#{return 0

I need someone to slap me next time I even think about animating 💔

and found out i had several continuity errors in my fic lol. to be fair, rewatching it immediately after the first time was too goddamn painful. it was a little easier this time, especially with my fic in the back of my head, neatly outlining how it would line up exactly with canon.

i might have the final push i need to get 6x01 fully drafted.

She wanted you to know that if you were a shape, you were a straight line. An arrow.

Ready to have my heart teared out again.

Especially because I know I’ll still hear Root’s voice.

Even if it’s not her. But if this is my pain at her loss, I can’t imagine what it’s like for the rest of the Gang.

For Shaw specifically. Who probably won’t let it show but will be doing insanely dangerous things to cope and to maintain her disinterest when she’ll be dying inside. I think I’d be less scared if she actually did start crying because I know that would actually be healthy for her instead of the fucked up shit she’ll likely do instead. At least Root knew how to match her level of recklessness enough to placate the emotional tsunami ready to blow.

Now? God I don’t know what will be successful in that.

Does anyone else think about his final word to Harold in Return 0?

The way he said "me and the machine have had a long standing agreement-a deal- told you. Pay you back all at once. It's the way I like it"

When did he make this deal? When he had God Mode in God mode(2.22)? During Contingency somehow? Has he spent the last 3 or so years content that he'd either dying rescuing people or saving Harold? What if he made this deal after they lost Shaw? Or when they had an open system in the beginning of season 5? He knew since early on he'd die for Harold but when did he codify it!?

Also pay him back all at once! So John truly believed he couldn't pay back the incredible favor Harold did by using John to assuage himself of his guilt from 'letting' Nathan die by dying for him!

The fact that he said this: "This is what I do remember when you came to me you gave me a job, a purpose, at first I'd been trying to save the world for so long, saving one at a time, seemed sort of anti-climactic."

Because yeah- saving one person seems small but over time you truly see the good their doing. number come back to help them (Zoe, Elias, Carter, definitely ... but also Harper, Joey, and Pierce- Even Control in her own way that team machine will likely never know know about.) You see what happened when John stopped swooping in to save the day during Pretenders and what it means that the machine was made by someone who truly thought about the implications of what he was building (and he'll be the first to admit it's not perfect!) But we literally get to watch the show build up into an action-packed and climactic series finale (pretty much the entire season 5 is so high stakes it's really impressive)

and then he finished off with "But sometimes one life if its the right life- is enough. Goodbye Harold."

and then you have to watch Harold being just as helpless as you watch John die (I don't believe he's dead but that's the experience of watching it so.) And he deliberately choose his last word to be thanking Harold and prove to him that they did THIS right. That he needs to be the one who lives- and affirming Root's sacrifice as he does so too.