Tarlos Wedding Celebration Event [Week 5] -> favorite s2 moment(s)-> all the flirty banter

people who think clem surviving makes no sense are so funny. "they were literally foreshadowing her death the entire season" let me introduce you to the concept of a red herring. she tells lilly she isnt lee and shes right. the narrative was forcing her down that path, a path she saw as an inevitable fate waiting to take her too, but its a narrative broken by aj, who is also his own person and not S1 clem

"it happened to lee, and itll happen to you" lilly tells clem she'll die protecting aj from some mistake he makes, when in reality his defiance of her will is what saves her life after she had already accepted her fate. he breaks clem free from the lee cycle and they get their relatively happy ending. good for them

Sex Education season 4 thoughts

The good

Aimee’s journey. As I’ve discussed online no end, I have complex PTSD. While I was never sexually assaulted like Aimee was, her avoidant trauma responses were very relatable to me. To see her taking the power back this season, especially when the burned the jeans she was assaulted in and did the photoshoot with them, made me feel a bit less alone as I try and heal. I cried my eyes out, so much so that I had to take a break from watching to collect myself!

“Even when I’m doing something I love… it feels like I’m still wearing them, like it never goes away”

Cal’s story as a non-binary person is very different to mine (and for the record, that doesn’t make either of us any less valid, because there is no singular way to be non-binary). Nonetheless, hearing someone I love as much as I do Gillian Anderson affirm our shared gender nonconformity meant the world. I’m sick of facing transphobia from society, but especially from people that I once considered idols. So knowing that Gillian embraced a role where her character supports trans youth healed something within me. It’s not the first time she’s showed up for our community though - she always makes a point to include non-binary people, for example in her Dear Gillian announcement video. I don’t mean to undermine the real hero of the story here: Dua Saleh, the actor who played Cal - it’s just that I had already formed such a deep connection with Gillian, so it hit me doubly hard from her.

The funeral scene. Just… the funeral scene. I really lost it when Mr Hendricks played With Or Without You on the piano and everyone else joined in.

Other people have spoken about this better, so I won’t get into it as much, but by god, the representation. One example that really struck me was the sex scene between Abbi and Roman at the end, where she said “I love being inside you”. It wasn’t a big deal, their transness was completely normalised.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I loved the Motis ending! Maeve made the right choice going back to America, and long distance relationships are really hard when you have no plans to reunite, so I get why they called it off. Also, relationships at that age don’t usually last, as much as I hate to say it, and yet via Maeve’s letter, the show managed to honour that they can still shape one’s life and be really important.

The bad

If it wasn’t clear, I’m a Jean Milburn stan first and a human second. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in how they handled her storyline this season. Firstly, I’m tired of every single female character on television having an arc that culminates in motherhood. Not knowing who the father was felt like bad writing for Jean specifically, like very out of character, because she’s a sex therapist, so she’s all about safe sex and communication around those things. By no means am I suggesting that they should’ve kept Jakob as a character (if you don’t already know, his actor sexually assaulted hundreds of women which, by the way, was public knowledge before he was ever cast), but they could’ve come up with a better workaround. Maybe I’m biased because Jean is a comfort character of mine, but I wasn’t very pleased with the fact that they didn’t allow her to be happy for a single second this season either! That being said, I do think it’s important that we don’t gloss over the postpartum depression representation here, which could mean so much to so many. I wish they’d brought Maureen in to help Jean though, because their relationship was so special and yet we didn’t see them interact onscreen once this season.

I haven’t heard anyone else mention this, but I was disappointed with how they handled sapphic relationships this season. Not only were Ola and Lily erased entirely, but the writers fucked up the storyline for the only established sapphic couple remaining (Roz and Sofia Marchetti). Like, why was the Big Plot Twist™️ that there was, in fact, a man intimately involved with their family? Our lives don’t have to revolve around men, you know? The show didn’t explicitly acknowledge the fact that genetics to not make a family in my opinion either, because Roz and Sofia’s conversation with Jackson was just about how his biological father was missing out on raising him.

The… mixed? Idk!

I deserve to be sent to horny jail for this, but Jean breastfeeding initially drove me insane. I quickly changed my tune though, because breasts are not inherently sexual and breastfeeding shouldn’t be sexualised, so it makes me feel a bit icky to see people thirsting over that.

I’m not sure how I felt about the development of Adam and Michael’s relationship. On one hand, I thought it was beautiful to see them both grow and reconnect. On the other hand, I was slightly concerned that it was veering into “you have to forgive your abuser” territory. I don’t have parental trauma, so I don’t have the authority to comment, but I’d be interested to hear other people’s perspectives.

I really appreciate how they tried to explore toxic relationships with the introduction of Beau as Viv’s love interest. However, I don’t feel that it was given the weight it deserved, because there was so much else going on.

In summary

I’m not disappointed with how this season turned out overall. Although it definitely wasn’t perfect, I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, and it made me very happy. I do recommend checking trigger warnings before watching it though, because it is a lot darker than previous seasons.

I’d missed this show and these characters more than I’d realised, and I can’t believe I’ll never see them again. It was really hard to say goodbye!

Some of the evidence supporting Mike not being in love with El is brutal. No, but seriously.

In s3, when El's leg is injured, instead of Mike putting his arm around her waist, allowing him to take some of the weight off her injured leg, he puts his arm around her shoulder, basically having the exact opposite affect of taking the weight off of her, instead just adding more weight for her to have to carry.

Now, I’m not coming at Mike here, I’m actually coming at the writers, because this choice here has everything to do with them using this gesture to signal Mike’s lack of feelings for El, even at the expense of realism.

I say this bc any person with common sense, including Finn and everyone around him and Millie filming these shots, would've known it looked unnatural for Mike to be adding more weight onto El as opposed to taking some off of her.

This means that what Mike did here, Finn was directed to do, and therefore it was for a specific reason.

And we know they could have easily made the opposite choice, because they show us Max AND Lucas doing it.

See how putting an arm around El's waist looks so much more natural? Because homegirl is injured and clearly needs help taking weight off her leg to qualm some of the pain she's experiencing there, which is why Max and Lucas are shown here doing it the correct way.

And so, why can't Mike do the same? Why are the writers making a point to show Mike being incapable of simply taking some weight off of El, instead doing the exact opposite?

I don't think it's as deep as Mike not being able to do something intimate, and that's bc, again we see Max and Lucas doing it.

I honestly think what they're trying to convey with this choice here, is that Mike thinks he's helping El, when he is in fact doing the opposite despite his best efforts. The implications of that and how that sort of aligns with their romantic relationship and what it leads to at the end of s3, going into s4, is pretty spot on.

I do think Mike thinks he's doing the right thing by being with El instead of voicing any doubts at the end of s3, because he is under the assumption that she is in love with him. I do think he believes he is indebted to her and that this is the least he can do after everything they've been through together, which has mostly been riddled with romantic pressures and so continuing that instead of disputing it seems like the only option anyways. Not to mention, he does care for her deeply, so it's not hard to imagine that he's a teenage boy confusing deep care for love (he literally tells us this is his problem when he can only say care and not love to El's face... but that's a whole other conversation).

Still, when it's all said and done, Mike's not actually doing El any favors by being with her romantically, if that is not what he truly wants.

Because that's the sad truth about all of this, which is that you would never want someone to be with you just because you want them. If you knew that they truly couldn't have those feelings for you, you'd want to know, right? You don't deserve someone just because you have deep feelings for them. And I think there's so many layers to this idea, bc many people are capable of not giving Byler a chance bc they truly believe Mike could never return Will's feelings. Will also feels this way atp, so though it hurts, he rips the band aid off, because he would never want Mike to be with him just out of pity or something. No one would want that. And so it all really comes down to who Mike truly loves romantically and wants to be with. And the right thing to do, even if it hurts someone, is to be honest, because being with them just bc you think that will make them happy is never going to be enough if you aren't truly feeling it, or worse, feel it for someone else.

We see how Mike's inability to be honest with El at the end of s3, leads to a season of Mike feeling deeply insecure and undeserving of the love El has to offer him, and even though he does try, he always comes up short. Despite Mike putting up this front that they are the perfect couple, the details are telling us something is off. And it gives him away.

Another example that I think is very similar to this loaded gesture from Mike to El in s3, is the scene in s4 when they hug in the airport.

Common sense ppl, picture this: You're reuniting with your long distance girlfriend. Then suddenly, she runs up to you, with her arms wide open, and instead of opening your arms wide to embrace her properly, you take the bouquet of flowers you brought her as a gift, and shove them against your chest just as she approaches to hug you, effectively squishing the present you got for her (a pretty delicate present at that) for no reason other than to... what exactly?

Like?? El isn't even squishing the present Mike, she's trying to hug you, dude! Your gf is trying to hug you properly and you threw the gift you got for her in between you so you could throw in a careful! x3??

Again, this has less to do with Mike's thoughts and reasoning behind this gesture in a literal sense, and more to do with the simple fact that this is a narrative choice! Mike is not a real person! There are real people sitting down and writing this and actors are having to do multiple takes to act it out. What feels natural for a situation is going to be what is often chosen 9 times out of 10, because of realism and wanting the audience to see stuff happening that is believable. That 1 time though, when it's not being done the way it would usually be, is usually because there's a specific reason for it.!

So the question really is, not why is Mike doing this, but why are the writers having Mike do this, and what message are they trying to convey about Mike's feelings based on his behavior, in these moments where he's just not capable of committing to El genuinely, one way or another?

YOU ARE SO WRONG YOU STUPID TWINK. GET FORESHADOWED IDIOT.

the last scene of season three of killing eve is definitely, like, the true ending of killing eve, isn't it?? you can feel that everything builds to that conversation that they have where they're really honest and open and understanding with each other, and villanelle being the one to initiate walking away out of love for eve shows her growth, and the absolutely stunning choice of MUSIC and the EMOTIONS on their BEAUTIFUL FACES and the TRYING TO WALK AWAY and the TURNING BACK and that magical little chime of hope that rings us out into the end credits. like, that's the absolute perfect moment to end that story on that absolutely sums up everything. the weight of what's happened and the promise of the future; the fact that they just can't stay away from each other presented as something beautiful and golden in that moment instead of something ruinous. i love their time together in the finale of season four because their chemistry is so good and it's so incredible to finally get to see them having fun together and loving each other, but everything felt so off all season, and the end is horrible and empty, and i think it's because they were trying to extend the story past its natural ending, which was that scene on the bridge at the end of season three. i almost wish i could magically eternal sunshine season four's existence out of my brain, except that i don't know if i'm strong enough to part with all the romancey moments from the season four finale. aughhhh!

but truly: killing eve has the perfect series finale, it's just that it happened a season too early.

Alcohol

Eddie Munson x Reader

Contents: effects of alcohol, underage drinking (because it is a high school party, but reader is >18) , pet names (Sweetheart), flirting

This just developed from a drunk night with friends and I thought "How would Eddie react?". Enjoy.

Your head was pounding. You weren't sure if it was from the music being blasted in the house or from the amount of alcohol you drank. Your limbs felt heavy snd sluggish. You weren't tired persay, but if you sat for too long you weren't sure you would be getting back up.

You had no clue where your friends were. Robin had convinced you to come, wanting to have a "normal" high-school senior year experience. With you having already graduated last year and being in college, you didn't really feel the need to go. Robin's insistence at you having never went did make you feel like you missed something.

And here you are. Drunk and alone. Well, not really alone. There were a lot more people then you expected to be here. You recognized some people you had graduated with, returning to another party for some reason. You shouldn't judge as you were also here.

You stumble outside the house and towards the shed. Maybe with some quiet your head would stop pounding. Each movement was slow and calculated, feeling like you could fall at any moment. The world wasn't spinning (well, okay the earth was technically rotating still), but you felt so uncoordinated and sluggish. You round the corner of the shed furthest from the house and-

You squeak and immediately attempt to dart back around the side of the shed, yelling," sorry!" You aren't even sure what or who you saw. A wad of cash and a bag of some substance. Enough for you to know you don't want to witness anything and be an accomplice. However, your retreat was less than skilled. Having turned on your heel so quick, you actually slipped...and landed still in sight of the people.

You hit the ground with a thud and a groan. You cover your face with your hands in embarrassment. "Holy shit! You oka-" one of the people pauses before you hear footsteps," Sweetheart?" You glance up between the fingers covering your face and see Eddie standing above you. Ah, of course it would be your boyfriend. You know he sells, and what a perfect place at a party to do so.

He quickly crouches," What are you doing here?" "Uh, nothing. Just going for a stroll. I totally didn't see anything," you close the fingers to cover your eyes again," I saw absolutely nothing Officer." You can hear Eddie chuckling and imagine him shaking his head before a hand touches your shoulder making you jump. "Nobody out here but you and me now," Eddie says through chuckles," but that was very convincing." You know it was not convincing at all. "Think I rolled a...what's it called a one? A nat one?" You grumble.

Eddie helps pull you into a sitting position and you reluctantly lower your hands. Eddie looked just as good as he always did. Simply looking at him made your heart thump wildly and your head spin- no wait, that was absolutely the alcohol. You groaned and closed your eyes, laying your forehead on his shoulder. "Oh Sweetheart, you're drunker then a skunk, aren't ya?" You whine back, "Not a skunk. If anyone is it's you."

You can feel Eddie's shoulder shake as he laughs. You can't help but smile at it. "You saying i smell?" Eddie asks, nose wrinkled from smiling so wide. You pull back to look at him slightly. "What if I am?" You poke his side causing him to jolt back. Eddie was always ticklish on his ribs. Eddie bats your hand away," I'll have you know i smell wonderfully." You hum again leaning your head back against Eddie's shoulder. You exaggerated inhale makes him smile. "Yeah, you smell alright i guess."

Eddie rolls his eyes at your teasing. You pull back and grin up at him. "You're so pretty." You murmur, looking into his deep brown eyes. They seem to widen slightly as his face flushes, a dopey grin on his face. "Yeah? You are too-" "Not as pretty as you!" You cut him off and smush his face with your hands. His lips jut out slightly and he sets his hands on yours. You give him a quick kiss on the lips before kissing his nose. "So pretty. The prettiest." The joy in Eddie's eyes is evident as he pulls your hands from his face. He gives you a quick kiss on the forehead, knowing arguing with you right now is futile.

He slowly stands, hands steadily holding onto you and helping you up. "Did you get hurt?" Eddie calmly asks, checking you out over. "Think i broke my ass." You grumble shifting your weight slightly, feeling tenderness in your glute. "No!" Eddie gasps dramatically," do you have a crack in it?" You frown at Eddie," That joke wasn't funny the first time you said it." Eddie snickers to himself.

You realize you're still holding onto him and let go, stumbling back slightly. Not that there is anything wrong with holding your boyfriend's hand, but drunk you doesn't seem to think that. Eddie's hands dart out to catch you in case you fall. "I'm fine!" You swat his hands away and turn to look back at the house. "You got-" Eddie cuts his sentence off. You can feel his hand brush something off your butt. "If you wanted to grab my ass you could just ask." You bend forward slightly and shimmy your hips at him.

Eddie groans slightly at the sight before clearing his throat and saying," Yeah no, you're definitely drunk." "Am not." "Yeah you are." "Mmm nope" you pop the p sound as you start to walk stumble towards the house. "Whoa okay hold on," Eddie rushes after you.

You can feel his hands on your waist and guide you towards the street, not the house. "Let's get you home," Eddie mumbles more to himself then you. Typically, you'd put up more of a fight. But your head was pounding and your arms felt like lead. Each step took a ton of effort. It felt like you had jumped in the lake with all your clothes on and were being dragged down by them.

Eddie guides you to his van and opens the passenger door. Eddie tries to get you to go in when it clicks that you left Robin behind. "Bobbie!" You push away from Eddie and look at the house," I left her and she and i..." Eddie's brow furrows slightly before looking back at the house. "Not leaving without her." You cross your arms and glare at Eddie. Well, one of them. "I'll go get her, can you just get in and wait?"

You mull it over. Waiting meant you could sit. Maybe do that trick Wayne does- resting his eyes. The more you thought it over the more pleasant it sounded. You nod and clamber into the vehicle. Eddie gently shuts the door after you. You watch him in the side mirror head back towards the house.

Yes, Wayne had a good idea. You close your eyes and sigh. Practically melting into the seats. Your bones feel like jello now. The buzzing in your head a beautiful white noise. Yeah, this was a great idea.

You startle awake at the sound of a door opening. You glance back and see Robin being corralled into the van with Vickie (when did Vickie get there you have no clue but that must be who Robin was with). Both of the girls are giggling and talking to each other, Robin overly loud without realizing how loud she was being. Vickie mumbling half the time in response. But they seemed to be having a great time, making you smile.. The doors slam shut and a few seconds later Eddie throws his door open.

He huffs before getting into the car, " like coralling a bunch of cats. You get one to follow and the other goes the opposite way." Eddie shakes his head, curls bouncing. You blink slowly at him before smiling. Eddie glances at you and grins. You hum closing your eyes again. "You going to sleep on me?" You hear him ask. "You'd know if I was sleeping with you."

Eddie snorts and laughs as the car takes off. You aren't sure what he found so funny. "I definitely would know that Sweetheart." You hum in response. "Go to sleep, I'll keep ya safe." "Not sleeping," you mumble falling asleep," just resting my eyes like Wayne." You hear Eddie chuckle as you drift off, feeling comfortable and safe with him.

am i just so far gone with these two that i can barely correctly comprehend anything they do toward eachother as normal casual interaction anymore or was this actually topher being worried about abe

So, after season one, Nancy and Steve don't get back together for like a month, right? Okay, what if they reconciled by Steve approaching her and telling her that he wanted to give her space, that he didn't want to push her, but he wanted to make sure she was alright after Barb. He told her how he wished he had gotten to know her, and if she was up for it, then maybe she could tell him about Barb. I have a hard time believing that no one acknowledged Nancy and her grief for Barb. (I mean, did Hopper even think to check on her?) To me, I think that this would explain why she was holding on to Steve for so long even though she had feelings for someone else. In her darkest moment, Steve was so sweet to her. Jonathan was busy with his own family, and that's understandable, but you're telling me that he couldn't pick up the phone? I think it's also why Steve went to the dinners because he did feel guilty, and he did feel guilty about not getting to know Barb. I think if she and Jonathan hadn't gotten together in that moment, then she would have found her way to actually talk to Steve about Barb to get closure. It's one of the things that annoys me about Jancy. That and the photographs. I wish they had written Jonathan better. Anyway, I just wonder how they reconciled after that month, and I think this is it.

4x01 | 30 Days Without an Accident

the way the ericson group were at the outbreak just a bunch of troubled kids who made various mistakes or committed crimes and were judged by a system that punished and abandoned them instead of giving them the support and love they needed, are then nearly a decade later put into a situation where now they must judge a troubled child for the mistakes and crimes hes committed against them. and 5 to 3 vote them out 😭

“You made him this way. When you had him empty an entire clip into that woman's head!” james… girl… aj is a five y.o. with a gun in a world with no laws. five year olds do not have morals and have barely passable object permanence. i think most people at five would’ve killed someone. death is just as common to him as a tuesday. the real moral conundrum is that there are people trying to kidnap children. james. kidnapping children to make them fight in a war. james. thats called slavery and human trafficking. JAMES.

one thing about the tma & tmp writers is I know they understand having a job where the social vibes are incredibly strange. I appreciate their commitment to depicting work environments that are so unnecessarily stressful where everyone is trying to backstab everyone and form alliances but meanwhile it's just filing items on a computer. The petty drama feels very true to life

I will say one of the funniest things ever is that I was figuring Callum to be less devotional than canon has actually made him in arc 2, purely because I always figured that if Rayla kept pulling her self sacrificial bullshit (see numerous instances in s4) Callum would eventually be like "I can't do/love you like this anymore" and leave out of self preservation, and then 4x09's "I know" came along and said no, he would never actually leave her over this, and that's fucking insane to me but I love that for him

Begging people to realise tma's themes of agency and control extend to characters other than Jon