#He's inclined to see a lot of his actions and choices back then in a fairly unforgiving light

[fluffypurpleglitterdemon]

I still dunno my opinion on the "if you don't have a reason to live live for me" speech. Objectively wild thing to say, Xie Lian! Wild thing for a Twenty Year Old to say, both more and less wild for a god - you're uncomfortable with being worshiped and treated as above other people but you're fine telling a 13 year old to make you the meaning of his life, Xie Lian? Absolutely bonkers speech in that respect! On the other hand, weirdly, that's... not entirely out there advice? I have heard of something similar (though differently-phrased) used by plenty of people in a state where wanting to live for their own sake is hard to reach - if you can't keep going for yourself, to keep going because you have to feed your dog, or your sister would be sad, or whatever. Sometimes even religion is that external reason! "I can't want to live for myself but I know my god wants me to keeping going so I will" is a perfectly functional reason to keep going until you are in a state where you want to live for your own sake! But then, for one thing, that method is an incredibly delicate thing to advise someone else to use, especially if the advice-giver is using themself as the external reason, and secondly there is still a bit of a difference between that and making someone the meaning of your life.

[bunnys-kisses]

trust - astarion ancunin

pairing: astarion ancunin x fem!reader rating:  18+ tags: pwp, smut, outdoor sex, intimacy & love, missionary, sappy & sweet

Oh how times had changed. Astarion was a new man, more of a man than he was for the past two hundred years. He was no longer a captive to a sadistic vampire master who only saw Astarion as a means to capture prey.

And it all changed because the vampire spawn made the acquaintance of a young traveller. If Astarion had a bit more malice in his heart he would've killed you or at least tried. But you showed him a kindness that he didn't understand at first.

 'Why me?' He'd often think to himself when you proved that there was no malicious intent with your actions. If he wanted to be free from the curse of a spawn, then you'd help him with his goal. It took him a while to get adjusted to the freedom.

But Astarion was a curious man. The way a moth is curious when nearing a flame. He wondered if he'd get burned, or worse, fully disintegrated. Dust from your simple touch.

  “I want you.” He said softly one night, his voice low in your ear, “Will you join me tonight?” His slender fingers caught strands of your hair. It was an old seduction tactic, but it wasn't to find food for his master. It was to indulge in passion for himself.

You looked over to him. Your eyes met his, you were captivated by the red of his eyes. You could only describe them as rubies, but you knew they held a lot of heartbreak. Only one look at his back gave you all the answers you needed.

  “Astarion.” You replied, “Do you want me to join you?”You fully turned around. There was a slight height difference between you two so you had to tilt your head to look at him, “Do you want me, or do you want to feed?”

He frowned, “Of course I want you, why wouldn't I?” He leaned in closer, “I want to know what our party leader tastes like. You freed me of my strings, darling. I am no puppet to no master. If I want you, it's of my own free will.” His expression softened.

You reached for him and touched his face. His skin was cool and soft. Part of you expected it to be like marble the way his features were carved. Your gaze quickly dropped to his lips before you made eye contact once more. You dragged your touch down to his chest and placed your hand over where his heart was.

If it was still beating you wondered if it would be racing. Questions of Astarion's mortal place died on your tongue, bringing up the past would only ruin the mood.

Just as Astarion was curious about you, you were curious about him. A high elf turned vampire, a magistrate turned spawn. A creature of the night with an insatiable lust for blood. So many questions yet so little answers.

  “Tell me again you want me.” You said.

He leaned closer, he crowded into your space as he said softly, “I want you. I want all of you, darling. I want to know what you feel like inside and out. I wish to devour you whole.” He pulled away, his hand took yours, “Is that enough convincing?“

You frowned, ”I am trusting you, Astarion.“

He chuckled, ”That's the first I've ever heard that. I don't think anyone has ever trusted me.“ He took your other hand, his fingers locked with yours, ”This will be exciting then, Trust.“ You could see the hint of a smile on his lips. You were inclined to smile back.

You gave him his freedom. You ripped the chains from him and gave him the choice to determine his own life. You could not heal his vampirism, but you could care for him. Maybe make him believe he wasn't a monster.

Trust. There was a nice ring to it. Trust between two willing parties and as he led you through the thick of the woods, you were more than willing to see how deep the trust ran.

-

The moon hung heavy in the sky as if it was threatening to drop on the earth. It cast a light across the land as you stepped out from the woods and into a clearing.

You held his hand tighter when you heard the call of an owl from the top of one of the trees.

  ”I'm certain an owl won't hurt you, darling.“ He led you to behind a grand rock, ”If It does, however. I'll slit its throat.“ His smile grew before he took you by the face and pulled you in for a tight kiss.

You tensed for a moment, your eyes widened before you relaxed into his touch and melted into the kiss. You held onto his arms and further the kiss. You could hear your heart racing in your ears. This was a strange feeling.

You had been intimate with men before. You were no stranger to their anatomy. But there was something enthralling about Astarion that you couldn't put into words. He was unlike any other being you had known.

He shuddered against your kiss before he pulled away, his breathing was a tad heavier. He sank with you down to the grass. The boulder obscured you both from viewing. It allowed you a little more privacy.

No owls had to see what you two were about to do.

  ”I've become addicted to you, my dear. I had been in a cage for so long and you freed me without a second thought.“ He took your face in his hands and he gazed down at you, ”You could've easily made me your slave. But instead you are more than willing to put a stake through the heart of my master. We have killed for each other and quite frankly,  I'll continue to kill anyone who gets in our way.“

You wrapped your arms around him delicately, ”I want you to be a free man,  Astarion. Even if I want to, I could never tame you. It would be like taming the great North Star, it's impossible.“

He chuckled softly, ”Getting soft on me now, aren't we?“ He tried not to feel the tug in his chest from your kind words. Maybe it was a desire to be in control and not collapse from the weight of your kind words.

You moved his hands away from your face and you held both of them to your eye level. You kissed his cold knuckles, all of his skin was smooth and soft. He hadn't aged a day in over two hundred years. You closed your eyes, ”You are the brightest star I can see.“ You opened them once more to meet his gaze, ”I would follow you to the pit of hell if it meant being by your side.“

Astarion looked at you, with minor shock across his face. He turned his head briefly to compose himself before he looked back to you, ”I think you'll be leading me to hell, darling. But it shall be much warmer with you by my side.“

You two kissed once more. Slowly you were stripped of your clothes. You parted so he could get your armour off of you along with the clothes underneath. Soon your items laid around you. You pressed your bare chest up against the front of his shirt.

The softness of the material tickled your breasts and paired with the cool air, your nipples grew hard. You exhaled deeply as you propped yourself up against the rock. You could feel the heat lingering in your face.

You could feel the heat intensify as he began to strip himself. You had seen Astarion nude before, you have seen all of your members nude at one point or another. It was the reality of being so close together. But under the pale moonlight, he looked less like a monster and more like a divine being.

Carved from the highest quality marble, the lines of his body enticed you. You swallowed as your eyes reached his hardened cock. Your hands dug into the green grass under you. It was impressive, sizable but not intimidating. To see it that close was far different than seeing it from a distance as he bathed in the river.

He noticed your gaze and reached down to touch the top of your head. His hand combed through your hair as he said, ”No need to feed my ego, darling. I know what you're going to say.“

You looked up to his face and straightened up, ”I didn't say anything.“

He laughed, ”You don't have to, I can see it in the lines of your forehead.“ He rubbed his thumb against the creases to smooth them out, ”I guess you want me as much as I want you.“

  ”I want you.“ You confirmed.

He got down to the ground quickly and encroached on your space once more. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, mindful of the scars on his back. The kiss you shared was more heated then the previous ones.

The time for affection was over as lust emerged. It heated your body as you both laid in the grass. His hands explored your body. He ran fingers across your own scars. He felt every curve that you possessed,  he felt the moles and the raised scars from your dedication to training. You heard him hiss into the kiss as he grew more aroused by the feeling of you so close to him.

In over two hundred years he never had the fortune of a lover like you.

He laid you out on the grass,  he gazed down at you. He kept himself up as he dug his hands in the grass under you. He took a moment to admire you. He had seen many mortal nude during his time on this planet. But there was a connection between you two that he couldn't deny. It wasn't sex for the sake of a meal. It was sex built on a foundation of trust.

For the first time in a long time,  Astarion trusted you. In his eyes you could do no wrong.

If he was a star, then you were the angel that hung him up in the night sky.

  ”My darling." He said softly as he grabbed you by the waist and rested himself on his heels. His cock stood at full attention as he rubbed it up against your cunt.

You covered your face with his hands, “Astarion.”

  “Don't hide yourself from me. I want to see how I make you feel.“ He replied as he reached to your face and pulled away your hands, ”Don't make me pin them down.“

You swallowed, ”You don't have to."

  "Good.“ He replied softly. He brushed his cock up against your wet slit. He exhaled sharply from the feeling. It made his cock twitch with excitement. He soon guided his cock into your sweet sex.

He tried to pace himself so as to not cause you discomfort. He kept his eyes on you for any signs of pain as he sank further into you. His jaw tensed as he felt the warmth of lust spread from his gut. Soon he had every last centimetre inside of you.

You had taken him so well. He leaned down to pull you into a tight kiss, his hands were back on your hips as to guide them up and down his cock. You let out a high pitched noise that was muffled by his lips on yours.

  ”You feel divine, darling.“

  ”Shit, Astarion.“ You replied. Your heart drummed in your chest, your breathing was heavy as you laid in the soft grass. When he thrusted up into you it felt like his cock was pushing your insides up into your throat or maybe it was your heart trying to make a quick escape from the amount of pleasure you felt through your body.

You'd dare to say that your intimate encounter was romantic. Two bodies together in the depths of lust. He leaned over you and you wrapped your arms around his neck to pull him into a kiss. In an effort to keep both of you quiet as you rutted like animals.

He played with your breasts as you tighten your legs around his waist. The sounds of your love making filled the open night air. You were thankful that you were far enough away from camp that there wouldn't be any curious members trying to seek you two out.

As if Astarion wasn't going to let the others know in his own sly way. Especially in front of Gale, who he thought had his eye on you. The vampire could have a jealous streak run through him like a splash of light in a dark sky.

Your hands roamed his shoulders, your fingers dipped low enough to touch the scars on his back. He melted into your touch, a sign of comfort towards your hands on him.

When he broke the kiss, he continued to thrust inside of you.. His eyes met yours once more, ”You look lovely under me.“

You reached out for him and held his face as you moved in time with his thrusts. You replied, ”I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.“

  ”Good.“ He said, 'Because I have no intention of letting you under another man or woman. For as long as your heart beats, you will be mine.”

You leaned up to kiss him on the nose. It was so intimate as you replied, “That sounds good to me.” Then you two kissed once more as you felt yourself nearing climax.

Hands roamed, bodies moved. Lust filled the night air as the two of you made love under the moonlight. A life with the vampire didn't seem so horrible. You tightened your legs around him as he rocked back and forth against you.

Your heart fluttered at the feeling of intimacy between you two. Trust was all you could think of. It was the adhesive that kept you two together, that and an undying, unwavering commitment to one another.

Astarion, the vampire and you, the mortal, rutted against one another in the dead of night. You gripped onto his shoulders as the intense feeling of climax flooded your bloodstream and made you light headed.

You yearned for the release. You wanted to orgasm on his cock. You could feel the grass stick to your sweaty back as the two of you moved together. The gentle sounds between you two as the urge became stronger.

You were no longer alone in these travels. You didn't only have a party to rely on, but also a vampiric lover who wanted nothing more than to devour you. You were his; mind, body and soul. But he too was yours in the same way.

Matched in wits and skill. Fighters till the end. The thought excited you. What would become of your future?

With another searing kiss, you both climaxed in each other's arms. You clawed your nails down his arms as his grip bruised your hips. With a final thrust, he finished inside of you. He marked you as his, and the thought made his body run hot.

When he pulled away, he looked down at you. He said with a smile, ”Forever mine.“ Before he pulled out of you and laid beside you in the grass.

Your breathing was laboured as you laid next to him. You could feel  his cum stick to your inner thigh as he spooned you. You held his hand as he held you by the middle.

His lips grazed at your neck. He sighed with content, ”I could turn you tonight and we'd be together until the sun melted the earth.”

You chuckled softly, “How about we finish our quest first. Then we can spend eternity together.”

He replied, “I can be impatient. But I will be patient for you, my love.”

You relaxed into his arms and felt your eyes grow heavy, “Good. Now let's kill Cazador.”

He chuckled, “Of course, my dear.” Then laid one last kiss onto your heated skin. He was scared at the thought of seeing his master again. But maybe, just maybe, with you by his side, he'll gain the courage to break himself fully free of the chains he carried.

If you believed he could be free, then he'll trust you and believe it himself.

[tavina-writes]

I have been pondering the recent rash of "post canon NHS and LXC would never ever reconcile bc even if NHS wanted to have Er-ge back, LXC would never ever forgive him for [insert reason of choice here]" type of posts + the "do you think NHS thinks very hard about how much Da-ge would hate him for becoming [the way that he is now] by choosing to seek vengeance" type of posts, and I think fundamentally the reason these posts do not jive with me is that we have no indication, in the show or in the book that uh, NHS gives a shit about either of these things very much anymore?

The first type of post is predicated on the assumption that LXC's forgiveness or lack thereof some some sort of either extension of mercy (which NHS obviously does not deserve <- or so assumes the post) or some form of punishment (which is obviously the correct answer) but the last scene we get with NHS both in the book and the show make no indication that this is a thing he wants? Or cares about? Book NHS has *sauntered off* with his little hat trophy and Show NHS walks off screen after saying something along the lines of "What is my responsibility I won't shirk, what isn't my responsibility I won't care about." Now, arguably, show NHS is having a worse go of it emotionally, but shows no real inclination or interest in either apologies or making up and being friends again with LWJ, LXC, WWX, or other people. Book NHS seems pretty pleased with the outcome of the events as a whole?

The second type of post is predicated on the fact that NHS finds Da-ge's judgement a horrible burden to bear at this stage in the game, which! He might! But again especially in the book we get no indication that he has any fucks left to give about what Da-ge may or may not have wanted since Da-ge is dead. In both the show and the book, NHS went about revenge taking very specific and complicated actions with the desired result of JGY dying, but he certainly took the scenic route getting there, which, he didn't need to? As I've written about before, JGY didn't see him as a threat. If he wanted JGY dead he could've arranged to poison JGY's tea like, 10 years ago and had done with it instead of his complicated Rube Goldberg life ruining scheme. If he is still sickly anxious about how Da-ge might feel about the scheming and the trouble causing and the whole everything, that's certainly possible, but he must've decided it was worth it anyway regardless of that, and I don't know that it necessarily would've changed just because he got what he wanted at the end.

Overall, I think as a fandom we think a lot about like "will and should this relationship ever be repaired or similar to how it used to be?" and "does this character deserve/not deserve the forgiveness of people they've hurt or abandoned?" which can be interesting questions! I do feel like these are often taken as "is a character morally good (deserves to be forgiven) or morally bad (deserves to rot in hell forever never forgiven ever ever)" and based entirely on if Character is the meta writer's blorbo. Under this paradigm the concept of "Character did bad things to get exactly what they wanted and were happy about that and no relationships were ever repaired and the emotional detachment of people they used to care about no longer matters to them!" is uncomfortable.

It's just that for NHS I've increasingly come to the conclusion that canonically, I don't think NHS thinks he has anything to apologize for, nor is he super interested in being forgiven! He got what he wanted the way he wanted it to happen. Which is potentially supremely unsatisfying but I think is very sexy as a narrative concept.

[hina-hina]

König and the reader with the best friends to lovers trope. This trope is 🤌 and I want the fluff and cuteness overload. Maybe the reader is in another unit? Dealer's choice on that one.

This is one of the BEST tropes with König, Thank you for requesting!! I hope you like it!! ヾ(^▽^*)))

I took a couple liberties with this one but I hope you like it nonetheless! Also, a lot of this post is based off his biography from warzone, but of course I could have still gotten stuff wrong so I'm sorry about that!

|| König Having a Best Friends to Lovers Trope With Reader ||

Warnings: Tiny bit of angst,

Gender-Neutral!Reader // Romantic

This trope with him is just(❤´艸｀❤)

I imagine that both of you enlisted together

You were the first person he told about his plans to volunteer for the German Armed Forces

You, of course, tell him you are going with him

He tries to talk you out of enlisting but you refuse to let him go alone

You both try to become recon snipers but only you get selected for the platoon

You can tell König is hurt by not being selected due to his size

But he won't dare let you onto this, making sure you know that he's still happy for you

Despite the two of you being in different platoons, you still spend almost all of your off duty time together

You two do missions together often and he loves knowing that you have his back even if he can't see you

Imagine he's in a fight with an enemy and they get the upper hand somehow

A shot rings out, the enemy dropping dead and falling from where he had been pinning König

"I got you, big guy," your voice crackles over the coms

He just swoons

The others on his team would tease him about it and he's is infinitely glad his mask hides his face

Also imagine if the sniper hood he wears was originally yours

Imagine you comforting him after the Urzik hostages were scared of him

So, imagine their so scared of him and they refuse to go with him and you just start yelling at them to get them to go and your tone spurs them into action

Later, he thanks you but says you didn't have to do that

You hug him and say, "They don't know you like I do. Your not scary to me, König."

And that's the moment that it hits him that maybe he doesn't just love you as a friend

He would feel super guilty about this however

You were such a good friend to him and he didn't want to ruin it!

But he couldn't help it, he just realized how pretty you were and how you were always so nice and stuck up for him

Definitely had a whole ass crisis about it

Gets super blushy when you talk over coms because your voice gets super low when your focused

He gets teased a lot by his other teammates

When he gets recruited by KorTac, he is so scared to tell you

I mean, you guys got into this together and he doesn't want to leave you

He would be inclined to turn it down until you convince him to take the opportunity

You would place your hands on his cheeks and smile softly, "We will always be best friends, no matter how far we are from each other. I love you, König."

His heart soars and plumits at the same time because he thinks he just got "friend zoned" but also you said you loved him

So, he end up going but you two have video calls and send letters often

I imagine he confesses after you get hurt

He learns from a member in your platoon that you were shot while on a recon mission and were hurt badly

He immediately asks to take leave to go see you, halfway begging, halfway arguing with his boss

He is eventually granted this and he immediately goes to your bed side, taking your hand into his

He hates seeing you in the hospital bed but he won't move until you wake up

When you do eventually wake up and ask what he's doing there, he can't help but just spill his guts about his feelings

"Bärchen, I was so scared for you. I know we signed up for this and we are going to get hurt, but I just have to tell you, just in case. I love you, more than a friend. You can hate me if you want, but I won't stop loving you. I-I'm sorry."

Your face softens, reaching out a hand weakly to grab his face, "Oh, honey, I could never hate you. I love you too, big guy."

His lip trembles and he just can't resist hugging you anymore, but he's careful to avoid you wound

He stays with you until your released from the hospital and then he stays on leave to take care of you

The two of you collect like rocks or other things you find on the ground to give to each other

Imagine having friendship bracelets from before and you two still wear them after getting together

The two of you share an apartment because there's no point in having two if your going to spend your leaves together anyway

You wishing each other good luck before the other goes on a mission

Likes to hold your hand in public spaces because he gets nervous in crowds

Brags about you and vice versa

People get so confused when you two are together because it's just like, soooo many inside jokes

And König is like a whole new person, way less quiet when your around because you help give him confidence

The two of you catalogging each others scars .·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·.

You two are just a straight up power couple

[butwhatifidothis]

Talking from a fe3h discourse perspective I get hating Rhea, as a Rhea lover. To a lesser extent I GUESS I get Seteth. But Flayn??????? She's just vibing and eating fish??? She has NOTHING to do with Rhea's decisions? Like at that point you're (not you op, general you) just looking for issues. To be clear if you hate her because of her personality or whatever sure, to each their own. But hating her because "church bad" feels really stupid to me. That's like a rhea/church fan hating the black eagles on principal because they're part of edelgard's house or because they don't hate edelgard.

When you realize they ascribe to this kind of mentality

it starts to make a lot more sense. Yeah, if two members of a race being bad if enough for you to ascribe malice and evil to every single member of said race, it's pretty easy to also say that the very blood of that race is evil and having it course through your veins makes you evil.

Which they've been saying for a while now!

Yes, you are in fact seeing a ~year-and-a-half old screenshot of them saying the exact same racist garbage they're saying now.

Also, just. This fucker keeps repeating this stupid fucking point about Nemesis and frankly it pisses me off.

Two years. From as early as two days ago (as of July 11th 2024) to as far back as two fucking years, they've been repeating "Nemesis couldn't have been THAT BAD you guys, because the people he's been tyrannically ruling over for over a century and who didn't know the full extent of his actions which include the genocide he committed believed in the lie about him being a liberator! A supposed liberator of a group of people these oppressed ignorant civilians would have had literally no contact with whatsoever given Nemesis has been ruling for over a century! Meaning any human alive during the actual reign of the Nabateans would have been fucking dead by the time Nemesis was killed, meaning any alive during Nemesis' reign had no way of knowing how that rule actually was! This lie was so imprinted into the people's conscious that Rhea couldn't erase it, so it has to be true and not a lie anymore!"

Literally saying that Nemesis was right to do what he did because he said he was and the people who had no choice but to believe him believed he was. Like I said, they are so fucking desperate to defend this genocider and to degrade the Nabateans as an entire race to be biologically inclined towards evil, and have been desperate to do this for years.

Here are a couple more choice words Shandale has said!

"He didn't genocide them because he WANTED to, he did it because he HAD to! If he didn't, anyone he brought with him to genocide the Nabateans would have been killed!"

Oh, but silly me! What I am talking about?

It wasn't a genocide! It was getting rid of oppressor and conquerors! Those oppressors and conquerors, you know, just so happening to be the entirety of the Nabatean race.

Which, hm! Guess what nonnie!

Explicitly includes Flayn! Someone who literally never did anything to anyone! Oh, except be willing to kill followers... who are a direct threat to others and are desecrating her mother's grave. Oh, but who cares about silly little nitpicks like that, she's willing to kill her followers!! ...Oh wait, there's only reference to Cichol in that paralogue? Cethleann isn't even mentioned once anywhere in the paralogue? Like literally anywhere? Bah! Who cares! Flayn is evil, just like all the other Nabateans! Let's """"""""joke"""""""" about killing her over and over and over and over and over again!

Teehee isn't it so funny guys! They're killing Flayn, haha, soooo funny! Ignore how they think Flayn's race in its entirety needs to be killed and how they lie about what Flayn's done to paint her as evil, they're just jokingly killing Flayn and joking about how fun they find the idea of killing this member of a race they clearly hate over and over keekeekee!!! This race isn't real guys you're not allowed to find this disturbing plus they're just joking anyway hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

(there's actually more of these "jokes". Like way more of them. Just, lettin' everybody know)

And, oh, wow!

This includes Indech and Macuil! Nabateans who cut off all contact with humanity after they had helped kill the genocider of their race. Macuil isn't even in Fodlan anymore, he's in the middle of a Sreng desert, but, nope! They helped kill Nemesis, meaning they are also completely evil :)

Funny how every single Nabatean who stood up against the human who killed them all is deemed irrevocably evil no matter what, but the human Agarthans are just poor little victims who deserved more nuance and sympathy even after they literally murder children. But we're the mean ones for pointing all of this out as bad tho

[vampirevatican]

Milgram and The Court of Public Opinion.

this analysis will be about milgram's voting system, nuance and a whole lot of my own opinions mixed with eng fandoms translations, theories, and observations.

t1 = trial one / t2 = trial two

mv = music video

vd = video drama

voting and verdicts:

voting forgiven/unforgiven or innocent/guilty from the standards milgram sets for us (including es) isn't enough or easy.

being that milgram is set towards the court of public opinion and judgement can come from:

"sensibility, morality, ethics, legality, preference, taste, or sexual inclination..."

we end up arguing semantics, trying to find specifics in the crimes and making the best judgement possible. although in doing that the only conclusion anyone can come to is innocent when all is considered.

if we were doing it based on guilty and innocent then 5 are guilty, 2 are guilty on technicality and 3 are innocent

just in case you're curious, in guilty to innocent order as i just stated.

haruka, muu, amane, mikoto, kotoko, shido, fuuta, kazui, mahiru and yuno

it'd be over so quickly. but this... is milgram.

nuance/the grey area:

as the undercover song says, can you really judge them?

001. haruka did it for attention. with how he's coded - intellectual disability - and his mother being extremely neglectful after a certain age which prevented the possibility of his growth in intellect (understanding cause and effect/actions and consequences, along with many other things) it's easier to claim he's innocent. even more easier to forgive him due to this and extremely so if looking at it from his view point, albeit flawed. killing = attention = "affection", even if that attention/"affection" is negative it what he wanted. for someone, anyone to acknowledge him. he's innocent/forgiven because of his circumstances but if he's forgiven then he's being told it was his only option, and he was right, when the fault is on his mother.

002. yuno, as for now, doesn't have a reason. ofc in western (american specifically) public opinion or at least those who view abortion as a choice. she's been innocent from the start. this is her autonomy, her choice, even if she's 18. i won't deny she is so young to be doing sex work, or more specifically compensated dating, and yes it may be common in japan but that doesn't take away the age being factored into what she decided to do. it wasn't for money and she has a good home life. with how analytical and cold she can be, im assuming her desire to be loved in this way comes from somewhere and she's become jaded towards actual relationships. opting for the material and superficial. even without pitying her, she'd still be forgiven/innocent since t1.

003. fuuta was only trying to call out liars and scumbags. he is well versed in the court of public opinion, but he has never seen or experienced a result that lead to someone's death. looking at the undercover mv, then we can see he possibly doxxed his victim. if we take a nuanced approach here then we'd be looking at how he feels after the fact. he remembers the victims name, the fear in his eyes in his t1 and t2 mv, his voice drama after the first trial, him not approving of violence as a solution are all evidence of him feeling horrible. if he could go back, if he would've known. sure he did question why he's there instead of the people who actually killed the victim, but he also recognizes that he lead the charge. his innocence/forgiveness comes in the form of recognizing his actions were wrong. him being guilty/unforgiven is the action in itself.

004. muu is a love/attention reason. she's always been adored, admired, and cherished. she's always had her way. she also has never had to face heavy adversity. sure she was a bully, the queen bee, and a drama queen but didn't her school's culture allow her that? infact with us/es forgiving her, in the second trial song she claims as such, she'll always be queen. and for the t1 mv she says, "my 'im sorry' spells aren't working anymore." which leads me to believe that she's cried and apologized so many times that her old friends couldn't believe her. not forgiving her affirms to her that "two wrongs don't make a right" but forgiving her says the opposite to her. if she's to be forgiven/innocent the blame is tossed to the school, not her, but she won't see it that way.

005. shido is a love case, but for family. im thinking son because of a theory i saw, but either way when looking at it with nuance it gets heavier here. is taking from brain dead patients to save someone wrong? are the brain dead really dead? in my opinion yes, but that's the crux of the situation right? same goes for all the other inmates in this court of public opinion. he can be innocent from the view point that brain dead patients are already dead, and forgiven for his motive.

006. mahiru is another love case, romantic, and in a roundabout way she never committed a crime in the first place. from the voice drama and interrogation q&a slips, we find out that she's a sheltered girl and loves/idolizes soap opera and shoujo mangas. from her mv's we see she romanticizes everything, especially with her t1 mv. she's innocent because of not actually committing murder and forgiven because this is her first love, she wouldn't have known that it was toxic and messed up.

007. kazui did it in hopes of a dream, righting a mistake, being free. although he deeply regrets it, although he says he loves his wife? that love is mainly platonic. from his second trial mv, we see that he met her through his job - most likely police officer - so they had some kind of amicable relationship through their job. he only married her out of societal obligation, and noticing she liked him. not to mention in his t1 mv he says he messed up from the beginning. he is innocent because his crime is indirect, and forgiven because being gay isn't a crime and the regret he feels shows he never had negative intentions.

008. amane did it out of obligation. now, listen to me. i know she's literally 12 and was raised in a cult but notice how im stating the motive of each of these as they are from being stated in vd or pure observations from the mv's. now to any grown up it's self defense, but also imagine having gone through the worst hell imaginable all because you did something "wrong" stated by the adults around you. wouldn't the revenge be sweet? justice in its purest form. now take that and double it down with what you were taught. amane is not only forgiven/innocent because she was just a child, but because of the circumstances surrounding the murder.

009. mikoto (miko from here on) did it out of pent up stress an emotions, in turn creating john (koto from here on). miko is innocent without a doubt, and no i am not taking on the theory he actually did it til we get trial three. if koto was supposed to be his protector, and if he was born from a sudden explosion of pent up anger then (at least to me) it makes sense that he reacted the way he did. imagine being a corporate slave - no actually double it down, again, with growing up always trying to keep the peace. miko has a habit of laughing when he's upset. he laughs it off in hopes that things get better, his vd affirms this and even his mv after that. miko's smile that shifts to an extremely tired expression right before koto is born and a mirror shatters, right at the start. an intolerable stress from working so hard he grew grey hairs, cried himself to sleep, and yet continued to work, hold it in, and endure. the fault isn't on him or on koto. it's japan's work culture and the endure it mentality. koto is innocent/forgiven in the sense of motive. miko is innocent/forgiven because he's never killed to begin with.

010. kotoko did it to save the innocent. though she doesn't deal in nuance, much like fuuta. a key difference between the two is kotoko chooses violence because the justice system failed her. infact she's been hunting down the awful criminals of the world so much that she even has a covered bulletin board with pinned strings on it. on top of that, from the interrogation cards, we find out she dropped out of college and she was studying law. she'd be innocent for what she was seeking to do, in the court of public opinion, many would agree that awful people deserve a murderous punishment and she'd be even forgiven with that same reason. the nuance appears when considering the criminal, the crime and the reason. factoring those in then she can easily become guilty and unforgiven in the eyes of many, see the results after t1.

when it's all said and done:

they all had their reason, it all has a reason. who are we to say their crimes weren't just or fair? we're the judge, the jury, the executioner, and warden. in milgram whatever we says goes.

i'd love to see them all innocent, but at the same time do each of them deserve that? are their ideas being affirmed a detriment to them or their saving grace?? will they kill again?? will some of them be able to get the therapy and treatment they desperately need??? will they go back into society with an improved outlook on life or will they remain the same?

ofc i already have who i'd like to see forgiven and have already forgiven them myself, same as you reading this and those in the jpn fandom (where it originates)

anyway. moving forward please vote with this in mind, and check out the audio dramas i beg you all. i hope that there are nuance voters and voters with sympathy but with how amane was guilty in t1, i have a strong feeling it's not gonna end well. but if it does, you'll see me rejoice.

[forestdeath1]

What traits do you think Sirius is attracted to? Like what would his ideal type be like?

(don't be afraid to go into extensive detail about it 🩷)

His ideal type... James.

Actually, it might not seem obvious, but for Sirius, it's important that people accept him for who he is. He might not realise it, but that's the filter for whether he'll have close relationships with someone. Showing complete acceptance of him as a person, without trying to change him, and genuinely loving him for who he is – that's the first thing that needs to be in a person. Otherwise, Sirius just won't open up. So, it's either full acceptance and liking Sirius just the way he is, or à la poubelle (And this is despite his deep-rooted feelings of inadequacy and the desire to be useful)

The second crucial condition is that the partner must earn Sirius's respect. RESPECT. Sirius must want to respect them. See them as an equal partner, no less.

Despite Sirius showing care for those he loves, I don't think he'd be attracted to someone who needs to be protected all the time. Sirius cares for the weak (like animals) and those under his protection (like Harry), but his understanding of caring for Harry is specific—it's not motherly care like Molly's, it's about providing resources and opportunities for him to become stronger and overcome challenges. Sirius has a deep-rooted aversion to human weakness in general (this isn't the case with animals because they genuinely depend on humans, but in Sirius's view, humans always have the potential for action rather than just having pity parties. It's a deep respect for the concept of being Human, for their ability to make choices and their potential. He believes that Humans are capable creatures, and it's only individuals choose to give up their agency, which diminishes the very idea of being Human. This is a pretty tough and harsh view of the world, but you can see it in him right from his first appearance in PoA.)

I see two types that could attract him (of any gender), one he'd simply get along with and spend a lot of time with, and the other who could be with him for the long haul.

The first type is easy-going, cheerful, able to handle his mood swings, finds his humour amusing, and can pull him out of the occasional melancholy he falls into. Someone interested in many things, active, and an engaging conversationalist. They don't create drama or get overly emotional if Sirius does something "wrong". This person can easily and flexibly navigate Sirius's boundaries just by being themselves. They're open-minded and free from stereotypes and limitations. They don't take offence at Sirius's jokes and humour; they take everything lightly. In general, they're airy, flexible, confident, attention-grabbing, bright, cheerful, and not overly concerned with questions of morality and correctness, but fundamentally a good person.

The second type is someone quite tough and strong. Also not inclined to drama or hashing out relationships, but with very firm boundaries. If they have a quarrel, it's a real fight, not just shouting. Sirius is definitely drawn to strength in another person, and there's potential here for serious relationships and to hook Sirius for years. This person is a bit edgy, and there should be something dark about them? I don't know how to explain it correctly, they shouldn't be evil or morally wrong, but they're definitely not a soft, tender flower. Very independent. They won't sigh over Sirius and won't look at him with puppy-dog eyes, but they'll definitely express their desire passionately. They're equals in everything, or maybe even better at something. Perhaps this person should have some unusual interests. Very passionate. Very. They have an animalistic sexuality. Sirius is more submissive in these relationships. And they might not be exclusive and could date others simultaneously, but they'll always come back to each other.

And the third type–James.

Well, alright, there might also be a fourth type, someone calm, thoughtful, perhaps with some challenges in life and difficulties that they faces stoically and without complaint, etc etc etc, but I'm tired of writing, sorry. I'd love to read your versions!

[tallerthantale]

What Does Aziraphale Actually Believe, Part 9: They Know Not What They Do

This is a series of my takes on what Aziraphale believes through the timeline of the show. It is all my personal interpretation, and I am happy to hear others. You don’t need to read them all in order, but know that I am coming from a perspective on Aziraphale’s machinations that can be difficult for people without a psychology background to follow without the first two as a primer. The quick version is that Aziraphale has a set of beliefs that exist in some form or another within his mind. However, at any given moment, only some of them exist ‘with awareness.’ The context of the moment will determine what lives on the surface and what stays buried outside that awareness, whatever arrangement best prevents a threat to Aziraphale’s sense of self and makes whatever he is inclined to do feel right.

While I have been going through the timeline, there have been a few points that have been put on hold, that I’ve promised I would circle back to later, because I needed to integrate a lot of information from different points on the timeline. Now is the time for that integration. I need to more seriously address the question of how Aziraphale can still believe angels are existentially good in the abstract, with all that he has seen them do, while also believing they are acting against the wishes of God.

If angels are good by definition and don’t have a choice in their moral alignment, how do they end up committing morally reprehensible acts? If Aziraphale uses his own continued ethereal status to prove to himself God is fine with his actions, wouldn’t that also prove God is fine with all of the other angels’ actions? Not exactly, and the reason takes us all the way back to the opening of Season 1. The first point I promised I would eventually get back to was a question:

What happens if Aziraphale thinks he isn’t supposed to know what God’s will is, because it’s not for him to understand, but he also thinks that he does know it? What are the consequences of having knowledge he isn’t supposed to have?

Responsibility.

I Slithered Here From Eden

The design of the universe (according to Aziraphale) is letting humans choose sides between good and evil. That is a choice that humans make, and celestial entities don’t. But at what point did humans get that choice?

They had to have knowledge of good and evil first. As far as philosophers tend to frame things, it’s only really free will if you know what you are doing with informed consent. By eating the apple, Eve and Adam gave that knowledge to humanity. Now that humanity has the knowledge of good and evil, they have the power to make a choice, and the responsibility to choose good. 

One point I glossed over at my first look at Eden is that Aziraphale was on apple tree duty. He failed that mission in a big way. While there are fun speculations about Aziraphale being distracted by the sexy snek, I wonder if he had a hard time with the idea that knowledge of good and evil was bad. When discussing the human’s transgression, Aziraphale weakly says, “It must be bad… … otherwise you wouldn’t have tempted them into it.” It’s not a compelling argument as to why eating the apple was bad, and frankly, there isn’t one. The most compelling argument I could give is that lacking knowledge of good and evil shields people from responsibility to do good, and it might be kinder not to burden humanity with that responsibility. I think during their conversation at the wall, Aziraphale won’t see things that way because that would hit too close to home.

When Crowley encouraged Eve about the apple, Crowley was just looking to stir up trouble, and was surprised they were punished so harshly. From Crowley’s perspective, I would imagine the apple as a precursor to the real temptations. Crowley argues his points logically, he is not on the ineffability train. How do you make a logical argument about what is fair and reasonable to someone who has no concept of good and evil? You’d have to teach them about good and evil first. Crowley makes arguments that are built on meaningful concepts of right and wrong frequently. They are not alien to him.

When Aziraphale takes on the worldview that the universe is set up to allow humans to choose between good and evil, he is tacitly endorsing the idea that Eve and Adam eating the apple was part of the Ineffable Plan. This was originally Crowley’s idea, though it may have just been sarcastic. Aziraphale has taken it on for real. Now the humans are choosing good and evil.

'The Right Thing'

Aziraphale has asserted very confidently twice in the timeline that choosing is for humans. Not celestials, just humans. I’ve talked about how this is self serving for him, it means he is good by definition. It makes his place in the universe make sense, it gives him a sense of self and purpose. It also has major downsides, in that it makes him consider Crowley existentially evil independent of his character and actions, which makes a mess of how he treats Crowley. It also risks entrapping him into considering the other angels definitionally good, and believing that whatever they do is definitionally 'the right thing'. The instability of what Aziraphale believes situation to situation lets him spend most of his time avoiding the downsides of any particular belief system, he mostly pulls them into focus when they are useful, and forgets about them when they aren’t. 

When I’ve brought up ‘choosing is for humans’ before I glossed over a key question. Why is choosing just for humans? Not in the sense of what motivates Aziraphale to believe that, what does he think the reason is? By the Edinburgh framing, why don’t celestials have the capacity to choose that humans have? The answer: they never ate the apple. They have no meaningful knowledge of good and evil. The institution of heaven is a rigid hierarchy. Angels and demons only know what they need to know to follow orders. They have no opinions on ethics or grounded morality. 'The right thing' is a term of art for the heavenly code of conduct. 'The wrong thing' is a term of art for the demonic code of conduct.

Something shifts in Aziraphale's relationship to humanity at Edinburgh as he is confronted several times over with scenarios he can't help but notice demonstrate that the normal day to day heavenly code of conduct, 'the right thing,' is absolutely not in keeping with what he would personally understand to be morally good. It was not a one off instance from God that could be a test, the issue was the system. He was forced to acknowledge Crowley knew what was morally right better than he did, and that he knows what is morally good better than the other angels do. Aziraphale's biggest leaps forward happen when he is forced to admit he does actually have an opinion that is his own.

I think for the audience, the absurdity of 'the right thing' and 'the wrong thing' being terms of art is most pronounced when demons are tasked with doing 'the wrong thing' because God represents Herself to will it. When Crowley 'destroys' Job's goats and children, his permit is signed by God. Crowley understands his assignment as given by God. Does that make it 'the right thing'? No, it's outsourced to hell because the aesthetics are wrong, and if it's been given to hell to do, that makes it 'the wrong thing' for Crowley to do it. Does that make it 'the right thing' for Crowley to refuse? No, because the code of conduct for the angels it to let it happen, and Crowley isn't an angel anyway. The correct thing for Crowley to do is 'the wrong thing,' that God want's him to do. (Aziraphale doesn't believe that is what God wants in that case, but he does believe that God generally wants demons to do demonic things.)

These terms have no relationship to what is actually morally good or bad. However, the knowledge from the apple does have that grounded relationship. Humans need that connection to have that real choice, and be accountable for that choice. Celestials are following orders, they aren't 'supposed' to be making choices, they are 'supposed' to do what they are told. Knowledge of actual good and actual evil has no value to their professional role. Aziraphale continues to think that ignorance is how things ought to work all the way to the 1800's, and even as he shifts to wanting the other angels to have the depth of that knowledge, he can plainly observe that they don't.

To be clear, this isn’t to say that celestials are not able to decide to do things, but rather that as Aziraphale sees it, their actions cannot be judged in a way that impacts their moral alignment. The angels aren't responsible for the misalignment of heaven because they don’t know any better. Their actions don’t make them less existentially good, because they are too ignorant to make informed choices. Same with the demons. I don’t think Aziraphale would consider any of them to have chosen evil, because they didn’t have knowledge. Fate put them in the evil role, and they do what they are told. Choosing sides is for the humans, and they are only able to do it because of their ability to know the difference between good and evil. 

As we move past Edinburgh, Aziraphale understands that the angels, near universally, are maintaining a system that doesn't let humans choose freely thee way he would believe in, and thus they are maintaining a system that he believes isn't operating as God would want. As a practical matter of staffing, it would make a mess of things if She turned them all into demons.

Aziraphale can use his maintained ethereal status to prove to himself that he is on good terms with God, because he is the odd one out. If Aziraphale is in the wrong, and heaven has the right of it, it doesn't break the system to fell the weirdo angel going off on temptation missions as a treat and salivating over demon décolletage. If everyone else is wrong, the remedy for that has to be learning, growth, education, and training, not leaving Aziraphale as the last angel standing.

Unconditional Forgiveness

The second time Aziraphale argues choosing is for humans, it isn’t an argument about ability anymore. He wants all of the angels to join him in deciding not to choose a side, in taking a caretaker role over the system that lets the humans choose. He presents this plan to the archangels, offering them a way forward that would move them away from ignorant obedience and us vs them thinking, into a world of layers and depth. 

They are not prepared to go along with Aziraphale on this, lacking his 6000 year long character arc of developing knowledge of ethical complexity. Uriel accuses Aziraphale of thinking too much. When Aziraphale shouts at the archangels on their way back to heaven, he calls them ‘bad angels’ in the tone someone would use to say 'bad dog.' It is an expression of them being ‘bad at being angels’ yes, but it is also an expression of their lack of depth, lack of thought, and lack of understanding. It is a condescending dismissiveness of their capacity to make valid decisions. I don’t think Aziraphale retains any animus towards them after the scene ends, because they don’t have enough knowledge to be accountable for their actions. 

When Crowley confronts Gabriel in Season 2, he points out that Aziraphale wasn't there for his execution. He never witnessed Gabriel tell him to “shut his stupid face and die.” That's true, but I honestly don’t think it would make a difference to Aziraphale. Aziraphale also does not retain the resentment for Michael’s role in Crowley’s failed execution that Crowley has for Gabriel. I don’t think that comes from a lack of valuing Crowley, but instead speaks to Aziraphale’s unwillingness to apply accountability to celestial entities. Gabriel hasn’t eaten the apple. Michael hasn’t eaten the apple. Forgive them for they know not what they do. Automatically, no hesitation. Without knowledge of good and evil, they are not responsible.

But That's For Them

I have talked about how Aziraphale doesn’t believe everything he can believe at once, and his potential beliefs often contradict themselves. Aziraphale has a lot of shame and self doubt for someone with developed strategies on how to be certain his choices are good by definition. (Not an uncommon phenomenon IRL, but still an ironic one. People develop the strategies because they feel a need to have them.) He puts an enormous burden on himself to do the right thing, compared to the instant and absolute forgiveness he grants to the other angels. Aziraphale does gloss over his own mistakes, but not by forgiving himself. He does it by burying the shame out of his awareness because he can't forgive himself.

Over time Aziraphale has become more settled into comfortably believing that he can intuit God’s will in ways the other angels... I wouldn't say 'can't,' but at the very least, don't. Along with that comfort, he has developed his own senses of what is morally good, and morally bad, and those opinions diverge from how the concepts are framed by heaven and hell. He can also observe that the other angels have not developed these concepts. Gabriel has a preference for getting what he wants, Michael has a preference for order, and Uriel woke up this morning and chose violence. They have personalities, but no moral compass. Post Edinburgh Aziraphale typically considers himself to have knowledge of good and evil that the other angels do not have. Given that he is correct, I am willing to forgive him the arrogance. 

Aziraphale understands that ‘wrong’ as defined by heaven has no substance. What he sometimes forgets is that he personally does have substance. It is uncomfortable for him to know that, because the weight of responsibility is tied to it. When he is told to do something he cannot do, or abide by something he cannot let stand, Aziraphale believes he has knowledge of good and evil, because he needs to own that knowledge to justify going against the party line. When it kicks in, he feels the weight of the responsibility to make the morally right choice, and he feels the horror of all the other angels being on board with the morally wrong one.

The moments where he goes against heaven and the rest of the angels because he thinks that he understands God’s will and that they don’t are not Aziraphale at his most self righteous. Quite the opposite, he usually seems hesitant and ashamed. He has knowledge of good and evil, but he doesn’t think he is supposed to have it. Most of the time he wishes that he didn’t. Aziraphale is very good at suppressing knowledge he wishes he didn’t have.

The evidence isn’t always visible, but Aziraphale has metaphorically eaten the apple. So has Crowley, although I don’t think Aziraphale believes Crowley was responsible for his fall. I think modern Aziraphale is fully onboard with the idea that God felled Crowley into a martyr as part of a larger plan. The other celestials haven’t eaten the apple. Yet. Saraqael and Muriel are probably on their way, but I don’t think Gabriel and Beelzebub are. They went AWOL for love, not for principles. For Crowley and Aziraphale, as grand as their love for each other is and has been, their principles always came first. That is what they love about each other.

To Shades of Grey

At Uz Crowley was a demon who goes along with hell as far as he can, and Aziraphale was an angel who goes along with heaven as far as he can. To the extent that they experienced a choice, it was finding ways to be as conformist to their jobs as their principles would let them. Post agreement, they tend to stray as far as they can get away with. Their principles would allow them to be more conformist, they just don’t want to be. They aren't trading and gambling on their professional assignments at the Globe because Aziraphale got asked by Gabriel to allow an atrocity in the name of heaven, or because Crowley got tasked with killing children, it was because neither of them felt like bothering to ride a horse up to Scotland. There is no rock vs. hard place dilemma there. 

At first Aziraphale hides behind believing that he is too definitionally good for doing Crowley's assignments to be 'choosing' anything, or creatively reframes his understanding of responsibility to not feel his actions are impacting the outcome. After the church bombing, something clicked when he allowed himself to know he was in love with a demon. He let himself know he was choosing to meaningfully stray from the expectations of what it supposedly means to be an angel.

In 1941, Aziraphale offered a toast “To Shades of Grey.” At this toast, Aziraphale let himself understand that he and Crowley do have a degree of choice, and the shades they each choose are not pure. The responsibility is something he really doesn’t want to engage with most of the time. The option is there though. If a decent set of situational beliefs can be cobbled together, Aziraphale can believe that he and Crowley are human aligned enough to choose a little, deciding to become a bit grey, and with that comes the responsibility and accountability that the other celestials don’t have.

I think the choice of their shades of grey needs to be understood relative to their respective defaults. Aziraphale represents a default white that decided to become light grey, and Crowley represents a default black that decided to become dark grey. We can understand this as Crowley preferring darker shades to Aziraphale, and while that is true, I think it is very misleading. Crowley is choosing the lightest shade of the options available to him, and Aziraphale is choosing the darkest shade of the options available to him. I don’t think that is lost on Aziraphale. It is one of the tragedies of their miscommunication that Aziraphale believes Crowley to be the better one, while consistently saying sentences a reasonable listener would assume mean the opposite. 

To The World

The toast is offered by Crowley. Crowley, who argues with God over Her treatment of humanity. Crowley, who gave humanity knowledge of good and evil. Crowley, who paved the way for saving Job’s children. Crowley, who convinced Aziraphale to work to alleviate human suffering, and give a way 90 guineas. Crowley, who convinced Aziraphale of the need for humans to have equal opportunity. Crowley, who convinced Aziraphale to try to derail the Great Plan. Crowley, who convinced Aziraphale to stand up to the Institution of Heaven. Crowley, who just before this toast predicted their peace wouldn’t last. 

To the World. Their home together. Their future together. Their choice together. Their responsibility together. Aziraphale believes they are committed to defending the earth together. And, he believes that is what God wants them both to do. 

Part 9/10

[scoobydoodean]

in regards to the john abuse post- for sam there's a scene in season 8 where that crazy hunter says something to the effect of 'I KNOW john would've taken you boys out to the woodshed for this' (which is. slang for a specific thing) and sam immediately explodes on the guy and shoves him into the wall. sure he's stressed about dean in that scene but a friend of his dad's mentioning his dad hitting him was clearly what made him snap in the moment. it was clearly something sam was sensitive about. considering the age and demographics of the characters (and writers) I can't help but wonder if maybe the winchesters are the sort of people who think corporal punishment and physical abuse are somehow two different things. like, it makes more sense than not that an ex marine in the 80s and 90s with a drinking problem who's constantly scared about his kids getting killed while also putting them in dangerous situations would probably spank them. so I wonder if the reason sam and dean had such different reactions to max's abuse in season 1 was because as much as he hated what john did there werent like, broken bones or anything involved, and he could justify that its not like john was beating them for no reason, versus dean who had a lot more responsibility placed on him and clearly went out of his way to hide things from sam. it is interesting to me that as sam gets older he sort of forgives john with a 'he tried his best' mindset and seems to remember him more fondly, while dean eventually settles in a place of 'I love him but I can't forgive him for my childhood'. srry for rambling.

Context

That would be Martin in 8.09 "Citizen Fang".

Glad your dad wasn't around to hear that. He'd have a mind to take you both out the woodshed and show you what's what. Half inclined to do it myself.

I can't say I have the same interpretation of that scene or Sam's reaction. Like I said, I don't begrudge anyone building the physically abusive John interpretation, and I think this can easily fit into that list of suggestive moments. I don't necessarily understand Martin's phrasing in the same way. Maybe it's worth it to translate my view of Martin's wording here into a little plainer terms (as a certified U.S. southerner, I feel qualified to do this 🤭):

"Your father would be very disappointed in you if he heard that conversation between the three of us. It would upset him to the extent that he would wish he could punish you as if you were still children instead of grown men. It is as if you have forgotten the simplest lessons—the ones you learned about the world from your father as you grew to adulthood. If you're going to act like uneducated children, perhaps I should treat you as such and become your new father so that I can re-teach these childhood lessons."

We do hear from Dean at the end of 2.03 "Bloodlust", that John had a very dogmatic stance on monsters, and I think this phrasing from Martin makes sense in this context, whether he does or doesn't also mean to imply specific punishments he knew to be carried out when they were young. (I don't personally feel "taken out to the woodshed" has to be so literal, and my google searches seem to agree?) Martin already actually hit Dean--I don't know that he means he actually wants to go back to literally hit Dean some more, though I suppose that's possible.

To be mindful of the context here and exactly how Sam reacts... this is right after Martin knocks Dean unconscious for opposing them about hunting Benny. Sam was immediately on edge when Martin knocked Dean out. Sam went along with it in the aftermath because it got him closer to what he wanted (Benny dead) but he didn't like it. Martin's actions plainly illustrated that he's a loose canon. Sam, having brought Martin into the hunt, is now seeing shit hit the fan as a result of his choice to involve a hunter he knew to be unstable (with the added sting of Dean having called out Martin's instability earlier in the episode—a reflection on Dean being the better judge of character and his lack of trust in Sam's reasoning being warranted—a thing Sam is sensitive about). Martin is not even a little conflicted or uncertain about the completely unhinged thing he just did to Dean, and he's got a clear sense of seniority, believing HE is the leader, and not just Dean—but Sam also is a dumb little kid who should do as Martin says.

If there are two things Sam Winchester hates, they are 1) His unilateral choices having disastrous outcomes that Dean predicted would happen and 2) being treated like a little kid... and Martin goes double or nothing with this line (and mentioning John also in the mix most certainly invokes, at the very least, the origin of Sam's follower/leader false dichotomy).

Sam's response to Martin is telling—a reminder that HE is the leader, and that Martin is under HIS command and better fall in line:

You listen to me. I brought you into this. I can bring you out just as easy. So the only thing you're gonna be inclined to do is shut up and follow my lead.

Basically, I think for me personally, this one can go in the suggestive evidence pile, but I don't find it any more convincing than the other things that have been mentioned. I'm not trying to tell anyone else how to think. I think your interpretation is reasonable. I think there's two reasonable conclusions here.

[moomeecore]

hey, i hope this isnt rude, but i value your thoughts on betty (and simon!) and i think about your various analytical pieces often.

so i hope this isnt too vague, but. ive been thinking about the ways betty and simon might differ from each other, specifically in the way they view...everything. do you think one of them has a 'sees the big picture but misses the small details' view and the other has a 'gets lost in the details, cant see the big picture' view? im not sure if they differ here, or if they are both the 'gets lost in the details' but going opposite ways...?

FINALLY getting around to awnsering this. i got sick so it took me even longer than i thought it would (had to wait until i could retain coherent thoughts)!!

Ok So, a lot of this is extrapolating (esp for betty) and goes very into more of a headcanons and Personal Interpretations area than a, like, canon analysis. in part bc the show dosen’t give us a ton of content of these characters (i mean, there’s plenty of simon content as ice king but im talking about pre and post ice king simon here). but yea im just gonna ramble. dont take this super seriously btw guys. again a lot of this is just personal Interpretation yknow

SO i think simon is definitely a “gets lost in the details guy”. at least like, overall. that man overanalyzes things until he goes into a state of paralysis and then he just passes out. in some ways he might better about this post being-freed-from-the-curse, on the basis of "had to survive the apocalypse by thinking on his feet", but also worse about it bc of the lasting impacts of having been ice king. because one of the Big Things about ice king is that he almost never thought anything through and just did things as soon as he thought of them. i think simon probably really wants to be Not Like Ice King and so might be scared of making choices too fast or acting too impulsive. i imagine he’s very worried about behaving like ice king and thats something thats in the back of his mind most of the time, impacting his confidence in his own choices & actions. but also f&c sorta shows that he has that issue of trauma responses causing him to have emotional outbursts and make quick decisions. so thats something to keep in mind.

i think he's, like stuck in a state of being scared to do things without thinking really hard abt them but then sometimes he does that and then he usually regrets it and feels really awful afterwards. not always guilty-awful even. f&c seems to show him feeling angry a lot. to me simon deals not just with guilt over being ice king or recovering from being ice king or Having strong reactions to things or making choices he regrets… but also with Anger At The Situation - a lot of feeling confused and not sure what to do and overwhelmed, i think . (i like that they let him be angry and frustrated, not just sad and depressed. i think this is very realistic to trauma related emotional responses)

the other thing abt simon is he tends to follow other people's lead on a lot of things. i think he just likes not having to deal with the pressure of making decisions. he seems more inclined to lead around f&c than around, like, finn, though. and betty. but i think that’s in part because he was taking on a protector role w them. but yeah. he does a lot of crazy shit in f&c but very noticeably does not really act as a lead decision maker. until they get to the vampire world and they get attacked for a second that man is yelling orders and breaking a chair over his knee and pulling out a pocket knife to carve it into a stake lighting fast. which i loved that. i loved that he gained so much confidence from being in Panic Mode when confronted w vampires Because those where something he had to deal with in the apocalypse when raising marcy. he had to know what to do for marcys sake. other than that tho he's usually making suggestions at most. and agreeing to do scary crazy shit lmao . EXCEPT he decides on his own in secret to try and contact golb . hehe (motivated by wants to see his wife)

(it also seems like when he feels more confident in something he's much more capable of making choices. (makes sense) he wasnt paralyzed by anxiety when going on that research expedition with betty, probably because he was literally getting a phd (or had a phd, the show was so weird abt that) in that subject. makes sense he knows what he's doing. and also is interesting bc in ep2 of fionna and cake when he goes on an Adventure with finn he's very scared and nervous, but then talks about how he "used to be quite the adventurer in [his] day", which fits into the theme f&c had w his character where he feels out of place and less confident bc his whole ass profession isn't really relevant anymore, and everything is so different from how it used to be. so yeah. current simon has even less self confidence and confidence in his own decision making than Back In The Day simon bc of that)

id like to say that…. i think that the fact that it took betty only a few years to summon and eldritch god to free simon from his curse meanwhile it took simon 12 years to get to the point where he kidnapped a guy to use in a summoning ritual to talk to betty is interesting. bc i really do think they both love each other, and are both obsessive and co dependent. but betty went off the deep end so fast, meanwhile simon took a lot longer to do something comparatively Less Evil for betty. i think that a lot of this is because simon is just less confident in his choices, more nervous about making decisions, and *slower* at making decisions. in part because of a obsessive focus on details (i also think a buncha other stuff contributed to the difference in how long it took betty vs simon to do differing levels of fucked up shit for eachother but Yeah that’s the relevant part.)

i wouldn't say betty is a "think about the big picture, ignore the details" person though, necessarily. maybe compared to simon she is, but she's still a huge fucking nerd. she's an academic! to me she's someone who takes issues and situations that are more subjective and translates them into concretely structured language in order to guide herself through what actions she should take (my friend responded to this with “so what youre saying is betty took a philosophy class and was like ‘aw yes! Math!’” and yeah that is exactly what im saying)

i feel like canon sort of implies this, and definitely doesn't Not Imply It, but i also think canon didn't flesh out her character very well, so in a lot of ways im making my own assertions. but i think she's the type of person who likes to view things in ways that are ....not necessarily less complicated, but more concrete? like she can handle an uber complicated math problem with ease, but the way a math problem is complicated is entirely different from the way a social interaction is complicated, you know. and she's way better equipped for the first one.

so, basically, i think betty would be like: Dosent see the bigger picture.... but in a different way from simon, where instead of getting caught up on and overwhelmed by all the little details, she picks a specific angle to view the situation and then focuses on That, often to the detriment of viewing things from a wider, more complex and nuanced perspective. so better at seeing the bigger picture than simon, but still can miss a Lot…

i also feel like she leans towards viewing things as "identify a problem/issue, then find away to eliminate it" and "identify a goal, and find a way to reach it" . like i feel like she'd tackle social and personal situations in this way. it's not like she can't do things for fun or anything, but like, if she upset simon she'd go into Solving A Problem Mode and be like: “The issue is Simon Is Upset. The goal is Make Simon Not Upset. First i have to identify Why simon is Upset, and then how to make him Not Upset. This is The Current Goal I Must Complete.” like, not in an abstract sense. like shes literally narrating that to herself. i think she likes to focus in on  "what's wrong here and how do i fix it" as opposed to dwelling on emotions and exploring nuance. (which may be a contributor to how she ended up in that “there’s so little me left anymore” state by temple of mars: she was so focused on Fixing the Problem that she didn’t allow herself to really process her feelings too deeply and that took a toll on her mental health.)

simon is maybe more aware of nuance, which could be part of why he gets caught up on details because he's like "this CANT be properly categorized into something more straightforward, there's actually a billion TRILLION little details and that is stressful". like simon desperately wishes things could be simplified down more but is usually like "actually no, a million things are happening actually". he's like me he would get upset if asked to rate his pain or feelings on a number scale at the doctor (i can’t do that shit for the life of me. Those things are far too complicated to put on a number scale in my eyes). meanwhile betty just will force things into concrete categories and steps and factors that Make Sense To Her with intense fervor and if she starts to have a "this is too complicated to address" moment she feels threatened and then tries very hard to reprocess things in a way that is easier, or just does her best to ignore the things that make stuff too complicated to address

i think betty tends to view things in medium-sized chunks that incorporate some but Not All details in a situation, and that she cares about small details and being thorough but feels like accomplishing the goal is the most important thing, so is willing and able to make a quick decision if she feels it's the only choice. like. she had a limited time before the portal closed, and she chose to jump through it, because she thought "the problem is that im not with simon. simon is on the other side of the portal. ill go there" it's not that she doesn't like to think things through. she loves to think things through! its just that OVERALL she is a Doer who wants to solve the problem and thinks taking action and doing something is way better than sitting there and missing an opportunity. betty will think through the details if she has time, but if she doesnt, she just breaks things down into whatever is most easy to digest and process, and then takes the option that seems.like it will get the most desired outcome based on the available info. and also shes just very confident and headstrong. and THATS.  why she punched bella noche

In my eyes betty likes having rules and defined, structured processes about what to do or how to deal with stuff. and she dosen’t really like changing those. she's very autistic. she hates change i think. so does simon. but i think that simon would be more likely to be like: the change in situation is so upsetting that it's making it harder to think and process things, so he just gets overwhelmed and has an even harder time addressing whatever is happening or comprehending it. meanwhile betty is quick to try and find the easiest way to rerout her thinking to fit the new change, she's just really fucking pissed off and stressed out about it (part of this to me is she hates feeling powerless & hates feeling like she might fail). she copes with changes in her surroundings by finding a way to connect the changed situation as well and as fast as possible with her pre existing methods of tackling situations. i think bettys also worse at handling changes in people than changes in situation. to quote my friend when we where texting about this “Situations dont have feelings”.

Like. Betty has so many skills. so much knowledge. but isn’t great with people. And she gets to know people and figures out how to understand them and then THEY CHANGE??? ILLEGAL. and so… like…this is literally her whole thing with simon!! elements seems to imply that betty originally views things as "simon is cursed, i have to fix the curse". but when she makes an attempt to meet simon where he’s at and try to interact with him as ice king, she is unable to handle it. she is upset that he is different, so much so that she concludes the only way to view things is to see them as separate people, even though it was implied that she wasn't doing that before! she was approaching it like he was Simon With Memory Loss…..but then she does her villain betrayal scene and now she's all "things will be back to just me and simon, and you won't exist" . meaning before she directly started interacting with him, she was able to view him as simon, but when she did interact with him for an extended period of time and found out how different he had become, she felt so threatened by this that the only way she could handle it was by switching her view in order to not have to confront the idea that simon could have changed that much. it also meant switching her view to a place where she would be okay hurting simon. but when he starts to protest, get upset, ask what's wrong, and worst of all, insist that he's worthy of respect, that starts to stress her out and she has to talk out loud to herself to reassure herself that she's doing the right thing

and in that scene simon goes "i don't know who this simon guy is, im ice king", which i think is a Big line - he's responded to simon in the past, but doesnt always. Like. he's inconsistent in whether or not he's aware that's a way of referring to him, which makes sense bc he seems to have memory lapses where he remembers things fine one minute and forgets them the next, them remembers about them way later. anyway having him say that simultaneously provides a Confirmation of bettys new perspective, but it also… isn’t meant to. i feel like, to the audience, its saying that "simon has changed so much, he's entirely different now. and this is the way things are, and betty should accept this, but she cant" . to betty its telling her she’s right, but that kind of sucks, because she’s not totally sure how much she wants to be right (she dosen’t want this to be simon, but she also dosen’t want simon to be gone)

(i think the idea of betty Swapping her perspective abt simon during elements as a coping strategy to deal w the panic of What If Simon Is Different + the moral dilemma of potentially hurting him fits nicely into the "betty has bpd" interpretation . my girl is splitting)

(also ik many people interpret simon and ice king as Literally being entirely different people but tbh i think that is way less interesting and doesn't make a lot of sense with the canon. but also ik this is partially because what people consider to be "different people" is subjective.  like it depends somewhat on ur perception of identity and stuff. also having different interpretations is valid and fair and all that - and adventure time is often very loose in its text and there’s lots of ways to interpret it. but whatever man im just saying my feelings and That is and Always Will Be the Same guy to me and i think that perspective is waay more interesting to explore than simon getting possessed by an alternate personality or whatever. so im just going under that interpretation….. i think some ppl would perceive the "im ice king" line as being a conformation of them as separate people but to me it's a more abstract representation of the idea that a Drastic Change has taken place that Cannot be reversed!!.... which. Ok eventually it is but tbh i doubt they even knew how they'd end the show by this point and i still think in the context of elements it still works very well as a way driving home both how betty is Not Handling the Situation Well while also making you empathize with her bc u also know how hard that must have been for her to hear)

i think betty is very person-oriented in a unique way!!she's codependent while also being low empathy, introverted, and in many ways socially inept,  which is an interesting combo! i really get the vibe that she has always struggled socially and had trouble fitting in, so attaches really heavily to people who she does feel a connection to, and works really, really hard to maintain the relationships she has. i like to think she’s scared of rejection…

i think simon is much more empathetic, emotion-driven, and in tune with others than betty, but i also think he can be Very bad at actually understanding other people on many levels - like with his obliviousness to betty being interested in him romantically until she spelled it out for him, or to the impact of bettys earlier sacrifices. simon also, with the mission to get the crown in f&c, despite his empathetic nature and love for his friends, does not seem to consider that putting the crown on would upset his friends. This shows a "focusing on one thing and missing something else" scenario, and perhaps more of a "thinking abt the big picture" (saving f&c's world) over the details (friends would be sad) thing. so that's interesting. (although i think part of this example in particular stems from his self hatred preventing him from really thinking that his friends would be upset if he did that. but in a sense it is focusing on big picture over details). So theres some nuance there i think

BUT Anyway, i think this issue probably is mainly with him struggling to read people, or fully understand others perspectives, despite caring deeply about people and feeling Upset when he can tell other people are Upset. he cares and he feels very emotionally connected to people, especially people he cares about…. he just isn't that great at picking up on things sometimes. (also. Worth noting, i think its def shown that while simon may be very caring towards his friends and is a generally nice and approachable, well meaning person who wants whats best for other people. He still is very capable of Hating People and Doing Bad Things On Purpose. Don’t want to ignore that. also hes very desensitized to bad things happening in many respects lmao. So its not like hes just always super nice and caring and amazing. He still murdered choose goose to death and That is via the power of choose goose being annoying and Simon Loving Betty)

Betty also struggles to understand other people but instead of being downright oblivious to certain things or being unsure and nervous she finds relating to people and understanding their actions and emotions to be actively difficult and makes an active effort to understand people in a bit of a scientist-looking-at-a-subject way. Which can be helpful sometimes and less helpful other times. like. it's good that she has a way to navigate social interactions . but also that way of addressing things isn't always conductive to a healthy relationship, especially when she doesn't really let simon in on the fact that she's making these sort of analyses where she's like "what will maximize Simon Being Happy and how do i accomplish this" sometimes to her own detriment.  simon is just like "wow betty is so confident and good at knowing what she wants" meanwhile betty is like "i will make the best choice For Simon" betty i think is better than simon at reading people but not good at Empathizing With Others Emotions or really Understanding or relating to the emotions behind their actions .

she also is shown to, despite caring So much about simon, not be very considerate or caring towards others (not the same as being low empathy & etc dw im not equating them. Its just on the topic of How She Views Others!!!). To be fair, we don’t see nearly enough of her interacting with people besides simon, but i like to think that she just sorta struggles to really care about and have compassion for Random People but deeply cares about those she is Really close too (but as far as we know, thats just simon)

OVERALLi think they see the world very similarly in some ways and very differently in others and it's an interesting balance. also they are both Autistic. In cconclusion !!

betty

likes to break things down into concrete concepts because she struggles to comprehend more subjective and nuanced experiences, especially in social situations + Feels more comfortable approaching things from a “scientific” perspective because it is familiar and easy for her to navigate; threatened by uncertainty and comforted by things that are more straightforward and well-defined

doesn't dwell on things a ton (esp not as much as simon) because she's very goal-oriented and focused on the Now. she wants to get to the next step. that often then means ignoring Her Own Feelings Or Needs if she deems Other Things to be more relevant or important than them (not good for your mental health) + this also means she’s better at making quick decisions! she cares about details and prefers to have All The Relevant Info but is willing and able to cut things down to a “wider-picture” that helps her make whatever choices will help her achieve her goal - that wider picture just may not always be the Full Actual wider picture.

struggles to put herself in other people's shoes - finds it easier to view herself as an outside party with the goal of achieving the ideal outcome in a social situation. In general has low empathy and struggles to understand/relate to others feelings, which impacts her perspective on things and how she handles/views situations.

(not really mentioned earlier but idk where else to put it:) i also think she has that Autism Trait where you focus in on a specific goal you want to achieve and struggle to focus on anything else until it's accomplished (and that that sort of thinking pattern happened with curing simons curse). where you put off doing anything, even things you could do, until something that you Need to happen (according to your brain, not the real world) happens.  Betty put off being person until simon was saved. she put Everything on hold until she accomplished her mission. and this is in a way a form of not seeing the bigger picture, because its overly focusing on a specific thing at the expense of others

(bettys better at balancing seeing the details & the big picture in a sense, but more like. she picks a medium sized chunk of what is going on and focuses on that and acknowledges details when able to but is willing and able to make split second decisions based on little info and is confident in doing so. but whereas i think simon might have more of a "sees the whole big picture but then gets caught up on the details" thing going on, i think betty just straight up focuses on One Portion of something, of varying sizes, which could or could not he considered a "detail", but then almost completely ignores everything else, viewing things as individual challenges or events that need to be addressed before anything else can be)

simon 

is someone who really likes to think things through, and can easily get hung up on details and can easily get overwhelmed by those details and sent into a state of anxiety-fueled-spiraling or decision making paralysis

this is worse probably for Current simon because he’s also Trying To DIstance Himself from his identity as ice king, and as ice king he had no impulse control and thought things through very little. so simon likely puts even more pressure on himself to think things through! unfortunately hes also Going Through A Lot Emotionally and sometimes that’s too much and he Dosen’t think things through and just acts on how he’s feeling. And that makes him feel Worse about himself and just Everything in general

he is more confident with his decision making skills if he feels more prepared/knowledgeable on the subject at hand or is taking on a caretaker role (like with marcy, or f&c). but currently he dosen’t have a lot of that going on so that kinda sucks for his self confidence. 

simon is better at empathizing with people than betty & at creating connections with others & is more caring towards people he dosen’t know that well - and so may consider Other People more in his perspectives on things. But on the other hand hes not always the best at reading people or understanding their perspectives, even if he feels emotional connections and cares about people, so he can easily overlook other people’s struggles or perspectives within an issue - even if he cares deeply about their wellbeing (very relevant to his relationship with betty)

he’s generally more emotion driven than betty, and dwells on & ruminates about his feelings, sometimes to the point of obscuring his understanding of a situation or his ability to engage with it. On The Other Hand this means he at least acknowledges how he’s feeling meanwhile betty is like “im classifying that as irrelevant information until further notice” lmao. 

he’s better at understanding nuance & subjectivity than betty but this contributes to his habit of getting-overwhelmed by everything & Overthinking

(simon focuses on details over the big picture overall. he easily gets caught up in details and panics. he traps himself in cycles of worrying about details that can paralyze him when making decisions, and so prefers to not have to make choices. BUT simons "paralyzed with fear of making decisions" state can often be overturned by the power of Having Strong Emotions and his decisions may be Less Good because of the power of not being great and understanding other people. he's very emotion-driven and currently suffering from a billion mental health issues so sometimes all that gets in the way of his natural over-thinking. hes got a better understanding of nuance than betty & is better at Empathizing with others and more considerate but not all too great at reading them or recognizing others Feelings or Behaviors)

I THINK I REPEATED A LOT IN THIS. AGAIN, KIND OF JUST RAMBLING. HOPEFULLY IT WAS SOMEWHAT COHERENT

[danceworshipper]

In the Shadow of Sebastian

Alexis and Ominis come to terms with the knowledge that Sebastian has gone too far off the deep end after killing his uncle, and make one of the easiest, yet most difficult decisions they've ever had to make. Alexis/Ominis, pre-ship. Hints of one sided Alexis/Sebastian and Ominis/Sebastian. Set immediately before The Choice at the end of Sebastian's quest line. Useful context: Alexis is a werewolf and an unwilling soldier for the Minister

It was cold in the Undercroft where they sat defeated, resting their backs against the stone wall and letting the chill soak through their robes. Cold, and still, and silent.

Alexis was grateful that Sebastian had left them alone. To hear anyone's heartbeat but Ominis' right now would have been too much. His, even, was testing her nerves, but at least Ominis' heart was slow and strong. Sebastian's hadn't stopped beating irregularly ever since he'd cast that blasted spell.

That heartbeat proved what Alexis already suspected: Sebastian was gone. Not physically, not really, but he was gone. He was a shadow of himself.

Broken.

Your first real kill hit you hard, as she had learned all too soon upon becoming a witch. Killing someone you knew was so much worse than killing a nameless enemy, or a dastardly foe who had earned it through wicked deeds. The adrenaline alone was enough to have you coming down for hours, but the guilt... Solomon Sallow had deserved a lot of things, but not this, and somewhere Sebastian knew it. He made a mistake that he couldn't take back. Now Anne, his one tether to sanity, was unwilling to be found, and he was lost.

Alexis never should have helped him.

"Ominis."

"Yes?" His voice was made rough from the tears she was kindly ignoring.

"I'm sorry."

"You should be."

Alexis let her head hang. Ominis had warned her that this was going too far, and she hadn't listened. She hadn't even listened to Anne. Weren't Anne's wishes the only ones that should matter in a situation like this? Just because Alexis would never stop trying to cure herself didn't mean that that was what everyone would want.

"I understand, though," Ominis continued. "I'm to be blamed as well. I never put my foot down the way I should have. Salazar, we share a dorm room and I never even thought to check his belongings. I knew what he was doing; I simply couldn't deny him."

"He has that effect on you too?"

Ominis huffed, amused but deflated. "Has it not been obvious?"

It hadn't been, though Alexis couldn't truthfully say she'd ever thought about it - ever considered that maybe Ominis gave in too easily for someone as against the Dark Arts as he was. Now it was easy to see. Hindsight was always clear.

No, Alexis had never paid much attention to Ominis' actions, because she'd been far too concerned with her own.

I could teach you, Sebastian had said, three different times, and Alexis had said yes each time despite seeing what havoc the curses could wreak. Something about how he'd offered, so eager to have someone who understood the pull toward Dark Magic, had had her tracing the wand movements he showed her, greedy for his approval.

Eventually she would have learned them anyway, she supposed. Minister Spavin had plans for her. The dark creature, wielding the Dark Arts like no other could. She would never be locked in Azkaban for murder - so long as it was no one the Minister cared for.

Knowing that didn't make it better. In fact, she was certain it made everything worse.

Ominis inhaled shakily. "Aren't you supposed to be convincing me that we mustn't tell anyone what he's done?"

"I told him I would," Alexis said.

She turned her eyes toward him. His head was gently inclined toward her, but his eyes were downcast as he wiped at them. They didn't even work, yet they showed despair as well as anyone else's. Oddly, Alexis found it pretty.

"Well?"

She swallowed and remained silent. Sebastian had begged her, saying that Ominis listens to you. I don't know why, but he does. Yes, Ominis did listen to her, and that was a large part of the problem. Alexis knew without a doubt that if she said that Sebastian should walk free, he would. But did he deserve to?

It wasn't fair for him to be punished when she never would be. But...

"He won't stop," she said noncommittally. "He'll never stop until Anne is either cured or dead."

Ominis laughed, bitter. "Even when she's dead, he'll never stop."

He was probably right. Death be damned: Anne would know no peace.

"If only you could have seen the madness in his eyes, Ominis. I don't think I've ever been more frightened of him."

"Of him? Not for him?"

Alexis winced - of course Ominis had caught her slip. She sighed, and shook her head out of habit, though she knew he couldn't see. "No," she said, like a confession. "Of him."

Silence fell again. Alexis squeezed her eyes shut. Her clothes felt restrictive all of a sudden. She felt trapped, like she was back at the Ministry being held down. The blasted gloves were buzzing, stronger and stronger, responding to her distress and forcing her magic to freeze in her veins, and she reminded herself to breathe in, hold it, and breathe out, until the buzzing stopped.

That was the difference between her and Sebastian, she supposed. Self control had been beaten into her. Never would she cast a curse like that on impulse. Sebastian had proved he had no control whatsoever.

"You know," Ominis said slowly, "I'm not feeling very convinced."

In spite of the situation, Alexis choked on a shocked laugh. "I'm not making a good case, am I?" she asked.

The smile on his face was painful to look at with how close it was to breaking. If only she could fix it.

"You aren't," Ominis agreed. His voice cracked.

"I'm not sure there's any helping him," Alexis said, sobering. "If he never stops, who's to say he doesn't get worse? What if he hurts someone else? What if one day, he decides that if he kills her and reanimates her, she'll be cured?"

Ominis shook his head. "He'll get worse. I'm sure of it."

"Then we have to turn him in," she said, wishing she could convince herself otherwise.

"They'll throw him in Azkaban, Alexis," Ominis protested weakly. "He's close enough to adulthood that they'll do it. You've been to Azkaban, haven't you? Even if they give him a lighter sentence because of his youth, Sebastian will never be himself again, you know that."

Her visit to Azkaban with Helen Thistlewood had been a maximum of thirty minutes, but Alexis had felt that she'd never be the same - and she hadn't been the one behind bars. It had made her ironically grateful for her own imprisonment deep in the Ministry, with horrible people rather than Dementors. But that old woman in Azkaban had been innocent. Sebastian was not.

"We have to," she said again, and hated herself for it.

Ominis' head thunked against the stone. "I know," he whispered. His eyes squeezed shut - Alexis wondered if the pressure felt grounding or if blocking things out was simply a human instinct.

Whichever it was, she followed suit, pressing her knuckles against her eyelids until she saw stars and then having to yank them away, because the stars were a beautiful green that had crackled at the tip of Sebastian's wand for one long, long moment after he'd dropped it. It was a green that might be woven deep into her own soul by now, never to be cleansed.

"I should be in Azkaban too," Alexis said softly.

Ominis made a noise of distress. "Absolutely not."

"I've killed too."

"You've killed horrible people, Alexis, and you didn't do it of your own free will."

"The noble thing to do would be to refuse," she argued. "That's what Natty says."

"And be put to death?" Ominis exclaimed. "No. You should never be at fault for protecting yourself."

Alexis felt the corner of her mouth twitch, and she couldn't stop herself from pushing her luck. "The same logic doesn't apply to you, I see."

She turned her head to look at him. He knew, of course, what she was referring to. His mouth opened as though he wished to argue, but shut again. How could he? If there was no blame on her, there could be no blame on him.

Could they use the same logic with Sebastian?

Alexis desperately wished they could. If there had been a single sliver of worry that Solomon would have killed one of them first... but no. He had attacked them, hurt them badly, but she knew deep in her heart that he would have stopped when they fell. Getting them expelled and ruining their lives wasn't enough to deserve death. Even if it was, now Anne, cursed and miserable, had no one. That alone made the curse truly unforgivable.

The only instance that could be justified was the Cruciatus, since if Sebastian hadn't cast it in the Scriptorium, they all would have starved to death. Self preservation: simple, easy. The Imperius could have been justified under better circumstances, but Sebastian's logic had been flawed. He'd had ample time to react. He could have used any other spell to save Anne, but he hadn't.

I had to, he'd said.

You wanted to, she'd thought, but agreed with him anyway, because that was what friends did, wasn't it? Supported them in public to criticize them in private? She'd just never had the time until it was too late.

Ominis sobbed beside her, burying his face into his legs and shaking.

Alexis' heart ached. Before she could wonder whether he'd want to be touched, her hand was on his shoulder. He cried harder, leaning closer, and though Alexis was about to break too, she pulled him close to her and held him.

"He was my best friend," Ominis said miserably. The use of past tense sounded like the slamming of a cell door.

"I know," Alexis said.

By the end of the day, Sebastian would be taken away. It was over.

[sevensoulmates]

Hi there 👋 may I have your opinion on this? Because I feel like it's the general consensus that Eddie may not be all that unaware of the way his feelings towards Buck runs deeper than friendship right? he has been stocking his feelings away in this little glass box he is so careful holding close to his heart, and he doesn't really have to examine those feelings because he firmly believes Buck is straight right? and then Buck's new revelation will be crashing down on him like:

while Eddie is running away from queerness.

And I absolutely can't wait to see Eddie overanalyzing every past and future interaction with Buck under this new light and be like:

I'm so ready for this development 🍿🍿🍿 and I've always wondered if the reason it feels like Eddie was always making heart eyes at Buck was a Ryan thing, like he was playing the character the way he wants or it's him being directed to do that acting choices. Hopefully we will now soon.

Finally, do you think they will be addressing the couch theory again, at some point or will they brush it off?

I've been reading your last meta again and again (and I will do it again) still daydreaming about 7x04, still on cloud nine, total bliss 🤗

Sorry for the delayed response. Had a busy work day today. You've actually touched on one of those things that I go back and forth on a lot when it comes to Eddie and that is the idea of whether or not he is aware (on some level) of his sexuality and/or feelings for Buck.

I've seen some great arguments that he is aware but not able to COMPREHEND his feelings, and simply packed them away. And I've also seen some great arguments on Eddie not being aware at all and having just repressed it all so deeply that even though he feels his feelings, he's never allowed himself to think about what they actually mean. There's a lot of overlap in the two arguments and I think there's some truth to both.

A good friend of mine Zee @tawaifeddiediaz presented me with an interesting thinking point which is the possibility that Eddie may have realized his feelings for Buck on some level at the time of the shooting in the season 4 finale but due to the traumatic nature of the event, repressed them alongside his other feelings regarding that event, which I am inclined to agree with.

Personally, I hesitate to say that Eddie is consciously aware of his feelings/sexuality at the current point in time because then it makes me feel weird regarding his actions with dating Marisol. That's a large reason why I'm pretty certain Eddie isn't aware, or at least fights back against his feelings so hard that he's unknowingly overcorrecting by dating women.

Because if there's one thing about Eddie it's that he is almost always existing in a state of denial in one way or another. Denial about the reality of what his relationship with his parents was like, denial about how unhappy his relationship with Shannon was, denial about the fact that Christopher does not NEED a mother to live a good life, denial that he deserves happiness, denial about how deeply the war affected him, denial about how he feels regarding being with women. It's just denial, denial, denial with him. So I guess on some level in order to exist in that perpetual state of denial, one has to at least be aware on SOME level that there IS something to be in denial about, right?

I'm open to whatever the writers have in mind up their sleeve for Eddie. Now that they have the freedom to go down this route if they want, I trust they'll do it well.

As for the couch theory, I think people need to stop thinking about it as something that was introduced in season 6 and needed to be conclusively wrapped in season 6. I think it was more so meant to be a series-long metaphor for "once Buck finds his home, he'll have found where he needs to be". And that's really what the couch metaphor means to me. So, no, I don't really think the show needs to have Buck be like "hey, Eddie, want to go pick out a couch with me?" Instead, I think they can just have Buck, Eddie and Christopher sit on the couch in Eddie's home altogether once Buddie is canon and that would be more than for me to feel like the "couch theory" was satisfied.

[backjustforberena]

the idea that show!rhaenys and corlys are somehow worse than book!rhaenys and corlys is so… interesting to me.

we get a very sweet quote from them and are said that they love each other. and in the same light, we also have the fact that corlys (most likely) cheated on rhaenys with a sixteen year old girl, younger than his own children at the time, after getting with rhaenys when she herself was sixteen and he was thirty seven. now, it’s westeros, and that’s not the worse thing a man could do.

in the show, if we simply barebones it, they’re displayed as a couple who loves each other. they go through tribulations that are not stated in the book, such as corlys being gone for six years, and then, it’s discovered that he cheated, with some unknown woman earlier in the timeline than it was in the books.

i don’t get how show!corlys is somehow a ‘worst’ man for what he’s done in the show. i do like the fact that he’s no longer a creeper who’s going after sixteen year old girls. but i think ppl need to cut show!corlys some slack

Oh, that's an easy one to answer. See, people tend to either want to idealise or villainise. Especially in situations, such as this, where we don't have an answer or context for certain actions or events. It's a lot easier to go to black or white than admit the grey.

When it comes to book vs show, in my opinion, it's very easy to idealise book!Corlys - the bad things are just glanced over, we have these gorgeous quotes, a wonderful epitaph for Rhaenys about being a faithful wife, this hyperbolic language from George about them being perfect matches and the age gap, whilst extreme, is negligible between the pair as they are presented as equals. You can interpret the small amount of material in either a positive or negative light and people tend to want to go with the positive.

We have no real meat that comes off the back of the problems or potential problems within the marriage: there's no evidence of conflict, especially as Rhaenys, in this scenario, has no awareness (that we know of) about Corlys's infidelity. The scenarios in which conflict arises in the show are not given space or time in the book: the deaths of their children, the ongoing topic of Rhaenys's claim, their choice to support Rhaenyra, Corlys's ambitions. The personalities of the characters, during this time, especially with Rhaenys, are hard to draw on - the motives even more so, only founded, really, on gossip and later summeration. Ergo, the couple is easy to idealise. They're not complex.

So, for example, let's take this line:

Her husband, Corlys Velaryon, was so wroth that he gave up his admiralty and his place on the small council and took his wife back to Driftmark.

To me, I can read that as advocacy for his wife. As protective. As fearless in the face of the King who has just denied his wife what should be hers and wishes to safeguard her and the pregnancy by taking her home, to avoid further stress. Telling the King to "go to hell", for all intents and purposes, and taking the lead from his wife, as the preceding line details her reaction. It's nice. It speaks well of the relationship - a slight to her is a slight to him.

But, someone else might read it differently. They could take it as Corlys being controlling. Furious, not for his wife's sake, but for the ambitions he had for his offspring that have now been denied. It could be punishment. He may not have given Rhaenys a choice: it could well be ordered, as he "took" her back to Driftmark. It could suggest possessiveness and an action without compromise. It's not up to her and now she has lost station by being removed from the succession. It's rash, and it's bold and comes from anger. It could easily be self-centred.

See how that works? It depends on what you want to prioritise: his ambition or his love. It depends on what you believe and how you read it. It depends on what you think his state of mind was.

And, on the flip side, if you're that way inclined, it's very easy to villainise show!Corlys. Not only, as you point out, because we have certain major changes - the most pressing of which is that six-year absence - but also because we are emotionally attached and see the emotional fallout to each and every one of these conflicts, sometimes without satisfactory resolution. We see them as people, not characters, but our view of them is still limited. In a different way to the books, but still limited because that's the nature of the show.

You can take the facts we have: the absence, the cheating, the bastards, the ambitions, the blindness, and then you don't look much further than that, especially if you're "on Rhaenys's side" with it all - you just see that he's hurt her and damn him and don't really look much further than that. You put them into a box as the adulterous husband and the betrayed wife, and that can clash what they actually then portray and so you just don't engage.

Show!Corlys, as well, I would say, is subjected to a modern interpretation and modern judgment. We judge the marriage based on our standards rather than contextualising it for the time and place it is in. That colours our judgment of both characters. The TV show, as a whole, is subjected to that in a way that the book isn't. As Steve has said, whenever you make something, it reflects the times you make it - which is why it's horrendous to see Viserys walk with a little Laena, whereas it barely makes you blink in the book.

Show!Corlys is made the "worse" man because we see how his actions affect those around him. We see Rhaenys's loneliness and the chaos caused by the Driftmark succession. We also see Alyn and Addam, abandoned by their father and shunned as bastads. We see Laena walk with Viserys and the misery of Laenor.

Some of his actions are worse than the book, if you want to judge it like that. Some are better. Some are greyer. These aren't, in my opinion, to make Corlys a man less worthy of our liking or more. They're a result, largely, of grander changes to the plot and the storytelling - the compression of timelines, the changes to the backstories of other characters, the need to have him in proximity to events or even out of the way of events.

I'm fascinated by people who don't think Corlys loves Rhaenys. Mainly because I think they're wrong and I don't understand where they're coming from because the show practically screams it. The actors certainly say it. I want to know if they believed in the love in Season 1 and if it's just a case of Alyn and Addam clouding things (to which I'd say, they actually, oddly, change nothing other than what they have to and their existence doesn't automatically cancel out love Corlys feels - especially as he's so undone by it, to the point where he's basically blocked it out until it rears its head) - or was it always present? In which case, I won't be able to convince them.

To me, Corlys's motives and emotions are easier to access in the book and show. Corlys, in the show, is not a bad man. He's done bad things. But we have mountains of regret, shame, emotional growth, love, pride, grief, worry, fear, that colours all of that. He is worthy of compassion. Rhaenys doesn't damn him. The world doesn't damn him. But, interestingly, he damns himself. That's something interesting to me. That's why I like him more in the show.

He doesn't leave for six years because he doesn't care. He cares too much. He cares so much that he can't handle it - all that grief not only sitting inside of him, but watching it eat at his wife and being powerless to do anything and she can't even look at him... yeah, he runs away. He's a coward, not a villain.

Because we have all that he is as book!Corlys, with his ambition and his frustration and his prowess and his pride - but we also have a man struggling. A private man. A family man. A flawed man. A lost man. For every hurt he causes his wife, or his children, or his legacy, there's ever the intent to do so: he's doesn't do any of this out of malice. It hurts him. He's ashamed of his actions but still stuck in a cycle or with the same priorities. He's clinging to the old ways and the "right" ways and the expected ways. He struggles and he feels his age and he thinks he acts for the best when he's just wrong and he's stupid and silly and hurtful and bombastic and all of these things.

I really like Corlys.

[antianakin]

So I normally am pretty willing to follow Lucas's intentions regarding Anakin and the Jedi in terms of how Anakin was selfish and greedy and the Jedi were perfect and did nothing wrong ever at all, I am!

But then Lucas says that Anakin was "fine" in Revenge of the Sith, that he's still a kind person by then, that the person he is in Revenge of the Sith is the person who was still overall good because that's the person he gets to be seen as when he dies.

And uh. This is where we differ.

Because unlike Lucas, I care about the Tusken massacre and I don't consider that just an unfortunate stepping stone towards a WORSE crime in a few years. I don't consider the Tusken massacre something that Anakin can just brush under the rug and move on from and still be considered a good person.

Anakin's not a good person in TCW, he's not a good person in ROTS. The moment he makes the choice to kill an entire village of PEOPLE, up to and including children (and likely also elderly and possibly infirm), he's not a good person anymore.

But I don't think Lucas entirely considers the Tuskens people himself. We as an audience are meant to SORT-OF see them as people because we're meant to see what he does as dark, but I think in some ways you're also supposed to sort-of agree that the Tuskens are kind-of animals. Like this is about the same level of sad as if Anakin had gone out and killed a wolf pack, up to and including the puppies simply because they would grow into adult wolves. Is it a lot of violence, some of which was unnecessary? Yes. Is it truly an unforgivably dark deed? Eh, it's not as bad as if he'd killed a HUMAN family, they're still just wolves after all.

But 20 years out from Attack of the Clones, with the ways newer creators are attempting to revamp the Tuskens and re-examine them and give them more humanity in stories, Anakin's actions then look worse and worse. Equally as bad as what he did to the Jedi three years later. It wasn't a temporary foray into a little bit of darkness that he managed to come back from, it was his first major step into being a dark side user that he clearly continues to utilize over those three years. We see Anakin more and more inclined towards violence first, towards black/white us/them thinking, that ultimately coalesces in his choice to murder Dooku on the Invisible Hand and then obviously Order 66. But his final choice to become a Sith isn't made as a good man suddenly choosing to be evil.

It's made as an already selfish, greedy, evil man choosing to make the evil stuff official. Before, he was sometimes doing good things, and sometimes doing evil things (which, let's be clear, makes him still overall an evil person, he doesn't get to get away with occasionally being evil just because he occasionally does some good things), and now he's just choosing to go full-time with the evil deeds and take the title that goes along with that.

ROTS Anakin is Dark the ENTIRE WAY THROUGH. TCW Anakin is Dark the ENTIRE WAY THROUGH. He's already a mass murderer, a mass child murderer, who consistently does choose violence and selfishness and possessiveness over being a good person. He is already someone who will consistently choose the easy path over the one that requires even an OUNCE of emotional labor on his part.

Lucas's racism towards the Tuskens means he can see ROTS and TCW Anakin as still, overall, a good person. Yes, he made a mistake, and he occasionally still lets his anger overtake him a bit, but overall still a good buddy good pal good friendo who is so totally nowhere NEAR being a real bad guy!

But these days, that no longer flies. Anakin is not an overall good person after the Tuskens, he's a Dark Side user. He sometimes uses it less, sometimes uses it more, but he's pretty much always pulling from the Dark. He's fighting "on behalf of the Republic" but he's also often ANGRY at the Separatists, he HATES the Separatists, and uses those feelings to give him strength when he fights. He's possessive of Ahsoka and massively attached to her, he's attached to Obi-Wan, attached to Padme, and practically spins apart into nearly going full Dark Side every time any one of them is in danger. The moment Anakin decides to give in and massacre the Tuskens, he's gone. He's a Dark Side user, so he's not a good person.

When he becomes a Sith, he doesn't change or become a different person, he just gets demonstrably WORSE. Significantly and noticeably WORSE, because now there are zero attempts to control it or channel it into anything remotely resembling the right thing to do, there's just Darkness, and evil choices. Every choice he makes is another Tusken massacre.

[blade-liger-4ever]

Meet Moreena Krai, the most effective combat medic in the Phoenix Cell!

So, before I go into her place in my story, let me explain her design.

When I did multiple research tasks on Moreena, I saw that one source pointed out that she may have been dark-skinned based on Ezra's sketch of her. For that, as well as me just wanting to play around with concepts and try new ideas, I decided to make Moreena dark-skinned - which, additionally, may explain why Ezra crushed on Sabine (just an idea.) I can't recall right now if I chose to give her brown or gray eyes, but either way, I felt that maybe it would be interesting to give her a separate eye color from Ezra's deep sea blue, and further differentiate her from one of my OCs.

As for her outfit, I saw one fanfic depict her as a medic, and I thought that was a good idea. And although I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, I wanted to add a combat medic to the Phoenix Cell for when they're either on a planet's surface, or when they're in a dogfight with the Empire. For the colors, I chose that palette to reflect the Red Cross, and show that she's in the medical department. The blaster I added to show that she's gotta take up arms on the field, and that she won't be an easy target if things go south. My only regret is that I forgot to change her expression - but, seeing as she and Ezra reunite during my spin on S3, maybe it fits after all....

When Moreena left for Alderaan with her family, she and her younger sister, Judi, enrolled at one of the higher level academies on the planet when their grandmother noticed their separate talents: Judi's scientifically inclined mind, and Moreena's medical expertise when she came across some injured street urchins. Although Judi, despite being young and sharp-minded, came to accept much of the propaganda that the Empire spouted, Moreena kept quiet over it and wondered if she should have shown off that skill with her grandmother present after all. She didn't regret helping the urchins, especially since one of the boys acted a lot like Ezra when they had been kids, but unlike Judi she remembered what the Empire had done to their farm. And unlike her little sister - who was growing quite fond of the company of the Imperial boys who swaggered around the Academy grounds as if they were moffs - Moreena didn't want their company, or the constant reminder of the home she was taken from, and the one friend her age who knew the unfairness of the Empire.

As the next two years went by, Moreena and Judi reached the finals of their classes. However, Judi had become a model student for her school work ethic and Imperial support, in spite of the fact that she could be seen after hours partying with some of the rowdy students. By contrast, Moreena grew more distant from her classmates and sister, keeping tabs on the reports of a rebellion happening back on Lothal in secret. Following a gut instinct, Moreena dug and searched Imperial transmissions from the sector and discovered that there was a cell of rebels in the system that had caused much pushback and change to her home - and that one of the wanted "criminals" was Ezra Bridger.

Desperate to know his fate, and eager to be free of the Imperial academy, Moreena did more research, eventually realizing through determined digging that Bail Organa was the one quietly sponsoring and aiding the rebel cell. Because this had been accomplished through implicating means, Moreena ended up meeting Bail in person after one of his aides, claiming to be a recruiter for the Alderaanian Medical Institute, brought her to the palace to "see if her knowledge [was] comparable to a professional's". Bail was not angered when he met Moreena; rather, he was impressed by her tenacity and talent. After a long, private discussion about what she had done, and the cruelty of the Empire, Bail offered her two choices: go to the Alderaanian Institute without fear of repercussions from her illicit actions, or go on a private shuttle that was preparing to leave with new recruits for the Phoenix Cell.

Before the day was out, Moreena was packing necessities and readying for the shuttle, while her family was informed that she had accepted a scholarship to the Alderaanian Institute of Medicine.

Although the equipment wasn't as shiny or up to date as at the academy, Moreena threw herself into her work and even worked with her fellow medics to improve medical conditions in the cell. Six months after joining, Moreena finally got to meet Ezra again, but was surprised by the changes she saw in him. He had grown taller, broader, and was sporting a new buzzcut and had twin scars on his left cheek. But that wasn't what surprised her most: he was a Jedi Padawan, but strangely acting less heroic than the old stories told. No, he was wielding a breakable, purple-bladed saberstaff, and was using techniques that seemed dangerous and more Sith-like than she'd ever imagined.

Their reunion was strained and cautious, like two playmate animals who were just meeting after years of separation and abuse. Ezra would often come to her in the medical wing for checkups, or to see if she or the others were doing well. Moreena, though she was unnerved by his actions, always welcomed him there, and would try to get him to open up about what had happened. It was difficult, and took the help of Sabine and Zeb to put the pieces together, but Moreena eventually learned about Korriban, Kanan's blinding, and how Ezra felt he needed power to protect his friends.

This, in time, led to many arguments between her and Ezra, as Ezra's quest was leading him to a darkness he wouldn't/couldn't see, and Moreena wasn't going to lose him to the Dark Side. After a while, Ezra started to realize how comfortable he was getting with mind controlling his enemies and using other dark powers, but didn't know how to break away from it. Moreena became a spot of light for him in those days, and helped him chase away the darkness when he felt the pull grow stronger. This made their old friendship bloom into something more, and when Ezra sought out Maul to sever his connection to the former Apprentice and seek answers, Moreena proved a force of nature herself by convincing both Kanan and Sabine to bring her along to find him.

Once that adventure ended, Moreena and Ezra started a relationship, though they both took it slow due to the circumstances and experiences they'd had in the past years. Their bond grew stronger, though, and from Yavin 4 to Endor, they remained close, and joined Kanan and Luke Skywalker in rebuilding the Jedi Order.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@princessallura052 @radicalrebelcat and all those who read this, I hope you like it! Moreena and Ezra get married probably right after Endor; better to take that opening while it's there than suffer the consequences of waiting. I see them with at least two kids, though a third is always welcome. I chose a different name for her little sister, although I don't know what fate she should suffer. I know at the very least her parents are on Alderaan when it's destroyed, which is one of the times Ezra and Moreena grow exceptionally close.

Stay tuned, for I may attempt designing Sabine's boyfriend sometime...

May the Force be with you all!

[boltlightning]

writing pattern game

tagged by the splendid @tortoisesshells, thank you kindly <3

Rules: Share the first line of your last ten published works or as many as you are able and see if there are any patterns! (i am a rebel and using two sentences where relevant)

landfall (potc + dragons) Summer arrives bright and quick. Morning mists roll off the water, through the trees like ghosts, and up the guardian cliffs of Port Royal, pillowing the small town that lies sleepy beneath the rigid shadow of Fort Charles.

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow (baldur's gate) “I think I need to go to camp for a while,” Karlach says, breathing heavily.

steadfast and dependable (potc, marriage au) If there is one word to describe her husband, Elizabeth has learned that it is steadfast. She has a number of other choice adjectives for him as any wife does, a side effect of the contempt that familiarity breeds, but she cannot deny that he is reliant.

ashes, ashes (final fantasy vii, advent children au) For all its roughness, Edge is a welcome sight after months of living in Kalm. The city’s sprawl, tucked beneath the shadow of the continent’s ancient rounded mountains and the still-smoldering ruins of Midgar beyond, is a crop of seedlings sprouting from scorched earth.

windfall (potc + dragons the prequel) Norrington leans back on his heels as he examines the battle before him, taking a rare breath.

on fastenings (potc, norribeth) “Having trouble?”

there stands an ancient grove (hadestown) Fall comes when Persephone calls for the train.

till the long days, chapter 30: epilogue (assassin's creed ii, greek mythology death loop au) The journey that brings Ezio to Altaïr’s library has lasted decades. It began with his death, and by completing it, he will receive the rest of his life.

beyond this morning (potc) As the heat of the day wanes, lush breezes off the sea sweeping relief upon the town at last, so too does the excitement.

monsters of men (potc) The Endeavor sails a day behind the Flying Dutchman, following the handy trail of destruction through the pirate-infested waters.

patterns:

goddamn do i love to talk about sunlight and scenery

it's difficult for me to jump directly into action, and this illustrates that pretty clearly

lots of short sentence openers followed by a long, more descriptive one. i used to do the single pithy sentence-as-paragraph opener for EVERYTHING and i'm very glad i've moved past that

the concept of long days was never easy to explain. it would be deeply unmarketable as a new adult fantasy novel

tagging @thesumdancekid @graysongraysoff if you are so inclined!!!! and of COURSE anyone who wants to yoink this is welcome to do so