#aka he's letting other people's actions-not even ones directed to or at him-bother him

[yourlocalcorviddad]

Love my roommate getting home from whatever and just stomping around and slamming things down in the rest of the apartment 🙃

[moonpool-system]

Plurality in Slay the Princess: Part 1

[pt: Plurality in Slay the Princess: Part 1]

Imagine you're standing facing the unknown, and then a little internal voice begins narrating everything you see.

[The Narrator] "You're on a path in the woods. And at the end of that path, is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin, is a princess. You're here to slay her; if you don't, it will be the end of the world."

He seems pretty biased.

One of the best indie games to come out in 2023 was Slay the Princess, an indie horror/romance visual novel featuring your player character and the being he's meant to slay, known simply as The Princess. However, you're not alone, in more ways than one- both your player character and the Princess display clear aspects of plurality - aka, multiple identities residing within/utilizing a singular physical body. This can take many forms in real life, from disordered to non-disordered variants, and a good few of them are prominently recognized in this visceral narrative experience.

After the read-more will be some spoilers from the various choices you can make throughout the early game- so while this is part 1, there will be no endgame spoilers yet! It'll start off with Chapter 1 and go deeper from there. If you're intending on playing the game, we HIGHLY recommend you play only after reading Chapter 1 information, or only after this part 1 at most! It's best experienced blind as possible, and trigger warnings are present upon opening the game. This analysis took a while to write, so please consider reblogging if you enjoy!

...

Right from the beginning, the plural undertones of the story are clearly apparent. Once the Narrator stops speaking, you as the one controlling the body are able to communicate by asking various questions directly to the Narrator to press upon, enthuse over, or counter his point. The Narrator is speaking to you mentally, but is not you.

If you continue on the path to the cabin, you're presented with someone else speaking to you internally, titled as "The Voice of the Hero". The Narrator quickly responds with "Ignore him. He doesn't know what he's talking about." This situation tells us a lot of interesting things! First off, the Hero defers to the pronoun "we" - as he's clearly responding to the Narrator's direction, the other individual in this situation must be the controller of the body. The Narrator reinforces this concept by talking directly to you, telling you to ignore the Hero. So right off the bat, there are three people in this body- the Host, whom is being controlled by the player, the Narrator, and the Voice of the Hero. They stay with you throughout (most of) the entire game, so even without much happening, the main character is very blatantly plural. The only thing we can tell about them so far is that they're a polyconscious system, wherein each member displays their own individual consciousnesses rather than sharing one, and can all perceive the world using separate streams of thought.

Let's say you head to the cabin, speak to the Princess, and don't even bother taking the pristine blade meant to slay her, as you're intent on saving her. You speak to her with options using "quotation marks" to indicate vocal speech rather than how you've been thinking to the other members of your system, and you free her from her bindings. Just as you're walking up the stairs, the Narrator decides to try and impose his decision instead, and save the world by using the arm of the body to raise the blade to her. Being in control of the body as a plural/system is called fronting, and oftentimes in intense circumstances, one member can "take" the front from another. This is what we see in the desperate Narrator, and the fact that the Hero expresses his frustration at the Narrator's actions at the same time indicates once again that the members of this system are polyconscious.

You resist the Narrator and warn the Princess, and she also notices and addresses the sudden shift in motivation. She then takes the blade, and uses it haplessly against you in self defense. Such is this end of Chapter 1; everything goes dark, and you die.

!!! CHAPTER 2+ SPOILERS BEGIN HERE !!!

[pt: !!! Chapter 2+ spoilers begin here !!!]

Chapter 2 is titled "The Damsel". When everything loads, you're back where you were before- the Narrator doesn't seem to remember you or what happened, but you and the Hero clearly do.

Not only that, but another character has joined the mix since your supposed death- The Voice of the Smitten loudly proclaims his love for the Princess and hatred for the Narrator. Plus, he says something unique- he mentioned "the four of us" foiling the Narrator's "assassination attempts". This four includes the Princess, the Smitten, the Hero, and the Host/player, establishing how everyone here perceives the others as separate entities. Plus, now that naming consistency with the others established, the Narrator, not labeled as a "voice", starts to stand out as something... Different, from the rest of you all.

But it's not just you that's changed; everything within the cabin looks different, and it's not only that.

The Princess has metamorphosized; the Damsel wears a new dress and crown, has a much more gentle and delicate disposition, and her voice sounds significantly higher pitched and kinder. Not only that, but her bone structure is physically thinner, as is addressed later in the route. She has inarguably become different in not only personality but appearance too. Additionally, while she recognizes you and your earlier confrontation, she uses the pronoun "I" to refer to both herself as the Damsel and herself as the Princess before. This is indicative of monoconscious systems, where members share an individual consciousness/train of thought and switching involves the feeling of one member "becoming" another in a smooth transition, and median systems, where members often feel like facets of an overarching identity rather than completely separate entities. We see more evidence to medianhood after the two of you escape, and the Damsel seems to be taken away by... Something. You find yourself presented with the Entity holding her gingerly.

"Something finds me in the Long Quiet and brings me the gift of a fragile vessel."

She cradles her and describes the vessels as "nerves and fibers to feel the worlds beyond. Perspectives to make my own", and the Damsel as "soft and delicate. You molded her to love you, and she'll make for a gentle heart." She words it as if they are the same, and yet different at the same time. You ask if she is the Princess, and she says this;

upon pressuring, she states that you're speaking in circles. "Does it matter where one thing begins and another ends?" This once again supports the fluid concept of median plurality. She is different, and yet she is the same. It's hard to tell the lines between one and the other, even though they both still distinctly exist. She asks you to "bring [her] more perspectives so [she] may be whole", wishing for the facets of herself to be returned to her via completing different routes of the game. Interestingly enough, it seems the Entity displays polyconsciousness during these segments, unlike the in-loop Princesses. In another route she mentions the Princess having a will pushing against her own, and at the end of your conversation she mentions one last thing;

You're flung back to the beginning, with only the Hero and the Narrator at your side, and not a single memory ingame of what happened. You can't re-access old routes, so you have to choose to do something different the next time, to bring different parts of herself home to her.

There are many different routes you can end up on, and the Princess will change in many different ways depending on your decisions. Let's go over some interesting notes on how the two's plurality presents over the course of the time loops.

- The Princess seems to be completely monoconscious when within the loops, sometimes acknowledging herself as different but never referring to her other facets as a separate perspective ("I/me", never "she" like the Entity refers to her vessels.) This rule is only broken by the Stranger route whom, where due to the world literally fracturing, had multiple perspectives shoved into a single one, and she refers to herselves as "we".

- The origin of new facets of the Princess seems to correlate directly with the reset of the world they're in, and we never see her looping forms change otherwise, meaning we can likely assume this to be their origin. While time loops aren't recorded to have happened in this universe, we can safely attribute some sort of metagenic origin to the Princess's median facets. The only other time we see her "change" other than after a reset is her disposition & voice upon the first time meeting her, depending on whether or not we take the pristine blade. This displays that the player character's actions directly affect the Princess's facets as well, however delving into that would get into endgame spoilers, so it'll be touched on in part 2.

- Due to the lack of evident amnesia, distress, or disorder expressed to be caused by her plurality (aside from the Stranger) it's safe to assume the Princess falls under the category of systems/plurals without a dissociative disorder such as DID, P-DID, OSDD1, and UDD.

- On the flipside, the Player's system shows quite a lot of distress and disorder, from the Broken and the Smitten attempting to kill the body to the Cold eager to harm it, as well as many different system members with specific jobs meant to help counteract or ease the negative circumstances of the previous loop. Additionally, during the Moment of Clarity chapter, the Host explicitly experiences amnesia of traumatic memories the other members remember everyone experiencing, displaying dissociative amnesia. It's likely this system falls under the category of plurals with a dissociative disorder such as DID, P-DID, OSDD1, and UDD.

- Many speculate the members of the Player character's system to be your past lives or iterations of you after your death, since for the most part, a new one appears every time the body dies. This would be known as a fenigenic/phoenigenic origin. However, there are a couple instances where this theory falls apart- for example, in the No Way Out route, the Player, Hero, Narrator, and Cheated are joined by both the Voice of the Contrarian and the Voice of the Broken at the same time; right after, the Hero states that this is your third time, meaning if the past life theory is true, there should be only two new members, not three. (The line between alive and dead gets fuzzy later in the route, but this one is cut and dry.) Instead, I propose the Player's system to be an adaptive system, ending up with new members whenever they must adapt their mindset drastically to the situation. The new members often tend to be a reflection of the body's actions during the last loop, which supports this concept as well.

- Routes such as No Way Out and The Adversary complicate these assessments. In No Way Out, every time you die you try something different, which results in a new system member every time. In The Adversary, you fight over and over again with the same determination, and The Stubborn remains as the only new member from the beginning the entire time. However, in both of these routes, the Princess stops changing form at all. Evidence once again shows itself that the Player Character's perception not only affects what the Princess will be, but what the results of his own changes will be as well.

- Another differentiation between you, the "voices", and the Narrator, aside from his lack of memory between loops and insistence that he's not the same person as other versions of him, is how they both treat and experience the Mirror. The Narrator is notably distinct in that he cannot see it during regular gameplay, and that once the world is replaced with it at the end of a route, he's no longer existent to perceive it. The ones labeled "voices" are able to see it and fear it instinctively- while they're different from the Narrator, even they disappear when you look in the mirror and speak to the Entity. Hypothetically, this could mean that you are to the Voices' perspectives as the Entity is to the Princess's. The Entity mentions that nothing but you and her come to the space where you speak.

- Upon meeting the Entity after the third time you bring her a vessel, she greets you with this line; "I am a growing chorus of contradiction. A mass of tides ebbing and flowing all at once in more directions than my attention can bear to hold. To look at any one is to shift them all into something new, and to look away is to reshape them yet again. All of me is changing, and yet the rest is still the same." This is an interesting perspective into her relationship with the vessels and how her overarching identity is affected by her medianhood.

- A case that deserves special mentioning is the route of the Spectre, after killing the Princess without hesitation in chapter 1 and then proceeding to kill yourself after. In Chapter 2, you're then presented with the option to let the Spectre possess you temporarily, giving her not only access to your body, but to your mind. For a brief while, she can hear and interact with all the others currently present with you- at the time, the Narrator, the Voice of the Hero, and the Voice of the Cold. Once she's within you, the Narrator can't even get out a full sentence before she comments, "So this is what it's like to be you, huh? Disembodied voice narrating your every move?" She addresses the Voices differently than the Narrator; "All these shards of broken glass on the floor... Are they also supposed to be you?" The Hero takes initial offense at this, saying that "I'm me, is what I am." The conversation continues to the Hero questioning the Narrator's existence, to which he responds, "You don't need to know what I am. You just need to know that I'm different than you. More important."

To this, the Princess answers, "So you're the one that pulled the strings and made me dead. I can tell you don't belong here. You're barely even there. Like the shape of something left behind. You're more of a... Memory, than a person." And then, "You're kind of like me, actually." What does she mean by that? Is he like a ghost? Something else? It'll be addressed in part 2, but clearly he's different from the rest.

- One of the most affirming dialogue options you can have with the Entity is after the fourth time you bring a Vessel to her, where you both speak about how your systems operate. You can ask her, "When you send me back, I'm not alone. There are voices that speak to me. Some of them are me, but one of them is something else. I call him The Narrator, and he wants me to kill you. Do you have a Narrator? Have the Vessels had one?" This is yet another hint that the Narrator is fundamentally different than the rest of the Player's system, making it clear that together they make up a mixed origin system. In response to your question, the Entity responds with this:

From this we get a few things. For one, the Princesses are referred to in the plural sense ("their minds"), enforcing the separation between them. However, she goes on to describe them existing and constantly metamorphosising into something new, basically confirming the concept of monoconsciousness within the Princesses themselves.

....

From all this, we've drawn a lot of conclusions about the plurality of the Player character and the Princess/Entity from Slay the Princess! Such depth of plural experiences is extremely rare in any media, and this one exemplifies it very well, balancing both personhood and parts-based conceptualizations in its depiction. In part 2 we'll go over how the endgame and its philosophy applies to these concepts, as well as the revelations about the characters involved. It's wonderful to have such vibrant and unique plural representation in a video game; thank you for reading this disambiguation!

[spillingbeans]

It’s a shame that the “Hunting of the Baskervilles” arc wasn’t animated.

Although I do believe that they chose to not animate it due to the chapter being heavily graphic and disturbing and instead opted for a lighter version of the story in the form of the very first episode, “The Earl’s Crime”.

But even so I wouldn’t like to call “The Earl’s Crime” the anime adaptation of “The Hunting of Baskervilles” despite their similar themes (nobles kidnapping + murdering/hunting children) because the episode omitted a lot of the important points that “The Hunting of Baskervilles” presented.

I’ll be explaining more of these after the cut as well as a short summary of what happened in the chapter so if you don’t wish to be spoiled, do not proceed.

“The Hunting of Baskervilles” is a Fred centric arc. We first see Fred going about his usual liaison duties in the slums (collecting requests and looking out for potential cases) until he encounters a case that involves children in the slums being kidnapped and taken to Dartmoor, the now deceased Earl Enders’ (it takes place directly after “The Noahtic”) hunting grounds. At first he thinks of a way to solve this case on his own after thinking that William wouldn’t bother at all, but then Moran convinces him otherwise leading the gang (William, Moran, and Fred) to set foot for Dartmoor. Louis later on convinces William to let him join as well.

They learn later on that the hunting grounds is being operated by Charles Baskerville and his three other goons. In classic Lord of the Crime fashion, they end up killing all four hunters and successfully rescue all 6 children that were kidnapped that night.

A. More insight on Fred

As I said in the summary, “The Hunting of Baskervilles” mainly focused on Fred. We learn that Fred is a very caring person and is always willing to help those in need from the fact that he wanted to save every single child.

Moran even goes to say that out of everyone in the entire organization, Fred is the one most similar to William.

Moran also did point out that Fred has quite the reckless side to him, which is then further supported in the chapter when Fred immediately goes for one of the Baskerville goons upon seeing him and killing him in an instant.

B. More insight on Louis

Aside from Fred, Louis also plays a major role in this arc.

We learn that Louis and Fred are almost opposites when it comes to ideology. Fred being more emotional, and Louis being more rational. When they encountered a heavily wounded child, Louis suggested to leave him behind in favor of accomplishing their main goal (aka killing the hunters) as he thought that direction would lead them to saving more lives.

Later on we do see Louis being worried for both Fred and William as pointed out by Moran, telling us that his character may be rational but not heartless. Rational wherein he would like to take the most logical course of action to take care of those around him.

C. Louis & Fred’s dynamics

Louis and Fred are both protectors, although they have different ideologies they follow through

Louis is a more rational protector and opts to protect the people he loves more than others (most especially William)

Fred on the other hand is overly thoughtful and cares a lot about commoners

They even ended up in a tiny argument over what to do due to their differences

But despite these differences, they both follow William’s orders in a heartbeat and value his input and orders over anyone else’s

What unites the both of them is their will to serve William and do anything for him and his grand plan.

They just both have different methods of executing it (the aforementioned Fred being more thoughtful of the commoners involved and Louis really only keeping in mind the orders of his brother)

This makes their union to save William in the final plan a bit more special as it really goes to show how much impact William has on them. Like because they both have this common will to serve him, they both go out of their way to overcome their differences and save him.

D. How the others view William

This chapter outright confirmed that both Louis and Fred had unknowingly put William on such a high pedestal.

Fred thought that William wouldn’t appeal to his request to save the children at all considering it would be useless in the grander scheme of things and because they handled a job similar to this before.

Louis, who couldn’t even be honest with his own brother, because he feels he’s becoming too distant and sympathizes with how Fred’s feeling (even if that’s literally his own brother)

Both of them come to erase this high position they put William in after Moran talks them to realize that William isn’t really how they think he is

Moran tells Fred that William wouldn’t abandon a case no matter how similar it is to a crime they’ve exposed in the past if it meant that there were innocent people involved

He then tells Louis that he should be honest about his feelings to his brother because literally that’s his brother (this then seems to work because Louis is seen handling dirty work in their missions more often)

This chapter also shows us more of how Moran is like a big brother to them, from giving advice to both Fred and Louis and breaking up their fight, which I think is really neat

If you guys can’t tell, this mini arc is one of my favorites in the entire series because it gives us a break from talking about William to now talking about the other characters. I think that the information we got here would be interesting considering that the 2nd arc would be more focused on the Lord of Crime now taking on the role of MI6. It gives us more room to speculate how they operate considering we have a chapter that openly tells us about their personalities (specifically Moran, Louis, and especially Fred). I hope in the next part we get to learn more about Fred (specifically his backstory), and more of Louis as he’s taking the centerstage in operations as the leader of MI6.

[leviathan-supersystem]

why dont you like the church of satan? im not a satan simp i promise i'm just genuinely curious because idk anything about them

i'm glad you asked! during my debate with the CoS simps on twitter i dug up a bunch of evidence of the Church of Satan's right-wing leanings, which was wasted on those losers because obviously they're not going to concede anything ever, but i'm glad to have a more receptive audience here.

so, to start with, the most well-known pieces of evidence relating to this are A: Anton Lavey said at one point that the CoS gives people "Ayn Rand with trappings" and B: there's a segment in the satanic bible called "the book of satan" which is outright copied from the proto-fascist philosophical tract "Might is Right", written by Ragnar Redbeard.

now, apparently CoS simps have taken it upon themselves to go around bothering anyone who brings this up, arguing that Anton Lavey only said that thing about Ayn Rand once so it probably doesn't mean anything (i am skeptical that he did only say this once but i haven't been able to find smoking gun evidence of him saying it other times) and the parts which copy from Ragnar Redbeard directly are only a few pages out of the satanic bible so, again, it probably doesn't mean anything. (ignoring that the influence of "Might it Right" is woven throughout the entirety of Anton's work, hardly limited to the direct quotes.)

so, to prepare my readers for if they get hassled by some CoS loser for stating the obviously correct fact that the CoS is right-wing, here's some more evidence to that effect, under a cut because i am merciful and this is going to get very long and very ugly.

here's Boyd Rice, then a major figure in the Church of Satan, saying that the principle of satanism is "let the master be the master and the slave be the slave, and never the two shall meet." this was in the documentary "Speak of the Devil", created by Nick Bougas, also a prominent figure in the CoS at the time. Nick Bougas is more well known by his nom de plume "A Wyatt Mann", aka the guy who drew those old nazi comics that became memes ("le happy merchant" etc).

here's some quotes from the official website of the CoS:

Satanists see the social structure of humanity as being stratified, thus each person reaches a level commensurate with the development (or lack thereof) of their natural talents. The principle of the survival of the strong is advocated on all levels of society, from allowing an individual to stand or fall, to even letting those nations that cannot handle themselves take the consequences of this inability. Any assistance on all levels will be on a “quid pro quo” basis. There would be a concommitant reduction in the world’s population as the weak are allowed to experience the consequences of social Darwinism. Thus has nature always acted to cleanse and strengthen her children. This is harsh, but that is the way of the world. We embrace reality and do not try to transform it into some utopia that is contrary to the very fabric of existence. Practical application of this doctrine would see the complete cessation of the welfare system, an end to no-strings attached foreign aid and new programs to award and encourage gifted individuals in all fields to pursue personal excellence. A meritocracy will replace the practice of such injustices as affirmative action and other programs designed to punish the able and reward the undeserving.

Satanists also seek to enhance the laws of nature by concentrating on fostering the practice of eugenics.

but if you REALLY want to get into the ugly shit that the CoS has been promoting, here's some excerpts from the magazine "The Black Flame", which the CoS published throughout the late 80's and through the 90's:

^that last one's from an interview with Lavey himself

and to bring things back around, here's another interview with Boyd Rice:

on the whole, while the CoS may present itself as an opponent of right-wing christianity, it's ultimately just controlled opposition, pushing largely the same right-wing agenda that the christian right was. it's funny that people never seemed to ask why christian conservatives like Bob Larson were always spending time interviewing, or being interviewed by, the Church of Satan if they were supposedly such mortal enemies.

[saintadeline]

Wait a second, I not completely understood how is theory about Fauxsefka being a pregnant a misogyny? It seems like a reasonable assumption to make if how she acts and drops a cord like Arianna? I not really understand something about your post too. Did something happen with Adella and Alfred in this fandom? I'm sorry if I made myself sound rude but in some places I am very confused about what you are talking about

I have my own biases in this because its generally a theory i heavily dislike, so take that as you will (aka there is not one true take on the game and no theory is "more right" than the others) but given the way you worded this as a question i'm also gonna talk about Why i think she isnt. First of all i heavily disagree with the notion she "acts pregnant" i dont know what to tell you about this one i really dont see it or understand it. What shes describing is very clearly the first stages of ascension (and/or death by insight. What she describes is exactly what the great one's wisdom item is). It seems to me that that theory comes from her describing it like nausea..? Which feel extremely flimsy as a basis, nausea is far from being the one defining symptom of pregnancy lol and since there is nothing else in her behavior i can think of it just feels like a stretch to me. Also most importantly, the cord you get isnt Hers. The description for it describes it as the cord of the eye, the one byrgenwirth stumbled upon and used to grant rom audience. The way i see it, we know fauxsefka is likely a choir member, and yurie whos currently stationed in byrgenwirth is for sure, fauxsefka very likely travelled to byrgenwirth to steal the cord to pursue her research and find her own means of ascension through it. Youre not taking it from anywhere inside her body, she was just possibly holding onto it and had just tried to use it. Also the other part of that theory that i can think of is the oedon rune but that literally doesnt mean anything. We already know arianna was the one chosen by oedon, and adella is branded by it the same way fauxsefka is, it doesnt mean she was "possibly impregnated" it just means she was under its influence and likely craving blood like adella was.

Anyway now to get into why i think that theory is bad, well, look at how many female characters in this game already have the end of their story be pregnancy with nothing more. Either they die or become mothers and it always ends there, that is the highest state they could ever reach. So giving Yet Another Character that exact storyline when she didnt even have it in the first place feels really bad to me. Especially when it's associated with ascension, i dont like the idea that ascension to a higher state means pregnancy. Can we let female characters be just that and not immediately equate them all to motherhood.

The adella and alfred thing is more of a "i cant stand fandom" thing than an ingame related thing, i get what you mean because its definitely been less prevalent lately and you kind of have to see it but essentially people will treat these two drastically differently when they are direct parallels. People will treat alfred like their perfect kind golden retriever and excuse his violent actions as "hes brainwashed by the church" (which is true dont get me wrong) (or they wont excuse him at all and in fact celebrate his extremely violent act against a female "antagonist") whereas people treat adella like shit and constantly refer to her in very misogynistic ways and demonize her for what she ends up doing (which is also out of church propaganda and literal great ones influence mind you) as well as only care about her as a character when she revolves around the player (oftentimes seen as a man). It just really bothers me is all

[youling-the-ghost]

The thing is with Maud and Arcus' relationship is that we're not supposed to be rooting for Arcus during that arc. It was something that even Arcus himself says that Maud has every right criticizing him for.

Arcus was a teenager experiencing romance for the first time and, being an idiot teenager, doesn't quite know how to handle it. And since no one in his life outright told him that his actions were harming Maud, Arcus continued trying to pursue her. If anything, this arc's message should be how mass media romanticizes teenage

romance and gives teenagers unhealthy ideas on how to deal with crushes, not that Arcus is a shitty human being and deserves to be sent to hell.

I also find it ironic how this entire post is just shitting on Arcus while op fails to mention how terrible of a friend Maud was to Arcus in the following arc (aka the infamous miscommunication arc). I'm not gonna give a full explanation but read episode 208 for details. Basically when Arcus askes Maud if they can reschedule the date, Maud freaks out because she thought that Arcus was dating Vivian. Without even asking for Arcus' perspective, Maud immediately accuses Arcus of being a scumbag and storms off. You'd think that she would at least ask about the whole thing with Vivian, but no. She just assumes the worst of Arcus and doesn't even bother hearing Arcus out for even a second even though she 'almost considered him a friend'.

Now, I understand that from Maud's perspective, it looks like every other time that she has been betrayed be a so-called friend. However, with the same logic as above, she's still not in the right. Like what I said for the previous arc, Maud isn't supposed to be the good guy in this arc. Let's keep in mind that while Arcus can be instrusive of other people's personal spaces, he has also never shown any signs of being a playboy (like it's canon that he gets super flustered around girls). Again I'm not saying that Maud's assumption is 100% wrong (because it's not), but it was incredibly immature of her to not hear Arcus' side of the story until Iris literally locks them in a room together.

Before anyone accuses me of hating on Maud, I'm not. I love Maud to death, but I also believe in taking accountability for one's actions, which is something that we see both Maud and Arcus do! I'm not saying that either character is a terrible person, but what I am saying is that op is cherry-picking negative traits from Arcus just because they don't like him.

Arcus and Maud might become canon or they might not. Either way, people's feelings change, and Arcus x Maud becoming romantic in the future is far from the worst direction that the webtoon can take.

@most-canon-non-canon-ship-poll

Next up is Arcus and Maud (from the same comic as Frank and Lola).

This is going to be more difficult to truncate because Arcus is the main character and therefore has more relevance to the plot than Lola (who appears significantly less often).

Summary of seasons 1 and 2— Arcus annoys the fuck out of Maud until she becomes his friend. (I wish I could show you how annoying he is in the early seasons, but alas, not enough time for that rn...but to give you some sort of idea, the bastard looks her up on Facebook the instant their teacher calls her name for attendance.)

The romance arc technically starts on episode 88 (the Friendship Prom Arc, which starts on episode 76, has helpful context but I'm not subjecting you to that). Basically, after drinking spiked punch at Friendship Prom, Arcus has a dream about Maud and blushes. If he weren't already annoying as hell, he's about to get even more annoying.

The dream stuff comes back up in episode 90, if you need proof Arcus has a crush on Maud.

For both of our sanities, I'm not going to continue the episode by episode break down because we'll be here forever, but I'll show you how absolutely annoying Arcus is about his crush.

There's this public display. I forget what episode this is in.

While trying to pinpoint the episode this is from, I found episode 159, which encapsulates everything I hate about this pairing.

During this rant, Maud brings up his fashion and Arcus (being the dumbass he is) makes a bet with Maud that he'll go to school dressed casually and if he gets her interest, she'll ask him on a date. Maud objects, but Arcus (being the dumbass he is), goes through with it anyway. This arc lasts until 169, where Maud agrees to go on a practice date with Arcus

Here's some miscellaneous screenshots to rub in how exhausting this is for Maud.

Skipping ahead past dozens of more episodes of bullshit, we get to episode 222.

Arcus admits he's a creep, apologizes to Maud, and says a potential relationship with her isn't worth it after seeing her get upset over it.

End of relationship arc, right?

NOPE!

(The creator posts shippy art and Webtoon puts together promos pushing these two together as well, so this is almost certainly endgame.)

[sugar-petals]

can you give us more thoughts about domestic yoongles? the taemin's one (wich I love) just made me miss the cat boy so much ;o;

i have a phd in househusband yoongi so let me fire out some ideas for ya.

myg at home headcanon

🐱 word count. 1.9k | fluff, slice of life, slight nsfw mentions, x reader, bullet points

The doorbell sound is a recording of Yoongi imitating a doorbell. He’s such a meme. Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

Seemingly, he teaches himself a new recipe every week. To perfection. Yoongi is very particular about sticking to the recipe and wielding his kitchen tools in the right way. He collects knives, olive oil, and still hates cutting onions.

He separates sleep time, work time, and couple time as the holy trinity. For each, he switches his mood.

Blushes easily no matter for how long you’ve been together.

Establishes his own radio show where he DJs at one point.

Yoongi keeps an extreme track on the garbage schedule. He knows exactly what is due when. Separating the trash is a must. That includes sorting out fake friends trying to get between your relationship. Your social circle as a couple is extremely deliberate.

Yoongi deems himself a terrible host for guests. Unless Hoseok is there to drag him out, it's true he rather stays in the kitchen or at the barbecue preparing the menu courses rather than making small talk. He leaves the hospitality bits to you, however you want to go about it.

What he lacks in conversing with guests, he makes up in bed, God is absolutely fair.

He sings and hums pretty often and has his own vernacular of extraterrestrial uwu noises. It's an alphabet that you have to yet decipher but it's incredibly cute.

Self-made paintings everywhere around his house. 

Yoongi hasn't gone clubbing since grammar school. The most he does is going to a restaurant at lunch with very close friends. And always in a work context. His private life is so secluded from everything else and paparazzi just don't spot him anywhere, Dispatch thinks he must live abroad.

Very well, he does consider his big ole house a separate country. It's a living organism with a studio, gym, trophy room, small-size basketball court, and vastly equipped kitchen. A home theater as well, he likes American movies (like Inception) and Korean action genres, and you can stream whatever you fancy in there whenever you like. 

Yes, he has underwear with cute little bears on.

There's even a little pond in the backyard. Yoongi, Pisces he is, likes fishes after all. Sometimes he sits at the edge of the 'Little Ole Min Lake (LOML)' and stares into the water for literal hours with his chin parked on his palm.

His fridge is so high-tech and futuristic, even Yoongi is rendered clueless by its AI sometimes. The washing machine, too.

Yoongi watches RuPaul’s drag race. What did you expect? He finds it so humorous.

Owns lord knows how many comic collections.

Favorite holiday destination: New York.

Christmas is basically 50% you unveiling new music equipment to him in the garage and Yoongi almost fainting at the sexiness of it. The other 50% is spent holding hands and orgasm after orgasm until the new year since you loose track of time.

Goes on long rants why he’d marry you again every weekend.

Making you presents is his specialty. Always accompanied with a hand-written note. He writes a lot of things by hand for you in general. Texting, basically never. Always on paper.

No sex without a blanket and socks on. Yoongi gets cold very very easily and just doesn’t like showing skin. You buy him a heated blanket for his birthday, he even uses it in his studio chair.

Chronically addicted to making out.

Matching black outfits and glasses.

Laughs at even your worst jokes or phrases you didn’t expect you even uttered.

Yoongi owns the phoniest, most secretive-looking black car ever and nobody knows about it. Even he forgets he owns it, in fact he genuinely acts like it just doesn’t exist. Hilarious. And that guy has a level 1 Korean driver's license. Which allows him to drive trailers and busses and fucking trucks, and construction machines, let that sink in.

It's really a genius curse. Yoongi being put to the test will always deliver but he won't choose to execute his full skillset if he doesn't have to. Well, pragmatic. He's not as phony as he thinks he is, which is even more hilarious.

He uses that behemoth of a car so scarcely because he'd rather have things delivered to his doorstep and he's stingy with gas. Also, he doesn't like traffic and driving because of the traumatic shoulder accident and his tendency to space out. Translation: You drive that thing... that monster... it really is an impressive, fast, and scary machine. 

If someone devious ever even remotely manages to invade his privacy and get past the doubly-installed security system, he has enough money to deal with it no matter what.

If it concerns your privacy, he's a red belt. And owns Jin's number if a taekwondo master is required. Jimin's if it needs someone with kendo skills.

If Yoongi needs someone to go on a complete rampage, Jungkook lives just down the block. He can sprint to Yoongi's bunker I mean mansion within 45 seconds. 30 if it's very urgent. 20 if the reward is an instant ramen splurge with Yoongi's black card.

He has a sexy, glamorous sword collection hanging on the living room wall anyways, so. Who the hell is dumb enough to mess with him and his expensive lawyer in the first place.

But just in case, who knows... Yoongi settles matters shruggingly, anonymously, and with cash and he's too exhausted for violence, but don't underestimate his deter-min-ation and network for emergencies. Also, he is Agust D after all.

He will bonk a naughty burglar or kidnapper across the head with a wooden cooking spoon or take him down by throwing a basketball if the situation requires it. Damn, his reflexes are so fast, a feral cat in motion. So, lean back and sip on your drink of choice. Things are cared for.

If Yoongi is the one being kidnapped or a highly skilled stalker invades the property at night when he's fast asleep (nothing can wake this man during certain hours, strong REM right here): Don't forget that honeyboy is a Dodgers fan. There are signed baseball bats everywhere in this damn house.

In that sense, your parents visiting you here for the first time thought you were an undercover thug couple. Not to worry mom and dad, you both just like sports very much okay.

Yoongi walks around in all black clothes and the rooms are all seemingly dark. Even if you live together, you don't know his skin care routine. It's clear to you he's some sort of vampire.

Since Yoongi always forgets to remove his makeup, you made it a habit to wipe it down when he's about to pass out. He won't lie, he enjoys that kind of affection.

Holly is your resident child. You're essentially a family.

He insists to tackle this by himself, Yoongi sees his therapist monthly. Not shifting responsibility is something he's stubborn about and he pours his emotions into writing. You will do conversation about deeper stuff, but he says it's mostly up to him and his own mind. He dislikes burdening you or opening up too much and it's something to respect rather than force him about. If he wants to share a thought, he will. It doesn’t mean he can’t trust you or sucks at communicating (we know that he’s direct). Yoongi simply can’t put that much pain in such few words nor should you alleviate it for him.

Calls from the manager faze Yoongi as much as Jimin is bothered by gravity. If he’s busy kissing your body slow mo, who the hell dares to disturb his worship. 

This man had so many let-downs and interpersonal catastrophes in his life, he's super discerning with people. Because he rolls that way, during their first meeting Yoongi uses his psychology certificate on your friends. You see him squint at them, he listens very closely. After they pass the vibe check aka meow radar, he befriends them, too.

Yoongi doodles Grammy trophies everywhere to manifest them.

Yoongi shaves his legs.

All the sex toys he’s ever bought are black. Gotta vibe in style.

He spends ridiculous amounts of time in the studio but he's yours for the remainder of the night, breakfast, and he makes a lavish lunch and dinner.

Um, consider his head parked between your legs. The Hongkong line was not a joke.

Doesn’t mind you squishing his cheeks whenever and for how long you like. 

Every other weekend he gets flowers, vouchers, and gifts — not because of fans, they don’t know where his house is, but because he donates so much.

Namjoon often drops by and cleanses the area with his crystals.

Yoongi is a photography major so you can ask him to take professional, ceiling-high black and white shots of you.

Feeding each other food lovingly. Man, this guy got lips.

He set up a library just for you, in the exact historical aesthetic you like the most. Send him the link to any book you want, it's basically in the online shopping cart already. As I said, he wants to make you presents like every week.

Sometimes he sits on the other end studying English videos and vocab while you read. And yes, he's already 95% fluent but pretends being merely intermediate. He knows technical terms even native speakers have never heard of.

He collects pajamas and earrings.

Swears on the phone.

Namjoon being the horniest member is a cover-up story. Yoongi masturbates almost unreasonable amounts of times, by himself and in your arms when going to bed. Not gonna lie, it’s a sight to see his hands at work. He’s almost equally obsessed with fingering you once you ask him.

Yoongi was the one asking you to move in and almost had a nervous meltdown before meeting up with you to tell you just that. 

He’s the little spoon and of course a sleeping burrito to hold tight.

Finds you equally attractive in any state or styling. Yoongi practices what he preaches, he always reacts the same and says the same. 

Jams out to outrageous beats Namjoon sends him by dancing in the studio. You walk in on him every time. Was embarrassed at first, now you dance along.

Has bought you a life-sized Yoongi pillow and customized you a giant Shooky to hug when he’s not at home over night.

Owned a wine cellar until he quit drinking. Turned it into a piano room instead.

Only you know Yoongi has a serpent and dagger tattoo.

Scrubs the bathroom religiously.

The house smells like restaurant food and his extravagant perfumes half of the time.

Sometimes he has to remind himself he’s married to you and not his coffee machine. He shall be forgiven. You can’t complain that he doesn’t love you enough, nor is he ever not adorable when drinking his latte.

Never wears short sleeves. It can be scorching and he’ll wear a jacket. 

Tell him and the cap stays on during sex.

He grows his hair out and puts it in a low bun. The bangs remain.

Yoongi has installed the most fire-proof building in the entire city it seems. That he wanted to be a firefighter when he was young definitely shows. Figures the house has to be protected from heat: His blasting studio music and Yoongi himself are just way too sizzling.

Still melts into a puddle when you kiss his nose.

Couple sunrise watching. 

© submissive-bangtan 2017-2021. all rights reserved. do not repost or translate. all depictions fictional.

[h0nkch0c0late]

Mad Thomas

Fear street 1666 Mad Thomas x Reader

Summary: Mad Thomas, Aka the town drunk. Y/n Miller, Aka Hannah Miller's sister and the Pastor's daughter. What happens when she gets stopped by Thomas on her way to the forest for the fruits of the land thing?

Warnings: smut I guess? Well kind of smut??? It's not really smut???

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Y/n!" Her mother called to her from the kitchen, slight evidence of annoyance in her voice, causing Y/n to sigh and walk away from her chores in her room.

"Yes, mother? What is it?" She asked somewhat quietly as she approached her mother.

"Can you see why your sister is taking so long with her chore outside?" Her mother clearly looked upset.

Y/n nodded, walking to the door and opening it, seeing Hannah talking to Sarah Fier.

Y/n smiled at Sarah, having no problem with her she didn't see why not, Sarah smiling back at her as Hannah looked to her sister.

"What is it?" Hannah asked timidly.

"Mother wanted to know what has been taking you so long out here-"

Y/n was interrupted by their mother, "and that she has to come back inside!"

Y/n rolled her eyes, "and that you have to come back inside. Don't worry, I won't tell her that you've been talking to Sarah." She said in almost a whisper, careful to not let their mother hear.

Sarah sighed, "I'll see you tonight, Hannah."

Hannah nodded to her, "of course." She then walked past Y/n into the house, their mother starting to say harsh things to her as Y/n started to close the door behind her.

"Where are you going?" Mrs. Miller's direction turned towards her other daughter.

Y/n turned her head towards her, "going to check on father, is all." She lied.

Mrs. Miller huffed as a response, letting Y/n go.

Y/n smiled at her mother before closing the door behind her, looking towards Sarah.

"The full moon rises before nightfall." She said with a smile.

"A good night to enjoy the fruits of the land. You're going too?" Sarah raised a brow in surprise.

Y/n chuckled, "why of course. I may be the Pastor's responsible daughter, but that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun once in a while right? And Hannah needs it since our mother has been especially hard on her lately." She sighed as she started walking with Sarah.

Sarah nodded in understanding, "it's because of me, isn't it?"

"Most likely. I wouldn't be too worried though. Just as long as you don't do anything bad, I'm sure you both will be fine." Y/n explained, examining the people around her, waving to Abigail as she dragged Constance off with her.

Y/n looked down to see a bag in Sarah's hand, and that they were headed in the direction of Solomone Goode's home. "What have you got in that bag of yours?" She asked.

"One of the piglets that had gotten stuck. I wanted to give it to Solomone as a gift." Sarah responded, and just as she said that, a small oink came from inside of the bag.

Y/n chuckled, "Ah, alright well I'll leave you to it. I might as well actually check on my father while I'm outside."

"I'll leave you to it, then." But just as Sarah was about to leave, the door to the outhouse burst open, a drunken Thomas stumbled out of it.

Both girls groaned in annoyance at the boy as he stumbled towards them.

"I can see A secret about you, girl." Thomas said as he walked straight towards Sarah.

"And a good day to you too, Thomas." Sarah replied calmly, though slightly annoyed by his presence, trying to step forward away from him but he stopped her.

"Don't you want to hear it?" Thomas questioned.

"Thomas, leave her alone she doesn't want to deal with you right now." Y/n said, grabbing his arm.

Sarah nodded, "please just leave me alone."

But Thomas didn't listen, he just shook Y/n's hand off, contuing to bother Sarah. "I can see everything. I can see all the dark secrets in Union."

Sarah scoffs, "you must be busy." She then pushed Thomas away and started to walk, Y/n gasping as Thomas persisted, grabbing onto Sarah again.

"I see darkness in you, girl!" He said as Sarah struggled in his grip.

Y/n grabbed him, forcing him off of Sarah and pushing him. "Be still, Thomas!" Y/n warned as Sarah glared at the man. Thomas just laughed.

"Sarah, it's best if you go now." Y/n sighed, eyeing Thomas to make sure he doesn't go after Sarah again.

Sarah nodded, then turned around and continued her walk to Solomone's home.

"Beware, Sarah Fier!" Thomas laughed again.

Y/n scoffed, "Thomas, would you please stop being so crude to Sarah? She's done nothing wrong."

Though it seemed that Thomas wasn't exactly listening to her words, only looking at her and grabbing her wrist, leaning in closer to her.

"And you, you hold many secrets." He told, holding her wrist tightly but not too tightly, which is strange for him.

Y/n's cheeks started to turn pink, her face feeling warm as she stuttered, "i-i have no idea what you are talking about. You are completely mad, Thomas."

Thomas smirked, letting go of her wrist, "you hide behind a facade, girl. But I know who you really are." His eyes practically pierced through her own.

Y/n's heart was beating erratically at how close he was, and the lowness of his voice...she knew he was just drunk and had no understanding of his words, but she almost felt like he did in fact know.

But it was something even she didn't want to admit. She didn't want to admit that Y/n Miller, the Pastor's daughter, was in love with the town's famous drunk, Mad Thomas. But she couldn't help it. There was just something about him that made her so strangely attracted to him, but she could never put a finger on it.

He laughed once more, walking away (more like stumbling away).

Y/n sighed, taking a moment to calm her flushed cheeks before spotting her father and heading her way towards him.

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Y/n took a deep breath as she took small, quiet steps down the stairs in her house quiet as to not wake up her parents, and saw her sister at the door.

They nodded at each other, linking arms and walking towards the forest.

Lizzie and Sarah appeared, stealing Hannah away to collect the berries as Y/n chuckled to herself, continuing on her way to the party.

As she entered the woods, she heard ruffling noises behind the trees. Of course she thought nothing of it, the thought of one of the party-goers or an animal only crossing her mind.

But as she walked further, she was suddenly pulled behind a tree, she shrieked, a hand quickly covering her mouth as she was pushed up against it.

She recognized it immediately, looking up to see the face of Thomas. Though she had calmed down a bit, she was still a little freaked out about the sudden actions of him. "T-Thomas what are you doing?"

Thomas had a smirk on his face as he looked at her, "you're mother and father wouldn't like if they found out you were out here at night. I expected this from your sister, but from you? I would have never guessed."

"What I do is none of your business, Thomas. And my parents do not control me." Y/n stood her ground, but Thomas was so close she could feel his warm breath on her face. She was trying her best not to show her blush.

Thomas chuckled darkly, "now now, there's no need to lie. I know you care about what your parents think."

Y/n's eyes narrowed, "you know nothing." Her heart was thumping so loud in her ears she swore everyone could hear it.

But Thomas ignored her, "I also know that you feel something for me. I see it in your eyes every time you look in my direction."

Y/n scoffed, "you really do live up to your name, Mad Thomas. I feel no such things for you. Your drunken mind must be playing tricks on you." Her breaths were becoming sharp as Thomas leaned in closer to her.

Thomas chuckled once again, "there is no need to lie, love. I've got secrets of my own." He lifts one of his hands that were pinning her against the tree, gently pushing away some of her hair away from her face, then stroking her cheek lightly.

The action and nickname caused a shiver to go down her spine, her cheeks getting warmer as she kept her gaze on his own, her breath hitching. "A-and what are t-those secrets, Thomas?"

He leaned in more, his lips close to her ear as he whispered, "why should I tell you mine, if you won't admit your own?"

Y/n went silent for just a moment, then sighed. "If I admit mine, would you tell me yours?" She said in almost a whisper.

He leaned his head back to her face, "I will do better. I'll show you." He moved his body closer to her this time, holding her gaze.

It made her weak at the knees, her trying her best not to fall. "Alright, you want to know?"

Thomas nodded.

"I-Im in love with you. I know I shouldn't be, but i can't get those thoughts out of my head. There's just something about you that irks me so much but at the same time makes my head spin."

His eyes widened in surprise, he was only just teasing her after all. He didn't know she actually felt that way about him. He quickly went back to normal, plastering his famous smirk back onto his face, "and what kind of thoughts are those?"

Y/n gulped, "that is something you do not need to know. Now, it is your turn. What is the secret you so desperately want to show me?"

Thomas kept his eyes on her as he slid his hands down to the strings that held the front opening of her dress closed, "my secret is this."

She gasped as he began to pull at them, loosening the top of her dress and having it come undone.

Her hand instinctively reached out to grab his wrist, stopping him. "What are you doing, Thomas?! We aren't even wed!" She whispered.

Thomas shushed her, putting his hand back onto her now-bare chest. "Don't worry, dear."

A shiver went down her spine again, "for a man who listens to God and tells one of my greatest friends practically the devil, you sure do a lot of sinning yourself." She smirked, suddenly gathering courage.

Thomas' eyes narrowed a little, "that is different." He growled.

"Oh? How so?" She began to tease him, though one of his hands were still on her chest, she thought nothing of it.

Thomas' mouth opened and closed, trying to find words but coming up with none. He then pushed himself away from her, turning around to leave.

Before he could, Y/n grabbed his wrist, making him turn towards him. "Now hold on a minute, Thomas. Who said I wanted you to stop? You cannot leave me here like this without having done anything to me." She snarked.

"Why should I? You did try and use my own words against me." He said as he walked closer to her once again.

"Surely you can take a joke?" She questioned with a smile.

Thomas rolled his eyes, then suddenly pushed her against the tree for the second time, leaning in close to her, their lips noses only a few inches apart.

Y/n didn't wipe the smile off her face as she guided one of his hands back to her chest, the sleeves of her dress slowly falling down causing it to slide off of her shoulders slightly.

Thomas smirked at her, his mood quickly changing before he kissed her deeply, hands gliding into places they normally shouldn't be, his lips traveling down to her neck as she leaned her head back on the tree in pure ecstacy, never having had this experience before, it was a new...amazing feeling.

-------------------------------------------------------

Y/n entered the part of the forest where the rest of the teens were, looking around to see Sarah and Hannah missing, while the others were all dancing and hanging around, some even making out with each other.

She felt a tap on her shoulder and looked to see Lizzie, who looked at her with a disapproving yet concerned look.

"You're late. What took you so long?" Lizzie asked.

Y/n's mind thought back to the previous events, a small smile appearing on her face, "I, uh, got... distracted."

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Aaaaaaa I told you guys I would impulsively write a Mad Thomas fic and here it is! Pls there's just something about Thomas, man. Something about him that I just can't describe it 😩😩😩😩 anyways this turned out longer than I expected it to but its fine qkrhwbebejen3nej

[iamanartichoke]

I wasn't sure if I was going to post this, but I may as well.

I keep starting to reply to things and then stopping bc the words just aren't there, and I suppose I figured out the core of what bothers me so much (and is making me have such a rollercoaster of a fan experience) about the show.

(cut for length)

It's not well-written. My opinion is my opinion, so I'm saying this subjectively, take it or leave it, but ... I feel that it's not well-written. The overall story is fine, and the plot is fine, but I don't know if it's because of the limited number of episodes not being enough to house the story, or because of the relative inexperience of the writer/showrunner+director, or both, or something else, but -

In an earlier reaction post to episode 4, I mentioned really wanting to sink my teeth into all of the subtext I picked up on. That was what made me initially enjoy the episode so much - there were a lot of little moments that I initially felt revealed so much about the characters and about Loki, and I wanted to analyze them. But at some point, as I gathered more information, my perspective changed and now I no longer want to analyze the subtext bc ... subtext = good. Subtext w/out payoff = not as good.

I'll go into more detail in a moment, but I think the tl;dr of it is that I feel like the narrative requires the audience to work way too hard to put together all of the moving pieces here and, like, I kinda just don't want to do that work? Not so much of it, and not in vain. A lot of the enjoyment of Loki's characterization is coming from fans who are rationalizing why he's behaving as he is, but the narrative never actually confirms those rationalizations. It's asking us to figure it out and maybe our conclusions will be correct but maybe they won't, though. At some point, subtext isn't enough without explicit follow-through.

I thought my issue was with the lack of character development - that is, not having enough narrative space to really earn the big things that are happening now, like Loki/Sylvie or Mobius turning against the TVA. And that's still true, to an extent; I still feel like the pacing is all very off and it seems like most of these things kinda came out of nowhere (but are not unbelievable - just undeveloped).

But, yknow, it is what it is, it's a limited series, and I can excuse some things. Ultimately, my issue isn't a problem with what the narrative isn't doing, it's a problem with what the narrative already failed to do and probably cannot recover from at this point.

The narrative has left out significant details that should at least help us do some of the work here. If a person turned on Loki and started episode 1 and had no background knowledge of the character besides that he tried to take over New York - how would that person interpret Loki? Would that person say, oh, well, he's been through X, Y, and Z, and plus A happened, not to mention B, C, and D, so really, it makes sense that he seems off-the-rails, or that he'd want to get ridiculously drunk at the worst time ever.

Maybe we'd like to believe they would, but how would they be getting to that conclusion? The narrative hasn't led them in that direction so, no, they would not say well we have to consider this, this, and that. It would be impossible to really understand Loki as a character from just what we've gotten in the series. The general audience would probably interpret Loki as being out of his element and so it becomes, I wonder how this character is going to get the upper hand here. And, while that's not wrong, it's just so limited.

The narrative at face value does not address Loki's identity crisis from Thor 2011. It does not address his hurt and devastation at being lied to, nor does it address how complicated his self-image is (bc it sucked to begin with and that was before he found out he was part of a race of "monsters," as he'd been taught his entire life). It does not reference Loki being so broken at the end of Thor 2011 that he deliberately let himself fall into the void of space (aka tried to kill himself). It does not reference that he was tortured by Thanos or even that he went through a seriously dark time in between Thor and Avengers, and it absolutely does not reference or address any influence or control of the mind stone.

These are all things that we, the fan audience, know because we've already invested our time into this character's story. But tons of people, the general audience, wouldn't know these things. Or if they did, bc they saw Thor and Avengers, they wouldn't be thinking about them as deeply as we would, nor contextualizing them with how Loki is behaving now, or why it would make sense that he needed to get drunk, or why it's understandable that he needs to keep going-going-going in order to not have a spare second to think or feel.

They'd probably look at Loki, again, as a character who was a villain and is now getting his comeuppance in a place where he has no power or control, and no literal powers, and even when he manages to escape and catch up to the variant, he proceeds to fuck up their plan for seemingly no real reason except that he wanted to get drunk bc he's hedonistic. Which Sylvie even berates him for! I mean. This is not exactly a complex character breakdown, nor a very flattering one, but that's what the narrative has given us.

(If the narrative has addressed Loki's mind control, his torture, his mental breakdown, his suicide attempt, and his general shitty self-esteem as a result of his upbringing, please point it out to me. If the narrative has explicitly acknowledged and referenced these things anywhere and I am missing it, please show me where. Please explain to me how the casual viewer would know any of these things that they need to know in order to actually understand what's happening in this story.)

So I mean, okay, we have a narrative that doesn't paint a full, accurate picture of Loki. Fine, sure. But because the general audience starts out on the wrong footing, they're not going to get out of the overall story what the writers probably intended them to. For example, in episode 3, a lot of us theorized that Loki had some kind of plan - that he broke the timepad on purpose, for some reason, bc otherwise it wasn't believable that he'd be such a failure. But episode 4 revealed that no, there was no bigger plan, Loki just plain old messed up. Which is fine if, again, one is only considering the surface-level portrayal here, but it's not true to Loki's actual characterization.

I mean. Loki is not perfect and Loki actually fails a lot, this is true. He fails for a lot of reasons, but incompetence has never been one of them. Usually it's that either things grew beyond his control, or there ended up being too many moving parts, or he had to change his plan at the last minute due to some roadblock or another being thrown his way, or even that he got in his own way - whatever the case may be for his plans' failures, he was always at least shown to know what he was doing.

That wasn't the case here. The "plan" to fix the Timepad failed as a direct result of Loki's actions, which were careless and made him seem incompetent, like he couldn't even handle this mission. "You had one job," etc. And there were pretty big consequences for this; they were not able to get off-world in time and would have been killed had the TVA not shown up at the last second.

And maybe none of these things matter bc the writers never intended any of this to be a reflection on Loki's character, positive or negative. The situation exists solely because the writers needed to put Loki and Sylvie together in some kind of hopeless scenario so that they could get closer, and thus the narrative could set up their romance. I get that - but, there were other ways to do it that didn't require Loki to look foolish.

Furthermore, the whole reason they needed to set up the romance is to show Loki eventually learning to love himself (like, figuratively but also literally). The audience is supposed to gather that Loki and Sylvie fell for one another, possibly due to the high emotional aspect of, yknow, being about to die (in addition to the variant-bond). The intent is clear: Loki and Sylvie almost die but get rescued at the last minute, having now created an emotional bond --> Loki and Sylvie team up and the narrative further establishes that Loki, at least, has caught feelings --> Loki might confess them but is pruned before he gets the chance --> he somehow survives, he and Sylvie are reunited and don't want to lose one another again, and the combined power of their love is enough to break the sacred timeline and spawn the multiverse, and the reason that the power of their love is so, well, powerful is because it's about self-love and self-acceptance as much as it is about having the capacity to love someone else. The end.

I get all that. The writers more or less said all that. And, I mean, it's certainly not the way I would have chosen to go about it, but it's a fair enough arc to explore. I don't really have an issue with the intent - but my question, however, is this: if the narrative has so far not addressed Loki's background issues (as outlined above), and has furthermore kinda gone out of its way to portray Loki as hedonistic and narcissistic, among other things (like kinda incompetent), and the context the audience starts with is that Loki's this villain who deserves what he gets -

- my question is 1, why should the audience care whether or not Loki gets to a point of loving and accepting himself (thus to make the theme of self-love, via the romance, hold weight) if they don't know that he hates himself to begin with and 2, why should the audience root for Loki to reach that point when so far the perception of him is that he's "kind of an asshole"? if he's a hedonistic narcissist, he probably already has a pretty inflated sense of himself, right? A misplaced inflated sense of himself, at that, because, again, the narrative has made him out to be not that capable of much of anything. (And it didn't start out that way! It seemed to start out with Loki being capable and intelligent but it's like episode 3, in trying to set up the romance, just jumbled it all up somewhere. I think this is why I'm harping on the Loki/Sylvie aspect so much - it's frustrating bc it kinda messes up the whole story and can't even accomplish what it's supposed to anyway.)

Anyway, that's beside the point. What I'm ultimately getting at is, at what point is the audience supposed to get invested in Loki's personal growth journey?

They can't, not really. Without understanding and having the context of everything Loki has been through up until now, and why he hates himself, and why it's so important that he learn to love himself, then the "payoff" becomes kinda pointless bc the significance of it is lost in translation. So suddenly we're left with this romance that comes off as either "Loki loves Sylvie bc of Reasons" (best-case scenario) or "Loki loves Sylvie bc he's vain, narcissistic, and kinda twisted" (worst-case scenario). Neither of these conclusions are what the writers intended or were going for, I'm positive, but there we are, regardless.

In order for the writers' intent in these storylines to land, they need to address the context of what makes these particular stakes high for Loki. So far, they haven't done that. They're asking the audience to pick up on all of these things, and they're showing things that subtextually make sense and are relatively in-character - but only if you realize there's subtext in the first place.

But you can't expect the audience to do all of the work for you. If you don't want the audience to think that Loki is a narcissistic asshole and instead you are trying to convey that, worst-case scenario, he thinks he's a narcissist but is an unreliable narrator, then you have to address that. If you need the audience to understand why you're going the selfcest route and why it's important to explore Loki's capacity to love himself and others, you have to address where that exploration is starting from and why it matters. Etc etc etc.

The narrative isn't doing any of that. And it isn't like it'd be that hard to do it. They don't need to reinvent the wheel here; a lot of the pieces are already there. A few lines of dialogue for context, a brief scene here or there addressing the issues, a little more care and consistency in how Loki handles things - these are all little things that could go a long fucking way in making the narrative stronger.

I'm rambling. My basic point is that my rollercoaster of emotions with this show is because

- as a part of the fan audience, not the general one, I can contextualize and analyze the subtext and come to the conclusions the show wants me to, and thus find the story and the characters more or less enjoyable,

- but I am also going to be using the subtext to come to conclusions that aren't there but probably should be (I think it would be a better story, for example, for Loki to confuse platonic love with romantic love bc it would pave the way to explore just how fucked up Loki's understanding of love - whether of other people or of himself, and the different forms it can take - actually is)

- and when they're ultimately not there, then I think, okay why am I bothering doing all this work just to ultimately feel very unfulfilled? They don't even have to write it the way I would, I'm not saying that, but they do have to do something to make the story feel rewarding.

If we don't get some confirmation of what Loki's been through, and where his headspace is, and why it matters for him to love himself, then the story remains pretty shallow and, for me, it's not fulfilling enough. It's not engaging enough. There isn't actually anything to sink my teeth into, so it becomes kind of boring. Maybe it's rewarding to other people, and that's great for them, but like - I need more than whatever this is.

So I'm just like - well, I had a lot of worries about this show, but my being bored wasn't one of them and now there's only two episodes left and am I really not going to get anything out of this, in the long run? No new canons, no new depths or layers, no new information on Loki's experiences? This is it?

I don't dislike it. I didn't start out disliking it, and I probably wont end up disliking it. I mean, there are a lot of good moments, and good things, and fan service-y things that I appreciate. As far as inspiration for fic goes, it's a goldmine, both plot-wise as well as aesthetic-wise. All of that is great. I don't dislike this show.

But I am disappointed in it, and I feel like I'll be watching the next two episodes lacking the sense of anticipation that would make it exciting. I'll still enjoy them, probably, if for nothing else just the sheer Loki content, but whatever it was I felt watching episodes 1 and 2 is gone and I'm sad about that, too. Because I really wanted to feel fulfilled by this series; I wanted it to fill up the void that Loki's death in IW created three years ago. And I just ... don't feel it. Maybe, maybe that'll change over the course of episodes 5 and 6. I don't know.

Everything that I end up enjoying long-term, I think, will come about as a result of my own interpretations and analysis and while theoretically there's nothing wrong with that, if I had known all I'd get out of this series was more headcanons or support for my current headcanons then, well - that's fine, I suppose, but I'll definitely a little bit robbed.

[scribbly-dee]

Inspired by this post

I adore corruption arcs, so I graded how well the non-archivist characters would have damned humanity if they had been the archivist.

Sasha James 11/10, would be an ideal archivist, this plus her height is probably why the stranger monster targeted her before she could peak

I have a soft spot for any au that knows Sasha has never seen a brain cell in her life and that any unhinged!Sasha au is really just a regular Sasha au. Picture it with me. Sasha and Jon have parallel archivist tracks, until Sasha (my beloved show off) decides: you know what would make me more efficient at snooping? Becoming a Human Google. And things accelerate. The Web doesn't even need to bother with subtly magic lighters, it slaps all 14 marks on her at once by pulling up next to Sasha in a windowless van with "free secrets 👍" written on the side.

After the Unknowing, Sasha takes over the institute from Elias instead of Martin and Peter. With Tim dead, Jon in a coma, Martin lonely-snatched, Melanie compulsively homicidal, Daisy in the coffin, and Basira on autopilot, she quickly bonds with Rosie, the ultimate nosiness enabler. Sasha is a fully marked archivist for a good long while, but doesn't start the apocalypse right away because she's eager to read ALL the ominous notes Elias left, so the watcher's crown statement is in her to-be-read pile. When the apocalypse starts (Rosie: "Hey, Sasha, I just read something extra fucked up that Elias wrote, wanna see?" Sasha: "God yes."), she books it to become the pupil with Rosie as her anchor. Mayhapse an anchor-archivist polycule with Archivist Jon and Martin? Mayhapse Jon is just a normal eye avatar here and deeply invested in all of Sasha's eyepocalypse statements, so it's Sasha and her plus-three? Mayhapse it's a race across the eyepocalypse wasteland between Archivist Sasha and Archivist Jon to usurp Jonah and become the pupil?

Tim Stoker 2/10 dude's here for a good time, not a long time

The only way I see this working is if Elias disguises not-stranger clues as circus related so Tim is motivated to investigate. Otherwise, his archival assistants are way more curious than him and disobey his direct orders to 🍹chill🏝. Jon, Sasha, and Martin inadvertently bring marks home to him like cats bring home dead birds. He asserts his agency when he decides the best course of action? Actually? Just blow up the archives. This unfortunately puts him in a false sense of security, and Elias makes him read the watcher's crown statement by cat fishing him on grindr and sending the ritual as a dm mid conversation.

Daisy Tonner - 9/10 archivist, would have started doomsday before she was at the archivist job long enough to use her PTO

Daisy already had a lot of experience hunting down fear-entity-related people in sectioned cases, which means she possibly canonically already has all the marks from just hunting avatars who use their powers in self defense. The reason she lost one point is because she's too much of a jock to read, only nerds are culpable to watcher crown statements, so this would be the only delay but oh what a delay it will be.

Melanie King - 7/10 archivist, points awarded for achieving her breakthroughs by smashing her head against a wall until she literally breaks through, points deducted for doing so in full clown makeup.

If Jon got a handful of marks by just asking anoying questions in the same room as an avatar, imagine how much faster Melanie would get marks by bringing her trademark Chaotic Brat personality on fear entity investigations. The apocalypse would have started in like two seasons: one season to hire her off the streets and establish shakey, complex relationships with her new assistants (Jon and Sasha put in the time with the institute but were passed over on this promotion for some random YouTuber (plus they're tighter with Tim and Martin, so proletarian solidarity against the boss)).

Then a second season to stab every mark and get stabbed in return. Melanie would blitz through all 14 marks because what precious little impulse control she starts with is slowly replaced with slaughter juice. One fun moral ambiguity to explore could be if Melanie tries to use her new, dangerous Eye/Slaughter powers to revive her reputation and platform in the supernatural community now that she can, ya know, identify supernatural things for the first time ever. Does she acknowledge her entire career up to her hospital episode apparently only investigated fake sightings? A better question to ask is whether Basira, Tim, and Jon ever let her live down how Ghost Hunt UK's professional dignity was contingent on the legitimacy of her sCiEnTiFiC gHoSt eQuIpMeNt in those episodes, so the temperature spikes set to dramatic music were well and truly just temperature spikes and dramatic music. Sasha found a clip of that music playing as Melanie narrates "it's a message... from the other side..." and made it as her text tone.

Also, it would be hilarious if Melanie tried to kill Jonah on sight in the panopticon, once again botched assassination attempt number 1,963,538, and then Jon quietly snuck in to finish the job on his first try just like in canon.

Jon: "What, like it's hard?"

Basira Hussain 3/10 archivist, her eye alignment manifests as office gossip, like a normal person

Basira has the most formidable super power of all: the power to nope tf out of any conversation or plan she wants. She therefore would probably take 10x longer to start the apocalypse than any other archivist because her fatal flaw is refusal to directly engage with a lot of personally difficult things (like the slaughter bullet surgery she organized, Daisy In General, etc). The marks will be slow going if she resists putting her safety on the line or invests time in making good plans (which is smart, but unhelpful for dooming humanity). She would for sure still get marked and end the world because once she's convinced of a plan (aka Elias convinces her of a plan), she's ruthlessly efficient. So I'd stay out of her way that last year or two, she marks the entities right back at them.

Martin Blackwood 2/10 archivist, considering a prerequisite for creepy eye avatar staring is the ability to make eye contact.

S1 Archivist Martin would probably dote too much on the employees under him to be hugely susceptible to Elias' isolation-dependant manipulation. Any progress Martin inadvertently achieves toward the watcher's crown goal would have to be contingent on it helping his loved ones, which is perfect fuel for a "corrupted by good intentions" arc. This would be key because Martin has superb bullshit and manipulation detection, making the marks are tricky but not impossible to orchistrate considering Jon can't stay put in a safe corner for 10 minutes and Martin's mother would refuse to stay with him where she's safe from avatar threats.

Imagine the petty drama when Jon and Sasha learn he got the promotion they wanted because he lied on his CV.

Other than that, Martin would be even worse about pit stops on the apocalypse road trip than Jon because his Kill Bill mode would have no off switch. Does Archivist!Martin and his anchor Jon ever reach the panopticon? Eventually, but not until after they lose points for significantly reducing the apocalypse fear quantity. Would Annabelle survive to deliver her cryptic MaCHiNAtIoNs and achieve the Web's goal? Hard No, additional point reduction for neutralizing the multiverse invasion. Points potentially earned back if Martin's Web connection is strong enough to come up with the multiverse invasion plan on his own, though.

Georgie Barker 4/10, as a fearless coward, all the fear she feeds to the entities would be khaki flavored. They'd get their apocalypse, but they probably wouldn't enjoy the meal.

Similar to Basira, Georgie has the super power to Fuck This Shit I'm Out. She would overall be a subpar humanity damning archivist; a major archivist success factor of Jon's is that he has enough affective empathy to be afraid with every statement giver he reads, so when Jon archives a statement, he unintentionally contributes to the fear soup seasoning. Combined with how Georgie doesn't want anything to do with entity drama, so any corruption specific to the watcher's crown would stagnate. Even her casual exposition conversations would go like

Georgie: "I've connected no dots."

Melanie: "you've connected a lot of dots??"

Georgie: "I've connected shit all dots."

The reason she gets one more point than Basira is because Georgie's fatal flaw is the passive observer quality the Eye tried to stoke in Jon. Her level of engagement oscillates between two extremes, impulsive over commitment and judging from a distance. This would probably lead her to geting involved just long enough for her involvement to become irreversible, at which point she would try to cut that shit out of her life after it's trapped her. She'd linger, barricading herself on the margins of this problem as the marks that are targeted at her slowly tally up until boom. Apocalypse is on and she only half understands what's happening.

Georgie would wander around an apocalypse hellscape confused, but vibes and physical health fully intact. Anchor!Melanie would have quite the emotional journey starting with Georgie on that pedestal Melanie placed her, and ending with a slaughter avatar stabbing the person who convinced her to work on her slaughter inclination.

[munsnz]

Sand — Steve Harrington

TW: Cussing ??

Summary: Where plans were canceled with your best friend, bringing along you and her ex together aka Steve Harrington, remembering the huge dick he was in high school. Perhaps in the span of one day, you catch feelings for him but during a fun activity leads you and Steve together.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Fem! Reader

Lydineo Radio: Let The Sun In — Wallows

Masterlist — Requests are open!

“I thought Nancy was coming,” You mumbled as you walked towards Steve Harrington’s car, where he wore a pair of his black sunglasses along with a summer blouse, leaning against his car. You and Nancy both planned to head on over to the beach, somehow convinced that Steve was going as well, even if they broke up. It had been a year since the mall burned down due to a mysterious cause, now it was another boring summer all over again.

He smiled a little as he saw you trudge over to him, “Plans were changed little one.” Steve pat you on the head, making you feel like a child and you smacked his hand away from your head.

”Ew don’t touch me,” you groaned and crossed your arms as you stepped away from him. He laughs at the funny gesture and takes his shades off to show his chestnut colored eyes into the open. “So what are we supposed to do?”

”We can......” Steve trailed off, looking at you, “I don’t really know, we can both go?”

You cringed at his words and statement, giving a funny expression playing at your face, “Steve...... I hope you’re kidding me. I don’t even know you much. All I know is that you’re Dustin’s friend and you worked at the mall.”

”I see you’ve watched me huh?” He chuckles at your response and cheekily leans over closer to you, “Guess my beauty- Ow!” He groans to see you step over his shoe, to make him shut up.

”Look, Harrington,” You snap at him, while you take his glasses away from his hands and put them on your face, “I cancelled all my shit plans to come to this little stupid trip Nancy told me and I’m still going, but I’m not gonna let your dumb ego stop me.”

Steve rapidly shakes his head at your orders and ruffles his hair a little being in front of you, a sort of tint of pink welled up on his cheeks. Was he blushing? Seeing him at such flustered state, you rolled your eyes to walk inside the passenger’s seat of his car.

“So are we going-“

”Get in......Asshole,” You smile at him as you shoot a glare at him, making him follow your directions to sit into the driver’s seat next to you.

He sighs a little and turns to you while he turns on the car, “You know Y/N...... you’re a little scarier than I thought.”

Scoffing at such remark, you punch his shoulder, making him laugh nervously, “I’m sorry but I’m not usually this scary.”

”Oh thank-“

You shot a glare at him again, he jumped and turned to the steering wheel. “So where we off to? Maybe we could grab a bite before we go?”

”Sure that’s fine,” You crossed your arms and huffed, this trip was going to be one shitshow for sure knowing you had to be stuck with Steve Harrington.

-

”How come I’ve never heard about you at school?” Steve asks as he sips down the last of his milkshake, watching you, fidgeting with your fingers.

Looking up at him, you claimed while laughing, “Well, you were too busy with popularity. I was just a shadow!” You noticed his eyes turn away from you and you sighed, “I hope you’re not like that anymore. Or are you?”

He shakes his head at your question, being able to express that he was no longer that douchebag he was in high school, “No not anymore. Not everything is about popularity.”

”You learned it the hard way huh?”

Steve nods his head at your claim. It seemed like you could read Steve by his expressions and words he spoke. You had never and I mean never have spoken to Steve Harrington prior to the school you both attended to. Just click. It did.

”How do you know me so well Y/N?” He pondered, while getting up from the table, sliding the money onto the bill for the waitress, “We just met and you read me like a book.”

”I don’t know,” You get up along with him, and both walk outside to find that it was already 4 pm, “Oh shit, it’s late.”

”It’s really intriguing to talk to you,” He blurts out, while walking to his car. You looked up at him, with widened eyes, “I-I mean we took around two hours talking to each other.”

You glanced at him, shuffling over inside his car to avoid any eye contact with you. As you came inside the car, he turned it on, driving to the south where the small beach was near.

-

The wind blew on your face, sending your hair all over the place as you got out of Steve’s car. Somehow a bit of hair got into your mouth and you began to choke but calmed down, whipping the bit of hair out of your mouth. You watched from afar the tides came in and out at the sandy beach located a few towns away from Hawkins. The air began to cool, meaning the sun was going to set anytime soon.

”I guess you’re not much of a beach or summer person right?” Steve calls out from behind you, making you look at him.

He read you correctly this time and you joked, “It’s my job to read you, not yours.” Both of you grabbed a picnic blanket from his trunk and began to walk to the beach area. You slid your shoes off, to place your feet in the thick, warm, sand as Steve followed the same thing like you. In the windy silence, you both laid the towel under you. Getting comfortable, Steve turned on the radio, faintly playing Higher Love by Steve Windows (coincidence? I think not), there wasn’t that much people at the beach that same day. A couple of kids who were playing in the waves from afar, but that was only it. Another driven silence began, but bored out of your mind, you decided to take off your crew neck, where your bathing suit was under and head to the water.

Doing such action in front of him, Steve felt flustered watching you slide your sweater off your body, “Something bothering you Harrington?” You laughed at him, to stand up and lend your hand towards him.

”I.....” Steve trails off, grabbing your hand to stand up and run towards the water, “Last one there is a rotten egg!”

”You’re such a child, Steve!” You giggled and followed him to the tide running in and out. You were sadly the last one that got there, being splashed water at your face by him, “You’re gonna regret that Harrington!”

“I’d like to see you try Y/N!”

-

Who knew you were chasing Steve Harrington across the water to see him being thrown by the wave crashing, sending him underwater. He comes back to the surface to find you next to him, splashing water in his face, getting back at him.

”I told you I’d get you,” You paddled your feet to keep you at the surface, smiling at him to find his ‘perfect’ hair ruined in front of you.

But as you watched him squint his eyes because of the water in them. You felt something touch your leg, making you quiver, “Ah!” You shouted as you rapidly threw your arms around him, unaware of who you were holding on to. Caught off guard, Steve feels his heart skip a beat, feeling your skin on his, sending you both underwater and back up to the surface.

”What’s wrong?!” He exclaims, blabbing out the salty water that accidentally went into his mouth, while grabbing you too.

”I felt something on my leg,” You look around at the body of water around you, still latched onto him. Freezing in your position, the only sound you both heard was of the ocean, nothing else happened. But slowly realizing who you were hung onto, you watch him awkwardly to find him holding you as well, bringing a whole feeling of nervousness. Letting go, although you didn’t want to.

“Karma,” He chuckles silently, and covers his mouth. Realizing your stupidity, it was just seaweed roaming around. You move your hair out of your face and begin to swim away from him, but felt a slight tug by your waist, guessing who it was you paddled away faster and giggled even more.

Now here was the place you were going to have a lifetime with this guy you barely know. This new friend of yours seemed like someone you have known for years on end. Just something about it, clicked.

-

After a shit ton of messing around and unintentionally flirting with each other, you grew exhausted. The swimming and running all over the place drains one out. Now you were splurged onto the warm sand, with a ton of mixed emotions everywhere, eager to try something different.

”This may sound weird but you’re cool.”

”I know I am,” Steve scoffs, laying shirtless under the towel and crossed his legs while you sat up, dusting the sand away from the seashells you both found lying beneath the sand. Another silence grew, the sound of the waves become louder, you were in the reality instead of that pretty daydream with him. You weren’t attracted to Steve. Correct?

Of course you were though, shockingly. But with such courage you sighed, watching the sunset turn into a deep shade of orange and purple, “Wanna do something weird?”

”I like weird,” Steve sits up, placing his arm onto his bent knee, “Tell me.”

You had never been such an outgoing or confident person, it seemed like you were more into the shy part of things. As you breathed out, you mumbled, “How about if we talk about the person we like the most? We write it down in the sand, and run away.”

”That’s weird.”

Whilst you were annoyed, you furrowed your eyebrows at him, “Steve I just said it’s weird-“

”I know I know,” He says, standing up and grabbing a stick from far away, “What are you waiting for?”

-

Scribbling an S, then a T and E, V, E, you finished, but panicked slightly knowing he probably didn’t like you. And no, it wasn’t a cliche thing. Or was it?

”I’m done,” You hear Steve’s voice make you jump nervously, signaling this would most likely be the end of your friendship. Wow, just one day in and poof! There goes another bond away from your life.

“Let me look at it first!”

Fear in his voice, he almost shoved you to turn away from the only letter you saw, “Hey! No I go first!”

”No let me!” You pushed him a little and jumped to look over his shoulder, but he was too quick and moved enough to block your sight to see the name.

In a fight, you still couldn’t see the pair of letters, and pushed each other around, in fear to know the other’s reaction of it.

“Asshole just let me-“

Oh God.

That boy knows.

He saw his name written, from behind your short height. Oh shit you were doomed for sure. It was surely impossible to love someone by day one. But this, this was different. Feelings were all over the place, as you noticed his eyes widened at the sight of the letter that spelled his name out.

You clicked your tongue and flinched a little before you would usually get rejected, “It’s a prank I’m kidding! I’m so funny right?”

Steve awkwardly looks around, putting his arms behind his back and stepped away for you to see YOUR NAME. Oh god you knew it was some prank. You watched and still saw his serious face driven by the silence, perhaps he wasn’t joking.

”Oh man,” You cross your arms, watching the letters printed on the sand being destroyed by the incoming wave, washing it away from existence, “We’re just pranking each other right?”

“Uh-“

”Just say it!” You walk over to him and spin away from him, “We should just go home, it’s getting late anyways.”

”I-“

You continue blabbing more nonsense about your summer and how this idea was just one big mistake. Steve knew you wouldn’t stop anytime soon so he stops you by grabbing your shoulders, catching you off guard. Wide eyed, and flushed face, he mumbles a little, “It’s not a prank, I wouldn’t play with love like that.”

”Love?”

”Yeah......” He trails off, watching you intently at the somewhat attraction he had for you, “I-I uh....I know this is fast. I don’t expect you to say yes which is totally fine I’m sorry I’m rushing this I-“

“I like you too Harrington,” You confidently move away for him to see the letters clearly written STEVE on it. Shocked, Steve snaps out of his thoughts to find you put an arm around him and look at him. “So is this the part where we admit our true feelings then realize we are actually in love after getting to know each other in the span of a day and we kiss under the sunset?”

Steve watched you cheekily grin at him, and nodded slightly, “I suppose-“ He was cut off by your lips pressing onto his, automatically bringing his hands on your waist, holding you closer to his body like glue. Both of you continue to move your lips in sync, realizing, maybe this boring and mistaken trip was all written in the sand.

[hit-me-with-a-ladle]

Ch.11 Creepypasta x Fem! Reader

Four days had passed since their first brawl. Toby had observed her staggering improvement and powerful determination to learn. He hadn't seen that kind of behaviour in a long time. As nightfall came they began to clear up and head back. Both tired from the long day of training, Toby walking in front of her as they went on their way. The walk was peaceful, the night sky illuminating from the dense array of trees as the crickets chirped their lullaby. The sky was littered with beautiful stars and the girl couldn't pry her eyes away from them, looking up in amazement like a child on Christmas day. Toby on the other hand wasn't paying any attention to anything around him, with his hands in his pockets and head down, eyes focused on the patchy road ahead.

The walk to the cabin was beginning to feel longer than usual, the air now becoming tense from all the silence, but the girl still didn't bother to speak up as she knew it was futile. Toby was a man of few words, always keeping to himself, there would be days where they would only say two words to each other. This was a drastic change from what she was usually used to with the others, especially Ben. " So." Her thoughts were cut off as she looked at Toby, who had now slowed down and was walking in since with her. " Um yeah." She sighed out, looking ahead both hands in her large pockets. " Ab-about the necklace." He continued still trying to put his thoughts into words. " What about it." Her eyes widened a little, not expecting him to bring that up as she looked at him pulling it out from underneath her jumpsuit and holding the tiny bottle between her rough fingers. " D-di he tells you wh-why he gave y-you it?" He asked in his usual bored tone. " Yeah, he did. It's for safety and protection. He gave it to me almost two weeks ago and I usually wear it most of the day." She answered honestly softly smiling as she looked at the pretty plant inside of it. It calmed her looking at it. " Interesting." He said to himself not wanting her to hear him but she still managed to.

Her eyebrow raised, why was he so interested in the necklace all of the sudden. " So...do you and Ben get along or...?" She said trying to further the conversation while they walked to the cabin. Toby was hesitant with answering the question, as he took a moment to think of the right response to such a subject. " Yes a-and no. But more n-no. I te-nd to avoid that blab-blabbering idiot but h-he has his moment at ti-times. Very few a-a-and in between but st-still there non the l-less," He answered simply glancing at her direction as he did.

The girl was intrigued by his answer, she assumed he despised him as they were the polar opposite. The assumption wasn't unprompted either, as Toby didn't seem to like most people. " But then ag-again, he tries t-to hard. He acts too m-uch like a child. It's frust-rating." He finally finished his thought, looking back at the road and softly closing his eyes as he walked, admiring the cool night air. He hadn't felt this clam in a while, he enjoyed the feeling. So much so as a small smile crept up his lips. It wasn't noticed by the girl standing next to him but he didn't mind.

In the distance, they could make out the cabin, relief washing over both their bodies like a title wave. " Almost there, finally I can rest." The girl announced dramatically, sighing. It made Toby eye her watching her hunched form drag her feet while walking. Almost close to collapsing. He grunted, at this rate they'd reach it till next morning, clearing his throat he hunched down sweeping her off her feet. She was startled by the sudden action as her eyes widened in surprise, now settled in his arms bridal style. " WHAT! What the hell are you doing? Put me down." She shrieked flailing her arms. But it was to no use as she was too tired to do any harm. Toby grunted as she thrashed, waiting for her to stop and when she did, he smiled softly picking up his pace.

The girl was surprised at how he was able to hold her weight, as he looked quite thin, but as her back pressed against his arms she could feel the defined muscle. Toby didn't say anything, he seemed like the extra weight didn't even affect him. She could hear his heartbeat, it was slow and quiet. The soothing rhythm made her relax even further melting into his arms. They finally reached the cabin, but Toby didn't bother to put her down, no he managed to open the door with her in his hands and she barely noticed. Walking inside, warm air hit his face making him sight. Going to the living room he carefully set her down on the couch and stepped away.

The girl sat upright, her whole body resting as she softly smiled. It had been a while since she could get some rest. Toby had walked to the kitchen slowly lowering his mask and pouring himself some water, looking into the living room while he drank it. He could see the back of the girls head. " Did you also have to train as I do?" The girl's voice broke his peaceful trance. He cleared his throat pondering on his answer as he usually did. " Not r-really." He simply said rinsing the cup and putting it back into the self. " What do you mean by that?" She perfused, wanting to know him better. " Well," He sighed putting his mask back to place and walking towards her, sitting down on the armchair next to the couch. " You have y-y-your duties so you ne-need a different type of trai-ning and mentors. M-my mentor was much wo-worse than we a-a-are."

The girl let out a snort when hearing the last part, looking at him with a curious look. " Really, how so?" " He i-i-is a being co-comprised of pure e-evil so you could imagine it your-yourself." " Pure evil? Is this the Operator man everyone is talking about?" " Bingo." Shed started to get frustrated by how short his answer always was, shed has to ask multiple different questions to know the smallest thing. " What's up with this Operator fella? If he's so powerful why does he need a human guarding his forest?" " Easy. A human is a b-b-basic, morally grey, being. F-for example, you we-were chosen be-because you weren't all t-that good bu-but not all that bad, in the mi-ddle aka The middle-man. So it d-doesn't matter how po-powerful h-he is if there's no real ba-lance in the fo-forest and your j-j-job is to hold that balance." He finished taking a big sigh and slouching on the couch, making it clear that he didn't feel like talking anymore. Soon he would fall asleep.

The girl watched him thoughtfully, eventually getting up. They had finished a little earlier than usual, at this time she would be heading back to eat and then go to bed but something was telling her to look around the cabin, something she wasn't able to do. There were no bookshelves. Its walls were all very sterile and plain. Same for the kitchen. But something in her gut was telling her to go up the stairs, slowly approaching the railing she sighed, with every careful step she would look behind her to make sure Toby was asleep. Reaching the final step she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, the narrow hallway felt longer than before, and she felt strange not immediately heading to the left.

Turning her body to the other side of the dimly lit hallway at the end was a door, she hadn't noticed it before. ' Was that there?' She asked herself approaching it and reaching for the gold knob. The door was painted in a thick layer of black paint, scratches and carving covering its whole surface, one of the larger carvings was crossed out circle. A chill when up to her spine when she noticed it quickly pulled back her hand. Taking in another harsh breath and mustering up the courage she turned the knob, but it didn't budge. She pressed her whole body on the door and began to push but it still wouldn't work, finally, she got frustrated and began to hit and thrash the door handle. But it still didn't move, so she had to reluctantly give up.

There was something important they were trying to hide and she made it a point to find out what it was.

[pla-teau]

WANDAVISION SERIES FINALE THOUGHTS

WHOEVER’S CUTTING ONIONS NEEDS TO S T O P.

hayward | i was one of the many few who really wished death on the man cause he’s just the worst. this man emptied his clip at two children. i’m glad jimmy was able to pull a fast one on this dick and that darcy hit him with the ice cream truck and very happy to see the man being taken away in cuffs.

vision vs. vision | while i would’ve enjoyed seeing them fight it out until one completely lost, it wouldn’t be vision without some philosophic conversation. it’s true vision fashion. he doesn’t fight unless it’s a last resort. he’s logical and can assess other means in which to deter a foe. truly enjoyed the scene and now i’m just curious as to where tf white vision yeeted off to after regaining the memories from hex!vision? some have speculated possibly wakanda since that is the place where he died. twice. i would love to see him possibly interact with shuri since she would’ve appeared in the memory montage that hex!vision provided him with alongside other events from infinity war.

agatha (aka not mephisto) | overall, i loved agatha as a character and i’m glad she wasn’t killed off by the end of the series. i know she was more villainous in the show but i’m glad they somewhat neutralized her even if it was by cruel punishment brought upon by wanda to keep her trapped in westview as a nosy neighbor. it keeps the door open for us to see more interactions between her and wanda. i’m also glad that she was the foe wanda had to go against. i know many (like myself) speculated mephisto would appear and be revealed but i’m happy i was wrong about that. this is the first entry into phase four and to spill out a big bad right away? probably not the best move. i know ant-man 3 is planning on introducing kang the conqueror so i wouldn’t be shocked if mephisto is used as a red herring to distract us from the actual big bad of the phase, kang the conqueror (while still keeping mephisto around obviously for future battles and possibly use him as a big bad down the road).

family is forever | i was sobbing when seeing the hex start shrinking down in the distance outside the boys’ window. i love that wanda and vision made the move to put them to bed as a way of saying goodbye so they wouldn’t have to see them disappear. i hope to see these same boys come back cause i think no matter what your theory was on them, viewers fell in love with them. if planning for young avengers, i cannot wait to see them be a part of it. given that these boys weren’t real and not actually wanda’s children, i think they’ll go the route that they’ll find each other even if not as a blood related family but reincarnations that know that wanda was their mother in one instance and see her as a mother figure (alongside their actual mothers, of course). i just love them and i really wish they stuck around but i know this won’t be the last time we see them!

wanda’s outfit | i love it and i think pays homage to her comic book costume while still fitting the aesthetic of wanda and the mcu. love the attention to detail and the pattern on her headpiece. someone on here also pointed out in a post how it resembles magneto’s suit and it makes me love it more because of that. in conclusion, this is the scarlet witch and she’s hot.

wanda and vision’s farewell | if i was sobbing at billy and tommy’s fate, i was wailing by the time these two started saying goodbye. we learn that the main reason vision was able to be created the way he was by wanda was because of the mind stone. while she is the scarlet witch, she was exposed to and enhanced by the mind stone that ended up becoming vision. like she said, it’s a part of her. he lives on in her and overall, this scene just cemented that these two are meant to be together. they are going to be that power couple in the mcu moving forward, together or apart. we know these two are meant for each other and have so much love for each other and will find their way back always. while they may change, the one thing you can bet your ass on is that they fucking love each other.

ralph bohner | the twist that no one saw coming - peter is ralph. it’s clear that he was being controlled by agatha because the moment monica took off the necklace, he woke up from her spell. a lot of people are swirling around to say that he’s probably woo’s missing person. we don’t know that and it’s something that’s left unconfirmed. while i would’ve enjoyed the reveal to be peter actually being peter from the x-men universe, i’m also happy he isn’t. yes there was a lot of fanfare and hope for this series to introduce the multiverse but in retrospect, it would’ve been too much to throw at us at the beginning of phase four. throwing in the multiverse right away would’ve taken away from the series being about wanda (separate point i’ll get to at the end). do hope to see evan peters in a future mcu project, though!

wanda’s story moving forward | i hope wanda becomes a sort of anti-hero for the future. this does set up her appearance in doctor strange 2 and i can’t wait to see what she does. while agatha said she’s destined to destroy the world and her power exceeds the sorcerer supreme’s, i hope the writers don’t make wanda into this villain that loses her logic because of extreme power. wanda has proven agatha wrong already by acknowledging the error in her ways. when she realized she was hurting the people of westview, she let them go and stopped hurting them. she learned that yes, she is hurting them without knowing so what she has to do is let them go. wanda has learned throughout her years with the avengers the consequences her powers can have on people. we know she’s never been trained by a witch and yes, that makes her dangerous with her chaos magic. the second post credit scene shows us that she’s determined to teach herself even if it’s through the darkhold. in seeing what she’s done and the power she holds, i think wanda will be this gray moral character. she holds a great deal of power, the most powerful being on the planet at the moment, and that can cloud her judgement at times. despite being an avenger, this show has really shown us that wanda is alone. while she was with the avengers, what have they really done? they kept her in check and helped her utilize her powers for good but then when civil war happened, she was detained and treated like a weapon of mass destruction. the avengers are clearly nonexistent and those that are around, haven’t bothered with her. i also hope that this new phase of marvel kinda tears down the original avengers and their actions because while intentions were good, not everything or everyone was perfect and there’s consequences. and i hope those consequences are shown through the main characters of this phase like wanda.

the complaints | while i loved this show so so much, i did have some issues. while i enjoyed that this show fleshed out more of wanda’s past, i’m sad that they didn’t confirm or at least try to make wanda jewish since they completely erased her romani roots from the comics. this goes back to my whole thing with representation which i’ve mentioned before in response to an article. while i love elizabeth olsen’s portrayal and care she has for wanda, a romani actress still should’ve been cast from the beginning. the least they could’ve done was at least make her jewish even if ever so subtly because that is the other half of wanda’s identity, even if it’s been retconned often. if they are never going to confirm her as magneto’s daughter in the mcu, at least honor that aspect of her identity if you’ve erased one major one already. representation matters and i wish they tried to do right by the character since they clearly paid close attention to other aspects of her comic book history and took a deep dive into her mental health. come at me for these thoughts but i’ll stand by them. another is just directed at the press for the show (i’m looking at you paul bettany). while fans went ham on the theories and marvel will do anything to misdirect you, i think there should’ve been a clear up from marvel about bettany’s claims of a big cameo coming in the series when it was about himself. i get you don’t want to spoil the show and the big surprises it may hold for the audience but still. i think there should’ve been someone behind the scenes or bettany’s publicist could’ve kinda told him to stop hinting at a super duper big cameo. yes, fans got carried away but i think when you’re doing press for marvel, it should be somewhat common knowledge that fans are going to analyze and try to figure out wtf is gonna happen. it’s fun theorizing, don’t get me wrong but when it’s gone the way it has for this show, i think it leaves a lot of people unsatisfied. i’ll admit i was being a clown thinking i’d see patrick stewart as professor x again since he’s an actor paul’s never worked with before and would be a huge fan service for the audience like in the mandalorian season finale. tldr; crazy fan theories comes with the territory. my final grievance actually has to do with the set up for monica’s engineer. i was also hoping we’d someone big or someone that could be big in the future, possibly it was a skrull at the end but the tone and way monica talked about it, i think it was underwhelming to see a character that we came not to care too much about.

final thoughts | overall, i loved this show and it was refreshing to see marvel embrace the magical side of their universe as it continues to expand. the cast was amazing. everyone in the cast and crew deserve awards because this really gave us a show about wanda. i think a lot of people lost that (including myself) with all the theorizing; goes back to my complaint about press for the show. it gave us a show that dealt with trauma and grief in a way we haven’t seen before in marvel’s cinematic universe. i’ll admit i didn’t care much for wanda as i did with the others but this show made me care for her a lot more and made me a bigger fan of her and vision’s story. it grounded itself in dealing with wanda’s grief and trauma in a new way while also exploring her character more. so i’m happy that we didn’t get a super big cameo or that the multiverse wasn’t confirmed because then the tone and attention would’ve shifted away from this story being about her. i hope marvel can give us shows like this that make us care about a character’s emotions and feelings rather than just how cool and badass they look in a suit. it was clear that the cast and crew made this with such love and care that had good storytelling and kept us on edge every week. i hope that marvel can show us these types of stories and ranges from characters in future movies as well.

[skeeter-110]

A Twist in the Tale (That’s as Old as Time)

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a young prince lived in a shining castle. As punishment for his actions, the young prince is transformed into a monstrous beast by a mysterious enchantress. Only condition is if he can learn to love someone and earn their love in return, the curse will be lifted. The prince - now turned Beast - felt doomed for eternity; until he met a little boy with a heart of gold.

AKA: a Beauty and the Beast Irondad AU

Chapter One: Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a young prince lived in a shining castle. Although he had everything his heart desired, the prince was spoiled, selfish, and unkind. But then, one winter's night, an old beggar woman came to the castle and offered him a single rose in return for shelter from the bitter cold.

Repulsed by her haggard appearance, the prince sneered at the gift and turned the old woman away. But she warned him not to be deceived by appearances, for beauty is found within.

And when he dismissed her again, the old woman's ugliness melted away to reveal a beautiful enchantress. The prince tried to apologize, but it was too late, for she had seen that there was no love in his heart, and as punishment, she transformed him into a hideous beast and placed a powerful spell on the castle and all who lived there.

Ashamed of his monstrous form, the Beast concealed himself inside his castle with a magic mirror as his only window to the outside world.

The rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose, which would bloom until his 21st year. If he could learn to love another - and earn their love in return - by the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken.

If not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time.

As the years passed, he fell into despair and lost all hope, for who could ever learn to love a beast?

*   *   *

Peter skipped on out of his home and straight into the village, smiling and greeting everyone he passed as the village town quickly became more and more alive.

"Good morning, Peter." The village baker greets as he brings his tray of rolls over to his bakery.

"Morning, Monsieur." Peter addresses, walking over with the baker.

"Where are you off to?" The baker asks.

"The bookshop. I just finished the most wonderful story about a beanstalk and an ogre and-" Peter excitedly begins to explain, only to be cut off.

"That's nice." The baker responds absentmindedly, clearly not hearing a word Peter was saying, before yelling. "Marie, the baguettes! Hurry up!"

Peter just shrugged before putting his book back in the basket he was carrying and continuing on his way; hopping on the back of someone's carriage to get to the bookshop faster.

Peter quickly ran into the shop, the bell above the door ringing and announcing his presence to the bookseller.

"Ah, Peter." The seller acknowledges.

"Good morning. I've come to return the book I've borrowed." Peter says, handing the seller the book he was carrying around.

"Finished already?" The seller questions, sounding a bit impressed.

"I couldn't put it down. Have you got anything new?" Peter asks as he climbs the ladder and begins scanning all of the books.

"Not since yesterday." The seller laughs.

"That's all right. I'll borrow... this one." Peter says, going and grabbing a familiar book off of the shelf and handing it to the seller.

"That one? But you've read it twice." The seller amusedly says.

"Well, it's my favorite. Far-off places, daring sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise." Peter excitedly says, swinging off of the ladder.

"If you like it all that much, it's yours." The seller offers, making Peter gasp.

"But, sir..." Peter goes to protest.

"I insist." The seller presses creating a huge smile on Peter's face.

"Well, thank you. Thank you very much." Peter expresses his gratitude, instantly opening up the book and reading as he began to walk home; completely oblivious to the man following him. That was until the man jumped right in front of him.

"Hello, Peter." The man greets.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Osborn." Peter responds, not even bothering to take his eyes off the book. Norman, not liking not having the attention on him at the moment, quickly swiped the book out of the boy's hands.

"Monsieur Osborn, may I have my book, please?" Peter asks, making Norman scoff before flipping through the book.

"How can you read this? There are no pictures." Norman scoffs.

"Well, some people use their imaginations." Peter retorts, Norman rolling his eyes at the prospect and throwing the book over his shoulder.

"Peter, it's about time you got your head out of those books and paid attention to more important things. Like working for me." Norman says.

Ever since Norman found out that the only reason the Parkers were able to earn money was by Peter making and selling different inventions, he's been all but begging Peter to work for him. And clearly, he refuses to take no as an answer.

"The whole town's talking about it. It's not right for a little boy to be reading fantasies all the time." Norman disapproves as Peter reached down and grabbed the book up off of the ground.

"Monsieur Osborn, you are positively primeval." Peter says, looking at Norman in confusion when the man looked proud of the dig.

"Why, thank you, Peter. Now, what do you say you and me take a walk over to my workshop and take a look at some of my work." Norman says, trying to pull Peter in the direction of his workshop.

"Maybe some other time." Peter says, pulling his arm out of Norman's grip when it seemed like the man wasn't going to be letting go anytime soon. "Please, Monsieur Osborn, I can't. I have to get home to help my Aunt. Goodbye." Peter bids farewell.

"That crazy old loon. She needs all the help she can get." Victor Von Doom, Norman's right-hand-man, says making both him and Norman laugh.

"Don't talk about my Aunt that way." Peter yells at them, making Norman sober up.

"Yeah! Don't talk about his Aunt that way." Norman whirls on Victor.

"My Aunt is not crazy. She's just old." Peter defends, his argument falling short when something in his kitchen exploded, making Peter run towards his house, completely ignoring the laughter that was in the background.

Peter quickly ran inside the house, coughing due to all of the smoke floating around in the air.

"Aunt May?" Peter calls out, still coughing and waving away all of the smoke.

"How on earth did that happen?" Aunt May grumbles, trying to free her leg from the wood and wires that it was trapped in.

"Are you alright, Aunt May?" Peter asks.

"I-I don't know what happened. I think I accidentally turned this contraption on." May says, pointing at Peter's recent invention that was sitting there in the middle of the house.

"I'm sorry. I'm about ready to give up on this hunk of junk." Peter huff, clearly disappointed with how slowly the new invention was coming together.

"You always say that." May tuts fondly.

"I mean it this time! I'll never get this boneheaded contraption to work!" Peter angrily says, making May cross her arms.

"Peter, watch your language." May chides, erasing Peter's look of anger and turning it into him looking fully reprimanded.  

"Sorry, Aunt May." Peter mumbles out an apology.

"And you will get this to work." May encourages, taking Peter's face into her hands. "And it will win first prize at the fair tomorrow. And we won't have a thing to worry about this winter." May says, gently brushing Peter's cheeks with her thumbs.

"You really believe that?" Peter asks.

"I always have." May confirms, making Peter grin real big.

"Well, what are we waiting for? I'll have this thing fixed in no time." Peter exclaims, climb underneath the contraption. "Can you hand me that... the dog-legged clincher there." Peter asks May, the woman being quick to do so.

"So, did you have a good time out in town today?" May asks once Peter had his tool.

"I got a new book." Peter tells his aunt before tightening a few things. "Aunt May, do you think I'm odd?" Peter decides to ask.

"My nephew? Odd? Where would you get an idea like that?" May scoffs.

"Oh, I don't know. It's just that I'm not sure I fit in here. There's no one I really can talk to." Peter sighs.

"What about Norman? He seems like a nice fella, and he likes inventing things like you. He could be like your mentor." May says.

"Yeah, he seems nice, but he's actually rude and conceited and... oh, Aunt May, I would never want to work for someone who treats people so terribly." Peter tells his Aunt.

"Well, don't you worry, 'cause this invention you're working on is gonna be the start of a new life for us." May reassures as Peter rolls out from underneath the machine.

"I think that's done it. Now, let's give it a try." Peter says, pulling the lever and causing the machine to whistle and whir.

Both May and Peter stepped back a bit, covering their faces just in case the machine blew up. Thankfully, instead of blowing up, the machine began to do its intended purpose, swinging an ax down and chopping the log that was in front of it.

"It works!" May exclaims.

"It does?" Peter asks in shock, watching as the machine continued to chop wood. "It does!"

"You did it. You really did it." May proudly says, pulling Peter into a tight hug. "Hitch up Philippe, boy. I'm off to the fair!"  May says, Peter quickly running out of the house and hitching their horse, Phillippe, to the carriage.

May quickly pack up as many supplies she needed for the travel before getting her coat and throwing it on while Peter took the invention and placed it in the ack of the carriage.

"I love you, Peter." May says as she comes outside, planting a kiss on Peter's forehead.

"I love you too, Aunt May." Peter repeats the sentiment.

"Take care while I'm gone." May says as she hops up onto Phillippe.

"Always." Peter responds, watching as his Aunt began to ride off down the road.

Tag List: @spideyspeaches​ @joyful-soul-collector​ @lost-lunar-wolf​ @hatakehikari​ @thatcrackheadsadbitchtm​

[wisteria-lodge]

Character Analysis: Sorting The Old Guard

@sortinghatchats has a brilliant personality/character analysis system based on the four Hogwarts houses. At this point it’s become much more interesting and nuanced, which is part of why I’m moving away from using the names of the houses.

Here’s how it works. Everyone gets two houses – a Primary House and a Secondary House

YOUR PRIMARY IS YOUR MOTIVE. IT’S WHY YOU DO THINGS.

LION Primary’s sense of morality and ethics comes from inside. Things just feel right or they feel wrong.

BIRD Primary gets their morality and ethics from the world outside them. They decide what they think is right.

BADGER Primary is focused on the good of the group. Who cares if something is technically “moral” if people are getting hurt?

SNAKE Primary is a lot like Badger, but instead of protecting the group, their highest law is the well-being of the individual people they love.

YOUR SECONDARY IS YOUR METHOD. IT’S HOW YOU DO THINGS.

LION Secondary gets their power from being direct, honest, completely themselves. Their “plan” is just keep going until someone stops them. If they see a locked door, they kick it in.

BIRD Secondary collects tools and skills. They build things, find things, learn things. If they see a locked door, they go through their box of keys until they find the right one.

BADGER Secondary is fair, hardworking, and shows up. They’re good at getting people to trust them, and good at getting people to help them. If they see a locked door, they knock.

SNAKE Secondary knows the right mask to wear for each situation. They’re adaptive. They go in the back way. They find the third option.  They’re the ones who know how to pick the locks.

And now let’s talk about The Old Guard. Also, SPOILERS.

***

Nile Freeman is a bright Badger primary, defined by her groups. “I’ve got people who love me,” is the first thing she tells the team. And follows that up with, “I’m a Marine.” We meet her in uniform, part of a squad. Getting back to her family is her main motivation. (And it’s a “my family” thing - not a “my mom” or “my brother” thing.) Family continuity and family history mean everything to Nile, and that’s so Badger. Religion is also used as visual shorthand for “Badger” a lot, and Nile’s got her cross necklace. And she doesn’t want to kill people. Doesn’t matter if they’re the bad people who killed her, they’re still people. Badgers can’t ignore that.

Nile’s challenge is figuring out a way to separate from her family (and become an immortal commando) while still keeping her healthy, shining Badger intact. And she does it by expanding. It’s not just about protecting America and her family anymore. She looks at the wall outlining all the good the Old Guard has done, and her community expands to include them, and all of humanity.

She’s definitely got a Lion secondary. Yes, she’s willing to run into the villain’s stronghold with a bag of guns and not much plan - but this is an action movie, that stuff is kinda a given. I’m thinking more about when she has to lie and say her miraculous healing factor is an experimental skin graft – she hates doing it, she’s so bad at it, you can see her skin crawl. Nile is powerful when she is able to just lay out what she believes. People like Agent Copley and the Afghani women just feel the honesty and conviction bleeding off her, and come around to her way of thinking. 

Nile also has a Bird secondary model. Smashing down walls isn’t appropriate all the time, so a lot of Lion secondaries learn to use one of the mellower secondaries as backup. Nile’s Bird is subtle, but it’s there. She applies her anti-militant training to the situation, and thinks they should “follow the money.” She can identify a Rodin sculpture across a dark cave. And she spends a while trying to reason away the fact that she’s immortal (considering hypnosis, drug trips, all that fun stuff.)

Andromache the Scythian aka “Andy” is also a Badger primary. But a very old, very tired, very burnt one. She’s been protecting humanity for about ten thousand years, and she feels all the people she wasn’t able to save. Andy starts off the film doubting whether any of it mattered, if she was actually able to protect her community at all. Because she can’t protect everyone, she is forced to shrink that community down. She can protect Nile, Joe, Nicky, and Booker – and that has to be enough.

The situation with Quyhn is a good look at the sort of darkness that can live inside a Badger Primary. Because Andy stopped looking. She could have spent hundreds of years pouring money and time into finding Quyhn - and neglected the rest of her team, and by extension humanity. But Andy’s a Badger primary. That’s not a thing she can do.

(A Snake primary would never have stopped. Someone like Nicky would burn the world, if that’s what it took to get Joe back.)

If your preferred weapon is an ax or a hammer, then you’re a Lion secondary. That’s just how it works. You are too direct and too smashy to be anything else. Ms. “I always go first” Andy, leader of the group she thinks of as an army? Even when she’s discouraged and exhausted, her Lion secondary is still so loud. She has a bit of a Bird secondary model: she sets up rules like “we don’t do repeats, it’s too risky,” and establishes code words linked to specific maneuvers. But you can tell she’s a little uncomfortable with that kind of thinking. She wants to hit things with an ax and give inspirational speeches. And also threaten people.

Which means that Andy and Nile match perfectly. They are both Badger Lions with Bird secondary models. And that makes perfect sense. Nile was “born” at the same time Andy lost her immortality. They are both warriors. Nile is the one who will “go first,” when Andy isn’t able to anymore. She’s the one who gets Andy’s ax at the end. She’s the new Andy. Andy’s redemption comes with waking her Badger primary up, and training a replacement. Or as she puts it, “I think you showed up when I lost my immortality so I could remember what it was like (…) that there are people still worth fighting for.”

Nicolò di Genova aka “Nicky” fights for Joe. It really is that simple. His backstory tells you everything you need to know: he fought in the Crusades until he fell in love with a Muslim, and had to choose. On one hand - religion, country, job, society, security. On the other hand - the man he loves. For Nicky the answer is obvious. Because he is such a Snake primary.

As long as he’s with Joe, he’s fine. Agent Copley is trying to explain himself, Nicky doesn’t care. “I���m sure you’re bringing us to the person who paid for your betrayal. There’s a TV [on this plane] Joe!” The villains can talk all they want about the greater good and moral imperatives and changing the world. Nicky is just bored. “A fine justification. I’ve heard it so many times before.” None of that stuff matters to him.

His secondary is harder to spot, underneath the really loud primary and the really loud Lion secondary model. But I think I see a Badger secondary. Nicky’s a caretaker. He brings Andy her favorite candy, sets up Nile for the night and shows her where to sleep. Joe says that Nicky’s heart “overflows with a kindness of which this world is not worthy,” and I get that they’re in love, but that’s still some serious character testimony. I’m also going to throw in the fact that Nicky’s a sniper. Being a sniper is not like hitting things with an ax. It’s all about getting in place and being careful and patient. Badger secondary traits.

Yusuf Al-Kaysani aka “Joe” actually takes the time to lay out rules he lives by. Which is interesting, because the only other people in this film who do that are the villains. Those guys are not motivated by personal loyalty: they’re either Lion or Bird primaries motivated by “the greater good.” The Old Guard is a very Loyalist movie. When we get our big Theme Scene, the French shopgirl tells us, “Today I put this on your wound. Tomorrow you help someone up when they fall. We’re not meant to be alone.” That’s the ethos of the movie. It’s very Badger.

Joe gets how Badger Primaries work. He gets Andy, and the best example of this is when he comforts her by saying Quyhn “would be insane” by now. He’s basically saying, “you don’t have a responsibility to her the way you have to the rest of us, because she’s not really a person anymore.” It’s dark, but so is Andy, and that line of reasoning would make sense to a Badger primary.

Joe also understands Nicky’s Snake primary. He  knows he’s Nicky’s world, and he never stops demonstrating that. He has Nicky’s back when they fight (Nicky passes things over his shoulder without looking). He has Nicky’s back when they sleep (as the big spoon). He learned Italian for Nicky, and when Nicky is freaked, Joe just shows up with that “his kiss still thrills me, even after a millennia” speech. But that speech is also him explaining his worldview to the guards, the same way he bothers to tell them, “You shot Nicky. You shouldn’t have done that.”

When Nile asks, “Are you good guys or bad guys?” Joe responds, “Depends on the century.” He is interested in those large moral questions, and the answer he has decided on is a combination of Andy’s Badger morality, and Nicky’s Snake morality.

And to go with that really complicated Primary, I think Joe really is just a straightforward Lion secondary (another reason he gets Andy). I mean... he literally headbutts people. 

Sebastian “Booker” Le Livre, whose nickname is a very silly pun, is the most vaguely drawn character. I’m not sure if he turns Nicky and Joe over to Merrick because he wants to die, or because he wants to find a way to help Andy die. Or both. But either way, he is a very burnt Snake primary.

Booker seems to be the only one who kept up contact with his family after learning he was immortal. As a result, he got to watch his son die painfully with “hate and despair in [his] eyes,” blaming his father for not loving him enough to save him. It’s been about 150 years, but Booker is not over this.

That is a very Snake primary love, and when it comes down to it, Booker is a Snake with no people he can throw himself into loving the way he loved his son. (No wonder he drinks). He wants more emotional intimacy from Andy than she is able to give him - not in a romantic way, they have more of a sibling dynamic. But look at the betrayal in his eyes when he learns she’s lost her immortality: “Andy, look at me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

This is the exchange right after Booker betrays the team:

JOE: You selfish piece of shit. NICKY: Joe, leave it, please… BOOKER: What would you know of the weight of all these years alone? JOE: You’re a very pathetic man Booker. NICKY: Joe, stop. BOOKER: You and Nicky always had each other, right?

Nicky is sympathetic. He’s a Snake primary like Booker, he knows what living without a Person must be like, he knows exactly why Booker did what he did. Joe doesn’t. He only sees how Booker has failed to look at the big picture (like Joe would have, because he’s a Bird, that’s how he thinks) and that he made an objectively dumb call. Joe is angry at him for the rest of the movie. But the others, who know what it’s like motivated only by personal loyalty… they kind of get it.

To round things off, Booker is a Bird secondary. You can tell by the way he collects skills. He’s the operation coordinator, the quartermaster, the driver, and the tech guy. He’s also not afraid of a plan with steps. Nile calls him, “the brains of the operation” (although she’s probably being nice). Still, Booker is a good example of the way Bird secondaries aren’t always smart. His plan was pretty objectively terrible, but that was because his primary was so compromised.

tl;dr

Nile – Badger/Lion (Bird model)

Andy – Burnt Badger/Lion (Bird model)

Nicky – Snake/Badger (Lion model for fighting)

Joe – Bird who has built Nicky’s Snake morality, and Andy’s Badger morality into himself/Lion

Booker – Burnt Snake/Bird

[piracytheorist]

If I had the time I would re-watch a completionist gameplay of RE8, write down every demeaning commentary, every violent action and every injury the characters causes Ethan and every innocent villager so that every time someone tries to be snarky about Ethan being anything but an unfortunate person doing what he can for his daughter, I’ll just direct them to the document and let canon speak for itself

Lol! That would take a while, to be honest. But you know, for me it's enough that the Lords kept Ethan chained up and fought over who gets to torture him - at this point he doesn't even know for sure if they have Rose, and even without that the whole "trial" thing is so fucked up - and when Ethan "oh so horribly trespassed into Castle Dimitrescu, what a villain oh em gee", aka the house of the woman who openly said she will let her daughters siphon the blood out of him, that same woman watched with glee as said daughters strung Ethan up in one of the most painful ways possible.

Like, I'd probably try to fight back too if someone trespassed into my house holding a fucking gun, but I'm a mere 5'2'' mortal who can't even deliver a punch, let alone grab a grown man's head and smack him to the ground. I also wouldn't like the idea of keeping a baby's decapitated, crystallized head in a jar, but as we said Dimitrescu was too far gone to realize how fucked up that was. "How dare you talk about saving your daughter when you've murdered mine?!" Um excuse me did that six-month-old baby laugh while you were being tortured or try to kill you while you were trying to run away? Like, again, I understand her grief. Horrible human ("human"?), loving mother, layered and interesting villain, not necessarily redeemable.

Yeah, I get that Ethan was """""trespassing""""" with the other Lords (aside from Heisenberg who literally opened the doors for him, only the tea and moldy cookies were missing) but like, idk, if someone cannot grasp the fact that any caring parent can be capable of such stuff (which let's be honest it's mostly self defense - many players may turn into murder hobos while playing but Ethan himself never attacks anyone who isn't attacking (or directly threatening to) first (unless you count the animals but that's a discussion of vegan nature)) if their kid was in danger, then no matter how long and complete of a list one makes, nothing is going to convince them that Ethan is not the most horrible person iN thE HiSTOry of ResIDnET EviL!!11!!!

In any case, I may not have been in many fandoms, but I have seen how haters work. They do not listen to reason. I was once arguing with someone over a character's characterization, a character who appears only in the last season of a seven-season-long TV show, and they were obviously wrong about the facts and I was like "Did you even watch the last season" and they were like "I read recaps uwu". Like. This is how haters work. They do not care for the facts. I can assure you that some Ethan haters out there have only watched clips from Village, probably compilations on youtube that are like "all scenes/cutscenes/dialogue options of [character]" and again, I'll sound like a broken record but it's perfectly fine to focus on the parts you want to focus, the parts you enjoy the most etc and ignore anything you don't give a damn about. But going out there and trying to make a "statement" when you don't have all the facts... people will call you ridiculous and you will have that coming. So with that in mind, a list of all the times the Lords were horrible to Ethan (or the villagers) wouldn't prove anything to them, they probably wouldn't even bother to read it. Though in a whumpy interest, there is this very extensive list of all the shit Ethan goes through in both his games (including the stuff the Lords do to him). So as an advice, don't spend any time trying to convince haters. "Haters gonna hate" can also have a meaning like that. They're gonna hate and never listen, so it's like arguing with the wall.