#That being said I am legitimately obsessed with their parallels

[chronicallyfabulous22]

“You built this whole world so you could have SOMETHING and it didn’t work…”//“You seek not to free yourself but to create a window into the wall of your prison”

I made an edit because one day I’ll probably write a PhD thesis length analysis of the parallels between Serena Joy and Alicent and how Alicent could’ve been both an iconic sympathetic villain and a blueprint for female antagonist to rival even Serena if the show wasn’t so obsessed with justifying her

[soodoonimin]

Billy Butcher, Eddie Brock, Joe Kessler and Venom.

My love for Venom cannot be understated. I might not be actively in the fandom right now but I love Venom and more importantly I love the themes that come with some of Venom’s stories. Love. Self discovery. Inner demons (both literal and metaphorical), learning to move past the pain of your past, and learning to forgive. I love Venom and though I have a slight bias towards Flash, but I can’t deny that Venom’s stories (especially their stories centered around love) are best when they’re with Eddie.

Spoiler for The Boys S4 below cut:

So to start I want to say that I didn’t hate Billy Butcher but I also didn’t love him. He occupied this kind of strange space for me where there are times where I was like “Yeah that kind of needed to happen and he was the only one willing to do it” and others where I was screaming “Why the fuck does any continue to associate with you?” Season 4 Billy rode that line all the way up until the end when he killed Neuman and said his last words to The Boys and found himself firmly in the camp of “Why the fuck didn’t Frenchie pull that trigger? 😡” (am I really mad? No, but damn that was cold blooded).

I don’t think the reveal that Kessler was “in his head” was that big of a surprise BUT the reveal (more or less) that he is basically Venom??? EDGE OF MY SEAT.

Because this is The Boys. It isn’t just a show that critiques politics, it’s also a show that actively puts the “super hero” under a microscope. And the fact that they used Billy Butcher as parallel to Eddie Brock? God help me if I wasn’t already writing up the ten million ways these two were similar (and annoyed at myself for not seeing it sooner).

Abusive father

Revenge driven

Cancer (though Eddie’s was kind of given to him by Venom) and in a way you can say Kessler (the V) gave it to Butcher.

Meet their respective partner at their lowest point.

Kessler’s blood thirsty nature to match Venom’s own violent tendencies.

Almost obsession with a past lover whom they had a rocky relationship with

But move past the relatively superficial and you almost see a reverse of Eddie Brock’s usual arcs. In the more modern iteration of the comics Eddie and by extension Venom want to be good people. Eddie is kind of established to be kind of a selfish guy (little more than kind of but I’m being generous) he is a hurt guy who hurts people around him, he’s kind of arrogant, a little twisted and just over all a bit of a dick. When he’s fired from his job his subsequent divorce or break up with Anne it’s not just a punishment for the actions in and of themselves but it’s a little more divine, like a punishment for everything he’s done up and to that point.

He goes to the church is going to kill himself and meets Venom was just spurned by Spider-Man (who Eddie also blames for his misfortune). The two enter a very unhealthy relationship based in this mutual hate, and bond to try and kill Spider-Man (a genuinely good hero who may have hurt Venom didn’t do so with malice) many times & fail many times. This essentially sets off a confluence of events that more or less ends with Eddie taking responsibility for his actions and Venom finding new love (also finding a desire to be *good*) in Eddie thus they attempt to be hero’s themselves despite the numerous crimes they’ve committed and reputation they have occasionally getting in their way. (Not the most accurate but the general summary of Eddie Brock).

Billy Butcher on the other hand has a different set of events that I believe is going to end with him being one of the villains by the end of the show: See while Butcher is never really a “good guy” he’s definitely a better guy in comparison to Homelander, Vought, and most of the Supes in general. His campaign for revenge, is fueled by a wrong that was truly committed (not to him but to someone he loved) and his program (The Boys) is a relatively legitimate government funded program meant to basically hold Supes accountable whenever they can.

But even if it wasn’t the case, Becca herself has said before that his rage and need for blood isn’t unusual for him and that it was only relatively recently that he got on the straight and narrow (before Becca disappeared and he fell off again). Personally I believe that Butcher would have found himself a White Whale of sorts even if HL hadn’t assaulted Becca and that it was only a matter of time. I think part of the reason I didn’t really see Butcher’s story going the Eddie Brock route was because one (there was no obvious way to expect a second consciousness in his head considering The Boys is mostly grounded in reality) and in this season the most, you see glimpses of a character arc. You see him grow past the Butcher we knew in season one (not screwing over Hughie again, being gentler with Ryan, TRUSTING Ryan, and even letting The Boys in on his plan) and so I thought in S4 that he was not long for the world.

But nope was I wrong. They did a complete 180 back to season one, fuck the world Billy Bloody Butcher. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not mad, I’m actually pretty excited to see what happens especially because I don’t think Butcher is necessarily the one behind the wheel anymore.

See one of the questions I’ve always asked about Eddie and Venom (and now I ponder with Butcher and Kessler) is who is in control? In the comics, when Venom leaves Eddie after the cancer thing, Eddie is a HUGE anti-Venom (lmao pun intended) proponent before he even get the suit. He’s angry at Venom, calls them a parasite and the “true cancer” or something to that effect, before he even knows Venom gave him the cancer. And when Mac Gargan has Venom a lot of his rhetoric sounds a lot like Eddie’s when he has Venom. He proclaims to love Venom and says that the only reasons he doesn’t kill Eddie is because Venom still loves him, even Tel-Kar, Venom’s “first host” repeats this same kind of reverence for Venom, even going so far as threatening Sleeper to get them to agree to go with him. Hell, even Flash Thompson describes it being painful being away from Venom for so long after bonding with them (and yeah I know they were trying to do the addiction parallel with him but the point still stands). My theory has always been (if it hasn’t already been confirmed) that to some extent Venom and maybe even symbiotes as a species manipulate their host on a physiological level into “loving” them. In order to survive, basically how do you ensure your host will never leave you? People don’t leave the ones they love.

And for Kessler I think that instead of manipulating Butcher into loving him, he’s instead taken over Butcher’s amygdala. Basically Kessler is ensuring his survival by feeding on Butcher’s anger and giving him just enough control to think he’s in charge and this in turn gives him (Kessler) a vessel to be safe in. Kessler is powerful as fuck, he killed Neuman, he took a bullets to the chest like it was nothing and look at how he fixed Butcher up (like how Venom fixes Eddie up). I think Becca was right in some sad way, that even when Billy does kill HL, it won’t be enough and maybe it won’t be because Butcher is an angry person but because Kessler won’t allow it to be enough. Because the only way he’ll be able to keep Butcher from seeing him for what he is (a parasite, literal cancer) is by keeping his rage and anger focused outward and into the world. And isn’t that fucking tragic?

Sorry if this wasn’t the most accurate when talking about the Venom stuff, I haven’t read the comics in a bit and I was doing this all from memory 🥲😅

[just-some-random-blogger]

good morning, the talented angel!! some love time to brighten your day! okok i've got some ideas so i'm super excited, wait for them. puss in boots is a TT i don't know if i am even able to watch it here but i'll try, love!! i see all these gifs and replies in tumblr and go TT i'm already heartbroken. just a situation from my life. someone speaks about cats. i make eye contact with my one, every time just the same one friend and she's just 'oh nooo she's already about to cry' 'im honored to have someone like you read my works' and i'm honored to read the works of someone like YOU!!!! luv u!!!!<з gimme gimme by nct127 is not my fav comeback but yeah it's stylish. still in my 2018 era when they released boss TT the best years of kpop 'I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS FOR THIS FIC' don't know if i should be scared or excited... 'NOW I HAVE TO WRITE P3' YEAH these jokes from the real life about me being buisness-motivation-earn-your-first-billion-in-a-second aren't jokes anymore!!! 'i can bite anyone who pressures me myself' ok i can stand as a big scary dog next to you then 'im excited to exercise after my classes' so sweet TT i'm glad your doing good. 'im the designated soprano since no one else can be' have no clue what this is but sure you'll do the best!! you're the best after all. 'waking my dad up during his naps' OMG I'M GONNA CRY such cuties TT wish your dad good sleep TT sorry i haven't reacted to everything i wanted to butbut 1) omg i'm stupid TT i've been obsessed with some russian artist and his song 'Infinite Universe' (actually 'is the universe infinite?' but ok) and while i was thinking about point 3 (later), i was like WAIT. it's so absolutely about this modern au for me TT the plot is another cliche about thousands of worlds and variations of our reality but this thought hit me BAD. if you're ever interested, i found some eng subs for you. 2) first of all, i imagine waiting for a lifetime ending with the sweetest kiss with some stained tears. AND. WHAT IF the ending is a parallel? not the wedding but the childbirth like in the beginning. but this time it ends up good (just like aemma's) and no one dies. and there i have 2 variants. if the reader told daemon, he's been really nervous and fidgety during the labour, maybe even going away not to witness it. but in the end he's so relieved and wow omg thanku all the sweet stuff. and if he's been recalling his first life, labour triggers him BAD. so he recollects TOTALLY EVERYTHING and becomes even more nervous while being with his wife. thus when it ends good, he's even more relieved and just absolutely rushes to kiss her, thank her, non-stop mumbling about how scared he got and how he recalled everything. it may be sooo far away from your image but i love this concept so much. 3) again about this artist, noize mc. i've been obsessed with his old songs soo. i have the one called 'My Sea' with eng subs. the main line 'my sea, i beg you to not spit me out ashore during another storm of your tantrums' had me thinking. (also the fact that in russian 'being worried' and 'sea being rough' are the same word...) like IMAGINE. it's not actually the one of ideas as reqs i was talking about daemon with a velaryon reader (legitimately velaryon or just a mother/grandmother and another house nm) as the restless sea and the reckless flames (well dragon). both having to calm each other down but in the different ways. daemon needs to comfort his wife saying she doesn't need to be always worried and think how to solve every problem in the world. and his wife teling him his brother loves him and he absolutely doesn't need to kill a lord who said his wife's dk a whore. in fact, still the cliche concept with the wise and responsible one and the one who does foolish things in their behalf but AAA i love this. this mutual help but in the different ways?? my heart is throbbing. thanks for reading it!! let me know what you think. love you!! have a nice day!!! take care <з

HELLOOOO!!!! i forgot to answer your ask this morning lol

HAVE A LOBO GIF BECAUSE HES SO GOOD I LOVE HIS CHARACTER SO MUCH CINEMA!!!!!

good morning, the talented angel!! some love time to brighten your day!

good morning/noon/night lovie <3 my star, my heart <3

okok i've got some ideas so i'm super excited, wait for them.

puss in boots is a TT i don't know if i am even able to watch it here but i'll try, love!! i see all these gifs and replies in tumblr and go TT i'm already heartbroken. just a situation from my life. someone speaks about cats. i make eye contact with my one, every time just the same one friend and she's just 'oh nooo she's already about to cry'

ah i see. you dont have to watch it if you dont want to but you know people, they like to share things they like with people they like, but if the idea distresses you, because it does talk about death, then dont. i will say though, it does give a very nice take away about death, so yeah

'im honored to have someone like you read my works' and i'm honored to read the works of someone like YOU!!!! luv u!!!!<з

gimme gimme by nct127 is not my fav comeback but yeah it's stylish.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH NO BUT YEAH I AGREE not my fav comeback either but i was so excited to see johnny centre <3 LOVE LOVE LOVE but damn i hate his line about dead clowns T_T YUCK WHAT WAS THAT WHY JOHN WHY

BUT I RECENTLY WATCHED WAYV'S PHANTOM AN AS:LFHASLHF BOP UGHHHH AND XIAOJUN 😭😭😭💀💀💀🥵🥵🥵🤤🤤🤤

still in my 2018 era when they released boss TT the best years of kpop

thats the vid that made be decide ok imma like this group but it still took me a while to get into them tho. ALSO YOURE A CZENNIE TOO 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖 LOVE THAT FOR US WHO IS YOUR BIAS MINE IS JOHN AHHAAHHA if you cant tell

'I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS FOR THIS FIC' don't know if i should be scared or excited...

😈 both

'NOW I HAVE TO WRITE P3' YEAH these jokes from the real life about me being buisness-motivation-earn-your-first-billion-in-a-second aren't jokes anymore!!!

what HAHAHHHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHA thats so random lol

'i can bite anyone who pressures me myself' ok i can stand as a big scary dog next to you then

'im excited to exercise after my classes' so sweet TT i'm glad your doing good.

i hope youre doing good too my love

'im the designated soprano since no one else can be' have no clue what this is but sure you'll do the best!! you're the best after all.

T_T im so sorry i have been hanging out with my music classmates i forgot not everyone knows music lingo. soprano is basically someone who sings the high parts of a piece in simply terms lol.

'waking my dad up during his naps' OMG I'M GONNA CRY such cuties TT wish your dad good sleep TT sorry i haven't reacted to everything

its ok if you dont react to everything!!! it can be hard to do that, but yes T_T so cute my dad is so annoyed by it but secretly loves it i think HAHAH

i wanted to butbut 1) omg i'm stupid TT i've been obsessed with some russian artist and his song 'Infinite Universe' (actually 'is the universe infinite?' but ok)

you should have told me the artist T_T is it by noize? i listened to the song. interesting to know you like music like that if that is the song yo mean.

and while i was thinking about point 3 (later), i was like WAIT. it's so absolutely about this modern au for me TT the plot is another cliche about thousands of worlds and variations of our reality but this thought hit me BAD. if you're ever interested, i found some eng subs for you.

hahahhahHAHAHAHAHAH AH YES. we mean the same song HAHHAHAHAHAH. i didnt really like the song T_T it probably hits different for you because you understand the russian, but i dont like raps that function as a percussion (meaning like a drum that doesnt have notes/melody) i like the chorus part where he sings much better though.

2) first of all, i imagine waiting for a lifetime ending with the sweetest kiss with some stained tears. AND. WHAT IF the ending is a parallel?

i love your parallelism idea. i will say, i never actually imagined the first scene to be a childbirth scene LOL i didnt even know it was registering like that, all i know is yn is dying cos of a gaping wound lol

not the wedding but the childbirth like in the beginning. but this time it ends up good (just like aemma's) and no one dies. and there i have 2 variants. if the reader told daemon, he's been really nervous and fidgety during the labour, maybe even going away not to witness it. but in the end he's so relieved and wow omg thanku all the sweet stuff.

i abhor the idea of writing a death from childbirth. idk if my feminist ass will allow 20th century daemon not to be present in the birth. fuck him and his trauma. fuck you rat, you claim to love your wife but u cant be there? fuck your trauma, she could die and you wont be there? ive upset myself with this idea and cant even say the sweet ending part is a sweet idea lol AHHAH

and if he's been recalling his first life, labour triggers him BAD. so he recollects TOTALLY EVERYTHING and becomes even more nervous while being with his wife. thus when it ends good, he's even more relieved and just absolutely rushes to kiss her, thank her, non-stop mumbling about how scared he got and how he recalled everything.

ok i like this better because you didnt mention anything about him fucking leaving so <3 i think deserve, worship the ground she steps on she gave you a child

it may be sooo far away from your image but i love this concept so much.

it's a good concept! i;ll think of adding it. i love how were planning the ending already but i havent even made p3 HAHAHAHAH. actually though i started writing it!!!! im so excited to finish it so you can finally read it HASL:FHAHSF!!!!

3) again about this artist, noize mc. i've been obsessed with his old songs soo. i have the one called 'My Sea' with eng subs. the main line 'my sea, i beg you to not spit me out ashore during another storm of your tantrums' had me thinking. (also the fact that in russian 'being worried' and 'sea being rough' are the same word...)

i like this song better because his rap has melody. the same russian word is mind blowing T_T wow i love it when language does that

like IMAGINE. it's not actually the one of ideas as reqs i was talking about daemon with a velaryon reader (legitimately velaryon or just a mother/grandmother and another house nm) as the restless sea and the reckless flames (well dragon). both having to calm each other down but in the different ways. daemon needs to comfort his wife saying she doesn't need to be always worried and think how to solve every problem in the world. and his wife teling him his brother loves him and he absolutely doesn't need to kill a lord who said his wife's dk a whore. in fact, still the cliche concept with the wise and responsible one and the one who does foolish things in their behalf but AAA i love this. this mutual help but in the different ways?? my heart is throbbing.

🥺 this is a sweet idea. honestly im a sucker for plots like this. i love it when characters exhibit are someone the same but in different ways, and i love how one makes up for the other. <3 ugh i love dynamics like that. i will say im not feeling making smth fluffy rn HAHAHAHH so lets just park this ig.

also since you shared music to me, i want to share music to you <3 i think it's in russian as well so its perfect (at least i hope its russian) it's 'Okay by Dimash Kudaibergen' he's actually from Kazakhstan so pardon my ignorance cos i cant tell if its kazakh or russian T_T he's one of my favorite artists ever he's so so so so good at singing and i love this song so much. i used this song as inspiration for my midterms last semester.

thanks for reading it!! let me know what you think. love you!! have a nice day!!! take care <з

thank you for writing to me again my love. i hope you like the song and i hope you have an amazing day. i love you so much take care <3 <3

xxx (ew the gif is ugly but thats the first thing i found lol HAHAHHA)

[skeren]

Your tags again bro!: #ouuughh i am so unwell thinking about them #like i liked wangxian #but what really compelled me about mdzs was the tragic siblings #but bingqiu?? holy shit #i need to study them in a lab #i need to dissect them #they have SO MUCH wrong with them and im OBSESSED with it #who is doing it like them. no one. #the fucking mind games and devotion and absolutely batshit leaps to conclusion#obsessed. obsessed with them.

My friend, I hate to tell you this but I've been in this fandom for years now and you're not getting out of that pit like, ever. I saw a post once where the person said that SQQ didn't so much ignore the red flags in Binghe as he lovingly planted most of them himself. I stand by this idea.

Of course, I'm also a multishipper in this fandom and that's not even touching on how Shen Jiu plays into this whole disaster. And how severe he actually was depending on which version. Like, animation Shen Jiu was way more brutal on Binghe than novel in PIDW since we never actually get any indication of severity of treatment clearly in the novel like we did in the animation, and that had some tweaks. (Enough so that me and my main RP partner treat them like parallel universes with different appearances and slightly changed history and everything in both the future and the SV part of the timeline).

But like, ignoring that bit, back to SQQ in the novel itself like. He knows how Binghe is and he's very willfully blind to a lot of things, because he copes so ridiculously weirdly?? Like, he refuses to see Binghe who he is until it's REAL late in the game like. Not until the EXTRAS. I'm more or less sure that he doesn't truly comprehend the way that Binghe legitimately felt about him until he was thrust into the montage of while he was dead in that dream, and the way he instantly fell back into delight at Binghe being a child again anyway is a good example of his muddled feelings. It's definitely not the uncomplicated admiration that he has and ignores for Liu Qingge. Which doesn't help Binghe's jealousy of course. Also, it's really not clear if he ever admits that he himself just likes boys or if he thinks he's just caving to the Protagonist aura either on that front.

At least he admits to himself that he likes Binghe finally, so I'll take that.

I have bingqiu brain disease and I need to exorcise them

[veliseraptor]

So this is in NO WAY PRESSURING, get to this whenever you're bored and have nothing better to do, but I (have still not watched The Untamed) would love to hear any disorganized rambles around your fic 'Punitive Measures', like your thoughts while writing it, how you view Xue Yang's fight/flight/freeze instinct, and/or where you would take the plot if you ever came back to it (again, not pressuring, I'm not asking for a sequel, I'm asking for director's commentary. Also I know the mysterious flute was implying Wei Wuxian, I know that much and not much more.) It's a really fun, quick fic that I enjoy reading through while I keep circling around your longer, more intimidating stories. I aspire to write like you.

oh boy, well, I don't know that I ever have nothing to do but here I am answering this ask anyway, because I like talking about my fic even if I get self-conscious about it.

this entire fic falls solidly into the genre of fic I write that is legitimately just “I’m gonna fuck up this character I love because it’ll be fun and I love to do that” and then just kinda...went for it. actually harder than I was initially planning! my vague sense of what I was going to do with this fic didn’t have Xue Yang down an eye at the end of it.

but when inspiration strikes, what’s a girl to do, etc.

I actually thought recently about writing a sequel to this fic (or, well, continuing into the AU it started, more like) because the concept of Wei Wuxian and Xue Yang being bloodthirsty vengeance brethren is a very good one for me, personally, and at the point their paths would be intersecting in this AU a more plausible one than it would be at pretty much any other time (I would argue, at least in CQLverse). And that’s where I think this would be going. Because Xue Yang would see Wei Wuxian, in his bloodiest frame of mind, powered up with a gorgeous flute of bad vibes and go “fuck yes” even if he wasn’t in a place where he really needed the help.

The question I had was whether Wei Wuxian would be interested in accepting company, and I feel like Xue Yang on that front could be convincing. And the way that the latter would both enable and egg on all the former’s darkest fantasies and impulses...I’m just saying, Wen Chao and everyone he has ever known is in for a very bad time, possibly even worse than they already were.

I invite you to picture in this AU the part where Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji find not just darker and edgier Wei Wuxian at the end of their scavenger hunt but darker and edgier Wei Wuxian with a friend. A familiar friend! Now down an eye and practically picking his teeth with Wen Chao’s finger bones. :D

since you asked for disorganized rambling I went back to reread and I’ll give you some director’s commentary on a few things

And he’d kind of hoped Wen Ruohan would be too busy figuring out how to deal with his brewing war to dedicate much attention to looking for one absent retainer. And even if he did, Xue Yang had sort of figured that finding him would fall to Wen Chao, who’d probably struggle to find his own ass with two hands.

kicking off this director’s commentary with Xue Yang’s brutal assessment of the competency of Wen Chao.

tbh one of my favorite things about CQL’s involving Xue Yang in the whole Sunshot storyline, despite the merry hell it plays with timeline stuff later, is how obviously little regard Xue Yang has for the Wens, even when they’re at the height of their power. He shows Wen Ruohan himself very little respect, and I can’t imagine anyone else getting more (except maybe Wen Qing, because Wen Qing is competent and if nothing else Xue Yang can respect competency).

and he just like. ditches them. walks out! promises to deliver very powerful magical artifact, and then gets what he wants and is like “smell ya later, peace” and they never catch him.

that’s just a kind of gutsiness and casual disregard for very powerful people that I really both love and respect about Xue Yang. and also that he has in common with Xiao Xingchen, tbh. and Song Lan (though him I think to a slightly lesser degree, partly because he has a little more tact and sense of societal norms as something relevant to be thinking about)! they can all vibe on that.

They took Jiangzai. Well. One of the Wen disciples took Jiangzai in the stomach and Xue Yang didn’t get it back.

this isn’t an important line or anything. I just like it a lot.

Wen Chao gestured again and he went down in a hail of fists and feet. Xue Yang tucked his chin down to protect his throat, curled his hands into his chest, and drew up his knees to guard his stomach.

He knew how this worked. Sure, it’d been a while since someone had beat him like this, but the lessons stuck. It was almost boring, really. If Wen Chao was going to play torture games then he could at least do Xue Yang the favor of trying to be creative.

He checked out the part of his brain that registered pain as anything other than a thing that was happening and focused instead on opportunities. Weaknesses in his assailants. Escape routes. Getting away would be the first thing. Nice if he could take a piece of Wen Chao with him on the way out - arm, or maybe even a head - but the priority was freedom and survival.

okay, this I feel like cuts into some of what you were talking about regarding Xue Yang’s fight/flight instinct, and also a lot of what if, I was feeling pretentious, I feel like this fic is digging into on a level under “what if I just tortured Xue Yang a whole bunch,” which is something about the relationship Xue Yang has to (a) pain and (b) his own body. Specifically, the relative indifference he has toward both. Or...not indifference, exactly, because it’s not like he’s enjoying himself, it still hurts. It’s just...expected.

unremarkable.

which is a lot of what I was trying to convey with Xue Yang’s narration during the whole torture sequence, with the commentary on methodology and how things are mundane or boring, because the suffering itself is mundane! as far as Xue Yang is concerned that’s exactly what suffering is! other peoples’, for sure, which is part of why it doesn’t matter, but also his own.

the world hurts and that’s just how it is and you learn how to cope with that. pain as...a thing that [is] happening.

I also, since you mentioned the fight/flight instinct, think a lot about how Xue Yang is, while he’s very proud and very stubborn, absolutely not someone to pick fights (in general) that he knows he can’t win. Xue Yang will almost always be on the side of “run and come back another day” over “stand and fight when all is lost.” survival, first and foremost.

which feeds into the weird paradox that I kind of hint toward at the end of this fic about Xue Yang as someone who has a definite death drive, who is profoundly obsessed with his own death in a lot of ways, and simultaneously is attached to staying alive above pretty much all else.

“Snap and snarl all you want,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere. And the only part of you I need intact is your tongue, so you can tell me where you hid the Yin Metal you promised. Everything else is optional.”

A prickle of fear rolled down Xue Yang’s spine and he flicked it away, baring his teeth.

I actually do think that, even before they get around to hand-specific trauma, permanent mutilation is one of those things that still scares Xue Yang. which is a short list! there isn’t much that actually either gets to or scares him, but I think the prospect of (further) mutilation does, because I think Xue Yang is very...acutely aware of the fact that his physical capability is a major factor in what has kept him alive and what, in all likelihood, is going to keep him alive moving forward. anything that threatens that capability, that limits him in terms of strength or mobility or otherwise has a disabling effect, is consequently going to be a short road to death, and Xue Yang would much rather die painfully fighting than die as a consequence of not being able to take care of himself.

for Xue Yang, the idea of a return to the kind of helplessness that is tied to his trauma is one of the worst possible prospects to contemplate. in my head this is exacerbated further by the fact that I figure Xue Yang didn’t get much if any medical care post hand incident, meaning that the recovery period was absolutely nightmarish and a whole stretch of time beyond the event itself where Xue Yang was struggling to survive because he’d been damaged.

in some ways I think that period of time probably did more to shape Xue Yang than the moment itself.

Wen Chao grabbed one of the branding irons from a disciple’s belt and pressed it to his stomach. That hurt. More. He clamped his back teeth together so he didn’t make any sound, absorbed the burn, owned it. His. You only hurt if you were alive. And anything you survived made you stronger.

Not that this was actually going to make him stronger. It was probably just going to make him dead. But then again, the worse this went the more resentment he’d have built up. He could use that. Would.

Dead didn’t have to mean finished.

obviously this is pulled almost direct from what Wei Wuxian himself says to Wen Chao. deliberate echoes based on character parallels! we love those.

and yeah, again here about Xue Yang and his relationship to pain, but in a less mundane way this time where it’s about pain as a tool, pain as something he can use. which is another thing about coping, I think - when pain and suffering are a regular part of your life, one way to deal with that can be to convert it into having some kind of purpose or benefit.

which in this case it definitely can. Xue Yang is definitely someone who, I think, has thought a lot about trying to arrange it so he becomes a ghost after he dies. or at least has thought a lot about what he’d do after dying to the person who killed him. 

and when you’re a necromancer by trade death really isn’t the end of the line anymore, just the start of a something new. Xue Yang’s relationship to life itself: about as jacked up as his relationships in general.

He felt the snap of bone in his teeth. Pain shooting up the side of his hand, all the way to his wrist, and Xue Yang couldn’t keep himself still enough not to try to wrench himself away. He swallowed his scream and turned it into a laugh. It was funny, wasn’t it? Funny, that he was back here, again. It wasn’t as bad, though. He knew how to take pain, how to breathe it in, make it part of himself, later turn it outwards magnified tenfold. They were old friends. Practically lovers. 

two things here:

1. the thread throughout this fic of Xue Yang making things funny so he can deal with them, here brought to you by reliving trauma! because it’s funny! right? laugh about it! just fucking hilarious.

I have a thing about characters basically deciding for themselves to make very unfunny situations funny because it makes them less awful.

2. and look, now he can deal with it better this time! he’s Learned. :) :) :)

Everything splintered. Splintered like bones under a wheel, and first thing he tried to struggle to get away but that just hurt worse and then old old old instincts kicked in and he went still, limp, dead.

“Did he faint?”

Someone nudged him with their foot. One part of him roared to grab that foot and rip it off along with the leg it was attached to. Immediately the same thing that’d made him play dead told him to wait.

at an end point where fighting is impossible and running is also impossible, the only thing left to do is play dead and wait it out. this is very much, in my head, a reversion to a tactic Xue Yang hasn’t used in a very long time and does not want to be using now, because it is absolutely the recourse of the extraordinarily helpless with no way out.

which he has been! and is now, but he really really really doesn’t want to be. Xue Yang has built his life around not being that, ever again.

but here it’s not a move he makes planning to turn it around the way he does, not at first. he gets there, but when he first does it I think it is literally just instinct that goes enough is enough and shuts down.

Wen Chao, Wen Chao, Xue Yang thought. My body’s going to give out before I do.

someone should remind me at some point maybe (or not) to write something coherent about my Xue Yang vs. his own body thoughts. specifically the way that, while Xue Yang is very physical and very grounded, I think he has a somewhat antagonistic relationship with his own body, actually. not completely! he definitely respects what it can do for him! but I think he also treats it a little as a slightly separate entity that’s capable of betraying him rather than as a fully integrated part of himself.

not always! but it’s a little bit there. this idea that sometimes his body, and its capacity to be hurt or damaged, is a weakness that he’d like to be able to forgo entirely, if only it wouldn’t mean losing all the good things about having a body. and that’s present here in this line, for me, where he thinks about himself and his body as slightly separate, and his body as something weaker than its Xue Yang core.

[sophsicle]

Hey love!!

I’m not exactly sure how to phrase this so I’m sorry if this ask makes no sense. Please feel free to ignore this if it is incomprehensible!!

I’ve heard a lot of people argue that James is a better fit for Lily than Severus is by using their respective patronuses as arguments. (Sorry I have no idea what the plural of patronus is!!)

In my opinion, this argument is very interesting, but I don’t love the way it sometimes feels as though Lily had no choice in the matter. Yes, in one scenario there is a doe and a stag and in the other there are two does, but the fact is that Lily chose James - and I don’t think she chose him because she liked his patronus better… it might have had something to do with the fact that Snape joined a group of bigots trying to kill her, but that’s just a guess.

That being said, the argument often follows somewhere along the lines of “James and Lily’s patronuses display how well they compliment each other, whereas Snape’s patronus shows his obsession with Lily.” Like I said, I’m a firm believer that Lily didn’t make any decisions based on deer, but it’s an interesting point all the same.

In Choices, Regulus and James have the same patronus (similar to Snape and Lily). And I might be wrong, but I don’t think it’s ever mentioned in Choices that Lily’s patronus is a doe. For the sake of this ask I’m going to assume it is though :)

Was the parallel between Regulus’ patronus matching James’ and Snape’s matching Lily’s purposeful? And is this supposed to represent anything similar (like one of James’ relationships is “better” or “more right”?) What are your thoughts on matching patronuses vs. complimentary patronuses? Also, when Remus finds out about Regulus’ patronus, he reads about them in his textbook… do you think the information he finds applies to Lily and Severus as well?

P.S. I just reread this and realized I wrote so much unnecessary stuff that makes absolutely no sense. Like I mentioned, please feel free to ignore this!! I’m so sorry!

P.P.S. You’re writing stays with me for days after I read it and I just wanted to let you know that you’re extremely talented and creative. I hope you’ve been enjoying writing Choices at least as much as I’ve enjoyed reading it <3

Hello lovely! Love this question (also I am the queen of writing unnecessary stuff so don't worry about it!) Fun fact, one of those times when I was going off on an "I hate Snape" rant, I made this exact argument; that the doe Patronus just proves that Snape doesn't actually love Lily, because imitation isn't love it's obsession. And one of my very good friends was like "hey, be careful with that argument, because it starts to sound a little homophobic" and while at the time that took me completely off guard, I do think she has a point. Saying that the stag and the doe are the real couple or, are somehow more legitimate than the doe and the doe, does sound a little like we're saying that the only legitimate relationships are heterosexual. Which, y'know, bad bad not good, we need to watch our metaphors here.

That being said, I like to think of the Patronus's as partnering with each other rather than being clones of one another, does that make sense? Because I think that the person who casts it should still influence the form of the Patronus, it shouldn't just be all about who they're in love with. So James's stag and Lily's doe partner one another, and in my head, James's stag and Regulus's stag do the same. Like Boo isn't Prongs (and this will sort of become evident later in the fic), they're both stags but they aren't the same stag. And Remus's Patronus (in Choices) is a dog but it isn't Padfoot, y'know? Like they're all pairs, but they aren't copies of one another. Mostly because I think you should be a whole person separate from whoever you're with. In canon, it seems to me that the idea is very much that Snape's Patronus becomes Lily's Patronus, which I think is how JKR wanted the Patronus / soulmate thing to work. So ultimately it's not fair for me to argue that that means his feelings for her were less genuine than James's (I think there's lots of other ways to do that). But I don't like that interpretation or use of the Patronus. So I think of it a little differently in Choices.

As for Lily having a choice, I think that the Patronus takes the shape it does because she chooses to love James, she doesn't choose to love James because of the Patronus, you know? Like your choices shape your Patronus not the other way around.

[legionofpotatoes]

I love your art, it is very detailed in a neat way. Was wondering how you got started making it as a source of income? How did you get your first paid work, I'd love some advice on how to get started, if that's ok

Thank you. Of course it's okay, although I doubt I have enough work experience in art to really delve into this. I only went full freelance this year, and had been juggling art as a side hobby until then. If you're still interested in my somewhat narrow perspective, and are okay with my long-winded rambles, I'll give it a shot:

So to answer your question fully, I'll describe how I started and move into personal advice and learnings later on. As a disclaimer, I am a white cishet dude in my late twenties with a moderate cocktail of mental illnesses, but overall I can pass for a functioning adult so a lot I have to say may come laced with privilege I cannot fully identify.

So uhh I began drawing in around 2012? I think? Maybe halfway through 2011? And I mostly made fanart for things I enjoyed and tried to branch out in communities that felt nourishing to my style and interests (I caught a bug for alt posters and enjoyed mainstream movies so I spent a long time on posterspy early on). There were a handful of opportunities that came from there but I could only accept a couple because of primary workplace commitments. Still, it showed that networking in a focused community was definitely a good place to start; I myself have huge trouble committing to social networks and really staying socially active, but I knew it was an essential ingredient in succeeding so I tried to make myself be involved in challenges and art support trains etc. as much as I could.

In parallel to all that I also ran a few third party online stores (redbubble, teepublic) for disposable income and would sometimes, if rarely, hit around $100-150 a month from those sources combined. It is a sort of thing that requires helper accounts on other social media sites to promote it on, because the stores themselves have a huge volume of content that translates into low organic discoverability. Obviously it was never gonna be the way towards financial independence through art, and with community projects being few and far between, I opened private commissions in around uhhh 2017 I think, focusing on offering a few styles I knew I could do well, and sometimes operating in individual fandoms (it was mostly a bioware thing to be frank). But I had to close them back down after a year or so, again because of work-life conflict and how badly it was burning me out. The reason I kept trying to monetize this hobby is because I honestly hated what I did for my main job and wanted to see a way out in some shape or form in the future.

And then in 2020 I had to quit my main job altogether because of *gestures at pandemic* and deal with a mental breakdown from all the wonderful things it did to us and me specifically. I took a short break and decided to give art a shot full-time, and that was around May this year. I was planning on opening up commissions again (and I still am), but a few sudden opportunities that fell in my lap moved that timetable down and now I'm grateful to even be doing something I am getting adequately paid for.

So, with that somewhat limited perspective, here's what I've learned that I'd tell myself if I was just starting out:

1. Being a fan of something can be a shortcut towards effective networking kickoffs. Which are important evidently. If you love something and enjoy making content for it, join communities, settle into a combination of social media websites that feel right for those interests + your body of work + your inner rhythm, and try to play to content discovery as much as your mental health allows you to. Like I said, I know that I myself am incredibly bad at self-motivating to talk to people, so I found that synergizing common interests into fanart - which I enjoyed making anyway - could be a way to give myself a gentle nudge forward and build those bridges leading to community activities, which then net experience and coverage. Sometimes even freelance projects from official avenues. Again; picking the right spaces for what you're after is key. Companies roam twitter, concept art recruiters scour artstation or linkedin etc, instagram can land you private commissions and collab opportunities, so on and so forth. Find your niche and try to kick up dust. However...

2. I do not believe that any social profile can replace a good portfolio. The thing that made an immediate difference to me this year was building a coherent, simple website with my best work front and center and a contact form on top. Every single opportunity I got came from that form (maybe via twitter or instagram initially, but always sealing the decision after going through the website), so I firmly believe that showcasing your skills and portfolio in a visually arresting and user-friendly way is a big priority. I had some reservations about tackling that task but fortunately I had help from a savvy life partner and we slapped it together via wordpress in less than a day. Twitter/whatever social media is prevalent in your target groups is definitely important to get the right eyes on your shit, yes, but those eyes will then look for a second stop where your work and rates are more clear and concise. Simplicity is key imo, I cannot overstate this. So make a cute, simple portfolio!

3. Your skills and rates will grow and change as you do. Let them. Over the years I built several lasting professional relationships from my obsession over mass effect and kept getting opportunities both from bioware and their partner companies, some small and some a bit bigger. A one-off job earlier this year opened an unexpected door to another much larger commitment, and then the work I did there brought some attention from small businesses looking for commercial commissions. These were all incredibly different projects in terms of scope and budget, and I've been tackling them all on a case-by-case basis and slowly coming into my own irt my needs, rates, and SOW thresholds. It is still a work in progress (and a LOT of literal work as well), and very much a thing I struggle with in publicly marketing, which is why I felt a tad underqualified to answer your question in the first place (obviously I did not let that stop me). But what it means for me now is that I am rapidly developing into whatever my "version" of a functioning freelance artist is, and when the conditions for that guy are met, I need to be able to confidently plant myself and operate from that space despite past precedents. Do not let anyone bully you into downpricing what you yourself perceive as legitimate products of personal growth and development. Speaking of which...

4. The shitty challenge of turning envy into inspiration, and paddling outside your comfort zones in full riot gear. it is hard, but realizing that being a miserable, self-hating artist in my early days got me nothing but more misery back was the first real step I took and what truly blew the hinges off. I was just not pleasant to be around, I would badmouth my work all the time, and it all somehow made sense in my broken mind because the validation I sought was purely external and the way I sought it was through eliciting sympathy via self-victimization (even when I made something objectively nice). It all led fucking nowhere. Except perhaps to my own narcissism that I one day managed to identify and start managing. So I started looking at things that made me seethe with envy and calmly deconstruct and figure out their inner workings instead, do studies, and find nuggets of inspiration or discover new ways to approach rendering or building up specific elements. It was an application of analytical diligence to what I wanted to be a purely emotional, esoteric workflow, but that I deep down knew wasn't. Art is a discipline and a skill, and maybe it isn't a straight line, but you gotta find some line to thread nevertheless. Being self-hating was almost an identity I had to break out of, and despite it still being like, 4-5% there? I realize its cause and effect on me, my work, and those around me, so it is with a conscious choice that I gently set it aside when I work and especially when I learn. It won't always stay quiet, but the effort is the difference. Your doors towards accepting true growth and venturing into uncharted territories, art styles, and networking will really open from there. But there's a huge caveat...

5. Toolsets, accessibility, privilege, and all the good things that enable artistic expression and profitability are not given equal to all. you might do all the mental work I mentioned to be ready to rock and roll and learn and draw your way out of anything, but digital art is a fucking money pit that asks almost too much at times. I don't got a good case study here but identifying and ensuring accessibility to the tools you need to do your best work is, like, super important. The ergonomics can improve as you make money and settle into the job, but the basics have to be made available to you. And some of that might not even be under your direct control. That can be anything from pen tablets to software subscriptions to opportunities in hiring sullied by sexism or what have you. You gotta navigate all that through careful networking and money/time management. I don't do a good job of devoting specific slices of time to work/study, and my primary clutch is iPad software which went from a good deal to a nightmare scenario over the years. So all I can say here is do what I didn't; network, invest in a PC/tablet, and pick a software you'll learn that won't burn a hole in your pocket.

6. Be nice to work with? This one is hard to articulate and has landed my own ass in hot water in my early years because of how socially inept I am, but nothing is more worthwhile than being.. like. a good person to work with. That can be anything like meeting deadlines, or sometimes missing them but eloquently articulating why, being generous in early stages, being communicable and not too wordy in your emails, having a good grasp on abstract artistic concepts and how to describe them in simple terms, having a clear, laid out framework of your working rates in commercial and non-commercial projects and sticking to those guns with grace, understanding when you need to say no and saying it well, the works. Just being nice. Sometimes that might mean going headstrong with something you believe in, or simmering down and sucking up to the big man, all relative and adaptive. Part and parcel of the service provision dance that we all have to do in order to make bank. Know your lines here, obviously, and don't like. work for nazis. or uh.. *shudders* exposure. but be nice and empathetic and communicable and word will travel eventually. Skill may be in abundance these days, but good people are most certainly not, and capitalism has a way of bubbling up scarcity. Grim, but uh, them's the breaks.

I know I'm ultimately telling you to like. Have a body of work, make a portfolio, grow, and network. But that's really how I see it for now. And being nice can be a cherry on top that sets you apart, along with the inherent irreplaceable voice of your artwork. I think I rambled on enough, but if there is something specific you need my help with, even if you want to come off anon and talk in private, please feel free.

[jojotichakorn]

Heyo

Hope the past days have been treating you well :) If they haven't, I manifest good times for you from now on.

Just a small thought, I know that everyone is v curious, including me on the conflict that caused the whole enemies situation in the first place. And it could very well be something quite major, as I've said (and now seen because actual shots fired /j) P'Aof likes to commit to rather heavy topics. But....if they want to keep on the R+J parallels....

It could very well be actually nothing. Legit he said, she said, they said, we said nonsense that never happened. The next episode has Pat and Pran legitimately Scooby-dooing the reason for the whole rivalry, sending them to their high school I think as well (Which could tie in with the anon's suggestion about singing the song on the stage to completion) and no-one knows what it's about. And it makes sense, cause you'd think that both sides would genuinely bring up what each other did wrong to snipe and one-up each other. The ways that I can personally see being the reason why it hasn't been brought up (apart from screen-writing reasons, which is also a apt reason, but this is a show that's better then that in my opinion) is either it's so deep that they hid it, or it's so old and vague that other things cover it up.

So, keeping the no breakup notion strong, alive and well like we've been manifesting, makes the possibility (actuality) of overcoming such petty hate and awful attitudes that much better, because either way the boys and Paa are shown to be better than their parents. Through either forgiveness and love, or through sheer maturity. Your thoughts, my dear Archer?

The roundtable is all-inclusive to everyone, at all times. I apologise if anyone felt that the notion was excluding in any way. That type of shite does not stand or belong in this beautiful community. You are all wonderful and have brilliant ideas and I absolutely love reading through them.

Song rec anon, you are a gift and your songs are truly masterpieces of association.

Unreliable anon, you bring creativity and perspective to things I could never think about, and some worthy chaos :D

Operanon, still trying to keep up with your pun-intentional wordplay, and you have a fantastic mind. You are Pran-tastic!

Star anon, another giver of lovely ideas and fantastic notions. Always love reading your questions, no matter how controversial you think they are. You're awesome :)

New Anon, it's wonderful that you've found lovely content because of Archer. You pose great questions and I hope you find more good ones!

Virgo Anon, your starsign proposals are lovely to read and in my opinion, v accurate. I'm really glad you love it here, can't wait to discuss more things with you. I raise you this, starsigns for the friend groups now? (I also ask Archer, please?)

Lost Anon, I hope you aren't lost anymore! Your trans headcanons were delightful to read and to quote Archer: quite galaxy-brained.

I don't know if anyone needs this over the past holiday week, but you're all magnificent and deserve the world.

As do you entirely Archer :D

Now, as I leave, I gift you the possibility of Paa either having or adopting a beautiful child, and the absolute tooth-ache inducing idea of Uncle Pat and Pran spoiling the ever-loving frick out of their niece/nephew.

Reliable Anon ):)

heyy, dearest reliable anon!! thank u so much, i hope ur doing well <3

as for your theory, i think it is indeed very interesting!! in this case, i suppose the explanation for why specifically pat's father and pran's mother hate each other so much is because they are from the rival families, while pat's mother and pran's father married into them.

as for the wonderful gift - i am absolutely obsessed with it, but i propose this: inkpa and patpran's kids growing up next door to each other, being the closest cousins in the world, and always being able to come to their uncles/aunts!

[colethewolf]

So, apparently Derek and Stiles were supposed to be an actual couple before Davis pussied out and didn’t do it for...hetero reasons? So in essence, they kept writing them as a couple without being an actual couple and threw them together with women they had no chemistry with (Malia, Braeden in Lydia’s case no romantic chemistry) or forced it by paralleling the shit put of it to the point of creating clones (of Stiles and Derek) with vaginas (Paige and Jennifer, Slightly Malia and Cora respectively).

I don’t know why, it’s been so long since it’s been over but finding out that this is a legitimate thing apparently, I don’t know, I haven’t seen the sources but everybody is saying that apparently it came out that they were meant to be a couple before it was nixed, just makes me incredibly angry.

To be perfectly honest I wasn’t huge in this ship or shipping in general however I enjoyed sterek. My thing with Sterek was that I was excited by the fact that there were these two guys with chemistry that bickered and worked well together and respected one another and the best part they were not Hollywood stereotypical. I mean by Hollywood stereotypical is that they weren’t overly sexualized together, they were not overtly either too macho masculine or super feminine. They were strong, intelligent, flawed, messy but good men who respected and seemed to really love eachother without being paraded. The huge draw also and the biggest point was that there were these two side characters with chemistry where you saw it was going to happen and that was pretty exciting for a lot of people.

My brother got me into the show because he was so excited about it. When it didn’t happen he was bummed out, he was angry because of the baiting because he and many other people believed it, even I felt used and I’m not a part of the LGBTQ+ community, but even I assumed and hope that it would happen because at least one couple seemed to genuinely like and respect and care and love each other. It just didn’t happen. Just quasi-promises in the form of scenes were they were written as a couple without the romanticism, thrown into relationships with women they had no chemistry way, the type of non-chemistry that seemed as dry as the Sahara desert on both sides (Or in Hoechlin’s case a case of the weird crazy obsessive stalker pawing at him making the scenes with Derek and braeden that much more uncomfortable because even acting he was uncomfortable and she was drooling at the prospect of getting up on him.)

If I find the link with the actual sources I’ll send them to you in a message because I think it would be pretty interesting to read. I think it’s legit, I mean I assume that it was probably something that they were planning but I never thought that there would be a legitimate sources where they say yes this was supposed to happen but it did not because dumb reasons. And I think it’s real because I’m hearing it everywhere, I’m hearing it loudly, and the anger and the rage that I’m hearing it reminds me of when the ban began way back and the Sterek fandom was initiated betrayed by PTB and Davis after all of the legwork the Stereks did to make the show popular, viewed and honestly the reason it was profitable at all.

You’re probably not interested in hearing any of this but legitimately yours was the only blog that I could think of that would hear this and give a legitimate opinion because you’ve been vocal about it and in a wonderfully honest way with your thoughts. Like I said I’m not a part of the community, I am not someone who ships anything. But I did start to ship them because it seemed naturally written, the chemistry was electric, they worked well together, and anyone with eyes and the ability to hear and understand what they’re seeing could see that the writers wrote them as being very much in love with eachother.

I apologize about the length.



Yes, I’ve talked about this before. I’ve spoken to sources before about what happened and unfortunately there will always remain unknown pieces of information about it. I don’t think we’ll ever get a full picture and detailed timeline of genuine fact. 

But we can piece together the things that we saw and experience without knowing the full details about behind the scenes. For instance, Jeff Davis frequently acknowledged Sterek as a slash-ship. He admitted to intentionally writing Derek and Stiles scenes together and called them one of the greatest pairings in the show. He also frequently admitted to printing out Sterek fanart and posting them around the studio and writers room.  

We also know that he intentionally hinted at Stiles being bisexual. He admitted it. He also frequently baited at the prospect of Stiles and Derek possibly developing into a slow-build romantic relationship. We also know that Jeff was fully aware of the Sterek vs. Derek/Jennifer parallels as he, himself, hinted at them being intentionally set in place during season 3A.

Onto things that weren’t confirmed by Jeff Davis, it was obvious that Stiles/Malia and Derek/Braeden were attempts to no-homo the characters as it was not a coincidence that both characters (who had remained single for seasons 1-3B) decided to both get put into separate heterosexual relationships at the same time, whilst also being purposely kept apart in scenes filmed. 

The reality is that even if Jeff Davis wasn’t singlehandedly responsible for how Sterek was treated in the show, the fandom’s anger was directed at him. And it wasn’t directed solely at him just because. It was because Jeff, himself, frequently announced via. twitter & tumblr that he did NOT receive pushback from MTV executives. 

In fact, Jeff bragged about how the show was his show and that he was able to write whatever he wanted without higher-ups telling him no. It was Jeff who bragged about the show being progressive in terms of queer representation. Regardless of whether or not Jeff had 100% full control over the show and the stories, we don’t know. But Jeff set himself up as the main enemy on his own accord. 

I don’t think the fury Jeff received towards him would have been so strong had Jeff not been so cocky as to preach in the faces of the fans. He liked being the one in charge and then subsequently got pissy when fans turned against him and him alone. I think it was a big lesson learned. 

Personally, I think Sterek was the show. It brought so much status and power to the show, but when they tried so hard to remove every trace of Sterek, that’s when the show crashed and burned. It’s no coincidence that season 3B received 2+ million views per new episode, only for that viewership to immediately tank when Season 4 came around.....the season where Stiles/Malia and Derek/Braeden. And following that, the views only continued to drop harder and harder. 

Had Sterek gone canon, I think the show would have been regarded as a major game changer for television. Instead, I think shows like Shadowhunters, How To Get Away With Murder, & The Magicians really helped bring new standards for queer representation in television. Teen Wolf could have had that, but they fumbled their opportunity with messiness behind the scenes. 

That’s what I think about it. But if you do find those sources, I’d love to hear what they’re saying to see if they match up with anything we already know. 

[ineffable-endearments]

So I am pretty intrigued by the notion that Gabriel and Sandalphon showing up to Aziraphale’s bookshop and telling him they’re “promoting” him is a...hmm...gesture of...management. Ownership, almost. Punishment, in a way. Not exactly a reward. We’ve talked extensively about this.

But what I’m also intrigued by is what Gabriel actually thought of Crowley’s little performance in that back alley.

Sometimes I entertain the possibility that they saw right through it the whole time. That they knew Crowley’s act was an act, and they chose to keep Aziraphale down here to effortlessly maintain the stalemate. After all, if Aziraphale was off canoodling with Crowley, then they’d both be occupied, right? Hell would not have an opportunity to exert any sort of dominance because Crowley would be too busy with Aziraphale. In this case, two things become important: that Crowley and Aziraphale are a bit obsessed with each other, and that they maintain the semblance of fighting. Beyond that, Heaven doesn’t care.

And as for Aziraphale’s assignments from Heaven, Gabriel and the rest don’t actually give a shit about the quality of work done on Earth. As Crowley has said, they just want to tick all the boxes on the to-do list until Armageddon, their ultimate goal, rolls around, at which time they’ll steamroll over both Aziraphale and Crowley if they have to. So, since it doesn’t benefit them to “win” anything before Armageddon itself, they have everything to gain by allowing Aziraphale to keep up his charade and continue stalemating Crowley. And they don’t believe they have anything to lose by letting their least-favorite humanity-otaku stay away from Heaven.

This is how real authoritarians work: don’t let the lower classes see the full scope of what’s going on, and keep them fighting with each other so they’re too busy to challenge the authoritarians. An autocrat doesn’t necessarily have to be a brilliant conspirator to recognize those two moves are in their favor.

Thoughts below.

Gabriel isn’t actually stupid, and while he values shallow, surface-level things (clothes), he is not at all incapable of reading between the lines. Look at his conversation with Michael, when Michael locates the photographic proof of Aziraphale hanging out with Crowley. Gabriel in that conversation does not read as genuinely clueless. The way Michael reacts tells me, instead, that she knows Gabriel knows there are “back channels” and he simply cannot acknowledge them.

In 1800, when Gabriel and Sandalphon showed up at the bookshop telling Aziraphale he was going to be reassigned, they didn’t seem to have any concrete plan for what other job Aziraphale was supposed to be doing, and they were entirely willing to immediately abandon this plan.

It also makes no sense to put Michael on Earth in Aziraphale’s place, as he suggested. Like, an Archangel is suddenly going to cover a Principality’s work? Because the Principality has been...doing a good job at it? Huh? In fact, at first, they didn’t even seem to have any real, concrete plan for who was going to do Aziraphale’s job once he came back to Heaven, which doesn’t make any sense. Then they tossed out the suggestion that Michael could do it, which also doesn’t make any sense.

If they wanted Aziraphale back in Heaven for some real reason, Aziraphale could also probably teach his replacement how to counter Crowley’s wiles. Like, in the context of two rival companies or two enemy armies, the whole “only I know how to thwart my enemy!” is a pretty thin excuse, IMHO; there are entire corporate and military roles designed to gain information about the rival/enemy and pool knowledge against them. We know Aziraphale uses that excuse because he’s desperate, but if the plan to bring him back to Heaven is anything but bullshit, there’s an easy way around it.

And yet when Crowley points it out, Gabriel seems to believe it.

One could suggest that maybe it sounds more urgent coming from Crowley because Crowley hints that he was going to “drink holy water in his despair” at being unable to enact evil with Aziraphale around. So Gabriel could have thought, woohoo! If Aziraphale stays here, Crowley will be no more! Except I really don’t believe that’s true, either. Because Gabriel of all people would know that Hell has plenty of replacements to send. “Oh, but Crowley is special!” I really don’t think Gabriel believes that. Call it a hunch, but like...he knows the workings of Hell. He knows Crowley might be smart but he’s Just Some Guy in the end.

However, to Gabriel’s ears, there is one advantage to hearing it from Crowley instead of Aziraphale: while he suspects Aziraphale is just looking for excuses to goof off on Earth, hearing it from Crowley confirms that Crowley is indeed legitimately preoccupied by Aziraphale. He’s preoccupied, but Hell doesn’t send any replacements. The stalemate holds.

Also, consider the context: this all comes after Paris 1793, at which time Aziraphale had received a “strongly worded letter” for using “too many frivolous miracles.” Upon seeing Gabriel and Sandalphon in 1800, Aziraphale’s immediate reaction is to go on the defensive and try to explain away the miracle he used on his clothes in Paris.

With this in mind, I do not think Gabriel and Sandalphon were planning to “reward” Aziraphale with anything genuine by showing up at his bookshop. They were snooping. They saw Aziraphale using his powers for Earthly things, and wanted to remind him who he really belongs to. The medal was basically a passive-aggressive little reminder that Heaven Is Always Watching.

And they will let him continue to play his little stalemate game, as long as he knows it will come to an end.

If you enjoy the parallels, consider that Aziraphale and Crowley have fooled Shadwell in addition to being fooled by him - Shadwell has his suspicions about them, but he has absolutely no idea what they really are. So the parallel holds - if Shadwell and Aziraphale/Crowley can all be fooling each other, then Aziraphale/Crowley and Heaven/Hell can have lies flowing both ways, too.

I’m perfectly aware all of this could easily come down to “it’s a series of tiny plot holes” or “Heaven is too incompetent to make real wartime plans” or something, but honestly, I think that’s incredibly boring. I’d much rather entertain more interesting ideas.

[themockingpoint]

A million minutes late but here is my Sansa Appreciation Week day 5 submission. Takes place during the feast of 8x4. Shout out to @chryswatchesgot because I could not do that stupid cannon quote and their post from that episode gave me the perfect response.

  “It’s alright to be enjoying yourself.” Jon said, to Sansa shaking her out of her somewhat drunken thoughts. “If only for a little bit.”

 “Tell that to your queen.” Sansa said, before she could help herself. She showed off a grimace as she practically felt her brother’s annoyance bleed off him with a sigh.

 Sansa knew that the conflict between her and her brother’s… paramour was causing him undue tension, but she could not help it. Jon told Sansa that she is just refusing to see the Targaryen queen as she truly is and is letting what her family did to the Starks get in the way of that. However, Sansa would argue that it was her brother that was not seeing clearly ever since the two monarchs slept together. She sighed and downed another cup of wine.

 The way that she legitimized Gendry “Rivers” without thinking or consulting her advisors showed Sansa exactly what she needed to know. Putting aside the fact that she barely knew him enough to even know his actual name or the fact that he was her second cousin -and according to the great council of 101 AC that would probably make him, as a male, a stronger contender for the throne- his father was Robert Baratheon and her father was the Mad King.

 As bad of a king that Robert was, the smallfolk did not see it. His era signified an era of peace. Meanwhile her father was Mad King Aerys. He… well he got the name for a reason. Jon may have bent the knee to her, but their lords will always remember their Uncle Brandon and their grandfather. Let alone what the smallfolk will think. Joffrey most publicly was the smallfolks woes, yet Tyrion was the one blamed since he happened to be there once they started. No way would they forget what the mad king put them through. They were slaves waiting to be freed, they were people who just wished to go on with their lives with Highborn war.

  Another thing that Jon was forgetting but Sansa never would, was the fact that she spent years in King’s Landing, years. Joffrey, Cersei, Baelish, Ramsay, all of them taught her how to see a mask of benevolence. The Dragon queen may be projecting the air of the Good Queen Alysanne but Sansa likened her to the Young Dragon, Daeron I. The Dragon Queen may win the throne, but she would never be done conquering. She took over rulership in Meereen but was now looking to rule the Seven Kingdoms. The woman would never be done conquering, and Sansa did not plan on allowing the North and her people to be one of those Kingdoms to conquer that she will eventually become bored with.

 “I’m sorry.” Sansa slightly slurred from drink. “I am a little on edge… Feasts… I do not have the greatest history with celebrations…”

 “Here, here!” Tyrion said, walking behind them causing Sansa to roll her eyes.

 Sansa looked at the man that she used to think was the smartest man alive. When she knew him, he was the sharpest man in the room, taking people’s number without much of a challenge. He, Jon, and Varys -although he seemed to flip-flop worse than the Tyrells- all trusted her, is her own prejudices not allowing her to see the woman truly?

 Jon told her a little bit about the woman. The parallels between Sansa and Daenerys herself were strong, very strong. Sansa would not, could not, deny it and to be perfectly honest? It scared Sansa just how similar the two of them were. Abusive husbands, they were both raped on their wedding nights, both were used and passed around as bargaining chips, and both would do anything to get their countries back. Sansa almost crossed a line she never could have come back from.

 As similar as they were, Sansa knew that the dragon queen was not her friend, and definitely not Jon’s friend. She would only ever see them as subjects, never allies. They would be expected to fight whatever wars she would want to fight at the drop of a hat; ironically not unlike how Robert Baratheon was like with Sansa’s own father. As Sansa said, she would never be done conquering and -like during the Baratheon regime- the North would be dragged into it. She could not let her people be killed by the petty southern wars. She would not fail them; not again.

 “Why don’t you walk around?” Jon said, giving her a sympathetic smile. He knew how the last few feasts that she had turned out.

 “I… don’t think that is a good idea… I think I may be a little drunk.” She said, with a slight giggle.

 “Well I believe in you!” He said, slamming his hand down on the table in an ironic echo of her earlier statement.

 She walked away and a few minutes later saw the queen walk off in a huff of jealousy. She must admit, she was no Joffrey. He never would have abided by someone singing praises that were not directed at him, especially if he thought it was at his expense. She was not her father either, who would have just burned someone alive had he gotten annoyed with them.

 But it does not matter. The North was the North. They were not like the other seven kingdoms, even Dorne had more similarities to the southern kingdoms than the North did. The North just did things differently, they had different traditions, hell even their gods were different from the rest of the kingdoms. They were too detached from the rest of the Kingdoms to be part of such a kingdom that was practically united against them.

 She needed to clear her head as she was depressing herself. As she walked amongst the lower tables she saw where Tormund got to. She froze as she saw who he was sitting next to. Sansa knew he was here. Jon and Arya both mentioned the fact, he apparently had saved Arya’s life during the siege. Sansa has not been avoiding him, but she had not been seeking him out either.

 “Af’er all that he just comes North and takes ‘er from me.” Tormund said, weepily leaning on Sandor. “Just takes ‘er. Like that!”

 “Her?” Sansa thought to herself before she remembered who Tormund had been obsessed with since she had met him. “He can’t… He can’t mean Brienne, can he?”

 Thinking back to how her sworn shield starred at Jaime Lannister with starry eyes as they continued speaking, Sansa quickly realized what had happened when a quick look told her that she was not there. She felt happy for the woman despite her feelings about Jaime Lannister. She was more devoted to her duty than any other person than Sansa knew. She deserved this, she deserved to relax.

 “I’m not ‘fraid of Wildlings.” The serving girl (whore? She know Tyrion hired many to spread into the waiting staff) said, raising an eyebrow as Sansa finished another glass of wine. She doubts that she has even been this drunk and she must say she thinks that she is handling it very well.

 “Maybe you should be.” Tormund said, suggestively wagging his eyebrows.

 As Sansa realized what was happening, she felt a tightening in her own belly. One she had not really ever felt before, except maybe with Loras Tyrell. She shook out of her distraction as Sandor growled at the woman, terrifying her so that she would make her escape. Thinking of the feeling in her belly she walked over.

 “She could have made you happy…” She said, as she sat down. She wondered if his rejection of her was due to lack of interest or because of self-hatred and cynicism. Gods know that he has enough of that. Enough that he tried passing it onto her. “For a little while.”

 He looked up in surprise, whether he was shocked she was there or that she decided to speak to him she did not know. When they finally broke eye contact, he said, “There’s only one thing that’ll make me happy.”

 “And what’s that?” She said humoring him, trying to get him to lighten the hell up.

 “That’s my business!” He growled trying to scare her away. Once, it might have worked. She drunkenly cocked an eyebrow to show that she was unamused. “Used to be you couldn’t look at me.”

 “That was a long time ago…” She said sadly remembering the kiss from the Blackwater. One of the only two people she has ever kissed and the only one she somewhat wanted it from. Is that why he was not looking at her, trying to scare her away. “I’ve seen much worse that you.”

 “Yes I’ve heard… Heard you were broken in… Heard you were broken in rough…” He said, almost smugly and she clenched her teeth. Why was he being so hostile? She was trying to extend an olive branch.

 “Yes.” She said, she had already lost Theon today and her patience was quickly wearing thin. “He got what he deserved. I gave it to him.”

 “How?” He asked, genuinely curious.

 “Hounds…” She said, causing a moment of laughter from him.

 “You’ve changed, Little-Bird.” Sandor said, taking a drink. Once she had a sickening liking to the demeaning nickname. Now it just angered her. “None of it would have happened had you come with me.”

 “And there it is.” Sansa thought to herself. Most of the men in her life tried taking credit for what she was or could have been. To be frank, she was sick of it. Sansa was the woman she was today because of two men and a woman, all of which were named Stark. She may not have gotten everything she has due to her own merits but the men who spit poison and abuses at her no longer could claim credit for it. She would not allow it. No longer.

 “That’s the thing Sandor.” She said, grabbing his hand to his surprise. “I was never a little bird. I was a puppy. And Gods help those who think they can tame a Direwolf.”

 She stood up and grabbed Tormund’s nearly full goblet. If he wanted to stew in his cynicism, hatred, and self-loathing than he was more than welcome to it. She was not going to allow him to infect her with it as well. That is all he tried to do even since they first met at the Crossroad Inn all those years ago. She was done trying to save someone who did not want to save themselves but drag her down to their level instead.

 She would always be grateful for what he did for her sister, but she was done trying to save him. It was not her job. She looked down at her former would be protector and walked off, forgetting the reason that she came over in the first place.

[bubonickitten]

Summary: After leaving the Web's domain, Martin and Jon both get a little lost in their own heads. Or: Time to put the apocalypse on hold again for another Web-related navel-gazing session.

This is part of a series, but can be read as a standalone. (Part 1: tumblr // AO3)

Full text & content warnings under the cut.

     CW: canon-typical spiders & arachnophobia; substance abuse (cigarette smoking & nicotine dependence); self-loathing re: addiction and obsessive-compulsive behavior; rejection sensitive dysphoria rearing its ugly head; internalized ableism & victim blaming; brief instance of (very passive) suicidal ideation; Web-typical paranoia; spoilers up to and including MAG 172.

     “Yeah, screw this place,” Martin says. “Never liked the theatre anyway.”

  And with that, he turns and makes a beeline for the nearest exit. Jon stands there for a moment, outstretched hand still lingering where he had offered it to Martin. A familiar gloom settles over him, stealing the air from his lungs – a sharp twinge in his chest, a cold weight dropping into his gut, a hard lump in his throat – all because of the merest hint of rejection.   

  Don’t take it personally, he scolds himself. Martin probably just… didn’t notice his hand. He was distracted. He's unsettled, he’s frightened, he needs to be away from here. It’s fine. Jon is just being self-centered. Again. 

  But as he trails Martin, several steps behind, he gets lost in his own head.         

  It's concerning, this pattern of Jon getting so absorbed in statements that Martin cannot reach him - and it isn't fair to Martin, left adrift and alienated in a nightmare realm that Jon brought into existence, all so Jon can take a moment to bask in the terror. Yes, Jon hates it. He hates how the fear and agony are filtered through him, even though he's become so accustomed to it - so much so that he fears eventually growing numb to it all, losing that last human spark he still curls himself around with possessive, protective fervor. Even more, though, he hates that alien thing in his head that likes it, that forces him to like it, that insists all of this is right and good and natural.  

  It's destroying him, it's destroying everyone around him, and he wants all of it to just stop. Except, there's a loud part of him that doesn't. He wants nothing more than to choke the life out of it.  

  He wishes he could go back to a time when he didn't want or need this, when he wasn't comforted by this thing hollowing him out like a tunneling worm. When did things go so wrong? Did it start when he was a child, when he found the book? Was the point of no return much later, when he became the Archivist? Or was he always doomed to be this, born with self-destruction and impulsivity encoded into his DNA, impossible to separate from himself and still remain himself? 

  Precisely how much of the statement did Martin overhear? Was it enough to draw the parallels that Jon himself is outlining now?

  Jon never has time to process a statement while he’s in the midst of recording it. The human part of him is shelved so the Archive can go about its impartial curation without the interference of Jon's feverish running commentary. Once the trance wears off, though, Jon has time to think. To ruminate, as Martin says. To record his supplemental and dutifully file it away in the Archive, because the knowledge is not complete without Jon's lived experience to bring it to life. 

                   FRANCIS: Please. Let me go. Just let me go.

           THE SPIDER: Oh, Francis. It’s such a shame that I couldn’t do such a thing even if I wanted to. The man in the audience saw to that. I am no more free than you are, little puppet.

  Not for the first time, Jon wonders about the significance of the statements he’s been channeling since the end of the world. How does the subject – victim, the still-human part of him admonishes – get selected? Does the Eye direct his focus, like choosing from a menu? Is it the choice of the Entity whose domain they're passing through? Or is it just chance – whatever instance of terror gets Beheld in that fraction of a second before the tape recorder clicks on to demand its offering?

  He can’t shake the feeling that the Web did have a hand in selecting the particular show he was set to narrate just now, if only because it felt so perfectly tailored and pointed.

           FRANCIS: Please. Please god, not again. I don’t want it to happen again.

           THE SPIDER: Then walk away, Francis, just turn and leave. All that is required is a little bit of willpower. You have a little bit of willpower, don’t you?

  Free will again, of course. Choice versus control. That thorny, sticky weed of a question that took up residence in his mind and spread its roots through every part of him, feeding and growing and seeding more iterations of itself with every passing moment of doubt. He's been over this, he's been over this; why can't he just let it go? 

           “Jon, we’ve been over this," Basira told him. "The key is to not force people to feed you their trauma. You know – just don’t do it?”

           “It’s not that simple.”

           “No, it is. Or I put you down.” 

  Jon remembers how, the first time he tried to quit smoking, it was framed in exactly that way: Just stop. At the time, it had seemed so simple that when he found he couldn’t manage it, he felt like an abject failure. Beyond that, though, it was like having a sinkhole open beneath his feet. Long-suppressed doubts about his own will and self-control were dredged up to the surface, where they've stayed front-and-center ever since. 

  He’s always had an obsessive streak, always had trouble letting go, always had difficulties with impulse control. It shouldn’t have been a surprise when just one cigarette ultimately led to an on-again, off-again addiction that he struggled with right up until the end of the world. Whether it’s nicotine or insatiable curiosity, he’s always been predisposed to fixation, hasn't he? And Beholding, well - it easily overshadowed the rest. It evolved so smoothly from routine to habit to dependence to basic sustenance, and now it’s such an intrinsic part of who he is that he doesn’t know who he would be without it.

  Why didn't he see the warning signs? Or did he see them and opt to ignore them, to barrel on ahead through every red flag and concerned intervention attempt in his haste to do, to see, to know, to experience? 

           THE SPIDER: I want what you want, deep, deep down in the hidden bit of you you’ve tried so hard to kill. You can’t wait for the dance to conclude.

           FRANCIS: I don’t want that anymore. It’s different now. I’m different now. I’ve worked so hard.

           THE SPIDER: I don’t care.

  Jon doesn’t want this. He doesn’t. But he does. But he doesn’t.

  It’s complicated.

  Jonathan Sims, human, feels nothing but despair and shame. The entire world has become a looping nightmare with no end in sight, and it’s his fault – all because, like a moth to a flame, he’s never known when to just stop. In the back of his mind burns that incessant what-if: Would it have been better had he never woken up from the coma? With his death, the others would have been free to quit; he never would have fed on his victims; he never would have opened the door. How much better would the world have been without him in it? 

  The Archivist, on the other hand, feels every stab of fear and pain as any human would, but along with that torment comes a perverse satisfaction in it all. Can he legitimately call himself a victim if he himself is complicit in his trauma? A steady diet of terror is what sustains him now, even as it eats away at him from the inside out. He is dependent on that which destroys him, and he hates it, and he likes it, and he needs it, and he dreads it, and he’s tired.  

  Meanwhile, the Archive feels only detached fascination and a deep conviction that everything is exactly as it should be. This is the role it was born to serve. This is the world in which it was so carefully engineered to thrive. This is the whole of its definition and the whole of its being and the whole of its nature, and it will record and catalog and curate and preserve every single moment for as long as it survives. Nothing lasts forever, but the Archive spares no thought for the inevitable end of its existence. There’s so much to See here, now.

  The fear consumes him. The fear feeds him. The fear just is, and the Archive is here to witness and preserve every motion and every perspective and every detail.

           “When has your guilt, or your sadness, or your hand-wringing ever actually stopped you from doing what it wants?” Helen said with a wicked grin.

           “ I have not been taking statements.”  

           "You’ve sworn off other people’s trauma for now, because you’re caught. Because continuing would endanger you. But other than that, when has your discomfort ever actually stopped you walking the path of the Beholding?”

           "I… I don’t know.”  

  Jonathan Sims can kick and scream all he wants, thrashing impotently in the corners of this shared mind. His cries will be drowned out by a cacophonous litany of horror and dread, and the Archive will pay him no mind. It has more interesting things to concern itself with than the useless self-loathing of the original owner of this vessel, still so stubbornly refusing to embrace the role for which he was so carefully groomed. 

  Jon has always made everything so difficult, hasn't he? Incapable of sitting still, of shutting up, of listening, of just slowing down and stopping for once. Always pushing, pushing, pushing, even when he knew the outcome would only hurt. Anything to keep moving, to secure that heady little rush that rewarded him whenever he happened upon something new and untapped. Voracious for anything to stave off the boredom and channel his restless energy. 

  He wants to stop. He can't stop. He did stop. He tried. He put so much distance between himself and that toxic thing to which he was beholden, and it found him again anyway. Jonah Magnus - 

  It does not matter. Jon's consent was never necessary. He will submit regardless. He always has. 

           FRANCIS only has a desire, an itch in their bones that flows into them, drip by oily drip, down the glistening strands that suspend them, guide them, hold them…. They don’t want to want it, but…

           Pause for laughter.

  He doesn’t want it. Except that he does.

  He doesn’t want to want it. But he does anyway.

  It’s horrible, but it feels right.

           “Can the Web control another avatar, one that serves another power?” Jon asked, desperate and ashamed.

           Pause for Helen’s laughter.

           “Make them do things they don’t want to, make them – feed –”

           Pause for Helen’s laughter.

           “Oh, perhaps,” Helen said, delighted to watch him squirm. “Perhaps not. Would that make life easier for you? Are you so sure you didn’t want to?”

           Pause for Helen’s laughter.

  He did want to. Jonathan Sims may not have wanted to, but the Archivist? The Archivist would have continued hunting and preying, and he would have cycled through as many rationalizations as needed to continue the routine. But the Archivist is Jon is the Archivist; there's no use in distancing himself from accountability. 

  How had Jon lost himself so quickly, so easily?

  When he woke up after the Unknowing, he was terrified. He didn’t know what he was becoming versus what he had already become, or the extent to which he was beyond the point of no return. Georgie had been right, when she told him that he needed people in his life to remind him of his humanity – and now he needed that more than ever.

  But none of them had wasted any time in labeling him a monster.

  Jon doesn’t blame them, of course. Tim was dead, Daisy was gone, Martin was Lonely, Melanie was being consumed by the Slaughter, and Basira had been left to pick up the pieces by herself. Everyone had changed; everyone had been through trauma; everyone was coping alone; everyone was afraid and angry in the face of being trapped and manipulated and exploited.

  And so, so much of it was Jon’s fault, all because he couldn't just stop. 

           “Jon, focus,” Basira said. “Are you getting any sense of anything? Can you See anything?”

           “No, I’m just seeing what you’re seeing. Still a bit weak from my trip up north, to be honest.”

           “Sorry we couldn’t stop for a snack,” Melanie snapped.

  Basira had laughed, then, and Jon had wanted to be angry, but all he felt was icy guilt wrapped in a layer of dull hunger.

  Basira valued practicality. She simply didn't have the luxury for anything else. Jon was dangerous, and maybe a day would come when he could no longer be suffered to live, but until then, he could also be an asset. Basira asked him to Know and See when it would help their goals; she prompted him to Ask questions when they needed to interrogate someone; she wanted him at full power whenever they were heading into danger. She, like Tim, thought they would all be better off if Jon acted more like Gertrude – until he did, and they both saw the all-too-human monstrosity inherent in Gertrude’s flavor of utilitarianism.

           “She got the job done,” Jon said, “and she didn’t care about the cost.”

           “But I thought you did.”

           He did, didn't he? When had that changed? 

           “I had to know, Basira.”

           It's a poor excuse.

           “It wasn’t right.”

           No, it wasn't. 

           “You could have stopped me. But you wanted to know as well, didn’t you?”

  She did want to know. Most people did. And that was what he was for, now, wasn’t it? The others could reap whatever benefits Jon could manage to wrest from his new inhuman existence, and all the while they could remain insulated, assured of their own moral high ground and their own humanity when compared to him.

  Except that's a cop-out, isn't it? He would have hunted for statements regardless of whether it had any strategic benefit, taken over by instinct and hunger and need. No one is responsible for his actions except for himself.  

  Jon couldn't blame the others for how they treated him back then. But sometimes, a distant part of his mind would rail against the unfairness of it all, the double standards, the unclear and inconsistent demands. He was expected to be the Archivist - to sacrifice his humanity - whenever it was convenient, and then shamed back into submission the moment that power was no longer of immediate use. Too human and he wasn’t useful enough; too monstrous and he was an unacceptable risk. He was carving off pieces of himself to fit a mold that changed by the hour, until eventually he couldn’t recognize himself anymore.

  And always there was that wrenching pang somewhere deep inside him whenever he failed to meet those expectations. It had been there since he was a child, and it had only gotten worse in recent years. He couldn’t justify his continued existence if he couldn’t prove himself useful, and now, being useful meant... well, drowning. 

  Excuses, excuses. He could have just stopped. He had choices, and at every watershed moment he chose to continue digging. If he had hit rock bottom, would he have stopped? Would he have even noticed?  

           “You knew, didn’t you? You knew the sorts of things she did, and you let her.”

           “No,” Basira said. “Not exactly. I thought… it’s not that simple.”

           "It never is. But that doesn’t make it okay.”       

           “None of us are who we were, Jon.”

  It was cruel of him to put her on the spot like that, he knows. Basira had a much deeper bond with Daisy; of course she would be more willing to see and acknowledge the complexities of Daisy’s struggle. It’s… normal, to see the people you love in a rosier light than the people you distrust. Likewise, Martin still holds a grudge against Daisy for how she treated him in her interrogation, for what she did to Jon. Sometimes Martin's fingers will brush against the scar on Jon's throat and just for a moment, Jon will see a quiet, protective fury in Martin's eyes. He cannot understand how almost overnight, Jon came to see Daisy as a friend. Martin wonders sometimes whether it was just another clever way Jon had found to hurt himself, to punish himself, to put himself in danger.

  But Martin didn’t get to spend much time with Daisy after the Buried. He didn’t get to see how hard she was trying to get better. Just like Basira didn't get to witness Jon’s efforts.

  In fact, come to think of it… back then, Jon and Daisy both hid their weakest moments from everyone except each other, didn’t they? God, he misses her. No one else really understood what it was like to spend every waking moment resisting the call of a thing that could never be vanquished, which is exactly why sometimes Jon felt his hackles raise when they were held to different standards – especially when Daisy herself hated it just as much as he did. 

  None of that mattered, though. Everyone already thought him a monster, and he agreed with them. What was the point in pretending otherwise? He may as well be the monster, so no one else had to do it. (Excuses, excuses, excuses.) And besides, he liked it, didn’t he? He hated that about himself, but that didn’t make it any less true. So, he would make himself useful. If he got too dangerous, he doubted any of the others would have any qualms about putting him down. It shouldn't have been a comforting thought, but it was. Somewhere along the line, wanting to live had started to feel selfish. When had that happened?  

  But then… Martin.

  Talk to him, said the note. An outstretched hand in the form of three simple words. A belief that he wasn’t too far gone. No, not just a belief. An expectation. He was more than what he was becoming. Or, he could be. 

  Martin always saw him, didn’t he? Even when Jon didn’t deserve it –

  He doesn’t notice Martin’s abrupt stop until he crashes headlong into him, bouncing off his sturdy frame and onto the dusty ground with a quiet oof.

  “Martin?” Jon scrambles upright.

  “Yeah, I’m – I’m okay, I’m –”

  Martin is standing rigidly, staring off to the side, but Jon can still see the wild, frantic look in his eyes, the slightest sheen of tears there, the way he’s gnawing on his bottom lip.

  “Martin?” Jon asks again, more intent this time. Pushing himself to his feet, he reaches out a hand – and then falters halfway, leaves it trembling in the air between them. Martin sways somewhat on his feet. “Martin.”

  “I – what?” Martin turns unfocused eyes on him. "Jon?"

  “Martin, what’s wrong?”  

  “Nothing, it’s – I’m just – it’s –”

  “You’re bleeding,” Jon murmurs, closing the gap between them and reaching up to brush his thumb over Martin’s lip. He half-expects Martin to pull away. When the rejection doesn’t come, Jon is nearly swept away by relief. 

  “Oh.” Martin looks down and his eyes widen, as though he’s just now seeing Jon.

  “Tell me what’s on your mind,” Jon says evenly, careful to keep the compulsion out of his voice. He moves his hand to cradle Martin’s face, and Martin leans into his touch on reflex.

  “It’s… I keep thinking.”

  “Yes?”

  “I… it felt so much like curiosity, Jon.”

  “Ah.” Jon thinks he senses where this is going.

  “I – I didn’t realize until just now how it – I’m – I’m so sorry.” Martin chokes on the last word and a tear slides down his cheek.

  “Come here,” Jon says, lowering himself to the ground again and pulling Martin down after him. Martin sags against him, his breath coming in quiet hiccups, and Jon curls an arm around his shoulders. “Breathe. What are you sorry for?”

  “I thought I understood. About the Web.” Martin’s breath hitches. “I used to think it was – maybe exaggerated, how you felt? Or, no, that’s not the right word – I mean –”

  “More like a phobia than a rational fear.”

  “It’s – not that it isn’t rational, it’s just –”

  “Martin, it’s fine,” Jon says, running his fingers through Martin’s hair. “I have a history of paranoia and phobias, and – and I know I obsess, I overthink things. If I was looking at me from the outside, I’d think I was overreacting, too. I probably am sometimes. Which is what the Web wants.”

  “I didn’t say you were overreacting, I just thought – I thought maybe the actual threat was…” Martin bites his lip again. “That maybe it wasn’t as imminent as you were afraid it was. Or not as – as pervasive? I figured, if at least some of it was in your own head, I could actually…”

  “Actually what?”

  “That I could make it better,” Martin says meekly, a fresh wave of tears rolling down his cheeks. “I thought I could do something to protect you for once.”

  “You already do that."

  "How do you mean?" Martin laughs bitterly. "The only reason I'm still alive is because of you."

  "I think I could say the same," Jon says quietly.

  "You'd survive just fine on your own."

  "I don't want to just survive." It comes out harsher than he intended, and Jon forces gentleness back into his tone. "You are my reason, remember? And... and besides. You do protect me." Martin rolls his eyes, and Jon rallies again. "Yes, fine, there isn't much that could physically harm me here."

  Martin nods sullenly, an unspoken I told you so. 

  "But, I - I'm prone to self-sabotage, if you haven't noticed." 

  "Yeah." Martin sniffles, averting his eyes. 

  "You make me want to be better. You... you believe that's possible for me, even when no one else does, even when I don't believe it myself. Even when I don't deserve it." Jon shakes his head, his quiet laugh full of wonder and disbelief. "You see me in a way that I quite honestly don't understand, but it... it makes me want to be that person for you."

  "You don't really need me, though." 

  "I do need you," Jon says fiercely. Then, softer: "And - and even if I didn't, I want you with me." Jon coaxes Martin's chin up to look him in the eye. "I'm quite fond of you, you know." 

  Martin chuckles half-heartedly and rubs at his eyes. 

  "There's something else bothering you, I think," Jon says hesitantly. "I - I didn't Know anything, I promise, I just... it seems like there's more?" 

  "It's fine." Martin clears his throat, and when he continues, it's with a tone that could almost be considered composed if it wasn't for the way he steadfastly avoids eye contact. "Just, you know. The Web."

  "I'd like to listen, if you're willing to talk."

  "You don't have to -"

  "Let me take care of you?" 

  They've talked about this before. Martin's always been a caretaker. He's compassionate, and Jon will always be in awe of how adept he is at showing he cares with the simplest of gestures. Martin finds it fulfilling, prides himself on putting comfort into the world when it seems like none can exist. But he habitually prioritizes others at the cost of his own well-being, routinely blurs the line between compassion and destructive self-sacrifice. He never learned that cliché tenet of putting on his own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs. He doesn't know how to let himself be cared for, rarely even takes the time for self-care, and usually doesn't believe he deserves it in the first place. He feels an acute need to justify his existence by being useful, and for most of his life, it was the only way he knew to measure his own worth. The same could be said for Jon, really; it just manifested somewhat differently in his case. 

  But they've discussed it. They've been working on it.   

  Martin opens his mouth, starts to mouth the reflexive phrase - I'm fine - but capitulates when Jon says again, resolute: "I'd like to take care of you. Please let me."

  "Um. I... okay. Okay. I just - give me a minute."

  "Take all the time you need," Jon says, and returns to playing with Martin's hair. They're exposed here, but Jon would have ample foreknowledge of any approaching danger. Besides, this is an in-between space between domains, and Jon Knows that few things will go out of their way to seek out a confrontation with the Archive, especially outside of their own turf. 

  A few minutes pass before Martin begins to speak, starting slow before unraveling into a frantic confession. 

  “I’ve – I’ve never felt in control of my life, not really, but I’ve also never felt like I was being puppeted. It was just – circumstances outside of my control, or my own shortcomings, not – not some literal other mind pulling the strings.” One of Martin’s hands comes to rest on Jon’s knee, and he grips tightly, as if to remind himself of Jon's physical presence. “And – and if that’s a thing that actually happens, if it might be happening to me, how am I supposed to trust anything I do or think or feel? How do I – how do I know I won’t lose you, or – or betray you, or –”

  “You don’t.” Jon gives him a very small smile, a cross between wry and rueful. He shifts his position until he can touch their foreheads together, moving one hand to cup the back of Martin's neck. “We can never know for sure whether we’re being controlled. We could sit here, I suppose – take no action at all, wrap ourselves in doubt and fear.” Jon nudges Martin's nose with his own, urging Martin to meet his eyes. “But then we’ll also have to wonder if that was the Web’s plan all along.”

  “Oh, god, I’m dragging you back down the rabbit hole –”

  “No, listen. It’s…” Jon gives a considering hum and leans away slightly. “Actually, there’s one part of Annabelle’s statement that sits with me in a good way.”

  “What?” Martin says incredulously.

  “Just listen. ‘We all have forces that drive us, circumstances that direct us,’” Jon recites from memory, “‘and even if we choose to ignore these and act against all logic, just to prove that we can – is that not simply allowing the existential terror of our own powerlessness to control us instead?’”

  “And – and what about that do you find comforting?”

  “It’s… hmm." Jon takes a beat as he hunts for a way to best convey his meaning. "Do you remember the story I told you, about Mr. Spider?”

  “Of course,” Martin says softly, rubbing his thumb back and forth on Jon’s knee in a soothing, repetitive motion. Jon grounds himself in the touch and takes a deep breath before he continues. 

  “So - to this day, I still have the sense memory of being a passenger in my body. Like my veins were puppet strings, filled with - with hundreds of thousands of tiny scuttling legs. Like being pulled forward by a thousand minds and none of them my own.” Jon closes his eyes and swallows hard. This next part, he's never spoken aloud. “Worse, though, was the aftermath. I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility that maybe they had never left. That maybe they had just let the strings go slack for the time being. I was always waiting for a moment when the threads would be pulled taut, and I would realize that the Spider never actually let go. Sometimes I - I still feel the crawling, the tugging. It's my imagination, I know - just a tactile hallucination - but still, it can be... rather convincing at times.” 

  “That’s… horrible," Martin says, and he means it, but there's a note of confusion there: he's not entirely sure where Jon is going with this. 

  “The Web managed to cover a lot of bases when it marked me. Fear of spiders and cobwebs, yes, but deeper than that. That split second before opening a door where my heart stops because I can never really be certain that I know what’s behind it.” Jon realizes suddenly that this is the first time he’s ever put words to that fear, let alone admitted it to another person. He shakes his head and forces himself to continue. “Being watched, being manipulated. Being controlled, or being unable to control myself, and being unable to tell the difference between the two. Infectious self-doubt, and the fear that I’ll never be free of it.”

  “What does that have to do with –”

  “‘Is that not simply allowing the existential terror of our own powerlessness to control us instead?’” Jon repeats, staring ahead into the barren wasteland. “It makes me think… maybe there’s some freedom to be found in giving up the illusion of control.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll always be afraid of the loss of control, whether it comes from the Web or from my own mind. And if I let that fear immobilize me, well… that’s also a loss of control. Same outcome.” He combs his fingers through the soft, curly hair at the base of Martin's skull. “What the Web feeds on is that fear of being manipulated. It doesn’t matter what you think is controlling you or how you react to it. It doesn’t matter whether you’re frozen in place like a fly caught in a web, or if you're unable to stop at all, stuck in a loop of - of obsession or addiction or panic. The Web can feast on all of it equally.”

  “You do realize that none of this is especially comforting, right?” Martin says with a nervous, breathless laugh. 

  “I’m getting there,” Jon promises. “The Web is an unknown variable. That's what makes it so terrifying. The only way I can think to fight back against that sort of power is to just… accept the idea that you’re not always in control, and that you’ll never know for sure the moments when you aren’t. To tolerate the ambiguity, and try to keep moving anyway. It dilutes the fear, somewhat. You aren’t as tasty a meal if you put a name to what scares you and shine a light on it.” Jon smirks. “If nothing else, it’s a ‘screw you’ to the Spider.”

  Martin closes his eyes for a long few minutes, and Jon sits with the silence. Finally, Martin looks up and meets Jon's eyes again and gives him a weak smile. 

  "I know it doesn't solve everything," Jon says. "I still have my regular Web-related, uh... thought spirals, for lack of a better term. But I think it helps, to talk about it. The Web thrives best when its victims isolate themselves, lose themselves in hypotheticals and paranoia until they're paralyzed with doubt. It's harder to manipulate someone when they have someone to untangle them when they get stuck." 

  "It did help," Martin says after a moment, and Jon is relieved to hear the sincerity underlying the words. "Thank you."

  “Well, the only reason I managed to come to any of this in the first place is because you gave me a stick and a dirt canvas and let me rant myself hoarse about it.”

  Martin laughs, still sounding just a little raw and tearful. “I guess the conspiracy corkboard idea worked?”

  “Yes, Martin.” Jon rolls his eyes, but his demeanor is thoroughly fond. “Though I think blindsiding me with the concept of 'love as a choice we make' is what got me over the line in the end. Very poetic.”

  “And here I thought you didn’t like poetry.”

  “Speaking of that…" Jon fixes Martin with a look of faux reproach. "Did you really imply that you hate the theatre back there? After giving me so much grief about disliking poetry?”  

  “I think I did more than imply it,” Martin says, and there’s a goading edge to his tone now.  

  “That’s…” Jon shakes his head. “Okay. Explain, please.”

  “I’ve just never been a fan.” Martin shrugs, but the nonchalance falls apart as Martin tries and fails not to grin at Jon's dismay. 

  “Theatre is - it's such a broad umbrella, there’s no way you don’t care for all of it –”

  “Poetry is a broad umbrella, too.”

  “Yes, fine,” Jon says grudgingly. “Shakespeare was a poet, surely you can appreciate some of his contributions to theatre.”

  “You’ve spent your whole life hating poetry, Jon. You don’t get to imply that I'm uncultured.”

  “I don’t hate all poetry. Just most of it.”

  “You still haven’t told me what changed your mind,” Martin says with a teasing smirk. “I wonder. Could it have been –”

  “Yes, Martin.” Jon heaves an exaggerated sigh, but doesn’t bother to hide the fondness in his tone. “It was you. Obviously.”  

  “Just wanted to hear you say it,” Martin replies, absolutely preening at the admission. “I –”

  Jon leans in and covers Martin’s lopsided smile with a kiss before he can get another blasphemous word in. The apocalypse can spare them a few more minutes. 

     End Notes:

Title is from Mitski's "Francis Forever".

Any of the indented bits involving Francis or the Spider are from MAG 172.

The others are from, in order: MAG 148; MAG 152; MAG 146; MAG 147; MAG 141; MAG 155.

And of course the quote from Annabelle's statement is from MAG 147 as well.

[infographicisminetocommand]

You’re REWRITING trollhunters??? The disrespect,oh my god. Newsflash,asshole,these aren’t your characters,this isn’t your story,and if you feel the need to rewrite a show it means that you don’t like it enough to enjoy it on its own. So what are you still doing in this fandom? Go watch steven universe and join the su criticals bc you’ve officially reached their horrendous levels of arragonce and disrespect.

"Join the SU Criticals" is the best thing I have heard all day, holy shit. And it's my first (actually, second, I believe?) anon hate! Thank you! (I am being legitimately genuine here. I have no time for sarcasm unless it's funny.)

Anon, I understand your point of view. Honestly, I'm terrified the creators will see me doing my fan rewrite and get deeply hurt, because I've already done that in the past with my (crappy and deeply unwarranted) salt.

But it's important to know that my fan-rewrite is not an act of hate or exaggerated criticism. Rather, it's an act of self-indulgence and to an extent, love - it's basically fanfiction! And besides, not every show is perfect, and I apologize if that offends you. It's also important to know that if it does, it may indicate you've become too personally attached to media to the point that every slight criticism is an insult towards your person, and you should start doing a self-review. Trust me, when I let myself get stuck on the other end of the extreme - which, embarassingly, could be construed as me beginning to parallel SU Criticals - I ended up hurting the people around me by the overwhelming aura of my negativity. I was obsessed, and I had to take a step back to figure out what went wrong.

And I get it, it really does seem like it's an attack on the show, and the hard work the creators put into it. But as I've said, this is basically fanficfion. And it's a non-profit self-indulgence that I have no intentions of bringing to the mainstream (unless Dreamworks suddenly contacts me about stuff or something, but I'm a minor so that is unlikely to happen). So if the creators end up stumbling into my work and don't like it, hey, they're free to block me! Enjoy the parts of their fandom they wish to enjoy - and so do you. If the ethical implications of a fanrewrite bother you, click the block button and leave my blog. I don't want to spend my time being sent anon hate, and I don't want others to spend their time doing that and fall into the trap I fell in.

Also, I'm still very much fond of the main show. Season 1B remains one of my favorite seasons for a good reason.

And I do know someone who doesn't like seeing any form of Trollhunters criticism or seeing any of their NOTPs (specifically Warstaff, and honestly, who can blame her). She's valid! If that's the fandom experience she wants, then that's what she'll get.

Though, I do ask that you do some self-reflection, at the very least, and open yourself to the concept of fanrewrites by looking into the arguments of the positive. I don't want to live with myself knowing someone out there is going to get hot and bothered by something I'm doing for my own indulgency sake.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[omni-8bit]

2020 - 20 Facts Tag

20 random FACTS about yourself that may surprise people. Here are mine:

1. Do you make your bed? Yes. I am incapable of being comfortable in an unmade bed (I'm not exaggerating. It's a legitimate part of my OCD). But, I don't make my bed in the morning before because it makes for breeding grounds for dust mites, which I'm allergic to. So I make the bed before going to bed, even if I wake up my girlfriend.

2. What's your favorite number? 8

3. What's your job? Human Resources

4. If you could, would you go back to school? If it's college and if it were free, I would go in a heartbeat.

5. Can you parallel park? Yup! Almost better than I can park in a regular parking spot (I grew up in a town where parallel parking was the only kind in the downtown area and I worked downtown. I can even parallel park on a downward incline in a manual transmission vehicle. 😈)

6. A job you had which would surprise people? Despite being in the field since 2013, people are always surprised to find out I'm in HR.

7. Do you think aliens are real? I hate the term aliens, but yes. The Galaxy is too big for us to be the only intelligent life.

8. Can you drive a manual car? Yes

9. What’s your guilty pleasure? Uh... Pushing the boundaries of rules in a school or work setting because I want someone to prove that they'll enforce said rule? It's surprising how little it occurs.

10. Tattoos? So fucking many. Both my arms are done, my chest and shoulders, my left ribs, my hip, and most of my right calf.

11. Favorite color? Seafoam green

12. Things people do that drive you crazy? I legitimately have misophonia - so... Uh... People do a lot of things that drive me crazy but that's why I constantly am listening to music or podcasts so I don't lose my shit on co-workers or my loved ones who have done nothing wrong except. But non misophonia related - mansplaining drives me to rage.

13. Any Phobias? Snakes.

14. Favorite childhood sport? Basketball.

15. Do you talk to yourself? Uh... I talk through technical computer troubleshooting aloud but that's it really.

16. What movie do you adore? Moana.

17. Do you like doing puzzles? Not particularly.

18. Favorite kind of music? Solo Piano

19. Tea or coffee? I drink both obsessively, but if I had to choose, it'd be tea.

20. The first thing you remember you wanted to be when you grew up? I wanted to be a dolphin trainer for SeaWorld. Yikes.

Thanks for reading!

Tagging @natsora @sredmund @ieatlazers and @renwritesstuff

[iabsolutelyresentthiswebsite]

The Main Case For Rey Skywalker

Now, I have posted theories upon theories upon evidence upon justifications of why Rey is Rey Skywalker and I explained why I think she is Rey Skywalker. 

The allusions, the hints, the logical nature of the small leap of faith, the level of dynamism that can and likely will be present in all the relationships in this universe once she is revealed to be a Skywalker, the amount of plot elements that would be put into play because of the parentage, the possible unfolding of various different story-arcs solely because she is a Skywalker, every single thing that happened in The Force Awakens that illustrated to anyone really watching the movie that she is what I say she is...the fact of the matter is: Rey Skywalker is in the best interest of the franchise. 

I say this because it is the truth, not because I want it to be. Rey Skywalker would precipitate a myriad of different beneficial outcomes in the form of diverse relationships, intensification of internal and external conflicts, fascinating and likely painful exposition, a reliving of hurtful events and a sore past, and- if done properly- the eventual logical and satisfying end to Star Wars. 

However, I make the main case for Rey Skywalker not for that reason, but for another. 

Someone close to the franchise said something to this effect: “It doesn’t matter who her parents are”. Some people, especially Reylos (A/N: I understand why you don’t want her to be Rey Skywalker, so your argument against this is justified because you don’t want to ship incest. I get it. Nothing against you guys.), like to say that because of that, “there is no way she is Rey Skywalker because it would contradict that.”

No. It wouldn’t. It completely validates Rey Skywalker. 

Her being Rey Skywalker is literally the only thing that does not require substantial exposition in order to justify The Force Awakens. 

* Anyone with eyes can see all the parallels between her and Luke, and even Anakin. Her emergence into Star Wars perfectly resembles the emergence of a Skywalker in the saga. It’s why so many people are fiercely pro-ReySky. It makes sense. It’s literally in front of you. We see it, too. We see what they are trying to make us recognize. That we recognized it as a parallel is no mistake. It’s not simply to “bite off” of A New Hope. Everything in cinema is done for a reason and a prevalent reason why people are so against TFA is because they felt exactly that- “it’s a rehashing of A New Hope”, but not if she’s Rey Skywalker. Then it makes sense. 

Saying she is Rey Skywalker justifies and validates the parallels and reuse of visual representations. And this requires no explanation on the part of the writers or directors, it will happen once she’s revealed to be what many believe her to be.

If she happens to be a Kenobi, various questions are raised. 

How did Han know who she was when Maz asked, which is clearly alluded to? Han knew Obi Wan for like a few days. 

How does Kylo have a “Force-bond” with her? He never met Obi Wan and he clearly does not understand the true nature of Anakin Skywalker, who was affiliated with him. (And do not give me “It’s love!” I’ll bite you with that bullshit.)

If a lightsaber is basically the life-force of its wielder, why would Luke/Anakin’s saber choose Rey over Kylo? Kylo is blood-related, Rey Kenobi would not be.

Why is Rey’s emergence in the saga almost identical to Luke’s? It would boil this down to simple laziness and “biting” off of A New Hope, which severely delegitimizes The Force Awakens. 

And those are just 4 questions I thought of in like 2 minutes at 4am. If she’s neither a Skywalker nor a Kenobi, there is so much exposition necessary it would actually take a whole movie to help us understand it!

Many people say this other thing...that if she is a Skywalker, she has to “live up to the Skywalker name”. 

Wh-what the hell does that mean? 

Her grandfather would have been one of the most powerful Sith lords in their history and her father would be one of the most powerful Jedi. 

Living up to the Skywalker name is embracing the Force, which she’s already done and will continue to do in the next movie. That alone legitimizes her being a Skywalker and from that, I can move on. 

The biggest element of my post here is this:

There are so many legitimate ways she could be a Skywalker, of which I- and others- have posted many, that giving any kind of explanation why she was on Jakku that includes the desire to hide or protect her is literally explanation enough. 

I truly do not believe the person or people who left her on Jakku were her biological family, save Kylo Ren, who may have spared his little cousin’s life because he loved her. And if it was, it was likely not Luke or his wife themselves. It was extended family or friends who were trying to protect her. People knew Luke had a daughter, thus putting a target on this 4-year-old’s back, and wanted her on one of the most inconspicuous planets they could possibly find at the time, “that junkyard”, Jakku. It was far, far away from the Resistance, the First Order, and The Force, freeing her from all of her perceived obligations. Saying that people were trying to protect her or hide her makes her presence on Jakku make sense, but really only if she’s a Skywalker.

Her being a Skywalker requires little to no exposition because The Force Awakens told us she was. 

Moreover, it is literally the only parentage that means nothing- and everything at the same time- in the grand scheme of everything. 

Her being a Skywalker legitimizes a lot, opens up a lot of possibilities, precipitates events and character development, but does not change anything about who she is. 

No, it does not shift the focus to Luke. 

No, it does not shift the focus to the Skywalker family...(dude, it’s already there! it’s always been there!)

And NO, it does not change anything about her.

She simply gets a family she’s always wanted, but with a caveat that the family is messed up. 

I sit back and imagine Luke saying, “Rey, I am your father” and smile...for no other reason than the fact she now has a dad, an aunt, and a lunatic cousin...(okay, also because I’m validated!) 

She still can develop her abilities and she has nothing to live up to. Her grandfather was a Jedi-turned-Sith, her father is a ‘Jedi’, her cousin is obsessed with the Sith grandfather, and her aunt is very Force-sensitive, but did not train. It’s literally at a 50%-50% with the family so far. 

She can make her own choices. Make her own decisions. Prove herself, which she desires to. Find her calling, find her own truth. Choose her own destiny. 

She has so much going for her and she is trying to find her “place in all of this”, truly, what better way than to have your dad showing you one side and your cousin trying to get you to the other? 

She can become so powerful in both sides of the Force and we don’t really need to know which one because the Skywalkers do not have the best track-record in that department. 

It would be her and Kylo’s stories, both battling the Light and the Darkness. Both of them have so much of both sides inside of themselves.

Her being Rey Skywalker affects nothing except her last name, should she choose to accept it. She can still be Rey. I only call her Rey Skywalker to show others how steadfastly I believe in Luke being her father, but it does not change who she is at all. 

It, truly, means nothing for her to be Rey Skywalker in the grand scheme of things, except it emphasizes the urgency and escalates conflicts, both of which is good for storytelling, without sacrificing or changing her character at all. 

That Skywalker would be her last name would only and solely act as a catalyst to improve the story and add tension. 

So no, it does not matter who her parents are, even if she’s a Skywalker because her being one does not jeopardize her characterization, only serves to improve, and validates everything. 

[waterlilyvioletfog]

Rhaegar Targaryen was a Dick

Using real life, historical evidence, and based on what we know for sure (and also some speculation on what we don’t) (and also some things that I’ve seen most fans of the series agree as canon ex. KotLT was Lyanna). Oh, and by the way, SPOILERS.

DISCLAIMER: I love Jon Snow. He’s arguably my favorite character, both in the show and in the books. He’s intelligent, kind, honorable, and good (and far smarter in the books by the way) and I do agree that after the life he has had, Jon deserves everything he’s ever wanted. Jon, Sansa, Gilly, Davos, Grey Worm, and Missandei- they all deserve the Iron Throne. They deserve that after having such absolutely SHITTY lives. I am also pretty much a member of the Lyanna Stark Protection Squad. She’s blameless in all of the events in my eyes. She’s a teenager, for fuck’s sake, she goes with Rhaegar when she’s FIFTEEN years old, for Christ’s sake, and she gets WAY in over her head. Cut her some slack- in America, she wouldn’t have been able to vote, smoke cigarettes, or get drunk. She was not in any way responsible for the events that unfolded in her life. This is my stance on BOTH of these characters until there is sufficient evidence disproving my claims. MOVING ON. 

This past Sunday’s episode included a crucial scene where Gilly is reading from a book of an old maester, who wrote down everything because y’know, that’s the job of maesters. Fact. She asks Sam what an “annulment” means. He tells her, and it’s clear that he’s not really listening because he interrupts her sharing crucial information for the future of the show: this maester gave Rhaegar Targaryen an annulment on his marriage to Elia Martell, then in a secret ceremony in Dorne remarried him to “someone else.” Gilly never explicitly states the name of the other woman, but we can infer that the “someone else” is Lyanna Stark, who was revealed to be the mother of Jon Snow in the season six finale. Ergo, we can safely conclude that Lyanna Stark found out that she was pregant, told Rhaegar, they got married, and eventually Jon was born. (Actually she might have gotten pregant after the ceremony, but regardless. Something like that.)

While many fans (including myself) were screaming with joy at the thought that Jon is the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms (moreso than Dany, actually, because of the male primogeniture rule that most monarchies work with) others expressed rage at the thought of Elia Martell, Rhaegar’s wife, with whom he had two children, being set aside.  And rightfully so. 

YES, it is pretty widely understood that Princess Elia of Sunspear and Crown Prince Rhaegar were not in love. It was an arranged marriage, devised by the mad king. They were married at twenty and twenty-three, when all other options (in the eyes of Aerys) were either unacceptable or non-existent. Under ordinary circumstances (hell even in our universe) the annulment would’ve been perfectly acceptable. Their marriage was amicable, but divorce is always an acceptable alternative. I’m not saying that the divorce was bad. Hell no, it was probably a good thing. But the consequences of Rhaegar’s actions mean that the many people see that Rhaegar was a dick who screwed over his wife and kids. 

Through out Robert’s Rebellion, the Dornish fought with the Targaryen forces, knowing that if they did not, their beloved princess and her children (three years old and an infant) could easily be disposed of. Yes, the war basically started when Rhaegar kidnapped (we now know actually ran away with) Lyanna, “Shaming Elia” in the eyes of many, but that didn’t matter. Elia was in King’s Landing. Elia, beloved by her people, could not be risked. 

And oh, yeah, sure, Elia might have known that she and Rhaegar were divorced, but it is doubtful, but there is very little reason to believe that she was okay with it. Since, you know. She was still a hostage, and you might as well be destined to be queen if you’re gonna be a hostage. (Note that Targaryens were cool with polygamy so actually Rhaegar didn’t have to divorce Elia at all but whatever showrunners, we’ll ignore that for now.)

Remember that whole “Tyrion’s on trial for Joffrey’s murder” thing? And how Tyrion demanded a trial by combat in that awesome scene? And how Oberyn Martell volunteered as tribute to be Tyrion’s champion so he could avenge his sister Elia Martell and her children? And how that got Oberyn killed? And the insuing Dorne plot, which we all hated? Yeah. You do. 

Oberyn Martell needed to avenge the deaths of Elia Martell and her children due to Rhaegar’s actions; he and his father started the war, Elia and her children paid the price alongside them. 

So, after abandoning Lyanna in the Tower of Joy, Rhaegar proceeded to be murdered by Robert Baratheon. The Lannisters, figuring that “Yeah, the Targs are screwed” decided to march to King’s Landing and clear the way for the Baratheon forces. This was called the Sack of King’s Landing. 

Tywin Lannister, hoping to curry favor with Robert, sent on a couple of his goons (including the Mountain, Ser Gregor Clegane) to go kill Elia and her kids. Cause y’know. Tywin was a Bad Dude. 

Rhaenys Targaryen, age 3, was stabbed multiple times. Aegon Targaryen, who was even younger, was thrown against a stone wall. Elia Martell, at this point not even the wife of Rhaegar, was raped with the blood of her son still on her rapist’s hands, and had her skull crushed in. 

But here’s the thing: Sunday’s episode says that these deaths were pointless. Those weren’t Targaryen deaths. 

We can infer this using real life history. 

Back up a second, to King Henry VIII of England. The dude who had six wives. Yeah, him. 

King Henry’s first wife was Catherine of Aragon. Catherine was the Princess of Spain, and it was an arranged, political marriage. She was beloved by the people, and was certainly the longest marriage Henry had. They were married for nearly twenty years, but she only gave him one living child: a daughter, Mary. Henry couldn’t have that. He needed a legitimate heir. A son. 

Henry looked around his court, and lo and behold, his eyes fell upon Anne Boleyn, the daughter of an important emissary. She was feisty, tempramental, and extremely intelligent. She was unwed, and younger than Catherine, and soon Henry came to the conclusion that shit would need to go down so they could be married. 

So, Henry split off from the Roman Catholic Church and created the Anglican Church, which at the time was basically the same thing as Catholicism, but whatever, that’s not relevant. Henry could divorce his wife, and so he did. Meanwhile, he and Anne ran off to get married in a secret wedding (NOTE THAT CATHERINE PROBABLY HAD NO IDEA OF ALL OF THIS BEING A THING THAT WAS GOING ON), and she got IMMEDIATELY PREGNANT, so they had another  secret wedding, and then finally he and Catherine were officially divorced, so Henry and Anne had NOT secret wedding, blah blah corronation blah blah blah, out pops the baby. 

Oh, and while all the secret weddings and pregnancies were going on, Henry made his legitimate daughter, Mary, sign a contract that essentially said “My dad is a certified dick, but he believes in the power of true love to grant him the kid he needs, so I, after being a princess for all thirteen years of my life, do rescind my princess-hood and declare that I am a bastard. I have no (ZERO) claim to the throne, etc etc etc wow my dad was a dick.” 

When Henry got bored with Anne’s feisty, intellectual, quick-tempered-ness, he had her beheaded and made their daughter Elizabeth sign the same contract so that he could marry Jane Seymour, the only one of his wives to actually give him a son (though she, like Lyanna died from birthing fever). 

So, to sum up: THE PARALLELS BETWEEN RHAEGAR AND KING HENRY, ELIA AND CATHERINE, AND LYANNA AND ANNE ARE UNDENIABLE. 

Both Henry and Rhaegar were obsessed with having children (Henry a son and Rhaegar a second daughter) and both, upon receiving the information that their current wives were incapable of giving them more children, turned to the young women who were available. Henry chose the feisty, temperamental, quick-witted ANNE, a daughter of an important emissary, younger than his current wife, and Rhaegar chose the feisty, temperamental, sword-wielding LYANNA (c’mon, you get what I’m getting at with Anne and Lyanna being kinda the same, right?) the daughter of an important lord, younger than his current wife. Both married their respective second wives in secret ceremonies, either immediately before or after said wife becomes pregnant. Catherine and Elia, two “foreign” princesses (many people have noted the vaguely Spanish tinge to Dorne, in the show at the very least) who were beloved by their people, who gave their slightly unhinged husbands legitimate children, and who were set aside due to an inability to give said husband the child he needed. Both were divorced from their husbands, likely largely against their wills and without knowledge of it, and after each had been set aside, it was all for naught: Lyanna couldn’t give Rhaegar his Visenya, just as Anne couldn’t give Henry a son. Considering these parallels, it is not beyond the scope of the imagination that Rhaegar could also have had Rhaenys and Aegon made bastards, especially since we know from the books that Lyanna didn’t like the idea of Robert having children with women other than her! This means that the death of Elia, already being pointless, is now complemented by the pointless deaths of her two innocent children. 

That’s my two cents on why Rhaegar is a dick.