#Grappling Points

[fogaminghub]

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[gazpachoandbooks]

Currently imagining Arthur + Gwen + the knights asking someone (maybe druids?) who this famous "Emrys" is and they proceed to do a version of "We Don't Talk About Bruno" while Arthur, Gwen and the knights grow increasingly more distressed with each line and Merlin hyperventilates in the background

[elpeadro]

If the writers wanted CaitVi to be their canon OTP so damn bad, they had two ways of going about it:

THE GOOD ENDING:

Caitlyn doesn’t turn to fascism in her grief and rage. Ambessa still takes advantage of the council bombing to goad Piltover’s elite toward supporting martial law, likely installing Salo as her puppet as she originally planned to, but Caitlyn is one of the few who protest and refuse to be swept up in the authoritarian fervor Ambessa stokes. Because:

1) there’s no way she wouldn’t notice how fishy the attack on the memorial was. This is the same person who pieced together the conspiracy surrounding Silco and his criminal empire without ever stepping foot in Zaun. She’s a great detective who has been shown to see through the surface level cover-up. Not to mention the list of potential suspects with both motive and means is very small. Add on Mel’s insight, who she would interact with as one of the other Piltover characters who resists Ambessa’s scheming, and they would definitely pin Ambessa as their prime suspect. The problem is that they have no proof. All of the attackers are dead. Ambessa covered her tracks well, a nod to Noxian subterfuge in the wider lore. 

And most of all, and most horrifyingly, Piltover doesn’t care. They’re angry. They’re outraged. Their bigotry is being preyed on by Ambessa, but they hardly need a push to go from the indifferent oppression of Zaun to active, overwhelming oppression. They already saw Zaunites as a monolith: criminals, street scum, dirty people who need to stay out of Piltover’s golden streets.

That Jinx is the lone guilty party is irrelevant. Her attack threatens their status quo. It has disrupted the utopia of Piltover living in its ivory towers without a care in the world, and they will bring back that false sense of security by crushing any possibility of Zaun fighting back ever again.

and 2) even with the grief of losing her mother fresh on her mind, this is still Caitlyn Kirammen we’re talking about. The woman who gives up her rifle - not just a prized possession, but her means of self-defense and safety when she’s deep in the worst parts of Zaun - without a second thought to save Vi’s life. The woman who hugs Huck, a homeless drug addict with a cancerous-like growth on half his forehead, of her own volition.

Because she cares.

As we are reminded time and time again in season 1, while Caitlyn is an incredibly naive, privileged, idealistic woman with an exceptional ability to put her foot in her mouth and say the most tone deaf things, she has a good heart, and more importantly, is willing to learn. It isn’t easy at the start, but when confronted with the irrefutable proof of how awful Piltover’s treatment of Zaun is, she listens. She feels sympathy for Zaunites, even if they are drug addicts (Huck), convicts (Vi), or gang leaders (Ekko).

That same Caitlyn, the one we see a small glimpse of in episode 1 when she protests that innocents will be caught in the crossfire, would not stand for Piltover’s martial law and mass imprisonment of Zaunites. She would try to fight it alongside Mel, using her position and influence in the enforcers as Mel uses hers as a politician.

(While she still develops an obsession over Jinx and getting justice for her mother’s death, she doesn’t see collective punishment and chemical weapons as acceptable costs of achieving said justice.)

And if the writing stayed true to the themes of class conflict in season 1, then she would quickly be forced to confront the horrible realization that there is no fixing this. The faults are systematic, not individualistic.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Marcus or Salo or Ambessa or whoever. The enforcers and Piltover will always be corrupt institutions stepping on the necks of Zaun. Piltover’s society is rotten from the inside out. And if she isn’t going to stand by and let it happen (because she refuses to compromise her morals and enforce martial law, because she cares - not just about Vi, but about Ekko and the Firelights, Huck, all the innocent people who will be swept up in Piltover’s thirst for blood), then the only way forward is to fight against Piltover.

So she becomes a class traitor. She fights alongside Vi and Ekko in repelling enforcers and Noxian soldiers from Zaun, protects the innocent. 

Her relationship with Vi develops healthily compared to the canon season 2 - or as best it can in the midst of fighting a war and given their personal issues (Caitlyn’s grief and rage; Vi's self-loathing and guilt) - and they are good for each other.

It becomes a loving, supportive relationship and a wonderful piece of queer representation.

It would be beautiful. Not just the love and trust they have in each other, but that such love can flourish even in dark times. That people are capable of being defined not by their class and the systems they are born into, but by their actions and morals.

(Would such writing be too radical for the higher-ups at Netflix, Riot, and Fortiche (i.e. writing a class traitor and class war)? Most likely, but that discussion is for another time.)

Part 2: The Bad, Tragic Ending

Will post and link part 3 (the disjumbled tonal mess of an ending we got) once written.

[sunfl0wersandillusions]

i’m like 70% joking 30% real when i say this that like. do you think when viktor first woke up after being revived and fused with the hexcore that he was so quick to up and leave jayce bc of like. the insane sensory overload of being newly conscious in the material world simultaneously with this cosmically psychically infinite arcane plane. like you know when you take an edible. and you’re peaking. and you didn’t expect to be interacting with another human being for several hours but. you get like a phone call or your roommate comes home early or something. maybe viktor was feelin that. like let him get outta there let him hear colors in peace!!!

[bluetiefling]

what if I told you that sauron doing such-and-such horrible thing is never gonna matter when it comes to whether or not galadriel continues feeling drawn, romantically, cosmically whatever towards him *gasp*

[sillytigergrimlin]

[Click for better quality]

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I'VE EVER DRAW THEM DIGITAL AND IM SO HAPPY WITH THE RESULT YALL

Still got some stuff to work out with uh... drawing- BUT I'M GETTING BETTER AND IT BRINGS ME JOY

There's also this version, but I like the one above better!

[dykedvonte]

I hate the stretch lines in the front of Curly's uniform because that means the devs rushed to make a model in like a month or so and thought "They gotta at least know he has huge knockers, gotta know he's got back pain." Cause like what is the thematic importance of his tits having overhang?

What responsibility is that representing? Breast reduction? It shows an inherent greed in his character due to the excess and heshouldletmeholdone and that he clearly is blinded cause if he tries to look down his damn ladder all he's seeing is his own cleavage.

[reactionimagesdaily]

[chloecherrysip]

"I hope you told your brother how much you loved him, because you're probably never gonna see him again."

"..."

"Was that too dark?"

"YES!"

"Sorry."

[lesbiangracehanson]

another day, another j7 scene that makes me feel insane 

[bestworstcase]

but no really the narrative is about to snap like an overstretched rubber band

it’s not just that everything ruby has bottled up erupted at a really bad time it’s that she lashed out as viciously as she could at everybody—it’s that she said those things to hurt them, to claw at them the way they’ve been unknowingly inconsiderately picking at her wounds, and all of it landed. it’s that she spent this entire journey locked up inside her head, but once the pressure finally forced her out she knew exactly what to say to stab them where it would hurt the most. and it shocked all of them because they’re all so, so comfortable with thinking of ruby rose as this perfect ideal. the leader. the one who always knows what to do.

she didn’t just fall off her pedestal, she ripped the pedestal out from under herself and smashed it up and hurled the pieces at the ones who put her there, and then she left.

and these kids were taught to think in black and white, hero and monster, good and evil. the ever after defies simple binaries like that and their discomfort with that shines through in their reliance on the book to guide them and uneasiness with the increasingly obvious fact of the book’a fictionality; they’re not really emotionally equipped to handle a story where alyx is a person, neither a set of moral lessons nor a monster.

ruby rose was the hero.

then she experienced trauma flashbacks and froze during a fight, and she became a selfish girl who doesn’t care about saving the village and won’t even bother defending her friends.

and then every hurt feeling she’s been smothering for years boiled over and she said all the meanest things she could think of because she’s in SO MUCH pain that the only thing she can do is reflect it back into the world, and when blake tried to console her she said shut up. don’t do that. and ran away.

as far as any of them can see this happened literally out of fucking nowhere, completely unprovoked—sure jaune snapped at her first, but ruby exploded at everybody—at the cruelest possible time.

how do they make sense of this? how do they resolve the chasm that just ripped itself open between the idea of ruby rose and the reality of ruby rose? jaune already planted the seed of vilification—do they cultivate that, grasping for an explanation and finding maybe that’s who she really has been all along, or do they uproot it, setting aside their own hurt feelings to say no, that’s not who she is, something is wrong and she needs our support right now?

[spacedlexi]

so often i see people try to downplay violet and minervas relationship like it wasnt Real enough or was some Inferior Romance that her relationship with clementine could Never compare to, and i find it so annoying and boring

she LOVED minerva!! and its okay that she did!! she was her first love!! childhood best friends turned girlfriends!! seeing her being so heartbroken and miserable about what happened to minnie, how deeply and desperately she missed her, hugging that bed frame so pathetically. but clementine makes her CARE again. makes her LOVE again. slowly violet becomes comfortable with the idea of opening her heart up to people again, after trying so hard not to because the pain of losing people she cared about was too much to bear (especially when she blamed herself for them being gone)

then she learns minnie didnt die. shes falling in love with clem while grappling with the fact that minnie might still be out there??

then she meets minnie in the woods. but minnie has changed just like she has. theyre both different people now. and slowly violet is forced to come to terms with the fact that the person she loved so deeply isnt that person anymore??

violet at the beginning mourning minerva and blaming herself, to shooting her to save clems life. she LOVED minerva once, but she doesnt like the person she is now. and shes not gonna let her hurt anyone else she cares about. shes done mourning her by the time they get to the bridge, only crying out for tenn

like idk i just find their relationship evolution to be so interesting and sad as shit. the fact that they once loved each other so much and it has now come to this?? but violet makes her choice and she Chooses clementine, because she admires and loves clementine, probably similar to the way she used to admire and love minerva if the way she talked about her is any indication

i just think "i never thought i would ever feel this way again" is way more interesting than "wow minnie Never made me feel like This"

[goosegirlandfalada]

I was thinking about why Carry On works for me when typically I like minimal exposition! I like being dropped into a story and figuring it out as we go along. Some of my favorite books are like that. And a lot of Carry On is spent on the past, musing over memory & history. I think it works for me because it feels very grounded in the Simon’s personality and emotional experience. He truly doesn’t believe he has a future… so of course he treads over the past.

That’s part of why it works for me: it feels emotionally honest.

In the story, this backwards focus serves several purposes: it orients us at the end of the heroes journey (think of your life flashing before your eyes before you die) and it builds up the color and weight of Watford & by extension the world of magic. It suspends us in Watford’s history & Simon’s longing. Which I think creates a nice tension w the end, we’ve spent the book thinking about Simon’s story and what it means for him that he has lived this life and how it seems totally at odds with a future. And we know that he loves magic, we feel it viscerally in his descriptions. And then he loses a heroic end AND a life with magic. He gains a future but it’s not any kind of future he might have imagined. This then carries us into the next books where things are so radically different, which for all their sadness feel more hopeful than Carry On lol

*(and the rest of the series but i have a whole other list of things I love for those)

[softestepiloguemisc]

people who are hyper critical of aang are super fucking weird and we should say so.

[dayurno]

one thing though that i thought was very interesting in tsc was how jeremy and kevin swapped some key personality traits the fanon associated with them. kevin being a grounded, stable pilar vs jeremy being (though well-intentioned & kindly) pushy and falling into codependency with jean like many of us assumed would be the inevitable outcome of kevin and jean reconciling. quite surprising!

[discoknack]

Skully's Punishment Part 2

Part 1 here

As always I got the idea from @sonicasura

Also spoilers for episode 10-11.

Hoshina crooned at the Yoju, stopwatch in hand, "Good~ good, keep breathing just like that."

Skully's breathing was measured and deliberate, but their small form would occasionally shudder with a suppressed sob.

"Keep those arms out, knees bent. Tuck that tail more, no cheating! Almost there... Five. Four. Three..."

Hoshina almost couldn't hear himself over Skully's sudden outburst - they roared and screamed, mouth wide open and fists tightening. But they held their position, even with their limbs shaking. Very good. When he reached zero with an "all done!" Skully finally collapsed, sprawling onto their belly.

Then Skully took a deep breath, chest expanding, and began to weep, whimpering softly like a deflating balloon.

Hoshina swept them off the floor, holding Skully up by their underarms and grinning. "Ya done good, Rookie! I'm proud of you! Think you'll listen to me next time~?"

Skully was almost limp in his hands. But then they began to wiggle, straightening and grabbing Hoshina's arms for support, whimpering with each effort. They looked him in the eyes with tears streaming down their face and nose. Hoshina was kinda hoping they'd reply with a defeated 'yeah' or an 'uh huh' at least, but instead the Yoju babbled at him for a good ten seconds or so. Their words slurred together and they stopped and started several times, interrupted by sobs. Their kaiju vocal cords weren't doing them any favors, either. There were only a few words Hoshina could make out: Papa... gigantic scary... hurt... something...

He got the gist of it anyhow.

"Well, aren't you a sweetie!" he said, bringing Skully closer and wrapping his arms around them. "Just like your mumma."

Hoshina rubbed the spines on Skully's back. Skully settled in immediately, rumbling and chirping.

"But I'm not just your Papa; I'm also your Vice-Captain. I have a duty to my soldiers, ya know." That didn't fully sound right. "I have a duty to my children, especially." That sounded weird still. But it was probably the best description. "So. You hafta listen to me double-time~" Hoshina nuzzled Skully's neck, provoking happy chirps.

Hoshina sighed. "Justtt like your mama..."

Of course Kafka's kid would be just like him. Incredibly loyal. Admirable, but he sets a bad example. That's what I get for bringing on a rookie just 'cuz I liked him, huh? "Don't get too attached to your comrades," I told him. "Anything can happen."

Kafka! You had better come back. You owe me that much!

Hoshina was glad he had sent Okonogi away and was alone with the Yoju. So no one else could see his face.

-

"Hibino Kafka." Captain Ashiro said, idly thumbing the barrel of her gun. The smaller one, that is - not the cannon, thank god.

Kafka had stopped stressing a few moments ago, no longer sensing his whelp's cries and figuring that, with how they tapered off, it was fine. But now he was on edge again. Did she notice him sigh? "Y-yes, Captain?"

"The little one..." Mina shifted her weight, seeming uncertain. Kafka couldn't place why. "It's yours, isn't it?"

Well, there was no sense in lying.

"Yeah."

"Are you...?" Mina asked, "Do you...? Did-?" Then some color came into her cheeks and she turned away. "Sorry. Inappropriate questions."

Kafka took a moment to understand...

"Ehhh?! You got me all wrong! There's no way I'd be fooling around with- eee! sorry sorry..." He shrank back down into his seat at the sight of all the guns trained on him.

After some moments had passed, and the gunmen slowly relaxed, Mina made an odd sound, and looked like she was about to throw up. Her whole body was tense.

She did it again, grabbing at her neck and making little "ahem"s. She had to close her eyes or else they'd bulge out of her skull.

"Mi-!"

"Captain are you alright?!" Kafka had been interrupted by one of the soldiers.

Mina's forehead creased and she covered her mouth, but she couldn't stop the giggle from finally escaping. She managed to quiet down quickly, but even still, her shoulders shook. Finally, she took a breath and then did it again, tears springing to her eyes.

On the third breath she had it handled, getting a proper hold of her gun. She slowly exhaled, sobering up, almost to the point of a slight frown. Blinking away the tears, unsmiling, she said, "yes."