OH MY GOD. JUST - YES. EXACTLY LIKE THAT.

...You guys, I seriously cannot express how much in love with this show I am right now, and how perfect the last three episodes were. I was never much into the Doctor Who fandom, but damn, I am getting really inspired now, because this is just - my show. My show, that makes me laugh and makes me cry and makes me clap my hands like a demented seal and squeal so loudly my dog starts barking.

This season = :D x infinity.

First of all, apologies to anyone who's waiting with baited breath (including, um, my assignee) for my remix. I was a very bad remixer this year, and actually had to drop out. Long story short, I severely overestimated my capability to multitask, and then got a fever and was stuck in bed for the duration of my extension. But, despite all this, I myself was remix'd!

For those of you who remember Mary, Melusine, Mary, Medea - the subtle horror, October-tinged McKay/Sheppard-with-Sheppard-backstory that apparently gave some people nightmares - this is a remix of that: Mary, Melusine, Mary, Medea (the Life As a Spinning Wheel Remix). And it is glorious. As the (as yet unknown) remixer said in her notes, "There's this really creepy question in the original story that I kept spying out of the corner of my eye: do people get taken, or do they just disappear? Is something sinister happening, or is it just... one of those things? It was a question I only touched on, but the remixer expanded into a fascinatingly creepy ambiguity, making this the ultimate interpretive story. While, despite which way the answer went, the McKay/Sheppard relationship in the original could only be read one way, the remixer turned the Life As a Spinning Wheel Remix either into a triumphant, hopeful account of John slowly opening up to Rodney and maybe even falling in love - or John as the mount of an unknown horror, a mysterious dark hunger riding on his back, following him into his home; a John who's fighting against unassailable odds, and losing.

I was going to write up a really long post on why I love these two episodes, but then I realized that it basically boiled down (heh) to this:

EVERYONE IN THIS IS INCREDIBLE.

I am so full of love for Suki, and Hakoda, and Sokka, and Zuko, and Mai, and Ty Lee, and even a little bit for Azula. Even individually, they're amazing - SUKI SUKI SUKI OH MY GOD YOU'RE KICK-ASS, AND HAKODA YOU'RE REALLY FUN* - but I think it was the relationships in this one that did me in, from the formation of new ones (Zuko and Sokka's burgeoning friendship) and the rekindling of old ones (Hakoda and Sokka, Sokka and Suki), to their disintegration, or at least... metamorphosis (Zuko and Azula, Mai and Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee and Azula). This episode really hinted at a complexity to these relationships that we hadn't necessarily seen before, and more than anything, this episode was the advent of a complex and nuanced (and KICK-ASS) Mai who's not a caricature or a sidekick, but (along with Ty Lee) a fully realized person with courage and conflicts and loyalties, for whom the center cannot hold. Things are starting to fall apart in this episode - Azula and Mai's faceoff, and Ty Lee's seemingly unconscious but momentous choice of loyalties, my God that was an incredible moment - and things are shifting, and it gives me shivers.

Other things I loved:

- The leitmotifs and general soundtrack. They could have gone with dramatic, death-defying music for these two episodes - prison escape, come on - but instead they chose an eerie, quiet little piano-and-string riff that really underscored the feeling of "there are secrets in this place, things said and unsaid, hidden relationships and loyalties running underneath, plots afoot". Listen carefully when you're watching; you'll hear it too. This also marked probably the best use of the leitmotifs yet. I especially love how Sokka's Water Tribe drums were heard only when he was around certain people (his father and his girlfriend). Very telling about his state of mind.

- MAI. (Mai/Zuko.)

- The return of emotionally balanced, occasionally a buffoon but sometimes deadly serious Sokka.

- Zuko's newly fluid firebending style. Whattya know, he really did learn something from the LSD dragons!

- Zuko and the breath of fire in the cooler. I never quite got what people were always panting about in terms of Zuko, but I do now; that was incredibly hot. The hunched shoulders, that look, and of course the fire...

- Speaking of hot, what about those prison uniforms? Something about the cut was just... very nice, especially on Zuko and Suki. And the color was awesome too.

- SUKI.

*Speaking of which, I want Hakoda/Bato/Kya. Like, now.

...I really need some good Avatar: the Last Airbender icons.

I finally figured out how to synch movies to my nano, and now I have a tiny, tiny Castiel in my pocket, courtesy of giandujakiss. Now I just have to figure out how to get all my other favorite fanvids on here. Hours of entertainment!

Acronyms rock. Evidence, on a cardboard box at Safeway:

( is that a package in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? )