Xenapuff

The Incident at Stone Manor

Last things first:

Do I want to see kisses and declarations of love? Obviously. I’ve written about a million of them. But if that never happens, if the writers continue to be the writers, I feel like I got what I needed. This episode so obviously confirmed that no matter what they say, this is a romantic relationship on the deepest, most spiritual level. They are halves of one whole, tethered through space and time.

Now, do I think the show is strongly telegraphing romance? I do. Granted, we’ve thought that before, but really the last two episodes were a series of love letters between Abbie and Crane, a clear declaration that there is no one without the other. Tom and Nicole have abandoned any pretense of acting platonically – if there is such a thing as “platonic handholding” between adults, that was assuredly not it. If the writers choose to ignore that, well, I can’t fix that and I’m tired of feeling angry.

But this gave me what I needed emotionally from this couple. For me, it was a confirmation of everything I’ve felt about them. So not that I don’t want the physical stuff and the declarations; I do. I do. But this fulfilled something for me. Your mileage may vary.

Let’s do this thing:

The first thing – the first person – Abbie calls for is Crane. While this is thematically on point for the episode and hits me in my shipper zone, I don’t feel it’s in-character. Abbie just got herself blown up for Jenny, yet Jenny is the last person she calls for?

Our poor baby hurt, limping, so small in this huge, vast world. The water and rocks were such a huge change from our normal forests and caves and candlelit rooms. It gave the Catacombs a fantastic sense of space and otherworldliness and that sun that never moved. Really, superbly well scouted and filmed.

Current sexuality: Abbie Mills with a rusty, vicious cutlass. Shame she didn’t keep it. But of course, she’d leave it for the next poor soul who was stranded there. Might have left a note, though. To save time.

Good Lord, she looks so, so beautiful with her natural hair. And a great explanation for how it ended up that way. 10 months of complete isolation, complete stasis, not even the respite of sleep? They truly devised a cruel torture for her. And I hope they honor that pain and give it the attention it deserves. She couldn’t possibly come back OK.

Gargoyle: Kind of a cool idea for a monster, shockingly bad execution both in mythology and makeup. It looked like a bad Faceoff look. He couldn’t even move his mouth, and the actor was clearly trying!

Our first introduction to Papa Mills was a letdown. Obviously they’re going to develop it further, but seeing him so normal, in such a normal house, still using his same name, living in the same state but not giving a shit about his daughters? Left a bad taste in my mouth.

Jenny “Why Talk to Your Father When You Can Break into His House” Mills.

Both Lyndie and Zach were off their acting game today. Granted, they were given some real clunkers to say – “I hope you know you can trust me with what’s going on in here *gently taps chest*” is a real groaner – but this show is all about making awful lines sound good. Neither were up to the task this week.

Building a spirit cabinet is easier than raising a barn? When the everloving fuck did Gentleman/Professor/Soldier/Spy Crane have time to raise a barn?

Oh and also spirit cabinets were totally a thing, and a really cool thing! More an element of stage craft than a real way people tried to contact spirits, but I approve of their use, and that Jenny had to think of it, since it didn’t exist in Crane’s time.

How sad, how crushingly sad, that neither Jenny nor Abbie had *anything* of their father’s they could use in the ritual. And I love that Crane doesn’t press about her father; this boy knows daddy issues. He just nods and lets it go.

The bond of Witnesship being stronger than the bond of the sisters? Again, I get the theme they were building here, but not sure I buy it in either a magical sense – very few things stronger than related blood – or an internal show-logic sense. But that has never really been a strong suit.

Maybe the B-plot in this ep is awesome (pretty sure it wasn’t, but maybe), but it was impossible to care about anything besides Grace Abigail Mills.

Unlike Crane and Abbie imitating each other these last two eps, Jenny and Joe doing it felt too meta. Like, writers, if you’re aware of how formulaic the MotW scenes are, change them?

Abbie making her own chess board out of rocks and pretending to play with Crane. Because she knows him that well and misses him that much. And that’s who she turns to. No one else. Crane.

How many times do you think she imagined she heard his voice before she actually did? Ten months. Remember – even in our world, going mad is her greatest fear. How much would that be amplified in a world where it’s almost impossible to stay sane? How much would that fear have gnawed at her across day-lit nights when sleep did not exist? And then there it is and it’s real and he’s real but not quite real enough to touch and can she be sure? Can she really be sure?

Nicole’s acting was a true and absolute gift this episode. From the furtive way she moves, a woman hunted, eyes darting, quick movements, to how she talks to Pandora with steely resolve through her tears to her utter despair…she deserves so much. Thank you, Nicole.

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All that extra negativity over every small detail has deterred me from engaging with the fandom as a whole. I know the writers have messed up but the last episodes have been interesting and even then it's impossible to please everyone.

and that’s a shame, really. i mean… i’ve been in this fandom almost from the very beginning. i’ve made some pretty good friends in it, too, like… best friends. so i’m grateful for just that. i love these people.

but i do get it. it’s annoying. and it’s tiring. and it’s discouraging. to come up in here after what i think is an awesome episode to gush and squeal and instead have to block half the posts in the tag or on my dash… it’s like being a kid in a birthday party with a cute balloon and some asshole poking it with a stick until it pops. 

and it’s like. i see articles about how sleepy hollow is so bad now and i’m like

tbh, i don’t trust anyone who saw s2 and can say that with a straight face. it is objectively false that s3 is worse than 2.

does the show still have flaws? sure. the monsters are pretty hit or miss, betsy ross is still inexplicably a thing, and sleepy hollow the town still feels more like a stage than an actual town since they categorically refuse to build it up with people who are not victims of the week. but just in s3b–just since we’ve been back–we’ve had:

character development for abbie up the wazoo

team b having just as much time apart from team a to feel like their own people and not plot devices (granted the balance is off sometimes but nowhere near the flustercuck that was pushing jenny and frank away to focus on clifford the big red fail)

sophie, who is amazing and lovely

actual progress on mythology-building. like, the hidden one is a bag full of dicks and pandora needs to shank him and take her rightful place as queen but their backstories were super interesting and the twist they put on the pandora’s box story was cool and something i’d never seen before

joenny. i like them together and apart so i’m adding it, idgaf. their relationship does seem to leap forward jerkily at times, but they’re cute together and i’m not rooting for them to fail

a crane who is neither an asshole nor a buffoon

progress toward canon ichabbie that has been inexorable. that’s not me being some naïve dope. every single episode since the midseason premiere has made sure to built up the emotional connection between crane and abbie–and not just wrt to the witness bond, i’m talking crane the man and abbie the woman. even when they’re apart the show makes certain to point out that they should be together. explicitly and implicitly. 

so to see all that glossed over because ichabbie isn’t fucking yet is… frustrating. because even if you’re watching for just them, you’re getting stuff! good stuff! but nope. let’s wallow in negativity forever because goffman was a blind dipshit.

goffman is gone.

s1 was only doubleplusgood in the first half and it’s not coming back (plus it had its problems, then, too).

the headless horseman turned into a pile of shit and the show is better without him.

the show has moved past frank irving. headcanon him happy with his family and just let it go.

does it suck they’re gone? yeah, a bit. but the show isn’t broken because of it, and it’s silly af to act like it is. 

to clarify: not wanting to participate in renewal campaigns or polls or whatever because we’ve been burned before is fine. totally cool. understand completely. but to actively hope it fails or to pick apart the show to where the whole thing is bad because ONE THING hasn’t happened quickly enough to suit you is clownish bullshit. it just is.

so yeah, i completely understand you not wanting to engage. i wish we were in a place where i could tell you to engage anyway because it’s fun, but it hasn’t been, really. not lately. truthfully, every day i think about joining you and just tracking tags and reblogging gifsets and basically writing off fandom completely.

but.

i will say that there are still good people around. if you like, i’ll point you to a couple, even. just know you’re not alone in your fandom fatigue, nonny bunny. not at all.

Abbie Mills being killed on Sleepy Hollow just goes to show me the writers, producers, and showrunners of Sleepy Hollow were never truly invested or interested in her character. They never expected this amazing black female character, played by a very talented black woman, would resonate with so many people. They never expected Abbie to have the fanbase she had, or to become as popular as she is. 

It says to me all the praise they got in season one for the shows diversity was really all talk. That once Abbie got too popular, they pushed Katrina out to the forefront hoping desperately fans and viewers would latch on to her like they did Abbie. Because they didn’t see Abbie as special, unique, and important. 

I stopped watching the show mid-way through s2, but Abbie was always the reason I wanted to watch. She was the heart of the show in the early seasons. She was the cornerstone of what made the show work. 

I’m not sure if Nicole wanted to leave the show (given that the showrunners seemed clueless as what to do with the character and utterly unwilling to pursue the obvious Ichabbie romance), or if this was a showrunners only decision. Either way, it’s a sad loss for television. I only hope Nicole can find better work and better roles where she can really shine as an actress. She deserved so much better than what she was given on Sleepy Hollow. And fans deserved better from the showrunners. Abbie Mills deserved better. 

Sleepy Hollow

Yeah, spoilers. This is a hate letter. 

I’m almost 47 years old. And this is the first time in my history with television  that a single episode of something has made me regret ever watching a show to start with. I regret the time I spent on Sleepy Hollow. Because they just erased everything I loved about it with a single swipe. 

The Witnesses were the heart. How they were always there for each other. They came as a PAIR. You cannot kill one. That undermines every moment that one saved, supported or protected the other. All those “destinies entwined, we found each other, I do what you do, we will always be certain” moments have been undermined by her death. They’ve killed the beating heart of it, the bond that we’ve all been there for. 

If Nicole wanted out, they should have thought about the whole point of the show and either let them both live and ended it, or killed them both and ended it, or even killed them both and moved one with two new witnesses. ANY of that would have been better than killing one and leaving one alive, because that’s not what we’ve been here for over the last 3 years. 

The Witnesses, together, are the show. They’re a matched pair, a set, for better or worse. By killing Abbie and leaving Ichabod to carry on, they’ve stabbed the heart of the show and made every wonderful partnership moment meaningless. 

I am in awe that I cared more about the integrity of the show and the characters than the writers. But that’s fixed now, because I regret ever watching it. That is how much the death of Abbie Mills has soured me on the entire universe. I don’t even want to read fanfic. I am forever ruined on this show and its world. I never thought they could manage that, but god damn, they did. 

Goodbye Sleepy Hollow. And fuck you. (ANd if you’re renewed, and the new witness is white, I hope you all drop your genitals into a blender bye)

A Broken-Hearted Ex-Fan

Sleepy Hollow 3x17 Truth Bomb             We cannot hide who we truly are, Lieutenant.

[via]

Mages of the Inquisition!

#TeamIchabod

Oh Daniel, Ichabod stole his first wife from her fiancé, who was his best friend. He doesn’t even like you.

Catharsis

Fandom: Sleepy Hollow Genre: Dark Humour Words: 780 Summary: Tom Mison seeks revenge for the maltreatment of Nicole Beharie. Extension of this post.

It’s the first day of filming for season 4. Raven Metzner sweats around his gross neckbeard in the Georgia heat as he goes through the scripts, trying to find any and every situation where he can put Jenny and the new ~awkwardly cute white girl~ witness into miniskirts. He nods a hello to Tom Mison as he passes by, then stops short as he feels cold steel slip between his ribs.

“Nicole Beharie sends her regards.” Mison whispers in his ear.

In L.A., filming her new TV show where she leads as a man-eating mermaid, Nicole smiles.

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Sleepy Hollow Episode 317 - Delaware promotional photos.