#Wesley Approves

[spoopieere-the-second]

I drew more collectkin… having fun.

See the full thing HERE (spice)

(Edit: the link works now lol)| (Edit 2: For fuck's sake the link keeps getting defunct- my twitter is @/BloodCitruses)

Bonus hehe :3

They just woke up <3

[spoopieere]

What happened at the hotel after the first movie (canon)

[pinazee]

If they ever have Kirk fight in SNW, i want him to do that dumb fucking jump kick shatner did all the time

[pixiereblogs]

Pixie Recaps Picard | The Bounty

[dcxdpdabbles]

Do you mind updating Alfred's boy? I just fell in love with your work and can't stop thinking about it lololol especially with Wes and Danny crushing on Jason as everyone else is crushing on Danny

It's the most complicated love shape I've seen since Miraculous and I can't get enough 💖

Bruce is working on some late-night emails.

He chose not to go out as Batman tonight just because his kids had a lot of pent-up energy they needed to release on some unsuspecting crook, and he got behind in his civilian persona.

Bruce also wanted to keep an eye on Wes and Danny. The day after the Opera, Danny took it upon himself to take Wes out into the city again, showing him not only Batburger but also the city's sights and arcade.

Alfred booked them both an entire afternoon in Gotham's most luxurious spa as a gift for Danny's hard work. When Danny and Wes came back, both seemed to be glowing and frankly, Bruce wouldn't be surprised if they had turned heads on their way home.

Danny made his children break their necks when he walked by the family room with a laughing Wes. After spotting Danny in a very uncharacteristic move, Damian even walked into the living room wall.

Jason had laughed so hard he choked on his spit. It took every year of training for Bruce to catch Damian mid-jump to save Jason from his younger brother's worth.

It was only the knowledge that Wes was a civilian staying in the manor and that if he saw them in a fight, their covers would be blown, stopping Damian from attacking Jason further.

Bruce was getting tired of this romance novel setting he found himself in. His children haven't stressed him out this much in years. Okay, that's a lie.

They always stressed him out, but usually, it was due to them making a stance against crime. Not a random young man who was dating (secretly) the object of their affection.

Wesley Weston was a delightful young man despite everything. Bruce would almost approve of him if it weren't for the fact that he seemed aware of the Wayne children's hostility and edged it on by being extra cuddly with Danny.

He was delighted for Danny to have a friend who had been making him this happy, but all good things must end. This would be Wes's last night in Wayne Manor.

Tomorrow, Wes will board a plane back through Clockwork's unique gate and be gone from their lives until he can visit again. That could take a while, as Alfred had informed him that Danny's parents were becoming a nuisance.

That could mean any number of things, but the most obvious was that Danny's location needed to stay hidden. No one could contact him from his home.

Bruce sighs, wondering how the boy will handle the news. Alfred chose to wait until Wes was out of the manor so his charge would not break down in front of his friend. It would mean the world to Danny, who closely held his emotions to his chest.

A knock interrupts his thoughts.

"Come in," Bruce calls, wondering who it could be. He is surprised to see a shy redhead pop his head in. "Wes, what are you doing up this late?"

"Sorry to bother you, Mr. Wayne. I couldn't sleep," Wes says, scruffing his feet on the carpet. He takes a moment to gather his strength, then straightens out his back. Bruce braces himself, feeling he won't like what the boy has to say. "I wanted to talk to you about assigning Danny a medical cuddle buddy."

Bruce blinks, feeling well out of his depth. Was that new teen lingo? "A medical cuddle Buddy?"

"It's like an emotional support animal." Wes starts, gesturing with his hands in a flip-flap sort of motion. Bruce noticed Danny tended to do the same when making an explanation. A culture thing? "His emotional, mental, and even physical well-being plummets when he goes too long without cuddling."

Bruce had concluded the same.

Over the last two days, he noticed that Danny had seemed far happier than the weeks he had been in the Manor. At first, he just assumed it was because he finally had someone who understood what he was going through. But now it was clear that it wasn't just the excitement of having Wes around. Danny looked as if he was healing from a long-term lack of nutrition.

It was not a lack of food, as Alfred would never allow anyone to go hungry under his roof.

There had to be something else.

"Danny isn't human," he ventures, watching Wes' body language. At once, the boy tensed up, a dark look in his eye and a precise curl of his lip indicating protective intensity. Bruce closes his laptop, curls his finger under his chin, and leans on them, giving his full attention. "I have no issues with Danny being anything other than human. But I need to know what I have to provide him to keep him healthy."

We hesitated for a long moment, staring back at Bruce like he was weighing the billionaire's soul. His intense eyes bore into Bruce's, flickering around his face as if trying to find a lie in his statement.

Eventually, the boy hesitantly responds. "Danny is part human. The other half is a being that relies on certain emotions to feed. The most common one is fear, which is why his parents tried to kill him when they found out his kind. Fear-based beings are...dangerous, so it was understandable even if it sucked."

Wes's face twists into a hateful and sad expression that lets Bruce know the kids are attempting to rationalize Danny's parents' behavior. He would make sure to tell Alfred not to allow the boy any contact with them. They held too much power over the kid.

"Danny isn't a fear-based than," Bruce prompts, to which Wes rapidly shakes his head.

"He isn't! Danny is....well, he's love-based. He feeds on different versions of love. Have you heard of the eight ancient Greeks' type of love?"

"I have"

Wes rubs his arm, looking relatively young for his age. "Danny feeds on Agape and Philia the most. He used to feed a lot on Storge, but well...you know how that turned out."

He did, indeed.

Does this mean Danny had already been cut off from a significant food source his people needed? Did it also mean that Danny wasn't the Fenton's by blood? How could they not know he was half of another being?

He needed answers to all the questions, but the most important one still resurfaced: "How does Danny feed?"

"Usually through physical contact. Emotions aren't corporal; they are felt through a body like a ripple in the water. When Danny touches someone who shares Agape or Philia with him, the ripples transfer from the contact to his core." Wes explained looking mroe sure of himself. "When I first arrived, Danny looked half-starved. He would have collapsed had it not been for Clockwork sending me."

That's alarming. "What could have happened if he went too long without any love?"

"His core would explode."

"And a core is?"

"Think of it like Danny's heart. It pumps his body with the energy his people need to survive. If it fails, Danny dies."

The last sentence hangs in the room like poisonous gas. Bruce feels his chest squeez at the mere thought that Danny would pass from soemthing they could easily provide for him. "I'll make sure that doesn't happen."

Wes cracks a shaky smile. "I figure you wouldn't. You seem like an okay guy. Can you make sure none of the ones feeling Eros towards Danny are his cuddle-buddy? I don't think his heart is ready for that just yet."

"Of course." Bruce was thinking of Alfred, Cass, Dick, Jason, and himself. All of them would quickly provide the emotion Danny needed. He tells Wes this with what he hopes is an assuring smile.

Wes shuffles his feet nervously before he yells, "Not Jason."

"Why?" Bruce asks, mystified.

"Danny might...um, have a crush on him." The boy mutters almost too low for Bruce to hear. He then glances up with a look of panic. "You can't tell Danny I told you!"

Bruce feels a headache coming on. Of course, out of all the children who had a thing for Danny, the boy chose one of the few of his kids who did not feel the same way. Knowing his son, Jason would probably think it was flattering but would gently let the boy down due to his age.

Jason refused to date anyone outside of a four-year difference from him in any direction. Danny was in for a painful confession.

Wait.

"Wes, what would happen if Danny experienced heartbreak? How does that affect his people?"

Wes blinks, confused, before shrugging. "I guess they die of heartbreak?"

Great.

I'm going to have to make Danny stay away from my second eldest like another stereotypical villain in Jason's romance novels. Bruce rubs his eyes. Or get him together with one of the others who actually likes him. Ugh.

He'll have to discuss things with Alfred. After all, that was his boy.

[wilwheaton]

Hey Wil- I ironically love that stupid Wesley Crusher gnome figurine in my local discount store…but I don’t know if it’s ok to buy it. Is this something that you profit from? Or did someone steal a (poorly executed) likeness of your beloved visage? I will happily smash all the offending ceramic doppelgängers if you command it! Or…I will take one home and lovingly tend to his needs and desires in my garden with your approval. Please help me decide!!??!!

I own one of these, myself, and I love it. If you have an opportunity to get your own, grab it. They are VERY hard to find.

[clockwork-fayz]

In honor of me finally reading Kingdom of Ash, here’s what I think the core group of characters sexuality meters are:

Aelin: 60% attracted to masculine men, 30% to herself, and 10% to women that act like herself

Rowan: 100% straight (sadly, but like he had a whole cadre of beautiful men and never once thought about it? SMH) but also 100% approves of everyone’s sexualities. You could say you are attracted to large ships and he’d be like okay, good for you!

Dorian: 40% attractive to any person with a pulse, 60% attracted to people that can kill him

Manon: 90% attracted to herself, 10% to Dorian but like reluctantly

Chaol: 90% straight, 10% Dorian

Yrene: 95% straight, 5% Aelin

Aedion: 100% poly

Lysandra: 50% to Aedion and 50% to Wesley but never had felt anything towards anyone besides that

Lorcan: 100% Elide (anything he felt for Maeve was actually the feeling of desperation disguised as attraction)

Elide: 100% the most toxic ass people (She says she can change them and she’s right actually)

[coraniaid]

There's an interesting symmetry in the pattern of Faith and the Watcher's Council appearances on Buffy.

It's perhaps worth noting that neither Faith not the Council are ever quite as integral to the show as fandom likes to suggest.

Faith only appears in twenty episodes across the entire show (plus six more in Angel), and is only mentioned in just over a dozen more. That means she appears in fewer episodes of Buffy than Daniel Osbourne, Riley Finn, Jonathan Levinson or Andrew Wells, all of whom can also boast of having somthing something Faith never had during her time on the show: a last name. ('Lehane' is a post-Chosen reveal to support a tie-in RPG.) She never appears in the opening credits, suggesting she has less of a claim to be a major character than any of Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles, Spike, Anya, Dawn, Angel, Cordelia, Riley, Tara or Oz. Faith isn't the first Slayer other than Buffy we meet, and she isn't the last. There is a run of over forty episodes in a row (starting from Blood Ties in Season 5) in which Faith's name is simply not spoken by anybody on screen.

It would be very easy for a casual fan of the show to completely forget that Faith ever existed. Pick a random episode of the show and there's a more than 75% chance she won't be mentioned in it.

The Watcher's Council are first mentioned by name in Season 3's Faith, Hope & Trick (the first episode in which Faith herself appears), though there were occasional references to Watchers other than Giles before that. We hear about Giles's father and grandmother having been Watchers before him in Season 1's Never Kill A Boy On The First Date; we're told about Kendra's Watcher Sam Zabuto in Season 2's What's My Line?; and we briefly see Buffy's unnamed first Wacher during a flashback in the same season's Becoming.  (Perhaps most notably, when she hears the prophecy of her own imminent death in Season 1’s Prophecy Girl, Buffy wonders what the Slayer after her will be like and asks Giles: “will you train her, or will they send someone else?”.) But the Council themselves, as a group capable of giving Giles orders, are only mentioned in a total of twenty episodes, and (other than Watchers like Giles and Wesley), representatives of the Council only appears in six of those twenty episodes. Buffy quits the Council in Graduation Day (the same time that she tries to kill Faith), and they never really feature much in her life after that.

It would be very easy for a casual fan of the show to completely forget that the Council ever existed. Pick a random episode of the show and there's a more than 85% chance they won't be mentioned in it.

And yet, if you pick an episode with Faith in it, the odds of the Council being mentioned increase from less than 14% to exactly 60%. If you pick an episode with the Council in it, the odds of Faith being mentioned jump from under 23% to over 83% (the only episode to feature the Council which doesn't mention Faith is their last appearance in Never Leave Me). This isn't just because both of them feature heavily in Season 3, either.

Giles refers to the Watchers' Council by name for the first time when he tells Buffy that "the Council has approved our request" for Faith to stay in Sunnydale. Faith does not appear in Helpless (she couldn't, or the episode wouldn't work) but unlike in previous episodes where she isn't around her absence is noted. Giles convinces Buffy in part to spend time staring at the crystals he will use to hypnotize her and drug her by favorably comparing her to Faith: "since Faith is not interested in proper training, I must rely on you to keep up with yours". The Council come to Sunnydale in Consequences and This Year's Girl and Who Are You? to abduct Faith and either kill her or take her away to England. The one time Buffy says Faith's name in Season 5 -- the one reason that run of forty episodes I mentioned earlier isn't a run of fifty-two episodes -- comes when the Council visit again in Checkpoint and she remembers that "when I was Faith" the Council tried to kill her. (Buffy also brings up the Cruciamentum for the first time since Helpless in this episode; another time that the Council tried to kill her.) The Council's last ever mention on the show comes in Dirty Girls, which is also the episode in which Faith returns to the show.

None of which, of course, is a coincidence. While the show doesn't care about Faith or the Council as much as the fandom does, they do both have a very clear and deliberate metaphorical meaning. Faith is Buffy: the Buffy we see in When She Was Bad and in Anne and the Buffy we later see clawing her way out of the grave in Season 6. A Buffy with no friends or family, a Buffy who desperately wants some sort of parental figure in her life but refuses to listen to anyone who she thinks might be trying to control her or stop her enjoying being a Slayer. And the Council are an embodiment of all the worst parts of Giles we see in the first two seasons: Watchers who only see Buffy as a weapon and refuse to let her have an ordinary life, who risk her life and her mother's life for no good reason, who give her orders and offer scraps of information but are revealed ultimately to be hollow and powerless.

(I've complained a lot before about fandom trying to pretend there isn't this sort of complexity to Buffy and Giles's relationships in the early season -- that Buffy doesn't have nightmares about her Watcher secretly being one of the monsters who wants to kill her, or that he doesn't make unjustified and hypocritical attempts to contol her personal life while shutting her firmly out of his, or that Joyce isn't justified in being angry at Giles for what he's been putting her daughter through for years -- but it's only fair to note that this is something the writers do too. The Cruciamentum of Helpless becomes, in Buffy's later retelling in Helpless, something that "the Council" did to Buffy, as if it wasn't Giles who drugged her and lied to her face about it; as if Giles really had made the conscious decision to choose Buffy over his career as a Watcher and not been forced into it by being fired. But remember what Giles says in Helpless: how he justifies the need for Buffy to study the crystals he shows her -- to undergo the preparation for the Cruciamentum in other words. This is a part of a Slayer's "proper training", and since Faith is "not interested" in that he has to rely on Buffy.)

Faith is the part of Buffy who stubbornly rebels against all authority and the Council exist to be an authority that Buffy is justified in cutting all ties with. No wonder then that the Council spend so much time trying to capture or kill Faith. No wonder that their fates are intertwined so thoroughly.

No wonder that Buffy's early Season 2 nightmare of being murdered by her Watcher ("I mean, I've killed you once: it shouldn't be too difficult to do it again") becomes, by Season 5, a memory that "when [she] was Faith" (or When She Was Bad, you might say...) "the Council" tried to kill her. No wonder we never see Faith go through the Cruciamentum: Faith does not have anyone in her life she trusts enough to be betrayed like that. No wonder that, since Faith is the part of Buffy who refuses "proper training" from the start, Buffy is forced by the Council -- and by Giles -- to symbolically undergo the Cruciamentum in her place.

[vigilskeep]

why the kirkwall chantry is dedicated to hessarian, and why that gives us more than just a cooler name for it with a sexy accusatory nickname for anders in there somewhere: an illustrated guide!

(wait, wait, please remind me who hessarian even is, i hear you ask. hessarian was the tevinter archon who ordered andraste’s execution on the pyre. but struck with guilt at the last minute, he mercifully (i GUESS) killed andraste with a sword rather than let her suffer in the fire. he converted to andrastianism a decade later and took the rest of the imperium with him. he’s really popular in tevinter because, you know, he kind of improves their whole role in the story, and the chantry there likes to think he’s the most important disciple. you may recognise him from being one of the spirits in the urn of sacred ashes gauntlet, from the lore behind the blade of mercy gift for fenris, and the ‘blades of hessarian’ group on the storm coast in inquisition.)

okay, let’s first get the basics down: why do i think the kirkwall chantry is dedicated to hessarian? merrill, our glamorous tour guide to andrastian nonsense, is going to show us why

here’s merrill examing the architecture of the kirkwall chantry. and it’s covered in this guy!

how do we know this guy is hessarian? let’s compare it to some other, canonical andrastion depictions of the latecomer disciple. hessarian is typically depicted with some type of crown or headwear to demonstrate his status in tevinter, robes to denote him as a mage, a long beard probably also symbolic of tevinter culture at the time, and, of course, his blade of mercy. we can see all of these on the figure repeatedly shown in and outside the kirkwall chantry, as well as a certain similarity in the face to the other depictions.

here’s another variant of how the kirkwall chantry depicts the blade of mercy! these are Everywhere, including right over the doors.

and here’s more variants of the same figure inside. he’s carrying some kind of incense burner instead of a sword here, but it’s clearly the same face with the same crown and that classic hessarian beard. note his position of power flanking the enormous andraste figure.

so... why does that matter? isn’t it just a repeated asset?

no, it’s CRAZY actually. and here’s a couple reasons why!

(fascinated by genitivi’s word choice of glitzy mansions, btw.)

firstly, the kirkwall chantry’s dedication to hessarian’s figure is one of the biggest markers that it, along with the gallows and the darkspawn, is a legacy of tevinter. as i said, he’s the favourite there. kirkwall was once emerius under tevinter’s rule, and from the moment we see the weeping twins that welcome you into the city, we’re supposed to remember that the city of chains has not changed all that much. just as emerius’ prisons now incarcerate mages, its industry is now powered by refugees, and the worst parts of its lowtown hold elves probably just as they once did, its magisters’ estates continue to hold the most powerful voices in the city: in this case, that of the chantry and grand cleric elthina. the hessarian statues that demonstrate the chantry’s wealth and power are inarguably either tevinter made or at least made in their style, with such similarity to the statues of slaves that terrorise the gallows courtyard. hightown is no more free of that inheritance than the circle.

secondly, the focus on hessarian can’t be an accident in dragon age 2, a game obsessed with the mercy kill. “without an end, there can be no peace,” says flemeth. somebody has to kill wesley rather than watch him turn into a ghoul. anders has to kill karl. hawke possibly has to kill their other sibling if they catch the taint in the deep roads. varric can kill bartrand when he goes insane. killing the serial killer of elven children rather than letting his madness continue is one of the most universally approved decisions in the game. in her last words, leandra thanks you for ending the mage keeping her alive with twisted necromancy, even if, and especially because, it means the end of her suffering in death. merrill has to kill a possessed keeper marethari. many more can be killed for being “too dangerous” to live, like the blood mage idunna. orsino is slain by hawke after transforming into a monster he would never have wanted to be. there’s probably a dozen more examples i can think of. and of course, in one of the most game-defining decisions hawke has to make, there’s the option to kill anders after the destruction of the kirkwall chantry. merciful is not the word i would use for that, but it has certainly been framed that way. i suppose that’s the same as what i think of hessarian’s actions, isn’t it? (we’re focusing on the andrastian relevance here and not the godawful treatment of mentally ill people in this game, btw, although. yikes.)

“don’t compare yourself to andraste,” says sebastian to anders. he could try telling the game that. hawke gets cast into a lot of roles, but when anders believes they will kill him, he’s casting himself as the martyred andraste, dying to burn rebellion into the face of thedas, and hawke as his hessarian, quick with the merciful blade. i suppose it’s fitting that the kirkwall chantry should be consecrated in the image of its champion. and that the chantry covered in that image gets destroyed moments before hawke makes their choice, if they decide to make a different one. it’s also worth mentioning that meredith is a mimic of andraste, too, with her stolen crown, making anders and meredith obvious combatants for andraste’s legacy in the game. hawke doesn’t get much command of the narrative, but maybe they can at least dodge being anders’ hessarian, if they choose.

idk i think it’s really fucking cool and we should talk about it more, basically! there’s a lot of other angles to take. hessarian is such a fun lore figure to explore. for example, i didn’t even get into the prominence of an andrastian mage figure here, or that the blade of mercy is the symbol of the templar order and was invoked even earlier, in dao, as the “blade of mercy” by traumatised mages who desperately sought to be purified by the templars’ judgement.

also, i think ‘the chantry of hessarian’s mercy’ sounds good. maybe ‘the chantry of our lady’s spilled blood’? that could be sexy. whatever. i’m workshopping it

[justafriendofxanders]

wesley and willow were truly wonderful executions of teacher's pets. like they really captured the duality of the superiority/inferiority complex and that relationship to authority where they want its approval and appeal to it when they know it can benefit them, but at the same time consider themselves the smartest person in the room and also the most qualified to make decisions for other people <3

[spoopieere]

“They both get to sleep-in today”

(Click for better quality)

(WOW TUMBLR FUCKED UP THE QUALITY SO BAD WTH)

This is literally just an excuse for me to draw their bedroom.

Headcannons below 👇

-Clean and simple- Asa doesn’t like clutter.

-There’s a walk-in closet on the right of the mirror (you just can’t see it in my drawing lmao)

-Asa wakes up first to pull the curtains, letting the sun in. ( Not on weekends though, so Arkin does it instead )

-Random books Asa keeps stacked on the drawer are for a convenient selection to read before bed.

-Asa uses melatonin gummies to fall asleep easier.

-Arkin keeps post-it notes on his side of the bed to remind him of things to do, he also convinced Asa to put a plant in the room to make it a bit more interesting.

-Arkin is also the only one who needs an alarm clock to wake up.

-Arkin protests keeping *the tooth* on display so publicly, but Asa thinks it goes hand-in-hand with the Mantis.

-Pretty sure Asa vacuums their bedroom once every two days.

-The bottom drawer of their dresser is a collection of broken bed frames… due to their . . . activities (Wesley approves)

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Proposed voter ID restrictions will not only stop many Albertans from participating in local elections, but taken in the context of other "democratically questionable moves in Bill 20 and Bill 18" it is a sign of growing threats to "core democratic values" in the province, says University of Alberta political scientist Jared Wesley.

Alberta's election guidelines allow voters who don't have identification to be vouched for by someone in the same voting area who has approved ID and signs a declaration stating they personally know the other voter and can verify their eligibility and address.

Changes to the Local Authorities Election Act (LAEA) introduced in Bill 20 would prohibit the use of vouching in municipal elections except to verify an address, such as cases where a driver's license lists a post office box instead of a home address.

Wesley said the move is concerning from a democratic inclusiveness standpoint, because the people who don't have voter ID are usually the most marginalized in our community. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @abpoli

[whumpsoda]

We Search For Stolen Personhood - Graham

Masterlist

cw: pet whump, box boy universe/bbu adjacent, Institutionalized slavery, conditioned whumpees, recovering whumpees

——————

Mutt lied against the bed frame, gnawing at his lower lip as he pulled the bedding up to his lap, fists clenched over the fluffiest of blankets he’d never before used. Wesley slept on the top bunk now, so Mutt could sleep on the bottom one. He’d refused at first, but after Wesley’s insistence on him using a bed he had warily given in.

It was very comfortable, he thought, much better than his crate. Too comfortable. Soon enough he was going to forget his place and step out of line. He already had, sitting on the furniture like that. Like the person that he couldn’t be.

Then again, he recalled what Wesley had explained to him. About all the rescue stuff. These people - they weren’t owners at all, Wesley had said - didn’t want him to be a pet anymore.

Did he?

He’d gotten good at using Wesley’s new name. It came to him with ease, as if Prince had never been right. That made him think maybe… Mutt wasn’t right either.

He swallowed, hard. “G- Graham. Graham.” He blurted from below, just before Wesley could completely drift off to sleep, words cracking in the middle.

Wesley soon replied back, deep drowsiness dripping from his croaking voice. “Huh?”

“You said…,” he was doing it. He was doing it. “Pick a name. Graham.”

Wesley was quiet for a moment, the sound of the two’s breathing all that filled the space as his tired brain processed. “That's… I like it. You look like a Graham.”

Graham breathed out, trembling almost, in relief. “Really?” The idea that he could ever look like he had a name at all was mind blowing.

“Yeah.” Graham heard him let out a little giggle, low and gravely with sleepiness. “Do… do I look like a Wesley?”

“Yes! Yes. Really.” He stumbled, holding his face in his hands with excitement. He shoved down the overwhelming urge to kick his feet and laugh, to dance around the room until he was too tired to move. To act completely unlike himself, overcome with giddiness.

Him. Giddy. His master would have never allowed it. Oh, he was being so bad.

Your master isn’t here, though.

He could hear the nod in Wesley’s voice. “Graham and Wesley. That’s good.” Wesley’s approval only squashed more of the butterflies in his belly, bringing on a swirling warmth of honeydew sweetness instead.

“Do you think… everyone will like it?”

“Who cares if they don’t?” He whispered faintly. “It only matters if you like it. That’s what Isaac said.”

“Oh.” He digested that for a beat, hesitating. Did he like it? Could he? “I like it. A lot.”

“Good.” Wesley shuffled around in bed, getting comfortable again. “Goodnight… Graham.”

He desperately hoped he wasn’t dreaming. That he could wake up tomorrow with a real name for himself, and he would never have to let it go. “Goodnight, Wesley.”

——————

Masterlist

Taglist - @softvampirewhump @ivymyers @taterswhump @octopus-reactivated @tippytappytyping

@distracted-obsessions @starfields08000 @bitchaknso @silly-scroimblo-skrunkl @scoundrelwithboba

If anyone wants to be removed or added to the taglist, please let me know! :)

[anneapocalypse]

On Aveline’s Core Value

Disclaimer: This post is necessarily going to be critical of some of Aveline’s actions. I want to say upfront that my intent isn't to bash Aveline, but as someone who likes her and finds her interesting as a character, to explore her motives and understand her better. That said, if that’s not for you, feel free to scroll on by!

Also, warning for mention of sexual assault.

The same traits that make Hawke's "essential" companions stick by Hawke no matter what are also their greatest character flaws. I love this and find it utterly fascinating.

Aveline’s core value is loyalty.

I would argue that she values loyalty even more highly than law and order. I think loyalty is the primary trait she admires in her first husband, Ser Wesley. Aveline isn’t particularly religious herself; what she sees in Wesley is a man who believes in something, who has dedicated himself to a cause with absolute certainty. Aveline craves certainty and order in her life, and hates feeling doubt and confusion, something that comes up both in her short story “Aveline” and in her post-“Night Terrors” apology quest, “Doubts That Linger.”

She says Wesley was “a good man.” We don’t really have much to go on firsthand, since all we see of Ser Wesley is him menacing apostates fleeing the Blight, and then dying. But notice how Aveline responds to the menacing! “Dear, they saved us. The Maker understands.” Wesley’s duty as a templar is less important to her than showing appropriate deference to the people who have proven themselves allies. In my most recent playthrough, I rivaled Aveline for the first time ever, and I think it’s fascinating that in a rivalry, Aveline’s attitude toward Hawke is very much that she owes Hawke, rather than particularly liking them.

As a member of the guard, Aveline’s beef with Captain Jevan isn’t that he is incompetent, too soft or too hard on crime. It’s that he’s selling out his own people. It’s not merely that he is unlawful; it’s that he is disloyal that really grinds Aveline’s gears. Her own term as Guard-Captain is marked, not by a decrease in violence or crime generally, but by higher safety standards for the guards themselves. Her main point of pride is not that she has made Kirkwall safer but that she has made the Guard safer. She’s happy to let mercenaries like Hawke handle the various gangs that stalk the streets at night, and never indicates that she thinks this should be her jurisdiction, instead remarking that she doesn’t make her men “fight in dark corners.” So… what is their job, exactly, if not making the streets safe?

We also know that Aveline by her own admission has aided the templars by turning over apostates. Yet she never does so to Hawke or any of Hawke’s mage friends. In this regard, she’s similar to Fenris; Sebastian at one point broaches the subject of telling the templars about Hawke’s mage friends, to which Fenris says, “Work it out with Hawke”; it’s not that he disapproves, but that he refuses to betray Hawke. And if you take Fenris along for “On the Loose” and let Emile go, Fenris will rat him out to Meredith, so we know he’s willing to turn in mages in general. Like Fenris, Aveline is consciously making an exception for Hawke and Hawke’s friends.

Three years into Aveline’s tenure as Captain, it is suggested that, horrifyingly, she may have been dragging her feet on investigating rumors of sexual assault by her guards. This is particularly ironic as Aveline calls Isabela a “selfish little shit” for holding onto the Tome of Koslun the whole time—a fair criticism, except for the fact that had Aveline not been more concerned with protecting her own than making Kirkwall safer, the murder that was the catalyst for the Qunari invasion might never have happened. Isabela was responsible for the Qunari being in Kirkwall in the first place, but Aveline also bears a share of responsibility for that situation ending in violence.

This is why it makes sense for her to approve if Hawke lets Castillon go just so Isabela can get his ship. Despite Aveline’s long-running tension with Isabela, by Act III she considers Isabela to be one of her people. As she says to the Arishok, “Oh, no. If anyone kicks her ass, it’s me.” I think when she finds out about the tome, she’s angry not just because Isabela is responsible, but because in keeping it a secret she placed her own interests above everyone else’s, including her own friends; she was disloyal to them. When Isabela returns with the tome, she proves her loyalty, and Aveline notably softens on her in Act III. So Hawke refusing to defer to Isabela’s wishes here makes Hawke lawful, yes, but it also makes Hawke disloyal.

And in the end, Aveline will fight at Hawke's side under nearly all circumstances, because she is loyal above all else.

[raisedbythetv89]

I will forever be ENRAGED by the fact that xander/willow/anya/giles/riley/cordy/wesley have the strength to stake vampires with just a stake because it renders the need for a slayer completely redundant and unnecessary if literally ANYONE can do it. Xander lands hits on vamps and even a hit with a crowbar ON GLORY.

The inconsistencies in order to make it so xander, riley, and the other scoobies - pre magical abilities - aren’t completely useless drives me fucking insane. Xander and Riley should have died 1 million times over and shattered his entire arm the first and only time he tried to punch a vampire. Them all taking over slaying for Buffy while she was gone between season 2 and 3 IS SUCH A FUCKING JOKE like whose decision was that???

And the even more annoying thing is it low-key makes sense that in the world of btvs that “the chosen one” one girl in all the world is total bullshit and just propaganda to enlist and isolate use young women because the show itself was presented to us as this super feminist show. When in reality the levels of misogyny and abuse of Sarah and others is frightening so the lore of the council/slayer mirroring the relationship with the show and it’s femme presenting audiences makes an awful kind of sense. Like “no this is super progressive and all about girl power!” Meanwhile we watch Buffy get blamed for everything under the sun that isn’t her fault and judged and shamed constantly while being held to ridiculously impossible standards and the show’s creator was constantly trying to punish his female audience for loving characters he didn’t approve of and traumatizing us.

BUT I DON’T WANT THAT. I DON’T WANT BUFFY’S CALLING TO BE BULLSHIT. I want her to be an actual necessary superhero where her sacrifice fucking matters and when you have all these humans punching and staking vampires without MAJOR assistance like flamethrowers and crossbows etc it cheapens it SO MUCH because why the fuck can flimsy little willow plunge through like 8 layers of tissue and split ribs in order to reach the heart of a significantly more durable non human???? Like I could scream - so many things in buffy had such an attention to detail but the fluctuations in Buffy’s strength and capabilities and those of the scoobies that fly directly in the face of their own rules of the universe that literally lessen the impact and importance of our superhero just

Jw will do anything to make xander not completely useless fr like angel being like “I can’t do CPR I have no breath” like WAT vampires don’t REMOVE the o2 from the air????? He could have totally given her cpr 😭 but of course wh*don would sacrifice the impact of Buffy’s strength and ignore logic and science in his own world for the sake of making men like xander and riley seem like they actually matter

[craftykittyscientist]

hello everyone!

I want to talk about Marcellus Williams, also known as Khaliifah, who is scheduled to be executed in Missouri on September 24th for a crime DNA proves that he did not commit. There are several glaring injustices surrounding his conviction, including mishandling of evidence.

BACKGROUND: Marcellus "Khaliifah" Williams was sentenced to death for the tragic 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle, who was stabbed to death in her own home. The perpetrator left considerable forensic evidence at the crime scene, none of which matched Mr Williams. The prosecution case was based entirely on the unreliable testimony of two witnesses who were incentivised by promises of leniency in their own pending criminal cases and reward money. Neither of them provided new information, and their accounts conflicted with each other, their own prior statements and also crime scene evidence. They could also not be independently verified. In 2015, Missouri Supreme Court stayed Mr Williams' execution and appointed a special master to review DNA testing.

THE TESTING SHOWED THAT MR WILLIAMS WAS NOT THE SOURCE OF MALE DNA FOUND ON THE MURDER WEAPON. Nonetheless, in 2017, the special master sent the case back to the Missouri Supreme Court, who then rescheduled the execution WITHOUT CONSIDERING THE DNA TESTING. The then Governor, Eric Greitens, stayed the execution AFTER Mr Williams' last meal, and convened a board of inquiry to investigate the case. Under Missouri law, the stay of execution was to remain in place until the board of inquiry concluded its review and issued a formal report. EVEN SO, the current Governor Mike Parson, without warning or notice, DISSOLVED THE BOARD WITHOUT REPORT OR RECOMMENDATION WHILE THE INQUIRY WAS STILL GOING. The Attorney General Andrew Bailey then sought a new execution date. Mr Williams attempts to sue Governor Parson for violation of the law and his constitutional rights, but the lawsuit is dismissed in June 2024. The execution is set for September.

MISHANDLING OF EVIDENCE: In January 2024 there was more movement with the case as St Louis County prosecuting attorney Wesley Bell concluded Mr Williams was innocent (due to the DNA evidence) and moved to vacate his conviction. The findings of three independent DNA experts was reviewed, again, all three of them concluding that Mr Williams' DNA was not on the murder weapon. Sickeningly, it has also been found that there was CONSIDERABLE MISHANDLING OF FORENSIC EVIDENCE. The office of Attorney General Andrew Bailey himself stated that the knife used to kill Ms Gayle had “been handled by many actors, including law enforcement", and FOR THIS REASON, Mr Williams could not be exonerated! There was also DNA from an investigator for the prosecutor’s office at the time of Williams’ trial, and the prosecutor who handled the case could also not be excluded. In fact, that prosecutor stated that HE TOUCHED THE KNIFE AT LEAST FIVE TIMES WHILE NOT WEARING GLOVES! To Attorney General Bailey, it seems that this heinous miscarriage of justice is more reason to execute Marcellus Williams rather than exonerate him.

RACIAL BIAS WHEN SELECTING JURY: Another injustice in the Marcellus Williams case was the selection of a mostly white jury: eleven white jurors to one Black juror. This was not a coincidence - Keith Larner, the assistant prosecutor during the 2001 trial, removed six of seven qualified potential Black jurors, including one because he thought he looked like Mr Williams. Mr Larner was questioned about this in the recent hearing, and Kansas City Star reports, "They looked like brothers — familial brothers, not Black brothers, Larner tried to clarify." Furthermore, one prospective Black juror was not selected because he worked for the Post Office, and postal workers, according to the prosecutor, tend to be "very liberal". Nonetheless, he still approved a white post office worker for the jury. The jury took less than two hours (including lunch) to decide to sentence Marcellus Williams to death.

what you can do to help is sign the petition, talk about this, and share! save an innocent man’s life.

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