#and that it's been confirmed that they have a brother-mentor relationship.... your ship is still fucking nasty lmao

[olympeline]

Reply regarding the fruk v usuk posts.

I’ll start by stating my personal preference is Fruk, they’ve always been my OTP. I find usuk cute at times but generally I don’t seek out usuk content so it’s not on my mind much.

While I do agree with your interpretation, I think I always leaned more towards Fruk because I always saw America and England as brothers/family. The revolutionary war stuff, for example, always felt to me more like a father loosing a son. So I naturally gravitated to Fruk since they have the next most canon moments in an England ship (especially with Paint it White included), and I just love an enemies to lovers. I’m also a history buff and historically, Fruk fits so much better. (Also FACE fam)

This is not to bash usuk shippers at all it’s just how I interpreted the canon.

Side note - I feel like in recent years Fruk has become more/equally as popular than USUK (I could be wrong thought cause, again, I do seek out Fruk content). But if that is the case, it’s interesting to see how the fandom evolved from USUK being clearly the more popular of the two to it being relatively even. This might also be due to the rise in rusame shippers (I am one of those…)

That’s the good thing about Arthur and Alfred: you can interpret their relationship in many different ways and there’s still lots of fun to be had. All that’s really confirmed by canon is “they cared about each other and were hurt by the fight.” Whether you interpret that care and hurt as a father losing a son, a battle between brothers, or a mentor/mentee which later turned into something more, it’s all entertaining nonetheless

Since I go deep diving into old blogs it’s difficult to judge how the popularity of ships has changed. To me it seems there’s tons of USUK but maybe that’s just because I’m looking back? It doesn’t seem like there’s more Rusame than when the fandom was new. I always remember there being lots of it anyway. Definitely Alfred’s second most popular ship back in the day. Not sure about the amount of FrUK. Who knows 🤔

[kny]

wow, i’m sorry, i still can’t hear you over this song:

[just-antithings]

To the Batcest asker: as a long time Robin shipper, most of them haven't even lived with Bruce at the same time, the adoption papers are real for some of them. They are less brothers than a best friend you've known your whole life would be, they are literally just all robins and trained by Bruce, Nightingale was the only one who actually live with him for a long time at that was 12 to college, Jason died at like 13/15 ish and never lived there again Tim still had parents for a hot minute while being a Robin, Damian is his only biological kid and did even meet until he was 10 after being raised as an assassin, and of the girls only Cassandra/blackbat lived with Bruce, Barbara is police commissioner gordans kid and he's still around and spoiler ran from home cause her dad is a villian and was only trained so she wouldn't die trying to fight crime. None of these relationships scream family even Bruce was more of a mentor than a dad. You wouldn't call having a crush on a teacher incest so even if you ship Bruce with them it's age gap at most and I think only Damian is underage and all of them have been adults in one release or the other so none of it makes sense.

Also a quick search on Google will you( general you @ antis) find its only confirmed that he adopted Tim but then time loops so it only kind of happened for a second in one of the universes and Cassandra cause she is an orphan. Even Nightwing/dick was only ever confirmed as his ward and no further confirmation given otherwise. So no none of them are related even if you look at it "legally" hopefully mods see this while it's relevant. Love you mods thanks for the hard work!!

ah but you see shipping someone with their best friend that they’ve known all their life is incest according to antis

[jumpingjaxx13]

📚 📖 📓📕📒📔📘📗📙

Lol

The joke's on you. I have a ton of these and I'm about to make it everyone's problem.

Put "📓" into my inbox and I'll explain the plot of a fanfiction that I haven't written but daydream about.

(I'm gonna cheat a little. The ones with * are ones that I have started writing, but are incomplete/have been WIPs for a long time/nowhere close to being done. I feel like that counts just because of the amount of daydreaming/not writing that goes into them lol)

(Also, if there is any that someone is particularly interested in reading once it's finished, just leave a reply and I'll reach out with a link once it's published!)

This is going to be a long post, so I'll put the answer under a read more!

📚 *

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Ships: ShigaDabi (primary), TodoDeku (background, maybe)

An AU where Tenko Shimura was found by Inko Midoriya instead of AFO and raised as Izuku's brother. He winds up becoming Hawks's secretary, meets All Might and learns about his grandmother, and gets to proudly watch his brother follow his dreams. Things start to change when he meets a strange man outside of a cafe and falls for him. How was he supposed to know that Dabi was a villain!? From there, Tenko has to do a lot of self reflection and decide what he wants to do after learning about his boyfriend's identity, especially when he found out that his boss had known all along. Does he chase after Dabi? Join him? Turn him in? I'm not 100% sure how I want to end this, but I am tempted for it to lead to the "birth" of Tomura. Any suggestions would be welcome!

📖*

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Ships: N/A, maybe background Duo Holders?

Essentially an AFO origin story focusing on his relationship with Yoichi over the course of his descent. I take a few snapshots of the brothers together, starting as teens and going through to his death, and showing how their regard for each other changed. It finally ends with AFO speaking to Yoichi's grave years later. I'm a fan of DFO, so I'm going to be using the name Hisashi for him, but if/when his canon name comes out, I'll be changing it to match!

📓

Fandom: Death Note

Ships: LawLight (primary), MattMello (secondary)

An AU where Roger Ruvie dies early on in the investigation and, with the entire world under suspicion, L can't afford to replace him. Instead, he sends the majority of the kids off to other houses that Watari had built, save for his top three successors. Near, Mello, and Matt all move into the Task Force HQ and, despite L's "best efforts" to prevent it (read: he's totally just pretending to stop them to please the others), they continually find themselves thrown in the middle of the investigation. I'm also not 100% certain how I want this to end, but I do know that it's going to be endgame L/Light and Matt/Mello.

📕*

Fandom: Bungo Stray Dogs

Ships: RanPoe (past), ODazai (past, platonic or romantic), SteinCraft (past, background)

A sequel to Unstoppable Force. I've had a few people express interest in the culprit, so I've decided to write up an optional sequal that explains it. I debated not doing it, but I know that a lot of people enjoy closure, so I thought it would be fun! I invented a new villain and a new ability and I found an excuse to drag some Guild members into it as well. Essentially, Ranpo reopens the case after the funeral and uses the strange behavior of Steinbeck to corner and catch the elusive ability user. I'm personally proud of the ability I created, so I'm going to keep it a secret for now.

📒*

Fandom: Toilet Bound Hanako-Kun

Ships: TeruKane (primary)

This one is actually based on a post that has since been deleted proposing the idea of a soulmate AU where the name of your soulmate is written on the inside of your book in the Four O'clock Library. I shook it up a bit and added the idea that if you read your soulmate's name, people will begin to forget they exist and you have to confess your love to them within a week or they will disappear from existence entirely. Akane didn't think it would be a problem to go and confirm his soulmate-- it's obviously Aoi-- only to discover a very different name written in his book. Knowing his time limit, he struggles to find a loophole in the curse that would help him avoid confessing a love he doesn't feel. In the meantime, people are slowly starting to forget who Teru Minamoto is, with Akane being the only one to remember, forcing them to spend even more time together. This one is going to have a happy ending, but it's going to be a really close call!

📔

Fandom: Robihachi

Ships: Robby/Hatchi (primary)

This is a sequel to Lovely that I've been playing around with. Someone expressed that they wanted to see how Robby's father would react to their situation and that got me thinking about it. In a misguided gesture of good faith, Hatchi's parents invite Robby's family up to the moon to help celebrate either his birthday or their first anniversary. Much to Robby's surprise, they agree to come, leaving him with an awkward mess of judgement to deal with until they leave. I still haven't decided how this will end, but I know it's going to be on either a positive or bittersweet note.

📘

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Ships: EraserMist (primary; may be romantic or platonic), Tomura/Touya (secondary)

Sequel to Purpose. Kurogiri and Tomura move in with that kind hero, Aizawa, after what happened in the alleyway. It takes a lot of getting used to, but it is leagues better than living out of a hotel. Kurogiri juggles working to obtain his hero license with raising Tomura (made easier with the new help) and investigates just why that hero seemed so familiar... Later on, when Tomura enters UA, he juggles making friends for the first time, proving his heroism despite his quirk, and a concerning new crush on the hot upperclassman.

📗

Fandom: Sk8 the Infinity

Ships: MatchaBlossom (primary), Renga (secondary), ShadOka (maybe)

This one is going to go through a week of after-hours visits at Sia la Luce. Each day, someone drops in while Joe is closing up, needing one thing or another. From relationship advice to a pleasant escape to pleas for forgiveness, Joe finds himself to be the center of all of their attention. It's just a collection of seven mini-stories that are all collected throughout the span of one week in-universe. Everyone is going to give Joe a visit for different reasons and I'm excited to see how it turns out!

📙*

Fandom: Bungo Stray Dogs

Ships: Shin Soukoku (primary), Soukoku (secondary), more potentially TBA

A fantasy AU in which Fukuzawa and Mori are the kings of two rival kingdoms, Ada and the Port Kingdom (I'll probably change the names lol). Fukuzawa has no genetic heirs, but he had taken in a number of wards, one of which will be chosen to succeed him. Mori has two children, and the prince was born with a terrible curse that leaves his reputation soaked in blood. Atsushi, one of Fukuzawa's wards, is also cursed and feels that Prince Ryuunosuke is just like him; that he can be saved with some kindness and compassion. Despite being warned not to, he sneaks out and attends a ball intended to find the prince a suitor. While there, he unknowingly defends the prince from a number of attackers, which, while unnecessary, piques Ryuunosuke's interest. The two run away together, but wind up being sidetracked by an advancing enemy and wind up lost. Chuuya, a knight from the PK, is sent by Mori to go and find his son. Dazai, Atsushi's mentor and ward of Fukuzawa, is sent to go and locate the weretiger after he does not come to breakfast in the morning. Chuuya and Dazai run into each other while searching for their respective people, which leads to them teaming up to find them while Atsushi and Ryuunosuke are trying their hardest not to be found.

[delicatejisung]

𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐧𝐜𝐭 & 𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐯

𝙨𝙢𝙩𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨:

✯ 𝑒𝓍𝑜:

[i seperated the gifs because her closeness with the 8 aren’t the same with yixing’s]

- okay, yanna doesn’t really remember HOW she became close with kai

- but everytime an smtown concert happens, kai never fails to give her a high five and would sometimes throw confetti at her

- she’s really awkward towards kyungsoo, because she’s a huge fan of his acting

- xiumin and suho often give her a thumbs up backstage everytime she finishes a performance

- chanyeol, she finds him really funny but one time he high-fived her and her hand hurt for lyk days

- she really admires chen’s voice and joked one time to baekhyun about wanting to be a godmother and he told him so ...... maybe?

- baekhyun and yanna became friends when she accidentally put her arm around him at an smtown concert, everyone was shocked but baekhyun just went with it

- the next concerts, he would always always ALWAYS shove her playfully so everyone guessed they became friends

- it was confirmed when baekhyun talked about her in a guesting, saying that having younger friends like her made him feel very old

- yanna has a crush on sehun and it’s something she can never talk about to anyone so she just bows everytime he’s around

- he isn’t really helping much because he often goes “how have you been?” everytime they meet and she’s just lyk shdjjsjdjdjs inside

- now lay is a whole different story

- yanna has always been vocal about idolizing yixing, specially when it comes to dancing

- yixing didn’t know much about her except that she was in nct dream (which he was familiar with but both weren’t sure how to approach each other) but was told that she might join him in “idol producer season 1” as a possible sub mentor who just visits the trainees occasionally

- he wasn’t confident with the idea but changed his mind when they had a meeting with her

- yixing didn’t expect a girl this young to be full of ideas, especially in helping people she doesn’t even know yet

- yanna simply said “i know how hard it was to become a trainee, a little help won’t be a bother to me at all. besides, i don’t think i’ll be of much help anyways.” while laughing

- so yeah, yanna gained his respect before, during and after filming the show

- he often contacts yanna to cheer her on

- yanna always tells him how much she misses the show

- yanna doesn’t usually approach them first because she’s shy and they’re still her seniors no matter how friendly they are

✯ 𝓇𝑒𝒹 𝓋𝑒𝓁𝓋𝑒𝓉

- yanna was also in sr15g so ....

- irene always fixes her hair even when there’s nothing wrong with it, lyk she would even mess it up just to fix it again

- yanna is always seen sitting on seulgi’s lap

- wendy and her have the best conversations tbh

- yanna would 100% jump on yeri’s back for no particular reason

- they’re always seen skipping together during concerts

- joy and yanna can’t get through a day without complimenting each other

- oh and they always remind her that she can have thousands of “hyungs” but they’re her only “unnies”

✯ 𝒽𝑒𝑒𝒸𝒽𝓊𝓁

- literally treats yanna like a younger sister

- they love joking around each other

- he believes yanna would do great in variety shows

- yanna heard about his relationship by accident and told him

- he made her promise not to tell anyone

- he was like “if that gets out, you’ll also have to reveal your relationship” and she was like “I’M NOT EVEN IN A RELATIONSHIP”

- everytime a male idol reveals that they have a crush on yanna on knowing brothers, heechul goes “NAE DONGSAENG?”

✯ 𝓂𝒾𝓇𝒶𝑔𝑒

[ @mirage-official, please check them out bc i love them & who made them !!!]

- okay so hyeyoung is one of yanna’s looooong line of moms (everyone wants to adopt yanna, wbk)

- she’s someone yanna depends on more and more each day as she grows up/older

- yes, the boys are a lot of help but yanna’s still a girl and sometimes she needs girl advice

- when she does, hyeyoung’s one call away unless she’s busy with other stuff

- hyeyoung introduced her to journals and to give her old notebook a break

- but also, yanna never makes hyeyoung forget that she’s still pretty young and she should enjoy being spontaneous sometimes

- unplanned trip to jeju? totally would be a yanna idea as she sits with her shades on ignoring hyeyoung’s questions

- and yes, yanna will be hyeyoung’s matchmaker so wait for her to do her magic on her and that guy

- evie is a WHOLE different story

- evie is like that cool aunt yanna talks to when she wants to curse someone out

- she vents to evie

- and evie’s cool so she’s like “hit me, it’ll make you feel better” but yanna’s like “....no.”

- yanna loves it when evie hugs her

- she giggles so hard because the boys who are scared of evie are just confused when she does

- and yes, yanna LIVES FOR hyuck having a crush on evie

- but also she gets annoyed when evie protects hyuck saying he’s an innocent little boy

- “HE’S NOT, HE’S MEAN TO ME” “it’s because he likes you” “HE DOESN’T, I TOLD YOU HE LIKES YOU” “you’re so funny, yanna”

- they both ship yanren HARD but of course it’s more because of how happy renjun makes yanna, they would fight him if he makes her cry

- basically hyeyoung and evie are like her moms, fans are convinced she’s their love child and she’s fine with it bc yay more love for her

✯ 𝑔𝑒𝓂

[ check her out too, also on @mirage-official !!!]

- gem and yanna had an interesting past that only half of them remembers

- yanna was a trainee focused on debuting and the boys were just loud and friendly that’s why she ended up befriending them, eunmi was shy and that’s why her and yanna didn’t really become friends

- yanna didn’t like her at first but wasn’t mean about it she was just protective but you’ll get to that if you check her out hhh

- basically interactions were really awkward at first because yanna’s always 👀 towards her

- but really yanna’s just wary

- once they got past that and started becoming friends, oh boy

- yanna and gem? besties.

- yanna would protect gem from sm, like literally see her roll her eyes at her manager from time to time bc she got nerve now

- their favorite hobby is sharing their hatred towards sm’s mismanagement

- jk it’s gem making yanna appreciate cartoons like steven universe

- but really a yanna and gem sub-unit is something their individual fanbases will be begging for because we stan powerful women

[whereisstevethestove]

Captains that Smell of Salt and Liquor.

Fandoms: Sanders sides and technically the lore behind the Flying Dutchman.

Characters: Virgil, Roman, Remus, Janus, Patton, Logan

Relationships: Logan/Patton, Roman/Virgil

Additional tags: Mer AU, Pirate AU, Human AU, Mixed Latinx Remus, UMMM Siren!Roman, Siren!Virgil, Mer!Janus, Pirate!Logan and Patton.

Word count: 1022

Summary:  Remus is young when he runs to become a sailor.

Notes:  This is actually kinda a prequel to this post (x)

AO3

Remus is young and cocky when he first takes to the open water.  The sea has long called to him from his window in his home of Jamaica, and so the second he’s fifteen, he’s jumping on the first ship that needs an inexperienced half colonizer’s child.

The sea is cruel, she is unforgiving and Remus can see why they call her a female, the wild and reckless way that her moods flip.  It’s something that he points out to Virgil one day, as they’re both hanging from the crows nest, watching for a storm.

“I’d love to wed the sea.”  Remus blurts out and Virgil, with his dark hair and easy laugh just shrugs.

“You’re fucking weird Remus.”

“Maybe.  Do you believe in mermaids?” “Every sailor does.”  Virgil glances back behind him before turning back to Remus and leaning in as if he had a secret to share.  “I’ve kissed one.”

“Really?” “Hmmm, they had the most beautiful red tail I’ve ever seen.  Sharp teeth too, I still have a scar.”

Remus watches as Virgil tilts his head, displaying a clear bite mark, the scar a pale silvery color.

“Did he speak?”

“He said he’d come back for me one day.”  Virgil confirms before turning away.  “Get back to work.  I don’t want to be thrown off at the next port because I was gossiping with you about mer kisses.”

Virgil is twenty and Remus can’t help but follow him around after the mer story, entranced with the idea of making one of the creatures fall in love with him.  Virgil bares the younger well, teaching him everything he can about sailing so the captain of the ship doesn’t have to deal with an over eager teen.

Then one night, the pair are the only two on deck when Virgil’s eyes go glassy and he stares off at the water like it’s the only thing there.

It takes Remus a few seconds to hear it.

Siren song.

Virgil manages to pull them both below deck, but for a week after, Remus’ mentor is sick, and barely eats.  Remus is the only one in the crew to make sure that he doesn’t die, as the others are busy running the ship.

After Virgil gets slightly better he gifts Remus a worn coin.  

“Payment for keeping me alive.”

“There’s no need.”

“Keep it.”  Virgil insists and Remus begrudgingly tucks the coin away with his things, wondering why the older would give him something like that as if it was the most precious treasure in the world.

A month later Virgil is gone in the middle of the night and Remus can hear two sirens singing.

Rumor has it in the morning that a vengeful crewmate threw the unsuspecting man over, but Remus knows that siren can change their mates to be like them and Virgil had told him that only one siren song had ever tempted him.

He wonders what color Virgil’s tail is.  It’s probably purple, or maybe an ink black to match his wild hair.

Years pass,  Remus grows from an overeager boy to a hardened first mate, respectful of the sea and her children as he carries cargo across the wide ocean.  He grows tired of the monotony and at first chance, he runs from the crew he’s been with for almost seven years and joins a more savage crew, one that robs.

The captain and the first mate of this ship are married.   Remus has never met Logan, but his bubbly husband is a great first mate, always leading the crew in songs as they go from destination to destination, only destroying those who are merciless to others.

They’re strange pirates, but he loves it.

Remus is on night watch when he first meets his mer.   He’s looking over the side of the boat when the face pops up, scaled halfway and gold eyes glimmering like the dull coin that Virgil gave him years ago.

“Hello fish.”  Remus grins as the mer’s eyes widen.

“You seem to think I am real?”

“Well, considering my older brother swam off with a siren, I’d say yes.”  Remus calls down casually.

The mer rolls their eyes and dives back under the water and Remus is alone again.  When the morning comes, he tells Patton of the golden creature and the first mate nods.

“You are lucky.”

Remus isn’t so sure.

He stays with this crew until he’s thirty, and then when they dock in a small port in Cuba, he’s off again to go and seek out another life.

He stays onshore for about three days and during this time he hears the whispered rumors of a ship whose occupants never age, a ship that only docks once every seven years and that night is tonight.

So he goes to the docks and watches as the ship sails in, beautiful and old, somehow ancient and new at the same time.

They won’t let him board without payment.

Remus pulls out the coin that Virgil gave him fifteen years ago and the first mate sniffs it before looking at him.

“This is siren touched.”  He mumbles before pocketing it.

“So I’ve heard.”

“You sell your soul to the ship if you stay with us.”  The first mate offers as a warning before stepping aside so that Remus can walk up the gangplank if he choses.

“Perhaps that is my intention.”

“You have a desire to be captain?” “Don’t we all?”

“Welcome to the Flying Dutchman   I suppose.”

“Thank you.”  Remus gives a mocking half bow before boarding.

As it turns out, it’s pretty easy to become captain of the Dutchman.  Before Remus can even draw his sword for the duel, the captain kneels, admitting that he was tired and wished to sever his bind to the ship, so that he could finally rest.

The crew likes Remus.  He adds a new spice to the job, introduces them to the finest kind of liquor and eventually they realize that for being a ghost ship, their captain is usually superstitious.

Of course, they’ve never seen the mer that has started to follow the ship around...

[aion-rsa]

WandaVision Finale Ending Explained

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains WandaVision spoilers.

After eight near-perfect episodes, the story of WandaVision has concluded with a finale installment that sticks the landing on all fronts, including multiple cinematic battles, several heartfelt goodbyes, and a long-overdue moment of agency for a heroine who has so often been denied a choice in her own future. 

But while “The Series Finale” is a deeply satisfying coda to what is probably Marvel’s most emotionally satisfying outing to date, it leaves us with more than a few questions about where these characters go from here. Let’s break down what happened in the WandaVision finale, and what it might mean for the Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward.

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Wanda Transforms Into the Scarlet Witch

Thanks to Agatha’s pronouncement last week, we already knew that Wanda was the legendary Scarlet Witch but in “The Series Finale” we see her fully embrace her chaos magic, right down to an amazing contemporary riff on her traditional comics costume. (That headpiece! The cape! We love to see it!)

There’s even a return of the mind control visions we saw her deploy to such great effect in Avengers: Age of Ultron. What can’t this Wanda do?

Granted, we still don’t know what all this power now means for her character in a larger sense, but to be fair, neither does she. Wanda’s abilities as displayed in this episode are fairly tremendous, as she uses witch runes to neutralize Agatha, wipes her mind, and brings down the Hex she’s built around Westview, freeing its residents. 

In the episode’s post-credits scene, however, her abilities appear to have grown even further, as she’s able to take in a scenic lake view even as her astral self is also busy reading the Darkhold, right down to making its pages turn on their own. 

This is a move we’ve seen Stephen Strange pull before, but according to Agatha, Wanda is even more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme. So….what else will she be able to do? That seems to be what she’s trying to find out.

Westview Returns to Normal (Sort of)

During her (quite frankly pretty badass) battle with Agatha, the older witch frees several Westview residents from Wanda’s mind control, forcing her to face what she’s done to the townspeople in her quest to build a perfect life. The simultaneously angry and desperate crowd of Westview residents – who look like nothing so much as a suburban take on a horde from The Walking Dead – confront Wanda and reveal a bit of what it must really like as a person who lives under the town’s spell.  

The most harrowing victim is certainly town queen bee Dottie, who comes to herself long enough to beg Wanda to allow her to see her daughter, or perhaps write her into the larger storyline as one of the twins’ friends. But we also learn that Wanda has been projecting her grief and pain into Westview’s nightmares, forcing them to suffer right alongside her, rather than providing a peaceful, perfect escape. 

What Happened to Agatha Harkness?

At least one resident of Westview won’t be returning to normal, however. After Wanda defeats Agatha by scattering witch runes around the Westview Hex to neutralize her magic, she uses her own power to wipe Agatha’s memories and essentially turn her into nosy neighbor Agnes, the WandaVision “role she chose,” for good. 

Your mileage may vary on whether this is an acceptable ending for Agatha – a character who was, admittedly, often monstrous, even though she was right about the way that society is all too willing, even eager, to vilify powerful women out of fear (and often just because it can). On the plus side, since nothing lasts forever in the Marvel Universe and Agatha Harkness is a pretty powerful witch in her own right, there’s every chance this character will reappear down the road. After all, Agatha was Wanda’s mentor in the comics and she tells Wanda here that her magical expertise will be needed in the future. 

We Said Goodbye to Wanda’s Kids (Or Did We?)

As products of the Hex, young Billy and Tommy Maximoff’s fates were always going to be tied to it, so in choosing to break the illusion, Wanda also accepts that she’ll have to say goodbye to her sons. In one of “The Series Finale’s” most heartbreaking scenes, she and Vision, knowing what’s coming, tuck the boys in for bed one last time, as the red glow of the shrinking boundary line edges closer to their house. 

Wanda also thanks the boys for choosing her as a mother. Reader, I cried. Plus, this basically confirms that Billy and Tommy aren’t entirely constructs of Wanda’s imagination. They’ve come from somewhere, and possess something like souls. How that all happened is anyone’s guess – here’s your entry point for Mephisto, folks! – and it’s something future series can explore, but it’s certainly the way I’d prefer to read it. 

But, since the last thing we hear on WandaVision is also the voices of Tommy and Billy shouting to their mother that something is wrong, it seems pretty likely we’ll see some version of these characters again. There’s precedent in the comics after all, and finding her lost boys is a pretty powerful narrative throughline to carry over to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. 

What Happened to White Vision?

Paul Bettany’s dreams of essentially working with himself are realized, as Vision and the White Vision come to blows in the skies of Westview. But despite the epic battle between the synthezoids – or, synthezoid and Mind Stone-fueled recreation of that same original, as the case may be – physical combat isn’t the most compelling, or even interesting part of their encounter.

Instead, it’s philosophy. Yes, you read that right. Upon realizing that the two are too evenly matched for either to emerge victorious, Vision decides to engage the White Vision in a thought experiment about their shared existence, and whether either of them is truly the man (robot?) they claim to be. The two end up in a sort of pseudo-philosopher’s debate about The Ship of Theseus, a thought experiment centered on issues of identity and meaning, and what makes a thing real. 

This is surprisingly deep stuff for a Marvel property but the conversation contains tantalizing hints about what we could expect as we head into Phase 4 of the MCU. After all, it will likely contain stories full of magic, mutants, and transformation of all types; this is simply WandaVision giving us a metaphorical anchor to hang onto throughout. Well, that and providing a way to bring Vision – or some version of him – back for good, as Westview Vision restores White Vision’s memories and gives us all a reason to hope that he and Wanda will one day be reunited again.

Was the Vision in Westview Real? 

Yes and no. The Vision that lived in Westview and shared a house with Wanda wasn’t physically the Vision we’d previously seen in the Avengers films. He was a flesh and blood construct, created by Wanda’s power, informed by her grief memories, and born from the piece of the Mind Stone that lives inside her. (This makes sense, given that the rise of Wanda’s magical abilities was connected to her initial exposure to the Mind Stone. As Agatha puts it, the Scarlet Witch is forged, not born, and for Wanda, that crucible was her time with Hydra and the Infinity Stone that served as a sort of cosmic gasoline on her sleeping abilities that might never have stirred otherwise.) This Vision represents Wanda’s hope and sadness, but mostly her love. 

And, as a result, even Westview Vision doesn’t greet his oncoming demise with sadness, or even fear. Instead, he reasons, he and Wanda have been here before twice already, forced to say goodbye before their time. And since their relationship has survived before, there’s every reason to believe it will again, and they’ll find their way back to one another.

Monica’s Powers, the Skrulls, and Captain Marvel 2

Unfortunately, thanks to everything else going on in “The Series Finale,” Monica Rambeau doesn’t have a ton to do here. However, she does get a straight-up hero moment, where she throws herself in front of a bullet (or four) for Wanda’s kids and reveals a heretofore unseen ability to phase through objects and slow them down. She also frees the real Ralph Bohner, and happily helps send dirtbag SWORD director Tyler Hayward to prison. 

Happily, however, despite her limited screentime in this episode, Monica’s MCU future looks bright. In the mid-credits scene, she’s approached by a Skrull disguised as a SWORD agent who takes her aside and reveals she was sent by a friend of her late mother, Maria’s. And that friend, who is most likely Nick Fury, would like to see Monica – in space. 

We’d all basically assumed that Monica, who is Maria’s daughter and clearly has some as-yet-unprocessed resentment toward Carol Danvers, would be a significant player in the upcoming sequel Captain Marvel 2, but perhaps there’s an even broader future in store for her, as part of the SWORD-like organization Fury and the Skrull named Talos formed at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home. 

Who Was the Fake Pietro Maximoff?

Sadly, the character played by Evan Peters in WandaVision was not actually Wanda’s brother Pietro ported over from the FOX X-Men universe like we all hoped. So, yeah, unfortunately, that means mutants technically still do not exist in the MCU, and that’s a problem another movie or series will have to address.

While trapped in his self-described “man cave”, Monica discovers that the Fake Pietro is really just Ralph Bohner, the mysteriously absent husband Agnes was constantly complaining about throughout the season. Agatha kept him under her spell using an enchanted necklace, and when it was removed his real identity returns. Whether the fact that Agatha’s punishment to live as her Agnes identity involves being really married to Ralph is unclear but in Westview, anything is possible, I guess.

Wanda’s Future and Doctor Strange 2

Wanda has long been confirmed as a major player in the upcoming sequel Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but we haven’t known how exactly she would fit into this story, having never exactly met Stephen Strange before. But since the WandaVision post-credits scene confirms that the new Scarlet Witch is determined to learn more about her powers, it seems that will change fairly quickly. The only question is, how?

Stephen Strange has served as a mentor to many magic users throughout Marvel Comics history and could certainly be someone that Wanda seeks out to help her access and control her new abilities. But, given that she’s also currently DIY-ing her knowledge of witch history with a magical item that is basically subtitled the “book of the damned” it’s also very possible that she and Strange will end up at odds over the Darkhold’s existence, her possession of it, or both. Plus, there’s that interesting wrinkle of her still hearing the voices of her construct children that shouldn’t still exist outside of Westview thing. Time to explore the multiverse, anyone?

The post WandaVision Finale Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[lioncunt]

Why do you think Klance will be canon? I read somewhere you though it was the most logical conclusion, could you outline your thoughts? Or if you already have, could you add a link to your post?

I have written about it before but I’ll put down my new thoughts to include season 6. I’ve never been certain of it, keep in mind, it just always has seemed like an inevitable thing based on every single thing we’ve been told about the show and characters, no matter what angle i’ve looked at it from.

So, here’s what we had been given on romance in the show:

-they were planning a slow burn with all romances

-endgame romances couldn’t really happen with all the space plot stuff going on

-lance’s love interest will be someone lance needs, rather than what he wants, and will get him to a place opposite of where he started. they will be self assured and confident, in order to help HIM be more confident and help him with his insecurity. jeremy shada said that lance would fall in love with someone a little bit and like having one person rather than just going all over the place, and he would mature in all ways.

-when asked in a post-season 2 interview about keith and allura’s development, steven yeun replied “I like playing this mystery of where the romance is. I don’t know where it is. It could be between anybody. That’s the natural evolution of this relationship. Even as a friendship, it has fits and turns and ups and downs. I think this is the beginning of a wonderful, wonderful storyline.”

What we get from this is that all the endgame romances will take massive amounts of time to develop properly, and since they are slowburn, it really can’t be with characters introduced far past the halfway point, cause that’s the opposite of slowburn. we also know that they couldn’t really explore ANY romance that wasn’t relevant to the galra plot. lotura is an exception, because it was literally the foundation of the plot in seasons 5 and 6, so they were able to fully go there. but other possible romances have been inching along at a snail’s pace.

Now, in season 6, allura and lance’s relationship has been getting a LOT of focus. i ship this heavily, but in this season I personally was put off by the way their scenes were written and how they reacted to one another. this isn’t evidence that it’s not going to happen, because these are all my subjective opinions and that’s NOT factual, but if you’re interested in why I feel this way, I’ve written about it a lot in the last few days, just do a search on my blog.

so, my opinions aside, there was a lot of focus on their relationship.

but we can look back and see all those keith/allura scenes in season 2, when everyone was certain THEY were going to end up together. in season 1, people were sure it was going to be allura/shiro, before allura was revealed to be in the teen paladins’ age group. it changes literally every season. this is the most it’s ever been, because lance canonically is in love with her, but it’s still just more of the same.

I’ve said it before, but any and all endgame romance in the show will be limited to keith, lance, and allura. pidge is too young for any of them and hasn’t had a single serious one-on-one interaction with any of them, shiro is too old and is seen as a mentor/brother figure, and hunk is linked to shay. any side character hasn’t had enough development, and it’s too late to properly develop a relationship with a brand new character. so, romances are only possible between those 3 – and we’ve already seen this come into play, what with the ship fodder for their various combinations in every single season. and steven yeun even said it himself - “it could be between anyone.” 

now, before season 6, I would have said immediately that it would be keith/lance, because allura doesn’t fit the description of lance’s love interest (and he’s the only character confirmed to have one). he’s wanted her since episode 1, so how could she possibly be not what he wants, but what he needs? however, since season 6, you could also read it as that he’s wanted tons of girls, but he really needs just one. this is where one half of my brain is at right now.

the other half of my brain can’t stop thinking about the lgbt rep.

you can cry “queerbaiting!” all you want, but the fact of the matter is that they wouldn’t be so secretive about it if it weren’t happening and if it weren’t main characters. here’s literally everything that’s ever been said on the subject:

Pre season 1 Tim Hedrick (head writer) interview: http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/voltron/256121/creating-voltron-legendary-defender/page/0/1

So you worked on Legend of Korra and that show really broke ground with having Korra and Asami get together at the end of the series. Will we be seeing any LGBT content in Voltron?

“I think I’ll just let that play out as we go. No comment on that question.”

–

Fan interaction with Jeremy Shada right as season 3 came out: http://emerald-trash.tumblr.com/post/163610844403/so-today-i-got-to-meet-jeremy-shada-at-tbcc-i

So today I got to meet Jeremy Shada at TBCC. I made him a little doll of his character just like I did for Josh Keaton. I was so nervous but Jeremy was super nice and friendly! He loved the doll thankfully. I asked him about lgbt representation in voltron and his response was “I can’t say, but don’t worry. You’ll be happy.” Just the hope alone makes me happy lol

–

NYCC post season 3 panel question: https://vld-news.tumblr.com/post/166188210767/nycc-panel-quote

Fan Question: I know you can’t go into any specifics, or name any characters, but I was wondering if we will be seeing any LGBT representation in the Voltron universe before the show ends?

Joaquim: Lauren?

Kimberly: Ah, that’s a good question.

Joaquim: That’s a really good question.

Lauren: I think— You know, I think it’s something that is super important to us.

Joaquim: It’s very important to us. Um, you know, obviously I think what’s great about our community is that, you can pretty much tell whatever story you want to tell and put whatever you want to see into these characters. And just know that, from our perspective, we’re fighting to create as open and as broad a spectrum of characters as we can. So, um, yea. We—

Lauren: We can’t give you any definite answers, but we are super—

Joaquim: We are advocates, and we are fighting for as open and as broad a spectrum of characters as we can create.

–

Shada has also said some things on the subject that were illegally recorded and shouldn’t be repeated, but in short, there IS lgbt rep, it’s between two characters, and it’s apparently such a big deal that it would LITERALLY SPOIL PLOTLINES AND CAN’T BE TALKED ABOUT.

they’ve revealed info about the characters before. they said lance was cuban mere months after season 1 was released, even though that information wouldn’t come up in the show until years later. that could have been considered a spoiler. but no, it didn’t have to do with any actual plotline, so it was easily shared information to make people happy about good rep.

if the lgbt rep weren’t a big deal, they would tell us. they would at least say there’s definitely going to be some. i mean, people ask about it so fucking much, i’m sure they would say what it is if it would get fans to shut up.

and even before there was a fandom, tim hedrick said he would just let it play out as it goes, meaning it’s THERE and he wants people to watch the show and react to it naturally.

something else that i’ve said before – let’s go through the main characters one by one to determine who it could possibly be:

-pidge: has shown no interaction with any girl her age, and the creators have said that “if you want to see her as trans, you can” which is coding, NOT rep. plus, they did that in season 1, and they still won’t talk about the lgbt rep. she’s out.

-shiro: has shown no interaction with any guy his age. i originally thought it would be him and matt, but matt turned out to be younger than him and they haven’t interacted at all since matt came back. a husband back at home wouldn’t be a BIGGGGG SPOILER THAT THEY CAN’T CONFIRM OR DENY. he’s out.

-hunk: linked to shay. out.

-coran: has shown no interaction with any man his age currently. interacted in the past with alfor, but he’s dead, and the lgbt rep is a major plotline that can’t be spoiled. out.

-allura: has shown no interaction with any single girl her age. she interacted with shay, but shay is linked to hunk. unfortunately, i think romelle is too new a character for them to properly develop a relationship between them. out.

-lance: yall know.

-keith: yall know.

LITERALLY who could it possibly be besides keith and lance?? like i said, they wouldn’t be so hush-hush if it weren’t main characters and if it weren’t a huge plotline. i cannot think of a single other option. and anytime anyone’s tried to GIVE me another option, i just immediately disprove it. plus the fact that keith is super insanely self assured and confident now with his additional 2 years, his mom, and his brother safe and sound. he’s exactly what lance needs.

so that’s where the other half of my brain is.

I MEAN i really can’t be sure anymore. if you just go by romance alone it could totally be like allura/lance and keith/romelle or some other terrible het keith ship. or they could go back and rekindle keith/allura and do lance/romelle. but then when you factor in the elusive lgbt rep, there is no other fucking option than keith/lance. 

and if one of yall dumbasses comes on this post crying “sh*ith!!” i’ll come to your house and piss on your lawn.

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

this is random but what are your thoughts on swanfire? they're my ouat otp (probably my second favorite otp of all time, actually), and while i'll be forever bitter that their story was cut short, it's almost a blessing considering how the writing on the show went to hell (no pun intended) the minute elsa came out of that portal...

Honestly, Swanfire is a ship that I have a tendency to completely forget about because the show treated them like they never existed after Neal’s death (except for a few scenes in season 5 when Emma was the Dark One) and the fandom for them on here is so small and not very visible. However, whilst I don’t think of myself as an active Swanfire shipper, I do really like them and think they could’ve developed into something truly amazing. 

Emma and Neal were two lost children that found home, safety and belonging in one another. Their very existence’s parallel against one another - Emma was born from true love and light magic, whilst Neal was born from the darkness.  From the pilot Emma was established as a lone wolf, someone that was lonely and found it difficult to open up to others, so the fact that Emma, who was naturally guarded and defensive fell so in love with Neal is very telling. Emma couldn’t have developed those feelings for just anyone, Neal was special. As far as we know in canon, Emma only loved two people and in my opinion, Neal was not only her first love but her true love. Not only does Emma find it hard to open up her heart to others, but when she does there is no going back from that. When she truly lets someone in, she lets them in completely, heart, body and soul, and she did that with Neal. Emma said and showed more than once that her love for Neal was something that had stayed with her and would stay with her for the rest of her life. Despite how much he broke her heart after he left and the trauma she endured going to prison, giving birth alone and giving Henry up, deep down inside, she never stopped loving Neal and that’s a true testament to just how strong and powerful that love was. 

I can’t talk about Swanfire without talking about Henry, because he’s such an important part of their love. Despite the circumstance of his birth and the fact that he grew up without Emma and Neal, Henry was born out of love, just like Emma was. When Emma and Neal found him again they both realised how much they loved him and it was so beautiful to see two parents that for all intents and purposes had ‘abandoned’ their child have a second chance to get to know their son and bond with him. What always sticks with me is that despite the many important relationships and bonds Henry had in his life, Emma and Neal always felt like the strongest. I’m a strong advocate for family being more than blood (particularly since my biological father abandoned me and I was raised by my half brother’s father, who was more of a dad to me than he ever was), there is an inexplicable bond between biological parents and their children. Henry grew up a lot like Emma and Neal did - like a lost child - because Regina wasn’t the mother he deserved. Henry craved that sense of family and belonging that Emma and Neal did, and when the three of them were together it just worked. You could really feel that Henry was Emma and Neal’s son, because he had parts/traits of both of them. There was so much potential and opportunity to do wonderful things with Emma, Neal and Henry and it will always frustrate me that we didn’t get to see more of them. They were robbed of being together when Henry was a baby and when they finally reunited and had a chance to be a family, they were robbed again. Regardless, Henry was a product of Emma and Neal’s love and a life long connection to Neal for Emma. One of my favourite scenes from season 5 is when Emma and Henry are sat in Emma’s bug and Henry tells her he sang ‘Only You’ and Emma asks if Neal taught him (x). The reason I love it so much is because it shows how important Neal was to both of them and that despite how little the show acknowledged Neal after his death, he was still part of both of them. Neal might have ceased to be a physical presence on the show after his death, but Emma and Henry carried him with them always and that’s important. 

In the short time we had Neal with us, his relationship with Emma was beautifully written and developed. I can’t fault anything about the way in which it was written, except for the way it ended because it was so unfair. At some point the writers decided that they wanted to explore Emma’s relationship with H00k (because for some bizarre reasons writers always seem to choose the angsty relationship with the handsome “bad guy” instead of the already established and developed relationship) and at that point, any hope for Neal’s character and his relationship with Emma was destroyed. I think the writers knew it would be very hard to organically push an Emma/H00k relationship with Neal still alive, because how could they go back on what they’d developed between Emma and Neal? We saw their history, their love and had actually witnessed Emma tell Neal with H00k standing a few feet away that she loved him and always would. Neal had been confirmed as the person that had Emma’s heart, and I don’t think the writers knew how to backtrack or swerve around that in order to make Emma and H00k believable. Not to mention that H00k and Neal were actually friends with H00k being like a mentor of sorts to young Neal, so that creates more issues with trying to establish an Emma/H00k relationship with Neal still alive. I 100% believe that Neal’s death happened in order to pave the way for Captain Sw/an and no one will ever convince me otherwise. You only have to look at the timeline of season 3 to see that - Neal died in 3x15 and by 3x22 Captain Sw/an were canon. 

It’s sad that we didn’t have longer with Neal and that there was so much potential left unexplored when it came to Emma and Neal’s relationship and their little family with Henry. However, like you pointed out, in a strange way it might have been a good thing because you don’t know how the writers might have ruined them in the later seasons. As it stands, Emma and Neal’s love story is one of the sweetest and most organic of the show, despite the fact that we didn’t have it for very long. And the fact that Neal died means that in a strange way his relationship with Emma has been more respected than I think it would’ve been if they kept him alive and made Captain Sw/an canon at the same time. 

I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts on Swanfire, and if you haven’t already I’d recommend reading this meta by @sulietsexual about Emma and Neal, because I think it’s so beautiful and much better than anything I could ever write. 

[microkumo]

You know I’ve seen a lot of people try to frame Shiro and Keith’s relationship in a bad light. I think it’s about time I put my two cents into this. Season 7 Spoilers included

If you’re just going to ignore everything written here then don’t bother commenting, that goes for people who have the reading comprehension of a walnut as well. If you want to talk about my stance on anything here feel free to DM me I’m happy to discuss this with you regardless of what you ship.

I spend a lot of time reading both sides of the arguments shippers and antis make. I think that’s the best way to really understand the point of view each side is coming from. After all, you can’t argue against something you don’t understand.

I started off on the fence, not really caring too much about ships themselves, but focusing more on the what-ifs and the mystery behind character relationships. Some of these things leaned towards Klance and some of them leaned towards Sheith. Both are valid and had interesting hints at connections yet to unfold. However, the discourse started with not knowing the ages of the characters. Shiro was given a tentative “25″ nothing really cemented and the others were late teens which can mean anything between 17-19. I decided that until we had confirmed ages, I wouldn’t consider Shiro to be in a romantic relationship with any of the paladins but things have changed since then.

Moving on to the series and the misinformation people are spreading.

1) Unless you are ignoring Shiro’s relationship with Adam and shipping pre-Kerberos Shiro and Keith in a sexual manner, Sheith is not pedophilia. 

I’ve seen a lot of this kind of argument against their relationship and it honestly does such a disservice to Shiro’s character. I’m sure there’s some people out there who are into that kind of thing, but to tack it onto the whole fandom and character is over generalizing and pretty awful.

Sure, people can think Keith could have had a crush on Shiro, but its clear that Shiro’s intentions were not there. He was in a committed relationship with someone else that he knew for a long time but that further cements the fact that Shiro was not viewing Keith sexually pre-Kerberos and therefor had zero pedophilic intentions.

2) Cherry-picking scenes where Keith hasn’t hit his growth spurt to frame Shiro as someone significantly older and then further imply that people are shipping them sexually at this age is a huge fallacy people use.

In the Garrison flashbacks from S7, Keith is around fifteen. I base that on the fact that he’s one year older than Lance and Hunk, and yet you have to be at least 14 to be a part of the Garrison. This is backed up by Pidge’s backstory.

However, though Keith is older than some of the other kids, he’s extremely small. Almost half a foot shorter than the other boys in his class. He’s grown up in an orphanage and like it or not, that kind of thing does affect children. Even as an adult and twenty-one years old, Keith is still much shorter than both of his parents. He’s much shorter than Krolia, and his dad was even taller than her. He’s incredibly small, but he’s always been small, and comparing him to someone that has finished all of his growth spurts is unfair and again implying that Shiro (22) saw him sexually at this time which is not true.

3) Highlighting his age gap with Shiro as bad when Keith’s age gap is not that severe.

Keith was (18) at the start of the show with a 7 year difference between him and Shiro (25).

Keith aged faster than the rest of the paladins due to his time in the Quantum Abyss.

After all the events and adding that bit, that puts Keith at (21) and Shiro at (26) which is not a huge age gap at all when you’re both mature adults.

4) Shiro does not have a boyfriend/fiance waiting for him back on Earth.

Saying that really ignores the single scene of them interacting together which was a break-up scene. I’m not saying that the two have zero chance of reconciling their relationship, but to say that there’s no way Shiro would date Keith as an adult because he had an old flame back on Earth is... transparent.

The two ended their relationship on a bad note over two years ago during a crucial moment in Shiro’s life. He knew Kerberos was probably his last chance to make his mark on the world- he’s battled with his illness and now he’s aware that he has very little time left to achieve the things he’s wanted in life. For him, this was an opportunity he didn’t want to sacrifice, and he didn’t in the end.

Adam’s reaction was reasonable- he was tired of Shiro running himself into the ground over living the safer alternative where they could have been together longer. It was implied that they had this conversation often and Shiro did not want to hear it. He offered an ultimatum, and when Shiro didn’t give into it, he left. Officially breaking off the relationship when Shiro didn’t stop him.

I’m not saying their relationship was the worst- but there was definitely some areas that they didn’t agree on which ultimately led to them breaking up. Even if Shiro returns to Earth, he’s in a much different state than he was when they were together. It would take a huge discussion and even then I don’t think it would work between them because they have different priorities in life that result in conflict in their relationship.

5) Shiro being Keith’s support in life is not “grooming” or even supporting it.

Again, this goes back to people trying to make Shiro’s relationship with Keith sexual even if it was never meant to be in pre-kerberos while also horribly abusing terminology again.

Sexual Grooming is what it sounds like. It’s about teaching a child through various techniques that it’s normal to have a sexual relationship with an adult. Pedophiles will often use being a ‘friendly helper’ to the child as a way to do this but to frame Shiro in this light is a huge disservice to his character.

Shiro does not see Keith in any sexual way pre-kerberos. Keith relies on him as someone who he trusts, but in no way is it ever implied that there were sexual intentions behind Shiro’s presence in his life. 

Unless Shiro was making passes at Keith or teaching him questionable things under the guise of being his mentor, this is just not accurate and a horrible way to paint the relationship of a child that has already gone through boy’s homes (which have a high rate for sexual abuse as it is).

6) People need to stop equating Keith’s fourteen year old self with his current twenty-one year old self when bringing up the power imbalance.

A lot of time has passed for Keith. He’s matured a lot, he’s grown passed needing Shiro as his support in his life, a lot of his insecurities in general are behind him especially with his mother in his life.

Yes, Shiro was higher ranking and older than Keith at the Garrison, however Shiro never abused his power to force Keith to do anything. His presence was always supportive and never demanding or threatening.

In the current timeline of the show, saying this especially does not make sense. Keith and Shiro have a mutual trust and respect for each other and never do they ever have a relationship that’s painted as a leader and a lowly subordinate that has no power in any situation. Keith and Shiro have traded leadership positions multiple times and arguably stand on equal grounds compared to each other.

7) Keith and Shiro are not related. Not by blood or by law. It’s not incest and Shiro never adopted Keith into his family.

The staff of Voltron have shot down the two of them being related multiple times but even from outside of that we have a lot to consider.

Shiro was only (21) when he met Keith. That’s not very old, like it or not, and adoption is a very long and difficult process. Now we don’t know how adoption works in the Voltron universe but if its anything like ours, an unmarried and terminally ill man is not going to be able to adopt a child when he himself is young and unrelated to the child.

What Shiro did do is give Keith an opportunity to attend the Galaxy Garrison under his recommendation. This isn’t the same as adoption. He merely got Keith a chance to attend a school he normally wouldn’t have been able to given that he was an orphan and a problem child.

It’s a military school with dorms. Keith definitely wasn’t staying with Shiro, he would have had his own room to share with someone of similar ranking.

8) “Keith only thinks of Shiro as an older brother” ignores his personality and history.

I’m not against Keith only viewing Shiro in a platonic light. However, I think it’s rather naive to think that because you view someone in a certain light that they’re not subject to changing or evolving. I see a lot of people use this to stagnate the relationship they have and to ignore his character.

Keith is a very passionate person. However, he’s a person that hasn’t had many opportunities to love or to be loved. He has grown up not knowing why his mother left him and that not only made him fear getting close to people, but also getting rejected. His biggest fear is Shiro walking out of his life. as expressed in the Blade of Marmora episode.

For someone that’s never loved before, to know that you could be rejected if you voice your true feelings is extremely terrifying. Tack on the fact that you know the person you love might still have feelings for someone else and there is definitely going to be some safety nets involved when expressing your feelings.

This is common for people to do in general but especially so for LGBT+ individuals. There’s a lot of confusion, a lot of hesitation, a lot of trying to convince yourself that this isn’t what you think it is especially when its your first time falling in love with someone who’s romantically unavailable. We hide it behind things like “You’re my best friend of course I love you” or sometimes even “You’re like a brother to me”. Keith has every reason to add these safety nets when he’s worried about damaging his relationship with Shiro. After all, why potentially push away Shiro and make him uncomfortable, when he can play it safe and continue to have him in his life?

9) Shiro’s and Keith’s relationship is far from abusive.

They have one of the longest lasting and uplifting relationships in the series. Shiro provides stability and companionship to Keith, and Keith provides reassurance and companionship. 

They support each other in ways that other people cannot and have not provided to them and are stronger because of it.

Shiro was held on a pedestal of expectations where he’s not usually able to be treated like the average person. He feels he has to hide his weaknesses, but with Keith he doesn’t have to. We’ve seen multiple times that they’re able to rely on each other and to open up about insecurities.

They are loyal to each other and unwilling to leave the other behind no matter the cost, because they’re incredibly important to each other. However, despite this, they’re still protective over other people and not overly reliant on just each other. 

They have a good relationship built on years of trust and support.

10) “I had a bad experience and so this ship is terrible” is extremely biased and not helping your argument.

Shiro and Keith  ≠ Your relationship/Experiences

It’s fine to not like the ship for that, but to spread misinformation because you tie it to your own experience is... not a good way to go about it. To say “I met a person who shipped Sheith and they were awful so now everyone who ships it is awful” is overgeneralizing a huge margin for the one or two bad people, especially when the fandom has a problem with people purposefully posing as “Bad Shippers” for the sake of making the fandom look bad. 

Again, it’s fine to not ship something out of personal experience. But to force your trauma onto a healthy relationship and to spread negativity around something that isn’t even present in the show is unhealthy and prevents you from moving on.

In short, there’s been a lot of biases thrown around and a lot of just completely incorrect statements for the sake of tearing down the ship.

I hope that by reading this people will learn that it’s not what people are framing it to be when it’s actually such a sweet story if it does go down a romantic path.

[lvtvr]

hey, i just wanted to. like. talk to someone? and you seem really nice ;-; i feel like sk relationship is going to go in a direction i won't like and that makes me uncomfortable (i.e romantic). i don't mind people shipping it but in the actual show it makes me very uncomfortable, is it bad that i'll feel disappointed if it happens? i'll live because it's a show lol but i can't help but feel like i'll be disappointed about that if it becomes true

“i’ll live because it’s a show but i’ll be disappointed” A PERSON BEING RATIONAL? ON MY TUMBLR? IT’S MORE LIKELY THAN YOU THINK... bless ur soul friend...

dgsjdgsdlgk jokes aside pal, you’re not alone in this!! i used to be fine w sk (and i still am totally okay with people shipping it) but after canon established certain things about their relationship i’m not really comfortable thinking about them together that way anymore. with that said, i truly do not think it’s being set up to be canon. part of the sk fandom has developed a weird, obsessive conviction that their ship will go canon, similar to That part of the kl fandom, so a lot of the content floating around tumblr is deliberately cherrypicked to make the framing seem romantic when it’s really, really not. not saying you can’t read romance into it -- they’ve got chemistry for sure -- but objectively, it’s just not in the cards.

here’s some reassurance for u why sk will Not go canon!

voltron is a show for kids aged 7 and up, which means there are themes that would be acceptable in a show for adults that are simply too mature for this material deal with. romantic sk would deal with a LOT of such themes.

for instance, shiro has been shown onscreen in an instructor/teaching position to a class keith was in, and has continued being a mentor/guiding light to keith even in current canon. while there are tons of YA novels and stuff where older teens get it on with their teachers/authority figures, it’s, um, not very common for the younger demographic. (inb4 “keith’s the leader now not shiro so he’s not an authority figure anymore”: take your navel gazing technicalities elsewhere and use some common sense bls.)

keith has referred to shiro as being “like a brother to me” and said “you’re my brother, i love you” (bc yes, people do in fact say "i love you" every day and mean it platonically, regardless of what the fandom tries to tell you -- “i love you” is not romantically coded lol wtf). while i absolutely do not condone shoving these lines in shippers’ faces to make them feel bad about their ship, they’re still explicit canon. we haven’t been shown anything that indicates keith’s saying it to deny his feelings in some way. like, by the time katara said aang was like a brother to her, aang had been shown to have a crush on her from day one. the set up is entirely different.

going off both the above points, krolia also thanked shiro for helping raise keith. now, obviously, shiro didn’t rear him from the time he was a baby, but he was the adult figure in keith’s life during his adolescence and formative years. i believe i’ve also seen word of god that confirms this. a young twenty-something seems very adult to a preteen/young teen. sending the message that the trusted adults around you will end up as your romantic partner one day is... probably not something the show intends to do.

voltron is a MAINSTREAM kids’ show. the mainstream is not tumblr. it does not -- and often cannot -- correspond to tumblr levels of progressiveness. the crew had to fight to get shiro confirmed mlm. they’ve mentioned they had to be adamant, no pun intended, to make sure adam was acknowledged as shiro’s boyfriend and not just his “roommate”. making one main character mlm is already a HUGE step. two characters would be nearly unheard of -- especially two members of the main cast in a relationship with each other. like, don’t get me wrong: i want to live in the world where we can have that. but we aren’t there yet. we just aren’t.

which btw is why NO gay ships between any paladins will be canon. any same-sex romance will be between a paladin and a side character, as we’ve seen with adam. and THAT’S the tea.

i hope that could help put your mind at ease!! now let’s hype s7, ship whatever we want, and remember that it’s just a show. have a great day

[walviemort]

paternal instincts, part 3

Emma’s fear of pregnancy leads Killian to find—and use—a spell that allows him to carry their child instead. A canon-divergent CS pregnancy fic, just with the roles flipped a bit. (mpreg; rated T for implied sexy times) | AO3

A/N: dedicated to @sherlockianwhovian and @cocohook38 for their inspiration, and to @jennjenn615 for her support! Thank you!

Part 1 | Part 2

Chapter 3: Breaking the News

Summary: With Killian's pregnancy confirmed, it's time to let everyone else know. How will Henry, David, Snow, and the rest of Storybrooke take the news?

The view of the horizon from the deck of the Jolly Roger was typically a calming sight, but today, Killian felt a bit more on the seasick side. It wasn’t because it was particularly choppy or anything—he’d certainly weathered worse without getting green around the gills.

There were two possible reasons for his queasiness: one, it was the start of the bouts of nausea that usually accompanied this stage of pregnancy; or two, it was because he was telling Henry today.

It had been a just over a week since they’d received confirmation they were expecting, so it had been a week of debating how to let the lad know. Emma had wanted to just come right out with it, insisting Henry would take it fine. And Killian knew he would. But he couldn’t shake the need to break the news himself, so a weekend sailing outing seemed the best way.

Henry was 16 now, almost 17—nearly a man—but watching him tie off a line, it didn’t seem so long since he’d first taught him those knots, back after their return to Storybrooke from New York. How did that boy become this lanky teenager, right in front of Killian’s eyes? Would that happen with the next one?

From his place at the helm, Killian tried to blink back tears at the sudden onslaught of emotions—definitely the most obvious evidence of his state so far—as his hand drifted to his still-flat stomach, currently bundled in a parka.

In an attempt to pull it together, he shook his head and sniffled; the fact that it was still sharply cold out didn’t help matters. But the noise caught Henry’s attention anyway.

“You okay, Killian?” he shouted from the lower deck, done with what he was working on and moving towards the quarterdeck. Instinct told Killian to lie, insist he was fine and brush it all off. But it was time be honest.

“I’ve never been better, lad,” he answered truthfully. “Come here,” he added, beckoning. “Give me a hand with the anchor and then let’s chat.”

Henry bounded up the stairs two at a time and gave Killian a curious look. “Good chat or bad chat?”

“Pretty good, I think,” he replied optimistically. Henry accepted it, relaxing a bit as the worked together to cast the anchor. From where they floated, Storybrooke looked small on the gray horizon; it was hard to believe such a seemingly quiet town had changed his life so dramatically.

“Now, are you going to tell me why you brought me out on the ocean in March, when there’s still snow on the ground?” Henry teased as they leaned against the ship’s railing. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I saw an iceberg, and I know you’ve seen Titanic.”

Killian just chuckled; Henry was far too astute for his age. “Aye; I did bring you out here for a reason.” He swallowed, trying to calm his stomach as he began. “Now, you know your mother and I love you very much—”

“Hold on; I gotta stop you right there,” Henry interrupted, to Killian’s surprise. “There are only three things you can be getting at by starting with that, so I’ll spare you the speech, even if you’re good at them.” Killian exhaled, slightly relieved, but wondered what Henry suspected. “I can eliminate the first one, because there’s no way you and my mom are getting divorced with how much you two get it on.” Now Killian was blushing; apparently, they weren’t as discrete as they thought. “And I don’t think either of you are dying, because Mom would be a lot more mopey if that was the case.”

“Right on both counts so far,” Killian confirmed. “So what’s your next guess?”

“You guys are having a baby and don’t want me to feel left out or that I’m being replaced.”

Killian released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He really shouldn’t have been surprised that Henry would figure it out. “Yeah, we are.”

“Really?” Henry was grinning.

“Really.”

Killian had to step back to brace himself against Henry’s excited embrace. “I get to be a big brother?” he practically shouted into Killian’s shoulder.

“And a damn fine one you’ll be,” Killian replied, hugging Henry close. “You’re truly alright with this?” he asked, searching for confirmation when they broke apart.

“Of course. I get why you guys would be worried, but I promise, I’m fine. I’m excited for you. Honestly, I’d been wondering when you’d finally get around to it.”

Killian snorted; given how aware the boy apparently was of their nighttime activities, he probably assumed it was inevitable. “It took some time for your mother to warm up to the idea. She doesn’t exactly have the best memories of being pregnant.”

“I know,” he answered. “So, when’s the kid due? How far along is she? I haven’t noticed Mom acting too different yet.”

Killian’s stomach twisted again; now he had to reveal the next part. “Well, um, that’s the other thing; your mother isn’t carrying the babe...I am.”

Henry nodded, less surprised than Killian anticipated. “Oh, so you’re...you have a…” He could tell Henry was trying to be polite, but resorted to just gesturing vaguely at Killian’s abdomen.

“Ah, no.” He could tell what Henry was implying. “I’m...borrowing it, I suppose, from your mother. Magic,” he said with a shrug, offering it as an explanation.

“Say no more,” Henry said, waving him off. “Seriously—the less I know, the better.”

“Agreed,” Killian answered, laughing.

“So...how do you feel? Oh no, I didn’t hug you too tight—did I?” Henry’s ability to adapt to any scenario would never cease to amaze him.

“You’re fine, lad. And so am I; a wee bit nauseous, and I expect that will get worse, but I’ve no complaints of yet.”

“Yet,” Henry threw back, teasing. “Don’t worry; I’ll help out with the yard work and whatnot when you’re too big to move.”

“Hey! I won’t get that big.” (He wouldn’t, right?)

Henry just gave him a sideways glance.

“Well, I appreciate the offer nonetheless.” Suddenly, the image of Henry looking after and helping mentor his future sibling flooded Killian’s mind, reminding him of his own relationship with his brother. In a weepy voice, he told him, “You’re gonna be a fantastic big brother.”

“Are you crying because your emotions are going crazy?”

“That I am, and you better get used to it, mate,” he quipped back, laughing through his tears.

Henry just smiled back. “I think I can handle it. And I can’t wait to meet my new sibling.”

There was nothing left to do but seal it with a hug.

They wanted to wait a bit longer before telling her parents—they weren’t concerned about whether or not they’d approve, but just wanted to make sure everything was okay before Snow inevitably went into baby-prep mode.

At least, that was the plan. Until the day during his tenth week when Killian emerged from the restroom at the station, after going a round with the porcelain basin, to find David standing near the desk looking worried.

“Hook, are you okay?”

Truthfully, the nausea was getting the best of him. It wasn’t to an extreme level, but he couldn’t wait for the day he didn’t find himself hovering over the toilet several times. He was getting by on bland foods and ginger ale—which he proceeded to grab a can of from the mini fridge by the coffee machine—but he was rather tired of this part of pregnancy.

And tired in general. “I’m fine; just ate something that didn’t sit right,” he explained in a weary voice as he plopped down on the sofa and propped his feet up on the coffee table, which had been aching something fierce. “I’ll be ship-shape in no time.”

David clearly didn’t believe him, and was now staring at him curiously. “Nice shoes,” he commented in an investigative tone, nodding at the slip-on sneakers he wore. Emma had bought them for him as a more comfortable alternative to his boots, and given that his ankles had begun to swell, they came in handy. Of course, he couldn’t tell Dave that. “Uh, thanks.”

His stomach gave a lurch then; he pressed his left arm on it to combat the pain and took a sip of the ginger ale, sighing at the almost instantaneous relief.

“What, no rum with your drink?” David was surprised, it seemed.

“Afraid not; adding alcohol to an upset stomach is generally a bad idea.” And, obviously, bad for the babe, but he found he didn’t miss it as much as he thought he would. If anything, that part was going to be better for him in the long run. He just hoped Dave bought the misdirect.

“And you’re sure it’s just a stomach bug?”

“What else could it be, Dave?” What else could the prince suspect? This situation was far from common.

“It’s just...you remind me of...never mind.”

“Of what?” Killian demanded, nearly losing his patience.

“Well, you’re acting like Snow did when she was pregnant.”

Oh. Then perhaps he did have an idea. Killian had no response to that.

David picked up on Killian’s silence. “See, normally this would be where you’d laugh with me and refute it, because there’s no way, right?”

Killian just swallowed.

“Right?” David repeated, sounding nervous.

Killian glanced up at him; David was staring with an almost unreadable expression that fell somewhere between excitement and disbelief. And Killian just didn’t have it in him to lie anymore. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, actually.”

Looking much like his daughter when he proposed the idea in the first place, David’s jaw dropped open, and for a long moment, his eyes just darted back and forth between Killian’s face and stomach, which his hook still rested on. “You...you’re…?” his father-in-law sputtered.

“I’m pregnant, David.” It felt good to say it out loud to someone other than Emma.

“Holy shit,” he blurted out, then practically collapsed on the couch next to Killian. “Seriously?”

“It’s a little far-fetched to make up, don’t you think?” David continued to stare at him with a wide-eyed expression; he obviously had many questions. “Ask away; I can tell you want to.”

Thankfully, no one came into the station while David interrogated Killian on the hows and whys of his gravidity, and seemed relieved to find out that it was definitely his and Emma’s child and that it was planned.

“I’m gonna be a grandfather again,” he finally concluded, a dreamy smile taking over his face.

“Aye, that you are.” Killian couldn’t help his own grin, or the happy tears that sprang forth unbidden—he was still getting used to the intense mood swings.

“Come here, man!” David practically shouted before pulling Killian into a tight hug. “Oh, I’m so happy for you guys. Let us know if you need anything. Anything.”

“Thank you, mate,” he answered in a watery voice. “You have no idea how much that means to us.” They broke apart and Killian wiped the tears from his eyes. “Just...please don’t tell Snow just yet. We’d planned on waiting a few more weeks, just to be sure of everything.”

“I’ll do my best; you know how she is.”

“I know.” Both men chuckled. “We won’t make you hold it for long. I’m assuming this isn’t what you expected when you came to the station, though?”

“Definitely not.” They shared another laugh and got on with business—Dave just needed help with a permit for some work to be done at the farm—and once it was squared away, he made to leave so Killian could get a bit more rest.

“And, uh, Killian?” he started, almost timidly, as he stood by the door.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for doing this,” he said, gesturing toward Killian’s abdomen. “I’m sure it means a lot to Emma and...it means a lot to me, too.”

Again, Killian found himself emotionally overwhelmed. “I-it’s my honor, really,” he stammered, trying to keep his tears at bay this time.

They exchanged a nod, bid each other farewell, and Killian resumed his spot on the couch. He placed his hand low on his stomach, and whispered, “You’re going to have the best grandfather, little one.”

He told Emma of his encounter with her father that night, but they remained in agreement on the decision to wait to tell Snow, or anyone else, until they were out of the first trimester. And David had kept his word, but not even a week later, at family dinner night at the farmhouse, their plans were derailed.

Barely even five minutes after sitting down to eat, Snow blurted it out. “Killian...are you pregnant?”

The bite of salad that was halfway to his mouth stopped in midair. He threw a panicked look at Emma, who wore an equally astonished expression. “I, ah, um…” he stuttered, knowing it was useless to lie but caught off guard nonetheless. “I—” “We—” he and Emma started at the same time, but then stopped at the other’s voice, both chuckling nervously. Then she gave him a half smile and shrugged; her way of saying that they might as well.

He turned back to Snow, smiling nervously. “How could you tell?”

Snow replied with a shriek of joy, making Neal jump in his high chair, and leaping out of her own seat to bring Killian into her embrace. “Oh, I’m so thrilled for you!” Just as fast as she’d hugged Killian, she dashed over to Emma to do the same, and then collapsed back at her spot at the table. “How far along? Are you going to find out the gender? Have you picked nursery colors yet? Oh, wait til I tell Granny!”

“Slow down, Snow,” David interjected, chuckling and placing his hand over hers.

They quickly filled her in on the details—eleven weeks, yes, and not yet—before Emma had to wonder, “Mom, why aren’t you asking why it’s him and not me?”

Snow brushed it off. “After all the crazy magic I’ve seen in my life, it was a pretty easy answer to come to. Plus, it was so obvious.”

“How so?” Killian asked; he’d been trying hard to hide the symptoms.

“For starters, there was an awful lot of ginger tea in your cart when I saw you at the grocery store a couple weeks ago. Killian, you stopped wearing your boots, I’m assuming because your ankles started swelling. I woke you up from a nap at lunchtime the other day. And tonight, you’ve got water and Emma has wine and not a lick of protest was made—which I’m assuming means you already knew, David, which is a conversation for another time.”

It probably shouldn’t have been so surprising that Snow was that observant, but still, he was blown away by her keen eye.

“Dang, Mom—why haven’t we hired you as a detective yet?” Emma joked, also impressed.

“You couldn’t afford me,” she teased back. They continued to chat about the pregnancy over the rest of the meal, and Snow attempted to push seconds on him, but his stomach was uneasy even with the amount he’d eaten. “Oh, I’ve got just the thing, then,” she exclaimed and dashed off to the kitchen, only to return a couple minutes later with a tea-like concoction. “Here—this helped me a lot with both pregnancies. I know they say ‘the sicker you are, the healthier the baby,’ but it gets to a point when there’s no way the baby can be anything but immune to everything.”

“Definitely.” The mixture wasn’t the most appetizing, but it worked wonders—for the first time in weeks, he was able to hold down a savory meal. He didn’t dare test it with dessert, but it was nice to spend an evening at peace without dashing to the lavatory. “Thank you again for that, Snow,” he effused as they got ready to leave. “You’ve no idea the relief this is.”

“Oh, I do,” she quipped, and pressed a piece of paper in his hand that he could only presume carried the recipe. “But seriously—anything you need, let us know. And I promise to keep this a secret until you say it’s okay.”

Emma threw a nervous glance at Killian—they both knew her mom’s track record with secrets.

They posted it on Facebook, with a brief explanation, that night.

Storybrooke being Storybrooke, it didn’t take long for word to spread that they were expecting. And for the most part, everyone was receptive and supportive. Belle handed over her pregnancy books, Gepetto had already offered to build a crib and rocking chair, and Aurora stopped him the other day to offer tips on how to get through the aches and pains; considering their history, she in particular surprised him.

Having the knowledge out there made everything seem a bit more real. Obviously, he was aware of the changes going on in his body, minimal as they were so far (but still a difference from the past couple centuries). Being able to share their excitement with others, though, added a level of reality he hadn’t expected. Yes, the child was his and Emma’s, but the bean would also become a member of this tight-knit community and already had so many people looking out for it; it was almost overwhelming.

Also overwhelming was the fact that at thirteen weeks, he was still getting morning sickness. It was at least living up to its name and generally only occured in the early part of the day, and Snow’s home remedy was a godsend, but he was rather tired of it. At least now, he didn’t have to explain the reason he dashed to use the lavatory before taking a seat at the counter at Granny’s.

Today, a hot mug of ginger tea with honey was waiting for him after his daily trip. It was exactly what he needed, and the hot tea soothed his upset stomach. “Thank you, milady,” he said, sighing.

“Make sure you drink all of it, son,” Granny commanded from farther down the counter, where she was refilling Grumpy’s coffee cup. She’d been quick to revoke Killian’s caffeine once she got the news, but still had her way of looking out for him. “The usual today?”

“Actually…” The odd thing was that even if the nausea lingered, the weird cravings had started to trickle in. “You wouldn’t happen to have any anchovies, would you?”

Granny just shook her head and chuckled, but shortly after, he had an anchovy and swiss omelet in front of him with hash browns and hot sauce.

“Oh, Lady Lucas, this looks perfect. However did you know?”

“Been there, done that. Eat up, hon,” she directed with a loving pat on his cheek. Being mothered was certainly an unfamiliar sensation, but not an unwelcome one. And oh, but this meal was perfect; he let out an involuntary groan of pleasure after the first bite.

Back at the other end of counter, Killian heard a scoff followed by some unintelligible grumbling. He took another bite and then glanced down, only to see that Grumpy was giving him a sidelong stare and muttering to himself.

“If you’ve something to say, dwarf, I suggest you speak up,” he called out in his most menacing tone.

Grumpy slammed his mug down on the counter, sloshing some over the edge. “Am I the only one that thinks it weird and unnatural? Can’t we just have one normal thing around here? Why’s it all gotta be magical bullshit?”

That was the reaction Killian had been expecting, honestly. At one point, he’d braced himself for it, but when every else was so receptive, he’d let his guard down. So this—this was an unexpected punch to the gut emotionally, only made worse by the fact that his were already all over the place.

He stared down into his plate, vision going blurry with tears. What had they been thinking, going through with this? What had he been thinking? Just because something was possible didn’t mean it had to be done. They could have found another way. They could have—

His spiraling thoughts were interrupted by an odd thunk, the shatter of glass, and a collective gasp. He immediately looked up, only to see Grumpy’s broken mug lying in a puddle on the counter and an arrow stuck into the opposite wall.

Granny stood in the doorway from the kitchen, now-empty crossbow leveled at the dwarf. “Seriously, Leroy? This entire town only exists because of a curse, a werewolf makes your bacon, and you hatched out of a goddamned egg. You’ve got no room to call out anything for being unnatural.” She lowered the weapon and took a few steps forward. “And you can’t even try to tell me that pregnancy isn’t hard, so you’ve got some options here: apologize, leave, or both.”

Killian sniffed and wiped his eyes, unsure of what he was seeing; had Granny actually come to his defense? Support was one thing, but this…

Grumpy suddenly turned sheepish, barked out a quick “sorry” in Killian’s direction, then threw some cash on the counter and ran out of the diner with his proverbial tail between his legs. The hush that had settled over the diner dissipated with the clanging of the door bell and everyone returned to business as usual, as though Granny firing off a round inside and berating a customer was a typical occurrence (which, surprisingly, it was not).

“Don’t you dare listen to a word he said.” Granny was suddenly in front of him, with a comforting squeeze of his hand even though she still held her crossbow in her other arm. “Unconventional does not mean it’s wrong, and I can guarantee that every woman in this town has your back, and most of the men, too. Grumpy is just...grumpy.”

He sniffed again and nodded. “I know, and thank you, milady. It just was a bit of a shock.”

“And your already-crazy emotions don’t help, right?”

“Aye,” he agreed with a watery chuckle.

“You’ll get through it; don’t worry. And for the record, I think it’s terribly sweet of you to take this on.”

He could feel tears welling again, but happy ones this time. “That means more than you know, Lady Lucas,” he thanked her, trying not to cry.

She just squeezed his hand again and then told him, “Now eat up. You’re growing a person; gotta keep up your energy!”

“Will do, ma’am,” he answered, obeying her command. Suddenly starving, as if his rapid emotional shifts had taken that much out of him, he scarfed the rest down and finished his tea before heading to the register to pay.

But she waved him off. “My treat today. And here,” she said, handing him a small bag. “This is for later.”

He could smell the blueberry muffin and bear claw through the packaging and his mouth watered. “I truly can’t thank you enough, Granny. For everything.”

“You can thank me by letting me take care of you; think you can do that?”

“I think I can manage,” he answered, smiling.

“Good.”

As he headed out and down to the station, his hand wandered down to his stomach, as he’d found himself doing more and more often lately. Just knowing how many people were going to look out for their child filled him with joy, and he couldn’t wait to introduce the bean to the world.

[blueboxdrifter]

So the end has come...

Rebels is over, and I am so glad to have been a part of this fandom during its run. I always will be a part of the fandom, but, you know, it’s less fun when you discover something great after it’s already done and everyone has already plotted all their theories and gushed with other fans about upcoming episodes, and wailed in dispair during hiatuses, and written one-off fan fics after each episode, and fawned over our favorite ships for many a year. So here we are at the end! And we’ve been through it all together. And I do hope we continue talking about the series and keep the fandom alive for years to come. I mean, that cliffhanger of an ending will keep us tied up in speculations and fan fictions for at least a couple years, right?

So I finally watched the finale, after staying home with some kind of evil virus all day (honestly, it’s almost spring. Can we stop with the random horrible sicknesses already?!), and lemme tell you, I was clawing at the air and yelling “WAIT WHATTT?!?!!!!” for most of it. As soon as it finished I shot out of my seat and started pacing, whilst my brain whirred. I have so many questions!!! Also I CAN NOT believe Filoni is gonna just leave us with that ending. We’d better get a full length film following Ahsoka and Sabine in their mission to find Ezra, or a grown Jacen learning about his past and training with Ezra or something. Or at the very least a novel. Just give us something! 😭

Thoughts about the finale:

I am SOOOO glad Ryder wasn’t a traitor. I didn’t think he would actually betray them, but for a second there I had my doubts.

When Sabine asks Ezra what the deal is with him and the wolves, and he can’t really explain the connection. Is it his unique Force connection with animals/ living beings, OR is it because the wolves represent Kanan as a spirit guide and therefore his connection with Kanan?

Pryce: Don’t let it eat me!!! Me: Nah... eat the bitch. She deserves it.

Palpatine wasn’t *actually* offering Ezra a chance to be with his parents. That was an obvious trap, right? It probably wasn’t even a portal to the past. Probably a portal to something else entirely that he was after. The emperor’s a mean little bitch, toying with Ezra like that. My poor baby! He’s already lost his parents once (and his mentor/ master/ father figure) he shouldn’t have to deal with losing them again.

Thrawn is an evil sonovabitch. Nothing new there. Holy hell, that man is ruthless. Like “Oh, you wanna fight? Okay, I’ll blow up your whole city. No problem.”

Did nobody find Kanan’s lightsaber?! I thought they’d at least want that back.

When Zeb sees how dire the situation is and takes it into his own hands “I’ll do it” and Kallus screams after him “Zeb, NO!” Honestly cackling to myself just a little bit. The WRITERS are shipping them too?! Kalluzeb is an actual thing now. I am weak. This is too good.

Zeb watching as Rukh fries and tells Thrawn “Uh, he’ll have to call you back.” At which point Rukh stops screaming “Oh, never mind.” Holy shit, Zeb! BRUTAL!

I know we didn’t get a chance to really get attached to Gregor, but it still really stung when he died. Please let Wolfe and Rex live out the rest of their lives in relative peace. They’ve lost too many brothers and friends.

The purrgil are back!!! Beautiful space whales fucking up the Empires shit!!!

I’m skeptical about Ezra surviving that hyperspace jump. Also the parallel between that scene and Kanan’s last moment was hard to ignore. But honestly, unless they jump conveniently into some kind of atmosphere or if somebody saves his ass by pulling him through a portal like he did for Ahsoka, they probably ended up in some random part of space, and, ya know, suffocated and froze. Crossing my fingers for the somebody saving him option tho. I don’t want anyone else to die!

WHAT WAS HERA REALLY GOING TO TELL KANAN?!?!!!! I found it very difficult to believe that she had never told him that she loved him before. I mean, it was SO obvious the way they were with each other that they were in love and had been for some time. So... I can only guess that it was about her pregnancy. Holy shit! And when did THAT happen?! And in retrospect, this must have been the elephant in the room that both of them were dancing around. The sort of change in atmosphere in their relationship since the start of season 4. They were all just little things that he said/did (“what kind of life do you want to live?”, rescuing the kalikori to carry on the family tradition, “I have something to tell you”, etc), but I’m pretty sure Kanan already knew. Little lettuce-head baby Jacen!!! Omg! I’m weeping! Protect him at all costs!

Okay so now we know our head canons about Rex being at the battle of Endor are confirmed. But Hera as well? What was she? Frickin ginormously pregnant with Jacen and still fighting?! I can only imagine the argument with Mon Motha where she stubbornly refuses to be left behind no matter what. That woman is a force of nature.

Ahsoka and Sabine team up! YASSSS!!!! My queens off to wreak some havoc and find their Bridger boy! Please let’s us have some kind of material featuring this dynamic duo. An audio adventure? A comic? A novel? A mini spin off series? A FILM?!!! Gimme somethin! Also Sabine’s new hair is much closer to what mine is currently. Cosplay opportunity! YASS!

Still thought they were joking about the Kalluzeb thing? Lookout, bitch! Zeb brought Kallus home to meet the family! Oh shit!

[smolsnekchild]

Smaller Voltron Rant

So I have another post that is much longer and has much more ranting in it but this post is gonna be going over the infamous “I love you” scene between Shiro and Keith as a Sheith shipper and how it makes me feel. For some, they will see the scene as confirmation that Sheith exists. Others will simply say its the confirmation of a brotherly bond that the show has been indicating since the beginning ( and they will go further and use this to support Klance theories). Honestly I dont give a fuck cause peeps can ship what they wanna ship and it its all a fantasy anyways so like does it really matter?? No. Its a show guys, and while fun and entertaining shouldn’t incite wars that steal enjoyment from being a fan of the show.

To me the “I love you” scene only confirmed one thing, that Shiro and Keith will always be tied together in a way that can’t truly be fathomed. I read another post somewhere, a really great character analysis (also done by a Klance shipper so much respect from me my friend, i applaud your maturity and ability to think and rationalize) that basically said that the bond between Keith and Shiro is one of soulmates. And I agree. I remember them stating how that reason why Keith calls Shiro his brother is because that is the only way Keith is capable of rationalizing his relationship with Shiro. Shiro has been so many things to Keith that it is hard to find the right fit, the right mold to shape their relationship in a way that is understandable. Shiro isn’t Keith’s father, even though Shiro has guided and protected him like one. Shiro isn’t his lover, because what they share can not be encompassed by romance or sex. Shiro isn’t just his mentor or authority figure, even though much of their relationship can be seen through those lenses. What other labels exist to describe them? They sure as hell aren’t strangers, and do they really have the emotionally and mental capabilities to come out and say “hey, maybe we’re soulmates or something like that?” Especially when they never seem to be out of reach of turmoil? So of course brotherhood is a logical conclusion. And I am not angry at it at all. Like I’m super down with it actually. Sure, I’m still a Sheith shipper because again, this is fantasy, and in maybe some alternate universe instead of their soulmatehood showing up as a brother-bond it shows up as a romantic love than spans the stars. Maybe in another universe Shiro really is Keith’s dad, biological or adoptive, and that father-son bond can play out. Thats all cool and dandy because what matters is that there is love. Love is the surrounding theme and that makes me happy. That Shiro and Keith are loved, that Keith loves Shiro, and the Shiro loves Keith. Any Yuri on Ice!!! stans out there know that things such as Eros and Agape exist, as well as Storge and Philia and a bunch of other types of love. Love comes in many different shapes and sizes, and thats a-okay. Like many have said, its a show, so like do what makes y’all happy and don’t attack others for what makes them happy. None of it is real, and there are always alternate universes. Use your imagination if your not happy with the canon outcome! That’s what fanfiction is for, find your joy there, and don’t expect the show to follow your whims. Love the show for what it is! Its a piece of art and covers many themes that are relevant today and will probably continue to be relevant in the future. Don’t let anger or hate take away value from the show. Love what you love, and respect the love of others. smolsnekchild out!!

Also many thanks to the post from @cilibi that inspired this small rant. Idk if I did what you wrote justice but I appreciate your point of view and thank you for your contribution to any ongoing conversations. 

[bluueejay]

mcu wanda is an adult, she is not “just a kid.”

She’s in her late teens (18+) in AoU, that is not a child. Yes, she’s young. Yes, she grew up in a small country that, from her childhood on, was brimming w civil war and chaos. Yes, her childhood and young life were filled to the brim with horrors and destruction. She’s young and unsure, afraid even, but she’s not a child. The ‘borderline’ infantilization of her throughout the movies, though it’s mostly prominent in CW (and hell, if ya wanna get specific about it, AoU too) is fucking weird. It’s odd. She’s old enough to be in the field, fighting, and training w the others. She’s old enough to be a legit, living-on-the-avengers-compound-property, avenger. She’s old enough to be going into other countries on missions, she’s old enough to be mentored by The Black Widow and Captain America, she’s old enough to fight battles, she’s old enough for all of that: but the minute something goes wrong or she’s faced w something less than pleasant, it’s a bout of “oh come on, she’s a kid! How dare you, she’s a kid!” When absolutely no? No, she’s not? She’s young, traumatized, and learning, absolutely. but not a child.

Let’s get technical for a sec, aight? When you go to the mcu maximoff’s wiki and scroll down to their AoU section, it reads as such, quote,

“When the twins reached adulthood, (....) Wanda and her brother took part in various riots to drive the foreign forces out of their streets. (....) The Maximoffs were approached by List who offered them a way to achieve the power needed to drive war out of Sokovia. Although she was initially skeptical, Wanda was convinced by Pietro to agree to the experiments to gain new powers.”

When they reached adulthood, (read: 18+) Sokovia had fully fallen into its civil war and that’s when the Twins were approached by List. (Idc if you want to argue about them thinking it was SHIELD/if they knew it was hydra, I don’t care. The main point being presented is that they underwent voluntary human experimentation. Another thing, because this was mentioned in AoU by I think Steve? A civil war is not the same as an external war. A civil war is not typically where you are fighting for your country, more you’re fighting for who controls your contry. Got it? Cool, moving on.)

She is not a child.

Treating her as such within the movies and then having certain chunks of the fandom push that belief only snowballs the iffy as fuck storytelling mistake that is the ‘as long as my intentions are good, any mistakes made are excusable’ mentality present within the MCU, but especially so in cacw. It’s fucking weird.

Take Clint’s line durint the compound, where after she’s said she’s caused enough problems and that it’s likely better for her to stay (content, not dialogue) he casually manipulates asks her into joining the fight by insinuating that the only way for her to make amends is to fight more, but he refers to their age difference w that high school comment. I can’t remember it word for word but paraphrased it’s essentially ‘if you want to make amends, you get off your ass. You wanna stay here and mope, you can go back to high school.’ Now obviously, we’ve learned thru mcu Clint’s meegar character development that he’s absolutely the type to refer to anyone significantly younger than him as a ‘kid’, he’s presented as that type of a character, that kind of a guy. Many people allege that his words are in reference to their pseudo familial connection but ehh, that’s up to personal speculation.

My longwinded point is that Clint and Steve have shown a repeated habit of infantalizing her, despite her adult age. Idc if it’s because she’s younger or bc of a sentimental connection between the lot, she’s in her early 20’s come cacw, the repeated comments about her being w kid (I know the high school moping comment was made more in reference to her behavior, rather than her age, but the phrasing is absolutely off for what they were going for and it’s still weird so)

Whether that be bc of their age differences, their sentimental affections, the mentor ship relationships towards her; whatever, it doesn’t really matter, because in the end: they’re still treating this then 18+ now 20+ year old woman like she’s a 14 year old. That’s,, that’s weird. It’s weird.

If you follow the mcu timeline and the information present, she and pietro are already 18, if not older, in the end credits scene for TWS. There’s about a year jump between TWS and AoU, putting her at about 19 in AoU, if you want to be a bit handwavy. (I’m personally of the idea that because the twins were already adults before list approached them about the experiments, they’re likely closer to 19 in the TWS end credits scene where it’s apparent that they’ve been with List long enough for their powers to manifest/start manifesting but it’s eh) That may be a little on the nose but for the sake of this, we’re gonna be a little on the nose. Alright? So she and pietro are at about 19 in AoU, young but by no stretch of the imagination are they children. Then, we jump from AoU to CW. There’s another year jump between AoU and CW, which is putting her in her early 20’s, let’s say 20 exactly for semantics sake.

CW specifically is where a lot of the infantilization and weird shit comes into play, which is even weirder to me specifically bc in this film, she’s absolutely not a child? She’s not a teenager or a weak-willed infant, she’s 20! And then again, we jump from CW to IW, where there’s a 2 year jump in time. That puts her at 22. 22! (On the nose again, I know, it’s likely not exactly year by year, but still) We jump again from IW and endgame, w the 5 year jump and even more semantics, she’s in her late 20’s. 27ish, to be a bit more specific. From her introduction to the latest film presented, she’s isn’t nor has she ever been a child.

So why are people (specifically Clint and Steve lmfao) so fucking insistent that she’s a kid?

(The time jump confirmations I’m using are coming from interviews and statements Joe Russo has given in the last year plus or so lmao, so don’t @ me about my stretching the timeline to fit my agenda or some shit)

Just all around, it’s a fucking weird story aspect to have at play, especially for as long as it was (mostly between AoU and CACW with contextual stuff scattered in IW, not much of note but it’s kinda there). It infantilizes this (currently) 20+ year old character to a near dangerous state, which brings us all the way back to that childish as fuck statement made in CW, the ‘you locked me in my room’ one. Your room.. you mean the several multi-million dollar facility with hundreds of amenities and your robo-boyfriend? And yes, her situation should have been explained to her much more throughouly, that’s something I absolutely stand by but also.. she was watching the news. She knows people are angry, going for the jugular, Steve’s little ‘we can’t save everyone’ speech absolutely doesn’t change the fact that the public is afraid and that they know her face. “Mr. Stark would like to prevent the possibility of another public incident” yeah, like say if she had gone to the store and had people come after her, something like that? She wasn’t even under official house arrest, she was making dinner with her boyfriend and hanging around. That “you locked me in my room” Comment is something I’d expect to hear from my 11 year old niece, an actual child, not a 20-something year old woman who also happens to be the mcu’s Scarlet Witch. It’s.. weird and iffy as fuck, a really bad writing choice, and something that shouldn’t have been done but oops it was and now we’re left w all this shit to pick and poke at while we cry about other shit. Nice.

[singingwordwright]

The Sebastian Manifesto v 2.0

I conceived most of this meta during the hiatus between seasons 2a and 2b, and wrote and published it after episode 2x11 once we finally meta Sebastian. However, now that we’ve come to the midway point in 2b and seen a major reveal with Sebastian, I feel like it needs updating. It hasn’t been entirely Jossed yet, not by a long shot, but there’s definitely a few parts where it needs some adjustment. I’m editing some of the existing, but I may miss a few bits here and there. Most of the changes are going to be in the new sections.

Sections 1-3 are what I’ve posted before, sections 4 and 5 are new.

I’m going to start off by saying that I DO NOT SHIP SEBASTIAN AND IZZY. Don’t let the title fool you. I think Izzy is going to play an important role in the Sebastian storyline, but not on a romantic level. Don’t even go there, please.

Most of this meta, you can find in various other posts I’ve made along the way, and particularly scattered through my episode-by-episode recaps from Season 2a onward. What I’m saying here is nothing particularly new, it’s just condensed into this one particular post. Which is a long-ass post. Be sure to buckle up.

I will also point out that I could be entirely long. Part of my goal in posting this is to get it out there so I can play a game of “let’s see what I got right” with myself as the season progresses.

I’m going to put this behind a cut because it’s quite long and contains spoilers from the books that may or may not come to pass in the show. What follows is discussion about what I think they’re going to do with Sebastian in the show, and how vital a role Izzy is going to play in it.

1. The ALDERTREE-IS-SEBASTIAN theory: not quite as defunct (or debunked) as you may assume

I follow a lot of Shadowhunters fans, and thus most spoilers and meta about Shadowhunters crosses my dash sooner or later. If there has been any official confirmation debunking this theory, I haven’t seen it. If it exists, please link it to me, and I will officially rescind this part of my meta and admit I’m wrong.

Nonetheless, a lot of people appear to have moved on from the idea that Aldertree was Sebastian in disguise, since we didn’t get confirmation of it at the end of Season 2a. That’s definitely understandable; the end of 2a would have been the perfect time to reveal that there had been a snake in the Institute’s bosom the entire time.

On the surface, it would appear the connection between Aldertree and Sebastian was weak to begin with. They both have English accents, they both (supposedly) hail from the London Institute, and Aldertree isn’t a nice guy so those of us who knew about Sebastian wanted to make sense of that by assuming he’s the Really Not Nice Guy we all knew was coming down the pike. And on the surface, that’s it. That’s all that links the two of them together. 

Underneath the surface, though, it’s a lot more.

First of all, Aldertree isn’t just a not-nice guy. He’s either terminally stupid, or he’s in league with Valentine actively working on an agenda that doesn’t benefit the Institute.

Note the edit I made there. One aspect of this meta that HAS been somewhat Jossed is the idea that Sebastian is working with Valentine on Valentine’s agenda. Given the end of 2x15 and the sneak peek we’ve seen of 2x16, I think it’s safe to say that he’s not actually allied with Valentine. However, it’s still possible that, as Aldertree, he positioned himself as an ally and colluded with Valentine. His agenda, however, appears to be far different.

Regardless of where you stand on the Sebastian theory, what we see from Aldertree in Season 2a isn’t just a bunch of random bad-guy mustache twirling. In the end, he does actually help Valentine achieve what Valentine is trying to achieve.

And a large part of that takes the shape of an organized campaign to drive wedges between the Lightwood siblings (including Jace,) thereby weakening the power structure in the Institute.

He isolates Jace, first by making him a fugitive (2x01)…

…then by making the other Shadowhunters in the Institute doubt him and finally by driving him out (2x06.)

He isolates Izzy, first by making her choose between Alec’s life and turning Jace over the the Clave (2x03)…

…then by trying to get her addicted to yin fen (2x05.)

When Aldertree attempts to use her yin fen dependence to get her to spy on Clary, Izzy begins isolating herself (2x07) because by that point she’s been forced to betray the trust of someone she cares about twice and she knows no one she cares about is safe.

When Aldertree realizes she’s slipped the hook with regard to the yin fen, he tries simply charming her instead, but it’s too late. 

Jace and Izzy being isolated means Alec is isolated. Still, Aldertree produces a convenient tale of tragic lost Downworlder/Shadowhunter love in order to distract Alec and cut him off from his most powerful ally, a warlock who has successfully opposed and thwarted the Circle more than once. (More on this later.)

But none of this necessarily means Aldertree is furthering Valentine’s agenda for his own purposes, right? He could just be a random bad guy.

Except…no. There’s more to it than that. Because weakening someone by isolating them from their loved ones is a play right out of Valentine’s book. One of his favorite plays, in fact. Our loved ones serve as our conscience, the better angels of our nature. They provide rational thought when we can’t see things clearly. This is why it was so important to cut Jace off from his found family, so that they couldn’t provide the antidote to the poison he kept pouring in Jace’s ear about demon blood and “to love is to destroy” and so forth.

With the Lightwood siblings splintered apart and distracted by their own worries, no one—including the Best Forensic Pathologist in New York--thought to run a DNA test on Jace and Clary to confirm their mutual parentage, or to try to figure out just what sort of demon blood Jace had in him and whether or not Clary had the same. They had no time or opportunity to compare notes and see the way they were being individually manipulated.

There are other ways in which Aldertree served Valentine’s purposes, so much so that it seems obvious to me that Aldertree abetting Valentine in whatever capacity you choose to believe 

How did Aldertree know about Jace’s falcon? (2x04) Look at the confusion on Jace’s face there. I don’t think that’s a story Jace would have willingly confided in just anyone, so how did the Clave’s representative find out?

How did Valentine know about Clary and Alec’s visit to Iris Rouse (2x05 and 2x08?) Unless he has spies on Clary 24/7, the only way he could have learned about that is because Alec and Clary went back to the Institute and made a report about Iris’s warlock-baby mill, and that report found its way to Valentine.

But here’s the kicker:

In 2x09, when Alec asks about Izzy’s whereabouts and expresses his suspicion of Aldertree, says he knows Aldertree is hiding something. Aldertree responds by threatening to make Alec submit to a psych evaluation “after what happened at your brother’s party.”

Aldertree knows what happened at Max’s party (2x08.) This means he also knows Magnus’s counter-spell book was stolen.

Aldertree is Head of the Institute. He has to know which warlock created the Institute’s wards. That would certainly be on record and considering Magnus’s close relationship with one high ranking member of the Institute, Aldertree would have checked Magnus’s records.

Even if we assume Aldertree is too stupid to realize what implications there are for the Institute’s wards in Valentine stealing a book that can undo every spell Magnus has ever cast, Magnus would never be negligent enough not to notify Aldertree that the wards were vulnerable (nor could he possibly be stupid enough not to put it together that they were at risk.)

Aldertree knew about the missing spellbook and HAS TO HAVE KNOWN about the vulnerability to the wards. And yet, what’s his first line in the beginning of 2x10 when Madzie brings down the wards? He blames lax security. He never got another warlock in to plug the security leak.

He left the door standing wide-open for Valentine.

His scene with Alec up on the roof in 2x10 is very obviously a delaying tactic. He brags about being able to hack into the system from there, and then can’t do it. Really?

Then there’s the story he tells Alec about his lost love. Shadowhunters and Downworlders can never be together because Downworlders will always give in to their demonic nature. Golly…that’s just identical to what Valentine keeps telling Jace and Clary, isn’t it? And maybe it’s not an exclusively Valentinian philosophy, but the way he uses it to try to get inside Alec’s head and do a mindfuck to turn him against a powerful ally is, again, straight out of Valentine’s playbook.

(Why doesn’t he just kill Alec? I’ll get to that later.)

Conclusion: Aldertree was abetting Valentine. But does that really mean he’s Sebastian, you may ask?

Well, again, there’s the whole thing about weakening Izzy, Jace, and Alec by driving wedges between them and isolating them from one another. Yes, it’s a trick straight out of Valentine’s playbook, but more importantly, it’s a very intimate trick. It’s the sort of trick you learn by being mentored by someone, or by growing up with an abusive parent who did it to you. Aldertree wasn’t just abetting Valentine, at some point he was close enough to Valentine to truly learn and adopt his philosophies.

2x14 offers us another clue, as well. Sebastian tells Raphael he “always knew” Izzy was getting her vampire venom straight from the source. The wording is odd because at this point, Sebastian has been around for a couple weeks maybe. The wording, however, seems to indicate a knowledge going back much father than that. But if, as Aldertree, he sussed out what Izzy was doing, it would make more sense.

What ties Aldertree and Sebastian together most convincingly, is Izzy.

2. ALDERTREE AND IZZY (an obsession is born)

Aldertree zeroes in on Izzy right from the beginning.

In 2x01 when threatening Izzy and Alec, he goes immediately for the deruning threat, and he looks at Izzy while he’s doing it, knowing that particular threat would carry weight with her. He also keeps a seemingly casual/amused eye on Izzy and Clary’s training session, clearly knowing they’re up to something (more on that later.)

In 2x03, Aldertree makes his first move. He forces Izzy to betray one brother to save the other. And he acts benevolent about it, claims he’s trying to save Jace’s life. He’s driving a wedge between Izzy and Jace while simultaneously attempting to position himself as someone who just wants to help her.

2x05 is where things get really interesting, and I admit this particular point is mostly supposition. I keep wondering: if the Soul Sword’s purpose was so super-secret that Aldertree needed to send an expedition to the Adamant Citadel to get input from the Iron Sisters, how did Valentine know? The obvious answer is that the Soul Sword’s purpose isn’t as secret as we’re led to believe.

If Aldertree is abetting Valentine, especially if he’s convinced Valentine he’s an ally, Valentine quite possibly would have told him what the sword does. Even if Valentine didn’t, whoever it was within the Clave that DOES (and someone has to, or, again, how did Valentine find out) likely would have in order to warn Aldertree about what Valentine might intend.

There are at least two ways Aldertree might have known about the sword. So…why send Izzy to the Iron Sisters?

Well, let’s assume Izzy’s lifelong fascination with and admiration of the Iron Sisters is fairly common knowledge. She grew up in the Institute, and it’s not something she would have had reason to hide. It would be known to the people she grew up around and quite possibly in her personnel records.

If Aldertree wanted a hook in Izzy, he’d have to offer her something she yearned for badly enough that she would accept the yin fen despite the risks. The mission to the Iron Sisters was never about the Soul Sword. It was about Izzy.

He dangles the Iron Sisters mission (by way of letting it drop to Jace that he’s organizing it) to get into her good graces, and possibly to get her to accept the yin fen. Then he uses the yin fen dependency to try to get her to spy for him. What he doesn’t count on is the purity trial at the Adamant Citadel, which makes it clear to Izzy just how much danger she’s in. She gives the yin fen back and he loses his hook in her. We don’t see him in 2x07 and 2x08, but then we get to 2x09, and this is where it really all comes together.

In 2x01 when Izzy is advising Clary, she cites Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Remember how Aldertree was keeping an eye on that whole thing?

In 2x09, when Izzy comes to see Aldertree and he unsuccessfully asks her out, there’s a very pronounced close-up of a copy of The Art of War on his desk. And later in the episode, when Alec accuses Aldertree of hiding something regarding Izzy, Aldertree is reading the book, and again, there’s a close-up of the cover.

In TV and film, you don’t do a close-up of a prop like that unless it has significance. The producers wanted us to know he was reading the same book Izzy had been advising Clary from. This is a book that advises things like isolating your enemies in order to weaken them. Don’t let them join forces. Try to conquer the city without warfare or siege, subdue enemy forces without fighting.

And, of course, as Izzy points out: to know your enemy you must become your enemy.

Now that philosophy makes Aldertree’s timely anecdote to Alec on the roof in 2x10 about Shadowhunter/Downworlder romance a lot more convenient and suspicious, doesn’t it?

And that’s what leads us to Sebastian.

3. SEBASTIAN AND IZZY (Becoming your “enemy”)

There’s absolutely no reason to believe the Inquisitor, Imogen Herondale, when she says that Aldertree is in Idris facing reprimand. She also said the Soul Sword is in Clave custody, and we know that’s a lie. Those of us who have read the books also know Sebastian must have been the one to take it (one assumes the reason he didn’t destroy it as per the vision Ithuriel gave Clary and Jace is because it wasn’t charged.)

Why would the Inquisitor lie about Aldertree’s whereabouts?

First, because it would be a massive loss of face for the Clave if it were known that their golden boy, the one sent to whip the New York Institute into shape, was a traitor working with Valentine. So if he disappeared with the sword, they would want to cover that up before the Institutes started losing faith in the Clave’s leadership.

Second, the Clave is probably claiming the Soul Sword is secure and in custody because if the Downworld found out it’s in the wind—in the hands of a traitor who probably aided Valentine—the Downworld is going to lose its collective shit even more than it already has following the massacre in the Institute.

So Aldertree/Sebastian is at large with the sword, except he can’t bring himself to stay that way because of what he’s left behind.

Namely, Izzy.

In the books, Sebastian has an incestuous obsession with Clary. But the show has been trying to downplay the incest angle. Maybe that’s because of network censorhip, or maybe it’s because the producers in their wisdom decided it was a disgusting sideplot that needed to be shelved. At any rate, aside from a few hints of lingering feeling, they basically dropped Clace until they could reveal that Jace wasn’t Clary’s brother.

It’s Sebastian, not Jace, who is Clary’s brother. If they bring in that obsession, they’re going to be right smack back in the middle of stuff they’ve been making a concerted effort to omit from the show. I admit, 2x12 has called my theory here into question, since obviously Sebastian DID go there with Clary, at least a little, but mostly they’ve been focused on his interactions with Izzy.

So what I truly believe they’ve done here is transfer Sebastian’s fixation to Izzy. Especially in light of the recent interview where Emeraude remarks something to the effect of things aren’t going to be the way they were in the book, they’ll end up in the same place, but they’ll take a different route to get there.

There’s a REASON our first scenes with Sebastian are between him and Izzy. That’s significant. And look at what those scenes contain.

Look at the parallel here, between this and 2x05 when Aldertree applies Izzy’s first dose of yin fen. While this scene isn’t as blatantly sexualized, there is often something sexual overtone to a grown adult ingesting something from another adult’s hand. Even if there weren’t, the fact that Izzy is once again willingly accepting an unknown substance from someone she has no reason to trust is parallel enough.

But beyond that, look at who Sebastian is portraying himself as being.

He’s a yin fen addict who has bravely kicked the habit, and he has just what she needs to get better. He’s is a great cook who effortlessly takes care of people with delicious food. He’s a child with a troubled relationship with his mother who still manages to be okay.

Sebastian hasn’t just “become” Izzy, he’s become the person Izzy wants to be. Someone Izzy will admire and want to emulate. Someone she’ll be grateful to for rescuing her.

And in the process he’s undoing the damage he did by getting her hooked on yin fen, because look at the glance Izzy and Aldertree share on the roof in 2x10. He feels remorse for that, or at least he understands that he’s harmed and endangered someone he wishes to possess.

Does this mean they’ve transferred most, if not all, of the Clary/Sebastian plot to Izzy? Maybe? I don’t know. But I believe Sebastian’s driving motivation is going to be his obsession with Izzy, rather than with Clary.

Why Izzy? I don’t know.

It could be because she outthinks him in 2x01 in order to advise Clary on how to get around him.

It could be because she somehow managed to slip his yin fen blackmail hook, even at desperate cost to herself, and he admires that strength.

It could be because he homed in on her as the weak link of the Lightwood sibling chain in 2x03 and something about how much she loves her brothers touches him and sparks an obsession.

That last one is probably what’s going to be closest to the way things play out. And it could have very interesting implications for Alec. Because in 2x11, Sebastian reacts evasively (looking away, changing the subject) or violently (burning himself) when Izzy’s love for Alec comes up. I’ll come back to the burning thing in a bit.

Keep in mind, if Aldertree was Sebastian, Alec has thwarted him and stood between him and Izzy. He’s thrown down with Sebastian and challenged Sebastian’s “claim” to Izzy. And there’s no way he will ever win Izzy the way he wants her unless he finds a way to undermine Alec. But he can’t kill Alec, because he’d definitely lose any chance with Izzy (hence the reason Aldertree takes Alec to the roof to get him away from the fighting and keep him busy/distracted, instead of killing him.)

Also, Alec is the leader Sebastian tried and failed to be. Alec effectively ousted Aldertree as Head of the Institute. It very well could be that, just as the show is transferring some or all of Sebastian’s obsession to Izzy instead of Clary, they may be transferring some or all of his obsessive jealousy to Alec instead of Jace.

What this means in terms of the “dark parabatai”/twinning thing, I have no clue. I suspect, given what Dominic Sherwood said in an interview recently about how Jace isn’t going to be catching a break anytime soon, even as far as he’s been told about Season 3, that that storyline is still going to play out pretty much the same.

In the books, iirc, Sebastian is jealous of the fact that Valentine loved Jace more than him even though Sebastian is Valentine’s true son and Jace isn’t. And he’s jealous of the fact that Clary loves Jace and can’t give Sebastian the time of day.

It may be that the show will focus more on the family bonds instead of the romantic bonds. The parallels between Maryse and Jocelyn’s imperfect mothering are an obvious starting point. If that’s the case, if the focus of his jealousy and obsession is familial love rather than whatever it was book-Sebastian was after with Clary, then certain events coming up later this season are going to be particularly tragic.

What will Clary and Jace be doing if they take those storylines away? I really haven’t the vaguest idea. I think what’s most likely is that we may see a hybrid of my theory (where it’s primarily focused on Izzy and Alec) and the book canon that’s focused on Clary/Jace. I honestly have no idea what that would look like; the same story but just more spread out and inclusive of these characters as a whole group, I guess? Mostly I’m just thrilled at the idea of them taking a major storyline like “being the object of the bad guy’s obsession” away from Clary and giving it to Izzy. Because that’s freaking awesome.

4. SO WHAT IS SEBASTIAN’S AGENDA

Given the fact that in s2ep15, Valentine was sincerely unaware of who Sebastian was, and also the preview we’ve seen for s2ep16, I think it’s safe to say that either he hasn’t been working with Valentine, or if he was (especially as Aldertree) he was doing so to further his own agenda.

What is that agenda? Good question.

I think Valentine believed Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern to be either dead or banished to another realm. Remember this moment in 2x11?

In s2ep15, Magnus reveals to us that what the agony rune showed him was not the worst thing that ever happened to him, but the worst thing he ever did. The torment of the agony rune isn’t about sorrow or loss or helplessness, it’s about guilt.

That’s an important distinction.

We know Valentine experimented on his and Jocelyn’s son with demon blood. And we know from Jocelyn in 2x02 that Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern had not just one flower-killing mishap, but a whole series of incidents in which it was made patently obvious that he was partly demonic.

I believe what we saw in 2x11 while Valentine is being tortured is the memory of what he did to Jonathan. Either he was trying to somehow “purify” Jonathan of any excessive demon-nature and thought he had killed him instead, or he decided Jonathan was beyond salvaging and performed a ritual to banish him to a demon realm (likely Edom, which is the joint province of Lilith, whose blood he used in his experiment on Jonathan) and considered him gone forever.

This would explain why Valentine is so invested in Jace. In the books, he deemed Jace too soft-hearted and wrote him off, sending him to be raised by the Lightwoods while he focused all his attention on Jonathan/Sebastian. What we’ve seen on the show, however, is a bit of role-reversal there. I think it’s Sebastian he wrote off, so he could focus his plans on Jace.

Clearly, Sebastian has taken a dim view of all this and is angling for revenge.

I think Sebastian plans to destroy the Shadowhunters (or at least most of the Shadowhunters.) And he’s trying to foment conflict with the Downworld to accomplish it, which is why it was in his interest to abet Valentine’s goals during Season 2a.

In the books, it’s eventually revealed that Sebastian is the (in an older form) Seelie Queen’s lover. We’re already seeing hints of the two of them working toward the same agenda, in the way that the Seelie Queen tries to create a rift between Simon and Clary/Jace, the way she emphasizes “they always choose their own kind” (which could very well be words right out of Sebastian’s own mouth, if he believes Valentine tried to kill or banished him in favor of Jace.)

But let’s look at what Sebastian is doing on that front as well.

2x09: (as Aldertree) Asking Izzy out on a date once he realizes she’s going to a vampire to get her yin fen fix.

2x10: (as Aldertree) He tries to create a divide between Alec and Magnus by telling Alec a tragic tale of tragic Shadowhunter/Downworlder romance-gone-wrong.

2x12: Disregarding Clary’s relationship with Luke to convince her she’s without family, and asking her out on a date, thereby attempting to get between her and Simon.

2x13: Probably being somehow complicit/the mastermind in the whole Kaelie scheme, which was obviously an attempt to start a war between the Shadowhunters and the Downworld

2x14: Taking a discussion of Jace and Maia’s hookup and turning it around to bring Jace’s attention back to Clary (probably knowing that the Seelie Queen would later also try to nudge Jace and Clary toward each other.)

2x14: Interfering in Raphael and Izzy’s relationship to convince Raphael to walk away from Izzy.

2x14: Trying to derail the Downworld Cabinet by setting Luke up for attempting to murder Valentine.

Sebastian has a very clear pattern of trying to divide Shadowhunters from their Downworld loved ones and allies. At first I thought this was because he was working on Valentine’s Nephilim supremacist agenda, but now I think it’s the opposite. I think, like Valentine, he wants a war, but he intends for Downworlders and probably demons to come out on top and to exterminate the Shadowhunters.

And he’s not having an easy time of it. Mostly because of Izzy.

Now, I said earlier that I thought his burning himself was a violent reaction of jealousy toward Izzy’s love for Alec. I wrote that after 2x11, well before 2x15, so I really have to revamp that theory.

Again, look at those pictures of the little boy burning from 2x11. That is what happened the last time Jonathan/Sebastian loved and trusted a Shadowhunter. I think the reason we see him burning himself is because of his attachment to the Shadowhunters he’s infiltrated (particularly Izzy,) because he needs to remind himself of the pain of being betrayed by his father and why he thinks it’s necessary to do what he’s doing.

Do I like this particular plot? I’m not sure, but I see some really big potential pitfalls. Mostly because it potentially positions the Downworlders as aggressors whom the Shadowhunters need to heroically defend themselves against with deadly force, when in fact that exact opposite has been the case. It runs the risk of echoing various white supremacist propaganda that portrays people of color as aggressors against whom white people must defend themselves, and I’m really hoping they won’t go there.

However, after 2x13 we saw that the writers and producers do have some awareness of the metaphor they’re dealing with, and the show has brought two women of color into the writer’s room for Season 3, so it could be that they find a way to sidestep that trap. At least I really hope they will.

5. SO WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE US WITH REGARD TO THE BOOKS? (SERIOUSLY MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD)

The short answer is: I think Season 3 will be the last season of the show. Or at least it will definitely be the last season of the show that follows the books in any significant regard.

In the books, we don’t really see Sebastian depart from Valentine’s agenda until after City of Glass, where he’s killed by Jace, and then resurrected by Lilith at the end of City of Fallen Angels.

But here’s the thing: other than resurrecting Sebastian, City of Fallen Angels doesn’t do much that we really need to see on the show. Jocelyn is dead, so the whole plot with her investigating the demon babies is out of the question. We saw Simon go to a dark place, feeding off a mundane, in 2x15 so that’s done. Other than that, all that happens is the introduction of Maia’s abusive ex, Jordan Kyle (who doesn’t need to be introduced at all, thanks) and a whole lot of Clace angst (which I’d also rather be spared.)

So, again, hearkening back to Emeraude Toubia’s remarks about how the show is going to end up in the same place as the books, but take a different route to get there (and the fact that Dominic Sherwood has stated that Jace isn’t going to catch a break even well into Season 3) I think at the end of Season 2, we’re going to see the show skip past most of City of Fallen Angels and jump right into events lifted largely from City of Lost Souls for 3a and City of Heavenly Fire for 3b.

A while back, there was a bunch of excitement from the production team over some last minute casting for a character in 2x19 and 2x20.

I think that character is going to be Lilith (I also think it’s the role Sarah Hyland is going to play, but I could be wrong there, she could just as easily play the aged-up Seelie Queen or Helen Blackthorn, as other people have suggested.)

I think in 2x19 we’re going to see the history of how Valentine made Sebastian, how Sebastian’s demon blood came from Lilith. And I think in 2x20, we’re going to see Lilith do what we’re told in City of Fallen Angels that she did at the end of City of Glass: save Sebastian after Jace kills him.

But Jace also dies at the end of City of Glass. City of Fallen Angels is all about the fallout from that, but most of it could easily be bypassed and the story wouldn’t suffer one bit. In an interview this week, Dominic Sherwood talked about how at the end of this season, there’s going to be a “heartbreaking rift” between Jace and Alec. Most of us in the know about the books believed that to be Jace’s death breaking their parabatai bond, and that may very well be the case. However, instead of having Lilith go through all the CoFA hoops to create the dark parabatai/twinning, it could easily be that being resurrected at the same time somehow bonds Jace and Sebastian instead, and thus we move right into CoLS. That would make as much sense, storytelling wise, as anything else.

So, that’s where I think this is going. If the show continues beyond Season 3, it will be a show completely removed from book canon, which let’s be real has been a millstone around the show’s neck for a while now. The showrunners will have fulfilled their obligation to book fans to portray the events that are considered iconic from the books, and thereafter they will be free, especially since it’s well-known that they don’t have the film rights to either Tales From Shadowhunter Academy or the Dark Artifices trilogy.

Could be interesting. Could be a disaster. I guess we’ll see.