#STOP THAT !!! give him his personhood back !!!! FUCK !!!!!!!

[bixyaps]

Have y'all seen that one video of that girl giving her blue collar bf a facial....the one where she wipes his face w five like separate cotton pads and they all come back, like, soot black ? Bc his face was so dirty ? Bc he's a blue collar worker ? Anyway I saw it. And like,, yeah,,, wash your face dude. That's gross. But me personally my first thought was fuck, I'm glad his partner is happy to do that for him,,, that's really sweet,, whatever job he's doing to get him so dirty is probably exhausting and stressful and I'm glad he gets relaxing time !! If it were me I'd need him to shower bc he probably smells bad but that's why it's not me. And anyway, I opened the comments, and I didn't even scroll down and I saw "why is it allowed on the bed",,, "I put mine in the shower",, "why doesn't it know basic hygiene", (not exactly that but yk),,, etc etc....all these comments straight up dehumanising this poor man who probably just spent 6-10 hours doing hard manual labour ? Bc why ? Bc he's dirty ? Yeah, blue collar workers get dirty. They have to. It's part of their job. And while i agree, he cld probably take a shower, change into some comfy clean clothes, but not everyone has the energy/motivation/time/wtv to do that ??? These are the same people who are all oh good job I'm so proud of you ml keep going <33 when a 15 year old girl brushes her teeth for the first time in three weeks (not a bad thing),, but the second a *dramatic gasp* MAN isn't practising perfect personal hygiene, he becomes an it, a thing, an object ? A pet ? This is pissing me off, can we let men be dirty please, he probably just spent nine hours in the heat doing strenuous fucking labour w a bunch of people he doesn't like, let him be pampered by his girlfriend who clearly likes pampering him !!! Fuck !!! Stop dehumanising men !!! He's not an it just because he didn't wash his face before getting in bed !!!

[bananakeiky]

This isn't about Hoyo I just needed to vomit some AFTG thoughts into a public space and I just finished ToS and I'm rabid. I have no idea how many of y'all even read this series but spoilers. And trigger warnings. Anyways.

Okay what the fuck ever the thing about ToS isn't just about of the extra trigger warnings and things that made me wanna throw up and cry at the same time. It's about how horribly, tragically awful it is that Jean is full of so much love. He always has been. It's not just haha what a pansexual no. Jean craves affection so fucking much. He's weak to pretty people and devastated by kind people. He clung to Kevin. He clung to Renee. He even clung to Thea, who affectionately called him Paris as he trailed her like a little duckling. He spits and rages and claws at them all, calling them every rabid name in the dictionary and beyond. He has a laundry list of insults for Neil, who freed him, one of the only people he truly trusts. It's just that he never expects it back. He never wants it back because it hurts so much worse when it's gone. People hurt him when it's gone. He says "I can take it" and "this is normal" because he would burn if he couldn't.

This is why he rejects the Trojans. Every "don't you see" and "why do you look away" is well-meaning but twice as hurtful because accepting it would mean Jean didn't hurt because he deserved it. Without that crutch it means he suffered for nothing. He hurt for nothing. Accepting it would mean that Jean would have to open up and fully comprehend the absolute horrors that were done not just to his life but to his personhood. To him. He was a child and a victim and he deserved to be saved and he wasn't. Not until it was too late. All of those years after being sold by his parents, yearning, aching to be loved by somebody and used as a toy and a scapegoat in return by anyone who touched him. Love is painful. Trust is painful. And Jean will love and love and love until it kills him and he knows it.

But this is why Kevin sent him to the Trojans. They may not understand survival and suffering the way the Foxes do, but they're genuine. They may be misguided with some of their efforts and need to take time learning how Jean works but they try and try and keep trying. They understand their own faults and healthy coping mechanisms and how to treat your worst enemies with respect. Hell, nearly the entirety of Jeremy's inner circle are in queer relationships with each other except for himself because he's too busy thinking about other people to work on that. This is what Jean needs to learn, that people can give without asking for anything in return. That people can be selfless and care for one another without ulterior motives. That love can be healthy and beautiful and not cruel.

And listen. I've been rooting for Jerejean for eight goddamn years. You have no idea how hard I fell when I realized that the ship that embodies the entire idea of healing, self-growth, and respect had been actualized and it's everything I ever wanted and more. The fact that Jeremy helps Jean buy his very first possession. The fact that he's so protective of Jean and thinks he's more important than exy, that Jean will be his success story. When he holds his hands and begs him to open up and backs off when Jean needs space, but never leaves and never gives up. How he spends so much time organizing people and schedules and events just so Jean can feel safe walking around campus. He never pushes too hard, but he never stops pushing. He's so patient. He wants Jean. He wants him so bad, but more than that, he wants Jean to love himself above all else. He's there when Jean has a panic attack at the pool, and sticks around as close as he can after Jean gets attacked. He stays up by the door all night when Jean goes out with Neil to an unknown location. All of this on top of revitalizing the Trojans, dealing with his shit family and the shittier rumors, having to train Jean out of killing his team and teaching his team to trust Jean in return.

Even after all of that his number one priority is always Jean, his head is filled with Jean, making the world comfortable and safe for Jean. It's making sure all of his friends know Jean. Never letting Jean be alone. Getting another twin bed so he can room with him. Always correcting himself, slowing down and speeding up so he can match Jean's pace. Fucking Barkbark. And yes, Renee could have done this too. She was the right person, and yes, the wrong time. But Jeremy found Jean at the right time, a time where he would dedicate everything to Jean. And if Jean one day turns around and wants to give that back, he'll be there, but he'll be just as happy knowing Jean is going to be okay.

ToS is a story about healing. It's about growth and battling the consequences of a life you did not choose. It's about unfairness. It's about what happens after a tragedy, and how to cope with yourself as much as you cope with the outside world. It's about becoming. It's about demons. It's about loyalty. It's about love. It's not about romance. Not yet. But it's about a romance that couldn't exist without it. It's setting up a story about someone who learns to accept that, tragically, he deserves to be treated like a human being. With love. And that he can still have it. That it's right there, waiting for him, when he's ready. He just has to reach out and take it.

[bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky]

oh so ppl cant comment on ur fics now??? I saw ur posts. ppl can say whatever they want. ur fics aren't that great tbf. so if ppl wanna comment n say that u should change smthn then they should. u need to stop complaining its annoying I follow u for bucky stuff not for complaining. and I did read the mercy kill one and it was fucked up of him to do that and I think he was really mean for asking the reader to do that and he was a bad friend. so just take the comments and make the changes cuz if ppl comment and ask for changes u should listen

Okay, hang on, hang on, hang on.

Let me get this straight.

So, my fics "aren't that great", but you follow me? And you still read my most recent fic? I won't lie, it's kind of giving fan behavior. 💀

And I need to "stop complaining", but you are allowed to come into my inbox (anonymously, might I add) and leave a paragraph of... complaints?

I never said people can't comment on my writing- I just said that nitpicky, unhelpful criticisms of my stories that aren't constructive are not welcome.

What I'm not going to do is read through the comments on my fics and take requests for changes. I'm not going to go back into the story I spent days writing and completely change it just because a stranger asked me to. That's actually bananas to suggest. I am not a short order cook here, friend. I'm writing my stories the way that I want to write them. And if people don't like them, thats okay! They can read other fanfic writer's stories or they can write stories of their own.

Also, if you follow be for "Bucky stuff", that means you must be a fan of his. And if you're a Bucky fan, you must know that he has been through absolute hell. He was tortured and abused for nearly a century. He spent his whole life being robbed of his personhood and forced to hurt others. He had his memories stripped away and lost any shred of who he was. And you're telling me that in my most recent story, it was 'really mean' of him to ask the reader to make him that promise? I'll let you in on a secret: desperate people sometimes take desperate measures. In that story, being taken back to Hydra is his greatest, most bone-chilling, stomach-turning fear. And so, he tried to put a back up plan in place in order to prevent that from ever happening. He would rather die than ever be their prisoner again. Do you not feel a shred of empathy for him? Does your heart not go out to this abused, terrified person? If not, I encourage you to put yourself in his place and try to imagine what you would feel like in those circumstances. Ask yourself why he would ask his most trusted friend to make him that promise.

Also, please do not find yourself in my inbox again. Thank you.

-Hope

[saltysatellite804]

Ichigo hasn't been allowed to cry. Not by family. Not by his friends (not that they would stop him but his shame would be great). Certainly not by the fighters of Soul Society who kick his ass any time he is down to try to fire him up. It's a kind of twisted caring, one full of teeth, one pushed by a militaristic society.

When Aizen first (accidentally) sees him cry, it is almost shocking and he doesn't know how to react. He was never good at giving people comfort. Even when he was faking the benevolent captain he always felt stiff and awkward about it. Luckily it is very taboo for Soul Reapers to show emotion, so he was never put into such a situation often. He has no prior reaction to give that doesn't feel fake as fuck or cruel. And by now, he already knows he cannot cast off the shackles of personhood, nor does he expect Ichigo to. He also knows Soul Society fucking sucks.

But this is not the first time he has seen Ichigo's despair, the one to mirror his own. Ichigo who is like a living hero to others, who has been dehumanized in the same way Sosuke once was. He sees who he is and understands him better than anyone.

"Admiration is the furthest state from understanding." After all.

He awkwardly puts a hand on Ichigo's shoulder and--

Ichigo apologizes, trying to hide it. And Aizen tells him not to apologize. And he says that if he needs to cry, then just do it.

And he just. Sits with him, without judgement. And Ichigo seems to lose his guard somehow. And tears fall. And somehow they always seem to wind up like this, trapped in each other's most vulnerable moments, and somehow there is a tenderness that blooms, something undefinable and beautiful, like a flower with delicate petals that must be treated with utmost care.

Something that is only them.

It won't happen immediately, but a tiny distance in the insurmountable void between them is crossed. There is no going back. If that is not love, then what is?

[loisfreakinglane]

What are your top 5 Dollhouse characters and episodes and also just moments in general?

okay okay okay lettuce get into it! i must warn you ahead of time, i am about to ramble incoherently for entirely TOO LONG!!!!!!!!!!

top 5 dollhouse characters:

priya. always priya. my judgey dorky lil vagabond. she's an artist she's a world traveler she's a survivor. she confronts her problems head on, she is brutally honest. she doesn't give a fuck about money or prestige. she loves loudly, through acts of service. infiltrating a military compound to save tony. coming back to the dollhouse to save her friends. introducing baby tony to his father. i love her rage and her perseverance and her bitterness. i love her willingness to forgive and start anew. she's an all timer for me.

tony. priya's other half. i really want to crawl inside his brain to try and understand him. what is it that made him sign up for the dollhouse to recover from ptsd, only to immediately turn around on his release day and sign up to be a soldier again- only with no individual identity, part of a mass hive mind. he had no wants for himself, not until he met priya and she became the center of his world. he could be so cavalier, so lighthearted in the face of horror. making smalltalk with priya in the middle of a gun fight. joking that she should wound him if he was imprinted with someone evil, but to ~stay away from his junk~ did he only truly value his personhood when it came to protecting priya and their son? I DON'T KNOW BUT I KEEP FLIPPING HIM OVER IN MY BRAIN LOOKING FOR ANSWERS.

topher. on first blush- an amoral asshole, so focused on stroking his own ego with his giant genius brain, he never stopped to worry who was peering over his shoulder. i think he gets dismissed as a dick a bit too much, when on rewatch, his biggest flaw to ME was naivete and carelessness. he convinced himself he was a good person- he ~fixed~ priya, he ~cured~ a fuckton of soldiers' ptsd, he imprinted echo to reach out to abused children. and he never worried that the dollhouse couldn't be trusted- he trusted adelle, he trusted her ability to retain control. he's a goofy, dorky childish dumbass. and he ends the fucking world (or at least heavily speeds up humanitys downfall). but his arc from careless dick high on his own prowess to traumatized, guilty, grieving, desperate to actually be a good person for once. and that's not even taking the epitaph's into account! and whatever it was in that decade between the hollow men and the epitaphs that drove him entirely off the deep end. anyway topher makes me sad and i love him and i think his ~redemption arc~ is very engaging

boyd. STOP JUDGING ME. DON'T DO IT. I LOVE WHO I LOVE. okay like first off- obviously- THE WRITING IS A MESS. THE REVEAL IS A MESS. WHO KNOWS HOW MUCH IT ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE TAKEN AS A WHOLE. but right now, coming off this rewatch? i just??? love him???? i love my evil dad, a total wackadoodle mastermind, taking an entry level job at his own fucking company because he's fixated on a new innovation he discovered- caroline, her weird body quirks, her innate capacity for revolutionizing the dollhouse tech. he was so intent on guiding her progress while pretending to be some lowly ex-cop. and then he went and fell in love with his coworkers. much as he ruined their lives, he had genuine love for echo, adelle, topher. perhaps claire. (when did she become clyde? was it right after she left the house?) beyond them, i'm not entirely sure how far his adoration spread- i like to think he was fond of priya and tony too. he guides echo's development, he's genuinely upset when he is removed as her handler. he prods topher about his sense of morality for 2 seasons straight, pushing him to consider the consequences of his actions. helping topher and priya cover up nolan's (righteous, justified, absolutely self-defense) murder. he throws more and more opposition adelle's way until she takes charge. he wants them all to be their best selves- and he wants them all to save each other. AND BE A FAMILY. TOGETHER FOREVER DURING THE APOCALYPSE. and there's something very funny to me about him hating paul, while he spent two years arguably pretending to be a man very much like paul.

caroline. echo. i still struggle to grapple with the differences. is this like a holy trinity thing, is caroline just another facet of echo, alongside all her other imprints? is echo a facet of caroline? have echo and caroline turned into the same entity? did echo truly remain the porchlight, waiting for caroline to come home? YOU KNOW WHAT DOESN'T MATTER. tho carolecho should be considered nonbinary i am just saying. both alpha and echo should be enbys. sometimes i struggle with echo when her plot becomes very paul-centric, because while i very much love tahmoh and enjoy paul in his dynamics with other characters, the echo/paul relationship is not for me. but outside of that? i love her. i love that she's a warrior, before and after becoming an active. her fixation on rossum, her willingness to lie, manipulate to get to them. she found rossum first, and that got them interested. and her wacky health stats got them laser focused. she wanted so badly to save animals, save humans, save the world. having the weird bodily capacity to manufacture a vaccine was just a bizarre stroke of luck. but it was her choice, again and again and again, to do good things, to help people.

honorable mentions: adelle dewitt. laurence dominic!!!!!! ivy. alpha. margaret bashford.

TOP 5 EPISODES!

204 belonging. our priya-centric episode. the only priya-centric episode? which is very unfortunate, but hey, I'll take it. finally seeing her whole story. priya taking her power back, priya getting her revenge, priya making her own choices. priya/tony content. topher grappling with his complicity in horror. obviously he has always been complicit in horror but now he finally has to confront it head on, and it makes him second guess everything up to this point. and it makes him struggle with his relationships with both adelle- who he thought he could trust, who pushed him to do the wrong thing out of self preservation, and boyd- who he still believes he can trust, who protected him and priya, and helped topher do something fucking HORRIFYING for the right reasons. topher choosing to help priya, for real this time. after the bullshit help he was fooled into giving her. with a side of!!!!!! echo is still BECOMING herself, still exploring her mind, but this time it's boyd figuring her out, warning her of potential consequences from her actions, but helping her anyway. hiding her secrets, giving her the keycard for future use. god boyd in this episode..... warning echo of the consequences of her future actions, and helping topher deal with the consequences of HIS actions. helping cover up a murder. well. an act of self defense. righteous revenge. THE BITCH HAD IT COMING. which was soooooooo cathartic and beautiful and i LOVED IT.

209 stop-loss. OUR TONY-CENTRIC EPISODE! c'mon you knew i had to do it. another priya/tony episode. one of our only episodes featuring the crime fighting trio we could have had for multiple seasons in echo/priya/tony. echo getting to use her abilities to access her imprints. the journey we see tony take during this episode tho- being discharged from the dollhouse, given a pile of money and a new future. we got bits and pieces of this process through madeline, but it's given more time and depth here. seeing that although topher may have ~cured~ tonys ptsd, he is still isolated and traumatized by his experiences. and he knows something is missing- he sees priya in a club, only it's not her. and of course he's immediately swooped up by a rossum adjacent military outfit using active architecture to create a hivemind army. it was VERY dark angel x-7 series in a fascinating way. this should have been a multi-episode arc, but i'll take what i can get. echo and priya saving tony, tony having to overcome mind control to save priya. IMPECCABLE. but also! seeing our lil group of freedom fighters truly start to form! boyd, echo, topher, ivy, paul, priya, and tony. and our brief glimpse into adelle as THE BAD GUY. as well as! finally seeing adelle hit what we later find out was her breaking point. she got drunk, she got shot down by tony (in deleted scenes), she has that amazing moment where she goes down into the dollhouse, strips off her clothes and showers with the actives. this is the moment she chooses to join team TAKE DOWN ROSSUM. she had regained control over her house, but this is when she decides to take her power back. she's not playing rossum's game anymore.

108 needs. this episode!!!!!!!! our first time TRULY MEETING caroline, priya, tony and madeline. i mean i'll be upfront- i hate the beginning of this episode. i hate a dream depicting two women in a madonna whore dichotomy. angel devil shit. i hate it. BUT ONCE WE GET PAST THAT!!!!!!!!! 10/10. even the reveal that this ~awakening&escape~ was manufactured doesn't impact my enjoyment because the feelings are real, the experience is real. we get to see priya and tony be in love without understanding where that came from. madeline grieving a daughter she cannot remember. priya confronting the man who stole her life. tony protecting priya, the way he was unable to with joe hearn. and caroline- caroline gets to confront adelle and topher over the morality of their actions. and she gets to lead the dolls out into the light (which i do have to ask- they're 8 stories underground. did they take the elevators in shift? did echo ride up and down with the gun out every time? how did this go? you know what ignore me i don't need to pick this apart). which- what a goddamn moment. and to top it all off with the discovery that it was all claire's idea- and boyd takes issue with her over playing her own games with the dolls. she views it as necessary for their emotional states, but is he wrong? this was such an emotionally cathartic episode. and so so important for me and my connection to these people we usually only ever see as other fake people

109 a spy in the house of love. FLAWLESSSSS. first off, the framing device. following every active throughout their imprints day. missing bits and pieces every time. i loooove playing with perspective- everyone seeing different aspects, having different parts to pick over. priya and echo in parallel roles of a sort again, both hunting down a spy in very different ways. the revelation that dominic OF ALL PEOPLE was a fucking spy for the nsa. topher showing his soft side again when he suspected boyd and gave him the chance to run. in retrospect, while dominic was obviously... not a 10/10 person..... he tried to kill echo, he was prepared to torture and kill ivy, and kill topher and echo, to keep his cover....... he wasn't actually wrong about the dollhouse? the technology WAS too dangerous to let run rampant. adelle WAS naive to trust rossum. and echo WOULD be the one to bring this entire house of cards down. too late, but still. we also get to see the softer side of adelle here. she's not all boss bitch, she has vulnerabilities and dreams, she breaks down after dominics betrayal. she has no one to confide in but a person who is not real. oh my god not to mention! the reveal to paul that mellie is a doll!!!!!!!!! there are too many secret dolls this season probably, but the emotion with this reveal was so intense. it was so heavy and hurtful, so damaging. a great episode for topher, for dominic, for echo, for adelle. and at the end- adelle genuinely believing echo's progress is a GOOD THING because it protected the house. one of the best ENSEMBLE episodes.

212 the hollow men. not a choice i would have expected, but hey. i fucking loved that episode. much as it's hard to make sense of boyds secret evil mastermind identity, the reveal in context of this episode hits so hard and works so well for me. and the twist back around from 'boyd is evil' to- but also he still loves you guys a lot and wants to hang out forever while the world burns down around you! makes me feel so many feelings actually. clyde!whiskey is stupid hot. the mellie/paul teamup is fun until it's horribly depressing, and it makes me wistful for a timeline where these two actually did fall in love in some fashion. the chemistry is there, whether she's mellie or madeline. priya and tony coming back to save everyone- and the return of topher!tony. the hints toward tony's future with him already starting to be programmed with extra skills. the fakeout happy ending quickly followed up with an apocalyptic ten years later. everything here worked very well for me on an emotional level. echo and boyd still striking that beautiful balance of devotion, only now it is twisted and ugly. god truly just watching boyd navigate this episode, still basically acting the same way with the rest of the characters, but we see so much more in his face. there's an edge there, there's an eerie undertone. for however much this was sprung on us so suddenly, harry lennix was up to the task of selling it. he truly deserved more time to explore this aspect of the character.

#5 is more dubious and i wonder if it'll retain its top slot once i'm a little more removed from this rewatch but i'm rolling with it for now. it doesn't escape my notice that 4/5 of my top episodes heavily feature priya/tony lmao i am what i am. other top contenders- 110 haunted, 113 epitaph one, 210 the attic, 211 getting closer.

FAVORITE MOMENTS! i'm actually gonna use this slot here to talk about some of my favorite like...... ideas? things that keep bouncing around my brain? random shit!

priya/tony are the only ship that don't exist in a multiverse that perfectly fit that quote about how in every universe i will find you and i will choose you. also for years there, enver had appeared in the avengers as a young cop in modern day, and in agent carter as a war vet in the 40s. and in agents of shield dichen was an immortal inhuman we saw in both the 40s and modern day. so for literal years there i had a long running daydream about her the tragic immortal, and her love, the man constantly reincarnating. AND THEN AGENTS OF SHIELD WENT AND MADE ENVER A TIME TRAVELER WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH DICHENS DAUGHTER. I MUST LOL AT MYSELF. another impeccable ship, tho. has to be said. daisysousa5ever

the whole thread throughout 111 briar rose through 112 omega about sleeping beauty. echo telling susan to think of herself as the prince, who is fighting to save briar rose. she is both the prince and the princess. 111 making us think it is paul who is coming to save the sleeping beauty echo from the dollhouse- we even have him literally waking her up from her sleeping pod- the end of 111 revealing it was actually alpha who came to wake echo up from her doll-state and bring her back to life by making her MORE like he is- only for 112 omega to flip that entirely on its head and give us echo and caroline as two separate entities. echo given the chance to save caroline, first as a human girl trapped in the wrong body, and then on a hard drive. they kind of ruin it at the end by having paul catch the hard drive of caroline, but hey. whatever. I'M STILL SAYING ECHO AND CAROLINE ARE THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF THIS STORY.

i have little use for mag and zone as characters on their own merit, but that little moment in epitaph two where they ask what the other did before the apocalypse. it's something that always fascinates me in postapocalyptic content, who people were before they became an apocalypse survivor. kind of reminds me of lost in that way too.

topher v echo as progenitor of the apocalypse and the messiah respectively. adelle v boyd as parallel mentor figures. the initially villainous presenting character who eventually chooses good, ends the series trying to save humanity, and the character that initially presents as heroic, only to reveal he had evil, selfish motives all along. adelle and boyd have pretty equal parental/mentorship claims to echo and topher (tho adelle/caroline had a deeply sexual vibe i am just saying). it's just..... fascinating how they all four relate to each other. and the men both die, boyd in echo's efforts to stop the apocalypse, and topher in his own effort to END the apocalypse. echo ends her story underground, isolated and yet surrounded by (and filled with) people. adelle on the surface ready to shepherd a new flock into the light. there's just!!!!! a lot to pick apart and play with!

sort of thinking a lot about how the first time paul met topher in 111 he tased him and then alpha helped him carry topher into the office. then the second time the three of them were in that office together paul found topher on the floor, having been attacked by alpha, and lifted him onto his feet. there is SOMETHING THERE eating at my brain. and that being the like...... last act paul had as his actual original real self, pre-dollification. THINKING THOUGHTS.

multiple times characters call out how protective echo is of sierra. i want so so so much more of that. plz.

topher!tony. dominic!tony. TOPHER!TONY. GIVE ENVER AN OSCAR FOR THIS TV ROLE.

the TO REMEMBER wall of photographs. especially its appearance in epitaph one, it always makes me so weirdly emotional? that wall, the song, the pictures of cast and crew. 10/10

i'm gonna cut myself off here or i'll never shut my mouth

THANKS BABES <333

[ladydeath-vanserra]

I feel like Rhys would be more interesting for me if SJM made up her mind on what kind of character he is supposed to be. If he's the "ideal man" then why write him performing textbook acts of abuse. the "ideal man" who is the pinnacle of Healthy Relationship Material cannot really mesh well with grey morality

part of being a morally grey character is,, the fucked up morality that "normal" characters would be like "dude wtf" which you can see with characters like Kaz Brekker and to an extent Damon Salvatore. Their grey morality is tied to their actual personhood and their actual sense of morality. they're not haunted by their actions. it is *within their morality* in their own ideals of what they consider right and wrong

Rhys' "grey morality" is tied to that of his "mask" and then he gets so tortured by how he just has to hurt all these people for the "greater good" my good dude that's not morally grey. a morally grey character is going to see it as worth it and not blink an eye bec it was what needed to be done- see Kaz literally ripping out that dudes eye and not blinking about it while everyone else was like what the fuck

Rhys is written closer to a character similar to Stefan who is just so tortured and the narrative and the people around him (and by extension many of his Stans™️) will go out of their way to completely forgive all the problematic shit he did bec he "has a pure heart" or "hes an addict tho" or whatever and it's easier to excuse when he's standing next to Damon, who is outwardly fucked up and problematic in such an obvious way (Rhys next to Tamlin or even Nesta)

she Wants him to be a morally grey bad boy but he's not *written* like one. he's not allowed to be problematic the way morally grey characters are problematic. Morally Grey characters are inherently toxic and problematic and often to the point where they can be/are abusive

but also, it's the fact that he just,,, doesn't have any real character growth outside of MAF. he becomes stagnant. his characterization doesn't really change. he keeps lying to Feyre. His actions don't really change bec the narrative doesn't challenge him to bec he's "the ideal man"

Hell Rhys taunting Tamlin in TAR was interesting and entertaining for me to read but when we get that in later books from his POV with Tamlin literally just beaten down and having had given up there is nothing to gleam from that. it's beating a dead horse, it's kicking someone while they're down. it's not taunting, it's not entertaining where someone can snap back, it's just demeaning and cruel at that point like fuck just leave him alone and maybe stop trespassing

I'd probably view Nesta and Rhys' beef differently if he didn't abuse political and magical power over her- if the narrative itself didn't immediately side with Rhys as objectively in the right despite lying and abusing his power over her. and maybe to an extent I'd forgive it if we had more scenes with them where they, more or less, buried the hatchet and let their relationship actually develop and build nuance

he gets boring. no one pushed back against him in a way that actually challenges the plot or Rhys, outside of Maybe Nesta when she told Feyre about the pregnancy but even then that went out of its way to vilify Nesta and not Rhysand for putting the gag order in place in the first place

like maybe if SJM committed to a Side with Rhys or actually got the plot to challenge him and give him actual growth I'd be more interested in his character. Right now he's just boring. and he's a dick. and not in the way I find very entertaining in characters

[cadwhatalad]

Other people have probably said this sooner and better, but I’m actually not done thinking about Everything Everywhere All At Once because the googly eyes represent on such a physical level the movie’s theme of radical empathy; not just in serving as the visual inverse of the Nihilism Bagel, but in that their presence literally inverts the concept of nihilism.

Does anyone else remember that Lindsey Ellis video essay from years ago where she talked about how aliens in sci fi movies are designed, and that by and large if the audience is supposed to empathise with them as characters then they’ll have big eyes with visible irises and pupils? And if they’re supposed to be unknowable and dangerous then they may not have visible eyes at all? Think E.T versus the Xenomorph or the heptapods from Arrival. Artists will do that because the eyes are the most direct way humans have of looking at a thing and understanding what it is. The more visible and mammal-like the eyes, the more familiarity we have with it, therefore the greater our empathy for it. Think of the amount of love your average person on the street will have for a random dog versus a random fly or snake or bird. Not to say that we can’t have empathy for the latter, but eyes make it easier.

In the movie, the first thing we see of the googly eyes is stuck on one of the bags of clothes Waymond stored upstairs – just in passing, he says something like “I think they’re happier up there!” while Evelyn’s shouting at him. She rips the eyes off and tells him to stop, keeps rushing around and ignoring Joy (ignoring joy, lmao). But they keep trickling back into the movie at every turn, stuck to washing machines and baseball bats, filling the world with friendly faces. Waymond, in a world that treats people like objects, treats objects like people, and he manifests it by giving them eyes. At one point he’s stuck them on a lampshade or something, shares a glance with it when he notices Evelyn’s noticed him and runs off like they’re conspiring together. When Evelyn finally comes around to his point of view, she sticks them on herself as a rock – this outermost physical form where she and Joy have un-personed themselves to the greatest extent they can manage, just rocks in an empty universe of rocks – and uses them to drag them both back into personhood.

And it works so well as a metaphor because the fundamental antagonistic force in the story is the refusal to empathise – Evelyn’s dismissal of Joy’s life choices and the partner she’s chosen, Alpha Evelyn’s literal use of Joy as an experiment, Gong Gong’s unwillingness to be proud of his daughter, Evelyn’s own refusal to be proud of herself. In the tax audit Deirdre is listing all of Evelyn’s business expense claims with reference to what they would make her as a person – ‘You’re telling me you’re a singer, a chef, a teacher, a novelist, well that can’t be right because you’re just a laundromat owner.’ The system she represents only has space for Evelyn to be one thing, denies her her complexity and humanity, so Deirdre acting as the arm of that system inevitably has to do the same (this is how her universe has to work, because it’s the one where she has a modicum of power and doesn’t have to think about driving her car through her ex’s kitchen).

And so it creates a feedback loop – Deirdre can’t acknowledge Evelyn’s humanity so Evelyn can’t acknowledge Deirdre’s. She can barely manage to love this person when her life literally depends on it. It’s only through Waymond’s approach of convincing Deirdre to confront the fact that he and Evelyn are people, the fact of what it really means for her to be coming after their livelihood like this, that a new feedback loop can be created. Deirdre can now acknowledge Evelyn’s humanity and give her a fucking break. Evelyn can acknowledge Deirdre’s and glimpse universes where they choose each other, spend their lives together.

(The cookies Waymond gives to Deirdre that initially persuade her to allow them a second chance have smiley faces on them).

The movie’s ultimate message is pretty clear – fuck nihilism, maybe nothing matters but also everything matters because I’m here and you’re here and I love you. But it doesn’t stop there. Fuck nihilism, maybe nothing matters but also everything matters because I’m here and this lampshade is here and I love it. I love this washing machine, this baseball bat, this bag of laundry. If I was a rock I would love all the other rocks with everything in my little rock soul. It’s can’t end at loving ourselves and loving each other, we’ve got to love the universe. On like, a molecular level. 

[spidermanifested]

ive thought a little more about devils nest dungeon meshi au (demons nest?) and here is the idea i was bouncing around in my head. id love for some kind of lore compliance check because i havent really gone back over the manga since i finished it, or sought out any kind of supplemental material, and i like the challenge of fitting these kinds of things into the boundaries of the source (once again DUNGEON MESHI SPOILERS. for people who havent read the manga at all)

so you have this demon (in a dungeon) (granting desires and eating them) (getting stronger) (hoping someday he can get out of the dungeon). and hes been in there a while and boy does he love watching humans get their greatest wishes granted, but the part where they gradually go mad with power or get disenchanted with the results and also he has to eat their desires anyway eventually kind of blows. he wishes he could only have the good part where he gets to make people happy forever is that too much to ask. maybe when he gets out of the dungeon he can do something about that. love to get out of the dungeon

anyway fast forward a while and this guy comes in. some teenage prince from a tallman country thats wracked with internal conflict and what HE wants is to become immortal, because that way when he takes the throne his reign will be eternal and the different clans will stop fighting over the right of succession. thats so specific. the demon loves it. he can just give him a peaceful united empire here, in the dungeon, which he can rule eternally-- no he wants the one at home. well. the problem with that is that the demon is here, in the dungeon, and not out there.

HELP WANTED NOTICE: i dont remember what the exact plan was vis a vis the winged lion getting up to the surface in the manga and i know it Had to be simpler than "just walk out of there" because why would it have had to steal laios' body about it. WOULD a sufficiently dedicated dungeon lord be able to get back up to the surface with their respective demon in tow.

ADDITIONAL HELP WANTED NOTICE: if a demon WAS freed from the dungeon without being powerful enough to get out under its own strength, how much magic would it be able to perform out there? would it be able to make somebody immortal without the big magic-insulation box. i feel like this changes a lot if greed Can grant ling immortality vs if now that hes out of the dungeon he cant really do shit.

either way now that hes out he does not technically need to eat this kids desires specifically anymore. if the immortality thing is a bust, maybe hes shaken by the experience of not being able to fulfill somebodys wish for the first time. but HIS wish has been fulfilled instead? complicated! maybe ling drags him back to his kingdom to help him gain the throne, or maybe he gets mad and leaves and greed never finds out what happens to him, but whatever goes down it changes his worldview and hes starting to develop a sense of personhood separate from the rest of the Demon Conglomerate, and also desires that are unique to Him

but he still wants to help people realize their own desires and maybe thats even strengthened by the fact that now he personally knows how much it owns (funny) to want something so bad and finally get it. so im thinking eventually he goes back to his old dungeon, now way smaller, and he sets up shop, and just waits for people to come by so he can help them in a less exploitative way. like he graduates from Addiction Metaphor to Healthy Coping Mechanism Metaphor. and the chimeras all find their way there eventually and he wins their trust one at a time until they are forced to admit this weird overly genuine dungeon guy kind of rules. his personality is laios basically he has the exact same type of autistic swag

but. if the elves heard about a demon who was just fucking going up to people floor 1 like hi im a demon welcome to my dungeon. they would shit bricks. so the raid also has to happen at some point. and i Am putting ling in there albeit as backstory so im open to suggestions as to how the rest of the cast of fma can fit into this (father and the homunculi as other more typical demons obviously) (no clue about anybody else) (come and play toys with me)

[bueris]

not going home club (hiori yo)

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angst, hiori parent bashing, 1.9k words

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Music blasted in his ears, as loud as he could stand it, heavy bass and raggedly screamed lyrics drowning out his roommates conversation. God, guys his age could be so fucking loud and for what? To be stupid? Yeah, he was being salty but when wasn’t he, he just made sure no one else saw it.

Hiori remembered the sentence that made the headphones get brought out, it wasn’t even a full one…

“When I go home-” and that’s all he heard before he decided to tap out of the conversation. His headphones were in his hands and turned on before he really recognised what he was doing, getting frustrated with the way they refused to pair with his phone. They did eventually though, thank fucking god for that, and metal was playing through them soon after.

Sure, he felt slightly guilty for getting pissed over some small and insignificant comment his friend said. But he didn’t do anything, didn’t yell or get pissy so maybe he shouldn’t beat himself up so damn much. Still, though, he felt silly for getting so worked up for something so small but hey, he had his reasons.

The thought of going home felt physically repulsive, like he wanted to rip out from his skin and get as far away from the thought as possible. Whenever the thought crossed his mind it felt like his whole brain came to a full stop, like it hit a brick wall that prevented him from continuing along those tracks. 

Of course he didn’t want to go back, he had no plan to, actually. His parents didn’t give a fuck about him, Yo, the child they had, no they only gave a fuck about what he could do, pressing him into their shitty mould to coping with being second rate halfwits who couldn’t succeed with their own lives. Seriously, Yo’d seen those American pageant videos online, you know the one, dozens of little kids forced into the stupidest, most invasive procedures to live out the half baked dreams of their mothers who only wanted to live through them by dressing them up like they were a doll and not a person.

He related to those kids so fucking much it hurt, yeah he liked doing football now but in no way did that mean that he forgave his parents for being like that. The way waking up felt pointless and empty because the day would be filled with doing shit you had no fucking say in built up over years and crushed him with its void-like weight, soul sucking and soul crushing.

Sometimes he feels like he’d betrayed himself, his young self, the one who hurt his ankle and realised his parents didn’t really love him in the same few minutes, the one that desperately tried to be good so they’d keep loving him and more importantly each other, by learning to enjoy football in his own way. That petulant child kicked him on the inside, cleat covered foot driving its too-firm outsole into the backs of him eyes, reminding him of everything that drove him insane.

Yo didn’t really feel guilt about the resentment he harboured for his parents, no, he couldn’t. They really were exceptionally stupid, emotional creatures that were so desperate for the centre of the limelight that they just had to make a whole new person about it? He felt angry on behalf of his younger self too, how dare they do something so fucking selfish? How dare they play with him like he didn’t have his own personhood? How fucking dare they.

Ever since the incident on the stairs he’d doubted every ‘kind’ action they made, doubted the sincerity in them, doubted their motivations. It always felt forced but now he knew it absolutely was, there only just to fulfil his basic needs so he wouldn’t have a breakdown mid match or something, or god forbid, end up in therapy when he could be practising.

God it made him feel mental, how long could someone go without genuine human contact without losing it? He found out, sixteen years. Sixteen years and he still clung on. And he was mad he was clinging on, because he shouldn’t have to fucking cling to the edges of his stability with often-forced politeness, he deserved better.

And that’s why he would never go back home, when Blue Lock was over and he’d ultimately failed because being a striker wasn’t even his goal anymore he’d leave for Tokyo instead of home the second he was left unattended and disappear into the grey jungle and make it alone no matter what. Going home was the same as being stuffed back into a display home, and on top of that he’d have to deal with his parents coping with his failure.

The thought brought a smile to his face, actually, wouldn’t it be so fucking funny to watch their faces fall when his foot crossed the threshold? To watch as half of their lives crumbled into nothing with his very presence, to try and wrap their tiny minds around the fact they’d never get the spotlight they wanted. It was a gleeful feeling, to imagine they’d be crushed with hopelessness, folding under the weight of disappointment the same way he did when he realised he was only worth as much as his football was to them.

Often though, the anger and its accompanying vengeful joy shattered into pained fragments, stabbing and poking at him with an overwhelming sense of loss. If only his parents actually loved him, if only they could look at him and truly see him, witness his truth that strayed from the path they set out and still cradle him in their arms with love and sweet words.

It ached, that longing, constantly. Sometimes it was ignorable but most of the time he could tell it was there, looming over his head like the worst, most decrepit kind of shadow. An all consuming void that soaked up genuine praise like a parched sponge, but never felt full, never satiated. Sometimes he just craved to be held like he should’ve as a child.

Other times, that being most, the waves of anger intersected with the waves of sadness and they dulled each other out like opposite colours being mixed together, red and blue forced to co-exist in the childhood shaped hole in his mind. They cancelled out, filling the base of his being, the root of his psyche with a nothing colour that felt like it could block out the sun. That nothing feeling was so normal, it was everyday, it felt so weird because it was like walking around half deaf. The numbness didn’t feel like much, because he didn’t feel like much and he hadn’t for a very long time, the only breaks from it were filled with ugly feelings he’d rather ignore.

He felt tired a lot of the time, a consequence of the numbness sometimes and a result of his anger burning too bright at others. The tiredness after a bout of anger felt so bone deep, probably because it was, he had nowhere to put it and it dug through the fibres of his muscles and into his bone marrow and from the blood they produced the tiredness spread and filled him. Yo wished his anger could go somewhere, disappear off of his head like steam from water when he put his head on the pillow to finally sleep, he really wished it could.

Blue Lock felt like a monumental chore at first, playing along until he got far enough for his parents to not disown him instantly then quit and disappear. Oh, he wished he could disappear, pack his life into a bag or two and vanish from the face of the earth. Not only that, no, he wanted it to hurt. He wanted it to hurt his family, to watch them mourn the idea of their missing son, the tears they’d shed over their hopes dissolving in front of them as an intangible spectator. He wanted it to hurt him, to feel the guilt and the horrible impending doom of no longer existing as he stuffed clothes into bags until there was nothing left but the mementos that tied him to his parents that he would leave behind forever to collect dust in his empty room that was never really home.

It was a stupid childish fantasy, and a tragedy that he could only imagine half-genuine tears of half-genuine care being shed over him when he wasn’t there. But he could, if he wanted to, disappear into the city and never come back, be swallowed by its crowded streets never to be seen again.

It would be awful, the life of a teen runaway would never be easy, especially in the city. He’d considered the countryside too, miles of forest to hide in and less people to catch him. It would be easier to physically do too, to hop off the bus taking him back home, wait for it to leave and walk in the direct opposite of his house. But he wanted to live properly, live freely in society when he was of age and no longer required to be in his parent’s ‘care’, and he could only do that with a good job. Safe to say, he’d been planning this for a while, since he was a child.

God isn’t that awful? A childish plan that lasted so long it evolved, and all because two people decided to be selfish.

Yo sighed, the paper in front of him wasn’t getting any fuller, what a waste.

He wondered if his parents would’ve been happier if they hadn’t had him. Maybe they would’ve divorced and found something healthier to do with their time than reminisce, maybe his mother would’ve gone somewhere with her life instead of ending up as a miserable stay at home mother, maybe his father wouldn’t be so distant with her. Maybe, just maybe they would’ve moved on from their early peak and been happy.

And so, he felt guilty for existing sometimes, without him they could’ve moved on, had a happy life untethered by accomplishments they didn’t quite get, maybe even had a child they could love right. He kicked himself a little every time a ‘what if’ burrowed its way into his brain, that would never happen and thinking like that is useless because he’ll end up killing himself, and he intends to live long enough to abandon them.

Still, he rewatched the U-20 match sometimes, telling himself over and over that it was for the game play, but only focusing on the interviews at the end. With the glossy eyes of a child he’d watch them, watch as his peers spoke of their families, watch as their families spoke of his peers. There were highlights and social media posts that captured them embracing, the high emotions and the tears and the tight grip they had on one another that spoke of immense pride in them. 

Oh, he wanted that, he wanted it dearly because when they did it, it meant something, it was more than some self-congratulatory act. He wanted it, and he mourned all the times he never got it everyday.

And so, no matter what he’d leave them. No more watching himself from someone else’s perspective, no more living for anyone else, from the moment he stepped foot outside his parents property he’d become a member of the world’s loneliest club. The not going home club.

Yo gave up with the paper in front of him, putting the pencil down and taking his headphones off. The chatter had died down, everyone focusing on their work. Next to him, Isagi shuffled closer, their legs brushing. It was a small act but it fit a lot of worth into it, not going home meant finding a new one. He wouldn’t be alone.

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also available on ao3!

thanks for reading ily <3

[jpitha]

The Dreams of Hyacinth 4

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Jameson smiled. "I know. An AI with a daughter? Who ever heard of such a thing, right?" Nick nodded silently.

"Well, very occasionally, when two AIs enter a relationship, we decide we'd like progeny of our own. We were built and designed by humans after all, it makes sense for our thought processes to be similar right? Anyway, we can combine a bit of our own code and... have a kid. They're not exactly a baby, and they don't learn like humans, and it's not a lot like raising a human, but she's still my daughter and I still love her."

Nick nodded. "Of course Jameson. We'll find her and bring her home. Is her... other parent in the picture?"

At mention of the other parent, Jameson's face crumples. "No, Nick. They died."

Nick didn't know a lot about AIs, but he knew it was rare for one to die. He had heard that some AIs were more than a thousand years old. "I'm sorry Jameson," was all he could manage.

"Thanks for your condolences Nick. They were one of the Starjumpers that attacked Empress Melody a decade ago, were you around for that?" Nick shook his head. "It's better you weren't. It was a nasty time for everyone." Jameson looks into the middle distance, remembering. "They were destroyed in orbit around Venus during the push to catch Melody before she escaped." Jameson looked at Nick in the eye. "They took out two of their damned Super Dreadnoughts when they blew their reactor though. They left with a positive count." His face softened and he looked down at his pad. "Not a day goes by that I don't miss them. Yon is my only link to them left, so you get why I want her back."

Nick looked Jameson in the eye. "We'll get her back. I personally guarantee it." Eastern was looking at them, wide eyed. "Nick, what the fuck are you-"

Jameson raised a hand for silence and smiled. He snapped his fingers towards the guards in the shadows. They wheeled over two beds, also with straps. When they beds came by, Eastern started to struggle against the straps.

"Now now Eastern, don't be like that. We're not going to hurt you." Jameson stopped. "No, I apologize. We're not going to hurt you on purpose." He stopped again. "No, that's still not right. The goal of the exercise is not pain." He thought a moment, "Yes, that's more accurate. I'm giving both of you a gift. A very special, rare gift. Something that will help you immensely when trying to find an AI."

As Jameson was speaking, the guards lifted up Nick like he weighed nothing and moved him to the bed, strapping him down. They did the same to Eastern. Nick was too confused to be more than curiously worried, but tears freely flowed from Eastern as she was strapped down. She whimpered quietly.

Nick turned his head and his eyes met Eastern's. She was incredibly frightened. He has never seen her this scared. "Uh Jameson? What is going to happen to us? Eastern is really worried."

Jameson waved his hand dismissively. "She's scared because she knows me better than you do, that's all son. I'm not going to torture you though, even though that's what it looks like. We're going to perform a little procedure on you, and you'll be better able to help me."

"Procedure?"

"That's right." Jameson nodded. "We're going to give you both cybernetic enhancements."

Eastern screamed.

Nick felt the icy pinch of a needle injecting something into his body, and before he could react, he was out.

Soon after the AIs were created and their personhood confirmed, biological people noticed that their bodies didn't break down and fail like human bodies did. A group of humans came to the AIs and asked "Can we get bodies like that? Could you put us into a body that doesn't get decrepit and die?"

The AIs, game to try anything with their new partners in the galaxy, agreed to try.

They dragged out ancient research into brain/computer interfaces and started the research again. Decades of people-hours went into improving the theory, developing new techniques and technology, all to give their new friends what they wanted.

A small subset of the AI faction was worried that this was too much change to their biological brains too quickly, but the humans assured them that it would be tested only on volunteers, and everyone knew the risks.

In hindsight, the AIs probably should have known better. After all, the people that most wanted to live forever were the people that probably should not have had access to the technology.

Eventually, the first generation of human cybernetic enhancements were developed, and the systems were ready for testing. Humans by the hundreds showed up and volunteered to be cut open and have this technology inserted.

All kinds of enhancements were developed. Artificial limbs, artificial organs, additional computational power for our brains and improved memory.

The losses were horrific.

If the subject didn't die from shock or rampant infection, then often they were reduced to a state of cationic stillness from over stimulation. Some reports made public state that of the one thousand official test subjects, less than twenty survived.

Some less official reports state that the number of "volunteers" was nearly three times the official number, and the losses were even higher.

In the end, there were "officially" twenty cybernetically enhanced humans, a lot of corpses, and the horrified AIs closed the program forbidding any further research. The cybernetically enhanced humans were given jobs that would benefit from such a person - mostly out in space, away from everyone else.

One of the most famous uses for a cybernetically enhanced human was as the co-captain of the massive colony ships that were launched soon after the program completed. This is not their story, however.

The thing about cybernetics is that the lure of it was just too enticing for some. The ability to be more than what they were, to be faster, smarter, stronger was too intriguing to just... stop the research.

So it went underground.

There was no shortage of "volunteers" either. People who had owed money to the wrong people, people who had signed up for the chance to get their family off planet to one of the nicer orbitals, people who just wanted a chance at a more exciting life. More meat for the grinder.

Because of the stigma against cybernetic enhancement, work was also done to hide the work done. There would be no chrome people with beautiful biomechanical arms, no lines of silver on their skin denoting their special status, no large ports on the back of their necks to show where they can interface more directly with a computer. Just as much work was done to hide the mods as was done on the mods themselves.

Nick didn't know any of this. He was a kid from Parvati who used the proceeds from the death of his parents to book passage as far away from Parvati as he could. He wasn't interested in AI history or cybernetics any more than he was interested in Empress Melody.

While he was under, Nick had odd dreams.

He was young again, sitting on the uncomfortable bench at his parent's funeral. His suit was rented, and scratchy. The two urns that contained their remains sat on a table surrounded by flowers as people walked by. Some had misty eyes, one or two, actual tears, but most everyone was expressionless.

Every now and then, someone - he never remembered who - would come up to him and offer hollow condolences. "You're strong." and "I'm so sorry" and "How lucky you made it." and so on and so on.

Nick was numb to the words.

While he was sitting, Eastern walked up to him. The same adult Eastern Nick knows now, not some kind of child, like he was. "Hey Nick, what are you doing, wallowing in your memories?" She looks around. "This is where you came from?" She scoffs. "No wonder you're so boring."

Nick looked up at Eastern. She was as beautiful as ever, dressed in a black, low cut cocktail dress. Entire inappropriate for a funeral, but at least it was black. "Come on now, what are you going to dream about next? Purchasing cattle class to Hyacinth because that's the furthest you can get with your meager inheritance? I know that part already." She bends down low, and Nick's eyes are drawn to her cleavage. She notices his eyes and grins wickedly. "Hah, I knew you were in there somewhere, you perv." She laughs. "Come on, let's get out of this dream, find somewhere nicer." She grabs his hand and squeezes it. Nick's head snaps back and he gasps.

The sky is turquoise and the sun is much more orange than Sol. Eastern looks around. "Is this Parvati? I've never even been planet-side and you're taking me to a fucking colony world?" She playfully nudges his upper arm. "Why couldn't you have done shit like this when we were dating?" She's wearing a black bikini with a blue and gold sari skirt, and Nick is in a black speedo.

Nick looks around. "We're at Touchdown Beach, on Parvati. It's where the first colonists landed." He gets his bearings. "Behind us is Naya Chennai, the First City, which means..." He stepped onto the dune, with Eastern following. As they reached the top, the flash of the sun on the water caught her attention and she gasped.

Eastern had never been on a planet. She spent her childhood on Luna, and then bounced around stations, starbases and orbitals her whole life. Dream or not, this is the first time she's ever seen an ocean. "Holy shit Nick. This is so much water! I can't even see the other side!" She takes a deep breath. "What's that smell? It's salty and funky and..."

"It's the smell of the sea. The salt and the sea creatures and the rotting seaweed." Nick took a deep breath as well. "It smells like home."

Eastern stood with the sun in front of her, highlighting her skin and the black bikini she was wearing. She put her arms on her hips and stared at Nick. "Nicholas North, you never told me Parvati was a paradise!"

Nick smiled and chuckled sadly. "Only if you're vacationing here, Eastern. Things aren't as... exciting when you grew up here."

"Ahh, there's the sad lump Nick I know and love. Welcome back." She looked around. "What are we doing though? Doesn't this feel odd for a dream?"

Nick mused. "Maybe it's related to the cybernetics work they're doing on us." He looked at Eastern. She really did look amazing in her outfit. He'll have to see if he can buy what she needs to recreate it when they're awake. "You try remembering something Eastern, maybe it goes both ways."

"Hmm okay."

They were in a crowd. So many people all at once. Nick felt light on his feet too. When the crowd moved, he had to shuffle along so he didn't bounce too high. Bounding when you walked was seen as something only tourists and newbies did. Why did he know that?

Everything was grey. Grey walls, grey ceiling, the dome above showed a black and grey sky. Everything smelled faintly of people and cordite.

"Luna." He said, "We're on Luna."

"That's right." Nick looked down. Eastern was next to him, but she couldn't be much older than 12 or 13. Her raven black hair was much longer now and floated lazily in the low gravity of Earth's moon. She caught him staring. "It was a sign of affluence to have long hair on Luna. It takes work to keep it from becoming one huge snarl."

"Why are we here?" Nick asked, looking around.

Eastern looked too. She jumped up until she was a good two heads taller than everyone and lazily floated back down. "I know why we're here! It's one of my best memories!" She grabbed his hand. "Come on, you're gonna get to meet her, you'll love her!"

Eastern dragged Nick through the crowd, ducking and weaving around the masses of people, trying to make it to the front of the crowd and the stage ahead. In the distance, he saw figures standing on the stage, their blue outfits a splash of color in this monochrome world. They seemed even more highly contrast than should be possible. This must have been a very formative memory for Eastern.

At the front of the crowd, two women sit. They're both wearing the vivid blue uniform. One has long dark hair pulled back sensibly in the low gravity, and the other has blond hair cropped short and spiky. The black haired woman seems to have a hologram of... wings and a crown on her? They're faint. Barely the suggestion of them, but Nick knows they're there.

It's their turn. Eastern bound up to the table. "And who is this young lady?" The Empress Melody says kindly. Eastern is practically bursting with excitement. "My name is Meghan Pelham, your highness." and she does a short curtsy.

"Such manners Miss Pelham, It is our pleasure to meet you." Empress Melody inclines her head gently and the woman behind her smiles.

"Are you really going to help all of us?" Eastern looks at them wide-eyed.

"That's our goal, yes. No matter who you are, or where you came from, we're here to help. There's so much we can do, and I hope that I can make everyone's lives better." She touches Eastern's right arm in a familial way and she practically floats off the floor. "Now, run along Meghan, and I hope we'll see you soon." A K'axi behind the empress hands Eastern a signed photo of her and the woman with the short blond hair.

Suddenly, Melody looks up at Nick and stares at him. "You don't belong here."

Sputtering, Nick has no reply. "I-I-I-I mean..."

Nick wakes up.

First / Previous / Next

[utilitycaster]

I'm Reading the Drizzt Novels and You Can't Stop Me: Exile

I DID knock a second book out, which means at this rate I will start reading books I haven't already read by May if we go by "two in a month" but by late March if we go by "one a week" I should probably speed this up.

Exile is much simpler plot wise and also, despite being the middle child of the Dark Elf trilogy, is the best, because it's Drizzt Depression Hours and also is our last long look at Menzoberranzan drama for a while.

So Drizzt and his lavender orbs ran away from Menzoberranzan at the end of Homeland, and Exile covers this period. Basically, being alone in the Underdark is soul-crushing, and he develops a dissociative identity he calls The Hunter who is focused on survival, but is at the risk of losing his personhood but for Guenhwyvar, who, as an astral plane summoned spirit of a panther, can only be around half a day every two days. He is fucking losing it and himself and is constantly having internal battles because he's so desperately lonely he risks being found by potentially hostile creatures but also The Hunter is like STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING and generally he is utterly miserable. I enjoy this kind of shit in fiction, so this is great.

Back in Menzoberranzan, House Do'Urden, with help from Bregan D'aerthe (more on this in a second), wrecks but doesn't fully annihilate House Hun'ett but Head Matron Baenre is like "you shall absorb House Hun'ett and take your place on the ruling council of the eight top matrons" to Malice because Lolth wills it. Why does Lolth will it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Anyway SiNaFay Hun'ett does NOT like this but goes along with it, pretending to be the eldest Do'Urden daughter. Briza Do'Urden, meanwhile, hates this.

Let's talk about Bregan Da'erthe because it's led by the greatest fucking guy ever: Jarlaxle. Jarlaxle is, undeniably, the most gay-coded character that has ever fucking existed. He is a bald drow man (in a matriarchal society) and exists outside the house structure, running a band of (male) rogues and mercenaries and assassins for hire and is basically making the most of his low status by being 100% only out for himself at all times. His outfit is rainbow colored in both the heat spectrum (this is how drow darkvision is explained, that they simply have infrared) AND the regular light spectrum. He owns what I think I described as boots of cuntiness which permit him to be soundless OR make sound, and canonically in a later book deliberately makes heel click sounds on a soft carpet in order to be Like That. He is generally at all times introduced as being one of a kind and out of the bounds of typical drow society and I love him.

The core of the plot actually kicks off when Malice sends Dinin and Briza (Drizzt's older brother and sister) to find him in the tunnels and kill him. They do find him, but fail to kill him, and Drizzt realizes "oh huh the highlight of my entire fucking year was my horrible siblings trying to murder me bc I'm so touch-starved that the lash of Briza's whip feels good, I should...do something about this." (He is also tormented bc he nearly breaks his vow to never kill another drow; as a paladin fan I love someone tormented by a nearly broken vow but like, babygirl they tried to kill you, you're being silly). What he does, because there's no therapy in the Underdark, is start stalking the svirfnebli, and eventually he sneaks into Blingdenstone, where they live. He turns himself in and basically gives himself over to their mercy on the grounds that he'd rather die among a relatively decent-seeming society than become more and more murderous in the tunnels. This will be echoed in a very unsubtle way by another character later.

Malice, realizing that Lolth is getting really mad that they can't seem to kill Drizzt, asks for a major boon which is inexplicably called Zin-carla, which basically lets her semi-puppet/semi-observe through the eyes of a reanimated Zaknafein, on the grounds that he is the only person who can probably kill Drizzt and also, well, it's real malicious. To do this, she sacrifices SiNaFay, which she and Briza think is just grand. Drizzt is at this time getting interrogated by gnomes who have silly names and talk a bit like Yoda, but eventually he asks about the gnome whom he spared during a patrol years ago. This gnome, named Belwar Dissengulp (this is not remotely the stupidest name in this series) vouches for him and also has sweet stone-working hands. He takes in the deeply traumatized Drizzt, who, after a brief but mercifully non-lethal Hunter outburst while hanging out with some gnome youths, starts to reacclimate to society and be like "wow so you're NOT all scheming against each other constantly? I must be in paradise." The gnomes begin to accept him as well and return his surrendered scimitars and panther, and all is very heartwarming until one day the Zakafein attacks.

This comes to the attention of the council of Blingdenstone because one of them, named Firble (also not the stupidest name in this series) is paying Jarlaxle for intel. This all travels up the line to King Schnicktick (still not the stupidest name in this series but we're getting up there) who's like Drizzt you gotta leave, and he does, but Belwar goes with him, so it's way less sad!

The rest of the book is their adventures running from Zaknafein and Drizzt being like "but my father is dead! but how" and I went long on the summary of the earlier stuff so the important things are:

They come across a pech (intelligent little rock creature) who has been polymorphed into a hook horror by an evil wizard and is losing himself and becoming the monster, in, yes, a very unsubtle and literal parallel to Drizzt. They call him Clacker and travel with him.

They run into the evil and deeply unhinged wizard who has a (written) accent I can best describe to TAZ fans as "Magic Brian" and best describe to D20 fans as "Romance Partner Baron from the Baronies." I am not an audiobook woman but I'm tempted to see how this is done in audio format.* Anyway Clacker loses himself to a rage and murders the wizard (Brister Fendlestick, not the stupidest name etc) and Drizzt is currently a fighter and Belwar has very limited abilities re: magic as well so they can't do anything about this. Also it's 2e right now so idk if you can just dispell or if you do need the original wizard.

The crew gets trapped by illithids who do their creepy-ass mind-control but as Zak is undead, he comes through like a sword tornado and unintentionally frees Drizzt, Belwar, and Clacker from their mind-slavery. Combat between our heroes, Zak, AND the illithids ensues and as Drizzt considers returning to Menzoberranzan to kidnap a wizard to help Clacker, Zak kills Clacker.

All of the above is interspersed with multiple cuts to Malice losing her shit as she focuses on controlling Zak from afar. Jarlaxle and Matron Baenre occasionally muse on the fate of House Do'Urden, which is truly up in the air as all this happens. House Baenre lends soldiers to help House Do'Urden defend itself while Malice is occupied; Dinin notices Bregan D'aerthe among them.

Drizzt and Zak have a final showdown in a cavern with ledges and also a giant pool of acid. Malice briefly loses control of Zak, who wrests control of his spirit and explains the situation to Drizzt and then jumps into the acid, ending his undeath. This is VERY bad for Malice, who is already as discussed falling apart (mostly figuratively but she has been rapidly aging as well).

Briza immediately stabs her mother to become the new Matron (Briza SUCKS but also this does make sense in that it's clear Malice has failed Lolth so it is the best chance for the house). However, House Baenre then launches its attack. Briza and Maya (who really has a very minor role in all this, Drizzt's unseen sister; fanfic writers this is some fertile ground for toxic yuri) are killed but Vierna is taken as essentially a spoil of war/powerful asset to be folded into the strength of Baenre. Dinin meanwhile is recruited by Jarlaxle, and seeing no other choice, takes it. (Fanfic writers this is some fertile ground for toxic yaoi).

Drizzt returns briefly to Blingdenstone with Belwar but is asked to leave as he did pose a threat by being there and, frankly, agrees. He decides to go to the surface with Guenhwyvar and see what happens next.

Anyway iirc book 3's most memorable things are 1. some sort of tragic event involving children who call Drizzt a "Drizzit" 2. Mooshie, who is not canonically Quebecois but is in vibes, taking Drizzt in. After that we jump to the wildly tonally different Crystal Shard (and Icewind Dale Trilogy) which I will attempt to summarize more briefly and with minimum grumbling about how much Wulfgar is a timesuck.

*apparently the guy who reads the Drizzt novels on audiobook is Victor Bevine, who is also CEO of some sort of Parkour-related foundation. However, Jason Charles Miller played Drizzt in a video game in 2013 which is very cool.

[puffybottomslvt]

You made the mistake of being his type. You made the mistake of cutting through that alley. You made the mistake of stopping when he asked you if he could borrow your phone, which he smashed on the ground before he forced you to your knees and shoved his cock in your mouth. The smell of it was awful. You've never smelled another man's balls before, but as he rammed his dick down your throat and they slapped against your chin, you started to not mind the smell. Every time he thrust in and your nose went into his untrimmed bush, you got a whiff of his manhood and realized struggling wasn't going to do anything. He was much stronger than you, and you had no phone or car. Everything around you was closed, and nobody could see you from the streets. You eventually just relaxed and let him use you. The moment this shift happened, he pulled his dick out of your mouth and slapped you across the face with it. The drool, precum, and snot from your nose mixed together and ran down your chin, and when he hit you with his dick, it flung this viscous mixture all over your face. He forced your face up so your eyes met his. He was smiling, but he had this blankness in his eyes. He was totally using you, with no regard to your personhood. "That's right" he said, putting his cock back in your mouth and shoving it all the way down your throat, his pelvis pressing up against your open mouth, hurting your lips and jaw. "Just give into it. Get used to it." Just as you began to wonder what that meant, he picked you up by the hair and turned you around. "That sloppy whore mouth got this dick nice and wet." As he said that, he pulled your pants down and pressed his throbbing cock against your tight hole. You remember thinking about how you've never had anything in your ass before, but TV and movies always made it sound painful. It definitely was. He pressed against you a few times, and on the last he entered you with a rush of hot pain. He didn't care at all. Just like he didn't care if anyone walked by, or if he got caught, he didn't care if he hurt you at all. In fact, he seemed to revel in it. The more you squirmed and cried, the deeper he went in. It hurt so bad, you let out a scream. "Shut the fuck up" he yelled, clamping over your mouth with his left hand. He was hurting your neck as he pulled on you, still fucking you mercilessly. As you kept whimpering, he tightened his grip, until he clamped your nose shut with his thumb and forefinger. After a few seconds, partially due to the pain, and definitely due to the oxygen deprivation, your vision closed in and went dark.

The next thing you know, you're in the back of a van, face down. The same man is still fucking you, practically lying on top of you to hold you down, now that you're awake again. You don't know how long you've been out, but you notice his dick feels different. It doesn't hurt as much, and when he goes in balls deep, he hits a spot that makes your legs quiver. "Looks like you're starting to like this dick" he says right before slapping you hard across the face. "Yeah tighten that little pink pussy around daddy's dick," he says, slapping you again, then grabbing your hair. He lifts your head and upper torso off of the van floor and whispers in your ear, "I got big plans for you. I don't know what you were a few hours ago, but now you're mine." He then wrapped his hard, dense arm around your neck and gave a squeeze. Your hands grab at his jacket sleeve, but your vision closes in again, and as you feel yourself drift off, you hear him laugh, and the dial tone of an outgoing call. Your head hits the floor and he continues fucking for a few minutes until he cums inside you, deep enough he does worry about it leaking out while he ties your ankles to your wrists behind your back. He leaves you there, hobbled, face down on the dirty van floor, gets in the driver's seat, and drives away.

Part II coming if y'all want it

[hermanunworthy]

hiiii it’s me, blowing you a kiss and bringing you paragraphs on stab wounds <3

there’s a lot to talk to god about. grant isn’t particularly religious. his dad is, and he’s never had a bad experience with religion exactly. they baptized lincoln and they celebrate christmas and easter, but he’s never been the type to pray. you can get a lot of anger out at god yelling at other players online.

he talks to the doodler though. if you give the void a name, you can make it closer to a monster, create something that can be killed. grant believes it is going to kill him first. it’s important that no matter how unfair a fight it is, it is a fight. he used to think it should be comforting, that here was this one thing he couldn’t kill. that was before they had a son. now, it is man-circling-man, grant looking up into the sky every day and remembering when there was an eye to challenge him back.

when grant talks to the doodler, he is talking to something he believes will see the death of him. the others will be the one to kill it, with their magic and fate-twisting cards. it will take him, he’s only human. part of him loves it for that. grant isn’t particularly religious, but this god isn’t particularly holy.

kill me in the morning. I don’t want to live my last day in dread, worried it will be cut off at any moment. for my last day, I want to take in a breath and feel my lungs fully expand. the day before you kill me, I want to not be afraid. I want to feel and for that feeling to just be good. I want to have one moment where I’m laughing, and it’s like there’s a golden ball of light filling me up so completely, the whole world looks bathed in sunlight through my eyes.

I miss the sun.

lark remembers when his mind was his own place. glued at the hip to sparrow, shouting together fighting together looks exchanged so often they may have been swapping eyes entirely, but they were still separate people. then they woke up one morning in an inn and pulled some adult’s robe over themselves, and lark couldn’t say which one of them was on top anymore, who sat on whose shoulders, and it was the strangest experience, to settle into the personhood of a prophecy. it was fun, it was a game, watch the people fight! have everyone else support the battle to come that will make you the bravest heroes! conquer this world and achieve the greatness that hums so close to the surface beneath your skin you can never stay still.

after they became the lord of chaos, they could not move out of each other’s minds. there was a time lark was fifteen when it twisted into a sudden panic, the realization he could not get away. he tried- teenagers want to be independent, to grow up, to be different. this destiny suffocated him. when he was younger he had so much power. he could have done anything. the slant lines narrowed, the church of the doodler chanted, the knife he ended the world with was buried in the same yard as their dog. he would never be anything else. he would never have done anything else. he had to fix it. he had to live like this. he could have done anything and now this was all he would ever do.

lark did not like apologizing. every day he spends alive after what he did to his father, he spends as an apology. he hates apologizing- the shorter, the better. when lark talks to the doodler, he is talking to himself, for being the thing that fucked the universe so spectacularly it tore into two other realms.

I will eat you alive. I have it in me to drive the knife in shallowly, to watch you writhe and rot. it’s you and me at the end of all things. I will kill you. I don’t have a choice. you poisoned everything in my world and swept my childhood up into your apocalypse when I was way too young. you have bred your own enemy. I will watch them bury you in the yard and my father will love you enough to do it beneath the tree. I will kill you with the power you gave me and then you will stop hurting my brother.

I saw what was in you. you never grow up.

anon im gonna be so real w u i woke up at like 3am just now feeling absolutely terrible and when i saw i had a new minific in my inbox it really helped me feel better. ur writing is so brilliant its very inspiring to me esp now that im trying to get back into my own writing

[vanderwoodlings]

i know i once sent you an ask about your thoughts on Serena and motherhood, but what about your thoughts on Eric's relationship to fatherhood/if he'd want to be one, etc

Oooh yes that’s a fun one! Well. Unfun for Eric, but—

So the thing about William VDW is he’s one of the very few people we see Eric straight up write off: “The window for that closed somewhere between my twelfth birthday and, um, my suicide attempt… Going through all that without a father made me realize that I don't need one.”

He takes a lot of abandonment, betrayal, etc through the series, and he rarely holds a grudge. Serena, Lily, Jenny: all of them are still family, still loved ones, even while regularly in conflict with a Jenny he proclaims he’ll still have her back if the problem is real, and all it takes is… being there sometimes. Apologizing sometimes. Trying

Fatherhood, for Eric, has one face in complete and utter absence. Unlike Serena, who uses that openness to hope, Eric replies with the (perhaps more grounded) “well fuck you too.” It is auxiliary to his personhood.

I think it makes sense that Eric is the one of these kids who’s actually had some help processing his trauma.

But he also implies that he didn’t always think that way. (Return to Serena, Lily, Jenny: Eric is not cold by nature. His walls come from repetition. Implicitly, it took his a real long time before he stopped hoping for his dad to give a fuck.)

Now, further, we have the rufly paradox: that they’re better parents to their stepkids than the ones they’ve had the whole time. Eric and Rufus have a good relationship; they’re affectionate and respectful and loving towards each other. When Rufus is thinking about proposing, he talks to Eric, who’s delighted.

(This is despite, one might note, him being Jenny’s confidant throughout the emancipation saga.)

I think Eric manages to come out of his adolescence with a weirdly healthy view of fatherhood. He definitely still has issues, but he also has a pretty good dad.

When it comes to being a father himself, I think Eric is definitely not a “well, if my partner wants” kinda guy. Like stop no do not pass go do not collect two hundred dollars—if he’s having a kid, he wants that kid, and he’s never gonna run the risk of that kid being abandoned. Eric is very aware that his parents had kids because they were supposed to, rather than because they wanted to.

I could see him arranging a childless little family and being very happy that way, but my preference is yeah, he would want and have kids.

He’s really scared, once it starts looking like a legitimate plan rather than a castle in the air, and he stays scared for a while. He’s mean, he’s sad, neither of his parents were ever there what does he do?

He’s also a great dad

[rokramble]

Counterpart's Conundrum - a kinda Dark Links meet AU, with bonding, attempted murder, shenanigans and Ravio :D

Or a time traveling nightmare camping trip that Ravio was accidentally invited to, and now everyone has feelings and gets to learn about morals and personhood or some shit. It's very funny to me, so expect the vibes to be closer to a crackfic taken seriously right now.

Also I added totk fake Zelda, because that idea was also very funny to me. <3 I'll put a few details below.

I only chose dark links/shadow links we fight in the games, so there's no SkSw, BotW, MC, WW, or even TP darks (i'm sorry TP). What we DO have are:

Dink - OoT. his name makes him sooo mad, but it grows on him Malachite (aka Mal) - ALttP/FS Azurite - ALttP/FS Garnet - ALttP/FS Amethyst (aka Grimace) - ALttP/FS. yeah there's 4 of them, they're feral Dave - OoA. his placeholder name got stuck </3 he's silly like that, also an annoyance Shade - ALBW+TFH. knows politeness and manners, has decided they're optional, he is down to fight at all times Guard - TAoL. his morals are your morals your majesty ^_^ Gray - FSA. heavily based on the manga. still figuring out feelings Onyx - ST. he's like if a soot sprite from totoro had no fear and could maim you Summon - HW. he is such a violent, angry person but the devotion is insane + Delta (aka Marionette/Mari) - TotK phantom puppet. almost had matching names with Dink, but the guys respect/love her aura of bloodlust way too much for that. + Ravio - ALBW. he's not even slightly evil, did not get himself into this situation and is having a very hard time getting himself out.

The 'how' of their meeting is something or other—some residue of Ganon or Demise's influence, like grease on the timeline if you will—got the brilliant idea of recreating and gathering dark reflections of the hero from previous plots. It misunderstood who Ravio was since Lorule is/was a 'dark world', and thought Delta deserved the chance to actually attack people.

It then used whatever power left to give them an item for time travel. But the ganon grease didn't secure the full group's loyalty, so now they've been let loose on the timelines to track down and kill the Links their own way, without order, with only Ravio and Gray to stop them.

At first it was just about keeping the peace and biding time to escape or take the group out, but after seeing some of them learn and change Ravio is attached and Gray kinda wants to show them the world. It's really a conundrum.

To end it off (I'll probably make even more detailed posts another time), some funnies that came about in the planning stages of this:

Ravio: *accidentally found families your evil doppelgangers*

Delta: what do you have there? Ravio, drink in hand, trying to hide a Link behind him: an evil root beer

Gray, back in his time, kicking Link's door open: LINK HOLY FUCK

Gray: if i had a rupee for every time a violet boy lied to gain my trust and double-crossed me i'd have two rupees. which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice

Gray: what is it with violet bitches and going undercover?! Ravio: I DIDN'T DO IT ON PURPOSE

Mal: this is my emotional support cold bastard Azurite: this is my emotional support slippery bastard

Shade: you should be addicted to shutting the fuck up Dave, signing: you wanna kiss me so bad it makes you look stupid

Onyx: (⓿_⓿) Onyx: (◕_◕) Onyx: (◉_◉) Summon: stop Onyx: (ㆆ_ㆆ)

Mal: what do you have?! Dink: A BOMB Mal, Ravio and Shade: NO! Azurite: oh my darkness why does he have a bomb? (Gray did it)

Dink, young adult: i'm having a midlife crisis Gray: aren't you like, five? Dink, young adult?: i'm eleven so shut the fuck up

Delta, referring to the darks: my henchmen

"Wow these people are so weird, thank Ganon I'm the only normal one" - pretty much all of them

[the-cryptographer]

I know it’s uncomfortable to look at and think about the emotional intensity of Fenris’s trauma bond to Danarius, but how does Fenris’s character even begin to make sense if he wasn’t a huge simp for the guy? Why did he kill all those fog warriors if he didn’t just idolise Danarius to the moon? Why did he stand around pouring glasses of wine while slave children were being used as blood sacrifices? Why is he so afraid of a relationship with Hawke (someone also in a position of power over him) if he doesn’t inherently understand his capacity to eclipse his own personhood and do terrible things just because someone he loves tells him to? Why does he lie in act 1 about how if Danarius doesn’t come hunting him, he’ll return to Tevinter to kill him? Or lie about how his only value to Danarius is the lyrium Danarius is apparently going to skin him for? If he had no affection for Danarius, why doesn’t he deny it when Danarius says as much during Alone? And beyond that- Why did Danarius wipe his memories, isolate him from his family and other slaves, and brainwash him, if he didn’t intend to create someone wholly dependent on him, who loved him alone and obeyed orders without question?

Look, I’m not happy that this ↑ is the only lengthy portrayal we get of a Tevinter slave in these games. I think it’s a real disservice that ‘slave who loved their master’ and ‘slave who repeats white man’s burden rhetoric verbatim about how he is mages are dangerous and need someone looking after them’ is the guy given the biggest voice. I would love to see more slaves and ex-slaves (and, lbr, people of colour) with a greater sense of ambition and their own agency, who never bought into the trap of trauma bonding with their abusers. But-!! Actually-!! I think the game actually does a great job of calling Fenris’s testimony into question! It slaps pretty hard that Varania shows up and tells him he’s full of shit. He doesn’t know what her life was like, and he doesn’t speak for her. Like, sure, Varania is full of shit too. But Fenris doesn’t speak for anyone but himself! He doesn’t speak for all those slaves that were sacrificed in blood magic rituals, because he wasn’t one of them and was never going to be! And, you know what? I don’t have any trouble believing the guy who isolates himself in his manor, who is too traumatised and afraid of even going to the Alienage to be around other elves, has no fucking perspective on their lives!

And, ugh, I love him. I love him soooo much. He and Merrill are my favourite characters in this whole game. I love him being this messy ugly person who loves so hard, and loves so hard he’ll kill whoever Danarius and Hawke tell him to, and loves so hard he buries himself in logic and anger to try to escape from feeling it. Whose best friends are all humans because he doesn’t know how to fucking be around other elves after the way he’s been conditioned. Who just spends the first two acts of the game trying to misrepresent himself as someone way harsher and stronger than he is because, hey, maybe if he says he hates mages enough, he’ll start to believe it. And maybe if he believes it, he can stop himself from giving in and giving up and walking docilely back to Tevinter at Danarius’s side, the way he does if Hawke betrays him. And, ugh, god, I know why people don’t want to look at it, but how do you understand literally anything this character does without it? It’s so frustrating. I love him, and I feel like I don’t even know the guy half the fandom is talking about most of the time.