#Like she doesn't feel like she haunts the narrative. It just feels like she is a character with sad backstory

[inksandpensblog]

Still fascinated by how much hate Mitsi gets for the whole "dead fem-coded loved one backstory" thing and all the hangups surrounding that when Purple's mom is arguably a much more egregious instance of the thing everyone is upset about Mitsi for but she ultimately got a pass because...idk, she was The First?

[microwaving-tesilid-argente]

Looking again at some scenes at the start of the 17th and yeah, I was right about the Muriel-Tesilid-Ailette dynamic being “my lifelong crush reminds me of this one backstabber” lmao. Tesilid's trust issues at the start of the 17th were definitely caused in large part by Muriel

(Written as of Chapter 209, shortly after Muriel makes her first in-person appearance in Round 17, and without reading MTL)

--

The pre-Muriel chapters already had plenty of hints imo, where Tesilid was noticeably wary of or harsh towards Ailette.

Pandora’s Dungeon (Ch 96): 

“Plague, death, hope… Yes… hope… false hope. Ailette, are you false hope?”

Ch 97: 

He believed Ailette Rodeline to be one of two things. She was either a rare compensation bestowed upon him by Order and Goodness or an instrument of false hope, designed to make him fall into further despair and misery. If by chance, she was the latter… If the Strict Order and Goodness is trying to make a fool of me once more. “That won’t do.” He swung the holy blade. A titanic burst of aura was unleashed from his blade, shattering the earth like a tidal wave. The ground rumbled and soon filled the deep abyss from the impact. The rift was no more. “Ailette Rodeline,” he muttered. “I sincerely hope that you are neither taken away nor betray me.”

Snow Queen Dungeon (Ch 110):

I was half-expecting him to be deeply impressed by how knowledgeable I was, but all I got in return was a sceptical look of disbelief. “Hmm.” “Excuse me, Sir Tesilid?” I said tauntingly. “What’s up with that face? Is that any way to look at a fellow companion?” “Then let me ask you this, as a companion, how do you know so much about everything? It’s almost like you’re omniscient.” “Allie, it’s an important issue, so I need you to answer me honestly. If, by some far-fetched possibility, your true identity is the Strict Order and Goodness’ avatar…” “Whoa, don’t go there. That’s not it at all.” “It’s not? Good. That’s a relief.” Tesilid seemed to have noticed my puzzled expression and proceeded to explain with a dazzling smile on his face. “I meant that you need to be human in order to stay by my side.”

Muriel’s actual appearance in Round 17 makes it pretty clear that Tesilid was talking about her during the above instances, because she’s the avatar of someone who serves the Strict Order and Goodness.

Ch 208:

[...] and lastly, Myu Elinas, the Divine Watchmaker, who had been asleep for 500 years in a holy resting site of Order and Goodness.  Muriel was her alter ego.  She knew that this world was a World of Return that was abandoned by its god, but she couldn't remember any of her previous lives.

And on that note, I think the way that Tesilid chose to frame his relationship with Muriel in this round is really funny.

Ch 207:

“You’re the master of the holy sword, aren’t you? Sir… Tesilid Argente, was it?” “That’s correct, Your Eminence.” “This may sound like a strange question, but is this the first time we’re meeting?” “What do you mean?” Tesilid asked, his voice tight with discomfort. “For some reason, I feel a sense of longing when I look at you. Would it be al right if I call you Tesilid from now on?” According to the original plot, Tesilid was now meant to politely approve her request to call him by his first name. I was waiting for the scene to proceed as I remembered when Tesilid suddenly went off script. “A sense of longing…” he said, slowly sounding out the words. “I must say, I feel the same way.” “Saintess.” “Yes, Tesilid.” “It’s ‘Sir Tesilid’.” “Pardon?” “I hope you dig deep and discover why you feel that sense of longing. I will only allow you to call me by my name once you do so.” For some reason, Tesilid’s tone had suddenly become short and cold, and he turned her down without any room for compromise.

“Dig deep and discover why you feel that sense of longing” is a pretty strange thing to say given that Muriel is already aware of both her role/identity, and the truth of the world (from Ch 208). So either Tesilid doesn’t know that she knows (doubtful, I’m pretty sure that’s why he’s so angry with her), or he knows that she knows and is just trying to tell her in a roundabout way that he knows she knows. Basically going “ ‘sense of longing’ :))) b**** do you mean your duty to make me go through shit :))) I see what you’re doing and don’t pull that shit again.” I love seeing Tesilid be rude while still being polite on the surface.

Now I’m going to go out on a limb and make guesses about what Muriel and Tesilid’s dynamic was like before Tesilid discovered the truth, based on the info we already have. I think the clues lie in what sets Ailette and Muriel apart in Tesilid’s eyes. As usual, I'm not going to assume that Muriel falls into the stereotype of The Villainness Bitch because let's be real Irinbi is a better writer than to write flat characters like that.

Obviously the biggest difference is that Tesilid was already in love with Ailette from the 300th dungeon up until the present. It’s why Tesilid never fell in love during all the regressions, and it was enough for 117th to keep playing nice and not kill himself right away when he first woke up. But this just means Tesilid keeps her around and doesn’t necessarily mean that he would trust her.

The more fruitful parts imo are when Tesilid is surprised or heartened by what Ailette does, and which probably got him to start trusting that Ailette won’t be a repeat of Muriel. Instances include but definitely are not limited to:

her beating up the bandits at the harpy dungeon

her beating up the Knights of Worship in his stead

her worry when he came out of the Library fight half-dead

her repeated and complete trust in him to look after her in her post-Divine Advent state

Based on this I feel like it’s reasonable to suggest that Muriel:

1) Never took revenge on those who wronged Tesilid 

This could possibly be played off as some “Saint-like” demeanour where you try to get people to stop fighting instead of punishing injustice or being biased towards/protecting your own people; some kind of duty to the world generally instead of just to him. This seems like it’d play well into pre-regression Tesilid’s self-sacrificing nature and philosophy, where he thought nothing of his own suffering.

2) Never expressed worry and distress as sincerely as Ailette does whenever Tesilid gets hurt?

Honestly Muriel I’m disappointed, this seems like a low bar. But then again, Ailette is very obsessed with Tesilid so maybe it was the intensity that caught Tesilid off guard

3) Never fully trusted Tesilid when she was vulnerable? 

This would makes sense because she can’t remember her past regressions – she never knows how Tesilid actually feels towards her. Tesilid could spend a regression just making her life a living hell if he so wished.

If Muriel really was like this towards Tesilid, then ngl it really was a miracle that OG!Tesilid fell in love with her at all. He probably had really low standards, which makes sense because, well, everyone else treated him worse. OG!Tesilid didn’t even have Hestio & Ephael getting angry on his behalf to put things into perspective. The whole world was gaslighting him and treating him the same way, like him being trodden upon was only natural, and Muriel might even have encouraged him to think that way too. It also really makes sense why Ailette absolutely hates Muriel’s guts, because in that case Muriel would have been doing even less than the bare minimum as a lover and would have been taking advantage of his good nature. 

It also would make sense why current!Tesilid never fell in love with her, and why he was so shocked when Ailette said his future self would. Like, fall in love with someone like that???? Really????? (Especially when Ailette promised to find him again????) (And assuming also that Hestio & Ephael managed to get him to have Some standards about the way he is treated by others by getting mad on his behalf many times over the years.)

Anyway it’s really funny how in the early 17th parts I quoted, Tesilid sounds like he would straight up kill Ailette if she made one wrong move. He must really hate Muriel, huh! I need Muriel to have her next appearance soon, I want to see this unfold.

TLDR; I think it’s likely that Muriel had veneer of kindness and sympathy but maybe subtly let Tesilid down in a lot of instances where it counted, or kept trying to convince him that him getting treated terribly by others was the natural way of things / that he should put up with that treatment. Her acting was probably good enough that Tesilid genuinely believed she could help him for a good long while, but also lacklustre enough that Tesilid never thought of her as a potential lover.

mystery solved!!! (<- didn’t even know there was a puzzle to begin with) (their history is probably going to be revealed in like 10 chapters anyway)

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

It is absolutely not a genuine critic as much as a petty personal grievance but i think vld's story didn't have enough ghosts in its narrative. (I am not talking about actual ghosts but the whole "haunting the narrative" Thing and I am not just talking about characters but the past itself as well). This is a show dealing with pain and war and death and tragedy that has been going on for 10,000 years it's story should be a goddamn haunted house.

The Castleship shouldn't have been a home, it should have instead invoked a deep sense of loneliness and dread because it's a place made for hundred's if not thousands of people long dead, not just 7.

The alien planets should be filled with ruins and remains long decayed. Dead cultures and long gone eras. It doesn't matter whether if a planet is whole or in pieces, it doesn't matter if it's creatures are living or dead, it doesn't matter it's people are resisting or enslaved, at the end it still haunted by the people and their lives and their cultures and their world, all killed and buried but never resting.

Why was Lotor's breaking point entering the rift and not the guilt of many many MANY Alteans who got killed because of his actions? Why didn't he see the faces of so many alteans who trusted and loved and cared for him in Allura? Why didn't he dream of their faces wretched in anger, despair, disgust, betrayal, and death as he lies to yet another person he claims to love?

Why in those ten thousand long years could Zarkon still manage to look Haggar in the eye, when he could clearly see the woman he truly loved and did all this for is not there? Why couldn't Haggar, in those same ten thousand years, see herself in the mirror and ever wonder who that woman is who stares back?

Like closest thing we had Honerva and Alfor, (and maybe Keith's parents if we are pushing it.)

[todusts]

also re:pyrrha and her death this is so autistic of me but i enjoy the way she haunts the narrative, haunts each character's every choice, in the same way adam haunts the narrative in the saw movies. her death propels the plot, yes, but it also provides strength to (and, generally, shows vulnerability in) the characters. ruby unlocks her silver eyes because of pyrrha, and uses her death (and summer's) to stand firm on her choices. jaune is shown affected by pyrrha most, and honestly, for good reason. she was his friend and teammate and realizing that she loved him the whole time and in a sense also died for him is hard. very hard! from her death onwards, he is always thinking about her. and it's not just her- nora and ren lost her too, after all. she was their friend too, she was loved by them too. it's even more personal for ren, however, because he's lost everything before. losing pyrrha is a stinging reminder of that but also another new wave of grief. he's lost his family but the universe didn't stop there; it took pyrrha from him too. who else is next? this is something that i think nora is also keenly aware of- it's why she's constantly trying to bring him to the present.

[cloudbends]

new pokemon episode!!!

[torchwood-99]

Can you please develop more on what in your opinion makes Éowyn originally doomed by the narrative? I agree with the idea, I'm just curious as to what traits or parts of her narrative makes her doomed according to you!

In her first scene, she comes across as almost spectral.

First time we see her, she's stood in the shadows behind a decaying old man and his creepy, snake like advisor. Her nickname, the White Lady, conjurs images of phantom "white ladies", which are staples of supernatural mythology, and are usually found in rural places, and are associated with tragic histories and unrequited/doomed love.

When she is dismissed, she leaves, she doesn't speak, but goes silently from the room, and she passes judgement on those she passes. She looks on Theoden with "cool pity", and recognises the power in Aragorn. A pale, voiceless, woman, dressed all in white, passing judgement on those before her, before silently gliding from the room, like a wraith or spirit.

To further reinforce the ghost like imager, she is cold; "thought her fair and cold, like a morning of pale spring that is not yet come into womanhood." She looks on Theoden after his recovery with neither joy or love but with "cool pity".

Whereas warmth usually holds connotations with life, the cold conjurs images of corpses and the grave. Even the use of "spring" in her description, a season associated with life, birth and new hope, is described as "pale". The combination of "spring" (life) and "pale" (death), conjures an image of something that is at once living and dead.

A lot of our view point characters look on her with unease. She is repeatedly described as "stern", and the only time that stern façade cracks is when she shows emotions that are discomforting for other characters.

Her hand shakes when she serves Aragorn the cup, and Aragorn senses her attraction and is deeply concerned about. The intensity of her desire, and Aragorn's unspoken unease, makes for an aura of discomfort and dread.

The only time Eowyn shows "life" is when she's trembling with passion for Aragorn, a passion unrequited, or when her eyes are sparkling with visions of war and death.

The first time her stern face truly cracks, and she lets the feelings show, is when she breaks down in tears, begging Aragorn to let her ride with him. She's either frozen or weeping.

Everyone who observes this is deeply distressed. They find it painful to watch a proud and stern woman break down in tears and beg, a sensation the reader shares with them.

Aragorn himself is deeply pained and troubled by his concern for Eowyn. 'Only those who knew him well and were near to him saw the pain that he bore.'

Aragorn later admits in the Houses of Healing that his concern for her haunted him after their parting, and that nothing caused him so much fear on the Paths of the Dead as his fear of what may come to her.

In the same chapter, Aragorn likens her to a lily. Lilies themselves have connotations of death, and also harken back to Elaine, the "lily maiden" who died of heartbreak after being forsaken by her love, Lancelot.

So Eowyn is a figure of death, despair and tragic love. She is white, cold, lily-like, and is looked on with grief by many who perceive her. And not just grief, but discomfort. They don't just notice her distress, but are distressed by her.

When Merry meets her, he notices she seems to have been weeping, an image that is uncomfortably at odds with her stern manner.

Even Theoden, who cannot be credited with being that tuned in to Eowyn's feelings, notices she is unhappy, asking her how she is, and commenting twice on her obvious distress.

When Merry meets her in her guise as Dernhelm, he shivers, because he feels he is looking at someone with neither hope nor will to live. Their journey to the Pelennor passes in silence. Eowyn is a solitary figure, cut off from all those around her, riding to her death.

This culminates in Eowyn laughing at the Witch King, who brings despair to all who face him, because at this point she has literally nothing to fear from him.

The scene in which she faces him is written as a death scene. She fights him valiantly, but his destruction seems to be her own, and the consequences of her apparent death (Eomer's reaction) are severe.

Her tragedy appears compounded when Theoden bids her farewell, unaware she was with him the entire time, which rather sums up his fond, yet blinkered attitude towards her. She gives her life defending the dignity of a man, who is only half-aware of her existence.

Eowyn is mourned. Eomer rages against the heavens at her passing, and the riders of Rohan speak of their regret that she followed them without knowing. She is carried alongside Theoden, and it is only Imrahil's sharp perception and respect for her beauty that causes him to notice she is still alive, taking them all, and us, by surprise. Up until this point, Eowyn has been doomed, and she seems to have met her doom, heroically so.

But there's still a spark of life in her, still a weak breath in her lungs, and that's enough for her to be saved, and taken to the Houses of Healing. It's just a faint sign of life, barely noticeable, but it's life, which means there's hope.

As we look into Eowyn's mindset, we begin to see why she is such a tragic figure.

The first time she is addressed by name, she is being sent from the room. Her orders to take charge of the people of Rohan, which should be something of an hour of triumph and honour for her, feels almost insulting, in how her uncle would rather throw his crown to the people to take for themselves, than name her as an heir after Eomer, and then forgets she is even a part of their house, until Hama reminds him.

Our final scene of Eowyn in Two Towers is of her as a solitary figure, left alone to guard an empty hall, watching as the men ride away beneath their sparkling spears, a striking contrast between the camaraderie and fellowship we witness between the men riding out together.

That Eowyn is loved and respected by many, as revealed by Hama and her ability to safely lead the people to Dunharrow, despite their reluctance, compounds the tragedy, because she is not entirely alone and overlooked, but the people she wishes to been seen by, the people she holds in esteem, Theoden and Aragorn, rejects. Theoden, unthinkingly, by forgetting her worth until it is spelled out for him, and Aragorn in being unable to accept her love, or her offer of service.

Eowyn's driving conflict, the one that seems central to her character, is not even with the villains who everyone else is banding together to fight. She is part of that fight against them, but her personal struggles stem just as much from her conflict with her own family, her own people and her own society, as they do with the threat of Mordor. Victory over the Mordor does not necessarily mean victory for her, we know for Eowyn to be spared her doom, she can't just be rescued from the enemy that everyone else is fighting. She is trapped, caged, and would rather ride out and die, than live to see herself fade.

“What do you fear, lady?" [Aragorn] asked. "A cage," [Éowyn] said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”

That whole exchange between Aragorn and Eowyn reveals that above all else, beneath her stern facade and dreams of valour, Eowyn is absolutely seething. She is burning up with rage and frustration, and it is not just her enemies she is raging at, but her allies.

Her narrative starts to turn in the Houses of Healing. Not only is Aragorn able to bring her back to life, but it's clear that despite her unhappiness, Eomer's love for her is still a comfort and a source of happiness. When she wakes up, her first words are joy of seeing her brother there. For a character who until this point has been a figure of sorrow and loneliness, for her to speak so instinctively of joy at the presence of another is momentous.

This joy seems well justified, as not only do we witness the extent of Eomer's love, we also see a change in Eomer, and his perception of his sister.

Her sufferings, and the causes of her sufferings, are finally acknowledged. But they aren't acknowledged as some ephemeral, intangible thing, caused by a broken heart and some vague sense that she's just "doomed", but as the result of a set of specific circumstances that naturally caused her great feelings of despair and hopelessness. Eowyn isn't tragic because "she's Eowyn and she's doomed", but because of Grima's manipulation, and the constraints inflicted on her because of her sex.

That Gandalf compares Eomer's lot to Eowyn's, and points out to Eomer the freedoms and opportunities he had which she did not, further emphasises that it was Eowyn's circumstances that made her so tragic.

Eowyn wasn't "just doomed" and Eomer wasn't "just not doomed". Had their roles been reversed, Eomer could have ended up in similar straits.

Eomer hears this explanation, and a change occurs. He looks on Eowyn differently, and starts rethinking their whole lives together.

In the causes of her suffering being recognised, there is now some hope for her recovery. Her "ailment" has been "diagnosed", and it's much easier to find a "treatment" and a "cure", when there is a "diagnosis". There's a practical solution to Eowyn's suffering, and the person closes to her is brought one step nearer to seeing it.

Eowyn remains in the Houses of Healing, something she sees as frustrating, unnecessary and pointless. She doesn't want to live, she doesn't expect to heal, she thinks herself fit enough to ride and die, and that's what she wants to do.

Eowyn still sees herself as doomed by the narrative, but the narrative and the cast no longer see her as such. She is kept in the Houses, she is encouraged to rest and to heal, she is encouraged by Faramir to have hope, and gradually she starts to thaw.

She also becomes more gentle and vulnerable. Her youth is dwelled on, and her former concerns about living forever in a cage for a moment lapse as she focusses on a more trivial worry that Faramir thinks she's childish. When she scales down her request from permission to ride to battle, to be allowed to walk the gardens and look east, she speaks as a "maiden, young and sad."

In becoming more vulnerable, she becomes more approachable. She is no longer the ice maiden, a spectre, but a living person, with worries large and small, and Faramir is able to smile at her and offer her consolation.

The requests she makes during her "thawing", to look east and not be confined to her bed, signals a slight, perhaps unnoticed by her, return to hope. East is, as Faramir remarks, where their hopes lie. In looking east, she is looking towards hope. Furthermore, her second request, to not be confined to her bed, is something that Faramir can provide a practical solution for. She can have a chamber facing east, and she can have freedom to walk the gardens.

He almost speaks to her like a conciliator, or a negotiator. He talks her down from asking for death, to having a chamber looking east, and freedom to walk the gardens and take in the sun, in return to her agreeing to 'stay in this house in our care, lady, and take your rest," . That he phrases it gives the sense she has agency, he isn't saying "you will stay, and you will have a chamber that looks east, and you will walk in the sun", but instead he says if she agrees to stay, this is what they can do for her.

Therefore, the choice to stay, the choice to walk in the sun, the choice to heal, is put back into her hands, and in accepting Faramir's offer, she accepts the chance to heal.

Both Faramir and Aragorn are struck by pity when they meet Eowyn, but Aragorn's pity makes him hold her at arm's length. He maintains a distance between them, he turns from her and rides away. When he does try to "reason" with her, he only makes things worse, twisting the nail into Eowyn's frustrating circumstances.

Faramir feels pity for Eowyn, but he also feels kinship. She isn't some strange, removed creature. He doesn't look at her and see someone who is doomed. Nor does his treatment of her isolate her, as the treatment of so many others have.

He speaks of the pair of them as a unit, right from the start. He notes that both of them are "prisoners" of the healers, he tells her that both of them will be able to fight the end, if it comes to them, if they rest, and that the hours of waiting are something both of them must endure, and that both of them have passed through a shadow, and in from kinship, he expresses a belief that he might find comfort in her presence.

Eowyn's isolation and lack of agency are key causes in her despair, so it is understandable how this man, who makes efforts to understand her, to get to know, to befriend her and to make a connection with her, is such a balm, and manages to cause such a turn around in her arc.

Through her friendship, and later romance, with Faramir, she opens up, and arguably becomes more emotionally resilient, neither freezing her emotions, "cold and proud", or breaking down, weeping or begging. She shows uncertainty and fear in more moderate, casual ways, instead of pushing them down until they burst out of her.

However, she is still Eowyn. She is still proud (Faramir describes her as looking queenly), she is still proud, strong willed and sharp tongued. Even in her happiness, when she agrees to marry Faramir, she teases him for his people's snobbery, and she refuses the Warden's attempts to "release" her into Faramir's care, by instead asking to stay at the Houses of Healing.

She doesn't go from Ice Maiden to Fragile Flower. Instead, in grasping her future by the hands, in choosing for herself what she will do and where she will go, in deciding her own fate, her own role (that of healer), she shows that she is as strong willed as ever, and Faramir, who re-iterates twice; when speaking of his plans to marry her and go to Ithilien with her, that they will only do so if she is willing.

Eowyn also makes it clear to Faramir that while she will return to him, she has other duties and priorities that will keep her. That is, the rebuilding of the Mark. She has to go, she will come back. A striking contrast to her first introduction, when Eowyn is told "go", then told "stay", as it pleases those around her. She now has freedom of movement, she now chooses when to go, when to stay and when to return.

That Eowyn speaks of how she must go back, must look on her country and help her brother, also indicates that Eowyn sees her own worth and importance. She values herself and feels valued.

At Theoden's funeral/Eomer's coronation, Eowyn plays an integral role in the ceremonies. She presents Eomer with a golden cup and gives the signal for the cups to be raised to drink to the new king. This in itself indicates the esteem in which Eomer holds Eowyn. However, she has arguably been a cupbearer before, and it hasn't been a role that has brought her much joy. While it is a position of prestige, and shows she is a valued member of the household, it's not enough. Luckily, here, she isn't just there to oversee the celebrations of others, but to be celebrated herself.

Eomer ends the ceremonies by announcing her betrothal to Faramir. His justification for doing so is because of Theoden's love for Eowyn, which he uses to argue that Theoden wouldn't begrudge Eowyn's announcement being made at his funeral. He also notes how great the gathering before him is, greater than has ever been seen before. That Eomer wants to announce his sister's happy news before such an assembly, speaks of how much he wants to honour her.

Eomer certainly appears to have taken Gandalf's words on board. When he makes the announcement of Eowyn's betrothal, he says that Faramir asked for her hand, and Eowyn granted it, full willing.

He doesn't say anything about whether or not he gives his permission, (as her king and head of family, he probably was asked, but considering Eowyn and Faramir made their plans to wed with total confidence, you get the impression this was a matter of form, they were going to marry, Eomer disagreeing would be a complication, not a defeat), but instead emphasises how Eowyn has agreed to marry Faramir, full willing.

The final image we have of Eowyn can be a foil of that image of we have of her at the end of her first chapter in Two Towers. Once more, she is bidding farewell to a loved one as they depart Edoras. However, this time, she is embracing Merry before he leaves. She gives him a gift, that speaks of the bond of friendship that is now between them, and a remembrance of the time they rode together to battle, comrades in arms.

Compared to her formal parting from Theoden in Two Towers, this parting is full of warmth and intimacy. She and Eomer both hug Merry farewell, and when Merry leaves, Eowyn is left with both Eomer and Faramir, the two people she loves best, Faramir himself putting off his own duties in Gondor, to be near to Eowyn as she does her duty in Rohan.

Even the parting of Eowyn, Eomer and Merry, which could be a sad thing, is softened with Tolkien concluding "and so they parted for that time".

Their parting isn't forever, it's just for the moment. They will see each other again. Compared to the jarring juxtaposition of the brotherly army riding out, to Eowyn left alone to guard an empty hall, which created a sense of dread and foreboding, the final lines here at this parting fill us with warmth, with them all embracing, and leaves us with a promise that this parting isn't forever, and that the friends will all be reunited soon.

So, to summarise, Eowyn at first appears "doomed by the narrative." She is cold, stern, ghost like, and carries an aura of tragedy and dread.

Her doom she seems to carry through to fruition, and she is mourned accordingly, but the smallest spark of life remains in her, and in the causes of her despair being acknowledged, in the people in her life reaching out to her, making an effort to understand her, and in her and those around her making practical changes, the characters actively defy the narrative that has apparently doomed her, and together, through their combined efforts, Eowyn escapes her fate

Eowyn feels hopeless and trapped, and the people around her struggle to relate, and in fact many of them contribute; some un-knowingly, some knowingly (fucking Grima), to her depression. It first looks like a force greater than herself (the narrative) is causing her despair, and it cannot be overcome, but will instead lead to her destruction.

But actually, there is hope, and there are practical measures that can be put into place, to help her overcome her despair. Medical treatment, a support network, and a greater understanding from herself and from others of what she is going through, enable her to defy the narrative and find happiness.

[absolutedestinyapocalypsse]

When Harrow is very obviously grieving, (and also when he wants to gaslight her) John tells her to make soup about it, to focus on the little things, to take it day by day. When asked to help with the lobotomy, Ianthe tells Harrow that the worst is over- she's a lyctor now, and she should try and move forward instead of sticking herself permanently in limbo. These are not terrible pieces of advice to give a grieving person; if actually practiced, they might even be helpful. Except for Harrow, they are the absolute worst things you could possibly say.

None of what happened to her should have happened, of course she doesn't want to accept it and progress further into lyctorhood. Everything is terrifying and new to her, of course she won't find peace in "the little things". John is actively trying to fucking KILL HER, of course SOUP isn't going to help! Like obviously the general grief advice isn't gonna work for Harrow because she's in a psychological horror book and is being haunted and is grieving jesus christ herself, but also, does it really work that well ever? Does being told to move on actually ever in any circumstance help the person move on? Or does it just make them feel more broken, more inadequate, more lonely?

Sure, focusing on little things that give you joy and trying not to ruminate on the past are on paper productive ways to cope, but its also the LAST thing a grieving person actually wants to do. Telling someone to simply forget about what they went through and who they lost, to just focus on the boring and isolating minutae of everyday life instead of the world-ending tragedy they've experienced feels impossible. To do it would be like betraying yourself, and the people you lost.

Most of the book is Harrow knowing that certain things would probably make her feel better if she would just try, being told constantly that if she would just do x y or z, things would fall into place and she would be less broken. She doesn't even remember WHY she feels like this, but she does, and it's all-consuming. Lyctorhood is the scale by which her "normality" is measured, and she is failing SPECTACULARLY. She refuses to set aside Gideon's humanity and significance in her life to use her as a battery, and that makes her weak and a failure in the eyes of the other saints.

But by failing to move on, she ends up actually preserving (??? who actually knows man) Gideon's life. For the classic grief advice to not only be unhelpful to her personally also ACTIVELY MALICIOUS/ HARMFUL PLOT WISE is such a great 180 to me. Instead of a "grieving character comes to terms with loved one's death for the Greater Good and moves on because its the Right Thing To Do" narrative, we get a kind of bereavement revenge fantasy. Harrow's complete refusal to move on stops Gideon from actually fully dying. And she does makes soup, not to cope with the constant terror she's living under, but to EXPLODE her tormentor from the inside out. These things probably aren't "good" for Harrow, or for anyone dealing with grief. They do not make life easier for her, and they do not make her a lyctor, but they are honest and they are SO satisfying. Having the power to bring back the person you lost, even at great personal detriment and to explode everyone who hurt you with your mind is i think the perfect power for someone in mourning and i love that htn let Harrow have it. There is no greater good to be served, no larger moral about loss to be told. The objective is not to see Harrow heal from loss, it's to see her by sheer determination and force of will, refuse to fucking lose.

[ghostsinmachine]

putting nsfw goggles on for a sec but

idk if this is just a trope that was a lot more common in older hockeyrpf fics bc i haven't seen it around as much recently BUT. would like to see a fic about will and mack going out (maybe while in quebec bc no need for fakes lol) and goading each other into picking up girls...

... and there is a girl that's interested in mack at first, but oh, wait, who's that prettyboy friend of yours you were talking to earlier?? and mack's like. utterly dumbfounded and also extremely humiliated bc uh what. [mack voice] am i literally getting turned down for smitty. will is never going to let him live this down. this is terrible.

and the girl tells mack to invite will over and theoretically mack should just cut his losses but for some reason he does. red-faced and kind of cut up about it, he goes across the bar and mumbles something about the girl at will. and will's like ??? what do you mean she wants me. and he's a little smug about it but he can see how mack's ego is all bruised so he's like. all right i can play it chill for now but, u know. a hot girl is a hot girl. and so he follows mack over to the girl, and mack's like. um. here u go. this is smitty. have fun I Guess.

and she's like okay i think you misunderstood baby i want Both Of You. and then it's all like. record scratch. freeze frame. what??????

also bc will is way more dialed, he very clearly realizes that mack's kind of just blue-screened. he knows that mack doesn't have a ton of experience and he doesn't either but he has had a 3some before (ryan leonard haunts the narrative as per). and he turns to the girl and is like "can we have a sec?" and she very graciously gestures for them to go have their little gab sesh.

when they're alone again mack is like "what the fuck dude i'm not having a threesome with you that'd be like. gay" and will is all like. [scoffs] "it's not fucking gay to fuck a girl together lol we won't even touch each others dicks." and mack is all, shrilly, "yeah but it's still fucking weird." and will very smarmily goes "you're just chicken. and also inexperienced. bc it's not even that crazy" which of course makes all higher function in mack's brain go offline now that will's just triggered his insane competitive hindbrain where he has to win at everything, even the stupid shit. and it's all [mack voice] wait you sound like you've done this before.

and will is all false confidence: "yeah duh" except he hasn't touched that memory of him and leno hooking up with a girl with a ten foot pole since it happened. bc then he would have to confront some very uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. and he doesn't want to do that.

now mack's fired up and he's like. "okay fine. i'm down if you're down." and will is all like "okay i'm down."

and they go home with this girl and run a train on her, except. obviously this is a night of realizations. and sometimes it feels like she's not even there, it's just will and mack in the room. at some point while she's otherwise occupied, they make eye contact and mack nearly nuts right then and there. and will can see how far down mack's flush goes. and it's all just. oh noooooo. oh no no no.

[comradekarin]

Zuko encouraged katara to murder Yon Rah. Aang didn't want Katara to do something that she would regret. Just because Toph is anti authority doesn't mean she would support katara killing someone.

zuko didn’t encourage katara to do anything of the sort. he didn’t tell her what to do. he actively went to talk to her loved one to inquire about her anger about him because he knew there was something deeper at play (which, ironically, zuko is the first character to do so with katara without being promoted to). aang didn’t want katara to do something that she would regret…. nowhere did katara claim that she would murder that man. and imposing forgiveness on to her, comparing kya’s murder to appa being stolen (which, also ironic considering how he freaked the fuck out on her and toph and was never required by the narrative to say sorry to either of them), and being patronizing is not having someone’s best interest at heart. katara didn’t just lose her mother—she lost part of her self, of her childhood. katara has been haunted by the image of her mother dying for years, and finally she has the chance to confront the man who did it and only zuko stood by her! even her own brother compared her to a madman that tried to murder innocents in his pursuit of “justice”. you would have forgot sokka was katara’s brother the way he was acting like aang’s cheerleader that episode. but ofc it was just big bad katara that needed to say sorry for what she said, right? its just stupid that this was one of the most important moments of katara’s character arc and no one stood by her except for zuko.

aside from the fact that toph (and actually ALL of the gaang) have a body count… toph would have stood by katara because that’s her friend first of all. nevermind how most of their earlier issues with each other wasn’t just personality clashes but the fact that katara babied tf out of aang. but we have an episode where katara is being dogged on by aang and arguably sokka and you make toph a no show? SUKI a no show? and yon rha isn’t just some random dude, he’s a murderer and the cause of katara’s worst nightmare. but the fact that aang thought she was going to do something bad/was going to forgive before she even went and he turned out to be wrong (katara didn’t kill because she has her own moral compass and it’s a kids show duh and she even tells him she’d never forgive that man) tells me everything I need to know.

insinuating anything else tells me you’ve fallen for the misogynistic narrative that katara needed aang or zuko to tell her how to feel or act about one of the most important moments of her life. she needed someone to be there for her, and it gets this fandom so upset when you truthfully say it was only zuko who was.

[youcanautogeneratethese]

Arcane is a tragedy, but S2 isn't a very good one.

So, I've seen people dismissing criticism on the idea of Arcane being a tragedy, the assumption being that the people who criticize S2 just wanted everything to be sunshine and rainbows. This doesn't make a lot of sense since the same people liked S1 which was also a tragedy.

But here's the thing...

The tragedies in a tragedy should have a narrative purpose. It shouldn't just be done for the sake of it. This is a story after all.

Let's compare the big tragedy of S1 to the big tragedy (Vander and Isha dying) of S2.

Season 1,

Powder's bomb causes more damage than she expected and instead of saving her friends, ends up killing them as well as Vander. This tragedy informs the character of everyone involved going forward.

-Vi lashes out at Powder in anger, calling her a jinx, which traumatizes Powder to the point she internalizes the identity and takes the name Jinx, permanently altering her character.

-Powder is found by Silco, the tragedy of the situation reminds him of being betrayed by Vander which stirs some compassion and prompts him to take her in. This kickstarts his entire character arc.

-This informs us as to why Vi wants to save Jinx so badly, beyond her being her sister. Because she feels guilty for what she said and blames herself for Powder turning into Jinx because of it.

-When we get peeks into Jinx's mind we see that she's haunted by images of her dead friends as well as Vi, so the tragedy continues to make her suffer for years going forward.

In other words, the tragedy was brutal but necessary for the plot.

Season 2,

Vander is lost to the monster inside, Warwick, and Isha randomly decides on a heroic sacrifice that gets her killed. The impact?

-Jinx is depressed and goes to blow herself up, then doesn't. Going right back to how she was before the tragedy occurred.

That's it, Vi doesn't seem to care about Vander or Isha. She's not even that invested in Jinx's obvious depression. Instead, she's portrayed as being dumber than a pile of rocks, failing to even pick on what happened.

-Isha is never mentioned again and the depression that Jinx feels could just as easily be because of Vander. It's like she never even existed.

-Jayce, who started it all by smashing Viktor to pieces isn't all that bothered, and no one is upset with him for causing the tragedy through his actions.

So, what was the point of this tragedy? I guess the Warwick thing could still work because he comes back and has a fight with them, but neither of the sisters even speak of it until the actual fight scene in act 3 commences.

Conclusion

Just because something is a tragedy doesn't mean there shouldn't be narrative importance to the tragedies that occur. If you don't have the time or will to tackle a new tragedy, then don't include and stay focused on the aftermath of the old one.

[bitchfitch]

I'm increasingly thinking that Erasyl's (much older relative) was actually either his great grandfather or his great great grandfather bc, like. What could Possibly be funnier than this dude dating his grandma's shitty ex?

So, Conrí and Gwyn went through a few major story iterations before I settled on their current 'Isekai but it's about a giant wolf man trying to get home to his kids while an old wizard and the wizard's roommate slow him down' but I still have all of my original draft fragments and I found one of them again last night and have been kinda. picking at it. Because there was something There.

These two rival kings with a long standing feud between their families. As different as two men can physically be from each other. Notions of honor and revenge and grudgingly respecting the other despite all the bad blood. There's a Vibe.

A massive wolven monster in a snow storm, its fur just as white as the snow. a young man in red who has Everything, and everything to lose.

But I couldn't make it work. for over a year, I couldn't Find It. the angle. The thing that would make this worth telling.

But Finally. FINALLY. I've found the three things that needed to change to make the story work.

1. They don't meet as equals. The wolven king is aged and settled into his throne, his territory thrives under his reign. The human one is young, his crown still sized to fit his father instead of him, his country is at war and he knows they have no hope of winning it if he can't find an ally to fight with them.

2. The wolven king is still an arrogant cock of a man, but his cruelness is heavily tempered by the fact he's only mean when people are looking. The newly crowned kinglet isn't who has wronged Wolf King even if he is going to use him to get back at the rest of the family. Human King's own arrogance is now tempered by his lack of experience, he acts the part but is fully aware that he doesn't know what he's doing and needs guidance from someone who does.

3. The bad blood is that once upon a time Wolf King had a Wolf Queen, and she dumped him for Human King's (much older relative) bc Wolf King sucks and to this day he Still believes she was forced to leave him and not that she just got tired of his shit and left 100% of her own accord.

I haven't come up with names for the secondary and tertiary cast yet but Wolf King is Maelgwn, and human king is Erasyl. When I have time and brain space for it I'm drawing them and bitching about having to name them that instead of Conrí and Gwyn. bc like. These were the characters Those names were chosen for originally and they fit these guys better than the Isekai guys.

[oriley42]

Serious question but no need to answer if you don’t want to

I see a lot of talk about Amber’s portrayal being sexist in the show, but I’m not quite sure why? To me her motives always seemed really well-defined (high pressure = “I’m only worthy when I’m successful”) so she puts on this sharky mask with a feminine facade so she is feminine enough to get a certain amount of approval but never shows how much she cares (which could be used against her but also could be used to undermine her “oh you’re too soft”). I thought the show did an excellent job of showing a mask for her

But a lot of people talk about 00s sexism and how it impacts her characterization. The sexism… Is it that she gets called a cutthroat bitch? Or how her story revolves around a man after she leaves House’s team? Is it the fridging?

Any of those could be it I guess but it just sounds like you and others are talking about something a little more fundamental to her personhood so I thought I’d ask if I’m missing anything.

Very interesting question! I think you're getting at exactly the trickiness of the issue, which is that sexism always operates systemically. It's not that any key aspect of Amber's character "is" misogynist, it's that every aspect of her character is automatically filtered through a lens of sexism.

In today's world where "bitch" has been very de-clawed, turned into a more casual and way less gendered insult that's used without cruel intention in queer slang, I think it's hard to understand just how violent the term was--and was meant to be--in the aughts. House in canon is not calling Amber a bitch in a cute, almost self-deprecating, friendly way (though I think it's valid to re-write it that way in fic to defuse the term!). He is calling her a bitch to contain and belittle and dehumanize her. We see the term mobilized this way against Cuddy in 5 to 9 as well: calling a woman a bitch was an extremely powerful rhetorical tool to turn any dangerously competent, brilliant, threateningly accomplished woman back into a harmless, debased, controllable object. So, "CB" reflects how easily the fact that Amber is the "female House" gets turned against her--it doesn't mean she's an eccentric genius like him, it means she's an evil copycat who needs to be put down. And this kind of structural logic applies to her whole characterization--it doesn't matter that House does it all more frequently and worse, if she does it, it's unacceptable because she's a woman. (There are parallels here with how racism means that when Foreman acts like House, he also gets the axe instead of the narrative bending over backwards to make what he did alright.) That's why she was fired, after all!

And her death. Woof. Classic case of killing a woman for man-pain. Everything supposedly about her death is actually about how her violent destruction can be used to fuel Wilson and House's character arcs. The narrative is occasionally conscious of this, for example, Wilson saying "none of you even liked Amber" is an almost metatextual reminder of how cruelly she was disenfranchised in every way (including the sexism of her trying to "defect" to the men's team early on, having no female friends, because unlike House who has so many people orbiting him, she is truly alone). Comparing her death to Kutner's is instructive: Kutner gets a whole episode that's about characters desperately trying to know him better. They trace their relationships towards him. Amber, on the other hand, is nearly absent from her own death. The characters trace away from her and towards the way male characters feel (Wilson's loss, House's guilt). Amber becomes just an imagined figure of House's guilt. Even her ghost is not her own. (Though I think many fans do a more feminist read and reclaim the way she haunts the narrative--but imho that would be a negotiated if not fully oppositional reading, to use Stuart Hall's decoding/encoding terms.)

One easy way to see that gendered difference is in how the show refers to these characters after death. Kutner is always "Kutner," never just "House's dead fellow" or rarely "our dead colleague." Amber is often referred to as "Wilson's dead girlfriend." Kutner is his own person, Amber rhetorically gets reduced to an object belonging to a man.

In conclusion: sexism operates structurally, which can make it hard to identify! And one of the funny effects of contemporary fandom doing so much good work to un-fridge women and give marginalized female characters richer personalities and more chances to grow is that canon's intended message of sexism gets obscured. Which, is awesome? Keep up the good work! Let's make misogyny unintelligible 🎉

[npdkondraki]

Can I hear the 4 paraghraph essay abt why kondraki is the most repressed woman alive im genuily very interested

ok starting off strong; her entire personality hinges on her overperformance of masculinity. she is violent, overprotective, and incredibly arrogant, all traits that she has picked up from both the men around her and the men she saw on tv. her entire worldview is centered around the idea that if she is not uncaring, aggressive, self-centered, and spiteful, then she isn't just less of a man, but less of a person, less of an individual. despite being self-centered, she despises everything about herself. she hates how violent she is, she hates how cruel she is, she hates how she doesn't even care about anyone around her.

she perpetuates a cycle of hating everything "being a man" stands for by traumatizing herself, and the traumatization only makes her more violent, more "man-like" in her eyes. she uses her perceived masculinity as a shield to hide behind any sort of self-reflection, she's tricked herself into believing that she IS a man and she IS better for it. she believes that if she outperforms every man around her, then nobody can question her manhood, meaning she doesn't have to question her manhood. she doesn't even refuse to think about it, she just is so deeply caught up in her own narrative that she doesn't realize she's repressing everything.

she views womanhood in a deeply misogynistic way, purposefully. she views anyone that she deems a "non-man" as weak, perceptible to violence, perceptible to being hurt, perceptible to emotion. it's both a product of the way that she was raised, and a way for her to cope and deny any feelings of being a woman. she is arrogant, she is violent, she is overly masculine, and she is not weak. she desperately makes both herself and everyone around her see herself as anything but a traditional woman, going out of her way to get into fights and arguments as a form of dominance.

kondraki views the very act of being feminine as a joke, something to be laughed at, to be made fun of, because it is so utterly ridiculous in her own eyes that anyone would want to be weak. she is incapable of separating "vulnerability" and "being a woman" from eachother, firmly believing them to go hand-in-hand. during her recounting of the 113 incident, she talks of it extremely fondly, almost dream-like, calling herself a "pretty princess" and saying how gorgeous she felt. this is played for laughs, even by herself. she plays it off like a joke, all while obviously being deeply fond of the experience. throughout the entire post, she speaks wistfully of being a woman, like it's some faint dream that she woke up from and could never hope to achieve. she clarifies towards the end that, after the effects had worn off, she was deeply depressed again. it's a deeply vulnerable post on her own part, whether she plays it for jokes or not.

one of the only times she allows herself to be vulnerable, to express interest in anything besides her over masculine persona that she has adapted over the years, is when she is talking about being a woman. it is overwhelmingly obvious that it has deeply effected her. it was, quite literally, the "prettiest she's ever felt". and that's the thing, it Was. past-tense. this is not something she has kept up. it is a deep secret she has hidden away. she allowed herself to be feminine, to be vulnerable and weak and every other word she has told herself women are, and it haunts her. again, she speaks of it so fondly, but it still haunts her. it's a nagging thought in the back of her head that she is not a man, that she is not safe, that she is vulnerable, that she is weak. and so she hides it, locks it away in a deep part of her that she refuses to look at, and she laughs at it, laughs at herself, implies she is ridiculous to even be thinking like this, allowing herself to be vulnerable and give away some part of herself that she has vowed to never release. she is arrogant, and she is mean, and she is cruel, and all of these things wind back into her own self-perception.

tldr kondraki hates herself and the 113 post is a deeply vulnerable thing for her to ever admit and she hates herself sooo deeply for it

[manicpixiefelix]

he wanted to be in love (but you got in the way) // epilogue

{ head, heart, hand. masterpost }

Summary: Oliver is haunted by what he's done to get his happy ending in Felix's arms. His guilt is only made worse when he meets the first member of your family to actually remind him of you. Unfortunately, he does not find it to get better from there.

{ context; please read he wanted to be in love (but you got in the way) first }

Need to Know: They/Them. Explicitly NB Reader. FWB!Reader/Felix. Reader is from a well off family but has pretty much been adopted by the Cattons. YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD IN THIS ONE, but you do get to haunt the narrative. congratulations?

Warnings: discussions of death/overdose, lots of guilt, manipulative oliver, felix being upset, vaguely unhealthy oliver/felix, lotsa angst, oliver quick reckoning with the sunk-cost fallacy.

A/N: 6828 words. first, i don't usually do part 2s when i say something is a oneshot, so this is a rare occurrence. secondly im sorry this is almost 7k there's something wrong with my brain i think. thirdly bro, bro, listen to me; ANGST. HURT NO COMFORT. HURT NO COMFORT. it's soft in the middle THE SOFTNESS IS A LIE. ITS GONNA HURT ALL THE WAY DOWN (apart from nana i love her nd i hope you will too)

TAGLIST IN COMMENTS!! // TAGLIST ALWAYS OPEN ! (just message or comment to be added)

----

One hour and fifty three minutes.

Rounded up, because all things considered, he should round it up, that's two hours.

Two hours. Like the blink of an eye in the scope of a whole life. But a very long time when you sit and count it out.

One hundred and twenty minutes. Seven thousand, two hundred seconds. He's always counting two hours, seeing exactly how long it feels like, how he can fill that amount of time. Seconds pass like a steady heartbeat.

He can do a lot in two hours.

Oliver tries to occupy himself nowadays more than ever, and really tries not to be alone, but it's hard. Farleigh left for Oxford. Venetia, before she decided to backpack across Europe and find herself, wouldn't let anyone touch her anymore.

Oliver doesn't like leaving Felix alone, but sometimes he has to be. You're laying cold in a family crypt somewhere next to a grandfather you never knew, and while Elspeth and Sir James don't comment on it, they both scowled when your parents sprung the announcement on everyone at the funeral.

Felix spends a lot of time alone at the edge of the maze. He's making a fairy garden where you had waited. Sometimes he'll drive into town without telling anyone, and come back with quaint, second-hand miniatures to add. It's beautiful, shining with greens and golds when the setting sun hits it just right.

So Oliver finds time to occupy himself, when he's alone and all he can think about is you sitting by the maze. You laying by the maze. You alive when he'd run from the maze. And the two hours that followed.

Sometimes he leans out of his window and shouts to the gardeners so far away they look like ants; even at this distance, his voice carries, and he sees them turn, search for him, ask if he's okay. He is, and he apologises, and he think about how far his voice carries.

On occasion, out of the blue, he'll lift Felix up when he hugs him, able to get his feet off the ground as Felix wriggles and clutches him out of surprise. Of course Felix lifts him with ease in return, spins him around, but that's not the point. Oliver is stronger than he looks; he wonders if he could lift you, could carry you far, if he could have dragged you if it had come to it.

Some nights he wakes up in a fright, your rapid heart rate beneath his fingers and he swears he could hear you whispering for help amid your shallow breathing. Please. Pleading. Begging. You were alive when he'd left you. He presses two finger to Felix's pulse point beside him, and tries to calm his breathing, to focus on Felix's slow, steady heartbeat.

And some days he sneaks into the computer room and curses how long webpages take to load when he looks up statistics on overdoses. Symptoms. Niche forums where he can learn what it felt like from survivors. People luckier than you. Their words, their stories, the recollections of those horrifying sensations stick with him, even as he diligently erases any trace of his browsing history.

And he thinks about how fucking long two hours is.

"Nan's coming over later," Felix tells Oliver idly one Sunday afternoon, "we're having tea of you'd like to join us." They're laying out in the grass, Oliver in the grass finding shapes in the clouds, Felix on his side, chewing on the stick of a lollypop he'd finished an hour ago and gently tracing abstract patterns on Oliver's chest.

"I thought you said your granny haunted Saltburn," when Oliver looks at Felix, he still can't help the way his heartrate picks up. Felix Catton touching him in the most gentle, caring way; he'd never stop feeling lucky for getting here, and never forget what he did to earn it.

Felix's gaze moves with his fingertips, up Oliver's warm, bare chest, twisting two fingers in the delicate chain around his throat. He looks pensive; but shakes his head after a beat.

"Different nan," he says distractedly, plastic straw trapped between his teeth. He tugs the chain experimentally, like he's forgotten it's attached to Oliver at all. He's in his head again; Felix is always in his head nowadays, but there's still often echoes of who he was, echoes of what Oliver has fallen for in the first place.

And he's finding himself falling more and more for this version of Felix too. So he tell himself that it was all worth it.

"Love," all these pet names - Love, Darling, Sweetheart - because if he slips up, tries to call him Fi, Oliver knows he'll only get ice in return, "is everything okay?" Oliver carefully reaches up to cover Felix's large, warm hand by his throat with his own. Felix meets his gaze, and gives a faint smile, an attempt to reassure him when he says he's fine. It doesn't work, but Oliver lets it go, and lets Felix tug him in by his chain for a kiss.

"Tea sounds lovely," Oliver murmurs against his lips.

There's something about this visit has Felix alive and buzzing the he way he hasn't in a very long time. Still he's quiet, but his eyes are bright as he follows behind the staff members setting up tea and biscuits in the garden. He goes through all the DVDs the family has and picks out a stack he thinks would be suitable, making sure they're all perfectly stacked by the DVD player. Oliver floats along behind him, and simply allows himself to admire Felix's energy.

Still, Felix finally takes a moment to breathe right as it becomes noon, and decides to have a bath to freshen up before his guest's arrival; two hours before she'd be here, Felix reminds him.

Two hours.

Oliver feels drawn to his own room. He doesn't allow himself to be alone in Saltburn often anymore, doesn't like the thoughts that crop up when he does. Perhaps it's a kind of punishment, a painful reminder, penance for what he's done.

There's a scrap of paper that he keeps tucked in a book in his nightstand, his own handwriting stuffed amongst a collection of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, words he'd clung to and scribbled out the minute he'd gotten the chance so he'd never forget them exactly.

From the coroner's report, according to Duncan and Sir James. Time of Death; around 2am. Cause; narcotics overdose, and there were signs of alcohol poisoning.

On the back, he'd written '12:07'.

"Mum and dad both say it was a tragic accident," Felix's voice in the dead of night, the night they'd gotten the full report, riddled with guilt and unspilled tears, betrays his disbelief regarding the sentiment. Felix doesn't talk about how his last words to you were shouted with anger. Felix doesn't talk about how your last words to him were a desperate plea for him through tears. Felix doesn't think that it was an accident; only Oliver knows that he's almost right, just not in the way he thinks. Or dreads. But he has to bite his tongue on the truth, and let the man he loves live with this unjust guilt.

The water starts loudly draining for the tub, and Oliver isn't sure how long he's been sitting on the edge of his bed with his eyes squeezed so tightly shut, but he scrambles to stuff the page back into the book, and toss it back into it's drawer. He can smile again, and admire whatever outfit Felix chooses for the rest of the day, and pretend like he doesn't feel your rapid heartbeat or hear your shallow breathing every time he touches that paper, like he had the night he left you.

With the hour drawing ever closer to two, Felix keeps checking his watch. The minute he deems it to be time, he gives up all pretence of small talk - which had been another thing severely lacking as of late - and snatches Oliver's hand, pulling him through the house. They even outstripped Duncan and the footmen by the door when there comes a firm knock. Its the only time Oliver has ever seen any of the Cattons open the doors for themselves.

And it's not Felix's grandmother.

"Hi, nan," Felix sounds so genuinely happy as he hugs the older woman at the door with a warm smile and your eyes.

Oliver feels like he's frozen, like he's seeing a ghost. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Duncan actually standing aside, giving Felix and your grandmother a quietly fond smile.

"I swear you get taller every time I see you, oh, my lovely boy," she says with a warm laugh that sounds so damn familiar, "or maybe I've been shrinking, you get to my age and people tend to do that," and Felix laughs, actually fucking laughs. Oliver realises it's been a long time since he'd heard Felix give a proper laugh like that. As the hug ends, Felix let's her tuck her arm in his as she continues, "just you wait, one day you'll only be six-foot tall." Another laugh, and Oliver can see how genuine and broad he's smiling, how his eyes shine when their gazes meet. She's surprisingly sprightly for her age, it seems. Oliver recognises your grandmother from your funeral, but hadn't made the connection at the time, so he's surprised when Felix goes to introduce him and her eyes sparkle with recognised.

"Nan, I don't know if you've been properly introduced, but this is -"

"Your Darling, Oliver," and it's said with such warmth; her hug feels almost like home, "you strange, little thing," she laughs, "it's called a hug; are you not a hugger? I should have asked," but she doesn't apologise, nor does she let go for a few more beats. Oliver gives into this moment, closes his eyes tightly and hugs her back.

"Our Darling Oliver," Felix echoes with such admiration, and when Oliver opens his eyes, it's the first time since you'd passed where his gaze has held only the love and pride Oliver had been craving since he'd first laid eyes on him.

Once Nana - she'd insisted Oliver call her that too - lets him go, she tucks her arm in his, and is waving Felix over to her other side, briskly asking where tea was to be held. Duncan leads the way and she fawns over him too, apparently downright overflowing with love for Saltburn and everyone and everything in it. She talks more than she doesn't, but considering who Oliver is and who Felix has become, that suits them both just fine.

It's been too long since they've had tea together, she insists, and doesn't talk about why exactly that would be. She doesn't bring you up, not while you were all making your way through the house, but once she's settled outside, she takes a moment. The way she looks at Oliver in this moment makes him queasy; the smile, that look in her eyes, the way her gaze takes all of him in. A woman, whose time is so precious to her, taking her time to make him feel seen. Felix is quiet, intrigued by the exchange.

Your phantom heart beats beneath Oliver's fingertips.

"You're Y/N's grandma," Oliver says quietly, breaking the tension. Present tense still, they all play pretend. She smiles, and finally leans back. The moment is broken; Felix pours them each a cup of tea. Nana takes a jammy dodger and looks over the gardens with a smile.

"Of course, dear," she says sincerely, taking a bite of the biscuit, but being so eager to talk that she spoke through half a mouthful, "and when they were thirteen they told me I was Felix's grandmother too, because they'd overheard Felix's mum talking about how she hoped they'd get married some day." Felix snorted a laugh at that, turning pink around the ears as he prepared everyone's tea, as if on autopilot.

"Does that -" Oliver begins awkwardly, but he tries to smile, "do you think in time, they would have ask the same of you about me?"

"Considering how they spoke about you," there's a twinkle in your Nan's eyes as she turns back to him, smile knowing, "there's absolutely no doubt in my mind, my dear." All you had ever done was love him; love him and stand in the way of the love he desperately craved.

Oliver watches his tea for a long while, spinning the ornate cup on its matching saucer, while your Nana almost immediately picked hers up and took a tentative sip. Watching out of the corner of his eyes, Oliver notes the way her face goes on a journey of emotions, from pleased, to confused, to a sudden realisation as she looks to her cup.

"I should have asked you how you liked your tea," Felix realises too late, apology in his voice as Nana puts her cup down with a forlorn, yet fond look.

"No, darling, it's nice to know you know how my grandchild liked their tea," and she holds her cup delicately, looking into it's warm, brown depths, "just the same as I always made it for both of us when they were much, much younger."

"I am so sorry to ask," Oliver hears himself blurt out, unable to help himself, "but how does all this love just skip a generation?" It comes out far worse than he intends it to; he means to ask how someone so loving as you come from parents so uncaring, yet how did either of those parents turn out the way they did when the woman in front of him was clearly bursting with just as much love as you had been. Thankfully, instead of being offended, your grandmother laughs.

"My daughter is a wonderful, intelligent, compassionate, impressive woman," she begins, but sighs with unmistakable disappointment, "but my late husband was never capable of even trying to be a father over pursuing his own interests, and it's one of the few traits she actually inherited from him," she shook her head, "and she went on to fall in love with a man who loved her but suffered from that exact same defect," after a beat, she looked up with a warm, reassuring smile, "it's why I love Y/N so fiercely, and so hard," her grin turns soft and adoring, looking between the two boys before her, "the only way my daughter has ever disappointed me is as a mother, but I will never be disappointed in Y/N as my grandchild."

Oliver knows there's tears in his eyes, and Felix has ducked his head. Immediately Nan begins apologising, realising she'd set both of them off. Despite this, Oliver tries to wave her away, insisting it's fine, before he asks about her; he's heard bits and pieces he thinks, but Y/N had always been so cagey about their family. Honestly he's surprised that your grandmother knows so much about him when he feels like he's barely heard about her.

Despite turning out to be an incredibly decorated artist, with paintings selling for more than Oliver's pretty sure his own family's house is worth, your Nana is quick to downplay her own successes, simply insisting that it took decades of hard work. Again, he sees you in her eyes.

"We've got a few up around the house," Felix adds, "most of them actually from before we even met Y/N," and your Nana gives him a shove, as if flustered and embarrassed by the idea. But Felix is beaming, happy to be showing off her accomplishments, just as he always took joy in celebrating you; "there's one in your room."

"What?" Oliver asked, and your grandmother also seemed surprised, though touched by the thought.

"It used to be their room, actually, but Ollie moved in there, so Y/N was staying with me," he explains a little awkwardly, wanting to skim around as many implications as he could. Thankfully she doesn't comment. All she asks is which one. Felix and Oliver both think about the room; Felix about the few pieces of art on the walls, Oliver about your time of death in the drawer. You were alive when he left you -

"That one of the stars, and that person smoking; I think you actually gave it to them as a gift," he frowns for a beat, "for when they turned seventeen, I think?"

Oh, Oliver knows that one. It's enchanting, blues so deep, so rich it's like you could swim in them, stars that seemed to actually glow on the canvas, and the hazy, dark outline of the window in the foreground, and part of a figure against the windowsill, lit cigarette the lone spot of fire, of red or orange, that makes everything else warmer for it.

"That one really surprised me actually," Nana admits, giving Felix a shrew smile, though he only seems confused, "did they ever tell you anything about it?"

"Said you painted it for them; pretty sure I remember them crying about it," he says fondly, reminiscing, "one of the best gifts they ever got, I'm not lying, they say it every year. It's beautiful." Then, as if recalling what she'd actually said, he looks at her curiously, "surprised you?"

Her smile widened into something both knowing, and endeared.

"I asked them to send me a photo, a postcard, their very best drawing, anything, as long as it was their favourite place in the world - do you really not recognise it?" The tea and biscuits are gone by now, the tea portion of their afternoon is coming to a close. Felix shook his head, almost looking like a lost child, as if he was aware there was something he was supposed to be understanding but couldn't quite get it, "Felix, my dear boy, they sent me a photo of you; that's their dorm room window from boarding school."

Felix looks winded, and a bit like he's about to cry.

"Oh you two were impossibly sweet," she reaches over and holds his hand tightly, looking over to Oliver earnestly, "you take care of this dear boy and his heart, you hear me?"

"Yes," Oliver all but trips over his words to agree, "of course, nan." And she gives him a pleased grin.

They move indoors after this, Felix quiet but lending his arm to Nana, which she takes, while she explained that usually you and Felix would visit a few times a year when they were on break, but she thought it would be best to come to Saltburn this time, given the circumstances.

"You should come see the place when you get the chance," she insisted, patting Oliver's hand.

"It's mostly where Y/N was raised before they ended up staying at Saltburn," Felix supplied with a grin, piquing Oliver interest.

"Y/N's childhood home? Oh I have to see that," he grins, and your grandmother grins brightly for a long moment.

"I'm sure Y/N would love that, they can give you the grand tour -" but her face falters, falls, as if she'd just remembered. Sombre silence, the spell is broken. "I'd love to have you around, dear," she corrects, much softer this time.

Felix lets her pick a movie, while Oliver settles himself awkwardly on the sofa. He wants to reach out to Felix, to touch his cheek, feel his boyish smile and know that it's real. But Felix isn't really even looking at him. There's something childlike about his enthusiasm here, about how he sits on his knees on the floor, watching with rapt attention as your grandmother pores over them. He practically glows as she praises his choices. When she picks one, she hands it over and he scrambles on all fours across the short floor space to the DVD player, fumbling with the case like he can't put it in fast enough. There's a softness in your grandmother's eyes as she watches the boy who has seemingly forgotten the man he is; when she looks at Oliver, its like he sees her asking how easy is he to adore, what a beautiful young man.

"You don't mind watching a movie do you, Oliver, dear?" She asks, though it's clearly an afterthought. He's already shaking his head, assuring her it's fine. Felix is already scrambling back, remote in hand. Oliver tries to make space for him on the sofa between himself and your Nana, but he seems content to sit on the floor in front of her, leaning back against the sofa with her knees gently pressed against either of his shoulders. Handing her the remote, Felix twists to give Oliver an expectant smile.

"Come here, mate," he insists, patting his lap, his legs kicked out in front of him. At Oliver's obvious confusion, Felix blinks for a few moments. It's like he's waking from a dream. His face falls, he goes to apologise, strained smile on his face, "sorry, I know that's weird, you don't have to -"

Slowly, Oliver moves from the sofa, sitting beside Felix on the floor. Your grandmother's knee is pressed gently to his back, but he's not quite sure if he's capable of relaxing enough in this moment to mind. She's playing with Felix's hair, having already started the movie.

"This is what you and Y/N would do," Oliver said softly, and rested his head on Felix's shoulder. Felix takes his hand, and laces their fingers together.

"Do you like it when people play with your hair, Oliver?" Your grandmother asks idly.

"Um, sometimes," he answers, still feeling rather awkward. He hears her chuckle warmly.

"It's okay if you don't want me to; Felix likes it so much he lets me braid it when it's long like this."

"Oh, I know Felix loves it," Oliver hears himself agree, "if he were a cat he'd be the kind to purr any time someone scratched between his little cat ears." And while both he and your grandmother share a fond laugh, he can hear Felix's smile in his words. He gives Oliver's hand a squeeze.

"I can't even argue; I wish I could purr right now."

Oliver wants to bottle this moment forever, keep it locked tight in his chest.

But the movie is a long one. One hour and fifty six minutes. Two hours rounded up. A whole two hours. Enough time to fall asleep with his head in Felix's lap the way they both said you used to. He wakes with your heartbeat in his ears, rapid, alive, left for dead.

"You okay buddy?" Felix looks at him with genuine love and concern; it's been such a long time since he'd seen that look, even with everything that had been happening, "I'm here, you're okay," he assured. Over by the television, putting the remote back, your grandmother glances over at the interaction with a warmth that makes Oliver feel queasy in this moment.

And he'll look up from the book, from his notes from the coroner's report crammed in, obscuring the end of one story while The Tell-Tale Heart begins on the other. Felix will be getting ready for bed in the other room, but he won't sleep there. He can't sleep there. Can't sleep in that bed without you, can't move the costumes from that night that hang side by side as a reminder of the hole you'd left behind in his life. Oliver will read approximately two am in his own messy handwriting, and look at the digital clock on his bedside that had read 12:07 when he'd crashed into his room and locked the door and sunk down against it. The numbers had been shining red in the darkness. On the wall behind, that starry night sky and the hint of Felix and his cigarette; a home you'll never return to hung up in the home you'll never truly leave.

He put enough coke in that bottle to kill a fucking lion. He'd given you the bottle. He'd told you he loved you. He'd left you like that.

He knew you were dying.

He'd left you alive.

Two hours.

The book snaps shut. In the silence he thinks he hears your breathing. Please, Ollie, help. Paranoia is a cruel thing, he has to tell himself; paranoia and guilt.

"Can I ask you something?" Felix joins him just as he's putting the book back in it's drawer. Oliver, heart beat racing - never as fast as the memory of yours, oh now it's all he can think about again - nods quickly. Felix sits on the end of the bed, clearly preoccupied, fussing with the buttons of his pyjama shirt. The days are getting cooler now; Oliver misses his bare skin against his, but he still feels too precarious to make such an observation.

"It's about Y/N," Felix swallows, can't meet his eyes, "about that night." Oliver feels his mouth go dry; the worst fucking night of his life. The night he doesn't know if he'll ever figure out if he regrets all he'd done.

He nods again.

"Were you the last person they spoke to?" It's like Felix is forcing himself to not shy away from this moment, giving Oliver the attention he thinks he deserves for such an important question. Then, after swallowing hard, he can't help but drop his gaze, "why," he can barely get it out, there's already a lump in his throat, "didn't they come into the maze too?" Oliver can't even give him that.

You'd been such a mess on your way to the maze, even with Oliver supporting you. Crying, furious, apologetic; you were everything at once. Even when you couldn't bring yourself to go in, everything about you had been sliding from one emotion to the next. But then it had stopped.

"I can wait for Fi here." It's the most sure that he'd seen you all night. It's when he knew. It had to be you, even if he loved you too. He'd never forget how clear your smile was, how sincere you'd urged him into the maze to follow the tail of what he thought was right. The sight of you, waiting, obedient and loyal for your master to return; "I'll be here, I promise; I'll wait."

Oliver knew before he'd even entered the maze that Felix's return to you would be too late.

In the present, Felix waits too, diligent, expectant. Oliver thinks about lying. Oliver thinks about how the truth will break his heart. Oliver thinks about how close Felix will hold him in his guilt riddled grief.

"I don't think they wanted to interrupt -" Oliver tries to start, but Felix immediately swears, hangs his head.

"Can't fucking believe I did that," he spits, "I was angry, and off my fucking face, sure, but that was fucking low, even for me," he admitted, pitching himself back on the bed, whole face scrunched up with guilt, barking out an upset fuck far louder than the others, prompting to Oliver to tentatively ask what he means. Felix took a moment, as if forcing himself to calm down, before he admits, voice low like he was sharing a secret, "I never even took Eddie into the maze," he sighed. After a beat, he conceded, "no, okay I did, but we didn't do anything - we made out a bit, but -"

"You didn't fuck you ex-boyfriend in the maze," Oliver connected the dots quickly, "but you did fuck your best friend's ex-not-girlfriend who you kind of stole from them, out of spite after kicking them out of your the bed you've been sharing all Summer?"

"Fucking hell, Ollie!" Felix sounds especially wounded when he lays it all out like that.

"Sorry," immediately, Oliver apologises, knot in his stomach when he hears Felix's pained tone. He wonders if this was what it was like for you all through the night of his birthday. Fuck, he can't think about that.

"No, but you're right," Felix admits, eyes finally opening, looking all hurt and vulnerable. Oliver lays himself down next to Felix, going the other way, both of them looking up at the ceiling. Oliver's hands rest on his chest, trying again, softer this time.

"So was a special place to them?" He gets no response other than a guilty nose from Felix, "you think that's why they wanted to wait by the entrance?"

"They wanted to wait for me," Felix says weakly, clearly in his head about that night once more, "didn't want to interrupt even as I was fucking defiling our-" but he catches himself turning bitter again, mouth snapping closed, "after everything I said that night," he mumbles, "fucking hell," he chokes out. The pain in his voice is audible. This is the sweet spot, Oliver thinks.

"I can wait for Fi here," Oliver whispers amid Felix's faint sobs.

"What?"

"You asked me what their last words were," Oliver told him as softly as he could manage; Felix sits up, eyes wide, distraught, so full of guilt and love and - "only thing they were properly coherent about; waiting for you," Oliver props himself up, reaches out to wipe a tear from Felix's cheek.

"You're not- Ollie, please tell me you're not kidding," Felix practically begs.

"I can wait for Fi here," Oliver reiterates, making sure to meet Felix's gaze as he holds his face, "'s the last thing they said- they said; I'll be here, I promise; I'll wait."

God he can see it in Felix's eyes; it's like the man's entire world crashes down around him. But he clings just as Oliver had hoped he would. As Felix holds him tightly, Oliver can't look at the glaring, red numbers of the clock on his bedside, the constant reminder of the two hours where he could have done something. Two hours and those wouldn't have been your last words.

He looks at the painting. At the stars. At Felix and his cigarette and your idea of what home looks like. The stars look just like they did that night. Just as bright. Oliver closes his eyes. Guilt twists people into shapes they don't often recognise; Oliver just holds Felix, hopes they twist into something together.

Except Oliver's guilt isn't the kind that twists, it's the kind that bites. It's like moths, eating him from the inside out. The guilt leaves him with jagged edges and thoughts he'd rather not be having; there are shades of Felix Catton that he loves, but shame and revulsion bites just behind the guilt as the months pass and he realises more and more this is not what he wanted. This is not the Felix he wanted.

Felix is like an echo, like the sun without it's warmth; he can look just the same, smile, talk, charm just the same if it was required of him, but there was something clearly missing from every interaction. Guests to Saltburn would pull his parents aside and ask if everything was alright. He is, but he is not the same as he once was.

Every day Oliver looks in the mirror and sees something grotesque behind his eyes that no-one else seems to notice. Felix Catton was meant to be the prize, the one who tossed aside everything but the best, the one who made the world fight for his attention, and feel heartbroken when he merely looked the other way. After all this, Felix Catton was not someone Oliver expected to be bored by.

Oliver Quick had lied for, lied to, betrayed the trust of, worked to gain the trust back of, loved, made fall in love with him, and literally murdered the love of his life who he also loved and was themselves also in love with Oliver while still considering Felix the love of their life, just to get a chance to spend his life by Felix fucking Catton's side. He wasn't allowed to not want this.

Felix smiles at him, says he loves him, fucks him, but it's not the dream Oliver once had. Something is always missing. No. Oliver deliberately took that thing away. But he can never admit that, nor can he ever regret that; too far gone. Oliver doesn't want to talk about the past, Felix can't being himself to talk about the future. Trapped together in the present, living lives that no longer feel like enough. Their routine becomes suffocating. Even Venetia, the few times she's stopped back at Saltburn, can barely manage a disdainful look, as if merely inconvenienced by Oliver's presence.

The growing apathy of the estate and it's occupants is exhausting. The cost of this lifestyle has long since surpassed it's value. He's even bored of being haunted. Two hours feels like fucking nothing when the days drag on the way they have been. Behind his eyelids he doesn't see you begging for help, you hiss for him to run, to get out.

He should have listened.

"Ollie, can I show you something I found?" Felix sounds bright today, and though Oliver wants to roll his eyes at the idea of anything in this house being new or novel enough to show off, he smiles back instead.

"'course Felix, what is it?"

Except Felix isn't smiling at him. Felix is looking far more serious and determined, sitting on the edge of their shared bed. Oliver immediately frowns.

"Have you been hiding something from me, Ollie?" It's a trap; a forced confession. Oliver shakes his head, plays dumb. Felix takes a deep breath, the kind that shifts his whole body, his expression remaining firm, "before I show you this thing, I want you to be honest with me; you promised you wouldn't lie to me anymore, you remember?" Oliver tries to lighten the mood, leaning against the window with a warm smile.

"Of course, my lovely Felix, no more lying," he assures, but the hairs on the back of his neck stand up with the way Felix remains quiet.

"What's seven-past-twelve mean?" Felix is watching him closely; too closely. Scrutinising his every move. It's like Oliver's been doused in ice water, even his tongue frozen in his mouth, "and what's it got to do with what happened on the night of your birthday?"

Felix doesn't even look at the night table as he opens it; his gaze is solely on Oliver. It's clear he'd done this before, pulling out the book, flicking through it's pages, and pulling the delicate, incriminating piece of paper out from where it had been safe for so many months.

"Felix, I-"

"What does twelve-oh-seven mean?"

Oliver is the deer again, trapped in Felix's accusatory gaze. For just a moment, Felix's voice drops, pleading with him for some other explanation, that Oliver wasn't somehow caught up in what happened, more closely, more malevolently than he'd ever said -

"Tell me," there's tears in his eyes, the furious kind, the ones where he's desperate to love and hope against all odds, "Oliver," he pleads through gritted teeth, "tell me you didn't know."

"Know what?" Oliver's voice is a hoarse whisper; he knows he is caught, all he has left now is borrowed time and a desperately silver tongue he doesn't know if he can rely on anymore. But Oliver's tragically weak denial is enough for Felix to all but jump to the right conclusion.

In a rush, Felix has Oliver by the collar of his shirt, pressed to the window -

"You knew they were dying and you fucking left them there."

This is the tipping point, the end of whatever good this had been. Felix could hurt him, Felix had hurt countless people on your behalf, he'd seen it himself. But Felix had always been the bleeding heart; you were the one who had to be kept on a leash. Felix could hurt him, could probably maim him for what Oliver was about to say, but he never shared your stomach for true Machiavellianism.

"Of course I knew," Oliver managed coldly, despite Felix attempting to crush all the air from him, "the amount of coke I gave them in that champagne could have killed a rhino-" it needed to be unforgiveable, the confession, so Felix would let him leave, would never want to see him again. He hadn't expected the force of Felix's rage to have the glass behind him give out.

Oliver falls from the second story window into the hedge garden below. Felix's shouting is tearing through the whole house it seemed, making his way downstairs, while Oliver tries to regain his breath and figure out if anything's broken. He's pretty sure it's not, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt as Felix drags him by his feet from the hedges, demanding at the top of his lungs that Oliver get the fuck out of Saltburn.

Every single person who'd been in the house comes outside to view the commotion, to see Oliver struggling to his feet, to get away from Oliver. Elspeth looks helplessly between the two boys, wondering what happened -

"Tell her what you did," Felix demanded, once more getting into Oliver's space, jabbing at his chest, "tell her what the fuck you just told me -" and Oliver's strength isn't insignificant, but Felix is in a fury, flooded with rage and adrenaline, and he grabs the back of Oliver's shirt like he's scuffing a cat, shoving him towards his mother like an offering. Oliver struggles because he feels like he has to, feels wild, feels feral, but it's the most of anything he's gotten from Felix in so long. His mouth stays shut, won't give him the satisfaction of a confession.

"He killed them," Felix doesn't even let Oliver have his power play before he grows bored. He shoves Oliver just a little, grip unyielding despite Oliver's best efforts, like he means nothing to him. Elspeth and Sir James are confused, looking between them both, but Felix isn't done with stringing Oliver up for all of Saltburn to see, "Y/N; he intentionally dosed their drink and left them to die outside the maze."

The Catton parents immediately look crestfallen; it's the first time in months Oliver's felt genuine guilt again. Oliver stops fighting. Felix lets him go. Elspeth asks him if this is true; that heartbroken hope is going to make him sick.

"Just send me away already," he drops his head.

"Oliver," Elspeth's voice is firmer this time; when he looks up, she's stepping towards him, tears in her eyes despite how hard she's clearly trying to hold herself together, "is Felix telling the truth?" Is this it? Is this the final gate to his freedom from Saltburn.

"Yes."

Elspeth slaps him so hard her ring draws blood. Oliver hadn't thought that was even possible, but his head is ringing from the collision.

"Get. Out." She hisses with absolute malice as he's hunched over, clutching his face. Felix is by his mother's side in a heartbeat, arm around her, looking at Oliver with contempt. Behind them, Sir James is ordering Duncan and the other staff members to get Oliver off of the property as quickly as possible, but the look in Elspeth's eyes is burning, "this is my family, you monster."

At first, it almost feels worth it to leave Saltburn. To leave the Cattons and their bullshit and their games behind. He thinks he knows them well enough to trust that they don't want the kind of scandal a murder on their hands would be, and for the most part, he's right.

It's not the Cattons who haunt him after Saltburn, though they may be pulling the strings. It's you. It's you sitting on Felix's bed in his dorm room reading every single detail of Michael Gavey's file with threats on your tongue. It's the casual way you talked about being able to access his academic files to change his grades if he wanted. It's you, tipsy at Saltburn, admitting that you got Eddie transferred without his consent to a university on the other side of the country after he cheated on Felix with Venetia.

There's no place for Oliver to return to at Oxford... He's not entirely surprised about that, however, there's also apparently no record of him ever attending. Any calls or enquiries he makes are shut down with the kind of immediacy that seemed reserved for shows about government conspiracies. When applications open for other universities, it seems websites shut down the minute he fills out his damn name. Nowhere in the world seems willing to consider him.

Having him audited seems like overkill. When it happens the next year, despite no employer willing to even consider him for an interview, the existential dread of his situation sets in.

Felix never had the stomach to finish the job; he'd let you haunt Oliver forever.

[loving-family-poll]

2nd Ultimate Incest Tournament - Round 2

Propaganda under the cut

Sam/John:

Overprotective controlling dad, bratty rebellious confrontational Sam, the eventual realization of what John was trying to protect him from, the sad dad puppy eyes

Often overlooked in the Winchester family incest dynamics which is sad because it fucks so hard; John has such complex feelings regarding Sam because his birth indirectly causes the death of Sam and Dean’s mother and leads to the Winchesters becoming like that. John sees the sweet boy he loves and the monster Sam is fated to become, and is torn between saving or killing him. Keeping Sam safe and innocent is one of the main motivations behind John’s terrible, desperate actions; however through the extreme countermeasures he takes, he only manages to push Sam further away and closer to his fate. It’s only after John’s death that Sam begins to understand his actions but also believes John was right to ‘want to kill him’. John may be absent for most of Supernatural but he forever haunts the narrative and his sons, the One True FatherGod of Supernatural

Shauna/Callie:

Shauna is an insane woman with a psychology stuck in her late teens due to the huge trauma central to the show and the loss of her homoerotic friendship Jackie. Callie is her daughter who reminds her a lot of said homoerotic friendship a lot.

The first scene we see of adult Shauna is her masturbating on her daughter's bed looking at a pic of her and her boyfriend which tied back to how Shauna stole Jackie's boyfriend because she couldn't have Jackie.

Callie starts the show as a normal snarky teenager who might look down on her mom a bit, until she catches her cheating on her dad (the boyfriend she stole). Also, Callie is wearing Jackie's old uniform at this point (thinking it was her mom's). They have a talk about the affair and Jackie and it's one of the first times we see how much she wants to learn about her mom and her crazier sides.

Shauna is completely incapable of acting like a normal mother and doesn't know how to give Callie proper displays of affection.

As season 2 rolls in Callie wants nothing more than help her mom escape prison after killing her new boyfriend and for her mom to show her dangerous side to her and to include her in everything even if it's illegal.

At this point, we're at a point where Callie is just as into the freaky headrush of survival-type situations and that probably will keep entangling her with her mom more and more.

Shauna also had an arc about remembering her first baby she lost and how that and so many other things get in the way of her to show proper love to Callie even if she wants to protect her more than anything.

Shauna inadvertently got her best friend, Jackie, killed and is haunted by her memory. She attempts to replicate that dynamic with her daughter Callie but also refuses to let herself love her because of the pain of losing Jackie

mom who masturbates in her daughters room looking at photos of her daughters boyfriend. daughter happens to be an exact replica attitude-wise of the mother's childhood best friend who she killed (accidentally) and ate (not so accidentally) and still has romantic hallucinations of. The daughter dresses up in the dead situationship's uniform and mom mentally can't tell them apart….the good stuff

[hell-is-not-an-excuse]

Not so sorted Ghostfuckers thoughts

Firstly, this episode was an improvement over the last few, at least in my opinion - That isn't to say that it's great, or even particularly good, but I can say that I was more invested in this episode, even if only a little. It had more focus on the original concept of the show with an I.M.P mission finally not just being reduced to a short... Though the mission still doesn't take full priority, something I will expand on momentarily.

Before that though, I'll start off with the things I did actually like.

The bankruptcy joke got a quick giggle out of me. It may be that I'm still an immature little homonculus, but the jokes that don't fall into the unnecessarily crude/sexual category still elicit a reaction from me.

This joke got me too - I know that this was almost definitely intended as a jab towards critics, however it loops back around to being funny to me, as I joke a lot about being "objectively correct".

These frames of Moxxie specifically - I love him a lot and wish he was in a show that took better care with its character writing

I enjoyed seeing the flashback designs for the I.M.P crew - Moxxie isn't too different, but I actually sort of prefer the others past looks here.

Lastly, this specific moment/line! This is a massive improvement over what was given to us in those leaked boards - In the original boards, I had a hard time believing that Millie would have this suicidal fit out of seemingly nowhere because... Some other demon told her she was a bad wife? This is a much more "in character" line for Millie, given what we already knew about her as an audience (which admittedly, wasn't a lot, but she never gave off the sort of insecurity/suicidal ideation that the original boards appeared to have been pushing for).

I think I've gotten all the praise I can wring out of my system - Now comes all the issues I take with this newest episode. These criticisms come in no particular order.

There's the usual thought that comes whenever a new episode drops - The swearing and sexual humour is too frequent and over the top. I'm an enjoyer of well placed crude and sexual humour, but this isn't well placed. With every second line containing profanity, innuendo, or explicit sexual content, they become less and less special and interesting to hear, to the point that watching characters interact becomes a slog.

Blitz is supposedly having this month long breakdown because... He had a breakup that wasn't really a breakup? He himself admits they were never in a relationship, and gets upset at the concept that him and Stolas will never be together. Obvious criticism of Stolitz notwithstanding, until Apology Tour, there have been no genuine moments of "love" between the two - This all comes off more as Blitz mourning this potential (now dead) relationship because the writers feel it's time for him to do so, without selling to the audience why he would give a damn about Stolas in the first place. I hardly believe Stolas and his pining back in Ozzie's, let alone the shameless display that we're getting now.

Speaking of Stolas, this is a perfect segue into what I said I was going to expand upon further down in this post; despite this episode having an I.M.P mission be a main setting, that's all it is - A setting. I wouldn't mind so much if this was purely for character building, but it's yet another instance of things happening because of Stolas. This feathered fuck haunts the narrative even when he's not present! The mission is presented more as an avenue of helping Blitz "get over" Stolas as opposed to just being a job that the members of I.M.P need to, you know, live.

Speaking of, how financially stable are I.M.P and its employees? Despite having nearly two seasons to expand on the concept of a business owned by the lowest caste of Hell's systems, nothing is done with it. With a setup like that, there should at least be some narrative drama involving the company facing challenges and instances of being in financial dire straights. Instead of this however, Blitz is able to blow a months worth of money on useless knick-knacks and owls to burn? With no real show of consequence as a result of this?

While I enjoyed seeing a bit of Millie backstory and her relationship to Blitz, Helluva still suffers from its "tell don't show" rule. Millie mentions she loves to have fun with Blitz, but we have never seen an instance of these two having fun together in show.

Honestly, the backstory of Blitz/Millie's meet and subsequent partnership should have been its own episode; we could have actually seen her steal the target from I.M.P as a solo assassin, we could have seen the state of I.M.P before her addition - If you wanted a bit of shipping fuel, you could also have an instance of Moxxie being too starstruck by this mysterious, wrathful rival to take a shot on her. So many possibilities! All wasted.

Millie's development episode shouldn't have come at the tail end of season two - She's been in the show since episode ONE, she deserved something in the first season to flesh her out.

I do not buy her reasoning for looking up to Blitz; if she thinks of herself as only a simple country girl or a brute, this would have been nice to actually see hinted to us throughout the show.

The casual ableism in the joke about the Hotel Owner's new cleaner - Not only is the way he is depicted simply dehumanising, framing him as this object of disgust rather than a person, this is driven further by being called a "poor thing" and only being reacted to with vague disgust by Blitz and Millie. And of course he's barely verbal, with the exception of a funny swear word (/sarc).

The whole sequence where Blitz is alone and being tormented by visions of Millie and Tilla is... It sure exists. Subtlety is lost in most of this dialogue here as once again, we are bluntly told what the problem with Blitz is - We know he makes decisions that fuck over others for his own benefit, we know he's selfish. We've seen this time and again!! This is not something that needed to be explicitly spoken for what feels like the millionth time in this (so far) two-season run.

Speaking of mothers! Millie and Loona get shafted into a role of taking care of their respective man for the episode - As a matter of fact, both their conversations involve Blitz or Moxxie. After nearly two seasons, I don't think they've had a conversation that wasn't about their male coworkers/relationships.

What is an infestor demon? Have they shown up before? What in God's name am I supposed to know about them? Somehow when it comes to worldbuilding, the need to explain everything explicitly is gone.

Why is Blitz being emotionally tortured again while Stolas sees no real consequence? This is getting to be a really tired pattern.

The whole ghostfucking bit was already testing my patience within the first couple of minutes.

Anyway, that's all I have of like... More surface level critiques of this episode. I'll probably make a few more minor posts about this episode later and elaborate on some new thing my brain is sticking to.