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#this has been going on since season 1 - he used the ladder truck for his hook ups not the engine
stagefoureddiediaz · 1 year
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Having A LOT of feelings over the temporality of ladders and Buck and the whole time metaphor because it’s been there since season 1 - the universe is screaming at all of us!!!
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Buck & Eddie: Buck has to create his own lasagna recipe
Buck’s journey to becoming captain will be different from Bobby’s; therefore he will need to create his own lasagna recipe.
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Episode 6x1 “Let the Games Begin” is filled with so many metaphors, parallels, subtexts, hindsight, callbacks, foreshadowing and dialogue that after it aired on Monday, each of those aspects had to be individually and collectively analyzed to determine how they were all related to the romantic pairings on the show, i.e., Bathena, Henren, Madney and Buddie.  With regards to Buck and Eddie, the available interim captain spot, Bobby’s lasagna recipe, Buck’s missing couch and his available chair, the Boggle game Eddie and Christopher played twice, along with their dialogue were things that required analysis because they’re all related to them becoming a CANON couple.  
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Eddie wants to spend the rest of his life with Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley, the handsome man with beautiful ocean blue eyes and a million-dollar smile; the man who has a huge heart; the one who will sacrifice himself for others; the man who won’t give up; but who is also dorky, quirky and who rambles about different topics that he’s done extensive internet research on.  That’s the man Eddie fell in love with and that’s the version of Buck that Eddie loves, knows, trusts and believes will be a great husband, father and fire captain. Eddie didn’t fall in love with a specific 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0 version of Buck because he loves all of him including Evan, the authentic shy, quiet, bashful and sometimes scared version of Buck that he has only ever shown to Maddie and Eddie.  Eddie said in 4x6 “Jinx”, “Still not sure what inspired the software update” after Buck said he was upgrading from version 2.0 to 3.0 because he was tired of looking behind himself, he was ready to move forward and since his parents agreed to go to therapy with him. The same way Eddie had to realize that he and/or his life is not like Bobby’s (after he tried to use the relationship advice Bobby offered him on two different occasions), Buck has to realize that too and until Buck understands the way he emulates Bobby is the very thing that is preventing him from being his authentic self, he will not be ready to be a captain and he won’t be ready to enter a relationship with Eddie. That’s why the interim captain slot, Bobby’s lasagna recipe, along with the The Buckley-Diaz Family dinner that took place at Buck’s loft, Eddie and Christopher playing Boggle at home and Buck moving his chair are all related.
Interim Captain
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Buck said he wanted to be interim captain but it’s evident he’s not ready since he continuously emulates Bobby.  Buck has only experienced Bobby’s version of how to be a “great captain” because Buck has reported to Bobby since he joined the 118.  Therefore Buck has been emulating Bobby since season 1, but until he realizes that he is not Bobby; he won’t be ready to be anyone’s captain.  Bobby thinks Buck is just like him which distorts his viewpoint sometimes especially since they have tunnel vision when it comes to each other. They are more than just a captain and a firefighter, actually their relationship is similar to that of a father and a son.  After the ladder truck explosion in 2x18 “This Life We Choose”, Bobby became so worried about Buck’s leg injury that he believed Buck would end up like he did when he became addicted to pain killers after he was injured on the job in Minnesota. The way Bobby treats Buck like a son and calls him “Kid” distorts his judgment and after he saw Buck coughing up blood in 3x1 “Kids Today” it prompted him to tell the LAFD that Buck wasn’t ready to return to work even though he was since he had been cleared by the doctors.  It took Athena telling Bobby in 3x6 “Monsters” that Buck is not him when she explained that she knew Bobby cared about Buck.  Also Bobby has worked with Buck so long that he can’t see him as anything other than his “pseudo son” and that was proven when he didn’t realize Buck was trying to impress him in 6x1 “Let the Games Begins”.  Hen was the one who had to tell Bobby what Buck was doing and that’s when the lightbulb went off for him.  Buck needs to report to another “great captain” to see a different perspective and while Buck has reported to two interim captains during his years as a firefighter, those instances were short lived.   The first interim captain Buck worked with was Chimney and that was a disaster because Chimney made the same mistake Buck would have made if he had been selected by Bobby to be interim.  While Chimney was interim captain from 2x17 “Careful What You Wish For” through 2x18 “This Life We Choose”, he spent the entire time trying to emulate Bobby instead of being himself which resulted in his downfall. The second interim captain Buck reported to was named Reynolds in 3x13 “Pinned” but no interactions were shown between Reynolds and Buck or Reynolds and the rest of the 118.
Interim Captain Henrietta ‘Hen’ Wilson
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Hen was Bobby’s first choice to be interim captain but he assumed she didn’t want it because her life is super busy being a wife, mother, paramedic and a medical school student but Bobby’s mistake was he assumed he already knew what she wanted and what her answer would be.  Every reason Bobby mentioned regarding why he didn’t ask her, Hen rebutted with both a plausible and reasonable answer and when she said yes, the position was hers.  Hen is going to be an excellent interim captain because she’s very smart and unlike Chimney, Hen doesn’t second guess her leadership abilities and she doesn’t doubt the decisions she makes.  She told Chimney in 2x17 “Careful What You Wish For” that the decision he made about Eddie’s deceased wife was sufficient and that he shouldn’t have been concerned with the way Bobby would have handled the situation since he was the interim captain and Bobby was on suspension.  Also she possesses the necessary leadership skills to lead the 118, including empathy, which Bobby lacks sometimes.  She’s had to fight for everything she’s accomplished since she’s been with the LAFD and she never gave up.  She’s determined; she knows how to remain objective; she understands the importance of privacy; she understands no matter how hard they work to save all victims’ lives, sometimes they can’t save everyone; her empathy helps her to see people; her compassion for the job makes her relatable to victims and their families and she’s passionate about learning new things, hence her desire to become a medical doctor.  She takes everyone’s feelings into consideration and that’s something else that sets her apart from the others.
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Hen being selected as interim captain will be good for Buck because he will finally be able to see someone in the captain’s role who has a different perspective from Bobby’s.  She truly knows and sees both Buck’s strengths and weaknesses and she’s the only one at the 118 who has never given up on Buck even after he filed the lawsuit.  Hen and Buck were the only two people who knew that Bobby broke his sobriety in 1x4 “Worst Day Ever” after the plane crash and neither of them said anything about it until Buck told his lawyer everything and Chase mentioned it during the arbitration hearing in 3x5 “Rage”. She didn’t even tell Chimney about it which means she knows how to protect a person’s privacy.  She told Bobby, Eddie and Chimney that Buck didn’t have anything other than his job in 3x1 “Kids Today” when all of them were saying Buck needed to accept the fact that he wasn’t a firefighter anymore.
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Hen was the only one who welcomed Buck back to work in 3x6 “Monsters” after the lawsuit even though he told his lawyer about a lot of her personal business too.  She had to explain to Bobby in that same episode that he was holding Buck back from working, that Buck has two settings “Zero and shut up before I smack you” and if he wasn’t going to let Buck work then he should allow him to go somewhere else.  In 5x5 “Peer Pressure” she went to comfort Ravi after Buck was acting like a narcissist while he was training him.  Bobby should have been the one to do that but he looked the other way and didn’t say anything.  Fighting for equality while fighting against discrimination in the workplace has been a constant challenge for Hen but Bobby’s never experienced any of it since he is a Caucasian man working in a predominately male dominated industry.  Therefore Hen’s example of how to be a “great captain” will help Buck realize that being a captain is not all sunbeams and moon pies and that’s going to be important for him when he starts experiencing discrimination in the workplace.  When Buck and Eddie become a couple, they will experience a lot of challenges in both their personal and professional lives that Bobby hasn’t had to face. Just like in real life, they will have to deal with people’s biases, negativities, discriminatory comments and all the other isms and schisms from people who expect for them to live their lives in a certain way.  That’s one of the main reasons why Buck needs to see a captain with a different perspective and one who has had different life experiences than Bobby’s had so that he will know how to handle it when he is faced with those types of situations.  That is the reason why Buck will have to create and perfect his own authentic lasagna recipe instead of using Bobby’s because his journey to becoming a captain will be different which means he shouldn’t keep emulating him.
Bobby’s Lasagna Recipe
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Bobby’s famous lasagna recipe was used as a metaphor for two things: (1) Buck becoming captain and (2) Buck and Eddie’s romantic relationship. Even though Bobby’s recipe had all the right ingredients and it looked and smelled good, it would never be the ideal recipe for Buck, Eddie and Christopher’s family and here’s why.  Lasagnas have a lot of layers just like relationships do but the layers included in each recipe can be different.  Recipes can be changed by the chef or adjusted to match a specific cook’s likings.  Cooking lasagna is also complicated, it takes planning and it takes several hours before it’s ready to be eaten.  After Buck set the lasagna on the table, Eddie said, “It does look good” and his comment was another metaphor because even though the lasagna looked good and it had several layers included in it, that was not a recipe that Buck created on his own which means his lasagna looked just like Bobby’s. Since the lasagna is a metaphor for both Buck’s journey to becoming captain and relationships, Buck’s lasagna recipe should be different from Bobby’s because Buck is not Bobby and their life experiences/journeys have been different.  Therefore the layers of his lasagna should be different too.  Buck is also preparing to enter a relationship with Eddie which also means the layers of their relationship will be different from the ones Bobby has in his relationship with Athena.  When Buck said that he didn’t want to pick the wrong couch again and Eddie said, “Maybe that’s how Bobby feels about interim captain” it was a parallel to both the lasagna and the interim captain spot. Eddie wanted Buck to realize that he needs to be himself instead of emulating Bobby to become a great captain because when Buck’s being himself, he’s at his best.  Buck is the man Eddie fell in love with not an imitated version of Bobby so he wants Buck to remember that being himself is the only thing that will make him happy. Therefore it’s important for Buck to create his own lasagna recipe because just like his journey to becoming a captain and his journey to being in a romantic relationship with Eddie, neither of Buck’s journeys will be like Bobby’s journeys.
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Bobby has given Buck good advice over the years regarding relationships but his advice about stepping in didn’t work with the woman Buck was in a relationship with. Even though the suggestions Bobby gave him didn’t work on his girlfriend, it worked seamlessly with Eddie.  Also when Bobby told Buck in 5x9 “Past is Prologue” that he doesn’t talk to the women he’s dating, that was true but Buck has never had a problem talking to Eddie or making Eddie talk to him (related post: “Buck listens to Eddie”).  
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The relationship advice Bobby gave Eddie also didn’t work because Bobby did the same thing with him that he did with Buck, he wanted Eddie to do what he did and move on as he pushed Eddie to start dating again in 4x6 “Jinx”.  It didn’t work out because Eddie was already in love with Buck and had been for a long time.  Eddie changed his will in 3x15 “Eddie Begins” which means he had been in love with Buck for almost two years at that point (related post: “Women pursued Buck, while Eddie was pushed towards women”).  Bobby has known that Buck is in love with Eddie since Buck went to him and explained Eddie’s childcare issues in 2x4 “Stuck” so his reasonings for not saying anything to Buck about it are unknown but they could be another parallel that explains why Buck’s lasagna recipe should be different from Bobby’s (related post: “Bobby already knows how much Buck loves Eddie”).
Boggle Game
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While Buck has to spend time working on himself, Eddie does too because for a long time he used Christopher as a shield for his own heart and feelings about Buck and that will not work anymore since he and Buck are preparing to enter a romantic relationship.
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In 2x2 “7.1” Eddie showed Buck a picture of Christopher and they became co-parents not long after that.  Whenever Eddie wants to spend time with Buck, if he’s upset with him or when he gave his heart to him, he always talked about Christopher instead of himself.
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2x4 “Stuck” Buck asked Eddie if his son was the reason he didn’t date and Eddie responded, “It’s complicated when you have a kid”.  When he really should have said, ‘I want to date you but I can’t because I don’t know if you will leave us and break our hearts’.
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3x3 “The Searchers” Eddie told Buck, “There’s nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you” which meant Eddie wanted Buck to know he trusted him with his heart.
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3x5 “Rage” Eddie yelled at Buck in the grocery store and said, “Do you know how much Christopher misses you? How could you you’re not around” when he was missing Buck too.
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4x14 “Survivors” During the will reveal Eddie said, “No one will ever fight for my son as hard as you and that’s what I want for him” which actually meant, no one will ever fight for my heart like you do and that’s what I want for me.
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5x10 “Wrapped in Red” Eddie told Buck, “Maybe I’m doing it wrong” when he was talking about Christopher trying to have a perfect Christmas but he really wanted to ask Buck to be with them like he had been in 2x10 “Merry X-Mas” and 3x10 “Christmas Spirit”.
Just like Eddie, Buck hides behind Christopher too instead of telling Eddie how much he loves him.  While he doesn’t do it as often as Eddie does, he has done it a couple of times.
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3x9 “Fallout” Buck told Eddie, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there Eddie, you and Chris needed me and I had my head so far up my own behind with that stupid lawsuit” when he really should have said, ‘I missed both of you and I love you. Let’s go back to the way we were before all of this happened’.
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4x14 “Survivors” Buck said, “I kind of lost it when I told him you got shot. I’m sorry, I should have held it together”.  When he really should have said, ‘It tore my heart out to see you laying on the ground after you were shot and I couldn’t handle it. Please don’t ever leave me’.
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Now that Christopher is twelve years old, he’s going to start asking Eddie for more independence which means they will not be spending as much time together.  Eddie will be home alone and he won’t have his son to play games with him and neither will Buck and that’s why the Boggle game Eddie and Christopher played during dinner at Buck’s loft and at home at the end of the episode were important.  
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In 3x9 “Fallout” all three of them played video games together but in 4x3 “Future Tense” Buck and Christopher played video games while Eddie supervised and disconnected the game.  The older Christopher gets the more he’s going to hang out with his friends so Eddie and Buck will have to talk to each other instead of avoiding all the things they haven’t talked about.  The silence will be deafening and there will no longer be a way for them to hide how much they love each other. Everything including The Well, The Shooting, The Will, The Hostage Situation and Eddie’s Breakdown will no longer be able to be ignored.
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All the metaphors in 6x1 are leading to one thing, Buck and Eddie becoming a CANON couple but there are a few things that have to happen first.  Buck must realize that he doesn't need to emulate Bobby to be a captain. He already knows he’s in love with Eddie and he has been since he first stepped in to help him with Christopher but like Bobby told him in 6x1, he has to take inventory of his life, admit his shortcomings and learn how to be at ease with himself and his life. That was the significance behind him moving his chair to the empty space where his couch previously sat.  Buck must learn who he is instead of trying to emulate who he believes people want him to be.  He’s Evan Buckley a good man with a good heart with so much love to give to Eddie and Christopher that it’s breathtaking.
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Even though Eddie has done the work to be better for himself in therapy, he still has to stop hiding behind Christopher with regards to the things he wants for himself (related post: “Eddie Diaz:  He’s going to therapy so that he can be better for himself”).  Teens don’t think it’s cool to hang out with their parents so Eddie will struggle when Christopher opts to hang with his friends instead of being with him.  Eddie has defined himself as a father and firefighter for a while but now Eddie needs to focus on Eddie Diaz, a good man who has so much love to give to his son and Buck that it too is breathtaking.  Christopher discovering his independence should lead to Buck and Eddie facing all of their shared traumas and feelings since the video games and family time the three of them have spent together will only be shared by the two of them. 
Will they finally admit they are in love with each other before the end of season 6A?  Only the showrunners, writers and producers know the answer to that question.
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recentlyheardcom · 7 months
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For three years, Rickey Brewer had hunted a true giant on the 15,000-acre Red River Army Depot near Texarkana in East Texas. He had the big non-typical in bow range last October, but never got a clear shot opportunity. So, this year, he put his daughter in position to kill the 31-point buck. With a green score of around 240 inches, it stands to set a new state record for the highest-scoring whitetail ever killed by a youth hunter.“I’ve been watching that buck on trail cameras for years,” says Rickey, who works on the base and has hunted there since he was young. “That day with my daughter, the weather was terrible—drizzling rain, chilly. But I knew the buck was there. So, we went to the stand about 2 p.m. It was thundering.”The weather on the afternoon of Oct. 29 didn’t bother Brewer’s 14-year-old daughter, Reili, who climbed into the ladder stand while her dad sat on the ground. The spot was in a hardwood bottom with plenty of oak trees dropping acorns, and Rickey blind grunted and rattled to try and draw the enormous buck into gun range.Reili Brewer with the giant, 31-point whitetail.“We rattled in four different bucks that day [Oct. 29], and Reili passed them all, holding out for the giant buck,” Rickey tells Outdoor Life. “She wasn’t going to shoot anything else.”He was willing to wait on the buck partly because he knew they were in a relatively unpressured zone. It was still Texas' youth season, and the Red River Army Depot has limited public access. (The only people allowed to hunt the army base are military personnel, veterans, base employees, policemen, teachers, and service officials.)Read Next: Eighth Grader Arrows a 238-Inch Buck, Likely the Biggest Non-Typical Ever Killed by a Youth Hunter in KentuckyRickey also knew the buck was still in the area. He’d gotten trail cam photos of the buck during daytime in the few days leading up to their hunt, and the hardwood bottom offered plenty of forage and cover. All he had to do, apparently, was walk away. At 6:20 that evening, he decided to return to his truck to warm up since Reili was wearing his rain gear.“I hadn’t been gone five minutes when I heard her shoot,” Rickey says. “Immediately she called me and was screaming and hollering, ‘Daddy, I shot the big one!’”Rickey took off running 400 yards back to the stand as fast as he could.“It was pouring rain, and I was soaking wet and cold when Dad left for his truck,” says Reili, a high school freshman. “A few minutes later I looked up and there was the buck, walking down a trail eating acorns. When he stepped behind a tree, I raised my rifle, put the crosshairs on his shoulder, and squeezed he trigger.”The buck stands to set a new youth record in the state.Reili made the shot from 40 yards, using a bolt-action Savage rifle chambered in .350 Legend. The buck only made it a few feet before dropping.After field dressing the buck, they called the base’s hunt coordinator, who helped haul the buck out of the muddy woods with his truck. The buck weighed 160 pounds dressed and they aged it around 5.5 years old.It’s massive, non-typical rack has 31 points—29 of which are scorable—and Rickey says his taxidermist gave it a green score of 238 1/8 inches. If those numbers hold through the 60-day drying period, it'll shatter the current Texas youth record, which sits at 209 inches.
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gayravi · 2 years
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this is gonna be kinda long and incomprehensible but hear me out: sth is really weird with buck, he is acting super ooc this season. first his relationship with taylor that seemed super weird in 5a but i brushed it off attributing it to me being negative abt it bc i don't like BT. but then with each passing episode he was acting weirder. he was once again focused on his own pain and making it abt himself. he tried to leave bc he felt unwanted. 1/3
2/2 then maddie left. and back in that episode when chim punched him and buck spent the entire episode telling chim how maddie just needs time and she's fine i didn't think much of it either. but now after boston, now that we know more? like buck is the caretaker. he loves his family. and maddie came to him, told him abt almost drowning jee and that she is leaving, she didn't tell him where and he just LET HER? he never would have before. 2/3
3/3 the buck we always knew would NEVER let maddie go if he suspected that it was THIS BAD. did he not even realize??? and then there is the cheating storyline. this was super ooc for the buck we know. and then the eddie thing? sth bad is happening to buck. i don't mean ooc in a 'this is bad writing' way. i think it's excellent writing. i think they're giving us subtle hints about how he is heading for sth Bad. i think once everyone else is "fixed" he is gonna go down. hard.
OKAY sorry i’ve been holding on to this since you sent it last night and i wanted to wait until i was off work so i could properly digest it and respond because i think you are actually the smartest anon that’s ever been in my inbox.
so my thing with buck is this: eddie hit the nail on the fucking head when he said in 504 “you’re the guy who likes to fix things”. he wasn’t just walking about buck’s relationship with maddie; he was stripping buck down to his very bones, the very root of his character -- beneath all of buck’s bravado, his flirting, his jokes and fun facts, he’s just a guy who wants to help, who wants to do the right thing, and most importantly, who wants to fix other people’s problems. it is of my personal opinion (but i’m right, actually) that buck wants to fix other people’s problems so he doesn’t have to fix his own. i could go on a mile long tangent about how buck compartmentalizes himself and his own issues (hello buck 1.0/2.0/3.0), and how everything we know about buck in canon goes to prove that he avoids dealing with his own problems by dealing with other people’s. he loves to be able to fix things, he hates when he can’t.
which brings us to season 5, and i think you’re literally so right, that buck is acting ooc, and it’s for a very good reason. as the audience, we’re SUPPOSED to be thinking, as my father said during 511, “what the fuck, buckley?”. we’re supposed to be wondering what’s going on in his head. and where with say, eddie, we very clearly know why he’s heading into the direction of a major breakdown, we don’t necessarily have that with buck. like obviously, we know he’s Been Through Shit (daniel, the shooting, the ladder truck, the tsunami, the blood clots, the lawsuit, jesus christ man), but we’ve also been made to believe that those things are things we’ve dealt with. personally i believe this is why dr. copeland was introduced in 4A -- to give viewers the impression that buck was dealing with his shit. but we very clearly see in season 5 that he hasn’t dealt with it, and with the huge fucking elephant in the room that is the shooting and the will, buck can’t deal with it.
so, he acts out of character. this is SO fucking pertinent to buck’s character, imo. he quite literally has a track record of making the wrong decision when he’s backed into a corner and doesn’t know what else to do; the lawsuit is a perfect example of this. so now, in season 5, we have a buck who has absolutely no direction as to how to move forward to healing, so he does what he does when he’s afraid -- he makes Decisions that aren’t necessarily the best for him in the long run. take taylor, for example -- he makes it clear that he’s tired of running after people, and yet he gets with taylor (not to MENTION everything that happens in past is prologue) anyway. he’s constantly making ooc decisions, and it isn’t bad writing. it’s fan-fucking-tastic writing, actually, because we’re slowly seeing buck break down in real time. this isn’t eddie clutching a back (with buck In The Room) because all of his trauma is hitting him at once; this is buck slowly but surely digging himself into a hole he won’t be able to get out of without serious help
and you’re right -- especially after everything that happened with doug, i don’t think buck normally would have let maddie go off by herself, especially if he feared she was in danger to herself. but this isn’t a buck who’s acting rationally; this isn’t a buck who’s head is on straight. this is a buck who’s grasping at the edge of a cliff, trying to hang on. this is a buck who can’t fix someone else’s problems, because his own are becoming suffocating.
so yeah, you’re right on the nose -- buck is going to put it away (hah) and help other people; he’s going to be there for maddie and chim, be there for eddie and chris, be there for bobby and may, and he’s not going to worry about himself. but as soon as he doesn’t have anything to fix, anything to focus on, the weight of everything is going to hit him at once, and he’s going to fucking break.
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liesoverthec · 3 years
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OG 911 Character Details from Canon Pt 2
Hi y’all I’m back! I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reblogged the last details post - I sort of just thought people would like it and it would die, so to see it travel and hopefully reach more writers was so great so thank you again!
Details under the cut since I went a little crazy 😅 and if this is your first time seeing this, the first part, and any future parts, can be found under this tag here!
Quick note before I get to the details - always, ALWAYS take details from dialogue or plot over details from the set or props if they contradict each other. The writers have the ultimate say over what happens on the show/for the characters, so whatever they say goes, even if it goes against something props has already laid down (eg, Chim’s birthday, sorry Libra crew. He’s an Aries or a Pisces). So keep that in mind for the future in case some of these details I have which are from props/set are changed in the future, or if you’ve noticed something yourself!
Also if you have questions, I am MORE than happy to answer them, although if you leave them in the tags on this post I’m probably gonna lose them, so if it’s something you’d genuinely like an answer to, drop it in my inbox! Besides my standard “ask” tags, I’m also tagging asks about canon details with this tag here. Every time I make a big post like this, I’m going to link all the asks I’ve gotten since the last post, but if you’re looking for more info in the mean time, that’s the other spot to look!
Buck has a grill on his patio.
Eddie doesn’t hang Christopher’s art on the fridge - instead it is either hung on the corkboard in Chris’ room to the left of the door, or Eddie puts it in an actual frame and hangs it using a hammer/nails in Christopher’s room. All the Diaz family has on their fridge is a bunch of bendy people magnets. (I absolutely ADORE him putting all this effort into treating Christopher’s art like it’s something you’d buy from a professional artist).
Info on everyone’s ages can be found here. (Little more discussion of Chim’s situation here).
Albert has a bachelor’s degree! I don’t know in what though, except that it’s some field for which is a Master’s is useful.
Athena was in a sorority in college, Delta Sigma Theta. Their website describes them as “ ...a sisterhood comprised primarily of Black, college-educated women ... [that] considers the issues impacting the Black community and boldly confronts the challenges of African Americans and, hence, all Americans ”, which I love for Athena, and feel is very in-character for her at that time in her life!
Chim is an aviators dude. When he wears sunglasses, they’re always aviators.
Athena also wears nothing but aviators.
Bobby wears square aviators.
Eddie, on the other hand, always wears Wayfarers.
Buck either doesn’t really like sunglasses or he constantly forgets he owns them, since we’ve only seen him wear them once in 60 eps, in a move I’m pretty sure was ONLY for dramatic effect.
Hen’s sunglasses change style over the seasons like her regular glasses do, but she tends to like browline sunglasses.
Info on Christopher’s school can be found here!
There are two colors of dispatch polo, and there doesn’t seem to be any rhythm or reason for who wears what. Maroon - Maddie and Linda. Blue - Josh and May. Jamal has actually worn both maroon and blue, so it doesn’t seem to be TOTALLY set in stone although I’ve never seen anyone else switch. Sue is too badass to wear a dispatch shirt.
Both Bobby and Eddie drive 4 door pickups. Bobby’s is navy. Eddie specifically has a black, 2020 GMC Denali 1500 pickup truck (in case you want to specifically look up what the inside of it looks like or what features it has 😂)
Info on the 118’s medical certifications can be found here.
Correction to Eddie’s living situation from last post: no next door neighbors, but instead UPSTAIRS neighbors. (Pointed out by Abigail in this ask). Also since someone else was wondering the notes of the last post - no, there is absolutely no discussion on the show of whether or not Eddie rents the apartment or owns it. But based on the fact that it’s 1) LA and 2) an apartment, my guess would be he rents it.
When Maddie isn’t feeling like herself, she tends to straighten her hair rather than curl it. It seems to be more when she’s uncertain about her place in her own and other people’s lives, rather than just when she’s simply worried - eg it’s straight in 2B, when she’s uncertain if she wants to continue working as a dispatcher/is unsure about her relationship with Chim.
For work, Chim, Eddie and Buck all use black duffel bags with a LAFD patch on the top. Hen uses several different cute bags, and Bobby seems to have a plain black duffel bag.
Watches - Bobby, Athena, Chim, Hen and Buck all wear their watch on their left wrist (but Athena ONLY wears hers for work, she takes it off at home.) Eddie wears his on his right wrist, and Maddie doesn’t wear one.
Chim (and Maddie by default) literally still have the exact same couch as in the pilot. (Which means that Chim has cuddled Tatiana on that couch, AND Albert has had sex on it. TIME TO GET A NEW ONE, BUCKLEY-HANS 😂)
The 118 has five different rigs - the engine (E118), the ladder truck (T118), two ambulances and the captain’s truck. 95% of the time, when the team is chilling in the cab of a rig and chatting (eg the ‘stuck under a live telephone pole’ scene in Jinx), they’re in the engine, not the truck. (Which I personally learned recently are NOT interchangeable terms!)
Athena and Michael got married when Athena was 37.
If you’d like to give Maddie a full name beyond “Maddie”, you should use Madeline. (I know, I know, in 4x04 she says Maddie is the name on her birth certificate, and that you should never use props details if they contradict script details, but I always thought that was a super weird exchange in 4x04 which could be explained by Maddie getting a nickname since she was born when Margaret and Phillip, you know, actually loved their kids and showed it, so of course Buck doesn’t get one, and in 4x04, Maddie was trying to avoid the entire issue of why she got one and Buck didn’t. But! Do what you want, and use Madeline as the full version of Maddie if you’d like, since that’s what’s on the BOLO in 2x13 😂)
Athena’s call sign is 727 L30, but she doesn’t have a specific squad car - the number changes throughout the series.
Chim really likes chewing gum, but he’s the only one out of the entire family!
The station has an Xbox One S, and it’s white.
In the real LAFD, there are stations 1 through 114. To avoid confusion while filming on the streets (I’m assuming), our fictional LAFD never uses the number of a real station. So if you want another station for a fic, and you want something that would be real in OUR universe, use the numbers 115 and above. They’ve gone as high as 221 in our universe.
Battalions - station 118 is in Battalion 7, which is also not a battalion in real Los Angeles. The 118 has interacted w/ Battalion 1, which is a real battalion, but other ‘non-real which makes them more likely for our universe’ battalions include numbers: 3, 8, 13, 16, 19 and above.
S1 Buck knew the term Jedi, but based on context, didn’t understand AT ALL the context provided by Star Wars, so there’s another edge of his pop culture limits for you.
Chim is the most tech-savvy out of everyone, hands down.
Athena has a VERY active Twitter account.
Abuela’s house number is 8902. I don’t have a street name for you unfortunately though. :/
Athena’s favorite flowers are white roses. None of the other women are really flower people.
Michael likes to wear purple.
When they’re at a call, Buck does pretty much all of the stuff with the hammer and the saw. Eddie does all the work needed with the drill.
Harry goes to Meadowbrook Elementary.
Buck lives on the fourth floor of his apartment building, across the hall from Apt. 416. The lovely @lovelessmotel found this listing for what is more or less the apartment. What happened was: the set crew rented this apartment for the one episode at the end of s2 when Buck moved in, and then over the summer before s3 built their own set of it, and changed some things - eg giving him an island, and moving the sink to a second counter against the far wall, you can see the changes here in this amazing gif set by the awesome Austen, but the listing should let you click around a little more upstairs and figure out dimensions better than what the show provides!
When Athena and Hen go out to eat together, it’s always fast food burgers and fries.
Waffles are Athena’s favorite food, and tiramisu is her favorite dessert.
Every takeout we’ve seen Buck eat has always been in a Chinese food takeout container, and we know he likes Thai food the best. EXCEPT! The one time we see him eat takeout with Eddie and Christopher, they have pizza. So take from that what you will......
Eddie has a cell phone and a landline.
Chim is a shameless multiple texter.
Chim and Bobby sleep closest to the door in their respective bedrooms (both right side of the bed if you are standing at the foot, facing the headboard), and Athena and Maddie sleep furthest away from the door (left side).
Some canon last names for other firefighters at the station in case you wanna add more people to a fic - Mitchell, Sanchez, Serrano (woman), Porter, Meyers (woman), Maxwell, Voyta
Hen and Karen really love decorating their house with dark/red wood.
Karen is Mommy and Hen is Mama.
Bobby has a brother, and a grandmother, and that’s literally ALL we know about his family outside of Marcy and the kids.
Evidence points to Eddie being the oldest child in his family.
Karen has multiple brothers (no sisters), but no idea how many - just that one of them is named Trey, and one of them lives in LA and has kids. They might be the same brother and they might not be.
Both Hen and Athena are only children.
Athena has been on the police force for 30 years.
Christopher and Denny are the same age (born in 2011), and Harry is two years older than them.
Michael lives in apartment 308.
The bank in this universe is CalAm.
Hen and Karen have a picture of Denny, May and Harry on their fireplace mantel.
Eddie having a black thumb + a lot of plants in his living room = him buying fake plants bc he likes the aesthetic ™ or someone (cough Carla cough) is taking care of them for him.
The COVID timeline in OG’s universe is fucked up compared to the real world’s, so it shouldn’t be used as a way to measure time! They just throw it in wherever it makes sense for the story they want to tell (eg the vaccines in s4 ep 8), since s3 was both done before COVID hit but also airing while it was happening. It makes absolutely no sense for May to graduate in March nor for Chris to be going to what is specifically labeled summer camp, and the vaccine plotline was INCREDIBLY early, even for real life, so don’t use anything from that as a measure of time. I’ve found except in specific examples, eg the two tsunami episodes, it’s very safe to say every episode covers a week - fall holidays on the show line up with their real life counterparts, indicating about the same amount of time is passing for us and them.
On that note - Jee-Yun was born in late January, early February 2021. (Conceived in Pinned, which was end of March/beginning of April, meaning Maddie was around a month along at May’s graduation in May ➡ 42 weeks + 3 days from then = late Jan/early Feb. Which unfortunately means we most likely won’t see her birthday celebrated on screen. If we assume she was conceived on the date Pinned aired, aka the very sexy hotel scene, then January 21st or 22nd would be Jee’s birthday, depending on if she was born after midnight or not.
Buck has had at least one other Jeep between the one Maddie gave him, and the one he has now, which means that when he needs a new car, he is purposefully choosing Jeeps.
I hope this was all as interesting/enjoyable to you as it was to me! And just to repeat - I love answering questions so pls let me know if you have any at all ❤
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
Tagging: @buckbuckley
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inawickedlittletown · 5 years
Text
Next To Me (1/6)
Summary: Buck and Eddie started off in different places but eventually they ended up in the same. Eventually, they ended up in love. 
Buck had never had a friend like Eddie before. Someone that burrowed under his skin and wrapped around him and became a part of him — like an extra limb, someone he couldn’t do without.
Ship: Buck/Eddie
Words: 4,199
Notes: This is far from my first fic, but it is my first fic in the 9-1-1/buddie fandom. I binged the first two seasons a few weeks ago and got caught up on the current season, read a few fics, and here we are. 
I wanted to write something that explores Buck and his past but also a realistic take on Buck/Eddie within the canon. As I wrote, I figured out that for it to work I would need to look at Eddie's past as well and so this fic was formed. 
Title comes from the Imagine Dragons song: Next To Me. 
Masterpost
Read on Ao3
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Chapter One
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The thing was that he always liked guys. Buck was an equal opportunity lover because people were people and a lot of people were hot. Girls were easier sometimes. A bit of smiling, some flirting, and most of them were welcoming him with open arms and Buck was not afraid of using anything at his disposal to close the deal. Even, on two occasions the ladder truck. Thinking back on that made him cringe. With guys there was always the awkward moment where Buck had to figure out if the guy that caught his eye was actually gay or bi. His gaydar was faulty at best. Worse, or equally as bad, when other guys looked at him they saw a straight guy. It was very rare for anyone to actually peg his sexuality before they got to know him. 
For a long time, Buck was all about the one-night stands. The quickies anywhere. Even sometimes in the view of other people. That was just easier. After all, it was his experience that the people he cared about always hurt him after some fashion of time. It happened with his parents, with his sister, with the boy he loved back when he was in high school, and perhaps even everyone that he considered giving a shot to. Keeping people at a distance was easier. 
Then, he became a fireman. 
His mother always wanted him to be a doctor or, if not that, a nurse like his sister. She had hopes that if it wasn’t a medical field that he do something that meant something. In other terms, she wanted him to have money and success. His father had probably cared at some point, but as early as the age of ten, Buck had known that his father didn’t like him. His parents should never have been parents. They were the kind of people that had kids because that was the next step after getting married and buying the house in the suburbs complete with the white picket fence.
If they had cared even a little, they might have bothered to be bothered when Buck announced that he was leaving Pennsylvania. His sister had been long gone since then to put up a fight. Buck had packed up his clothes and a few other odds and ends into his car — the one single thing he was taking that his parents had given him — and then he was on the road. It was only once he’d made into another state that he called Maddie to let her know his plans.  
“Hey, Mads,” he said. “So, I left home. Not sure where I’m going but I had to go.”
“Evan, oh my god. What—”
She only ever called him Evan when she was shocked or when she wanted to put a point across. After all, it was Maddie that first started calling him Buck since using Buckley felt weird considering it was her own last name and she didn’t like the name Evan. She had used it so widely that aside from their parents everyone knew him as Buck. 
“It was time. They were driving me crazy, Maddie. I just figured I’d let you know.”
There hadn’t been a plan when he left. Buck hadn’t even known he wanted to be a fireman, much less what he might do with himself. He picked up odd jobs on the road but never stayed long anywhere. He was nineteen and for the first time he felt free. Maddie called him every day, urging him to at least go to college. It didn’t matter where. She would even pay for it. He turned her down every time. The only thing he’d been remotely interested in was joining the Navy. The Navy Seals to be more accurate. It seemed sort of unattainable to him at first so he put it off to keep living the life of the free spirit. 
Back in Hershey, Buck had had a few friends. One of them was the boy he’d sort of but not really dated — the one that in the end turned out to be an asshole anyway. Most of the other friends had gone off to college but they kept in touch and if Buck happened to be near their schools if they’d gone out of state he went and visited. That was how he wound up catching up with Matt and meeting Matt’s new friends and joining them on a Spring Break trip to Mexico. 
When they all left to go back to school, Buck decided to stay behind. He managed to score a job at one of the bars and Mexico was just nice. The weather was gorgeous, the people were friendly — the locals more so than the tourists. There was also plenty of money to be made. Buck had taken Spanish in high school and it was enough to get by until he really started to pick up the language. The swear words came easy. 
It helped that Mexican girls and boys were not shy when it came to flirting with him and willing to teach him Spanish. He learned more than just Spanish during his stay. 
A full year went by before he noticed it. Buck stayed for another six months before a call from Maddie meant he actually had to go back home. She was getting married. 
It was somehow easier to face his parents and Maddie when he returned for her wedding. He didn’t like Doug much but Maddie was happy. It was possible their parents didn’t like Doug either but he was a doctor and they seemed like they were in love. Maddie was happy. 
Afterwards, Buck went back to Mexico and because he could, he travelled through Central America down into South America. He stuck mostly to the coast working at bars and restaurants  as well as other places and for seven months or so he just wandered. By then he was fluent in Spanish. He got back to Mexico eventually and then Maddie finally convinced him to go to school. She wanted him to at least have his Associate’s Degree. She worried about him. Then again, that was probably exactly what big sisters were supposed to do. 
“You can’t keep being some sort of vagabond with no home, Evan,” she said over a phone call.“There has to be something you want to do. Maybe school will help you figure it out and if not then you have a plan B to fall back on.”
Maddie had always been smart and Buck figured he’d listen to her. She was there with Doug and his parents when he graduated from Community College and Buck ignored her when she tried to push him to continue his education and instead, he spent some days with the family before leaving again and this time he was headed for California. 
Mexico had taught him that he liked nice weather and the West Coast seemed like the best option. He was far enough away from his parents and he and Maddie kept in touch. Emails and phone calls and texts. Eventually, though, they both just stopped trying. She was busy with her job and her new married life and Buck was content with his life. Buck wouldn’t lie and say that it didn’t hurt when she started to ignore him. 
California was different from Mexico and most other places. Buck rented a room and then found a job at a popular bar. His time in Mexico had given him skills with preparing drinks so he was hired after Buck showed off some of his skills. California was also where he felt the most alone. 
He had friends. Sort of. The kind of people you met up with at a bar from time to time. Not the kind you texted if you needed help or in an emergency. Drinking buddies, acquaintances met through his roommates. No one dependable and no one that would miss him if he disappeared. Not that Buck was even looking for real friends. The ones he’d had before from school all had their own lives and things going on and Buck didn’t think he even really missed them. 
Working at the bar also meant meeting a lot of different people. Buck hadn’t known it at first but a few celebrities stopped in from time to time. Mostly, though, the bar drew in other types. The creatives — producers and other executives looking to find their next big star. Some of them approached Buck. After a while he could tell why someone was looking at him from afar. Some of them were general looks of someone wanting him in their bed. Other times, it was the speculative look of someone that thought he looked like he would fit their next film. Buck turned them down every time. He didn’t turn down the girls or the guys hitting on him. 
It did bring along more trouble than it was worth. Buck was working in LA. He was a bartender without the stars in his eyes waiting for his big break, But everyone else around him — that was why they were there and the jealous looks thrown his way grew tiresome. 
Buck started looking for other jobs. None of them lasted more than a few months. 
He took a receptionist job at a gym for a little while. Then, he was a valet. Then, he tried and failed as a personal assistant. For a while he went back to bartending before he found himself working at a child care place. That was probably one of his favorite jobs. Buck loved kids. He loved the way they saw the world and how much the little things mattered and made them happy. Maddie told him he should be a teacher on the rare phone call they shared. 
Buck was considering the idea until he remembered that old dream of his. Joining the Navy Seals. It felt like the right time to revisit that idea. 
He lasted about five minutes. The training was horrible, worse than anything he’d ever gone through and yet somehow, Buck managed to do it. They didn’t even bother with you unless you were already at peak physical shape and even then the training was hard. He did everything right. His superiors thought he was good and Buck just kept pushing himself. 
He didn’t tell anyone what he was doing. By then contacting Maddie had gotten harder and harder. She didn’t call him back or respond to emails. Occasionally she texted but it gave him nothing. Buck stopped reaching out. He was all alone, so he buried himself in what he was doing. 
Bootcamp had seemed like the hardest part at first, but then came the real eye opener once he was in Pre-BUDS and it was made clear that he had to put his emotions in a box and lock them up tight. There was no room for that as a Navy Seal. Buck couldn’t do it. Even if he had wanted to, he was basically told he didn’t have it in him to be one. 
He left, just a bit dejected, certainly a little broken, and in the best shape of his life. The training had done something to change him — just a bit. But it didn’t mean that Buck knew what came next for him. Mostly, it meant that he appreciated things a little differently. Things like his emotions and his ability to care. It didn’t exactly stop him from picking up a gorgeous dark haired man a few days after the fact and falling apart under his touch in an unfamiliar bed. It also didn’t stop him from leaving the next morning knowing perfectly well that it was a one time thing. 
Afterwards he wandered around the country for a while like he’d done when he first left home. Maddie still didn’t answer calls or emails or texts but Buck wasn’t in any state of mind to let himself really worry. On Instagram she posted pictures of herself and Doug. Always smiling. She looked happy. When he left a comment, she never responded. 
Eventually, Buck made it back to California and the job at the childcare place welcomed him back. That was when it happened. One of the kids swallowed something and choked. Buck was the one to call 9-1-1 while one of his coworkers tried and failed to make the object fall out. The firefighters and paramedics arrived in minutes and Buck watched as they worked, getting the marble dislodged and checking the little boy over until they were satisfied he’d be okay.
The next time he was in an emergency was almost a year later. It was at the beach. It was late afternoon and the lifeguards were gone. Most people at the beach were staying on the sand, enjoying the late afternoon sun. A few kids kicked around water at the very shore. Then, they all heard shouting. A couple of teenagers were out in the water and one of them was caught in a riptide. Buck had been a lifeguard back when he was in high school, just a quick way to earn some money over the Summers and get to stare at pretty people. He wasn’t CPR certified anymore, but he knew what to do and there was no one else running to help them. So he ran, going in the water and swimming out to help, adrenaline rushing through him right up until the very end when he had the boy back on land and he was starting compressions. Others were trying to help and someone had called 9-1-1 but by the time they arrived the boy was already throwing up water and coughing as air finally made it into his lungs again. 
“You might have saved that boy, kid,” one of the paramedics said and touched his shoulder. “Good job.” 
“I — thanks,” Buck said. 
“You know, there’s always a need for first responders. We could use someone like you.”
And it was like a bell going off in his head. He’d never considered it before but it made sense. He wasted no time going for it. 
It was the best decision he ever made and maybe it was his experience with the Navy Seals or his sheer determination that made the entire process surprisingly easy. 
The written exam wasn’t hard at all and the CPAT was even easier. Buck was still in good shape from his Navy Seal training even a year later and everything they threw at him was not all that difficult. He could see some of the others straining but most of them had clearly prepared and were pushing themselves to do it. It was satisfying to be able to do it all. Even the psychological test turned out to be easy. 
He ended up at the fire academy really learning his stuff. A few months later he was a probationary firefighter and he was hired and assigned to an LA Firehouse. Fire Department Station 118. 
When he first joined the 118, it was just like any other job. Not in the sense that it was somewhere to work and somewhere to be but in that all the other firefighters saw him like everyone else always did. Some guy a little too cocky and a little too interested in literally anyone that crossed his path. That, after all, was something that didn’t change. Buck was still having sex. Lots of it and with anyone that seemed interested. 
Dating apps — or rather hookup apps — were sometimes the easiest way, but Buck still went out to bars to pick up a girl or a boy. He didn’t disclose his sexuality to anyone at work. He’d never had to before at the other places and it didn’t feel like something that he could just bring up not even when he found out that Hen was a lesbian with a wife and child. It was just that bisexuality came with a stigma and Buck was already not prone to labels. He also...well, he didn’t know how to talk about it and since it didn’t change who he was or how he did his job, Buck just kept it to himself.
For the first time in any job, though, he found people that he actually liked. Captain Nash in particular was someone he warmed up to quick. Enough so that he invited him to a Springsteen Concert a month into being a part of the 118. Buck felt comfortable with them and everyone welcomed him in maybe more so on a personal level than as a fellow firefighter. They all teased him about how much of a flirt he was. 
Buck hooked up with people all over town and somehow it was just a string of girls one after the other and none of them left an impression and Buck didn’t really care for or about them. It was like scratching an itch. 
It was once it started affecting his job that Buck started to think that it might be a problem. And he just had no idea why he was even so reckless and stupid especially when it was a job that he loved and possibly the happiest he’d been in ages. He shouldn’t have done anything to threaten that and yet something made him rebel. It made him thoughtless and when the girl he was talking to was offering to put out if he got to her within a certain amount of time — a near impossible task — it was a challenge he willingly took. He just drove off with the ladder truck and didn’t even consider how it might be a problem until he was back and he could see it on everyone’s faces that he’d screwed up. 
He did it again not a few days later, telling himself he was going to get away with it and that either way he’d still have one more warning to go before it became a real problem. By then, of course, Buck had it almost figured out. He had a problem. He self diagnosed as a sex addict. 
The thing was that he just wanted it all the time. With anyone. Mostly girls. Girls were somehow easier. Sometimes they were the very same girls that he met out on calls. Sometimes it was the girls that were impressed by his uniform. Chim was not wrong in saying that it made a difference and not just with women but with men too. He’d seen quite a few checking him out while on calls. 
Buck hadn’t actually expected for Cap to fire him. His whole world seemed to fall apart after that. 
Buck knew he was welcome on the team, but he also knew that they were all wary of him. He didn’t blame them. After all, they were all supposed to have each other’s backs and for that they needed to have trust and that didn’t come overnight. He needed to prove that they could trust him and Buck could admit even to himself that sometimes he rushed into things without thinking. It was lucky he had people around him that were experienced and knew better than him and that stopped him from making mistakes even if they also judged him for it. 
One thing that he noted almost immediately after getting assigned to the 118 was that everyone did seem to care about each other on a deeper level than co-workers. They were friends. They were family. Buck had never expected to be a part of that and yet there was a part in it all where he fit. The youngest firefighter of the house and possibly the most reckless...they all liked him even if they were still getting used to him out on calls. 
Buck loved his job. He loved the adrenaline and everything that came with saving a life. The first few calls had been nerve wracking and Buck hadn’t been fully prepared for what they were and yet he’d managed to jump in and help alongside everyone else. So being fired...having Captain Bobby Nash look at him that way...it felt like his life was being torn apart. Worse, after it happened he realized that it wasn’t just the job he loved, but everyone he had gotten to know there. Bobby, Hen, and Chimney especially stood out and he didn’t want to not see them every day.  
Getting a second chance when he thought he wouldn’t was eye opening. It made him change. He wanted to show them that he did deserve to be there and after a little while, he realized that they did know that. Bobby seemed to trust him more and the rest followed suit. Buck didn’t want to let any of them down. 
Unlike with anyone else he’d met since leaving Pennsylvania, Buck finally found people he could be himself with — be accepted by. Buck found himself sharing parts of himself with them — things that he’d always just kept to himself before. He told Bobby about the sex addiction thing and followed that up with talking to him about anything and everything because Bobby was just easy to tell things to and he didn’t judge Buck, either. He mostly seemed amused. He also tried to offer advice where he could. 
Before Buck knew it, he was part of the gang. One of them. They were more than co-workers. They became a pseudo family that he didn’t know he needed or wanted. Bobby was probably the one that Buck felt closest to — he saw the older man almost like a father...or at least what he had wished his father had been. 
Buck also found himself with a relationship. Abby was wonderful. Buck usually went for people his age or thereabouts so it was a little strange that Abby was seventeen years his senior. She just had such an amazing vibe about her and youthfulness that Buck loved. She was the first person in a long time to keep his interest even when they weren’t having sex. Abby changed him. Or maybe everyone did.
Having people that cared about him and that became his family...it made a difference. He didn’t need to fill a hole with meaningless sex. He had other outlets and other ways to express himself. Bobby had started teaching him to cook and Hen let him babysit from time to time — only when no one else was available. Chimney was hurt and recovered and came back and Buck appreciated life more after knowing he could have lost a dear friend. 
When Abby left, it was Chim and Hen that took him out for drinks and made it just a little better. Bobby and he had a talk about it the next day and it occurred to Buck that they were all trying to make sure he was okay and that they all thought he and Abby had broken up. 
In truth, looking back on it later, Buck supposed that a break up would have made more sense than how the next few months went with him living in her apartment convinced that one day she was going to just surprise him and be there waiting for him when he came home. It never happened. He’d sunk deep into denial about what Abby leaving really meant. 
He was kind of crushed by it in the months that followed her leaving. Work kept going and having something to do and to keep occupied with helped even if arriving back at Abby’s empty apartment always made his shoulders slump. 
Buck could tell that Chim and Hen were a bit surprised by how little interest he showed anyone else. It was as if they had been expecting Buck to just move on from Abby like he had with all those others and start picking girls up on calls again. Occasionally some of them did catch his eye — cute girls and boys alike. But Buck wasn’t that guy anymore. He’d been ready to settle down with Abby and he didn’t want to regress and use people like he had before. 
“You’re going to have to move on sometime, kid,” Chimney said one night while out at the bar.
“But, I don’t. Abby is coming back.”
Or maybe she wasn’t. Buck didn’t want to think about that. It was just that when they did get to talk that she never gave him any time frame. She sounded happy, though, and it was almost a relief to know that even if he wasn’t a part of making her happy even if it did leave him a bit bitter. Somehow, in spite of the whole Abby thing, Buck felt settled in his life and he had a new goal to achieve, getting chosen to be on the annual fireman calendar. 
Buck had started working out more specifically for it, focusing on a goal weight and goal percentage of fat on his body. Only one firefighter was chosen per station and Buck was going to be it. 
Then, Eddie Diaz showed up. And Buck hated him.   
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Next Chapter
Notes: The next chapter should be up in a few days once I tweak it a bit and will focus on Eddie's side of things. As of right now I am planning on this being 4 chapters long but that could still change. Let me know what you think of this first chapter. 
If anyone wants me to tag you in future chapters let me know. Thanks for reading. 
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ayellowbirds · 6 years
Video
youtube
Keshet Rewatches All of Scooby-Doo, Pt. 15: "Spooky Space Kook"
("Scooby-Doo, Where Are You", Season 1 Episode 15)
AKA "The Mystery Machine Is Itself A Mystery of Interior vs. Exterior Dimensions"
I’m breaking from my standard format for these, because holy jinkies, you need to see and hear this villain’s laugh as video. Text and gifs alone will not suffice.
As seen above, the episode opens in the evening on a view of a fairly run-down rural area. An equally wrecked spaceship flies low over the landscape, orange light pulsing from within, and it comes to a stop and lands out of view. A figure walks onto the road, clad in a space suit that also pulses with an eerie “glowing sound” (if you watch enough cartoons, you know what the sound effects for “glowing, pulsing light” are like) that suggests radioactivity, the head within visible only as a skull. The camera closes on it, and the freak starts whooping and laughing as the interior of its helmet flashes the same red-orange as the spaceship.
It’s fantastic. While not the creepiest, it’s definitely the best villain design of the season, if not the best of all of Scooby-Doo: Where Are You. The ruined ghostly spaceship is a design that both makes no sense at all (why does it look tattered?) and fits perfectly.
Meanwhile, the gang are on the road in the Mystery Machine, and Shaggy offers to make sandwiches for anyone who wants. Only Scooby takes him up on it, and the view cuts to Shaggy assembling what Fred calls a “Jaw-Stretcher Special”.
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Mind you, this is overtly the back of the Mystery Machine. Exactly how large is that van supposed to be? It reminds me of the camper van my dad used to own, only far more spacious. Definitely more roomy than its exterior would indicate, by far. We’ve seen interior shots before that showed bare walls, as well as the first episode’s collection of questionable and disturbing equipment. Is it like a TARDIS?
Shaggy adds bologna, meatloaf, and “a slug of double Dutch chocolate syrup”... just as the van cuts out. They’re out of gas, and miles from the nearest station!
...so, I’m going to say it here: Fred is a really bad driver. I don’t know why it falls to him to drive, except that he assumes a leadership role, but as we’ve seen, he’s a lousy navigator, and now it’s apparent he doesn’t keep an eye on the fuel indicator, either. Granted, it seems he was intended as the oldest of the gang, so it may be that he’s just the only one who as a license, at this point.
Oh my gods. Is that why they do what Fred says? Because he’s the only one who has a driver’s license? Did we finally figure out what he brings to the group, aside from traps that never work?
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Going to the nearest house to see if they can buy some gas from the residents, they’re menaced by its owner, a surly chicken farmer with a long rifle and a conviction that the gang are actually reporters trying to bother him about “it”—the same spaceship from the establishing shot, and “something” that has been creeping around ever since “it” showed up.
Velma spots a trail of bizarre footprints glowing on the ground nearby, which the farmer confirms is the same kind of print he’s been seeing. The gang decide they’ve found a mystery, and seem to smooth things over, because the next scene is the Mystery Machine back on the road, Daphne having mentioned that it was “nice” that he gave them some gas. Fred agrees, because it means they can seek out the “ghost craft”... just before an eerie light passes over the van, and the gang catch sight of the alien ship setting down over the hill.
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They wind up at the wrecked boundary fence of an abandoned army airfield, and follow more glowing tracks through the bent and busted gate.
They’ve only been walking for a few seconds when there’s a clattering, crashing sound, and Velma yelps, “I bet it’s the outer-space ghost,” suggesting i may need to reevaluate my ranking of the gang’s credulity vis-à-vis ghosts. Sure enough, the eerie cackling starts up again from off-screen, and the gang are firmly spooked as they follow the tracks to a work shed from which a strange mechanical noise emits. They find an electrical generator that has only just shut down... and then see the spaceship setting down by the opposite building!
Instead of investigating the craft, Fred suggests they split up and look around. The usual antics ensue, with Scooby and Shaggy’s squabbles over a bag of peanuts leading them right to the space-booted feet of the ghost, and a chase scene that leads through the distinctive setting of the airfield. It’s one of the few times the gang are investigating something other than a castle or mansion this season, and it really stands out, though one wonders why the many planes seen on the field were just left to rust.
Fred, Daphne, and Velma discover a machine shop with fresh grease and recently-used machines, and when Fred winds up hooked and hanging from the ceiling due to the ghost’s machinations, Velma protests Freddie’s assumption that she’d know how to even identify the controls for the hook.
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Well, there’s characterization that won’t last. It seems as though, in this first season, Velma’s scientific expertise trends much more academic, including some chemistry but mostly being focused on research and analysis instead of the physical science work that would later be a big part of her interests.
Velma and Daphne meet up with Shaggy and Scooby to get help getting Fred down, and Fred and Velma quiz Shaggy on the details of “this thing you saw”. Apparently he was vague about the details of the ghost alien.
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The phantom starts its whooping and giggling act again, and the chase continues as the gang flee in opposite directions, with Scooby and Shaggy winding up in the mess hall (”Never heard of a special place to make a mess...”), proving they have some kind of instinctive sixth sense for snacks that drives them towards the nearest kitchen without even intending to do so. Shaggy finds nothing, but Scooby manages to scarf down a small roast ham, an entire chicken on a bed of greens, and most of a jar of olives before Shaggy comes over to check on him. Shaggy realizes the remains of fresh food are a clue—"Like, how come a ghost from space keeps chicken and ham around?"—and they head out to find the others, running into the ghost again.
The girls and Fred, meanwhile, find a copy of yesterday’s Gazette, with glowing fingerprints left on the front page. “Why would a ghost from outer space be reading yesterday’s newspaper?”
This is why it’s important to maintain details in your haunting site. Big Bob understood that, he even went so far as to make monster-specific food labels.
As the chase continues and the gang reunite once more in the motor pool, they find a busted old jeep with four flat tires... that actually conceal another four wheels, found after Scooby notices that the exhaust pipe smells of gasoline.The jeep even starts remotely, driving out past a larger truck, where the “goony ghost” reveals itself behind the canopy covering the truck bed. But before the gang can react, four more ghosts appear!
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Noticeably, the extra ghosts don’t move or even glow, they just stand there looking spooky. It’s enough, as Shaggy and Scooby flee up into a control tower and signal the rest of the gang over the still-functioning loudspeakers with the bugle call for noon mess, still apparently the only one they know. So, Scooby and Shaggy have no idea what a mess hall is, but they know the melody to summon you to one by heart?
Unfortunately, the ghost corners the boys in the tower, and they’re forced to jump out with a parachute. The scene fades to a police car: the farmer saw their car parked by the gate, and in spite of his seemingly ornery character, became worried for the gang and called the sheriff. 
They catch sight of the ghost, who flees into a building, which Fred calls “a bad mistake”—because the steel door the ghost shuts behind itself leads to a wind tunnel for testing aerodynamics.
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Fred starts up the turbine, and the ghost grabs hold of a steel ladder as the resulting winds blow off its helmet, mask, and eventually the whole dang costume, revealing an ordinary human: the farmer’s next-door neighbor, Henry Bascombe.
Again, note that the culprit gets a whole name, but the innocent man is just “Mister Farmer”, and the cop is just “the Sheriff”. 
Shaggy reveals his discovery from the airfield control tower: a reel-to-reel projector to beam the image of the spaceship onto the night sky, and an audio player sped-up to sound high-pitched and eerie. The gang “wanna bet” that the extra ghosts were stuffed dummies and that the jeep was driven by remote control, but never actually check. It’s also left unclear what exactly Bascombe filmed to make the spaceship footage, or where his improbable mechanical skills originate.
The sheriff explains that Bascombe heard that the Air Force planning to re-open and expand the field—how does he know that Bascombe knew this?—and the farmer deduces that it was a ploy to scare his neighbors off so he could buy their land cheap and resell it to the Air Force for a profit.
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Almost, but not quite.
When will our burden be eased? When will we finally hear “meddling kids”?
(like what i’m doing here? It’s not what pays the bills, so i’d really appreciate it if you could send me a bit at my paypal.me or via my ko-fi. Click here to see more entries in this series of posts, or here to go in chronological order)
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boystownbirdie · 7 years
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LMWTV4U: GOT S7E4
Welcome back to let me watch TV 4 u! I watch TV so you don’t have to!
Today let’s explore Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 4 titled: The Spoils of War. Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure that’s the name of a Clint Eastwood flick, no?
Today’s recap will be a quick one (due to my own time constraints, not for lack of DRAMA) so let’s go! 
First, we watch Jaime and Bronn marching away from Highgarden, fresh off of poisoning Gma Tyrell…
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Bronn is like, why the long face bro? We know that Jaime is having #emotions about Gma Tyrell’s confession that she poisoned Joffrey. Jaime is like I CANT SAY. And he gives Bronn some cash money for his services. We get a shot of the giant truck of money which is important to the later scenes. Then Jaime tells Bronn and Sam’s Dad and Sam’s bro (lol his name is Dickon which is ironic because he is not really a dick but his dad sure is) to go collect the harvest from the local peeps.
Next, we stop in to see QPC talking to her banker friend in King’s Landing…
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She mentions said truck o’ money and is like ITS COMING, DUDE. CHILL. And he’s like let’s discuss stocks and bonds. And then they have a discussion about investing. It’s kind of boring.
Next, we see Littlefinger giving Bran a knife…
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Which is the knife that was used  to try to kill Bran waaaaaayyyy back in season 1. If you’ll recall in season 1 ep 1, Baby Bran saw Jaime and QPC boning and Jaime pushed him out of a tower causing him to be concussed and paraplegic but also gain some of his vision-abilities. While he was still concussed, QPC (we assume) sent someone to kill Bran to ensure he never told their secret. So Littlefinger (LF) gives Bran this knife and is like, let me know if I can be of any assistance. Then Bran quotes some OG LF (“Chaos isn’t a pit. It’s a ladder”) and LF is clearly freaked because this means Bran could also know about his betrayal of Ned Stark in season 1.
Meera comes in to check out Bran’s new wheelchair and to tell him she’s heading back home. Bran is like kewl bai. And she’s like srsly? I risked my life for your and my bro died for you. And he’s like I’m not Bran anymore, I’m the 3 eyed raven. I no longer have feelings.
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Speaking of no feelings, we see our old pal Arya roll up at Winterfell and we feel ALL THE FEELS. She’s stopped at the gate by 2 very salty doormen who are like naw bitch, private club, members only. And she’s like I AM AN OG MEMBER OF THIS CLUB. After some cajoling, they let her in and she sits in Winterfell for the first time since she left back in Season 1 and then disappears. Was anyone else worried that she’d left? I was. But fear not.
The doormen go to Sansa and they’re like umm some bitch who says she’s your sis is here but now she’s gone? And Sansa’s like, I know where she went, TO THE CRYPTS! So Sansa goes downstairs and finds her sis and they reunite and hug and it’s adorable. It’s esp adorable since we know that IRL these actresses are besties but they haven’t had a scene together since S1, so to see their chemistry as real life friends play out is so sweet. Arya tells Sansa she’s just been bopping around killing people and Sansa is like LOL WUT? And Arya is like hahahaha jk. Did anyone else shed a single tear when A and S were discussing their past traumas and A says “Well, our stories aren’t over yet” ?!?!?! Cuz I shore did.  
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Then they go to see Bran who is still being real creepy and #nofeelings. Sansa tries to warn Arya that Bran is a real bummer now, so Arya’s like hi bro, I haven’t seen you in a million years. And he’s like yes you were heading to King’s Landing to kill Cersei but changed your mind. And she’s like ummm, k? And Sansa helpfully tells her that Bran has “visions” now. But then Bran basically spills the beans that Arya was not JK-ing about being a trained assassin now. And Sansa is a little creeped. Then Bran gives Arya that same knife he got from LF cuz he’s like...  you know how to use it better than me.
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Ladyknight sees Arya, Sansa, and Bran walking through Winterfell together and Pod, her squire (which is basically like an apprentice?) is like YOU DID IT YOU GOT BOTH GIRLS HOME SAFE. And Ladyknight is like naw it wasn’t me, but Pod is like take some credit, hun. And she’s like K thanks. Later, we watch Ladyknight and Pod sparring. Arya meets Ladyknight again and is like can I train with you? And they have a cute lil’ sparring scene in which Arya shows off her skills gathered over the past 7 seasons and Ladyknight is like WOWZA! Meanwhile, Sansa is watching and she seems kinda jelly? Or maybe she’s just nervous about her sis being an assassin? Sansa is watching this all with LF, and as they leave we’re reminded that Arya doesn’t like the looks of this guy.
Next, we stop in on Dragonstone, where things get HOT AND HEAVY
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Khaleesi is heading to meet Bae and chatting with her hottie translator, Missandei (Missi) about Greyworm. Missi SPILLS THE TEA and is like we did EVERYTHING BUT. And is like it was goooooood. And Khaleesi is visibly shook but in the best way. They meet up with Bae who’s like lemme show you some caves. The last time Bae went into a cave with a beautiful lady, he lost his v-card so this has got us thinking. Khaleesi is like I’m not scared of Bae I’ll go alone. Bae shows her that he’s got enuf rocks for his rock collection (aka project to save everyone from the ice zombie army), but he’s like, there’s something else you should see. He shows her these cave paintings from children of the forest (CoF) who we basically like neanderthals in GoT-world. He’s like look, the CoF’s drew pics of them working TOGETHER with humans to defeat the ice zombies.
While he’s giving the tour, he touches her hand to guide her flashlight. AND IT IS SO HAWT I nearly exploded. He’s like, we must all work together to fight the ice zombies, and she says, “I will fight for you, I will  fight for the North.” But first you gotta #bowdownbitches. And he’s like ummmmmm can’t? And she’s like please, let’s work together. And they truly almost makeout right then and there it’s so hot.
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When they emerge from their cave of sexual tension, Tyrion is there to tell her about recent battles. As you’ll recall from last week, things did not go as planned with taking over Casterly Rock, since Jaime diverted the army South to take Highgarden. Khaleesi is like I’m starting to wonder if you aren’t actually loyal to your bro and sis, Tyrion. Then she asks bae what to do. He’s like well just don’t use dragons to kill innocent people that’s what the bad guys do.
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Next, no-knuckles (NK) and Bae have a discussion about Khaleesi. NK is like, she’s fly, no? And Bae is like “she has a good heart” and NK is like, boi you been checkin’ out more than her heart. They see good ole Missi who asks ‘bout Bae’s name “Jon Snow” and he has to explain it’s because he’s a bastard. They ask her about why she loves Khaleesi so much and she says it’s cuz they chose her as their leader and also knows she could leave if she wanted.
Next up, Previously-traumatized-Theon washes ashore. Bae is pissed at him because he betrayed his bro Robb Stark many seasons ago and killed some people in Winterfell, but Bae says he won’t kill PTT because he helped Sansa escape. PTT explains that he needs Khaleesi’s help to get sis back from their Uncle-Crazy-Pants, but Bae is like, umm…. Khaleesi is gone…
Which leads us to the last scene…
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Bronn and Jaime are checking out the people farming that they discussed before. Bronn and Sam’s dad and bro confirm that they were able to collect grains/harvest etc… and Sam’s mean dad mentions that the gold is safely in King’s Landing. Sam’s mean dad (SMD) is like here’s a good idea to get things moving along, let’s flog the stragglers but Jaime is like ummm…..naw. Once SMD rides off, Jaime asks Sam’s Bro Dickon (SBD) how he feels about battles and SBD turns out to be a real sweetie pie just like his bro. He’s like I don’t love to kill people but I will if I have to.
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All of the sudden, Jaime and co hear a rumbling far off. The skies are kind of gray and they’re on the wrong side of a hill so they can’t really tell what’s coming, but they #getinformation #beyonce and prep for battle. Then, a BILLION DOTHRAKI (the horse ppl who love Khaleesi) roll up on their horses, raring to fight. Jaime looks, frankly, spooked. His army is like ummm…wtf. AND THEN KHALEESI FLYS OVER ON A DRAGON OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!
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Before the Dothraki ride their horses straight into the Lannister army, Khaleesi is like breathe fire, babe, and her dragon scorches a bunch of the Lannister fleet. Then the fighting really starts. It’s a lot of Dothraki really giving it to the straight-laced Lannister army who’ve never seen people fight like this before. And then a lot of Khaleesi telling her dragon to breathe fire and wiping out her enemy. IT IS BADASS and also Jaime looks positively terrified.
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At one point, Jaime is saved by SBD during battle scene. Jaime tells Bronn to get the giant dragon-shooter-machine and Bronn is like no way, you do it. And Jaime’s like I GOT ONE HAND BRO, CAN’T (it’s very but-you-ain’t-got-no-legs-lieutenant-dan). It seems like Bronn is gonna just bounce, esp since he loses his gold, but instead he heads to the dragon shooter and gets it locked and loaded.
Meanwhile, Tyrion is watching this mayhem and he seems kinda sad. A Dothraki dude is like wow, your people are bad at fighting and Tyrion sees his Bro Jaime out there and seems remorseful. While Tyrion watches his bro struggle on the battlefield, Jamie also looks around at the destruction and fire and seems deeply sad as well.
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But back to the battle, Bronn is firing away at the dragon with the giant-dragon-shooter. After some misses, he finally hits the dragon and successfully wounds him. In retaliation, the Dragon blows up dragon-killer-machine (Bronn narrowly escapes). Wounded, the dragon has to land on the shore and Khaleesi hops off to survey the damage to her baby boi. Jaime sees Khaleesi and is like, well, here’s my chance. He’s riding toward her on his horse and Tyrion sees this all and keeps saying, “flee you idiot” because, presumably, he doesn’t want to see either of these people killed.
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Jaime rolls up, about to stab Khaeesi and it looks like it might happen when all of a sudden, the dragon brings his head around breathes fire directly at Jaime. At the same time, someone (it looks like Bronn) grabs Jaime and pulls him into the water to escape the fire blast. BUT THEN we just get a clip of Jaime sinking into the water and MAYBE DROWNING?!?!?!?!?!! OMG THIS EPISODE WAS AMAZING I AM GAGGED.
Let’s recap
Biggest surprise this ep: KHALEESI ROLLING UP ON A DRAGON!! Also, is Jaime dead?!?!?!?!
Biggest letdown: the cave of sexual tension was kind of a letdown but I think it’s happening people, I think it’s coming.
Important fashion moments: I’m loving the little getup Arya is wearing during her sparring match with Ladyknight. Also everything Khaleesi and Missi are wearing is #bomb.
Who died this ep? A bunch of Lannister army people, maybe SMD? Also a bunch of Dothraki too. And then the big Q- maybe Jaime?
Thanks for reading!!! Follow me on tumblr! Tell your friends!
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Also, a disclaimer that I posted last week:
You might IDGAF this but just to lay it out there, I purposefully avoid all other recaps/reviews/think-pieces about the latest episode in the time between watching the ep and writing this recap. Sometimes I will hop on to the GoT wiki page to find out a character’s name or check a fact but mostly it’s just my own notes that I reference.
WHY AM I EVEN SAYING THIS? I often will read other recaps/reviews after writing and posting this one and I’m like OMG WE HAD THE SAME REACTION/ SAID THE SAME THING about a scene or a character. So I guess I just wanted to say that any similarities between this recap and any other recap are unintentional and coincidental.
I know what you’re thinking: PROVE IT. Well, much like Bae trying to prove the ice zombies are real, I can’t prove it, I can only state the facts and hope that my time-worn face and honest peepers will be enough :)
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wellhalesbells · 7 years
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i’ve been getting a lot of messages lately (and unsurprisingly, considering how unrepentantly i’ve been reblogging stuff from them) from followers asking me for podcast recommendations - and i love getting those so thank you, guys! - and i thought i’d make a masterpost of what i’ve both a) finished and b) enjoyed since i’ve started bingeing them.  and, as an extra added bonus, what has canonical lgbt+ representation (since i know what you guys are into [waggles eyebrows]).
1. the bright sessions
canon lgbt+ is a ✓.  this is definitely the first podcast that i’ve fallen in love with as hard as my original gateway podcast: welcome to night vale.  it’s so well-written, the characters well-drawn, the premise fascinating - atypicals, or people with some sort of special ability, in therapy - and it’s such a positive story and experience that i can’t help but feel better on days i listen to it.  it really believes in humanity and that’s such a wonderful thing in this day and age.  plus, the voice acting is killer.
2. eos 10
canon lgbt+ is a ✓.  i don’t think it’s been officially confirmed that dr. dalias is, at the very least, bisexual (in fact, the official channels seem to be dancing around it, possibly so as not to spoil anything in the upcoming season), though it’s been hinted at plenty in story.  especially as i don’t know how else you can explain a supposedly “straight” male character getting called out on repeatedly thinking about a naked man during a group mind-link experience.  that aside, it is freaking hilarious.  the premise is doctors in space, one formerly drug-addicted doctor helping to stabilize a currently alcoholic one with amazing side characters including nurse jane johns and levi, a hypochondriac alien and deposed prince who seems to have a personal vendetta against wearing pants.  it’s well-acted, cleverly written and a freaking joy to listen too.  so funny and so smart, i can’t recommend it enough!
3. the penumbra podcast
canon lgbt+ is a ✓.  so much queer representation it’s bananas.  this ask the creators got is actually pretty representative of their approach to the show, slyly funny and very gay.  our main character is a genderbending queer private investigator who’s lost his heart head over a sweet-smelling thief with a heart of gold and more aliases than jennifer garner, all set against a noir backdrop.  oh, and on mars.  yeah, you read all of that right.  there are a few awesome side stories as well, including a couple of horror ones (that have no effect on the main juno steel story line, so can be skipped - and the creators are VERY GOOD about warning what’s to come in the episode notes), as well as lesbian outlaws and a disabled knight.  there’s literally nothing not to love.  EXCEPT FOR HOW JUNO STEEL WON’T LET HIMSELF HAVE NICE THINGS.
4. the black tapes
hey, hi, if you’re into horror, suspense, creepery or demons, this is so very much for you.  the premise is that alex reagan, our host, begins a podcast to interview people with interesting professions.  she starts out with dr. richard strand, a paranormal investigator whose mission statement is to debunk all things paranormal.  he even has an institute that offers a one million dollar prize for proof of the paranormal, which he has never even come close to having to part with.  while alex is interviewing him, she comes across a handful of black vhs tapes: the only cases that strand hasn’t been able to definitively solve yet.  the technology to disprove these incidents simply hasn’t come far enough, in his opinion.  needless to say, she never moves on from dr. strand and the mystery of the black tapes.  each episode, alex investigates another of the black tapes and much later on realizes it’s possible that they’re all connected.  oh my god, i almost got chills just writing that, it’s so good, it’s so real, because dr. strand is such a good anchor to reality.  alex will occasionally lose her skeptic’s perspective; dr. strand does not.  and once alex starts experiencing intense insomnia, making you realize your narrator might not be so reliable?  things somehow manage to get even murkier.  i really, really adored this one.  it’s paranormal set in the most normal of normal worlds, only making it that much spookier.  or, alternatively, avoid this like the motherfucking plague.  [curtsies]  if you’re still intrigued, stop after season one.  two, if you can’t find it in yourself to get off the ride any earlier.  ZEUS HELP YOU IF YOU CONTINUE ON, I AM THE OLD MAN AT THE GAS STATION WARNING YOU TO GO BACK BEFORE YOU’VE GONE TOO FAR, ON YOUR HEAD BE IT IF YOU DECIDED NOT TO HEED IT.
5. wooden overcoats
canon lgbt+ is a ✓.  okay, well, if you’ve ever watched black books?  this is kind of like black books, aka one of my all-time favorite shows.  rudyard funn is just as incapable and universally disliked as bernard black, which was all well and good when the village of piffling vale (which is very nearly a town, you know!) only had one funeral home to choose from.  unfortunately, that’s not the case anymore.  eric chapman has moved his funeral home right across the street and stolen all the business from rudyard, his embalmer (cum part-owner) and twin sister, antigone, and georgie, their assistant.  to add insult to injury, he’s charming and universally adored by everyone except those at funn funerals.  very british, very ridiculous, and very funny!  WE GET THE BODY IN THE COFFIN IN THE GROUND ON TIME.  (well, like that one time they did.  [coughs])
6. ars pardoxica
canon lgbt+ is a ✓.  i listened to this one pretty slowly, for me.  it’s very much plot over character, at least in my opinion.  which is fair since there’s quite a lot of plot and set dressing to establish.  we’re following (dr.) sally grissom, a scientist from the twenty-first century who accidentally creates time travel and ends up stuck back in the 1940s.  think a bombs and eisenhower.  it was always interesting, and the paradoxes created by the time travel experiments they kept doing were fascinating (i love time travel stuff because of the paradoxes it creates) but i didn’t get really ravenous for it until season two, which is when i really felt it picked up speed.  you’ve got anthony stuck in a literal CAGE - a “blackroom” bubble set outside of time, sally trying to garden (oh god), a gang consisting of a veteran, a (former) widow and time doubles trying to bring down ODAR (the company sally used to work for, and that anthony still does) and esther sliding down the ladder of morally unsound one determined rung at a time and it makes for a REALLY grabbing audio drama, eh?
7. the strange case of starship iris
canon lgbt+ is a ✓.  i’m already in love with violet liu, all right?  she’s a science officer on starship iris--well, what was starship iris.  when we first join violet, every single one of her crew mates has just died in an explosion on the pod they were traveling off ship with and the starship iris is in its last throes as well.  luckily(?) a passing ship comes along with a plan to get her to safety.  this has a real illuminae vibe to it (which is an amazing book btw) and all the characters are already so freaking likable.  it’s only on episode two and already shaping up to be a favorite!
8. the orbiting human circus (of the air)
canon lgbt+ is a ✓.  if there’s a more heart-warming podcast out there, then i haven’t run across it yet.  first of all, julian koster’s voice is so vulnerable and soft that i would use myself and everyone i know and also puppies as a shield against everything terrible in the universe for him.  second, the rest of the cast - leticia especially - is just as freaking talented.  the premise is that julian is the janitor at a radio show that broadcasts from the top of the eiffel tower and has strange and impossible acts every night, from tale-telling crickets to singing saws to the orkestral, a bird that can play every orchestral instrument (except that it refuses to play the viola, because reasons).  it’s fun and cute and breaks your heart with happiness regularly and often!
9. alice isn’t dead
canon lgbt+ is a ✓.  this is a horror podcast about a truck driver who is looking for her missing wife.  jasika nicole has to have one of my favorite voices around and having it be so heavily dependent on that makes me ridiculously happy.  throw in the story-telling of joseph fink, the depth and cohesiveness of his writing, and there is nothing not to love here.
10. within the wires
canon lgbt+ is a ✓.  this is really sufficiently creepy considering it’s not often overtly creepy.  this is set up as a series of relaxation tapes, which progressively get more and more interested in helping the listener break out of the facility in which she’s being kept.  super chilling at times, because the voice is so calm and the action so dangerous.
11. welcome to night vale
canon lgbt+ is a ✓.  okay, well, what more can be said about this at this point?  if you’re not listening to it, you’re wrong.  why wouldn’t you want to visit a town that can’t be visited and where every conspiracy theory is real and a part of everyday life?  yeah, everyone knows about the vague yet menacing government agency, steve carlsberg, you’re not hitting on anything new there.  there’s a dog park that doesn’t allow dogs, angels that are never to be identified as angels, mountains that aren’t real, a glow cloud that--ALL HAIL and a love story so complete and perfect that it can and will utterly steal your breath at times.  go, listen, inhale.
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getseriouser · 6 years
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20 THOUGHTS: Super Saturday
RATHER important Saturday coming up. Going to be on for young and old in Mayo, Longman, and at Yarra Park as well 
It’s going to be as big in the Adelaide Hills between Xenophon’s mob and the daughter of the country’s longest running Foreign Minister as it will be between two suburban tribes at the MCG, the reigning premier against one of the very finite group of contenders.
My tip? I reckon Sharkie gets her seat back.
 1.       Yep, the Giants are coming. The Cats dropping games to the likes of the Bulldogs, the Power losing to Freo, Hawthorn losing to Brisbane, all these have given the Giants a fast path up the ladder to ominously now be in the race for the top four where a month ago just making the eight seemed a challenge. They sit half a game off fourth, which is held by the Swans, a team they are definitely better than and they’ll have the chance to frank that when they host the next local derby in a few weeks’ time. The Demons in the last round looks the only real chance for a slip up for the Giants on the way in, so their form into September will be as cherry ripe as any. Big threats.
2.       The midfield quintet of Shiel, Ward, Whitfield, Kelly and Conglio is the best group of five mids in the comp by a street. Remember, this is a team that late in the third term on Preliminary Final day last year was only two kicks off the eventual premier, and had lost Dylan Shiel early in the game to concussion. With Jeremy Cameron back in a week, if they keep this all going as planned, the Tigers wouldn’t be as thrilled to dance to a deep September tune with the orange tsunami again this time round.
3.       Mind you, we’ve been lucky so far given the danger we were warned of years ago, that the Giants or Suns for that matter haven’t saluted on Grand Final day for the scenes post-match would be just weird. No noise from the crowd, no romantic story to fuel emotion, a lap of honour with the cup to a largely empty stadium; yeah let’s avoid that if we can for a little while yet please?
4.       Melbourne. Round 23 last year, then a number of occasions this year, they are a good footy side without the results to back it up. But geez, they are stiff, if nothing but the Geelong losses in themselves – the Dees would be top four with a bullet, the Cats would be on the slide despite their favourite sun returning. Sliding doors much?
5.       Still on the Cats – lucky they are in the eight really. Yes, let’s acknowledge the missed opportunity against the Dogs after the siren, but it’s not clinical for Geelong in 2018. Saturday night Gaz had 31 but Selwood was squeezed out a little, well held, but it seems he is having less influence on matches because of the presence of Ablett. And for mine, if we isolate duos only, Selwood and Dangerfield in the middle looks better than Ablett and Dangerfield, despite the two-time Brownlow medallist’s last term helping get that win no doubt.
6.       Big tick to Travis Boak this week, wearing his old number 10 and not 1 as per the tradition for the captain at Port Adelaide. Why? Boak gave the honour of wearing the 1 at Alberton to cancer sufferer Henry Mickan, who was the nominal captain on the day. Great gesture, well done Boak and the Power, just grouse.
7.       Rising Star watch, yep, Stephenson kicked three for the Pies whilst Ronke didn’t trouble the goalscorers. But Alex Witherden in the narrow loss to the Crows, 31 touches and 12 marks. This form continues and he’ll pip them at the post for mine.
8.       The Swans have lost their midfield. Yes Kennedy had 33 but looks sore, Parker had 29 and kicked two, nice, but after that, what? Jake Lloyd has been industrious all year in the middle but after that it’s mega thin. Heeney has been brilliant but quiet of late, you can’t ask too much off Florent, it’s all looking a bit dire at Sydney.
9.       Their run home too is awful. Of the five games left, right now, you’d have them favourites in maybe two of them, and even those odds would be anything but short. They’ll still win their fair share and all will not be completely lost, but they could so easily lose more than they win and their grasp on a top eight spot could go just like that.
10.   If there’s smoke, there’s fire – mega legend of Australian netball, Sharni Layton, retired from the sport this week, only turned 30 this year, looks destined now for a stint in AFLW. She did play football as a junior, that’s the key, it wouldn’t just be about publicity Usain Bolt Central Coast Mariners-style, but the girl has got the skills and would probably be stellar. Keen to see her have a go if she so wishes.
11.   Quick one on rule changes, I don’t want to be a broken record on this but bloody hell the footy has been good since the bye rounds, leave it alone would you please? Remember when flooding was ruining the game 15 odd years ago, we didn’t legislate the game to eradicate that and who even mentions the word these days? Seriously before the boys got stuck down the cave in Thailand, I hadn’t heard flooding mentioned since watching a Terry Wallace-coached Bulldogs all those years ago.
12.   Unconvinced on where the Pies stack up compared to not just their rivals but also their ladder position but to defeat a decent side in North by 66 points is one thing, to have the ball more (+29) but then win tackles 83-47, bloody hell that’s some discrepancy. As impressive a stat for the Maggies as alarming for the Roos.
13.   Ben Cunnington, who is just a truck, and Jed Anderson had 12 tackles between them, so that’s 35 tackles made by 20 of their teammates. Five of those 20 didn’t register one all day. Whereas the Pies had nine players register five or more.
14.   Port Adelaide had a busy offseason, brought in Rockliff as a free agent, traded for Watts and Motlop, got Thomas and Trengove in as mature-aged recruits for the rookie list. Specifically the first three to be fair, as they are senior-listed players, have they made any real difference? Aside from Motlop’s winning goal in a Showdown, I’d say non grata.
15.   Meanwhile, Essendon, further down the ladder, but all three big recruits are wins for mine. Saad looks great down back, Smith’s amongst their most important mids already, and Stringer will look even better next year, win them a few games off his own boot like he did for the Dogs a few years ago down forward. Just the bad losses holding the Dons’ progress back, lots to like about them but you can’t forget they’ve handed Carlton their only win for the year.
16.   Also, Orazio Fantasia is close to the best small forward in the comp – he plays a full year next year he kicks 50 plus easy.
17.   Ryan Schoenmakers. He may be judged really stringently by the Hawks match committee but gee he looks a rock solid CHF for 2018. 14 touches, 8 marks, two goals on the weekend, 27 years old, a great mark, a reliable set shot, those sorts of big blokes are worth their weight in gold. He’ll probably stay loyal at year’s end if the Hawks don’t secure Tom Lynch but for those other clubs who might be in the race for Lynch and miss or just could use a new target up forward one could do a lot worse.
18.   Hawks play the Cats in Round 21 and that’s probably an early elimination final. Loser will be relying on results and maths whereas the victor is probably safe bar a shocking loss in the final fortnight. Always a big game between those two, this will be another chapter in that story.
19.   As for big games, how we have 1st v 3rd on Saturday afternoon at the MCG not on free to air is awful. Did we notice that Channel Seven, who always had four games a round dropped down to three when there’s no Thursday night or special game to cover? I know we can’t move the game at last minute to prime time, but we are getting the Dogs-Power balltearer from Ballarat Sunday on Seven. Can’t we send that game to Fox Footy and get Seven to take the Tigers-Pies instead the day prior, surely that’s a better result?
20.   And finally this week, Francis Leach. Why? Well its to do with the fact four or five blokes got in a decent shove on the Kardina Park terraces Saturday night. Not good, it is a problem with scuffles in the crowd, not dire but not great, so I’m glad its being picked up and hopefully addressed.
But Francis, heads on to the ABC Sunday morning and cynically said “that’d be a page one, two and three of the Herald Sun for the next three days (if it happened in the A-League), that’s not going to be on the front page the next three days”.
Firstly, the Herald Sun did make it front page the next day, it’s still in the press as of today, and we had fan segregation columns and everything. Sure, not three front pages, it wasn’t Thai boys getting stuck down a cave lets be frank. And yes, the Murdoch press has been unkind to the round ball code over the journey no doubt, but who has the tabloid industry missed, often unfairly, over the journey? Ask any African living in Melbourne at the moment, Francis?
But then too stop worrying about appropriate media coverage when the sport you’re needlessly comparing too, soccer, is pushing an Olympic sprinter as the saviour for the upcoming domestic season, not because he is a genuine onfield talent but because he is a novelty who might put bums on seats that otherwise are attracting cobwebs. That sounds like the exact recipe for a circus. If Kevin Muscat wears a red wig and face paint on the sidelines this season I call Bingo, Gin and Yahtzee.
The narcissistic, precious soccer society needs to stop worrying about Usain Bolt, stop demanding a Royal Commission for the lack of playing time Tim Cahill got in Russia, and stop critiquing whether an incident in a completely different code has been adequately covered by the media and start worrying about getting the world’s most loved sport working in this country again, because right now the way it’s going an unfair and undesirable bit of publicity again on a Tracy Grimshaw program would actually be a good result.
Francis. Take the lemon out of your gob and try and smile. To deflect the real issue onto sorrow into soccer looks as good as your haircut.
(originally published 24 July)
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twdmusicboxmystery · 7 years
Text
The 5 Theory
Good morning and Happy Saturday! Hope everyone has some fun plans.
So I’m actually super excited about this theory. It makes so much sense and reinforces what we already believe about Beth returning in S8. Full creds to @wdway for this one. In this case, I really didn’t add much (except enthusiastic applause, of course. ;D)
So here’s the thing: we’ve seen lots of 5s in the background of the show, especially during S5 episodes. I’ve always said it just points to the season they’re in. And I still think that’s true to a certain extent. But then, a lot of Gimple’s symbols have double meanings.
For example, in this first scene in Slabtown when Beth first wakes up, if you notice the clock behind Dawn, it reads 5:20, which proves our clock theory. The clock points to episode 5x04, which this is.
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But it’s SO much more complicated than that. Beth’s time at Grady is spent on the 5th floor, and we constantly see room numbers in the 500s in the background. Again, it could all just point to this being S5, but why the overkill? And not all the numbers are ONLY 5s. There are other numbers included.
Meanwhile, we’ve also seen fives since then, in S6, at least. Probably some in S7 as well, though I’m not going to remember every instance off the top of my head. I’ve also said before that symbolism always points forward, rather than back. So how to do all these things jive? Why put 5s in later seasons to point backward?
Well, even before this theory I could have answered that. I do believe all symbolism points forward, but in this case, it’s okay to use the 5s because Beth will be back. If they’re pointing us back toward S5, there must be a reason. Something that’s still relevant. And we believe that is Beth being alive, right?
Well, @wdway wasn’t satisfied with this explanation (and I’m so glad she wasn’t). She started messing around with the numbers, trying to figure out what ELSE all the 5s mean besides just S5 and it’s importance. And she realized something.
Gimple took over and, for all intents and purposes, started Beth’s arc in S4, right? (Yes, she was in S2 and S3, but she only had a small arc in S2 and had very small part in S3. Nothing major. Nothing that was hers alone. In 4x01, she came front and center with the Bethyl hug.)
I’d also like to point out that S4 is when all the foreshadowing and parallels began. Yeah, we can look back at earlier seasons and see where things began or were built on, but the instant S4 began we already had tons of clues. Clues in Beth’s cell, clues at the Big Spot, Sasha/Ty/Bob stuff, and by 4b, they were already heavily paralleling Glenn, Rick, school buses, etc. We didn’t see anything to that extent in earlier seaosns. So S4 was really the beginning of Beth’s (and many of the other characters’) current arc.
So take a look at this:
S4 =1, S5=2, S6=3, S7=4, S8=5.
Could it be that all the fives actually point to S8? That it’s not a season number at all, but rather the number of seasons from the beginning of the arc until all the symbolism is fulfilled?
I love this idea. It wouldn’t have worked for S6 or S7. Only S8.
Now let’s look at some specific numbers.
We’ve seen a LOT of clocks that read 5:10. There are three in particular that come to mind: Rick’s watch when Carol finds it at Terminus, reads 5:10. 
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Then there’s all the clocks in 5x09. Seriously, EVERY clock in that episode points to 5:10. 
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And then there’s Glenn’s watch in 6x03, right before his death fake out. There are probably more, but let’s talk about the clocks.
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We have ample evidence that the hour on the clocks = the season number and the minute hand = the episode number. So if that’s the case, these clocks really all point to 5x02. And that makes no sense. While there is some TD symbolism to be found in 5x02, there’s not enough that’s significant enough to Beth’s arc for SO many clocks, especially after the fact, to point back to it. Why would Gimple do this?
We’ve always seen these clocks as pointing to 5x10. Even though I’ve always known that doesn’t entirely fit the pattern, I’ve always accepted it because 1) symbols often have multiple meanings/interpretations and 2) 5x10 = music box. So we’re really not imagining that. It’s SUPER important. So I was always cool with it deviating from the clock pattern a little bit.
But with this 5 theory, 5 is actually the fifth season from when Beth’s current arc started. It shows we had to go 5 seasons before seeing the fulfillment of the symbolism. So if we substitute an 8 for the 5, suddenly, this clock points at 8x02. And guys, look at where we see these clocks. 1) After Carol is separated from TF, and then saves and reunites with them. 2) In Ty’s death hallucination, which is rife with Beth symbolism and all kinds of contradictions. Where Beth herself appears and “keeps singing” even after her death. 3) Right before Glenn’s death fake out, which had a crap-ton of parallels to Beth. He was revealed to be alive a few episodes later.
Pretty convincing if you ask me. We’ve also seen some 101s, though not as many, which also point to 8x02 as being a super important episode.
@wdway even pointed out that in 5x09, Beth was there in the hallucination, but not physically. That’s also true of 5x10 and the music box. She’s there symbolically, but not literally. So perhaps the 5 = S5 being her physical arc, and S8 (five seasons in) we’ll see her physically again.
Other random 5s:
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There’s one on the bus in 5x05. With all the bus stuff we’ve noticed this time around, I think it’s safe to say we’ll see the bus fulfillment in S8.
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There’s a 5 on a pipe in 5x07 when Rick and Daryl are discussing the plan to rescue Beth and Carol from Grady. So maybe it shows that the real rescue/reunion won’t happen until the 5th season (S8).
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I know in 6x01, we saw a sign that said, “Quint,” which means five. It also happens to mean some of the equipment (the ladder, I think, which is also significant) of a fire truck. But once again, there are some suspicious sequences in 6x01 during Operation Lead the Walkers Away that point to Beth stuff. And we have the Quint sign.
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Here’s a great one that @wdway found in S6. In 6x10, when Rick and Daryl first meet Jesus, there are some numbers (cigarette prices) on the marquee behind them. It reads 5.45 and 5.69. I know there’s been a lot of speculation about what these numbers mean. Most have to do with comic book numbers, which is important. And applying this theory to them makes it even better.
See, if you put the 5 aside for a minute, CB issue #45 is where Andrea wakes up from her gunshot wound to the head, and finds herself alone, without the rest of TF, because they presumed she was dead and left her behind. Issue #69 is where TF arrives at Alexandria.
I know people zeroed in on the numbers as being CB numbers before, but the 5s are harder to explain. Nobody woke up from a GSW in S5 (that we know of; of course there’s the music box, but no one that the GA would know about or that we obviously saw). And while TF did arrive at Alexandria in S5, why would they feel the need to reiterate that in 6x10 when Rick and Daryl meet Jesus?
But let’s swap out the 5s for 8s. Perhaps this then shows that in S8, the person who survived the GSW, like Andrea, will both wake up, and arrive at Alexandria. Make sense?
We have numbers in Coda that point to 8x03 and 8x04 once you swap them out with the 8.
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Slabtown has some interesting ones too. We see the numbers 550 and 556 very clearly. 
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@wdway did some research I wanted to include here. The CB issue numbers pan out, and obviously there are only 16 episodes in a season, so she started looking at the series numbers. Episode 50 was Us. Like 5x02, while there is some Beth stuff to be found there (*coughs Daryl claims the strawberries*) there really isn’t tons in that episode for it to be point there. So instead of 50, she chopped the final number off and they both point to 55. Episode 55 is Slabtown. Interesting right? Which means episode 56, just to be thorough, is Self Help with all the bus stuff, including the number 5 on the bus. Also, that’s when they acquire the fire truck. Just saying.
So the series numbers from Slabtown point us toward episode 5x04 (Slabtown) and 5x05 (Self Help). If we swap out the numbers, that becomes 8x04 and 8x05.
Are we seeing how this works? I’m absolutely sure there are tons of more instances of 5s throughout the show, and I’ll continue to look for them as I rewatch. Like I said at the beginning, I won’t remember every instance.
But if the 5s point, not only to S5 but to S8, which is five seasons after the arc began, that makes way more sense than them JUST pointing us back to S5. And most of the cases we’ve examined specifically point to 8x01-8x05, which include the episodes Gimple already said would melt our brains.
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The evidence is stacking up, my friends. Is it October yet?
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