#ted was always motivated by changing people and he did that

[reiverreturns]

*bursts into the ted lasso tag covered in blood*

THE WHOLE GOAL OF BEING A MANAGER OF PEOPLE IS TO COACH THEM TO THE POINT WHERE THEY NO LONGER NEED YOU! GOOD MANAGERS KNOW THEY ARE SUPPORTING CAST AND NOT THE MAIN CHARACTER! IT’S A LOT LIKE PARENTHOOD BUT IT’S NOT A SUBSTITUTE! TED MISSED HIS KID! HE WANTED TO BE THE STABLE AND LOVING PARENT HE NEVER HAD! HE CHOSE TO DO BEST BY HIS SON BUT ALSO BY HIMSELF! JUST BECAUSE YOU LOVE A THING DOESN’T MEAN IT’S MEANT TO BE PERMANENT! GOODBYES CAN BE SAD AND HARD BUT STILL THE RIGHT THING TO DO! BEING A GOOD COACH - AND PARENT - IS ABOUT KNOWING WHEN TO LEAN IN AND KNOWING WHEN TO LET GO!

#the discourse saying ted's move back didn't make sense i hate it i hate it i hate it #ted was always motivated by changing people and he did that #he didn't have anything else to prove at richmond #but he had a hell of a lot of prove to himself and henry #and like any good dad he recognised that uprooting his kid to suit his life wasn't putting henry first #going back to kansas was the only ending where ted could be selfish and selfless all at once and finally find that balance in his character #i'll die on this fucking hill tbh #ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers

[hacash]

Season 3 is clearly setting up a deep dive into why Ted is still at Richmond, is his future here or elsewhere - but I also think it would be really interesting if they did the same for Rebecca.

For all that she’s set up as the businesswoman powerhouse in football, much of that focus seems to centre on her being a ‘bossass bitch’ in a boys’ club, rather than her relationship with the sector itself. We know why Roy comes back to Richmond, because he’s in love with the game; we know why Keeley is so excited about getting her own PR firm, because we see her all giddy about setting up proms and branding opportunities; even Higgins we see as a parental figure to the players, which explains why he loves this job so much. Even Ted and Nate, for all their mental health issues, both obviously love the footballing world they’re involved in. The Ted Lasso world is absolutely one where people go into their work because they have something that drives them, that inspires them to remain there.

In comparison, we don’t see that drive from Rebecca. Most of the time when Rebecca is in work mode she feels one step detached from the footballing world itself: we don’t see her getting passionate about the work or the game, and dialogue suggests she isn’t even usually a football fan. We don’t even, honestly, see a huge amount about her relationship with and care for the players (apart from Sam, which was a whole other thing all together). And then the opening episode reminded us, crucially, that the whole reason Rebecca has the club in the first place is because of her relationship with Rupert. Not because she wanted the club, but because she didn’t want Rupert to have it. And it feels like that motivation is continuing to feed into Rebecca’s relationship with Richmond even now.

Which, obviously, is not a bad thing in and of itself: most of us aren’t as passionate about our jobs as we’d like to be. But if Season 3 is examining why Ted is still at Richmond, I think it would be really interesting to also examine why Rebecca is still at Richmond - is it because she’s fallen in love with the game, the players, the atmosphere? Does she still intrinsically link her ownership of the club to beating Rupert? After Richmond wins the whole fucking thing, would it be healthier to step away?

(My predicted ending has always been that Ted might end up back in Kansas, but it would be a cool twist if Rebecca went with him - maybe still owning the club but leaving its actual handling in the hands of someone like Higgins and/or Nate - because she too needs a change and a new start.)

#ted lasso #rebecca welton #ted lasso speculation #ted lasso spoilers

[bombshellsandbluebells]

Ok, complicated thoughts on Jamie in 3x11:

I do actually like the way forgiveness was talked about this episode and how it was used with Jamie particularly, because I agree with what Ted said - I don’t think forgiveness is always something you do for the other person, and I certainly don’t think it’s condoning their actions or welcoming them back into your life, I think a lot of the times it’s more like letting go of something, so that what someone did to you no longer has power over you.

And Jamie needs that, because he’s can’t keep letting his dad motivate his actions one way or another - either trying to please him or trying to anger him. In both cases, his life becomes more about his dad than about him. He almost ruined his entire career at one point because he tried to make his dad mad - a choice I doubt he would have made without his dad being a motivation. And like he said in 3x06, even when his dad isn’t physically there, he’s always really there.

So much of this season has been about forgiveness - but BOTH types. The team and Beard forgiving Nate AND welcoming him back because he does regret his mistakes, Ted forgiving his mom for how she hurt him even unintentionally, but it’s ALSO Rebecca no longer letting herself be motivated by hatred of Rupert, making her choices for herself, and not just to spite him. But in that case, Rupert isn’t sorry for what he’s done and Rebecca ISN’T going to give him another chance or welcome him back into her life. 

The biggest misstep for how it was handled this episode though is that that doesn’t mean Jamie has to have a relationship with his dad. Forgiving him is about letting go of the anger so it doesn’t have to affect JAMIE’S life anymore, so that he doesn’t feel driven by it. But you can forgive someone for yourself, you can let go so you can heal, and STILL have absolutely nothing to do with them because they aren’t good people to have in your life.

Because while Jamie needs to move on, James Tartt in no way deserves him reaching out to him.

You can forgive someone and still hold them accountable for their actions. And you absolutely should actually. And you can do it without giving them a second change; those are two very different things.

And THAT’S the piece they missed (both in this storyline and with Sam). And a horrible father like James Tartt who did nothing but terrorize his son doesn’t deserve an olive branch. He should be cut out of Jamie’s life forever.

#the one thing i think they really fumbled this episode #he absolutely should not have reached out to him again i HOPE you never see or talk to that man again #i hope i explained myself well I don't want it to sound like i think jamie forgiving his dad is about saying it was ok or anything like that #it's not #it's something PURELY for jamie's growth #bc james tartt has never ever tried to do better or shown that he even feels guilty #ted lasso #jamie tartt #ted lasso spoilers

[ar-agon]

The Stallions

Note: I am so sorry this took so long, my motivation has been off and on for a while. I hope you all like it -Ar

Marko/Bill x Reader

Summary: After senior year Ted gets sent to boot camp and Bill just disappears. Feeling abandoned by your best friends you start your own band, called The Stallions in honor of your old band. Your tour finally brings you to Santa Carla and you end up running into a familiar face.

Requested: @zithera

Words: 2239

On a street in San Dimas, California was where it all started. You had just moved because your parents wanted a fresh start and warmer weather. You were dragged along, not old enough to fend for yourself yet. You didn’t leave many friends there, just your bandmates but still it was a tough change. That was until you heard a noise coming from your neighbor’s garage. You won’t really call it music or even good but you could tell that it was coming from a guitar. The first thought that came to mind was middle schoolers trying to form a band, you remembered your first band practice. It took another few days of settling to realize your neighbor was actually a kid your age and his friend. Smoke was billowing from the garage one day and you ran out of your house to check up on the kids. 

“Are you alright?” you asked standing behind the two boys that had just exited the smoke.

“Oh, yeah. Happens all the time,” the brunette tells you as he turns around. The blond does the same but just stares at you. 

“No wonder no one else came out,” you laugh once you finally scanned them for any injuries.

“Wow,” the brunette stared at you.

“What?” 

“You're like totally…”

“Shut up Ted,” the blond finally spoke up.

“I wanna hear what he was going to say,” you looked at Ted, “I’m what, Ted?”

“Hot,” he finished with a dopey smile. That was not what you thought he was going to say as a blush dusted your cheeks.

“Oh,” you whispered, rubbing the back of your neck. 

“I’m Ted Logan and this is…”

“Bill S. Preston Esq,” the blond bowed.

“Well nice to meet you, Bill and Ted,” you said before giving them your name in return, “I heard you playing, mind if I join? Totally cool if not.”

“No,” they both rushed out causing you to laugh.

“We mean you can join whenever you want,” Bill said. You smiled at him which caused him to blush. You were always attracted to the cute ones. 

That was the start really. You showed up to one of their practices and they took you in as a member of the Wyld Stallyns. You tried to teach them how to play a little better, but they always seemed more focused on something else. It was easy to fall into a routine with them, go to school, work, and then band practice. Do it all over again. As school started to come to a close you were rather close to the guys. It was now Bill, Ted, and the new kid. New kid, it seemed like you never did outgrow that title in San Dimas. The more you hung out with them, the closer you got to Bill. He was sweet and made jokes that always had you laughing. It was his favorite thing to do. Even someone as dense as Ted could see that you two liked each other. Though no one made the first move, either too scared or too comfortable to do anything. All in all, senior year was going great. That was that until school ended and Ted’s father sent him away to Bootcamp. It happened so fast as well. One minute he was in the garage jamming out and the next his dad was picking him up. There was no Wyld Stallyns, just you and Bill. It stayed like that for a while. That was until you were the only one left. 

Bill had told you he was going to visit some friends in a few towns over and that he would be back in no time. Well, no time turned out to be years. There was no point putting up missing posters or that was what his father said. Bill had gone to Santa Carla trying to find Ted. He had gotten a postcard from there from his bandmate. Santa Carla his dad told you was called the Murder Capital of the World and there were millions of missing posters up for other people. It was a lost cause, he hadn’t said it like that but you knew what he meant. Bill was probably dead. Your heart broke and you stayed in your room for a month crying until your parents convinced you to get on with your life, Bill would have wanted you to. Sitting alone in your room wasn’t going to make him happy. 

So, you did the one thing that would have. You started a band. Contacting your old bandmates wasn’t that hard of a task. They all agreed to join the moment they got your call. Wanting to honor Bill, you named your band The Stallons with Ted’s permission of course. After two years of practice and doing local jigs, The Stallons grew into a household name. Every teenager and young adult knew who you guys were. That's what landed you this local tour. Your band has toured up and down California for the last few months. You were on your last leg of the tour, Santa Carla, and then back to San Dimas. It took your band a lot of convincing you to play Santa Carla. It meant a lot to bands around here to be able to play the boardwalk, they said. That is how you ended up there, they knew you couldn’t say no to them.

“Anyway, going in a group is better than going alone,” your drummer tells you backstage, “we’ll be fine.” 

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” you tell them with a sigh.

“Then what is it?”

“What if he’s still here and I just wasn’t a good enough reason to come back to San Dimas?”

Your drummer spoke your name softly, “then he isn’t worth it.” 

“I just really liked him.”

“I know…”

“Five minutes,” the stagehand tells them before moving on.

“Look, we will give the crowd what they want, and then we’ll explore the boardwalk after. How does that sound?” 

You nod as you take a deep breath, “Yeah, that sounds nice.” 

With a clap on your back, your drummer slipped onto the stage first, “what’s up Santa Carla!!” they say into the mic causing the crowd to scream. 

You exit the backstage last with a large grin on your face, “Hello Santa Carla! We are The Stallions and we hope that you will rock out with us for a while.” It was easy losing yourself in the music. Lyrics you have been singing for years now just roll off your tongue. Usually, the crowds morph into each other but this one was different. It was like you could see every single person in front of you. It was halfway through the show when you saw him or at least you thought you did. He was in the crowd one second and gone the next. Bill. It had to be him, you could never forget his face. Your father had called it young love, something that would pass but you knew with Bill what you had was deeper than that. You just never had the chance to figure it out. Your voice stuttered a bit as you finished your song. Your eyes kept scanning the crowd to find him again. It took a minute for you to just chop it up to your imagination. That you wanted to see him so much, you had made him up.

“Most people don’t know why we picked The Stallions as our name. Would you like to hear the story?” You said stalling for a moment to give your guitarist changed instruments. 

The crowd cheered as a response.

“It’s a short one but I used to be in another band before this one. Shocker I know. It was just me and two very important people to me. I lost one to boot camp and the other, well I don’t truly know what happened to him. Our band name was Wyld Stallyns and my beautiful bandmates let me honor my old band with this one. I wouldn’t be here where I am today without Wyld Stallyns and Bill and Ted,” as you talked you caught a familiar sight of curly blond hair in the crowd, “wanna hear a little more gossip while we continue to change some instruments?” You were feeling a bit bolder, if he was in the crowd he wanted him to know how you felt and if not it would feel nice to get it off your chest. 

The crowd screamed as an answer as they always do.

You laugh, “alright, alright. I had a crush on one of these boys. Bill S. Preston Esq., he was the sweetest person I have ever met, he never failed to make me laugh, and he made me this mixtape of songs that made him think of me for my birthday that I still have. I think I miss him the most, Ted and I still keep in touch but Bill. Well, I don’t actually know where he is now. I just hope he’s out there somewhere listening to my songs. Like you lovely people.” 

The music started to kick up after that and you sang your heart out for this song. It was one that you had written for Bill, not that anyone actually knew that. It was mournful and filled with love. There were three more songs after that including the encore before your band left the stage. Your drummer was ready to explore the boardwalk practically bouncing off the walls. You laughed and told them to go as you started to help pack the gear away. You promised to meet them there as they all disappeared into the crowd. 

You were helping load a speaker when someone called your name behind you. Turning your head, you almost dropped the speaker at the sight one the boy now standing backstage. Another worker grabbed the equipment from you as you froze in place.

“Bill?” you whispered before moving towards him, “I thought you were dead.”

“Well, I’m right here,” he said, spreading his arms as if to show you all of him still in one piece. 

“I can see that,” you nodded, “why didn’t you come back? You left me alone in San Dimas.”

“I… I found some new friends and they took me in.”

“You found new friends?” 

“Yeah. I needed a new start,” he rubbed the back of his neck, “and Santa Carla gave that to me.”

“And I couldn’t? You still had me but clearly, I wasn’t a good enough reason for you to stay.”

“No, that’s not…” he sighed, running his hand through his now longer hair. A few things had changed about him. He was still rocking the crop top but now he sported a colorful jacket and chaps over his jeans. Maybe, he had changed from the silly teenage boy to whatever punk he was now.

“Then what?”

“I was going to come back to you. Hell, I was even going to ask you to marry me,” he rambled out. 

“You were going to what?” you stared at him speechless. Marriage? You had thought that maybe one day Bill would get the courage to ask you out but marriage. That was something you had never thought of before. Though now that you were, it didn’t seem all that bad to have married Bill. 

“One day, we still had to go on a date but babe, I loved you the moment you hit that sick rift in the garage.”

You laughed and shook your head, “you can’t just show up like this and spring this on me.”

“And you telling me that you have a crush on me in front of thousands was any better?”

“You already knew I liked you, even Ted saw it,” you defended yourself. Bill got closer and smiled. He seemed almost like a predator stalking his prey as he looked at you.

“Oh, I know,” He cupped your cheek and brought you into a kiss. His skin was cold against you but you couldn’t help but melt into it. Your own hand came up and grabbed his shoulder, “have that date with me now.” He offered once he pulled away. 

“I should at least yell at you some more,” you tell him, “for Ted’s sake.”

“Come on,” he grabs your hand and leads you off the stage, “you can tell me how he is over a meal.”

“Bill,” you stopped a few feet away from the boardwalk. 

“Yeah?”

“Why did you really leave?”

He sighed and closed his eyes, “I don’t know. Something pulled me here and I had to follow.”

You nodded, “you have to stay here, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“There better be some good food at this place you’re taking me,” you say, beginning to move again. Even if this might be the last time you get to see him, you want to make the most of it. You loved him, even if he did leave you. You didn’t need to know exactly why but you had a feeling it was for a good reason. There would also be a lot more tours to Santa Carla now. You had found what you were looking for and you weren’t about to let it go anytime soon. Even if during the date Bill tells you that he goes by Marko now, he is still the same boy you fell for. 

#the lost boys #the lost boys 1987 #marko the lost boys #the lost boys imagine #marko the lost boys x reader #marko x reader #bill s preston esquire #bill and ted #bill and ted imagine #bill s. prestion esquire imagine #requested

[modern-inheritance]

"Dark Magic"

*Rubbing temples*

Paolini never really defines dark magic in Inheritance Cycle. It's most frequently associated with Shades and Galbatorix. Durza taught Galbatorix 'dark magics' before he went on his traitorous rampage. Durza uses 'dark magics' to give Eragon his curse (??? look I'm still not fully clear on wtf Eragon's seizures were, we could go into a full side tangent rant on this but I digress) and used it in a variety of other ways. There's scattered mentions of 'dark magic' throughout the books beyond these.

But we are never told, as far as I am aware, about what exactly it is. What we know of magic is that it is typically shaped through use of the Ancient Language, some creatures, like dragons, can effect the world through the use of instinctive magic, and that magic in other cases and places just appears in the world (floating rocks, etc, though come to think of it no wait stop sciencing).

In this TED Talk I wi– I'm kidding. We're here to talk about MIC adaptations again.

MIC has always been a bit of a science experiment. In the later books we can see Paolini really using science to explain what happens when Eragon or others craft certain spells. Hell, he even uses coding in Murtagh, which made me grin a bit. I'm awful at it but If/Then statements are coding 101 kinda things. But a lot of the time we are left in the dark (pun somewhat intended) on how certain things work.

I (have I??) explain some things via science/biology/etc in MIC. Elves bones have to be stronger to resist their innate strength or else they'd shatter their skeletons every time then did something with force, so I adapted the Spartan-III augmentations of Titanium Carbide replacing the typical materials of calcium and whatnot. There's a weird bit of their diet that changes because of that. I have a few others but that's the main one I think I spent ages going over in my head.

So what is 'dark magic?' How do we explain it scientifically, or in context of the mix of language and science that the IC magic system is based off of?

WELL!

I just realized I don't remember what I was LANGUAGE!

RIGHT! WHY DID I TALK ABOUT SCIENCE?!

I am currently writing a story about Eragon's seizures and what people are doing to see about finding a cure. This requires me to look at dark magic. And since we have no canon idea of if dark magic would draw from the same language as 'regular' magic, making it just...regular magic with inherently dark motives, which is boring, I decided to change it up a bit.

The Ancient Language is, well, ancient. One day I will spell Language properly without autocorrect but here we are. Although AL (it is not today) is considered locked in, I wouldn't be surprised if there were other languages and/or dialects of AL. The dwarves and the dragons are the 'true' inhabitants of Alagäesia (were-creatures?? more like where did they come from but again, I digress)–

and you know what I just read the Ancient Language and Grey Folk pages on the wiki and now I'm kinda mad bUT I'M DOING WHAT I'M DOING ANYWAY.

Long story short: there are several different dialects of AL, influenced by a lot of different factors. The dark magic Ancient Language dialect was created by shades and other malevolent creatures w/ sentience and magic usage, and is purposefully absolutely fucking convoluted, varied and jumbled with lots of uuuuh what's the word influence fuck I just had it

the caster can choose and mix and match their syntax and structure at will. to prevent their curses from being undone unless you were present during the casting and know almost word for word what was said and used for the curse/spell. The dragon's magic that undid Eragon's curse was basically like a cleanse and used dragon's instinctive world weave magic to rewrite Eragon enough that he sorta DNA mixed (sorry Paolini, in MIC we do get some fun DNA rewriting because Ket wants the science....mmm....science......) with elf code and a little bit of dragon code (possibly, I'm a little on unsure on this, elves are already a mix of their original base with dragon code due to the orignal bond and I'M GETTING OFF TOPIC AGAIN) and he became different enough that the curse no longer worked and because he was uh...well, he was kinda factory reset. It wiped any and all spells attached to his body.

uh

okay. I...think I made my point. I'm...I'm sorry I just completely lost my train of thought after 'attached to his body.'

um.

Have a good day, I guess.

#eragon #inheritance cycle #the cyclists #the world of eragon #the inheritance cycle #Ket's Modern Inheritance Cycle #modern inheritance #modern inheritance lore #the SCIENCE! of Modern Inheritance #wait is language and syntax a humanities thing? #the INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES! of Modern Inheritance #I've stopped caring about making these clean and neat. you get to see the process #i am two neurons and one of them is firing buT I CAN'T FIND IT

[galaxythreads]

Hello! I’ve liked your fics for a long time, and was wondering if you would write something with fem- presenting Loki? There are some gender-fluid Loki fics on ao3, but I Need More To Live. I would write one, but I wouldn’t ever finish it.

I really want Loki to join the avengers in 2012 so that the other stuff doesn’t happen. sometimes I want Loki and Natasha to make fun of the rest of the avengers.

Idk I just really like the idea that Loki and Natasha would be friends. Or Loki and Wanda. (Except for all of the aforementioned characters got done so dirty by MCU. Isn’t that like a trope? Kill off the girl so the guy has a motivation to defeat the bad guy? Like from Green Lantern or something?

And Loki and Wanda got rewritten.). Whatever. I’m PERFECTLY OKAY! *eye twitches*

That kind of turned into a rant. Sorry.

Here are more of my headcanons, because I’d rather dm someone on tumblr instead of actually making a post on my blog. I’m weird.

-Loki was friends with Tchaikovsky and Mozart and Shakespeare. Maybe even Paganini, or like Ada Lovelace. Or Albert Einstein. Basically a lot of historical figures and also musicians from the 1980s.

-Loki is an honorary gay, because he’s an alien and aliens don’t have human concepts of gender and sexuality. But also you saw that 🏳️‍🌈hand flip🏳️‍🌈 he did in the 1602 episode. I mean, he was just being so gay in that 1602 episode. It was beautiful.

-Loki is a sad little boi. 🥺🥺

-Loki is a good little boi who got did dirty by MCU and Odin. (🥺🥺)

-Loki isn’t always a boy.🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️(unfortunately no gender-fluid flag emojis so 💕🤍💜🖤💙)

-Loki knows all the languages.

-Loki would watch anime and Kdramas if HE WASN’T DEAD.

-Loki is a theater kid.

-Loki is cat

-Loki knows how to play ALL the instruments. He likes cello the best though. Also he has perfect pitch.

-Loki needs therapy. Like two blue whales worth of therapy.

-If Tony and Loki ever had a long conversation, they would figure out how to solve world hunger and climate change and overpopulation AND THEIR MOTHERS. (It doesn’t make sense but just roll with it)

-Loki is a Major Fucking Nerd About Everything.

-Loki likes calculus as a hobby.

-Loki is, (un?)fortunately, a British stereotype.

-Loki ships appledash and narusasu.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk. Bye, and thanks for letting me dump headcanons on you.

Hi! Thank you so much for sharing all of these with me, it's so fun to see other people's headcanons about Loki and their excitement about his character. I love discussing this blorbo and cracking him open like an onion to peal away layers of trauma and reveal the nerd beneath.

Lol, the amount of times I've thought about doing an MCU rewrite post a1 to fix everything is insane. If I did do this, I'd actually probably start at civil war, because personally, I feel like everything was (generally) actually okay and enjoyable until infinity war. Civil war is just a good place to kick around the fix-its because everything is such a mess.

As far as your request goes, it might surprise you, but you're actually NOT the first person to approach me about a genderfluid, fem-presenting Loki. More like the....4th? or maybe 5th? Idk. I've definitely been approached by multiple people over the years about this. Firstly, thank you for trusting me with your idea and your headcanons, I'm humbled and honored that you would approach me about this because you believed I would be able to write the story in a way that you would find meaningful and enjoyable <3

Second - I really just don't know. My first inclination is to say no, not because I'm not interested or don't care, but mostly because I'm so busy right now I really don't know when I'll be able to get to the story. Plus, I'm really not sure how to go about this. I'd need to figure out what direction I wanted to take the story, because Loki being genderfluid wouldn't change that much except their outward appearance. Loki + genderfluid + Natasha friendship is an amazing concept, but it's not a...plot, if that makes sense? "Fixing" a1 could be 50,000,000 separate things, and if it goes out as a fix-it for mcu, that would be an enormous project. Easily 200k-400k+, which would take me like...uh 1-3 years to write.

Loki being genderfluid IS something I've thought about just adding to my fics in general now (i'm really not sure, because I love cis male Loki, and I know it's canon that he's genderfluid, but I kind of disregard most things from the series anyway?) but Idk?

+ and this is just a personal one for me, but I don't know how to include Loki being genderfluid as a major part of the plot/story right now. Like, for example, I've been in the process of dumping all of my religious lgbtq+ trauma on peter parker in a (massive) one-shot that revolves around Peter learning to accept himself as being gay, but the point of the story is that Peter doesn't accept himself at first and the conclusion is when he does. (I don't know if I'm ever going to share or finish that fic by the way, so don't look for it) I don't know how to take the concept of this story, turn it into a fix-it for Avengers 1 with Natasha, and have a meaningful story about being genderfluid at the same time?

Like to me there's two different ways to go about lgbtq+ stories: a story about being gay that is intended to talk about lgbtq+ experiences and focus heavily on that, vs a story where the character is lgbtq+ and it's just part of their character and not something we spend a lot of time talking about because we don't need to. The story isn't about them being lgbtq+ specifically, it's about the character. Recently, a lot more media has started doing the latter, which is really, really nice because I don't feel like being lgbtq+ has to be justified every 20 lines.

The story I'm writing about Peter Parker is the former. It's about being gay. The entire story revolves around it. What I can tell from what you're saying is that you want something where Loki just IS genderfluid, but it's not something we spend a whole lot of time discussing because the story isn't ABOUT being genderfluid, it's about fixing mcu with genderfluid Loki as the main character, if I'm understanding this correctly? Which is fine and I absolutely support it because there is nothing wrong with writing genderfluid Loki and I wholeheartedly support those authors.

So i guess to shorten this - because this isn't just like a ~5-15k one-shot (which are about the only length of requests I can successfully complete right now), as respectfully as I can, I'm going to have to lovingly turn you down. I'm not saying no, I'll never write about genderfluid Loki, because I'm like 90% sure I will eventually, but I just don't know about a fix-it for MCU from the first Avengers. One suggestion I have is maybe, if you really really need to see this come to fruition, is to just write a bunch of one-shots that are interconnected based on each of your headcanons and then publish it as an interconnected series, not so much a full length novel like I would write. I can easily see this being a really enjoyable series. Best of luck

~galaxy <3

#loki #fic request #lgbtq #galaxy's writing #i'm so sorry really #i can tell that you have SO MUCH passion for this 'verse and I wish that I had the energy to bring this to life for you #but I'm just so busy and so mentally ill and I just wish I could pick this out of my brain and gift it to you instead #but i just... #ghusdghsd #i'm sorry #:/ #i'm so burned out with writing right now #i think rewriting my og novel 4 times and the second book twice on top of all the fic projects I've been doing #kind of left me a very burnt out husk

[marypsue]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on S1 of ST being a tragedy! No main character dies, so I never thought of it that way before

I mean, nobody has to die for a story to be a tragedy (at least, in the modern definition. I'm pretty sure '(almost) everybody dies' is a requirement of Greek tragedies and Renaissance revenge tragedies). But also, no main character dies in season one...if you take season one as part of a series. Which it wasn't originally conceived as.

I am not going looking for copies of the original pitch bible, because I am lazy, and also I only saw them floating around this webbed site. But the show changed a lot from the initial pitch (Joyce had a Long Island accent! Lucas' parents were divorcing! Murray was there and named Terry Ives! Most of what ended up in Hopper's character originally belonged to Mr. Clarke! The original pitch bible is fascinating). And part of the original pitch was a proposal for possible sequels.

The Duffers' proposal for a possible sequel was "It's ten years later, and Eleven is dead".

So that's the setup. Everything that came after season one was made up wholecloth after season one was a hit and people wanted more, but also people loved the adorable little psychic murder child (cue the Duffers shockedpikachu.jpg) and Netflix obviously recognised it would be a bad call to make a new season without her in it. So it makes sense to take season one as a unit, as a self-contained story on its own. You can also take it as part of a whole, but it makes sense to read it first as a complete story. Especially given the thematic drift of later seasons and the way they are...I'm just going to say it, each new season is very much added-on to what came before rather than being built on foundation that the earlier season(s) laid. It is very clear there was never a planned five-season story arc from the beginning. (This isn't necessarily always a bad thing, when it comes to sequels, but it does mean it makes sense to 'read' each season as its own thing.)

Okay, now that we've established all of that. Season one has one very clear goal, one very clear stake for the characters: save Will Byers from the Upside Down. (I like this. It makes the stakes both extremely high and extremely personal, it makes it very easy to understand each character's motivation, it also keeps the stakes grounded in reality. I like this a lot.) And by the end of the season, that goal is accomplished. So at first blush, you're right, season one doesn't look like a tragedy.

But when you start to unpack it a little, you start to see just how many important things were lost along the way. It's most glaringly obvious with Mike and El, with Nancy and Barb. The whole Wheeler family is fractured down the middle, with Mike and Nancy on one side and Ted, Karen, and Holly on the other, and Karen, who's been trying so hard the whole time to be part of her children's lives and understand what's going on with them, is aware of the ever-expanding gulf between them but will never be able to cross it, and will never fully know why. Hopper's finally managed to snatch a kid out of the jaws of death, save a woman he obviously cares about from the pain of losing a child, and Joyce has finally had someone believe her, support her, trust her. But it became blindingly obvious to me on my fourth rewatch that Hopper's plan, from the moment he went to leave the middle school gym, was always to trade El for Will. And that decision (and the fact that Joyce obviously understands that he did something to get the lab to let them go after Will, but she obviously doesn't dare press him on what) has broken her trust in him, and left him with what looks like an equally heavy burden of guilt as what he was carrying before. The lab stays open. The government gets away with everything. No one will ever know the true extent of the hurt they've caused.

And in the end, none of it even saved Will. He's back. He's alive. But he's spitting slugs in the sink. He's permanently marked by the Upside Down, and by trying to hide it from his family, he's putting a crack down the centre of them, as well. They're losing Will, just as surely as they had when they thought he was dead, just without him going anywhere.

And there's still a hole in the world.

The fragile bonds of community, the things that people share in common, the way catastrophe can bring people together and bring out the very best in them, are the major thematic threads woven through season one. Human connection is the only thing that can change what seems inevitable, the only thing that can bring back what's seemingly lost forever.

And it's still not enough to protect anyone from the random tragedy of the world.

The love was there. The love mattered. The love bent the entire course of the world around itself.

And it still wasn't quite enough.

If that's not a tragedy, then I don't know what is.

#stranger things #the pitch bible is also part of why I think they're gonna kill el for real at the end of s5 #and that the final epilogue scene of s5 is going to be a callback to the eggos-in-the-woods scene #a) the show's ending so they don't HAVE to let her survive. and we all know the duffers love it when other people are upset #b) they've said themselves they're 'going back to season one' #c) netflix would absolutely cream their pants for an opportunity to update the nostalgia marketing for this show to the now-trendy nineties #d) and also would want to leave the door open for 'well MAYBE she survived you don't know that we're not going to resurrect this franchise! #one of many many many reasons why I'm not bothering to watch any more of this show #I'll stick happily with my s1-s2 duology and steal characters from other seasons thanks #it's so frustrating because it's so CLEAR in season one that the love MATTERS #that these people care about each other and that MATTERS #even though it's not enough. #and by season four it's just like. well what if we just kept introducing new characters so we can kill them. aren't you sad about it #like there are so many ways to write a tragedy well and 'kill everyone kind of indiscriminately' is not one of them #okay rant over. i am climbing off the cafeteria table

[blurrycow]

This is one of my longer meta posts (oof I don’t have many)

my mom’s told me about this (our family is way too invested in ted lasso) I believe in a tweet or something on instagram she saw but im going to say it here because it’s so true. the very first time we see nate and meet him what is he doing? yelling at ted and beard to get off of the stadium lawn. Its only when he realizes that they’re the coaches that he’s nice to them.

nate is such a fun and complex character (oh I hate him for sure) because he is power motivated, but he still has morals. His parents are dismissive of his interests and his career and they rarely compliment him. He’s always looking for validation. so on the lawn when he realizes that its people in power who can lift him up that he’s just been yelling at, he stops in his tracks because he wants them to like him and see potential. and when ted consistently compliments and lifts him up, he beams. it’s only when he begins to feel like the lame sidekick that he begins to turn, because he feels like ted is using him (although he isn’t.) so of course the slimy bastard rupert who has no redeeming qualities swoops in and takes advantage of this. he offers him a better job where he can get revenge on ted for making him feel like he was in the backseat. it makes me sad that he sent in the information to trent about ted’s mental breakdown because that was absolutely not his business to send, but i understand his motivation to do so: he thought perhaps if he could dismantle Ted’s power and charm to the media and team, it would probably make him feel less like a mess = he would have the upper hand. all those times we see him on Twitter, scrolling through his own name (to which I always said ‘you narcissistic piece of shit’) was really not narcissistic at all. Nate is so fucking deep into his own image of how people perceive him (i.e., the wonderkid). he is reliant on that sense of being a hero.

was the telling about ted’s mental issues a problem? absolutely, yes. was him ripping the believe sign a good thing? hell no. but when they showed the tape, i mostly just felt sorry for Nate. the others were laughing but it kind of just felt pathetic. he’s so after that pride that he’s victimized the one man who genuinely did lift him up and help him feel like a hero.

i do want to discuss the Rupert situation at length, too, because it should be said. rupert- lets be honest!! hes a manipulative cheating fuck! I will defend morally grey characters like nate to the end of my days, even if I pretend to hate them, but rupert- there’s nothing about him. he’s manipulative, what can I say. he brings nate up and makes himself seem like some heroic angel, and then does subtle things to make him feel less than. by taking him in he is painted as a saint to nate, who wants nothing more than to get petty revenge on ted for making him feel less, however inadvertently. but it’s the small things that get me. it’s the ‘call me rupert, nate,’ in episode one to the ‘mr mannion, please’ in the most recent episode. its the replacing his car, which he loves, with something that is shiny and fancy and fits ruperts image. it feels to me like he is making things seem like a kind favor when he is attempting to change who nate is at the core. its fucking manipulative!

and most recently. him telling nate not to say anything other than ‘hello’ to ted at the game. there are so many instances in this episode that you can see nate wants to go over and apologize for what he’s done (because he does have some morals, and he feels horrible!) but rupert always intercepts and tries to remind nate why he’s on his side.

it’s just so well done- it’s such a well done show. It demonstrates morally grey characters and the reasons they do things so well and I could talk about it for ages.

#that’s where im gonna end it for now. ive said too much #ted lasso #nate shelley #nathan shelley #rupert mannion #ted lasso s3 #apple tv #meta #tobys meta

[victorianpining]

A Compilation of the Word “Love” on BBC Sherlock:

“I never get cabs.” “I love you.”

“He loved his family and his work.

“We’ve got ourselves a serial killer. Love those. There’s always something to look forward to.”

“He does love to be dramatic.” “Well thank God you’re above all that.”

“I love the brilliant ones. They’re always so desperate to get caught.”

“I’ve been on your website, too. Brilliant stuff! Loved it!”

“Ooh you’re going to love this.” “Love what?”

“I know how people think. I can see it all like a map inside my head. Everyone’s so stupid, even you. Or maybe God just loves me.”

“She took the kids, but you still love them and it still hurts.”

“Bitterness is a paralytic. Love is a much more vicious motivator.“

“Er, I mean, I'd love to go out of an evening and wrestle a few Chinese gangsters, you know, generally, but a girl can get too much.“

“Oh, sorry, love! You two had a little domestic?”

“Do you want some breakfast?” “Love some.” “Yeah well you’d better make it yourself cause I’m gonna have a shower.”

““You like the funny cases don’t you? The surprising ones.” “Obviously.” “You’ll love this. That explosion...”

“The owner loved these. Scrubbed them clean, whitened them where they got discolored. Changed the laces three.... no, four times.”

“He loved these shoes, remember. He’d never leave them filthy.”

“Lucy, love, I’ve got to go out. I’ve gotta see someone.”

“People don’t like telling you things, but they love to contradict you.”

“Too busy to get away. My wife would love it though, bit of sun.”

“You look pasty, love!“

“That's the brother. No love lost there, if you can believe the papers.“ “So I gather. I've just been having a very fruitful chat with people who loved this show. Fan sites – indispensable for gossip.”

“Oh, should I speak now? Alex? Love, it's Professor Cairns. Listen, you were right. You were bloody right! Give us a call when...“

“Oh, hi, Luce. You okay, love?“

“In the planetarium, you heard it too, oh that is brilliant that is gorgeous!” “What’s brilliant? What is?” “This is beautiful, I love this!”

“So take this as a friendly warning, my dear. Back off. Although I have loved this – this little game of ours. Playing Jim from IT. Playing gay. Did you like the little touch with the underwear?”

“Oh, and somebody loves you. If I had to punch that face I’d avoid your nose and teeth too.”

“I have a long and arduous apology to make to a very old friend.” “Do give her my love.”

“She sent this to my address and she loves to play games.”

“Because this was textbook. The promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption. Then give him a puzzle and watch him dance.”

“I can’t take all the credit. Had a bit of help. Jim Moriarty sends his love.”

“I imagine John Watson thinks love is a mystery to me but the chemistry is incredibly simple and very destructive.”

“I’ve always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof.”

“I love the blog too, Doctor Watson.”

“Oh, Mr. Holmes. I would love to tell you but then, of course, I’d have to kill you!”

“Oh, you know I’d love to. I’d love to give you unlimited access to this place. Why not?!”

“He loves his job; proud of it and this is work related.“

“I just like to watch them all competing. ‘Daddy loves me the best!’ Aren’t ordinary people adorable? Well, you know, you’ve got John. I should get myself a live in one.” “Why are you doing all this?”

“I’d love to know where she got her information.”

“I read it in the paper so it must be true. I love newspapers. Fairy tales. And pretty Grimm ones too.”

“He said I used to work in the navy where I had an unhappy love affair.”

“And you really thought he was the one, didn’t you? The love of your life?”

“I had a lovely day. I’d love to... I just... um...” “Oh, congratulations, by the way.”

“Sit down, love.” “Oh, thanks.”

“You’d have to be an idiot not to see it. You love it.” “Love what?”

“To John and Mary. All good wishes for your special day. With love and many big... big squishy cuddles, from Stella and Ted.”

“Mary, lots of love, poppet. Oodles of love and heaps of good wishes from CAM.”

“Love, love, love, love, love, bit of a theme, you get the gist.”

“I want to be up there with the two people that I love and care about most in the world.”

“All emotions, and in particular love, stand opposed to the pure, cold reason I hold above all things.”

“So know this today you sit between the woman you have made your wife and the man you have saved. In short the two people who love you most in all this world.”

“Oscillation on the pavement always means there’s a love affair.”

“To be honest, I’d loved to have... gone further.”

“Er. Love monkey.”

“Free love nest.”

“Weddings are great! Love a wedding.” “What’s he doing?” “Something’s wrong.”

“I love dancing, I’ve always loved it.”

“Loves to exaggerate, you should try living with him.”

“How dare you betray the love of your friends? Say you’re sorry.”

“Oh, could you be a love and put some coffee on?”

“Sherlock. She loves you.” “Yes, like I said. Human error.”

“You’re gonna love being dead, Sherlock. No one ever bothers you.”

“I’ll give your love to John and Mary.”

“Spare any change, love?” “No.” “Oh come on, love. Don’t be like all the rest.”

“John you are addicted to a certain lifestyle. You are abnormally attracted to dangerous situations and people so is it truly such a surprise that the woman you’ve fallen in love with conforms to that pattern?”

“If you love me don’t read it in front of me.” “Why?” “Because you won’t love me when you’ve finished.”

“Because Sherlock Holmes has made one enormous mistake which will destroy the lives of everyone he loves and everything he holds dear.”

“I just love your little soldier face. I’d like to punch it.”

“I just love doing this. I could do this all day.”

“Give my love to Mary. Tell her she’s safe now.”

“Only those within this room, code names Antarctica, Langdale, Porlock, and Love will ever know the whole truth.

“Love ginger nuts.”

“I always know when the game is on. Do you know why? Because I love it.”

“Molly, Mrs. H. We would love you to be Godparents.”

“I mean, he loves a really tricky case.”

“That’s enough now, love. Daddy has things to do, I’m afraid.”

“Seems to me we put an awful lot of faith in they. Well I’ve got something they would dearly love if we could only get out of here.”

“Oh, good. I love an acronym. All the best secret societies have them.”

“I don’t want you and Sherlock hanging off my gun arm, I’m sorry, my love.”

“I love, you love, he loves. What?”

“Six years ago you held the brief for foreign operations, code name Love.” “And you’re basing all this on a code name? On a whispered voice on the telephone?”

“Culverton’s doing a visit. The kids would love to meet you both.”

“I love his blog, don’t you?”

“I was just saying I love your blog.”

“Oh my God, I love your blog.”

“You should be wearing the hat, the kids would love the hat.”

“We all love the queen don’t we? And I bet she’d love you lot.”

“H.H. Holmes loved the dead.”

“Oh my God! Sherlock Holmes! I love your blog!”

“So here’s a few things you need to know about the man we both love.”

“But if you’re rich or famous and loved it’s amazing what people are prepared to ignore.”

“She’s a big fan, you know? Loves my blog.”

“Ooh, the posh boy loves the dominatrix. He’s never knowingly under cliched is he?”

“Silly name, isn’t it? Greek. It means “the east wind.” My parents loved silly names.”

“Because I could make you laugh, I loved it when you laughed.”

“Oh he recorded lots of little messages for me before he died. Loved it. Did you know his brother was a stationmaster? I think he was always jealous.”

“So it’s for somebody who loves somebody.” “It’s for somebody who loves Sherlock. This is all about you, everything here. So who loves you? I’m assuming it’s not a long list.”

“Molly, please, without asking why just say these words.” “What words?” “I love you.”

“Say it. Say it like you mean it.” “... I love you. I love you. Molly, please!” “I love you.”

“I am lost. Help me brother. Save my life before my doom. I am lost without your love. Save my soul, seek my room.”

“There is a last refuge for the desperate, the unloved, the persecuted, there is a final court of appeal for everyone. When life gets too strange, too impossible, too frightening, there is always one last hope.”

#rebs blogging #bbc sherlock #this has been in my drafts for like two months i forgot to post it sdhgskjghkasdhj

[absolxguardian]

After I made a post asking for fic recs that aren't setting aus, and generally being frustrated going into ao3 fandom tags and seeing so many setting aus, I thought about why I don't like them. The answer isn't relevant, but I did realize one setting AU for Ted Lasso I'd read the fuck out: Star Wars (probably because it's my main special interest).

Except I'm not interested in a fic where the cast are Jedi or something. Instead, I'm thinking about one where Ted is a coach for Outer Rim grav-ball (space American football)- perhaps for the Academy of Applied Sciences on Lothal (I'm just saying that because the children's chapter book that is half a high school sports book is set there. I know this would made Ted more comparable to a high school football coach, but ages for secondary and tertiary education in the galaxy is weird) who gets hired to coach a professional Core grav-ball team (space European football).

And this fic would really work by exploring the changes caused by the different societal norms between the gffa and our world. Homophobia? Nonexistent. Sexism? Also gone, which would change Rebecca and Rubert's dynamic. And sports aren't gender segregated. Mental health stigma? Honestly probably worse than current times given its unclear how prevalent therapists are in the galaxy.

But the big change would be that Ted goes from being an American expat to someone moving within the same nation that has a massive urban/rural divide as well as provincialism. His accent would be something people would discriminate against him for.

It would make things pretty dark, tbh, I think setting it during the Empire would be the best. Ted goes to work in the Core not just because he needs time away from Michelle, but because something doesn't feel right with AppSci becoming an Imperial feeder school and the new Athletics director is a racist ass.

The story would become about what you're supposed to do when you're just trying to be a semi-regular person within growing fascism. I think Ted would eventually snap and join the Rebellion (probably with a good portion of the main characters). There's the blockade and presumable communications blackout of Lothal, new policies banning aliens from professional sports, and probably one of his star players gets kidnapped by the Empire because they're force sensitive (there would be a higher than average occurrence of force sensitive people in professional athletics).

Some other new elements would be Nate (who is an alien) trying to be one of the "good ones" with Rupert, who is a die-hard imperial loyalist. He starts coaching for the Hammers at the same time aliens are banned from playing and only keeps his job because of Rupert's protection. Trent has the additional motivation to quit journalism that he doesn't want to have to deal with Imperial censors day in and day out, even though with sports there isn't much censor. Heck, Trent has always struck me as too somber and cynical to be a sports reporter, and maybe the reason he does sports reporting is because its the most honest specialty left.

The final new element I've thought of is that when I was running through my head for what planet the Greyhounds would be in, I landed on Chandrila. Which means that Rebecca and Rubert would be Chandrilan upper-crust- so instead of what we have in canon, Rebecca and Rubert are similar ages and were arranged to be married eachother when they were young (adults in their society, teens in our world). Instead of Rubert hurting Rebecca, they were both hurt by their society- which turned Rubert cruel. All the arranged marriages also means that divorce is more stigmatized and cheating more tolerated. This would also make Ted's in to the Rebellion through Rebecca and then Mon Mothma. Rebecca originally becomes a bit of a rebel sympathizer because Rubert is just so pro-empire.

#ted lasso #ted lasso au #star wars #i don't know if anyone else is interested by this idea #it makes the show much darker #if you can't tell i'm not much of a comedy person

[bonesandthebees]

Since you recently answered three of my asks, I'm just gonna respond in a single ask because I don't want to crowd your inbox.

1. Ah, that's really cool that Phil likes Portrait so much. I love the rock sound to it. Every time I hear the opening chords, I always want to mix it with cmwyl because for some reason, I want to sing "i've never been a fan of the internet".

And I just watched the music video for Portrait today. It's so sick! Ted did an amazing job.

2. I listened to Katawaredoki, and it's so beautiful!

What are your other favorite movie/tv show soundtracks and/or composers? John Powell and his work on httyd will always be in my top. Sometimes soundtracks are just better than other music.

3. I finished songs of change! It's so good! I love the scene where Wilbur realized that his yearning for Phil and Techno's presence/company was not the instincts but purely himself. Ugh, this is why found family is my favorite. I honestly think it started with clinic.

And at the end when Wilbur and Schlatt still see each other on the seas! *chef's kiss*

That's really cool about the background OCs. I bet if you ever wrote a story/novel with original characters, it would be amazing because your characterization is so good! Though, I also understand the benefits of having characters already pre-made for you to just throw into different angst and fluff scenarios.

Thank you for answering the ask game! I love getting a different flavor of boba every time I go, so I'm always asking people on their favorites. I've sampled thai tea (tumblr, stop saying that I spelled it wrong) before, but never a full drink. Can't wait to try different combos!

Have a great day!

- 🐼

yes the portrait video is SO good ted did so so good

oh yes finally I get to ramble about my favorite soundtracks. my top three movie composers (in no particular order) are

Trent Reznor and Atticuss Ross (they always work together on soundtracks so I'm counting them as one). My favorite soundtrack of theirs is the Gone Girl soundtrack but my second favorite is The Social Network soundtrack. Both have such distinct tones to them I love them so much

Ramin Djawadi who is obviously a very well-known composer since he did Game of Thrones. I haven't watched GoT but I have watched House of the Dragon and adored his soundtrack for it, but my favorite of his is actually the Westworld s1 soundtrack. It's so eerie and soft with dashes of fun jaunty western tunes at the same time it's such a unique sound.

and lastly, Nicholas Britell who is the genius behind the Succession soundtrack for all 4 seasons. The soundtrack for that show is so distinct with its blend of hip hop foundational elements (like an 808 beat) with heavy orchestra strings, and it's absolutely stunning. The title theme is amazing, but there are so many tracks I'd just listen to on loop if it didn't ruin my spotify wrapped

and ty I'm so glad you enjoyed songs of change!! yes I loved including that moment of it was never really the instincts it was just wilbur. I feel like it was a fun subversion on the way instincts work in a lot of fics in this fandom (no hate to other instinct-driven fics, I just wanted to do my own twist on it)

tysm I hope I can get the time + motivation to write more original stuff soon. I definitely haven't stretched my oc building muscles in a few years so hopefully I'm still decent at making my own characterization lol

I highly highly recommend thai tea. it's sooo good although the place you get it from really makes or breaks it. there was this pho place near my college campus I used to go to all the time, and that has always been my gold standard for thai tea it was so good there and I've never found any that hits just as much as that did

#ask #panda anon

[yes-lukewinter]

anyone in the business of reporting on reality - scholars, scientists, journalists - ought to be suspicious of narrative, even if they use it. [...] Stories are reality filters. By definition, they leave out information - all the messy stuff that doesn’t fit - and draw attention to what the storyteller wants us to notice. In that sense they are like ideologies: both are methods of rolling and shaping the hot metal of reality into smooth ready-made shapes. Stories don’t accommodate randomness or structural forces very well; they rely on chains of causation and on individual motive. Covid-19 can’t be an accident and we needn’t bother ourselves too much with biology; it is a plot perpetrated by evil people. Bulstrode’s paper has the flavour of a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories aren’t theories; they’re stories. [...] Stories act like an anaesthetic on our sceptical, questioning faculties. It can be valuable and pleasurable to subdue that part of our brain, and immerse ourselves in an imaginary world; I love reading stories, including non-fictional ones. But if you come across a history book, or a scientific study, or a news report, which tells a great story, or which slots neatly into a master-narrative in which you already believe, you should be more sceptical of its truth-value, not less. Narrative can give an illusion of solidity. When the expert narrative about the world changes, as with China (see below), we shouldn’t just conclude that the old narrative was false, but that all such narratives are unreliable. [...] In Metahistory, his classic work of historiography, Hayden White argued that historians are always drawing on literary forms, like tragedy or comedy, whether they realise it or not. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re a historian you have to be aware of it; otherwise the story writes you rather than the other way around. Moralising narratives are particularly potent. [...] Stories are indispensable, nourishing and delightful. They are also attacks on the rational immune system. TED Talks are, famously, all about stories, but when the economist Tyler Cowen did one he used it, rather subversively, to warn against “story bias”. Cowen argues that any time someone believes in a story they are effectively subtracting ten points from their IQ (by which he means, broadly speaking, their analytical intelligence). That’s a deal we will often take willingly, since stories can bring pleasure and meaning to our lives and deepen our understanding of the world. But let’s be clear about what the deal is.

Ian LeslieStories are bad for your intelligence - by Ian Leslie

#quotes #stories #narrative #authorshsip #fiction #hero's journey #history #historians

[careersway]

9 Must-Watch Ted Talks That WILL Inspire you to Achieve Big in Your Career

The path to a successful career is rarely without its bends and curves. There are times of frustration, of uninspiration; times when you are riddled with self-doubt, and even utter powerlessness. Precisely in times like these, you can benefit from a little dose of inspiration and encouragement, to tackle the periods of demotivation and despair.

For this very reason, here is a list of 9 carefully-curated Ted and Tedx Talks, that are sure to instil purpose and direction into your career. Each of these videos carry some very significant lessons that will help you at every single point of your career journey.

1. When life is throwing curveballs at you

Living Beyond Limits | Amy Purdy

Amy Purdy is a professional snowboarder despite having lost both her legs to bacterial meningitis. She describes her experiences with her disability, the power of imagination, and explains how life rarely proceeds the way we plan it to go, yet it is the choices we make that determine our lives in the end.

2. …and you are feeling down in the dumps

 My Philosophy for a Happy Life | Sam Berns

Sam’s life isn’t exactly what most would define as “perfect”. However, he has never let his circumstances get the better of him. In this uplifting talk, Sam Berns shares the ways he keeps negativity out of his life, to embrace life, warts and all.

 3. …it is important to keep the negative elements out of your life 

The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong | Amy Morin

Mental strength is not just a matter of integrating certain beliefs or habits, it is also about getting rid of the bad ones. Having faced her fair share of storms in life, Amy Morin shares a few habits that mentally strong people do not engage in, habits that often prevent us from being the people we can be.

4. When you are trying to figure out what makes you tick

Life is Your Talents Discovered | Sir Ken Robinson

“Knowledge isn’t about what you know, it is about what you don’t know.” Sir Ken Robinson talks about how talents are not always visible on the surface, one has to go look for it.

  5. …and need that extra effort to chase your dreams

 How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over | Mel Robbins

Mel Robbins, in this highly motivating talk, teaches us how to stop making excuses, and not give up. This talk is guaranteed to jolt you out of your bed, and on to your study chair/work desk.

6. When you are not feeling particularly powerful and in control

Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are | Amy Cuddy

This one has proved most useful to me. We are often cognizant of other people’s body language, and the effect it has on us. Yet we rarely stop to think that our own body language too has a profound effect on our emotions, confidence levels, and ultimately, our chances of success. Social psychologist, Mel Robbins, tells us how you can “fake it till you become it.”

7. …and need that extra boost of motivation

 Why did I Ski to the North Pole? | Ben Saunders

“No one else is the authority on your potential. You’re the only person that decides how far you go and what you’re capable of.” Ben Saunders is the youngest person ever to ski solo to the North Pole. Hi talk about how he succeeded to fulfil his aspirations, in the face of harrowing challenges, is sure to leave you inspired to pursue whatever you put your mind to.

8. When you are trying to find the mantra to success

The Happy Secret to Better Work | Shawn Achor

In this humour-filled talk, Shawn Achor talks about the ‘happiness advantage’, i.e. how happiness drives success, rather than the other way round. He shares some ways how you can bring about small changes in your happiness and positivity levels, to move a step closer to success.

9. …and need the secret behind self-motivation to help

The Psychology of Self-Motivation | Scott Geller

Scott Geller uses psychological research and concepts to elucidate how self-motivation works, and the four factors that contribute to the feeling of competence, motivation, and success.

(Bonus) When all is said and done, some insightful words from a brilliant man can do wonders.

Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

In his commencement speech at Stanford University’s graduation ceremony, the great man talks about life, fulfilling dreams, and making a mark, drawing from some of the defining moments of his life.

Stay strong, stay positive.

To get more details about career counselling for graduates visit Mindler

#how to make big career #career counselling for graduates

[messrmoonyy]

Have you seen that popular post of tonks going to Remus class after the war and taking teddy with her? cood your write something with that? Please 😃

I sure have anon! I loved this. Some happiness amongst all the angsty asks I have lmao.

I took some mild creative liberties with the conversational abilities of portraits and the timeline is slightlyyyy wobbly. But enjoy

Read my other writing in my masterlist and feel free to drop me a request

Pairing: Remus lupin x Nymphadora Tonks

Warnings: none

When Tonks woke up Remus was already gone, her fingers reached around blindly on his side of the bed and found nothing but cold sheets and she groaned. In the year that they had been living at Hogwarts with Remus back teaching again, she had gotten herself into the habit of waking up with him. But Teddy had simply refused to sleep last night so she had been up for hours with him so that Remus could sleep. She opened her eyes and saw there was a steaming mug of tea on the bedside dresser with a little note propped against it and she reached over to grab it.

'My dear Dora,

Don't be mad at me for not waking you, you needed to rest. I checked on Teddy before I left. I have a class of 6th years 3rd period so feel free to come down if you want to. I have a free afternoon too, so tea in Hogsmede?

Yours always, Remus'

She smiled and sat up in bed stretching her arms up above her head with a yawn, grimacing slightly as her arm popped. It was one of the main reasons she still hadn’t gotten back fully into working herself, an injury from the war that still hadn’t recovered. The curse still that had hit her making it seem like it might not ever recover properly. Madam Pomfrey saw her once a week to help with it, but it wasn’t much better really.

She felt quite useless some days. She was desperate to get back into working again. She was never one for just lazing around doing nothing. She had been offered her job back at the ministry when ever she was ready to return to it, a hefty promotion waiting for her too. She still dis small things for the ministry, Kingsley has worked very closely with her and Remus on getting equal rights for Lycanthropes, made wolfsbane much more accessible. But for now she didn’t really mind that much, it meant having plenty of time with Remus and Teddy. Now in terms of work she she just helped out around the school where she could, because they didn't mind if she brought Teddy along with her. Some days she helped out in the hospital wing, her extensive knowledge on healing coming in handy. Other days helped with Minervas homework study groups, helped Remus plan his classes, she kept busy.

Teddy started to fuss and she got out of bed with a roll of her shoulder to try ease the morning pain. She peered into his cot to see him wide eyed and awake. He had Remus’ eyes. Big and brown and beautiful. He looked so much like Remus, she knew the older he got he’d simply be a double of his dad. Minerva was already joking that with them looking so identical now she would resign the day he was old enough to attend Hogwarts. With Remus and Tonks as his parents he was certain to have a mischievous streak in him for certain. It was practically fate.

" my silly boy huh " she said as she saw he’d managed to completely change ends he was sleeping on. She smiled, rolling her eyes with a smile and picked him up. His hair was a vibrant shade of red today, like the phone boxes back in London. His hair was the one of the only thing that seemed to change about him at the moment but he was already starting to control it. He had seemed to have learnt how to change his hair to match who he wanted to be held by when he was particularly grumbly. Which made things particularly difficult if they were staying at the Weasleys. But also quite cute when they would visit Harry and a little scar would appear on his head. She didn't even mind that just lately it would go brown more often than pink because seeing Remus and Teddy together was one of the greatest feelings in the world. Seeing Remus happy was one of the greatest feelings in the world. Because he so often would wake up in the night in a cold sweat as his nightmares replayed all the trauma of the war back to him. But work kept him distracted. And Teddy did. And she did. And though he would never admit it, the fact that he was sole income for the family now kept him motivated too.

She carried him over to her bed and sat down with to feed him, knowing that must be the reason he was fussing. It was quite peaceful sitting there in her room with him, it was raining outside and the rain hitting the window panes was almost melodic. Remus loved the rain and she’d grown to love it as well, sometimes convincing him to go out dancing around in it with her. If she listened closer she could hear the chatter of the children, she glanced at the clock and saw second period would be starting in 5 minutes so they were noisily moving between their classes. Even though there were no classrooms by the teachers wing in the castle, she could still hear them.

When Teddy had had his fill she propped him up on her pillows as she opened up his little wardrobe to get him something to wear. There was a quidditch friendly later on the evening, so she pulled out his little hufflepuff quidditch jumper ready. Molly had knitted it for him and it was an almost perfect replica. Even though Harry had tried to convince her he should be wearing Gryffindor. But even Remus agreed Teddy would be a hufflepuff. Through and through.

" wanna go see daddy teach later, hmm? You like being in his classroom don't you? Mummy does too because daddy looks very handsome in his teaching robes doesn't he? He does " she said as started to get him changed, unhooking his foot that he had shoved into his mouth “ are you going to be a good boy whilst he’s teaching? My good boy huh? “ Teddy gurgled an answer and went back to trying to get his foot into his mouth again.

With a half hour or so to go until his 6th year class she left their quarters and took Teddy down to his second favourite place in the castle. In one of the corridors off the main entrance hall a long row of portraits of those that had been lost in the war had been hung. Including one of Sirius. The first time they had seen it both Remus and Dora had cried only to have had the painted Sirius tell them both to grow a pair. But getting to introduce Teddy to his family was worth it, even if it did still make her emotional to see his face and hear his voice again.

When she reached Sirius frame he wasn't in it and she rolled her eyes knowing exactly where he would be. She walked down a couple more portraits to Fred Weasleys. And there was Sirius. Turns out even painting Sirius and Fred were mischievous and Sirius acted like the marauder he once was around Fred as they tried to play pranks on the others in the hall.

" do you ever actually stay in your frame?" Tonks said with a smile, bouncing Teddy lightly on her hip.

" Tonksie! And my little man! " Teddy started laughing as he heard Sirius voice and made grabby hands towards him. Tonks held him to the frame and Sirius pulled stupid faces at the little boy making him laugh even more. She wished Sirius was still around to truly play with Teddy. To make him laugh and turn him into the little prankster she knew he would grow up to be. But a portrait would all she was going to get nowadays. So she took what she could get " where's moons? Teaching? "

" yeah. We're going to see him now. Arent we Ted? Gonna see daddy? “ Teddy’s hair shifted brown at the mention of his dad and with a slight worry he would start crying and disturb classes, she said a quick goodbye to Sirius and made her way down to Remus’ classroom. She was a little early but Remus tended to let his class go early if he knew she was coming down.

And as exactly as she had suspected he had let his 3rd years go early when she arrived and they were piling out of the room. They all smiled as they saw her, all of Remus’ students knowing who she was.

" morning Mrs Lupin! "

" hi Ted! Hi Mrs Lupin! "

" good morning Mrs Lupin, oh hiyya Teddy! " some of the children greeted her as they left the classroom and she smiled at them all eagerly still just loving the sound of ' Mrs Lupin ' as she stepped into the classroom Remus had his back to her, tidying something on his desk and she snuck up behind him, wrapping her free arm around his waist.

" hi " she said softly and stood up on her tip toes to kiss his cheek. He turned in her embrace immediately, a smile gracing his faces the sight of his family. He leant down to kiss her only to be disturbed by Teddy yanking on his hair.

" oh I'm sorry, does someone feel left out? " Dora said with a laugh and handed him over to Remus who kissed his nose and both his chubby cheeks.

" kisses for both my favourite people " he held the baby boy up in the air and playfully tried to bite at his little feet making Teddy squeal in delight. Remus was well and truly in his element as a father. He had taken to the role so well and it warmed Doras heart watching them together. He may have had a rocky start. But he was more than making up for it now. He doted on his son, spoilt him completely rotten and showed him all the love and affection she’d known he’d had in him from the start.

Teddy soon became disinterested and far more interested in the model of some small creature on his desk. Remus handed it to him and sat him down on the floor as he gurgled to himself, inspecting the skull as if it was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.

“ did you catch up on your sleep? “ Remus asked turning to Dora then as she watched Teddy with a smile “ you look tired darling “ he pulled her into, his hands on her waist. She gave a small shrug and looked up at him. His face was mildly concerned. He always worried too much. Always.

“ a bit “

“ you should’ve stayed in bed. Gotten some more rest “

" I’m fine Remus. Honestly. Besides. I like watching you teach " she said with a smile and hopped up to sit on his desk after a look towards Teddy. He was still babbling to himself as he investigated the small skull, still insanely amused by it.

" people aren't allowed to sit on my desk you know " Remus said and moved to stand in front of her, his hand reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear.

“ if I recall we’ve done much more than sit on this desk Mr Lupin “ his cheeks flushed and she couldn’t help the giant grin on her face. After all the time since they’d first met she could still get him flustered. She loved it.

" you're a tease you know that? " he murmured and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

" I'm well aware. But you married me didn't you? You signed up for it " he smiled and she brushed her lips against his with an smile to match his. Though he’d barely kissed her for a second when there was the sound of children in the corridor, his next class arriving. Dora gave a small sigh and pressed a quick kiss to his lips before hopping off of the desk and picking up Teddy.

“ you’ll stay? “ Remus asked, straightening up his desk and pulling her back in gently before she could go “ it’s mostly just a study lesson, you won’t be a bother darling “ how could she say no to him when he was looking at her like that? He made her melt. She gave a nod and pressed a kiss to his cheek, before retreating to the back of the classroom so she and Teddy wouldn’t get in the way “ in you come class! “ the children piled in, some stopping briefly to talk to Tonks and Teddy before finding their seats.

She’d attended so many of his classes by now and she’d never seen any children really misbehave. They all seemed to love him, all listening with pure interest in everything he had to say. And maybe it was his parental instinct, but he was practically a father to some of them. They went to him for advice, just to talk, some of the more quiet students would even seek him out at lunch break so they didn’t have to eat alone. There were the odd few that were still coming to terms with the new easing of laws regarding werewolves, having grown up around people always saying they were bad. But everyone quickly grew to love him.

Just like she’d said they would.

He’d been a little hesitant to take on his old job after the war and had declined twice before finally accepting. She’d had the joy of watching him flourish after returning to work, he was truly in his element. He was happier. More confident than ever. And she loved him even more for it.

Teddy remained quite as Remus started teaching, always looking at his father almost in awe. He only became a little restless when Remus set the students off to do their own working, a quiet chatter filling the classroom.

“ Mrs Lupin? “ Tonks turned her head as she heard her name and smiled as Ravenclaw girl looked at her expectantly “ could you give me a hand with this one? “ she happily walked over to the girls desk, crouching down to help her with her questions on the behaviours of Pukwudgies. Teddy continued to wiggle around as she tried to help the student so placed him down to sit by her feet.

She had only taken her eyes off of him for a few moments , but Teddy took his chance and wiggled out of his mothers grasp and crawled away to sit at Remus foot who was stood a few desks away helping a student himself.

" oh- Teddy " Dora hissed and went to snatch her child back to their place in the back of the classroom. But Remus simply bent down and picked Teddy, not even stopping his explanation to his student , and placed him on his hip which made Teddy clap his chubby little hands excitedly. Tonks finished helping the girl before hurrying over to Remus, ready to relieve him of their son. But Remus declined with a smile.

“ it’s okay. Have a break. He’s fine sweetheart “

He held him for the rest of the lesson , even when he brought the classes attention back to the front for the final part of his lecture. He held Teddy in his arm and acted as if it was a perfectly normal thing to teach about the life expectancies of dark creatures with a small child on your hip. None of the students seemed fazed by it either and Dora sat at the back of classroom with a smile so wide it hurt her cheeks. Nothing would ever come close to the sight of Remus happy. So at ease with being a father now, so at ease back in front of classroom. Helping. Teaching. Shaping small futures as he has always dreamt of doing.

And of course the cherry on top. His family. Something he had never thought he could have. He was finally living the life she’d wanted him to have since that first meeting back when she joined the Order. The war was over. He had lived most of his life in war. And now he was finally free. Free with her. And their son.

#I hope this doesn’t flop like my last one #messrmoonyy writes #remus lupin #nymphadora tonks #remadora #harry potter #remus x tonks #the marauders #lupin #ronks #tonks x lupin #tonks #hogwarts #Sirius black #Remadora If they lived #Remadora au #teddy lupin

[tsuzuruteeth]

Vil Rant: Why His Overblot was Valid

So I’ve seen a lot of not so hot takes on Vil’s overblot. Some people believe that his reason for overblot wasn’t good enough in comparison to the others. Most of the others overblotted due to some trauma from their childhood that never really got resolved to sum it up very vaguely. Vil on the other hand, it seemingly wasn’t like that. Vil’s overblot was due to envy. Pure envy. 

Or was it?

It wasn’t. So as the resident Vil stan, I am going to take my time to explain why Vil’s overblot made sense and it isn’t as petty as some people think it is. 

Vil himself is a very mischaracterized character, so it’s no surprise that people are not seeing the full picture. 

Vil’s whole character is based on hard work. Most people would assume it’s beauty but it isn’t, at least not fully. For Vil, beauty isn’t his end goal but a tool to achieve his end goal, this is made clear in his overblot flashback. Now some people might not be convinced, but this isn’t a character analysis, so I’m not going to delve too deep into his values and why they’re his values for now. 

So the reason he overblotted, for the people who take Vil at face value anyway instead of learning his motives, is because he was jealous Neige was more beautiful than him. He overblotted out of envy because he couldn’t stand being second best. 

Now this isn’t wrong, but it isn’t the full picture. Too see the full thing playout I’m gonna run through a little Vil timeline with you. And “because I am so kind” and I know not everyone out there is a fan of Vil, so probably wouldn’t take the time to read his personal stories, I will stick to things mentioned in chapter 5. 

So starting from Vil’s childhood. We see this part in his overblot flashback but even as a child Vil would always get villain roles and because of this he is ostracized by the other children, apart from Jack (Just as a reference this is also mentioned in his robes sr personal story).  This didn’t really bother Vil much from what we saw, but it showed us that Vil was a bit more mature for his age, as being in the industry he probably had to be. 

Next thing we see is how Neige always gets the main parts while Vil is always the villain. So this is where Vil’s envy of Neige starts. However, at this stage in his life it’s not about his beauty, it’s because he gets the roles Vil wants. Vil then goes on to talk about how all he wants is to be the heroine for once, yet he knows this will never happen. He is mature enough to realise that life doesn't work that way, no matter how hard you work something can never be achieved, hence his frustration begins.

So throughout Chapter 5 we can see Neige be mentioned and Vil’s vows to defeat him. He constantly asks Mira about the beauty rankings only to see Neige be number one. Which doesn’t seem such a big deal at first, until you think about how much hard work Vil puts in. Although, if you think about it, it’s still a bit petty at this stage, which is why it doesn’t cause overblot just yet. However, it does make his previous childhood frustration towards Neige grow. 

Another thing that I feel I should mention quickly, is that Vil personally doesn’t really have anything against Neige himself per say, if it was someone else in Neige’s place he would be salty towards them. He really just hates the situation and circumstances, not Neige as a person. 

Anyway back to the timeline. This is where it starts to go wrong. The VDC rehearsal. Vil put effort into the performance. We saw how strict he was, how dedicated he was to make sure everything was perfect. He put his all into it. He even made the song and dance himself, and played a key role in the actual performance. He made that performance to perfection. He even was number one on the search results for the word “beauty”! Only for everyone to fuss over Neige. Neige did a remix of a nursery rhyme and it is mentioned that the choreo wasn’t in sync.When Vil checked Mira again, Neige was back to number one. This is what tipped Vil over the edge. 

I have seen some people claim that his actions were uncalled for and petty, because music isn’t just about being perfect, it’s for having fun and making everyone else enjoy your performance too! You don’t need to be perfect to perform well and make the audience love you! Vil should hold himself to lesser standards and realise it’s not a competition, everyone is beautiful and talented in their own way!

I see your point. I really do. But, I think you need to change your perspective a little to see what really is going on. 

Put yourself in Vil’s shoes for example. Imagine you worked really hard on something, like an art project. You slaved weeks over it, making sure it was the best quality it can be. Finally you put it into a competition. Only to be beat out with a drawing that is half complete and was finished the night before. Could you manage to tell yourself to just let it go? There’s value in all art right? So shouldn’t you just be happy for the winner? It might be the right thing to do, but can you honestly say that you wouldn’t be absolutely seething inside? After all you went through? All that effort? I know for a fact I would be fuming with rage. Maybe I’m just a bad, selfish person but it's true. Although I think most people would at least be a little upset at this outcome. And Vil was.

Now you may agree with my point above, but how does that justify Vil trying to KILL Neige? That’s the beauty of it. It doesn’t. Just like Riddle, all of Vil’s views came crashing down before him the moment people started to fawn over Neige. 

He always thought that hard work would get you to where you need to be, but he worked as hard as he could yet he still failed. Instead someone who hasn’t worked hard, someone who didn’t take the VDC seriously, someone who was only there for fun, beat him out. It didn’t help that he was given hope by being number one, only to have that hope snatched from him right after Neige performed. What is he supposed to do now? If he can’t beat Neige with talent, if he can’t beat Neige with hard work, how will he beat Neige? Easy. All he has to do is get rid of Neige. 

So yes, trying to kill Neige was extreme, but to Vil, that was the only way he thought he could beat him. 

You might be wondering why is it a competition in the first place? Simply because that’s the type of person Vil is. He doesn’t want to be second best, he’s a perfectionist so the only number that matters is being number one. 

But this doesn’t cause his overblot. This isn’t the snapping point for Vil. The snapping point was him realising what he had done, what he was about to do. He was about to do something ugly. He even mentions that it doesn’t matter if everyone forgives him, he can’t forgive himself. Then, he overblots. 

So, Vil’s overblot was a combination of frustration, high expectations and just all together feeling like he isn’t good enough. It’s probably the most relatable overblot so far, as I’m sure we’ve all been in a position where we’ve snapped because something seems hopeless no matter how hard we try. It’s easy to tell someone to stop holding themselves to such high standards, but as the saying goes, it’s easier said than done.

In terms of his after overblot, I don’t see Vil lessinging his normal standards, he will still try his best and make sure everyone around him does the same. He just maybe won’t compare himself to others as much. 

In conclusion, Vil’s overblot wasn’t uncalled for or petty, it actually made perfect sense. Thanks for listening or should I say reading my Ted Talk.

#vil #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland neige #neige leblanche #vil schoenheit #twst vil #twst #neige #overblot #twst neige #twisted wonderland vil

[beautyofthend]

Kate Fleming - A Character Study

There were many things that annoyed me about the series finale of Series 6, I could talk about it for days on end. But the one thing that perhaps annoyed me the most was the way in which Kate went through massive character development throughout Episodes 1-6 and then that got all but dropped by Episode 7. Dropped in the sense that every piece of character development within Kate through those first episodes had been obvious, explicit; we can see very clearly that Kate had changed in the time she had left AC-12 and joined MIT, but as we got to Episode 7 this character development dropped to mere subtext and having to read between the lines just to understand Kate’s motives. 

I’m going to be exploring that and finding the best possible explanation for Kate’s character because I feel as though it would be very easy to misjudge her without explanation. 

To start I just want to say that this is all my opinion, I’ll try to back up my points as best I can but it is just my interpretation of how I’ve seen Kate as a character. Enjoy. 

Character development is crucial in shows that have multiple series, more so when it’s main characters are prevalent throughout. We, as the audience, need to see these characters go through change, they can’t stay as the same person the whole time. They can have certain characteristics and arcs that remain as we watch their journey but when characters go through situations, like real life, they don’t come out the other side as who they were before. We as humans change everyday, I am not the same person I was last week. Of course, not in a drastic way but events change us, we develop. So when we watch programmes we expect to see similar changes in characters. 

And we do. Throughout Line of Duty we see our main characters, Kate, Steve and Ted, put through many events, some major, some not so. They are often put in danger or will be witness to catastrophic moments: Kate and Steve were present when Tony ended his life, Kate was present when Dot got shot, she was also present when Danny got shot. I could go on but you get the point. We’ve seen our characters go through a lot so we should expect to see their development. I shouldn’t expect to see that Kate remains fairly the same between Series 1-5. 

But let’s dig into that more. Kate is a strong, steely, kick-ass character. She doesn’t put up with things and isn’t afraid to tell someone when they’re in the wrong - she has quite happily pulled Ted up on his wrongdoings over the years. We see Kate in numerous undercover operations, we know that she is an expert at hiding her true feelings as a result of that. She can manipulate people into giving her information and she’s very good at playing on their emotions - but this only occurs under the guise of being a UCO. 

Kate follows a set guide when she becomes a UCO and we see this throughout. I find that she is pushy, never letting her questions up when she hasn’t been given the answer she wanted. She earns their trust by offering her support and being emotionally available for them (some more than others). One particular thing that she always does without fail is slate AC-12 as a means of gaining trust. Everyone she goes undercover for are under the watchful eye of AC-12 so she must show that she has nothing to do with them, that her aliases: Flynn, Foster, Francis, do not side/agree with the actions of AC-12 - this is excluding the first series where we see her using her real name Kate Fleming but she still sticks to the idea of bad-mouthing AC-12 to earn trust. Some examples over the show being: 

“AC-12, they’re robots them lot. They don’t get the difference between a corrupt officer and a decent one who made a mistake.” - To Tony Gates in S1E3

“AC-12, they twist everything and make everyone look guilty.” - To Lindsay Denton in S2E2

“You know what they’re (AC-12) like, fishing for inconsistencies. Anything they can pounce on.” - To Jackie Brickford in S3E3

“AC-12 leaving with their tail between their legs.” - To Roz Huntley in S4E2 - this is more telling as this scene actually takes place in front of Steve and in E3 she does it again, going as far to call Steve a “wanker” in front of everyone. 

The only time we don’t see her using this tactic is in S5, because she has no reason to - she’s not undercover at any point so she doesn’t need to gain anyone’s trust - and in S6 where in which she actually uses her knowledge of AC-12 to reassure Jo. 

“I know the kinds of cases that AC-12 are into, boss.” - In S6E2. She’s not trying to distance herself from AC-12 she’s trying to show Jo that she doesn’t have to worry about anything since “It’s just the way AC-12 operate.” - You could argue that she has no need to bad mouth AC-12 since Jo is fully aware of Kate’s connections to anti-corruption though. (She does also mention that she got “fed up of nicking coppers,” but this is in relation to her own personal feelings rather than AC-12 itself). 

But that doesn’t mean to say she doesn’t slate AC-12 at any point during S6, it’s just that she does this directly to Steve, “You spend too much time on anti-corruption, it starts to change the way you see things.” This shows that despite, in a way, defending AC-12 to Jo she doesn’t particularly side with them and feels very strongly about her reasons for leaving them in the first place.

All this is proof that Kate will go to a number of lengths to keep her cover, appearing to hate AC-12 and people that she trusts just to get close to the people she’s investigating. And she does this fairly successfully, she manages to pull the wool over their eyes - to an extent - and proves that she is a good officer, she is good at cutting off her emotions for the sake of the job. As Dot says to her in S3E2 “You’re a brilliant liar that’s all. Kind of unsettled me,” and Lindsay says something very similar to her in S2.

Kate is a master manipulator when it comes to her undercover operations, okay she isn’t always successful and has had her cover blown a number of times but they’ve always ended up being worthwhile and they manage to bring down the person that they were investigating. It shows that she is very good at her job. And her ability to control her emotions so well, really go against this stereotypical idea that women aren’t in control of their emotions, which isn’t a bad thing. 

We instead see this trope throughout Steve’s character - and Ted to an extent. Where Kate can take control of a situation and push her emotions to the side, Steve isn’t as successful in that department. He is an extremely emotional person and often lets those emotions get in the way of his job. For example, his anger and frustrations towards Tony Gates in Series 1 meant that his vision was clouded and he couldn’t see the wood for the trees, similar to his dealings with Dot -  both occasions needed Kate with her lack of emotions and clear vision to help him. 

Whilst I think it’s good that Jed is challenging these stereotypes and telling us that men can be just as emotional as women, and women can be closed off and cold - even the fact that Kate is a mother and she remains so steely is very telling - I don’t think it always works. I love that Kate is the resident heroine in Line of Duty, she’s always there to save the day and that’s great. But that doesn’t mean she can’t show emotion and that doesn’t mean she has to be so closed off all the time. We see in glimpses that this emotional side to Kate does exist however, after she hears Ted slate Dryden for having an affair with Lindsay (it’s an unknowing attack on her own situation), when she gets locked out of her house and most notably during S6E6 - there is a lot of emotions at play so there is a lot to talk about for that particular episode. 

With that being said, Series 6 does delve into this emotional side to Kate - with Jo being integral in bringing about that development. Unlike the previous series, this one perhaps focuses on Kate the most, showing her in a different setting through MIT and showing her making genuine connections with people outside of AC-12. 

When we have seen Kate outside of the realms of AC-12 it’s only been through her undercover operations, where she is having to pretend to be another person to get information out of others. But finally, in Series 6 we see her perhaps being her most true self. This is shown through the change in her wardrobe, she’s wearing clothes that she hasn’t necessarily worn before. I could go deeper but people have already done that and could explain that much better than I can. But to put it into simple terms, her wardrobe for Series 6 is vastly different from her wardrobe throughout Series 1-5, right down to the shoes. 

(Won’t go off on a tangent too much but one thing I did notice was the fact that throughout Series 1-5 Kate, most of the time, wears heeled boots - on occasion she can be seen sporting trainers or flat pumps but it’s rare - but in Series 6 she starts wearing flat, doc-style boots and can be seen wearing them, along with other flat shoes through the series. Up until that meeting between her and Jo and she’s wearing her heeled boots again - no doubt symbolising how the events of this meeting cause Kate to almost cut ties with Jo as she returns back to AC-12. She continues to wear these heeled boots through the next couple of scenes but returns to the flat ones she’s been wearing this whole time when she goes to save Jo - symbolising that yes she’s letting Jo go but she’s still on her side despite everything.)

Series 6 Kate stands out from what we’ve seen of her from the other series - she seems genuinely happy. She’s able to be herself, not having to pretend. Not having to manipulate others for information or form false friendships. Instead, she forms a close, emotional bond with Jo Davidson and there are many indicators that this is real and genuine and not Kate “pretending” as Jo so aptly put it. 

From the first episode it is very clear that Jo and Kate are close, the first time we see Kate in this episode the two of them are flirting with each other - in front of their team as well. 

“Don’t think I didn’t notice DI Fleming skulking in last minute like the dirty stop-out.” 

“Don’t go there, boss, glass houses.” 

It’s showing that Kate has settled into this new team and new dynamic and is very comfortable. Further pushing this sense of casualness that has been set up between Kate and Jo is in a later scene when Kate comes into Jo’s office and Kate is leaning on the back of the chair next to Jo’s desk.  

When we usually see Kate in a scene with a senior officer she can be seen doing the typical ‘stand to attention’ and the fact that she isn’t here is very telling. She also goes on to say in this scene “I haven’t shared this with anyone else, boss.” Telling us that there is a level of trust that has already been set up between these two - Kate doesn’t need to earn Jo’s trust, she already has it. 

This is very different to how we’ve previously seen Kate, she usually has to earn people’s trust: 

“I just want to help sir,” “Just give me the chance to prove myself to you,” “I’m here if you need to talk,” “If you need my help, just ask,” “I could make it disappear.” - Various phrases she said to Tony Gates throughout S1.

“Anything I can do boss?” Along with telling Lindsay that she’ll say that she was with her the night Lindsay’s neighbour alleged Lindsay attacked her during S2 and turning up to Lindsay’s apartment with a bottle of wine - trying to form a friendship. 

“Thanks for letting me in on this, ma’am. Look, I know we’ve had our differences but, for what it’s worth, I don’t think they’d have replaced you as SIO if you were a bloke,” to Roz Huntley in S4 - she’s also very good at working out how to get to people. She knows that the lack of female diversity and patriarchy is a weakness for Roz so Kate plays up to that (although how much of that is Kate pretending is another story but will get into that later.)

The only time she doesn’t use this ‘buddying up’ tactic is in S3 where she takes on a whole different approach with the ‘MOB.’ Where she had been previously seen, with Tony and Lindsay, to play nice to the people she’s investigating, to earn their trust, in S3 she almost aggravates them. She’s straight in there with questioning them and probing them so that they’ll crack - but I think she also knows that they’re weak, they don’t have that close a bond so if she pokes them enough someone will break away. 

But we don’t see this set up between Kate and Jo, we are thrown into an already established and trusted connection which is done on purpose to show that Kate and Jo have been close for a while prior to the events of S6. Further emphasising this, is Farida’s accusation that Kate and Jo are having an affair - it’s not said without reason. We see repeatedly throughout the time that Farida is in MIT, she is keeping a watchful eye on the interactions between Kate and Jo and it’s enough for her to suspect a relationship/affair. 

What is most interesting however, is the fact that this is the first genuine female connection that Kate has had on-screen. Of course, we became aware of her friendship with Jayne Akers but Kate was also sleeping with Richard, Jayne’s husband, so it couldn’t have been that close of a friendship. We also see a glimpse of a friendship between Maneet and Kate but it’s never delved into enough to make it relevant. 

This is the first time we’ve seen Kate work alongside a fellow female officer and have their connection be something that is real rather than faked - I think this also plays into a lot of Kate’s confusion surrounding her feelings towards Jo. Is her connection with Jo related to the fact that they’re both women who have had to work their socks off to get to the top or is it the fact that there is something deeper bubbling under the surface between them? 

Whatever it may be, there is a strong level of trust between Kate and Jo that sets them apart from all of Kate’s previous UCO interactions. Where she would normally have to dig for information from people, asking leading questions etc, Jo gives Kate information freely (obviously this is done on purpose on Jo’s part since we later find out that Jo wanted Kate on the team to solve the case and henceforth free Jo from the clutches of the OCG). All Kate has to do is ask if Jo is okay and boom, Jo opens up - not totally, but enough to emphasise the trust. 

This is a completely new dynamic for Kate, yes she’s close to Ted and Steve but even then there’s a professional distance set between all three of them. They know hints about each others lives but they don’t know everything; it wasn’t until Mark phoned Steve in S2 did he find out about Kate’s situation. And it isn’t until the last episode of S6 that Kate finally learns about Steve’s painkiller misuse. They are friends and they are close but there’s a small wall between them. But Jo is the one to break that wall and invites herself into Kate’s personal life via the small dates we see them on and Kate wanting to see Jo at the weekend outside of work. 

It’s not just a new dynamic for Kate but also a new dynamic for the audience. The only consistent friend Kate has had across the show is Steve, we see them leaning on each other in a sense and going out to the pub or for takeaways. We see that they’re close (even if they don’t necessarily reveal everything about themselves) and now all of a sudden, we are seeing Kate meeting up with someone else. Talking to someone else, having a friendship with someone else. And it’s nice. Kate deserves to have someone else outside of Steve and outside of AC-12, it hints that she’s able to have a life outside of her work. 

Note: Steve’s “Do you see a life for yourself outside the job?” In S2. Jo is proof to Kate that she can exist outside of her work. 

But now that this trust has been set up between Kate and Jo, we then delve into the moral dilemma that Kate is thrown into once Steve asks her to become a CHIS on behalf of AC-12. 

“Great. So either I’m accused of being a traitor or I become one to avoid being accused?” 

She doesn’t want to be stuck in the middle because she has loyalties to both parties. The trust formed between herself and Jo showing that she wants to stick by her but there’s still trust between her and Steve despite there being distance - this is told through her clothing later on (as pointed out by wecantseeyou here) and also by the fact she doesn’t strictly tell Steve she won’t do it, rather that she will think about it.  

Returning to Kate’s relationship with Jo and what solidifies the bond that has been set up between them is that scene that takes place at the end of the first episode. We see Kate watching as Buckells is laying into Jo about her decision to not charge Terry Boyle. Kate appears to be the only one watching, or at least the only one that cares enough - shown by the fact she follows Jo out when she leaves the room. If this was undercover Kate this would be something we expect to see, she would use this as an opportunity to swoop in and provide emotional support. But Kate isn’t undercover, she’s going after Jo because she genuinely wants to see if Jo is okay. 

She doesn’t ask Jo about what Buckells had been having a go at her about, she only asks “Boss, you okay?” - that’s the first one and Jo delves into the reason she had become so upset/why Buckells was having a go. This wasn’t something Kate asked about but she lets Jo talk and get it off her chest. As Jo goes to leave Kate then asks again, “Boss, is everything okay?” She wants to know how Jo is feeling within herself, why else would she ask twice? Kate is interested in the welfare of Jo, not in finding out the gossip of what was said in that room. 

What happens next is monumental and this is where Kate’s confusion really begins. Everything that happened between Kate and Jo before (dirty stop-out scene, talking at the same time etc) could all be passed off as them having a close friendship, nothing more. But there is a shift in this scene that pushes their relationship in a different direction - the music playing in the background only emphasising this.

Kate’s reaction to this moment is very telling, the way she looks down at their joined hands, she knows how it would look if someone seen them now; it’s not exactly how colleagues act around each other is it? We’ve not seen her form a romantic connection with a colleague (you could maybe argue Dot but it wasn’t set up in the way Kate and Jo have been set up) let alone a woman so this is all new territory for her but it is definitely romantic and this is the shift towards that. Kate’s panicked look towards Jo as Jo is leaving, she knows that something deeper is going on between them from this point on.  

Before I continue with Kate and Jo’s relationship I have to talk about that scene between Jo and Buckells and why it’s so important that Kate is the one watching that interaction and why she is the one to comfort Jo. I have said in a previous post about how there are many parallels/similarities between S4 and S6. I also said that it wasn’t necessarily related to Kate’s character but it absolutely is the more that I think about it. 

Series 4 heavily plays on inequality within the police force, how women are at a disadvantage to men when it comes to getting promotions and what not. This is portrayed through Roz Huntley, her frustrations being that she is now having to work extra hard to prove herself after returning to work from being a mum - this coincides with Hilton blackmailing her and putting the pressure on her to close the case. 

Now although Kate goes undercover to investigate Roz, they do bond over one thing: they are both women who are striving to be the best. Kate throughout S4 is persistently undermined by Ted, yes she gets a promotion to DS - something that Steve gets rather jealous over - but even after passing her inspectors exam and being more than capable of being a DI, Ted still turns her down, telling her that it was more than likely going to go to Steve since he has more experience. 

Kate is visibly hurt by this but does well to hide it. This moment in particular we can see that Kate is feeling isolated, she’s put on her own in the lift, pushed to the back of the frame, she holds herself - a visual representation of how women often feel in a male dominated workplace. This is no dig at Steve (it is, sorry) but Kate is a much more capable detective than Steve. Kate even swiftly points out how Steve’s attempt at an undercover operation had landed them in court. He’s not a bad detective, he is an extremely good one and does the job well but in comparison to Kate, he doesn’t match up. But simply because Steve is a man he gets a better chance of promotion before Kate - or at least that is how it appears. 

This brings me back to my earlier point of when Kate uses something Roz feels strongly towards and sides with her to gain her trust. But I don’t think this is Kate necessarily pretending, it’s convenient to have the topic come up but I do think it’s also something Kate feels strongly about. She’s just experienced first hand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of inequality and in a way, despite being there to investigate Roz, she does share her feelings on this issue. 

There is a defensiveness to Kate’s tone in this scene between her and Steve:

“It’s a crucial item and any irregularity…”

“Is something to throw in Huntley’s face?” 

“This isn’t personal. She’s at the centre of everything, I just want to get the truth.” 

Obviously Kate’s opinion on Roz does turn back to believing/knowing Roz is guilty but for a brief moment it appears she takes the view that AC-12 might just be investigating Roz simply because she is woman who made a couple of mistakes. We also go on to see Roz and Kate having a confrontation and sexism comes into play, with Roz lowkey telling Kate that she is worth more: 

“How old are you Kate?” 

“31.”

“I’ll tell you about my road to 31. I’d been a DI two years already. Then, I made life choices in the best interest of others. Not in my best interests, at all, as it turned out. And from what I know, you won’t make that mistake. You’d give up anything to get to the top. But despite all your ambition, you find yourself on the wrong side of the line.”

“What do you know?” 

“That you’ve got a son you barely see. Hardly holier than thou.” 

(Remember Roz’s “You’d give up anything to get to the top,” it’ll be important later).  

These words get to Kate because she knows they’re true. She is an ambitious woman who keeps getting knocked down simply because she is a woman. And the fact that she has given up her life with her son in order to pave the way for her career and yet it still hasn’t paid off clearly annoys her. She might not like Roz but they do agree on this. 

Something else that Roz brings up in her series is something that was mentioned briefly by Steve, Kate and is later mentioned by Jo - bringing in the link there. The something being The Masons. We first hear it in S3 in reference to Ted Hastings and Patrick Fairbank. And since Fairbank ends up being corrupt I think it’s fair to say that The Masons now = a form of corruption. In the same series Kate goes to meet a female AC-3 officer in order to request permission for an undercover operation, said officer goes on to say “Because I’m a woman, I can’t be a Mason,” this further solidifies that The Masons are synonymous with corruption. I mean, they are an organisation that exclude women from high ranking positions and get away with it. The fact that Kate seeks authority from a different, female officer because she knows that The Masons are technically a corrupt organisation is very telling of how she feels towards them. 

Roz accuses Ted of being a Mason and henceforth explaining that that is why he is always more interested in investigating female officers and why there is a lack of diversity within AC-12. This is a play on Kate since she had just been turned down the DI role in favour of Steve - and I think it’s fair to assume that Ted then only gave that position to Kate later because of what Roz revealed in that interview, and if he didn’t put a female officer in a high ranking role after what he had just been accused of, it would’ve looked bad on him. Which is really rather annoying to be honest, Kate should’ve got that role because she makes a good DI not because Ted got called out on his bullshit, but we move. 

In S6E3 Jo says to Kate about Buckells employing Ryan: 

“Family friend or something, probably got a nudge down at the Masonic Lodge.”

Now that one line was enough for Kate to know, at the time, that Jo wasn’t ‘bent,’ since she had just spoken out against a form of corruption. Jo had shown a dislike towards the idea that Ryan got a job on merit for simply being a man and that gives Kate ammunition to go after Buckells and find the evidence that would prove Buckells is corrupt. The fact he does end up being ‘The Fourth Man’ further pushes the idea that The Masons = Corruption. 

So Kate witnessing Buckells laying into Jo is another reason for Kate and Jo to share a bond; they’re both women in a very male dominated workplace who are more likely to be subjected to bullying by fellow male colleagues. If we do get another series I wouldn’t be surprised if it digs into The Masons and that form of corruption. 

In summary, Kate feels very strongly about inequality within the workplace since she is always undermined by her male colleagues and it wouldn’t surprise me that if half the reason why Kate feels so comfortable within MIT is because she’s working alongside a woman and she isn’t undermined nearly half as much. 

See: Jo’s constant, “That’s a good point, Kate,” “You’re right, Kate,” as opposed to Ted’s constant, “Steve’s right, Kate.” 

Back to Kate and Jo’s relationship. The shift in their relationship post that corridor scene becomes more obvious as it is from that point on where Kate starts to defend Jo to Steve:

“For Christ’s sake Steve, she’s my gaffer, you want me to rat on her?” 

And that moral dilemma comes into play again as Kate warns Jo that AC-12 are going to storm MIT and seize files. Kate isn't happy with what she’s done, you can see that from a mile off but she knows that she needed to do it since her loyalty now lies with MIT and she needs to protect the case she and her team are working on.  

I also think it has something to do with what she previously says to Steve:

“You know what it’s like being ex-anticorruption. I’ve had to work my bollocks off with them lot.” 

She knew that if she didn’t warn Jo about AC-12 then her whole team would turn on her and accuse her of being undercover/colluding with AC-12 when she isn’t (necessarily). And we’re back to the point she raises to Steve about her being seen as a possible traitor. 

We later see the first ‘date’ scene between Kate and Jo and much like how we were thrown into Kate and Jo’s relationship/closeness, we are thrown into this scene. We assume they’ve been there for a while and they’re in the middle of a conversation when we join them. And Jo is leading the conversation, she is talking freely whilst Kate is listening - once again, there’s a lot of trust between them. 

What is striking in this scene however is the parallels to a similar scenario between Kate and Tony in the first series. Context is different since that meeting is arranged as a means for Kate to dig for information from Tony whereas with Jo, it’s a chance for Kate to be a ‘sounding board’ as she puts it, she’s being emotionally available for Jo. But there is something that really stood out:  

Kate’s reaction to both being very different. With Tony she makes light of the situation whilst with Jo she doesn’t say anything, just simply nods her head. It’s all explained when given the context, she’s undercover with Tony and rule number one is to not form too close a relationship with the person you’re investigating as it could jeopardise the case she’s working on, so she has to keep it impersonal. But she puts it in a way that shuts down the allusion but doesn’t give anything away. 

Her reaction to Jo, on the other hand, is striking. She nods, not saying a word. She wants to call her Jo, she wants to cross that boundary and there is nothing stopping her from doing that so she can agree to it.

But whilst we’ve brought up this parallel we might as well look into other parallels concerning Kate’s relationship with both Tony and Jo. Tartan grey suits aside, Tony and Jo are quite similar, they were both groomed by Tommy Hunter - Jo in a much deeper and longer way but the point still stands. Tony was the one to introduce Tommy into the show and Jo was the one to take him out - not in a literal sense but she revealed the most information that would shut down the era that could be deemed as Tommy Hunter’s era. Both Tony and Jo form a close relationship with Kate, Jo’s being more genuine whereas Tony’s is faked and all smoke and mirrors. 

The proof is in the pudding here:

It’s awkward and unwelcome. Vastly different to this scene: 

Jo and Tony are perhaps the only two of the ‘bent coppers’ we see that don’t really do anything - at least nothing drastic like murder anyway. Out of all the ‘bent coppers’ they’re the most innocent. The fact that they both have connections to Ryan Pilkington as well is very telling. But I won’t go into it too much since this is about Kate. 

The difference between Kate’s relationship with Tony and her relationship with Jo is that it is made very obvious that she doesn’t like Tony. She shows no sympathy towards him at all when talking to Steve in private - once again proving how good of a liar she is since that isn’t given away in the slightest during her scenes with Tony. Jo, on the other hand, she is very fond of, even after Jo lures her to the lorry park to be murdered Kate is still defensive of the woman and still, in a small way, takes her side. 

That being said, of both relationships there are assumptions made. Nigel makes the dig “Her cover wasn’t the only thing she blew, ask Tony,” and Farida’s “Smart money’s on Kate Fleming,” to which Jo replies, “Kate and I have been shagging on the sly for months.” 

Now what would’ve made a REALLY good parallel between S1 and S6 would’ve been this conversation between Steve and Kate:

“He saved my life.”

“He put you in danger in the first place.”

A wasted opportunity there considering how many parallels there have been between these two series with all the callbacks to old characters and little references that have been made. It would’ve made the parallels between Tony and Jo even greater; Tony lured Steve to be murdered (note how Ryan is present there also) but ended up saving him and Jo lured Kate to be murdered but ended up saving her by taking the blame for Ryan’s death. It would’ve made for a very good reference. 

Moving back to the ‘date’ scene between Kate and Jo, I think I’m pointing out the obvious when I say that it has clear romantic undertones, from the lighting to the music that plays underneath - notably increasing as Kate says “Nah, not really my type.” The close up shot of this moment making it even more intimate. 

Then we move onto Kate being the one to ask Jo around for the weekend, which Jo initially turns down and Kate adds, “Yeah, no pressure,” before initiating the hug that then changes Jo’s mind. We have not seen Kate in this situation before at all. Not in a heavily loaded romantic scene anyway, not even with Richard Akers. There was a sense of a deeper connection with Richard, they were sleeping with each other after all, but it also felt impersonal. Kate would turn up to his house, they’d sleep together, they might have a small scene together afterwards and then Kate would leave. We didn’t even see them kiss. They were just two lonely people, stuck in a loveless marriage wanting to feel something that they were both missing in their relationships.  

But there’s an intimacy that’s been set up between Kate and Jo, this is more than just a friendship and it’s coming from both parties, with Kate being much more explicit about it than Jo; offering drinks, seeming happy that Jo turned the two men down and then asking to see Jo more - this is all Kate. But it’s not in the pushy way we have seen with her when it comes to her UCO’s. She’s not digging for information from Jo she just wants to love her. 

They also reveal their relationship status to each other in this moment, “It’s Mark’s turn to have Josh this weekend,” “I’ve just come out of a long term relationship.” If that isn’t screaming that what is happening between Kate and Jo isn’t just friendship then I don’t know what is. 

We then have Kate watching Jo as she leaves, there’s a pensive look on her face. She’s just crossed that boundary, she’s all but asked to spend the weekend with Jo and then followed it up with a hug. She’s made the first move and is clearly nervous about it. The romantic music continues under this and it sounds hopeful/happy. A stark contrast to how the show usually feels so the fact it’s playing up to this and taking the time to set Kate and Jo up shows that it’s important - the show doesn’t focus too much on personal lives. And because of that, it only signifies more, how annoying it is that these two got dropped to subtext after having it be so obvious. 

And with such focus on Kate in this moment it show it’s integral. Kate is finding herself in a position that she has never been in before and because she knows that AC-12 are now investigating Jo, it only worries her more. She might think that AC-12 are wrongly investigating Jo but there’s always that chance they could be right and if they are, then her professional integrity is going to be questioned for the first time. She’s finding herself in a position that is usually filled by Steve. And Kate is highly judgemental of Steve in that department. 

Then we have this scene in the third episode: 

This is their first sort of argument and Jo has pulled Kate up on her interviewing techniques, telling her that she was too harsh and that she’s “gotten used to nicking coppers.” It bothers Kate, she taps her foot, ponders for a moment and then follows behind Jo. She knows Jo’s right and we know this because she says to Steve in the next episode “You spend too much time on anti-corruption, it starts to change the way you see things.” 

She’s actually taken something that someone has said to her on board. This is rather unusual for Kate, who is extremely stubborn and isn’t a fan of people criticising her (but will happily criticise others - Kate really is the epitome of AC-12 isn’t she?) But the fact she listens to what Jo has to say and it changes her in a sense just goes to show how much she really likes Jo and she wants Jo to like her and also shows how much change Kate has gone through in just the first three episodes of S6. 

I am still trying to figure out why Kate made the decision to follow the patrol car but then I suppose it can be easily explained if you think of the fact that Kate will never be free of AC-12, no matter how hard she tries. Kate is AC-12 through and through, she is so deeply embedded in it she will never get out - it’s a stark parallel to how Jo is in a similar position in regards to the OCG. Going to be ~controversial~ here and say that I don’t think AC-12 makes Kate happy. It’s her home, it’s where she feels safe but it isn’t what makes her happy. S6 is, perhaps, the happiest that we have seen Kate. There were small hints throughout S5 that Kate no longer enjoyed working as a UCO/for AC-12, a number of quotes alluding to that, S5E1: 

“She couldn’t stop the hijack but the best she could do was limit the loss of life.” 

“Oh Christ I’ve been there. The lies, the fear. Got only knows what she’s going through.”

S5E2:

“Look Kate…Corbett’s embedded in a group of hardened criminals who’d execute him if they discover his true identity.” 

“I’ve been there, it’s not nice.”

S5E2 again:

“(About UCO’s) Ask her. She was undercover. Perfect job for a selfish arsehole that don’t give a toss about his own family.”  

“Look what Corbett’s missus said about undercover work, that was never you.”

“Thanks Steve, but she was right.” 

All that does is hint that it wasn’t just Ted’s betrayal that pushed Kate to leave AC-12, rather it being the last straw and it giving her an actual reason to want out. 

She does, however, go back to AC-12 in the end because she has nowhere else to go and her job is her life. She’d rather sacrifice her happiness to keep her job and to keep doing what she’s doing.

When she returns to AC-12, for the first time this series, she hits us with the “My first duty as a police officer is preservation of life, sir. That’s why I’m here.” Her job always comes first, above everything else (it’s half the reason why her marriage broke down). Other examples of this include this moment from S2E6:

“I was undercover with Denton, and I blew it. And now we’re blowing the whole case. I need to close this, Steve, or I’ve got nothing.” 

And in S5E6:

“I’m just calling it as I see it, Steve. The truth comes first…I’m not going to sit around and wait for a kicking off the gaffer or Carmichael when there’s police work to be done.”

Kate is highly committed to her work and will stop at nothing so she can complete it; no matter who she might be investigating/building a case upon. This causes her to come across as callous and cold but this is Kate. Her job is her life. And honestly, out of all three of the main characters, Kate is probably the straightest. The only thing coming to mind about this not being the case would be the concealment of her relationship with Richard Akers but even then, it wouldn’t have effected the case too much since Jayne and Kate never had that phone call. This idea that Kate is the straightest out of all three of them does change in S6 however, since she is the one to shoot Ryan and she lets Jo take the blame for it. But despite that, Kate still continues with her holier than thou attitude which we’ll delve into more later. 

I know I keep switching back and forth between Kate and Jo’s relationship but Jo really is integral to this development in Kate that I can’t not talk about it. There’s further proof that Kate is more interested in the welfare of Jo rather than wanting information out of her shown via this scene:  

Kate can be seen listening to the conversation between Jo and Steve but it isn’t until she hears Jo’s voice falter after hearing about Farida in prison does she then turn to look over at Jo. It peaks her interest and it explains why she brings up the topic of Farida at their next ‘date.’ 

“Look boss, I, uh, don’t want to speak out of term but…well, (Farida) claims that you two were close.” 

She’s not asking Jo a question here which is interesting. UCO!Kate would ask the question, she knows how to work people to get information out of them if she needed to. But she leaves this opened ended sentence that gives Jo the option to answer if she wants to (you could argue that since she knows how to work people then this is her way of working Jo but it doesn’t ever come across that way in my opinion). And she doesn’t, but this doesn’t necessarily bother Kate, at least not enough for her to push another question on Jo. 

“I imagine everyone’s got off on that little scenario. No life of their own so they pick holes in someone else’s. Especially if you’re a single woman.” 

“Yeah tell me about it, all it takes is a short haircut.”

Typical Kate to make a joke in this situation, it’s very much in character (made me think of her making a joke about putting Lindsay’s cat Bella into an evidence bag). The light joke doesn’t go down well with Jo and it causes her to back off. But we must remember that this is Kate’s first proper female friendship, we’ve only seen her in male dominated groups and she’s used to their way of making jokes. Prime example of that being half the jokes made by Dot and Nige during the first series, hardly stuff you want to hear but unfortunately it’s true to life. Being used to that sense of humour meant that Kate didn’t see much wrong with what she said until after she notices that Jo closes herself off: 

“Whatever you’ve heard Kate, it’s wrong. Farida’s a liar. That’s not me.”

“Okay.” 

Kate knows it’s a lie but doesn’t push it. Her obvious confusion is pointed out when Jo leaves the room: 

I can’t tell you what’s going on in Kate’s head but it’s probably a mixture of wondering why Jo had gone so cold on her suddenly, if she had said anything wrong and if everything that has happened between them in the past three episodes has been all in her head? 

But what happens in this scene and what is spoken about isn’t necessarily subtext. Okay they don’t actually say the word ‘lesbian’ or ‘bisexual’ it’s more alluded to. But this is a very obvious and deliberate conversation about Jo’s sexuality/Kate trying to figure out her own and wanting confirmation from Jo that she hasn’t just been imagining it. It’s done on purpose because they’re setting Kate and Jo up to go on that route - and once again, this is what makes it so annoying that they did get dropped to subtext by E7. They had painted a very clear picture in the first couple of episodes - Kate and Jo are falling in love with each other, it’s a doomed love story but it’s still a love story. 

Despite Jo being hurt by Kate’s not very well thought-out joke, she still carries a lot of trust in Kate by the fact she leaves her belongings on her seat. This seems minimal and unimportant but it rules out the idea that Kate was asking about Jo’s relationship with Farida for more information, from a case POV. If she had been and if she was interested in finding out if Jo really was as bent as AC-12 are making out then she would’ve seized that opportunity to take a look through Jo’s bag (we see her debate that opportunity when Tony leaves his phone behind after their drink at the pub in S1, but before she has chance to he’s already noticed he’s forgotten it and takes it back). But Kate is too busy wondering why Jo had lied to her, once again showing that she’s interested in Jo from a relationship standpoint. 

One thing I do love though and just from this alone we know that Kate and Jo are genuine is the fact that they bond over their hatred for Ian ‘what a twat’ Buckells: 

“I hope he’s going to give credit where it’s due.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“You brought Ryan onto the team, boss.”

“Not me. That was Buckells’ idea.”

I’m not going to underestimate Kate in this moment however because she does pull a very clever move. She doesn’t ask outright but she is able to get an answer to a question she might have been asking. Steve made a dig earlier on in the episode about how Jo may have employed Ryan onto MIT herself, allowing Ryan to interfere with the Gail Vella files. Kate doesn’t play up to that accusation but you can see that she keeps in mind, she doesn’t want to believe that Jo picked Ryan on purpose but there is always the chance that she has. So, she uses this opportunity to find out if that was the case. Knowing now that it wasn’t, she’s reassured and she feels more confident in defending Jo as we see in later episodes. 

And as previously discussed, Kate starts looking into Buckells after Jo’s quip about the Masonic Lodge. And once she gets all the information she needed she then takes it to Jo and we get this line: 

“I knew you’d come through for me.” 

There’s a perspective change, we’ve seen before how Kate actively pushes how she will be able to do something for someone in order to gain their trust, “I’ll make it disappear,” in S1 and once again, telling Lindsay that she’ll say she was there that night of the ‘alleged’ attack on Lindsay’s neighbour. But she doesn’t investigate Buckells on Jo’s behalf, or because she wants to gain Jo’s trust. It’s quite ironic really isn’t it? She’s always tried to gain trust from these ‘bent coppers’ by offering to cover their crimes - which they never take her up on to be honest - and then the one time she does something off her own back and without any of those intentions, she does - sort of - cover for a ‘bent copper.’ But as we know, Buckells does end up being bent so Kate wasn’t in the wrong to look into him, just a shame they never clicked on to his deeper corruption sooner. 

And then Jo follows up with the line: 

“I needed someone on my team I could trust completely. Someone with no chance of being bent. Who better than an ex-anticorruption officer?” 

Oh if Kate only knew the deeper meaning of that line at the time. But in the same way as The Mason dig Jo makes, this is confirmation to Kate that Jo isn’t bent and AC-12 have got it wrong. If Jo was bent, why would she encourage Kate to flush out the corruption? 

It isn’t until Episode 4 where we actually learn more about Kate’s reasonings for leaving AC-12 and it comes at no surprise that it is due to Ted’s indiscretions during S5. But what is surprising about Ted and Kate’s conversation is that Kate doesn’t hide her true feelings and tells Ted the truth: 

“You made your choice to move on, and I know that the disciplinary action against me was definitely a factor. It put you and Steve in a really difficult position.” 

“Yeah, I’m not going to lie.”  

But considering that Kate isn’t all that shy being honest in front of Ted it’s not that surprising. But given it is a tender, emotional topic for Kate I suppose you’d normally expect her to hide away her feelings but it’s quite nice that she doesn’t. She wants Ted to know that she hasn’t totally forgiven him for what he’s ‘alleged’ (at the time) to have done. 

And then we get the conversation between Kate and Steve and we get Kate’s second defence of Jo. And this time it is said with more confidence because she’s witnessed key moments first hand that have confirmed to her that Jo couldn’t be bent: 

“Without Jo we wouldn’t have got Buckells. Look, you haven’t seen the change in her I have. Now that Buckells is off her back, she’s on the Vella case 100 percent.” 

Typical love is blind moment there, ‘you don’t know them like I do.’ And the fact that she mentions that Buckells has been on Jo’s back for most of the case, is pulling it back to my previous mention of how Kate witnessing the argument between Buckells and Jo is so important - she’s now using it as an excuse to Steve about why Jo may have been lacking in her investigation into Gail Vella’s murder. 

(Just want to drop in and check that you’ve had drink or something, this is about halfway through I think so...continue).

Later on in the episode she’s seen defending Jo again: 

“He’s watching her.”

“Or meeting with her.”

“You got evidence of that?” 

We know why Kate is so defensive, she’s falling in love with Jo and she trusts her completely. But even still, it’s very interesting since she has never defended anyone quite so fiercely - at least not in private to Ted and Steve. 

In S1E5 Steve and Kate have this conversation about Tony Gates: 

“He didn’t kill her.”

“No?” 

It’s short and simple but enough to prove that no matter how much it appeared on the surface that Kate liked Tony it was all faked and she didn’t trust him in the slightest, going as far to say that he was capable of murder. 

We also see in this scene that Steve grows suspicious of Kate’s closeness to Jo (or at least that’s what it appeared to look like at the time and maybe if Kate and Jo’s relationship was acknowledged by Steve then this moment would’ve made more sense): 

There is also another paralleling conversation that Kate and Steve could’ve had in S6 from S1. And once again, this is in reference to Kate’s relationship with Tony: 

“Something happened between you two.” 

“Like what?” 

“Nothing, forget it.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I shouldn’t have asked, it’s private.”

“Yeah, it is.” 

It’s very interesting that all the ‘moments’ between Kate and Tony were all faked on the basis of Kate wanting information between him but because of one comment from Nigel, Steve decided to pull Kate up on that accusation. Yet in S6, despite appearing suspicious of Kate and Jo’s relationship he never once brought it up? You could argue that Steve knows Kate better than anyone and he has learnt not to push her on those topics because she will just tell him to piss off, but, how many times has Kate slated Steve for getting involved with witnesses/suspects? That would’ve been Steve’s perfect opportunity to tear a strip off Kate and say that she is no angel and she’s not protected from falling in love with the wrong people. But alas Jed Mercurio would rather have focused on a straight relationship where one half only appeared in a handful of scenes <3

But back to the ‘You got evidence of that?’ Moment before I get too annoyed, the fact that Kate wants to reveal to Jo about Ryan’s movements is very telling. She wants to protect Jo and she genuinely believes that Jo is a good person/isn’t bent. We see that this trust runs even deeper when she goes ahead and tells Jo anyway despite Ted telling her not to - but she’s clever enough to not mention any collusion she has with AC-12.

“I need to talk to you in private.”

“Something wrong?”

“It’s not personal. It’s work.”

This is the first use of the word ‘personal’ from Kate and the fact she feels the need to state that what she wants to talk to Jo about isn’t to do with them and their relationship is…interesting. A few people have pointed about how the use of personal within Line of Duty could be argued to allude to relationships/love interests - Farida left for ‘personal reasons’ after all - for Kate to use it here and to make that separation between personal and professional shows that Kate and Jo’s relationship runs deeper than being just colleagues. We know that already from how they’ve acted around each other but now we’ve had it explicitly confirmed. 

Ironically though, this is the moment Jo starts taking a step back from Kate in order to protect her. She now knows that Ryan is watching her and if Ryan is watching her then he will be able to see what’s forming between herself and Kate and that puts Kate at the centre of danger. Look what happened to Farida, she was in a relationship with Jo and then she ended up in prison. Worse could’ve happened but Jo did what she could to protect Farida - she used harsh words to hurt Farida and push her away (a similar tactic used by Tony Gates to his wife), but because Farida kept pushing and ended up ratting on Jo, Jo had to take drastic action by planting those burner phones. 

And now it’s happening to Kate but she knows that Kate isn’t Farida and she won’t cave as easily - as we go on to see later on. 

That being said, Kate does give Jo a confidence boost. She tries to get rid of Ryan. But Kate’s support isn’t enough, it’s too late for Jo. But just the fact that one word from Kate gives her enough to stand up goes to show how much Jo has come to rely on Kate and how much she trusts her. 

But as we know, Jo gets threatened by Ryan so Jo does the only thing she knows how to do and that’s to push Kate away. 

She tells Kate to drop her issues with Ryan otherwise she’ll request a transfer for Kate. Kate mouths the word ‘ma’am’ completely unable to use her voice. She’s annoyed and evidently so. But she isn’t just annoyed at the fact Jo has told her that she would get rid of her if it came down to it. She’s annoyed because, in her eyes, Jo doesn’t know the danger she’s putting herself in by keeping Ryan on the team. (Of course we know that Jo knows Ryan and his connections but Kate doesn’t, she’s been defending Jo to high heaven and truly believes that Jo is innocent). Kate has seen firsthand the sorts of things Ryan has been involved in - she doesn’t learn just how much he’s involved until later on but she did see some of things he got up to as a kid and knows that he could be just as dangerous now as he was then. 

You could argue that she’s also annoyed at the fact that she went against AC-12 and people she inherently trusts in order to protect Jo and now she’s just got that thrown back in her face.

And then we move on to the big episodes. What happened at the end of E4 clearly created a rift between Kate and Jo, we see Kate trying to pull Jo to one side but gets rejected, and she’s hurt by that.  

Kate expresses her hurt to AC-12 in the following scene: 

“Jo’s become cold and distant towards me, I don’t know what’s going on in the background.” 

Shows that there’s a distance between them now but Kate is still sympathetic towards her. She doesn’t like that Jo is pushing her out and I think this is when it really starts to click for Kate that something isn’t right. She gets those suspicions evidently confirmed when Steve reveals that Jo’s DNA was found at Farida’s house and henceforth that she’s related to Tommy Hunter. (Also the fact that Kate is using ‘Jo’ here and not ‘Davidson’ as you would expect her to reveals her personal relationship with Jo).

Despite that distance, Kate is still defensive of Jo and still trusts her: 

“You’ve put Jo under surveillance, why?” 

“Our in-depth forensic examination of Farida Jatri’s home detected Davidson’s DNA.”   

Her face the moment she finds out that Jo lied to her about her relationship with Farida is heartbreaking but I think the fact that we see Chloe and Ted’s reaction to this also, is so important. They’re very clearly aware of the feelings between Kate and Jo even if it is never said, and we’re back to being annoyed that Kate and Jo’s relationship wasn’t acknowledged in E7. Everyone was aware of it so why wasn’t it mentioned?!

“Davidson’s DNA is a partial match for Tommy Hunter.” 

…

“I know, from Steve, that you’ve formed the view that Davidson isn’t bent, Kate. But I’m sorry, it appears that she’s pulled the wool over your eyes.” 

And then there’s the explicit confirmation that Steve is aware of Kate’s feelings towards Jo.  

She’s just been bombarded with a lot of information, information that goes against everything that she has believed in/defended for the past couple of episodes. She’s conflicted and doesn’t know what to think. Kate Fleming, who is usually calm and collected and in control of her emotions is now finding herself caught in a moment that she usually isn’t in. And now she’s wondering why she couldn’t see it, why she couldn’t see that something wasn’t right. She’s usually so sharp, quick to pick up on corruption - she spotted Dots pretty early on. But she knows, deep down, she knows and I think that scares her more. 

Kate has always pulled Steve up on his lack of integrity, for getting himself stuck in situations that would cloud his vision and now suddenly the tables have turned. It’s her getting in that situation. It’s her having her vision blurred because of her relationship with someone and she doesn’t know what to do. 

That being said, her trust in Jo is still very much there. It’s why she formulates the plan. She wants to prove that Steve and AC-12 are wrong about Jo, that just because she’s related to the OCG overlord doesn’t mean that she herself is corrupt. But she also needs to prove it to herself, she needs to know that she didn’t get it wrong. That she didn’t let a corrupt officer slip through her fingers because she fell in love. She’s an ex-anticorruption officer, she should be able to spot when a police officer is bent, more so than anyone else. 

She later reveals what her plan had been to prove Jo’s innocence to Ted and Steve, she wants to shout it from the rooftops that she was right about Jo and they were wrong: 

“Only one site was disclosed to MIT officers. However, I took the decision to inform DSU Davidson of all three possible sites.” 

“It’s a big call, Kate.” 

“Well, I believed it paid off, sir. You said yourself the information on Jo’s family history strongly suggests she’s colluding with organised crime, but that doesn’t fit with what I’ve seen first hand. We needed to know one way or another. She had plenty of time to tip off the OCG and she didn’t. As far as I’m concerned that’s proof she isn’t bent.” 

It’s the fourth defence of Jo and is said with even more confidence because now she has evidence to back it up. She knows for definite that Jo isn’t bent and her conscience had been appeased; she didn’t get it wrong.  

And even after all that, after everything Kate does, Ted still hits her with the “Steve’s right, Kate.” She’s undermined yet again. She wants Ted and Steve to trust and like Jo as much as she does because she loves Jo. 

And then we get another hostile scene between Kate and Jo but Kate is still trying to let Jo know that she is on her side, that she has her back, that she has spent months defending Jo’s arse to AC-12 and Steve: 

“I’m telling you the truth, Jo, because I trust you with it.” 

Jo fires back by telling Kate to request a transfer but this has come after a warning look from Ryan. Jo knows what’s going to happen next and she wants to get Kate out of the way before she’s asked the unforgivable, she evens mentions that AC-12 would take her back in the hopes that that would be enough to turn Kate. 

“You’ve been distant with me for days, is this personal?” 

“I’m your senior officer, I should be distant.” 

“I thought we were friends, what’s happening here?”

“So you can tell AC-12?”

“No, I wouldn’t tell them personal stuff.”

And there’s the ‘personal’ again, twice. They’re talking about their relationship, Kate is making it about their relationship. She’s trying to tell Jo that the reason she trusts her so much is because she loves her and that’s something she wouldn’t tell AC-12 because it doesn’t concern them. 

“And as for requesting a transfer, I respectfully decline. I’m not leaving.”  

That is very much in character for Kate, sticking to her true stubborn self there. But she’s angry at Jo because she won’t let Kate help her. Jo is angry because Kate doesn’t realise the danger she’s putting herself in - a nice parallel to the other conversation they shared where the roles are reversed and Jo was trying to help Kate by getting her to drop the subject of Ryan and Kate was annoyed because Jo was blind to the danger she was in. 

Kate’s ‘I’m not leaving,’ does have much more meaning to it than we first realise however. After shooting Ryan, she runs off with Jo - she has no reason to, she was lawfully carrying a firearm and serving her duty as an officer. But she gives Jo the chance to tell her everything, she doesn’t leave her side and does everything she can to protect Jo i.e the car chase scene. She takes Jo’s side despite everything and sticks to her words of ‘I’m not leaving.’

Later on, Jo manipulates Kate, playing on the one thing Kate wants to address, “The personal issues we discussed,” she knows that’s the only way Kate will come out with her (at least, that’s what she thinks). Kate is desperate to explore whatever is going on between them and Jo plays on that.  

And judging by Kate’s hopeful face, it seems to do the trick. Kate’s hopeful face being that she thinks Jo might actually open up to her and tell her the truth, and invite Kate into whatever is going on in her life/head. Poor Kate.  

She knows deep down that something isn’t right but she goes along with it because she trusts Jo so much and I think she truly believes that she’s gotten through to her. 

There is a dilemma going on within Kate here, she wants to trust Jo but knows deep down she can’t because of the AC-12 officer that is embedded in her (Ted’s ‘That’s my officer out there,’ coming into play here). She keeps the gun on her person which shows despite her constant defence, she’s still suspicious. However, she doesn’t phone Steve until after she’s arrived at the address showing that the trust for Jo is still there. Obviously that changes when she realises that the location is dodgier than she probably first thought. 

“Let’s not hang around here Jo, we’d rather be inside with a glass of wine.”

Sticking to her character once again here, trying to be hopeful, trying to be right about Jo’s character. 

“Jo wanted to give you a way out.” 

This line from Ryan is crucial for Kate’s trust in Jo. It may get lost amongst the other, more pressing events, but even just hearing first that Jo tried to save her probably brings her some reassurance in the long run. From this line alone she knows that Jo never intended to kill her and was coerced into setting the scene up. 

“I’ve done my bit. I don’t have to stay here and watch.” 

Jo was only told to ‘get rid’ of Kate. She was never told to kill her. She was the one to entrap Kate but she was never going to be the one to kill her, that was on Ryan. This is another crucial moment adding to the reason why Kate would run away with Jo and give her the chance to talk. 

E6 opens up with Kate being her typical self and taking control of the situation. But even so, she’s struggling. As I’ve mentioned a lot throughout this, Kate is normally calm and collected, she very rarely lets her emotions get in the way of what she wants to do. But there’s no room for her to hide from her emotions here, she hasn’t had the time to compartmentalise them, she hasn’t had the time to process and understand them. And that unsettles her, she wants to take control - and she does as best as she can - but she’s faltering. The person who she loves has just lured her to her death and she doesn’t know what to do with that information.

“You lured me there to be murdered.” 

Confirms that she knows that Jo wasn’t going to be the one that actually murdered her, just that she was the one to lure her. 

“Kate.”

“Didn’t you?”

She cuts Jo off, she’s angry and understandably so. But because she hasn’t had time to process her emotions she isn’t being as cool as she normally would be in a high-stress situation.  

She is really struggling and it’s understandable of course. And then we have that scene:

“I always worried you were pretending.” 

“Pretending?” 

“You know what I mean…to lure me into trusting you.” 

Kate’s ‘pretending?’ Is more offence at the fact Jo felt she had to suggest it - Kate was far from pretending, her behaviour across the series is enough to prove that she is in love with Jo. I also think it’s to do with the fact that Jo had the audacity to ask the question now, of all situations to bring up the topic, Jo could’ve picked a better moment. But Jo doesn’t let up, using Kate’s preferred tactic of getting information out of people:

“You still won’t answer, were you lying to me Kate?”

“This is about you Jo, not me.” 

Deflecting the question that she has every right to deflect, given the circumstances. But she neither confirms nor denies said question - she’s trying to keep control of the situation, she’s trying not to let her emotions get in the way of what she needs to do. She needs to find out the truth, she needs Jo to tell her everything before the law inevitably catches up with them. 

She turns the question back to Jo, asking if she was the one lying, that maybe she didn’t want Kate on the team at all. She then goes on to reveal that she knows Jo lied about her relationship with Farida. It’s coming from a place of anger and frustration and like I said, Kate is well within her rights to feel like that.  

Then we have Kate doing something surprising, she drives away as she hears police sirens. I’ve been trying to place why she was so determined to keep Jo away from the police, to give Jo that chance to explain herself but then all of a sudden, Kate hanging the phone up on Carmichael made it all make sense. 

The moment Steve told Kate that the observations on Jo and Ryan had been pulled as a result of Osbourne and Carmichael, she knew that something bigger was at play here. If Osbourne is the real H/The Fourth Man (extremely bloody likely) and Buckells was just the messenger, then it’s fair to say that it was actually Osbourne who ordered Kate’s death. And if that is the case then it makes sense he would pull the observations off, meaning that there would be no witnesses to the murder. But Kate’s not a stupid woman, she’s worked for AC-12 for God knows how long and she’s been part of the investigation into H/The Fourth man for just as long. She knows it’s someone higher up in the force and that information from Steve told her that something was going to happen at the meeting. 

But upon hearing that Jo tried to give her a way out, she knows that she can trust Jo, that she is just another pawn in this sick game, that she’s vulnerable and in need of protecting/saving. She must guess pretty early on, that it is The Fourth Man that is manipulating Jo and she knows that Jo isn’t going to reveal that in an interview, especially if it is someone high up. So that’s why she takes Jo out of the situation, that’s why she sacrifices her credibility and her integrity, as Ted said Ryan is a ‘sprat’ - he’s not important - she can get more information about the top man from Jo. Kate gives Jo that chance to talk and to prove herself before she is silenced by Osbourne and Carmichael. It helps that Jo trusts Kate and wants to tell Kate the truth. 

And then we have the emotion, oh the emotion:

“Jesus Christ, Steve’s in on it.”

She’s lost control of the situation, she’s lost control of her emotions and everything has just come tumbling down on her. And for a brief moment she feels as though everyone has turned on her: Jo, Steve, Ted, everyone she trusts most in the world and she can’t bear it. I can’t even begin to imagine how utterly alone she must’ve felt in that moment.  

“You bastard, Steve!”

“Stay there, Kate.”

…

“You gave me up! You told them!”

“Kate, I give you my word, I didn’t.”

“That’s bullshit.”  

“I promise you, I’ll get you to safety. Both of you.”

Kate doesn’t comply until after she’s assured that Steve will protect both her and Jo - shows that despite everything she still has a loyalty to Jo and she still wants to protect her. Despite what’s happened she can see that Jo is vulnerable and has been used her entire life, she gets that impression just from the little bit that Jo reveals to her. She feels for Jo, sort of in the same way she felt for Dot but this is on a much deeper level and to be fair, Dot did worse things than Jo. Kate might be an expert at compartmentalising her emotions but she still has a heart - we see it in glimpses across the whole show but it comes in tenfolds where Jo is concerned, as a result of how they’ve been set up. As much as she’s angry and upset and how much she feels betrayed by Jo, Kate still wants her to be safe and protected. Kate knows that Jo has been trying to get out of the clutches of the OCG i.e employing Kate in the first place. Jo holding the gun and taking the blame gives Kate enough assurance that Jo is being true to her word when she says she wanted out/didn’t want to kill Kate. That’s why she wants Jo safe, because she believes in her. 

Being put in that cell on her own now gives Kate the chance to compartmentalise her emotions, she has time to think over the events of the night. She has time to think about her feelings for Jo, the love, the loss, the betrayal. We see that this works, later on when Patricia tells her that Jo had taken the blame for Ryan’s death.   

She’s back to her usual stoic self, emotions cut off. She can’t allow herself to react about what Patricia has told her because it would give too much away, if she reacted then it would make it even more obvious that Jo wasn’t the one who shot Ryan. She can’t even show that she’s relieved or grateful that Jo had taken such sacrifice for her/kept to her word. 

“Are you sure you’re okay? I know nobody’s coming after you over Ryan Pilkington’s shooting, but if you ever need to talk about it.” 

That is not the face of someone who is fine. She’s very clearly trying desperately to push her emotions down, put them to one side because she has a job to do. Jo has given her this chance to solve the case and she sure as hell isn’t going to let her down. 

“Did she say anything about her family history? She told me her dad was a police officer.” 

“No. Never even gave us that much.” 

Proving my earlier point that Jo inherently trusts Kate and was willing to give her more details before they were interrupted. 

“She’s scared, Steve. After what happened to Tommy, Dot, Lakewell, never mind John Corbett.”

“That’s why we’ve got her on the VPU at Brentiss, security cameras monitoring access to her cell.” 

Even now, after everything Jo put her through, Kate is still defending her. She still has Jo’s back and it just makes it even more annoying that Steve doesn’t bring up the Jo conversation to Kate. He has seen Kate defend her this whole series, he knows that Jo lured Kate to her death and now he’s there, listening to Kate defending Jo and worrying over the fact that she’s scared and vulnerable. I know at this point there’s a sense of trust between Jo and Steve (as a result of Kate) and Steve is much more aware of the situation Jo has been in her whole life, he does feel for her and understands Kate’s defence of her. But the fact that he’s not even suspicious of how Kate’s opinion hasn’t changed despite learning of Jo’s collusion with the OCG and almost being killed, just highlights how Jed was so quick to drop Kate’s development, pushing it to the side for the sake of making a political point. 

And here comes the complete reversal of all the development Kate has had across this series, and more to the point, the memory loss she seems to go through. 

“The stuff he’s hiding. I never thought I’d look at the gaffer like this.” 

But she did? In S5 when they were only suspecting that Ted may have ratted John Corbett out to the OCG. She was willing to report it, that was how much she believed it. And now she’s acting as if that never happened? 

“Maybe we should let sleeping dogs lie.” 

“Come off it Steve. How many times have we criticised coppers that’ve took retirement to dodge disciplinary action?”

It’s a valid point and strengthens my previous mention of how she might be the ‘straightest’ out of all three of them. She is the embodiment of AC-12, truth and integrity - or at least she likes to believe that she is. Kate often sits in a place of judgement and thinks of herself as an innocent being that could do no wrong. This is hardly the case, she has made plenty of mistakes and although she hasn’t got herself into the vast number of predicaments that Steve has found himself in, she isn’t exactly free from this sense of ‘corruption.’ It does get pointed out to her on two occasions, the first from Richard Akers, “Holier than thou doesn’t suit you Kate,” and the second from Roz Huntley, “Hardly holier than thou.” 

The fact it’s mentioned twice and is very much the same quote shows that this attitude Kate upholds, is a part of her character. And we see it again with this moment: 

“She’s got a right to know what happened to her husband.” 

“Maybe she already does. She might be blackmailing the gaffer.” 

“Steph? No.” 

“You seem pretty sure…what?” 

“We’ve become…”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Steve.” 

Before I get into the main issue, I think it’s made pretty obvious in this scene that Jo isn’t the only one Kate is being cold towards, it’s everyone. She’s coming across as very cynical and unsympathetic. But you could argue that this is Kate, she’s almost the stereotypical ice-queen who has no emotions and doesn’t care who she hurts which, if this was pre-S6 Kate I would say is very much in character. 

But this isn’t pre-S6 Kate. S6 has shown the more emotional side to Kate, it’s seen her with her walls broken down, she’s opened up, fallen in love. And I know the events of the previous episode would be enough for her to put those walls up again but surely, if you are going to go to the effort of developing a character you could at least show the change that this development has had on her? 

I would’ve fully expected her to shrink away after what happened, I think that’s a completely normal reaction, even more so where Kate is involved. But given how she has gone through things in this series that she hasn’t gone through before, I would expect a different reaction from her? More emotional or more obvious that she’s trying to hold herself together. But I don’t see that, I just see her back as her S1-5, AC-12 self. 

It’s so hard because it makes total sense for Kate to revert back to her old self, she’s been burned and she’s hurting. But like I said, if she’s gone through this development over the course of S6, it’s set up in a way to make you think that she’s not going to handle this situation as she normally would but she ends up doing exactly that - any development Jed has put her through has now been reversed. 

But my main issue with this scene between Kate and Steve brings me back to my earlier point. Steve is shown to be aware of the possible thing that’s happening between Kate and Jo - little looks when Kate is defending Jo, the fact that Ted mentioned how Steve had been talking to him about Kate’s trust for Jo. 

Now Kate, throughout the entirety of show, has consistently berated Steve on his lack of control when it comes to women. She has torn a strip off him at every opportunity, when the situation with Lindsay occurred, she was so unbelievably angry and annoyed with him, that he had just quite possibly ruined the entire case because “Steve can’t keep it in his pants,” (thank you Lindsay Denton for summarising that up perfectly). 

This would’ve been the PERFECT opportunity for Steve to turn it back around on Kate. He’s aware of the situation and he would finally be able to pull Kate up on something that he is known for doing and something Kate never stops short to criticise him on. He could’ve taken that opportunity to humble Kate and make her aware of the fact that she’s not innocent and she’s certainly not free from falling/being interested/getting involved with the wrong person. A simple “What and Jo’s different?” From Steve would’ve sufficed. We don’t even need a verbal reaction from Kate, just a look that one, would’ve acknowledged Kate and Jo’s relationship and two, would’ve put Kate in her place and make her realise that she should be the last person to pass judgment on Steve since she has now found herself in a very similar position.

What’s more, and I have mentioned this before and it’s what makes E7 so frustrating, Kate and Jo have been constantly paralleled to Steph and Steve throughout the series, all the romantic scenes, alluding to relationships bubbling for our two main characters. So that scene is where I would expect the parallel to occur again but it doesn’t? And I just have to ask, why on earth would you parallel these relationships, show their romantic scenes side by side, have their development evolve in similar ways just to then only focus on one relationship? 

Okay the possibility of a relationship occurring between Kate and Jo went out of the window the moment we knew Jo was colluding with the OCG but Jed still took the time to explore it, to delve into it. So for it to not even be mentioned or acknowledged, I just think, why waste our time if it’s going to end up not being relevant? I mean the fact that a heterosexual relationship where one half got barely any screen time took precedence and verbal acknowledgment (aka not subtext) over a queer relationship occurring between two of the main characters of the series? I don’t even need to say it. 

But if subtext was all we’re going to get for Kate and Jo in E7 then I’ll just get back to analysing and reading between the lines because Jed can’t stick to and acknowledge storylines that he has spent the entire series building up and I need to make sense of it for some peace of mind. 

I’m going to call this outfit the ‘Proving Jo Davidson is innocent’ outfit since Kate wears it when she hatches her plan to prove just that and again, when she’s gathering evidence that would mean Jo would be able to get witness protection.   

I promise you that these are separate scenes but honestly the fact that we have the same shot with Kate sitting in the same place, from the same angle only just emphasises my point even more. This was Kate on her proving Jo is innocent mission that she never let slip. Her goal hasn’t changed since E5, but perhaps now she is even more determined because she now knows that it’s what Jo wants. Jo got Kate on the team for a reason and now that is what Kate is doing. 

And because I’ve *briefly* touched on the fact that Kate/Jo are always paralleled to Steve/Steph I think it’s only right that I point out how in both of the scenes shown above, there is a Steve/Steph scene paralleled to it, either before or after. Both the Steve/Steph scenes taking place in Steve’s car with Steph on the phone/over voicemail with the scenes showing that Steve is unsure about his relationship with Steph - which you could argue is the exact opposite to Kate and Jo. Kate might be unsure of her feelings and how deep they go but she is sure of one thing and that Jo is innocent and will do everything she can to prove it. 

We go on to next to see AC-12 discussing new messages that have come through entailing The Fourth Man’s plans for Jo. Kate refers to her as “Davidson” a stark contrast to how she has previously referred to her in the presence of Steve and Ted but this is most likely to do with the fact that has had to cut her feelings off for the sake of saving Jo so she is trying to make it as impersonal as possible. 

I won’t even talk about how easy it could’ve been to include a scene between Kate and Jo in that ambush scene. Before or even after, if Jed wanted to keep that element of surprise that AC-12 had managed to intercept before the ambush could take place. A simple moment where Kate went into the van and said “You alright?” would’ve sufficed. 

“You’re safe now Jo.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean really safe. To apply for witness protection. All my notes, all my records will show that you acted under the control and coercion of others. You can live the life you should’ve lived. Be free to be the person that you really are.” 

I have spoken about this before but will briefly go into it again. ‘The person’ that Kate is referring to is the person Kate has been defending for this whole series. Kate was the only person to see through Jo’s walls and glimpse the person that existed outside of the clutches of the OCG. Jo could be herself around Kate, probably felt liberated and had moments where she realised that Kate is something she could’ve had if she wasn’t stuck in that life, so it’s only right that Kate was the one to set her free - even if it’s at the expense of her own feelings but we’ll get into that now.

Although Kate is coming across as ‘cold’ during this scene, she isn’t unsympathetic. Everything she is saying to Jo is coming from a compassionate place. It’s vastly different from the previous scenes shared by Kate and Jo so it feels more harsh but Kate is having to cut her feelings off to provide the protection for Jo and to henceforth save her. She still cares deeply for Jo but she’s not allowed to show that, and it’s more for her own sake than anything. 

If Kate allows herself, for even a moment, to let that emotion escape then it’s all going to come out. Everything she has have ever felt for Jo will be free and then she won’t be able to let Jo go because then it will be even harder. She can’t let herself come to terms over what she feels for Jo because she has to set Jo free, she can’t be selfish, it’s either her feelings or it’s Jo’s freedom. And considering she has spent so long defending Jo it’s obvious what option she favours. 

Then she gets straight back to the point, not allowing her facade to drop:

“If you tell us who the top man is.” 

Now remember how I said to remember Roz’s quote because it will be important later? Here’s why it’s important, “You’d give up anything to get to the top.” ‘Top’ in the context of Roz and Kate’s conversation is referring to Kate wanting to better her career but ‘Top’ could also refer to the fact that Kate, along with AC-12, have spent years digging into institutionalised corruption to find out who the orchestrator behind it all is, and now she’s so close to finding out who the ‘top’ man is, because of Jo. 

You could argue that this idea completely reverses the points I’ve just made and offers the alternative that Kate only cut her emotions off in order to get to the top - which is what Roz’s quote alludes to. But I do think that both standpoints can coincide with one another. She cuts her feelings off for Jo so she can save her, but because she has had to do that, that makes her able to dig for information and solve the case and hence find out who the top man is. 

And therein is the last scene that Kate and Jo share and to quote Kate Fleming on this one “Thanks for making me feel like shit.”   

But Kate’s story isn’t over just yet so we will continue. 

“Sir, during an unlawful search an item was found that relates to the sum of £50,000. You’re not under caution so anything you say to us at this time can’t be used in evidence. That’s loyalty right there.”

I know she’s having a dig at Ted’s previous comment about loyalty to Steve whilst he simultaneously reveals Steve’s issues from across the series to Kate, but I also like to think it’s a dig at the fact that despite Ted continuously undermining Kate, she has still stuck by him and still fought his corner - to an extent. But the fact she does stand up to Ted and isn’t afraid to do so is something I have to give her, she is staying very true to her character there. 

I think this has been pointed out before and although it probably is a reach but this is Kate’s reaction after Ted says “…of a woman I cared deeply about…” 

I do think that this is a moment where we’re meant to assume that Kate could be thinking about Jo as a result of Ted’s words. The focus is on Kate’s reactions rather than Steve’s so I think it’s a fair assumption/association to make and it’s not out of the realms of possibilities. 

“If I decide to come back.”

“Will you?”

“Well someone’s got to keep you lot in line.” 

She just can’t stay away from it, no matter how hard she tries. AC-12 will always pull her back. 

“You don’t realise what you’ve got until it’s gone.”

It’s a loaded statement from Kate and comes with many meanings to it, her missing AC-12 ( to an extent) and wanting back in, her missing her friendship with Steve and now losing Jo without having the chance to tell her how she really feels/that she wasn’t pretending. 

“You just going to stick to the one drink?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Still early enough to drive up to Liverpool.” 

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to keep seeing Steph.”

“But you want to?”

“Yeah. But what chance has it got?”

“You wanna be careful mate, you’re going to end up on your own.”

Having to read between the lines here again but Kate is encouraging Steve to go for Steph because she can’t go for Jo. It makes sense when you consider how much those two relationships have been paralleled against each other, one was doomed from the beginning but at least the other has a chance to *be* something. And this conversation could’ve been spun differently to acknowledge Kate and Jo’s relationship also:

“But what chance has it got?”

“More chance than me and Jo.”

It’s really that simple. I’m fine with subtext, it works sometimes. Not everything has to be said. But across the whole series Kate and Jo have been everything but. Everything that has happened between them has been obvious and deliberate. So the fact it got dropped to subtext in the last episode doesn’t make sense? If their relationship from the beginning had been pure subtext then fine it works, but like I said, it hasn’t. Kate and Jo’s relationship needed to be addressed and acknowledged, otherwise why the set up if you’re never going to bring it up properly? 

Okay, you can argue that it dropping to subtext and having to read between the lines is a representation for how Kate is having to suppress her feelings for Jo but your audience deserve better than that Jed. And not to sound like a stuck record but you don’t have your character go through massive development for her just to end up as the exact same person she was before she went through said development. She has to change, even if it’s just a little bit. No one stays the same after what Kate has been through. 

 Which brings us to the therapy scene. 

“Me and my partner are separated.” 

I have also already spoken about the vagueness of this line so won’t go into it too much but, subtext again, she could also be referring to Jo. I would just like to point out as well that music that underplays the moment in which she talks about Steve is very different to the music that underplays the date scenes between Kate and Jo and the scenes between Steph and Steve so you could say that that rules out any allusion to a possible romance between Kate and Steve (and honestly thank God because there’s more sexual tension between two planks of wood than there are between Kate and Steve and if they EVER went down that route, another type of anger would escape my body because, just let women and men be friends without it being a *thing* please).

She looks so washed out and unhappy in this scene - a striking comparison to how she looked during E2. 

She looks drained but it’s understandable considering that this is the first time that’s properly opened up and given way to accepting her emotions and feelings - even if she isn’t addressing the elephant in the room. So, you could argue that this scene is that small change we have from Kate as a result of her development from across the series. But given that this scene, at a push, lasts 30 seconds, it’s not enough. I’m not expecting a half an hour scene of Kate opening up about everything but something a bit more than a nod to her kid and husband that she has only mentioned once throughout the entire series - along with a couple of text messages in the first episode. It just felt as though this scene was chucked in because they couldn’t show Steve going to therapy without showing Kate going as well, considering that they’ve both been through similar ordeals. 

But I’ll take it because it’s still part of Kate’s development, in a sense.

Digging into it more, it’s very obvious that Kate has lost the happiness we seen her with at the beginning of the series, she’s lost her warmth - a warmth that was depicted via Jo through clothing and scenes they shared together. There is a warm light in that scene but it’s situated behind Kate, a visual representation of how Jo is in her past now and how the loss of warmth in her life has left her cold and miserable - which further explains how she comes across in this episode. 

I’m going to return my earlier point of Kate not necessarily being happy at AC-12 here. I’ve mentioned throughout how Kate is AC-12 through and through and she will never truly escape it. She goes back to AC-12 in the end because it’s her home, it’s where she feels safe and comfortable but that doesn’t mean to say it makes her happy. And I think the fact that when we see her at the end of this episode and we see that she is the most unhappy she has been this entire series, it’s meant to signify that (and like I mentioned before, there were a few moments throughout S5 & S6 that emphasise how she might feel that undercover work/being in anti-corruption might just not be for her anymore). 

Kate set Jo free from the OCG but who’s going to set Kate free from AC-12? Jo did for some time, made Kate realise the life she could have outside of anti-corruption but that got ripped away from her and now she’s gone back to them, tail between her legs and probably feeling even worse than she had when she left in the first place.

Questions I wanted to address throughout this piece, is Kate Fleming a master manipulator?

Yes, to an extent. She knows how to use people and their feelings to her advantage. She knows how to get information out of people, we have seen that time and time again across the show, but it’s only ever under the guise of being a UCO and half the time I don’t think she enjoys it all that much (as we see in S5 with her allusions to that there). Outside of being undercover Kate is a genuine person, we see that via the connection she makes with Jo. She never pushed Jo for information, they built up trust between them and shared a bond. Jo worries that Kate would go running back to AC-12 with all the dirt on Jo but Kate reassures her, “I would never tell them personal stuff.” And she doesn’t. We know that she could, we see her do it with Tony Gates the moment she finds out the extent of his relationship with Jackie Laverty. But the fact she doesn’t, is telling us that outside of being undercover, Kate, despite what people might think, is an authentic person who can form relationships without it being faked for beneficial reasons.

Are her motives clear?

Not always. On the surface she is quite a hard person to read but once you pick her apart and piece everything together, you realise that she is an incredibly smart woman who, despite holding her cards close to her chest, plays them very well. She doesn’t reveal things easily which is testament to her being a good undercover officer but when you dig into it, I think her motives can be clear. She’s very career-driven, often putting that above everything else. She always want to get the job done and to the best of her ability. As I’ve mentioned throughout, she is the embodiment of AC-12, integrity and truth. She very much holds up the law. 

That doesn’t make her innocent and doesn’t mean she doesn’t bend the truth/law to her all the time either. But I do think that’s Jeds way of saying that no matter how hard you try to be good, you’re always going to end up in tricky situations that you have to worm your way out of, as depicted by Steve’s quote in S2 “Maybe there are some people out there who always tell the truth and ones who always lie. The rest of us choose our moments.” 

How has Kate been developed across the show? 

In short, she hasn’t been developed all that much and where she has been developed it’s been reversed by the end of it. From S1-5 she remains pretty much the same person, not much bothers her or effects her. Partly think that’s because of her burying her emotions and her trauma but I don’t want to give Jed too much credit where it isn’t due. 

S6 was where we seen the most development from Kate. We seen a whole new side to her, we seen her experiencing things for the first time, having feelings that have never been delved into where Kate has been concerned. S6 Kate felt miles apart from S1-5 Kate, or at least she did until E7. Kate had the potential to be fleshed out and to be shown that not even Line of Duty’s resident heroine is free from trauma and emotions but that, like I’ve said, got scrapped for the sake of a political point. We needed more than a 30 second therapy scene to address the issues and dilemmas going on in Kate’s head. We needed the relationship that she had been involved in, that had been set up, to be acknowledged and addressed. That relationship with Jo was so integral and important to Kate’s development, it needed to be brought up, even if it was just in relation to Kate’s development and Kate’s character. 

Jo and Kate were never going to end up in a relationship, it was doomed from the beginning but it still brought about a change in Kate and her character deserved to have that tied up and acknowledged to an extent, at the very least. We, as an audience, deserved that also. Kate went through so much in this series and the fact that all we got was a 30 second scene therapy scene to address it is, quite frankly, insulting.

I don’t care that Buckells was H, looking back on it’s obvious. I understood the political point of it and Jed was making a good point, in a sense. But with shows like Line of Duty, where it’s main characters remain constant throughout you have a due diligence to develop them and flesh them out into 3D characters who have good sides and bad sides - and that goes for ALL of them, Kate included. And she is but to an extent because she isn’t explored enough. Jed will start it, pave ways she could go and then forgets about it. As much as we all follow along for the plot and wanting to find out who these corrupt officers are, we also become invested in the characters, we want to know more about them. We want to see them go through things, we want to be able to relate to them and go on journeys with them. 

As much as we watch for the plot, we’re also watching for the characters. Like come on how many of us shouted “Oh God Steve, watch your back!” When the van toppled over and not “Oh shit they’re about to be ambushed!” I could go on but you get my point. The main plot is interesting and well thought out but we’re also watching the characters and we want to see them be developed with justice. 

Kate Fleming is a complex character and she deserved to be fully developed throughout S6 (and the whole show considering, you know, she’s a main character) and didn’t deserve to have that development fizzled out for political point scoring.  

And if you made it this far, well done. Have a drink. 

#line of duty #lod #kate fleming #long post #oh christ #this is 17k words of utter nonsense #but if you read it thank you <3 #line of duty spoilers #lod spoilers #analysis