#'til my dying day

[themuseoftheviolets]

"I could never be the woman Mary deserves, and I blame you for that. You ruined me for any other love. Maybe if I had met her first, and maybe if she'd met me before Marlene, then maybe we could have been enough for each other. But we didn't. We aren't. Instead I met you first, and you ruined my life. You're going to kill me, you know. The same way you killed yourself. And I’m going to let you. This is the second time I've joined a war for you."

also found this deep in the drafts so here. emmeline talking to dorcas' grave

[westiec]

They need to get this show on netflix before everyone forgets the truth 🥲

[gatoburr0]

He just needs a better outfit

[deoidesign]

Thinking about vampires, death, life, and the space they occupy in between

[loving-delusions]

im still not over this episode guys, srry bout that..

im just ill about any lunar variant, in general

[yardsards]

i needed to express a sentiment in the creative stylings of @dunmeshiminimumwage

[its-been-you-all-along]

alex’s insta - missing & surprising henry

stayed tuned for henry’s insta when alex comes home

[percys-lemons]

hey guys btw kevin ayers is very cool and groovy and you should all definitely listen to him (if you want)

these are my fav songs

[geeky-nightphilosopher]

I don't think we talk enough about how Hardison went from;

"I don't even know what you do."

To;

"S'up Eliot."

And the thing is-in both situations- Hardison was lax. When they first met Eliot was clearly annoyed and Hardison was just being his cocky self. By the time The Rundown Job happened, Hardison was comfortable enough to be in an elevator by himself hacking away. Knowing full what Eliot could do.

On the flip side:

Eliot went from;

"You are precisely why I work alone."

To;

"I have the best thief and the smartest hacker I know."

Which is say A LOT because Mason (Chaos) is around. And if I remember correctly- Hardison doesn't even think he's on par with Mason.

These two men grew SO much between getting to know each other and working together. Their trust for each other is so real it hurts.

And then you add in Parker and-ahh!- I don't even describe it. Because Parker went from being a lone and being almost fearful of working with people- to having utter faith in them.

Jumping without knowing if Eliot was there. And waiting for Hardison to go looking for her.

I think that's why Eliot's "Til my dying day." Is so- Aaaahhh!

I love them. They are a found family your honor.

[kickedin17]

That gifset of the handshake made me think about Clancy and Torchy doing it in the nico mv and now I'm pondering the narrative logic for the characters doing it when they meet up there..... because on one hand it implies that they do know each other/are probably already good friends (wink) and have spent time together before, even though Clancy's writing doesn't explicitly indicate that. On the other hand, it could be they've in fact never seen each other in their lives before that moment, and upon locking eyes for the first time their bodies just Did That as some type of instinctive bro/mating ritual

[themuseoftheviolets]

Emmeline leaves. It’s what she does. She left Barty when he chose the wrong side, left her father when she joined a war, left Dorcas when she couldn’t take it anymore. And so Emmeline leaves Mary the same way she's left every person who’s ever loved her; with fights and tears and no final goodbye, not really.

breaking my own heart today

[shima-draws]

Really wish I could fight the schmuck who invented allergies with my bare hands

[faejilly]

*barges through the door* PARKER POV OF ELLIOT FINDING OUT THAT HARDISON GOT HIM OMEGA PREGNANT

This made me snort-laugh in delight, and then I pictured it, and then I swapped it around in my head that Hardison was pregnant, and both versions were AMAZING? Pregnant!Eliot, all grumpy and nesting, and then pregnant!Hardison who is only grumpy when someone makes him drink something besides orange soda and THEN! BECAUSE HE'S SO TALL, HE COULD BE SO SO PREGNANT BEFORE HE STARTED SHOWING, and then I wished I could art instead of fic.

But then I attempted to fic again, (only I had lost track of the prompt and kept going with pregnant!Hardison) and I feel as if Parker would actually have figured it out before Hardison even and then think because she figured it out (and she's bad at figuring out relationship/people cues so often) she's think that Hardison and Eliot would both HAVE to have already known and she's just waiting for them to tell her and she gets why they wouldn't immediately, like, obviously, she's not good with kids, she doesn't know how to interact with anyone normally and it'd be so easy to fuck up a child, they need so much, and she'd hate if they ended up with a childhood like hers...

(And then I stopped laughing because I'd made myself sad, join me in the Parker feels y'all.)

And then she's made herself worried and wonders if that's really why they haven't told her, they don't know how to tell her that they're worried about her and their kids, but they'd be their kids, she'd love their kids so much!

Only then, maybe they wouldn't be hers, too? Maybe the problem is Hardison and Eliot think they'd just be 'their' kids and she'd only be... Aunt Parker or something.

(And she's been DELIGHTED at being an Aunt to some of Nana's fosters, but this is different, and she's not sure why, or how to explain it, and Eliot and Hardison still haven't said anything and like. What if she's got everything about their relationships wrong and it's not that they don't know how to tell her, it's that it never even OCCURRED to them to tell her anything because it's not about her at all?!?!?!?!?)

and Hardison and Eliot are all trying to figure out how to ask what's wrong with Parker to the point that Hardison STILL hasn't actually realized he's pregnant and he's getting all flustered and they're having the weirdest almost-argument because he's worried about her but trying so hard not to push but he's clearly just getting more and more upset and she keeps trying to get him to calm down and rest it can't be good for him and Hardison's all what the fuck are you talking about?

And that's when Eliot finally gets it.

*Insert his italicized oh here*

(And then they're all a little emotional and melodramatic and kind of yelling but in a good way until they all figure out what's going on and they're all on the same page and they're a little scary in the baby stores as they go shopping to decide how to set up the nursery, and they end up having even more kids on purpose via a couple different combinations of parents and foundlings and they're all very happy and ridiculous, the end.)

But I never did manage to write it, so I guess this is all you're going to get. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[pladoskif]

I think I’ve cracked the code:

my kind of ships are the ‘my tears ricochet’-coded ones.

[ineffable-hubbiewubbies]

uquiz fanatics come get yall juice

[rollercoasterwords]

about those prank thoughts... well i’d love to hear them sooo if you needed an excuse to write another essay here it is

kissing u on the mouth anon ok here we go here's the prank rant (warning it got super long):

ok so this is limited in scope because as i've said before, i've only been in this fandom for like ~1.5 years, so idk anything about how the prank was talked about/handled before this. BUT. what i personally have seen. is essentially:

atyd gets super popular via tiktok -> it becomes sort of "canon" (at least, amongst newer marauders fans) that The Prank was like...this really devastating event that tore apart the marauders friend group, because that's how it was characterized in atyd--despite the fact that in the actual canon, it honestly doesn't seem like as big of a deal -> since it becomes the New Canon that The Prank was Such A Horrible Thing, suddenly people begin talking (mostly on tiktok) about how awful and unforgivable it was for sirius to do something like that. this devolves into this big discussion of people saying either

it's completely out of character for sirius to do The Prank and he never "really" would have done it; we should just ignore that part of canon

The Prank is so unforgivable that it makes sirius a completely irredeemable character

The Prank is so awful that anyone writing it in a canon compliant fic should be showing every single marauder turning against sirius and everyone hating him/telling him what he did was so awful and wrong, and it should take a really long time and a lot of apologizing/changed behavior before remus ever forgives sirius

and this then got extended into debates about james' characterization; I saw sooooo many people talking about "james would NEVER just forgive sirius for something like that" "james would side with remus" etc etc etc

and the end result of all these conversations was that i saw tons and tons of people saying that the way The Prank was written in atyd was Bad. not just--oh, i didn't like it, though there was plenty of that too, but people acting as though the way it was written was a moral failing, as though mkb had failed to convey how Horrible and Awful of a thing the prank was, and in doing so she had allowed people to Sympathize with sirius's character, when he should have been Punished. suddenly everyone was climbing on their high horses about The Prank, talking about how unrealistic or out of character or "problematic" it was to write it the way it was done in atyd--which was ironic to me, because from where i was sitting, it seemed like it was atyd that had solidified this fanon idea that The Prank was Such A Bad Thing in the first place (again, at least amongst fans brought in by tiktok).

SO. my problem with this. setting aside the conversation of whether The Prank was actually That Bad in the first place (because i think it can be written as a more or less serious event, depending on how you interpret canon--but personally, i tend to interpret it as something Very Bad, so let's start with that premise) and operating under the assumption that it was, in fact, a really horrible thing that put not only snape + james in danger but also remus, since he could have been exposed as a werewolf--the thing that drives me up the fucking WALL about The Prank discourse is that it is, to me, just one example of this obsession with Morality and Punishment when it comes to "literary critique" (using that term loosely, because i'd argue that a lot of what these people are doing actually isn't literary critique) in the marauders fandom (post-tiktokifcation, at least).

like. specifically, it's this idea that something like The Prank would make sirius, as a character, irredeemable, and that it would be unrealistic for his friends to forgive him. that, to me, is just....such a strange interpretation!!! because if you are friends--close friends, childhood friends--with someone for long enough, they will hurt you. you will hurt each other. it is an inevitable part of being human that getting close to each other and staying close to each other often means hurting each other. and the closer you are with someone, the more they can hurt you. i have a childhood friend who is essentially like family to me, and i was cruel to her when i was fourteen. i was dealing with a lot of shit, and i was young, and i was mean. and we've both been cruel to each other in the nearly two decades we've known each other, and we've had explosive fights, but we have always found our way back to each other and forgiven each other, because that's the kind of friendship we have. i have another childhood friend who hurt me so deeply when we grew older that despite having my literal handwriting tattooed on her arm, we haven't spoken in five years, and will probably never speak again. that kind of hurt is a risk you take when you let people in.

so to me, the idea that a teenage boy raised in an abusive environment who has just run away a few months earlier, who is dealing with all that shit as well as the regular shit of just being a fucking teenager, would thoughtlessly and deeply hurt his friend--that isn't out of character! in fact, i think it's entirely in character, and i think it's a crucial part of sirius's relationship with remus and the other marauders. because the fact that remus is able to forgive sirius says something important about their relationship. what exactly it says will vary, to a certain extent, depending on the details of how you write the prank and characterize the characters, but overall--it's important because it's showing that their relationship is strong enough and close enough and important enough to both of them that they are able to move past this deeply hurtful event. and that, to me, is a WAY more interesting and impactful relationship to read about than a relationship where two people are always good and never hurt each other.

and regarding james--personally, i love the characterization that james forgives sirius "too quickly" or "too easily" after the prank, because i think it's an opportunity to explore one of his most important character flaws, which is that he cannot imagine that his friends would ever purposefully do something bad/harmful. like--this loyalty and belief in his friends is literally what gets him killed. what amazing foreshadowing to show that even when his best friend does something blatantly wrong, james still thinks--well, he didn't mean it. his intentions weren't bad. and obviously he's sorry--and he's a still a good person, because he's my friend, and my friends are good people. like THAT is how you write a character flaw!

and speaking of character flaws--this is also one of the best opportunities, if you're following canon, to really explore some of sirius's character flaws! and again, it's gonna change depending on how you're writing certain details, but in some way shape or form this is a very important mistake for sirius to make in order for his character to grow--obviously, something has to change afterwards, because otherwise how could remus forgive him? but what has to change? how does it have to change? good characters aren't meant to be static!!

it's just. !!!! The Prank is truly, genuinely, one of the BEST opportunities from canon that you can use you really explore these characters and their flaws and their relationships with one another. so it is genuinely BAFFLING to me to see sooooo many people condemn it and act like it's this atrocious thing, because i feel like it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what literature is meant to do. like--i've talked about this before on my blog, and i'll keep saying it til the cows come home, but fictional characters do not exist as moral blueprints. good literature should engage your critical thought, and "character does Bad Thing -> character is Bad" is not critical thought!!! like!! fiction isn't telling you how to live, it's asking you to think about the human condition--and part of the human condition is that people make mistakes, and they hurt each other, and they have to figure out how to keep living in the wake of that hurt!! The Prank is this plot point where you can bring up really tough questions, like--how does closeness with others leave us vulnerable to them? is that vulnerability worth the closeness? what role does intent play in measuring harm? what can we forgive? what can we not forgive?

i get that sometimes with fanfiction you just want fluffy happy brain-off fun, but you can find that if that's what you want, y'know? like--it's just so so strange and honestly concerning for me to see people act as though something like The Prank shouldn't be written just because it means giving characters flaws and exploring them.

in conclusion, The Prank is one of my favorite parts of canon, and i truly think it is so worthwhile to explore when writing and thinking about these characters, especially sirius. also--it is important to understand, both within and outside of literature, that having flaws and causing harm does not automatically make a person irredeemable. if we are going to live with each other we need to learn how to respond to people fucking up in ways that are not just: You Are Bad And Must Be Punished.