God, Luz doesn’t even know about Eda’s arm...

Season 2, Episode 8 Post-blog:

So I did not liveblog this episode since I had friends over to do a watch party, but here's everything I remembered that I wanted to talk about!

As far as I can tell, the two Seanchan sul'dam that got collared are not going to be found with the collar on them. (Not sure if Renna is dead or if Egwene chose to uncollar her, but either way she's not chained up in a basement with the collar on waiting to be discovered by her peers.) I was thinking at first that this had major implications for the rest of the Seanchan storyline. But really, it only has implications for Suroth, since in the books Suroth (and Alwhin, who is already her Voice in the show) sit on the information until Egeanin discovers it separately. Egeanin can still be the first Seanchan to know and do anything about it. I do think this lack of a dangling thread, Suroth's ship being blown up, and the way it's hard to get actors to come back seasons later make it more likely we've seen the last of Suroth. I would be happy to eat my words, though! Also, Egwene, Nyneave, and Elayne all know you can collar a sul'dam, and possibly Mat, Rand, and Perrin will soon as well if anyone remembers to communicate this information, so any one of them could spill the beans.

Major props to whoever hypothesized that Uno would be a Hero of the Horn; not sure if he's implied to be Gaidal Cain or not (possibly not? there was a blink-and-I-missed it moment of PDA between Birgitte and somebody but I am not sure if it was Uno or not).

I did not anticipate Mat making an ashandarai out of household objects and the dagger and I am EXTREMELY PROUD of him. Also proud of him for escaping traps! My boy is really coming into his own! I also really appreciate the classic blunder of doing the same thing to Mat again but worse- the Dark does not understand that my boy thrives when you do that. He solves his problems by escalating them in intensity or magnitude. You can only put him in a room with drugs once, if you put him in a room with drugs again he will use them in an unconventional manner to escape and also destroy his enemies.

Also props to whoever guessed that the Horn would trigger memories for Mat- I'm intrigued by where they are going with this. I hope it's not precluding the Aelfinn and Eelfinn, but given all the hanging foreshadowing, the makeshift ashandarai, and Lanfear yeeting Moiraine out of the waygate doorway, I don't really think they'd cut the Eelfinn. It's the Aelfinn that seem slightly less like a sure thing, and I'm going to be a little on edge until Mat gets the DotNM prophecy somehow. I don't think they'd cut the problematic fave; it's a juicy part, idk what Mat would even do if he weren't babysitting the Seanchan in the later plot, and they've been doing great with the 'you're wrong but I see where you're coming from' characters. But they've either cut or significantly changed the Moiraine/Thom relationship in the show, and the two relationships are kind of linked in my head for thematic reasons. I'm probably overthinking it though.

HOPPER T_T

Dain looked like a boy band member who fell off the stage and got trampled in the mosh pit.

Loved that Egwene got to face off against Ishamael! Loved Egwene all the time forever actually. I was also entertained that Egwene had like one semester of Magic College and used it to school the Seanchan on linking mechanics. She's right that the sul'dam don't know how to link properly and are weak little babies when it comes to channeling, and she should say it.

Nyneave and Elayne were great, as usual- very impressed with Elayne, who is finally living all her Battle Queen fantasies and is being very brave about how much they suck, actually. Nyneave is in for some self-loathing next season though, I'm afraid. I love that Rand and Elayne still get to have a meet-cute when she's treating his wounds. :P

I was very happy for Tumblr User Moghedien that we got to see Forsaken Moghedien. She's offputting and very gay, just like I imagined!

a couple of people have asked me what i thought of 6x09! i was wary of posting about it because i don’t want to seem like i’m dismissing anyone who felt disappointed or betrayed by the episode. those feelings are real and i’m never going to argue with how someone really feels. so i don’t mean any of this as an argument, just as some thoughts from someone who’s thought about these two and their relationship a whole awful lot.

but i really loved the episode! i loved it so much i’m, like, burning with giddy excitement for whatever’s coming up. i have NO idea. bring it the fuck on.

i love how it clicks into the show. we’ve had six seasons of self reinvention and self immolation (sorry chuck). jimmy selling himself and then violently loathing the version of himself that people have bought (hello, neff copiers). it all clicks so perfectly into this kim who looks at herself and the death around her and the fact that she (per rhea) was ready to kill, that her only option with to shoot an unknown man? and so she decides to rip herself out of her body and her life and everything around her. another clean slate.

(i wanted to say “to start fresh” but i don’t even know if it goes that far -- it’s just the only way she can carry on. this feels so true and faithful to her character, to me. she’s not soulless. neither of them are.)

i also have always been obsessed with the juicy drama of hollow shell saul, and i’m glad we got it! not to say i wouldn’t have been happy with alternatives, too, but. oh boy. he’s plastering the town in billboards. he’s making his radio commercials louder and louder and louder. he’s screaming in there.

he’s drowning himself in kim’s invention.

i always felt sure kim and jimmy were going to break up, and i’m glad it happened here. this lets the repercussions ripple through the story, lets sun set for the various dark nights of the soul.

and then... i hate speculating. i refuse to do it, famously, ask anyone. but the little voice in my head that hopes for the more reconciliation-leaning ending is that much happier, now.

i keep thinking about everything bob's been saying about sometimes people learning the right lessons and healing and like.... this feels like such a step on the path for that ultimate goal, to me. it just clicks in so narratively well. burning everything back to nothing and then seeing what could grow.

Ranking Every SPN Season Finale

15) 11.23 Alpha and Omega. Dead last because not only is Chuck and Amara’s conflict defanged with a frankly silly anticlimax, but a lot of runtime is eaten up with establishing Lady Toni getting on a plane. The great weakness of an otherwise very strong season is that none of the awful compromises Sam and Dean and Cas made (especially Sam wrt Lucifer) ended up having relevance at all.

14) 9.23 Do You Believe In Miracles. Cheesy dying dialogue, Metatron hamming it up for way too long, that facepalming “the radio was on the whole! time!” twist, uncertainty as to the motivation of the whole confrontation that ends in Dean’s death. Also, this is the beginning of the end of walking back the beautiful work the rest of s9 established, with Sam saying things like “I lied.” I don’t like Dean’s death here at all, in staging, or conceptually, or thematically.

13) 12.23 All Along The Watchtower. I am basically obliged to put this in C tier because it is quite silly, but frankly, I like it more than its ranking deserves. It has the late season finale sin of cramming in an introduction to next season’s conflict in the middle of wrapping up this season’s—but it’s absolutely hilarious that they brought in multiverse portals. And for Sam and Dean, thank god the portal appeared, because otherwise they had absolutely no plan whatsoever to deal with Lucifer, and they probably would have died gruesomely. High points: Sam discovering Rowena’s death on the phone with Lucifer; the spooky introduction of Jack, the raised stakes with Mary trapped with Lucifer. Lowest point: the utter silly pointlessness of Cas’s death.

12) 10.23 Brother’s Keeper. This is the finale that I have the strongest mixed feelings about. There is a queasy lack of self-awareness in the treacly sentiment when Sam presents family photos as evidence of Dean’s goodness. The excuse of MOC!Dean as not the “real” Dean allows for the reasons behind this confrontation to be elided, even as its themes are echoed again and again. The chilling horror of Sam on his knees in front of Dean the executioner is potent and darkly enjoyable, but the instant redirection into attacking Death prevents any kind of real culmination. I can’t decide if I like this episode or loathe it, but I do think I appreciate it more now, after 14.20 and 15.17, than I did when it aired. 

11) 7.23 Survival of the Fittest. We’re on to B-tier! There’s nothing significantly wrong with 7.23. Meg crashes the Impala through a glass sign, so that’s fun. Kevin’s there. There’s action, there’s some cool stakes for next season established, Sam is left alone, which I love. The main sin here is just that most of it is fairly forgettable, because the strongest part of s7 was always the psychological drama of the Winchesters’ disintegration and isolation, not the physical conflict with Leviathans.

10) 14.20 Moriah. Lots of my points about 10.23 apply here, but Moriah is a much better episode, both because there is actual conflict of opinion, and because there is a lot more built-in uncertainty about Jack’s fate than Sam’s. Jack and Dean are onboard with Jack’s murder, just as Sam and Dean were agreed on Sam’s death in 10.23, but this time Cas is staunchly against it, and Sam is on the fence, torn as to how to intervene. So it’s much better drama. But then the crux of the issue gets defanged by Chuck’s reveal. Great s15 setup, but kicks the 14.17-14.19 build down the road. Extra points for Sam shooting God. 

9) 13.23 Let the Good Times Roll. I fucking love the 13.21-13.23 arc. The only thing preventing 13.23 from being A-tier are some wholly avoidable mistakes. The staging is silly; a face-palming amount of time was wasted on Maggie; the wires were a deeply regrettable choice. But even with all that, what we got was great, actually! The Sam-Jack-Lucifer church custody battle is still my favorite goddamn thing. Dean saying yes to Michael was both his only smart move and a devastating sacrifice. The character dynamics here are so JUICY. 13.21-14.01 is, IMO, one of the most fertile grounds for fic and speculation in the entire show.

8) 2.22 All Hell Breaks Loose, Part Two. Now we’re into finales that are fantastic without reservation. Off the devastation of Sam’s death comes Dean’s iconic deal. The actual confrontation in the graveyard is good too, though it’s second to the way we’re all reeling from part one. Azazel dies, Sam and Dean are bloodied and facing down new stakes. The only thing I dislike about this episode is John’s cameo.

7) 1.22 Devil’s Trap. This is the episode that ups the ante! Azazel in John, and Dean, and Sam, and the delicious family dynamic here; the stakes are so personal, and it’s a great examination what each of them is willing to pay for their quest: an electrifying taste of what’s to come. And the music, and the sheer fucking balls of just, crashing a goddamn truck into your main characters at the end of the first season. Nice.

6) 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked. Lilith is delightfully evil. We’re on tenterhooks for Sam to save Dean, we’re narratively primed to expect him to pull off something amazing, a last-minute miracle. But—nope! Sorry! Dean gets graphically ripped apart onscreen and now he’s being tortured in Hell! Shocking and bold, and a crucial turning point in the series. 

5) 4.22 Lucifer Rising. Fresh off 4.21 comes an excellent culmination of season 4′s devastation. The reveals from both Ruby and the angels, Sam draining the possessed nurse, Cas at last choosing to betray Heaven, and the final arrival of Lucifer: it all just works, really well. 

4) 15.20 Carry On. Part of the reason I’m ranking this so highly might be spite. But goddammit, bad wig and worse Carry On cover aside, this is a good episode, and a really, really good series finale! The deliberate anticlimax of Dean’s death, the quiet strength in Sam’s grief, the untroubled, unrushed pacing of Sam’s recovery and aging, and Dean’s drive. Supernatural said Sam Rights, and I wept like a tiny little baby. 

3) 6.22 The Man Who Knew Too Much. Adventures in Sam’s mind! Cas and Crowley and Raphael and the double cross! The taste of cosmic horror! The end of season 6 and beginning of season 7, as Sam and Dean cope simultaneously with Sam’s psychological fallout and the consequences of their most powerful ally going off the rails, is fantastic. I love the literalism and the symbolism of Sam’s reintegration: this is an unapologetically Sam episode (as are the other top four, come to think of it). 

2) 8.23 Sacrifice. Sam’s heartbreaking deterioration in the church and Crowley’s disintegration are an electrifying climax to the trials. Dean and Sam’s final exchange is a breathtaking combination of raw emotion and delirium and a fascinating guilt trip. It’s a visually and conceptually stunning episode: the angels fall burning against a night sky; Sam surrenders the trials and collapses, dying. 

1) 5.22 Swan Song. You knew this would be number one, I knew this would be number one, we all knew this would be number one. It’s iconic for a reason. Sam and Lucifer talking through a mirror; the loss of all hope and the sky-high stakes. Stull Cemetery is the defining moment of so, so much of the rest of the series. Dean’s loyalty gives Sam the strength he needs to bury himself alive forever with his worst nightmare, and it saves the world, and it’s the highest cost either of them has ever paid.  

I got two different Asks about my headcanons for Wu and one of them was from like a week and a half ago, sorry about that, Anon! It’s been A Week. I’ll just answer this way, it’s easier than trying to cobble together two separate asks.

In any case, yes, I can give a sort of quick and dirty reference to Wu as I’ve written him in my fanfic. I don’t generally like doing this kind of thing but I get that people don’t want to dive in without at least a little bit of a clue as to how I see him. But I want to note that my first fic, Please Excuse My Penmanship, was written right after the show’s final episode in December of 2014 (I sat on it for two months before publishing it) and because of that it is not comic-compliant nor does it reference any sort of Word of God things that Bryke said after the show ended/on the DVD commentary.

I’ve been writing this utter behemoth of collected fics for over five years now and have done so.much.research. (Some of the history from Imperial China, for example, was so juicy that I wholeheartedly stole it and worked it into my fic.) My fic has fluff, it has angst, it has found family, it has slowly revealed backstory, it has politics, queer characters, neurodiverse characters, disabled characters, oh and a good half of it is focused on the Beifong family, so there’s them, too.

What my fic isn’t, however, is a crackship. I take it seriously; probably too seriously for someone who just wants a quick fun read on their phone between classes. So that’s good to know before diving in. 

Also, much of it is written in first person via Wu’s diaries. Some of you will probably just scroll right past this entire post now because of that but I’ll say this much: I’ve gotten, over the years, a great deal of comments from people telling me they normally loathe first person but loved Wu’s. So. It’s probably worth a try. In my not so humble author’s opinion.

With all that said - here he is!

Wu was born in the autumn of 156 (making him 4 years younger than Mako). His paternal grandfather was King Kuei’s son by his queen (making him a full-blood younger brother to Wu’s great-aunt). His paternal grandmother was a kitchen maid who was given consort status after her son was born. Both of Wu’s grandparents died before he was born. Wu’s father was the only royal of his generation to make it to adulthood and he was assassinated when Wu was five years old. Wu saw very little of him and has very few memories of him. 

Wu’s mother was a very high-ranking nobleman’s daughter whose estate was near Gaoling. She had much older parents and was an only child. (Through her Wu is very distantly related to the Beifongs and also to the Northern Water Tribe’s royal family. The premise being here is that all of the nobility around the world is related if you go far back enough.) She dies two days after Wu is born. She was very, very wealthy (like Bezos level wealthy) and Queen Hou-Ting sees to it that all of that wealth is taken care of in trust for Wu and it is still his even after the fall of Ba Sing Se.

Wu is Hou-Ting’s only direct heir and is raised in the Palace at Ba Sing Se. He has an extremely strict childhood (he never leaves the Upper Ring and only very rarely leaves the palace itself) and while he is extremely well-educated has very little contact with the outside world, much as his great-grandfather Kuei did.

When Hou-Ting is assassinated by the Red Lotus Wu is fifteen; he is rushed out of Ba Sing Se to the safety of Republic City, where he is mostly left on his own and goes to utter and complete pieces. He goes through several bodyguards before he is assigned Mako; by that time he is sixteen, has cut of his traditional queue, only wears modern suits, spends money like water, and watches every single mover/reads every single cheap novel/listens to the radio non-stop - which is where he learns all of that slang. He has zero social skills that do not involve him ruling a nation (which he is terrified to do). His weirdass behavior during Season 4 of TLOK is explained by his not having the first clue as to how real people live and thinking that he can learn by watching movers and reading romance novels. (We all know how that goes for him.)

He is an extremely self-centered person but not a selfish one; he also has a terrific crush on Mako that he has absolutely no idea how to handle due to inexperience. 

NOTE: I have not written homophobia into my version of this universe and so there is no coming out angst for any of my characters, canon or OC. There are no coming out stories at all, in fact. Many of my characters (canon and OC) are queer and I am very matter of fact about it; gay marriage is legal, polyamory is legal (although not necessarily practiced everywhere), trans people openly exist and it is simply par for the course.

By the time Wu leaves for Ba Sing Se to dismantle the monarchy he is just about to turn nineteen; it will take him two years to put provincial governments in place with an entire cadre of advisors and abdicate. He dislikes Ba Sing Se and recognizes that if he stays he will be under constant pressure to rule in one form or another, so he relocates to Republic City for good. (Mako does have something to do with where he relocates, but Wu wasn’t planning on sticking around regardless.) Many, many people are unhappy with him dismantling the monarchy and there’s a lot of political stuff in my fic regarding the Royalists.

Wu and Mako do get married. Eventually they will have four children together and Wu will have another spouse. (This is common among nobility in the former Earth Kingdom and is expected; it is not illegal in Republic City but isn’t the norm among the natives.) He buys Toph Beifong’s old mansion from Lin (her parents built it for Toph when she was pregnant with Lin but it has been sitting empty since Toph left Republic City) and remodels it and that’s where they live.

In my fic Wu has very curly hair that he pomades within an inch of its life (I’ve been loving all the fanart going around now where his hair curls!!) and he whines about it a lot. He is a very finicky eater and never really gets over bossing people around. He does a lot of charity work and is on all of The Best Committees. He’s an extrovert who loves parties and hosts a lot of them. He has ADHD and suffers from PTSD and writes and publishes very popular romance novels under a penname for several years before his family finds out about it. He will make an effort to cut the slang out of his speech and will eventually go back to sounding like a very well educated royal. He gets real pissy if people refer to him as “your Majesty” instead of “Your Highness” since he abdicated. He has zero idea how money works (and never will) but is known to bribe the fuck out of people to get what he wants (something that will give his husband gray hair). He does not hold himself accountable to anyone or anything and that will never really change for him. He mostly gets away with it because he does have a lot of charm for a dude who believes that he’s above everyone else.

He is a fairly unreliable narrator, bless his skinny little ass.

His best friend is Huan Beifong, and you’ll just have to read the fic to find out about that.

My pissy Wu can best be summed up by this gif of Prince:

Hi. I need ur help. Is Dean mad at Cas, at God for making Cas "responsible for a failed mission that ended with a sad brother/kind of kid to Dean, bc he questions reality and his love for Cas ... or rather both? I'm a little bit confused after having read so much meta all at once.

Hi! I think you are confused because... it’s everything at once! I think Dean is feeling many things right now, and not all of those things have a good outlet or way to be dealt with, so they are directed somewhere else and become messy.

Dean is, at any given moment of his life since he was a child, angry at himself. That’s the inevitable result of a father that made him feel inadequate, by dropping responsibilities on his little shoulders that were too big for him and inevitably he couldn’t live up to. He has made important steps to deal with those issues--that’s the point of the scene with him saying that it wasn’t fair that he had to be mother and father to Sam--but a lifetime of being made feel inadequate don’t disappear with a snap of your fingers. Especially because it wasn’t just his father dropping huge responsibility after huge responsibility on him (remember when he literally dropped the responsibility of possibly having to kill Sam, the kid he raised as his own child, and then died?) but it was a much bigger game. God dropped the responsibility of the entire world on him over and over. Apocalypse after apocalypse, Lucifer, Eve, Leviathan, Michael, soulless Jack, but also the regular monsters, a never-ending string of situations where the responsibility for the lives of many other people, strangers and loved ones both (in fact sometimes it’s a Sophie’s choice!).

It’s not surprising that he developed feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing so big you can see them from space. The poor guy feels that he’s not good enough for anything, especially not good enough to be loved, not good enough for someone to stay with him. He feels that everyone will inevitably abandon him because why would they stick around? He’s trash. Even worse, he’s poison, he ruins everything he touches, everyone he gets close to.

The intensity of these feelings vary depending on how hard the circumstances are on his mental state, sometimes it’s better sometimes it’s worse. I think some fans expect him to “get better” in a linear fashion, but mental health does not work as a straight line; there are ups and downs, and when sometimes renews your trauma, you just fall back in the mechanisms of your trauma. It’s unreasonable to say things like “he should have learnt by now”--that’s not how trauma works. You get better when you are not actively exposed to trauma. Renewed trauma means going back.

So we have identified the first thing Dean is angry at, himself. Of course, hating yourself is very vexing on your mental health, and it is in fact healthier to transfer the anger and disappointment from yourself to someone else, as it prevent you from being crushed under the weight of self-loathing and guilt.

Then there’s the figures in position of power that have dropped the various responsibilities on Dean’s shoulders. First, John and Mary. Mary is a particular case because of course Dean never actually blamed her for dying, and even when he learnt about her deal with Azazel he knew that she was just a pawn in a cosmic-level game, and of course it’s not like she decided to make the deal and die for fun. But when Mary returned and her behavior shattered Dean’s life-long image of her, feeding his feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing because it felt like he wasn’t even worth for his own mother to stay with him, that fused together with an irrational sense of abandonment that came with the loss and forever left a mark in his little four-year-old brain.

I think the scene where Dean confronted Mary at the end of the season was about this: a need to outsource the blame and self-hatred, and Mary was the figure that catalyzed so many emotions since his early childhood, love and loss and joy that was robbed away from him and such profound pain that came with her disappearance from his life, to the point that when she returned and shattered his image of her, he found himself with so many extreme emotions about her.

And now John. Alright, I’m digressing big time so I’ll keep John short, everyone and their grandmother have written essays on Dean’s relationship with John and it’s not particularly relevant here, save for the fact that John is dead and Dean has never really had the chance to confront him. Even when he temporarily came back thanks to the magic pearl, circumstances were... suspiciously too apt for Dean to approach the father figure in a positive way (I’m convinced that it was all a very precise machination by Chuck to make Dean well-disposed towards him, basically). Dean was in a high, and he was in a mental state where he did not need to make that emotional outsourcing on John. Mary and John met again, then trouble happened, that they had to say goodbye and it was highly emotional and obviously left no space for emotional outsourcing. Result, Dean has no way to really bounce all that negative stuff back on John. John was just a ghost from the past, really, and ghosts from the past don’t really serve any substantial purpose.

And now to the juicy part--Chuck. Dean started out his journey believing that God didn’t exist. His reasoning was a classic argument of atheism: a lot of terrible evil exists, and if God exists he either isn’t omnipotent (then what kind of God is he??) or doesn’t care, or he’s malevolent, and those options don’t go well with the idea of God Dean would have been exposed to as a person growing in a primarily Christian environment like the US.

Then he learns that God exists, but he doesn’t care. He’s left, and now everyone else--angels, humans, demons--is supposedly left dealing with a godless world. That doesn’t really come as a shock to Dean; for Cas it’s shocking, because he believed that God cared. For Dean, the jump is just from a non-existing God to an absent God, and that doesn’t change much for him. Furthermore, he’s not exactly foreign to the concept of shitty father figures who dump you on your own in a shitty world.

The shock comes now. For Cas, ironically, there’s no shock now, because he experienced that shock of being angry and disappointed towards God years ago. Now he makes the jump from a shitty disappointing God to... a shitty disappointing God, just in a different way.

Dean goes from a God that isn’t around, that leaves you alone dealing with the shittiness of the world... to a God that has been there all along, manipulating everything. Dean could deal with a God that is what Chuck pretended to be when he reappeared in season 11, when Chuck gave him the speech about leaving his creatures find their own way, parenting-versus-enabling; that was a painful perspective but it made sense, and Dean could accept it. But when Chuck revealed himself to be the mastermind behind everything, an actual capricious author who uses them as pawns for his entertainment... that’s a blow. A very, very big blow.

Chuck had played a very specific game on Dean. He presented himself as a father who did the right thing for his “baby”, albeit the difficult one. He explained that he realized that a hands-off parenting was healthier for his creatures, that being present in their lives wasn’t parenting but enabling... He sold Dean a picture where being an absent father does the child good. (And later had Dean briefly meet John again to feed him a romanticized impression of his figure and his relationship with his family... talk about yikes!)

Dean had fought tooth-and-nail to affirm his free will against the machinations of angels, he strongly believed in that against the idea of destiny. And Chuck presented himself as the good guy, who gave them their free will, while his bad, bad sister Amara wanted to take that away from them. And now the truth comes out. Chuck was never the hands-off parent that distanced himself for the good of his creatures. He was an author (authors lie...) who just played with them for his selfish reasons.

Dean’s own sense of what reality is has shattered. That is generally not good on a person’s mental health. So, yeah, Dean is not in a good mental place.

So Dean now is angry at God. Rightly so. But God, by definition, is not there to confront. (Dean thought he had confronted him once and God just fed him manipulative lies, so it’s not like he hopes to have a nice honest chat with him). Furthermore, Dean, Sam and Cas currently believe that Chuck has actually left the building this time. They think that Chuck’s “welcome to the end” meant that he just slapped an ending on this iteration of the story and fucked off to write another one, create another universe. They are convinced that they are actually living in a post-Chuck world, like the apocalyptic wasteland universe.

I also think that Dean hasn’t realized that Chuck’s ending isn’t really the ghostpocalypse, but also, and especially, ruining their relationships, and their mental health basically. The ghostpocalypse is just the smokescreen (c’mon, like the Winchesters would perish against a bunch of ghosts and demons from hell, been there done that) and the true ending he’s orchestrated out of pettiness and spite is breaking them, breaking their relationships. Sam loses Rowena; Jack’s death and all that jazz definitively drives Cas and Dean apart.

But let’s go back to Dean’s anger and shock and frustration. He could drive it all towards himself, and just get crushed under the weight of it all; he can’t drive it all at God, because he bailed; so he directs it towards the one person closest to him that he truly feels like an equal.

Dean has been directing anger towards Cas since Mary’s death, in my opinion, because Cas is the safest outlet for the horrifying vortex of guilt, self-loathing and abysmal self-worth that something as traumatic as losing Mary (again--remember what I said about renewed trauma not being something you learn to deal with but something that reopens wounds and possibly makes them worse?) and seeing Jack no longer himself, essentially losing him to an even more terrifying destiny than mere death, must have caused.

It’s like Dean trusts Cas so much that he subconsciously feels safe using him as an emotional outlet/scapegoat... and now that safety gets shattered again because Cas rightly puts some distance between them (as I believe it’s a healthy choice given the situation, although not dictated by the right motivations in Cas--I guess it’s something like using the wrong formula but getting the right result, because right now staying together is not healthy... like, the healthiest thing would be getting a fuckton of therapy, but that’s not in the cards I guess) but Dean’s traumatized psyche will register it as a confirmation of that lifetime-long conviction that he’s not worth to be loved, that he’s not worth for anyone to stay.

Cas’ biggest fear is that Dean won’t ask him to stay with him, Dean’s biggest fear is that Cas will leave him--ta-da, their worst fears just became true! Of course, Dean doesn’t insist Cas stays not because he doesn’t care but basically because he cares too much, and Cas leaves because he thinks Dean doesn’t care...

But let’s get back on track. Is Dean angry at Cas? Yes. Is Dean really angry at Cas? Eh. What is this anger really? It’s a defense mechanism. It’s pretty much the alternative to just shatter. It’s a survival mechanism, shattering would be really bad for his survival perspectives. So he uses a trusted, close figure as a scapegoat for what is a huge mess of emotions. (Not Sam, he goes into parental mode with Sam, it’s known, it’s safe, it works.)

Rowena’s death just adds more meat to the fire, because she meant something to Dean himself and also because Sam is truly heartbroken about it. I don’t think that Dean doesn’t understand the circumstances of Cas’ choices, but rationality here has very little grip. It’s been just a few days since Mary’s death, and not really much longer since Michael escaped and Jack sacrificed his soul, and let’s not forget that Dean has basically been in a state of severe ongoing trauma ever since Michael possessed him, tricked him into believing he was free (Chuck mirror alert!) and violated his mind repeatedly, completely manipulated his perceptions, and then pretty much destroyed his family.

Dean’s mind has been tortured by Michael and immediately next, with zero time to breathe, tortured again by Chuck’s manipulations and revelation that shattered Dean’s sense of reality--a sense of reality that had already been shaken because of Michael’s tricks, and now he just finds out that the reality he anchored himself to... is also a manipulation. There’s no reality he can anchor himself to, or at least that is how he feels right now. His psyche has suffered some heavy blows, and no speech from Cas about them being “real” can currently heal the damage. For Dean, this isn’t a matter of what Chuck has done or not; it’s just an aggravation of a state of attack his mind was already in.

This post has gotten a bit long XD I hope it could help you get a better idea of Dean’s mental state (granted that this is merely the way I see what the show is doing, no one is forced to agree with me!) and feel free to ask for any further clarification or argument!

Dancing With the Devil

Ships: AusHun, PruHun; PruAus of some king if you squint

Characters: Austria, Prussia, Hungary, Maria Theresa, Frederick the Great, Britain; mentioned Russia and France

Summary: To bring some joy back to Vienna after the Second Silesian War and win more allies, Austria and Maria Theresa decide to throw a ball. They also convince themselves that inviting Prussia will lead to only his humiliation, but he has a plan of his own.

 April 1746, Vienna.

Humiliated. Austria had been humiliated by an upstart kingdom taking control of one of his richest provinces. Ever since the ink on the treaty dried where he was forced to recognize this coup by Prussia, he’d been working furiously to secure some sort of alliance with the others. Britain, that traitor, couldn’t be counted on. He harrumphed, scribbling out letters to France and Russia. Unscrupulous bastards, how he loathed that he must turn to them. But, he supposed, beggars can’t be choosers…

“Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?” He snapped, hearing the door to his office open. He didn’t remove his eyes from his work.

A soft clicking of the tongue. “Now, Roderich. Is that the way to properly greet your sovereign?” Maria Theresa glided into the room, smiling faintly. “You can’t let the barbarians steal your manners too.”

He stood, bowed, and kissed her hand. A quick rectification. “My apologies, your majesty. I assumed you were someone else.” He moved to sit again only once she had, intently following royal protocol now. “I’m sure you share my frustrations.”

“Naturally. Which is why I believe we need something to look forward to, to bring some joy back into these halls.” She sighed dramatically. “These last eight years have been marred by misery. We’re to throw a ball next month. I miss dancing and we can show the ambassadors that we haven’t been hampered in the slightest by recent events.”

“Well, if it’s for diplomatic purposes then I can hardly be opposed to it.” Roderich would be lying if he pretended that the concept upset him completely. He’d been out campaigning for so long that he missed most of the ball seasons over the last few years. It would be nice to don the clothes an aristocrat and catch up on the latest gossip with his equals instead of galloping around the countryside with undisciplined commoners. “I suppose you want me to get working on a guest list now?”

“That’s why I’m here. I wished to help you craft this one.” She waited for him to ready himself with a fresh piece of paper. “The Russian and French delegations are a must and they need to be given all the works. Showing the Swedes a proper respect would be advisable as well. If you find it won’t be too hard on you, I would like the Spaniards to come.” She noticed him roll his eyes and chuckled. “I’m trying to be courteous. Oh, right! The Saxons should be welcomed. As should the Bavarians and any of the smaller states you think could provide us with something beneficial.”

“Is that all? No Britain?”

She tapped a finger to her chin, mulling it over. “Send them an invitation a little less than a day before. Shows them our displeasure but isn’t too unreasonable. Now, that’s all squared away. There was something you were telling me.”

“I was?” Roderich slipped the paper in the top drawer of his desk. He racked his mind for whatever she meant. “Would you please tell me what, exactly, I was saying?”

“Before he invaded Bohemia, you were filling me in on all the others of your kind. Letting me know all the gossip and news surrounding them.” Maria Theresa fiddled with one of her rings, reminding Austria of when she was a child. “You filled me in on everyone else in the empire except our little nuisance.”

“I told you everything there is to know about Brandenburg. He’s not a complicated character.” He knew exactly who she was angling for, but he would play the fool. He’d spent too much of his thoughts on that damn creature, he was haunted by him every waking moment now. But his queen was giving him such a look, it became impossible to keep his resolve. Austria sighed, defeated. “What do you care to know about Prussia?”

“Oh, stop playing like this! I want to know everything there is!” She noticed his pained expression and laughed. “Come on, Roderich dear. Wouldn’t it be a joy to use everything we have against him? We’re working the presses hard to print out every nasty rumor about his king. Why not go after both of them?”

There was something he could go along with. In fact, Roderich was willing to wager that it might actually be enjoyable. This was a war he could easily win. He made himself comfortable in his chair, a smile breaking free. “What isn’t there to say about him? He’s vile, he’s garish, and completely uncouth. Ever since we were children his only concern has been killing things – bugs, pagans, heretics. Now, lucky me, he wants to kill Austrians.” He licked his lips, remembering a juicy tidbit. “His crusading is rather humorous considering how often he was sent to the pyre. He’s always looked demonic. If you spend your days around zealots with that appearance, you get what you asked for.” He smiled wistfully. “He did make good cinder though.”

“Roderich, that makes him pitiable.” Maria Theresa wrinkled her nose, imagining the smell of burning flesh. “Please, talk about anything else.”

“My apologies, I got lost in the good times.” He noticed her horrified look. “He’s still alive! And we were children then! If you knew how often many times he shot my eye out with arrows or gutted me with his sword, he wouldn’t seem so sympathetic. It was a different period. Now we…still impale each other. Some things never change, do they?”

“Roderich!”

“Right, right! Not what you want to know!” He tapped his fingers on his desk, trying to remember anything else interesting. He realized he was stuck too far in the past. There was something she would get a kick out of. “Ridiculous, how could I possibly forget? Not like they’ve had much time to see each other recently. Maybe this war wasn’t all for nothing.” He smiled wide, enjoying the imminent implosion. “He and Erzsébet have relations. Been happening for a century now.”

“With our Erzsébet? With Hungary?” He watched her upset grow until it completely overtook her. “That scoundrel! How dare he!” She smacked him in the arm. “And you only tell me this now! Eight years I’ve been on the throne and now, now, is the opportune moment! Why the delay?”

“Don’t assault me! We were in the middle of a crisis! I figured my personal life could wait till after.” Austria straightened his jacket. “This isn’t something I’m exactly proud of, your highness. It’s bad enough that every time I see Britain or France they feel it’s of vital importance to mention. I try not to let it consume more of my waking days than necessary.” He quickly shushed the voice in his head reminding him that his conscience spent a great deal of time plotting against this whole matter already.

“Great, so George and Louis knew all about this before me. My dignity is a joke to everyone in Europe, isn’t it?” She clutched a hand to her chest, wincing in agony. “My poor heart. How many more of these crushing humiliations will I be subjected to? I won’t last much longer at this rate.”

That familiar vein in his forehead twitched. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to calm down. Snapping at his sovereign would result in nothing good. Calming breaths. “You worry too much. They would be foolish to consider any of this a reflection on you.” The unspoken ending was that, if anything, it would be a reflection on him. He grimaced considering that. “We can use this to our advantage if we’re smart.”

Maria Theresa’s composure returned. “You’re right. It shouldn’t be too difficult to dissuade Erzsébet from that ruffian. I remember being a young woman. Men like that – so wild and unrestrained – always weasel their way into your affections. They present something new and exciting. Then they leave, casting you aside for whatever cheap thrill they can find in some whore’s bed while you’re left picking up the pieces of your shattered self-esteem.” She spoke with surprising emotion. Waving away whatever phantom memories lingered, she smiled at Roderich. “She will realize that a man like you or my dear Francis is much better. Polite, predictable, so willing to listen. A good partner mustn’t challenge you in such a way as a man like that does.”

“You underestimate her. They’re equally culpable. Don’t let her con your generosity.” This was the opposite of comforting. He slumped in his chair, chuckling bitterly. “No wonder she runs around with him. How your majesty describes Gilbert makes me want to fall in love with him! There’s likely a much more polite way of telling me I never had a chance!” That familiar pulsation in his forehead again. “I’m sorry, but please don’t try and console me further.”

“For a man to be predictable is a good thing! Let the women have all the passion and the spirit and the spunk! If the men could keep to themselves, I wouldn’t be working with an empty treasury.” She imagined Frederick, the man causing all her troubles, groveling before her. It provided her second wind. “Now, quit this self-pity and think! What’s this Prussia character like in a suit?”

“Rather like a donkey. You can dress it up all you like, but it’s still a jackass in the end.” Austria paused, seeing where she was going. “Are you really going to invite him? He would try to sabotage the whole thing!”

“It’s certainly a possibility. He could also – and I believe this is most likely since I trust he’s as incompetent as you say – make a complete fool of himself before everyone. Doing so would guarantee us all the allies we possibly need and remind our dear Erzsébet that her little…thing is beneath her breed. Make him the first invitation we send out.”

Austria quickly wrote one, not caring if it wasn’t his best penmanship. Such efforts would be wasted on Prussia. He noticed a streak of brown hair disappearing past the door. “I trust your judgement if you’ll trust mine.” He cleared his throat. “Magyar!” Hungary stepped into the room. He slipped the envelope into her hands. “A favor. Would you be so kind as to deliver this to Berlin or wherever your paramour lays his head?”

Hungary glanced between her queen and her superior, distrust eating at her. “This is too easy. What’s the catch?”

“There is none. Can’t I do something nice for you?” He waved her away. “Go, enjoy what time you two have left together.”

“Don’t enjoy yourself too much!” Maria Theresa warned, her voice stern.

Hungary’s suspicion grew. But what could she do? She didn’t trust either of them as far as she could throw them, but she had no evidence of their plot. She would have to bide her time. Curtsying, she shuffled out the door and began mentally planning what to wear for her arrival.

---

Sanssouci Palace, Potsdam.

Frederick strolled through his palace, his eyes fixed on the letters gripped in his hand. War was over. Now, it was time to govern and flex his muscles domestically. He passed through the Marble Hall. He had been cooped up inside for too long. Some fresh air in the gardens was needed. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted two figures. “Gilbert, strange woman.” He turned back on his heel. “For the last time, Gilbert, stop bringing your whores here.”

“She’s not a prostitute, this is Erzsébet.” Gilbert aimed a forced grin at his king.

“I’m aware that they all have names. Run along, dear. He doesn’t pay very well.” She refused to budge. Frederick sighed. “Must you always bring home the stubborn ones?”

“She’s Hungary!” Prussia hissed through gritted teeth. He couldn’t recall ever being so embarrassed.

“Then give her some food and send her-” Frederick blinked slowly. A crisis had to be averted. He politely bowed. “My sincerest apologies. Despite never shutting up about you, this moron never bothered to give me a portrait.” Forcing back his irritation, he slipped into an easy smile. “What brings you here? I hope you don’t bring any declarations of war.”

Hungary’s last couple of hours had been stressful. She had no idea what the greater ploy Austria and Maria Theresa were up to and why she needed to play messenger in it. Nor was she overjoyed at her warm welcome by Prussia’s disrespectful king. She needed something to provide her some entertainment. She handed him the envelope she’d been tasked to deliver. “Why, I haven’t the slightest idea. It could be anything.” She met the king’s gaze. “You understand how grudges work. This was really all I came for. I’ll be on my way.”

Gilbert scrambled alongside her. “Do you really have to leave so soon? Why all the rush? You’ll get back to Vienna late. You don’t want to spend the night here, that’s fine. The old man snores. There’s plenty of space in my home for the two of us.” He took her hand in his before the door, pleading with his eyes. “At least let me walk you out.”

The ends of her mouth curled up in a smile. “There’s no need. It’s a rather dainty palace, isn’t it? I promise I won’t get lost. You be good.” She shot a look at Frederick. “And you. Do us a favor and stay out of Bohemia.” In a flurry of skirts, she was gone as quickly as she arrived.

Now alone, Gilbert released his consternation. “Fritz, next time, just fucking shoot me. If you really care about me, spare me the agony.” He ran his hands through his hair, groaning. “I can sabotage myself without your help.”

“Why are you blaming me? Whenever I’ve wanted to know what that woman looks like you’ve only told me bullshit like ‘more beautiful than Helena of Troy.’ Which is wonderful, but it doesn’t help me pick her out in a crowd!”

“Who else would I be staring at like this?” Gilbert’s expression shifted into that of a lovelorn fool. His eyes softened; a wide grin lit up his face. He looked idiotic in that charming way lovers do. He dropped the act as soon as it appeared, dismissing it with an eye roll. “That whole routine might’ve set me back fifty years.”

Despite knowing about Gilbert’s kind his whole life, being reminded of their immortality never disturbed Frederick less. “Does it matter? Time is meaningless to you lot.” He shook his head. He didn’t have time for this. He had a treasury to refurbish and a new province to integrate. “I can’t be bothered with all this now. This damn envelope could hold our death sentences and we’re bickering like a bunch of old maids.” He opened it and tossed the card aside after reading its contents. “It’s a fucking invitation to some ball. Who gives a damn?”

Gilbert snatched it out the air and skimmed it over. He thought he recognized Roderich’s handwriting but disregarded it. Didn’t all those pompous aristocrats write the same? “It could be fun. Who doesn’t love dressing up and dancing the whole night away?”

The king began heading for the gardens again. Fresh air. Fresh air would clear away this whole mess. “Well, if my memory serves me correctly you don’t. You’ve always been adamant about how much you loathe these events.” He shot Gilbert a look over his shoulder before chortling. “I get it. You’re only looking to get some pussy. Have some more dignity than this. You know as well as I do this is likely some little ploy to humiliate you, and me by extension.”

Gilbert’s cheeks turned bright red. “That’s not the only reason! We could get…alliances out of this! It could improve our diplomatic situation! I’m not walking into anything!” He held open the door to the gardens for them both. “Fritz, you’ve got to trust my instincts! I know exactly what I’m doing. I’ve been doing this for centuries.”

“Your instinct is the reason why I’m so afraid. You’re incredibly reckless and prone to bouts of what I can only assume are insanity. You’ll ruin whatever good name we have left. That’s why I can’t allow you to go.” Sitting down at the table, he examined his papers, ignoring Prussia’s exaggerated pout. “Stop pushing out your lip that far. You look like a grotesque duck.”

Change of tactics. “Isn’t that Italian here? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to have your fun with Algarotti if you sent me and a few delegates off to Vienna for a weekend next month?” Gilbert rested his chin on his hands. His eyes carried such faux innocence. “Didn’t seem like too many men were sneaking into your tent late at night these last eight years.”

Frederick glared at him over the letters. “Is this really the game you want to play at?” Seeing his smirk, the king scowled. “Whatever. I don’t have time for this. You can go, but you will have chaperones and I will appoint them. I don’t want any minister going that finds your whole act adorable. It’ll lead us straight into another war!”

“I promise, I won’t let you down, Fritz!” Gilbert puffed his chest out and stood straight. “You can trust me.”

“No, you will. At least, have it be funny when you do. I want some amusement before the Austrians invade.”

---

June 1786, Vienna.

The ball was gorgeous. Everyone was looking their best, the orchestra never sounded so sweet, and the food was first-class. All the finest luxuries in the world brought together. The guests were thrumming to-and-fro, enjoying the conversations amongst themselves.

Gilbert loathed it. He stood at the bar, filling his drink as quickly as he could empty it. The strongest drink he could get his hands on was watered-down scotch. It was a disgrace. He scanned the crowd again. What was the point in being here if he couldn’t find her? Wasn’t that the whole meaning of his trip?

A tap on his shoulder. “I’m no one to judge, but how do you expect to gain any allies chatting up the bartender?” Arthur smiled wide. “Seems so unlike you to linger so far away from the center of the action.” He nodded at the bartender, who refilled his glass of brandy. “Hard to stun the crowd from the sidelines.”

“Why would I want to waste my talents on a bunch of stiffs? They’re not going to appreciate my work. Now, if you don’t mind.” Gilbert began peering around the Briton. “I’m waiting for someone. Francis has to be around here somewhere. Hang around him instead.”

So that’s why Gilbert was here. Everything made sense. An impish grin broke out across his face. The night would provide him with some good entertainment. “Erzsébet’s welcoming guests with Roderich and her majesty. I could take you over and introduce you as I’ve already paid my respects.” He tugged Gilbert’s sleeve, dragging him through the throngs of people. “Come along, let’s get this started!”

“I don’t need a wingman.” Gilbert straightened his jacket, huffing. “Seriously, you can run along now.”

“Please and miss out completely? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Prussia rolled his eyes. With friends like that, who needed enemies? Arriving before Austria and Maria Theresa, he bowed. “Roddy, I forgot what you looked like without a uniform. Much more natural than seeing you posturing with a gun.” He attempted to kiss Maria Theresa’s hand, but she jerked it away. “I take it that your majesty knows who I am already. On behalf of his Prussian majesty, we sincerely thank you for the kindness of this invitation and everything it represents.” He looked back at Britain, who gave him a thumbs up. He’d nailed it, there would be no war declared.

As if to undo any good work he’d managed, Hungary materialized besides the queen. “That Russian delegation can talk your ear off. Next time, please don’t sacrifice me to them. I don’t want to hear about the intimate details of their personal dramas.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him. She gave a subtle wink and smirk to Prussia. “Oh, Gil. How rude, I didn’t see you there. I’m so glad you came.”

Restraint. He needed to practice restraint. He was in the presence of important company. There could be no mistakes. Then he saw Roderich. Roderich, standing there looking intemperate, grinding his teeth, glaring as if begging his foe on. Gilbert was overcome. He forgot himself. Erzsébet was too beautiful and Roderich too irritating to deny himself such sweet joys. Gilbert took her hand in his and kissed it. “I had to. I didn’t want to miss seeing such a beauty.” His lips trailed up her arm, holding eye-contact with Roderich the whole time. “How could I stay away?”

Austria opened his mouth to speak, but Hungary beat him to it. “Daring tonight, aren’t we?” After speaking loud enough for all surrounding parties to hear, she leaned in close to Prussia’s ear. “If you get war declared on you for anything you do tonight, remember that I actually like this queen. I don’t think you can afford to be this reckless in front of her.” She gently, yet firmly, pushed him away.

Point noted. Flustered, Gilbert took a step back. “Right. Well, it was nice to see everyone. I’ll be…somewhere else.” He spared one last dejected look at Erzsébet before scampering off with Arthur on his heels.

“I’m impressed. What on earth did you say to him?” Roderich moved besides her, reflexively putting a hand on the small of her back. Realizing neither of them liked the gesture, he removed it.

“I told him I would meet him in the gardens later if he wouldn’t be so obvious.” She laughed at his frustration. “Don’t be so glum. I’m still upset about Silesia. I promise, it’ll be hate sex this time.”

“How comforting.” Austria moved to take his place besides Maria Theresa. “Now you understand what I’ve been dealing with. Everything is personal with him. None of the other states give me this much trouble. Why can’t he be more like Bavaria?”

Maria Theresa looked much more crestfallen. She cradled his face in her hand, unable to meet his gaze. “You poor man, what a terrible situation.” She peered up at him through her eyelashes. “You’re a cuckold.”

He forced his eyes shut. What a disaster. The promise of the whole night was disintegrating before his very eyes. “Your majesty isn’t helping.”

“You’re not helping yourself either! Standing around, looking so shocked at everything. Have some life, impress her, show everyone that you’re not passive in affairs of the heart.” She waved her hands away from her. “Do anything but stand around here and talk to me!”

“Why do I want her to fall in love with me?” Seeing the fire in his queen’s eyes, Roderich quieted his protestations and took his place besides his wife. “I’m being held here against my will.”

“Aren’t we both? Don’t feel too special.” They shared a conspiratorial look before breaking into giggles.

The orchestra began a new piece. Roderich caught himself humming. It was one of his favorites. He held out his arm. “Would you grant me the honor of a dance?”

“It is only fair to give your date at least one. Especially when he’s such a fantastic dancer.” She let him lead her to the floor. They began twirling around, hitting all the marks in time. She envied how naturally this all came to him. “It’s not fair for you to be so talented.”

“So kind of you to think so. You’d be disappointed to know that it’s less talent and more centuries of being forced into the role of a gentleman. Though, it is a natural fit.” He gained some contentment from her easy laugh. There was almost something enjoyable in this. “See, Erzsébet, it isn’t all bad. The lady protests too much.”

“You would think I complain too much about anything. There could be a freeze and you would think I’m ridiculous for bemoaning the chill. I’ve been quiet recently. No major rebellions. Be thankful.” She closed her eyes, getting lost in the music. “Please, be quiet. If you don’t talk then I can pretend that I enjoy your company.”

A simple enough request. Besides, the dancefloor was no place to settle differences. Roderich complied, happy for the momentary respite in their relationship. He could imagine this as normal for them, this peace with no screaming matches. No threats of violence against each other or their people. That they were any ordinary married couple who tolerated each other just enough to not end in scandal. The very idea thrilled him.

The very idea was interrupted by their Prussian scandal. Gilbert tapped Roderich’s soldier, a lupine smile on his face. “May I cut in? I couldn’t resist.”

Erzsébet moved to take his hand. She was met with air. She found Roderich and Gilbert in an embrace, the former looking incredibly determined while the latter was exasperated. “It would be rude of me to deny you, wouldn’t it?” Roderich nodded at Erzsébet. “Don’t wait up.”

“What are you doing? Let me lead!” Gilbert hissed. The fight for dominance began immediately. He winced, feeling Roderich’s heel dig into his toes. “That’s my foot. You be the woman, you’re the feminine one!”

“Why would I take orders from you? You’re used to being subordinate, follow my lead.” Roderich yanked them the opposite direction Gilbert was taking them. “I know exactly where I’m putting my feet.” For good measure, he stepped on Gilbert’s foot again.

Prussia bit his lip, forcing himself not to yelp in pain. He wouldn’t give the other man the satisfaction. His nails dug into Austria’s lower back, finding pleasure in his pain. “Why are you doing this? Let me have my dance, it doesn’t take anything away from you. You never let me have what I want.”

Austria couldn’t force back his laugh. It was maniacal. “Really? That’s funny, that kingdom you’ve got says differently about my generosity. If anything, I’ve been too accommodating to you. Silly me, thinking compassion would civilize you.” He sneered. If he gripped Prussia’s hand tight enough, maybe he could manage to break a few fingers. Wouldn’t that be a sight? “You’re a brute. You don’t deserve what you’ve got.”

“You’re going to talk to me about deserve? You, Little Master, born with a golden spoon and so hell-bent on his divine authority? You’ve never worked for anything in your life.” Prussia snarled, all teeth. “Unless you count laying down beneath Spain and taking whatever he gave as work.” He twisted Roderich around. “This way!”

“You stay out of my marriages!” Austria’s face was red with indignation and embarrassment. “What happens in my bedroom is of none of your concern!”

“You’re right it’s not. But what doesn’t happen is and I know there’s been a whole lot of nothing in there.” He put a hand on Austria’s cheek. Prussia’s eyes were swimming with sickening contempt. “I’ve never understood why everyone’s so desperate to marry you. You can hardly fulfill your spousal duties and then you wonder why some vagrant like me can come in and take them over. It’s a shame, really.” He winked. “Wouldn’t change it for a thing.”

“You’re pathetic. Are you that jealous of everything I have that you’ll never be satisfied? I would pity you if you weren’t so loathsome.” He smacked Prussia’s hand away. “Your inferiority must eat you alive. Anything you could ever want, I hold it so firmly in my grasp. How do you handle it?” He looked the Prussian up-and-down. “Obviously, you don’t. What man in full control of himself would go to such lengths to humiliate himself in such ways at every given opportunity?” They were dancing on the edge of a cliff and, oddly enough, Roderich couldn’t bother to care. His mind, his whole being, was completely focused on eradicating this blight. If he went down too, fine. Such would be the price.

“Because you can’t resist me either. Sure, I may look like a fool to everyone, but I’m not alone.” Prussia’s breath stung hot against Austria’s ear. It sent a shiver down his spine. “You live to roll around in the mud with me. Face it, Roddy, you’d be lost without me.”

Hungary shoved them apart, breaking the spell of their mutual madness. Her voice was hushed. “A few things. Do you two do that often because, for some odd reason, that was incredibly arousing. Amazing. I’m blushing.” They shot her a look. Her cheeks burned a deeper shade of red. “Never mind. Maybe this you’ll find important: you two were very loud. Everyone heard and now they’re staring.”

The two men dared to look away from her. She was right. All eyes were on them. Roderich met the gaze of an incredibly upset Maria Theresa. His mouth suddenly became very dry. “Gilbert, I think we’re in trouble.”

Gilbert, for his part, had made eye-contact with the minister who was supposed to be his chaperone tonight. Podewils looked ready to unleash his full wrath. “You don’t say.”

The three of them were ushered into one of the nearby rooms. While they waited for the queen and minister to arrive, Hungary took it upon herself to lecture them. “What were you two thinking! What compelled you to revert back to children!” She shook her head. “Forget children, a whole pack of toddlers would’ve behaved better! I’m ashamed of you both!”

Gilbert was slumped on the sofa, his head buried in his hands. “This wouldn’t have happened if he let go of his pride and didn’t jump in between us! But no, little Roddy always has to show me up.” He cast a pitiful glare at his cousin. “Do you feel like a big man now?”

Roderich had his back to them as he stared outside the window. “Are you seriously blaming me? If you knew how to conduct yourself in front of polite society, none of this would’ve occurred! Instead, you’re the one who must constantly show he’s no slouch! That he can do whatever he wants, that he can work with the adults!” He turned around now, a cold fire burning in his eyes. “You can’t, Gilbert! You don’t have the pedigree to operate at these strata! Get these delusions of competition out of your mind, embrace your place in life and then you’ll find yourself much happier.”

“Right because it was fine for you to grab the laurels of power, but anyone else who wants it obviously can’t handle it. You should be thankful that-”

Maria Theresa burst into the room. “Silence! Both of you, shut up! For the love of God, stop talking!” She narrowed her sights on Prussia first. “How dare you! You vile little creature. We kindly invite you into our palace, into our capital, and you show us this kind of disrespect? Have you no self-restraint? No understanding of how to manage yourself amongst men? I shouldn’t be surprised. You invite a beast, he’ll behave like a beast.”

Roderich forgot himself. He sneered at Gilbert. “See? It’s apparent to everyone that you are the most wretched creature on the planet. Why bother carrying on at this rate?”

Maria Theresa’s rage turned on him. She began striding towards Roderich. “And you. I’ve never been more humiliated in my life! How foolish of me to ever put my faith in you. You were such a good man, Roderich. So intelligent, so capable, so dependable. Was my trust misplaced? How ridiculous it seems now, to believe you were ever capable of behaving in an acceptable manner.” She had him backed against a wall. “I look at you and I want to be angry, but how can I be? How can the strong be angry at the weak? Roderich, I know now you’re a weak man.”

Podewils cleared his throat, reminding everyone of his presence. “Your majesty, you have my deepest and most sincere apologies for tonight’s mishap. I can assure you that his Prussian majesty does not endorse the conduct of this most insolent and moronic man who should frankly be ashamed of the dishonor he’s brought on his own people!”

The queen rolled her eyes. “Oh, quit it monsieur. I’m not declaring war.” Her eyes narrowed, settling on a subdued Roderich. “If I was, I’d have to declare it on my own people first.” She huffed, straightening up. “Frankly, I want to forget this whole matter as soon as I possibly can. This night has been a complete wash for all of us involved. All I want is for you and that, that thing to leave Vienna as soon as humanly possible. Now, if you don’t mind,” she left the room in a flurry, slamming the door shut behind her.

All the wind returned to Gilbert’s sails. He rose and clapped Roderich on the back. “All’s well that ends well, Roddy. I ruin your little party and I face no repercussions. I say that’s a good resolution for us both.” He quirked his head to the side. “What’s up with your eye? Did you always have that twitch?”

“Get off me!” Roderich shoved him away. His breathing was ragged. “Why must everything revolve around you? Why must you always hijack everyone’s attention and steal away whatever remnants of my dignity remain from our last incident? You are no better than any other vermin, I’ve got half a mind to-” He cut himself off, a moment a clarity cutting through the haze. He straightened his jacket out, striding for the door. “You’re a plague among Europe and now I’m suddenly seen as a victim. I’ve got all the most important diplomats outside. Why am I continuing to tussle with you? What worth do you have for me?” Hand on the doorknob, he cast one last look at a surprised Gilbert. “Enjoy your victories while they last, Preussen.”

Unconcerned, Gilbert slid over to Erzsébet and snaked an arm around her waist. “Now that we’re away from prying eyes, I never got to properly tell you how gorgeous you look tonight. If I’m remembering correctly, didn’t you promise me a stroll through the gardens? I think the roses are in bloom.” He kissed her hand, holding her gaze the whole time. “A quick one. Before I have to leave.”

She was smiling, but it lacked any real warmth. “The moments passed, Gil.” She clutched her hand to her chest, appraising him. “We’re not exactly friends right now, are we? Do you have any idea how many men of mine you murdered after your ridiculous incursion?”

“Not at all, but I remember seeing you leading them in battle. You know what that does to me.” A smile like a wolf. She thought him depraved. “A little animosity can help to spice things up. You should know that from living with him so long.”

“How’s this for animosity?” She dug her heel into his foot, putting all her weight into it. For good measure, she twisted it in, sending a shock of pain up Gilbert’s spine. He’d never seen her so spiteful. It drove him wild. “You should be satisfied from humiliating Roderich in such a way and, if that’s not enough,” her lips brushed against his ear. He felt his heart beating through his chest. “Use your hand.” He watched her exit the room, silently begging her to stay.

Instead, the only touch he received was Podewils yanking at his elbow. “We’re leaving now. Before you can manage to worm your way into further trouble.”

Glum, he let himself be dragged along. “Relax, Heinrich. All my trouble left with her.” Sighing, he tried to muster up some fake cheer. He managed to genuinely find some. “What are we worrying for? The old man said I’d be fine as long as whatever happens is funny.” He snickered. “And, admit it, this whole mess is hysterical.” If he could laugh at Austria’s expense, didn’t that count for something? Who cared how it ended for him, as long as that prick was sufficiently embarrassed, he could rest easily at night. Yes, that was all that mattered, forget his tattered dignity and what he couldn’t have. Austrian suffering was the most beautiful reward of them all.

Part 3 Episode 5

‘Nick, you got high, freed the dark lord and passed out’ is an iconic line. Worst come down ever. 

‘They’re like witches but from a different time’ Good  way to describe them I think

FINALLY, Lilith is back. Feels like ages since we saw her. I do think they’re using MG less this season and I am not impressed by that. I do like that Lilith keeps appearing out of nowhere and never announcing her presence with a hello and doing it whenever Sabrina wants to be going somewhere else. 

OMG LILITH BROUGHT ALL THE DEMONS TO THE ACADEMY SO THE WHOLE COVEN KNOWS SABRINA IS QUEEN OF HELL. 

I do also like how Lilith is always stood beside her. I love them being on the same team. But omg Sabrina you can’t just fucking go ‘sorry can’t do the challenge right now’ that’s not how it works you eejit.

‘my not accepting the challenge, you threaten the very existence of your coven, your friends and family. and do you know why? The balance of the cosmos has tipped, the arrival of the Pagans, your coven’s loss of power, it’s all a direct result of your refusal to claim absolutely the throne. Don’t you see, Sabrina, all this suffering, it your fault’. Well, don’t hold back Lilith. You go, woman. And then when Sabrina denies it and she adds ‘But if you can recover the unholy regalia you stand a chance of replenishing your weakened covens energies’ Lilith, you should be Queen. We all know it. Except the writers. They don’t apparently. 

‘as loath as i am to agree with Lilith’, Hang on their Zelda, you were fucking praying to her earlier on? What’s going on? Get back on side, girl

Lilith and Sabrina sat together in the desecrated church, talking side by side about the getting the bowl Pontius washed his hands in, I just I love them actually being on the same side and having a calm chat

OMFG when Sabrina says she has access to time magics, Lilith’s face is priceless. It’s like i’m sorry wtf now. And she just says ‘oh. well. look at you’. like seriously what don’t you fucking have?

I think Hilda is slowly turning into a spider. She’s obssessing over a fly in the room. Big fat juicy fly she calls it. 

Prudence and Ambrose have realised that the Pagans are not just witches, but the Old Gods and Monsters themselves

Lilith is being a full on Giles to Sabrina’s Buffy this season, except for the whole...taking her into hellish places via paintings and all that. But I do enjoy them together. Although Lilith is not dressed for this trip, which makes me think the reason she wears high heels all the time is because she doesn’t have the same issues as others would have, and she knows it makes people go unholy fuck how are you walking in them. However Michelle does not have that gift and is clearly fighting her own feet every step of the way. Power to ya, Gomez, power to ya. 

Omg lilith giving Sabrina instructions like she’s talking to an idiot child because she knows how often Sabrina doesn’t listen and does her own thing ‘the slightest mistake could leave your trapped in a time loop FOR-EVE-RRRRRR’ 

‘dowse away’ followed by some nice eye rolling. I do love a Lilith eye roll

Pontius cuts a handsome cap. 

Elspeth wants to give Sabrina to the Pagans?? Erm, come on, she saved your fucking life. 

Wait, Lucifer is telling them to join the Pagans? What’s your game, dude? Oh I see, he’s deliberately sending them to their death as punishment

So within the statues, the people are possibly still alive according to Ambrose, which is good because I fear it’s going to happen to Mary and I want there to be hope for her. 

Why is Barabbas a Cockney? A cockney in Judea?

“You suck, Caliban” Wow, Queen of Comebacks, Sabrina?

Wow so Elspeth did erm...wow, so she’s erm...okay. RUN MELVIN RUN

RUN FASTER SABRINA. PUMP THOSE CRAZY LEGS

Sabrina, with distress; Caliban was there I left him behind. 

Lilith; Oh well, can’t be helped. Hopefully he’ll be stuck in the time loop forever.

I agree with lilith. Stop being so goody goody Sabrina.

Lilith tugging that bowl like come on time to claim your victory, but Sabrina says she needs to help the coven first and Lilith’s face is just like fine whatever didn’t want it anyway

Don’t pop that zit Hilda, it don’t look like a normal zit. oh no, it’s full of spiders. And now she has spider vision

Why is the devil turning up at Harvey’s? Telling him to go to the carnival and show ‘those heathens what’s what’. And now Lucifer’s going to Agatha with a lump hammer?

So they’ve casually brought standing stones to the academy and it’s working but Lucifer has Agatha smash them with a lump hammer. Can the Dark Lord just fucking fuck off? You know everything was fine till Sabrina went to fucking hell. 

Harvey seems to be embracing witch hunter genes and is leading an attack on the carnival and Circe has turned all the boys into pigs. She’s still fond of that spell. 

Hilda is trying to tell Zelda she’s changing but Zelda keeps thinking she means metphorically dammit. And the reason Nick has been the way he is, he had Dark Lord tar inside him? Which they took out and now they’re trying to use to get power back to the coven

OMG NICK LEAVES SABRINA AND LILITH IS THE ONE TO APPEAR WHEN SHE’S CRYING. SHE’S COMFORTING HER AND TELLING HER TO BE STRONG AND IT’S SUCH A FUCKING MATERNAL MOMENT, EVEN THE HAND ON THE CHIN. iT’S SUCH A SHORT MOMENT BUT IT’S SO SIGNIFICANT. ESPECIALLY SINCE LILITH LEARNED NOT TO CRY AND HOW MUCH THE DARK LORD HURTS PEOPLE. 

DR C. Why is there dark music and Hilda going to Dr C. Do not kill Dr C. Wait, he can’t see what’s happening to her? Is that why Zelda couldn’t see it either?? Oh my god is she gonna go black widow and kill him?????????

When Lilith and Sabrina are talking about the victory over the second artefact, and Lilith says ‘the victory over caliban was absolute’ and Sabrina adds she’s not sure he survives, Lilith fake pouts like aww such a shame wee lamb and then Caliban appears and Lilith look is literally like FOR FUCK’S SAKE GO AWAY. Lilith really doesn’t like him at all

“And I shall reign by your side Sabrina forever” Lilith definitely planning for the long term there and she seems to be in it for the long haul with ruling WITH sabrina. So...yay? Temporarily

Also Lilith saying Lucifer would ‘lose his horned head at the sigh of this unholy regalia’ and she laughs and is so confident until Sabrina tells her he escapes and Lilith looks fucking terrified. 

‘The Dark Lord is free and you didn’t say anything to me?’ she also seems...hurt? Understandably. But like Lilith seems to think they are partners, which they’re meant to be, and Sabrina has kept this big fucking deal secret and all Sabrina says is ‘I had other things on my mind’

‘Sabrina, your Father will kill me for betraying him. It’s only a matter of time’ and there it is...Lilith starting to think about self-preservation. Sabrina has let her down, definitely, I would agree, and so now she’s gonna have to come up with another plan. Which is I think why she ends up making a deal with Blackwood

So the Hedge Witches they summoned to help them do not like being summoned and are not saying they will kill them. Yeesh, enemies on all sides. 

Rather than offering standard gore and merely giving us the willies, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Ryan Murphy’s second installment of American Crime Story on the FX channel (now available on Amazon Prime Video and ITunes), is one of the rare serial killer dramas genuinely interested in sexual mores, complex character, spiky history, and salient issues of class. Demanding, sometimes confounding, but nevertheless searing and absorbing, the series piles on layer after layer of pain, irony, and god-awful coincidence, its counter-clockwise structure designed to take us deeper and deeper into a human abyss.

Andrew Cunanan, the elusive Minotaur at the heart of this real-life ’90s labyrinth, is a deadbeat on the lam, a name-dropping, designer-obsessed social climber. On a tried-and-true procedural-thriller level, the limited series, chronicling the curly-haired monster sacré’s notorious murder spree and suicide, sheds light on the largest failed manhunt in U.S. history—a fascinating botch, the whole law enforcement fiasco resulting from rampant homophobia and pure incomprehension regarding “a gay parallel universe,” as Vanity Fair reporter Maureen Orth labels it in Vulgar Favors, her juicy recounting of the roller-coaster case. Another key factor is the homicidal young con man Cunanan’s startling ability to evade the cops. A wizard at blithely rearranging his Filipino-Sicilian heritage to suit his gold-digging needs, Cunanan could blend with chameleon ease into different communities—Italian, Greek, Latino, Asian, etc.—as “a multi-purpose ethnic.” Since the fugitive Cunanan had never been arrested, the only fingerprints to be found were on his California driver’s license.

The series is set in 1997—a pivotal year in LGBT history, as it marked the discovery of a viable treatment for AIDS, so the dread disease was no longer an outright death sentence. The show’s backward historical movement is a strategy that illuminates the beleaguered gay world of the period and ably avoids a Psychology 101 approach to motive and pathology, creating a dramatic and poignant memorial to the fleshed-out lives of Cunanan’s victims: we get the appealing, even ecstatic early moments of Cunanan’s relationships after we’ve witnessed the desperate, unraveling scenes and harrowing murders, and the effect is unsettling and difficult to shake.

As the far-reaching series spins further away from Versace’s sumptuous life in South Beach, “the pleasure capital of the gay world,” and from the spirited realms of high fashion, its trajectory and intent become a little puzzling, but the last few riveting episodes suggest Murphy’s main focus is to plumb Cunanan’s lethal mix of unhinged aspiration and greed and to link Versace’s well-documented life as a lauded fashion king, an openly gay man (challenged by AIDS-related illness), with the accomplished lives of Cunanan’s other gifted gay victims. Protean Andrew, a glad-handing, money-flashing teller of tall tales, functions as a soul-crippled shadow version of the flamboyant Italian designer. It’s primarily the last two episodes, “Creator/Destroyer” and “Alone,” that underscore the genius of Murphy’s overall design.

In his native Calabria, the child Versace, shored by his seamstress mother��s approval, sketches and discovers his interest in fashion, developing his métier, despite cruel bullying by his Catholic teachers and classmates. In contrast, Cunanan is raised, in neurotic, almost farcical fashion, to be a petulant Filipino-American prince by his dictatorial, cock-of-the-walk father, an embezzler and reflexive con man, so it’s clear Andrew’s propensity for around-the-clock deception is a direct result of his appalling daddy’s over-the-top spoiling, with a pinch of his Sicilian-American mother’s religious mania and mental illness added to the stew. Andrew is flimflam Pete’s and frail MaryAnn’s Frankenstein child. What we see of Cunanan’s shaky upbringing also clicks with his penchant for hooking up with “beaucoup-bucks” johns and well-heeled patrons: just as his father gave him the best and biggest room in the house, Cunanan lives and moves, for the most part, from one gravy train to the next.

Facing jail time for financial crimes, Cunanan’s dad flees his wife and children for good, but later an unusually determined Andrew tracks him down in Manila. In a savage moment, in what amounts to a 180-degree turn from his previous paternal adoration, Pete slaps and spits on Andrew, calling him “a sissy boy with a sissy mind.”

On Murphy’s hit series Glee, Darren Criss had the heart-on-his sleeve emotionality of a young Streisand or Garland, gradually emerging as the most expressive musical talent on the show, which was praised for—beyond its weekly ebullient songfest—its groundbreaking emphasis on “baby queers” and high school bullying. It seemed enough that the dynamite Criss could sing. In The Assassination of Gianni Versace, he gives a prismatic performance as Andrew Cunanan: he’s voluble, sly, strung-out on drugs (even shooting up between his grubby toes) or he’s coolly, scarily detached—a crystal meth Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. As the series progresses, we get to follow Andrew-in-a-social-whirl scenes (frankly a relief after the brackish murder segments) and to observe: the precocious, nose-in-a-book child reading Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited; the attention-grabbing, boundary-less teen sneaking off in cars with married men; the deluded, self-loathing bon vivant; the facile, coke-fueled charmer, with a geisha’s skill at entertaining rich men; and a relentless operator (with an IQ of 147), lying through his teeth, working the upper echelons of the gay community.

In several of its telltale social scenes, the show resembles John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, a drawing-room tragicomedy about a similarly adept gay con artist, and Anthony Minghella’s elegant 1999 film version of the Patricia Highsmith classic, The Talented Mr. Ripley. I remember watching Ripley when it first appeared and actually being reminded of Cunanan: what is it about the prospect of losing the good life that unhinges once-struggling or working-class people and sometimes drives them to murder? Is the luxury and the freedom money brings really so hopelessly addictive?

Melding rock with rebel fashion and, according to Orth, “a diehard infatuation with rank and power that smacked of new money vulgarity,” Versace’s brash, innovative work was “inspired by antiquity and sadomasochism.” In revealing counterpoint, Andrew Cunanan, an outcast aiming for an A-list life with a kind of “If they could see me now” fury, keeps his S&M habits, sideline drug dealing, pimping for the rich and closeted, and serious crystal meth use on the down low, so as not to scare away his upper-crust friends, lovers, and patrons. A bondage scene in the first episode, set to Phil Collins’s breezy “She’s an Easy Lover,” is the sort of libidinous freak-out Ryan Murphy has been serving up since the late seasons of Nip/Tuck;Criss does an impromptu, preppy-trying-to-be-wild dance before his duct-taped john that’s so perfect and right for the era that I almost laughed. He’s his own demented go-go boy.

Criss gives a tour-de-force turn as Cunanan, but the moving supporting performances are also stellar: Edgar Ramirez (as Versace); Ricky Martin (as the designer’s longtime partner); Jon Jon Briones (as wily Pete Cunanan); Cody Fern (as Cunanan’s dream man, a wheat-haired Midwestern Apollo); Mike Farrell and Michael Nouri (as Cunanan’s classy, wealthy, older lovers); Finn Wittrock (as a decent, brave but disconsolate Navy man caught up in Clinton’s swampy Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy); and the always-reliable Judith Light (as the blinkered wife of one of the murder victims, a honeyed Home Network purveyor of perfumes, cosmetics, and folksy advice). Penelope Cruz gives one of her most ferocious performances as Donatella, the world-weary fashion insurgent; Cruz uses the trademark Donatella snarl and swagger in such a creative way that it becomes almost lovable, suggesting the impassioned, caring sister underneath all the come-hither leather and glamorous packaging.

Despite some initially mixed, even dismissive reviews, this second installment of American Crime Story recently garnered 18 Emmy nominations, six of which went to the risk-taking actors. Murphy has, in the past, been all about shock and showmanship, but Assassination represents a newfound candor, fraught complexity, and daring in his work: he’s gone for something deeper and subtler here than his dynamic crowd-pleaser, The People Vs. O.J. Simpson, 2016’s most lauded show, or even his affecting, Emmy-winning TV version of Larry Kramer’s AIDS drama, The Normal Heart.

Just as the emboldened right has renewed its predictable attacks against the LGBT community, Murphy’s piercing, intricate series delves into the tyranny of the closet—the toxic effects of suppression, bigotry, and mainstream rejection. I’ve never admired Murphy’s bold, baroque eye and vision more.

Crazy Ex Girlfriend?

Sorry for getting back at you thaaat late, but I kind of had to binge-watch the show first. Damn, have you sent me on a wild rollercoaster ride there.

Just to make that clear: I’m not gonna watch every show I don’t know. But this one, I have literally never heard about, I wasn’t even aware of its existence. So I looked it up and the premise sounded like fun and I decided to check it out. And well, I fell down a hole and only crawled out of it with the season 2 finale last night.

But before I get started, sure it’s been half a year now but still, if you haven’t seen the season 2 finale yet and don’t want to be spoilered, then don’t read ahead because I’m getting into the entire show here and particularly into the finale of season 2. There be spoilers.

Okay, so the show is fun, but definitely different from what is advertised.

When looking at it from the Wikipedia summary point of view, it sounds like just your average rom-com without substance. Girl falls for boy, girl follows boy to his old hometown to make him fall in love with her, shenanigans ensue.

That is not what it is.

We have our mentally unstable protagonist Rebecca, who has a panic-attack slash mental melt-down in the middle of the streets, sees her high school sweetheart Josh and talks to him. He talks about happiness and how happy he was in his hometown and that he’s moving back there. She doesn’t remember what happiness tastes like and sees this as a sign from above.

She claims - to everyone - that she didn’t move there for Josh, but everyone “knows” that she did. Even though, if you actually read between the lines, her claims were right. She didn’t move there “for Josh”.

The thing is, Rebecca doesn’t know happiness. So in the moment Josh starts talking about it, he becomes her anchor, her symbol for happiness. She chases him as a crutch. “If I can get him, I can get happiness”.

In West Corvina, Josh’s hometown, a love… square?… ensues with Josh’s best friend Greg falling for Rebecca, while Josh is in a relationship with Valencia.

Throughout this ridiculous love square plot, it becomes abundantly clear that it’s not the boy Rebecca wants, it’s the concept of happiness.

First she chases Josh for that, but with Greg in the mix, it becomes decidedly too easy for Rebecca to jump ships. And she jumps them a lot. It’s a constant back and forth between declaring love to one and then to the other. All she wants is The Boy and it doesn’t really matter whose name is attached to that title, really.

She lives in this fantasy girls are raised on thanks to Disney movies where “the hero gets the princess and they lived happily ever after” equals happiness and as a person with no own concept of happiness, she decides that is it.

My personal favorite episode was when she noticed that she’s not the princess but the villain in the tale. Because Josh is dating Valencia and Rebecca has done a wonderful job of completely ignoring the fact that she’s trying to sabotage that relationship and break Valencia’s heart - something that has been bothering me from episode one because I hate cheats and I hate home-wreckers. That she was completely unaware of the fact that this was what she had become, the villain (literally, she does a villain-song on that - yes, there are songs in this. It’s a musical show. Forgot to mention that. Will get back into this a little later). It was good, it showed strength.

Rebecca evolved. From the girl chasing Josh and Greg and Greg and Josh into someone who was trying to find herself. For that, she found friends. In Valencia and in her former-neighbor-turned roommate Heather. And for a little while “happiness” and “having friends” seem to be equals, but then she spirals down the Josh-road again.

They finally pull through with the ship and Rebecca and Josh are together, just for Rebecca to have a break-through and actually put to words that it was never about Josh, it was always about fixing her life and finding happiness and somehow, Josh had become the symbol for that to her.

But that moment is ruined by Josh stumbling in and proposing, so yeah.

Now, before I get to the season 2 finale and to what I love most about this show, I need to mention what I hated most about it first.

Rebecca’s new best friend Paula. I hate her character. I hate her so much. With season 2B, she became… an okay character, finally. But I loathed her throughout the first one and a half seasons.

Because she’s crazy. I mean, she’s more crazy than the titular crazy main character. She meets Rebecca, is the first one to realize that Rebecca moved to West Corvina for Josh and, in that moment, Rebecca has a moment of clarity and realizes how crazy that sounds - that is where Paula jumps in and starts telling her that it’s not crazy and that it’s love and that she’ll help her.

Paula is a self-centered enabler. Clearly, Rebecca isn’t mentally stable and clearly, her obsession with Josh is not healthy. Instead of helping her friend get better, Paula completely enables her. Every single time, Rebecca starts realizing that what she’s doing isn’t good for herself, Paula keeps pushing this fantasy of True Love Conquers All.

Paula does ridiculous, illegal stuff for the sake of pushing Josh toward Rebecca. Stuff that Rebecca never even asked for. Paula is more obsessed with that romance than Rebecca is, because Paula is a sad, lonely housewife who projects her own lack of romance onto Rebecca.

When Paula realizes that however, she doesn’t try to change in a good way, she basically abandons Rebecca by putting up a “friendship agreement” that forbids her from getting involved. So, basically, their friendship turns into a “Nice weather we have” kind of situation because the plotting and scheming was all that connected them from the start.

Coincidentally, Paula is going through a tough time by realizing she’s pregnant and having to decide to have an abortion. She doesn’t tell Rebecca that. Not even when, after the abortion, Rebecca comes visit her at her bedside because she thinks Paula has the flu. I’ve never had a friend who would come visit me when I just have the damn flu. And Rebecca asks her point-blank if something’s wrong, but Paula still keeps her mouth shut.

That, in itself, is okay. I understand if you don’t want to talk about your abortion, especially not right away. But this leads to ridiculous accusations on Paula’s behalf that Rebecca doesn’t care and that their friendship is a one-way street of Rebecca always taking and Paula always giving.

Which is… the opposite of what happened? Because yeah, Paula gave. Unwanted things that did not do anything good for Rebecca. In the end, Paula took more than she gave by continuously using Rebecca as her source of entertainment. Because that was what Rebecca was to Paula; not her best friend but her entertainment-program. Best shown in the Christmas/Hanukkah episode where she gives Rebecca a brooch with a camera and then spends her own Christmas dinner watching Rebecca on her phone, like one of those uninterested dads who rather watch sports secretly during dinner.

Paula is a pathetic excuse for a “friend”. Without her, I believe, Rebecca would have had her break-through a season earlier. That she then actually accuses Rebecca of being the only self-centered party in this “friendship” is simply ridiculous. Yes, Rebecca is overly self-centered and she didn’t do much for Paula, but damn she was there. She was there to stop Paula from cheating on her husband.

Though she did win bonus points with me when she immediately kicked her husband out for cheating. But... she lost those bonus-points by taking him back in the end, so there’s that. I mean, it is a little balanced by the fact that if not for Rebecca, she would have cheated on her husband first, but still the fact that, so shortly after the abortion he cheats on her... That makes it even worse. Because, even though they agreed on that abortion and it was the best solution, that shit isn’t easy on anyone. And instead of being there for each other, they drift apart and he drifts into the vagina of another woman and that shit is not okay.

Okay. Now that that’s out of the way, I need to get into my favorite part. The season 2 finale. The big pay-off.

In a ridiculous plot-twist, Josh realizes that he’s been doing the exact same thing as Rebecca. Using a romantic partner as a crutch for happiness.

He literally leaves her at the altar and goes to become a priest. Rebecca has another break-down, but this one is very revealing.

We learn that she has once had a boyfriend before who left a huge impact on her life, Robert. He left her, she burned down his house - and that is where it gets juicy. She’s sentenced to get help. During the sentencing, the words used are identical with this season’s intro-song.

After that, we get a blurry short scene of Rebecca, as she looks today, in a mental institute, with the nurses commenting that “this one always sings”. Rebecca, in her wedding dress in West Corvina, all the while looks dizzy and confused by this.

The thing is. That last part in the mental institute? That was not a flashback. That was a short view into reality. And now let me get into why and why this is the amazing part.

Every single thing that has happened in this show is only in her head - and it makes so much sense. Literally everything that bothered me or was strange and out of place makes perfect sense in this context.

Let’s start at the beginning, again.

Let’s start with Josh. He’s been dating Valencia for fifteen years. But she’s living in West Corvina while he’s living in New York? She’s… a yoga-instructor. She could have moved with him and easily found a job in New York. She’s not tied to West Corvina, in fact she doesn’t seem to like the place so much so why would she stay there and have a long-distance relationship with him? We never even learn why Josh was in New York to begin with. He doesn’t have a career or anything and when he first talks to Rebecca in New York, he doesn’t mention going back home to his girlfriend, it sounds more like going back to living with his parents.

It makes no sense at all why Josh was even in New York.

Unless all of this is only in Rebecca’s head anyway. She was committed into the mental institute while she was still a law-student. That was when her delusions start. Back then, the perfect fantasy of happiness meant being a top lawyer. So she became a top lawyer in New York in her head.

But when that fantasy grew stale, her mind supplied something new. Bringing forth a happy memory. A happy relationship, not like what Robert did to her. Josh. Josh was good. Josh was safe. Josh became the escape deeper into the fantasy.

There are many things that don’t make sense in the show and I don’t like the cop-out excuse of “It’s comedy, it’s funny so don’t think too hard”, or “It’s a musical, everything is possible!”.

For one, her job and her money. We learn that she got her job by promising she’d work for real cheap. But she keeps buying expensive, ridiculous things and literally leaving money left and right.

Which yes, does get a moment when she’s actually broke. But miraculously she receives a “bonus-check” - we never learn how much that is or what for it is exactly - and it fixes everything. The concept of money to her seems like the concept of someone who has never worked a day in her life, like a law-student stuck in a mental institute. At one point, she realized she must have spent too much money so she instantly went broke, but that problem was easily fixed and so far not brought up again even though she continues spending ridiculous amounts of money.

Said job where she’s working for barely anything? She also basically never works. She leaves work early all the time, she invests all her time in her persuit of Josh and/or Greg. She never actually works, aside from that one big case that she only takes on because it’ll bring her closer to Josh.

And then the new big lawyer comes in and buys out the firm. Nathaniel. He claims that she is the one who brought this firm onto their radar, only… How exactly? They did have this one big case, as just mentioned, but they lost it. What about that would make a big name law-firm interested, really?

Unless. Unless her mind grew bored with things as they were. She slowly started figuring out that The Guy is not what brings her happiness, that part of the fantasy was slowly unraveling, so her mind supplied this new character, who literally as she says stands for everything she left behind in New York. He stands for the career. For the dream that worked before. Like her mind is desperately trying to melt both those things together. Career and handsome man, both wrapped in one. As, you could say, a safety net in case the Josh-dream failed too.

A very big part of why all of this being in her head is plausible are the musical elements. In the beginning of the show, I thought that her singing was a sign of her mental problems and the fact that she flushed all her meds.

But everyone sings.

Characters who aren’t her or who aren’t even in the same scene as her also sing. Which, yes, you can go the musical cop-out excuse there. They just sing, it’s what they do in musicals.

Or… it’s what they do in the mind of a musical-obsessed crazy person who invented this world, those people and thus their songs and can listen to them even when “she” isn’t in the “scene” herself.

Another smaller instance were Heather’s parents, who were just retconned in. Everything so far set it up that Heather was living on her own. Suddenly, when Rebecca was in dire need of parental love, it is revealed that Heather has parents. Not just parents, but doting, caring, loving parents. Everything Rebecca ever wanted from her parents. And despite her being an entitled and rude brat, they take her in and treat her like a second daughter right away. Because her mind wanted and needed that comfort.

The biggest thing to “confirm” this theory to me however is the scene where she decides to pack her things and move back to New York. She’s on a flight and has a dream-revelation. Only. Only that her dream-scenario is literally one-by-one exactly what’s happening. She dreams of all her new friends being in her house and worrying about her. While her friends are actually in her house worrying about her. That scene has bothered me so much because it was the most unrealistic part of this show - and that’s saying a lot in a musical show about a crazy ex-girlfriend. But that she could actually see what “really” happened while dreaming in a plane? That was just too much.

Unless it’s all in her head anyway. The friends she made up were worrying in her apartment and, as the all-knowing being who created this world, she could of course see into her apartment and see her friends worrying even though she was on a plane miles away.

So, yes, to sum it all up, the show is great as a simple musical story with an unreliable, unstable narrator, but it becomes amazing if you view it as a fantasy in a crazy person’s head. And if, down the road, this show’s finale actually reveals that yes, she’s the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend but that was always meant as Robert’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and not Josh’s, because she’s actually in a mental institute because of him and that all of West Corvina is only in her head, it’d be the most amazing end.

Not that I want it to end any time soon. I’m very much looking forward to season 3 and I will be looking very closely for any more hints at all of this not being real but in her head.

Hey there, Josh! What are your opinion on Starlight Glimmer? Personally I don't care for her. Beside her being diet Sunset Shimmer, she is a blank slate so she can bounce of the current situation she's place in. But, what says you?

It took me a bit, but I’ve come to enjoy her presence.

She’s like someone criminally insane that is going through rehabilitation. It’s rough. She constantly screws up, keeps falling into the same traps. She even deals with very identifiable things like perpetual guilt and even some self-loathing. Sunset had the guilt for a little bit, but it didn’t take long for her to get over it, which is what I think is the biggest difference between her and Starlight. Starlight’s also very powerful, meaning that there’s plenty of juicy shenanigans to exploit.

However, it does tiresome to constantly see her have to fix problems that she makes. One of her better times was during the Season 6 finale where she was fixing someone else’s problem. She was unsure, scared, but she still saw it through. We need a few more episodes like that to even things out. She has issues, but let’s see more of the character BEHIND the issues, shall we?

Lost in Inkling; Part I

'I miss you.' 'I miss you too.' 'Are you okay?' 'You already asked that Issa'

Damn, I wish I had a tall, ambitious, white teeth smile, sexy ass man like Lawrence. Dramatic I know, but a man who would love me so much that he changes himself is the one you let pay some light bills and stick around for a while.  There's just no way I'd fuck that up. 

It's the second time I've watched Episode 8 of Insecure. Dressed in my 2011 Destin Beach spray paint T-shirt and black sweat pants, with my trusty wine in my left hand and my laughing stick in the right. I still can't wrap my mind around how she got bored with an idealistic man who always mentions her when speaking of his dreams. Gahhh! Heart Eyes! Okay, its the seventh time I've watched it. Don't judge me, but I get a slight satisfaction knowing there are more lost and single, almost 28 year olds, that fear to be an eternal solitarian who practices faithfulness. Despite the increasing popularity of two-timing. It’s almost like people want to catch the Monkey virus. Either way, I really need to let Insecure go. The show I mean. Well, I need to let go of my own too but after Jermaine, I've been bathing in regret and drying in self-loath. Then I lotion in confidence and dress in 'fuck these niggas', only to go out and witness a known married man all hugged up with some tramp. Then I come home and accept marriage was put on my blueprint for 1962 and I should just adopt 9 dogs, since I attract them anyway.     

                             *ring ring*         

Should I answer? or no? After throwing my phone like Jackie in a third inning last week, I broke my phone screen at an ineffective attempt to calm my rage. Plus, I hate answering calls when I'm not fully prepared. I did get slightly excited since nobody calls my phone but appointment reminders or those 'press 1 if this is Janeice Pothucker'  *1*  'you have missed 7 payments'  *disconnect call*. But It was only my overzealous best friend Quinn.                                                                      

"You okay, Lanie? I haven't heard from you since Tuesday."  She said sounding extremely concerned. "Quinn, its only Wednesday night, you act like you weren't just over here drinking up all my Pinot Nior. You owe me $20 too." I said sternly. "Well you taking to long to call me and I got some 'It was all a dream' juicy news to tell you, bitchhh!" "Bitchhh like Miracle Watts juicy or Deelishous Juicy?" "Nah Nah, darker berry sweet, like Bernice juicy with a little Big Booty Judy cause it's a throw back." "Ahhh I am excited now, Tell me!" "You remember James from Liberty High?" "Afro James or Sling Ding James?" "Lanie, the audacity you have to think I would have any exhilarating announcement involving the likes of Sling Ding Pencil miss holes James!" "Wouldn't put it past you" I said slyly. "Fuck you!"   We laugh for a few moments. "No no. Its the quiet one who came the middle of junior year and played football. Really cute. I had a crush on him until me and Rich got back together and then I caught him with Hoe Lay?" "Ohhhh," I said remembering "He was so sweet and had the cutest smile! What about him?" "Well I ran into him at the mall earlier and we started talking and catching up on missed time or whatever and BOOM, He asked me on a date, a real live date!" "Like a real real live date?" I asked for reassurance. "Yes bitch, We going to Ruth Chris this weekend."                                              I am genuinely happy for Quinn, but it seems like whenever I go through a hard break up, every one around me magically becomes the most un-single, deep in love earthlings ever! Its just not fair. "Lanie, " She said breaking the silence of my deep thought. "Did you hear me? We're going to Ruth Chris! The $60 dollar per person place we would only think of going during tax season. I think I'm going to order a salad so I won't look to greedy, what you think?" "I think if he wants to spend $60 on you let him spend it!" "I knew you would say that you're greedy like me, I'm about to send you a picture of what I picked out to wear." "My screen is on black out, but send it anyway and I'll look at it after I come from the Sprint store tomorrow." "Damn, I forgot. Okay, I'll call you later.” She paused. “And I ain’t paying you shit!” she said laughing right before hanging up the phone. The next morning, I dress for work in my sexy black lawyer pant suit with my "move bitch" pumps to try and redeem myself after looking like a depressed, lament bum this whole week. Despite my attempts to lift my soul out of Desparia, I’ve been cutting people off in mid conversation and hiding in my office all day. Maybe some fresh air will do me good. During my lunch break I head over to Sprint to see about having my phone brought back to life. When I entered the store, they either thought I stole $82 from their wallets or I was the announcement of Beyoncé's twin pregnancy. Either way, even in my shitty mood, I didn't mind the attention. I proceed to the empty front desk so I can add my name to the wait list. I'm sure no one wanted to approach me since I had the 'y'all bitches better not have me waiting to long' look on my face. After a long 67 seconds of standing there riled, this skin smooth, dark chocolate, gym 4 days a week built brother approaches me. I think he was saying something to me. I'm not really sure and he may think I was being rude, but really I was in distress over his full lips slowly rising to display his straight solid white smile.                   "Ma'am are you alright?" I finally closed my slightly opened mouth and shook off the hypnosis. “What can I help you with?” "huh?... oh yes umm.. I need to see about getting my phone fixed. I dropped it and my screen has been black since." Realizing my daydreaming, he let off a half smile. Damn, that half smile was deadly! "Sure thing, Can I get your name?"   "Lanie," I couldn't help but examine his fresh cut and perfect symmetrical face. This may just be me, but its something about a man looking down while I look at the top of his head, reminds me of....never mind.   "hmm, I don't see you in here, have you been to this location before?"   "Oh yeah, try Janeice, Janeice Pothucker." "Found you. Is your phone number 615-364-0741?" "Yes, that's me." He paused for a moment.   "Cool, it looks like we don't have anyone ahead of you for the technician, so follow me to the back and I'll get you all set up with Mike." We walk to the back to the area of the large room where all the techs were sitting behind the glass. For a moment I forgot where I was. It felt like he was leading us to our table, a dinner for two at my favorite live music restaurant, Sambuca. Dim lights and subtle jazz in the background and nothing but an intellectual exchange between us two. Discussions range from Angela Davis quick-witted way out of prison in the 60's to if Tupac really is alive and well in Cuba. The technician advised the phone fix will only take 15 minutes since all of the parts are in store. I stuck around, of course. I walked around looking at the latest phones and gadgets they had laid out for display. The Samsung galaxy s8 plus appealing frame caught my eye, might add to my list of future purchases. As I am going through the phone messages, by nature, I feel a set of eyes gazing at me. I look up to make sure the technician wasn't trying to get my attention, but he was in the back somewhere unseen. I slowly rotate by placing my right foot behind the left and did a ballerina spin. It felt necessary at the moment to slyly look around without making an obvious attempt to scan the room. Somehow in the midst of my spin I sped up and I forgot I had the new s8 in my right hand that was attached to a cord on the counter. The cords elasticity spun me back facing the counter, forcing me to loose my balance. Don't worry, I landed perfectly on the left side of my face. Smooth. I was so embarrassed! I wanted to run out the store like I just got my chain snatched by Debo. Before I could fully open my eyes, Donny Savage look-a-like is gently grabbing my right arm helping me up. Strange, because I could of sworn before my failed pirouette I saw his melanated reflection in the corner of my peripheral on the other side of the room. "Are you alright?" "You like that question. Yes I'm fine, I just lost my balance. Thanks....Solo." Glancing at his name tag. "Well I'm no doctor but it look like you're going to have a nasty knot on your left temple. We've got some ice in the back I can get you some." "No No, I'm fine really, thanks." I said pained as I gathered my purse and a few of my unmentionables that scattered in my fall. "I'm just embarrassed." I mumbled. "No need to be embarrassed, I fell down a flight of stairs just last week." Fuck! He heard me. "I didn't get to witness you fall so it doesn't count." I managed to say with a chuckle. "Do you dance?" He asked. "Huh?" "Dance," He reiterated. "from over there it looked like you were about to hit a nice spin." "You noticed from all the way over there?" His face said it all, I found my star gazer. "Mrs. Pothucker, your phone is ready." yelled the phone technician saving Solo from an explanation. "It's Ms. Pothucker, and thank you." "You're Welcome. Insurance covered everything so you're good to go." "Thank you. Have a nice day." "You as well, Ms. Pothucker." I started for the door. I was still embarrassed from my fall to look Solo's way so I sped up hoping my arms weren't bouncing behind me. "Ms. Pothucker," I turned around recognizing the deep waved, Godly voice. " have a nice day" "You as well, thank you again." He nodded. Fine ass! I hopped in my white Cherokee and scurried back to work with a satisfied smile on my face. Its good to know I wasn't the only one looking.