deep, so overwhelming that it defied tears until my mind had time to sit and comprehend what I had just lost.

Geralt doesn't have time to comprehend yet. He doesn't have time to do anything but observe the funeral rites and then it's right back to fighting for those that are still alive. It's in the after, when the battles are won, the night is silent and he doesn't need to be strong, that's when Geralt will cry.

This entire sequence wrecked me. (And it made me all the angrier that Eskel, Lambert and Geralt didn't get time to grieve together, but that would've stalled the narrative, and that's what fic is for, right?)

#geralt of rivia #tw3 #major character death #vesemir #cirilla fiona elen riannon #and CDPR have absolutely no problem with showing men as emotional #Lambert is basically *sobbing* #i know he's not the protag #but then I remember a scene in the comics #I think it's Fox Children... ahhhhhhh my emotions

[sapphire-weapon]

Going back and watching the walk-through of re4 OG, I noticed that when they came to the castle right after the village scene, Luis comes by and says he dropped the medicine to stop the process from going further, but he's going back to get it in which Ashley offers to go with him like??? And didn't Leon just said that you were cool not too long ago in the cabin, Ashley??? Leon in the background looking offended.

I'm wondering if Luis on re4r had come instead of being on the cam, would Ashley still had offered to go? But since everyone was basically put on cam instead of being with the group, made me think how'd the relationship between Leon and Ashley would have turned out, would it had been relatively been like the og? Or different? But if that was the case, it seems like Leon and Ashley did get (a-LOT) of time together (unless your speed running the game) and lot of romantic times (platonic my @ss).

The only times you'd rarely see the other cast is whenever Leon is in a bind or wandering, but it's never a lot either. It's like the developer's are saying "Ok, now SWITCH".

Bonus ask: I bet Leon had some ptsd from seeing a overgrown Salamander like in Raccoon City to having seen an alligator. "Oh great not another one" good thing Ashley didn't have to experience that.

THAT ENTIRE SCENE IN OG RE4 IS RE4'S "I know I'm not capable of caring about anyone, but..." MOMENT FOR ME

IT MAKES NO GODDAMN SENSE

IT MAKES NO FUCKING GODDAMN SENSE AT ALL AND I CAN'T MAKE IT MAKE SENSE NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY LMAO

I don't think Remake Ashley would've offered to go with Luis, though, because the turning point for her character is the pep talk scene; prior to that, she mostly thinks of herself as dead weight. Like, she's continuously surprised or uncertain when Leon asks her to help him with anything or to do anything on her own, and that doesn't change until after the talk. So, I don't think she'd have the thought in her head that she would've/could've been useful to Luis if that scene took place where that initial comm happens, since that's right after they get inside the castle to begin with.

And even if it happened during the comm that's right after the pep talk, I still don't think Ashley would've felt empowered enough to go without Leon. She still needs moments like throwing the lanterns for him and her entire playable section.

OG Ashley was hotheaded as fuck and didn't take shit from the start LMAO I actually have no idea how Krauser managed to pull off kidnapping her in the first place, because OG Ashley would've maced his ass and kicked him in the balls. I am CONVINCED that the only reason why OG Ashley ever got grabbed by ganados during gameplay is because of how focused she was on not accidentally getting shot by Leon and literally no other reason.

OG Ashley can kill up to three ganados during her gameplay section. Remake Ashley cannot. OG Ashley will fuck you up.

Remake Ashley and Remake Leon needed to be isolated from the rest of the cast because development between them needed to actually happen, because they both started off as very low-key, somber, solitary people who needed to be forced to grow together.

OG Ashley and OG Leon were at 11 all the time and needed to be split up for their own good.

Shipping OG Ashley and OG Leon specifically is actually tons of fun, because those two are the most obnoxious people on the fucking planet who absolutely 100% would prioritize fun in their relationship over everything else.

Like, all of the emotions that run through Leon and Ashley's shared arc in Remake are still present in OG, but the reason why (almost) no one picked up on them back in OG is because both characters were so determined to shitpost through it back and forth because facing their real feelings was too scary.

So, like. While Remake Leon and Ashley are spending an intimate night in together and watching movies and making out on the couch, OG Ashley has climbed through the sunroof on OG Leon's car and is sitting on the actual roof, and Leon's attempts to talk her into coming down have resulted in his hand going right up her skirt, and now she's giving him road head while he desperately tries to think of somewhere he can park the car and not get seen and subsequently arrested.

Like, they're those people. They're that couple.

Fandom back in the day really missed out on a fun fucking dynamic between those two.

I feel like this post really got off track at some point. What were we talking about again?

#resident evil 4 #leon kennedy #ashley graham #eagleone

[stirringwinds]

Hi! I saw some of your hws China thoughts lately and they were really fun to read, it's always especially interesting to see takes from other sino related people 😆 Do you think Manchu(ria) would be a separate figure (from Wang Yao) during the Qing dynasty, or do you think the Jurchen tribes would've just been absorbed along the way? People always have such different takes on it so I'm curious to know your thoughts.

hey, thanks for this question! :-) i do enjoy thinking about yao's characterisation, even more so in relation to other nations. this is my view of it:

i'm personally inclined to see manchuria as a separate personification during the qing dynasty (though i admittedly haven't developed a detailed idea of their character/personality). i've previously written scenes in the aftermath of the opium wars where yao was at the signing of the treaty of nanking (for example)—but i see it as a situation where yao is rather being ordered around by manchuria (and the humans think yao is a qing official). my thought process is that while the manchu rulers may have adopted certain aspects of han chinese culture to bolster their legitimacy with the wider population, they still held real power, retained certain customs, influenced chinese dressing (the cheongsam) and even tried imposing some of their cultural norms on the entire population. the queue hairstyle for men, and less successfully, the attempt to ban foot-binding for women (that's one thing where i'm "really? you guys should've already cut that bullshit out centuries ago" @ the ancestors 😔). so, to me this is very far from a situation where a nation dies.

in my view of chinese history, there have been times when yao, as an empire, (like rome or persia) has ended or absorbed other nations. the southwards expansion of the han dynasty, for example: the disappearance of the "baiyue" tribes, through conquest, settlers and sinicisation (the totality of that cultural conquest always struck me—that we don't even know what they called themselves today). the conquest of vietnam is one instance where that didn't happen—and even more so for qing china, where manchuria is the one calling the shots. and i don't see a nation adopting some aspects of another nation's culture = death precisely because all cultures change. there's that joke classicists have made about "did the romans conquer greece, or did the greeks conquer rome?" given how much they adopted greek culture aesthetics but we wouldn't say "the romans were not a distinct cultural entity" either. naturally, there are big differences between the qing and roman empires, but most empires weren't above adopting some customs of those they conquered—it's indeed often how successful incorporation worked.

it's also about characterisation and narrative choices for me too; imo yao saw the opium wars as a doubled humiliation. being subject to the "western barbarians"—while being ruled by other "barbarians"; yao's pride is one thing that is stubborn, and he'll cling to the shreds of it. my immediate thought is that if manchuria isn't a separate character, a lot of this narrative loses the force; when it comes to how i'd translate the history into interactions between all these eldritch beings. this is especially when i'm thinking of the subsequent anti-qing movements; and how folks like sun yat-sen laid the blame for china's downfall at the hands of western empires on the manchu ruling dynasty and even characterised them as a colonial force ultimately hobbling china's progress (even if of course, irl history is more complex and there were manchu officials/figures who supported republicanism and the end of the regime). so in this context, to me it's best represented as a multi-layered power struggle between yao, manchuria and of course all the other western nations.

so overall, while history can always be interpreted and translated into hetalia many ways, and i wouldn't say there's a definitive "right" or "wrong" criteria when translating it into whether a hetalia personification dies or endures— personally, it makes the most sense for me if manchuria is a separate character during this era for all the abovementioned reasons. nations after all, aren't states, with all that strict international legal criteria about what a "legitimate" state is—but imagined communities. hetalia personifications are that idea extended further— given flesh and incarnated by the dreams, beliefs and imagination of humans: they're fluid and ambiguous—but also resilient, because it's not so easy to kill an idea.

#hetalia #long post #hws china #hws manchuria #hope that makes sense! #this whole ask is right in the family history and i liked thinking about it

[trelkez]

Me watching Ted Lasso 3.11:

I truly thought the last few episodes of the show had broken any remaining faith I had in its storytelling, but no. The second scene of this episode: that broke any remaining faith I had in Ted Lasso's storytelling. This season is NOT GOOD. And yet: are they going to make my OT3 canon? Are they?

I'm going to process Ted Lasso 3.11 (mostly) the way I did last week, by doing a rewatch and taking everything in order as it happens. The show's writing is so incoherent at this point that I'm not going to attempt to impose order on it; things just occur. This is the way.

1. Ted's Mom

I spent the entire opening credit sequence mentally reviewing every Ted/Trent fic I've ever read that had some kind of take on Ted's mom – and realizing that whatever we were about to get wasn't going to be as interesting as anything I'd read in fic, because this season is hell-bent on the idea that all conflict can be washed away in the space of a single conversation. 

Remember when I would've just been excited to finally meet Ted's mom? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

2. Jade hates working with her boyfriend

And who can blame her? This woman has one thing, and that is working at Taste of Athens. Come on, Nate, get your own thing!

3. "We want you to come back to Richmond."

So, okay.

I've already written pretty extensively on how badly handled Nate's redemption arc has been. This has been a problem all season long; before I moved back to Tumblr, I was writing small, irate tweets about it.

Let's go back and look at some of the things I said during and after season 2:

2.07: Nate - his characterization has been really consistent: he's always been a jerk to Will, he uses his power over others to belittle them to make himself feel better, he conflates being assertive with being aggressive, this stuff was in s1 too

post-s2, 1/3: the show put a lot of work into showing Nate punching down, his growing narcissism, the ways feeling underappreciated makes him cruel to others and himself; I don't think we're meant to take away that being denied a Nespresso machine justifies a heel turn

post-s2, 2/3: Nate's history with women as shown is not great - when he thinks he's fired he immediately calls Rebecca a shrew; "perhaps you'd like to give me your number, too" to Jade the hostess as soon as he feels like he can order her around; kissing Keeley at all

post-s2, 3/3: when he kissed Keeley I was like, sure, this tracks; (for him) it becoming solely about him being mad that it wasn't enough to get Roy's attention also tracks. but the rest ... and some of the media takeaway ... is weird to me. is this relatable content?? should it be?

What gets me about all of this is that sometimes, this season has almost convinced me that Nate leaking the panic attack story to Trent was just a weak moment for which an otherwise lovable guy should be forgiven – but the evidence isn't there. They were so consistent in how they built up Nate's fall; they seeded that in as far back as season one. They signaled it through hair color! They unfolded it piece by piece, in a deliberate, escalating spiral from which there ultimately was no last-minute escape.

And then we get to season three, and two seasons of careful character building immediately becomes meaningless. Season three's Nate is a different person. This entire season is taking place in an alternate universe. And there's no reason they had to do that, because they had an entire twelve-episode season of increasingly long episodes in which to slowly but surely make Nate a better person! Time for him to learn a series of important lessons that tie into past behavior; time for him to slowly reconcile with his father; time for him to grow without erasing the person he had always been. Time to build him up into a better version of himself.

Instead, this is what we have. And even then, some of the most important parts of the story of Nate's redemption have happened off-screen. Nate quitting off-screen last week was truly shocking; the team discussing Nate's situation, deciding to forgive him, and voting on whether or not to invite him back – that happening off-screen is unforgivable. The West Ham storyline has, thus far, mattered so little to this season that maybe (.......maybe) we can say that severing ties with Rupert wasn't a key part of his journey, even though that's absurd, but Nate's return to Richmond is everything. That's the whole ballgame. 

For Colin to be part of the welcoming committee is truly fucking egregious. Even this very season, Colin is still repeating his affirmation from therapy as he actively works on building up his self-confidence – something Nate deliberately tried to destroy. At no point did I imagine that a one-on-one with Colin wasn't going to be part of Nate's apology tour. But now – one sprig of lavender for Will, and that's all it takes? Nate's treatment of Colin isn't going to be addressed at all? 

This is the same team that collected red cards like candy against West Ham after Roy and Beard showed them the video of Nate ripping up the "believe" sign. Remember the power walk of fury past Nate to open the second half of that game? Why do they now suddenly want him back? Because they heard he was working in a restaurant and felt sorry for him? Because they heard he apologized to Will and decided that was enough? At this point, I genuinely think the writers didn't know how that conversation would go, so they skipped over it. If you aren't sure how to get the team back on Nate's side, just have it happen off-screen; then it doesn't matter how it happened, only that it did. If you only tell and never show, you can make anything happen without having to get from A to B. 

All of this mess, all of this time, and we don't get to be in the room as the team reaches some kind of closure on everything Nate did.

4. "Richmond have won fifteen matches in a row. With two games left, you're just four points off Manchester City for the Premier League title."

Thanks for expositing all of that, Reporter Guy. If it weren't for the occasional infodump, we'd never know what was going on in the team's season! Exposition Characters, you're the true heroes.

5. "That goal is a lie. It should be retracted from the record. I apologize to everyone, especially the kids."

If they had kept to this kind of funny-but-alarming tone without going too overboard on it, Jamie's pre-Manchester depressive episode would've been a lot more effective.

I know this show can handle depression, anxiety, and parent-induced stress in a thoughtful way and balance that with tonally appropriate comedy, but can it do that … anymore?

6. Ted's ever-increasing mom stress

To that end: the way they built up Ted being so put out his mother was in town, I thought for sure we were going to find out he had been dodging her calls about something (was Michelle getting married after all?) and this would reveal whatever it was to the audience. 

I think – I think – that the actual intended effect here is to underscore that Ted ran an entire continent away from his problems and all of his unprocessed trauma, and having all of that catch up to him without warning triggered a stress cascade resulting in the meltdown we'll get at the end. But if that's the intention, what this episode really underscores is that they simply do not know how to handle this sort of storyline anymore. Dottie Lasso is lovely and entertaining and you definitely can look at her and see where Ted comes from, but the Ted parts of this story are about as nuanced as a sledgehammer on concrete.

7. "Trent, your hair is fabulous. It really is. It's just stylin'."

I never thought that Trent would actually meet Ted's mother in the show. I can't wait to see what fic writers do with this. (Please don't get discouraged by however the show ends and walk away, fic writers! We need you now, tonight. We need you more than ever.)

8. Van Damme's mask

This is officially more follow-up on a previous episode's subplot than we have had about almost any other subplot this entire season, and it's about one of the most disposable stories they've told.

9. OT3 Watch: "Shouting is Roy's love language."

Does Trent ship it? One of us, one of us.

10. OT3 Watch: Jamie crying on Roy

There's a lot about this scene I loved, so let's take a break for positivity! That sounds nice, doesn't it?

Jamie bursting into tears and then, when asked what's wrong, saying, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know": intensely relatable. He's already in tears as he walks into the boot room, just barely holding it in, and the second Roy pushes him to toughen up (in general), he loses it, because of course he does: he's dreading another trauma at the hands of his abusive dad, in the hometown that hates him. It makes perfect sense for Jamie to be having a serious depressive episode, and it is entirely in character for him to describe that as "I don't use any conditioner anymore, because what's the fucking point."

This is one thing this season has done well, with patience and consistency: it's believable for Jamie to break down crying on Roy because they put the time in to get these two to that point. Last season, it was a big fucking deal when Roy hugged Jamie. This season, if Jamie is going to cry on anyone, of course it's going to be Roy.

That said: I think it was a mistake to go quite so hard on playing this for laughs. Depression and trauma absolutely can be mined for comedy. "Do you think a depressed person could make this?" works because it's still Ben Wyatt, it's just Depressed Ben Wyatt. Jamie smushing Roy's face around as Phil Dunster gives it his absolute best comedy wailing sob doesn't … feel like Jamie? It just feels like comedy. If the moment isn't organic to the character, probably it needed a rewrite.

"It probably needed a rewrite," the Ted Lasso season three story. – Then again, I wonder all the time how much of this season's problems are due to the infamous production-halting Jason Sudeikis rewrites, so … maybe not? Maybe this season needed fewer rewrites and more Bill Lawrence? Who can say.

("Will, you missed a good one" is a great closing note for the series-long gag of overheard emotional scenes in the boot room. If they do another one in the finale, they'll have overshot it.)

11. "Hey, Roy, would it bother you if we brought Nate back?" / "No, I don't give a fuck."

At this point, I briefly stopped watching. 

I went back to 2.12 to see if Roy knows that Nate was the source for the panic attack story: as of that episode, as far as I can tell, he doesn't. 

I went to 3.04 to see if there was any indication during the West Ham episode that Roy had figured it out by then, but that episode focuses on the "believe" sign, which everyone but Ted seems to be finding out about for the first time.

Roy doesn't know that Nate actively tried to ruin Ted. (Does it make any sense for Roy to not have done the math when he was in the room when Ted opened up to the coaches about his panic attacks? Probably not, but that appears to be the canon.) He does know what Nate was like, particularly toward the end; he knows that Nate abandoned ship for West Ham; he knows that Nate ripped the sign, and he used that to turn the entire team against Nate for the West Ham game; and perhaps most importantly, Roy is not especially known as an easygoing, forgiving guy.

This is a man who carried a devastating news clipping around in his wallet for his entire career and beyond. A guy who couldn't hug Jamie in celebration until he headbutted him to make them even. This is Roy Kent, who is known even by people who don't watch this show as the one with the anger issues.

And he's just – fine? To bring Nate back? He holds no grudges? Roy Kent? We're really going to have Roy Kent as the voice of "yeah, whatever, I don't care" while Beard is left to fume alone?

12. "If you bring that Judas back, I will burn this place to the fucking ground."

Once again, Beard is the only one who's seen season two. And yet, this is being set up as a conflict that Beard has to set aside. 

Has Nate apologized to Ted at this point? No. Was Nate an increasingly toxic presence in the locker room last season? Yes. Do they have any knowledge of his coaching style at West Ham that we're aware of that would suggest that he's had a major personality change? No. Are they currently on a fifteen-game winning streak without Nate? Yes. Are there only two games left in the season? Yes. 

Is there any reason to bring Nate back at this point? No. And Beard, who has been the only one all season long who has retained any emotional awareness of past events, is only allowed to have that awareness so that it can be used as a justifying force for Nate's return.

I support you, Beard. This is all some bullshit. You should be allowed to be pissed about it. 

13. Nora!

Is Rebecca's aside about Nora telling her to stop using her private jet the closest we're going to get to a Nora appearance this season? There's still time for her to pop up in the finale, but that seems unlikely.

14. OT3 Watch: Keeley checking in on Jamie

I was on the fence about whether or not they were going too hard on humor with Jamie's depression until "a suitcase is a drawer without a home … wahh." This is the best they could do for depression comedy? This is a comedy series that did an entire season about depression!! Phil Dunster really is doing his best in this episode, but not even he could elevate that line.

I do like the general concept of Roy going to Keeley for help with Jamie, only for Keeley to make it all worse. Roy being better at comforting Jamie is conceptually very funny. Writing dialogue that does justice to a story outline is tricky, isn't it? Mm.

15. Sam and Rebecca???

Are they doing this, or are they just going to tease it every single episode? Are Sam and Rebecca endgame? Surely not, right. If it were endgame, wouldn't we have gotten into the meat of it a lot sooner than … the finale?

If you know a Tedbecca shipper, maybe give them a warm cookie this week, because this episode did not move that anywhere promising.

(My money is still on Houseboat Guy popping up out of nowhere.)

16. OT3 Watch: Jamie and Keeley follow Jamie home

If this is the first time Keeley is meeting Jamie's mom, that means – he never took her home when they were dating?

Roy staring in absolute slack-jawed shock at Jamie and his mom cuddling on the couch is me. Roy is me. Setting aside for a moment just how much is going on there, I never would have guessed that Jamie had a relationship like this with a mom who was still in the picture. 

In 1.06, Jamie talks about how his mom got him into football and supported him but probably wouldn't be proud of him lately; in 3.06, we hear about a trip they took to Amsterdam when he was a teenager. Is that … it? Have there been other references to his mom? In 2.08, when Richmond plays Manchester City, there is a lot about his dad but no reference to his mom that I remember. The show is so laser-focused on Jamie's dad that I assumed his mother, whether dead or estranged or somehow unwell, wasn't an active force in his life in the present day.

This is a show about dads. They've told us that in interviews all along. Ted's dad, Nate's dad, Jamie's dad, Sam's dad, Rebecca's dad, even a whiff of Trent's dad; Ted's relationship with his son, even Phoebe's relationship with her Uncle Roy. We see Nate's mom, but that is almost entirely about Nate's relationship with his dad. The only characters who get to have meaningful ongoing not-about-dads onscreen relationships with their mothers are Rebecca and Nora, which is … weirdly gendered?

But now, with the curtain about to drop on this show, they're doing a Mom Episode. We get two moms we've never met before dropped on us in one hour. We know almost nothing about these moms, because they've never been made central to the story in a way everyone's dads have been; and here, in an episode titled "Mom City," their stories are still mostly about each character's relationship with his dad. 

Even so, those stories need to fit into what we know about Ted and Jamie. "I love meeting people's moms. It's like reading an instruction manual as to why they're nuts," right? Ted and Jamie's moms, introduced here at the eleventh hour, should shine a light on things we already know about these characters and make us think, "this explains so much."

Does Jamie's mom actually explain anything we already knew about Jamie? Does it actually make sense for Jamie to have had, all this time, a sweet, supportive mom available for hugs on demand, or does this just create a lot of new questions the show doesn't have time to answer? I don't think Jamie's mom as we meet her (or his future GBBO star baker stepdad) are fully outside the realm of possibility for his character, but we could've had more time to untangle all of this if they had spent as much time on Jamie's mom as they did on his dad. Instead, I'm left with: you're telling me Jamie Tartt isn't actually touch-starved? Jamie Tartt?

You're telling me Jamie's mom watches all of his matches … but has never been to one? Jamie's mom got him into football and drove him to all of his practices, but he's playing right down the street and she's watching from home? Jamie's mom is this important to him, but never met Keeley? Jamie's mom is this important to him, and we've only ever heard about her as the reverse side of a story about Jamie's dad? There are some drop-ins you just can't make in the eleventh hour.

Also: what is going on here? I'm with Roy. Wow. Wow.

17. Jade really hates working with her boyfriend

Is this really just a way to get Nate back to Richmond? Yes. Is it nonetheless completely valid for Jade to not want to have to hear about Nate's salty nuts scheme after work hours? Also yes. You might be a girlfriend ex machina, but you are nonetheless valid, Jade.

18. OT3 Watch: Jamie's posters

*chinhands* So are they, like … are they doing this on purpose, or … no, they have to be doing it on purpose, right? Right?? Maybe it won't ever go any further than this, because even now I have a hard time imagining an OT3 becoming canon, but they are surely at least tipping their hat to it. 

19: OT3 Watch: walking off arm-in-arm

Surely they aren't going to make it canon.

20. Pep????

They actually brought on Pep Guardiola for a Ted Lasso cameo? In an episode about Manchester City leading the title race, airing in the same week City won the title irl? I'm legit impressed.

21. Jamie's injury drama

This is honestly the dumbest way to generate in-game drama. Jamie goes out on injury and Ted's coaching masterstroke is to act like they've just lost a player to a red card and now have to defend a one goal lead with ten men? Just in case the training staff can shoot Jamie up with enough painkillers to let him finish the game on an injury he couldn't walk on? 

I know Jamie is their star striker and all, but did Sam, Dani, and Colin suddenly lose their scoring abilities when Jamie hurt his ankle? We just had a major subplot last week about what a heater Sam has been on – did that suddenly disappear? Does this team have no ability to adjust to the loss of a player? They've won fifteen straight games!! In real life, that would be one of the longest win streaks in Premier League history! No team becomes that successful without quality substitutes. Just get someone on the pitch, before Manchester fucking City takes advantage of being a man up and gets the equalizer we're told they've been on the verge of for the entire second half.

Why. This is Ted Lasso, why am I getting hung up on its football strategy? This isn't about strategy, it's about Ted and Jamie. Nothing matters except the conversation they're about to have on the sideline. Everything else happens exclusively to allow that conversation to happen. The football is just set dressing. None of this matters.

It's just so dumb, though. God.

22. Jade hates working with her boyfriend so much

Truly next level of her to blackmail her boss to get Nate fired so she can have some peace in the workplace. Does she only exist in this show to advance Nate's storyline? Yes. Is she doing this to be a Good Girlfriend? Yes. Can I ignore both of those things and pretend this is just a badass move by someone who does not care to mix her relationship and her job? Also yes.

23. Ted Lasso and forgiveness

This season's insistence on total forgiveness – that the past is the past, that holding a grudge is a moral failing or a poison of the soul – is one of its biggest flaws. Everything needs to be tied up just so. Characters can't truly grow unless they let go of whatever anger they're holding onto. In the end, everything must come around to wholesomeness and healing. As the show nears its end, it is doing everything it possibly can to wash all slates clean. 

(Except, possibly, with Rupert. We'll see.)

In a void, Ted's mini-speech to Jamie about how he should forgive his dad so that he himself can heal might be – not something I would at all agree with, but fine, in that I don't have to always agree with characters on television shows and Ted is clearly doing some projecting here re: his situation with his mom. But in this broader context of what's going on with Nate, on the sideline of a game, it just feels … forced, and kind of gross. FORGIVE YOUR DAD SO YOU CAN KICK FOOTBALL. FORGIVENESS FIXES EVERYTHING. Okay, Ted Lasso. Okay.

Remember when Dr. Sharon said, "I think you [still hate your father] too, Ted, and that's okay," and they talked about the things Ted both hated and loved about his father, because it was okay for him to hold both of those things inside him at once? Where has that gone?

24. Manchester Loves Jamie

I'm not going to ask what the point of putting Jamie back on for one minute and then substituting him straight off was – do they truly have no one else who could have put them up by two? – because honestly, the City fan ovation was so unbelievable that football strategy pales in comparison. They spent an entire game booing and shit-talking him in the stands, and then he scores a goal on a wobbly foot and they suddenly realize he's Good, Actually and cheer him off? In a game that could decide the league title?

Manchester City could have won the league title right here in this game if Jamie hadn't scored that goal and the City fans cheer him off? In what universe. In what version of reality. Were there no even vaguely believable feel-good moments they could engineer for this game???

25. OT3 Watch: Roy whispering sweet nothings

They aren't going to make it canon, right??

26. Jamie's dad in rehab

This is one of the only "thing we heard nothing about and then suddenly it happens" moments where it makes sense for no one to know what's going on. It's positive growth for a shit character that I can actually get behind and believe in.

Jamie's dad is here doing the work and trying to get better. Instead of having it as an extremely brief reveal in the penultimate episode of the series, imagine if they had done this earlier and shown his dad getting out of rehab, and spent some time on Jamie deciding whether or not to forgive his dad now that his dad is sober. Emphasize the hard parts. Show them building a new relationship as different people. That would be so much more in keeping with the actual themes of this show than the magical thinking this season has engaged in.

27. Pep??????

"Don't worry about wins and losses, just help these guys be the best versions of themselves" from Pep Guardiola is THE MOST TED LASSO version of Pep Guardiola I can imagine. I cackled out loud. I threw back my head and laughed like a woman eating a salad. A+ comedy, intentional or otherwise.

28. Nate hiding under the desk

Why? Why. I mean, I get why – this humanizes everything Nate did in 2.12 and makes him seem like a pathetic guy who can't even ruin a sign right, and retcons some of the most potent parts of Nate's season two arc to make us feel empathy for him where we might not previously have; I had this issue with the rolling chair pratfall video earlier in the season, too – but it just exhausts me. They couldn't spend the time redeeming him organically, so they're rewriting what's already happened to make it seem less bad.

Going back to Ted's funeral therapy session with Dr. Sharon: remember how Ted had this deep, terrible fear of losing someone he loved because he didn't do enough to make them feel their worth, and Nate unknowingly cracked that wide open when he accused Ted of "abandoning" him? Remember how Nate could only feel important if he was the most important person in the room, so being one part of a team felt like rejection – and Nate at the absolute bottom of his spiral, having already tried to ruin Ted's life in the press, tore at him with every emotional weapon he had on hand?

Now we're going to reframe all of that as, "ahhhh, this little guy, can't even do a harm to a desk chair, look at him hide from cleaners, so sad, someone rescue him from restaurant!!"

I'm so ready for this show to end. It'll be easier to pick and choose the parts I want to hang onto once canon is closed.

29. OT3 Watch: champagne

But they aren't going to make it canon, right?????????

Honestly, get someone who looks at you the way Roy looks at Jamie here. Just incredible.

If this is the most OT3 we ever get, it'll be enough.

30. Beard's backstory

Let's pause here a moment.

As a coping mechanism for whatever the show was going to throw at me in this episode, I made myself a bingo card. Every time I got a square, I won a tiny piece of chocolate. I made some of the squares obvious hits, some of them decent possibilities, and some were wild swings at things I knew would never happen.

Earlier in this episode, I hesitated over giving myself the "Beard Backstory" square for Beard and Dottie having nicknames for each other, wondering if that qualified as our Beard backstory for the episode. And then … Beard showed up at Nate's door.

In that moment, I truly felt I had cursed myself with this bingo card. Don't invite possibilities you aren't willing to see play out on-screen, I think is the lesson here?

"Just like in Les Mis." – Nate, and all of us

I really don't know how to feel about this Beard backstory. In theory, I have no issue with Beard having a backstory about being incarcerated for meth and Ted helping him out afterward, but in practice, I'm not sure it makes any sense whatsoever. Beard has a record that no one knows about? He's been an assistant coach in the Premier League for three seasons and it's never popped up in the Daily Mail that he was in prison on a drug conviction? I know in the real world Ted wouldn't be allowed to coach Richmond to begin with, but just how far into fantasyland are we?

(I also have some questions about the "and then I stole his car" twist. What exactly are the writers trying to say here about people freshly out of prison? He had a difficult re-entry, totally understood; he found a place to land, and immediately turned back to crime? Should they maybe have spent a little more time unpacking this story before they made it canon?)

All of that aside, I'm not sure I really wanted a Beard backstory. For the entire run of this show to date, Beard has been something of a Ted-adjacent cryptid with a very clear personality but relatively opaque motivations, whose history we've learned about through wildly random drop-ins that always raise more questions than they answer. He's a guy who roams the city at night and collects subcultures like stamps. He's in an eternally tortured relationship with a manic pixie nightmare girl who somehow suits him perfectly. His devotion to Ted has never, ever been in doubt. 

I just don't think it actually rounds out the character of Beard to know exactly where he's coming from and why he's with Ted. The mystery is part of the character. Introducing an in-depth backstory in the penultimate episode of the entire show feels … kind of cheap? I would completely understand if other people felt it was long overdue and are happy to get it before the end, but to me, pulling back the curtain feels like a misunderstanding of what makes Beard a great character. We don't need to see the man behind the curtain. Being able to wildly speculate about what makes Beard Beard is a big part of his appeal. 

And to drop this in as a plot mechanism for bringing Nate back into the fold – to make this significant change to a major character as a shortcut on Nate's mismanaged path to redemption – I'm just so tired.

This whole thing where Ted emotionally manipulated Beard into forgiving Nate by invoking Ted's own past assistance to Beard – I'm not sure that comes across the way they think it does. Ted wants everyone around him to forgive Nate and the only one who isn't willing to do it is Beard, so Ted forces the issue by hitting Beard where it hurts to get Beard to project his own past trauma onto Nate's situation. Does Ted really think that Beard stealing his car is equivalent to Nate putting his mental health history on the front page of every newspaper in London? Even if he does, why does he think it's fair to Beard to pull out Beard's trauma like a trump card? 

31. Fuck you, Mom!!

What was Ted's relationship with his mother back home, that she comes to visit him in London and within 48 hours, everything he's been holding onto for years comes boiling out of him in a series of F-bombs borrowed from Jamie Tartt? What was their dynamic like in Kansas, that the minute she shows up his shoulders go up around his ears and he can't handle anyone he cares about liking her at all?

Is this happening now because Ted unlocked all of this in therapy? Is it happening now because he's been away from her for so long? Was he not visiting her on those trips to Kansas? Is it the change in setting – having her in London, in his space, meeting his people?

This whole "thank you / fuck you" speech feels overcooked at best, well-acted as it is, and it veers into some really incoherent areas. When Ted tapped his chest, I thought, "oh god, is he impotent in his soul?" Honestly, that would have made more sense than Ted saying he's afraid to get close to his son because "I know he's going to leave."

Yes, Ted is afraid of losing people, but we know because Ted has said so in therapy that his response to that fear is to pull people closer in. To try to make people feel wanted, feel valued, feel good about themselves.

In Ted and Henry's relationship, if Ted has projected his dad onto anyone, it's been himself. If there is a monster under the bed here, it is Ted's fear of turning into his dad, of having the potential for that inside him. That line would have made 110% more sense if it had been, "I'm afraid I'm going to leave," even if we would have had a lot more to unpack on-screen at that point. As it is, it's just – kind of nonsense?

Did they feel like they had to pull out some extra motivation for Ted having been in London all of this time? They didn't. The degree to which they are trying way too hard in some areas and not at all in others sure is something.

32. I've read this fic

Rebecca and Bex? Yeah, I've definitely read this fic. That "Bex divorces Rupert and takes West Ham" square on my bingo card is going to reappear next week.

33. "Do you know what time it is?"

"It's the time of the season when we do X" is a little too much meta self-awareness for me, and the "I'm going to invoke truth bombs as a concept but I don't actually have one" is clunky execution to set up Ted's cliffhanger line, but the staging: flawless. In seasons one and two, Rebecca comes into Ted's office and stands on the left of the frame, facing right. In season three, Ted is the one who comes into the office and stands on the left, reversing their positions both physically and narratively. That kind of attention to detail is A+. 

(I wish they gave that much attention to the plot, but I'll take it where I can get it.)

What's next?

One more episode left to cram in everything they could possibly want to do with this show! We're on a real run here of episodes that cram in abrupt resolutions to ongoing stories while also dropping in a ton of new elements we don't have time to explore, and I wouldn't expect the finale to be all that different.

- Before 3.11, I thought the chances of Ted going back to Kansas were 85% for, 15% against. Now … I think it might actually be closer to 75% for, 25% against?

This episode pushed so hard on sending Ted back to Kansas, and we're being set up in that cliffhanger for him telling Rebecca he's quitting after the season ends, and – there's still an entire finale to go. Will the episode just be one long goodbye, or will there be some last-minute twist to keep him in London? I think the chances of him staying in London are actually slightly better now that the "I'm going back to Kansas" twist isn't being held for the end. Still pretty unlikely, though.

I say again: if he goes back to Kansas, fine, we can fix that in post. If he goes back to Michelle, I'm turning this car around.

- Every social media feed I have has been frantic with speculation as to whether or not they're going to make the OT3 canon in the finale. My money is on Not Canon – I think a wink and a nod at it is as much as they're going to do – but I'll be happy with anything that isn't a flash-forward in which Jamie has a girlfriend. Just let us walk off arm-in-arm-in-arm with room to speculate, show.

- So Nate goes back to Richmond, Ted leaves, and Nate becomes head coach, right? Just like we could pretty easily guess was going to happen before this season even started? There's still a chance of a surprise shake-up there, but I'd put it at, like … 5%. A 5% chance of this not going in the most predictable possible direction.

- If Ted leaves, does Beard stay or does he go? He stays, right? If they try to convince us that Jane is dying to move to Kansas, I'll have to Eternal Sunshine the entire finale from my memory banks.

- I am very much hoping for a thoughtful farewell with the pub trio. They've earned it.

- It's West Ham they're going to be playing in the last game, right? If Nate's West Ham storyline is going to have any meaning, he has to go up against his old team with his old old team in the last game of the season while Rupert's drama plays out in close-up.

There should also be some simultaneous game drama happening with Manchester City. They were four points down before this game, so on the final day of league play, they'll be one point down. If City wins, they win the title. If City draws or loses and Richmond wins, Richmond wins the title. If City loses and Richmond draws, then … actually, there could be interesting last-minute drama if they're trying to break through on goal differential, but I don't think the show would go that far into technicalities. Richmond has to win, right? They aren't going to send the show off on anything less.

Five days until we're free!

#ted lasso #ted lasso meta #episode reactions

[masonscig]

what didnt you like about m’s route? to me this book’s plot was weaker than the other ones but i still really enjoyed a and m’s romances

so, disclaimer, please! do not take any of my opinions are yours being wrong! if i say i don't like something, you're not wrong for finding personal enjoyment in it! i'm being so genuine when i say i hope you had a great experience playing b3 <3

these are fresh out the oven of my mushy fucking brain bc i spent a long time reading it yesterday and passed out for 11 hrs after pushing end book

another disclaimer, i didn't read all the routes (still haven't)! it'll take me a while to get through it, so this is solely m opinions + opinions on the general plot

so, some of it is personal opinions because i have an idea for how i want my oc's relationship with mason to go, and some of it is how i feel about the route and how some parts don't quite fit m's route that well (imo). i've discussed this in depth with a few m-loving friends of mine and we agreed on some aspects that i'll lay out below:

firstly, i think that some of the romantic moments don't flow with the story – they feel out of place because the plot is so heavy (kidnapping! trafficking! it's a fucking lot)! the options to have sex are so jarring because isn't the mc traumatized? from both book 1 and 2, and the current situation they're in with kidnappings that have terrorized the community? the mc still hasn't had time to unpack a lot of their feelings and resolve issues that have just Been There For Multiple Books Now.

the romance should've taken a backseat overall imo, because both mc and m are dealing with so many heavy feelings. and the romance is there! like, a big theme with m is physicality without emotionality and the mc being the first time they've thought about more. both mc and m should've been afforded the time and the opportunity to work it out on their own AND together! there's so much they could've worked through and discussed! like... having discussions and healing is romantic relationship development yk?

a huge issue too for me is the very very very very VERY jarring and out of left field moment from m a the auction where m makes a very out of place sex joke. m would absolutely never ever ever respond that way. you're telling me m has spent the entire book internally battling feelings they don't understand, and freaking out over the mere idea of the mc being taken away from them, and their worst fear is coming true, bc the mc is literally trapped – and? they're going to make a crude sex joke? this is the ro that was quite literally, chapters before, freaking out when the ceiling fell on the mc and no questions asked, sensory nightmare be damed, stood inside the shower and platonically held onto the mc so that they could wash off? and you're telling me he's going to make a joke? it's so out of character it hurts.

i'm a huge fan of hurt/comfort, but the sex scene at the end is so misplaced – you'd think that this would've been the book where mc just. doesn't get the chance to sleep with m because they're having so many complicated feelings – and they're terrified of losing mc! it would've been so much more true to m's character that way i think. i really truly feel like this book, m has grown so much already that even if they can't recognize what their feelings exactly are, they can recognize that stepping back is a good choice for both m and the detective.

tonally, a lot of the romance is just off – i know that romance can be lighthearted (we've seen it in canon), but book 3 is just not! so many things are happening, and lots of those things are difficult for mc to process emotionally – especially the guilt that mc can feel over "being the reason kids are being kidnapped". i feel like a lot of what m-lovers enjoy about their route is the non-forced romantic aspects. there's so much that m does that makes my heart flutter without them being intentional about it – and i feel like in some places this book was lacking a lot of that unintentional stuff i've loved. and the intentional stuff... at times felt very out of place.

and also, i think that a lot of what i envision for sofía and mason just doesn't quite mesh as well as i'd want it to! i thought i had a few more points here, but honestly my brain is still mush and this is a long response and i think my brain is forcing me to tap out LMAO (these aren't all my thoughts, just a few i've been mulling over and discussing w friends today) maybe if you ask me again later i'll flesh that out more

it's less about what m does tbh for me it's more about the developmental moments feeling more forced, and way less organic than the ones in book 1 and 2 – and early book 3! for the record, there's so much i love about m's route – i just think some of it could've been better.

#asks #again – don't let my opinions sway you and i don't dislike m's route – just aspects of it #i very much loved the antique shop date. and the shower scene. and the research scene (FAV) #and a lot of m's introspection or conversations w/ ub about the det. was great too! #overall i did like it! #don't snipe me for this ask !!!! my anon will stay on and i WILL block you if you're mean to me #and i will make fun of you privately to my friends <3 #twc book 3 #twc book 3 spoilers #twc spoilers

[trillscienceofficer]

do you have a favourite species design/lore headcanon, something you wish you could see on screen/had been explored more? (worflesbian asking from main 💖)

another very interesting question! I admit I don't have quite the same penchant for worldbuilding that I admire in so many other Trekkies; I'm always thinking 'well I wouldn't want this species to be a monoculture, canon basically never question that assumption and it's boring', but then my pea-sized brain completely seizes up at the prospect of having to come up with an entire world history in order to explain why Trill fashion on DS9 seems to favor square necklines and long tunics heavily, especially for men. But again I digress! (And also, apologies, this got long.)

Of course my first answer is always going to be that I wanted anything about Trill and the joining to be less hand-waved as space magic on an episode by episode basis and more planned out, but even more than that I just would've loved to learn more about Trill as a planet (we don't even know for sure that it is in the Federation at all on TNG/DS9, though it's likely at least Federation-aligned). And I especially would've loved to hear both Jadzia's and Ezri's opinions about anything concerning the Trill homeworld and/or the Symbiosis Commission because I actually think their perspectives would've been pretty unique (and uniquely informed) on the subject.

As I mentioned in the previous ask, Jadzia's reticence in speaking about her family or Trill in general speak volumes to me, and imho indicates that she has a lot mixed feelings about the planet she's from. This also fits well with my idea that, no matter how 'revered' the symbionts are, joined Trills don't really have that much power on Trill and they kind of live at the margins of Trill society, comfortably but still under So Many rules designed to keep them apart from everyone else and especially other joined Trills. I think Jadzia may have realized that that was the case pretty early on, and perhaps found it difficult to articulate that realization to her family or any other Trill that doesn't share her perspective (you can see this a little in the way she and Lenara interact on “Rejoined”, too). And this is not even considering the way the Symbiosis Commission was ready to let her die in order to cover up past mistakes. I really would have loved to see Jadzia being somewhat forced to admit just how horrible that was and how little faith she must have left in the institution that should have cared about her joined existence first.

I think Ezri also would have interesting things to say, as someone who was an 'outsider' to Trill tradition even before becoming Ezri Dax. That plus her penchant for cutting precisely at the heart of the matter (again, that scene with Worf about the Klingon Empire!) I think she would have insightful things to say about Symbiosis Commission politics in general, not having the same stake in maintaining a facade of respect that someone like Jadzia, even as irreverent as she was, still might have had. I'm really very sorry that DS9 didn't bring this side of Ezri more to the fore wrt Trill.

As a last note, given discussions I've been having recently (plus your fic made me think about this even more!), I really wish Voyager had made it clearer that long-term Borg assimilation can't be so easily reversed, and that Seven's implants are prosthetics and treated them as such, rather than little more than aesthetic hints. Of course making them look like actual prosthetics rather than decoration would've been a start, and many artists and writers have done so luckily! But even more than that I would've loved if they'd been more consistently depicted as something that Seven uses because the process of Borg assimilation made her physically disabled. You could argue she already is in canon (the way she has to spend hours in an alcove to 'regenerate' means she is dependent on a machine in order to live), but of course Voyager falls into the trap of making her implants a superpower, which... eh. Of course her implants give Seven a lot of trouble too (her cortical node stopped working and almost killed her, not to mention the time that an interference from a Borg vinculum gave her the Borg equivalent of psychosis) but I really would have loved to see her less as a metaphor for and more as actual disability representation. Imho xB characters in general really skirt the line between metaphor and actual disability, and I wish that had been explored better and with more nuance, especially where Seven is concerned.

#askbox #thank you for the question! #it was really interesting to tackle #i really tend to think of worldbuilding questions as something that still stems from characters somehow #i find it hard to approach it in more general terms #trill tag #dax tag #borg tag