There's the two of us now

I was calmly scrolling down my timeline on twitter today when I saw Caitriona's picture.

Immediately, I recognized Sam's girlfriend and I just knew tumblr was on fire. For a second my thought was "Wow, I haven't checked my blog in weeks!", but then all I could think was "Thank God I'm not on tumblr these days".

I took a look at the comments under Cait's tweet, and they were exactly what I was expecting (not in a good way): mean, vile words from adult people that really makes me ask myself what the hell is wrong with them.

Some of the comments said:

(I was like WHAT THE FUCK.)

And there’s a lot more, but I’m sure you all have seen them by yourselves.

Completely disgusted, I did something I haven’t done in months - I checked some shippers’ blogs, just because I had to see how far they would go. And, OF COURSE, things got “better”:

She’s PROUD, for heaven’s sake.

I'm not a violent person, but I swear to God, I want to slap these people on their faces.

This is truly the biggest nonsense I’ve seen in a fandom, and I’ve been in some messed up fandons. The level of delusion here is something else.

Now, I know there are some great blogs here on tumblr, blogs that are really about Outlander, but there are just too much of this obsessed Sam/Cait shipper bullshit polluting this part of the fandom.

I’m not leaving my blog for good, I don’t want to give up on this fandom, but I think that, at least for now, the best thing I can do for myself is to stay away from this mess.

I’ll fangirl about Outlander on twitter, where I follow some people from the cast and all the news websites that post about the TV show. And where I have some internet friends who are not at all obsessed with the lives of Sam and Caitriona or who they are dating.

Maybe I’ll be back when season 3 starts to reblog some beautiful gifs those great blogs will post. Maybe not. I don’t know.

The only thing I know for sure is that under Cait’s picture there was a tweet I can 100% relate right now:

P.S.: Remember when that famous shipper “deleted” her blog and her friends were all like “you all drove her away from the fandom blah blah blah”? Just think about how many Outlander fans like me wish they could peacefully fan on tumblr. How many of us were driven away from here because of this freaking mess. Just think about it.

Where Claire and Jamie's Heads Are At in Season 3

At the end of Season 2, Claire had thrown herself back into the twentieth century as Jamie grimly faced the Battle of Culloden. When Season 3 resumes, the two will have lived decades without each other. As we know from Season 2 flash-forwards, Claire returns to Frank (Tobias Menzies) in this time to raise her and Jamie's daughter.

"Claire believes Jamie has died, so there aren’t really any options," Balfe says. "I think she does what any mother would do. She tries to survive." She later added: "You see how these two people had to live without each other, and I think that’s a really important part of who they’ve become."

As for Jamie, Heughan said, "If people have read the book, they know that it picks up where [Season 2] left off, so we do get to see Jamie’s journey without Claire. Basically, Jamie’s not himself. He’s being anyone but Jamie Fraser, so it’s about his journey back to Jamie Fraser."

Who Balfe and Heughan Have Geeked Out Over Meeting

Most fans in the Main Stage at ECCC were definitely geeking out over the two Starz leads, so it was interesting to see who Balfe and Heughan had obsessed over meeting themselves.

For Balfe, it was film star Faye Dunaway, who was wrapped up in the Oscars' enormous gaffe earlier this week. "I was just like, 'Oh my God, can I take my picture with you?' and she let me!" Balfe exclaimed.

Heughan told the crowd that he's planning to wear his Stranger Things t-shirt to the con the next day, and would love to meet Millie Bobby Brown. He also cited an embarrassing run-in with Jeremy Renner recently.

"We were at the bar at this Oscars party, and he came in between us to get his drink," Heughan says. Then Heughan reviewed his internal dialogue, which went something like: Do I say something? Do I not say something? Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, before eventually blurting out, "You’re really good in Arrival!” Apparently Renner replied with a simple, "Thank you, brother" and scrambled away from Heughan. "I hope I don’t bump into him now, or he doesn’t recognize me," he joked of the star, who is also at ECCC this weekend.

Supernatural Encounters and Heughan's Musical Skills

Stars are people too, so why should ghosts be choosy about who they haunt? One fan question drew in surprising results as both Balfe and Heughan had supernatural mysteries to recount.

Balfe's occurred while she was living in Japan, and we swear it sounds like an early 2000s horror film. "I had a ghost in my room," she says. "I was like 19, and I could feel there was something in my room," she said, while explaining that the lights and television would turn on and off without reason. "One day, I felt something like this [lightly brushes the top of Kramer's head repeatedly] and it scared the bejesus out of me, so I moved out the next day." Probably the best idea!

Heughan's was even more mysterious. "I used to play the trombone, and someone bought me a wind-up metronome," he explains. "One night, after they had passed away, I was thinking about that person and the door was closed and the windows were closed and it started ticking, when it hadn’t moved in years."

Our biggest takeaway from here is definitely the baffling image of Heughan playing the trombone, not that both of the Outlander leads attract apparitions.

The Scene Balfe Wished They Had Filmed

Although Season 1 very closely resembles Diana Gabaldon's first book, there are of course a few exceptions. While it's understandable that they couldn't film the moment where Claire finds herself face-to-face with the Loch Ness Monster, Balfe was still hoping to take on a wolf in front of Wentworth Prison. In the book, Claire ferociously snaps the wolf's neck. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to fly on EP Ronald D. Moore's set.

"First of all, we nearly killed an actor with some dogs," Balfe says. "We tried to do the scene where Father Bain [Tim McInnerny] gets attacked by the dogs, but he actually got attacked by dogs, so we kind of nixed the wolf scene." Yikes!

The Print Shop Scene's Accuracy

Spoilers for fans who haven't read the books: Gabaldon's third book Voyager (off of which Season 3 is based) features a reunion scene between Jamie and Claire in a print shop. This decades-in-the-waiting reunion between the two is probably the most anticipated moment in the upcoming season for fans. Heughan even sent a stream of tweets teasing the scene while filming late last year.

While Balfe and Heughan wouldn't actually say a word about this, one fan cleverly asked if they could give their best facial expressions in regards to the question, "How closely does the print shop scene resemble the book version?"

Outlander‘s Father Bain probably doesn’t deserve a pass, but he certainly got one in Season 1, star Caitriona Balfe says.

The actress told fans gathered at Emerald City Comicon on Friday that an incident from Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander novel was originally included in a Season 1 episode … until things went wrong.

Those who’ve read the book will remember that the angry cleric encounters a pack of dogs; when the beasts bite him, Claire warns that the wounds will fester if not properly cleaned. And when he bullheadedly ignores her and that happens, the priest uses it as evidence that Claire is a witch who cursed him.

“Father Bain, we tried to do a scene where he gets attacked by dogs, but [the actor] actually got attacked by dogs,” Balfe told the crowd at the panel, where she appeared alongside co-star Sam Heughan. (We’re assuming, from the way the pair were chuckling, that portrayer Tim McInnerny came out OK.) She added that the incident was one of the reasons Claire’s fight against a group of wolves, which happens in the book while she’s attempting to break Jamie out of Blackwater Prison, also never made it to screen.

“I’d like to see you fight a wolf,” Heughan said.

“You know, I think I could take down a wolf,” Balfe replied.

Though the actors said they weren’t allowed to divulge much about the Starz series’ upcoming third season, an audience member asked them to indicate — with facial expressions — whether the much-heralded print-shop scene (during which [Spoiler alert] Jamie and Claire reunite after a 20-year separation) is faithful to how it is written in Voyager, aka Book 3, on which Season 3 is based.

Filming on “Outlander” moves out of Scotland for the first time in Season 3, relocating to the beautiful beaches and warmer weather of Cape Town, South Africa.

Star Caitriona Balfe, for one, is stoked to be leaving the chilly Scottish Highlands behind her.

“Sunshine, vineyards. It’s beautiful,” the Irish-born actress told TheWrap’s Stuart Brazell. “I was lucky enough to go there about 10 years ago. Cape Town is just so stunning, so yeah, just being there will be amazing.”

Season 3 of “Outlander” will see Claire (Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) take a long sea journey, and production on the Starz series will take over the network’s “Black Sails” sound stages to bring that to the screen.

“The great thing about this show is that every new season, everything sort of gets turned on its head,” Balfe said previously regarding the new season. “In the beginning, when we come back this season, I think everyone knows at this point the stories are quite separate. We see a lot of Jamie’s story, and what he has gone through in 20 years. We see a bit of Claire and Frank, Claire and Brianna, and you see a bit of Claire as a professional doctor, surgeon. It’s just so different.”

During a game of Wrapid Fire with Brazell — with some fan questions thrown in — Balfe also revealed her ideal date, her go-to karaoke song, what she’d be doing if she weren’t an actress and her top three dream travel destinations. (Click the link above for video!)

Best Fantasy Television Series:

Beyond Game of Thrones The Good Place Lucifer The Magicians Outlander Preacher

Best Actor on a Television Series:

Bruce Campbell (Ash vs. Evil Dead) Mike Colter (Marvel's Luke Cage) Charlie Cox (Marvel's Daredevil) Grant Gustin (The Flash) Sam Heughan (Outlander) Freddie Highmore (Bates Motel) Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead)

Best Actress on a Television Series:

Melissa Benoist (Supergirl) Caitriona Balfe (Outlander) Kim Dickens (Fear the Walking Dead) Vera Farmiga (Bates Motel) Lena Headey (Game of Thrones) Sarah Paulson (American Horror Story: Roanoke) Winona Ryder (Stranger Things)

Best Guest Performance on a Television Series: