#A meta thing where he's sharing memories with someone who he doesn't trust with that information

[noisesfrombeyondtheuniverse]

I'm using my kindle's notes thingy for the first time but im just writing 'GET THERAPY' every time Secunit; shows extreme disregard for its own life, has a trauma response so bad it redacts its own thoughts, or ties its worth to its usefulness

[purble-gaymer]

alright @turtleplushi here’s some evil flavored meta knight

so for starters, this au is based on the simple premise of nightmare cursing galaxia before the gsa gets to it. it came to mind sometime back in october (so some style choices are pretty out of date). that was it for a few days, but the reason i mention i'll throw my emotions away is because i started listening to RIProducer about the same time and this song gave me a million more ideas to work with.

it starts pretty much the same as my normal interpretation of early mk and galaxia, being he hates it. he can't stand looking at it, let alone using it, knowing its retrieval resulted in the death of his friend. he drops it on the floor and kicks it under his cot, where it stays for the next month or so. things proceed as normal until he decides to pull it out one day. he picks it up and strangely finds the ruby a lot more enchanting than it used to be.

from that point on, he starts bringing it everywhere. it doesn't talk much at first, slowly building up mk's trust, and eventually during training it drops this:

now, naturally, he doesn't tell anyone about this. everyone thinks he's doing just fine--except jecra, anyway. he can tell something's wrong, and he's starting to think it's not just grief. if he asks mk about anything, the knight's response is a bit more hostile than it used to be. not always, but enough to notice it. surely he's just in the anger stage, right?

a lot of slow corruption and escalation happens in the middle chunk here, and along the way mk's perception and memories start to change. he thinks--no, he's certain the other members of the gsa don't care about him; they never did. they don't care that this war is putting so many people in danger, they don't care to help, they don't care meta knight lost one of his best friends, one of the greatest star warriors they had. what's stopping them from letting him die, from letting jecra die? he can't bear to lose anyone else. after months of spite and rage building up, he abandons his badge and swears to take revenge the gsa.

and, unfortunately, this eventually culminates in him trying to assassinate arthur. it doesn't go as planned. someone was there waiting for him.

after this, he runs and finds jecra, who was already looking for him. aforementioned blood question, meta knight is acting weirdly calm but also weirdly aggressive about this whole thing? jecra draws his sword and breaks the other's mask, and oops! mk has red eyes. super possessed. they have a big fight that ends with jecra disarming mk and shattering the ruby, breaking the curse.

there's some fallout that i never really got around to thinking about very much. dragato's fine, he's not too angry about the being stabbed thing since mk wasn't really in control. arthur's a fair bit more upset, even if his anger is sort of directionless now that the curse is gone and mk's back to normal. meta knight feels awful about the whole thing for a while. galaxia goes back to sitting stationary under his bed where he can't see it.

after a while, they get the ruby replaced, and to meta knight's horror the thing can still talk. it doesn't seem to be evil anymore, but it'll be a while before he's willing to trust it again.

i drew some things related to this, not too much but here's a couple. it was during a time when i was really unhappy with all my finished pieces, so i never posted anything, but i thought they'd be cool to share.

so that's that. i've got an adjacent 'meta knight doesn't escape from nme until way later' au but that one's just for fun cause evil mk is just a fun guy to write/draw (admittedly he is also deeply traumatized but that's a story for another time)

[thatblondeperson]

Hello. Longtime Tim and Steph fan who discovered your blog and I really enjoy your meta takes/askes on them. Concerning your recent ask I was curious as to why you think it was poorly written that Tim felt he couldn't explore himself with Steph and you are not a fan of how Meghan framed things as "Tim not being fully himself". I hope this isn't coming across as a complaint against Tim's current direction or anything given questions you have recieved come across as such.

I want to preface this, for anyone reading, that REMINDER! Tim at the very least has all his pre Ew52 memories. Please keep this in mind as Meghan seems to not have these memories.

My first issue is that it's a lack of attention to canon. The whole reason Tim started crushing on Steph was because she was someone that he felt like he could finally be himself with. He loved Ari, but he had to hide Robin from her, and that was a major block for him with her. It caused Ari to stray from him and even court other guys while they were dating.

With Steph, he couldn't be Tim per say, but to Tim, Robin was an extremely important extension of himself. When he was Robin with Steph, he was being fully himself, and he loved being with her for that reason.

Identity reveal being stolen by Bruce aside, at least after that we got to see the part of their relationship that I love, where we get to see them build this very lovely trust with one another. Tim and Steph share things with one another throughout their relationship that they don't share with others. They are both exploited by Bruce in ways that only they can understand, Tim may be the only person that Stephanie has openly shared her SA story with, they have a lot of pain they've processed together. They weren't always great with communication as they both have their own internal conflicts going on, but when they did open up, they were 100% with one another, and there was a very beautiful strength they both shared.

Let's not even get into Eternal and Rebirth. That's @incoherentbabblings jurisdiction but there is so much more evidence to both of their "I can be fully myself with you" dependence on one another.

This thing where Tim doesn't feel like he can be his full self with Steph either feels like a dismissal of canon, or that we are just rewriting the TimAri breakup which we very well could be doing. We're hitting the same points basically. And to say it's a dismissal of canon isn't crazy far off considering that Meghan says Steph was never trained by Batman which TIM AT LEAST IS VERY AWARE ISN'T TRUE. At least she mentions that Steph was trained by Canary and Cass but like...come on. Even Tim trained her. A LOT of people trained Steph and Bruce was a fairly important one in that mix.

The second reason this frustrates me is just the classic trope of "a guy can't be bisexual of he's in a relationship with a girl" bullshit that a lot of bi guys face. And of course women face this too. The biphobis of needing to be in a same sex relationship for people to recognize you as bi or even care that you're bi. It's the way the story is always told, and it gets exhausting after a while. Bi people typically aren't validated unless they've actually "tried" both, or are currently with a same sex partner. Will I always wonder what could have been if Tim came out as bi and still stayed in a relationship with Steph? Sure. Because it wouldn't have made his coming out any less valid, but I don't think media tends to share this sentiment.

I have answered asks about how trust is hard even with someone you've always loved and trusted, because peeling back another layer of yourself could change everything. I've mentioned how Tim probably felt that this was the right path for him, and it's clear that he is happy with Bernard and that this ch is good for him. I 100% believe that I'd he came out to Steph while still in a relationship with her, knowing her character, that she would be very accepting and they would have carried on just fine. (because also obvi she's bi too. bi4bi TimSteph when, DC?)

But I have to keep putting my view of the story through Tim's eyes and remember that love and trust and all that gooey stuff looks different to those experiencing it, and Tim's vision of his past and future relationships aren't going to be as clear as my vision of them.

I'm not thrilled that it's all taken this route, but I do understand it and I'm happy enough with it.

[sideprince]

I think Snape and Harry have a much more intimate relationship throughout the series than we realize if we don't look closely. Snape, as an adult, would have felt much more of an affinity to Harry than vice versa, because he would have had the life experience to understand Harry's angst and rejection of him as an authority figure in a way Harry couldn't have understood about himself at his age.

I really love the way they relate to each other during Occlumency lessons, but especially how Snape relates to Harry. It's the first time, really, that we see Harry asking him questions out of curiosity, and Snape seems to enjoy giving him answers. I also love the meta that Snape's insight into Harry's memories of abuse are the reason all those Order members show up at King's Cross at the end of OOtP to warn the Dursleys not to mistreat him, ie. that he passed that observation on. There's the memory Snape sees in their first Occlumency lesson of Harry chased up a tree by Aunt Marge's dog, and then there's this:

A couple of weeks after his dream of Rookwood, Harry was to be found, yet again, kneeling on the floor of Snape’s office, trying to clear his head. He had just been forced, yet again, to relive a stream of very early memories he had not even realised he still had, most of them concerning humiliations Dudley and his gang had inflicted upon him in primary school. ‘That last memory,’ said Snape. ‘What was it?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Harry, getting wearily to his feet. He was finding it increasingly difficult to disentangle separate memories from the rush of images and sound that Snape kept calling forth. ‘You mean the one where my cousin tried to make me stand in the toilet?"

-OOtP Ch. 26

It's in this same session that Harry uses protego and glimpses Snape's memories of crying as a child while his father shouts at his mother, of his loneliness, and of his humiliation trying and failing to mount a broomstick while someone laughed at him. This is really interesting given that Snape has already warned Harry about how vulnerable he is to having his most intimate and exploitable memories seen and used against him if he wears his heart on his sleeve and can't control his emotions. Snape, a powerful wizard who is an excellent Legilimens, has some of his more (I won't say most) vulnerable memories accessed immediately when Harry casts a Protego charm. While this may just be Rowling's way of injecting some character exposition into the story, I think it's also reasonable to interpret this moment as one where Snape is also more vulnerable and emotional because of his interactions with Harry.

It's not willing or deliberate, but Harry and Snape are sharing their vulnerabilities with each other. While both are defensive and mistrusting around the other, their Occlumency lessons are very intimate. I would assume that, having seen Harry's memories of being bullied by Dudley's gang, Snape would have started realizing that he wasn't as much like his father as he thought. (This is also the Occlumency lesson that gets interrupted by Trelawney's sacking, in which Snape hears a scream from upstairs and not only ends their lesson early to intervene but is in such a rush to help whoever might be in trouble that he doesn't even lock his office door, which is a great little insight into his nature.)

There's an interesting thing happening throughout the series where Snape's efforts to arm Harry with knowledge and tools is consistent, regardless of his personal relationship to him. At the same time, there's also something to be said for Harry having seen some of Snape's most vulnerable memories, as well as SWM, and Snape realizing over time that Harry had not shared them with anyone else or, in any case, they had not come back to him at all, let alone used against him the way he might have expected. There's a trust, or something resembling it, at least, that exists by the time Snape bestows his final memories onto Harry.

There's something very moving about Snape making Harry watch his most vulnerable moments. His most shameful and painful memories. Including his Worst one. That's the same man who went hysterical when Harry invaded his privacy in OotP... and at the end of DH, either those memories slip by mistake, or he trusts Harry, or he really wants to confide to him about what happened, or he decides that's the price to pay for his absolution and/or his final mission. Regardless, here you have the man who holds so dear to his privacy -- a spy -- and he is giving his dearest secrets to the boy he hated yet had to protect. So, was it an accident? Was it an utilitarian strategy born at the last moment? Or did something change in Snape in his last year, when Harry was away?

[thebluelemontree]

Hi, this is lyastark (i changed blogs), you responded to my ask here: /post/175700394682/. i wanted to say that i loved your meta! i was thinking more of their relationship in the purpose of the story. for me, no one knowing about this interaction has to serve some plot purpose. b/c of this, i think that sandor is going to be the one to tell her about LF shitty behavior towards her. her relationship with him is the ONLY one that LF doesn't know about. we know he doesn't b/c he NEVER mentions (1)

sandor to sansa. he was quick to dismiss tyrion, loras, wilas, margaery, etc but he said nothing about sandor. i also believe that sansa has gotten to the point where there’s no one “new” she has met that she would 100% trust with something this big. sandor is someone she explicitly trusts not to lie to her, and is someone she associates with safety and her old life. he’s her hidden dagger, if you will

Hey, glad you liked it.  

Yeah, I’m in agreement that Sandor will be crucial to Sansa reclaiming her identity in a few ways, and it will pay off that their relationship has flown under the radar for all this time.  While Jeyne Poole is also an alternate possibility or an addition to that, I think Jeyne is on course to meet with (perhaps travel with) Arya first.  It may take all of TWOW, maybe to the beginning to ADOS, for Arya and Sansa to reconnect.  One thing I’m reasonably sure of is that things will start happening pretty quickly in TWOW for wrapping up Sansa’s training arc.  With only two books left, it’s time to start moving all the remaining characters into the final act.  

I’m just going to put the rest under the cut.  This isn’t so much a coherent meta, but me just riffing because I have a lot of feelings about this topic XD

Littlefinger was only a mask he had to wear. Only sometimes Sansa found it hard to tell where the man ended and the mask began. Littlefinger and Lord Petyr looked so very much alike. She would have fled them both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she ever returned to King’s Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she’d hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun. I have no place but here, Sansa thought miserably, and no true friend but Petyr. – Sansa I, AFFC.  

“She would have fled them both…” if she had another option available to her.  If she had another friend nearby, but in her mind, she doesn’t.   

For Sansa’s training arc to end, her sense of isolation and dependence on Littlefinger have to be overpowered.  It is a psychological obstacle as much as it is a physical one.  Sansa has seen Littlefinger literally get away with murder and come out in a stronger position than he was before.  He seems to always be a step ahead of his enemies.  He has already bribed and extorted his way to power among the Vale lords.  He’s iced Yohn Royce out of political influence.  He’s planted seeds of doubt in Sansa toward Myranda Royce before she even met her.  (On a side note, Myranda does know Sansa’s real identity, but has never confronted her about it and nor has she used that information against her).  So LF’s locked down all the potential allies or troublemakers that he can see.  But we know there are things he can’t see, like the possibility of Sansa winning Lothor Brune’s loyalty from him.  Nor does he seem to be aware of Lyn Corbray’s seething resentment over being ousted as his brother’s heir thanks to Littlefinger’s marriage brokering.  Not to mention he’s hired a bunch of hedge knights for his household guard not suspecting for a moment that they are there to steal Sansa from him.  Littlefinger’s hubris has made him blind to things that are right in his own backyard.          

While I’m 95% sure Sandor will be at the center of Sansa reclaiming her identity, I definitely don’t think he will be her only trusted ally or source of support before it’s over.  That comes from Sansa herself in doing what she does best:  being kind and empathetic to win people over.  I see her cultivating her own little band of helpers to escape rather than (as some speculations suggest) Sansa simply name-dropping at the tourney and all the Vale lords instantly pledging their swords to her as their new regent/leader/whatever.  That makes for a dramatic turn of events but is also pretty unrealistic as I see it.  I think she will eventually be in a position to receive Yohn Royce’s military support, but I strongly disagree that it’s going to be as easy as name-dropping.  Littlefinger has too much backing of his leadership right now.  The Vale lords at the tourney are already on board that gravy train of gifts, gold, and glory.  He has custody of Robert Arryn.  No one really gives a shit about Lysa’s murder and everyone is looking toward the future with the more robust young falcon, Harrold Hardyng.  IMO, Sansa needs to get with Yohn Royce before the rest of the Vale falls in line.  He’s against the ropes right now (and being kept far from the tourney for a good reason I think), but he is the one that is most likely to wrest back political power from Littlefinger once Sansa is no longer his pawn.  Then she would have powerful backing of her own.  The trick is getting her to Yohn Royce and for that, she needs a persuasive reason and the confidence to flee from LF.                      

Where Sansa is in the story right now, I think she already possesses most of the individual puzzle pieces to what Littlefinger has done.  She just hasn’t been able to bring herself to put all those pieces together into one complete, horrifying picture.  There’s a lot of trauma and suppression of painful thoughts wrapped up in the things she’s seen and experienced.  Things part of being Sansa Stark that will shatter the tenuous safety she finds in being Alayne Stone.  She knows on one level that Littlefinger did something with Jeyne.  She’s buried that memory and thinks about Jeyne only in more innocent times.  She hasn’t dared to ask probably for fear of the answer and for fear of the repercussions from asking.  And there’s the fact that she’s trapped with her abuser, who has muddled help and safety with exploitation and pushing her moral boundaries.  She’s under a lot of pressure to marry HtH, which has been framed as her best and only chance to go home, even if it comes at Robert Arryn’s expense.  All she has to do is let go of her empathy and see people as objects she can use to further her interests, and then she can not only feel safe but powerful and untouchable as well.  No one will ever hurt her again.  Littlefinger’s philosophy is terrifying, but there are parts of it that are very seductive to someone who has been made to feel powerless, stupid, and vulnerable.  In a way, Sansa is being tempted with adopting a cynical worldview similar to what the Hound was for Sandor. Narratively speaking, what better person to bring her back from the edge of losing her humanity than by the person she inspired to reclaim his own?  Sandor and Sansa have been saving each other all throughout their story.  The first moment they met was defined by Sansa looking Ilyn Payne, the persona of death, in the face and falling backward into Sandor’s hands (ugh, my heart!).  Many times he just seems to appear out of nowhere to catch her.  So yeah, Sandor as a “hidden dagger” works really well not only for literally saving her life, but saving Sansa Stark’s identity and her core values.  But that also comes with unpacking a lot of unpleasant things.                   

The missing piece of the puzzle and the one thing that will be the final straw should be learning that her father’s arrest and execution was orchestrated by Littlefinger.  Sandor was a present for all that.  He’s the best person to tell her, and yes, she would believe him.  That forces Sansa to start looking at all puzzle pieces she has avoided putting together.  Turning against LF will not just be a triumphant moment, but it’s probably going to be ugly and painful.  Sansa has a lot of suppressed guilt and shame over what LF has made her complicit in.  While she was never a willing participant and shifting responsibility on to her was a key feature of LF’s abuse strategy, Sansa has played a role to some degree in the cover-ups of LF’s crimes.  Some people think the unkiss is a symptom of PTSD.  Nope.  This situation right here puts Sansa at risk for PTSD.  It will be shattering to know she ever called Petyr a friend, trusted him, and sometimes helped him while he did awful things.  There’s your dark night of the soul that a few people reasonably predict for each of our major POVs in TWOW, especially if an innocent like Robert Arryn dies (I’m 50/50 on that).  She’ll need someone who can relate (think of Sandor’s dying anguished confessions of his sins), someone who won’t judge, and someone that can help guide her back to being Sansa Stark because right now, that identity comes with a lot of traumatic baggage.  Just as being Sandor Clegane did.  (UGH, MY HEART!) 

I could go on about how similar both Petyr and Sandor’s backgrounds and origins are, how cynism plays into their world views, and the divergent paths they took.  They don’t have to speak of each other or share a scene together, but they have always been opposing philosophical forces with Sansa between them.  One embodying sweet lies and the other blunt honesty.  But I think the most telling passage about these three is in Eddard VII:

Sansa said, "I knew the Hound would win."

Littlefinger overheard. "If you know who's going to win the second match, speak up now before Lord Renly plucks me clean," he called to her. Ned smiled.

Littlefinger bet against Sandor and lost.  Daddy approved. 

[esselley]

Hey! So, this is kind of a silly question, but it's been bugging me for ages now. I happened to stumble across an anti kagehina and anti Hinata tumblr, and I usually ignore those kind of things but this person said something in a post that somehow stuck with me-- that Kageyama just wants to utilize Hinata's abilities to win, and he doesn't care about him otherwise. (1/3)

sdfjskjdf oh nooooo anon *gathers you into my arms to soothe you* This ask is so cute it made me hide my face 

I feel like this could be an ask that sends me off on a big long rambling tangent so I’m going to try to avoid that in the interest of showing that there are a few simple reasons why I don’t think you need to worry about this at all! Here we go: 

1) The Haikyuu!! manga, as a whole, is not just about volleyball. It is 100% about the bonds that develop between people in pursuit of a common goal, the connections that are created by sharing dreams, and the friendships that evolve naturally as a culmination of these things. And like it or not, the focal points of this series, and of all these themes, are a) Hinata’s growth and b) the relationship between Hinata and Kageyama. So I do not think there can be much merit in trying to tear down the friendship between them, because if we look at the series on an entirely meta level, the intentions of the creator simply do not lean towards an unsupportive relationship. This, I think, is the only point I even need to make. But there’s canonical evidence as well.

2) At the very start of the story, Kageyama is frustrated, easily angered, and anxious, because of his bad history working on a team. Within one game of playing seriously with Hinata, Hinata has helped him snap out of it with the iconic moment of showing Kageyama “I’m here!” Kageyama realizes that volleyball can be fun for him again, as he tries to work with Hinata. Even if they frustrate each other sometimes, they have a knack for understanding each other, and more than that, they have fun with each other. In-series, we really only get to see them interact in the context of volleyball, and they have both only known each other for a few months, unlike literally all the other characters/friends in the show, who have known each other years. It’s true that their friendship is still developing. But it seems like a deliberate disservice to the writing to ignore the sheer mutual joy they get out of their favorite thing in the entire world, now that they have each other as partners.

3)Where is the problem in Kageyama utilizing Hinata solely to win? :D Kageyama, canonically, is the first person in Hinata’s life to believe that he can win games based off his skill and ability. Do the other members of Karasuno believe in Hinata, too? Yes, absolutely. But Kageyama’s own words are “I won’t toss to anyone who isn’t essential to winning.” And Hinata has, up until the point he meets Kageyama, worked his ass off to prove that he can be that person. He doesn’t come to Karasuno just to make friends and create memories. He comes to Karasuno to win. They both do. That’s part of the reason they understand each other so well, and why they are turning into such an unstoppable pair. Putting each other to work as the tool that will lead to their respective successes is a positive thing for the way they function. It’s what they’ve always sought in a partner, someone who will push them and their abilities forward.

I think it’s quite easy to make things negative if you want to view them as negative (even, somehow, Hinata Shouyou) ^^; but in my opinion, Furudate’s story has never even had the slightest suggestion that it wants to be anything but hopeful. We haven’t had scenes of Kageyama telling Hinata how much he means to him outside of volleyball, but that doesn’t erase the fact that he puts a lot of faith and trust in Hinata when it comes down to the thing we know Kageyama has valued most in his life. 

And it’s not winning. What Kageyama values most, I believe, is strength; the ability to keep growing, and improving. The determination not to give up because something is difficult. Kageyama has seen Hinata’s potential for growth. He knows Hinata understands volleyball (the thing Kageyama loves more than anything) like he does. 

And I personally feel like it would be very hard to see these qualities in someone, to want to support someone to the point that they can become invincible, and not care about them. 

Hope this helps :)