#So that these people could actually get some sort of genuine reform instead of just being placed into a slave labor system

[yeetspace]

Something I said that was extremely poignant and quick way to shut someone who was trying to moralize voting third party was reminding them well two things from two separate comment sections

A point I've heard many a Time from many different people so I will not try and pretend like the opinion is mine, the people who think that voting third party and being revolutionaries will actually work are able-bodied people who have never felt the sting of systemic prejudice or just a single of the MANY deeply intersectional prejudices and So can only conceptualize themselves as the katniss, the main character from maze runner cuz I don't remember his name, that type of shit. They want to be the one that walks up on the bodies and is the one that finally is the one that does the thing. The problem is is they never once conceptualize who those bodies are. And we people who would be in that pile that they would be climbing on to finally "win the day", would really rather make the option that would allow us to work together instead of violent destructive coup that will leave no one left that was actually in the groupings that most of the previous choices were made to try and mitigate the dangers towards.

Cuz now we shift over to the other point, people are acting like the disabled, or queer, or POC or all of the above folk who are desperately not wanting people to choose the option that will actually just directly lead to their death and or removal of Rights are fear-mongering or being manipulative for daring to be mean or sound too upset about it. It's literally just fucking tone policing and it's wild that people are just pretending like it's not. When disabled queer folk tell you that this person that is actively trying to get us killed wants us killed and it said such themselves you should probably not choose the option that's going to make them have the absolute power to do whatever the fuck they want including and directly bleeding to the exact thing they have only said they will do with that power alongside also obfuscating any sort of information to its people and making things worse worse just everywhere that we have our fucking decrepit creepy ass American fingers in.

But that's also my third thing I completely forgot about this one Joe was voted in so that the able-bodied people capable of making changes and doing things could go and try and do things and then none of those things happened and less happened actually and things were taken away, And yet somehow people are trying to say that the people who are only voting this option because the last time the last option that was voted to do anything to help us just no one did anything the entire time and now we're the bad guys for the situation that happened cuz we wanted to vote in the guy that was supposed to just be there cuz he was inept enough to where the people could try and work with the communities that needed help and then none of that fucking happened and things just got worse and yet somehow the people that are actively suffering the most and we're only trying to get help because of the choices made by others are now the ones at fault for daring to want to make the choice that won't lead to their direct deaths. Like Jesus fucking Christ get over yourself vote blue.

[saltpepperbeard]

Im sorry about this i need to rant. I thought things were getting better but Izzy stan Twitter is at it again with their whining, truth bending and self-victimising.

'Do you like OMFD but wish the queer disabled hero didnt die?' IZZY IS NOT THE HERO OF THIS SHOW!!!!! He is at best a reformed antagonist. What an insult to the other disabled characters, and what about the actual heroes of the show??

'We've been betrayed by straight man writing queer stories'. First of all, way to dismiss the other writers. Also, its not his fault you project your personal traumas and mental health on a fictional character on a show with death in the title.

'GB's ending is comphet (?????) because 'we only need eachother' and theyre breaking away from their queer community' ED HAS BEEN WANTING TO LEAVE PIRACY SINCE LAST SEASON!!! also, its progress that Stede was able to resist basic flattery. And David made it clear that they still have work to do. This one truly broke my brain.

Im just sick of all this. Izzy stans have been coddled for the past week, being told its ok to grieve, but theyve crossed multiple lines. I do wish some things had been more explicit in this finale, only because David overestimated the maturity and media literacy of some people.

Sorry for this but i needed to talk to people here. Its beyond annoyance at this point. Im angry and sick of petty crybabies actively working to poison what we've built.

I'm a bit late to answering this, anon, so pardon the tardiness, but I think it says something that this still holds weight/relevancy even after a bit of pause.

I can totally understand the frustration because I too have seen some absolutely WILD takes. And I don't even go into the main tags, nor am I on Twitter, yet I STILL manage to see whispers of things in my peripherals. I have seen some things similar to what you mentioned that made me just...goggle. I could genuinely just do nothing but...GOGGLE. GAWK, GAPE, AND GOGGLE HSDJKLS.

I of course invite you to hang in this little Safe Spaceship Corner, because so many people are trying to maintain a steady course throughout all of this. But even still, it's frustrating that one can't even really go into the fandom space on Twitter or into the tags without being BOMBARDED. And I'm upset that it has to be that way. I'm upset that people are legitimately finding it difficult to interact with the space, or even enjoy the material now.

And again, AGAIN, I still maintain my opinion that his fans are allowed to be sad/angry/upset by his death. I totally get that. But what I do NOT subscribe to is attempting to pull everyone else down into that and painting it all to be some sort of "personal attack." Or just...throwing any sort of vitriolic label at it in an attempt to "justify" the upset instead of just...sitting with that upset.

Like...It's a story. You may not like it. And that's totally okay. There are things in this season I didn't particularly like. But that's MY opinion, and based off MY personal preferences, not the fault of those who decided to share their story with me. It's not some betrayal, or vendetta, or anything of the sort. And it's such a shame that it's being painted as such and THEN some.

[nekasu]

"There's a reason why solitary imprisonment for life without any sort of parole is considered a grave punishment only reserved for the most serious of offenses. The fact that you chose it for yourself doesn't change the gravity of that sentence." His voice is actually rather gentle toward her; while he intentionally never tells an outright lie, it comes off as extra genuine.

"Truth be told, I barely even feel it anymore, and my own abilities will lessen it in time as I've done these last 500 years." Either way, he's still maintaining the physical contact with Ei, intertwining his fingers with hers and intending to stay that way until she made an effort to pull apart.

"The story is that I was not the original…'vessel' for lack of a better term, of the Fox of Calamity. That honor would go to my mother Inari. The whole reason I exist was so she could foist that fate on me instead. She has since ascended into true divinity and to my knowledge is currently in Celestia far out of my reach. But yes, it's not like another entity possessing me, nor is it some kind of evil alter ego. It's just that whoever's destined to become it will do so at some point in time with little warning as to when. It's fueled by misfortune and grudges, the latter of which I have many of despite essentially forgiving you. Killing or destroying the Fox of Calamity only intensifies its grudges when it reforms, and even if I were to end my life now, it would simply manifest with my corpse as a base."

"As for your second part, I had already made up my mind I wouldn't attempt to attain full divinity myself as part of an effort to rid myself of this curse. Despite everything, the people still do see you as their true god, so I had no wish to destabilize Inazuma by siphoning faith from you. No, I've already made peace with my fate."

Neka's voice takes on a slightly bitter tone, though not because of Ei. No, the edge is quite obviously caused by another party instead. "That meddlesome traveler will almost certainly be going to Celestia in the next several years, and they will more than likely make an enemy of Inari. A goddess of fortune whose powers vastly surpass my own…they will get themselves killed if I don't help deal with Inari. But the only way I can actually do so is if I become the Fox of Calamity. It would be a fitting fate for the both of us, considering my grudge towards her will be the most potent power source for the form."

He doesn't take her offer as a slight or charity, and is in fact rather touched by it despite his prior conviction. "But…if you are willing to have the people accept and recognize me with offerings…I would be willing to try things another way that won't necessarily end with my own destruction." It was painful to admit that his own steely resolve to end both himself and his mother could have been broken so easily, but despite everything, he just wanted to live. Not just be alive as he he'd been since the day he was born to be a scapegoat of fate, but to actually live.

“I've never thought about it that way," She admits. "That Eternity could be…a cruel fate for me. It was the only thing I knew to do at the time and I was all too willing to cast everything that is ‘Ei’ into the furnace.”

She looks at him then, really looks at him, for what seems to be the first time in a very very long time. 

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t just you. We were both lost in our attempts to make something meaningful out of all that tragedy. It doesn’t…take away from the damage that is caused from all of it, to others or to ourselves, but…it doesn’t have to end that way.”

There is still time, however limited, to try again. Even if that comes with the possibility of making errors, at the very least she can believe and trust now that he is sincere in his attempts to aid her. They can fail together just as they can learn and triumph together too. 

“I see.” Despite their tumultuous history with each other only now coming to ease, she was indeed genuine about not wishing him harm. It is good to know that it won’t. The knowledge allows for Ei to lower her reservations and properly hold onto his hand. Though…is there an appropriate length of time to be doing this with another person? She’s not quite certain and therefore has not let go just yet. “Has there been anything that helps suppress the pain? Perhaps purification of sorts?”

The legend is not unknown to her yet she cannot definitively say that she has the full picture, merely what had been conveyed to her. Given that the truth of things is not what they always seem, especially from what she had learned in recent times, it is adequate in saying that she has perceived what others had to interpret about it and not the actual events themselves. Ei is silent as she mulls over Neka’s words. It was a while before the electro archon spoke again.

“I have two questions. You said that there’s more to the story surrounding the legend. Would you be willing to tell me what that is? I am only aware of what has been reported and not everything else. I would like to hear it from your point of view. And-” A pause. “Were I to have a designated location in the city for the Inazumans to provide offerings to you, would you be amenable? If I, as the Shogun, am given the grace to rectify the errors in my judgment then I believe that you deserve the courtesy of having the truth of your tale be addressed in full. Do not be mistaken: I do not mean this as a slight nor is this any means of charity on my part. Your 500 years of suffering should not be in vain."

@nekasu

[notebooks-and-laptops]

I am convinced people who don't like Viv haven't actually taken her out much/spoken to her at Skyhold and instead are running on 'grrr mage who likes circles bad bad'.

Vivienne was not born in Orlais. She was born in Wycome to merchant parents who were constantly on the move, though she was taken to the circle relatively early. I feel like one thing Viv gets shit for is her place in the Grand Game (despite Leliana and Josephine also being adept players). But it's important to note that Viv is well aware her position in Orlais is not one born of friendship and that she is indeed widely hated (TW for in-game racist comment about Viv below):

"Oh but Viv desires power! That's bad" yes well 'power' allows her freedom and a life beyond the circle walls. She has dialouge where she specifically talks about how you must learn to live with restrictions but adapt to give them the best life they can give you. And that's what she's doing! Constantly! Besides, her desire for power is one of the fun things about her character and something she has in common with plenty of other dragon age characters (Leliana, Josephine, Solas, the Inquisitor etc.) She's just more open about the fact that that's what she wants.

She also enjoys the game (as do Leliana and Josephine) but she's right in the Winter Palace when she tells you if she wasn't good at it she'd be dead. World of Thedas Vol. 2 mentions how after she began her affair with Bastien multiple bards and assassins were sent after Viv ('half of them were returned to their employers frozen solid. The rest were persuaded to work for her instead' shdkdkdlf I LOVE her).

Anyway, as for her views on the Circle, I also don't agree with them. But it's worth noting where they come from:

So, here we learn that Viv is scared of the templars in some capacity, but still believes they are necessary. Perhaps that belief is because of what happened during the rebellion and the trauma she suffered from seeing various mages and tranquil killed needlessly. I truly believe that when she calls the templars a useful 'tool' but accepts that there are rotten eggs among them, she means to enact reforms from the inside that would stop the sort of behaviour we see. I'm not sure this would work, but it's worth seeing it from her side. She sees the templars as what they were founded to be: to protect magic and mages, both from those who would seek to destroy it from the outside and demons who would prey on mages. Do I agree with her? No! But! Plenty of fandom favourites hold basically the same philosophy about the mage/templar conflict: Cullen and Fenris in particular.

And Viv? Viv has so many more qualities than just the above parts of her characterisation. She Cares. I find the people she will shout about if they fall particularly telling:

The two 'youngest' members who she has contentious relationships with, she is genuinely worried about in battle.

And then we have:

(This post is getting v long but also please see: every single Bull/Viv interaction because she basically adopts him, and every single Sera/Viv interaction because they wind each other up but Viv also does play her own 'pranks' right back at Sera which is delightful)

She cares. She even cares about Cole. And she cares about the first victims of war, the serving staff, in the Winter Palace. She cares about the tranquil when you enter the hut and find out the truth about the shard skulls. She cares. But she also knows caring is a weakness that could lose her her power and position so she's careful with it, guarded. Which in itself is such a wonderful lovely characteristic.

She's funny, sassy, clever. She is considered an 'exceptional scholar' (World of Thedas Vol. 2). Just like Solas, she is actually envious if you go to adamant without her because she finds the idea of being in the fade physically to be fascinating! And just like Dorian she's underestimated when it comes to her intelligence because of everything else about her.

(Side note: she's was also friends with Bastians wife and there's no jealousy between them which i love, and Bastian sent her enough flowers to fill an entire floor of the circle tower when they first met which is just. V sweet)

She's just an amazing character. I love her deeply. I wish more people loved her and saw the complexities of her. Because she is so interesting, her interactions with the other characters are interesting. And, like I said before, she's no better or worse in her views than Cullen or Fenris when it comes to mages and yet the fandom makes 12 page long think pieces about those characters and why it's okay for them, but will vilify Viv and pretend that's not a double standard.

Anyway. I love her. And just felt like expressing that this fine morning.

[beckface]

Bestie I am requesting a ramble post about Bectoria (Becky Botsford and Victoria Best) because my Becky introject is gay as shit for her and I wish to make them suffer with gay things

BECKTORIAAA I love this ship it’s got such a fun sitcom couple dynamic :D

I think that if it happens it’s definitely when they’re older, at least 7th grade-ish, when Victoria really starts cracking under the weight of her parent’s pressure. We all know that she is 100% not into men at all but I bet her parents don’t like that very much, so she’s in denial. Little Miss Perfect and all that.

I think Mr. and Mrs. Best have the sort of “we’re fine with it… as long as it’s not our kids” view about sexuality, but one of them is absolutely gay and repressing it. I do NOT believe these two genuinely love each other like, they absolutely live their life as a show and CONSTANTLY compete with each other on who’s the better spouse/parent (they both suck and struggle to acknowledge each other doing well if it directly overshadows themselves)

So Victoria picks all of this up from her parents. She tells herself that she’s not gay and I think she’s the type of person to go through 10 boyfriends each school year because she just can’t hold down a stable relationship due to her competitiveness, desperation, and general lack of attraction towards men.

She also just IS Regina George in middle/early high because of god damn course she is. She has a weird bond with Eileen and I'd like to imagine, like Eileen is just happy to have a friend but Victoria doesn’t know what to do with just pure friendship. Also they get on eachothers nerves with their villain quirks.

Victoria was actually “close” with Tobey in elementary school (they butted heads and fed each other’s egos, it was toxic but what other choices did they have) but she and him drift apart, because aside from being egotistical villains they really didn’t end up having much in common. Also I think that Tobey would reform himself before the other two kid villains (if Tobey DOES reform and doesn’t grow up to have villainy be his career)

Despite being feared and popular and having a lot of boyfriends, no one’s really friends with Victoria, and she likes it that way. Her “friend group” full of vain popular kids is the best you could get in high school status-wise, and it pleases her parents.

The issue is, pleasing her parents has started to feel less like a need, less like a want, and more like a chore.

This is where Becky Wordgirl Botsford comes in. Now she’s just been coasting like she always does, living her life with her secret job of being a superhero, and she’s just as stressed as ever. She’s far from miserable, her family is lovely (even if she still can’t bring herself to tell them the truth) and her friends are super supportive. Some parts of being Wordgirl have just been getting to her more than they have before.

She’s a teenager now, so the press is ALL up in her personal drama. Every time she seems slightly off in her Wordgirl form now, people are speculating. She can’t talk to Scoops as Wordgirl, she can barely talk to Tobey, the press just makes wild dating accusations. The perfection expectations are also getting on her nerves, it’s been so long and it’s just grating honestly.

Becky is sure she’s bi or pan at this point, but is terrified of expressing it. She worries that if she allows it to happen as Becky, then it might slip through as Wordgirl, and she’s just a big anxious mess about what would happen. She’s avoiding dating all together really, she doesn’t want to get serious with someone and then have to lie to them about being Wordgirl.

Gay scene one day Victoria is stealing a trophy or whatever and hid it in her house, and just annoying the shit out of Wordgirl when she comes to confront her. Becky is having a bad day, and Victoria says something that pressed just the wrong button, and instead of bantering back she grabs Victoria’s arms, lifts her up and pins her to the wall in midair and is all intimidating “Where. Is. It.”. Victoria’s brain turns off and she goes red, she stutters out where it is, and when WG lets her down Victoria’s like “I just learned something about myself”

Another day Victoria is really downtrodden and her heart just isn’t in the crime she’s doing, and she asks WG “Can I just… please have it. Just to make my parents think I got it.” And Becky feels really surprisingly sympathetic. They have a long conversation that ends with “You know Victoria… I never really liked your parents. They never really seemed to have their priorities straight” Becky gives her a smile and flies off. Victoria thinks about this. A lot.

Victoria gets a little hero-worship type crush on WG

One day Victoria snaps at her parents and they kick her out. She ends up walking through the rain with just her phone and some belongings, and Becky superhearings her crying and goes to figure out what’s going on. She ends up bringing Victoria home with her to stay.

Becky is understandably standoffish with Victoria, and the girls just kinda let each other be at first. It’s a problem though because more and more Victoria is realizing she has a stupid crush on the other girl

Living at the Botsfords means that Victoria is subjected to family bonding and physical affection from adults that she has never had before, and she doesn’t really know what to make of it. Slowly though, she realizes that it’s safe here, and that she can just. Be a kid. And little by little she starts relaxing, stops competing over every little thing, and stops judging other people so harshly. She still does it ofc, that kind of behavior built from years of abuse doesn’t go away with the snap of a finger, but she’s better and happier. And she’s spending a lot more time, on purpose, with Becky.

Becky cannot believe she likes hanging out with Victoria so much. Turns out that when she’s not being an egotistical brat she’s actually really fun. Turns out years and years of taking classes for literally everything imaginable can make a pretty interesting and dedicated person. Victoria teaches Becky some cool things she learned sometimes, and Becky teaches Victoria how to do it without being condescending. They’re both having fun.

We can’t have Becktoria without making them couple fight a LITTLE though so like. Imagine what I said with the fluffyness and stuff, but the entire time Victoria is just saying stupid shit purposefully to make Becky roll her eyes

Victoria is also highkey flirtatious. Like she tells herself it doesn’t count if it’s a joke, or it’s just friendly and platonic but she’s literally saying things like “Omg Beckface I could kiss you right now” and is very physical with her, like playfully holding hands and putting her arm around her and stuff.

One day Victoria says something flirty and Becky just snaps and flirts back, like leans towards her and puts her finger on Victoria’s chin and goes “Why don’t you do it then?” And Victoria just shuts down again

Victoria figures out she’s Wordgirl because she took superhero-identity classes or smthn I don’t know anything could happen in this universe

Victoria has to battle with her identity as a villain and her newfound happiness staying with Becky and the Botsfords

Victoria also misses her brother a lot. She tries multiple times to reconnect with him.

I think Becky makes a huge plan to try and ask out Victoria, and then Victoria does it first.

Victoria got over her fear of her parents and really just holds resentment for them now, but Becky’s still terrified of the city finding out, so they keep it lowkey. She does come out AS Becky though, and they date publicly after a bit.

Their first kiss was in the sky. Becky flew Victoria up to catch a glimpse of Lexicon, and fell a little bit in love with her as she watched Victoria watch the night sky so close to her for the first time. She had never really taken in the beauty before, after all, to be the best you don’t have time for sitting around staring at stars.

In a scenario where it’s unrequited love on Victoria’s end I like to imagine the song “Andy you’re a star” Goes with it

Victoria teaches Becky how to dance. It helps a little bit but she’s still a mess and they fall over each other a lot.

They’re that couple that acts like they’ve been married for 50 years but only started officially dating a month ago

CUTE GIRLS CUTE GIRLS LKSDJLFSFD

I kinda ended up ranting about mostly Victoria here i’m absolutely gonna do a followup centering Becky at some point

[aliensunflower-fics]

How to Exploit Kindness [A New Kind of Lila Salt Prompt]

[ Ive seen Lila and Class salt that goes a lot of different ways. In some Lilas a sad lonely girl who will do anything for friends and the class fall for her lies through a mixture of manipulation and Lila’s genuine sad lonely but real persona. In others Lila is insane and the class get basically sucked into her cult. And in others still, Lila slowly breaks the class down by preying on there insecurities, hidden jealousies ect. There are the versions where Lila just bribes the class with connections and the versions where Lila frames Marinette until no one believes her. But I wanted to write a new idea for people to use, one that I feel is a bit more realistic. One where Marinette’s classmates are more their more authentic kind selves but still get slowly pulled into Lila’s web and where Lila is just a bit more intelligent. ]

[ As usual with all my prompts feel free to borrow the idea to write for your own thing salt, sugar, cuteness angst ect just be sure to credit me for the idea so I can read it. ]

Lila was furious! This wasn’t how it was supposed to go! She was supposed to be everyone's friend! She was supposed to finally get a cute perfect boyfriend who would cherish her like she deserved! She was supposed to be HAPPY! But no, the pathetic beetle Ladybug and that goody two shoes Marinette kept ruining everything!

No… No that wasn’t quite true. As much as she wanted to blame her problems on those two it wasn’t entirely their faults. Honestly Lila wasn’t quite sure what had happened. Her lies had been working at first, they had gotten her praise and compliments and adoration and friendship! But now? Now they were all ignoring her, unimpressed by her celeb lies! She could not understand it! At first she’d been sure it was Marinette or Ladybug maybe even Adrien had turned on her! But when she’d probed for information she’d learned that none of them had blown the whistle. So what was it! Tomorrow… Tomorrow she will find out one way or another. She needed to get them back under her thumb somehow.

 It was Chloe who gave Lila her answers. Chloe was the reason none of her classmates cared about her stories! Chloe was the idiot mayor's brat. And what a brat she was constantly wiggling her way into her mothers fashion shoots or had celebrities over at the hotel. Of course Lila’s classmates didn’t care about Lila’s celebrity connections because Chloe was always name dropping just as many people as herself. The only difference was Lila used fake modesty and shyness that made her ‘friends’ view her lies in less of a gloating light than Chloe’s haughty claims of celebrity meetings.

It was a damn shame, celebrity lies were her bread and butter, they were exciting got people to think you were important and they were hard to prove or disprove allowing Lila to easily get around the messy little detail of ‘proof’ if someone asked for pictures all she could say was that her mom didn't let her take any because she didn't want her precious daughter being targeted by crazy fans. And if someone asked her to use her celebrity connections? Well she could just turn on the water works and cry about them just being her friend for her connections. Thus her prey would be forced to be her ‘friend’ , always listening to her and doing things for her, unable to ask for anything in return. Then when her mother announced their next move Lila would tearfully say goodbye and leave all her suckers behind. But without the sway of her celebrity lies her system broke down. That was the problem with picking the school full of rich talented idiots she supposed.

Well with Chloe ruining her system she’d need a new one. Scrolling through her classmates' social media for a clue she sneered at their overly cheerful and cutesy posts. Always encouraging one another and posting encouraging puff pieces about this or that. Always acting like they were so nice. As Lila scrolled over a charity fundraiser event that Alya had retweeted from Milene a sudden thought crossed her mind. Her classmates were very ‘nice’ and annoyingly so. They were always butting into each other's business, always being SO concerned, always organizing events to help each other and appreciate each other and going to charity events.

In fact now that she thought about it the stories that had intrigued her ‘friends’ always had some sort of charity garbage attached. Saving Jagged’s kitten or raising money for some cause or other that always got her heaps of praise. Sure saying Clara whatshername stole her dance moves got attention but not in the same way saying she raised money for some green project. Was it really that simple? Sure her classmates all loved Marinette for her extreme generosity and kindness but was it REALLY that simple? She needed to check.

 It was actually that easy. One simple little lie about how she pulled a blind old man out of danger when he was nearly run over and suddenly the class was bathing her in praise. And the ‘fact’ that the whole very real thing made her miss first period and sprain her ankle? Well that was just the cherry on top. Suddenly Max was offering her a copy of his notes and everyone was back to caring for her like she was a princess. The fact that Marinette looked like she was seething only for sweet naive Adrien to keep her mouth shut was just so perfect. She’d found her golden ticket. Her classmates were truly ‘good kind people’ and nothing could be exploited quite like kindness.

With this knowledge Lila would easily be able to destroy Marinette, sure she wouldn’t be able to do it quickly but slowly she would replace her, with every good deed she made up with every act of false modesty she would build a reputation greater than Marinette’s she would replace her and become there new ‘everyday ladybug’ and the best part was she wouldn’t have to say ANYTHING against Marinette. Not. A. Thing. No sweet righteous Marinette would eventually snap, sadly for her it would probably be too late with how much control Adrien had over her, so when it happened Marinette would look like the jealous crazy girl going after the girl that was kinder, sweeter, and better than herself. As for Adrien… Well she had a hard time believing it at first but he really was an idiot with a pretty face as long as she was careful as she built her new reputation he would genuinely believe that she was changing for the better and then he'd fall for her.

The best part was, her classmates were genuine. As she built her new good girl heart of gold persona they would genuinely come to love her, all the loyalty Marinette got to enjoy all the perks of being friends with such talented, kind, sweet people would become hers. Slowly no matter how Marinette struggled she would lose, eventually she’d have nothing left. Of course she’d need to be careful with her lies but that was easy. Bring the class to a charity here and there and tell them that she was the one who gave the idea for the charity to the actual organizer but didn't want any credit because she was just that kind and humble. If they tried to make her do actual work then she’d have a sudden accident that would require she sit down.

And then once she’d done more photoshoots with Adrien for Gabriel she’d ‘convince’ the man that a charity would make him look good and boost sales. She’d MAKE her lies true all while winning over her future father in law, and heck maybe she’d even pocket a little of the money, she could use a better wardrobe and the extra would be perfect to buy her ‘friends’ the occasional ice cream or presents. In between that she’d just lie about saving people or volunteering on weekends. Maybe even let it ‘slip’ how she was a temp hero for Ladybug . One of the sweetest parts was that between volunteering with Lila, there own activities and hanging out with Lila so she could ‘thank them for their hard work’ no one would be spending a second hanging out with sweet pink little Marinette, they'd abandon her without even realizing it because they’d be SO busy. Sadly this plan of hers would take a little more work then her others, but it would be worth it to become the queen bee of the class- NO the school! And when Marinette eventually slipped up and looked like the biggest jealous bully in the school. Well she’d have no choice but to leave the school with her tail in between her legs.

Victory was looking sweet and satisfying.

 [ And where it goes from here is up to you. Lila can win, she can slowly convince the class and school that she's a model citizen and an everyday hero. She can sneakily maneuver the class to not spend time with Marinette slowly separating the girl from her friends. In this way Alya and the rest of them don't become evil salty versions of themselves who overnight hate Marinette and love Lila, but rather they are good naive people who got slowly separated and tricked by someone who wants to use their genuine talents and skills to make herself look better. Adrien who is already shown to be naive and wants to believe the best in people, can fall into Lila’s trap and become genuinely convinced that his high road method really worked and ‘reformed’ Lila into a better person. OR Lila can fail, she can claim to be the wrong temporary hero for ladybug, or she can pick the wrong charity to lie about, or get exposed any number of ways and the class can realize with horror that because they are kind but flawed people who are perhaps too trusting and gullible that they got pulled away from Marinette through subtle manipulation and so they can be redeemed because instead of turning into outright bullies they stayed the same kind people they always were but just got genuinely tricked which is something that can actually happen in real life. You can go heavy salt where Marinette does eventually leave the school or class heartbroken that her kind friends have fallen prey to a bad person Marinette cant find a way to expose. Or you can go clever salt where Marinette figures out Lila’s plan and fights her from the inside slowly exposing the cracks in her facade. Or you can go sugar and redemption where maybe just maybe Lila actually LIKES being nice to people and having real friends who dont care about her fake celeb connections, maybe she honestly redeems herself and even makes amends with Marinette. You can do genuinely anything with this idea and I hope to see this generate some new less *and suddenly everyone is evil* content for those that like salt and angst. ]

[the-final-sif]

Okay, so I think I’ve got a solid timeline of events for villain!Katsuki

Katsuki leaves UA just before the provisional license exam, he’s at the point where he no longer things the hero system can be fixed without outside intervention. He’s done with how the media acts, he’s done with the blame being shifted to victims based on their quirks, and he’s done with the lies he’s been fed all his life.

Prior to this he started researching and planning what actual change would look like and require.

He meets up with Dabi, who’d only let the rest of the league know about the bet a few days prior. He was curious if Katsuki would keep his word or not. Dabi prods Katsuki gently, saying he knew the kid took honestly seriously but he’s still kinda surprised to see him go this far over a bet. Katsuki replies explaining it’s more than the bet. He talks about what he’s seen, and the failure of hero society to change. It’s more than enough to convince Dabi.

Dabi brings him to a secure location, then relays information to Shigaraki. Shigaraki is hesitant, he’s surprised Katsuki came back to them, but when Katsuki explains his side of things, and with Dabi vouching for him, Shigaraki decides to let him in. He can understand what it’s like to fall for hero society. He did for awhile too. Katsuki just needed more time on his own to realize that.

There’s an introduction period, the league is still figuring themselves out and most of them are hesitant to trust Katsuki. It’s about a week before he’s properly reintroduced to everyone and gets the sense that they’re not headed in any particular direction.

After that week, Katsuki decides “fuck that, I’m going to do shit, y'all are coming along” and since Shigaraki doesn’t really have anything better in mind, he decides to go along with Katsuki’s plans.

UA started panicking as soon as they realized Katsuki was gone, but nobody really knows what happened to him yet. Since he took all his stuff with him, all signs point to him having run away.

Izuku refuses to believe that, and most of the class holds out hope for awhile, but as no evidence turns up, more of them start to think it might be true and start discovering the amount of harassment and guilt he was facing.

There’s about a month and a half period in which Katsuki focuses on getting the league in shape. During this period, they do a forcible take over of the Shie Hassaikai.

Overhaul is killed, Eri goes under Katsuki’s care, and the league is established as a much more powerful force.

The Hero Commission is starting to get nervous, but not overly so. Not yet.

After this month and a half, Katsuki makes his first public appearance as a villain.

He’s in an updated version of his costume, most of it has stayed the same, but he’s added what looks like muzzle to the costume that covers his mouth. The muzzle actually functions as face shield/oxygen system so he can move at much faster speeds safely.

Katsuki’s villain debut is a full scale attack by the league on the Hero Commission directly. An event meant that the Hero Commission had gathered in a relatively accessible location, and the villains take advantage.

Importantly, Katsuki is enforcing a policy of limiting needless harm or deaths, because it ruins their message. The league reluctantly agrees, so they’re being a bit more careful than they were before. However, they’ve still got a hit list for this party.

The list consists of officials who they have confirmation deliberately manipulated polices or actions of heroes at the cost of people’s lives, all for some private gain. They do a lot of damage, and manage to kill 7 people on their list.

Katsuki’s first kill happens here. Previously, he’d managed to defeat Overhaul, but wasn’t quite able to kill him. He just wasn’t ready.

Shigaraki took care of it for him, and told him it was fine if he needed time to learn to kill. He was kind and understanding about it in a way that was genuinely weird to Katsuki. Not only because this was all about murder, but it was the first time in his life that he failed and an adult supported him rather than punishing him for his mistake.

At this event, one of the people he takes down tries to appeal to him by offering him a position as a hero to save themselves, and that pushes him over the line. He ends it quickly.

The league escape afterwards, and footage plus eyewitnesses confirm Katsuki was there, and he didn’t say a word to anyone he attacked.

UA, the Hero Commission, and the media collectively assume / sell the story of him having been brainwashed. It’s the only thing that doesn’t make them look horrible.

Aizawa has been weighed down by a lot of guilt during all of this. He should’ve done more, should’ve reached out, but he’d been waiting for Katsuki to come to him. He’s tried to find Katsuki, but Katsuki has purposefully avoided facing him in battle as Aizawa is one of the few people he doesn’t feel like he could hurt or allow one of the other villains to hurt.

The attacks start getting frequent over the course of another month, primarily targeting the people behind the scenes of the heroic’s system, with a lot of other targets of corruption along the way.

On his third attack, Katsuki has his first run in with Izuku, the first of any of his classmates to face him in battle.

Katsuki refuses to speak a word to him, despite the fact Izuku heard him giving directions to Toga, and the two clash.

Katsuki manages to pull ahead in their fight, but he’s distracted from their fight by someone caught in the crossfire. He diverts course to protect them. Izuku was so hyperfocused on Katsuki he didn’t notice the person. It throws him off enough that Katsuki is able to win their fight complete his goal.

After their clash, Izuku’s finally realized Katsuki isn’t brainwashed. Given what happened, he can only assume it really is Kacchan making all these choices, which leads him to reflect on why.

 Between slowly uncovering what Katsuki was suffering through, and watching Katsuki’s actions and their very real impact, Izuku finds himself struggling with the idea of heroes as well. Most of Class 1-A and society as a whole really are.

Shouto & Izuku talk, and Izuku confirms that it really is Katsuki. Not a brainwashed version of him.

At the end of their conversation, Shouto assumes that because it’s really Katsuki, they’re gonna go join him. He defects, and is a bit surprised when Izuku doesn’t follow him right away.

Dabi almost has a heart attack over this, but he can’t really judge.

Shouto is accepted into the league after he and Katsuki talk and he apologizes for not having done anything. Katsuki doesn’t blame him for it, as he understands Shouto had no real sense of what was okay.

Eri gains a new older brother, and she could not be more delighted.

During this period, after the first attack, Hawks was sent in to infiltrate the league. Katsuki can smell the commission on him from a mile away, but tells Dabi to kind of let Hawks in anyways.

The league begins slowly working Hawks out of the Commissions control, before finally after about three months, Hawks realizes how shitty they are and defects properly.

A big part of this happens after Hawks finally comes to terms with the fact that Katsuki isn’t brainwashed, and after Hawks meets Eri and realizes how happy and safe she is with her new family vs how he felt at that age with the Commission.

By the end of that three months, a number of other class 1-A kids and a few kids from 1-B have dropped out of the hero course, or in some cases, UA entirely. The public at large has started to become more disconnected from the hero system as they start to see some of it’s major flaws. The Commission comes under more and more questioning and is seriously losing power.

During this same time, you’d expect to see an increase in crime, but you actually see the opposite.

Katsuki has been very careful and forged an alliance with the MLA such that they’ve been able to crack down on certain types of crime (domestic violence, quirk kidnappings, sexual assaults, etc) while also steadily funneling money into getting social services in theses areas.

This means that you start to see less crime, people feeling safer and more secure, even as the hero commission and system is crumbling.

All of this comes together after a year or two of solid in the form of the government submitting to a major reform driven by figure heads planted by the MLA, but only after the league manages to eliminate the last key figures standing in their way.

Since so many heroes have either fallen from grace, stepped back from the system, or been killed in certain cases, Izuku ended up as an unwilling symbol of peace due to his connection to Katsuki.

Izuku is tasked by what’s left of the heroics system with stopping Katsuki from killing the final major figure whose all that’s standing in the way of the reform.

Izuku, in the end, makes the active choice to step aside, giving Katsuki the key he was given to the room so Katsuki can get to the person to kill them.

Izuku finally decided that he’s had enough of this too, and he’s done defending a broken system based on ingrained ideals that don’t add up.

Aizawa is watching inside the room up in the rafters, he’s stayed a hero of sorts but still functions like he did before.

Inside the room, Aizawa had the chance to cancel Katsuki’s quirk and stop him from killing the person. Instead, he chose to close his eyes and let Katsuki go through with it.

Katsuki looks up to where Aizawa is once it’s done, and Aizawa realizes he knew he was there the entire time. He hops down out into the open and speaks plainly as he always did.

“I’m sorry.” Is all he can really say. There’s so much he’s sorry for. For not speaking up. For letting Katsuki be put through so much. For letting him be driven to this.

Katsuki looks at him for a long, long moment, before he finally looks away and shrugs his shoulders. For the very first time in years, he speaks to a hero. To the only hero who ever tried for him, even if it wasn’t enough.

“S'okay. The problem was bigger than you every could’ve fixed.”

“I should’ve tried. I should’ve done more.”

Again, Katsuki needs a moment to consider that.

“Yeah. Probably.”

There’s silence for a few moments, and then Katsuki’s radio crackles to life. Dabi’s calling him back.

They share one more glance, and Katsuki turns on his heel and walks out.

Aizawa watches him go. There’s nothing else for him to do. His right to change this story ended when he failed to speak up all those years ago.

[determinate-negation]

Genuine question here but didn't Freud basically convince his patients that recounted instances of csa to him that actually these were fantasies?

there is some quote about this which ive seen on tumblr a million times. but yes. he was very much a man of his time and like this is the same time when phrenology was an accepted medical practice. so apparently he amended his theory, which is obviously very fucked up. psychoanalysis was also really hated when it first was invented and seen as a threat to social and political order. thats not a defense of it at all, and i generally think most psychoanalytic theory needs to be reworked because of its original circumstances. 

wow though im going to be honest, i find it kind of weird to point to freud as the start of blaming women in mental health practice because it existed FAR earlier than that and there is a long fucking history of treatment of women’s accusations as fantasy dating back to the very beginning of psychiatric asylums which was in the mid/early 1800s. acutally this is kind of frustrating now that im looking at it again because the second half of this quote ignores like the other 150 years of medical history that precipitated it. during the first period of social reform where people decided it might be better to help the mentally ill instead of keeping them chained up in basements, the image of the mad woman featured very heavily in it. many asylums were made only for female patients, specifically ‘hysteric’ patients (which is a diagnosis that doesnt exist anymore) and women were sexually abused or otherwise tormented and it was also explained away as fantasy or seduction. there is a very interesting book on this called Invention of Hysteria: Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpêtrière about the ‘hysteric’ women at one of the most infamous asylums. so while its obviously really fucked up theres nothing new here. and i find it really odd that psychoanalysis is always singled out instead of the other medical fields equally if not more complicit in a lot of the harms existing today. also i will say this is a exaggerated description of the oedipus complex, which generally pertains to child behavior and is not as literal as people are led to believe. like kids often say they want to marry one of their parents and make the other go away– that is an example of the oedipus complex. the psychoanalytic theory is that, if you, as a child, do not resolve that stage of development sufficiently, as an adult you will keep reenacting it. its been beaten into the group by pop psychology and medical practitioners of all sorts though so i get why people hate it though. i also think the oedipus complex is not a fixed or universal thing at all!! because how could it have been produced without the nuclear family structure and other specific social/parenting norms, which are historical products. and i dont think it is nearly as central as freud believed. i just dont understand why people wanna specifically use freud as a scapegoat for horrible problems in medical history that existed since the beginning of western medical history because they are endemic to western society, it seems very disingenuous and a cop out for having to examine the entirety of psychiatric and medical practices 

[sepublic]

Amelia’s Alzheimer’s?

           From what Owen Dennis told us, Book 5 of Infinity Train would’ve been a movie, covering Amelia’s takeover of the train… Which, I don’t know if Book 5 would’ve gone over her takeover, AND her eventual arc post-Book 3, but; I believe the implication is that like Book 4, this movie would’ve been a pure prequel, set in the past. A good look and further contextualization of Amelia’s past sins and how she got into the headspace she now has, in order to set up for a future Book where she finally gets her proper arc.

           That leaves just three other books… One about Guilt, the next about Revenge, and the last of Acceptance. Book 5 is about Grief fittingly enough, and we know that Book 8 (Acceptance) would’ve delved into a passenger with alzheimer’s, whose condition would’ve kept them from engaging with the Infinity Train’s intended function properly. Owen Dennis mentioned how this final season would’ve been based on his own experiences with his grandfather, who had a similar issue in the past.

           It’s easy to assume that Book 8 would’ve been about a whole new character, which leaves either Books 6 or 7 for the resolution to Amelia’s arc- But what if that’s not the case? The Book 8 protagonist would be pretty old, presumably, so…

           …What if Amelia was the Book 8 protagonist? What if, by the end of the series, Amelia’s age would’ve caught up to her, and she’d start developing alzheimer’s- Further complicating her attempts to get her number down, especially when she can no longer remember Alrick like she used to!

           Think about it- Amelia as the final protagonist would be a neat book-end to the series, given how we began with her as the final antagonist of Book 1. The show starts and ends with Amelia, who alongside One-One and Samantha the Cat (and arguably Randall) are basically the core, central tenet characters of the entire show. The resolution of Infinity Train is the resolution of Amelia, who serves as the passenger most entwined with the train, having once been its conductor even!

           Not only that, but with how Amelia’s character serves as a means of criticizing and showing the fallibility of the Infinity Train, how she’s able to game the system, how she works in a place to criticize One-One’s direction with it… And her having to deal with alzheimer’s could continue that theme of Amelia’s character being a commentary on the flaws of the Infinity Train, if it can’t account for her memory loss!

           Amelia’s memory loss would be difficult to work with, if we’d only gotten to know her in just Book 8; But now we have Books 1, 3, 4, and 5 (at the very least!) to bring background and context to her life-story, and it’s a LONG one too! Setting up Amelia’s past in great detail, going into the intricacies across the entire show… It could be setting up the audience to remember all of this, when Amelia herself can’t- So we can get a better idea of her frustration, of how she ended up here when Amelia herself is confused, etc.! We gain a deep and intimate understanding of Amelia’s past for her, in preparation for the memory loss of Book 8.

           Owen talking about how Book 8 would’ve been based on his own experiences, watching his grandfather deal with amnesia- From a meta sense, the audience could serve Owen’s role! We’re the younger people, watching Amelia, our favorite old lady, grow across the series… We get attached to her, she’s basically like family, so naturally it hits harder to see her lose her memory. It’d be a meta way for Owen to really capture what he experienced in real life, by having the audience take his position when observing the character of Amelia.

           From an in-universe standpoint, perhaps Hazel could serve as the proxy for Owen! She’s more or less Amelia’s daughter in the technical and arguably figurative sense- We don’t know exactly how their relationship would progress, and the last time we had hopes of Found Family for Hazel, it didn’t quite work out… But regardless. Perhaps Hazel, as a kid with relation to the older Amelia, would’ve gotten to grow up with her surrogate caretaker, learn to value and appreciate her and vice-versa; And then we see from Hazel’s pained perspective, the loss of Amelia’s memories. Perhaps Amelia losing her memories of her times with Hazel, even!

           This could tie Amelia and Hazel’s stories together, especially with how linked the two are, with Hazel resulting from Amelia’s failed attempts to bring back Alrick! And Hazel has a few of Amelia’s memories- She remembers taking ballroom dance lessons, because Amelia was drawing upon those memories when trying to recreate Alrick. Hazel could serve as a young guide to comfort Amelia, a genuinely emotional connection, someone who remembers what Amelia can’t, in the absence of Alrick.

           Book 8 would’ve been about Acceptance- AKA the final part of the 5 stages of Grief, when dealing with the death of a loved one… And Grief is the theme of Book 5, Amelia’s origin story! Amelia would accept the death of Alrick at the end of Book 8, and perhaps Hazel could learn to accept the death of Tuba and another family member in Amelia… In the sense that yes, Amelia is leaving her too- But Hazel will learn to move past Tuba’s death, and perhaps her own experience can help Amelia as well. They can grieve for Amelia’s memories, for Alrick, etc.

           It’d also be an interesting and frustrating challenge for Amelia- As someone who no doubt has at least some pride in her intellect and mind, having her own mind start to degrade… It’d really put her into an interesting headspace, and force Amelia into that acceptance of what is inevitable, that some things she really can’t change. And of course, this could deal with theme of acceptance, of how Amelia clings to her past with Alrick; Having her memories of him start to fade could really shake this up, and force her to re-evaluate her life and values, her priorities… Perhaps decide to instead focus on the Now and Future, accepting that her past with Alrick is not only long-gone, but possibly due to be forgotten. That she can love and appreciate what it did for her, but Amelia has no choice but to move on- Even without those memories, without that past, she still has a future with Hazel and everyone else to keep living for.

           For all we know, Samantha the Cat could even come into play here! She’s someone with access to people’s tapes, among them none other than Amelia’s- And before she gave it to Simon, Samantha also had the ability to create new tapes from passengers on the go. Samantha is a long-lived denizen, at least about 150+ years old, she’s lived and seen the entirety of Amelia’s reign, and was likely there since the very beginning; Owen Dennis did allude to Samantha being present in Book 5… Specifically, he suggested that us seeing Samantha kill someone was a possibility, amidst One-One or Amelia committing murder instead; And that of course suggests that, regardless of whether or not the Cat kills someone in Book 5, she’d still be a prevalent character.

           Samantha having that past with Amelia, and her own conniving nature, could possibly lead to her conflicting with Hazel, perhaps recounting memories differently, or trying to tell them in a way that’d sway Amelia to her side, who knows? It’s also worth noting that she’s someone who has regret and loss in Simon… So perhaps if she served as a central cast member for Book 8 (befitting my point about Amelia being a book-ends kind of character), Samantha would’ve learned to accept the death of Simon, and/or help Hazel and Amelia move on as well. It’d be a fitting and appropriate farewell, I believe, to have Amelia and Samantha, two main-stays since the beginning, have their arc at the very end of the series.

           And Hazel? Hazel could be representative of a new generation, to step up and take the mantle passed down. One-One’s own input would be fascinating, because like Samantha and Hazel, he has quite the past with Amelia, and a lot of significance and understanding of her sins. And with his control of the Infinity Train, I can see him attempt to recreate Amelia’s destroyed tape, or even try to create a new tape for her, to try and get around Amelia’s memory loss. The Infinity Train selectively deciding which memories it only thinks are important could lead to disagreement with One-One and conflict, exposing the flaws of the system- And/or, the Infinity Train might come across a roadblock because it can’taccess Amelia’s memories anymore!

           This could be a culmination for One-One’s arc as well, as seeing his failure to account and accommodate Amelia’s alzheimer’s, leads him to decide to make MAJOR reforms to the Infinity Train as a result! Maybe he’ll even stop the whole process of kidnapping passengers (while still letting the denizens function and roam freely). Him and Amelia have an unusual, kind of at-odds but not really, sort of frenemy relationship; They’re working together, they’ve been enemies, they’ve collaborated, each was the reigning conductor at one point. We could have Samantha as someone with negative recollections of her time with Amelia, One-One with overall netural ones, and Hazel with positive associations! Three different people with different pasts and interactions with Amelia, to provide their own input on their time with her, and thus help her rediscover her past…

           …Or, at the very least- Come to terms and accept who she is, and finally move on. And, it goes without saying that Amelia’s dilemma with her huge number could be complicated by her Alzheimer’s, if she can’t remember things- And it’d be interesting to see how it might fluctuate, if at all. Perhaps Amelia’s progress actually gets pretty good, but THEN the memory loss begins to kick in, and that frustrates her. It’d teach the lesson that progress is not linear, that sometimes you might backtrack, you might think you’re so close, only to have retread the same path… And sometimes you’re tired of the journey and just want to get to the destination, to the final stop at the end of the railroad. We could have Amelia learn to accept help from others, to not try and seize control for herself as all-powerful Conductor, to gain some humility amidst her pride in her own ability and intellect…

           We could have Amelia awkwardly navigate the train without her memories, stumbling across and slowly figuring out what needs to be done in order to lower her number, with just the number’s movement as an indicator, and no memories to work off of! Her only hints are whenever her number moves to a certain situation, so Amelia really has to work backwards… Through trial and error, figure out what needs to be done; Perhaps a callback to Grace and Simon, who had no guidance and struggled with figuring out what their numbers expected of them.

          It’d be an interesting book-end to THAT point, especially since it was Amelia who unknowingly contributed to Grace misinterpreting the function of her number, so then having Amelia rectify this with herself, learning to properly figure out what her number means, and then accepting that without going into denial like Simon did… It’d really show the growth of her, but also the series, and of course the fact that Grace and Simon were literal kids, and Amelia is a seasoned adult. And of course, there’s the existential questions, if Amelia is a different person without her memories, if those sins still apply if she can’t remember them anymore, if she’s essentially disconnected and detached, etc.

          We might see Amelia operate without any memories of her grief with Alrick, see how she is without that- And it might concern and frustrate Amelia, because she could conflate moving past Alrick, as being the same as getting rid of him truly… And the memory loss certainly doesn’t help. Who is she without her memories? It could lead to an identity crisis that echoes back to Book 2’s themes. Amelia without memories might learn to rediscover herself by looking into her past, perhaps existing without recollection, just this number she slowly figures out how to lower. Perhaps having a new, more detached/objective look at her own past, from a perspective as someone who doesn’t remember them, so it feels like the recollections of a stranger- It might contribute to Amelia really coming to terms with happened, with herself, and finally Acceptance.

           It really could be the culmination of the series; With how the age of protagonists for each Book gets progressively older, Amelia’s elderly age and Alzheimer’s would’ve been the end of the line, the final stop/destination for the train. It’d make Amelia the central Passenger of the show, who we’ve been following since Book 1, watching her progress, in a sense seeing her grow up- And then finally seeing her grow old and suffer from Alzheimer’s. The journey of the Infinity Train could be the journey of Amelia, from her boarding the train, to the final destination, literally and figuratively. It could tie into the arcs of Hazel, Samantha, and One-One, and finally deconstruct the Infinity Train with an outsider who did exactly like that!

           What do you guys think? I think it’d be quite the experience to watch Amelia grow and struggle as a person, so it really does feel personal and intimate to us, when we know her memories, only for Amelia herself to lose them... A fascinating, bittersweet study and journey of Amelia, but one we accept, because the journey made the destination worthwhile.

[royalnugget42]

3RD Life x Steven Universe

Green Pearl. It was irregular for an emerald to have a Pearl, but this emerald was one of the best of them. Such a rare gem, and with a more decorated past than any but the diamond commanders. It seemed only fitting that she be gifted a Pearl as reward for years of service to the Diamond authority.

Of course, she didn’t really spend much time with said Pearl. More often than not, she was out fighting insurrections or attending ceremonial battles in the arenas. It didn’t leave much for her Pearl to do really. That’s where the trouble started.

Green Pearl, or just Green, as he liked to call himself, was not a very well behaved gem. The first instance of this being his constant use of he and him. It was a habit he’d picked up from one of the more distant colonies, something that the organic lifeforms apparently used. He just couldn’t get enough of it, and though he didn’t correct his Emerald, that didn’t stop him from correcting everyone else.

He was bored so often. With nothing to do but stand around and hold things and sing songs every now and then. He liked singing, but Emerald didn’t ask him to often, so most days he spent thinking up ways to perform his usual acts of petty mischief. Because Green Pearl absolutely loved to prank people.

Usually these pranks consisted of sneaking up on unsuspecting gems and scaring them. Sometimes he’d make a loud noise, sometimes he’d announce the presence of his Emerald, and sometimes he’d sneak up to just say hello. Something he loved to do was give them strange random items that he’d collected and stored in his gem. He had fabric scraps, balloons, dirt, some flowers, and his favorite, something Emerald had called a tree branch. This he never gave away, choosing instead to poke other gems with it from a distance.

It annoyed other gems of course, but for a Pearl he spent so much time with soldiers who either laughed it off or just ignored him, that he faced little to no punishment most of the time. At most one of the soldiers could call Emerald over, and she’d just sigh and put him in her chambers for awhile.

He was still in there plotting his next practical jokes when she returned, talking loudly into her communicator.

“Yes of course, my diamond. I will of course be present to observe.”

Immediately he hopped up from where he was seated, hands outstretched for anything she needed him to hold. She ignored him, finishing what sounded like a very important conversation.

“Yes my diamond. Thank you for this honor, I am so unutterably flattered. Emerald, out.”

She waited for her diamond, yellow diamond, to hang up, and passed the communicator off to Green. He dutifully stored it in his gem, eagerly awaiting what he assumed was important news.

“There’s to be another tournament, and I will be attending to oversee the event and evaluate the battle. Begin preparations to leave for sector 3,” she instructed.

“Right away, my emerald.”

“Oh and Pearl?”

He frowned slightly, at not being called Green, but replied, “Yes, my emerald?”

“Please, for your sake if not for mine, do try to behave yourself. This will be a very important event, and I’d rather not deal with any of your little pranks.”

Without waiting for a response, she left the room, slamming the door behind her.

Little pranks. It was all he could do to pass the time, though, and other gems fighting each other wasn’t nearly as exciting as they made it seem. It was all respectful dueling and perfectly choreographed movement. At the end of the day it was all staged. It wasn’t a test of skill or instinct, or reflex, just memorization. It bored him to death. They could at least add a few explosions.

Behave yourself. Stay still. Don’t bother the agates, don’t upset the hessonites, don’t ever disobey your emerald. It seemed like at every turn he was ignored and told to sit still and make as little noise as possible. Maybe he should try to behave, just once, but the more he thought about it the more it irked him. No, he would simply have to do the opposite. Maybe if they wouldn’t add explosives to the fight, he’d just have to bring some of his own. He smiled, and brought some of his more secret items out of his gem.

***

Not much can be said about the actual event other than the fact that it was utterly boring until Green managed to sneak away to prepare his joke. Of course, it wasn’t supposed to actually cause any real damage, just some colorful lights and loud noises. Really, that Sardonyx Agate was so oblivious that it was hardly his fault his form was destroyed.

But of course Green took the blame, and there he sat in a room listening to one of the other agates complain and berate him. His punishment was apparently a demotion. He would serve not as an Emerald’s Pearl, but as the Pearl to the Sardonyx he had inadvertently damaged. It was fair enough, he supposed, he just wished he could have at least told off Emerald if he was going to be punished. In for a penny in for a pond right?

But no, he just had to wait quietly for his agate to reform, and then he’d help with whatever it was that an agate does. Maybe it would at least be more interesting working for someone who hated him, but he doubted it. Most likely his agate would just ignore him like everyone else.

It didn’t take long for the reformation to be complete. Green supposed it was a better punishment than being shattered or rejuvenated, but he had to grit his teeth for what would pass through them when the light started shining.

As soon as the agate reformed, Green went into his prepared speech.

“My agate, I’m glad to see you have reformed.”

Sardonyx just looked confused, which was understandable. A Pearl being assigned to an agate, well, it was probably something that very rarely happened, which of course served to make the appointment even more embarrassing.

“I see you are confused, allow me to introduce myself,” he said with a humble bow. “Your physical form was destroyed by some mischief that I caused at the tournament. Therefore, I have come to offer my deepest apologies for my transgression, as well as my service. I am Green Pearl, but you may call me Green if you so choose.”

All in all it was a masterful speech. He had spent a while working out the exact phrasing, and to practice sounding genuine in his regret.

“Well, I am a little surprised, but I accept your service, and your apology.”

“Thank you, my agate,” he said, breathing a small sigh of relief. The Sardonyx wasn’t angry then. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. “I assure you, it will not happen again. I look forward to serving you.”

Green waited quietly for a response, or a dismissal, or something, but when he looked up he saw his Sardonyx staring intently at him.

“Um...my agate?”

Then suddenly his agate laughed. And laughed and laughed. Green started to join in nervously, unsure of what was so funny.

“Oh you nearly had me,” Sardonyx said, still chuckling. “You’re an excellent liar, Green.”

What?

Had he said something wrong? Had something in his manner been incorrect? He had practiced so much. No one could tell when he was lying, not even Emerald! Perhaps this was a test of some kind?

“I...I assure you, I meant every word. I-If you are still upset I understand, but please, I really am sorry!”

“Relax, relax. I’m not upset. You don’t need to lie to me, though. You shouldn’t apologize if you don’t mean it,” Sardonyx said matter of factly, as if he wasn’t accusing Green of something he could be destroyed for.

“Wh-why? Why won’t you just believe me?”

“Are you angry?”

“Yes of course I–“ he cut himself off before worse words could be spoken. He didn’t want to be shattered. I’m the agonizing moment after he made his mistake, before anyone realized what had happened he had come to that conclusion. He didn’t want to be broken.

But if he was going to be shattered anyway, he might as well say what he was really thinking for once.

“You know what? Fine. You want the truth? I’m not sorry, I never have been, for anything that I’ve done. It was your own fault you weren’t paying enough attention to avoid the fireworks and still, even if you were standing directly in the line of fire, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. The look on your face when you got spooked was worth it, it was hilarious.”

Sardonyx looked up as though preparing to interject, but Green just cut the agate off.

“And frankly I added better entertainment than anyone else at that awful tournament! Do you know how agonizing it is to sit there clapping politely for a victory you already know is predetermined? There’s nothing interesting about it. And for the record, when you do have me shattered, feel free to call me Green, because that’s my real name, and use he and him when you refer to me, and–“

“Whoa whoa whoa, why would I have you shattered? This is great!”

Ok, now that was a weird turn to take. Either this agate was especially cruel, and willing to drag it out, or they were being genuine.

“Why...why is it great? I just insulted you, my Emerald, and plenty of other gems.”

“Because I don’t even have to get you one my side about this! You’re already very anti Diamond I bet, and what did you ask me to call you? Green? And you use he and him instead of she and her? That’s so genius, it sounds so much better, wherever did you learn that?”

“Um...thanks...I guess? I just sort of picked it up. Seemed to annoy people so I kept it. You can also use his for when something belongs to you.” Green was very confused now but he wasn’t going to question it. What was the phrase one of the soldiers taught him? Don’t look a gift horse in the towel?

“Yeah, ‘He walked. He is an agate. His Pearl taught him something new.’ Oh that is fantastic, can I use he and him, too?” The Sardonyx was beaming, like he had been given a new toy.

“Sure, I’m...uh...not in charge of you. So…”

“Great. My name is Scar by the way, so you can drop the whole ‘my agate’ thing.”

“Uh...why Scar?” Green asked, growing more curious and less scared by the second.

He replied, “Oh it’s sort of a joke. I have a stripe that looks like a Scar on my chest, so some of the others started calling me Scardonyx, and then it just got shortened to Scar.”

Now that was intriguing. “Others? What do you mean others?” Green asked excitedly.

“Oh just you wait, they’re gonna love you! We already have a Pearl with us, we call her Moon, but she took so much longer to really open up to us. Come on!”

“I’m still confused, where are we going?”

Scar turned around, smiling blindingly bright. Green could see in his eyes that this was someone like him. This agate knew how he felt. Suddenly, for the first time in his life, Green was not alone.

“To freedom, Green. We’re going to freedom.”

[deja-you]

domestic tranquility

m. de lafayette x reader

summary: a collection of intimate scenes from the L/n Administration, or the ‘what if’ ending to foreign affairs.

word count: 4.3k

author’s note: i hope this makes up for the ending of foreign affairs :) also a special thank you to @astralaffairs​ because she is my inspiration and she took the time to help edit this and i just love her in general

masterlist | foreign affairs

“Lafayette, will you marry me?”

The other line was silent, and you almost thought he had hung up on you.

“Hello?”

“I’m sorry, I must’ve heard you wrong. I could have sworn you just asked me to marry you.”

“I did.”

You could hear him suck in a deep breath. “Chèrie, I don’t understand.”

“Lafayette, I know this is a lot to ask. I’m going to run for president. I’m the perfect candidate, I really am. I’m what America needs right now.”

“Of course you are. Where do I come into this?”

“My staff has run some numbers. I do a lot better in the polls if I’m in a committed relationship. But the problem is, I’m not in a committed relationship.”

“You want to lie to the press and tell them we’re married?”

“I don’t want to lie to them. I’m asking you to marry me. It wouldn’t be a lie.”

“Huh.”

“You can say no. I know this is a lot to ask. It’s crazy, reall—”

“Okay.”

“What?”

“Let’s get married.”

Your jaw hung open. “Just like that, you’re on board?”

“You should be president, chèrie. I want to help you any way I can.”

“Are you sure about this? This isn’t something to be taken lightly.”

“Believe me, I’m taking this very seriously. I’m going to get on the next plane to New York. We’ll talk about this in person.”

You opened your mouth to say something else, but you found yourself at a loss for words. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon,” he repeated. “Let’s get married.”

You were in Iowa.

For some reason you had to come to godforsaken Iowa to become president. You didn’t think about how stupid corn was. You couldn’t think about it, just in case it somehow slipped out and you then alienated all the voters in Iowa. But you really didn’t care.

What you did care about was the sight of your French husband (it still felt strange to call him that) contentedly eating away at a cob of corn. A strange contrast to the sight of him smoking cigarettes and drinking a diabolo menthe at a Parisian café, but he looked just at home at the Iowa State Fair as he did in France.

His eyes lit up when he saw you, and he gestured for you to join him. Pasting on a smile, you made your way over to him and a series of photographers followed after you.

“Chèrie, have you tried this? It is amazing. This is the best corn I have ever had,” he said, waving around the corn on the cob animatedly while he spoke. The photographers were eating it up, and the corn on the cob vendor was smiling proudly.

You were absolutely bewildered by just how magnetizing he was. People loved him just for eating corn. You couldn’t even blame them, because you knew just how infectious his smile was when he was genuinely happy.

This marked your first official outing as a couple on the campaign trail since you had married Lafayette. If you were honest, you had been nervous about the whole ordeal, but the second Lafayette sent you that easygoing look, you relaxed.

When you were close enough, his hand found yours and he was quick to intertwine your fingers together. This was where the real and unreal collided. His genuine smile and unharnessed affection met your faltering remembrance that this wasn’t the loving marriage it looked like. It was serving its purpose at this exact moment.

You counted each time the camera flashed to take a picture of you and Lafayette walking hand in hand. You could see the headlines on tomorrow’s papers, and you could see Lafayette’s grinning face. A political marriage certainly wasn’t traditional or morally acceptable, but there were real issues that needed to be tackled. You had plans to reform the health care system and the economy. If Lafayette helped you achieve a platform where you could really make a difference, who cared if you bent a few social constructs?

Besides, it gave you the opportunity to reconnect with an old… friend.

“You really like corn?” You asked him quietly.

Lafayette sent a disarming smile to the photographers, and leaned in very closer to whisper in your ear, “I can’t stand corn. Get me out of Iowa.”

You didn’t hide your laugh, and the photographers quickly shot a few more photos of the two of you being a cute couple. Lafayette really didn’t like the corn? You had been so convinced his smile was real. You were beginning to think you couldn’t tell the difference between what was fake and what was real.

There was some kind of external force that wanted you and Lafayette to end up together.

You were sure of this, because you had expelled him from your life multiple times by now. The memory of him leaving you on the sidewalk in D.C. felt like it was just yesterday, but now you were back in his arms. And it felt so natural.

So yes, there was something pulling the two of you together. You didn’t want to call it fate. You didn’t really believe in that. It had to be something stronger. There was something tugging at your heart telling you it was choice, but you didn’t want to believe that, either. Your fingers gripped his suit a little tighter in an attempt to ground yourself.

This was good. This was nice, you thought as you swayed back and forth. There were thousands of eyes trained on you, and millions watching you from home on their TVs. The thought that so many people were watching you right now was daunting, but it was nothing that you weren’t used to at this point. You were the Leader of the Free World. The President of the United States.

You could hear a few cameras click, and you flashed a disarming smile in their direction. A well-known singer was crooning out the words to a slow, melodic version of Stand by Me. Your husband squeezed your hip lightly, causing you to look up at him while he absently swayed with you.

He grinned when you met his gaze and softly whispered, “relax a little. This is your moment. Enjoy it. You’ve earned it.”

Your stiff smile melted into a genuine one and you gave him a small nod. He was right, you did deserve this. The road to the White House had been one paved with blood, sweat, and tears, and you still hadn’t stepped foot in the building yet. A few more balls, and then you could finally move into your new home for the next four to eight years. But you had earned it.

The last year and a half had been the craziest 18 months of your life, and you knew it wasn’t about to get easier anytime soon. But this was good. This was nice. You didn’t have to worry about any political opponents or Supreme Court appointments right now. All you had to do was dance leisurely with your attractive husband.

“What are your thoughts on my seeking out a second term?” you asked quietly on the ride back to the White House.

There were a few more balls that you and Lafayette had attended, staying only long enough to share a dance or two with the press before heading to the next event. It had been a non-stop day; the inaugural address in the morning and the inaugural balls in the evening, and everything in between had successfully worn you thin. Lafayette had been at your side all day, and you could tell that he was exhausted as well.

“Ma chèrie, you were just sworn in. How can you already be thinking about re-election?” Lafayette yawned, slumping back against the seat with his bowtie undone and hanging lazily around his neck.

You laughed softly and shook your head from side to side. “It’s you I’m concerned about.”

“Hm?”

You shifted in your seat to look him in the eye. “You agreed to marry me so I could win the Presidency. I told you that we would only have to stay married while I was in the White House. So what are your thoughts on eight years instead of four?”

“Are you kidding me, Y/n?” Lafayette asked incredulously.

You pursed your lips and raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“You’re running for a second term. And I’m going to be by your side through it all. That is, if you still want to be President after dealing with Congress for four years.”

This solicited a laugh from you. He paused before he continued. The pause was the space between you and him, between the Earth and the Sun and everything in between. A hesitancy for the desperation of being wanted and the interval for not knowing if that was what he wanted.

“And of course, if you still want me by your side in four years.”

You tilted your head to the side and smiled at him. “Of course I’ll still want you by my side. We made a promise. For better or for worse.”

Lafayette took your hand in his and raised it to his lips. “For better or for worse.”

Somehow you found the time to sit down and watch a movie in the White House movie theater. 

Lafayette chooses some sort of action movie, you can’t even remember the title of the film and you decide that it’s not important.

You’ve invited some close friends to join you for the night. The Hamiltons (of course), your chief of staff, Nathan Hale, and his partner, and a few other White House senior staffers. All people you would trust with your life and your secrets.

You know Alex’s suspected for a while that you and Lafayette got married for political reasons. He’s a real politician, so he’s one of the few who have actually considered that marriage could be an ambitious political move. A heartless speculation, yes, but he isn’t exactly wrong. You consider that he’s mentioned the idea to Eliza, but you’ve given them no confirmation on the subject.

Nathan knows you better than you know yourself after working for you for all these years. And he knows about your history with Lafayette. He may have been the one to plant the idea in your head of calling Lafayette up before you ran for office, but you’ve never officially explained to him the truth about your relationship. You don’t need to.

The point is, most people in this room know both you and Lafayette completely. And you trust everyone in this room completely. Even if they did find out the truth, it wouldn’t matter. You know your secret would be safe. Knowing all this, you begin to wonder who you’re trying to convince that your marriage is real.

It has to be someone. You’re not throwing your arms around his shoulders and pulling him close for your own benefit. Lafayette isn’t getting you a bag of popcorn and placing a kiss to your cheek for any other reason than because he really wants to sell this marriage. 

You have to be putting on this performance for someone, because if not, that would mean you’re shooting Lafayette loving looks for no other reason except for the fact that you want to. And that can’t be right. Quid est veritas?

You’re given relief from the thoughts turning around and around and around in your head when the lights turn down low. You take your seat beside Lafayette (something in you tells you that your place has always been beside him). The movie starts playing and you relax for the first time since before you were sworn in as president (was that nearly a year ago?). 

You don’t know if it’s because there’s something therapeutic about watching a fictional President having to deal with fictional problems, or if it’s relaxing because Lafayette has pulled you to his side and his hand absently runs through your hair. You decide it’s both.

“Are you tired?” Lafayette whispers in your ear quietly about halfway through the movie.

You are tired, but you insist on whispering back a no. He doesn’t believe you. Lafayette turns his head and presses his forehead against yours. The movie is forgotten in the background, you have his complete attention.

“Close your eyes,” he says softly. “Get some rest. I’ve got you.”

You want to kiss him. You’re so close to him now, all you would have to do is tilt your head just slightly to the right. If you kiss him now, you can say you were just trying to sell the relationship. To the maybe five people in the (dark) room who weren’t even paying attention to you, and even if they were none of them were about to report to the press that they thought your marriage was a sham. It’s not a good excuse, but you’re still considering it.

You don’t consider it any further; you don’t get to. A bit of light comes flooding into the movie theater, and you hear some hushed voices at the entrance.

“Madam President?”

Regretfully, you untangle your limbs from Lafayette’s and sit up. A White House staffer gives you an apologetic look and explains that there’s been a situation. You don’t look back at Lafayette because you know you’d be met with a look of disappointment. Instead, you make a light joke to the audience about never getting a break and they all laugh politely and urge you to go take care of the matter at hand.

You recall the 25th amendment while you’re leaving the theater, and you try to recall what the succession of the presidency really means. What is the Vice President doing tonight? You’re too busy thinking about what it would feel like to have your husband’s arms wrapped around you once more to think about whatever situation had arisen, did that make you unfit for office? Could someone else just take over for one night so you could spend the evening with Lafayette?

“You stayed up?”

You didn’t know what time it was – didn’t need to – but it was late. You had spent the entire day flying back from meetings in Germany, and then more meetings on the plane. You were exhausted, your staff was exhausted, so by the time you got back to the residency you were certain that you were the only one on the planet who was still awake.

“Didn’t want you to be alone.” Lafayette is still awake.

He looks tired, and you know he’s beyond tired. No doubt his schedule has been filled all day, and the both of you have to be up – four hours? That’s hardly enough sleep to function properly. And yet Lafayette has sacrificed his sleep because he didn’t want you to be alone.

Not that you would have been alone. You had planned on entering the residency quietly and sliding into bed beside him after you changed into sweats. You would let his rhythmic breathing lull you to sleep, and you’d hardly feel alone. But you’d be lying if you said his consciousness wasn’t a comforting presence to you.

“How was Germany?” He yawns.

You’re in a hurry to change out of your suit because the soft comforter of the bed is calling your name. You hardly process his words, murmuring some practiced, diplomatic response. He says he wishes he could’ve come with you, and you tell him you understand why he couldn’t this time. Next time, you say.

“You shouldn’t have stayed up for me,” you tell him once you’re comfortably situated in your favorite pair of sweats.

“For you? I was waiting up for the Vice President. Jay and I had a little rendez-vous planned for tonight, you just got back early.” His grin is tired, but there’s still a playful twinkle in his eye.

You sit beside him on the bed, giving him a little shove and rolling your eyes. “If you had said Secretary Hamilton, I might’ve believed you.”

He leans on you slightly, his head resting on top of yours. “Secretary Hamilton?”

“Mmhmm,” you say quietly. “The two of you have far too much chemistry.”

“Ma chèrie.” He lifts his head off yours just enough to turn to face you, and two of his fingers move your head so you’re facing each other. There’s only one bedside lamp turned on right now, and he’s taking this moment to memorize the lines of your face and the exact shade of your eyes. “You know you’re the only one for me.”

You realize you don’t love him in the way you used to. Not in a bad way, you haven’t stopped loving him. It’s just different this time. It’s honest and real, which is a bit ironic, because the foundations of your marriage were anything but truthful.

You’re polite, so your smile often is fake. He’s real. Right in front of you, right beside you. Every night. There’s something about his mercy and selflessness that you are in love with. He’s teaching you what it really means to be human. Even if you didn’t love him for that, you are so covered in him you wouldn’t know what else to be.

Whatever bravery you had stored up for debating political adversaries or promoting your most radical ideas suddenly possessed you, and you felt yourself leaning forward and pressing your lips against his. In the privacy of your shared residency. With no one around to see.

It’s almost like something breaks in him, if just for a moment. Maybe it’s the sleeplessness that’s slowing eroding away at his brain. Maybe he’s like you, and he’s also been wanting this for longer than he’s willing to admit, but he doesn’t hesitate, he just melts into you.

Your head feels foggy, you can’t really think, all you know is that this feels good. It’s the kind of intoxicating feeling that reminds you of the first time you kissed him, but you remind yourself that nothing is like the first time. You don’t love him in the way you used to. It’s different. Better.

“Don’t run for re-election.”

He doesn’t look at you when he speaks. Well, usually he would, but right now he isn’t looking at you. His eyes are memorizing the stitches on your coat, refusing to look at your eyes or your lips or your hands. You recognized the emotions swirling from his heart up to his lips. Shame.

Lafayette had never been anything but supportive when it came to your political career, so hearing him ask you not to run for re-election was a shocker. He loves supporting you. You know it’s out of a place of deep regret and desperation that Lafayette would ever even broach the subject. But he’s desperate now. You can tell.

You take his face in your hands – reaching out for anything good. You’d like to take the moment to just be here with him, but you’ve never been given enough time for that. It hurts him to look at you, but eventually he does.

“What?” You ask him softly. You know you heard him correctly, but you feel the need to prompt him into an explanation.

“I know it’s not my decision. And if you decide that you are going to run for re-election, we’ll put the matter to rest. We can pretend this conversation never happened,” he says sincerely. Lafayette takes a deep breath as if the next part will be difficult for him to articulate. You know that is. “Don’t run for re-election.”

He’s firmer in his request this time. Yes, the shame is still there, but it’s an underlying tone beneath his pure tenderness.

Lafayette’s never asked much from you. When you asked him to marry you, he hardly asked any questions. You know he would do whatever it is you asked of him at any time, so when he asks you not to run for re-election, you already know your answer without him having to explain himself. If this is what he wants, you’ll do it for him.

But you are still the president of the United States. You have a responsibility to your party, the government, and Americans as a whole. After accomplishing all you have in the last four years, it won’t be easy to walk away from the presidency without a reason. No, you don’t deserve a reason from Lafayette – you don’t even need one, if you are being honest – but you can at least pretend to be hesitant when it comes to leaving the Nation’s highest office.

“Why don’t you want me running for re-election?” you ask.

“Because I love you.” He says it like it’s the most simple and straightforward answer he can think of.

You can’t help but smile. “And I love you. But what does that have to do with me not running for re-election?”

“I know you love me. But there’s some part of me that will always think – as long as we’re in the public eye – that you only love me for appearances. That this is only love for the cameras—”

“Laf, it’s not. I promise I love you.”

“I know you do. But I’m always going to wonder. If it’s fake. If it just feels like love because of the atmosphere. For the past four years I’ve had to live with the gnawing fear that you wouldn’t love me outside of the White House. It would kill me if I had to live like this for another four years.”

Your voice is softer when you speak again. “You once told me you’d stay with me if I wanted to run for re-election. You said for better or for worse.”

“I know. That was years ago. That was when I thought you would only stay married to me while we were in the White House. That was when I thought a fake marriage would be enough for me.”

“Laf—”

“Ma chèrie, I want a life with you. One that isn’t just for show. I want to love you because I love you, not because it will help with your polling numbers.” There’s a deliberate determination between his words. He’s nervous. “I love you so much, and I can’t stand the idea of anyone having reason to think it’s anything less than love.”

The Oval Office is golden.

Well, technically, it’s more of a beige with a vibrant blue carpet in the middle of the room displaying the presidential seal. But in the low light of the December afternoon, the room is filled with a golden glow.

You’ve always known you were going to make history, but to actually be history is something altogether new for you. In another month, the drapes in the Oval Office and the furniture would all be replaced with whatever furniture the next president saw fit. It would be too easy for the white house staff to clean out the White House of any trace of you, but maybe if you were lucky you’d be mentioned in a footnote in a textbook somewhere.

It’s not like you are one to make rash choices. The decision of stepping down from office came after long and meticulous thought on the subject. You are more certain that you made the right decision more and more each day, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have your doubts every now and then.

“Am I interrupting anything?” Lafayette knows you better than you know yourself. He can tell by the blank look on your face while you read through a thick file that no, he’s not interrupting anything.

“It’s strange that I can say no,” you sigh softly. “I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t busy. But apparently people don’t care about a lame duck when there’s a shiny new President-Elect.”

He crosses the room and leans against the desk. Lafayette gently tugs your hand up to his lips and presses a delicate kiss against your knuckles. It’s gentle and timid, as if everything about this relationship depends on this small act of affection. You’ve noticed that Lafayette has been more reserved lately, almost like he feels guilty for asking such a heavy favor of you.

“Have I ever told you that you’re my favorite president?” It’s hardly a question and mostly an answer.

You smile, and he can’t help but think about how beautiful you are. He thinks you get more beautiful every day, although he can’t figure out how that’s possible.

“Your favorite? You like me better than President Washington?”

Lafayette hums softly and pulls you out of your seat, lifting you up onto the desk. He stands between your legs, hands resting gently on your hips. His gaze falls from your eyes to your lips, then back up to your eyes, and finally says, “you’re easier on the eyes.”

You laugh – Lafayette swears it’s lyrical – and press a kiss to his cheek. “That’s good to hear. How has the house hunting been going?”

His eyes visibly brighten. “I think I’ve found the place.”

“Is that right?”

“Mmhmm. It’s this piece of property in upstate New York. The drive to the city isn’t so far, and the estate. I just know you’re going to love it.”

You could sense the excitement emanating off of him. “Am I?”

Lafayette nods. “Chèrie, you have to see this place. It has a beautiful kitchen for me to cook in. A balcony – I know you love balconies. A few acres so one day our kids—”

“Our kids?”

His eyes widen as he quickly realizes his mistake. “I—well… yeah? I know we haven’t talked about this. I always pictured us with kids, but if that’s not what you want, I can respect that. We don’t need to have kids, I promise that you are already more than enough for me.”

You bring a hand to cup his face, your thumb softly moving across his cheek as you just hold him. “Lafayette, I want a family with you. I want a future with you. I want forever with you. I love you.”

He brings your lips to his, and for the first time, you’re not worried about it being the last time.

I’m just going to add foreign affairs taglist here :)

@fanfic-addict-98 @wordvomit-foryourmind @farihafangirls @actuallyanita @cubedtriangle @katierpblogg @ballerinafairyprincess @dannighost @ateliefloresdaprimavera @lexylovesfandoms @dovesgrangers @a-hopeless-fan @biafbunny @hermionie-is-my-queen @zeelmol @oi-itsemily @itsjube @someinsanefangirl @awkward-walking-potato @lu123sworld @exorcisms-with-elmo @ohsoverykeri-blog @lizzzaaaaaaaaaaa @poetnstuff @nyxie75 @roxanne2020 @luckyfriesss

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Day of the Animals

While perhaps not my favorite episode this season, Day of the Animals is easily the best written story of season three. Even so, it still has problems due to the third season’s poor approach to characterization. 

Summary: Rapunzel, Varian, Angry and Red are returning stolen loot that the two girls had stolen years ago. They are accompanied by Max, Pascal, Ruddiger and Hamuel who all cannot stop quarreling with each other (or in Hamuel's case, just being useless). While messing with a sea shell pendant, it magically transports the humans into it, leaving the animals to fight over it. A minor thug named Dwayne, steals the pendant forcing the animals to work together to retrieve it. 

So Why is a Polynesian Inspired Kingdom Within Riding Distance of a Northern European Country? 

If you’ll remember my review of Beginnings, Neserdina’s princesses were wearing Polynesian garb and dancing the Hula when prepping for the competition. Now I’ve already went into length as to why that’s not good representation, but in addition to that it’s also just plain dumb. You can’t just transport one ethic group and dump them into another part of the world because it’s convenient for you. You don’t earn any brownie points for doing that. Especially when your fantasy world is still based off of our own historical earth. 

To make things even more confusing, we actually saw Neserdina way back in season one in Way of the Willow. It’s where Willow bought the gremlin knock-off. 

That is an island. How the heck do you get to a volcanic island riding in a horse and cart? And don't tell me they’re riding to a port, because Corona is a port city already. They could have gotten there by boat. It’s also can’t be too far away from Corona’s borders if Angry and Red were able to get there on foot during their year long travels. 

The only explanation is that the entirety of the Tangled crew doesn’t understand geography, and this won’t be the last example in the show to back up that statement. 

So Why Is Rapunzel Here?

We get explanations for why everyone is on this road trip, except for the main character herself. Red and Angry are trying to return some stolen loot. Varian is wanting to pick up rare alchemy supplies at the market and was invited along because Raps hopes it’ll be a chance for Ruddiger and Max to get know one another better. 

But why on earth does Rapunzel feel the need to come on this trip herself? Doesn’t she have a kingdom to run? While I’m sure Eugene is more than capable of handling things, this doesn’t reflect well upon the writers supposed plan of making Rapunzel appear more responsible. 

Literally any other adult could have come along on this trip. This wasn’t something Rapunzel needed to waste time on. Lance especially would have been more appropriate here as he’s the one who’s suppose to eventually adopt Angry and Red.  And the sad thing is, all they had to do was give Rapunzel a line about needing to attend some sort of diplomatic business in Neserdina. That’s it. 

In a show that’s supposed to be all about Rapunzel; Rapunzel sure doesn’t have a whole lot of reasons to exist in the majority of the episodes. 

Lack of Worldbuilding Strikes Again

At this point I’m kind of numb to the whole “magical thing just exists for no adequately explained reason” and so I’m not as upset as some people are about the shell necklace. But it’s still not good writing. 

Why does this thing exist? How did come to be cursed? How did it get mixed in with their stuff? What activated the magic and why did it only effect the human’s even though the animals were closer to it? 

Just something show. Anything. You bothered to give use rules for how this thing works and even stuck to them this time, but you can’t just make the last leg of the trip and give us some exposition? 

Yeah, okay. 

So Where Exactly Are We in Relation to Corona?

We can see Pittsford and Ivangarr on the road sign and we have to be in riding distance to Neserdina from Corona, but like are we in Corona still? Are we in Koto, which is Corona’s nearest neighbor to the east according to season three. Are we in some no-man’s-land where none of the kingdoms have control, or are we already in Neserdina itself? 

The series gives us no sense of direction nor any firm placement for Corona within it’s world. I only know it is a Northern European country because Corona itself is a peninsula with a north sea, uses French, English, and German fashion/customs, and Rapunzel is a Germanic fairy tale. But like those clues are thrown into a blender and contradicted several times over, on top of never being told where it’s closest kingdoms actually lie. 

All of this matters when traveling and exploring the wider world are big themes of your show. You need more solid and consistent world building than this. It also impacts how much authority and control your main character has within the episode itself if she range of political power is limited to one area. So like we need to know where the heroes stand here. 

(FYI I personally headcannon Corona as former Prussia which was once part of Germany and it’s alliance of smaller kingdoms. It’s also a peninsula next to the Curonian Spit) 

This Is Not Progress

Okay so the idea here, is that the show is implying that Rapunzel is trying to improve Corona’s justice system over Frederic’s previously inhumane crack down on crime. However, this is terribly executed. 

For starters the show has never called Frederic nor Rapunzel out for their previous misbehavior. You can not change any system for the better without acknowledging the flaws within said system first. Therefore this comes right out of nowhere and doesn’t stick around long enough to stay within the viewers minds for later. 

Secondly, Rapunzel is incredibly fickle about who she does and doesn’t set free. The Saporians were still in the dungeons last time we saw them, Caine was shipped off to the prison island and left to die there as far as we know, and the Stabbingtons are shown shackled together in the wedding short even though they supposedly changed their ways and befriended Eugene again. 

Meanwhile Dwayne and Stalyan are free to go their marry way and continue their life of crime, Varian is only released from his overly harsh punishment because he kissed Rapunzel’s ass not because it was wrong to imprison him in the first place, and later Cassandra gets away scot free because she’s Rapunzel’s bestie even though she committed the worst crimes out of everyone in the show and for very little reason. 

That’s not justice. That’s not compassion. That’s not progressive reform. It’s just nepotism, and it’s every bit as corrupt as Frederic’s classism and totalitarianism. 

Just because Rapunzel is “nice” it doesn’t mean that she is kind. Real reform has to treat everyone with equality and have a set of base standards that are beyond one person’s personal judgment. She is still a dictator and an abuser even if she lets the occasional person go free on a whim. 

Finally, Rapunzel’s methods are just downright ineffective. Dwyane may not be a threat to our heroes, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a threat to other people. He’s not actually sorry about trying to rob people at knife point and he fully plans on continuing being a thief after feeding Rapunzel the lines she wants to hear. 

Furthermore, we don’t know if this course of action is born out of malice or desperate need. He half heartily comments about finding ‘an honest job” but can he even do that? Is it even a realistic option for him? The series has been weaving this class inequality theme through out it’s past three seasons and directly connecting that to Corona’s crime rate. 

Eugene had a hard time finding a job during season one directly due to his past record, remember? A life of crime he was forced to lead in order to survive, and he’s the Prince Consort! What chance does Dwayne have? Did Rapunzel even try to help him find work or did she just wag her finger at him and told him “Now, now, stealing’s not nice.” 

The show wants to act like Rapunzel is this progressive reformer but then they turn her into a Republican instead. That’s not me being sarcastic either, this approach to criminal justice is the foundation of conservative belief and has been for centuries. The right are not interested in why people commit crime. They don’t care about addressing the fundamental problems in society that lead people to break the law. Let alone bother to analyze why those laws exist in the first place. Instead they resort to doublethink and survivor bias to either write off those that fall through the cracks or make excuses for why their policies repeatedly fail, often ignoring the fact that things aren’t actually working for whole swathes of people who aren’t themselves.  

Tangled the Series is far too simplistic and childish in it’s approach to deeper subjects like this to enforce the messages it supposedly wants to enforce. Rapunzel herself relies on magical thinking, double standards, and personal bias to see her through every and any problem and the show just rewards her for it rather than challenging her to grow and in doing so winds up supporting people like her in their authoritarian ideas, whether that was the writers’ intentions or not. 

In short, Rapunzel shows no interest in putting in the real work it would take to implement genuine restorative justice. She doesn't honestly care about Dwyane or his victims. She’s just posturing here for the sake of her self image.  

You’re Not In Any Position to Talk Rapunzel 

Speaking of Rapunzel being a hypocrite.... The entirety of season three’s main conflict is her having a petty bitch fight with her supposed best friend and needlessly dragging everyone else into it.

In fact that’s the whole show. Rapunzel repeatedly failing to get along with other people because she’s deep down a shitty person despite the veneer of ‘friendliness’ she slaps on to hide it. Having her just say she knows better does nothing to convince me that she’s actually learned anything. You have to show that she’s learned it first, and that requires acknowledging her own wrong doings.  

Varian’s face here just tells it all. Rapunzel is full of shit and no one in the show knows it better than him. Why are they even friends again? Why should we trust her with the three kids she neglected more than once? Why should any of these people take what she says seriously? 

Well This is Contradictory

Also, since we brought up double standards, here’s Varian undermining that whole “jail is bad” thing Rapunzel is trying to push with Dwayne and later with Cass. Not only is the show under cutting it’s themes for a joke, but it just reinforces the abuse Varian received. He’s now bought into Frederic’s stupid beliefs and winds up reinforcing to the audience that that his ‘reform’ was due to his past imprisonment.   

As an adult watching this series, Varian’s supposed redemption continues to increasingly look like a victim complying with their past abuser out of fear of further harm rather than anyone genuinely learning to be better.

Can We Please Stop Infantilizing the 16 Year Old

As if to deflect from Varian’s past mistreatment and continuing parentification, the show then goes on to showcase the opposite extreme whenever possible. I know it’s hard to tell just from these few screen shots alone, but over the course of season three Varian is spoken down too and treated condescendingly by the rest of the cast, and by Rapunzel in particular, even as he enters his later teens/early adulthood.  

Some of this is just to due to Rapunzel being her usual holier than thou self, but there’s also times, like here, where Varian is lumped together with the actual children of the show, even though he’s 6 to 8 years their senior. 

In fact out of everyone Rapunzel interacts with, Varian’s actually the closest to her in both age and development. Queen for a Day forced the two of them into a power imbalance due to a mixture of classism and society’s ongoing unhealthy (and often artificial) divide between younger and older teens, but as we get further and further away from that point in time and as Varian nears the same age Rapunzel started out as, that imbalance becomes less and less relevant. 

Look at how this scene is framed, He’s standing between Angry and Red and is placed lower than them to make it look like he’s one of them. He’s not. 

Varian may still look 12 with his big old eyes and short stature, but seeing as how we’re past Hearts Day, he’s actually close to being 17, if he isn’t already. The timeline gets even wonkier after The King and Queen of Hearts, but trust me, we’re close to being two years past Queen for a Day, if not more so. 

Varian, for all counts, should be Rapunzel’s equal by now in terms of story. Not only is he closest in age to her, but he’s also the only other person going through a coming of age arc. And of the two, Varian’s the one who has actually learned and grown as a person. He has more real world experience than Rapunzel ever will and knows how to implement that experience. (He’s also the more mature, but that’s more of a failure to write Rapunzel competently than a reflection of his capabilities.) 

No matter how you slice it, Varian shouldn’t be taking orders or advice from Rapunzel; no one should be, really; and he most certainly shouldn’t put up with her condescension. Rapunzel is not his nor anybody else’s mother. She’s not even a big sister like figure, and at no point should be treated as the leader of anything or anyone. 

Rapunzel is a Poor Man’s Rose Quartz 

I typically try not to draw too many comparisons between Tangled and other shows outside of the occasional parallel, as a show should be able to stand on it’s own for good or for bad, but it’s hard not to discuss the series without also discussing Steven Universe in some way. 

Steven Universe is this generation’s Batman the Animated Series or Scooby Doo. It’s the game changer that everybody else is trying to copy in some manner. Chris desperately wants Tangled the Series to be the next Steven Universe, right down to how the show is structured, paced, and what themes are presented. But unfortunately Chris has no idea why Steven Universe works the way it does. 

For starters SU adjusted it’s pacing as it went along, smoothing out its rougher edges while Tangled doubled down on its filler. SU had a planned arc from the get go and stuck to it, so that by the time the twists came they made sense. SU kept it’s focus on Steven purposefully so that the story unfolded from his view point while making to sure to acknowledge the importance of other characters around him and their conflicts. It didn’t make him infallible nor shove aside everyone else’s arcs.  

But most importantly, Steven Universe was written by a bisexual nonbinary person who set out to make a show for people in the queer community like themselves. Meanwhile, as a middle aged white man, Chis hasn’t a damn clue about his primary audience and has shown no interest in connecting with them. 

This isn’t to say that Steven Universe is a perfect show. No show is beyond criticism. Nor is this to say that straight white cis men can’t write; many of them do and can portray characters unlike themselves competently enough. But if you’re completely disinterested in other points of view than you can’t be a good writer of fictional stories, that’s just a fact. Because in order to understand proper characterization you need to acknowledge that not every character ever will be like you and that even you’re main heroes will hold beliefs and experiences different from yourself. Otherwise there is no genuine conflict to build off of. Either no one will disagree with each other or the conflict will come across as flat and forced, complete with lopsided bias. 

Therefore, in the end, Rapunzel winds up being less of a Steven and more of a Rose Quartz/Pink Dimond. Both are spoiled princesses/co-rulers of a kingdom that mistreats it’s people and anyone outside of it, who rebelled against their guardians, supposedly out of a sense of justice, but really for themselves and their own freedom, only to make things even worse for everyone. On top of that they both accidently harmed their friends, freindzone their best friend while also bossing them around, are condescending to their love interests, is controlling of people who trust them, and throws temper tantrums when they don’t get what they want, oh and neglected someone for an inhumane amount of time. 

Even then, Rapunzel winds up being the worst of the two. 

The whole point behind Rose was that she is someone whom the main characters place upon a pedestal and as the series went along slowly had the scales fall from their eyes and learned to view her for who she really was flaws and all. By the end, in Future, she is even metaphorically removed from her pedestal when Steven removes her picture from the wall.  

Rose also grows as a character, unlike Rapunzel. Her story is deliberately being told to us backwards. The awful person she was in the past was no longer who she was by the time of her death. True she was still flawed, and the consequences of her actions continued on even after her demise, but she actually tried to be a better person. She got called out for her behavior, she wasn’t excused for actions even when the show explained why she did what she did, and she stopped doing harmful actions whenever she realized that they hurt someone. 

Greg was allowed to stand up to her and show how she was wrong, and she respected him for it and later fell in love with him because of it. She tried to better control her temper when she wound up hurting her friend. Her failed revolution and her mistreatment of Spinel was actually born from a misguided desire to help, rather than outright selfishness. 

Rose Quratz/Pink Dimond is a brilliant fucking character. You may not like her, but you can’t deny that she is one of the most complex figures in children’s media to ever be created. She is real, nuanced, and multifaceted. He role within the story is complicated, messy, and intricate. She is the most well rounded female character I’ve ever seen and she is what I had hoped Rapunzel would be when I first watched season one, only even more so as the actual focus. 

I want women in cartoons to be people! 

But Rapunzel fails at every turn to follow through with this promise. She is not a deep complex character. She’s not a flawed and complicated heroine. She’s a blank canvas in which the creator can shove his creepy ass views upon. She is never taken off her pedestal, she’s never allowed to be wrong, and she is forced to spout the the creator’s personal bias against other characters. 

Rapunzel isn’t a person. She had the chance to be one, but then was reduced to .. to this. As a woman, the treatment of Rapunzel and Cassandra in this show is just flat out insulting. 

So What Is the Difference Between Angry and Red Now?

I’m all for character growth, but at this point Angry and Red are just interchangeable. Anything that made them uniquely them has been lost, and they’re now just fulfilling the generic rambunctious little kid trope. Red becoming more assertive shouldn’t mean she stops being an introvert altogether; that’s not how that works. While Angry shouldn’t lose her temper completely just because she’s wiling to open up more. 

So Why Dwayne?

I like Dwayne as a character and in truth I don’t mind his existence here, and unlike that werewolf hunter last time he at least was established in a pervious season. But this is still time that could have went to a more important antagonist. 

Also notice that Dwyane gets a villain song, but not Lady Caine or Zhan Tiri. Just saying. 

Rapunzel Has Not Earned the Role of the Wise Sage and Mentor 

Rapunzel has never learned to listen to others. Ever.

On it’s own this might have been a good speech, but when taken in context of the wider story it just makes Rapunzel look like an ass. 

A year traveling does not make Rapunzel suddenly all knowing. She is not wiser nor more experienced than anyone else in this scene. She’s also a crappy leader and big fat hypocrite.  

Even when she’s technically right, as seen here, she’s still in the wrong because she never follows through and acts upon her own advice; making this whole story pointless in the grand scheme of things. 

And that’s the core problem with season three. Rapunzel is shoved into a role she is not designed for and the whole premise of the series runs right off the rails. You’re main heroine in a coming of age story can not inhabit the mentor role. She can not simultaneously learn and grow and be always right while instructing everyone else. 

All through out season three Rapunzel is either rendered completely useless in her own damn series, or she utterly fails to fulfill any sort of narrative promise laid out for her while she infuriatingly hijacks the story from more interesting and dynamic characters. 

Behold The Only Reason Why Varian was Included in the Episode 

Speaking of hijacking things, Rapunzel of course has to get the idea to save everybody, even though what she thinks of isn’t anything special. It’s not derived from her character as an individual nor from all that experience she supposedly has. It’s literally an idea anyone could have come up  with and the show just hands it to her in order to justify her exitance. 

Meanwhile the character who actually is useful to the plot is sidelined and reduced to just a plot device. And not just here, Varian is rendered practically pointless in all but two episodes in season three, even in episodes that he actually should have more impact in, like the season opener and series finale. 

Good writing treats characters as equally contributing to the plot in ways that complements who these characters are.  

Ok I’ll Admit That This Line Is Funny

Look, I know this whole review series is about pointing out the negative, and I stand by my opinion that Tangled the Series is one of the worst written shows I’ve ever seen, but I want to make one thing clear.... I do not hate the show. If I hated the show I would not waste my time reviewing it. 

Yes the over all writing is shit, but there are a lot of good things to be found in the series beyond just the crap story arc. The humor is usually solid, the animation is gorgeous, the music is a delight, and the majority of the characters are likable even though they don’t develop in the ways that they should. There’s a lot of talent that went into this show and there’s a lot of potential to be had in it’s set up and lore. 

Being critical or negative about the aspects of something doesn’t mean you dislike it, or that you’re not a real fan, or that you’re just a ‘hater’, and I actually find TTS to be fascinating because it’s such a mess. I write reviews because they’re fun and because I genuinely think there is something to be learned from Tangled’s mistakes. 

So Why Do We Cut Back to Rapunzel Here and Not Varian? 

This is such an odd framing choice. Varian is the one who is talking and reacting to what’s happening. It’s his pet that’s in trouble and therefore he carries the emotional weight of the scene, and yet it’s Rapunzel’s shocked face we focus on? Why? What’s the point of that? She has no business being the center focus here. The action does not involve her. 

If you wanted to include her for a later set up then why not have both her and Varian present in this shot? Usually I can at least count on the story boarders to frame things better than this, but they really missed the mark here. Unless Chris is just that stupid and petty that he over ruled them and forced Varian out of the scene, but that seems like a pointless fight to pick, even for him. 

See This is How you Fulfill a Narrative Promise 

The conflict between Ruddiger and Max was set up in season one with What the Hair, then it was reiterated a few episodes ago during The Lost Treasure of Herz Der Sonne, and then it was reintroduced in this episode along with a stated lesson about working together that they needed to learn. By they end of the episode, guess what, they’ve learned to work together. That is how you properly set up and resolve a conflict. 

It’s clear from this that the writers of Tangled the Series know the basic tenants of writing and how to fulfill narrative promises. So the fact that they don’t follow through with this in the majority of the show’s episodes and ongoing story arcs just baffles me. 

Is it negligence? Is it hubris? Is it incompetent management and editorial mandates? Is it just one asshole ruining everything or is this a failure in the writers room as a whole? 

I just don’t understand what the fuck went wrong here. There’s no reason for why the show got as bad as it did. How does the most acclaimed animation company in the world put out such amateurish tripe? 

Just... wow. 

Now you know why I’m mesmerized by this show. It is a mystery to be solved, like trying to figure out how the crew on the Titanic fucked up so badly or why Hindenburg blew up. You just can’t look away. 

Conclusion 

Like I said at the start, structurally speaking this is the strongest episode of the season. I personally enjoy Lost Treasure a little more, just because Rapunzel annoys me less in that, but it’s not a bad story. However when you’re best episode in your final season is filler, then you know you’re in trouble. 

If you like my reviews and want to support my writing endeavors you can drop a tip in my kofi https://ko-fi.com/rachelbethhines

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

this is (yet another) interview

"I know you keep talking to Arthur," Lewis says one day, almost as soon as they sit down.

Her heart jumps, and then sinks. "Oh. Um."

"I- I'm not angry!" He looks up and waves a hand, trying to reassure her. "It... I... I worry about you - a lot, but... it's not like I can stop you. I just... didn't want you to feel like you had to keep," another, more relaxed hand-wave, "dancing around it."

She relaxes at that. "Well. You guys are, uh, weird. Parabiologically speaking. I... can't exactly just walk away from that." She bites back the start of a rant about all the cross-classification he and Arthur have. Lewis always listens politely when she goes off on tangents, but, as she forcefully reminds herself, they're in the middle of a conversation already.

His expression softens at that, and then he looks away again. "How... how is he?"

"Huh?"

"I mean- what's he like. Arthur. You are researching him, after all." When he looks back, there's something else in his eyes. They're narrowed slightly, brow almost furrowed. "I'm just wondering... what you've gathered about him so far."

"Oh." She's almost disappointed by the clarification. It's much simpler than what she originally got from the how is he – a question about her research, not his well-being. "He's..." she drums on one hand with the fingers of the other, pursing her lips as she thinks of a good way to summarize.

"I mean, I said weird, right? I've told you about the classification system- which is bullshit-" she adds under her breath, "-but it works as a framework. So, he's not quite a poltergeist or a wraith, because he's not... dangerous. Poltergeists are-"

She's interrupted by an incredulous voice. "Not dangerous?"

"...yeah. I mean- he doesn't fixate on harming people. Poltergeists are defined by their desire and drive to cause chaos and harm, and wraiths by their anger that overrides everything else. It's... a pretty blurry distinction, and a lot of people use them interchangeably," she admits, "but it's important if you're not just focusing on getting rid of them-"

"And you don't think he's either of those." Lewis sounds a little impatient now, gently nudging her back on topic.

"Well... no. He's... I mean, I can sit down and have a chat with him. Can't do that with something that just really, really wants to hurt you. So, his mentality is more that of, say, a true ghost or even a lost soul. But neither of those typically come with any sort of power, magically speaking. And he... I mean." She gestures forward. "He's almost on your level. So I almost think he's- well, both of you- some sort of... poltergeist or wraithlike entity that lost the drive but somehow retained all the power. Or you've somehow repressed or... counterbalanced it with something else. I mean-" she blinks. "He did. Reformed wraith, I've heard that before somewhere..." she adds the last part under her breath.

"I wonder what changed," Lewis murmurs, so quietly she almost doesn't catch it. Almost.

There's a moment's pause. Then he asks, "okay, so he's not- hostile." (She makes a vague, noncommittal noise at that, which prompts a curious look from him.) "When... you see him, how... does he act?"

"...suspicious. I mean, he doesn't trust me. I think he still thinks I’m some kind of... ghost hunter, or something. But, he doesn’t exactly try to hide that he hates having me there. He’s just kind of... reclusive, in general."

“Oh,” he says, and the word sounds almost... sad. And then it’s gone again. “And you still don’t think he’s dangerous?”

“I mean... no? He’s never tried to attack me, even when I’m really annoying him. I’m more worried for him than anything. He’s... so jumpy.” She looks down to take a bite of her food, and spends a moment chewing. "I don't know why. It's like he expects me to... suddenly change my mind and go full Ghostbusters on him. Do you guys get bothered by hunters a lot?"

"Not really. The occasional one will show up, but they usually run off when they encounter me." He shakes his head, not looking at her. "I don't... think that's the reason. Why he's jumpy."

"Huh. Do... do you have a theory?"

He looks down into his food for a while, and then sighs. "I guess not."

"Mm-" Vivi raises her fork. "I just remembered, he said something else to me, too." He'd actually said it a while ago, but she'd always been hesitant to bring it up before now. Reluctant to mention that she'd been going to visit Arthur, and unsure of how he'd take it.

"What was it?" He frowns at her, as best he can.

"Um, he said... what was the exact phrasing? That you, uh, you're nice until you decide you don't like someone, and you hold a grudge for forever."

Lewis snorts, but she catches a flicker of genuine hurt in his eyes. "Really. Well you can tell him that it's not a grudge, and he knows damn well he deserves it. If he didn't want me to hate him, maybe he shouldn't have-" and then he seems to catch himself, and goes silent for a moment. "...Anyway. Don't listen to a thing he says about me. It's all biased nonsense. But... maybe don't say that to his face? He might, ah... get angry."

"I'll, um, sure." This could be a good lead, probably.

Vivi sits in an armchair, swinging her legs and watching Arthur pace back and forth across the room. At some point, his fidgetiness had won out over whatever politeness he'd been trying to maintain, and now she almost never sees him stop moving. He's always pacing back and forth in the room, or fidgeting with one of the trinkets he has sitting out there. A lot of them seem like pointless machines, she's noticed, wind-up spiders and silent music boxes that seem to only exist to move and make noise. And to be built, she has to guess.

"So, I mentioned to Lewis what you said the first time we met," she says, trying to sound as casual as possible.

He stops, seems to process what she means for a moment, and then glances at her. He doesn't look angry, which was her main concern. Instead, he looks... afraid, almost. "D-did you? What did- what did he s-say?"

"That..." she glances down at her notes briefly. "It's not a grudge, and you deserve it, and... if you didn't want him to hate you, you shouldn't have... and then he, uh, stopped talking, so I don't actually know what it was you shouldn't have done. I assume it means something to you?"

He sighs and folds his arms, looking away, and seems to shrink back into himself. "As much as it ever did," is his oddly cryptic answer. "Well. It's nice to- to know he hasn't ch-changed much, at least."

"Is it?"

"Means he isn't," he waves a hand at his face, "losing any fire."

A question springs to mind, but in a rare moment of wisdom, she bites it back and scribbles it down on the paper instead.

Would you be upset if he moved on?

"Anyway, I don't suppose you have any more pointed messages for me to pass on?"

He shakes his head. "Tell him... I don't care what he th-thinks, so long as he st-stays away from me."

She writes that down as well. "Will do."

[seavoice]

Horse Trading

(link to ao3 on title, or continue reading after the read more)

“Octavian was an asshole,” Reyna said, a contemplative look on her face as she laid on the floor of Hazel’s Praetor Villa, “but sometimes I think, can you really blame him?”

“Yes,” Hazel said, from her position on the floor next to her, where she was trying to sketch Reyna, a task made inordinately difficult by the older girl’s constant moving around. “I really can.”

Reyna sighed. It was a long and contemplative sigh. It wasn’t unusual to see Reyna with a brooding, thinking look on her face, but the relaxed and content expression added a new dimension to it. It was something structural; it somehow made her look younger yet more self-assured at the same time. “Octavian,” Reyna repeated, “was an asshole. But this Villa, Hazel. This Villa. I can see why Octavian was so desperate for praetorship. This house almost makes up for the stress of leading a child army.”

“It does not,” Hazel said. “It really does not, Reyna. Distance has just made your heart grow fonder. And delusional.” She sighed as Reyna shifted her position yet again. Reyna winced as a wordless apology. “Also,” Hazel said, reaching for her eraser, “Octavian didn’t want the praetorship for the house. He wanted it because he was a power hungry and blood thirsty politician.”

“At least you agree the bed is worth it?”

The bed was very nice, Hazel had to admit. Californian King, which seemed excessive, but was appreciated, and the fluffiest pillows Hazel had ever laid her head on. “Maybe. But I’m not agreeing with you when you literally opted for laying on the floor instead of the bed.”

“Fair enough,” Reyna said. She stretched on the floor, some complicated starburst. Hazel decided to give up her endeavour at drawing Reyna and flipped to the previous page in her sketchbook where she had been working on a drawing of Arion. It was half completed, and it was an attempt at drawing purely from memory, but Hazel enjoyed the challenge. “But it’s good for your back, believe me.”

“You’re an immortal Huntress now. Does that really matter?”

“Also fair enough,” Reyna agreed. Reyna rolled over to prop herself up on her elbows and peeked at Hazel’s sketchbook. She raised a single eyebrow. “Oh, that’s certainly more...horse-y than I usually look.”

“I gave up. You move too much.”

Reyna inclined her head in acceptance. Still on her belly, she folded her arms and laid her head down on them.

It was weird to see Reyna so carefree. Weird in an undoubtedly good way, but weird nonetheless. Immortality had, perhaps ironically, taken years off her shoulders.

Hazel hadn’t invited Reyna to New Rome to draw her, but inevitably, that was what the visit had come to. She had written to her asking for advice — advice on running an entire city, advice on leading a quote unquote “child army” in times of peace, advice on not going crazy with stress — and Reyna had accepted so readily that a ventus spirit had brought her letter the very day Hazel had sent hers. Hazel had prepared for the visit with a single minded focus; she had brought a notebook for note taking, three different colours of pens, a highlighter, and her firmest handshake.

But then they had skipped the firm handshake and instead had hugged, tight, and Reyna had snagged a bowl of jelly beans from the Praetor office, and for the next few hours they had done nothing but lay on the floor of Hazel’s newly acquired Praetor Villa, swapping stories after stories, lazing around and sketching. Reyna had told her about the Hunt’s newest undertaking, some mythological boar or the other, and also about Thalia’s new obsession with 80’s rock. Hazel had told her about Lavinia’s latest shenanigans, and Gwen’s new job as a much valued mental health counsellor for the Legion. No notetaking had taken place. No praetor advice had been shared.

“It’s very good,” Reyna said, gesturing to Hazel’s drawing of Arion. “The likeness is stunning.”

Hazel beamed. “Really?”

“Of course!” Reyna scrambled to sit up. “It’s uncanny. This is really, really good, Hazel. It’s like…” Reyna made a hand gesture like she was pulling something; Hazel recognised it as an unconscious tick that Reyna had, one usually employed in Town Hall meetings when she was struggling to find the correct words to use for convincing reluctant denizens. “It’s like make a career out of it good,” she finished.

It was a warming compliment. Hazel’s smile grew wider; this was a pride unlike any other, something simple and easy and painless. Hazel had convinced herself to take pride in the smaller things more often. It made a dreary life just a little bit happier and easier when she could take pride in mastering her mist magic, in baking a sweet cupcake to perfection, in a good sparring session, in making a friend smile. But this pride in her artwork was somehow—brighter. It was something she’d dedicated long hours to.

“Horse artist?” Hazel said. “You think there’s a market out there for that?”

“Are you kidding me? Pet artist! Lucrative as they come.” Reyna laughed, an easy, lovely sound, and this too was unusual, this too was good, this too warmed Hazel. “People go crazy when they get pets. Put them in all cute little kinds of outfits and hire professional photographers, artists...I’m serious, Hazel. Business idea.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Hazel said, with a laugh of her own. Then she sighed and set down her pencil. “I appreciate the business advice, though honestly, what I need more is Praetor advice. I feel I’m going insane.”

“You’re doing wonderfully,” Reyna said. “You don’t need my advice, Hazel. You’re a force of nature.”

This was a sweet sentiment, and Reyna probably meant it, but it didn’t help Hazel’s case. “Thanks,” she said. “Like—genuinely. But I do feel...I do feel like I’m going insane. It’s—it’s a lot.”

Reyna’s eyebrows furrowed. She looked older at once, older in all senses of the word. Like the Reyna of before the Hunt, and the break from her duties—Reyna in charge, Praetor Reyna, sixteen year old Reyna with the world on her shoulders. She sat up straighter. “Is someone giving you trouble?” Reyna asked. “I was joking about Octavian earlier, but gods, if someone’s coming up to take his spot as Asshole of the Year—“

“No,” Hazel said quickly. “It’s nothing like that. That’s nothing. I could deal with someone like that no problem. It’s just—like you said...child army.”

Reyna exhaled softly and closed her eyes. “Yeah.”

Hazel hated bringing the mood down, hated evaporating Reyna’s good cheer, but she set that uncomfortableness aside for the time being. She pulled up her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. And there was solidarity in this too, acknowledgment. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Everything’s—okay, now, for the time being. Doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way forever.”

“That’s not really ever in your control,” Reyna said with a rueful smile. “But I do...I do get what you mean. I understand.”

“I thought you would,” Hazel said. “That’s why I wrote to you.” She’d thought of going to Frank with these thoughts too, and she was sure he’d give good advice, and be kind about it, but a part of her—a stubborn part, maybe, a conscious part, sure, but a valid part, nonetheless—hadn’t wanted to show a weakness to her co-Praetor, even one as familiar as Frank.

“I don’t know if I can give you any great advice,” Reyna said at last. “I don’t know if I can tell you anything you don’t already know, and you are doing a great job.”

Hazel tried to keep the sadness out of her smile. “Hm.”

“What I needed?” Reyna said. “What I needed when I was a praetor was...gods, just a ear. Just someone to bear it with me. Someone to understand. Jas—he was gone, and it was just me. For the longest time. But then with Frank, it wasn’t as hard again, because we could...we could switch off. We could share. That’s the only thing I can really tell you, Hazel. Only advice I can give you. Share. Share it with me, always. With Frank. Lavinia. Nico. Your friends. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re alone. You don’t have to be.”

“I know,” Hazel said. She’d been alone for so long in Asphodel she had thought she could survive loneliness, if she had to. But she didn’t have to. And she didn’t want to. “And you sold yourself short Reyna—you do give great advice.”

“Sounds like I didn’t say anything you didn’t already know.”

“But I think I needed to hear that from you,” Hazel said. “From someone else. You said it yourself—I just needed to know someone else understood. Otherwise it gets...it gets lonely.”

Reyna’s smile was soft. “You’ve got good instincts, Hazel. You’ll be just fine.”

Gods, she hoped. “Thanks for coming out here on such short notice. You probably were busy with the hunt.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Reyna said, and there was that strange new lightness to her again, a relaxed happiness. “Haven’t you heard? I’ve got time now.”

Hazel picked her pencil back up. “You know, if you try sitting still, maybe I can still do a quick sketch. Before you leave.”

“Actually,” Reyna said, and was Hazel imagining things or did she actually look self-conscious? “I have a sketch request, if you’d accept.”

Hazel was intrigued. “Oh. Oh. Sure. Who?”

Reyna smiled a little sheepishly. “Don’t laugh okay? I miss him. Scipio.”

Pet artist...Hazel let out a small giggle. “Oh, so when you said people go crazy when they get pets, you meant—“

“I told you not to laugh!” But Reyna was laughing herself. It wasn’t sad, but it was sort of wistful. “I never dressed him up or whatever, but he’s been on my mind lately; I’ve been wondering when he’ll reform. Pegasi reform slow, apparently. I thought I’d never see him again in this life, but now that I’m a Hunter—holy Pluto, I can. And you drew Arion so well—“

“I think it’s sweet,” Hazel said. It was, exceedingly so. Hazel was trying to recall Skippy in her memories, and she felt a pang of sadness as she remembered him soaring above them during the War Games. It had been a long time since she had seen him, but she thought she remembered enough to manage a sketch for Reyna. “It might not be a perfect likeness—“

“I’ve got a photo.”

Now, Hazel absolutely couldn’t control herself. She smiled wide, a fond laugh bubbling in her chest. “Oh, Reyna—“

“Will it, or will it not make it easier to draw him?” Reyna asked, tips of her ears a faint pink.

“It’ll be perfect,” Hazel promised. “Where have you got it? In the Praetor office?”

Reyna reached into her pocket and brought out a worn out photograph. As much as it was hilarious, it was also heart-warmingly sweet, a touch melancholy. Hazel sympathised with her—she couldn’t imagine losing Arion. She probably would start carrying a picture of him everywhere too; it wasn’t a bad idea.

“Sure,” Hazel said, studying the picture. “I can do a drawing for you no problem. You can carry it everywhere along with the picture. A horse drawing in exchange for solid advice. My first political quid pro quo as Praetor.”

“That’s a terrible deal, Hazel. I can literally commission you, if you want.”

“I’ll settle for a refill of my jelly beans,” Hazel said, gesturing at the now empty bowl of jelly beans. They’d made fast work of it. It hadn’t survived the first hour.

Reyna sighed and stretched out on the floor. “Oh, I forgot,” she said glumly. “One more piece of advice, Praetor to Praetor.”

Hazel looked up. “Yeah?”

“Stock up on those beans,” Reyna said mournfully. “And never let anyone break into your stash. You’ll need them.”

[seyaryminamoto]

I also don't understand the mixed messages in ATLA. Zuko has a 'pure heart and unquestionable honor' yet he wants to put Azula in her place and takes advantage of her slipping without the slightest hesitation? Iroh is even worse helping random middle aged robbers and giving Zuko endless chances but says his 14 year old niece is crazy and evil. The show wants us to worship Zuko and Iroh and then makes them do this shit and I don't understand how mainstream fandom totally overlooks this??

Hmm, well.... Iroh’s attempt to help the middle-aged robber is technically spun eventually into him giving the man guidance for a better life, which, frankly, isn’t a bad idea. Only, it’s as usual another unclear case of what happens next: did the guy really turn his life around? Did he hurt a ton of people before meeting Iroh, and then proceeded not to make amends for it? Was that his very first mugging attempt and Iroh saved him from a real life of crime, or was Iroh just one more attempted victim out of many? Going back to the transcript, the guy is supposed to be a confused man who wants to be a masseuse but nobody believes in him until Iroh sits down with him and talks him out of the criminal lifestyle. The implication is Iroh realized the guy didn’t truly want to be a criminal and that’s why he taught him what he did... so, while I agree with most of what you’ve said, this particular element shouldn’t be removed from context. Iroh has a lot of questionable behaviors, but at least in this specific case he tried to reform the guy afterwards, even if he did try to teach him how to “properly mug” someone first. 

Meanwhile, there’s someone like Mongke, from the Rough Rhinos, who served under Iroh back during the war and is outright shown being responsible for the burning of Jet’s village :’D Yes, I’d say Mongke should be held responsible for his own actions, but that a man capable of that kind of atrocity was once in Iroh’s service kind of suggests Iroh was up to that sort of stuff too just fine once, and that he may have taught a lot of worse things to people (like Mongke) than what he taught that mugger from Ba Sing Se... only for those implications to go lost in the show’s hectic plot and then proceed to be ignored by the bulk of the fandom. Yes, Iroh is supposed to have changed his ways, but that doesn’t mean he ought to be exempt from all responsibility of his past actions, especially when he was an active commanding officer in the middle of a war, trampling over whole cultures far more violently than Azula herself did.

And yeah, the fandom will always excuse and dismiss this kind of thing because of the good Zuko and Iroh did, which yes, should be acknowledged, but if they don’t make genuine amends for their mistakes, especially the ones that affected real people, it can feel like they’re being given free passes that they may not deserve. I’ve written a lot of posts about this in the past, maybe that’s why you’re here... if not, then maybe I can direct you to my analysis over Zuko’s behavior through the show and why I can’t see him as favorably as a lot of people do. Outright, this analyzes some key aspects of his character back in Book 1, certain elements that coded him as a nicer person than what appeared on the surface, and how those elements can be linked to some of his behavior in Book 3... only to find that some of those elements have outright been corrupted or disappeared altogether, and instead of being a kind, pure-hearted hero, Zuko is actually far more ruthless and merciless than his biggest fans ever want to admit.

I recently received a completely uncalled for anon outright claiming Azula doesn’t deserve love because she’s “insane”, and that Ursa was right to “disown” her (which begs the question if the anon even knows what the word stands for since Ursa never did such a thing): mainstream fandom has a lot of people who have zero compassion for a character like Azula, moral purists who believe their favorite characters can do no wrong and everyone else’s favorite characters (especially when they get in the way of whatever they ship) need to go to hell. So that results in them erasing Iroh and Zuko’s mistakes if it means they can further put down Azula, and it’s a behavior the show itself promotes by featuring Iroh and Zuko treating Azula as they do without ever having them slow down to ponder if maybe they shouldn’t be so cruel to their relative. So, why do people react this way to Iroh? Here’s a rather lengthy answer I gave once about that. And why do people react this way over Zuko? Here’s another answer I gave regarding how there’s a major portion of the fandom that absolutely FAILS to understand Zuko’s character and projects a ton of wrong interpretations onto his character just to feel better about loving him.

In short, ATLA is slightly more complex than current day fandoms like their content to be. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with admitting that both Zuko and Iroh made mistakes they never made up for, because it’s true. Just so, there’s nothing wrong with saying Azula could have been treated with more kindness, no matter if she wouldn’t have reacted any better for it at first. Downplaying Zuko and Iroh’s mistakes, while constantly dialing up Azula’s own, is the most straight-forward hypocrisy there is :’D None of these three characters are inherently good or bad, they make choices that send them down different paths, and those choices can be harmful for others even when made for the “greater good”: that’s complex storytelling. That’s something that requires an analytical, capable brain to understand. Sometimes people make mistakes and don’t correct them at all. Sometimes they try to correct them and fail. And that’s simply part of life. Consequences for those mistakes are inevitable, and if those consequences are merely people like you and I pointing out that Iroh and Zuko aren’t the purest, cutest, nicest human beings in the Avatarverse, well, so be it. They’re still getting the better end of all the deals, considering they’re constantly excused by the fandom and the show for most everything they ever did, even the mistakes they show no genuine remorse for.

[popculturebuffet]

Darkwing Duck Reviews Halloween Special: Fungus Amongus and Ghoul of My Dream

Happy Halloween! Halloween Havoc races to the finish with another Darkwing Double Feature! Love is kinda crazy with a spooky girl like Morgana, and in this case “kinda crazy” means a board of ghouls stealing pizza, sentient mushrooms, grumpy spiders, student lone debt, and a gremlin who somehow sees himself as a valid romantic option. It’s a Darkwing Duck Halloween under the cut.+

We’ve made it! While I got less Halloween reviews done than I would’ve liked, I’m still happy with the ones done and there’s still two more to get in the pocket before the day’s up. So with Halloween today it seemed fitting to talk about the Justice Ducks resident sorcerer and Darkwing’s Girlfriend, Morgana Macawber. Morgana was the only one of the four to stick around as a recurring character out of the four Justice Ducks: Gizmoduck would show up once more after the four parter, and sadly Neptunia and Stegamutt just seemed to vanish but the crew clearly liked Morg a lot and her relationship with Darkwing, so she stuck around for the rest of the series, and is even the focus of the final episode “Malice’s Restaurant”, as well as a sizeable part of the comics. And it’s easy to see why as Kathie Sourcie had great chemistry with Jim Cummings and Morgana’s very presence, being a sorceress raised by the munsters and living in a creepy mansion, allowed for diffrent stories than what Darkwing usually dealt with. While magic didn’t feel like it contrasted with the world, as Darkwing’s world feels like your standard superhero fantasy kitchen sink where anything is possible, most of his foes were either super villains or the kinds of super spies you’d find in a comic book. So fighting ghoouls, goblins, and Satan himself, yes that’s an episode that actually happened, no it’s sadly not on Disney plus, and yes I will be covering it eventually, was a nice out of genre experience and a nice way to put our daring duck of mystery out of his element.

She brought something diffrent to the table, both forcing Darkwing to grapple with letting someone into his life, and with having something to focus on other than Gosalyn or crime. So I wanted to see how this plays out, so expect me to cover all her episodes and not just the Satan one or the Valentine’s Day one, though like my Tom Lucitor retrospective, expect this one to also take some time. So with that all set up, Halloween is the perfect time to begin our journey with her first two episodes.. and Morgana’s Villian Career. Yeah while she only had about 9 episodes to her name, 2 of them are as a Catwoman or Black Cat style antagonist, someone whose likeable and who are hero is attracted to, but is on the wrong side of the law.

She eventually came around, but it’s still an intresting way to start things and an intresting dilema for our hero I wish stuck around for just a smidge longer. These aren’t bad episodes with Ghoul of My Dreams being a pretty good one. If I had to guess though the reason the dynamic fizzled out.. is they simply didn’t have a lot of ideas of how to use her as a bad guy. Part of the reason i’m covering these two episodes together is that they follow basically the same plot beat, the only differences being Darkwing meets Morgana in the first one and they know each other in the second, and that the evil entity who ends up turning against her she works with is different for both. The third act is also entirely unique to each episode, so it feels less like them lazily repeating themselves on an episode and more like they genuinely realized they didn’t have a ton of ideas for Morgana as a villain and thus had her reform with the Justice Ducks two parter. And I can’t blame them: fan would get annoyed if basically every Morgana plot played out the same, and this way she could know Drake’s secret identity, and thus allow the stories to use Gosalyn, though I do wish she’d shown up in one of the villian ones just to see how that played out. But still her time as a Villian is there, and is even a plot point in the valentine’s episode, so let’s see how it played out and see what I think.

Fungus Amongus

The plot here is fairly simple: there’s been a rash of mysterious thefts in St. Canard, and Darkwing is stumped.. until Launchpad asks if they can go for pizza, because he’s hungry and Darkwing is the terrible kind of boss that doesn’t’t care about meal breaks. It makes our hungry hero realize that each of the thefts are connected to PIzza Toppings, and after thwarting the bats and spiders stealing some anchovies, figures there’s only two left: Green Peppers and Mushrooms, and so he decides it’s time to split up gang and while Launchpad guards the peppers, Darkwing goes to visit the head of the mushrom company, who naturally turns out to be Morgana. The two end up taken with one another, to the board’s annoyance as Darkwing is onto them and could stop their whole evil plan and they want to just murder his ass and be done with it. But Morgana proves seduction’s a bit more useful as she sweetalks our hero into leaving, and points out given he’s also a creature of the night in a sense, she plans to turn him.. or kill him if she has to. More on that in our next episode. The facade dosen’t last long as Darkwing goes to help launchpad at the pepper place, and ends up finding out oh no the hot lady he met five minutes ago is bad! While the board plans to feed Launchpad to mutant mushrooms, while Morgana seemingly turns Darkwing into her mindless slave.. but really just played the board and switched sides, not wanting to hurt the guy she just met because he’s cute, they defeat the mushrooms and the board who turn into mushrooms in the light because....

The day is saved though we do get the one standout bit of the episode. Darkwing despite his attraction to her, wants to turn her in, while Morgana simply teleports her house away. And thus the dance begins. As for the episode... as you can tell by how brief I was... for one i’m not doing my usual died in wool recapping for these two to get them out on time. And i’m also not because this one.. is pretty thin. The mutant mushroom and boards’d esigns are cool and Morgana is intresting.. but having seen Ghoul of my Dreams first.. it’s just not as fun, funny or good on the Morgana Darkwing dynamic. Morgana just decides because she wants to ride that dick she’ll be good for a moment, and throw away her hard worked scheme, and the board is turned into mushrooms because.. well see the lex luger pic above. It’s not a TERRIBLE episode, just not a terribly intresting one. It has good elements, but they just don’t come together well and the pizza scheme isn’t as funny as the episode thinks it is. I can kinda see why this one was buried deeper into the series and Ghoul of My Dreams is where they put focus. I just don’t have a lot to say about this one, it’s just bland and uninteresting. It’s kind of why I just sorta plopped it next to Ghoul, I needed to review it for completion’s sake, but lord if I can think of a lot to say about it that isn’t tied into the next one. So since I can’t...

Ghoul of my Dreams:

Now this is better. The basic plot is still simple but allows for a lot more intresting set pieces: It’s a slow night in St. Canard, to Darkwing’s natural annoyance, until a bunch of fire fighters start sleepwalking and throwing gold to some spiders and bats. Something is afoot and since the bats belong to Morgana, Darkwing goes to investigate her. Granted we just MET eek and squeak, but it’s easy enough to assume Morgana struck again off screen and some time has passed. And i’ts honestly what makes this episode more interesting: now it’s more of a cat and mouse game, with Morgana using their chemistry against him, but still being genuinely drawn to him and not wanting to hurt him. It’s better than “I met you five minutes ago might as well throw away my money for you”.  Instead Morg truly likes Drake, but wants to keep doing crimes to, in easily the best joke of the entire series “Finally pay off my student loans”.. which makes her already not really a bad guy. I may not haves em but I know people who do. Those loan people do not play around. It’s investing and Sourcie and Cumming’s chemstiry really makes it pop. Sourcie really is what makes the character, giving her energy, sedcutivness when called for and a really sympathetic quality that makes her face turn, sudden as it is, believable. It’s why I really like the character. And I get why some don’t: Her romance with darkwing is sudden,  her face turn is even more sudden, and she gets in the way of Drakepad shippers. The first two are valid criticisms, while the last one is understandable.. depending on motive. If your just bummed this relationship you don’t like is forced into the show and gets in the way of the one you actually enjoy.. trust me...

BEEN THERE. And far far worse.. I didn’t start up an entire retrospective on the guy who DIDN’T get the girl here for nothing. But if you say “oh well it’s homophobic or you hate gays” if you don’t ship drakepad, which I have actually heard for both this ship and delpad.. kindly go fuck yourself and stay away from my posts. It’s NOT homophobic to ship a character who is CANOCIALLY into women, with a woman. Launchpad had a girl of the week or two in ducktales, Drake’s attraction to morgana is canon and he also had some ship tease with Neptunia. They both like women.. but there’s nothing saying they DON’T like men, don’t want to date men, or aren’t attracted to them.

Been waiting to reference Schitt’s Creek at some point here now i’ve started watching it. It’s biphobic to say this sort of harmful shit, and it doesn’t’t help there are plenty of gay people who genuinely believe bi and pan aren’t sexualities and harm their own community by doing so. Saying this kind of shit just fuels their fire and bi people like me and pan people like my firend have a hard enough time with straight people being dicks about this. You should know and be better. Don’t bring that shit into this fandom. We’ve already ridden incest out on a rail we don’t need this. I already put up with enough bullshit being a loud house fan and having to deal with ACTUAL homophobic ships like Sam/Lincoln, aka setting up a character you don’t know to be anything but gay, versus her girlfriend whose canocially been shown to be bi if preferring women, whose the proment and well like love interest of a woman, and pair her with her younger brother to clearly troll people. Now that’s a homophobic ship and that you shoudl be angry about, not “oh no the person who likes women in canon.. LIKES A WOMAN IN FANON”. It’s part of what made shiping delpad hard at times because people got really dumb about it to the point someone drew some very horrible fanart just to clog up the tag. Knock. it off.

And if your curious for my actual thoughts on Drakepad: in the classic series.. i’m not a fan, but I get it, and I do think they could work... it’s just. that Drake treats Launchpad really bad, including throwing him out of the house for a year without telling him why over something that really wasn’t his fault, not feeding him, not treating him as an equal after a while. This would have to change for them to work but I could see it happening, as the comics and one of the peisodes make a point that Drake can be a pretty shitty partner to Morgana too.

And just to show i’m equal opprtunity, despite shipping Delpad in the past, i’ve moved on to Penpad and Drakepad , ironcially enough, i’m not as big a fan anymore. LIke the above, Della just dosen’t respect launchpad as a human being. She was willing to keep the Halloween thing up JUST to scare children, looks down on him, and whie is his friend, is not all that close. I could see them happening, and do still think it’d be cute, it’d just take a ton of work and there are better ships for both. And yes I do ship Drakepad in the reboot, but there the two aren’t employer and employee, but equals who genuinely love and respect one another, listen to one another, and value each other. In the Reboot they have genuine chemistry and I could see them together, while in the original Launchpad and Morgana both really deserve better.

Now that’s settled, we get a fun scene of the two primping for each other. then flirting a bit, though Morgana, in AWFUL looking black lipstick wins with the move above and has her spider web launchpad, who hates morgana.. which is one part common sense given how darkwing gets around her and one part ho yay. But yeah this is pretty much Launchpad for both these episodes.

And darkwing dick is calling the shots so fair enough. But Morgana is once again nto wokring alone and is working with a creepy, well designed gremlin, named Nodoff... eh i’ve heard worse, whose giving her sleeping dust to knock out her targets and hits on her constnatly. Naturally he plans to betray her as soon as he can, and is likely only tolerating her because he wants to hit that.  There dynamic boils down to this.

There’s also tons of fun dream sequences including one at the top with darkwing being confronted by his enitre Rogue’s gallery before seeing morgana, NOdoff using baseball on Morg’s next target and some great ones at the climax. It’s part of hwy I like this episode better: While someone using dreams for stuff has been done a lot, it’s given a creative spin here as instead of killing them, Morgana’s simply using them to steal. Good stuff.

Darkwing foils their first attempt, though gets blamed for it because St. Canard is about as grateful as New York when it comes to superheroes. Morgana knocks darkwing out with some dust via Eeka and Squeak and admits Nodoff is working for her, though fobids him to harm Darkwing. This.. dosen’t last and we get another great setpiece, of sarkwing on a high dive. Thankfully, Launchpad finds him, and they find Morgana, who gives off the student loans comment. But in the struggle to stop her, Darkwing accidently puts her and the city to sleep.. and Nodoff is now super powerful and imprisons morgana. Darkwing i s back at her house, wondering what to do, but the bats give him a clue.. by flying him thorugh the door to fight Nodoff. It goes about as well as you’d expect with him freeing Morgana.. then trying to murder them both. Darkwing however pulls an Elm Streett 3 and says to think happy thoughts and take control of the dream.. which ends up at Darkwing’s Wedding to Morgana to his horror..... remind me whose the hero again. The woman who, while doing crimes is trying to pay off unfair debts, or the guy who finds the idea of commitment horrifying.  

Anyways we get some more great bits, I brush over them so I don’t ahve to talk about them conantly, including darkwing getting a cake on him, before Darkwing turns the tables by finding the hourglass full of the dust.. and in a clever finale, loading it into his gun and firing it on nodoff. This puts him to sleep.. which puts him in the real world, while Launchpad uses a giant alarm clock to wake everyone. They throw NOdoff back into the dream world.. for some reason.. and the episode ends iwth morgana kissing darkwing and the episode possibly having been all a dream.

This one, while I was again breif, is a classic, with a much more interesting dynamic. Instead of a morgana who goes from willing to kill we get one whose conflicted over things, who clearly wants to be a crook but may like darkwing more than that, as evidenced when he talks her out of taking Nodoff’s offer of riches. It’s good stuff and the gags are back to the show’s usual top notch level. It’s a creative, fun episode that really helps Morgana come into her own and I look forward to more of her. Overall i’d recommend skipping fungus amongus, but DEFINTELY check out ghoul of my dreams, as it’s throughly fantastic. I’ll be back in a bit for one last Halloween review and as always you can find my backlog on my blog. i recently covered Tiff of the Titans and there’s regular ducktales coverage every monday. Until then make sure to vote, wear a mask and check your house for gary busey till we meet again! Play us out Gerard Way!