To me, it's odd to see people praise Indara for how she questioned Mae. They asked a literal child about her beliefs - WITHOUT an adult present!! - and then solidified their skewed view of the coven on the word of an 8 year old??
Ask any 8 year old how their country's govt operates. Will they be able to answer in a coherent manner? If you give a push-back question, will they be able to give a satisfactory rebuttal to you arguing their gov't system with them?
Of course Mae isn't going to have the perfect answer to the illogical question of 'but you're a child! How could you possibly lead your coven??'
Because that's NOT what happens - but put on the spot, with only a basic understanding of the traditional responsibility of an ancestral governmental system where the children will rule after their parents, Mae doesn't have a 'satisfactory' answer, but Indara DID succeed in planting a seed of doubt and shame at not understanding in Mae's head.
When a foreign authority figure comes into your home and grills you, an 8 year old, about how your society is run and asks pointed questions meant to indicate that the way your culture does things isn't right (Indara's question was very pointed in that way: make Mae think that her culture is wrong), it's manipulative and cruel.
A child shouldn't have to be able to perfectly answer all those questions. A child should be allowed to not know all the intricacies of their culture. They're a CHILD it's their job to be LEARNING things, not defend their culture to an outsider looking for things to be 'concerned' about.
There's a reason child psychology is so touchy. It's very easy for adults to plant ideas into children's heads and lead them to the conclusions the adult expects. It's quite literally how child brains work: intake info and try to make sense of it - which also translates to learning about a new thing and taking it as the truth even if the adult THINKS they're just questioning something. For a child, the statement 'don't you think that flower looks like it smells so good?' turns into 'that flower smells good because of the way it looks.' Perhaps the adult didn't mean to 'teach' that lesson, but their errant comment could confuse a baby brain trying to figure out how the world works.
Anyways, tangent aside, adults grilling a child about their culture and looking for flaws in it by forcing a child to answer their 'tough' questions isn't good. It isn't reliable data and the Jedi should know better.
Master Indara is just as culpable as Sol and Torbin. She covered up the deaths of more than a dozen people. What do you mean it was for Osha?????
Indara let Osha believe her own twin sister caused their mothers deaths.....how is that not pure evil????
Indara is such a reasonable form of evil who says at the end of the day that the dead are already dead so there is no reason to cause more suffering. She is not better than Sol!!
I expected not to enjoy episode 7 because I had gathered a lot of what would happen on Bendarok through the foreshadowing. But I will say that the specific way they showed the cascade of failures from the Jedi in which they were all responsible for the death of the coven. I also appreciated the way that the sisters weren't portrayed as victims without agency though ultimately their deaths were down to the actions of the Jedi.
Sol, from the beginning, responds to the strangeness of the women and the coven with suspicion. The twins' mother's attempts to protect them in the forest are described as not treating them like children. But its not just Sol-- even Indara who is more reasonable describes them as strange and unusual. The irony that the Jedi who raise children without a traditional (by any Star Wars standards) family structure are judging the coven for not treating the children like children while refusing to ask or inquire about their family relationships but asking children for information without context.
Sol's manipulation of Osha during the force testing is suspect but so is the way that Indara first gives him permission, allows it to happen and then chastises him.
Sol is obviously guilty of many things but so is Indara and so is Torbin. Indara is the one who suggests the cover-up of this crime on their part. She even chastises Torbin in a critical moment while absolving herself of the guilt of the situation by suggesting that hiding what happened and blaming Mae is for the benefit of Osha.
Indara was the one to first suggest that letting Osha believe her sister killed her whole family was better than Osha not becoming a Jedi......only for Osha to not become a Jedi.
Torbin was eaten up with guilt for his own part, which was reinforced by Indara, and then by the silence that was pushed by Indara and allowed by Sol. But he ultimately chooses to never speak up and remain eaten by guilt.
In conclusion, Mae should have gotten a free pass to kill everyone
Mark drops his bag onto the table where an ever-tired looking Anabelle looks with a raised eyebrow.
“I...Do you think they know how exhausting they ar--”
+++++++
There's something about her, about her gentleness that makes it difficult for Dan to look away. Even when looking means seeing the type of monsters that are impossible to describe. There's something about her that soothes the parts of him that have felt lost since a fire too many years ago.
+++++++
Dan hates to admit it but it was Davenport who made him think. Who made him finally turn his gaze from ever forward, from ever into the inky blackness of a computer screen to the man next to him.
He's been blind or maybe blinded and yet he can't deny the way he let himself expect Mark to always be right there. Maybe he's even treated him a little worse for it.
Because he knew Mark would be there even at the end of the day and he's found excuses for why Mark stays. But he'd never really thought about his own reasons for letting Mark become so thoroughly part of his life.
+++++++
Melody has been wrong, wrong, wrong her whole life and then suddenly there's a man in her dreams who makes her feel like she's right. He makes her feel like she's not broken and that she can trust him with her sillier thoughts. And he sees in her intentions the things that others twisted into another mistake.
+++++++
“If we let the two of them make all the choices, we'd all be stuck in an alternate dimension by now,” Anabelle says with a bemused expression.
She ignores of course that in the thick of it, it had been her who was unable to see through the darkness of the Visser, not Melody. But Mark already knows that, in the same way he knows that Anabelle walked into hell for the love of her life and he had done the same.
So he says, “They'd be trying to charm squirrels.” And they're both in love with people who only know how to run away so it's easy for them to get coffee.
+++++++
Dan feels very much alone and as much as he's sunk into it, as much as he thinks he's accepted it, he really wants not to be. It's hard to explain the kind of intimacy you feel when you watch someone else's video.
To hear their voice, to see what they've seen. It feels like a type of nearness that Dan has spent so long unable to feel. He's restored so many old tapes and in those spare moments when the images play before him—he sees into the lives of others, but only ever as an onlooker. With Melody, he feels connected. And then they actually meet.
+++++++
Mark's not too sure that Dan knows how often him and Anabelle meet up. But Dan is so often blind to the mechanisms that make his life keep going so he doesn't think to mention it.
More than that Mark can't begrudge Dan for that blindness. It's something that keeps him being far too kind and caring and meticulous in the way that Mark has quietly loved for years.
It was a love without pain because it was a love without expectation is what he tells Anabelle. Anabelle snorts, because she'd been hopeful—throwing out little barbs to see if they ever caught.
+++++++
Anabelle thinks it funny when her girlfriend unclasps hands to go kiss Dan in front of the theater. She's sure more than one person is looking with confusion.
But then again she's also 25 years older than her girlfriend so she's sure she can find half a dozen ways to horrify any watchers. She doesn't feel cold in moments like these. Even after all those years lost, Melody has enough warmth for everyone.
Instead she heads inside where Mark is buying them all tickets. Let the lovebirds be dramatic, she wants to grab a beer before the trailers start.
Rings of Power giving me the most unexpected throuple to ship. Anyways Elrond wants to claim the table as his gift because he fully intends on wooing Disa and inviting himself into their relationship as an equal partner.
Bucky and Sam start fake dating because it bothers John Walker so much but then it uh spirals. (Someone please write a real fic about this)
Bucky/Sam
As much as Bucky wants nothing to do with John Walker, the terms of his parole necessitates that he still report in to the military offices that oversee him before he and Sam head off to to interrogate Zemo.
He's not in the best place mentally. And he hates to admit it but he could use another session right now. The choice has been taken away from him so he soldiers on. Bucky doesn't need an appointment so much as he needs to tell a very bored clerk that he won't be at his court-mandated apartment for the next few weeks. The process is quick and dry and he leaves the room somewhat relieved. On the othe rside of the door however is the last man Bucky wants to see right now. Every little thing he knows about John Walker makes Bucky hate him more.
“Hey, Bucky! I'm glad to catch you. Look I know our last talk didn't go so well but I need you to get Sam to see what I'm trying to do,” flows from John Walker like oil out of a salesman. Bucky just stares.
“Look man, I know things got a little heated the other day and I definitely said more than I should have. But I really want us to be on the same team.”
Bucky can only snort in response.
“I get that Sam has got a lot to work through since Steve was more interested in other--”, John breaks off into cough like he'd misspoke. “I just mean, I know it can't be easy for Sam to see another man wearing this suit.”
A part of Bucky feels like he's in one of those reality shows people talk about while another part is angry at the insinuation that Sam followed Steve around like a lovesick puppy. Bucky fires back, “It wasn't like that.”
John visibly recalculates and continues with, “Oh, ooh. Hey man, I get that back in the 40s must have been difficult for you to tell him the truth abo--”
Bucky has to interrupt, “Not that either.” He grew up with Steve. That had stripped any romance from them before either had even gotten old enough to consider it.
John gestures and asks, “Then?” right as Bucky pushes through to start with “We--”
In the silence that follows, and the first time that John Walker has actually seemed stunned, Bucky makes not his best decision.
Bucky’d known on some level what being the Winter Soldier again would mean. But it's been hours and he can't get the memory of Zemo caressing his face out of his mind and its making his skin crawl. Being treated like an object, the sense memory of it still lingering even past all the revelations from Sharon and the subsequent party is something he hadn't counted on.
Here now if Zemo can dance he can find someone to help him forget the night. Despite what most of America might believe, picking up a guy at a bar was something he's known how to do since the 40s. No dating apps needed. At the bar, he leans on one side keeping most of the patrons in view. There's no one that really appeals to him until the bartender himself shows up. The bartender takes a little too long looking and Bucky knows he has a shot. He leans in farther than necessary—close enough that a slight adjustment would lead to a kiss—and gives his order. The bartender is good at his job and within a few minutes he's pushing a drink towards Bucky. Bucky shoots out his hand and wraps it around the glass faster than the bartender can let go. Bucky's fingers grazing his wrist.
The bartender smiles and nods to towards the bathrooms and mouths '5 minutes'.
“What the hell was that?” Sam asks breaking the mood that Bucky hadn't known how deep he was into.
Bucky turns to face the crowd, glass in hand. “What do you think?”
He knows that whatever he'd had with Sam before the Snap is long done so he's not sure why Sam is asking for information he won't want.
Sam starts again with, “Do you think right now is the best--”
Bucky pushes away from the bar and starts to move through the crowds towards the bathroom. He has nothing to say to Sam right now that he wouldn't regret and he already regrets enough. Besides he has an appointment with a very willing man in the bathroom.
Still he's not completely unhappy that Sam catches up to him at the door to the bathroom and grabs him by the arm.
He turns and he's struck by the thought that a few moments with Sam, touching Sam, being touched by Sam could erase any memory of Zemo, of these last 6 months struggling.
But Bucky had promised himself after the failed therapy session that he would try harder to stop hurting Sam.
Bucky sighs and finally tries, “I...I just need to stop feeling like I'm not me.”
Sam's hold on his arm has shifted and now Bucky finds himself being pushed backwards into a stall. When the door slams shut the stall, Sam presses forward until they're chest to chest and kisses Bucky the way he hasn't realized he's been missing for months.
All the Sherlock Holmes purists hating what The Irregulars did to Sherlock Holmes’s character like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself wouldn’t have been jealous that they finally succeeded at doing what he couldn’t
I know Sherlock Holmes purists hate The Irregulars but as a chaotic bi, I just want to see this Watson being romanced by Moriarty while Irene Adler hooks up with Mary Morstan.
vaporwave
romaincrisis
2087
titsay
yousharknotpass